The great pine tar scandal

Speaking of football, which I wasn't. Tech's season got under way last night with a 41-14 drubbing and decimation of Jacksonville State. The game was as exciting as the score would indicate. You probably didn't know and will have been no worse off having not known that JSU's quarterback's last name was and presumably still is Perrilloux. He's from Louisiana and a possibly drunk wise-acre sitting nearby insisted on calling him Perrilloser. The wit. This, as one might imagine, was amusing precisely once. The exception to the Perrilloser rule being when he was sacked. Nothing if not adaptive and resourceful, wise-acre then changed the jeer to Perrillized. I can only pray this would-be Don Rickles sits near us the rest of the year. Oh boy.

Jacksonville State, who am from Alabama, waved the flag of the old Soviet Union at halftime. I'd have thought this some clever comment on the the current Russian invasion of the former Soviet republic of Georgia had Jax State been from anywhere besides Alabama. Snap.

Of course Alabama did give us the great Sun Ra. He always maintained he was from Saturn. One can hardly blame him. Double snap.

Not wishing to waste an evening otherwise spent practising French on such a boorish competition, I carried my Rosetta Stone cd to soundtrack the drive. This thrilled my traveling companion, dear old Dad. Somehow the monotony of alternating male/female voices repeating such bon mots--J'ecrive, Il ecrive,Je lit, Il lit, Combien de fleurs rouges,etc.--combined with the monotony of the road made Papa Bear very sleepy. I was impressed and more than a little relieved that I didn't have much trouble picking up on the words.

Figuring I was blowing my Dad away with my translation skills--I write, He writes, I read, He reads, How many red flowers, etc.--I glance over for confirmation. Zzzzzz. Apparently, he fell asleep before he even closed the cd case. How sweet and touching.

I laid on the horn to wake him up.

A spot of good news last night was that we'll be leaving for London from Paris instead of Bayeaux. (There's a giant blanket in Bayeaux or some such. I keed.) What does this mean to you, dear reader? Absolutely nothing. To us it means we get to take the high speed and all around awesome Eurostar again. Bitchin. One of my favorite moments of our trip in 1997 was the blur of the French countryside from my window at 180 mph with OK Computer blasting in my ears. Fitter. Happier. More productive.