Have you ever seen someone come up with a smart (and sometimes simple) solution that just makes life easier for all involved, and you wonder, why the hell didn’t someone think of that sooner? Like Charles Kettering and the electric starter, for instance.

With all the bright people in the world, real problem-fixing should happen more often.

Here are the Blarney’s 5 current “fixes” that pay homage to that thought.

1.) Notre Dame and a training table. So, even though other schools have been producing bigger, stronger, and faster athletes by the bushel for nearly fifteen years through proper conditioning and nutrition, it took college football’s most well-known program losing to UConn this year to say, “we better do that to”. A UConn team that hasn’t even been a 1-A (okay, FBS) school for a decade, and constantly get out performed in the weight room by their woman’s basketball team (though Geno Auriemma’s girls are truly beasts).

2.) Tim Tebow’s throwing motion. It took his entire college career, and every NFL scout in existence (about the population of Germany), to get Tim to hold the ball up by his shoulder (and keep it there) for a quicker release. He used to like to drop the ball down by his waist (and bringing it back up) before releasing it. To put it another way, if Tebow’s throwing motion was like watching t.v., his old style would be like getting up off the couch, walking to the t.v. to change the channel button, going back to the couch, sitting down, then realizing the volume needed to be higher, getting up, walking to the t.v. to change the volume button, going back to the couch, and sitting down again (whew!). The new adjustments are like picking up the remote from the couch cushion and performing both those tasks with 2 quick touchings of a few buttons.

3.) Toyota tells the truth. The car giant admitting problems with their cars may give a man in jail a second chance at freedom. Evidence may show that the driving accident was indeed caused by the car itself, and not his driving.

4.) Domino’s Pizza. They have a new, better-tasting garlic crust. Everything in the world is now right.

5.) Paying energy bills made easier. Get your heat turned off again because you couldn’t pay your bill? Now there is a smart thermostat that lets you know exactly how much energy you are using-and what it costs. Time to stop being a delinquent.

I know very few things. A ridiculously small amount of things, to be honest.

But I do know this:

Listen to Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On” if you want to know what raw human anticipation and excitement feels like. It’s all right there for you to hear in his voice.

In fact, Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On” can make anything seem like the most desirable thing in the world.

For example:

Want to make chocolate candy sound delicious? Use that song to to suggest it. (Hell, maybe women hear that song in their minds every time they have a chocolate craving.)

It can even make Dr. Evil look like a ladies’ man.

Put this soundtrack to the background of a Plan Now.org commercial featuring poor children suffering from smallpox-and I’d probably want me some smallpox.

Who needs alcohol? Play this at the club, and watch the mood change, both men and women will become sharks on the hunt.

Play this over the home room intercom in any high school, and I’d bet kids would even want to learn to read good, and do other stuff good, too.

So, it’s only fair that it should be the soundtrack to the anticipation I am feeling to see Brian Kelly’s first Notre Dame squad.

Too bad the wait comes first.

Let’s Get It On

It’s a big week for former Notre Dame stud wide receiver Golden Tate. College football’s best receiver is good enough to play in the NFL-but is he good enough to be more than a third receiver-type? The scout’s have questions about his size, and ability to separate (losing defensive backs while running his routes), but his play-making and yards-after-catch ability are intriguing enough to have him projected as a second rounder-or sometimes even sneaking into the first round.

Where he actually ends up will be determined in a large part due to his combine performance (which can have roughly the same importance of a director casting Kevin Spacey as a villain, unless the receiver in question is a Larry Fitzgerald-type with no question marks on film). Golden knows this, and therefore has his trusty to-do list that hits on the points he needs to address to make first round money.

And, the Blarney has it.

1.) Run a legit (electronically-timed) 4.4. In a land of skyscraper receivers (6′5 is prototype), elite speed still rules. Despite going so far as to borrow a page from the Mark McGwire playbook (page 1, paragraph 1-inject anything to enhance performance) and “shoot up” milk (”it does a body good”) into my system, I ain’t growin’ any taller. A great 40 will negate that problem.

2.) Be explosive on the 3-cone drill. Scouts are doubting my ability to separate from defensive backs, partly because many of my big catches were in traffic-with the defender right on or near me. What they don’t realize is that defenses played us zone heavy-having 7 or 8 defenders back in coverage. So, a defense always had someone around. As smart as Charlie was, he fell in love with passing a little too much (defenses didn’t have to respect the run), and his playbook turned into a Tecmo Bowl-like “throw it deep on every other play” because of me and Mike’s skills.

3.) Run a legit 4.4. (See above.) At the very least, Al Davis will draft me.

4.) Put hands in a hyperbaric chamber (just like David Duchovny in Zoolander). Gotta protect the strongest and best hands in the country.

5.) Show improved route-running. Another reason that Mel Kiper thinks I will have trouble losing defensive backs. I’m still a converted running back-learning the nuances of route- running.

6.) Run a legit 4.4. Did I mention that already?