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.

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.

Pac 10 Official All But Admits Improper Use of Replay in Stanford Game

It's been a few days since the most blatantly awful replay review of all time, so I think it's time we take a look at what has shaken down in these days in the immediate aftermath of this travesty.

For one, we finally got a public statement from the head of Pac 10 Officiating, Dave Cutaia. In an e-mail he sent out in response to the criticism of the play, he is quoted as saying:

"The replay official felt he had a shot that showed the point of the ball hit the ground...

*First Lie.

...This is basically a judgment call on his part, as an on-field official might judge defensive pass interference.

*Second Lie.

So, let's look at the first part of the statement. The replay official found a shot... no, wait, scratch that... felt he found a shot that conclusively showed (whoops, he didn't use the word "conclusively") the point of the ball hitting the ground. Hey, that's not bad. It's an empirically-testable statement. Now obviously it wasn't any shot that we had available to us, the television-watching audience, because that one clearly did not meet the burden of proof. Ahhh, so it was a secret camera angle that wasn't available to the TV broadcast, right? They do have secret angles, don't they?

Q. What will be the source of the video for replays?
A. All reviewable video will come direct from the television production of the game.

(From the official replay policy)

Allright, no worries. Let's pretend you did have a secret reverse-angle shot that the television networks just didn't decide to put in their broadcast. It probably would have looked something like this shot taken by an on-field photographer:



Which even more conclusively shows that his hand is under the ball.

Moving swiftly along to lie number two...

This is basically a judgment call on his part, as an on-field official might judge defensive pass interference.

Now I'm just a simple caveman, but to me it sounds like Cutaia is admitting that the replay was improperly administered. Either that, or he doesn't know the rules of instant replay set down by the same conference that he is apparently in charge of officiating. You see, the second line of the aforementioned official document on instant replay clearly states:

Standard: There must be indisputable video evidence for an on-field officiating decision to be changed by the Instant Replay Official working from a private booth in the press box.

That underlining was not done by me for emphasis, that's exactly how it appears on the website. But, wait, there must be some wiggle room for a replay official's judgment call, right? I'll do a search of their rulebook for the word "judgment":



So anybody who has taken the time to read the first paragraph of the replay policy (a group which may or may not contain Cutaia) can sufficiently agree that replay is definitively not a "judgment call" and is, moreover, fundamentally opposite from judgment calls like defensive pass interference. Instead it requires, (everyone together now) indisputable video evidence, which Cutaia all but comes out and admits was not the standard of proof used in this specific reversal. The replay officials acted blatantly against their authority... it's black letter law.

Cutaia then declined to make public the names of the officials involved. Perhaps a smart move, what with all the crazies out there, but it still reeks of an institutional refusal to make anybody take accountability for what, in Cuataia's own words, was a clear-cut incorrect ruling. At any rate, it's these two guys. If anyone can track down a directory of Pac 10 officials with mug shots, it should be pretty easy to find out who these incompetent bozos are and keep track on whether or not they've been fired or reprimanded.

Slants and Drops

Ahoy, kids. The House has been riding the rails this last week, sidetracked by his 9-5 job: professional hobo. Needless to say, some time jumping on boxcars and eating tins of beans with his one-eared dog has helped alleviate the sting of last week's old-fashioned beatdown. It's sunny outside, the birds are chirping, and we still have 12 weeks of football to enjoy, so let's not get too pouty and move on down the line.

• Obligatory post-game commentary. Obviously, it was a disaster. Not quite "Hiroshima" or "Titanic"... more like "Edmund Fitzgerald" or the Sloop John B. At any rate, it was tiny boat vs. furious ocean, my fist vs. brick wall, Triangle Man vs. Particle Man, or any other historical one-sided fight you can think of. I'm pretty sure the Irish wouldn't have scored a touchdown if the game was 30 quarters long, which it mercifully wasn't.
  
  
  I feel so broke up, I wanna go home.
  
  Hey, them's the breaks though. A brand new offense lining up against a Tech defense that eats n00bs for breakfast, it wasn't too hard to make sense of what happened, particularly with Tech's propensity to come out of the gate and humiliate green offenses (they've done it four openers in a row). I think they've got a good squad, and I think that (future all-Hairmerican) Phillip Wheeler is damn lucky that they don't test players in the NCAA for being 3,000 year old mutant robots forged in the smithy of hell. I think the NFLPA screens for that, so you're probably looking at the peak of his career now.
  
  To use a baseball analogy, sometimes your ace gets kicked around for 10 runs in the first inning. That's how it goes. You yank him, put in the mop-up guy, take the loss, and get ready for the next ballgame. Yeah, the gameplan sucked, yeah, the quarterback decision sucked, and yeah, there were blunders and errors in execution all over the place. The good news is that it only counts for one loss. Bring in Jimmy Clausen, let the youngster take his licks, and look for something to be happy about every week. Wash down with a quart of Wild Turkey and call me in the morning. The doctor is in.



• Dink and Dunk Have Turned Pro. What started out as a goofy quarterly comic strip has turned big time, as the fellas have made their way over to The Fanhouse. A bigger audience, a weekly strip, and (of course) some cold hard cash for your boy. Keep your eyes peeled. Hope it doesn't go to their heads.
  
  



• The House is Watching Some Pistol on Saturday. That's right, we're taking this hobo show on the road and riding the rails to Evanston, IL to check out Northwestern and Nevada in an epic grudgematch of kind of purple teams. Between the Nevada Pistol, the... um, brainy Northwestern co-eds with great personalities, and the fresh lake air, it should be a good way to start off week two.

That's all I've got for now. Catch you on the flipside.

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.

Rumors of the House Rock Built's Demise Have Been Greatly Exaggerated (Again)

Knowing how sensitive and caring my readershp is, I'm sure everyone out there has been placing bets on what horrible fate has become your beloved editor in the month or so that he has disappeared from the face of the earth. Naturally, I'm sure "Gored by Wild Boar" and "Knifed in Back Alley by Jilted Lover" hit the post as even-money favorites, but everyone who didn't have "Frozen in Carbonite by Debt Collectors" can go ahead and rip up your race tickets, and thanks for playing.

So rest easy, I'm still very much alive and starting to get mobilized for the upcoming football season. Aside from a few new yet-to-be-Anagramaticusized recruits and a non-surgery, not a whole lot of interesting stuff has happened under the golden dome in these dog days of summer. As a result, the House Rock Built has been shifting attentions toward baseball, binge drinking, and the bevy of comely young maidens that emerge in Chicago once miniskirt weather hits. Additionally, I've penned two articles for upcoming Maple Street publications, so there will be some of my quasi-drunken musings in Here Come the Irish 2007 and my laugh-a-minute preview of the 07 Irish in the Michigan annual, Hail to the Victors 2007. Those should become available sometime in the next month or so.

So anyway, the House will be off to sunny Arizona for the holiday weekend and, shortly thereafter, will begin regular(ish) posting, slowly building in momentum until the fever pitch of preseason pandemonium of August, so plan your web surfing accordingly (and tell your friends). So, that's what's up in the House Rock Built's world. What have you been doing to deal with football withdrawl?

Oh, and if you're aching for some hijinks, I farked up a few pictures for Orson this morning, which you can check out here. I was more than a little embarassed to learn that former NYPD Blue semi-hottie Kim Delaney is not the commissioner of the Big 10, but rather eponymous sound-alike Jim Delaney. I think I'm going to have to go back and edit a few old posts that probably sounded really, really, really ignorant. Mea Culpa.

It's Time to Get Our Gamble On

As we pack up the Truckster Family Road Queen for tomorrow's pilgrimage to South Bend for the spring game, we're throwing up one last post here to go on the record. While the spring game is a life-saving offseason fix for football junkies who are struggling through this long stretch of forced pigskin celibacy, it's ultimately a glorified practice. It's difficult to get too worked up about a split-squad scrimmage with red-jerseyed quarterbacks, at least not to the typical level of bloodlust that we're used to on an average trip to Notre Dame stadium. Fortunately, the good lord has blessed us with two invaluable tools to spice up the action this weekend: booze and gambling.

With the booze already handily taken care of, the Irish Outsider and myself have conferred in our hollowed-out volcano lair this week and come up with seven wagers on the Blue Gold game that will be sure to keep us locked in on the action on the field. What are the stakes, you ask? It's not money, since that's no real motivator (hell, the Irish Outsider drives around on a solid-gold Segway encrusted with Condor eggs). No, my friends, we are making the ultimate bet:

Remember, no rings.

That's right, slap bet. Seven wagers, the net difference in victories will be doled out in slaps to the losing party (e.g., were I to win 5 and lose 2 bets, I would dish out three slaps on IO's mug). Let's have a look at the bets. The lines were set by chief gambling correspondent Free Money Dave.

• FInal Score: Blue -6.5. I'm taking the blue squad and giving 6.5 points. It's an interesting bet, because while Blue has the first team offense, they will be going up against the first team defense on the Gold squad.
  
  HRB's Pick: Blue -6.5
  
  
• Over/Under: 41.5. Irish Outsider picked the Under, which seems to be a pretty wise decision. With the running clock and inexperienced quarterbacks, I'd be stunned if this one went over 41.5 points.


HRB's Pick: Over


• Quarterback Passing Yards, Clausen vs. Sharpley. Clausen -35. I've got Clausen, giving 35 yards. With four quarterbacks alternating series and a threadbare set of receivers, it will be interesting to see if any one quarterback is able to rack up a large amount of passing yards. However, if anybody's going to do it, I feel pretty good with taking Clausen.
  
  HRB's Pick: Clausen -35
  
  
• Rushing Yards, Aldridge vs. Thomas. Thomas -15. Travis Thomas was the MVP of last year's spring game, running roughshod over the defense, including an 80 yard scamper. After spending a year on defense, he's ready to jump back into his old role at running back. IO picked Thomas and gave 15 yards. If James Aldridge can keep up with Thomas, I will be very impressed.
  
  HRB's Pick: Aldridge +15
  
  
• Over/Under on Total Turnovers: 2.5. Another tricky one. There's no blitzing allowed and the QB's will be protected with red jerseys, so there won't be too many hurried, mistake-prone throws. Nevertheless, with the O-Line playing ironman football with no subs, there's going to be a lot of pressure on the backs that could result in some fumbles. Throw in four inexperienced quarterbacks, and I'm thinking we're going over.
  
  HRB's Pick: Over
  
  
• Jersey Number of Game MVP, Odd or Even. A clever one. The IO picked odds, which gives him three of the quarterbacks (Clausen, Jones, Sharpley), the top four receivers (Grimes, West, Hord, and Gallup), and some other big contrubitors (Armando Allen, Zbikowski, and kicker Ryan Burkhart). My evens include QB Zach Frazer, the top two RB's (Thomas and Aldridge), and much of the starting defense.
  
  HRB's Pick: Even
  
  
• Over/Under for Gametime Temperature: 68.5. I took the under, and that feels like free money to me. If the last 8 spring games have taught me nothing, it's that you should always expect cold weather. The weather.com forecaset says 68 and sunny, but I've been burned by optimistic spring forecast in the Midwest too many times. I'm taking a jacket and this bet to the bank.
  
  HRB's Pick: Under

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.

The House Rock Built's 2007 Offseason Prop Bet

Greetings, readers! Hopefully, you're shaking off your Super Bowl hangovers today as we officially begin the football offseason. While we have a few entertaining moments out on the horizon, like the crazy circus that is the mad dash to National Signing Day on Wednesday and preparations for your tailgate party for the Spring Game (Notre Dame's spring scrimmage is on April 21st, mark your calendars now), we're looking at, for the most part, a long, dreary, footballless existence for the next six months. Sigh.

However, this Super Bowl awoke me to a great way to pass time for football fans desperate for entertainment: the magic of prop bets. After cleaning up on taking the "under" on Billy Joel's National Anthem performance (he came in ten seconds under the line at 1:44) and subsequently losing my shirt on the coin flip (tails never fails my ass), there's nothing like a little gambling to help pass the time. While you might not find this prop bet on an online sportsbook like Bodog yet, I'm sure you can find somebody who can put you down for this killer action:

What Day Will Mike Bellotti's Mustache Return? After propelling his Oregon Ducks to some halcyon days in the early 00's with his dignified 70's stache, Bellotti mysteriously shaved off his dustbuster and opted for the clean-shaven look. Just like that, the Ducks were shut out of a BCS bowl in '05 and suffered a humiliating loss in their undignified second-tier bowl, then proceeded to drop their last four games of '06, including a brutal bloodletting by BYU in Las Vegas while bedecked in state-of-the-art helmetry. Needless to say, the mojo needs to come back, and soon. And what better way than for Bellotti to ressurrect his trademark mustache? HRB's Pick: August 29th.

Any other suggestions, dear readers? Leave them in the comments.

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

Readers, the House Rock Built Needs Your Help

It's time for some audience participation at the House Rock Built, and I'm counting on my loyal readers to step up to the plate and help out. There are two items of business:

• First, I'm starting to compile the 2006 All-Hairmerican team, a prestigious award that was founded on this very website last year that honors the truly legendary hairstyles of college football. Unfortunately, I'm a little bit stumped, because having traveled to every Notre Dame game this year, I haven't had as much time to scope out the rest of the college football world for All-Hairmericans, especially since the Irish slate this year consisted of surprisingly clean-cut and well-groomed young men. Very disappointing.
  
  Anyway, we're taking nominees for the 2006 All-Hairmerican team, and your vote counts. So drop off a comment on this thread with your nominee's name, position, and if at all possible a link to a picture of them in action.
  
  
  Someday, your son might win this award and vindicate the crummy waste of life you've been.
  
  
• Second, I'm gonig to have to revamp the top of the page banner for the site, since those three fine athletes will all be graduating this year and likely moving on to the NFL. While I'm thinking of taking another whack at it myself in the old Photoshop, I figured I'd open it up to the readers too, as I'm willing to bet there's some hidden artistic talent out there. The rules are pretty simple... the banner has to be 850 x 200 (or 200ish. It has to be 850 wide, though), and have something to do with Notre Dame football. Also, I couldn't help but notice the more I look at this page that my player selection for the banner was... let's just say a little bit on the white side. I would probably prefer if my replacement banner had a bit more diversity in it.
  
  Other than that, it's pretty much free reign. It can have current players, past players, or any other insignia that gets the reader pumped up about football. I'll probably keep the text from this banner and overlay it on my next one, but you can also take a crack at the logo too.
  
  
  A good example of what not to do...
  
  Anyway, if you're up to the challenge, you can e-mail your entry to houserockbuilt@gmail.com. The lucky winner will receive a free copy of "The University of Notre Dame: Fighting Irish Collector's Edition DVD Set", which features hour after hour of all of Notre Dame's greatest games. The good folks that made it provided me with a few copies to give away to my awesome readers, and also sent me one to enjoy for myself. It's wicked cool, guys. Right before we left for USC, I watched the '77 Green Jerseys Game against USC with the Irishoutsider and Trev Alberts and we took turns alternating between belts of whiskey and suckerpunches to the face. Now that's how you get fired up for a football game.
  
  
  Do not mix with brown liquor. Results could be painful.

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.