Cap’n Ken’s Homespun Wisdom

Yes, an early rollout for my weekend football picks (not that anybody really cares). With the move on tomorrow, I wanted to get this out of the way.

So this is it. LSU / Auburn. Saturday Night in Tiger Stadium. The big showdown for the SEC West.

LSU is ranked 9th, Auburn 17th or 22nd, depending on what poll you believe. But there”s so much to the story of this game, those rankings mean nothing.

Auburn was the pre-season star, found itself in deep trouble after two opening losses, and now looks again like a major SEC powerhouse.

LSU saw 2003 as its year to move up into the big leagues. We”ve looked great, except in the one game against Florida. The Crocs game could have broken our spirit, but we came back strong against S. Carolina.

Last week against the Cocks, LSU gave up zero yards rushing, and played better against the pass than the Cocks” 254 yards passing would indicate.

Meanwhile, Auburn rang up 405 yards on the ground against MSU and Coupe DeVille scored 6 times. The Tigers only gained 148 yards in the air, but didn”t need any more than that.

A win for Auburn Saturday means they are for real and have the inside track for the West title. They would still have to beat Georgia and Ole Miss, of course. But a win in Tiger Stadium would help erase a lot of the pain of the club”s 2003 start.

A win for LSU Saturday means they have the easiest path to Atlanta, with just Alabama, Ole Miss and Arkansas in the way (we”ve already beaten Georgia, of course). A win would also mean something like 7 straight weeks in the Top 10 and another big win for a program that is getting in a nice habit of collecting big wins.

It”s shaping up to be a hell of a game. Old-style, ground-game, low-scoring physical SEC football.

LSU gives up an NCAA-low 9.9 points per game, and Auburn only gives up 12.4 a game.

Auburn averages 202 yards rushing a game; LSU has given up just 53 yards a game. LSU averages 155 rushing yards a game; Auburn gives up 92. But Broussard and Vincent looked like Dalton Hilliard and Garry James last week. The LSU ground/ball control game was in peak form vs. the Cocks.

Both teams are average through the air, and both are average on pass defense. LSU has the advantage at QB with the mature, level-headed Mauck. Auburn”s QB can be rattled into some very, very bad decisions.

At the time when I began writing this, I was set to pick Auburn to win this game, as I did in the pre-season. And they have a good shot at it. But after my careful analysis, and putting aside all “homer” feelings toward LSU, I like our chances in a grind-em-up, down-and-dirty, for-all-the-marbles Saturday night home game on ESPN.

LSU, 17 - 14

Elsewhere in the SEC:

• Tennessee at Alabama - This year”s Hillbilly/Redneck matchup is devoid of the kind of significance it typically holds. Tennessee has to hope for both Georgia and Florida to crumble if it”s to win the SEC East, and Alabama has to hope for Jesus (or maybe Trot Nixon) to intervene if it is to win the SEC West (see, they”re on probation). And neither team looks that good this year. I”ll go Vols, 20 - 13

• Arkansas at Ole Miss - Two ways to look at this game from the LSU perspective. If Arkansas loses, they are completely out of the SEC West picture. Scratch that opponent and take the pressure off if we meet the Hogs with one SEC loss the last weekend of the season. Ole Miss has yet to lose in the SEC, so a loss for the Rebels puts them on par with LSU in the West race. I think I”d rather get Arkansas all the way out of the picture now and look forward to LSU vs. Ole Miss and Ole Miss vs. Auburn in the coming weeks to really settle the West. And I think Ole Miss will win this one, anyway. Rebels, 31 - 20

• UAB at Georgia - Oh how I”d love UAB to pull an upset here. Georgia is No. 3 in the BCS after Va. Tech blew it, and is within reach of playing for the national title if they win out (no easy feat for an SEC team). So if they stumbled against the Blazers, it would be a classic fold. But I”m not counting on it. UGA, 45 - 10

• Miss. State at Kentucky - This game has less impact on the SEC race than my desire for Katie Holmes has on her plans for next Saturday night. Cats, 42 - 3

• Vanderbilt at South Carolina - Slightly less significance than my crush on Katie. Cocks, 3 - 0

My Wednesday afternoon was spent at the new house, waiting around for the DishNetwork installation team. It was lonely over there; just me, the breakfast table we”d bought from the previous owners, and the piles of trash, dog hair and empty boxes the former owner/tenant had left behind (more on that later).

That the Dish system was the first thing to be set up at the new house was not an accident. The LSU/Auburn game Saturday night will come at the end of our big move day, and will be the first featured event at the new place.

So I packed up the living room TV, the little spare TV (a stand-in for our bedroom set so I didn”t have to tote it back and forth), my DishPVR 501 and DishPVR 721 Number 5 (yes, it is still alive) and brought them up to the new place.

I have enough experience with DishNetwork and specifically the DishPVR 721 to know nothing is simple with this particular piece of equipment. I had told the DishMover person I needed the DishPro Quad LNBF when I set the move up and explained that I, in fact, was the one person in the U.S. who has a DishPVR 721.

When the install crew - two young ladies who didn”t look like installers - showed up, I had to spend 20 minutes or so telling them about the 721, since they had not only never installed one, but had never even heard of it.

“See, it has two satellite inputs, because it has two tuners,” I said politely. They were very nice, but just didn”t know what to make of this box. Finally I told them to treat it like I had two separate tuners in the same spot, and that helped things along.

They then set about hooking my system up. The 501 upstairs was no problem. And they even managed to get two cables down to the 721. And, it seemed, the system was working for a while.

Then they went back up the ladder and started fooling around with the dish. Two hours later, they said a specialist was going to have to come out because they were not picking up the signal for the 119 satellite, just the 110.

Since it was 7:30 by this time, I didn”t offer my theory that they must be using a multi-switch up at the dish, when the DishPro Quad has its own switch built in and is not compatible with other switches (installing your own Quad teaches you these things). But I suspect that”s what the advanced tech guy will find out when he comes out.

Well, turns out LSU decided to take the team that played Georgia over to South Carolina and leave the team that played Florida at home. Good move.

The Tigers gave up some really stupid big pass plays, and would have given up more if the Cocks could catch, but held the Love Commandoes to a total of zero yards rushing.

Offensively, the running game finally came together in a big way, with the trio of freshmen - Broussard, Vincent and Edwards - showing the promise of great things ahead - and Mauck did a fine job of leading a balanced attack. The “epic” (as ESPN called it) 97-yard first-half drive - in which we actually racked up 116 yards of offense thanks to two dead-ball penalties - just crushed the Johnsons, and when they failed to reach the end zone after catching a Hail Mary to end the first half, it was over.

Next week”s game against Auburn should be interesting. Those Tigers piled up 405 rushing yards against MSU; we held Carolina to zero rushing yards.

Elsewhere, I again forgot about a game (Alabama at Ole Miss), but I”d have taken the mascot-less Rebels here, so I”ll claim a win (you”ll remember I owned up to not getting the Thursday UK/USC game right even though I forgot to pick it).

Florida did us a favor and beat Arkansas. I missed that one.

Auburn, as predicted, crushed MSU and helped drive Jackie Sherrill into retirement.

Georgia looked unimpressive beating Vandy, but it”s a win for them - and me.

Kentucky beat Ohio, as picked.

So, 5 - 1 for the week; 47 - 15 for the season, 6 - 1 on LSU picks.

Things are much calmer this weekend, with the big Saturday of matchups behind us. But any weekend with SEC football is a good weekend.

My Tigers are on the road in Columbia to take on the other USC. Shaping up as a defensive struggle. Look for Michael Clayton to have himself a decent enough game for us to pull away late. LSU, 24 - 17

• Florida at Arkansas - As much as I”d like Florida to win and give Arkansas a second SEC loss, I think the Crocs blew their wad last week in Baton Rouge. Hogs, 27 - 14

• MSU at Auburn - As much as I”d like MSU to win and give Auburn a first SEC loss, MSU sucks. Auburn, 42 - 10

• Georgia at Vanderbilt - Almost a bye week for the Dawgs. If they have to visit the Country Music Hall of Fame, it would make the trip to Nashville worthwhile. UGA, 56 - 3

• Ohio at Kentucky - Ohio? OK. Kentucky, 38 - 20

I got word today that “Randy” is turning over the keys to the new Casa Ken (and Casa The Wife) this coming Wednesday, enabling us to start our move on that day and be officially in residence by the end of next weekend (the moving / LSU-Auburn party is Saturday).

So now everything swings into motion. I just got off the phone with DishNetwork about getting my service set up there (it”s also set for Wednesday). During the call, you get transferred to an agent who goes over all the rules - someone over 18 must be there; you must have the TV set up 3 feet off the wall; if you reschedule, you must give 24 hours” notice; etc. - and one of the things she asked was “Is there a homeowners association?” My quick mind, in which is stored the information that there is already a DirecTV dish installed at the house, reasons that it is harmless to answer this with the correct answer - “yes”.

So I say “yes, but there”s already a DirecTV dish on the house, so dishes are not an issue.” Her response was that I need to provide a letter stating that dishes are OK, because the rules may have changed.

Well, fuck me, I”m thinking. I haven”t met any association people, and I do not yet have any paperwork. The association, you see, exists to maintain a gate on the main part of the subdivision that was not, in fact, built. It”s 10% of an association at best.

As it turns out, I got put on hold during part of the process for so long that the woman forgot where she was in the rundown of questions when we resumed that part of the call. So she starts over.

When she got to “is there a homeowners association?” I said “no” and that seemed to satisfy her. Hopefully there will be no issues encountered with this Wednesday.

With that task handled, I moved on to security system monitoring. Randy gave me the name of the company he is currently using (almost all of the houses have this company”s sign in their yards, so I checked out their site.

My inclination is to not consider them based solely on their amazingly useless website. They plug applets in to make the buttons change colors when you mouse over, yet there is no content on the site. And some design firm actually put their name on this.

In any case, I welcome any feedback on good and bad security companies out there. Looking for cheap, reliable monitoring without a contract.

On the way home from work today, my drive was held up for about 5 minutes as a big truck turned around and backed up on Grant Street. I was pretty annoyed until I got past the truck and realized it was from one of my favorite Atlanta companies - Randall Brothers.

Randall Brothers is a big building materials/HVAC concern that is - and has been since 1885 - headquartered on Marietta Street near my old office. It”s Atlanta”s 5th-oldest active company according to the AJC.

But my love for all things historic is not why I like Randall Brothers so much. What I love is their logo.

To wit:

That small Web graphic isn”t the best representation of the logo, so look for the big orange trucks to get a better view. (Big props for the use of purple and gold, BTW)

The Randall slogan “Pointing the way to better living” is illustrated in their logo by what appears to be a Mafia boss threatening to inflict some serious harm on you.

Seems to me “pointing the way to better living” would be illustrated by a guy in coveralls pointing confidently out toward the horizon or something.

But no, we get a really mean looking dude in a black suit pointing right fucking at us for Chrissakes!

“Pointing the way to you keeping your legs unbroken by buying a fucking air conditioner” is more like it.

According to the Randall website, the “Pointing Man” is not Mr. Randall or anybody in particular. The logo has been in use, the site says, for more than 90 years and “exemplifies their seriousness and determination to serve.”

Yeah, to serve a fucking horse head up in my bed.