24 update

This week's episode was one of the better ones simply to see Gamgee the CTU director get hauled off.

4:04 The first lady jumps into the motorcade. Don't you wish the prez was half the man his wife is?

4:07 Why can't they just redirect the motorcade? A pimply teen can call in a fake fire that causes a road to close, but President Gumby and Mike can't?

4:08 The hobbit is yelling at Edgar. A tenspot says Big E could do a few atomic elboes a-la Dusty Rhodes on him.

4:23 What? Did I just hear that Jack and that other guy are going to a bunker?

4:30 Ooooh! Chloe looks ready to run over Rudy like Mateus did that one time in practice.

4:38 Curtis is currently my hero of the universe! That was one of the greatest beatdowns of little man syndrome ever! Send Gamgee to his tiny mushroom-shaped cell.

4:48 Okay. Who ever runs the presidential ticket of Curtis and Aaron Pierce in '08 gets my vote.

4:56 Isn't Jack's mentor the same guy who was Robocop?

It looks like in the previews for next week (2 hours!) that Jack gets to Robocop while Mrs. Robo looks on. Tony returns. Pierce is told that the Prez actually had handed over the Russian president to the terrorists. Oh yeah, and Wile E. Coyote ... er, Kim comes back to get caught up in little tragedies that have nothing to do with the rest of the plot.

The Evolution of Toys

My three-year-old daughter receives a slew of toys every Christmas and birthday, not to mention most days in between. It’s not that her mother and I feel the need to smother her with things, it’s that she is reaping the benefits of being the only grandchild of both sets of grandparents. On top of that, my wife was the only girl among seven children between Rylee’s Nana and Grammy. That has resulted in a giant wave of estrogen released upon us in the form of dolls, little pink dresses, and Cinderella paraphernalia.

The amount of toys isn’t all that bad. We may have to move into another house to accommodate all the stuff, but it’s not what really concerns me. It’s the level of technological wizardry which has gone into the toys, dolls in particular.

Talking toys are okay. I can deal with that. It’s the toys that begin talking on their own which seems to cross some sort of line. When Amazing Amanda wakes up on her own at eight o-clock every morning and says in that belongs-in-a-Stephen-King-movie voice “Say my name, mommy.” I’m weirded out just a tad. On Dec. 31 my wife “woke” her up (You do that by hugging her. Lugging Amazing Amanda, Dress-up Dora, and assorted boxes upstairs after Christmas, I squeezed the little cyborg to make her ask me if I was her mommy.). After Amy woke up Amanda, my wife was greeted with “Happy New Year’s Eve, mommy.” The doll knew what day it was. Something else: Amanda will ask to go to the potty. Once you place her on her little toilet that was included you hear grunts and little watery kerplops. Lovely.

Okay, that can be a neat trick in programming the toys to know the days of the year and wish Happy whatever, but this is the beginning of the end. A few years ago America seemed to go through this battle-bot faze where nerds would build souped-up rock ‘em sock’ems that would beat each other up with saws and flame throwers in a metal death ring. Take that with the increased intelligence of these talking dolls and Care Bears (one came to life while I was vacuuming my daughter’s room and wanted to read a story to me) and in a millenia or so robots are going to be sent back in time to destroy the mother of the human race’s last chance for survival.

I feel my daughter’s only hope may be to shut her into the toy section of a Cracker Barrel and force feed yo-yo’s and slinkys to her. That way I can mount an offensive against the sinister toys who wish to live.

That might have to wait, though. Right now Amanda wants me to make her an omelette before combing her hair, and she can get pretty cranky when her breakfast is late.

Punch to the gut

It'a now been a full day since Alabama looked like a pee-wee team against Auburn and I'm still getting over it. Heck, I've had since five minutes into the game to reconcile with the fact that for the fourth straight year the football team I've followed since I was a kid lost to the in-state rival.

I realized something from this game. Alabama -- fans, team, coaches, everyone -- has reached a point where we are owned by Auburn. It's been the same for other teams and their fans. At one point it didn't matter how succesful a season the Red Sox had, everyone knew the Yankees would get them in the playoffs, when it counted. For a number of years Ohio State would go undefeated or maybe have one loss ... until they faced Michigan, who always beat them. That's how it has become with Alabama and Auburn.

I'm still clinging to some things when Auburn fans get on me: We have 12 national titles; we still lead the overall series; you can't match our tradition; etc. However, I'm ready to get back to the point where each year I expect us to win this game. Right now I'm in the boat with everyone else rooting for the Crimson Tide: We merely hope to win this game each year. Auburn knows they will.

You really want to know the truth behind that?

I was listening to a radio station going into work today that had Professor Griff from Public Enemy on. For those of you who don't know, Griff was the guy is this controversial rap group that the others felt was too controversial. Today he was spouting off on topics like how AIDS was a government experiment to kill black people, Christianity is a farce because Jesus really wasn't born on Dec. 25, and 9/11 was a complete and total attack on America straight from the Bush administration. You know, regular suppertime talk. According to him, America isn't even a government. It's a corporation and we are all the little inbred animals on the island to its Dr. Moreau.

It all got me to thinking. You know, I've got some conspiracy theories of my own, and it's time for the world to know the truth...

Politicians: They're all corrupt. Every last one of 'em except for maybe the small town mayor who has lived there ever since he was a kid. People already know all of his/her skeletons. Everyone above that has jumped in bed (literally or figuratively) with someone their supporters wouldn't like. When it comes votin' time, pick the one who is emitting the lowest level of stench.

Wal Mart check out lines: At no point (even at Christmas) will every single register be open and working properly. It's their way of making you wait in line so you'll get bored and buy some gum, candy or a magazine that's not worth the bird poo it will eventually be catching.

Atlanta traffic: The lady talking on the cell phone will always end up in front of me and slowing down or behind me, causing me to sprout three new gray hairs on every slowdown in the anticipation I'm going to get the new-guy-at-Attica treatment. This is all connected to the tire and automotive companies causing me to have to get my car fixed and replaced, lining their pockets with my money.

Playground equipment manufacturers: Didn't think I was going to let them off, did you? Oh yeah! No longer do you see jungle gym contraptions where you might break your skull after falling from the top and bouncing through the bars to the bottom like a human plinko chip. The fun you had before the humpty dumpty routine was worth it, pretty much. Overcautious companies and sue-happy parents have taken this fun out of childhood. Every kid needs to experience one trip to the ER or have knocked themselves out while trying to imitate an older sibling. The conspiracy here is to make us all wusses who won't attempt a marginally-stupid feat simply in respond to those words "Betcha won't!". America needs its cajones back and it starts by toughening up on playgrounds.

and finally ...

Mechanics, doctors, lawyers, real estate agents, deliverymen, kindergarten workers, drive-through people, and air traffic controllers: Basically anyone who has a leg up on information that affects me and I have to trust them. We're all over a barrel here in dealing with these people and taking their word for it. One day I can see where they all ban together at the perfect moment because the rest of us are in perfect alignment for a downfall, orchestrated by this group. This day will come. There's no fighting it.

After all, these people are all part of one big corporation.

Rammer jammer

It's been three days since Alabama smoked Florida and I'm still squealing like an excited schoolgirl about it. I tend to get excited when watching Bama play, but for the first two quarters I was running around, jumping and yelling in my living room like my Prozac subscription was WAY overdue. For some reason when I get excited watching football my voice tends to start sounding blacker, like when Will Smith talked junk to the crashed alien in Independence Day.

Back to what's right and good in the world. We Bama fans have been waiting for a win like this since, well, the '99 SEC Championship game against Florida. That was sweet in its own way for being in a championship game and seeing Steve Spurrier turn various shades of cherry Kool-Aid, but the win Saturday had its plusses as well.

One of those plusses was that Urban Meyer saw how an offense whose plays look like they were drawn up in the dirt in the backyard might work in the Mountain West, but not the SEC. Athletes here are a little bit faster. The greatest thing was seeing UA returning to the ranks of the elite. It just feels like the universe is back in order.

We can't get too cocky though. After Tyrone Prothro's TD on Bama's first play from scrimmage, my wife and I were running around and screaming, much in the same way when Freddie Milons returned the first punt of the year for a score agains UCLA in the 2000 season opener. That was the highlight of the year. The Tide stumbled the rest of the season.

This team is different though. Although this year's defense is not the '92 unit, they're tough. Brodie seems to be gearing up for three years of frustration to erupt in one final season of dominance. Kenneth Darby is one of those elite backs who somehow goes unnoticed until he's running over and around you for a buck-twenty.

Oh yes. Things are good in Bama nation. Rolllllll Tiiiiiiide!!!

Pray for Zach and the others

Everybody at some point was young enough to think it inconceivable that they could die. That's why you do so many stupid and reckless things the younger you are. More often than not, we come out okay and maybe just learning a lesson to be more careful the next time. Unfortunately, others don't survive.

When I saw this article in the local Sunday paper, my stomach sunk. If you don't know the kids, you feel sorry and bad for the parents, but then tend to move on. In a small town like Cartersville, though, it seems everyone has a connection. Therefore everyone is affected.

My connection to this goes back to my first year of teaching. Everyone will tell you that your first year in that profession is the roughest one. Even though I ended up loving being a teacher, that first semester sucked. Kids will take advantage of you and smell blood in the water. It was in my freshman geography class that I had Zach Shedd.

There are kids who make teachers want to quit, and there are those who make the job fun. Zach was one of the latter. That was a rough class and he was one of the ones who made it possible for me to make it through. Because of him being an overall hard worker and great kid, I gave him my Top Cat award, given to the top student by a teacher among all that teacher's classes.

I don't know if it was something in the water or what, but I ended up teaching a lot of twins while at Woodland. After Zach I had his twin brother, Devin, in my ninth grade English class. Teachers aren't supposed to play favorites, but there are just some kids you like more than others and you'll give them a little more slack. That's how I was with these guys. I ended up just liking them both.

One thing Zach, Devin and I would bring up around each other was Alabama football. Having a lot of class such as myself, they rooted for the Tide and we'd talk or complain about Alabama. For some reason I also kept running into these guys around town, which was cool.

I now work in Atlanta at a small newspaper. When I heard Zach was at Atlanta Medical Center, I knew I had to go. His mom, Tabitha, has been sleeping in the waiting room outside of the ICU since Sunday. When I got to see Zach, I was ready to give him a pass if he couldn't remember me. After all, the kid had come thisclose to death.

It did me good when he remembered who I was. There's a tube in the back of his head draining out fluid. His hip is broken along with his right femur. I asked him where it hurts the most and he said," My head... and neck. My leg. Chest. All over."

He doesn't remember much about the wreck and asks his mom from time to time about the others. He doesn't know that the other two girls in the back seat with him died. The doctors say it's too risky for him to know.

When tragedies like this hit, words tend to sound shallow no matter how profound they would normally be. In these, the initial stages, people want to assign blame. There will be plenty of time for that later. Right now keep these kids and their families in your prayers. Not an oh-by-the-way mention either. Don't bother if that's going to be the case. Make it real and heartfelt and earnest.

I knew it as soon as I saw it ...

As soon as I saw this story about a Reuters photographer taking a picture of a note President Bush slid to Condoleeza Rice during a UN meeting, I smiled. It wasn't because of the note itself asking whether it was a good time to go for presidential whiz, but because of how Bushhaters were going to attack it.

They jumped on it from the start, adding to their list of social gaffes by our president. Actually, many of these are funny. I suspect that my reaction to them is the same as our president's -- laugh about it and move on. In this case, he was checking with his secretary of state about proper protocol. That's it.

For the most part, I'm a Bush supporter. By that admission some people will make instant snap judgements on me. I must be stupid and uneducated. I'm a conservative just to the right of the Klan. I obviously care nothing about the environment or people of other races.

When I hear these people speak or read what they say, it fascinates me. At one time it made me mad. The longer I was exposed to their words, though, the sentiments started to sound familiar. I couldn't quite place it, but one day it hit me. For the most part, Bush-bashers (those who look for a fault in everything our president does. If it rains at their kid's birthday party, it's due to not signing the Kyoto agreement.) are those high school girls who hate other girls and have no clear reason why. There might have been some tangible reason at some point, but that was long ago and now new reasons are created at every move their object of loathing makes.

I can't stand President Bush/Tiffany.
Why?
Oh, I just can't. Look at him/her. He/She is just so stupid! I can't stand them!

That's all the reasoning needed.

Oh, some logic will be tossed in there. However, the truth will always be that if the same point were brought up by, say, any Democrat, it would be great. For Bushhaters, it's blame the messenger no matter what.

It's a shame, really. We need dissenting voices in America. Keeps people honest and jives with the checks-and-balances stuff we've been taught since fifth grade. But these folks have pigeonholed themselves into complaining about every little thing with our president. For many observers, it's made liberals' voices sound like the same old gong being pounded with no variation in frequency or message.

Here's where it's tossed in my face about the president's low approval ratings. Here it is: I don't trust the numbers. Also, if there is enough negative press, there will be polls to reflect it. Keep in mind that even though Churchill led England in the fight against Germany, he was still defeated in the next election. History has a weird way of viewing the maligned. I think it will ultimately turn out to be the same for President Bush.

Mixed start to football season

There are times where I want to be in a great mood concerning something, but there is just one thing holding me back. It's something that just sticks in the back of my head and keeps me from enjoying an overall picture.

That's the case with football right now. For me, Christmas might officially come on Dec. 25, but it actually kicks off the first week of college football. High school is already going on at that time, and I consider it somwhat of a pre-season. The NFL is a nice extra a week after college has started.

Although my old high school is doing well (2-1, ranked in their class. The only loss coming at the hands of a ranked school in a larger classification.), college is a different story. My Jacksonville State Gamecocks are staring 0-3 in the face after dropping a heartbreaker to Furman on the last play of the game and last week losing to UT-Chattanooga with 10 seconds left. UAB isn't the same team we beat in the mid-90's. They're a legit D-I school. I was looking forward to perhaps a home playoff game this year. That possibility is all but gone. We need to win the Ohio Valley Conference again just to make the playoffs.

It would be a shame if JSU goes in the tank this year and it could all be traced back to one play at the end of the first game of the year. If Furman's QB, Ingle Martin, is just tackled a second later, the clock runs out at the Gamecocks have the biggest win since the move to D-I, perhaps the biggest upset in school history.

On the same vein, Alabama's season may have been saved on Tyrone Prothro's good-grief-did-you-see-that catch Saturday night. On a fourth and 12 at the end of the first half, Prothro's 42-yard catch puts Bama at the one. One play later makes the score 21-17, Southern Miss. Without that catch, you wonder if Alabama wins.

As for the Falcons, I'm feeling pretty good about this team. It's the morning after we got back at Philladelphia for the NFC Championship game loss 14-10, on Monday night. (Monday Night Football makes me miss living in Wyoming and the Mountain Time Zone. There it's on from 7-10, the way it should be. I haven't seen a complete MNF or World Series game since moving to Georgia. Out there you also don't have to stay up all hours of the night to watch the college games out there with their teams and the crazy offenses.)

Although the Falcons won, it's different playing an Eagles defense without Jeremiah Trotter. He's one of those guys that when he's on the other team you want his head knocked off after he does one of those axe-chop deals following a big hit, but you'd find it absolutely delightful if he's wearing your colors.

As for Mike Vick, I don't want to hear anything else about him not being a true quarterback. Yeah, okay, what's your point? Don't call him a glorified running back taking snaps. If you can't bring yourself to call him a quarterback, fine. Just admit he's the only person in the NFL that does what he does at his position. He's a new breed of athlete, and this is coming from a conventional football fan that will take an awesome running game over a great passing game. I'll every time choose big-time defense over big-play offense. What we have in Atlanta, though, is something different in a quarterback and at time defies definition, so let him be.

Before and after New Orleans satellite images

This is unbelieveable. Whenever there is a flood in the U.S., it's almost always a small area or a drawn-out section, such as along the Mississippi River. What is going on in New Orleans is something reserved for disaster movies. Think of it: a city of nearly a half-million people now unliveable. Will these people just resettle in Houston or Jackson or Shreveport -- wherever the refugee bus dropped them off? This is a major city where nobody has gone to work in nearly a week now. At this time, I find myself among those dropping a ton of questions, with little answers.

Be careful around new roommates and the iron

If you've ever had a roommate in college you didn't know beforehand, you have a story. It's a fact of life. I would suspect the girl on the tail end of this beatdown would rather she didn't have this story, though. Don't mess with any Barkley women!

Dean blasts Bush for endorsing intelligent design

Why does this scare some people so much? Having an open mind means allowing concepts to be discussed that might threaten your own "concrete" convictions, right? I was taught one perspective during my entire time in school. It was seen as fact. I didn't raise a fuss about it, yet I didn't buy it. It would have been interesting to have been presented another theory or origin, such as intelligent design.

Hilton Head was pretty nice

Spent the last week in Hilton Head, SC. It was my first time there and I must say, very enjoyable. Before the trip, the only time it seemed I had heard of the place was whenever a hurricane was going to hit it.
Getting there had some problems. It's about a five-hour drive from where we live. We got a late start due to attending a funeral. This resulted in us getting on the road at 8:00, with a five-hour trip ahead of us. I drove the whole way. At one point, it rained so hard that we slowed down to a crawl.
We got to HH around one in the morning. It was still raining and extremely dark. Basically, there is one main road on the island with all the side streets nearby. Our resort was on this main road, we thought.
I say that because we didn't get our package in the mail before leaving. I had booked the cond online, and evidently, our info packet got a little hung up. My wife got in touch with the guy who owned the condo and he passed the code to the key box for us to get in.
Back to my story. We're driving along and never see the place. I start wondering in my mind if we'd been scammed, going over the name of our contact and the resort, now convinced they were both fictitious.
A guy at a store tells us that he thinks the place we're looking for is back in the direction we came from. I'm not encouraged by this, knowing I had looked carefully along the road.
We go back and there it is the Hilton Head Resort, lit up in bright lights. How did I miss it? The lights on the side of the sign facing the direction we came in were out. Nice marketing.
Oh, yeah. The key broke off in the lock. Luckily there was a spare inside. We got to bed around two in the morning.
The rest of the trip was great. We had to get used to the half-mile walk to the beach over the boardwalk, but got used to it. The walk to the beach, private beach houses being on our left and right, and hotels/public access areas being a mile or two down the beach on either side resulted in us having a semi-private beach.
One day we went into Savannah and toured the city on a trolley. That night we ate at The Lady and Sons. We had heard that this place was a little overhyped, but we loved it. I made only one trip to the buffet. I couldn't believe it. That had never happened to me before. Maybe there's some kind of Viagra-like pill for my stomach so I can perform again.
All in all, it was a good trip. The water was warm and very calm. The beaches were pretty clean. HH is known for its golfing, but I didn't feel like shelling out a hundred bucks or so just to get mad at myself. I can deflate my ego for 11 dollars at the hacker's course down the road.

The political left gets religion

November's elections revealed the voting power of evangelicals. Seeing that, the logical step for liberals was to start to try and appeal a little more to this section of the population.

What those on the left don't seem to realize is the way they vote, the issues they support, and the groups that back them reveal to the rest of us their true intent. Don't get a photo op of a group prayer and then try to keep partial-birth abortion available.

Incidentally, don't think that Republicans are above this same tactic. Politicians are wired for one goal: get elected. They generally don't care about the means.

Pro-family groups push for a la carte cable

This is something I've been pushing for for a long time, though I must say not necessarily for the same reasons. It's getting to the point that I may need to take out a second mortgage for my cable bill. The frustration on this is compounded that there are basically just a couple of channels I could have, rather than the 100 or so, and be happy.

Give me ESPN, ESPN2, FoxNews and Turner South. Have the basic channels tossed in as well, and I'm fine. My wife is addicted to the Home and Garden channel, so that would need to be included as well. Oh yeah, Nickelodeon for the little one so she can have her Dora fix. That's it. The rest of it is unwatchable crap. I've had Starz and Showtime as part of the introductory package for the past six or seven months. The only thing it's made me realize is just how many really bad movies there are out there.

By the way, the reasons given in the article have some merit. I say "some" because there are things like the V-chip to use in weeding out unwanted programming. I've got to be honest in that I'd be for it mostly for financial reasons.

I don't see this happening anyway. Cable companies have too much to lose and it's all about the profit margin. Speaking of which, I need to go sell another pint so my wife can get to watch the "Design on a Dime" marathon.

Rap is now for geeks

It appears that the world of hip hop is now stretching into parents' basements and computer labs.

First Woodstock to host singles event

First Baptist Church in Woodstock is going to be hosting a one-day worship event for singles Saturday, August 13. Click on the link or here for more information. There's a video that accompanies it some give it some time to load if you have dialup.

400 scientists sign "Dissent from Darwinism"

This is an issue that is gaining steam but those opposed to being open-minded about the beginnings of man just don't want it to build. I'm speaking of those who want Darwinism and evolution to be the end-all argument for the origin of every species on the planet. Like many of you, I was taught this in school: A loooooooooong time ago there was nothing. Billions of years later, I was sitting in a desk. Even at the time it didn't seem right.

Now, scientists from around the world have signed an agreement stating there are obvious problems with the evolutionary theory. These scientists are from all over the world. You'll be surprised to know that many are from universities such as UC Berkley and Cornell -- not exactly bastions of conservatism.

I just finished reading a book about this topic. Sure it was fiction, but the author used scientific fact to make his point. For those of you familiar with Frank Perretti, you know that his thing is spiritual warfare and that kind of gig.

His new book, Monster, grabbed me because it centers around something that has fascinated me since I was a kid: Bigfoot. Call it the possibility that there could be a real-life monster out there, perhaps it was from the cheesy 70's TV show about Bigfoot, but it has stayed with me. I'm not about to go out in the woods with a bucket of plaster to make casts of possible prints, but there's still an interest.

In the book, a young couple is camping in the Pacific Northwest when they are chased by a large animal. The last thing the husband sees is his young wife being carried off into the woods by some huge thing. From there, Peretti uses the story to ultimately explore the issue of evolution versus creationism and pointedly the tripping points of mutations leading to positive outcomes. The story is over 400 pages long and it held me enough to finish it in a week.

Video of American soldier surviving sniper attack

Every now and then we need a reminder of what our servicemen and women are going through in Iraq and around the world in the War on Terror. The link to the video is at the bottom. Thank God for body armor.

Join with others in changing the path of our planet

Want to join in with a few dozen other people who apparently have no job and therefore too much time on their hands? Click on the link to sign up.

World's Ugliest Dog

Just one word: gremlin.