The Origins of Jimmy Clausen

Lost in the scuttle and hype over the commitment of Uber-rekruit and newly-dubbed Muad'Dib of Arrakis, Jimmy Clausen, to the University of Notre Dame, is his true origin story. Whilst I reviewed the legend surrounding his birth, I could not help but draw a strong parallel between Jimmy and the genetically-created leader of COBRA, Serpentor.

Like Serpentor, Clausen was also introduced in the 1980s. Serpentor, with the help of a flying chariot and cobra bowstaff, took over the leadership of COBRA from Cobra Commander shortly after joining the terrorist cell. Serpentor was created through a breakthrough in cloning research by Dr. Mindbender from the DNA extracted from the unearthed remains of the most ruthless and effective military leaders in history, including Julius Caesar, Napoleon Bonaparte, Attila the Hun, Alexander the Great, Hannibal, and Genghis Khan.

Jimmy Clausen doesn't have a flying chariot, but rather a rocket arm which fires footballs over 60 yards through the air. Like Serpentor, he will inherit leadership of a vast (and some would say, evil) empire. But even more interesting are those donors who contributed to his DNA cocktail, and who were responsible for making him the smooth freak he is today. Yes folks--Jimmy Clausen is a clone. Let's take a look at the people who made Jimmy into a football-tossing, smooth-talking, spikey-hair wearing machine:

Guile from Street Fighter II: Champion Edition

INHERITED: Lighting-fast arm reflexes, penchant for hurricane kicks, love for the good 'ol USA, and spikey blonde hair.

Brenda WarnerINHERITED: Love of football, plenty of DNA (presumably) from Super Bowl winning QB Kurt Warner, a Bible-thumping dedication to heavenly pursuits, and spikey-blonde hair.

The Russian Bear, Ivan Drago

INHERITED: 1850 pounds per square inch of face-caving punch, a taste for quality Russian Vodka, distain for the Politburo, and of course, spikey blond hair.

Nick Carter, member, Backstreet Boys

INHERITED: Love of really, really, really, really, really bad music, hots for skanky (but wealthy) heiresses, penchant for showing off copious amounts of bling, and spikey blond hair.

The Thompson Twins

INHERITED: Nothing really. Except really spikey blond hair.

Retort

"The sooner you die, the better."

Wonderful. Just wonderful. Adieu.

Unquestionably Ahnold-worthy, even if his daughter Alissa Milano doesn't agree

All Good Things

Here is a recap of the good news from this past weekend:

1. I was able to leave the office and be on the road at 4:15pm for Indianapolis. Good news.

2. The weather cooperated all the way up to Indiana. Good news.

3. Kate's flight was on time in Indy, such that I parked, picked her up, and left the parking lot in 28 minutes, or 2 minutes shy of having to pay $2.00 in the garage. Good news.

4. Jimmy Clausen, uber-rekruit and#1 ranked QB extraordinaire from California, verbally committed to the University of Notre Dame on Saturday morning. Good news.

5. Mr. Clausen intends to do his own recruiting all weekend, trying to build the #1 recruiting class in the nation. Right here in good ol' South Bend. Good news.

6. The forecast said rain and thunderstorms all Saturday afternoon. But the sun shone and not one drop of rain fell during the entire Blue-Gold Game. Great news.

7. Evan Sharpley looks like a more than competent back-up should Brady Quinn falter during the season. Good news.

8. The defense, especially the pass-rush, looks vastly improved. Good news.

9. My niece, Natalie Marie, was born on Sunday morning, and she is adorable. Best news of the weekend.

10. We made it home on Sunday night in time to cook some breakfast and watch The Sopranos. Good news.

Now it is Monday, I am back at work, and I need to be training for a half-marathon taking place just 4 days from now. Bad news.....

Shout Out!: Blue/Gold Game

Since it looks increasingly unlikely that my niece will be born this weekend, we are planning on heading to the Blue/Gold Game (a.k.a. Notre Dame's Spring Scrimmage) in good ol' South Bend (a.k.a. God's Country). One question--why does God live in such terrible weather?

Highlights of past Blue/Gold games for me have to be 2003, the day after I asked my wife to marry me on an uncharacteristically warm and beautiful April evening in the Bend, and 1987, when as a little tyke I meandered onto the field after the game and received autographs from almost every player, including Heisman Trophy winner-to-be Tim Brown.

So here's to good weather, good football, and good memories. And solid secondary coverage in the Cover 2--dear God, my kingdom for coverage in the Cover 2.

Secret weapon for the defense in 2006--Tommy Z red headbands. Just like the Funky QB.

Four Rules for Derby, 2005 Edition

Kate did not accompany me to the 2005 Derby festivities in the 'Ville. Her parting gift to the revelers was a set of guidelines for maximum enjoyment in her absence:

1) Please keep Joey on a leash after 1 a.m. He's prone to drunken wandering, which often leads togetting "lost in the woods" and calling his wife to find his way home.

2) Despite his trying to convince you that his mother-in-law will love to hear from him at 4 in the morning, please please don't let Joey dial my family's home phone number. That's what cell phones are for.

3) Ladies, by no means should you sit down on the grass in the infield. Don't even think about it. Also, be afraid of the port-o-pots. Be very, very afraid.

4) Have an awesome time and take lots of pictures...and be sure to include some horses in the background of those shots with the ladies baring their boobies Mardi Gras style.

Shrouded By the Mists of Time

The following is a tome of yesteryear (or 2002, which ever you prefer) which chronicles a few days in the life of a young law school student en route to the Kentucky Derby, which falls on May 6th this year. Enjoy. -- JPL

**********

Chapter 1: The following takes place on Friday, May 4th into the early morning of Saturday, May 5th in the THIRD Year of the DRUNKEN DONKEY:

*Finals Friday and Bo Plummer: Is He Awake or Not?

Our story commences on the morning of my last final, the one I had dreadedthe entire year and was more than lax to actually take: SecuritiesRegulations. For those non-business oriented types out there (read: Spider),the world of Sec Reg is filled with rules, fiduciary duties, and enoughnonsensical ideosynchrisies to confuse even the most hardy intellectual. Thetest started at 8:30, and I wrote non-stop until roughly 12. It was like Iwas trapped in some celestial vortex where time halted and my brain wavesbonded with the words on the page so as to render me oblivious to the outsideworld.

A few hours later I awakened to find myself complete with my secondyear of law school, and as I emerged from the front doors of the prison theycall Vandy Law, I saw the sun for the first time in about a week, and I dancedand cried among the daisies as I soaked in the beautiful rays of sunlight.But my euphoria quickly yielded to another blinding reality, that being my desperate hunger.

You see, for the last 4 weeks I had denied myself thefruits of the earth, the life-spring from which flows the cause of, andsolution to, all of my problems in life—beer. Euphoric, caloric, hoppy,flowing draughts of BEER. My desire was overwhelming, the call too much tobear. I quickly raced home, cracked open a 3 month old Miller Lite, andchugged until foamy goodness spewed down my oxford-shirt.

As I sat through aviewing of Spider-Man just a mere 45 minutes later I could still taste thebarley and grains in the rear of my mouth. I enjoyed Spider-Man, though Iwould hardly call it a great film. Perhaps I was disenchanted with life atthat point, tired beyond exhaustion as a result of my intense studying overexam time. Or perhaps I was distracted, knowing I would soon be in Louisville, drinking to my heart’s content and betting on ponies faster thanyou could say "Captain Morgan duck-taped to my crotch!!". And alas, I was off to Derby just a few hours later.

I came with myself, a few law school survivors, and a few of their friends. We arrived in L-ville around 7 or so, parked, and walked to find our contact. This was a dangerous man, known to make a complete ass of himself given enough alcohol and the proper forum. Of course, I am talking about Bo Plummer. OK, enough of the poetic non-sense—let’s just tell it how it is. Bo is waiting for us right by the entrance of the "Chow Wagon," or whatever the hell that waterfront festival is called the night before derby.

Bo looks well at first glance—he has his color, his trendy clothes, and gobs of hair upon his head (you almost couldn’t see his bald spot, but don’t tell him that. Oops, I think I just did!). This was all from far away, mind you, and he looked healthy as could be. When we got closer (and I am talking a few hundred feet or so), a familiar smell happened upon the wind. It was the smell of fun—elephant ears, hot dogs, beer—people drinking and smelling like beer—and more beer. At first I though this was just the festival atmosphere, but as Igot closer I noticed that our host, surely anxious for our arrival, lookedlike he had more than his fair share of drinks.

In other words, Bo was*toasted.*

We gave some hugs, some introductions, and then we proceeded into the festival. I guess Bo wasn’t that terribly oblivious to reality at thatpoint, because when I got some gold pin thing for getting into the festival, he took a look at it and threw a fit, saying how he had been going to that thing for like 15 years and had never got a gold pin. It was pretty funny. But later events clued me in that Bo wasn’t all there that night.

We neeed drinks, so Bo takes us over to the Beer wagons. We stand in line for 10minutes, get to the front where they ask us for our wristbands. We don’t have f*cking wristbands, and I look at Bo who is like, "Oh yeah, you needwristbands to get beer." Then he smiles like a sloppy drunk through that big gap in his teeth. So we go get wristbands, get these beer cards, then finally get some beer. Bo has taken off at this point to go find Micky and Mark. My friends are getting hungry and want to go to Joe’s Crab Shack (funny, that name reminds me of my bed Sophomore Year—sorry Bishop!!), so I go find Bo to see if he wants to join us. I find him talking to Micky and Mark, and I can’t get a straight answer out of him. That’s when Micky pulls me aside and tells me how f*cked up Bo is. This is Micky saying this mind you, so I take him pretty seriously since this guy knows a thing or two about drunkenness. So I tell Bo that we’ll meet him out at the bars in St. Matt’s, and that he should call me in a few hours. Cool w/him, so we go eat at this place.

The food was good, but the servers were fucked up. Every 30 minutes or so, the lights would go down in the restaurant, and all the servers would stop and start dancing to some ridiculous song like the Macarena. The whole episode scarred me so bad that I just kept drinking heavily. We eventually leave the bar and take off in our cars towards what I thought was St. Matt’s bar district. But that turned out to be an adventure all its own. Bo gives me all these really f*cked up directions. I tell him we are going south, he tells me to go west. We go west, he tells me to go south. Then he’s like, "Just go down the highway, and we’ll stop along the highway, get out of our cars and wave at you! You’ll see us along the road!!" Jesus,that’s all I need is Bo to wander out to the middle of the highway in his f*cked up state. So the kid just keeps belching directions in a slurred cacophany of sound, and by the time I could tell he was too f*cked up to thinkstraight let alone give directions, we are totally lost. To top it all off, mine and Bo’s cell phones both are almost out of batteries.

My friends are now super pissed and wondering where we are at midnight on Friday somewhere in the Ville. So with my cell phone’s last breath I call the Plummer’s and ask them to give us directions to their house from where we were, because their son is an absolute train-wreck spewing mental diarrhea everywhere.

We eventually caravan into the Plummer’s, where Bo’s dad is waiting for us all. We all get our bags in, talk to Mark for a while, and saunter on down to St. Matt’s to find Bo and company. When we arrive, Bo is a frickin’ mess. The kid is leaning againstthe cigarette machine, having his hair stroked by various Kentucky women. I walk up to him about to chew him out for getting us lost, but when I looked into those glazed over eyes, I could tell I wasn’t speaking to a human being anymore. I think Bo actually drank himself living dead. Instead I just laughed, hugged him, and enjoyed the rest of my evening in the company offriends and drink.

I managed to wake up fairly early on Derby Day, suffering the effects of a hangover but adrenalized by the prospect of an all day party. We all get up and start eating some wonderful breakfast that the Plummers prepare around10:30--all except for Bo.

We all get our crap together and make some runs for supplies (i.e. about 25 pints of liquor), regrouping around 11:30. Still no Bo.

We start playing some "beersketball" in the backyard, where you take a chug of beer everytime somebody hits a free throw in 21, ending around 12:30. We hear rumblings, and Bo finally gets up.

He officially declares himself brain dead to the world and disavows drinking for the entire day. Normally, as a card-carrying member ofthe DD, this would get you punched in the penis, especially on Derby Day. However, having seen the shattered man that was Bo Plummer the night beforeand the resurrected version that morning, I couldn’t help but agree with him. We all pack up, stop at the liquor store and stock up on yet more pint bottles (except for Bo, of course), and head off to Derby.

Tomorrow:*Derby Day and Yard Poop & *Spider Gone Wild and Stuck in L'Ville.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Sadly, this tale was never finished in writing, but rather passed along in spoken word to Tony. So if you dare, ask him sometime to explain just what the hell "yard poop" means.

Prepare to Reap the Whirlwind, Gentlemen

About two weeks ago, this passed about 10 miles North of my house.

Today's blog entry is brought to you by the number "holy f*cking sh*t!" and the letter "you've got to be sh*tting me!"

Shout Out!: Countdown...

2 Days until this:

1 week until this:

2 weeks until this:

and this:

and 3 weeks until this:



and this:

and finally, this:

Shout Out!: Robot Chicken

I recently discovered this gem of a show, which combines the CGI-bucking, staccato joy of stop-motion animation with the utter bliss that is 80's pop-culture (I've been known to waste 4 hours of my Saturday morning watching back-to-back-to-back-to-back episodes of "The 80's Strike Back" on VH-1...I particularly enjoy 1982-86. Save Ferris!").

I highly encourage you to catch this little bundle of kick-ass when it airs during the week on Cartoon Network Adult Swim, which hosts the other "Greatest Show On Late Night," Aqua Teen Hunger Force.

Now take a big swig and pass the damn pitcher.

This guy is punching a baby. Yes. Punching a baby. Freakin' hilarious.

So Much For The Afterglow

Last Thursday night, I began my third season of co-ed flag football here in Nashville. The format is eight players on the field, three of which need to be females. The field is 80 yards long, you need to move 20 yards for a first down, and every third play is a "gender" play, meaning a female player must be an instrumental part of the play (eg. throwing or catching the ball past the line of scrimmage).

The last two years, we've made it as far as the semi-finals before being run off the field by a much more athletic team. And we've always lost our first game of the year. This year was supposed to be different.

We had an unaucspicious start. We started on defense (I play middle linebacker, and exhibit a very Urlacher-esque nose for the football). They go 3 plays and out, and elect to punt.

The kicker launches the ball into the ionosphere, and upon re-entry it carooms off the chest of our receiving player....and straight into the arms of the headhunter from the other team, who never loses his full-on sprint stride all the way to the endzone.

7-0. Just like that.

The rest of the first half is disasterous. On our 2nd offensive play from scrimmage, the ball bounces high off of one of our girl's hands and is intercepted and returned to the 10 yard-line. The team throws a pass straight down the gut for another touchdown. Fortunately, they miss the extra point.

13-0. Halftime.

I am really not happy at this point. The defense played alright, but our offense was abyssmal. I couldn't understant why on 3rd and short, the entire team ran up and out patterns. The playcalling was not that bad, it's just that nobody was running their proper routes.

No problem--we can come back. And you know what--we almost do.

We get the ball to start the second-half and move steadily down the field, aided by some clutch catching down the sidelines and some ill-timed penalties by the other team (our QB, a guy, got blasted by a female rusher. He still hasn't lived it down). We finally punch the ball into the endzone, but miss the extra point.

13-6. We can do this. And I can help.

Third play on defense, they are looking to go short to one of their girls. I am following the QB's eyes, and pick out his target. I sidestep a screen set by one of their thugs, and stick one hand out to snatch the ball right just as the QB shuffle-passes to their female.

Interception--ball comes back to the offense, along with a big honkin' cup of 'Mo (mentum).

Now the offense is heating up, with the ball at half-field. 10 plays later, we punch it in. And we pick up the extra point.

13-13. Tie ball game. But 'Mo knows only victory. I am not finished yet.

Very first play, the QB rolls left and tosses back across his body right. Just like he'd done 3 or 4 times before. Only this time--I knew it was coming. I snag the ball at its zenith and cruise unfettered 20 yards to paydirt.

Prime Time? I would make you my punk bitch.

Damn I'm good. Urlacher got nuthin' on me. 20-13.

I've now sealed the victory. There are but 2 minutes left, and they have to drive the length of the field to score. Won't happen so long as I am guarding the vast middle. Right?

Wrong. They carve up the sidelines and the deep outs for 1 minute and 50 seconds, just before puncturing the goal-line. To add insult to injury, they go for two and get it.

F*cking hell.

But here's the rest of the story. There can be no more than eight (8) players on the field for your team at a time, right? Well, I show up, and there are--wait for it--sixteen (16) people waiting to play for our team. Oh, and 4 of those were females. That means even if we tried to rotate male players every series, we'd still have 1 or 2 guys who couldn't come in, and would have to wait for another series.

The big reason we lost? Half of the f'ing city of Nashville was on our team, owing to some inexplicable off-season recruiting by our captainette. And they all sucked.

It's just too bad I can't play all the positions at once, you know?