Friday night, I went to a fish fry in Bee, Nebraska, which is town of 209 people about 20 minutes north of Seward. I'd been in Seward to serve as a guest judge for the final project presentation in the Graphic Design department at Concordia University, and when I got word of a place offering plates the size of a cookie sheet heaped with fish, french fries, slaw and bread, PLUS beer for $2 a bottle regardless of make or model, I was sold. Throw in that the venue was a venerable old building in a small town, and I was in for the night.
I woke up around 11am Saturday, opened up my laptop, and saw the following headline on GoCreighton.com: "Men's Basketball to Host UNC on Saturday". My first thought was "Wow, that must have been some gooood fish." My second thought was "Maybe I had one too many Pabst Blue Ribbons." My third thought was "UNC? Wait, the Jays are playing North Carolina? When the hell did this happen?"
Northern Colorado. Duh. I guess the initials are the same, just like South Carolina likes to call themselves USC and Southern Illinois likes to call themselves [INSERT YOUR OWN JOKE HERE].
So that was the great excitement for me today. Five seconds of confused thoughts followed by a bowl of Cap'n Crunch. You bet.
Its the opening game of the Findlay Toyota Las Vegas Classic, and apparently the organizers want Creighton to wind up in Vegas next week. Why else would they send such dubious competition to Omaha? Folks, we're in for a treat here: twice in three days, we might see Creighton score a hundy on bad teams.
My buddy Clifford Glypha is an illustrator, and he likes sports only in the realm of video games. We were at a party last month, and the Oklahoma-Texas Tech football game was on in the living room. While everyone else stopped paying attention to it roughly around the time the score became so absurd even Balky Bartokomous would call it absurd, Cliff actually STARTED paying attention to it. He wanted to see the Tecmo Bowl-esque 100 point barrier broken. I tried to explain to him that a major college team rarely if ever scores 100 points. He was undeterred. He kept rooting for, in his words, "them to score a hundy!"
So I have appropriated his word, which may or may not have been made up by him on the spot, in a misguided attempt at saving syllables. Just thought you should know where this silly word came from, because I might be typing it a lot over the next few days.
One Big Paragraph With Lots O'Dots(TM): While its the wrong UNC coming to town, at least in terms of excitement, there is this: UNC is the alma mater of Nick Nolte. Nick Nolte! I feel like there should be some cheap 48 Hours joke here, but I'm not the one to make it. Alas ... UNC is in their fifth year of D1 ball, and plays in the Big Sky conference ... UNC is 2-4 on the season, with the four losses coming by a combined 12 points to such competition as Oregon ... UNC was a mediocre team BEFORE one of their starters, Jefferson Mason, left the team on Friday. Coupled with the continued absence of leading rebounder Robert Palacios, and UNC's chances of winning tonight go from "not bloody likely" to "one in a million" ... Adding to the fun, Head Coach Tad Boyle is a former assistant at Wichita State, and Dana Altman was 11-3 against the Shockers during the years Boyle was on the bench. Did I mention UNC is in trouble tonight? You bet.
The Last Time They Met: 29 years before I was born into a babyhood of disco baby shoes and rhinestone bell bottoms, UNC played Creighton. Strangely enough, the final score was eerily similar to what is expected tonight. The 105-54 win is the sixth-largest margin of victory in Jays history.
Gratuitous Linkage: Once, I dated a girl who was obsessed with Hello Kitty. It was borderline psychopathic. Needless to say that relationship didn't go anywhere. When I broke up with her, I could be wrong, but I believe I incorporated the words "Goodbye Kitty" into the soliloquy. It was the least I could do. She would have loved the Hello Kitty Maternity Ward in the Hello Kitty Hospital. I do not, but I sure do enjoy making jokes about it.
Official Game-Time Snack: When in doubt, go with Mini Donuts, the Snack of Champions.
The totally random song I'd play right now if were still a DJ: "Don't Wanna Fall In Love" by Jane Child (let me explain below)
True story to segue you into that song: Last fall, a group of my buddies, present company included, road tripped to Denver for a design conference. We took the northern route through Wyoming so that we could stop in Fort Collins; the intention was to go on three micro-brewery tours that happen to be on the same street. Is there a better happy hour than a free one? I think not.
Anyway, that's the sum total of my experience with Northern Colorado, at least geographically speaking, and it was good times. I used my considerable charm to score a second round of free beers at the end of the New Belgium Brewery tour. And then we drove into Denver and went to Casa Bonita for bad tacos, theatrical cliff divers, mariachi bands and endless bad impressions of Eric Cartman from the South Park episode that took place there.
I tell you this as a roundabout manner of mentioning that during the course of that trip, this particular song came up on random shuffle three times on my iPod. The odds of this happening when there's 10,900 songs on said iPod? That's why I don't do math. Reset the playlist three times, and three times that song comes up randomly in the middle somewhere? It was already becoming a joke nearing legendary status, and then when we got into Denver and unplugged the iPod, guess what song was on the radio?
You guessed it, genius. Jane Child, "Don't Wanna Fall In Love". You can't make this stuff up.
Prediction: Same score as the last team UNC visited Omaha. Jays 105, UNC 54.
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