3rd Annual Murphspot Mascot Bracket - Sweet Sixteen - Midwest/West

#8 UNLV Runnin' Rebels vs. #5 Michigan State Spartans


The Spartans get a lot of credit, but honestly, I'm not sure they have enough going for them to win this. They've got their spears and swords and shields, but they don't have a Smith & Wesson. The Runnin' Rebel presumably does. And the Spartans are led by Gerard Butler, which may have been intimidating if he weren't in every romantic comedy that comes out these days.

P.S. I'LL KILL YOU

Unfortunately for military city-states everywhere, the Spartans don't have enough to make it to the Elite Eight. UNLV advances.

#11 San Diego State Aztecs vs. #15 UCSB Gauchos


Well, Aztecs were in the southern part of Mexico, while gauchos are more associated with the Brazil, Argentina and Chile. If this were the Aztecs vs. the Charros (horsemen from mexico, not Charo, which would be terrifying, but not as relevant), it might have some weird political undertones. As it stands, we have a 15th century empire in Mesoamerica going up against what I've previously established as "Ninja Cowboys". This one goes to the Gauchos due to their superior weaponry and ability to disappear into the shadows. UCSB advances

#9 Florida State Seminoles vs. #4 Vanderbilt Commodores


Again with the making me uncomfortable with the inherent politics of the mascot bracket. But this is my lot in life, so I had better just get down to it. The Seminoles are one of the few NCAA teams to use their mascot with permission from the Seminole Tribe of Florida, which is nice. Still, the Commodores have cannons, subordinates and recorded "Brick House".

If this were the Murphspot Funk Bracket, this would be over already

Good luck getting that out of your head ever. Vanderbilt advances.

#14 Oakland Golden Grizzlies vs. #7 Brigham Young Cougars


These bear/large cat matchups are both entirely too common and still somehow pretty awesome. Given that I've already had the Golden Grizzlies beat the Panthers and have established them as sufficiently badass to take down P. concolor generally, but particularly if they're from Provo. Have you seen the flag Provo came up with?


This is the flag Provo came up with. Prrrovo!

Oakland advances.

3rd Annual Murphspot Mascot Bracket - Round Two - South Region

#1 Duke Blue Devils vs. #8 California Golden Bears


I've given the Duke Blue Devil credit for being a DC superhero and last year for being a french military unit. The problem is that I've been ignoring the "sadness demon" interpretation. "Blue devils" were evidently shortened to "the blues" which is good from the perspective that it gave B.B. King a career and St. Louis a hockey team, but not so good considering we're still talking about sadness demons. I guess it could make the Golden Bears depressed, but I'm much more inclined to think the bears will be all about eating the sadness demons and then going off into the sunset to enjoy another day of being enormous and having ridiculous teeth. Cal advances.

#12 Utah State Aggies vs. #5 Purdue Boilermakers


Let's settle on the definition of "steel worker" for boilermaker. Or a shot of whiskey and a beer. Whichever. The latter's more fun, but is also probably not an NCAA-approved mascot. How would the smug bipedal bull fare? Well, not great against welding tools, but if it can surprise the boilermaker, he might have a shot. Then again, he might be too wrapped up in his stylish pompadour to put up much of a fight. I'm going with the Boilermakers, primarily because of The Boilermaker Jazz Band. I've seen them a lot, and you do not want to be on their bad side. Purdue advances.

#6 Notre Dame Fighting Irish vs. #3 Baylor Bears


Taking down monarchy seems plausible enough for the Fighting Irish. I don't think there are many bears in Ireland, and as the Notre Dame leprechaun seems determined to confine his combat style to "boxing in the 1930's", Baylor's not going to have too much of a challenge here. I'm not sure what happens when the Final Four is all bears and people, but I'm pretty sure it's the worst book club in history. Baylor advances.

#10 St. Mary's Gaels vs. #15 Robert Morris Colonials


Now I just feel like I'm picking on the Irish. But there's just not that much for me to work with here. Robert Morris has the Colonial Army. St. Mary's has a mascot, dressed in a suit of armor which is apparently inflatable and they've chosen to call him Gael Force One.

What?

Here.

I'm not even going to bother making a joke. Look at this.

Look at this. Tell me this is going to beat a guy with a musket and a fancy hat. He's not. Robert Morris advances.

Incidentally, I apologize for not having these up before the beginning of the tournament, but if you were seriously looking here for bracket help, you may not be competent to testify in a court of law. I'm not checking any results until I'm done with this, so it won't affect the integrity of the mascot bracket.

3rd Annual Murphspot Mascot Bracket - Round Two - East Region

#16 ETSU Buccaneers vs. #9 Wake Forest Demon Deacons


Obviously, the buccaneer has got cutlasses and single shot pistols and some kind of disease that turns him blue. So you'd think they'd be more than a match for the Demon Deacons. Look at the mascot again. Look at his pupils. There's a chance the demon in question is methamphetamines. That might not be enough, but then I saw yet another picture of him on a motorcycle.


It's apparently all he does.

I'm convinced that he's packing heat in that top hat. Wake Forest advances.

#5 Temple Owls vs. #4 Wisconsin Badgers


I was very generous in giving the Owls a second-round berth, and I initially thought that since owls are birds of prey, they might stand a chance, but Wikipedia informs me that badgers are capable of fighting off wolves. I've never had personal contact with either badgers or owls, but I'm going to go with the one that fights wolves back over the one that steals Tootsie Pops from children. Wisconsin advances.

#11 Washington Huskies vs. #14 Montana Grizzlies


I feel good about this. I allowed a dog into the second round. I'm not a monster. Grizzlies, however, basically are. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that if a grizzly bear came upon a husky, the husky would wag its tail and then get eviscerated. No chance. And look how happy the grizzly is about the whole situation.


Hooray! The happiest bear in history!

Montana advances.

#10 Missouri Tigers vs. #2 West Virginia Mountaineers



I don't want to demean the hunting prowess of people who live in the Appalachian mountains. They can kill deer, and bears and basically anything that wanders across their property line. One of my favorite bits of the original Dawn of the Dead occurs when the main characters are flying from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh by helicopter and note that the residents of Central Pennsylvania are hunting the zombies for sport, because that's exactly what they'd do. Still, tigers are a different thing altogether, possibly. They're fast, they're pretty good at ripping throats out and they advertise sugary cereals, which would tend to give the Mountaineer Type II diabetes. The final verdict? West Virginia advances because the mountaineers in question are insane enough to get the job done before the tiger knows what hit it.

3rd Annual Murphspot Mascot Bracket - Round Two - West Region

#16 Vermont Catamounts vs. #9 Florida State Seminoles


Is it just me, or does the Vermont Catamount look like he's a supervillain who's just let his mortal enemy escape? He's just got a very "You'll rue the day" look about him. The Seminole on the other hand appears to be either yelling, yawning or singing. For the sake of a more interesting mascot bracket, let's presume he's singing. He's singing because he's just killed the catamount and made a nice rug out of it. Florida State advances.

#12 UTEP Miners vs. #4 Vanderbilt Commodores



That miner looks surly. Which, I would be as well. Mining isn't pleasant work. And I'm still unsettled by the way he's holding that pickaxe, but displeasure and possible dangerous instability only gets you so far in life. Commodores are trained. They've got discipline. They've got people unnder their command, and they haven't been underground breathing coal dust. They don't rely on canaries, for the most part, unless the canaries are really skilled military strategists. And they look like this, apparently.

AaaaAAAAHHH. What is going on with his neck? Thanks for the nightmares, Vanderbilt.

Vanderbilt advances.

#6 Xavier Musketeers vs. #14 Oakland Golden Grizzlies


Time to switch it up. Musketeers have muskets, but they've also got wide brimmed hats with ridiculously huge feathers. They've got billowy shirtsleeves that inhibit movement, and they're apparently too consumed with running their organic meat distribution agency to notice the fact that they've got a grizzly with muscle definition that I'm pretty sure no actual bears have bearing down on them. Plus, he's one of the few mascots that's clearly actively swiping. Most bear mascots have just had a "talk to the hand" gesture. Grizz (as wikipedia informs me he is named) means business. Oakland advances

#7 Brigham Young Cougars vs. #15 North Texas Mean Green


I don't know. I still sort of want to favor North Texas because of the Mean Joe Greene connection, but as great a tackle as he was, he never really took to the field with more than his pads, his cleats and four Super Bowl rings. And that little kid wandering around with a Coke. Still, it's a color, and the extra weight of the school's alumni isn't going to help them here. Brigham Young advances.

3rd Annual Murphspot Mascot Bracket - Round Two - Midwest Region

#1 Kansas Jayhawks vs. #8 UNLV Runnin' Rebels


Tough call. Militant abolitionists fighting to preserve Kansas as a Free State (notable as it's geographically isolated by Missouri, which was in the Union, but which allowed slavery). The Runnin' Rebels power comes primarily from their moustache and their revolvers. While they're not from Missouri, and Nevada was part of the Union, the "Rebels" bit implies Confederate sympathies. Which makes this not so much a mascot matchup, but more of exactly the plot of The Outlaw Josey Wales. Which means the Runnin' Rebel is Clint Eastwood. Without giving too much away in terms of spoilers of a 34 year old Western, let's just say that if Clint Eastwood movies have any connection to reality, UNLV advances.

#5 Michigan State Spartans vs. #13 Houston Cougars


Cougars are terrifying, but so are Spartans. And one of them has weaponry. I'm not sure if I've ever definitively decided that the mascot matchup is a one-on-one sort of deal or if several cougars are fighting several Spartans. Either way, I can't see how the cougars come out ahead in this. Even if you grant cougars the same equipment, cougars and weapons only ever win on heavy metal album covers. Michigan State advances

#11 San Diego State Aztecs vs. #14 Ohio Bobcats


This is starting to get a little specist, but historically, Aztecs and Bobcats may have interacted (though bobcats may not have lived far south enough). If they did, I'm pretty certain that the bobcats didn't come out victorious. San Diego State advances

#7 Oklahoma State Cowboys vs. #15 UC Santa Barbara Gauchos


An interesting matchup in what has quickly become the All-Human region, this looks like an interesting matchup on the face of it. A few things wind up influencing the outcome. First, look at the Gauchos logo. That, my friends, is a gaucho who knows a thing or two about steath. That's the ninja of gauchos. Additionally, this was evidently the Oklahoma State logo prior to 2000.

Is that Bruno Kirby? I think that's Bruno Kirby!
While that's a fine moustache, he's clearly going to have some manueverability issues. Not so with ninjagaucho. UC Santa Barbara advances

3rd Annual Murphspot Mascot Bracket - Round One - South Region

#1 Duke Blue Devils vs. #16 University of Arkansas Pine Bluff Golden Lions


Last year, at first, I just sort of accepted that Duke's name was a references to Les Diables Bleus, a french military group. That may have been a bit hasty. There's also the Australian plant. And the mythological devils that bring sadness. Which is pretty weak. And the Graphic Design lion is a pretty formidable opponent. In the end, my nerdiness kicked in and reminded me of Blue Devil. Graphic Design Lion is impressive, but Blue Devil's got the Trident of Lucifer and a healing factor. Duke advances

#8 California Golden Bears vs. #9 Louisville Cardinals


I'm no ornithologist, but I'm pretty sure that if you're surrounded by Cardinals, you're going to be ok as long as you're not seeds. Which the Golden Bears most certainly aren't. I guess you could argue that they should get some sort of bonus in the threat department now that they're getting hitting instruction from Mark McGwire, but that's too much of a stretch even for me. Cal advances.

#5 Texas A&M Aggies vs. #12 Utah State Aggies


The Clemson/Missouri Tiger vs. Tiger match was at least made a bit more sensible by the fact that there are a lot of schools that share the "Tigers" team name. Aggies? I don't know. I could compare the programs, I guess, and try to determine which school turns out the superior Agricultural students, but that violates the point of the mascot bracket. A comparison of their mascots reveals the victor. Texas A&M has a Collie called Reveille. Utah State has a smug looking bull called "Big Blue". Seriously, look at the way he's standing. He doesn't have time for this. Utah State Advances

#4 Purdue Boilermakers vs. #13 Siena Saints


Saints might be threatening if we were talking about people who have been canonized, but as far as I can tell, the Siena Saints mascot is a St. Bernard. I know, the way this mascot bracket has been going it has to seem like I hate dogs. I don't. I like dogs. I just don't think they're suited for battle. Boilermakers (if they refer to steelworkers) have welding equipment and a pretty awesome mask. The Purdue mascot, the Boilermaker Special, is a train. In the eternal battle of dog vs. train, train wins. Purdue advances.

#6 Notre Dame Fighting Irish vs. #11 Old Dominion Monarchs


Oh hey, it's the politically loaded NCAA matchup. Yeah, technically the mascot of the Old Dominion monarchs is a crown-wearing lion swatting with his paw the way most cats I've been around do when they want you to go away. On the other hand, Ireland is still not part of the United Kingdom, and monarchies are well known for lounging around in rooms filled with gold. Can't buy me a second round berth. Notre Dame advances.

#3 Baylor Bears vs. #14 Sam Houston State Bearkats


Ridiculous misspellings aside, I'm begining to become concerned about the prevalence of bears in the second round. And the prevalence of bears in my neighborhood in Chicago, but that's just my personal paranoia kicking in. Bearcats (or Binturongs!) are the size of large cats, and I just really can't think of a situation in which that's going to take down a bear. Baylor advances, but I don't feel very good about it.

#7 Richmond Spiders vs. #10 Saint Mary's Gaels


I personally really, really dislike spiders. I'm not alone in that; during an interview for NPR's "Wait, Wait... Don't Tell Me", Phillipe Petit, the tightrope walker that walked between the World Trade Center buildings said that he was afraid of things with "too many legs or not enough legs." WHich makes me feel better. But even if spiders were as dangerous as my brain keeps telling me they are, the Gael depicted in St. Mary's team logo has armor and a sword and, presumably, a shoe. Saint Mary's advances and helps to rid the world of the arachnid menace.

#2 Villanova Wildcats vs. #15 Robert Morris Colonials


The thing about this is that my graduate school, Northwestern, is the Wildcats. So you'd think I'd have some sort of interest in seeing at least one wildcat make it past the first round. I don't. The mascot bracket is unassailable. And even if I wanted to give Villanova a break, what the hell is the cat on top of the V doing? If a cat did that to me while crouching on a huge V, I would shove it the hell off. Not in a way that would hurt it, of course. It would need to understand that that kind of shit is unacceptable. The colonials depicted have guns, but even if they were just colonials in the sense that they live in a colony, they'd be able to take care of a cat. Robert Morris advances.

End of Round One.

3rd Annual Murphspot Mascot Bracket - Round One - East Region

#1 Kentucky Wildcats vs. #16 East Tennessee State Buccaneers

Sure, a #16 seed has never upset a #1 seed, but the mascot bracket pays no attention to history. Or statistics. Or basketball, really. And so, again, we're faced with a high-seed team that chose to go with "Wildcats" as a mascot, while their opponent has elected to go for the Cyanotic Pirates. Which, incidentally, will be the name of my noise rock/psychedelic band. We'll rock so hard it'll discolor your nailbeds. East Tennessee State advances.

#8 Texas Longhorns vs. #9 Wake Forest Demon Deacons

I remember being skeptical last year of the Demon Deacons. It's really hard for me to believe that clergy is going to put up much of a fight (purely based on the deacons I've met, so admittedly a weak assertion logically), but then I've not read Preacher yet. In any case, my concerns were set aside after I found this image of the Demon Deacon.

Look at that! I had no idea they had motorcycles. This changes everything. Sure, longhorns have horns and all, but they're still cattle. The Demon Deacon is a leather jacket and a jukebox punching away from being the Fonz. Wake Forest advances and impregnates women by looking at them.

#5 Temple Owls vs. #12 Cornell Big Red

I'll give Cornell this; they've managed to take a team name like "Big Red" which is either another abstract team name or a sad commentary on the degree of product placement in the Ivy League and involve a bear somehow. Normally, that's all I'd need to know, especially given that it's going up against an Owl, but look at the logo. Even if I grant them the bear despite being Cornell Big Red, the Cornell C is clearly restraining the bear, as though the bear just had its mother insulted at 1:30am in a dingy bar that can't decide whether it's serving Pabst Blue Ribbon ironically. In a huge upset and because owls are terrifying, Temple advances.

#4 Wisconsin Badgers vs. #13 Wofford Terriers

Terriers? I mean, that looks as though it's a Boston Terrier, which I guess is one of the more stout-looking terriers, but that's probably only because Wofford had the good sense to expel the guy who suggested that they be the Wofford Yorkies. I guess you could try to say they're attempting to embody the fearlessness of terriers, but that unfortunately brings with it the hyperactivity and yipping. The point is that if you're going to choose a dog as an athletic nickname, it might be better to make it one that's not puntable. Badgers, on the other hand, are mean little bastards in stylish collegiate sweaters. Wisconsin advances.

#6 Marquette Golden Eagles vs. #11 Washington Huskies

Huskies are more like it. With that whole apparent "pulling sleds across tundra thing" and all. I mean, if they were as fierce as is necessary to win the Murphspot Mascot Bracket, they'd probably stage an uprising against the people responsible for strapping them to sleds and running them across Alaska. Still, you could do worse. The Golden Eagles are what all of the other eagles in the bracket are (plus the Golden bonus), so they've got lots of clawing and biting on their side. Matchup between full-on adults? I have no idea. I imagine an eagle wouldn't be all that tempted to go directly after a Husky, and because the dogs are due, I'll say that Washington advances

#3 New Mexico Lobos vs. #14 Montana Grizzlies

There's a team called the Lobos. "Lobo" is one of the words I actually remember from my high school Spanish class, but let's get down to business. Clearly, while the logo displays a wolf, there is also significant homage paid to DC Comics' Lobo, made even more impressive by the fact that the New Mexico mascot predates Lobo by 63 years. Still, parodies of what was wrong with comic book tough guys in the nineties are pretty hard to beat. Grizzlies, though, are huge and will kill you. And then Werner Herzog will make a film about you and most people will wonder what on earth you were doing trying to live amongst things that will kill and eat you. Montana advances, and I feel a twinge of disappointment in Lobo.

#7 Clemson Tigers vs. #10 Missouri Tigers

Oh come on. Last year's bracket had an overabundance of tigers (Memphis and LSU in addition to the two in this matchup), so I guess it's nice that at least one tiger is going down in the first round. Neither specifies a kind of tiger, so the only way I can make this decision is to default to the fact that Missouri actually has a tiger in their team logo (as opposed to just evidence that a tiger has stopped by) and they've got a mascot named Truman. Good enough for me. Missouri advances.
#2 West Virginia Mountaineers vs. #15 Morgan State Grizzlies

It's hard to beat a bear in the mascot tournament, but what on earth is the Morgan State Grizzly doing? Other bears in this tournament had the decency to be menacing, but what is that pose? It's like he was just happened upon by the paparazzi. As far as the matchup goes, it's marginally relevant that I grew up in a semi-rural area of western Pennsylvania. I was not in Appalachia, but I have been through Appalachia and anyone who qualifies as a mountaineer is not only going to have their living quarters littered with bear pelts, they're going to be capable of taking down a bear with the sheer power of their facial hair. Which is fine with me in terms of the mascot bracket. I'm still terrified of them. West Virginia advances

3rd Annual Murphspot Mascot Bracket - Round One - West Region

#1 Syracuse Orange vs. #16 Vermont Catamounts

If they were still the Syracuse Orangemen, I'd have a remarkably easy setup for a joke about Jersey Shore. Sadly, that is not The Situation. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to think of "Orange". It appears to be an abstract team name (even though their mascot, Otto, is an orange, they are the Orange, not the Oranges). I guess it's better that way, as citrus doesn't have a whole lot to do with Upstate New York. Vermont, on the other hand, picked the most inexplicable name for P. Concolor, and I'm going to give them some points for that. They could have gone with Mountain Screamer but then they'd be required to build a theme park, I think. Still, while not part of their diet as far as I know, I'm going to say that the catamount is going to be more than enough of a match for the fruit/color/concept. Vermont advances.

#8 Gonzaga Bulldogs vs. #9 Florida State Seminoles

I haven't been around many bulldogs in my lifetime, but it just seems like you could have picked a more intimidating breed of dog. Sure, they've got that underbite thing, but I feel like most of Gonzaga's bulldog's reputation comes from its spiked collar, which wasn't even its decision. It's not even like they've got particularly long legs. Seminoles, on the other hand, have spears and were presumably pretty good at hitting things that moved a lot more quickly than bulldogs. Florida State advances in a walk.

#5 Butler Bulldogs vs. #12 University of Texas - El Paso Miners

I appreciate that UTEP went with Miners. Coming from Western Pennsylvania, it's nice to see miners get some recognition. Granted, the UTEP miner appears to be outside and above ground. And he's wielding that pickaxe in a pretty threatening manner; as though he's chasing someone off of his lawn rather than excavating minerals. I think that impression is helped by the scowl. Most mascots don't have that much of a scowl. Someone has pissed that miner off. I'm guessing it was the bulldog, who's still not that threatening. UTEP advances. Can we be done with bulldogs now?

#4 Vanderbilt Commodores vs. #13 Murray State Racers
As
I'm not going to pretend I'm older than I am, but I do remember futzing around with something that vaguely resembled a Commodore 64 in the basement of my elementary school. It likely wasn't, and it was something else that I was attempting to learn BASIC on, but how can I possibly not give Vanderbilt some kind of bonus for that? I'd have initially invoked the Navy, but apparently "Commodore" is no longer a rank. Which is a shame. We can equate "Commodore" with "Rear Admiral", but why bother? It's going up against Racers. Whose purpose is to either run away or run along a predefined course for a time, then stop. Sorry, Murray State, but this means something.* Vanderbilt Advances

#6 Xavier Musketeers vs. #11 Minnesota Golden Gophers

Let's go ahead and keep running with the idea that "golden x" is better than "x", because I'm feeling idolatrous and gaudy. The problem is that it only elevates "golden x" over other "x", it says nothing about "y". And, unfortunately for Minnesota, calling the gophers golden doesn't elevate the gophers above guys with muskets. They ruin gardens, they're rodents and there's no conceivable way they win against musketeers. Hell, this guy took down a whole gopher village.


I'll forgive the fact that you were in Scooby Doo 2 just this once.

If you're getting impaled and roasted by Tim Blake Nelson, you're going out in round one. Xavier advances.

#3 Pittsburgh Panthers vs. #14 Oakland Golden Grizzlies

See, this is what the mascot bracket is about? If you put a panther and a bear into a cage, which is coming out? Why are either coming out? What were you thinking opening the door after one killed the other. These are dangerous animals. You really shouldn't just let either bears or panthers out into the public, particularly after they've tasted the undeniable glory of killing another being. As much as it goes against my rooting interest as a Pittsburgher, I can't just ignore the reality of what would happen here. The panther doesn't stand a chance. Oakland advances.

#7 Brigham Young Cougars vs. #10 Florida Gators

There sure are a lot of cougars/pumas/panthers/catamounts in this tournament. Finally, both teams seem to have picked things that are at least plausibly native to the areas in which the campuses are situated. As concerned as I am about an overabundance of cougars in the next few rounds, I'm going to have to say that the Gators are no match for Cougars. From a maneuverability standpoint, from a "can get reasonably far away from marshes" standpoint, from a stubby vs. nonstubby leg standpoint, it's no contest. I don't care if you haven't changed that much since the Mesozoic. That just makes it more sensible that you live in Florida. Brigham Young advances.

#2 Kansas State Wildcats vs. #15 North Texas Mean Green

I know that earlier in this very post, I was down on the idea of naming yourself after a color, but there's something about adding an adjective to it that improves it in my eyes. I'm still feeling a bit let down by the idea of Wildcats after finding out that they're pretty puny, and a bit of research reveals that North Texas changed its team name from the Eagles (which are still represented in the logo) to Mean Green in honor of Mean Joe Greene, which as a Steelers fan, I'm going to allow. I'm sorry if it seems like favoritism after I had Syracuse go down earlier in this write up, but if the matchup is "timid feral cat" vs. "Mean Joe", Mean Joe wins every time. North Texas advances.

3rd Annual Murphspot Mascot Bracket - Round One - Midwest Region

#1 Kansas Jayhawks vs. #16 Lehigh Mountain Hawks

When I first considered this, it looked like I'd be starting the bracket out with an unprecedented upset. After all, if it's hawk-on-hawk, I'm going to go with the one that exists and has "Mountain" in the name over the one that doesn't and has a mascot wearing buckled shoes. Reconsidering the origins changes the picture. Mountain Hawks are, as close as I can figure, Mountain Hawk-eagles which presumably swoops down and grabs whatever the hell it pleases. The big blue chicken Jayhawk thing shouldn't stand a chance, except that "Jayhawker" was a term for militant abolitionists in Kansas who formed guerilla groups to fight off pro-slavery factions. That's pretty badass. Given that they're militants, I'm going once again with the argument that they win because they have guns and I don't care where Lehigh's hawks are coming from. There ain't no mountain high enough, if you'll permit me to get Diana Ross at you. Kansas advances.

#8 University of Nevada-Las Vegas Rebels vs. #9 Northern Iowa Panthers

Panthers are pretty intimidating, if somewhat unspecific. Here, I'm taking it that they mean P. Concolor, though I'm not sure how many mountain lions are wandering around Northern Iowa. That's actually an unfair criticism, as my alma mater's mascot is the Gator, despite there being no wild alligators in northwestern Pennsylvania (they're smart enough that they don't subject themselves to such climates). But what the hell am I supposed to do here? It's going up against a Yosemite Sam simulacrum. Look at that moustache. The fact that the basketball team (so, the thing that's relevant) is the "Runnin' Rebels" just evokes Cock Sparrer's first single "Runnin' Riot" which means the panther is now going up against a Sam Elliott cartoon and some of the architects of streetpunk. There's no way it survives. UNLV advances. And I can't stand the peace and quiet.

#5 Michigan State Spartans vs. #12 New Mexico State Aggies

The tournament is just rife with Aggies this year. I'm not sure what that should mean to me as a non-Aggie, but I'm going with "mildly unsettled". I'd like to see a bit more of a fight against the Spartans, but honestly, you've got the model for a military society going up against this:


Drawn just seconds before he managed to rope his head in the most hilarious way imaginable

What is that? What is that guy? Is that Burt Reynolds? Why does he have a lasso? This is college basketball, Burt. You can't just cruise in here and expect to survive on what you learned in the backwoods of Georgia during the filming of Smokey and the Bandit. I do not care what Jackie Gleason told you. Michigan State advances.

#4 University of Maryland Terrapins vs. #13 University of Houston Cougars

I think the past two mascot brackets have biased me against large cats. Here, though, I can't actually figure out a way that Maryland wins without Ooze and a giant anthropomorphic ninja rat. And there's nothing here to suggest that any of that comes into play. Which is a shame, because I recently learned that the guy who played Shredder in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movies of the late eighties/early nineties was François Chau, who's currently Dr. Pierre Chang/Marvin Candle/Edgar Halliwax/Mark Wickmund and was hoping to tie him in. Unless he went to University of Houston, in which case the man's just all about destroying some turtles. University of Houston advances.

#6 Tennessee Volunteers vs. #11 San Diego State Aztecs

Well, one group is represented by Jimmy Carter. The other, Montezuma. Volunteers build houses for underprivileged families, which is fantastic and I'm in no way trying to detract from that. But Aztecs built Tenochtitlan. Then again, they also were indirectly responsible for Roland Emmerich's 2012, which should be a point against, but they make up for it with the Mesoamerican ballgame, which I imagine is going to help them in the tournament. San Diego State University advances

#3 Georgetown Hoyas vs. #14 Ohio Bobcats

Once again, we're going with bulldogs here because "Hoyas" evidently comes from "Hoya Saxa!" or "What Rocks!" if you don't mind mixing Greek and Latin and coming up with "What Rocks" at the end of it. Bobcats hunt deer. Which is pretty impressive for a cat. If you're killing deer, you're probably more than capable of handling a bulldog. I know that's true of minivans, and I have no reason to think that it's any different for bobcats. Ohio University advances.

#7 Oklahoma State Cowboys vs. #10 Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets

I was hoping for something better for the Yellow Jackets. Put them up against an abstraction or something. At least another insect. For most of my life, I don't know that I actually believed that "yellow jacket" was an actual thing. Apparently, it's the common name for wasps, which I didn't understand because "wasp" is a much cooler name. Still, cowboys are more than capable of handling wasps. Sorry Hank Pym. Oklahoma State advances.


This is what you get for violating the square-cube law, dick.

#2 Ohio State Buckeyes vs. #15 University of California - Santa Barbara Gauchos

You know, for a school that's got a pretty robust athletic program, there's not much I can do for Ohio State. It's a chestnut. Poisonous chestnuts. When the chestnut you're naming your teams after is also known as fetid buckeyes, you're doing something wrong. I don't even have to get into how much ass Gauchos probably kick. You lose when what you're named for is noted for how godawful it smells. UC Santa Barbara advances.

3rd Annual Murphspot Mascot Bracket - Play-In Game

University of Arkansas-Pine Bluff Golden Lions vs. Winthrop Eagles

And we've returned to the obligatory "large cat/bird of prey" matchup. A point of clarification before we get into this in earnest; I'm going to be very loose with the concept of "mascot". If there's not a big foam rubber costume running around basketball games (or if I can't find evidence of one in the first few minutes), the logos and the team names are fair game.

With that out of the way, we've got what will likely be a pretty common matchup in the play-in game. The Winthrop Eagle apparently does exist in giant-costume form and is a bald eagle with hollow eyes, which makes it a pretty haunting, actually. I wish they'd gone with something other than the bald eagle; sure, it gets them points for patriotism and it's what many people in the US think of when they hear the word "eagle", so it'd be a good opportunity to open the public's eyes to Accipitridae members. My top two suggestions? The Martial Eagle or Wahlberg's Eagle. The first evokes the military, which probably would bump up its performance in Mascot Brackets (I'm going to ignore the pictures on Wikipedia and presume martial eagles have little rifles and bandoliers and a cigar). Wahlberg's Eagle presents the opportunity to call the fan section "The Funky Bunch" and how do you not do that?

University of Arkansas-Pine Bluff's mascot, on the other hand, is this.

From a logo design perspective, I dig the idea of embedding "UAPB" in the mane. It reminds me of the Montreal Expos logo, which I will maintain is a pretty damn good logo even if they've since moved to Washington by way of Puerto Rico and had their real shot at the Championship cut short by the strike in 1994. Beyond that, "Golden Lion" clearly evokes a higher class of lion than the lowly Brass Lions, and is apparently also the highest award given at the Venice Film Festival. That's clearly quality. And if you distill this down to what the Mascot Bracket is about, a fight to the death between the mascots, it's no contest. University of Arkansas-Pine Bluff advances to face Duke in the 1st Round.

I'm just utterly confused.

The internet is weird.

I generally just sit complacently while my blog does nothing, like every other blogger on the planet, so long as "blogger" is defined with "someone who at one point has posted something on a personal weblog." Every once in a while (or in late February after the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament Bracket is announced) something will shock me out of that complacency.

This is one of those things.

For those of you who mercifully were paying attention to much more important things in the late 1990's, Insane Clown Posse is just astoundingly awful as a musical act. Terrible, "we're riding this gimmick into the ground" cartoonishly-violent rap/coulrophobia jamboree. I suppose I should say here that I have nothing against cartoonishly-violent lyrics. Murder Ballads is a good example; I will listen to Nick Cave talk about carving people up until I somehow destroy the mp3s from overuse. It's not a "rap vs. rock" thing either. I do require my violent music to not also be terrible, which is where ICP fails. According to wikipedia, they concluded their "themed album" series (can a clown-based rap group have a non-themed album?) with some sort of confusing attempt to claim that all of their work is actually Christian rap. I know. I don't get it either.

Their devotees (Juggalos), are just as incomprehensible to me. I don't actually begrudge them their weird fandom, because people like bizarre things that I find terrible. There are devoted fans of the third and fourth seasons of Heroes (I presume). Lorenzo Lamas has a reality show, and there are in all likelihood people who can't get enough. Of course, those latter two groups aren't defining their entire life by the media they consume, investing in Faygo and makeup and pretending that their obsession is controversial and interesting, but I rarely interact with them, so whatever makes them happy, I guess. I'll never understand why they are still listening to ICP, but good for them.

It's a lot harder for me to ignore it when the laughably terrible duo makes a Western of all things. Watching the trailer, they seem almost aware of the absurdity of the whole thing. They have to be, right? They're making a goddamn Western in clown makeup. They seem to be affecting some manner of accent. I'm pretty sure it's more unsettling if they were intentionally trying to do this. I really want to believe that someone named Shaggy 2 Dope is doing this as an elaborate prank to see how far they could push the clown thing without their fanbase calling them on it. I'm not sure I can believe that, and I'm not sure how one would sit through the entire movie. I think it's probably enough to do what FilmDrunk does; acknowledge that it's been over a decade since ICP was even tangentially relevant to pop culture, that an Insane Clown Posse Western is something that exists, as opposed to being the sort of stock phrase to indicate unspeakable terror that H.P. Lovecraft might have used if he were actively writing in the late 90's, and try to hope this isn't one of the signs of the Apocalypse.

Potato Bacon Chowder

I very clearly failed at the November Project, and will never bring it up again, because it doesn't make much sense for me to point it out. Instead, I'm going to continue on as though nothing happened (which, actually, is pretty accurate) and continue with the "Ryan writes about food he makes" series of posts which are probably subconsciously inspired by a summer weekday afternoon viewing of Julie & Julia, which I actually enjoyed. Today's subject: Potato and Bacon Chowder.

A while ago, I bought a five pound sack of potatoes for a dollar at Jewel-Osco. Mostly because five pounds of almost anything for a dollar is a pretty good deal. They sat on a shelf for a short while, because I had no idea what to make with them. I've made mashed potatoes before, but other than that, I have not really explored the versatility of the noble potato. A former housemate of mine (in the Jazz House at Allegheny) made potato soup every other day for a while (between "open events", which usually consisted of renting some part of Ken Burns' Jazz and buying some cheese), as her meal plan had run out and potatoes, evidently, are pretty universally cheap. Sure, you don't want to base your entire diet around it, particularly if you've got phytophthora infestans hanging around, but generally, potatoes are (apparently) pretty awesome. I ran with that, and decided to scour AllRecipes.com, where I'm getting all of these recipes, for a potato soup.

The problem with doing things that way is that while I'm trying to build up a base of general knowledge, there are endless variations on something simple like potato soup. If I had an extensive pantry, I guess I could try a number of these things. If I had, I don't know, an excess of kale hanging around (which, if I ever start a vegan-centric post-punk band, it's going to be called "An Excess of Kale"), I could make this nonsense. If I had chunks of bologna, I could make this provided I am ever able to regain an appetite having read the phrase "chunks of bologna". Do I have frozen peas, ground beef, and a willingness to discard the idea of making potato soup for a vague, faux-poetically named dish from someone who notes in their writeup that weather-themed birthday parties exist? Clouds at Sunset to the rescue. Having none of those things, I went with Potato Bacon Chowder for several reasons. First, making a chowder sounds more impressive than making a soup. Second, it involved bacon, which is more or less all I'm looking for in any recipe. It's a miracle that all of the food I make isn't just a substrate for bacon.

It actually turned out really well. I'll be making it again soon. It seems like it's cheating to use condensed soup as an ingredient for making soup, but it's cheap enough and the recipe makes roughly an enormous amount of potato soup, so I'm fine with that. Evidently, I've still got to work on my chopping skills, as Marina complained that the onions were too large (Which is probably true. Actually, I may have stopped chopping prematurely just because the onion was getting to me, and was bringing back very unpleasant memories of being in an undergraduate lab and working with benzyl bromide, which is a powerful lachrymator and the closest I've ever gotten to being tear-gassed.) I ate it with bread, mostly because I felt like symbolically kicking Robert Atkins in the shin. I didn't actually make that many alterations to the recipe (other than "how can I put even more bacon in this?"), but I'll get to that later, once I have a few more basic dishes under my belt.

More to come, either on food (because food is delicious) or something else (because something else makes this seem less like it's suddenly a culinary blog).

Movie Review: 2012

Quick note, first of all. I’m going to be giving away spoilers. I want to discuss the movie, and I’m going to do so without pulling back so that the plot remains fresh for everyone. In terms of a spoiler free assessment of the movie, 2012 is a fun if formulaic disaster movie which does terrible, unspeakable things to science and expects the audience to believe a hell of a lot. A few loose ends bothered me, as well as how the ending progresses and the thought processes that went into the attempts to avoid the apocalypse, but overall, if you can ignore everything, it’s interesting visually. At times. If I were giving it a grade, it’s somewhere in the C/C- range. If you do not want the movie to be spoiled for you, do not read past this paragraph

So, 2012. Adrian Helmsley (Chiwetel Ejiofor, who I was happy to see because I enjoyed him in Redbelt) is a geologist who’s meeting a colleague in India, apparently a particle physicist. The colleague informs Helmsley that a recent solar flare has changed some fundamental property of the trillions of neutrinos bombarding the earth and everything on it, such that they now interact with matter, sort of, and are heating up the earth’s core. This is all supposed to coincide in a hand-waving sort of way with the theory that, based on the Mayan long count calendar, the world will end on the winter solstice in 2012.

There are a few things about that that concern me.

Going through it bit by bit, I’m unsure how a solar flare is supposed to change the properties of fundamental particles like the neutrino. Neutrinos are produced at every moment by solar fusion, and are produced at such a rate that 65 billion or so pass through every square centimeter of the side of the earth that’s facing the sun every second of every day. Which would be a problem, if they interacted with ordinary matter. Luckily, they don’t. So they pass right through everything, only occasionally interacting. Let’s presume, for a moment, that something the sun did actually did change the nature of neutrinos such that they interact. Why, dear Liza, do they only interact with the core? It’s large and nickel and iron, primarily, but why are the neutrinos apparently still passing through things until they encounter the core? Shouldn’t the entirety of life on earth been wiped out long before we even started to notice that neutrino observatories are boiling (evidently not solely because of the neutrino-water molecule interactions, but because the core of the planet is heating up) by the new and interactive neutrinos smashing into the molecules that make up us, killing everyone off with severe radiation poisoning? And how much are the neutrinos heating up the core? It’s already several thousand degrees Celsius.

Ok. So ignoring all the problems the movie creates by blaming everything on solar flares and neutrinos (which I’m thinking was a convenient way to get to the Apocalypse by using things outside of common science knowledge), let’s get in to the actual premise. There are head nods to the Mayan long count calendar (the absurd hysteria about which the movie draws its notability from) and a few scientists pay the obligatory “How, with all our technology, could we not have known what the Mayans knew?” slam on modern science in preference of ancient knowledge. For the most part, though, there’s not enough room for it. And even though (enjoyably wacky) Woody Harrelson has a cartoon in the middle which points out that the long count calendar thing suggests that the world will end on December 21, 2012, the entirety of the movie takes place over a few days in August. How do I know this? It explicitly says that the events take place over a few days, and they show the London 2012 Olympics as being disrupted, which start on July 27th and end on August 12th. So, the Mayans correctly predicted the end of the world, but not really, and not in a way that makes sense scientifically. Hooray.

As for the actual action of the movie, it’s a standard disaster film. At no point do we really feel like the plucky American broken family isn’t going to make it. Hell, their enormous Russian airplane runs out of gas, and the earth’s crust has conveniently shifted so that not only do they not land in the South China Sea, but they land apparently about ten miles from their destination and only shot at survival. Which is convenient. I’d note that this massive crust shift has apparently occurred while maintaining the continents in pretty much their current shape (and without, say, the Indian subcontinent plowing the hell through China). Oh, and for some reason the global catastrophe that is ripping the Earth apart from the inside out hits California first, then works its way around the world from there. And the designers of the massive arks on which humanity is to survive apparently assumed that there would be no debris in the massive tidal wave for which they were preparing, and so humanity is almost destroyed. Again. And the captain of the American ship is apparently Grand Moff Tarkin.

Sorry. I got distracted by the massive amount of things that made no sense whatsoever. The family drama is pretty standard. Ex-husband dad living on his own is jealous of the attention that his kids pay to his ex-wife’s new doctor boyfriend who is portrayed, at least in the beginning, as a tool. Eventually, Dad A learns that Dad B isn’t such a bad guy after all, and we eventually end up feeling like Dad B is getting the shaft, as he’s flying the plane and saving everyone’s life while Dad A gets back with his ex-wife. Dad B ends up unceremoniously dispatched (by gears!) which no one cares about or ever mentions again. Dad A gets back with his family guilt free and everyone’s happy. Obviously.

In the meantime, though, Chiwetel (I’m referring to the character Adrian by his actor’s first name because how awesome is “Chiwetel”) convinces an Angela Merkel clone and several other world leaders to let the people that are still on the dock onto the ship, thus showing that money doesn’t buy everything and the wasteful luxury rooms upon the ark will be used for a more utilitarian purpose, saving as many as possible. There’s only one problem I have with that. The only people who are on the dock are the Chinese workers (with whom I have no problem saving) and people who knew about the project, paid, and simply weren’t let on. They’re all still people who paid one billion euros for the trip. It’s not like they’re running around, saving the salt of the earth from certain destruction. It’s still all the rich guys. It’s just more rich guys who are less comfortable. There’s nothing wrong with saving them, of course, as they’re people too, but it sort of undercuts the “only those who were able to afford ludicrously priced seats survived” that it seems like the movie was going for.

Overall, I’m not sure I’ll ever watch it again. If you liked other apocalyptic movies that don’t actually make much sense when you stop to think about them, watch 2012. And the world’s not going to end. If you worry about the world ending in 2012, you should probably send me all the money you have, as you are clearly in no state to make informed decisions about how to live, and if you’re right, it won’t matter anyway.

That was a long post. Yes.

Adaptations Confuse Me

I've noted on here before that I'm a fan of Food Network. Making the preparation of food entertaining is a feat, but as everyone's got to eat, so it's got wide appeal. And Alton Brown. Who I would let run Illinois, if I had any significant political pull. Separately, I'm also always on the look out for new games for the Wii, in the event I ever get enough money to buy more. I recently played through Twilight Princess and Super Mario Galaxy again, and while I can throw Madworld in whenever I feel like dismembering something, I'd like a few more options that are able to provide a completely different experience.

Given all that, what the hell is this?



Really, Food Network? First, I'm not sure what to think about the name. I'd have to play it to find out, but is that threat legitimate? If I don't cook well enough, I'm abducted, dissected and prepared in a variety of visually impressive and delicious dishes? Because if that's the case, this game will be much more interesting than I've been led to believe. I understand that part of the appeal with the Wii is that you can simulate activities with the Wiimote, but for some reason, I dig it more when what you're simulating is something you couldn't actually do by going to another room of the house. I can't easily box without getting hurt, and that the Wii simulates that is fun. Same with, I don't know. Shooting a bow. But if I want to cut a steak, I could presumably go buy a steak and, you know, enjoy it. Yes, the cost of steak over the lifetime of a Wii is probably more than the $39.95 they're asking for the game, and I shouldn't review a game I've not played before, but merely seen a commercial for between Unwrapped and Good Eats, but I'm going to be really surprised if this isn't absurd. If I'd rented a video game in the past decade, I'd find out, but instead, I'll just be snarky on the internet about something that people worked hard on producing.

It's just so much easier than producing anything of merit on my own.

Quiche!

I think my process with learning how to cook is going to be to learn how to make basic forms of different types of dishes so that I can improvise on them after I know what legally constitutes a chili. Or, in this case, a quiche. I'm not sure why I decided to make a quiche. I've only had it a few times, but decided that my success in chili formulation that quiche should be my next step. Part of it was probably that I like omelettes for the very reason that you can basically chuck anything you have lying around in there and have it turn out sort of palatable. Add a pie crust and some half-and-half, and I'm in. Then there's the name. Quiche is hilarious and for some reason that I'm not quite sure of, sort of emasculating. I'd say it was something to do with being french and American Francophobia, but apparently it's originally a German dish, which if broad and widely inaccurate stereotypes are the basis for how we know things, should mean they're humorless but well-designed. Which I guess can apply to quiche. I'm hopeful that after a few more attempts at making food, I'll start making a quiche, then get distracted by doing something manly, like ripping down rainforests with my bare hands or rebuilding a jet engine. Or fashioning a power saw out of pit bulls and motorcycles. And then have the opportunity to look at my watch, drop whatever tree I'm holding, scream "Oh my god! My quiche!" and run away.

What I'm saying is that my life should be a middle of the road family sit-com.

As for the actual cooking, it went relatively well. I made the most basic quiche I could find (which gains points for being submitted by someone calling themselves "Doctor Kitten"), and threw half an onion, a red pepper and a jalapeno in, because vegetables are cheap and were hanging out here anyway. It wasn't as good as the chili, but that might just be because it was quiche and not chili. I definitely need to try it again, and it absolutely needs some bacon the next time I try. Some more spice, as well. The problem with making the most basic quiche imaginable is that it's sort of bland. So. Yes. Attempts at cooking continue, even if attempts at daily blogging are constantly falling behind.

Concert Review: Ska is Dead IV

It's impossible for me to go to a show that features the bands that were headlining Ska is Dead IV without comparing it to my first concert experiences. With new bands, I can appreciate them on their own merits, without holding them up to some ludicrous standard that was set when I was first discovering music, and imbuing it with a ridiculous sense of grandeur. When I saw Skapone at this year's Glenwood Arts Festival, I wasn't comparing them to every other time I'd seen them, because I'd never seen them before, Which was fine. They were good, by the way. Much better than the stand that was trying to sell glasses with "Penis" and "Scrotum" written on them in puffy paint for $20. Obscene on no less than two levels. But, this isn't that, and so I'm going to compare Ska is Dead IV to concerts of my youth. Get over it.

First, the venue. I've been to the Metro a number of times. There's not really much I can complain about as far as the venue itself. It does well for what it is, a mid-level club. There's at least one improvement over the clubs of my youth. The guy who sets up the equipment change music makes at least minimal effort to match the music to the show. I distinctly remember going to concerts at Club Laga where the twenty minutes between the end of The Hippos set and The Berlin Project and being assaulted with Top 40, specifically "...Baby One More Time", which not only breaks the spell by injecting a completely different kind of music into the mix, but by risking inciting a group of irrational teenagers to violence. So that's no good. Whoever's picking out music at the Metro, though, at least sort of seems to know what he's doing. If Deal's Gone Bad finishes and we're waiting for the Toasters to take the stage, it's nice to hear some Let's Go Bowling or Specials. So yes. Good job, Metro Intermission Music Guy.

The fact that Metro's got a balcony actually alleviated the fears I had about the concert being groups of high schoolers with me being creepy in the background. The crowd segregates by age, with the older attendees hanging out upstairs, where the bar is, and the kids staying downstairs, where they can run into each other and do whatever it is that I did before I realized how much I enjoy not moving all that much. I always hated the over 21s at concerts when I was young. I thought they weren't getting the full concert experience by hanging out in a cage removed from the mosh pit. Turns out, not getting shoved can be ok.

Now, the actual bands. I have to confess, I underestimated the amount to which the CTA would continue to be the bane of my existence. So an attempt to show up at least somewhat on time means I missed both Green Room Rockers and Voodoo Glow Skulls, which I was sort of devastated about. So, unfortunately, I can't review either of their performances. On to the bands that I saw. I'd never seen Deal's Gone Bad before, which is absurd as they're a Chicago band who plays here often enough, and I've been living here for four years. Since I'd never seen them, I guess I never really jumped at the opportunity to see them. I won't make that mistake again. They're what I look for in new ska bands. Go. See. Deal's Gone Bad.

The Toasters continue to have a lot fewer members than they had in their heyday, if we can call it that. The last time I saw them, there was at least Lord Sledge on trumpet and Buford O'Sullivan joining in on trombone, but last night's horn section consisted solely of a tenor sax and trombone. Which is fine, and they did fine with what they had, but I'm always hoping to see a return to their former size. A drummer I've never seen before tried to lead the crowd, which worked well enough, as most of the people there were well versed enough in Toasters albums that singing along was never a problem. The bassist, while playing well, was moving as though he wanted to be in a band other than the one that helped pioneer Third Wave, and was a little distracting. Lots of swaying. Anyway, "Bucket" Hingley was on as always. I'm not sure how old Bucket is at this point (it should be noted that Skaboom!, the band's first album, was issued in 1983, making the Toasters at least as old as I am), but he seems to still have his spark. He worked the crowd, imploring some young whippersnappers to stop trying to hurt fellow concert goers, and I was impressed by the song selection. There's a tendency, I think, to try to find the most popular album and just play that. A Rancid concert two years ago I went to was almost entirely "...And Out Come The Wolves". Which isn't a bad thing necessarily. But getting to hear everything from "Weekend in LA" to "Shocker" to "Thrill Me Up" to a few songs from Enemy of the System made me appreciate not only how deep the Toasters repretoire is, but that they're willing to play the old stuff. The kids were into it, so that worked.

It was really disconcerting to have Mustard Plug headlining a show at which the Toasters were playing. I always sort of held the Toasters in very high regard (partly because Bucket ran Moon Ska Records), and it's very weird to see them not headlining whatever show they're at. Nothing against Mustard Plug, obviously, as I've seen them absurdly often and still listen to Evildoers Beware! and Pray for Mojo. But, anyway, on to Mustard Plug. I was skeptical at how much the crowd seemed to be cheering at the bizarre lights and sustained chords intro, but it turns out that Mustard Plug is always going to be Mustard Plug. Energetic without being cartoonish (which is what I didn't like about a lot of the bands, like Reel Big Fish, that came up in the ska-punk fad) and just completely controlling the crowd. The set included most of the standards ("You", "Skank By Numbers", "Lolita") as well as two covers. One I've heard hundreds of times, to the point where I don't even recall what The Verve Pipe's version of "The Freshmen" even sounds like. They also covered "Waiting Room" by Fugazi, which I was skeptical of, but which they managed to pull off enough that I think Ian MacKaye may allow it. My only nitpick with the entire set was that for the first time in all the times I've seen Mustard Plug, the performance of "Mr. Smiley" wasn't accompanied by Dave Kirchgessner attacking the front row with a plastic axe. Additionally, I've been to a lot of shows in my time, and I've heard a lot of bands play their most popular song last, but nothing gets a crowd going like the Beer Song. My word.

On the way out, I was handed a CD from what appears to be a local band called "On Your Marx", who appears to have reformed from a mid-nineties band called "Jambalaya" that I've never heard of. With a name like On Your Marx, and a CD cover of a gold-stars-on-red-background version of the Chicago flag, I was expecting something a bit more political. It's fun enough, and I'm always supportive of a ska band with female vocals. Their song "Baby Piano" starts with a baby piano, which I guess makes sense. I'd like to hear more from On Your Marx, as the EP (which is available on their website was too short for me to make any real judgement. I'd give them a shot if I saw that they were playing somewhere.

So, there we go. Concert Review. Hooray.

Attending Concerts

I don't go to concerts anymore. Part of it, I think, is that I've finally reached that point where it's potentially creepy. If I continue to go to the shows that I've gone to my entire concert-going life, I'm the old guy now, and I'm not sure if I'm comfortable with that, both as a role and as a way of reminding me that it's been ten years since I was sixteen. The only saving grace of the whole endeavor is that my youth was spent listening to music considered by most to be a fad. For most people, bands like Reel Big Fish were popular for just about a year, then no one cared about them anymore. Oddly, I never really listened to Reel Big Fish, but rather used it as an introduction to the wider world of third-wave ska. Hence, the people that tend to show up at concerts like the one I'm going to tonight are in the same mold, people who started listening to these bands in the late 90's and have just stuck with it since then. There's still more annoying (which I can see now) young people, getting in my way and misunderstanding the rules of etiquette (bands like the Pietasters do not require a constant mosh pit, and you look like an idiot for trying one in addition to injuring people who are trying to enjoy themselves), but I think that's just a function of going to lame ska concerts. Apparently, my tastes in music are woefully adolescent.

The last concert I actually committed to going to and then showed up at was, and I think I'm not making this up, seven months ago (Mountain Goats and John Vanderslice at the Portage Theater). It had been a while before then. And while I enjoyed that show, I need to go to something or I think someone comes and confiscates the band posters and setlists that I collected from going to shows at Club Laga, and alternately either helping the horn section of the band I came to see load their van (The Berlin Project) and attempting to wake my friend up because he may have just sustained a concussion against one of the bare concrete pillars (Hatebreed/Throwdown/God Forbid). So I'm off to see Mustard Plug, The Toasters, Voodoo Glow Skulls, Deal's Gone Bad and Green Room Rockers tonight. I'll likely be back later to report on how Mustard Plug is holding up (incidentally, one of the first concerts I went to, back in 1997, was Mustard Plug, Slick Olde Bishops and, though I hadn't heard of them before the show, a Tomas Kalnoky-led Catch 22), how Rob Hingley is dealing with the fact that while he's the only remaining member of the original Toasters and has been for some time, every time I've seen them in recent years they appear to be losing members and then just not replacing them, leading to songs written for an eight-piece band being played by four. And I'll report on who on earth the Green Room Rockers are, in the event that I show up early enough to see them (who starts a concert at 5:00 pm on a Saturday?).

Mythologies

And I've already fallen two days behind. I'll catch up, though, so I'm going to count it as being alright. Part of the problem is that I've finished up at Northwestern, and in trying to get a job, I've taken a position at a company that I won't explicitly name, but that has me getting up at seven in the morning, so prime blogging hours after work have been taken up with "I need sleep or I'm going to die". But we're back, and so the November Project marches onward.

I've talked before about my prediliction for getting into different mythologies. I find something, get excited that there's back story that I don't know that other people find absurdly important, and dive in, learning as much as I can. I recently repeated the process with Green Lantern (which, incidentally, was a really good decision, considering that I happened to decide to start looking over the mythology so that I'd be up to speed when the Blackest Night event started, which I'll review here later), and I'm remembering the process as I'm rewatching the new series of Doctor Who with Marina's roommates. I'm still not sure if I'm committed enough to watch the old series, though I did spend my fair amount of time looking back over synopses of Jon Pertwee's exploits.

Continuing my newfound comic book reading schedule (which has recently expanded to include Grant Morrison's Batman and Robin, the Red Tornado series and Justice Society of America (after Geoff Johns run), both of which I'll comment on sometime during the month, I finally got around to seriously making an attempt at reading Gaiman's Sandman. I won't attempt any sort of review of it, as that's already been done a thousand times over, but more than getting into a new mythology (especially as one as rich as Gaiman's prone to creating), reading Sandman gave me more the feeling of "how on earth could I have not read this". I've still got two TPBs to go in the main series, and it's suddenly earned a spot on the Things I Will Buy When I Have a Steady Job That Pays Something, Rather Than Nothing list.

More tomorrow, including, likely, a review of Blackest Night so far.

Attempting Chili

So Food Network has taken over most of my TV watching. I think it started when I got bored in lab and decided to watch Hell's Kitchen (the US version) on Hulu while things were stirring (which isn't on Food Network, but it involves food and that's close enough, damn it), then finding the US version of Kitchen Nightmares on Comcast On Demand, but that wasn't so much instructional from a culinary standpoint and more "Gordon Ramsay's going to yell at some more stuff, humiliate people, and make you feel better about your personal housekeeping because hey, you don't have rotting food and disgustingness everywhere, hopefully". That led, slowly, to watching reality shows about cooking that actually involve "making food taste good" as part of the show concept. I stopped short of actually using any of the programming for instruction (though Alton Brown tempted me, with his seductive, alluring approach and hairstyle). But I think it might have shaken up the part of my brain that whispers "You should cook something other than frozen pizza. It's sort of like chemistry. You could probably not screw it up too badly."

Usually, I gleefully ignore that part of my brain, rip open another flattish cardboard box, preheat to 400 (without looking at the dial, so engrained is that in my muscle memory) and resign to another night of DiGiorno (if I'm feeling ritzy). A few days ago, however, I got it in my mind to try my hand at a chili. A few notes as to my thought process here.

First, I decided on white chili. I always assumed I wouldn't like chili in my childhood (I think because I have an intensely negative reaction to the idea of kidney beans which may or may not be tied to the urban myth where you wake up in a bathtub of ice). White chili, or at least the recipe I used, uses "Great Northern Beans". They're great! It's right there in the name! That's pleasant. So, that was settled.

Secondly, for being a chemist who's used to changing the size of whatever reaction I happen to be working on (and currently working on scale-up at a process development plant), I sure have no concept of when a recipe's too large. The five (!) cans of beans should have clued me in. Now, I'm sure chili keeps for at least a day, and I did have the foresight to buy some containers so that I don't have to buy lunch tomorrow, but my word. There's so much chili.

Third, and this has nothing to do with the chili, but Wikipedia claims that DiGiorno's website makes a claim about "having been around for over ten years". Which is great, and I'm certainly no expert on the fast-paced world of frozen pizza brands, but going back ten years only gets you to Toy Story 2. Or the second Austin Powers. And given my own concerns about how quickly time is passing, I'm going to maintain that those were pretty much yesterday, and "over ten years" is not something to brag about.

As for the actual chili, it turned out pretty well. And now I own cumin and cayenne pepper, so I'm planning on doing this again. When my "endless-cans-of-beans" budget is back up.

The November Project

Yes. I know about NaNoWriMo, but frankly, I'm not that good at creative fiction and will probably never write a novel, so it seems odd to sit down and go after it like a madman for one month near the end of the year. I'm glad it exists for other people, but it's not for me. That said, when I actually made the commitment to sit down and write one blog post a day in February 2008, I did it and felt pretty good about it. I was exhausted by the end (because I am just this side of being the least interesting man in the world) and wound up gasping for air and reaching for every possible post topic I could find.

But it's kind of absurd that the past year has been announcing my attention to read comics and the yearly Mascot Bracket and nothing else. So, even though it's already the third of the month, I'm going to start it up again: The November Project. Perhaps the next several years will be filled with long gaps in content, followed by a few weeks of feverishly writing to a self-imposed deadline, followed by more gaps until I have a series of "The X Project" where X is every month. For now, though, let's do it.

The November Project is on.