happy birthday to my tennis mama

June 2008 --- North Carolina state champions

and awaaaay we go!* ...

The ever-vigilant owner of the Catastrophic Success franchise is first out of the blocks and has already assembled a full and formidable lineup as he counts the days until his opening-weekend game with the Steel Curtain.





* for those of you in the Brash Upstarts division, that's a reference to what Jackie Gleason used to say to kick off his variety show. Here's the Great One with Arnold Palmer.

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father-daughter music moment

so i was taking evie and two other girls to band camp this morning, and i asked them what songs they played during football games. one of them mentioned "tear the roof off the sucker" (the "give up the funk" song). so naturally i grabbed my "best of parliament" CD (which is never far from my grasp), slapped on the shades, cranked up the volume and cruised the suburbs of south charlotte, telling the girls that you gotta get in the proper frame of mind if you're gonna take on that song. the girls were either: a) impressed that evie's dad had the song at the ready, or b) traumatized that maybe the song isn't quite as cool as they
had thought, since evie's dad digs it.

click here for a youtube version, if y'all can tear yourselves away from bread and the carpenters long enough to give a listen.

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division setup

here's where the commish is leaning regarding divisions. it divides the ebner football clan into two camps: those over 45, and those under (this also allows the commish to take advantage of a narrow window and let mrs. commish remain a part of the younger generation for a little while longer). if there are no objections (but especially if there are), we'll go with this.

WILY VETERANS DIVISION
* rege sr.
* trent
* laurie
* neil
* rege jr.
* babs

BRASH UPSTARTS DIVISION
* sherrie
* pam
* kevin
* diane
* ian
* louis

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i may not be ready for the draft, but i'm ready for this

no comment

The Green Bay Packers have hired former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer for a few weeks to help the team with PR/crisis management.

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thought for the day

"When people aren't asking questions
They're making suggestions
And when they're not doing one of those
They're either looking over your shoulder or stepping on your toes
And then as if that weren't enough to annoy you
They employ you."

--Ogden Nash, "More About People"

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injury report (of sorts)

Panthers WR Steve Smith will miss the first two regular-season games. He punched out teammate Ken Lucas during practice Friday, breaking Lucas' nose and earning Smith a two-game suspension.

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thoughts on division setups?

last year it was the former champs in one division and the non-champs in the other. and with louis poised to rejoin us this year, we should be back to 12 teams.

suggestions welcome.

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if anybody drafts this guy ...

... that owner can, before the draft is over, reverse their decision, drop his sorry butt and immediately choose another QB to take his place.

the commish will not only allow it, will not only encourage it, but may actually demand it.