Thursday, November 21, 2013

at #25 Minnesota

AXE WEEK IS UPON US.

THINGS THAT HAVE HAPPENED SINCE MINNESOTA LAST HELD THE AXE:
  • Do you remember that insane tsunami that hit Indonesia? That happened a month after Minnesota last touched that beautiful, glorious axe.
  • George W. Bush won an election. As in, after Minnesota gave up the axe, people went out and voted for George W. Bush enough to re-elect him President of the United States of America.
  • Oh my fucking god, DID YOU KNOW YouTube wasn't even invented yet? The last time Minnesota beat Wisconsin in football, you couldn't pop over to YouTube and watch awesome, hilarious videos. LIKE THIS ONE:
  • Twitter was launched, which means that on that dark day years ago when Minnesota bested Bucky, not a single Gopher could tweet a pic of themselves holding the axe. NO #AXESELFIES FOR YOU
  • Okay, so there was no YouTube or Twitter, and now I'm starting to wonder if we even had internet the last time we lost to them. Was the most recent Minnesota victory announced to the world via telegram?
Honestly, this started out as a pretty fun exercise going through the Wikipedia pages for every year, but it gets pretty dark pretty quickly. Every week there's a freaking car bombing or plane crash or natural disaster.

Instead let's consider that the last time we lost to Minnesota in football, Melvin Gordon was 12 years old. Miley Cyrus wasn't even Hannah Montana yet. THE WORLD WAS A DIFFERENT PLACE.


So there's more than just the axe on the line this week. Let's chop some Gopher goalposts.


PS - #NeverForget




I SPY 10,000 sad Gopher fans with their hands on their heads. You could canoe back to Madison down a river of Gopher tears after that blocked punt.





CHICAGO BADGERS: I don't know if you were at Will's last week, but there was a legit marriage proposal at halftime. I believe the guy found out his girl's raffle number, arranged to have it called, and included a little love note that she read into the microphone. We had a hunch something was up when the entire upper floor moved down towards the bar in unison.

Anyway, very cool. And no, to the people that asked me if they stole my idea, they did not.

LOOK OUT, THE #BLONDESTACHE HATES MINNESOTA TOO: 9 days of Movember left, which means you're running out of time to donate. You might be asking yourself, 'I dunno Brandon, what has your mustache done for me lately?' FAIR QUESTION:


IDK, when's the last time YOU blocked a punt with 30 seconds left to beat your arch-rival on their own field? Because it's been about 8 years since my 'stache has done it.


SUCK IT, MINNESOTA.

So here's my link again. Any amount helps kill cancer and stop obesity. Thanks.



WHO/WHERE/WHEN


TV: ESPN
WEATHER: 72, THANK GOD THEY STILL PLAY IN A DOME OH MY GOD WHAT DO YOU MEAN IT'S OUTDOORS AND IT'S GONNA BE 19 DEGREES THAT SOUNDS LIKE FUN FOR ABSOLUTELY NO ONE




THE ULTIMATE MADISON BUCKET LIST

2) Go to a football pregame party on Langdon, stop for a multi-story beer bong on Dayton, and sit in Section O for a night game at Camp Randall

It's a beautiful Madison Saturday in late October, and you've got a student ticket for the 7 PM game. THAT'S GOOD NEWS. Now, you have to make it count.


Your day has to start off at a giant rager on or near Langdon street. If you're lucky, you'll go to one of the parties right down on the lake. When you're there, it's just nonstop partying. Any trace of a hangover gets demolished after some rando passes you a bottle of shitty vodka to chug. There's a good chance you'll be here for hours, so don't kill yourself early and be the pathetic person who passes out with a ticket in their pocket. You've got more work to do.

I hope you saved room in your gullet, because EVERYONE needs to attempt one of these before they leave Madison:


Are you physically capable of downing 2+ beers in one giant avalanche of liquid? Doesn't matter. If there's one thing I've learned over the years, it's that when it comes to massive beer bongs, effort is king. As long as you give it your all, no one will hate on you. Bonus points if you accidentally spray yourself with beer in an effort to tap out. BATTLE SCARS.

By now, the sun has set and kickoff approaches. You get to Camp Randall and are faced with a choice of what section to sit in. Yeah, if you wanna be close to the field you could take L 20 and be good to go. But F that. Being close is overrated in football stadiums, and you're here for the party more than you're here to study the X's and O's of our new 3-4 defense. O 60 is exactly where you want to be.


O's got it all: best view from the student section while still maintaining a drunk-student-buffer on both sides (vital), a cheer unique to your section, and the best odds to win the Student Section Race in any big game.

I've written about this before, but I'll stand by it again: on night games or games against ranked opponents, O must win the Student Section Race 95% of the time. It's just science. It helps that even when the other Student Section Monsters scheme against O, she still finds a way to game herself to the front:



And once O wins, then the world explodes right in front of you.

You could make a good argument that this is the #1 Madison experience. I would have a hard time disagreeing with you. From the moment you wake up until the second you leave Camp Randall, everything is perfect. And all of this is a not-so-subtle reminder of one thing: there isn't another school out there as special as UW. Nothing even comes close.

 PS - Goosebumps 11 times out of 10:



Previously:

3) The Ultimate Bar Special Week
4) Road trip with your friends to an away football game
5) Live on Langdon Street
6) Go to a Mallards game in the Duck Blind
7) Go drunk skinny dipping in Lake Mendota
8) Go to Ian's Pizza on Frances St. at bar time and devour two slices of Mac and Cheese pizza
9) Hook up in the Memorial Library cages
10) Steal a Terrace chair from the Memorial Union


Honorable Mentions: Shoutout posted in the Badger Herald, Wait in line overnight for tickets, Pontoon Porch



MATCHUP TO WATCH

Ability to concentrate and get stuff done vs. Impending Thanksgiving vacation

Next week is a real tricky one. What do most people do? Take the whole week? Take just Friday off? I'm going with the old two-day workweek approach. That presents a few problems, namely that you only have two days to get a week's worth of work done... and all you want to do during those two days is fast forward and be on vacation. Kinda like having a test the day before winter break in high school. You know you should just buckle down and get your shit done, but all you're thinking is how much you want to drink and eat and sleep and do anything but work. #FirstWorldProblem, I guess.



RANDOM MUSIC WE'RE DIGGING HARD THIS WEEK


Frequently compared to Jimi Hendrix, Gary Clark Jr. pulls it back on this one and goes classic Motown. His 2012 debut album Blak and Blue is a mix of polished rock and blues and is not to be missed. (@abellwillring)



I played this song one time and someone asked me if it was Maddona. "Yeah it is." (JQW)



On one hand, Gucci Mane is an awful rapper. On the other, he gets awesome features, even better beats, and has an ice cream cone with lightning bolts shooting out of it tattooed on his face*(@DannyGoldin)


*




THIS WEEK'S GAME IN HAIKU

First we take their lives

And then we take their freedom

And then their goalposts


CHOP CHOP CHOP CHOP CHOP

Only one thing left to say:

Fuck Minnesota



YOUTUBE



At this point I'm more convinced that David Blaine is a stuntman and not an actual magician. Supposedly he spent 13 years working on this - taking X-rays and MRIs of his hand, learning how and where to poke through without damaging any nerves. I just like this video because of the celebrities he ends up performing in front of.




Hard to watch an actual David Blaine video and then not watch this. I like to think Blaine watches this video and just keeps that goofy look on his face the entire time.




The Chris Farley/Rob Ford mashup video sweeping the world is pretty good, but they NEEDED to use that scene in Black Sheep where Farley smashes his head into the tree branch trying to get reception on his phone. That would be PERFECT to pair up with Ford getting faced by the camera. My only disappointment.




Judge Judy's a hard lady adding insult to injury like that. That shit'll come back to haunt you. I'm pretty surprised no one has sought REVENGE by now.



#FOODPORN


F you, Jon Stewart. F you right in your smug, New York face. You wanna rip on Chicago pizza? Fine. But don't act like that boring, floppy shit you're chewing is actually better. That's insane. It looks like you grabbed a piece of soggy cardboard that would physically dissemble itself if you didn't fold it:


SO SMUG. Hey, Jon, guess what the worst thing in the world is? You ready? It's carrying shit. You know what's a close second on that list, though? FOLDING SHIT. You find me one person who enjoys folding stuff and I'll tell them to move to New York and be a smug motherfucking pizza-folding fool for the rest of their sad, miserable life.



#SKYPORN


I did not take this picture. I just know that it looks awesome and I wish I could have witnessed this sunset myself.

(via)



WTF IS GOING ON WITH WEATHER.COM?

I've been a loyal Weather.com user for YEARS. I know, there are probably more accurate services out there (I don't trust any .gov websites), but the hourly forecast on Weather.com has served me well over the last decade.

And yet, I'm just now realizing how bizarre the little recommended videos on their website are:


On what basis are they recommending that I check out a video about the GATES OF HELL? Why is that video even ON a weather website? Apparently the Weather.com people think I'm the kinda guy that voluntarily clicks on a video named 'Horrible Nightmare Parasite'. Literally the last thing I'm ever clicking on.


Ah yes, more weather-related videos that I definitely have zero desire to ever watch. Alien fish and mega-snakes, right, so Weather.com is locked in a promotional deal with the people behind Sharknado. That's about all the sense I can make out of this.


Oh yeah baby, #MOUSEPORN. Excuse me, interracial #mouseporn. Chance of rain in Chicago? Better stay inside with some hot chocolate and non-consensual mouse sex videos.

I love you, Weather.com. But you're fucking weird.

PS - What do you think the mice's dirty little secret is? That's the only video I kinda regret not watching. But I didn't wanna get fired at work for accidentally stumbling on some meteorological bestiality.



THE BEST PROFILE PICTURE CROPPING EVER


With a quick first glance, it looks like they may just be man-hand soul mates. MHBFF4L! But then you realize the pattern doesn't match and there's a stray ear hanging out above them and clearly one of them loved everything about this picture... except for the bro standing in between them.

And that bro - man that's a deflating feeling. Everyone understands if you crop someone off the edge of a picture. That's totally fine. But to crop out the middle person of a three-way pic? Brutal.



OUR BASKETBALL TEAM IS LAVA HOT RIGHT NOW

If you're not aware, the hoops team is straight killing it so far this season. I'm not sure what's more impressive: beating St. John's and Florida in back-to-back games, or cracking the century mark for the first time in the Bo Ryan era. I know with football still going on, people say shit like, 'I'm just not ready to focus on basketball yet'. Whatever. You don't need to focus to realize that this team is a lot of fun to watch and that we're beating anyone thrown in our way right now.

Oh yeah, Frank Kaminsky dropped a school record 43 points on Tuesday. I love this:


TASTE IT, WILT



PREDICTION CITY

I'm not prepared to be a functioning adult in a world where Minnesota beats Wisconsin in football. Nuh uh. No way. We'll run all over them like we run all over everyone. Stave will connect with Abby for a long touchdown. The fans will be miserable and cold and even selling beer in the stadium won't fix that. It does not matter how many times they spell out 'Minnesota' - they're not going to beat UW. THE PICK:

WISCONSIN 49, MINNESOTA 13


ON WISCONSIN

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