Cyber T-Shirt Cannon: Strike While the Iron is Red and Inflamed

Think fungal infections ravaging through a football team's loins is funny? Your goddamned right you do! Maybe it's time you make a statement with this fashionable shirt from the House Rock Built's gift shop. It's all the rage, you know.

Off To The Whore!

Hey, skaters. I'm off to that filthy trollop known as Ann Arbor to watch what maybe, possibly, probably not be the Irish's first victory of the year. Nevertheless, I'll try and bring the hate, root on our boys, and discreetly defecate on a variety of campus landmarks. If any of you lost souls will be out there, you're more than welcome to toss a beer with me. Just look for the guy wearing this shirt:

Win or lose, it will still be true...

If you're jealous of my dashing shirt, which you should be, fret not, brother! You can have your own by jaunting over to the HRB shirt store.

For those text-messaging types, the HRB hotline will be wide open on my iPhone during the game. Just shoot an IM to "applesaucechoke" (it's the only HRB-related screen name I could find that wasn't already registered. Thanks, Valenti.) with your in-game observations and whatnot. I'll be surrounded by Michigan grad students, so any company I can get would be much appreciated.

Peace out. Onward to... uh, solvency.

Posted With Just a Teensy Bit of Comment

All this excitement and teeth-gnashing and what-have-you about Jim Harbaugh's recent world bridge-burning tour with Michigan has inspired me to come out of hibernation and make a mockery of the whole subject. Oh, and maybe profiteer a little bit on the thankless labors of teenagers (hereinafter referred to as "pulling a Michigan"). You see, I think that Jim Harbaugh should put his money where his mouth is and try to impart some change on the system at his alma mater. My first suggestion would be to make a large donation to the University of Michigan earmarked for creating a new study center for athletes to help them get that ever-elusive Michigan diploma. Well, if the only thing keeping him from doing that is the inability to come up with a clever name for the new facility, well worry no more, Jimmy. The House Rock Built's got you covered.

So go on ahead and show your support for the Jim Harbaugh School for Kids Who Can't Read Good (And Want to Do Other Things Good, Too).

Fightinamish out.

Happy V-Day Quickies

Hope everybody had a great Valentine's Day. The House Rock Built celebrated the holiday by getting buck-assed drunk and performing the Vagina Monologues on a street corner in downtown Chicago. Except for the frostbite, it was a good time as always.

• Pardon Our Upgrades. Right, so the site has switched over to the Google/Blogger Beta and while I'm resistant to change, I suppose I can deal with the trauma of categories and whatnot. I'm currently leafing through the back posts and adding labels retroactively. It''s going to be a long process, but I'm excited about it. The most popular label so far? "Recruiting" with 13. The second most? "Urban Meyer is a Weasely Bastard" with 8. Maybe I'm getting predictable...
  
  You'll also notice some advertisements sprinkled about the site. I'm using this offseason to see if sprinkling in some Google advertising will completely wreck the aesthetics of the site or if it will in any way be profitable. Both of those answers are still pending, and I'll likely be tweaking the look of the front page until I find a nice harmony of the appearance of the site and any possible beer money that can come out of it. There's also a link on the sidebar for a jersey & apparel affiliate shop, so if you're going to be buying any jerseys or Notre Dame wear, you can do so and finance the crack habit of your favorite blogger at the same time.
  
  Anyway, the bottom line is that I will be slowly trying to integrate some revenue-type things into the blog without completely becoming a sellout. It's a work in progress and there might be some trial & error in the process.
  
  
  I didn't sell out, son. I bought in. You remember that.



• Rule 3-2-5-e is dead. Everybody has pitched in with glowing praise of this decision, so I'll save you the trouble of reading another raving anti-3-2-5-e rant, as Blue-Gray, EDSBS, and Brian over at the Fanhouse have already dedicated some serious prose to the subject. I'm just happy it's over and am looking forward to the day when 3-2-5-e is just a distant memory and my wide-eyed grandchildren ask me what it was like to live through the awful year it existed.
  
  
  Jamais plus, man. Jamais plus.
  
  
• Notre Dame Girls are Ugly. A funny little story, but seriously, Cook, the Alan Grant-esque commentary is as contrived as a Tobias Fünke Vagina Monologue.



• The Orgeron is Going National. Coach O has done it again, this time in opening a nationwide chain of family restaurants. I had the chickunwaffa there last night, and other than the severed finger on my plate, it was quite tasty.
  
  
  Comminsoontoa CITYNyEAhY'ALL!
  
  
• These Dogbook posts take a long, long, long time to do.

That's all for now, kids. See ya tomorrow.

Love Your Friends? Prove it With Presents!

The House has been AWOL today due to very important and pressing issues (forearm stuck in a vending machine... again), but thanks to some friendly firefighters and the jaws of life, we're back in business. I've got some special projects that I'm going to try to get wrapped up by tomorrow, so keep your head on a swivel. In the meantime, have a look-see at the latest offering from the House Rock Built Shop, which commemorate our new favorite crusty college football coach and our grassroots campaign to give Boston College a coach truly worthy of their program's storied history. With the holiday season coming up, it's getting time to think about that gift to get the person who has everything. Remember, nothing says "I'm sorry I cheated on you with the cigarette girl from the Rusty Lizard" quite like some piping hot House Rock Built merch.

   

Other Favorites:
Michigan: Canada's Alabama Ladies' Tee Men's Tee I Fish Kafka Brady's Ladies Tank Top Jersey Tee Camisole Paterno Loves Brains! Mackerel-Snapping Anarchist	SAMARDJZIXARZIKYZKA Ladies' Tee Baseball Jersey Behold, the Slant! The House Rock Built: Football & Jesus T-Shirt Mug Who All Seen the Leprechaun? It's 49-21, Sweetheart

Blogpoll: Welcome Back, Blogger! Edition

Rank	Team	Delta
1	Ohio State	--
2	Michigan	1
3	Southern Cal	1
4	Auburn	4
5	Louisville	1
6	Florida	4
7	Tennessee	2
8	Notre Dame	1
9	Arkansas	4
10	California	1
11	Texas	1
12	Oregon	1
13	Georgia Tech	3
14	Boise State	--
15	West Virginia	--
16	LSU	3
17	Nebraska	3
18	Boston College	8
19	Clemson	2
20	Rutgers	2
21	Wisconsin	5
22	Georgia	6
23	Wake Forest	3
24	Pittsburgh	2
25	Oklahoma	1
Dropped Out: Missouri (#17), Iowa (#18), Navy (#23), UCLA (#24), Virginia Tech (#25).

Good to be back, kiddos. It looks like a lot of the names have changed since I've hung around, but it's clear to see that dreams have remained and they've turned around. Welcome back, blogger. Welcome back, welcome back, welcome back.


And that's just three days of growth, ladies.

Right, onto more important things. Your boy spent the weekend carousing around the taverns and inns of Chicago and watching football on television in a drunken haze. Trusty commentator protonjockey hypothesized that my "bye week mini-vacation" was a cover story, and that I was actually in recovery for a liver transplant surgery. A worthy theory, but the idea of me and my raging drinking habits making it to the top of a transplant list is laughable. Nope, my only chance of getting a new liver is by kidnapping, drugging, and disfiguring a drifter again.


You're working like a dream, my trusty hobo kidney.

Right, so what was I talking about? Oh, yes, Blogpoll. I manage to unclench my death grip on Mr. Bold last week, passing the torch to a few other bloggers for the most wildly divergent poll. Methinks this week shall see a continued shift to the normative mean, as a lot of scores have been settled on the field. Here's a quick recap of my picks:

• We've got ourselves a #1 and a #2. Don't really think there's much wiggle room here, those two dastardly Big Ten behemoths are clearing the way for a game of the century. Both have had some struggles, but neither has been in extreme jeopardy of dropping a game. As it's quickly being established that Wisconsin is the third best team in the conference, Michigan's workmanlike wrangling of the Badgers makes it pretty clear that there is a big drop-off between the big guns and the wannabes in the Big Ten.
  
  Plus, think of the marketing:
  
  
  
  vs.
  
  



• I handled the recursive loss loop as best I could. USC - Arkansas - Auburn - Florida - Tennessee - Cal. Yikes. My only shortcut was putting Arkansas down near the bottom, but I think I can be justified by the strength of schedule and quality wins of the teams above them.



• Texas, your schedule still sucks. Your climb up the rankings will be a steep and arduous one. Plus you were losing to Baylor, and not even the badass Baylor who managed the 1995 Colorado Rockies (greatest baseball team of all time, ever, period.). Just the crappy football Baylor.
  
  
  Even this guy would go 4-0 against the four weakest teams in the state of Texas.

Well, there ya have it. Ballot is due on Wednesday morning, so give me a shout if you have any particularly strong objections.

Some Quick Purdue Highlights

• As I mentioned before, there are no Purdue bloggers. This will make it tricky for my standard Q&A and Friday Night Lites, so I might just have to pull in a random Big 10 expert. Shame on you, Purdue, and shame on your indifferent fans. You'd think with all those engineers there would be one pasty dork with way too much free time to carry the torch. Sigh.



• In my first ever post on this blog, I broke down the overwhelming mustachitude of Purdue's coaching staff. Well, turnover is a bitch, and this year's staff is a very clean-shaven bunch, with all of the mustaches purged except for Tiller and my personal favorite Brock Spack. New Defensive Line Coach Terrell Williams does sport a 'stache, but it's an underwhelming little ditty that looks like it was drawn on with an eyeliner pencil. Weak.



• The 2005 game in West Lafayette was the most beautiful game I have witnessed in person. I think we all remember very vividly the infamous Ron Franklin quote:
  
  

O Canadabama

Big thanks to the House Rock Built's consiglieri Captain Eclectic, who reminded us on today's Friday Night Lites that if there were no auto industry, Michigan would have been annexed by Canada and would subsequently be Canada's shamefully redneck southern state. Ergo, henceforth my affectionate nickname for the state of Michigan will be "Canadabama". Learn it and love it, then buy a shirt expressing your love:

O, Canadabama, our home and native land.

UPDATE: Now available in women's, cause we all know how much the ladies hate Michigan.

On a More Upbeat Note...

If you're like me, you've become a huge fan of Northwestern's quarterback Mike Kafka, who has seriously the most badass name among college football players born on the planet Earth (Zoltan the Inconceivable, of course, was born on a small planet orbiting twin red suns). To show your love, pick up your Wildcat Purple "I Heart Kafka" shirt, only with more of a Kafkaesque spin to it:

Onward to Glory, One Fake Punt at a Time

Good to be back in town, clones, particularly after an impressive and decisive victory. I have a lot to go through, and while I have a lot to say about the home opener, time is a precious thing during the season and I'm afraid I'll have to hit you with most of my opening weekend observations in quick-hitting list form. I'll review the game itself with another episode of "Good, Bad, and Ugly" and my good friends Dink & Dunk will swing by shortly to wrap up the rest of the college football world, but for now I'd like to focus on the opening day atmosphere in South Bend.

• I was pleasantly surprised by the traffic on the Dan Ryan, as I was able to escape the construction warzone and get out of Illinois in about 20 minutes before hitting the wide open throughfare of the Skyway at around 2PM on Friday. Irish fans from suburban Chicago were not as fortunate, as some sort of disaster on I-294 doubled the trip time.
  
  With South Bend now observing daylight savings time and with awful construction, Chicago has effectively moved about 200 miles further away from South Bend.



• The pep rally was... well, it was a pep rally. The attendence was pretty impressive (although nothing quite like last year's USC pep rally), and the atmosphere was pretty cool. Some of my favorite approximate quotes:

  Weis: Our next speaker thinks he's a pretty good boxer after last summer, but, come on. I probably could have knocked out the guy he fought.
  
  Zbikowski: I may not have Brady's style or Travis [Thomas]'s flash, but I do have... [pause]
  Lone Voice in Crowd: A mohawk!
  Zbikowski: Yes, a mohawk. Parents, don't worry if your kids shave their hair. It grows back.

  Plus some other stuff I can't remember and, of course, some roof-raising.



• The book signing went pretty well. At 9AM on gameday, the crowd is a little bit different. Most of the die-hards are still sleeping off last night at Corby's, so it's a more sedate and easygoing group that we were interacting with. It was solid to start off the day pressing some palms with Scott Eden (author of Touchdown Jesus) and Jim Walsh, our fearless editor. Jim was an absolute hero by gutting it out and signing autographs despite having his entire arm in a sling from fracturing his humerous after falling out of the bathtub while throwing a curve ball in an adult baseball league.



• How freaking cool is this? I actually ran into somebody wearing a t-shirt purchased from The House Rock Built's official store! Cha-ching! Word is, it was fairly well-received by Penn State fans, who apparently have a pretty good sense of humor in regards to all things zombie-related (hell, Zombie Nation is apparently an unofficial fight song at their home games), so that's good to know. I would have felt slightly guilty if he had been beaten within an inch of his life while I scored a two dollar commission, but I probably would have gotten over that pretty quickly.



• The tailgating scene was very impressive, and the always-annoying harrassment from the local Keystone Kops seemed a bit more subdued than previous years. With the fun police in check, there was ample liquor-swigging, football-tossing, and dancing, dancing, dancing. Actually, I mercifully did not see any portable dance floors or break-dancing, which supports my theory that those were vestiges of the Willingham era directly caused by horrible coaching.



• My own tailgating was derailed by a stomach virus which knocked me down for intermittent periods of the morning. However, I fought through it and did my best to quell my nausea with beers and Johnny Walker Blue shots (to mixed results). While tailgating with Jim Walsh and observing my illness and his sling which was rapidly filling with sweat on a sweltering day, we both shrugged and laughed about the old axiom: "You have to suffer for your passions." No complaints here.
  
  
• Having gone down without a ticket, I was expecting to watch the game at a local tavern and hold out for the possibility of a ticket miraculously appearing. Near kickoff, I wandered over to test the market for a ticket, and observed that it had effectively collapsed. Supply outweighed demand by about 500 to one. The entire south half of the stadium was littered with fans hoisting fingers aloft, and even the scalpers were asking people if they could buy tickets, rather than sell them. The market had effectively crashed, and understanding the simple economics of what one can reasonably earn by selling the last product that thousands of people want, I decided to take in the game with our friends at NBC.



• After Zbikowski housed the fumble return to put the game up 27-0 a few minutes after halftime, the House Rock Built's official consiegliere Captain Eclectic fired off the comment of the day:

  Captain Eclectic: We have to leave now. We have to leave right now
  Me: Why?
  Captain Eclectic: Because the bus back to Chicago leaves 30 minutes after the game is over. And this game is over.

  
  
  Funny guy. I wish he was as good at getting DUI convictions overturned as he is at making football wisecracks, but I guess that's too much to ask.



• When I was interviewed by Black Shoe Diaries, I told them that by the end of the game, they will know the name Travis Thomas. I bet there isn't a Penn State fan in the world who doesn't know who Travis Thomas is today. [pats self on back for awesome act of punditry]

Well, that's my rundown from gameday. More stuff coming... when I find a spare moment.

Last Post Before South Bend

Well, folks, I'm outta here to hit the Dan Ryan expressway and, with any luck, make it to South Bend sometime before gametime. Damn construction. Anyway, here's some quick tidbits:

• The Shirt Store has a few new additions. To be honest with you, I don't know if any women read this site, but if they do, they are cordially to join the army of "Brady's Ladies". I have three designs for showing off your creepy love affair with the Heisman trophy hopeful. For all you male readers, you can buy one and hang onto it on the off chance that someday you might obtian a girlfriend.
  
  
  You're a lady, you love Brady. It's elementary, really.
  
  
• If you want to meet me and get a signed copy of Here Come The Irish, I'll be at the Bookstore from 9AM to 11AM with a few other authors. After that wraps up, I will be tailgating around the JACC area. Listen for my rebel yell and follow the commotion.



• Mike at Black Shoe Diaries wrote a very cool essay about what Joe Paterno means to Penn State which is up over at Blue-Gray Sky. While a lot of people like to take cracks at Paterno's senility (but not me. I would never take a cheap shot at a coaching legend, I have way too much class and integrity), it's cool to see the other side of things and get a glimpse at how important Paterno really is to his fanbase. Good stuff. If I was capable of feeling guilty for mercilessly mocking somebody, I would be getting a twinge right now.



• Go Irish! I'll be back on Sunday!