http://www.lostlettermen.com/2-14-2012-kansas-kansas-state-emma-kindergartener/

Yes, Emma, there is a Jayhawk. He exists as certainly as hate and rivalry and football exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no rival teams to hate. It would be as dreary as if there were no Clemson to fuck, or Purdue to ignore. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal heat with which football fills the fan's heart would be extinguished.

No Jayhawk! Thank God! he lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Emma, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, Kansas will continue to to be hated by loyal K-Sate children.

Have you noticed that all conference realignment threads read alike...

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The USDA has updated something called the Plan Hardiness Zone Map. You can read about it here. Here is what the map represents:

Plant hardiness zone designations represent the average annual extreme minimum temperatures at a given location during a particular time period. They do not reflect the coldest it has ever been or ever will be at a specific location, but simply the average lowest winter temperature for the location over a specified time. Low temperature during the winter is a crucial factor in the survival of plants at specific locations.

And why is there an updated version of this map?

Compared to the 1990 version, zone boundaries in this edition of the map have shifted in many areas. The new map is generally one 5-degree Fahrenheit half-zone warmer than the previous map throughout much of the United States.

What does this have to do with college football?

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Re: this tweet on Jeremy Lin.

I speak truth to dick. Black dicks think I'm a sell out. White dicks think I'm racist. My dick thinks I'm too honest. My perspective is for people unafraid to think and willing to challenge their own dicks. P.S. It also doesn't hurt to like dick.

Fact: all Australians have poison fang dick. If you step on one on the beach you could be dead in minutes. Luc Longley killed everyone he ever slept with who wasn't Aussie. Those girls are immune...and freaky.

Side fact: Jordan sent girls who preferred Scotty to Luc. Competitors never stop.

Fact: If you are trapped in a car that is submerged in water, you should use a CO2-powered bolt to shatter a window and escape. If you do not have one, and you are in the vehicle with a Russian man, instruct him to use his dick. They have hydraulic power from their mothers carrying them around like frozen turkeys in a sack.

That's also why they drink.

I don't blame them. Not one bit, man.

Italian dicks. Yeah, they're proud of them. Most articulate dick on the planet, though. Interviewed Roberto Baggio's about the '94 World Cup. It was emotional talk. Real talk. Dick talk, but not weird talk. Best exclusive of my life.

Greek dick? Broke dick.

Spanish athletes use their dicks as change purses. Can carry like five dollars in each one. The Spanish World Cup celebration sounded like an earthquake of piggy banks. Coinstar needs to build a fleshlight into their machines in Madrid. You'd make a hundred bucks a week like that.

I don't know shit about Indian dicks.

Swedish dicks exist in some kind of uncharted dimension. To humans, it's like the IKEA dick matrix. Crooked grids of squares as the backdrop. Fluorescent triangles and rhombuses flying all over the place randomly. Oh, and five million Swedish dicks.

Some white boys think their dicks are all Dominican. Just because your manhood would rather shrivel up and hide in the shadows than get a real tan doesn't make it ethnic. Child please.

Finnish dicks kill Russians on sight. Guess Sexy Helsinki Nights ain't popular in Moscow. They also have a corkscrew built into the side. They say it's useful. I'm skeptical but open-minded on this point. You can't box me in.

If a Finnish man was unable to finish, then that would be sad. Racism has been conquered. You are a racist.

Armenian dicks are striped like a barber pole. They can't cut hair, though. Armenians are some lying-ass people.

Jeff George's dick never got the shot it deserved.

Peyton Manning's 'neck' is fine. He may never play again if #18.6" is still smarting from watching little big brother doing it up in his pussy palace.

Jim Irsay dick? It's got to get off Twitter.

Average white dude dick is like Bubbles on The Wire. It's got problems. It sells newspapers. It talks to the cops. Lives in a basement with its sister. But it's going to AA. It's trying. Best show ever.

Know why Tony Parker plays basketball? French dick only works indoors. Never won a war because they always have to go back home to piss. Hmm. French.

You ever seen an Antarctic dick? The hell you doing that far south, Werner Herzog?

Rik Smits had that Dutch dick. All wood grain. Classy.

If some dick just washes up to you in Miami, that's probably Cuban dick. Real talk. Hate if you like, but it's true.

Mike Lupica's an insecure, mean-spirited busybody. Credit where credit's due: little dude could hang the moon.

Kevin Garnett's dick is a pitbull with anemia. Like, an actual pitbull he has to give diet supplements to and stuff.

Yeah, you like to joke. "Serena's dick is huge." You need to recognize real beauty and strength when you see it. Expand your horizons. Serena's my girl. Any time, anywhere, any place, Ms. Williams.

Samantha Stosur, though? PACKING. Like a can of Monster Energy drink in the pants.

Jay Cutler dick is where you bow out mid-session and let someone else do your girl the wrong way.

Sudanese dick? Luol Deng would be hung like a Super Nintendo cartridge but having some British in him makes it more of a crumpet cock. Real talk.

Algerian dick is all curved. Like a bunch of jaundiced commas all walking out the shower at once.

Hedo Turkoglu and every other Turkish player has that ampersand dick going on, though. You know what I mean.

If some dick just washes up to you in Miami, that's probably Cuban dick.

Chilean dicks are all copper plated and have a decent jump-shot. Bet you didn't know that about Chilean dick, but I'm an educator, too. Respect to Chilean dick.

I don’t know where Kentucky football fans come from. I haven’t met very many of them. I don’t know what happens to them, whether they hibernate until basketball season or if they just kind of keep their peace and wait for the Music City Bowl to roll around.

When I got out of school I worked for a couple of years in a drug and alcohol rehab. It was the kind of job where I got to meet the people that I watched play on Saturdays and Sundays, but could never mention any of their names because of confidentiality laws. So it was kind of strange.

My coworkers were by and large Christians, which is to say, Alabama fans. There was also one old Kentucky fan who had worked at the facility for a long time. He looked like Floyd the barber from The Andy Griffith Show and he was quite odd. His name was Hiram, if that helps color the picture.

One day a gentleman came into rehab who was not ready to get clean. We’ll call him Buddy. I can’t remember for sure, but it seems like Buddy was an Auburn fan. He dressed like one, anyway, with a Ron Jon t-shirt and camouflage pants and a frayed visor with sunglasses hanging around his neck.

Buddy was trouble. He broke dozens of rules and we finally decided to discharge him. It fell to me to deliver the news.

I found him on the smoking porch, arm around one of the female patients, trying to convince her to provide "therapeutic services"* in exchange for some pills he had smuggled in. (*IMPORTANT NOTE: I MEANT SEXUAL STUFF)

"Hey Buddy, can I talk with you for a second?"

Buddy put the negotiations on hold and joined me on the walking path. With every step he took, the vial-shaped bulge in his pants pocket rattled like a box of Tic Tacs.

"I don’t think it’s working out for you, Buddy." I said diplomatically.

"Whuh?"

"You can’t bring pills into rehab and give them out."

"What pills?" he demanded, without even flinching.

"The pills in your pocket. I can see them. And hear them."

I informed Buddy that we were going to discharge him, but that if he ever reached the point of getting serious about recovery, he could come back. He left me to go pack his belongings. I concluded, incorrectly, that things were going well.

A few moments later, I walked into his room in time to witness Bill W.’s blue Big Book of AA sail out the open window, cutting an arc through the empty air and vanishing into the woods.

"FUCK THIS BOOK AND FUCK THIS PLACE!" he screamed.

In the span of a minute or so, Buddy had worked himself into a frenzy. In his bent perception, his discharge from the facility had grown into a vast, punitive conspiracy that included all the staff and other patients. Everyone was out to get him, and he was going down swinging.

Buddy grabbed his suitcase and stormed from the room, brushing past me as if I was invisible. Outside, his AA book sat face down in the dead leaves.

"I’M GOING TO GIVE THIS PLACE A PIECE OF MY DAMN MIND." He shouted in the hallway, to no one in particular.

I wasn’t exactly sure what that meant, but it didn’t sound good.

Buddy found a lecture hall and burst into the room. As luck would have it, the presenter was Hiram, the Kentucky fan.

Buddy strode out into the middle of the floor. Patients of every age and gender looked up from their AA books. Buddy took his time, sizing up the dozens of people in the room.

"There’s some snitches up in this bitch!" he bellowed. Several women in the room gasped.

Buddy stuck out his finger and pointed it at one patient after another. The threats flew out of his mouth fast and loose, bouncing around the room like bats out of hell.

Then, just as things felt like they might turn violent, a second voice captured the attention of the room. This voice was different—an easy, mumbly bluegrass drawl. The small, bespectacled counselor in the blue Wildcat jacket pawed at his silvery white hair and stared straight through Buddy.

"Son, it’s time for you to leave."

Buddy took several steps toward Hiram.

"I’ll kill you, old man." He seethed.

Hiram did not seem troubled in the least.

"No you won’t." he said simply.

Then Buddy issued a frightening missive, a blanket threat that he would murder and rape every staff member in the facility. Or maybe it was rape and then murder. Either way it wasn’t pleasant.

Hiram adjusted his glasses. The two men were toe to toe now, their noses perhaps an inch apart.

"Son, if you’re going to rape me you’re going to need to wear a rubber."

Buddy’s face trembled with rage.

"Do you think I’m joking?" he screamed.

Hiram’s eyebrows flickered.

"Do you think I’m joking? Son, you don’t know where I’ve been."

Then, for reasons I will never understand, Buddy’s internal constitution fell apart. His confidence crumbled into pieces right there in front of the entire room. He glanced around, at all the sets of eyes watching him. He inched backwards. And then he was gone, out the door and down the sidewalk, dragging his suitcase behind him. We never saw him again.

Hiram stood there, all 5’6" of him. He had won. He took off his glasses and wiped them on the front of his shirt. The old man sighed. He walked back to the whiteboard and picked up a marker.

"…Hmm, where were we? Everyone turn to the chapter How It Works. Now, the interesting thing about Bill W. was…"

As if you probably couldn't guess by the fact that I went to Mizzou and some information in my profile, I'm a journalist. And like most journalists, I'm unemployed. But there is a chance to change that--and the most important thing is, YOU CAN HELP ME ACCOMPLISH THIS.

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If you are a marginal fan and want to become a full-blown fanatic, or if you are just trying to understand that special college football idiot in your life; I present a general calendar of every college football fan’s experience. We’ll begin with the actual season, which many might mistake for the only period of interest for a fan. However, you’ll find the other parts of the year are just as important in terms of explaining a fan’s waxing and waning mental stability.

September-November: The actual season. At this time of year you are focused on, unbelievably enough, the games. Seasons (and your mood) will obviously vary across teams but at some point in this 3 months span, one (or predictably more) of the following thoughts will cross your mind:

-Our coach sucks and we need a change

-Our coordinator(s) sucks. Why can’t the coach get up the nerve to fire him?

-Our quarterback sucks. The backup is our answer, it’s clear because (he completed two of three passes that one time he got in, “insiders” say he’s killing it in practice, he was highly ranked coming out of high school, he had a great spring game against the 3rd team defensive backfield).

Also, you will have a win that you weren’t expecting and this will increase your expectations for the remainder of the year. If it happens later in the year it’s proof that you should have been winning all along. This win will usually be the result of the other, more superior team not being able to get out of it’s own way but no matter. Their six turnovers can be explained by the fact that you finally started to play aggressive defense. The entire two-deep of their defensive line might have a life-threatening disease but your offensive line finally “asserted itself”.

To balance this out, you will also have a soul-crushing loss. This could be to a mid-major or FCS team. This could be a loss to your rival when they aren’t that good. It could be to take you out of a championship picture or cost you a big bowl game. Wait for it, it will come. Even teams who go undefeated and win the national championship will have a clunker of a game against an inferior opponent. Because they should be beating everyone by 40 points, their fans will feel the same as you do after one of the aforementioned losses.

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Leader: College fb is long gone and NFL grinds to a halt Sunday, so if you need an offseason excuse to drink and watch contact sports the Six Nations Championship starts this weekend. For the uninitiated, it's an annual rugby tournament between the top national teams of Europe - England, France, Wales, Scotland, Ireland & Italy. Though New Zealand won the 2011 Rugby World Cup, the northern hemisphere had a good showing and this should be an entertaining tournament (started in 1883, it's also about a 100 years older than the RWC). France are the favorites this year, but Wales, Ireland & England aren't far behind.

If you don't know much about rugby, it's a good blend of the flow of soccer and the contact of football. Where it differs from football is that there are no pads, forward passes, timeouts or commercial breaks. Also worth noting is that all onfield decisions are made by the players - the coaches sit in the box and cannot interact with them during play. Here's a good rugby primer if you want to read more.

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I showed up on this site because of a link from either Rock M Nation or Bring On the Cats. After reading the column that was linked, I started reading the comments and I was hooked on lurking. A short time later I made my first comment and was told I wasn't snarky enough, if I recall correctly.

What I found out is there are others that like college sports as much as I do and don't mind sharing their opinions about a bunch of other areas of life as well. Even if I don't agree with an opinion or view, there is enough discussion in this place that I can focus on other areas rather than get into the normal flame war that happens on the internet. And most, definitely not all, of the fans on this site I would put into the well adjusted category as opposed to the nut jobs that you can find in any college fan base.

The things I've learned related to cooking, drinking and other interesting topics on this site is a rather nice bonus to the sports discussion. And the helpful attitude of folks is rather refreshing. I'm not going to mention anyone by sbnation nom de plume, but several folks on here have offered assistance or advice which was (is) definitely appreciated.

Now I find myself working again after a lengthy vacation and I won't have as much time to participate in the daily discussions, which I will miss a great deal. I'm not sure though that I can convince my employer that this site is required daily therapy.

Thanks to all of you for participating here and providing a welcome oasis on the internet and to Spencer Hall for creating this site. As I continue to be amused by Spencer Hall, at some point I need to purchase him a nice refreshing beverage or threeve.

And by Dawg, I of course mean Georgia. Sorry Mr. Mullen.

Florida grad here, and I will making a trip up to Athens for the City's Moderately Sized Questionable Scenery Cocktail Party. I know basketball is not important, but this poses as realistically the most relevant opportunity to visit. There will be four of us aged 23-25 who have never been to the city.

Naturally, we plan on consuming large quantities of alcoholic beverages and would like to partake in some of the town's classic eateries. I was wondering if any of Athens veterans could point me in the direction of the best bars/restaurants to patron, as well as any places we just need to check out. Also, if anyone could suggest the best area to stay for the Friday/Saturday nights we will be there that would be great. (i.e. hotels close to the bars/campus/arena if possible)

Thanks for your help and I promise not to make any dead dog jokes while I'm in town...before noon.

Fuck Clemson