In the 23 years I've had season tickets, today's football game was a truly unique experience. And I don't mean because #5 Ole Miss scored touchdowns on their first five possessions and #9 Georgia only won because they scored on every possession until they knelt on the ball to run out the clock at the end of a 43-35 game. (What happened to defense?!?) No, I mean it was unique because we didn't make it to the stadium to watch it.

We tried. Mom and I left the house on schedule (rare for us) at 11:30 with the intention of making it to Athens two hours before the 3:30 kickoff. After almost 40 minutes of travel, on I-285 just past the exit for I-75, traffic stopped. Despite Google continuing to insist that we'd be out of the traffic jam in just "15 minutes," the next 4 miles took 2 hours. Eventually we learned that the source of the trouble was that somehow a box truck had overturned on a straight road and blocked three of four lanes of traffic not more than a half mile before the next exit, Jonesboro Road.

By the time we were finally past the accident, I calculated that even if everything went perfectly for the rest of the route to Athens, there was no way we could arrive, park, and make out way to our seats in Sanford Stadium until very near the end of the first quarter. So we made the decision to cut our losses and turn the car around and watch the whole game at home on TV instead. Somehow, it took almost 40 minutes to get home.

I was disappointed. Mom was disappointed. We were looking forward to the big game environment, where someone hatched a hairbrained plan to "stripe" the stadium in black, white, and red, requiring me to wear white instead of my typical red to a home game for the first time. That's probably why there was an accident. I didn't wear red and it broke the universe. Sorry, universe. (And if you saw the game on TV, you may have noticed the white end zones, but deciding to put the black stripe on the sunny side of an afternoon game? Are you trying to kill those people? Good on them for refusing the assignment.)

Sure, you can't always get what you want, but if you try, you might get what you need, so we made the best of a bad situation with some soft pretzels, Mexican Coke, and Culver's custard (Mom's idea for cushioning the blow) as we watched the Dawgs scratch out a win from our sofa with poodles and a havanese. That's my kind of unique.

(I took a picture of us in in our "Stripe the Stadium" whites in front of the TV showing Sanford Stadium pregame, but Mom looks better in this one in our back yard, so it's the one you get.)

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56/2367. Denial (2016)
This is a courtroom drama about the libel lawsuit brought in the mid-90s against a Emory University professor by a British Nazi-sympathizing Holocaust denier. That's interesting, sure, but the reason I watched it was because I was a student at both Emory University and DeKalb College (renamed Georgia Perimeter College while I was there but is now a satellite campus of Georgia State University) in the mid-90s when the principle action takes place.

The 2016 film begins with an attempt at verisimilitude with establishing shots on Emory's quad in Decatur, GA (purporting to be 1994 and not doing too bad a job at pulling it off)...

...then follows our antagonist as he travels west away from Emory towards downtown Atlanta on Freedom Parkway (a road originally planned as the very controversial Presidential Parkway which was still under construction in the mid-90s)...

...then south along the Downtown Connector ("connecting" US Interstates 75 and 85) through the Grady Curve, so-called because Grady Memorial Hospital is just off camera to the right. (There's a giant neon Coca-Cola sign just off camera to the left.)

Side note: Turner Field, seen on the sign above, is also an anachronism. It didn't exist in 1994. It was originally opened to the public as Centennial Olympic Stadium for the 1996 Atlanta Olympic games. After the Atlanta Braves abandoned it and moved north to Cobb County in 2016, it was sold to Georgia State University to become their football stadium and renamed again to Center Parc Stadium.

Side note 2: That billboard in the bottom right of the frame is advertising then-new (in 2015) news team of Sharon Reed and Ben Swann for WGCL CBS46 News. In 1994, WGCL was calling itself WGNX and after many years as an independent UHF station had just become the local CBS affiliate (after Atlanta's original CBS affiliate, WAGA, became a Fox station). Since 2022, WGCL has become WANF (for "Atlanta News First") but both Reed and Swann are long gone (in 2018 and 2019 respectively).

The antagonist must have been headed south down the Connector to Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (called just the William B. Hartsfield Atlanta International Airport in 1994 as former mayor Maynard Jackson wouldn't die and get his name added until 2003) because we next see him pull up to -- I had to Google Image Search this -- the Elmsbridge Civic Centre in Esher, England.

Google Maps tells me that Esher is a suburb of London, where most of the movie is set and filmed, so it's easy to see why the filmmakers would use it here. For the record, according to Wikipedia, the Civic Centre was constructed in 1991, so it is at least period appropriate!

However, in the very next scene, by means of movie magic, we're transported back to the States inside an unidentified lecture hall disguised as DeKalb College (by means of a banner on a podium)!

I have no idea where this last bit was filmed, though I suspect it is also in London. It doesn't match any hall I sat in off Emory's quad in 1993-95, and if there were any lecture halls like this on Perimeter's Clarkston ("Central") or Decatur ("South") campuses in 1997-99, I was never inside them. They never used wood paneling when concrete blocks would do.

That's just the first 5 minutes. The rest of the movie takes place in Europe. I never went to any schools in London or Poland, so for all I know, all those locations are perfect.

More to come.

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Dear Diary,

Today I saw Seth Meyers perform stand-up comedy at Atlanta Symphony Hall. He was *so* funny. I laughed so hard, I spit.

His act was mostly jokes at the expense of his family, especially his wife and kids. There were also bits about the Muppets, the pandemic, weddings, and sports. There was no explicit talk about Late Night, which remains on hiatus during the ongoing writers strike.

I sat in the front of the Logue Left section, which gave a great view of the stage. I had the middle of five seats, but I did not know my seat neighbors. I went alone. So far as I could tell, I was the only person in the whole auditorium who did.

I didn't even ask if any of my friends might want to accompany me. I usually watch late night talk shows alone, so I jumped ahead to the conclusion that I didn't need any company to enjoy this, either. I'm glad to report that I was right.

John Oliver is coming to the Fox Theater later this summer. Since there's no sign that Last Week Tonight will be filming new episodes by then, I might have to go to that, too.

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The Miami Dolphins came to Atlanta for their first visit to Georgia Dome 2.0 Mercedes Benz Stadium, and I went to see them with my friends, Falcons fans Keith and Ken (and their lovely wives).

In the first half, the Dolphins played like the Dolphins, stumbling into a 0-17 hole. Jay Cutler was the worst he's been all season, playing without inspiration or conviction, placing balls where they would do the least good for the receivers. Just horrible.

However, in the second half, the Falcons played like the Falcons, committing penalties, throwing interceptions, failing to tackle, and just refusing to finish a game. The Falcons scored 0 second half points. The Dolphins scored 20.

Final score, 20-17, Dolphins! Whoo-hoo! Thank you, Falcons!

I would be remiss if I didn't mention my first impression of the new stadium. All I've heard is how wonderful it is. Don't believe the hype.

• The much ballyhooed 360° HD halo screen is worthless for half of the stadium. Those on the ground floor have to stare at the ceiling to see anything. Those in the rafters (like me) can't see half the screen because the near edge obscures the top half of the far side screen. (Given that they can't even make the roof open — not that you'd be able to tell from most of the seats — I assume that it would have been too hard to pitch the screens into a cone so that they would be visible to all?)
• Stadium concourses are given over almost exclusively to concessions with queue lines cutting into walkways, making it impossible to get around without running through crowds standing in line for beer and $2 hot dogs.
• And if you want a $2 hot dog, get one early. Lines don't move quickly. I didn't go myself, but watching and listening to those around me, the minimum wait time appeared to be 15 minutes. (And if you want a Coke, your only option is to stand in line for a fill-it-yourself fountain cup which entitles you to stand in line by the "free refills" drink fountains. That's two lines for the price of one!)
• Speaking of 15 minutes, that was the wait time for restroom breaks — to the men's room!

In short, I didn't see that this stadium was an improvement in any way over the Georgia Dome save the welcome presence of natural light, and I got the impression that I must not be alone. From the very beginning of the game, there were huge blocks of empty seats visible all over the stadium. (I'd guess it was half full.) Given the stadium's evident disdain for people who actually want to watch a game of football, I can't blame those ticket holders for wanting to spend their time doing something other than watch football there.

But enough about that. I went to the building not to pass judgement on it, but to watch a football game with friends. In the end, I think a good time was had by all.*

*At least, all of us cheering for the Dolphins.

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Today is the first day of the 12th Annual Batman and Football Month at Wriphe.com!

I started the celebration early by attending last night's inaugural Georgia State University game at Turner Field Petit Field at Georgia State Stadium. (Yeah, that name's not going to stick.)

This is an optical illusion. The stands were not this full.

Seven years ago Mom and I attended her alma mater's first ever football game, and we weren't going to miss the unveiling of their new home. Two games in seven years: that's better than I've managed for my old high school. And it might be the last GSU game I ever attend. If GSU and the city of Atlanta can't get their act together better than what I saw yesterday, I won't be back even in another seventy years.

It's not that the game was especially bad, although Georgia State was horribly outplayed by Tennessee State University. (The final score was 17-10 TSU, but it wasn't remotely that close.) Fittingly, the beer stands outnumbered concession stands three to one, which is a good ratio if your team sucks. Also disappointing was the pretzels. I never stood in the long lines to buy one, but I could see from a distance that they had ceased being twisted into "GSU" shapes. Pooh.

But what really, really sucked was the traffic. From the time I exited I-85 onto Fulton Street, it took an hour and ten minutes to drive two blocks to reach the Green Lot where I had prepaid for parking. While I'm no civil engineer, the problem appeared to be that there was absolutely no one directing traffic. Not a single policeman was seen until I was inside the stadium. Traffic was left to direct itself, and it went even more poorly than you might expect. I've been to a lot of football games, and this was the first time ever that it took longer to arrive than leave. (We left in the third quarter to avoid a second round of traffic jousting, and departure took all of 2 minutes.) If MLB games were anything like this, no wonder the Braves fled to the suburbs.

Ultimately, despite all obstacles, I had a good time because I'm just so glad that football season is back. (And the terrific TSU marching band helped, too.) Welcome back, football!

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The Atlanta Falcons were up 28-3 over the New England Patriots late in the third quarter of the Super Bowl. No team had ever come back from such a deficit in the big game, and the Patriots didn't look like they were going to be the ones to do it. All Atlanta had to do was keep doing what they had been doing for the better part of 2 hours, and they would be NFL champions.

I'm sure I don't have to tell you who won.

The Falcons were good enough this year; they should have been able to beat the Patriots. But the one thing holding back, the lead weight around their necks, was their own history. The 1999 Super Bowl. The 2011 Divisional game. Now the 2017 Super Bowl. When a few plays late in the game went wrong, you could see the Falcons lose confidence that they could win. If you think you're going to lose, you're right.

I'm not a Falcons fan, but I do consider myself an Atlantan. This loss hurt. It hurt bad. Like a second betrayal by an unfaithful lover, it's the sort of pain you never get over. You can forgive, but you'll never forget. You can only blame yourself for believing she wouldn't do it to you again. A loss like this, in a city seemingly incapable of escaping it's terrible luck at team sports (1 MLB title, 0 NFL titles, 0 NBA titles, 0 NHL franchises), this loss leaves a permanent scar on our soul.

As my friend Keith, a Falcons fan since birth, said at the start of the postseason, "I'll believe the Falcons can win a Super Bowl the day after they win a Super Bowl." After this game, I don't think either of us will live that long.

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Ten years ago, tickets to the season-opening Monday Night Football game between the Philadelphia Eagles vs the Atlanta Falcons, went on sale in the wee hours of the morning on TicketMaster.com. My brother, an avid Eagles fan, wanted tickets desperately, so despite being awake for nearly 24 hours, I sat at my computer and tried to get him some.

For hours, I tried. TicketMaster has never been very good at anything, and that morning they were particularly bad. Time out after time out — until finally! The tickets it offered me were expensive, $150 seats, but they would be worth it. Only after I put in my credit card info and committed to buy did I realize that the tickets TicketMaster had offered weren't to the Monday Night Falcons/Eagles. Somehow, in my sleep-deprived state, I had purchased tickets to the preseason Falcons/Ravens game instead.

Of course TicketMaster refused to offer a refund. And by then, they insisted they were sold out of Eagles tickets. So I was stuck with tickets to a watching a team I don't like in seats I couldn't afford at a glorified practice scrimmage. Fan-fucking-tastic.

I tried selling my Ravens tickets on eBay at a loss, but there were no takers. I ended up giving them away to a friend who didn't even go.

Fast forward a decade, and the Eagles were back in town for a Monday Night Football season opener. I had't planned on attending, but while watching games on Sunday, I figured what the hell. I went online to StubHub.com — I never buy anything on TicketMaster anymore — and bought two tickets for $50 each. Since my brother no longer speaks to me, I gave a ticket to friend Brian. We met at the Georgia Dome and had a great time.

Philadelphia Eagles 24, Atlanta Falcons 26. I'm really going to miss the Georgia Dome when they tear it down next year.

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I'm not a big music person. Most of my cd collection is soundtracks, and I don't really care for live music. I can count the bands I've seen in person on one hand — Pink Floyd, Drivin' N Cryin', Living Colour, and They Might Be Giants. Now I have one for the thumb: last night I went to Atlanta's Aaron's Lakewood Ampitheatre to see Pentatonix.

I've enjoyed Pentatonix since they won NBC's The Sing-Off in 2011. I can't believe that a five-member a capella group can generate so much sound. Now I've seen them in person, and I still can't believe it.

Technically, Kelly Clarkston was the headliner. It's a testament to Clarkston's talent that a big crowd turned out to see her performance despite the terrible weather. I'd like to say that her set blew me away, but I didn't stick around to hear it. As I said, I'm not really a big music person.

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Look at the present I received this week:

Of course, 96 Rock has been off the air for nearly a decade. The channel that became Project 9-6-1 is now Power 96.1, a "top 40" format. It is no longer programmed into my car radio, but it will soon appear on my car bumper again.

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The Miami Dolphins are replacing every seat in whatever the hell it is they call their stadium these days. Gone are the orange seats that looked so empty on television (and real life). They are set to be replaced by aqua colored seats the same color as found on Dolphins uniforms. I'm sure a sea of empty aqua seats will look much better as Joe Philbin leads the 'Fins to another not-quite-winning season in 2015.

I find this particularly amusing because the Georgia Dome used to have aqua seats. They were replaced in 2008 with red seats that made the Dome feel much smaller. The red seats sure have been visible in recent years as the Falcons reverted to form. (The Dome got new seats in 2008 and a new field in 2011, and now it's too old to use. That sure seems like money well spent. Glad the taxpayers aren't on the hook for any of it.)

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