On October 12, 2011, blog commenter "Randy" -- if that is his real name -- criticized a comic strip about the improbability of talking dogs flipping coins. Today, guest blogger Scooby-Doo will make an editorial response. Take it away, Scooby.

Scooby-Dooby-Doo, Where Are You?
We got a coin for you now.
Scooby-Dooby-Doo, Where Are You?
You got a gripe to make now.

Come on, Scooby-Doo, I see you
pretending you got a quarter.
But you're not fooling me, 'cause I can see
you've got no thumbs to flip her!

You know we got a mystery to solve,
So, Scooby-Doo, stop puttin' on that act.
Hold it back!

And, Scooby-Doo, if you come through
you're going to land a recording contract!
That's a fact!

Scooby-Dooby-Doo, here are you.
You're rockin' and you're rollin'.
If we can count on you, Scooby-Doo,
I know we'll all be chillin'.

I think that answers that question. This has been "Scooby-Doo: A Critical Response in Song." Thank you.

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The local newspaper has notified me that the United States Consumer Products Safety Commission has issued a recall for Bird Brain "pourable gel fuel." Why? Because "the pourable gel fuel can ignite unexpectedly and splatter onto people and objects nearby when it is poured into a firepot that is still burning." The recall even notes that "all pourable gel fuel, regardless of manufacturer, poses flash fire hazards." So the CPSC is recalling a product that does exactly what it is supposed to do.

What's next? A recall for matches because they light fires? A recall for chainsaws because they might cut a limb off? A recall of swimming pools because of the danger of drowning? A recall for the sun because staring at it can make you blind?

I would have assumed that the real problem here was that the company had chosen to name itself Bird Brain, thus inviting a certain level of criticism. However, the CPSC has recalled pourable fuel gel from 8 other companies as well, including the aptly named Real Flame. How could something sold by a company named Real Flame ever be expected to burn anyone?

According to its website, the "CPSC is charged with protecting the public from unreasonable risks of injury or death associated with the use of the thousands of consumer products." Can a product advertised for and used as fuel in outdoor, open flame torches be an "unreasonable risk"? By design, it catches on fire. Understanding that things that are designed to catch on fire can burn me seems pretty reasonable to me.

In Greek mythology, Prometheus stole flame from the gods to give mankind the knowledge to free itself from dependence on foolish authority. If foolish authority has come for our torches, we'd better redouble our grip on our pitchforks before they take those, too. Reasonable or not, somebody just might get stabbed by the mob with that pointy end.

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One month ago today, my mother sprung into my room at the crack of noon and announced, "wake up! we're going someplace I've wanted to visit for years: Oakland Cemetery!" You can only imagine my delight.

An hour later we were standing in Atlanta's historic Oakland Cemetery, surrounded by dead people. The woman working the welcome center was wearing a sea foam green, Victorian-era crinoline dress as she discussed Civil War battlefields with a uniformed Atlanta police officer. It was a little surreal, like walking through a Tim Burton movie. I wasn't entirely sure I wasn't still dreaming.

Mom and I entertained ourselves with the $4 self-guided walking tour map. I initially made an effort to seek out all of the numbered "points of interest" on the map, but I soon discovered that the highlights on the map were easily noticeable without referencing the pamphlet. For example, the Confederate Obelisk, once the highest structure in the city, hardly needs to be on a map for it to be noticed.

The cemetery is chock full of interesting monuments in a stunningly diverse mixture of styles. I've been in a lot of cemeteries, but few are populated with so many distinctly unique monuments. Below is the Jewish section of the cemetery, where to no one's surprise, they don't waste much space. That's my mother, pondering whether the oldest graves are near the middle. We both hope so.

In some ways the cemetery feels more like a sculpture garden than a field full of corpses. These dead people had great taste, and I doubt that many people alive today would design such good looking final resting places. Certainly none of these statues were wearing wife-beaters and flip flops.

I should mention that shortly after we entered the cemetery, mother and I were passing the plot of former Georgia Governor Joseph E. Brown when we encountered an aged, well-dressed mourner. The polite man had traveled from Scotland to lay flowers at the grave of his wife who had passed away a year earlier. He and my mother struck up a conversation about her family's Scottish ancestry (clan Napier) and accidentally discovered that one of my mother's relatives from Newnan had delivered the eulogy at the woman's funeral. Even without the internet, it's a small world after all.

Besides Governor Brown, the cemetery holds the remains of many notables, including Bobby Jones, Margaret Mitchell, and Maynard Jackson, among many others. But you don't have to have been famous to be buried here. In the South, we're so gracious we'll let in whoever wants in....

Even those damn Yankeys.

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Do you remember how excited I was that there was going to be no NFL football in 2011 because of the lock-out and how that meant that I wouldn't have to watch the Dolphins suck in 2011? Boy, I could use some lock-out now.

Dolphins update: Chad Henne was placed on Injured Reserve yesterday, meaning that he is done playing for the season. The team signed Sage Rosenfels to back-up new starter Matt Moore. Most of you have probably never heard of at least 2 of those 3 players before the previous sentence. Welcome to the Miami Dolphins 2011!

If it seems that I run a "dolphins quarterbacks suck" post almost every year, it's because I do and they do, too. Henne joins Chad Pennington as the second Dolphin quarterback from 2010 who is broken for 2011. Rosenfels was a starter for the Dolphins in 2005, and was cut by the New York Giants on Tuesday, because he had been too sick to play all preseason! Rosenfels was chosen over such luminaries as Trent Edwards, who has missed more games due to injury in his career than he has started, and Brodie Croyle, who couldn't make the roster of the Indianapolis Colts after they realized that they only had one quarterback on their roster that wasn't Peyton Manning. We're so bad that Jake Delhomme, a quarterback so unreliable that he is unwanted by 31 of 32 NFL teams, wouldn't even entertain the idea of playing for us. Matt Moore, a cast-off from the NFL's worst team in 2010 will be our 16th starter in the past 12 seasons. Hurray?.

The NFL season is only 1/4 over, and already pundits are suggesting that the Dolphins are playing for last place in the hopes of drafting Stanford quarterback Andrew Luck first overall in the 2012 NFL Draft. Luck is often compared favorably to Peyton Manning, the first overall pick of the 1998 draft for the Indianapolis Colts. It's not that I think Luck isn't good, it's more that I think the Dolphins wouldn't take him if the opportunity arises.

The last time that the Dolphins had the first overall pick, way back in 2008, they took an offensive lineman first overall. Matt Ryan and Joe Flacco were the first two quarterbacks taken in 2008, and both have proven themselves admirably in the years since. Of course the Dolphins took Chad Henne with their third pick in the 2008 Draft. That leads us back to today, where the Dolphins need a lot more than just a little Luck.

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Don't be alarmed, but the following picture was taken about a half mile from the Newnan city limits:

Those are wild turkeys. (One of the turkeys has been circled for you city folk who can't recognize turkeys with their feathers still intact.) They've been seen in the area near Country Club Road off and on for weeks. Technically, it is legal for the wild turkeys to loiter on this street corner, as it is outside of the city limits. Just because these turkeys are within their rights doesn't make them welcome, however.

These turkeys are less than a mile from the entry to the Newnan Country Club, "Newnan's only truly private country club." No Country Club patron wants those dirty turkeys loitering within sight of their immaculate tennis courts. Isn't eliminating that sort of unwanted element the very reason the Country Club is a members-only institution?

There's a reason we have a national holiday once a year in which all Americans are required to eat turkey, and this is it: to keep our wealthiest, most socially-exclusive citizens safe from the poultry underclasses that would lazily litter their lawns with their droppings. It's time for the county government to talk turkey and do something about this fowl situation. Government should work for the people, not these jive turkeys!

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I've mentioned before that 2011 is the Year of the Suck. Unfortunately, it's not over yet.

As some of my 12 readers probably know, I've always preferred Wendy's hamburgers. There isn't really a Wendy's nearby my house, but I'm always willing to drive out of my way for their burgers. Their 1/4-lb Single is a very tasty treat that can make even the worst day a slight bit better. Or at least it used to.

Late last month, Wendy's rolled out it's reinvented hamburger, "Dave's Hot 'N Juicy," in a media blitz. It's advertised as a better burger made with "premium" ingredients. And it's significantly more expensive than before. Too bad it doesn't taste any better.

I tried my first one yesterday, picking up a pair for my father and me to enjoy while watching the latest Dolphins' loss. Before I could even take my second bite to confirm that the first bite was as bad as I thought it was, my father turned up his nose and said, "didn't these used to be good?" Yikes.

The burger may be juicier, but it is also more bland. The buttered bun tasted thick and unpleasantly heavy. The tomato slice I had on my sandwich still had the stem on it. The burger had enough cheese on it to glue the whole thing together, but it failed to provide any extra taste. There were all bad signs, and do not encourage me to ever have another.

Like everything else this year, it sucks. I'd say that at least they still have tasty chicken sandwiches, but rumor has it that they will be changing that recipe in 2012. I guess at least from now on I'll be saving gas.

[UPDATE 10/05/11: I decided to give Wendy's the benefit of the doubt, and ordered a Single combo at the location different from the one I ate at on Sunday. This burger was better, much better, than the last one. It tasted more similar to the Wendy's hamburgers that I loved in the past. Maybe that crappy burger was a one-time aberration. Perhaps this crisis has been averted. For now.]

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Pepsi and their so-called "independent" polls have insisted for years that in a blind taste test people prefer the taste of Pepsi to Coke. This has been a guiding principle in my personal belief system -- which I call "People are Stupid" -- and can be demonstrated thusly:

1. People who prefer the taste of Pepsi are stupid.
2. Most people prefer the taste of Pepsi.
3. Therefore, most people are stupid. Q.E.D.

I've always figured that only people with half a brain could prefer the taste of Pepsi. It turns out that I was more right than I had realized. Science has recently demonstrated that part of the reason that Coke outsells Pepsi may be because years of carpet-bombing the world with Coke advertisements has caused the consumer's brain to react differently in the presence of a nostalgia-inducing can of Coke than a can of Pepsi (details here). In a nutshell, the science indicates that as soon as you know you are drinking Coke, your brain tells you that you like what you are drinking, whether it tastes good or not. The proof looks something like this:

1. When you see Coca-Cola, you are happy.
2. You see that you are drinking a Coca-Cola.
3. Therefore, you are happy. Q.E.D.

Like the rational, open-minded individual I am, I immediately wondered if I would be able to tell the difference between the two colas if I couldn't see the difference. So I decided to take the Pepsi Challenge myself. I forced enlisted my brother to be my lab assistant and instructed him to pour 6 ounces of a newly-opened 2-liter Pepsi in one glass and 6-oz. of a newly-opened 2-liter Coke in another as I waited outside the kitchen lab. Trey soon presented me with the two glasses and waited under threat of verbal abuse patiently with a pen and legal pad for me to sample the beverages and tell him which I preferred. No sooner had I picked up the first glass than my experiment went to hell.

For me to venture an honest opinion about which beverage I honestly thought tasted better, I had to remain unaware of which beverage was the Coke and which the Pepsi. I had no clue which caramel-colored cola was in the glass I was raising to my lips, but before I could even taste the contents, I could smell that it was the cloyingly sweet Pepsi. And more importantly, I therefore immediately knew it wasn't Coke. I continued to drink from this glass and the next, but only for science. I already knew what the outcome would be:

1. I think Pepsi tastes like shit.
2. What I am drinking smells like shit.
3. Therefore, I am drinking Pepsi. Q.E.D.

I was not surprised to discover that when all was said and done, Trey had written down that the glass I liked contained Coke and the glass I didn't like contained Pepsi. Unfortunately, I suspect I will never figure out whether that decision was made by my brain or my tongue. I suspect that only my nose knows for sure.

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This is the last post of Batman and Football Month, and it hasn't come a moment too soon for the Miami Dolphins, who have opened the season 0-3 and are facing the chip-on-their-shoulder San Diego Chargers this weekend before heading into their bye next week. If the Dolphins can't pick up a win before the bye, I predict very bad things for head coach Tony Sparano next week. It seems very likely he'll soon be joining the 14 million currently unemployed Americans. I'm not too upset: odds are that at least one of those 14 million would make a better coach than Sparano.

Meanwhile, this weekend will mark the third football game I've missed in Sanford Stadium since 2002. In recent weeks the Georgia Bulldogs have pulled out of their nosedive and look not half bad at 2-2 heading into this weekend's SEC contest with Mississippi State Bulldogs. Unfortunately, work calls, and I've been forced to give my ticket to Trey's girl Leslie. I'm sure she'll have a good time at this week's dog fight. Not as good a time as I would have had, but a good time.

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While there was plenty of buzz this year about the DC relaunch of Batman and Detective Comics, the Batman news that has really broken the internet apart is the pending release of Batman: Arkham City, the sequel to 2009's Batman: Arkham Asylum video game. The biggest buzz for the game concerns the excitement that players can now be Catwoman. I remember Halle Berry's Catwoman, and I want no part of that.

However, I have a friend -- for the sake of maintaining his anonymity, we will call him Chris -- who has mentioned to me three times in the past month that he is counting the days until the game is released (three weeks from today). Because Chris is a friend, I'm declaring this a testament to the high quality of Batman: Arkham Asylum and not to the dismal state of Chris' life. If a 40-year old man can be motivated to create a countdown clock for the release of a video game, maybe it's a video game I should consider playing. Once I can find a cheap, used copy, of course.

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