However, part of me cared even less for the fact that Alabama in the second half didn’t look significantly different from Alabama in the first half.

Because we’ve been there, right? We missed something in chalk talk. Our opponent has found a matchup or two they’re exploiting. Let’s do the best we can and get to the half, where we can figure it out. Second-half adjustments are just the salve we need.

It was 23-14 at halftime. I expected Alabama to get the lead halfway through the third quarter and never relinquish it. (Instead, Alabama never led.)

Alabama’s defensive line seemed serially incapable of imposing its will. For every reasonable-looking stop, there were three or four gashes. We couldn’t even attempt a game-winning drive because we couldn’t ever stop Vanderbilt from getting first downs. No question it was an embarrassing loss.

I am, however, more embarrassed by the significant percentage of Alabama’s fan base who are joining agitating sportswriters in calling this an apocalyptic loss, or (worse) immediately throwing Kalen DeBoer under the bus. Yes, I remember the last time Vanderbilt beat Alabama. It was 1984. I was 13 years old. It was 30-21 at Bryant-Denny. It was homecoming. (The score was 30-21 Vanderbilt at one point Saturday night. Couldn’t believe neither announcer mentioned it when it happened.)

(And I actually think that’s what’s wrong with a lot of folks—they have no significant memory of pre-Saban Alabama, and therefore no perspective.)

First of all, the loss is apocalyptic as you make it. Alabama can still set ’em up and knock ’em down, all the way to the playoff. Sound ridiculous? Anyone wanna talk about Alabama 17, South Florida 3 (which was much closer than that) last year? You know, Saban’s final year (and also the final year before playoff expansion)? Saban’s final team that won the SEC, made the playoff, and finished 12-2?

Saban’s the GOAT. But his final team was eminently capable of losing that game.

(And need I remind you that we tiptoed by Arkansas? That we stole the Iron Bowl?)

Secondly, I trust the man who needs to fix it. Kalen DeBoer has won everywhere he’s been, and he’s left a steady trail of players who would run through a wall for him. He almost won the national title last year with considerably less talent. And I assure you, Coach DeBoer grasps the gravity of this situation. Instead of taking ridiculous shots at him—I actually saw someone insinuate that because his nipples occasionally showed through his sideline attire, that he was not a serious coach—let’s give him a chance to react.

Stop acting like babies.

Roll Tide!

“One thing you won’t find here is overt politics, red meat or otherwise.”

I’ve since written two unambiguously political posts, and a third that at least skirts the definition. Am I weak? I feel it a bit, actually. There’s no question I have an inner lizard who enjoys it. This is a bit of a significant presidential election for me, though, as it’ll be the first one since 2012 in which I’ve voted for a major party candidate.

(And I’ve only ever voted for the winner twice—in 1992 and 2004.)

When I worked on this post in my head, I thought it would include a fair bit about how we (the collective we) consume news and opinion in 2024 vs. how I was trained over 30 years ago as a classical rhetorician to dissect it. I now think that will be a different post.

Six weeks from tomorrow, kids…

I love this time of year. IndyCar ends, but by the time it does football is in full swing, so no time for tears. Lea buys fresh apples from the orchard down the road. Soups and other Crock-Pot®-able delights come roaring back into meal planning. (I already made chili last weekend.) Our schedule isn’t nearly so hectic with both children in college. The late afternoon sun “moves” back to the “left” enough to get off my north-facing thermometer, which begins reading accurately again instead of telling me it’s 122º just before dinnertime.

Some folks don’t care for the diminishing daylight, and once upon a time I was among them. I love it in my middle age. It forces me up to do outside things before I go to work, so I’ve got my daily exercise for the day and more chance for a relaxing evening.

Speaking of, yesterday felt like perhaps the antepenultimate time I’ll cut the grass this year. My lawn tractor vomited its main seal maybe five years ago, so I bought a push mower to keep up until I could roll the tractor into the garage and fix it in the following winter. (You can guess its current state.) But then another part of me said no, I need to be pushing a mower anyway until I can get to an ambitious-but-feasible intermediate weight loss goal. Renewed focus begun a month ago continues, so maybe 2025 is the year.

Happy fall to you!

Being the knownest of known quantities, Trump had much less to lose going in than Harris did. Had she come out and tanked this opportunity, it could have been fatal for her campaign.

She did not. She came out poised and confident, and remained so for the full hour and a half. She embraced the challenge and excelled. Any fears I had that she’d muff this were gone in the first couple of minutes. Additionally, though debates don’t feature near the policy discussions they once did—this is mostly a risk vs. reward thing—Harris did discuss specifics of her proposals a few times.

As for Trump, I will say he remained mostly poised until Harris commented on people leaving his rallies.

Trump could not stand it.

He hit this comment like a fat largemouth bass on a shiny spoon bait, and never recovered. Descending steadily into self-caricature, he made less and less sense. He’d begin comments, then interrupt himself and start something else without context—something that actually afflicted Biden in the previous debate—and the result was not coherent thought.

Talking about Harris’s race again was a huge unforced error, as was his steadfast refusal to finally acknowledge that he lost the 2020 election. And why would he not say he wanted Ukraine to win the war with Russia? And who will ever forget “in Springfield they’re eating the dogs! The people that come in, they’re eating the cats!”?

Kamala Harris won the debate. I called it “decisive” on Facebook. I wish I now believed it implausible for Trump to win, but I don’t. We’ve seen his lockstep sycophants remain so through worse than this.

But maybe—just maybe—someone, somewhere, or (better) several someones in several somewheres, saw the debate Tuesday night and thought “hey, we have an option. We can vote for a composed adult for President of the United States.”

But none of that makes me feel old. I feel old when I notice the culture passing me by. Here are two examples.

Lea got a new minivan last year. It’s got all kinds of cool electronic stuff on it, and the learning curve for the screen, the steering wheel controls, and such really wasn’t so bad. It’s a pleasure to use; a fine interstate tool indeed. But guess what? There are a few very expensive ways it could break, and if such happened post-warranty, it might effectively total the vehicle. Kudos to my 2002 and 2007 daily drivers!

Oh, and guess what else? If you don’t explicitly turn it off, it also sends extensive driving data to Honda, and insurance companies can get at it from there. (And who knows if turning it off really works?) But who cares? Well, I think most people who are younger than I don’t. They’ve grown up being surveilled from birth, and they’re very likely to rattle off a dismissive and thoroughly naive “who cares if you’re doing nothing wrong?” at the whole phenomenon.

Get with the times, old man.

The other one that’s chapping me right now is that apparently no amount of complaining could remove Pat McAfee from College GameDay, ESPN’s Saturday morning college football pregame show. It was a longstanding tradition in our house, to the point that if I had something to do outside, I’d start working literally at daybreak on Saturday morning so I could be sat down by 8 to enjoy it.

Then Pat McAfee showed up (full-time on the show, instead of confined to easily ignored segments that occurred elsewhere, which started a couple of years earlier). He’s loud, crass, disrespectful, and occasionally borderline vulgar. He’s also been excellent for ratings. And now Coach Saban sits at the desk, and he and McAfee are friends. Kirk Herbstreit, in my mind the core of the show, credits McAfee with reigniting his interest in the show.

I watched Big Noon Kickoff on Fox last year. This year, accepting that the young people have again screwed me, I’ve relented and returned to College GameDay. McAfee seemed a little more reined in last weekend, so I’m thankful for that. Hoping it keeps some reasonable baseline of dignity, and I think with Saban on it will.

Get with the times, old man.

I love this restaurant. Alas, at my previous visit, they had implemented a 3% surcharge for credit card purchases.

I don’t like credit card surcharges. I think they’re a finger in the customer’s eye. And, as my high school classmate and attorney Melissa points out, credit card processing fees are a legitimate business expense, and therefore fully deductible on a tax return.

So why are you gigging me for them?

Though written with law firms in mind, this is a good piece on credit card surcharges. It points out two important things:

• Credit card surcharges are legal in most, but not all, U.S. states.
• Debit card surcharges are illegal in all 50 states.

After the previous visit at which I paid a credit card surcharge, I went to Salt yesterday with the debit card for my American Express checking account. When the check came, I pointed out to the server that, though this was an American Express card, it was a debit card, and therefore exempt from credit card surcharges.

She went quiet for several seconds, conveying unambiguously that this was going to be uphill.

“Well, it’s for all cards.”

“No, actually it’s against the law to surcharge a debit card transaction.”

She took it, and when I got it back to sign, there was no surcharge on my bill. But her initial befuddlement and response tells me they’re likely surcharging for every card, whether debit or credit.

And that’s not copacetic.

Folks, dig:  any American merchant who surcharges a debit transaction is breaking the law. Refuse to pay it. If they insist, then file a consumer protection complaint with your state’s attorney general’s office. (In Alabama, that’s here.)

(No spoilers.)

Dad, Mia, Aaron, and I took in Alien: Romulus last night. Set between Alien and Aliens, it’s the first new entry in the series since 2017’s Alien: Covenant.

(Don’t you have to see a new Alien movie on the big screen? Of course you do.) BLUF: I liked it.

The storytelling is engaging, but a bit tentative. Though there remain some interesting things to discover, the plot is “safe” in a way that reminded me in passing of the similarities between A New Hope and The Force Awakens. It never feels tired or recycled, but there was more room to stretch here than it seemed the filmmakers believed there was. The young cast, headlined by Cailee Spaeny as Rain, does a fine job with a mostly fine script, and leaves the door open for direct sequels.

The special effects are one of the stars in any Alien film, and they deliver mightily in Romulus. The creature effects remain familiar in the ways that you want, but with some fantastic new angles and wrinkles that I found highly satisfying. Aaron noted an increased sexualization to some of the sequences, and I agree. This isn’t over-the-top, but it does ratchet up the creep-out factor a bit more. (And who knew there was room for that in this cinematic universe?) I also really enjoyed the wide ship sequences, which are both grandiose and a little disorienting, just as genuine outer space maneuvers would be.

I found admirable line-walking and attention to detail in the production design. It can be difficult to plausibly portray the future and simultaneously harmonize with a portrayal of the future that is now several decades old. (In fact, some productions of this description say “oh well” and don’t even attempt it.) From instrument panels to tools to sounds, both background and foreground, Romulus nails it. There are also numerous nods to earlier films throughout. Mia found this a little heavy-handed, but it didn’t bother me.

The only real irritant I experienced was early in the film, when there was a lot of rapid-fire conversation in heavy British accents backed by considerable industrial noise. I could catch maybe half of it, and said to myself a couple of times “well, I hope that wasn’t critical information.” (I can’t turn captioning on at the Cinemark.) It’s a sloppy, unforced error in an otherwise fine production.

The facehugger, the chestburster, and the full-on xenomorph are legitimate contenders for the best movie monsters ever, and Alien: Romulus is an effective showcase for them. Throw in some satisfactory additions to the Alien mythology and a promising young cast, and it’s an eminently worthy watch.

7/10

She and I are walking a lot of the same lines right now. We face questions with no obvious answers. That means a lot of opportunities for overthinking and resultant self-doubt.

And we’re both, unfortunately, very good at it.

You know what crystallized for me yesterday, though? Whether or not you break any new ground, a little bidirectional sharing with someone you respect and trust is a source of significant solace. I didn’t need answers from Stephenie. That she listened and expressed sincere solidarity was enough.

It enables me to walk away thinking “gee, if she’s asking the same questions, then we’re gonna be OK.”

This feels like something I’ve known intellectually for a while, but that cemented into my spirit yesterday. Should it have sooner? Is it too late in life for this epiphany? Maybe. Happens sometimes. Thank you for the assist, Stephenie.

Have a good weekend.

But you know what? Even though over the years I have considered Trump unhelpful to pernicious to downright evil, there was a time in the summer of 2016 that I thought I would hold my nose and vote for him. I did not. (It actually doesn’t matter much here in Alabama, which is oxblood red and which Trump won by nearly 30 points in 2016 and 25 in 2020.) But it matters to me to be able to say I never contributed to his election in any way.

And neither will I do so in 2024. I will, however, be going back to a major-party vote, as I intend to vote for Kamala Harris. Though she’s a poor match for some of my positions, there are definitely things I prefer about her. Most notably, I trust her not to try to destroy my transgender daughter—or indeed, LGBTQ+ people in general. I also believe we have a better chance of containing, and hopefully beginning to shrink, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine with her as Commander in Chief. And so far, though I haven’t paid close attention, the selection of Tim Walz as her running mate looks like a grand slam.

Honestly, though, I’m also looking forward to a little normal politics, and I think we’ll get it with President Harris. I am considerably fatigued by the rapidly boiling cauldron of conspiracy theories, authoritarian threats, and other assorted weirdness that has been presidential politics for the past ten years. I am hungry for a president who acts and sounds like a president.

I thought we would get a pivot to normalcy with the election of Joe Biden, but that thought was based on a diminished Trump who would eventually fade away. Instead, he never went anywhere. (And that’s just my latest super-accurate Trump prognostication. Ask me sometime about the robust 2020 Republican primary I was sure we’d have.)

However, in 2024, should Harris prevail, I think a diminished Trump is a lot more likely. The destruction he has wrought on the quality of this country’s critical thinking and the civility of its discourse, as well as the divisiveness he has eagerly sown at every turn in the perceived service of his ends, cannot end too soon.

Alas, Golden Flake Hot does not seem to have survived. I don’t know whether they perished when they became Utz or significantly before then. There is an Utz “Red Hot” variety, but I’m confident it’s not the old Golden Flake recipe.

So here’s some regular ol’ potato chips from the “Flamin’ Hot” line to try. My experience is that this line isn’t bad, but there hasn’t been anything particularly notable either, in flavor or heat. I tried these with a ham sandwich. How did it go?

Well, the ingredient panel is one of a sweet-hot chip: potatoes, vegetable oil, maltodextrin, salt, dextrose, malted barley flour, sugar, tomato powder, torula yeast, natural flavors, yeast extract, onion powder, citric acid, gum acacia, vegetable juice, garlic powder, spices, milk protein concentrate, and annatto extracts.

We also learn the chips are red because of vegetable juice, as opposed to smushed bugs or some other distasteful ways the megacorps bring you red on your food when God didn’t.

I had a few with a ham sandwich, and I’m pleased to report these are down the road of Golden Flake Hot potato chips a good piece. They are not quite as sweet—think of the difference between Oreo and Hydrox, or Pepsi and Coca-Cola—but they’re right in that quadrant.

I didn’t need a drink, but they are fairly hot for a mainstream snack product, so don’t catch yourself out in traffic without a drink or something.

While not an exceptional product, Lay’s Flamin’ Hot potato chips deliver well enough to be a good pickup for sandwich duty or the ball game.