Rusty’s Blog

This is two minutes of footage of birds I took in Piedmont Park this morning. Included: ducks, robins and mockingbirds.

I’ve also uploaded a higher-quality MP4 that’s a little less grainy than the blip player if you’re interested. Download here (about 43 MB).

We got here to watch the DNC about ten minutes ago when Bill Richardson was finishing up. Stevie Wonder is singing now. Obama is expected to speak around 10, with Al Gore going on sometime between now and then. I’m blogging from my iPhone, so expect many typos and non-sensical word choices.

As you may or may not be able to see, Amber is sporting her I (heart) Obama t-shirt. Grayson and a friend are here, and Jen might be coming later. The crowd is already dense. Manuels accounted for this with an abridged election night menu.

Not a lot going on yet, and my hot wings are here, so I’ll check back in later.

8:59 p.m. - Al Gore came on while I was eating. Mostly boilerplate, but some good applause lines. The first few minutes went over very well with home crowd here, though if tapered off a little toward the end. My favorite line that I remembered was something like “I’m all about recycling, but that’s ridiculous.” I’m fucking it up, it was a lot funnier when he said it. Change that, I thought his line about the best marketers often having the worst products was the best.

Now Michael McDonald is on. I’ve never understood why people are impressed with him.

Almost got in the first fight of the night already. Some jackass was standing in the isle bumping into Amber’s shoulder and I told him to watch it. He said alright, sorry, the muttered “fucking asshole” under his breath as he walked off.

Next up is Susan Eisenhower…

9:15 p.m. - Jen comments on Twitter that SE is straight out of 1956. I despise Wolf Blitzer, which isn’t news, but bears repeating. I wish they would switch the tv to cspan.

9:20 - Just realized I didn’t charge my phone battery today and it’s less than half full. Hopefully it’ll hold up.

CNN commentator just said this was the largest crowd he’d ever seen at a political rally. Thwn added “and I’m a football fan!” thanks CNN guy.

9:25 p.m. - Biden on now. He is squinty. Requisite blue collar folks references. Families, etc. He says they are going to let them speak tonight before Obama comes out. Interested to see how that will work.

9:31 p.m. - LOL at John McCain’s insistence that this is Obama’s night. Every hour on the hour.

LOL also at every speaker’s “we respect McCains service and all but his policies are whack, yo.”

9:35 p.m. - Elvis Obama has arrived in Invesco Field.

9:47 p.m. - I thought the White House-themed set was going to be really obnoxious, but I barely have noticed it. I guess the liberal media is doing a good job hiding their dumb idea.

We went ahead and asked for our tab to try to beat the rush after Obamas speech. Amber notes that it must be really hard to wait tables with a crowd like this. Yep. Tip well if you’re reading this.

9:54 p.m. - Wtf Dick Durbin is next?

9:57 p.m. - so don’t care about this fucking guy. Angels of unity? Really? I’d give him a FAIL stamp, but I want to withold my cliches for someone more worthy.

10:01 p.m. - movie with weepy music now. Guess they want people to chill to provide contrast to the impending crowd eruption.

10:03 p.m. - Obligatory heartland and no whiners references. This movie is pretty good on the whole though. Good laugh lines. Really like the segment with Barack and Michelle meeting each other.

10:13 p.m. - No, thank you, guy says to the tv.

10:15 p.m. - I think Michelle Obama would be the hottest first lady ever.

10:19 p.m. - “America is better than the past 8 years.”

Better than sitting on it’s hands while a city drowns. Wow, graphic and awesome.

10:24 p.m. - “I don’t think Senator McCain doesn’t care about what’s going on in the lives of Americans. I think he doesn’t know.”

LOL

10:30 p.m. - Thought he was going to say “rewards drunk driving.”

10:33 p.m. - In 10 years we’ll end dependence on foreign oil.

Thought when he said tap natural gas reserves that he was going to say tap that ass.

10:36 p.m. - This sounds expensive.

10:41 p.m. - Showed a McCain lookalike on tv.

10:45 p.m. - I’ve been guffawing every time he sticks if to McCain. The soaring language in the other parts is not doing as much for me.

10:48 p.m. - ok, this last part is good.

10:52 p.m. - I should say that the crowd is eating this up.

10:57 p.m. - Speech is over, phone battery is almost dead. Heading out, catch y’all later.

As of this morning, there were still plenty of tickets available for Georgia Tech’s game tonight against the Jacksonville State Gamecocks at Bobby Dodd stadium, which isn’t on TV. I’ll save you Georgia fans the trouble and say “big shock there.” Still, I’m tempted to go just to get a look at the new Paul Johnson offense, which he explains in this video:



h/t Sports Page Atlanta

The other intriguing storyline is that of Jacksonville State QB Ryan Perriloux, the SEC championship game MVP who was dismissed by LSU during the offseason. Does he add enough on offense to make it a game against Tech?

He’s an incredible talent, but probably not. While Tech has a new defensive coordinator taking over for the widely-respected Jon Tenuta and lacks experience at linebacker and in the secondary, its front four is probably the best in the ACC. They’ll get to know Perriloux very well in the Gamecock backfield.

My expectation is there will be a lot of Tech mistakes on offense and that Perriloux will torch the young secondary a few times and/or blow up broken plays on the run to keep it a little closer than it should be. I’m putting the over/under on both Tech fumbles and blown assignments that lead to long touchdowns for the Gamecocks at 3. I also expect Tech to string a drive or two together that will give Tech fans a little false hope about the Yellow Jackets’ prospects for the season.

There’s not a line on this game, so I’ll call Tech a two-touchdown favorite and predict an ugly Tech win at 38-24. Speaking of lines, you’ve submitted your NCAA Picks, right?

Update 11:58 p.m. - Wow, that wasn’t off base or anything. It’s a good thing no one listens to me, or this might have been embarrassing.

“You need any help?”

”No thanks,” I said. “I know my car is close to here somewhere.”

The two patrolmen were draped over a parked golf cart. After I spotted my truck and circled back toward it, I thought I heard them say something about people not ever wanting their help. Pride being dumb, or something equivalent.

I tossed my bags to the passenger seat and got inside the cab. The air was stale, so I cranked the ignition. I’d realized earlier that my running shoes were shabby-looking for dinner at a place with a dress code, so I bought some new shoes and planned to change into them in the truck. I’d wanted to buy new shoes to wear to work anyway.

As I reached around my steering wheel and groped at my feet, I wondered how many other people showed up to Atlantic Station, realized they were underdressed for dinner, bought clothes, and changed in their cars. I was also curious about whether the patrolmen noticed people doing this, and wagered with each other about how many times they’d see people go through the ritual over the course of an evening.

A few moments later, I emerged from the parking garage wearing my new shoes. I stopped in the Moe’s bathroom to take a leak and tuck my shirt in. Then I walked over to Strip, a pseudo-upscale steak and sushi joint.

Read the rest of this entry »

These folks from Atlanta WAND have been out every week for years in front of Colony Square in Midtown Atlanta protesting the Iraq War. I really admire their tenacity.

Usually they just stand there quietly with posters and try to get people to honk, but they stepped up their game this morning. They had a microphone, a drum and a huge scroll containing names of deceased Iraq War veterans. They read off a name, then beat the drum once for each name. It gave me a little chill.

In addition to the picture above, I captured about 30 seconds of audio using Recorder on my iPhone, which you can listen to below:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

He will maintain his Mr. College Football blog through the end of the 2008 season.

A number of you have written very kind notes about the upcoming change in my working relationship with the AJC. That change will still take place in late September. But I want you to know that we’ve come to an agreement to continue the Mr. College Football blog through the 2008 season. That’s a tribute to you. Together we have built this blog into something that is really fun and (hopefully) very readable. I’m excited about this new development and appreciative for the opportunity to continue Mr. CFB for one more season. Thanks again for all your support.

This is good news for the AJC, because it means there’s something I will read in its sports section this fall.

Jeff Schultz is a fine writer, but his columns are mostly about the Braves and Falcons. I haven’t been able to muster up a whole lot of enthusiasm for either the past few years. Though I did have fun going to a Braves game the other night. Maybe if he sticks around another year or two I’ll start reading his columns again.

Furman Bisher was rumored to be included in the most recent round of buyouts, though I’m not sure that actually happened. Doesn’t really matter to me anyway because I don’t read his column very often and it’s not like he’ll be around that much longer whether he took the buyout or not.

That leaves Mark Bradley and Terence Moore. They are two of my least favorite columnists not just in the sports section, but in the entire paper. I hold them both in the same esteem as Jim Wooten, which is not very good company.

I came very close on my last blog to doing a “My Morning Bradley” series sort of like Griftdrift’s My Morning Wooten series where I fisked his columns relentlessly. I don’t have a nicer way to say this: his columns are idiotic link-baiting drivel.

Terence Moore has a magical way of making a conflict that isn’t racially-motivated about race. He reminds me of all the people who say Toby Keith was singing about lynching black people in Beer for My Horses. He hears what he wants to hear, no matter how far-fetched a scenario it may be.

Shorter version: the remaining line-up of AJC sports columnists will be pretty sad, save for Jeff Schultz, once Barnhart leaves.

At about 10 p.m. last night, my cell phone rang. It was Thomas.

“Hello there. What are you doing. Like, uh, RIGHT NOW?”

Someone had jumped or fallen onto the track at the Oakland City MARTA station. All northbound trains were halted, and he and his wife Nikki were stuck and needed us to come pick them up. The grainy cell phone photo above is from the scene at the station. It seemed like a dozen emergency vehicles were there for this one person.

For our friends, this was an exhausting and nerve-wracking ordeal. They hadn’t seen, heard or felt the person get hit. They just knew the train had stopped, the power had been shut off and they were stuck there in the dark. Eventually they were told what happened and that they’d be shuttled to another MARTA station. It was obvious that would take several hours, so they called us.

In an odd bit of synchronicity, a couple of weeks ago I’d read an article about a British train operator who saw someone jump on the tracks in front of him. He’d had time to think and to look the person in the eyes before running him over, but was powerless to stop it from happening.

After we dropped Thomas and Nikki off at the North Avenue station, they would be tired, but could get on with their lives. I was left wondering how MARTA train operators get on with theirs if they have to stare into someone’s eyes before running them over, helpless to stop it, as the British operator had been. Whether there’s counseling available to them; whether they’re required or given the option to take some time off.

I’ve emailed MARTA’s press department and asked what the policy is for this circumstance. They responded and said they’d try to find that information, but I haven’t heard back yet. I’ll update this post if/when I do.

Fortunately, the person in this incident lived and is in stable condition.

Many of my friends described the passing of Braves announcer Skip Carey as though part of their childhood died. Mine too.

Other people have favorite game calls they can share. I don’t have any specific memories, despite listening to him call hundreds of games.

He was just always there. And now he’s not. And that’s sad.

Last year on Aug. 1, I posted my podcast interview with Screaming Sports CEO and co-founder Alec Peters. The show notes I wrote were clumsy (particularly the lede asking about VC funding) and didn’t entirely convey the point I wanted to get across. Lance Weatherby wrote a post yesterday which I think better reflects what I was trying to say about Atlanta start-ups at the time:

So there is a group [of] companies that are out there playing in the consumer space.

But to many [this] does not seem to be the case.  Perhaps because not many of them make it big.

It’s not that they don’t exist or haven’t attained a degree of success, it’s that there’s not a Twitter or a Facebook or something else that’s gotten really huge you can point to and say “there’s this city’s post-bubble success story.” Kaneva is the closest company to that, and I don’t think it has the mainstream recognition that would meet that admittedly nebulous criteria.

Lance said he plans to write a follow-up on why he thinks nothing has taken off at that level, which I’m looking forward to reading.

Also, if this sort of thing interests you, you should listen to the second part of my podcast interview with Bobby Blackwolf of All Games Radio where we discuss Atlanta’s video game development scene.