Notre Dame - The Corwin Brown Factor

This is a very conflicted time of year!!

Summer is finally here but we have had any college football for over five months! We don't want to rush summer, but we can see our favorite teams teeing it up in the distant horizon!

Nothing but gloom and doom is forecast for the supposedly hapless Irish, but the critics are underestimating the "Corwin Brown Effect"!

It's beautiful morning here in Klingerville, and I am listening to the local sports talk show on the way back from purchasing my artery clogging cappuccino, when I hear that Corwin Brown's Jets secondary went 13 straight quarters without giving up a Pass Interference penalty!

Little facts like these seem come to my attention every day.....added to the fact that Coach Brown has done wonders as a recruiter, bagging blue chip verbal commitments from talent such as Omar Hunter, Robert Blanton, Jamoris Slaughter, and Ethan Johnson.

According to sources in the Irish blogosphere "Corwin Brown, almost single-handedly, is becoming one of the best recruiters in college football and is close to signing a class that will give the Irish national-championship caliber talent on defense for the first time in at least 10 years."

We must also remember that the Irish defensive secondary returns Tom Zibikowski, Ambrose Wooden, Terrel Lambert, and Darrin Walls ... not mention adding the speed of Munir Prince!

If Corwin Brown and his 3-4 Defense overachieves, that would give ND's offense some wiggle room to work out it's wrinkles and find it's new identity.

The real beauty of it all is that everyone has pretty much written off the Irish for 2007.

I think Corwin Brown thinks otherwise........

Howard Dean Meets The Obama Girl!

Only in the blogosphere will you find Howard Dean and the Obama Girl in the same Headline!

Leah Kaufman, who wrote "Obama Girl", has unwittingly unleashed a political tsunami in cyberspace. Once again, a political candidate has gotten a major bounce from an internet happening. It went from You Tube to the blogosphere and to the Television Networks faster than it takes to reboot the typical PC!

Barack Obama (D-Illinois) never seemed a serious presidential candidate until last September when Oprah gave him a ringing endorsement on Larry King. From that point it seemed like Obama has been really getting the buzz. If fact, he is giving Hillary Clinton a run for the money to be runner up in the Iowa Primary behind John Edwards.

We all remember how Howard Dean got all that buzz in cyberspace before the last election but ran out of steam with "The Scream" in Iowa. The question for the upcoming presidential election is......

Will the Internet/Blogosphere ever have the Power to be a major influence on who becomes the next President?

It's not hard to imagine legions of Democrats or Republicans showing up at the opposition rallies waiting for a "Mucaca Moment" that they can film on their cell phone cameras and have on You Tube within the same hour!

My somewhat ignorant conclusion is that the Presidential Race could be won by the most internet savvy campaign! Whether that's good or bad is for the future to tell!

As for the "Obama Girl", a big pat on the back for showing us the impact of cyberspace.

I hope we never see an "Osama Girl"!!

Notre Dame Football - ESPN Take!

I was just listening to ESPN Radio Gameday with John Stashower and Mel Kiper while I was returning from doing my Jared Fogle imitation at the local Subway shop.



They had a guest on in regards to Notre Dame Football, but I didn't catch his name....they were of the opinion that Evan Sharpley would most likely get the starting nod with Jimmy Clausen coming in later in the season. They also mentioned that Coach Weis would run a very conservative, boring offense relying solely on the running game.

As I mentioned in former posts, I do believe the emphasis will be on the running game, but I differ with them in terms of the QB and the Offense. If Weis wants to start out with the focus on running, I would think he would go with Demetrius Jones, since he has got the wheels to be a running threat on his own. I also think the offense could be exciting if Notre Dame really does get a good running game going, since it would take the pressure off an inexperienced QB when he does put the ball in the air!!

They also failed to mention anything about Corwin Brown improving the Defense, which I think will be a big factor in the tough part of the Irish schedule at the beginning of the season.

One thing on ESPN Gameday that there can be no doubt about.......

The Irish will be facing one mean, aggressive defense when they open with Georgia Tech!

Notre Dame - Big Surprise or Rebuilding Year?

Nobody knows what to expect from the Irish this year!

Inexperienced QB? Questionable offensive line? Same old Lame Defense?


I'm going to go (way) out on a limb and say "Big Surprise"!

As far as the defense is concerned, I think Corwyn Brown is quietly making big strides. He changed the defensive scheme and has Zibkowski, Wooden, and Terrel Lambert returning. Munir Prince will also lend considerable speed to the defensive equation. There's even a rumor that a real pass rush might be imminent!

The big issue, of course, is the offense. Sources in the blogosphere seem to be suggesting that Coach Weis is dialed in on the running game. Big Time! Which brings us to what I consider to be Notre Dame's strong spot - Running Backs. They have punishing power backs in James Aldridge, Junior Jabbie, and Asaph Schwapp and, oh..yeah.....
Robert Hughes coming in as a Freshman. Added to that, we have the ever dependable Travis Thomas and speedburner Armando Allen!!

If Weis can harness all that running talent, it will take a lot of pressure off Clausen, Sharpley, or Demetrious Jones. If it turns out the speedy Jones takes the snap, it will add another running dimension for opposing defenses to worry about.

The kicking game is what scares me the most. I haven't read anything positive about that yet. Ryan Burkhardt has a good leg, but he couldn't even beat out last year's kicker in a head to head competition!

I was lucky enough to get tickets to the home opener against Georgia Tech. The first thing I will be looking for is crisp execution. We had it big time the first year of Weis's tenure. Second year.....Not so much! There was a lot of distraction leading up to last year, however, with things like boxing matches and minor league baseball going on in the pre-season. Zibkowski even showed up a mohawk!

I think the focus will be back this year.

We will know when we see the first drive!

Rescue Me Is Back!!

Finally!!!

Something to watch this summer besides Baseball!!

Rescue Me returns tonight on FX! One of my favorite shows of all time.....Right up there with Hill Street Blues, MASH, Homicide, Miami Vice and the ultimate 60's thriller, "The Fugitive"!


Things I have in common with Tommy Gavin (Lead Character)
1. I like Jameson's Whiskey
2. I like wearing stupid Irish Shirts
3. I played Hockey (Rugby later in Life)
4. I worked in a Uniform once (Navy instead of Fire Department)
5. I have Commitment Issues
6. I like to use Bad Words

Things I don't have in common with Tommy Gavin
1. Getting in Fights on a Daily Basis
2. Having a Hot Blonde Wife
3. Having an Exciting Job
4. Having Affairs with Hot Widows
5. Giving up Alcohol
6. Constant Hallucinations
7. I live in Toledo and not New York

Veteran's Healthcare - A Great Way to Say Thanks!

A great way to say 'Thank you for your service" would be to make sure the Presidential nominee you vote for supports mandatory funding for Veteran's health care!


I plan on making it a personal quest to find out where nominees for both parties stand! We have lots of younger Veterans coming out of the military who will need to know that their benefits will always be there!

Its real simple.

If they don't support mandatory funding for Veterans, they don't get your vote!

Thanks in advance for your help!!!

USS Enterprise - Praying Mantis Sequel?

It is rumored my old home, the USS Enterprise (CVN-65), is back out to sea and heading for duty off the shores of Iran!

They will become the 3rd Carrier Group in that area of operations! I had the good fortune to be on board when "The Big E" pilots (And our battle group) tangled with Iranian frigates and gunboats during Operation Praying Mantis in April, 1988.

Now that the "Hormuz Highway Patrol" will be coming around the bend, I hope memories of their first encounter with the Big E will bring about productive "Big Stick" diplomacy!!

Notre Dame - Will the Green Jerseys Work This Time?

A couple of days ago, Coach Weis announced that Irish will be wearing 1977 style green jerseys and gold pants to honor the 1977 National Championship Team! This will happen on October 20th, when the Irish take on the heathens from USC!

The following is an excerpt from a Chicago Sports.com Article regarding our "Green Jersey" history.....

"The green jerseys have been met with mixed results. The Irish wore green in victories over USC in 1983 and 1985 -- although in 1985 they wore blue in the first half then switched to green for the second half.

Lou Holtz had the Irish wear green twice: in a 39-28 win over Florida in the 1992 Sugar Bowl and a 41-24 loss to Colorado in the 1995 Fiesta Bowl. The Irish also wore green in a 35-28 loss to Georgia Tech in the 1999 Gator Bowl and in a 14-7 loss to Boston College in 2002 after the Irish started the season 8-0.

The Irish wore green against USC in 2005, when Matt Leinart led the top-ranked Trojans to a 34-31 victory with a touchdown in the closing seconds. The Irish also wore green in a 41-9 victory over Army this past November.

John Heisler, Notre Dame's senior associate athletic director, said this was the first time in recent memory where the Irish announced in advance they would wear green for a game."

In spite of the mixed results, I still love the Green Jersey ploy! I'll take every psychological advantage we can get against the hated Trojans! If someone could figure out how paint the fabled Trojan Horse green, I would really be impressed!

Soprano's Not So Finale!

The Soprano's bid us fond adieu last night!

I didn't actually see the final episode since I have been renting the DVD's and am still a season behind, but I have been hearing a lot about how the "Final" episode wasn't really that final!!

The morning talk shows were full of critics complaining about an ending that resembled a power outage more than an exciting conclusion!

Sounds to me like we will be seeing Tony and Carm on the big screen soon!

Walking - Simple and Effective!

It seems as though we concentrate on weight loss so much that we lose the big picture of making ourselves more healthy. Walking is one of the simplest and healthiest things we can do....although the weight loss merits are heavily debated.

Here is an interesting paragraph from a Wendy Baumgartner article of About.com!

"A moderate level of physical activity, such as walking 30 minutes a day, lengthened life by 1.3 years and added 1.1 more years without cardiovascular disease, compared with those with low activity levels. Those who chose a high physical activity level gained 3.7 years of life and added 3.3 more years without cardiovascular disease."

I can personally testify that walking works like magic regarding my blood pressure, cholesterol, etc........and it also seems to help me maintain a weight loss!

Ocean's 13 - Movie Review!!

Danny Ocean is back!

Ever since Frank Sinatra played the original in the 1960 version of Ocean's 11, I have been a fan of Danny and the gang! In both the early and the later version of the movie, Danny had the honor of being surrounded with some serious talent. The first generation of Con Men featured the whole Rat Pack while the newer group has George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Don Cheadle, Elliot Gould, and Bernie Mac! Al Pacino made an awesome villian with Ellen Barkin (Whom I loved in "Diner") as his sultry sidekick!

It's best to see this movie fully alert as things move really fast and it can be hard to pick up a lot of the details. I will have to view this flick several times in order to digest all of the intricacies of the plot, but thats the fun part for me. My advice is to not get overly worried about the details in the first viewing and just enjoy the watching the story as it unfolds!

I especially enjoyed the panoramic shots of Las Vegas and also the high tech gadgetry used throughout the Flick!!

Ocean's 13 also received a unanimous "Thumbs Up" from the panel of critics I brought with me!!

Riot At The Local Speedway!

Gorgeous day here in Toledoville!

I decided to start my day with a super caffeinated liquid fat bomb (Coffee) from my local Speedway! On the way in I noticed a damsel (Yes, she was an aesthetically pleasing female) in distress as she apparently ran out of gas and was trying to push a big urban assault vehicle (SUV) to the pump. All of the hours on the elliptical paid off as we whipped it right up to the pump! As I was waiting in line to get the coffee and cash in my rewards points on a gift card, I noticed one of the two girls working there was having problems with her computer/register and was besieged by impatient customers. When I finally got to the front of the line at the working register, the gal that was waiting on me freaked out because her terminal froze in the middle of my transaction.

This meant that there were no working cash registers!!!!!

She had to break out one of those old credit card slide things and run my card through it....compounding the situation was the fact that she was so young she never saw a Credit Card Slider thingy and was clueless how to operate one!! It took not only my expertise , but also 2 former retail persons from the 80's to show her how to complete the transaction!

By this time, the crowd behind me had grown exponentially and was getting uglier by the minute.....I did the manly thing and got the hell out of there!

After refilling my coffee, of course!!

Office Phone Mania!!

Who was the jerk that started the "Make sure you tell someone you love them, because it might be the last time you see them" rule???

Whoever started this couldn't have known what a trend they started! If you work in a typical office cubicle where you can hear everyone else's phone conversations, most of you guys out there knows what I'm talking about! The female of our species now has to say "I love you" at least 500 times during the typical phone conversation with their family members! Here are two examples of what you might hear"

"If I ever see that girl naked in my house again...I'll have your Head!! .... I love you....

"You forgot to make the Mortgage Payment last Month"......I love you....

To keep your membership to the Loving Mothers Union, you have to say "I Love You" at 5 times at the end of every conversation. The worst part is that it is contagious. Once one female type starts saying that....the rest have to do the same or turn in their Mom cards.

Last time I checked, my brothers and I grew up and turned out just fine without my mother having to say that every five minutes!! In fact, I think the greatest gift she gave us was not professing her love for us every 5 minutes. Working her ass off to help feed us worked just fine!!

A Great Way to Eliminate Polizaration Between Liberals and Conservatives!

Over the holidays I discovered how to bring two different political ideologies together! The answer is simple......Gambling! Fantasy Leagues, Pick 'em Pools, Scratch Offs at the Bar, Casino's, Las Vegas, Poker (Mariah), NCAA Hoops Brackets, etc.

Last Night, as we gathered at the local drinkery to usher in the New Year.... Conservatives, Liberals, and Moderates alike put our money together and spent the night betting on scratch off games and making plans in regards to losing our money in Vegas. It made for a fun evening devoid of political squabbling, which had a very cathartic effect considering we were able to work as a team with the goal of stimulating the economy with our gaming losses!!

My humble opinion is that we are all a lot more moderate then we would like to admit.
All we have to do is have the Senate and Congress start a Fantasy League and distribute some Scratch Off cards. Having John McCain, Rudy Giuliani, Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton hitting the slots would most certainly ensure more efficient leadership!!

Saddam Swings From The Gallows! Remember the USS Stark!

Stark listing following 2 hits by Iraqi Exocet missiles

Finally, justice is done for the Sailors of the Stark!

I may be a paranoid, conspiracy theorist but I always thought Saddam took a cheap shot at our fleet in the Gulf back when he was supposed to be our ally!! I was not in the Gulf when this went down, I believe we (USS Enterprise) were working up for our 88 Gulf tour at the time...........

Here is a description of the incident from Wikipedia!

"Stark was deployed to the Middle East Force in 1984 and 1987. The ship was struck on May 17, 1987, by two Exocet antiship missiles fired from an Iraqi Mirage F1 fighter during the Iran-Iraq War. The fighter had taken off from Shaibah at 20:00 and had flown south into the Persian Gulf. Shortly after being routinely challenged by the frigate around 22:10, the fighter fired two Exocet missiles. The frigate did not detect the missiles, and both struck without warning. The first penetrated the port-side hull; it failed to detonate, but spewed flaming rocket fuel in its path. The second entered at almost the same point, and left a 3-by-4-meter gash—then exploded in crew quarters. Thirty-seven sailors were killed and twenty-one were injured.
Stark listing following 2 hits by Exocet missiles

Afire and listing, the frigate was brought under control by its crew during the night. The ship made its way to Bahrain where, after temporary repairs by the tender USS Acadia (AD-42) to make her seaworthy, she returned to her home port of Mayport, Florida, under her own power. The ship was eventually repaired at Ingalls Shipbuilding in Mississippi for $142 million.

This has been called the U.S. Navy's deadliest peacetime disaster before the gun turret explosion onboard the battleship Iowa.

Because the U.S. and Iraq were not at war at the time, the attack was likely not authorized. According to Iraqi officials, the pilot who attacked the Stark was not punished. Though American officials believed he had been executed, journalist Robert Fisk, in his book The Great War For Civilisation, quotes an ex-Iraqi Air Force commander who says the pilot is still alive.

Back To The Blogosphere!!!

I'm Baaaack!!

After an absence of over a year, I have returned to the Blogosphere!! I went off the radar for the following reasons.....

1. I quit my job of 10 years to take a new position and then got laid off after 6 months!
2. My creativity disappeared after realizing I had no health coverage.
3. I got a new computer and forgot to save the address for my blog.
4. I had temporarily lost my memory after being hit in the head by an irate senior while waiting in line at Bob Evans.
5. My Irish got whipped by both USC and Michigan.
6. I got carried away counting all the loan shark companies on every street corner.

I'm not sure what this blog is supposed to accomplish. If nothing else, I will be a lot safer keeping my meanderings in cyberspace, rather than at my place of employment, which I just begged my way back into.

Who was the first to "Hunker Down" ?

With Katrina and Rita hitting the Gulf Coast with extreme prejudice, I think it would be a great idea if some Jillionaire donated a hundred bucks for each time someone on TV says the phrase "Hunker Down" ! A buddy of mine even said it during a Las Vegas sandstorm, suggesting that since the weather was so miserable, we ought to "Hunker Down" for the night at the Orleans Hotel....somehow it doesn't seem right that "Hunker Down" should be in the same sentence with a Casino!

Here is the most official explanation of the phrase I could find....

It sounds like the most typically American of phrases, but it seems originally to have been Scots, first recorded in the eighteenth century.

Nobody seems to know exactly what its origin is, though it has been suggested it’s linked to the Old Norse huka, to squat; that would make it a close cousin of old Dutch huiken and modern German hocken, meaning to squat or crouch, which makes sense. That’s certainly what’s meant by the word in American English, in phrases like hunker down or on your hunkers.

The Oxford English Dictionary has a fine description of how to hunker: “squat, with the haunches, knees, and ankles acutely bent, so as to bring the hams near the heels, and throw the whole weight upon the fore part of the feet”. The advantage of this position is that you’re not only crouched close to the ground, so presenting a small target for whatever the universe chooses to throw at you, but you’re also ready to move at a moment’s notice.

Hunker down has also taken on the sense of to hide, hide out, or take shelter, whatever position you choose to do it in. This was a south-western US dialect form that was popularised by President Johnson in the mid 1960s. Despite its Scots ancestry, hunker is rare in standard British English.

I have to admit...the LBJ explanation makes the most sense!!!

Trying to Reason with the Football Season!

It's Monday night and I'm just now able to speak about Notre Dame's overtime loss to Michigan State. They played like a top 5 team and I was real impressed with the Irish and their big comback that just fell short. The clock ran out with MSU pinned on their goal line which eventually spelled doom for domers since we suck when it comes to overtime. If MSU goes out and lays an egg next weekend, it will really piss me off since their Quarterback looked like the second coming of Fran Tarkenton! To add insult to injury, MSU made a big deal of planting their flag on Irish turf right in front of the cameras. I bet Coach Weis makes good use of that next year when we visit Lansing!!

I also took a sound thrashing in fantasy football, my pick em league and all my side bets. Everything I backed went to hell in a hand basket.

"Where's that Sharp Knife...."

A Generational View of the Name Game!!

SPITTIN BILL DOAK

Just killing some time before ND plays Michigan State later this afternoon! Started noticing the difference in nicknames comparing my parents generation to present day. It would seem that people were much more humble back in the era of "The Greatest Generation". When you were stamped with a nickname back then, it was usually something cute that wasn't very flattering. My mom was called "Jimmy" and my father had many mysterious names like "Oral" and "Hank". My dad apparently had a brother they called "Oval" and I even had an "Aunt Nonie"!

Another window into past nomenclatures would be baseball nicknames! Names like Dummy Hoy, Wahoo Sam Crawford, Turkey Strearns, High Pockets Kelly, Leo "The Lip" Durocher, Peanuts Lowry and Spittin Bill Doak! Compare that to names of present day players like Crime Dog McGriff, Neon Deon Sanders, The Big Unit, Scrap Iron Garner, Mr. October etc.

You might also notice that very few kids these days are named John, Bill, Bob, etc.

Are we a little full of ourselves compared to earlier generations?

Big Party in Klingerville!!!

MUDHENS TAKE THE TITLE!!!!!!