Monday, September 10, 2007

some good ol’ fashion southern hospitality

The Monday College Football Recap is below. For today’s blog post, please scroll down.

  • How the mighty have fallen. I was fortunate enough to watch the Oregon Ducks blow away the Michigan Wolverines on Saturday in the air-conditioned refuge of The Chimes on LSU’s campus. I was pulling for the Ducks for two reasons—one (the obvious) is that they are a Pac-10 team and two is that a friend of mine is an Oregon alum. After last weekend’s debacle against Appalachian State, I really thought that Michigan was going to give the Ducks a hard time. Unfortunately, the ones having a hard time on Saturday were the Wolverines. Should Lloyd Carr be looking for a new job? Will Michigan start wooing Les Miles? Something tells me that this questions will be answered some time this season. If the Wolverines can’t pull it out against Notre Dame next week (who is also 0-2), Carr might want to start packing up his office.
  • Speaking of Notre Dame (that team most people outside of South Bend love to hate and my personal favorite punching bag), the Irish actually managed to score their first touchdown of the season on Saturday, against the Nittany Lions of Penn State. Not surprisingly, Penn State was just too much for the Irish and ND lost 31-10. Big shocker. However, do you think Charlie Weis is on the chopping block? I doubt it. Not quite sure what that love affair is all about, but I’m not expecting Weis to be going anywhere, no matter how crappy the Irish are this year. ESPN’s Mark May predicted that ND would start their season 0-7. He’s starting to look like Miss Cleo right about now.
  • Didn’t get to watch any of this game, but Georgia got upset by South Carolina, 16-13. I’m not sure why Georgia is consistently ranked in the top 10 every pre-season. They eventually fall to the late teens, early 20s of the poll by the middle of the season. Sounds like Georgia’s got a lot of potential that just isn’t being realized. Or at least, that’s what the writers think.
  • USC was off on Saturday (which will hopefully give our injured players enough time to recover for our game against Nebraska next weekend) but was definitely quite the hot topic where I was this weekend—LSU’s campus. Apparently, the Tigers hate us. I heard everything from "USC is overrated" to "USC sucks" (yeah, not very original) to "USC has a cushy schedule". And one Tiger fan actually accused USC of talking smack. Now, I know he didn’t hear that from our coach or our players because Pete Carroll would put an end to that in an instant. However, I do recall some LSU guy by the name of Les Miles (yes, the LSU coach) talking smack about USC and how soft our schedule is compared to the SEC. If that’s not trash talking, I don’t know what is. Also, as long as Kentucky and Vanderbilt are on the SEC conference schedule, he really has no ground to stand on.
  • Let the hate mail/comments begin!
  • Since I was at LSU, I got to witness the shellacking that was the Virginia Tech/LSU game. I couldn’t tell you what the final score was because Jesse and I left early to get a head start on our long walk back to the hotel (note to Baton Rouge--get some sidewalks). However, I saw enough of that game to make the following remarks:
  1. VA Tech was overrated. Their offensive line and quarterback are just not worthy of being on the #9 team in the country. Fortunately, Frank Beamer corrected the quarterback mistake by finally playing Tyrod Taylor, his freshman phenom. This means that he benched former starter Sean Glennon, who has sucked the past two years. Putting Taylor into the game actually breathed new life into the Hokie fans that were in attendance. The visitors’ section actually collective stood up and watched Taylor’s first few throws. Taylor was responsible for the drive down the field that led to the Hokies’ only TD of the game.
  2. Unfortunately, Taylor couldn’t breathe new life into the offensive line or the defense, who simply gave up after LSU’s first two possessions.
  3. The only thing that is intimidating about Death Valley is that the visitors’ section is so high up in the stands. It scared me to death to look down from where I was seated.
  4. LSU tailgaters are the coolest people ever. At almost every tailgate we passed, Tiger fans were calling us over and offering us some beer. And they were so proud about being LSU alum (not that they shouldn’t be). They were more than happy to tell us all about their traditions and how they started. I was actually really impressed with their hospitality. And I hope that the Hokies who were in Baton Rouge will go home to Blacksburg and offer the same hospitality to the visiting team at every home game.
  5. Mike VI is one cool tiger. I don’t know how many times the Tiger fans told us that the university spent $1.5 million dollars on his habitat. The fans are definitely proud of their mascot. Moreover, everyone who mentioned Mike VI also mentioned that Mike V had been the mascot for over 20 years and he recently passed away. Anyways, the Tigers love their tiger (as they should).
  6. The campus is really pretty. I could do without the fire ants though.

Next up for me: USC plays Nebraska (and if ESPN Gameday isn’t there, I won’t be happy) and VA Tech plays someone they should easily beat (Ohio, I think).

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I spent Friday in New Orleans and it was awesome. Jesse and I spent some time in the French Quarter, where we hung out at the Cafe du Monde and had some beignets. Yummm! We sampled pralines every where we went and they were all so good. We did so much walking that I didn’t really feel guilty about not going to the gym this weekend.

We did some drinking on Bourbon Street (naturally). Granted, it was the middle of the day and it felt kind of weird but Jesse and I weren’t the only ones drinking. Jesse took me to Pat O’Brien’s where I had my first Hurricane, which was really, really good. After some more walking and exploring, Jesse and I ate lunch at a restaurant (whose name eludes me now) and we had some fabulous food. The Bayou sure knows how to do food! Actually, we also had an excellent meal on Saturday at The Chimes (at LSU), where Jesse and I enjoyed some blackened gator bites which were super delish. Who knew that gator would taste just like chicken?

At some point in the afternoon on Friday, I got a migraine, which was horrible timing on my head’s part. Damn you, head! That cut Friday really short, sadly. Saturday was spent in Baton Rouge with the LSU fans and the fire ants.

In addition to being attacked by fire ants twice, I also happened to fall in the mud, in the dark, on a road with no sidewalks following the game. Jesse and I decided to walk to the hotel where we had left the car earlier. We figured it was maybe a mile walk at the most. The darkness of the evening brought on some cooler temperatures (did I mention that I spent the day bathed in my own sweat?). So, we challenged ourselves to a walk.

After a few blocks, the sidewalk pretty much disappeared and we either walked in the grass or on the street. I opted for the street and jumped on the grass whenever a car came by. Just as a car was coming, I stepped in a puddle of mud I couldn’t see and lost my balance. In the process of falling, I injured my good knee pretty badly (immediately afterwards, it was swollen and is now a nasty shade of bluish-purple). A few blocks later, I started to freak out because neither Jesse nor I knew where we were going and we just walking on a road in the dark. So, how does my body decide to react? Well, by having a panic attack of course. I had to stop in the parking lot of some abandoned store while Jesse tried to calm me down. There I was, in the dark, lost, with mud all over my leg and my booty, hyperventilating hysterically because I felt as though I couldn’t breathe (and yes, I left the Xanax in the hotel room, of course). Ugh. It was a fitting end to the day.

Despite Saturday night’s craziness, I rather enjoyed the trip. I think I prefer New Orleans to Baton Rouge but it was all nice. I appreciate everyone’s suggestions and Jesse and I tried to do as much as we could. Your ideas contributed to a fun trip!

(I do have some pics but unfortunately, the internet is down at home so I couldn't upload the pics to my flickr page. I'll let ya'll know when they're up.)

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ugh, sorry that happened (fire ants, falling, panic attack) :(

Glad you both had fun otherwise. That heat makes ya realize how much better the "dry heat" is doesn't it? ;p

Did you get to go to Preservation Hall at all?

I really like New Orleans (the people and the history) but I'm worried about its future. They haven't done much to shore things up from what I've heard.

Anonymous said...

Yes, Game Day is in Lincoln on Saturday.

Is USC overrated? Who the heck knows. They've played one game. LSU and OU looked darn good this weekend though.

Saturday is P. Carroll's b-day.

Nebraska has no &$^%& passing game to speak of. USC will be fine on Saturday.

BethBB said...

Do you still have the weird welt/pimple-like spots on your feet from the fire ant attack? I do and they itch like hell, but I'm still not scratchin'. Also, I 'd like to comment that LSU are great tailgaters, but bad post game winners. We were basically verbally abused from the time we left the game and until 20 min or so into our long walk to the hotel.

an orange county girl said...

sunchaser--oh yeah, dry heat is the best!

unfortunately i didn't make it to preservation hall. also, i didn't see any of the damage that remains from katrina. the folks at lsu were talking about it with us (some peeps we met at a tailgate) and katrina is still very much on their minds.

anon--woo hoo! game day is in NE! that makes me really happy.

i'm not convinced of LSU's dominance. we'll see.

beth--i still have welts on the one toe that the fire ants decided to target during my second attack. it still feels itchy initially, but once i scratch, it burns like hell.

jesse and i didn't get harassed too much after the game. some little kid came up to us and yelled, "tiger bait" and that was pretty much it. i think jesse and i just rolled our eyes and kept walking. i'm sorry they were mean to you guys though.