The Cougar Lounge - A Spunky Bluff

"We believe text messaging and instant messaging are both highly unprofessional in the recruiting process. You wouldn't use text messaging to contact an employer when searching for a job, and it's unlikely that an employer would contact you with a text message to offer you the job."

- Vice chairman of the Division I Student-Athlete Advisory Committee Kerry Kenny reiterating one of the reasons why the NCAA rejected – again - the use of text messaging for recruiting last month.

"If there's an offensive ad, we'll gang up on the advertiser."

- National Organization for Women president Kim Grandy indicating that she gets ready for today's Super Bowl in her own special way.

"It's like hitting a shot in the Rose Bowl."

- Professional golfer Tom Lehman, speaking about the rowdy 16th hole at the FBR Open in Scottsdale, Arizona – and not implying that the BCS Taliban is involved in any way.

"She has the good fortune of going through this while Britney Spears is making her look like Annette Funicello."

- The editor of Blender magazine, Joe Levy, comparing the downward spiral of singer Amy Winehouse now, ironically, in rehab, to the downward spiraling antics of Spears and showing us he has an intriguing definition of "good fortune".

The entire sporting world – well, at least the entire sporting world as it pertains to the United States of America – will be symbolically [or, in some cases, literally] making their windows to the outside world opaque today. They will be oblivious – perhaps even joyously so – to the outside world because today is that sacred American holiday – Super Bowl Sunday. People from all walks of life will be found today either rooting for the New England Patriots, the New York Giants, for a scoring player to do the "chicken dance", for halftime entertainer Tom Petty to do the "chicken dance" or for the margarita blender to go faster. The Lounge has the Blenderizer 3000 model so we do not have to worry about the latter, which means we can spend all of our waking moments as we always do every Super Bowl Sunday – cataloging the best and worst Super Bowl Ads.

Already the excitement has been building into a crescendo with KFC's enticements to players and Petty to perform the aforementioned "chicken dance" which ESPN football analyst and Dallas Cowboys' receiver Terrell Owens has already said will be the key to determining who wins the actual football game today – and if T.O says it, well, you know what that means [check to see if the vault containing the hallucinogenic Belvedere vodka has been breached]. But the excitement in the Lounge will, as always, revolve around how many ads will Budweiser pepper us with this year and will the percentage of good ones outweigh the percentage of bad ones? Who will be the Envious Newbies Emerald Nuts Award Winner for the wittiest ad? Who will be this year's Kevin Federline? Who will receive this year's sought-after GoDaddy Wrath Of Khan Award sure to overwhelm the sensitivities of politically correct America? [With Rupert's Fox Sports running the show, the standards are, of course, set lower this year]. All of this and more can be found and measured at YouTube's Super Bowl Ad Page.

There are, naturally, other sporting events going on today – and some of them are even collegiate events – but the big news in the collegiate sporting world occurred last week when USC's O.J. Mayo became yet another OJ at USC to get in and out of trouble by others taking the rap for him and then there were a bunch of yahoos [no relation to Yahoo! which will soon, seemingly, be part of Microsoft] allegedly from a Philadelphia radio station making prank calls to basketball conference calls around the country and asking questions like "Are you still having sex with your players?" to Bob Huggins of Cincinnati. Predictably, the conferences involved were not amused.

Fortunately, all the schools from the best conferences were spared – and we know what you are thinking – how do you know that, Mr. Smarty Pants? Well, it just so happens that Forbes magazine unveiled their best sports schools – measured by how many athletes they produce for the pro leagues in their respective sports – and the Pac-10 made a good showing in baseball and soccer where USC and UCLA were at the top of the heaps. The much-hated Duke was on top in men's hoop and Miami was the king in football while Michigan took the overall title.

Just before our web cables snapped to India, depriving us of valuable outsourced tech support and call center services as well as the ability to quickly look up Nikki Cappelli on YouTube, we could not happen but notice that USA Today and CSTV tied the knot and now USAToday.com will have access to all of CSTV's video library and put CSTV's GameTracker on their front page – both of which will likely come in handy come March Madness time.

"Why can't the Cougs hit their free throws when it counts?" mourns Stan Ford, who came out of the woodwork just for this week.

Well, Stan, that – along with the probable array of chemicals everybody in the Lounge is suspecting the Pac-10 officials have been sniffing - has been a question plaguing all Cougkind for the last 96 hours or so and mankind for pretty much their entire existence, or as long as Dr. James Naismith nailed those two peach baskets to the wall and tried to toss a soccer ball into it, reportedly going a horrid 2-for-9. Free throw shooting is all mental except for the physical part that requires your muscles to replicate the same energy and motion that were successful for the last made free throw – this is probably the part where the Cougs went awry last week – especially against the Trees, where they missed six free throws in the last 3:33 of regulation play that likely would have clinched the victory. These are the ways things go with the human body and some time down the line, later in the season, some basketballs will go through the net in the Cougars' favor and it will all work out in the end. But for now, WSU absorbed two tough, close home losses and are now, for the most part, out of the conference title race, barring a rather unlikely, large collapse from the UCLA Bruins. They are, however, still alive for second place, but must begin that quest in typically tough fashion – facing the impending conference champ Bruins and USC at home next week. The Pac-10 officials can already smell the chemicals.

"I'm excited about the recruiting class the new football staff has put together," says Mr. Joe So-And-So, of the new football recruits who will sign their letters of intent this week.

What do ya know, Joe, there is a renewed sense of something – we are not sure we can categorize it as "excitement" necessarily, but definitely it is a warm, fuzzy feeling toward this new football recruiting class that is gradually moving up the spine and progressing toward the brain amongst the Lounge clientele and Cougar fans and well-wishers in general. The majority of the clientele tends to not get too worked up about any recruiting class until they have seen the athletes in action in both the competitive and academic environment, but there is no mistake that a groundswell of positive force is beginning to form with the arrival of new head coach Paul Wulff and his staff and if that can translate into victories on the field and in the classroom beginning next season, watch out for a Mount St. Helensesque eruption of joy on the Palouse.

With the Super Bowl today and everybody's eyeballs glued to the television to judge the worthiness of ads and whether or not advertising companies actually employ intelligent people or not, the Lounge figured we would get the ball rolling and show people what good ads look like so they will have high creative expectations before the big game. Well, a caveat, they are not all good ideas, here are some mostly good visual ads - we are not sure the noose works for us and we are pretty sure the gun in Betty Lou's handbag does not and hope that is not the online store for the American Society of Pain Educators.

Finally, the Lounge Scientists have some bad news and some good news on Super Bowl Sunday. Nearly everyone will be plopped down on a couch or chair or turtle-shaped footstool or whatever you happen to have in the room that is appropriate for setting a derriere on whilst watching the barrage of ads [and, okay, the game]. But that sedentary lifestyle of eating guacamole and chips and drinking margaritas, if practiced too often, could result in losing a few years of one's life – that's the bad news – boooo! Scientists have measured telomeres – the DNA on the ends of each human's chromosomes – of active lifestyle people and those practicing, well, shall we say, not-so-active lifestyles – and discovered that those with active lifestyles can add as much as 10 years to their life spans if they exercise more frequently – that's the good news – yay! Unfortunately, Super Bowl ad-viewing parties are not conducive to telomere-lengthening, so it will be individuals to get active themselves – and don't think some magic substance will do the trick for you either [we know you're older now, but you hearing the Scientists okay, Sly?].

"These days, older folks spend more and more money on various dietary supplements in the hope of aging more slowly, but really they would be better off keeping the money and just walking the dog more often," says Lounge Scientist #54, David Gems, a researcher at University College in London, who, reportedly, has no plans to watch the Super Bowl and will be out in the park practicing the chicken dance.

He will be joining the Lounge clientele, who will be showcasing their chicken dance exhibition at halftime.

+++++++sponsored by Clark's Restaurant+++++++++

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