Lighten Up

TigerBlog dealt with a pretty serious issue yesterday, freedom of speech in the world today.

Today will be a little lighter. Much lighter actually.

Why not? There are no athletic events here at Princeton as first semester exams roll along. While the rest of Division I athletics is in the heart of every winter season, Princeton has its unique two-week mid-January break.

So let's start out today with something that can make even the gruffest old dogs among you smile. And what would that be?

Right, a dog who can ride the bus by herself.

Eclipse is a black lab retriever mix in Seattle. Her owner sometimes takes too long to get on the bus to take her to the dog park, so she figured out how to get there herself.

How cute is this? TigerBlog told you so.

What can be sweeter than a dog who can ride the bus in a big city by herself? TigerBlog is feeling all warm and fuzzy just watching the video.

Okay, moving on to another subject.

TigerBlog read a story earlier this week about study that determined how many slices of pizza the average American eat in a lifetime. Any guesses?

Take a few paragraphs to think about it.

There are two things that TigerBlog thinks everybody likes, and that's pizza and the Journey song "Don't Stop Believing." The only real debate on pizza is what to have on it.

TigerBlog isn't sure when pizza started to get all dressed up. When TB was a kid, a fancy pizza had two toppings, like peppers and onions or mushrooms and sausage. Now you can get almost anything on a pizza.

TB's favorite is probably chicken parmigiana pizza. He's waiting for the study to prove that it's low-fat.

Anyway, apparently the average American eats 6,000 slices of pizza in a lifetime. TB lost track a long time ago, but he senses he'll get there.

Next up on "Keep It Light Friday" is TB's trip to the supermarket yesterday. What would you do in this situation?

TB bought 13 items, but four of them were baguettes. So would you have gone to the "10 items or less" line? After all, if you count the four baguettes as one item, then TB had nine items.

He didn't. He went to the regular one, but he chose really poorly and got stuck behind someone who took forever. Why do people move so slowly sometimes? Are they that unaware of the world around them? That tortures TB.

A Seattle-New England Super Bowl will torture TB as well, though he's pretty sure that's where this is heading this weekend. In that case, he'd root for Seattle, because 1) BrotherBlog lives there and 2) because of Eclipse.

Oh, and back at the supermarket. TigerBlog doesn't think he'd be a good checkout person, because he'd constantly be making comments to the people about what they were buying. Sarcastic comments, probably.

Let's see, anything else to cover? Two pieces of business, TB supposes.

First check out the Princeton football references in this piece about what Ohio State could do with its three quarterbacks.

Also, Sean Driscoll joined the staff here this week as the head women's soccer coach. He comes to Princeton after spending five years as the associate head coach at Fairfield, Before that, he was the head coach at Manhattan, and he led the Jaspers to a 12-5-2 record his final year for the best record in program history.

When TB met Driscoll when he was here earlier this week, he asked him about his experiences with the Jaspers. Driscoll told the story about practices at Von Cortlandt Park, where his team would have to move homeless people out of the way before training sessions began.

Now he comes to Princeton, where he may have to move a grad student or two off of Plummer Field before his team can get started.

The Tigers scored a lot of goals last year, and they will return eight of their top nine scorers for 2015, including Tyler Lussi, who has 28 goals in her first two seasons and has two years to get 19 more to tie the school record.

Driscoll seemed wildly enthusiastic about taking over at Princeton. He mentioned his first time on the campus, when he made a stop here while at a nearby camp and thinking that it would be incredible to coach her one day.

Now the job is his. But opening day is months away. Even spring practice is a few weeks away.

For that matter, the next athletic event in any sport is still more than a week away.

It's a quiet Friday around here.

It's a good day to lighten up.