memewhoring

The British ain’t comin’. [Patrick Barron]

This season is so fun we realized after Ace and Brian did a Gimmicky Top Five of favorite subplots for the podcast that there have been way more good ones they left out. So we reopened the floor to the rest of the MGoBlog crew to see if we could come up with something more comprehensive. We invite you to keep adding to the list.

The question:

Favorite Irrelevant Plotlines of this Season

Already used:

• Will Rutgers get a 1st down?
  
• PFF hates kickers and punters 
  Which awesome play will be unnecessarily put on film this week?
• Which possibly correct call will Harbaugh blow his stack on?
• Jourdan Lewis vs. Egg Twitter
• How loud will McDoom chants be at road games?
• Harbaugh's glasses
• Opponent fans sarcastically cheering when their team finally does something good
• Khalid Hill's YPC and TD/carry ratio
• Grapes!!!
• "Peppers is Overrated."
• Hammer Panda

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[Hit THE JUMP for sad rivals, sadder mascots, and TRAAAAAAIN!]

Dear Diary was going to be in this spot this morning, but the site was 504-ing and I couldn't get at all my precious tabs. So instead you get Esther McCleery.

My good friend Nate is certainly the most interesting person I've ever met. He's one of those diamonds from the middle of nowhere that the University of Michigan goes out of its way to collect, the nowhere in this case being Eastern Kentucky and the middle being a small town called Grayson. I'll save you his list of accomplishments because he'll be famous enough one day for all of them to end up in a book.

In a town like Grayson hoarding is one of the things that register on a list of pastimes. While sorting through one trove Nate found a stack of old copies of Life magazine and brought them with him to our college reunion last weekend. Inside he found and framed enough ads for bourbon to keep Kentucky bars well-tchotchke'd for a decade.

This he was doing at the breakfast table on Saturday morning while another friend and I were trying to justify to our wives why we're blowing what could have been a Europe trip on a few upcoming Saturdays.

That's when Nate serendipitously discovered an article on Homecoming in the November 1959 issue. Hey it's our band:

That's the only photo in the article that's pointed at the field. Life's photographer instead spent the 4th quarter with his camera turned toward Class of '34 alumna Esther McCleery. I'll reproduce that for you now:

HOMECOMING SPIRIT at game is shown in the mobile face of Mrs. Esther McCleery, class of '34 at Michigan. Above Mrs. McCleery screams, "Go, Team, Go, this is it!" as Michigan, behind 16-10 in final quarter, intercepts pass deep in Wisconsin territory. "All right, Blue," Mrs. McCleery bellows. "This is it, we've got 'em now."

But a moment later Michigan fumbles and Mrs. McCleery's face falls (below)

In the final minutes of the game, she dejectedly watches Wisconsin wrap it up with a field goal. "We've had it but good," she mutters.

But she brightened. "Next year we'll get 'em," she says.

Everyone ought to see Notre Dame du Paris (NOTE-rruh Dahm) one time in their life just to appreciate the feats of art and engineering that mankind can accomplish when we feel like it. To understand why we'd ever build such things, first you ought to experience something like Notre Dame at Michigan, since there are few other things in the world—other than gaining or losing another human being—that can make you truly appreciate the depths of emotions that make being a human animal quite worthwhile.

29 days, Esther.

…or "install a 3-4 defense," or "hedge on screens," or "replace Martin & Van Bergen," or "excuse bad threads with 'OT:'," or "take a bus to North Campus," or "find parking on 4th street." But starting a Facebook meme page for your school? Oh man, there is evil there that does not sleep. Not with a 100 memes could you do this. More best of the board:

NO TIMEOUTS IN CRISLER (WE'RE JUST GONNA COME OUT IN ZONE ANYWAY)

Also peasy is identifying the Maize Rage shirts from Amaker's first season because they said "No timeouts in Crisler!" on the backs. The fronts said "Pass around the perimeter, have Bernard or LaVell take a bad shot, give up a layup, repeat until Avery Queen turns it over!" Then we'd all turn around in shame and Amaker would see "No timeouts in Crisler!" and oblige as his former team scored 104 points on his current one. If you still have your Maize Rage t-shirts from any era, Wolverine Devotee could use your help for his project. Tell the story of that season when you post and this thread will get either good, or really bad but easy to root for.

RIVALS 100/250 ARE OUT

Tremendous, who goes by aquaman2342 on MGo, posted the relevant folk to Michigan, and Hill.FootballRecruits did la même chose for the Rivals 250. Shane Morris is No. 16 overall, the third QB, and well within the range that eventually becomes 5-stars for Rivals, so of course the board is putting out conspiracy theories for why he's so low. Dymonte is 77th. Bluestreak points out that the in-state crop isn't as deep as it was this year, but 2012 was just a really deep year.

DON'T YOU ALL HAVE HOMES?

The Red Wings and Maple Leafs are coming to Michigan Stadium to break the Big Chill's hockey attendance record, the GLI is moving to Comerica Park, and if you're wondering why it seemed the negotiations were so edgy just imagine both Dave Brandon and Mike Ilitch in a room when it comes time to order lunch. Actually they negotiated this from different rooms. Pizza is srs business. I love outdoor hockey, and love anything that brings back the Wings-Leafs rivalry, and I love love love the Red Wings. But srsly January 1st? I don't care about the record; that "backup date of Jan. 2" clause had better have something in there about roses is all I'm saying (it doesn't, but it oughtta).

JOIN THE BOOK CLUB

Only you. User aiglick wants to start an MGoBookClub this offseason, starting with Bo's Lasting Lessons. I'm in so long as you all promise that the June book is Hail to the Victors.

HIPSTER, BRO, OR LATE-AUGHTS MICHIGAN OFFENSIVE LINEMAN?

'Pre-Gaming with' Pat Stansik made a movie that I think takes place on Ann Street about a new roommate who defies his friends' attempts to place him in social categories. I bet the dude has a stache-tat on his finger. But if avant-garde is more your style I put up a … thing discovered by Orson where … oh hell screen caps:

Fair warning: if you get past a thread title that says "Un film dérangeant" and "Catlab" in it, plus the images above and the nonsensical introduction, and you still watch all 2:37 of this video, I am not responsible for any amount of your life you can't get back.

NON-REVENUE CUPDATE

Hutch's softball program—shout-out to the ones at the airport Wendy's last evening—may be nearing its apex with three players on the pre-season All-America watch list . They also picked up a shortstop recruit from Georgia who's hitting .568 in an area not known for softball. Wrestling recently was on the short end of what numerous people who know wrestling have now assured me was the worst call in the history of wrestling. Oh, and we got a diary on Men's Tennis.

Diaries Play Five

Hey look at Moffie. See your glorious forward playing an unhindered Holmstrom spot—this is very bad for Miami by the way. CenterIce is your diarist of the week for his new regularish feature he calls "Special Teams Breakdown" and your alliteration-loving editors would rather he call "Picture Paging Power Plays." The theme for this week's is Miami is bad at the penalty kill.

High Five, Fab Five. In the basketballs, buddhafrog put up a heart-warming story about when the Fab Five showed up to a hospital for mentally disabled kids—the kind of kids it's hard to face because you start mentally shaking your fist at deities who would do such things to kids—which makes this kind of remarkable:

Weber and Rose saw through their disabilities; they saw through the wall that makes most people much more comfortable by just turning away.  They treated the boys as real boys, as real people. It meant the world to my boys at the Center and was probably the highlight of their year.

The raison d'être for this blog was because Beilein wants to get $100,000 in charity to the same center, and is in a tight race on ESPN with Motta and the Columbus Ronald McDonald House.

Demi-sabermetric Alabama fans don't exist, but if they did… Maize_in_spartyland investigated that turnover margin last year equals wins/losses this year metric on its face and finds that yes it works in his too-easy-to-work definition. Notable exceptions were Alabama and Oklahoma State; this means somewhere out there is an Alabama fan who is saying Bama's +12 turnover margin in 2010 was…okay yeah you are never going to have that conversation with anyone, because once you start down the path of analyzing turnover margin to predict next year's win totals you're not going to stop half-way.

Etc. Today is the last day to give blood and beat MSU. The Blockhams watched the Superbowl.