Artist Montage

I saw this picture floating around on myspace. I actually wouldn't mind owning a poster of this montage. There are 75 bands represented in this pic. I've picked out about 30. My favorite is Alice in Chains. Call 'em as you see 'em.


(Click on the picture for a better view.)

Riverdogs Pride

I just wanted to kick a shout-out to Delmon Young, the former Charleston Riverdog, for making a big splash in the majors. Unfortunately, the former Most Outstanding Major League Prospect made a splash for unethically using his baseball bat. And by unethical use I mean to say 'trying to kill an umpire.' Check out this video:

Internet Charity

I just wanted to pass this link along.. it doesn't take but two seconds of your time and just by viewing this website you can help someone else. So quit being selfish and click here.


Good luck Dan..

Stay of Execution

So Prison Break is still on the air. They're still making new episodes. I was under the impression that Lincoln was supposed to be executed a long time ago.
I thought the whole reason we're fed these overly dramatic looks every few seconds was because time was running out. I guess they're used to make sure the program doesn't get too much substance.

They've even resorted to bringing back assumed-to-be dead characters. If you thought Saved By the Bell was pushing it by filming the college years.. stay tuned to how this show lingers with a new ridiculously-imagined plot twist each week.

penny: allow myself to introduce....myself

hello SOD faithful...im very honored to have been offered a spot to vent, preach, complain, whatever. add the promise of profit-sharing and free dental and who could say no. and so it is with pride i take my place alongside reporting geniuses that have not only found the final resting place of a timeless classic, but also, well a timeless treasure. despite the cockblocks he's thrown us all, ill do my best to support the devil and right past wrongs. talks of a longstreet theater repair fund already in the works...

Smokin' Love

I got tied up playing a few hundred games of freecell while listening to Hot Fuss the other night when I realized I forgot about dinner and it was almost midnight. After driving around for awhile I wound up heading to a chain restaurant, because most mom and pops were in bed at this time on a weeknight. That was fine by me, because I was in a cheese stickey-chicken fingerish-loaded cheese fries mood. So I ended up at this gem on a weeknight and took a seat at the bar, ordering the sampler to go and a beer while I wait. I passed the time by catching Sportscenter and people-watching. As I scanned the room, I noticed this couple sitting back and smoking in unison. Man, nothing tops off a meal like sitting on the same side of a booth and getting some primary and second-hand smoke.

Then, in between synchronized puffs they start hooking up.

Then they'd quit smooching and go back to smoking. They repeated this cycle for awhile until I just figured I had to covertly photograph the process on my phone. Sorry the pics are so small.. I guess I zoomed in too much while pretending to play bejeweled.

That Mischievous Bob

This bit of news will make you go cross-eyed. I'm gonna type extra slow to make sure any Clemson grads that are reading this can follow along with me. So anyways, I got caught up watching the news last night due to the fact that I've misplaced my remote. I kept dozing off until I heard about this story. Superficially, it's about a group of people that have been protesting at funerals of soldiers that have fallen in Iraq.

But let's delve a little deeper..

These protestors aren't making a fuss about the war.. they're protesting at the funerals of soldiers that died in combat because they feel that God is punishing America. Members of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas feel that God is so outraged at the prevalence of gays in America that he is killing our soldiers in the conflict in Iraq.

Let's review this one more time: some ultra-conservative bible-thumpers are protesting at the funerals of soldiers that fought in a overwhelmingly conservatively-supported war because there are liberal queers in our country.



Thanks Wayne, but that won't be necessary. That's because groups of bikers have formed the Patriot Guard, whose sole mission is to preserve the sanctity of these funerals. Take a look at their site.. these riders are very well organized. I would probably join them if I had a Harley, leather clothing, and some free time. I disagree with the Patriot Guard's nonviolent philosophy though.

Let me get on that soapbox over there for a second. This is a classic example of why religions will always fall short of their goals: they can't account for the human factor. I'm willing to bet that the folks at Westboro Baptist Church know the difference between right and wrong. I'm pretty sure they know to give respect during a funeral.. I bet they even hold the door open for elderly people. But then they became religious and lost normal human decency. They take their own personal opinions and then manifest them into some type of bizarre act, all the while feeling like they are acting under the blanket of being holy.

It's kinda like when you were five years old and you had an imaginary friend. Your parents leave you alone for a minute, and when they come back you've written all over the walls in crayon.

Parent: Why the hell did you do that?
kid: I wasn't going to, but then my invisible friend Bob told me to.
Parent (ideally): Ah, I gotcha.. well I'm gonna spank you for awhile and I want you to pass that message to Bob the next time he comes around.

Other examples:
'I normally don't like to fly, but I feel Bob wants me to be suicidal.'

or..

'I don't want to shoot that doctor or teenage girl, but Bob sure does hate abortion.'

Let's go Sharks!

Well folks, like I said earlier in the week, it's (NIFL) football season! That's right, the Charleston Sandsharks (2-1) kickoff their home opener against the Greensboro Revolution this Saturday. The Revolution will be looking to avenge their previous 45-28 loss.


I've had a rollercoaster of a decision process on whether or not to attend.

'Home opener, 5 hours of tailgating.. ya damn right I'll be there!'

'Man, I really should study for boards.. sorry yall.'

But then I heard a rumor that won't let me miss this one. It turns out one of my fellow high school alumni has tried out and acquired the position as the official Charleston Sandshark mascot. Good ole Abbott (aka Abbitty Abbitty Abbitty Abbott, aka Houdini, aka Apocalypse, Acropolis.. what's the difference?) will be leading our cheers this Saturday and I'll be there to witness it.

Go Sharks! Go Abbott!

College Megavenues

Check this link that lists the top 20 largest college football stadiums. Seven of them belong to SEC schools. Williams-Brice is listed 18th (80,250), right ahead of the University of Texas's Royal-Memorial stadium (80,082). The picture of Willy B is pretty flattering as far as attendance goes, but ya gotta capture the claws when shooting our stadium.

So here are my opinions..

Most over-rated: This superlative has to go to our friends from the rocky top. Tennessee's Neyland Stadium is the largest SEC stadium seating 104,079. Keep in mind that the space they allocate for each seat is about half of any other stadium, leaving you knee deep in your Tennesseean neighbor's cellulite. Let's just say you get to know these folks pretty well:


Quietest: My vote here would have to go to Alabama's Bryant-Denny stadium (83,818). Who knows, maybe the Bammers were just suffering from Quiet Afternoon Game syndrome during the trip I made down there.

Ugliest: Wow, somehow Texas A&M's Kyle field (82,600) managed to steal this award away from the asymmetrical valley of our upstate friends. What the hell were they thinking? I'm gonna guess the 12th man isn't an architect.

Best Design: I'm gonna have to crown Florida State's Doak Campbell stadium (82,000) with this one. That brick architecture encompassing the stadium is impressive. I've never been there, but it looks like they have plenty of green space for tailgating along with some highways to accomodate their traffic.

Cocktails: Mad River Bar and Grille

One of Charleston's newest hotspots is the Mad River Bar and Grille which is located on Market Street in between the Purple Tree Lounge and the Market Street Saloon. I've frequented this bar a few times over the past 2 weeks and have mixed feelings about it. It seems the staff and owners need a lesson in manners. Everytime I've been there it's been a clusterfuck, which isn't their fault. I've never been a fan of limiting occupants due to fire codes, and I guess the noise in there helps elminate any attempts at cellular pinging. The Mad River is a bit pricey too, which I assume is to help out with the startup costs and its location.



On the other hand, the walls and booths are covered with plasma televisions. The fact that they renovated an old church with high ceilings makes it virtually smoke-free. Their promotions manager gave me the hard sell about their private room with porch area, which is an ideal venue to rent out for graduation parties, engagement parties, and even for sporting events (reminder: football season starts in one week).

Final thoughts: It's a great place to meet up with people for a few drinks, but I wouldn't plan on hanging out there for too long. It has plenty of tvs that are perfect to watch Wimbledon on, but I wouldn't trust the place during football season.

Rating: 2 beers out of a six pack

Crummy: The Duke Lacrosse Scandal

Crummy: The Duke Lacrosse Scandal

We at the SoD have empanelled a group to determine our official stance on the Duke Lacrosse Team scandal. After thorough debate and countless hours of viewing 24-hour news we have come to several conclusions:

1. The victim is definitely a past, present, and/or future stripper who has had her share of run-ins with the law. Apparently, this woman is sometimes strapped for cash and enjoys high-speed driving even though she may or may not have rights to the car.

2. It is ridiculous for a District Attorney to continue to bring a rape case prosecution when the DNA evidence is not in his favor. Judge Andrew Napolitano, Fox News legal contributor, has it right - No prosecutor has ever brought a reported rape case in which the DNA evidence is against him. At this point, without more, the DNA evidence clears all members of the Duke Lacrosse team.

3. The District Attorney is continuing to bring the case for some other reason. Possible reasons: got cut from the lacrosse team in high school and hasn’t been able to forgive those unfair bastards ever since, hates Duke in general because he went to UNC, or last and least, he has other strong evidence. We tend to think it is either the first or second reason, but we invite your comments.

4. At least one of the Duke Lacrosse players is a total moron. In an email sent a couple of hours after the alleged event, one player said he wanted to invite more strippers over and kill them and skin them. Somehow, his attorney tried to claim it wasn’t so bad a comment and even clears him of wrongdoing. However, how do you defend an email where a guy says that he wants to skin someone? Tip: Do Not Say Anything In An Email That You Would Not Want The Public To See! Verdict: Guilty by Reason of Complete Stupidity and Lack of Decency.

5. All but three (only three were accused) of the Duke Lacrosse players have been punished by the school, community, media, and police for doing absolutely nothing.

SoD Official Verdicts:

43 - Not Guilty
3 – Not Guilty, but Stupid
1 – Guilty By Reason of Complete Stupidity and Lack of Decency

We invite your comments, verdicts, and other relevant evidence.

One last comment not necessarily reflecting the views of all of us at SoD: It is about time that the media stops being the judge, jury, and executioner of everyone SUSPECTED of a crime. Let them have their day in court!

Oh yeah, Duke is Puke.

Chemical Imbalanced with Alcohol

I'll admit this is pretty half-assed, but I had to avoid studying last night one way or another. Nevertheless, I'd like to present the paradoxically gymnastic, surprisingly acrobatic: The Amazing Imbecile!



Click here for a larger version.

Some Busywork

SoD readers,
I'd like to take a new approach to today's post. I'm gonna link a story that I'm sure some of you have already stumbled upon. It's an interesting read and I would like to hear your opinions on it.

Unfortunately, it's rather long.

Luckily, half of you are pseudo-intellectual grad students so I'm sure you're up for it. The rest of you are underworked and overpaid, so forego your morning walk around the office and do some reading.

Click here.

Note: I have no strong opinion about this either way. You're welcome to comment however you'd like. Hell, post under anonymous if you want. I'm just looking forward to hearing from you.

Cellular Pings

I think we use cell phones in excess. (understatement) I'm definitely guilty of it, sometimes it seems like my car won't crank unless I'm on the phone. In my defense though, I'm usually in lock-down during the day and often spend my evenings studying.. so the car is a time-efficient place to keep in touch. I also try to avoid using the mail as much as possible, so being able to pay bills by phone is a convenience.

Anyway, this post was inspired by one of my main cell phone annoyances. An annoyance so vulgar that I'm delaying my Bojangles fix in order to write about it. Oh, and this annoyance happened twice this weekend involving two different people. So what could this trivial, minor setback that raises my systolic be? It's the habit of cellular pings. (Pings are a form of active sonar used in boats but also occur in nature as echolocation.) Basically, I really dislike it when there has to be multiple phone conversations in order for someone to meet up with you. That doesn't seem like a big deal, but consider this example:

Phone call #1:
'Hey, where are you?'
'I'm at X.'
'Ok, I'll be there in a second.'

Phone call #2 (10 minutes later):
'Hey, are you still at X?'
'Yep.'
'Ok, I'm parking.. I'll be right there.'

Phone call #3:
'Hey, where in X are you?'

Phone calls 1 and 2 are relatively understandable from a safety perspective. But phone call #3..that's the one that really gets me. How do I answer this? Do I need to pull a Jack Bauer? 'Uh, I'm at a table that's 9 feet away from the restrooms in the Northeast section of the bar. Hold on, let me upload realtime satellite thermal scans to your PDA so you can exactly pinpoint where I am in order to save you the trouble of just casually scanning the room.'

I guess I could just send one of my associates as a guide.


Anyway, maybe I'm just making much ado about a common tendency. But the next time you're in this situation and don't feel like dealing with it, just hang up during phone call #3 and text your caller 'Sorry, please refer to the Summer of Dev post #94. See you shortly.' I think I'll go get some supremes and head to my sanctuary to cool down from thinking about this.

Flawless on the Diamond

Looks like the 7th ranked Tiggers from the upstate are coming to the Sarge to take on the #1 ranked Gamecocks (26-3) tonight. Interestingly, I think the last time they visited the capital city they were ranked #1 and we were a lowly #9. Isn't it amazing what sweeping both Florida and LSU does for your ranking? Especially when they were both formerly in the top 15, and you still outscore them by a total of 63-16 (31-10 vs. UF, 32-6 vs. LSU).

Click here for live streaming video of tonight's matchup starting at 7:00.

Time Travel

This past weekend was also a chance to warp through time during Daylight Saving Time. I read somewhere that it wasn't until 1966 that Congress passed the Uniform Time Act, which specifically detailed when our clocks were to spring forward (or fall back). Before then, states and counties were free to decide when to reset their clocks on their own. Obviously this led to a lot of confusion. That must have been pretty crazy.. imagine having to go through even more Y2K catastrophes!

Unlike you fools though, I didn't have to change my clocks. I'm a rebel.. I never fell back in October. I hate to break this to you, but time is not something we can alter. Sure, we can change how we perceive time.. but that's a bit too secular to be of concern to me. For all of you that play by the rules, remember that President Bush declared that DST will be extended by 4 weeks starting in 2007.

Occasionally, people ask me 'why don't you set the time in your car or watch?' Well this weekend answered that! I hope all you nerds had fun adjusting your hour settings. Enjoy having to twist that little dial on your watch all the while hoping you didn't go too far? I got to sit back and laugh during all of this (actually, I was getting some hashbrowns). Granted, I've had to solve an equation in order to tell time the past few months.. but it was worth it. Well worth it.

Runnin' it out

The Cooper River Bridge Run was this past weekend and was a success once again. Historically, it's been one of the largest 10k runs in the nation. This year I was glad to accompany the 45,434 other runners. I wish I had trained more for it though. Here's a fun fact: the course record for the 10k (6.2 miles) is 27:40. A steady pace allowed me to finish in under two days. The course record remains intact, even though many thought the single span would allow people to fly down the decline. Unfortunately, the preceding 4 degree incline for over a mile took its toll.

One of the thousands of people that passed me was a guy in a wheelchair during the downhill portion. As I gasped for air, I thought to myself 'big deal.. if I was wearing roller blades I could cruise downhill too.' Then I realized what a bitch it must have been to get through the 1+ mile incline. I'm really impressed by the whole wheelchair competition in general.

If I do run next year, I'm going to go ahead and set the following rules:
1. Train!!!
2. Getting some pasta the night before is ok, but there's no need for any wine.
3. No hot sake the night before.
4. No apple sake either.
5. Nor any free sake. (Ok, there might be some negotiations on this one.)
6. No contests on who can eat the most taco bell at 3AM the night before.
6. Don't tie shoelaces so tight.

Before you consider me even more irresponsible for hitting the town the night before the race, you need to understand that the organizers of the Cooper River Bridge Run set me up.. and here's how they did it:
I had to go to the run expo on Friday to pick up my race packet since I registered so late. So I go there and of course it's packed with all the participants for this weekend. I find my bib number and grab my packet. So as I'm about to leave the expo, one of the event staffers kinda blocks my exit and asks if I've been to the vendor fair yet. She was a nice old lady, so I wasn't suspicious of her and their master plan. So I tell her that I didn't see it, and she points me in its direction. I go down there, and of course it's filled with all these obnoxious runner type people. For some reason, they're already in running shorts and sports bras the day before. They're buying granola bars, shoe strings, fitness water, etc.

I was so disgusted.

So anyway, I keep walking by the different booths until I stumble upon this table that is littered with packs of peanuts and plastic cups. I figured they were giving out some gingko/green tea concoction, but then the chick working the table asks me if I want a beer. Time froze. I just stared at her.

(liver: uh, it's 10:30 in the morning chach.)
(brain: I have been working hard, it's time for a break.)
(stomach: did someone say peanuts?)

'You heard the monkey, I'd love a beer.' Naturally, this snowballed into late night buffoonery and thus further secured the course record.

After the race (and after a few anti-inflammatories), I got to 'cool down' at a serene wedding on the beach of Alhambra Hall with these guys.

What an ill-timed, amazingly unproductive, perfect weekend.