Friday Fodder for Filibustering: Aye, Robot

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Dear God.

Of this thing comes my way in a wildfire, a toxic rubble, or in broad daylight, I can assure you whatever problem it is trying to solve will be forgotten as I do my best impersonation of Superman and attempt to fly through the air.

So, with that in mind, today’s Fodder is asking you this: what’s your favorite sci-fi movie?

My short list:

2001: A Space Odyssey

If you ever wanted to time travel for three hours without realizing it, ethos is your movie. Cutting edge special effects given the time, and a Kubrick film that makes you wonder if the moon landing was, potentially, fake, this set the bar high for space movies. A good story to watch nowadays given our emerging AI and robot overlords, it’s a timeless classic.

Planet of the Apes

The Charlotte Heston one, not the new ones with Marky Mark. Te kiddos might thing the special effects and costumes are goofy, but it just hits different when you see the Statue of Liberty at the end for a dark and surprising twist.

Blade Runner

Speaking of robots, this was a dark venture into a future where robots went from service systems to cold blooded killers. When a group of androids developed to work space colonies that nonhuman wishes to do (sound familiar?), some advanced copies make their way back to earth and Harrison Ford has to hunt them down. Odd how life starts to imitate art, no?

Alien

I still can’t watch this without jumping throughout. Guarantees to give a few jump scares to even the most seasoned of horror enthusiasts, the movie has amazing artistic sets and does a great job of establishing the mood of loneliness and desperation when your millions of miles from home and a parasitic zygote sticks to your face and sucks the life out of you, only to embed a seed in you that explodes out of your stomach and kills everything near and dear to you. No, this isn’t a movie about marriage. I kid, I kid. Also seeing the lone robot get sliced in half and continue to talk is just next level creepy to me, still.

So how’s about you…what’re your favorite sci fi movies? Let’s hear it in the comments.

Coming to an SEC Team Near You

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Curt Cignetti, master of the 25 year olds playing a three game schedule, has something to say.

Wow, per the B1G, a notable game for Indiana, of all twelve they have to play is, wait, what?

Jesus Christ.

Anyway, the only people who have the SEC on their mind maybe more than the SeC itself seems to be the B1G.

You’ve won three in a row. Let it go, Elsa.

And do you think an SEC coach would like to have the Hoovers’ schedule for the upcoming season? Let’s take a look at this formidable gauntlet of a schedule:

vs N Texas
vs Howard
vs WKU
vs Northwestern
at Rutgers
at Nebraska
vs Ohio St
at Michigan
vs Minnesota
vs USC
at Washington
vs Purdue

Whining might be appropriate for anyone who wants to not really play their starters until the 7th week of the season.

Today, In Not Getting It

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Shot:

Chaser:

Kyle wouldn’t make it a day in Athens, let alone in an equal opportunity hating conference like the SEC.

Words aren’t that important Kyle. Winning is probably more important.

Thursday Thought Provoker: It’s in the Cards

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I recently decided to inventory thirty plus years of storage boxes in my parents basement, and what to my wondering eyes should appear in one of them but this…

I also had several opened where I’m sure I have a complete set…I immediately texted Otis thinking I’d hit a gold mine…until he told me the whole set was going for $20 on eBay. Oh, well, so much for the house in the Keys.

Anyway, this was interesting to see on my feeds:

So, beauty is really in the eye of the beholder, no? Can’t say I’m not surprised. I also came across old piggy banks in my storage collection and started looking for rare quarters and coins that might fetch a pretty penny, and it took me to websites where the value of the coins were dependent upon their condition, interesting stamping flaws, or original die sets. Again, my retirement plans came to a crashing halt almost instantly.

Anywho, for today’s Provoker, what do you collect? Do you have a prized possession…or does the news of the Honus Wagner thing above give you pause that maybe it’s really time to offload those Beanie Babies you thought were going to make you a fortune by dumping them in a trash bag and dropping them off at Goodwill?

Discuss.

Protect College $port$, Act 2

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A revised copy was sent to the SEC and B1G at the midnight hour, and they have 25 minutes left to respond to proposed changes.

A 10 a.m. ET deadline has been set for the conferences to sign off on the bill. The two conferences were not involved in the drafting of the bill when it was initially released earlier this summer.

“If this thing doesn’t happen, it’s 100% on them,” a source told On3. “These Senators and everybody else has bent over backwards for them.”

The Senate is only days away from its month-long summer recess, which would put Division I universities with the same patchwork of state laws to operate from as the college football season kicks off.

This comes after Sens. Ted Cruz and Maria Cantwell made concessions on Tuesday and Wednesday to get the legislation’s wording to meet the Big Ten and SEC. Among the concessions that have been made are an additional $25 million pool for player retention, entities cannot acquire media rights to create a new conference and a prohibition of compensation to recruits before enrollment.

“Major concessions were made overnight,” a source told On3 on Wednesday. “At this point, with every passing minute, odds are slimmer that we can move the bill before the August recess. We’ve been working night and day to make the revisions they said they needed, and we need an answer. That wasn’t a superficial deadline. There’s a lot that goes into passing legislation – a lot of work behind the scenes and it just takes time.

“The Big Ten and SEC have been in the loop throughout the entire process – they’re familiar with the bill text and the changes we’ve discussed.”

I think I know how the final decision will be made, if I’m being honest:

I wonder if they’ll ask Pope Bevacqua at Notre Dame for a final blessing, too?

Predictive Analunatics

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The hot button topic of late has been the SEC’s daunting conference scheduling, and it has people between the hot takes of “it’s too grueling for teams to survive” to “the SEC is weak but will still have multiple playoff teams, anyway”.

As a reminder of whatever side of the debate you’re on, it’s a self-inflicted wound. While Sankey will stand tall on the idea that “we did something the B1G was unwilling to do themselves”, it still makes for a ridiculous decision that one can only wonder if it really was for guaranteeing playoff spots or if it was for money.

Well, of course it was for money. No one wants to watch Georgia versus Tennessee State in a crowded TV market, but more people will tune in for Georgia-Vandy and Georgia-Oklahoma, for sure.

What is hurting worse than anything else is that a move made to make the league’s scheduling look tougher is actually having the inverse effect – people are landing on the idea that the SEC is actually a weak conference, and keeping more games in house prevents debacles like Alabama-Florida State last year from exposing a media bias (bwah-ha-ha on that one) and the SEC for what it really is.

In truth, it’s hard to see where the turn on SEC football will abate. Winning it all would help, but short of Texas and Georgia, who are the SEC teams who could make a legitimate run? And, yes, you could say the same of two other conferences (BigXII, seriously, you don’t stand a chance), but when it comes down to Notre Dame, Georgia, Texas, Miami, Ohio State, Oregon, and Indiana (depending on who is playing for them this year), the talk is all talk and we really have no relevant reason to have the CFP given it’s the same teams in the mix each year.

Win it all, and all the talk is just that. Keep bowing out in the early rounds, and Sankey’s decision seems more questionable by the day.

Countdown to Georgia Bulldogs Football, 37 Days

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Good morning!

Here is card #37 for 37 days to go…

The Pontoon Playlist has Georgia on its mind…

The song written by Indiana native Hoagy Carmichael and taken to great heights by Ray Charles… Charles and Reed are both Georgia natives. In my opinion, Reed’s version rivals Charles’ in emotion and reverence for the song and their home state. Timeless…

Go Dawgs!