Monday, September 22, 2008

Charlie Weis Needs New Transportation. The House Rock Built to the Rescue!

There were a lot of embarrassing things that happened on Saturday in East Lansing, but easily the most preventable one was Charlie Weis' humorous inability to, you know, like move more than five feet in any direction. Several times, the broadcast feed cut over to Weis after a punt to show him hobbling torturously inch by inch toward the new line of scrimmage on a busted knee. About three plays later, he would make it over to where the action was, just in time to see another Irish punt and embark on another lengthy journey. It was sort of like watching a salmon struggling to the point of near-death in their Sisyphean swim against a brutally harsh current... heartbreaking, in its pure hopeless fatalism, but nonetheless part of nature's way.

While The House Rock Built can't really offer any advice to helping the on-field problems with the Irish, our crack scientists have come up with a wide range of solutions for Weis' motility problem that are cost-effective, easy to implement, and immediately effective. When was the last time you saw a Notre Dame coach do anything that would be described that way?

Solution One: Segway

By far our most intuitive and straightforward solution. For a few grand, you can get all the functionality of a personal motility device without any of the embarrassment that might come from tooling around the sidelines in a Rascal scooter. Plus, I know for a fact that Indiana Excise police has dozens of these things, since their storm troopers patrol pre-game tailgating to squash out any underage recreation with their shoot-first ask-questions-later brand of vigilante justice. I'm sure they can spare one, particularly since the Irish football team are their most valuable customers.

Admittedly, there might be some problems with this. For example, the high-powered gyroscope processor in the Segway might violate some archaic anti-laptop rules. Similarly, Weis' largesse might exceed the weight rating for a Segway, to which I offer this simple solution: A chariot pulled by two eunuchs on Segways.


Ha Ha! Problem Solving!

Solution Two: Hannibal Lecter-Style Gurney Thing

If practicality is your game, then the Segway makes sense, but something tells me that the Irish need a little extra boost in motivation after last week's flat performance. To whit, I recommend the Hannibal Lecter Gurney Thing. One sight of Weis being wheeled around in this thing by two orderlies in all white and opposing teams will run and hide. It's motivational gold.


Adding some frothing at the mouth would help, too

Solution Three: Exotic Contraptions

If the University is really serious about getting Weis up and down the field in a hurry, though, it will invest a little bit of money in an elaborate machine of my design. So far, I have two prototypes worked out. First is an elaborate horizontal dumb-waiter, which can be wheeled manually or (my personal recommendation), cranked by a steam-powered turbine and ultra-high speeds. Not only will this solve the problem of getting Weis up and down the field, but it will also help to prevent any future collisions, as he'll be able to get downfield before the punted ball even arrives there. Now that's progress!



Or, my personal favorite, the gigantic catapult! Accurately calibrated, this 15-foot trebuchet will use centripetal force to launch its payload to the exact spot of the line of scrimmage, where there will presumably be a large pile of mattresses or a net to brace Charlie's fall. Or, hell, if we lose a few more games like this, forget the mattresses. Two problems solved at once.

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