CougZone.com - The Cougar Lounge - Competitive Head Bobbing

October 18, 2009

The Lounge

"I don't think we've ever played so well. I think this is the most fun I've had playing together as a team and I think the crowd is just an extension of our team family that makes it so much fun."

- Wazzu sophomore volleyball athlete Meagan Ganzer, after last week's sweep of USC.

"You can all take it up the [posterior]."

- Argentina head soccer coach and former World Cup star Diego Maradona, speaking eloquently to his critics after Argentina clinched their World Cup berth for 2010 last week.

"Another signature Charlie Weis loss."

- Anonymous Notre Dame fan and well-wisher on his way out of the stadium after USC had beaten Notre Dame for the eighth consecutive time last week.

"I remember when I was a little boy and I was afraid to sleep near an open window because I thought Frankenstein would come in and get me. My mother, who wanted the window open because it was hot, tried to turn it into a joke and said - 'Now why would Frankenstein come all the way here to get you? He would have to take a boat, and then a train, and then transfer to a trolley where he would have to pay all those fares, and then he would have to climb up this old fire escape to get to the fifth floor just to pick on you.'"

- American film legend Mel Brooks, describing a particular sliver of his childhood.

The Lounge was busy last week preparing for tonight's Monty Python-fest and also constructing an elaborate hoax - one that was more believable to the general public than last week's was to the media. Boy in a balloon? Anybody heard about little Timmy falling down the well? In order to encroach on insanity in society, the Lounge will have to make it good. The kid angle was good - everybody jumps to the defense of defenseless little humans - but in this case, the flaw was rooted in the indirect cause - defenseless little humans tend to have stupid adult humans as their parents and other humans who do not work in large media corporations and are not easily swayed by the actions of stupid adult humans who have been on reality television shows before, are not likely to care about the actions of such a human being. So the Lounge has to come up with a better angle so that the average Midwestern housewife will stop watching Oprah long enough to care about our extremely relevant yet contrived emergency situation. Police chase? Naw, too formulaic. Crazy guy holed up in a cabin? Naw, too Hollywood. It is getting close to Halloween, perhaps there can be some sabotage at the candy factory - a crazy dentist has decided enough is enough. Nobody listens to his yearly late October warnings to cut down on the Reese's peanut butter cups and Skittles and he is finally taking matters into his own hands and has abducted every truck driver in America and is keeping them confined in a giant chamber underneath Old Faithful geyser in Yellowstone. No truck drivers means no candy can be delivered - a sinister plot sure to cause suburban horror.

Okay, so it needs a little more work - maybe a lot of work - but that was only because our first idea to cause widespread fake panic was already shot down. We figured we would get a bunch of old cell phones from the Missouri athletic department and sent our evil minion to do exactly that. The plan was eerily similar to the recent Letterman gambit only we would threaten to expose some painful and nasty things gleaned from the cell phone texts unless we were paid large wads of American cash and given the rights to the television reality series that would eventually be based upon our exploits. Unfortunately, we failed to take into account the fact that Missouri athletic department employees never say anything interesting and therefore, there was no need to cause mass hysteria on the major news channels or even Oprah [where many non-interesting things are often discussed for eon-like lengths of time].

With plans for both world domination and Oprah-influenced mass hysteria temporarily in limbo, the next best thing the Lounge could muster this week was noting that Comcast has decided that they would like to get in on a little of this sports gig action where ESPN seems to have cornered the market. Comcast would like to take majority control of NBC Universal [NBCU] - and that would mean control of the Olympics through 2012 [at least], some NFL football games through 2013 and yes, Notre Dame football and their Oprah-like fan base. Comcast already owns Versus, which has the Tour de France, hockey and some college football coverage, and the Golf Channel as well as a slew of regional networks. It would not be a major competitor to ESPN at the outset, but it could be better than having ESPN trying to shove SEC college football down everybody's throats for the next few years.

Although possession of a functioning brain has never been a prerequisite for appearing in the Lounge, there are some lines that need to be drawn. So it is with an easy parade wave that we skip on by the inanity of a Louisiana judge mired in his own mental sludge who refuses to marry interracial couples and move on to the really important news - namely, that Morehouse College is banning the wearing of women's clothing. Oh, did we forget to mention that Morehouse is an all-male college and that it is not located in San Francisco, but rather, Atlanta? Sorry about that. Wait a minute though?.should not women's clothing be an option at an all-male college? It seems like that is one of the major interests whenever a group of guys gets together and since it is all guys at Morehouse, what is the problem? Too much pink? Well, no, not exactly. It just seems to be aimed at five particular people out of an enrollment of 2700. That is less than 1% of the campus population causing a massive policy change and borderline hysteria. Hmmmm?.women's clothing beats truck drivers underneath a geyser - these always seem to come out of left field.

Meanwhile, the crack Lounge research department put on their sun dresses and stilettos and went back to work because they have recently discovered the top 10 markets where adults purchase beer at stadiums and arenas and if you guessed "somewhere in Wisconsin" - you would be wrong. St. Louis takes the top prize followed by Phoenix and then shamefully, Milwaukee slinks by in third place [although Green Bay emerges for a Top 10 finish in ninth]. Here at the Lounge, we like beer but we have a better option as we break out our free nog dispenser just before Halloween. Beer is good for some people but nog - especially free nog - cannot be beat.

"Is it just a matter of time now?" asks Anne Droid, about Wazzu's chances to make the NCAA tournament field in soccer next month.

Time and results, Anne. Wazzu took a large leap forward last week when the Cougars defeated Arizona State on the road. That was victory number one of four they will likely need in conference play to secure an NCAA berth. If Wazzu takes care of business against Arizona today in Tucson, the Cougars will be halfway to potentially nailing down that return trip to the NCAA tourney but more importantly, if they beat [or tie, although that would not be as convincing] the Wildcats, they will remain unbeaten in the Pac-10 after two weeks of play with all the major title contenders [Stanford, UCLA, USC, California] scheduled to visit Pullman this year. That is important because head coach Matt Potter's record at Cougarland Field since he took over the reins of the program in 2003 is an overwhelming 33-12-9. Now, to be fair, not all those victories have come against teams of the same caliber as Stanford and California, who will be visiting Pullman on Friday and Sunday afternoon - Potter is 2-1 against Cal and 0-2-1 against Stanford in Pullman during his tenure] but it bodes well for their chances to insert themselves into contention for a chance to win the Pac-10 outright - something the Cougars have never been able to do since the soccer program began 20 years ago.

"They are not there yet, are they?" asks Sloppy Joe of the Cougars' volleyball split with USC and UCLA last weekend.

You are quite right, Joe. The Cougars essentially held serve in their quest to get to the NCAA tournament this year for the first time in seven years. A home sweep of the two Los Angeles schools probably would have put them in a good position to assure themselves of a bid while being swept would have had the opposite effect and put them in a bad position. But the Cougars did neither and split the series, meaning that their 38 RPI from last week should remain mostly unchanged this week since they defeated the higher RPI team [USC] but lost to the lower RPI team at home. If the Cougars, as expected, stay in the 30s in the RPI this week, they will probably not drop much if they lose to rival Washington [8 RPI] later this week but they will have to gain at least a split on the road in Arizona next week - and a sweep would probably be enough to vault them into the low 30s. Eight Pac-10 wins is likely to be the magic number the Cougars will need to achieve to receive an NCAA berth, so even with the home split this weekend, they are halfway there with 10 conference matches left in the season.

Okay, enough messing around! Now it gets serious! Now, we are going for the jugular! It is all over because the Fat Lady has sung and we are bringing you to the Edge of Sports, where you can still see what a lovely representation of the human race Rush Limbaugh is still being as he awaits his final approval process in becoming a full-fledged member of the cockroach species.

The Lounge Scientists were intrigued by Limbaugh's mysteriously large ego, conducted some research and found what had been suspected all along - those with hurt egos tend to become more aggressive due to a perceived damaged ego. Scientists at USC and California teamed up on a pair of research projects where a combination of 90 men and women were asked, among other things, what kind of punishments they would mete out to university students for giving wrong answers on a test of learning. Those who were identified in a separate test as most empowered yet also incompetent gave the harshest punishments.

"Power holders feel they need to be superior and competent. When they don't feel they can show that legitimately, they'll show it by taking people down a notch or two," says Lounge Scientist #14, Nathanael Fast, a social psychologist at USC, who reputedly tossed Pete Carroll's ego into the blender before conducting the research.

The Lounge senses the beginnings of an elaborate hoax attempt here - a super-inflated ego, some cross-dressing, perhaps some nog dispenser abuse - it is all coming together nicely. Look for it this week on all the major news outlets - oh, and Oprah, of course.

+++++++sponsored by Giant Release+++++++++

Attention COUGAR fans and well-wishers! The athletic season is here and advertisers are like quarterbacks - how would you like to be the quarterback who threw the game-winning pass that was caught by 30+ million unduplicated consumers in the youth 12-17 and male 18-49 demographic markets through an integrated partnership that offers entrance to top web portals? You are no dummy, so of course you would. Website owners are like the receivers who, in collaboration with their experienced online media veteran teammates at online media consultancy Giant Release, can help make that diving touchdown catch to win the game. The quarterbacks at GR can provide the advantages your website is seeking during this upcoming athletic season with their exclusive selection of genre-specific top-tier games, entertainment, male lifestyle, action and college sports content. The season is about to begin, don't to be a benchwarmer.

FEATURED PRODUCT