First of all, when the weather’s like this (temps in the 70s, clear blue skies), Madison has got be one of the best places to live in America. Of course, if the weather was like this 10 months a year, 800,000 people would live here instead of 200,000 plus, and all bets would be off. Anyway, great college town.
Restaurant update, or everybody Bandung tonight: An Indonesian place called Bandung was the choice of Food Guru Bodani last night. (If you run with FGB, you’re not going to TGI Friday’s, if you follow me….) Bandung is the only Indonesian restaurant in Wisconsin, as if that’s hard to believe. No, they didn’t have brats. Anyway, Bandung (named for Indonesia’s fourth-largest city, the capital of West Java province) was quite good and not all that exotic, similar to what Americans think of as Oriental food.
Once she found out we were “from the East,” one of the waitresses (extremely tattoo- and body-piercing-laden, but that seems to have become the rule, not the exception) wanted to know what we thought of the Midwest. We asked her what she thought of it, and she said she loved it because, and I quote, “The livin’ is easy.” So there you have it.
This might be in the notebook in tomorrow’s paper, but page A1 of Saturday’s Wisconsin State Journal, the local paper in Madison, reflected the gloomy current American realities - a story about a nearby GM plant closing, and the jarring headline, “Homeless would be warned before stuff is moved”
Wrapped around the paper, though, was a reminder of what really matters: A big Badger-red poster screaming “BEAT PENN STATE!” So much for journalistic objectivity, I guess.
Prediction: I just can’t arrive at a take on this one I’m happy with. So much depends on the Badgers’ psyche, and so much of that depends on the first few minutes. If Wisconsin hangs around early, Penn State tightens a bit, the crowd gets deeply committed, and suddenly it’s Penn State-Michigan 2005. If Penn State scores early and easily, as they’ve done a lot this year, the Badgers could go in the tank. It’s not much fun to be Badger QB Allan Everidge right now - even his own head coach doesn’t seem confident in him - and if Everidge struggles early, well….
Something to watch - A redshirt freshman, Josh Oglesby, is making his first career start for Wisconsin at the crucial left offensive tackle spot. He was the top-ranked OT prospect in the high school class of 2006 according to Rivals.com. Dude was 6-6, 300 pounds when he was in eighth grade. Anyway, his matchup with quick Penn State DEs Josh Gaines and Aaron Maybin bears watching.
Back and forth, back and forth…. Two things I keep coming back to- One, this is a matchup between a team that can score a hundred ways and a big, physical, defense-and-ground-game bunch. It’s the recent vintage Colts vs. the recent vintage Ravens, say, or the Jacksonville Jaguars. Seems to me the team that can light it up usually wins those.
Two, and I’m amazed how little this has been brought up this week, but Penn State beat these guys 38-7 last year, and is much, much better now than it was then.
Penn State 27, Wisconsin 17.
