The House Of Heat

I've never been to Louisiana. I once had plans to go, but they were foiled at the last minute by circumstances beyond my control. After seeing this video, I desperately want to go there now more than ever. I also wish I had taken my time in school and not graduated so soon. Commence.

Labels: I miss college, tailgating

Basketball season. In these dark, cold days of winter, I'm relegated to watching other schools live out their hardwood dreams against one another without pointing to next season or a different sport all together. (18 days until pitchers and catchers report!) In a matchup today televised by CBS, my nemesis/the son of Hitler Lute Olson takes his Arizona team up against my childhood nemesis, the UNC Tar Heels.

I lived in small town in North Carolina between 1985 and 1990, when the ACC ruled the college basketball universe. While the majority of the population was swept up in the power struggle between Jimmy V's Wolfpack and Dean Smith's Tar Heels, I quietly pulled for a young Coach Krzyzewski and his clean cut Blue Devil squad. As they rose to prominence in the late 80's and early 90's and NCSU slowly slid into obscurity, Duke replaced the Pack as Carolina's chief rival and I learned to hate the Heels. While Duke doesn't interest me all that much anymore, I still hold a hatred for Carolina close to my heart.

Today is a tough day, but I will be cheering for the powder blue bitches when the game tips off in Tucson. It doesn't happen often, but exceptions must be made in arduous times. I have thought long and hard of times like these where I would be forced to root for U of A, and nothing I can think of (short of the threat of prison gang rape) could lead me to don the cardinal and navy. I hate them with every cell in my body, and nothing can ever change that.

UPDATE!!! Carolina wins 92-64, handing Lute his worst home loss during his tenure in Browntown. Go Heels!!! Wooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I can't believe ASU basketball is so bad that I'm relegated to rooting for U of A's opponents. Someone should be making fun of me for this one.


I looked for game photos on azcentral.com and this was the one they had displayed to match the headline "North Carolina drills Arizona." Awesome.

Labels: anecdotal evidence, hoops, rivalry rants

Coming soon to Wells Fargo Arena: it might as well be a time machine set to football season.

...and they're not good. I know I don't post about basketball very much, but it isn't for a lack of interest. As much as I mock Tucson for being a basketball town, this mockery turns to pure jealousy in late February. The fact is that it's hard to watch an unranked Pac-10 team play when you're in Virginia and are too cheap to get a satellite dish with all of the sports packages. I can't bring myself to evaluate a team that I haven't seen play, because everything posted on the internet has to be referenced and true. Seriously, they make you sign something.

Having said that, I'll go out on a limb and say that everyone for ASU fails.

Ok, so we're playing a lineup featuring bunch of freshmen, some Rob Evans leftovers, and Jeff Pendergraph, but 0-9 in conference play? C'mon, we can get one, right? Don't tell me that this team jumped the shark by beating Iowa. I'll throw out a few fun-sized kudos to the boys in Maroon, just for the shit of it.

* The aforementioned Pendergraph is a double-double threat every night as long as the perimeter play is adequate, but he's still suffering from the Ike Diogu disease, as defenses collapse on him as soon as he sniffs the ball. At least that's what I gather.

* Youngsters Derek Glasser, Christian Polk, and Jerren Shipp have shown flashes of promise and skill, but these flashes are minnows in an ocean of inconsistency. Give it time, I guess.

* Antwi: uhhhh, Serge- ummmm, Sylvester, I... sorry, that's all I have.

I've often said that I would accept a 1-whatever record as long as the one win came against U of A. I'm really hopng that's still an option, because I think we're already mathematically eliminated from the NIT. Unfortunately, that's not a joke. This is why I don't post about basketball much. Just to set everything straight, let's reconfirm who holds the upper hand in the rivalry sport that really counts.

Scoreboard!

Hey wait, don't go anywhere. I have another one.

I went one way, Torain went the other way. I said "where'd he go?" U of A said "WHERE'D WHO GO?"

Mmm hmm. 139 yards and the game MVP. Zing.

Labels: hoops, rivalry rants

Since the last marketing effort blew up in everyone's faces, who not do something that will once again have the entire blogosphere giggling? Apparently the ASU athletic department is selling Sun Devil football door to door now, as today EDSBS posted a picture of the new ASU football door hanger. Orson and Stranko somehow broke this story without anyone at ASU seeing or hearing about it, and I'm still in disbelief at what I saw.

In an effort to beat the dead horse that is the Sun Devil Laws, ordinance #139 states that "it's time for the next level." Thank freaking God, because seven and something records are soooooo last year. The hanger has a picture of Coach E, National Championship ring prominently displayed, with the upper deck of Sun Devil Stadium (next level eh! Get it?) in the background pasted above a smattering of data regarding the upcoming season's home slate and the corresponding sales information. Not to be outdone by the whores on Van Buren, the back side features three "valuable coupons" including (are you ready for this?) buy one get one free tickets for baseball, men's basketball, and, as if that weren't enough, $2 softball tickets. Woo fucking hoo. You can’t give ASU men’s basketball tickets away, not even to orphans with diseases. They have enough problems already.

Please please God, let these hangers go no further than the doorknobs of the dorm rooms. This seems like an extraordinary waste of resources after the "Laws" billboards netted an average of almost 6,600 fewer butts per game. Is Lisa Love really planning on putting one of these on the door of each of the million plus households in the greater Phoenix metropolitan area? I realize that the drop in attendance can be attributed to a better home schedule in 2005 that included the benefit of hosting the rivalry game and I appreciate that the athletic department is trying to get the community involved in Sun Devil athletics, but I prefer a more organic, holistic approach. My suggestion? Just win, baby. Hiring Coach Erickson was a good step in that direction.

Here is a link to a Devils Digest thread that will have you as giddy as I am about the upcoming season. It seems that this Carter fellow has a class or two with some ASU football players and has been asking them about the coaching transition, noting the differences between Koetter and Erickson. Here’s a dandy of a quote:

Lastly I asked what do they expect for training:

This was my favorite... They said " Man, we've already been training harder than Koetter ever had us train, he has us in the gym EVERY day!! I'm lifting weights like I've never lifted before!"

Hells yeah.

Labels: blog links, I'm witty, message board nonsense, surrounded by morons, the new era

Arizona State defends the Cup with a 28-14 win over the Wildcats in Dirk Koetter's last game at ASU. Ryan Torain wins MVP.

Labels: rivalry rants

Poor Kid.

LINK (HT: Dabo)

Labels: message board nonsense, regular old crackers, rivalry rants

Folks,

Welcome to December football. It may seem a little odd the first couple of times around, but you'll get used to it. Then again, maybe you won't. Thanks to the WWL, the Pac-10 Conference, and a USC alumni/booster poll, the Devils will be busy on Thanksgiving and won't be able to whip you into the long cold winter per tradition. Instead, we'll be playing USC on national television on Thanksgiving night and you won't see us until December 1. Sorry to break our play date, but there comes a time when you have to trade up. We can get together for the annual assramming the following week if that's alright with you.

We at Arizona State University are sensitive to the emotional stress you may be experiencing, because December football must seem so puzzling to anyone who resides south of Picacho Peak. I'll try to summarize as best as I can. You see, after the regular season ends, the teams with winning records (re: everybody but you) are selected for exhibition games called bowls. There are a plethora to choose from, and you may even remember one called the Copper Bowl that used to be played in Tucson before it got some sense and corporate sponsorship and moved to Phoenix. You may not remember, however, that you have actually played in one of these! Here's what life was like way back then:

* There was a democrat in the oval office
* One could use real silverware on commercial airline flights
* N'Sync and The Backstreet Boys were at the top of the charts
* There were only three Star Wars movies
* Abercrombie and Fitch cargo pants were the hip new thing
* The "war in Iraq" was only used in the past tense
* People still thought The Jerry Springer Show was real
* The idea of the "Y2K bug" had been brought up and we were almost beginning to worry about it
* You had only heard of one guy named George Bush (and you weren't afraid of him)

It sounds crazy, I know, but it'll ok.

As a result of the new scheduling arrangements, we'll have the Territorial Cup at home in Tempe for an extra week this year. Nanny nanny boo boo.

Scoreboard,
Jon

The only bowling going on in Tucson anytime soon.

Labels: I'm witty, rivalry rants, UA morons

Labels: hoops

HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHA!

Arizona Residents See Rats in Toilets
TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) -- Residents of a neighborhood next to the University of Arizona say small white rats have been swimming through sewer pipes and into their toilets.

Laura Hagen Fairbanks, spokeswoman for the county's Wastewater Management Department, said she doesn't know where the rodents come from, however they are the kind that researchers use in labs.

University representatives point out that the same type of white rats are sold in pet stores as food for snakes and other animals.

George Humphrey, spokesman for the Arizona Health Sciences Center said university researchers follow strict guidelines for their lab specimens. Lab rats are euthanized, then double-bagged in red biowaste plastic bags before they are taken to Phoenix and cremated.

"There would be no evidence that these are connected to us, and I wouldn't want that to become an urban myth," Humphrey said.

In one sighting, Wastewater Management officials said a woman saw a rat in the toilet, left the toilet seat up and put down sticky trap paper in the bathroom. Then she closed the bathroom door so the rat couldn't get into the rest of the house.

Once the rat got stuck on the paper, she threw it away.

Hagen Fairbanks said no one knows why the rats are found in only one small area of town or why they show their faces only once or twice a year.

Making it from the sewer up the lines into someone's toilet is a difficult trip, Hagen Fairbanks said.

A four-inch pipe, called the house connection sewer, or HCS, runs from the house to a sewer main. And there's no "trap door" or other barrier in place, she said.

But if the lines are running, the rats have to hold their breath and swim uphill in the pipes against the water current.

"If the rat makes it through your HCS, that's a determined rat," she said.

When calls come in, the department can dispose of the rat if the homeowner hasn't done so already. County workers then flush the sewer line as a precaution to keep any others from making their way up.

The Pima County Health Department said it's best not to handle or touch a toilet-surfing rat, although the chance of getting rabies or plague - often associated with rats - is low in this situation.

"Usually if an animal that small has rabies it dies before it can transmit the disease," said Patti Woodcock, a Health Department spokeswoman. And a live flea would be necessary to transmit the plague, she said.
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Information from: Arizona Daily Star, http://www.azstarnet.com/

Labels: rivalry rants, UA morons