Tebow-a Constrictor

Now who
Alone I'm thinking
why is superman dead
is it in my head
we'll just laugh instead
worry about the weather and
whether or not you should hate
~Our Lady Peace
Superman's Dead

I actually tried to find a really corny picture of Tim Tebow to emasculate him, but this one was just too much. I couldn't help myself. That girl seems to have such personality.

Either way, the Dawgs really handed it to the Florida Gators this weekend. First time since 2002, and it couldn't have been sweeter.

NO ONE - and I almost mean it literally - picked the UGA Bulldogs to win the game this past weekend. Now we're back in the race to win the SEC East. With some luck - a Tennessee loss and a win against Kentucky and Auburn - there is a great possibility that it will happen.

But you know how those things go.

Sorry I haven't been posting the past week, but I had a break from work, and I chose to spend it in a way that is NOT sitting in front of a computer screen. Well, I did work on the newest novel, but that doesn't count.

What did I do? I had an Oreo Brownie from Starbucks - awesome! - and I drank a beer called 'Old Chub' (it's Scottish). Not at the same time, though. That would have been just gross.

I got to hang out with my buddy Johnny and his ferocious cat Conan (pronounce CO-nan, like the warrior, not the talk show host) and listen to old rap songs that I did when I was in college.

LP and I laid around yesterday and read and I played the new Guitar Hero. I actually stood in line to go pick it up, so my nerd quotient is raging right now. Furthermore, I've already almost beaten the game.

Give me a break, though. There was no Falcons game yesterday. And, if it makes it any better, it's going to take me quite a while to beat the game. Metallica's 'One' and Slayer's 'Raining Blood' are two of the last songs. Just thinking about those songs makes my forearms ache.

Go Dawgs. 2 SEC games to go.

Insomniac

Drunks and losers,
Dwarves with limps,
Flos and ho's and one-eyed pimps -
Down the alleyway they creep.
They're all your friends when you can't sleep.

Come with me and you will see.
A late-night-freak-show-Jubilee!
Kick the Sandman in his sack;
Stay up late - Insomniac!
~Dave Atell

I can't sleep. I haven't been sleeping well a lot lately, and I don't know why that is. But here I am. I haven't updated in several days and I guess this will have to pass for a blog posting.

Oh, but here's something I'd like to bitch about. While I'm here and everything. You know what I hate? People who go through the 10 items or less line in the grocery store with a cart load of stuff.

And it's not even the fact that they go through with it, even though it's a travesty to everyone but the person directly involved, but the way in which they go through with it, pretending as if they don't have fourteen boxes of Jell-O and multiple cans of tuna fish and gravy and every damn thing imaginable stuffed into the cart like inmates in a prison.

I wouldn't have even thought about it, but it happened tonight while in line at Publix. Urgh.

Anyway, that's about all in the life and times of Jinx Protocol. Oh, but it's going to be a short week. That's another great thing about this week, is that I've already mailed it in, it feels like.

You see, the week of the Georgia-Florida weekend is a big deal. The game has to be played in a 'neutral' spot, though anyone from Athens can tell you that six hours away in Jacksonville is hardly neutral, so to prevent every single football fan from flunking out of school, the University of Georgia closes down for two days - Thursday and Friday - so people can load up and go down to Jacksonville.

And they call it Fall Break. It's genius. For those out of the realm of understanding, they also call the tailgating in Jacksonville 'The World's Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party', and it pretty much is. The Presidents of both schools play down the phrase, but it's the one which has stuck and anybody who's anybody calls it that. Or TWLOCP for short.

Now, I have to work Thursday, but Friday's a freebie. Which is awesome! If there are no students in town, then it's almost pointless for me to work.

Don't forget: Kickoff of the GA-FL game is 3:30 on Saturday. Go Dawgs!

'Can' You Dig It?

You want to come down to the underground
Old school - here's a shovel can you dig it fool
Can you dig it (we can dig it)
Can y'all dig it (we can dig it)
~Tag Team
Whoomp! There it is

While just perusing the internet yesterday, I found an interesting article about canned 'goods.' I'm in a punn-y mood today, so I want to call them canned 'bads.' Basically, Wired composed a list of the most interesting canned goods online. Most of them come from other countries, so maybe I'm being a little culinarily-xenophobic - maybe! - but these foods just do not look appetizing at all.

Because, I'm here to tell you folks, you really don't want to eat any of the things on the list at Wired.com The picture on the right should just about tell you everything you need to know about it. Surströmming. That's what the pickled, canned, rotting herring dish is called. Blech.

And it gets worse (I think). But I don't want to ruin it, so go check it out for yourself. You'll get a laugh out of it and maybe gross-out some of your friends.

Texas Flood (Please Come to Georgia)

Well there's floodin' down in texas
all of the telephone lines are down
Well there's floodin' down in texas
all of the telephone lines are down
And I've been tryin to call my baby
lord and I cant get a single sound
~Stevie Ray Vaughan
Texas Flood

I know it's not typical of me, but I'm going to have to get into a little bit of reality here. We've got a problem. If you don't live in Georgia, then you may not even know about what's going on down here.

And that's okay. But it's dire. We are experiencing the worst drought in over 100 years - You can read an article about it here - and Athens, GA (my town) is considering closing down the University of Georgia after Thanksgiving to combat the horrible conditions down here.

That may not sound like an extreme measure, but consider the consequences. If UGA decides to give final exams early - before the Thanksgiving holiday - then it may well lose its accreditation status. A University must maintain a certain number of hours of studay per credit hour to keep that precious status.

The other solution is just as unsavory. Should the university wait to give exams in January, when the students would purportedly return, then not only would it throw off the entire semester schedule, most of the morons - ahem, students - attending UGA would have forgotten everything, causing mass hysteria, I'm sure.

They're even considering canceling Bulldawgs home games. And THAT, my friends, is a big deal to the people who live here. Not the drought itself - that, they think, would pass - but the loss of college football.

I don't know. Maybe that would spur people to actually care about what's going on right now. This almost answers that question: What do you love more, the Bulldawgs or your very own livelihood? Hmm. I love college football, but I also love water and my job, which depends on students being in classes, so I'd say that whatever it takes to get the situation back under control is what they should do.

I mean, college football would probably go away well AFTER school and government down here, I'm sure, but if it does, I'll just have to hole up until this whole thing blows over.

PS: if you have any water to spare, America, please send it down here to us.

Evolution Debunked - Finally!

Well, I've been waiting for a conclusive answer to all those scientific theories of evolution. Thank Jehosephat I finally found it! In ten minutes a thirten year old kid proves what no scientist in the last hundred and fifty years has been able to do. Prove that evolution is bullshit.



Okay, all kidding aside, this video is as hilarious as it is completely and utterly untrue. I hope you enjoy it, Avid Reader, because I picked it out just for you. Our existence and knowledge of being has nothing to do with a set of long, protracted evolutionary steps. It was a talking snake in a tree. Come on, people!

Mondays are Fundays for Sundaes

Hit you with funk, it's like, Who cut the provolone?
Government officials put a tax on my mobile phone.
~Blackalicious
Paragraph President

Well, despite the fact that this weekend sucked - don't even ask me about the thing we used to call Georgia Football - the week is starting off all right. I mean, the Falcons are terrible and the Braves dropped a clunker this year, so everyting feels like normal in my world.

Mondays are usually crappy, full of just bad will toward the fact that I have a five-day workweek, but this Monday is just fine, thanks.

LP took the GRE today and got back part of her score today. The verdict? She kicked the hell out of it, and I'm glad. I knew she could do it, and now so does she. It's great, because I think she'll be able to get into UGA's History Ed program for the Spring. Congrats, LP.

My day has been going well because work hasn't sucked, and the day is almost over. Fan-effing-tastic.

Tonight's TV is good - I can't wait for Chuck and I'm working on beating one evil XBox game. It's called 'The Suffering: Ties That Bind', and even though it's a few years old, it's still a pretty entertaining game.

Sadly, it's one of the few urban games out there, too. I hate using the 'U' word as a euphemism for black, but that's just what it's become, I guess. I don't remember when Urban became synonymous with black, but believe me if I could change it I would.

Either way, 'The Suffering' is awesome. I don't know what it's about, really, but you are an escaped prisoner who can transform into a demon and fight off other demons in this post-apocalyptic 'urban' landscape. Think Doom-meets-GTA. Very bloody, very disturbing - LP won't even come in the bedroom while I'm playing it - and extremely fun.

I'm just glad that I'm getting back into video games. For a while, I thought I had unintentionally outgrown them. Which is weird, considering just how much of a child I truly am. Thankfully, I can maintain a semblance of my childiness without seeming weird.

Keep the XBox Away From My Wrists...

I should not be allowed anywhere near NCAA Football, I've decided. Last night, after finally deciding to watch Friday Night Lights during a BRAVO marathon, I popped in my nearly-two-year-old version of college football - which has Matt Leinert and Mario Williams and Vince Young - and proceeded to have a conniption fit with my new dynasty.

I'll pretend that you give a crap about my fake-football-world and expound on why I was so touchy. LP gave up on my mood and went to bed, if that's any indication.

I started a dynasty with the Maine Bears. Stop laughing. It's the truth. I thought that spending several years building up a program that was never that special in the first place would be a nice change from being UGA or USC or any other team that can obliterate just about anybody on the field.

Boy, was I wrong. I found last night that I like winning too much to have any compassion for a bunch of bums who couldn't make it at the other, bigger, more flashy schools.

So I did what any self-respecting gamer would do: I cheated. During the game you can change from one team to the other, if you don't mind losing the 'Campus Challenge' points, which I have never cared for much in the first place. I did exactly that, taking my 'opposing' team back to the one yard line and downing it through four downs so that the Mighty Maine Black Bears could take over and score easily, becasue otherwise I would have gone completely and utterly winless in my first season.

It may sound great to you to manipulate a fake game for rigged results, but I have to be honest. It is completely and mind-numbingly boring. After the first quarter, I almost gave up coaching altogether. If I'd had the power, I probably would have just abandoned the football program and opened a laser tag club squad in its stead.

Rather, I persevered, glutton for punishment that I am, and spent the next three hours doing the same thing for two more games. Jesus, I'm so exhausted today. I feel as thought I have actually played a football game, pads and all.

So, to reward myself for my hard-fought - wink wink - victories last night, today I'm merely going to lie on the couch and watch real college footbal while drinking the remainder of my Sam Adams Octoberfests.

Cheers.

Up-Chucked and Down with Dirty Money

I've been talking about television a lot more than I probably would like on this blog, but so many new shows have come out that I'm picking up - thanks, LP. And, as per usual, I can't keep my opinions to myself.

None of the shows premiering this go-round are classic, but some of them are entertaining and others merely watchable. Still others I refuse to even scroll by on my TiVo because I think I might hurl.

'Dirty Sexy Money' is anything but. It's a pretty cool show, despite the crappy, crappy, craptastic name. The family involved is named Darling, so I think 'Darling Money', even, would be a better title for the show than 'Dirty Sexy Money.' The name, particularly, is why I didn't want to watch the show initially.

However, it's sort of a half-assed Arrested Development that's slightly more serious and less self-referential. Think AD mixed with any number of bland NBC hour-long dramas. I give it a perhaps-you-should-give-it-a-shot-but-by-no-means-am-I-endorsing-it vote.

'Reaper' is interesting, even though it's on the CW. I most certainly wouldn't have watched it had Kevin Smith not been involved. Again, I was surprised to find that it was genuinely funny in some parts and intense in others. I wasn't in love with it, but I think it has potential to be a pretty good show.

'Chuck' may be the most intriguing of them all, 'Back to You' notwithstanding (See my post). I don't know how long the shtick can keep up, but I've really liked the first two episodes. The second was a little more action and less nerd than I would have liked, but overall it was okay.

Granted, I'm just getting back into watching television, and I watch about 400 percent of what I used to, so I'm having trouble keeping all of the other parts of my life in check. But I think it might be worth it, if some of these shows pay off in the end.

'Desperate Housewives' seems better than last season, which - I thought - was atrocious. It's still not as intriguing as the first season - the writers haven't given Mike DelFino his balls back - but some pretty cool things are happening. SECRETS are back, and I don't know how they forgot about that with the third season.

'How I Met Your Mother' is still, by far, my favorite sitcom. Countdown to Slap-Bet is Effing genius, and I hope it pays off this season. 'Nuff Said. If you haven't watched the show, do. It's great. Unless you suck. Then it's not for you.

I haven't watched the first episode of 'Dexter' this season yet, but I'm severely looking forward to it. 'The Office' and 'My Name is Earl' were classic - think Michael Scott's final moment in the episode - and '30 Rock' looks to be hilarious. Thank God it's back.

sorry this post was so long.