Am I the only one who saw the irony? Both UNC and NCSU lost FB games on Saturday and the National Weather Service says “a storm is headed towards our state and we’d best take the usual precautions” Ya reckon? Like Nostradamus, I guess a lot and speak in riddles but DAMN when it comes to “callin’em” my accuracy scares me.
I do love our little cat, Annabelle. She totally lives in the moment and wants her needs (food, water, clean litter and a quiet place to nap) when she wants them. She does not care that these needs have been met unfailingly for the past nine years with no reason to expect any difference forever ….. her total concentration is on that temporarily empty food dish. She is the center of her little universe and damn sure should be the center of ours too. She says “thanks” by hanging around and doing cute cat things as if she had any other options up her sleeve seeing as how she has no sleeves.
If I tried to “reason” with her that “you’ll be fine. Chill cat” she would go “claws up” and say “I’m a freakin’ CAT for heaven sakes. You want Reason get a stoopid dawg.”
It’s a good thing that there are no feline message boards. Annabelle would no doubt be “a regular”. I’d like to think I would be her “Ol Roy” receiving her maximum loyalty and charitable understanding. She would “cut me some slack” when she knew that Mizzus was on the way home from Harris Teeter with a fresh bag of Purina One. Or would I be her “That Damn Dicky Baddour” or “Uncle Jed Fowler”…. The ever-ready scapegoat for any thread out of place in her life mosaic.
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Anyone in their right mind knew that 2007 was going to be a transition season for both UNC and NCSU gridiron fortunes. We all know the money prepositional phrase in that statement.
The glorious “Promise of Spring” and “Summer’s Optimism” have been officially flushed. All that matters now is Last Week’s Scoreboard. Uh oh!
Indeed …. The Chuck-less Pack is 0-2 and the Wofford Terriers coming to town. The beady-eyed goobers of Pack Nation are in full constipated howl. Not to be outdone, their fellow Thalidomide brethren in the dank sewers of Franklin Street are likewise beside themselves ….. every 30+ years Carolina loses to “those in-bred hooligans” from G-Vegas. This happened to be the year.
The immediate predecessors to Butch & TO’B never did figure out the “Head Coach thing”. Both Butch & TO’B have “been there – done that” and have the T-shirts. Nothing “same old _____ ” about the current situations. Never mind that all Spring and Summer every coach, administrator and pundit preached patience and “a bright future just over the horizon….”
Horizon BE DAMNED ….
My food bowl is empty and I want my cat chow NOW!
If I had a nickel for every e-mail I receive telling ME “Hey BobLee, those spittle-spewing nutjobs …. are nuts.”. I would have a lot of nickels.
Yes He-Buddies and She-Buddies. They are quite nuts as I diagnosed and published in the New England Journal of Abnormal Internet Behavior well over eight years ago …. And updated “once or twice” since then.
“Take two aspirins and try to get some sleep” or print out the following mantra and carry it in your wallet ..
NEVER NEVER NEVER
…. pay any attention to the manic screechings of someone
with whom you would avoid eye contact on an elevator.
“If a tree fell in the deep woods …. And no one heard it, would it make a sound?” You are hearing “Stupid Trees” amplified by the Internet. There have always been nutjob fans they just never had “amplification”. Either avoid those addictive mosh pits or be prepared to take on the unnecessary burden of “Is my team in good hands or should I get out my pitchfork and torch and join the panicing feeble minds at the bonfire?”
Even my media influence will not temper a nitwit’s lunacy. I could care less if they gnaw off their own arm and start beating themselves in the head with it. If Fowler fired TO’B today and hired Bill Cowher …. If “That Damn Dicky” fired Butch and hired Pete Carroll AND Bill Bellichek it would not lower the boiling bile of the bloviators one degree. BECAUSE ….
Their real problem is not, never has been, what happens on a football field on a Fall Saturday. It is their ugly wives (if they even have one), their under achieving children, their dead-end jobs, their flabby gut, their junker car, their unpaid bills, their annoying in-laws, demanding bosses, parking tickets, spastic colon, zits, and overall purposeless existence ….. and it’s all up to Tom O’Brien and Butch Davis to help them forget about all that. ….. and do it RIGHT NOW. ….. well, screw those nitwits.
I do care about YOU. Yes, darn it, my ever-growing flock of ducklings who gather here for kernels of “the obvious” that sustain you for a day or two. You are either trying to lead active personal and professional lives or are retired and trying to calmly enjoy each of your remaining days ….. and the screeching nitwits “get to you”.
Over the past nine years I have had 100s of conversations with otherwise rational guys and gals who let these nitwits into their minds and then expect me to make the resultant headache go away.
Spectatoring sports is one of your hobbies. Amid life’s often stifling “have to’s” there are “want to’s” and following the fortunes of your teams of choice is a “want to”. Mizzus’ “want to” is flower gardening. Mine is “saving Western Civilization”. Unless you’ve been cross-wired into masochism why choose a “want to” that adds to your stress and frustration? You’re thinking “saving Western Civilization” must be stressful …. True, except I am starting to see real progress with each new column!
Recall my Rule For Being A Fan ….. “Do your thing” until it interferes with me doing my thing and vice versa …. And all God’s children can live long and prosper yadda yadda. …. Except for loonies for whom “prospering” has never been an option.
Blithering idiots go to chat rooms to blither …. Like Idaho politicians and UNC professors go into airport restrooms to find sex partners. Stay out of both if you find such practices yucky. I do so I do.
Last Friday I spoke to the East Chapel Hill Rotary Club. Over 100 folks at the Sheraton Europa. Many in attendance would be recognizable names to you. Physicians, attorneys, mini-moguls, academicians and Franklin Street luminaries. When I got to the part in my incredibly insightful lecture about what happens to boys and girls and sports fans who abuse themselves with message boards I saw “the look”.
It’s the same “look” that a scoutmaster sees in teenage boys when he mentions masturbation. The same “look” that a preacher sees across the pews when he discusses pornography and adultery. That “look” is called GUILT otherwise known as “how can he tell I do it?”
I should have taken a snapshot of the audience and matched it up against an InsideCarolina subscriber data base. (I GUARANTEE you the fella that owns Top Of The Hill is a hard core Shineola.) I doubt many actually “post” but many “lurk” and thus the worms of wackiness enter their brains and start chewing up the working parts.
The next time I’ll have a confessional booth by the door. As malfactors leave they can step in and say “forgive me BobLee for I have sinned …” Bless you dummy. Buy my book and CD and say ten “Listen to BobLees next time”. Be “master of your domain” my friends.
What to watch for in the upcoming weeks …… for Carolina a Win vs UVa is sort of really important because a Murderer’s Row awaits the next four weeks. A confidence boost while stabbing Algroh in the heart will be needed going into double digit underdog match-ups vs USF, VaTech, and SoCar. I see Miami as a “pick’em” as “Win One For Butch” will make that one not such a tough go.
If Butch is 1-6 going into “Open Date”, pitchfork sales at the Lowe’s on 15-501 will be brisk and “that Damn Dicky” will be ordering from Dominos rather than going out. OF COURSE such irrational knee-jerk lunacy is absurd. Jeeezzzzz, reread this column three more times.
Butch is well aware of how the schedule sets up. His two “toss-up” matches (Maryland, State) are in November with the automatic W (Duke) not til Thanksgiving. If he will need the Duke W to total 4, he will be being called lots worse names than Pale Rider by the Nitwit Brigade.
Over in West Rawlee, TO’B’s leatherneck stoicism may be his Achilles Heel (unfortunate choice of foot parts!). Tom ain’t “quippy” and the uber-Loons chained up deep in the bowels of William Neal Reynolds Coliseum prefer “shiny, quippy geegaws” from their HCs. The medical term is Jimmy V-itis. Chuck played it well in his early years to his advantage, then T.A.’s knee hit the ground in Kenan’s West End and the nitwits turned nasty.
TO’B does not bite the heads off live microphones so much as he just sneers at them and talks like an accountant during foreplay. His Sendakian homilies will cause the howlers to hop like crickets on a hot griddle. It will get worse long before it gets better. But IT WILL GET BETTER.
Forget Wofford …. The “LOOK-OUT GAME” is Louisville in “the Carter”. TO’B better figure a way to catch Clemson in one of their infamous sleepwalking games because Papa John’s gang will take no prisoners while sending the Carter-Finley Jumbo into TILT mode.
“Fire The Marine, Jed, & Oblinger…
Make Bill Cowher Emperor of Wuff-Nation”
t-shirts could appear in the 3rd Quarter of the Louisville game. They shouldn’t but ….
Just pray to your Lupine Gawd that TO’B does not say “…. choppin’ wood” …… NOOOOO! Please don’t do that Tom. Just trust me.
Hang On Sloopy …. Sloopy Hang On!
It’s gonna be a bumpy Fall in The Triangle.
Somewhere Red Smith just dripped another drop o’ blood on his page.
Dinner & Incredible Insights. Loonies are welcomed. We’ll have plenty of table legs for you to gnaw on. For Reservations CALL (919) 545-2330.
BIG TIME DRAMA is brewing regarding LSU’s Les Miles. It’s A Roy Thing! Lloyd Carr is a Dead Man Walking in Ann Arbor. Guess where Les Miles went to college ???? Yep, Les is one of Bo’s Maize & Blue Boys. LSU is caught in a Kansas Conundrum …. Only so much they can do to hold on to him. Gonna be fun to watch this one play out. BobLee has explained it all to his Platinum Pals …. Who, in turn, notified Vegas Bookies R Us.
Between Bengal Tigers, Pit Bulls and Krazy Koreans it’s been a helluva past six months up around Blacksburg.
Six years ago today (9/11) I was sitting in O’Hare Airport. I noticed a sense of uneasiness among my fellow travelers. My cell rang. It was Darcy …. “Hey BobLee, have you heard …..”. I hadn’t.
