Official Card Chronicle FAQ/Glossary Mega-Post (UPDATED)

One of the best things about this 'blog' is that it has always seemed like a small community of die-hard UofL fans who share not only a passion for the Cards, but a language that has evolved since its founding. With all the new users, readers and lurkers that have pointed their web browers to the site over the last few months, I'm sure there are people out there who don't get all the jokes (like, why is 'blog' in single quotes in the first line? And the hell is Bryce Cotton?) and may not get the complete Chron (don't call it that) (see below) experience.

So we here at Chron HQ (see below) thought we'd put together a quick FAQ and glossary (prompted in part by loyal reader 97E3LPL) and ask posters to add further explanations (or ask questions) in the comments to help new users and older users (like frankpos) who may have missed some things. Somehow Mike will figure out a way to get this prominently and/or permanently displayed on the homepage so when your friends and family join up after seeing "Do you read my blog?" (see below) t-shirts everywhere, they can instantly become productive members of the Chron (don't call it that) (see below) experience, too. 

Who Are We? Why Are We Here?

We are mainly Mike Rutherford, lifetime Cards fan and hilarious and poignant writer. Also known as "The Godfather", Mike started this 'blog' a few years ago and has overseen the growth to a staggering 170K+ visits and 300K+ page views per month. Some classic Mike posts include: March Madness...ugh; Louisville XX, Opponent, XX (see, eg, Louisville 78, Connecticut 76) which consist of post-game recaps; A Profession of Love; UL/UK Fan Talk Recruiting; and UK/UL rivalry analysis. 

We also sometimes include, to a much lesser extent, CardsFan922 and UL is my hot hot sex.  Mike elevated these two random dudes who were both early readers from obscurity to help as "authors", that is, guys who can post news, stories, manage comments, etc., because of the added time commitments in Mike's real life. Of the two, CardsFan922 has almost a 100% success rate at predicting the future, in that 100% of his predictions turn out to be wrong, so much so that people have actually asked hot hot to ask CardsFan922 to predict UofL to lose. Representative posts: Freedom Hall Memories (the good); ZOMG Woodney (the bad) and the ugly.  Also, I'm not going to link to it, but just search for Mike Marra and "best player" in December 2010 for the worst post ever written on the sit or perhaps the history of the internet.  

UL is my hot hot sex ("hot hot") is a Louisville native, Las Vegas-based, Air Force veteran who has written such posts as: I'll Make It and a number of Cards soccer posts, including this one.   He is a prolific and hilarious tweeter, and has helped bring such memes as "shots shots shots shots" and "ham" to the 'blog.'

This 'blog' is written and managed from Chron HQ, which does not actually exist but refers generally to Mike's house, where neither hot hot nor CardsFan922 have ever been, nor will they likely to be allowed to go to there because that would be weird. The word 'blog' is often in single quotes because of a reference by a UofL for-profit message board. After Mike exclusively reported that Gorgui Dieng would be declared ineligible (which he was), the aforementioned for-profit message board posted a pay-only article with the lead sentence that said something like, "Despite 'blog' reports to the contrary, Dieng will be eligible..."

Starting in 2010, "we" expanded to include former Cardinal kicker and Rutherford hero Art Carmody, whose "Carmody's Corner" posts offer a unique behind-the-scenes perspective to fans from a really, really good writer. hot hot and CardsFan922 officially became third class citizens after only a few sentences of Carmody's prose.

While not an official CardChronicle contributor, AnVillen (now known as VillenHD) is a reclusive super genius who started making highlight videos of UofL games during the 2009-2010 season. These videos were stolen and embedded into posts here, although permission was eventually granted by AnVillen his/herself. Much like the gods would briefly and mysteriously reveal themselves to mortals in Greek mythology, AnVillen once put an ! (see below) into a video, which many around these parts took to mean he/she actually reads and is a member of the community. There was much rejoicing. Although like the Greek gods, AnVillen has not since shown himself/herself to us and the mystery and unrequited worship continue.

So that's who we here at The Chron (stop calling it that) are. (stop calling it that) is a reference to the critically acclaimed series Arrested Development, where the characters would refer to Orange County as "The OC" and Michael Bluth would tell them to stop calling it that. Of all the possible nicknames for this place, "The Chron" has to be the worst, therefore anyone who uses it is immediately told to stop calling it that. 

Okay, So What Is The Deal With Austin Montgomery and Bryce Cotton?

Well, if you have about an hour, go read all Austin's posts. If you have slightly less time, then just check out the one from 2010 that started it all.  Then there were the updates.  Then Cotton committed to a community college in Miami, which allowed Austin to actually and legitimately  write this sentence: "Bryce Cotton, taking his talents to South Beach for college." Then, the unthinkable: Cotton To Providence, which no one thought was real but totally happened. 

Of all the inside jokes and "you had to be there" moments on the 'blog', the Austin Montgomery/Bryce Cotton saga ranks as #1 all time for how it played out over a series of weeks, culminating in the schedule being released and Providence not only playing the Cards twice, but being the Senior Night opponent on Preston!'s last game. As our rival's main blog likes to say, you just can't make this stuff up. If he said it about the Bryce Cotton Phenomenon, he would be correct.

Hey, Do You Read My Blog?

If you know the answer to this question doesn't matter, then count yourself a loyal Chronicloid and someone who probably knows most of the information in this post by heart.  The genesis is basically that CardsFan922 saw Rick Pitino in public once, and texted with Mike about what he should ask him. From this conversation, it was determined that the funniest thing possible to ask Rick Pitino, known blog and internet message board hater, was not whether he read CardChronicle.  Rather, one should ask "Hey, do you read my blog?" because obviously he doesn't read any blogs, but especially if you don't tell him the name of the blog you are asking about, he would have no idea whether he read it or not.  Thus, it is hard to imagine anything (non-dirty) that someone could ask Pitino that would provoke a funnier response than "Hey, do you read my blog?" A variation of this question was also asked by Ms. CC to Edgar Sosa outside a UofL football tailgate with Mike present.  Hilarity ensued. 

What Are You People Talking About Sometimes With Your SMH's And Your NEMM's?

This is by no means an exhaustive list, but here are some important words, phrases and inside jokes that are floating around on this 'blog':

SMH – Short for shake my head (or, alternatively, "shaking my head"), this term migrated from UofL players' twitter accounts to the game threads last season. Used to express disapproval (mocking or serious) or frustration/consternation.

! - Mike's disapproval of the exclamation point is so well known, Eric Crawford outed himself as a lurker and wrote about it in a CJ column.  However, the only time that Mike technically approves of ! is when it is the last letter of the proper name of shooting guard Preston! Knowles. Sometimes the ! actually represents the full name "Preston! Knowles" much as the Prince symbol reflected that crazy guy's name for a few years.  Update:  Preston also has the "Preston Dance", which appeared on youtube and then Leigh turned into a GIF, which is below in the comments.

Jerry's Towels – Fan favorite Jerry Smith often wasted energy on the bench by waving towels to get fans, teammates and other onlookers excited. The towel phenomenon climaxed in the last game in Freedom Hall, where Jerry used THREE towels. And we beat the number one team by double digits. Coincidence?

Good Edgar/Bad Edgar – Perhaps no Cardinal over the last decade has been so controversial among fans as Edgar Sosa, who could single-handily lose or win any game he wanted over a four year period. There was enough of this up and down that a nickname arose for each part of his personality, with Good Edgar and Bad Edgar making appearances in the same possession sometimes. (see also: T+ / T-, a shorthand for Terrance Jennings's maddening swing between +/- ratings).

NEMM – Mike Marra, before being cursed by CardsFan922, had a couple of random really good games as a freshman during the 2009-10 season. Coincidentally, or not, they happened in the northeast, the land of his birth. Accordingly, North Eastern Mike Marra was born, and in the assist category at least made his first appearance of the 2010-11 season against Providence.

ADMM – The original talisman, Almost Dunking Marquis Maybin reigned over a stunning 160-3 (documented) record as the open thread image during games in 2007-2009. After ADMM was retired before the 2009-10 season, we have been adrift, bouncing around, looking for an identity, losing almost as much as winning, and seemingly finding a groove only to disappoint the next game.  And the Cardinal basketball team hasn't been that great either.

CmGrhm (aka 3DCG) – Tight end Cameron Graham, who was a monster on third down (hence, 3^rd Down Cameron Graham). CardsFan922 tried to give him a shortened-nickname in a nod to ARod, etc., and used different variations, many of which omitted vowels. Also known as "EmoGram" because his Twitter feed sometimes reads as if it were written by Rivers Cuomo himself.

5 Point Deficit – It is a proven fact that the Cardinal basketball team does not lose when down 5 at half. See: Marquette 2011, UNLV 2010, Syracuse 2010, Connecticut 2010, all of which we were down 5 at half.

Feud with Vitale - In January of 2007 Mike recorded every non sequitur that ESPN commentator Dick Vitale mentioned during the Louisville/Connecticut game he was announcing. The list quickly made its way around the Internet and eventually was addressed by Vitale, who wasn't particularly happy. The two exchanged barbs and have not spoken since.

Feud with Goodman - In November of 2009, Mike won a Twitter contest organized by Fox Sports writer Jeff Goodman when he came the closest to predicting the number of shots freshman Lance Stephenson would attempt in his Cincinnati Bearcat debut. Despite Mike giving Goodman his personal information on two separate occasions, Rutherford, to date, has not received his prize. In a recent Twitter exchange between the two, Goodman claimed his intention was to deliver Rutherford's prize in person. Mike called him creepy.

"Recruiting is Creepy" - You may not have noticed, but every single story about recruiting on this site features the tag "recruiting is creepy."

Schnilk Chuggenburger – For a time, the funniest photoshop on the site involved mashing up Howard Schnellenger and the Dean's Milk Chug, which haunted the court during timeouts at Freedom Hall.  Hat tip:  DocCardsFan, who was also promoted to author and still from time to time brings his talents to the site, but apparently has a real life as well.  But has enough time to create this:

Strongtino Chuggenburger – Currently the best photoshop in the site's history, Strongtino Chuggenburger burst onto the scene in late 2010. The picture captured most of the current and favorite memes on the site and became Mike's Twitter avatar.  So, ya, it was kinda a big deal.   Hat Tip:  sarasota-card and UofL Redbirds, the resident 'shoppers, as a trip to the lower part of the comments will show.  This is their Mona Lisa Smile:

Advantage! - One of the hidden luck factors in a game is when you DON'T want a foul called against the other team, and it seems like UofL gets these calls a lot. For instance, in the Providence game, there were at least two random fouls that, had they not been called, the play would have resulted in a lay-up or other open bucket. During a game thread, after a few weeks of intense FIFA 2010 time on the PS3, CardsFan922 first tried to get the "Advantage!" concept enforced to help the team, although Big East officials don't read the open threads during games apparently.

Token – This started when a photo of Samardo Samuels dunking would inevitably become the main photo used to accompany every print or online story written about a Louisville basketball game in 2008 & 2009. The joke was that Samardo would always get his "token" dunk and "token" photo in the ensuing recap story. Note: Because most in-game photographers sit indian-style on the baseline combined with the fact that Samuels has slow-developing feet/dunks/everything--his dunks were very easy to anticipate and thus were often the best "action" photos available for recap stories.

April Fools Post – Mike can be a bit of a kidder. Every April Fool's Day, Mike will post a plausible, bad-for-UofL piece of news. Of course, some of these actually came true.  So if you are still reading the 'blog' April 1, 2011, and you see something about a prized recruit wavering/not qualifying/being investigated....well, just hope that Mike used up all of his karmic powers on that Samuels post.

Pants Off – Mike has this weird celebration involving taking his pants off and running around. No one really knows where this started or what that says about all of us, but it has become a short hand for celebrating.

Haircut – Mike got a haircut right before the Rutgers game in 2006. That's all we have to say about that.

Green'd – Even though this capability has existed for awhile, only in 2011 did posters discover that if three people "recommended" a comment, it turned green. It lasted for about a week and then people stopped trying to turn other people's comments green.

Kyle's Korner – Kyle Kuric (whose nickname poll was clearly hacked, resulting in no current nickname) is shooting 95% for his career at the corner three.  Also, the Kuric/Wedding Krasher thing is explained by Mike below, but basically involves one of Mike's friends describing Kuric as a guy you meet at a wedding and then proceed to get drunk with.

Titus Teague – As the heir to the #18 Carmody jersey and actually named "Titus Teague", this young cornerback became Mike's official 2010 football player crush, despite playing only a few snaps in a blowout win.  See also: Rock Keys, a football with the coolest name ever who ended up leaving the team for unclear reasons but was a Mike favorite throughout the 2009 season. 

Pajama Girl, Perfect Brownie Pan, etc. – With a number of UofL games appearing on ESPNU over the last few years, a lot of the commercials are for terrible products and appear like 10 times per half. Two of the most famous are, for some reason, Pajama Girl (who, ironically, if you attend her online university, you won't be in any classes with her) and, seriously this time, for some reason, the perfect brownie pan.

Security! (Someone call Security!) – One of the other benefits of Louisville having a bunch of games on ESPNU is the B-list (or F-list) announcers we get. When we played Depaul in the 09-10 seasons, the color commentator would repeatedly demand that "someone call security" when a player would block a shot (as evidenced in the Anvillen video from the occasion). This now occasionally gets referenced in open threads during basketball games. (thanks to wscii).

We Regret The Error – Anytime there is an alleged mistake on a post, comment, etc., one of the Chron staff will respond with simply "We Regret The Error", while not correcting it and still making errors in the future.

CUTOTD – During the spring/summer of 2010, with not much else going on, CardsFan922 decided to re-post Cardinal players, writers or fans tweets and create a new post of out it.  The Cardinal Universe Tweet of the Day ended shortly after Vic Anderson seemed to say bad things about us on Twitter because we posted about his tweet saying he was moving to WR.  Still a good idea, but maybe needs some work on the execution.

So there you have it. But this is just a start. Feel free to add your own meme/catchphrase/nickname/inside joke to the comments below. Also, anyone with questions about something they've seen on here and don't know what it means, remember, there are no stupid questions, only stupid people who post comments on internet 'blogs.'

Welcome.