Nightmares, future, present, past

Tomorrow is the UCLA/USC game. Begin self-medicating now. This is going to get brutal. We're 30 pt dogs, with an over/under @ 47.5 ... so Vegas is betting we'll lose around 38-7 or 38-9. The second one's more likely... unless we score a special teams or defensive touchdown. Even the vaunted Norm Chow can't do much with a porous OLine and Kevin "my middle name is erratic, no, it's foolhearty, no, it's 'I'll go get my ball" Craft at QB. I figure if our offense scores more than their defense, we should lose by less than 24 (my feeling is that under that circumstance we'll probably hang tough for the first 3 quarters, then the D--exhausted after being on the field 65% of the time--will be worn down). If their D scores more than our O... baby, 38-9 will seem like a wonderful thing.

Can we win? Sure. I'll never say we can't win (13-9, anyone?), but I can't say that we will. It would be wonderful to knock them out of the Rose Bowl, and end their string of BSC bowl appearances and Pac-10 titles... Just don't see it happening.

Last night was the second of two tryouts for Santa Barbara's A team. After, Kyle said, "That was the most horrible tryout I ever had." Couldn't argue much. Tuesday's tryout had some good things (despite having some issues stopping the ball, he distinguished himself from the others by calling a good game, the most vocal and leader-ly [I know, not a word] goalie of the 8 in attendance), and he had some hope at the end of it. Last night, not so much. While he still called the best game of any goalie, he still had issues making blocks (you know, which is the whole point of a goalie). The goalie coach coached him to NOT to tell defenders to foul the set D when he's on his back (that's a kick-out), and Kyle listened, responded with a "OK" and didn't do it again. So if coachability counts, he's got a shot. If calling a game and being a leader counts, he's got a shot. If it comes down to shot blocking, then he didn't make the A team. The coach told all the players that he'd be emailing the guys who made the A squad on Sunday. Don't think we'll be waiting by the computer, clicking "check mail" all day.

Even with my Bruins looking to die tomorrow, I'm looking forward to getting out of town today. Work has sucked this week. The project we've been working on is just about to go live, and the panicky MAJ has been asking for tweaks large and small all week long... and of course, not expecting it to affect the timeline. Ah, alcohol, my dear friend, I'll be seeing you soon...

Oh, yeah, and this morning I read this... sounds to me like some of the fridge have been self-medicating, too...