For the first play of the season I want to see craziness. Edwards lined up under center, hands off to McNamara . . . fleaflicker to McCarthy in the endzone!
It went off the air before I was born, but I'll confirm that Fernwood Tonight still claps. Fred Willard is so subtle. His characters in Best in Show and Mighty Wind are legendary, A-1 Steaksauce funny.
Here's some unsolicited advice gathered from my decades-long career as a chef working in the presence of some fantastically talented, Michelin-starred gourmands:
It's likely not intentional. It's rare (LOL) that a diner refuses an overcooked steak. When it happens, the steak usually ends up as dinner for the executive chef, bartender, or floor manager. No biggie, really. Weighing that against the potential nightmare of throwing every steak you cook back on the grill because you're intentionally undercooking them? That's a recipe for a backed-up kitchen. Maybe it happens somewhere, but it's not common practice.
Also, it's perfectly acceptable to order a fatty steak medium. The extra time lets that fat melt and get all groovy with the meat. Leaner cuts like filet mignon, sure, order that baby rare.
But really, if you're going to spend over a hundred dollars on dinner for yourself, why not try something different? Any schmo with a meat thermometer can cook a steak (no offense to any schmos out there). Try going somewhere that impresses some new knowledge and technique on you, you know? The best meals I've had were the novel experiences! There's a whole world of amazing haute cuisine in this crazy world and it's frustrating as a chef (not really, but kind of) to watch potential customers stream into the same old steakhouses and Italian restaurants because society tells them "THIS IS FINE DINING".
Here's some unsolicited advice gathered from my decades-long career as a chef working in the presence of some fantastically talented, Michelin-starred gourmands:
It's likely not intentional. It's rare (LOL) that a diner refuses an overcooked steak. When it happens, the steak usually ends up as dinner for the executive chef, bartender, or floor manager. No biggie, really. Weighing that against the potential nightmare of throwing every steak you cook back on the grill because you're intentionally undercooking them? That's a recipe for a backed-up kitchen. Maybe it happens somewhere, but it's not common practice.
Also, it's perfectly acceptable to order a fatty steak medium. The extra time lets that fat melt and get all groovy with the meat. Leaner cuts like filet mignon, sure, order that baby rare.
But really, if you're going to spend over a hundred dollars on dinner for yourself, why not try something different? Any schmo with a meat thermometer can cook a steak (no offense to any schmos out there). Try going somewhere that impresses some new knowledge and technique on you, you know? The best meals I've had were the novel experiences! There's a whole world of amazing haute cuisine in this crazy world and it's frustrating as a chef (not really, but kind of) to watch potential customers stream into the same old steakhouses and Italian restaurants because society tells them "THIS IS FINE DINING".
I'd be upset too if my success in life hinged on the interpretation of folks like Milquetoast McShay. Harris handled it poorly, but I think the classy thing to do is cut the guy some slack.
My favorite acoustic finger-picker at the moment is Buck Meek from Big Thief. He floats through some pretty complicated chord progressions with real nice style. Listen to "Haley" off their album "Capacity" for a good example.
My favorite electric player has been Nels Cline for a while. His group plays free jazz with a million stomp pedals, like if Thurston Moore and Wes Montgomery had a baby. He also sessions with a lot with other bands (he played lead on Wilco's Sky Blue Sky album).
But yeah, J Mascis and David Gilmore are also very high on my list. The "Time" solo basically inspired me to buy my first guitar when I was a wee lad, and I think J Mascis taught an entire generation of guitarists to give a shit about good tone.
I'm a high school social studies teacher, and I say stay. Your son is a junior in college, not a third-grader. He has proven himself to be self-motivated, so the drawbacks of online learning don't really apply to his situation. It can be irritating to deal with the procedural kinks of NTI in its current state, but that shouldn't be the deciding factor for a student who has already come so far.
My colleagues and I are mostly concerned with the increased difficulty of offering guidance to low-level students. This is not really a concern at the college level. It's the old adage that "school is what you make it." A student who busts ass through NTI is going to get a better education than a student who sleeps through in-person lectures.
Frame this as a chance for your son to learn the skills he needs to become a life-long learner. Suggest that he watch the ten-part Crash Course series on Study Skills. It will empower him to take control of his own education.
Buddy, I've been following this blog since the early days. I'm here for that good, good, juicy content. Not this defeatist hogwash. I'm entitled to my own opinion, and I'm entitled to share it on MGoBrianCook'sPersonalMessageBoard:SycophantEdition all I want.
I mean . . . my name, birth year, and likeness are available at an immediate glance, so I'm not sure about the anonymity comment. Given that I know about as much about Brian, our levels of transparency seem about equal. Unlike Brian, though, nobody cares what I have to say about Michigan football. He is a sports writer who has willingly taken on a role in shaping the program's narrative. This blog has survived because it's about more than "Well, I dunno. Fuck it." Thousands of people come here to attach meaning to the escapist diversion that is college football, and the best writing on this site has always been the post-loss reaffirmation of the meaning we construct here. Without that, what the hell are we doing here? These increasingly frequent jaunts into nihilism betray the whole point of the blog. Arguing that I'm not allowed to care because I'm not the sole proprietor of the site is kind of reductionist. Michigan football is more than Jim Harbaugh, and MGoBlog is more than Brian Cook.
It's the fiftieth anniversary of the greatest game in Michigan football history. The two-loss, underdog Wolverines whooped up on the undefeated, #1 ranked OSU. Must. Resist. Enticing. Narrative. Parallels.
I went to UF for that exact reason. Florida's public in-state tuition is low across the board thanks to our historical brain drain. Growing up in the land of swamps and nursing homes engenders an "anywhere but here" attitude among the youngins.
Minor typo, but for anyone who was interested in the playlist, the song is Back to Earth, and the band is Parquet Courts. Not the other way around as it is listed.
No thanks. I prefer my metal vocalists to purify themselves in the blood of the innocent, not weak ass cabernet from the desert. Listen to King Gizzard's new album instead.
This. Coaches show up to a game with the plays that give their team the best chance of success against that particular opponent. They don't have some separate, dusty playbook of THE RRREAALL GOOD STUFF waiting under lock and key for rivalry week. If a new look pops up during the season, it's because that "new" look exploits a particular weakness in the opposition's defense. It's conditional on the opponent.
The "maybe they're saving the good stuff" argument has come up near the start of every season since I started lurking this blog back in the RR years. It never ends up being the case. Let. It. Die.
Predictions at this point in the year have more to do with increasing the publisher's web traffic than foosball analysis. There are too many off-season question marks across the B1G to make reliable predictions ahead of actual football times.
But, I mean . . . we're all bored and starved for content, so I'll take whatever I can get. Especially if it's optimistic.
Yeah, but Vader's fall and redemption over the course of the original six movies fits so neatly into the tragic hero archetype that every movie released after the fact seems to suffer from a crisis of authenticity, you know?
I don't understand what point you're trying to make nor its relation to the OP. Should the football team be educated on the irrelevance of the contribution of POC during the D-Day invasion? Or should Jim Harbaugh focus on the racist decision by Allied commanders to disallow POC from fighting? The efforts made by black soldiers in Normandy stand on their own and deserve to be considered outside the context of race. Maybe I'm crazy, but I doubt black soldiers gave a damn about the broader context of their historical role in the war while landing on the beaches of Normandy. Their bravery is the same bravery as any white soldier, and requires no annotation.
This seems to be a recurring theme in your replies. You marginalize the contribution of entire nations based on the weight of their death toll as if dying were the only way to contribute. WW2 was the greatest humanitarian crisis in history, not a pissing contest. You are obviously educated on the subject, but I suggest you take a break from the military history and read a war diary or two to broaden your interpretation.
The majority of readers here aren't football experts either, myself included, but I still appreciate and indulge in the content. I'm advocating for recipes that help people become better cooks, not necessarily more complex ones. If I screw something up, it's nice to be able to consult a technical recipe and pinpoint what might have gone wrong so I'm not left in the dark to wonder. "Give a man a fish" and whatnot.
I have also tried to deskin pork belly with a dull knife, and I agree that it is an infuriating pain in the ass. Having a good butcher knife obviously makes the process easier, but a sharp enough chef's knife should handle the job. Also, if you weigh the belly down in your fridge overnight it will flatten out and make the job much easier. Cutting the nipples off first helps, too, which is good advice, but a really weird thing to tell someone.
That is the most jacked up slab of pork belly I've ever seen. For the love of God, don't buy your meat at Costco. If you're going to take the time to do this, do it right. Support a local butcher shop (they still exist), or buy some uncut bacon at a specialty store (hooray, this recipe only takes five minutes now).
Also, WTF skinless? Remove the skin yourself, cut it into strips, and fry it. There is nothing like freshly fried chicharrones. Or leave the skin on, and have some crackle to contrast the unctuous pork belly.
No offense meant to Joe Pichey, but if you're going be featured on a scholarly, analytical football blog, your section should expand on that theme. More Food Lab, less 30-Minute Meals.
I find it incredibly unlikely that Harbaugh bows out with an 0-2 record against OSU and no Big Ten title to his name. Talking heads predicted he wouldn't leave the NFL without a Superbowl win, but Harbaugh seems much more passionate about coaching at Michigan than anywhere else I've seen him, and when Harbaugh is passionate he is also extremely competitive. I think leaving Michigan without those wins would be a hard pill for him to swallow.
I've always thought Tennessee was the most Michigan-like SEC team with the 100,000+ capacity at Neyland and strong band tradition. I could see the case for Georgia, though. Athens and Ann Arbor are both exurbs of large cities, their top rivalries are with the flagship universities in the next state south, and both of those rivals are insufferable rednecks. I lived in Gainesville for eight years, and I always pulled for the Bulldogs in the Cocktail Party. I like this thought experiment. What are the most Michigan-like schools in the other P5 conferences? Mine are:
Recent Comments
It's happening. Air Force is going to the playoffs, guys.
No, it's me. I'm Joel Klatt.
I fully expect us to dismantle, consume, and excrete the Hawaiian Football Squad this Saturday, but "100% win probability" is bad juju.
For the first play of the season I want to see craziness. Edwards lined up under center, hands off to McNamara . . . fleaflicker to McCarthy in the endzone!
My list is a tinge different.
Drama
1. The Wire
2. The first three seasons of Game of Thrones
3. The first three seasons of Battlestar Galactica
4. The first three seasons of Lost
Comedy
1. Seinfeld
2. The first ten seasons of The Simpsons
3. It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
4. The like, middle ten seasons of South Park
It went off the air before I was born, but I'll confirm that Fernwood Tonight still claps. Fred Willard is so subtle. His characters in Best in Show and Mighty Wind are legendary, A-1 Steaksauce funny.
Saddle Creek in the 00's was like whoa.
Here's some unsolicited advice gathered from my decades-long career as a chef working in the presence of some fantastically talented, Michelin-starred gourmands:
It's likely not intentional. It's rare (LOL) that a diner refuses an overcooked steak. When it happens, the steak usually ends up as dinner for the executive chef, bartender, or floor manager. No biggie, really. Weighing that against the potential nightmare of throwing every steak you cook back on the grill because you're intentionally undercooking them? That's a recipe for a backed-up kitchen. Maybe it happens somewhere, but it's not common practice.
Also, it's perfectly acceptable to order a fatty steak medium. The extra time lets that fat melt and get all groovy with the meat. Leaner cuts like filet mignon, sure, order that baby rare.
But really, if you're going to spend over a hundred dollars on dinner for yourself, why not try something different? Any schmo with a meat thermometer can cook a steak (no offense to any schmos out there). Try going somewhere that impresses some new knowledge and technique on you, you know? The best meals I've had were the novel experiences! There's a whole world of amazing haute cuisine in this crazy world and it's frustrating as a chef (not really, but kind of) to watch potential customers stream into the same old steakhouses and Italian restaurants because society tells them "THIS IS FINE DINING".
Here's some unsolicited advice gathered from my decades-long career as a chef working in the presence of some fantastically talented, Michelin-starred gourmands:
It's likely not intentional. It's rare (LOL) that a diner refuses an overcooked steak. When it happens, the steak usually ends up as dinner for the executive chef, bartender, or floor manager. No biggie, really. Weighing that against the potential nightmare of throwing every steak you cook back on the grill because you're intentionally undercooking them? That's a recipe for a backed-up kitchen. Maybe it happens somewhere, but it's not common practice.
Also, it's perfectly acceptable to order a fatty steak medium. The extra time lets that fat melt and get all groovy with the meat. Leaner cuts like filet mignon, sure, order that baby rare.
But really, if you're going to spend over a hundred dollars on dinner for yourself, why not try something different? Any schmo with a meat thermometer can cook a steak (no offense to any schmos out there). Try going somewhere that impresses some new knowledge and technique on you, you know? The best meals I've had were the novel experiences! There's a whole world of amazing haute cuisine in this crazy world and it's frustrating as a chef (not really, but kind of) to watch potential customers stream into the same old steakhouses and Italian restaurants because society tells them "THIS IS FINE DINING".
It's hilarious that grown men who have never thought about fashion in their lives are so repulsed by the idea of navy blue pants.
As opposed to politically incorrect and asleep? I'll take the former.
By every metric known to man, New Orleans is a better college town than #1-9.
I'd be upset too if my success in life hinged on the interpretation of folks like Milquetoast McShay. Harris handled it poorly, but I think the classy thing to do is cut the guy some slack.
My favorite acoustic finger-picker at the moment is Buck Meek from Big Thief. He floats through some pretty complicated chord progressions with real nice style. Listen to "Haley" off their album "Capacity" for a good example.
My favorite electric player has been Nels Cline for a while. His group plays free jazz with a million stomp pedals, like if Thurston Moore and Wes Montgomery had a baby. He also sessions with a lot with other bands (he played lead on Wilco's Sky Blue Sky album).
But yeah, J Mascis and David Gilmore are also very high on my list. The "Time" solo basically inspired me to buy my first guitar when I was a wee lad, and I think J Mascis taught an entire generation of guitarists to give a shit about good tone.
I'm a high school social studies teacher, and I say stay. Your son is a junior in college, not a third-grader. He has proven himself to be self-motivated, so the drawbacks of online learning don't really apply to his situation. It can be irritating to deal with the procedural kinks of NTI in its current state, but that shouldn't be the deciding factor for a student who has already come so far.
My colleagues and I are mostly concerned with the increased difficulty of offering guidance to low-level students. This is not really a concern at the college level. It's the old adage that "school is what you make it." A student who busts ass through NTI is going to get a better education than a student who sleeps through in-person lectures.
Frame this as a chance for your son to learn the skills he needs to become a life-long learner. Suggest that he watch the ten-part Crash Course series on Study Skills. It will empower him to take control of his own education.
EVERYTHING IS FINE AND WE ARE ALL BEST FRIENDS.
Buddy, I've been following this blog since the early days. I'm here for that good, good, juicy content. Not this defeatist hogwash. I'm entitled to my own opinion, and I'm entitled to share it on MGoBrianCook'sPersonalMessageBoard:SycophantEdition all I want.
Jesus, dude. I make one statement you disagree with and I'm a crybaby and loser? Have a cookie and get fucked. You seem a little keyed up.
I mean . . . my name, birth year, and likeness are available at an immediate glance, so I'm not sure about the anonymity comment. Given that I know about as much about Brian, our levels of transparency seem about equal. Unlike Brian, though, nobody cares what I have to say about Michigan football. He is a sports writer who has willingly taken on a role in shaping the program's narrative. This blog has survived because it's about more than "Well, I dunno. Fuck it." Thousands of people come here to attach meaning to the escapist diversion that is college football, and the best writing on this site has always been the post-loss reaffirmation of the meaning we construct here. Without that, what the hell are we doing here? These increasingly frequent jaunts into nihilism betray the whole point of the blog. Arguing that I'm not allowed to care because I'm not the sole proprietor of the site is kind of reductionist. Michigan football is more than Jim Harbaugh, and MGoBlog is more than Brian Cook.
Regardless, first world problems, amirite?
You sure complain about doing your job a lot.
BuckeyeChuck is a better Michigan fan than 80% of this board. Find the courage to watch the damn football game, you sniveling fusspots.
If Michigan wins next week I won't give a happy fuck what bowl game we play in.
Spare us the sanctimony, Hugh Jass.
It's the fiftieth anniversary of the greatest game in Michigan football history. The two-loss, underdog Wolverines whooped up on the undefeated, #1 ranked OSU. Must. Resist. Enticing. Narrative. Parallels.
I went to UF for that exact reason. Florida's public in-state tuition is low across the board thanks to our historical brain drain. Growing up in the land of swamps and nursing homes engenders an "anywhere but here" attitude among the youngins.
And what do you charge for a complicated hand job? What does that even look like?
I just watched a video about a guy who was sprinting for an entire marathon.
Dreadlocks =…
Incorrect.
Dreadlocks = increased potential to draw holding calls. All players should grow dreadlocks.
Minor typo, but for anyone who was interested in the playlist, the song is Back to Earth, and the band is Parquet Courts. Not the other way around as it is listed.
According to the table provided in the link, 1979 is the only 10-win regular season in Purdue history.
No thanks. I prefer my metal vocalists to purify themselves in the blood of the innocent, not weak ass cabernet from the desert. Listen to King Gizzard's new album instead.
This. Coaches show up to a game with the plays that give their team the best chance of success against that particular opponent. They don't have some separate, dusty playbook of THE RRREAALL GOOD STUFF waiting under lock and key for rivalry week. If a new look pops up during the season, it's because that "new" look exploits a particular weakness in the opposition's defense. It's conditional on the opponent.
The "maybe they're saving the good stuff" argument has come up near the start of every season since I started lurking this blog back in the RR years. It never ends up being the case. Let. It. Die.
Predictions at this point in the year have more to do with increasing the publisher's web traffic than foosball analysis. There are too many off-season question marks across the B1G to make reliable predictions ahead of actual football times.
But, I mean . . . we're all bored and starved for content, so I'll take whatever I can get. Especially if it's optimistic.
Pros: Is…
Louisville, KY.
Pros: Is Louisville.
Cons: Is in Kentucky.
Yeah, but Vader's fall and redemption over the course of the original six movies fits so neatly into the tragic hero archetype that every movie released after the fact seems to suffer from a crisis of authenticity, you know?
Look! It's English new wave band Echo and the Bunnymen!
Wand's rad new single "Scarecrow".
Protomartyr
I don't understand what point you're trying to make nor its relation to the OP. Should the football team be educated on the irrelevance of the contribution of POC during the D-Day invasion? Or should Jim Harbaugh focus on the racist decision by Allied commanders to disallow POC from fighting? The efforts made by black soldiers in Normandy stand on their own and deserve to be considered outside the context of race. Maybe I'm crazy, but I doubt black soldiers gave a damn about the broader context of their historical role in the war while landing on the beaches of Normandy. Their bravery is the same bravery as any white soldier, and requires no annotation.
This seems to be a recurring theme in your replies. You marginalize the contribution of entire nations based on the weight of their death toll as if dying were the only way to contribute. WW2 was the greatest humanitarian crisis in history, not a pissing contest. You are obviously educated on the subject, but I suggest you take a break from the military history and read a war diary or two to broaden your interpretation.
Don Brown is doing himself a disservice by not wearing the largest pair of aviator sunglasses at all times.
You believe what you want to believe, Don Brown.
The majority of readers here aren't football experts either, myself included, but I still appreciate and indulge in the content. I'm advocating for recipes that help people become better cooks, not necessarily more complex ones. If I screw something up, it's nice to be able to consult a technical recipe and pinpoint what might have gone wrong so I'm not left in the dark to wonder. "Give a man a fish" and whatnot.
I have also tried to deskin pork belly with a dull knife, and I agree that it is an infuriating pain in the ass. Having a good butcher knife obviously makes the process easier, but a sharp enough chef's knife should handle the job. Also, if you weigh the belly down in your fridge overnight it will flatten out and make the job much easier. Cutting the nipples off first helps, too, which is good advice, but a really weird thing to tell someone.
If you find yourself wanting to have another go, though, this recipe for porchetta leaves the skin on through the whole roasting process and I can attest to how flipping incredible it turns out: http://www.seriouseats.com/2011/12/the-food-lab-how-to-make-all-belly-porchetta-the-ultimate-holiday-roast-italian-roast-pork.html
Best of luck. A la cuisine, and go blue!
I'm a professional chef, so complaining about recipes is almost as natural to me as breathing.
That is the most jacked up slab of pork belly I've ever seen. For the love of God, don't buy your meat at Costco. If you're going to take the time to do this, do it right. Support a local butcher shop (they still exist), or buy some uncut bacon at a specialty store (hooray, this recipe only takes five minutes now).
Also, WTF skinless? Remove the skin yourself, cut it into strips, and fry it. There is nothing like freshly fried chicharrones. Or leave the skin on, and have some crackle to contrast the unctuous pork belly.
No offense meant to Joe Pichey, but if you're going be featured on a scholarly, analytical football blog, your section should expand on that theme. More Food Lab, less 30-Minute Meals.
I find it incredibly unlikely that Harbaugh bows out with an 0-2 record against OSU and no Big Ten title to his name. Talking heads predicted he wouldn't leave the NFL without a Superbowl win, but Harbaugh seems much more passionate about coaching at Michigan than anywhere else I've seen him, and when Harbaugh is passionate he is also extremely competitive. I think leaving Michigan without those wins would be a hard pill for him to swallow.
I've always thought Tennessee was the most Michigan-like SEC team with the 100,000+ capacity at Neyland and strong band tradition. I could see the case for Georgia, though. Athens and Ann Arbor are both exurbs of large cities, their top rivalries are with the flagship universities in the next state south, and both of those rivals are insufferable rednecks. I lived in Gainesville for eight years, and I always pulled for the Bulldogs in the Cocktail Party. I like this thought experiment. What are the most Michigan-like schools in the other P5 conferences? Mine are:
SEC: Tennessee
Pac 12: Stanford
Big 12: Texas
ACC: Uhhhh, UVA, Pitt, or UNC?
For the life of me, I can't figure out what emotion you are trying to convey here.
. . . And out come the whiny old white people.
"A more big picture aspect." The DJ Durkin difference.