http://www.birdmanshirt.com/

The only recent parallel I can draw to this was the infamous sex club allegations made by actress Jiri Ryan against her ex-husband Illinois Republican Jack Ryan. The sultry scandal broke  just 6 weeks before the 2004 US Senate election, an election in which the former Goldman Sach Exec turned inner-city teacher was heavily favored to win. http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/06/22/ryan.divorce/ Interestingly this was the election that the relatively unknown Barack Obama first entered the national consciousness strolling to a landslide victory over stopgap candidate Alan Keyes and delivering the famous speech at the 2004 Democratic  National Convention that would lead him the West Wing only 4 years later.

Coach K did right by Jon by giving him a homecoming game at the UC and pulling him for a curtain call after a masterful 31 pt performance. Big ups to JS for coming through in the clutch. Nearly everyone we grew up with was in attendance so this game was definitely one he will remember the rest of his life.

The question remains however what the hell Duke was doing playing Iowa State in the first place. I have been looking around the net all evening to find some justification on why Duke, the home team in the neutral site match-up, selected Iowa State over all the other worthy teams in the Chicagoland area. I found nothing. The only possible explanation I could think of for pitting Duke against Iowa State was that this game was specifically scheduled not as a Scheyer tribute, but as a welcoming party for uber-recruit Harrison Barnes: he the Ames, Iowa native, who spurned Duke for Carolina Blue via Skype at his nationally televised college signing press conference. Seriously if your going to have a neutral site home game in Chicago at least pick an opponent around whom we can build a story line. Notre Dame vs Duke would have been a huge hit with both schools’ rabid alumni bases as well as pitted the three of the four best White players in college hoops against each other. Would have been a classic. How bout Duke-Kansas for a match-up of two teams ranked in the Top 5 with a reunion of former Illinois Warriors running mates Sherron Collins and Jon Scheyer to boot? Marquette, Indiana, or Michigan State also would have been exceptional selections as well. Can’t really fault Duke-Kentucky for not happening as Coach Cal and his top ranked recruiting class hadn’t yet jumped ship to Memphis by the time the schedule was being made.

Real talk now: at the end of the day if this game was really meant to be a Scheyer homecoming this game needed to be llinois vs Duke: the school he spurned for the school he choose. If you’re from Chicago you know the story.  Coach Bruce Weber of Illinois is the brother of Scheyer’s high school coach at Glenbrook North. Despite the familial connection, Scheyer followed his life long dream of being a Blue Devil and signed with Duke, which was arguably the most painful recruiting lose ever for the Fighting Illini (especially in the wake of watching top talent like Sherron Collins, Shannon Brown, and Julian Wright forgo signing with the team coming off of the 2005 season). Many in Chicago would argue that Weber’s recruiting momentum has never recovered. This ticket would have been, by far, the hardest ticket to get on the United Center hardwood this year. Instead we got Duke-Iowa State, a game that so lacked a compelling story line after the first 3 minutes that ESPN was forced to show about 30 screen shots of Mr and Mrs. Scheyer to eat up dead time. What a shame.

Can’t even really begin to describe how pimp this jersey is. Stock goes up 1000% with Agent Zero’s now indefinite suspension.  I would have just bought it for myself but it only comes in L and the Shipping and Handling Price is a little outrageous in my opinion. If someone on this site buys this jersey I’ll cover their its debut bar tab at Shootz.

10. It snowed 10 inches in Chicago

9. Bought myself 5 cases of Cuban Cigars

8. Armando Jr asking me why I haven’t e-mailed him the pictures from SB2009 yet

Armando Jr plays Peek-a-Boo SB2K9

7. Watching Duke whoop Iowa State while enjoying the 7 to 7,  2 for 1 Happy Hour!

6. Got myself a solid base tan for the Jersey Shore Party http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/event.php?eid=230015527601&ref=ts

5. If you have to see Scheyer’s parents on ESPN 30 times you might as well see it in HD at Mengo Deck while the sun sets over the rock formation.

4. Golfing the famous Desert Course at Cabo del Sol

3. Watching my mom ruthlessly bargain for crap on the beach. Listening to family friends chastise her for screwing the poor vendors out of an additional few bucks.

2. Explaining to my parents and their friends that the trinkets the beach vendors are actually hawking are simply the loss leaders for what they are really selling… drugs. “Mota Amigo? No? how bout some blow meng?”

1. The Mengo deck has doubled capacity… Spring Break 2010 is gonna be off the hook

While many of you are probably wondering where this is going and why I am wasting space on The Rolodex for this when I still have yet to present you with the much hyped story of Uncle Bob the Nudist, it is because this chance encounter presented me with my new favorite way to waste 2 hours online. Facebook search your graduating class in high school and browse through the results. If you went to a big school like I did, you will undoubtedly bear witness to many faces and names you have never seen or heard before. It is quite amusing to click on the profile pictures of your ex-classmates, especially those with whom you have lost complete contact or completely forgotten about, to see how the years have treated them. Where else but on Facebook can you see Jon Carlson’s sweet new tat (Timmy D’s latest victim), rediscover the likes of a Caleb Topel or discover Issa Gean’s hidden talents (to be completely honest I didn’t know Issa Gean existed at all before this little exercise). Most interesting of course is seeing which of your former classmates got hot out of nowhere. While many girls I never knew or completely ignored in High School appear to have gotten pretty cute, I’d have to say that if I were to pull a repeat of my infamous Girls of South Survey (which by the way served as the inspiration for this classic 2007 South Park Episode http://www.southparkstudios.com/episodes/130282/Jackie McLaughlin would definitely make at least the first cut.

For those that didn’t go to South, the premise of The List was simple. In a categorical, statistics-based attempt to determine the hottest girl in the Glenbrook South Class of 2006, a NCAA style assortment of 64 girls was selected by a random sample of male South 06ers. All 64 names were placed in a Houston Mavericks throwback cap and randomly drawn to make four divisions of 16 girls each. Girls were ranked according to hotness on a scale of 1 to 16 (1 being the hottest) within their division by over 200 male voters via e-mail. Rankings were tallied in Excel and the 8 girls from each division with the lowest average ranking scores moved on. Names were put back in the hat, new random divisions were selected, and the ranking process was continued round after round a la March Madness: 32, Sweet 16, Elite 8, etc.

As I have recently been reminded on four separate occasions this break, many South girls still are pissed at me for orchestrating The List. Girls are still hatin’ on both me and on each other due to what round they ended up getting bounced in. Many erroneously recall who ended up topping The List, but the truth is that it was never completed as outcries from anonymous girls and their parents got me in some serious trouble with good ol’ Principal Smith. For the record, the Final 4 was comprised of five candidates as three ended up in a third place tie after Elite 8 voting. The Final 5 in alphabetical order: Lexi Bigg, Shannon Carroll, Ashlee Cooperman, Emily Nelson, and Elizabeth Hofstetter. And the best part of the project? It earned me an A for my final statistics project in Honors Pre-Calc!

Now if I was a complete asshole, I would already have a poll up along with posted pix of the Final Five so we could settle the score and end the debate once and for all. However since I was sent to school to be ‘refined’ I have come up with a more sophisticated idea. The List will only be reborn if readers are clammering for it. If the response is great enough The Rolodex will contact each of the finalists asking them to self-submit a picture so those of you tuning in from outside of the North Shore can participate. To avoid this from being Sophomore year all over again The Rolodex will offer each finalist cash considerations in exchange for their willingness to participate with a special grand prize from The Rolodex for the winner. The Rolodex asks its faithful readers now to comment below saying how much they would contribute to the cause.

Big ups to Boise State for taking down the Horned Frogs tonight. What a call on that fake punt by Chris Petersen. Genius play call. 4th and 9 on a 29 yard gain to start off the game winning drive. 2nd team ever to go 14-0 (Ohio State 2003 was the first). Everyone in the country wrote this team off despite a huge win against Oregon to start the year off. Said their D couldn’t hang with the big boys. What a shame that the BCS didn’t pit the mid major BCS crashers against Texas and Bama so we could have actually seen how good these teams actually were. While I’d love to see a playoff, if we’re going to keep the Bowl system I say ditch the Championship game so we can crown a champ after seeing everyone play.