Month: September 2015

Good morning, y’all. What a beautiful day and what a gorgeous night. If there’s a better place to be than the mountains of North Georgia in the Fall, then I don’t want to hear about it. My mind would be blown.

The game got off to a little bit of a shaky start tonight. Mulva was late with the sandwiches. How that matters is, here at TackyToo, we have a tradition that buying a Subway sandwich for whoevers’ butt is in the chair in the lounge gets you the right to the TV controller and the center seat. The seating capacity is twelve in the lounge of the Rec room and it is a much more intimate experience than the main hall of the Rec room. I guess buying a sandwich for folks was an apology Daddy made to everyone for taking over the TV on game day. I have carried on the tradition. Al Katz was pretending he was interested in watching the Auburn- LSU game, but Mulva showed up just after kickoff of the Georgia game. Al took his sandwich and went down to the main hall.

Well, let me say that Mulva’s tardiness was the only hitch in an otherwise perfect evening. Our beloved Dawgs soundly trounced the interlopers from South Carolina 52 to 20 in a record setting night in Athens. Steve Spurrier, Darth Visor, finally received some of his own medicine from the boys in red as we continued to score after the game was well in hand. This will be a highlight reel for the ages, but a few performances stand out.

Greyson Lambert: Greyson Who? turned in to Greyson WOO HOO!, as Greyson broke Mike Bobo’s record for straight completions and the NCAA record for passing completion. He even ran for 10 yards. Great job.

Nick Chubb: Of course, but against a qualified SEC defense, Chubb ran for 159 yards on 21 carries. This brings his run of 100 yard games to 12, within 1 of Herschel’s record. Chubb was gone 2,000 yards in his career at Georgia.

Sony Michel: Continues to be a threat from the backfield on the ground and in the air with 51 yards rushing and 32 yards in the air.

Malcolm Mitchell contributed 122 yards receiving, 2 of which were neat little back shoulder throws. Malcolm tops the list of 9 players making 24 catches on the evening. Allstate’s going to need to change their slogan, this group of Bulldogs are truly, “the good hands people”.

Defensively the Dawgs took what the Old Ball Coach threw at them and chewed it up and spit it out. The Gamecocks were held to 84 yards passing and 174 yards rushing as Spurrier threw everyone into the scheme, including the drum major. It was to no avail as the Bulldog defense held the Gamecocks in check for most of the game, particularly after the first half. A mental lapse on the last Gamecock score was quickly addressed on the sidelines by coach Pruitt. I love that kind of attention to detail. I also love that interception machine, Dominick Sanders.

Special teams are, “special” and will continue to need work if we are to continue our championship run. We overran our coverage several times last night on kickoff coverage. Had it not been for the fine tackling skills of Marshall Morgan, our kicker, the score could have been very different. Kickoff returns were way too close to touchdowns for my liking. Morgan was 1 of 1 in the field goal department and hit all of his extra points. A fine night. Isiah McKenzie continues to be lightning in a bottle with 40 yards in kickoff returns and 22 yards in punt returns. Speaking of punts, top punter of the night goes to Brice Ramsey, our backup quarterback. Clearly we are blessed with talent.

Alabama, Auburn, and Georgia Tech lost. Could life get any better?

Good morning, y’all. It is a spectacular day here in the mountains. In Athens, it’s a gorgeous day for barbecuing some chickens. Particularly if those chickens are of the South Carolina variety. Our beloved Dawgs hope to make a quick feast of the offering from the East today, in what we hope is their coach’s last season. Fingers crossed.

Anyway, I’ve been busier than a three legged cat in a sandbox. I no more got the rec room cleaned up from the Battle of Debate II, than I had to get ready for our AA meeting. Since the meeting is held in our rec room, I didn’t have to go too far. I did wish I’d had time to shower and change my shirt. It can get right airy in there sometimes.

The meetings kind of run themselves really. There are rarely any new members, we’re a pretty closed community here at TackyToo. That is not to say that there aren’t some people in TackyToo that shouldn’t be attending the meetings, they just haven’t seen the light yet.

When I say “seen the light”, I don’t mean it in a religious way, although I know most do. I mean “seen the light”, like you’re walking on the railroad tracks at midnight and the 12:15 express is coming at you at 70 miles per hour. Now, you can either change your behavior and step off the tracks, or continue walking and let your hard headedness lead to your destruction. When you’re caught up in the web of addiction that choice is harder than you think. Listen to me talking like a counselor.

Speaking of a counselor, the fellow that runs the meetings here at TackyToo is pretty doggone good. He’s always here on time and conducts the meeting in a way that is respectful to all of us. It would be easy to look down on many of us, but our counselor makes all of us feel that we are deserving of his attention. The counselor tries to bring something new to each meeting to keep things interesting, and this meeting he had a corker.

Now, I know everybody knows how an AA meeting goes, at least you’ve seen them on TV. After we had gone around the room, and the people that wanted to speak, spoke, the counselor sprung a little twist on us. He asked us to think of a favorite character from a book that we identified with. The essence of it was, when you read about this character you felt something in your heart that made you identify strongly with that character. Who was that character and why?

Well, we got some fantastic answers. There was a surprising Holden Caulfield, and a very surprising Lolita, and of course a James Bond and a Harry Potter. The second A in AA prevents me from discussing who saw themselves as Lolita, but I will relate my own answer. I see myself as the horse in “Animal Farm”, Boxer. I read the book in the ninth or tenth grade and for some reason the character just hit all of the right nerves.

For those of you unfamiliar with the work, “Animal Farm” was written by George Orwell, the “1984” guy, and dealt with the various forms of socio-political situations we are confronted with in the world. To give an over-simplification, the farm animals revolt against their masters, the farmers. After the revolt, the real struggle begins as each of the groups via for power. Through it all, the work horse, Boxer, listens to the diatribe, watches the back and forth, and then gets up and goes to work each day. He gives his best effort every day to improve the lot of the group. Even though his size would make him the most powerful, he chooses to not exercise it. He’s dedicated to the group right until the end.

Now, clearly that’s not me, but perhaps it’s who I wish I could be. Anyway, no other character has stood out as clearly to me as Boxer. Holden Caulfield is a distant second.

It’s a short book, plenty of time to read it between now and kickoff. It might add a different dimension to our dismemberment of the chickens later today.

 

Good morning, y’all. As you all I know I have been back and forthing with my attorney, Adam Dimwit, about getting my range extended on my ankle bracelet.  I need at least 1,000 feet to be able to cover all of TackyToo. The scenario has been; he tells me he’s working on it, and asks for money, and I tell him I don’t have any.

It’s a vicious cycle, and it planted seeds of doubt in my mind. Am I actually getting the representation I’m paying for? I finally decided I was. So last week, I put up for sale on Ebay some of my classic, autographed guitar picks. I suspect everybody knows the old adage about the fellow that can fall into a septic tank and come out smellin’ like a rose, well that ain’t me.

It turns out it’s a buyer’s market for autographed guitar picks, and I take what I’m offered and send it on over to Mr. Adam Dimwit, Esq. Believe it or not, I got $500 for my autographed Ace Frehley, and $750 for my Billy Gibbons. I had hoped the Billy Gibbons would have brought a lot more. Billy certainly got more out of his pick than Ace did.

 As I mentioned earlier, we got word that Bud Jr. was bringing his family over for supper tonight and what a joyous occasion it was. It’s been months since I’ve seen Bud Jr. and even longer for Bud III, or Trey as we call him. Trey is walking around now, and he acts like he owns the place. He is so cute in his little droopy diapers and t-shirt. Now, I know every Grandpa says this, but there can’t be a better looking boy out there.

Anyway, I was a little taken aback that Bud Jr. hadn’t changed clothes before coming over and was still in his police uniform when they arrived. Turns out that our dinner party is partially official business. Bud Jr. has been authorized to swap out my anklet with one set for a thousand foot range of the rec room. Hallelujah! Saints be praised!

I can’t wait to test it out by walking with Trey as far as his little legs would carry him. We get about a quarter of the way around the oval here at TackyToo before he needs a “pick-up”, and I am happy to oblige. We walk that way all the way around park, him getting tired and me carrying him until he was ready to go again. The child shows a lot of spunk.

Well, I’m grinnin’ like a mule eatin’ briars. It is weird to feel this happy about such a simple thing. I guess getting to share the moment with family was a big part of it, but I think I also know I’ve earned it. I’ve been working my program, attending my meetings, staying clean and sober. I’ve certainly gotten in touch with more feelings than I ever imagined I had. Most importantly I have not succumbed to the rage. The rage is still there, I’ve just found a more positive way to control it. Fingers are crossed.

In tribute to Mr. Billy Gibbons, I’d like for him to lead us in celebration:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVOHS1_z9HA

Good morning, y’all. Well, I’ve spent all morning cleaning up the rec room after last night’s free for all over the Republican debates. Like the first debate, we scheduled a potluck supper for the evening and invited the entire park to attend. Attendance was near 100% and a good time was had by all, right up until the last question, “what would your Secret Service code name be?”

One wit suggested Carly Fiorina should go with “The Face” in deference to Donald Trump’s suggestion that candidate Fiorina didn’t have the good looks required to be Commander In Chief. Well, one of the wives suggested Trump go with “muskrat”, since that was what his hair looked like, and then it was on. Wives had to defend the only female candidate and husbands had to defend those wives, and the next thing you know we’ve got Ms. Goodman’s baked beans on the walls. While no actual blows were delivered, there was a lot of pushing, a lot of spittle transferred in the process of nose to nose “explaining” one’s point, and food thrown when the “explaining” hadn’t gotten the point across. I just made sure everyone left for home last night and put off cleanup until today. It ain’t easy being the adult in the room.

I’ve compromised a few notes about each candidate, and I’ll leave it at that until another time. First off, they should name the debates, “The Hyperbole Games”. I enjoy a good hyperbole, look at the title of this article. I just fear there are a lot of folks in TV land that don’t know enough about history, or civics, or geography, or science, or the Constitution to know when one of the candidates has just shot them a line of crap that a John Deere tractor couldn’t pull them out of.

To start “The Hyperbole Games”, we will go to the B-Team scrimmage first:

Lindsey Graham can’t sleep at night because there’s millions of Muslims who want to leave their homes to come destroy Lindsey and his way of life. Only the thought of lot’s of men in military uniforms allow Lindsey to get to sleep at night.

Rick Santorum seems to be the embodiment of what the Republicans warned about Jack Kennedy. A Papist drone promoting the Catholic viewpoint. He’s on the right squad.

Bobbi Jindal is like a yipping chihuahua, yap, yap yap. He seems to hold out hope that all of the self-loathing of his own heritage will somehow pan out into the number one job. Don’t think so.

George Pataki seems like a nice man. He is pro-choice, pro-gay, pro-healthcare, pro-environment. Clearly a fish out of water. Maybe he’ll be a survivor when the Republican party implodes after the next election.

The Hyperbole Game’s main attraction, the Varsity scrimmage, in order of popularity: 

Donald Trump in the center of the stage acting as ringmaster for the rest of the clowns. The only candidate who seemed to survive his barbs was Ben Carson. Maybe the ticket is already set. Seldom right, never in doubt and has been a bully for so long it just feels natural to him. I wonder how his facial antics will play out on the international scene, not very well I think. Got in the best line of the night though. He told Jeb Bush that his brother was such a bad president that we elected Obama. OOOOOHHHHH, that stung!

Ben Carson seemed to have taken a great deal of anti-anxiety medication before the debates. I believe in a measured response, but Dr. Carson sounded like he was having to go down into the basement to retrieve the files for his responses. Caving in to Trump on the subject of vaccinations showed a lack of integrity that should disqualify him from anyone’s consideration.

Jeb Bush appeared to be more energized for this debate. It made me wonder if someone paid off CNN to ask the question about the Secret Service code name. Bush clearly had a snappy retort for The Donald’s previous critique that Jeb lacked energy. Jeb can’t escape his heritage no matter how hard he tries. Even Trump pointed out that all of Jeb’s advisers were the same old Republican guard of his dad and brother. Might we see Dick Cheney again?

Ted Cruz is a Canadian who wants to repeal the 14th Amendment. From the get go it was clear Cruz was not a favorite. After Cruz introduced himself to the crowd, the crowd was absolutely silent, no one clapped. In my opinion, they were right. Nothing to see here.

Scott Walker, like any lunatic fundamentalist, devoutly believes that it is his way or the highway. Taking pride in breaking the education in your state is the kind of Al Qaeda thinking required for the future, not! Best response of the night, “Call me Harley, I like to ride motorcycles”.

Marco Rubio started the evening off with a poor joke about California’s drought that was supposed to be self-effacing. It went over like a lead balloon. Of course, joking about others’ misery is how Republicans show compassion, so I guess Rubio was just towing the party line.

Carly Fiorina had an impressive night, so much so that she got TackyToo up in arms. Speaking of arms, Carly had some very specific numbers for the military levels that she would have to maintain to feel safe. She must be in need of men in uniforms almost as much as Lindsey Graham. I’d like to double check her numbers, but I believe she was calling for troop levels higher than WWII. I’ll get back on that. I also firmly disagree with her “gateway drug” spiel. 

Mike Huckabee started by kissing all of the other candidate’s butts. I’m guessing he’s applying for the VP job. I wish there had been more personal questions of Huckabee about his ties to the Duggars and his staging of the rally for the Kentucky clerk. Raise your hand if you think Christians are the most persecuted class of people in America. Yeah, I thought so.

John Kasich, like George Pataki, was a fish out of water. There’s no reason to waste a man of principal on this group. Let him go back home and run his state until the Great Republican implosion.

Rand Paul was criticized by the Donald for even being allowed on the stage. Faint praise, I would think. Paul is a metaphor, like the stopped watch that’s right twice a day. The watch is still broken, it just gives the correct response every once in a while.

Chris Christie is a bulldog, who at least tried to carry his message to the voter. He clearly knows how to handle the media, probably second best to The Donald. I just wonder if he will ever free himself of his political problems in New Jersey. I think it would be bad form to have a President or Vice President carried out of the White House in irons. He did give me a funny moment while he was trying to come up with his code name. I was going, “jelly doughnut”, “blintz”, “Pillsbury Dough Boy”, and on and on until he said “trueheart”. Not nearly as good as any of mine.

There you have it ladies and gentlemen, your cast of characters for the 2016 election. As the clowns climb back into the car designed to look like Air Force One, let’s bid them a fond farewell until next time.

Anyone know how to get baked beans out of shag carpet?

Good morning, y’all. So much going on here and so much to talk about that I forgot to update everyone about last Saturday night’s date night. I heard Bud Jr. is supposed to be coming over after while, I’m looking forward to that. BTW, it feels like Fall has arrived.

As outlined before, Mulva has tried to lessen the pangs of my house arrest by bringing the “outside world” to the confines of TackyToo for me. She came up with the idea of “date night”.  We wait until after the closing of the rec room on Saturday, fire up the dvd player, and play a movie on the big screen just for the two of us. The date has had some unintended concesquences, but for the most part, it has been a success in making me feel less disconnected to the outside world. Mulva pops popcorn, brings in soda and snacks and sets the chairs just right for the optimum experience.

Actually, it’s better than the movie theater we go to. In our area there’s lots of old folks that go to movies. I guess most of them forget they’re not at home in their living room, or rec room as the case may be, and will just chatter on and on throughout the movie. The fact that most of them are hard of hearing just make matters worse. The fact that half of them couldn’t follow a plot if you gave them a 3D map pushes me to the breaking point sometimes. Going to the movies is not supposed to be one of my triggers. If I had a dime for every time I’ve heard some old timer say, “now who’s he”, “how does she know him”, “now, why’d he go and do that” , well let’s just say I’d be living in Monaco or some place like that. So all and all, the rec room date night has had some real positives. I know for sure I’d have never had the public display at the Blairsville cinema that I had during our private screening of Solitary Man.

Choosing the movie has been kind of a fun bit of experimentation. Mulva goes to WalMart every Saturday, just as regular as church on Sunday. She uses the $5 discount movie bin to make her selections. The typical routine revolves around her calling me and asking me if I’ve heard of the movie title, and if I have, I can pass judgement. If not, Mulva reads me the name of the actors and we go from there. In this particular instance, the name of the movie was “Hope Springs”, which I had not heard of. The stars were Tommy Lee Jones and Meryl Streep. Well, I hate Meryl Streep, ever since Woody Allen’s “Manhattan”. I guess she did too good a job of convincing me she was a b*tch and I’ve never forgotten it. Tommy Lee Jones, on the other hand, was the hero in one of my favorite movies, “No Country For Old Men”. So I’m thinking this is 50-50. Mulva thinks the cover looks nice, and so, like the title, I take a chance. My “Hope Springs” that Tommy Lee Jones will dispatch Meryl Streep like Javier Bardem does to his victims in “No Country”. Boy, was I in for a surprise.

“Hope Springs” is the tale of a middle age couple of upper middle income who aren’t having sex anymore. This is very disturbing to Meryl Streep apparently, and she seeks out the help of Steve Carrell from the Office to build a fire under Tommy Lee Jones. The happy couple head off to a “couple’s camp” run by Steve Carrell. Well, Tommy Lee Jones responds like any dutiful husband who has been given a cocktail of Viagra and psychedelic mushrooms would, and he becomes the horn dog that Meryl has always been looking for. They live happily ever after.

It’s hard to quantify “worst movie ever”, there are so many qualified applicants. Let me just say I took great pleasure in throwing the dvd in the 55 gallon drum we use to burn trash in here at TackyToo. I couldn’t risk letting this piece of propaganda fall into the hands of our impressionable youth.

 

Good morning, y’all. While I mentally digest some of the latest news about the Atlanta Falcons and their new stadium, notice I used “their stadium”, and not “our stadium”, let me make Lite of the situation:

Q: What do the Atlanta Falcons and Billy Graham have in common?
A: They both can make 70,000 people stand up and yell “Jesus Christ”.

But seriously folks, the Falcons opened their regular season tonight against a bigger stronger bird, the Philadelphia Eagles. As the camera pans around the now terminal Georgia Dome, I look for craters in the concrete or cracks in the support beams. I find none. Maybe the Georgia Dome is built over a fault line that seismologist predict will produce a major event in the very near future. Whatever the immediate need of destroying the stadium is, it is a done deal. The new four seasons stadium, I say four seasons because it will have a retractable roof to allow the elements in, is under way. I guess I should stop calling it the four seasons stadium since the Falcon owners have sold the naming rights.

Now, most of us Georgians would have thought any number of local businesses would have wanted to step up and name the new stadium. Here’s a list of a few Georgia Fortune 500 companies that might have looked forward  to entertaining their corporate guests in “their” stadium:

• Home Depot
• United Parcel Service
• Coca-Cola
• Delta Air Lines
• Aflac
• Southern Company
• Genuine Parts
• First Data

Note that the first name on the list is Arthur Blank’s own Home Depot. I guess in this case Mr. Blank was selling and not buying.

As you all know, sometimes I have a hard time wrapping my head around the whole picture. Let us assume I understand and agree with the choice to tear down a perfectly good stadium to further indenture the taxpayer to a sports owner. I don’t, but let’s say I do. The winner of the new stadium naming lottery leaves me slack-jawed. Mercedes Benz is paying two hundred fifty million dollars to have their name plastered all over the dome. They are even going to put the logo on the roof that will open and close in a pinwheel fashion.

Up until this point, I feel like I’ve given Mr. Blank a pass on a few of his eccentricities. For one, I am disturbed by his need to be on the sidelines and in the locker room. Back in the day, we used to call boosters who had never played, but wanted to hang around the athletes, “jock sniffers”. I was willing to just overlook this little weirdness as a guy who wanted to be a stud, wasn’t, but made enough money to buy a team of studs so he could hang out with them. Hey, I told myself, it could be worse, the team could still be owned by the Smiths.

Anyway, I’m having a hard time understanding a person of the Jewish persuasion attaching himself to a company that used slave labor in World Ward II. I’m all about forgiveness, and second chances, but I don’t know how you can get past the fact that the success of today’s Mercedes was built on as many as 40,000 slave laborers who worked under the most appalling conditions. Maybe Mr. Blank’s threshold for forgiveness is much lower than mine. Maybe Mr. Blank plans on donating the money to B’nai B’rith. There were roughly six million Jewish deaths attributed to the Nazi’s in World War II. Two hundred and fifty million dollars buys about $42.00 of atonement for each death. Yom Kippur is next week, so let’s watch and see how this plays out.

In unrelated news, the Falcons won 26-24.

 

Good morning, y’all. I’ve been reading all of the football blogs today to see if I gain some “insider” info on the source of the Bulldogs offensive malfunction. Lots of speculation but nothing definitive.

Speaking of speculation, Mulva brought home a story from church today that is just ripped from the “Days of Our Lives”. I made the mistake of asking how church was, you know, just trying to be nice, and there unfolded a story of lust and greed that you would have to go back to the Old Testament to find its equal. What I was really trying to find out was, did the Right Reverend Dale E. Bread perform the testament of faith at the end of the service, and if not, who did? I was particularly interested in knowing if the Reverend Helena Handbasket had made a return appearance, and if so, did she have the same effect on the congregation as last week? A subset of that question was, did roll call increase as a result of the otherworldly effect that the Reverend Handbasket had had the week before? Well, Mulva was wound up tighter than Dick’s hatband and I didn’t know if she was going to be able to give me the information I wanted to hear, before bursting from holding in the information she wanted to tell.

Yes, the Reverend Helena Handbasket had returned this week, and had in fact, preached the sermon. She had handled the whole service from opening prayer to benediction. Yes, the roll call had increased, the little church was packed to the rafters. Everyone couldn’t stop talking in the parking lot after the service how the Reverend Handbasket reminded them of Carrie, or Carrie’s mom, Mulva wasn’t sure which, from that horror movie. Apparently, the light streaking through the Reverend Handbasket’s flowing red hair as she manipulated the serpents was more than folks could bear. Some folks made it to the altar to rededicate their lives to Jesus, some folks were just struck dumb as a post were they stood. All in all, it was the most “spirit filled” service Mulva had ever attended. That was not what Mulva wanted to talk about though.

What Mulva was bustin’ at the seams to tell was a mashup of “Days of Our Lives” and “The Full Gospel Original Church of God” with possible traces of “CSI” and “Cheaters” thrown in for good measure. Seems the Mrs. Reverend Dale E. Bread revealed to the Deacons after the service today that she had proof that the Right Reverend Dale E. Bread was laying on hands in an inappropriate way with the choir director, Ms. Ophelia Bottoms. Turns out, Mrs. Bread has had the reverend followed by a private investigator out of Gainesville for several weeks now. The private investigator had presented the photographic proof of the Reverend Bread’s healing ways the Saturday before the incident with Big Ben. Mulva tells me now that there may have been some tampering with the snake box before the Reverend Bread pulled out Big Ben for the show. Tampering, like hitting the side of the box repeatedly with a broom handle and dropping the box up and down on the floor.

Well, we’re off into Jimmy and Tammy Faye Bakker scandal area now. For those of you too young to remember, Jimmy and Tammy Faye Bakker were the “nuts” back in the ’80’s in the televangelism business. Their Praise The Lord club, or PTL as they called it, raised more money than Croesus. At one point, they were raking in a million dollars a week in donations. Besides the cash flow from donations, they also had the third largest theme park in the U.S.; also built by donated money.  Jimmy Bakker’s downfall was a lady known as Jessica Hahn. Their stories vary as to who raped who, but in the end, Bakker’s reign was over.

Bakker was convicted of twenty four cases of fraud and fined $500,000 and sentenced to forty-five years in prison. Tammy Faye was given a life sentence of wearing clown makeup and ultra-long false eyelashes.

Granny Waller used to say, “Pride goeth before a fall”, I think she got it from the Bible. Maybe more of these preachers should take the Good Book’s words to heart.

 

Good morning, y’all. All of my pregame preparations and rituals were called in to play today. Red sock, left foot, black sock, right foot, vintage cap and t-shirt, and Butts was in his favorite spot. In spite of having all of my mojo working, a great many supplications were required to avert disaster today. The Bulldogs pulled one out today in Music City, 31-14. It wasn’t pretty, but it was a W.

The good news is that we seem to have found a defense. There is marked improvement from last year to this. Comparing the current Bulldog defense to the Grantham years is like college to high school. Our defense was in place before the snap, they communicated with each other and we were treated to a few blitzes. Jordan Jenkins was a full on Manster today and Leonard Floyd was pulling his weight on the other side as well. Seemed like the only thing the defense couldn’t control was the zebras. Play maker Lorenzo Carter was ejected early in the game for a very questionable targeting call. I don’t know how more properly you could take down a quarterback, maybe ask him to tea first? The zebras found no level of Vanderbilt holding excessive, including a suplex performed on Sterling Bailey. Jordan Jenkins was called for “hand in the face” on a play where the referee clearly confused the colors of the jerseys. The zebras did their dead level best to help the Vanderbilt offense negate the superb play by the Georgia defense. The Dogs made three picks to help offset the Vanderbilt passing, and held Vanderbilt to 105 yards rushing. Dominick Sanders took one of the picks back to the house for the Dogs final score.

The Georgia offense on the other hand was a study in contradictions. Nick Chubb continues to be the all-world back we need. Chubb ran for 189 yards and Sony Michel had a nifty 31 yard run for a touchdown and added 30 yards via receptions. As good as we are in the running game, we are deficit in passing. Greyson Lambert did not complete a pass in the first half. He started the second half just as bad. Finally he got on track and found some boys with red shirts on to throw it to. It was good to see Malcolm Mitchell out there competing for the ball. If we can find a quarterback with enough arm strength to actually lead a receiver we might have a passing game as potent as our running game. As it stands now, Lambert’s five yard touchdown run for the next to last score was his shining moment. 

Special teams were special again. Isiah McKenzie is a force and he got the ball rolling with a fantastic punt return for a touchdown. On the other side of the coin was our two missed field goals that should have been gimmes. Being caught with our pants down on Vanderbilt’s on side kick did not help our cause either. Fortunately our defense held strong and allowed us to return to Athens with our head held high and another W in our pocket.

In celebration of what appears to be a new day on defense, I introduce the Godfather of Soul:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLny4dV5G1o

Good morning, y’all. I guess everyone remembers where you were on September 11, 2001, sort of like November 22, 1963. National tragedies seem to freeze us all in time and give us the most vivid memories of the exact day and hour.

I was working our “Gentlemen’s” vending business down in Florida and I’d taken Mulva along for the ride. Mulva had expressed an interest in going over to Cassadaga to visit some mediums she had heard about. Mulva was searching for the “truth” and was leaving no stone unturned. We’ll get to that story another time, but for now we’ll try to deal with my search for truth in a much more finite area.

I was dragging kind of slow that day, and was just about to turn off the TV in the motel we were staying in, when the headline came across the CNN channel that a plane had struck the World Trade Center North Tower. I sat down on the edge of the bed and watched in morbid fascination for the next several hours. About 15 minutes after the first plane struck, a second plane struck the World Trade Center South Tower. We sat horrified as we watched closeups of people running from the building, people jumping from windows. It was horrible, horrible horrible, and we could not turn away. Fifty six minutes after being struck, the South Tower collapsed in what appears to most people as a controlled demolition. About thirty minutes later, the North Tower collapsed on itself, again, looking like a controlled demolition.

Now, there have been books and movies and all sorts of histories written about what happened, I just can’t shake what I actually saw. If one were to ignore the fact that these buildings are designed to survive fire, and that the only fuel available for a fire after the initial crash was office furniture and paper, then there’s no way the steel of that building melted. To have it melt in such a synchronized way is beyond my comprehension. If you’ve ever seen pictures of a plane crash, there is that initial burst of flame as all of the fuel burns, after that it’s just whatever materials that are left that are flammable. Office furniture burning on the ninety third floor is not going to generate enough heat to melt steel fifty floors below. To me, it is also logical that things would tilt in the direction of the weakness. What I’m saying is, if you knock out one of the legs of a chair, it’s going to lean that way. Both buildings kind of had a corner taken out, sort of like the leg of a chair, and yet the buildings pancaked on themselves just like we’ve watched controlled demolitions do. I can’t ignore my eyes.

A plane hitting a tall building is not without precedent. The Empire State Building was struck by a B25 Bomber back in 1945. The building did not lose it’s structural integrity, and certainly did not pancake on itself. Are our building standards and materials that much weaker today?

I also can’t ignore the fact that building seven in the World Trade Center complex was not struck by a plane, but yet, suffered the same fate, a controlled demolition. I have some questions and observations about building seven:

1) If fire caused Building 7 to collapse, it would be the first ever fire-induced collapse of a steel-frame high-rise.

2) Building 7’s collapse was not mentioned in the 9/11 Commission Report.

3) According to a Zogby poll in 2006, 43% of Americans did not know about Building 7.

4) It took the federal government seven years to conduct an investigation and issue a report for Building 7.

5) 1,700+ architects and engineers have signed a petition calling for a new investigation into the destruction of Building 7, specifying that it should include a full inquiry into the possible use of explosives.

6) Numerous witnesses say the possibility of demolishing Building 7 was widely discussed by emergency personnel at the scene and advocated by the building’s owner.

7) Building 7 housed several intelligence and law enforcement agencies, and the NYC Office of Emergency Management’s Emergency Operations Center, more commonly known as “Giuliani’s Bunker”.

With reference to number 6 above, here is a video of the complex manager saying that they had decided “to pull it”, which is a phrase used in a controlled demolition. If the buildings were all wired for demolition, the questions become who and why?

After the attack on the Pentagon, my BS meter went into total alarm mode. First, there’s the Rumsfeld remark that the Pentagon had been struck by a missile. Second, there is no damage to the Pentagon attributed to the wings hitting with great force. Considering how weak and light the fuselage is compared to the wings, one would have expected to see damage done to the Pentagon by the wings. There was certainly a big hole where the fuselage supposedly went through. Lastly, where are the engines? The one thing that will survive a plane crash is the engines. There are none outside of the Pentagon.

There are a million questions I have, but the most important is why did we retaliate against Iraq, our friend, and not Iran, the country that sponsored terrorism? Was Bush so dyslexic he couldn’t tell the difference? Lastly, if we needed to attack somebody for what feels like an inside job, why not Saudia Arabia where all of the terrorists were from? 

9/11 makes the Kennedy assassination look like a Hardy Boys mystery. 

I need to call my sponsor.

Good morning, y’all. Rain, rain, don’t go away, but give us a chance to catch our breath. The recent rains have given life to our dormant bug population, mosquitoes in particular. I hate to get the bug guy out here to spray the park. I suspect the commercial foggers have something to do with our children’s low test scores.

While repairing our new tenant’s “throne” yesterday, I happen to hear a CNN report about the Queen of England now surpassing the record for the most time on her “throne”. As always, when I hear anything about the “royal” family, I thought, who cares? Didn’t we fight a war to be free of having to worry about the precious “royal” family? In fact, we fought two wars to not have to be concerned about the comings and goings of some inbred yahoos.

Take a look at the current winner of the conception lottery. Through no fault of her own, the current queen inherited wealth, power, and servitude from peoples scattered all over the globe. Peoples scattered all over the world, because that used to be the family business for the royals, exploit others. At the peak of its power, “the empire on which the sun never sets”, controlled over one fifth of the world’s population.

The “family” business was full time world domination. Whole countries were laid waste to provide materials to keep England’s war machine humming. Ireland, the “Emerald Isle” was almost completely clear cut to provide England with wood for ship building and gunpowder. England’s desire to gather up all of the world’s treasures and hide them in the Tower of London was insatiable. England set up colonies from Australia to Africa and was responsible for bringing the slave trade to America. And the queen spake, “Let no moral go uncompromised in your quest to bring me riches”.

Think of it, a country smaller than Alabama was the dominant power in the world. If that concept doesn’t blow your mind, think about randomly picking any Fred and Ethel out of the local Walmart and elevating them to the rank of King and Queen. Compound your error by ensuring that only Fred and Ethel’s progeny would rise to the throne. No matter how harelipped, wall eyed, or feeble minded the lineage might become, they were guaranteed a life of privilege and power.

This life of privilege and power was sanctioned by various religions entities granting to the “royals” the concept of “Divine Right”. Divine Right says that the “royals” answer to no earthly being, but only to the higher power. Sort of like our Supreme Court. Unlike our Supreme Court, when a “royal” dies in office, he is replaced with a family member. The current line of “royals” goes back hundreds of years and is one of the last monarchies on Earth. The fact that the British people continue this tradition is more a proof of Stockholm syndrome than anything else.

In my mind, just because something’s old doesn’t mean you keep it around, Mulva excepted. No matter how comfortable you get with a pair of shoes, eventually you need to trade them in. Trading those old shoes for a new brand might just put a new spring in your step. I think England ought to give that a try. They have the facade of a democratic government working behind the scenes now. They just need to cut the cord and stop seeking the Queen’s approval on everything. Parliament should divide up all of the royal property through eminent domain and turn the palaces into tourist attractions. The royals can keep what they can carry out in a 40 gallon garbage bag, and they have to carry the bag themselves. Everything else goes to auction. Pseudo public land like Hyde Park should actually become public land. Then the public wouldn’t have to endure a travesty like the one outlined here.

In short, the “royals” should just go away. Don’t care if they give birth, don’t care if they get married, don’t care if they die. That’s why we fought the Revolution, so we wouldn’t have to see the queen mum ever again. Stand up America, just say “no” to the royals!