Your Lyin’ Eyes & Other Stories

BobLee
January06/ 2010

.  I received an e-mail picture today from a good buddy showing Obama committing a serious diplomatic faux pas …. Or was it?  My friend’s final comment was “if it’s real”.  Reminding me to remind you it’s 2010 and you can no longer trust “your lyin’ eyes”.  ….. Every kid has pretend dreams of being “a sports hero”.  Ben Hartman had them too. ….. and a plethora of other stuff.

Howww Deeee!  Is it “twenty ten” or “two thousand and ten”?  Each of us has to decide what to call this year.  Me, I’m going to wait and see what “the administration” says to call it and then call it the other.

I’m assuming the majority of you acquire the necessary compu-skills to function in your own techno-world.   Ol’ Roy says he doesn’t own a computer and embattled former Gov / future convict Mike Easley’s “computer guy” said “I don’t know how to turn it on”.  True Story!   Most of us master what we need to know when it becomes imperative to do so.  I learned to twitter and facebook in ’09 and became an IPhone whizkid.  The trite phrase “I just want a cell phone that is a cell phone” is as out-dated as saying “I just want a TV so I can watch Bonanza on Sunday night.”

There will always be several levels of super geeks that are light years beyond us ….. and they can befuddle and confuse us as easy as we can torment a cat with a laser pointer.  Case in point = any picture (“image”) you see on a monitor screen.  Thru the miracle of digital image manipulation your lyin’ eyes can be hoodwinked.  Pretty easily in fact.

“Aw shucks BobLee, I can tell a fake like when you put Erskine Bowles’ head on Buford Pusser or Ol’ Roy on Moses.”   Well, (1) that WAS Erskine’s buff physique and (2) you can too be faked and it doesn’t take a super-geek to do it.  What your eyes see is usually what your mind wants to see ….. depending upon your opinion of the subject of the image

An unflattering picture of Obama or Sarah Palin or Rush or Pelosi or Coach K ….. for them what don’t likes them you will easily accept what you see as true ….. or could be true ….. or simply “I don’t care if its true or not, I hate _____ so much I’m saying its true”.  Then you forward that to your buddy data base and they go along since you said it was true.  The days of drawing a mustache on a poster of someone you don’t like has evolved into creating hard-core porn using the person’s face and blending it so well you cannot tell its been manipulated.

Do I have a handy dandy solution to this dilemma?  NO.   You have pretty much learned NEVER to trust anything you read or hear in “the mainstream media” so the same applies to images you receive thru e-mail.  This image manipulation will get worse, much worse as people depend more/more on what they see on computer monitors.  Sleep well on that frightening reality.
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I assume many of you in the NC area watched the Liberty Bowl between Arkansas and ECU.  Arguably in the top two of bowl games I bothered to watch.  Auburn v Northwestern was a humdinger.  I’m sure a faction of Heel and Wuff sorts are glad ECU lost because their losing elevates their rivals self worth.  That’s how rival loon fans “think” …..

I don’t know ECU senior placekicker Ben Hartman.  His last second FG beat UNC in Dowdy Ficklin a few years ago.  That was “a better day” for Ben.  Ben’s recent visit to Memphis rivaled Martin L. King’s as a “really bad day”.   Ben missed not one, not two but three normally makeable field goals in the final minutes and OT of the game, either one of which would have won the game.  ECU lost the game and lost a chance to beat an SEC team and have a 10-win season.

Blah blah blah it was a freezing day and the footballs were frozen hard as rocks as the announcers told us a bazillion times.   As young Ben prepared to kick each of his attempts, Skip Holtz took him aside and settled him down with light-hearted banter prompting both to smile on screen.  Boy, that woulda sure made a great post-game anecdote ….. if any of Ben’s attempts had been good.  They weren’t, surely prompting the bottom-feeders of PirateNation to call Ben Hartman a lot of nasty names.  Bottom-feeders and “nasty names” kinda go together.

Having dreams of vicarious glory squashed is tough on some folks.  Investing your happiness in a 22 y/o kid kicking bowling balls on a frozen turf in Memphis is high-risk living.

Kickers are “strange” as in “like guys who volunteer for bomb squads” and “guys who date girls with prison tattoos”.   I figure Ben Hartman is “strange” but a quite decent fellow.  He came within inches of being an ECU Legend like my buddy Goal Line Bomar is a Tar Heel Legend.   Another inch or so and Goal Line would “just be David”.   The football gods are cruel.  Just ask Ben.

I bet a young Ben practiced kicking game-winners in his backyard as a lad.  Then he progressed thru his football career to that freezing scenario in Memphis.   He may go on in life to be a senator or a serial killer or get lost in some corporate jungle.  But there will always be some Pirate nincompoop who will hate him because “that no-good chokin SOB let us down”.  The football gods are cruel.  Just ask Ben Hartman.

EVERY fan dreams of being a “sports hero”.  No fan dreams of being “the goat”.  Neither did Ben Hartman.  There are more goats than heros in this world.  Just look at Congress.
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Do you notice some changes in Ye Olde Favorite Website?   Check out that right-hand column.   I’ll explain it all later.
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Four Univ of Tennessee basketball players were arrested this week for driving around Knoxville with guns and drugs.  Their official comments were similar to the three Univ Tennessee football players arrested a few months ago for armed robbery ….. quote “I dunno ….”  If I was a Univ of Tennessee graduate I would get some lighter fluid and a match and burn my diploma and my copies of Rocky Top ASAP.

How freakin’ disgusting.  Whatever worthless platitudes the UTenn administrators will spout are as foolish as Tiger telling Elin “but I never kissed’em on the mouth”.

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I think Auburn has the best unis in college football.  The colors are distinctive and the unis fit the players so every Auburn runner looks like Bo Jackson.  Hey, Butchie, find out where they buy their pants and get us some.

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Remember my NCAA Bowl Game Rule ….. “Every team MUST suspend a minimum of one player prior to the game; preferably at least three”   Michigan State wins the coveted “Bad Boyz” trophy for this bowl season with 14.   Florida State’s alltime record of 25 is safe.  ECU zapped two of their “student-athletes” 24 hours before kick-off for getting into a fight at the bowl game luncheon!   At the freakin’ “LUNCHEON”.   I follow this crap pretty close and I’ve never heard that one.
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There’s more to The Mike Leach Mess but I’m going to hold off for now.   There’s absolutely nothing left to tell about Bobby Bowden retiring …. But I bet we will hear more.  The Mad Monk Rasputin went away quieter than Bobby is going away.
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There’s more to tell on the Rush issue too.  Oh, he’s fine and dandy with zero heart concerns.  He’ll be back on air full steam on Wednesday.  …… we learned more about “the mainstream media” and our fellow humanoids.  It can wait.  Oh ….. we picked up 6,000 new views with our Rush updates …. Over 1,200 coming from American Spectator.  Thanks folks!
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Best movie recommends ….. rent or download “UP” ….. a Disney Pixar animated film that came out some months ago.   Trust me “Baby Boomers” you will “get it” and be cheering for Carl and young Russell. ….. “UP”  go get it.

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