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You know what's frustrating?

Calling a large corporate entity such as a bank or a utility or something and getting one of those computer voice menus that asks you to say what you want and enter your account number and on and on. TigerBlog had to deal with two of those this week.

The first was a nightmare.

First he had to go through the menu choices, and of course none of them exactly matched up with what he wanted, so he had to guess what the closest one would be. Then he had to go through that whole menu, knowing none of them would be the right one.

Eventually, he got a person on the phone. Then he was transferred. Then again. Then disconnected.

Then he had to call back, knowing he had to go through all the wrong prompts again, hoping to get to where he wanted to be. In the end he never was able to do what he wanted to do. 

The other time he went through one such menu, he found the right choice, selected it, went through additional prompts and was able to do everything he needed to do without ever hearing a human voice.

Going 1 for 2 wasn't that bad, actually.

Most of what TigerBlog has been doing is related to his upcoming trip to Portugal with the men's lacrosse team. He still hasn't started packing, though he did check the weather yesterday and saw that it figures to be pretty nice, except for a chance of rain later in the week in Lisbon, just in time for the games against the English national team.

The women's team leaves today for its trip, going to Amsterdam for its first stop. After that, it's on to Cape Town, South Africa.

Remember when TigerBlog mentioned the zipline from Spain to Portugal and how it's in two different time zones, even though the entire trip is 700 meters? Well, Amsterdam and Cape Town, though separated by more than 6,000 miles, are in the same time zone, which makes it easier on the women's team to adjust.

Being away will cause TigerBlog to miss the next home football game, against Penn, on Nov. 5. It'll be the second time this year he'll have to miss a home game.

Bill Bromberg, the regular basketball/lacrosse PA announcer, filled in for the first game TB missed, against Brown. This time Bromberg is unavailable, so TB reached out to Penn's PA announcer, Rich Kahn, who is one of the best TB has ever heard (don't worry Bill. TB loves you too).

The result is that Princeton will have three PA announcers for five home games. That has to be some sort of Ivy League record, right?

And hey, TigerBlog has done stats at Penn games for his alma mater, so he can borrow Penn's PA announcer for one game. 

As for the games themselves, the Tigers head to Cornell tomorrow off of last weekend's tough loss against Harvard. Yes, Princeton lost that game, but there was nobody on either team after that game had one thing to be sorry about. That game, as much as any TigerBlog has seen here, was maximum effort by both teams at all times.

The result, though, was Princeton's first Ivy League loss.

There have been very few three-way ties in the Ivy League football races through the years. One of them was last year, between Harvard, Dartmouth and Penn.

Can this year be another one? Mathematically it sure can.

 Right now Penn and Harvard are both 3-0, followed by Princeton at 2-1. Next up are Cornell, Brown, Columbia and Yale, all at 1-2, with Dartmouth at 0-3.

The Penn game, as TB said, is next weekend. That is followed on Friday night, Nov. 11, with Harvard at Penn.

The math is obvious.

What else is obvious is that the Penn game is still a week away. This week it's Cornell.

The Big Red are 3-3, with three straight losses (including to Sacred Heart, by the way) after three wins to start the year. Cornell, of course, is coming off back-to-back 1-9 seasons, so the team appears to have turned the corner.

And it's in Ithaca.

TigerBlog's colleague Craig Sachson wrote this in the pregame story on goprincetontigers.com:
The Princeton Classes of 1966 and 1977 may not understand that, because they went 2-0 at Schoellkopf Field, site of Saturday's Ivy League 12:30 showdown between Princeton (4-2, 2-1 Ivy) and Cornell (3-3, 1-2 Ivy), which will be shown live on both One World Sports (check local listings) and the Ivy League Digital Network. No other senior class in the last 100 years can make that claim, though the Tiger Class of 2016 wants nothing more than to join that exclusive crowd and keep itself alive in the Ivy League championship race.

That's amazing.

There's no taking anything for granted at this point of the season. Certainly Cornell isn't going to be an easy out.

As for TB, it's almost time for him to pack and head out.

He'll check in from Portugal Monday.