"west coast shootout" or "the beginning of the end"?

the niners bested the seahawks for the second time this season to advance to 10-2. this time they won 42-35 in a game where the teams totalled almost 1000 yards. especially odd considering that at the end of the first quarter it was 3-0 seahawks, both teams had under 100 yards total, and five turnovers between them. things shaped up shortly after, and by the half it was 17-14 seahawks, and then eventually 42-24 niners, mainly based on a bowes assualt that included four touchdowns. this play was not one of them:


i'm not quite sure why he's high-stepping it with 2 guys left to beat. he was clobbered shortly after this screenshot was taken.

the good news for this game was akili smith came in for the niners partway through the third quarter, threw for 224 yards and went 12-14 passing, and racked up 28 points in the second half. the bad news is that the reason he was in in the first place was bunting was sacked on a muffed handoff late in the first half and went out of the game with a torn groin. recovery time is estimated at 11 weeks and there's only about four weeks left in the season. not only is he one of the highest-paid quarterbacks in the league, he's also currently leading the league in pretty much every category and was looking to be on track for a record-setting season. this is going to shift the focus a lot to the secondary, who really needs to step up their game, and bowes, who's likely going to get a lot more carries. smith isn't bad at QB, but he isn't good either. if he can occasionally get the ball to scholl and prewett (who continues to have his best season in the six years he's been on the team), the air attack might not completely combust. but let's just say the super bowl seems a lot farther away than it did last week...

st. louis is up next week. if we're going to get absolutely slaughtered by anyone, it'll be them. after all, the only reason we got to the super bowl last year was because ryan sparks broke kurt warner's kneecap halfway through the first round playoff game...not on purpose...

thank you, kristen schaal, for getting me through these papers

before i start in on another round of statement-of-goals writing, i just wanted to say that i've made a habit of having pretty depressing, sort of brooding or possibly even emo-ish desktop wallpapers on my work computer all semester. it never occurred to me that maybe, just maybe, they were undermining my resolve to succeed until the other day, when thanks to matt i received this picture of kristen schaal, which i immediately tiled on my desktop:


now, i've probably, in the midst of working on one thing or another, covered this desktop with window clutter 100 times in the past few days; however, without fail, i always at least chuckle and fairly often laugh outright whenever i close my windows and am faced with 30 identical copies of this picture. how could you not?

anyway, kristen schaal is freaking hilarious, and were the creative parts of my brain not completely useless right now (though they are, as evidenced by my use of the word "parts"), i would probably write an ode, or a lyric, or a lullaby, or a dirge. no, wait. not a dirge. besides being an excellent desktop wallpaper-person, ms. schaal is also on the HBO show "flight of the conchords" (and many other things), and happens to have some of the absolute best comedic timing and body language awareness of anyone attempting to be funny that i have ever seen. here, have a clip as well (from the aforementioned show) while i go buy donuts and eat them until i pass out.

i'm an enabler

i was taking a rare smoke break today with a few people between classes (i've successfully scaled my nicotine intake back to 2 or 3 a week, thankfully), when a guy asked if he could borrow a cigarette (it's not "borrowing", it's "having" or "taking", but anyway). being the conscientious carcinogen-sharer that i am, i let him have one. we talked for a few minutes about music, and i asked him if he was in the music program at WSU. that was when it came out that he was a junior in high school. i'd forgotten how big of a deal it was to smoke in high school, and how "cool" and "illegal" it made you. however, i immediately felt like a humongous tool for giving this kid a cigarette. i don't know why; it just bothered me.

in other news, my office wi-fi connection is too damn slow to handle the video feed from the at&t blueroom...so instead of watching DMB live on my computer, i guess i'm actually going to do work.

title change

i decided, after much pondering today while my students were doing peer review, to change the title of my blog. it's an essay-grading joke that i won't explain so as to not crush the hearts and/or souls of various up-and-coming young essay writers. suffice to say i am pleased with the new title and it doesn't seem as pretentious or as "i'm worth listening to" than the last one, which was bugging me. because honestly, i'm not really worth listening to. pretending otherwise is just hypocritical.

i'm going to mix the subtitle around a lot, in an effort to amuse myself and others. i'm already feeling like maybe the last little bit could be construed as slightly misogynistic. and of course, i'm about as un-misogynistic as they come. except for when it comes to funshine bear. but she's just a bitch.

don't poke the bear

once again, i completely failed sleeping last night. i did lay in bed from about 6am to 7am, but when the garbage truck showed up and started beeping right the hell next to my head, it was all over. i'm just giving you fair warning that there may be some crazy blog entries in the near future.