Renee, there's some creepy guy, like, blogging about you?

Some thoughts on a positively autumn-like Thursday in September:

* Why am I listening to Goldfrapp? I don’t have an answer for that, but I love “Strict Machine,” which you may have heard on a cell phone commercial as well as the ads for the upcoming season of “Nip/Tuck.” Anyway, Goldfrapp. Sultry vocals, high energy, not completely soulless as I had originally thought on the first couple of listens. A lot of it is fairly damn hook-y and memorable, actually. "Strict Machine," in particular, has a highly infectious bass line and chorus. Yummy.

* I had a boss once in cable who called it “Nip and Tuck.”

* Life imitates satire: This AP article in the Indianapolis Star and this article from the Onion are really two sides of the same coin, aren’t they? If you remember nothing else I’ve taught you, you should remember that Randy Savage is the David Lee Roth of the wrestling world, and vice versa.

* I’ll probably end up doing a weekly Winless Watch for Indiana high school football at some point in the near future. Right now I just don’t have the time or wherewithal, due mostly to the fact that three weeks into the nine-week season, 62 teams – almost 20 percent of the football-playing schools in Indiana - are still winless, which is just too much for me to analyze and capsulize right now. However, a quick glance at the bottom of the Sagarin ratings and the esteemed John Harrell’s Indiana high school football page tells me that a team to watch is the mighty Edinburgh Lancers; through week three, the Lancers are averaging a mere 5 points a game while giving up 62. Whee!

I’ll do a full-on Winless Watch sometime after the season shakes out a little more and the 62 current winless teams is pared down to a more manageable 25 or so – the season-ending count usually averages around 16-20 winless teams a year - likely after week 6. I imagine we’ll still be talking about Edinburgh at that point, but till then, ponder this question: If you locked Edinburgh football and Cannelton basketball in a room, would someone win?

* One other thought about high school football, but not really.

The largest school in Indiana that does not play football is Scottsburg High School. The most recent IHSAA enrollment numbers (to determine which class a school falls into) puts the 718-student Scottsburg in the upper half of all IHSAA schools enrollment-wise, around 157th-largest out of 387 full-member IHSAA schools. But they don't play football! Even tiny Dugger plays football, and they can barely scrape together 11 for a team! This intrigued me somewhat, and I deigned to find out more.

Well, I got sidetracked when trying to learn more about why Scottsburg doesn't field a football team. (They discontinued the sport around the mid-80s, apparently, but I still can't find a reason why - but this distracts from the larger point at hand.)

On the page where I found out more about the history of Warrior athletics, a name jumped out at me. Renee Westmoreland was Indiana's Miss Basketball in 1989 and went on to Western Kentucky University, where she became one of the best players in Lady Topper history.

I recall seeing her picture in Garry Donna's Hoosier Basketball magazine around that time and getting all weak in the knees - her picture jumped out at me then just as her name did just now. I had a massive crush on the fair and demure Ms. Westmoreland, but I don't know if it was because she was a hot chick who played basketball well, or a basketball player who also happened to be smoking hot. If there was a World Wide Web back then, I probably would have created a fan site devoted to her. If I had a crappy post-punk or alt-rock band back then, I'd probably have had a song called "I Love You, Renee Westmoreland." (I was 15 when she was Miss Basketball, so it would have been innocent.)

Here's a picture of Renee, decked out in full basketball regalia with her Miss Basketball trophy. Yeah. Even her name was hot.

Anyway. Scottsburg? Football? What?