The Cougar Lounge - Big In Japan

"The Cougars made things very, very difficult for us."

- University of Portland women's soccer coach, Garrett Smith, after Wazzu took the defending NCAA champs down to the wire before losing 2-1 in Portland last week.

"Everybody says their fans are different. Well, nobody's fans are different."

- California head football coach Jeff Tedford talking about fans' expectations for winning football games – they expect to win them all.

"It's 'Battlestar Galactica' wrapped in bacon. Everything's better wrapped in bacon, right?"

- Senior vice president of SciFi.com Craig Engler, explaining why they aired web-only Battlestar Galactica episodes until the program returns later this month.

There was a strange aroma emanating from the Lounge this week. Well, okay, stranger than usual. At first, it was decreed to be the rococo-style furniture, which was found to be distasteful by four of five dentists, three innocent bystanders and the Fed Ex guy. But we ignored all of them because they were all talking at the same time preventing the clientele from hearing about the lawsuit Anna Nicole Smith's infant daughter was filing, demanding that she be the daughter of Angelina Jolie instead, so she can get one of those cool celebrity names as well as a free trip to Namibia. But they were being too loud, so we turned to our electronic portable calling device to check out all the live college football vids on ESPN Mobile, only to receive a message that they will be tossing their mobile service off the cliff at the end of the year. The Lounge knew it was a Damien service [you know, a bad omen – do we have to explain all the jokes to you!?] when they debuted the service this year with that Florida State-Miami game and then charged an arm, two legs and a pancreas to access it. Riiight, like we were going to pony up our hard-earned Vegas casino money on vids of overrated teams instead of extra guacamole boats.

We are smarter than that and we have the GSR scores to prove it. The NCAA released those scores last week and…what?...oh, those are the Graduation Success Rates. We thought everybody was on-board with the national short attention span directive signed into law last month where everybody refers to everything by their acronym – or ANM – so there is more time to catch BRN [breaking news] about ANB [Anna Nicole's baby]. Makes it much easier while you are waiting for ESPN to be less greedy. Anyhoo, so there we were, patting ourselves on the back when Father Lotto's now deceased Uncle Lotto rose from the grave, observed this behavior and said – "I don't think people's arms are supposed to bend back that way." – then returned to his double life as a PTR [Pac-10 ref] because he liked how he could mess stuff up every week – and he was always good at messing stuff up – and still keep his job. Talk about job security! Why, that was even better than being in the Stanford Band until this year when they got put on double secret probation and he had to switch to being a ref. But now the Band is back this week for their homecoming game against Arizona – now there is a game for ESPN Mobile.

"That game was Stanford's ugly sister!" says Monty Carlo, commenting on WSU's football win over Oregon State last week.

You certainly could make a case for that analogy, Monty, and the Lounge would be hard-pressed to combat you with it. However, as "uglay" as that game was – and we do believe a capital "U" was used in describing it – it still resulted in a win, which make sit vastly different from last year's prettier game against OSU with all those high-falutin' stats that wound up being a loss. Plus, there was not a dry eye in the house [all TOJ – tears of joy] when Cougar punter Darryl Blunt ran over a hapless OSU special teams defender on an impromptu fake punt. So, ugly game with a win or pretty game with a loss, the Lounge consensus is, obviously, to take the win but not before issuing well-deserved praise for the Cougar defense, who held an OSU offense that had scored 44 points on them the previous year to only two measly field goals this year. That is a major league improvement and if the defense continues to play and improve – despite their personnel issues due to injury - as the year goes on, it could be looking better and better for bowl game prospects. Already, they are only two games away from bowl game eligibility but with a tough game against Cal coming up this week. The Bears will be coming in after taking the soul and sole away from the Oregon Nikes, head coach Jeff Tedford has a fancy green-yellow-red academic system that has evidently made the Bears smarter than your average Bear [which their mascot, Oski, is most definitely not – we are not sure what that thing is – although it most closely resembles a cross between a burnt pancake and Michael Jackson]. But perhaps the scariest part about Cal this week is that their band has no less than five DS' [drinking songs - two of them even have the words "drinking song" in their title] in their repertoire and the alleged ability to promote and play "Come On Eileen," "Fat Bottom Girls," "Stairway To Heaven," and "Time Warp." Scarier than a Cougar punter coming at you if you are an OSU special teams player – and it is not even Halloween yet.

"That was more than the cat's pajamas, it was more like the cat's smoking jacket!" says an exuberant Dereck "The Avant-Garde Left Wing Namby Pamby" Eau de Toilette, in praising the Cougars' effort against Portland in soccer last week.

Not quite as many TOJ's here because it did not result in a win and Cougar freshman Kiersten Dallstream was shedding real tears of despair after missing a possible tying shot late in the match, but the Lounge consensus was overwhelming approval. The NCAA defending champ Pilots had systematically destroyed all previous Pac-10 opponents – obliterating UW by 5-0, Oregon and OSU by 3-0 apiece and letting Arizona get the closest at 2-0. After a solid scoreless 25 first-half minutes, they got up 2-0 on WSU by halftime. But Wazzu not only scored early in the second half to become the only Pac-10 team to score on the Pilots this year – but became the aggressor and came within two eyelashes of winning the match – and snagging a large upset - on a pair of Dallstream near-misses. Even with the loss, the Cougars look strong going into conference play this week and if they can get five Pac-10 wins or no more than two losses, then the Lounge consensus is that they can make another run at the NCAA tourney.

Just to prove how tough the Cougars are going to have it this week in football, the Bears destroyed Oregon and did not even use star running back Marshawn Lynch in the second half. Lynch was dinged in the first half but the Bears were so comfortably ahead, that Lynch ordered a ham sandwich and watched Justin Forsett carve up the Nikes' defense while he rested up for his trip to Pullman. That is good news for Cal but not so good news for Lynch's site which is designed to promote his Heisman Trophy worthiness. But it will give him another Oregon highlight to add to the reel to catch up with the number of vid clips he has of running through the UCLA defense.

Finally, the Lounge Scientists were nominated in numerous categories but, unfortunately, did not win in last week's Ig Nobel prize ceremony. But the scientists bow in deference to the deserving winner – Francis Fesmire of the University of Tennessee College of Medicine – for his ground-breaking work in the area of DRM[digital rectal massage]. Intractable hiccup sufferers everywhere will be lining up at Fesmire's office to build him a shrine because he discovered a way to terminate the hiccups by digital rectal massage – the scientific terminology for inserting a finger into the patient's anus – to try and stimulate the vagus nerve, which is responsible for runaway hiccups. But, it was a one-hit wonder for Fesmire, as he has since discovered an alternative cure.

"An orgasm results in incredible stimulation of the vagus nerve. From now on, I will be recommending sex – culminating with orgasm – as the cure-all for intractable hiccups," declares Fesmire, who was reputedly busy diagnosing a patient at the time.

Maybe, instead of college football, ESPN Mobile could save their service with vid clips of hiccup cures.

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