Hurry up, Before the Storm Gets Us!!!

Man, it's dead around here. You take away football, and all of a sudden it's like living in North Dakota. (At least they have hockey.) With the fall of the mighty Huskers to Iowa State last night, there is even less to talk about.

Oh well...I'll give it a shot.

* Lots of national talk about Mark McGuire and whether or not he should be in Cooperstown. Now, being a baseball guy, you'd be amazed at how little I care about professional baseball. But again, it's the off-season, and I have to fill this space in somewhere. Here's my take on the whole thing:

It's completely irrelevant if Big Mac gets in or not. How can I say that about such an honorable place like the baseball hall-of-fame? Because it's voted on by baseball writers. Have you ever met a baseball writer? It's like meeting a cross between Lewis from Revenge of the Nerds and Travis Justice. These are the exact same idiots who "voted" Bill Mazoroski in the hall of fame for doing nothing more than hitting a clutch home run 40 years ago. These are also the same people who didn't vote for Nolan fucking Ryan on the first ballot because, "People should have to wait for such an honor."

Uhhhhh...yeah.

Like baseball itself, it's a nice little niche, run by complete and total self-absorbed, spineless morons who think of themselves way too highly. Peter Gammons may give a shit. I really don't, and I've already wasted three paragraphs talking about it.

* Lots of feedback from hillbilly NU fan who took me to task on the losing 5 games comment. The main reason for the bitching was that this is the most games Nebraska has played, and the teams they lost to weren't exactly slouches.

This may be true, but the fact remains like I told you the other day. In the 80's and 90's...even when you weren't winning championships..you were BEATING these teams. (Badly in a lot of cases.) And don't give me this "North Title" crap, because you and I both know that if the Big 8/12 was divided in divisions back in the day, you would have won that every year but two. And that's NOT including the fact that all you had to do was beat Missouri at home and not choke to Kansas at home..which you almost did.

So with that...all you're basing your argument on is some close losses to really good teams, when you and I both know Clownahan tries to keep it close and play conservative against powerful teams.

When push comes to shove, you still lost 5 games and that's only happened once since 1961. Sugarcoat it all you want. Live in denial all you want. The fact of the matter is, you're going into year 4 of this whole thing..and even with monster name recognition, you're still not even remotely close to getting back to where you were. Again, don't get me wrong...I think it's great as an opposing fan. However, if it were my team...I'd be demanding results a little bit quicker...especially when guys like Ty Willingham and Mike Price get the axe at schools that are just as traditionally powerful (more so actually), in far less than 4 years.

* ENOUGH with the iPhone! The only thing worse than a Johnny-come-lately gadget of the day, is overzealous, middle-aged geek who makes it his personal mission to have one. Now, I'm not trying to get personal...especially since there are at least a half-dozen or so of these uber-nerds that are regular readers of this column. However, I'm sure that somewhere deep down, even they must realize that they are a victim of hype and circumstance. Look, I'm not trying to go unabomber here, but at what point will people realize that fancy little gadgets are designed only to be hip to own...take your money..and then upgrade to something that will require you to re-finance your house for.

If it sounds like I'm bitter because of something, you're right. For YEARS I heard about how great PDA's were and how they totally help you manage your life. So what happens when I buy one? The pieces of shit become completely obsolete, and now I have to buy something else that costs 10x as much, just to keep up with the support of these companies like Palm and Apple. Same thing going on now with iPods, HDTV's and video games. It will never end, until somebody figures out that the American public is being taken advantage of by over-hyped marketing machines with deep pockets.

God I hate capitalism sometimes.

* NFL picks for this weekend, as we prepare to dig out from the snowstorm of the millennium. (Or a dusty of 2 inches or less as a "patch of dry air" moves over the area during the storm.

San Diego 31 New England 16
Philly 23 New Orleans 21
Baltimore 24 Indy 10
Seattle 16 Chicago 10