Alabama's Brian Selman to be on next MM podcast!

The University of Alabama's starting long snapper from 2007-2009 will be on the next podcast to be posted this weekend.  Brian Selman played for the Tide from 2006-2009, and helped UA to a national championship this past season. 

Selman, who has a passion for the game of baseball, just a accepted an internship with the Pittsburgh Pirates in player development.  We'll be discussing that as well.  Check it out this weekend...Hopefully Saturday night or mid-day Sunday.

Let's Get Some Things Straight: A list

1.  I am greatly concerned about the traffic on my blog.  Google provides me with reports about numerous things including number of hits and where the hits are from, and the data raises red flags.  There's no need to get into the number of hits...let's just say that YOU, the current reader, reading this right now, make up a decent percent.  Anyway, that's not the issue here.  The issue is where the hits are coming from: Canada.  I don't get it, and I don't like it.  Not only are they right behind my fellow Americans in total hits, but on average, they spend more time on these pages than Americans.  What's more disturbing is that our friends on the other side of the pond (The British) also spend more time here.  I fear the worst-An all out plot to bring down Muffin Matters.

2.  Within the borders of this great nation, I have failed to make a connection with our brethren in Maine, Montana, Iowa, Idaho, and Massachusetts.  At this point, I would like to offer an olive branch to those unreached populations.  People of Maine, your average summer temperatures can't be matched by the rest of the nation.  Your rocky beaches in August are a hopeful destination of mine.  Montana.  Beautiful Montana.  I love big skies and cows.  And Glacier National Park is the finest of them all (and also the only National Park I've visited).  Iowa, how bout those Cubs...those Iowa Cubs!  People of Idaho, I love meat and potatoes, and we all know you grow some mean potatoes.  Massachusetts.  Ah, Massachusetts...Well, I don't really care if you folks like what I do here or not, but please don't take that the wrong way.  What I really mean is the problem isn't you.  The problem is me.  I don't like you.  "Oh how arrogant and ignorant," you undoubtedly think as you read along.  My thoughts exactly.

3.  Why haven't I mentioned the Winter Olympics?  Good question.  I don't have a great answer, but I will tell you that I don't have a way of watching them without cable or rabbit-ear reception.  That's the main reason.  The second reason is that Winter makes me want to puke.  I hate cold weather and wind, and snow belongs on postcards only.  The winter Olympians are tremendous athletes, and when it comes to fashion, well no one can top the male figure skaters.  So I admire all the participants, but winter sports don't particularly interest me.  Of course I want America to dominate the planet in the Olympics, but I will tell you that we had better focus on dominating our own economy, foreign policy, and the perceptions of America around the world before we worry about who can get down a snow-covered hill the fastest. 

Great Success!

The letter to the editor has been published.  I have dealt a minor blow to the great UA bureaucracy.  I would post a link, but the campus paper doesn't regularly update their site, so you'll have to take my word for it.  Roll Tide.

All I Wanted was to Eat my Dang Bagel

Some prick at the library told me I couldn't eat my dang bagel inside because it wasn't from the vending machine.  I smiled, took my happy rear end outside and ate my flipping bagel. Then I took all my bottled up rage...and wrote a letter to the school newspaper's editor.  I'll let you know if it gets published.

A quick note: To the vast majority of those reading, you will not be familiar with Tuscaloosa.  So in case you find yourself wondering what the "Black Warrior" is, it is the main river that flows through the city and adjacent to campus. 

To the Editor:

Nearly every day, I enjoy a bagel in the designated student “lounge” before I start studying at Rodgers Library.  Before I could take a bite Thursday, I was told by someone on staff that food from home was against policy.  However, I was allowed to enjoy something from the vending machine.  I was told that there were benches outside where I could eat food from home.  Splendid: The cigarette ash-covered, rarely manicured, anything but comfortable, black benches outside, where the temperature was 20 degrees cooler and wind-blown mist made my bagel soggy. 

I have no issue with the kind staff person.   What chaps me is the policy—another regrettable result of a large academic bureaucracy that leaves too many people with the idle time to make idiotic rules.  Undoubtedly, if they get the chance, they will respond in one of two ways.  1. The policy was necessary to avoid a foreseen problem.  2.  The policy is long standing and should be observed, regardless of opinion. 

At its worst, the policy isn’t rooted in practical thinking, similar to the state of Arkansas’ law against mispronouncing “Arkansas” while within the borders.  At its best (comparatively), the library policy is rooted in a commercial interest to encourage buying from the vending machines.  Well, you’ll have to forgive me; In the midst of paying my way through school, I don’t want to drop a buck on “Andy Capps’ Delicious Hot Fries” that have enough sodium to dry up the Black Warrior.  

Perhaps they would argue that food from home creates more mess.  Garbage.  My bagel leaves no trace. 

Should I also refrain from defecating in the library’s bathrooms if my stools aren’t the direct result of munchies from the vending machine?  “That’s ridiculous” you may say.  The current policy is what’s ridiculous.

Casey T. Sturgill
csturgill@crimson.ua.edu