Wisconsin-Minnesota: 2005 pictures

Snowed in one recent morning so I spent some time cleaning up my Hotmail Inbox. Found these pictures from Mr. Scott Burch, taken at the 2005 Wisconsin-Minnesota game. Most people will remember that game for Jonathan Casillas's blocked punt and Ben Strickland's recovery for the game-winning touchdown, but many of us will remember Toohey's similar second-half explosion. Others will remember the Toren-Tappa bipartisan Baggo dominance.

Vindicated! Knocked Up knocked by EW reviewer

Back in October, Will met Judd Apatow at Entertainment Weekly headquarters, which was the impetus for me to write a post rating Judd's work. Several people disagreed with Jana and me for calling Knocked Up overrated/an underachievement in an otherwise fine body of work.

But someone who definitely knows agrees - EW's Owen Gleiberman. From the issue that hit our mailbox yesterday, in which Owen reviews Superbad:

"... It takes the dizzy, raunchily rude pop culture banter that percolated around the edges of The 40 Year-Old Virgin and the overrated Knocked Up (sorry, I just couldn't buy that damn sitcom relationship) and moves it front and center."

Exactly! That's precisely what we didn't like about that movie - Katherine Heigl and Seth Rogen trying to make a go of it as a couple was not believable in any way, shape, or form. The movie had its moments, but did not equal its predecessors. Of course, several pages later Lisa Schwarzbaum declares KU one of her top 10 movies of the year.

Will, next time you see Owen, give him a big fist bump from the Tappas.

In other movie news:

-The Tappas liked the Bourne Identity and Bourne Supremacy. Great action, interesting plot, not too long. Nice job by Matt Damon. The one thing we didn't get was why Julia Stiles was there, her role was completely useless. Through the magic of Netflix, we'll be watching all three Bourne movies this week.

-Head on over to Toohey's Randomania and read his review of Failure to Launch. That's right, Failure to Launch. Tim has seen it twice. Twice. I will grant that I'm a fan of Justin Bartha (from National Treasure and the short-lived NBC comedy Teachers) and Zooey Deschanel (from her time as Andy's ex-girlfriend on Weeds).

The Metrodome: Minnesota built it, Wisconsin owns it

Another fun trip to the Metrodome has come and gone, the last time we will see the Badgers leave that dingy stinkhole victorious. For the record, UW went 4-0 in front of me at the dome, all four games - '95, '97, '05, '07 - memorable in their own way.

Here are a few pictures from our group at the event. Special thanks to Tim Toohey for the photos, Matt and Megan Schwalbach for the hospitality and the pictures, Chris Toren for the early tailgate work, and everyone else for chipping in on the fun.



The group: Molle Polzin, Erik Olson, Brian Hermann, me, Matt Schwalbach, Tim Toohey, Will Bottinick, Eric Werner, Megan Schwalbach, Chris Toren, with Jim Polzin keeping play-by-play notes on the coaches' postgame handshake.



This was either the Badgers chopping down the goalpost with Paul Bunyan's Axe, or them beating the crap out of those annoying UM cymbals players who stood right on the end zone line.



Maybe next year, Chris - always a good sport. Feuding friends Toren and Toohey in a light moment, presumably before Toohey spilled a beer all over his seat. For the record - Toren and I emerged as Baggo champions once again, although not before dropping a game to Schwalbach and Hermann.



EO, me, and Will, taking a break from discussing The World Without Us (started reading it today).





Nothing says college football like a parking lot surrounded by skyscrapers. Welcome to Minneapolis, home of the least college-like atmosphere in the Big Ten. Even if it's not college-like, it's still tons of fun. Highlights from this spot:

-Will learns Baggo
-Molle smells brocoli
-I drop not one, but two Rolling Rocks
-The best: Toren sees a kid peeing near his Pilot, confronts him: "Hey Gopher guy! Did you pee on my car?" Then he knocks the beer out of the guy's hand. Represent! Replays were inconclusive as to whether or not the guy actually peed on the car, but Chris took care of business.








No one can deny that Will made it count. This one's for the girls.

Friday Night Lights dimmed

MINNEAPOLS -- I'm sitting here at Schwalbach's house, watching the snow fall ... already? I suppose we used to have lots of snow on Thanksgiving most years growing up, but not lately. Had a nice meal last night at Pepito's with Toren, Schwib, Polzin, Toohey, Eric Werner, and Will, Olson, and Molle showed up later to add to the meaningful discussion.

Shockingly, few wanted to talk about the Wisconsin high school football championship games, except for someone who asked me if I'd even gone to the Iola-Scandinavia game on Thursday. I did, with Mr. Austin and Greg Loescher, but not much to report there. Some shaky early offense and special teams play put the Thunderbirds in a 14-0 hole halfway through the first quarter, and it was a steep uphill climb the rest of the way. Had I-S played a perfect or near-perfect game, Stratford could have been beaten, but there's a reason they've won five gold balls in a row - depth, execution, strategy, experience.

Great season for Iola, though, lots of fun to watch and a terrific galvanizing event for the community.

Sign of the game, held by a Stratford fan: "Iola has the car show, but we have the titles." Clever.

-Another easy win for the basketball team last night. Didn't see it, but looking at the box score, saw the Marcus Landry and Jason Bohannon led the way with 17 apiece - very encouraging. As ajs posted Friday, there's been talk that J-Bo had knee surgery over the offseason and that's set him back. I haven't seen evidence of a lingering injury or recovery, more of a deal where he's not shooting well ... although that could be a byproduct of not having his legs just right.

Never really worried about Landry, no reason for him to force his offense in these cupcake games, but nice to see that he still has it nonetheless. If we can find ways for him - and Jon Leuer - to play the 3, especially on defense, that makes our lineup awfully imposing from an shot-blocking perspective.

-Interesting to be up here in Gopher country and gauge fans' attitudes toward Tim Brewster. I suppose you have to be optimistic, but he is about to be responsible for the worst season in school history. His saving grace is allegedly his recruiting prowess, but given the number of de-commits he's had lately, that prowess is far from a given.

One member of our party wants to see if Brewster and Bret Bielema shake hands before the game, given Bret's words about how "Minnesota has been good to us" lately and Brewster's reaction to that. Hey Tim, it's not a false statement, and Minnesota has been good to Ohio State, Notre Dame, USC, et al in recent years. Do something about it.

Minnesota tickets! and other Monday Badger thoughts

Got the email from Toohey today that we've got tickets to the UW-Minnesota game, the last of its sort at the Humpty Dome. Very excited about heading to the Twin Cities in a month to hang out with the More Points crowd for one more game this season ... unless we reconvened in Tempe in late December, a possibility Jimmy raised in a comment yesterday.

Tim's email said the tickets cost $64, which is fine, will gladly pay it. But, unless these are really good seats - and I can't imagine the U giving Badger fans really good seats - it seems high. When Andy and I went to the opener against Washington State, we had seats on about the north goal line, about 40 rows up, and they were $39. Decent seats, decent price.

But $64 for a University of Minnesota football ticket? My high school economics teacher wasn't that great, but he taught us enough about supply and demand for me to know that when a school puts a mediocre product on the field for 40 years and plays in front of half-empty stadiums, a $64 price tag is high. Guess paying off Clem Haskins' old tutors isn't cheap.

-On the ride home from work tonight the local radio news reader, paraphrasing Bielema's presser today, said the coach believes the team lost the 1-0 focus these last couple weeks. And I threw up in my mouth.

-Reading the quotes from the press conference, I see Chris Maragos was the scout team MVP for the second time this season, and BB expects big things from him in the future. We might be in bigger trouble than I thought.

-Someone, I think Will, made the comment earlier that those of us in Vegas knew there was something wrong with this team and that it probably wasn't a title contender. I will be honest and admit that I didn't feel that way at the time - fully expected them to return home, throttle The Citadel for 60 minutes, roll through the first three Big Ten games, then battle Penn State. Must have been those cardinal-colored shades I picked up before the flight.

-As much as I realize the passing game needs Jefferson and Gilreath to continue getting acclimated with Donovan, what I would really like to see is for the Badgers to run the ball about 60 times for 400 yards, with Brown and Smith splitting the second half. That's what I thought going into the Citadel game, too, and that game didn't go so well, although we did run the ball as well as we should have. I also remember five years ago, watching UW play Northern Illinois with my dad at my aunt Karen's house, and watching Bollinger get sacked 10 times, so you just can't take anything for granted.

-Jim's story today touches on whether or not a bye week would be good for the Badgers this week. I think it's a good thing they're playing so they don't stew over the Penn State game. In another season, I might think a bye is perfect here in week eight. Something you just can't tell until a season starts going.

-Kyle Turris is off to a great start for the Badger hockey team, two goals and four points in two games. You'll be hearing his name a lot, even if you're a casual fan, especially our friends in Phoenix (Coyotes draft pick).

-For Andy: Diamond Taylor was at Night of the Grateful Red, per Schultz in the Cap Times. He's spending a lot of time in Madison. We have to get this guy, can't think of a better name in Badgers hoops history.

Vegas was fun

Before we get too far out from what actually happened, I wanted to post some photos taken by our good friend Molle Polzin from our group's trip to Vegas for the UW-UNLV game. Aside from the fact that we had to hold our breath for 58-1/2 minutes, and we now hold season football tickets from the school that knocked us out of the NCAA tournament in March, it was a great trip. Here's some of Molle's photos:

My lovely wife Jana and I before the game, the last time I smile for about 2 hours and 50 minutes. She and Molle waited in line for the entire second quarter to secure beverages - MVP! MVP!

Me with Will Bottinick and Scott Burch. Notice the guy behind Will making fun of us. We kicked the crap out of him later. The people next to us were from Fennimore, but none of them complimented me on my Luke Swan jersey.


After the game, we were arguably more spent than the players. Yep, fans have it tough. By this time my brother Andy (red hat) and Robby Jansen (to his left) had stopped their renditions of UW band tunes. Thankfully.

Jana and Molle outside O'Shea's, our dive casino/bar hangout ($2 Miller Lite!). The girls debated whether or not is was impolite to bend over to be closer to the leprechaun's height. What do you think?

Me, Jana, Molle, and Cap Times beat reporter Jim Polzin, who went 1-0 with his online coverage of the game for the TCT website. Later we saw The Producers at the Paris, starring Tony Danza (no, really). And no, there are no physics diplomas on our walls; otherwise we would have been hanging out at the Bellagio.

Jim, me, Burch, Jana and Tim Toohey enjoying a light moment, which were many.

Other dudes in attendance were my brother Butch (Mat) Falkowski (who somehow called Donovan's naked bootleg TD run three plays ahead) and Matt Schwalbach, who heroically shouldered the bulk of the organizational duties - thanks dude! Unfortunately, all the pictures of them were in appropriate for posting on a website I plan on showing my mother.