UltramarineBlue

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1 year 51 weeks

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Recent Comments

Date	Title	Body
3 weeks 5 days ago	Huge News!	Mike Cox is a Giant!
4 weeks 5 days ago	C'mon UConn--did it right!	If they're going that route with their helmets, they should have a waggy tail and a stencil of a dog's anus on the back.
5 weeks 1 day ago	I have a rule in my classes...	No cell phones. I even note this in the syllabus, in bold. I catch you playing with a phone I mark you absent which could effect a grade. Seeing a kid play with a phone in class bugs the crap out of me, but my classes are participatory and not lecture style. So I need my kids to be awake, plus, I am going to see that. And I mean, come on--if you're a college kid, you're prolly texting someone you saw ealier and will see again in twenty minutes. I think of this as my part in helping this generation learn to focus on one thing for more than 5 minutes.
6 weeks 3 days ago	I love that team	Played with guts and heart. They made us proud, and they better come back to town with their heads up. Go BLUE!!!
6 weeks 5 days ago	Hail Yeah!!!	Beat Louisville!
7 weeks 20 hours ago	Actually, given the	Actually, given the distance between UM and Detroit, that final would be UGa vs. UM. Which further highlights the silliness of the Bing-bashing here.
7 weeks 2 days ago	That's what I said.	Does anyone seriously think that all of Ohio suddenly "likes" Michigan or has switched allegiances to us since OSU crapped out?
7 weeks 2 days ago	That kind of physical and verbal abuse	That kind of physical and verbal abuse is just unacceptable.The dude needs therapy.
7 weeks 2 days ago	The writer is a little dim	"We are, it seems, a nation of fair-weather fans (when it comes to March Madness, at least). Our allegiances change as circumstances change. It's always been that way -- and the whole structure of a tournament, of course, encourages fans to funnel their enthusiasms toward the teams that win. The difference now is that our fickleness, whether it's natural or structural or both, can now -- like so much else -- be tracked. And then presented back to us in a colorful chart." But...no. If this data comes from facebook "likes" this doesn't mean that fans from other schools suddenly love UM and have piled on our page. It just means that you're dealing with a smaller number set with the other teams removed--this then reflects the distribution of the same "likes' as in the Sweet 16 map but with the "likes" of 12 other teams removed.
7 weeks 2 days ago	I wish him well too	I hope that Clarett can complete the job of getting his life on track. He sounds like a changed guy and good for him. No reason to keep mocking the guy ten years down the line. I'm guessing that most of us wouldn't want to held to dumb crap we did at 20 forever.
7 weeks 2 days ago	Mitch Albom...	Mitch Albom is one of the five people I'll meet in hell.
7 weeks 2 days ago	Plus...	"Baller" is spelled incorrectly. The correct spelling is, of course, "balla."
7 weeks 3 days ago	Did my undergrad at the University of Vermont	I love UVM, but if Michigan plays them in any sport, Go Blue all the way. Of course this isn't the same conflict since UVM dropped their football program in '74, plays in an only-the-tourney-champ-gets-a-bid type conference in basketball and generally sucks at hockey--which is the sport most there are really passionate about.
7 weeks 3 days ago	Yeah, I didn't think that Wisconsin story was funny either	The bit about Webber swigging from a bottle in a brown-paper bag is pretty offensive.
8 weeks 2 days ago	The article itself makes a good case for turf	"In addition to getting on the field earlier in the season, the effects of weather in the middle of the season will be considerably less. Michigan will be able to play in virtually every situation except in the case of thunderstorms. The Wolverines have already had four home games cancelled this year and had two home games cancelled last year. "The addition of the turf field also helps shorten the gap between teams from the south and teams from the north. Teams in the south can practice for most of the year outside, while northern teams are typically stuck inside. The turf will allow Michigan to be outside for more of the year, similar to their southern counterparts. "This addition time outside might also help when it comes to recruiting. The coaching staff can now pitch recruits on the ability to practice outside for most of the year. This could help keep local recruits in Michigan rather than fleeing for warmer weather or bring kids from southern states to Michigan."
8 weeks 3 days ago	Please don't take this as unpatriotic--I support our troops!	But if you look at the position of the "leggy woman," who is in the act of leaning so she's on her hands and knees, the smile on her face, and the position of that banner (fortuitous breeze, or just happy to see her?), well...that image is just filthy dirty. In a good way...
9 weeks 5 days ago	Damn	Was that as good for you as it was for me? Awesome to see the team out there, getting ready for 134.
9 weeks 6 days ago	badger, badger, badger, badger...	http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIyixC9NsLI Mushroom, mushroom.
10 weeks 6 days ago	Awesome!	Bakich has really picked up our recruiting.
11 weeks 19 hours ago	yossarian--Valid points	But I'd like to offer a couple of answers. One is that you encapsulated modern publishing without putting the dots together. You've said that university faculty harbor "unsuccessful writers (i.e. those who cannot make their living writing books)." Then you note later that "there are great books by really good writers that never see the light of day; meanwhile, barely literate crap can become a bestseller and someone like Tom Clancy is a multi-millionaire." Your second point is correct but invalidates the first. The days of Hemingway, when great lit writers sold a crap-ton of books and dated movie starlets, is long past. Books whose sales would allow a writer to be self-supporting are genre fiction offerings like Harry Potter, or those Vampires who love and fight Werewolves books, or self-help books, or, yes, Tom Clancey. Writers who actually do "lit" can't anticipate self-supporting sales. So the best comptempory writers--the folks winning Pulitzers and Nobel prizes--are on faculty, somewhere, teaching in MFA programs. As for the value of an MFA, I can only speak for myself. Writing can't be taught, but craft can. Why does a story work? The techiques great writers use have always been passed on, whether in discussion salons or roundtables. MFA programs can be thought of as formalized versions of those types of groups, with the university serving as patron instead of a Medici. What can't be taught is content--what you write about. The stories are something you have to bring into the program with you. And that's why getting my MFA has been great for me. I entered the program as a non-trad, older student; I've already lived plenty and now write about places I've been and people I've known. Not going straight to an MFA out of undergrad, but instead going out into the world and living experiences worth writing about, is probably the best decision you could've made. And at some point later, if you discover that the stories are interesting but the craft is weak, an MFA could wonders for your approach to your work.
11 weeks 21 hours ago	fyi...	The gift is the funding of a third year (already known as the Zell year) for all admitted writers--forever. She already funded the program. Prior to 2012, the third year was only awarded to a 1/4 of the writers. Then all writers were offered a third year--but this now makes that permanent, as opposed to something that was only done for a few years before funding was dropped to a 1/4 of the writers again. The timing of the gift and the story is also fortuitous, as fall 2012 admits to the program are just getting acceptance letters and making decisions about programs. And hey, there's the Zell program on Yahoo! Great day all around for the program in our continuing battle with the Michener program at UT-Austin.
11 weeks 21 hours ago	No--the program has been renamed as of today	The MFA program at the University of Michigan is now the Helen Zell Writing Program.
11 weeks 21 hours ago	Great news for the program	We are firmly entrenched at #2 behind Iowa--this means not losing people to UT-Austin. Go Zellows and Go Blue! The program attracts nationally too--very few of us write about corn.
14 weeks 1 day ago	My guess is that	the Hawaii coaches told the kid he could be an rb to get him to sign with them, but they have no intention of actually playing him there. Look for him to switch to nt during fall camp.
15 weeks 1 day ago	His face screams	Breifcases full of cash, hand-delivered.
15 weeks 1 day ago	Shoot...	...yes, I did mean Hecklinski and not the capital of Finland. Also: coaches' not coaches.
15 weeks 1 day ago	As another poster pointed out...	...if Helsinki visited him last week and saw him toss live, then that workout clearly must've dispelled any doubts about his arm strength for the coaches. Sounds like a kid with strong leadership potential as well, which fits with the profile Hoke and co. are clearly looking to recruit. What I love about this staff is the amount of homework they put in on recruiting. More than just film study and recruiting off the Rivals/Scout/ESPN 100 lists, they spend a lot of time developing the relationships that can indentify character issues. Sure Demar Dorsey looks like a recruiting coup on signing day, but what does that mean if he never plays for you? A lot of high school coaches have commented on the Michigan staff's due diligence, and the info our coaches get is not something we're privy too. And you can go back over star-recruiting day monster classes and find PLENTY that did not pan out--including the classes Meyer put together at Florida after Matteson left. I'll take our coaches opinion  over Mangus' on this one.
16 weeks 4 days ago	I'm drinking	I'm drinking the blood of my enemies.
17 weeks 6 days ago	Just sayin'	The term "beard" come to mind.
18 weeks 2 days ago	My serious answer	is Magnus (other than the mods). Very informative posts--great analysis.

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