God help me, I love the dot column...

• "OK, Tom, try another one where he passes out on the golf course. We could always get Stone Philips to do it."
  
• Here's my response to the whole Rick Santorum controversy: DUH! Some of us have known for 10 years that the man is evil--the rest of you are just starting to learn. I was more involved in partisan politics as an undergrad when Santorum first got House and then Senate seats, and I was a little closer to the action. I do have to give credit where credit is due to Pitt's Campus Republicans at the time. In 1992 the University Democrats got fully on board the local arm of the Clinton campaign, felt good about winning, and were able to celebrate in the short-term. The Campus Republicans ignored the Bush campaign to focus on getting this local ideologue elected to a first House term, they basically were the campaign staff, they got him elected by the slimmest of margins, and now they probably all have great jobs working for a powerful Senator. Jerks.
  
• Still, that doesn't change the fact that he's evil. If the man could sing, he'd be Bob Roberts. I'd think that movie was a total rip-off of the 1994 Santorum-Wofford campaign, except the movie came out in 1992! That disturbs me to this day.
  
• I don't know what to make of this Big East-ACC fight. I agree with Craig that Pitt joining the Big Ten would be a good thing for both the school and the conference, but I'm not sure if the interested parties see it that way. I'd miss Big East hoops, but Big Ten football would much more than make up for it, especially if we could still find a way to keep the Backyard Brawl. What I really wouldn't want to see is an expansion that would turn the Big East into an even crappier 12-team football conference than it has been as an 8-team football conference. Does the prospect of adding, say, Louisville, Army, Cincinnati, and East Carolina football really get anyone excited? It almost makes me long for the days of 5,000 fans showing up for a noon game at Pitt Stadium to battle Temple for the Big East basement. At least heckling Matt Lytle and John Ryan was fun.
  
• THIS DOT DELETED DUE TO SENSITIVE MATERIAL.
  
• Speaking of which, Tom informs me that he attempted to surf my blog from some high-tech pay phone but was told that it contained unsuitable material. Unsuitable for what is anyone's guess.
  
• I'm not a particularly religious person, but I left out the one detail from last Thursday's Pirate adventure that I would use if I ever had to argue for the existence of miracles: I ate that entire order of Quaker Steak and Lube hot wings in a stadium seat, with blue cheese, without getting one drop of anything on my clothes. Physics and my personal history would have proclaimed this impossible, but I swear to you that it happened.
  
• My happiest sports moment of the year was Pitt hoops winning the Big East tourney. #2? The Lakers not winning the NBA title.