Three things:

Thing One: Coca-Cola's summer promotion involves decorating their cans and bottles with pictures of Marvel Comics super heroes. I bought a 24 pack expecting an assortment of heroes, but no, all 24 cans were the same picture of Electra. Very disappointing. I've now drunk more cans of Coca-Cola with Electra's picture on them than I have bought comic books with Electra pictured in them. Meanwhile, my aunt bought me a 20-oz bottle of Coke Classic because she saw a picture on it of some guy in tights on it and thought I would like it even though she had no idea who it was or which characters I liked. It was Wolverine. To be fair to my aunt, even though I haven't bought a single Wolverine comic in decades, I have definitely bought more Wolverine comics in my lifetime than I have bought Elektra comics.

Thing Two: When I composed this post in my head while walking the dogs, I knew there were three things. However, I don't currently remember what thing two is. Give me a minute. I'll come back to this one.

Thing Three: I wore a kilt for the first time yesterday. I'd been saying for years that I was going to shop for one at the annual Georgia Renaissance Fair, but haven't, in part because it seems a little like cultural appropriation to me, even though Mom can trace her (and therefore mine) very WASPy ancestry well back to Scottish Clan Napier in the 18th century. I ended up buying one online, a modern cotton twill utility kilt instead of the traditional wool tartan because the whole point of wearing one was to stay cooler in the long Georgia summer. To my surprise, I liked it. I liked it a lot, especially while walking the dogs. I might buy another.

Thing Two Again: Hmm. I recently broke a part on our washing machine, but I don't think that was it. And my car was in the shop again, but that's not it either. Shit. What was I going to say here?

You know what? Never mind. It couldn't have been that important. So just two things, then.

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I know my loyal readers probably couldn't sleep at night until they got an update to my April 12th post RE: Walter's hunt for a new cap, so here it is.

I still haven't found one.

After that first Nike hat turned up too large, I ordered another in the next size down. It was, perhaps not too surprisingly, also much too large. Oh, well. If I can ever make it to the post office before 5PM, I'll be shipping that one off to Friend Ken, who agreed to take it off my hands even if he doesn't know if it'll fit him. May you have more luck with it than I had, good sir.

Figuring that no matter what size Nike hat I ordered, they were all going to be too large — Nike sells style over substance, so it figures all their hats are designed to fall off outfielders catching routine fly balls — I decided to next order from the Official University of Georgia Bookstore a '47 brand hat that looks darn close to my previous one-size-fits-all cap. The bookstore's website took my money, then their employees emailed to inform me the hat was permanently out of stock. One of these days, they'll get around to refunding me, they promise!

Undeterred, I went to the '47 website where I discovered that they don't carry the hat anymore, either. But they do carry a different red Uga hat that might be acceptable, so I ordered that one... for $15 more than I paid for the hat I didn't get from the bookstore. Fingers crossed.

By my count, I've now spent over $170 on a baseball cap I don't yet have. The difference between obsession and stupidity is a very fine line.

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I am having the worst time finding a replacement for my Georgia cap.

You will not be surprised to learn that I'm kind of particular. I prefer pictures of bulldogs to the traditional, elliptical Georgia "G." Elastic hat bands are passible; adjustable straps are not. Most importantly, the cap has had to be red.

For most of the past two decades, I've been able to buy a new cap for most football seasons despite my laundry list of requirements. That stopped in 2020, in part because I didn't need a hat that season. Since then, it's been hard to find any hats that fit my criteria, much less ones with art I like. The stores in my town seem don't seem to want to sell anything to me. (Does no one wear ball caps anymore?)

Last week, I threw in the towel and decided that my best bet for a non-adjustable 2023 might be an actual Nike UGA baseball hat — even though they aren't all red. So I found one in my size on the Internet and ordered it, and of course, when it arrived, it didn't fit. Too big. Apparently they run a little large.

I gave that hat to someone who still has hair, and it fits him fine. Meanwhile, my search continues. If I'm lucky, maybe I'll find something before kickoff this September.

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Tua Tagovailoa officially signed with the Dolphins on Monday, and now his number 1 jersey is the league's best selling. It's also the second best. For some reason, fans prefer the aqua away jersey over the white home jersey. I'm guessing that's because very, very few people actually watch the Dolphins when they play at home.

Dol-fans are understandably excited about the new prospect. Why shouldn't they be? He hasn't played a snap yet and he already has to be better than a dozen of the players who have actually lined up under center for the Fins since that aforementioned Marino guy, hallowed be thy name.

Amusing side note: Tua selected the number 1 because his college number, 13, has been retired by the Dolphins for Dan Marino, saints be praised. For the record, I happen to have two Marino jerseys in my closet, one home and one away.

A word of caution: this time last year, the best selling jersey belonged to Baker Mayfield. The year before that, it was Carson Wentz and before that, James Conner. Two of those three have injury issues, and the other is stuck on the perennially worst team in the NFL. In other words, Tua is joining a very questionable group whose performance has never lived up to the hype.

Which is not to say that I'm off the Tua bandwagon. I'm just advising we pump the brakes a little. The Dolphins didn't get to the bottom of the heap by being a great team. So there's still a ways to climb before they get the top of the heap. Win a Super Bowl, guys, and maybe then I'll think about buying some of your merchandise again. In all likelihood, it will be a third Dan Marino jersey, blessed be the fruit of thy loom.

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Final score: University of Louisiana at Lafayette 21, UGA 35. It wasn't that close.

Let's see, what else was memorable about the game? It was really windy. The pregame included another flyover (C-130?). By the time we took our seats, Isaiah McKenzie had already scored two touchdowns.

Hmm. Was there anything else?

Oh, right. Black jerseys. No big deal. Can we let that go now? Please?

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My grandfather insisted on wearing clothes that were out of fashion. It wasn't just that he had old clothes. Given the option, he'd buy apparel that was distinctly antiquated. I finally realized how that happens yesterday when I was looking at car tires.

See, I noticed in June that my Jeep needed new front tires. When I went to the tire store, I was told that Bridgestone, whose tires I've had on my Jeep since 2001, no longer makes my previous tire style in my size. Because money was an issue — when is money not an issue? — I got the cheapest tires I could instead. To make my old, Outlined White Letter rear tires match the new tires, they turned them around. Now the Jeep has black sidewalls on all 4 tires.

Solid black wheels on the Jeep looks terrible. But that's how it's done these days. I looked at the tires of every car I passed yesterday, and in 15 minutes of driving, I counted only seven with outlined white letters. That came out to under 10% of all the cars I passed. Every one of those cars with white letter tires was a late-model truck or Ford Explorer. Cars these days simply don't have white on their sidewalls anymore.

Tire styles have apparently changed in the past decade while I was enjoying my Bridgestone Dueler A/T tires. Apparently, OWL sidewalls are now dated. But so is my Jeep! Black sidewalls look just about as anachronistic on a 1995 Rio Grande Wrangler YJ as the wide stripe sidewalls looked on the Delorean in Back to the Future III.

And this brings us back to my grandfather's clothes. It wasn't that he was oblivious to style changes, it's just that he'd found styles that he liked and stuck with them. I'm old enough now that I can relate. For the record, I still wear calf-high white tube socks. If they're no longer fashionable, I don't want to know what is.

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October is all-pink month in the NFL. Last night, the Cleveland Browns debuted their first ever "all-brown" uniform in honor of Jim Brown. The uniforms were all brown except for the pink shoes, gloves, and accessories. Even the ref's flags were pink. Good way to ruin the moment, NFL.

The pink is the NFL's way to promote Breast Cancer Awareness Month. I'd look like a misogynist if I complained about the tackiness of the NFL spray-painting everything pink, but that's why I have a mother. When she saw the NFL's commercial promoting the campaign, she wondered aloud what kind of woman needs to watch a bunch of fat men playing ball to be reminded to have a breast exam. I couldn't have said it better myself, Mom.

Naturally, I think this over-use of pink is counterproductive. If as an average fan I am used to cheering for my team colors, how am I likely to respond to an outside source forcing a change of my team's colors? Do you think that the average person is going to be more receptive or less receptive? If the current brouhaha over the government's implication of Obamacare is any indication, I think we can know the answer to that question.

The league won't prevent players from wearing helmets that it knows are deficient at stopping concussions that lead to long-term brain injuries, but it will dress all its players in pink to remind the women to take a look for lumps. To the NFL, boobs are more important than brains.

But then again, we already knew that, didn't we.

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Also to the Batman/football crossover, Under Armour has licensed DC Comics properties to make superhero undershirts. Under Armour markets these products as their "Alter Ego" line. You may have seen the Superman t-shirts at athletic stores or sidelines. But have you seen these gloves?

These "MEN'S UNDER ARMOUR® ALTER EGO BATMAN HIGHLIGHT FOOTBALL GLOVES" are currently sold out at underarmour.com, but are selling for up to $200 on eBay.

The market has spoken. Batman + football = awesome.

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This year the official UGA bookstore catalog reaches a new level of bizarre.

F. Infant MVP Bodysuit
College Kids®. Cotton. Printed. Brown. Imported.
1311F NB 6, 12, 18M $25.00

Hey, if you think it's cute to dress your baby like a football, I guess that's your prerogative. (Better not fumble that ball!) But it sure puts me in mind of something else.

"Don't kick the baby!"

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The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has just reprinted an article it credited to the Fort Lauderdale Sun Sentinel that included the following sarcasm-free paragraph:

"Reminiscent of the radiant shadings of a sunset, Tangerine Tango marries the vivaciousness and adrenaline rush of red with the friendliness and warmth of yellow, to form a high-visibility, magnetic hue that emanates heat and energy."

That's a fancy, bullshit-laced way to say that "Tangerine Tango" is "orange." For the record, Pantone® 17-1463 Tangerine Tango is this color:

Also for the record, the article is a thinly plagiarized copy of the Pantone press release trumpeting their new color (dated December 8, 2011). That would be deplorable in a news report. However, it seems that the "article" that the AJC is crediting is in fact an online fashion blog by Rod Hagwood (found here). And blogs, as we all know, can steal anything they want to.

This probably says something about the quality of the reporting in the AJC, but I suspect that it's something we already knew.

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