Cap’n Ken’s Homespun Wisdom

I think it’s fair to say a whole lot of the SEC West race will hinge on the LSU/Auburn showdown Sept. 20 – and apparently a lot also hinges on whether Alabama’s dehumanizing of Clemson was Bama being great or Clemson being horrible, because Fonzie’s boys absolutely tore it up. And there are questions circling around both LSU and Auburn going in to the game, mostly around both teams’ QB situation.

So I’ll be looking closely at the performance of Andrew Hatch, Jarrett Lee, Kodi Burns and Chris Todd during each team’s tune-up games. And I figured it would be nice to share my observations.

The edge in week 1 is clearly to LSU, even though Hatch and Lee combined to go just 13 for 24 for 193 yards, 2 touchdowns and 1 interception. That’s hard to believe, but Auburn’s passing game was abysmal, with Burns and Todd combining to go 13 for 27 for just 85 yards, 1 touchdown and 1 interception. Auburn offensive coordinator Tony Franklin has to shelve his new spread attack and beat UL-Monroe on the ground. The War Eagles rolled up 321 yards rushing, but still just scored once on the ground.

On the LSU side, Hatch showed himself to be a decent game manager and a pretty unspectacular quarterback, completing 7 of 14 passes for 77 yards – a whopping 5.5 yard-per-pass average. Lacking both biceps and triceps, Hatch struggled to throw the football more than about 15 yards.

Lee has an arm, but lacks both the experience and the mobility to really perform well in Crowton’s offense. He went 6 for 10 for 116 yards – a healthy 11.6-yard average – but threw a very bad interception to go along with his two touchdowns. Lee will likely improve with more snaps, but it’s unclear whether he’ll ever really be a good fit for the offense. If he can get up to JaMarcus-level scrambling ability, maybe so. But it seems a long way off.

If I thought Leslie was a rational man, I would predict that Lee gets the majority of snaps in this week’s game against Troy, the coaches use the North Texas game as the final trial, and whoever is running the offense best gets the start at Auburn.

Auburn’s situation is a lot more challenging. What the team learned from the ULM game is that their offense is nowhere close to ready for the SEC schedule. For their QBs to be so far behind is rather stunning.

After week 1, I’m liking LSU’s chances against Auburn. We’ll see how things progress this week.

One of my Baton Rouge operatives tipped me to an article in the LSU Reveille this morning about the Student Senate being unhappy with Jessica Pivik”s column.

It seems the SGA is questioning their funding of The Reveille because of Jessica.

This is apparently the latest in a flurry of debate down at LSU about whether Jessica”s “shocking” column has a place in a campus newspaper.

It absolutely doesn”t, but not because of what it deals with. Jessica Pivik”s column has no place in The Reveille because it”s bad. Very bad. She”s a horrible writer, and her pieces are little more than lifted snippets of Google searches.

But the Jessica Pivik “controversy” isn”t what I want to focus on here, because this article brings to the surface the one thing at LSU that”s even more ridiculous than Jessica.

Student government.

LSU”s SGA – like those at pretty much any high school or college – is a pointless exercise that does little more than pad the resumes of the people involved.

[editor"s note: For those of you who may feel that things such as "Student Senate - Arts & Sciences College" make an impression on a resume, you"re wrong. Get a job that"s related to what you want to do. That"s what matters. No employer gives a damn whether you were involved in student government, 4H, Meals on Wheels or anything like that. It just makes you look like an untalented suck-up.]

LSU held its student government elections last month, and the SGA types were thrilled that turnout was up 350 percent! Of course, with 4,700 out of 31,500 students voting, that”s still just 15% of students giving a damn, but I guess it beats the regular 3% turnout.

I could go through all the things that make student government so ridiculous (pointless resolutions about things that won”t change, etc.), but instead, let”s have some fun with the LSU SGA.

First off, I love that the SGA has “Executive”, “Legislative” AND “Judicial” branches. Did you know that Roe v. Wade originated as a case heard by the LSU SGA Supreme Court? No? That”s because it didn”t.

Second, they feel the need to have an Executive Staff. Like it”s The West Wing or something. “Chief of Staff”? Give me a break. And click on that link above and scroll down to the very bottom. Check out the “Minority Affairs” dude. Crawford Leavoy? That”s the whitest boy I”ve ever seen.

Third, check out the rundown of The Student Senate. a) thanks for showing up at picture day, everybody! b) notice how the seats in Graduate School and the Veterinary School are essentially unfilled. Serious students have better things to do.

And finally – let”s give it up for Tiger “Pride”, Indeed!. Daniel is the kid who apparently helps Coach Saban recruit gay players. And now he”s won a “half seat” (whatever that is) in the Senate. Good to see the Republicans didn”t get a clean sweep on that whole “anti gay” platform.

In researching current events for last night”s U-Joint Trivia match (we led going in to the final question but ended up in second because somebody knew too much about presidents – we think they were cheating), I decided to learn more about Yasser Arafat.

One question I thought might come up was “what does Yasser mean?”, so I started searching around for that. The site that popped up first at Google amused me to no end, so I figure I”ll share.

It”s entitled “It”s All in the Name” and found at a site called RaptureReady.com. Yes, a Jesus freak. I recommend a full read of the piece, which looks to draw pro- and anti-Jesus ties to people based on their names, when you have some spare time, but here are just a few highlights:

• Darwin (Dare win) promoted the Theory of Evil ution

• Saddam Hussein (Sad damned Huss ein–we refer to a hussy as a whore in the English language)

• Mohammed, also spelled Mohammad (Mo ham mad) Ham being unclean (Mohammed died from pneumonia and was allegedly married to a nine year old girl. He also murdered many people. Ironically, Muslims don”t eat pork, but their supposed prophet has the unclean name within his own name)

• Javier Solana: Foreign Minister for the EU. Solana means “sun” and he could very well be the counterfeit “Son” or the Antichrist. The “number of his name” being 666 could mean that his first, middle, and last names all have six letters. He is the only European leader whose first and last names have six characters and after an exhaustive research, I still haven”t been able to find out whether or not his middle name has six characters also.

[editor"s note: "exhaustive research" apparently ends after the second Google result, because the third will tell you that his full name is Javier Solana Madariaga - the number of his name is 669!]

• Elijah Cummings: (Coming) is a current Senator in the U.S. Does that mean Elijah is coming as one of the two witnesses?

• Britney Spears: Yes, this is her last name. I think she is a stumbling block of lust for many men. Recently kissed Madonna on MTV.

• Ellen DeGeneres (Degenerate): First person to outwardly express her lesbianism on national television.

Enjoy.

My flirtation with Satan (aka Comcast) lasted just about 90 minutes.

While waiting for the wife to wrap up at work, I gave the friendly folks at Comcast a call to answer some questions left open by their less-than-informative website. My experience went as follows:

Call 1: Ignoring the prompt to “enter the phone number of the location where you want service” (never trust Satan with your personal information), I was finally connected through to a customer rep. After declining to give him my address, he asked me to hold for a moment. After five minutes on hold, I hung up.

Call 2: I again did not enter a phone number when prompted. I was then connected through to a customer rep, who picked up the line and promptly hung it back up without saying a word.

Call 3: Once again ignoring the prompt, I get a third customer rep who didn”t seem too troubled by my refusal to tell him who I am. He did, however, tell me he wouldn”t be able to help me much if I didn”t give him my address (from the website, I learned that I am in the “Central Atlanta” zone, but that was apparently not helpful to him). But he didn”t hang up on me, so I guess that”s a plus.

And so it was on to the questions -

Q: What”s the deal with the $400 for switching from Dish?
A: It”s credited as $25 a month for 16 months, as long as you have a plan that includes a premium movie channel. There”s no contract, but if you cancel, you get no more $25 credits.

Fair enough. I didn”t figure they were going to send me $400 cash.

Q: Is the $9.95 introductory Internet offer valid along with the $400 Dish deal?
A: Yes. It”s $9.95 for two months, then $42.95 a month. And you can either lease a modem for $3 a month or buy it.

Q: I saw an offer online for a free “self install” kit. Does that include the modem?
A: No.

My free “self-install” kit for EarthLink DSL included the DSL modem. I”d kind of assumed that”s what Comcast would give me, too.

Q: Then what, exactly, is in the free “self install” kit?
A: A cable and the software.

Q: That”s not much of a “kit”. So I either have to lease or buy a cable modem?
A: Yes.

Q: The DVR/HDTV offer shows a monthly price of $9.95. Is that just the equipment lease, or does that also include the regular HDTV charge of $5 a month?
A: It includes the $5 fee, so $9.95 is the total cost.

Hmm. Promising.

Q: What”s the fee for an extra digital box that”s a DVR and a non-DVR one?
A: An extra digital box is $4.80 a month, and an extra DVR is $9.95 a month, so that”s $14.75.

Q: Digital box and DVR? What do you mean?
A: They are two separate boxes.

Q: Wait, it”s not a tuner with DVR built in? It”s two boxes?
A: Yes.

This has just become considerably less attractive. $14.75 a month to get DVR in the bedroom?

Q: I see that you use the Motorola HD DVR. Is this the DCT6412 – the one with two tuners and a 120 gig hard drive?
A: No. It”s a single tuner.

Q: Do you offer the two-tuner one?
A: Not yet.

Q: So you”re going to?
A: Oh yes! Probably around February.

Another non-negotiable requirement is two tuners.

Q: OK, tell me about installation. How much does it cost?
A: It”s $14.99 for a basic installation on up to three TVs. And the DVR installation is $29.50.

Q: DVR installation?
A: Yes. The technician has to install the DVR.

Q: But it”s just a box. By “install”, do you mean hook it up to the cable box?
A: Yes.

Q: And that costs $29.50?
A: Yes.

Q: And that”s a required cost? I can”t hook it up myself?
A: Yes, that”s required.

And this was the end of the call.

OK, I”m more convinced now that Jessica Pivik is taking herself seriously (or maybe just using her column to research her own personal issues). Her column in this week”s LSU Reveille is another “exploration” of medical issues rather than a (poor) attempt at shocking sexual humor.

Rather than bore you with a link to her column, I”d like to suggest that you re-visit the best On Top column ever written. It”s kind of on the same subject, but retains the wonderful shock value and attempted humor we came to love Jessica for.

It”s Jessica”s final column from last semester, written for her by Cap”n Ken.

• It”s better to receive than to give.

I find myself today considering the ridiculous; contemplating the absurd; evaluating the ludicrous; pondering the preposterous …

I”m thinking about getting cable TV.

Yep, cable. Ditching my Dish, as they say. Signing on to have Satan himself (as represented by any and all local monopoly cable companies) deliver my in-home visual entertainment.

I have a permanent hatred, you see, for cable TV companies that grew out of my experience with Cablevision in Baton Rouge.

I lived in 11 different places when I was in college, and therefore I had to visit the horrid old Cablevision office on Florida Boulevard at least two dozen times (factoring in all of the visits to replace their crappy equipment when it broke). Those of you who had the misfortune of dealing with Cablevision know that a trip to the DMV or pre-computerized LSU registration was more enjoyable.

When I moved to Atlanta, I was glad to be rid of Cablevision, but discovered the apartment I moved in to had some ridiculous “special” cable system on which you could only get about half of the regular cable channels. That lack of choice really pissed me off.

Then when I bought my first house, I signed up for MediaOne (the local cable monopoly), but ditched it ASAP for this weird wireless cable system BellSouth rolled out. It was called Americast and required me to get a little white disc attached about 100 feet up a pine tree in my backyard (BellSouth broadcast its wireless signal from the top of the NationsBank building in Midtown).

That was 1998. I”ve been off cable ever since.

Now, however, I”m faced with a grim reality. Dish Network gives me good service at good prices. I like their DVRs (I”ve owned about 10 of them, after all) and the fact that I don”t pay a monthly TiVo fee.

But in this modern world, there”s a lot Dish can”t give me. I have an HDTV now, but if I want DishHD, I either have to go without DVR for HD (not acceptable) or pay $1,000 for an HD DVR, which Dish makes really hard for me to buy anyway. Dish also hasn”t kept up with video-on-demand services, and having Dish instead of cable also forces me to have a home phone line because I need a DSL line.

Satan (Comcast), on the other hand, can give me a comparable digital TV package, an HD DVR, video-on-demand, broadband without a phone line and even local Weather Channel content, can save me about $50 a month when you factor in dumping home phone service and will apparently give me $400 for leaving Dish.

And thus I ponder a deal with the devil.

If Satan is to get my business, he”s going to have to earn it. Comcast is known for horrible customer service, so they”re going to have to show me otherwise. I”ve got an email in to them asking for some details of their HD DVR (they use a Motorola box, and Motorola offers single-tuner and dual-tuner versions). If they can give me a coherent and timely answer there, they”ve cleared the first hurdle.

We shall see.