SHHHHHH

I lie. I don't mean to. I mean not in the concious, I want to avoid, trouble, ridicule, hurting anothers feelings kind of way. Obviously i consciously made a decision to speak but I don't open my mouth to lie.

My roomate and I are watching The Shining. As the camera pulls you around the corner dragging you along with Danny's seventies version of a big wheel I open my mouth and out comes "Man Kubrick's camera work is amazing. I could turn the sound off and just watch the way he moves you through this" LIAR!!!! No I couldn't. I'm not a film student hell, I'm not even a movie buff. I do like the way he directed. I enjoy his movies. But seriously why would I even say that.

My roomate and I are good friends. I have no social need to impress him with my clever observations. I don't care one bit about the date he was currently snuggling with on the couch. (The fact I'm sitting on the couch while he is trying to watch a date with his movie is a whole other issue I'm sure I'll get to later) Yet still this obvious lie comes pouring over my lips.

We all do this. I have sat in a million bars where a girl who is reasonably good looking walks by and one of us will say. "ooooh, the things I would do with her" You know what he, or I, or any of you would do with that girl? The same shit we would do with any other girl; go on a few dates, enjoy a honeymoon period and then grow aware of every flaw she had while she did the same with our flaws. then we would ease past the stage where the good outweiged those flaws and we would begin to nitpick all of those little flaws. We would grow tired of each other and move on in either a quiet disintegration of our relationship or a cataclysmic blow up. Either way the idea that a girls relative hotness would make anything better is just another lie we all tell.

Society forces some of these lies. Im a father, I have two sons. I love them both dearly. I don't however think they were amazing, intelligent, or even remotely special as babies. They are small crap machines that demand to be fed constantly. Parents of newborns who say "Parenting is the best thing that happened to me" need to develop a little more interesting lives. Stop LYING!!! seriously it's hard ass work and it makes you crazy. You're just setting your friends up for failure by lying to them. You know what post-partum depression is? It's the insecurity that people develop when they dont feel the way all their lying friends told them they were supposed to feel.

We all do it we tell these little dumb lies for absolutely no reason. I mean are we all so uncomfortable with a little silence that we truly feel the need to say something.

Bits and Pieces

I used to have a blog called links and lists. I am a little lazy to keep that blog going. Let's be serious— I am barely tending to THIS blog as it is. So on the occasion I put together links and lists it's basically miscellanious; You'll get some links to crap I've found on the net, Random thoughts, I might even rank some stuff. Feel free to let me know if you want something included.

You say White Trash, I say High Class

Look I've been there, we've all lost a good one but seriously...Are you lonely without your dignity?

What are the odds Artest and Kobe fight each other before the preseason is over.

I'm a huge Halloween guy. I love creative costumes. I am not normally into couples costumes but I'd go as that nerdy little harry potter to match this

It's that time again. We have only 65 days until 09/05/09, When USC will face off against San Jose State. As a dedicated reader of this site you know that while I am a passionate Vikings fan I cover all of the NFL. I have decided to take that same approach with college football. Now that I have gotten my obligatory narcissism out of the way let's get to the stuff you care about Ranking the Pac-10. A lot of the lists that you see this early are going to be rankings of schedules. Screw all that, I care how they are going to finish. So here we go.

#1 in your hearts and on this list USC – There are questions at quarterback. Once the who questions are cemented, we will still be left with the how questions. Because of USC’s prolific success in the Pete Carroll era the team has seen more and more of the national spotlight. As we all now sex sells and offense is sexy; you’ll never see the “Chicks dig the well timed stunt by the defensive line” shirt hanging next to the one that references the “long ball”. The point here is the QB isn’t as important as everyone wants us to believe. The defense—Pete Carroll’s specialty—spends a lot of time holding people to scores so low that the offense doesn’t have to do a whole lot to look good. Don’t believe me; look at the performance of SC’s offensive stars once they hit the NFL.

#2 OREGON — This is close. The main reason that USC got the nod at #1 is because it’s my list. The Ducks draw USC at home this year. This game has often been a tough one for the Trojans. That game may be the one that breaks the tie between the two teams. It could also be the game that leaves one of the two teams undefeated and the other one-defeated

One of the reasons that I do stuff like this so early is because it gives me time to rethink it and change my mind on stuff. Like we say at my day job, we do it nice, because we do it twice. Oh quit worrying, I'm not building planes or anything. I quit that job :)

Tomorrow I’ll give you spot #3 and #4. Until then, do good?

USC's Fall Practice Schedule

As usual USC's practices will be open to the public and Pete Carroll wants you to come on out

Aug. 8 - Practice 3 p.m.
Aug. 9 - Practice 3 p.m.
Aug. 10 - Practice 3 p.m.
Aug. 11 - Practice 3 p.m.
Aug. 12 - Practice 3 p.m.
Aug. 13 - Practice 9 a.m.; Practice 4 p.m. (two-a-day)
Aug. 14 - Practice 4 p.m.
Aug. 15 - Practice 9 a.m.; Practice 4 p.m. (two-a-day)
Aug. 16 - Practice 4 p.m.
Aug. 17 - Practice 7:30 p.m.
Aug. 18 - Practice 4 p.m.
Aug. 19 - Practice 4 p.m.
Aug. 20 - Practice 9 a.m.; Practice 4 p.m. (two-a-day)
Aug. 21 - Practice 4 p.m.
Aug. 22 - Practice 9 a.m.; Practice 3 p.m. (two-a-day)
Aug. 23 - OFF
Aug. 24 - OFF (First day of fall semester)
Aug. 25 - Practice 4 p.m.
Aug. 26 - Practice 4 p.m.
Aug. 27 - Practice 4 p.m.
Aug. 28 - Practice 4:15 p.m.
Aug. 29 - Mock game at 12:30 p.m. (Coliseum)
Aug. 30 - OFF
Aug. 31 - Practice 4 p.m. (Normal game week commences)
Sept. 1 - Practice 4 p.m. (Competition Tuesday)
Sept. 2 - Practice 4 p.m. (Turnover Wednesday)
Sept. 3 - Practice 4 p.m. (No Repeat Thursday)
Sept. 4 - Practice 4:15 p.m. (Review Friday - CLOSED to the public)
Sept. 5 - USC vs. SAN JOSE STATE 12:30 p.m. (Coliseum)

A Brush With Free Agency

Free agency begins tonight at 12 ET. Let me save you some time. This wont be an in-depth analysis of all the available free agents. I won’t be discussing the needs of teams and drawing the connect-the-dots lines tying the free agents to said teams. If you want something like that— then try google. (Or you could try bing which I already hate, seriously if they decide to advertise one more place it'll have to be the inside of my eyelids. Sleep is pretty much the only place I don't see their annoying ads)

No this brush with free agency is only here to discuss crap that matters to me.

Crap 1)I like to make predictions. I think if you are going to say you know and love sports, predictions are a part of that. Then again, I said JP Losman was going to be the best QB in his class(See Eli Manning, Philip Rivers, and Ben Roethlisberger) OOPS. With the humble pie having been consumed, here is my prediction; Marcin Gortat will be a player in this league.
I'd love to tell you I've seen a lot his game time in the league. Then I'd love to follow up by recounting the numerous times I saw him play for the Anaheim Arsenal which play 15 min from my palatial condo.

None of that is true though. The only games I have seen Gortat play were in this years playoffs. But as a religious reader of my blog you know about my A-rod rule. "It's what you do when it counts, not what you do with no outs". Gortat played solid through out. Not only is he a solid player, he is a big man in a league suffering for them. He also brings the fundamentals you'd expect from a European player without the glaring softness you normally associate with those players.

Crap2) This only comes second because it is going to be a bit sweeter and a lot shorter. LAMAR ODOM I love your game. I love the way you played for the Lakers this year. But don't lie to yourself; You like being a #2. You defer, and you do it well. Nothing wrong with that. Johnny needed Ed Mcmahon. Batman needed Robin. And my man, Kobe needs you. Ariza is good, but all this hogwash that he can replace you is ridiculous. Stick around, by the time you all quit this run your hand will look like chandeliers