Awful

Sure, a third straight bowl is nice. But I think this might be the worst Kentucky football team I've ever seen.

I do believe the SEC is usually the best conference. But watching this Kentucky team all year, I've finally realized that the only reason they haven't lost by 30+ every game is that the rest of the conference is a lot weaker than usual.
It's frustrating, because I can see a lot of signs of improvement. Both lines are deeper and more talented than in years past. The linebackers are very good. The secondary is fairly weak, but probably better than most Kentucky teams have had.
But they are just no good at the offensive skill positions. That's frustrating, because that's where Kentucky has always managed to be pretty solid.
They've had a run of pretty good quarterbacks and they've managed to find some really great running backs over the years. They usually have a couple of reliable receivers. But not this year. Neither QB is close to SEC caliber, at least at the moment. None of the receivers are any good.
They are deep at running back, but by no means outstanding.I'd be happy to have any of the current backs as the 2nd option behind an Adams, Higgs, Williams, Pinner, or Little, but none of them are good enough to be the main back.

Oh well. I'm not too discouraged. Scanning the roster and recruits, Kentucky's in pretty good shape for the future at most positions.

Almost made it

I heard most of the second half. I think I fell asleep with about 8 minutes left.

Apparently, Kansas State made quite a run. I'm glad I slept through it, because I think I can envision how it happened: turnover, K-State layup, turnover, K-State 3-pointer, missed shot, K-State short jumper, turnover, etc...

If Liggins sees the court tonight, I'll be very disappointed. I don't know all the details, of course, so I can't suggest any more discipline than that. But at the very least, a player who refuses to enter a game should be benched for at least the next game.

It's not like it will matter. How much worse can the ballhandling get?
--------------------------
On to the important stuff...
Seems to be a lot of doom and gloom about UK's chances at Tennessee. I guess a 23 game losing streak can do that. Plus the fighting Bluetick Coonhounds whipped Vandy last week, a week after Vandy whipped the Wildcats.

I refuse to be pessimistic, so here's my positive spin. Neither team has put 2 decent games in a row together. Tennessee played their best game last week and so the trend shows a bounce is likely.
Kentucky is also coming off a bye week.
Here's how they've faired in their most recent games with more than a week to prepare:
2008 Beat WKU 41-3
2007 Beat Florida State 35-28
2007 Beat LSU 43-37
2006 Beat Clemson 28-20
2006 Beat Mississippi State 34-31

I guess I could also factor in the Louisville game this year- that was a long bye, after all- 8 months. And the opening day win over EKU last year would count that way, too. So that's a pretty long winning streak. And some impressive wins.

Early projections for the Basketball BCS

Championship game: North Carolina vs. Connecticut
Orange Bowl: Louisville vs. Texas
Fiesta Bowl: Duke vs. Notre Dame
Sugar Bowl: Gonzaga vs. Tennessee
Rose Bowl: Michigan State vs. UCLA

Sorry about your luck, all you non-championship game teams. You can’t win the title. Neither can you, Purdue, Oklahoma, Arizona State, and the rest of the top 25- especially you, Xavier and Memphis. Just forget about it.

I know it's unseemly to have a team like Gonzaga in the BCS, but according to the rules, they qualify. Don't worry, we'll change the rules next year. It won't happen again.

Note: Michigan State, Purdue, and Wisconsin have each lost a game. You might think Michgan State's loss to Maryland will keep them out of the BCS, since it is worse than losses to UConn or Oklahoma. However, that loss was a day earlier than Purdue's and Wisconsin's, so the Spartans are still expected to get the bid.

Light Up Louisville

I sincerely hope that the geniuses in charge of Light Up Louisville are not the same people in charge of figuring a way out of the budget crisis.

I keep reading and hearing about the big bad lawyers who wouldn't let Louisville use a Grinch theme.

I say good for Dr. Seuss Enterprises. Copyright laws are in place for a reason. What I want to hear more about is who the idiots are who didn't realize there might be a problem with stealing copyrighted material.

SEC 1-2

Alabama and Florida are now ranked 1st and 2nd in the BCS rankings.
(Monday 4 pm- Sorry for the wrong ranking information. That's what I get for trusting another blog for my news. Bloggers are completely unreliable. Except for me. Except for this time. But my point remains the same)
Here's the flaw I see in the whole ranking thing.

Those two teams will probably win next week and will still be 1 and 2. Then two weeks later they'll play each other in the SEC championship game.

I think Florida will win handily. But for argument's sake, let's assume it's an excellent game, close throughout, very hard-fought, and Alabama ends up winning 34-31.

Florida would then drop in the polls. Even though they lost by only three points to the #1 ranked team. That makes no sense.

Likewise, if Florida won 34-31, they would then become the #1 ranked team. And Alabama would drop somewhere lower than #2, even though all that happened was that that they lost by 3 points to the now #1 ranked team.

Something is wrong with that.

I remember that the Arkansas-Alabama game last year was a perfect example of this flaw. Arkansas was ranked in the high-teens prior to the game. Alabama was unranked. Alabama won the game by 1 point, and the following week they were ranked 16th and Arkansas dropped out of the polls. If Alabama truly deserved the number 16 ranking (turns out they didn't), then shouldn't Arkansas have been right behind them? Or if Arkansas didn't deserved to be ranked, why was Alabama's 1-point victory over them so impressive?

Golf & other

1) Since I hyped it to Brian on the way home from the golf course, and I'm watching an episode from the NBC site now while I type this, and I also really, really don't want the series canceled because I enjoy it tremendously, I want to recommend the NBC series "Life" to anyone who reads this. It's great. It's on Wednesday nights and I think you can enjoy it without watching previous episodes, but if you want to catch up first, most of season one is on-line.

2) Golf. We did okay. I was our D. It's been a long time since I was a D player. I think I did a good job. I gave a good read on the first putts, I made a few decent-length putts, and I provided a few nice safety shots. But I still stink.
We were twelve under. We could definitely have played better. Nobody played really well. Our three excellent golfers- Brian, Jim, and Monty- could each have played better, but they played okay. Sixteen under won it.

****8:30 pm. Okay. 18 under, according to Brian. I have no reason to doubt him. Even though he's a godless atheist. Which reminds me of this: In high school, I once lost grammar points on an essay because I purposefully used a small 'g' in the word "god." I resented it terribly, because I intentionally phrased the term so that "god" was appropriate- I avoided using it as a proper noun. I think I said something like "...their god." Afterward, I argued the point vehemently. I believe all I achieved was a lower grade on later papers.

A little late, but...

No way does Texas Tech beat Oklahoma tonight.

I just got home and saw the score is 7-0, so Oklahoma is giving me a little bit of a head start, but I swear I was thinking it all evening. So that's my prediction.

Also, I heard something on the radio today that I never, ever thought I'd hear: "And in the SEC today, Tennessee upset Vanderbilt by a score of 20-10."

The conversation on "Talk of the Nation" today was about the the auto industry. They talked a lot about plug-in electric cars.

I couldn't help but wonder how Louisville would have coped with September's power outage if all the cars had no juice.

And I'm still depressed by the stubborn insistence on sticking with personal vehicles.

Leaving aside the environmental concerns, I still just can't fathom the reason for the reluctance to embrace mass transit. The many millions of drivers in this country spend such vast amounts of money on vehicle insurance that it boggles my mind. This is all basically just wasted money. Plus fuel, parking, maintenance, etc. And fuzzy dice.

Glass half-empty

No muddy hike for me in this weather, so I amused myself this morning by reading the ranting comments on the kentuckysportsradio blog.

One optimist posted a link to the recruiting.scout.com site, which ranks Kentucky's incoming class at #25. Big news, since I can't remember the last time UK had a top 25 class.

Unfortunately, there are nine SEC schools in the top 24. Kentucky's class is ranked ahead of only Ole Miss (50) and Vanderbilt (64).

I would say it's time to start a petition to join the Big East Conference, but if the Cats played on Thursdays I'd have to miss Earl and The Office.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?

Two roughing the kicker penalties, roughing the passer (supposedly) to nullify an interception, and an offense that only walks on the field long enough to either go three-and-out or throw an interception. Nice.
Punter Opie Taylor is the best running back, and picks up the only Wildcat first down in the entire first half. Great.
A third roughing the kicker luckily negated by a Vandy penalty. Brilliant. Way to learn from your mistakes, guys.
If Kentucky plays any worse they'll probably be invited to the Orange Bowl.
What a great sports weekend. And it's nice to have the Tuesday night thrashing from North Carolina to look forward to.

UK basketball and football

I told Brian Kentucky would easily handle the VMI Keydets.

Down 20 just seven minutes in, I still thought Kentucky would own the rest of the game.

But they never stopped playing stupidly. Not yet, anyway. They are down 16 with 11 minutes to go. To me, it seems to be entirely a product of playing precisely the way VMI wants them to; reckless and undisciplined.

They should learn a lot from this. And they still might win tonight. It doesn't seem entirely unlikely.
_______________________________________________

UK vs Vandy football on national television. No wonder it's supposed to snow, since Hell's freezing over. In honor of the big event, I'm trying out a new prediction method. Here goes:

The most points I can realistically see Kentucky scoring tomorrow is 38.
The fewest is 7. Mid-point prediction = 23.
The most I can see Vandy scoring is 34.
The fewest is 0. Mid-point prediction is 17.

So 23-17 Kentucky. Completely scientific, in a Bible-belt kind of way.

Pakulak'd!

I just checked Kentuckysportsradio's blog and read about Glen Pakulak's Saints' debut. I'll never understand how he couldn't make a roster the last 5 years.

At UK he absolutely boomed his punts, and though he's built like, well, a punter, he loved making tackles. I believe he secretly prayed for the return man to break loose so that he could make the hit himself.

Unsurprisingly, his debut was solid. Here are some comments on a Saints' fan forum. The thread was titled "Pakulak is a beast!"

"How ya like dem apples?! A 56 yard punt, and the punter makes the tackle too!"
"Thats good that he kicked 56 yards, but its bad if hes going to have to make tackles for us, real bad. But Razor is right, it looks like our coverage team was very unprepared for that kind of punt"

According to the kysportsradio posters, the return man was Harry Douglass. Nice bonus that he tackled a former Card. And one of them said his line was probably "You just got Pakulak'd!"
______________________________

And on a completely different topic: I made some delicious soup tonight.
Last night I stopped at Paul's for an onion, which was the only ingredient I forgot at the grocery. Since that was all I bought, I slipped it into my jacket pocket on the way home. Then I forgot it was there until this morning when I got to work.

I got a funny stare and a couple of comments from colleagues when I arrived at my desk and pulled an onion out of my pocket.

Today's Hike

I took a walkabout through Iroquois Park.

It was a lot of fun, by crikey! I was attempting to photograph the elusive North American Pothead (cannabis doofus). No bloody luck, but I enjoyed myself anyway.



I didn't manage to encounter much wildlife- only birds and squirrels, until near the end of the hike. That's when I came across this beautiful and dainjeruus snake. It's venom is known to render a grown man incoherent, unable even to drive a car. Cobras were nearly extinct in these parts at one time, but the combined efforts of the Sierra Club, the EPA, and local liquor stores have really helped them recover.

Isn't she a beaut? This one's fairly small, but still packs a wallop. I've seen some that have grown to as much as 40 ounces.

I caught a pothead's scent here. But it got spooked and vanished into the brush (actually, a 1991 Dodge Charger) before I could photograph it.

It happens every autumn

Nice try, Cats. That was the second-most entertaining game I've seen all year, behind only the Texas Tech vs. Texas game last week.

Kentucky's football team has improved greatly, but they still manage 1 absolute heartbreaker every season.

Last year it was the 52-50 overtime Tennessee loss.
'06 was Tennessee, too. 17-12. Nice delay of game, Cats. I'm still bitter.
'05, 31-24 to Louisville. Fumble at the goal line.
'04, 37-31, yet again to Tennessee.
'03, 71-63 to Arkansas. At least I think that's a final score. They might still be playing.
'02, the Wildcats learned they should keep the Gatorade in the bucket until the final horn.
And on and on.
Today's loss definitely qualifies for the list.


My guess is Kentucky will end up playing New Year's Eve in the Chick-fil-A Bowl. Or maybe there will be another tornado and they'll play in a New Year's Day bowl after all, after the game is delayed a day and moved to Lakeside High School's field. (By the way, not every blogger cares enough about quality to look up the name of an actual Atlanta school.)


10:45 addition- I only went back as far as that disgusting 2002 LSU game when I originally posted this. After a while I became curious, so I decided to check a few more years to see if there continued to be one really gut-wrenching loss each year. I decided to check 5 more seasons:
2001- Tennessee 38-35. Kentucky led 21-0.
2000- Georgia 34-30. Kentucky led 20-10 in the 3rd quarter.
1999- Syracuse 20-13, Music City Bowl. Kentucky led 13-7 in the 4th quarter.
1998- Georgia 28-26. Potential game-winning field goal blocked in the closing seconds.
1997- Hey, I found a year without one. They lost fairly close games to Mississippi State and South Carolina, but neither really qualifies.

Um, nice start, Sir.

Well, it could have been worse, I guess. At least he didn't say anything really dumb in his first post-election press conference.

I mean, it's not like he ridiculed the wife of one of the most popular (for some reason I've yet to figure out) presidents in American history. That would have been bad. It would have been even worse if she'd been frail, in poor health, and recently in the news after suffering a debilitating and sympathy-invoking injury, such as a fractured pelvis.

A joke about someone like that would have been pretty bad. It's a good thing he didn't say something like that.

________________________________________________________

Moving on to the important stuff.

I feel pretty good about the UK-Georgia game tomorrow.

Sure, Georgia could win by 40. But I think I have a few good reasons for feeling optimistic:
*Georgia may be looking to take out some frustration after their loss last week. But I think it's more likely that they're a little down after seeing their title hopes dashed.
*Kentucky's now-healthy (for the most part) front seven on defense can definitely hang with Georgia's offense.
*Teams generally show their greatest improvement between the first and second games of the year. Though it's mid-season, it is also Cobb's 2nd start at QB. I think this means the offense might show improvement. I won't predict that for certain, of course, because that would be incredibly dumb.

from Unexplained-Mysteries.com

Legal case against God dismissed

A US judge has thrown out a case against God, ruling that because the defendant has no address, legal papers cannot be served. The suit was launched by Nebraska state senator Ernie Chambers, who said he might appeal against the ruling. He sought a permanent injunction to prevent the "death, destruction and terrorisation" caused by God. Judge Marlon Polk said in his ruling that a plaintiff must have access to the defendant for a case to proceed. "Given that this court finds that there can never be service effectuated on the named defendant this action will be dismissed with prejudice," Judge Polk wrote in his ruling. Mr Chambers sued God last year. He said God had threatened him and the people of Nebraska and had inflicted "widespread death, destruction and terrorisation of millions upon millions of the Earth's inhabitants". The court, Mr Chambers said, had acknowledged the existence of God and "a consequence of that acknowledgement is a recognition of God's omniscience".

"Since God knows everything," he reasoned, "God has notice of this lawsuit." Mr Chambers, a state senator for 38 years, said he filed the suit to make the point that "anyone can sue anyone else, even God".

Yahooooooooooooooooooooo!!!

Congratulations, President-Elect Obama!

Johnny Olson, tell him what he's won.

Bob, the first prize in our Showcase Showdown is the National Debt, valued at 10 trillion dollars!
And no debt is complete without costly wars. You've won two! Yes, Barack, you'll be the envy of all the world leaders with quagmires in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

and so on

I was going to add more-economy, global warming, nearly half the country against him, etc. But I don't feel like making myself depressed. I'm trying to enjoy this.

My penpal

I wrote to Donna Brazile again. My emailed message to her was basically what I wrote below (no, not the stuff about napkins and James Garner). I was much nicer this time, but also more direct. I said:
I was upset by the fact that a respected national figure such as yourself would further the notion that atheists are pariahs and that elected officials and aspirants to elected office should avoid association with people who believe in a secular society.

Imagine if, instead of atheists, the group backing Kay Hagan had been Rainbow/Push, GLAAD, the Catholic League, or NOW. I believe the entire tone of your exchange with Wolf Blitzer and Bill Bennett would have been different.

She replied:

I said no such thing.Please do not put words in my mouth.

I feel like a basketball coach complaining to a referee. I think she blew the call, and she says she got it right. But maybe, thanks to my working the refs, one of those calls will go our way.

Thanks, Brian. That link to the youtube video has provided me with a lot of entertainment.

Questions I'm Pondering On Election Eve

* Am I still allowed to be a liberal if I always thought Studs Terkel was annoying?
* Why doesn't someone invent a restaurant napkin dispenser that reliably dispenses only 1 napkin at a time, rather than 25 napkins that all cling together?
* Wouldn't it have been cool if James Garner had campaigned for McCain?
* Or even cooler if he'd made a "the real Maverick supports Obama" commercial?
* If gay marriage is outlawed, will only gay outlaws get married? (I think I plagiarized that, but I can't remember from where so I can't attribute it.)

Response

Darn. No proof. I was sure this was it.

Here's the response:

Thanks Kevin,

Perhaps the only proof that convinces me of a "living God" is myself. But, I trust your own views are just as strong.

Take care,

Donna working tonight to prove she is just human.

The sarcastic and still very angry part of me wants to correspond again. I'd like to point out that on national television she contributed to the notion that atheists should be pariahs, and that our elected leaders and aspiring elected leaders should not associate with atheists, or even suffer the insinuation that they associate with atheists. In support of her argument she said there was evidence. This evidence is, of course, non-existent.

Her televised comments were incredibly harmful, and she apparently does not know the definition of 'evidence'.

Still, I appreciate the quick response. I'll probably email her back and give her my opinion, but I'll wait until I'm a little less angry. Hers was a friendly and (canned) dignified response, so I'll wait until I am in a mood to extend the same courtesy.

Hey, if it works for them...

Awaiting the scoop of the century...

Brian, I've been thinking a lot about that ridiculous video.

While watching the Blue-White game, I sent the following email to Donna Brazile at Georgetown University.

Dear Professor Brazile,

I recently viewed video of your conversation with Wolf Blitzer and Bill Bennett. I was fascinated by your comment that there was clearly strong evidence of God's existence.

I was astounded. How could I have missed this? I read the newspaper regularly, watch the 10:00 news most nights, and listen to NPR news reports every day. And yet I've somehow missed any coverage of this evidence (I know, NPR has a reputation as Godless heathens, but I really do not think they would have swept this under the rug).

Could you please let me know what this evidence is? I'd really appreciate it. I hate to ask, because I know you are a very busy woman, but it does seem pretty important.

I would have asked Mr. Bennett, but I was afraid he might not check his email while he's gambling.

Thank you,

Kevin

P.S. Is there any word on which direction He/She leans on the whole religion thing? Christian? Muslim? Hindu? Other?