Charm City Blogger: Happy Birthday!

Charm City Blogger: Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday, from this Illini fan. :)

Yep... the Illini won at the Kohl Center on Tuesday and the Terps ("Fear the Turtle!") beat the Dookies at Cameron Indoor last night 75-66.

In the unbeaten ranks that leaves Illinois (20 - 0) and Boston College (17 - 0).

While on the basketball topic... LOML's school (Northwestern) beat Iowa up in Evanston, too. Happiness all around!

Could this be the end of the run?

The #1 Fighting Illini have made it to 19 - 0, and now face a stern test at Madison. The last several years have seen the Illini go into Madison and come out beat. Supposing that they don't come out 20 - 0, how far down the rankings do you think Illinois will slide?

The ESPN darlings, Duke, are now in 2nd. My guess is that Illinois will drop to at least 7th. No doubt there will be at least one team with 2 losses ahead of them.

Pessimistic? Maybe. We'll see.

--
Yes. Pessimistic. I was pretty impressed by the way the Illini came back from an 8 point lead in the second half. In years past they would almost certainly have folded.

This year, though, they put on a final kick and won it by 10. First time in 6 years they've beaten the Badgers up at the Kohl Center. Nice work, fellas.

Social Dance Debut

I finally did it. I stepped out on the floor with a couple members of the Chicago Rebels for a little West Coast Swing last night. It went pretty well, but I've still got a ton to work on with respect to my lead. As it happens, Rebels president and my chief instructor Jimmy Mulligan was there. He offered encouragement to go back for more... which I did.

Both of my partners were good sports and I'll definitely go back again.

New Sisyphus

New Sisyphus just came to my attention. The author is a member of the State Department Republican Underground (SDRU), who's latest post describes a downright pleasant experience in...Phrawnce?!? Complete with a crepe artisan who wanted the American people to know... well, I won't spoil it. Read the January 19 post "The Word From Paris: 'You TELL The Americans...'".

Jay Marvin's got a blog

Jay Marvin, ex of WLS-AM, has a blog over at Salon.com.

He may call himself a commie, but it always sounded to me like he had some good Libertarian potential. I'll keep checking in to see if backslides.

Katie Scarlett (1993 - 2005)

My sister had to put down our first family dog, Katie Scarlett. She was a tri-color beagle with a sweat, somewhat submissive disposition. The news that she had a tumor on her spleen came as a rude shock to us all this morning--the vet had previously suspected kidney failure, but nonetheless had ordered the ultrasound. She had lost so much weight (7 pounds in less than 2 months), and the spleen was peevishly close to rupturing. My sister decided that putting her down would be the most humane thing.

I like to think Katie gets to chase bunnies and eat cookies perpetually now.