brainsplotch

Okay, prepare yourselves for a non-football post! Just last week, I read somewhere online that the first six Creedence Clearwater Revival albums will be reissued on September 30 in deluxe packages with bonus tracks. These reissues will include liner notes by such rock critic luminaries as Robert Christgau and Ben Fong-Torres. I was ecstatic upon hearing the news. I love Creedence. I grew up listening to Creedence. Some of my earliest hazy childhood memories are of me in the living room of my parents little apartment in Holt, Michigan in about 1972, with my dad playing Green River or Cosmo's Factory on the old Motorola console stereo. Of course, at the time I had no idea what the name of the albums were or even the name of the performer. To this day, though, I can remember being really scared by the long instense instrumental in the middle of "Ramble Tamble." As a junior high and high schooler, other (generally much crappier) music took promin...

Just finished watching the Spartans wear down the Hoosiers and get out of Bloomington with a win. Not pretty by any stretch, but I'll take it. Very nice to start off the Big Ten season at 1-0. MSU's next opponent is Iowa on Homecoming in East Lansing. The Hawkeyes lost at home to Northwestern, so next week's game for the Spartans is definitely winnable. (Having said that, Northwestern looks like they will be a tough team to contend with this year. They are still undefeated. With the parity in college football, which became particularly evident this weekend, that's saying something regardless of the competition the Wildcats have faced). Back to MSU/Indiana: First of all, I could not believe the number of empty seats at Memorial Stadium. Is Indiana that indifferent towards football? (The answer must be a resounding "yes." I suppose the Hoosier faithful are too busy counting down the days until basketball season). If I didn't have responsibilitie...

As I write this post, I am relishing my "victory beer," a very smooth Indian Pale Ale from the Michigan Brewing Company. It's tasting pretty darned good right now. Nice, solid win for the Spartans today. I knew that Dantonio would have the boys ready today, and MSU as a team were about as good as I have seen them in quite some time. I felt that for any Heisman talk regarding Javon Ringer to be truly justified, he'd have to bring it against big-name competition. Yes, I know Notre Dame is not a great team, but they have improved from last year and they are still NOTRE DAME. That name is nationally recognized and if you can light them up, you can guarantee that the national pundits will take a shine to you. Having said that, the long Big Ten season is still in front of us, and the test for the Spartans will be if they can stay healthy enough to finish with a winning record. I am still maintaining relatively low expectations until proven otherwise. I know that man...

I am still awake when I should be sleeping, but hey, it's Friday night (actually Saturday morning) and I don't feel like going to bed. Now, let me gab for awhile about an important issue: college football. Later today, at 3:30 PM, Michigan State and Notre Dame will kickoff at Spartan Stadium. I have never seen as much confidence in a Spartan blowout as I have seen on various MSU sports chat rooms and blogs. Why so much confidence? How long have these people been State fans, I wonder? Yes, it's true that Notre Dame struggled against a weak San Diego State team and Michigan virtually gift wrapped last week's Irish victory (and, at least for now, Michigan is not a good team) but what exactly has Michigan State done? The Spartans lost to a decent, but not great, Cal team on the road, manhandled the predictably woeful Eastern Michigan Eagles, and then escaped the drizzly, rainy slopfest last week against Florida Atlantic. The bottom line is that it's way too early to jud...

Michigan State knocked off Florida Atlantic in a virtual monsoon at Spartan Stadium on Saturday. I still don't think we know anything about this Spartan team until they take on Notre Dame this coming Saturday. I will continue to maintain low expectations for this year unless proven otherwise. I wasn't able to stay up to watch Saturday Night Live, but frankly I wasn't particularly interested in the "Michael Phelps as guest star" angle (and, in fact, have seen nothing of Phelps' performance or ever heard how he did). However, through the wonders of You Tube (by the way, I love You Tube) I caught Tina Fey as Sarah Palin. Oh my, was she good! She has the voice and mannerisms down perfectly, and she looks almost exacly like her. The only bright spot of a McCain victory would be that we'd be able to watch Tina Fey impersonate Palin on SNL for (hopefully no more than) four years. Every so often, I'll dig through my musical archives and find a CD that I have...

I was surprised to see, when I checked the Detroit Free Press online this morning, that Drew Sharp in fact did not write an article about the Lions--in fact, it appears that Mr. Sharp did not have an article about anything in today's Freep. He must be sharpening his pencils as we speak.

Once again, the Detroit Lions have given fans a glimmer of hope only to fall flat on their faces. Sound familiar? Real shocker, eh! The Lions went undefeated in the pre-season only to begin the real season by laying a tremendous turkey egg against the Falcons at the Georgia Dome . If we ever needed a reminder that the pre-season is meaningless, today's woeful performance is surely it. Although it appears the Lions will be able to score some points this year, their defense is completely non-existent. I have never seen so many missed tackles in my life. I can hardly wait to read Drew Sharp's (Detroit Free Press sportswriter, for those not in the know, and a guy who pretty much lives on writing scathing, sarcastic articles about local sports teams) sure-to-be-scathing article tomorrow. His article should at least be more entertaining that today's game.