Radical Georgia Moderate

Watch this video, made by Spacey Gracey and Shelbinator, and look for me around the 2:46 mark:

And this photo might be marginally funnier:

Way to go SpaceyG landing that Huffington Post gig. Hopefully you can do this every Tuesday, and we can get progressively drunker as we film them. See how I threw “progressive” in there? And it’s a video for the Huffington Post? Nevermind.

Usually when I mention the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, it is followed by an epithet, but it’s had some great college football articles heading into this season. One of those comes this morning in a piece that focuses on famed Georgia broadcaster Larry Munson’s twilight years and the general decline of radio broadcasters. It features several quotes from University of Tennessee legend John Ward.

Here they are:

Ward, retired after 30 seasons at Tennessee, said his generation of play-callers “established a loyalty, a commitment, an involvement of fans - not just alumni but also the plain old guy on the street - so they felt a part of it and they identified with the announcer.

“Most of them are gone. … And in a selfish way, I hate to see the era go. But it is.”

-and-

“The ethic is different. The technique is different,” said Ward, the retired Tennessee voice. “Today’s announcers were educated by listening to television announcers and not radio announcers. And there was something distinctive about it.”

-and-

Satellite radio could redefine the business. Online services deliver the same immediate service found in a press box. The information age may usher in a game experience beyond the current imagination.

“More power to them. I hope it’s better,” Ward said. “But it ain’t going to be a whole lot better than when we had all those radio announcers, I’ll tell you that.”

I still get chills up my spine when I hear a clip of “It’s football time in Tennessee.”

Downloaded from Nate’s UT VOLS Site

He may sound a little curmudgeonly in this interview, but he does have a point. Most TV broadcasters suck.

Cross-posted to my Rocky Top Talk diary

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has a pretty harsh article about former UGA quarterback David Greene’s pro career with the Seattle Seahawks, and how he’s not even cutting it as a third-stringer.

This preseason was to be David Greene’s opportunity, his chance to prove the Seattle Seahawks weren’t faulty in using a third-round draft pick on him two years ago.

If Greene could prove himself a viable backup, maybe team president and general manager Tim Ruskell wouldn’t regularly be scanning the wavier wire for an available veteran quarterback.

If Greene could show the confidence and ability to lead Seattle’s offense, coach Mike Holmgren wouldn’t be so cautious with second-string quarterback Seneca Wallace, and perhaps take advantage of Wallace’s athleticism in other ways.

Greene’s first chance came in Seattle’s second preseason game at Green Bay — and it was a failure.

The essence of being a college football fan is schadenfreude, a German word that has no direct English equivalent and means taking pleasure from other people’s misfortune. It’s why I was giggling like a retard who was handed a coloring book after reading that article.

Anybody hear how D.J. Shockley is doing with the Falcons? Oh, I remember now.

Cross-posted to my Rocky Top Talk diary

Earthlink just announced layoffs. I’ve heard the numbers 500 people and 900 people thrown around, but don’t have any confirmation yet. It’s 900. Here’s text of the announcement from Earthling:

Today, we announced changes to EarthLink’s corporate structure that better position us to operate profitably and focus on the heart of our business: delivering award-winning Internet tools and services to our customers. These changes will affect all of us — both our friends and colleagues who will leave EarthLink, and those who will remain. I am grateful for the hard work and care that all of our employees have contributed in their tenure here, and we are seeking to make the transition as smooth as possible for everyone involved.

If you are a customer, these changes will not impact the level of reliability and service and support you have come to expect from EarthLink. If you are a partner, nothing in terms of our relationship has changed; what’s changed is that we’ve right-sized our business to better compete in today’s marketplace.

Sincerely,
Rolla Huff

I’ve been told employees will find out around 3 p.m. who gets to stay and who doesn’t. I have several friends who work there, and I hope this turns out okay for them one way or the other. If any of you want me to shop your resumés around, please email me.

Here are some other sources of info about “Black Tuesday”:

• For Earthlink Black Tuesday Looms: Job cuts, restructuring
• Rumor Control: EarthLink As Acquisition Bait? (several employees left comments here)
• Earthlink to cut 900 jobs

The Pop Tarts in our pantry got warped, and the chocolate chips had melted.

Here is a screencast of the presentation I gave at last week’s Drupal Atlanta users meeting about podcasting with Drupal:

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(H.264, 640×480, 177.4 MB, 78:02 minutes)

Cross-posted to my Georgia Podcast Network blog

Pre-season predictions are the sports writer’s equivalent of an entertainment writer making top ten lists, or a political writer predicting election results: a cheap trick designed to simultaneously make friends and enemies to drive up readership. Everybody knows they’re bullshit… a weak and pathetic cop-out that continues to pass for insight, shelter for the unimaginative, a gimmick used to justify an unjustifiable existence.

And yet, nobody can resist making them. Which brings us to this post, and several others I’ve written before.

Last year, I predicted South Carolina would win the SEC East. And I was wrong. The beauty of pre-season predictions, and what makes them so cheap and pathetic, is that if you’re wrong you can shrug your shoulders and say “everybody gets them wrong.” When you’re right, you can wave your dick around and demand that everyone in the room bask in its shimmering light.

I’m throwing a twist in this year which will make me look smarter and be an even bigger cop-out than a standard predictions list would be. I’m going to do the programmers thing and base my predictions on if-then-else statements for each team’s first big game of the year.

Full audio from Lt. Governor Casey Cagle’s remarks to the Atlanta Press Club from earlier today about his new healthcare initiative is available for download on the Georgia Podcast Network.

I haven’t given it a close listen yet (which I guess is funny since I edited it), but the part that jumped out at me from what I heard is that he doesn’t support any short-term loans to Grady.

Erick Erickson at Peach Pundit has posted a podcast interview with state House Speaker Glenn Richardson. Most of the interview focuses on the tax reform plan he plans to push in the next session, which would replace property taxes with a statewide sales tax.

Many people, including me, have criticized the plan as a power grab. As it stands, property taxes are collected by local governments to fund education and other things. Under this proposal, that collection mechanism would go away and revenue would be collected by the state, and the state would have discretion over redistribution of tax revenue to local governments. Since the Georgia Constitution says all revenue bills have to originate in the House, that places a lopsided level of power in the hands of the House.

House Rules Chairman Earl Erhart (the second most powerful leader in the House) has said under this proposal the state won’t take graft off the top in during the collection process, and that all revenue would be returned to local governments. However, Erhart has already acknowledged it’s possible that the state could change its mind at any time.

Here’s a money quote from Richardson in the the interview (emphasis mine):

“When you change to a different system, a consumption-based sales tax, you have to have a different way of distributing that money. But we’re exploring every available option to make certain that local government is still secure, that we’re not taking away their ability to tax or spend. I know they guard that power to tax very diligently. But you have to also remember that their power to tax has been used at a rate about 30 points higher than personal income has raised in Georgia in the last 15 years. So maybe a tad of a check is not all bad, but essentially this is not designed to check local government, but simply to have a different system of taxing and funding local government.”

Already, he’s thinking about playing dictator.

I wouldn’t trust this guy to tend the concession stand at a Little League game, much less to gut the entire tax structure of a multi-billion-dollar state government.

Tomorrow night, one of our activities at the monthly Drupal Atlanta meeting will be a hands-on workshop where you can learn how to podcast with Drupal. I’ll give a quick presentation, and then we’ll dive into some hands-on training.

Drupal core contains everything you need to post podcasts without any third-party modules, so just come with a working Drupal 5 installation if you’d like to participate.

The method I’ll teach uses the stripped-down CCK (Content Construction Kit) that’s built into Drupal 5 along with the core Upload module. It’s not the only way to podcast with Drupal, but I think for most purposes it’s the best way. During the opening presentation, we’ll briefly discuss the pros and cons of using this method versus other methods (like using the Audio and/or Video modules).

We may play with SWF Tools if there’s time to show you how you can add Flash players to enhance the user experience. The module is currently broken but expected to be fixed soon, and in the very near future will be the best and easiest way to add Flash players to your podcast. If time permits, we can also discuss how to add Flash players using PHPTemplate.

The meeting is August 21 at 7 p.m. in 5 Seasons Brewing in Alpharetta, GA, which is located at 3655 Old Milton Parkway, about 1 mile east of hwy 400 (exit 10). Click here for a map.

You can email me ahead of time at rusty@gapodcastnetwork.com if you have any questions. Looking forward to seeing you there!

Cross-posted to Drupal Atlanta and my Georgia Podcast Network blog