CURIOUS INDEX, 5/16/09
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Happy Bloomsday.
The only reasons we’ve ever typed so much as a sentence came after reading James Joyce. This is a tagger thanking Picasso for inspiration, but still: if you’ve never dove facefirst into the brilliant hot mess of Ulysses, it’s worth the companion guides, frustration, and 30 page stretches of incomprehension for the eventual feeling of complete awe you hit at the end. If you’d like your mind blown: Oh, just click here and remember that you don’t have to make the really bizarre and funny things in this world up, you just have to pull them off the wires. Also, if anyone needed the ability to withstand pepper spray right now in the manner of Ohio State fans, it’s protesting Iranis. Mark Richt making it rain. This gif, we want it. UGA ranks second in revenue overall, only edged by Texas YEEHAW WE GOT MAD PAPER, CUZ. Mack Brown, closet pimp, accepted this year’s title while relaxing in a bubble bath and admiring his gigantic birdcage full of prime recruits hanging from the ceiling of this 45 acre white and burnt orange tiled bathroom. Not Pimping. Yeah, Notre Dame fans, y’all gonna hate this. Alabama Radio Broadcasting: Now 100% Less Sexy. Stabler is out, Phil Savage is in, and you may no longer catch a contact buzz off Crimson Tide radio broadcasts. |
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1
guavasteve says:
Phil Savage – what a great radio name! Right up there with Dr. Johnny Fever.
June 16th, 2009 at 9:18 am
2
Kerwin4two says:
Happy Bloomsday. In my confusion, I thought you were referring to Blumesday and your true inspiration – Judy Blume. “Are you there God? It’s me, Bob Stoops.”
June 16th, 2009 at 9:33 am
3
pic6bamr says:
Orson,
I guess all Gators are high ALL the time. Joyce blows. Its incoherent, rambling and pointless. I assume you are huge fan of Burroughs also.
June 16th, 2009 at 9:56 am
4
ALGator says:
Damn, if they wanted to bolster their listenership they should have put Namath in the booth opposite Eli.
June 16th, 2009 at 9:58 am
5
Crabapple Buck says:
As an old PSA used to say – The sun never sets on The Ohio State University.
Two scenarios for the domers. ND comes to the Big Ten, it is best for them due to proximity to other member schools. It is more important in non-revenue sports where travel costs are lowered. Big 10/12 joins champ game crowd.
Other one is ND joins Big East, which IMO is not the right move, taking PSU with them and Big 10 becoming ten teams again.
More money will await them in the Big 10 and they already schedule 3 teams most years in FB. Adding a few more would not be so difficult. TV money will get worked out easier now that NBC contract doesn’t look so great.
June 16th, 2009 at 10:04 am
6
Stan Gable says:
good to be a merry-go-round seat……I love bat-shit crazy hot women….they just make the world go ’round, don’t they?
June 16th, 2009 at 10:04 am
7
jon says:
@3
I’m guessing you went to business school. When I used to teach Joyce in grad school, only the business school kids complained of a novel’s “pointlessness” or that “it’s art for art’s sake.” What’s the point of any novel?
Yup, it’s a hard read and a long slog that generally requires the reading notes (itself a 500 page or so book), but Bloom, Dedalus, and Molly are three of the richest characters in literature.
Plus there’s a TON of dick and fart jokes.
just sayin’
June 16th, 2009 at 10:10 am
8
odell51 says:
The gentleman in the picture is only protesting for internet rights. The lack of available porn on the computers in library’s accross Iran is making it tough to be back home.
June 16th, 2009 at 10:14 am
9
Orson Swindle says:
pic6bamr–
No, Burroughs is well past our lucidity border. He was a poor marksman, too.
June 16th, 2009 at 10:34 am
10
Scotthany says:
Yikes Orson. One bad game of William Tell and a man never lives it down.
June 16th, 2009 at 11:11 am
11
JD says:
My favorite part of the ND column is the obligatory knee-jerk Domer response that in no way, shape, or form addresses anything that was talked about in the column. It’s like that kid had talking points saved in Notepad on his desktop so he could drop them in without having to do any research.
The Irish could join the SEC if the only criterion was “fans’ ability to create an alternate reality for their school.”
June 16th, 2009 at 11:28 am
12
domer.mq says:
Man, Clay Travis’ column on ND would make me really nervous if ND were looking at those numbers with 40,000 students in their enrollment rather than, say, 10,000. Someone should really look into that. What are the chances that ND is half the size of any other school among the top 10 in total revenue generated by the football program?
June 16th, 2009 at 11:32 am
13
Soonertruth says:
Re: the Domers- too bad NBC had to settle for their second choice. If (then OU AD) Donnie Duncan had pulled the trigger, we’d probably still get to play Nebraska every year.
And we’d take the Snake for play-by-play any day. “Incoherent and Awesome” always beats “simply incoherent.”
June 16th, 2009 at 11:34 am
14
JD says:
#12:
Maybe you’d have a point if Travis hadn’t specifically pointed out Vanderbilt raking in the cash with an enrollment of 6,378. I’ll help you with your response – it was posted here a couple weeks ago:
130 If 120=FAIL Then RUN “ACADEMIC EXCUSE”
140 “ACADEMIC EXCUSE”=(”We’re smart and you’ll work for us someday.”) REPEAT
140 END
June 16th, 2009 at 11:49 am
15
domer.mq says:
#14, just as soon as Vanderbilt shows up in the Top 10 of total revenue generated by their football program, let me know. Otherwise, I wont worry about Vandy beating ND in a line-item. But hey, nice job being juked by Clay’s rather ineffectual feint. It’ll make him feel good that he fooled someone.
June 16th, 2009 at 12:16 pm
16
robert says:
I don’t know…I kind of gave up “long, hard, incomprehensible slogs” of books after I finally finished Gravity’s Rainbow. It only took me a year!
June 16th, 2009 at 12:59 pm
17
Clay says:
Ineffectual feints might be akin to pulling out football revenues to talk about when total revenues are really more important. ND isn’t in the top ten in total revenues. And they won’t be in the top ten in football revenues once the figures from the new television contracts are added into play. The current figures that I linked in the article date from 2007. I think that’s a significant fact.
Couple of other things, total athletic revenue at private schools aren’t generally public. But off the top of my head, Miami, USC, Boston College, Vandy, and Northwestern are all demonstrably increasing their athletic department revenues at a much faster rate than ND. All have similar enrollments.
If that doesn’t bother ND fans that’s fine, but it does raise a red flag when the ostensible purpose of the television contract with NBC to begin with was to maximize revenues. They’re getting lapped in the only place where college football revenues are increasing (minus stadium additions), television.
If ND fans want to argue that television revenue shouldn’t matter because they make enough money elsewhere, that’s fine. Even if it contradicts the rationale given by the representatives of their university. But the fact that Notre Dame is now getting lapped by other private schools for the amount of money they receive to show their team on television is a pretty big deal in the landscape of college athletics. And I hadn’t seen it written about anywhere.
By the way, I like Ulysses but prefer Faulkner’s evolution of Joyce.
June 16th, 2009 at 1:20 pm
18
domer.mq says:
Clay, I don’t see anyone arguing that TV revenues “don’t matter.” I’m just not in a big panic over the situation, since it’ll be a fluid situation anyway. And those representatives that you keep quoting from 1990 aren’t even leading the university anymore. Certainly, at a metaphysical level, one might choose to hold an institution to words by former leaders, but then we also seem hell bent in this country to find memory erasers every time we elect officials. Hold ND’s feet to the fire for their words in 1990, that’s fine. I wonder what I might dig up from the past for Oklahoma, Florida State, or SoCal if I go looking.
Further, you seem to expect that the velocity of these other private schools’ revenues will continue at the same slope in the years ahead, deriving trends from few data points. You assume that would be alarming to ND. You seem to believe that universities will continue to be engaged in an “arms race” even in the face of the biggest credit crunch in our lifetimes. You use terms like “lapped” in the wrong context. You predicate your argument on the idea that there is a competition among schools for a finite pool of cash. And to top it off, you’re entirely cynical about the motivations of an institution, assuming that one must act as all act.
June 16th, 2009 at 1:49 pm
19
OfcrTim says:
Clay Travis: “”Stay at Virginia Tech and worry about your own students not killing other students on campus.” Hair-pulling, fact-fabricating internet sports columnist, check.
ND to Big Ten: “Please get your nose out of my nuts. I’ve told you many times.”
June 16th, 2009 at 2:01 pm
20
matty blue says:
a college football blog that talks about james joyce. brilliant.
i withhold my disdain for your reggie nelson worship for one day only.
June 16th, 2009 at 3:25 pm
21
Clay says:
The private schools’ revenue will continue to increase for the next 15 years via the SEC deal and for the next ten years in the Big Ten deal. Economy notwithstanding. They book revenue at a lower rate to begin and then grow their television revenue each year. Ten or fifteen years is a pretty long time frame to base things on, particularly in college athletics. So for the Big Ten and the SEC the “velocity” is going to be up for the length of those contracts, meaning they’ll continue to leave ND behind in television revenue. Call it lapping, call it passing, call it what you will, the numbers for these conferences aren’t staying the same, they’re contractually obligated to grow. Within three years, every member of the SEC will be booking $20 million per year for television. That’s more than doubling, a lapping if you will.
As for attributing the leader of Notre Dame’s words to the university, I guess I don’t understand what’s changed at ND that would change the motivations of the school. What’s the larger purpose of Notre Dame’s athletic teams besides accumulating the most cash possible to assist the university’s academic and financial standing? If your goal isn’t still to maximize revenue to make the university a better place, what is the goal? I’m interested, why would taking 75% of the available funds make more sense than taking 100%? You’re leaving money on the table, why?
The guy directly above who used wikipedia (nice move there) to cite a fabricated quote: why not go with the gay love affair that wikipedia attributed to me with Tim Tebow? Not that I’m above it (sadly he wouldn’t have me, and cited Proverbs), but I think it would probably work better to use that fabricated quote in a pejorative sense instead of the fabricated one you chose. This would be doubly true since our sex wouldn’t be for purposes of procreation and you’re clearly a Notre Dame fan. I’d be doubly damned.
June 16th, 2009 at 3:30 pm
22
Clay says:
By the way, I posted here because I saw Spencer linked it, and read the comments. In general the discussions here for college football are the most intelligent on the net. I could post other places on the article, but I’d be more likely to ram my head through the computer screen.
Apologies to matty blue, he likes Joyce and he didn’t cite wikipedia to falsely insult me. He posted while I was posting.
June 16th, 2009 at 3:37 pm
23
Signal to Noise says:
I loathed Joyce for oh-so-long because of being forced to read Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man for an English class in HS.
I went back when it wasn’t required reading, tackled that and Ulysses, and realized I was wrong. For anyone new to Joyce who wants to get a handle on him without feeling overwhelmed from the get go, I recommend the Dubliners, and “The Dead” is pretty frequently included in short story collections.
June 16th, 2009 at 3:49 pm
24
Signal to Noise says:
Excuse me, “Dubliners.” There is no article before there…
June 16th, 2009 at 3:52 pm
25
Kecalf Bailey says:
I tried reading Ulysses as a Sophomore and got to page 7.
In my defense, the pages were quite large.
June 16th, 2009 at 4:03 pm
26
domer.mq says:
Clay,
I guess I’m missing where you’re getting your information about what ND, NBC, Fox, etc… will do in 2015, 6 years from now, when the current ND/NBC contract is up. And apparently that information you’ve got explains that the decision to join a conference is binary and will end with “ND joins a conference.” Huh?
I’m just confused as to why ND’s situation is stagnant. It seems pretty fluid to me.
As for why an institution might not choose the “obvious” move of not leaving “money on the table” and joining a conference, perhaps that institution views that as a short-term fix at the cost of losing something that makes it unique. Perhaps, to that institution, being unique is held dear, and seen as a real, long-term advantage in furthering its mission. ND has been leaving “money on the table” for a very long time by not having a jumbotron in the stadium or blaring advertisements over loudspeakers during timeouts. And those are relatively minor changes that would probably generate relatively larger ROI. Why go and do something for the short term that would be such a regrettable loss/cost in the long term? If you’ll forgive my lapse into false-gravity in the matter of college football, why sell your soul? So that ND can lose a game early on in the season but still prop itself up with hopes of winning the all-important conference championship? Sorry. I don’t get it. I just find any desire to win a championship in a conference bizarre. Hey, I don’t get most pop music either, so maybe it’s just me. It just seems like a celebration of being the best of 10, maybe 12 teams out of the 120 that are actually participating in the sport. “Woo! We’re the best out of 10% of the population!”
Further, I have to ask, why did you use this line to end your opinion piece? “Yep, at long last the Fighting Irish will be begging for a piece of the Big Ten pie.” Why the “at long last?” That implies that you and others have been eagerly awaiting such an outcome. Why do you begrudge ND’s independence? Why do you want ND to be just like almost everyone else? Their uniqueness doesn’t seem to be holding the rest of college football back financially.
June 16th, 2009 at 4:16 pm
27
Crabapple Buck says:
domer.mq
I guess being 1 of 16 in basketball is different. It makes you unique. It is only an “olympic sport” after all.
ND has a history of doing what is good for ND. 7-4-1 only helps ND. When they can’t draw flies to watch WSU in Dallas, we may see a humbled ND stop the humiliation and find a conference to partner. As soon as the BCS doesn’t protect them with caveats, ND will suddenly feel the need to join a conference.
June 16th, 2009 at 5:09 pm
28
domer.mq says:
Crabapple, I’m only speaking for myself here when I say, I don’t care one bit about BE basketball.
I wonder what will get more attendance: The WSU game in Dallas or your average ACC Championship game.
Reading your the tone of your comment, let me pose the same questions to you that I did to Clay. Why are you eager to see ND join a conference?
June 16th, 2009 at 5:15 pm
29
Walk On Boy says:
Fuck you Orson –
I just returned Ulysses – seriously four hours ago – the third time after getting roughly 200 pages in before becoming utterly confounded. The first time I got about ten pages in, the second time really doesn’t count because it was an audio book which is basically the copping a feel of the sexual literary metaphor that doesn’t really work.
It’ll get a fourth try. I hate you, in the nicest possible way.
June 16th, 2009 at 5:15 pm
30
Nick Black says:
Ineluctable modality of the physical, that if no more, though through my eyes. Previews of all games I am
here to see, ramblinjacket and yellowwreck, the Samson option, that rusty Shaft. Snotdawggies, quicksilver,
hedges: coloured signs. Limits of the schedule. But he adds: in Atlanta. They were aware of Atlanta before
of them hedges. How? By quizzing rthem on basketball, sure. Go easy. Seminole he was and a churchgoer,
maestro di bitches florido. Limit of the hedges betwixt. Why betwixt? Game, agame. If you can put Jonathan
Dwyer through it, it is a defensive line, if not an endzone. Shut your eyes and see an ACC championship.
Won’t you come to Atlanta,
Richt with golden hair?
Airs romped around him, nipping and eager airs. They are coming, waves. The whitemaned seahorses, champing, brightwindbridled, the steeds of Mananaan. Thalatta! Thalatta! GO JACKETS BEAT THE DAWGS SCIENCE w00t!
June 16th, 2009 at 11:26 pm
31
Sullivan013 says:
(In my best Bear Bryant gravel-voice) “There go the Snake, carrying the ball like a loaf of bread!”
June 17th, 2009 at 6:42 am