What’s your favorite piece of Cougar memorabilia?

Den otců šťastný z Prahy. If you’re reading this article, you’re almost assuredly a die-hard WSU fan. I mean, who else would come back Sunday after Sunday to read about some idiot’s kids and beer preferences, along with a dusting of WSU content? That means that you probably have a not-insignificant amount of Cougar memorabilia, be it clothing, tailgate accessories, souvenirs etc.

With WSU’s revelation this week of the Alexa-like Mike Leach smart device, Cougar fans everywhere were introduced to another cool WSU-related item, even though it’s not likely to ever actually go on sale. Although the buildup to the device’s revelation was drastically overblown, the idea of a mini-Mike Leach giving advice on the wearing of hot pants seems pretty humorous.

Like many of you, I have a few Cougar-themed pieces of memorabilia that stand out above the rest. While I’d probably have to lay out all of my Cougar gear to pick the top contenders, my WSU Horizon Air die cast airplanes (both the Bombardier CRJ-700 and Dash 8 Q400 versions) would easily be near the top my favorite Coug-related souvenir list.

There is, however, a new contender at the top. A few weeks ago, fellow Coug fan Brian Flink alerted me to the fact that WSU has its own set of nesting dolls, which can be found in Prague.

I certainly didn’t need any convincing to drive six hours in search of this piece of awesomeness.

We made our way to Prague this weekend, and near the top of the “to do” list was procuring my own Coug-themed figurines. We found them pretty quickly, along with a Seahawks set, and I left to grab some cash. Upon return, the vendor showed me a different version. You won’t believe this but I bought both sets.

While the logos and other details aren’t exactly precise, these fellas quickly shot near the top of my WSU memorabilia power rankings. Ok, they would shoot upward if such rankings existed. My folks got me a blowup of that famous aerial shot of Pullman during College GameDay, and that is definitely a contender as well.

So with all that said, I’d love to hear about what piece or pieces of WSU clothing and/or memorabilia that you all treasure the most. Fire away.

Football

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This Week in Parenting

The kiddos finished school this week, and the oldest did pretty well at the end-of-year awards ceremony, taking home some academic honors, along with a citizenship award. This proves once and for all that he’s much more like mom, thank God. In addition, I’m now the parent of a middle schooler.

Then there’s the 7 year-old. He got a glowing review from his teacher as well, but Saturday in Prague was more up his alley. First, we told him to get dressed so we could head out. Here’s what we got:

If you’re scoring at home, that’s a proud American flag shirt, a pair of shorts with embroidered whales, and some socks that say “Estonia.” He’s gonna get all the girls.

Later on, we were enjoying some beers at a local pub, and there was a group of Brits at a table nearby. They’d clearly been there a while, and were playing something called “Fingers.” No clue what that is, but it prompted the 7 year-old to ask whether I’d ever been drunk in college. “Yeah, a couple times,” I replied. I don’t know the motivation for this line of questioning, but given his past, he was probably fishing for an answer that would allow him to do the same thing down the line.

That same group of Brits had a, well, um, let’s say they had a male-themed sex toy sitting at their table, which prompted this exchange with the 7 year-old.

Dad, what is that thing?
What does it look like?
A bratwurst.
Exactly right. It’s a bratwurst.

I’m nearly certain he knew it wasn’t a bratwurst, but I didn’t want to press too hard.

Beer

Best beer I had this week: Prague is well known for its lighter styles of beer, particularly Pilsner. After all, Pilsner’s birthplace is just up the road. We found a nice little beer bar near our dinner stop, and seeing as how it was quite hot outside, the Pivovar Matuška Summer Ale really hit the spot.

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Non-Sports

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