Every year, every year, every year

M*ch*g*n week continues with Thursday’s propaganda, to be filed under “quotations, inflammatory”:

“We want to beat them every year, every year, every year. That’s what we’re doing[...] I’m all for five in a row, six in a row, seven in a row, and I’d be fine with a couple of good coaches getting fired. That wouldn’t be bad, either.”

~ Earle Bruce

(via Eleven Warriors)

Filed under: college football, Ohio State, sports

Less than

M*ch*g*n Week continues with Tuesday’s propaganda, to be  filed under “photographs, derogatory”:

(via tBBC)

Filed under: college football, Ohio State, sports

Iowa Wrap-Up & Intro to M*ch*g*n Week

Fellow Buckeyes,

Um, dang. Clearly, I should have been a tad more worried than I was about that game. Iowa really brought it, and you know what? That’s awesome, because that’s what a conference championship game is supposed to look like.

First things first: I know I wasn’t the only one impressed with the play of Iowa QB (and redshirt freshman) James Vandeberg. tBBC gives a quick tip of the hat to Vberg, and rightly so. Behind an O-line that protected him well, he showed poise beyond his years. Good show.

On to some recaps: Eleven Warriors, tBBC, Silver Bullet, Buckeye Football Analysis (a blog that’s new to me), and ESPN’s Big Ten blog. And for a few extra kicks, here’s one of my favorite all-around recaps: The Week that Were (which, by the way, gets M*ch*g*n week started nicely with stuff like this).

Fun with numbers: 10 Things, 5 Things, and 5 more things.

My favorite points: TP is now a facilitator (from 10 Things, above). It’s seems odd to feel good about that sentence, but I do. The last few weeks, he has been asked to do less, and it has worked. He seems to be playing within himself better and not trying to do too much, which, frankly, not only limits his youthful mistakes but makes him more dangerous, not less. Also, it seems our Buckeyes have finally figured out their running game (also from 10 Things, above), and you know what? It looks an awful lot like a Big ten running game is supposed to look. Works for me.

Slightly off-point: A number of people are making congratulatory enough remarks while looking slightly askance at Tresselball. The sometimes subtle, sometimes overt theme is that type of game OSU played Saturday is good enough to win in the Big Ten, but as shown by recent history, not quite good enough to win on bigger stages. Among them: Pat Forde, Stewart Mandel, Doc Saturday and ESPN’s Big Ten Blog (again). I’m going to have to chew on that for a while.

On to more important things: it’s M*ch*g*n week. That means it’s time to remember exactly how putrid TTUN is. It’s only Monday, I know, but if you’re having trouble getting the ol’ anger engine revved up, here’s some help: a photo from behind enemy lines; it looks likeTate hasn’t yet learned to keep his moth shut, so he’s going to have to be taught; an early preview; a classic M*ch*g*n choke-job (video at the end of the post); and an open letter to RichRod to remind you how good we’ve got things in Buckeye Nation.

And if that weren’t enough, here are two more timeless photos.

I’ll try to be back every day this week for more tasty anti-M*ch*g*n propaganda.

Remember: it’s M*ch*g*n week, so we don’t want to get complacent, but it’s nice to go to sleep at night knowing we’re already smelling rosy.

Filed under: college football, Ohio State, sports

Up Next: Iowa

Fellow Buckeyes,

A brief look at what the internets are saying about his week’s Ohio State football game.

This week’s foe: Iowa.

The vitals: The game will be in Columbus, kickoff at 3:30, televised on ABC.

Some previews: Eleven Warriors, Our Honor Defend, The O-Zone, and MotSaG’s “On Paper”.

Also, ESPN’s Adam Rittenberg breaks down the Big Ten title “race” and previews the OSU-Iowa game (from what looks to be his apartment or someplace equally befitting an ESPN production).

The Columbus Dispatch’s Ken Gordon wonders, where’s the grisly demise of Tressel ball? and tBBC is amused by one Iowa blogger attempts to feel better about his team’s chances.

My quick thoughts: Stanzi is out, and Iowa is doomed, period. I guess I shouldn’t be so cocky about it, but I just can’t bring myself to be any more optimistic about this game turning into an actual contest. Some people will always disagree, but I can’t bring myself to care about that, either.

Ok, I’ll back up a bit and put some real thought into this. Iowa’s D isn’t bad, and our offense has struggled. Those two things lead me to believe we are unlikely to embarrass the Hawkeyes, because we probably just won’t be able to score enough points for that. On the other hand, Iowa’s offense will struggle mightily sans Stanzi, and OSU’s D (especially the line) is playing lights-out. Those two things lead me to believe Iowa will be lucky to score many points. At all. Seems pretty straightforward, but as goes the mating call for the people who want a playoff, that’s why the games are played on the field and not on paper.

But seriously, there’s no chance we lose this one.

So, what do you want to see Saturday? I, for one, would like to see OSU punch its ticket to the Rose Bowl, which would be our first since 1997.

O-H!

(I know, I know: two posts in one day? Don’t get used to it.)

Filed under: college football, Ohio State, sports

Portions

Read Write Poem is my new favorite online community. Dana, the founder, and her staff are doing a great job running the place, and its members are proving a welcoming, talkative bunch. Interesting things are happening there all the time, so I highly encourage you to take a look.

Plug aside, I took part in RWP’s November mini-challenge: the build-a-poem.

What follows is less a single poem than five semi-related poems, all of which were composed in collaboration with the program Mchain (a text generator that utilizes Markov chains). The “base” source text for each poem was Thoreau’s Walden. Each poem also had a secondary source text. In order, the secondary source texts were Getting Acquainted with the Trees, The Man Whom the Trees Loved, Niels Klim’s Journey Under the Ground, Trees and Other Poems, and The Trees of Pride.

I am calling the poem/collection “Portions”.

1. Repastination

It can be obtained
at the matter
suggests,
beside that probably
harder still:
a field of water.

The best
is white
but only a plain tree
lover.
I have only
one of the blossoms.

Some trees maintain
such a continuous show
of their arts
to persuade me to go
at large again.

We have come to this
continual motion,
repastination.
Rhode Island Greening apple
is unpopular here.

There is the great workhouse
of the last years
that which was
soundest part,
though a good man to say:
when I began to live
was that I was.

Filed under: digital poetry, Mchain, poetry, Read Write Poem

LaToVP Awakening

It has been almost five months since this post announced the Blogger version of LaToVP was shutting down. A week ago, I got the urge to resume blogging again.

Now, here I am. Again.

Obviously, I felt this particular resurrection of LaToVP would be better suited in a new home than by simply restarting the old blog again. I’m in a different place, and I’d be remiss if this new foray didn’t reflect that.

The most logical question to ask is, “what will I post here?” Fair enough. I don’t really know yet. I’m hesitant to narrow it down at all, really. I am interested in a lot of things, and I hope many of them will be evidenced here. I will post poetry and poetry-related things, certainly, but also general writing tidbits and nuggets from my life as a stay at home dad and piano teacher. I will post about music, sports, and my thoughts about libraries and librarians. And of course, I will post silly links and casually mention various internettery. And who knows what else?

All that is to say, I will post, with no predetermined frequency, things I think about, so long as they are at least mildly interesting. To me.

That may seem like a selfish way to think about blogging, but the way I’m inclined to view blogs these days is less as a tool for broadcasting than a glorified journal. That, to me, makes them a decent way to record things for myself to look back on later and see what kind of person I once was. If other people want to come along for the ride for whatever reason, that’s great too, and hopefully they find some things to enjoy.

A brief logistical note, in closing: I’m still toying around with formatting and what not, so this post is mainly to help me with that, along with serving subtle notice of my return to blogging. Don’t expect a lot at first (or ever, if I’m to be totally honest), but it will definitely get more interesting than this.

Filed under: meta, blogging