Comic for Friday, April 6th, 2007

Posted: 8:45 am, Friday, April 6th

Aside from the return of baseball, my favorite springtime sporting event is Notre Dame's Bookstore Basketball tournament. The team names are up online (let me know if this link doesn't work - for some reason, it's not opening for me through Dreamweaver, but from my desktop it's OK), and it seems to be a pretty big field this year with 655 teams. A lot of whom have had their names redacted. Oh well. Some of my favorites - Our Team is also Named Bort, Zach Attack, Just Here For the Butt Slapping, Justice League of Notre Dame, We Are Everything That is Wrong With Bookstore Basketball, Knocked out faster than Robert Bell (he's the guy that Zibby boxed), We Play Pretty One Day, IT PUTS IT IN THE BASKET, and If We Lose, The Terrorists Win. There's also one called ND United, which is not as clever as they think. Just about every team in my soccer league, including ours, is called [Name of company] United.

Speaking of baseball, though, whooooo, Matsuzaka-san! I also almost feel bad for the human goiters who suffered through almost four hours of 30-degree weather and high winds up in the Bronx, just to watch the Devil Rays best Andy Pettite. But then I remember that last time I saw a Sox game in that stadium, and all pity disappears.

I felt like a doofus briefly yesterday (well, more than briefly, but this particular instance of that feeling was brief), because I had to run up 5th Ave to get to St. Pat's on time for the noon Holy Thursday service. Running up 5th Ave, it's hard not to look like a crazy person. Unless you're one of the people that's actually running it in sports gear - I always wonder about the people who are clearly doing their daily exercise run in Midtown. Where the hell do these people live? How are they running in the middle of the day? Anyway, the point of this story is that St. Patrick's has a pretty spiffy Flash introduction to their page, and also that they have sold out of tickets to the 8:15 Easter morning Mass. I don't know if they were actually selling the tickets or just issuing them, but, still. That's a really big cathedral, so the existence of any ticket system at all is kind of fascinating to me.

The Onion is joking (a-duh), but I have the feeling they're actually working on this somewhere.

I'm hoping to catch Grindhouse tonight - on Good Friday, I know, I'm not too proud - and then settle in for a nice weekend of slumming around the Terrace and then scooting up to Nyack for Easter with the 'rents and my aunt and uncle. I hope your plans are also pleasant, if they involve Easter or no. Special points if they involve Greek Easter, just because I find it hilarious that even Greek people call it Greek Easter.

bullfrog

Saw the end of the Sox game too, actually. Dude, Papelbon is INSANE! Whoa.

I like to think he was yelling at Varitek to kick him (Papelbon) in the junk after that last out. "Hurt me, 'Tek! Hurt me bad! YAAARRRRRRRRRR!"

I think Paps was like, 'Dude, it's 38 degrees in Texas, someone's paying for the fact that my as is freezing! Allow me to use 15 pitches to get 5 outs, including 23 strikeouts.

Yankee starters' ERA? 9.91 Lovely. Bullpen has more innings pitched than the starters. I'm setting the over/under on reliever arms that Torre destroys at 3.5.

Zero In Fenway on Saturday! Woooo!

Man, that Goat Fucker ERA is a thing of absolute beauty.

And that's awesome, man. Enjoy the most beautiful park in the bigs.

Now that I can listen to podcasts again, I'm listening to the Irish Eyes Power Hour while I toil the day away, and Mike Frank just had a fantastic line.

"You guys - Irish fans are all whining about the trouble we have with kickers and getting a decent kicker. Well, geez, if you have a son, get him out there and train him to be a damn kicker! Take care of this yourself!"

Good times.

Ok, apartment hunting in South Bend this weekend. Ive got a mad listing built up because living on campus doesnt seem manageable at this point. Are there any watering holes the group feels compelled to push me towards? Else I will wander aimlessly around the streets of south bend until I hear someone singing a Barley Mo.

I've always liked Club 23. E and Skitters used to live nearby, on Corby Street. I think things have done changed a bit - my favorite used to be Coach's, but it's called something like Bookmakers now and is largely a townie establishment. RAW and I were ridiculously out-of-place last time we stopped in there, but I'm not sure if it's still popular with the students on non-weekends.

You're going to want to hit CJ's for a burger, in the actual city of South Bend. It's a big freshman bar (or used to be, anyway), but the burgers are tremendous before the kiddies come out. Corby's is where I find myself most often after games these days.

Others, folks?

15, meant to tell you, I saw "Spring Awakening" a few weeks ago. I liked it, but then this weekend I got the soundtrack, and now I'm OBSESSED. All the songs seem to be stuck in my head at once.

Oh hooray Spring Awakening! So glad you like it too. I agree about the cd - it's been months since I bought it and it's still one of my top-played albums on the ipod. What a great score.

Also, just realized that my comment this morning is about baseball, but strangely does not mention the Cardinals. That HAS to be a first.

The bar scene at ND is a little difficult - they seem to change in popularity quite frequently AND I've since learned that undergrads and grad students don't always like the same places.

I think Corbys is the exception - good for everyone and usually a good time. There was a loyal following for Mishawaka Brew Pub, but I wouldn't recommend moving out that way. I seem to remember downtown South Bend having a few good establishments and the restaurants were decent (The Vine, the jazz place, a good thai place). Boy, its been a while, huh?

Oh, man, Bruno's South, with their five-dollar buffet. Hell if I can remember where the hell that place was, though.

Everyone, regardless of age or status (townie or student), seems to like The Backer as well. Of course The Backer is a little different scene than the places that E mentioned.

I guess I consider that less a bar and more a rite of passage.