UConn 129, Morehead State 61.

Just wow.

For those whose browsers were experiencing problems viewing the Irish Trojan Pick ‘em results page… check it now. Is it working again?

At Ken’s suggestion, I removed the SiteMeter counter, which he suspects may have been the culprit. (I had forgotten it was even there.)

Guestblogger: Josh Rubin

Yeah, OK, so it won’t be a real ode, because that would require me to write a poem.

But here’s an idea. Since the happy couple will be getting married soon, I think it would be nice if we totally embarassed him (them) by putting in the comments section anything we can remember that he (they) has (have) done since we’ve known him (them). My idea is to have this done no later than Tuesday 12/27 at 11:59 pm so I can print it out, and then perhaps we can sign it (if we’re at the wedding) and present it to Brendan and Becky at their nuptuals on Friday.

And if Brendan deletes this post, we’ll know he has something to hide :-)

Any takers? Use the comments box. (Joe and Leanna … We know you must have tons!)

I’ll go first: I’ve known Brendan for more than 10 years now, and since we were such dorks in high school (and we still are, but who’s counting?), there is obviously a long list of things I could list here. But I’ll only name a few.

1. Video Camera. That boy constantly had a video camera strapped to his neck. When it was in the shop, it was a high-speed picture camera. Sometimes it was both. When I told my little sister that Brendan was getting married, her first response was, “To who? His video camera?”

2. Living Room Times. Before irishtrojan.com and before brendanloy.com (yeah, they’re the same site, but I don’t know which one y’all have bookmarked) there was Brendan’s own publication, the Living Room Times. Its motto? “All the nose that’s fit to print.” This occasionally-published newspaper gained a better readership than the school newspaper, which (no surprise) Brendan became editor-in-chief of during our sophomore year. I at least waited until my senior year before I became one of the assistant editors :-). But LRT existed even before I knew him.

3. The Dolly Elections. That’s right, every year, Brendan would hold (and still does hold) an election for his stuffed animals. Who will win this year? Which party will continue to rule? And in 12th Grade we even put up our own stuffed animals to win. OK, so in ‘99 the whole school was under the spell of our Dorkish leader :-)

4. Star Trek. OK, so there were 5 of us (6 if you count Roger). And yes, I was one of them. But there really was a time when we all let Trek rule every conversation we had.

5. The Summer of ‘96. Between 9th and 10th grade … over the summer, Brendan shot up like a whole foot. There was a time when he was shorter than me! Really, there was! This isn’t embarassing, but I still remember him coming back to school the following year and everyone stared at him in disbelief.

So that last one isn’t particularly funny (maybe none of them are), but they certainly make me think of Brendan …

A week from today, Becky and I will be getting married!

As you can imagine, the preparations continue apace. On Wednesday, Becky picked up her dress, and then we met with our priest and went over the planned order of the ceremony, selected our vows, etc. We still need to pick out readings, which I suspect will be a project for today (Friday).

We spent most of Thursday hashing out music-related issues. For instance, “Canon in D” beat out “Ode to Joy” for the Processional; any and all Clancy Brothers songs were ruled out from being played at the reception; but I did get Becky to agree to one Barra MacNeils song, “Don’t Call Me Early in the Morning” — sort of my personal theme song, hehe. There will also be several Great Big Sea songs, in addition to plenty of, er, “normal” music. :)

We’ve also been doing a bunch of other wedding-related odds and ends. For example, on Thursday we bought colored sand and vases for the sand ceremony (an outdoors-friendly, wind-proof alternative to “unity candles”).

There’s a ton more to do, of course. My next priority is calling the photographer and videographer, to make sure everything is all set on their end. Meanwhile Becky has a million, uh, girly bride things to do, most of which are about as mysterious to me as the intricacies of white-collar criminal law are to her… probably moreso.

It’s hard to believe, but there are only five more real “preparation” days (one of which is Christmas!), and then things start really moving… the bachelor party next Wednesday, the rehearsal on Thursday, the wedding on Friday… eek!

I can’t wait. :)

P.S. Any suggestions for good father-daughter dance songs?

Four games into the 2005-06 college bowl season, 20 of the 128 contestants in the Irish Trojan’s Bowl Pick ‘em contest are still perfect in their predictions.

Chris McLemore, Patrick C., Long John, Derek Walden, Bizi Carrington, William Reising, Mark Gardner, Melanie Dickson, Darrin Bartley, Nick Gustafson, Rick Boeckler, Ed, Andrew, Carl Lindecrantz, Khalil Abou-khaled, Erik Forrest, Trooper, Dan Dinunzio, A.J. and Soren H. are all a perfect 4-0, after predicting Thursday’s victories by Cal and Navy.

Up next: Kansas vs. Houston in the Fort Worth Bowl at 8:00 PM EST tonight.

Complete standings here. (If you cannot see the standings, or they appear screwed up, please leave a comment describing what you see, and please mention what operating system and browser you are using. The standings look fine to me, but some others have reported trouble.)

As someone who recently had his laptop stolen out of the trunk of an unlocked car (or possibly after I left it in a parking lot), I’m hardly in a position to lecture others about taking better care of their electronic gadgets. But at least I have the good sense to back up my important data. On the other hand, having only one copy of the Master’s thesis you’ve been working on for seven years — and storing that one copy on a small, easy-to-steal flash drive — takes a special kind of stupid.

Amazingly, this story has a happy ending.

Senator Ted “Grinch” Stevens (R-Alaska) is threatening to keep Congress in session through New Year’s unless his fellow senators give in to his bullying:

A spending bill containing money for the military and Gulf Coast hurricane recovery also now includes a provision to allow Arctic oil drilling - a recent addition by Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, that has infuriated senators of both parties. The move would force lawmakers to vote for the package or be accused of withholding support for U.S. troops and storm victims.

“I hope the good lord will help me keep my temper,” Stevens…said just before Democrats and two Republicans blocked a vote on the package.

Tossing a glance across the aisle at Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., who had denounced the drilling measure, Stevens grumbled, “I asked for his apology once; I wouldn’t accept it now.”

Stevens then threatened to keep the Senate in session through New Year’s Day until the matter is settled. It wouldn’t be the first time he rang in a new year on the Senate floor, he said.

Some lawmakers said they were outraged as much by Stevens’ procedural hardball as by the prospect of oil and gas exploration in the Arctic.

“Shame!” scolded the dean of the Senate, Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va.

Senator Stevens is a blight on democracy. We seriously need to find some way to get rid of that guy.

P.S. Get him out of the Senate, I mean. I’m not encouraging anyone to, like, kill the guy! But it’s a shame he didn’t resign, like he threatened to a while back.

The Indianapolis Colts will be playing without their head coach this Saturday against the Seahawks. Tony Dungy’s 18-year-old son was found dead earlier today in his Tampa, Florida apartment in what appears to be a suicide. Dungy is in Tampa now, dealing with this family tragedy, and will be there indefinitely. In the mean time, Colts assistant head coach Jim Caldwell has assumed Dungy’s duties.

Guestblogger: David Kreutz

It looked like the Mormons and the Hippies would be going into halftime tied after a long BYU drive, but those granola-eating Bears came back and scored in the last 30 seconds of the first half, off three plays topped by a 42 yard TD catch, to make the score 21-14 Cal.

In this symbolic battle of liberals and conservatives, it looks like the Left has the edge so far. ;-)

UPDATE: The tree-huggers were able to hold off those clean-shaven Mormons to finish the game with a 35-28 win in the Las Vegas Bowl. 32 contestants in the Irish Trojan Pick ‘em contest remain undefeated.

Colorado State currently trails Navy by 10 in the second quarter of the inaugural Poinsettia Bowl in San Diego.

A Colorado State win would leave us with 12 perfect picks so far, and a Navy win obviously leaves us with 20. So far, all the teams that have won have been favorites.

Guestblogger: David Kreutz

UPDATE BY BRENDAN: Navy won. The Midshipmen finish the season 8-4.

One note about the statement “all the teams that have won have been favorites.” That’s true, according to the oddsmakers. However, judging by the summary of all contestants’ picks in the Pick ‘em contest, UTEP was the “favorite” over Toledo in yesterday’s GMAC Bowl, 86 to 42. Toledo won, which is the biggest reason why so few undefeated contestants remain in the contest.

Pretty pink clouds as the sun sets on another beautiful Arizona day.

The NYC transit strike is apparently ending.

There’s been a fair amount of talk recently about what constitutes “victory” in Iraq, and how we’ll know when we’ve achieved it. This morning I thought of a possible definition.

When the security situation is such that world leaders don’t always have to make “surprise” visits to Iraq, we will have achieved victory.

Thoughts?

I was reading through some of the terms regarding a credit card that I have and found this wonderful gem of a clause used to screw people.

How we Allocate Payments

We will allocate your payments in the manner we determine. In most instances, we will allocate your payments to balances (including transactions made after this statement) with lower APRs before balances with higher APRs. This will result in a balances with lower APRs (such as new balances with promotional APR offers) being pad before any other existing balances.

Isn’t that lovely, they will apply your payment in a manner that makes them the most money. Now I understand that to an extent. But if you look at that clause, what it basically means is that you can’t avoid paying finance charges, even if you pay off the balance in full if you use the card at all between the time your statement is printed and your payment posts.

Now, tell me, why is it we should make it easier for these companies to screw consumers?

guest blog, dcl

The unranked USC men’s basketball team — the same team that lost to Cal State Northridge and Oral Roberts to start the season, and nearly lost to a Division II team — beat #17-ranked North Carolina, the defending national champion, 74-59 on Wednesday night at the Los Angeles Sports Arena. Yee-haw! Way to go, Trojans! (Hat tip: Boi From Troy.)

It’s the Trojans’ first win over the Tar Heels in eight tries, their first win over a ranked team since March 2004, and perhaps the program’s biggest win since upsetting #2-seed Kentucky in the 2002 Sweet Sixteen. USC has now won eight games in a row since starting the season 0-2. Fight on!

UPDATE: Jay Barasch — who, as an alum of USC undergrad and Duke law, has two good reasons to be happy about the Trojans winning and the Tar Heels losing — comments:

tonight is the second time i’ve been able to watch the trojans on TV - the first time since the horrible game against Oral Roberts…

the difference in the Trojans is night and day.

USC played hard, aggressive, turnover-creating defense - which is a style of play that i LOVE to watch. When USC had our elite-eight run in 2001, that was the style of defense they played and they were incredibly fun to watch play D. I saw some shades of that in the way USC has played today.

USC forced a ton turnovers by the tar heels, not including SEVERAL times when the trojans interfered with the Tar Heels offense without actually creating a turnover, like swatting the ball out of bounds (and many of those were NEARLY saved to the trojans for a turnover)

In addition, UNC got most of their points from outside shooting. the Trojans allowed them very few clear inside chances. The tar heels were pretty hot from the first half, accounting for their halftime lead, but given that the Trojans are an undersized team, the fact that the tar heels were forced to rely on outside shooting is pretty remarkable.

USC is still playing sloppily and making some bad decisions on offense - making some bad shot selections and trying to force some spectacular passes when there’s another simple pass they could have made. But those are signs of a very young team, which USC is. And it’s not NEARLY as bad as it was just a few weeks ago.

Hopefully, that’s a sign that tim floyd is having a positive impact on this team, and will continue to push this team in the right direction. I still don’t think this is an NCAA tournament team this year, but i don’t think the NIT is out of the question, and the Trojans could be ready to make a serious run at the NCAA the next couple years after this year.

They had a halftime report on the Galen Center, USC’s new state-of-the-art basketball arena adjacent to campus opening next year. It looks simply spectacular. If USC can put a decent run together the next two years, the new arena could get high-quality recruits to seriously consider USC as an alternative to UCLA, Stanford, and Arizona. From there - who knows? *crosses fingers*

Meanwhile, Scientizzle says: “Tim Floyd for Coach of the Year!”

After Toledo’s win over UTEP in the GMAC Bowl, it’s now a 35-way tie for first place in the Irish Trojan’s Bowl Pick ‘em contest.

Tomorrow: BYU-Cal in the Las Vegas Bowl and Navy-Colorado State in the Poinsettia Bowl.