Previewing South Florida...

.....The process is a little bass-ackwards, though. I'm zipping along the feed, see the start of a post I like, so I click it up. Then, to comment, you first have to log on. Whoops, logging on jumps you through to the main page. Then you have to find the post you were looking at, and click the "comments" link at the bottom.

.....But, this site hasn't lost any of my posts, or refused to cooperate at times like the Alabama Live blogs...

It appears that by logging in first, there is no problem now with posting comments.  I don't recall having to log in previously to post comments, but oh well.

Thanks for the tip, Acid Reign!

Let's see, using your daughter first as an excuse to get pics of Brandon Cox, now as an excuse to watch American Idol.  This poor little girl!  haha

I'm quite proud to say that I've never seen American Idol, but I'm quite aware of who Taylor Hicks is.  A quick listing of the top Auburn folks in music might be:

1. Jimmy Buffett (started at Auburn, ended up at So. Miss)

2. Toni Tennille of The Captain and Tennille, who doesn't look too bad for 60+

3.  Taylor Hicks

I bet Acid Reign or Todd92 might be able to add to this list...

.....Which wasn't too great while I was there. The world was into New Wave, I was into new metal (like the AC/DC Back in Black album or Ozzy), and the clubs were still mostly disco. I do remember seeing a band called "Stranger" that was decent.

.....Best Concert? Heart and Pat Travers, 1980, live at the Beave. Honorable mention: several Mother's Finest free concerts. They were pretty good, live.

.....Best Auburn "musical" experience? Guitar Wars at the Eagle's West pool on Friday nights. A dozen drunk kids with amps outdoors, trying to play "Free Bird" together... The police hated us!

.....The best way to experience American Idol? Have your wife and daughter watch it (taped, of course), then edit it down for you. I only had to watch a clip or two most weeks, and last year, everyone I had the slightest interest in was gone in two weeks.

.....I won't have to listen to ESPN's talking heads this week. I'll see the game from the lower east side, section 30, row 24, right behind USF's bench.

War Eagle! (I can't wait!)

This will sound very un-Auburn of me, but it took me a while to figure out what the Beave was. I was thinking in 1980 terms, pre-Eaves days. I bet the Wilson sisters rocked back in the day.  I was 12 in 1980. I saw Buffett my first quarter on campus, in the fall of 85.  I didn't know who Buffett was prior to that although I had heard Margaritaville. Yea, I know...  

Now that I know what the Beave is, I guess it'll be torn down to make way for the new place?  What are we going to call it, the Lowder? ha!

I'll be watching it on the couch this weekend.  I can't hang with the 9pm EST kick-off and getting back to Atlanta-Marietta at 3am, especially after drinking all day.  1:45 am I can handle, and probably 3am, too, but not two weeks in a row, even if I can make the 128 mile trek in 90 minutes flat!

Big Country, that sucks that it's hard to get tickets.  When I started in Fall 1985, student tickets were $4.00 per game and basically every student that wanted a season ticket got one.  

My first Auburn game was against SW Louisiana.  Bo Jackson had like 275 yards rushing in the first half, before Dye pulled him.

The thing I've always liked about our school is that we take our band EVERYWHERE.  They don't get left behind for anything.  Correct me if I'm wrong, but we always take the whole band on road games.  The only road game I do anymore is UGA, and we would never dream about going into Sanford stadium with a skeleton crew.  When FSU went to the Emerald Bowl last year in San Francisco, they didn't want to spend the money to take the band, since it wasn't a very exotic venue.  They decided to sub-let it out to local high school bands. How pathetic!

Acid Reign, do you live in Auburn?  I take that to be true.

.....ABC 33-40 teased us with that Ga. Southern rumor at 5:00 yesterday, then backtracked at 6, and said that Lester was still practicing with Auburn. Haven't trolled enough, this morning, to hear more.

.....I don't live in Auburn. I'm in the Birmingham area, Homewood/Hollywood. We'll be motoring down 280 Saturday. My brother SHOULD be driving, this time. He gets all that extra high-blood-pressure stress! Me, I'll be the radio operator, hoping to keep Vandy and Bama on. That game will be interesting, but even if Vandy rolls up 600 yards, you just know that they'll manage to lose by 1-3 points!

.....The AU band did NOT make all road trips when I was in it. Fob James-proration saw to that. My first time at the polls I voted for the guy, and felt like he stabbed us in the back! In 1978, we road-tripped to B'ham for Tennessee, Nashville, Gainesville, Starkville, and back to B'ham for the Iron Bowl. 1979, I redshirted (student tickets, pint of Bacardi smuggled in every game) due to a broken foot. 1980, the cuts hit, and we only road-tripped to Baton Rouge and B'ham. We sat home for the trips to Jackson and Gainesville. No big loss, though, as we went 0-6 in the SEC! 1981-82 was my Sabbatical (read: academic suspension) period. When I went back in 1983, it was with an all-business mentality, and I didn't try out for band. Besides, I'd been incredibly stupid, and sold my Bach Model 42 horn for a hundred bucks or so. Arrrrgh! Dumb, dumb, dumb... Student tickets were no problem to get back in the day, money-wise. You did have to stand in a long line, though.

Jeez, poor you.  I recall having to traverse 280 going to the Iron Bowl at Legion Field back in the day.  The final year I went, 1988, we took the interstate to Montgomery, then B'Ham.  Couldn't handle 280 any more.  Can't imagine it's gotten any better in 19 years.  

Yea, perhaps once Auburn made a showing in the SEC in 1983, the powers that be changed their tune (pun intended) about having the band representing the school at games.  Band people always seemed like they had a blast.  I dated a flag girl one year and knew a few people who were in the band.  Good stuff!

Sabbatical!  That's funny.  I sort of had one of those myself--of the financial kind.  I ran out of money around my junior year and had to join the AL Air National Guard to get more money to finish.  I took a year off, then came back with a completly different mind set.  Before, I never took a class before 10am.  Once I got back, I knocked out class at 7:30am so I could have the rest of the day free.  I took school more seriously, too.  One has a tendency to do that when you're the one footing the bill.

Good old Fob!  I remember when he ran for governor again in 1986.  They must have distributed 100,000 8x10 campaign leaflets on campu with Fob's photo plastered on it.  My roommates and I would take these and hide them in each other's beds, books, and desks.  If you found one, you had been Fobbed.

.....They've cut out a lot of little speed-trap towns with four-lane bypasses, like Dadeville and Waverly. Alex City's bypass, though has grown up a lot, and you do have about 20 traffic lights through there! No more "narrows" in Shelby County, either. Frankly, once we get through the Summit/Brookhighland and up Double Oak Mountain, it's all good. That southern Jeffco/Shelby area is a traffic nightmare. In Marietta, Imagine Cobb Parkway from the Big Chicken down to Cumberland Mall, with five times the cars, to properly visualize this...

.....We cheat going into Auburn, too. Rather than turning right off 280 at the Bottle, and trying to cram down bumper-to-bumper North College Street, we take a left and hit the little Rest Stop. Then, we bypass the Bottle, and head further down 280, turning right on Lee County 97, sneaking down to North Gay, then going back East to take a right on North Ross. Down Ross we go, and end up near Auburn Junior High, usually parking on Dumas Drive, right next to a little raised park full of tailgaters. It's a long walk from Samford Avenue to the stadium, though. Helps walk off the lunch beers! You haven't had enough beer if you don't hit three port-o-lets on the way to Jordan-Hare!

.....Fobbed! Too funny. I didn't learn from the 70s. I got Fobbed again in the 90s. :( We pretty much have a winner in Bob Riley, but he's not going to be able to 4-term it like George Wallace. Back to typical gubernatorial idiocy in 2010, I'll bet.

Gitta body! Are you ready? (1, 2, 3...)

Gitta body Gitta body,
Har Har HAR!
Egelw Egelw War Damn Beagle
Butt 'em in the kick, Blue-Big! Hey!