"We Run This Game" - Hokie Nation

A little pet project we put together. Credits are at the end of the 'video.'

Huge thanks to Jeff Thompson, Anunaki Productions for putting this together on such short notice.

Sports, Briefly

I know most of you hate when I blog about sports, but I have to throw a couple comments in about the things that happened this weekend.

First of all, huge amount of pride in VT for winning the ACC Championship. We're heading to the Orange Bowl for the second consecutive year (very big deal, to those of you who aren't familiar with the process). With the way this team played for most of the season, it's a miracle we made a bowl game. But we won when it counted most, which is more than you can say about every other team in the ACC. We survived one of the most bizarre conference seasons in history, but it turned out to be somewhat historic. A conference record 10 teams are going to bowl games. We have a league-best .771 win percentage over out of conference teams. The only problem with the league is that it doesn't have any stars.

As for the Redskins, I can't begin to describe my disappointment. I wish the Redskins brass would realize Jason Campbell is not the answer. He's awful. He doesn't belong in the NFL. I was against the team drafting him in the first round. I've been against him starting ever since he took over for Mark Brunell. While they're getting rid of him, they could ship Carlos Rogers off, too. The two of them were first round picks out of Auburn. Their senior year, the Tigers went undefeated in the SEC and didn't get an opportunity to play in the National Championship. I think they've had a loser's mentality ever since.

Virginia Tech basketball is showing signs of life. Sure, we trailed Navy at the half, but we scored 51 points in the second half to pull out a big W on the road. Yay, Hokies.

T-minus 2 days until Civil Procedure exam.

Another 'Do Dinner Story

First things first: before I get in to dinner, I want to point out (against my better judgment, in regards to jinxing) that the Redskins and the Hokies have not lost a game since Adelina was born. Quite the opposite, in fact, since both teams have notched upsets (Redskins over Cowboys might be one of the biggest wins the 'Skins have had in a long time, and VT over Nebraska--though it was not a huge upset in terms of rankings--was a huge win in that we are very young, and were one the road in one of the most hostile environments in football. Nebraska has only lost 4 times at home on a Saturday night in the modern era, and we beat them decisively, even if the score doesn't portray that).

But that is neither here nor there. Let's talk culinary arts.

I went to the grocery store with a plan this time. I wanted some fresh vegetables to mix with the chicken I've had from CostCo. I'm down to the last four chicken breasts (2 went down tonight, so two left once I finish these leftovers). So I bought a red, a yellow, and a green bell pepper (stop light peppers, for those less savvy vegetable shoppers), and a red onion. I thawed out two chicken breasts on Sunday and sliced it in to bite size pieces. Then, I threw it in a bag and marinated it with a teriyaki and pineapple marinade. Today, I chopped up the peppers (all of them) and half the red onion.

I started with some white rice (real live rice, not Minute Rice) and threw it in a pot of boiling water, as per the directions, with some ground sea salt. Then, I sprayed a separate frying pan with olive oil and threw in the peppers as I chopped them. The onions went in last. I dusted the ingredients with more sea salt, ground black pepper, and some powdered garlic, then poured on a little of the teriyaki marinade as I sauteed them.

The rice finished a little sooner than expected, so I had to let it sit on minimal heat while the rest cooked. The pan was not big enough for everything, so I had to deposit the peppers and onions in a bowl while I cooked the chicken. Once that was almost finished (and had some time to shrink in the heat), I poured all the peppers and onions back in and let them sautee together. I let it cook a little longer than necessary for fear of salmonella-ridden CostCo chicken. I'm still alive, so I think I'm safe.

The whole time I was cooking, Melissa hung out with me on the phone so it was as if we were making dinner together. Cheesy, I know, but with these long distance things you have to find your pleasures somewhere. Don't judge.

Once it was all finished, I spooned out a large portion of rice (probably enough for two, though technically I made four servings), then scooped what was probably an entire pepper, a third of the onion, and most of a chicken breast (I cooked both). All in all, I think my plate could have comfortably served two, with at least three more reasonable servings leftover. But, me and my tapeworm need satiating, so I went to work on the monstrous plate. Mel stayed on the phone while she ate some leftover Chinese food. It was like eating dinner together, I suppose.



Analyis: Delicious. By far the most extravagant meal I have ever made on my own. I opted out of making a salad because I figured it would just be too much food and too much hassle. I was getting enough veggies with the peppers and onions. Next time, I'm going to throw in some roasted peanuts (cashews could work, but would be second place behind peanuts) with the same recipe. I think it was missing a little crunchy texture. Other than that, it was almost perfect. And I have tons more to enjoy tomorrow.

Next time, maybe get moooore ready...

Clearly the Hokies didn't get my blog post this week. They were obviously not ready to play this morning.

I woke up at 8am on a Saturday morning to try to find a bar that would be open at 9 or to find a web site that would air the game. Two strikes. I settled for the ISP Sports online radio broadcast, which was delayed about 30 seconds. The only thing worse was watching the ESPN Gamecast for the live stats, which was delayed several minutes. I was getting texts about events in the game long before Mike Burnop and Bill Roth told me about them over the air. Not a fun way to watch football.

More importantly, our offense, defense, and special teams were all sub-par. We started out moving the ball very well until 5th year quarterback Sean Glennon threw a goal line interception on his first attempt of the day. Deja vu...

Shortly after, we find ourselves on the goal line again, but this time are stuffed on 4th down. It was so promising, I thought all my worries were for nothing. Then ECU started playing.

It was all downhill from there. We had some great plays here and there, but our defense bought too much in to the 'bend but don't break' philosophy. There was a lot more bending--and far more breaks--than anyone wanted to see.

To cap it all off, we lost after the Pirates scored 14 points in the final 4 minutes (BC last year, anyone?), with the nail in the coffin coming off a blocked punt for a touch down (Beamerball?).

I know the team is young. Expectations are relatively low, despite being the favorite to win our division. That is definitely a sign of how bad our division is, and not how good we are. But a Bud Foster defense should never look like that against a team like ECU (all respect to ECU for being on the rise as a program, I don't mean to discredit them). We all expected this kind of play from the offense.

I'm angry, and the Hokies just sucked all the 'happy that football started' life out of me. Thanks, guys.