Lou Pickney's Online Commentary
August Excitement
Saturday
August 28, 2004
The 2004 college football season began tonight with USC beating Virginia Tech in a 24-13 showdown that took place in Maryland. The score is deceptive, as Virginia Tech lead in the second half (against the #1 ranked Trojans), but in the end USC was just too much for the Hokies. I say: hell yeah for football being back!
One major downer for USC fans (and fans of football in general) is that the NCAA refused to allow Tampa native Mike Williams to return to the team. Williams attempted to enter the NFL Draft this past April, where he would've been a likely Top 10 pick. At that point, a lower court has allowed it (thanks to a challenge by former Ohio State RB Maurice Clarett). Unfortunately, an appeals court overturned the ruling, which left Williams (and the others in his situation) in limbo. And thanks to the collusion between the NFL and the NCAA, Williams was not granted a special waiver to be allowed to return. Who wins from this? No one at all. Williams is now stuck in limbo until the 2005 NFL Draft. Then again, the NCAA is the same organization that in the year 2004 still doesn't have a playoff system for Division I-A football, and moreover an association which managed to split its I-A football national title YET AGAIN last season. But that's another rant for another time.
I've managed to catch bits and pieces of the Olympics, and while I've missed out on a great deal, what I have managed to see has been pretty cool. The archery competition I saw last weekend back in Nashville was actually very impressive; on TV it doesn't look all that tough, at least until they take a wide angled shot and reveal just how far away the targets are from the shooters. Yo! The Olympics is no time to be getting the jitters for them, as the slightest misaim on a single shot could cost your team the match. No pressure or anything, though.
This weekend has been another one of those chill out, lay low weekends. I did some more work on my screenplay entry for the Bravo TV "Situation: Comedy" contest, though the finished product of Scene Two didn't quite meet my standards, so it's back to the drawing board for tomorrow.
|  | | Just think, without my digital camera you wouldn't have ever seen this picture. |
However, last night some girls from here in my apartment complex called me up after hitting the clubs, wanting to party some more. You know that they called the right place by contacting me. Anyway, if I'm going to be asked to provide alcohol, I figure the least I can do is bring along my digital camera to capture some of the fun. Nothing *too* crazy happened (and if it did, do you think I'd be talking about it on here?), but as the picture to the right shows, it was all in a fun night. I had a better one where Chrissy was licking Lara's face, but unfortunately I didn't have the right setting on my camera for that and it came out all distorted. So it goes.
The air conditioning in my apartment is on the blink. It works fine when it's on, but getting the unit to turn on is easier said than done. Reason being... well I don't know why. But I need to remember to call maintenance to repair it. One downer to my eventual home ownership is that I know that there will almost for sure be AC problems to go along with it. Between the house that Joe Pacheco and I rented in Evansville after I graduated, to the tiny apartment I had in Huntington, to my nice apartment here in Tampa, all three have one thing in common... ME! (Inside joke from Mr. Show) Actually the thing they have in common is that in all three cases, the air conditioning unit went bonkers and had to be fixed. In Evansville it was particularly bad; the landlord had to replace the entire unit, which I think cost close to three months worth of rent for the low price that Joe and I were splitting for our house on Virginia Street. I wonder if there's air conditioning insurance you can get, or if it's something included with homeowner's insurance. Hardcore Beavis & Butt-head fans might get a laugh out of that last sentence ("Luckily I have homeowner's insurance" was a memorable line from Tom Anderson when discussing how he was going to pay for severe damage caused to his place by B&BH).
The band Death Cab For Cutie is coming to Tampa in a couple of months, and Scott Massey and I are definitely going to see their concert. It should kick ass. They put on a great show when I saw them in Nashville last year. They'll be coming off of a support tour with Pearl Jam, so they should be primed to be back to headlining. Meanwhile, Scott wants to go see the band Snow Patrol, which is playing in concert next weekend in St. Petersburg. I've only heard one song from them ("Spitting Games", which is quite good), but I'm all about experiencing new music. It should be fun.
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