Manic-Depressive Preview: If you've got any more Prayers on the Plains, now'd be the time to use 'em.

So we're nearing the end of a difficult season, and the Dawgs now sit at 5-5, and at a crossroads -- they've got two big rivals left, Auburn and Georgia Tech, and they're gonna have to beat at least one of them to make it to a bowl this year. Will they make it? Manic Doug, who watched every last second of the Dawgs' 55-7 beatdown of Idaho State last week, and Depressive Doug, who used the time to catch up on his flossing, bring you their views and predictions on the first of those two matchups here. You probably will not be surprised to find what their respective positions are.

Manic Doug: So has Cam Newton been suspended yet?

Depressive Doug: Seriously? Is that what you're waiting on? 'Cause if it is, this is gonna be the shortest preview we've ever done.

MD: No, Eeyore, I'm just trying to feel out every angle I can. Any little competitive edge we can get is gonna help us.

DD: First of all, I'm sure Mr. Newton is ever so flattered by your characterization of him as a "little" edge, not to mention the Heisman Foundation. Second, am I to infer from this that you're actually worried about the Dawgs' chances with him in the game?

MD: Well, of course I'm worried, dumbass. I'm an optimist and an aggressive drunk, not a complete idiot. But I'm not about to sit here and say that having to face the best player in the country automatically dooms us to a loss.

DD: Well, no problem there. I'll be happy to do it for you.

MD: What a shock. OK, then, answer me this: Can you name one guy on Auburn's offense besides Newton?

DD: Michael Dyer, running back. Darvin Adams, receiver. Mario Fannin, receiver. Lee Ziemba, offensive guard.

MD: Well, that one kind of blew up in my face.

DD: Onterrio McCalebb, running back. Philip Lutzenkirchen, tight end . . . shall I go on?

MD: Well, congratulations, you read your Phil -- wait, Lutzenkirchen? You made that up. Or else he's a character from a Dr. Seuss book.



DD: Nope, he's quite real, and he's got nine receptions for 81 yards and two TDs this season.

MD: Oh, well! Nine catches for eighty-one whole yards? Screw Cam Newton, it's obvious they don't need him!

DD: Are you anywhere close to making a point here? 'Cause if not, I'd love to go ahead and put in that DVD of the third season of "Mad Men" we were watching earlier, if it's all the same to you.

MD: What I'm saying is that while yes, there are other players on Auburn's roster, none of them have come close to making the kind of contribution that Newton has. Even you have to admit it's pretty much a one-man show. If we stop Newton, we've got a chance at winning. It's that simple.

DD: Yeah, and if I was Superman I could reverse the earth's rotation, go back in time and keep A.J. Green from selling that fucking jersey. So what? How do you propose we stop him?

MD: We don't have to stop him . . . if he stops himself.

(long, very weird pause)

DD: Was there supposed to be some music there? I feel like something was supposed to happen there that didn't happen.

MD: Yeah, I had Dramatic Chipmunk cued up, and then my computer froze on me. Hold on, you take a moment to admire this week's Associated Hottie, model and Auburn polymer engineering major Scarlet South, while I try to make this thing work.



DD: I'm not sure what I find harder to believe about that statement -- the idea that her real name is "Scarlet South," or the idea that there's a chick who looks like that anywhere who's majoring in polymer engineering.

MD: You want to go look it up, be my guest. All right, here we go. What was I saying again?

DD: Something about Cam Newton "stopping himself" that I can only imagine was beyond inane.

MD: Right, right. OK. We won't have to stop Cam Newton . . . if he stops himself.



DD: Bra-fucking-vo. You want to explain this line of thinking before I start regretting having asked in the first place?

MD: OK, check it: For the last two weeks all we've heard about are scandals about Cam Newton -- why he left Florida, what his grades were like, whether his own dad was shopping him around out of junior college, even what kind of traffic citations he ran up while he was at UF. Last week that didn't matter, because Auburn was only playing Chattanooga, and they were never going to keep him out there for that long anyway. But against Georgia, an actual team, and with this recruiting scandal blowing up bigger and bigger with each passing day, that's got to wear on him a bit, don't you think? Cause a bit of a distraction?

DD: OK, you know what? If we were playing stellar defense right now, I might actually be somewhat inclined to agree with you. To a point. But you can't honestly believe that "distraction" alone is going to be able to keep Cam Newton from running wild on us.

MD: Why wouldn't it? Auburn's offense is clearly biased toward the run, and I don't know if you noticed or not, but Georgia's got the #13 run defense in the entire country. And only a tick behind South Carolina in the SEC.

DD: Yeah, fine, but it's one thing to clamp down on the running attack of a team like Idaho State or Vanderbilt. We still can't stop a running QB to save our lives. You saw what Trey Burton did to us a couple weeks ago, right? And even Burton's not anywhere close to the level that Cam Newton's playing at right now.

MD: But we've got another ace in the hole, which is that Auburn can't pass. Their aerial attack is ranked 73rd in the nation at the moment -- they're just barely getting up over 200 passing yards per game.

DD: Can't pass, or just doesn't need to? They may be going to the air only sparingly, but Newton is still number two in the country in pass efficiency. He's completing more than two-thirds of his passes and has only thrown five picks all year, compared to 19 interceptions. Hell, he went off for 317 yards passing against Chattanooga just last week.

MD: Pfffft. Chattanooga. You don't think we can clamp down on their receivers a little better than the Mocs did? Is that all the credit you're prepared to give us?

DD: All I'm saying is, the dude can pass, whether they actually need him to or not.

MD: Look, is Cam Newton going to roll up some yards? Of course he is. And is Auburn going to score some points? Sure. But I refuse to believe that we can't keep up with them on the scoreboard. Look at the points they've let people roll up -- 27 to South Carolina, 34 to Kentucky, 43 to Arkansas. Hell, they even gave up 24 to Chattanooga, and not all of that in garbage time, either.

DD: So what you're telling me is that Georgia's going to be able to keep up with the SEC's best offense in both yardage and scoring, huh? Is that what I'm supposed to take away from this?

MD: Why not? Auburn has the second-worst pass defense in the league right now. And you've seen what Aaron Murray can do when the opposing defense has A.J. Green to worry about. Even against Florida, even in a game where he threw three picks, he still managed to go off for three TDs and more than 300 yards. And that was against a good secondary. Auburn's pass defense is going to be ripe for the picking.

DD: Well, if Murray decides to throw three picks again this weekend, we're fucked no matter how vulnerable their secondary supposedly is. But let's say, just for the sake of argument, that they really are going to play that badly against us. What if we can't keep Murray upright enough to take advantage?

MD: Why wouldn't we? Our pass protection has come around the last few weeks -- only three sacks allowed in the last month.

DD: Yeah, but none of those teams had a Nick Fairley to throw at us. Fairley is second in the SEC in sacks, right behind Justin Houston, and number one in tackles for loss. You'd better be crossing your fingers for both Aaron Murray and our running game with a guy like that on the other side of the line.

MD: Our running backs are going to be fine. Yeah, Auburn's run-defense stats look good on paper, but it's not like they've had to face that many elite running backs this year.

DD: I'm touched that you think our running backs qualify as "elite." OK, Pollyanna, hit me with your prediction -- just give me a second to get my popcorn ready, I'm sure it's gonna be a doozy.

MD: Well, again, it could very well be a shootout. But Auburn's gotten caught up in shootouts before -- Kentucky and Arkansas, right off the top of my head -- and we've got a better defense than Kentucky and a more balanced offense than Arkansas. I think we'll keep within striking distance of Auburn for most of the game, make a couple stops on defense when we need to, and then Aaron Murray will lead us down the field for the winning touchdown with less than 90 seconds to play -- sort of a replay of the "Prayer on the Plains" from 2002. Georgia wins, 37-34.

DD: That'd make for a great story, and I'd be as thrilled as anyone if it came to pass, but I just don't see it. I think Auburn, like four of the five teams who have beaten us this year, rockets down the field to a touchdown on their very first drive and puts up a multi-score lead on us before we even have a chance to blink. The offense gathers itself, starts getting into a rhythm, but they're playing out of a hole and the pass rush really has an opportunity to key in on Aaron Murray once it becomes clear we've got a big deficit to make up and not a lot of time to do it. Auburn wins big, 42-23.

MD: Wow. I mean, you've predicted losses here before -- lots of 'em -- but three touchdowns? That's depressing even by your standards.

DD: Maybe, but at least it's grounded in something resembling reality. You really think we're going into Auburn and coming out with a win over the number-two team in the nation?

MD: You act like we've never done this before. Four years ago, we were coming off that awful 1-4 stretch -- we'd managed to lose to Vanderbilt and Kentucky, lest you forget -- and we took advantage of an Auburn team that was ranked fifth in the nation but playing sloppy. Picked them off four times, won by three TDs. This year they've got the distraction of the Cam Newton situation, they're in danger of looking ahead to a huge Iron Bowl matchup in a couple weeks, we're playing in Auburn, where we've won six outta the last nine . . . and come on, you can't seriously think that a Gene Chizik team is gonna run the table, do you?

DD: Not really, but at this point it doesn't seem any less probable than a five-loss Georgia team knocking off a top-three Auburn squad led by a Heisman frontrunner.

MD: Man, fuck that. The intangibles all break in our favor. Auburn is the one feeling the pressure, both in terms of the national-title race and whatever the NCAA is looking into regarding Cam Newton. This is our time. This could be our chance . . . to stun the world.



(Another long and embarrassing pause)

DD: Yeah, if it's all the same to you, I'm gonna go put in the "Mad Men" DVD now.

MD: Well, our predictions average out to a 38-30 win for Auburn, so congratulations, you've managed to massively skew another one in favor of a Georgia opponent. But it's cool -- I'll be sure to bring you back an awesome souvenir from Auburn after we win. You know, since I'll be going to the game and all.

DD: Fan-flippin'-tastic. As long as you come home under your own power, as opposed to me having to come out to Auburn and bail you out of someplace, your clean criminal record is all the souvenir I need.

MD: Suit yourself. I'll do my best to stay out of trouble. . . . Or will I?

Holiday in Cambodia: The Texas A&M preview.

Hometown: College Station, Texas.

Last season: Head coach Mike Sherman's very first game with the Aggies was an 18-14 home loss to Arkansas State, the Red Wolves' first-ever win over a Big XII team, and it just got worse from there, with the Ags squeaking by New Mexico and Army and getting drilled by Miami before entering the gauntlet of their conference slate. A&M won only two Big XII games all year, not coincidentally the only two conference games in which they allowed fewer than 40 points, and finished the season 4-8 and unranked.

This season: No losses to Sun Belt teams, thank God, and things actually looked pretty good for the Aggies as they rolled to a 3-0 start, but that got blown up in a 47-19 loss to Arkansas at the Dallas Cowboys' new stadium. A&M's conference slate ran the gamut from a horrendous 62-14 loss to a bad Kansas State team to a 52-30 upset over Texas Tech; they finished the regular season 6-6 but only 3-5 in Big XII play.

Hate index, 1 being Ron Franklin, 10 being Thom Brennaman: Seven and a half. I have a long-standing policy whereby any school that sent me a "yes" letter when I applied to them back in high school earns secondary-rooting-interest status; that means I am a de facto Texas fan, so guess what, Aggies, that means you're dead to me. Sorry; it's just business. Though I have to admit that even if I had no feelings for the Longhorns one way or the other, y'all would still be a difficult team to root for. The "Yell leaders," the whole military-cadet thing -- that's just weird, not to mention redolent with cryptofascistic overtones. You do have a really pretty dog, though.

Associated hottie: If you've gone hunting for pictures of the soon-to-be-ex-Mrs. Tiger Woods over the past few weeks, chances are you've stumbled upon some extremely spicy photographs of A&M alumna Kim Hiott, a Playboy Cyber Girl in the summer of 2002 and one of their "Girls of the Big 12" later that fall. Somehow she got confused with Elin Nordegren after that, which is sort of ironic, as Hiott appears to be one of exactly twenty-three women in all of North America whom Tiger hasn't had sex with. Well, his loss.





What excites me: How to put this politely? Texas A&M's defense kind of, well, sucks. They finished the season ranked 87th against the run (168.6 yards allowed per game), 111th against the pass (262.8), and 107th overall. In nine games against teams from BCS conferences, they've allowed fewer than 30 points only twice -- 10 points to Iowa State and three to Robert Griffin-less Baylor, both of which ranked in the bottom 20 nationally in scoring offense. And those two games are surely balanced out by the two times they allowed 60-plus points (to Kansas State, currently ranked 82d nationally in scoring and staying home for bowl season, and Sam Bradford-less Oklahoma). It doesn't matter whether the opponent is good, bad, or just so-so, the Aggies are in danger of getting scored on. A lot.

And for the most part, our greatest vulnerabilities on offense are not ones which their defense has proven any particularly great ability to exploit. Sure, Joe Cox has thrown a bunch of interceptions this season, but against Georgia Tech -- whose run defense is actually better than A&M's statistically -- we proved we can still put up big offensive numbers even when we're only passing the ball sparingly. And even if we do go to the air, the Aggies have only picked off 11 passes all season, and we'll have A.J. Green back as a further hedge against ill-advised passes. The one thing A&M's defense is demonstrably good at is QB pressure -- they rank eighth in the nation with 35 sacks on the year -- but Georgia has protected the QB better than all but 11 teams in DI-A. Meanwhile, more than two-thirds of A&M's takedowns came against New Mexico, Utah State, UAB, Colorado, and Baylor, not coincidentally the only teams on the Aggies' '09 schedule with losing records.


Great job getting revenge against Baylor, though! (Yes, I said "revenge.")

On special teams, the Ags average 22.6 yards per kickoff return but a mere six and a quarter on punt returns, which against the nation's best punter means we should be dealing TAMU some rough field position in the event we don't score. In the highly likely event that we do score, of course, our rotten kickoff coverage means the Aggies will probably make out just fine, but maybe having fired the coach primarily responsible for our special teams means we've got a fighting chance there. Who knows.

What worries me: Yeah, about those coach-firings. As you've no doubt heard by now, Willie Martinez, DE/special-teams coach Jon Fabris, and linebackers coach John Jancek all declined the option to stay with the team and coach through the bowl game, which is a pretty big wild-card, all things considered. Sure, I've heard all the jokes about how our defense was so bad this year that we won't even notice that any coordinators are missing; and this being a bowl game, where crazy things are known to happen, I guess it's possible that our defensive players will take an "us against the world" attitude, play way over their heads, and have a "Rudy"-like performance stopping the Aggies cold in Shreveport. Logic, however, tells me that all other things being equal, a defensive coordinator is kind of a good thing to have, and is probably preferable to an interim-tagged DTs coach (however good he may be) and a hastily assembled group of graduate assistants.


I have nightmare visions of this scene playing itself out at Butts-Mehre a couple weeks ago.

Particularly when we're going up against the fifth-ranked offense in the entire country, which is motoring right along at 465 yards and change per game. The Aggies aren't necessarily the most consistent bunch in the world -- I don't know how you go from scoring only 10 points on Oklahoma to unloading 39 on a Texas defense that's just as good, if not better -- but their offense is every bit as poised for a big breakout performance as their defense is for a collapse.

Against our defense, which finished in the bottom half of the SEC in pretty much every category except the run, I am very, very worried about what A&M is capable of doing. They've got an excellent quarterback in Jerrod Johnson, who's sixth nationwide in total offense and maintaining a QB rating of 140.7; he hammered the formidable Texas defense for 342 yards, four TDs, and one pick on 26-of-33 passing. They're also extremely well-balanced, with running backs Christine Michael and Cyrus Gray combining for an average of 132 yards per game. A&M fortunately doesn't use the kind of spread offense that's given our defense so many fits over the past few years, but their system is very similar in a lot of ways to what Arkansas used to ring us up for 485 yards and 41 points early in the season. They're also likely to bring a lot of the uptempo, misdirection-based stuff that Tennessee embarrassed us with a month later. I know Mark Richt kept Rodney Garner around for a reason, and the coaches and players alike have been saying all the right things about staying focused and prepared, but between A&M's offensive prowess and our chaotic coaching situation, there's a good chance we end up in a shootout on Monday.

Player who needs to step up: SS Bacarri Rambo. When number 18 gets to Shreveport, he'll be taking the field for the first time since sacrificing himself to save the game against Auburn on November 14. And he will find, if he hasn't already, that the hopes and dreams of the fan base have begun to rest on him as the guy to inject some passion and leadership into a pass defense that languished badly for the better part of this season. Hopefully his return will energize his teammates and give them an emotional boost as they face one of the most difficult situations of their Georgia careers.

What does it all mean? As much as I hate to see Georgia fans not show up for a game, be it a home game, away game, bowl game or whatever, I don't blame anyone for not electing to make the trip to Shreveport this year. It's a long way to go to a city few of us would have any inclination to visit otherwise, and it makes that much more of a disruption in personal schedules that are frequently stretched to the breaking point to begin with this time of year.

But with bowl games more so than any other type of game, I always have to wonder how much fan apathy rubs off on the players. Like I said, the Bulldogs have been saying all the right things about staying motivated and being anxious to show the world their determination to rise above the recent turmoil, and I don't doubt that a lot of them are telling the truth. But let's be real here: Just as none of our fans started off the season hoping for a trip to Shreveport at the end of it, I can't imagine any of our players did, either. And between player frustrations and the general lack of Georgia interest, the news stories of which I gotta believe at least a few of our guys have read, there's a danger of them simply calling this one a wash and looking forward to the offseason. In the past I've termed this kind of attitude "Kansas State Syndrome," but it's happened to plenty of other teams in the past. This is only A&M's fourth bowl trip in the past eight seasons, and the first of Mike Sherman's tenure; I don't think it's an unfounded assumption to say that this game means more to the Aggies than it does to us, and in December and January, sometimes discrepancies like that make the difference between wins and losses.


And I don't need to remind anybody about this one, do I?

Now, do I think we're the better team? All of this season's disappointments aside, yes, I do. We've played a much tougher schedule and done better against it. I think we've got more talent overall. The question is whether they're motivated enough to overcome a skeleton coaching staff on defense and the memories of a frustrating season.

Will they? I don't know enough about our players' psyches to dare make a prediction, so I don't mean it as a comment on their motivation, or potential lack of same, when I predict that we're likely to get caught in a shootout against the Aggies. They did it to Oklahoma State, they did it to Texas, they can do it to us. And for that reason -- even taking into account what I said earlier about Bacarri Rambo in the step-up category -- I think this game rests in large part upon what Joe Cox is able to do in his final game in a Georgia uniform. A&M has let seven different QBs throw for more than 250 yards this season (four of them for more than 300), putting up a 19:6 TD:INT ratio in the process. So it stands to reason that the Ginger Ninja could put up some big numbers in Shreveport. Yes, he has had some awful games this season, but -- and this should get a nomination for Backhanded Compliment of the Decade -- against the lesser pass defenses he's played this season, he's been remarkably efficient (a combined 36-52-1 for 591 yards and 8 TDs against Arkansas, Tennessee Tech, and Georgia Tech, the three teams on our '09 slate with pass-efficiency defenses worse than A&M's). If our play-calling against GT is any indication, he still may not be asked to do too much, but with A.J. Green back and Joe facing his final opportunity to leave a good impression in the minds of Bulldog Nation, I think he'll end his Georgia career with a fine performance.


The Ginger Ninja after tying a school record with five TDs against Arkansas. Really wouldn't mind it a bit if you did that again, Joe.

Fine enough to win a shootout, though? He did in Fayetteville, where it should be added he didn't get much help from our turnover margin (-2 in that game) or, for that matter, our running game (which averaged only 2.1 yards per carry if you took away Richard Samuel's 80-yard TD run in the second quarter). There's no reason for Georgia not to go over 30 points in this game, which we would've done in five of our last six games but for one extraordinarily ill-timed red-zone turnover against Kentucky.

I'll be honest with you: I've gone back and forth many, many times on this game, with my first (and third, and fourth, and I think also sixth) inclination being to brace myself for an A&M upset. Between the danger of a letdown in a second-tier bowl and the upheaval on the coaching staff, I could easily see the Aggies -- who have managed to get up for a few big games this season, even if their final record doesn't seem to reflect it -- taking advantage and carpet-bombing us to a sixth loss. I still think this one's going to be a shootout, and you're crazy if you don't think likewise; both teams have been so inconsistent for most of this season that you could practically flip a coin here. Indeed, if we succumb to the same turnover affliction that hamstrung us in so many early games this season, as well as the later game against Kentucky, this will not be a fun game to watch. But if we stay even or on the plus side in turnover margin, as we've done in three of our last four victories (the one exception being Tennessee Tech, with the one turnover coming way past the point at which the game had already been decided), then we should be able to fire away at them with A.J., Washaun, and Caleb, while our better-than-it's-been-given-credit-for run defense renders A&M one-dimensional (OK, one-and-a-half-dimensional) in a way that they really won't be able to do back to us.

I think both teams will break 30 points on the scoreboard. Really, I wouldn't be surprised to see both teams break 40. But I think we'll pull ahead in the second half, make the critical big stop toward the end of the game to seal the win, and cap off a difficult season with an eighth victory. No, it's not New Orleans, it's certainly not Pasadena, and it's not even Atlanta, but it'd be a win. And I think it's one we'd all be happy to take.


And then it's RIVERBOAT GAMBLIN' 'til the clock strikes 2010!

If you're trash-talking: Georgia and Texas A&M do not exactly have a lengthy tradition of intense rivalry on the gridiron; I think you can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times we've faced each other. But the last time that happened, the Bulldogs destroyed the Aggies 42-0. That Georgia team, incidentally, went on to win the 1980 national championship; A&M, for all their tradition and alleged football heritage, hasn't won a consensus national title since 1939, and their non-consensus or "retroactive" titles go back even further into the bowels of history.

And let's talk about those traditions for a second. Now granted, most of what I know about A&M traditions I've learned from Longhorn fans, who are not exactly unbiased observers here, but even from a purely objective standpoint, some of this "Aggie tradition" is just surreal. The whole "corps of cadets" thing? I've been dubious about that one for a while, because frankly, it looks like a lot of those guys are just playing dress-up, but apparently A&M does send a lot of graduates on to become military officers so I'll give those guys a pass. The "Yell Leaders"? Hey, anyone can shout gibberish for three and a half hours, that doesn't make them a cheerleader. For example, when I lived in Atlanta there was a guy on my regular subway ride to work who did that, and I don't remember anyone's spirits being raised by it; mainly it just sort of made everyone uncomfortable.

And then there's this.



Yes, this is what has come to be known as "The Squeeze," which the Aggie cadets supposedly do at critical junctures in games so that they can "take the pain" for their football team. I would like to point out to these young men that pain is not a zero-sum game, and their arbitrarily inflicting damage upon their genitalia does not actually do anything to lessen the suffering of their football players. But even if it did, it's a wonder A&M still exists -- that video was recorded toward the end of the A&M-Texas Tech game in 2006, and the Ags are 22-24 since then, so that's a whole lot of pain to be taking, fellas. If things don't get much better in College Station, this "tradition" is going to result in the eradication of entire future generations of potential Aggies.

I will run up and down the street in front of my house wearing nothing but a Georgia flag wrapped about my nether regions if: Georgia scores more than 50 points (in a victory, obviously). We may need every one of those points to outlast the A&M offense, but whether we actually end up needing them or not, we might as well end this season with a bang, fellas. Go Dawgs!

The Friday Random Ten+5 puts itself even further out there.

With all the upheaval in my life of late -- have I mentioned that I'm being sued? -- I completely whiffed on the fact that the second anniversary of the Random Ten +5 came around a little over a month ago. Not that this milestone is necessarily as deserving of a celebration as, say, Kiribatian independence or even Disco Demolition Night, but still, y'all seem to enjoy embarrassing revelations from my personal life combined with random glimpses into my iPod, for some reason. So in commemoration of the second +5 I ever did -- the "From Russia With Love" of the series, if you will, the one that really made the series what it is, the one that made people sit up and say, "Ha, this is kind of a funny feature, and by the way, you're a sicko" -- I'm rehashing an old idea and making this week's +5 Five More Chicks I Shouldn't Think Are Hot, But Do.



Jane Curtin
Watched "I Love You, Man" the other day with my mom. Jane Curtin played Paul Rudd's mom. Looked her up on Wikipedia and it turns out she's almost 62. You believe that? Not bad for someone who was being called an ignorant slut on "Saturday Night Live" more than 30 years ago.



Bristol Palin
Yeah, her mom's a complete ass, but I've seen interviews with Bristol and she actually seems like she's got a pretty good head on her shoulders -- at the very least, she's someone who's learned from her mistakes, which, sadly, is rarer these days than you might realize. Plus she's good with kids. The thing is, no matter how cute she is, I could never be one of Sarah Palin's in-laws; I clearly don't like her, and she wouldn't like me. Even if I did score a date with Bristol, I'd give it two weeks before I'd find myself running through the wilderness being chased by Sarah leaning out the side door of a helicopter with a high-powered rifle.



Britney Spears
After a substantial hiatus for whatever reason, Brit's been out and about lately, and you know what? She doesn't look half bad these days. Granted, her abs haven't quite returned to their "Baby One More Time" heyday, but she's still way far ahead of where she was a couple years ago, when the paparazzi never had to wait outside of a Starbucks for more than 30 minutes before they could snap pictures of Britney waddling out the door, braless and dumping another Frappuccino down her gullet. Where'd all her lost poundage end up, you might wonder? Well, I do have one theory.



Phyllis from “The Office”
She has nice cheekbones. And she's apparently a complete animal in the sack, as evidenced by the "Blood Drive" episode in which she and her husband went on a double-date with Jim and Pam and then promptly snuck off to the handicapped restroom to screw. I'm not saying she's as hot as Pam, mind you, but as far as Dunder Mifflin goes she's a solid #2 in the rotation.



Jessica Simpson
I know, I know. Yes, she's given every indication that she's dumber than a box of nails. Yes, her dad is a freakshow. Yes, she probably still has some of Tony Romo's stank on her. And I could sit here and tell you that all those factors combined are enough to make me not want to have anything to do with her, but as Samuel L. Jackson said in "Pulp Fiction," "That shit ain't the truth." Look, we all remember the police-station scene from "The Dukes of Hazzard," and in spite of the room-temperature IQ, in spite of the creepy dad, in spite of the Romo-taint, I'd still hit that. I'm a dude, and a none-too-complex-or-mature one at that; blond hair and fantastic boobs make me do silly things.

Thank you for listening, everybody. I hope you can still respect me in the morning. Now, the Ten:

1. The Clash, "Somebody Got Murdered"
2. U2, "Pride (In the Name of Love)"
3. Groove Armada, "I See You Baby"
4. The Beastie Boys, "To All the Girls"
5. Buzzcocks, "Noise Annoys"
6. LTJ Bukem, "Demon's Theme"
7. Pet Shop Boys, "I Want a Dog"
8. Gorillaz, "Dracula"
9. Foxy Brown, "Letter to the Firm (Holy Matrimony)"
10. Ice Cube, "Dirty Mack"

Your turn to 'fess up, readers -- which members of the opposite sex (or same sex, if that's your thing) should you not be attracted to but are? Those lists, along with your Tens, are welcome in the comments.

A memo from the desk of Arnold T. Pants, Esq.:Alabama guzzles beer while Lindsay avoids "The Hangover."

"All aboard," says Orrin Hatch. (This eventually makes sense, I promise.)

· First things first, and the first thing today is self-aggrandizement. With the illustrious Dr. Saturday traveling earlier this week, I've been chipping in a little bit more than usual over there, including an assessment of the will-he-or-won't-he questions about Steve Spurrier retiring and a slight stretch of a metaphor regarding Orrin Hatch's BCS hearings (but it does have a point, I promise).

Keep your eyes peeled over there too, Bulldog Nation, because my next installment in the Better Know an Embattled Coach series concerns a coach we've all loved to hate over the years. I'll also be popping up tomorrow over at Team Speed Kills to critique their assessment of the Dawgs (this has been Georgia week over at TSK, where they're breaking down an SEC team each week leading up to the start of the season) and offering some thoughts of my own.



· According to this map, beer consumption in Alabama is about average compared to the rest of the nation. And it may increase now that Free the Hops has succeeded in ridding our fair state of its oppressive alcohol-content-limit laws. What I don't understand is how little ol' Alabama is outdrinking Georgia by so much. And what the hell's going on up in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut? At least Utah has a religious excuse -- what's y'all's?

· Just when I thought I was done having to explain, rationalize, or excuse my divided UGA-UAB loyalties, along comes news that the Dawgs and Blazers will be playing a home-and-home in basketball this year and next. But lest anyone allow themselves to assume I'm not All Dawg, I'll be rooting for Georgia in both matchups -- we've got a new coach who needs to get some early wins under his belt, while an increasing number of UAB fans seem like they'd only be too happy to unload their guy.



· Lindsay Lohan turned down the role in "The Hangover" that eventually went to Heather Graham. Yeah, who'd want to play a prominent role in a hilarious blockbuster movie that's already grossed nearly $300 million at the box office? "A washed-up actress who's so broke she's having to charge $70,000 to make an appearance at her own birthday party" would be my guess. But then maybe Lindsay found out that Mike Tyson had a cameo in "The Hangover" and decided she didn't like the Which Former Superstar Has More Completely Embraced Teh Crazy? comparisons that would invite.

· And finally, a photo from one of the many massively strongly somewhat attended "Tea Parties" that took place on July 4, with brief commentary courtesy of Google Reader.

Death Is Not an Option, I'M STILL THE MAN edition.

• Terrell Owens or Matt Jones?



• Terrell Owens as a Buffalo Bill, or ex-Tennessee Titan Adam "Pac-Man" Jones as a "Pro vs. Joe"?

• Following Jim Cramer on Twitter, or getting matched with Ed Orgeron on eHarmony.com?

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

In Cramer We Trust

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things With Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Economic Crisis

• Taking Jim Cramer's investment advice, or wiping your ass with hundred-dollar bills?

• Florida as an NCAA tournament contender, or any Wade Phillips-coached, Tony Romo-quarterbacked Dallas Cowboys team as an NFL playoff contender?

• Billy Crudup's dick in "Watchmen," or Jason Segel's dick in "Forgetting Sarah Marshall"?

• Britney Spears as your mom, or this guy as your dad?

"I'm a Slave 4 U," we hardly knew ye.

Oh, Britney. Everything was going so well for you -- hair was all grown back, you were wearing a bra again, you'd lost some weight, you actually managed to go an entire holiday season without anyone making a tearful phone call to DFACS or getting put on an indefinite 5150 hold . . . and then you had to go and release this stupid thing:

. . . what will [radio stations] do with a new single from a major artist that doesn't actually contain a four-letter word, but rather spells it out in a not-so-subtle way? That dilemma is beginning to dawn on top-40 radio programmers across the country as the third single from Britney Spears' latest album, "If U Seek Amy" starts to make its way to the airwaves. . . .

Like several programmers we talked to, Patti Marshall, program director at Cincinnati's Q102, said she had not yet been told that "Amy" was the next single from Circus...Asked if she would play "Amy" if it came to her as a single, Marshall said likely wouldn't. She likened its chorus (which she has not heard) to "a little boy in sixth grade doing arm farts."

The first thing I thought of after reading this story was that old joke: What's the mating call of the sorority girl? "I am sooo drunk!" What's the mating call of the ugly sorority girl? "I said, I am sooooo drunk!" Just as there's a certain type of girl who feels the need to wear a Bedazzled "Hottie" T-shirt to the mall -- uggos -- there's a certain type of pop starlet who feels the need to release a song called "If U Seek Amy": a played-out has-been who ranks just below Lindsay Lohan and just above LaToya Jackson on the average 17-year-old's list of famous people he wants to do. I mean, I'm about the most tasteless person I know -- by way of example, I bristled at the above radio programmer's insinuation that arm farts weren't funny -- and even I don't think "If U Seek Amy" is clever. (Also, I've slept with Amy, and trust me, she's an absolute corpse in the sack.)

Time for Britney to hang up the mic, buy a matronly but tasteful pants suit, and get a syndicated daytime talk show before someone releases an "answer song" titled "Dee, I See Kay," as in "No, not even with Kevin Federline's."

LSU preview: We're gonna win another Super Bowl, y'all!

By Britney Spears
Guest Columnist

Hi, everybody! I just want to say first of all I am SO EXCITED to be writing about LSU for you guys! See, LSU is like right down the road from my hometown of Kentwood, so they're kind of like our hometown team, and oh my God, we were SO THRILLED when they won the Super Bowl last year! I mean, not the SUPER BOWL Super Bowl, but, like, the Super Bowl of COLLEGE, you know what I mean?

Anyway, we are all SUPER-HUGE Tiger fans, and Jamie Lynn was even thinking about going there before, you know, other stuff kind of came up. (Have you seen her new baby? She's cute and everything, but not as cute as Sean or Jayden James. Now that I don't have custody of the two of them, Jamie Lynn's been getting all the attention, and she's been kind of milking it lately -- I may have to have another baby pretty soon, I don't know. Gotta show her who the REAL star in the family is!)

OK so anyway. The ONLY thing that everybody's been talking about is all this stuff with Ryan Perrilloux (if I have a daughter next that's TOTALLY what I'm naming her -- I mean, Ryan Perrilloux Spears, how adorable is that?), about how he's all messed up in the head and how LSU is totally screwed now that they only have two inexperienced quarterbacks to try and replace him. But that is SO unfair, because y'all, let me tell you something: When I told Kevin (A**HOLE) Federline I wanted a divorce, that was like the best thing that ever happened to me. He was a bad influence, I finally got him off my back and out of my life, and that freed me up to do all the things I love the most: I put out another album, I could spend time raisin' my kids, I could go to Starbucks whenever I wanted instead of having to worry about all his crap. It's like my song "Toxic": He was poison, and once I got him out of my system, everything was GREAT from there on out.

And that's just what LSU is like right now: They got out of a bad relationship with a LOSER -- I mean, he's at some D-IAA school in ALABAMA -- and they are so going to be better off for it. Like that one quarterback they have, Andrew Hatch? He transferred to LSU from Harvard. From HARVARD, y'all. So you know he's like super-smart and isn't going to be throwin' interceptions or getting sacked or whatever like Perrilloux did in the SEC championship game.

And have you seen all the other guys on their offense? They have a running back named Keeland (sp? these names are HARD!) Williams who can run 4.45 in the 40. I think that means he can go from 0 to 40 miles an hour in 4.45 seconds, and y'all, that is FAST. And there's ANOTHER guy named Trindon Holliday, who is only five foot five and y'all, that's only an inch taller than me, and he is ADORABLE!!! He's so small you can't hardly even tackle him, and he scored, like, a hundred touchdowns against Notre Dame in the Sugar Bowl a couple years ago.

And what? The defense? Ummm . . . OK, I don't actually know anything about defense, y'all. I mean, how do you even figure out if a defense is good or not? It's just like, "Go out there and run into people and don't let them score any points!" And LSU's pretty good at that. They'll probably hold Georgia to, like, four points. That's pretty good, right? Or whatever.

Anyway, the point is LSU's gonna be awesome this year, and when I hear people talk about how it's going to be a "down year" and they've lost this player or that player, it makes me want to CRY, y'all. Like, did they not just SEE the Tigers win the College Super Bowl? And everybody makes fun of poor Les Miles because he's kind of weird and he wears big hats, but y'all, first of all, there is nothing wrong with wearing big hats. Second of all, everybody does crazy stuff sometimes and that doesn't mean they're bad people or dumb or whatever. Like, that time I shaved my head, everyone was like, "Oh my God Britney's CRAZY," and blah blah blah, but it got me all kinds of attention in the media, and THAT allowed me to bring attention to one of my most passionate causes, which is how the paparazzi gets in people's faces and ruins their lives, and how we should have the right to go after them with umbrellas or whatever we might have to hit them with. And it's the same thing with Les Miles. Him going for it and calling passes on fourth down and whatever, that's like his version of me shaving my head, and he doesn't do it 'cause he's CRAZY, he does it 'cause he knows something good's gonna come out of it, like winning the game or the College Super Bowl or whatever.

Punting is like wearing pants: Just 'cuz everyone SAYS you should do it doesn't mean you HAVE to, because this is a free country and besides, you can't score any points by punting. I mean, DUH!! I'm totally not a football expert but even I know that!

So anyway, to recap: LSU is awesome, our quarterback is going to be super-smart, Les Miles is a GENIUS and people just don't understand him. And Georgia's going to be good and everything, Mark Richt is SO CUTE, prolly even cuter than Les Miles, but that doesn't mean he's a better coach and they're playing the game in Baton Rouge so LSU wins.

So get ready for another College Super Bowl, y'all! I can't wait!

--Britney Spears is a seven-time Grammy Award nominee who has sold nearly 90 million albums worldwide, and who set a new UCLA Medical Center record this year for being placed on two separate 5150 involuntary psychiatric holds in the span of a single month. She is scheduled to release her next album early next year.

Next in line: He's issued controversial pronouncements on Hollywood, spirituality, dating, medicine, and seemingly everything in between -- and now he's got the inside dope on the Florida Gators. Don't go anywhere.

The Friday Random Ten+5 is done with you.

As we head into the heart of the holiday season, our thoughts naturally turn to Christmas giving and receiving, but they also turn to the new year and our hopes for the future. Personally, one of my biggest hopes for 2008 is that the rest of society will stop annoying me so much. With that in mind, this week's +5 is Five People I Hope To See A Lot Less Of In 2008.



Tony Romo
I don't care that he's one of the top-rated passers in the NFL. Don't care that his replica jersey is suddenly the league's most popular (so was Michael Vick's, for a while). Unlike Peter King, I certainly don't care that he "leads the league in smiling." He's a Cowboy, which means that by definition, he's overexposed. And despite signing an unbelievably fat contract and being the leader of the top team in the NFC, he apparently still couldn't sack up and ask Jessica Simpson out on a date himself, he had to wait until her dad made the first move. That's right, her dad. Quick tip, Romes, if you're still waiting for chicks' dads to set you up on dates, you're probably not man enough to win a Super Bowl. But hey, uh, keep smilin', I guess.



Heidi Montag (and pretty much anyone else on "The Hills")
Earlier this year, Heidi Montag got a lot of publicity for getting breast implants. For all the attention this received, I figured these implants granted wishes or had solved America's dependence on foreign oil or something, but nope, they're just your garden-variety C-cups. So I tried to figure out why this was such a big deal, but then I realized I didn't know who the hell Heidi Montag was in the first place. Turns out she's on some show called "The Hills," which is not a show about her implants but rather a reality show about a bunch of rich girls in Los Angeles who . . . go to work and date and go shopping and whatnot. Seriously, that's it. They don't operate an organized-crime ring or fight terrorists or play sports or anything like that, they work and date and go shopping. I can't even fathom why anybody would watch something like this; I mean, say what you will about Paris Hilton having no reason whatsoever to be famous, but at least she went through the trouble of making a sex tape.



Glenn Beck
People like Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh are major-league cocksuckers, no two ways about it, but at least they're brazen and aggressive in their douchebaggery. Glenn Beck, who hosts a nightly talk/rant/whatever show on Headline News, is like Hannity Lite: He holds the same asshat opinions but without the true venom to back them up, much less a creative way of expressing them, and thus he comes across as just another whiny white guy who's fuming that the guy at the counter at Dunkin' Donuts doesn't speak English all that well; imagine Les Nessman reading from the Bill O'Reilly songbook and you've pretty much got it. His show is bad enough, but what's worse is when they let him break into the news programs on HN to spew his impotent rage unchallenged; not only do they have no outlet for a comparable liberal viewpoint, but he's also taking away screen time from Robin Meade, which is like cutting away from the Victoria's Secret fashion show on CBS to air a rerun of "Dateline." The biggest head-scratcher is that he continues to be given this platform despite uniformly terrible ratings, to the point where even some of his fellow conservatives think CNN should pull the plug already. But hey, comparing Al Gore to Goebbels is certainly an incisive, well-thought-out viewpoint. You can't get stuff like that just anywhere.



Britney Spears
This one's pretty obvious. There was a certain morbid fascination to her descent into boozed-out whoredom for a while, but even I can only watch car wrecks for so long before I start wondering what's on the other channel. So no, I don't want to hear about her anymore, don't want to know which club she stumbled out of at 6 a.m., don't want to know whose car she ran into, don't want to know which C-list actor/singer/producer she's been banging while the court-appointed parenting supervisor watches "Dora the Explorer" videos with the kids in the next room. Take her kids away, give her one last chance to cowboy up and get sober, and if that doesn't take then just let her slink off into gin-soaked, pasty-thighed oblivion. (And you know what? The thing is, I actually used to think pink wigs were sexy. Thanks for fucking nothing, Spears.)



Fall Out Boy
I realize I'm only stealing a joke from Brian Posehn here, but Fall Out Boy finally made me give some credence to the argument that music can inspire violence in kids: I've never wanted to kill another human being more than I did after hearing their cover of "Love Will Tear Us Apart." (Safe for work, but not safe for anyone with any kind of taste in music.) Clearly this is a band that has "flash in the pan" written all over it, but some flashes last longer than others; if theirs hasn't burned out by the end of '08, I'm going to be very upset.

And now the Ten:

1. Radio 4, "Certain Tragedy"
2. Bananarama, "Cruel Summer"
3. Groove Armada, "A Private Interlude"
4. David Holmes, "Slip Your Skin"
5. BT, "Loving You More"
6. Orbital, "The Box"
7. David Holmes, "69 Police"
8. Nouvelle Vague, "Dancing With Myself"
9. Pet Shop Boys, "I Wouldn't Normally Do This Kind of Thing"
10. The Beastie Boys, "Girls"

And now: How are you doing? Whom do you hope to be much less annoyed by in the coming year? Leave your answers (and your Tens) in the comments.

Thursday Mystery Meat is not a cheer-ocracy.

• Earlier this week I related a woeful tale of cockblocking that "begs to have a country song written about it." On Thursday, my homey, my ace, my slice, my ace boon coon T. Kyle King wrote the song.

A homeless lady cramped my style
And it hurt too much to laugh.
I couldn't get untracked; I was down
By four touchdowns at the half.

I couldn't win for losing.
I lost my shot with a beauty queen.
It never crossed my mind that I'd fall so far behind
And lose 35-14.

Ah, it feels good to laugh again. My sister said she tried to write such a song herself -- "AIDS Walk Cock Block," to the tune of "Honky Tonk Badonkadonk" -- but couldn't make it work.

• Earlier this month NFL commissioner Roger Goodell restricted the areas where cheerleaders are allowed to do their warmup stretching, saying that the girls are a distraction to the players. Which sounded stupid to me, but apparently Michael Strahan -- who's had the opportunity to ogle plenty of cheerleaders over the course of a 15-year career -- says Goodell might be on to something:

"The cheerleaders are a huge, huge distraction," he writes. "They aren't there just to distract the fans, they're used as a weapon against us, too. We stare at cheerleaders sometimes. It's against the rules for a cheerleader to date a player, but it happens all the time."

And whose cheerleaders are the most distracting? Not the Dallas Cowboys', not the San Diego Chargers' (Hey Jenny Slater's official Most Underrated Cheerleaders of the NFL), but my very own Washington Redskins':

"I'll tell you the best girls in the league, by far, are not the famous Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders or the famed Raiderettes. It's not even close, folks. The Washington Redskins get the prize in my book. Every single one of those girls is stunning."

At this point, I'm pretty much proceeding under the assumption that nobody's actually reading any of this. Poop! Monkey butt!

• Speaking of cheerleaders, it's time for a Cheerleader Curse Update: After the power of the curse sent previously undefeated Oklahoma to a stunning upset loss to Colorado, the curse took a week off -- the next Cheerleader of the Week, Kelsi Metzler of Oregon, didn't have anything to do on Saturday except sit around, do her nails, and enjoy the Ducks' bye week (oh, and possibly revel in USC's loss to Stanford). This week, Oregon hosts Washington State, so we'll get to see if the Cheerleader Curse has hangover effects that can last through a bye. Even if they don't, this week's CotW is Holly Donaldson of North Carolina, so expect the Tarheels to get smacked by the Gamecocks on Saturday.


About to get 'Cock-blocked too, only in a completely different way.

• On that note, this week's SEC predictions are up over at Fleabomb.com. I'm predicting a 31-16 South Carolina win, FYI.

• As for North Carolina's ACC stablemate Georgia Tech, somehow I completely missed the fact that they're going up against Miami (and their former offensive coordinator, Patrick Nix) this weekend. But apparently I wasn't the only one.

• Hey, remember a few months ago when I expressed concern that Victoria Beckham was not a human at all but rather "some advanced humanoid that was grown in a lab"?



Well, I may have whiffed on warning you guys about her superhumanly strong titanium nipples, but I think the rest of it I pretty much nailed.

The Friday Random Ten+5(+1) wishes you would just can it already.

Just because football season has arrived and I'm in a good mood and stuff doesn't mean I don't think that quite a lot of you are idiots. This week's +5: Five Things That Just Need To Stop, Right Now.



Lower-back tattoos
When I first inveighed against lower-back tattoos right around this time last year, fellow Dawgblogger Kyle King expressed mild shock. Yes, I know that given my weakness for somewhat trashy women, I should probably get turned on by what my sister refers to as a "buttstache" or "tramp stamp," but here's my big problem with them: They're the very cruelest kind of mirage. See, one of the biggest cheap thrills in a typical guy's day is catching a glimpse of thong that has snuck its way up above a woman's jeans, and when we first get a glimpse of an LBT, we think that's what we're seeing. But then we realize it's just a stupid-looking tattoo, we're no closer to finding out what kind of panties this woman wears than we were ten seconds ago, and we're disappointed. Ladies, I assure you that whatever you're trying to accomplish with a lower-back tattoo can be accomplished every bit as effectively with a strategically revealed G-string -- also more cheaply, and with less physical pain.



Crocs
Every year there's some new stupid trend in footwear: There were Ugg boots, then there were mukluks, and now we have Crocs. When Crocs first started becoming popular, I honestly thought they were the same kind of rubber shoes that the corrections system gives to prison inmates, and that people were wearing them to earn some kind of thug cred or something like that. Only later did the awful truth dawn on me -- this is just one of those things, and people apparently want to look like state prisoners for no reason at all. These shoes are so ugly that just thinking about them makes me shudder. And no, I don't care how comfortable they are; for the past three weeks of triple-digit heat here in Birmingham, walking around completely naked would've been the most comfortable thing imaginable, but somehow nobody cut me any slack when I tried it. Maybe my mistake was showing up at the Mountain Brook High School cheerleader tryouts like that. Yeah, that's probably where I went wrong.



Hummer stretch limos
Limousines are wasteful. For all their size, aside from a little more legroom and a mini-fridge just big enough to hold a couple cans of Schlitz, they offer little more than what you could get in a standard-length Mercedes S-Class. Hummers? Also wasteful, for reasons I shouldn't have to enumerate at this point. So I guess it was only a matter of time before someone decided to combine the two in an ultra-wasteful orgy of vehicular conspicuous consumption. What nobody could have predicted, however, was the Hummer limo completely replacing the standard Lincoln or Caddy stretch as the de rigueur pimped ride for everyone from hip-hop stars to overprivileged high-schoolers to partying bachelorettes. It was novel the first few times, I guess, but now when someone sees a Hummer limo, all they think is "dipshit" -- pretty much the same reaction people have to a regular-length Hummer these days, I suppose, only thrice as intense, proportional to the limo's greater size. Give me a plain old Bentley Continental Flying Spur any day over this rolling monument to unrestrained douchebaggery.



High-waisted jeans
Look, I understand where this is coming from. After years of watching waistlines sink lower and lower, until a "muffin top" became something entirely different from what Elaine Benes was trying to sell at Top O' the Muffin To Ya! and a bikini wax became virtually mandatory just to put a pair of jeans on, it was surely only a matter of time until some opportunistic designer sensed the time was ripe for backlash and proceeded to yank waistlines back up into the vicinity of a woman's armpits. But good Lord, isn't there some kind of happy medium here? Did they really have to go as far as bringing back Mom Jeans? And doesn't this look kind of, you know, uncomfortable?



Maxim magazine
Full disclosure: Once upon a time, around the fall of '99, I became a Maxim subscriber. I was 21; it was what 21-year-old guys did. It wasn't long, however, before the magazine wholeheartedly transformed itself into the male Cosmo that everyone feared it had pretty much been all along. And they unequivocally jumped the shark this past spring, of course, by naming Lindsay Lohan -- who was already well-established as a spoiled, coked-out skank -- the hottest of their "Hot 100" for 2007 (just days after the supposedly rehabbed starlet was spotted passed-out drunk in the passenger's seat of a friend's SUV). But bizarrely, even after a May DUI arrest and the infamous chasing-the-former-assistant-in-a-car incident a couple months later, Maxim went ahead and put LiLo on the cover (which you can see above) looking every bit as strung out as one might imagine her to be. Now, I understand that Maxim had already banked a considerable portion of their chips on Lohan with the "Hot 100" thing, so maybe this was just their way of steering into the skid, but still, even the horny teenage/college-age dudes who constitute Maxim's prime demographic wouldn't bring their pricks within 100 yards of Miss Linds at this point, which indicates to me that the mag has pretty much outlived its usefulness. As for me? My subscription lasted all of one year, and then, as men are wont to do, I put away childish things. And stuck with Esquire, who knows a hot chick when they see one.

Ahh, I feel better. And now the Ten:

1. Jam & Spoon, "Stella"
2. A Tribe Called Quest, "Description of a Fool"
3. The Who, "You Better You Bet"
4. The Farm, "Hard Times"
5. R.E.M., "Let Me In"
6. U2, "Babyface"
7. U2, "The Fly"
8. Paul Simon, "You Can Call Me Al"
9. King Floyd, "Groove Me"
10. Lynyrd Skynyrd, "Sweet Home Alabama"

And no kidding, this is what came up next, a bonus 11th:

11. Willie Nelson, "Mamas, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys"

Damn straight, Willie. Whether you're Bulldog, Cowboy or anything else, feel free to leave your own rants, Random Tens, or Random Elevens in the comments.

Thursday Mystery Meat: Its business is pleasure.

Metaphors for Mississippi State's '06 season don't come much clearer than this.

• Football season is back, and now I can feel whole again. The season kicks off tonight with LSU at Mississippi State, and tomorrow I will be headed over to Georgia for the Bulldogs' home opener against Oklahoma State. Once again, I will be a hanger-on at the world-famous Tent City tailgate, and once again, Jenna the Wonder Terrier will be in tow. Georgia people, if you're going to be up in Athens for the game, shoot me an e-mail -- I want to meet some of the yahoos who post comments on this site. You can even get your picture taken with Jenna, which is almost as good as getting your picture taken with Uga and way better than getting your picture taken with a smashed-up old car.

Speaking of fucked-up cars . . .



• Dear Washington D.C. pranksters: Whichever one (or ones) of y'all pulled the wrapping-Karl-Rove's-car-in-cellophane prank, you did it wrong. You're supposed to a) soak the cellophane in gasoline, b) run a length of it down into the gas tank, and c) take the end that's still protruding from the car and light it on fire. Buncha amateurs is what you guys are.

• Whatever happens this season for Georgia's football team this season, it will still be great to be a Georgia Bulldog: We came in at number five on The Princeton Review's annual ranking of Top Party Schools and number one in Kirk Herbstreit's rankings of the schools with the prettiest coeds. And nobody can take that away from us.


When we say "It's great to be a Georgia Bulldog," we have our reasons.

• Georgia Tech did not appear on either list -- I'll give you a few moments to recover from the shock -- but nevertheless, the guys at Ramblin' Racket have assembled a guide for ladies seeking to be "the perfect football game date." This link is not meant to be any kind of endorsement; it is strictly for informational purposes. Actually, I'm just curious to see how my sister -- a proud feminist and equally proud UGA alumna -- reacts to it.

• Also up: Preseason BlogPoll v2.0 at MGoBlog, and the return of our unscientific, frequently alcohol-fueled, wild-ass-guess-laden weekly SEC predictions at Fleabomb.com.

• Speaking of Fleabomb, Stanley has a pretty hilarious compendium of prominent Republicans and their furtive forays into the brave new world of Teh Ghey, complete with "Beard Status" ratings for several of their supposed heterosexual life partners. Now, before I get any indignant right-wing "But I thought you liberals were supposed to lurrrrve The Gays!!1!1!" comments, let me just say that no, we liberals do not have any problem with The Gays. We think they have the exact same right to form loving relationships with their chosen partners as we straights do. But when a prominent conservative rails against homosexuality as evil incarnate in public, only to be discovered prowling public restrooms asking for a mouthful of undercover cop, that's what's called "hypocrisy" and it's hilarious. And the irony is, if only these guys would stop condemning homosexuality and allow gay couples to conduct their relationships without shame, then they, too, could come out of the closet and pursue cock the conventional way, without resorting to complicated foot-tapping signals in the crapper. But I suppose that day may never come.



• Two things I'd like to point out to Britney Spears:

1. That's not a dress.

2. Even if it was, that doesn't automatically mean you should wear it.

I have declined to post the full-length rear-view photo, which would perch this blog unsteadily upon the cusp of NSFW, but if you're really that hungry for cottage cheese, click here. For the first time all week, I can kind of sympathize with Larry Craig a little, because the sight of Britney's ass might be enough to turn me gay, too.

This woman has children, ladies and gentlemen.

• Know who else has children? Denver Broncos running back and former Tennessee Vols star Travis Henry. Oh, lordy, does he have children.

Henry, 28, has fathered nine children by nine women in at least four Southern states and has been ordered by various judges to provide child support for seven of them, according to court records involving one child living in DeKalb County.

Records show that Henry's children are scattered across both the American and National Football Conferences -- including Florida, North Carolina, Tennessee and Georgia. Wellon said Henry talked about gathering them together to watch him at training camp. Indeed, part of the custody arrangement Henry reached with Beacham requires two weekend visits when he is playing pro ball.

Good. Freaking. Lord. Nine kids by nine women? If I'd managed to impregnate every woman I'd ever slept with, I might be up to nine kids right now. But I don't know. At any rate, it appears that sex ed isn't a big part of the UTK curriculum, though being Tennessee, they probably just give incoming freshmen a pamphlet that says "hands off your sister" and leave it at that.