By the light of Tiki torches and a nearly full moon on a perfect, cloudless night...

Young's Oatmeal Stout, a couple sweet-apple chicken sausages grilled up and topped with sauerkraut and Stadium Mustard, fresh corn on the cob, and few sad, sweet tunes on a Hohner Blues Harp.

Oh, and did I mention?

WE OWN....PENN STATE!

Life is pretty fucking good right now.

edit: Icing on the cake? Awesome season premier of Heroes, with the final scene set where else, but Cork, Ireland. Feckin' A!

Triumphant Return

No, I'm not posting about the return to glory of Michigan football.

This evening, I booked my a flight to Ireland.

Thanks to Aer Lingus' 48-hour sale, I could not pass up the opportunity to return, even if just for a short trip. Not for $300 for a round trip, especially when I have places to stay and won't need to rent a car, so the entire trip is going to cost nothing more than that rather minimal airfare, food, and Guinness.

Unfortunately, it's a little ways off, what with football season, the holidays, and an inevitably busy January production cycle at work.

But February 21st I'll be back on Irish soil again for a nice 5 day stint of catching up with old friends and old haunts.

Life is good right now.

The passing of another Ann Arbor icon

First off, yes I am still in afterglow mode from Saturday, but will wait until after the Penn State game this week to truly gauge my optimism regarding the rest of the season. Notre Dame just really is that bad.

But I need to take a solemn moment up here to mark the sad news of the passing of a man who, after losing Bo last November, may well have been the next most well-recognized man in Ann Arbor... "Shaky" Jake Woods.

If you've spent any time living in Ann Arbor, you know Shaky Jake and have seen him around. He'll be missed.

Godspeed to you, Jake...

Yes, Lucy, I'm ready to kick that football again.

Ever have a recurring situation, which no matter the logic and reason, you keep feeling the incessant need to repeat past detrimental behavior?

I'm psyched for the game tomorrow.

I can't wait for Michigan to go out there and kick the living crapbags out of Notre Dame tomorrow.

This is the one day of the year where all my whacked out faux-Irish wanna-be tendencies are wiped away and I might as well be Oliver fuckin' Cromwell for my hatred of leprechauns, clovers and the Rakes of Fuckin' Mallow... Dress our D in Black and Tan. Oppress those motherfucking dirtbag French northern Indiana Amish obstinant arrogant insults-to-the-fine-people-of-the-Republic-of-Ireland pricks. And God Save the Queen.

Nevermind the fact that we have no defense to speak of, a true freshman with only one half of game experience starting at QB and a coaching staff that has to take the short bus to the stadium.

As long as we have Hart, we have Hope.

GO BLUE! BEAT THE IRISH!!

The sun still rises in Ann Arbor

Just got back from a nice walk around the block. The sun is out, and it's a beautiful day, despite wide-spread reports of snow showers all weekend long just up the road.

Been going through the various stages of the grieving process all weekend:

1. Denial: Woke up Sunday morning, shaking off a bad dream. When does football season start again?

2. Anger: DAMMIT LLOYD!

3. Bargaining: If we can somehow beat Oregon...and ND... and PSU, MSU and OSU.... and win the bowl game... that might almost erase the pain. Almost.

4. Depression: Who am I kidding. We won't be any of those teams. We flat out suck.

5. Acceptance: check back with me in a few years on this one.


PS - I still (heart) Hart.