Cheers:

Fantasy Football. As the NFL season gets underway tonight with a matchup between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the New England Patriots, fantasy football leagues the world over also find their new beginnings.  Perhaps the most enjoyable aspect of fantasy football consists of the team names.  One family’s league features heavyweights such as “W.B.’s Tender Yeats” and “Yam Shack,” while the cellar is occupied by “Terebinths of Mamre.”  (Gen 13:18)

Accomplices. Sometimes one just needs a little bit of help.  When your boss at your on-campus job emails all of her student employees asking for their cell phone numbers in case of an emergency, the stage has been set.  All one needs to do is “Reply All” with your own phone number, thus starting a trend, and then you will soon find that you have received the number of that girl whom you were too afraid to approach on your own.  Thanks, boss!

Game day experience. Even rainstorms ex nihilo could not dampen the enthusiastic spirit that gripped campus during its first home football weekend … for the most part.  If you were unlucky enough to set up or set out for celebrations before the sun reached its zenith on Saturday, you may have spent the rest of your afternoon drying off, or at least lamenting your soggy snacks. But seriously, afternoon sun and copious amounts of free food and drink and a major Irish victory equals a good day for Domers.

Jeers:

Icing the Kicker. With only a few seconds remaining in the second quarter last Saturday at Notre Dame Stadium, Texas lined up for a 52-yard field goal.  The Longhorns had not been this close to putting points on the board all day.  Coach Brian Kelly called timeouts to ice the Texas kicker not once, but twice, before the field goal finally sailed wide left (the first two attempts were good).  Considering that the Longhorns were surely not going to score a touchdown all day, could we not have allowed their kicker to achieve a new career-best?

Campus Construction. By our count, there are at least eight separate construction projects underway on the Notre Dame campus.  Aside from the fact that some of these projects (Campus Crossroads) constitute a misdirection of resources from projects that actually matter and help further the university’s mission, we also bemoan the fact that the construction has absorbed several parking lots on the campus periphery.  The valuable parking lot north of the Debartolo Performing Arts Center has been sadly replaced by a gaping hole that will one day be Jenkins Hall.

Buying new books. The Hammes Bookstore knows how to do business.  Students who are unable or know not to shop elsewhere for their books spend more money purchasing textbooks each semester than they will on food and drink in the coming months.

Tim and Michael Bradley are, indeed, brothers.  Tim hopes that his mom will read this and tell him that he is funny; Michael hopes that his snacks will not remain soggy for long.