National champion

It won’t happen for a number of reasons, some of them possibly even valid, but NewMexiKen would pay handsomely to watch USC play the winner of the Sugar Bowl.

And for white?

From Wired News

Are you looking for love in 2004? How about a financial windfall? The color of the underwear you wore on New Year’s Eve may determine your success, according to Mexican tradition. The custom, whose origins are obscure, directs those seeking love to wear red underpants, and those desiring money to wear yellow. Party-goers who want to improve their odds can try “double bagging” and wear two pairs. The panty tradition is just one of many ways to promote good fortune in the new year, including eating certain foods like black-eyed peas.

Georgia…

ratified the U.S. Constitution on this date in 1788, thereby becoming the fourth state.

Apsley Cherry-Garrard

was born in Bedford, England on this date in 1886. From MPR’s The Writer’s Almanac:

He’s the author of the Antarctic travelogue, The Worst Journey in the World (1922). His book is about a search for the eggs of the Emperor Penguin in 1912. He and his two companions traveled in near total darkness and temperatures that reached negative 77.5 degrees Fahrenheit. He wrote, “Polar exploration is at once the cleanest and most isolated way of having a bad time which has been devised.”

As noted in Outside, “25 (Essential) Books for the Well-Read Explorer”

Cherry-Garrard’s first-person account of this infamous sufferfest is a chilling testimonial to what happens when things really go south. Many have proven better at negotiating such epic treks than Scott, Cherry, and his crew, but none have written about it more honestly and compassionately than Cherry. “The horrors of that return journey are blurred to my memory and I know they were blurred to my body at the time. I think this applies to all of us, for we were much weakened and callous. The day we got down to the penguins I had not cared whether I fell into a crevasse or not.”

Issac Asimov…

was born in Petrovichi, Russia, on this date in 1920. From MPR’s The Writer’s Almanac

His family moved to Brooklyn in 1923, where they ran a candy shop for 40 years. Asimov wrote, edited or compiled several hundred books on subjects ranging from Don Juan and the Bible to humor and mathematics. He also wrote dozens of works of science fiction. He typed ninety words a minute, and he worked ten hours a day, seven days a week. He tried to turn out four thousand words before he got up from his typewriter every day.

Even though many of his works dealt with space travel and flight, Asimov was afraid of flying. His phobia began while trying to impress a date by going on a roller coaster at the 1940 New York World’s Fair. He traveled little in his lifetime because of his fear of flying, staying close to his home in New York.

Homebody

Santa Fe’s New Year Baby

Nicole and Adrian Wesley’s first child — a 9-pound, 8-ounce boy — came into the world with the help of three midwives at 12:28 a.m. Thursday….

The Wesleys chose to have the birth in their living room.

“It just seemed to be the warmest space — not warm temperature, but it just seemed to be the right space to do it,” Adrian said.

“We had all the clean stuff that was necessary for it,” he added. “Everyone had gloves. It wasn’t out of the back of a van or anything. Part of the attraction of it is the freedom to move around. If you’re comfortable in a shower, you can have it there. If you’re comfortable in your bedroom, you can have it there. lf you want to sit up in your living room and watch The Simpsons, you can do that.”

What they think about USC’s victory in…

Baton Rouge and Oklahoma City.

Now Everyone Will Say They’re a Trojan Fan

From T.J. Simers in the Los Angeles Times

I don’t know if you noticed the security guards in yellow jackets standing at the bottom of each aisle in the Rose Bowl. They stuck out here, because they were assigned to watch the spectators all day long, which meant their backs were turned to the action on the field.

Now I figured it’d be impossible to find anyone willing to turn their back on the Rose Bowl, but then I realized most of the guards were probably UCLA grads who had no reason to think anything interesting ever happens on the field behind them.

And as popular as the Trojans are going to be next year and with so many key performers returning, I’d imagine the security company is going to hire more guards to work USC’s games in the Coliseum. Sounds like a good UCLA fund-raiser.