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

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

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.

Tuesday Grab-bag of Odds & Ends

*Florida and Ohio State Pt. 2 "One Boring Moment" garnered maybe 3 total minutes of viewing time from yrstrly. It was probably 4 minutes too much. While previous posts may hint that it's not that big a feat to turn my stomach, this whole Florida-winning-titles-in-major-sports thing needs to stop. If things work out and I make it to Jacksonville this year, prepare bail money in case of a UGA loss. The smug coming from UF fans is now at Yankee fans circa 2003 (well, to Boston fans anyway.) It's gotta stop.

*Saturday I'm going back to Sanford stadium, probably dateless, but all the bad memories of my last trip (the Game I Will Not Speak Of Again...in my head I was in the stands with plenty of other people, and some Johnny Walker, and the bleachers were hard to stand on, but nothing happened outside of the stands) well, I'm 100% I won't see another UGA loss (b/c it's the spring game and Georgia's basically playing Georgia. Though I guess if you wanted to quibble with semantics Georgia has to lose and win...). There will be tailgating somewhere on North Campus (weather permitting). However, a planned Floating Beer Pong party at the pool afterwards is likely doomed as it won't be as unseasonably warm as, say two weekends ago.

*I've been compiling a list of things I will buy once I have some disposable income, here's the top items:
A Vacation--I have had no vacation since 2002. I've been unemployed and slept in, but that's not really a vacation. This needs to change. Jacksonville for UGA-UF, Boston for a Sox game (or possibly the Police at Fenway), Baltimore before Ryan up and moves, New Orleans, NYC. Doesn't so much matter where, just so long as it's vacation. Obviously, a witty, attractive, intelligent, non-Bob JonesU-sympathizing female traveling companion would be a bonus.

A Dog--Ideally an english bulldog (white). I've more or less been living alone for the past two years (I have roomates, but they're in law school, so it was possible to go days without seeing them. Makes for a quiet apartment though) and without sounding too emo, yes, it can get lonely. A Dog would solve that I think. Plus, there's hard scientific research that shows women find a man out with a puppy far more attractive than if he didn't have one (I think mainly because a dog-less person in a dog park is a bit koo-koo....)

A laptop--ok, sure, there's the obvious reason below (which would really be more sentiment than anything.) But also, after The Girl brought it up, I did probably my first serious research into laptops (I'd thought about getting one before, but figured they weren't good for much, or if they were, were wildly expensive.) Turns out I was mostly wrong. They can still be wildly expensive, but only if you're looking for say, HD-DVD editing-capable laptops, or laptops-in-only-the-loosest-sense 20-inch screen behemoths. A nice 15.4 or ideally 17-incher (don't even think of making that joke) can have a gig or more of RAM, a 120 GB HD, and enough USB ports to add anything else. So I could write downtown, or in the park, and record tracks wherever.

*I wanted to talk about Opening Day. Schilling and Co. made that too painful. Here's to a revamped Josh Beckett tomorrow...

*Quick look at what's in the pipeline, post-wise: that whole second-chances pt. 2 thing, a looong post about Web2.0's impact on dating, Football stuff, and maybe something on Dice-K

Oh the humanity...

Some Mondays it’s best to just not watch TV.

That was the cast the past Monday for me anyway. Oh sure, you can start up your cries of “sour grapes” or “but it’s good for the SEC” w/r/t the Tostitos BCS National Title (PS, American Idol will be on soon, so don’t start watching Heroes, or Grey’s or Survivor…oh, and 24 too…Only of FOX) Game, but it wasn’t just that (but don’t fret, I’ll get to it soon enough.)

The more immediately disturbing thing was the half-hour or so I was exposed to MTV’s latest dating show. First off—this was not my choice to watch the show. I had been keeping up with my (oh go ahead and say it) resolution to spend more time at the gym and less time in front of the computer not writing, but someone had already commandeered the remote. So for the duration of my warm-up stationary bike session (guess who has two thumbs and forgot to bring a book? This guy) I was stuck watching a show that made me think thoughts more appropriate for old fart (example “this is today’s youth?”) and made me hope like hell most girls were the exact opposite of the shallow-as-an-adjective-carries-too-strong-a-connotation-of-depth-to-adequetely-describe would-be celebutards.




























(They made the folks that go on this show look deep, witty, urbane and cultured--which says a lot since I'm convinced the casting process boils down to two key questions: "1. Are you easily offended?" and "2. Despite rational evidence from many sane people that it doesn't work out, would you have sex with a roomate if you happened to find him/her attractive--even if only when you're drunk and or high?")


The premise was the girl would use a waveform-analysis-based lie-detector (which apparently is read by her best friend) to pick a “winner” from two neuron-deficient would-be boy toys. In addition, the best friend would suggest questions for the girl to ask the two idiots (mostly inane stuff, both would-be celebutards were quite concerned with virginity and wallet size in their w.-b.b.t.s.) After the inane questions are done, the guys are then told about the lie-detector, and listening best friend, and told what answers were utter bull, the point apparently being that liars shouldn’t be rewarded with dates. But instead, the first w.b.c.t. picks the guy that lied constantly anyway, and the second picks the guy that “honestly” would rather her get $100,000 than his receiving $10,000 (or something.) I haven’t been that disgusted by females on tv since I caught part of Flavor of Love.

And then came Troy Smith's Gino Torretta impersonation on national tv later that night. Oh sure, it's nice for the conference and all...but really it sucked. And not just because as a Georgia fan it's my sacred and duty-bound calling to hate Florida. It's because I knew what would happen afterwards...

Professional (sic) sports journalists, at least w/r/t college football, seem to have gathered in a conclave a few years back and decided the best way to counter the percieved "threat" of bloggers was to pick a group of teams that were "the best", then come up with reasons to justify the prodigous ballwashing these select teams would recieve. Sub-rule 1A reads: if one of the ball-washed teams (note: NOT Notre Dame--provided they can keep beating the service acadamies and Stanford they're BCS material) is beaten, the team that beats them joins the circle.

And now, lo and behold, the Florida ball-washing has began. The same ESPN pundits that said Michigan was screwed are now jumping on the bandwagon and screaming that even though Florida will lose 15 or more starters (for Holtz, Corso and the others that can't do math, that's more than half the starting lineup) including the suddenly-we-knew-he-was-great-all-along-despite-all-those-times-we-pointed-out-his-higher-INT-rate-this-year-because-we-at-ESPN-don't-have-an-exclusive-SEC-contract-and-the-Big-10-can't-totally-suck QB Chris Leak and most of the D will repeat?

Really?

And in the AJC, Mark Bradley does his best would-be P.B. Shelley and tells us to look on Nancy Meyer's works and dispair, for he is king of kings.

The talk of how deadly the spread offense will be is what really kills me. Ok, granted they hung 41 on Ohio State. But they failed to break 30 on Vandy (and actually every SEC team they played other than Arkansas.) Don't let the points fool you folks...Florida won because of a sick, talented D. That's what got them to the game, it's what won them the game. But since Chris Leak played out of his head for a half, the team was able to surprise a slightly-slow-footed and tired (since their O was doing nothing) Buckeye D with short drives ending mostly in TDs the spread is OMG the best ever!!!!!1111!?

Cro-Magnon-QB Tim Tebow has yet to prove he can do more than short throws in the red zone because the D thinks he's going up the middle, but because of one game, he's going to morph into Alex Smith?

Could the spread work in the SEC? Jury's still out...and until Florida can at least hang 41 on Miss. St. or Vandy, let's hold off on saying he's Spurrier pt. 2. But it probably'd work fine in the Big 10.

So to answer Mark Bradley...no we're not scared. Saban's not scared. Fulmer's not scared (hell, UGA, with JTIII at QB put up more points on the Vols in a half than Meyer's spread did in the whole game). And Richt ain't scared.

2006 taught us that history can repeat itself (the last time UGA lost to Vandy and UK--before I was born so you know it's a ways back--they beat Tech, Auburn and won the Peach bowl too), and what happened when UGA played Florida after they won their other National Title?