Reason #1 why UGA wins it all this year:
Despite Coach Richt’s devout Christianity, he is surprisingly good at revenge games. Mark Richt is an Old Testament 10-3 in revenge games, since 2010.
Our team is notorious for lacking motivation in at least one game a year, but they always seem to get up when playing a team they lost to the previous year. That revenge factor has also shown up against teams/coaches that have ‘disrespected’ our team, eg. The Belk Bowl last year against Todd Grantham, or the Vanderbilt game a few years back (also involving Grantham). As luck would have it, the Dawgs’ schedule is loaded with revenge games in 2015.

1. South Carolina – In 2014, this was one of those games, where we were not as motivated as we should have been. The Gamecocks had their heads chopped off in the season opener against A&M, so Dawg fans (and players as well, apparently) were counting our chickens, before they hatched, going into the South Carolina game. We played badly and still had a chance to win, but thanks to a bad spot and a bad play call, we came out with a loss.
Richt knows we should have won this game, and he will prove it September the 19th. These games are always close, and SC has done very well in the past few years… but not this year. UGA 41-13.

2. Alabama – In the last two match-ups against the Tide, they ruined our Black Out party and took our National Championship. Not to mention, their Offensive Coordinator, Lil’Laney is an embarrassing 1-0, against the Dawgs. There is revenge in folds, available in this game, but it’s still going to be a tough one. UGA 31-27

3. Tennessee has played us dangerously close, the last few years, and according to many prognosticators, this is their year. That’s right, some of the CFB analysts are actually picking UT to beat the Dawgs and go on to win the SEC East, including the great Kirk Herbstreit. We owe Herbie a thing or two, since he talked us out of the BCS championship, back in ’07!
And how dare the Vols, come in here and try to take what’s ours! This is a preemptive revenge game, for them (and the analysts) even thinking they’re in our league! UGA 38-24.

4. Missoura – Even though we beat them down 34-0 last year, they pulled off an impressive winning streak at the end of the season to hold on, and win the SEC east. I watched these Tigers beat Texas A&M, UT and Arkansas, even though everybody was picking them to lose at least one of these games. Every Mizzou win made the Dawg Nation feel the pain from the Florida loss again, and again, and again.
You will not back door the SEC East again this season, Missouri. UGA 41-20

5. Florida – In 2014, Florida was a derailed train. They lost to Missouri 42-13. We beat Missouri 34-0. So by mine, and apparently the players’ and coaches’ logic, we were going to beat the stupid, worthless Gators by around 63 points. With that kind of advantage, all we had to do was show up in Jacksonville, and take turns kicking the downed Gators. Well, unfortunately, we missed the bus, and FU played their best game of the season. They took what was ours and tore it into little tiny pieces, and threw it in our face. Florida should be hurting again this year, and we need to go into the Cocktail Party and put them down! UGA 48-10.

6. Auburn – Okay, I know we beat Auburn last year, but guess what?
The Plainsmen went and hired themselves a brand new Defensive Coordinator! That’s right: The excommunicated Bulldog, turned Gator, turned out, is now on the payroll of Auburn and Florida! At least he’s using that fine education he received at the University of Georgia! So congratulations War Tigers! Not only did you bring in a fine DC, but you also added a heavy helping of revenge, from Richt’s Bulldawgs! UGA 41-28

7. Georgia Tech – Oh Yellow Jackets, you pesky little annoying bugs, why do you keep doing this to yourselves? Okay, so yeah, you beat a UGA team that had they’re whole season ruined (again), the day before the GA/GT game, so maybe we weren’t as motivated as we should have been. Haven’t you figured out what happens the year after you beat us? The Dawgs won’t be satisfied with merely winning the state championship! They are going to smash the yellow jackets into the ground, like they deserve. UGA 43-13

So, if Georgia wins the games they’re supposed to win, and Richt’s revenge factor holds true, we could have a special season ahead of us. And if we meet Urbie Meyer in the play off? Oh, there’s plenty of revenge left for him!
Go Dawgs!!!

• If you find yourself in the middle of a heated argument, and you are both saying the same thing, it could be that time.  Don’t be logical, don’t get angry and never, ever attempt to prove that you are right!
• Did some chocolate or ice cream, or some chocolate ice cream just mysteriously show up in your house?  If so, do not assume that it is community property.  Unless she physically hands you a bowl, do not eat it!  And don’t open up the 3/4 empty container and say, “Well, who in the hell ate all the ice cream?
• Is she crying for no reason?  Don’t ask “What’s wrong?”, unless you’re prepared to have a wet, mascara stained shirt…if you’re lucky!  This could be about you!   That crying can turn to rage in nanoseconds, “What’s wrong?!  WHAT’S WRONG?!?!”

Get out of there men!!!  Abort mission!  Abort!!!

Method#2: Take Advantage of Technology

Set a reminder on your phone.  Sounds easy, right?  It is easy, but you really have to be careful with this one.  You have to be cryptic.  Do not name your event with something like, “Wife’s Period”, or “Ragtime”.  If she finds out what you are doing, this will backfire and the consequences will be exponentially worse than if you just didn’t know.  Come up with something clever, that she won’t suspect and will not interest her at all.  Examples:  “Check sports blog about UGA recruiting”, or “Check Soundgarden fan page, Knights of the Sound Table, for Tour updates”.

Whichever method you choose to employ, here are some suggestions for what to do ‘during the storm’.

• Repeated from earlier, because it’s that damned important:  Whatever your brain tells you to say, say the opposite…and still, be prepared to be wrong.  All the normal things you do or say everyday, are going to become extremely annoying and offensive to your wife.  So basically, just completely change every single thing about your personality, for a few days, and you should be fine.
• Don’t ever let her know you know.  You may be tempted to say, “Ohhh!  I get it! You’re only crazy because of your period!”, but she will not be pleased with your new found revelation.  In fact, you will most likely get the total opposite effect.
• Go out of your way to do nice things.  Pick up your own underwear for a change, or let her decide which football game you’re going to watch.

Good luck men.  It’s a tough world out there, and I hope these tools can help you navigate through the murky waters of PMS, and marriage in general.

Foot note:  If somehow my wife actually reads this, and something happens to me, please tell the police what you read here…before it’s deleted!

(Just a few random thoughts, sorry if I incidentally plagiarize, but there are really no original thoughts left, are there?  I believe that every time I have a ‘great’ thought, 250,000 other people have, or have had, the same thought.  They just didn’t put it on the internet.)

(Funny sidenote:  My internet based, blogging software’s spellcheck flagged the word internet.)

-Make the right choice and you may celebrate briefly.

Make the wrong choice, and you may suffer forever.

-People should see you,

 when you are sure no one is looking.

-Get to work 15 minutes early and nobody notices,

but show up 15 minutes late…

-Choosing the shortest, easist path,

can often lead to the longest journey.

-Road Rage is horrible, dangerous, and a little bit awesome.

-The Wise actually know very little.

Only the Ignorant know everything.

Greatness will come.

I am great,

I’ve been told all my life how great I am.

The world will see,

Greatness will come.

This is strange.

I’m sure I am great,

and I should have been ordained as great by now,

but I am actually living less than great.

That’s okay, I’ll just keep waiting.

Greatness will come.

That’s it, I give up!

There’s nothing great about me!

He’s great, and she’s great…And they’re great!

This isn’t fair!

Why are they given greatness, and I get nothing!

I was supposed to be great!

Without greatness, I am nothing!

I might as well just work hard,

like all the ordinary people.

Greatness Came.

Well that’s it, our freedom has been taken away.  It all started with a bump in the night…

My almost two year old daughter had been crying in her crib for a few minutes, and I was trying to decide whether I was being a tough parent or an awful parent.  The crying stopped suddenly with a thud. I was going through all the possible scenarios of what could have happened as I slowly
looked upstairs, toward her closed door.  I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.  Her door was opening!  In one motion, I threw my laptop, bounded across the coffee table and sprinted up the stairs (We didn’t have a gate at the top of the stairs yet!)

I was about 3/4 of the way up the stairs when she turned the corner and met me face to face.  (Have you ever seen the movie Halloween?  Remember the scene with little Mikey standing at the top of the stairs, wearing his cute little clown costume, holding a bloody butcher’s knife?  That’s kind of what my daughter looked like, sans clown suit and bloody knife.  She had this look on her face that said many things at once…

“Look what I can do now!”

“Your baby jail will hold me no longer!”

“I know where you sleep!”

“What’ya doing?  Relaxing?  Having a beer and watching a little TV?  You told
me it was night-night time!  Is this what you people do every night?  Good luck
pulling that off again…EVER!!!”

So now, everything has changed.  We finally got her back to sleep in her crib, but my wife and I slept with one eye open the rest of the night.  (I thought as I dozed off:  What about a crib with barbed wire around the top?  I could paint it white, or maybe pink.  I can hear the naysayers now, “You can’t put barbed wire around the top of a crib!”   I know, razor wire would be much more effective, but come on.  I’m no animal!)
The next day I bought and installed a gate for the stairs and finished toddler-proofing her room.  I planned on changing her convertible bed from a crib to a toddler bed, but didn’t quite make it.  My wife assured me, “Don’t worry,
she won’t do that again.”

Then it came: Thump! And there she was, wandering down the hall, hell bent on getting into bed with us.  That’s when the
battle began between my wife and my daughter, with me caught in the middle.  My daughter would get up, come to my side of the bed and stare at me with her, “You can’t tell me no.”, eyes.  I would turn to my wife and foolishly, attempt to speak.  She would just shake her head and turn away.  (Translation: “Get up and take her back to bed!”

I do take her back to bed, and so begins the 3+ hour war of attrition in the hall between her room and ours.  I personally don’t have a problem with her sleeping with us.  It’s pretty much the only time she allows any display of affection.  (Hmm, kind of sounds like her mother; Must be genetic!)

Her mother does have a point, though: I don’t want her developing any long-lasting, bad habits…

I can hear it now, “Mom, Dad, this is Bruce”.

I reply, “It’s nice to meet you Bruce, but that’s my pillow!  Now scooch on
over son, this bed is only a queen.”

(Those of you that know me will realize this story was started quite a while ago, and just now finished.  Sorry for the delay.  My daughter is now in a full size bed, so the only bumps in the night lately are when she falls out of the bed.  Apparently, the worrying never ends.)

Picture from www.bracestower.co.uk

Talking Monkey,

You say that you enjoy shows with monkeys in them, but not people in monkey suits. I find myself wondering about monkey movies. For example, the original King Kong is right out, due to the fellow in the monkey suit. (I understand that they had a real giant ape to play the part but couldn’t afford the catering, or subsequent clean up). But what about Gorillas in the Mist, or Cargo, (that had a cameo of Jimmy Buffett you know) or even the remake of Planet of the Apes, in which people are not in monkey suits, BUT, are dressed up like monkeys. If you could take time out of your busy day to clarify this matter for me, it would be much appreciated!

Regards,

Frank The Tank

Thank you for reading, Mr. The Tank.  It appears I may have painted with too broad a stroke:  Thank you for pointing this out. 

In my “About the Talking Monkey” post I was more focused on my enjoyment of monkeys (apes) acting human and had a few bad examples of monkey suits stuck in my mind. 

In regards to your King Kong example, you may want to check your facts.  While using a real, giant ape for filming would be a great inconvenience, I’m pretty sure that’s what happened.  There were no humans large enough to play that role.  However, in the new version of King Kong, that was not an authentic giant gorilla.  That was clearly a CGI ape (Comprehensive Gorilla Inbreeding). 

In the Planet of the Apes remake, those were highly evolved, humanesque apes, so they had to be costumes.  Apes that smart would never work with Marky-Mark. 

As far as Cargo goes, I’ll try to find the other person that watched that movie, and get a second opinion.

Thanks again for your question, Mr. The Tank.  I agree that there are some examples of good movies with guys in ape suits, but I still prefer the real thing.  Well, I’ve got to go.  This monkey suit is starting to itch.

   I always try to look through my Spam folder before emptying it, because I don’t want to miss something important.  I learn a lot about myself by reading through these so called ‘junk emails’.  Apparently I need cheap prescription drugs, without a prescription, (who doesn’t?), and there are some pretty hot, available and bad spelling women in my area. It seems there are plenty of jobs out there and many legitimate firms are looking over my resume.  Also, I should go back to school, enhance a certain part of my anatomy and I suffer from E.D.. 
   It’s not all bad though.  I did win the European Lottery.

 When I gamble, I either have to win ‘it all’, or lose ‘it all’.  The problem is, winning it all is not easily recognized; whereas losing it all is extremely easy to recognize. 

Two times I remember winning money at a casino: Once, my wife dragged me out by the collar, up $500.  Another time, I had a mountain of green chips($25) in front of me, and was betting $300 on a pair of deuces.  I pushed, (didn’t lose or win), and decided that was enough.  I cashed out, clearing $2K after the room, food, trip etc.  That casino took care of me after that, until Katrina moved it across the street and turned it upside down. 

Here’s another prime example.  The other day, I decided to invest $10 in the Redneck Retirement Fund, (I bought a scratch-off lottery ticket).  I won $15, ($5 net gain).  That’s a 50% return on investment!  But, it’s only $5 on a ticket with a possible jackpot of $750,000!  So I spent $10 on something I needed and used the $5 winnings to buy another lottery ticket.  Boom!  I won $15 again!  Time to walk away, hmm?  Yes for some, not so much for me.  I bought another $10 ticket and 2, $1 tickets, ’cause I had a feeling, and then wisely kept $3 for that week’s coffee money.  I won $2 on one of the dollar tickets, breaking even, then moved on to the $10 ticket.  Whammo!!!  Big Winner for $50!  Now I’m up $55 on house money.  Time to walk away, right?   Well, there is this $20 ticket with 5 million and 1 million dollar jackpots, so why not take a chance and still walk away up $35?  So I cash my tickets in, get my $20 ticket, and the cashier gives me $42 change.  I hand him a $10 back, explaining that he gave me too much change and that being dishonest would probably kill my lucky streak. (In hindsight, the rational side of me knows that you should walk away when you are on a ‘lucky streak’, because the odds are now astronomically against you’re continued winning, but the gambling side of me…)

   Winner!  I matched one number out of a possible 25, so in my mind this prize is one of two things:  A ticket($20) or a jackpot. Of course it was only a ticket, but that’s okay.  I’m still up $55. I’ll cash the $20 in and get 2 more of the $10 tickets, but not at this store.

 New store=New odds!

I won’t go into details, but let’s just say things didn’t go quite as well at the new store.  I lost some, won less, lost some more, then lost ‘it all’.  See?  I never actually recognized the point when I won ‘it all’, but I damn sure knew the exact moment when I lost ‘it all’.  That $50 meant nothing to me, until it was gone.

(Side note: The only positive I can take from this is that I did get many, many chances at some huge jackpots for only $5 dollars; and that was house money anyway. The overall financial results were exactly the same as if I had never bought that first ticket.)

So, I tried out for this American Idol thing at Disney World and….

Thanks to my Bro-In-Law Fred, for recording and posting this on youtube…I’m trying to think of the best way to repay him.

I love reading a good book.  Stephen King is my favorite author.  I love the way his stories draw me in and transport me away to whatever world he’s made up this time.  The only problem is, the place I do all my reading.  I think it’s very common for people to read in this room.  It’s very private.  There are no distractions, so you can concentrate totally on whatever it is you’re reading at the time.  The downside is, it’s not very healthy to spend an hour or more, in this position.  So, I have been trying hard to find another place to read.  Finally, the other night, I was able to lay in bed, with the lamp on, and get totally immersed into a novel.  I actually finished the book!  Unfortunately, now I’m going to have to throw out the sheets.