Blue Indy

We're back on the road again this week to face an Iowa team that unexplainably chocked against B1G bottom-feeder Minnesota has been inconsistent this season. Since I already went the whole "animal eye" route with Northwestern's wallpaper and the corn thing has been done [well!] by monuMental, I wanted to do something different.

Now, as a former resident of north campus (go Bursley!) and a Computer Science major, it will come as little surprise that I'm a Marvel comic book fan. With the emergence of Marvel movies, I'm sure you're all familiar with X-Men's Wolverine. Those of you who know comic book heroes by movie only, however, probably aren't familiar with the Avengers' Hawkeye (although you will be, since he'll be in the upcoming Avengers movie). Generally, I think using Wolverine (X-Men) as a "mascot" for Michigan is a little lame, but seeing as how our opponent this weekend also has a Marvel alter-ego, I couldn't resist:

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So let's put aside for the moment that we lost (again) to our in-state rival, and that they went out and beat B1G juggernaut Wisconsin, thus decreasing our chances of winning the West Legends division even if we win out... grrrr. Yes, let's put all of that aside, and focus on... HOMECOMING! Purdue comes to the Big House this weekend sporting a 2-1 conference record after Illinois chocked an impressive win over Illinois.

My original idea for a wallpaper was to focus on a "Boilermaker pun," which of course begged the question what the heck a Boilermaker looks like! Purdue went with this interpretation, but when I checked Google, I came up with this:

which is quite literally a man making a boiler. And even though that welding helmet was begging for wings, I decided to go in a different direction when I was going through the attic for Halloween decorations and came across the toy train that goes around our Christmas tree. I don't know why, but toy trains make laugh, so I give you the following:

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Motivation Level to Create a Wallpaper for State: 5 (Baseline 5; –1 for monuMental said he was doing rivlary wallpapers and he's WAY better at it than I am, –1 for it's kind of a dick move after I told cjm I wasn't going to, +1 for but people said they liked variety, –1 for but still... dick move, +1 for I have Columbus Day off and don't need to sleep tonight, –1 for but I have a sweet flick on DVR, +1 for by sweet flick I mean I Robot, +1 for and I came up with a goodish idea.)

Remember when lil bro got all excited about their pro-combat unis for the Michigan game? Well, I figured since they were going all 300 on us, I'd follow suit. For those of you who haven't seen the movie, there's a scene in the beginning where a young Spartan boy is sent out into the wild with nothing but his spear. He soon encounters a particularly hungry-looking wolf and slays it as a statement of his manhood... also, so he could live... but I digress. Well, I thought to myself,

"What if that lil Spartan dude never found the mangy-looking wolf?"

"What if he was unfortunate enough to come across a pissed off wolverine instead?"

"What if that particular wolverine hadn't tasted Spartan blood in 3 years and was hungry for it?"

I give you... 

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So here we are... 5-0 and heading on the road against a scrappy Northwestern team possibly led by a former heisman hopeful heisman hopeful quarterback, Dan Persa. After everyone's comments from last week on the Eastern Michigan wallpaper, I wanted to do another animal parody for the Northwestern wallpaper. My original thought was to make use of these in some way:

but I realized that Northwestern shouldn't be mocked like Eastern Michigan (who's more like an infant step-cousin than a "little brother"), lest the football gods smite us for our hubris. Instead, I let myself be influenced by my feminine side and took my inspiration from the musical Cats. Instead of dancers for pupils, though, I went for... DENARD!!!

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I figured, unlike the Eastern Michigan wallpaper, this wallpaper makes Northwestern look cool, which will make me feel more satisfied when we beat them!

EDIT: I fixed the widescreen link and changed the game info to "Game 6" instead of "Game 5"... I think I was just psyched about the 5-0 when I made it!

So this is it... my first diary! Thanks to those of you who requested that I get the points necessary to post this :-).

EDIT: Since photobucket was resizing my images, I changed the links over to a new site. This will look a LOT better on your monitor!

When I saw that monuMental wouldn't be posting his amazing weekly wallpapers this season, I took it upon myself to carry the torch until his triumphant return. He has since stated that he'll be creating rivalry wallpapers, so I'll take a break on those weeks. Since I've been hijacking posts to upload my wallpapers, here's a review of the ones I've created so far for those of you who've missed them:

Western Michigan "Denard vs Broncos"

Eastern Michigan "Eagle Dove"

San Diego State "Aztec Art"

...which brings us to this week's wallpaper, Minnesota's "Brown Jug Kool-Aid"

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I do sort of wish that my first diary featured a better wallpaper, but I was having a difficult time adding in a background and went with the minimilistic "monuMental's penn state" look. I've noticed a lot of people commenting on the resemblance of our current 4-0 season to those of the last couple of years. Others, however, have commented on the relative down year the B1G is having and how we have a much better chance of steam-rolling through the conference than in recent years. I'm "cautiously optimistic" myself and thought we could all enjoy a big ol' jug of Kool-Aid to celebrate our success so far. Enjoy!

PS: Here's a link to my wallpaper album, if you or I miss a posting on Monday.