Well, it’s finally happened. Kentucky Agriculture Commissioner Richie “Mr. Unforgettable Wildcat Big Blue Basketball Man” Farmer and some cranky platitude spewing establishment figure named David Williams have just announced that they will be running as Republicans for lieutenant governor and governor (respectively) in this godforsaken commonwealth we call “Kentucky.”(Did you know? Williams is the Senate President of the Kentucky Senate!)

Ideally, Williams-Farmer will best the Tea Party-backed Republican ticket of Louisville businessman Phil Moffett and Kentucky Rep. Mike Harmon, R-54, in next spring’s primary election, which is slated replace the normal paper/electronic ballot with a University of Kentucky Wildcats-sponsored Scantron test sheet/a lever fitted with a blue “We’re #1!” foam hand.

Speaking of silly gimmicks, their 3 minute-plus campaign “promo video” is about as vapid as you’d expect, and features Williams trying to cultivate some kind of weird gladiatorial outsider meme. Toward the end, it gets even better, with more UK basketball nostalgia than you’d want from a lazy highlight reel running at 4 a.m. on ESPN3.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qK62LoOb5KQ[/youtube]

They’ve also a website that was under construction as of this morning, which featured the following encrypted message:

False alarm: It’s not a message to al-Qaeda sleeper agents; it’s just placeholder text. See?

Barring some unforeseen hiccup in political calculus (i.e., Williams is revealed to be a shoggoth), the primary’s outcome should leave a three-way battle between the aforementioned Mr.Basketball-OtherGuyWilliams ticket, incumbent Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear and his running mate, Louisville mayor Jerry Abramson, and independent candidates Gatewood Galbraith and running mate Dea Riley.

But, yes… expect to see (and hear about) this shit for the next year or so:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6XdBXFah-s[/youtube]

The University of Kentucky will decide in the next 60 to 90 days whether to go forward with plans for a new downtown basketball arena, a new campus baseball field and upgrades for Commonwealth Stadium, UK Athletic Director Mitch Barnhart said Monday.

The three projects, which officials have previously said would cost between $300 million and $400 million, would be financed privately. The Urban County Government and the Lexington Center would own the new arena and UK would own the baseball field and Commonwealth stadium, Barnhart told the UK Athletic Board of Directors Monday. [Kentucky.com]

Rumor has it that Calipari is illegally recruiting a band of 20-foot tall human-feline hybrids with cybernetic free-throwing abilities. How could they possibly play in dinky ol’ Rupp? C’MON!

Phenomena like keg stands, hacky sack, acoustic guitars, date rape and basketball cheers represent futile attempts by the young adult to delay their inevitable confrontation with a Real World that cares little for their crippling loan debt or their exhaustive knowledge of existential French literature.

Yet Facebook was brand new in my days (i.e. before your mom was on it), and so none of this shit ever happened:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZq-1AKRrbk[/youtube]

You may be inclined to rejoice at this Facebook-enabled act of mindless self-indulgence. Yay Innernettes, right? We can mobilize for collective action and look cool at the same time! While Twittering!

But then, you’d be ignoring those few real students who, during the last minute frenzy of finals week, got the crazy idea to actually study at the library (maybe so they wouldn’t fail, or lose their scholarship, or get kicked out altogether) and were completely fucked over by those damn Alpha Betas.

That’s UK for ya: Big, mean, and — without a worthwhile NCAA program to fixate their energies upon — a hostile place for an honest nerd.