You’re either with us, or against us Mr. Ice Cream Man!

[America's Vanilla Ice Cream, by Dreyers]I was walking through the ice cream section of my grocer’s freezer, and I found that Dreyers now sells America’s Vanilla. I think this actually came out for Independence Day, but this is clearly tantamount to Freedom Fries. Wasn’t there Russian dressing during the cold war? Did we burn Persian rugs during the Gulf War? Am I really unpatriotic if I eat French vanilla ice cream?

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Notre Dame football: Crunch time

It’s been 3 weeks since the Mormon Mauling, and after that game, I made the following statement:

The only team we will beat this year is Stanford. Not even Navy.

Apparently, Tyrone Willingham heard me. It’s been three weeks, and since then we have three wins. These weren’t fluke wins either. These were solid performances, capped by a 38-3 dismantling of Washington. Now, I’m not ready to say that Notre Dame is a powerhouse, but the offense is coming around to complement an always stingy defense. Next week’s contest against Pur-don’t will be the key. A win against the Boilermakers (ESPN #15) and their top ranked offense (50 ppg) will put the Irish on firm ground heading into the soft part of the schedule (Stanfurd, Navy, BC). And I’ll eat my words.

Summerland (Michael Chabon)

[Summerland]Summerland is supposed to be a kids book, but if you can tolerate following the fantastical adventures of three 12 year olds, then you’re probably in the target audience. This is a struggle between good and evil where many battles are determined on the baseball diamond, and the ultimate weapon is, of course, a bat. Clearly, Summerland was right up my alley.

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Twins Win Again, Sox Whine Again

I’m a little late on the commentary here, but it’s awesome to see the Minnesota Twins clinch a playoff spot for the third consecutive year. This is also the third straight year that the White Sox will talk trash about their superiors. From an anonymous player, “That’s fine, let them do their talking and clapping and antics on the basepaths. Minnesota has two World Series banners, but not one came from this group of players. They forget that. I’ll be glad to sit back and watch them go one and done (in the playoffs). Our season ends Oct. 3 or whatever it is. So they’ll get an extra week in before they’re done.” Never mind that the last White Sox championship was in 1917. Mark Buehrle (who lost the game in which the Twins clinched the division) added, “You have Santana and Radke, and you’ve got a chance, but then you look at the rest of their roster and you really can’t see them getting past the first round. Anything can happen, but I don’t see it.” Maybe so, but the Twins now have a 1/8 chance of winning the World Series, and Chicago has a 0/8 chance of becoming champs. Yet another reason why Chicago is known as the second city.