Football

Greetings and welcome back to The Un-Zone, the only known site on the Internet devoted to all things related to Un. It's time for another semi-regular update to this site. Something I haven't done in a while.

Let me begin with the following: KU football is 10-0 this season. Yes, I said KU football. Normally, the only team at KU that is 10-0 at any given time of the year is the men's basketball team. And they look like the men's basketball team may not get to be 10-0 this year, considering that Brandon Rush is out with an ACL injury until late November, early December and the team's defense is kind of lacking at this moment. The defense is good, but not at the level that it has been in years past. The scoring, however, is still there. I might be considered a pessimist, but that's how I see it.
Who would have thought this would have happened? Not too many people. Hell, nobody, I think thought this unlikely occurence would have happened. I for one, a person who watches college football when its on, did not think so. I was wrong. Like nearly everyone in the United States, including the sports pundits.
And yet, they are 10-0. The KU Jayhawks (AKA "The Fighting Manginos" according to ESPN) are 10-0 this year, with the possibility of going 11-0 and possibly 12-0. A perfect regular season. With the Big XII Title game and a definite bowl game in the works. It's the most absurd sounding thing ever. And for the following reasons.
The Coach didn't look much like a coach. The quarterback (Reesing) looks more suited wearing a suit and tie instead of a football jersey and he's also too short and skinny for a QB (but Flutie was short and he's a legend). Their top WR was also considered short and undersized. So were a lot of their defense, maligned by other schools for being short, undersized, not the right stuff for college football. And yet, despite being a ragtag group of misfits that was mediocre at best (.500 football), they somehow managed to gel together into a surprisingly good football team. One that might, if things go their way by going undefeated and the chips fall their way, a national title contender. One that, until now, wasn't given much respect or much notice.
Whatever Mangino did during the off-season, whatever the team did this year, whatever happened on and off the field, somebody should bottle it. Somebody should write it down. Whatever the hell happened, it's working. The football team is beating teams, marching down the field and scoring, and staying calm under pressure. They're a machine. They're sawing the wood and winning. The KU Jayhawks are quite possibly, the real thing.
Mark Mangino is National Coach of the Year material. He's like Bill Snyder, the guy who turned K-State from the Mildcats to the Wildcats. How else do you explain the turnaround? How else do you explain this season?
Then again, considering college football this year, anything is possible. The #2 team was rotated in a weekly basis. Southern Florida was in the Top 10. A Division IAA team beat Michigan at Michigan. USC lost. So did Ohio State at home last week. Boston College was near the top for a while. This season has proven to be freaky, even for college football. Maybe the Jayhawk's success this year is part of this.


At least I was right about the Chiefs. They're becoming like the KC Royals of Pro Football. They're a joke of a team in the joke of a division called the AFC West. They're worse than mediocre.
They have no offense at all. They have a better defense, but it can't win the games for them every time.
No run attack now that Larry Johnson is out and Priest Holmes is back from a two year hiatus. The passing is awful, even with Huard (an old-timer QB with experience) at the helm. Long gone are the days of Shields and Roalfe at the offensive line. KC now has an offensively bad offensive line. A QB that lives up to the name: you want a refund from him for the lousy throwing and scrambling skills. A running back corp that runs backward and not forward. And don't get me started on the field goal kicker problems that plague the Chiefs. At least the punter can get the ball down the field, which is the problem. It means the offense just went three and out...again. Or it stalled...again. And yet, they're still near the top in the AFC West. Which should be called the AFC Worst as it's pitifully bad.
Rename Arrowhead to something else. Something that fits the quality of play of the Chiefs. Toilet Bowl. Yes, it's a worn cliche, but it fits.

That's all for now.

No, No, No, It's Not Christmas

Greetings and welcome back to The Un-Zone, the only known site on the Internet devoted to all things related to Un. It's time for an update to this site, something I haven't done in a long time. OK, nearly a month.

Yesterday was Halloween. There's nothing like a holiday that was based off of pagan festivals yet neatly used by the early Christian Church to get the pagans to convert. You see, by making November 1 and November 2 All Souls Day and All Saints Day (maybe not in that order but the names are correct), the Church neatly solved two problems. One, to get the pagans to convert and stay relatively good Christians. Two, solve the pesky Halloween problem. It's all good to do your quasi-pagan stuff on October 31, as long as you go to church the next two days. Nice and simple. Pretty clean.
Then again, the early church did not expect what is now becoming a politically corrrect nanny state. The "Halloween is Evil, You're Burning in Hell" rhetoric of the ultra-conservative religous folks. The "It's not Halloween, but Fall Festival" (I thought that was Thanksgiving, but astronomically, that's generally celebrated at the Havest Moon) and "You can't wear costumes that may be offensive to anyone" or any related crap. They're children. Let them have some candy. Let them wear costumes as long as they're not something like "suicide bomber" or "Slutty " or something truly tasteless. But I digress with this.

When you think of Halloween, you think of Jack-O-Lanterns, spooky stuff like ghosts and goblins, witches, costumes, haunted houses, etc. Scary stuff that makes you shiver. You don't expect Christmas music.
Apparently, Star 102 thinks you want it. After all, according to the "wizards of marketing," you have to be quick when it comes to piping out Christmas music before it's really Christmas. In all honesty, anyone who wants to listen to Christmas music non-stop in October is a sick person with a serious mental disorder. Anyone who thinks that people want to willingly listen to Christmas music all the time from October to God knows when, is a seriously sick person. Or they are the biggest idiot in the Universe. Or they have no grip on reality. Or they deserve to be impaled on a giant candy cane while people hit them with reindeer droppings. Or all of the above. To quote from the article:

“It’s pretty simple. In a market where there are two radio stations doing Christmas music, the one who goes first is usually the winner. That’s been proven all over the country,” says former Entercom and CBS honcho Bob Zuroweste, a veteran Christmas music warrior. “I’m talking about weeks ahead, not moments, hours or days ahead. If somebody decides to sit back and wait a few weeks, they’re going to lose.”
Ditto, says former Star 102 point man Jon Zellner, now with XM radio in Washington.
“I’ve always maintained the first one in wins,” Zellner says. “Obviously marketing helps, but what usually happens is these are marketed by word of mouth.”
“In reality the Christmas music doesn’t take hold with listeners until the week before or week of Thanksgiving,” Zuroweste adds. “But what happens is by going first you just have a greater connection in the minds of consumers that you are the Christmas station. And when retailers turn their dial to a Christmas music station, they tend just to
leave it there, so you want to get those dials set early. It really is a
marketing game. It’s like you want to own the perception that you are the Christmas music station.”

Which is why people in Kansas City and the surrounding area are getting "Jingle Bells" piped through the radio on Halloween of all days. Which is pretty fucking ridiculous in my opinion and according to an unscientific online poll done by the KC Star, at last count, over 80% of the people think it's way too early to pipe out the holiday music. Apparently, the marketing people at Star 102 and their rival don't get this fact. People don't want to hear Chirstmas music this fucking early. This might explain why few people listen to Star 102 and their rival anymore. They're the annoying "Christmas Music" stations that don't have a fucking clue about when to play Christmas music. All because they want an extra dollar when it comes to ratings and other materialistic stuff.

And some other stuff. I'm sick and tired of the retailers putting out the fucking Christmas stuff in October when it's closer to Halloween than it is to Christmas or Thanksgiving.
Of course, Christmas didn't exist until the 4th Century AD. There were winter festivals occuring in pagan times, celebrating the end of the year and how the sun was going to come back again and shine on them. Saturnalia, festivals to Odin, etc.early Europeans celebrated light and birth in the darkest days of winter. Many peoples rejoiced during the winter solstice, when the worst of the winter was behind them and they could look forward to longer days and extended hours of sunlight. It was the perfect time to celebrate indoors since it was cold outside and who knew, maybe the Gods were watching. This later expanded when the Christian Church came around.
They already had Easter, so why not a holiday to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ? They chose December 25, despite some obvious logical problems. Like nobody knew when he was really born. Or in the winter, the Holy Land is suffering from the wet season and it would have been hard to have a clear night with stars shining brightly. And of course, during the winter, why would the shepherds be out in the cold? This didn't stop them. And so came Christmas, incorporating a new religion with older pagan customs.
The last time I checked, Chirstmas is a religous holiday celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ. It should be a time where we give thanks for the life that we are given. It is a time to be thankful, not only for the birth of Chirst, but for other things like friends and family, for good times, for health and happiness.
Christmas, however, not an orgy of gift-giving. It is not a time to see how much we can spend. It is not a time to bust the credit card spending limit. It is not any of the commercialistic crap society has dumped on it. Christmas, it seems, has changed. At least one this has not changed. We're celebrating the birth of our Lord and Savior, The Almighty Dollar.
Green is for the almighty himself, and red for the blood we will spill to acquire him!
We should stop calling it Christmas Season and change it to Consumer Season...that's really what it's about anymore. It wasn't that long ago that the first 4 weeks of December was considered Advent and Christmas didn't start until the 24th.
I like Christmas, not for what it is now, but for what it was. Sometimes, I think that we'd be a better society if we just got rid of the stupid holiday once and for all. Every bit of meaning anyone ever got out of it has been sucked out by commercial interests and plain stupidity and is lost forever.

And here's a Chirstmas song to you, Star 102. I hope you like it:
It’s not December
It’s barely even November
Outside it’s still too warm for snow to fall
Halloween was yesterday
And winter’s still a ways away
But try to tell that to the folks down at the mall
Inside’s a winter wonderland
I’m sorry, I don’t understand
‘cause mistletoe on Veteran’s Day seems wrong
But the shops are filled with Christmas cheer
And on the speakers, all you hear
Is the way-too-early Christmas song
Leaves just started changing
But the stores are rearranging
Their décor to wintry Christmas themes
See the red and green displays:
“Just 58 more shopping days”
And cardboard elves are planting plastic trees
Jesus in his manger cradle
Plus a little token dreidel
In a big display next to the Cinnabon
With three wise men and gifts they bring
Just plug them in, and they all sing
The way-too-early Christmas song
I know you need to satisfy your investors
But couldn’t you wait at least until the Savior’s third trimester?
Finally, just outside the Master-Cuts
Was Santa, and that fat bastard’s
“Ho ho ho”-ing drove me up the wall
Something snapped, I lost control
And kicked him square in his North Pole
And as he dropped, I decked him in his halls
So, my friends, I wish you well
From the mall security holding cell
I hope that they don’t keep me here too long
May you and yours find peace and love
Unless you are the writer of
The way-too-early Christmas song


Merry Christmas. That's all for now.