Quick Hits from mid-July...

What we might call the "dog days of summer" are upon us full force now. I can't say that I've felt much desire to hop on here and share odd thoughts or weird dreams about college roommates dying in shootouts on a racetrack (really happened...in my dream). News about Syracuse has been pretty sparse. So what little news HAVE we actually had to nibble on?

• The Men's Lacrosse team secured the services of an attackman for the 2010 season. Joe Marasco, a Junior at Somers High School in Section I (that's downstate New York), has committed to Syracuse after reopening his recruitment following a coaching change at his original school of choice, Ohio State. My guess is that he saw some other parts of the state outside of Columbus and decided that it would be best to never set foot in Ohio again. From what little I've read he's a stud already and will only get studdlier? studder? more studly? as he becomes a Senior next season.
• Also on the Men's Lacrosse front is the news that Cody Jamieson, of Onondaga Community College, has won the scoring title in the Ontario Junior A Box Lacrosse League. It has a real name, but I'm not going to look it up. He tallied 101 points, which includes 56 goals, in......wait for it......21 games. That is some streak. We should all cross everything we can... Fingers, legs, eyes, to make sure he gets on campus at SU.
  
• SU football is a twelve point underdog against Northwestern to start the year. Not surprising. Northwestern might be up by 2 TD's right now...so maybe it's a little surprising that it's not more. But I'm confident this year. Confident that I'll feel okay right up until kickoff when my world begins to crumble around me.
• Last note-worthy piece of news at the top of my head is Jimmy B's impending trek to China as an assistant coach on the United States Men's Basketball Team. I'm interested to see what his reaction is if the U.S. play Canada. Doesn't he find the teams worse, most slight defender and plead Coach K to put him on Andy Rautins? God forbid anything happen to poor Andy. I'm not sure I want him to put on another 15 lbs.
  

Rot in Hell B.C. programmer

With the release of NCAA Football 2009 just two short weeks away, I find the need to bring something up that has been bugging me for the past 50 weeks. I have no physical proof of what I am about to say, but those of you who have NCAA 2008 can easily check out what I'm talking about. In addition to the fact that EA Sports continually sells the exact same pig with lipstick (save the NHL series), their proof-readers or quality control people or whatever the hell we call them, made a rather significant error in last years installment. If you look in the Carrier Dome, along the rafters of the upper deck, the name Syracuse University is spelled incorrectly. If it were any other school with a shitty football team, I wouldn't care. But this is my school with a shitty football team we're talking about. And would we put it past a BC graduate or UConn flunkie to purposely spell the name of our beloved Orange as Syracuse "Univeristy"?

There's a few things that I expect every year. I expect that I know that I'll be disappointed, yet buy it anyway. I expect that while it is entirely too difficult to run a passing offense, it's about accurate with how difficult it is to run A WEST COAST OFFENSE. I also expect that the player animations will look fine for about five minutes...and then I would have ran through all of them already. Things I don't expect. Radical changes in gameplay for the better. Hating Brad Nessler. General mistakes it team colors or TEAM NAMES.

It's such a menial, unimportant thing, but it just goes to show that even a company like Electronic Arts, one that disappoints me over and over until the point that I don't care, can make me want to rip out my own hair.

Look at all the fans that Northwestern even gets...