State of the Nation: How satisfied are you in 2008?

Bye week discussion. When I forced myself to put a number to it, the number was higher than I thought...

On a scale from 1 to 10, how satisfied are you with The Dawgs in 2008?

I'm going to say 8, though the bottom drops out of that if we lose to tech in 2 weeks.

Ten, for me, would have been a National Title, though in years past that high achievement wasn't necessary for my ultimate satisfaction. Nine would have been qualifying for and/or winning the SEC Title Game.

We've definitely disappointed this year with poor defensive and special teams play. The loss of fire and death-dealing on the defense is of particular concern, because I don't understand it. But this was a young, injury-riddled team, and our expectations were too high.

Plus, Alabama and Florida are freaking good. I'd prefer not to have been embarrassed by them, but in my heart I can't go lower than 8.

UPDATE: Westerdawg says 7.5, which I toyed with myself. And he notes how badly Michigan's season has gone, which I can relate to.

I've got several friends who went to Virginia Tech, and they can't manage to challenge for an ACC Title, so it's all relative.

But this is supposed to be our time, these years. And I want "our time" to be everything it can. Right now, it's not. But, if we beat tech, I'll consider myself generally satisfied by the season of 2008.

Rocky Week

I wish I could relate this to the Kentucky game somehow, but I can't.

Rocky IV is going to be on AMC tonight at 8 p.m. I've been meaning to mention all week, it's a Rocky Week. And that doesn't just refer to my psyche after the Florida game.


7 minute mark for the DRAAAAGGGGOOOOO! scene.

You can also vote in AMC's poll and rank the six Rocky movies. I've got it: Rocky II, Rocky, Rocky III, Rocky Balboa, Rocky IV and Rocky V, but America disagrees with me.

Ranking college football teams

If you haven't checked it out yet, go look at Sen. Blutarsky's college football poll. It's handled differently - with voters choosing the top 5 teams, with no distinction between 1 and 5, and then the next 7, again with no distinction.

It takes away some of the ridiculous parsing between who's the No. 4 and No. 5 team, and he also waited until 6 weeks into the season to have a poll.

In fact, the only real criticisms I have of what seems to be a really strong system is that, one, he let me vote in it and, b., I don't like the name.

The Mumme Poll.

Tailgating readiness: Checklist edition

A friend of mine made a gameday checklist. And if I can help just one person not forget the flagpole stand by publishing her list, my work here will be a success.

Personal Items:
___ Red & Black attire
___ Gameday skivvies
___ Comfortable shoes
___ Georgia face “G’s”
___ Toothpaste/toothbrush
___ Toiletries
___ Gold Bond (Medicated)
___ Pajamas
___ Blankets, pillows, sleeping bags
___ Funny movies

Tailgating Essentials:
___ Food and beer or money for food and beer
___ Money for tickets (if applicable)
___ Coolers
___ Cups & koozies
___ Cigarettes and other health-depleting items
___ Beer (keg or BYOB), Andre, water
___ Gameday music (pre-mixed)
___ Chairs
___ Tables
___ Miscellaneous games and other bad ideas
___ Cameras
___ Advil
___ Georgia flag, flagpole
___ American flag, flagpole
___ Flagpole stand
___ Tent
___ Trashbags (including one for recycling)

Game time Necessities:
___ Tickets
___ Student IDs (if applicable)
___ Diet Coke
___ Whiskey
___ Wins

Alcohol: On there three times for a reason.


Flaming Steve Spurrier pinata: optional, but recommended.
Awesome friends: a must.

Vic Chesnutt is your Daddy.

This post is not going to be for everyone. In fact, if you said "Vic Who?," maybe just stop right now before your soul explodes...

A buddy of mine and I got drunk one night and wrote this list, stealing liberally from the greatest concept ever born upon the Internet.

My sincere hope is that it does not anger Mr. Chesnutt.

Vic Chesnutt wanted to fight the war on terror, but realized he could not defeat himself.

On the 8th day God ran away from Vic Chesnutt. Screaming.

Satan is a Vic Chesnuttist.

The song "Bittersweet Symphony" is about Vic Chesnutt killing the guys who wrote "Bittersweet Symphony." And U2.

Vic Chesnutt does not sleep. He stabs Chuck Norris' pansy ass.

Vic Chesnutt lights his cigarettes on himself.

Vic Chesnutt killed Vince Dooley in 1979 and assumed his form.

Vic Chesnutt knows what you did last summer because he made you do it.

Metallica's "One" is about Vic Chesnutt... when he was a fetus.

You think Kurt Cobain killed himself? You're a moron.

The moon doesn't cause the tides to change. Trust us.

The word "shotgun" is loosely based on the Latin for "Vic Chesnutt."

You can stop Vic Chesnutt, but you have to find him first. Check Hell.

The bullet that killed Bruce Lee was Vic Chesnutt. That's the only way it was gonna happen.

Vic Chesnutt stabbed Sting in the neck in 1992, then nursed him back to health and stabbed him in the skull. This is known as "Tantra."

Vic Chesnutt has no soul and cannot be photographed.

Vic Chesnutt kills people who put an extra "T" in his name. With the letter "T."

Vic Chesnutt has committed suicide 175 times. He keeps coming back awesome.

You should see the ones I edited out because they were in "poor taste."

Even if it kills you, I'm not sure it's possible for this to be too loud
: Soon I will be lighter fluid.















Image: Rolling Stone.

Widespread Panic: Why are you trying to kill me?

In an excercise typical of a healthy combination of rules 1 and 2 following last week's Savannah run, I present you with a list of "Things Widespread Panic fans like."

With at nod to these guys, and, for that matter, these guys too.

1. Destroying their bodies
Whether it's drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, a lack of sleep or, most likely, all of the above, few groups of people are into excess like Panic fans. And no one, NO ONE, is more likely to polish off an organically grown, fully vegan meal with a half gallon of bourbon. Let it be said, though, that Panic fans have good taste, and choose to destroy their internal organs with only the finest bourbons, beers, pills and powders when possible.


2. Making sarcastic remarks
Often about hippies, how they hate hippies or how dirty hippies are. It's ironic, I know.

3. The music of Widespread Panic
They pretend to like other music.

4. Dancing "my ass off"
Typically poorly. See #s 1 and 3.

5. Ridiculous outfits
As I walked out of a show last week there was a guy in a white ape suit playing a guitar and harmonica. On any other day, that might have seemed strange.






Yep. Lots of this guy.

6. T-shirts with clever sayings and/or song lyrics printed on them (men only)
This is not be confused with No. 5, and in fact has far more in common with No. 2. I suppose the female equivalent would be either a homemade dress, or an outfit that allows the girl to blend in with all the hippies wearing homemade dresses, but still look super hot.

7. Forcing other people to listen to their music.
Seriously, what makes someone decide to bring their own drum to a concert?

8. Not paying for things
I'm convinced some Panic fans have two-year community college degrees in the art of grifting.

9. Over-paying for things
This might seem at odds with No. 8, but I assure you it is not. $5 for a bottle of water? I'll have six.

10. Owning ridiculous amounts of technology
That dred-locked hippie might not have a place to stay tonight, but he's got a $3,000 laptop, a digital recorder with dual mike set and a sweet titanium mike stand. He also has an iPhone and a walkie-talkie. Can he sleep on your floor tonight?

11. Washing over you like locusts
Attention concert promoters: You cannot have too many kegs of beer or $5 bottles of water on hand for a Widespread Panic concert. I know you think you can, but you can't.

12. Selling you something
No, I don't want a veggie burrito or your charcoal drawing of "Mickey Hauser." See also: No. 8. By the way, whoever invented grill cheese sandwiches with garlic powder for $1 is a flat-out genius of consumerism.

13. Not being able to find things that are clearly in their pockets
See No. 1.














Joe Cox: Probably a Widespread fan.

14. Noticing coincidences
See No 1.

15. Talking about how awesome shows they attended were
Trust me, unless a member of the band ascended into heaven during the show you're talking about, you might as well be quiet. See also: No. 1.

16. Predicting the next song
This is often followed by an insistence that the band was, in fact, "teasing" that song "just like two nights ago in Orange Beach." See also: Knowing that was a Bloodkin song.

17. Referring to band members as "the boys."
See also: Referring to multiple shows in a row as "runs."

18. Talking about how awesome Eugene, Ore., and the entire state of Colorado are
Athens would also be on this list, except everybody already knows how awesome it is. Even people who've never been there.

Yes, I've heard. Thanks.


19. Being from Tennessee
I have no idea why. Though I once knew a guy who lived in Memphis specifically because it was a convenient place to get to Panic shows from.

20. Text messaging songs as they are played
I don't know why everybody's cousin needs to know what songs are performed at at show they are not attending, but they do. See also: Holding their cell phones up and swaying back an forth during slow Talking Heads covers, posting shaky video of songs to YouTube and having hour-long conversations on internet message boards.

21. Becoming best friends with people they clearly will never see or talk to again
See No. 1.

22. Actually seeing those people at another show, and doing them some kind of favor
See No. 1 and No. 3.

23. Holding grudges
Largely because it gives them ample opportunity to exercise their right to No. 2. I once saw a band review that panned Widespread with more than 4,000 follow-up comments posted to it (I am not making that number up), including someone posting the reviewer's telephone number and address.
p.s. - i made that number up. It was 785.

24. Exagerating
You know, just for effect.

25. Despite it all, or possibly because of it, not wanting to leave
This town is nuts, my kind of place...














I don't know who this guy is, but the visor and Colorado sky are dead giveaways.

The 009 best Bond movies

Here you go: Lucid Idiocy's official ranking of the best James Bond movies of all time, based on the rankings of our illustrious panel. Whoever ranked them highest gives their reasons:

007. A tie between Goldeneye and The Man with the Golden Gun. Of course, by all rights, neither of these should have made the list because we've got a tie at 006, too. But Golden Gun was my personal No. 1. No way it wasn't making the list.

006. Another tie:
Goldfinger: Bond at his swinging, gadget-filled, bad-joke best. With the incomparable Sean Connery (who was and always will remain THE JAMES BOND), the quintessential Bond Girl Pussy Galore, and the incredible villain team of Auric Goldfinger and his crazy, hat-slinging henchman Oddjob, this movie has everything that makes Bond movies so fun to watch.
- Erin Ivanov







From Russia with Love: I'm pretty sure I've never actually met any Russians, but isn't it awfully fun to hate them? Tatiana Romanova is just a first-rate Bond beauty, and the SPECTRE agency a perfect baddie.
- Keith Demko








005. For Your Eyes Only With the cliff scene, the octagon-glass-wearing villain, the Greek underworld feud and the gorgeous cross-bow wielding Melina Havelock bent on avenging her parents, how could it not be on the list?
- Me.






004. Diamonds are Forever
Perhaps not really the third-best Bond movie, but just the removal of the asshat George Lazenby is enough to put it here for me. Connery as diamond smuggler Peter Franks is also pretty fun to watch.
- Keith







003. The Spy who Loved me
Simply the greatest opening sequence in the franchise. The movie itself is solid, Bond girl Barbara Bach is fantastic, there's an underwater lair, a plot to destroy mankind, and the damn movie even has Jaws in it, people, Jaws. Nobody does it better. Or with a larger British flag.
- Me


002. Dr. No
James Bond in Jamaica? 'Nuff said. As Connery tries to foil Dr. No's evil plot to, of course, take over the world, he's helped by still the Bond babe with best name, Ursula Andress as "Honey Ryder."
- Keith











001. Casino Royale
"Casino Royale" sees the franchise come full circle from "Dr. No" with Daniel Craig filling the 007 role like no one has since Connery. Craig is gritty and cruel, and can carry off those one-liners without being cheesy -- but also shows a passionate heart and how that heart gets mostly buried with the death of true love Vesper Lynd. Features the best writing, storytelling and character development seen since the early Connerys. -Erin

That's not a bad list. Special thanks to my brother, Jacob, for realizing there should be 7 movies on it.

Jaws is smiling. Maybe you'd better smile, too.

I've had some feedback from my call to rank the top 5 or 10 James Bond movies of all time. I'm going to post my own version first. Then I'll take it, the other lists people have submitted, and any feedback this post generates and turn them into one master list.

If there's a Roger Moore lean in my own list, that's probably because he was the first Bond I remember. The first movie I can remember seeing is A View to a Kill.

So here's my list, though just about any of these could be No. 1, and so could a few others, and I probably wouldn't complain.

5. For Your Eyes Only
Against my buddy Ryan Mohs' advice, this wasn't in my initial top 5.
But with the cliff scene, the octagon-glass-wearing villain, the Greek underworld feud and the gorgeous cross-bow wielding Melina Havelock bent on avenging her parents, how could it not be? It also includes the only time I know of that Bond declined to have sex with an attractive woman without actually having sex with her later. He offered to buy her an ice cream cone instead. What a gentleman.

4. Diamonds are Forever
A little hokey (wait, is that even a criticism for a Bond movie?) but it's entertaining. Plus, it's set in Vegas. Jill St. John (aka Tiffany Case) is the Bond girl I'd be most likely to date, until she dropped me like rock. But I do love the way she rolls her eyes. Plus, this one has those crazy gay killer guys, Ernst Blofeld, a kidnapped billionaire, a character named "Plenty O'Toole" (named after her father, no doubt) and a maniacal plot that hinges on a cassette tape. Riiiiigghhhht. I'll watch it every time.








Ms. Case, taking a terribly reasonable attitude toward all of this.

3. Casino Royale
Much grittier than we're used to because it's about the birth of Bond as he transitions from the British Navy to the British Secret Service. Here we have the birth of his martini, and he drinks bourbon, too. Held up as a movie by various copyright issues, this was Ian Fleming's first Bond novel. Current day production values help, but I think this is the most fully realized Bond movie. At times scenes are ridiculous, as in all Bond movies, but they never lose their edge. I wouldn't want all Bond pictures to be like this, and it's hard to name a movie so uncharacteristic of the franchise No. 1, but I came awfully close to doing just that. If the villain was better I think I would have. Poker playing terrorism financiers just don't compare to anyone who's ever built an underwater complex in an effort to wipe out humanity.

2. The Spy who Loved me
For many years I thought this was my favorite, but my judgement is clouded by simply the greatest opening sequence in the franchise. If I could get the Bond people to allow just one opening scene onto youtube in full, this would be it. The movie itself is solid, Bond girl Barbara Bach is fantastic, there's an underwater lair, a plot to destroy mankind, and the damn movie even has Jaws in it, people, Jaws. But that opener, in a franchise that has given us many great ones, is without peer. Nobody does it better. Or with a larger British flag.

Agent Triple X, I presume.

1. The Man with the Golden Gun
My personal favorite. Professional assassins, one good, one evil, one with a superfluous third nipple, in a battle to the death officiated by a midget on a tropical island in the south China sea. Seriously, if you don't love that, get the &%$# out of America. It's also got that ridiculous sheriff from Louisiana in it and Mary Goodnight.

Your solex agitator joke here.

A few others I'll mention. Some of these will probably end up in my personal top 10 if we expand this thing, which I imagine I'll do before the list is finalized:

A View to a Kill: I saw somewhere online that named this the worst Bond movie of all time and said it wasn't even close. Ridiculous. It's arguably the funniest of the Bond pictures, but, then, Roger Moore was always the master of the pithy comeback. Anything with Christopher Walken and Grace Jones as eviled-out steroid freaks can't be all that bad.

License to Kill: Look, this is the worst Bond movie. In the climactic chase scene Bond has taken control of a gasoline tanker truck which, of course, has a bunch of cocaine mixed in with the gas. They try shooting a stolen Stinger missle at him, but he manages to pop the 18 wheeler up on nine wheels, the Stinger goes underneath and hits another truck. Even in a series that made its name on ridiculous stunts, that has got to be the dumbest thing I've ever seen in a legitimate big-budget movie. Seriously, I want to take the guy who green-lit this thing out into the forest and let rabid wolves crush his balls.

Live and Let Die: Ridiculous and a little confusing, yet I will still watch it. It would probably be pretty good if it made a little more sense. In fact, this movie is terrible. But I do love Jane Seymour. Truly.

Dr. No: The original. The dude with the metal hands is scary. If ever a Bond flick called out for a remake, this is it. They did great things with a reported $300,000 budget, but they needed more money.

From Russia with Love: Underrated. It's always better when SPECTRE is involved. And can we make train trips a requirement in Bond films?

Octopussy: A great plot and some of the best one-liners in the franchise, including:

Kamal Khan: Mr. Bond, you have a nasty habit of surviving.
Bond: Yes, well, you know what they say about the fittest.

GoldenEye: My favorite Pierce Brosnan one, followed by The World is not Enough. It's ridiculous, but I do like the opening scene, where bond drives a motorcycle off a cliff at an exploding Russian base, climbs into a free-falling airplane and takes control of it to escape. That's a nice move.

Moonraker: Jaws in it, people. Jaws.

Goldfinger: You can keep your ridiculous plot and your Pussy Galore, but Jill Masterson is beautiful, Odd-Job is the classic bond archetype killer that started the classic Bond archetype killer genre, and it's got the best line a Bond villain ever got to say:

Bond: Do you expect me to talk, Goldfinger?
Goldfinger: No, Mr. Bond. I expect you to die.

Really? Then maybe you should have just shot him, you know?

Casino Royale: The best Bond ever?

I was watching Casino Royale last night, and it's just good. And since list making is a good way to generate readership and participation (it's true, look it up), I'm commissioning the rare Lucid Idiocy contest.

If you're a James Bond fan, and I mean an "of course I watched On her Majesty's Secret Service last night on TBS" kind of fan, let me know what you think the best Bond movies of all time are. Email your list to tfain@macon.com and put "Bond" in the subject line. I delete a lot of random emails.

I'm thinking a top 5, maybe a top 10. Make your case, and feel free to include comments on best Bond Girl, best Bond Villain, best James Bond and best Bond Opening Scene. But if you put License to Kill in there anywhere... I just don't even know how dumb that makes you.

Here's a list of the movies, including a bunch of links to plot summaries, etc. to get you started.