The House RocK Built is No Spring Chicken

It happens to the best of us. You graduate from college a strapping, physically-fit and sculpted young adult in a healthy routine of distance running and weightlifting. Then you get a desk job, lose your gym membership card, and spend a disproportionate amount of time slugging beers, smoking Parliament Lights, and cramming your face with Chipotle burritos. Next thing you know, you're a little bit plushier in the midsection and you find yourself secretly punching new holes in your belt with a rusty awl while crying into a half-eaten pint of Ben & Jerry's.

But you haven't hit rock bottom until you're sitting on your porch, leisurely enjoying a smoke and a Hot Pocket, when suddenly your cheapo Meijer canvas chair buckles and disintegrates under your weight.

Welcome to rock bottom, fatass.

For a while, I was inconsolable, until I realized that this was all just a big misunderstanding. You see, it turns out that the Wicker Park neighborhood of Chicago is infested with a malicious hybrid of termite which feast exclusively on metal alloys.


You see? This is the work of varmits, not an out-of-shape blogger in serious denial.

Be on alert, Chicago-area residents. It might be you that the swarm attacks next. If you see any of these vicious pests, call an exterimator immediately, then cook up a frozen pizza while you're waiting for them to arrive.


Artist's rendition. Don't try to be a hero if you see one, hide indoors and wait for the professionals.

More Beef in 2007

Word broke today that Charlie Weis has locked up his eighth commitment in the class of 2007, snagging the man-sized Andrew Nuss, a beefy Offensive Guard/Tackle from Virginia. You can never have too many offensive linemen, particularly four-star man-mountains holding scholarship offers from all of the top schools in the Northeast as well as Georgia. While he won't be on campus until fall of 2007, Weis has already set up his locker for him:

Sorry, Out Seeking Revenge

Haven't been able to blog recently because I'm seeking bloody vengeance on the leopard shark who ate my best friend. Once I've killed the son of a bitch and drank his blood, I will resume my normal posting duties. Please understand, this is my curse. I'm going to take my time with this bastard.

Hell will be a welcome change after I get done with you.

When Will Santonio Holmes Strike Next?

Santonio Holmes, the former Ohio State receiver last seen torching the Irish secondary in the Fiesta Bowl, has potted goal number two en route to his hat trick of infamy, racking up his second arreest in the still-young month of June, this time on several charges stemming from an incident of domestic violence.

The alleged victim identifies herself as Holmes' (let me make sure I'm saying this correctly) baby mama, the mother of Santonio's 18-week old daughter, according to the article. The article goes on to say:

Before the draft, Holmes said he was hopeful that he would go high in the draft so he could support his three children.

Ahem, that is to say he is the father of three children by (as further research reveals) three different mothers. As a twenty-three year-old with a fairly reckless past yet hardly any illegitimate children that I know of, I say that's pretty impressive. Anyway, Johnny Appleseed's attorney attests that it's a bum rap that he is sure to beat, so we wish him the best of luck at that. Rest assured, though, if Holmes picks up his third arrest this month, I will be chucking my slightly-disgusting hat onto the ice in celebration, which happens to be a Key West Fishing Hat. Currently, Vegas is putting even odds on the hat trick coming in a Cleveland public library.

The real tragedy, however, is the effect this will have on the Holmes family. We found this picture in the archives of Santonio and his adoring family, during much happier times:


Think about the children. Vote "not guilty"

UPDATE: Ha! As was to be expected, MZone is light-years ahead of me on this one. That screen capture from the local news is classic. Those Wolverines certainly do not spare any effort in jumping on the Buckeyes any (fairly frequent) chance they get.

What it Lacks in Substance, it Makes Up for in Heart

Here's a story too bizarre to make up. It appears that the loveable scamp Daniel "Rudy" Ruettiger, of Rudy fame (shown on the right in an undated publicity photo), has branched out from the inspirational speaker business and become a fruit juice tycoon. What, you ask, separates Rudy juice from the nearly endless sea of competitors? Well, according to their publicity releases, Rudy juice is a health-conscious, low-sugar drink aiming to capture that lucrative health nut ten year-old demographic. You, too, can be a strapping five foot nothin', one hundred and nothin' sparkplug for pennies a serving on the Rudy diet.

Not to take a cheap shot at anybody's physical appearance, as we're very much above that at the House Rock Built, but judging by Mr. Ruettiger's current weight class, we're guessing he's more of a sucrose-infused Squeez-It fan himself, and probably takes his Rudy Revolution with several heaping spoonfuls of sugar.

Five bucks to the first person who can come up with a dynamite cocktail involving Rudy Juice. I call this one the "Blue & Gold"

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Dwayne Jarrett: Two Minutes for Squatting

The NCAA pulled out its whistle this weekend and tagged USC receiver Dwayne Jarrett with a two-minute minor for Squatting after discovering Jarrett lived in a palacial $4,000-a-month apartment paid for by known nefarious booster Matt Leinart's father, Bob, to whom Jarrett paid a monthly rent which consisted of bits of string and tales of adventure.

In a nearly unprecedented show of force, the NCAA handed Jarrett two full minutes in the penalty box, where he will have to sit and feel shame until his application to be reinstated is rubber-stamped.

I Can't See Straight, But the Two of You Look Awfully Pretty

I've done my fair share of ripping on Notre Dame's line of football shirts this year, but I thought I'd get one more quick suckerpunch in. I couldn't help but notice that this ridiculously awful shirt...

...uses the exact same font as one of my all-time favorite albums:

I Love the Smell of Punditry in the Morning

That, my friends, is 4.6 pounds of preseason magazines. Athlon, Lidny's, Phil Steele, and the Sporting News -- page after page of glossy crack for tweaking college football junkies jonesing for an offseason score.

Some analysis and such coming soon. Right now, I have some serious falling off the wagon to do.

Official Shirt Safari: Notre Dame Gameday

The House Rock Built's somewhat regular feature The Official Shirt Safari continues, this time eschewing pointing the finger at other schools' atrocious shirts in favor of pointing the thumb of judgment back at ourselves. Even the mighthy Notre Dame marketing department is not above ripping off an abomination against nature to try to make a few bucks, and this year's Gameday T-Shirts that just rolled out are no exception. I invite you to peruse these insipid and oft-unintelligible shirts, but the crux of this inquiry will be focused on the Michigan t-shirt, which reaches an unprecedented level of absurdity:

When Supermodels fight, who wins? The American viewing public.

Supermodels? Centerfolds? Can somebody help me out with what the meaning of this could be? As far as I remember, supermodels play no part in college football, which is played by oversized (and, um, perhaps sometimes dashingly handsome) men. I feel like this shirt might be a liability, as it could create unrealistic expectations for somebody who did not know what to expect from a college football game. Hopeful viewers expecting a supermodel catfight will be severely disappointed if Charlie Weis and Lloyd Carr break out into a Meatnormous Deathmatch at midfield. The results would look a lot less like this:



...and a lot more like this:



As a matter of fact, that inspires me to make my own Gameday T-shirt. I think this little design does a better job of summing up the rivalry and also gets that bloodlust going to psyche you up for one of the biggest games of the year. What do you think?

Irish Fan, Bud Man

Charlie Weis took a day off from fighting crime, curing cancer, and recruiting a perrenial national powerhouse to stop by the Friendly Confines of Wrigley Field and lead the Seventh Inning Stretch, probably to scope out the (potential) future employer of one of his foot soldiers. Word is the performance was capable, if not inspired. The good news is he didn't pull a Jeff Gordon and forget the lyrics.

Later in the telecast, Bob Brenley asked Charlie if he would eat himself if he was a hot dog and starving to death. Weis could not be reached for comment.

Time to Do Some Ballot-Box Stuffing

Right, so I was, uh, picking up a copy of Out magazine for, um, a friend, yeah, and it came to my attention that they're having a poll for the world's hottest athlete. Yet another feather in the cap for the Irish is the amazing representation the team has, fielding fully one third of the candidates - Tom Zbikowski, Brady Quinn, and Jeff Samardzija. It's amazing that after a decade of underperforming and being unjustly criticized by the vicious gay media, Charlie Weis has turned Notre Dame into "Gay Cult Icon U" in just one year. Even the notorious Boi From Troy has been converted to the Irish bandwagon.

Anyway, get out there and support the lads. I would vote, but I've got to go... lift weights and drink beer. Domestic beer. In a can.

Me? I'm all man. Why else would I be wearing this codpiece?

Charlie's Reaction to the Fight

I know we all enjoyed watching the Tom Zbikowski fight and his dazzling first-round KO of known Ohio State fan Robert Bell. Charlie Weis, on the other hand, felt a little bit differently about Zbikowski's effort:

Tommy Zib Fight Not-So-Liveblogging

7:30 PM: "On my left is championship boxer and seller of very fine... um, products... George Foreman."

George Foreman might very well be the Keith Jackson of boxing. A classic name and face for the sport whose sportscasting ability is mired by a lifetime of blows to the head.

Thrice already they have mentioned that today is the eve of the Puerto Rican Day parade. Hello, drinking game!

8:00 PM: So, let me get this straight... the weight classes are: Featherweight, Lightweight, Ultra Lights, Ultra Lights with Menthol, Lights with Wings, Lights Ribbed for Her Pleasure, Midgets on Steroids, and Magnums. I think that's all of them... any boxing afficionados out there to confirm that?

Tip for you gamblers: always bet on the wispy Mexican with a mustache.

9:50 PM: And the big Irish guy takes three pints of blood out of the bald guy, prompting the refs to stop the fight. Three quick KO's and now the main event.

By the way, where is Mills Lane? They must be keeping him really busy over at celebrity deathmatch if he can't make it out tonight.
UPDATE: Well, Wikipedia gives us some bad news. Appears he had a stroke in 2002 and is partially paralyzed. Very tragic, he was the best there ever was.

And in comes Robert Bell, sporting his Ohio State jersey just as promised. He's wearing the number 12. Since you're lazy, I'll go ahead and look it up. It's benched quarterback and Eminem look-alike Justin Zwick. Way to keep with the times.

"Bell is wearing the official colors of his favorite team: Red and White!" Red and White? Might want to pick up a brochure on Ohio State, smart guy. Scarlet and Gray might be a bit more appropriate.

Bell has a dozen pounds, two inches of height, and four inches of reach on Zbikowski. He's also twice as old and apparently was unable to get into the Ohio State University.

Irish Outsider: Let's hope Bell doesn't use any play-action.

10:05 PM: Here comes Zibby. The Irish guy from the last fight is in the hallway cheering him on as he comes out. There's a gospel singer performing the fight song... I'm going to give Tommy Z the benefit of the doubt and say that was probably the promoter's idea. I would have picked "Domo Arrigato, Mr. Roboto".

"In ancient times, there was an ancient race of people called the Druids. Nobody knew who they were, or where they came from... but their legacy remains in Stone."

Miniature Stonehenge model curiously absent. At least it isn't at risk of being crushed by Flyweights.

24 Karat gold gloves for Tommy Z... nice touch. Plays off of the Notre Dame helmet thing and the "gold gloves" thing. Entendre all over the place!

The lads from the football team form a human tunnel... Samardzija, Ndukwe are prominent. Bell is introduced with a mixture of golf-clapping and boos, the Garden explodes when they introduce Zibby. Even the bluehairs in the monogram seats.

Where's Laura Quinn in her half-and-half jersey?
Oh, that's right... she's making her own professional debut on the other side of town. Oh no I didn't.

10:15 PM: Allright, enough shennanigans, let's get ready to rumble! (My lawyer has just informed me I cannot use that phrase unless I want to pay $100,000 in roaylties to Michael Buffer).

And there's the bell. Perhaps I'll go take a pee now so I don't miss anything in the later rounds...

Punch, punch, punch, punch, punch, and the Sweatervest goes down. After a standing eight, Zibby dives in with a savage right hook that spins Captain Akron 360 and stops the fight. 49 Seconds. In our delerious pandemonium, this is the best picture I can get of the fight.

Down goes Glass Joe, bring on Don Flamenco. Seriously, tell me you don't see a resemblence.

Post-fight interview, Zibby announces his next stop is winning the National Championship. Any of you punks want to try and stop him?

They've cleaned up the wreckage and now it's Cotto vs. Guido. My money is on the Puerto Rican. Did you know tomorrow is the Puerto Rican Day Parade? (drink.)

Bow to your sensei.

Hey Hey, Holy Mackerel!

More big extra-curricular news for the Irish, as Jeff Samardzija was just drafted in the fifth round by the Chicago Cubs. Before we panic about the Shark jumping to the pros, keep in mind that he has asserted on countless occasions that he will continue his college football career, after which he will decide about playing pro baseball, pro football, or some combination of the two.

The Cubs now, if I'm not mistaken, have the rights to negotiate a contract with Shark for the next year. Knowing about Samardzija's multi-sport aspirations, the Tribune Co will most likely craft some sort of contract that accomondates Samardzija to pursue his future athletic endeavors, just as long as he is willing to fulfill his contractual obligations to the Cubs, which include (but are not limited to) throwing punches at crosstown rivals, rupturing shoulder ligaments during back-to-back-to-back 150 pitch-count sessions, spending three years on the DL during a series of disastrous attempts at rehab, and destroying boomboxes.

As a battle-tested Cubs fan myself, I would run for the hills if I were the Shark to avoid the career deathtrap at Addison and Sheffield, but if you can't get away, at least do us all a favor and take a dump in the locker of the oft-injured Trojan Mark Prior.

All-Day Tough

We're all gearing up for the big showdown this weekend. In the event that you've been living under a rock, Notre Dame's own Tom Zbikowski is making his professional boxing debut at Madison Square Garden this Saturday, matching up in a heavyweight undercard fight leading up to the Cotto-Malignaggi dustup on Pay-Per-View. Zbikowski, who holds a 67-13 record (or 75-15, depending on which article you're reading) is matched up against Robert Bell, another relative novice who has been KO'ed his last two professional bouts.

To make matters even more interesting, the big news recently broke that Bell is a devout Ohio State Buckeyes fan. Bell announced that he will enter the ring in full Buckeyes regalia, although he will first have to petition the WBO for an exemption to their by-laws which expressly prohibit the wearing of sweatervests during a televised fight. While we don't have much information on the contendor, the House Rock Built's official sketch artist has put together this composite sketch based on witnesses' accounts:

I adhere to a strict training regiment of lifting weights, sparring, jump-roping, and having sex with myself.

The odds are looking pretty good for Zbikowski, because Ohio State fans enjoy a nationwide reputation for their glass jaws. And I'm no stranger to fisticuffs with Buckeyes fans myself, as I once suckerpunched Ohio State alumnus Jack Buck while he was getting out of a cab in St. Louis. Dude went down like a ton of bricks. I was three blocks away in a dead sprint by the time he realized what had happened.

What's the Difference Between Jersey Girls and Trash?

Charlie Weis continued his sacking and plundering of the Garden State this weekend by nabbing another uber-recruit and neckless wonder Justin Trattou (whose name from this day forth will be changed to "Tratteaux" in order to satisfy Weis' intimidating-ethnic-last-name quota).

As you can see, this was another recruiting coup over big-time regional suitors such as Ohio State, Penn State, and more or less the entire ACC. More importantly, a statement has been made in New Jersey, where Notre Dame has locked down the three best prospects in the state (Mike Ragone and Duval Kamara being the other two) in a matter of weeks. While Jersey has traditionally been a pipeline for talent to ND due to its Catholic population and lack of a major in-state school (sorry, Greg Schiano), Weis' own Jersey ties have turned the Irish into an imdomitable force in the state.

Not one to rest on his laurels, Weis was back out on the road this weekend, locking up verbal commitments from Tony Soprano, Bruce Springsteen, the Aqua Teen Hunger Force, and the Jersey Devil.

Size? Check. Speed? Check. Wingspan? Check. Eats livestock and babies? Double check. The prototypical Notre Dame player.