Archive for the ‘The Tuesday Countdown’ Category

If this was Pledge of Allegiance, Janet would have right hand over her heart, not left hand over … you know.

Like most people in the regular and underworlds, The Count likes the Super Bowl, not for the game but for the food and the commercials, and that rare occasion when the the NFL halftime show morphs into a night at the “Club Hubba Hubba,” less for the split-second look at part of one of Janet Jackson’s breastacles (I saw it! I saw it!) but because it looked like somebody had just connected jumper cables to the toes of then-commissioner Paul Tagliabue, who said, “We were extremely disappointed by the MTV-produced halftime show. The show was offensive, inappropriate and embarrassing to us and our fans.” After which the league showed more commercials to help you get drunk and correct erectile dysfunction. (”Daddy, why did mommy laugh at the Viagra commercial?”) Any way, this is Super Bowl week, and that means more new commercials and hopefully nothing to surprising at …

Continue reading Countdown: Super ads, PETA’s wings, Saban’s job offer? »

The Count hates budget cutbacks.

(11:40 a.m. Updated below with comments from Bob Williams about plans for new scoreboards after the season.)

Hello. With football season about over, our resident mathematician and mocker, Count Von Count, has returned to this cyber-page for periodic appearances. (Periodic is defined as: “Are there enough items this week? Am I hungry? Is there something else to do? What’s on TV? Oh look, the couch.) Anyway, We’re trying to spiff up these page a little bit — note, the Chalkboard borrowed from Weekend Predictions, Inc. — but we’ve been given a limited budget. Everybody is cutting back. Employees. Payroll. Fat grams. The Count hates cutbacks. Mrs. Count keeps trying to get him to switch to low-cholesterol plasma, but, sorry, it just doesn’t taste the same. More cutbacks: The Count has been to a few Hawks games this season and noticed something: Several scoreboards at Philips Arena are turned off. Did somebody pull a plug? Did something break? Was …

Continue reading Countdown: Blank scoreboards, Bear’s plot, lingerie football! (UPDATED) »

So let me see if I’ve got this straight.

If LSU beats Georgia, LSU and Alabama will play for the BCS title. Simple. Unless some anti-SEC sentiment leads voters to match LSU against Oklahoma State (and everyone suddenly gets amnesia about the Iowa State game).

But this doesn’t preclude the possibility that LSU may play Oklahoma State in the BCS game even if Georgia upsets LSU. Why? Because at least one SEC school will go, and Nick Saban getting snubbed is funnier, and if you dare put both LSU and Alabama in the BCS final when neither even won its conference, you’ll have red noses and exploding clown feet falling from the sky (thank you, Larry), and even the BCS has its limit when it comes to humiliation. I think.

So really, what Saturday’s SEC championship comes down to is this: Barring some complete, multi-touchdown, oh jeez, Curly-just-dropped-the-TNT-powder-in-the-pancake-batter-again-collapse by LSU against the Bulldogs in the Georgia Dome, the Tigers are really only …

Continue reading Weekend Predictions: LSU over Georgia, and BCS ducks »

A new logo, via Sesame Street (with pal Elmo).

Vampires can be accused of a lot of things. Cheating is not one of them. There was that one three-legged race during the family picnic of the Underworld Optimists Club when I bit Vinnie, but most while most people thought I was cheating to win the race, really, I was just thirsty. Where was I? Oh yeah. Cheaters. Hate ‘em. Really hate ‘em in college. Seems safe to conclude that Georgia Tech wasn’t really cheating, even through the NCAA chose to hit them upside the fangs with a 2-by-4. But barring some unforeseen victorious appeal, the Yellow Jackets will have to mail back their ACC championship trophy. Which reminds The Count. Where is that trophy right now? Hmmm. We count down . . .

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10. Yes, I’m here to claim my coat and … whoa!

The trophy reads, "Football Champions 2009," but you have to find the right closet to know that.

You'll get this trophy when you pry it from Paul Johnson's cold dead hands.

So I went to Tech Monday to …

Continue reading Countdown: Tech stashes ACC trophy; Ohio State’s stiff ‘I’ »

The Count was always lovable …

Let’s state the obvious. The Count likes blood. There’s no denying this. There are no vampires in 12-step programs for plasma addictions. The crazy thing would be if a vampire was NOT addicted to plasma. It would be like if vultures were circling over a fallen cow and suddenly one of them turned to the others and said, “You know. I think I just want a nice piece of fish.”

But there is one thing that always has turned The Count’s stomach: “The Running of the Bulls.” What is it with these guys? What’s the Spanish word for knuckleheads, because they’re back again. And one of them doesn’t have any clothes on! We count down . . .

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10. It’s that time again: The Running of the Idiots

The annual San Fermin Festival in Pamplona has begun. It includes 342 music shows, 137 family activities and 33 events involving bulls, also known as panic and gore. The running of the bulls started about 400 years ago. Ernest Hemingway thought it was really cool, …

Continue reading Countdown: Bulls vs. idiots; Braves’ fans mocked in Philly »

The Count was always lovable …

. . . even when he and his sister (left) were babies.

The Count believes hate is such a strong word. The Count doesn’t hate. He mocks, he clowns and he occasionally dislikes. But he certainly doesn’t hate. There was that one full moon when The Count was strolling through a bad neighborhood and he needed a quick fix. So he bit some lady as she was leaving the Quik Trip, and she claimed to be European, but The Count was pretty sure she was from Secaucus because he just remembers this dreadful aftertaste and pronouncing, “I would not wash the feet of my pigs in your plasma!” (Say it with an obnoxious French accent, s0unds better.) Anyway, back to this hate thing. A lot of people seem to hate LeBron James. So The Count was thinking, “Hey, how ab0ut the first ever Count Poll?” Sharpen your cuspids. We count down . . .

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10. So many choices, but here’s a worthy “Sweet 16″

Continue reading Countdown: Vote LeBron, someone else in Count’s hate poll! »

Look ma: No car deal.

It never ceases to amaze The Count how some people will defend their morally bankrupt heroes to the end, even when it’s clear their morally bankrupt heroes are dirty, rotten cheaters. This happens all the time. Ohio State fans ignore evidence that Jim Tressel is a dirty, rotten cheater by saying he did wonderful charity work. I’m not sure, but didn’t Al Capone also do wonderful charity work? And to the first person who screams, “He compared Jim Tressel to Al Capone!” — you have no friends, and there’s a cleanup on aisle six. But about this Tressel thing: When are people going to let go? We count down . . .

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10. Since when do fired coaches guarantee victories?

It's nice to know some folks are keeping things in perspective. (AP photo)

It just keeps getting worse. Ohio State released phone records that show, among other things, Tressel exchanged 77 phone calls and text messages with Terrelle Pryor’s hometown mentor, Ted Sarniak, on April 10 after a …

Continue reading Countdown: Tressel’s fans, Tebow’s eyes, Frenchy’s shorts »

The Count must now acnowledge . . .

Every family has its skeletons, and it’s with that as a backdrop that The Count begins today’s blog with this confession: He has an evil twin brother whom he seldom talks about. His name is Gary. The Count loves numbers, as you know. He learned his times tables the old fashioned way in school. But not Gary. Sure, he promised his parents and teachers he would study and do things the right way. But he took shortcuts and stole test papers from his friends and then sold them on the black market in far away foreign

. . . his evil twin brother Gary.

lands, like Winnipeg. Of course, nobody saw it coming. Gary is skilled in that way. Eventually he was kicked out of school and the family cave. But he didn’t care because by then he had made $60 million for math test relocations in Canada. The Count had hoped to never speak of Gary again. But unfortunately, then the photo on the left showed up on the Internet and he had to come clean. Everybody would …

Continue reading Countdown: Bettman, Spirit on Facebook and Monta’s tattoo »

This outfit is not golf course appropriate.

The Count never was much into golf as a youth. Didn’t like the clothes or the country club atmosphere and one time after spending all day at the driving range when he showed up on a young lass’s doorstep on the night of a full moon, he tried to hypnotize his victim with his mesmerizing gaze, just like his great uncle Count Dracula taught him, and the girl just started laughing and said, “You’re going to bite me in an Ashworth polo? Seriously?” Then she slammed the door and he slinked away.

But The Count was ready to come to the aid of former Braves pitcher John Smoltz, who played in last week’s Nationwide event in Valdosta. Smoltz needed a caddy. He opted to hire some young, punk kid who, like, you know, golfs. Big mistake. We count down . . .

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10. When you’re at 27-over-171, you can’t go to bullpen

It started so well. Par, par, birdie. And then, oh, cover your eyes.

Smoltz somehow devalued the South Georgia Classic. He was …

Continue reading Countdown: Smoltz’s splat, Gators’ buzz, Newton to UFL! »

The winner of The Count Classic will get a black cape, not a green jacket.

The Count is back from Augusta, and he is happy to report he avoided getting arrested. Not the case last year. True story (which never made it into the pages or online at AJC Inc.). A year ago The Count did two Digi-Blogs from the Augusta National Golf Club and Penal Colony before the Masters started (which is allowed) and started taking pictures of Tiger Woods at the driving range for a blog on the day the tournament started (which apparently is not allowed). The Augusta Commandants have very specific rules about what you can do and what can get you thrown into timeout in their little toonamint. So fans aren’t allowed to take pictures once the Masters starts. Newspaper photographers are allowed to take pictures but the mutants like The Count who sometimes write and also take pictures apparently don’t qualify as a photographer. The reason for this is Augusta is stuck in 1957 and if you say “blog” in the …

Continue reading Countdown prison tales: Masters, Sterger — and Cowboy Monkeys! »