I've been defending Tennessee Head Coach Phillip Fulmer this year. I figured that he's won a lot of games and doesn't deserve to be fired for one bad season. But after Tennessee's dismal performance against Georgia yesterday in a 26-14 loss, I'm not so sure anymore.

Tennessee looked completely listless. Georgia Southern had more fight in them than the Volunteers showed against Georgia. Tennessee's two scores came only after great defensive plays fired the team up briefly. Otherwise, Georgia appeared to dominate, and Tennessee didn't seem to care about their own fate. Even their typically boisterous fans didn't seem to care. I mean, the Tennessee Band only played "Rocky Top" 7 times during the entire game! That's like 50 times less than their average.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not cheering for the Vols. But I do lament the sudden disappearance of a former rival. Where's the satisfaction in kicking a wounded puppy? Get well soon, Tennessee. I hope to savour our victory against you next year.

P.S. Sorry, but I forgot to take a camera to the game! I've got no excuse. I dropped the ball. I promise to try harder next week against Vandy.

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I swear, after super heroes, the internet is the best thing to EVER happen to mankind.

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Through complete happenstance while searching modern history for a cartoon as stupid as Marvel's truly wretched animated Iron Man series from 1994, today I discovered a cartoon from 1967 about a super-powered President of the United States straight-forwardly titled Super President. The premise of this cartoon was that President James Norcross was bombarded by cosmic radiation and granted the fantastic ability to modify his body chemistry. Like all good public servants granted amazing powers, President Norcross donned a costume and fought super-villains as Super President. (Calling himself "Super President" may seem like a really bad way to maintain his secret identity, but what would you expect from someone whose job prerequisite depended on name recognition?)

You can't tell it from the clip above, but Super President was voiced by Paul Frees. You may recognize his voice as the narrator of the animated Disney educational film Donald in Mathmagic Land. Or maybe as the voice of the immoral K.A.R.R. on television's Knight Rider. Or maybe as the voice of the sentient supercomputer in the sci-fi feature film Colossus, the Forbin Project. (I think those pretty much sum up my personal stages of development via popular entertainment.) For those of you who prefer your entertainment less math/science oriented, maybe you know Mr. Frees' voice as that of Boris Badenov, the nemesis of Rocky and Bullwinkle.

Anyway, what got me most about Super President is that an acting, elected head-of-state is acting as costumed crime-fighter. Presumably, he can authorize himself to do this, but who's running the country while he's battling space aliens? I would think his term would suffer from a lot of pocket vetoes. And fund-raising would be especially difficult, as, in true comic book fashion, villains would always be stealing from the donated funds, requiring an embarrassing unexplained absence while the candidate looks for an empty bathroom stall to don his tights.

I always figured that despite his moral perfection and unerring ability to make the right choice, Superman could do more good as a freelance policeman rather than a politician because of his unique abilities. Surely, I figured, all that bureaucratic red tape could keep Superman's hands tied. Being a politician means negotiations and diplomacy, two things that I had previously seen as obstacles to getting a job done the Kryptonian way: with super speed. Just being elected requires the super ability to compromise your own beliefs to appease the electorate and the political machines. How can Superman, who is always right and honest, make the necessary campaign promises that will enable his own election? (I don't think the phrase, "never mind that now, Jimmy," is going to work in those confrontational televised debates.)

But maybe I'm wrong; maybe he could do both. If Super President Norcross can pull it off, it should be a walk in the park for Clark "doesn't he look a lot like Superman with glasses" Kent.

(And just in case you're wondering, while Super President may be a bad cartoon, it's still better than Iron Man.)

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Statistics indicate that once every two minutes, someone in America is sexually assaulted. While that sounds bad, it's tempered by the fact that most of those victims are probably in a relationship with Charles Bronson.

In Death Wish, Charles Bronson is a New York City architect whose wife is murdered and whose daughter is raped by a band of hoodlums that includes The Fly's Jeff Goldblum. In Death Wish 2, Bronson's family relocates to Los Angeles, but his daughter is again raped and this time killed by a different band of hoodlums that includes The Matrix's Laurence Fishburne. In Death Wish 3, Bronson returns to New York City where his new neighbor's wife is raped and killed by a gang of hoodlums including Bill & Ted's Alex Winters. In Death Wish 4, Bronson's back in Los Angeles, where his girlfriend and her daughter are killed by drug dealers who include Star Trek Voyager's Tim Russ among their numbers. In Death Wish 5, Bronson is again in New York and he again has a fiance who is killed by mobsters including Medium's Miguel Sandoval.

No doubt, there are several lessons here, not the least of which is that New York and Los Angeles are both dangerous cities. If you want to keep your family safe from muggers and rapists (and drug dealers and mafioso), move somewhere else. Another moral here is that if you see a face you recognize in a crowd of thugs, that person is probably going to rape and/or kill you. (The real message may be that you shouldn't have a love affair with Charles Bronson, but seeing as how he's been dead for half a decade, I figure that one's just common sense.)

Why do I mention this now? Because I just heard that Sylvester Stallone, fresh off his zombie movies Rocky Balboa and Rambo, is looking to remake the first Death Wish. (Can Stop Or My Mom Will Shoot Again or Over the Top 2: WAY Over the Top be far behind?) Running out of his own material to re-tread, Stallone is moving on to others' franchises. Watch your back, Schwarzenegger.

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In today's newspaper, I saw an advertisement for the new movie Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film For Theaters. The ad included this endorsement: "Perversely entertaining,...whups the ass of TMNT!" -- Peter Travers, Rolling Stone.

If you ever make a movie, give Peter Travers a few bucks, and he'll say something good about it for you to put in your promotional advertising. I don't know what Mr. Travers' personal taste in films is, but he seems to have something banal to say about everything, no matter how bad a movie it is. And I'm not alone in noticing this. Travers is oft called a "blurbwhore," and hollwoodbitchslap.com names their annual award to the critic most often quoted in promotional advertising the "Peter Travers Whore of the Year Award."

To get a handle on how many movies Travers shills for, take a look at the five other ads published today that used Travers' comments:
300: "Prepare your eyes for popping -- they just might fly out of their sockets!"
Disturbia: "A nail-biter. Cool stuff. Cool movie."
Grindhouse: "This tour-de-force gets you high on movies again!"
Hoax: "A devilish satire with mischievous wit."
Hot Fuzz: "A blast!"

Well, guys, perhaps you shouldn't all chose to quote Travers in the same week. It sort of weakens his endorsement if he endorses everything, doesn't it?

His blurbs tend to be very, um, visceral, clearly tailored for an audience desperate for thrills. His blurbs might not tell you anything about the movies themselves, but at least they're entertaining. Recent favorites of mine include the following:
King Kong: "What you will see will spin your head six ways from Sunday." (Ouch. Look away!)
Mission Impossible III: "The movie to beat in the race to push your pulse rate past the danger zone." (Past the danger zone? Watching this movie will kill me?)
Poseidon: "Hits the action button and never stops!" (Never stops pushing the action button?)
Rocky Balboa: "Stallone steps in the ring and every day is Christmas." (Sweet.)

(P.S. Note that Peter Travers has never reviewed the movie TMNT, at least so far as I can tell at Rollingstone.com. Therefore, how would he know if ATHF whups its ass? Sounds good, though, doesn't it, Peter.)

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Last night I watched Rocky IV for at least the XVII-th time. Every single time, I pull for Ivan Drago, the charismatic Russian fighter with a superhero physique and totally kick-ass hairstyle. ("If he dies, he dies.") And he just keeps losing. One of these days, I'm going to remake Rocky IV and Drago is going to win. Then no one will have to suffer through Rocky V anymore, because Rocky will be dead.

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Damn, that sucked. The Tennessee band played Rocky Top 20 times between kickoff and final clock expiration. Of those 20, only 2 were in the first half. I hate Rocky Top.

Our highly-rated defense gave up 51 points. That's 17 more points than we had given up to our first 5 opponents combined. Ugh.

Note for next year that for 4 consecutive years, the away team has won the UGA vs. Tennessee game.

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