81 Comments

Yes, clever cat names. I knew some dogs named Elway. I worked as a hardware buyer for a high tech computer company in Colorado Springs and used to get some free tickets to the Bronco's games. Best, most colorful and loudest football crowd I've ever been in! That place rocked. There was never room for opposing fans. They just got squeezed...(oranged) out. My favorite player, other than Elway, was Ed McCaffrey, Christian's father who was called one of the best playing wide receivers of all time back then. He would pop out of a crowd downfield and snatch the ball fearlessly and take it in for a TD. He played in 3 super bowls in his carreer, XXlX, XXXll and XXXlll. I loved that guy. Sure wish the Bengal's had acquired his son Christian. He would fit in really well with Burrow & Family.

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Jan 2Liked by Paul Daugherty

Great music again!! After hauling , on my knees, a million boxes of Christmas decor, it was good listening!!!

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Jan 2Liked by Paul Daugherty

On my knees because it all goes into a literal crawl space under the house!

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Jan 2Liked by Paul Daugherty

I was born and raised in Tennessee and am a lifelong Tennessee Volunteer fan. Consequently, I usually cheer for any team playing the red team (Bama). However, I equally dislike Michigan, for allegedly cheating, and we also paid a lot of money for our youngest daughter to graduate from The OSU. This is when I wish for a large sinkhole to appear and suck up both teams never to be seen again. Since that did not happen...GO WASHINGTON HUSKIES!

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Jan 2·edited Jan 2Liked by Paul Daugherty

You've seen my basic duds, Doc. We align like the stars in a Shakespearean play. Years of design-build work has culled my fashion sense down to 2 necessities; practical and sensible.. Jeans, khakis, Carhardts, work shirts, sweatshirts, and Merrells, Hokas, or Keens on the tootsies. Dig Columbia and Eddie Bauer, too. A few Hawaiians, knits, and plaids for Beer-Thirty moments and the golf course. Gotta look good for the golf course. Recently some super comfy, on sale Cole Hahns for golf. Like kisses on a first date. Contrary to some beliefs (yours) , I have a dignified blend of ties, sports jacket suit, and dress shoes stashed for an "as needed" basis. One must dress accordingly when in the presence of ceremony, visiting foreign dignitaries, or incredible feminine beauty, right?

I alternate between hating Harbaugh and being fascinated by him. He's like the bad boy, high school teammate who would grab ya to sneak out at night to break some rules, laughing demonically. He's a mix of crazy and calm before the storm. One minute a nice, polite Midwestern altar boy, the next a snarling pit bull you shoot before it bites. The guy can definitely coach on all levels and enjoys himself. Contrast him with Ryan Day, the poster boy for bad heartburn and morose gloom.

Everyone cries foul these days when they're caught cheating. No one owns up, no matter how obviously guilty. "It musta been some banned substance in my vitamins. I swear." Ray Rice flexed his way out of the tunnel Sunday at halftime for his ceremony, right next to the wife he dragged out of an elevator. Uh, best time to flex, Ray??? Responsibility's at an all time low. It's about the dollars and winning, Doc. The rot continues as a once great civilization crumbles slowly. Without morals, honesty, and trust, we have little left. Sad but true.

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I would acquaint my bra to a man's tie. First thing I put on before I leave the house, first thing off when I get home. (FOFO) Who invented those things anyway? Couldn't have been a woman.

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The person who invented the bra was good at math. The guy who invented the athletic supporter couldn’t count.

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You’re rolling today, JP!..

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Wife’s out shopping, Gary. This happens every year the week after Christmas. She comes home carrying one bag of something. One day I’ll let her know that when I check the air in her SUV tires I can see all the bags waiting to be liberated after I leave the house.

To be fair, I sneak tools in the same way. :)

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Jan 2·edited Jan 2Liked by Paul Daugherty

Great games, I was pulling for both Michigan and Washington. I can't blame the players of Michigan just because the Coach did something stupid. Should be a great playoff on Monday night.

I have two classic sweatshirts; One from 1990 "The Heck with the Dog! Beware of the Cats!" To commemorate two Browns loses to the Bengals that season: 10/90 - Bengals 34 Browns 13; 12/90 - Bengals 21 Browns 14. Sam Wyche - coach.

Second Shirt; "Back to Back Super Bowl Champions Denver Broncos" XXXll Beat the Packers; XXXlll Beat the Falcons- John Elway at the Helm! Awesome! The good old years of The Orange Crush defense. Rocky Mountain Highs! Coors Beer. Those were the days, my friends.

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Fun sweatshirts. I've known some Bronco fans. Their fervor is off the charts. Elway mania was amazing. Great football fans out there. No question. A friend of mine once named her cats Riley Odums and Haven Moses. I thought it was a brilliant move, lol!

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Jan 2Liked by Paul Daugherty

Little Steven brings us the Coolest Songs in the World; he may be the Coolest Guy in the World: LSUG, E Street Band, Disciples of Soul, Lilyhammer, Sopranos, TeachRock. A life well lived!

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Maybe we should create a TML favorite sweat shirt and it should say "screw Xichigan" All kidding aside my favorite is a 20+ year old blue Adidas hoody. It belonged to my son when he was in high school and it reeked of Axe body spray, even after a wash. Fast forwarding, my son joined the Army and he was deployed to Iraq during tense times (home safe thankfully). While he was there I "borrowed" the hoody and wore it because it smelled like Axe body spray. I still wear it every Sunday during cold weather.

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Jan 2·edited Jan 2

I am WITH the Wolverines in their EPIC chase for a College Football National Championship fighting TOGETHER as ONE against EVERYONE! Of course, as a native of the Great State of Michigan and a lifelong FANATIC - some say fan - of the Michigan Wolverines, I am biased. But hey, nothing new here. Doc, you know this as well as anybody: coaches and players in the sporting world USE anything and everything for motivation. MICHIGAN has found a way to unite the effort of all gazillion of their 2023/24 football players toward ONE COMMON GOAL - WIN BABY! BEAT EVERYONE against all odds. Okay, nuff said. Oh wait, just one more thing: methinks a National Championship will look awfully good on this team which has banded together with purpose. M-GO BLUE!

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author

Oh I know. It just sounds so damned juvenile.

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Jan 2Liked by Paul Daugherty

Partly because I didn’t grow up in OH and my native Big Ten schools mostly play a brand of football I’m unfamiliar with, and part because my college immersion into the UM-OSU rivalry was sour-grapes Bucks fans, I pumped my fist so hard on the fourth down stop last evening you’d have thought I was driving the stake through Bama’s heart myself. It’s hard for me to cheer for any “axis of evil” SEC team against almost anyone, particularly Alabama, for reasons both personal and the fact their Entire athletic department has skated by for far too long.

Fave sweatshirt: black zippered BSU hoodie, wool-lined and purchased at a a discount because the small and tasteful school logo had been slightly altered from a previous year. A three-season staple that might be the best $25 or $30 I’ve spent. Over a decade later, still wears and looks great.

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Yeah, I don't like Bama either. Hate 'em as much as you do.

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Testicle Tech

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Jan 2Liked by Paul Daugherty

Not a UM fan but good to see the Big Ten beat the SEC. So tired of Bama.

The transfer portal is ruining college sports. There is no loyalty or commitment anymore. The bowl games outside of last night were a joke. Often the teams playing weren't the teams that got them there. Players transfer, opt out, etc. What values are we teaching these kids? I tell you, we need mandatory public service more than ever. Kids need to learn to be part of something bigger than themselves.

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Jan 2Liked by Paul Daugherty

Hate is a strong word. But, appropriate. I hate UM and their self-righteous coach. Go Huskies!

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Gee, son, wonder where you went to college.

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Appropriate comment. As for me, I'd rather have Harbaugh than Day running my school's football program. Day's starting to look worn out by the constant pressure. Harbaugh thrives on it. He loves controversy.

Next year and going forward, both UM and OSU should get in, as they deserve every year (barring unforeseen circumstances). Ditto for Georgia, Bama, and maybe another SEC school , too. Really looking forward to the expanded format. I wonder if McCord would have stayed if OSU got in. His transfer makes me wonder if there's some cracks in the OSU coaching armor. Odd situation.

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Liberty made a great argument for why 12 teams is too many, BTW. Please, next year no 11-0 Libertys or 11-0 James Madisons.

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Jan 3·edited Jan 3

Or Iowa running a Dean Smith style 4 corner football offense. They looked like they were lost in a corn maze against Tennessee. Iowa needs to caucus a new coaching staff if they want to compete in the new B10.

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Yeah, true, but can we decide 12 is too many off that one game? We're not even in the new format, yet. Too soon to know. Iowa got blown out, too, and they're Power 5. There will be blow outs and there will be upsets. Just like BBall.

I like the idea of the best team from outside the Power 5 ( Power 4? who knows? ) getting in if they meet criterion.. It will add more motivation, TV coverage, and excitement to those leagues as the season winds down, and more interest in college football in general. If blow-outs happen regularly, OK, revisit it in 5 years. But it's the same thing when a #1 plays a #16 in March. The #1 seeds are 150-2. But when those !st round games are close, we love it. Everybody's hair stands on end and we all tune in to watch the ending. It's exhilarating. The fun lies in the potential. Everybody loves seeing David try to knock off Goliath. It's only one game in the overall new playoff format of 11 games. I look forward to it. 12 team tourney is a good start, in my book.

Quick add-on: I felt Oregon was the best team in the country for the last month and a half. I think they would have won it. We'll never know. Bo NIx deserves the Heisman.

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Doc, I’ll start listening to Little Steven’s Garage. All the Sirius/XM Classic Rock channels just repeat the same old small catalogs. Boring!

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Highly recommend it. Even the DJs are cool. Mighty Manfred best of all. He's even in a legit band, The Woggles.

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Jan 2·edited Jan 2Liked by Paul Daugherty

Have popped in and out over my winter break - good TMLs all.

Waved "so long" to a Bengals season the last day of 2023. It was certainly more interesting than it should have been once 9 went down. I am already conceding that the Ravens are going to be the next Super Bowl champs. Don't necessarily like it, but concede it. I'll just be surprised if they aren't. They are playing lights-out at just the right time.

Am already awaiting pitchers and catchers reporting in 6 weeks while the blackhole of hockey and basketball mark much of the sports landscape - neither of which I give much more than 2-hoots about.

Now, as for today's TML, being in Columbus I am obligated to at least be ambivalent about TTUN. So, that's where I'll stay. While college football may have stumbled into some sort of win-win with the playoff stuff, the rest of it is in shambles, IMO. The transfer portal is going to be an ever-growing nightmare. And while I understand players sitting out, as they often have, that is also a problem. I don't know how to solve any of it, I'm just glad my son never had NCAA football aspirations.

As for sweatshirts...back in 1997 I bought a hoodie with a kangaroo pocket emblazoned with Los Angeles on the front when I was chilly one night in the canyon out in CA on a trip with my sister. It was my daily fall, winter, spring go-to when I was at home with the kiddos when they were little just after the turn of the century. It became my go-to during the pandemic and still holds a prominent place in my usual rotation. It's definitely worn, but that's what makes it perfect. A close second is a relatively new sweatshirt I got at Kings Island last year. We're both the same age, so I bought a tie-dye hoodie with our birth year on it and I'll be damned if I don't like just as well as my vintage one from LA!

Happy 2024 to you and all Mobsters!

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All my female Mobsters are stars. Thank you.

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Jan 2Liked by Paul Daugherty

Favorite sweatshirt is my Hoxworth "donor hero". I've been a recipient and now a giver. (Hit by a car, twice). Truly better to give than receive. Amazingly nice how many strangers walk up to say thanks. Cost: $0. Takes about 15 minutes.

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Jan 2·edited Jan 2Liked by Paul Daugherty

I was hit by a car twice while trying to teach my wife how to parallel park. I saved money and my life by paying for her 290 a month indoor downtown pull-in parking.

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JP,

I presume you were standing on the curbside when you were helping her parallel park? So much for the terrible American motorists!

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And Tim, no joke, she finally learned how to parallel park by watching an Asian girl’s tutorial on Instagram.

The circle of life, indeed.

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It was real world experience on 4th Street. I was standing in front of the car she was backing in on and then the corner of the one she would have clipped repeatedly had my knee not been there to absorb the blow. I’d like to think she didn’t do it on purpose but her windows were up in attempt to not take direction, the stereo was cranking, and I could still hear her witchly cackling.

Parallel parking; what’s love got to do with it? Not a damn thing. :)

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Too funny! You get a "Bravo" for that one!

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Jan 2Liked by Paul Daugherty

Yes, Doc, I hate Michigan. And I go all the way back to Woody and Bo. That was when it started for me. I was a UC student going to Nippert to watch my Bearcats play Miami of Ohio...always a good game. It was maybe the last regular season game. Late in my game, an announcement came over the stadium intercom: FINAL SCORE, Michigan 14, OHIO STATE 50! The Buckeyes would go to the Rose bowl, beat OJ Simpson and USC and win the “mythical” national championship. This UC fan and maybe the other 9,000 or so in the stadium stood up and cheered. That was then.

Since then MY Bearcats have slowly lifted themselves into being a Power 5 school, complete with many bowl appearances. There was even a “shoulda, coulda, woulda game against the Buckeyes at PBS that, to this very day STILL hurts my very soul. During all those years, my Buckeye fandom has faded and faded and faded. BUT, I still want them to beat Michigan every damn year. Go figure. And, last night, for the first time in my life I was rooting for...I almost can’t even type this...BAMA! OMG!

I’ve been watching Jim Harbaugh play then coach for seemingly forever. He was a very good athlete who had a good long career as a quarterback. He then became a successful coach in college then the pros then back to college. He was successful everywhere he went. To be fair, I’ve never met the man. But, for some reason, he strikes me as an ego driven arrogant SOB.

This year, Michigan went into this season with maybe the most talented team they ever had. I was (grudgingly) willing to give Coach Harbaugh credit. THEN CAME THE CHEATING SCANDAL. I have no idea if he’s guilty of anything BUT he is responsible for everything. He served his six games rather silently but did instill a persecution complex in the young men in his team that came out LOUD and CLEAR after their impressive win. No, I can’t blame Coach for that either but he is responsible for it. I think Michigan will beat Washington next week but I will be cheering for the Huskies.

I was a teacher, then school administrator for a 35 year career. . Sport coats, ties, dress slacks were my life. NOW, I have not tucked a dress shirt in my pants since. I wear ties and suits to funerals and weddings. My daily attire consists of sweat pants, sweat shirts or hoodies and slip on shoes. Period. Comfort, baby, confort!

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Jan 2Liked by Paul Daugherty

No true BEARCAT would ever cheer the Buckeyes! C-mon man!!!

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Hear! Hear! (x 100)

Fie on OSU forever!!!

I'd rather have a Christmas fruitcake than a nut for my mascot. So much more variety.

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You are a Christmas fruitcake

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I love fruitcake. Very healthy. Thanks for the compliment!!!

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