First off, I am not promoting regulations for these types of commercials. They prey on people that are either vain, greedy, or have made some less than intelligent decisions in their life and if they get caught up in some scam it is their own fault.

The first type of commercial I can live without ever seeing are the ones from these ambulance chasing law firms, both local and national. The ones that come one saying something to the extent of, “have you or someone you know been sick, injured, or even killed because of “x”? You have rights, call 1-800 SUE-UNOW for a private consultation. ” There is one absolutely ridiculous one from a local firm that is this older guy acting like he’s in bad shape and he says he wishes after his car accident he’d thought about calling a lawyer, but since he did not he guesses he’ll live in pain the rest of his life. What the heck? Call a lawyer and sue somebody and POOF! pain is gone? Ridiculous.

I’m also very tired of these quick and easy loan payoff commercials. That’s part of what is wrong with the country right now. In my opinion, we’ve become indoctrinated to think that we should have whatever we want, whether we can pay for it or not.  The way these commercials sound, it’s okay that you have maxed out 5 or 6 credit cards, or are over $10,000 in debt. You have rights, call this number and all your problems will magically disappear. What they don’t tell you is that you might get off being in debt with the bank or creditors, but you become in debt with the magic debt erasing company you called for help, funny how that works huh? What happened to personal responsibility? If you make bad decisions you should be responsible for them, and should not get a bailout for doing something stupid. The way I see it these companies are just feeding the problem, making people think that if a financial problem crops up, they don’t have to worry because help is just a phone call away, and they will continue to make the same mistakes time after time instead of learning from them, cutting back and living within their means, even if it means living off of peanut butter or blue box macaroni for a while.
And the commericals that I am the most sick and tired of are the “male enhancement” commercials. Ugh… I don’t want to hear about that. I mean, people know those drugs are available, that should be between them and a doctor, we don’t need to see those corny advertisements every five minutes. What kills me though are the list of side effects they run through at the end. They might as well be saying, “It may kill you, give you a heart attack, make you go blind, or black out, but it’ll be worth it.”

I’ll leave you with that thought…

Here’s what’s on my mind concerning the games coming up this weekend.

Two huge games for both Auburn and Alabama tomorrow.

Lane Kiffin gets his first taste of the heated rivalry against Alabama. I wonder if that series will cool down in intensity since Phillip Fulmer is no longer pacing the sidelines in Knoxville, somehow I doubt it though, that hatred runs deep. Anyway, I think it will be a very close, defensive game. Both teams have above average running games, and are hit and miss in the passing game, and with two defensive stalworts on both teams they’ll have to have a great game to break through. None of the so called experts are picking Tennessee to win, and Alabama certainly does appear to be the superior team going into this one, but I’ve just got this feeling that something unexpected might happen, not picking UT to win, but I think it’ll be a closer game than most are expecting.

Auburn faces a very tough challenge as they go to Baton Rouge to face the LSU Tigers. They’ll be under the lights in “Death Valley,” which is never fun for the opposing team, but even though the Auburn Tigers have looked less than stellar the past two weeks, they proved against Tennessee that they could come into a hostle environment and be victorious. Both teams have big question marks. LSU is not the team they were 3-4 years ago, especially at quarterback and on the defensive line, but they are still one of the top ranked teams in the country, and not to be taken lightly. Auburn’s depth problems on defense seem to become more apparent as the weeks go by, so as the season wears on it’s become more imperative that the offensive get back to the form they were in the first five weeks of the season and give the defense some breathing room. I think they will do that this week and I’m cautiously picking them to win a close one.

Another week, another head scratcher from ESPN. Their College Gameday show picks the key matchups every week to broadcast their show from ever week. This week’s slate features matchups such as the aforementioned UT–Alabama game, Auburn at LSU, USC against team that seems to have their number, Oregon State, Penn State-Michigan, and even Iowa-Michigan State for a clear lead in their Big 10 division. So were does Gameday air from tomorrow morning? Provo, Utah…. no… really… They are hightlighting the TCU at BYU game. Yes, I realize that both teams are ranked about midway in the top 25, but honestly, I wish they and some other media outlets would stop trying to push these non-conference “fly in the oinment” teams as much as they do, because most everyone knows that if BYU, or TCU, or Boise State, or South Florida, or whoever was in the SEC or Big 12 or another major BCS conference playing the likes of Florida, LSU, Alabama, Oklahoma, Texas, Penn State, etc, on a regular basis that it would be highly unlikely that they would come through the season unscathed.

This past week’s events surrounding the questionable personal foul call in the Florida-Arkansas game last week confuse me. First of all, I listened to a radio show this afternoon that had the SEC officials coordinator on talking about the incident and the subsequent fallout, and the guy that made the call admitted almost immediately after the game that he’d screwed up and should have taken a better look at what had happened before he called the penalty. He and his crew are suspended for this week, none of the referees from that game will be on the field tomorrow, so it’s been taken care of as much as is possible, they can’t go back and undo the call and make the players re-take the field from that standpoint, we’ll just have to accept that what happened happened. What I don’t get though, is the fact that they repremanded Arkansas coach Bobby Petrino for publicly questioning the call. I know that they have a rule that prohibits any public bashing of the guys in the stripped shirts, but in this case I think it was warrented. I personally have never understood why leagues don’t allow for teams to question calls in public. Players I can understand, but to me, if a coach wants to look out for his team and say “hey, I think the ref got that one wrong.” then he should be able to do so. Referees are human beings just like the rest of us, and they do make mistakes, as we saw this past week.

And lastly, the candidates for the 2009 Manning Award were announced this week. The award is given to the best quarterback in Division I-A Football. I had to look twice because the headlines I saw from Auburn media outlets stated that Chris Todd was one of the people being considered for the award. I’ve been an Auburn fan for as long as I can remember, but even I had to question this. Yes, for the first five weeks of the season Auburn’s offense put up astronomical numbers, but they have fallen pretty drastically the past two weeks. And to me, even during the time that they were rolling, Todd himself didn’t really dazzle me. All year he’s been locked in on two receivers, Darvin Adams and Terrell Zachary, and Adams primarily. Teams have caught on to that and the past two weeks he was still trying to get the ball to those same two guys even when they were completely covered. He has gone through the progressions and dumped the ball off to guys like Trott and Mario Fannin, but not nearly enough, especially when he needed to these past two weeks. Maybe I’m being too harsh, and maybe I was just too worried that his shoulder was going to fall off when the season first started to really appreciate what he was doing, but I just don’t think Chris Todd is one of the best quarterbacks in football, he’s good, and when he does what he needs to he certainly is a valuable asset to the team, but not one of the best in the country.

First of all, am I the only one who is sick of seeing those idiots with their balloon hoax being plastered all over television? It was a HOAX! They just wanted attention, so let’s give it to them.  Come on, leave the people alone and let the law take care of them. But stop giving them unwaranted attention.. that dad gives me the creeps. But in all honestly I’m just glad it wasn’t someone I know, I know a few “transplants” who moved from Alabama to Colorado and if building your own giant balloon and attempting to fly in it isn’t a “Hey Ya’ll, watch this!” moment, I don’t know what one looks like.

The other is the White House going all Corleone on the news media, specifically Fox News. They’ve come out the past two weeks issuing statements telling CNN and other outlets, “Not to be like Fox News,” and saying that Fox News was “opinionated journalism” and not “news.”… And CNN and MSNBC are unbiased? Really? It’s like Glenn Beck said today in his show, they all are slanted, the only difference in Fox News and CNN is one is slanted towards the right and the other to the left. The White House is picking on Fox News because they are the lone 24-hour news channel that carries and conservative voice and is calling the current administration out on issues while the rest of the media continue to get faint and the mere mention of Obama’s name.And this calling the network out during press conferences is very childish and unprofessional. What is going to happen next, Rubert Murdoch waking up with a horses head in his bed because his news channel won’t make nice with the president and keeps asking Robert Gibbs hard questions that he wasn’t pre-screened?
Speaking of Robert Gibbs, the Press Secretary. You know who this guy reminds me of? Baghdad Bob.

Baghdad Bob

You remember Baghdad Bob, the press guy for the Iraqi army that would hold press conferences when the Iraq war started and would be saying how the Iraqi army was annihilating the Americans, the Americans were not within 500 miles of Baghdad and would soon turn away in fear, all the while the building was shaking, the lights flickering, and you could hear the bombs going off in the background. Yeah, Robert Gibbs, same principle.

Otherwise the national political grapevine has been awkwardly quiet, which is strange, and a little scary. Kind of like a calm before a storm.

Let’s hope not.

Alabama is hosting The Ol’ Ballcoach, Steve Spurrier, and his South Carolina Gamecocks. They aren’t at the level of Alabama, Florida, or even LSU, but I think this game could get tricky for the Tide. You just never know what to expect from Spurrier, and I’ve seen him win games by outcoaching teams with superior talent more than once. End the end though I think that Bama’s running game will again wear down their opponent and they will come out with a close victory.

Auburn will try to bounce back from last week’s humiliating loss to Arkansas when they face Kentucky at home. This is an important game for Auburn, and a chance for them to show that they can pick their heads up and get things straight after things didn’t go their way, something they did not do last year. This team is not nearly as bad as they looked last week, but not as good as everyone was giving them credit for going into that game. I personally think they’ll bounce back and be fine. From the quotes of some of the players after last week it looks like they’ve gotten back down to earth and are focused again. I also like the fact that this week defensive practices have reportedly been more up-tempo and aggressive, and I hope that plays out on the field. I’ve said all season that they are using our lack of depth on defense as kind of a crutch if something goes wrong and are playing more not to get anyone hurt than they are playing aggressively enough to win a game.

And that brings me to today’s rant; ESPN…     They are televising both games, the Bama-SC game on ESPN, and the Auburn-UK game on ESPN. Both games kick off at about the same time, so regardless, you are going to be missing one of them. I guess You could watch one and DVR the other, but with ESPN what is the point? You know that they’re going to be breaking in every other play with updates of scores from the other game. That’s one of my biggest pet peeves about watching a game on that station. Every five minutes they’re breaking in with highlights from some other game, usually USC, that I don’t gave a flip about. Am I the only person who yells at them; “If I cared about another game I’d probably be watching it?” It’s ridiculous how many times they do it, and with a lot of teams going with these hurry-up spread offenses, especially Auburn, they usually miss a good part of the play they skipped out on to give us said highlight.

Anyway, that’s all for now. Not much, but I hadn’t posted anything lately and I know some of you were waiting anxiously for something new to read.

First off, I guess the MLB playoffs have started. Unlike most seasons, the first couple of days of these I just really don’t care that much about what is going on. I think part of it is my Braves deciding in early July they were done only to decide a month too late, wait, we want to win, and went on a tear that just fell short of getting them in the playoffs. Part of it is that the fall television season has just gotten going good and there are three shows that I’m watching that are on during the prime-time games time slot, though the two that are on Fox will most likely be shifted once the playoffs move to that station later this month, but the point is I’m just not into it, so far at least. I’ll probably get more interested when they get close to the playoffs. I did watch most of the Yankees – Twins game yesterday, and that turned me off too. Could the TBS telecasters have been more biased towards the Yankees? It was pathetic, it was as bad as the Obama-mania in our national media. Some of it was understandable, but Chip Caray, come on, you’ve got Cubs and Braves royalty running in your viens, you don’t need to bow down to the Evil Empire.

But enough about baseball. It’s football season, best time of the year. The big story this week is will Tebow play against LSU. I’m of the opinion he probably will, but I don’t think it will make much difference on the outcome of the game. From what I’ve seen his backup is just as effective in that offense, though he doesn’t have Tebow’s drive and the ability to carry the team on his shoulders, but then again, who does?

Auburn goes to Fayetteville Arkansas to roast some hogs and a beady-eyed weasel. I gotta tell you, Those hogs are going to be sweating this off season if Michigan gets tired tired of the Rich-Rod experiment, though I think if/when they do they’ll think twice about hiring another offensive “guru” who is the flavor of the moment, hasn’t exactly worked out too well in Ann Arbor.

Gotta feel pretty good about Auburn’s chances this week. Defensively Arkansas has looked very suspect, so I imagine Gus Malzahn is just waiting to see how many ways he can carve them up. The worry comes with Auburn’s defense. So far they’ve played well enough to win, but they’ve given up some big plays and a lot of yards at time, mostly with backups, but with the depth problems there isn’t much room for error no matter what position on the depth chart a player has. Still, I look for Auburn to win fairly convincingly, it won’t be nearly as hostile an environment as they faced in Knoxville last week, as I just think they have the better team on both sides of the ball.

And lastly, a bit of current events/political news that’s come out today that has me gagging. Levi Johnston, could you please fall off the planet?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/07/AR2009100703397.html

Levi Johnston, as you know, is the father of Bristol Palin’s child. Since their break up he has gone on numerous talk shows and had several interviews, but the news about him today takes the cake. It was announced today that Johnston has agreed to pose in Playgirl magazine. The guy is nothing but a money grubbing scumbag. I also saw him in a commercial tonight, some pistachio nut commercial. So it looks like he’s the next worthless overexposed “celebrity,” literally in this case.

Just saw an article about the liberal kooks planning a second stimulus package…. wait… there was a first… that worked???? I’ll read up on that and continue tomorrow.

I’m a man of wealth and taste….

So, here we go.

This is my first real blog entry to my new blog thing here. I don’t really know where I’m headed with it, but you gotta start somewhere, right?

I started this just because over the past several weeks I have had several people say to me, “You should start a blog,” or “Do you have a blog?” and I have always thought I’d be nice to have some kind of outlet just to throw out whatever random craziness pops into my mind. If you are aware of my Facebook activity, you know that I stay pretty up to date on current events, especially politics, so I imagine a large part of these posts and topics will revolve around my thoughts on what new crazy idea the liberal kooks in Washington are cooking up. I also paint and dabble in graphic design, so I may post some stuff of interest in that area as well. I also love sports, specifically college football and MLB baseball, so I’ll be ranting and raving about some of my favorite teams and some of the bigger headline makers in those areas, and just sports in general, I keep with a lot even if I don’t follow it closely.

But anyway, it is what it is. It will be humorous at times, serious at times, and a big ol’ mess most of the time. That’s just how my brain works… Sometimes I just get these thoughts and ideas and I have to put them out somewhere or they keep me up at night, you know how it goes.

I’ll start posting “real” content in the next day or two, still figuring this stuff out right now. Fairly straight forward, but for now, it’s late and I’m going to bed.

In parting here’s an introductory tune, let’s see if I can do this right:

I has a blog!