Sudden Impact: Bike Week and NASCAR

Yeah, mah peeps, it’s Biketoberfest in Daytona, so for a week I will be placidly serenaded to non-sleep by the sounds of choppers running wide open in second gear on the I-4 fun run between the Orlando attractions and the biker bars back on da beach. I live about a mile from I-4, and when the wind is right, it sounds as if they’re running right through my bathroom and out the back door.

That’s yet another thing to make a curmudgeon more curmudgeonly, to render a fowl fouler, as it were. I’ve been largely absent from blogging and have been feeling guilt, but not too much, as my excuse is that I’m building a humongous computer system that will enable me to write this drivel just as copiously as now, but with a helluva lot of computing headroom, just in case I need it for a Turkey rant.

“When you’re in ‘NASCAR,’ you can rip off quite a few plays very quickly.” —Penn State running backs coach Charles London

Where’s the NASCAR connection? Daytona, you ask? Noooooo, nooooooo, I was thinking of Penn State’s hurry-up offense, which like its namesake’s cars is anything but stock, and is sure as hell a refreshing change from the Paterno Buick driven by an old lady to church on Sundays. So give a read here, already.

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Jerry Sandusky is starting the appeal process. He maintains his innocence of the half-a-hundred charges of which he was convicted. Today, his attorneys asked for a new trial because they hadn’t been given sufficient time to prepare. This was pretty much expected, and it is also pretty much expected that it is not going anywhere. Jer will be joining the legions of other innocent men at Camp Hill. Good try.

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Dear Old State will not be renewing the contract of former athletic director Tim Curley when it expires in June 2013, it was revealed today. Curious timing, to be sure. I guess Curley never relinquished the title of athletic director, but he was put on “administrative leave”, a sort of disemployed yet still getting paid purgatory. The administration is surely pandering to someone with this move. OR — another thought — Dave Joyner is a short-timer, and the powers-that-be are anxious to form a search committee to find the next Penn State AD. Curley’s trial is in January. He still faces perjury charges.

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It is possible that we won’t get a close-up look at Mark Weisman, Iowa’s prolific running back, at Saturday night’s game.  This is a shame, as this Jewish Turkey wanted to catch a glimpse of the most outstanding “Landsman” tailback since Herschel Walker. OK, just kidding about Herschel, so I cannot even think of any other Jewish running backs. How about Elroy “Crazy Legs” Hirsch? I dunno. He was from Wisconsin, so he’s probably a German Hirsch. The fact is, how many Jewish mothers would allow their sons to play in a position in which they could get hoit, already? “If you’re going to play football, you’re going to be a quarterback! And don’t miss any violin lessons, either!” I could go on an on. Poor Markele hurt his ankle last week in a winning effort against Moo U, in which he carried the ball 26 times for 116 yards, his fourth consecutive 100-yard game. An MRI later, he’s been cleared to play by the crack Hawkeye medical staff, but his status is listed as questionable.

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So, you say you like your football rivalries to be played out against a modern day, sardonic background of unbridled hatred and ridicule? Yeah, you say? OK. Here are a couple of good places to satisfy your negativistic impulses, perhaps in order to drive home the fact that we Penn Staters “are not like that.” Well, a few of us are. Catch a dose at “Penn State Football: Seven Reasons to Hate Iowa” and “Why Iowa Sucks.” I am, of course, a hypocrite, as I’ll take every opportunity to disparage an opponent. Is that what passes for journalism these days?

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Along the same lines, Bill O’Brien hates Twitter, or so he said in the aftermath of a controversial comment tweeted by Stephon Morris to the effect that the two teams hate each other. “Do you know what I hate? I hate Twitter,” the first-year coach said at his weekly news conference. “We have a tremendous amount of respect for their football program and how they play the game, how they’re coached. I think that’s just young guys tweeting this, tweeting that.”

Good for Bill! This whole notion of hatred instead of respect is enough to piss off an old, hypocritical Turkey.

Recall that Joe Paterno, when asked something about Twitter, professed ignorance, while referring to it as “Tweedle Dum, Tweedle Dee.”

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Hey, who came up with that BoB crap, anyway? It sucks big time and it is getting way old. Paterno never liked the “JoePa” moniker, and O’Brien doesn’t like the BoB crap. His name is Bill, not BoB. Yeah, they’re public figures, so we can call them anything we want, but it is no longer cute or novel, as everyone is doing it, and it devalues the individual whose name you’re too lazy to type.

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Tweet of the Day

Why is Catherine Tate still on The Office? While we’re at it, could we get Anthony Morelli a few more years at PSU???

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Major congratulations to the Detroit Tigers, who swept the hated New York Yankees to earn their second World Series appearance in seven years. This Turkey always loves to see the Bronx Bombers get the shaft. Hell, I was there for the Series in 1976 when they got their ass kicked in four by the Big Red Machine. Sweet time in Yankee Stadium. But I digress. With all the crap southeastern Michigan has endured, this is a well deserved happy time! Meanwhile, in the NL, the Cards are one game away from dispatching the Giants, holding a 3-1 lead in the best of seven NLCS series.

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It’s late, so lemme get some sleep. I’ll be back on the morrow with my thoughts on the Big Ten Prime Time game. (The notion of the BTN in prime time kind of titillates me. It’s like they got the 8 pm time slot because the programming geniuses at ABC/ESPN thought this would be a consequential and interesting game when they initially scheduled it. Now, they’re ceding it to the BTN. This is kind of like finding out that your blind date is your sister.)

Terry, those calls are coming from inside the apartment!