mi·nu·ti·ae

So I was watching the College Football Playoff Championship Game between Oregon and Ohio State the other night.   I'm still a little mixed on the playoff.  Yes, it was nice to see more of a true champion.  But I kind of missed the 'standard' bowl line up.  I have to put that in quotes since bowl lineups have been changing for year... for decades.  Maybe next year I'll like it better as the Rose Bowl should have a more standard B1G/Pac 12 matchup.

It's funny how perception can change so fast.  Before the season began, the B1G was looked at as a 'has been and never will be again' conference.  They hadn't won a national championship since 2002 and had been blown out the last two times they competed for one.  Some of their biggest 'brands' weren't living up to expectations.  Michigan was circling the drain, Penn State was still banned from post season play, Nebraska... well Nebraska just kept winning 9 or 10 games a year but never breaking through and winning a conference title, let alone competing for a national title.  The second week of the season had Ohio State losing to Virginia Tech, Michigan State losing to Oregon, and Michigan getting creamed by Notre Dame.  

Fast forward to now and people are saying that the Big Ten's East division may be the best in all of college football.  Rutgers won their bowl game, Penn State won theirs, Nebraska almost beat USC, Wisconsin beat Auburn, Michigan State beat Baylor, and Ohio State beat both Alabama AND Oregon to win the National Championship.   The Big Ten was underdogs in all of their bowl games and yet they won six of eleven.  The SEC west (the former biggest/baddest division in all of college football) lost five of their six bowls.

Jame Franklin has Penn State on the upswing, Nebraska committed to excellence by firing a very good coach and hoping for better, while Michigan made a superhero hire with Jim Harbaugh.  Dantonio has Michigan State with two top five finishes.  Urban Meyer, with his third national championship now, has always said that 2015 would be the year for the Buckeyes.  Yeah... things are looking up.  

I'll just have to hold my expectations down to 'reasonable' levels.  It's not as though Harbaugh is going to step into Michigan and make them conference champions in a single season.  If they win eight games next year and get to a decent bowl I should consider that a victory.  The off season will still offer plenty to watch as well.  There's the last push in recruiting, there's the draft (I'll watch my favorite players move on from my game, while Dee will watch her teams snatch up the young talent), Spring camp, the Spring game, summer conditioning, fall camp... and then we'll have actual games to watch in August 2015!

A final thought of the National Championship game.  Ohio State had the game done.  They were up 35 to 20 with under two minutes remaining and on the edge of the endzone. Oregon wasn't using their timeouts... a sign that they didn't expect to get the ball back and that even if they did they weren't going to try and make a miraculous three score run in 100 seconds.  How did Urban Meyer play it?  He shoved the ball down their throat for a final score.  

That final score was unnecessary.  Both my brother B and I agreed, the more gracious thing to do would be to take a few knees and kill the clock.  Take your victor and leave the field champions.  It's not as though they needed to impress anybody else... they were national champions.  I blame Urban Meyer for that.  He has that SEC attack them until the last second mentality that just doesn't jibe with what I think of the comparatively gentlemanly Big Ten.  But then again, it's not as though Jim Harbaugh is known as a nice guy... he has put his foot on the throat of opposing teams and stomped down in the past.   I bet he'll do the same at Michigan.  

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At what point do you consider it over?  

I've been reading a lot of Joanna's blog, and I find myself using my own mute button more and more.  I want to reach through the screen, grab her by the dress I picture she's wearing and shake her until she leaves her wife.  

There... I said it.  

I've bitten around the edges many times, but I refuse to put that out on her blog.  I don't know the whole story.  I'm only reading Joanna's position so I can't possibly know the whole situation.  And even if I did, I don't live it.  I can't possibly know everything that's going on.  But I just don't see Joanna's wife as a good person.  She shuns physical intimacy in all it's forms.  She doesn't seem to make any effort to make Joanna happy, and when she does do anything for Joanna it seems to come with a cost.  Yes, there are children involved and I think everyone can agree that having two parents are better than having two separate parents, but at what point are you teaching your children that it's ok to let someone run all over you?  At what point are you showing them that it's ok to not look after yourself at all?  

There just has to be a point where incompatibility matters, and from everything I can see, Joanna and her wife are incompatible.  

I don't want to write any more about this.  It makes me sad and angry at the same time. 

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I've excelled at pill taking.  Yay?  

I've always been able to knock back four gel coated Tylenols and a single Motrin capsule, but the new pills I have to take twice a day (one wellbutrin, two metformin, one propranolol) are bigger, more varied in size, and harder to swallow.   When I began my pill taking regimen, I had to take each individual pill separately.  The next step was taking the two metformin together.  Then the two metformin and the wellbutrin.  Those combinations all worked fine, but the propranolol... that's a bitch.  That pill is rather large, very 'powdery' and incredibly bitter.  It touches my tongue and immediatly my mouth tastes of nothing but salt/vinegar.  To properly take that pill I have to quickly place it on my tongue, take a big swig of soda, and then flip the pill up into the liquid before swallowing it down.  Any other method makes the damn little devil pill stick to some part of my mouth and spread it's bitter evil.  And more often than not make me gag/choke.  

Well the other day I decided that I'd man up and just start tossing back all of the pills at once.   I mean come on.. it's just a little pill.  I see guys at work knocking back 15 pills at once.  I can certainly take 4.  

It worked the first few times... but then yesterday morning while swallowing the pills that little bastard propanolol got stuck in the back of my mouth as all the protective liquid drained into my throat  It left behind two other pills besides the propranolol... and I puked them all up.  

So... I'm not going to man up.  I'm going to be a little baby boy and take my propranolol all by it's lonesome and take my other three pills together.  

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I've been playing a silly trivia game on my phone for the past few weeks called Trivia Crack.  I mainly play against random people as well as my brother B and his son.  It's good old fun without really pushing the brain pan.  This certainly isn't Trivia Pursuit Genus edition.  Questions can range from knowing exact dates in history to knowing that what country Nebraska is part of.  A lot of the questions are pop culture references so they fall into the "either you know it or you don't" category.  

I was a little taken aback by one of my brother's friends.  It seems that he not only knew I was playing, but was actively avoiding playing me.  He told B that I was 'Too Smart' to play against.  

A couple things bothered me about that.  First... I'm not that smart.  Yes, I'd say I'm above average, but I've known some truly smart people and I just don't fit into that category.  Second, doesn't he realize that this game is truely trivia?  There is so much in this game that isn't 'smart' based.  It's like playing bar trivia.  Hell... one of the categories is Sports and outside of college football, I'm a sports idiot.  But lastly, and most importantly, why would anyone want to avoid playing a fun game against a superior opponent (and again, I wouldn't consider myself a superior opponent... he just thinks of me that way)?  I mean... how do you think you get better at games like this?  By beating up on inferior opponents?  I play against my nephew knowing full well that he just isn't going to win.  He doesn't have a wide enough knowledge set to really get many questions at all.  But it's a learning curve for him, and unless I let him play against me he won't get to play, learn, and improve.  

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IT SNOWED!!!! YAY!!!!

Yeah, it actually snowed earlier in the month but the snow is staying down and that just makes me so happy.  The world just looks better with that white base coat.  Especially when it's sunny out, like it is now.  

And yes... I'm happy because it makes the snow tires I got last year feel more worth it. 

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I walked by the television a few times the last few days and saw report after report of how President Barack Obama made a mistake by not attending the French freedom rally (or whatever they called the celebration after stopping/killing the terrorists).  

Umm... what?  

Sure, this was France's worst terrorist attack ever.  But I think that speaks to how lucky they were in the past more than what is says about now.  I wouldn't compare this against 9/11, but it feels an awful lot like the Boston Bombings.  A viscous attack followed by days of hunting them down and stopping/killing them in a spectacular and public way.  Did the world come and celebrate with us then?  Did Great Britton have a rally after the subway bomgings there?  Spain with their train bombings?  What exactly made this so special in France?  

I don't look down at most of the world leaders for attending.  Isreal's prime minister certainly should be there as Jews were attacked (possibly targeted) and it helps him build a relationship with the French leadership and people.  Most of the european leaders should be there as this was more or less in their back yard.  But our President?  I think that was a little below his pay grade.  If Secretary of State Kerry wasn't busy, then he certainly should have been there.  Maybe... MAYBE vice president Biden.  But I don't believe the President made a mistake by not attending himself.  

Je suis Charlie

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I guess that's all I have to say for now.  

Ta TA!