This week starts off by the odds makers picking Kansas as a 19 point favorite over Nebraska! Never in my life would I have every thought Kansas to be a double digit favorite in football. With this saddened news, I have a way to cheer football moral for those reading this post. Check out the greatest football lateral to end an a game ... yeah, that's right: this clip isn't about Cal and the band.



Moving on, The Wife™ and I would like to thank Adam for gracing us with something else to occupy our lives. We went to NFM this last weekend to buy stuff for the house. This started off as necessities like a washer and dryer and a sofa. Then, we went to the electronics department and had Adam convince us that we needed a new TV. To back up a second, we always said we wanted a bigger one during the time that we moved in, but we weren't planning on it that day. As Adam tried to convince me to upgrade my 50" and get a 70", we talked him back down to earth and he scored us a sweet 37" Sony that he was able to get us 40% off!

That marks two times in my life that I've talked with Adam about TVs and he's convinced me into buying one. I guess that's why he's doing sales at NFM.

Next we move on to my sister. After weeks of sparse contact, I was finally able to chat with her online yesterday. We made an agreement that if I posted pictures of our apartment, she'd do the same so that we could see her place in Berlin. So here you are Erica, I lived up to my end of the bargin: apartment pics.

Last, but not least, today is Halloween. Ever since I was a little kid and Mitch and I used to stay up and watch horror movies on USA until early in the morning, Halloween has slowly become my favorite holiday of the year. Christi and I are both disappointed that we don't have our own place to hand out candy this year.

And as most people know, Halloween marks the new change for brianhelge.com. With everything we have to do for the house, I've slacked off a little bit and am not 100% ready to go live yet. I'll do my best tonight, but there are no promises. It looks like it'll be sometime between now and before we move into our house on November 16th.

Christi always reminds me how boring tennis is every time that I have it on TV. I think living with Ben increased my intrigue about golf and tennis over the past 3 years. I never used to watch either, but when I see either one on the guide list, I'll switch it and just watch it because it's something new that I've started to like.

Now, I'll have a much different reason for watching. Nikolay Davydenko was recently fined $2,000 for a lack of his "best effort" in his last match. I had no clue that a governing body of any sport could do that.

Maybe baseball should start handing out $1,000 fines for dropped pop flies or for striking out five times in a game! Yes, I'm talking to you Andruw Jones. After watching the Red Sox strike out 3 times in the game and then Andruw doing the deed two more times than that, I became suspicious of his effort afterwards when he said that, "five strikeouts isn't a 'bad day'."

My hat's off to you Davydenko. Hopefully this will change the attitude for all of sports.

.... It's ROCKTOBER! That's right Rockies, I'm going to use ROCKTOBER as much as I can before the Rockies trademark the term.

I'm still going to keep in touch with Husker football as much as possible over the next month, but this time of year, it's time to talk about baseball. Going through some previous posts, I've realized that I've completely neglected postseason baseball. This might be in part to the Brave's not making it for the past two years, but that should be no excuse.

Since we lived in Colorado during the season, and because I was able to catch a game with Mauny before I left, Tyler said that we could be honorary Rockies fans for the year, so they have obviously been my choice this October. That, combined with their incredible winning streak, makes it tough not to love the men in purple.

So no matter who wins game seven in the ALCS tonight, I'm hoping that the Rox sweep in 4 to have the greatest ending in baseball history. I'm also hoping that the 'skers win 2 more games to become bowl eligible, but I think the chances for the Rockies are much higher at this time.

It looks like before the end of the week, Stevy P and our defensive coaches will be shown the door. As for Callahan? Well, unless we peel off an unprecedented five game win streak to end the season, he'll be gone as well.

Welcome back TO. You'll be the most prestigious AD in Husker history. Too bad it'll just be an interim job, but it'll be good to see him making decisions again for Husker Nation.

Now we just keep our fingers crossed that Bobby Petrino and Bo Pelini answer their phones for interviews at the end of the season.

Update: Just 6 hours after I put this post up, it's announced that Steve Pederson has been fired as Nebraska's athletic director. As for everything else that I've posted above, that's mainly hearsay from Ponec, so let's see how much of that comes true as well.

Sorry this isn't a high resolution picture, but I really didn't think NU-OSU was a game to bring a camera to. With that, my camera phone picture above should suffice.

This picture was taken towards the end of the 4^th quarter of yesterday's game. Look how many people have already exited the stadium. 75% or so of the student section is gone, and had been since half time, and another 50% of east stadium had already headed out because we were losing.

This means that these season ticket holders, most of which for 10+ years, couldn't even stick it out to cheer on their team to the end of the game. Who cares if your team isn't winning? Who cares if your team just took a beating from OSU ... at home ... on homecoming? That doesn't matter.

If you're a Husker fan, you stick it out. You cheer on your team until the end of the game. Husker fans don't leave early. That's for fair-weather fans and other schools that don't have traditions or the greatest fans in the country. We can't win the national championship every year. Even though we've had success in the past, that doesn't mean that you'll have it in the future.

I was at the '97 Missouri game, and saw over 80% of the Husker fans head out through the gates before our last drive. Even at an away game, I remembered how horrible it felt to see your own fans give up on your team, most of which exiting right before our final drive. Stick around. Be a Husker fan. It means more than just winning.

Microsoft doesn't worry about the iPhone. Nor the iPod or any other iTems that Apple has been putting out on the market. Usually they just sit back and continue their ho-hum run of the mill programs because almost every company uses some application in Microsoft Office.

I usually get disappointed that Microsoft never makes a push to be cutting edge in what they design/program. Yes, this means that me, a MS user, hates Vista and the Zune. Well, I just hate Vista in comparison to XP. But my view has changed since I saw that their new project was leaked to public.

Touchscreens are fun and are becoming the new technology fad. I figured that Apple was well on top of this curve after seeing some of the stuff that the iPhone could do. Then I saw what Microsoft has been doing.

How about transferring files from a camera to a phone without a single wire connecting the two? If you're still not impressed, check out these slick videos:





Up until seeing what MS can do, I once thought the iBar (no, not Apple affiliated) was a pretty slick concept.

I'm not one to go out an bash the new style of football at Nebraska, or even to go out and waste my time creating ridiculous web sites such as this one, but I am suspect that something has gone terribly wrong.

Last year, we had arguably one of the best defensive lines in the nation. Losing Carriker, Moore, Cryer and Ola definitely puts a dent into your next year's (present) defense. So how do you deal with losing your front four? According to Cosgrove, as of late, you realize you aren't going to touch the QB and rush three to keep eight back.

How does this work? Well, you only give up 400+ passing yards to Missouri as they average over 10 yards a play in the third quarter. With the exception of ISU last week, I'm going to take a stab at this without doing any research, and say that we're the worst 3^rd quarter team in the nation over the past 4 games.

I'm just wondering if it's a lack of talent that's allowing our 8 defensive backs to give up all of those passing yards or if its a lack of coaching that's putting them in the wrong spot.

I guess that's just how some games are. We can't win them all. And like dad always says: They're just teenagers. It's nothing to base your week's events around.

I'm not sure if it was Adam or Ned (or both) who told me that the movie Eastern Promises was good, but it definitely was not. Unfortunately, Zach, Kate, Christi and I sat through the 2+ hour film as we tried to figure out where our money just went.

For a background, the movie was about the Russian mafia. That premise alone would make you think it would be worth seeing, especially since Viggo Mortensen realistically looked like a mob syndicate that you didn't want to have an outstanding debt with. The movie was quite good until about 5 minutes into into it, and you find out that it's based in England.

So here's what we have so far: a Russian mafia movie based in England. Just because of that, all of the bloody gore in the world wouldn't make up for that type of plot. And they did try to deliver enough blood by slitting throats, chopping off fingers and delivering one of the best naked bathhouse knife fights ever filmed. I'm pretty sure that it's the greatest because no one else would spend millions of dollars thinking that a naked bathhouse knife fight could save their movie.

The bottom line was that it didn't. I haven't wrote personal reviews on movies in a while because we really haven't gone to one in quite some time. With this, I hope that if I ever write about one in the future, it will be much better than this.

My apologies, Zach & Kate.

We went over to Adam and Ben's place last night to catch some HD baseball on Ben's new TV. It was great to hang out with everyone again, and like always, it was great to see what new and improved gadgets and gizmos Adam had in his room. Apparently his old HD TV wasn't enough, so he upgraded to TWO 40" plasmas in his room. Why two? Well obviously you need one for TV and one for your computer.

As we marveled in the three 40" TVs in their house, Adam was showing us how resolution looked on his computer via the Apple Trailers web site.

Low and behold, there's a preview for Saw IV. How didn't I know that a new Saw movie is coming out in 3 weeks? The Saw movies have always been a weird staple with my former roommates. First, Kevin and Ben hated the first one when Christi and I rented it at the 436. Then, all three of my new roommates for my last semester loved them and saw Saw III on opening night with me last year.

So to continue in the spirit, I called up Zach and he's down for checking out the 4th whenever we get a chance. Any of my former naysayers are welcome to join us as well.

Ever since I've been a kid, I've been addicted to Halloween. I think it all started when Mitch and I would stay up as late as we could and watch every slasher flick that we could on USA.

Every Halloween, I get pumped up to pass out candy to kids and now I've started a tradition of launching a new version of my web site every Halloween. Maybe if I'm lucky enough, they'll come out with a new Saw movie every year as well ....

Two weeks removed from Colorado, and I'm starting a new job already. As of 8:00 a.m. this morning, I'm the new Interactive Web Developer for Rebel Interactive.

The Wife™ and I are excited that we are both employed in the metro. It's a long commute down to the Old Market every day, but it's actually better than the 45 minute drive that I was doing in the mountains.