Fear the Purple

So after an annoying flight delay, I made it back from my awesome weekend in Chicago this evening. Here are the highlights:

Gameday
It could not have been a nicer day for a college football game. Sunny. 75-80 degrees. Hardly a cloud in the sky. Northwestern has massive amounts of free parking on campus near Lake Michigan for tailgating, which is AWESOME! We were only about one mile from the stadium, and the first beer was cracked open at 8AM. There was a massive crowd of students wearing maize tailgating not that far from where we parked, so we were in very friendly territory.

A short while later, that large group of students started singing 'Eye of the Tiger'. Yup. We were tailgating right next to the band. (and some things never change...)

As for the game itself, I'll keep my comments to five bullet points.

• It's great attending an away football game where nearly half of the fans are wearing maize or blue. We owned NU's house.
  

• The first half was so frustrating. Michigan's defense is so sloooooooooooooow.
  

• Michigan's Big Ten hopes (and quite possibly bowl eligibility hopes) depend on a healthy Chad Henne. He's amazing. Mallet will be great someday, but just not this year.

• I'd whine about how much I hate our offensive play calling and Mike DeBord, but MGoBlog took my thoughts and expressed them creatively. Absolutely brilliant commentary. Here are some of Brian's best comments:
• "When Mike Debord plays rock-paper-scissors, he always picks rock.
  
  Rock totally beats scissors. Why would anyone pick anything else? Sure, occasionally someone will throw his own rock, but this is Michigan. We can out-execute their rock. And there are rumors of this thing called "paper". Apparently it beats rock, which seems darned unsporting, but Mike Debord will believe that when Mike Debord sees it...
  
  ...Hey, Bonzo scored a touchdown. Now we're ahead. Let's go back to rock. Rock beats scissors."

• "This was another log for the 'Lloyd Carr always coaches like he has a killer defense and a pounding ground game no matter the facts on the ground' theory."

• Michigan can run the table if the coaching staff approaches the game as if they started with a 14 point deficit. When Michigan opens up the playbook, the team can score a lot of points. Enough to cover up an absolutely pathetic (and injury ridden) defense. The only really good Big Ten team out there right now is OSU. Michigan is not good enough to beat them today, but if this team gets it together and the coaches decide that tools of deception like 'paper' and 'scissors' can compliment 'rock', Michigan can beat OSU seven weeks from now.
  

As for other game-related comments, we had this real annoying NU jerk sitting a couple rows behind us. I brought my cowbell along at the request of the CrazyChicas, even though I wasn't really feeling it. I didn't play it much during the first half, but this jerk starting riding me hard in the third quarter. He kept taunting me when I played the cowbell and supported my team in the second half. I was really getting pissed, especially since his comments were unimaginative and often vulgar (frequent use of the words 'douchebag', 'Independence Bowl', and 'Appalachian State'). However, I didn't believe that turning around or reacting towards him in any way would accomplish anything, so I never turned around. After all, he's a Northwestern fan, so making fun of his football team is like making fun of a mentally disabled child. It's just plain cruel and doesn't make you look good. I also started playing the cowbell to drown him out whenever he started yelling at me or my group of friends. Eventually, Michigan took the lead and the annoying fan quietly left the stadium with about six minutes left in the game.

I was totally proud of how our group responded to that a-hole, and apparently so were the Michigan fans around us. One person came up to us as she was leaving and complimented our group of ten for acting with such great class and being supportive of the team all afternoon. That made my day.

Post Game Shenanigans
There were not really any post game shenanigans. We continues our tailgate for another 2-3 hours after the game ended and grilled some brats. We went out for a nice bar crawl at a few of the 'Big Ten' bars in Lincoln Park, but it ended up being a fairly short evening since everyone was exhausted from the looong day. I must say that the Ohio State bar was much trashier and smokier than the Michigan bar (Duffys). However, that shouldn't surprise anyone.

Sunday
I met up with FlyingV at Duffys on Sunday for the Lions-Bears game. It was nice to see the Lions finally get a win over the Bears, but the bar patrons (especially FlyingV), were not very happy. On the bright side, Duffys has an amazing brunch buffet on NFL Sundays. I'm still full today!

When all was said and done, I had a fabulous time with the CrazyChicas, FraudPolice, and two of the SybilGirls. Every time I return home from a weekend in Chicago, I wonder why I don't live there today. I love that city.

I didn't take any pictures, but if Mouse of MplsJu send me some good ones, I will post them later. Hopefully I get a good picture of D$'s costume. That was classic...

Annoying Travel Note
Quick comparison between the United terminal at O'Hare and the US Air/United terminal at Hartford/Springfield airport:

• Number of people waiting to go through security on a weekday afternoon
• O'Hare - around 200-300
• Hartford - around 20
• Number of 'manned' x-ray machines
• O'Hare - 3 (one of which was only for first class passengers)
• Hartford - 2

Go figure. To top things off, after waiting about forty-five minutes to get through security, I was grilled about why I had a cowbell in my carry-on bag. Seriously, why does TSA care? Yes, it's random to have a cowbell, but does that really pose a security risk? Why don't you spend less time asking stupid questions and more time getting everyone through the super long line. That, or open one or two of the 10 'unmanned' x-ray machines.