Last week, knowing that Mom would be busy tending to her wounded beau, I sent a message to my standing group text with my friends looking for someone to accompany me to tonight's 7PM football game between #2 UGA and #9 Mississippi. They ignored me.

To add insult to injury, my so-called "friends" were unsympathetic the following day when I complained about people who put up and decorate Christmas trees the first week in November. Are they really my friends if they hate live football and think Christmas should be celebrated before Thanksgiving? I say no.

So I did what any sane person would do: I deleted the group text chain from my phone and went to the game by myself.

Sure, it was cold and drizzly, but I still had a great time (and a hand warmer), mostly because the Bulldogs were totally dominant (and because Mom wasn't there to talk me out of bringing a hand warmer to the game). The seniors were celebrated; the veterans were celebrated; the SEC Champion soccer team was celebrated.... After halftime, it was pretty much all celebration inside the 9th largest football stadium in the world. These are good times to be a Bulldogs fan.

There are still two games remaining on the season, but this was the last home game of the year, an unusually early ending to a (mostly lousy) home schedule. Looking back at the four I attended, Kentucky was the most fun, but this was an easy second place. The question is whether I will be back next year.

It is getting very hard to find people to go to the games with me, especially since I have fewer friends than I thought I did. (Christmas tree-hugging bastards!) So spending thousands on a couple of tickets I can't (and don't want to) always use is starting to seem like a bad use of my money.

I'll see how I feel when the bill comes due in February.

In the meantime, do as Miss Manners advises and "finish your turkey before putting up Christmas." Assholes.

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Callback!

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The lesson learned from 10 years of self portraits? Smart phone cameras sure have come a long way.

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Oops. I completely forgot that on this past Saturday, I meant to post about Batman Day 2023. Sorry. That was my bad. If I didn't mention it, how would you know you were supposed to celebrate by buying something with Batman's face on it?

What better way for a corporation worth nearly $30 billion to commemorate their own for-profit intellectual property (that they acquired in a 1967 buy-out of National Periodical Publications) than via an annual event (created and promoted by Warner Bros) in which you give them more money? Billionaire Bruce Wayne would indubitably agree. That's how Christmas started, too.

If you missed out on Saturday, it's not too late. Your Local Comic Shop may still have copies of the three "Batman Day" branded reprint comic books DC sold to retailers to give away as door-busting loss leaders for their event. Or, if you prefer, you could go online, where the "free" comics are currently selling for... checks ebay.com... $8. Seems fair. Even scalpers have to put bread on their table.

But let's face it, you're not going to a comic shop. Batman may be DC's best selling comic book, but that's still only a few million dollars a year. The real money comes from the Batman television and movie fans who haven't touched a comic book in decades. That's why Warner Bros has curated a selection of DVDs, t-shirts, coffee mugs, action figures, posters, LEGOs, bedsheets, party supplies, cocktail guides, car seats, toasters, and much, much more on their officially licensed "Long Live The Bat" store at Amazon.com. Huh. I didn't know I needed a toaster that burnt the bat signal into slices of bread, but I guess, yeah, maybe I do.

Show off your love of Batman; make rich corporations richer. It's a win-win. I'm just sorry I didn't mention it sooner.

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National Comics #1, July 1940

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In hindsight, the biggest problem of my frequent blog posts complaining about the misguided preponderance of the poop emoji in unnecessary consumer goods is the undesired side effect of friends and family thinking that I actually want to encounter more of it.

For example, this is an actual gift that I received this past Christmas:

I will protect the anonymity of which of my mother's sisters thought this would be fun for Walter, but I will tell you that it's the same one who gave me a dancing penis pickle.

For the record, please do not buy things for me with the poop emoji on them. In fact, don't buy anything for me unless I explicitly ask you to. There's too damn much crap in this world already.

Also for the record, what inspired today's post (in addition to a desire to clean out my pictures folder) was the discovery of a poop emoji mousepad at Big Lots. Who needs that? Seriously. Who uses mousepads anymore?

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Happy Mother's Day!

I asked Mom what she wanted to do today, and she said that she wanted to eat lunch at Culver's.

This apple certainly didn't fall far from that tree!

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General Beauregard Lee — who, despite being a groundhog, probably would have been every bit as effective a leader as actual Civil War generals — did not see his shadow today, which comes as no surprise since I literally cannot remember the last time I saw the sun, either actually or metaphorically. 2023 is definitely not off to a good start.

Side note: While we're (marginally) on the topic of Groundhog Day, why don't we celebrate it more? We eat chocolate bunnies on Easter, so why doesn't Hershey's make chocolate groundhogs? Although, I don't suppose that Groundhog Day is really a "holy day." I mean, no one worships the groundhog. Do they? Yeah, they probably do. Superstition is king. All the more reason to eat little chocolate fetishes. All Praise Lord Groundhog!

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If 2020 was the Year of the Pandemic, and 2021 was the Year the Pandemic Struck Back, then 2022 was the Year that Humanity Paid the Bill.

Inflation, immigration, Ukraine, energy crises, Twitter... we certainly didn't realize how good we used to have it, and we're still in search of determining what our "New Normal" is.

Or, to put it another way,

My world was shattered, I was torn apart like someone took a knife and drove it deep in my heart.

When you walked out that door, I swore that I didn't care, but I lost everything, darling, then and there.

Too strong to tell you I was sorry, too proud to tell you I was wrong, I know that I was blind.

But, darling, if I could turn back time, if I could find a way, I'd take back those words that have have hurt you and you'd stay.

I believe that 2023 can be full of love and understanding. It's time to kick the gypsys, tramps, and thieves who've been promoting discord for their own profit that we are no longer willing to keep living in a house divided. I got you babe!

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