Comic for Thursday, January 4th, 2007

Posted: 7:35 am, Thursday, January 4th

OK, with this one, it becomes really clear that I drew this last month. C'est la vie, I don't have time to redraw the garland on the blackboard behind the barista. Baristo? Dude in the apron. Anyway, if I recall, this entire storyline actually did grow out of the strange names Starbucks gives the sizes of their cups (and I think I wrote it before Dunkin Donuts' awesome Fritalian ads).

So I was really busy at work yesterday after dogging it fierce on Tuesday (I figured I deserved a day to ease back into the water), and spent a lot of time catching up with the News Hour podcasts I'd missed while away from the office, and also the two episodes of This American Life. Oh man, their Holiday Spectacular - which I believe is now only available from Audible.com because I'm a week late getting to it - was awesome. It was an all-star cast of new Christmas stories, with David Sedaris, Sarah Vowell, the PC guy on those Mac ads whose name I should really know by now, and some other ones. I'm actually going to keep this one and break it out at Christmas time next year, I think. (Speaking of Christmas time, I just dragged our tree to the curb and got pine pitch on my hands. I absolutely despise getting my hands sticky, so this situation is driving me up the wall.) Anyway, I can't recommend This American Life highly enough, and really urge you to subscribe to the (free) podcast.

Man, this is a bummer - the Sox aren't bringing back Trup for next year's radio broadcasts. Since - despite the fancy trappings of being a webcomic arteest and lusting after a PS3 - I'm basically a Luddite, I intake most of my baseball during the season over the radio, and have long-since grown accustomed to Jerry and Joe being the soundtrack of my spring and summer. I'm quite distraught with this news.

And while we're on the topic of baseball announcers, I happened to catch a snippet of the most vile announcer alive during his drive-time radio show yesterday. Kay and whatever boob is Robin to his Stern were discussing the Giants' coaching position, which the Robot Genius has kept popping up as a candidate for (nevermind the position is not currently available). Oblivious to the fact that coaching in collitch over the pros is the new hotness, and also everything the Robot Genius has said lately, Kay and (we'll call him) Weiner said that the coaching crop would be better next year, and threw some candidates out there. My favorites were Cowher and Belicheck, which they mentioned in all honesty (non-football fans: this has no chance of happening). And then they mentioned Weis.

Weiner: Maybe he decides he can leave after another year.
Kay: Or he gets fired.

And then Kay cracked up. I'm not sure if he laughed because he was being sarcastic, or if he just actually thought this was clever, or what, but the radio turned off immediately. I didn't even have to reach for the dial. My pure hatred of Michael Kay manifested itself into a big glowing pink arm, not unlike how Jim Lee-Psylocke rocked it back in the early 90s, and turned the radio off for me. Pretty cool, all in all.

And that's basically all I've got. I have to go fret about the Sugar Bowl for an hour until kickoff now. Maybe I'll write more afterwards, maybe not. We'll see how much will I have to live remaining after the final whistle.

OK, in the harsh light of morning, I have this to say: That was an abominable effort by the defense throughout. I think the single worst play was Russell's twenty-two yard QB draw from the spread in the second quarter (I think - first half, definitely), where the entire ND secondary had their backs to the middle of the field as the play took place. Don't get me wrong, all of the undefended slant patterns downfield were no treat, either, but that QB draw was awful. As for the offense, because they certainly didn't do much to write home about, either, drops slaughtered us yet again. Brady didn't have that good of a game, but every one of his off-target passes was met with another one that pegged his receiver on the hands (Rhema in the fourth for an interception, Freeman on the first drive that would've kept a drive going) or the head (Samardzija in the second, in the effing end zone). As much as this senior class meant to the team, the only one I'm going to really, really miss is Brady. Samardzija's got about thirty times too much hot dog in him than he should, Rhema can't block (a huge downgrade from Stovall's blocking from last year), Ryan Harris never looked like a four-year starter, and Ndukwe, well, he was never supposed to be a safety, anyway. I hate to say it, but the sooner we're done with everyone that Ty recruited, the closer we'll be to being the nasty team that Charlie wants. All that said, I think we'll actually surprise people next year - I think the Gator Bowl is very likely, and I actually think we'll surprise either Michigan or Southern Cal next year. I'd like it to be USC to break that streak, but I think it will more likely be Michigan.

Oh well. Thanks for the season, Irish. The Blue-Gold game is, I'm guessing, is the 21st or 28th of April.

bullfrog