I thought about posting yesterday when the UGA Bulldogs came from behind to find a way to win against the Tennessee Volunteers, but I held off so I would have to write something here about today's Dolphins game. As nervous as I was about the outcome for UGA, I really, really enjoyed watching the Bulldogs play. The Dolphins, not so much.

Of course, the Bulldogs are a good football team with excellent coaching and talent. The Dolphins, not so much. Their defense is truly awful*, and their finesse offense will never be able to compensate enough to overcome their flaws. I know they're not going anywhere, so there's nothing to get excited about.

In fact, it felt like a bit of a chore to wake up early and watch the Dolphins. None of the players have vivid personalities that make them worth cheering for. The coaches seem to care less than I do, and I don't even like looking at the team's current logo or uniforms.

I can't even get excited about the fact that the Dolphins might be so bad that they'll end up in a position to take a high draft pick. The last time they looked this awful was was the 2019 season, when their motto was "Tank for Tua." Well, they even fucked that up, but still traded a bunch of resources to draft Tagovailoa, who has proven as durable as cotton candy and can no longer differentiate Dolphins receivers from his opponents. I don't know which player the Dolphins will waste their pick on in the 2026 Draft ("Death March for Arch"?), but I've come to believe that they're equally doomed.

Obviously I'm not alone in feeling frustrated. Earlier this week, after Josh Gad publicly bailed on the Dolphins season during an appearance on Seth Meyers' late night talk show, another guest encouraged NFL fans not to push their young children into fandom "because that's how you end up with Dolphins fans." Today in Miami the remaining Dol-fans seemed to agree; the stands were never more than half full for the home opener against a division rival. Maybe financial pressure will force the team to do something other than just suck all the time, but at this point, until there's a change in ownership, I'm not going to hold my breath. So long, and thanks for all the fish.

* According to CBS: "The Dolphins have allowed points on 13 straight drives dating back to last season. That is the longest streak by any team since 2000." For the record, that streak came to an end when the Patriots knelt on the ball to go to halftime. So maybe "awful" isn't a strong enough word.

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How did I spend my 9/11? By celebrating the invasion. The British Invasion.

When it was announced that Herman's Hermits were coming to town, Mom bought tickets. (She thinks lead singer Peter Noone is cute.) She needed a companion, and I was recruited. She said I'd be the youngest person in the room. She was right with the possible exception of Mr. Noone himself, who clearly really, really enjoys performing to a live audience. He was charming, funny, and a talented impressionist in addition to sounding pretty much the same as he did sixty years ago.

Now, I did a little research. I was familiar with many of Herman's Hermits' hits, and I knew that the backing band for Noone in Newnan consisted of none of the other original Hermits (some of whom still perform as such in Europe). So this was really Peter Noone and "a band that they call Herman's Hermits for promotional reasons." But that doesn't really matter as much as it might for some other long-running acts because almost all of the original Hermits' songs were themselves covers of previous recordings. (Not so uncommon for many acts of the era. Even the Beatles started with covers.) You go to a Peter Noone show to hear Peter sing songs that you associate with Peter Noone, and that's exactly what we got.

For future reference, this was the set list. The asterisks identify songs first recorded by Herman's Hermits.

• I'm Into Something Good
• What a Wonderful World
• Love Potion No. 9
• Ring of Fire (impersonating Johnny Cash)
• Dandy
• A Must to Avoid*
• Leaning on the Lamp Post
• Daydream Believer
• Sea Cruise
• Listen People*
• Barbara Ann (chorus only, as "New, New-nan")
• Bennie and the Jets (chorus only, impersonating Elton John)
• Start Me Up (intro only, impersonating Mick Jagger)
• Just a Little Bit Better
• Silhouettes
• The End of the World
• Jezebel
• Can't You Hear My Heartbeat*
• Mrs. Brown You've Got a Lovely Daughter (false start first line as Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer)
• I'm Henry the VIII, I Am
• There's a Kind of Hush

As I said, I did a little research. You'll notice that the final song is There's a Kind of Hush (which was performed tonight with a synthesized horn section). As it happens, that's the same song that Noone sang to close their act exactly 55 years ago, September 11, 1970, (with real horns) when Herman's Hermits played for Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother. If it was good enough for the Queen Mum, it's good enough for my Mom.

Full disclosure: One Herman's Hermits song I was not familiar with was A Must to Avoid, and my malfunctioning ears thought I heard Peter singing "A Muscular Boy." Which probably means the crowd wasn't that much older than me.

The Ed Sullivan Show, June 6, 1965

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Not so long ago, qz.com reported a statistical analysis of broadcast NFL games revealing that an average broadcast of 3 hours and 12 minutes contains only 11 minutes of actual action. One hour of the broadcast is commercial breaks, about 20 in all with a total of 100 commercials.

So about two full hours of NFL broadcasts are players just standing around. Somehow, that was the best part of watching the Dolphins lose their opening week game 33-8 to the Indianapolis Colts.

It also bears mentioning that the Colts hadn't won a season opener since 2013, and even more impressively, according to ESPN, no team had scored points on all 7 of their offensive possessions since 1978. (The last team to do it? The Baltimore Colts.)

Another year, same old shitty Dolphins.

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After 30 years, the spring in the Jeep's driver-side seat belt buckle finally gave out, and I replaced it this weekend with an OEM part from Quadratec. After a trip to Home Depot to buy a selection of TORX bit heads (the largest I had was 40, and it wasn't big enough), the only thing difficult about the swap was cleaning under the carpet to find the connection for the dashboard seatbelt warning light. (That light has been out so long, I had honestly forgotten it was even a thing until its wire kept me from pulling up the old buckle holder.) In the process, I found a bunch of dirt, two pennies, one dime, three very rusted screwdriver bit heads I lost circa 2005, and the above paper inspection certificate for the original seat belt. Pretty sweet, right? I'm just giddy thinking what I might find under the rest of the carpet!

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Earlier in the week, Kirby Smart was goaded by the press into essentially saying that UGA football fans lacked greatness for leaving last week's Marshal blowout by the fourth quarter.

"I think people should love to be at a Georgia home game because there's only so many of them. It's limited opportunities."

He has a point. How dare we not sit in the sun for three hours to watch our third string players scrimmage against an inferior opponent to extend a 31-game home winning streak? The coaches do it every day. Never mind that they're paid to do it whereas UGA fans are charged $80 per ticket for the opportunity. Yeah, fuck us.

And then today, five hours before kickoff, because of the weatherman's prediction of a 66% chance of thunderstorms before the end of the game, Georgia moved up their game against Austin Peay, an FCS school UGA was beating so badly in 2018 that they decided to not even play the last 5 minutes. So even the die-hard Georgia fans had a hard time making the kickoff of a "game" that history tells us won't even go the distance. How dare we? I mean, I was never intending to travel 4 hours to attend this beatdown, so I'm part of the problem, but man, our fans (me included) are the worst!

The good news is that starting next year, SEC is mandating that teams play an additional SEC opponent for a total of 9 of 12 games. Georgia will certainly keep playing Tech (of the ACC), meaning there will be no more than two cupcakes a year for the foreseeable future. That certainly can't hurt fan enthusiasm and attendence, which is great. We can use all the help we can get because as Coach Smart will tell you, we're shitty.

UPDATE: As I type this, the lightning "weather delay" that was declared at halftime has now started its second hour. I'm sure Kirby will have some choice words for those fans who will choose to go home as opposed to continuing to wait out (undefeated) Mother Nature. Quiters.

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