-- REM

But the thing is, I don’t really feel fine. I love pop culture. The term “pop culture” encompasses a variety of things to me – television, music, movies, books, magazines, trivia, gossip, etc. I read Pink is the New Blog and laugh out loud, I’ll read the cover of US Weekly in line at the grocery store, I’ll watch E! on a lazy Sunday afternoon and I’ll read every page of my Entertainment Weekly. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.

All of the sudden while pausing on E! recently I just felt nauseous. I had an overall feeling of doom and dread and hopelessness as I saw yet another Paris Hilton interview. Who IS this girl? An insanely rich heiress that is famous for just being an insanely rich heiress. This is a girl that regularly grabs headlines on CNN.com, y’all. And why? CNN recently ran a bit on their home page about a Britney Spears video that is online where she belches “like a man.” When did this become news? It’s one thing to seek out that kind of information on Eonline.com, but on CNN??

I guess we’ve always been fascinated with celebrities. We’ve created some and torn some down. That will never change. What is concerning to me is the mixing of entertainment and news. There are plenty of stations that proudly call themselves infotainment and that is fine. But seriously, Britney belching like a man on CNN? COME ON.

I went to the Vulcan recently. As we weaved through the exhibit we discussed the video clips of a young Birmingham: images of factory workers, politicians, church leaders, buildings going up, buildings being razed, etc. And my question is, what will the 90’s and 00’s look like to a generation 50 years from now? What will the history reel look like? Would we be proud of ourselves or would we cringe? Are they going to focus on what wars the world was involved in or will they focus on advances in medicine, etc. Will they make us look bad by saying how we all edified the likes of Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan. 50 years from now will some kid researching the past for a term paper think that our news was soft? Stupid? Entertaining? Will he be able to tell what was news from what was opinion and fluff? Will he know that there was a world before blogs? I wonder about these things.

And in case you’re wondering – yes, I did totally freak out at the top of the Vulcan and refused to walk around. Instead I kept my back pressed up against the side of the elevator both hands gripping the rail and elevator. Sad you say? Sure, but I wasn’t the only one. Sorry Miles. =)

It’s a mixed up, muddled up, shook up world
-- The Kinks

Yeah, yeah, sing it out loud, go ahead – “except for Lola. La la la la Lola.” Great song.

Anyway, I went to the Ole Miss/Alabama game on Saturday. There were several Ole Miss fans in our section. It really irritates me when that happens. Stick them over there in their little section by their little band. Alabama fans that sell their tickets to the opposing team suck, sorry, but that’s what I think. But for the most part, these folks were fine.

We’ve had the same seats for years and as such you tend to get to know the other regulars around you – at least a little bit. In front of us there is an old man named Willie. I love this guy. He’s funny, energetic, gets into the game and gives high fives and stuff. He’s just a super nice guy and never has a bad word for anyone, except for something shouted occasionally at the refs. He sits with his daughter and also his niece, who we suspect are not only cousins but also partners. He calls them his “boys.” Anyway ---

The game was tight and Alabama fans were frustrated as usual and began to stand up and scream a whole lot. Meanwhile, a lone Ole Miss fan came and sat in front of Willie. Towards the end of the game we finally had a call go our way as a Rebel player knocked down our punt receiver with no regard to the halo rule. The crowd went nuts. The Rebel turned around and yelled “BS – HE WAS BLOCKED INTO HIM. THAT’S TOTAL CRAP” right in Willie’s face. Willie said, “No he wasn’t – watch the reply” very nice and calm. We all watched the reply and it was the right call, still the Rebel turned around and screamed at Willie again that it was total crap.

I snapped. Like, totally snapped. I leaned over Willie’s shoulder and screamed toward the guy, “THAT WAS THE RIGHT CALL, FOR A FREAKIN’ CHANGE! LET’S GO BAMA!” Well, this pissed him off and he turned around and shouted “Let’s GO DEFENSE!” Etc. etc. We jawed in each other’s general direction through the last five minutes of regulation and through overtime. When we scored the winning touchdown, I leaned over past Willie and shook my shaker right at the back of the guy’s head and said, “WELCOME TO TUSCALOOSA, THIS IS HOW WE ROLL HERE.” HA! I couldn’t resist. And even though we certainly didn’t beat the hell out of anyone, I had to sing along, loudly, with “Rammer Jammer.” As the poor little Rebel stood there all red faced and shocked and probably cried, "blocked, blocked, blocked into him" all the way home.

The moral of the story -- don't mess with Willie or you'll have me to answer to and also, don't act like a jerkface when you are sitting in the middle of the opposing team's section. Boy is lucky he didn't get a 10 row emptying beat down.

These ain't ruby shoes
I can't click my heels anytime I choose and fly away
-- Jessica Andrews

More posts are forthcoming - I really promise, y'all. Hang on, ok?

-ames

Woo Hoo! I know this is a bit gratuitous, but I must acknowledge the FOUR year anniversary of amydabbs.com. Can y'all believe it? FOUR YEARS of rants, raves, complaints, bad luck, funny stories, debates, comments, etc. Thank you to everyone who reads this site and thanks again to Chris and Keith for pretty much making me have a site when I left that other dark hole of a job place four years ago. =) You were right. And many thanks to Chris, master of all things www for keeping it up and running all this time. Here's to many more years!

-ames

So you’ve got to live it while you can
-- Keith Urban

This summer pretty much sucked. Why am I even telling the world wide interweb (or whatever the crap they are calling it these days) that? I have no idea. And don’t get all excited because I’m not about to reveal details, but suffice it to say, I got knocked around a wee bit but I have, I hope, successfully picked myself up and will be coming back for more. I’m just glad the fall season is now on us so maybe I can move on and watch some of the junk in my life fly away along with the falling leaves. We’ll see.

Here’s the thing, life is entirely too short. No matter how much time you have, it isn't enough.

My grandmother isn’t doing that well. I have been blessed to have her for this long and with each passing year I was amazed the old bird was still kicking it, but then again, I wasn’t too surprised. She falls into that category of too mean to die. She’s the original bad ass – the smart ass, the back talker, the not taking your shit today or any day type that I always studied with awe. She’s improved some, but when she does go it will be really hard on me. But that’s selfish; it’ll be hard on anyone that was privileged to know her.

As I peered at her from the end of her bed last weekend I thought back to all those times I spent with her as a kid – running around the house on Easter and the 4th of July; a reluctant teenager on Sunday afternoons sitting in her living room, a college kid so excited that she actually came to my graduation, and as a trying to find my way semi-grown up going to dinner with her and my dad each Tuesday night while I lived at home. Priceless. Those are the times I’ll remember. When she’s gone, that’s all I’ll have of her.

Louise – I called her that to piss my aunt off, but she loved it and would always laugh at me for it. She’s the one that said if Saddam showed up in her back yard she’d “take that shotgun right there, off that wall, and shoot that son of a bitch.” The one that ever so softly got right in my aunt’s dog’s Sandy's face when she jumped on her lap and said, “GET. OUT. OF. MY. FACE.” The dog jumped out of her lap and honestly did not go near her the rest of that Thanksgiving Day. The 5 foot tall, small woman that ate an entire gallon of ice cream EACH WEEK and dared you to tell her not to do it. She was coffee and ice cream. God, I love her. I hope she knew it because she doesn’t know too much of anything these days.

She has had a good, long life. I hope when I get to the end of mine I can say the same. I hope there will be a few that will say I impacted them or somehow made their lives better. And if I want that to be the case, enough with my head up my own ass, time to shake it off, get back in the ring and live life for all its worth.

I want to be just like you, Louise.
love,
Amy

And I’ve been doing just fine
Gotta gotta be down because I want it all
-- The Killers

Hi. I’ve been catching hella heat for not updating this blog. I know. I ran into a huge bout of writer’s block recently. Or better yet, maybe it was a bout of extreme boredom, as my life is the fodder for this site. Anyway, I also started to think about what I was going to say and who all was reading it and I just froze. I have literally laid awake trying to think of a good topic to rant on and nothing. But all that is (hopefully) over. I’m just going to say whatever on here and much like throwing a fistful of cooked spaghetti up against the wall to test for doneness, something is bound to stick.

So SNL – I never really watch it anymore because it’s spectacularly uneven and not that funny anymore. I give it a shot every now and then for the season opener, a guest host that I love or a band I have to see. I tivoed it last night and again, it was uneven, but there were a few golden moments – like the sorely underused Maya Rudolph as Whitney Houston with Andy in the Geico commercial. Seriously – the Gieco agency folks are awesome. I love their new spots and really wish I had of wrote them. The Little Richard one is FABULOUS. And it’s huge to be parodied so quickly on SNL. Other fave moment was Darrell as Bill Clinton and Maya as Condi – classic. With Studio 60 and 30 Rock, SNL is under more pressure than ever – hope they make it.

According to Jason Mraz, "pink is the color for fall" and I obliged by breaking down a mere 2 weeks after Apple announced their second generation nanos and bought a pretty pink one. I love it. I am so a gadget freak. Oh well. I am who I am.

Speaking of fall – on with it already. Enough with this teasing of one night of 50 degrees and the next I’m sweating like a frat boy in hell week. One more lyric to close, "Time for a cool change."