The House Rock Built Gets Some Ink

The House Rock Built would like to take a second or two to toot our collective horn about our recent bit of publicity in print media. No, we're not talking about Puppet Michael Floyd's provocative op-ed that made column C of the Wall Street journal yesterday (although, wow, kudos), but rather this quarter's issue of the Notre Dame alumni magazine, which on page 56 featured a two-page spread on new media ventures in football fandom titled "The House Rock Built".

We're honored, humbled, and let's not kid ourselves confused and unsettled by the publicity, and we're nothing but thankful for our loyal and dedicated clique of oddballs who keep coming back to watch our hyper-referential shenanigans.

Sarkozy and Merkel Play a Dangerous Game with the Future of Touchdown Securities Another day, another round of posturing and political kabuki masquerading as debate and compromise in the Eurozone, this time about a number of quotidian patches to touchdown exchange markets in peripheral economies that are little more than a sideshow to divert attention away from the sprawling inevitability of an already-dediced grand touchdown deal that will ultimately serve to enrich, reinforce, and (if the brass in Brussels gets its way) make permanent the system of core-periphery touchdown dependence that, ironically, was the proximate cause of the collapse that catalyzed the need for these negotiations. Meanwhile, the real lede, buried artfully under mountains of sturm und drang over the usefully meaningless "crisis" that conveniently cropped up in Latvian touchdown yields yesterday, is the free-fall in seasonally-adjusted touchdown splits over the last 18 months. Sweeping away the atrificially-induced volatility (and subsequent "dead cat bounce") caused by the farcical twelve days of the so-called "Saffron Revolution", it's clear to any Econ 101 student that the mean Nominal Touchdown Gross Product has plowed its way through numerous supposed "hard floors". Furthermore, the key inflection points in this precipitous drop correlate exactly with efforts toward "touchdown-increasing austerity" measures, leaving us all to wonder how any self-respecting observer can still deny that we are mired in a touchdown liquidity trap. But rather than focusing on targeted expansion in the touchdown market, or at the very least tap into the strategic touchdown reserves at the European Touchdown Bank, Europe seems content to watch their touchdown zone be dragged into a sort of neo-fiefdom at the urgent behest of a shadowy cabal of touchdownologists whose very concept of touchdowns has not been widely credentialed since the time of Merlin, if not earlier. Evelyn Waugh correclty pointed out that touchdowns are the symbol of the two noblest human efforts: to construct and to refrain from destruction. As we approach the 46th anniversary of his death (which I am still convinced was murder), it is important to take pause and reflect on the patently ignoble means that the elite consensus has chosen to save touchdowns, self-contradiction be damned. Puppet Michael Floyd is a senior fellow at The National Touchdown Strategy and Development Forum, a non-partisan think tank that focuses on sustainable and transformative touchdown growth.

Stuffing the Passer - Ultra High Frequency

The puppets head into the post-season hiatus with a touching goodbye ceremony. But there's no time to dwell on the past, it's back to work for the lads. Fortunately, just about every character on Stuffing the Passer has parlayed their internet superstardom into lucrative deals in broadcast television. Some of the shows seem promising, but, let's be honest, some of them don't seem destined to go much further than the pilot. It's a cruel business, but it's the only business I know.

Although, the last show at the end seems like it might have some promise. Could it be that the quirky spinoff show set in Lawrence, Kansas might have some wheels come next fall? Only time will tell.

See you next season, stuffheads.

Why are you laughing at my pain? Ugh, I hate this bar.

Stuffing the Passer - The Istanbowl

After a rough first half against Stanford, our beloved Sockface was chloroformed, thrown into a burlap sack, and dispatched to Istanbul. We suspect he'll come back and make more episodes in like six or seven days.

Next thing I knew, the chloroform hit.

Stuffing the Passer - The Age of Persuasion

There were some promising developments over at the advertising firm of Snappy, Snazzy & Snazztacular, LLC, the up-and-coming group of madvertising men in South Bend featuring muppet Dayne Crist and Sockface (who had no discernible football-related duties this week).

Landing a gig is tough in this economy, so when Johnny J came by in a desperate crunch to get his horrible and disgusting plain gold helmet revamped for this week's matchup, the boys leapt at the opportunity to land a top-level client. Will the boys come up with a game-changing ad campaign, or will they blow their advance on absinthe and come up with some horrible helmet design? Only time will tell. But, come on, what do you think?

I'm gonna say jumbo shrimp.

Stuffing the Passer - Mystery Adventure Time!

So, uh, this happened. Look, we here at the House Rock Built love a mystery as much as the next guy, but clearly not as much as the puppets. The slightest sniff of some trouble afoot, and the lads are off like blazes the save the day, catch the ghost, and rescue the haunted amusement park.

Of course, all things being equal, we would have preferred for the lads to wait until after the game to solve this particular mystery, but what are you gonna do? When Mystery Adventure Time calls, you got to answer the bell. We get it. You can't win 'em all.

Exeunt! Stage right!!

Stuffing the Passer - The Gold Standard

Well, the bye week is over, so it's back to work. Time to shake off the rust and get back to the grindstone. It's kind of a mystery how Stuffing the Passer reported to camp after one week off 50 pounds overweight, but offseason conditioning was never really our thing.

The big news this week is the snazzy new helmets that the lads will be sporting this week against USC. They're super gold. I mean, like, golder than gold. It's almost like how much more gold could they be? None. None more gold.

Of course, if you're a socially maladjusted crazy person like irishoutsider and myself, you can't read articles with titles like "Notre Dame sets gold standard with new helmets" and not immediately think about Ron Paul, monetary policy, William Jennings Bryan, and a gurgling stream of semi-lucid macroeconomics. This week's STP is... uh, special. It also features I believe our first ever cameo by a Nobel laureate. And, if I may be so bold, a line that I really don't think has ever been uttered by any human being before:

"Oh man, Ron Paul ruins everything! This is my 12th birthday party all over again!"

Stuffing the Passer - Futureball

It was nice to see Dayne Crist get a few snaps in mop-up time against Purdue last week, but we're still concerned that our favorite eyepatched muppet has a little bit too much free time on his hands these days. It looks like that turned around this week when muppet coach Kelly assigned him duty to do a film study on Air Force for this weekend's game. Unfortunately, some wires got crossed, and we ended up with an Air Force-themed film written and directed by the inestimable muppet Dayne.

I'm really enjoying the pathos of this scene. It really illustrates the duality of man.

Stuffing the Passer - Source Code

Another tough weeks of blunders and errors for the lads. Fortunately, they were able to escape with a win, but little do you know that they were only able to do so thanks to a top-secret government time travel program. Unfortunately, there were some externalities in the time-space continuum due to the rearranging of history, but no worries. What's the worst that could happen?

That was unforeseeable...

Stuffing the Passer - The Berlin Conference

The Berlin Conference marked an interesting inflection point in the international system, marking the moment when the tact and skilled diplomacy that strung together a hundred unprecedented years of peace during the Concert of Europe was unceremoniously tossed aside when it became apparent that there was enormous money to be made scrapping the shopworn ideas of independence, sovereignty, and autonomy and instead yoking the entire planet under brutal colonial rule designed to expropriate wealth off the backs of unpaid, enclosured serfs.

I don't know why the recent spate of conference expansion, defection, and realignment got me thinking about this historical event -- maybe it's all the absinthe we've been chugging at the House Rock Built Studios. We've seen some wild things... like Notre Dame playing somewhat competent football against Michigan State at home. Damn, that's wormwood's freaky. So buckle up your seatbelts, strap on your spiked pith helmets, and enjoy this week's installment. And on a personal note to my high school guidance counselor who said I could never work Otto Von Bismarck, puppets, POGs, and college football into one video: read it and weep.

Because I'm Bismarck, that's why!

Stuffing the Passer - Bottle Episode

Thanks for bearing with our spinning otter break. This week's episode is a tad late, but still in under the wire. There's nothing quite like a good old fashioned bottle episode when you're crunched for time. The lads found themselves in a spot of trouble this week when they continued their streak of monstrous unforced errors even after the Michigan game ended, as you can see here. No worries, though. Every time has its hero, and a hero emerges to save the day and teach us all a valuable lesson about crowd-surfing. Enjoy!

Hey coach, name's Mike Floyd. Don't want to impose, but I might have accidentally luanched your car into the lake via catapult.

Spinning Otter Wait Cursor

Please pardon the delay in this week's Stuffing the Passer. Like any good operating system, the House Rock Built is fully equipped with its own wait cursor, the Buffering Otter. Way cooler than a beach ball or hourglass, I say.

At any rate, travel plans have pushed back this week's release, with fightinamish jetting off to Denver (where I filmed this adorable sea creature to your right) and irishoutsider pacing back and forth in his makeshift angrydome until he is deemed fit to re-enter society.

Your patience is appreciated.

Stuffing the Passer - Rain Delay Theater

For half a century, Samuel Beckett's immortal classic "Waiting for Godot" has been the quintessential literary allegory for ennui, existential dread, and the unnerving absurdity that haunts our every waking minute as we wait in vain for something that will never come. All good things must come to an end, though, just as Godot's fifty-year reign did last Saturday in the rain-soaked, lightning-ravaged hellscape of South Bend, Indiana. Today, the phrase "waiting for Godot" has officially phased out of existence and been replaced with its more modern neologism, "waiting for the rain delay to end in the ND-USF game in order to watch the Irish flail about insanely and commit a hundred new and exciting forms of football suicide." While it may be a bit more of a mouthful than its predecessor, what it lacks in pith it more than makes up for in total accuracy.

Don't worry about Beckett, his legacy is still intact, as he will always be remembered as the guy who lived next door to a school-aged André the Giant and chauffeured him to class (Editors note, I will admit to being quite the horse manure peddler on this blog, but the Beckett-André the Giant connection is actually honestly-to-god real. The world is a deeply insane place. How wondrous is that bizarre and random happenstance?) In the mean time, enjoy Stuffing the Passer's latest foray, "Rain Delay Theater". Some laughs are had, some zombies are killed, and the occasional mock naval battle is performed in a hastily-constructed hippodrome. Bon chance, mes amis.

That's disgusting! Plus, I think it violates a number of maritime treaties.