I'd like to write about college football for a moment. I can say that college football is either my favorite or my second favorite sport to follow, behind or ahead of Major League Baseball. The NFL's probably third, maybe Big Ten hoops (not college hoops as a whole) fourth, maybe the NBA fifth, and maybe those other sports after that. I don't care for golf, though spring Sundays spent falling asleep to it aren't bad. I like Wimbledon a lot, but that's really it, unless you include the U.S. Open. I love the World Cup when it comes around, but I like the Olympics a lot less now than I did when I was, say, eight years old.

But, anyway, wasn't that Boise State win incredible? A hook and ladder!? A poorly conceived wide receiver rollout and pass turned touchdown!? A statue of liberty!? I made it up until 1 a.m. to watch the game, and it was totally worth it.

(Notre Dame-LSU, which I'm semi-watching now, probably won't be worth it. And I still love the Irish, but can we be far away from the day when the BCS bowls make a decision that the 'extra' publicity and fan fervor that comes from seeing Notre Dame in their game is negated by the fact that Notre Dame probably sucks? Wouldn't the college football fan have been better-served by, say, West Virginia in this game? It wouldn't be over by the end of the third quarter, I can tell you that.

And let me tell you something: Jimmy Clausen, Darius Walker, David Grimes and a still-crappy defense won't make them a contender any time soon. Or that Aldridge guy when Clausen's a sophomore.)

It's nice to watch a joyful coach, like Boise's Chris Petersen. It's not nice to watch a slovenly, angry, mean-spirited, arrogant coach, like Charlie Weis. He might have Super Bowl rings, but I'm not convinced he'll be good for the school. If any school can be bigger than any coach, it's Notre Dame, with its rich tradition, dedicated fan base, and nationwide following. For all his professed love of ND, Charlie Weis seems to be among those that doesn't realize this or flatly refuses to acknowledge it. The size of his gut is matched only by the size of his ego.

I just hope ND doesn't repeat their Parseghian [sp?] theft of before-I-was-born and try to steal Fitzgerald from us. Fitzgerald always wanted to go to Notre Dame, and they didn't want him. But maybe he'd want to coach there. South Side Catholic. After all, Pat Fitzgerald, as a name, is "right out of central casting." That was good enough for George O'Leary, as you'll recall. Then the school had to cover its ass by hiring a black dude, then embarrassed itself by not giving him the chance it gave to Bob Davie, a certifiable idiot. I can't believe I'm typing this, but I've got to imagine that, in the not-too-distant future, Domers will decide that a young, enthusiastic, charismatic and classy leader is better than a fat asshole. [My dad's a regular reader and he's never commented here, and this off-the-cuff, unplanned criticism might be enough.]

Weis kind of excited me, an individual that definitively holds the Irish as my second-favorite college school/team/program, last year, but I'm over him. I wouldn't mind him heading to the Giants in two weeks.

ND missive over. This game is miserable.

Anyway, I've long said that the reason I love college football is because every game means something in terms of the national title picture. Or, rather, contenders can't take a single week off. There's nothing like it anywhere, I don't think. A playoff struggle would, to an extent, ruin it. (Witness Sports Illustrated, who published a mythical eight-team tournament and how it would play out. It included LSU - who couldn't even win it's own division - and not Boise State, who showed its moxie a few nights ago. There's no eight-team tournament that could conceivably bring in every team who is good enough to deserve a shot.)

Chuck Klosterman, who is a less-dorky version of me, who also makes lots of money, or at least some money, and who might be more-dorky than me, and who certainly has more hipster-like glasses, and who knows more about Saved by the Bell than I do despite the fact that he's probably six or eight years older than I am, wrote a nice column expressing my thoughts on college football's need to maintain some version of its bowl system.

Among the reasons:
- For as stupid as they are, minor bowl games are fun. You can stay they'd still exist if a playoff structure existed, but they'd take on a significantly more minor stature. NIT-minor, and that's not good (though it's not bad if you're an NU hoops fan).

- A list of ten games that were incredibly meaningful at the time, at various weeks during the season, and that he was incredibly excited about. If all of those teams were virtual postseason locks, would the games have had their magnitude? Nope. OSU-Michigan, for instance, would be a seeding matchup.

- The best part about the above: "How, exactly, are three exciting weekends in December better than four or five months of weekly sweeping consequence? Why jam an entire season into 21 days?"

- "Watching college football on TV is probably the best thing about my life." Free. No 'emotional compromise.' No liver or lung damage. "Always entertaining. Always makes me happy, even in August." This wouldn't be the case with a playoff system.

- Really, who cares if we know who the "best" team is?

- And does a tournament ever determine who the "best" team was, anyway? Nope, it determines who the hottest team is, for instance, for three weekends in March and April. There's no way Florida was the best hoops team last year, or Carmelo Anthony's Syracuse team when they won.

My point: College football, as it is, rewards prolonged excellence. No other sport can do that. Well, maybe playoff-free European soccer seasons, but I don't have the patience or interest to follow those.

[The partisan LSU crowd has just started an "Over-rated" chant, mocking the Fighting Irish. The Irish were ranked 11th, and nobody thought they were any good. How does that chant make any sense? Oh, yeah, it's the South. They're dumb down there.]

[Oh, yeah. Draws and screens and dinks and dumpoffs really aren't that fun to watch.]

[Oh, yeah. Say what you will about his size or his arm strength or his skill set, but Brady Quinn is under no circumstances an NFL quarterback. Inaccurate beyond about 15 yards, it seems to these eyes, particularly in big games. I don't think he's had a signature win. I hope he gets his wish and lands in Cleveland; perpetuate their decade of post-return suckiness.]

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Standard work wear, twice a week, is a t-shirt, hooded sweatshirt, and jeans. Other days, something plaid and ugly and jeans. A few times, a company fleece. Not uncomfortable at all.

I've got about six or eight t-shirts in the rotation. A few rock n' roll t-shirts, a few WNUR shirts, an out-of-character-y hip Old Navy shirt (a gift from Jenny, the sweetie).

Today was my GbV Mag Earwhig shirt. And I was warm in the office (for the first time ever), so I took off the sweatshirt. And I was looking at myself in the mirror and I came to the realization that, My God, I've owned that t-shirt for eight years. Eight years! And it's still in pretty good condition.

It's a nice looking shirt, the turquoise-y color and the dude-with-the-sun-for-a-head-holding-a-deck-of-cards collage. I like it a lot, in fact. Still one of my favorites. It got a compliment today while I was refilling my water glass, and I said, "Huh," and my coworker said, "With that color, it kind of requires a compliment," or something like that. So I told her about how it was eight years old, and how I came to acquire it.

My freshman year at NU, I skipped homecoming to head to Cleveland and Detroit to see GbV with my pal Chuck. It would be my second and third shows of, I think, more than 20 times I saw the band over six-plus years. There was very limited alcohol consumption - probably two or three beers - and we hung out with newsgroup geeks by the tens - but it was a pretty fantastic time. Simpler times, or something.

(It's remarkable that I would've skipped a home football game to see two out-of-town concerts. But the Cats were terrible that year, and I loved the school a lot less that I do now, having only been there for seven or so weeks.)

I took pictures, and one still exists, and I'd like to show it.

I guess I look about, well, 18 years old there. Pretty wild.

Shortly after realizing I was wearing an eight-year-old shirt, I spilled coffee on it. But I nailed the post-flub joke: "I have a drinking problem," and all was well.

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I'd like to briefly talk about two current song obsessions:

Imogen Heap - "Goodnight and Go" - Some British chick, and some really lush strings, and bouncy electro-beats. Sappy, awful lyrics: "Why'd you have to be - so - cute? / It's impossible to ig-nore - you." And there's a part about her stalking the dude, or at least, following him home. But it's kind of charming, in a creepy way.

Turns out it was used on The O.C. or something. She was signed when she was 17 or 18, and she was 25 or something when the song came out last year. Rather, two years ago. Ha!

The obsession's now more than two weeks old. I ran outside (seriously) for about an hour on New Year's day and, in my random selection of 24 songs, decided to include this one three times. (So, I guess it was 22 songs.) "Goodnight and Go" came on three times in about a seven-song stretch, including twice in a row, and I didn't regret the decision at all. (I also had Stephen Malkmus' "Freeze the Saints" on the playlist, and it was totally kickin'.)

So that's current obsession one. I particularly like when it ends, not because it's over, but because of the way the final "go" echoes from speaker to speaker. Or maybe just fades out. I don't know, but it's fantastic.

Mojave 3 - "Puzzles Like You" - I've heard this song three times. I think Mojave 3 is led by the guy who used to lead Slowdive, which means less to you than it does to me, but doesn't really mean anything to me, either.

An obsession, yet I've heard it just three times? Yes. Yes. Yes.

In the office, we've been playing this adult pop radio station over the last week or so. Not a commercial over-the-air station, but XM or Muzak or Sirius or something. (It's Muzak, but I feel odd saying that we subscribe to Muzak because Muzak is, you know, elevator music.) So the music's been fantastic of late. A fair amount of Wilco, some Old 97's, the Jayhawks, plus poppier or more known stuff that I get less excited about, but that's generally inoffensive. Recent Liz Phair is on the list, and is definitely offensive. The Pernice Brothers have been on twice.

Anyway, frequently I'll hear a song that I don't know, and that I love. Or that my instinct is to love. Or that fascinates me. So I'll head over to the video display and write down the singer and song.

Three times I've heard this song in the office. All three times, I've checked the display. Under no circumstances did I remember the song from a previous time - it just hit me right every time. So, I guess I can say I'm obsessed, or will be soon.

It's lush and beautiful and sounds like The Clientele and is about a woman named Judy, I believe.

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I don't care who it is. I'll never feel comfortable with the death penalty. Dudes with black cloths over their faces and a former dictator - most certainly the most awful man of my lifetime - being heckled with a noose around his neck makes me incredibly uncomfortable.

In the abstract, I can see how some might say it makes sense. In actuality, it's pretty sickening. I've only seen brief, brief clips of the clip, but they're enough to make me pretty ill.

We know what he was responsible for. Or, we've got a sense of what he was responsible for, and it was all heinous stuff.

But what's "Our Guy" been responsible for? Three thousand and counting, my friends, and those are the people whose side he's allegedly on. And 20,000 more on the way.

I'm never political here, but this whole situation's a freakin' disaster. Getting worse? Seems to be.

"At last, our long national nightmare is over." Oh, wait.

Interpret as you will.

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Spraying to all fields, probably because I've not slept in three days and, when I have, it's been on the floor. My right shoulder's in pain.

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I've done a little maintenance on the right side of the page. If you've not posted to your blog in a month, you're no longer linked. I'm sorry. I'm a search engine optimizer now, and I can't justify crappy links. Or, rather, it makes me sad to link to August 28th entries, no matter how fascinating they are, or to "Eight wins left!", which only makes me sad.