106 Miles to Chicago

Football Weekend Recap, Week 8

Notre Dame

Ho-hum, another week, another thrilling victory. Ok, I kid. That was an amazing end to the game and yes, UCLA did help out with some VERY conservative play-calling but ND still had to go 80 yards to score and they did that in 3 plays. Not too shabby.

There are still way too many things to worry about when they are playing though. Sometimes the offense stagnates and the defense still makes me want to cover my head when they are on the field. Hopefully, they can just keep improving between now and Thanksgiving weekend when they come out here to play the Trojans.

Bears

Bears had a bye and now the 49'ers come to Chicago. I do feel bad for them.

Fantasy

Ugh, another loss. I couldn't keep my win streak alive mainly because the majority of my players did absolutely nothing for me. Hines Ward had close to half of my total points.

Recent Reads

Here's another recap of what I've been reading the last couple of weeks.

The Prestige by Christopher Priest

I picked this up in the preparation for the movie. Haven't seen the movie yet but I'm very anxious to see how it will be done. The bulk of the book is told is competing diary entries between the two magicians. How that will translate to the screen should be interesting. At any rate, the book was well-written and definitely recommended.

American Skin by Ken Bruen

I am very big fan of Bruen's work so it was a no-brainer to pick this up. I had read the opening chapter last year in the Mississippi Review and I've been waiting for the book ever since. It is not a happy book as you would expect from Bruen but there's enough humor so you won't keeping grabbing for the whiskey bottle while you read.

Caught Stealing by Charlie Huston

Great book! The journey of one man from boring to outlaw is very well done. I'm looking forward to the next two books in the Hank Thompson trilogy.

Still River by Harry Hunsicker

The main character's initials are LHO and he lives in Dallas, even better is that his first name is Lee and his last name is Oswald and he lives in Dallas. Talk about having a couple of strikes against you before you even step up to the plate. But Hank (a very smart move) lives as a private detective. I heard some great things about the book and it didn't disappoint. I read it over the weekend, good crisp writing and a story that keeps moving.

Up next is Six Bad Things by Charlie Huston, the second book of the trilogy and after that I'm not quite sure.

SoCal's Red Wind

One of my favorite blogs right now is L.A. Noir which just basically runs down some of the crazy, sad and anger-inducing events that happen here in Southern California.

A post there earlier in the week talks about the Santa Anas. If you've never been here during the Santa Anas, I don't know quite how to describe it. Perhaps this quote from Raymond Chandler's short story, Red Wind, will help:

There was a desert wind blowing that night. It was one of those hot dry Santa Anas that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands' necks. Anything can happen. You can even get a full glass of beer at a cocktail lounge.

The Boy Detective Fails

One of the next books I get is going to be Joe Meno's The Boy Detective Fails. I've heard great things about it. Here's an interview with Meno by the Sun-Times.

Litblog Co-op Autumn Read this!

Firmin by Sam Savage

I'm sure I'll get around to reading this at some point. I recently finished their first selection, Case Histories by Kate Atkinson and it was definitely worth it.

Interview w/ Michael Chabon

The Capital Times in Madison ran an interview with Michael Chabon. Sounds like he has a new book coming out in May and in January, he'll start doing the New York Times serial novel. Currently, it's being done by Michael Connelly.

Can I ask what it's about?

Essentially it's a hard-boiled kind of detective novel, I suppose, that's set in an alternate reality in which this small little Yiddish-speaking district of the United States that's in southeast Alaska was created during World War II as a supposedly temporary refuge for the Jews of Europe, but has stuck around for the next 60 years. It's facing a crisis in this moment of its existence when this homicide occurs, and this homicide detective investigates it.

I'll be waiting at the bookstore for this the very first day.

Football Weekend Recap, Week 7

Sorry for missing last week's recap..

Notre Dame

This Irish had a bye last weekend so hopefully this allowed the injuries to heal a bit and the practices to make adjustments. UCLA comes to South Bend for only the third time ever. I'm already looking forward to next year when the Irish play in the Rose Bowl for the first time since 1925. I will definitely be at the game.

Bears

Oh my goodness, what a game! I think I turned it off twice before coming back to it in the 4th quarter and obviously what I saw was nothing short of miraculous. Hopefully this woke some folks up that the Bears of 2006 are not the '85 version and that is fine with me. You can't catch lightning in a bottle twice so I would much rather this be the start of a team with a very strong nucleus, much like the Patriots, Eagles and Steelers.

This week is a bye week.

Fantasy

I finally won my first game though Rex Grossman did everything in his power to subvert me. Thankfully, I had a big enough lead where it didn't matter.

I don't think I'm totally out of making run at the playoffs but I can't lose any more games.

USC and Snakes on a Plane

My dislike of all things USC is well-known but I have to give credit where it is definitely due. Check out the band's rendition of Cobra Starship's "Snakes on a Plane." Awesome.

Winter's Bone

I couldn't agree more with this assessment of Daniel Woodrell's Winter's Bone. It's one of the best books I've read this year. Though it's a simple plot, the writing grabs you and won't let you go.

Mothers and Sons

Another book coming across the Atlantic early next year is Mothers and Sons by Colm Toibin. It's a collection of short stories so obviously it will be high on my list.

John Banville writing as Benjamin Black

One of the books I read last month was The Sea by John Banville. He won the Booker Prize for it last year and deservedly so. The book looked at memory and the past and how we can either romanticize it or possibly put it as the cause for too many of our problems.

Now, he's written a new novel, a mystery, but written under the name Benjamin Black. One review liked it and here's interview with Banville that looks at the reasons why he decided to write in a genre and what the future holds.

Thankfully, the book doesn't come out here until March. I say thankfully since there are many, many books out right now or coming out before the end of the year that I don't want my TBR pile to hit the ceiling.

Hockey Blogs

The NHL season started a couple of days ago and the Kings open up tonight against the Ducks. Here a few blogs I've been reading the last few days..

• Off Wing Opinion
• PuckUpdate
• James Mirtle, writer for the Globe and Mail
• The Battle of California
• Girl with a Puck

'Smith' is Cancelled

So, it seems one of my favorite new shows of the young television season, Smith, has been cancelled. There isn't currently word if CBS will show any of the remaining episodes.

Sometimes I don't understand the networks. The show is a serial and has only been on the air for three episodes. Why not give it more of a chance? It definitely seems that if a new show doesn't pull in immediate ratings, it's as good as gone. It took shows like The X-Files and Buffy a few years before ratings were ok. Granted, they were never amazing but I think they were solid.

Oh well, there's still plenty on to watch.

Football Weekend Recap, Week 4

Sorry for the lateness but I was contemplating the UK Hockey team schedule...

Notre Dame

A somewhat ho-hum win for the Irish. Purdue came in undefeated but hadn't played anyone decent. The Irish offense looked great in the first half and then the rain came down. I was very pleased with the renewed focus on the running game. It is something missing from the first few weeks and will only help Brady Quinn in the long run.

I'm still nervous every time the opposition has the ball however. The defense still allows way too many yards and the secondary is very, very scary.

They should crush Stanford and then they have a bye week before the Bruins of UCLA come to South Bend. That is a worrisome game for me.

An interesting note I read this week was only the Irish and USC have played all of their games against teams in the Big 6 conferences. Remember that when the whining starts as ND goes against the service academies.

Bears

Ladies and gentlemen, the new leader of the NFC, the Chicago Bears. A great game on national television allowed the Bears to bask in the lauds of sportswriters everywhere. Hopefully they'll be more than just a September team though and continue with this run.

The true test will be in a few weeks when they play the Giants, the Jets and the Patriots in consecutive weeks, all on the road. For now though, I just want the offense to keep clicking like it is. It has been a long time since they have had a deep threat like Berriman.

Fantasy

Still winless. Got hit by the bye week blues. It's happened to me each year and I always tell myself to look at the schedule before the draft but of course I never do. Kurt Warner, you are dead to me. Thanks for the negative points.

UK Hockey

I do not like the University of Kentucky and I did not know they had a hockey team BUT I would be more than willing to have the team's schedule up on my wall. I'm just saying...

Here's an example from 2004...

Stephen King on The Writing Life

Dig this: The so-called "writing life" is basically sitting on your ass.

You have to have a place, but it can be anywhere, really. You have to have some time, but it can be anytime. Early this summer, while my wife and son were doing a joint reading at the public library in Portland, Maine, I got stuck with dog-duty. Our dog is Frodo, a plump and cheerful Welsh Corgi. He makes no trouble. I took him to Deering Oaks Park, found a bench in the shade and wrote four good pages on my new novel in the notebook I carry around. Frodo kept an eye on the ducks. Those four pages weren't perfect -- far from it -- but they were words on paper, and they marched.

People walked past, and no one gasped, "Oh, look! That man is caught in the cosmic godhead fire of the writing life!"

Read the whole thing...

Deep in the Count

The New Republic is blogging the playoffs at Deep in the Count. Each team is represented with Neal Pollack taking care of the Dodgers.

A Multitude Of Ford

Tod Goldberg will be interviewing author Richard Ford in November. That should be an awesome evening.

Literary Nemesis

So if you had to put up a photo of your nemesis, who would it be?

Personally, I'm not sure. There are plenty of writers who I admire, who I know could write circles around me but I don't know if I've found a couple that I know I could top. I guess that will come the more I write.

Baseball in general, Cubs in particular

It's designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything is new again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains comes, it stops, and leaves you to face the fall alone.