Thursday, December 27, 2012

Rose Bowl vs. #6 Stanford



PRESENTED BY VIZIO, DO NOT FORGET THIS.

Feels good to have an actual football game to talk about, doesn't it? After weeks of emotional roller coasters, baseless speculation, and unease over the future of the UW football program, things have settled down. We have a head coach. He's building an impressive staff while retaining some key guys. And now, we're less than a week from Barry Alvarez leading the team out one last time to take on Stanford in Pasadena.

I don't care that we've lost 5 games and people are hating on us. I really don't. It's not our fault that OSU cheated and then was too stupid to give themselves a bowl ban in a down year. It's definitely not our fault that Penn State did all the terrible, terrible things that they did for years. We can't control that. All we can do is play the games on the schedule, and that's exactly what we're going to do.

So how important is it to win this game? I know it's the Rose Bowl and for some, that's inherently a big deal. But given the whirlwind of crap that has engulfed the program over the last month, couldn't we all use a nice, high-note ending to a tumultuous year? Don't we want Barry to re-retire with a FOUR and OH YEAH record in Rose Bowls? Shouldn't we enter 2013 with some serious momentum as we return an abundance of talent and break in a new coach? I SAY YES YES YES.


CHICAGO BADGERS: Mention the Badger Preview at the door at Will's and receive an extra raffle ticket! Actually, I'm just kidding, that's not real, they're not gonna do that. But you can imagine what it'd be like if they did, right? Let's be honest, we're only going to Will's until I win the damn raffle. Once I win (and you know I'm gonna win the worst item possible, like Bucky toe shoes or something horrifying), you're free to go to other bars. But until that day, we will go to Will's. I will try to take over the jukebox. And we will have a good time. This paragraph is chock full of guarantees.


LET'S go!



WHO/WHERE/WHEN



TV: ESPN
WEATHER: 60'S AND SUNNY, BY LAW I THOUGHT IT HAD TO BE AT MINIMUM 94 DEGREES WHEN YOU TRAVEL TO CALIFORNIA IN JANUARY, SO THAT'S OBVIOUSLY WRONG






YEAH, I STILL HAVE NO IDEA WHY THEIR MASCOT IS A TREE


Sometimes I wonder if people felt stupid entering things on Wikipedia. Did it really need to be clarified that the Stanford Tree is a tree? I suppose it's possible that the Stanford Tree was a taxi cab air freshener, or a Chia Pet experiment gone HORRIBLY awry. But I'm thinking they could have left that part out.

However, I'm more than willing to give the Tree some love:

In February 2006, then-Tree Erin Lashnits was suspended until the end of her term as the Tree after her blood-alcohol level was found to be 0.157 (almost twice the legal driving limit in California) during a men's basketball game between Stanford and Cal. UC Berkeley police observed her drinking from a flask during the game and cited her for public drunkenness after she failed a breathalyzer test.[17]

It's ridiculous that she got in trouble for this. First, everyone knows that mascots are drunk. How else do you explain the strange behavior, constant swaying and erratic movement, and the ability to tolerate being 9,000 degrees inside one of those costumes? Second, blowing anything less than a .2 doesn't count. That's Drinking 101. Why are they even comparing her BAC to the legal driving limit? She's a fucking tree. Have you ever seen a tree hop in its Honda Civic and go for a cruise? Unless you're driving a car, the .08 level should never come into play.


NOTABLE ALUMNI

Sergey Brin and Larry Page, Google Daddies.

Might as well get the obvious ones out of the way. It's kinda sucky knowing that no matter what you accomplish in life, you're never gonna have a better answer than, 'Well, I invented Google'. They coulda stopped at the world's greatest search engine and still been genius quadrillionaires. But no, they gotta keep rubbing it in how smart they are and try to take over the world.

If you're friends with either of them, you're never using Google, Gmail or Gchat, right? Doesn't matter what they say, you know they're reading your shit whenever they want to. That's the kinda power you can't buy. That's power spawned from fear. Personally, I think they're the two most terrifying and powerful people in the history of the world. Look, I won't make excuses for the things I was googling in high school. The teenage male mind is a monster.


Thomas Dibblee, Geologist.

The way these things work is that there are famous alumni grouped by profession. And usually they pick one of the more important alums in that section and put a picture of them off to the side. For example, in the computer science section Wikipedia went with a pic of the guy who invented the internet. That's a no-brainer. That's the smartest man who's ever lived. So who did they pick from the sprawling 'other sciences' category? THOMAS DIBBLEE:


Pick your poison. CONSPIRACY THEORY: Cal students rigged the Wikipedia page to include that picture. That's the only way I can justify a) picking one of the least successful alums from that section, and b) picking the single worst picture anyone ever took of him in his entire life. Stanford and Cal have the most adorable little nerd-rivalry around. It's so cute.

PS - 

Dibblee was known for "roughing it" during his field mapping trips, for which he dropped out of sight for a week or two at a time. When he submitted one expense account totaling $14.92 for one such mapping project, his Richfield Oil supervisor objected that he couldn't have even fed himself for that amount, to which Dibblee replied: "Oh, I find lots of things I like to eat up in the hills."[4]

We can safely conclude he was probably a serial killer, right?

PPS -


If anyone requested a higher resolution version of this image they should be immediately stabbed in both eyes with jumbo chalk.


TRIPLE PS UPDATE: Very mad at myself for missing an OBVIOUS lookalike:


(via)



Joe Takagi, President of Nakatomi Trading.

Where did they get all the information on his life? Did I miss like half of the movie somehow? Regardless, once you factor in Die Hard's immense success, Takagi is one of the biggest Stanford alums ever conceived.


Paul Flaherty, inventor of AltaVista.

You think anyone hates Google more than Paul Flaherty? All he did was invent the modern search engine and then watch a couple fellow Stanford men one-up the SHIT out of him. That must have been a hard pill to swallow. When AltaVista was the king of the search world, Flaherty probably thought he was gonna go down as a legendary Stanford alum. I bet he was already imagining the computer science building being named after him, Paul Flaherty statues being erected all over campus, ROCK STAR STATUS whenever he stepped foot in Palo Alto. Instead, he'll be barely remembered as the inventor of the MySpace of the search engine world. Sucks to suck.


Les Earnest, Created the first spellcheck and the first cursive writing recognizer.

O RLY?



FACT: The red squiggly line wouldn't exist if Les never invented the spellcheck.
FACT: Cursive is for old people and cursive capital 'S' is the same thing as an ampersand, which is the exact same thing as a treble clef:


I have no idea which is which. I drew the fist one and then thought, 'OK, now I'll draw one of the other ones' and I drew the EXACT same thing. This is like Inception.



MATCHUP TO WATCH

Wisconsin Offense vs. Stanford Offense

Let me stop you before you call me an idiot: I'm well aware that these two units will not face off against each other, PER SE. What I mean is that if there are two proven commodities in this game, it's the respective defensive units. Both are very strong, both have shut down big offenses, and both are at relatively full strength. The question that will decide this game is who's going to be able to score? HOLY SHIT IS THAT A TERRIBLE, OBVIOUS, CLICHE THING TO SAY. I know. But that's really what the game will boil down to.

Does Canada have any tricks left after the B1G Championship Game? Can Melvin Gordon get at least 10 touches so we can watch ADJr gallop free (YUP, I went there)? Will Stave, who was medically cleared today, get in the game and give us the ability to throw the ball more than 10 yards? Does Abby avenge last year's fumble and come up big for us like he has been all year? Are we going to see Mike Markuson week 2 offensive line mediocrity? Or early December Bart Miller dominance?

I don't gamble on sports, because I fucking suck at it and lose just about all of my sports wagers. But if I were a betting man, I'd go with UW's offense over Stanford's offense. 



RANDOM MUSIC I'M DIGGING HARD THIS WEEK

The Impossibles - (Never) Say Goodbye


It bothers me so much that they had to break up because no one really cared about them. THEY'RE GOOD I PROMISE.

(Yes, that's a link to an entire concert. NSG is the first song. Then go and listen to the rest of the show.)


Foxy Shazam - Last Chance At Love


If not just to give me an excuse to brag about how excited I am to see them this Sunday. I've also decided to take off Monday AND Wednesday from work. That means I can rage for the concert and not have to deal with work on NYE. And I can enjoy the Rose Bowl and (hopefully) celebrate all night without having to wear the sad eyes to work on Wednesday. THIS MAKES SO MUCH SENSE, EVERYONE SHOULD DO IT. Otherwise I can already tell I'm gonna be the annoying drunk guy wanting to do shots at 11 pm next Tuesday when people are starting to get their, "I'm so sad I have to go to work tomorrow morning" faces on. HATE YOUR FACE


The Chicago Bulls Introduction


I know it's 'Sirius' by the Alan Parsons Project, but it will ALWAYS be the Bulls Intro Song in my heart. Goosebumps all over the place when this jam comes on.


John Tesh - The NBA on NBC Theme Song


I got caught up in some deep YouTubing, whatever. Oh yeah, additional instant goosebumps. You win, Teshmonster.

PS - VIOLIN vs. GUITAR SHRED-OFF


It's one of those songs that I never really wanted to end, and it never really seemed like it was going to end. The fact that he came up with it and recorded it on his own answering machine is SO 90's that I can't even process it.

PPS - That's gotta be the second best thing ever recorded on an answering machine. We ALL know what numero uno is:




THIS WEEK'S GAME IN HAIKU

Barry doesn't lose

Well, not in Pasadena

THE STREAK MUST LIVE ON



YOUTUBE


Usually around this time of the year you see videos of kids reacting to getting awesome presents like badass LEGO sets and Nerf Scud missiles. But this is just as good. Also, someone should buy me a badass LEGO set and/or some Nerf Scud missiles.



I hope everyone in Madison heeded this advice before the snow storm hit last week.

PS - I completely missed when we started naming snowstorms, but I definitely think this is a good move. Nothing incites fear quite like a storm with a name. That makes shit personal.



Surveillance footage from a Christmas day tornado in Alabama. Might have to move tornadoes to number one on my list of terrifying disasters, because this looks like the worst thing ever. Although I will say, this video is worth it alone for the guy at :47 who was about to wheel his cart out into a tornado before deciding to back it on up and hang out inside for a few minutes. I bet he felt good about that decision when he work up the next day and wasn't dead and mangled 34 feet up in a tree somewhere in Greenbow, ALABAMA.



FOOD PORN


New York Strip steak from Wildfire. NOTICE THE CROSS SECTION. I think my favorite part about taking this pic was that I got to eat that giant cross section as one big hunk of meat. Once I cut off a piece of meat, I don't believe it cutting that down again. If you cut off a little more than you can chew, YOU MAKE ROOM.

I am an eloquent steak eater.



SKY PORN


AIRPLANE SKYPORN! I now prefer window seats on planes for this specific reason. I love the leg room of being on the aisle, but I rarely go to the bathroom on flights (stage fright times 35,000 feet). So I'll take the window seat when I can and hope to catch a badass sunset or get a sweet view of whatever city I'm flying in to. I suppose at this point I should note that I didn't take this pic. But still, my point stands.

(via)



I GOT A LOT OF PROBLEMS WITH YOU PEOPLE

I swear, some people just DO NOT understand how to behave in society.


OK, so everyone's first thought is that these are the belongings of a homeless person, right? A few holes in that theory:
  • There was no one around to claim it as their pile. Every homeless person knows you don't leave your bags of crap up for grabs for other bums to pillage. If there were a test you had to pass to be a bum, this would be the only question. NEVER LEAVE YOUR STASH UNATTENDED.
  • Let's talk logistics. IF these were the tattered belongings of a homeless individual... how did they get it all on the train at once? It's not like they had time to do multiple trips. They would have had to pass through the turnstile with all of this crap and swindle half a train to store it all. Doesn't make sense.

THEORY: A horde of homeless have banded together like the Wildlings in Game of Thrones. They left their belongings on the train as bait to try and lure unsuspecting homeless into their trap. Once caught, they will be faced with a choice: Join them, or die. Or give them the rest of the change in their change cup.

If we're being honest here, I'm so over homeless people after I saw that woman dumping on the sidewalk that it's not even funny anymore. You have gone too far, bums. I draw the line at sidewalk pooping. There are cars with University of Michigan stickers on them for you to poop on, in and/or around.



You know what family I love? The family of 4 that brings 14 rolling suitcase onto a packed train at 8 am on a Tuesday. That's the family I LOVE. I want to BE that family. Bonding so hard, ensuring 17 people can't get on the train because they have made a fortress of luggage. You can't buy that kind of cohesive family spirit.




LOOK AT THIS FUCKING HIPSTER (#LATFH)


THIS is how you hipster. He's got like 14 layers on, including some type of jacket that I can't identify but looks like something you would pay way too much money for on eBay. He's got the hanky coming out of the pocket. MOST IMPORTANTLY, he's got excellent Hipster Hair. Quadrants 1 and 3 are nice and tight, while Quadrant 4 is FLOWING like the emotions on the latest Grizzly Bear album. This isn't Hipster McHankerchief's first rodeo, and he wants you to know that even before he tells you about the skinny tie he's unironically wearing with a short sleeve button down at the New Year's party he's going to with a midnight PBR toast. Fuck you, conformists. 

PS - Gotta like how I've never gotten that iPhone purple haze shit until this hipster pic. Apple knows a hipster when they see one.

PPS - Quadrant 1 - right side from the hipster's perspective. Quadrant 2 - back. Quadrant 3 - left side. Quadrant 4 - up top.



PREDICTION CITY

Oh man am I feeling some Barry-infused optimism. Forget the drama, the close losses, the injuries, and everything else that went wrong this season. We're playing in Pasadena on New Year's Day after hanging a 70 point nut-piece on Nebraska. We're healthy. The legend himself is leading the team. And we don't have to fuck around with a terrifying Oregon team. True, Stanford is a very good football squad. I firmly believe that. But I like what we're cooking. I'm buying what we're selling. I AM ALL OUT OF CLICHES. No trip to the Rose Bowl for me means two things:
  • Wisconsin is going to win
  • I'm going to win the raffle at Will's
These are two facts that CANNOT be proven wrong. Bet against either one of them at your own risk. THE PICK:

WISCONSIN 28, STANFORD 24




ON WISCONSIN

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