Lou Pickney's Online Commentary
Style Points
Sunday
October 8, 2006
"Style is knowing who you are, what you want to say, and not giving a damn."
-Gore Vidal
You know that Div. I-A college football has sunk to a new low when you hear broadcasters talking at length about teaming winning with "style points" to land the #2 spot in the AP/Coaches polls. Move the bowl games to the beginning of the season, put a 16 team playoff system in place, and let that be that.
If I still had Amy Barnett's phone number, I would've called her up and played the Tennessee fight song on her voice mail (like she did to me when Georgia beat Tennessee a few years ago.) That UT comeback over Georgia was straight out of NCAA Football 07 with its wild momentum swings.
Normally I really like beer commercials, but the most recent ad campaign by Coors Light is terrible. The concept is this: retired coaches are used in press conference "clips", as if they were humorously taken out of context and interspliced with fans talking about Coors Light. On paper it sounds like it might have potential, but the "clips" were all clearly made recently (complete with Coors Light advertising behind all of the coaches used) and it seems to me to lack any humor.
But despite bad ads and my disdain for Pete Coors, I like Coors Light better than Bud Light and Miller Lite. So it goes.
Because of the overwhelming number of great college football games yesterday, and the NFL schedule today, I haven't yet gone to see The Departed. Why pay to see a film when there's such great sports on TV? And as it was, the movie did just fine without me this weekend, posting an estimated $27 million plus for #1, according to boxofficemojo.com.
It's been a weekend of sad times with the Tigers knocking the Yankees out of the playoffs. The rumor that Joe Torre will be fired makes me angry. Torre has had the Yankees in the post-season in EVERY year of his tenure as manager of the Yankees. With what he's had to endure from Steinbrenner to near-impossible expectations to managing a wide variety of egos, he should have total job security.
Instead, the word is that Torre is out and Lou Piniella is in as manager. Don't get me wrong, I like Piniella. But Torre lead the Yankees to four World Series wins, and he's done nothing (in my opinion) to warrant him being ousted.
Meanwhile, the Tigers fans celebrated their win yesterday afternoon as if they had won the World Series. Granted, the last time Detroit was in the post-season (1987), only four teams total made it to the playoffs, but that's no excuse. You'd think that they wouldn't have to play the Oakland A's this upcoming week with how they carried Jim Leyland off on their shoulders.
I understand that Tigers fans have been long-suffering, but the city of Detroit has had its championships with the NBA's Pistons and the NHL's Red Wings. This is no Cleveland or Buffalo sob story.
In case there's any wonder why coastal Mississippi is still in disarray, more than 13 months following the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, check out this headline from the South Florida Sun-Sentinel:
Investigation shows FEMA spent millions on puppet shows, bingo, yoga
Yes, this is our federal government.
One infuriating experience that I had last night deserves a passing mention on here. I went to the Wendy's in Pelham, the one on U.S. Highway 31 (just past where the Alabaster/Pelham town line hits.) Along with a drink, I ordered a spicy chicken sandwich with no tomato. Easy enough, right? The inarticulate woman (who butchered "Can I help you?" into one syllable of "CanIHelpYa?" over the drive-thru speaker) told me to pull ahead and that they'd bring it out to me. So that's what I did.
Time passed. The car behind me received its order and drove off. Adding to my anger was the site of three employees, apparently all on a simultaneous break, loitering outside the front of the restaurant. Finally, after ten minutes (no exaggeration), I parked my car and went inside, asking where my sandwich was. One of the loitering workers (finally off his break, I presume) had it in a bag, apparently finally bringing it to me.
I was mad, but it was a hungry-mad. When I'm hungry, I'm prone to anger much quicker. Maybe it's a blood sugar thing or something, but since I was a little kid I've known that I can be really cranky in the morning before I have breakfast. Let me eat, then we'll talk about whatever. It took my Mom a long time to understand that concept with me.
That doesn't let Wendy's off the hook, but at least I finally got my sandwich. Between that and the dirty-feeling KFC near the Nashville office on Thursday (complete with a kid who seemed to have whooping cough spreading germs at will), it hasn't been a good restaurant week for me.
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