There's no promotion like self-promotion.

I may have finished up my guest-hosting week over at EDSBS, but I'm still not done befouling other people's Web sites with my presence.

Here, at Dr. Saturday, is the latest installment in my ongoing Better Know an Embattled Coach series. This week's victim: Indiana coach Bill Lynch, who took over in mid-offseason after the previous coach died of a brain tumor, led the Hoosiers to their first bowl in 13 years, but after a 3-9 season is fighting for his job anyway. (Man, this economy is crushing everybody.)

Also, despite being a Florida blog and therefore under no obligation whatsoever to give a flying fuck what I think, Gators First gave me the opportunity to hold forth with my at-best-modestly-educated opinion about how the 2009 season is going to shake out for the SEC. Thrill to the first and very last time I will say anything nice about Tennessee or South Carolina this year.

Also, that post I did for EDSBS about Lou Holtz's (short-lived) Congressional ambitions? Got linked by The New Republic. (Which, in retrospect, probably would not have happened had I gone with my original concept for that post, "What Kind Of Sex Scandal Will Lou Holtz Get Caught In Once He Becomes A Congressman?" I think I'd decided to go with "Name found in little black book of Florida madam whose prostitutes are exclusively Asian women catering to men with lactation fetishes"; my sincere thanks to whoever talked me down off that ledge.)

I'm takin' the wheel!(Oh, yeah, this is gonna end well.)

Just in case you missed me trumpeting the news on Twitter or Facebook, the great Orson Swindle is enjoying a highly jealousy-inducing vacation down on the Gulf Coast this week, and in a colossal error of judgment has put me in charge of Every Day Should Be Saturday while he's gone. So I'll be Alexander Haiging it up over there in his absence, bringing you all the college-football news that's fit to belittle and, where warranted, throwing in some of the miscellaneous stupidity you've come to expect from Hey Jenny Slater. As white-hot as the temptation is to do such a thing, I won't be overhauling EDSBS to a red-and-black color scheme with a header graphic of Vince Dooley being carried aloft by the boys back on New Year's Day 1981 -- I gotta at least try to be a courteous guest, after all -- but I think I can probably get away with a dick joke or a supermodel-in-underwear picture every now and then.

On that note, if you have a particular dick joke or undie shot you think merits inclusion -- or, perhaps more usefully, an actual CFB tip or link -- fire it off to the e-mail address at the top of the right-hand column on this blog. Can't promise I'll use it, but if I do, I'll at least do you the courtesy of valiantly guarding your anonymity by failing to give you credit. Wish me luck, folks.

A memo from the desk of Arnold T. Pants, Esq.:Things to do in Denver when you're unemployed.

Doing nothing, and it's everything I thought it could be.

Recently downsized but don't feel like actually looking for another job yet? Me neither, working sucks. Here's some shit to distract you instead:

· First of all, I'm gonna have to go ahead and pimp some of my own work, should any paying blogs, Web sites, or sports journals be looking for writers: Here's my less-than-rosy take on George O'Leary's job security for Dr. Saturday (prithee excuse the character formatting, we're working on it), and here's MY EXCLUSIVE ALL-ACCESS INSIDE LOOK at Lane Kiffin and the Tennessee football program for EDSBS! Why did Kiffykins give such broad access to his deepest, most top-secret planning to a Georgia interloper like myself? He probably fucked up and forgot to check that I was a Bulldog fan, but like everything else, he'll say it was all part of his master plan.

· It has come to my attention that some people found this past week's Monday Morning Cage Match unfairly biased in favor of Lexus and against Texas. One or two people hinted that had a category along the lines of "End zones" been included, the Lone Star State would've cleaned up. OK, I'm an open-minded guy, let's compare rear ends:


Lexus SC430 . . .


. . . and Texas Longhorns.

OK, yeah, you know what, y'all were right and I was wrong. Game over, Texas wins. My decision is final.

· And now that I've pimped my own work, it's time to pimp some other people's: Platinum-level Friend of Holly (and therefore friend of Hey Jenny Slater) Livia drops Pat Buchanan with a knee to the balls and keeps on kicking, while over at Practically Harmless, Sister of Hey Jenny Slater does the same to the Twilight book series here and here.

What else do we know about Bella? We know that she's clumsy. Sooo clumsy. Clummy-clum-clumsy. You can hear "Yakety Sax" faintly in the background throughout the book. She falls down in the woods. She trips over her own feet at the beach. She trips over her own feet in class. She drops her books. She thwacks her classmates in the head with a volleyball. She thwacks herself in the head with a badminton racquet. She gets paper cuts. At one point, Meyer specifically describes her eating a bowl of cereal, "chewing each bite with care," as if a Lucky Charms-Mama Cass moment is an ever-looming threat. And in case you weren't able to pick up on it yourself, Bella is kind enough to tell you herself.

I'm absolutely ordinary - well, except for bad things like all the near-death experiences and being so clumsy that I'm almost disabled.

Oh, are you clumsy? I totes hadn't noticed.

· Back to Pat Buchanan for a moment, sort of: As blatant a bigot as Pat Buchanan is, he is completely, utterly sane compared to Glenn Beck, who did everything except audibly shit his pants when a caller somehow managed to get past what I'm sure was NORAD-tight call screening to disagree with him on health care:



Now, here's my question: You're a radio host. You're crazier than a Greyhound bus full of methed-up ferrets, but be that as it may, you've somehow developed a sincerely devoted following despite yourself. Who says "GET OFF MY PHONE"?!?!? You're the host, Miss DuBois, fuckin' drop the call if it's that upsetting to you! Why throw a literal howling hissy fit and make yourself look like even more of a twit than you already have? I refuse to believe that anyone, even his most ardent fans, are actually laboring under the delusion that Glenn Beck is sane at this point; I think his fans are actually hoping he's crazy enough to jump the White House fence with an Uzi in hand or something like that. Actually, in Beck's case it'd probably be more along the lines of a Super Soaker filled with ReaLemon, because that's just the kind of thing he'd come up with, but whatever.

· In other news of wingnuttery, some folks are apparently so determined to take Obama down that they're making up stories about Obama getting booed during the first pitch at the All-Star game last week. Hey, if that's all it takes to make something true, then I would like to announce here and now on this blog that Erin Andrews didn't spurn my advances in Tempe the weekend of last season's UGA-ASU game, she in fact came back to the house our group had rented and we polished off a '98 Dom in the hot tub. Salud, motherfuckers!


Oh, yeah, I got her number. It's OK, I know you want to touch me.

· Remember the Friday Random Ten+5 a couple months back in which the Mi-24/25/35 series attack helicopter received an induction into the Badass Hall of Fame? The "Hind" originally earned its badass reputation by laying waste to the Afghan resistance in the early 1980s, to the point that only a rapid influx of American-sourced surface-to-air missiles (as highly entertainingly dramatized in "Charlie Wilson's War") succeeded in turning the tide. Well, now that the Afghan military's forces are in the process of being rebuilt by coalition forces so that they can stand on their own two feet and defend themselves from the Taliban, the Afghan National Army Air Corps is being supplied with -- what else? -- Mi-35s. The irony here is so delicious and satisfying that I'm now substituting it for one meal each day.


The hunted become the hunters, or something like that.

· I would like to go on record as saying that Al Franken will one day go down in history as one of the better U.S. senators we've ever had. Unlike "Stuart Saves His Family," this statement is not intended as a joke.

· Finally, courtesy of Twitter pal and equally rabid Bulldog partisan Ally, here's the first solid, specific recommendation anyone's given me so far as to what I should be doing with myself while I'm unemployed. Soon as my folks leave their house for any length of time, I'm building something along the lines of this:


Rooftop Waterslide

· Actually, maybe this is what I need to be doing with myself:



Of course, pimping, as Big Daddy Kane warned us, isn't easy, and I should probably save this kind of work for when I really buckle down and get serious about holding down a regular job.

A memo from the desk of Arnold T. Pants, Esq.:Alabama guzzles beer while Lindsay avoids "The Hangover."

"All aboard," says Orrin Hatch. (This eventually makes sense, I promise.)

· First things first, and the first thing today is self-aggrandizement. With the illustrious Dr. Saturday traveling earlier this week, I've been chipping in a little bit more than usual over there, including an assessment of the will-he-or-won't-he questions about Steve Spurrier retiring and a slight stretch of a metaphor regarding Orrin Hatch's BCS hearings (but it does have a point, I promise).

Keep your eyes peeled over there too, Bulldog Nation, because my next installment in the Better Know an Embattled Coach series concerns a coach we've all loved to hate over the years. I'll also be popping up tomorrow over at Team Speed Kills to critique their assessment of the Dawgs (this has been Georgia week over at TSK, where they're breaking down an SEC team each week leading up to the start of the season) and offering some thoughts of my own.



· According to this map, beer consumption in Alabama is about average compared to the rest of the nation. And it may increase now that Free the Hops has succeeded in ridding our fair state of its oppressive alcohol-content-limit laws. What I don't understand is how little ol' Alabama is outdrinking Georgia by so much. And what the hell's going on up in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut? At least Utah has a religious excuse -- what's y'all's?

· Just when I thought I was done having to explain, rationalize, or excuse my divided UGA-UAB loyalties, along comes news that the Dawgs and Blazers will be playing a home-and-home in basketball this year and next. But lest anyone allow themselves to assume I'm not All Dawg, I'll be rooting for Georgia in both matchups -- we've got a new coach who needs to get some early wins under his belt, while an increasing number of UAB fans seem like they'd only be too happy to unload their guy.



· Lindsay Lohan turned down the role in "The Hangover" that eventually went to Heather Graham. Yeah, who'd want to play a prominent role in a hilarious blockbuster movie that's already grossed nearly $300 million at the box office? "A washed-up actress who's so broke she's having to charge $70,000 to make an appearance at her own birthday party" would be my guess. But then maybe Lindsay found out that Mike Tyson had a cameo in "The Hangover" and decided she didn't like the Which Former Superstar Has More Completely Embraced Teh Crazy? comparisons that would invite.

· And finally, a photo from one of the many massively strongly somewhat attended "Tea Parties" that took place on July 4, with brief commentary courtesy of Google Reader.

The Friday Random Ten+5 dreams big.

Well, yesterday I turned 31, and for some reason I actually found myself taking stock of my life more than I did last year when I hit the big three-oh. Some of the things I'd wanted to do -- graduate from college, travel outside the country, date a stripper, go to the Michigan-Ohio State game -- I've managed to cross off my list, but there are still a few things hanging out there that I haven't done yet. So this week's +5 is Five Things I Want To Accomplish In The Next Thirty-One Years Of My Life. Hopefully 31 years will be enough time to knock them all out, but you never know:



Get mentioned in a Wu-Tang Clan song
There are still eight members left, so I figure I should be able to make friends with at least one of them. Preferably GZA or Ghostface.



Open a Hooters in a foreign country
This is one where I've kind of got to get on the stick -- Hooters has already opened up establishments in 24 foreign countries and a few overseas territories besides, so I'm running out of opportunities to truly break some new ground here. But as near as I can tell, Rio de Janeiro, Bratislava, Heidelberg, and Moscow are all ripe for new locations. Any one of those cities would have a large customer base, and an extensive pool of "talent" with respect to potential employees, to draw from.



Drive a car through a fruit stand or plate-glass window
This happens often enough in action movies that I'm kind of disappointed I haven't gotten to do it yet. I'd compensate the fruit vendor and/or glass company for their loss of assets, of course.



Meet Hugh Hefner
I bet a guy like that has all sorts of sage advice to offer someone like me, including the answers to major life questions such as "How can I remain an incredible badass even at the age of 83?" and "How do you maintain three ridiculously hot girlfriends at once and keep them all from despising each other?" I mean, I should be so lucky as to ever be faced with either of those issues, but still.



Eject from a fighter plane
I've already crashed a car and made the airbags go off; this, I guess, would kind of be the next step up. They both involve controlled explosions and a vehicle that's probably going to be unusable afterward.

And now the Ten, courtesy of the iPhone 'cause my iPod's in my car and I don't feel like going down and getting it:

1. The English Beat, "Mirror in the Bathroom"
2. Sloppy Seconds, "I Don't Wanna Be a Homosexual"
3. Donna Summer, "I Feel Love"
4. The Police, "Every Breath You Take"
5. R.E.M., "At My Most Beautiful"
6. U2, "11 O'Clock Tick Tock"
7. Dead Kennedys, "Short Songs"
8. Talking Heads, "(Nothing But) Flowers"
9. Joy Division, "Love Will Tear Us Apart"
10. Pet Shop Boys, "My Head Is Spinning" (Electro set remix)

Your turn -- Random Tens and goals for the next however many years of your life go in the comments.

One of these things is not like the other.

All of the following people were born on June 4. Which one doesn't belong?


Miss January 1991 Stacy Arthur (41).


Miss February 1992 Tanya Beyer (38).


Actress and serial Third-World child adopter Angelina Jolie (34).


Porn starlet Jenaveve Jolie (25).


Actress Jillian Murray (25).


Sports Illustrated swimsuit model Tori Praver (23).


Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue cover model Bar Refaeli (24).


Miss December 2002 Lani Todd (28).


And me (31).

Take your time.

(Give up? It's Bar Refaeli, who was born in Israel. All the others were born in the United States. Duh.)

A holiday recap of sorts.

Sorry for the radio silence yesterday, but just so everyone's aware, I did celebrate April Fool's in my own douchey way yesterday. Successful pranks included:

· A "Bruce Pearl to Georgia?!?!" post on Twitter, which snaked one or two people;

· The old "I'm getting married" gag on Facebook, which reeled in a whole lot more people than I thought it was going to (hint: If you really want to pull this off, put up a status update and change your relationship status in your profile -- go big or go home); and

· An "I'm flying up to Washington this weekend to interview for a job in the Obama administration," which snagged my dad for 3-5 seconds. (Which is actually pretty good; Dad's lived with me long enough to expect B.S. like this from me.)

Anyway, I don't mean to sound like I'm bragging, but April Fool's Day is kind of like a religious holiday to me. I'm an artist; this is my medium.

But even I have to bow down to whoever pulled off the prank below. Remember the Robert DeNiro "homeland security" sketch on SNL a few years back? Someone actually managed to make that a reality, albeit on a slightly smaller scale, but it still had me giggling like a 7-year-old. (Then again, mentally, I am a 7-year-old.) Either way, enjoy (and thanks to reader Ben for the tip):

A belated anniversary celebration, and an even more belated thank-you.

So I was coming home from a weekend trip up to Huntsville -- which was lovely, by the way -- this afternoon, when I realized something: This blog turned four years old on March 7 and it totally went right by me. Didn't mark the occasion with so much as a commemorative post or even a commemorative toaster thrown from the balcony. So here I am, 15 days later, finally marking the occasion. Some parent I'm gonna turn out to be.

But instead of doing my usual self-aggrandizement job or reveling in the aroma of my own metaphorical farts for a while, I'm going to take some time out to extend some thanks -- to you, the readers. Yes, I write this blog, but you, the people who read it regularly and hang on my every word and help build up those nice checks that Google sends me every few months -- you guys are the real heroes. So thank you for taking time out of your day to read this spew, and there are a few groups of you to whom I'd like to give special thanks:

· The folks who wished me well and checked in on me when I was recovering from the back surgery I had at the beginning of this month. I hope nobody worried too much, because it wasn't that serious -- certainly not life or death -- but it was still nice to know that y'all are thinking of me. Just so everyone knows, the cyst on my back was removed, the scar has been healing nicely, and now I can get on to whatever embarrassing health problem awaits me next.

· The people who were kind enough to donate at my behest to Magic Moments' "Magic Mile" fundraising campaign over the last few weeks. That campaign started out as something where we were going to send direct e-mails to friends, co-workers, and family to solicit donations, but I went ahead and threw a note about it up on the blog just on the off chance that a reader or two might be able to throw us a couple bucks -- and you know what happened? I ended up getting way more donations from the blog solicitation than I did from those direct e-mails. (If you're a friend or family member who got one of those e-mails but hasn't donated yet, you may feel free to interpret that as an AHEM aimed very pointedly in your direction.) Seriously, that touched my heart in a big way, guys, and I can't tell you how much your generosity is appreciated not only by me but by the entire organization, not to mention all the sick kids whose wishes we're going to be able to grant this year. Just so you know, if you're still interested in making a donation, you can do so at this link, and the campaign "officially" runs through this Friday. So thanks to everyone who's already donated, and a pre-emptive thanks to those who are about to.

· The blog aficionados who followed me over to Dr. Saturday as I guest-blogged there while the good Doctor was out of town on vacation. Y'all are great, even the commenter who told me I should "just kill [my]self and stop using up resources useful people could be using." Hell, especially that guy. The knowledge that I can still annoy people that much with only a minimum of effort is almost as big an ego stroke as the actual comments I got that week.

· The folks who linked the increasingly infamous Ayn Rand flaying on Fark.com's political section. Even if you hated it, guess what, thimbledicks, you still read it, and that still put some extra change in my pocket. Which I think I will use to go out and buy a copy of The Militant this week. 'Preesh!

But in all seriousness, thanks, everyone, for making the past couple weeks even more rewarding for me than usual. And when this anniversary rolls around next year, we're blowin' this bitch up for big Number Five, promise.

Party at Hinton's! Wooooo!!!!! Let's trash the place!

The good Dr. Saturday is taking a well-earned vacation this week, so Yours Truly will be helping to keep the place in order in his absence. Actually, EDSBS co-editor and alternate-universe Mrs. Doug Gillett Holly will be doing the brunt of the house-sitting work; I'm just going to be popping my head in from time to time to make sure that all the plants are watered and the major appliances haven't been left on. But I've already done my part to sully Hinton's good name contribute some fresh copy, including: a handful of fearlessly ballsy predictions (guess which ones were mine and you win absolutely nothing); a rundown of coaches-in-waiting across the country; and a public declaration that I wouldn't touch Bryce Brown with a thirty-nine-and-a-half-foot pole.

As far as that last one goes: Yes, I'm positively giddy that Brown and the Brian Butler Traveling Snake Oil Extravaganza are now Tennessee's problem. So "God told [him]" that he was a Volunteer, did He? Then Duck, Hurricane, Wildcat, and Bayou Bengal fans around the globe have new motivation to put a little something extra in the collection plate this coming Sunday. But in all seriousness, kid, here's hoping you win as many SEC and national titles as Casey Clausen, Kelly Washington, and Jabari Davis combined. (By the way: Rennie Curran looks forward to meeting you.)

A memo from the desk of Arnold T. Pants, Esq.:People without maps, orange outfits, busted Trojans, and other profiles in FAIL.

• The Sarah Palin bandwagon is beginning to unload, as right-wing columnist Kathleen Parker comes forward to say Palin should step down from the ticket. Well, there are plenty of equally qualified replacements out there . . . how does McCain/Upton '08 sound?





I guess I shouldn't make fun, though, since John McCain has already won tonight's debate.

• Apropos of nothing, a writer for knoxnews.com in Knoxville, Tennessee, read some comment I made on this blog about Tennessee fans' tacky gameday attire and was actually inspired to solicit my opinion for an article he was writing on that very subject. I think it says something about Volunteer Nation's current mental state that they didn't immediately fill up the comments thread with angry questions about why anyone would solicit some pansy-ass Georgia fan's opinion on Tennessee's fashion sense; the first comment ("fitting, considering our team plays a relaxed style of football") pretty much sets the tone.

What this means for Georgia? Precisely dick, thanks for asking, since UT fans were (if memory serves) just as demoralized about this time last year right up until the Dawgs strolled into Neyland Stadium and got Keyser Söze'd by the eventual SEC East champs. (Keenan Ivory Wayans pops his head in through the window: "Message!")

• In other adventures in cross-promotion, my Dr. Saturday picks column is up. Trying for a perfect 4-0 after a pretty nice 3-1 record last week.

• In the Georgia preview I did for Deadspin over the summer, I made reference to the informal headline contests we'd have back in college whenever the Dawgs beat up on the 'Cocks of South Carolina. Well, the headline possibilities are certainly just as boundless whenever the Beavers face the Trojans, and even more so when the Beavers come out with a shocking upset win. ESPN's own headline ranks pretty high on the Unintentional Hilarity-O-Meter, but something like this calls for a little intentional hilarity as well, so . . . take it away, Holly:

Trojans Can’t Pull It Out

Hungry Beavers Suffocate Trojans

Trojans Can’t Get It Up For Big Night With Beavers

Sanchez Dirtied By Beaver Attack

Trojans Can’t Come From Behind, Fall Short

22 Trojans, No Protection

I would say "It gets even more out of hand in the comments," but that would imply that it was ever in hand to begin with. My personal contribution, "Trojans Break Under Pressure of Too Much Jacquizz," pays tribute to freshman RB Jacquizz Rodgers's 186-yard, two-TD performance; I welcome your suggestions in the comments.

This is as good a time as any to reiterate my support for a home-and-home between South Carolina and Oregon State. Intersectional Game of the Century? I don't think that's too much premature exaggeration, no.

• And finally, the 17 All-Time Worst "ESPN Gameday" signs. I actually thought the Goulet one was kind of funny.

Where have you gone, J.D. Stokley? A nation turns its lonely eyes to you.

Well, I've got good news and bad news. The good news is that my weekly picks column is up at Dr. Saturday; the bad news is, it's not really mine anymore, as Lou Holtz has taken over the actual picking and I'm kind of just along for the ride. But even so, I'm happy for the old guy. For his take on, among other things, how the Gamecocks will fare against "Shaun Marino" and the Dawgs -- you'll be shocked, shocked, at what he predicts for South Carolina's prospects -- check it out here.

Blatant self-promotion? You're soaking in it!

The first two steps in my diabolical plan for global domination are complete. My first weekly picks column at Dr. Saturday, alluded to earlier this week, went up this morning. And as if that weren't enough, none other than Clay Travis at Deadspin asked me a while back if I'd be kind enough to contribute to their series of Top 25 previews; my assorted thoughts on Georgia, who ended up #1 in their rankings, went up today as well. Give it a read (or in the event that you don't think I have anything of insight or originality to offer, simply look at the purty pictures and ponder just how much ass Matt Stafford and Knowshon Moreno must be getting in Athens right now).

If this were a Scorsese film, this'd probably be the point at which my success starts to turn me cocky and reckless, I take up with a ridiculously hot dancer with a coke problem, and I embark on a series of increasingly dodgy business deals that eventually put my very life in danger.

Eh, I've had a good run.