Kentucky came to Athens to play UGA today, and I did not attend. I didn't think there was much chance of Kentucky winning, and I was right about that. But the biggest reason that I did not go was because it was a noon kickoff, which would have required me to be awake and on the road by 8AM. Sorry, but that's just too damn early for me to be expected to watch a certain victory, even if it was Homecoming. (Congratulations to the new King and Queen!)

Right about now, you might be asking why I would bother to post about a game I didn't go to. That's fair. I'm not entirely sure myself. I think maybe it's to keep track of my state of mind so that next year, when I'm waffling about whether to renew my exorbitantly-priced season tickets, I can do a more effective emotional-cost benefits analysis.

Aw, who am I kidding? I'm going to renew them, if only because not renewing them will rob me of the joy I get from whinging about whether or not I'm going to renew them. I'm just neurotic that way.

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Friend James just shared an Internet article that claimed that every time I drink a Coke, my life gets 12 minutes shorter. That's a shame. Friends shouldn't share articles like that.

Let's see, if I've had just one Coke a day (ha!) since I was born, that's at least 215,760 minutes or 159 days that I could have lived and won't. If my fated expiration date is May 23, 2025, I might drop dead before I finish typing this. There's no arguing with that; it's science!

If there's one lesson to be learned from that article, it's that I really should stop procrastinating in posting these Coca-Cola product placement screenshots from recently watched movies that haven't otherwise made it into my movie reviews (either because I had already seen them or I didn't watch enough of the movie to qualify):

Some Came Running (1958)

The Cutting Edge (1992)

Kentucky Fried Movie (1977)

Slap Shot (1977)

The Prisoner of Second Avenue (1975)

Beverly Hills Cop III (1994)

The article didn't ay anything about drinking Coke with my eyes!

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UGA is playing at home today against Auburn... for Homecoming.

Auburn.

For Homecoming.

That really should excite me... but it doesn't. I just can't make myself care enough to spend a whole day driving to Athens and back for a sunburn.

Last year, I was in a funk in October and still had fun at the Kentucky game. So maybe I should go. Maybe I would have fun. But I just cannot imagine that this game ends up entertaining.

It's not you Bulldogs; it's me. Okay, after the last few weeks, maybe it is a little bit you. But don't take it personally. It is mostly me.

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Last week, knowing that Mom would be busy tending to her wounded beau, I sent a message to my standing group text with my friends looking for someone to accompany me to tonight's 7PM football game between #2 UGA and #9 Mississippi. They ignored me.

To add insult to injury, my so-called "friends" were unsympathetic the following day when I complained about people who put up and decorate Christmas trees the first week in November. Are they really my friends if they hate live football and think Christmas should be celebrated before Thanksgiving? I say no.

So I did what any sane person would do: I deleted the group text chain from my phone and went to the game by myself.

Sure, it was cold and drizzly, but I still had a great time (and a hand warmer), mostly because the Bulldogs were totally dominant (and because Mom wasn't there to talk me out of bringing a hand warmer to the game). The seniors were celebrated; the veterans were celebrated; the SEC Champion soccer team was celebrated.... After halftime, it was pretty much all celebration inside the 9th largest football stadium in the world. These are good times to be a Bulldogs fan.

There are still two games remaining on the season, but this was the last home game of the year, an unusually early ending to a (mostly lousy) home schedule. Looking back at the four I attended, Kentucky was the most fun, but this was an easy second place. The question is whether I will be back next year.

It is getting very hard to find people to go to the games with me, especially since I have fewer friends than I thought I did. (Christmas tree-hugging bastards!) So spending thousands on a couple of tickets I can't (and don't want to) always use is starting to seem like a bad use of my money.

I'll see how I feel when the bill comes due in February.

In the meantime, do as Miss Manners advises and "finish your turkey before putting up Christmas." Assholes.

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I've been in something of a funk lately, where not much really satisfies me and nothing is fun. So I wasn't particularly eager to attend today's UGA game versus Kentucky in Athens, despite it being a night game, and especially with so many Cassandras predicting that this would be Georgia's first loss of the season.

Which is why I was surprised that I did have fun, in no small part perhaps because for the first time all year, UGA played on a championship level. Final score: No. 20 Kentucky 13, No. 1 UGA 51.

The forecast for the game was the coolest weather of the season so far. I was going to take a handwarmer with me, but my game companion, my mother, talked me out of it. I assure you, she did not hear the end of it.

After cold hands (and nose and ears: the wind chill was unrelenting), the biggest problem I had was a sinus headache that grew worse each quarter. But not even that was enough to sap my enjoyment of the game, thanks in large part to the enthusiastic crowd, which was uncommonly convivial, probably because of the need to stick together for warmth. Seriously, though, there seemed to be fewer drunk and/or obnoxious fans than usual. Perhaps they had all passed out prior to the 7PM kickoff, but if the cold weather was responsible, I could handle more of that every game!

Note to Mom: from now on, if the forecast calls for 60° or under, handwarmers are mandatory.

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After winning 2 consecutive National Championships, the University of Georgia football program has rewarded its loyal season ticket holders with a schedule consisting of traditional rivals Auburn, Vanderbilt, Florida, Tennessee, and Georgia Tech... all on the road. (Florida is the "home" team when the World's Largest Cocktail Party is played in odd-numbered years at the "neutral" site inside the state of Florida).

By comparison, the home schedule is UT Martin, Ball State, South Carolina, UAB, Kentucky, Missouri, and Mississippi. This is, without a doubt and by a very wide margin, the worst home schedule I've seen in my two decades as a season ticket holder. Mississippi is the only game with any promise of being a worthwhile watch, and I'm sure I could get pretty damn good seats to that for much, much less than what I paid for the entire slate. ($1,720 this year, if you're keeping track at home.)

I figured if any of those unworthy cupcakes was going to make for a fun experience, it would be the opener against UT Martin, with the debut of UGA XI "Boom" (following this week's unexpected death of Sonny Seiler), a rare 6PM kickoff, and a crowd eager to celebrate the 2022 National Title.

I was wrong.

In November of last year, I made a note to myself that games like the 2022 contest against Tennessee (ranked No. 1 at the time) were the reason I annually buy season tickets. Games like this are the reason no one should.

UGA rightfully treated the game against the NCAA Division I FCS Skyhawks like a glorified practice, with Mike Bobo's patented vanilla play-calling and an offense that looked like they could have used a few more weeks of minicamp. The shadows advanced down the field faster than either team. The word "boring" doesn't quite describe how uninspiring it all was. I've had more fun watching Pop Warner drills. If Georgia played like that against an SEC opponent, well, no one would be talking about three-peating, that's for sure.

What was worse was that UGA has now closed Gillis Bridge overlooking the West end zone on game days, which also closes our traditional route into the game. When we did finally arrive inside Sanford Stadium, Mom quickly overheated in the blaring late afternoon sun. So we left as the band cleared the field at halftime, having had a simply dismal experience. Given that a total time of 3 hours and 40 minutes would pass before the final whistle was blown (in a game that was televised to a very limited streaming audience but with a full complement of television commercials), I'm certain we made the right call.

Maybe I'll go back when a competent SEC team comes to town... in November.

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The Olympics are here again, which of course means that I'm watching fewer movies and more sports — just in time for the end of football season!

9/2018. Black Samson (1974)
The protagonist of this blaxploitation film has a pet lion that... doesn't ever do anything. Is it only here because the biblical Samson killed a lion? ("What is stronger than a lion? Black Samson!") More interestingly, although the film very much indulges in themes of black solidarity, the "white man" isn't really the bad guy here; that honor goes to one crazy, wannabe mafia boss who even the white men don't like. (Is Johnny Nappa a Philistine? Which of the girls dancing in Samson's topless bar is Delilah?) Hardly great cinema, but not entirely worthless, either.

10/2019. The Story of Three Loves (1953)
This anthology film lives up to its title, telling three different stories about lost loves is the good kind of weird. The middle chapter would appear to have inspired the movie Big (with Ricky Nelson in what would be Hanks' role), and the third chapter showcases Kirk Douglas' typical commitment to his roles, in this case as an obsessed trapeze artist.

11/2020. How to Build a Girl (2019)
Beanie Feldstein pretends to be young and English in the early 90s British music scene. As I've admitted before, I'm a sucker for coming-of-age films. This one hits all the usual beats, and of course I enjoyed it.

She orders a Coke in a bar, then never touches it. It just sits on that table. What is this, an SEC football press conference?

12/2021. Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021)
Holy crap, the bus fight on this thing is amazing. They really should have found a way to make that the finale. I'd heard a lot of complaints about that CGI-driven finale, and I think they are all well deserved. The real problem isn't the CGI but the fact that the CGI characters introduced late in the third act have no character development before their action sequence. You've gotta give the audience a reason to care about your ridiculous animated dragons, Marvel, otherwise we're just checking our watches as we wait for the inevitable end-credit cameos.

13/2022. Putney Swope (1969)
The narrative is ostensibly about a no-nonsense outsider taking over a Madison Avenue advertising firm, but that's mostly just an excuse to satire consumerism, capitalism, socialism, racism, sexism, and, frankly, every -ism in all the best, most absurdist ways. Near the end of the film, there's a very self-indulgent several minutes of topless fight attendants which wouldn't be out of place in Kentucky Fried Movie but here comes across as appropriately damning of American society. As the man at the breakfast table eating Ethereal Cereal would say, "No shit!"

More to come.

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I didn't take that picture. That was broadcast by CBS, which is how I saw the game between Texas A&M and Georgia (final: Texas A&M 13, UGA 19). I post it only to remind myself of what I missed. What a great sunset!

I had a real debate with myself whether or not to attend today's game. The final decision came down to the (accurate) forecast of heavy rain. I went to the Kentucky game last month and was generally miserable. I ended up wet, cold, and bored by the lousy game quality. That wasn't an experience I was interested in having twice in the same season.

Now that the home schedule is over, I'd like to make note of two disappointing trends from the 2019 season:

1. Why is it getting so hard to get people to go to the games? Even putting aside the two rainouts, I had a hard time enticing anyone to come with me, and the seats around me were empty most of the time. Assuming this isn't purely a side effect of my own anti-social tendencies, is this a problem with the current state of Georgia football (which seems to win in spite of their anemic offense) or a symptom of some larger trend?
2. What happened to bands at halftime? The only band marching in Athens in 2019 was the Redcoats. Was this a fluke in the schedule that no team playing in Athens this year had a traveling marching band, or are marching bands at football games becoming as archaic as the fewer and fewer fans attending them?

Maybe we'll get answers to these questions next year.

Meanwhile, good luck against Tech and in the SEC Championship, Dogs. I assure you I'll be rooting for you on the couch.

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The forecast was 57° and rain. I asked Mom, and she declined to attend. I asked seven more people, and they all had better things to do. I went alone. I should have listened to what they were trying to tell me.

As forecast, the game was very cold, and very wet. So wet, in fact, that the Athletic Department decided not to allow any bands on the field, which made for a very unusual pre-game with no band welcoming the players onto the field and an equally odd Homecoming halftime, where the homecoming court was seen only on the video board in still photographs (taken on a sunnier day).

The football was as bad as the weather. There were 10 punts in the first half alone. (Six of those drives were 3-and-outs.) Georgia's strategy appeared to be "wait until Kentucky makes a mistake." It did work eventually when Kentucky badly shanked a punt and allowed Georgia to score on the following play. Congratulations, Georgia, but don't expect that plan to work in two weeks against Florida.

I was not prepared for the amount of rain. I lasted only slightly longer than Kentucky did. I left in the fourth quarter after Georgia finally shut the door, making a goal line stand to break Kentucky's spirit. I paused on my way back to the car to take one last look back just as Georgia scored their third touchdown. Final score: Kentucky 0, UGA 21.

Like I said, cold and wet.

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Five movies watched in June:

102. (1331.) Life Stinks (1991)
This was the last remaining movie written & directed by Mel Brooks that I hadn't seen. (Achievement complete!) I suspect that even he would say that it wasn't his best, but that's not to say it was unwatchable. To his credit, Mel Brooks is funny even at his worst.

103. (1332.) Loose Shoes (1980)
This "film" is a loose collection of mock movie trailers in the vein of (the much superior) Kentucky Fried Movie. As to be expected in an anthology of this sort, it's uneven. It's got a few good bits if you've got the patience.

104. (1333.) The Peanuts Movie (2015)
I don't consider myself the biggest Peanuts fan, but I was really bothered that this movie, which is in some ways really loyal to the source material, put Peppermint Patty in Charlie Brown's class. She goes to a different school across town, people! Good grief. (I also want to point out that the movie "borrowed" its War and Peace subplot from a season 2 episode of Cheers.) By the end, I was actively cheering for Lucy to pull the football.

105. (1334.) The Disaster Artist (2017)
I admit it: about halfway into this, I forgot that it was James Franco playing the lead. What a good job. Funny, too.

106. (1335.) Please Don't Eat the Daisies (1960)
I've noticed a trend in these 1960s relationship comedies. Generally speaking, they seem to focus on the humor in individual scenes with marginal regard for the overall narrative. That can be real frustrating when you want a nice bow on the end.

More to come.

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