Quack, Quack

As a graduate of the fine educational institution that is UC Davis, I will be the first to admit that there was one thing that was seriously lacking from my college experience: football. Your first reaction is probably this, "Aw, that's too bad that you guys didn't have a football team." To which I would tell you, "False! We DO have one!" To which you would probably reply with, "Uh, what? Stop lying. UC Davis plays football?"

But the truth is that yes, the Aggies have been playing on the gridiron for many, many years. In fact, we are only one of three UCs with a football team (Cal and UCLA being the others). However, we play in Division I-AA. For those that don't know, I-AA is kind of like the minor leagues of college football. So when the football schedule is packed with such powerhouses as the University of Montana, you can understand why I have more interest in "real" college football.

Anyway, since I grew up in the Bay Area, I'm sort of an adoptive Cal fan. But I have a confession: I might have a new favorite college football team, and it won't make people in Berkeley happy. I have to admit that I love the Oregon Ducks. I re-watched last week's Oregon-UCLA game and I'm not sure there's a more entertaining team to watch than the boys from Eugene. That fast-paced, spread option offense is ridiculous, they have great fans, and they have the most fun uniforms in all of college football. (If you are interested, there's actually a site that keeps track of all of Oregon's uniform combinations throughout the season.)

Anyway, the Ducks play at USC this weekend. No one with a soul likes USC, so if you need one more reason to hate the Trojans, there's this: after watching Cain Velasquez dominate Brock Lesnar in the UFC title fight this past weekend, USC QB Matt Barkley tweeted, "Wow, Brock just got rocked! Lesnar is to Oregon as Velasquez is to SC. Lezgo."

Yup, he's a douche. Let's go Ducks.

Quack, quack.

To the Series

One more to go...

Thunder Road

Forget the Miami Heat. The Thunder are on the cover of this year's SI NBA preview.

For the record, I'm not really an OKC fan, but I love Kevin Durant. And how good a guy is he? He asked that SI photograph not just him, but his teammates as well. LeBron probably would have had a press conference to announce he was doing that.

And in case you were wondering, the Warriors were ranked 13th out of the 15 teams in the Western Conference. Uh... We Believe?

160 Percent Effort

The University of Mississippi, better known as Ole Miss, has announced the school's new mascot. For those who do not keep up with college mascot news, Ole Miss' old mascot, Colonel Reb, was kicked to the curb a few years ago because he resembled a southern plantation owner just a little bit too much which conjured up bad memories of slavery in the south.


Yeah, okay, fair enough. This guy looks like he could be Colonel Sanders' racist cousin.

Anyway, the school set out on finding a new mascot that would keep up with the Ole Miss Rebel tradition, but also create a new image separate from the south's dark past which lasted from the early 1800s until about, um.... the mid-1980s. The final mascot choices were then put to a vote among students, faculty, and alumni, and the results are in:

62 percent voted for Rebel Black Bear (the winner).

56 percent voted for Rebel Land Shark.

42 percent voted for Hotty Toddy.


So let's welcome the Ole Miss Rebel Black Bear. Okay, so it's not exactly the coolest or most original choice for a mascot. But according to the university, the black bear has a "Mississippi connection" which I assume means that there are actually black bears in Mississippi. (Turns out this is true! In fact, there are almost 80 in the entire state!) I'm a little surprised, though, that Rebel Land Shark wasn't the runaway winner because nothing screams the south or rebellion quite like a land shark. And in case you were wondering, Hotty Toddy (the dude on the left) is the name of the Ole Miss cheer. So the mascot would have basically been... a cheer. Clearly creativity is not terribly alive down south.

But there is one thing that's particularly worth pointing out: did you count those percentages carefully? The total adds up to, not 100 percent, but an amazing 160 percent. Apparently math isn't terribly alive down south either. And you thought education in California was in trouble.

It's just a shame that the ultimate, all-time leader of rebels in the entire universe wasn't able to be considered for the position of Ole Miss Rebel mascot.

It's a trap!!!

On to the Next One

See you in Philly.

Countdown to Conan

If you've been watching the MLB playoffs on TBS at all, you've no doubt seen some of the ads promoting Conan O'Brien's return to late night in early November. Here's a link to the YouTube page with all the promos. (This one is my personal favorite.)

Anyway, if you know me at all, you know that I'm pretty excited for Conan to be back. I did some scrounging around and found some of my favorite Conan moments from the Late Night days. And why should I keep these to myself? These are obviously meant to be shared. Enjoy.

Conan helps out during the NYC transit strike.

On his trip to San Francisco, Conan visited Intel headquarters in Santa Clara.

Conan playing old school baseball. (The buffering might take a little time because it's some random Chinese YouTube-type site.)

The Walker Texas Ranger lever.

Max and Conan get a beer.

Possibly my second favorite Conan remote ever: Conan having dinner with his associate producer Jordan Schlansky.

And the best one ever: Conan's 1992 Ford Taurus.

Sir Charles

Thanks to Sports Illustrated for this quote from Charles Barkley, commenting on LeBron James' suggestion that race was a contributing factor in the public animosity over his departure from Cleveland:

"It's like watching a movie. Just when you think it couldn't get any stupider, it gets more stupid."

Seriously, how can you not love Charles Barkley?

Victorious

See you Thursday.