The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America.

I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.

Happy Great Anniversary Festival, everybody!

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Yesterday, Coca-Cola Company tried to offset the bad news that sales were flat by promising to roll out new "functional" beverages to augment their product line. To Coke, "functional" apparently means crappy.

Introducing Coca-Cola Plus, a drink that the company describes as "a sugar-free and calorie-free beverage" with 5 grams of dietary fiber per 470-ml bottle. So, it's a Diet Coke that helps you take a poo? I have to admit that sounds like an improvement over standard Diet Coke. That stuff makes me puke.

So far, the product has only been unleashed on Japan with no announcement when we might see it in the Americas. Apparently, Japan is the Mikey of soda consumers. If the drink takes off there, Coke thinks it will sell anywhere.

Among current popular Coca-Cola products in Japan are Aquarius, a fancy water Coke calls "The No. 1 selling sports drink" in Japan, Georgia Coffee ("The No. 1 ready-to-drink coffee brand in Japan"), ILOHAS ("one of the most popular mineral water brands in Japan"), and Ayataka ("authentic green tea taste just like consumers regularly brew at home, but available on-the-go"). None of those sound like anything Americans want to drink. At least not yet.

Coke is hurting, and we all have to do our part. So suck it up, people. I'm sure ready-to-drink canned coffee can't possibly be as bad as it sounds.

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I'm on a movie-watching tear so far this April! Here's the first batch of films seen.

46. (1105.) Dreamgirls (2006)
I didn't like it. I'd rather not spend three hours of my time with a bunch of people finding old and unexciting ways to ruin their own lives. (And if I want to hear a Supremes pastiche, I'll just listen to The Supremes.) Eddie Murphy is the highlight, and he kills himself. I didn't blame him.

47. (1106.) Journal of a Crime (1934)
A housewife is unable to come to terms with someone else paying the price for the crime she committed. The best part is her confession to the scapegoat that ends up making her feel worse. Good crime melodrama!

48. (1107.) Easy to Love (1934)
Screwball comedy about a wife who cheats on her cheating husband and the ensuing hijinks. Cute. Like Journal of a Crime, the brevity of this film (just over an hour) keeps it from dragging.

49. (1108.) Five Deadly Venoms (1978)
The last apprentice of a kung-fu Master has to track down his five previous students — each trained in a different deadly animal-inspired style — and stop them from destroying the Master's legacy. Where has this movie been all my life?! Really, really fun.

50. (1109.) Woman of the Year (1942)
The first Katharine Hepburn/Spencer Tracy pairing. Hepburn comes off great (no surprise if you read the title), leaving the audience wondering what she sees in Tracy's chauvinistic sports reporter. They do have good screen chemistry, though.

More to come.

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Today is the University of Georgia's annual G-Day game practice, the unofficial start of the 2017 hype season. This marks Kirby Smart's second year as head coach. You may recall he was hired to take the team to the next level after Athletic Director Greg McGarity lost faith in Mark Richt. Let's just say that year one wasn't everything Bulldog Nation hoped it would be.

So how does Smart kick off year two? By demanding that the media not report on injuries unless he gives permission. Even if the player breaks his leg in front of a television camera.

What the fuck, Kirby?

Hey, man, I get it. You're a tin-pot dictator who gets paid millions of dollars a year to boss around children. That shit goes to your head. Last year, you somehow convinced the Georgia State legislature to pass a law allowing you to extend delays in responding to open records requests from three days to three months. It's only logical that the next step in your plan for world domination would be to refuse the release of any information at all.

The only question I have is how is this media gag order supposed to help UGA win football games? Did the Bulldogs go 4-4 in SEC games last year because our opponents knew Jacob Eason was a Freshman? Did Vanderbilt get its 3rd win versus Georgia in 22 tries because reporters told them ahead of time that the Bulldogs couldn't stop a 75-yard drive in the final quarter? Did Tennessee's Hail Mary to defeat Georgia with only zeroes showing on the clock happen because they'd read news reports about the secondary's practice habits in the week prior to the game? As I recall, it was Nick Chubb's mother who released information about the extent of his knee injury in 2015, by the way. Good luck stopping her from talking to the press in 2017, Coach.

Hey, sports reporters, if you see something, say something. I have a hunch you'll still have a job in two years. Coach Smart I'm not so sure about.

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The Atlanta Falcons were up 28-3 over the New England Patriots late in the third quarter of the Super Bowl. No team had ever come back from such a deficit in the big game, and the Patriots didn't look like they were going to be the ones to do it. All Atlanta had to do was keep doing what they had been doing for the better part of 2 hours, and they would be NFL champions.

I'm sure I don't have to tell you who won.

The Falcons were good enough this year; they should have been able to beat the Patriots. But the one thing holding back, the lead weight around their necks, was their own history. The 1999 Super Bowl. The 2011 Divisional game. Now the 2017 Super Bowl. When a few plays late in the game went wrong, you could see the Falcons lose confidence that they could win. If you think you're going to lose, you're right.

I'm not a Falcons fan, but I do consider myself an Atlantan. This loss hurt. It hurt bad. Like a second betrayal by an unfaithful lover, it's the sort of pain you never get over. You can forgive, but you'll never forget. You can only blame yourself for believing she wouldn't do it to you again. A loss like this, in a city seemingly incapable of escaping it's terrible luck at team sports (1 MLB title, 0 NFL titles, 0 NBA titles, 0 NHL franchises), this loss leaves a permanent scar on our soul.

As my friend Keith, a Falcons fan since birth, said at the start of the postseason, "I'll believe the Falcons can win a Super Bowl the day after they win a Super Bowl." After this game, I don't think either of us will live that long.

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The Olympics swallowed August, and I saw only 4 movies last month. Here they are.

73. (1011.) S.O.B. (1981)
This fantastically dark, dark comedy by Blake Edwards is a send-up of Hollywood. Best known as the film in which Julie Andrews goes topless, the film is worth watching for Robert Preston alone. He steals every scene he's in.

74. (1012.) The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014)
Look! Rhino! Electro! Gwen Stacy! Green Goblin! Spider Slayer! Aunt May! Chameleon! Dr. Octopus! Uncle Ben! Vulture! Lizard! Richard Parker! This movie is so determined to squeeze in every possible Spider-Man easter egg that it forgot to tell anything resembling a cohesive story. (Seriously, was I was I watching a toy commercial?) Ultimately, it feels more like a television pilot or a video game promo than a theatrical release. Skip this and read the comics instead. At least comic publishers understand that incomplete stories don't sell.

75. (1013.) Breaking Away (1979)
This is often discussed as being among the "great sports movies," but just like how The Karate Kid is barely about martial arts, this movie is more of a coming of age movie than a film about bicycle racing. That's not a negative. It is a very good movie.

76. (1014.) Evil Dead (2013)
A completely unnecessary (and slightly stupid) remake of one of the most perfect (and funny) horror movie series of all time. My biggest complaint is that it does a poor job of laying out and following its own rules — a cardinal sin in the horror genre. If you're in the mood for this sort of demonic slasher film, watch the superior Sam Raimi/Bruce Campbell originals instead.

I've already seen more than four movies in September, so I can promise a bigger batch of movies next time.

More to come.

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"Am I interrupting you? What are you doing right now?" my father asked when I answered the telephone.

"Nothing important. I was just reading an article from Ezra Klein about why Hillary Clinton's private reputation is so good but the American public hates her," I said. "He calls it The Gap."

Dad laughed. "Of course they'd publish that now. They just can't believe that the American public could be right about something."

I said, "Your response indicates that you believe there's no point in ever investigating this reputation gap. Don't you think there's value in examining the difference in someone's public and private personas?"

"I'm open-minded, but it's just election year spin. If they really wanted to investigate that gap, they'd do it next year."

I shook my head, though dad couldn't see this through the phone. "This is the ideal time, from the news industry's point-of-view. Capitalize on everyone talking about her during the Democratic National Convention."

"Have you been watching? There's been open revolt from the Sanders supporters. This party is tearing itself apart. I haven't seen anything like this since McGovern in 1972."

"What about last week? A week ago today, delegates at the RNC tried to pass a resolution to end-run Trump. Is this so different?"

"That's not the same thing," Dad harrumphed. "These people are angry at a party leadership that openly schemed to give their preferred candidate the nomination."

"What's new about that? Isn't that what the Republicans did in 2012 with Romney? That's what parties do, manipulate things to get their choice candidates elected."

"It's not fair! It's against the rules!"

I remained unswayed. "What rules? American political parties can do whatever they want with their candidates."

Dad practically growled. "Well, since we're not talking about facts, and I can see I interrupted you, I'll just let you go." Click.

I admit that I edited that conversation from my memory of the telephone call, but I think both Dad and I come out looking better in my version than reality. (He refuses to admit his own bias — he wants to Make America Great Again® — and I'm intentionally argumentative. About everything.) Frankly, we behave better when we don't talk about politics. Or government. Or sports. Come to think of it, maybe we never behave better.

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I just caught an episode of Baywatch on Cozi TV. ("Beauty and the Beast," season 6 (1996), episode 12: The lifeguards compete for a spot in Inside Sports magazine's annual swimsuit issue while the events of Jaws play out on California's Venice beach.) It's even more sexist and exploitative than I remembered. What a good show.

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On Thursday afternoon, I thought of something that I absolutely, positively wanted to blog about for today.

On Thursday evening, I could not remember that that thing was.

I've been back through the newspaper, re-read my emails and texts, and racked my brain, but I can't for the life of me figure it out. I know that it was time sensitive; something I had to have said here before the weekend.

Was it about sports? I don't think so. I'd already decided not to talk about football again until tomorrow. It also wouldn't have been about politics (who cares?) or super heroes (I think). Could it have been local news? A rant about something no one in the world cares about but me? Who knows.

So this is all you get today: a rambling post about nothing. You're welcome.

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"Word on the street" is that Miami Dolphins' head coach Joe Philbin might not survive the day in that position following two terrible, terrible losses in a row as the now 1-3 team heads into their bye week.

As I type this, I don't really expect Philbin to get fired. I suspect that the axe will fall on some other scapegoat for the inept Dolphins organization, probably Defensive Coordinator Kevin Coyle who can be blamed for Ndamukong Suh's complete invisibility over four games or the defensive backs tendency to make the Bill's Tyrod Taylor and the Jet's Ryan Fitzpatrick look like Tom Brady and Bret Favre, respectively.

Besides, NFL teams whose organizations panic and fire their head coaches mid-season don't have a very good record of improving things in the short term. Most simply swap one losing coach for another. Only the Cowboy's Jason Garrett comes to mind as a step in the right direction, and he was already being groomed to eventually replace predecessor Wade Phillips anyway.

Assuming Philbin is fired before the end of the year — because let's face facts, this team stinks like dead fish no matter who is in charge — who would the Dolphins replace him with? An Offensive Coordinator who can't coordinate more than two touchdowns in a game? The 32-year-old Quarterbacks Coach? Certainly none of the defensive coaches deserve it. There don't seem to be any good candidates in the entire building.

Hmm. What's Dan Marino doing these days?

UPDATE 1:00PM: Philbin has been fired, replaced by the team's former tight ends coach, 39-year old Dan Campbell.

No team who has fired their coach 4 games into the season has gone on to post-season victories, so I guess everyone can now tune out for the remainder of the 2015 campaign. Unless you like watching train wrecks.

To be perfectly clear, this news doesn't disappoint me. Go back and check, and you'll see I've been no Philbin fan since the beginning of his tenure. But I'm also not eager to support any organization that gives a bad head coach a contract extension at the end of a bad season only to turn around and fire that same coach part way through the following bad season. The Dolphins have now done that twice in four years. Go team!

I don't know how owner Stephen Ross made his money, but he certainly doesn't manage it very well.

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