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True statement: in 2017, you are 4x more likely to be a victim in a mass shooting (1 in 169,000) than be struck by lightning (1 in 700,000). I'm sure the NRA will move to correct that problem by buying up the country's supply of lightning rods.

While it's tempting to say that America has a gun problem, keep in mind that there are some things out there worse than guns. Of course, I'm talking about deer.

I've mentioned before that StateFarm has calculated the average American has a 1 in 169 chance of being struck by a deer. Those odds are terrifying, and I think they go a long way to explaining why America is obsessed with guns.

Just yesterday, the New York Post ran the headline "Deer gores unarmed hunter to death". As bad as it sounds, a closer read reveals the goring took place in France. France is far more restrictive about guns than America is. If that poor hunter had lived in America, he'd probably still be alive today. (Unless he was involved in a mass shooting.)

It was reported last year that a lightning storm killed 323 reindeer in Norway. That's a lot of deer, but it isn't enough. It's been estimated that there are 30 million deer in America. At 1 in 700,000, it'll take 21 trillion bolts of lightning to get them all. Obviously, lightning's going to need some help. We're going to need all the guns we can get our hands on to win the Great Deer Uprising.

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October movies, part 2 of 3:

135. (1194.) Florence Foster Jenkins (2016)
What a lightweight movie. It's too shallow to call it a character study, making it more like an extended SNL sketch. It works best when Streep is singing; you can't help but laugh.

136. (1195.) The Paradine Case (1947)
This Hitchcock film felt like a gender-flipped variation on his earlier masterpiece Rebecca. It's good, though I'm not nuts about Gregory Peck in the lead role.

137. (1196.) Kiss of the Tarantula (1976)
A dumb, low budget horror movie about a girl who kills people with — guess what? — tarantulas. It's too dull to have a lot of entertainment value as a cult film, but if you really like the fantasy of revenge flicks and spiders, this might be for you.

138. (1197.) Pitch Perfect 2 (2015)
Setup, punchline, repeat. This sequel trades the "heart" of the original for nonstop comedy and snark. I enjoyed it. (Hey! Pentatonix is even in it!)

More to come.

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Back in September, I had planned to take friend Michael to his first UGA game. That plan was disrupted by Brian's wedding. Today was the make-up date.

Mike had never even been in Athens until arriving for today's game. He's not much of a football person, but he tells me that he had a good time watching the #1 Bulldogs running over the Gamecocks, 24-10. I'm inclined to believe him. I had a good time myself.

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Who wants a Walter health insurance update? No one? Well, you're getting one anyway.

As we all know, Georgia has done its best to destroy any healthcare options for poor individuals like me, and the Republicans controlling the federal government have, to their credit, only managed to make shit worse. So now, for the third year in a row, I have to scramble to figure out what my options are. Too bad no one else seems to know, either.

Blue Cross Blue Shield has withdrawn from offering individual plans where I live in Georgia, leaving me with only Kaiser Permanente (KP) HMO options available under the Affordable Care Act. The problem here is that I cannot keep my doctor, and no urgent care facility within 40 miles or hospital within 70 miles accept the Healthcare Exchange (HIX) plans. That's... not ideal. But it might still be my best choice. At least it theoretically pays for something if, say, I was hit by a bus in New York City.

Not that I have a lot of other choices. I have looked at some off-Marketplace plans, and they are really worthless. Twelve hundred dollars per year gets me a couple of urgent care visits and not much else. Compared to that, I might as well have no insurance and just pay the tax penalty ($695).

So the KP HIX HMO plan looks like the best option for me, though only so long as I make little enough to take advantage of the low-income subsidies. (Sweet spot catch-22: if I make a little more money, I'm priced out of health insurance, and as a male, I wouldn't qualify for Medicare in the state of Georgia even if I earned nothing at all.) It is my understanding that KP has to continue to offer me the subsidies discount if I qualify even though that asshole Trump has vowed not to reimburse them, essentially guaranteeing that next year I'll have no healthcare options at all.

I've been lucky so far, but I can't stay healthy forever, guys.

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I haven't dumped on the Miami Dolphins enough this year. Let me start correcting that.

Yesterday before the NFL trade dealine, the Miami Dolphins traded their starting running back, Jay Ajayi, to the Philadelphia Eagles for a 4th round pick. (True story: they wanted to trade their best wide receiver, Jarvis Landry, but they couldn't find a taker willing to pay the asking price, presumably a 3rd round pick.) Ajayi had three 200+ yard games last year and ran for a total of 1,272 yards. For comparison, Jay Cutler passed for only 1,059 in 2016. Given that Cutler no longer has a running back to help him anymore, that number is going to have to get a lot better fast. That doesn't seem likely to happen anytime soon.

You may have had the misfortune of seeing last Thursday's "game" in which the Dolphins were beaten 40-0. That wasn't because Cutler was out with broken ribs, and it wasn't because Ajayi forgot the playbook. It was because the offensive line played offensively. Who saw that coming? I mean, it's not like the offensive line coach quit two weeks earlier after being caught doing cocaine and models. Oh, wait. Yes, it was exactly like that.

But that was just one game. Otherwise, the Dolphins' offense has been great! Not. The team is last in the league in points scored. It's also last in the league in yards gained. Normally, when a team is bad in all offensive categories, they'll fire the Offensive Coordinator. But the Dolphins can't do that, because the Offensive Coordinator is also the Head Coach. So bye-bye, Ajayi.

Adding insult to insult, the Dolphins were careful to belittle Ajayi on the way out the door. "He has a bad attitude and bad work habits. And, oh yeah, bad knees, too!" Stay classy, Miami! You really fleeced Philadelphia out of that 4th round pick.

There are 9 games left in the season, but at least the team still has Cutler! How the hell am I supposed to cheer for this dumpster fire?

(On a seemingly unrelated note: the initial 2017 NCAA College Football Playoff Rankings were also released yesterday, and the Georgia Bulldogs have jumped the Alabama Crimson Tide for first place. Whoo hoo! If the price I have to pay for a great Bulldogs team is a terrible Miami team, I'm in.)

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