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#1
05-22-2017, 02:20 AM
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2003 Texans' Yearbook
Found this on YouTube and hitched up the WayBack Machine:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51fOXvOSHbA You'd almost think these guys were good. I think we had flags edited out of some of those highlights. Chuckles will particularly enjoy Bush41 french-kissing Bob McNair. Whatever happened to that guy who used to play quarterback? 
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#2
05-22-2017, 09:28 PM
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You might be surprised at how well I remember that particular season. For example, I immediately remembered the week one win against the Dolphins (who NEVER lose at home in September, etc.), the last second play against the Jags (it was mayhem in there once it dawned on everyone that Dom was not going to send the field goal unit in), the Texans' beating the Panthers who went on to the Super Bowl, the ass kicking we took against KC who looked at that time for all the world like soon to be Super Bowl champions. I actually used to give a shit about this team. I went to all of the home games AND three of the road games AND one road pre-season game. Hell, I even went to the draft party in the bubble. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Buford. Far as I know, you've never once set foot in Reliant, not even to see Toby Keith at the fking rodeo. I'm sitting here laughing because I just got hit sideways by this bizarre memory. I lived in the USSR back when, studying, and my roommate was this weirdly preppy redneck (or, more accurately, weirdly redneck preppy) from upstate New York. Joe was from Utica, if I'm not mistaken. We went to what apparently is considered a fancy, northeastern college, but Joe had transferred in rather than begun there. I have no idea why this made any difference to anyone but everyone knew who had transferred in. Anyway, one day Joe was telling me about his difficulties fitting in at Fancy U after a year at SUNY Whateveritwas. For example, he said, one night he was at the pub on campus among lots of new friends and everyone's having a great time (I avoided that place like the plague, needless to say) and they're lobbing popular requests at the DJ and Joe, amped up on adrenaline and cheap beer, wanders over to the DJ and requests The Rodeo Song. Ever heard of it? I hadn't. And as it turned out, neither had the DJ. Joe immediately understood his terrible faux pas - dirty lyric hoedown tunes might go over big with the SUNY crowd but not at FU, no sir. So burning with shame he quietly skunked back to his table and acted like nothing had ever happened. So, Joe, what the hell is The Rodeo Song? I naturally wanted to know. Immediately Joe shamelessly launches into it - Here comes Buford with his pecker in his hand, he's a one-ball man and he's off to the rodeo! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8f6Y0vD0_Vg You know, I have never not once heard this song in any context other than youtube. Maybe if I hung out at McGillicuddy's in Oneonta, you know, who knows.
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#3
05-23-2017, 12:02 AM
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Because, sure, it's a gotdamn long offseason and what the hell else is there to do, but also because this was greatness. sidenote, we can embed [youtube] videos here.
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#4
05-23-2017, 11:35 AM
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Please do more.
__________________
There is no failure, only feedback.
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#5
05-23-2017, 01:43 PM
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It gets better. I just did a little google snooping and it turns out our man Joe ran, unsuccessfully, for a state senate seat in New York back in 2014. I had no idea about any of this. Last I heard he was working in insurance.
Joe, whom someone called a "Tea-Party favorite," came up about three thousand votes short of his Democratic challenger and incumbent. That's a pretty impressively close race for someone with no political experience, whose house was under foreclosure, who had thousands of dollars of tax liens on property in Virginia and California, and who is basically a very likable idiot. I know quite a bit about Subject X, he used to say with great confidence. I took a class on it! So of course it fits perfectly that he would be a political consultant to the likes of Rick Perry (not making this up) and other Republican luminaries, deep thinkers and rug cutters. (And rough putters.) And after his run he was immediately rewarded with a $55k per year part time job with the NY GOP. Apparently they couldn't find anyone else to run against the incumbent and so they had to dangle a little carrot in front of our man Joe to roust him out of his foreclosure fugue. I have endless Joe stories. He comes from a very Catholic family, and I assume he is more religious now than ever. The Christian tenet of redemption is a handy thing to have around, what. Anyway, his family had a cabin in the Adirondacks that they called 'camp.' One day he was driving up to camp along an impossibly winding road and found himself unhappily behind a driver who was approaching the continuous curves with extreme caution. After an interminable amount of time Joe finally found enough straight road to pass him, which he did, horn blaring and middle finger extended in furious salute towards the offending fellow driver. Who, it turned out, was the family's priest. This is brutally typical of the sort of thing that would happen to him all the time. It's amazing that he and I lived together for a mere matter of months and hardly ever spent time together once we got back to the states yet I managed to collect quite an impression of the fellow. We lived down the hall from the leader of a group from a different university, Kansas State, I think. This guy's name was Alan. He spoke great Russian, was unusually tuned in to the things going on, he was a great source of inside information on, well, basically how to survive, which was not all that simple a proposition. And he had a hobby of repurposing show tunes to everyday Russian themes which he would then sell in a sort of fascinatingly off-putting way. I remember A babushka will hit you with a packet of meat! sung to the tune of Chattanooga Choo Choo. (Where she supposedly got the meat I have no idea.) Anyway, we'd leave our door open whenever we were in the room, and every night Alan would pass by, poke his head in, and it was always the same routine. That doesn't sound like Russian! he'd say, mock-menacingly in Russian. (You were supposed to speak Russian the whole time but of course no one did. In fact, Joe could barely speak it at all, although he tested curiously high in written exams.) We have a very strange accent, I would always reply. He'd chuckle and then he'd come in and tell us about his day, which was always a hell of a lot more interesting than ours. In no small part this was because one of his students was critically ill and under the 'care' of a Soviet hospital. He was over there all the time making sure those slapdicks didn't do anything irreparable to the poor girl, and he would come back with hair raising horror stories of what he saw. I can't remember what her illness was, only that her condition eventually improved enough to where they could get her the hell out of there and back to civilization. Another daily routine involved getting on the bus to go to school. Joe and I were invariably the last two on the bus. We'd skip breakfast, obviously, and I would dash out before he did. I'd scamper up the stairs onto the bus and find my seat. Laura, our group leader, would spot me and as, Where's Joe? On speshit, I'd say, he's hurrying. I realize we're sort of at the point of diminishing returns on the stories. I'm just enjoying remembering all of this after so long. So I'll wrap this up by telling you a pretty good one. As I mentioned, Joe and I didn't really have anything much to do with each other back in the US. He was a year ahead of me in school, and I was several years ahead of him in Russian, so we never had any classes together at all that I can remember. But one day we decided to get together and have a beer. He worked as a bartender at some popular place that I'd never go to otherwise and since I knew we'd get a nice student discount in there that's where we went. But beforehand I went over to the dorm where Joe lived to do some laundry. I lived off campus and had to do my laundry somewhere, and the nearest dorm seemed like the best bet. So that's what I habitually did, I'd go to the basement and sit there watching my clothes spin wondering what it might be like to be a winner in the campus housing lottery. I threw my clothes in the dryer and off we went to The Bleary Eye or whatever the place was. I remember a very steep staircase, which would prove most inconvenient after Joe became senselessly drunk. Another fellow and I helped him down the stairs and down the street. We were a pretty good ways from his dorm at this point, and I suppose I thought I'd just prop him up all the way back. But when we hit the main intersection of our little area, tons of people all around, that's when Joe vomited. Right there on the corner. And that, friends, caught the attention of a city police officer who was well within hailing distance. Uh-oh, I thought, as the officer wheeled around and started towards us. Serendipitously there was an empty taxi just sitting there in front of us. Before the poor Ethiopian fellow had a chance to object I had the door open and was stuffing Joe into the back seat. I leapt in and the light turned green and off we went. We pull up at the dorm a couple of minutes later and I try to accompany Joe up to his rooms. Whggaaa'rryoogunnadoooghhh??? He wanted to know. I'm going to go get my laundry, dude, it's dry. You go to bed. NOAGHH! I'mmghhgowithyoooghhhaghhh!! Come on, man, go to bed. NOAGHH! OK, ok, let's go to the laundry room. We get down there and Joe immediately curls up on the floor and falls into an impenetrable slumber. I tried to wake him, I promise. I finally decided that I had no option other than to leave him there, so that's what I did. The next morning I got a call, surprisingly early. Chuck, how the HELL did I end up in the laundry room? https://ballotpedia.org/Joseph_Dillon
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#6
05-23-2017, 04:46 PM
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__________________
There is no failure, only feedback.
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#7
05-23-2017, 11:50 PM
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I've lost contact with the guys who lived on my floor in college. Pre-internet days and all... I suppose that doesn't happen so much anymore unless you specifically want it to.
But yeah, some good times. 2003 doesn't even feel all that long ago sometimes.
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#8
05-24-2017, 02:16 AM
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2003 was a different vibe. We were thankful for every win (compared to now where we regularly make the playoffs and all anyone wants to do is trash whoever is quarterback). There were some great names like J.J. Moses, Chester Pitts, Seth Wand, Antwan Peek and my personal favorite MILFord Brown.
As for college life, mine was fairly dull. Earl Campbell's Heisman year in 1977 was pretty magical until we ran into Notre Dame in the Cotton Bowl. Some nice girls but all with that "beware" vibe that said you don't want to spend a lifetime with this one. Several had more issues than Time Magazine.
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#9
05-24-2017, 12:20 PM
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So I recommend taking a moment to track down some of the more outlandish chaps you may recall from Jester or wherever you were and see if they've been elected Lieutenant Governor or anything. I'm in Facebook touch with the two of the three guys I was close with in college. We know more or less what each other's up to but don't really talk. One guy lives in a group house for people with mental illnesses so it's always a little awkward for me to jump in with anything, you know, So, did you have oatmeal for breakfast again today? You know? The third guy and I are still reasonably close although come to think of it we haven't spoken in a while. We did some work together a few years ago. But he has a new baby and I guess I've been giving him some time to enjoy that. Plus, the main thing I want to talk to him about is my extreme dissatisfaction with an investment he got me into so I guess my procrastination is a form of conflict avoidance. My college girlfriend won't talk to me anymore. Want to talk about issues, Buford? Godamightee. I don't have time to get into it right now but she was a total mess. A hot, rich mess, sure, but man. She was such a mess that sometime between when I left her and now she literally changed her name. She took her husband's surname when she got married (which was about fifteen minutes after I left) but I'm talking about her first name and basically her entire identity. But they've been married for twenty five years so either she suddenly quit doing the bullshit she did with me or this dude's a hell of a lot more patient than I am. She owns a dry cleaners in Leesburg, Virginia. That's a mighty long way from an MFA, ain't it, sweetcheeks?
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#10
05-24-2017, 01:13 PM
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#11
05-25-2017, 03:59 AM
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...and NOW...the 2002 season!
If you liked the first one, you'll LOVE the second one. Have some Kleenex handy...
15 years later, I still remember Carr's comment after beating the Steelers with the lowest offensive output ever in an NFL victory: "The defense deserves the game ball. The way we (the offense) played, they should probably throw it at us." If the embed doesn't work, try here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTlIjFlBFBk
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