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.

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

Follow my playlist on Rdio

Check out the new trailer below.  Includes all of the original cast, and I think I like the twist at the end of the trailer. It looks “eh” but for us scores of die-hard fans I think it’ll be a reunion worth attending.

American Reunion – Trailer #1 [VO|HD] by cinemakervideo

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

*this applies to S.Carolina fans only.

Here’s a link to a full roster of SEC teams

Here are the Gamecocks wallpaper links

Standard

Wide

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.”

30 Minutes or Less
Releases August 2011

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

Horrible Bosses (2011)
Rated R
Running time: 1 hour 42 minutes

I, personally, have been waiting some time for a film like this. Since the advent of the modern “gross out comedy” (Dumb and Dumber, American Pie) it seems today’s comedies have missed the point (The Hangover 2). It’s not all about the most insane thing you can show on screen, it’s about interactions and what you don’t see that’s the most funny. Horrible Bosses mostly nails it in one of the funniest comedies to hit the screen in years by telling, not showing. Today’s comedies are hits because they don’t make any other kind of R-Rated comedy.

Perfect casting of the protagonist trio in a buddy flick wrapped in something of a commentary on today’s office society, the film is mainly about interesting characters and intriguing interactions. The storyline isn’t bad, though it gets a little outlandish as it moves on. The key here is making you truly hate the bosses in a way that somehow you agree with these everday guys that are thinking about how to actually kill them. In most movies (see the film’s nod to Strangers on a Train) this turns into a “black comedy” where you laugh but strangely feel uncomfortable that you’re laughing at such macbre happenings. In Horrible Bosses they balance everything perfectly and it stays squarely in the realm of comedy.

The laughs aren’t the huge gutbusters, they are more non-stop chuckling (though a few major LOLs as the kids say) at the quirky characters, funny dialogue, and insane situations. This movie really wraps it all in – there’s Jennifer Aniston, Jamie Fox, and Colin Farrel like you’ve never seen them, and the three guys (Charlie Day of It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia nearly steals the show) perfectly balance each other as the straight man, the lunatic, and the toolbag.

Bottom line: It’s funnier than the trailer (a rarity) and for once the humor is funnier than the movie’s outtakes. While the banter is very R-Rated, this film doesn’t cross the line..and while the subject matter is black comedy-esque, it stays light-hearted and consistently fun the entire time. It’s not smart, but it stays far away from dumb. The storyline almost unravels, but never does…and what you have is one of the funniest movies in years that (for my money) I’d take over gross-out, insane-situation based comedies like The Hangover anyday. Here’s hoping for Horrible Bosses 2. I’ll be first in line.

3.5 out of 4 stars

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