The Nittany Turkey

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

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Home Archives for 2010

Archives for 2010

The Rough Road Ahead

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Those of you who are waiting for the next installment of the travelogue will have to wait a little longer, for if I delay my 2010 Penn State Nittany Lions football season forecast any longer, it will be even more irrelevant than it already is. I’ve had trouble focusing during this off-season, which has probably resulted in my hard core readership dropping from three to two (byebye, Mom), so please let me rectumfy that right here and now.

This will be a troubled season for the Nittany Lions. Quarterback uncertainty, punting uncertainty, offensive line uncertainty, linebacker uncertainty, and defensive secondary uncertainty will together conspire to batter hopeful Lions fan this year. Couple this with still unanswered questions about octogenarian head coach Joe Paterno’s health, and you’ve got a mediocre season in the making. You just can’t win tough ball games with merely a defensive line and a couple of running backs.

Fortunately for the Lions, only a handful of games that can be described as tough loom on the schedule. Unfortunately, three of the toughest are away games.

The quarterback situation is still fluid as I write this. The only solid fact is that Jones has been red-shirted. Otherwise, Bolden, McGloin, and Newsome are still in the mix, with no starter yet identified at this late juncture. Though we’ll soon know who is tapped to start, this Turkey believes that we’ll be seeing all three getting significant reps in the Youngstown State game. I think McGloin will probably start and might alternate some series with Newsome for much of the first half. If they can pump up a sizable lead, Bolden will get some good time in the second half. Unless Joe and Jay give me that red telephone they promised me, this all might be wishful thinking. Nevertheless, the lack of a specific plan with the season on the horizon is scary.

Special teams have been a problem for Penn State now for several years. However, in the past, we could always rely upon a good punter to minimize the damage of poor return coverage. This year, we can’t. One can only hope that punting performance has improved since the Blue-White game.

And, like, the offensive line has to protect both the punter and whichever quarterback happens to be back there. With Eliades as the senior member of this unit and Johnny Troutman in Paterno’s legendary doghouse, things aren’t looking good. Of course, I said the same sort of thing two years ago, and that group took us to the Rose Bowl.

Paterno’s health has been the subject of much buzz by the sports media in Pennsylvania and nationally. He had a stomach virus and a bad reaction to antibiotics during the off-season, necessitating that his speaking schedule be curtailed. Some reports have said that he has lost weight and looks frail. Ron Cook of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette wonders whether he’ll have the strength to finish the season. Many have conjectured that he will probably coach this season from the press box, as he did the year he had the broken leg. On the positive side, reports from practices have been positive; he’s been interacting normally with players. So, we’ll have to play this one by ear.

Let’s look at the individual games.

Youngstown State. This should make the tailgaters happy. Hopefully, the poor economy coupled with ticket fee increases and higher hotel prices all over the Central Pennsylvania area for game weekends won’t daunt the crowd to watch this laugher. Then again, I hope it’s a laugher. With all our woes, if the game is sloppy, we could get AppStated.

Alabama. Are you kidding me? Some pundits have suggested that PSU could actually upset the Tide in Tuscaloosa. Groucho Marx might have said that that’s the best place to hunt elephants for ivory, but it will only be the happy hunting ground for the Nittany Lions. This will be a loss and not the close one that those wishfully thinking pundits are talking about.

Kent State. Coming off the disgustingly one-sided loss to Alabama, it is good to have a patsy on which to take out our frustrations. Three Golden Flashes will be taken to the hospital with rectal helmet insertions as the Lions win in a walkover.

Temple. Al Golden has brought the Owls a long way since taken over as head coach. The Lions will have to actually play this game. Nevertheless, the streak will continue, and the Owls will owe us 107,000 cheese steaks.

Iowa. Nope. Sorry, guys. Some of you out there think that the Lions can beat Iowa, especially given some of the personnel issues with the Hawkeyes. Ain’t going to happen, though. Too many flaws in the Lions.

Illinois. Homecoming happiness. Ron Zook is on the bubble this season, but I fear that the bubble will have already burst by the time the Illini come to Beaver Stadium. This game should solidify the impending Zook departure.

Minnesota. After a bye week, the Lions can travel to the north country and take care of business. The Golden Gophers will suck this year, so this is one away game that the Nittany Lions can salt away.

Michigan. Back home again, the formerly invincible (and now pitiful) Wolverines make their stand in Beaver Stadium. Rich Rodriguez could be on the bubble, himself. This is another game for which Penn State will have to show up. Not that the Wolverines are good or anything, but they’re big and they are good enough to take advantage of stupid mistakes. Still, I think the Lions will prevail, possibly, maybe, perhaps.

Northwestern. As wishy-washy as I was about Michigan, I’m even more so about Northwestern. Even in Beaver Stadium, I think the potential is there that we lose this game. If we don’t lose this one, maybe it’s because we lost to Michigan and I was wrong about that one. Northwestern sucks pretty badly, but they have a knack for pulling off a major upset or two every year. Given the shakiness of this Penn State team, I’m thinking that this should go to the Wildcats.

Ohio State. If indeed the boys have lost to either Michigan or Northwestern and come into this game with three losses, they’ll consider the season over and this will be a major massacre. If they come to the horseshoe with one or two losses, they’ll make of a game of it. One way or the other, ugly or pretty, they’ll lose.

Indiana. If they can’t beat the Hoosiers in Beaver Stadium, then the Dark Days have damn well returned! PSU wins again.

Michigan State. The Spartans are chronic underachievers, although they’ve got the talent to win 10 games this year. The Nittany Lions are in disarray and don’t want to keep looking at the hideous Land Grant Trophy in their trophy case, anyway, so the Spartans finally grab a win in Beaver Stadium.

So, what does that work out to? A not too happy 7-5, good enough for perhaps fourth in the Big Ten at best. They’ll probably decline the bid to the Motor City Bowl, but given that Penn State brings megabucks to bowl venues, a warm weather bowl bid is not out of the question.

Joe Paterno needs only six wins to notch his 400th, and I think you can count on that happening this year. Whether or not he’ll retire with that number is still anybody’s guess.

Here’s hoping I’m wrong and they go 10-2!

Scam Alert from da Turkey!

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There’s an insidious scam out there involving a package notification, in which you receive a postcard telling you to call to arrange for a package pickup. ????? ????? ??????? When you do, the scammers ask you for the tracking number from the postcard, then tell you that they need your credit card number for a small pickup fee. Obviously, you don’t want to do that.

I’ve scanned the card I got just to trigger an alert in your busy brains if such a thing ever shows up in your mailbox. ???? ????? It has apparently been mailed to many thousands of people nationwide. ????? ?????? ?????????

Package Scam
Package Scam

If you would like further information on this scam, check out the reports at the Better Business Bureau.

Day Nine: Hot Dog! Let’s go shopping!

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This is the tenth installment of the Summer 2010 road trip travelogue starring Artificially Sweetened (AS), her daughter, Cupcake, and me, the Nittany Turkey.

Day Nine was a Sunday, our last full day in New Philly. We hadn’t developed a plan for the day, which enabled another sleep-in for the girls. Just how, then, did Day Nine evolve into a shopping day?

Well, before the ladies came downstairs, I was talking with Toejam about my thoughts on lunch. I knew that AS liked hot dogs, and in Pottsville there is a hot dog joint called Coney Island that serves memorable wieners. Toejam told me that they weren’t open on Sundays, so I better go to the mall, where there is a small branch of the downtown store. Therein lay the essence of a plan.

As AS approached cognitive functionality (i.e., after some coffee), I told her that the plan was to take her and Cupcake to the mall to get some hot dogs for lunch.

Sproingo! Say da secret woid and da duck comes down and gives you $100…

Yes, I said the magic word, and it wasn’t abracadabra—it was mall.

“As long as we’re going to the mall, I wanted to buy Cupcake some jeans for school,” said AS, her eyes focusing. I could feel her shopping gears spinning up to operational speed, lubricated by SAE 90 coffee and fueled by a breakfast bar.

Back in my day, we weren’t allowed to wear jeans to school, but that’s beside the point. My desire to feed the girls a couple of hot dogs had just been transmogrified into a full-scale babe clothing shopping mission. Ooooh boy!

Nuclear Bomb
Nuclear Bomb

We three piled into the Sienna for a voyage into the wonderful world of babeshopping. But first, I had an item on my list of things to do before leaving Schuylkill County. In nearby St. Clair, there was a house with a bomb casing on its front porch’s roof. The word “NUCLEAR” was stenciled on the bomb. I needed to get a picture of it before I left in order to capture the flair of the local gentry.

After the brief photo shoot, I remembered where the mall was, much to the delight of AS and to the quasi-constructive apathy of Cupcake. When we arrived in the mall parking lot, I said I would park at the end by Boscov’s, the one and only anchor department store there. We passed a huge tent. I mentioned that it was too early to be selling Christmas trees and too late for Fourth of July fireworks, so what could it be? We soon found out when we saw the sign that said “Boscov’s Tent Sale — up to 70% off.” What flashed in my brain was “OMG OMG”.

“We have to go in there,” declared AS. I would not have a choice in the matter.

“OK,” I agreed limply. It was going to be a long afternoon.

I guess we looked at everything in the tent at least once. Thinking that I might be able to cut to the chase, I pointed AS to a rack with girls’ jeans selling for $3. In return, I received a word or two of heady shopping advice.

Jeans Shopping
Jeans Shopping

“I never buy pants that I can’t try on, even if they’re only $3,” said AS. I never thought of that. I mean, for $3, I’d take a chance, and if they didn’t fit, I’d sell them on eBay for $5. But I’m just a man. Who cares what I think? Now, it was clear that we would definitely have to go inside after spending the “necessary” time in the tent.

AS and Cupcake split up. I could walk from one to the other and back, feigning interest in what they were doing, to avert the boredom of looking at lots of stuff no one intended to buy. After all, the stuff in the tent was there because it had been languishing too long in the store. Finally, the Cupcake got bored, too. But AS was in full shop-mode, so there was no telling when we would exit the tent. I think the only thing that eventually saved us was that the tent wasn’t air conditioned. It wasn’t extremely hot, but after walking around for 20 minutes or so, it was getting a wee bit uncomfortable.

I’m not sure what it was that AS bought, but I was pleased when she said that she was ready to go to the register to check out. Cool! Now we could get out of here and, um, shop.

Inside the main store, there was air conditioning, so my tolerance level increased. At this point, the jeans assault team began its search and seizure mission. I gestured to the Levis display, thinking that I might be able to channel their efforts, but I received a swift rebuke.

“Why not get the ones that started it all? Good old original Levis,” I suggested.

“Because they’re not cool,” said AS.

“Oh.”

Moneybags AS
Moneybags AS

We looked at a lot of racks. How many exactly, I forget. It’s all a blur.  Finally, Cupcake was ready to try on some jeans. I pointed out the sign that said they could take no more than three garments into the fitting room and they had to tell a clerk before they went in. They ignored the second part. I’m not sure whether they ignored the first part as well, as there several ingresses and egresses.

When Cupcake came out the first time, I asked AS why the jeans’ rear pockets were not properly situated high on Cupcake’s butt cheeks. She admonished me that I didn’t know how it was supposed to work. These were low riders or some such thing. Yeah, but does that mean that the bottom half of the patch pockets should be down her thighs? Furthermore, is it really necessary to show butt crack? I mean without a thong in there and a tramp stamp above to decorate it? But surely, AS wouldn’t approve of something like that. I guess I know nothing about girls’ fashions. Silly me.

I was called upon to be a human clothing rack while the two of them went into the changing room. I got to hold the stuff that they had either already decided upon buying or were saving for subsequent try-on sessions. I whiled away the time by taking pictures of unsuspecting customers and employees.

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