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I Never Thought I’d Live To See It

Tennessee is the top ranked team in the nation? In basketball? Men’s basketball?

You have to understand, I attended the University of Tennessee during the reigns of Wade Houston and Kevin O’Neil. I was a pretty die hard fan back then. Of course it was easy to sit in the front row of the student section back then. But my memories of Tennessee basketball consist of Carlus Groves and Steve Rivers running their version of the shake and bake (mostly off the court bake), and poor Allan Houston carrying the load on his own. I guess that’s not totally fair. Houston had help from Token Lang Wiseman and Corey Allen. Of course they were canceled out by Gannon Goodson and Jay Price, both of whom I can vouch for as really nice guys, even if they weren’t great players.

Who would have thought back then that just 16 short years and…hang on, let me count them…four coaches later the Vols would be ranked #1?

Now that the big game is over and decided, it will be nice to hear local sports call in shows get back to talking about what really matters. Of course, I’m talking about football: “Guys, do you think we’ll beat Flarda this year?” and “When are they gonna git rid of Fulmer?”

See, basketball don’t really matter ’round here. Did you notice the players weren’t jumping up and down after the big win? It’s because all they care about is football too.

Or maybe they have class and they expected to win?

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The Perfectly Aged Kindergartener

In yet another move that is sure to greatly improve the life of every citizen, the Tennessee legislature is pondering whether or not to change the cutoff date that determines when children can attend kindergarten.

Makes sense to me.  Who better than a group of politicians to decide when your kid is ready for school?

The proposal would require children to be 5 years old before Sept. 1 to qualify for kindergarten, up from the current Sept. 30 cutoff.

Oh, I should have read that it was going to change the cutoff date by a WHOLE 29 DAYS before passing judgment.  That puts a whole new paint job on things.  Sorry for the snarky comments.  This is looking more and more like a worthwhile piece of legislation.

He says that moving up the date would help children adjust to the social and intellectual challenges of school.

Intellectual challenges?  Wait, I thought they were talking about public schools?

If you really want to help children, just butt out.  Stop dictating all the decisions about how they are educated to the people who actually care about them–their parents.

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Good Lesson From a Newspaper Guy

From Michael Silence: 

Here’s a rule of thumb: It is not incumbent upon you to prove a document is public. It is incumbent upon a government employee to prove it is not.

*Read the story which prompted that nugget.  Interesting:

Ms. Long again stated that they were not public and would not be public until today. After I insisted that they were public, she finally said she just didn’t care and handed me the bids to review.

*Not Knox County–YAY!

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Cigarette Smuggling Surveillance Starts in Tennessee

From the KNS:

Starting today, state Department of Revenue agents will begin stopping Tennessee motorists spotted buying large quantities of cigarettes in border states, then charging them with a crime and, in some cases, seizing their cars.

I can go so many different directions with this one…

Do I make the comparison to the Dukes of Hazzard with revenuers, crooked local authorities, and free wheeling Robin Hood types whose lawless behavior we cheer on?

Do I draw a conclusion that more state authorities in Tennessee are trying to get into pulling people over so they can take advantage of the fringe benefits that have become associated with traffic stops in our state? (That one is for all of you who voted for it in the last poll).

Or do I say nothing, since I don’t consume cigarettes?

First they came for the smokers, and I didn’t speak up because I don’t smoke.

Then they came for the Sunday beer sales, and I didn’t speak up because I’m usually too hung over to drink on Sundays.

And when they came for the people who play home poker games, there was no one who was interested in playing poker on Sundays, the only day I have time to play, left to speak for me.

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Webkinz–Who Knew?

It seems like the frenzy may not have fully hit Knoxville/East Tennessee yet, but I think a full blown Webkinz craze may be coming. It may actually already exist here, but I was unaware of it. I am admittedly out of touch with what is “cool” with young kids, and I have been for quite a while. I know of, but am not completely knowledgeable about Thomas the Train and Dora the Explorer, but I had never even heard of Webkinz until this weekend.

My sister in law and her kids, 10 and 7 years old, are visiting from Florida, and they were super excited the other day after they got home from Dollywood. Not because of the rides they rode, but because of the huge selection of Webkinz that were available for purchase there.

I got a quick rundown from them about Webkinz, and it actually sounds like a pretty cool idea. It is a pretty simple concept, and is completely viral in terms of web use and marketing.

First, you buy a Webkinz plush toy. This toy comes with a code that you enter online where you then adopt and name a virtual version of this “pet”. You get to build a room for your virtual pet, then participate in all sorts of activities online that allow you to build up virtual cash to buy more cool things for your pet.

If you are like me and had not heard of Webkinz before, look out. It seems to be the latest thing, and I actually get why.

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Overheard at the Hospital

I just returned to the hospital from running a couple of errands, and I came in through the cafeteria entrance, which has a nice outdoor dining area. There was a group of people unpacking their cooler (white bread, baloney, mayonnaise, and Lay’s potato chips) and I overhead the following statement:

“He’s got four warrants out, owes $14,000 in back child support, and he ain’t even lookin’ for a job.”

That’s funny.

Have you ever noticed that most of the people at the hospital look really unhealthy? I don’t mean the people that are in the hospital, I mean the people visiting. There are tons of overweight people (haha), and most of them are standing outside smoking. I’m not talking about heavy people–I could lose a few pounds myself. I’m talking about really obese people puffing away. It makes you wonder if the people they are there to visit are there mostly because they share a similar lifestyle.


Worse than the friends and family doing this outside are the nurses.

Is this what our money would go to support with nationalized health care? It’s no more fair for them to chip in and pay for my knee surgery because I chose to play a collision sport with a bunch of 20 year old kids than it is for me to chip in to pay for their health problems due to their lifestyle.

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Lobster for Lunch in Knox County

KNS has the story about our mayor’s executive administrative assistant, a commissioner, and an unknown third party feasting on $37.98 each lobster tails, then grabbing a couple more to go, for pre-tip bill of $198.56, Luckily for the taxpayers (I guess), they basically stiffed the waiter, only tipping him $29 (14.6%).

Frugality and class! So the total bill was $227.56–FOR LUNCH.

Good thing we had a 100% increase in our wheel tax a couple of years ago (hope you are enjoying the new library).

“Clearly, while we consider business meals legitimate expenses, we certainly feel that expense was excessive,” Norwood said.

See, that’s the problem. County government is not a business. Businesses sell products and services to customers on the free market. In business, customers have a choice to buy from someone else or not to buy at all. The business then has a choice on how it spends this money and is accountable to shareholders.

“While we can’t tell our guests what to order,” Norwood said, “we discourage people from ordering unusually expensive meals.”

Obviously.

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Barbie Cummings Misses Court

All she had to do was show up and her ticket would have been dismissed. Now she’ll have to pay it. 🙁

Since her old site has been taken down, she has a temporary blog. According to that, she’s been pretty busy lately, traveling to the West Coast for some business engagements and even getting married in Las Vegas.

It states there that she’s moving from Knoxville to L.A. soon, so I guess the court date completely slipped her mind.

***UPDATED 7.25.07
You COULD read about it in her own words, but Blogger deleted her site…probably because there was extremely explicit material on there. You can always depend on me to stay well informed on this story. 😛

What a truly strange story to be cumming (sorry, had to) out of sleepy old Knoxville!

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Barbie Cummings and the Highway Patrol

Could it be the title of her next movie?

Barbie Cummings is a clever, clever girl.

The porn star based out of Knoxville was pulled over by a Tennessee Highway Patrolman outside of Nashville and engaged in an exchange of favors with the officer. Actually, she still got the ticket, so there actually wasn’t an exchange.

This genius took photos and videos and bragged to his fellow patrolmen about it and has subsequently been suspended. All Barbie did was write about it on her blog.

Very clever. Hope all of you SEO masters are paying attention. This is TRUE viral marketing. The story has caused such a stir in Tennessee and presumably created so much traffic to her blog that it, ahem, went down last night.

No worries, they got it up again. 🙂 I was able to go there and do some fact checking. Don’t visit it from the office, but if you want to see free speech in action, it’s worth a look.

Maybe you’ll read it, maybe you won’t, but this girl is lucky that my friend BGE no longer lives in Knoxville. Their lives are about as parallel as the two rails of a train track. If they ever cross, look out!

Story about the incident in the KNS

***UPDATE***

Obviously, demand for information is high. Subscribe to this feed and I’ll update with news…

I just checked out her site to see if there were any updates since this story went national. Apparently she either got a nice offer for her domain name or she’s put her own Barbie store on her site. I’d guess the former. Unfortunate for all of you who were looking to get a firsthand look/read. I’m sure her site will surface again at a new address. Stay tuned.