The Gamecocks – Won Anyway
For the first time in ages keeping the faith was worth it as a Gamecock Fan.
For the first time at the end of a bowl game I haven’t heard anyone say “we’ll get them next year”. If anything we’re saying “we’ll get them even better next year”. (See my pre-season post “Is This Year Finally Next Year”?”)
It wasn’t easy or always pretty. We were highly anticipated because of our senior quarterback and heisman-candidate running back. We won without either. Or as they say, we “won anyway”.
The first 11 win season in Gamecocks history looked a little bit different than any of the others. Instead of finishing the season with a team that didn’t really seem to care, you can see the passion in the play. I have more excitement around our formerly backup QB than any I’ve seen with USC. He’s got skill but more importantly he can be trusted with the ball to do the right thing.
We didn’t quite get that SEC ring that we hoped for, but this wasn’t the year. We’re the dominant team in the SEC east and it doesn’t look like we’re going anywhere but up.
So without a twinge of disappointment we can all look forward to saying “we WILL get them next year”.
Watch this epic video of the 2011 bowl game and season wrap-up. A must view for all Gamecocks fans.
Last Days of Fall 2011 Playlist
Fall is winding down, the chill is in the air. A tingling feeling somewhere in between the excitement of the holidays and the anticipation of the cold thereafter. These are my top 12 recent releases that are my soundtrack.
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12) Tokyo Police Club – Sweetness (feat. Michael Angelakos of Passion Pit) (Cover)
11) Red Hot Chili Peppers – The Adventures of Rain Dance Maggie
10) Blink 182 – After Midnight
(tie) Lissie – Bad Romance (Cover)
Lissie – Nothing Else Matters (Cover)
7) Jane’s Addiction – Irresistible Force
6) Polar Bear Club – Screams in Caves
5) Keepaway – Hologram
4) AWOLNATION – Not Your Fault
3) Switchfoot – Where I Belong
2) Atlas Genius – Trojans
1) Florence + Machine – Shake It Out
Food Gems: Subway Chicken Crisp Sandwich
While being a Subway sandwich automatically disqualifies something from being a true hidden gem (neither hidden nor gem), I decided to do some quick reviews of these off-the-wall food items that many of us stare at the sign and wonder if it’s any good. Then we order the usual.
Not me. I never order the usual. I don’t care if a lunch sandwich place tried to somehow make an awkward breakfast menu I’d still eat it. Oh wait. Subway.
To get to the point, the Subway Chicken Crisp Sandwich fills two major needs that Subway normally doesn’t. Generally you can order only cold (or microwaved) processed meats, and if you get the six inch it’s just never filling. You sit there longing for a Chickfila. With the Chicken Crisp Sandwich you may can finally not look forward to a healthy lunch with immediate severe depression.
So while not great, it’s twice as filling as that horrendous veggie sub you ordered last week (where you promptly went home and ate two boxes of Mac and Cheese in ravenous hunger). As a bonus, frankly, it’s edible and reminiscent of a relative in the chicken family more than you’d think . Sure you’ll still get the trademark Subway service, the two napkins nazi treatment, and gourmet microwave heating, but you’ll drop the fat usually associated with a breaded chicken sandwich. Throw on a few veggies, and for the price, you could do worse. Like be fat.
TWO AND A HALF OUT OF FOUR STARS
Nutrition Information
Nice 2011 SEC / Gamecocks Schedule Wallpapers
Since most of us stare at a computer all day, might as well stare at your favorite SEC team’s schedule and memorize all the teams that you will be beating*
*this applies to S.Carolina fans only.
Here’s a link to a full roster of SEC teams
Here are the Gamecocks wallpaper links
USC Gamecocks: Is This Year Finally ‘Next Year’?
It was a familiar story. Watching a bowl game that wasn’t the one we should be in slip away quickly, capping a season that we consider great, but others consider good. And the familiar phrase “we’ll get ‘em next year.”
Is 2012 finally the “next year” Gamecocks fans always talk about? The one with an SEC Championship, a BCS bowl, or even something better? According to the LA Times (Get Cocky, South Carolina) and The Bleacher Report (S. Carolina defeats Oregon for National Championship) it just may be. Even the more sane predictions look good.
So what’s an experienced Gamecocks Fan to make of all of this? For me, I’m going to look at things differently for once.
A Year Without Lowered Expectations.
As a Gamecocks fan it’s always best to lower your expectations. Don’t get too excited. Assume we’ll start strong and then collapse. Or if we don’t assume we’ll make it to the big game and then implode. But what if, for once, we just believed? If we were to just assume we’ll win (like the fans of perennial college football powerhouses do) and we don’t win, so what? I’m pretty certain my thinking we’ve got a winner won’t have any effect on if we win, so why not enjoy the season.
We’ve played the underdog role before. It hasn’t really helped. Maybe this year we’re the team to beat.
A unique opportunity that comes along very rarely (and even more rarely for Gamecocks fans) of having the right players and the right schedule to win the toughest conference in college football. In the past I’ve looked the schedule up and down figuring out how we can recover from a Florida loss or a Bama loss. But not this year. This year I’m going to expect the win, not be surprised.
And this year, unlike so many others, our season isn’t defined by beating Clemson. Sure it would be awesome, but the ultimate prize should now be the ultimate prize. The SEC Championship ring. Clemson has little to do with that. Beating them but not winning it all will hopefully be a disappointment, not a consolation prize.
So I’m going to be the confident Gamecocks fan this year. What has a fan got to lose? Disappointment? Been there already. We’ve got one of the best teams in the land. If we meet our potential and play with the one thing we have had that other teams haven’t as much – heart – I hope that when it’s all said and done we’ll be able to say:
“We got ‘em THIS year.”
Trailer of the Week: 30 Minutes or Less
This one looks like it could be comedy gold (though just could as easily be incredibly vulgar/stupid). But after seeing the strange first trailer where it looked like an eerie demented horror/comedy, the second shows it’s a buddy bank heist romp and delivers some strong laughs with the guy from the Facebook movie and the other from Parks and Recreation.
30 Minutes or Less
Releases August 2011
Summer Scorcher Playlist: Craidio Top 12 New Songs
Summer 2011 isn’t disappointing in the heat department. Here’s my pick of the top 12 tunes to make it through to the end.
More – Check out my Rdio Profile
Top 12
12) Limp Bizkit – Shotgun (It’s for running, ok?)
11) Unwritten Law – Sing
10) 311 – Sunset in July
9) Cults – Abducted
8 ) 311 – Time Bomb
7) Beastie Boys – Don’t Play No Games that I Can’t Win (feat. Santigold)
6) The Lonely Forest – Coyote
5) Yeasayer – Swallowing the Decibels
4) The Sounds – Something to Die For
3) Kings of Leon – Back Down South
2) Grouplove – Colours
1) The Naked and Famous – Punching in a Dream
Transformers 3: Not More Than Meets the Eye, But Good
Transformers: Dark of the Moon (Transformers 3)
2011
PG-13
Runtime: 2 hours and 37 minutes
Available in 3D and IMAX (this review is for the non-3D non-IMAX version)
The critics hated it, and if you hate predictable movies of 80′s cartoons destroying cities with adolescent humor, you will too. Fortunately I don’t, and this film has one of the largest viewer/critic score gaps in the past few years…so it might be what you’re looking for.
If you liked Transformers 1 and hated the dreadful 2nd one (I did) then there’s also still hope. While not quite up to the first, this movie brings the action, humor, and some vague semblance of a storyline that is a perfect summer blockbuster. The one thing that bothers me is the trend of movies to get so outlandish (see Fast Five) that they push the limits of even the most lax action movie goer. This one is guilty as charged and it has reached the limits of what I’ll accept even in sci-fi/action.
The plot is pretty convoluted..the basics are that the moon landing in the 60′s was a ploy by the government to investigate something that landed on the moon, and they covered it up. Even the Autobots didn’t know about it and it had to do with their planet.
What ensues is the typical insane action and mind bending logical twists, but Transformers does a great job keeping the pacing with some humor mixed in as they build to a 60 minute action finale that doesn’t let up until Chicago is obliterated. I was even surprised that the Megan Fox replacement, a Victoria’s Secret model with no acting experience, didn’t do half bad. Shia Lebeouf is again the clear star, but this one has some surprise supporting actors (some good and some not) that you’ll recognize that give some weak writing a bit of punch.
Bottom Line: It won’t win any awards, it’s far too long, and far too loud. Which means I highly recommend it if you think you have some interest in a movie version of a cartoon you watched 25 years ago in your onesie and loved.
3 out of 4 stars
Movie Review: Should You See Atlas Shrugged?
Updated: The main reason you should see this movie, the NY Times refused to review it and MSNBC and others refused to run advertising on it. Which means there must be something in there worth seeing.
While generally a big fan of Ayn Rand, I have to admit I still haven’t quite made it through the gargantuan of a book that is Atlas Shrugged. I was pretty stoked to see the movie, though, when I heard that Atlas Shrugged Part I was being made. There couldn’t be a better time in history for the message.
As a very low budget film and reading the ultra negative mainstream entertainment media reviews, I lost interest pretty quickly. At the end of the day, however, I think it’s important to support efforts like this and hopefully see more successful and higher budget films get made, plus audience reviews were much more positive. So I finally decided to see it.
Is the film worth seeing? I’d say yes. It has all kinds of problems from a movie-making standpoint. Sometimes poor acting, uneven pacing, confusing scenery and wardrobe (it seems to jump from 1950s to 2012 styling back and forth) and some strange camera angles. But through all this the message shines pretty clearly. Who is John Galt? Despite all the issues, by the end you’ll want to know the answer to that question and understand why it is asked.
While no actor shines in their role (it was reported hollywood agents wouldn’t let their talent anywhere near the controversial film) the Dagney Taggart role stands out pretty well. Though feminists will shriek in terror at the thought of a woman who doesn’t derive her power via government social policy, Taggart will blow you back in her seat the way she slaps around all the males in the movie and drives the story. Seeing her tell multiple bureaucrats to “shutup” and letting other know she “will destroy” them was a breath of fresh air. Much more of a role model as a strong individual for young girls then any bitter bra burner. The sense of self-worth derived from achievement, individualism and optimism is a shot across the bow to today’s egalitarian push.
Mostly the film serves as a warning. Meddling in freedom, attacking the producers, corrupt, centralized government…what if the heroes and creators of our society decided to pack up and leave? Atlas Shrugged Part I (of a 3 part series) begins to answer that question and shows a society just past where we are this very day in history.
I encourage anyone to support this film. It isn’t an artistic masterpiece. But it does a fine job (and in a short running time) displaying the danger of the rhetoric that’s popular now. The populist creed of “evil” rich, redistribution of wealth, and demagoguery for a new generation to beat back once again. After a sluggish start it stays interesting and move pretty quickly. If the ability to generate conversation about the topics in a movie well after it is over are a sign of a good one, then this was a good one.
There are no specific plans for Part II unless this one makes any money. It looks like a labor of love. As flawed as it is, my hope is that this will be the beginning of a more perfect Part II that will begin to show what happens when Atlas finally shrugs.
Visit the Atlas Shrugged Part I official site to see local theater listings
2.5 out of 4 stars
What if we applied the US tax system to college GPAs?
The initial reaction is to say that it’s an oversimplification to show liberal college students who are pro-soaking high income earners with taxes. And that’s exactly their reaction. But when asked why is it different..the answer always seemed to be “it just is.” Maybe a juvenile exercise, but the contrasting how people feel about giving up things they feel they’ve worked hard for is a lot different because they know they worked hard for them. Maybe income’s the same way… but the talking points always are that income by the rich is somehow stolen. But what if it’s your income? And how do poor performing college students feel about 4.0 folks? Maybe the same way?
Worth a watch.
