Comatose

So stay away....stay away
While I’m in the arms of slumber
And I’m leaving it all behind
--Comatose, Eagle Eye Cherry

Waking up at 5 a.m. every day isn't such an awful thing, I promise. If I'm able to get to bed between 10 and 10:30, that's still 6-7 hours of sleep, which is enough for me to function, and it allows me to get a nice workout in, minimize the drive time from the South Bay to the West Side, and gives me an early start at the office. It's not such a wonderful thing, however, when I don't leave work until 12:45 a.m., get to sleep after 1:30, and still attempt the same schedule. That's the difficulty facing me this morning, the after-effects of a night edit session spent on boxing material. It all looks great (for our fight in Sacramento Friday night), but at what price? Missed "Prison Break" and this amazing Bob Dylan show put together by Martin Scorcese (thank goodness for TiVo), and I'll be missing "My Name is Earl" tonight (solid debut last week--maybe a little too much narration, but pretty darn good). If I don't get to sleep by 9 tonight, I'm going to be done for the rest of the week...

A day late on the b-ball update, but we collected another win Sunday night, a ten-point victory over our rival squad, Storm. We upped our career record against the league's second-best team (need you ask who's the best?) to 3-2 and maintained our unblemished record on the season, hoping to keep that going with just two (I think) regular season games left. We played as well as we've played all season, I think, because of the level of competition and the quality of finishing (not layups, but the game itself). We've had previous encounters with this squad where an 11-point lead quickly becomes an eight-point deficit, and they did come back at one point in the second half, tying the game after they had trailed by double figures. At this point, however, we decided to regroup, run some good offense (with one notable exception) and get layups the rest of the way. We won the previous week's game by 40-something, but this was a much more exhilarating encounter. We'll see how next Sunday's clash with "Joint Effort" goes--hopefully they'll be high or something...

I wish I could come up with new things to say each week about USC, but I just keep coming back to awe and amazement. They showed a few chinks in the armor Saturday, but you never really felt like they were going to lose. Even with all the bad breaks in the first half (punt bouncing off Will Buchanon's foot, Jarrett drop in the end zone turning into a pick, Reggie drop on third down), they battled back and only trailed by three at the break. From that point on, they showed their dominance in typical fashion. Leinart was Leinart, Jarrett caught two, LenDale ran for two, and Reggie--well, what can you say about Reggie. Just when you think you've seen everything there is to see from that guy, he goes and makes like six more highlight-film plays. Losing his shoe and still juking a guy on a nice run. Total reverse of field on a touchdown run, leaving the entire Ducks defense in his wake. Coming face to face with an Oregon defender in the backfield after getting a handoff, stopping on a dime and spinning away for a two-yard gain. Catching a punt with two guys literally less than a yard away from him, and managing to juke both before getting surrounded by five or six other guys and finally going down. I could seriously go on and on, but it's not nearly as cool to read about it as it is to just watch. By the way, the Bruins are still undefeated. Yeah, they haven't been unbeaten this late since 2001, when they went 6-0, rose to No. 4 in the polls (under the great Bob Toledo), and then dropped four in a row (including a 27-0 drubbing at the hands of those Trojans). The time before that was 1998, you know, the team that couldn't tackle...

How am I even writing right now? Running this morning must have given me a temporary reprieve from this imminent sleep onset (by the way, a small pet peeve has emerged with people confusing the words "imminent" and "eminent." The former refers to something that's pending, something that's going to happen--imminent danger, for example. The latter is totally different, referring to the best of something--like an eminent scholar, or when they use "pre-eminent" to make it the ultimate. Hope you enjoyed the English lesson).

One of my tasks last night was picking music for a few of these pieces that are going to air Friday, so I made a short trip to the music library and came away with not only the required tunes (Tracy Chapman, Public Enemy, Ying-Yang Twins, among others), but a pair of compact discs put out by a duo calling themselves Handsome Boy Modeling School--long a musical inspiration of mine. The first disc has two tracks that sample the TV show "Get a Life" with Chris Elliot, an episode where he signs up for the HBMS and then discovers the seedy side of the male modeling business (it was Zoolander before Stiller). The second album includes multiple tracks with Tim Meadows as the Ladies Man, discussing his experiences with the HBMS--priceless. I've just completed the process of copying all those tracks onto my computer, so Prince Paul and Automator will be keeping me company (and hopefully awake) all day...

WARNING: SAN DIEGO SPORTS SECTION -- SKIP IF YOU WANT TO
Two quick things, one for each squad. Throwing to L.T. on the first play of the game and handing it off to him the rest of the way--nicely done, Cam Cameron. Bolts needed that win in a big way, and they remembered how they win games (LT 192 and 3 scores plus a passing TD, Gates 92 and a touch). Tough stretch coming up (though I'm hoping the Pats miss Rodney A LOT), so we'll see how this team comes through the New England-Pittsburgh-Oakland-Philly-KC gauntlet that's spanning the next five weeks. If we come out of that at .500 overall, I'm overjoyed, because I honestly think we can go 7-1 the rest of the way (meaning 11-5 overall), the only possible loss being a visit to Indy December 18th.
Second, Jake pitched well enough to win, but Trevor blew a save last night, and our lead is down to three. I'm not nervous. Yet. But we do need to win tonight--come on Adam (Eaton).