Friday, November 28, 2014

Kitty, South Carolina, And A Rail Or Two

As you likely know, we have a cat, Kitty, whose job it is to keep the house free of mice and she is very good at it.  On this day, she sat on a chessboard without moving a man and peered out the window as though she was looking for her next victim.  She is wearing her pretty winter coat.



The weekend before Thanksgiving we drove Madison to Columbia SC to meet up with her parents so she could join them on a Caribbean cruise and since we couldn’t leave until after school on Friday, we only drove to Hendersonville, NC.  Early Saturday morning we drove south on I-26 where we shared the road with a lot of flag flying Gamecock fans headed to Columbia for their noon game.  Then on the way back we were among the Clemson Tiger fans headed for their 3:30 game we saw a first - we thought the USC fans had their vehicles adorned until we saw these:



These folks know how to adorn a car.

Speaking of college football, and sports in general, I hate that they have totally sold out to TV and the marketing that goes with it – I’m marketed-to-death and definitely not one who watches the Super Bowl for the commercials.  I love that we have a Direct TV system with a recorder so I can let the games get ahead then fast forward through the commercials and I can actually watch two games at the same time this way.  This sell out to TV has resulted in 60 minutes of football playing time taking around four hours – I can’t remember the last time I made it through an evening game, which is another sore point with me.

Playing early season games at night in the hot parts of the country makes total since to me, but playing on a 20*, snowy, Thursday night in Morgantown, WV when a much nicer Saturday afternoon is coming up is obviously all about the money.  But then again, are there many things that don’t seem to be about the money.

One last rail for those of you have been keeping up with the happenings in Ferguson, MO.  I thought justice was a jury of peers evaluating and discussing the evidence and making an informed decision, but for this event justice appears to be "getting the result I want" and it seems they are confusing justice with revenge.  Can you imagine burning down your community store because you are angry about something else - is our society this fragile - makes me think I should watch "Doomsday Preppers” more seriously.

Thanks for letting me get these two off my chest now let's go record some football games for Friday and Saturday.

Photos can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Have a great day and, as always, thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

Larry

12 comments:

  1. Wishing you and family a Happy Thanksgiving. ...and my cat would have had all the chess pieces batted to the floor.

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  2. College football has definitely changed and certainly not what it used to be. Ferguson is a mess. I can't get over the destruction that took place there. Very sad for how some seem to solve problems today.
    Sam

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  3. Larry, Love the photos of Kitty! It's neat how she sat in the middle of those chess pieces without knocking them over... As for TV ads, yes it's about the money...but without the profits we'd have many fewer "quality TV choices" than we do now. Hmmm, considering the "quality", you may have a point!

    Ferguson is a mess and I also don't understand looting and burning down one's own community. The fact is that the 'real protesters' would never burn it down...but the a__holes who don't give a damn about anything or anyone other than themselves or what they can get...the criminal and anarchist elements...they use these situations to their advantage. It would have been better...but probably would have yielded the same result...it the Prosecutor had just found reasonable cause and the case had gone to an actual trial. An open trial could have taken some of the sting out of the findings. All witnesses credibility would have been challenged for the public to witness.

    Take Care, Big Daddy Dave

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    1. Actually Dave, I believe the programming would be the same, they just wouldn't pay Nick Saban $7 million/yr to coach or an actor $5+ million a movie and Shaq wouldn't have a net worth of a quarter billion.

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  4. Love the tail on the pickup truck. Hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving :-)

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  5. Hope you had a nice Thanksgiving, Larry. My husband feels the same way about all the TV commercials. He records Formula 1 races so he can zap through the commercials.

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  6. A good Thanksgiving you had I am sure.
    We do not have a pvr, and do not watch much TV anyway. And don't even watch sports.
    Watch the news and weather, thats about it for us.

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  7. And what's up with three NFL games on TG day? I preferred the tradition years ago of one game. And don't get me started about Ferguson. What a mess. I'm appalled over the behavior of that community and feel we need to pray for our United States.

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  8. I ought to get a tiger tail for my son, who got his undergrad and first PhD from Clemson, although they might not love it where he currently teaches...

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  9. I had to laugh at your Kitty sitting right in the middle of the chessboard. That's a cat for you! I could never sit through a televised sports event with all the commercials. They go on forever. And I agree about Ferguson...shocking and so sad.

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  10. Yeah, you used to be able to skip the commercials on DVR but now they are so integrated into the programming "Coming up - the Dr Pepper ACC Championship Game, but first the Nissan Pre-game show. Our analysts break down the offense on the Office Depot White Board. And at half time we'll be back for the Allstate Half Time Show with entertainment presented by AT&T."

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  11. As a marketing professor, there are so many ugly sides to the profession that I gladly share and open up the eyes (hopefully) of my students. One can't escape anything being marketed today, all the way to the darn politicians! But, ugh, I ramble! Love your kitty, she looks like the one my son dropped off after graduating from college! still with us today. And yea, the peeps of SC are rather nuts about their inter-state football rivalry; I guess the longest one running since it (USC) is the second oldest public university in the land (UNC is the oldest and Harvard is the oldest private U.) Coming from Iowa where we were always losers at football, I am just amazed at the craze of football in this state!

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