How not to fire someone

Friday, December 5th, 2008 | Uncategorized | No Comments

Somebody left this in the comments on one of our Tuberville stories yesterday, and I thought it needed to see a wider audience. On Wednesday, two women claiming to be the wives of two of our recently fired coaches called SportsCall on 93.9 The Eagle and explained how they found out their husbands were out of a job. I can’t speak to the validity of this, but the people at The Eagle believe it’s legit and have given these clips their own page with a little summary of the events that took place.

Coaches’ Wives on The Eagle

What did I do to deserve these?

Friday, December 5th, 2008 | Uncategorized | No Comments

I must be misrepresenting myself in some way on my Facebook profile, because the ads I receive are not relative to my interests. Let’s tackle these one by one.

I do not have a religious affiliation listed on my profile, I’m listed as in a relationship, and this picture looks like it was taken in a bar. Yes, my profile says I’m interested in women, but my current relationship status should exclude me from any dating Web site advertisement, right? Either their ad software isn’t as targeted as they made it sound, or Christianity revised the rules since I last checked and cheating is A-OK.

Nowhere on my profile do I complain about my girlfriend. In fact, somewhere on there I state that hanging with her is one of my favorite things to do. I could maybe understand if it said, “I like hanging out with my girlfriend…except for two to seven days out of the month.” Also, how practical is this iPhone application, anyway? If I’m leaving town or suddenly unavailable EVERY time she (enter your preferred euphemism for her entering her menstrual cycle), she’s going to figure it out. I don’t have an iPhone anyway.

Come on, now! I don’t have “manscaping” listed as an interest on there. You won’t find any quotes about how much I love Nair. There are so many questions running through my mind about this ad. Did this model know when she took this picture, which was probably meant to emphasize how smooth her armpits were, that somebody was going to Photoshop in some mean looking hair on there. Would she have chosen a different facial expression? Should I make an appointment?

I can’t complain if I get ads like these in the future, however, because I gave all of these ads Thumbs Up because they were so funny to me.

Stolen vs. Lost

Friday, November 21st, 2008 | Uncategorized | No Comments

Stolen

VS.

I think you can tell a lot about a person’s mood by how they characterize an instance where they cannot find something they own. Recently, my iPod “went missing,” and I’m using that term because it is the neutral point from which my argument will spring. When I couldn’t find my iPod, I had one of two ways to frame the incident in my mind.

A) I lost it.

B) Someone stole it.

I think the option a person chooses rarely has anything to do with logic. It’s all about your present mood when you discover your item has “gone missing.” When I realized I couldn’t find my iPod the other day, I was already in a rather foul mood based on my dissatisfaction with poor decisions I had made, so I chose to think I had lost it.

“You just got a D on a Spanish test, you forgot to do your pronunciation recording and you almost rear-ended that car in the rain a minute ago. Your dumb self probably lost it. You always do this. You broke your 30GB Philips mp3 player freshman year. Why can’t you take care of your things?”

Now if everything in my life was going swell, I may have chosen the second option and placed the blame on some imaginary, opportunistic jerk who saw a chance to score a free iPod and took it, because if you’re feeling great, it’s never your fault. Regardless of the fact that your memory and motor skills are fuzzy because you’ve been at the bar all night pounding back drinks, you’re too damn cool to lose your iPod.

“C’mon! What?!? Who would do this?!? I’ve got all A’s. I’m on top of things. No wonder these punks want what I have, right? You know how many songs I had on that thing? 4,000. Yea. 4,000. Whatever. That guy probably listens to crappy music anyway, so I’m doing him a favor. He just stole an education in cool music… and that one Miley Cyrus song I downloaded when I was like, ‘I see that tween everywhere, but what do her tunes even sound like?’”

Other instances of some Stolen vs. Lost arguments:

• Highways- Always lost. See: David Lynch, Jeff Buckley, Bon Jovi
• Kisses - Stolen, primarily. See: Ben Harper and Faith Hill
• ABC Television dramas - That’s “Lost.”
• Coldplay songs - “Lost,” again.
• Kidneys - If you wake up in a tub of ice, that thing was stolen. No question.
• Elections - If someone steals it, someone always loses. But if someone loses, it’s not always because it was stolen. Supreme Court involvement usually means it was stolen.

Oh, and I found my iPod. It was in a secret pocket on my backpack I had just discovered and felt like trying out. It worked so well I hid it from myself.

The score is Lost: 1 Stolen: 0.

Tags: lost, Stolen

It’s time for “Play the Opinions Editor”

Friday, November 14th, 2008 | Uncategorized | No Comments

I’m about to go see “Quantum of Solace,” but I thought it would be cool to throw my Xbox Live and Playstation Gamertags up here. It’d be funto run through a “LittleBigPlanet” level, take out some aliens in “Gears of War 2″ or shoot some zombies in “Left 4 Dead” with a reader, and you could tell me what you do or don’t dig about the paper.

PSN ID: SoSure4X4

Add me and tell me in a message that you saw the blog and I’ll accept your request.

Tailgating and the 17th Century

Friday, November 7th, 2008 | Uncategorized | 1 Comment

I don’t typically like the Fridays before game days. But by simply looking at the whole process of seeing your town overrun with people for two days in a different way, they’ve become much more enjoyable. If I don’t have a class and it’s not raining I will go out and watch the turf wars consisting of fans from far and wide trying to stake a plot on this campus to call their own.

They’re much like the pilgrims who settled here in the 17th Century, except I won’t be teaching these cats how to grow corn, and I will not be accepting smallpox-laden blankets as they leave town. The forcing of students who pay to live here and park their cars on campus to move their vehicles when fans come to town creates something of a mini-Trail of Tears when the students try to find a Wal-Mart parking lot to park their cars in.

Those are little pilgrims.

Goosebumps, eh?

Friday, October 31st, 2008 | Uncategorized | 3 Comments

Here’s a Halloween-flavored post for today.
I’ve spent all afternoon in bed doing ITLabs for my computer class and watching a “Goosebumps” marathon on Cartoon Network. I really do love this low-budget show, with its goofy twist endings, but after watching five or six episodes, I’ve noticed something peculiar.

At some point during every episode, the main characters have a discussion where they try and make sense of the craaaaazy stuff happening. Once or twice I’ve heard the pre-teen being haunted or chased say, “Well, think aboot it.”

Not think “about” it. Think ”aboot” it. The only time I’ve ever been exposed to such a pronunciation has been episodes of ”South Park” where they lampoon Canadians. So, naturally, I’m curious about whether or not “Goosebumps” is Canadian. Turns out, it is.

According to Wikipedia, the most reliable Web site on the Internet: “Goosebumps is a Canadian children’s television series that aired on YTV in Canada, on Canal Famille in Québec, Fox Kids in the United States from 1995 to 1998, and airs around Halloween on Cartoon Network as of 2007 and on Jetix in Europe.”

I then remembered something else I’d read a long time ago. Also from Wikipedia: “Are You Afraid of the Dark?” is a science fiction/horror-themed children’s television series. The original series was a joint production between the Canadian companies YTV and Cinar, and the American company Nickelodeon. The show was filmed in Montreal, Quebec.”

So thanks for my two favorite scary childhood shows, Canada.

Tags: Halloween

Do I not care enough?

Friday, October 24th, 2008 | Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Last night’s loss to West Virginia resulted in five or six Facebook messages from people in my home town wanting to rub in the loss. All of them were Alabama fans, and all of these cats KNOW I don’t follow or really care about football. And when I tell them this for the 100th time, it blows their minds.

Sample conversation:

Guy From Hometown Living Vicariously Through Big Dudes Who Would Never Hang Out With Him (GFHLVTBDWWNHOWH): Aww, man, it must suck to be you right now, right? Who you going to fire next?

Me: Nah, not really. None of my immediate family just died, and I think I’m going to pass all of my classes.

GFHLVTBDWWNHOWH: WHA…?!?

I don’t think I’m better than people who love sports, because I’m a fan of some pretty trivial stuff myself. I just don’t understand the assumption that I’d care about this a whole lot. It’d be like me asking everyone I know if they’ve heard the new Toby Keith album just because they’re from Alabama and we’re “supposed” to love pop country music.

I’m also not opposed to conversations about sports. It’s a good way to start a conversation, because it’s one of the few things you can bet on nearly everyone at this school having an experience with. But the emotional stake people expect me to have invested in them that I don’t understand.

But all these losses would make an Iron Bowl win hilarious.

Read this like a “Yo’ Mama” joke

Monday, October 20th, 2008 | Uncategorized | No Comments

Auburn’s Web site is so old, it’s still talkin’ ’bout OASIS.

I found this while I was making sure I could fail a finance class and live to tell about it. Click the picture and blow it up if you have to.

http://www.auburn.edu/administration/registrar/helpful-resources/courses-and-grades/check-grades.html

The bookmarks in the screenshot are my girlfriend’s, I swear.

Stuff I’m Pumped For Volume 1

Friday, October 17th, 2008 | Uncategorized | No Comments

LittleBigPlanet

I’ve been following the development of this PS3 game for a good while, and every little detail I find out about it makes me want it more. It’s pretty much a glorified level-design tool for video games, but everything I’ve heard from folks suggests it will be ridiculously fun.

“The Dark Knight” Blu-ray

Because it’s “The Dark Knight” and it’s on Blu-ray. That’s all the explanation I need to give.

Have a good weekend, everybody.

Getting stuff in the mail is cool… kinda

Friday, October 10th, 2008 | Uncategorized | 5 Comments

My younger brother and parents came up to Auburn for a football game a while ago. When I heard my brother Nick was coming, I asked him if he would bring up a video game he had bought recently, “Star Wars: The Force Unleashed.” He brought it up and I played it until they had to leave town that evening. When he took the game back, I only had something like two levels left to complete.

This game is pretty popular, and it was hard to find a copy at rental outlets around here, so I asked him if he would put it in a padded envelope and mail it to me when he finished it. He agreed, and put it in the mail on September 30.

My neighbor called me last night and told me he had a package and a Netflix envelope for me next door, so I went up and got it. I was starting to get worried someone at the post office had busted the package open and was now slaying Wookies in my place, so hearing it was next door was a relief.

I’ll walk you through the emotions I felt as I opened the package.

Sweet!

YES!

What?

And then I was all like:

I then called my brother to find out he had left the game in his XBox. I waited ten days for an empty box. To make it even funnier, I went home last weekend, and slept in the same room as that game, not knowing it was right there next to me.

I love you, Nick.

Tags: star wars