Go Blue! 47-21 over Notre Dame

(Note: I thought I had posted this yesterday... Someone mentioned that it was missing, so I posted it today. All the rest of text remains intact from yesterday's version... that means I'm not proofing even now:-P)

Wow. Yesterday was a crazy day.

Michigan defeated Notre Dame (in college football) in South Bend for the first time since 1994. Not only did we defeat them, we stepped in and scored more points in South Bend than any team since Purdue in 1960. 47 points.

And yet, the game felt like a close one. I saw Brady Quinn connect with Jeff Samardzija, and---when he did---they were able to make some big plays. When Notre Dame scored right before the half, putting the score to 34-14, I was nervous. What happens if Mike Hart gets injured? What happens if Henne can't get some big drives through? Nervous.

Of course I was excited. The game was going really well. On the second play of the first Irish drive, Prescott Burgess picked off Quinn and went in for the first score, but one cannot rely on the defense to put points on the board.

Luckily, "Super" Mario Manningham had been unleashed in the first half, with three touchdown receptions from Chad Henne. If things started to go wrong, it seemed we could just "Throw the ball to Manningham!" as John so eloquently puts it.

It wasn't until Lamarr Woodley came through with the fumble return for the final touchdown with 3 minutes left that we could begin to celebrate. During that fourth quarter, we had had failed drive after failed drive, and the Irish seemed to be able to keep their drives alive, making fourth downs, if necessary. No point girth seemed wide enough until the Wood came down and set us further ahead.

The Wolverines outplayed the Irish---that is clear. However, I think it's pretty clear that we were wary of them throughout the game. There was no sit-and-relax-on-our-lead mentality. We needed to shut them down whenever and wherever we got the chance.

So, although the score shows a blow-out, it seemed like a close game right up to the end. It may seem stupid, but thanks to the Irish for putting up a good fight all the way through. We had respect for your team throughout the game, and without that respect, we might well have lost.

It's great to be a Michigan Wolverine! Go Blue!

Gotta tie things together...

I feel like there are just a bunch of loose ends in my life right now that I simply need to tie down, so I'm gonna fill this post with a bunch of junk.

1) I wrote another big script for setting up little webpages for my pictures. It's clunky and sloppy, but it works pretty well. I'm a fan, and my latest picture collections are examples of the script in action. I won't post the script just yet... but... yeah... all set and sexy.

2) After I post this, I plan on linking to this blog from my homepage. Bonus!

3) I played a bass guitar today. Awesome. I learned some notes for part of the bassline to Spirit of Radio. Davey taught me. Bonus! Thanks Davey C!

4) I switched from Mandrive to Kubuntu, which is awesome. I'm such a fan of "apt-get"ing stuff. Yay Kubuntu. Yay Debian derivations! Yay linux in general! Now I just need to get xine to work and I'll be a complete person again:-P

5) Unfortunately, in the process of this move, one of my greatest projects, my Magic (the Gathering) card database was lost. Eeks! Now I'll have to re-enter my 11k cards! Holy crud!

6) I said something somewhat meaningful about 9-11 yesterday. I'm also a complete slut for webcomics, and I'm surprised that more of them haven't done something about the 5 year anniversary that happened yesterday. One of my newer favorites, however, "You'll Have That" has been, and it looks like he's going to do a whole week of them. There's a link to the comic homepage from my website, but this a link to the beginning of the arc. On the news, the author of the comic says he wants to hear about people's responses to 9-11, but not in a "taking-sides" sort of way... meaning politically. Unfortunately, I don't know how to respond very well without being political on that issue. I think this is again very telling of how my attitude towards the whole event really sucks.

7) I hate Blogger's method for placing links. I dunno if there's another way, but the GUI way is horrendous. It's hard to copy/paste links in, and it already provides you with the http:// as though you're going to hand-enter the link. Why would anyone do that? I actually have gripes with lots of Google products, which I think I'll vent about at another time. I should say that I don't hate Google---I'm quite fond of them (and now especially one of their employees)---but there really seems to be some kind of disconnect between what they're delivering and what their users are looking for. ( <3 Eric Schmidt... <3 ... sigh...)

8) Speaking of You'll Have That, I wrote to the author at one point, having noticed one of the characters wearing a shirt with a big 'M' on it. The comic takes place in Ohio... but I am a big Michigan fan (Go Blue!). I wrote to Wes, the author, and he wrote back saying that that character is (unfortunately) a Michigan fan. Well, even though he's an OSU monkey... I'll still likely buy a book at some point. It's a good comic.

Okay... that's enough for now. Tune in later when this blog continues to suck. Kind of like Sir Sux-a-lot of the band Sucking to the Eighties. Exactly.

9/11, 5 years later

Yes, I suck at updating. I also don't have readers, so it's cool.

Five years ago was 9-11-01, when planes flew into the World Trade Center towers in New York City. It was a pretty devastating day for lots of people... myself included. It was a tuesday. The planes struck early. At, like, 8:46 and 9:06am. I don't remember exactly; I'm just going from what I recall. I first heard about it when I was walking through the student union at school. There was a small tv in the hallway near the mailboxes, and people were watching the news, which was showing footage of the planes and the WTC.

I'm very unfamiliar with NYC. I've been there once, on a band trip in high school. We were chauferred around for the better part of a weekend, and we saw a few things, but didn't get a big grasp of the city. There was certainly no chance for wandering and exploring. On top of that, I had no idea what the World Trade Center was. Now, everytime I look at an old picture of NYC, I notice the twin towers immediately (of course). Back then, it wasn't something I thought about or had ever heard of.

Still, I am ashamed of my first reaction to this tragedy. I was cynical. My first thought was that this event would be used inappropriately. I was already not a fan of the Bush administration (2000 was the first time I really started paying attention to politics), and I can't say for certain that I thought specifically that it would be them that would abuse this event.

I should have been sad, awestruck, frightened... anything. Instead I was frustrated and cynical. I'm sure this says a lot about my character. I'm not immediately one to take well to bad news. Once it sinks in, though, I feel it very strongly.

Fast forward a few hours: We are sitting in a friend's dorm room, watching the coverage unfold. We see videotapes of the planes striking the twin towers over and over. We watch the smoke billow from the burning top floors, and the towers collapse onto the streets. People run to escape the clouds of debris and ash. Lives are lost before our very eyes.

I wanted to cry at that point. My girlfriend looked over at me with the whole group there and said, "you're really having a hard time with this, huh?" Yeah I was, but I could only nod back. I wrote a little open letter that night and posted it on my website at the time. I don't know if I still have it, but if I ever find it, I'll put it up. The gist was simple: we should not satiate our grief with violence. We should find a peaceful response to these atrocities. Perhaps instead of blowing this off as a since instance of a few people with unjustified anger, we should investigate how our lifestyles affect the rest of the world. Does the American Way of Life naturally lead to other nations being impoverished?

Most importantly, though, I was taught as a kid not to react violently to other people threatening and attacking me. I did my best to follow that, and I hoped that we could do the same, post 9-11. It sees to me that we have failed in this endeavor.