Excerpts From A Work In Progress

And Apathy Sets In

2010-10-02T15:27:00.002-05:00

Somewhere, Jim Donnan is pissed off.

Flashback to the year 2000: UGA is a preseason Top 5 team. They lose All-SEC linebacker Boss Bailey on the the opening kickoff. In week two, South Carolina breaks a losing streak measured in years against the Dawgs as alleged All-SEC QB Quincy Carter completes almost as many passes to the Gamecocks as he does against the Dawgs. The Dawgs right the ship the next few games, and beat Tennessee for the first time in ten tries.

They lose to Florida in Jacksonville again, the third straight loss to the Gators.

The starting QB has an alleged injured throwing hand is out for the final two games of the year; the Dawgs lose in OT at Auburn, and then are beaten at home by Georgia Tech.

The Dawgs are 7-4, Donnan is fired, and all four losses come to bowl-bound teams.

I figure if ol' Donnan's been watching his former team the past few years, he might just be wondering "what does it take for the new guy to get a pink slip?"

UGA began 2008 as a preseason #1 in the land and it's been going downhill ever since.

Ok, that might be harsh. The reality is things have been slipping in some ways before then, and other areas have been exposed since.

Bama came into Athens in 2008 and exposed (among other things) that the strength and conditioning we so praised back in 2001 when mat drills came to Athens, isn't keeping up with the rest of the SEC. We haven't pushed around a non-terrible defense on the ground in years.

Willie Martinez as defense coordinator showed signs of a man promoted beyond his competency level as early as his first year on the job, but I was convinced he needed to go in the second half of the disastrous 2006 Tennessee game.

Now he's gone, and UGA has better defensive coaches, but precious little depth at defensive tackle.

The offense has been running the 90s FSU playbook for years, and when they had Knowshon and Stafford it didn't matter much. Without two 1st-round NFL picks at key positions, the offense is predictable and shut down by a shocking number of defenses.

So, the knee-jerk answer is: fire 'em all. But that's a huge risk. Sure, ditching a coach after a bad year, or even a disappointing year has worked before (notably for Bama and Florida). But there were also obvious upgrades for both schools at the time.

Let's say Richt can't right the ship, and the Dawgs go 5-7 or worse, and McGarity has to can him. Who's better that we can get (meaning: we're not hiring Pete Carroll away from Seattle, and just stop with the Jon Gruden and Bill Cowher talk, please)?

Coach Whitingham at Utah has taken the Utes back to a BCS game and took apart Bama more impressively than Urban's Gators did in 2008, but can he transition seamlessly to the SEC? And would he come?

Would Will Muschamp give up the "head coach in waiting" at Texas--fanbase, financially, and resources/recruiting-wise the best job in the nation--to come to UGA?

How much of Kirby Smart's success is having Nick Saban to tell him "no, that blitz won't work, try this"?

I think the best hope for a quick turnaround for the Dawgs is some smaller coaching changes.
Keep the defensive staff intact (though perhaps Rodney Garnder's time has come.) Bring in some new blood for strength and conditioning. Bring in a runningbacks coach that wasn't in college 5 years ago. And either demote Bobo back to QB coach, or can him outright and bring in a skilled, creative offensive coordinator.

That could buy Richt a lot of time, but I think it might be harder for him than canning his friend Willie was last year, as he'll have to admit "my offense isn't working in the SEC anymore." Only that's not totally true. Play-action passing and a solid running game don't need to disappear, they just need more to be effective: the pistol formation, some 4- and 5-wide spread passing/running, and a playcaller that has the good sense not to send a 160 lb. rb up the middle. Repeatedly.

But things can't continue the way they've gone.

Anyone who claims they know what will happen this football season is likely lying

2009-09-05T10:15:00.002-05:00

Hey folks, remember me?

Nothing like football season to get me off my (currently medicated) ass and revive the ol' blog just in time.

Sure, back in December there was no real anticipation for the coming football season on my part.
2008? The most disappointing season for Georgia football in easily over a decade.

And a ton of that was because of the defense--when the likes of Kentucky are scoring 38 points on you, there's a a big problem. And when Willie Martinez wasn't fired...well, there went my crazy hopes of defensive guru (and Mark Richt pal) Tommy Tuberville coming in to be the defensive coordinator.

Stafford and Moreno were gone, and architect of the worst UGA Defense in a decade or more was coming back...oh and the 2009 schedule? Outside of Tennessee Tech, there wasn't a gimmie game on it.

So no, I wasn't looking forward to the season...and that hasn't happened...well...ever.

I did start to get over it though: Other than getting a decent sunburn, I don't remember much about the G-Day game. It felt good to be back in the stadium (and I was still in shock that I was able to get a hotel room the night before the game) and nothing jumping out either way could be an upside.

I still went out and bought a few preseason magazines, but I couldn't obsessively read and reread them over and over because, well, I'm fucking sick of hearing about Florida--especially Tim Tebow. If 50% of the US is going to get the swine flu, I really, really, really hope it gets the Gators around October.

But a funny connection happened too: as good as Florida's D was last year, we forget how porous and sucktastic they were in 2007. Can the UGA D make a similar turnaround? Stranger things have happened.

Until kickoff, we won't know. But the D is the key to a good season.

But I'm not sure even after today's game we'll know what we're going to get out of this season.
Okie State goes wild on the Dawgs? Well, that could mean they're one of the best offenses in the US, it could mean the UGA D hasn't gelled...or it could mean Willie should pack his bags.
UGA rolls? Well, we thought we were the shit after rolling Arizona St. last year: but it turned out ASU just sucked.

Let's keep the goals simple: just don't lose to Tech. That's really all I want out of the season.

But who knows what we're going to get...let's just sit back and enjoy it.
Go Dawgs.

Perhaps ESPN CFB Analysts Sleep in Hyperbolic Chambers

2008-12-10T14:45:00.002-05:00

Yes, "hyperbolic" as in "hyperbole."

That's one of the few explanations I can find to the utter ball-washing of Tim Tebow.

Because the other explanations all have them as blathering idiots, willfully ignorant of how football actually is played (what with the defense and special teams and all.)

Sure, I'll admit it, I cracked some jokes when Tebow broke into tears after Florida lost at home to Ole Miss. Partially it was a defense mechanism (UGA having had their asses handed to them by Bama that same weekend and all) and partially it was hoping he'd pull a Reggie Ball and Florida would go into a tailspin (I hate Florida.) Also, anyone who is the star QB at their school but proudly admits having a sex life less active than the most celibate Jonas Brother should be used to jokes being cracked their way.

He's a great quarterback though, really. I'll say it. I hate it, but I'll say it.

But here's what pisses me off: this isn't news. He was carving up defenses last year. Florida scored scores of points last year. Tebow had better numbers last year.

But now he's "better?"

No idiots...Florida's defense is better.

Is Tebow playing "with more heart" than '07? Maybe, but that's not why Florida went from a 4 loss team to a 1 loss team playing for a national title.

Florida's defense sucked last season. Looked a lot like UGA's defense this season. Auburn "keeping Tebow off the field" in a close win was the exception. In the UGA, Michigan and LSU losses, Florida just couldn't get enough stops on defense to win. Tebow and co. scored a good number of points in each, but it wasn't enough when the other team can get a score or two more.

And for the life of me, I can't figure out why this isn't being brought up on ESPN (or ESPN affiliated sportstalk radio). Does someone high up in Bristol, CT have money riding on Tebow pulling an Archie Griffin?

Sam Bradford and Colt McCoy have better numbers than Tebow this year. They really should finish 1-2 in the Heisman voting.

So why ignore the defense ESPN?

(And, in a semi-related note, wouldn't it be nice if UGA's D made the same transition from porous sieve to ball-hawking brick wall by '09?)

Five-by-Five

2008-10-14T21:03:00.001-05:00

Confession:

I once was a huge comic book junkie.

I still have, somewhere, a large portion of those comics I once collected (and hell, maybe some were good investments. Anyone know if Wizard is still the go-to source for a comic's value?) likely stored away in bags, with the cardboard backers, in boxes in a storage place.

It was somewhere around 4th or 5th grade that this started. I'd loved the funny pages since I was a wee lad, and vividly remember that I learned the word doubt (and how it doesn't sound a damn think like it's pronounced) from a Garfield collection in 1st grade.

Like most boys with basic TV access growing up when I did, I was a huge junkie for GI Joe and Transformers. Then one afternoon I saw that they had comics too (this was likely at a gas station, and a few years before my attention would be drawn to that rack of magazines wrapped in plastic). I'm not sure if I was able to convince my folks to get one for me on the first try, but it eventually happened.

Throw the kid an allowance, and I was soon blowing the whole thing on comics.
I even drew some of my own (I had better artistic/drawing talent then--it has since atrophied). I had no clue what the actual creative process was for most comics, so I went the difficult direct route of making it up as I went a long mostly, and drawing random layouts on a page before filling them in. There's a reason I didn't grow up to be Frank Miller or Jim Lee or Todd McFarland.

It lasted pretty much until puberty. I'd like to say women replaced comic books, but I was skinny (like "hey, I can see ribs" skinny) about a decade and a half before skinny dudes were "cool". Plus there was the whole braces thing, and the acne. Let's not talk about that.

Guitar (and guitar-related magazines, with interviews I'm damn glad my parents never read--I don't think they'd see Dimebag from Pantera as a good influence) quickly replaced comic books by 7th grade. The comics got boxed up, rarely looked at, and that was that.

Until a few months back.

I saw that there was a "Season 8" of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, a show I was such an unabashed fan of that I once attempted to write a script, and actually got far enough in the process that I was looking for a way to submit it (and of course, found out that Whedon and Co. don't take unsolicited scripts--damn. I though a special "Spring Break Buffy where the Scoobies get to take on a Chthulu cult was good times.) But the catch to Season 8 was it was in comic form. I passed at first.

Then one day I saw the first few issues collected in graphic novel form at Borders, said "what the hell" and I've been hooked ever since.

It's a great season so far (and I have my own theory about the identity of the masked Big Bad, Twilight, but I'm keeping it largely to myself) and the first 10 or so issues are now in two graphic novels. But this might make me a comic geek again...

Time To Pretend

2008-10-10T14:32:00.002-05:00

After the past couple weeks, I don't think I'm that out there in saying maybe we could all use a little less realism in our lives.

What's realism done for us lately? Well, realistically, I saw that I likely didn't have the fuel to make it UGA-Bama. And the Dawgs lost. Realistically, I know those two things aren't related...and yet. Superstitions aside, I know, realistically, I missed many good tailgates that day.

Realistically, my meager 401k lost almost everything that was in it. Realistically, people lost what they'd been saving for decades in the past month. Realistically, economically, things are going to get worse before they get better.

Realistically, it was folly to to think a UGA team that had lost its NFL-caliber Defensive Tackle (and then NFL-caliber middle linebacker on the first defensive play), it's preseason All-SEC Left Tackle, and was without its starting fullback; it was folly to think that a depleted top #5 was still a top 5 team. Realistically, while Willie Martinez has had moments of defensive greatness, he's yet to have a season at UGA where the defense didn't get absolutely torched at least once (Auburn and West Virginia in 2005, UT in 2006, UT again in 2007, 'Bama this year.)

Realistically, even if I finally finish a novel, get an agent, and get a publisher, I won't make that much money from it. Even if I have a cool idea where I'm writing songs to go with the novel, and slowly but surely practicing playing guitar and singing at the same time, so my book tours can be a cross between a normal signing/reading and an acoustic Butch Walker show. Because realistically, I'm not even half the songwriter Mr. Bradley Glenn Walker III is.

So for the game this weekend, I'm saying "nuts to realism". Realism is like a fancy massage parlor: there are no happy endings.

So, with MGMT in your head, let's pretend, get the bad news over quick, and get on with it:

The Cumberland Report:

Well, this one's easy. Look at the last few times the teams played. Moving on...

The Rose-Colored View:

For all the talk about how bad Auburn's "Spread Eagle" offense is (and how many bad jokes can be made at their expense) they still rank higher than UT's not-vaunted "Clawfense". How does a shredded Dawg D get to feelin' good? Matchup against a new QB making his first start on the road, pressure the shit out of him (literally--I want him so scared he loses all bowel control) shut down the running game and shut out the Vols.

And the Vol D has been considered the one bright spot. But we've been there before. They were stout in 2005 too, and we broke them. Line former offensive lineman Kiante Tripp up at TE, let Brannan Southerland knock the hell out of some people, and let Moreno and King go nuts.

This goes beyond revenge for the past two years.

This is about all of us "Dawg People" having something to feel good about. Hope for the future.

Bold prediction: if the Dawgs win big, or shut out the Vols, the stock market goes up next week.

Nuts to realism...

Go Dawgs

And Now, A Whole New Set Of Problems To Deal With...

2008-09-27T11:18:00.006-05:00

First up, a personal Cumberland Report: Atlanta has no gas.

Sonny Perdue, apparently channeling Kevin Bacon from the end of Animal House, tells us "there's plenty of gas," and then boards a plane to Europe, ostensibly for some government business, but I think in reality, to avoid the pitchfork'd masses who will eventually (after walking, or horse and buggy) show up at the Governor's Mansion.

But it's very up in the air whether or not I'll make it to Athens or not. So Sonny, you may be a Dawg, but today: you suck.

The Cumberland Report
Football usually comes down to the play of the linemen, and thus far it looks like Bama's got a sizeable advantage--and not just Terrance Cody, who is so large he has his own gravity (little-known fact: Bama's DEs don't actually do any stunting at the line, that's just a result of their usually rotation around Planet Cody.) Cooler weather could mean more snaps for Bama's Mangino-sized DT: who is going up against a freshman center for the Dawgs. The Dawg OLine in general is really making only its second start in its current iteration (last week vs. ASU was the first). Mismatches like this get your running backs stuffed, and your QBs horizontal (and not the way many female Georgia fans would like).

On the flip side, Bama brings a very experienced Oline up against a UGA front seven that, while they've been strong against the run, hasn't exactly gotten to the QB that much.

If Bama can get a running game going, and dominate on both sides of the line, we could get embarrased almost as bad as Clemson (at least none of our coaches keep the play chart stuffed in the front of their shorts, Al Bundy style.)

The Rose-Colored View
Georgia's had success with poor Oline play before (the 2003 Oline led the SEC in sacks allowed, yet the team won the SEC East) and the current group played much better last week than the SoCar game.

Terrance Cody: huge yes, but is the front seven for the Tide really that much better than Carolina's? If it's not, then we can run the ball on them: which will spell doom for the Tide.

The passing game's gotten better each week, dovetailing with the emergance of AJ Green. If Bama loads up to stop the run, Green (and MoMass) could have big days. Reggie Brown-and-Fred-Gibson-vs.-Saban's-LSU-team kind of days.

And if the Dawgs stop the run, that means it's up to the poster child for Bama Bangs, John Parker Wilson, to beat the Dawgs. And that just won't happen. The DLine has already figured out his secret: as a child, Wilson was very slow to lose his baby fat, and is still sensitive about his childhood nickname "John Porker Wilson." Plus, Bear Bryant is still dead. And Nick Saban is no Bear Bryant. Also, Georgia ain't Clemson.

Who wins? Ask Wesley Snipes about the blackout...

(And our good-luck charms have dressed the part.)

Go West, Young Dawgs (and win!)

2008-09-19T14:08:00.006-05:00

It may be the worst week in Wall St. and finance since John McCain was in his early teens (sorry, last crack at McCain's age for...well, at least the next few weeks let's say) but I still didn't forget there was a big game this week.

Of course, if I had a 401K worth a damn, it'd be a different story, but I've had almost no spare money for years now, so I'm used to it. If I could make it through my last few years of college on a little more than $100/week without eating Ramen then, I should be fine now (oh, wait. I also had a Platinum card then...hmmm...well this may be a problem.)

So off we go...

The Cumberland Report
What could go wrong here? It's not like UGA has already displayed issues in pass defense and they're going up against the future Pac-10 record holder in passing yards. Oh. Wait. So there's that risk.

Also, it's been great, semi-, almost-not-quite Fall weather in GA this week. Game time temp in Arizona? Expected to be between 98 and 101. Dry heat or not, that's a big jump in climate. Plus, the multiple time zone shift. And risk someone getting arrested for stealing diapers.
Throw an already suspect (at times) pass D in with a team that's out of sorts because of heat and time zone issues and you've got a disaster brewing. Throw in some offensive miscues, and then you've got a recipe for the pollsters to really, really drop the Dawgs.

The Rose-Colored View
On the other hand, the only team worse at protecting their QB than ASU last season was that Yakkity-Sax-bad Notre Dame team. While Rudy Carptenter differs from Jimmy Clausen in that he has both a functioning brain, isn't part cro-magnon man, and isn't going bald in his early 20s (the Clausen Gene: for those who thought The Simpson Gene wasn't that bad!) most of that seive-like OLine is back to protect (sic) him. The Dawg's D should make him hear the dulcet tones of Queen and David Bowie in his head.
And, while much gets written about the offensive firepower of the Pac-10, defense still doesn't seem to exist there outside of USC. If a woeful Maryland team could rough up Cal, and BYU could do things to UCLA that might be forbidden in the Book of Mormon, and UNLV could hang 20+ on the ASU D, this ain't the "Desert Swarm" out there. Stafford, Moreno and company could get well in a big hurry.

Honestly, there isn't too much precedent here. It's warmer, the time zone's different, and the Dawgs haven't done this type of thing before. Flying to Arkansas is one thing, Arizona's another. The first quarter/half is key. There should be a ton of Dawg fans there, and if ASU's offensive gets stymied early, and the Dawg's O returns to pre-SoCar form, it could be a very, very good day for the Dawgs.

Signifying Something

2008-09-14T00:27:00.003-05:00

I'm attempting a near hat trick of selfish right now.

Writing?

That's not a selfish act.

Writing with intent to blog?

That's a misdemeanor of selfishness at least, and that's what this is.

Drinking Johnny Walker Black with a Jones Soda chaser?

Self-destruction. Of the liver at least.

The Valerian root/melatonin cocktail that I hope will knock me out for a good 12 hours?

Selfish denial of wanting to deal with all this. The all this that can only best be encompassed by italics.

I'll never meet the author of my favorite novel--my favorite writer. I will never meet my favorite author. 48 hours ago it was technically possible that I could. Now? David Foster Wallace is dead. And as much as I'd like to empathize with his wife, friends and family, students--my first reaction was the selfish one. And that's why I'm drinking. Because even at the best of times it seems so much of humanity is a parody of Ayn Rand: "how does it affect me?" If I was a little less self-aware of my selfishness, maybe I'd be drinking less...

There's a word, I think, for how I'm feeling right now: I don't really want to be writing this, with sad bastard music on, drinking, and the Fresno-Wisconsin game on mute because I think maybe any old college football game will get me feeling better maybe?--but really I just want to crawl into the far corner of my bed, curl into a ball and cry until I pass out. I'm thinking maybe it's not an English word, but maybe something made-up, like when an animal tharns. The word. And for the condition in general, not the specific near-tears I'm dealing with now.

Over someone I've never met.

I never met David Foster Wallace, will never meet David Foster Wallace.
This is not normal behavior. I know this. But also.

This is the kind of intimacy writing has. Few other mediums can have a connection like this.
Sports I think is one, which kind of explains the muted CFB on in the background. Music is another.

Again, this is seeing through my own, somewhat selfish lens. And yes, the connection is a kind of selfish one.

"I can relate to this."

"I was there."

And that's the scary part.

Yes, I admired the hell out of the sheer, more-blinding-than-staring-at-the-sun-from-the-surface-of-Mercury brilliance of the man. So much that many times, my own writing (this likely included) reads, to me at least, like a bad parody of his own writing style(1).

But unlike say, any professional athlete, or even musician, I idealized Wallace.

By about 22 it had dawned upon me that being a "rock star" was very, very, very unlikely to ever happen (if "rock star" was defined as: making lots of money playing music, getting interviews and covershoots, music videos etc.) But that same year I was flipping through a book of MFA programs because that was the dream: get MFA, publish first novel, get rave reviews, then land great job teaching creative writing to college students (though the first draft of this plan was a bit less realistic, as it involved getting the MFA and giving a A to the freshman I was dating at the time, then landing the teaching job at UGA, thus never leaving Athens for anything beyond vacations or family gatherings, and exposed a serious naivete about college hiring practices). But so the point was: I didn't think I could be Steve Vai, and I was damn sure there was no chance I was going to walk-on to the football team and then make it big in the NFL. But I thought, sort of, and however wildly hubristically, that I could be like David Foster Wallace. And when a man you've idealized and (so far, wildly unsuccessfully) who's life you've tried to emulate kills himelf, is it so far out of left-field to ask the question: so is that me in 10, 15 years?

And one of the more frightening things isn't the selfish "I'll never meet him" sentiment, but the part of me that thinks "I can kind of understand." I'm not going to speculate on any issues with mental illness Wallace himself may have had. But based on his micro-essay for the 150th Atlantic, I can make the educated guess that he does keep up with current events.

If ignorance is bliss, in today's world, where even some of the most banal slights can spawn 2,000 words on someone's blog, being informed is almost asking for, if not outright depression, at least some sort of flirtation with it. I've been reading a lot more financial blogs in the past year--they accurately called the housing crisis, and now I'm informed. But the catch is: I also know that I'm pushing 30 and any chance at "comfortable retirement" for me in the US is sitting at just a few shades from about nil at this point. The whole country's in debt beyond its eyeballs, the demographics are such that we'll be a country of old men (and women) very soon, with a decent number of kids, and not much in between. Anger and Fear still seem the two dominant moods in our foreign policy. If we're not all-out fucked, something more than foreplay is at least going down already.

One way I'm reading David Foster Wallace's death is this: life is sending me (and many, many others) an increasing number of reminders that it is not fair this year.

And if you were already having doubts about this thing called life, reading about it in the US lately...I can't see it helping.

Wallace wrote the single most frightening story I've ever read (it's one of the Brief Interviews with Hideous Men in the short-story collection of same name) and the frightening element was all about dehumanization. I don't think it's possible to accurately write something that dark and feel all that chipper and happy.

(And I'm reading back over some of this and questioning a bit the deal I made with myself to publish it as is, with no revisions, because let's face it, it's a bit of a drunken mess, even if there are no typos.)

I was a junior in college when I read Infinite Jest for the first time (and to show how very little I understood women, as well as the real influence of non-assigned books at most colleges, thought that simply reading it at Tate Center would get me dates. That enough people--single, ravingly attractive, female people--on campus gave a damn about contemporary fiction to know about a 1,000 page novel published back when they were all in high school or middle school. That they would be impressed that I, a skinny undergraduate so lacking in confidence around women that I needed them to all but hit me upside the head and scream "hey idiot! I'm interested in you! I wish to date and possible sleep with you! And by 'sleep with' I mean fuck your brains out! Do I have to spell it out further!" that they'd be so impressed they'd all but scream out all those things I listed in quotation some 10 words back.) The first 100 pages took me forever. I had no clue what was going on, and there was no Wikipedia to help me out. I was fortunate enough to have access to the online OED at least. And for a kid who'd gained a lot of false confidence in the breadth and width of his vocabulary in high school while reading nothing more challenging than Stephen King or Clive Barker, and scoring a lofty SAT Verbal, well IJ was a wake-up call. The blurbs talking about the "brilliance and wit on every page" were right, and there was much rereading.

I enjoyed that my overly snarky Multicultural Lit teacher was impressed I was reading it (and relieved that he put up with my ham-handed aping of Wallace's style in my essays for that class--and yes those essays were probably worse than the mixed metaphor about ham and apes in this sentence). I got no dates out of it. But over three months later I'd finished, and almost wanted to start over again right there. This was what great literature could still do. This was a Ulysses for my generation (well, depending on how you define "my generation.)

I've reread it several times since then and it has not grown remotely close to getting old.
Parts can make the hairs at the back of my neck stand at attention, and parts can give me that strange kind of ache in my stomach that usually precedes an issue with my lachrymal ducts(2).

His essays and short fiction have much the same effect on me.

There may or may not be more.

But if I'm going to be selfish about all this, I need to do it in a good way, if such a thing is possible. I haven't written this much, or this long, on one topic in a long time. I've got notes and notes and notes and poorly-written fragments that I've thought for a while could be a very good novel. I need to stop being such a self-pitying pussy and make them that novel. As Wallace himself put it about writing:

TRY TO REMEMBER

The smart thing to say, I think, is that the way out of this bind is to work your way somehow back to your original motivation -- fun. And, if you can find your way back to fun, you will find that the hideously unfortunate double-bind of the late vain period turns out really to have been good luck for you. Because the fun you work back to has been transfigured by the extreme unpleasantness of vanity and fear, an unpleasantness you're now so anxious to avoid that the fun you rediscover is a way fuller and more large-hearted kind of fun. It has something to do with Work as Play. Or with the discovery that disciplined fun is more than impulsive or hedonistic fun. Or with figuring out that not all paradoxes have to be paralyzing. Under fun's new administration, writing fiction becomes a way to go deep inside yourself and illuminate precisely the stuff you don't want to see or let anyone else see, and this stuff usually turns out (paradoxically) to be precisely the stuff all writers and readers everywhere share and respond to, feel. Fiction becomes a weird way to countenance yourself and to tell the truth instead of being a way to escape yourself or present yourself in a way you figure you will be maximally likable. This process is complicated and confusing and scary, and also hard work, but it turns out to be the best fun there is.

It's the man's life and work that will be remembered, not his death. And the single largest, most life-changing thing I took (and am still working on) from Infinite Jest is the fact that simple, seemingly banal things can have real depth and truth to them. "Be honest" is two words and an overused phrase in print. In practice, in life, in relationships? A whole 'nother story.

Telling myself "have fun, write more"? Just words on a blog. In practice? Wallace again:

But it's still a lot of fun. Don't get me wrong. As to the nature of that fun, I keep remembering this strange little story I heard in Sunday school when I was about the size of a fire hydrant. It takes place in China or Korea or someplace like that. It seems there was this old farmer outside a village in the hill country who worked his farm with only his son and his beloved horse. One day the horse, who was not only beloved but vital to the labor-intensive work on the farm, picked the lock on his corral or whatever and ran off into the hills. All the old farmer's friends came around to exclaim what bad luck this was. The farmer only shrugged and said, "Good luck, bad luck, who knows?" A couple days later the beloved horse returned from the hills in the company of a whole priceless herd of wild horses, and the farmer's friends all come around to congratulate him on what good luck the horse's escape turned out to be. "Good luck, bad luck, who knows?" is all the farmer says in reply, shrugging. The farmer now strikes me as a bit Yiddish-sounding for an old Chinese farmer, but this is how I remember it. But so the farmer and his son set about breaking the wild horses, and one of the horses bucks the son off his back with such wild force that the son breaks his leg. And here come the friends to commiserate with the farmer and curse the bad luck that had ever brought these accursed horses onto the farm. The old farmer just shrugs and says, "Good luck, bad luck, who knows?" A few days later the Imperial Sino-Korean Army or something like that comes marching through the village, conscripting every able-bodied male between like 10 and 60 for cannon-fodder for some hideously bloody conflict that's apparently brewing, but when they see the son's broken leg, they let him off on some sort of feudal 4F, and instead of getting shanghaied the son stays on the farm with the old farmer. Good luck? Bad luck?

Life sucks, but dwelling on the suckiness of life(3) sucks more. Or, to quote Orson Welles (a hero of mine I never had a chance of meeting):

Our works in stone, in paint, in print, are spared, some of them, for a few decades or a millennium or two, but everything must finally fall in war, or wear away into the ultimate and universal ash - the triumphs, the frauds, the treasures and the fakes. A fact of life: we're going to die. "Be of good heart," cry the dead artists out of the living past. "Our songs will all be silenced, but what of it? Go on singing." Maybe a man's name doesn't matter all that much.

R.I.P. David Foster Wallace, your songs are not yet silenced, and we will go on singing.

(1). For fuck's sake I snuck in at least one footnote in a column for the Red and Black. And more than one sentence that started with "so but then."
(2). And yes, at 1am "lachrymal" is about the best I can do in terms of "hey look at my brobdingnagian vocab use!" Johnny Walker is good stuff.
(3). Ok, I'm going to have to come back and edit "suckiness" though right? That's veering dangerously close to old-school LiveJournal/Geocites emo pages right? Or am I just using footnote snark to hide my diminished perspicacity? Instead let's end with one more quote:

Here's another didactic little story. There are these two guys sitting together in a bar in the remote Alaskan wilderness. One of the guys is religious, the other is an atheist, and the two are arguing about the existence of God with that special intensity that comes after about the fourth beer. And the atheist says: "Look, it's not like I don't have actual reasons for not believing in God. It's not like I haven't ever experimented with the whole God and prayer thing. Just last month I got caught away from the camp in that terrible blizzard, and I was totally lost and I couldn't see a thing, and it was fifty below, and so I tried it: I fell to my knees in the snow and cried out 'Oh, God, if there is a God, I'm lost in this blizzard, and I'm gonna die if you don't help me.'" And now, in the bar, the religious guy looks at the atheist all puzzled. "Well then you must believe now," he says, "After all, here you are, alive." The atheist just rolls his eyes. "No, man, all that was was a couple Eskimos happened to come wandering by and showed me the way back to camp.

Now it's getting real

2008-09-12T22:49:00.003-05:00

This is the point where these features get harder to write (must...not...make...joke...about...SoCar's mascot...and..."harder"...) for me.

It's one thing to speculate about the confluence of bad luck and downright freakish things necessary to imagine a UGA upset at Georgia Southern or Central Michigan's hands. There's almost no stress, because the chance of the upset happening is rarer than Ohio playing Ohio State close deep into the 4th quarter. Wait a second...

The Cumberland Report
On the other hand, worst-case scenarios become a little easier to envision. What's worse than losing again to a lesser team; a loss that, more or less, cost you the chance to depants Ohio St for the first nation title since 1980? Losing to that lesser team again, only this time around, that lesser team'd already lost to Vanderbilt. And it's not senior QB Blake Mitchell doing the minimal damage, but some guy named Stinky, or Shitty, or Smelley. Something along those lines.

It'd involve taking an offense that scored 100+ points and over 1,000 yds and having it transformed again by the South Carolina D (and inept execution) into something best viewed with protective goggles. And it'd involve ankle-twisted plays like the ones that 'Cocks inflicted on UGA back in the late 90s.

It'd be ugly, heartbreaking, and more or less end any national title talk for the Dawgs this year.

The Rose-Colored View
But, all that said, the stats are in UGA's favor. Lately, the Dawgs have beaten the cocks (must...avoid...crude...joke) more on the road than at home. Ideally, they'll see that SC has linebackers north of 250 lbs and run the fat fuckers ragged with short screens and misdirection runs. As good as SoCar's D has been so far, they still can be run on. And last year the coaches hadn't figured out what they had with Knowshon. This year? Well, maybe he saw what Darren McFadden did to SoCar last year and he wants to top it. 600+ rushing yds and 9 tds after Saturday? Plus shutting out Spurrier for the second straight trip to Columbia? Even Ice Cube would call that a good day.

The reality? It's likely to fall somewhere between all that. UGA rarely gets an L at SoCar's hands, but it's even rarer when they win so dominantly that the game's never really in doubt. I recommend keeping strong drink handy to calm the nervous, and don't let folks with heart conditions watch...at least after this it'll get easier...just like when the Israelites had it easy once they escaped Egypt. Right?

Maybe they need some Attractive Brunettes From TV mojo, just in case:

A LeFevour You Probably Won't Sweat Out

2008-09-05T15:32:00.004-05:00

And now we move on to Week Two.
The way I figure it, any week that has Spurrier and Fulmer losing before Saturday's off to a great start.

The Cumberland Report
What's the worst that can happen? Besides my Panic At the Disco allusion in this post's title? I'd say: Dan LeFevour being as good as his hype. As the only guy not named Vince Young to rush for 1,000+ yds and pass for 3,000+ in a season, dude has some skills. If he does it against a UGA D that looked at best kind of bored last weekend...well, some things, like "President McCain" I'd rather not think about today...

Oh, and the sky is cloudy, filled with random lightning delays, and run and muck, and everyone's somewhat miserable before kickoff.

The Rose-Colored View
Take what I said last week, and multiply it. Think UGA scoring a point for each year John McCain has been alive. Think stat-padding in the early 3rd qtr. that approaches A-Rod in a (now rare) Yankee blowout. Think Richard Samuel and Caleb King both topping 100 yds and Knowshon spending a half watching from the sidelines because the score was "run up" by halftime. And it remains sunny all game long.

Now, for good luck:
Gratuitous page-view-generating pictures of attractive brunettes!

UGA vs. Georgia Southern - When Spike played Chester

2008-08-29T13:46:00.007-05:00

(Note: the following is be a regular, pre-UGA gameday feature. The gist of it is this: before each UGA game, I offer the overly optimistic, Kool-Aid-drinking, rose-colored-glasses wearing, “homer” preview, and then the wildly pessimistic, thinks-Munson-is-too-positive, doom-and-gloom take.

The first take is kind of a throwback to my carefree freshman and sophomore years at UGA, where, despite nearly a decade straight of losing to UT, I would talk smack, and UGA was favored to win every game, by a lot, according to me. And only me.

The less optimistic preview gets its name from the infamous Cumberland College game in which the North Avenue Trade School whipped a bunch of scrubs to the tune of 222-0--currently the most points and largest blowout in NCAA history, though it'd be nice if UGA breaks that record, against Florida, UT, and Tech this season...) It was inspired by The Girl’s less than positive attitude about UGA football during the 2006 season--which, to be fair, may have just been borne from the results on the field and might not be how she starts off each season--in particular when she admitted to me a night or two before the Florida game that she expected Florida to break the Cumberland record against us, because, she reasoned, even if we “only” lost by say, 182 points, it was better than what she thought would happen. She has a far better and subtler sense of humor than I realized at the time.

Anyway, the hope is between the two extremes something—good, ideally—happens. And yes, this is almost the same note that prefaced last season's feature, because A. I'm kind of lazy, and B. I like alphabetical lists and C. I'm superstitious as all hell w/r/t college football.)

It's almost here.

A day into 2008 this coming Saturday seemed ages and ages away.

There I was, watching the 2007 Dawgs do things to Hawai'i's QB that I think would be considered illegal in quite a few states, and stuck with the realization that it would be several hundred days (not counting G-Day) before I would see the Dawgs play again.
But now, at long last, and after a ton of hype and offseason...um..."extracurricular activities" from some team members...here we are.
Georgia vs. Georgia Southern.
Oh. Well maybe the G-Day game was more competitive.
I can't rip on GASou (GSU=Georgia State) too much, after all Erk got them their start. But man their fans can be annoying. After the 2000 game, they were talking smack...yet many of them ended up transferring to UGA anyway. Which makes Ace from the Real World the GASou poster boy. That's not exactly a plus.

The Rose-Colored View

UGA returns a ton of starters, but has depth/experience issues along the OLine. GASou returns almost no one and has 8 more players sitting out with suspensions. New OLine starters, prepare to feel good about yourselves.

This could shape up like a dogfight between Chester and Spike (the big bulldog with the yippy sidekick).
Sing the Statesboro blues, it's gonna get ugly. Stafford gets a good rapport with WRs not named Massoquoi, Knowshon tops 100 yds in the 1st half and they rest. The OLine stays in through part of the 3rd, then rests, and over half-a-hundred is laid on the Eagles' D. Meanwhile, the UGA D scares the GASou folks to the point that some begin to fear stains showing in their pants. Some garbage yds and points are scored once the starters rest, but all in all, UGA has their way with a far lesser, and undermanned opponent.

The Cumberland Report

The big fear here, other than the obvious Appy State comparison? Injuries. Followed by lackluster performances. UGA was, in theory, poised for big seasons the last two times they opened with Georgia Southern, in 2000 and 2004, and didn't look that good in either game.

In 2000, they didn't even break 30 points despite what we had been told was a loaded offense with junior QB Quincy Carter (yeah, I know, it sounds stupider in retrospect) and worse, lost Boss Bailey for the season on the opening kickoff.

In '04, the D gave up nearly 300 yds rushing and 4 TDs, at one point the game was 7-6 in the 2nd qtr, and UGA at no point looked that good or dominant. Both years' teams failed to perform to preseason expectations (though the 2000 team far more than the 2004 squad). Failing to set a tone early could be a disaster for the Dawgs.
Hopefully, a happy medium between these two will be the worst that happens. Get on 'em early Dawgs, and get on 'em BIG. Win this one for UGA VI and UGA VII.

And for luck, Sophia Bush will be aided and abetted by Leighton Meester this season.

Every Weekend Should Be Butch Walker Weekend (Pt. 1)

2008-08-18T10:24:00.002-05:00

(Author's note: Yes, more updates are coming. One day I woke up and realized I had three blogs and needed to either kill some of them, or split up content. Months later I think I've figured it out. Long-form stuff will be here, mostly on music and books and writing and tv and movies. Sports will be over at the sports site, but occasionally cross-posted here. Everything else is over at that other blog platform.)

With that out of the way, while I polish my belated show review, I give you Butch live via YouTube:

Gimmie Fiction

2008-07-24T14:01:00.002-05:00

I know, I know. It's been a long while since I've made any updates. A lot's been going on...and not a lot's been going on (how's that for cryptic?)

I may have gotten hooked on the short post format over @ Shorter Excerpts (see link to your right, click on it) and longer-form stuff has been forgotten. Also, it's not football season.

But I aim to return my original blog to "Regularly updated" status. For starters, here's a snippet of a longer-form bit of fiction that may form a complete and functional short story on its own:

A Malady Particular To This Generation (IV)
(Excerpt)

“Mike?”

“Yeah. Brooklyn?”

“Yeah.”

She was shorter in person than Mike thought she’d be. This had become a chronic issue for Mike. If pulled aside by some semi-officious statistician that dealt with height and asked what he thought the average 20-something female’s height would be, Mike would probably guess “at least 5’7.”

Brooklyn looked more or less exactly like her Facebook profile pictures: Short, reddish-brown hair (likely the red highlights were added in recently), clear, untan (but not pale) complexion.

Green eyes.

She had on one of those fancy belts that Mike thought looked like a curtain pull tied about the waist, jeans, and UNC blue blouse showing a teasing-but-not-taunting amount of cleavage.

Her only accessory was an iPhone, which she was somehow typing something on using only her left thumb.

“So, should we get some drinks?”

“Sure. I’ll have an appletini.”

”Scrubs fan?”

“What?”

“The show? Scrubs? Zach Braff? That guy from Office Space?”

“Oh. No. I just like them. Plus Scrubs is on opposite Grey’s so I can’t watch it.”

“Ok. Well I’ll be right back with the drinks.”

The whole time, Brooklyn’s thumb was going nuts on her iPhone.

Mike thought it a bit presumptuous to assume he was paying for the drinks, and wasn’t a huge fan of playing waiter with them—this was mainly the result of several dates in a row where all the women paid for their own drinks, and the most recent two seemed insulted and pissed off at the notion that Mike would pay for both. Now Mike’s “Golddigger Radar Antenna” was up, and he thought getting a draft PBR would be a good preventative tactic. That many folks can’t tell a lager from an ale from a pilsner, and any beer in a beer glass will look pretty similar—that didn’t enter his mind.

When he got to the booth Brooklyn had selected—her back to the wall, but somewhat secluded in the bar—she was still at the iPhone, but trying to keep it hidden. Could a person touch-type with a thumb?

An Open Challenge To Neal Boortz

2008-05-14T11:49:00.004-05:00

Sure, the easy thing to do is jump on Boortz's (likely deliberate) misquotation of Obama re Israel (in which Obama called the Israeli-Palestinian conflict a "constant sore" and the Dittohead masses of Wingnutia conflated to "Obama called Israel a 'constant sore" and given the rules of telephone, some asshaberdasher on RedState will quote as "Obama called Israelis canker sores").

But no, this is a bigger challenge. I used to enjoy Boortz, back when he actually espoused libertarian (the US, not the European variety) ideas. Now, he strikes me as Sean Hannity-lite at best, yet another GOP-butt puppet at worst.

Today he'll be going the traditional GOP route off attacking Democratic proposals that rich folks pay more in taxes. This shouldn't happen, per Boortz, because:

"Now never mind that the very people that the Democrats love to raise taxes on are the people who provide most of our jobs. Though they may be the heart of America's small business owners, it's still easy to demagogue them as simply being "rich." Democrats love this stuff ... and that's the whole point."

The context (the link to original here, it'll only be good today though) is that earlier the "rich" is defined as: "top 1% of taxpayers."

So here's my challenge to Mr. Boortz, and his listeners too:
Find me at least five small business owners in the top 1% as far as earnings.
Company income (as that would be under the umbrella of a C-type Corporation, LLC, or LLP) doesn't count (remember, taxing personal income of the top 1% is taxing PERSONAL INCOME, not "the company they started's income".)

And hell, if you can find one that isn't a venture capital firm, you get bonus points.

Friday's Best From The Rest

2008-04-18T15:41:00.004-05:00

Recapping some favs from the Week In Microblogging over at the "other, other" blog of mine:

---

An unsettling thought

anthonydever:

heather-rivers wrote:

If you only get psyched about things you’re not really getting paid to do, you’re getting paid to do the wrong things.

But getting paid for sex is illegal (unless it’s for a porno.)

---

Too Sense: The "Bitter" Truth

Income inequality (and the stagnation of real wages for 3/5ths-to-4/5ths of the population since roughly 1976) is the true political third rail.

Not only does it risk the wealthy folks at the major networks…it’s not a pure partisan issue. Sure tons of blame can be heaped on Republicans (the GWB Administration in particular) but the sleaziness of Democrats in DC can’t be brushed aside (remember, four of the Keating Five were Dems, and Clinton’s treasury sec. was instrumental in overturning Glass-Steagall. Afterwards he got a nice cushy job with Citicorp which wouldn’t exist if Glass-Steagall was still around.)

So all you soon-to-be college grads: if nothing changes, look forward to making less than your parents.

---

sarahcroberts:

Whaaaaaaaaaat? If you work at the Garden and have a nice enough ass, you too could be in Playboy!

Does this mean Olive Garden is the Hooters of generic Italian food now? (It’s been a while since I’ve been to an OG).

I will admit though, I’ve seen “Girls Next Door” and while Kendra’s hot, her booty is pretty unspectacular. But hell, the waitresses there are wearing “some new kind of panties” that Frank the Tank hasn’t heard of, well, maybe they’re ready for their airbrushed, dear-God-don’t-let-your-labia-get-in-the-shot moment of fame.

---

Just When You Thought You've Seen Everything

siddman:

martasparta:

My commute provides me with enough stories to write a novel with. I’ve seen people puke on themselves, on other people, piss in public, rowdy Ranger fans get kicked off the train. But tonight was a first.

A girl was apparently giving guy head and then puked on him.

She got kicked off the train, he went to go clean off in the bathroom. Not sure if he got kicked off. She was no porn star either, so it wasn’t even hot train blow.

Thankfully I didn’t really see this, just all the reactions on everyone’s faces who might’ve caught a glimpse of it.

If it wasn’t for sloppy people on the LIRR my commute would be such a bore.

Meanwhile, I sit on GA 400 wondering when—not if, but when—one of the morons reading a proposal or sales report or the one idiot in the CRV that was reading a romance novel WHILE DRIVING is going to run into me.

I wish GA had better rail transport. It’s not because I hate driving. I thought Atlanta traffic had caused me to hate driving a while back…but then I realized sitting in traffic, averaging 8 mph, that’s not driving. And I can almost understand why people are risking life and vehicle: it’s sometimes over an hour of your time getting nothing done.

One more thing: who are they calling at 7:30 in the morning? And am I just an extreme anti-morning person in that I can’t see a point in talking to anyone that early unless I’m getting paid to do so?

---

Talking Points Memo | POLL-McCain even with Obama, leads Clinton-Reuters poll

More disturbing:

“McCain was seen as a better steward of the economy than either Democrat despite their repeated criticism of his economic credentials. He led Obama by 3 points and Clinton by 5 points on the question of who would best manage the economy.”

See, I WANT to believe people aren’t stupid (well, other than some of those 28% that think Dubya’s doing a bang-up job who aren’t in the top 1% income-wise) and something like this comes out.

The man is on record as stating “I don’t know much about economics”. He was involved in the Keating Five scandal which was part of the nasty S & L scandal in the 80s that helped set the nasty precedent whereby if big business (especially finance) fucks up, the taxpayers cover for them (without, you know, getting a say in it. Unless someone came and said to you on tax day “do you want most of this going to fund Bear Stearns?”)

---

Stereotypical Tumblr User Checklist

you…

use a mac: Nope.
are twenty something: For a little while longer.
take polaroids: No.
live in nyc: No.
wish you lived in nyc: Not right now. Until at least say Feb. 2009 I’d prefer to live in Sydney or Aukland or somewhere not in the US.
draw sometimes: Not anymore.
upload videos to vimeo to fit in: Hadn’t even heard of vimeo until earlier this week.
have a muxtape: Not yet.
work for collegehumor/vimeo/bustedtees: Nope…used to post on the CH message boards waaaaay back in the day (circa 2000-2003.)
are a vegetarian: Nope. And I usually supplement with pills or V8 as I don’t eat near enough fruits/veggies still.
are a photographer by profession or hobby: Nope.
like cats more than dogs: No.
like yarn more than cats do: No
have an interest in typography: Maybe a little.
would vote for obama if you voted, which you don’t: I already did vote for Obama.
take pictures of yourself: Yes. But only in the nude (sometimes with erotic props*)

(via everyone)

*note: some things in this sentence might not be 100% accurate.

10 Years Gone

2008-04-09T11:44:00.002-05:00

Just got the offical message about my 10 year HS reunion.

Will I go?

At this point I've got no idea (when and where it is will be a big deciding factor.)

It feels odd though. I spent my first five years outside of HS at UGA, then I spent another year in Athens working various crap jobs, a year back home in the 'burbs working various crap jobs, then two more years back in Athens working various crap jobs before moving back to the ATL and (eventually) landing a non crap job.

Late last fall I was carded trying to buy a lotto ticket. I've got all my hair (and then some--the only time my hair's been longer was the summer after my freshman year of high school, and even then there wasn't as much because it was styled in that unfortunate, "shaved underneath, but long on top" look.)

I'm getting close to being in the best shape of my life (22-23 when I was going to Ramsey 6x a week is the peak, but I barely did cardio then.)

I can say "oh, I work for a software company in Buckhead" when someone asks what I do for a living. I also play in a pretty good band.

But man do I not want to revisit the peak of social awkwardness that the high school me was. I'm not that kid, and I don't want to be that kid.

Maybe there'll be an open bar...

A Rebuttal to "The Good Ol' Days"

2008-03-27T21:18:00.004-05:00

If you happen to have the current edition of Vanity Fair (with a glorious cover trio of Tina Fey, Sarah Silverman, and Amy Poehler) flip to page 118.

They have some excerpts from a charmingly dated (nearly 100 years old) manual on "Don'ts an Dont's" for Wives and Husbands.

It's a disturbing window into marital life from the days when miscegenation was a crime, "speak only when spoken to honey" was doctrine, and balding, lumpy, riddled with phlebitis old white men ruled all (or, as John McCain calls it "the good ol' days.")

Well, except for the fact that Viagra wasn't invented, so loveless marriages at least had a good chance of becoming sexless marriages earlier.

Anyway, I figured I'd pull a few of their quotes, and tack on some comments to them. Mainly because it's free (free things are great in a recession) and also because my bracket is already so throughly fucked, I can't devote myself fully to basketball.

First, the "Don'ts For Wives":
"Don't expect your husband to be an angel. You would get very tired of him if he were."
-Well, duh. Because then he'd be dead, and despite what that Patrick Swayze movie may tell you, you can't have sex with a ghost. Also, don't put Baby in a corner.
Or...100 years ago Nice Guy Syndrome was going strong.

"Don't try to excite your husband's jealousy by flirting with other men. You may succeed better than you want to. It is like playing with tigers and edged tools and volcanoes all in one."
In general, I'd say it's probably best not to wildly flirt once your married...though the undertone here is that if the poor defenseless woman starts flirting, she's powerless not to have sex with whomever she's flirting with.
Gender issues aside, it's now my life's goal to somehow play with at least tigers and edged tools at the same time (working up to adding that volcano.)

"Don't bother your husband with a stream of sensless chatter if you can see that he is very fatigued."
Thanks Blanche Ebbutt, this one comment launched decades of bad stand-up comedians, and I blame for sitcoms like that crappy one with John Belushi's talentless brother.

Don'ts For Husbands:
"Don't forget that character is more important than genius. If your wife is a true woman, don't worry about the rest."
And if Mrs. Dumb-as-rocks isn't a true woman...well either you're also quite stupid (note: "she" probably shouldn't have genitials exactly like your's) or maybe you should reevaluate your sexual orientation. Don't worry, if you keep it (mostly) hidden, you can still become a prominent Republican!

"Don't scowl or look severe. Cultivate a pleasant expression even if nature hasn't blessed you with one."
I'd like to see the phrase "look severe" come back into everyday lexicon. It just sounds cool. "Dude, you look severe." "Thanks." Wish me luck on this project...my earlier attempt to resuscitate the phrase "bee's knees" was met with sour pusses and cries of "flim-shaw."

"Don't give up cricket, or football...or whatever outdoor sport you have been accustomed to just because you are married. Athletics will keep you from becoming flabby."
Well, I guess 100 years ago they didn't have the "Fat Guy+Hot Wife" shows. At least they're throwing the ladies a bone (other than...you know...)

Talkin' Baseball...

2008-03-25T13:59:00.002-05:00

(Cross-posted at Bulldogs & Dirt Dogs)
Baseball season started earlier than ever this year (I think the date is earlier, I know the 6:05 EST first pitch was early), following the trend set by Fat Tuesday and Easter (ironically, my New Year's was an hour later than usual.)

Much wailing and gnashing of teeth towards DirectTV who decided that giving me a consistent signal of ESPN and ESPNews was fine, but not ESPN2 which was carrying the game.

So basically, I woke up at 5:45am to follow a baseball game online.

I was all set to have a pre-7am beer too.

The overall verdict?

A win is a win is a win.
I will tell myself that often, so as to not fret about Dice-K nearly shitting the bed in the first inning, Papelbon looking decidedly un-Papelbon-ish, Big Papi going hitless, and Kyle Synder still pitching like he was on the Royals.

In the meantime, Jacoby Ellsbury can fly, literally, Manny is still Manny, and Brandon Moss...welcome to the bigs.

Baseball season just started and the Sox are in 1st place in the AL East.

Skipping over to the not-yet-playing-games-that-count National League...I'm cautiously optimistic about the Braves this season.

Last year they had a very good offense (once they added Texiera) and that figures to be true this season as well (yep, going out on a limb and predicting they don't miss Andruw Jones' 2007 production) but were stuck with Tim Hudson and John Smoltz as their only good pitchers, plus a deranged mess of a bullpen.

The bullpen may be better (it's certainly less David Wellsian in size), but the starting pitching could be vastly improved. If Mike Hampton can somehow be not the Mike Hampton of the past couple seasons (Viz. injured and not pitching) and Jair Jurgens can continue being surprisingly badass...suddenly the Braves have a really good starting rotation. Sure, no one's going to be Johan Santana...but the Mets don't have #4/#5 starters like say, Hampton, Glavine or Jurgens either. And over 162 games a good #1-5 trumps a great #1 each time.

This Isn't Me

2008-03-24T14:00:00.003-05:00

So Newsweek has an article up about the impact of social-networking sites and blogs and whatever additional Web 2.0 buzzwords their editors thought they could safely cram in there.

Depending on what generational cut-off points you use (my parents were definitely Boomers, and I was born in '79, but in the summer, which led to being one of the oldest in my class...plus thanks to multiple major changes and a love of Athens in general I spent from Fall of '98 until Spring 2003 in college) I either fit into this group or not, I figure I'd share my own take on blogs and whatnot with the random # of folks reading this (even you, Google image search person looking at my "sexy" Halloween contest pics from years ago!)

My own pet pop psychology theory on this: many people are so open online because at this point, after COINTELPRO, Operation Mockingbird, The Patriot Act, and who knows what level of call listening and email reading that's been going on for decades, coupled with a push for transparency in general (see everything from the Obama campaign releasing his Congressional earmark requests to the WIRED magazine cover story from a few months back) people just figured "well, if they want to know, why don't I just tell them."

For example, if I say here "I'm like most Americans, I don't have perfect credit--in fact I'm roughly $8,000 in debt...and I'm not exactly jumping for joy about this fact," I have a least the illusion of control. I'm telling this to the world, as opposed to someone or some government-run automated PC network digging through my credit report.

The darker potential angle to this, and one Jean Baudrillard would have a field day with: they view the whole Web 2.0 experience as their fifteen minutes of fame, or worse. They're doing good impressions of themselves, or who they want people to think they are. Quoth one tyke: "The whole MySpace thing is a good warm-up for when I'm really famous." But guess what? Odds are, being used for a quote in a Newsweek article is probably as famous as he gets. How does that get dealt with years from now?

More and more kids are being raised to think they're great (and worse, some are bringing parents along to post-college job interviews) and here's all these internet tools that let them think "give me one brilliant blog post, or one video 'hit' on YouTube, and I can get a development deal too" (and idiot studio execs giving a deal to the "Leave Britney alone" kid aren't helping a damn thing.) Meanwhile, Boomers get older, but damn do they not want to retire. The article in the Decemeber (or possibly Novemember) Atlantic Monthly called "No Country For Young Men" painted a rather depressing picture of what the Nationwide Boomer aging, coupled with the relatively lower birthrate for us 30- and 20-somethings it ain't fun (but it does explain John McCain's oddly high likability rankings.)

So for me, what's the point of blogging and throwing out the occasional picture or stupid quip on Facebook? Well, for one thing, I'm an only child and a Leo...so yeah, I'm a bit of an attention whore. Plus, putting things like "I'm going to celebrate the holiday in the traditional fashion: getting drunk and trying to bang Lindsay Lohan" in my Facebook status is just good fun (note: this is only true provided you don't go out and try to have sex with Lindsay Lohan, as if you're aren't actually in LA, odds are you're going to have a case of mistaken identity, or worse, a nasty surprise the next morning.)

Facebook I look at primarily as a better way to stay in touch with people than juggling a ton of emails, or talking constantly on the phone. (Note: I've never been a big phone conversation person. Talking in person is best, but if we can't, I'd prefer to write. Also, my voicemails are legendarily bad/awkward.) MySpace...is sort of like Facebook, but mainly I use to find out when bands I like have new albums coming out or a tour coming close to me.

And as for the blogging...well it's cheaper than therapy. Particularly given that for most of this blog's existence, I didn't have health insurance.

And, oddly enough, I find it easier to say some things here, to an unknown audience, than I would telling it to someone in person. Even when things were going great with The Girl and I was being Mr. Open Communication, I didn't mention "oh by the way, the reason I got you a One Month Anniversary gift? It's because I don't celebrate a lot of anniversaries. I've never even made it to the 6 month mark before." I figured then that it was the type of thing that'd scare her off. (Given the relatively low number of dates since I first mentioned my whole "Bad Boyfriend Material" status, I may have been right about volunteering such info.)

I try to not use names at all here, and avoid talking about where I work, or even some of my old jobs (though you can now guess how much some of them paid me) or about family or friend-related stuff.

In short: this is part of me, but it's not me. It's a place where I rant about politics, attempt to talk myself through my various dating blunders, and list actresses with whom I would like to engage in mind-blowingly good sexual congress. It's a place where I talk college football, bitch about traffic, and fondly reminisce about The OC.

But it's not me.

It's more like therapy. But cheaper.

That's my take anyway: what does your blog mean to you?

A Top Five From Wayback

2008-03-18T13:40:00.011-05:00

I'd been avoiding this issue for a while, but I may as well face up to it: two of my Top Five are (for now) off limits (as the list, which is 99.9% pure fantasy--no not that kind...well, mostly--but maintains that 0.1% chance of realism by including only famous women who aren't currently married).

A new top five must be made. But before I get to that, I figured why not look back several years (let's say more or less ten years, to the late 90s, when yours truly was finishing HS and just starting college--because yes, yours truly is old. Not yet "get those damn kids off my lawn," John McCain old. But old nonetheless.)

So, while I hash out my new, current top five, here's a top five I never posted (because blogger didn't exist, and I'm pretty sure almost no one had a blog, and I was not going to get a tripod page.)

1. Sarah Michelle Gellar

I was kind of a latecomer to Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I saw the previews when it came out, and all I could think of was that terrible move where Kristy Swanson fought vampire Pee-Wee Herman. Then a year later I had a class with two very attractive girls where were fans, and in the shallow interest of looking for some sort of common ground, started watching very late into Season 2. I missed the season finale the first go around, plus a few other episodes (I often was at work, and wasn't sure it was as VCR-tape worthy as The X-Files or The Simpsons) but by season 3 I was hooked. And after her turn guest-hosting SNL (famous for Will Ferrell's "I drive a Dodge Stratus" bit) I was beyond smitten with the actress that played Buffy. Sure Pam Anderson had massive jugs (and, judging from the Tommy Lee tape, no gag reflex) but she didn't hold a candle to SMG as far as I was concerned.

2. Katie Holmes.
While I enjoyed Kevin Williamson's writing (the first Scream really was good stuff), Tom Cruise's future...whatever (can't totally bring myself to say wife) was the only reason I'd watch Dawson's Creek. What struck me most was Holmes' juxtaposition of being very attractive, with a vulnerability that came from being almost unaware of it (from what I read in her first Rolling Stone feature, this wasn't all acting on her part) and it was best manifested in that asymmetrical smile of hers. There were also discussions (as serious as rum-fueled discussions amongst freshmen can get) about driving up to Williamsburg, NC to meet her. So at least I've grown up a little bit...I mean I've yet to plan a flight out to LA just to try and meet Autumn Reeser. Yet.

3. Keri Russell
Time for another confession: I used to watch Felicity. Ok, really only the first season, and part of the second. But still. It's not something many guys admit to, and I did it. I can't even say "oh, it was because it had that hot, curly-haired girl from Bon Jovi's 'Always' video in it," as I didn't find that out until later.) Mostly, I'll say it was because of Keri Russell--the smile, the hair, and most importantly: the voice. Maybe it's my musician background, but a rich speaking voice can be a huge turn on for me (it also explains my up until right before Taradise infatuation with Tara Reid, and my infatuation with Travel Channel's Samantha Brown.) But also, it was the story: bookworm follows true love to college? For a romantic sap, that's the equivalent of offering a $1,000 gift card to Bone's to a steak/scotch lover. I even referenced that specific plot point (and the show) in a likely-to-remain-unfinished novel attempt (folks from my Advanced Creative Writing Class may remember, and still resent having to read all 14 or so pages--which were actually closer to 20+ but had been shrunk down to like 9-point font and 1.5 spacing instead of double to meet the 14-page limit. And save on copy costs.)

4. Eliza Dushku
Like I said, I was a very big Buffy The Vampire Slayer fan. Now if you're looking for historical accuracy, and to pin this list down to a specific time, and that date is before "The Zeppo" aired, Eliza might not be on this list, or as high. But that episode was the clincher (and yes, I identified a good bit with Xander...even though as a guitarist and a sarcastic person maybe I should have identified more with Oz, I was just too awkward offstage.) Plus, she's a Boston fan, which is "five-by-five," as far as I'm concerned.

5. Catherine Zeta-Jones
For two reasons really: Zorro, and the Welsh accent. It's possible that Welsh isn't that sexy a language (sounds a lot like Chaucerian Old English to my untrained ears), but when the future Ms. Michael Douglas spoke it, it was.

A Few Of My Least Favorite Things...

2008-03-10T12:42:00.006-05:00

There's nothing quite like starting the work week knowing thousands of kids (including people I know, who aren't really "kids" but I'm using the word anyway, because it saves time--unlike this semi-lengthy aside) are on Spring Break, and that a scant two days ago, my alarm would have gone off at 4:50 in order to wake me up as early as I was up this morning. There's nothing quite like getting kicked in the crotch either. And so I decided hey, why not start Monday off with some nice complaining about things that suck (call it my own personal On Notice Board--sans Bears, who haven't really bothered me, so I have no beef with them.)

(Felt a bit like this, earlier today)

Daylight Savings Time
Why can't Georgia follow the lead of Arizona and parts of Indiana and realize how abjectly useless daylight savings time is? Why keep around a relic that predates mass quantities of streetlamps? Why force millions into Mondays like this one, where we start the day even more tired than a normal Monday, and then find ourselves not at all hunger when 1 o'clock roles around? (Probably because it's not 1, damnit.) Schools no longer wait for sunrise to get started (or at least for the bus to come around, as there are huddled masses of young'uns lurking in the pitch black of the asscrack of dawn most mornings.) It was light when I got out of work (and sometimes from when I'd get out of the gym) anyway. If they want us to get more light, step in, offer Federal requirements for employers to offer Flex-Time. Let folks (like, say me) come in at noon and leave at eight during winter, and come in at 7 and leave at 4 in summer. Less traffic, more time by the pool, more time to sleep in when it's cold=fitter, happier, more productive.

(Yes technically she works for Fox News, but she's highly intelligent, a graduate of an SEC that's not a hated rival, and admits to poor financial numbers, so I can over look the FOX part.)

Inflation In General, Gas Prices In Particular
I read this morning that wheat prices are up another 40%. This happens right as I'm in the midst of shopping at Whole Foods more, cutting out fast food almost entirely, and loading up on whole grains (including wheat). Meanwhile, I'm paying as much for a half a gallon of milk as I paid for a gallon in 2006. These things suck, and are at highly statistically noticeable levels (yet oddly enough, don't get computing when the Federal Government calculates inflation...hmmmm.) And then there's wildly attractive Fox Five financial corespondent Sandra Smith warning of $4.00/gallon gas this summer. Diesel fuel meanwhile, is already almost there (one place was up to $3.90/gallon yesterday.) My commute is no fun (I average about one fill-up per week) but beats the hell out of the heady days of 2005 when I figured that, at $1.45/gallon diesel was cheap enough to make a 144-mile roundtrip commute from Athens work 5 days a week. And remember when we were told those $2+/gallon gas prices were the result Katrina-related damage and once repairs were made they'd be back down? If so, remember when the Georgia DOT pitched making GA 400 portions toll, they said that'd be temporary too. And that was over a decade ago...

Overhyped Blog Bands That Don't Live Up To The Hype
Over the weekend, I caught a bit of SNL (yes, my weekend was lame--this coming weekend being St. Patty's, will be the make-up for that). The musical guest was Vampire Weekend--who I had heard much blog-based praise of, but hadn't really bothered to check out. Part of this that I've found so-called blog bands (bands that get hype/fame/record deals based on largely blog-based hype/praise) to be a middling lot. Sure, I've found some great music that way--Subtle, Spank Rock, The MGMT--but there's also been a fair amount of crap. Or, if not crap, just something that made me go "wait, you heard what I'm hearing now, and wrote that about it?" (In fact, that was my response when I finally heard Peter, Bjorn and John for the first time.)
Suffice to say, Vampire Weekend fell into the "why are these guys the next big thing?" category for me. No wonder the music industry is falling apart, when people can call--with a straight face--a bunch of kids that look like refugees from Groton playing music that wouldn't have sounded out of place in the early 60s "fresh and innovative." It just supports my as-yet-totally-posted theory that the vast majority of music critics have no real musically background (either in overall music history, nor music theory.) And if it turns out Vampire Weekend really is a bunch of trust-funded, private school kids (like The Strokes), I shall be royally pissed.

Sports Doldrums
By Friday, Georgia's basketball season should mercifully be over (Ole Miss I believe is slated to perform the mercy killing.) In about two weeks, March Madness starts, then MLB kicks off. Until then we get...well...nothing. Which sucks because AM sports radio has been my calmative against the insanity and torture that is metro Atlanta traffic. Yet it doesn't help much when all they have is NASCAR, the NBA, and hockey talk. And a memo to their advertisers: French Canadians and Russians make lousy pitchmen.

And ok, here you go Nation:

My Thought-Out And Erudite Response To "No Cussing Day"

2008-03-06T16:49:00.001-05:00

What the fucking fuck is this fucking nonsense?

Get Off The Stage Ralphie

2008-02-25T14:20:00.004-05:00

Well, Nader's running. Again.

2008 is yet another chance for Nader to solidify his legacy as not a great consumer advocate, but as a perennial candidate for President.

As CNN puts it: "The longtime consumer advocate announced Sunday that he will launch his fourth consecutive White House bid -- fifth if his 1992 write-in campaign is included."

Five straight elections? That's three from Lyndon LaRouche territory.

It's also more then enough for the media to dismiss Nader as a "perennial candidate", and ignore his views, and that's the biggest reason Ralph should change his mind and let the Green's pick someone new.

(This Ralph has better odds of winning.)

While Nader was right in that there were very small differences between the Al Gore we saw in the 2000 campaign and the George W. Bush seen in 2000, blind catatonics can see differences between John McCain and both Hillary Clinton and Barrack Obama (and even Tommy, a former "Pinball Wizard", who spent his life deaf, dumb, and blind--and has been catatonic for decades--can spot differences between Obama and McCain.)

So pardon me if I don't run away in terror of Nader's campaign siphoning votes from the Democratic nominee and handing McCain the Presidency. I just don't think enough people will take him seriously, and from the sound of it, his issues this go around are less "left" than those of two Democratic primary candidates (Kucinich and Gravel--and Gravel's still technically running.)

Quoth Nader on Obama, via CNN: "Above all, explain why you don't come down hard on the economic crimes against minorities in city ghettos: payday loans, predatory lending, rent-to-own rackets, landlord abuses, lead contamination, asbestos."
Ok, I may have missed the lead contamination and asbestos issues, but I'm 99% sure Obama's covered the rest of this. It's not his focal point, but it shouldn't be.

What Nader doesn't get, and in fact what many 3rd party fans don't get is change isn't going to happen top-down. If a Nader, or a Libertarian candidate, or a Socialist candidate somehow came into Bloomberg-type money, and through aggressive advertising and somehow getting on the Presidential debates and then winning them, and winning a plurality of votes and took the White House, what could they get done? Those same Democrats and Republicans they would have demonized in various ways would then still be in Congress, ready to overturn any vetos they didn't agree with.

A better use of the funds Nader is trying to raise would be to either start 527s to air ads expressing his views, or to fund local Greens. Preferential voting is a nice thing to shoot for, but until a 3rd of 4th party has more than a minority in the single digits in Congress, the system will wildly resist the change.

I don't wildly disagree with many of Nader's ideas, but he's really going about implementing them the wrong way.

Bill Kristol says "Democrats should read Kipling"

2008-02-18T20:24:00.003-05:00

Is it too easy to make a joke about "White Man's Burden" at this point?

I'll resist, for now, because I can't make myself read Kristol. I'll just take Wonkette's word for it. Those blind, drugged monkeys Vegas gets from Yerkes to pick March Madness for fun get things right more than Kristol. Hell, inanimate, lifeless objects get things right more than Bill "Republicans stand for people making it on their own, but by the way, did you know my dad was Irving? Give me a job because of who my dad was" Kristol.

I WAS 99x...

2008-02-14T16:25:00.013-05:00

See, sometimes I promise a "Part 2" to a post and actually get around to writing it! (It was this or complain about the Radiohead pre-sale for Atlanta being over before I could buy some nice floor seats--this is a perk to having a "grown-up" job that I was not made aware of enough in High School. Probably because it's a tiny percent of people past regular college age--say 23 and up--that go to concerts outside of the occasional, lavish and expensive nostalgia tour de jour a la The Stones.)

96 Rock was actually the first radio station I ever wanted to turn a radio dial to growing up. I can't remember exactly how long ago this was--I was in elementary school--but it was before Def Leppard's "Pour Some Sugar On Me" took over the airwaves. I know that because I had 96 Rock on my parents' car's preset by that time. Didn't have any idea what the song was about, and probably took the title literally and thought the singer was a tad strange ("why would he want to have sugar poured on him? Won't that attract ants? Cool!") but damn it did rock hard.

But my loyalties would be tested soon after. Blame Tone Loc for that. I'm sure I heard Run DMC at some point, and I definitely remember L.L. Cool J's "I need love" (and even roller skated to it--yes readers, I was born when Jimmy Carter was president, in the 70s and when I realize stuff like this, I feel that age) but Tone Loc's "Wild Thing" was the first rap song I remember going nuts over. Throw in partial blame to MTV for this, as somehow, despite not having cable, I caught the video on MTV. The record scratching was what did it for me. I know this because about 7 years ago when my folks wanted to loan out their LP of The Jungle Book to own of my cousins to play for her kids, they discovered again the damage an aspiring ameteur record-scratcher can do to with a regular turntable and attempts at making "Big Beat Baloo".

(They don't look it, but they're B-Boys, makin' with the freak-freak.)

This was a problem for 96Rock and me. I suddenly liked rap (well, the sanitized, slow-flow rap getting airplay at the time). They didn't play rap. Enter Power 99.7.

They played rap, but they also played tons of other cool (to me at the time) stuff. I remember in particular a late 80s/early 90s Top 5 countdown that included Guns N' Roses and Sinead O'Connor. I also remember GnR's "Welcome to the Jungle" being the first song my folks didn't much like their young son really enjoying.

(I also highly recommend keeping his book away from young, impressionable youths.)

Then, about the same time as the Wayne's World soundtrack exposed a whole new generation to headbanging and the gloriousness that is Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" they started a nightly show called On The Edge with Will Pendarvis. It was beyond cool to me not only because of the music played, but hey, the DJ has the same first name as me! (Again, remember this is tail-end of elementary school/start of grade school me. I'm marginally more mature and grown-up now.)

Power 99 became 99X right as puberty hit me. Que the amateur psychologists with theories about how we could "change together" worked. And keep reading, because there may be something to that...

Seventh Grade was probably the year I first really started identifying with music, and defining myself by the bands I liked. I also got my first guitar then, and promptly went from being one of the smart kids to being the "hiding his smarts because he saw the smart kids get the shit kicked out of them and vainly trying to define himself as the edgy/arty musician/comic book artist-type". Without a love of music or playing guitar, I was just another skinny kid with braces and a burgeoning case of acne wondering when he'd get armpit hair.

With a love of music and playing guitar, all those things were still true, but I had something else to talk about. And when lunchroom discussions of how cool every track on Pearl Jam's Ten, or both Use Your Illusion albums ended, 99X was there to introduce new and cooler (or seemingly new and seemingly cooler) bands.

About a year later, I knew (at least in my head) I was kind of cool, because, thanks to 99X I listened to Stone Temple Pilots, and Soundgarden, and that Danzig song "Mother", and Pearl Jam, and Nirvana was already too overhyped for me.

It was also entering the mid-90s, which is when 99X was really at their peak.

In Spring of '94 one of their DJs had traveled to Australia, either for vacation or to check out the Big Day Out festival there, I forget which. While there he heard a song called "Tomorrow" by a band of barely high school aged Aussie radio contest winners on Triple J (pretty much the Aussie equivalent of KROC, crossed with 99X at their peak, and still pretty cool today) called Silverchair.

(Given what I now know about Australian faunae, this little guy would probably kill you if you touched him barefoot.)

He got a hold of either their demo, or an EP, and started playing "Tomorrow" on 99X when he was back in the states. It blew up, and other songs from the EP (including "Blind" and "Acid Rain" neither of which made Frogstomp, and I paid some $20 to get on the imported four-song "Tomorrow" EP at Media Play or Tower Records). Not only was it a great moment of a DJ sharing some music he'd discovered and found cool, it hit me on another level: here was a band made up by kids only a year or two older than I was. They were on the radio, they had a major label album coming out, Daniel Johns was getting interviewed in guitar player. If he could do it: so could I! I hadn't been playing guitar for long, and wasn't yet ready to play anything like Pantera or Metallica, or copy Slash's guitar solos. But I could play Silverchair.

Silverchair and 99X combined forces to put together an Atlanta Big Day Out in fall of '94 as well: it was my second ever concert (I'd seen the odd bill of Candlebox opening for Metallica the summer before I started high school) and it was my first "festival show." In addition to Silverchair, we got to see The Ramones, it was the last tour appearance for Shannon Hoon and Blind Mellon, and I'm pretty sure some other cool bands were on the bill too.

It was also the first show where the fun and social experience of a large concert--and the joys of lawn seats--really hit me. I went with a group of about four kids, all of us freshmen, who would eventually get together and form a lousy garage band. But while wandering around the lawn we ran into a bunch of other familiar faces--including this older girl in my chemistry class I had a bit of a thing for, who I talked into sharing her beer with me--and even some of my old neighbors I hadn't seen in years. In the years since I was a mainstay at Big Day Outs, and would insist on lawn seats for almost any show at Lakewood.

Best time had at a Big Day Out: a rainy afternoon in the later 90s, in which my skinny ass, with lots of help, did a decent job in a large, muddy mosh pit to the unlikely musical backdrop of Poe, and later, the Replacements...followed by great sets from the headliners: Beck and 311. The whole thing probably cost all of $15 bucks.

Best line-up: While I dug that Beck/311 double bill, the best line-up I saw was years later, when Big Day Out moved back from the Conyers Horse Park to Lakewood--but with a locals only stage and side stage. They had David Ryan Harris's new (at the time) band Brand New Immortals, and my future buddies Left Front Tire on the local stage, Deftones and Incubus on the side stage, and Green Day and Stone Temple Pilots on the main stage.

The downside to that massive thing was I was struck by how it didn't feel as fun as the earlier big day outs. My group kept getting split up, and while I ran into some other familiar faces, the Huge Group Getting Together and Having Fun vibe ended for me with the 98 Big Day Out over in Conyers.

(And I was primarily in Conyers to see these guys play this song, which the the soundtrack to my picking which college to attend.)

And if I couldn't make it out to a show, or, my folks wouldn't let me (this happened more in the middle school years), or if I couldn't get time off from work, 99X broadcast a lot of these shows live (sometimes even with cursing, and without commercials.)

For years I treasured the two cassette tapes I recorded Pearl Jam's summer '94 show at the Fox Theater on. Years later, when they gathered a ton of bands (including Collective Soul and Marvelous 3) at the Atlanta Raceway for a huge show, I was able to at least hear on the radio the great cover of "I will follow" with Butch Walker and the dude from Eve 6 helping out Collective Soul on vocals. (By the way, I highly recommend all old-school fans head over to Marvieworld.com and check out the live audio they have of this, and other shows.)

(And in this photo, Mr. Walker gives a lesson in stage presence while Tobias Funke hides in the lower righthand corner.)

Every Sunday around 9 or 10 they'd have a Live X and we'd get at least an hour of live music from some cool band. And if I plugged my headphones in (so the folks couldn't hear) later on I could listen to the Pleasure Dome (and now we get back to the whole puberty thing). It was like a local version of the Dr. Drew show more or less. They had Yvonne Monet (who was best known for playing dance music on Saturday nights) and Dr. Roger Libby, and, as public school sex education was teaching me nothing beyond "when the teacher asks for any questions, it doesn't mean she'll actually answer any of them" it was this one radio show that helped me realize "wait, you won't go blind if you do that," and "wait, sex isn't necessarily bad or evil outside of marriage," and "wait, girls are horny too?"

The glory days of 99X for me were a lot like the stories above: I slowly learned to be less of a conservative headcase, and got to rock out to some great music (plus some music that hasn't aged as well, but I can say I never saw Limp Bizkit live in my defense.)

I saw Silverchair and wanted to be them. I felt very cool seeing a local metal band called Sevendust tear up the local stage at Music Midtown before they'd blow up nationally. And I remember Butch Walker inviting 20,000 people to come by Smith's Olde Bar after he was done playing--and Butch and several hundred people doing just that (including yours truly.)
In short: 99X cared, 99X was worth listening to, 99x Rocked. And the will be missed.

Where My Bitches Is At?

2008-02-13T16:54:00.015-05:00

Sometimes weeks can drag on and on and on (like last week), and afterwards, despite your best intentions to fill your blog with witty, somewhat long-winded commentary on a number of topics ranging from Obama's potential in the General Election, Hillary, Detroit automakers and oil companies and a theory I have about public trust, and Kevin Rudd apologising (I assume they go with the Queen's English spelling) to the Aborigines. But some weeks are like a hangover after downing a few bottles of Jack after drinking 100 oz. of beer.

And when that happens, it's easier to slap a title from an old rap song up there, and share my favorite dog pictures from Deadspin's Westminster Dog Show coverage, along with a few extras, with captions.
This dog is clearly auditioning for the role of Gene Simmons in the All-Corgi KISS Tribute Band.
Meanwhile, this poor pooch was captured by a band of NYU film students looking for an extra to play a dour, old Russian woman in their adaptation of Dr. Zhivago.

If you remember the Lady of Rage song "Afro Puffs" it's impossible to look at this dog and not get the chorus stuck in your head.
Ladies and gentlemen, I've found Ed Grimley's dog!

This is the face of a dog who does not know the meaning of the word "neutering"...
It's been said before, but I'm saying it again here: dressing your dog, no matter how tiny and "precious" he/she is, in tiara and crown only drives the dog into a deep depression. And doggie-Prozac ain't cheap. Plus this is something Paris Hilton does. Do you really want to follow in her STD-laced footsteps?
This Boston Terrier is the Nick Saban of dogs, as he (I think a he) doesn't have time for this shit. Or, if you believe in reincarnation, is the spirit of the grumpy old man who always yelled at those "damn teenagers" to "stay the hell off my lawn." Your call.
"I've got a pulse! He's not dead." "What happened?" "Well, I think he just got sick of all the running around and groping from all these judges."
Alternate joke: The Westminster Dog Show takes the "Now...Play Dead..." portion very, very seriously.

And finally, we conclude with the Dog (DAWG) who should win the whole thing:
In RED

And BLACK.

Only 201 days til kickoff if you're reading this on Hump Day...

Me vs. We - Why I'm Voting For Obama on Tuesday

2008-02-04T22:47:00.001-05:00

Earlier, I listed all the other candidates who will appear on the state of Georgia ballot on Super Tuesday (and who are still in the race), and listed some reasons why I wouldn't vote for them. But the biggest reason I won't vote for Senators Gravel, Clinton, or McCain, Congressman Paul, or Governors Romney and Huckabee is that I have so many reasons to vote for Senator Barrack Obama.

I could go on for another 2,000 words about how I feel his health care plan is the best first step towards single-payer healthcare, and how his likely higher coattails in the general election, coupled with a promise to broadcast the discussions and proposal negotiations on CSPAN give it the best chance of passing.

I could go on about how his efforts to increase transparency in government is the best way for D.C. to go about its business.

I could cite an article on the threat of nuclear weapons in the current issue of Harper's and mention how Obama's work towards nuclear deproliferation is the best solution to the threat.

I could mention the tens of thousands of inspired people who show up even in the cold of Idaho just to hear him speak. I could mention the fact that I'd look forward to a President Obama State of the Union speech. I could mention many more things like all of the above.

But what it really boils down to is "we" vs. "me."

Every other major candidate running speaks in terms of what they will do for us. Senator Obama speaks of what we can do together. And that's a very powerful message.

I think the country's got a lot of problems and no one person, even the President is going to be able to solve all of them in four years.

Senator Obama isn't claiming he can do the job on his own, but he does propose opening D.C. to the public in ways it hasn't in decades.

And yes, he may yet be the Progressive version of Reagan--a man who would speak to the public in less specific terms and inspire them to better things and a love for the country, while also convincing Reagan Democrats and disgruntled conservates and "values voters" that anti-poverty programs, raised environmental standards, and universal health care can benefit them.

I've heard Reagan speak and he was a gifted orator. He sold millions on such formerly radical ideas as "Trickle down" economics, breaking air traffic controller unions, and heightened rhetoric against the USSR. These things weren't necessarily in the public's best interest, and many were not for these policies prior to his election, just as many people aren't for a massive switch to sustainable fuels, or universal health care now. But Obama's an even better orator than Reagan.

Yes we can.

I want to hope for a better American, and I want to help make a better America. Super Tuesday, I'm taking a tentative step in that direction, and voting for Barrack Obama.

Yes WE can. It's not about him, it's not about me...it's about all of us.

A Highly Meaningless Presidential Endorsement: Who I'm Not Voting For

2008-02-04T22:13:00.000-05:00

This might be one of the most meaningless political endorsements ever (I can't remember when I put my visitor counter on the blog, but it was over a year and a half ago, so that 5,000 some-odd visitors sounds less impressive averaged out over 700+ days, and keeping in mind it counts all the times I reread old articles or go back to edit certain old and depressing posts.)

But on the unlikely chance that you stumbled across this blog, and you're either an undecided voter in a Super Tuesday state (or post-Super Tuesday state) or just someone who knows me and for some strange reason respects my opinions on politics, well, this is the endorsement for you.

First a little background on why I decided I'd be going with the Democratic Party ballot on Super Tuesday (and much thanks to the state of Georgia for allowing me to decide last minute and not have to register with either political party long before hand.)

There are four remaining Republicans vying for the party's #1 spot: Sen. John McCain, Gov. Mitt Romney, Gov. Mike Huckabee and Dr. Congressman Ron Paul.

Mitt Romney has struck me as an empty suit since I first heard him speak. The YouTube videos showing his changing positions depending on when and where he was running did not dissuade me of that notion. The simple fact that he's had to state "no, I am not a robot," tells me that if he wasn't a multi-millionaire able to fund his own campaign, he'd have exited this race long ago. Willard Mittens Romney believes that a CEO is best suited to run the country.

But the United States isn't a business...or at the very least it is not like any other extant corporation. Worse, the man largely responsible for the myriad of messes we find ourselves in as a country, and current occupant of the White House was hailed as a "CEO President" and the "first MBA President." How's that worked out for all us?

Yes, in November 2000, when I was young, and stupid, and drinking heavily on a regular basis, that "CEO President" mystique was one of the few reasons I had for voting for Bush over Gore. I thought he'd surround himself with capable advisors. Instead he surrounded himself with the worst detritus of the Nixon and Reagan/Bush I administrations. Again, I was young, dumb and borderline alcoholic. I'm sorry. And it won't happen again. No vote for you Mittens.

Governor Huckabee, it's a little harder to easily dismiss. He's a former preacher, and unlike most top-level GOP politicians, he doesn't exhibit the same disdain for the poor and unemployed. He favors a massive overhaul of the tax system, and presents it as helping the poor. He's actually funny and was able to muster what sounded like praise for a Democratic candidate (Obama) during one of the GOP debates.

However, he also freed a convicted rapist, who subsequently went on to rape and murder again. His son seems to come from the Mike Vick school of animal treatment, and Gov. Huckabee tried to cover this up.

Most disconcertingly, he doesn't seem to give two flying shits about the separation between church and state, wishing that the Constitution be amended to reflect Biblical law. Substitute "Bible" for "The Quran" and you've got Sharia law. Worse still, Huckabee has been getting praise from the worst Christian "leaders"--the kind that make mainstream Christians launch into tirades of "no, really, that man does not represent my beliefs"--including such asshats as James Dobson and the Parents Television Council crowd. Now, if you believe the biggest threat facing the USA is a 10-year-old seeing a titty on television, Huck's your man. But he's not for me.

Now John McCain, I have voted for once already. My first Presidential Primary, while still young and dumb, but drinking a little less, I bought into the Straight Talk Express hype. Since then I've seen McCain decry Bush's tax cuts on one hand, then openly embrace him on the other, propose campaign finance reform with Russ Feingold on one hand, and then propose we stay in Iraq for 100 years on the other, propose environmental legislation on one hand and then go on record as not really knowing much about the economy on the other. Since then I've read "Up, Simba" by David Foster Wallace, portraying the less public side of that first Straight Talk Express. Since then I've had to see "War is my favorite answer" Joementum Liberman, in a move that may simply be petty payback for Ned Lamont challenging him for his Senate seat, spew ricockulous statement after ricockulous statement for the "Maverick" who has been in D.C. since 1983 (and the Senate since 1987). I know a quarter century in D.C. isn't likely to come up in the media (after all, George W. Bush, despite being the son of a former President and former head of the CIA, and grandson of a Senator, Yale-and Harvard-educated legacy, was painted as an "outsider.")

Now I respect the hell out of the service Sen. McCain has given the country, and for taking stands against torture and for a better environmental policy when all the GOP frontrunners were against it (and more disturbing, all the GOP candidates who and NEVER SERVED IN THE ARMED FORCES were all for torture and waterboarding, while Sen. McCain, who knows firsthand about what torture feels like, stood up against the US waterboarding.) So end the end, I just disagree with too many of Sen. McCain's key issues. Of the three most likely GOP candidates, he's the one I hope gets the nod though (I'll come back to this later.)

And lastly, there's the man with the signs all over Atlanta, Ron Paul. Dr. Paul has run as a Libertarian before, and in 2004, that was the party I voted for (almost the entire ticket). But I can't support him now. Part of that is my changed view on the Libertarian Party (another post entirely). But here are a few other issues:

1. The Gold Standard Thing. I have yet to have someone explain to me how the US becoming the one first world nation leaving fiat currency for an asset-backed currency would be anything but an unmitigated disaster for the US economy. And that even assumes that he's not serious about 100% gold-backed currency (as there simply isn't enough gold in the entire world to back the existing US money supply.)

2. His foreign policy. Ok, I agree about the overspending on the Military-Industrial Complex, all the foreign bases, and how financially we'd be better off abdicating our Imperial leanings. But I don't buy into a 100% isolationist approach. I still feel there's benefits to offering humanitarian and financial aid to other countries.

3. His paleo-conservative dislike of all Federal Government programs. This is the big sticking point. Dr. Paul's solution to an education system that isn't working? Get rid of the Department of Education! I've yet to figure out how that will help, but then, I think the Invisible Hand often flicks a lot of us off too.

So that leaves me with the three (yes, three) Democratic Party Candidates: Sen. Clinton, Sen. Obama, and former Sen. Mike Gravel.

Ok: confession time. I've found myself agreeing with Mike Gravel on several policy issues. Sure, he comes off as a grumpy old man. The media calls him a grumpy old man. And, well, he IS grumped. Pissed off even. But after seeing things like Bush use over 1,100 signing statements to brazenly flaunt the Rule of Law, and most of the Senate lay down on challenging the warrantless wiretapping fiasco, among other things, I can say I'm pissed too.

But being pissed off at Bush won't get you elected. And as we head into a recession, being the candidate who's declared multiple bankruptcy, doesn't inspire confidence in Sen. Gravel's economical policy--even though being strapped for cash puts him more in line demographically with the average American voter. I wish he'd get a little more coverage, as getting word out about our massive military spending, from someone who has no real shot at the presidency, would advance the idea without either frontrunner having to take a hit on it. But he's got no real shot, and I plan on voting for someone with a shot to win this thing.

So to conclude part one of my endorsement blog post, here's why I won't vote for Sen. Clinton:

1. Going back to the 1990s is not enough of a change. Sure, some folks love the 90s. Me, I went through puberty in the 90s and had acne for a good chunk of the 90s, and braces for seven years in the 90s. I had my prom date cancel on me a week before my senior prom in the 90s. I see no reason the same media pundits that ripped on the Clintons mercilessly 10 years ago will suddenly change their stripes. That sets up for the fun of "Clinton fatigue" again.

2. Will the real Sen. Clinton please stand up? The talk radio bloviators are convinced she's a closet socialist (and they mean socialist in the Stalinist/Communist-conjuring way.) Swing a bit to the left (despite what Fox News said about them, the majority of posters at DailyKos don't seem far left, as very few even openly supported Kucinich, much less Gravel) and you find Democrats, Liberals and Progressives who openly distrust Sen. Clinton. Her husband ran as a Progressive against Bush I., but as his reelection neared, suddenly it was welfare reform, "the era of big government is over," and NAFTA.

3. Just say no to triangulation. See the last sentence in #2. Sure, in the short-term co-opting some of the GOPs key issues helped Bill get a second term, but it also reinforced existing Right Wing memes about government and moved the mythical "Center" to the Right. What good is a Democrat in the White House if she'll sell out Democratic ideals for votes?

4. How she's run her campaign. It's harder to believe the memes about "the Clintons will do anything to win" are just the Right Wing Noise Machine after the shit they pulled in the South Carolina primary. It's also hard to believe Sen. Clinton is a huge union supporter when her top campaign official, Mark Penn, makes his non-campaign living busting unions (and defending such wonderful folks as Blackwater).

5. Her foreign policy. This the biggest issue for me against Sen. Clinton. She voted for the Authorization for Use of Military Force in Iraq. I don't believe she was naive or not smart enough to know Bush wanted war in Iraq--her husband got multiple signed letters from a group that held most of Bush's cabinet begging him to go to war with Iraq. Which raises the disturbing likelihood that her AUMF vote was a political calculation. Worse, she, unlike John Edwards, seems incapable of apologizing for her vote. Given her vote on Kyl-Liberman this year, perhaps she isn't really against pre-emptive war at all.

I was nervous about the precedent invading Iraq would set, and not entirely convinced that, while yes Saddam was nuts and no fan of the US, he was actually able of doing any damage to us. I didn't use my tiny public pulpit of the Red and Black to speak out against it, and I regret that. Sen. Clinton didn't read the National Intelligence Estimate and voted for the AUMF and won't apologize, and for me, that means I can't vote for her tomorrow.

I Will Likely Regret This - Liveblogging the State of the Union

2008-01-28T20:38:00.000-05:00

8:40 Yeah, here we go. Just wrapped up dinner, and I'm enjoying the last 15 minutes of Rock of Love II. I may regret eating a late dinner in about twenty minutes though. Blatant lying to millions of people kind of kicks up bile in the ol' gut.

Oh, and if you want to try a drinking game, here's my hastily made up State of the Union Drinking Game:
Drink once whenever:
1. Bush mispronounces a word.
2. Drink (2) if that word is "Nuclear".
3. Drink (2) if the word is "terror" ("terra") and stomp a foot on the ground and say "terra firma" or some Latin-based joke.
4. Take a shot whenever he refers to the Democratic Party as "Democrat Party" then flick off the TV.
5. Drink, take a shot, and flick off the TV if he lies about the FISA bill (ie, he says that he'll be unable to listen to terrorist calls if the Senate doesn't pass his bill. Which is bullshit as FISA will NOT expire. The expanded provisions that let him listen to your calls and mine with no warrant will expire Friday if nothing else happens, but NOT FISA.)
6. Drink if he makes a bad religious metaphor.
7. Burn your couch on the front lawn if he comes out and says anything like "I've lied to you all, and in the interest of doing the best thing for America, I am stepping down as President, and turning Dick Cheney over to Interpol to stand trial at the Hague. He's a bad dude...hehehe."
8. Oh, and the killer: waterfall drink for every standing O.

8:45-Great line from Rock of Love II, "We had a serious moment...and then I looked down at her breasts..." I'll say this for Bret, he's honest.

8:50-It's a rerun, but I think Kristy Jo is gone (I missed it Sunday.) Something about saying "oh, I'm still married," should get you gone. Oh and "will you stay here in this house continue to rock my world" is such a great cheesy line. Used ironically of course.

8:54-please send the French chick home. That accent is too bad to be real, and apparently all she brings to the table is getting naked. I may be wrong, but someone getting nice "Every Rose Has Its Thorn" royalty checks probably has no trouble finding incomprehensible, personality-less women willing to get nude for him.

8:57-Roxy? He sends her home? She was one of the hottest girls there, and seemed to lack the bitchiness prevalent in many of the girls on shows like this. But, he did ditch the French chick.
Ok, time to switch over.

8:59-Dancing with the Whothehellcares is still on! Gah! My eyes, the goggles do nothing!

9:00-I like how the ABC announcer emphasized "Final" in saying "the FINAL state of the union address." In a year many of us will know how Krusty the Clown felt when announcing Poochy's death. Charlie Gibson missed a branch, unless Dick Cheney isn't showing up tonight.

Of course there's no "nostalgia" here. Bush has proved time and again that he really doesn't pay attention to history (he also mentioned that he was like Lincoln and Lincoln was disliked as he left office. For those of you that hated history, Lincoln was actually pretty popular, then was shot.)

9:03-Lyndon Johnson is the one to hate for all those previous years when the State of the Union address preempted your favorite show. With the Writer's Strike still ongoing, that's not as big a factor this go round.

Is it immature of me to snicker at the combination of the words "stimulus" and "package"?

9:06-He's at ease and enjoys these things? And still continues to butcher the spoken English language? Damn Bartlett, you could've said he gets a little nervous and folks would maybe go a little easier on the whole "nukeular" thing.

I'm not going to play my drinking game tonight...I'd...die.

I think we just saw the closest thing to a smile Dick Cheney's ever done...

9:10-Well there goes my hope that he'd throw a bone to Idiocracy fans and start out with "shit..."

Now when he says "cooperate" does he still mean "do whatever I want, otherwise I veto it"?

9:12-Wages are NOT up you lying SOB! Unless he's counting the minimum wage...

Hate to break it to everyone, but this "stimulus" bill will do not a damn thing for the economy.
$150 billion is 1% of the GDP.

Ok, the IRS joke was funny. But if you made 8 figures last year, and I hear you complain about paying 29% or whatever, I'd really want to kick you in the nads (but I won't, because you can afford really nice lawyers.)

Technically, letting your tax cuts expire isn't raising taxes George.

9:15-"Belowted"? But seriously, this could be the blind squirrel finding nut moment. It took him over 7 years, but now he wants to balance a budget. And cutting earmarks, if done bipartisanship, well, that I can get behind.

So does this mean Congress can debate those FISA ad-ons in the open too?

Wouldn't patients and doctors make better decisions if there weren't profit-driven insurance companies denying coverage?

Again, what about the insurance boardrooms making the decisions about your health? No mention at all of them...

9:20-Did he seriously say, with a straight face, that "no one can deny the results" of No Child Left Behind? It's only succeeded in selling more crap textbooks brother Jeb has money in.

One of my best-friends taught at one of those private, faith-based schools. His advanced English students barely knew what a pronoun was. Unless you're planning on going to Bob Jones or Regent U, they can't prepare you for anything post HS.

9:22-From somewhere in Texas, or possibly the great beyond (I don't know if Perot is alive or not) the mention of these South American Free Trade Agreements causes Perot to mention "that giant sucking sound" again. Yes, let's have more trade agreements, because NAFTA worked so well.

Columbia eh? Someone wants some hastily-imported blow...

Michael Chertoff should not be shown on TV. Unless it's his appearance as one of the Gentlemen in the classic Buffy The Vampire Slayer episode "Hush"

(I think Chertoff is the one on the left.)

9:27-wait, did he just admit global climate change exists? Did someone kidnap him and replace him with a lookalike? Boortz'll be so distraught tomorrow.

Congress should only approve the funding when they cut the "Intelligent Design" bullshit out of it.

Dick and Nancy both look bored.

The framing behind him is terrible...red and white stripes, without blue, just makes me think of a barbershop.

9:31-Wow, he mentioned NOLA. Didn't see that coming. Heckuva job Brownie.

If we weren't spending half a trillion dollars in Iraq, we could afford the influx of Baby Boomers to Social Security and Medicaid.

Or, if like every other administration fighting multiple wars, we raised taxes to pay for it.

Just a thought/rant.

A thought I'd like to hear from some folks in D.C.: "we should also try and work with Mexico to try and alleviate some of the reasons people so adamantly want to get the hell out of there."

His first three examples of "freedom" incidentally--we didn't really have anything to do with.

9:36-Perhaps when he was at Yale or in HS, some girl named Tara dumped him and that's why it's a War on Tara. (Yeah, I know.)

Prediction for what won't be said here: "if we'd just stayed focused on Afghanistan, that whole resurgent Al Queda in Waziristan wouldn't be going on. My bad about Iraq folks."

Ten months ago, 75% of the Iraqis wanted us to just leave. But that was never really said on TV, so it can't be true right?

UPDATE: turns out Ross Perot is still alive and kicking. Thanks Wikipedia!

Imagine how great things'd be for the Iraqis if Blackwater wasn't killing them--another thing you won't here tonight.

In 2002, Al Queda wasn't IN Iraq. So it's not like we're rooting out some deep-festering group here.

9:45-What worries me is will we offer enough support for our troops AFTER the fight. (That projected total cost, per Harper's: $500,000,000,000).

9:50-I can feel it, here comes the Appeal to Fear, where he takes the "They swear to attack Washington" part and tries to scare Congress to pass that bullshit FISA ad-on.

Well, maybe not just yet...

Still waiting to hear about Pakistan, which seems to be the true royal clusterfuck and greatest threat we've got (they have nukes, and Al Queda basically has their HQ in their mountains, though it's sort of it's own place, called Waziristan, now.)

More history for you: Iran was a democracy, up until the UK and the US got rid of their elected leader and propped up the Shah.

9:59-New rule: take a drink and refer to yourself as Bob Dole until 10:02.

Oh and I had to leave the room when he started in about FISA. I can't take that level of blatant lying, gross manipulation of the facts and bullshit.

10:00-I guess that's a program that Dick and Nancy have. When I first saw it, and Cheney was reading it, I saw the cover and thought he had a copy of The Handmaid's Tale, and that he was likely reading it for ideas.

10:02-He wrapped it up just in time to end the Bob Dole stuff. And did he really not mention Pakistan at ALL? Wow...

I'm going to keep watching, because I've heard nothing but good things about Gov. Kathleen Gilligan Sebelius, but I think I can take no more of the liveblogging (and I need caffeine like mad, as George Will's sonorous voice is putting me to sleep.) Goodnight, and Good Luck.

Really, Clearly Stupid Politics

2008-01-28T16:40:00.000-05:00

AKA, the GOP IS Col. Jessup, and they don't give a damn what you think you're "entitled" to.
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Taking a break from pointing out obvious dating issues and my sordid personal life today, instead I thought I'd stroll down a column on RealClearPolitics by Ruben Navarrette (who is clearly no Bill Kristol, as he doesn't even rate a Wikipedia entry.)

The jist of his column is this: the true biggest threat ever to face America (well, this week) is that too many non-rich folks want to be rich for doing nothing.

But let's pick apart his half-assed reasoning for fun anyway.

A stimulus may not work exactly as expected, but it's worth a try. Americans are overtaxed as it is, and anything that gets more of their tax dollars back into their hands is a good thing. And if they spend what they get, it'll be good for the economy.

Wait a tic...didn't we try this stimulus back in Dubya's first term? And here we are facing a recession again? Perhaps, if we try again, this time it'll magically work.

And "overtaxed?" Warren Buffett doesn't think he's overtaxed. The folks who are already millionaires who pay no more than 15% tax on investments (even eight-and-nine figure payouts--only 15%) aren't overtaxed.

When in the history of the US have we cut taxes repeatedly while at war? The last time we had combat missions in multiple fronts/countries was WWII and the top 1% was in a 90% tax bracket then.

But hey, maybe I'm wrong and millions of people buying a Wii will save us from recession. Even though household debt on average is higher now than any point in my lifetime. And the Wii is made in Japan. Not here.

Navarrette says "The No. 1 economic threat facing the United States today isn't globalization, stagnant wages, unfair trade policy or illegal immigration." What happened to that ol' boogeyman "global Islamofacism?" No mention of that. Only that damned sense of "entitlement."

See, if you were really smart, you would have planned on paying health insurance premiums equal to or possibly surpassed by the cost of monthly rent or your mortgage. And you would blame yourself when you're denied coverage because you naively thought the insurance company would cover your risky heart surgery that saved your life--and worse, you didn't save back 120,000 to pay for it out of pocket "just in case."

Fifty years ago, Americans were a heartier bunch. They'd grown up in the Depression and defeated Nazi Germany and the other Axis powers during World War II, and they found honor in doing any kind of work. If they didn't earn enough money doing it, they took on another job, or another one after that. Most of all, they took pride in the idea that -- in this country -- our destiny is in our own hands.

Of course, fifty years ago, wages from the middle class and the top 1% weren't at the near Gilded Age disparity they are today. American manufacturing was the envy of the world and the automobile industry became a hugely booming sector thanks to--wait for it and prepare to gasp--government spending on massive infrastructure upgrades like Eisenhower's Interstate Highway system.

But no, to Navarrette, the Greatest Generation was just better, and it's those damn kids who ruin it for the rest of us: quoth "many members of 'Generation Me' walk into job interviews brimming with self-esteem and expecting to be put on a path to a corporate vice presidency." I must have missed that memo. Also, I could have sworn the "Me Decade" was run by Boomers, none of whom are in their 20s or 30s now...

Navarrette concludes the whole diatribe by felating McCain, ending with this nonsense:

That was awfully brave. But McCain could have gone further. He could have explained that organized labor helped bring about this displacement by pricing autoworkers out of the market. He could have pointed out that many workers went along for the ride because they felt entitled to the same standard of living that their parents enjoyed but didn't want to get the extra schooling or training to achieve it. He could have said that the situation is complicated by the fact that there will always be those who won't move away from their hometowns -- even when the towns are on life support. And, finally, he could have reminded voters that they can't always blame their problems on others and that, sooner or later, they have to grow up and take control of their lives and their destiny.

Yes, that must be it. It was labor wanting too much money that's hurt the Detroit automakers. Not the folks at the top churning out the same basic stuff year after year, while the Japanese automakers offered cheaper, more reliable, and more fuel-efficient competition, and the German luxury makers smoked them on performance. That's the union's fault entirely. If one of the big three actually had some foresight to prepare for a day when oil hits $200 and had come out with a hybrid like Toyota's Prius first, I have this odd hunch that people would actually buy it.

Standard of living? Well, leaving aside that for several generations the standard of living has gone UP each time, an undergraduate degree was usually the end of the line for most of the Boomer generation, with Master's being rare. So why then does it take at least a Master's to equal what a mere Bachelor's degree got you earnings-wise? Is that somehow my generation's fault too? (and don't even go computing inflation-adjusted income to your parents kids, it ain't pretty.)

And in conclusion, is that really the campaign you'd like Sen. McCain to run on Mr. Navarrette? "Vote for me: you may lose your job, move away from a city you lived in for decades, and be poor and destitute, but I'll be honest when I say it's all your fault." Really?

I'm Lousy Boyfriend Material

2008-01-25T16:36:00.000-05:00

(Well, at present, and probably for at least the first half of 2008.)
(Consider this a PSA targeted to any women with romantic leanings my way, or Atlanta-area single women--seriously, married cougar women: find someone else--who happen to Google my name. This isn't a repeat of the "whoa is me" emo-esque blogposts from early last year.)

Ladies, despite what you might say about my personality, intelligence level, musical ability, buttocks, etc. (and I do hope they're mostly nice) I would make for a lousy boyfriend.

I don't like preemptive strikes in foreign affairs (real life foreign affairs, and Foreign Affairs, the magazine) but for right now, I'm ready to make a preemptive "it's not you, it's me" speech here.

Picky as I am, it's not that there's a lack of datable single women, it's just that in my experience (not all of firsthand--as let's face it, since I have yet to celebrate a one-year relationship anniversary with anyone, my long-term relationship experience is thinner than an emo kid impersonating Jesse Camp) meaningful, worthwhile relationships take both time and work. And time's somewhat at a premium for me.

I live too far from work. I admit this. But nothing I've read about the economy is even close to good, and the worst of the recession is in the housing market. Where I work is closely related to that market. No one's been shown the door yet, and I'm not panicking (I don't think), but I don't want to suddenly take on the far larger cost of an intown Atlanta apartment until I've at least saved up enough extra cash that if something nasty does happen, I'm covered for a few months.

Until then, I'm stuck with a traffic-clogged commute (it's not so much the distance travelled, as where I'm traveling--GA 400--that makes it suck more than a marathon of Deep Throat) that averages anywhere from 90 minutes to three hours per day sitting in traffic. Add that to 9 hours or so in the office, and up to 12 hours a day, 5 days a week is gone already.

Then throw in another 5-7 hours so I can go to the gym. Yeah, some of that is simple vanity. I went most of my post-puberty life either wildly skinny or more or less in shape, and waking up and seeing that suddenly my metabolism alone no longer could fight a life of 9 hours at a desk daily and repeated trips to Arby's for double helpings of curly fries and mozzarella sticks. But heart disease runs in the family too, and as a nice side effect of being picked on as "the skinny kid" for all of middle and high school I spent my college years at Ramsey working out, but never really bothering with any kind of cardio exercise. So the making up for lost time there isn't so much about a "it'd be nice to have a six-pack when it's warm enough to go drink by the pool" and more "I'd like to live past my 50s, and no longer get winded after climbing two flights of stairs."

At least once a week (ideally) there's band practice. I'd elaborate more on this, but we need at least a band name first before I can talk about how awesome we are...er, will be. But I think socks will be rocked off.

And then there's the book. It's not going to write itself (trust me, I've hoped it would...I'm pretty sure the computer has laughed at me for trying it.)

Now this doesn't mean I'm going celibate or want to eschew dating altogether. But between all that (and trying to get a part-time freelance writing career going--ideally for extra cash so that move can come quicker) I can't in good conscience promise to be anything more than that fun guy you can hang out with or go on a few dates with. And isn't it better to be honest about all this now, rather than blindside you with it several dates in? I'd bet Katherine Heigl's character would've loved a chance to Google Seth Rogen's character in Knocked Up before they got drunk and made babies.

Memo to Bill Clinton: Just Shut Up Already

2008-01-25T12:23:00.000-05:00

I had nice, happy thoughts going into to 2008 about politics. By this time next year, Bush will be out of the White House (and I dislike Bush more than a casting director for porn films) and thus far, it looks like Bush-Cheney's pipe dream of a wider Middle East war with Iran ain't going to happen (and what does it say about where our trust in our leaders that my first thought when I saw the Strait of Hormuz "incident" was "they expect us to be scared of this? That sounds like some drunk kid." And then it turned out it was the Filipino Monkey.) The warmongerer would be gone, and odds were, someone with a D next to their name would be moving in.
Sure, I didn't think it'd be a landslide, and odds were looking against us getting the first ever First Lady with tongue stud (incidentally, I also recently found out that Mrs. Kucinich is only two years older than me, whereas Mr. Kucinich is my dad's age. It gave me a decent case of the howling fantods.)
And after the NH debates, I came away thinking that the Democratic "Top 3" all came out looking fairly well. Sen. Clinton was actually funny, Sen. Obama managed to avoid a lot of the awkwardness that characterised some of his earlier debate performances, and Sen. Edwards displayed great heart in talking about the dwindling middle class in the US.
It was only after the NH primary that things went downhill.
First, a side note: I don't care if someone running for president "cries" (incidentally, the media now has a very loose definition of "crying" as at worst, it appeared Sen. Clinton got a bit choked up.) What she actually said, I agreed with wholeheartedly. My hope was "ok, now actually run your campaign on this: it will work with other voters too, and it's far better than offering vague platitudes about '35 years experience' but offering no examples."
Sadly, it didn't happen.
Clinton has been great lately on the economic issues, and if that was the only change made by her campaign, I'd have no umbrage nor feel the need to write this blog post.
Disclosure time: I was not a big fan of Sen. Clinton going into early-early primary season a year ago. Most of this dislike I've discovered came from two sources: my previous over-reliance on listening to and reading way too much Boortz, and association with her husband, who I still dislike.
So you can imagine how pleased I was to see Bill suddenly angrier and more vocal about his wife's Democratic competition for the Presidency than he's been about anything the Bush Administration has done.
And of all things to pick on Bill, you choose Iraq?
Really?
Best I can tell, this is playing the Rove/GOP strategy of "I'll just keep repeating a lie until people believe it."
Obviously, Bill's in a bit of bind here, as if he comes right and says "Iraq was a mistake" it contradicts statements he made around the time of the AUMF vote, as well as the fact that he bombed the country multiple times when he was President. And it looks bad to have bombed a country that wasn't a threat right as you're about to have impeachment votes taken in the House...
But what's worse about this sudden "attack dog" Bill Clinton is it's damaging the whole united "whoo-hoo a Democratic in the White House" coalition--which I think has held together quite well given the dismal results the Democratic "Majority" in Congress has offered thus far.
And the Clinton campaign apparently sees no reason to stop.

“He’s the most popular Democrat in the country; he is the most successful president in recent memory, and attacks on him by Senator Obama and his surrogates will be rejected by voters,” said Howard Wolfson, a Clinton spokesman.

Let's unpack this shall we? "Most popular?" Well, no I don't think I've seen any polls to back that up. Best known? That I'll give you unnamed Clinton spokesman, but recognition and popularity are not the same thing. A lot of people know who George W. Bush is too, but you don't see any GOP candidates explicitly invoking his name in their debates (well, I imagine you don't. I don't have the stomach to actually watch 5 angry, view-women-as-second-class-citizens, immigrant-blaming old men argue about who can help rich people the most.)

And "most successful in recent memory" isn't saying much either. Who's his competition? Dubya, George Sr.? Being more "successful" than the two Bushes is beating Chris Mathews in a Who Can Be Less Sexist contest: it doesn't take a whole lot of effort. And St. Ronnie? Well, he was successful at hoodwinking vast swaths of America into believing his "Voodoo economics" and successful at neither fatally tarnishing the Republican brand despite numerous scandals and selling arms to the very folks shooting at us in Iraq now...so you can actually kind of see what Obama's comments about Reagan meant.

He didn't agree with the message, but he's right in that it'd be nice if the Democrats could get someone to convince traditionally Republican voters that things like corporate and governmental transparency, universal health care, and a less bellicose foreign policy are good for everyone.

But if this guy's right, maybe very little has changed in politics in 2008, and that's bad news--for either Obama or Clinton--come General Election time. Another telling NYT quote:

“Bill Clinton seems to not be in his traditional mode,” said Jack Bass, an authority on Southern politics at the College of Charleston, who has observed Mr. Clinton for more than 30 years. “I’ve just never seen these negative emotions in public before. I know he has a temper, but this confrontational attitude with journalists, and the anger itself, is surprising to me.”

Again, it's surprising to a lot of people because in the past 7 years, there've been an increasing number of things with both the current administration, and, if he really just wants to pick on Democrats, with Congress he could have gotten angry about. To me, it's the fact that he's only getting angry when his wife suddenly faces a credible challenge to the Democratic ticket that hurts his credibility, and worse, makes it harder to dismiss those Rush Limbaughian "the Clintons only care about power" memes.

Machiavellian tactics aside, Sen. Clinton is light years better than any Republican nominee (though sadly, far, far, far more hawkish and to the right of Ron Paul on foreign policy). Pragmatically, I'm stuck with her in the general because to me, it's not worth risking the courts, and potential further declines in our civil rights. But for die-hard Obama people, as well as moderates who are currently undecided, this "win at all costs" tactic doesn't bode well. Alienating part of your base when the Right already hates your guts? How do you win a general election like that?

And worse, I can see a myriad of ways you can lose.

Sen. Clinton vs. McCain: McCain simply picks Lieberman as his VP, running on a "united/bipartisan" ticket (sure, it'll be bullshit because Joe is about as liberal and as much a Democrat as Neal Boortz at this point, but you won't hear anyone on the major media networks saying it.)

Sen. Clinton vs. Romney: Sure, you think they can tear Romney apart based on his flip-flopping...but Romney can do the same to Hillary on Iraq, and worse, Romney can make the appeal of the outsider against Clinton's decades in D.C. (and D.C. isn't much liked by anyone outside the beltway.)

Huckabee, who also has a semi-decent chance at the GOP nomination, could also run as an "outsider" vs. Clinton as the "insider" and sadly his Willie Horton moment has barely registered with the hardcore GOP voters (my conclusion: they really, really hate the Clintons, and are sexist bastards to boot.)

And really Bill, like it or not, Hillary doesn't need you to win the party nomination. Her numbers were highest when you were keeping your trap shut, and didn't have to read articles about smug GOP supporters talking about a "divided Democratic party." So Bill, for the sake of the Democratic party, and America, go back to playing golf with Dubya's dad.

A New Year's Resolution You Can Still Make Good On

2008-01-24T21:35:00.000-05:00

So Blue Monday has come and gone (and so far in 2008, I've heard neither the original New Order song of the same name, nor the Orgy cover of it--success!) and allegedly with it, came the death of new year's resolutions for millions around the country.

Given that the gym (Crunch in Buckhead--check it out) was empty enough I could've seen tumbleweeds (ok, that might also be because my lazy ass has neglected to do cardio training for years and going from no running to several miles per week may have caused hallucinations.) So there may be truth to all that.

But it's not too late for you (no, seriously, you don't have to join the gym, I like not having to wait to use a machine or dumbells or an elliptical trainer) because you can help me with my big '08 resolution.

Before the end of spring I want to have a readable draft of the book I've been working on for 2+ years done and ready to go. That's another 200 pages more or less, by ideally, May 1.

But here's the catch. Other than Fall '06, when I was dating a writer (and had mentioned my plans to take part in NaNoWriMo on our first date) I've been piss poor at writing on a daily basis. And while I wouldn't necessarily say "no" to dating a writer now (that's a whole 'nother post), I don't think I have to date anyone for this to work. But, the occasional nagging prod in my direction, via blog comments, Facebook messages, MySpace messages, phone calls, text messages, or in person (your ideal, market-tested script in toto: "So Will, how's the novel coming?") that will do.

Rewards for this fairly easy job will very, but likely include: getting free booze, getting to read the semi-finished book before other folks, maybe even your initials in the "Thanks" section. Did I mention the free booze?

So, how's my novel coming? (Repeat after me...)

Chris Mathews Apologises for Coverage Of Sen. Clinton, Hell Freezes

2008-01-18T11:58:00.000-05:00

But then thaws out after hearing one of the finest non-apology apologies this side of George Allen.

Were Married...With Children still on the air, Tweety could be the patron saint of NOMA'AM. But Mathews's asinine remarks were not the scripted words of satirical blue-collar buffoons and a modern-day Archie Bunker, but the actual thoughts and words of a cable TV newshost.

Media Matters has the exhaustive count, which includes such gems as:
*Actually pinching Sen. Clinton--a fully-grown woman, Senator, lawyer and in no way someone anyone should confuse with say a 4-year-old child--on the cheek. And let's be honest, kids hate getting their cheeks pinched too.
*"According to a Media Matters study, Matthews made 10 negative remarks about Clinton for every negative remark he made about Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani, and nearly three times as many positive remarks about the former New York City mayor as about Clinton, despite his professed neutrality."

And of course, Mathews's misogyny is in no way limited only to Sen. Clinton. And that's what pisses me off about his "apology." Where are the other apologies, to Sen. Pelosi, Michelle Obama, and well, pretty much an entire gender that Tweety either openly has loathed or lusted after based 100% on their physical appearance?

I'm not holding my breath waiting on that on.

Apparently "No Longer On The Air" Also Means "Everything Alternative."

2008-01-15T13:58:00.000-05:00

Ok, so I've not exactly been the biggest supporter of Atlanta's "only alternative" station, 99X, in the recent past, but I didn't want to see the station totally disappear from the airwaves.

By the end of next week, if I turn to 99.7 on my car radio, I'll get the station formerly known as Q100, and the same crappy playlist.

Now, 99X's playlist of late has been pretty poor, and had been terrible for a while (though I am apparently in the minority at finding Fred Toucher's wannabe Howard Stern shtick tiresome, they did have Butch Walker in for great and hilarious in-studio appearances--particularly the morning Butch cleaned house on Rock-And-Roll Jeopardy--which is far better than much of what they've trotted out lately) but to kick the whole station off the air to compete with the the All T-Pain, All the Time stylings of 95.5 The Beat?

Well, let's break this down, pseudo-Julius Caesar-style: First I will bury 99X--or at least point out the many ways they went wrong--then transition into some things they didn't have control playing a factor. And then grab your hankies because there'll be some nostalgic praise for the "good ol' days."

First, let's go back to that morning show. Now maybe I'm alone in this, but when I turn to an FM station billed as playing music, what I most want to hear is: music. Politics? Well there's WSB and NPR for that. Sports? 680 The Fan and 790 the Zone have that covered. What I don't really give much of a crap about in the morning:
Whether or not Crash Clark contracted any number of sexual diseases from desperate women at American Pie.
Hearing some potentially abused-in-her-childhood wanna-be softcore porn starlet kiss up to Fred Toucher while desperate guys called into a half-ass version of the Dating Game.
Hearing clips and commentary from the crappy shows watched by the guy who sounded like Jimmy but was actually Jenner's wife.
Reading the headlines off TMZ.com and passing them off as "Celebrity Sleaze" in between what this past fall was near constant plugging for the website's pseudo-ET show on Fox.

I remember the original Morning X (the Barnes, Leslie, and Jimmy version) being better, but that could just be because it was years and years ago...and the Big Day Outs then were massively better. When you can see a show with Beck and 311 for under $20, you tend to care less when Barnes spends half an hour talking about his tennis game.

But overall...I'd like to just hear music in the morning. 95.5 does sort of grasp this concept, as the few times I've been bored enough by other stations on the dial they seem to almost always have music on. Downside: they seem to have a 10-songs maximum playlist and since summer at least 30% must have T-Pain involved in some way (it used to be Akon.)

But it's not as simple as "play more music, less talk." The playlist for 99X is probably the largest factor in their demise. It can't look good to either advertisers or listeners with any functioning memory when the promo announces "99X: NEW MUSIC" and then starts playing "Come as you are" (a song now over 15 years old) or something by The Cure (which in some cases would be more than two decades old.)

Trying to have it both ways playlist-wise seems to lead to death for rock stations in Atlanta. How do you play to the nostalgia for the music you started out on, and play new artists or new songs?

The easy answer is to blame Cumulus Media for being to hard-headed, compared to the relative open-mindness of Susquehana (the previous station owners). But the playlist started turning at least semi-sour long before Cumulus came along in 2005-2006. Remember, they were the station that kept playing Kid Rock and Limp Bizkit (and worse, Creed) long after most of the music-listening world realized what massive tools Durst and Scott Stapp were.

(By the way, I'm not doing all of this from memory--much of the info here is coming from the 99X Wikipedia page, which I highly recommend, if only to take a nice guided jog down memory lane.)

Perhaps 99X's problem is merely synecdochic of larger problems--in the major label music industry, and in so-called "modern rock" radio in particular. Overall, the trends in album sales across the board point down. Music execs would be best served to quickly forget those heady days of the late 90s/early 2000s when a #1 release would move enough copies to be certified platinum after one week's time. Now if you can sell 30,000 copies of an artist's new CD in a week: welcome to the Billboard Top 10. Now the potential reasons for this (blame piracy--no blame the recession--no blame the fact that many of the CDs released and hyped just aren't that good) deserve there own post, so I won't get into them further. But people are buying less CDs, and in particular, there haven't been any real new "rock" artists to break through at all in the past few years.

Disagree? Well take a look at the current Modern Rock charts. A good 3/4ths of that list is artists who were around when I was in college (dating myself note: I'm class of 2003--so five years ago) and standbys like the Foo Fighters and the Red Hot Chili Peppers have been around for even longer. The list of "new rock" grows slimmer still when you realize that some of these bands are just leftovers of late-90s acts (Angels and Airwaves and +44 are remnants of Blink 182.) Maybe the likes of Pitchfork's favorites and "blog bands" are too esoteric (or in the case of some blog bands, just plain shitty) to play on the air. But why did Modest Mouse suddenly get radio airplay 4 years ago and I've never heard 99X play The Arcade Fire? What chance does an "alternative" station have when the OC soundtracks were far more eclectic and interesting? And most of these songs can't be dismissed on bad production values or length either. Songs I'd classify as "alternative" that I thing should be on a radio somewhere right now, off the top of my head:
Athlete - "Airport Disco" (Coldplay if they remembered how to occasionally rock out, and were a lot sexier, musically.)
Augie March - "One Crowded Hour" (it was the song of the year for Triple J in Australia and their musical tastes aren't that different from our own.)
Dredg - "Zebraskin"
Devin Townsend Band - "Vampira" (well, really better around halloween).
The Bastard Suns - "My Pint"
Groove Stain - "With You" (gotta give props to some neglected local rock bands...99X should've played more Trances Arc and Second Shift as well.)
Dragonforce - "through fire and flames" (thousands of Guitar Hero 3 fans would like it anway.)
Butch Walker - and song of "The Rise and Fall Of..." off 1969's website, or the demos off his myspace. 99X and The Marvelous 3 used to be like this, and unlike the station, Butch is still kicking it as hard as he ever did.
Pure Reason Revolution - "Nimos and Tambos" killer male-female harmonies

Anything by Ryan Adams or Rilo Kiley (sorry, was cheating a bit and scanning my iTunes list...but the I can't recall either being played on 99X, and for that matter I don't remember hearing Damien Rice since Cumulus bought the station and ended the iPod weekends.)

In short: it looks to me (and the folks at Idolator) that modern rock is dying as it breaks no new artists, ticks off listeners looking for something new by going down the nostalgia road, and generally limiting its potentially vast playlist for the same ready-made mix of Foo Fighters and VH1-Classic approved tracks off Nirvana's Nevermind. Maybe the "internet only" 99x will learn something from this.

(And now I look up and see things are getting a bit unwieldy here, so come back later for the happy and nostalgic part 2.)

Michael Stipe IS Hip-Hop (sort of)

2008-01-09T22:34:00.000-05:00

So, while spending a rather boring Wednesday night pantsless, aching, sore, cursing the writer in Men's Health that taught me how to do dumbbell squats, and watching "Top 100 Songs of the 90s" (which I still feel should be "90 songs of the 90s" but that's just me) something hit me.

What's the REAL connection between the Georgia football team, and a 17-year-old line-dancing rapper? Soulja Boy didn't start the dance. Nope. He (while being like 5 or so, according to the math I just did in my noggin) was just copying Michael Stipe, who as you can see in the video, was "crankin' dat" over a DECADE before Mr. Collipark's latest protege.

And if I have a few more beers to go with my muscle relaxer, I think I can find the Macarena in here too.

A Different Kind of Start To the Year

2008-01-03T20:38:00.000-05:00

It struck me sometime after the team that couldn't beat App State made Tebow cry (shirt not likely appearing on EDSBS: Tim Tebow: Cryingest Heisman Winner Ever!) just how different my start to 2008 was.

From the end of 2002 to the end of 2006, I was in Athens.
For as long as I can remember New Year's Eve, I was on the east coast (there may have been a visit out of state to the grandparents, but it would have had to have been prior to even preschool days and I don't remember much from ages 0-3.)
During that '02-'06 I was either seeing at least one band where I knew most of the members, was at a party where I knew at least 2/3rds of the attendees or both.

And also during that '02-'06 I was either getting over a breakup and/or crushing rejection from someone I was at least quite smitten with, or attempting to make something happen with someone I was at least quite smitten with.

The end of 2007 was different.

Oh sure, I registered the time zone part right away. And let me tell you as a lifelong east coaster: it's a weird feeling for ABC to cut to the ball dropping in Times Square and a room full of people muster nothing more than "...happy new year...east coast...meh..." or something like that.

I wonder if this throws people used to Central Time for a loop when they've gone east for the holidays too.

But anyway, I figure different is good. Other than briefly cursing being at a party chock-full of couples around 1am EST, it's a nice feeling to start a new year not keeping myself up at not because ______ did/didn't do _______. Not obsessing about plans to win someone over/win someone back frees up more mental energy to do things like:
A. Admit I was wrong about Willie Martinez. He's turned into a badass DC, and it actually didn't even take the brilliant gameplan vs. Hawai'i for me to realize this. When Pet Rhino fled in the dead of night to Fayetteville, thus freeing up the Falcons' staff and making Brian VanGorder available for any school to hire, at no point did "we should hire him back" cross my mind. He was great when he was here, particularly making halftime adjustments, but since the UT game no offense was a threat to us. And David Cutcliffe and Erik Ainge aren't setting foot in Sanford Stadium next year.
B. Enjoy New Orleans. I was last there in 1994, and while I'm sure there were bars that would serve an 8th grader, my appreciation for the place has gone up now that I have fully experienced The French Quarter.
C. Wish Atlanta had New Orleans liquor laws. I got into to town on a Sunday night. We went to the grocery store (which had displays for Jack Daniels and Crown Royal--which you could buy along with Combos and frozen gumbo) and bought beer around 9pm. Later we went to the quarter. It was packed. When we finally, drunkenly boarded the limo and the place seemed to be slowing down...it was 6am.
Now sure, going out til 6am on a work night wouldn't be something on the agenda a lot for me here...but there are far too many Monday holidays (MLK and President's day to name two) and it'd be nice to actually go out and do something other than visit a sports bar or the movie theater the last night of a three-day holiday weekend.

And all told, it's a nice nearly clean slate start. A job I don't hate, and no romantic entanglements (but living in a city that isn't predominately full of 18-22 year-olds. Ok, so that's not totally a plus. And neither are the Auburn, Florida, UT, et al alums. But there's over 4 million people here, and a better music scene--at least for the past couple of years--so I figure my dating odds are better. I suppose in a pinch I could go ahead and include Athens too...but my commute takes the joy out of driving and 70+ miles each way is a long way. I'm not going to say "no way" but I'd rather make a road trip with someone. It's ok, you can go "aww" for the last line.)

Happy New Year

Some Bests From 2007 - The Boob Tube/Chattering Cyclops Awards

2007-12-27T15:11:00.000-05:00

Yep, the Lists they are coming early this year. No New Year's in Athens for me (for the first time 2002-2003) and no New Year's in the state of GA for the first time--I think ever--for me.

Best New Show of 2007:
Pushing Daises. Probably the only thing on TV that can be described as "dark whimsy," this hourlong dramedy is probably the closest thing to an English-langueage Jenuet-Caro (the folks behind Amelie) TV series we'll ever get. The easy contrast to make is the emotional resonance the show gets from a simple hand-holding vs. any number of largely emotional rolls-in-the-hay on any number of other shows. But that's a contrast that erroneously puts the show in Seventh Heaven territory simply because no one gets laid on the show (well, yet...and excluding dream sequences.) After all, the show's about a man who can bring the dead back to life, but if he touches them again--*poof*--back to dead they go, permanently. And the love of his life just happens to be one of those "not dead" folks Ned can never touch.
But cool visuals and the Zooey Deschanel-like hotness of Anna Friel aside, what really won me over was the writing and dialogue. It reminds me of old Bogart movies, where the witticisms were actually witty, and coming at you faster than Gilmore Girls on yayo. Sort of. Here are a few choice quotes, compiled from Television Without Pity:

Ned: Do you know you have a "tell" when you lie?
Olive: Do I?
Ned: You answer questions with questions.
Olive: Maybe I know I have a tell and I know you know I have a tell and maybe I'm doing it now to confuse you because you don't know what tell I'm telling.
Ned: But why would you go through the trouble of answering questions with questions and pretending to lie if you really don't know where she is?
Olive: Can you tell me?

Ned: No! You let your anger win and you engage the crazy person and you're no different than they are. People say, "Hey, look at those two crazy people, fighting. I will not engage.
Emerson: Yeah, but if you don't engage, pretty soon people will start saying, "Hey, look at that crazy person eatin' that guy just sitting there doing nothing.

Olive: Yesterday, a farrier named Lucas Shoemaker was found dead. Trampled.
Emerson: Why should I care about a dude that sells fur coats?
Olive: Not a furrier. Ar.
Emerson: Faaaarier?
Olive: FARRIER. It's a blacksmith. Puts shoes on horses?
Emerson: Don't try to act like that's a word everybody knows.

Chuck to Ned: "You love secrets. You wanna marry secrets and have half-human/half-secret babies."

So yes...it's great stuff and I'd say when you can tune in to watch reruns and all...but ABC has decided trotting out horrible crap like Wife Swap (which part of me thinks is a way of not having to pay residuals to writers) is a better move. Worst-case scenario, keep an eye out for the Abridged First Season DVD, or see if you have any luck over at ABC.com (though to keep from screwing the writers who get no money from online rebroadcast, don't buy anything they try and sell you.)

Runner Up
Yep, back when I was complaining about the horribly titled Dirty Sexy Money, and the drek that was Private Practice, I never imagined this season would give me more than one new show to spend an hour of my life watching (and my still unfinished novel hates Josh Schwartz for this). But damnit, Chuck is good tv. Imagine Seth Cohen from the OC semi-grown up and working at branch electronics store...only he has government superspy files implanted into his brain, so some guy from the X-Files and a girl possibly hotter than Mischa Barton hang out with him, foiling various 007-lite plots against California. It's the televisual equivalent of really really good junk food. There's potential though, for the series to take it's reluctant hero motif to semi-Buffyesque territory, only covering post-collegiate life and traumas instead of High School and college.

My Old Favorites List
The shows that aren't new, but that I hate I don't get a full season of (or new seasons at all in some cases):
Entourage
LOST (8 episodes starting at the end of January, originally planned for 16).
Family Guy
The Simpsons (both are good, but have gotten to the point that I don't mind if I miss them.)
House
Californication
30 Rock
Scrubs
Weeds
Flight Of the Conchords

Show I Should Watch Because Numerous People Say It's Great But I Haven't Gotten Around To It Yet
Heroes - Supposedly well-written, well acted, well-shot, hot cast...and it's not like I was watching Monday Night Football all that much. Just haven't gotten around to it. Netflix, here I come in 2008 though.

Show I Think Is Probably Still Good But Quit Watching Because I Was Single And It Brought Up Too Many (Good and Bad) Memories:
Desperate Housewives - (Though from catching the previews of a "tornado"-centric episode, I am nervous. But without someone to watch it with me, it's not on the watch list.)

Reality Shows I Shouldn't Have Enjoyed As Much As I Did:
Brett Michaels - Rock Of Love
America's Most Smartest Model

The Only Things Keeping Me From Not Turning On A TV At All This Spring:
1. The Half-Season of LOST
2. Second Season of Rock of Love
3. March Madness

From the Holidays I Didn't Know Existed Department...

2007-12-21T09:07:00.001-05:00

Happy Global Orgasm Day everybody!

(No, seriously. Global Orgasm Day.)

My first thought was that scene in Amelie where she wonders how many people in Paris are having an orgasm. I'd post that clip, but folks at work probably don't want their boss walking over while that one's going (uh-oh shy Americans, there's naked breasts--female breasts) so here's a clip from around the same part of the flick with some gorgeous cinematography at the end (where she's skipping rocks.)

Changes and Previews

2007-12-18T16:42:00.001-05:00

Don't get too attached to the new layout. Simple is good, but I still want to incorporate some stuff that the blog actually talks about (writing, movies, music, college football, UGA, the Red Sox, et al) into the layout. Call that an early 2008 resolution.

But keep checking back because I'm going to try and get some Best-Of crap out of the way before my twin holiday vacations (for XMas and New Year's).

Best Reads
Best Flicks
Best Shows
Best Tunes
Best Pols
Best Sports Moments

(in the opinion of yrs trly, of course) coming your way...

Debate Talk Time: This Says It Better Than I Would

2007-12-18T13:08:00.001-05:00

(HT: Glenn Greenwald for finding the vid)

So we spent 2007 with a series of "Debates" where I think 2 minutes was the maximum amount of time any candidate could talk on a topic...and we question why the primaries are getting construed as "horse races" in the media?

A Modest (Traffic-Related) Proposal

2007-12-11T14:07:00.000-05:00

It's early December (wait...December? It's 77 outside. But Global Warming is a made-up boogeyman created by pinko commie liberals to destroy business and ~~Iraq~~ Iran is the real threat...yeah, that's the ticket). Ok. Focus.

It's early December in Georgia and our drought hasn't improved. In fact, Lake Lanier's topped the previous low. Now there's rain in the forecast for later this week, so we may see Sonny have another Pray-For-Rain sit-in, but as far as actual solutions (I for one, question why the words "Cloud Seeding" haven't been brought up at all) looks like we're out of luck.

But maybe I'm being too hard on our elected State officials. Maybe just this one time, it's not failure due to poor planning and incompetence, but failure due to lack of money. Well, I've got a solution.

Yep. No I'm not running for office, but my proposal could clean up traffic in and around Atlanta, while also providing funds to massively upgrade our water supply. How? Read on.

For over a decade now I've been jealous of German driving laws. In particular, I love that on the Autobahn, the idea that the left lane is for passing only is strictly enforced. Some guy in a Ferrari passes you on the right--even if you're at 75 mph (it'd be Kph there but I'm not doing a metric conversion)--you get the big ticket, not the Ferrari.

Then this summer, I saw a variation on the law was enacted in Texas. So why not here?

The first version's pretty simple stuff. It will apply only to the main roads: I-75, I-85, the Downtown Connector, I-285, GA 400, I-20, GA-316, and maybe parts of Highways 141, 120, and 78.

If you're on one of those roads, and you're getting passed by someone in any lane to your right, you're liable for a citation and fine. Now, perhaps I'm allowing my occasional road rage to get draconian with the fee schedule, but here's my suggested fines:
1st offense: $250 fine
2nd offense: $500 fine
3rd offense: $1,000 fine, mandatory driver's ed course
4th offense: $2,000 fine, 90-day suspension of license
5th offense: $5,000 fine, 120-suspension of license

And so on (I figure if some dumbass gets to a 10th offense, they shouldn't be allowed on the road. Ever.)

A portion of the fines could go to police departments (thereby paying salaries without resorting to speed trap tactics) and a good 50% could go to building new water reservoirs, piping, and other "let's not run out of water" measures.

Would it bring in money? I hypothetically counted potential first offenders yesterday and on GA 400 between Lenox Mall and I-285 alone the State could have made over $8,000.

And if the water infrastructure is improved and the fines still come pouring in, the money could be directed towards Driver's Ed programs. I had to "pretend parallel park" and drove around an isolated parking lot for my driver's test. And if it was raining they canceled the tests. In no way did any of it prepare me for driving. Maybe, just maybe, that should change.

On Further Review, Maybe No One Wants to Win It All...

2007-12-02T19:24:00.000-05:00

So the BCS bowl announcement should be on FOX soon (it's 7:30 pm EST right now...in the background I have sadly unmuted the annoying smugness that is Joe Buck, hoping that Rex Grossman and/or Eli Manning will hurry up and choke the game away).

Yesterday the #1 and #2 teams lost. UGA was #4.

Odds are, UGA doesn't play for the title.

You know what? I'm actually ok with that.

I said Nebraska didn't belong in 2001, and neither did OU in 2003. Of course both those teams also LOST their last game prior to the bowl, whereas UGA hasn't lost since the first weekend in October, something none of the other contenders for the BCS title can say.

But 11-2 and an SEC title trumps 10-2 and no SEC title in my book. Even though I think LLes Miles is an idiot and horrible public speaker (oh, and the misspelling of his first name is intention, given the number of Ls he gets per year.)

So my take is LSU sort of kind of deserves to be in the game.

Who doesn't? The Buckeyes.

Don't tell that to ESPN, who treated an Ohio State University in the title game as fait accompli from about halftime of the Big 12 title game on.

Of particularly crappy journalistic note was Kirk Herbstreit, who it should be noted played QB for anOSU in the early 90s, suddenly doing an about face from last year's politicking. He had no issue with a Michigan team, that just lost it's last game AND didn't win its conference, playing anOSU team again. But suddenly this year, everything's changed, and LSU's conference title mean's more than UGA's being previously ranked higher in the standings.

I'm not saying Herbie's biased, but it'd be nice if they put "Kirk Herbstreit, ESPN Analyst and former Ohio State QB" whenever he's on tv.

And the inconsistencies in reasoning bugs me.

UGA doesn't play and is penalized for it. AnOSU doesn't play and moves up.

LSU wins a conference title and moves up a lot. OU beats the #1 ranked team--by a large margin--and moves up, but only a little.

The worst possible scenario--a Hawaii-Kansas matchup--won't happen. I think.

But the best--and at this point I think it's an LSU-OU match up--won't either, because too many jacklegs at ESPN think Ohio State is the shit, despite:
1. No wins over a currently ranked team (vs. several other contenders having multiple wins over currently ranked teams.
2. Losing to the best team they played (a 9-3 Illinois team--in the Horsehoe--that was dismantled at a neutral site by Missouri).
3. Playing in the Big 10, which for this year at least, is one hell of a shitty conference if you go by the out-of-conference schedule. Sure, the Pac-10 had teams lose to Notre Dame, but Northwester lost to the only team Notre Dame whipped, Duke.

And worse, those old, tradition-loving Big 10 fans at the Rose Bowl will screw the public and UGA out of a game that could be better than the tile--USC-UGA--by selecting Illinois to keep "Tradition" alive. Leaving UGA playing Hawaii, who is overrated.

Bah.

On second thought, blow it up: Kansas-Hawaii for the title.

I almost feel like I've watched too much college football yesterday anyway (probably because I was semi-bed ridden and feverish all day, and watched the Big 12 title because I felt too sick to go to an OPEN BAR company Christmas party. Yeah, being sick on the weekend sucks.)

Remember What Vince Lombardi Said: "If you lose, you're outta the family"

2007-11-24T01:05:00.000-05:00

Ok, maybe Coach Lombardi didn't say it...maybe it's just something I remember from the Simpsons. But this is the one you DON'T lose guys. Sure, on paper Tech sucks, but ask LSU if say watching a weak UT D shutting down McFadden helped them at all on Friday.

(By the way, does any team want this?)

The Rose-Colored View
What's the best that could happen? Oh I don't know...something like the 2002 game would a great start. The run-stopping, blitz-happy D we've come to expect from Tenuta isn't quite up to their usual levels of craziness this season (the stats are close, but fattened up by feasting on the likes of Duke and Notre Dame's uber-weak offenses.)

As I wisely put it last week, if the Dawgs keep on keeping on with what works (and I put it more eloquently than this last week too--but I was not partly drunk) on offense, no team left on the schedule touches them. If Stafford can connect on say 2 deep passes in the first half, and Knowshon does his thing, both could be resting for the 4th quarter and talking about how they looked like New England out there.

(The last thing a Tech Defender sees before the end...)

Taylor Bennett is proving more and more that he's not the guy that put up big #s in the bowl, but the guy who couldn't beat out Reggie Ball. That's good news for a suddenly superbad UGA D that loves turnovers.

The Cumberland Report
But a loss, of any kind, is not something I want to fathom for this game. Tech's offense has shown signs of less suckitude lately, and a fully healthy Tashard Choice vs. a UGA run D that hasn't really had an elite RB test it...it could be bad.

(But the Dawgs wouldn't let down Sophia, right?)

Oh, and let's hope the refs--particulary the ones from the Auburn game--are not involved in this decision...

(And I'll be screaming at the TV like I was a character from a bad 80s comedy either way...)

The AJC and some other blogs have talked about how Tech will be extra motivated to save Chan's job. Missing in lots of these reports are the myriad quotes of players coming to their coaches defense. I think even Bill Callahan got a few supporters (of course, Callhan seems at least semi-capable of developing a QB...) This could be huge. If some players have already quite on Gailey, a couple early scores should get the NATS tapping out. Then it's on to...hopefully at least one bowl game in a domed stadium. And that's all I'll say to avoid any jinx.

A Dawg's Goal: Keep Doing What Works

2007-11-16T15:13:00.000-05:00

It's that time again: the column that forgot to take its Olanzapine and Quetiapine bringing you some bi-polar football prognostication.

(And if you're afraid, sort of like me, that the early kick-off results in sunrise tailgating, skip ahead to the footnote at column's end for some tailgating tips.)

The Rose-Colored View

The Dawgs' offense is on a roll, and there's nothing in the statistical evidence that says UK is capable of stopping said roll. Kentucky comes into Athens 11th in the SEC in scoring D, a mere 0.3 better than last place Ole Miss (whom the Dawgs, even prior to discovering just what a total badass Moreno is and consistently blocking and catching, blew up for 40-plus points.)

While their pass D won't get confused with Florida's secondary (i.e. more willing to let you score than a drunk college freshmen finally out from under her fundamentalist parents' roof for the first time), Stafford should still be able to make more passes than those formerly hapless losers on The Pick-Up Artist (what can I say, in preparation for my favorite shows not having new episodes due to the WGA strike, I've been watching entirely too much Celebreality on VH1.)

+

=

(I'm convinced that they created Mystery by cloning a combination of Tommy Lee and Butch Walker, and then giving the resultant homunculus a Canadian accent.)

But the truly beautiful stat going into tomorrow's asscrack of dawn kickoff is this: Kentucky is giving up nearly 200 yards per game on the ground. Brown and Moreno going for 300+ rush yards again? Oh it could happen.

And let's not forget the motivation of paying back the team that tried to knock out a helmetless Matt Stafford and tore the goalposts down last year. Unlike, say South Carolina this season, the 'Cats actually did take some motivation from last year's upset. But it's time to put 'em back in their place.

A lot of ink has been spilled on a lot of dead trees regard Coach Mark Richt's motivational tactics and how they've "keyed the Bulldogs' turnaround". This Saturday's game there's call for a Red-Out in the stands.

(If you think I can't make an alcohol-related joke, you're wrong, as hangovers from drinking too much of the cheaper Johnny Walker results in red eyes.)

But it really boils down to the players having more fun, and then making more plays, then having more fun, and it steamrolls from there. But. If we were to take the fun and put it on some sort of pie chart (I know: not fun) the offense seems to be getting more fun than the D. Kentucky has a great offense, and Woodson is a badass QB, a first-round pick. But if Mississippi State held them to 14, could a seriously pumped up, fun-loving-but-also-hey-media-types-don't-forget-about-us Georgia D shut them out? Well, this is the best-case scenario right?

The Cumberland Report

The absolute worst-case scenario happened to another team just last night. Oregon gained 200+ yds in the first quarter and then bupkis for the remaining three after star QB Dennis Dixon went down and back-up Brady Leaf (yeah, related to the "other" QB named Leaf) tweaked his knee. While an injury to Matt Stafford alone shouldn't bring the offense to a dead stop, injuries could kill this offense. Barring the unfortunate and hopefully unlikely circumstance, the early start won't help.

To your average college student 12:30 on a Saturday is about 3 or 4 hours after you go to bed after a really nice Friday night. And this season the team's had a nasty history of playing flat at home in these early kickoff games (see Ole Miss, see also Western Carolina, see also Troy). The "revenge factor" has been little to no help at all (little help vs. Vandy, no help vs. UT) and of those three teams, UK is demonstrably better than last year's iteration while it could be argued that this year's Vols and 'Dores were worse and at least no better than their prior season incarnations.

And just maybe the real reason the offense gets a lot of love is that the D really isn't that good. Troy and Florida combined for 64 points against the UGA D. If there are no turnovers, UK tops 30 easily. They have more balance on offense than either Troy or Florida if Little is healthy, and probably smart enough to run right at us on 4th and 1 rather than try rinky-dink piddling fancy crap like Urban Meyer and company. Can we keep up if the 'Cats keep scoring and scoring?

(Sophia hopes so.)

The bottom line is this: the Dawgs have gotten back to the top ten by doing certain things--blocking well, being badasses running the ball, and connecting on at least one long ball per game on offense; hitting the QB, sacking the QB and forcing turnovers on D. It started in the second half vs. Vandy and it's worked ever since.

A year ago I was dating a girl even more incredible than UGA winning a national title (your opinion may very, I freely admit bias.) I was open and honest about how I felt and things were great. Then, right around the Kentucky game, I stopped doing all those things that had "worked" for the relationship, and what do you know, things went to crap. I thought that somehow after doing one thing that had worked for a while, I had to change and do something different in order to "not screw up" and screwed up. Don't be like me Dawgs. Keep doing what works.

(Footnote to my somewhat personal inspiring closing paragraph: the first inkling I had that The Girl was something Amazing was an email she sent talking about curing Friday hangovers for early kickoffs with mimosas at Molly O'Shea's. I was smitten then, and there hadn't technically been a first date. So, I highly recommend that tactic to start your tailgating day, or, the favorite of Doug and the G-Day tailgaters: Stella and Krispy Kreme as a bright and early treat.
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Pick a Mascot, Any Mascot, and Whip Its Ass

2007-11-09T14:31:00.000-05:00

No time-traveling characters from contemporary literary fiction for this one, just straight-up bi-polar pontificating. With a side of beer. And a bemused/pensive Sophia Bush.

(If Google led me to an actual ad run by Budwiser in Days of Yore, I can add another to the list of "maybe I was born in the wrong time." Though this is kind of wrong. Give a kid some good beer first, or they'll hate it forever.)

Happy things first:

The Rose-Colored View

History, schmistory. The Dawgs have hiked up a leg and pulled an R. Kelly on history before, they can do it again. Two home wins vs. the War Eagle-Tiger-Plainsmen-Zoophiliac-Trailer Trash-Multiple Choice-We-Choose-All-of-the-Aboves since 1991?

Bosh, flim-shaw.

(Yep, I quote Mr. Burns when talking about the game. It's imperative that we crush Auburn before the start of the Rainy Season...and remember, a shiny new dime, to whoever brings me the head of Col. Montoya.)

The Dawgs hadn't won at Neyland Erector Set Stadium in years before a freshman named David Greene and a Verron Haynes erased that ghost of history.

The 2003 Bulldog team had no trouble at home against the mascotally-challenged.

And this year's team proved the 1990s no longer applies w/r/t Florida and Georgia.

So forget the bad mojo. In the past two years, the Dawgs topped 400 yds of offense and 31 points against equally statistically impressive, Muschamp-coached Auburn Defenses. No one in Red and Black (or some combination thereof) is going to be intimidated by Auburn.

However, Auburn just might panic a bit. Sanford has never been confused with death valley, but with both a black out and a noise out planned, things may be rocking in eardrum-damaging fashion.

(Like Spinal Tap's amps, Sanford needs to go to 11. And how black should the stands be? None more black.)

With Stafford remembering that Leonard Pope is gone and none of his current targets approach 7 feet in height, the WR catching everything near them and Moreno running better than all other UGA freshmen RBs save the man whose number is retired, it's pick your poison for the Auburn D. Meanwhile, Auburn, while talented enough on offense, has no Ronny Daniels or Cadillac Williams. And luckily for the UGA D, Greg Blue won't be stuck playing pass coverage on a 4th down late in the game.

The Cumberland Report

History can be a two-sided bastard. And just as an overwhelming amount of mojo and history was in the Dawgs favor in Jacksonville, a similar quantitiy of bad mojo is staring the Dawgs down Saturday.

Auburn Senior QBs are 10-0 lately (and yes, I think that even includes former UGA back-up, conceited and highly cocky jackass Daniel Cobb--who I can claim is a jackass because I rode the North-South bus with him when I was a freshman. At the time I think he was already 30 and was clearly in Chris Weinke territory with AU.)

The lower-ranked team usually wins, and the away team usually wins. Oh, and Auburn is up there with UGA for best road record in the SEC in the past 5 years.

Tuberville's road strategy of keeping his D off the field plays right into the weakness of the traditional Willie Martinez bend-but-don't-break D strategy. We got some stops when we needed to against Florida, and turnovers and stops early against Troy, but if the team that showed up in Knoxville or the 4th quarter vs. SCar takes the field...it will be bad and heartbreaking.

(Leading to a different kind of blackout.)

And as good as the offense has looked the past two games, don't be surprised to see them hit a wall (aka the Auburn DLine) Saturday. The WE-T-Ps are just a little better than Troy or Florida on D. Couple that with an encore performance from the Bad UGA that showed up in Knoxville and you get the worst-possible-scenario: Auburn-UGA 1999 Part Deux.

Some combination of the above is how this all likely plays out. It'd be nice if UGA breaks 40 points again, but pretty unlikely, just as it'd be nice (and a favor to UGA fans everywhere) if Brandon Cox played against us like he did last year (and did this year against South Florida and MSU).

It's going to be loud, brutal, and probably very entertaining. And the uniforms? Well I'm not going to say they don't matter.

(Sophia is again reticent, but dons black anyway.)

This year's team doesn't have that many intrinsic motivators. Moreno may evoke the odd David Pollack comparison, but he's pretty much it. The motivation and energy needs to be externally motivated for these guys to really get fired up (see the "Greatest Offense ever" comments ticking off the D prior to OSU, and the Celebration vs. Florida.) Without that, they can be flat and unfocused.

So cool-looking black jerseys just might be the trick to get over the home-field disadvantage. Hell, if it takes them wearing pink to get to and win the SEC this year, throw the white jerseys in with the red and let's do it.

Turn your vocal cords to 11 Saturday, and wear none more black. Go Dawgs

Henry DeTamble's Georgia Predictions (Special Time-Traveler Edition)

2007-11-08T14:18:00.000-05:00

Today I temporarily turn blog duties over to a wealthy Chicagoan, as he can actually travel back in time and give a good/bad preview of UGA-Troy. But as he can't exactly control where in time he goes, or so he's claimed, we wound up with a few other musings. Without further adieu, here we go:

(Saturday, November 8, 1980 Henry is 28, Clare is 9)

Henry: Definitely back in the past. That Will guy told me to look for Georgia fans and that there probably wouldn't be many fans of the other team. He also gave me some photos of what the UGA campus and downtown Athens look like.

(Fig 1.)

(Fig 2.)

It was an odd thing to have someone be not only non-plussed about my "condition" but to actually hire me to help his "blog." What an ugly word. Apparently it's some sort of pseudo-journalism. He also claimed to know Clare, the gorgeous, odd girl that already claimed to know me that came in the library the other day. He threw in an extra UGA jersey and told me not to wear it myself, but, "if things worked out" let Clare have it, as he claimed "jerseys look a lot better on women than men." He also told me that it might be good to invest in the Euro, Pound Sterling, and even the Canadian dollar around 2003 or so, which I think is pretty ridiculous. What the hell's a Euro anyway?

But this place is not Athens. Lots of mulleted guys in jean shorts. I score a ticket from some noisy jackass Florida alum named Steve wearing a visor and go into the game. It's not going too well for Georgia at first, but then something amazing happens...I was stunned and after the game talked with this guy named Lewis about it:

"Georgia behind 21-20, ninety-three yards away, time running out.

'We need a miracle!' screamed Dorsey Hill, now fortified with more than collards.

Georgia got its miracle. Buck Belue to Lindsay Scott, for ninety-three yards and the winning touchdown with only seconds remaining. If that wasn’t enough, there was the astounding news from Atlanta. Georgia Tech had tied No.1 Notre Dame. Surely, Georgia will be ranked first in America when the ratings are released.

'A tie was a gift from Heaven,' said Dorsey. “Notre Dame gets knocked out of number one but Tech doesn’t get a win. God is a Bulldog.”

Verily."

Then this Dorsey character came over, drunk in ways I couldn't even fathom, threatening Lewis with retribution for leaving the game early. Then I blacked out. Strike one.

(Saturday, December 7, 2002 Henry is 28, Clare is 31)

Henry: For a second I thought I'd found my way to Chicago again. It was not snowing, but it was plenty cold. I saw some drunk Georgia fans coming out of a parking garage and scored some moderately warm clothes and some very warm Jack and Cokes from them. Turns out I'm in Atlanta, and it's UGA's first-ever trip to the SEC Championship game. I see a guy that looks like a much-younger version of that Will guy walk past with a very attractive redhead, with what looked like freshly straightened hair, spouting some nonsense about "being nervous riding the elevator at The Sundial." It didn't make much sense, but I blamed the Jack.

The fans tried to be a bit nervous about Arkansas alleged "speed", but the only real disappointment came while watching the VT-Miami game. Had Virginia Tech won, UGA would have been in contention for something called the BCS National Title game. Which I guess is like a regular title game, but with more sponsors.

The Dawg fans were confident, the team destroyed Arkansas, and someone told me The Sundial was actually a revolving restaurant/bar some 70 stories up. Then I blacked out. Strike two.

3rd time's the charm right?

(Friday, November 2nd, 2007 Henry is 28, Clare is 35)

Henry: Ok, I think this time I've made it. It's dark, crowded, and there's no ringing bell. There are a lot of people around, so I quickly grab a discarded Halloween costume (at least I think that's what it is, unless somehow Zoot Suits are in fashion again in the future) and duck into the nearest bar for a drink. Some place called Tasty World.

According to the sideboard where the soundman is having a PBR, the band playing is called The Redcoats. The rock pretty hard, but in a kind of retro way. If the Kinks had somehow been punk, and they had a singer that really, really liked Mick Jagger's style, they'd be this band. There are some cute, but kind of young girls milling about, and then I see Will and figure the easiest way to do this is to just ask him his take. He was too busy or lazy or whatever to write in time, but he can still put some thought into it.

"Ok," he said, "here's The Cumberland Take:

"History was in the Dawgs' favor last week, not so much this week. The previous two times when those combinations of factors--The Red Sox winning the World Series--

"Wait, what?"

"Yeah, it happens twice in the early 2000s. Place a bet in 2004 on them coming back from 3-0 in the ALCS against the Yankees if you want to make a ton of money. Myself living in Atlanta and not Athens, plus UGA being undefeated against defending National Title Gator teams...well each time that's happened, the Dawgs lost the next game. It seems like it takes so much out of them to try and get that 800-lb. Gator gorilla off their backs, they don't have much left right after. And in 1997 and 2004 there were no huge celebrations after the first TD.

"Worse, Troy is no cupcake team. The walloped the piss out of Okie St., even more than the Dawgs did, and they did it in OSU's place. If the Dawgs come out flat, it could be UT game bad, except worse, because at least half the stadium will think Troy is a run-of-the-mill, take-the-check-and-get-beat Homecoming team."

"But what's the upside?"

"Well, the Rose-Colored View would be the Dawgs figured this offense thing out late against Vandy.

Moreno is a badass. Give him carries and he'll produce a buck-fifty at least, and that makes the passing game better. The WRs have held onto the ball, and caught it too, while the line has been awesome. If they keep doing that, even if the D struggles a bit, they run away with the game.

Good enough. I'm about to ask for an extra beer on him, when I black out.

(Saturday, November 12, 2005 Henry is 28, Clare is 33)

Henry: I'm back in Athens, but things feel different. I was able to get clothes with no trouble (the bonus of materializing in a closed clothing shop) but maybe I'm not alone here. I saw some other time-traveler, or possibly a very drunk person, run by, then get tackled by cops. The UGA fans were out and about, but very few looked happy. I hope this doesn't foretell bad things to come for Will's team...and then I black out.

The Writer's Strike Is Not To Blame (I)

2007-11-05T22:39:00.000-05:00

Nope, if you want to blame someone for the lack of a pre-game best- worst-case analysis, blame my superstitious side.

You see the past two times Georgia's defeated Florida, they went and lost their next game (at home to Auburn in 1997, on the road to the Opelika Gazatte Title holding 2004 squad.)

So I had to change something up to avoid the hangover game jinx. And it worked. Maybe.

Anyway, there will be more thoughts on the game (call it a belated edition), plus a separate post on the Writer's Guild Strike (I'm not getting paid for this, so don't call me a scab.)

Oh, and I'm attempting the National Novel Writing Month challenge again this year. I figure I've got at least a year's experience trying to do it, plus no very meaningful-with-incredible-potential relationship to inactively passive-aggresively wreck this year in my favor this go around.

Sorry Mr. Adams, it's still a Cocktail Party to the rest of us

2007-10-26T14:52:00.000-05:00

In the interest of getting better mojo flowing the Dawgs' way, I'm flipping the script this week:

The Rose Colored View
If you're a student of history who also has a superstitous bent, this weekend shapes up very well for the Dawgs. Why? Let's go into the past:
1. There's already recent evidence that history can repeat for the Dawgs. Last season the Dawgs lost to Vandy and Kentucky for the first time since 1973. Like in 1973 they finished the year beating Auburn, Tech and a bowl opponent.
2. In 1997 Florida was defending a national title (earned with one loss), and had already lost to LSU, in Baton Rogue at night, earlier in the year. The Dawgs entered coming off a non-impressive year and shellacked the Gators.
3. The Red Sox are in the World Series. The last time this happened was in 2004, coincidentally the last time UGA beat Florida.

Bonus personal history mojo: the two previous times UGA has beaten Florida I was not living in Athens. I was living in Athens from 1998-2003 seasons and moved back for the 2005-2006 seasons. 1997 and 2004 were wins.

(The Dawgs record vs. Florida=significantly better when I'm closer to this location.)

But beyond all that scientifically insignificant stuff, this is also the worst defense Florida's brought to Jacksonville since 2004 as well. And that's been the recent storyline for Florida wins in this series. Florida plays stout D and scores enough to eke out a win, UGA does just not enough on offense. Even last year's horrid D, fresh from barely stopping MSU and embarrassing shows against UT and Vandy, held Florida to 2 TDs (the third was a gift from our offense, which has played far more nervous than the D recently).

If ever there was a situation where Matt Stafford could rise to the occasion and live up to some of the massive hype he's had thrown his way, it's this one. He's got the physical tools, a good number of the WRs have the speed and potential (particularly Sean Bailey and Demiko Goodman), and Florida has the 95th ranked pass defense in the country. Ole Miss put some feat into them and had a career day passing, and that was when Reggie Nelson Jr., aka Major Wright was still suiting up. To date, Stafford still has not a single 300+ yard passing day in a Georgia uniform. It needs to happen Saturday. Because if it does, that means Knowshown gets a chance to ram it down the Gators' throats, just like LSU did. He was key in the Vandy comeback when (which, by the way, doesn't look quite as bad now...betcha Visor boy would love a close win against them) he took over on some late drives. If he can do it again Saturday, there might be just enough keep-away on offense to let a fast and rested UGA D inflict pain and suffering on Cro-magnon QB Tim Tebow.

And since this is positing the best-potential outcomes, since Lady Luck owes us one after Shockley went down a week before facing Meyer's weekest Gator team, it'd be nice if on his first carry, Tebow pulled up gimpy with a terrible hamstring strain and remained out for the rest of the game.

The Cumberland Report
Because the flip side is, while I've joked about losing by 200, if the Dawgs play in JAX like they did in Knoxville, 100 points is possible. Meyer seems to have no qualms at all about pouring it on rival teams (see the UT game in which they scored 59 on a team that beat UGA by 3 TDs and kept Tebow and company in). Sure the karma ought to catch up to him soon, but this could be over with half the first quarter left on the clock if the Dawgs play poorly and UF's D mimics its UT game performance. They shut down Ainge and Co., don't think they can't do that to an offense that struggled putting up points against Vandy.

Plus, unlike last season, there's no potential love of my life (well, I thought at the time) to distract me with her wit and charm. That's not to say a UGA loss would be easier if I had a date or a girlfriend (though for the record, normally girls that care about their teams losses are far more attractive than those that don't, I've pretty much given up on trying to pinpoint any particular thing about The Girl that made her so incredible...I will say that, as an obsessive UGA fan, that Saturday was a great day despite the loss and hope that speaks volumes about her, and then return to your regularly-scheduled hand-wringing.)

(The Girl had also been compared to Sophia Bush, but I attest was more attractive. Sophia's looking skeptical of this, but her skeptical looks have helped mojo-wise before...but I will get annoyed if she starts dating Tony Romo)

My biggest fear? (Besides going out to a halloween party/concert afterwards and seeing either no "Sexy _______" costumes worn or "sexy _______" costumes worn by folks with no business wearing said costumes.) Given their recent history, Willie Martinez's defense vs. the Tebow-lead spread offense is about as big a mismatch as Bill Hicks and LC from the Hills.

(As Hicks had a bit about wishing California fell into the ocean, and Ms. Conrad is from Cali, I figure they're a poor couple. Plus Hicks is, sadly, deceased. And for anyone that's not a zombie, that's an obstacle in dating.)

So to wrap it up, this whole thing reminds me of 2004, sort of. The Dawgs have been beaten by lesser Gator teams a lot lately, and clearly enter this time as the underdogs. Mentally, they've been one mild breeze from going over the edge in these games. Like the 2004 Red Sox against the Yankees, they need one good thing to go their way and they could turn it around. Here's hoping someone pulls a Dave Roberts steal, because if not, this will get uglier than Game 3.

Butch Walker Has a Mustache.

2007-10-19T14:06:00.000-05:00

I would've reviewed the "secret" (quotes used for semi-ironic effect, as anyone friends with Butch on MySpace either got the bulletins announcing the show, or could see it listed on his blog) Butch Walker (performing under the name Bradley Drawn Boy earlier this week. I took some video (of poor quality, what with it being on my phone and all) of the show, and was going to load it all up nice like on YouTube and then link the clips. But my building a new computer weekend stretched out beyond Sunday, and then hit a snag because I managed to purchase the bum processor of the batch. I'm paying an exchange visit to the store today, so hopefully this can get revised before your Sunday hangover dissipates.

I will say this though...Butch had one, and I've seen other folks sporting them...and I don't get the appeal of ironic facial hair. And if it's not ironic...I don't know where to begin. EDSBS said it best:
"If you meet someone with a mustache, they either have an overly active irony gland, or they are a Crimean War veteran."

I Want To See Dead Lawns. Acres and Acres of Dead Lawns

2007-10-18T16:15:00.000-05:00

Why?

Oh no reason in particular...just massive drought, a potentially dry lake, etc.

And honestly, if the highlight of your life is going all Hank Hill on a bunch of grass that would never grow that way naturally, seek help. Just don't go to the golf course, because those need to wither and die too.

Call me selfish, but there's no way in hell I'm going to be single in a large city and not allowed to shower while some old, rich married guy gets to duck out on his wife, kids and possibly mistress to mow his lawn or grab a quick 18 all day at the Country Club.

And ranting aside, the impending transmogrification of Atlanta from home of Southern (and sometimes arrested) hip-hop to the Sahara of the Southeast is coinciding with some other things.

I'm not saying End Times are nigh...but...in addition to the drought:

1. The number one single in the country is a rap song with a line dance. Like the electric slide, but with a drum machine and poorer elocution (seriously, is he saying "watch me row" or "roll"? Given that he doesn't pronounce the "-tch" part of "watch" it's anyone's guess. I think it's "roll" but I bet there are some crew teams that hope I'm wrong.)
2. The Cubs made the playoffs. Let's simply take a moment and breathe easier knowing they're no longer in the playoffs.
3. No team can stay in the Top Five in College Football for more than a few weeks, and usually it's some unranked team beating them.

I'm not saying anything, or drawing any explicit conclusions here, but were I Catholic, I'd consider a long talk in the booth soon, just in case too.

It's All Up/Downhill From Here...

2007-10-12T13:39:00.000-05:00

"Yes, there are two paths you can go by, but in the long run
There's still time to change the road you're on
And it makes me wonder"

-Led Zeppelin

Makes me wonder too. Anyways, here's the reports:

The Cumberland Report
A loss, whether by one point or 200 could qualify here. The last time the Dawgs lost two straight to Lionel Ritchie's old backing band, Tech was still considered a "serious" national power (as in, they seriously thought they were up there with Notre Dame, and the whole country didn't even laugh at them. Now they will offer you everything short of sexual favors to see them play.)

("Hello, is it a good team you're looking for?" No thanks, I'd prefer the old, sucky Vandy.)

Also, in light of Auburn's decision to stop sucking (and they play us beyond tough in Athens every other year anyway) coupled with Troy doing a better job of beating down OSU than we did, and Kentucky's inexplicable, but Andre Woodson-fueled non-suckitude this year, Vandy is the easiest game left on the Dawgs schedule. Lose this one, and we can say "hi" to both being a national punchline, and the first losing season since 1996.

Vandy's posted decent rushing numbers this year (possibly due to the fact that half the opposing teams triple-cover Earl Bennett as he is good and the other Vandy WRs have hands of granite.) The UGA defense has shown an indifference to tackling reminicent of the 1999 team. That makes for a bad combo.

And if the offense shoots itself in the foot again (going for the hat trick with the SoCar and EweT game performances) it could be a long day in the music city. Or night even.

The Rose-Colored View
Someone on the team has to get pissed off. Losing to Vandy for the second year in a row needs to be as unfathomable as losing to Georgia Tech, or Matt Stafford not being able to lift an empty beer keg, or Phil Lesh's set at the Echo project having no hippies or pseudo-hippies in the crowd. It just shouldn't happen. It's unnatural. Like UGA girls dating Tech guys. Or sober Irish rockstars.
We're UGA. They're Vandy. And we're pissed (or should be). And the score should reflect that.

(The Dawgs should do this on Saturday night. I hear Nashville hates Hip-Hop too.)

The Daily Show should hire me...

2007-10-09T15:39:00.000-05:00

(Or maybe Weekend Update, or Conan, or Dave...)

Comic Improvs making fun of both the Yankees postseason impotence and Dubya's Iraq War impotence.

1st Variation:
The New York Yankees fell to the Cleveland Indians last night; exiting in the first round for the third year in a row. Worse, the Yankees haven't won a World Series title since 2000, and owner George Steinbrenner has spent $1.6 billion in payroll during that span.

Reached for comment, President Bush remarked "$1.6 billion with nothing to show for it? That's nothing! Have you seen this new Iraq War Spending Bill? Now watch this drive."

2nd Variation:
The New York Yankees fell to the Cleveland Indians last night; exiting in the first round for the third year in a row. Worse, the Yankees haven't won a World Series title since 2000, and owner George Steinbrenner has spent $1.6 billion in payroll during that span.

Reached for comment, President Bush remarked, "It took them six years to waste $1.6 billion? We'd spent that much yesterday in no-bid contracts."

3rd Variation:
In a surprise move, Yankees Owner George Steinbrenner announced he would retire...to take a position with the Bush Administration. The President declined to comment, but White House Press Secretary Dana Perino issued a statement:
"We just feel Mr. Steinbrenner is a perfect fit for this administration: he's loathed by millions, makes completely irrational decisions on the spur of the moment, regardless of the facts; and he has no qualms about spending billions with no tangible results. He might even make a great president one day."
Reached for comment, Rudy Guiliani said, "9/11, 9/11, global war on terror, 9/11," before taking a planned phone call from his mistress...er, wife.

"Are you going to do anything? Or just stand there and bleed?"

2007-10-08T08:17:00.001-05:00

A reenactment of Saturday's game, with Billy Bob Thornton playing the role of Coach Willie Martinez, and Kurt Russell playing Coach David Cutcliffe (never mind that the younger, chubbier version of Billy Bob is closer to Coach Cut's body type):

For most of the game, Georgia decided that, yes, they were going to just stand there and bleed.
Luckily for me, Peachtree TV (the network formerly known as channel 17/local TBS) was showing Tombstone Saturday afternoon.

After the blocked punt, I watched the rest of the movie, flipping over to either the NCState/FSU game on ABC or the Cubs game on the other TBS.

I can't remember a time where I completely threw the towel in on the Dogs. I kept getting disgusted and leaving the room during the Sugar Bowl vs. WVU, but I kept coming back. I sat through the Auburn beatdown til the bitter end in 2004. I did get turn off the TV against LSU in the 2003 SEC title game, but not prior to halftime.

So what's left is that this game was as bad or worse than the 1999 Auburn game. To me, they're similar: a not-really-that-good team shuts the Dawgs down on both sides of the ball, and a new DC is needed.

Willie Martinez managed to stay the sword of Damocles last season with a strong Defensive performance against Florida, and shutting down Auburn and Tech, as well as some adjustments against VT. But in retrospect that was fancy window dressing on a terrible season defensively. Brandon Cox was injured, Auburn couldn't move the ball through the air at all, yet still topped 140 rushing yards on the Dawgs' D. Tech is Tech. Any UGA D coordinator should look good vs. Reggie "Game" Ball. And VT had Sean Glennon, so good Frank Beamer benched him in favor of a freshman this year.

And the real reason I turned the TV off so early? Because it looked like Coach Martinez and co. made no adjustments and learned nothing from their second-half torching at EweTee's hands last year. Florida has a young, inexperienced defense as well this season, yet somehow managed to hold the Vols to 13 points. Even Arkansas St. and Southern Miss made Arian Foster look like what he really is: a very average at best runningback.

When you play a defensive scheme more passive than Pamela Hoffman-Jeep (today's obscure reference to Infinite Jest brought to you by The Howling Fantods!) bad things happen. And yes, it is scheme and coaching. You can't tell me Tech has had more talent that Georgia on Defense for the past 3 years, yet Tenuta's boys can get a stop. When, in a meaningful game not against Reggie Ball, has the Georgia D under Martinez gotten a big stop?

The offense shouldn't get a total pass here (how many of Georgia's early possessions were: run first down, run 2nd down, oh, it's 3rd-and-8 we have to pass?) But given their performance so far, with the added handicap of three freshmen OL, it's easier to excuse nearly three quarters of poor play when the offense has really only looked poor one other time (and that was to a, sadly top ten, SoCar team) whereas the D has had this inability to get key stops through several games.

Ideally, the Dawgs do what they did the last time they lost to an above-average at best UT team and the Red Sox were in the ALCS (that was 2004 for those keeping score) and win their remaining games. But Willie Martinez should seek other gainful employment, and John Eason should join him. Beating three ranked teams to end '06 was nice, but when the problems that lead to us losing to Vandy and Kentucky last year are back, something must be done. Let's hope Coach Richt isn't so nice he won't let go a DC in over his head and a WR coach who's time has long passed.

Kill Phil Parts 1 & 2

2007-10-05T12:02:00.000-05:00

Transcript of the trailer for Quentin Tarantino's new film Kill Phil:

DISPLAY CARD: October, 2006

EXT. Sanford Stadium, 2nd Half.
THERE'S CARNAGE ALL AROUND, AND WHAT WAS TO BE THE HAPPIEST DAY FOR THE DOGS HAS TURNED INTO A BLOODLETTING

ERIK AINGE
I know you think I'm a bastard, but trust me, this is me at my most beautiful.

*SHOT FIRED*

*FADE TO BLACK*

DISPLAY CARD: REUSE THAT KLINGON PROVERB ONE THAT WORKED SO WELL LAST TIME
2007
EXT. NEYLAND STADIUM. HALFTIME
FULMER
You didn't think it would be easy did you?
MARK RICHT
You know...for a second there...I actually did.

COMING THIS OCTOBER

And now, this week's edition:

The CUMBERLAND REPORT
This is a pretty easy worst-case scenario to envision at this point. It would be a repeat of last year's game, only the Dawgs would blow an even larger first half lead, and the Vols would score even more points. Think getting a full 4 TD lead or more, then losing by 7 TDs or something.

Erik Ainge has been the Anti-Clausen for the Vols. He was nothing special in 2004, but he didn't screw up either. SoCar's already proven that if you add that to either a D disrupting Georgia's offense enough, or if the Dawgs forget and take their stone hand gloves with them to Knoxville, well that can get you a win.

(Sadly Ainge does not come from Emu stock.)

Last year's incarnation of That Guy Who's Related To That Guy From The Celtics destroyed Georgia's D with the precision and gusto of John Madden attacking a Turducken following a hungerstrike. He was aided by a Georgia offense that apparently decided that for the second half, the football was hot potato.

(My memory of last year's UT game from about the 2nd half on.)

Turnovers, drops, and Erik Ainge doing what he's done all season could easily lead to a game where I turn away from the TV in disgust (or to vomit) early in the 3rd quarter or sooner. I can look at the stats that have UT dead last in scoring...but John Chavis has never fielded a completely inept, Cool Breeze/UGA 1999-level-sucky D. Ever. Even in the Vols 5-6 season they could stop folks. And just maybe Cal and Florida are a wee bit better on offense than the Dawgs.

Not to mention, word out of the AD office in Knoxville is "No coach's job hinges on this game," which is the AD speak equivalent to when the girl you're dating says "we need to talk," (particularly when not prefaced by your name or some cute little endearment like "baby.") The threat of getting fired just may work as motivation.

("And then your one goal is just to not get fired...")

The Rose-Colored Glasses View

But maybe, just maybe, since the Vols do return a tiny # of starters on D, and they haven't had the same starting 11 all year, and since even Arkansas State had a RB top the century mark against them (after a looooong stretch in which no RB did), there just might be some validity in their Defensive stats, despite the relatively tiny sample size.

UGA's O vs. UT's D is a Strength vs. Weakness matchup, as are UGA's return teams vs. UT's kick coverage.

In addition to turnovers creating short fields for Ainge nearly all second-half long, UT also had three great WRs, and UGA had slow LBers. Those WRs have graduated and moved on to the NFL, and UGA has a much faster front 7, particularly with Washington seeing less time.

UT's players have also not responded well to adversity in previous seasons in which things turned south. In a way this could be a reverse of the 2005 season, in which the D began to resent the hapless O. Ainge and Coker and co. could come to hate a sieve-like D for not holding a lead (though it should provide an excellent chance at stat-padding.)

(Keri Russel is cautiously optimistic about the Dawgs' chances Saturday.)

The speedy D should do just enough to slow down Ainge and the passing game while mostly keeping the Vols from the hideous checkerboard end zone. Brown and Moreno should once again make the play-action game a major threat, and if Sean Bailey, Mikey Henderson, or Demiko Goodman start catching some deep passes, it could be a great day for the Dawgs.

What I Do Watch, and Some Reasons Why

2007-10-04T15:13:00.000-05:00

Ok, after complaining about ABC, I think it's time to offer the flip-side, just so I don't feel too curmudgeonish.

Non-Sports Shows I Watch:

(Currently Showing New Episodes, or Will Soon *Fingers Crossed*)

House
Hugh Laurie may have perfected the likable misanthrope with his portrayal here. Jennifer Morrison (and now Olivia Wilde) provide lab-coated eye candy, and the whole thing is a modern-day, medical riff on Sherlock Holmes (no, seriously. Wilson is Watson, and for those of you who only know about Holmes from cartoons, he was a fan of drugs in Doyle's novels, much like House is a fan of other drugs on the series. And they have the same apartment #.)

30 Rock
Funniest. Show. Currently. On. TV. There. Summed it up in five words. Here's a clip.

Scrubs
The last season should start up again at some point, if NBC.com is to be believed. Last season hit a bit of snag with the mysteriously disappearing pregnant girlfriend and the whole Pvt. Dancer plot, but rebounded to its old levels of greatness towards the end. The big question to me going into the final season is just what they plan on doing w/r/t J.D. and Elliot. They may compare them to Ross and Rachel, but that soulmate vibe has not been there. Whither J.D.'s love life? Maybe, just maybe, Dr. Dorian will come to terms with being single (because honestly, when you've bedded Heather Graham, Mandy Moore, Tera Reid prior to Taradise and the bad plastic surgery, Amy Smart, and Elizabeth Banks, among others, the self-pity can come across kinda petulant.)

(Dr. Reid=Yowza. Or however she'd say in German.)

South Park
Best satire on TV still, and Cartmen getting Tourette's was a great season premiere. Cartoon Wars was a brilliant way to tackle both the Family Guy comparisons and the Dutch Cartoon issue.

The Simpsons
It's been around almost as long as college freshmen (note: wow I'm old) but it still has it's moments. Hopefully the entire season won't focus on unlikely events like private jets and opera-singing Homer though.

Family Guy
The manatees do good work, especially when parodying Star Wars.

Desperate Housewives (sometimes)
It is pretty much a Couples Show (n. a show watched primarily by single women or boyfriends sucked into the show because their girlfriend or someone they dated decided it would be good to watch together) but a damn well-written one. And while in real-life she probably only comes up to Tony Parker's shin, Eva Longoria is not too hard on the eyes.

(In Reruns But Worth A Gander)

Flight Of The Conchords
Go ahead, find me a better show about a struggling New Zealand folk/comedy-rock act. That can do a spot-on impersonation of David Bowie.

Entourage
Vincent Chase's boys are living pretty much every male fantasy. It's funny, well-acted, well-written, and merely watching 4 episodes in a row has nursed me back to health before.

Rescue Me
Now that The Sopranos has stopped believing, someone please get Dennis Leary an Emmy...

But sports has been dominating my TV lately.

See for example, this week's lineup:

Monday: Pats-Bengals game on ESPN
Tuesday: House
Wednesday: Red Sox-Angels; South Park (plus bits of Real World: Sydney. I'm amazed they let the bearded southern guy on the show...his accent is near-Boomhouer bad, but he makes sane, intelligent points. I didn't think they allowed that on MTV.)
Thursday: 30 Rock, SoCar-Kentucky
Friday: Red Sox-Angels
Saturday: Mucho college Football

So here's a fun homework assignment: take the above shows, and craft the perfect TV show for me.

You Must Listen (Music For Grey Fall Days & More)

2007-10-04T09:21:00.000-05:00

The first part of this post had been gestating for about a month. I'd planned to post it a few Fridays back, and include with it a review of the Augie March show at the Variety Playhouse.

I figured that as very, very few people had heard of the band, I could wait until the day of the show to see them. Sadly, it turned out that I was the one person in the Atlanta area who had never heard of Andrew Bird (the headlining act) and the show had sold out days prior. Turns out Mr. Bird is pretty talented in his own right (especially at whistling) but he's not the subject today.

Augie March (in addition to being the title character of arguably Saul Bellow's most famous work) is a band out of Australia that if you cornered me and said "we shall, by force, require you to explain this band to us, compellingly, in under ten words" I would say: "Australia's version of the Drive-By Truckers."

I say this not only because both bands do an excellent job of blending country and "old time" rock n' roll elements to fuzzily distorted alternative rock stylings--which they do--but because Augie March frontman/guitarist/lyricist Glenn Richards writes the best songs this side of Patterson Hood. And unlike press-proclaimed "Great" singer-songwriters that write great lyrics but don't really have that much singing talent and are compositionally lax at best (I'm looking at you Bright Eyes) Richards falls in that rare category of "singer-songwriter" who writes great music and amazing lyrics (other than Hood and DBT, I think Sufjan Stevens is the only person pulling this off at the moment.)

Scope some examples from their single, "One Crowded Hour":
"Well put me in a cage full of lions, I'll learn to speak lion,
In fact I know the language well, I picked it up while I was versing myself in the languages they speak in hell,
That night that silence gave birth to a baby, but they took it away to
her silent dismay and they raised it to be a lady...

Now she can't keep her mouth shut...

And for one crowded hour you were the only one in the room,
I played a few songs for those bumps in the night, in fact I played this very tune,
But you said 'What is this six stringed instrument but an
adolescent loom?'
And one crowded hour would lead to my wreck and ruin."

Now normally, rhyme-y stuff like this can be awful, but it never veers into that territory of say Creed or something where you can guess the next word, and I love the intellectual bravado displayed in "learn to speak lion." Now, layer the whole thing with music that can somehow be both sad and melancholy, and triumphant in a way that evokes a good Irish drinking song, and you get the whole thing:

(Ok, the video isn't mind-blowing. But it's the easiest way to give you a chance to hear this tune without sending more traffic to MySpace and their unreliable music player.)

Moving onward and upward from the Antipodean rock of Augie March to European prog, we get to Mew, a band that probably gets confused with MUSE as they are both rock bands with prog elements in their sound, and if you're drunk or naturally mush-mouthed they sound similar name-wise. Mew's lead singer has one of those clear, high tenor voices made for singing epic stuff, but the rest of the band throws in excellent harmonies. They are often lumped in as part of the NeoProg movement/genre which seems to be (this is my take) rock bands, sometimes indie rock bands, that enjoy prog, but also really like Post-rock, as instrumental parts of their longer compositions are far more likely to sound like Godspeed You! Black Emperor or Explosions In the Sky than the chock-full-of-solos sound of say Dream Theater. Here's The Zookeeper's Boy:

Their lead singer also bears a striking resemblance to Gael Garcia Bernal who starred in Y Tu Mama Tambien and Science of Sleep. Or it's because one of those movies came on a few days before I first saw this video. You decide.

And to complete this morning's hat trick, I give you the band I am currently more or less obsessing with: some blokes out of Manchester, UK called Oceansize. I'm not sure if the name is a result of them being huge Jane's Addiction fans (a la Godsmack and Alice In Chains) but the case could partly be made. The prog+post rock stew I mentioned earlier is an even stronger blend with these guys, and rather than ramble on (it's late and this will be posted early) I give you two vids with music: the first is off their first LP and is called "One Day All This Could Be Yours," (go ahead and make Radiohead comparisons too, if you want) and the other is the first single off their not-yet-released-in-the-states LP Frames, titled "Unfamiliar."

Note: "One Day..." is a lot lower in volume than "Unfamiliar" GUARD YOUR EARS! with Gormans.

And, to freak you out:

Hey ABC, Hire Me To Be Your Programming Director

2007-10-03T13:39:00.000-05:00

I swear, ABC's taken a page out of the Simpsons Spin-Off Showcase.

I imagine the Fall Lineup planning went something like this:

"Ok, so we have a few hits: Grey's Anatomy, Desperate Housewives, um...and that show with Ally McBeal and Sally Field."

"Don't forget Extreme Makeover: Home Edition."

"How can I? Ty calls me up and says the same thing every fifteen minutes."

"We really should switch him to decaf or something."

"Hide his hair gel."

"Oh no, can't do that--enough folks get him and Ryan Seacrest confused as is."

"Anyway: focus people. That's at best three nights of TV, and we can't run Dancing With the Stars four nights a week. After all, we're not FOX, and it ain't American Idol."

*Hearty, somewhat forced laughter all around*

"Hey I know, let's do a Grey's spin-off!"

"Brilliant."

"Who do we spin-off? We can't give Dr. Burke a show..."

"Nope, but he is gone."

"Wouldn't make much sense to spin off Meredith, what with the show name and all..."

"How about the Chief retires and we get to follow him to the golf club?"

"Nah, that show Big Shots already pretty much has the 'rich-guys-who-whine-even-though-they-never-have-to-worry-about-money-or-go-more-than-a week-without-getting-laid' demo sewed up."

"Oh, I got it: Addison. Think about it, she's likable, but a part of the audience still hates her because she was married to McDreamy, so she's going to continue to be seen as Meredith's rival..."

"Even though some of us think Meredith is a whiny bitch who shouldn't deserve a so-called 'perfect man' like Dr. Sheppard..."

*Therein followed a lengthy and discursive argument excised from this transcript for either the purpose of bringing up in a separate post, or your humble author's half-assed attempt to avoid censure at the hands of the untold women who really identify with the character of Meredith Grey for some reason or another*

"Ok, that's settled, let us never speak of it again. As I was saying, she's also not really involved with anyone on the show right now..."

"Oh, and we could have a 'preview' spin off, like when Married With Children tried to do that show with Matt LeBlanc and Nicole Eggart..."

"..."

"..."

"..."

"It was terrible, but I had a crush..."

"..."

"..."

"..."

"It was a good concept though...it flopped, so they didn't spend money on the series."

"Oh, now I get you."

"So we send Addison off somewhere, maybe meet some old colleagues somewhere..."

"Los Angeles."

"Yeah. Pay back the OC for making fun of us."

"Like LA, and if the ratings are decent we have a show."

"What kind of show?"

"Well...like Grey's...but with different doctors. And maybe a talking elevator and quirky Ally
McBeal stuff."

"That's one down."

"Those GEICO cavemen ads are funny, why not a show about them?"

And you can see where we go from there.

The end result:
1. Shitty sitcom based off an insurance commercial (and not even GEICO's best ad: that would be the "Tiny House" spot, though I admit a partial bias because I found the brunette quite striking, with amazing gams. That's right, Family Guy's not the only folks to break out old-timey slag for a joke.)

2. A shitty sitcom from a funny guy (Kids In The Hall's Bruce McCullough) about folks carpooling to a boring job. A tip: commutes are boring at best; adding in boring jobs equals a boring sitcom.

3. Two shows about rich assholes (Dirty, Sexy Money--which is in the lead for "worst show title of the year"--and Big Shots). Personally, I don't want to watch reprehensible people who never have to worry about paying for stuff. But The Simple Life was a hit, so there you go.

4. The odd absence of October Road, which they sure trumpeted as a hit (I don't know if the actual ratings back this up or not--while I have many, many issues with the show, it was shot in Atlanta, and if it stays in production, that would give me a chance to go drinkin' with Donna from That 70s Show.)

5. The aforementioned "hit" shows.

All in all, I'd say it was a large swing and a miss on their part (not that, outside of Desperate Housewives I watch anything ABC shows at this point anyway. Sure I was one of maybe 5 people that watched What About Brian, but the show had at least 15 episodes worth of good plot points it could've milked.)

And again, of all the ads on TV (or even of all the popular ads) why make a sitcom out of the GEICO cavemen?

The following is my list of ads that should be shows:
1. The Miller Lite Catfight Girls.

2. Victoria's Secret (pick an ad, any ad. Even though technically CBS has already done this one.)

3. The AFLAC Duck. Gilbert Gottfried needs work. Plus, it could be a near Road-Runner type thing, with that depressed-looking guy that seemed to be the only one noticing the duck for the first 5 ads or so trying to track him down.

4. The Cialis smiling guy. Ok, this is actually a horrible ad, but I think it'd be funny to see them try and go 21 minutes only impling that the guy's got a raging boner, but not mentioning it, or the word "penis" or even coming euphemistically close to mentioning it.

5. Let whomever does Bud Light's ads have 30 minutes of a variety show. It couldn't be worse than MadTV. I'm assuming. Is MadTV even on the air still?

I blame my most recent birthday. I'm a year older, and I'm apparently becoming that curmudgeonly guy that hates TV...

I Need Words Stronger Than Hate

2007-10-02T13:56:00.000-05:00

Let's talk a bit, you and I, about hate.

It's a fun word to toss around in College Football, because, even if you include Red Sox-Yankees, or Broncos-Raiders, or I dunno, some big hockey rivalry I couldn't care less about (partially because it seems the NHL season lasts from September-til-late-July/early August and I wish sports I actually liked had 11 month+ seasons, as opposed to the four months+change for college football or the more-or-less seven MLB offers if your team makes the postseason. Well, actually baseball season's about the right length.) Around here when we say "hate" we mean it.

For example, I am a Georgia fan.

I hate Florida.

I hate the fact that the vast majority of their fan base has a collective memory shorter than a GOP staffer (well, that might be a bit harsh: Florida fans don't believe football existed prior to 1990, whilst most diehard GOPites reflect so fondly on the Reagan 80s I'm sure their memories look Photoshopped.)

I hate Urban Meyer's smug+smarmy personality, and the fact that his take on player discipline is so lax that when Bobby Bowden gets on the Internets and the eBays to read about it, even he's shocked.

I hate Tim Tebow; for having such a ridiculous last name (yeah, yeah, I know I'm in kind of a glass house position on that); for seemingly epitomizing the streotypical dumb jock in that he "just wants to win" and "doesn't shy away from contact" (while no mention is made of time in the film room--I'm convinced Tebow's about as literate at actually reading a defense as Quincy Carter was, a memory that makes me hate him more.)

Plus he looks like Rex Grossman, whom I also hate (not so much for shredding the UGA D in 2001--that was to be expected, and shredding our pass D alone doesn't inspire hate, as I bear no ill will towards Jerad Lorenzen--but for dinking and dunking us--with help from an offense rendered timid after Shockley's pick 6--out of the 2002 National Championship hunt.

I hate South Carolina for looking average at best since they beat us, and for bringing up a litany of "how did we lose to these douchebuckets again?" almost every time I seen them play.
I also hate them for hiring increasingly reprehensible and annoying coaches, first Holtz, then SOS himself, and also for not raising a big enough stink about Holtz getting them on probation that ESPN would've said "maybe we shouldn't hire this guy..."

I hate Tech for their general collegiate outlook (Viz., that whole "you didn't graduate, you got out" mentality. Of course I've never understood picking a major based solely on potential earnings, regardless of whether you like what you'll be doing. And I also think that if it's that miserable, maybe, just maybe, you're not quite as smart as you thought you were.)

But atop the "hate list", the Great Ziggurat Of Hate (construction on hold thanks to a tanking dollar in such shoddy shape the Canadian dollar is almost its equal) is the team the Dawgs pay a visit to this Saturday afternoon.

If I had to trace this to its roots, I'd only be going back nine years (confession: I'm relatively new to obsessing over sports and fandom. Prior to 1997 I was the guy who would watch big games on tv, such as the 93 FSU-Notre Dame game, and the occasional bowl game, but that's it. At best I was a slightly above lukewarm Braves fan, and my die-hard love of the Hawks ended when 'Nique and Spud Webb were gone.)

This was going to be the year the UT win streak ended (something current students and recent grads may not remember, but UT won more games in succession vs. UGA than any team: even surpassing Goff+Donnan's run of futility against Spurrier.) The Dawgs had knocked of a highly ranked (at the time--it turned out 1998 was also the year LSU fans started coming around to the idea that DiNardo was a lousy coach) LSU team the week before. Tennessee had already lost Peyton Manning to the NFL, and the running back who'd destroyed the Dawgs in Knoxville the previous season, Jamal Lewis, injured his knee against Auburn and would not play in Athens. Tee Martin's play at QB early in the season was about as stellar as UGA's 2006 passing game in the 1st half of the season. ESPN Gameday was coming to Athens.

I had secured tickets near the 50-yard line, on the lower level. It was going to kick ass. I turned down an offer of $275 for my ticket, because I didn't want to miss the Dawgs finally beating UT.

It didn't work out quite as planned, and worse, I was close enough to the UT sideline to see them laughing and jawing with fans. It was the first time I'd seen the Dawgs lose, and it wasn't even as close as the final score (as opposed to The Game That Shall Not Be Named from 2006). If given an extra 8 quarters, the UGA offense might have scored 10 points. Maybe. But probably not. And I hated the players. It took me until 2000 to really understand why so many of my fellow Dawg fans hated Fulmer. But once you see it, it doesn't go away: to Fulmer, UT never gets beat. The other team? Never outplays them. "They" make mistakes (not the coaching staff, "they.") It's that increasingly unjustified air of infallibility about UT and Fulmer that has me digging for words stronger than hate this week. On a rerun of Scrubs they used "megaloathe." That'll do for now.

I megaloathe UT. I wish them ill. I'll say more, but rather than quote from Chappelle's Show anymore, but here, just click this and watch (as I don't think Comedy Central's a fan of letting folk embed vids on their blogs.)

Your Friday Bipolar Football Prognostication

2007-09-28T13:17:00.000-05:00

(If Andre 3000 can show up for Okie State, maybe T.I. can show up for a trap game.)

The Cumberland Report:
As Doug already noted (with illustrations), the Dawgs have two (maybe three) bad track-records that could coincide in tomorrow's game:

1. Poor showings following up big, emotional wins.
Oddly enough this wasn't the case following the first massive win off the Richt era, as they restrapped on the hobnail boots and walked a mudhole in Vandy's ass the next week. And they did pretty well after ripping Auburn a new mascot-hole last season. But there are also games like the 2004 UT game, lackluster, closer-than-they-should-have-been games like the 2002 UT game (and really almost any win prior to the Tech game that season), UAB in 2005...etc.

2. Playing to the level of competition. See 2005 UAB game again, or even getting into the conservative, run mostly, pass occasionally Chinese Water Torture offensive game played by SOS this season.

2b. Lack of focus against lesser or perceived lesser opponents (see also: the Western Carolina game.)

Ole Miss has enough playmakers to make a sonambulant Georgia team pay. I hope our secondary is better than Florida's at this point, but it's possible the Ole Miss QB finally had the "stop sucking" lightbulb go off over his head.

Plus, BenJarvis Green-Ellis, in addition to having more names than the entire two deep at RB for other teams on the schedule, is the best back the Dawgs have faced, and unlike Cult Leader Major Applewhite and Terry Grant, the Rebs won't go whole periods without giving him a carry.

There are also added distractions.

Coach O could go crazy and begin to eat Georgia players and coaches (I'm also concerned that he shares the sideline with UGA VI.)

(Seriously, would anyone in their right mind let any animal mascot smaller than Bevo or Ralphie near this guy? If I'm the facilities director for LSU, I keep even Mike away, because I think Coach O would at least try to eat a tiger.)

Also, Georgia's lackluster performance in Oxford last year I think is directly attributable to the fact that Ole Miss is probably the only SEC school to boast a greater amount of ravingly attractive coeds than UGA. If Ole Miss's sorority girls travel well, the team may be prone to distraction as they near the visiting team's sections.

As the following clips culled from the YouTubes demonstrate, lasses hailing from Faulkner's favorite SEC school are winsome, but unlikely to actually own, or have read any of his works:

Though to be fair, I'm pretty sure this gal, and her fellow female fans below, are a wee bit tipsy (just maybe):

(Side note: I'm convinced every sorority at every major Southern University has some sort of secret requirement that at least one sister must, like the blonde on the right above, look hot, but also a good solid decade above her actual age. There really needs to be a word for this: the girls that are usually 19 or 20, but could easily pass for 30+. Is it just me?)

(On the flip side, as there are statistically more women in college than men, it's theoretically possible that more Ole Miss ladies make the trip than men, and if they lose, I will be there to ~~hook up with~~ console them.)

The Rose-Colored Glasses View:
The coaching staff knows about the opportunities missed in Tuscaloosa. The players have been told about the missed opportunities. Steps have been run, at asscrack-of-dawn-seems-like-sleeping-in-by-comparison hours. The lesson will, finally, be learned, and Ole Miss shall be beaten down.

If Matt Stafford was looking for a great shot at getting his first 300+ yard passing game, playing a team ranked worse against the pass than Louisville (!!!) should do it. Afterwards he can pick up an empty beer keg and cavort with the younger Ole Miss hotties not interested in slightly older, more mature UGA grads that also run a blog prognosticating happy and unhappy outcomes to all of UGA's games.

(And I'm seriously going to buy this T-Shirt...)

Meaning, the only logical outcome is Col. Reb leaves Crying:

Memo to UGA Football Team: "You're Like This Big Bear Man"

2007-09-26T14:36:00.001-05:00

So after the near-heart attacks subsided, I, like many UGA fans was happy Mark Richt ran his record to 2-0 in Tuscaloosa.

And yet.

It didn't have to be this way.

Sure, they nearly ended it in regulation, as Coutu was just wide on a near Kevin Butler moment (ok, so it wasn't 60-yards, but, to their credit, Bama isn't Clemson either. For one thing, no hideous purple pants. Plus, twins.)

(As a man who's seen a fake smile before, I can tell these two really aren't happy to have their picture taken with this random yahoo.)

There was some grumbling about the D's sudden late disappearance on Bama's last two drives in regulation and that's part of it.

And yet.

It wasn't the problem.

The problem was UGA, with huge teeth and claws, had Bama the scared little bunny cowering in the corner and couldn't finish her off.

The OLine isn't up to dominating yet, so I question the motives of attempting to sit on a lead with overly predictable run-first play calling late in the game (but with a good 10+ minutes left). The last thing we need is for Mike Bobo to start taking plays from Lloyd Carr.

But also, why wait until OT to go for the kill shot? Why wasn't the takeoff route the first thing called in the 2nd half after Brandon Miller recovered the kickoff. 10-3 with a tiny bit of momentum for Bama going in becomes 17-3 like that. Like the SoCar game, Georgia had opportunities to win this going away. It does seem asinine to complain about a win, but does anyone think these guys have played fully to their potential yet this season?

Mentally, and a lot of this falls on Coach Bobo, since he's calling the plays, but a good bit goes to Stafford as well, they need to ditch the "get a lead, sit on it" mentality. I'm not saying they should go 100% the other way with it (i.e. the Gators keeping Tebow and co. in late in a blowout vs. UT--something just karma should remedy with an injury at some point soon; hopefully during their Auburn-LSU-Kentucky stretch of games). But a 17 point lead is much harder to blow than a 10, and hopefully the guys learn that lesson.

I don't want them to play Ole Miss like the guy in the PG-13 movie (like Florida's secondary played them); they need to beat down the Rebels like the guy in the rated R movie. I'll be more than willing to console any saddened Ole Miss women afterwards...

Answering the "Why Don't You Have a Girlfriend?" Question

2007-09-21T11:41:00.000-05:00

Hey, if you haven't already heard, this weekend concludes (or this Saturday, depending on where you demarcate your weekends) National Unmarried and Single Americans Week. Oddly enough, National Talk Like A Pirate Day fell on Wednesday of this week. I'm not claiming there's a coincidence, but...

(If you feel that women love tiny dogs, and they love pirates, I give you your must-have dating accessory.)
And beyond that funny little picture, I rambled on for 1,500 words. Hey, it's cheaper than therapy. And apparently reading in bed is sexy. But too many people keep clicking on the penguin picture and not sticking around, so it's hasty edit time.

Don't Feed the Armani Bear

2007-09-21T10:20:00.000-05:00

(Seriously, the only thing they could do to make this look more pompous is broadcast it over 50-foot tv screens...but the Bush administration currently holds copyrights on all things Orwellian, so there ya go. Oh, and Saban totally doesn't have time for this shit below.)

The Rose-Colored Glasses Take:
Despite Saban's rep as a defensive genius, the talent that Joe Kines (sidenote: seriously why couldn't even one of Joe's Ds when he was at UGA have performed as well as the Ds he coached at Bama? It's really the football equivalent of dating a 5 or 6 and running into them after plastic-surgery--or many hours in the gym--turned them into a 9 or 10) stocked up on in Tuscaloosa isn't there anymore.

(I was going to post a clever or funny "before-and-after" pic here, but the first thing that came up in Google image search was The Thing That Once Was Tara Reid's Ass, so instead here's a pensive but still gorgeous Sofia Bush leaning against a wall.)

They're playing more zone coverage, which could be a brilliant adjustment, or evidence that Bama's cornerbacks aren't at the level Saban had back at LSU. Arkansas demolished their front seven, and while Moreno and Brown aren't quite McFadden an Jones, if they can top half the 300+ rush yards, the Dawgs' offense is in good shape.

Plus, despite the drops and inconsistances, it's not too big a stretch to say Stafford and the UGA wideouts are a better passing threat than Casey Dick and Arkansas with Marcus Monk sitting the game out injured. If speedster Demiko Goodman continues to prove he can catch as well as run the 100m in a shade over 10 seconds, points can be scored. John Parker Wilson brought Bama back, but his errant throws let Arkansas back in the game too.

(Saban also is the spitting image of Ray Wise, who played Leland Palmer on Twin Peaks, which means Saban may secretly be the evil spirit, or Wendigo, or whatever, called BoB. Here, go read about him on Wikipedia then go buy some Twin Peaks DVDs. I won't promise this will make sense though.)

The Cumberland Report:
This won't be pretty.

Western Carolina had a 3-3 tie with the Dawgs going into the 2nd quarter. They got QB pressure (and a sack). Saban's Ds are known for pressure. Pressure-causing D vs. young, inexperienced offensive line making their first road start in a football-mad place like T-town? Let's just hope injury-wise it doesn't turn into a reverse of Bama's last visit to Athens.

John Parker Wilson is easily the best QB the Dawgs' D has faced (and why, oh why, did the turnover-prone version of Blake Mitchell wait until last week to show up?) and DJ Hall is easily the best wideout. This is probably the best passing attack the D has faced since the Game That Shall Not Be Named I attended last season, only they're coached by a former cult leader I thought was dead.

Oh, Major Applewhite, not Marshall.
Still, if they break out some fancy Nikes stay away.

Arkansas scored and ran at will against their D (eventually) but the Dawgs have no one on Darren McFadden's level (and really, other than UGA in the early 80s, Auburn in the mid-80s, OSU for one season in the later 80s or USC a few years ago, no one does.) Alabama's D doesn't have the talent in the front seven SoCar has, but going against an unproven line and an offense as kick-to-the-groin painfully inconsistant as UGA's they won't have to. UGA's QBs get sacked at least 6 or 7 times, possibly forcing the bad Matt Stafford out of hiding, passes get dropped, and Bama depants the Dawgs by a sadly large margin, while liquor stores near me rejoice.

Your Asscrack Of Dawn Coffee-Perusal Quick-Hits

2007-09-21T08:46:00.000-05:00

*Saying society in general keeps getting more and more nuts seems to be about as groundbreaking a statement as "People in Tuscaloosa like Nick Saban," but I think it says a lot that many people will have a hard time telling if this story, about a pro-nudity rally for Britney Spears, is real, or not. Oh sure, the group's called MUFF, but remember, NAMBLA is real and not just something on South Park, so if they get confused (or hopeful, especially considering the whole "Vanessa Hudgens plans on showing up" part) who's to blame them?

*Speaking of Hudgens, well...first....damn. Not too shabby. I'm not going to start watching the Disney Channel or anything, but the girl is fine. Overbearing, we-want-our-child-to-be-famous-so-we-can-live-vicariously-through-them parents considering sending their kids to Disney ought to know about the track record though: Britney, Christina, Lindsay Lohan--all sweet little girls with Mousewitz, and then...you know the rest. But the disappointing thing to me about the whole nude photo "Scandal" is the fact that so many people make the mistake that "nudity=porn". It's unlikely, but still possible, that despite disrobing and taking a naked (not "nekkid") picture and sending it to her boyfriend, she hasn't actually had sex. Yes she's young, hot, and probably not strapped for cash, but I'm just throwing it out there as another option in an effort to de-Puritanize some folks. Because if they still think all nudity=porn or =sex, then sex will more often than not be considered dirty and any girl who hints at not saving herself for marriage will get called a slut at some point in her life (meanwhile, true sluts will still not care) and thousands of people will claim to be offended by a woman showing too much skin instead of, I don't know, being offended that thousands of their fellow countrymen are getting killed so some rich asshats can live it up off of the spoils of no-bid military contracts.
I'm just saying our priorites are a bit fucked if a non-sexual picture of an attractive, naked, but over 18-year-old girl is more offensive than say, not restoring habeas corpus, the President saying he'll veto a bill to get medical care to sick children, a trillion dollars down the well in Iraq, far-right wing (as in, the type that considers Left Behind non-fiction) fundamentalists actively proselytizing huge wings of our armed services, the fact that the senate spent valuable time passing a "you're mean MoveOn.org" resolution instead of, you know meaningful legislation, etc. well, that's offensive to me.

*Speaking of screwy priorites, beltway GOP troglodytes are taking that whole "party above all else" mentality to insane extremes. Their current strategy seems to be "if the democrats want it, we must filibuster it." From Digby's blog, via Kevin Drum:

Seriosuly, look at the projected number here. Even the racist senators scared to death of dark-skinned people getting near them didn't filibuster like this. Somewhere in hell, Strom Thurmond is muttering, "wow, and they thought I was stubbon, racist and hypocritical."

*The Falcons signed Bryon Leftwich. I still say Andre Woodson starts for them in 20 games or so. Unless Byron plays on the offensive line, anyone but a mobile QB is going to be in a lot of pain behind the Falcon's OLine for the near future. You can't blame Vick, or Joey for this. You can blame Rich McKay however, who has had some hits in the draft lately (Norwood was a steal) but has used the early rounds to pick up WRs that have mostly been busts at a clip resembling Detroit, and the Lions at least got Calvin Johnson and Roy Williams out of the deal (plus they have a converted safety playing WR named Mike Furrey who just makes me think of that one episode of Entourage and laugh.)

*Keith Olberman kicks ass.

*Weekend plans (for those planning to stalk me) include: going by the pool one last time if the rumored (I refer to weather reports more than a day in advance as rumors now) rise in temps for this weekend is true, hitting up a variety of venues hosting Atlantis music conference showcases, and watching a lot of college football. The Atlantis thing will be kind of bittersweet, what with me not having a band all.

UPDATE for lunchtime: seriously, the world's losing it's damn mind. I have a college degree. I work with people with college degrees, and that brain-damaged Miss South Carolina will be getting $25,000 a DAY?! Sure "Modeling" should probably be in quotes here but come on sex-starved, unattractive millionaires, surely no woman's that good in bed...

A (Somewhat) New Top Five

2007-09-20T11:32:00.000-05:00

In honor of National Singles and Unmarrieds Awareness week (or whatever they're calling it) I am going back to the well with a celebrity top five. This is still in more-or-less random order, just like the last revision.

Jessica Alba
How could she not be on the list? I caught part of her interview with The Morning X coming into work, and while I'm a bit worried that the simple fact that she was awake, cogent, and funny at 7:45am (which is, I hope more really late than really early if she was still out in LA) could be a sign that she's a dreaded Morning Person. I cannot date Morning People. Worse, Morning People tend to not want to sleep in on weekends. But the interesting thing that seems to be true (insomuch as any celebrity-personality is "true") is that she seems more like a kind of boring, dorky gal than anything. She's not in the tabloids for dancing on the bars and snorting lines of Bing* in the bathroom. She's never, ever dated or hooked up with Fez. These are good things. And amazingly, according to multiple interviews and her Wikipedia entry there's an interview where she admits to being self-concious about how she looks--which should convince us all that if Jessica Alba has harbored doubts about how gorgeous she is, all women have.

(Here we see Jessica contemplating whether or not she wants to share the last of her ice cream with me, while mulling over the "cone-is-optional" method of eating it I told her I'd prefer.)

Mandy Moore
Remember back when there was a debate about which young, Lolita-esque teen starlet would be a superstar, and the debate was mostly limited to XTina and Britney? And Mandy Moore barely mentioned? Goes to show what a journalistic consensus is worth doesn't it? (Though to be fair, they were right about Ms. Aguilera being more talented than Mrs. K-Fed.) About the worst things said about Mandy in the tabloids was a general "wait, you can do better than DJ AM" pieces. She was great on Entourage, and her two-episode guest-star run on Scrubs, and really great in Saved!. And she's put the acting on hold to write her own music and go out and tour in places like the Roxy as opposed to a giant, overwrought arena show. Perfect lazy date with Mandy Moore would likely consist of: lots of trading musical ideas over acoustic guitar, mixed with enough kissing to make any peeping tom onlookers question if we're still in high school.

(And if she happened to say "you know, I'd prefer an electric guitar," that'd be even better.)

Katherine McPhee
Ok, I don't really watch American Idol, so this is sort of an odd pick (Rock Star: Supernova's more my speed as 1. Butch Walker was on it 2. Tommy Lee is--sometimes unintentionally-hilarious 3. the songs are better. Though I did watch almost all of the Bon Jovi episode of Idol this past season.) But Katherine's clearly got some serious pipes (I mean vocally, why should I trot out an awkward euphemism when Tyra Banks has already done what myself and millions of others wouldn't mind doing?). Plus, she's a Red Sox fan. So provided I would never, ever have to hang out with Ryan Seacrest (who again, UGA does not claim as one of our own), it could be perfect.

(Here you can see Katherine laughing at my devilish wit right before we compare tan lines.)

Autumn Reeser
Alright, so I've got a lot less in the interview category here, and I may be projecting many of the qualities that I adore in Taylor Townsend, the character she portrayed on The OC, onto the actress, but damn if I don't think Autumn is not only underrated as far as "damn she's hot" comments go (it should be said far more often) but talent-wise too (perhaps the fact that the Emmy folks consider The OC more of a drama hurt, but she could have easily been nominated for a few episodes, particularly the "It's a Wonderful Life" spoof and the one featuring her French ex-husband.) And while the book I started for NaNoWriMo last year with her as a character is on the back burner while I attempt to finish By Any Other Name, I do intend to come back to it.

(Her dog's name is Gatsby. I'm about to make a bad lit joke about whether he likes scrambled, East or West. But she'll laugh anyway.)

Mary Louise Parker
I miss having Showtime. Weeds, as it turns out, is a kick-ass show. Imagine The OC, but on cable so there's more swearing, nudity and drugs...and Sandy Cohen's dead, so Kirsten starts selling pot. And she's played by a 43-year old actress that could pass for my age. And Ms. Parker, like myself is from Georgia. We could make quite the pair at Sanford Stadium I think. Plus, 99% of the girls I've dated have been younger than me, and well, here I am single, so maybe age does matter?

(Mary Louise may look calm here, but has threatened me with instant death if I defame her beauty by using the word "cougar.")

A Tale Of Two Oranges

2007-09-19T15:19:00.000-05:00

Most of the sports world (from Tony Barnhart in yesterday's AJC, to Kirk Herbstreit...and undoubtedly, Heismanpundit) are raving about the "genious" (misspelling sic to show ignorance of average CFB pundit) of the spread offense, and washing the "seedhouse" of Tebow (who may enjoy such things--not that there's anything wrong with that), overlooked in all this is that Florida wasn't exactly strafing a Steel Curtain-level defense here.

Combined, Cal and Florida scored over 100 points (or close to it, if you discount the special teams/fumble-recover TDs) and over 1,000 yds. of offense (which doesn't count the aforementioned non-offensive yards). That's bad for the Vols, but possibly the result of facing two buzzsaw offenses right? That's what ESPN says (well, mainly they gloss over Cal's totals because Tedford doesn't have Urban's Q Rating.) But Southern Miss, hardly on anyone's radar as a potential offensive juggernaut coming into the season, averaged the same yards per pass as vaunted UT QB Erik Ainge, and scored more points in the 1st half against the Vols than they did against the other UT, UT-Martin. UT's last losing season was somewhat salvaged (re: they were only a couple games under .500 when, in a perfect world, UT and Florida alternate beating each other for their lone win of the season) by a stout Defense. But maybe, just maybe, Chavis has either lost his mojo, or the drop from Top 5 to Top 15 (on average) recruiting classes has caught up with the Vols.

If this does wind up being Chavis's worst D, the Vols need to be reevaluated in a new light: they're the 2007 season's homage to Hal Mumme's UK teams. Far-fetched? Maybe, maybe not. UK had speedy, but not future NFL 1st round-picks hauling in passes from a pro-style QB. With the new WRs being broken in, Erik Ainge abely plays the Tim Couch role (with the years wasted under Randy Sanders not quite equaling the dumbassery of Bill Curry having Couch run the option), and while he's several doughnuts shy of being Jared Lorenzen's size, Fulmer is an able stand-in. Coker plays the Derek Homer, good-but-only-against-lesser-Defenses runningback role. And the D? Well, 41 points per game, and just under 460 ypg sure looks like an old UK stat line circa 1999 or so doesn't it?

And yeah, maybe this is just a Florida-hating Georgia fan (who has serious qualms about his team's offense producing on any consistant level) rationalizing away Florida's big win. But I was right about Tech and Boston College wasn't I?

Temporary New Layout...Or Not

2007-09-18T16:39:00.000-05:00

All depends on feedback from viewers like you (also drop a line if you liked the notebook layout from this afternoon).

I'm tempted to spend a few evenings fiddling with CSS and images to customize something, but damn that hi-rez rose looks cool (and I don't care if that makes me sappy.)

And I haven't started drinking (yet)...

2007-09-14T16:30:00.001-05:00

But the background and all seems to have disappeared, so look for a new layout soon too....

Friday's Half-Assed Approach to Foundation Repair

2007-09-14T16:08:00.001-05:00

No extended preview for tomorrow's UGA game.

The Dawgs are playing a I-AA team not named AppState, so really, the only way I see them losing is catastrophic levels of injuries to our starters, and I don't want to think about that.

Ideally, the Dawgs will score more than Matt Leinhart during his final year at USC (well, in theory dude should've pulled more kitty than the ASPCA, more ass than a toilet seat, and if you need a third example for the sake of comedy, let's just say it ends with "than a movie store that only stocks copies of Guy Ritchie's second movie.") And also, Boston College reminds the AJC and everyone else that Tech hasn't played anyone yet by hopefully beating them like Freddie Quimby was alleged to do to a Frenchman that "mispronounced" the word "chowder." And Florida loses, in 85 OTs, to a EweT squad, with both teams so decimated by injuries the last 8 OTs are simply backup QB hero Jim Bob Cooter vs. the Florida waterboy (carrying Tim Tebow's severed pinky toe for luck.)

If you want content, check back Sunday night.

(At Least) Three Jeers For The Press (Pt. 1)

2007-09-12T10:49:00.000-05:00

I once was both a Pre-Journalism major and (for all of about one semester, pretty much up until a day or so after my Print Media professor told me that if I just wanted to write I didn't need a J-School degree to do it, I needed a portfolio showing what I could do). There are times I miss it. Lately though, there are times where I wonder what shoddy J-Schools are turning out the folks spewing the drivel covering newspapers and the airwaves.

Oh sure, when it comes to political journalism, much as I'd like to blame it on some conspiracy that employees the same semi-literates that worked for the University of Tennessee's student paper (sic), it's really just a kind of cultural nepotism at work. (Oh, and if your last name is Kristol and your dad's first name is Irving, it's just plain nepotism.) Say what the politicians in power want you to say (or what the politicians planning to be in power want you to say) and presto: you're Thomas Friedman.

Or Charles Krauthammer.

And so on.

(Depressing sidebar I realized while writing this, that I figure I'll share with you because it might explain me a little bit better: I have yet to have a continuous, steady relationship last long enough to celebrate a first Friedman Unit anniversery. I've dated a lot. A lot. And there've been relationships that lasted longer overall. But never the more-or-less happy together for a full half a year. I blame the media for this. But it's also possible I'm just an asshole.)

But over the past few years, there has been a trickle down effect (no GOP faithful, not the economy--that's a different post altogether). Shitty, out-of-touch political columnists are listened to, and their unsubstantiated opinions have been picked up by (formerly) respectable journalisitic outlets. The New York Times was hoodwinked (or willingly complicit, you decide which is more or less comforting a thought) into the whole "don't let the smoking gun be an atom bomb" WMD meme leading up to the pre-emptive war with Iraq. FoxNews was (sadly) not the only major TV news outlet to run with the "this MoveOn.org ad is mean to Gen. Petraeus" meme, and worse, they do this on the same day multiple newspapers run the poll results stating that a majority of Americans are thinking there's a decent chance they'll see Bush's lips move when Petraeus is talking.

If Watergate symbolized the tipping point where it suddenly was no longer radical to not trust the government, surely the past 5 years or so has pushed the idea that not trusting the mainstream press on manners political isn't just for folks that own Noam Chomsky books.

Glen Greenwald has a nice depantsing of Brit Hume's journalistic credentials up (with cringe-inducing clips of the "interview" with Gen. Sit Ubu, sit. Good Dog Petraeus). The New York Times claims they've learned from their Iraq mistake, let's see if their coverage throws in needless references to the threat of Iran (said threats will likely contain scare quotes from President Ahmadinejad, without bothering to point out that in the Iranian political structure, "President" doesn't mean the same thing as it does here...unless you're maybe looking to make some sort of Dick Cheney joke.)

But so what if the political press is out of touch and occasionally doing its best impersonation of Pravda? They can still fairly and accurately talk football right?

Well, maybe not. (Hereafter in this section my criticism is focused solely on the local paper, which I will not mention by name as I think their sports department operates on a "if they hate us we can sell more ads" philosophy. It's the only theory that explains Mark Bradley unless, when released, the DSM-V has a disorder related to habitually jumping on and off bandwagons.)

First, there was Monday's paper, in which the Falcons, who did look sub-par, but not terrible, were thrown under the bus, shot, given the Rasputin treatment, and the William Wallace treatment, particularly from Terrance Moore. What was ignored were these tidbits of info:
1. The game was 7-0 at halftime.
2. The Defense, while gashed by a 1st round draft pick at RB (widely considered the best RB in the draft) kept the score low (can't hold a pick 6 against a defense.)
3. Harrington's two INTs came off of: a pass tipped at the line, and a ball that HIT MICHAEL JENKINS IN THE HANDS.

Harrington gets ripped (after months of Vick getting ripped) when the OLine's inconsistent blocking and Jenkins hands of lead were the real culprits.

Are the Falcons a wild-card team this year? Sorry Bill Simmons, no, they aren't. But are they the worst? Terrance Moore must have not watched Kansas City or Cleveland play.

But what was worse was their combo "feature" (sic) on Tuesday's sports section, and the front page teaser: (paraphrase) "Why Tech is so Great and UGA sucks."
They harped on all the things UGA did wrong in one loss, ignored what went right the one win, and talked about Tech's unstoppable running game and defense. They missed a few important points though. Such as:
Combined record of UGA's first two opponents: 3-1
Combined record of Tech's first two opponents: 0-4
Number of 1-AA, tiny Alabama Universities that played UGA in the first two games: 0
Number of offenses ranked below Notre Dame after two games: 0
Number of offensive touchdowns scored, for the season, by Notre Dame: 0
Number of currently ranked opponents faced by Tech in the first two games: 0

So I guess what I'm getting at is I hope the paper at least stays consistent and throws Tech's QB and coaches under the bus after BC lays what I hope will be a ginormous beat down on Tech Saturday. And even if Tech loses by say, 4 points but with a chance to win in the final minute, and Tashard Choice has over 100 yds, they should structure the coverage as if they lost by 50,and turned it over like Mississippi State vs. LSU crossed with Baltimore's Monday Night Football performance.

And yeah, they're getting even entertainment wrong. Expanded thoughts about Britney Spears are really worthy of a separate post, so check back in a day or so...especially if you're Ms. Spears, one of her handlers, or just looking for a free summary of what articles in Neil Strauss and Chuck Klosterman's latest books say about her.

On Good Sports Days and Bad Sports Days...

2007-09-10T15:19:00.000-05:00

There are good sports days and bad sports days.

90% they are Saturdays (sorry, I'm just not a huge NFL fan. Unless the Dawgs are playing that ol' favorite "Bye" or their sister school "Bye" I am probably too worn out, drained, happy, sad, hoarse, and/or painfully hungover to emotionally invest myself in a pro team's fortunes (and it doesn't help that the local NFL squad's most prominent defensive player attended the North Avenue Trade School while their QB with UGA ties sits the season out with a knee injury.))

Labor Day weekend's Saturday was Good Day. UGA won, in a more convincing fashion than I honestly hoped for, Tennessee lost, and not only did the Red Sox win, they did it with a rookie pitcher throwing a no-hitter in his second ever MLB start.

Ideal Good Days for sports usually need not only more than one of my (or your if we're going to open up here and not have my blog be all about me) winning, but they should also win while those teams' rivals lose.

The exceptions are when one team wins a title. If your team wins the Superbowl, sportswise it doesn't matter what else happens (though if they win whilst beating their rival, all the better, no matter how unlikely).

UGA beating the BBQ pork ribs off of Arkansas to win the 2002 SEC title: a very good sports day.

Boston winning the World Series on a weeknight in October: a very good sports day.

UGA losing, Boston losing, the Yankees, Gators, Vols, and GT all winning: a pretty shitty sports day.

Which is what this past Saturday was.

Sadly, Dice-K imploding against Baltimore to the tune of 8 earned runs in one "bad inning" is becoming commonplace. The season is far longer than any he faced in Japan, and he's having to go on one less day of rest each time. The Sox should rest him this week, especially if they come out of the Tampa Bay series still holding at least 6 games over the Yankees. While I don't relish the thought of losing 6 in a row to A-Rod's Merry Band of Highly Paid Jackasses, it is comforting to know it could happen, late in the season, with both teams in the playoff hunt, and the Yankees still miss out on an AL East title. The lead could evaporate too, but 2004 means not having to worry about 1978 quite the same way.

As for rival college football teams winning...well, this past weekend it was bound to happen.

Southern Miss was the only team that could even be considered a threat as Samford and Troy fall squarely in the "cupcake" category. UGA gets one this weekend, meanwhile Florida has to finally play a team with a pulse (and considering Troy's QB shredded them a bit, I think Erik Ainge may actually look forward to going to the 8th circle of hell Gainesville this weekend.) So yes, I am mostly still pulling for a large metorite in Saturdays EweTee Vs. Jean ShortsU game, but barring that, I'd settle for Tim Tebow to be ground repeatedly into the Swamp turf.

As for the Dawgs..."frustrating" comes to mind.

Also, "why does John Eason still have a job?"

Sure, a blind man could've seen the hidden-ball play-action coming in this one, but for the most part Bobo called a good game. Richt himself said the Dawgs dropped or overthrew at least 4 TDs. Note: if you've been torturing yourself over the missed FG, don't think about the previous sentence at all. SoCar's front seven destroyed the young OLine for most of the game. We had 150+ yds between Moreno and Brown, but I'd wager at least 3/4ths of those yards were to the outside. The less said about pass protection, the better. Stafford's completion % of the game should be viewed about as often as Britney Spears's 2007 VMA performance--which is to say, ideally never looked at again, ever--but would've looked better if the WRs hadn't decided to occasionally play John Eason's Greatest Hits (re: dropping balls that hit them in the HANDS).

Of all the things that went wrong for Georgia (ranging from Coutu inexplicably missing a FG he'd make at least 9 times out of ten early to the D inexplicably getting manhandled to the tune of three straight 10 yard runs up the gut late), the drops reemerging was the most distressing.

I am no great fan of Willie Martinez, but all signs point to him learning from his mistakes. Spurrier's offensive game plan was like Chinese Water Torture (also, I think I say that because it reminded me of the game plan UF used on is in 2002), but they barely had over 300 yds and less than 20 points, despite a great performance from both RBs and a near perfect night throwing from the Columbia Barfighting Champ. But the WRs for Georgia far too often did their best Michael Jenkins (the NFL version) impersonations, and Stafford far too often forgot no one on the team is as tall as Leonard Pope (or Robert Wadlow, given the height on some passes).

So let Carter Strickland and company (or their copy editors) take the lazy way out and say "Spurrier beat UGA". Tyrone Nix, with help from the seemingly non-existant coaching of Dr. Eason, played a far more active role. Ah well, nothing hanging half-a-hundred on a I-AA cupcake not named AppState won't temporarily fix.

Don't ask me about 'Bama yet though...

...To Hide The Circumcision Scars

2007-09-07T14:43:00.001-05:00

UGA vs. SoCar (they aren't USC--check the link, and feel free to oogle the Song Girls while you're there...I know I would.) - The Cumberland Report:

It's Spurrier. That's the first problem. Sure, he hasn't beaten UGA as a (Game)Cock HC yet, but we should realize that he hates us almost as much as we hate him (see for example, the stop-pulling to rival a professional organist vs. UGA in 2005--and yes, I know, I need to make some hipper references). Sure, they looked like shite against Louisana-Whothehellcares last week. But their starting QB wasn't playing. And MTSU looked shitty a week ago and looked like vintage, Klinger era Houston against Louisville. I'm not saying class-skipping dumbass QB Blake Mitchell is going turn into 96' Vintage Wuerffel, but that's probably what SOS is shooting for.

But we also have to watch out for the run game. Lost in the haze of 40+ppg offenses SOS ran at Florida during their heyday (or, as Florida fans call it "the first twelve years of our football history") is the fact that his best teams played great D (never forget: asshat OU HC Bob Stoops was a former UF DC) and had a dangerous running game (yes Virginia, at one point Fred Taylor was healthy for an entire season. I also can make strained jokes involving Eric Rhett and Gone With The Wind, but I'm sure you don't give a damn.) South Carolina, sadly, has a good RB this year...which means if we sell out to put pressure on Blake Mitchell, they may run it up the gut against us, leaving the D doing one of it's "we're really not bad against the run, this a once-a-season thing like LSU in '03, GSU in '04, and WVU in '05.

You can never underestimate a pissed-off and motivated SOS. I have mostly blocked/repressed memories of the 1998 UGA-Florida game, but if SoCar scores on a flea-flicker reverse out of the Emory & Henry formation, it won't shock me.

SoCar's D isn't as dangerous as last year's, but with a supremely motivated O scoring points in droves, if they hold Stafford and Co. under 20 this game will be a blowout in the 'Cocks favor.

(Now excuse me, after typing some of that I need to wash with lye and steel wool...)

UGA vs. SoCar - The Rose-Colored Glasses View:

SOS or no SOS, even with Blake Mitchell the 'Cocks can't trot out the talent level OSU trotted out Between the Hedges last week. If a team with future NFL picks at WR and RB couldn't top 14 points or 300 yds against the Junkyard Dawg D, how's a team with a dumbass-hoping-to-be-invited-to-camp QB and no Sidney Rice going to do better?

Let 'em try and run Cory Boyd up the middle. Yes our DEs are undersized, but our DTs are big, mean, and plan on treating Boyd as rudely (or ruder) than Mr. Savage (note: not related to Randy Savage, sadly) was treated last week.

Sure, I may win the lotto before we shut out a Spurrier coach for the 2nd straight year (he'll install a rocket on his kicker's boot and kick a 60-yarder if he has to.) But this weekend may resemble a previous UGA-SoCar game. Not the 2005 game though. Think 2003. Coming off a dominant win against a good (well, decent...calling Tommy Bowden-coached teams good does a disservice to actually good teams worldwide) Clemson team, and on the heels of close wins (and sadly) losses to SoCar, the Dawgs whalloped the piss out of the Gamecocks 31-7. Something similar is brewing in Athens this Saturday.

Gooooooooooooo Dawgs.

Hump Day Quickies

2007-09-05T20:29:00.000-05:00

*I made it through 15 minutes of the Republican debate tonight before the bile rose in the back of my throat.

From what I could gather, the greatest threat our country faces isn't terrorist following us from "over there" to "here" but illegal immigrants. I'm not saying the GOP is basing their party platform on a Simpsons Episode, but I'm not not saying it either.

If you want a better rundown, check out Salon's archived liveblogging of the ~~racist, hatemongering, warmongering, lame-jokefest~~ GOP Debate.

*And, as always, Glen Greenwald does a far better job of mocking the GOP's alleged He-Man image on Salon. (Yes, I know after making my morning updates to, you know, actually include links to what I'm talking about, it looks like I'm practically shilling for Salon.)

*The Dawgs looked great this weekend, which was a really but also added to my bittersweet mood for the weekend. Thanks to the new job paying far far far better wages than my job last year, I could afford a ticket. However, I had to attend a wedding Saturday, which meant no kickoff, and the rest of the weekend was a bittersweet farewell to a buddy who is now across the pond in the UK.

Two Football Predictions

2007-08-31T14:10:00.001-05:00

(Note: the following should be a regular, pre-UGA gameday feature. The gist of it is this: before each UGA game, I offer the overly optimistic, Kool-Aid-drinking, rose-colored-glasses wearing, “homer” preview, and then the wildly pessimistic, thinks-Munson-is-too-positive, doom and gloom take.

The first take is kind of a throwback to my carefree freshman and sophomore years at UGA, where, despite nearly a decade straight of losing to UT, I would talk smack, and UGA was favored to win every game, by a lot, according to me.

The less optimistic preview gets its name from the infamous Cumberland College game in which the North Avenue Trade School whipped a bunch of scrubs to the tune of 222-0 (currently the most points and largest blowout…until Northern Colorado plays Hawaii Saturday.) It was inspired by The Girl’s less than positive attitude about UGA football last season (which, to be fair, may have just been borne from the results on the field and might not how she starts off each season) in particular when she admitted to me a night or two before the Florida game that she expected Florida to break the Cumberland record against us, because, she reasoned, even if we “only” lost by say, 182 points, it was better than what she thought would happen. She has a far better and subtler sense of humor than I realized at the time.

Anyway, the hope is between the two extremes something—good, ideally—happens.)

Let’s get the bad out of the way first:

Georgia vs. Oklahoma St. – The Cumberland Report

This could get ugly. The last orange-clad team to come between the hedges with a high-powered offense did something only Spurrier’s best Florida team was able to do. And that was against a good D Line where the DE wasn’t 230 lbs. Without Paul Oliver to cover OSU WR Bowman, Reid will be able to torch us deep, opening up huge lanes for the running game. OSU’s D, porous last year, will feast on UGA’s inexperienced O Line, which could result in Stafford reverting to “midseason” form, tossing INTs like he was playing for Mississippi State. It won’t be last year’s UT game part II, but it’ll be close.

Georgia vs. Oklahoma St. – The Rose-Colored Glasses View

What the DLine lacks in size, they make up for in speed, and will blow past the corn-fed, slow, Oline of the cowboys. Stafford and the WRs, along with Bobo calling the plays, will light up the usually porous OSU secondary, freeing the underneath for the RB trio to melt the clock, letting the D rest. It won’t be Boise St. part II, but it’ll be close.