The Cougar Lounge - The Mountainous Mole Hill

"I was in favor of reducing games. Baseball players have the toughest balance in playing in all those games and balancing it with academics. It's even more difficult for us as a northern school because we have to travel so much."

- Wazzu athletic director Jim Sterk, speaking about the recent NCAA reduction in baseball games from 56 down to 52 games.

"I am just beside myself."

- USC head football coach, Pete Carroll, after losing again to the Oregon State Beavers in Corvallis. The Lounge knows what comes next - USC athletic director Mike Garrett will now try to convince Pac-10 commissioner Tom Hansen to get the conference schedule changed so that OSU always has to play the Trojans in L.A. – just like everybody had to do back in the day with McKay.

"People celebrated in a happy way."

- Corvallis police captain John Sassaman, describing the Corvallis party scene after the Beavers' win differing from the ruckus in Eugene where 250 people rioted on the same evening even though Oregon was not playing that evening.

"In a way, you can't be a writer unless you have some sort of personality problem. Balanced people don't become writers, obviously. Balanced people become gardeners, they raise happy families, they go to work every day, they smile. They have noodle salad."

- Writer Paul Theroux, describing the difference between writers and normal people.

After a team loses a game by a large margin, there is no more reason to display a bellicose disposition. The same goes for the scenario when your favorite team does not achieve the stated goal of the year, say, making the playoffs, In major league baseball – which the Lounge generally tries to avoid because of the continuing, rampant spitting epidemic - the New York Yankee fans found themselves in this exact predicament this year when their beloved Yankees were eliminated from playoff contention in the same exact year their beloved Yankee Stadium was going to be torn down and replaced with, presumably, a shinier, happier stadium. How did New York Yankee fans react to this turn of events? Why, with all the grace and aplomb one has come to expect out of New York Yankee fans over the years – they stole everything they could get their grimy hands on.

Cougar fans and well-wishers are far, far above Yankee fans in the natural order of things – even back in the day when they are tearing out benches during a football game against USC, they were essentially responding to their inner civic duty child-like voice saying, "Look, we know Martin Stadium needs to be renovated, why don't we do our part of reducing construction costs by being proactive and tearing out these seats now?". This weekend, you did not see them stealing chunks of the scoreboard, toilet handles from the new "facilities" or even those little bits of rubber from the FieldTurf – those things get into everything, like beach sand. Even when faced with some possibly unpleasant future circumstances – namely that the Cougars might have the teensiest, eeensiest, weeniest chance of getting blown out by future Pac-10 opponents on their schedule - head coach Paul Wulff took a more altruistic approach and resorted to baby talk. The Cougars, he noted, still had their diapers on but "he hoped to get them off soon." Well, that fired up and inspired the entire Japanese fashion industry – and those are some people who can take an idea and run with it as the photograph clearly shows. Adult diapers can never be viewed the same way again.

But those Japanese fashionistas can be such slaves to fashion – and the last thing they need in the fashion world are a few million more lemmings. What they need is Bruno. Bruno sees the world differently.. After all, adult diapers need to be accessorized correctly.

Meanwhile, the Cougar football team as well as the will of the average Cougar fan and well-wisher was severely tested again last week in the lopsided loss to Oregon. The Cougars did not pass this test and we are not sure if the fans did, as we are still awaiting poll results from the highly volatile beer, rum and whiskey districts. We did receive the results from the vodka district – they were all passed out. But there will be yet another test – not including the big mid-term against USC next month that counts for half the grade – next week against UCLA and just so we can do our part and help the Cougars and their well-wishers not come in unprepared, we direct their eyeballs to Cramster - where they can do what every college student does best – cram for the tests.

The thing to do – obviously – is to build your own jet pack and fly away from it all. But only some people can do that, like – this Swiss guy. Everybody else is on their own.

"I was displeased with the game but, upon hours of liquid-based reflection, found myself feeling much better later in the evening," reports Miss Beverly Hills in the aftermath of the football team's 63-14 loss to Oregon, which means Oregon has now outscored WSU, 116-21 in the last two years.

Hours upon hours of game watching just produced nightmares of the same old refrain in a Glenn Johnson intonation – and that's another Oregon rushing touchdown! – for much of the Lounge clientele, but we are happy that you were able to find liquid relief, Miss B. Everybody knew it was going to be a tall order to give an Oregon State-esque performance against Oregon, but – just in case - the stadium was full and the crowd was ready. Unfortunately for Cougar fans and well-wishers, when redshirt freshman quarterback Marshall Lobbestael fumbled on the first offensive possession and Oregon scored and junior running back Chris Ivory fumbled again on the ensuing kickoff and Oregon scored again – what was feared to be a long day for the Cougars was in danger of turning into a long week or perhaps, month. Oregon covered the 21-point Vegas spread in a mere seven minutes of first quarter play and every one of their seven rushing touchdowns was easy as were the Ducks' two passing touchdowns. When Nico Grasu missed a 45-yard field goal attempt in the first quarter, the clientele was beginning to worry that Wazzu might also be in danger of losing the nation's second-longest scoring streak. But Lobbestael later threw a touchdown pass to Jeshua Anderson and – much later – threw another one to Michael Willis to preserve the streak. Other than that, not much else needs preserving about this game for the Cougars. After the fumble on the initial possession, Lobbestael tossed two picks to negate his two touchdowns, but Father Lotto has decreed – and the clientele has concurred - that he is off the hook seeing as he was making his first start. Much of the defense, however, were not making their first starts though and will need to improve quickly because this week's game against UCLA is one of the few this year that will be categorized in the "winnable" column.

"18 years? Are you kidding me!?" yelps Marcus O'Realius about Wazzu's unbeaten streak against Gonzaga in soccer.

Now, would we kid about a thing like that, Marcus? Wazzu is undefeated against 35 schools in their 19-year existence as a soccer program but the vast majority of those are of the 1-0 or 2-0 variety in the "series". To give you an idea of the impressive nature of this accomplishment, there are only two programs who the Cougars have played more than five times and remain undefeated against - Seattle University [7-0] and Gonzaga [17-0-1]. But the Cougars have not had a regular series with Seattle - which was making their return to Division I this year – like they have had with the Zags. Except for a brief three-year hiatus from the series during the reign of former head coach and now-Arizona head coach Dan Tobias, Wazzu and GU have played every year since the Cougar program's second year of existence and it has been all Cougars during those two decades of play – to the tune of an 87-6 goal differential domination in favor of Wazzu. That includes two matches where things got out of hand early in the series and resulted in 13-0 and 15-0 victories for Wazzu in 1990 and 1991, respectively. Making the feat even more impressive is the fact that Gonzaga has been more tenacious in the last three years, with the Cougars having to go to overtime twice to win and GU getting their only tie [0-0] in the series in 2006. The win and continued dominance over the Zags will undoubtedly help 4-2-3 Wazzu as they continue their NCAA quest only two weeks removed from their first Pac-10 match of the year at UCLA.

Speaking of GU diminutive victory numerals, that reminds the Lounge of "guimp" – otherwise known as the world's smallest website. Once you get past the tiny splashes of water, the flash bits and the tiny blog, you can eventually find the personal blog of creator Alan Outten and see a genuine reproduction of the apple phone which is not related to big, rich uncle Apple and described thusly – "It has man-made seeds but they use nature as their energy source, which means that everything about them is like a tree, but actually it's not. It produces apples that are used as telephones, so if you're having a private conversation, you can just eat the apple!"

Finally, the Lounge Scientists may have hit upon a second option for Cougar fans and well-wishers this football season who do not want to resort to drinking themselves into a stupor every week to better absorb the game results – it is called sleep. The scientists have discovered that tiny little spider mites, upon smelling the odor of predatory mites in the vicinity, have a tendency toward putting themselves in diapause, or, a deep hibernation-like sleep. In other words, when detecting the smell of death approaching, they knock themselves out.

"Spider mites in diapause cannot revert to normal life for several weeks," says Lounge Scientist #15, Martijn Egas, a researcher at the University of Amsterdam, who is reported to have been very sleepy when he made the discovery.

The Lounge feels this is an intriguing idea that should be further explored – especially as the Cougars get closer to game against USC….zzzzzzzzzzzz.

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

Attention COUGAR fans and well-wishers! Autumn is here and you have the hunger. How can you afford to go one day further without some tasty morsels from Clark's Restaurant in Grays Harbor – home of the Best Hamburger in Twin Harbors for nine consecutive years? Come in for the burger, fresh homemade fries and milkshakes concocted from homemade ice cream. Go ahead, we dare you to try and pass up more than 12 varieties of hamburgers to choose from, full dinners, lunch and full breakfast served daily. Clark's Restaurant 360.538.1487. Seven miles south of Aberdeen, Washington on Highway 101. Proud supporter of CougZone. Mention this ad for a free small ice cream.