The start of September

It's Saturday night, so of course I'm just sitting in my room typing. It's not that I didn't get invited to a party; it's just that I'm too tired to go out tonight. Really. Seriously. I swear.

Anyway, here's a few interesting things that happened this weekend (so far)...

The Mets have started to turn things around with a couple of big victories in Atlanta. Not only has Carlos Delgado found his groove with a home run in each of the first two games in the series, but pitching has improved dramatically (not that surprising considering the change of venue, but still...). In fact, John Maine and Mike Pelfrey were both spectacular. It was nice to see Maine pitching well again, but what was really great was watching Mike Pelfrey pitch like a first round draft choice (6IP, 1H, 3BB, 7K). Even relief pitching has improved. On Friday night, Aaron Heilman and Scott Schoenweis EACH pitched a scoreless inning. Then, this afternoon, Pedro Feliciano pitched two innings and struck out 5 of the 6 men he faced. YIKES. And speaking of strikeouts, the other Pedro (ie: Martinez) is supposedly starting on Monday vs. Cincinnati. Get excited.

Now, since this IS America, I might as well talk about college football. This blog's feature team Penn State played a tune-up game against Florida International University and triumphed 59-0. The offense had some hiccups, but played well overall. Morelli had a fun time, completing 23/38 for 295 yards. Evan "Rolls" (thanks Dan L) Royster and Rodney Kinlaw lead the rushing attack (Austin Scott disappointed), while Jordan Norwood topped all receivers with 92 yards. It's always good to win by 50 points or more, but it's still too early to tell how the season will go. Remember when everyone was pissed off because PSU didn't win by enough in the 2005 opener?

Meanwhile, the University of Michigan played a tune-up game against Division I-AA champ Appalachian State. This one didn't got too well for U of M, who lost 34-32, in what could end up being the biggest upset of the season. IMHO Michigan will bounce back and contend for the Big 10 title. After all, with A-state being better than all I-AA teams, it's hard to measure how good they are without much D-I competition. So, they could really be THAT could (you never know). The problem for A-state is that they've already peaked. What do they do now? Everyone they're going to play will be 100 times worse than Michigan. I'll be shocked if they don't win a title. Here's one more thing: if both Michigan and A-state go undefeated the rest of the year, should A-state get a shot of the D-I title? They won't, but they should.

Probably the most amazing part of the day was staying until the very end of PSU's victory, then joining a crowd under the bleachers watching the end of the Michigan v. Appalachian State game on an 18-inch TV. Before long, we were packed in, with barely any room to move (or breathe), and everyone was screaming and cheering as though they were still in the bleachers. Although it was fun to be part of the Michigan-hater crowd, I couldn't help feeling like the mass-inferiority complex of the fans was a little pathetic. It's not as though Penn State now has a better chance of winning the Big Ten now. Still, a wild scene.

By they way, I STILL haven't played Metroid Prime 3. I'm disappointed in myself.