Talkin' Baseball...

(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.

What I Do Watch, and Some Reasons Why

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.

On Good Sports Days and Bad Sports Days...

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...

Your Belated Happy Hour and a Random 10

Ok, since last week, Paris Hilton's been sent back to jail, and as I left work on Monday, I heard Genarlow Wilson's sentence had been changed, and I was all set to write a happy diary about how some damn good stuff can happen...and then the state decided (apparently within the hour of the new sentence making the news) that they were going to appeal.

The mother of the "victim" (in quotes because personally, I think if a girl makes like a circus seal blowing a hotel room full of guys, it's hard to call her a "victim"...what, we're to believe a 17-year-old is supposed to turn down a BJ after he's already seen the girl's technique? Next you'll ask me to believe Gonzo was visting Ashcroft on the sickbed solely to wish him well...) well the mother says let him go. (And hopefully has had multiple talks with her daughter that while sex isn't necessarily a bad thing, blowing a hotel room full of guys maybe isn't the best life decision--unless she's planning on following the Traci Lords/Jenna Jameson career path.)

What I caught of the Thurbert Baker's presser pissed me off (and if I'm wrongly pissed here, someone in legal correct me)...he said he felt that the result would affect thousands of other cases (which likely involve actual statutory rape and other bits of nastiness). But here's the thing about that...the judge ruled only on the Wilson case...and while some less than scrupulous attorney may cite that now, that doesn't mean a judge is going to have such a lack of brain function that he'd confuse the circumstances of say, a 31-year-old teacher and her 11-year-old student (though if she's female, she'd get far less time...but judicial sexism is a topic for another time).

So here's my plea to the DA: have some damn sense. Also, a related plea to all readers...this whole thing could have been avoided if at least one person on the Wilson jury had visited this site: http://www.fija.org/

A little jury nullification goes a long way.

In lighter news, I'm avoiding/boycotting Baseball Tonight at the moment, because after the Yankees got healthy and played some of the worst teams in MLB, at the same time the Sox have lost a few, and now every mediot with tv access is screaming two words related to the year before I was born (not to be uttered here) and the journalistic lazyness of it pisses me off.
Also, I'm going to try and hit up at least one of the Braves-Sox games next week, anyone else up for a day at Turner (be warned that while it will feel a tad odd to me, I'm pulling for the Sox the whole way. Just giving a heads up in case you're a partisan fan of the Braves.)

And now, I'm going to blatantly "borrow" (I was going to say rip off but decided against it) Doug's Friday Random 10 idea and share some tunes (oh, and send him money if you're flush with $$$):
1. Aesop Rock (feat. El-P) - "We're Famous"
2. Faith No More - "Everything's Ruined"
3. Marvelous 3 - "Appetite"
4. Phish - "Down with Disease"
5. Freak Kitchen - "Pathetic Aesthetic"
6. Jeff Buckley - "Despite the tears"
7. Enigma - "Principles of Lust - A - Sadeness"
8. Marvelous 3 - "Bohemian Rhapsody (Live @ the Tabernacle 01-26-01)"
9. Spock's Beard - "Day for Night"
10. Mr. Bungle - "Goodbye Sober Day (Live)"

Post-Weekend Hangover

Call it Monday Morning Hair of the Dog and fire up your old Nazareth records...

*The Yankees, so strapped for pitching they were about to take passersby off the street and test them in the bullpen, shell out $28 million (pro-rated, but then hit with 40% luxury tax so: a lot of money for a 45-year old) for Roger. Roger proves that he isn't all about the money, but may be the single most self-absorbed athlete ever. In any sport.

Would the Sox be a better team with Roger out there every fifth day? Probably. In theory, he's better than Julian Tavarez, and probably better than Jon Lester. But, he's also 45, and was a 5- or 6-inning pitcher on average in the National League--recent World Series ring aside, there's no doubt he faced weaker line-ups. So really, the biggest plus to the Sox getting Roger would have been keeping him from the Yankees. With the Yankees though, an older Roger swaps the relatively weak NL lineups for Boston, Toronto, and Tampa Bay on a fairly regular basis. 5 innings of Clemmens is better than 4 of Kei Igawa, but it still leaves 3 innings for pitchers not named Mariano to pitch, and the Yankees bullpen isn't going to get less worn out with a workload like that.

I didn't want to throw dirt on the Yankees season before, and it's a lot harder to do now, but I'm not going to concede anything yet either. Roger circa 1999 isn't coming back to the Bronx any more than Mordeci Brown is pitching for the Cubs. And when the Sox take the division even after Roger rode in on his expensive horse for the Yankees, it'll be that much sweeter.

*There's been a minor fuss on sportstalk radio about UGA QB Matt Stafford's alleged extracurricular activities (HT: GeorgiaSportsBlog). "Oh no, he's holding a beer keg," the standard refrain goes. Well yeah. But he's not drinking from it. The more disturbing thing to me about the situation (well, aside from being photographed spooning his backup, which makes the whole "I didn't drink from the keg" angle nil and probably assured Stafford of an extra trip up Sanford Stadium's steps around 5am some morning) is that apparently the coed he's chilling with is an Auburn girl. Now I'm not going to come out and say all Auburn girls are terrible (I know they aren't all bad).

But if your the starting QB for the University of Georgia, you should be hoisted kegs over Georgia girls. Being a few years removed from college I don't know if Stafford's celebrity on campus would be such that he'd rather hit up a NASCAR event than Twilight, but if David Greene and David Pollack could show up downtown (Pollack in particular I recall frequenting the pool tables at Classic City) so can Stafford. So, single ladies of Athens (well, those of you with no romantic interest in me) I beg of you: save our QB from the Auburn harpies. I'm not saying there dating, but if they were, I wouldn't put it past her to dump him right around the Georgia-Auburn rematch. Perhaps being dumped by a duplicitous Georgia girl is what led to Brandon Cox's performance? I'm not saying, but...

*Very uneventful weekend for your humble (sic) blogger. Friday was the highlight, with some great performances all around from the three bands (The Renegadez, The Empties, and Beyond Tomorrow--featuring former Of Mirth & Matter bassist Michael Ellers on keys!) with The Empties putting in a really solid performance. Saturday's planned Cinco de Drinko pool party was cancelled because of the weather, and I spent part of the day wondering if I'd gotten either too sensitive to weather conditions or if I was just coming down with something (turns out it is a cold. Guess who's buying some Claritin today?) Worse, my backup plan of spending the afternoon writing and recording was interrupted by what I have since dubbed the World's Largest Outdoor Sausage Party next door. My unofficial count: well over 50 dudes, 4 girls, and countless pointless bellowing. Here's hoping they all go home for the summer and my last few months as an Athens resident are largely dumbass free.

The lowlight came downtown Saturday when I was heading towards The Church and Walkers, only to overhear some dumbass passing the Human Rights Festival Stage yell "more socialism, vote democrat" like he'd just discovered sarcasm. And I wonder: would attempting to explain that if he supports Bush, he's more or less supporting a fascist register at all? Would he listen to reason at all (at say a later time when he's not drunk)? Or, was my first instinct to just beat the shit out of him the best result? Of course I also felt for most of the weekend that guys that wear visors need to be at least slapped upside the head on general principles (at least 90% are insufferable douchebuckets). If this were a livejournal blog, my mood would have been: bellicose.

I Drank Draft Beer Whilst Watching The Draft

Pre-post "throat clearing": I find I really like the word "whilst". I think Brick Top in Guy Ritchie's last good film is to blame for this, but I'm willing to attribute it to the fact that at least 2-3x per year I've faked either an Irish, Scottish or English accent in bars because, as reported in the New England Journal of Medicine, chicks dig guys with accents.

So the NFL Draft was this weekend, and because I A. forgot to take a draft of the short story I'm working on with me back to Athens and B. I was feeling lethargic as hell (plus peeling from a previous weekend's lopsided sunburn), I ended up watching a decent portion of the first-round live.

General (non-ATL, UGA-related) Thoughts:
1. There is a media bias, and it's not right-wing or left-wing, it's: ESPN his their entire collective head up Notre Dame's ass. There must be a marketing/advertising report out there that claims not only does ND have the most alumni, but they're all somehow filthy rich. How else can you explain a late first-round pick QB getting more coverage than the guy picked #1 overall (and who was shown, on video, throwing the ball 60 yards with one knee on the ground)?
2. Brady Quinn is apparently "model gorgeous" (I forget which talking head specifically made the reference, and you can supply the jokes), and once he signs his contract with the Browns, a millinaire. And yet I feel more like a badass today. Why? I can't throw a football for shit, I get paid in the (low--but only for now) five-figures, have no six-pack (again, for now), can't bench 220 at all, much less for multiple reps...and yet several of the girls I've dated are far hotter than Brady Quinn's girlfriend. (And yes, I know it's not all about looks...but ESPN had yet to interview her, so I don't know if she's funnier or smarter than some of my exes...but were I a betting man, and Vegas bored enough to place odds, I'd say no, she's not.)
3. The Dolphins picked Ted Ginn Jr.? Seriously? No wonder Nick Saban left.
4. The Red Sox took 2 out of 3 in the Bronx (ok, not football related, but still cool)

Falcons/UGA thoughts:
1. I hate the Redskins and wish them ill. Landry was supposed to go to ATL at 8, then the Falcons could grab Charles Johnson with their 2nd second round pick. They'd have a badass safety, a good DE and the big dude from Texas. Instead they have a DE that probably wasn't worth the 8th pick, a safety taken late on Sunday from Maine (you need safety help and you wait until late Sunday to get one? And he played at friggin' Maine?) Plus the dude from Texas.
2. The lineman from Texas=best pick the Falcons made all day. Big, mean, and fills a need.
3. The Pats got Randy Moss (!) for a 4th pick. The Falcons draft a WR from a college I've never heard. And I ask: why?
4. Houston at CB/Nickel, Jimmy Williams to safety? That could work. Though with Carolina drafting Dwayne Jarret Houston better hope he can match up with Steve Smith. 4.32 40 or not, freakish number of reps at 220 (despite being 185) notwithstanding, giving up half a foot to a WR can hurt. All told the first three picks=pretty good, the rest=head scratching.
5. TE isn't a postition of need, so the Falcons draft: a TE. Sure, I'm glad a UGA player was picked...but it reminds me too much of the Dan Reeves all TE drafts.
6. Calvin Johnson to Detroit is really the best news for the Falcons. CJ in Tampa Bay was trouble. Detroit is a good fit for the kid too, as Mike Martz is pretty much the GT offense under Gailey's antithesis--and if a converted safety like Mike Furrey could put up numbers in the offense...
7. Q-Mo was drafted ahead of Charles Johnson after all. Perhaps some of those "he's a sure 1st rounder" folks from a year ago came to their senses. Or they're Faulkner fans and wanted a player named Quentin. But probably the first reason.

Quick Shots For Friday Happy Hour

Perhaps we've reached a breaking point on the # of stupid things the administration's doing, especially war-related, but I'd love to see a little more outrage over the whole "building walls in the middle of the night" fiasco.

Just so I understand: the Iraqis are going to learn to get along with each other and come to peaceful solutions, because we're going to put giant concrete walls...er, "barriers" between them? Why? Because it worked so well in Berlin? And works so well in the West Bank now?

Forcing Freedom isn't taking a horse to water and making him drink by gunpoint, it's more like putting two angry cats in a bag, and then tossing a slightly large dog in there to settle them (note: in this strained metaphor, the US military is cast in the role of the dog, and Shrub and co. as the people throwing the dog into the bag with the fighting cats.)

In sports, Bama may be considering a live elephant mascot. I recommend the write-up linked for a large laugh. And I want to dismiss this, what with online Bama fans having that stellar track record of calling Spurrier to Bama and Rodriguez to Bama...but they were right about Mike Price...

The Red Sox go to the Bronx this weekend to face the last-place Yankees. Even if complete disaster strikes, the Yanks can't pass the Red Sox in the standings. The pitching matchups aren't quite as nice as last weekend (Wang vs. Tavarez makes me nervous as the Red Sox were able to slap around Wang a lot less last season--hehehe "slap around Wang"--and Tavarez's starts thus far have been near UGA's midseason (say the Colorado/Ole Miss games particularly) "my eyes, the goggles do nothing" bad. However, 20 games into the season, New York has no saves, Fruitbat's ERA is in the 7.00s, and if A-Rod had resembled a normal human at all, they might have the worst record in MLB. Ideally, the Red Sox sweep, but 2-3 would still be a nice kick-'em-whilst-they're-down move.

It's Twilight weekend in Athens, which means drinking downtown saturday, and the one time people can stumble drunkenly down the middle of Clayton with no reprieve (well, after the race, and before they reopen the street...which I think has been getting earlier and earlier).

I figure it will be a good time, but maybe not as cool as the first Twilight I remember going to: that evening wound up also being my first ever blind date, and my first date with someone who would describe herself as a "stalker" (possible reason I might be single: I've had more than one girl admit to being my stalker, and I've dated every single one...though I choose to say I've lucked out and only met the really really pretty, cool stalkers. Yes, that's the ticket.)

Rock Vocal Power

Maybe there was too much anticipation for it to live up to.



(No, not the Red Sox-Yankees series, or even DiceK’s debut into The Rivalry.)



Maybe there was no way it could live up to the last go-around.



(Nope, not talking about dating…at least not yet anyway…either.)



Maybe it’s just me, but Friday’s filmed-for-a-DVD concert wasn’t quite what I was hoping for.



Disclaimer #1: In no way was it a poor show. The acoustics were great and the sound guy deserves top shelf cocktails for the rest of the tour (The Tabernacle’s a beautiful venue, but as a former church, tends to be far more boom-y and reverberating than most clubs). The set list was excellent, mixing some very old stuff ("Indie Queen," "Over Your Head,"), 1-and-a-half covers (Part of "Laid" by James, and a rocked out "Born To Run"), with the usual Butch/Marvy suspects ("The Best Thing You Never Had," "Mixtape," "Joan" and "CLLS" at the piano.)



That said, it didn’t seem to hit the same transcendant levels of performer-audience interaction that Butch had at the Legion Field show, and the energy overall seemed scaled back from even his pre-Rise And Fall Of…tour 40Watt show (where we first heard some of those new tunes.)





Was it a conscious decision to scale back the pick flip-and-catches? (I’m guessing "no" here, because there was a great flip, catch-in-mouth-spit-catch moment late in the set).





Did the band eat some tainted shellfish and feel under the weather?



I’m not sure, but I think I might blame the crowd.



Atlanta’s always been Butch’s strongest area, and I’ve never seen him outside of the state of GA (something I plan to rectify maybe even as soon as his next—or 1969’s next—tour), but the general consensus from fans is that the crowd response isn’t remotely the same in general (and who knows, there could be some trucker-hatted aging hipsters in LA that outright dislike the guy…their loss of course.)





On his last trip to ATL, he remarked about seeing so many familiar faces in Atlanta. But this go-around it looked like there were a lot of new faces too.





Young faces.


Faces that were here because it was an all-ages show, and because they heard about Butch when The OC had him on as a featured artist back in December. Faces that were seeing Butch for the first time and didn’t know that when he asks you nicely to shut the hell up for three minutes so he can play "Joan" on the piano, it’s not a joke, he means it.





Faces that didn’t know that we could’ve kept that a cappella outro to "When Canyons Ruled the City" going a lot longer, and it would’ve been cool as hell. Faces that don’t even know who the Marvelous 3 are, and probably do have parents that have "Born to Run" on tape somewhere.



And they were everywhere too.





Maybe, as much as I don’t want to admit it, I am getting too old for midsize and large-venue general admission concerts. At Legion Field I had room to move about, play the occasional air-guitar and generally make a not-too-noticeable ass out of myself. At the Tabernacle, if I moved too far one way, security would tell me to either move to the back, or I’d find myself surround by a pack of drunken morons too busy patting each other on the back on how wasted they are to pay attention to the show.





Disclaimer #2: I'd also been fighting a sore throat/fever for most of the week and had been running at least a degree of fever less than 24 hours before the show. Plus I'd forgotten the cardinal going-out-rule that no matter how hot or cold it is outside, when 1,000s of people get crammed together it's going to be: hot. And perhaps a long-sleeved, black, not-exactly-breathable dress shirt was poor attire.

And so I figure that’s the most likely reason for the semi-disappointment (I’m still going to buy the DVD—along with extra copies to inflict on friends and family for gifts).

But, in the interest of full-disclosure there is one other reason: The Girl and I got reacquainted and started dating right after the Legion Field show (she was almost right behind me, but didn’t come up to me and I didn’t turn around enough or else I need my vision checked--she has a look she can give that if I had been getting it that night, I should have seen--anyway…but the next day she emailed me and a week later was what I still consider The Best Date I’ve Ever Had, in caps even, and so on). She claimed she never missed a Butch Walker show, and while we haven’t talked (and I haven’t even tried lately) I may have spent half the show with my head on a swivel looking behind me, to the side (and even wandering to the smokers’ pit and to the top balcony before Butch’s set started and the rest of my crew showed up.) Also, I may have sang her name instead of "Baby" on a few songs…but at this point it’s an old habit, dating back to October.



(Weird Coincidence Note: after the 40 Watt show I met/flirted with two lovely ladies from either North or South Carolina who had driven all the way to Athens to see the show. I suggested afterwards that they join me at Mercury Lounge for drinks. They didn’t show, but this gets weird when I mention that The Girl and I’s TBDIEH also took place at Mercury Lounge. This just hit me today, and I’m sure it signifies/means nothing…but still…)






And maybe all he really needed was fireworks. The first time I saw Butch solo was only a few blocks from the Tabernacle, at Downtown Rocks (with LFT opening), and in addition to playing his now famous Queen Medley, there were enough fireworks (literally) to rival a David Lee Roth production.





Of course after that show I met the man himself at Smith’s Olde Bar…hmmm. Damn it. I knew I shouldn’t have gone home after the show Friday…

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