Once upon a time, they called it the Blockbuster Bowl. However, corporate America being fickle and football bowl committees being greedy, it has since been sponsored by Carquest, MicronPC, Mazda, Champs Sports, Russell Athletic, Camping World, and Cheez-It (which had previously sponsored a different bowl now sponsored by the mortgage lender Guaranteed Rate). In 2023, the new tenant is Pop-Tarts. What makes the Pop-Tarts Bowl significant isn't the string of consumer product sponsor changes but its weird connection to America's real favorite pastime: eating.

A few years ago, Duke's Mayonnaise bought the rights to turn the annual Continental Tire / Meineke Car Care / Belk Bowl into the Duke's Mayo Bowl. Duke's big, attention-getting decision was to replace the bucket of Gatorade traditionally dumped on the head of the winning coach with a giant jar of mayonnaise. It's exactly as gross as it sounds. When I see it, all I can think is, "Oh, those poor eggs!" (For the record, I never think, "Oh, those poor gators!" Gators got it coming.)

Pop Tarts saw Duke's made-for-TikTok moment and raised. Their mascot this year is a Frosted Strawberry Pop-Tart which emerged at midfield in a giant toaster. Throughout the game, the Pop-Tart posed for photos with children, danced with cheerleaders, and made finger guns at the officials. Then, when the game was over, he climbed back in his toaster only to slide out of a slot in the side... where the winning team ate him.

[To be clear, the players ate a giant Pop-Tart decorated to look identical to the mascot. At least I really, really hope that's what happened. I'd link here to a video of the event in question, but that's exactly what Kellogg's wants me to do.]

I'll be the first to admit that I like both football and Pop-Tarts as much as the next red-blooded American. (My favorite is Brown Sugar and Cinnamon, but the box in my pantry is Frosted Cherry because they are very marginally less malnutritious.) And I regularly eat barbecue at restaurants with smiling pig mascots on their napkins. But if you spend four quarters giving your mascot a personality, I'm not okay with putting it in the oven and eating it, even if you claim "it wants it" — that's a mental illness, Kellogg's! I'm a red-blooded American, not a fairy tale witch in a gingerbread house.

Eat up kids. And clean your plate. Ethiopia is full of starving cannibals.

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: food football

As she was getting ready for bed, Mom said, "You never told me what you thought of the thermometer I gave you."

"What thermometer?" I asked.

"The one I gave you for Christmas."

"You didn't give me any thermometer for Christmas," I insisted.

"Oops."

It was at this point that she realized that although her direct guidance had led to gifts for me with other people's names on the labels, she hadn't given me anything from herself. So hours after the annual family gathering had ended, she went into her closet and emerged with this new stack of gifts just for me.

It was like having two Christmases, the second including a fancy new meat thermometer, which, for the record, I think is very nice.

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: christmas family holidays mom

Happy 7th birthday, Audrey!

Sorry, I don't have an "after" photo. You'll just have to imagine a white plate licked clean.

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: audrey birthday dogs food havanese holidays

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.

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: athens christmas football friends georgia holidays mississippi sanford

It's a big deal when some teams come to town no matter their records. And it's not such a big deal when some other teams come to town, no matter their record. Auburn, Tennessee, and Notre Dame fall into the first category. Missouri is in the other.

I think that most of the problem is that Georgia has only been playing Missouri regularly since the latter joined the SEC in 2012. In that decade, Missouri has beaten UGA only once, and looking back at my write-ups of previous games I've attended, very few of those have been worth watching. Obviously, that's not going to stir the imagination of either fan base, even when Missouri is ranked #14 and Georgia #1 (or #2, if you're a 2023 CFP voter).

Making things worse, because Georgia played on the road for most of October, today was Homecoming, which means an audience full of fans who aren't in attendance for the game. So instead of having the feeling of a title bout knotted at 10-10 at halftime, today's stadium atmosphere was more... mildly bemused. Think Rome before Maximus demanded to know if the crowd was entertained. (It certainly wasn't helping that it seemed like the officiating crew blew a lot of calls in both directions. Maybe even the refs weren't particularly excited by the matchup.)

Like Maximus, UGA was ultimately victorious, winning 30-21.

From my point of view, the brightest spot of the evening was Mom's decision to honor her sister's request to take a "selfie" of the two of us after the game was over. Despite being the one holding the camera, this is the face she made when she pressed the button to take the picture:

That's worth the price of admission.

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: athens family football georgia missouri mom sanford

The day before Halloween, my mother's boyfriend fell out of a deer stand. He would insist I call it a "deer lodge," but you probably don't know what that is, and I don't want you thinking that it was anything like an Elk Lodge. There's one of those down the street, and I can attest that they are comparatively painless to fall out of.

The "lodge" was 20 feet up in a tree, and he broke both shoulder blades, six ribs, eight vertebrae, and his pelvis. He's alive and expected to recover, but that's still a lot of hurt. He's a pretty smart guy, a former Eagle Scout, with plenty of experience in deer "lodges," so it's surprising that something like this would happen to him.

I told this to friend Randy, and he said, and I quote, "Your blog must be getting to them for them to strike so close to home."

As usual, Randy's right.

I suspect Mom's boyfriend has spent his last night in a deer "lodge," but that doesn't mean that you've won, deer. The war is not over. This attack against my friends and family will be avenged!

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: family friends great deer uprising of 2010 mom randy

I'm an enthusiastic subscriber to The Week magazine, in part because it fills the void left by my newspaper subscription going digital. (Maybe I just need something to do with my hands while I read.)

Each week, The Week showcases an assortment of recently released books, and this past week their top recommendation went to Eve:

As it happens, there's a copy of Eve sitting on the table in my den right now. That's because Cat Bohannon is the daughter of my childhood piano teacher who moved back to New York state but still calls my mom to brag about her kids' accomplishments. (Hi, Rosemary!)

I haven't seen or spoken to Cat in many, many years, probably not since the last time I touched a piano keyboard. But it's still a kind of vicarious thrill to know that someone I once chased around a willow tree is a Big Deal now.

By the way, Rosemary is justified in her bragging. Cat's older brother is science journalist John, who has his own Wikipedia page (but I'll always think of him as the guy who teased me with prank phone calls in elementary school).

Meanwhile, I'm sitting in a basement reading old news and typing blog posts. Maybe I should have spent more time practicing the piano. Sorry, Mom.

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: books news rosemary the bohannons walter

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.

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: athens family football georgia kentucky mom sanford

Earlier this week, the Jeep overheated (again) and required a $600 radiator replacement. After a year of family car malfunctions, the receptionist at my mechanic's shop now recognizes me on sight and has started looking at me like she thinks I might be a little crazy whenever I try to explain why I'm bringing in another car. All I said this time when I dropped off the key was, "It's overheating and I don't know why. I mean I know it overheated because the water is all gone, but I don't know where it went." Nothing crazy about that at all.

Things did not get better when I went to reclaim my Jeep. Mother followed me inside and watched over my shoulder as I paid the bill because she wanted to be sure I asked the receptionist if they noticed anything wrong with the Jeep's oil levels while they were replacing the radiator. (The oil slick in the garage is quite noticeable when the Jeep isn't parked over it.) With Mom staring me down, I had no choice but to ask, and the receptionist kindly answered, "You're not supposed to put oil in the radiator." I might need to find a new mechanic who doesn't know me.

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: family jeep mom walter

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.

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: athens bobo is a bozo family football georgia mom sanford sunsets uga ut martin walter