Valdosta, Georgia: What A Joke

Last night, the goons at ESPN named Valdosta, GA as "TitleTown USA" based on a website poll in which Valdosta supposedly bested 19 other finalists with 30% of the vote. Just to give you an idea, that's more than New York, NY and Boston, MA got combined.

I write about sports for a living in an area where sports is not THAT big of a deal and you couldn't pay me enough to go to Valdosta to write about that crap. Their sole claim to fame is their arguably unparalleled success in high school football. I think we all have an attachment to high school football, but you mean to tell me THIRTY PERCENT of voters thought Valdosta's high school football accomplishments were better than that of the Yankees (26 World Series titles), Giants (defending champs) and Knicks? They thought Valdosta's high school accomplishments were better than the Red Sox (7 World Series titles, defending champs, currently most popular team in baseball), Celtics (17 NBA titles, defending champs), and Patriots (you know their resume)?!?! Bullshit. There is a zero percent chance this voting was done fairly. Zero. Not only should Valdosta not have won this thing, they shouldn't have come in the top 15 out of 20. It's preposterous. Let's just say the entire state of Georgia was voting for them (which is preposterous as well when you consider the entire state doesn't even agree to root for ANY of its pro sports teams), and let's say Valdosta pulled a lot of votes from Florida because it's on the border. Let's also assume they jacked some votes from people who found the special ESPN did on them particularly heartwarming. EVEN THEN they shouldn't have gone over 6% (which is what Boston got and MORE than what New York got).
Famous professional athletes to come out of Valdosta: J.D. Drew, Jesse Tuggle, and, uhh... Buck Belue? Huh?
I don't know why I let these things anger me. What could be less significant than this poll? I think it's got more to do with the fact that the city of Valdosta will probably take this as the compliment to end all compliments than the actual fact that they won. This designation would be forgotten at about 15 of the 20 finalist cities.

Okay, deep breath, and we're back.

I am officially an Atlantan now. That is, I live inside 285 which is the real Atlanta. My address now ends in "Atlanta, GA" and whatever my zip code is. I am excited. Besides the ridiculous cost of gas for me to drive to work each day, there is no major drawback. I am in the social center of the southern world and I couldn't be happier. Within a few miles of me is my favorite coffee shop, one of my favorite record stores, my favorite Church, some of my best friends, some excellent restaurants (I've already had Fellini's Pizza TWICE since moving 3 days ago) and just about anything one could think of needing. The only thing it's lacking is a killer video store. The only decent one is in the Highlands which, if I'm not mistaken, is far.

I am now reasonably close to the Venezias, Tyler, Kelly, BJ, Stephen and of course my roommates who have taken surprisingly well to boxes being in the common area and some of my space consuming stuff being in the living room. We all live in a Yellow Submarine. It should be a decent living situation as all 3 of us are laid back, we have enough common interests that would make us friends if we weren't living together and we all, apparently, like the Beatles. We've already developed a playful college football disagreement that should make for a very fun season. I feel like I have been unpacking non-stop for a few days and still have so much left to do it's scary. As for transitions to an apartment, this one has been very reasonable. We haven't had to deal with utilities, bugs or too many malfunctions. Some of the neighbors are scary but I suspect they just look that way. It's pretty unlikely that there would be genuinely threatening people living in this place.
I'm still trying to decide what I want this blog to be. I'm beginning to think it would be good to go back to writing the sort of tongue-in-cheek op/ed stuff I wrote in college but I'm also enjoying writing about the day-to-day crap. Plus I haven't figured out how my "____ of the week" gimmicks would fit in. Suggestions welcomed as are comments. I'm looking forward to "unveiling" my list website project if I can ever get it together. Unveiling in quotation marks due to it being a wayyy too important designation for this. Still, I've been looking for a site that will allow me to simply share a few different link rolls without getting too complicated. Del.icio.us should do it but they overcomplicate things. I'm seriously considering just using a stupid Geocities page, haha. At least I know what to expect from them.