Cap’n Ken’s Homespun Wisdom

You”ll notice the new, seasonal look here at Cap”n Ken”s. LSU Football, baby.

We kick the season Saturday vs. the University of Louisiana at Monroe (all of the second-rate state universities, which used to be known as Northeast Louisiana, Southwest Louisiana, etc. lobbied to become “The University of Louisiana at …” a few years ago. I”m sure the rednecks going to school there are MUCH smarter now).

Anyway, with the season kicking off, I”m going to stick my neck out on the line with predictions for the 2003 campaign. Note, however, that I am not typically somebody who predicts SEC Championships for my Bayou Bengals.

I love my boys, but I”m a realist. We”re usually the underdog, and for good reason. If we have good high school talent coming out of Louisiana, we do fine. But we”re a small state, and we depend on recruiting in Texas and Florida to really do well, and that”s hard to do consistently.

And we”re the kind of school ABC does not want to see do well. Our colors are purple and gold, for God”s sake. We have those old-school stripes on our shoulders, and a rather unhip LSU logo and tiger face on our helmets. Given our choice, we”d never wear anything but white jerseys.

In other words, LSU football is a perfect reflection of Louisiana. A bit beaten down; never really expected to amount to much, and assload of fun and pretty unique. As I”ve said, I”d stack LSU Football up against any program in the country for tradition, fun and performance.

I”m not much of a fan, by the way, of our new logo, which is featured in the top-right corner of the Cap”n”s new-look page. To me it looks like Mike the Tiger is holding a press conference.

So on to predictions, which I”ll take game-by-game:

UL Monroe - Win
at Arizona - Win
W. Illinois - Win
Georgia - Loss
at Miss. State - Win
Florida - Win
at S. Carolina - Win
Auburn - Loss
La. Tech - Win
at Alabama - Win
at Ole Miss *
Arkansas *

* We will win one of these games and lose the other. This isn”t because Ole Miss or Arkansas are particularly good; it”s just that we always screw up at least one of our final two games, which are typically against these two border buddies.

So that”s 9-3, 5-3 in the SEC. I”ll stick by this prediction, although we really need to get into the season to see how Georgia and Florida come together. Could end up at 8-4; I”d be real surprised if it swings to 10-2. Shooting for the Peach Bowl (mostly because it makes it easy for me to go).

I like Auburn (yes, Charles, Auburn) to win the SEC and maybe even end up playing for the national title. Georgia may make the SEC Championship, but the depends on how bad Tennessee and Florida shape up to be.

Who”s the most famous person you know? I started thinking about my connections to fame recently because of my friend Dave, who very well may become the most famous person I know before too long. More on that in a minute …

I can”t say my links to fame are impressive.

Of people I”d say I truly know and am still in touch with, there”s really just my good buddy Lee, the elder statesman of the Baton Rouge rock scene and currently guitarist for The Myrtles. But right now he”s probably as famous as being the graphics guy at LPB than as a rocker. Things are going well for The Myrtles, so who knows? He could be a good fame connection someday.

Lee”s little brother - Sal Barbier - is actually damn famous in skateboarding circles. His signature “23″ shoe is the best-selling skate shoe in history. I knew Sal when he was 12 and saw him skate for the first time. But I haven”t seen him in about 13 years.

My stepfather is somewhat famous as a ex-TV newsman back in Baton Rouge, and my dad gained great infamy 22 years ago in Louisiana as a political fugitive (my stepfather - before he was my stepfather - actually won a Peabody award for a piece he did on my father. Sound f”ed up? Remember that my best friend”s uncle is also married to my sister … gotta love Louisiana).

Otherwise, there”s Steve Jacobson, who was “Steve, the van guy” in Slacker and Bill Davis from Dash Rip Rock. Get past that and it”s pretty much my journalist buddies who are “famous” to a very, very slight degree.

Anyway, these are not particularly great ties to fame. The wife, having grown up in Music City, USA, has somewhat better tales. She went to school with Johhny Cash”s son and Barbara Mandrell”s daughters and a friend of hers dated Reese Witherspoon”s brother. Closer, but still not very impressive.

So I”m banking on Dave Poche.

Not ringing any bells? There”s no reason it should, unless you live in New Orleans and have a kid under 8 years old.

See, Dave - once just a simple architect - is now one-fourth of The Imagination Movers, New Orleans” hottest and hippest family music act (actually, they probably refer to themselves as something other than “family music act”. I have no kids, so I don”t know how such things are billed).

That”s Dave second from the right.

Despite his twice-over fatherhood, Dave”s still a fairly cool guy. If I hadn”t known him for 23 years or so, I might not get it from that picture, of course.

The Movers have only been around for a few months. When Dave sent out his first email about this project - entitled “Dave Poche humiliation alert” - I found the Imagination Movers website, which was nothing more than a cartoon image of the four guys. I swear to Moses I just sat and stared at it in bewilderment for a good 30 minutes.

My first inclination was to mock. After all, this was my buddy Dave. I could tell some stories, but The Wisdom is linked off Google, so I shant sully his reputation here.

But it didn”t take me long to realize that, even if I personally don”t reside in the Movers” target market, this could be some powerful stuff. The boys are in talks for an Imagination Movers TV show on one of those kids” networks, there are people from other states talking their CD up on Amazon, and the guys do have some damned catchy songs.

I bought Dave”s CD and Lee”s CD in the same order from Amazon (yes, I”m keeping that receipt) and I showed the Movers” disc to some parental-types up here at the office. Without exception I heard the same question: “Are they like The Wiggles?”.

Apparently The Wiggles are the standard-bearers of the “kids music that doesn”t suck” market. So when I saw The Wiggles” show on the Dish last weekend, I took a look.

Wiggles = ass clowns. Lame, unimaginative music and “dance” moves that could have as easily fit in a Chris Guest/Michael McKean/Harry Shearer project as a serious act.

And then I knew. If The Wiggles are the current gold standard of kids” music, The Movers are gonna be freakin” huge.

So good luck, Dave. I”m counting on you to be “my famous friend”.

It”s 9:06 a.m. as I write this, which hopefully means our seller is at the closing attorney”s office signing his part of the paperwork that makes his home ours and puts us in debt to the tune of a half-million dollars (from the scary finance sheet that shows how much interest we”d pay over 30 years).

This was all supposed to happen yesterday at 9, but thanks to the feet-dragging of our new lender (HSBC, in case you”re ever freelance shopping for a mortgage), it got pushed back to 2 p.m. and Mr. Seller couldn”t make it then. So we did our part yesterday and he does his this morning. We”ll sign the lease this weekend, and start the 60-day countdown to us having to cover two mortgages.

The wife is pulling together flyers and a website for the current abode, and I”m picking up a for sale sign at Home Depot today. It”ll be interesting to see if sticking a sign in the yard drums up any interest. The old man next door has his house for sale, and it”s listed with some hood Realtor whose marketing plan appears to only include a sign in the yard, so we”ll see. As we get closer to two-mortgage time, we”ll look to list it if we don”t get FSBO bites.

Driving up to the cleaners/Starbucks yesterday morning, I noticed that the fine folks at Sembler have put up their “coming soon” sign for the Edgewood Retail District (heretofore known as “that Atlanta Gas place on Moreland” and not to be confused with the Edgewood Crackwhore District, which is about 500 yards south on Moreland).

So now it”s official … coming to the “hood are: Lowe”s, Target, Kroger, Barnes & Noble, Ross, Cost Plus World Market and “Electronics Store”, which probably means they”re still negotiating with Best Buy.

To mollify the neighborhood activsts, Sembler is including “low-income” and “senior” housing, which means the center will also have a Chinese/Fish/Wings place and a Piccadilly, I guess.

Anyway, I hear and read a lot of bitching about this project. Sure, it”s damn big. And, no, Moreland can”t handle the extra 20,000 cars a day (imagine the VaHi crowd making their way down to Lowe”s through Little 5).

But the fact is having 500,000 square feet of suburban-type retail on Moreland is good for property values (unless you live too close to it, I”d imagine). There are a lot of people who will take a closer look at intown living once we have more of the comforts of suburbia.

I wouldn”t have bought my place in East Atlanta three years ago if Publix wasn”t building their store in East Lake (I put up with driving to Ansley, then Ponce before it opened). And I”m willing to put up with a good bit of crap to live in Atlanta”s hippest neighborhood.

So think of the people who right now wouldn”t think of living intown, but once they have a Lowe”s & Target up the street suddenly start to see the appeal.

Sure, people who are attracted by Target or Ross or Barnes & Noble are more likely to be bland suburban types than hip intowners, but there”s a limited supply of hipsters to buy houses in the hood anyway.

Greedy SOBs like myself need the dumb masses to start moving in (don”t worry, they will want boring subdivisions, not hip places near the Village) to drive our property values up to VaHi and Inman Park levels.

So bring em on! When do we get the Chuck E Cheese?

I try to stay away from the “anger stuff” here at Cap”n Ken”s - I leave anger to the First Mate; she”s good at it - but the AJC really pissed me off today.

The top piece of the Metro section (ajc.com editors seem to have more news judgment as it”s hidden online) was a story carrying the headline “Mobile home owners fighting eviction“.

It”s the typical AJC story of “progress” uprooting simple, hard-working folks in “a quiet community, a place of clean streets and tall trees where homes are in good repair. Some homes” porch columns feature yellow ribbons, and American flags flutter from others.” Isn”t that sweet? I feel for them already …

And now the company that owns the property wants to build a 350-home development on the land, which is leading to the “eviction” of the 96 trailer dwellers, according to the AJC. The white, black and brown trash own their trailers, but not the land.

Bad, bad, evil greedy “corporation” (the writer made a point of calling it a “corporation” - read:EVIL). These are simple, hard-working folks, and they”re just going to put them out on the street (albeit with wheels under their houses). Injustice, I say! Injustice!

But wait.

Turns out the company is letting everybody stay until March 1 (they all rent month-to-month).

And they”re going to give them each $1,000 plus two months” rent credit (about $500) to help cover moving costs.

And they”re going to negotiate a group rate with a trailer-moving company for them

And they”re going to provide information on nearby trailer parks that have vacancies.

The company doesn”t owe these people jack. Yet they”re giving them 7 months notice and is going to come out of pocket to the tune of $144,000 to accommodate them.

Yet this is still the top story in the AJC”s metro section, paints these people as victims and comes complete with an inflammatory and false headline (it”s not “eviction” if you aren”t under a lease, you know).

Typical AJC bullshit. I should remember this story next time their telemarketers call wanting me to subscribe to that worthless rag (no offense, Tony).

Of course, the smelly group of residents has hired a lawyer - who will no doubt be paid in cheap beer and pork rinds - to fight this horrible, horrible injustice. Unfortunately, the issue here is political not legal (the Duluth City Council has to approve an annexation and rezoning for the development to go forward), so they may stand a chance of winning.

Trailer trash impedes progress (how I”d write the headline, you see).

P.S. The ajc.com editor who posted the story pulled a little trick I used to do when confronted with this typical AJC crap story during my Evil Empire days - change the headline. The link still has the “eviction” headline, but the ajc.com guy changed the head on the piece to “Project would uproot owners of mobile homes”.

We have another DishPVR 721 on the way. This will be the 5th one we”ve had since we bought (for $549) our original DishPVR 721 last fall.

PVR No. 4 lived a week. No. 3 lived about 12 hours. No. 2 managed to function for a couple of months (including one complete crash of the box which wiped out Ashley Judd - Style Star and many less important programs). I think PVR No. 1 had the longest life, maybe even 4 months.

So now No. 5 is on the way. Dish Network blames my house for the problems with their DishPVR 721. Last Sunday they sent out a couple of technicians to make sure my system is grounded properly (it is). Now their solution is to send me a “three-prong adapter” intended to make sure the electrical part of the system is properly grounded. From what I understand, this adapter is the same $1.50 plug you can buy at Radio Shack that lets you plug a two-prong power cord into a three-prong outlet and have it grounded properly. Nevermind that my herd of DishPVR 721s have all been plugged into a surge protector which itself has three prongs.

When No. 5 fails, Dish has promised to send out a “field service manager” to look once again for “site issues” that could be causing the problem. [DISCLOSURE: I did, in fact, install the second cable that runs to the 721 and "quad LNBF" - bought off Ebay - myself, so there"s a chance the problem is, in fact, with the inept installer].

The Dish folks seem completely baffled that I am having these issues with the DishPVR 721. Everytime I”m on the phone with their “advanced tech” people, I try to pry information about 721 problems out of them. They tell me a good number of people now have the DishPVR 721 and problems are rare.

But the installer guy who came out Sunday made a very good point. If they are so willing to keep shipping me replacement units and they have such an efficient system in place to do so (when I call, I get a new unit 2 days later, complete with return instructions and labels for my old unit in a nice little package), there just may be an issue with the unit.

Another disturbing thought came to me when I was on the phone with Dish today. I asked if the units they send as replacements are new or refurbished. They are, in fact, refurbished. I”m working the math to see how many DishPVR 721s I should expect to be sent before I get back one I”ve had before.