Category — College Football (aka God’s Special Gift to You and Me)

[This is our scholarly image.]

The Fort Mill Times Reports that Georgia’s football team, with a score of 965, has the highest APR in the SEC.  We realize that the SEC haters will equate this to winning a gold medal in the Special Olympics, but hell, our football team had a higher score than Tech’s.  Further, Georgia’s Men’s and Women’s basketball teams both finished in the top 3 of the SEC.

Congrats to the athletes and AD Damon Evans on the great work.  This is the type of publicity Georgia needs.  It is especially great when it comes at the same time as this little gem.

The Fort Mill Times Summary of Georgia Schools and the APR. 

EDSBS has this cut from the Cartoon Network show Squidbillies. We pretty much already knew that God sounded just like Larry.

We are in the eye of the finals hurricane.  Here is another AJC story on GSU football.

[What, precisely, are these Georgia Legislators celebrating?]

1. The New York Times has an article on Big Boi’s hip hop ballet.  We are in no way stating that Atlanta needs validation from the elite newspaper, even if we didn’t read the AJC’s coverage of the same topic.
2. Getting drunk.  Helping animals.  What are two things honkies definitely like?  The Critter Crawl is in Little 5 Points this weekend.
3. The AJC has the summary of this year’s state legislation.  Prepare to be underwhelmed.
4. Dan Radakovich is a glutton for punishment.  LSU has hired an athletic director that isn’t DRad.  GT Sports Blog with a nice get.
5. The Georgia baseball squad, at 9-3, has the best conference record in the SEC.  The Bulldogs swept South Carolina this weekend.  If you are in need of more prodigious coverage take a look over here.
6. Arts related jobs are way up in Atlanta according to the Atlanta Business Chronicle.  Any guesses as to what percentage can be specifically attributed to the 47 movies/tv shows Tyler Perry shot last year?
7. Want to go the East Atlanta Beer Fest for free?  Volunteer here.

We were provoked to thought by a recent Dennis Dodd Knowshon Moreno slobber piece. Dodd even got his grandma into the story.

Seeing that the Knowshon promotion machine is up and running, we would like to make a suggestion.

[We start smiling when we hear the word “know.” Which is pretty often, and can be hell in a job interview.]

First, a brief digression.

European soccer fans often use songs in support of their clubs. Here are a few interesting selections.

I’ve Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts - Cambridge United

The Battle Hymn of the Republic - Used by numerous clubs in the same fashion it is used betwixt the hedges. (ex. Tottenham Hot Spur, Leeds United, Manchester United)

Do They Know It’s Christmas - Fans of many teams turn this against Liverpool clubs in singing, Feed the scousers, Let them Know it’s Christmas Time. Is there anything as satisfying as a blend of athletic rivalry and socioeconomic taunting?

Tune Unknown - Fans of Aston Villa in response to gruesome injury suffered by Arsenal player Eduardo chanted, Eduardo, he used to have silky skills, now he walks like Heather Mills. [Warning this is quite nasty] Here is the picture of that break. It is a terrible and awful thing to view. [Read more →]

[The paternalism continues.]

1. Urban Gardeners new location in East Atlanta Village is having its grand opening this weekend.  It is located at 491-B Flat Shoals behind Sugar Britches.  While the store is pretty pricey the staff are excellent and the selection is varied.
2. The UGA baseball team pounded Clempson last night.  Official UGA has the dirty details.
3. Dennis Dodd has a great article on new Tech coach Paul Johnson.  It seems to us that the chip on Johnson’s shoulder will be uber popular with the angst-ridden male attendants and alumni of the Institute.
4. Cynthia Tucker takes it easy on Mayor Franklin.  In our opinion she is a mayor without a legacy running a government only slightly more efficient than what we got under Bill Campbell.
5. Sunday Sales = Dead.
6. Drive a Faster Car has the 2008 Chastain schedule.  Embarrassing fact - we have never been to Chastain.  Stepford North Atlanta is scary.
7. A few days back PWD did some interesting analysis of the future of Georgia men’s basketball.  Okay, you can go back to obsessing about football now.
8. Potentially free New Pornographers tickets at Cable & Tweed.  Need we say more?
9. Metroblogging with a nice find regarding MARTA’s new operating chief.
10. New bowl game to be played in DC.  It has an ACC tie-in.  Despite the potential for chilly weather it has great travel possibilities.  GT Sports Blog.

This is a rip-off of a rip-off. Just to be clear.

Moving to Charleston – All anyone tells me about is how hard it is to get jobs in Charleston. This discussion seems to be inversely related to the increasing number of people I know up there. Maybe, Charlestonian Georgia fans can lord over lowly South Carolina and Clemson fans the way Florida fans try to in Atlanta.

Chick-fil-A – Commonly used as a form of currency for the early morning saving of parking spaces. The sandwiches are delicious, and, as a bonus, have the WTOFFWJE factor going for it. That stands for “What Type Of Fast Food Would Jesus Eat.” Come to think of it, Mark Richt, Truett Cathy, and Chick-fil-A itself have remarkably similar public personas.

Getting Really Defensive About Our Academic Reputation – We currently sit at 59th in the US News and World Report rankings. Maddeningly, this is one slot below Ohio State. In order to compensate we act as though we are a top 25 school and talk loudly about unfair Northern elitism. It’s basically the academic rankings version of the length versus girth argument.

[Bongiorno Signore Caleb King]

Scooters (Athletes Only) – In a recently fabricated scientific study it was found that scooters were the only common denominator between twenty-something Mediterranean urban dwellers and UGA athletes. These fictitious scientists are using the study in an attempt to lower Georgia’s profile in the Fulmer Cup. [Read more →]

[Just gorge yourself.]

1. Braves and Birds talks state of the Thrashers nation. Some of the facts are quite damning.
2. Yesterday we discovered (only in the same sense as Columbus discovered America) a great Gwinnett blog called Exurban Adventures. With nearly 800,000 residents we question Gwinnett’s exurbanity. Here is their take on the “gang fight” at Mill Creek High School. The battle for control of the Mall of Georgia is getting intense, huh?
3. Rusty from RGM has a great piece of Georgia Legislatature history. Did that elicit yawns? It involves booze. See, we knew you drunkards would be into it.
4. FEMA teat, as predicted, available for suckling.
5. Peach Pundit has an interesting local perspective on the Obama race thing. We will not call it a “controversy,” unless, of course, we can say it the British way.
6. Former SEC basketball official going to prison for running a Ponzi scheme. The SEC official was initially investigated by the, uh, well, SEC. Who is investigating yesterday’s crew for the Georgi-Xavier game?
7. AJC gets around to discussing Moreland Avenue development. So, they are only about 2-3 months behind on the story. If this related to Buckhead we guess the response time might have been quicker.
8. CL has a review of the Glenwood, a restaurant in East Atlanta. The EAV was hit hard by the tornado. Make you way over and support the neighborhood with your patronage.
9. GT Sports Blog has the world’s quickest”Where are they now?” Info on Taylor Bennett.
10. Mixed-use development in Henry County. We are guessing that there is no public transportation element. Don’t be fooled by terminology into thinking something is green, or smart development, or whateve.
11. GrifDrift talks about Shirley Franklin defending her daughter’s light sentence via internet pseudonym. If we had caught the same charge as Kai Frankin we would be servicing our prison boyfriend at this very moment.
12. Tondee’s says an elected official was caught whilst being serviced by a staffer. No names yet.
13. Magic City, the Atlanta strip club known throughout the hip hop world, has been repurchased by its original owner.  We once heard Dennis Scott say the club was a favorite spot to take GT basketball recruits.
14. UGA VI was named top mascot in the NCAA tournament.  Yeah, not much consolation.
15. Rep. Stephanie Stuckey Benfield is upset that she was called out for missing so many votes.  Decatur Metro with her excuses.
16. Terrell Pryor to Ohio State.  You are officially the last college football fan to know.
17. South Atlanta High School basketball wunderkind Derrick Favors is the Georgia Player of the Year, according the official beverage of jortsporters.  How can Georgia get this kid?
18. Kudos to Creative Loafing for putting a reference to the Wire in this headline.
19. The Tour de Georgia starts in 31 days.  Why can’t they call it the Tour of Georgia.  The “de” seems silly outside of French speaking countries.  Euro teams Saunier-Duval, CSC, and Gerolsteiner are among the competitors.
20. Tondee’s has an excellent summary of the 2008 Georgia US Senate race.

[Y’all love to gawk at tornado pictures.  We do too.]

1. AJC says that Democrats are saying they will only approve the sales tax transportation measure if the bill allows “some of the cash to be used for rail.”  How much is “some”? Oh, and rural Georgia wants a disproportionate share of the revenues.  As usual.  This public transportation puff piece was issued at about the same time.
2. More East Atlanta Tornado pictures at flickr.
3. UGA softball pitcher Kate Gaskill pitched a perfect game!
4. Sour grapes at GT Sports Blog — “At least there is justice in the world though. First, they get shipped out west as a 14-seed. Second, it ensures that Dennis Felton is going to hang around a few more years. Good guy, but I don’t see him taking them consistently to the next level in hoops.”
5. We are cold hearted bastards, but damn if this tornado puppy ain’t cute.

Dear Big Ten Conference,

Sorry to bother you. We know you are super busy shoveling snow, hoping that wages increase in China, and vying to be that last person on earth who purchases a new Buick. But we were directed by a credible source to a series of articles in the Ann Arbor News discussing serious academic improprieties at the University of Michigan, the supposed stalwart of public education.

The article discusses several problems, including tracking athletes through majors that university officials indicate are less rigorous than than the image promulgated by public relation officials at Michigan and the Big Ten Conference. The Press further shows through data analysis of the athletes’ majors how the system functions . All of this information is corroborated by people very close to the university.

Even more shocking are allegations that the university has abused independent study courses. In the South we remember how the New York Times savaged Auburn over similar allegations in 2004. It will be interesting to see if the cacophony of criticism will reach the heights they did when a Southeastern Conference team perpetrated the crime. [Read more →]