10/22/05---Or, to quote R. Lee Ermey.......

Do you know who R. Lee Ermey is?  Why, he's only one of America's finest supporting character actors.  You may know him as host of the History Channel's "MailCall" program (yeah, right)...or maybe you know him as the creepy boss in the remake of "Willard" (that would assume that ANYONE actually saw that movie).
Or, like the rest of America, you probably know the great R. Lee as the drill sargeant from the movie "Full Metal Jacket".  R. Lee spent half the movie going on one of the alltime greatest profanity riffs ever caught on celluloid, telling each and every wanna be marine just how worthless they were.  Worked for some, didn't work for others (I'm talking to you D'Nofrio).  Anyway, we mention R. Lee at the beginning of our column today because, in regards to last weekend's Notre Dame-USC game.....well, to paraphrase R. Lee in the movie:

"Boy....I will rip your neck off of your body and shit down your neck."

That's pretty much what happened.  USC, on the last play of the game, ripped the neck right off of ND's body and then shit down our neck.  All I can say is, thank God I wasn't home to watch the game on television live, because even an extra helping of the Zocor would've kept my blood pressure from going sky high.
Oh, I taped the game.  I haven't watched it yet.  It's sorta sitting there on my t.v. stand, waiting for me to pop it in and at the sametime, knowing how crazed it will make me.  Hell, I watched the damned BYU game today, a game we WON by 26 points...and I was cursing the t.v. into the 3rd quarter.  My wife asked me why I didn't just shut it off.  I told her that last year I would have, and what bothered me so much was that we were playing like we had last year's coaching staff leading us.
Dumb penalties, careless play...and then, in the 4th quarter, we sorta kicked it into gear and showed the Mormons the door.  But anyway, back to last weekend:

So I had spent the whole day wanting to only think about my late uncle and my mom's family.  I knew I was taping the game, so I didn't want to "sneak a peek" at the television during the day, and I didn't want to use the earphones that my sister had brought me to use (how tacky would THAT have been?).  Nope, I didn't want to be concerned with the game.  So, around 7:30ish, I know the game is either over or just about to be over (and you can thank NBC and their approximately 47 commercials for the length of the ND games).  My brother sneaks into the t.v. room at my aunt's house to get ready for the FSU-Virginia game and I walk out.  I figure, if for some reason (O.T. maybe?) the game is still on.....I'm not going to want to subject myself to the torture of watching the game and go completely apeshit in front of a bunch of grieving relatives whether they win or lose.  I mean, if they lose and I see it...I figured I'd be all sort of miserable.  On the other hand, if they won....how would it look to a bunch of grieving relatives if I was screaming like a lunatic because my favorite football team had won a game?  Am I not the picture of maturity here?

So I go outside and pray my little silent pray to the good Lord to remind him which of the two schools is, ya know CATHOLIC and all.....and then go back inside and see my father and brother watching the baseball game.  Or should I say, SUPPOSEDLY watching the baseball game.  What a couple of pokerfaces!!!
My sister is in another room answering a call from her husband and I hear her mention the game....and then....the inevitable....

"So what was the score of the Notre Dame game?"

I could tell by the look on her face that the news was not good.  She handed me the phone and my brother in law John starts telling me that he had just watched one of the greatest games he'd ever seen in his life and that my team should be proud of themselves.  I handed the phone back to my sister and walked quietly back into the t.v. room where my dad and brother were.  They looked at my face and I told them that the Irish had lost.  They told me that they knew, and had been watching the end of the game while I was outside--praying. 

The only good thing about the day---and its not really good, just a little tit for tat---is that my father's Cardinals lost to the Astros and my brother had to suffer through a loss by his beloved FSU Noles to Virginia.  Ya know, misery does love company.

I saw the highlights the next day.  I saw the controversy at the end of the game, which is not surprising in the series between USC and Notre Dame.  That's not me  with sour grapes...that's just me saying that there is usually some rather eyebrow raising calls one way or another during the games between these two.  I find it particularly interesting that, in defeat, Notre Dame may have gained more national respect than they may have ever gotten in victory.  All of a sudden ESPN loves the Irish (well except for Mark May, who has done a really good job of looking like a complete and utter fucking moron in his continued bashing of the Irish) and can't praise them enough.

Pretty amazing what a coach can do, huh?  All those guys who were too slow, or not athletic enough under Ty Willingham are now setting records on a weekly basis.
Yep...pretty amazing.  Ty, for the record, now stands at 1-6 at UW.  Ahem.

Later,
Jeff