Tako Tuesdays: An Ill-Advised Return

Hi. It's been a while. How ya'll doin'? I bet there's some of you who have no idea who I am. Hi. I'm Tako. I like the Oregon Ducks. I write about them. Or, I did, until last October, when I didn't. If you've never read my stuff, you can find it all HERE. Okay, here we go.

I had dreams of a grand exit. One final send-off post, to a community that means everything to me, that humored me while I spent a year in the FanPosts futzing around and finding my voice, and supported me once I moved to the front page and tried my best to bring my fandom to the written word. My plan was to make it through the football season, give one last mahalo, and retire Tako Tuesdays for good.

Then, life happened.

My writing had grown more and more sporadic as I finished up graduate school, but I'd been able to keep it together for the most part. But my first year of full-time classroom teaching proved to be the most difficult challenge of my life, one that I truly wasn't able to do if I was devoting 4-6 hours a week to a 1000 word satire about Swoop, the Utah mascot. So, I wrote a piece for Happy I Hate Washington Week. Then, I just didn't write another one. And while it does make some measure of sense that my last article for Addicted to Quack would be one that treats Keith Price and Jake Locker with the blatant disrespect they deserve, the lack of closure has jabbed at me the past year, especially after the last half of Oregon's 2015 season; it was three months ripe with juicy narrative, with the 2016 Alamo Bowl being the perfect TL;DR summary to a season of bleak contrast. It felt right to come back and give this one more shot, especially because it'd be a once in a lifetime opportunity to write about Oregon during this eventual Washington national championship season.

So, here we are. Another Oregon football season, and another chance to see this column through to completion. But since I missed a bunch of time, let's get back into the groove by recapping the articles I would have written last season had I not been a dirty quitter.

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The Top 10 Most Maddening Quarterbacks in Oregon History - Where would Jeff Lockie fit in among such Oregon greats as Cody Kempt, Brady Leaf, and Jasons Fife and Maas? The world will never know.

Tako Tuesdays: Hoketoberfest - I don't have an article idea for this, but I just wanted to lay claim to the term now.

Don Pellum, TSA Agent -

DP: Alright, let's shake things up. I want 200 agents over there searching through bags for bottles of ketchup. There might be bombs in them.

/man strolls through the metal detectors with nineteen knives

DP: Ignore that, not important. Stay with the ketchup.

...and so on.

A Shot-For-Shot Remake of the Bugs Bunny Cartoon Where He Plays All the Baseball Positions, Except With Vernon Adams, and Except He Gets Hurt Halfway Through and Everything Goes to Shit

A Reasoned Argument in Favor of a Long Losing Streak to Washington State - I'll still probably write this later.

Scott Frost is Gone, and I Never Once Made Out With Him - A love letter.

Why Oregon Didn't Deserve That #1 Seed - In which I attempt to shamelessly reverse jinx the Ducks to the Final Four.

Oregon's-All-Hyphen-Team - Featured: Ifo Ekpre-Olomu, Tony Brooks-James, Ricky Havili-Heimuli, Spencer Pay-Singer. Not featured: Herman Ho-Ching, Marcus Mariota

Remember Jonathan Stewart - A reminder to Oregon football: please don't waste Royce Freeman on any more sub-standard seasons. Thank you.

Another Article About How Great Darron Thomas Was - It's a working title, but the sentiment remains.

Why Oregon Softball Can't Make the Leap - A great editorial that no one would have read except for the three people on the site that love Oregon softball.

That 1000 Word Satire About Swoop, the Utah Mascot, That I Mentioned Earlier

The 10 Best Cases of Schadenfreude in Oregon Football History - I'm glad I didn't write this one, because it would have just been the 2008 Civil War and the 2015 Rose Bowl listed five times each. No, I guess you're right, it would have been a good read.

If You Replaced David Shaw on the Sideline with an Incredulous Bowl of Oatmeal, How Long Would It Take Anyone to Notice? - Short answer? Like a quarter and a half. But I've got 1500 words ready on the sequence of events that would get that bowl of oatmeal to eventually take the Miami Dolphins job.

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Missed ya'll. It's good to be back. I probably won't write next week.