The Cougar Lounge - Emperor Universe

"I am very proud of our team. We played tremendous for 87 minutes but it is a 90-minute match. Stanford showed why it is the #1 team in the nation and we have to find a way to build on the positives in our performance."

- Wazzu head soccer coach Matt Potter, after last week's near-upset of Stanford in Pullman.

"I felt like we had 30 penalties."

- Wazzu head football coach Paul Wulff, after his Cougars were penalized 13 times in last week's loss to California.

"I said the chant one day and there was a black family sitting in front of me and they turned around and gave me this look like I hurt them."

- Former University of Mississippi student body president and current law school student Roun McNeill deciding to refrain from a popular chant at the school which includes the phrase "the south will rise again".

"Once, the team asked for a polar bear costume for a sketch, which was very difficult to get a hold of, and we couldn't hire one, so we had to use a gorilla suit instead. They were very good about it, but it was clear they'd have preferred the polar bear."

- Costume designer Hazel Pethig, who spent most of her adult life as the costume designer for the Monty Python comedy troupe and their various films and projects afterward.

The Lounge was hearing faint praises last week. Phrases such as "oh, you're so good, we'll never go to another Lounge again" and "if only we had found a Lounge like you when we were young, we would not have had to waste so much time with peanut butter and a bowl of chocolate ice cream". But then we realized it was all a dream - which is not to be confused with an elaborate hoax like Balloon Boy or the BCS Taliban - merely a dream, like those dream sequences they used to do in soap operas when the writers ran out of creative juice in the middle of the night and were letting the pepperoni pizza and three Mountain Dews do the talking for them. In our dream, we were flying to Minneapolis, only we overflew the airport because we fell asleep, then, like they do in the soap operas, we had to make up an excuse and our excuse was that we flew past the airport because we were in a heated argument over whether or not we could fly our plane farther in 45 minutes than the Pope could drive his Popemobile in two days. But then we had to make up a Plan B excuse so the Feds and the Pope would get off our backs for making a mockery of airline fuel prices and the Popemobile, so we decided to say we were in a heated argument about airline policy, perhaps facial hair. Anyway, then we woke up and discovered that once again, it already occurred in real life - this always happens to the Lounge! Real live people stealing our ideas after we dreamed them up! Well, except the part about the Popemobile and some other bits - but it was mostly our dream. Then, of course, nobody believed the actual pilots until they produced a strand of Amelia Earhart's hair and proclaimed - "What do you think about us now!? We're legit and so is that strand of hair!" - Just wait until you see us on Oprah! She's legit too, you know! In fact, she's too legit to quit!" Then we fell asleep again.

Before we nodded off - and since we were already, figuratively speaking, in Minnesota - it pays to take a visit to the sleepy little burg of Proctor, Minnesota where men are men and they can crash their motorized La-Z-Boy chairs into a parked car if they damn well please - no explanations to the Pope required. The police, maybe, but not the Pope. This being Minnesota, and in recognition of the previous dream sequence, the Lounge feels it is an unnecessary formality, but will point out that the man was drunk at the time of his chair-driving incident [something about "eight or nine beers, occifer…"] although he proceeded to blame it on an unauthorized woman passenger altering his course.

Moving out of Minnesota, the Lounge travels to Nigeria [that is in Africa, for those still unsure about their geography], where we have learned that Nigerian officials have actually decided - after, oh, only 10 years or so - to crack down on internet scams originating within the country that is causing damage to the country's international reputation and depleting hillbilly grandma bank accounts everywhere. Nigerian officials are teaming up with Microsoft to go after internet scam artists and other sources of fraudulent e-mails. The officials claim they have already shut down 800 websites but are awaiting more money to be wired to their bank accounts to shut down more.

Closer to home, the Lounge comes clean - we have always [always being defined as a real long time] been on Nike's case ever since the well-documented sweat shop revelations, over-the-top and invasive advertising techniques and of course, there is Uncle Phil. However, the Lounge is not stubborn and will readily acknowledge when Nike does something good and that is right here. The shoes, to the Lounge's distinctive eye, have a that three-stripe Adidas look to them, but nevertheless, the idea behind it is superb and the Lounge officially condones and endorses this Nike venture. Just this one time.

Meanwhile, the crack Lounge research staff was all on edge because they had been conducting research into which American cities had been drinking the most energy drink beverages. Naturally, with all the hubbub coming out of Minnesota this week, they were expecting several Minnesota cities to show up on the Top 10 list, but it turns out they are drinking [or perhaps, smoking] something else up there. Five California cities and four Texas cities dominate the list - led by Bakersfield, off all places. The only non-California and non-Texas city on the list is Las Vegas in third place - and anybody surprised by that may want to fly an airplane to Minneapolis.

"It's in the bag now!" says an excitable Billy Hill, the Headless Hoarse Man, about Wazzu's chances to make the NCAA tournament field in volleyball next month after their upset victory over the rival and highly ranked Huskies.

Not so fast, Billy. While Wazzu's win over the Huskies in the first part of volleyball's version of the Apple Cup was impressive, it was just that - only one win. The Cougars will need at least three more Pac-10 wins to secure an NCAA berth. Wazzu is currently in third place and can drop to no lower than seventh place in order to put themselves in a likely position to make the tourney. That means, with nine conference matches remaining, they will probably need to win at least two and more likely, three, to get a good shot at the bid. Based on results so far, the Cougars will be reasonably expected to win at least four of those remaining conference matches - Arizona, Arizona State, USC and Oregon State - but could also win four of the other five as well [the match against UCLA in Los Angeles, notwithstanding]. If Wazzu gets to nine wins in conference play then it will become not a race to get into the NCAA, but an opportunity to improve their seeding for the tournament - but this week's road matches against the Arizona schools will be crucial in determining their fate.

"That was a heartbreaker," says Union Jack of the Cougars' near-upset of top-ranked Stanford in soccer last weekend.

Yes it was, Jack. The Cougars had the match all but won after fending off the Cardinal for over 30 minutes after senior Elysse Van Leer had put Wazzu ahead, 1-0, early in the second half in the 53rd minute of the match. The Cougar defense made that slim lead stand up until the last 10 minutes of regulation play when Stanford unleashed an assault of eight shots on the defense until one finally trickled by goalkeeper Meghan Berlingo. The Cougars were only 3:12 away from what would have been the biggest soccer victory in school history - still, a tie against the top-ranked Cardinal could be had and that would be respectable. Alas, Stanford was not to be denied their victory and took only a bit over four minutes to score in overtime and end the match. In a span of eight minutes, the Cougars went from potential delirium and unrivaled achievement to credible and respectable result to utter despair and missed opportunity. However, just like the volleyball team's win over Washington, this is only one match. If the Cougars respond well this morning in their match against California at Cougarland Field, then they will remain in a good position to make the NCAA tournament for the second consecutive year. The resounding positive to be taken from the overtime loss to Stanford is that Wazzu has officially arrived on the NCAA soccer scene. With a pair of 2-1 losses to national title contenders Portland and Stanford - both matches they could have won - offsets the earlier season loss to Florida State [4-1] and establishes the Cougars as a force in the conference and region. Now all they have to do is maintain consistency for the final five matches of the season and they can reasonably expect their second consecutive NCAA berth next month.

The Lounge's relative from another mother on another planet - the Telepathic Tabernacle had a good week last week and the TeleTab gives all the credit to this commercial for Australia's Sports Bet On The Net. The caveman soccer scene is inspiration enough but the scientist caressing the computer seals the deal.

The Lounge Scientists fell asleep while they were doing research and when scientists fall asleep, they dream about who else - Albert Einstein and Thomas Edison. In the midst of their dreams, the scientists dreamt that their was a human reaction time of .05 seconds, but when they woke up, they knew this was not true because research has determined that the best human reaction time ever measured is closer to .066 - which is rounded up to .1 second. That means the only way a human can get a better start in, say, a 100-meter sprint is if he or she anticipates the starter's pistol closely enough that it is undetectable for a false start.

"We live in a tenth-of-a-second world," said now-deceased Lounge Scientist #.1, Arthur Kennelly, who was Edison's electrical engineer and who reportedly reacted well to dying because he helped to invent the electric chair.

The Lounge fell asleep while producing this week's Lounge and flew all the way to Tahiti because it is more interesting than flying past Minneapolis. Zzzzzzzz.

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