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Winter is happiness and joy and flannel. February is not winter. February is the absence of all feeling and sensation, like being dead or watching "Bar Rescue." The snow looks like hell, your heating bill is hell, and Seasonal Affective Disorder has made itself at home in your brain and is considering building a gazebo.
In the Big Ten: you should probably not use charcoal to heat your car, the Malik McDowell Saga sadly appears to be at an end, and Indiana is falling down.
IOWA
LOOKS LIKE:
NEWSEY NEWS:
Hey fans! Maybe don't react to the best Iowa basketball team in nearly a decade by sending them threats on the internet!
There's been an outbreak of fake taxis in Iowa City, meaning that there are real taxis in Iowa City.
SAD MIDWESTERN SONG:
Per @adam_jacobi, "Iowa lost that Rose Bowl 28-0 and has not won in Pasadena since."
LOOKS LIKE:
NEWSEY NEWS:
Tom Crean continues to induce a lot of feelings. Indiana football also induces feelings, because watching a team put up 500 yards of offense while rejecting the very concept of defense is bound to induce something. Possibly labor.
Indiana University is giving Meryl Streep an honorary doctorate, as they should. Go watch "Death Becomes Her". Sally Field's not pulling that off.
This is a song is by an Indianapolis resident and is about using whiskey to avoid your problems, which sounds logical.
PENN STATE
LOOKS LIKE:
via wpsu.org
NEWSEY NEWS:
There is a giant sink hole on campus.
3 Nittany Lions are at the NFL Combine, including unfathomable terror-god Allen Robinson, destroyer of worlds and dreams.
Bars in State College are going dry for St. Patrick's Day, ruining the opportunity for students to find out just how badly pancakes, eggs, and 15 beers combine in one's intestinal tract.
SAD MIDWESTERN SONG:
Listen to the dulcet tones of this very cheerful snowplow driver.
NEBRASKA
WHYYYYYYYY.
NEWSEY NEWS:
Nebrasketball is the low-scoring sensation that's sweeping the part of the nation that watches BTN.
Nebraska beat Texas - in cattle feeding, but as far as Colt McCoy knows, in life as well.
SAD MIDWESTERN SONG:
Even the comments section on this song is sad.
MICHIGAN STATE
LOOKS LIKE:
via cmsimg.lansingstatejournal.com
NEWSEY NEWS:
As the Malik McDowell Turns: The 5-star DL stud who committed (sort of) to Michigan State is probably going to Michigan State, and his mom is probably still not happy about it.
Former MSU CB Darqueze Dennard threw down a 4.51 40-yard-dash at the NFL Combine, making him a likely top-15 pick to go somewhere and be awesome while getting at least three pass-interference calls a game.
It is so snowy that that they can't clean up the damage of the snow because of more snow.
SAD MIDWESTERN SONG:
Sufjan Stevens made an entire album about Michigan, and it is poignant and hopeful and also incredibly melancholy all at once, because Michigan.
MICHIGAN
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Photo via Rod Beard.
More snowy sad cold death.
Sports!
Ann Arbor's U.S. representative is retiring after 58 years in Congress, which is roughly 57.5 years longer than anyone not made of pure Midwestern lack-of-fucks-to-give:
@cjciaramella: Seriously, though, I was sitting in an Oversight Committee hearing, and in the middle of the meeting he pulled out a big ass sandwich and started eating it while the other members were questioning the witnesses.I've respected him ever since.
It turns out that the federal government doesn't really like it when you sort of attempt to cover up a sexual assault investigation.
Do not listen to this song unless you have been steeped in the sad, sad sadness that is Ann Arbor in February. Actually, do not listen to this song, as it is the saddest song in the history of sad songs, and it is a Joy Division song, so it is sadness cubed. It is not a Midwestern song, as Michigan would very much like to not be a Midwestern university despite the presence of leggings-as-pants and people getting dropped on their heads by football players.
OHIO STATE
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Photo via Eric Albrecht/AP.
These are "snow rollers," a rare phenomenon in which chunks of snow are blown into circular formations because there is so much snow and it is so cold and we are all shuffling off this frigid mortal coil.
NEWSEY NEWS:
Columbus residents are on the lookout for an "office creeper."
Braxton Miller is having shoulder surgery, but will still be Braxton Miller, so he'll be fine.
SAD MIDWESTERN SONG:
"Hurt" was written by a Cleveland native. You can tell.
WISCONSIN
LOOKS LIKE:
via scontent-b-iad.xx.fbcdn.net
Photo taken by @laduper in the middle of Lake Mendota, Wisconsin.
NEWSEY NEWS:
Lighting a charcoal fire under a car works about as well as you'd expect.
This loud man on a highway would like to tell you to charge all of your devices because it's going to snow again and be careful and get your winter boots and winter jackets and hats and gloves and scarves and ski pants ready.
SAD MIDWESTERN SONG:
Did you know that Bon Iver began when its lead singer was bed-bound with mono in a cabin in upstate Wisconsin watching old episodes of Northern Exposure? Wisconsin!
ILLINOIS
LOOKS LIKE:
Photo courtesy of @msilich2 of The Champaign Room
NEWSEY NEWS:
Old guy told to stop shooting at icicles.
Middle-aged guy told to start recruiting better.
This is totally not sad, except in the way all videos featuring people who are now dead are sad, but Jerry Orbach went to Illinois, so including this 1976 Tony Awards performance from the musical "Chicago" introduced by Jane Fonda totally makes sense.
MINNESOTA
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NEWSEY NEWS:
Minnesotans are just as good at completely bananas ice-based death sports as you'd imagine.
Dear fur traders and loggers who settled in Minnesota and led to its eventual statehood: you were morons.
SAD MIDWESTERN SONG:
Bob Dylan is from Minnesota, and thus knows a lot about justice and being very, very cold.
PURDUE
LOOKS LIKE:
via i2.wp.com
NEWSEY NEWS:
It's the age-old story of guy meets girl who is actually dude posing as girl with intentions of stealing electronics.
The proud tradition of traumatic season-ending knee injuries continues apace.
Cool headline, guys.
SAD MIDWESTERN SONG:
I don't care if Michael Jackson sang it, this is still about a friendship with a rat and was used in the soundtrack for the second of two films about bizarre rat friendships.
NORTHWESTERN
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NEWSEY NEWS:
That's probably not good:
In other news, there were cupcakes at an Evanston city council meeting. Happy birthday, Mark!
SAD MIDWESTERN SONG:
Despite all your rage and your degree from Medill and the spring semester you did in Qatar you are still just a rat in a cage.
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