The annual ass-whipping that UGA takes from Florida is still on, but it's so terrible this year that I've actually stopped watching it. I really couldn't be more disappointed in the outcome of this debacle. I could say a lot of terrible things about Florida (I really, really hate them, and I hate the fact that every year this game is played in a "neutral" site less than an hour from Gainesville), but the fact of the matter is that we didn't play well enough to win. Georgia has a lot of young talent, but when the opponent catches a few breaks (the refs called every early important play against us and our kicker is completely shitty -- his name is Blair Walsh; let's see how many more games before we forget his name entirely) they simply give up. I hate to say it, but that's your fault, Richt.

I also appreciate that Urban Meyer has pulled his starting quarterback early in the fourth quarter. After the bitching he's done for the past year over our celebration penalty in the previous meeting, he could have left Tebow in to run up the score and his stats. But he didn't. That's something that Spurrier would never have done and a show of good sportsmanship.

Congratulations, Florida. I hate you.

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: blair walsh football gators georgia steve spurrier tim tebow

Someone somewhere is going to have to explain to me why people have been standing in lines for hours in order to vote early. I've asked everyone I know, and no one can plausibly explain it. Some people must have too much time on their hands. The line here in Coweta County has been around the block downtown all day. For over two weeks! How can there be more people voting in my county than can even read?

Though Georgia state law mandates businesses to allow a 2-hour window for their employees to vote on election day, I've never heard of anyone exceeding that time. But now I'm frequently hearing news reports quote a waiting time in some counties exceeding 4 hours for early voting lines! So by choosing to go early, these voters are wasting their free time to do something that they law shelters them to take off from work to do. If I was to wait in any line for more than even 15 minutes, there'd have to be a pretty kick-ass roller coaster at the end of that line.

Clearly, this Presidential election will have record-breaking voter turnout. And to think: our next President will likely be chosen by people who are willing to stand in long lines in order to do something that they could just as easily have done via mail-in ballot from the comfort of their living rooms.

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: news politics voting

I'm busy dogsitting for 8 dogs, one of which is an escape artist beagle. I'll get back to you when my hands aren't quite so full. Enjoy your day.

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: beagle dogs petey work

A friend of mine opened a new toy store in "Historic Downtown" Newnan, GA. Of course, I was asked to design the logo for the Full Circle storefront.

Full Circle, 17 Jefferson Street,

I'm rather pleased with the way it turned out. Even if it wasn't my first choice for the design, it fit his needs and looks plenty dapper enough, if I do say so myself. (What's that you say about the London Underground roundel? You'll have to speak up, I can't hear you.)

And while the name "Full Circle" isn't quite as... um, powerful as the name used by a certain frame shop in nearby "Historic Downtown" Carrollton, GA, at least Full Circle doesn't have to put out any redundant banners to supplement it's signage. And no, I don't know why all the nearby downtown areas -- including Griffin, LaGrange, and Warm Springs -- are all "historic," it's just something I've learned to live with.

In brightest day, in blackest night, I will buy my picture frames by Green Lantern's light!

"Picture Framing" at a "frame shop"? I'm glad that they explained that, otherwise I might have embarrassed myself trying to purchase a false accusation. Will those silly Oans never learn?

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: art friends full circle georgia newnan randy work

One week until Halloween, kids. I used to enjoy Halloween, but then I got old and crotchety. However, that doesn't mean that I've lost an appreciation for people dressing up in outlandish costumes. Oh, no. If you've got to dress up, there's really only one option. Fortunately, the good people at DC have licensed a ready-made in whatever size you need:

Batman costumes sorted by price, er, I mean age!

All of these costumes are available from a site called, appropriately enough, costumehub.com. Amidst the dozens of options for Batman (in addition to the ones pictured above, there were also costumes with sculpted muscles, rendered features, and latex codpieces -- seriously, check out the $800 Adult Premium Collector's Batman Costume) there was one costume that made me question things a bit.

You know, for kids!Maybe it's just me, but licensing a costume of a sociopathic mass-murderer to children between the ages of 3-10 seems a little distasteful, DC. Note that the movie this costume was based on was rated PG-13: you're marketing to an age group too young to have even seen the movie!

Turns out that the Joker isn't the only super-villain marketed to youngsters. The same age category has licensed costumes for Freddy, Jason, and Leatherface! Whatever happened to the generic monsters and bogeymen of yesteryear, the ghost, werewolf, mummy, and vampire? I guess their body-count wasn't high enough for kids anymore.

Well, if that's what you want, you can keep your Hollywood-licensed horrors, kids. Meanwhile, Ace and I will stick to the good stuff.

Sit, Ubu, sit!

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: batman dogs fashion halloween holidays

I really enjoy Homecoming each year. Everyone is generally more pleasant and less drunk than at a typical game. And of course, the game is usually a laugher as well.

UGA 27, Vanderbilt 14

While this year Vanderbilt was a little more competitive than in years past, as my brother said on the ride home, "the game wasn't as close as it seemed to be." If not for a handful of missed field goals and phantom pass interference calls, this game would have been a typical Homecoming blowout rather than the deceptively close 27-17 final score indicated.

Once again, Michael Adams (receiving fewer "boos" and catcalls than in years past) presided over the Homecoming Court, the highlight of which was the Homecoming King dropping his crown and tripping over his fallen sash. I'd report his name here, but I couldn't tell you who it was if you gave me a lineup. I didn't make a note of Homecoming Court winners while I was in school, and I don't plan on starting now. I may enjoy the spectacle, but that doesn't mean that I really care about it, you know.

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: athens football georgia sanford vanderbilt

I'd like to take the opportunity to congratulate myself for receiving the Monthly Project Fanboy Fansite Award for September 2008 for all of my hard work and dedication to Boosterrific.com before and during September 2008. I deserve it, really I do. Clearly, all my hard work is paying off, and it's about time someone recognized and rewarded my greatness. I'd just like to thank all of the little people without whose acknowledgment of my genius and vision none of this could have happened. Thank you, everyone!

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: boosterrific internet

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.

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: athens football georgia sanford tennessee

Today was supposed to be the end of the world. So if you're reading this, we must all be dead.

Worst case scenario? Superman has to circle the Earth backwards a few times. No big deal.

A lot of furor was made this summer over the activation of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Switzerland. The LHC is a $6 billion chemistry set designed to replicate the natural collision between sub-atomic particles at near the speed of light in order to substantiate the existence of theoretical particles of matter. Try doing that in your garage!

However, some grizzled curmudgeons have complained that the replication of the natural collision of particles could result in black holes that will rend the Earth atwain! But who ever listens to the town drunk who warns us not to go down to the lake? At least these complainers are smart enough not to make the more logical complaint that Switzerland has built something the size of a city to explore a purely academic scientific pursuit instead of throwing that $6 billion at something more practical, such as clean coal, hydrogen fuel cells, or growing hamburgers on trees. It's the more sensational fear of the apocalypse that grabs headlines, not simple whining about political boondoggles.

This morning, it turns out that sucking sound you hear is really just the implosion of the U.S. economy. Fortunately for all of mankind, the LHC sprung a leak (meaning that it could no longer contain those black-hole spawning particles) and was shut down last month, long before it could reach the tests scheduled for today that would end the world. Those Earth-destroying tests have been rescheduled for next year.

I don't know about the rest of you, but I for one am pleased that we have several more months until an artificial black hole births a rampaging energy being that threatens to destroy the Earth, as depicted in the Sci-Fi Channel documentary The Black Hole. Even though scientist Judd Nelson will no doubt arrive to save the day, I'm already constructing a rocket ship to blast my newborn son to a distant planet where, in comparison to the primitive men that populate that planet and aided by the world's white sun, he will have powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men.

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: economy lhc movies science

The same day I discovered how much spam I was receiving (see previous post for details), I watched the 1973 Michael Crichton-written film Westworld in which the attractions in a lavish theme park inexplicably become murderous. (Really, it's exactly the same movie as the 1993 Michael Crichton-written film Jurassic Park but with less explanation for why the attractions are killing people.) Perhaps it's because I had already been looking at numbers that afternoon, but I became captivated by the economics of Westworld.

The park guests attending the theme park Delos (of which Westworld is just one part, like Frontierland or Adventureland at Walt Disney World Resort) each pay $1,000 per day for a week-long visit to the theme park of their imagination. So for a mere $7,000, these guests spend a week surrounded mostly by robots who simulate the lifestyles, behaviors, and mores of inhabitants of the mythical American West. While that may seem expensive for simple park admission, think about it this way: for $7,000 they get to abuse, kill, or sexually molest machines, who for all practical purposes, are human beings. Says one fellow in a promotional video at the beginning of the movie, "I shot six people!" When you look at it that way, the price of admission becomes a bargain when you consider that the costs of the same actions outside of theme parks is likely life in prison or worse.

It's worth noting here that the Grecian island of Delos was once sacred to the ancient Athenian civilization. Besides being the birthplace of Apollo and Artemis -- god and goddess of arts and the hunt, respectively -- Delos was also famed as a location upon which people were forbidden to be born or die. Quite fitting for a theme park populated by robots. And a way better name than Six Flags.

But more to the point, there are approximately 20 guests seen delivered to Delos by hovercraft for their weekly stay. (Apparently, even in 1973, monorails were artifacts. And to be fair, an actual count appears to be 18 people, but I'm rounding up, figuring in Delos' favor that this was an off-week as they appear to have a slightly greater capacity than they are using.) That means that the gross weekly income at Delos was $140,000, or over $7 million per year generated by 1040 guests, assuming there is no "off" season.

Delos is a very large enterprise, consisting of three "worlds," each populated by dozens of unique and technologically-advanced robots, period-accurate buildings and an underground central command and control complex coordinating the entire site's operations. Weekly expenditures for power and maintenance of such amazing facilities and mechanical marvels would have to be staggering, well exceeding $140,000! (Walt Disney World doesn't release operating costs, but they recently bragged that an energy overhaul saved them 100 million kilowatt hours of electricity per year. At the average Florida commercial price of 10 cents per kwh, that's a monthly savings of well over $800,000!)

To compare, Walt Disney World, opened in 1971, is a huge operation maintained not by expensive robots but by teenagers dressed as "cast members." Well more than 10 millions visitors pass through the Walt Disney World gates every year, 10,000 times greater attendance than Delos achieves! A well-to-do modern day visitor to Walt Disney World could pay well over $5,000 for park admission, room, and food for a week, all of which are included in the admission price to Delos. Transform that $5,000 in modern cash to 1973 dollars, and you find that it's roughly equivalent to... $1,000. Just think about how much red ink there must be on Delos' books!

While having your rides assassinate all of your guests and staff is certainly bad for business, it's probably a better option than actually letting your guests shoot holes in your rides. I'm certainly no business major, but I'm pretty sure that Business 101 includes the maxim that if you construct one-of-a-kind replicas of famed Western actor Yul Brenner, don't let your customers destroy them for a mere $1,000 a day. After all, also in 1973, the United States Government spent six million dollars upgrading just one man! And that was only 2 legs and an arm!

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: disney economy history movies science westworld

To be continued...

 

Search by Date:

Search: