The only bleeding done last night at the inaugural Georgia State University football game was by Shorter in a very lopsided 41-7 affair. What college, no matter how small, gets beaten by a commuter school team playing it's first game ever? I've seen high school football teams play better ball than the Shorter Hawks. In the past week!

The first play from scrimmage in GSU history was negated by a penalty, but the Panthers manged to end the drive with the first touchdown in school -- thanks largely to some major penalties committed by Shorter (including illegal participation and unsportsmanlike conduct penalties). Sure Shorter may be able to gripe about Georgia State running up the score a little bit, including scoring a touchdown with 8 seconds remaining in the game. But I'm not sure that you can hold that against the young GSU squad wanting to make a big splash in their first game.

This was the first trip to the Georgia Dome for my mother, a GSU alumnus. Judging by how clearly inexperienced the crowd of 30,327 was, I'd say that there were a lot of first-timers present. No one seemed to know when to cheer (the rowdy crowd caused the GSU Panthers at least 1 false start penalty) or boo (the crowd was especially unruly after Shorter's only touchdown and appeared to be booing the GSU defense). One student sitting behind me nearly went hoarse trying to explain to his neighbors the finer points of football, such as the theory behind Shorter's option offense, what exactly a fair catch was, and how teams change sides between quarters.

However, if the crowd was clueless, they were geniuses compared to the operations crew. I know that GSU has never had a football team before. And no doubt they were intimidated by the Georgia Dome facilities. But the entire affair seemed to be run by someone whose experience with college football was from a pop-up book he checked out of the library.

The school had a marching band that included electric guitar players, but only played songs that were popular prior to the birth of any of its musicians. There were fireworks for player introductions, but only two cones of intermittent sparklers being watched by two students with fire hydrants. They prepared some nifty videos and graphics to play on the "Panter-Vision" during key situations, but had no concept of timing and didn't even remember to warn us to drink responsibly until a quarter after the taps had closed. Key advertising partners had been selected for between-quarters entertainment and highlight replays, but no one seemed to think that it was a bad idea to allow a seafood restaurant to sponsor the "Six Feet Under Fan Cam." And the PA system was much, much too loud.

The highlight of the evening was a second-quarter video of a player who tried leading the crowd in a cheer. After the first pass at the cheer resulting in only half-hearted and murmured participation, in typical cheer-leading fashion, our video-taped ringleader encouraged the crowd to try again:

VIDEO-TAPED PLAYER: I can't hear you! 'G-S'...

CROWD (loudly): 'U'!

VIDEO: 'G-S'...

CROWD (louder): 'U'!

VIDEO: 'G-A'...

CROWD (screaming): 'U'!

In the moment of near total confused silence that followed, I looked at my mother and asked, "what the hell is a 'gau'?" My bemused mother replied, "I think they were supposed to say, 'state'." No one tried to lead the crowd in any cheers for the rest of the game.

Despite the many, many snafus, I think in the end a good time was had by all. Except maybe Shorter.

Welcome to the 5th Annual Wriphe.com Batman and Football Month. It's hard to believe that it's been five years since I was asked to choose between Batman and football. In retrospect, over that time I have watched 21 different colleges play ball in person, attended 2 Super Bowls, and stopped buying Detective Comics altogether. So I guess there's your answer. (Time really does tell!)

Since no one spoke out against posts every other day when I asked last week, I'll start trying to post more often. However, it is now football season, and all bets are off for my posting schedule when post dates may conflict with my attendance of live games. (Currently, I'm scheduled to attend 7 live gridiron contests this season, but I think I may also attend the Stephenson HS vs. Newnan HS game in late October. We'll see how I feel that weekend.)

You may also have noticed that since my last post I've changed the layout of the blog. In order to make my old posts more accessible, I've been moving all old posts into the database. I've also begun the corresponding implementation of a tag system. Right now, searches only function by tag, and only for those posts that have already been tagged. And if you're nostalgic, you can still go back and look at the old posts by year, just like you used to.

It must be an election season. I'm getting pretty damn sick of hearing people say that this country is being run into the ground because the left is full of corrupt Socialists or the right is full of heartless bigots. I'm tired of hearing people say that they understand the intentions of the Founding Fathers while everyone else is completely screwing them up. I'm fed up with people who use fear as a motivational tool while denying that is what they are doing. I'm disgusted by the humorless egoists who pass off their opinion as News, and I'm appalled by the people who can't tell the difference. And I'm completely pissed off at people who bully or con others into judging people without any consideration for the rights of those people.

If you disagree with me, you're stupid.

I'm considering changing my posting schedule here at Wriphe.com/blog. Right now, I post every three days (exactly as often as I shave). Should I start posting every other day? Or perhaps not at all? Speak now or forever hold your piece.

Following my last post which revealed that the rainbow ends in disappointment, I present the two inevitabilities in life: death and poodles.

July looks very jaunty in this image, no? I think perhaps I need to start taking pictures of July in front of other bleak subjects and see if she can't liven them up a bit. House fires and auto accidents, here we come.

Question: What's at the end of the rainbow?

Answer: It's the Pitts.
[Photo taken 08/19 in Dublin, GA, where "pot of gold" = "used cars."]