It's gonna be a good weekend

Sure, the Badgers are going to kick the snot out of Indiana tomorrow to go 5-0 on the season; the Brewers are going to take 2 of 3 from Pittsburgh and finish the season over .500, and I get to go apple picking with my kids tomorrow. The highlight of my weekend is that I get to attend the Twin Cities Marathon. The last point needs some explanation. My wife is running in the 10 mile portion for the first time. She has started running as part of her exercise routine and has lost a bunch of weight this summer, which was her main goal. She will admit herself that she never thought she could be a runner and has surprised herself how well she has done. I could not be more proud of her. I'll be there with my kids along the race course cheering her on and at the finish line. The rest of the sports world can be put on hold. I get to watch my wife complete the biggest personal accomplishment since we've been together for the last 10 years. That's what's going to be the best part of my weekend.

Mr. Crankbutt: 2 for 1 special

Mr. Crankbutt has decided to grace us with his presence after a long hiatus. Some issues have come up and he's had enough and must enlighten us with his wisdom.

Iowa Hawkeye Stadium
What the hell is this all about? So the visitors locker room is painted pink, what the hell is the friggin' big deal? This Jill Gaulding is simply looking for personal fame and notoriety, plain and simple. She says this is demeaning to women, pray tell how is that exactly? Are there pictures of naked women all around the locker room? Are there pornos being played on TV's throughout the locker room? Are the visiting team's women trainers required to dress in thong bikinis? Have there been any issues with the players treating women poorly as a direct or indirect result of being exposed to a pink room that they spend at most 5 hours in? There is nothing offensive about this. Is she now going after all the children's clothing makers for making the majority of little girls clothes pink? How about the nursery sets that are made, they must be offensive under this logic. What about Pepto Bismol? That's pink, it must be offensive to women. With all the things going on in life, her biggest issue is a damn pink room for football players.

Motorcycle convoys
Why is it that when a bunch of idiots on motorcycles get together, the rules of the road are no longer applicable? I'm going through my hometown, it's a small town of about 10,000. There is a small motorcycle rally going on. Upon reaching a 4 way stop intersection. I have to wait as the 36 motorcycles all ignore the stop sign and just go through the intersection. The worst part? The cops do nothing to stop this. Nothing! A convoy of classic cars do not have these same "rights" to ignore traffic laws. Cops would bust them in a heartbeat if 30 cars ran a stop sign. I keep seeing the stupid bumper stickers and billboards about how motorcycles have the same rights as cars. But if you get a couple of motorcyclists together, they have a license to ignore the traffic laws, with the full blessing of law enforcement. Now this is mostly to the non-crotch rocket variety of motorcycle that this applies to, mind you. Why this double standard is out there is beyond me. You get this many crotch rockets doing this and they are considered dangerous, but Harley riders are something to be admired? The cops want to let them do this, treat them like a funeral procession and have the cops escort them through town. This whole tolerance of their blatant disregard for the law is a joke.

Finally...

The Brewers get over .500 by winning 5 of their last 6. They get 2 more at home against the Reds, then finish the year on the road with a 3 game series at Pittsburgh, which has not been the kindest place for them over the years. I'm still confident they can go 3-2 over these games, giving them an 82-80 season. I know there are some fans that really don't care if they finish over .500 or not and that they want a team that can compete for the wild card or division title. I want this as well, but you gotta take the steps to get there. Mentally, this does a world of good for the team to accomplish this. Celebrate the accomplishments they acheive, just like one does with their kids. I know, I'm counting my chickens before they hatch, but dammit, I'm excited.

This morning it was dark and rainy here in the Twin Cities. To me, there is nothing better than waking up at 6:30am, hearing the rain, then going back to sleep for a little longer. I had one of my better drives in to work this morning. Rainy, cloudy days just do it for me as I'm going to be in a good mood for today. Unless some dumb-ass comes along at work here and ruins it...

All Tied Up

I said it 2 months ago that the Brewers would finish above .500 and with a better record than the Twins. Today, both teams are at .500 with 6 games to go. That's right, the "lowly" Brewers are dead even with the 3-time defending AL Central Champion "mighty" Twins. I know, the seasons not over yet, but I'm feeling pretty good about this. Brewer fans gotta love the Capellan-Turnbow combo for next season to close out games.

EDIT: I have my Packer report card over at The Frozen Tundra, feel free to comment there or here on it.

2 Out Of 3 Ain't Bad

Bucky
What a hell of a comeback against the Wolverines! There are just so many superlatives that can be said about Brian Calhoun. There is much said in the media that the Badgers are relying on him too much and he will wear down as the season goes on. Calhoun's response is that since he sat out last year, he should have plenty of energy this year. Love it. The defense once again comes through. This team is looking real good right now and should kick the crap out of Indiana this coming weekend. Only 9 more wins for a Rose Bowl victory!

Brewers
A nice series win against the Cardinals. They are guaranteed a 10 game increase in wins from last season already, with the probability of making it 15 by the end of the season. That would be huge for this organization that has nothing but upside right now.

Packers
A tough loss to a tough opponent. They had their chances to win, but for the first time in a very long time, Longwell did not come through. He is not completely to blame *cough* Favre's 3 picks *cough* though, there's enough of that to go around. I'll put some more thoughts down tomorrow at the Tundra.

Go Badgers!

Kick the Wolverines @$$!

Final Westwood Recap: Van Halen Edition

Tuesday night was our final game of the season against the Slackjawed Yokels and the anti-Westwoodie rules were in full effect to stave off our dominance. There was a white line drawn in the outfield that was about 40 feet from the infield and we could not Jump past that line into the deeper part of the outfield until the pitch was thrown. When informed of this, we asked "Where's the love?" The umpire simply replied "Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love. Now get out there." Well, this new tactic was successful in the first inning as 2 balls were hit over CC's head in RF. The beloved Westwoodies came back in the bottom of the first when the offense became Unchained. The Westwoodies had hits all over the place and were free to Runaround the bases. There was Dancing in the Street over this 11 run outburst. The Yokels were Black And Blue from diving after the sharply hit balls. It was a close contest the rest of the way as the score was tied going into the bottom of the 7th. The umpire then yelled "Right Now, per Panama rules, all 14 Yokels can play in the field!" The crowd was livid as were the Westwoodies. Needless to say, the game ended in a tie as the time limit expired. The Yokels shouted "Finish What Ya Started!" But even the umpire could not continue the game as another game had to start. Just then, the Ice Cream Man came by and the crowd cheered. A large line formed as Everybody Wants Some. Our captain asked me if I was going to have any. I stated that I'll Wait as I have some Poundcake at home.

So our last game ended in a tie, but we still won the fall league season with a 5-0-1 record. Overall our team went 16-8-1 including the summer league and tournaments. Your very own CC batting stats were a .597 avg and an slugging percentage of .708 with 23 RBI. I gotta work on my power hitting for next year. Maybe a hitting instructor would be good, maybe Team USA's women softball phenom Jenny Finch could help? Definately Hot For Teacher then. Oh man, my wife's gonna kill me for this one...

Grog Blog

With the strike finally over, Grog is back to bringing his road report for the Brewers. This is Grog's next to last report as the Brewers will be ending the season with only 1 more road trip to Pitts as the next 9 games are all at home. As I stated a few days ago, Grog apparently knows something about the latest meltdown in Houston. Let's see what he has to say.

Arizona
Why stupid Cheesehead send Grog to middle of Arizona in summer? Grog too hot there. Grog watching game and beer evaporate from mug it so hot. It so hot Grog even have camel ask him for drink. It so hot Grog even see car melt in parking lot. It so hot Grog get brats raw at stand, by time get to seat they cooked. It so hot... All right Grog, that's enough!

Houston
Grog was so happy to get out of Arizona and with Brewer 14-2 win, Grog go out drinking before first game in Houston. Grog walking to ballpark when see pretty black cat. Grog lure cat to him with leftover chicken wing, catch cat and have good snack. Old lady scream at Grog that it her cat. Lady see Brewer jersey on Grog and curse Brewers that will not win any games in Houston. Grog not know that cat belong to voodoo lady from Bayou. She there because of hurricane. Sorry guys, my fault Brewers do so bad.

Silver Linings

Once again I have my Packer musings over at The Frozen Tundra for your viewing pleasure. You can click the title of this post to be beamed over there, or the link in the previous sentence.

Bad link of the day
Whatever you do, don't click on this link. I mean it! It's simply too much! I cannot believe that I am even putting this on my site!

Billy Idol Rocks!

If you are wondering about today's blog title and confused, I will happily explain. On Friday, I was informed by Jack FM that I had won 2 Billy Idol tickets for his show at 8pm at the Myth nightclub. At first I wasn't sure if I was going to go, but after getting my friend Owen to go with me, I was glad I did. Idol played for about 1.5 hours and the show was awesome. The man can still bring it at 50 years old and the crowd was into the show the entire time. Obviously, the 80's hits were the most cheered for, but his new stuff was pretty good also. The place exploded when he yelled "Are you ready for your Rebel Yell!!!" He turned this into an 8 minute version of the song. I thought that the show had reached it's climax at that point. Then Owen reminded me that "Mony Mony" had not been played yet. Billy saved this 12-15 minute jam session for the last song. It started out with a great drum solo with a fantastic guitar duel in the middle. Hey, I know he's not The Boss, but dammit, it was a kick-ass show.

Edit: I forgot to add that this outstanding night was capped off by a run to White Castle.

Brew Crew
They sure picked a crappy time for the offense to go away. That was one ugly hitting series against Houston. Rumor is Grog knows something about it. We'll have to wait and see.

Bucky F'n Badger
A very tough win on Saturday against North Carolina. The Tar Heels have a darn impressive defense and had several opportunites to win this game. The Badger defense was up to the task and held the Heels to 3 points on offense. They beat the living daylights out of their QB and sent a message to their opponents that this defense is for real. There was a lot of speculation in the offseason that the Badger defense was not going to be very good this year given they lost 8 starters including all 4 of thier DL (all NFL draftees). Bielma's done a hell of a job with this unit and it makes me so happy that he will be succeeding Alvarez after this season. This Saturday's game against MI is going to be outstanding.

Tomorrow you can check out my thoughts on the Packer game over at The Frozen Tundra.

The Fab Five

It's back! The fun part of this blog where I get to see what other blogs in Bloggerdom are out there (so you don't have to) and as always, make fun of them. I'm currently on some good allergy meds so I'm feeling gooooooood.

You're My Everything
Deep thoughts from a highschooler. You know like "what if we're just an atom on some giant's fingernail". Also, who knew song lyrics were so deep and meaningful, espcially from bands nobody has heard of... Wow man... Oh, and the music that plays is like something from an 80's Commodore 64 game.

Suicide No Diet
This guy claims that he has a lot in common with Winston Churchill, but also has just finished watching all 9 seasons of the X-Files and is proud of it. Let's see: one one hand one of the great world leaders and diplomats of all time and on the other, a guy who cannot wait for an anal probe so that he can meet Scully. I can see the connection.

Bad Beats Happen
A poker blog. A very detailed minute-by-minute blog about this guy's last game. I thought golf on TV was boring. Reading about someone playing poker, no analysis, just card-by-card just about ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

Acushnet Junior High School Class Reunion
Yep, a site about a Junior High class reunion. I mean come on! I can understand high school reunions and even college ones, but junior high? Who seriously gives a flip about someone from back in 7th grade? If you gotta go back that far for glory days, you need help.

Passez Dans Ma Tete
A French blog zat iz zo vundervel. Zere iz this how you say, man, who lives in ze Quebec, Canada. He haz theez pic-chair of Brad Pitt from ze Fight Club and when he cannot sleep, he theenks of him. Whuh unh unh..

Packers
I got my new article over on the The Frozen Tundra, it's not much, just the Packers/Browns preview and prediction, so enjoy.

Brew Crew
The Brewers laid some wood on the Diamondbacks to get back to .500 with a 14-2 whipping. You can just feel that they are going to finish with a winning record for the year.

F 'em Bucky!
The Badgers travel to North Carolina this weekend to face the Tar Heels. The game will not be the blowout last week was, but they should still handily win and continue their march to a Big 10 championship and the Rose Bowl.

Top 10 list of the day

10 things to say when caught sleeping at your desk.

10. "They told me at the Blood Bank this might happen."
9. This is just a 15 minute power nap they raved about in the time management course you sent me to."
8. "Whew! Guess I left the top off the Whiteout. You probably got here just in time."
7. "I wasn't sleeping! I was meditating on the mission statement and envisioning a new business strategy."
6. "I was testing my keyboard for drool resistance."
5. "I was doing a highly specific Yoga exercise to relieve work-related stress. Are you discriminatory toward people who practice Yoga?"
4. "Darn! Why did you interrupt me? I had almost figured out how to handle that big accounting problem."
3. "Did you ever notice sound coming out of these keyboards when you put your ear down real close?"
2. "Who put decaf in the wrong pot?!?"
1. Raise your head slowly and say, "...in Jesus name, Amen."

Brew Crew
Tough loss last night in 12 innings for the Brewers as they failed again to get over the .500 mark. Taking today's game will get them with the series win and back to .500. Just win the series the rest of the way out, and I'll be happy.

.500!

It's been a while, but the Brewers are back at .500. I know that there are some out there in MN who do not think this is much of an accomplishment. For the Brewers, it is. With 18 games left, they have a great shot at finishing above .500 for the first time since Bush Sr. was president, Rubix cubes were cool and Brett Favre was on the Falcons. In fact, I don't think the Brewers have been over .500 since Brett's been a Packer. That's amazing.

Flag Football

Go ahead and click on the title of this post and that will magically take you to the land of The Frozen Tundra where you can read my lastest Packer musings.

Too much stuff

Just a whole lot went on this past 4-5 days. I went to Ashland for the funeral of one of my best friend's dad on Thursday and Friday. Then I was back in Burlington, WI this weekend to help my parents move (and see my dad, just had to after the previous 2 days). So I watched the Packer game there then came home at 1am after a 6hr drive and had to unload the snowblower he gave me and do a bunch of stuff and I ended up getting in bed at 2am. So I'm a bit overwhelmed and just tired here, but I'll do my best.

Badgers
Holy crap what an asswhipping! Biggest blowout of the modern era for the Badgers. Granted, Temple is just plain awful, but it's good to see the defense get a lot of confidence out of that game. Plus, the backups on both O and D got a lot of action and they all looked good. Next victim is North Carolina. This should be a great test to see how good the Badgers are. I expect the Badgers to win though. Only 11 more wins to a Rose Bowl championship!

Packers
Just a horribly bad game by the offense. The defense looked good for most of the game, but simply could not stop the Lions at the very end. I'll have more at the Frozen Tundra tomorrow.

Brewers
Only 2.5 games back from the Twinkies and 1 below .500! Nervous yet SBG?

The New Alert System

New Word Day

NEW WORDS FOR 2005: Essential additions to the workplace vocabulary.

BLAMESTORMING: Sitting around in a group, discussing why a deadline was missed or a project failed, and who was responsible.
SEAGULL MANAGER: A manager, who flies in, makes a lot of noise, craps on everything, and then leaves.
ASSMOSIS: The process by which some people seem to absorb success and advancement by kissing up to the boss rather than working hard.
SALMON DAY: The experience of spending an entire day swimming upstream only to get screwed and die in the end.
CUBE FARM: An office filled with cubicles
PRAIRIE DOGGING: When someone yells or drops something loudly in a Cube farm, and people's heads pop up over the walls to see what's going on.
MOUSE POTATO: The on-line, wired generation's answer to the couch potato.
SITCOMS: (Single Income, Two Children, Oppressive Mortgage). What yuppies turn into when they have children and one of them stops working to stay home with the kids.
STRESS PUPPY: A person who seems to thrive on being stressed out and whiny.
SWIPEOUT: An ATM or credit card that has been rendered useless because the magnetic strip is worn away from extensive use.
XEROX SUBSIDY: Euphemism for swiping free photocopies from one's workplace.
IRRITAINMENT: Entertainment and media spectacles that are annoying but you find yourself unable to stop watching them. The J-Lo and Ben wedding (or not) was a prime example.
PERCUSSIVE MAINTENANCE: The fine art of whacking the crap out of an electronic device to get it to work again.
ADMINISPHERE: The rarefied organizational layers beginning just above the rank and file. Decisions that fall from the adminisphere are often profoundly inappropriate or irrelevant to the problems they were designed to solve.
404: Someone who's clueless. From the World Wide Web error message "404 Not Found," meaning that the requested document could not be located.
GENERICA: Features of the American landscape that are exactly the same no matter where one is, such as fast food joints, strip malls, and subdivisions.
OHNOSECOND: That minuscule fraction of time in which you realize that you've just made a BIG mistake.
WOOFS: Well-Off Older Folks.
CROP DUSTING: Surreptitiously farting while passing through a Cube Farm.

Whole lotta info going on

Several items on the plate today so let's dig into the buffet that awaits us.

Happy Anniversary Rachel! Today is my 8th Anniversary to my wonderful wife. She has been an answer to all my prayers and has made me a better man. She is a fantastic mother to my children and I am looking forward to all the adventures that we still have to go in this life together. She has been an inspriation to me and to this day I still have no idea how in the hell I conned her into marrying me. Love you sweetheart!

As you can see, I changed the look of the site a bit, mostly just the colors to Packer colors and moved the pictures around, plus I added the Badgers schedule and I'll have links to all the stats from the games as they happen. I think it looks better, hope you agree.

Backyard Border Battle
Slackjawed Shane and I took a drive down to Bloomington for event #6: Minigolf! We decided that The Links at Dred Scott was a fine place to wage this latest battle. Yes, that is the name of the place and no, I have no idea why they named it that. The squeaky-voiced 16 year old at the booth was no help.

This was another close battle between the 2 of us. Shane streaked to an early 4 stroke lead after 3 holes by using his watch to reflect the sun into my eyes. I came back to lead by 1 after 6 holes with my sweet swing and polarized sunglasses. Coming out of the front 9, I had a 2 stroke lead and Shane was on his wife's cell phone with the pro at the Minneapolis County Club to see what he could do to help him. Shane was able to tie the score up after 13 holes and took the lead by one on 15 when Shane yelled "Is that Daisy Fuentes over there?" right as I was about to putt. Dirty, but good strategy on his part. However, Shane was no match for me come crunch time. With pinpoint putting I tied the score on 16 then took the lead on 17 by one stroke. Shane started sending smoke signals in the vain hope that help would arrive, but alas, he was mistaken. We tied on 18 and a 4-2 lead in this best of 9 series was granted to myself. A 3 event run has vaulted me into the lead with Chess, Irish Horshoes and Bowling left to play. The sure money is on the Cheesehead, folks as one more win by me and the BBB Cup is mine!

Packers
First off, my latest offering is over at The Frozen Tundra and to give you the summary, I pick the Packers to go 9-7 with an outside shot at 10-6, but just as likely 8-8. If you think this team will do better state your case there or here.

Secondly, if I can get all James Lipton here, I was introduced to the greatest website in the history of the universe this weekend. It is simply Cheesehead University, the definative source of Cheeseheadness. I encourage everyone who wants to improve the quality of their life, to read this site. I have been asked to be a visiting professor at the CU, so look for my addition to the site shortly in the future.

Badgers
Dear heavens that was one wild game. I don't expect the Badgers to run that well all season long, but it's good to know that they can whip out the lumber and simply run over people. Granted, the Badgers defense was horrible, but hey, what do you expect with 8 new starters on D? Especially against that offense, I'm surprised the Badgers didn't do worse. Bielema will get that turned around. Only 12 more wins and the Rose Bowl will be Bucky's again!

Brewers
I said back on July 28 that the Brewers would end up with a better record than the Twins. At that time, the Brewers were 5 games back from the Twins and I got some flak from Twins fans. Right now, they have widdled the lead to 4.5 games. With 24 games to go, it's getting interesting.

Sad Heart

I just found out that one of my best friend's, Murph, dad died today. He lives by Biloxi, MS and died in an accident while cleaning up after the hurricane. Murph and I have been friends since our 2nd year of college and I was best man at his wedding. I've met his dad on many occassions and always thought of him as, well, a really cool dad. That's the best way I can describe him as I feel that is the best complement I can give. My heart goes out to you buddy...

Backyard Border Battle: 80's One Hit Wonder Edition

Believe It Or Not, last night Shane and I had the rematch of event #5, Stratego, you know the game that states It Takes Two to play. Given how Hot, Hot, Hot I was in the first game, I just knew that I had to Relax and I would win. Shane was talking trash so I told him "Bring your weak-ass game and I'll Whip It!" When setting up my pieces I could feel that Somebody's Watching Me. I turned and looked and it was my son who started reaching for pieces and I told him "Keep Your Hands To Yourself!" The game was a see-saw affair that suddenly turned to my favor as Shane exclaimed "Major Tom, we have a problem" when he saw he was going to lose. Shane actually conceded when he realized he was not going to win, thus giving him Shattered Dreams of winning the Border Battle, even though winning was just a Fantasy anyway. I told Shane, Don't Worry Be Happy and I proceeded to Bust A Move with the Curly Shuffle. Don't worry, I followed the Politics Of Dancing. After the game, Shane admitted that I had actually won the first game by eliminating all of his movable pieces, thus proving that I can beat Shane Nite And Day. I am now up 3-2 in the Battle with mini-golf the next event. A 4-2 lead is all but assured for me and a runaway romp in the Battle.

Brew Crew
How sweet was it that the future of the Brewers infield for many years came through with 3 2 run HRs yesterday in a 6-5 win! Weeks, Hardy and Fielder all came through big for the Crew. Fielder's was a monstrous 400 ft + shot to right center for the win. I could get used to games like this.