Fight Tigers, you will always win

Except when you don't.

It was ugly last night, folks. The Tigers never looked like they stood a chance against Colt McCoy and his awesomeness. We did, however, get to sit behind a guy with a crazy hat. I can tell you from my trip to the campus bookstore that this bit of fashion can be yours for just $49.95.

Why yes, those are beads. Don't you really want one?

What we did have, however, was a great homecoming parade full of tractors, teeny marching bands from tiny mid-Missouri towns and more than one kid in their best tiger costume. The adorableness level was off the scale.

That kid is almost as cute as the photo of me in my Mizzou Snuggie. Just sayin'.

Truman did seem a little distracted during the parade. I should have seen this photo of him blowing off a little kid as a sign that things wouldn't go well Saturday night. His head just wasn't in the game.

So all I left Columbia with was a belly full of Shakespeare's Pizza and a cold. I spent today blowing my nose and chewing cough drops as I drove my way to Fayetteville, Arkansas. Tomorrow I'm checking out the Supply Chain Management program at the Arkansas business school (that would be the Sam M. Walton College of Business). Everything in this town seems to be named after a Walton or a Tyson. I should keep a tally.

So I'll go on about business school a little more in the future. I'm not sure what I'm going to do yet, but I've decided to stop waiting for the phone to ring. The future is mine, people! Mine! Of course, that might just be the Theraflu talking.

Have the guts, got the glory

Why, you may ask, are those frat boys dressed like sheep? It's house decs night at Mizzou, of course!

I know not every school has house decs (short for decorations) as part of their homecoming festivities, but it's one of my favorite parts of homecoming weekend. In short, fraternities and sororities around campus team up and build a set for a skit in their front yard. Everything has to be pomped (covered with little wads of tissue paper) and a skit is written to match the homecoming theme. This year's theme was "New Fight, Same Bite" but it pretty much boiled down to "Beat the Longhorns." Then for four hours on Friday night tons of people show up as the Greek houses act out the skits over and over again for the mulling crowds. Confused yet? Don't worry, I have video!

See? Super hokey fun! Maybe you just have to be here.

So tomorrow's the big day. There's a parade in the morning then some sort of football game or something in the evening. My friend and fellow Mizzou alum Sarah is meeting up with me, so now all the Tigers have to do is win. Should be easy.

We will tramp, tramp, tramp around the columns with a cheer for old Mizzou

I had another busy day today meeting with people and checking out the new convergence program at the journalism school. It sounds really interesting and they're new building is beautiful, but when did we collectively decide that banks of flat screen televisions tuned to muted news networks = convergence? Just because it looks like the future doesn't mean the future is here.

I just have a quick picture to post today. All the downtown business windows have been decorated by fraternities, sororities and residence halls, and while some suffered from the rain today, they've been really fun to check out. Of course, my favorite pizza place also had my favorite window. I don't remember which Greek organization did this one, but it's pretty cute.

You can't break out of a circle that you never knew you were in

I had a long day of driving, so I won't write much today. I just offer a couple photos as proof that I made it to Columbia, Missouri:

No the white balance isn't off, Jesse Hall is lit up in gold for homecoming. They have the town done up real nice for the festivities (as they say in these parts).

Oh yes, it's a Snuggie! I can't tell you how excited I am about this purchase. Maybe I'll wear this exact outfit to the game on Saturday.

On the road, again.

Well, it was close there for awhile. It was starting to look like I had a job lined up and then it didn't happen. As Melissa said, it was "Le Grande Suck." So I feel a little like I'm back to the starting board after 10 months of looking for a job and that can mean only one thing... a road trip!

Last year I got a hotel reservation for Mizzou's homecoming weekend. It's been ten years since I've been to a game and it's about time I got back to one. Plus, this one features hottie Texas quarterback Colt McCoy (insert "yee-haw, pew, pew, pew" here). Now that I have some time on my hands (again) I'm expanding my Missouri homecoming trip.

First, there will be a couple extra days in Columbia to learn about grad school programs there. Then it's on to Arkansas, Tennessee and Michigan (with a short swing through Cincinnati). All total, it looks to be a nice ten day, 2,400 mile little road trip. I'll try to blog as I go along and take a few pictures. Watch this space, dear readers, because I promise adventure awaits.

In the meantime, I give you a photo booth series of Melissa and me during my last road trip to Chicago. I bet you can't guess the point when we figured out the machine was actually working.

And I say your uncle was a crooked French Canadian and he was gut-shot running gin

First off, the internets are no help in trying to find out if gut-shot is hyphenated or not. What about French Canadian? What say my copy editing peeps? Maybe I just should have picked a different quote.

Now that we have that out of the way, let me tell you what Madison is all abuzz about today. The entire city is in a collective swoon from last night's Decemberists concert. Colin Meloy and his buds played their album, The Hazards Of Love, straight through then came back and played some more. But why let me tell you when you can read Josh's review here.

Josh also got a photo pass to take some pictures at the show. Since I was coming along, however, I snagged the pass and showed him how the professionals do it (or people who used to be

professionals and didn't get paid for the photos they took). There's a small photo gallery attached to his review, but I've added some extra pics exclusively here at Sad & British. Let's marvel together at Colin Meloy who was dressed (as Kelly said) "like an Amish kid on Rumspringa."

And now a plug about a plug

Kelly (Lady Bear Kelly, not copy editor Kelly) wrote a lovely little plug for Tune Me Up today. You should go here and read it forthwith. Then you should become a Tune Me Up Facebook fan or follow our Twitter. Then you should tell all your friends about it.* Then you should spend all your money buying playlists. It's just that simple people!

*Seriously, though, it would be nice if you could tell all your friends about it.

I'm sick and tired of you setting me up

It seems like every September I give a big plug for Coltrane Motion right before the MidPoint Music Festival. They play there every year and they're always one of my favorite shows. Well, this year, I'm giving them a surprise late July plug as well. Go here and check out their MySpace page where you can download two Bruce Springsteen covers they did. It's easy and free! That's becoming more important as an increasing number of my friends are finding themselves unemployed. **sigh**

When we get together there's no need to be clever

First off, an update on the strawberry plants. They're all grown up now and looking lovely. Like expectant parents we are waiting anxiously for the first berries to be born (except unlike expectant parents we will then eat the children, so I guess that's a bad simile). We had one perfect berry the other night but some critter stole it before we got around to picking it. Tippy really needs to work on catching a rabbit or chipmunk or anything bigger than the tiny, tiny mice he seems so good at getting.

But the real news today is Harry Potter! I've been anxiously await my chance to go see the new movie and I even managed to quickly reread The Half-Blood Prince to get ready. That, of course, meant that I also had to reread The Deathly Hollows because I can't remember what happened in that book anymore either. I guess my stroll through the collected works of Alexander McCall Smith will have to be put on hold for a few days.

Shawn and I are going to see the movie tonight and early reviews are sounding pretty positive. Of course I would probably love it even if it was as stifled and awkward as the first movie. I'm probably most excited about just getting out of the house.

So that's all I have today blog readers. I'm considering getting back to listening to some albums if I can ever get through File Under Easy Listening by Sugar. We'll see.

It's business time

In case you don't follow my Twitter (and why don't you?) or see me on Facebook you might not know what I've been doing for the months and months that have passed since I left journalism (or journalism left me).

Besides applying for tons of jobs and getting the odd phone call, I've decided to start up a business. It's called Tune Me Up and it takes advantage of all these years of my life I've spent listening to and reading about music. We create customized music playlists for people who are interested in having some new music, but don't have the time. All you have to do is fill out our fun questionnaire and tell us what you want to hear. A few days later, the playlist arrives at you door.

Things are just getting started, so I'm trying to get the word out. So tell your friends and become a fan on Facebook. I'll be starting a blog for Tune Me Up to share some iTunes tips and music updates, but I'm going to try and stay on top of Sad & British, too. I'll definitely be posting updates on how the business is going. I'd love to be able to do this full time, so lets hope it works!