Octoberfirst

Now it's October, which means one thing to me: there's less than a month until the Marine Corps Marathon. This weekend is my longest run yet at 20 miles (topping my previous long of 18), and then I start the taper. I think the part that's the hardest for me is going to be not running as far as I want to, and actually taking the time to rest. It's about time though- running made the switch from hobby to chore about a month ago.

This weekend was 1 for 3 in the football universe. Apparently the Colts had a great comeback finish against the Jets, but I wouldn't know because it wasn't on TV here. What was on (and in glorious HD) was the annual Purdue/Notre Dame grudgematch. Of course, Notre Dame beating Purdue is bad for several reasons.
Even though we lost, I must say I feel better about the team than I did after our victories over crappy opponents. First of all, the Domers are pretty good this year. Not as good as the media would have you believe of course, but we finally had a good test. And you know what? We moved the ball pretty well, even if our defense was little porous. Even though we lost by 14, that's still only two scores- it was never a run-away victory. I think a lot of our woes are due to a highly inexperienced secondary- we're starting several freshman due to injury, and they seemed pretty confused at times. A lot of long completions came against blown coverages, and though that's frustrating, it can be fixed. Offensively, we left a lot of points on the field with dropped passes, a fumble, and a missed field goal (here's a good recap). I'm highly impressed with QB Curtis Painter, and WR Selwyn Lymon. I especially liked the completion Painter threw while being tackled from behind- he showed great poise. In any case, next Purdue heads to Iowa for another tough road game, then to Northwestern where we hope to take one more step toward bowl-eligibility.

In a related note, I was very pleased to see the return of black pants for the football team. For the duration of my time at Purdue, the team was black on gold at home, white on black on the road. This gives fun alternate options, like black on black (which they never do in real life, but I do on Nintendo). Then came the gold uniform disaster. Then it was gold on white (which sucked) at home and white on gold for the road. This gave a few alternates of white on white (which is classic, but makes the helmet look weird) and an abysmal gold on gold. Even though harmony was partially restored when black home jerseys came back in 2004, they still only had the gold pants for the road. With the addition of black pants, and the fine tuning done to the jersey (no more out of place sleeve logos) Purdue has the first football uniforms I've liked since my senior year. And that's what counts, right?

In addition to waxing philosophical about football uniforms, this weekend was the Woodbury's deckwarming party, in which we all got to reap the fruits of like 6 of my (and Dave's) weekends this summer. It was an all-around good time, but my favorite part was the triumphant return of catch phrase, which may be the best party game ever. The men actually won the first few games, but the women roared back with a vengeance during the second round. Also, we played a few rounds of Scene It. After a brief scare during the first game (and utter domination in the second), I am happy to announce that my Scene It record still remains perfect. We were playing in teams, and at one point it was suggested that we just play everyone versus me, and I have to say, I was pretty confident. One of my friends shot down the idea on the basis of not wanting to hear me gloat. I wasn't aware that I was a gloater- maybe it would be unavoidable after such a display of movie trivia mastery.

One final note about the PU/ND game. Notre Dame scored a touchdown on a fake field goal when they were already up by two touchdowns. So, although we all like to think that anyone connected with the Patriots is a great guy, I have a sneaking suspiscion that Charlie Weis is kind of a jerk.