If only it made you Tebowproof, too

There isn't a single paragraph of this story that isn't awesome:

Russian soccer fans have been told to drink whiskey on their trip to Wales for next month's World Cup qualifier to ward off the H1N1 swine flu virus, the head of the country's supporter association (VOB) said Monday.

"We urge our fans to drink a lot of Welsh whiskey as a form of disinfection," VOB head Alexander Shprygin told Reuters.

"That should cure all symptoms of the disease."

Russia's Health Ministry has issued a public warning against traveling to Britain because of the spread of the H1N1 virus but Shprygin said he expected at least several hundred fans would go to Wales for the September 9 qualifier in Cardiff.

"Health officials say this virus is very dangerous but being a fan myself I can tell you that for a real fan nothing is more important than the well-being of the team," said Shprygin, who also sits on the executive board of the Russian FA.

"Russian fans don't fear anything or anybody so this virus will not stand in our way of supporting our team."

The Russian FA also said health issues should not prevent fans from traveling.

"We don't want our team to be without any support for such an important match so we urge our fans to go to Wales despite the health warning," a spokesman said.

Thanks to Athens Bureau Chief Brian Huff for the link. He notes that whiskey also makes you waterproof.

Greg Blue v. Soviet tank

As others have noted, The Dawgbone, a one-stop shop for just about every story written about Georgia football, is back at a new address.

But you should really visit the old address. Make sure you've got the appropriate Flash player. Don't let Greg Blue down.

Music in a time machine

The archivist for Widespread Panic has a blog. And then I'm sitting at work listening to an early version of the band play Not Fade Away in 1985 and reading the story of the band's formation:

Once we had to take our game outside, we obviously encountered the random person wanting into our circle. That’s how we met JB and Mikey. Nope, they didn’t come by and join in, but their friend Neal did. And when Neal found out that Dave and I had seen his friend JB perform solo the weekend before, he was all about making that connection. Especially when he found out Dave played the bass.

Well we met JB and Mikey soon after that chance meeting with Neal. Where I have no clue, but before long the house on King Avenue was the place to hang out….and those three guys started finding their way… which was obviously a natural progression to what JB and Mikey had been doing separately and together prior to Dave showing up.

I remember that time being just about having fun watching my friends make music in a living room in Athens. And catching JB solo or JB & Mikey together in some sort of semi-official way… basically wherever JB could talk the manager into letting him do his thing. I know they took it seriously but I still had no clue where any of it was headed. And I don’t think they really did either at the time.

This seems poorly named

TEAM, me

My Media Guide arrived Friday.

Not a single current player was featured by himself on the covers, unless you want to count Uga VII.

The front shows a team huddle. The back: Sanford Stadium.














Get yours for $15.

The danger of vanity license plates

I don't care what you think, the chances are nearly 100 percent that you're going to end up looking like a douchebag.

G.I. Joe: The other half of the battle

All those years watching cartoons, and it never occurred to me to ask "What's the other half of the battle?"

But the answer makes sense.



If kind-of-witty nerd t-shirts are your thing, you can buy this one here. Hat tip: Words Tumbl Down.

Hawaii head coach too stupid to open mouth

This is easily my favorite part of the story:

McMackin made his comments in front of about a dozen reporters, most with voice recorders, and a WAC video camera. He then tried to convince reporters not to write about his comments.

“Just please … cover for me,” McMackin said Thursday. “Go ahead, say ‘faggot dance.’ No. Please cover for me on that, too — right Karl? I’ll deny it. Anything else?”

Karl referred to WAC commissioner Karl Benson, who was in the room when McMackin concluded his comments.

You'd have to set up chart with subtypes to categorize all that stupidity.

Basically, you just try

This is from an animal control official here in Macon, where shelter workers have been nursing a kitten back to health after children, now in custody, apparently held it down and set in on fire:

“I’ve been here 10 years now. Some cases are harder than others,” she said. “You go home, you cry, you say a prayer, and you come back and do the best you can.”

Good advice on every hard day.

"Only vampires live forever"

This ad is as dumb as anything I've seen in a while, and I've been in a third world country for the last two weeks.

Walter Cronkite

Walter Cronkite, quite possibly the greatest T.V. newsman of all time, and certainly the most famous, has died.

I don´t have much to add, except that it was important enough for me to seek out an internet connection on a tropical island.

CBS News´ coverage, including photo archives.

His obituary in The New York Times

Walter Leland Cronkite Jr. was born on Nov. 4, 1916, in St. Joseph, Mo., the son of Walter Leland Cronkite Sr., a dentist, and the former Helen Lena Fritsche. His ancestors had settled in New Amsterdam, the Dutch colony that became New York. As a boy, Walter peddled magazines door to door and hawked newspapers. As a teenager, after the family had moved to Houston, he got a job with The Houston Post as a copy boy and cub reporter. At the same time, he had a paper route delivering The Post to his neighbors.

“As far as I know, there were no other journalists delivering the morning paper with their own compositions inside,” he wrote in his autobiography.

When he was 16, Mr. Cronkite went with friends to Chicago for the 1933 World’s Fair. He volunteered to help demonstrate an experimental version of television.

“I could honestly say to all of my colleagues, ‘I was in television long before you were,’ ” he said in an interview with CBS News in 1996.

Banning bottled water in Australia

A town in rural Australia has banned the sale of bottled water. I doubt that would fly in the U.S., where we're not big on banning people out of business... with a few exceptions.

But if I owned stock in a bottled water company, I'd pay attention to this:

New South Wales Premier Nathan Rees has backed the cause, ordering government departments to stop buying bottled water and use tap water instead.

Given the environmental impact of pouring 16 onces of water into individual bottles made from petroleum, the cost of bottled water, and the current economic situation, that could absolutely happen here.

NOOOOOO! Shoulder bug hits OL again

Tanner Strickland out for 2009. From The Red and Black.

There is but a single survivor

From The New York Times on July 1:

PARIS — When rescuers saw Bahia Bakari, 14 years old, she was clinging to wreckage in rough seas, surrounded by floating corpses and debris from the Yemeni airliner that crashed Tuesday off the island nation of Comoros.

On Wednesday evening, Bahia — hospitalized and suffering from scratches, bruises and at least one fracture — was asking for her mother, who had been on the same flight, according to an uncle who had seen the girl. He said he told her, for now, that her mother was in the next room.

But in an almost miraculous tale of luck and endurance, Bahia is apparently the only survivor of an air disaster that left all 152 other people on board dead.

Is this a miracle, a tragedy, or both?

Michael Jackson is not dead

After years of thinking they're simply crazy, I finally understand the people who have believed for so long that Elvis is alive.

Because my generation's Elvis is dead. That he was quite likely a child molester, most certainly abused as a child himself and pretty clearly disturbed is sad, but not particularly relevant here.

It's like an immortal has died, and there's no explanation for that.

It actually seems more likely to me that he has faked his death. That the body that will be buried where ever it will be buried is some sort of human clone. Or that one of his children is a clone, and on June 25 he managed to transfer his soul into a new body.

It stretches the mind to think that Michael Jackson could go out on anything but his own terms, however deluded they might be.

And now I'm just another crazy person. Somewhere there's a younger generation, who thinks I'm just an aging fool.

UPDATE: The theory has nearly gone mainstream, as was inevitable. From The (UK) Telegraph:

"He was talking about the prospect of being cloned. He grabbed Uri by both arms and told him, 'I really want to do it Uri, and I don't care how much it costs'."

The age and the whiskey are taking their toll

You know that saying, "This ain't my first rodeo"?

I like that line. But I don't think I remember my first rodeo anymore.

Church sign wisdom

Just north of Eastman, Georgia, on U.S. 23.



Solid Rock: Also a song by Bob Dylan.

Georgia Theatre memories: Kevn Kinney

After nearly 20 years of shows at The Georgia Theatre, you'd think Drivin' n' Cryin' front man Kevn Kinney would have some pretty cool stories to share about the venue.

You'd be wrong. So, so very wrong. I caught up with Mr. Kinney Friday night, after he played a bar here in Macon.

Q: How many times you figure you played at The Georgia Theatre?
A: Oh, I played at least 20. At least 20.

Q: Starting about when?
A: Well I started playing there acoustic, I think, the very first time I played there on Father's Day. Probably Father's Day. My daughter was probably 3. She's 22 now, so 19 years ago.

Q: Sunday is Father's Day.
A: Yeah.

Q: Favorite memory?
A: I think the first time was when she played out there with me. You know, she came out on stage with me, hung out, you know, was walking in and out of the stage. My favorite times there were with The Mule. Government Mule. Those were the best shows I ever saw there. I got to play with Chuck Leavell there with The Mule and it was awesome.

Q: Yeah?
A: Yeah.

Q: What songs you do?
A: I did Straight to Hell, Rockin' in the Free World. The usual.

Q: Any crazy stories that really should not see the light of day, but because of the occasion get to?
A: Not really, man. You know, it's just, like, my kind of hang out bar in Athens. You know, I used to live there for 10 years, so I just kind of go there.

Q: Thank you for your time.
A: I don't have much more. I miss it. And I was supposed to play there in September, so I've got to find some place else to play.

I went back inside the bar after Mr. Kinney headed home and some guy who's name I never got was playing a cover of Swingin'.

"Everybody comes in from the back, looks, and is like, 'Are they doing Swingin?' Yeah hell yeah we're doing Swingin'."

It was pretty entertaining.

Georgia Theatre memories: Chuck Leavell

Word on the street is that Sea Level played the first concert in The Georgia Theatre when it transitioned from an empty movie house to a music venue in January 1978.

A splinter group of sorts from The Allman Brothers Band, Sea Level was developed by Chuck Leavell, whom you may know as a long-time member of The Rolling Stones.

But, in Middle Georgia, we think of Mr. Leavell as Twiggs County's most famous Rock Star forester. He's also kind enough to return phone calls quickly.

I called Randall (Bramblett) just to jog my memory a little bit, and we do remember that we did open (The Georgia Theatre) up. Now, Davis Causey says it might have been in '76, and not '78, but I guess if The Banner (Herald) researched it they're probably right. But I can tell you that what I do remember of it is that we had just expanded our band... and it was one of the first shows that we did with a larger band. ...

But that's certainly not my only experience with The Theatre. One of the most memorable times I had was with Col. Bruce Hampton and The Aquarium Rescue Unit. I got a call from Johnny Sandlin, and I wish I could tell you the year... but Johnny said, "Look, Bruce is playing The Georgia Theatre and we're gonna do a live C.D. How would you feel about being a guest?"

At the time I knew very little about them except that they were very, very hip, and I had known Bruce for a long time. ... And I went in and it was the kind of band where they really didn't want to rehearse. They just kind of liked things to happen spontaneously. So there was hardly any rehearsal. I think there was really just basically a discussion of what key something might be in. And, then, it was sort of like just turn it loose and see what happens. And what happened was it was a great, great show.

I think it's an iconic music venue for the state of Georgia and the southeast in general. It has a wonderful history. A very rich history of music and lots of interplay between fans and musicians. There's been a lot of wonderful jam sessions that have occurred there. ... I certainly hope that every effort will be made to rebuild it. I think it's a tragic loss. I'm sure that if, at some point in time it were needed, there would be a lot of musicians that would be willing to come together and do something to help it be rebuilt. ...

Is it more than a stage? Well it provides so many great memories for us as musicians. There's certain places that, maybe there's a little magic that goes on. And I would say that's one of those places. I think it would be a very sad thing to think it would no longer be there.

Mr. Leavell's interests these days trend more toward forest preservation and Mother Nature Network. As for The Stones, he noted that August "will mark two years of no Stones activity, so that's a pretty long period to be off and I would think it wouldn't be too much longer before the band would want to be doing something, whether it's a new record or a tour.

"So, hopefully, there won't be much longer to wait for The Stone's fans," he said.

Mr. Leavell said he'll be doing some solo shows soon, and that he's working on a book called Smart, Strong and Sustainable, "which will deal with growth issues in our country."

God bless soldiers

A 48th Brigade Guardsman from Calhoun was killed Saturday in Afghanistan, according to the Department of Defense. First Sgt. John Blair is the fourth member of the Georgia 48th killed since the brigade began deploying to Afghanistan several weeks go.

Stars and Strips has a moving piece up, detailing the attack, and Sgt. Blair himself.

He pulled the faceless body of a man he’d come to love out of the gunner’s belt and climbed into the turret to replace him.

“We went over that before we left. (Blair) said, ‘Sgt. Bellinger, what are you going to do if I get hurt?’ I said, ‘I’m gonna take you down and continue this mission.’ He’s like, ‘Roger,’ ” said Bellinger, of Cumming, Ga. “That’s what I did.”