The UC Unforgettables?

The college basketball season is rolling along and I've been following the drama that is UC basketball all season; explaining my long posting absence.

How can so much crap befall one program for trying so hard? All the competition's fans will say "this is karma." First off, that's ignorant, but the problem is... that's the image the program allowed to propogate. Of course no one would openly admit that they liked the "thug" image, but the university and program never made strong efforts to dimiss it. Why? Because it did give the team a slight competitive edge. Teams had this vision that UC was mean and strong, which just added to the reality. The problem is that image also hurt the program, and not just in the way we all saw. It also put a bullseye on the team from its competitors, who played twice as hard. Well, all that is in the past and we can argue over it, but the fact remains... UC basketball is suffering right now.

BUT... its not for lack of effort. Effort on the part of the coaches and the players. I've never seen a UC basketball team put so much heart into its play compared to this team, and that speaks volumes because of the top 10 teams that playeed with heart in the last 20 years, UC probably has 7-8 of them.

For those of you who are not familiar with the quagmire the team finds itself in, let me update you.

1. We all know Huggins was forced out.
2. A committed player backed out for this year, and multitudes did for next year.
3. Abdul Herrera (freshman center 6'11") was ruled ineligible due to taking an approved Florida state high school class (I could go on a giant rant about this being bogus in light of Randolph Morris and Kansas players taking money, but I'll pass now).
4. DeAndre Coleman drops off team for lack of playing time (you are a freshman! Irony... he'd be starting right now if he had stayed)
5. Armien Kirkland (one of my favorate UC players, despite being one of the most frustrating) tears his ACL in the UConn game in which he scored 14 of UC's 18 at that point, leading UConn by 1.
6. Outrage of fans has dessimated attendence and home court advantage.

Sounds like all is lost doesn't it. Well, up to Armien's ACL injuy, UC was 13-2. Not too shabby for a team facing those odds. Did I mention that UC was already starting with a short bench before the season? Anyway... not all is lost because we finally ended the drought against Rutgers this Saturday to stay afloat at 14-5.

1. Devon Downey is incredible, he'll be an all-american in the future.
2. James White wants to play in the NBA and is proving it.
3. Eric Hicks belongs in the NBA and everyone knows it.
4. Two football players, Conner Barwin and Angelo Craig, have joined the team, giving them some much needed support with Barwin contributing significant playing time.
5. Die-hard fans making the place shake at only 60% capacity.

Which brings us to late January with UC 14-5 and 3-2 in the Big East. We all know we could be better than this had certain things fallen the other way, but you can't change that. With that being said, had none of those things happened to pose obstacles, this team may not have performed to their ultimate potential which I think many of them are getting close to. Now we travel to Louisville, who is vastly underacheiving this year, to play a serious make-or-break game. I know it sounds cliche, and "make-or-break" games are going to keep coming for the rest of the season, but it doesn't hurt to live in the present. I think UC has a good shot of pulling out the upset on the road if they just play to their potential, which is very possible with this team.

GO UC!

Fall: And Finally Some Inspiration

Apparently I've been too busy to post anything lately. This is untrue, but maybe.
Alright, the reason I'm finally posting is because I was inspired by the deluge of films I watched this weekend, relatively speaking. To top my film-watching marathon, I caught an all man classic on AMC: The Delta Force. This is, in my opinion, Chuck Norris' finest film.

If you have not seen this movie, you are either a chick or never lived in the 80's. Ironically, the movie would be more relevant in current times than it was back then. Its actually a very touchy subject based on modern events, but from the perspective of the 80's, its kind of comical. Truthfully, my favorate part of the entire film is the theme music. I'm still trying to figure out how to get it as my cell phone ring, because it would overshadow those lame rings every other person has.

Flag Football Revisted
The past couple of years we have played Co-Ed flag football, but I felt it was time to get back to Men's. I missed the old days of Bellarmine Flag Football where we killed one another at Joe Creason Park. Honestly, intramural basketball at Bellarmine was more brutal, but I digress. This year, we've assembled a mens flag football team. We're actually 2-2 going into the playoffs. Which means we could theoretically make it a few rounds in the ridiculously massive tournament. I just need to learn how to snap the ball correctly.

Halloween
Halloween was GREAT!
I have yet to scan the pictures from Halloween, but they are good, and I will amend the post as soon as I do. Friday night was Mike's Halloween Bash, and as usual, went above and beyond with the costumes. The guys were witty and the women couldn't look much hotter. Saturday night Michelle's Halloween Party was a success! The night was long, but to the Captain appeared very short. There were so many freinds there it was hard to meet with them all. Big Jay's birthday was a success since he passed out a couple of times and hit on every woman in the place. Marc's Belushi costume was superb and Wes was a perfect douchebag all night.

Armageddon is upon us!

As its been a while since I last posted something, I should preface by saying I have spent the last two months doing a lot of travelling and watching worlds collide.

Trip 1: N'Awlins Part 2
Most sequels aren't as good as the first one, and this one was good, but not the same calibur as the original. Besides, there isn't much that can top a bachelor party on Bourbon St. However, since NO one will be visiting Bourbon St. any time soon, I feel glad I took this trip (see below). I helped move a freind down there to Tulane, so I've never lifted and moved boxes and furniture that fast before. Besides, the faster I get that done, the sooner I hit the booze. Speaking of hitting booze, here's a picture of Alier defining the term "shit-faced."
The place wasn't as hopping as it was in April, but we still had a good time. In addition, the second time driving to and from New Orleans makes you hate Alabama and Mississippi that much more. I am seriously going to make some kind of plan for getting high-speed trains installed across the U.S. Hell, with gas prices raping everyone, who wouldn't be for this idea. I could probably run for the presidency on that platform alone, well.. that and social Darwinism (but that's another story).

Trip 2: The Corn Desert
If you've never been to Iowa, South Dakota, or Minnesota, you have no idea how AWESOME corn is! Ok, its not really that awesome, but apparently they think so. Its everywhere! I think people there even grow in their basements so they can smoke it. Its in the gasoline, which is nice since it cuts the cost down. How come the rest of the country isn't dispensing corn-gas? I'm sure there is some conspiracy to this, but I'll let some liberal whacko write a manifesto on that issue.
The reason for this trip was to visit Michelle's family. I kind of prefer driving 10-20 minutes to see my grandparents and relatives within the close confines of Louisville, but driving 200 hours isn't too bad either.
Makes you appreciate family a little more I suppose. On the way back, we stopped at the Mall of America, which is pretty huge, not as massive as I had expected, but it is still immense. Although we didn't spend much time there (I'm sure you could spend weeks there and not see all of it), I did swing by the LEGO store just to satisfy my inner-child. There were some impressive displays there as you can see. I'm not a huge Star Wars fanatic, but a life-size Boba-Fet and scale model of a star destroyer are jaw-droppers nonetheless.

End of the World - Part 1
Since there are about 1000 articles and I've gotten about 1 million emails from the forum on this issue, I won't beleaguer the point. Bob Huggins' firing from UC is a sad day for UC Basketball and all college men's basketball. Even if you hate UC and Huggins, you have to respect the fact he was competitive and put a team out there that hustled and played hard all the time. With the cry-babies in the NBA, having a hard-nosed college basketball team to root for made everyone in Cincinnati proud. I'm all for improving UC's image, but targeting an aggressive basketball coach and team wasn't the right path. If you really want to make UC a 24-hour campus and draw students, you may want to do something about the drug dealers, gun-toting teenagers, and dude-rapers (you heard me right, DUDE-RAPERS). Now, the area around campus has improved dramatically even since I've lived here, but it still needs work. Disenfrancising the community isn't going to help improve the neighborhood. Massive fan crowds coming to UC basketball games encouraged economic development around campus, and that investment leads to improved neighborhoods. Nancy Zimpher has an agenda for UC, but I'm skeptical whether it still is improving the campus or making it her personal Duke.

End of the World - Part 2
Hurricane Katrina was one huge bitch. Not only did it slap around southern Florida, it hammered Gulf Shores AGAIN! Thats like the 5th hurricane to hit Gulf Shores in some fashion in two years. That place is great, but this is ridiculous. Despite this, Katrina had to move to the upper echelon of bitchness and slam New Orleans. As I mentioned above, I'm glad I got to visit before this because there won't be many people partying on Bourbon St. for a while, a long while, unless they are in boats (which would not surprise me in N'Awlins). Despite the catasrophe, this could have been much worse, and I know the U.S. will get together and overcome this like we do everything else. I am a Bush supporter, but I'm glad he isn't able to serve another term because I don't think we need another huge disaster in four years. Just something to think about, especially since I know there are people out there blaming Bush for the hurricane and somehow he is in cahoots with the oil companies to raise the gas prices.

Redemption! - Part 1
Despite all the travelling and recent bad news, we had some good times this past weekend. The girls threw a "Stock-the-Bar" party which was great success. Headlined by Booker, who had a little Zuul in him. We began the day at Kings Island where we finished it with several go-arounds on White Water Canyon. You haven't had a true trip to Kings Island if you haven't had ridden White Water Canyon 10 times at the end of the day. Riding home drenched to the bone is a sure-fire indication of a satisfying day. Following that, we partied all night, with the exception of the keg running out, which was easily remedied by raiding the freshly stocked bar (some people will learn).

Redemption! - Part 2
Fantasy football season begins and if you've never played, you should.
Its an addictive past-time which makes the NFL season supremely exciting because you actually care about the Lions if you have a fantasy player from there. This year, I expanded the family league to 6 teams including Ty and Michelle. Ty's team VigoNtheCarpathians is a classic and the matchup between his and my team, Griffith's Revenge, will be a memorable (if not hilarious) game.

Hopefully, I will update my page a little more often than every two months, and since football season is beginning, I should have plenty to talk, and brag, about.

Love the Heat: July-Style

As we coast into the toasty month of July, UC celebrates entry into the Big East conference. I dragged myself out of bed before 9AM for the first time in weeks to limp my way down to campus. For just showing up, I got a new UC hat with the italicized C-paw. I was actually looking forward to the donuts and hecklers of the university president. The donuts were delicious, but the hecklers did not show. I suspect they will be out en mass this afternoon downtown. Just suck down your pride and re-sign Huggins. He's gonna die of a heart attack within 5 years anyway, why not ride him out.

The July 4th weekend should be fun since I'm taking off early to head back to Louisville, and I'm getting tired of my apartment. I should probably drink heavily in order to avoid getting bummed over not being able to move around, stupid twig.

Die Hard Drive 2: Crash Harder

I have spent the last few days dealing off and on with the hard drive failure on my PC. Thus explaining the lack of posting. Conveniently, I had purchased a new hard drive to convert into an external storage unit, but it came in handy when my Dell's hard drive began squeeking and sounded a lot like Aimee Mann. So I swapped them out and have been trying to salvage anything I can off the old one. The post was inspired by what I came across in my tranferring adventure.

As you can see, I found a nice little photoshop image I made back in college. Technically its not a "Photoshop" image because I did it on Paint way back when. This picture shows one of the early basketball teams for Natty Sci. I'm almost exaggerating our musculature by using He-Man figures, but not by much. Needless to say, I laughed for quite a while when I found this, so I thought I would share it with the rest of the world.

The Wrath of the Twig

Who ever thought being lazy and drinking beer would have been beneficial? Midway through our softball game on Friday, I volunteered to throw with someone between innings to loosen their arm. After a wild throw, I had to go run off into the woods to find the ball. Out of no-where this twig grabs hold of my foot and rocks my ankle. Solid. I could've just sat on the bench and drank beer and waited my turn to bat, instead I'm hobbling around, even today. Mother nature, you sick woman!

In other news, the Greek Festival was this weekend and I went twice, Saturday and Sunday. You can never get enough beer and wine. Unless its Sunday, then you can't get any wine, which is ultra-lame.

Finally, I've been schooling myself in the computer sciences lately since my PC's hard drive has come down with a case of the squeeks. I had to install a new one and I'm still puzzled on what to do with the old one. There's a lot of valuable documents (porn) on that drive. For you zero readers out there, I may or may not let you know what I'll be doing.

Fourth of July is this weekend, but I have yet to decide on whether to head back to Louisville to attend Blow Up St. Matthews.

Summer: The Height of Just Too Muchery

Today is the first day of summer. So it works out nicely that my first real blog begins today. Several factors instigated this creation. One, I finished writing my manucript for the Journal of Immunology. Two, I'm not out slamming the bars on weeknights like the past. And finally, I love summer and figured everyone wanted to read my useless ramblings.

Softball season is in full swing, and the drama begins as it does every season about this time. We aren't exactly a powerhouse in the medical center league, so we always have a lousy record at this point. Usually this is the result of multiple slaughters, but we've held our own so far. I brought in a ringer last week to battle the giants. Apparently this disgruntled a few of the players whom had to sacrifice "quality" playing time. The Reds manager Dave Miley got fired today, and I can totally empathize with him. I've got to load the roster because of the exedous of players during mid-season, but that cuts everyone's playing time early on, probably instigating the desertion. Catch-22. I feel myself slowly drifting toward the "dark side" of recreational softball where you sacrifice the enjoyment and socializing for winning. Maybe I should start wearing a black full-face helmet to the games.

Enough of the whining. I promise to keep that to an absolute minimum for here on out. Hitting the gym again for the first time in 8 months is reminding me my muscles hate me. I like the gym in the summer because you don't have to wait 2 hours for the guy who takes 10 minute naps on the equipment between sets. On a side note, I personally confirmed James White isn't in the NBA Draft anymore since he was on campus talking to Huggins. I won't go off on a rant about UC basketball right now, but I'll certainly bring it up later.

Rob Zombie comes to Cincy on August 1st. Maybe I can round up some nutjobs for that one. Everyone enjoy the scortching week, I'll just reminisce about cruising around in the bulletproof Blazer without A/C.
 

Bulletproof Blazer

The good ole Bulletproof Blazer in all its craptacular glory