Perhaps you remember this attempt to graph my expectations for the coming season. Three months later the update looks like heart monitor hooked up to a cadaver.
There is some good news, though. Check out Dan up there expecting a 9-3ish season.
"We will be good enough to beat almost everyone," he said. "But because of the O-line we won't be able to get past the best teams."
I judged that to be somewhere between reasonable expectation and irrational optimism, but at this point my judgment is essentially worthless.
Then there's Huff, who asked to be placed "somewhere below the actual chart in the 'We are f*****' area."
Joe was essentially unchartable:
"I recently dropped from my February 'unreasonably high expectations' to something closer to this," he said. "That represents one day."
We can be a sad, sorry and confused group of people in the summer.
KABUL — As the Army goes, so goes the 48th Brigade.
When the unit returned home from Iraq in the summer of 2006, it was given an order: Turn in your tanks and become a light infantry unit. Three years later, the transition of the 48th Brigade of the Georgia National Guard is complete.
Tom is an Army vet, a published author, The Telegraph's military affairs reporter on assignment in Afghanistan and a Penn State fan.
I do not know whether he is aware that LSU is going to kick the crap out of them.
Update: Tom says he did know that Penn State would defeat LSU.
If you answered, "those markers show the locations of Saturday's Widespread Panic / Allman Brother's concert, the gun show at the Birmingham civic center that same day, the Sheraton Hotel bar where you plan to watch the Georgia game and the SEC's headquarters building across the street," you are correct.
Recipe for disaster.
Update from Joe:"Why wouldn't you watch the game at SEC Headquarters? Seriously, what happens at SEC Headquarters on a game day?"
In other... news, I also predict that Stacy Searels stays at Georgia and continues to be awesome. Joe and I made lists of coaches we'd least like to lose:
Me: Searels Richt Van Halanger Garner
Joe: Van Halanger Garner Searels Richt
When I mentioned he'd put Richt 4th, Joe wanted to redo his list. I wouldn't allow it.
Since life has little to no meaning until two Saturdays when we can (damn well better) beat Tennessee, I don't get any particular joy in posting this. But I've long considered my friends and I something of innovators in tailgating.
Chances are, if you've ever seen girls on campus swinging a stick at a pinata filled with whiskey, that was us. Or it was someone who got it from us. Secretly, my parents are proud of that.
I invented whiskey fishing, which is just like fishing for Bible verses, which maybe you did in Vacation Bible School. Except there are airplane bottles of bourbon wrapped with metal wire wrapped and thrown in a big pool of water.
This weekend debuted The WHEEL OF WHAMMIES! which sounds cooler if you say it in like a gameshow voice.
Now, a whammy can be a lot of things.
There are various whammy theories and kinds of whammies. The Boomerang. The Super Whammy.
But generally there is one truth, with a few exceptions keeping us from A Unified Whammy Theory.
And that truth is this: All whammies are self whammies.
The idea of the wheel, while dependent on that rule, is more fun than that. Because there are more good things on the wheel, or W.O.W., than bad. And, just as the one SUPER WHAMMY! must be pretty damn unfortunate for the spinner, so must the prizes be an equal enticement to make people want to play.
There's stuff written under those silver triangles. And on one of them.
So the wheel is spun, and the whammy is "revealed." Boomerang! means another person gets to spin the wheel, but whatever it lands on, happens to you.
The Sack! is much better than it sounds, since it's grab back of various small Georgia prizes.
Which brings us to The Super Whammy. That can be the hardest one to think of, and is clearly the most important.
On Saturday, when we hit Super Whammy on the first ever spin, I should have known we were doomed. The Florida loss made me worry. The USC loss probably should have warned me, but I was too damn stupid. Oh, we could be No. 1 after this weekend. Oh, we're so good.
I read Coach Richt's comments, and I saw him at Gameday and he looked so relaxed, I just figured he knew something the rest of us only suspected: That it was on, baby.
But it was hung up in a spider web, perhaps not unlike the economy. Like my buddy joe said, in paraphrase, A lot of plans were built on 'hope toos.'
If the o-line could gel (which isn't unreasonable, since there should be talent), if we could avoid injuries for the most part (which is harder when you don't block), if the D-line stepped up (It's not time to lose hope on that)...
And then Bama showed up and whipped our ass. Hats off to them, they played great. Like my buddy Mike Donila said, they'll be crying before the year ends, but they flat out destroyed us.
When I was younger I used to write "Humility" on my forearm before games, particularly when a season was going well. My friends make fun of this, and I don't blame them.
I actually thought about doing that Friday night, but didn't. Don't worry, I'm pretty sure it wouldn't have helped.
But that's not to say humility isn't key to a lot in this world, to say nothing of the next.
My friends, peace be with you. And if you see some idiots spinning a Red and Black wheel, come on by.
---- Is it a self-whammy for writing it, or reading it?
