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I've been getting in the mood to watch OSU Buckeyes football lately and the obvious subject that is brought up time and time again is 2 straight years of humiliating losses in the BCS championship games. While I admit that we lost the games for ourselves through penalties, excessive celebration (I'm looking at you Ginn), and inability to stop the spread, that's not the whole story.

If we played the championship game in Cleveland, it would not be "neutral territory". I don't see how having one team get on Highway I-10 for an hour and the other team travel 900 miles can make for neutral territory. It wasn't possible for OSU's fans to have the same presence.

Also, there's this notion that the SEC is faster and all-around better than the Big Ten. I believe it's more an issue of specialization. Big Ten football is played, for those who don't know football, in mainly Ohio, Michigan, Minnesota, and other far-North states. South Eastern Conference football is played, wait for it... in the South. I vote for having BCS championship games in North Dakota or Montana. Let them play in snow with temperatures flirting with 0 degrees.

Players lose traction. Injuries occur more easily. Catching a pitch with freezing hands suddenly becomes much more difficult.

OSU can win in warmer climates (See January 2003). Will the SEC always win in truly neutral territory? Can the SEC compete in the cold? These are questions I have not yet seen the answer to.

3

Paul McHenry Roberts wrote an essay entitled "How to say nothing in five hundred words". It's humorous, but more importantly it's insightful.

We fill space with no content.

I struggle with being concise. Roberts advocates using the fewest possible words to get the point across.

Here is an example of how we often bloat our writing:

"In my opinion, fast driving is dangerous."

becomes

"In my humble opinion. though I do not claim to be an expert on this complicated subject, test driving, in most circumstances, would seem to be rather dangerous in many respects, or at least so it would seem to me."

Don't beat around the bush

Roberts says to "Call a fool a fool". I often talk around the truth to avoid being harsh, but being harsh makes for interesting writing.

The road less-traveled

With the advent of the world wide web, the total amount of written communication has skyrocketed. This is great except people say the same thing. Over, and over, and over again. Be different. "Always take the that looks to you hardest, least defensible.[sic]"

As I continue to practice writing, I will frequently refer back to this article. I encourage everyone to do the same!

Marilyn Monroe singing to JFK

Tyra Banks is Crazy (Spanish)