Whatever. Derrick doesn't NEED the Bucs.

I can't believe the Tampa Bay Buccaneers fired Derrick Brooks, along with four other "old" players: Warrick Dunn, Joey Galloway, Ike Hilliard and Cato June.

Derrick Brooks is arguably the best Buc ever, and inarguably one of the best. Guy's been to the Pro-Bowl eleven times. He's on the Florida State University board, for chrissakes! He's not only a fantastic football player, he's a nice guy to boot. Not that something like character matters in the NFL, but still. Damn.

Full disclosure: I went to FSU with Derrick Brooks, as in we had classes together. Not as in, he ever knew of my existence. But it was well-known that he was a good guy then, too. So I'm totally biased here.

Brooks has been a shining example of what a pro athlete should look like, and this is how he's treated. Booted out the door, no explanation, no warning.

"Right now, like all of you guys, I'm just trying to get a feel for it all, trying to come to grips with it," Brooks told ESPN by telephone. "I don't even know what to think."

I can't blame this on new head coach Raheem Morris (as much as I'd like to; who the hell is this guy? Oh, he's the former assistant coach); he's too new to have made this decision. It has to be the owners. Four of the five guys let go were over 30 and the other guy is 29 - they made it really clear that they're looking to give the younger players more field time. But at the team's expense?

Derrick Brooks has been with the Bucs since 1995 - since he left Florida State. Fourteen years, people. And let's not forget - two Super Bowls. TWO.

He founded Brooks-DeBartolo Collegiate High School, a charter school in Tampa, and created "Brooks Bunch," a group for disadvantaged kids that he takes on trips like Washington, D.C. and Atlanta. He's served on the FSU board since 2003.

Of course, fellow FSU alum Warrick Dunn also deserves some praise. This dude gives away houses! Dunn founded "Homes for the Holidays," where he helps single parents buy houses and donates furniture, food and accessories for the home.

These firings come on the heels of the Jacksonville Jaguars firing their cornerstone player "Fragile" Fred Taylor (a former Gator, thank you very much - I try to keep it balanced) after eleven years. He also made it clear he wanted to stay, but the Jags said "no thanks."

Say what you will, this is the end of an era for the NFL.

I, for one, will have a hard time getting fired up about either the Jags (my former hometown team) or the Bucs (I've loved b/c of all their Seminoles). I may be done with pro football for a while.

Of course, I've got a spring and summer to change my mind, but it will never be same without Derrick.

Halloween & Football: Inextricably Linked

For me, anyway.

See, the Florida-Georgia college football game is always held on the last weekend of October. And my die-hard Gator-loving man has to go to that game, must go. So every other year* my Halloween weekend is focused on football, not Halloween.

Which sucks, because I love Halloween! And no, it's not just the chance to dress sort of slutty - many of my past costumes have been pretty chaste (making them downright dowdy in horn-dog, twenty-something Gainesville). No, I love the turning of the year, I love the pagan association, the old myths, jack-o-lanterns, I love all that stuff.

That stuff has no place in tailgating. In fact, out of the little group that traveled to Jacksonville for the game, Kyle and I were the only ones who dressed up. No creativity, I'm telling you.

So Kyle and I went off the Lynch's Irish Pub in our costumes:




Kyle is Gator Man. His costume was quite the hit. Although his bizarre style of dancing probably brought as much attention as his outfit. He's actually had the mask (which sadly, did not make it back to Gainesville) for a while. Our friend Chris brought several back from San Antonio, so that all the boys could be creepy and weird together.

I am ... well, there's no getting around it - I'm dressed as a naughty schoolgirl. I can't really say "slutty," because I'm pretty well covered-up, save my legs, and I was wearing bloomers under the skirt. What can I say? I had everything laying around the house (well, almost: shout-outs to Kim for lending me the bloomers and Gail for the knee-highs!).

There were several highlights: Lynch's patrons usually dress up, they're quick with a Guinness and the band, Blaggards, was highly entertaining. But one image sticks with me:

The Teletubbies.

I was so tickled, so pleased with their arrival, I insisted Gator Man have his photo taken with them for posterity.

Yeah, it was a good night.

Oh, wait... there was a football game, too.

Florida beat the unhloly mess out of Georgia, 49-10, which the 'Dawgs deserved for being such sorry winners last year. It was fun, nice weather, football, blah blah, Gators, blah blah...

(*My alma mater, FSU, holds their homecoming on the last weekend of October every other year, alternating with the third weekend of November. I always go to homecoming, so I skip FL-GA every other year. To be honest, not too many people dress up in Tally at that time, either.)

Uncle Kyle and Aunt Jen Get a Visitor

Kyle's nephew Logan came for a visit last evening while his mother went to a birthday dinner. She left a pumpkin with us as well, so that Uncle Kyle could help him make a jack-o-lantern.

I decided that I should probably cut Logan out of the photo until I ask his mom how she feels about showing her five-year to the blogosphere.

Kyle put down some kraft paper and got to work - Logan got to pull the guts out (yay-slimy!). Note my good Henckels boning knife:

Logan got to draw the face. We started out with a "Scary bloody monster" design in mind, but once he was done with the Sharpie, we all agreed it looked a lot like a scary spider instead.

We took it out to the front porch to test it:

Pretty spooky, huh?

This is with the flash, so you can actually see the pumpkin.

He took it home with him (candles out, of course), so we're left with my Gardenridge ceramic one again.

It's not that big of deal to be so unspirited, as we're never home for Halloween anyway. The "World's Largest Cocktail Party"*, aka The Florida-Georgia football game, always lands on the Halloween weekend, so we're off to Jacksonville for tailgating. Hopefully we'll dress up and go out and I'll bring back photos.

(*Yeah, yeah - we're not supposed to call it that anymore. I know.)

What happens at the tailgate...

First, I have to brag: my insanely talented friend Douglas Matthews has agreed to play at my wedding ceremony.

He and his wife Melissa have been two of the best friends a girl could have. Along with a few others, they were my rock at an especially low point in my life.

I was so nervous asking him, because, well, he plays piano for a living - what a pain, right? Invited to a wedding and now you gotta work? But he was terribly gracious about it.

I have a hard time asking people for things, even people who, rationally, I know love the heck out of me and want to help me. But there's this stupid part of me that's so afraid to ask. It's stupid. I think I said that already. Moving on...

Tile update: I cut the tile too small and we didn't get it fixed before our guests came. Turned out we had less than expected, so it went smoothly anyway.

The tailgate was a success. Kyle got up around 6 a.m. and headed out to campus. The tailgate was set up, and manned, from 7 a.m. until roughly 1 a.m. that evening/next morning. Crazy, I know. But it's Kyle's thing and it was before I showed up - I'm just an observer/assistant/beer bitch.

Yes, beer bitch. Half of my "job" is to be kinda nasty about who's sticking their hand in our coolers. It's not fun, but if you don't make it known that somebody's paying attention, there are plenty of jackasses who are ready to suck you dry. Food, too - but I left that up to our cook.

A ton of people showed up, including many I hadn't seen in months. It really was fun. And we had a most important element at the tailgate: hot women. And strangely enough, that's part of my "job" as well - taking photos of everybody, including the hot chicks.

A sample:

Okay, I'm kidding. That's just a cute chick and her pretty mommy.

More like this:

Luckily, as we age, so goes the tailgate. It's a lot more "chill" this year, and I had plenty of people come up to me to agree and that it was a good thing.

I had to run off some little girls, but not before they got their fill of our beer and BBQ. You'd be surprised how much a skinny little thang can eat when someone else cooked it and it's free. :)

An exhausting weekend, but great fun.

Oh yeah - the Gators won. Forgot about that...

Weaver Swears Up and Down: The Jags Are Not for Sale

Every media source is starting their story with soothing reassurance.

"Jaguars owner Wayne Weaver says his team isn't leaving Jacksonville. Weaver reiterated those remarks in a statement, and then in an interview on Thursday, a day after reports surfaced that he was in negotiations with billionaire C. Dean Metropoulos to sell the club."

Don't worry! Everything's going to be okay!

Except . . .

Here's his next quote:

"I'm not selling the Jaguars," Weaver said. "The team is not moving to LA. I don't know how I can say it any more clearly than that. At some point, maybe I will sell the team. But not now." (emphasis mine)

Isn't that tantamount to covering your ass, just in case you change your mind? Why else would you feel the need to include that comment in your official statement that's supposed to make us feel better?

I love the Jaguars. I was living in Jacksonville when we got the Jags, and it was exciting. Even if we did rename the Gator Bowl to a suck-ass corporate name. I worked off and on for "The Billiard Factory and Dinette Gallery", and several players came in for pool tables and game room furniture. (You can buy your very own touch-screen game console! For $2,000.) They were almost always terribly nice.

Yes, they enjoyed flashing their wealth a bit, but I think it's a well-known fact that more than a few professional football players came from, ahem, modest upbringings. If I was raised by my grandma who was working three jobs to support me and my two brothers, I'd be buying up houses all over the place for her as well.



Without the Jags, Jacksonville wouldn't have gotten the Super Bowl (which was a blast, even for those of us who didn't get anywhere near the game), and without the Super Bowl, downtown Jacksonville wouldn't have gotten the fabulous facelift it has.

Many of our players have given money and time to some of Jacksonville's neediest people. Former beloved quarterback Mark Brunell is practically a saint.
Yes, it also earned us the public scorn of Tony Kornheiser in his infamous "What Stinks? Jacksonville" article.

Excerpt: "Have you ever been to Tampa? It's heaven, if you like Waffle Houses. Jacksonville makes Tampa look like Paris!"

(Re-reading that article, it took much effort to not murmur "F*ck you, Tony" out loud in my cubicle. Seriously, three years later and it still pisses me off. But he did eventually apologize. "I want to offer an unconditional apology to all the people of Jacksonville.")

What was I talking about? Oh yeah.

I am a little worried about losing the Jags. They've been great for Jacksonville, and I think it would hurt the city to lose them. Weaver's comment didn't console me at all.