Tuesday, January 31, 2006

Charlie, Give This Kid a Schollie ASAP



Courtesy of Gerd, NDNation stalwart and known Ohio State fan, here's an amusing little clip... if you find little kids planting snot-bubble slobberknocker shots on one another amusing (which of course you do).

Can I Borrow a Cliché?

It looks like our good friends down at Texas A&M have sicked their lawyers onto the Seattle Seahawks for their recent pilfering of the "12th Man™" tradition. Now, here at the House Rock Built, we have great respect for long-standing traditions, and A&M's 12th Man™ is certainly a storied and respected one at that.

Unfortunately, the cost of a successful tradition is that as it becomes more and more famous and mainstream, it gradually becomes so ubiquitous that it evolves into a sports cliché. After eighty some years, the phrase "12th Man™" has joined the Boo-Yah's and You-Can-Kiss-it-Goodbye's as a common-language terminology for sports activity. Don't fret, A&M fans, because it's an honor to have a tradition become an ingrained part of football lore, but at this point it is spurrious to defend intellectual property rights on such a widely accepted phrase.

A&M's trademarking of the "12th Man™" may have been unprecedented at the time, but a lot of teams have jumped on that bandwagon since then. In fact, at the end of this season, dozens of teams ran out and secured the patents for common sports clichés in an attempt to turn their season achievements into a marketing opportunity. From the NCAA home office, here's some of the more notable phrases that were trademarked this year:

Cliché
Trademarked by
The Story Behind it
"Third and Forever"
Syracuse Orangemen
"Third and Forever™" became the rallying cry of this year's Orangemen offense, who ended the season with a historically impressive 20.6% third down conversion rate, by far the worst in Division IA. Be sure to buy your "Third and Forever" mugs and t-shirts to commemorate the 2005 campaign.
"Would-be Tackler"

UCLA Bruins
To celebrate a rush defense that blazed new ground in futility (keep scrolling, keep scrolling, keep scrolling), UCLA has erected a bronze statue on campus to honor the "Would-Be Tackler™", the unsung hero of the Bruins defense. While you won't find a Would-Be Tacker™'s name in the box score, nor will you see an award give to the best WBT, his achievements have not gone unnoticed by the loyal fans in Westwood.
"Wounded Duck Pass"

California Golden Bears
Bears fans this year were treated to a spectacular aerial show all season long as their rotating cast of noodle-armed quarterbacks air-mailed wobbly pass after wobbly pass over the heads of wide open receivers. The marketing machine has already kicked into high gear, so watch for Cal fans to proudly wave their "Rally Wounded Ducks™" above their heads in hopes of igniting a comeback during the '06 campaign.
"Shadow of their own Goalposts"

Colorado Buffaloes
Gary Barnett may be gone (or is he?), but his legacy will remain in the 2005 offense, which dominated the NCAA in penalty yardage. To commemorate this, the student section in Folsom Field for 2006 has been renamed "The Goalpoast Shadow™" and will rotate end zones every quarter so they can properly cheer on their team from a comfortable distance the entire year.

Monday, January 30, 2006

Pittsburgh Loves the Bus



I don't know, nor do I particularly care, who any of you will be rooting for in the Super Bowl this weekend, but if you have no allegiance and are trying to pick a team to cheer for, you might as well root for Jerome Bettis. We all owe him an eternal debt of gratitude for the Sugar Bowl in 1992, and with rumors swirling about his potential retirement, it would be great to see the big fella go out on top.

And yes, you are seeing that correctly. That is lady-killer and mega-star Ben Roethlisberger wearing a #6 Notre Dame jersey. It looks like the lads are pitching in their support for their beloved Bus, and I can hang with that.

Sunday, January 29, 2006

WikiSpamming

I'm sure there are a lot of readers out there who, like myself, utilize Wikipedia on a daily basis for research and to answer odd trivia questions that nag at you from time to time. But for as much faith as we put into the open-source encyclopedia, it's important to remember that the Wiki interface does not safeguard us against Looney Tunes who feel like typing random crap.

KelleyCook, a poster at NDNation who has taken to the task of helping out with Notre Dame football's Wikipedia page, tipped us off to a recent update of the ND Football page that will likely require some revision or perhaps deletion. (UPDATE: the page has [thankfully] been revised, but the original revision is still linked here) Since this aforementioned _____ (not sure what to call it... vandalism? spamming? Marcoing?) has been removed, I've copied and pasted the update here. Any one of you wackos want to own up to this one?

The Charlie Weis Era (2004- )


Though this epoch has yet to see its end, the bigness of its bang in the beginning augurs a new and successful creation. Charles W. Weis (the W. is for Win) took over the head coaching position in 2004, after a disasterous and unmentionable period of years that shall be erased from both space and time. Charlie Weis began his tenure as smoothly as a 1970s Travolta dance move, but without the greasy Italian hair products or the horribly erotic glances at automobiles. Like a hot wife on butter, Charlie could do no wrong, hiring a tremendous coaching staff that was the envy of the N.C.A.A. and N.A.S.A.

In his first game against Pittsburgh, Charlie Weis demonstrated the awesomeness of his mind by repeatedly shocking Dave Wannstedt out of his typical mustachioed malaise and into a facial expression not unlike a small doe that has just seen its mother decapitated by a helicopter. If Dante had written a Celebrity Paradiso, Charlie would have vaulted right into the part of heaven where Springsteen, Jackie Kennedy, Johnny Lujack, pre-whiteness MJ, and Dave Chappelle reside.

Yet Charlie bested that effort the next week, showing a maturity and patience beyond his rookie experience, as his team slowly and methodically pounded Michigan into an early acceptance of one of its annual four losses. Lloyd Carr nearly lost some of his superfluous "L's" and "R's" as he realized this man-Weis would be on his schedule each and every year, and that in the modern age there was no anti-Catholic rhetoric with which he could smokescreen so as to justify dropping ND from the schedule, as was custom for pansy Wolverines of old.

A loss to Michigan State did not occur. Huge wins against Washington and Purdue did. A memorable moment came with the "Pass Right" play that a brain-cancer-riddled Tyrone Willingham had left to be used shortly before his mind died and he took the ND coaching job and ran it like a pencil-mustached corpse. Man of grace that he is, Charlie Weis honored the late Willingham's wishes.

After two weeks time, the Fighting Irish tussled with the Trojans of SoCal in one of the most anticipated football games of recent history. One seemingly small footnote became its own chapter in the book: Before the game Pete Carol, the first transgender coach in NCAA football history (or as he/she prefers-his/herstory) also became the first coach to decline instant replay, due to his/her longstanding aversion to Truth, and the way replay made him/her look 10 pounds heavier. This decision became decisive when, after a long and hard fought game, victory was decided as a non-student, Matthew Leinart, ended up getting pushed across the goal-line in an illegal play by running back Reggie H. W. Bush. Officials were unable to review whether or not Bush pushed or if the ineligible athlete Leinart actually played in the game.

Nonetheless, this hirsute challenge to one of football's best (i.e. most illegal) teams gave the Irish stature not gained since the Holtz era. Charlie Weis was quickly signed to an extended contract and fast-tracked to canonization by Pope Benedict "the Shark" XVI. Win after win came as the offense, led by Quarterback Brady Quinn, Running Back Darius "Texas Ranger" Walker, and Receivers Maurice "White Lighting" Stovall and Jeff "Chocolate Thunder" Smarjetc., became one of the most prolific in Division I. Victories over BYU, Tennessee, Navy, Syracuse, and Stanford were like insulin martinis for alcoholic diabetics; ND fans all over the world grew proud that their alma mater truly had "return[ed] to glory."

This magical season ended with a fitting honor: The Irish were chosen for an elite Bowl Championship Series berth in the Fiesta Bowl. Their opponent was The Ohio State University, which provided the gratuitous "The" so as to reinforce to their students that it was, in fact, a noun. The game was hard-fought and well-played, but in the end, tOSU triumphed, after the Tostitos Honorary Officating Crew of Ray Charles, Stevie Wonder, and Hellen Keller overturned a catch that led to a ND interception and game-breaking TD. Flush with success after this stroke of dumb (and deaf and blind) luck, tOSU players quickly signed a lucrative endorsement contract with Taco Bell. Only days later were their parents able to explain that they had actually signed an impoverishing employment contract with Taco Bell.

The Fighting Irish finished 9-2 on the year, with a bright future assured due to a top-notch coaching staff, lots of returning talent, a great recruiting class, and many smiling eyes among the Irish faithful. God bless Charlie Weis.
(courtesy of Wikipedia)

Nick Setta Update

Earlier this week, the Buffalo Bills acquired the House Rock Built's favorite all-purpose kicker/punter/video game champion Nick Setta and designated him for assignment in NFL Europe. From what I've gathred on NFL Europe's page, all kickers designated for action in NFLEL go through a tryout here in the states and earn their roster spot for their franchise. We wish Nick luck and hopefully he gets picked up by anyone but the dastardly Rhine Fire, those jagoffs.

Setta's certainly had a journeyman career up to this point, but it looks like he's making strides in impressing NFL scouts, and hopefully you'll be seeing him booting field goals in the big show, much like fellow NFL Europe alumni Adam Vinatieri and David Akers.

If anyone wants to see an impressive year of college football, check out Setta's stats from the 2000 season, his sophomore year. As you'd expect, he was solid on PAT's and field goals (including the heart-stopping wobbler that won the Purdue game as time expired, pictured above), but don't overlook his 47 yard punting average and his two touchdowns - one rush and one pass. During the early stages of the season, when the team was struggling to find an offensive identity, Setta was the go-to guy for scoring. I'm pretty sure that his career 640.00 passer rating has to be a Notre Dame record.


Career QB rating of 92.3, ergo one seventh the passer Nick Setta was.

Friday, January 27, 2006

Savage, Baby

Now we've all heard enough about the NCAA's ban on mascots that are "abusive" and hurtful toward Native Americans. But while the media has jumped all over the bellyaching put forward by your big-time Division I-A schools, the big changes are happening below the radar. As we approach the February 1 deadline to change mascots or appeal, lots of smaller colleges have given in to the NCAA's pressure and tossed aside their somewhat antiquated monikers in favor of hipper, more modern terminology.

This Monday, we saw what is presumably the most productive application of this politically-correct ruling, when Southeastern Oklahoma State University decided to call it quits on their old mascot, the Savages. Now, in general, we find the NCAA's witchhunt against mascots to be just that, a witchhunt, but we are also somewhat relieved to see the Savage put out to pasture. The term seems to cross that fine line between merely referential and prejudicial. So toss out all your old merchandise and say hello to the Southeastern Oklahoma State University Savage Storm!

Savage Storm? What the hell is that?

  • Is it a Marvel Superhero?



  • A new wave band?



  • Whatever it is, I don't like it.

  • How about the Fred Savages?



  • Or the Savage Gardens?



Those are just my suggestions. Savage Storm, give me a break.

Wednesday, January 25, 2006

Let's Take a Moment to Feel Dirty

We all love college football, and a large part of why we do is because of the absolute ungrounded psychosis swirling around it. We love how drunken octogenerians get into fistfights in the stands. We love how crazed students protest defeat by igniting their furniture and tipping over ambulances. We love the life-or-death tension an entire fanbase feels when the fate of their program hinges on the capricious decisions of high school seniors. But sometimes even the staunchest and most passionate fans have moments where the over-the-topness escalates to a new shocking level and gives us all a pregnant pause to wonder if this time we've really truly lost our minds.

One of those moments probably came the other day, when Maryland uber-recruit Antonio Logan-El took circus-themed recruiting announcements to a profound new level. Anyone who caught his nationally-televised announcement live from the Inner Harbor ESPN Zone would have to admit that the theatrics are getting out of hand. The really bad news is that the trend shows no sign of changing, and we should all expect each year to bring us progressively more and more ludicrous hoopla, constantly escalating with no end in sight.

We created this monster, too, and at this point there's no sense in trying to get the genie back in the bottle (two cliches in one sentence, hows that for pulling out all the stops? Whoops, three.) The fact of the matter is that we can't stop caring about this, and the attention and ratings that come out of each publicity stunt just fuels the fire (cliche #4) and encourages continual one-upmanship. Today, it's the hat shuffle and cell phone game, tomorrow... well, I can see it now...

We now go live to a field out in the Everglades, where the number one overall recruit for the class of 2015 is ready to make his decision. Buddy Cocklord, the younger brother of Arkansas wunderkid Rusty Cocklord, will be flying over this field in the next few minutes in a small private aircraft. We are told that when he pulls his parachute, the logo of the school he has chosen will be emblazoned in the interior cover. A crowd of around 13,000 has gathered, the lucky ones have found a seat in the bleachers that have been erected over the night. On hand are all 117 Division I-A coaches and their families, eagerly waiting to see if they will be blessed with the four guaranteed national championships and two Heisman trophies that young Master Cocklord shall deliver.



And here he comes! He's entering freefall, and the chute has been pulled! The chute has been pulled! A hush falls over the crowd as the grat canvas begins to unfurl and... wait for it! It's the Florida Gators! Buddy Cocklord has committed to the Florida Gators and the Florida section is in pandemonium! Now to Tom Lemming for an instant analysis on...

Wait, hold the phone! He has pulled his emergency parachute! He has pulled the emergency chute and there is a Tennessee logo on it! Absolutely incredible, Cocklord has pulled the classic emergency parachute fake-out! Now the Tennessee crowd is going insane, and the hearbreak is palpable on the faces of the Gator faithful. Such a devastating course of events here, the Gators were this close to a decade-long streak of dominance. Boy, that's got to hurt. Back to Bristol for more analysis on this incredible turn of events...

Tuesday, January 24, 2006

Not Like You Haven't Dished it Out...

Big time news out of Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, where this sleepy little hamlet was rocked to its core by the scandal of the century. Right here in America, some kid got a hard time for wearing an opposing team's jersey. I know, I know, it's shocking. This is the kind of stuff you hear about happening in third world countries... you know, those countries with no vowels in their names where they watch, play, and care about soccer. No, this dreaded plague of sports fandom has spread across the oceans, presumably in the feces of rats on barges, and shattered our peaceful existence in the land of freedom. Worst of all, if the article is accurate, the poor victim was assaulted with a vicoius hail of notebook paper (we haven't banned that in schools yet?)

Okay, so enough hyperbole for one night. Anyway, I'm sure you've all read this goofy story and the media smograsbord that has grown out of it. Maybe we're just missing the point here, but come on, grow a pair. You wear an opposing jersey in an unfriendly place (God knows I've done it plenty of times) you take your licks and laugh it off. Good gravy, if the worst thing that happened to you is some stray pieces of looseleaf, consider yourself lucky. Wait till you see some of the things I've done to opposing fans in my brief yet distinguished history.

  • April 12, 1991: Following a highly-controversial Orange Bowl, a loudmouth Colorado fan in my elementary school class continually ridicules the Irish for several months. The young lad meets with a tragic accident when a long stick somehow gets lodged in his bicycle spokes while traveling at a high rate of speed. Captain Smartass had a lot of time to savor his split National Championship and watch the Price is Right when he spent the whole summer in a cast.

  • November 30, 1993: Smarmy Boston College fan shows up to school in a Doug Flutie jersey. By some flukey coincidence, his jersey as well as the rest of his clothes end up buried at the bottom of a three-foot snowdrift behind the parking lot while Eagles Superfan is taking a shower during gym class.
  • October 16, 1999: There's one thing that my obnoxious USC fan buddy didn't bargain for: the fact that I was taking his younger sister to Senior Prom. What better way to celebrate a big win over a rival than to sneak out the bathroom window at the restaurant and peel off in the limo, leaving my helpless date rideless and stuck with a bill for the two most expensive entrees on the menu?

  • January 8, 2001: Mister Oregon State fan thought it was pretty funny when the Beavers romped all over a misguided Bob Davie Irish team in the Fiesta Bowl. What he didn't find quite as funny was when when the police pulled his Dodge Dart out of Chatfield Reservoir and found a partial skeleton in the passenger's seat. After several months, DNA evidence determined that the bones were bovine in nature, most likely taken from a meat packing plant by some prankster (wink, wink). Later that week, he was cleared of all charges and released from prison.

  • January 15, 2006: Yeah, there's one in every office: the loudmouth Ohio State fan who doesn't quite know when to shut up. But to this guy's credit, he did eventually shut up (and quickly at that) once his wife received an anonymous letter in the mail with those pictures I took at his bachelor party of him performing ungodly and illegal-in-48-states actions with that transgendered Thai hooker. Ooh, too bad you were too lazy to add your name to the mortgage and the title to the car. Since I'm a good sport and all, I dropped by his room at the YMCA the other day and brought him some food and some bar soap.


The point I'm trying to make is that it's just a game, people. There's no need to get up in arms about silly sports-related pranks, because we've all dished 'em out as well as taken them in our course of fandom. It just comes with the game, and anyone who takes any of this silliness too seriously is a real head case. 'Nuff said.

Corndog Rage!



Now that onepeat.com has raised enough money to erect a ridiculous billboard, another site has popped up to pre-emptively counter the ridicule at onepeatbog.com.

Both sites are quite humorous and refuse to pull any punches on their cheap shots, which makes for sterling comedy. Just as a matter of record, The House Rock Built does acknowledge two national championships during Southern Cal's quote-unquote dynasty.

Monday, January 23, 2006

Upon Further Review

After doing some more detailed analysis of Miss America to College Football ratios, some further data became apparent. Only five times in history has the Miss America winner represented a state which had a school win a recognized National Championship. This feat has not happened in over 40 years, with the last winner being the Razorbacks from Arkansas back in 1964:

Year
Home State of Miss America
National Championship Won By
1927
Illinois
University of Illinois
1936
Pennsylvania
University of Pittsburgh
1945
New York
Army
1960
Mississippi
University of Mississippi
1964
Arkansas
University of Arkansas


Addendums
  • We're only going for recognized major-poll championships, otherwise Alabama would add three titles to correspond with their three Miss Americas. Actually, come to think of it, Alabama has claimed 45 Miss America titles as well.
  • In 1993, Miss Florida Leanza Cornett captured the Miss America crown. That year, Florida State was awarded the #1 ranking by two major polls. However, The House Rock Built does not recognize FSU's '93 mythical national championship. The curse lives.

Bad News for Oklahoma Fans

This weekend saw a very important moment in the college football offseason: the crowning of Miss America. This year, the award went to Jennifer Berry, an affable brunette who hails from Oklahoma. Standardly, a home state should feel a great sense of pride when one of their finest takes home the hardware, but a close observation of statistics and trends show that a Miss America victory is a harbinger of underachieving college football in the upcoming season.

A look at the last fifteen Miss America winners shows that their home state's football team went a dismal .534 in the fall following a victory. And the curse seems to extend beyond the home state -- the last three Miss Americas' alma maters went 6-28 in their victory year (five of those wins coming from I-AA Samford in 2005). This is particularly bad for Oklahoma fans, as Berry is also a student at the University of Oklahoma. The last double-whammy curse came in 2003, when Miss Illinois and U of I student Erika Harold saw her beloved Illini stumble to a 1-11 season.

While this year's Alabama team was fortunate enough to avoid the bugaboo by pulling off, against all odds, an impressive 10-2 season, you can see the historical futility in this table. Other than 2005, only '93 Florida and '92 Hawaii managed very successful seasons in the wake of a Miss America victory, both claiming a share of their conference's title.



Year
Miss America's Home State
Team's Record That Year
2005
Alabama
10-2
2004
Florida
7-5
2003
Illinois
1-11
2002
Oregon
7-6
2001
Hawaii
9-3
2000
Kentucky
2-9
1999
Virginia
7-5
1998
Illinois
3-8
1997
Kansas
5-6
1996
Oklahoma
3-8
1995
Alabama
8-3
1994
South Carolina
7-5
1993
Florida
11-2
1992
Hawaii
11-2
1991
Illinois
6-6
1990
Missouri
4-7
Totals:
(101-88)
.534

Happy 21st Birthday, Shark!


Everybody's favorite shaggy-haired receiver turns 21 today. Enjoy yourself tonight, Shark, just make sure you don't injure yourself (I woke up the day after my 21st with a rusty railroad spike sticking out of my left thigh). And hey, if you're in Chicago, your first Mind Eraser is on me.

Sunday, January 22, 2006

So, You're Going to Play for the Orgeron

This afternoon, Junior College phenom and superathlete Brent Schaeffer made it official that he is leaving behind the bottle blonde groupies and all the mahogany you can handle at the College of the Sequoias and giving SEC football another whirl, this time under the tutelage of Ed Orgeron at Ole Miss. We only vaguely remember Schaeffer's on-again, off-again freshman campaign at Tennessee and his grisly collarbone injury against South Carolina, but it sounds like he's the real deal and ready to take over. The House Rock Built wishes him luck and we look forward to seeing what he can do with his remaining two years.

That being said, we also are afraid for his safety as he strolls down that dark, mysterious road called Orgeronia. As avid followers of Ed Orgeron's mania and misdeeds, we sure hope the fella knows what he's getting into on his bizarre and twisted journey.

In case he doesn't, though, I've dug through the bookshelves in my trophy room and found a handy text that I have found is very useful to youngsters in the same position as young mister Schaeffer. Covered in dust and jammed between copies of "So You're Going to Get Life-Threatening Illegal Gender Modification Surgery Outside of the United States?" and "So You're On Trial for Running Around a Local Playground With No Pants On While Spraying Bystanders With a Super Soaker Full of Citronella Oil?" is this very informative pamphlet, copyright 1978. Here are some of my favorite excerpts.



From the Foreward, by Pete Carroll
So you're going to play for the Orgeron? Well, of course you are, that's why you bought this book. Rest assured you are about to embark on a magical yet perilous journey that will test the very metal of your body, your sanity, and your inner rage. You will enter Orgeronia a fresh-faced lad full of ideas and ambitions, and you will leave a grizzled, mutant sociopath aimlessly wandering the city streets in search of a way to slake your unquenchable thirst for human blood and suffering with overindulgence and sadism...


From Chapter One
"Preparing Yourself Psychologically for the Orgeron"
...granted, this is a lot of information at once, so we'll try to condense it down to list form. When planning your summer regimen before enrolling, here are some "Do's" and "Don't's" for making yourself mentally ready for Orgeronation:
  • DO: Dedicate time daily to reflect upon and take deep quasi-sexual pleasure in abject and unnecessary violence wrought upon undeserving bystanders.
  • DON'T: Get your ear pierced, you fucking pussy. If you insist on doing something to decorate your corpus because you're an attention-craving Sally, get a tattoo. On your ass. Of a naked woman. Then, when they try to charge you after they finish, KO the guy with a flying dragon punch.
  • DO: Wear your football helmet while performing the physical act of love. Encourage your partner to pull out fistfulls of your hair and burn you with the cigarette lighter thing from your car...


From Chapter Nine
"Papa Eddie's Barroom Brawling Techniques and Tips"
...now we all know that there will be times that we lose games out on the field. But remember that when we carry ourselves with integrity and always give 110%, there's one thing, deep within, that we can never lose. And that one thing is a bar fight. An Orgeron man strives for perfection on the field, off the field, and on top of the pool table while brandishing a broken bottle of Wild Turkey and a splintered and bloodstained pool cue. Just keep these handy tips in mind:
  • The Nicholls State Nutcracker: A well-rounded maneuver that comes through in the clutch when you're hopelessly outnumbered. As you can see in Figure 1[a], the positioning of your weight-bearing foot is the most integral factor in getting the requisite centrifugal velocity to maximize your crotch-cleaving efforts.
  • The Syracuse Scissorkick: This move is for experts only. Untrained users shouuld not, I repeat, should not attempt this move, particularly if there is a juke box or pane of glass within fifteen feet of your starting point. For those maverick enough to give it a shot, Figure 2[c] illustrates this complicated yet tragically beautiful weapon...


Like what you see? The full text is available on the pay-site for subscribers of The House Rock Built Insider.

Saturday, January 21, 2006

Like You Did Anything More Interesting Today...

So after doing my daily Google search for "Hot Panda Love", I came across this charming little picture that I feel is probably somehow related to college football. These chunky balls of fluff are tearing down the stereotype that pandas are incapable of mating in captivity one wild swinging night at a time.



On a related note, it's very disappointing that there aren't any college football teams with the Panda as their mascot. The only college I could find was the University of Alberta, who use the Panda moniker for their women's athletic teams. I mean, look at those things. They're handsome animals and presumably they're pretty strong and have claws of some sort. I think a solid artist could come up with a mean as hell Panda logo, and needless to say the two-tone black-and-white spotted uniforms would be an intimidating sight for any opposing team.


Brady Quinn models the Fightin Panda uniform.

Friday, January 20, 2006

Web Search Hall of Fame: Class of 1/20/06


Okay, so way down at the bottom of this page is a link to my , which details how much traffic is coming in and where it's coming from. Now every so often, somebody will stumble across this webpage while using a search engine to find something completely and utterly unrelated. Oftentimes, you learn a lot more about a person by their web searches than they could every learn about you by reading your website. With that in mind, I'll periodically update everyone with the most exciting and humorous redirects of the day. Here are the highlights for today:

  • 7:20 PM. A web surfer from West Columbia, South Carolina was directed here after entering the following query into MSN.com: "how do i find a clock like flava flav has."
    Sadly, I couldn't help you out, but I wish you the best of success for your dubious mission.
  • 5:46 PM: It appears that a very large fellow from Mansfield, Illinois came to the House Rock Built looking for some recreational advice. His search on google was for "skis for a 350-pound man".
    This just blows my mind, it's funny on so many different levels. Tonight when I lay down to go to sleep, I'm going to think about our dear friend from Central Illinois and his 350 pounds of girth tumbling down the well-groomed slopes of the Rocky Mountains.

Any of your bloggers reading feel free to submit some of your favorite search redirects in the comments.

Thursday, January 19, 2006

$10,000 That Won't Go to Curing Cancer

Congratulations to onepeat.com, who have hit their fundraising goal of $10,000. Very soon, this landmark to petty vindictiveness will be gracing the skyline of Los Angeles. Is this a little bit over the line? Yes. Is it ultimately a sad reflection on the shallowness of its makers? Not impossible. But, hey, it's funny. A shiny nickel for the first person to take a snapshot of this baby in action.

D-Minus? Allright!! I passed!

Congratulations to the University of Southern California, for pulling off a miraculous Tommy Boy-esque job at passing the new "stricter" academic requirements set forth by the NCAA. Pete Carroll and his band of studious warrior-poets pulled off a thrilling 927 APR score, just squeaking over the 925 cutoff for sanctions and scholarship cuts. Per the article, this was done with some last-minute hustle to bring the score up, as the site still lists them below the cutoff. How many points is a ballroom dancing class worth again?


Matt Leinart celebrates his "passing" grade.

Bust Out The Champagne, Young is Irish!


Photo taken this afternoon at my cubicle.


Pop open the bubbly, Irish fans, because an already-exceptional recruiting class on the Offensive Line has just become legendary. Sam Young doffed the ND cap at 4:20 Eastern Time. Provided nothing screwy happens between now and signing day (a very realistic possibility with the finicky nature of recruiting), we can just about shut the book on recruiting for the class of 2010, and it's certainly something worth celebrating. The Irish's previously paper-thin depth chart at OL has been flooded with an influx of talent that should help to solidify Notre Dame's long-term prospects.

We all know how bare the cupboard has been in recent years due to recruiting woes and other distractions, but this year's OL haul has stopped the bleeding at the most critical position. Next year, look for a similar payday on the defensive line, our next most dire situation. With the success of this year's recruiting class, a lot of the burden has been alleviated and will allow Coach Weis to focus his efforts on our next big project.

So drink up, Irish fans! It's a good day to be Irish.

UPDATE: Jay at Blue-Gray Sky is all over this bitch like stink on a monkey with this screenshot:

Version 2.0

So do you like the new banner? I sponsored a worldwide competition of all the greatest artists to design my site banner. The winner, Jorg Svenfjulin of Lapland, receives a free one-year subscription to House Rock Built Insider, with unlimited access to the premium information and articles that are unavailable to you ingrates who read this for free.



Second prize goes to Larry Rochester of Billings, MT, whose piece "Dialectic Synthesis and the New Humanity" was a bit too edgy for our readership. Larry receives a packet of coupons to Quizno's and a two week membership to HRB Insider.

Wednesday, January 18, 2006

EDSBS goes hogging, Marco disappears

Well, there's not much going on in the football world, but theres plenty of steamy action in the world of college football blogs, because the news never takes a hangover-related sick day. First off, Orson Swindle over at Every Day Should Be Saturday made it official that they have the hots for larger-than-life sideline reporter Holly Rowe. Now the House Rock Built is above taking pot shots at anyone's personal appearance, plus it would be very hypocritical for me to make a crack about someone's physique, what with my gym membership card being destroyed in that horrible fire ten years ago and my daily whiskey-and-cupcake breakfasts and all. But sweetheart is a load. Admittedly, I did a fair share of slump-bustin' back in my day when my batting average dipped below the Mendoza line, but that was hogging with a purpose. EDSBS' pure-hearted agape makes me uncomfortable.

In other, possibly more urgent news, something horrible has happened to Marco over at the NDChooChoo. When we last left our intrepid hero, he was being "Re-Educated" by Karl Rove in a warehouse under the turnpike in New Jersey. Of course, that's just another day at the office for Marco, so ND Nation wasn't too paniced. However, it seems like the government has taken the next step towards erasing Marco's existence in a sweeping damnatio memoria. While we will miss Marco, we're not going to make a big deal about his disappearance, because we don't want to be next.


RIP, Marco. The horror.


Lastly, Kyle King has given birth to the bastard monster-child of the Brent Musberger drinking game with his College Football Gameday drinking game. The whole thing is worthwhile and will certainly leave all of our readers pissing drunk before the first headdress is donned by Lee Corso, but I'm quite partial to the "Lou Holtz Rule":
Rule No. 6: Lou Holtz. Anytime Lou Holtz mentions Notre Dame while discussing a game in which Notre Dame is not playing, everyone takes one drink. If he does it twice in the same segment, everyone takes two drinks, and so on until the end of the segment. If you try to speak and you find that you sound like Lou Holtz, stop drinking and have someone call you a cab.

Hat Tricks

Tomorrow, blue-chip Offensive Lineman and hulking behemoth man-god Sam Young will be announcing his decision on where to play football. Young is the #23 prospect in the country according to Rivals and would be a great punctuation mark on an already fantastic recruiting class for the O-Line.

Peronally, I'm hoping he does that thing with the three hats for the different schools that has really started to catch on. You know, where the hats are laid out on the table, and he picks one up and plays with it for a while, then puts it down and grabs another one? What started out as a cheap thrill during high school All-American games has really started to spread into mainstream society. For example, last week I went to the hospital for some tests, and the doctor came back with three hats:


 
 

Malignant

Benign

Just Gas




Or at my Arraignment Hearing...

 
 

Release on Recognizance

$100,000 Bail

Remanded to Custody




It's even found its way into the bedroom...

 
 

Not Tonight, Have Headache

Sorry, Treating Infection

Fine, Just Make it Quick




Has anyone else had this happen to them? Please, share your stories in the comments.

Sunday, January 15, 2006

Lo Def

If you've been watching the NFL playoffs this week, you've probably seen a commercial for Sony HD called "Lo-Def". If you haven't, then plant yourself in front of a TV, because it's classically funny. Essentially, they re-create The Play from the '82 Stanford-Cal tilt on an electronic football table with Joe Starkey's legendary audio track in the background.


(watch the ad)
thanks to The Contrarian for finding the link.


Hats off to the lads at Sony for making me laugh so hard that beer shot out of my nose (which is incredible, since I wasn't even drinking beer at the time).