My favorite UGA joke

I heard Andy Griffith tell this joke back in the days before his TV show when he was a young, country comedian. Now, mind, I didn't hear it live - I heard it on tape. But still, it's hilarious...

Auburn is playing Georgia in a key late-season SEC ballgame in Athens, Ga. Two Tigers fans -- George and Albie -- have driven in from Auburn. They arrive early to Sanford Stadium, tailgate for several hours, mix and mingle with Georgia fans and mind their manners.

An hour before kickoff they make their way to their seats so they can check out the teams warming up, listen to the bands and enjoy the atmosphere.

In comes UGA. Fans in the stadium, not quite full, roar their approval of their beloved mascot. He slobber-walks by the cheerleaders, slobber-walks by the players and coaches. When the team retreats to the locker room for a final pep talk, UGA moves toward midfield for a pre-game ceremony.

Suddenly he stops. And sits.

And proceeds to lick himself in a place where dogs are prone to lick themselves.

Up in the stands, George has in binoculars trained on UGA. He sees the proud bulldog stop to take care of himself.

"Boy, Albie," he says to his friend, "you see that?"

"Sure do, George," Albie replies.

"I sure wish I could do that."

Pause.

"George," Albie said, "that dog'd bite you!"

Best Super Bowl Ad of the Night

What would've made this commercial a true classic, though, if right at the last moment when Charlie Brown was about the snag the Coke Bottle a huge Lucy balloon comes out of nowhere and snatches it away from him...

Maybe next year - a sequel!

MONEY!!!

Brainyboy shoots a free throw - and hits!!!

Sick

I am so sick of following sports, and being constantly disappointed.

Blogger Block

What to write?

I'd love to dive into the issues of the day but I don't have time to do a lot of research on linking, justification, fact-finding, all that. So here are just a few salient points and opinions that float about my head. If something doesn't make sense, just ask and I'll try to clarify.

Please, feel free to comment or discuss anything that strikes your fancy. I want to talk :)

• Gauntlet, Gauntlet II and Gauntlet Legends may just be the best trio of arcade video games ever created. And the trio were designed over a span of about 15 years. Discuss.
  
  
• I apologize if this offends anyone, but the idea of pulling our troops out of Iraq is ludicrous. The chaos that would result is unacceptable, and would result in a much larger net problem than staying and trying to fix the problem.
  
  
• In a related vein, there's no way to accurately get an idea whether the "surge" is working or not, because almost each and every report you see is biased one way or another. And the idea a US Senator (Biden) purports to know more than the General in charge is asinine.
  
  
• Ok, enough about foreign policy. I wish I had enough free time to be able to watchblog about the News Sentinel's trial vs. Knox County goverment. Rich, Russ...how do you guys find the time?
  
  
• It's a happy, happy day when Michigan and Notre Dame are 0-2. I almost thought Miami was 0-2 as well after they got pasted by Oklahoma but they're 1-1, so I have nowhere to talk. It's also nice when Georgia gets beat. Tennessee looked better vs Southern Miss than most people give them credit for. I've picked them too many times vs Florida and been disappointed to pick them this time. But I'll be happy to be surprised. Florida 24-10.
  
  
• Bob Kesling, radio announcer for UT Football, is simply terrible. I'm sure he's a nice guy, and is a knowledgeable sportscaster as well as competent basketball announcer, but he has no real skill to call a football game. He was good as a sideline reporter for Jefferson Sports on TV, but that's it. It's embarrassing. I had a whole huge post about this but decided not to post it, because I don't want to hurt somebody's feelings that I don't even know. And I don't want Smokey to visit my house in the dead of night...
  
  
• Tink turns 8 in a couple weeks. Brainyboy's playing Little League baseball. Just catching everyone up.
  
  
• My shoulder hurts, my wrists hurt, my back hurts, my side hurts, and sometimes my pride hurts. Did I miss anything?
  
  
• Why do I not seem to be able to write like I used to on this site? I used to be able to do some nice, long posts about my life I was proud of. That hasn't happened in a while. I wonder why?
  

The Biggest Sports Non-Story of the Year

One small aside from the ongoing zombie invasion:

Earnhardt to join Hendrick Motorsports

You've gotta be kidding me.

Paris Hilton's jail-time is more relevant than this story, and it's big news in the sports world today.

If there's anything more superfluous to the sports world than the NBA it has to be Auto Racing.

Inconcievable!

Strange Doin's in Women's Basketball

First Tennessee cancels its series with UConn Lady Huskies. Speculation is rampant over the reasons for that, ranging from money to suggestions of cheating to bad blood between Pat Summitt and Geno Auriemma to wanting to not play them so often when they meet in the NCAA Tournamet almost every year.

Strangely, Pat and the Athletic Department have kept silent. John Adams doesn't like it one bit, and makes his feelings known in a rare criticism of the Lady Vols by the News Sentinel.

We may never know the real reason, but I think as time goes on public pressure will mount to give some sort of explanation. Real or made up.


Then today former Lady Vol All-American and Los Angeles Spark All-Star Chamique Holdsclaw retired from the WNBA after eight years on and off in the league. She had battled depression during that stint, and it's unknown whether her retirement is related to that. Holdsclaw gave no official explanation.


Strange....


UPDATE (06/14): Edited to correct first link location. Sorry about that...

My Sports Commentary of the Day

She totally missed the base. Completely. Utterly. Wasn't even close. I was closer to touching home plate than she was. Saturn was closer to touching home plate than she was. We wuz robbed.

And that's your totally unbiased sports commentary of the day.

Runs in the Family

Just so you know Brainyboy's not the only all-star athlete in the family:

What form!

His swing is a blur...

Rounding the bases--

--and coming home!

These were taken during this game.

The Next Pelé?

BrainyBoy gets his kicks:





The JV Soccer season may be over, but the memories remain....

Who Knew?

De La Hoya and Mayweather prep for Saturday showdown

Wait a second, wait a second....hold on. I have an important question, here.

There's still boxing?

I had no idea....

I'm Getting Too Old For This

Last night at softball, I:

• Went 3-4
  
• Scooped up a hot grounder at first, which bounced and hit me in the abdomen. I trapped it and tossed it to the pitcher covering first, but it wasn't in time. I felt like I had the wind knocked out of me, and today I have a softball-sized red spot just below my ribs.
  
• Was standing on 2nd with another runner on 1st when the next batter hit a blooper to left-center. The left- and leftcenter-fielder (in softball there are 4 outfielders) both converged, so I went about half-way. The ball hit the left-center's glove and popped out. I started running for 3rd and noticed him catch the ball in the air with his other hand, barehanded. You could hear the cartoon *scr-ee-ee-ee-ee-ch* as I skidded to a stop and ran back to 2nd. Left-center threw to 2nd to try to pick me off, but I slid under the throw, landed hard, and - once again - bruised my rear end in the same spot as the last time. The throw was dropped and rolled away so I scrambled up and ran on to 3rd. I scored a couple batters later.
  
• In the process of sliding (which is being charitable - it was more like "stumbling with style") I also bruised the inside of my left wrist. There is now a greenish area that looks like I'm about to become a zombie.
  

Some people seem to find this amusing...

One Liners

• Imus Apologizes For Controversial Comments About Rutgers Players
  
  The only thing more pathetic than a Howard Stern is somebody trying to imitate a Howard Stern.
  
  
• Bleakest climate report approved
  
  It's so important to make global a political issue with both sides, it's going to slip up and turn into a disaster.
  
  

UPDATE (04/09/07): I wanted to pull this out of comments and put it out here to explain a little more what I meant...

Buck said:

I love Don Imus. I have listened to him for years and years.

I figure he did not call the team anything that their coach has not already called them at times when they were behind at the half or what they called each other when their play was not up to standards.

Don has apologized. His apology this morning was difficult to watch for those of us who know what he is and what he does.

All that is left now is to write a check to Rutgers. I think that is what is called "reaching out". He should go ahead and do that and put this all behind him.

I replied:

There are comments that come out of people's mouths that demonstrate the kind of people they are, inside.

When you say something like Imus said, it freezes your persona for that moment in time. We get a glimpse of a person's soul. No amount of contrition, apologies, personal appearances, offers to meet with players/families/etc in the days following the event can remove the fact that the opinion exists and will continue to exist. We may forgive, and Rutgers may forgive but it does not expunge his permanent record, unless some clear pattern of behavioral change becomes apparent.

We all have terrible thoughts in our head. I daresay anyone reading this has a very good chance of having denigrating thoughts about blacks, whites, women, men, gays, Arabs, Jews, Yankees, southerners, Florida fans, Trekkies, NASCAR fans, fantasy league players, whatever. In our private, most secret thoughts we may get a flashing impulse across our brain: "That (person) is a real ****". But just as quickly, that thought passes by and reason, good taste and morality prevails. Sometimes we might even feel guilty for having such a judgmental thought.

But others allow those thoughts to find residence, and worse to come out their mouths and become public. When you make that step, the thought has already become a belief and you can't just apologize it away. You have to be willing to understand what was wrong about it, and take steps to correct it.

Rush Limbaugh has made similar comments about Michael J Fox. Comedian Michael Richards got in trouble for letting his latent bigotry come out when he was angered. Some of us remember Jimmy the Greek's comments many years ago.

We are commanded to forgive. Most of us do so freely, not because of the command but because we know it's the right thing to do. But we cannot simply shrug and say, "Yeah, we know you didn't mean it." because they did, and that fact will be around for a long, long time.

Separated at Birth?

If you watched 24 the other night, you were treated to see Jack Bauer be a nice big brother to autistic Brady:


As I watched, something kept gnawing at me regarding the character of Brady. No, not that he talked exactly like Dustin Hoffman in "Rain Man", but that he reminded me of somebody.

Then a couple days later it hit me....(see below)












It's Knoxville's Sports Talk host and local sports writer Jimmy Hyams!

Some Quick Thoughts

• Pete Rose admitted to betting on baseball yesterday. After all these years of denial he finally admitted to betting on the Reds every evening when he was manager.
  
  I know betting on sports is basically wrong and illegal in most states. I know betting on sports when you're an active participant is pretty reprehensible. But should Rose be condemned as much for betting for his team as he might have been had he bet against his team? I know there's point spread implications but, maybe I'm missing something, I don't think point spread matters a whole lot in Major League Baseball. If he'd bet against the Reds and actively worked to throw the game then he should be in jail. But if he bet for the Reds and, as a good manager should, tried to win the game and the # of runs didn't matter...well, I'm not going to be on his case too terribly much. After all both operations had the same goals... Oh well.
  
  
• Yesterday Tennessee Senator Mike Williams dropped out of the Republican Party and officially became an independent. I say good job, and what took you so long, Mike? And that has nothing really to do with the fact he was a Republican or Democrat, just that he is the latest in a not-long-enough list to finally shed official Party designation and realize there are two sides to every argument, and that you don't have to follow a "platform" to be a successful lawmaker or person. I think someone's political integrity goes up in my estimation when they do something like this. Here's hoping Joe Lieberman eventually takes that next step in the US Senate, but admittedly the pressure is much greater there. Although the Democratic Party has certainly done him no favors.
  
  I don't know much about Williams, but he has voted with the Democrats in a number of issues in the past - I just hope he doesn't become an IINO - "Independant in Name Only."