To sleep, perchance to stream. -- Hamlet, bedwetter.

So, I guess if someone ever writes an unflattering biography of a certain well-known dance musician and left-wing activist, they'd title it "Moby, Dick."

Young guys who have a little thing for married cougars? Guess you could say they believe in old wives' tails.

This year's most successful resolution: Joined a gym. Takin' it up a notch in 2013 -- gonna start going.

Those who don't feel at least some regret about the unreached goals of a waning year probably aren't setting high enough goals.

Even people who rip "Jack Reacher" as a huge ego trip for Tom Cruise must admit he really nails "I Dreamed a Dream" during the car chase scene.

New Year's business prediction for Lincoln: Self-service dog washes will be the frozen yogurt shop of 2013.

What if Chuck Pagano comes back and the Colts suck? Oh, c'mon, I am NOT the only one wondering this! Just the only one brave enough to ask. (Asking for a friend.)

What's with all the tributes to Tom Osborne? He'll be back in a few years as UNL chancellor, then a stint as NU president, maybe even get promoted back up to head coach one day.

"Jack Reacher" is pretty good, I guess, though it does lack the nuanced subtleties of the novels.

As I stuck my head in the fridge this morning, contemplating what next to shove into my fat face, I briefly considered mounting a stick of butter atop a slab of cream cheese as a dip but came to my senses when I couldn't decide whether it would be better with chocolate or gravy poured on top.

The NRA urges arming municipal snow plow crews with assault rifles to break up street ice. How 'bout it, Lincoln?

Hollywood insider trivia: To make Tom Cruise an effective Jack Reacher, who's 6' 5" in the novels, everyone else in the movie's cast is a dwarf.

I'm kinda surprised people aren't freaking out more about the Gregorian calendar which, if you believe in that sort of thing, indicates -- holy crap! -- that 2013 starts TUESDAY!

Big deal, weather service. I've been naming winter storms for years. Well, OK, technically it's usually the same name, mostly when I'm shoveling snow or sliding on the ice, sometimes muttered, sometimes yelled at the top of my lungs.

Well, it was close but it looks like Christmas won the War on Christmas again.

So far, three people at the LaPierres already have shot their eyes out.

That awkward moment when you show up early for midnight Mass as a guest at a small-town church you've never been before so you can get a seat and you end up being almost the only people in the front half of the church. Oh well, at least we filled a pew.

Yet with the woes of sin and strife
The world has suffered long;
Beneath the angel strain have rolled
Two thousand years of wrong;
And man, at war with man, hears not
The love song which they bring;
O hush the noise, ye men of strife
And hear the angels sing. -- a favorite carol verse

Wayne LaPierre knows he and his NRA have an image problem. New heartwarming ad campaign should help: A boy in line at the gun store Christmas Eve doesn't have quite enough money to buy his dying mama an AR-15 assault rifle so she can shoot something before seeing Jesus tonight. Guy behind him in line -- hey, it's our hero, Wayne! -- kicks in enough money to properly weaponize mama, even tosses in a box of hollow-point bullets and a 30-round magazine. Christmas is shot, and saved!

Man, I would not want to hear Mike Tomlin's airing of grievances tonight.

Nice try, pal, but that ain't your heart that's grown three sizes this month. Look a little lower and maybe lay off bobbing for fudge in the eggnog for awhile.

You know, some day a Nigerian prince really IS going to need our help, the poor bastard.

The NRA this morning held a somber, moving memorial service for the Lanza guns, lost Dec. 14, 2012.

As to the argument that we've somehow disinvited God from our society by eliminating prayer in school, etc.: As a believer and a thoroughgoing sinner, sometimes I wish it WAS that easy to make God look the other way.

"Never take a protractor to a gunfight." -- NRA, focus-group testing some slogans for its new plan to put armed guards in every school.

To stand in the middle of Walmart on Dec. 22 and look around is to realize, "oh shit, the Mayans WERE right!"

Never mind more guns. Wayne LaPierre's press conference yesterday actually made a far more compelling case for expanding access to mental health care.

The Internets must be slow because of the approaching holidays -- still no viral video of an eagle snatching Wayne LaPierre from his podium.

Guns don't kill people. The news media, video games and movies kill people. -- the NRA's Wayne LaPierre today.

Man, we sure will solve a lot of societal problems if doctors ever come up with a safe, effective male enhancement treatment.

You can have my video game controller when you can pry it from my cold, dead hands.

I don't believe the world's going to end today, but just in case I'm wrong, I'm certainly not going to clean the cats' litter box before I go to work.

In case you're wondering, Maya Angelou's calendar today: hair appointment, 10; lunch, Old Country Buffet, noon; finish latest masterwork, a poem about the fiscal cliff ("I Know Why the Caged Speaker Sings"), 4; watch "Wheel of Fortune," 6. Whew, looks like we're gonna be OK after all.

Those who argue that assault weapons are not needed for hunting ignore the inexorable march of evolution. It is inevitable, scientists say, that our prey some day will learn to shoot back; then where will we be?

So, I’m guessing this isn't the best time to post that video of my 16-year-old daughter snatching an eagle out of the air with her bare hands?

Hey, Facebook, please create an app to hook up all my friends sending me birthday-app invitations with those haranguing me to adopt a pet.

Maybe it's time we quit mentioning by name a certain "church" in Topeka, Kansas, too.

"Yay, it's Monday!" -- Morgan Freeman

Dear sir or madam: I have been requested by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company to contact you for assistance in resolving a matter. The Company has concluded a large number of contracts for oil exploration. The contracts have immediately produced moneys equaling US$40,000,000. You assistance is requested in moving these funds out of Nigeria. To be a legitimate transferee of these moneys according to Nigerian law, you must presently be a depositor of at least US$100,000 in a Nigerian bank which is regulated by the Central Bank of Nigeria. Please send me your bank account details at your earliest convenience. -- Morgan Freeman

Trying to pick up the pieces

I turned on the football game tonight. It's a big game, you know -- 49ers and Patriots. But the beginning was pre-empted by a memorial service in Newtown. I reached for the remote to turn it off; honestly, I feel full of this story, cannot bear another detail. Yet I couldn't. The president was speaking, beautifully. He looks older in the last three days, more burdened. Do I, too? I feel it. Don't you?

It was a wonderful speech, of course. But then presidents usually excel in these moments. They employ wonderful writers and these are moments to which wonderful writers are born. 

But never mind the writing. It was the president's simple recitation of the children's names at the end that hit hard. First names only, and you could hear anguished gasps in the crowd to many of the names. "They've all gone home," the president said. And the tears that began at my office desk Friday and welled up here and there throughout the weekend came again, hard and fresh.

Newtown. I'd never heard of it before Friday. I wish I never had now. Newtown; it's a remarkable name for a town, I think. It feels close to Anytown, or Our Town. Such an act of unspeakable evil really can happen anywhere if it can happen in a place like this.

This feels like 9/11 all over again to me. Too melodramatic? I don't think so. No, not as many deaths and not the international scope. Still, in some ways worse. Because it's about Us, not about Them. It's easy to declare war on Them, but what do we do about the rot; the hatred; yes, the terrorism when it's Us? Legislation might -- might -- help, but it doesn't answer those questions about Us. Not even close.

Who the hell are we? Don't you wonder too?

I Googled Newtown. It has a fascinating history, like so many towns in that part of the country. In was purchased in 1705 from the Pohtatuck Indians and originally known as Quanneapague. Actor Anthony Edwards has a home there. Famous director Elia Kazan lived there. So did Burke Marshall, who led the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division during the Civil Rights Era. One of my favorite authors, James Thurber, lived there. Olympian Bruce Jenner graduated from Newtown High School. And the game of Scrabble was developed there by town resident James Brunot. 

Of course, no one will ever remember any of that now.

After the president's eulogy, I took the dog out; the bells on the Catholic Church two blocks away started ringing -- 8 o'clock -- and it felt perfectly timed. It's not quite winter here, not by the calendar or by the weather, but it still looks like Christmas. I'm a sucker for both the secular and the religious celebrations of the season. A block away from where my dog paused is one of the most spectacularly lit houses in town. I love it, and we started walking toward it. But then we detoured, toward a Nativity other neighbors have placed on their porch for the first time this year; it's my new favorite, simple and spartan, much the way I imagine the scene might have looked over 2000 years ago. The dog and I walked across the grass and paused in front of it. I prayed quietly and cried some more. 

It looks like Christmas, but I don't know. I'm struggling to give a damn. Aren't you?

But of all the details and comments I read in news coverage over this weekend, I believe I was most struck by what one of Newtown's reluctant  heroes had to say, in an Associated Press report:

"Asked whether the town would recover, Maryann Jacob, a clerk in the school library who took cover in a storage room with 18 fourth-graders during the shooting rampage, said: 'We have to. We have a lot of children left.'"

Yes, we do.

The dog and I walked back home and through the door. I looked at the TV. Niners up 7-0. It's a big game, you know. I turned it off and went upstairs.

A 6-year-old's obituary is the saddest thing in the world. So much life unlived.

From the Introvert's Survival Guide to Holiday Parties: To make people keep their distance, incessantly sing “The Little Drummer Boy,” just under your breath at first but ever louder the closer someone gets. (Not to brag, but I have cleared entire rooms with this technique.)

"A lie can travel halfway around the world on Twitter and Facebook while the truth is still putting on its shoes." -- Mark Twain

"I have been driven many times upon my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go. My own wisdom, and that of all about me, seemed insufficient for the day." -- Abraham Lincoln

Some of the people who matter most to me in this world are teachers. My wife, for about 30 years now; my oldest son and his wife and my other son's longtime girlfriend, each for less than a year. My daughter expects to be working in schools one day as a speech pathologist. And when we gather over the holidays, I'll be grilling all of them to make sure they have a plan for protecting themselves and their students in the event a gunman is roaming their school. Next time I'm in their classrooms, I'll make them show me exactly what they have in mind. That's pretty effing crazy, isn't it?

Making sense of that which makes no sense

If I thought banning guns would prevent any more children from being slaughtered in their elementary school classrooms, I would say let us repeal the Second Amendment and get to it.

If I thought arming teachers would prevent any more terrified high schoolers from having to hide under a cafeteria table believing the next bullet will end up in their head, I would say let us require military training for a teaching certificate and eliminate football programs if necessary to afford the arsenal.

If I thought reintroducing organized prayer into public schools would create an environment where never again would a teacher hear that dreadful popping sound down the hall and have to lock her door and herd her students into a closet, then I would say make everyone bow their heads and pray to some God, any God, or just fake it, every morning. 

If I find any or all of these views to be hopelessly, even dangerously, naïve and simplistic, it's not in me right now to mock any of them. As all of us try to make sense of that of which no sense can be made, it is natural to grasp for something, anything, that fits our worldview.

In any case, I suspect that whatever our individual opinions on these issues -- more guns, fewer guns, prayer in schools, no prayer in schools -- most of us would accede to the exact opposite if we knew it would mean no more parents waiting for police to show them a picture of a dead child on a classroom floor to confirm what they already know in their forever-broken hearts.

As we all practice armchair sociology and criminology at times like these, asking ourselves why this keeps happening and even as we come to different conclusions and thus different solutions, I suspect we all know in our hearts that this is far more complicated and more terrifying than our initial knee-jerk reactions imply:

There's a sickness in our culture, maybe a desensitization to violence, maybe an acceptance of moral rot and decay, maybe ... I don't know.  This sickness often is expressed with guns, but those are merely the tools, not the cause.  

These no longer can be called "isolated incidents." This is part of what America is. Not all, or even most, but definitely part of us.

How did this happen?

Maybe I'll write more about this later, but honestly, I got nothing right now.

Some days, I hate to admit, I'm kinda rootin' for the Mayans.

The problem with our society is not so much the existence of guns as it is a pervasive culture that teaches very, very small men that a gun in their hands makes them big.

"Ernest Hemingway once wrote, 'The world is a fine place and worth fighting for.' I agree with the second part." -- Detective Somerset (Morgan Freeman), "Seven."

Well, thank God: Apparently only those who geeked out about yesterday being 12/12/12 will face doom Dec. 21.

A new, politically correct version of "'Twas the Night Before Christmas" features a pipe-free Santa Claus. In related news, future editions of the Bible will clarify that when the Holy Family left Bethlehem for Egypt, the Christ child was transported in an approved infant car seat.

New federal law took effect this week barring TV ads from being significantly louder than programming. Now, how about a law automatically muting the sound every time a member of Congress comes on the air?

Beaucoup Boku (Coach Pelini’s occasional reflections in haiku form), on the occasion of his birthday today:

Forty-five. In my
defense, that's 310
or so in coach years

Elf on the Shelf getting old? Perhaps you want to start a new tradition this Christmas and add one of its guilt- and fear-stoking partners to your household's merriment:

-- Yenta on the Mantle, who glares at your adult, single children when they come home for the holidays, wondering why they can't find a nice partner and finally settle down; 

-- Reindeer in the Beer, the broken down former Santa livestock who compensates for his depression during the holidays by getting stinking drunk and making a damn fool of himself; 

-- Midge in the Fridge, the disapproving personal trainer who glowers at you when you open the refrigerator, peeking from behind a carton of eggnog, sitting astride a stick of butter, pulling herself out of a ball of cookie dough; or

-- Guido in the Mistletoe, the menacing debt collector who dangles from above tapping a baseball bat on his hand as he surveys your out-of-control Christmas spending.

The gullible stranger's money in hand, the boy realized he now had enough to score big at the mall's Cinnabon. He dropped mama's Christmas shoes on the store floor and skedaddled.

Beaucoup Boku (Coach Pelini's occasional reflections, in haiku form):

Pro: I rock orange.
Con: Tried, can't say "execute"
in Tennessee twang

The Interwebs are buzzing with rumors that Bo Pelini has contacted Tennessee about its open coaching job. Probably nothing to it, but as a precautionary measure, Gov. Heineman has scrambled Nebraska Air National Guard fighters to intercept Houston Nutt's plane if it enters state airspace.

For what it's worth, Bret Bielema already has sent a very enthusiastic letter of recommendation for Bo Pelini to Tennessee's AD.

Guatemalan cops arrest antivirus software guru John McAfee, suspected of neighbor's murder in Belize. McAfee will get a 30-day trial, of course.

I'm sorry but I have no use for the Grammy awards. My Grammy was the best and she never got one.

Speaking of Pinnacle Arena’s “Candy Box” artwork, surely another scene will memorialize the Huskers’ first Big 10 title game appearance. It’ll incorporate a white-chocolate jockstrap of a juked-out NU defender left on the field as a Badger runs by.

I gave the last of my money at the store to a boy whose mama had no Christmas shoes to go meet Jesus. But then I met a boy at the prosthetics store whose mama had no feet.

Pinnacle Arena's "Candy Box" depiction of Lincoln culture will be a travesty if it doesn't include a scene of a car going through a roundabout with its driver's middle finger extended.

Oh my God. Can't you people see what's happening here? The Mayans' plan all along was to bring the modern world to apocalypse this month through collapse of the Internet thanks to endless dumb social-media jokes about Mayans. You bastards!

Please, people, don't take the "ristma" out of Christmas.

Lately, I have been tormented by the inexplicable but unshakeable belief that every time a bell rings, someone somewhere has said "I could care less" or "irregardless."

Listening to sports talk radio hosts and their callers trying to figure out what went wrong with the Huskers Saturday night is akin to listening in on a bunch of first-year med students in a lab gathered around an especially bloody corpse trying to pin down the cause of death. In the end, the carcass is so completely torn asunder, how can you possibly tell?

Listening to sports talk radio hosts and their callers trying to figure out what went wrong with the Huskers Saturday night is akin to listening in on a bunch of first-year med students in a lab gathered around an especially bloody corpse trying to pin down the cause of death. In the end, the carcass is so completely torn asunder, how can you possibly tell?

The Big 10 announces that if the Huskers make it to the 2013 title game, it will be pay-per-view in Nebraska. No word yet how much they'll pay us to watch.

Jim Delany should rethink Big 10 alignment as it expands. How about a split into four divisions: Legends, Leaders, Lessers and Leasters?

The Pope starts tweeting Dec 12. Within a month, we're all gonna be pretty over his PBWY (Peace Be With You), STHM (Say 10 Hail Marys) and OMKPMAO (On My Knees Praying My ... well, you know.)

More bad news for the Huskers: Nebraska travel agencies and Pasadena tourist industry are suing them for malpractice, seeking millions in damages.

Guys, if you can’t grow a proper mustache but are still sporting that month-old wisp on your lip, you’re now doing Fuzzember. Give it up.

And now, for something completely different: a trip to Orlando for an ass-kicking by an SEC team.

Well, so dies that old saying: The Huskers will win a conference title when we're wearing shorts and flip-flops in December.

Beaucoup Boku (Coach Pelini's occasional reflections, in haiku form:)

How 'bout THAT, my man?
Too soon? 'nother joke then: Our
defense! Wow, tough room.

Lincoln drivers and backward angled parking downtown? Well, sure, what could go wrong?

Huskers got run over by the Badgers ...

Huskers got run over by the Badgers
trying to win a title in Indy,
You can say there's no such thing as sucking
But as for we Nebraskans, we believe.

Yes, we'd been drinking all that Kool-Aid
but as he vowed, Bo's boys won out.
And we thought this finally was it --
an end to the championship drought.

All those comebacks were impressive
sure, you could chalk some up to luck.
And, let's face it, some of us whispered,
the Big 10 kinda, sorta -- OK, really -- sucks.

Still Bo was once again a genius
even on some lists in the SEC.
Why, late at night when alone, he
secretly practiced "wooo pig soooie!"

But by the end of Saturday night,
what had happened to NU's pluck?
Bo looked so stunned, almost crying
not sure he managed one single "F---!"

Huskers got run over by the Badgers
trying to win a title in Indy
You can say there's no such thing as sucking
But as for we Nebraskans, we believe.

Sorry, Husker fans, but that is NOT the sun coming up this morning. Instead, you're seeing the final death throes of a once-proud program as it explodes spectacularly into trillions of jagged pieces. The good news is that recovery is just around the corner, astronomically speaking that is -- only millions of light-years away.

Hey, over on NBC is "It's a Wonderful Life," where, every time a bell rings, Wisconsin scores a touchdown. Poor bells.

OK, guys, Movember's over. Please shave those prostates.

"Nobody ever went broke underestimating the gullibility of Facebook users." -- H.L. Mencken

If I won the Powerball I would demand payment in a dump sum, as in: Back up that truck in my front yard and just dump sum right there.

I didn’t win Powerball, but, next best thing, I did break out the giant checkbook at the grocery store today. Cashiers dig that.

Good Lord, if I had a nickel for every time I acted on faulty intelligence, I’d be able to start my own Super PAC.

Through this present communique, I hereby declare my absolute civil rights against any person or persons who would enjoin me against crying or pouting, or from telling me why said admonishment is necessary, or from demanding I be good for goodness’ sake; also against anyone seeing me when I’m sleeping, knowing when I’m awake; from determining whether I’m naughty or nice, bad or good, and thus including me on a completely arbitrary and capricious list, even if said list is checked twice and even if said person is coming to town.

(Facebook recommends copying and pasting the aforementioned notice to your wall to protect yourself against this clearly illegal intrusion into your privacy. Failure to post this notice means you are tacitly allowing yourself to be accused and convicted of naughtiness without constitutional due process including an opportunity to confront and cross-examine your accusers as outlined in the Kringle Convention and North Pole Statute. Henceforth, habeas corpus carpe diem e pluribus Unum pa rum pum pum pum, rum pum pum pum, rum pum pum pum without the express written consent of Major League Baseball.)

I never buy Powerball tickets because I worry I’d be one of those people fundamentally changed by winning – and I don’t want to become a caring, decent, giving person.

Daniel Day Lewis so convincingly portrays Lincoln that one can't help but think Abe would have made a helluva Christy Brown or Daniel Plainview.

Jimi Hendrix, who would have turned 70 this week, looks down at the Rolling Stones' 50th anniversary tour and says “WTF, God? Keith Richards?!”

X23 Vreare/j[opare$#% remak;lareoppasp xarasjp[re[[&*.

Henceforth, I hereby declare, I shall be encrypting my posts to ensure copyright and privacy protection. I will provide the code to Facebook friends upon their signing a contract agreeing not to steal my material or to clutter it with irrelevant comments that ruin the gist of my original post or, worse, that are more intelligent or funny than my original. I regret having to take this action, but I must protect my intellectual property, which in the case of the encryption at the beginning of this post is, admittedly, a fart joke, but a damn good one. (Hey, don’t judge: You have your intellectual property, and I have mine.)

Sure wish I'd known to post that Facebook copyright notice years ago -- you know, back before I was the first to use "LOL."

"To All the Girls I've Loved Before (You Should Maybe Get Down to the Free Health Clinic and Get Yourself Checked 'Cause I Got This Funny Rash and a Burning Sensation)" -- Julio Iglesias

Follow the advice of the fifth doctor and fifth dentist for one wild ride, my friends.

A lotta college-football coaches fired today. Presumably the Journal Star sports department is on high alert, with reporters dispatched to the Lincoln airport to see if any of those universities has a plane standing by on the tarmac.

If your mother says she loves you, snopes it.

Please, gym-goers, grab an extra towel this morning to wipe that gravy sweat off the equipment.

By the way, the last nail has been driven into the coffin of that Mayan apocalypse talk: No way God's lettin' that shit go down next month with Notre Dame so close to the BCS title.

Who's watching "Liz and Dick"? Man, Lindsay Lohan hasn't been this unresponsive since the last time she was found in a hotel bed by EMTs.

Nice 'stache and turnovers, Aaron Rodgers. Celebrating Blowvember?

I ain't sayin' the 49ers are drilling Brees, but the Saints' medical team just had to tape the birthmark back on his face.

Awoke hungry at 1 a.m. the last three days. And so it begins: Every holiday season I revert to infancy eating patterns, demanding food every three hours. If denied, a tantrum will ensue. Also, I would appreciate being burped regularly.

Beaucoup Boku (Coach Pelini's occasional reflections, in haiku form):

Crap. Sure wish it had
occurred to me to tell 'em
to win out sooner.

NFL will pilot-test an exciting innovation in game improvement when the Chiefs have the ball today against the Broncos. Instead of just reviewing previous plays, officials will preview the play about to happen and call them on their idiocy ahead of time. If it works well, they'll expand this system to the Chargers and Browns next week.

Beaucoup Boku (Coach Pelini's occasional reflections, in haiku form):

Jesus, you people
get pissed at me? How'd you like
Ferentz as your coach?

There'd be some marketing genius in retailers' bringing a little touch of Black Friday to every day: Seal a few random items around the store in plastic wrap with sign saying, for example, "Cheerios on sale from 3-4 p.m. Limit 2 boxes." The American shopping ethos being what it is, they'd have hundreds lined up whether they liked Cheerios or not.

In Walmart no one can hear you scream. No, seriously, I've tried.

I am, of course, morally and philosophically opposed to the unbridled greed and crass commercialism of Black Friday, but thrilled to be married to a woman who is not. Thanks for the $10 jeans and dress pants, hon!

I love the smell of commerce in the morning.

75% of deep fat turkey fryer fires occur not while cooking the bird but rather right afterward when some guy says "let's see if THIS'LL fry up in there!"

As is my custom, upon the family's gathering at my mother-in-law's today, I will brief everyone on the acceptable and unacceptable topics of conversation over the holiday. Unacceptable: Election rehash, the fiscal cliff, both Elmo (Sesame Street) AND Grover (Norquist), speculation on future Big 10 membership. Acceptable: "How 'bout this weather?," "How 'bout this pie?", "How 'bout puppies?" and random Terp and Scarlet Knight bashing. Transgressions will be discreetly signaled by my coughing as if I have a turkey bone lodged in my throat and, on second offense, punished by withholding of a moist-maker turkey sandwich leftover.

I, for one, welcome more crappy football teams to play.

"Eew, I just saw Chris Christie and Snooki feeding each other Runzas in the South Stadium." -- overheard at a future Husker game.

Grammy always likes to say that love is the secret ingredient in her stuffing. So, who among us at the table has the nerve to point out that love seems to taste a lot like spoiled oysters this year?

Just throwin’ this out there, Lincoln friends -- you know, two birds with one stone and all that: How about moving Pershing Center to that nasty Warlick intersection, turn it into office space/retail/frozen-yogurt emporium/whatever and have all those roads just meet up there and end in a giant parking lot?

This is exciting: Jim Delany announced today that future Big 10 title games will be played atop a huge pile of money.

Two roads converged in a yellow wood. So much for the one less traveled that I was on. Now I’m stuck plodding along on the same road shoulder to shoulder with a bunch of schmucks.

How many nuns could a nunchuck chuck if a nunchuck could chuck nuns?

"Meh-y Christmas" -- suggested holiday greeting for those who feel deeply ambivalent or apathetic about the season.

The Kansas City Chiefs have quietly approached Jim Delany about being a part of the Big 10's next expansion.

"Every day I'm Rufflin'." -- worker, crinkle-cut line, Lay's Potato Chip factory.

Does this mean we'll finally be able to get some decent fresh seafood in the Big 10?

Just shaved off my third mustache this Movember already. Mailing it to charity, like the others, where they make ‘em into wigs for prostates, I guess?

Don't take a knife to a pillow fight either. Lord, what a mess.

Shouldn't we wait for the whole secession thing to shake out before we welcome more conference realignment? Damned if I want the Huskers playin' a buncha damn furreigners.

Life has given me lemonade today. Good one, life. Challenge accepted: Stand by for lemons.

NFL announces it will move the Broncos to another division and dismantle the rest of the AFC West for spare parts -- knees, shoulders, hips, etc. -- for the rest of the league, and players' brains will be donated to science post-mortem -- and, in a few select cases, immediately -- to study for clues to the causes of crappy football. Important research, that.

I stormed out of "Lincoln" this afternoon. Typical Spielberg/Hollywood liberal BS. How typical they would foist this piece of anti-secession propaganda on America right now.

Beaucoup Boku (Coach Pelini's occasional reflections, in haiku form):

Gimme extra week,
we'd be in driver's seat for
national title. :(

Now that their demise is nigh, we finally can ask: Sno Balls? Ding Dongs? Ho Hos? Really, Hostess? Why not Puffy Scrotes, Jelly Johnsons, Skankcakes?

Beaucoup Boku (Coach Pelini's occasional reflections, in haiku form):

In the driver's seat.
Damn kids in back quit asking
"are we there yet, coach?"

Huskers' tunnel walk has gotten tired. How 'bout working a roundabout into that thing?

This is sweet: For old times' sake, Tom's gonna strap on the headset and call a coupla series in the third quarter so fans can bitch about his play calling one last time. GBR!

A Husker fans' goodbye haiku to Tom Osborne:

Farewell, Coach, but just
in case, leave us your number.
We'll call you maybe.

Hostess products are flying off store shelves now. Damn, just think: If they'd gone out of business years ago, they might have survived.

I saw the future of rock 'n' roll last night, and its name is Bruce Springsteen. And I'm taking the yet-to-be-born children of the children I saw him with last night to see him perform. And I'm being pushed in a wheelchair by those grandchildren, and that SOB is still jumping off the piano, crowd-surfing and performing for three freaking hours.

Republicans really are much better at the whole circular firing squad routine than Democrats. It's probably those assault rifles.

Gov. Chris Christie is offering to divert some FEMA funds from Sandy relief to a Hostess bailout.

Other than that, how'd you like the movie, Mrs. Lincoln?

Clearly, it's time for a national debate: Should we allow straights in the military?

David Petraeus forgot one of the first rules of spookdom: If the CIA wants you to have a mistress, it will issue you one.

If we're gonna secede and create a "NEW government," let's at least get it right this time -- rule established with a class system based on musical taste. So, welcome us, your new Ramones' fans overlords.

Sure wish Schoolhouse Rock were still around for some perspective on today’s government scene: “If your candidate did concede and so off you are teed, then by all means you may proceed to secede.” And: “Take care not to be flirtatious even if your email recipient is quite bodacious.”

Given recent developments, it's clear we really aren't an actual sovereign nation anymore, right? Pretty sure we must be some other planetary civilization’s idiotic "Truman"-like reality show, highly entertaining a species of higher intelligence with our assorted clownishness. That’s really the only explanation that makes sense at this point.

Although I don't endorse secession, I definitely could get behind immediately revoking the citizenship of anyone who misspells the word on a protest sign. That's what you call a win-win.

America's most beloved general humiliated, nation hurtles toward fiscal cliff, secession talk grows. So, I guess the terrorists won?

Well, this is one of those teachable moments in the workplace, I suppose. I assume I'm not the only one going back through my old office emails to make sure I've never been "flirtatious." I think I'm in the clear, though there were some exchanges about our department's strategic planning process that skated close to the edge of propriety. For example, instances when my use of the words "impactful," "paradigm" and "incentivize" may have come across as sexually suggestive. I do apologize to anyone who may have been offended.

Leach, Gillispie, Tuberville. What is it about coaching in Lubbock that drives men mad? How 'bout a country song, Mac Davis?

Uh-oh. Twitter is over capacity intermittently and the Internet is generally sluggish today. It appears the Pentagon is about to declare a military emergency and shut it down so generals can more quickly scrub their email files.

With an Abe Lincoln mood in the air this week, one imagines his enemies Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee are eyeing all the current secession talk with great glee from the beyond, but we’ll see how they feel when Allen West is elected president of the New Confederacy

Next on "Sesame Street," a special warning primer for kids on inappropriate touching: "Do NOT Tickle Me, Elmo!"

If the New York Post doesn't use the phrase "felt up" in its Elmo headline tomorrow, then print really IS dead.

Dang it, missed it by THAT much: I had the secretary of HUD and Snuffleupagus getting into sex trouble this month in the office scandal pool.

I went to a fight and a NASCAR race broke out.

"said no one ever" -- say no one ever again, please.

Beaucoup Boku (Coach Pelini's occasional reflections, in haiku form):

You all saw the game.
What do you think? No, really.
'cause I got no clue.