Finally, The Best Of 2008

That's right, it's the best of 2008. As the coolest person you all know, I feel as though my opinion should be valued more highly than others. And as such we have the best of 2008. These aren't actually opinions though, they are facts. Every statement in this post is as true as the statement "the Red Sox play in Boston" or "Georgia Tech over Georgia was a fluke."

Without further ado... (Some of the subject ideas were stolen from McCluca, so big ups)

Favorite Female Celebrity: Anne Hathaway
The reason Get Smart is in my 2008 top 10.

Favorite Male Celebrity: Clint Eastwood
Changeling? Gran Torino? Still bad ass? Yes.

Top News Moment: Sarah Palin and my subsequent boner.

Top Sports Moment: Game 5 of the ALCS
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wAlL988Z_U&feature=related
Red Sox down by 7 runs in the seventh inning facing elimination win the game
2nd place: UGA Basketball wins SEC Championship in staggering fashion
3rd place: Kansas kicks the piss out of UNC in the Final Four (I will no doubt remember this long after I've forgotten every other sports moment of 2008)

Favorite Athlete: Jon Lester... what a year.
By sport: MLB (besides Lester): Jonathan Papelbon, NBA: Mario West, NFL: Adrian Peterson, NCAA FB: Knowshon Moreno, NCAA BB: Greg Paulus (but whatshisface from Kansas who had the monster game against UNC deserves love as does Sundiata Gaines), NHL: Ilya Kovalchuk, NCAA Baseball: Josh Fields & Dean Weaver...

Five Best Movies (So Far - I've seen 45 of them this year which is about 35 more than most of you, but intend to see 100 more):
1. WALL-E
2. Synecdoche, New York
3. The Dark Knight
4. My Blueberry Nights
5. Changeling

Three Worst Movies:
1. The Happening
2. Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull
3. The Eye

Best Blog:
"How Hi The Fi?" http://howhithefi.blogspot.com/

Five Best Albums (no order - this is also subject to mass overhaul)
Girl Talk - Feed The Animals
T.I. - Paper Trail
The Hold Steady - Stay Positive
TV On The Radio - Dear Science
Flight Of The Conchords - Flight Of The Conchords

Favorite Hip Hop Song:
T.I. (Feat Rihanna) - Live Your Life

Best Live Band I Saw This Year:
Of Montreal

Favorite 2008 Book Of The Very Few I've Read So Far:
John Hodgman - More Information Than You Require

Funniest Internet Video:
Andy Samberg & Co: Jizz In My Pants (SNL)
2nd Place: Bo Burnham - I'm Bo Yo

Favorite Things I Got Into In 2008 That Don't Necessarily Have Anything To Do With 2008:
Cormac McCarthy, The Office, Flight Of The Conchords, Book Collecting, The City Of Atlanta, Octane Coffee, The Hawks, The Falcons, The Thrashers, cigars etc, and, oh yeah, this blog.

Hopes For 2009: I hope the blog continues to grow and turns into something more interesting. I hope the Red Sox win the World Series, Duke wins the NCAA Championship, UGA wins the BCS, Jeff Gordon wins the Sprint Cup, Love, New Music from Bob Dylan, Sufjan Stevens, DMB... New book by Cormac McCarthy... The movie "The Road" is the best of the year, a high paying job, losing weight, staying healthy, strengthening friendships, seeing more independent films, broadening my horizons further, having time to read my books, making lots of money, figuring it all out and continuing my 24 1/2 year dominance of everything. Happy new year, bigness.

Vince Dooley's Tears Cure Cancer

Another cool opportunity to hang out with a cool famous person at work. This time it's former UGA coach, college football hall of famer, national champion, Vince Dooley. Coach Dooley is the man. It wasn't the first time I'd met him, but it was the first time I had the chance to get a photo with him and actually have a sit down conversation with him. Tomorrow I'll post the link to the article. If you want to see the rest of the photos from the event, click on the "Picasa" link on the right and go to "Work Photos."
Coach Dooley was pretty cool to hang out with. A lot of my friends had had the pleasure of his company more than I had in college, but after I graduated I joined a Men's Bible Study church group thing of about 20 guys. One of them was Coach Dooley. Other "famous" people include Mark Richt's father and 2 of David Perno's brothers. This in addition to several affluent Athens businessmen. Moving to Atlanta killed my involvement, but still, it was awesome.
Should be a pretty fantastic sports week this week. College football starts, high school football starts (work, ugh), and most importantly: Red Sox vs Yankees, final series in Yankee Stadium. Big series for the Sox.
My friend Jarrod from Vidalia is in town this week which is nice. He's here for some sort of training thing. His company is much welcomed and he's considering moving up here apparently. God knows I need more friends in this city. We were hanging out at Octane last night, my favorite coffee place in Atlanta. It was a very good time.
Not much to talk about again today. I've been thinking about discussing my love life but I don't really want this blog to become that sort of sappy idiotic ramblings page. Any suggestions for a list of the week this week?

A Little Toothpaste On A Monday Afternoon

Just a little ToothpasteForDinner to get the week rolling. Not a whole lot worth talking about. The Red Sox are surviving, Georgia football is set to start and we had our big fantasy draft. It went pretty well. With the 3rd overall pick I scored the 2nd best running back in the game as well as the best receiving corps in the league. Gotta be happy about that. My team looks something like this:

QB: Marc Bulger, David Garrard

RB: Adrian Peterson, Edgerrin James, Matt Forte, Rashard Mendenhall

WR: Braylon Edwards, Andre Johnson, Santonio Holmes, Bernard Berrian, Reggie Williams

TE: Todd Heap, Randy McMichael

K: Nick Folk

DEF: Seattle Seahawks, Philadelphia Eagles

That's all I got for now. Got 2 more drafts coming up as well as a possible second league of my own if I get enough interest.

It's Great To Be A Georgia Bulldog

It is great to be a Georgia Bulldog in August of 2008. Only a few weeks 'til kickoff and we are the best team in the country. An undefeated makes us one of the greatest college football teams of all time. We have the best running back in the country and one of the better quarterbacks. I can't freaking wait. With this in mind we have the list of the week... My 13 favorite pro or college sports franchises - ranked.
1. Boston Red Sox
2. Duke Blue Devils Basketball
3. University Of Georgia Football
4. University Of Georgia Basketball
5. Jeff Gordon (Hendrick Motorsports)
6. Boston Celtics
7. Denver Nuggets
8. Houston Rockets
9. Atlanta Hawks
10. Atlanta Thrashers
11. Atlanta Braves
12. Kansas Jayhawks Basketball
13. Tiger Woods

Eventually I think I might make a list where I ranke how I feel about every team in a sport or league from top to bottom. It's good for the sake of reminding me I hate a team when I subconsciously join their bandwagon.
Also, Kansas basketball is only on the list because of their Final Four victory over UNC, one of the best moments of my year so far.

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.