Sorry, I've been so busy reveling in Kansas' big Orange Bowl victory, but now I have a bunch of stuff to drop on you.

First, how bout my KU cheerleaders above? We had a great time on game night running around the couch singing "I'm a Jayhawk" after each touchdown. More photos over at Flickr.

And when we finally had Fall in early December in El Paso, Mia and her cousin Destiny had a great time in our back yard helping me rake. In fact, Destiny at one point exclaimed, "This is the best day of our lives!" And it was the best photo shoot of my life. See all the photos
by clicking here.

Just to test it out, I used my camera to shoot some video at Mia's preschool Christmas show. If I had known it would work so well and easy, I would have shot more. Here's that video and a photo of her and her friend, Vanessa, after the show.





To drop the Orange Bowl for a second and talk about El Paso's Sun Bowl, Kyle and I attempted to make a humorous video for the newspaper on game day. It was fun, though hard for me to judge how we did. What do you think? (And David and Creighton, that Neil Diamond Sweet Caroline section is for you!)



And, finally, full circle back to the Orange Bowl. I was going to create a highlight reel from the game myself, but as always, I've gotten too busy and there are already several good ones up on YouTube anyway. So here are a couple of those. The first here is the great Don Johnson intro that kicked off the telecast. The second is a full 10 minutes of highlights from the game. I liked it because he used some of the Bob Davis local audio in there.

In closing, Rock Chalk Jayhawk, Go KU!

I can't freakin believe it. We won the ORANGE BOWL!!!

My latest food review: Ay Caramba.

And my 15 seconds of fame on CNN:

I liked this T-shirt from Joe College. Even if it is a little embarassing that they left out the apostrophe in "it's".

My aunt Sally came up with another one that hopefully we can see on a T-shirt soon: "Missouri is pissed. Ask me if I care."

Or maybe, "Orange you glad you're not a Missouri fan?"

And although most of the Missouri crying just makes all us Kansas fans giggle, I do want to point out that fallacy of the "Missouri beat Kansas, so they should be in the BCS" argument.

If that was how it worked, then Stanford could say they should be in. They beat USC after all. Colorado and Texas Tech could say they should be in. They beat Oklahoma after all.

But, sorry, Missouri, you don't get to just pick your best game of the year, then say, "See, we should be in the BCS!" It's based on a body of work, and Kansas is one of only three teams out of the eight in the BCS with fewer than two losses. Hell, Illinois even has three losses.

And I should also point out that BCS bowl representatives actually attended all those big games. So they got to personally see that if five minutes had been, by some miracle, added to the clock in Kansas City, Kansas would have won that game. And if five minutes had been added to either of the Oklahoma-Missouri games, Oklahoma would have beat down Missouri even worse.

Ha, ha, Missouri! The Tigers have a sudden case of Cotton mouth. Meanwhile, the Jayhawks are tasting sweet, sweet Oranges!

Rock Chalk Jayhawk, baby!

Here is a video I finally put together from a trip Martha and I took to New Orleans back in August. Boy, did I procrastinate on this one.

OK, I'm back to rooting for Oklahoma! Jayhawks onto the Fiesta regardless!

After reading some of his incoherent Missouri ramblings, I was worried Poff Daddy would dirty up this fine blog with his comments. And he has.

And then it got worse when I realized his photo is on my fridge! That's probably why we lost; I should have covered up his face, and just left Ann's smiling face. She's an Arizona grad, but we don't need luck to beat Arizona.

But, nonetheless, he and others have made some good points since my last blog. It turns out if Kansas wants a BCS bowl, likely the Fiesta, we have to root for Missouri. So I guess I will.

But, honestly, I'll be happy either way. If Missouri wins, I'll grin and bear it and take a BCS bowl. But I don't really care about a BCS bowl that much. All BCS means is more money, but I'm just a fan. I don't get a cut of that money or anything. I never would have dreamed of the Cotton or Holiday bowls at the beginning of the season. If Missouri loses and that's where we end up, that's pretty sweet, too. A couple of days in San Diego in December? ... I might root for Oklahoma after all!

OK, first things first.

KU's loss to Missouri last night was a hard blow. A couple of turnovers doomed us. But it can't take away from an 11-1 season. The AP poll is already out and has us dropping to #7. But, hey, I'll take it! And once I get past the depression from this one, I'll start getting exciting about the bowl possibilities. I'll probably try to go to whatever bowl we end up in ... unless it's in Florida. That's too far for me to travel, but all the rest of the possibilities would be in driving distance.

UPDATE: Kansas only dropped to #5 in the BCS, so that's pretty cool. With no games ahead I would say that guarentees us a BCS bowl ... though I'm not clear on how all that works.

And one more thought on Missouri. As I read a lot of fan comments today, many are saying they hope Missouri goes on to win its next couple of games and wins the national championship, so that Kansas can at least say it lost to the champ. Me, I'm looking forward to Missouri getting beat by Oklahoma, AND losing its bowl game, while Kansas wins its bowl game, leaving us ranked higher than Missouri to end the year. Again, I probably don't understand the BCS, but it seems to me it could even be possible for Missouri to lose to Oklahoma, then end up playing a rematch with Kansas in a BCS bowl. That would be awesome, but probably not allowed somehow.

Second, as you can tell it's getting hard for me to do much with this blog. I'll keep it alive, on life support, but probably won't be much posting. It used to be one fun way to keep me into the online life. But now that I'm online editor at the paper, I'm already spending 50-60 hours a week online. I don't feel inspired to come home and get on the computer some more.

So, much of my effort will remain with my new work blog. So check that out when you can.

Snow in El Paso

snow7
Originally uploaded by Gambling Gringo

It snowed in El Paso yesterday! Nearly five inches worth!

Kansas Halloween

Kansas Halloween
Originally uploaded by Gambling Gringo

Finally, some new photos up over at flickr. Check 'em out.

My latest restaurant review: El Parque.

I promise to get on here soon and post some new book and movie reviews. But for now, there is all kinds of craziness going on at my other blog. Make sure the read all the comments on the "Ooooo, I'm so scared" post. Good times.

My latest food review, Pepperoni's Pizza & Deli is currently ranked #7 on the El Paso Times list of most viewed stories. So give me a few clicks and get me in the top 5!

I was reading Harper's Magazine last night when I came upon a photo of the above painting, titled Tirana, by Jin Meyerson.

I not usually "moved" by art so much, but for some reason, this one grabbed me. I was kind of fascinated by it.

Mia was sitting next to me, and suddenly says, "Let me see that picture."

I'm thinking, hey, it appears my baby is getting some culture. How impressive.

She looks at it awhile, then finally says, "This looks like it would be a good place for a giant to poop."

As she laughed herself silly, all my illusions were shattered.

BOOKS

I've read some good books lately.

Spot of Bother is Mark Haddon's follow up to Curious Incident of the Dog in Night-time. A lot of the reviews I read didn't like it much, but I thought it was even better than Curious Incident. Gets deep in the heart of a crazy family.

And I'm in the middle of Deer Hunting with Jesus: Dispatches from America's Class War. I had read that it is a great follow up book to What's the Matter with Kansas, and because I liked that one so much I checked it out. And it has been pretty fascinating. I hope some of the top Democrats listen to this guy.

My latest restaurant review: Manila House.

The review, with all the references to Mia and McDonalds, was a hit among the in-laws.

Also, I have another little project going, a blog for the El Paso Times, that you can check out here.

I know I've reached a comfortable age because despite how many people have made fun of the picture of me on that blog, I just don't care enough to change it. A photographer shot it while I was out on a assignment, so I decided to use it instead of trying to set up a staged one.

I no longer care how goofy looking I am.

Pirates Alley
Originally uploaded by Gambling Gringo

Martha and I went to New Orleans last weekend, and it was amazing. I'm not going to say much yet, because hopefully I'll have a video ready for you soon. But Martha wrote a small blog post here.

This picture is of Pirates Alley, to me one of the most romantic spots in the French Quarter. We spent a lot of time in the bar on the right.

More soon ...

And here's a sad addendum to my review of Big Momma's Soul Food Kitchen. Big Momma played me for a fool!

My latest food review, Big Momma's Soul Food Kitchen.