three things happened tonight:

1) the northwestern wildcat hoopsters scored a great, great win over the charlotte 49ers. this comes on the heels of an ultra-disappointing win over lehigh last night in the first game of the bca invite from laramie, wyoming. vukusic has scored 25 (lehigh) and 28 (charlotte) in two games. doyle scored 14 with six assists (i think) last night and put up eight tonight, and hachad went 14-9 tonight. hachad, as is the case when he's on the roster, is the key to the team's success.

for the second straight night, thompson saw less than 15 minutes. last night, it was ineffectiveness. tonight, it was foul trouble. he apparently had a strong first half - 5 boards and an early dunk (only two points) - but picked up his fourth foul two minutes into the second half and never played again.

after seeing sparing action last night, redshirt freshman sterling williams of whitney young and french canadian bernard cote, a kentucky transfer, both saw big first half minutes. cote came off the bench and immediately hit a three. both had sparing second-half minutes, despite the fact that northwestern was pulling away.

i love vince scott. love him. 27 minutes, no points, two blocks, five boards, five dimes. he understands and he can play the high post. thompson, apparently, does neither.

so tomorrow is unc-wilmington or wyoming. again, should be a 3-0 start. after that, eight non-conference games. (i'm assuming depauw doesn't count.) fau, delaware state northern colorado, ipfw should be easy wins. i think. UIC is a should win, at home. at depaul, at seton hall, at virginia are possible losses. assuming a win tomorrow (which i shouldn't), this leads to at least 8-3 in the non-conference, which at least bodes well for an NIT start. but i think we can hope for more, considering the big ten may be weak this season.

2) the electrifying conclusion, the live dvd from guided by voices' final show at the metro, arrived at my house. i had two shots while watching, just to get in the mood. i did not plan to watch the dvd tonight, but here i am, 3 1/2 hours later, watching "dayton ohio 19 something and 5," with only three songs left. part of this is because i couldn't get into the wnur feed - packed audio stream - and therefore was watching the gametracker coverage of the nu game. i'm a megadork. i'm hoping to get some work done still, although that seems unlikely. wasted night, 2.

i only wish i would have definitively seen myself during the footage. i don't really remember what i was wearing, although i'd bet it was a plaid shirt of some sort. i do remember ripping apart my undershirt that night. that ruled.

3) i made taco soup, again. yum.