New NIN songs

I don't know if anyone is interested, but a couple new Nine Inch Nails songs were recently released on Trent's MySpace page. Follow this link to get to the page.

ND Basketball

What with ND having a very successful basketball season, I've been keeping an eye on the NCAA Tournament for the first time in a long time. If ND keeps playing well, we could possibly earn a #6 seed or higher. My guess is with a good showing in the Big East tourny, we will end up with a #5 or #6 seed in the NCAA's. I looked online today, and what did I find out but that Columbus is hosting some first- and second-round games. Specifically, Columbus will have the #3 through #6 seeds, meaning ND could be a prime candidate for playing in Columbus!

So naturally I went online to see ticket prices and found that they are not cheap. For bad seats (upper deck behind the basket), tickets for all six games cost a total of $457. Too rich for my blood, but I thought I'd let everyone else know!

Notre Dame Soccer

We don't often discuss ND for any other reason than football, but our hoops team's recent success inspired me to review ND sports this year. I realized we are really kicking butt this year across the board! Aside from a Sugar Bowl appearance for football, and a likely NCAA bid for basketball, our HOCKEY team is ranked #1 in the nation - seriously! When have we ever even been decent in hockey??? Our track teams dominated the Big East meets. Women's hoops is typically good. The list goes on and on.


But I really wanted to single out soccer. We had #1 rankings in men's and women's soccer this year. Both went deep into the tourney but fell short. However, we had the 2 most dominating players in the nation on our teams. The women's side includes Kerri Hanks, who led the nation in goals, assists and scoring! The men's side had Joe Lapira, who led the nation in goals and scoring. Both won the Hermann trophy, equivalent to the Heisman. And finally, Joe Lapira sports one of the best mullet/mustache combinations I have seen in YEARS! That deserves an award on its own!!!

Common Sense Prevails

Take that, science!

Be My Valentine

I know, it isn't quite as good as some of these below, but damn she's cute!!! The only girl for another couple months!

And my personal favorite...

Best Commercial Ever

So we've posted a lot of videos of late, but I must say this one is the best. It's the new Federline commercial from Nationwide. It was supposed to be aired during the Superbowl, but due to complaints and demands from the Fast Food Chains of America, it got pulled. Nationwide is now do a viral ad campaign with it.

Follow this link, and you can see it.

God Bless You, Old Spice

Whoever is the new marketing director at Old Spice is a genius. I haven't laughed so hard at commercials well, ever... These may be the best two commercials ever made. I hope they keep it up for the Super Bowl.

Manly:


Bruce Campbell:

Where are my account docs?

Ted got published!

So I'm a big fan of BlueGraySky, an ND blog site that has some pretty darn good coverage of ND stuff. I usually check it a couple times a day during the football year, and basketball for that matter. Anywho, I came into work today, and as is my routine, I looked at BlueGraySky and saw that the results from an entry competition were posted. I was just looking through who they gave credit to, and lo! there was "Ted Heffernan"!

Now, there can't be too many Ted Heffernan's in the world, and I know my brother is one of them. So I ask him: Ted, did you enter the contest? And if so, I believe that since you were one of 24 guys mentioned with honor, you must have written a pretty good entry. Get it posted here! I want to read it!

For those of you wanting to see Ted's name, or just read a great blog, you can't click here:

ND National Championship 2009

My humble prediction. Look, I am as distraught about the Sugar Bowl loss as everyone else is. Even worse, I have to live with all these LSU idiots for the next year and a half. It has been merciless and unrelenting since Wednesday. I even had to go to an LSU-themed birthday party today for a 2-year old! However, I see VERY good things in the future for the Irish.

2007: Gator Bowl
2008: BCS Bowl
2009: BCS Championship (win)

Yeah, I know it may be wishful thinking, but let me throw these stats your way regarding recruiting rankings for the sophomore through senior classes at some elite schools. I used those classes because they make up the VAST majority of starters on most teams. These numbers represent the recruiting class ranking based on Rivals and Scouts over the 3-year period from 2003-2005.

USC Rivals 1.7 Scout 2.7
LSU Rivals 8.3 Scout 7.7
Michigan Rivals 9.3 Scout 5.0
Ohio State Rivals 20.7 Scout 14.3
Notre Dame Rivals 28.0 Scout 20.7
Penn State Rivals 44.0 Scout 30.0
Illinois Rivals 43.6 Scout 40.0

So what does this tell us? Obviously, LSU has completely outclassed us in recruiting during a period of time during which Ty basically failed to recruit any top guys. I have to say that was evident as the Sugar Bowl wore on. We just couldn't keep up with those guys. However, think about our last 4 losses. It is the same story every game:

OSU 2006: We are in it till the late 4th quarter. We have an opportunity to tie it up, but fail. Then OSU adds on a late TD to make the score more lopsided (and causes every media member to forget how ND was in it till the end)

Michigan 2006: Despite an early disaster, ND fights back and is playing respectfully until we just get shut down in the 3rd quarter.

USC 2006: We are really in it until we fail to get off to a good start in the 3rd quarter. Then USC just pulls away.

LSU 2007: Another early disaster until ND ties it up before half. LSU dominates after that and wins going away.

Some would say this shows that Weis is a bad coach and can't make adjustments. What it really shows you is how good a coach Weis is. He is able to take lesser athletes and scheme a way to keep in the game. Unfortunately, we just can't keep it going long enough. Remember, with Ty and Davie, we were dropping losses to the BYU, Purdue, BC and Syracuses of college football. It was ugly! Now, we are winning the games we are supposed to win. Look who we are losing to!

We'll get there. It will just take a bit longer than we all hoped. By the way, since Weis took over, we have the Rivals #7 and Scout #6 ranked classes the past 2 years, including this year. This year's class isn't even done yet! There isn't much difference in the #1 class in comparison to the #5 class, but there is a huge difference from #5 down to #20. We'll be right in it in 2 years!!!