The size epidemic

My dad felt the need to brave vicious shoppers today, all for a 15% off coupon at Macy's. So I tagged along since I needed some performance athletic clothing. I was immediately reminded of two things: everything that is on sale is something someone else wouldn't pay full price for (and thus, usually undesirable) and the smallest size available is L. If you are 2XL you are in luck - shopping sales is your Candyland.

I figure there must be some huge garbage dump out there that is composed solely of 2XL and 3XL+ size clothes. Everytime I go shopping, all I see are huge sizes. 40x36 pants. XXXL shirts. Why aren't there clothes for normal sized folk? I guess I should remember that America the beautiful is also America the obese. And full of gargantuan descendants of Nordics and Africans. It's possible that when your ancestors subsisted on low-nutrient content rice and handfuls of vegetables, with the occasional chicken that there isn't a strong selecting force for 6'4", 250 lb people. I think this might make a nice segue into my rant on the whole "theory of evolution" vs. "'intelligent' design" debate. Rant coming up soon.

Well slap a feather on and call me 'Polly'

I'll be damned. Somehow, the computers that generate the BCS rankings spit out Northwestern as No. 25. If that's not proof that there's something seriously wrong with how the BCS rankings are calculated, then I don't know what is.

I don't really get how we ended up ahead of teams that got more votes than we did in all the polls (maybe something to do with conference strength and who we've beaten?) but it's neat nonetheless.

They have one more chance for redemption

So the Cats won against Illinois. Not unexpected, but done so in the usual NU fashion: a mish-mash of a victory. NU would do well to continue to hone its offense and really beef up the defense, and they would be true contenders. Maybe they should even relax their admission standards for good defensive recruits?

In any case, we'll see how they do in their bowl, be it the Music City bowl or whatever. If they win, it will be big, big news.

Also, Cal won by more than three touchdowns over Stanford. Why couldn't they have put up a performance like that last week?

And it has come to an end

After a long and illustrious sports betting career, I am retiring. If nothing else, the games were much more interesting. I even got emotionally invested in some of them. A few games even made me cry.

DAMN YOU CAL.

Couldn't you even put up a measly 14 points? Ayoob needs to grow some balls.

Sigh.

I guess it's no surprise that Northwestern lost... but it was such a blowout it was a little embarrassing. It's always nice to lose by more than 40 points on ABC.

Now my hopes rest on Cal and Navy. Go Cal!

Purple, don't let me down

Just for the record, I thought of this before reading my friend's blog. I placed my first sports wager yesterday. Even though I really don't care for sports in general (watching - I rather like playing), I think that betting on sports could help me with that problem. I never realized how fascinating sports betting was until I read a few pages about "point spreads", "moneylines" and "parlays", my interest piqued after seeing Northwestern kick the crap out of then-ranked Michigan State. That's when I first thought maybe my unsubstantiated optimism could pay off, literally.

As my friend mentioned, the line is +19.5 or so, depending on which book you're looking at. Even as I'm certain that Ohio State is going to kick Northwestern all over Columbus, I am pretty sure that we won't lose by more than 19 points - and there's even a chance we could win. I've placed the following bets (I know these are not huge sums, but it's four pizzas worth!):

$15 on Cal (vs. USC) (+19.5)

$5 on Michigan State (vs. Minnesota) (+185)

$5 on Wisconsin (vs. Iowa) (-3)

$5 on Navy (vs. Notre Dame) (+24)

and of course...

$26.72 on Northwestern (vs. Ohio State) (+19.5)

I hope today is profitable. Yes, I'm talking to you, NU. Don't let me down.

Good news and bad news

The good news first, always, right? Well, the Wildcats managed to eek out a win over the Hawkeyes 28-27, after trailing by two touchdowns. They accomplished this with that onside kick thing they've been practicing - just like that deflection/interception thing they were doing a few years ago, which led to a big win over Michigan. Hooray for tricky plays! What else can we do when everyone else in the Big 10 - nay, the nation outweighs, outruns, and outblocks our team? Also, in the good news category is that we are now bowl-eligible, albeit a 2+ worder (I predict the "Morton Iodized Salt Bowl")

The bad news is we will probably be crushed by Ohio State next week. And this will be on national broadcast television. Great. It's always fun to be decimated on national TV after finally getting some respect. We've done this many times (can anyone say - any bowl we've gone to in the past 7 years?). The recent loss to Michigan is only the freshest reminder. The one good thing going for us is that the Cats seem to do better when they go into a game thinking they will lose because they suck rather than trying to live up to grand expectations. It won't be pretty. Except for the snazzy purple jerseys.

He's crying on the inside

For those of you who haven't been following Martha's Apprentice, Jim, the guy you love to hate, narrowly escaped being fired in the boardroom last week. Jim is the character that you either love or you hate, mostly because he's a jerk. Some people love jerks. They seem to think that it shows they are strong. Me? I think that it shows they are weak because they can't learn to get along with others and compromise. He's a little Machiavellian for my taste.

Still, viewers have been treated to another side of Jim in the last few weeks. It turns out that he's not as one-dimensional as he appeared to be. It turns out that Jim believes that what helps set him apart from everyone else on the show is how badly he wants to win. In fact, he believes he has to win to make a better life for his new family. That's right, Jim is married and his wife gave birth while he was on the show. He didn't even get to go be with his wife during the delivery because he was in the middle of a task.

You can tell that Jim loves his wife very much when you hear him talking on the phone with her. He has also shown tremendous excitement and joy at becoming a father. Despite that, he is bent on intimidating and belittling his fellow competitors. By all accounts, Jim's behavior is boorish. He threatens anyone who he believes might take him into the boardroom and attempts to throw people off their game, even if it means losing a task (of course, he doesn't realize that what he's doing endangers the task).

In the last boardroom, he was a 50/50 shot for being fired. Martha reprimanded him in the gentle way only Martha could do so, and Jim left the boardroom visibly shaken. For all his showboating, you could tell he knew his number was almost up and that he wasn't indestructible. That was the moment I knew for certain that Jim wasn't confident, as he had let on; Jim was arrogant. I think there's a huge difference between arrogance and confidence. Confidence is what wins; arrogance is what leads to downfall. The sad thing about arrogance is that it usually seems to function as a sort of faux confidence, and because of that, the arrogant person will do anything to avoid shedding it. I guess it makes sense - in the absence of true confidence, arrogance is all they have and who wants to consciously admit they are weak inside?

If the producers assembled the show to highlight this somewhat subtle story arc featuring Jim, I think they did quite a masterful job at it. We started with Jim the big jerk, and in recent weeks, he has evolved. We've now seen Jim the devoted husband, Jim the family man, Jim the caged animal, and Jim the procelain doll.

I don't think Jim will end up becoming Martha's Apprentice, but I know that when he is fired, he won't be able to keep his tears on the inside.