SCAMATEURS: It's an open secret that big-time college athletics is as dirty as my car after a night under a bird-filled, sap-leaking tree. A friend who used to work in the sports business summed it up the other night on the telephone. "You want the truth about college sports? It's all in that scene from A FEW GOOD MEN, where Nicholson says 'You can't handle the truth.'"

The scene in question:

Jessep: You want answers?
Kaffee (Tom Cruise): I think I'm entitled to them.
Jessep: You want answers?
Kaffee: I want the truth!
Jessep: You can't handle the truth! Son, we live in a world that has walls. And those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Who's gonna do it? You? You, Lt. Weinberg? I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You weep for Santiago and you curse the Marines. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know: that Santiago's death, while tragic, probably saved lives. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives...You don't want the truth. Because deep down, in places you don't talk about at parties, you want me on that wall. You need me on that wall.
We use words like honor, code, loyalty...we use these words as the backbone to a life spent defending something. You use 'em as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom I provide, then questions the manner in which I provide it! I'd rather you just said thank you and went on your way. Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a weapon and stand a post. Either way, I don't give a damn what you think you're entitled to!
Kaffee: Did you order the code red?
Jessep: (quietly) I did the job you sent me to do.
Kaffee: Did you order the code red?
Jessep: You're goddamn right I did!!

Are Neuheisel and Clarett men of honor who are simply doing the job we sent them to do?

BLOG AND FORTH: The Whimsical Revolutionary is baiting me, taunting me, and otherwise agitating me. (Actually, he's mostly just mentioning me, but 'mentioning' don't sell tickets, y'know?)

I want to tell him why I don't like the Stones (let me count the ways), but who has that kind of time? I'll do it soon enough, though. I promise.

Meanwhile, the man-behind-the-blog, Mark, is on another roll. A couple wonderful excerpts:

On the Catholic Church's campaign against gay marriage:

Whenever you start to think that the White House is run by a sinister cabal of self-serving, power-hungry shitbirds, just take a look at the Vatican in comparison. Yes, that's right. The Vatican has launched a campaign against gay marriage. Here's an idea: Why don't you start a campaign against child-raping priests? And the bishops who cover up for them?

What a fucking travesty. I'm sure Jesus is very, very pleased.

After a diatribe over LAST COMIC STANDING:

Meanwhile, blog-reading women across America scratch my name out of their little black ebooks as they learn I actually sort of care about this show.

Oh, and he had the good sense to call me "quite the excellent blogger," which ensures I'll say mostly nice things about him, too, for at least a week.

STORYBOOK AFTERNOON: You couldn't write it any better than this...

An old friend treats me to a sushi lunch yesterday, and we wrap up around 1PM. Man, I think. If I hop on the El right now I'll be at Wrigley in time for the second inning.

Then again my business is slow, and I probably should just go home and listen to Santo and Hughes on the radio.

I hop the train to Wrigley, jump off at Addison, and score a primo ticket, five rows up just past first base, for twenty bucks. Yes! I enter the ballpark, find my seat, and settle in.

Shit. Wood has just given up a grand slam. Aww, man. Turns out the guy next to me scalped his ticket, too, and he's here solo, so we commiserate over how streaky Wood can be, whether or not we like the Glanville deal, and so forth. We're having a great time with our casual, intermittent banter. I buy a floppy hat to protect my expanding forehead from the fantastic afternoon sun. I buy a couple beers. I start to feel guilty about spending so much cash. It's adding up.

I find a $50 bill on the ground underneath my seat. No one else claims it. My guilt disappears like a grand-slam ball heading for Sheffield Avenue. If only the Cubs would have staged a late-inning comeback, it might have been the perfect day.

I leave the ballpark and buy a giant, ice-cold bottle of water. I walk two miles to my car in the perfect fading sun.

TREN TREN! My son's a little more than 15 months old now, and his vocabulary is growing rapidly. My wife asked me how many words he has at his disposal now, so let's see:

Tren
Spanish for train (he has a Guatemalan babysitter, so he's got some solid Spanish). He usually says this twice in a row, which brings to mind a rollicking old song by Blackfoot.

Dee-yuh
Short for ardilla, Spanish for squirrel.

Mo
More.

Yah-yee
Vladi, our dog.

E-yay!
His friend Sarkis, who calls him "E-yay."

Mommy
Of course.

Da-da
Hurray!

Kah
Car.

Fwower
Flower (his most advanced word).

Kluh Kluh
Kitty-cat.

Pock
Park.

Go
Go. (Repeated ad infinitum.)

Ahhhh-gwa
Agua (water).

No!
No.

Nie-nie
I want to go to sleep.

Me-me
I want to go to sleep.

Abba
Bottle (give me my).

Yum-yum
I'm hungry. Feed me.

Rie-uhn
Lion.

Scheeeze
Cheese.

Hmmm. So we're at about twenty, for now. Note that most have to do with food, sleep, or fun things. For things that are not in those categories, he has "No!"

SET THE WHIMSICAL STALKER STRAIGHT: My blog-pal Mark at Whimsical Revolution is a celebrity stalker. But it's not like he stalks your usual uberbabes. No, Mark is not interested in Uma Thurman, Jewel, Britney Spears, or even Jenna Jameson. Instead, everyone's favorite Calvinist focuses on cyberstalking brainy babes, women he might sip an independent-coffee-shop latte with while discussing last night's Charlie Rose.

For his first victim, Mark selected Maureen Dowd, she of the liberal scribblings and the come-hither publicity shots. Alas, it did not go well, as Modo never even so much as acknowledged Mark's desperate quest for her affections. Sensing defeat, Mark declared his Dowd Campaign ended, and he asked his throngs of loyal readers to help him select a new stalkee. From our many stellar suggestions, Mark used his unique criteria (single, smart, and not too mainstream) to establish the following candidate list:

Sarah Vowell
Former Chicagoan, forever linked with proto-radionerd Ira Glass, she of the terminally whiny voice and (Scottie) Pippenesque physiognomy. Overrated writer and commentarist who has somehow become the female David Sedaris. Okay, yeah, I like her. These grapes are indeed sour. But I have a secret (whoops) and simmering jealousy, an "I could have written that" vibe with a lot of her stuff, and I just can't shake it. So I suck. Bad me.

Neko Case
Auburn-haired alt-country and alterna-pop songstress; a real indie darling with the voice of an angel. Attractive and can really sing? Major bonus points.

Lauren Winner
Judeo-Christian memoirist, sort of Melissa Gilbert meets Elisabeth McGovern in the looks department. Definitely attractive, but how does she feel about drinking Schlitz from a can while listening to NASCAR on the radio. One wonders...

Gretchen Helfrich
Chicago radio's Charlie Rose, albeit younger, less pretentious, female, and cute. I think I voted for her, although Jennifer nominated her.

Rudi Bakhtiar
Lead anchor for CNN's headline news. Wiry, perky, smart...but a little stiff. Plus eventually you'd have to go to Hotlanta to stalk her in person, and everybody knows Hotlanta sux.

Amy Poehler
SNL gal, solid Chicago roots, smart, funny. My #2 pick for Mark, after Helfrich.

Of late, Mark is leaning toward Ms. Vowell. I recently submitted a helpful comment, suggesting he might want to reconsider his choice given Ms. Vowell's perpetually whiny demeanor. As a ten-year marriage veteran, I submit that whining is a skill a wife (or girlfriend) should develop over time. Ms. Vowell, on the other hand, will start off day one at DefCon 7 on the whine-o-meter. This is not good.

Please get thee over to the Revolution and help our boy Mark see the light...before it's too late.

TALL ORDER: Is it too much to ask for Google/Blogger (Bloogle? Glogger?) to offer a reliable hosting platform and a commenting system that doesn't suck half as bad as enetation? My apologies to Camel readers. I keep hearing that fixes are just around the bend. Meanwhile I'm just not up for ripping out the enetation code and pasting in something new. Patience...

Meanwhile, you're a stalwart bunch, still throwing comments over the wall like you are. Remember, if you stop commenting...enetation has won. More comments, I say! More!

ARE THERE SLIM SIMIANS? Apparently I'm on the ape diet.

GOOGLE OF THE DAY: Some hapless searcher landed here by using the search term "nude college swim meet."

ANTIDOTE: To cleanse my palate, I'm switching over to NPR now. The Stern/NPR juxtaposition is the intellectual equivalent of a speedball...the sick rush of Stern, then the decelerating stupor of NPR.

SHAME ON ME: Of course just as I'm posting about my fascination with Stern, he goes so far over the line that I feel sick with myself for listening. (Basically he airs a really tasteless prank call to CNN where one of his minions pretends to be a former Bob Hope comedy writer, then says something gross.)

LEWD LIFT? As I mentioned, I've developed a real fascination with the Stern show of late. Today Howard mentioned a band called Me First and the Gimme Gimmes, a sort of punk band known for playing covers of schmaltzy pop songs (i.e., they'd do "Dust in the Wind" or "One Tin Soldier" or other stuff like that). Anyhow, I wanna track the effect of a Stern show mention, so I've checked out their latest disc on Amazon and, wonder of wonders, it already has an Amazon sales rank of 600. Now I know their previous records are these little word-of-mouth affairs, so apparently this one already has some pre-Stern push behind it. Anyhow, for now it stands at 600. Let's see where it is tomorrow morning.

NOT THAT THERE'S ANYTHING WRONG WITH THAT: Let's take these things one at a time:

1) I'm in a Fantasy NASCAR league, on accounta one of my best buddies who I bet with all the time thought it'd be fun for us to have *something* to wager on during the NFL offseason. Of course this is the same guy I went to Branson, MO with, on accounta we hadda see if it could be as bad as it sounded. (Conclusion: It's worse; so bad it wasn't funny!) So, yeah, there is at least some small element of "Let's slum it with the common folk" to our little NASCAR diversion. Or at least there was. 'Cause see, over the course of this fantasy league I've started to take the whole thing pretty seriously. I know the difference between super speedways and road courses, which teams do better with restrictor plates, and why Kevin Harvick is so mad at Robby Gordon. And I'm in like 6,000th place out of nearly half a million drivers. Boogity boogity boogity indeed!

2) Over the years, I've determined that Schlitz in a can is the best possible beer in the world to drink in the summertime. Sure, I've had microbrews, Belgian Trippels, even brewed my own. But I just love Schlitz in a can. It tastes like summer to me.

3) I try to listen to a lot of Cubs games -- when I'm not tuning in on TV or sitting at Wrigley, it's pretty tough to beat the combo of Pat Hughes and Ron Santo on WGN-Radio. Yeah, I've got radio wired throughout the house, but with baby walks and dog walks and having to move from the yard to the basement to the deck in order to keep my son happy, well, I broke down today and bought what my friend Christina calls "an old man radio." You know, one of those little portables you can sit in the back yard with and park it against your ear.

Anyhow, here's the parts expressed as a whole:

Earlier this afternoon, I was sitting out in the backyard with my son, my wife, the aforementioned Christina, and her little gal Caitlyn. Picture it -- I'm in a crap TARGET chair, some little ten-dollar number we picked up, low-slung, one of the nylon slats ready to rip loose. I'm nursing a can of Schlitz, and I've got my radio glued to my ear so I can listen to the Pennsylvania 500.

"Look at you," says Christina. "My God."

And I hadn't thought about it. But today I realized I'm a 37-year-old man who sits in his yard in a crap chair drinking Schlitz and listening to NASCAR. So that's me. Today.

RANDOM: Thoughts from this morning's dog walk, not related to dogs or walking:

I remembered when I officially lost all interest in school -- eighth grade science class, the segment on carbon chains. Sure, they came close to losing me the year before in English class, all that sentence diagramming. But it was carbon chains that really drove me to the dark side.

I think it would be fun to start posting critiques of our local graffiti artists. Like this guy from this morning, Sir Majesty. I mean, first of all, the name is so cheesy and lame. So I would say, like, hey, Sir Majesty, that has got to be the most gay-sounding street name I've ever seen! Oh, and you can't spray-paint at all! It looks like a fourth-grader wrote your name! C'mon, man, if you're gonna deface the side of a building, at least go all out. Call yourself like "El Grande" and use a stencil.

I'm talking to my next-door neighbor about the notion of "finding your calling." For me, I said, reading and writing were always my greatest pleasures, so I guess that's how I became a writer. For him, he says, he always thought taking a shit was life's greatest pleasure. And, I shit you not, the man is a gastroenterologist. Talk about following your bliss...

GRUMPIN': Among the many things that bother me about the Steinbrenner/Jeter conga-line commercial:

Steinbrenner says "starding" rather than "starting"

I'm guessing they shot it separately, since you never really see them together; even that corny closing conga-line thing is a bit awkward

The way Steinbrenner says "Oooooh," sort of through his nose and overdramatic

I don't like when jerks satirize their jerkiness (ala Trump)

Dunno why I'm compelled to report this -- but then why do I blog at all? You tell me.

Oh, shit. Little dribbling single up the middle in the Cubs/Astros game. That pesky Biggio...

FEINTBALL: So the Bambi thing was a hoax, engineered to sell really dumb videos. Crap. I hate when I fall for stuff.

WILEY ON KOBE: Sometimes I forget that Ralph Wiley can write his ass off.

PERFECT CITY MOMENT: I left my car in a parking lot overnight last night. This morning when I went to pick it up, I saw a sign that said "8-24 hours - $15.00." Then, when I got to my car, there was an ominous looking envelope taped to the driver's side window that read: "Your license plate number has been recorded. You must pay $30.00."

Huh? How'd it double. I pulled the car up to the booth and gave my original claim ticket to the attendant. He studied it for a moment, then said, "$23.00."

"How'd you come up with that number?" I asked him.

"Well, I charge you $15 for yesterday, then $8 for today. Now pay."

"I will not pay," I told him, explaining that I would be happy to part with $15, but not a penny more.

"The sign say 8 hours to closing time, $15."

"The sign does not say that." I tell him, pointing at the sign.

"The sign mean that."

Meanwhile, a couple cars have pulled up behind me. He gets on his cell phone.

"Mister Ken, man here no want to pay. Black Benz was here overnight, now he say only pay $15."

He listens to some extended speech from Mister Ken, nodding, grunting, shrugging. Meanwhile a blonde woman in a business suit behind me is losing her mind. I see her in my rear-view mirror fidgeting in her seat, making clucking noises and leaning out her window. "C'mon," she mouths. "My God."

I experience total serenity. I will sit there all day if I have to. This is a man who will not be moved.

"Mister Ken say $15 for you this time."

"Tell Mister Ken he needs a new sign."

"You have good day."

"You, too, my friend. Thank you for your help."

Poor guy. The blonde is gonna give him hell.

But I feel like I just won the lottery.

KRAUT DOUBT: Nobody wants to believe in simple villains anymore. Everybody's looking for the twist, the conspiracy, the stealthy cabal.

Take this poll of young Germans: Nearly 1 in 3 thinks the U.S. orchestrated September 11!

I liked the Germans better when they were just razor-sharp automatons who made boxy sedans. Now they're trying to outFrench the frogs.

BLAH BLAH BLOGGING: Random thoughts swimming through my brain this morning:

Today is a beeyootiful Chicago day. Perfect for a Cubs game. And I'm going! I rule.

Every time I tell a woman I think Kobe is innocent I expect a crack across the mouth. Instead, so far, they just agree with me.

Could the Kobe trial eventually divide us more along gender lines than race lines? We'll see.

The time for finding a full-time job again is drawing near, and I'm actually excited about it. Either that or I'm just trying to forge a guilt-free path to my afternoon at Wrigley.

My son is making frog noises from his crib. Time to go get him.

DAILY CASUALTY REPORT: Three more soldiers dead today. Horrible. Why does it feel worse to lose them one or two or three at a time than it does to lose, say, twenty, in a single battle?

This is the nation-building quagmire, yes, quagmire, that Bush spoke out against during the campaign. This is the no-win situation you end up in after you wage a successful conquest these days. Victories can be won in a week and then lost over a decade. I believed in this war, and I still believe in it, as much as you can believe in something like war. Still it feels awful, this post-war reconstruction or occupation or whatever it is, like a terminal disease creeping slowly through the system, shutting down one bodily function after another.

Look for major hand-wringing over end-game strategies in the weeks and months...and years?...to come. Let me be the first to say it: I have no idea what should come next.