If you’re unfamiliar with the term “Heat Check”, it’s used to described a player in basketball who is shooting well, then takes one outrageous shot just to see if he’s hot enough for it to drop. No one is every upset with the shot, as the shooter is usually unconscious at that point in time he’s hitting so well, and depending on the seriousness of the player, he’ll either shake his head in disgust or flash a smile at the bench if it isn't made.

That leads us to the first Dillon 1A Heat Check O' Fun, going over what’s hot, what’s cooling and what’s deathly cold around here.

COLD

Superbowl/City of Jacksonville - Maybe because the favored sons of this section – Mike Be Nimble, Evil Lord Manning, Big Ben – have already been eliminated, or perhaps because that extra week is never a good thing as far as momentum is concerned, there’s not much anticipation for the Super Bowl. It could probably be that the one team everyone is pretty sure is going to win, the Patriots, are pretty boring when it comes to the interview, and the other one is trying to force two wide-outs, TO and Freddy Mitchell, when one won’t be at 100% and the other has been a slightly above-average receiver his whole career.

Not to be lost in the shuffle is the constant mocking of Jacksonville as a sprawling, way-too-cold-for-Florida, unprepared city, with Wilbon and Dan Patrick complaining daily on PTI and SportsCenter. But Sports Guy just confirmed in his chat that just like every other Southern city, the women are absolutely beautiful, so I’m not sure how terrible things could be for your Average Sports Fan. Again, on a slow day, I’ll put up the article the always lovely and very-Jacksonvillian Katie Mancino sent me about what exactly is wrong with her home town/sprawling land mass.

The Bowl does get bonus points because fellow ’08 Domer Chrissy Perocchi will be attending her third Patriots Super Bowl in the last four years and bringing me back a t-shirt, so I can’t be too down about the big game, even if Michael Vick won’t be skittering about

The Grammy’s - Being massively overshadowed by the Oscars, at least in these parts, mainly because music is something you really can’t convince people either way on. I think a certain kind of music is good, like Weezer or Norah Jones, and someone else will like something completely different, like some depressing, slit-your-wrists emo band. Does that mean that I have a better choice in music than that person, or that I’m a better person than them? Or that my music is a lot better than theirs?

Yes, of course it does. If you can’t appreciate a quality U2 song, or know a good thing when you hear Guns n’ Rose – “Sweet Child of Mine”, then you’re a bad person.

The Weather/Beanbag Sitting - Not really something we have any control of here, but you can tell there’s some definite sadness in the air when we can’t sit on our beanbags on the quad due to snow, or wear shorts consistently outside. Apparently it gets warm here around the end of April, so I’ll get a solid five days before I’m nestled back comfortably into the hills of Western PA.

The Apprentice 3 - Why Donald? Is it what my sister suggested, that you just needed money for the newest wedding? And the ploy of Street Smarts vs. Book Smarts is nice, but it’s implying no one who went to college has any street smarts and everyone who didn’t go to college is a complete moron. And there’s the whole fact the teams will get mixed in five or six episodes anyway. Plus, you’re going one-on-one with CSI again. Not good times.

COOLING

Colin Falls- Falls kept the Irish basketball team’s head above water for the first half of the season, and whether it’s the opponent’s defensive adjustments, forced shots or just some bad luck, he’s been terrible the last two games. Brey’s starting to go with the bigger Cornette-Lattimore-Francis 3-4-5 combo more, so Falls is going to have to start knocking down some shots or face a decline in playing time.

Halo 2 - Not that it isn’t fun anymore, it’s just not played as much and is being fazed out by parlor games involving playing cards and miniature beanbags (much more on this later). The fun new wrinkle is that Katie and Christina play with us now once a week, where we let them fight each other while we practice our aim, with something occasionally insane happening like one of them sniping or sticking one of us with a grenade.

Dickie V/ACC Basketball- Probably only applies to Chad and I, but we had to sit through Dick Vitale exalting the Atlantic Coast Conference while two of it’s “premier” teams, Duke and Wake Forest, played a sluggish second half, missing lay-up after lay-up and giving up open shots all over the place. I’m sick of hearing about how good the ACC is when they didn’t beat anybody out of conference. UNC beat an overrated, young Kentucky team at home and Duke beat Oklahoma on a neutral court before the Sooners knew how good they were. Wake Forest was eviscerated by Illinois, Georgia Tech lost to Gonzaga and Kansas, Maryland lost to Wisconsin, NC State lost to St. Johns and WVU and Virginia just got blitzed by a Providence team that hasn’t even won a Big East game yet. There’s a ton of talent down there, but there may not be as many elite teams as people would like to think.

www.thefacebook.com Not that nobody uses Facebook anymore, but it’s not nearly as popular as it was back in the fall. As opposed to making and joining new groups, I just use it to find e-mails, screennames and room numbers, and of course admit people to The OC Fan Club, which is north of a hundred now. It’s still fun to add new friends, just not as fun as it was before.

ROOM TEMPERATURE (or check back at a later time)

Charlie Weis - Charlie pulled in a decent recruiting class, but his Super Bowl commitments hurt him in the short run. I feel they’ll definitely help him in the long run, though, as 1A RA Mike Flanagan’s dad is friends with recruiting guru Tom Lemming, who says we’ll probably have a top three class next year. The problem with that, however, is it doesn’t help opening the season at Pittsburgh and at Michigan. We’ll see how much favor Chuck has with the trigger-happy alumni after the first two games of the season.

Anchorman/Napoleon Dynamite- One-year wonders or consistent, Tommy Boy/Happy Gilmore-level hits? I’m thinking both of them have some legs, if only for the catchphrases which can easily be dropped in casual conversation.

My Grade On My Calc Test - As of the weekend, I was pretty sure I was going to fail it. After taking it, I’m pretty sure I didn’t fail it, although the final score will not be known until tomorrow morning. The better feeling about it was the result of some hardcore studying last night, which led to a question of…

The Status of My Leather Jacket- …because I wore it to the review session at DeBart, stopped back in the 24-hour lounge to go over some stuff with Big Dan, Rob and Tom, and now I have no idea where it is. I’m thinking I left it in there, so Flanny’s doing some research to see if anyone happened to pick it up. This makes me very sad.

HEATING UP

Oscar Race - One week away from being full blown hot, especially with Maria Full of Grace and Ray showing this weekend on campus (and yes, I’m well aware Ray is on DVD and I downloaded it a week ago), and my free time that will result in a Hotel Rwanda viewing. Meg Martin, the original South Bend Sage, informed me Don Cheadle was fantastic in it, so hopefully I’ll be able to rank Cheadle and Jamie Foxx against Clint Eastwood after this weekend. If anyone else has seen any Oscar-caliber flicks, or knows where I can get a copy of Being Julia, don’t be shy to use the e-mail located up to your left.

NBA Street Volume 3 - No one else besides Barcus and Pete even know this is coming out next Tuesday, but you can bet there won’t be any Mario Karts or Tennises being played on the Cube once this little baby is within my possession. I can’t wait until Spring Break and the inevitable 9-hour Street deathmatch Dill and I have.

Miami Dolphins - Again, this is my blog so I’m allowed to comment on things that only matter to me, so you can tell I’m very excited about Edgerrin James’ interest in the Phins to go along with our number two overall draft pick. When you finish the season 4-12, you can only heat up.

Torin Francis - When you average 19 and 10 in your last two games, and threw down a “and-one” dunk to give your team the lead against UConn in the final minutes, you’ll get some love from this space. Also could be mentioned: Chris Thomas, Chris Quinn, D-Latt and the Joyce Center crowd.

The Office, The Complete Series- Barcus and I are the only ones who are actually watching this, after I requested someone buy it back in November when we watched it for our FTT screening. Matt did the honors, and now we get to be amused with the best twelve-episode run in the history of televion. It won't take long for everyone else to fall in love with the hysterical British import. Ricky Gervais, the creator and lead, is penning a Simpsons episode in which he'll sing a love song to Marge. If it's anything like "Freelove Freeway", we're in for a treat.

HOT

The OC Lesbian Storyline - I’m a 19-year old guy. I don’t think I need to really elaborate on this one, and I won’t, for the sanity of any female readers I happen to have. However, I will say that come the time when Marissa and Alex do first kiss (please please please be tonight…), there will be a newly formed Hottest category.

Euchre - It started as me attempting to train with Danny to play Renee and Women’s Soccer National Champion Susan Pinnick, two girls from Danny’s high school who I get to spend Calc and Theo with every Monday-Wednesday-Friday, but it’s evolved into a section-wide event. It’s basically a dumbed-down version of Bridge, and Danny has played himself out of his partner position for when we finally play Susan and Renee, because he sucks. Brendan was in the lead to be my partner, but he’s played poorly lately, so he’s very adamant about getting another chance to prove himself. I really hope Danny improves his standing, because the whole point of this was for it to be a St. Joes ménage-a-trois with a West Shamokin kid thrown in for good luck. It’s going to be tough, both for Danny to improve himself and for us to even compete with the girls, but I’ll keep training.

Arrested Development, Season Two on DVD - Thanks to Tyler illegally downloading and burning them to disc, we have the first three episodes on DVD now. Like I said, an entire ode to the best television series on right now is coming, but you just need to know that if you need to catch up with us, we can now let you watch all of Season One and all the goodness that is Season Two. It’s like we’re having a FIRE……sale.

Bullwinkles - and the goodness that is their new breakfast sandwich to go with the wings. If they can only find a way to be open on weekend nights, they would be under the Hottest column with Marissa and Alex.

Cornhole - This was originally under Heating Up when I originally penned this list after Pete and I aced our mythology quiz, but after playing some spirited competition this afternoon, it’s higher on the list. Tommy’s parents brought this game – which is essentially horseshoes, but with plywood and bean bags – with them when they visited last weekend, and now we play in the hallway. The preeminent combination at the moment is the team of myself and Justin after we waxed MacKrell and Brendan 21-0. And in the newly-created Singles Division, I’m 2-0 with 10-5 victories against both Brendan and Tommy. Stop by and play with us sometime before we’re banned from playing it in the hallway, which is bound to happen if another beanbag catches the ceiling.