Assorted Thoughts

K went to Augusta with my mom this weekend leaving me home with the kid. The clothes I was wearing earlier are covered in snot (he's got a cold) and I'm covered in scratches and bruises because he plays too rough, especially when I'm trying to ignore him. I'm really glad K didn't die in childbirth. Having to actually do my job as a parent is totally lame. I'm not sure I could do it for longer than a weekend. It's a shame we can't afford a live-in nanny. Having too much access to their parents' affections probably stunts children's ambition and ability to work through tribulations. We're ruining our child by not being emotionally distant.

Maybe we should just do the ancient Sparta thing and dump E off in the woods somewhere and only keep him if he shows back up on our doorstep alive. At least then we'd know that our kid was a total badass and worth all the work and money we're going to end up putting into him anyway.

I did at least get him put down to sleep in time to watch the announcement of Sam Bradford as the Heisman winner of this year. Is it just me or does Tim Tebow look incredibly smug? Sure he's supposedly a good student and good person, but he looks like he needs to be slapped with a two-day-old herring just to knock him down a couple of notches. I also noticed that Bradford's favorite word is "unreal". He used it at least ten times in his speech tonight. Dude did give props to his offensive line right off the bat, though. He knows who kept him off his ass all season.

Bradford's getting the Heisman made an already interesting match up for the national championship game even more interesting. Already you've got a team (Florida) who, after a loss that shouldn't have happened, woke up and then steamrolled their way easily through the toughest conference in college football, including an undefeated Alabama in the SEC Championship Game, going against an Oklahoma team that hasn't scored less than 60 points in their last five games, three of those against ranked teams. Now you've got last year's Heisman champ playing this year's Heisman champ. I've got a feeling this is going to be a much better finale to college football than the SEC drubbing of Ohio State the last couple of years.

This is also that weird time of year when regular college football is on hiatus until the bowls start a few days before Christmas and all that's left is the NFL for a couple of weeks until there's so much football on TV that it makes your ears bleed. Something else you may not have noticed is that Div. 1AA (FCS if you're a loser who does what the NCAA tells you to) had their semifinal games this weekend. I actually saw bits and pieces of both. Last night, Montana beat James Madison, which until their loss had been the #1 team. It had been a blowout when I went to bed, but it ended up being just an 8-point game somehow in the fourth quarter. When I left today to take E to the Christmas parade in town, the second of the semifinals was in its second half. The Richmond Spiders (great name) were looking pretty helpless against Northern Iowa (which plays in a small dome for some reason). Apparently after I left, the Spiders managed to stop Northern Iowa from scoring after the third quarter ended and finally found the end zone a couple of times to win by a single point. The final touchdown came with only 14 seconds left on the clock. I'll probably watch the championship game pitting Montana against Richmond next weekend.

The weird thing about all of that: Appalachian State was nowhere to be found. The Mountaineers lost badly to Richmond in the quarterfinals, which makes this the first time since 2004 that Appalachian State hasn't won the national championship for that level. And yet no one ever heard of them until they beat Michigan last year.