damn....

this is some bad timing! rip to what always seemed like a class act.

one more time

one more time to pack up the old family cruiser and head toward central pennsylvania.

one more time to drink beer in a cow field...voluntarily.

one more time for paul p (who lets face it, is not only the best linebacker (sorry lavar), but best defensive player in all my time watching the nits) to take the field and lead the defense.

one more time to watch old granpap himself, joepa, defy his critics and make get back to coaching his team (presumably until he kicks it on the damn sideline).

one more time to watch john l "get slapped" with sparty.

one more time for mother nature to give us some nice weather for a psu home game.

and finally, one more time to....get it right this season.

this years edition of the nits has been maddening in the level of frustration they have produced. the defensive has been stout, but the offense is a minor fraction of what it was believed it would be. with that in mind, psu will be playing on new year's day and they should have a chance to knock off a team who spent a good portion of the season around the top 10. however, before we start planning our party in tampa, the nits have to get this damn thing rolling...starting this week with sparty. michigan state is horrendous, but they have enough to cause fits for the lions if they don't come out and take care of business. no turnovers and an open playbook should be enough to get 'er done.

[pardon the interruption...but i'm pissed: why did bobby have to beat joe again? first in the record books and now in getting rid of the plague that is his son as offensive coordinator. damn bobby. damn jay.]

there are some damn good football players playing their last game in the beav this weekend (big shout t hunt, alford, levi, poz, etc) and they deserve nothing more than to go out winners (not to mention the spring board effect that is needed to transition from '06 to '07). a fired-up nits squad comes out and lays the lumber to sparty. nits 31, sparty 13.

go state...beat sparty!

autumn in new york

the thought of autumn in new york conjures up a number of hallmark images in my head, among them: brilliant fall foliage decorating the sidewalks and parks, even more black clothing than usual, and winona ryder and richard gere making cinematic magic in the prestige vehicle, autumn in new york.

well, add to the list a new seminal moment that i will associate with fall for some time to come: eating a dogmatic sausage in bleeker street park with the lovely and talented passion manion. i know that eating sausage in a park is nothing to write home (or in this case, on a blog) about, but dogmatic is no normal sausage, as their wonderful packaging states for all to see it is "possibly the single most important sausage invention". who am i to argue with that?



so if you are ever in the mood for a savory sausage tucked inside a fine french bun...this is all sounding a little randy and for that i blame passion and her influence...then give passion and i a call and we will meet you in the park under the baby blue umbrella.

oh, the humility

i have always enjoyed kurt andersen's work in new york magazine, but this week's article was thought-provoking enough that i though i would share it with anyone interested. the article is a look at a few of the national challenges that face president bush and the country. when you consider the tabla rosa that is america in '06 with the dems win last week, it is a very interesting read.

oh, the humility by kurt andersen

our next president?

what the hell?


i suppose that it might be better than him.

in the building

suepa says ol' joe will be back this saturday!

go state...beat sparty!

pennsylvania polka

step 1: take a large, progressive step forward and free yourself from the reprehensible shadow that is former representative rick santorum

step 2: open a floodgate of ills upon your state with the legalization and implementation of gambling

it appears as though my home state has been relegated to performing a "pennsylvania polka" of sorts, where by they take a step forward, followed shortly by a large step back. the economic windfall that comes with the implementation of these types of measures is significant, but nowhere near the costs associated with dealing with the fallout. if you are going to legalize state sanctioned gambling, you might as well go all the way and try to compete with atlantic city.

i always felt that the pa lottery system was a bad use of governmental power and that it set a very bad example. that being said, this is a much larger mistake in my estimation.

feeling blue

not unlike penn state's octogenarian leader, i am feeling a little battered and bruised heading into this weekend's tilt with temple. my spirit and enthusiasm have been broken and my palette full of the taste of disappointment and underachievement. with no chance to salvage any sort of meaningful definition to the season until bowl season, the nits will have to lace 'em up and play with a business like approach, so as to avoid late december at the alamo or even sunny detroit.

for the longest time i had rationalized that psu would be better off when old joe packed it in and rode off into the sunset, but after last weekend's unmitigated disaster (see the 4th & 1 that resulted in a loss of 5 yards), i am not so sure. best case scenario, no injuries (coaching staff included, unless it is jaypa) and nothing embarrassing (i.e. letting temple score more than 3 points or faltering in the red zone...even once).

somehow this is a new low for me. back in 2003/04 the losing seemed like an anomaly that would eventually straighten itself out, but now all the hallmarks of those lean years are cropping up again, plain as day, and it is the winning season of '05-06 that seems like the anomaly.

it has long been said that 'a leopard can't change it's spots' or in my case that a lion can't get the gd blue and white out of his system, and that being said, i'll be rooting hard for the nits and thinking good thoughts about their prospects for turning the ship around. that is the blessing and the curse of being a college football fan. dear old state overwhelm the owls in talent and eventually on the scoreboard. nits 31, owls 6.

go state...beat the owls

crazy train

headline reads:

'christopher walken to play ozzy osbourne in motley crue movie'

i am not sure what this means...but how can this not be awesome with a capital awesome!

double buddha happiness

when i woke up this morning, i thought that i only had one election day result to buoy my spirits, having bob casey, jr. rid pennsylvania of the political dark cloud that had been hanging overhead for twelve years that was rick santorum. like an ill-named, msg laden entree at your local chinese eatery, i experienced double buddha happiness, when i found out that donald rumsfeld decided to step down. the downside to this announcement is that he spared himself from being fired and that this all should have gone down years ago. i agree with barack obama that the options in iraq are "bad and worse", but at least now we can hopefully approach this situation from a fresh perspective. the same should be said for the great commonwealth of pennsy, no more draconian initiatives emanating from our great state and the desk of santorum.

product shop nyc provides a nice, easy re-cap (assuming you were wearing your blue tie and not your red tie to work yesterday)