Random Thoughts

I just have some random thoughts about what is happening that has come to my attention. Everything else is just a blur of wine and laxatives.

** The #1 team in college football, Georgia, won against Georgia Southern 45-21. What? There should be a rule. When you are the #1 team in the country playing a Division I-AA school (sorry, that is what I will continue to call it) you should win by at least 42. Did anyone else notice but me that there was no official Las Vegas line for this game? I guess they can't post lines for Division I-AA schools. The line for the Hawaii-Florida game I think was forty two. The Gators won by 46. I should have put money on that one. I was so tempted. The bad news in Athens is that senior starting defensive tackle Jeff Owens is out for the season with a knee injury. This is truly bad news. This is worse than the mass suspensions for meaningless games by the crew of players that got arrested in the off-season...all 80 of them. Owens provides "veteran" leadership on the defensive line and is a solid lineman versus both the run and pass. It will be extremely hard to replace his presence on the line this year.

** Matt Ryan is the starting quarterback in Atlanta for a Falcons team that will not be favored to win a game all year. They get Detroit first up. Not a horrible way to start your career. It's better than playing the Patriots your first game ever. The Lions are favored on the road in this one by three. Definitely take the Lions in this game. You have no other reasonable choice. The Falcons did not have any other reasonable choice in picking Ryan as the opening day starter. What is the point in sending Redman out there? He is not good enough to be the starter for Georgia Southern. Why not send him out there to sink or swim from the very start? He'll get sacked this year 100 times and eventually get PTSD like David Carr and become so shell shocked that he'll never be effective. But who cares? Who cares when you have a guy with a porn mustache running your team. Joey Harrington just iced his "bust" status by being cut from the Falcons. When you are a quarterback and you are cut by the Falcons, your NFL career is over. It's time to play in Arena 2.

** The Braves have gotten so low that the only pitcher they could go out and get was Elmer Dessens. Who is Elmer Dessens? Well, he is a lower than journeyman pitcher who was 10-2 with an ERA of 4.02 this season...in the Mexican Triple AAA league. There was no one else available? Fernando Valenzuela wasn't waiting by the phone? Dessens in his first appearance of the season got lit up for five runs on five hits in a 1/3rd of an inning blowing a save and getting the loss to the worst team in the majors. ERA is now 31.65. Even Barry Zito thinks that ERA is bad. The Braves are now 19 games under .500 and are closer to last place than first. Right now, the Nationals are playing better than the Braves. Now that is saying something. How about bringing up everyone from Richmond (er...Gwinnett) to pitch? That has got to be better than bringing in a retread from Mexico. Not that anyone should have any bad feelings about Mexico or anything...it's only the most corrupt country on Earth.

** Hurricane Gustav is on it's way to Louisiana. The New Orleans city officials, state officials, and the US government are trying so hard to do a better job this time around that it appears contrived. They are making such a public spectacle of showing how "prepared" they are that it is sickening. It is disturbing that as 1.9 million people are evacuating the area, numb to what is happening again three years after Katrina that all the public officials are making as many photo ops as possible so they can be seen as "prepared", "visible", and "ready." Just do your job right. Don't look for photo ops. Just do the job right this time. The worst offender, of course, is President Asterisk who went to FEMA headquarters and shook hands with people in the command center, posed for photos, and gave a news conference. Who came up with that idea? Let's go down to FEMA command and make sure a bunch of cameras are there and distract these people from being able to prepare for a major disaster. Great.