Mom is participating in her annual college football bowl game pool, where she tries to correctly predict winners against the spread in every bowl game. I never participate myself, but I do always root for her picks.

The first game of the pool was last Saturday's IS4S Salute to Veterans Bowl (formerly the Camellia Bowl) and Mom picked South Alabama to cover 9.5 points. They very nearly did, if only Western Michigan (which has one of the country's worst bowl game winning percentages) hadn't kicked a late field goal to cut the difference to 7 points at game's end. Those dicks!

The question I was asking myself late in the game was whether gambling on the outcome actually made the game more fun. Yes, I cheered when S. Alabama kicked an extra point to go up by 10, but I found myself rooting against W. Michigan's kicker late.

This is exactly why I don't play fantasy football: cheering for or against individual players to compile stats is not nearly as satisfying as pulling for a team to win a game. I'm sure I would have been at least equally entertained by W. Michigan's attempt at a late comeback if I wasn't counting points and waving my fists in the air at the football gods.

Mom never does great with her picks, in large part because she never picks against a team she wants to see win. I think that's wise. And I still agree with picking against Western Michigan in a bowl game, especially since they are now 2-10 all time. Those dicks!

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I've been to a lot of Georgia games, but I've really never been to any game like this before.

The forecast for the rare Black Friday night game was for severe cold, so I lost my seat mate. Mom made the right decision. I've never been so cold in Athens, and for more than three quarters of football, the Bulldogs didn't do anything to help. (I didn't feel so cold in the fourth quarter, but that was because I really needed to pee and couldn't worry about both discomforts at once. When I finally went, I felt colder than ever.) It may have be the worst, the most inept football I've ever seen the Bulldogs play in person.

GA Tech led 17-0 at halftime, and I kept telling myself that if they stretched that lead any, I was going to go home. But they couldn't. Georgia finally started scoring, but when Tech scored with less than 6 minutes to restore a 2 touchdown lead, half the stadium gave up. I don't blame them. At the time, it seemed the sane decision. Sadly, that only made the rest of us colder because we lost our windbreak.

And then somehow, very late in the game, UGA came back to tie. So after a bad game, they played one overtime. Then another. And another. And another. And another. And another. And another. And another. Eight in all. It was the most bonkers thing I've ever seen in Sanford Stadium.

Think I'm exaggerating? This is the ESPN Win Probability graph of the game.

The football was so crazy, I don't know that I have space in my brain for all the other notable things. Poor Uga (whose name is, ironically, Boom) tried to run away from the pre-game fireworks. The 50th anniversary of the Alumni Band played at halftime. Georgia's decision to go for 2 when down by 11. The crowd deciding that GT was faking injuries to slow the game down and booing those players when they were helped off the field. The failure to explain overtime rules to the crowd and their resulting confusion when Georgia didn't attempt a kick for the win in the second OT. The scoreboard gave up on counting overtimes after 5. And have I mentioned the cold?

When I thought I was going to be leaving early, I decided I would post a picture of the stadium at the moment I finally decided to leave. Ultimately, at three minutes after midnight, this is that moment:

Truth be told, I didn't even leave then. I watched the Tech players crawl off the field and waited for the presentation of the Governor's Cup (by the Governor). Then, when the Georgia student section finally left, so did I.

I'm home now (4:32 AM), and I'm still cold.

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A year and a week have passed since I last visited Athens, GA, but today* I attended my first football game of the year to see the #12 Georgia Bulldogs play the #7 Tennessee Volunteers.

Things have changed a little in the past year. For one thing, the Bulldogs aren't quite as dominant now as then, struggling to get started in what eventually became a convincing win. For another, the local high school where we have parked for years has become a new unofficial tailgating lot, meaning we had to find a new place to park the car. Third, the stadium now sells beer, though the raucous atmosphere didn't seem too out of place for a Tennessee game. Very late starts always portend a carnival atmosphere in the stands.

Fourth and perhaps worst, the stadium now has fireworks. Those aren't rain clouds in the photo above. There were launchers all around the stadium; fireworks went up after every Bulldogs' score, and ash fell down on the fans. Ick.

Mom was my companion, and she was a real trooper. She doesn't really like cold night games (she prefers to be curled up with a heating pad and a good book by 9 PM), but in recognition that this could be one of the last chances to watch a game in Sanford Stadium with me, she soldiered on without complaint. Thanks, Mom!

* By "today" I really mean yesterday. Technically, I'm typing this at 3:28 AM on November 17, but that's only because I didn't get back to Newnan until 2:40. It was a 7:45 PM kickoff, the game ran the full four quarters, and we didn't even get from the stadium back to the parking lot until 12:08 AM. As I said, Mom was a real trooper.

Additional note: For about a half hour prior to the game, Kirk Herbstreit was on the field with his newest travel companion, Peter, who is apparently the brother of Kirk's late golden retriever, Ben. Herbstreit certainly looked to be a great dog daddy as he let anyone who wanted get a picture with Peter, who eagerly accepted all the head scratches he could get. Go dogs!

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We have two types of frozen hamburger patties in our freezer. One is a 1/3-pound angus beef patty, and the other is a cheaper 1/4-pound "classic" (read: red slime) beef patty. I like the angus, but we also bought the "classic" because, as I just said, it's cheaper. The cheaper patty tastes like what you get from the concession stand at a high school football game, which is fine enough if you're in a high school football stadium. But at home, I like something with a little less salt. (The "classic" patty is probably the healthier option, as it has fewer calories, less fat, less cholesterol, and even a little bonus iron and fiber. Just don't tell my achy breaky heart that it also has nine times the sodium!)

Tonight I cooked burgers for Mom and me, and since I don't like the "classic" patties and she claims she can't taste any difference (and I'd be wasting food if I threw away perfectly good frozen meat), I made one of each, a quarter-pounder for her and a third-pounder for me. Except I put both of them on the same platter, and you can guess which one Mom grabbed for herself.

When I complained, she blamed me for the error. How was she supposed to know that they were two different types of patties? If I was a better cook, maybe the "classic" would look and taste better. If I was a better son, I would have put the correct patty on a bun and brought it to her already made like those fancy Five Guys instead of asking her to make it herself like a low-rent Fuddruckers. If I was a better person, I wouldn't even have mentioned her mistake.

Counter argument: If she had raised me better, I wouldn't be living in her basement and dining on frozen hamburgers.

I tease. Mom, I know you're reading this, so let me confess that while I truly was looking forward to eating the patty I thought would taste better, I am not and never will be mad at you for eating my hamburger. It makes me happy for you to eat what you want, and I'll always humbly take whatever leftovers you leave me. Because I don't have any other choice. You already ate the good stuff.

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Mom has been working to prepare her residential rental property for new tenants, and that means overhauling the upstairs bathtub. The previous tenant used it for dying wool, and now the formerly white tub is very much not white. The tub is in such bad shape that she would probably consider replacing it if not for the fact that it is nearly a century old, made of cast iron, weighs a ton, and will never fit down the stairs. So instead of replacing it, I am resurfacing it. Or at least, I'm supposed to.

This is not a horror story about how an enamel paint job went awry. No, I haven't gotten to that step yet. This is a story about how a bathtub full of water ended up coming through the kitchen ceiling.

Step one in resurfacing the tub requires clearing away the old caulk and scouring the tub clean prior to sanding the entire surface. All of that went reasonably well. It was even surprisingly easy to remove the metal drain and overflow plate considering the tub's age and mistreatment. The problem was that all the water I poured in to rinse out the scouring cleanser somehow missed the drain pipe and instead flowed directly down the interior wall to emerge through the overhead light fixture in the kitchen below. (I wish I could show you a picture here, but I was too panicked by my discovery of the waterfall flowing from the active light fixture to take the time to grab my phone for a selfie.)

My working theory is that too much water pressure dislodged the drain pipe enough that much of the waste water overflowed the crack between pipe and tub. But given that on disassembly for cleaning, the kitchen's florescent light fixture contained what can only be called a "rust puddle," it sure looks like this leak has been dripping for a while. Considering how well the last tenant treated the tub, maybe in this specific case, it's not all my fault?

The silver lining to this otherwise very unwelcome rain cloud is that after a good mopping with every spare towel I could borrow from my aunt who lives nearby, the kitchen floor is now cleaner than it has been in ages. The next tenant might be cooking in the dark, but at least the floor is spotless!

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My Mother's sister has chided me for not posting often enough. She says she reads my blog when she wakes up in the middle of the night. She has asked for more really long posts so that her eyes will get extra tired and close themselves. Wriphe.com: Boring People to Sleep Since 2002!®

So let's see, what things have I encountered recently that can be used as soporific fodder?

• I'm already suffering from Olympics withdrawal. I love the Olympics. I watch all I can, and I'm always sad to see them go on hiatus. While I hate the corporate and political greed that always accompanies them, that's just a sideshow for the main event: athletes from all over the world competing for little blocks of electroplated precious metals. I love the bonhomie between athletes and especially their ability to take a loss — essentially the destruction of their lifelong dreams — gracefully. (Speaking as a lifelong Miami Dolphins fan, I firmly believe learning to lose is the single most important thing in any sport.) Of course, I like seeing happy winners, too. The Olympics are our biannual reminder that people are what is really important in this life. Life could be a paradise if we'd just let it.

• “Bon-hommy,” went on Eeyore gloomily. “French word meaning bonhommy,” he explained. “I’m not complaining, but There It Is.” †

• The notifications on my telephone stopped working over the weekend, so no sounds when I get texts or phone calls. Not that I get a lot of phone calls. But if you call and I don't answer, now I can say that I didn't hear it without lying. (It's a software problem, not a hardware problem. For example, I can still watch YouTube videos. My notification sound effect is the sound of a Star Trek [TOS] communicator incoming call chirp, but my ringtone is a default system sound, and neither works. I have the phone turned off for recharge and will turn it back on tomorrow in the hopes that it just needs a good nap to get things sorted out. That sometimes works for me.)

• Update: It's working again. Which means that if I don't answer your call, I'm probably ignoring you on purpose again.

• Update Update: It's not working again. Which means it's time for me to buy a new phone. (This Google Pixel 7 lasted just a year and a half. I bought it because it was cheaper than a Samsung Galaxy, and, well, you get what you pay for.)

• If you're looking to go to sleep, do not click on this YouTube link. That's the song I put in my CD player and turned up REAL LOUD while I was dressing (because I had started singing it in the shower). There's a reason that I have never used Huey Lewis and the News in my "new years" posts: their lyrics are actually good. Ok, to be perfectly honest, the song I started singing in the shower was Lindsey Buckingham's Time Bomb Town, which is the second song on the Back to the Future soundtrack album. You know the one: "There must be about a million / single ways to go down." I'm sure you recognize it as the song playing on the clock radio when Marty wakes up in bed in 1985 (the first time). Once I realized what I was singing, my brain automatically clicked over to "Please don't drive 88 / Don't wanna be late again." Which, of course, I'm sure you recognize as the song playing on the clock radio when Marty wakes up in bed in 1985 (the second time). And that's why I buy soundtrack albums: so I can wash out the earworms I pick up in the shower.

Are you asleep yet, Kelley? If not, I can start talking about my dreams. Nothing is more boring than someone else's dreams. I had one recently where I worked up the nerve to ask Natalie Portman out on a date... and she said yes! (Although I got the impression it was a pity date.) We went out for coffee.

† Milne, A. A. "Chapter VI, In Which Eeyore Has a Birthday and Gets Two Presents," in Winnie-The-Pooh, pg. 72, E.P. Dutton & Company [New York], 1926

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A man is a fool if he drinks before he reaches the age of 50, and a fool if he doesn't afterward.

That's always seemed like sage advice to me. I'm not quite 50 yet, but sooner or later, everyone needs something to take the edge off life's endless march of crap. However....

Not so long ago, my aunt brought over some Baileys mini bottles, you know, the size that college students smuggle into football games to "surreptitiously" pour Fireballs into the Cokes they buy at concession stands (shhh, it's a secret!). I thought I'd give one a taste test by adding it to a cup of coffee, or, as my aunt says, my cup of coffee-flavored milk.

Fun fact: I also wasn't a coffee drinker until comparatively late in life. I started some time around 2016, I guess, when my aunt bought me a red Keurig for my birthday. And now my teeth are the color of Grey Poupon. In other words, it's never too late to pick up a bad habit.

Anyway, as I was saying, I had concerns that I would enjoy alcohol in my coffee, as I have rarely had an alcoholic drink I enjoyed. I couldn't finish even one of the 6-pack of Boston Lager my Mom bought me my Senior year of high school; the Screwdrivers so popular in my Freshman college dorm only made me sick; the Mind Erasers my waiter coworkers drank at the local bar had the flavor of poison; and the Tom Collins my girlfriend made to ease my nerves the night we lost our virginity only made me think about the terrible taste her tongue left in my mouth. ("Sex is not worth a Tom Collins," would make a good title for my autobiography.)

It took me months to work up the courage to try a Baileys Irish Coffee, and when I finally did, well, it tasted as bad as I feared. Each sip tasted more medicinal than the last. After four, I poured it out and had a Coke instead.

It's probably for the best. I'm an angry drunk anyway.

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A quick search reveals that I've never explicitly mentioned here on the blog that I have long owned the same two cars. I have the 1995 Jeep, which is the last year the YJ model was available. You've met it; I love and brag my Jeep about frequently. But I also own a 2002 Oldsmobile Intrigue. Two-thousand two also happens to be the final year of Intrigue production. (I'm a niche collector!) As my previous silence about it should indicate, I do not love the Olds.

True story: it was my father's Oldsmobile. Briefly. It was actually purchased by my father's father, who bragged that he got a great deal on it. As I mentioned above, 2002 was the final year this car was made, and the reason it was a great deal is because the electrical systems of Intrigues are famously... sorry, I was trying to think of a diplomatic way of saying "crappy," but no, it doesn't deserve diplomacy; it's just crappy.

When my grandfather was no longer able to drive (I forget when, exactly, but 2009/10-ish), my father took the car. The one condition that my grandfather tried to impose was that under no circumstances was Dad to give the car to me. So now maybe you can understand my template for how to treat a father.

Anyway, it may have taken 22 years, but at long last, my very temperamental Oldsmobile has successfully reached 100,000 miles!

And it's only cost me $1,360.93 in repairs in the past 4 months! And it needs a new set of tires, so cut me a little slack about that "low washer fluid" idiot light. Car ownership is expensive.

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My father called this evening to tell me that he received an unsolicited group text in which recipients were invited to visit a URL where they can fill out documentation to apply to be paid $600 a month for having a Purel hand sanitizer advertising decal attached to their cars. He thought it might be an opportunity worth pursuing. Hey, free money!

Hopefully, dear reader, I don't have to tell you this is a scam. The FTC has been warning about it for years. If you don't trust the government, you can get the same warnings from both the BBB and AARP. Yet, obviously, the scam still works or the scammers wouldn't still be running it.

Now, my father is, in theory, an intelligent man. (In fact, he gets really angry if anyone dares to question that intelligence. I hate to admit it, but I am certainly a chip off that block.) So how is it he could fail to recognize all the red flags? It's not like he needs the money. (Seriously. I do his taxes.) I think he just wants something for nothing.

I mention all this not to denigrate my father. (That's just a bonus.) I mention it because I think it's the key to understanding why so many people, like my father, support that orange-faced fellow who accepted his party's nomination for president today. They don't care about the red flags like, say, his previous, well-documented attempt to subvert a federal election for his own personal benefit; they just want to believe him when he tells them he's going to give them something they want for free, like lower taxes and fewer colored people. While I wish those people could see the fallacy in where they've chosen to put their trust, I have to concede there's nothing you can say to someone to make them stop wanting the things they want.

I want free money, too. I guess I'm just jealous no one is offering to pay to put decals on my Jeep.

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About a week ago, I took the boys for our usual walkies. It was unusually blustery, and I stopped to check the weather radar on my phone. At exactly that moment, a golf carts drove by.

Despite the fact that we live just across the highway from our local country club, golf carts used to be rare in my neighborhood. Back when I started walking the girls, there were only two carts on my street. The gas-powered one belonged to the people who teach horseback riding and use the cart to ride along the street and collect the horse droppings, like a motorized version of the street sweeper at the end of Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoons. I only saw the batter-powered one occasionally when the kids got bored and took it for joyrides, doing donuts in their yard.

(Side note: I personally don't think golf carts are more fun than watching Rocky and Bullwinkle, but I doubt those kids have ever seen it. Back in the day, there really wasn't that much to watch or that many channels to watch them on, so everyone knew everything on television, making pop culture references the coin of the realm. You made friends in school by quoting reruns of shows that had been first runs for our parents' generation: Leave it to Beaver or Gilligan's Island or Monty Python's Flying Circus. I have no idea what tweens watch these days after school, but if I threatened a kid today with a loaded banana, they'd think I was brain damaged.)

There are lots of golf carts in the 'hood now. The boys love 'em. They go crazy when they see one. I don't know why. So long as I've had the boys, they've never been within five feet of a golf cart. A golf cart has never brought them a treat. But I guess they do drive by slower than cars, making them easier to chase, and the ones in my neighborhood often have other dogs on board, making the chase worthwhile.

Anyway, as I was saying, the golf cart drove by while I was half paying attention, and Henry and Louis went berserk, and their leashes damn near pulled off the fingernail on my left index finger. Not totally. It just bent it back halfway. It hurt a lot the first few days, but it's gotten better. Or at least I thought it was getting better. I showed it to Mom earlier today, and she nearly swooned. So maybe not all better. I'm just taking it one day at a time. (Boy, that Schneider was a card.)

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