The Nittany Turkey

Primarily about Penn State football, this is a tale told by idiots, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Search This Site

Enter keyword(s) below to search for relevant articles.

Home 2009 Archives for September 2009

Archives for September 2009

Aha! So that’s it.

Posted on Written by

The Turkey got a call from his genial old veterinarian’s office today, advising this foul fowl that his TSH was too high. Let me gobble that to you in English. My thyroid gland is curtailing its regulatory activities. (I wish the government would follow my thyroid’s lead.)

So, that explains it!

I looked up hypothyroidism on the Internet (which has supplanted all other sources of medical information because of its convenience and ease of searching). Once I got through a plethora of ads for thyroid supplements and various other forms of folk medicine, testimonials by hysterical yet knowledgeable ex-hippies about herbal concoctions, rants about mercury in childhood immunizations, offers to recharge my thyroid with iodine for less than $10 per month, and hucksters pushing remedies that remove up to 25 pounds of waste material that coats my intestines like spackle or paste, I found some good information on the Mayo Clinic site. I should have gone there first, but then I wouldn’t have obtained the latest fecal spackle information. Alas, I digress pastily.

[Read more…]

Some Random Thoughts about Iowa

Posted on Written by

Waterloo, Iowa is a town with a population of about two-thirds of a full house at Beaver Stadium. It is subject to devastating floods when the Cedar River swells. I guess that’s why they call it Waterloo: water representing the floods and loo being British slang for toilet, which brings us to the Nittany Lions’ performance at their own Waterloo last Saturday night.

For those of you who attended public school and slept through it, Waterloo was the site of Napoleon Bonaparte’s final defeat. After the Grand Army got its butt kicked there by the British and the Prussians, Nappy abdicated his emperorship and retired. A couple of years later, he died.

But I digress.

The Nittany Lions came to their own Waterloo feeling pretty good about their chances. They were #4 and #5 in the big national polls. Just about everybody — including this Turkey — felt that they were ranked at least 10 positions too high. What had they accomplished this year, other than giving us doubts about whether the offensive line would ever be effective and reassuring us by beating three 30-point underdogs?

[Read more…]

Site Redesign

Posted on Written by

As you might have noticed, The Nittany Turkey has changed cosmetically. Everything that was here before is still here; the contents are merely arranged differently. I needed an extra column to squeeze in all the stuff I want and I wanted an updated look that would not resemble about 30% of the hosted WordPress blogs out there using the same default theme as I had.

The old look was getting to be pretty stale. However, I’m still in love with the header I created for the old blog, which I’m trying to figure out how best to work into the new layout. In the meanwhile, you’ll have to put up with the plain text and no visible turkeys or Penn State logo items.

The featured photos on this page are all taken by me, including some from 45 years ago, when I was at Penn State. A different one should come up each time you refresh the page. Later on, I might crank a Flash slide show into that space, but for now, static pictures are what you get.

Please let me know if you encounter any problems with the new design.