• One deep fried butter on a stick
• One deep fried pineapple on a stick
• Two deep fried Milky Ways on a stick (sticks)
• And a large DIET Pepsi

My sister insists the beverage choice was because the diet version of Pepsi tastes better, rather than any calorie savings.  Regardless, this lead to teasing for the rest of the day.

Aside from being cool just for the “old people who get out and do stuff are cool” factor, it’s also a pretty interesting idea in general. Granted, anyone can volunteer, so it’s not like the option isn’t there, and Grandma Millie obviously isn’t exactly your standard 89 year old, but it does seem like a really good match. Schools are increasingly underfunded and understaffed, and there’s an ever growing retired / elderly population, especially with the baby boomers coming up.

From visits to my own grandmother, I can tell you that a lot of the people at retirement communities really don’t get many visitors, and particularly not young ones, but particularly love visitors, and particularly young one. Kids move away and get busy with their day to day lives (self as case in point on both) and don’t visit much. And loneliness and a certain lack of purpose seem to crop up in older people’s lives, especially if their spouses are gone. And let’s be honest, retirement homes, assisted living communities, etc are not exactly the most inviting places in the world to visit (or I would imagine, live). There’s a certain slow paced, reverently hushed, orderly plodding about them.

But, as a sort of fitting to the concept of second childhood, elementary school classrooms can also have a sort of slow paced, reverently hushed, orderly plodding about them (granted, with many more bursts of disorderliness and energy, but still).

It would seem like a pretty good fit to have retirement communities, the AARP, or other groups for retired people organize a sort of exchange program with elementary schools, where retired people can go to (or perhaps be bused to / shuttled to if the can’t drive) elementary schools to help with tutoring subjects like reading, math, and music. Teachers would get free or cheap teacher’s aids, kids who might otherwise get overlooked get tutors, and lonely older people get youthful companionship, a sense of purpose and involvement, and something to help stay mentally active. It would seem especially important given that a lot of research shows keeping mentally active and involved helps delay the onset of a lot of the mental deterioration that can come with older age.

There’s also the fact that there’s another adult available all the time in the class room, so there’s the added safety for the retiree that if they fall and need help, or whatever situation may arise where they need prompt assistance, there’s someone there to help, and usually a nurse on site at the school.

From the residents of assisted living communities and retirement homes that I’ve met, as well as older people who live at home and don’t get out much, they also seem to get a lot of their views and opinions of the outside world from watching cable news channels, which tend to give less than a rosy outlook on the state of the world (Are terrorists selling fake prescription drugs to your pharmacy? Stay tuned for our full investigative report after the break, but first, see our exclusive video of a mother who threw her infant child in a snow bank and ran off….). Actually getting out and meeting people can help one’s overall attitude (again, self as evidence for times when I’ve worked way too many hours in the corporate world and decided all people are selfish bastard who would chop off your leg if someone offered them $5 for it… until I head out the bar with friends and remember, oh yeah, most people aren’t so bad). Again, a more positive attitude has also been shown to improve health and increase life expectancy.

There may be lots of logistical issues I’m missing here, and I’m making broad, sweeping generalizations about a various groups of people I’m not a part of and don’t have lots of interactions with. So, the exchange program obviously wouldn’t be for everyone, but it would seem like organizing opportunities for matches like this would be something nice to set up.

That’s Zach Wahls testifying against a bill put forth in the Iowa House of Representatives to put an amendment to the Iowa state constitution that would ban gay marriage on the ballot in 2013.  The bill passed in the House anyway, but Senate leaders (particularly Senate Majority Leader Michael Gronstal) have said they’ll block it from coming to the floor there, which basically means that any further action that could bring up a vote is delayed until at least 2014.

Via Boing Boing, News Cut, and a whole bunch of fellow Iowans on facebook.

So, now that I’ve got you sufficiently hyped up, there are at least two points of interest for the game.

Iowa has shut out Minnesota back to back the last two years (55-0 and 12-0), which has only happened once before (1955-1956) in the series.  So if they do it again, it’s a first (and great salt to pour in the wound).

The other thing is, it’s the 75th anniversary of Floyd of Rosedale.  Who is Floyd of Rosedale you ask?   Only the best rivalry trophy in college football:

Floyd, right where he belongs

I may be a bit biased in saying a 98 pound bronze statue of pig is the best college football trophy, but really, the story behind it is about as good as they come.  MPR has a great recounting of the origins of the trophy (which admittedly I’ve pointed out before, but it’s worth the repost).  Totally worth the read.

If there’s a better back story for any trophy in college football, I’d love to hear it.  I mean really, compare that to the Heartland Trophy – a statue of a bull with a giant head it can’t lift off the ground (why a bull?  who knows!) that Iowa and Wisconsin have played for since the distant history of… 2004, when someone said, hey, this is a always a good game and an incredibly even rivalry, there should be a trophy for this.  A rivalry so bitter in fact that a former Iowa player with a Tigerhawk tattoo is the head coach at Wisconsin and feelings have gotten so harsh they’ve decided to suspend the rivalry for at least two years because the new divisions resulting form the Big Ten conference expansion suck so bad to let things cool off.

So, happy birthday Floyd.  And Go Hawks.

They do.

On campus.

That their students get to use.

Ummmm, perhaps we should avoid pouring salt in old wounds for a while….

Nah.

After all, we’ve got freaking laser beams (though no sharks that I know of).

Two years ago:

Last year:

This year, depending on the which poll you believe, it will be #18 vs #20, or #17 vs #22 this Saturday, 7pm Central. If history is any indicator, it should be a good one.

What's that sound?

I’ll be the first to admit that when we started doing the whole “all the fans wear the same color” thing, I loved it. I thought black outs at Iowa were the greatest thing ever. Until I saw one from field level… and noticed that you can’t really see shirts so much as everyone’s faces from that angle… and realized just how white our fan base is, and that is was more of a grey out than anything.

The gold out at night against Ohio State looked awesome, though it was pretty well tainted by the game.

In fact, it seems like on the whole, we tend to lose themed games more than not. So, I’ve pretty well soured on them.

But this one, even assuming it works, how long do you think it will be before someone photoshops it up to look like, well, hell, it’s going to happen anyway, so it might as well be done by one of our own…

Buuuuzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!

At least we thought of it before Georgia Tech. Unfortunately no one told us we’re not the Yellow Jackets / Ramblin Really Nice Old Car.  Though, it wouldn’t be so bad to have the pretty sweet Nice New Camaro Bumblebee from the dog shit terrible Transformers movie as a mascot (I’m not sure exactly how that’s related, but in my mind it is).

If that wasn’t enough, Hayden Fry himself will be leading it.  That’s right, hopefully 4,432+ Hawkeyes doing the Hokey Pokey dance under the direction of legendary Iowa football coach Hayden Fry.  How much more awesome can you get?

There’s more details on the Fry Fest website.

And, in case you needed any instruction or further motivation…

see more Funny Graphs

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

moar funny pictures

see more Political Pictures

see more Funny Graphs

If we set the new record, I might even have a nice little blog treat for you all…

So far, we know for sure that Colorado is leaving the Big 12 for the Pac-10.  If things were to stop with this, the Pac-10 would then have 11 teams, as would the Big 12 (11). However, it would seem a lock that Nebraska will be leaving the Big-12 (now 11) as well. They would be headed to the Big 10, which currently has 11 teams, which with Nebraska would be 12.  So, we would have 12 Big 10 teams, 10 Big 12 teams, and 11 Pac 10 teams.  One would have to assume this would beget renaming the conferences to align with their new number of institutions, to make the Big 10 the Big 12, the Big 12 the Big 10, and the Pac 10 the Pac 11 unless we throw out USC for their recent violations making the Pac 10′s 11 10 again.

However, it doesn’t stop there. There’s more talk that the Big 12 with 10 teams (not to be confused with the Big 10 with 12 teams that had 11 before) could further loose more teams to any mix of the Pac 10 (11), the Big 10 (12), or the SEC (number withheld to protect the innocent). If, from the remaining Big 12′s 10 teams, Texas and Texas A&M were to leave for the Pac 10 (11 carry the two for 13) that would leave the Big 12 with 8 teams, not to be confused with the former Big 8, which became the Big 12 when they added 4 teams (how reasonable), and would make the Pac 10 13, the Big 10 12, and the Big 12 8 (but not, mind you, the Big 8).

With all of this, there is of course speculation that both the Pac 10 now 13 and the Big 10 now 12 (but not the Big 12, or 8) would then want to continue to expand to 16 teams each, further dissolving the Big 12 to the Little One. This would thus make the Pac 10 16 and the Big 10 16 and the Big 12 one, and we could then just rename them all to the Pac 16, the Big 16, and the Big Nothing Plus One (presumably Iowa State on both accounts), removing a lot of confusion.

And, never failing to look long term, one could see a day where the Pac 16 and the Big 16 would want to merge into one super-conference which would of course be known by one of two names.

In the first case, the conference would be known as Every Relevant Football Team – West, which would then compete with Every Relevant Football Team – East, aka the merged SEC/ACC, aka SAC, and thus replacing the BCS with the ERFT playoffs, which the ERFT-West would dominate.  The yearly playoff would thus be nicknamed The Annual SAC Kicking Contest.  The beer commercials at half time would be epic.

In the second case, the merged Pac 16 and Big 16 would choose to combine their names to form the Pig 32, which the still excluded and horribly confused Iowa State would attempt to mate with, producing a new, wildly deformed chimera offspring conference. The new Monster Conference would by genetics consist half of relevant football teams, and half of Iowa State, thus mirroring the current Iowa / Iowa State rivalry, but on a much larger and more horrifying scale. I’m also pretty sure it would be a signal of the end times.

Notre Dame (still independent) would then attempt to engage in a battle (football) with Monster Conference in a final contest of good vs evil (I’ll let you be the judge as to which side is which in a half-pig/half-ISU vs Fainting Irish contest) in order to bring about the Apocalypse as foretold in the book of Revelations.  However, Monster Conference would be confused as to whom “Notre Dame” is, as it would have long since been relegated to little more than a folk tale among devoted Catholics and viewers of NBC, with little recognition in the outside world.  Monster Conference would then assume the challenge from “Notre Dame” was just a prank phone call and hang up, thus avoiding the Apocalypse and making the world immortal.  Logically this would cause my Iowa Hawkeyes to be crowned The World Champions Of All College Football Forever Amen.  This would of course take place at the Rose Bowl.

Hope that clears everything up.

WHEE

Awesome.  How could you not smile getting into a car with license plates that say WHEE?

On another note entirely, I checked the Minnesota DOT website to see how much customized plates are, because there still has to be some combination like WHEEE or WHEEEE or WEEEEE still left out there that I could get.  And I was quickly reminded of yet another way Iowa is better than Minnesota (beyond the selling alcohol on Sundays, selling alcohol in gas station and grocery stores, lower taxes, actually thawing / ice melting during the winter, and, of course, being the Hawkeye State).

In Iowa, personalized plates run you an extra $25, it’s an easy one page form, you can get them for a huge variety of causes, you can get them in your school colors, and you can see what they actually look like before ordering them.

In Minnesota, it’s ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHT DOLLARS AND FIFTY CENTS for personalized plates.  And you can use their four page long government form to try to figure out how to apply for them (god help you).  Now granted, if you look long enough, you can get custom plates in Minnesota for your school, though not in your school colors.  They’re right in there with where you get the plates for your Concrete Pumper or your Street Sweeper.

Now, that number has trimmed down slightly, and there’s always potential for injury and suspensions/legal issues, but if you actually count all the players listed in that first article that could play running back, we’re still at something like 13 or 14 guys who could play the position.  Which got me thinking, why could we possibly want that many running backs?

And then it struck me, this could be nothing other than the absolute offensive genius of Ken O’Keefe finally coming to fruition.  (In case you were wondering, yes, it was actually physically painful to even ironically type the phrase “the absolute offensive genius of Ken O’ ahhhhhhhh.)

Obviously, while Ken was watching tapes of the Georgia Tech’s unstoppable Triple Option offense to prepare for the Orange Bowl, he saw something he liked, but saw room for improvement.  (Yeah, I don’t know why an offensive coordinator would be watching tape of the other team’s offense to prepare for a bowl game, but it’s Ken O’Keefe we’re talking about here, so let your mind float a bit, it’ll help.)

During the Orange Bowl, we saw the much praised Triple Option of Georgia Tech absolutely stuffed, held to a mere 155 yards of total offense.  And with this, O’Keefe’s suspicions were confirmed.  He had seen the fatal flaw in Georgia Tech’s otherwise perfect offensive scheme.  It wasn’t that, as many have claimed, the Triple Option is a gimmicky offense which relies on poor defensive tackling mixed with ill-prepared opponents being caught off guard by it’s novelty.  No, as Ken realized, the its one fatal flaw is that it’s not gimmicky or novel enough.  It’s not that focusing almost exclusively on lateraling the ball makes a team one dimensional.  Well, actually, it is, and that’s where the genius comes in.  Don’t be one dimensional.  No, no, not what you would think- actually having a balanced running and passing game.  That’s crazy talk.  We need to be not only two, but three dimensional.  We need to be not just twice as good as Georgia Tech, we need to be exponentially better.  And that’s when our new offense crystallized in Ken O’Keefe’s mind.

The Triple Option… Squared.

Here’s how it will work.  The ball will be snapped directly to a running back, who will in turn have a running back on either side of him.  He’ll have the option to hand it off to either of them, keep it himself, or start running with it, and then lateral it to one of them, who will then have all the same options.  Sounds just like the Triple Option so far, but you’ve forgotten that we’ve raised this offense to the second power.  This is where those 9 running back start to make sense.  They’re all going to be on the field at the same time.

After the first three running back do their magic, if somehow the defense hasn’t completely fallen apart by this point, there will be another row of three more running back behind the first three that we can lateral the ball back to.  Oh, and it doesn’t stop there.  Oh no!  Yes, there will be ANOTHER row of 3 running backs behind the second row to whom the second row can lateral back to.  Or maybe one of them will pass it forward to one of the first waves of running backs.  You just don’t know do you?  It will be like D-Day on a football field.  Wave after wave of running backs crashing over the defense.  Chaos and bodies flying everywhere!!

Now you may be saying, “Don’t you have to have at least a few guys on the line of scrimmage?  I mean, it’s in rules.”  Why yes, it is, and we will.  Some of the running backs will actually line up on the line of scrimmage, and then run backward to get behind the first wave to form the second and third waves.  Or will they?  See how confused the defense will be?  Nine potential guys to carry the ball, some running forwards, some running backwards, some doing jumping jacks in place just to fuck with you.  And wave after wave after wave of bodies crashing and lateraling and faking and running and passing and reversing!!!  There’s just no way to defend against this!!!!

You may also be saying, “Triple Option Squared…  Nine Running Backs… but… who will the other guys on the field be?  We need 11, right?”   Well, isn’t it obvious?  First we need someone to snap the ball.  And there’s only one guy who can make this offense any more terrifying than it already is – Adrian Clayborn.  You just wet yourself a little, didn’t you?  Just imagine what defenses will do.

Okay, that takes us to 10 players.  We need one more.  And this is where we get practical.  At some point, in all likelihood, with all the confusion, and defensive players’ tears getting on the ball, it’s going to get slippery and pop out.  And as we saw this season, there is no player better at magically appearing under, or magnetically attracting, a loose ball than Tyler “Jimmer-Jamming” Sash, so, we’ll line him up at wide receiver.

With that offense, and most of our 2009 defense returning, I predict the 2010 college football season will actually end not with Iowa in a BCS Championship Game, or the introduction of playoffs, but in week three when all 118 other college football teams decide to universally forfeit the season to Iowa.  Further play will be suspended until enough running backs can be recruited by all opposing teams so that they can implement the new scheme as well to have any chance at competing.  This will lead to Iowa being declared National Champion by collective forfeit in 2011 as well.

Thus it has been said, thus it shall be done.