Tuesday, July 07, 2009

Blog Chips is back from vacation

Alright people, I'm back from oblivion. I managed to survive a vicious work schedule last week. I managed to survive time with the family over the weekend. I managed to survive a couple nights out without ending up in jail (barely) and I managed to survive a day at Hershey Park without choking some out of control kid's dad.* Let's get things caught up, shall we?

We can't let this continue

This Friday marks the 7th annual "Lift for Life" event which benefits the Kidney Cancer Association.

This year's event is scheduled for Friday, July 10, from 2-7 p.m. in Holuba Hall, which is located directly across from the East Area Locker Room and adjacent to the Lasch Football Building.

"Lift For Life" is open to the public with a suggested donation of $5 per student or child and $10 per adult. But you don't have to attend to help.

Donations can also be made in advance and credited to your favorite player's fundraising total by visiting www.liftforlife.upliftingathletes.org.

You can donate in the name of your favorite player here with the roster and totals found here. Why the title of this blog chip, because someone named "Ryan Gmerek" has successfully raised $2,855 dollars while Sean Lee sits at ninety bucks. This can't go on people let's get out those checkbooks!

Creepy 18-year-old watching alert!

If you haven't noticed, I've bailed out of the recruiting biz a long time ago and even though Penn State is having a great year, I don't plan to get back into recruiting anytime soon. These guys do a much better job and quite frankly guys like Tom Lemming give me the willies. Having said that I would be remiss if I didn't mention that PSU signed wide receiver Levi Norwood last week. Levi wasn't a big name prospect and didn't have the OMG!!!, 5-star rating that recruitnicks seem to think a player must have but he is the son of former PSU secondary coach Brian Norwood and the younger brother of Jordan Norwood. Now some people are going to cry foul and claim this is a legacy scholarship and Penn State shouldn't be wasting their time on no-names, blah, blah, blah, but remember… this was the kind of stuff we heard about Jordan when he signed with PSU four years ago… how did that turn out?

You had me at Terrelle Pryor

ESPN, and Bruce Feldman specifically, have a top 10 list of the must-see games of 2009. No, Penn State is not listed in the top 6 (for the last four you need to be an "insider", yeah see if that gets you anyone signing up ESPN) but one early season tilt involves a fellow Big Ten school:

USC at Ohio State, Sept. 12: I'm not sure this game is as much a proving-ground battle as last year's at USC was for Ohio State. My sense is that if the Buckeyes handle the Trojans here, it'll still be a big win, but not monumental in the pollsters' eyes. It'll be too easy for critics to write it off, saying that this was the first road game the Trojans' new QB (Aaron Corp or Matt Barkley) ever played. Plus, USC lost so many guys to the NFL on defense. That wouldn't be fair to the Buckeyes, given that they lost a ton to the NFL as well. If OSU does win, they figure to cruise to a 9-0 start before facing Penn State in Happy Valley. This might be the game in which Terrelle Pryor emerges as a superstar.

First off, I love the limp-noodle, pod-like thinking of the main stream media, it's so refreshing. It goes like this:

A) There's a chance Ohio State could beat USC

B) We love USC and hate the Big Ten

C) This could make OSU and by extension the Big Ten look good

D) This could make USC look bad and we want them in the title game against a SEC school (we love the SEC even more than USC)

E) Because of all of the above let's downplay this game even before the season starts so a USC loss can be played off when we rank the Trojans over a more deserving team later in the year

Secondly, I want so so so bad to root for the Buckeyes in this game, honestly I do, but even if Terrelle Pryor scratches his balls, hands the ball off 45 times, never attempts a pass and OSU wins, the TP over-hype machine will be in overdrive and I'm not sure if I can handle it. Nonetheless there's no way I root for USC, I just can't bring myself to do it.

Fahrenheit 411

If I can give you one piece of advice from my experiences this weekend it's this: if you plan on visiting the wonderful world of Hershey Park in glorious southeastern PA anytime soon, don't miss their newest roller coaster: Fahrenheit. It was put in a year ago and I didn't get a chance to ride it because the lines were so horribly long but this year you will only wait about 30 minutes on a weekday** and it's well worth that wait. I love roller coasters about as much as I love beer*** and this one's a can't-miss. So yeah, there's Hershey Park's free add space at no charge.


*I did however knock the shit out of some kid's bumper car when he got stuck and couldn't figure out how to go backwards. Hey, I don't care if you're six years old when I get behind the wheel of a bumper car I'm out for blood.

**Also new this year is Water Park which I would totally recommend you skip but if it's a hot day everyone flocks to the water leaving the roller coaster lines empty, so tip two is pick a sunny hot day.

***Ok, so totally not true but unlike beer the shaky hands and disorientation go away rather quickly after getting off roller coasters.

3 comments:

jd said...

after the OSU game, USC's schedule isn't really all that difficult.

Assuming USC goes undefeated for the rest of the schedule, and OSU loses to PSU on the road, where do you think USC will be ranked?

if you answered "ahead of any big 10 team", treat yourself to a beer in the fridge.

Galen said...

Thank you I did treat myself to a beer in the fridge.

It's really a moot point because we all know that USC will lose its annual head scratcher to someone in the Pac 10 that they should have killed.

jd said...

...and then we will all point, laugh, and have another beer.

and then the circle will be complete.