TheTastyGreek

Context: 4 of UAB's first 9 losses last season came against teams ranked in the top 25. A 5th came against LSU.

Whoa, whoa, whoa... Suddenly I feel very cheap and used. If any of you MFers tell me that @Green P1 has been saying you're his one and only Brah... Well, I'm going to have to insist he return my house key.

One way or another, the Littrell era is probably going to last 3 or 4 years. Realistically? I think that in that time, we can: - Clean out the attic. Honestly, we moved in over 5 years ago, and there's still an old computer monitor and wreath left up there from the old owners. It's not a big deal right now, but by 2018, 2019 for sure, we're definitely going to need the storage space. It's not convenient, because we can't get up there while cars are parked in the garage... And, if we're home, when do we NOT have a car parked in the garage? But... We have 3 or 4 years. Gotta get the attic cleaned out by then. - Really commit to and follow a fitness plan. It's not about weight loss, because obviously we're all looking pretty sexy these days. It's about health and wellness. 3 or 4 years from now, we're going to be dangerously close to 40, and there's a history of heart disease on both sides of our family. We can't be a good husband and father if we're not around to handle the job, and the first step is taking proper care of ourselves. - Go see the Formula 1 race down in Austin. Frankly, we ought to be embarrassed, because we all know this was a realistic goal we thought we'd achieve under Coach Mac. Every year, it "hasn't been a good weekend". Well, it'll NEVER be a perfect weekend. Sure, we all don't follow F1 as closely as we used to... But, the reality is, we're fortunate that a race is so close. It hasn't always been that way, and there's no telling when it might disappear off the calendar. And we're blessed that Dad is in good health, so we really need to take advantage of the opportunity to get our asses down to Austin and watch at least one race in person with him as soon as possible. Honestly, we ought to make this a 2016 goal... But it's wise to avoid deadline-specific goals when we don't have control of the factors to achieve it, and there's a lot that can happen between now and then. - Pick a worthwhile skill, and make a point of learning it. We should sit down and think through our options, maybe talk to the wife and see what she thinks... But, it's always important to learn and grow. The day we stop challenging ourselves to improve and develop as people is the day we've started wasting our lives. It doesn't have to be a marketable skill or anything... We all had a lot of fun learning to puppeteer last year. And, whatever we choose, we don't have to stick with it forever if we don't like it! Remember back under Dodge, how many years we thought about maybe trying to learn how to sail? And then we won lessons in that raffle, and found out that sailing somehow manages to be worse than "drowning" on the list of the most miserable things you can do in water? Which makes no sense, because we had a great time when we tried kayaking on vacation this year! Why would paddling be awesome if sailing is worse than unanesthetized penis surgery? Who knows... In any event, it's more about challenging ourselves than changing ourselves. Like when we were younger and spent that year learning turntable mechanics. That was a lot of fun! Too bad a man our age looks ridiculous cutting and scratching records... To say nothing of how sore our necks all get from balancing the one headphone in place, particularly after nights when we slept funny and things just don't feel right in the first place. When we clean out the attic, we probably ought to move the decks and mixer up there. We could definitely use the space, but that doesn't mean we need to give up on that hobby forever. And isn't that what an attic is for? Definitely not for a crappy old computer monitor that the previous owners didn't even think was worth carrying down a ladder to keep. Anyway... Maybe we ought to think about learning another language? Everyone assumes that "bilingual" means Spanish, so why not learn Spanish? We got a good start back in 2003 when it looked like we were going to move to Chicago and take that distribution analyst job... Well, why not try to learn Spanish for its own sake? We don't have to be fluent or anything. Two languages is plenty. But, wouldn't it be nice if we could maybe understand what all the words that aren't "Corazon" mean when we hear Spanish language music? It's a thought. No need to decide right away. The first goal is to pick the goal, and that's still where we're at right now. Still... It's nice that we already have an idea, right? - Redo the back porch. If we're being honest with ourselves... It's looked like crap since we bought the house, and it's only getting worse. We've tackled every other project we wanted to do inside the house. And we re-seeded the lawn two years ago. Depending on what our expenses look like at the end of the year, we should plan on finally tackling that deck either this spring or maybe 2017. It's the last major thing we want to get finished, and it's just a matter of making it the priority and finally handling it. - Read Gödel, Escher, Bach. We spent YEARS trying to find it at Half Price Books. And when we explained why we didn't just want to buy a new copy from Amazon, our mother-in-law was sweet enough not to roll her eyes, and she remembered the book long enough to give it to us for Christmas. Well, that was almost two full years ago. And what have we done to capitalize on a 9 win season and bowl championship? Nothing!! The book is still sitting on our 'to read' shelf. We've read over fifty other books since then, but have we even picked it up to START reading it? No. No, we haven't, and we ought to be ashamed of ourselves. Yes, obviously, it's going to be a challenging read. But, that's why we wanted the damn book in the first place! We just need to devote our free time to reading it, and NOT the time before we fall asleep! We all know it's going to be rewarding if we actually focus and do it, so we need to just finally DO IT already. That fourth "Locke Lamora" book isn't coming any time soon, so why not read something worthwhile instead? Honestly, we ought to start it as soon as we finish "The Stench of Honolulu". Maybe we should just pull it off the bookshelf now? We should definitely think about it. There are a million little things we could list here, and this list doesn't include some of the obvious big picture stuff. But, I hope that when the Littrell era is over, we're all celebrating, and we can all look back on this list and say we achieved our goals.

God help us if this guy ever gets anywhere near a box of Madeline cookies.

Tejano is just country jazz with a little hip-hop thrown in.

1) Whoa... Subtle stealth comment here. Congrats! 2) Go with the line around 44:45 talking about "I believe in getting it done right and not just getting it done quick". You don't have to be telling the truth, just say it credibly enough that she thinks you're interested in her needs. Once the papers are signed, it's no take-backs!

"Husband and father"

The obvious answer is: the One O'Clock Lounge. What made Mean Joe so great wasn't just his ability on the field... It was his overall engagement with the school and all our wonderful programs. The only thing meaner than Joe Greene the defensive lineman was Joe Greene the clarinetist. When he wasn't in the classroom, hitting the books, or on the field, hitting a helpless o-lineman... Mean Joe was kicking it in the lounge, practicing his clarinet. And I've always been amazed that he never took a break at halftime of a game. While the rest of the players went in the tunnel for a rest, Mean Joe just threw on that band uniform (and back in the good old days, they wore the full wool even if it was a thousand degrees!) and high-stepped it in the halftime show. He may not have been the best musician in school history, but he was arguably the most passionate and dedicated one. When you consider what a major impact he made on the music program... It's no wonder that we nicknamed the band after him: The Greene Brigade!

You may be thinking of La Tech... WKU has a great basketball arena, a nice facility for football and baseball, a relatively new athletics center with hydrotherapy and other amenities on par with what we were so proud to build here... WKU is in pretty nice shape as far as architecture goes, I think.

BED AND BREAKFAST??? Do they offer quiche for breakfast and complimentary vagina waxing? He's an American football coach, sir. I'd sooner make him sleep out in the dirt, wrapped in the hollowed-out carcass of a bear he killed with his own hands than to put him up in a B&B.

There's a lot of truth to that... If I remember right (Vito's DRC article seems to have vanished into internet oblivion, sadly), Tristan Thompson was the first high school 3-star recruit we got here under JJ, and that didn't happen until 2007. It took a while, arguably until after the first and maybe even the second NCAA bids, to get first crack at legit game-ready high school talent under JJ. Grand is right that he managed to develop guys and find players like Quincy and Hopkins... One thing that I think was impressive was his (or the staff's) ability to maintain relationships and come close to making the sale, even if a bigger offer or the lack of notable success kept a high school talent from signing on right out of school. What he wasn't able to bring in out of high school, he did a brilliant job of getting in sophomore or junior transfers (Kendrick, Keith Wooden, Odufuwa, Colin Dennis, etc.). When you look back at the progression of recruiting while JJ was here, there's a clear path upwards from lowly regarded 4 year recruits (no disrespect - some of whom developed wonderfully), transfers, through to fringe 3-star high school talent (after the first NCAA berth), and then the really big class after the second NCAA berth. Guys like Jordan Williams and Tristan, if they'd been recruits in the early 2000's, probably would have wound up like some of those other names... Taking a lower level BCS school offer and, if we were lucky, coming back to us on a rebound. I don't think it was an ever-increasing trajectory... I don't think, even if he'd stayed, that we'd be regularly pulling in 4 star recruits (and certainly not Tony Mitchell-level players, in terms of recruit rankings). But I think that whatever he wasn't able to do recruiting in the first half of his tenure, JJ really built on his own foundation in the latter half. One other thing I thought about a lot during the Deandre Harris shenanigans... I wonder what could have happened if Tony Benford coached Michael Sturns.

He meant a bucket feeling.

"I'm glad Smatresk got you to come coach for us, Seth." "Don't sell yourself short, Rick. I was on the fence until you took me out for that Which Wich sandwich. That's when I knew your program was serious about raising the bar."

Unless the object of lust is a godawful chain sandwich... I don't think so. HOWEVER, if you are on to something, we may finally have a plan for solving our problems. Does anyone have a fish liver and heart???

You obviously missed the reaction to Mangino and Chambers rumors, to say nothing of the lower tier coaches and positional coaches mentioned in Vito's FOIA list.

You used to get a nice laminated pass that got you into the semi-reserved sub-lot (right instead of left when you turned in to the parking lot at Fouts, right by the covered shuttle bus stop). I don't think many people qualified for it, because the attendant moving the access blocking orange cone always seemed surprised when you'd pull up to park there. Parking elsewhere in Fouts was always free, but this largely guaranteed you a convenient spot that wasn't way down the frontage road of I-35, even if you arrived shortly before tipoff for a premium game. It was nice. I'd say I miss it... But I've learned that you don't have a hard time finding parking on UNT game nights when your car is staying comfortably parked in your own garage.

If I understand the subtext here... @letsgiveacheer wants me to start posting exclusively in limericks again?

OVERRATED. You said it yourself... JC was the original retread hire. If he was so great, he wouldn't have needed a 2nd chance to make that comeback. Granted... We need a miracle worker here. But can we really count on someone who needed maximum divine intervention to make his plan work? He wouldn't get those sort of resources here. Now, if you give me a prophet that's had to make do with less? THEN we can talk. We need a Zoroaster, a Nestorius, or possibly a Mahavira. But has RV so much as called a single one of them? I'm pretty sure the answer is no.

I'm fine with either of these guys. But, if we're paying either of them more than Mac made, then I think we're just throwing money at them for the sake of saying we pay our coach $X per year.

Littrell = Flat Top Meacham = Chris Cooper in "Adaptation"

Is that when I'm supposed to use this 6th parking pass?

I'm glad she didn't throw anything at you. It probably would have hit the guy 3 seats to your left in the head.

Offense good for -4 points today so far.

Well. How about that! Congrats and tough break, Samford! Also... Was this damn thing the Showcase or the Challenge?