Rocky Top Talk’s Joel has been trying to talk me into getting a TiVo. I, of course, am dead set against it.

Not that I needed additional reasons to avoid having that infernal HAL-9000-with-a-satellite-dish in my house, but now I have extra ammunition to use in my steadfast opposition to acquiring a digital video recorder.

One of the supposed strengths of TiVo is its ability to recommend programming for you based upon your viewing patterns, a la Amazon.com. I find that more than slightly creepy, but now a further problem with this concept has come to light:

My wife, Susan, a wonderful woman whom I love dearly, watches crap!

Also, the name of the device sounds eerily similar to the surname of the Root of All Evil, but that’s a separate issue altogether.

The other night, while Susan was sorting laundry in the living room, I caught her watching "Jon and Kate Plus 8," a "reality" (read: unscripted) show about a married couple who are neither likeable nor compatible yet who have eight small children. We’re not talking about a family with eight kids like the one on "Eight is Enough," in which Dick Van Patten made former "Crossfire" co-host Tom Braden seem palatable; we’re talking about television that will aggravate you 47 different ways.

Last night, before I put our son, Thomas, to bed and she put our daughter, Elizabeth, to bed, Susan made me promise her that, if (read: when) she fell asleep, I was to make sure she was up in time to watch "Step It Up and Dance," to which I routinely refer as "The World’s Most Effeminate Man Competition." How horrid is this ill-conceived offspring of an unholy union between "The Apprentice" and "A Chorus Line"? It’s so bad that, even though it features Elizabeth Berkley standing around looking like Elizabeth Berkley, I still can’t bring myself to watch it!

If I got a TiVo, I’d get home in the afternoon, and that ominous omniscient box would announce, "I recorded the following programs I thought Susan might like. Would you like to see them?"

That’s what I need . . . more crappy T.V. suggestions. Voluntarily providing my wife with a co-conspirator in her incessant efforts to expose me to the worst that our too many channels have to offer? Thanks, but no thanks.

Go ‘Dawgs!

Is it technically correct to refer to a redneck party as a bubba fete?

But, seriously, folks, a recent posting over at Roll Bama Roll reminded me that, now that Dawg Sports has been moved over to the new SB Nation platform, it’s time we started putting all these new-fangled gizmos to good use, so I’m going to borrow a page from Burnt Orange Nation; to wit:

Go ‘Dawgs!

I let you know earlier this week that big changes were coming soon as Dawg Sports prepared to migrate to the new SB Nation platform, which may be seen at any of the network's numerous fine major league baseball, N.B.A., or N.F.L. weblogs. (Actually, some of the college sports blogs have made the jump already, such as our Ohio State site, at which this posting on a subject near and dear to my heart appeared last night.)

Barring unforeseen complications, we are scheduled to make the switch tonight, likely at an hour late enough that you ought to be in bed by then. We're keeping our fingers crossed, but, if all goes well, the brand spankin' new version of Dawg Sports---same great content; new improved format---should be up and running by the time you rise and shine tomorrow morning.

By this time tomorrow, Dawg Sports may not look as good as Kristin Davis's face (right), but we'll look a heck of a lot better than her ass (left).

Once again, we ask you to bear with us during the time of transition as we all learn our way around our upgraded digs. If you haven't done so already, go ahead and claim your network-wide user name. After the transition, there will be a masthead located at the bottom of the left-hand column on the main page, which features the site's e-mail address.

Also, the blog roll to the right will be trimmed down somewhat; I may beef it back up again later, but I wanted to take the opportunity to streamline the site somewhat. Any bloggers who remain in regular operation whose sites got lost in the shuffle are welcome to write to me and ask to be put back on, which will be done promptly in the absence of some compelling reason to the contrary.

Finally, I truly would be remiss if I failed to thank Trei, from whom you'll probably be reading a posting like this one by this time tomorrow, and the members of his team, who have invested untold hours of effort redesigning and upgrading the network while putting up with inane questions from technophobic bloggers like, well, me. Much obliged, gentlemen.

Go 'Dawgs!

If you're a regular reader of SB Nation weblogs, you already are aware that the entire network is in the gradual process of being upgraded to a new platform. Such baseball blogs as Athletics Nation and such college blogs as Burnt Orange Nation already have made the transition.

If you've been wondering when Dawg Sports would be making the jump, the answer is "soon." Rocky Top Talk has been previewing some of the new features which will be made available.

For one thing, "diaries" will now be called "FanPosts," so College Buddy will be able to write one without feeling like he's a chubby British girl expressing her most heartfelt feelings about Hugh Grant.

I'd suggest giving those postings a look to acquaint yourselves with the new site tools with which we all will be able to work in the very near future. Once we've made the move, there will be a welcoming post along the lines of this one to show you around the new neighborhood, as it were. If you haven't claimed your network-wide screen name already, that will be your first step. When the time comes, I think you're going to have fun with FanShots, too, and, once we're all acquainted with the multitude of new features (including the ready availability of statistics), postings with this level of data a single mouse click away will be appearing here.

As you know, all change produces stress, even change for the better, as we adjust from the familiar to the novel; of no one is this more true than it is of me. All of us, I am sure, will experience some "growing pains" as we learn to use the new upgraded system, but, in the end, I believe we all will be happier with what the entire Dawg Sports community---not just MaconDawg and me, but readers and commenters, as well---will be able to do with this major overhaul.

Your patience, understanding, and ongoing contributions are appreciated in this period of transition. Because I will be spending some time in the coming days getting ready for the big shift, posting may be a little light this week, but I can assure you that the end result will be worth the wait. These are exciting times here at SB Nation and we're glad to have you along for the ride. If Buzz Bissinger was scared before, wait 'til he gets a load of what's coming. . . .

Go 'Dawgs!

Are there couples for whom Taylor Swift's "Our Song" is their song?

Because that would seem to me to defeat the purpose either of one or the other.

Go 'Dawgs!

It was a dark and stormy night . . . which is why Friday's Georgia-South Carolina baseball game was postponed, giving me a free evening in which to get caught up on the following pertinent points:

• Tomorrow, obviously, is the G-Day game, which also means it's time for Bloggerpalooza. Doug Gillett, your ringleader and master of ceremonies, has the lowdown on where we'll be, which may vary depending upon the climatic conditions. I hope to see you there . . . which, judging by your poll answers, I just might.
• While I'm thinking about it, there are a few housecleaning details to which I need to attend. First of all, if you're a regular reader of SB Nation weblogs, you're familiar with the upcoming upgrades to our blogging platform, which already are evident on such baseball sites as Athletics Nation. These changes eventually will find their way to Dawg Sports, as well, and Joel has a nice overview for you. In the meantime, I once again will be one of those contributors to whom Peter Bean referred, so I, too, will be taking some days off here and there while I prepare my chapter for the 2008 edition of The Eyes of Texas, as well as a piece for another of the Maple Street Press college football annuals. I won't be going on hiatus or anything like that, and MaconDawg will be doing his usual thing, but, if you drop by Dawg Sports and there isn't anything new that day, I'm not just being a slacker, I'm working on other projects. If it makes you feel any better, we can Rick roll you on the days where we don't have any actual new content to offer.

Yeah, I'll have something in this year's edition, too.

• I promise I didn't plan it this way, but, when I asked for your assessment of Georgia's S.E.C. basketball tournament title, you couldn't have been more evenly divided. 117 votes were cast, of which 39 asserted it was a fluke, 39 insisted it was an honest achievement that would have no long-term effect, and 39 contended it was a breakthrough to the next level. Yeah, we have no idea what to make of the F-Bomb's magical four-day run through apocalyptically awful storm conditions, do we?
• Finally, ProfDawg gave me a call earlier in the week to bring this April Fool's Day joke to my attention. It is a joke, right? Because, I mean, if it isn't, the 2008 national championship is in the bag, baby!

My belated apologies go out to Edward Bulwer-Lytton on the opening sentence of this posting, incidentally.

That's all there is for now, folks. Weather permitting, I'll see y'all here tomorrow morning:

Irrespective of whether you make it to the Classic City tomorrow, though, be sure to vote in the latest poll, which concerns issues raised in my previous posting. We in S.E.C. country are doing what we can to overcome the (Tu)Pac-10/(Notorious) S.E.C. feud, up to and including rescheduling "EDSBS Live" for the benefit of West Coast listeners like Kanu and . . . um, O.K., mostly just Kanu. Still, tune in, if you would. Much obliged.

Go 'Dawgs!

Relax; I know it's April 1, but I'm not going to try to fool you again. (Cue the "CSI: Miami" opening credits.) What we have here is your basic example of what we mean by completely unrelated.

As the father of a five-year-old, I am quite familiar with the Pixar and DreamWorks oeuvres and that familiarity has led me to a conclusion, to which I shall turn following an introductory word of explanation. We begin at the beginning . . . with Jessica Rabbit.

Jessica, you may recall, wasn't bad; she was just drawn that way . . . but, more to the point, she sounded that way, inasmuch as she was given voice by Kathleen Turner in 1988's "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?"

Turner was at or near the peak of her popularity at that point, having been introduced to the moviegoing public in 1981's "Body Heat" and become famous through such films as "Romancing the Stone," "Crimes of Passion," "Prizzi's Honor," "The Jewel of the Nile," and "Peggy Sue Got Married." Even such less celebrated efforts as "The Man With Two Brains," "A Breed Apart," and "Switching Channels" made it clear that she had star power, due largely to the fact that, well, she was smoking hot.

Playing Jessica Rabbit did nothing to diminish Turner's reputation in that regard. She remained hot at least through 1989, in the otherwise overrated "The War of the Roses" (which, in my opinion, deserves far less credit as a dark comedy from that period than "Death Becomes Her"), and arguably as late as 1991, when she was the lone highlight of "V.I. Warshawski."

When taking on the role of Jessica Rabbit, Kathleen Turner established what was to become the rule; viz.: an actress should never accept a role in an animated film in which she provides the voice to a cartoon character who is hotter than she is.

Another iconic '80s actress, Holly Hunter, knew the rule and abided by it. As Helen Parr in "The Incredibles," the star of "Raising Arizona" and "Broadcast News" took up the challenge of playing a superhero-turned-mother-of-three, but Elastigirl mirrored that whole cute spunky Southern thing that had served Hunter so well throughout her career.

Cameron Diaz was neither as wise nor as fortunate. Diaz, who looked great in 1994's "The Mask" and (much like Marisa Tomei after "My Cousin Vinny") has spent the rest of her career receiving the benefit of the doubt about her looks based upon a favorable first impression, gets more credit than she deserves for her physical appeal, as became apparent to anyone who saw her standing next to Demi Moore on a beach in "Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle" and realized that the older actress (by a full decade) was by far the better-looking of the two.

Diaz should have learned from the shrewd career moves of Moore, who did not allow herself to be overshadowed by her 1996 animated roles as the exotic Esmeralda in "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" and as the bleach-blonde Dallas Grimes in "Beavis and Butt-Head Do America" because she played those parts only at the tail end of a four-year run in which she had starred in "Indecent Proposal," "Disclosure," "The Scarlet Letter," and "Striptease," at least two of which diminished her reputation as an actress but none of which detracted from her image as a babe.

Cameron Diaz, by contrast, made the poor choice of accepting the role of Fiona in the "Shrek" movies. Granted, she was sharper than her character's green-skinned ogre persona, but let's face it . . . the human version of her princess character looks better than Diaz has in anything she's done since the first thing she did.

The latest offender is Renee Zellweger, whose principal purpose as an actress has always seemed to me to be to lend to "Jerry Maguire" the air of incredibility---Renee Zellweger over Kelly Preston? really? really?---that cost Tom Cruise's last pre-crazy movie the Best Picture Oscar it deserved.

Zellweger's latest acting turn has been to provide the voice for Vanessa Bloome, the florist heroine of Jerry Seinfeld's "Bee Movie," who looks a little something like this:

Fortunately, Zellweger persists in making movies about chubby British gals who keep diaries and get starry-eyed over Hugh Grant, so it is highly unlikely that I will ever again have to see her in a live-action film. Her movies so totally fit the "chick flick" stereotype that it is hard to believe they aren't intended as parodies, but, as long as she continues to play Bridget Jones, you could put everyone in the picture in Auburn apparel and it wouldn't make me any less likely to see it.

Nevertheless, you have to ask yourself, "If I ever again see Renee Zellweger in a movie that isn't a cartoon, won't I find myself wishing that they'd digitally erased her and replaced her with Vanessa?" If a great-looking actress like Kristin Davis wants to lend her voice to the title role in the animated "Miss Spider's Sunny Patch Friends," she's not doing herself any harm, but Zellweger ought to know better.

The moral of the story is a simple one. Actresses shouldn't allow the animated damsels they portray in computer-generated motion pictures to outshine them in appearance. Those who do are setting themselves up for being remembered for how much better they looked when you weren't actually looking at them. I'm no expert, but, in an industry that puts a premium on physical attractiveness, that seems like an egregiously ill-considered career move.

Go 'Dawgs! (That is not intended as an insult to the appearance of any of the actresses mentioned above, incidentally.)

My G-Day tickets arrived in the mail this week, which can only mean one thing: Doug Gillett, proprietor of Hey Jenny Slater and two-time College Football Blogger Award winner, will be going slumming by tailgating with me, co-author of a four-time C.F.B.A. runner-up, at 2008's third annual installment of Bloggerpalooza.

On the docket for this year:

• What will the weather hold in store for us? We went from pouring down rain in 2006 to sunny yet freezing in 2007. If the weather is nice in Athens one week from Saturday, I'll be ratcheting up the national championship talk to a degree best described using exponential notation.
• Is it time to change the nomenclature of the event? Thus far, we've been going with "Bloggerpalooza '06," "Bloggerpalooza '07," et al. Now that we've reached the third installment---the point, in relative terms, at which Joe Namath's guarantee of victory made the Super Bowl "Super Bowl III," even though the two previous such games had not been called "Super Bowl I" and "Super Bowl II"---is it time to drop the truncated two-digit year designation and begin using Roman numerals instead?
• Finally, will the sly and cynical Doug we all know and love re-emerge? I'm happy for Doug that he has found hope in the form of a presidential candidate, but I must admit that there are few notions I find more deeply philosophically troubling than the idea of a citizen who has reached the age of legal adulthood basing any appreciable portion of his faith in the future on the benevolence of a politician. Will Doug (who knows full well that I, as a conservative, have no particular affinity for John McCain, the perpetrator of the anti-First Amendment crusade called "campaign finance reform") succeed in persuading me to support the candidate of hope or will I (who know full well that, in his heart of hearts, Doug is too world-weary and sarcastic truly to be sold on a presidential candidate, much less one who actually believes what he says) be able to bring him around to my own Joel Stein-like suspicions concerning a would-be leader of the free world hamstrung by the handicap of earnest sincerity?

In any event, come one, come all; Doug and I hope to see Bulldog Nation out in force to prove once again that we tailgate harder for the spring scrimmage than most fans do for actual games. I hope to see you there.

Go 'Dawgs!

During lunch this afternoon, I took a moment to check the Dawg Sports site meter and was pleased to discover that MaconDawg and I were having a good day of traffic. (As of about 8:00 p.m., we had welcomed approximately 3,200 visitors, who had viewed roughly 4,600 pages.)

It seemed reasonable that we had gotten this sort of a boost, in light of the Georgia men's basketball team's miracle run through the S.E.C. tournament and subsequent bid to the big dance. I figured lots of folks were looking to find out about Dennis's Dogs, which probably would mean traffic surges for every weblog in Bulldog Nation. Why shouldn't the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's "staff pick" be among those enjoying a bump in readership?

Naturally, I took a gander at our referrals and was surprised to see that the uptick was being driven not by searches for Dennis Felton or Sundiata Gaines, but by searches for . . . Kristin Davis?

O.K., O.K., I know, I know, I used to post a lot of pictures of Kristin Davis before a thought-provoking reader comment persuaded me to abandon the practice. I know there are a lot of older postings here at Dawg Sports that feature her photograph, so, yeah, it figures that we'd be picked up by a few image searches, but . . . that many in one day?

That seemed more than a little odd, so I went to Google News, did a search for Kristin Davis, and found . . . this.

Accordingly, I feel compelled to offer the following disclaimer:

Dawg Sports is a weblog devoted to intercollegiate athletics generally and to University of Georgia sports specifically. We do not provide celebrity gossip or salacious pictures. If you stumbled upon us while searching for such, you came to the wrong place.

Also, if you're searching for celebrity porn at 10:30 on a Tuesday morning, you may want to rethink some of the fundamental tenets of your existence.

This has been a public service announcement. We now return you to your regularly-scheduled weblog, which is already in progress.

Go 'Dawgs!

You already know this is a busy time in my household, but much is afoot elsewhere, as well, from the athletic fields of Bulldog Nation to the blogs---yes, "blogs," not "blog sites"---throughout which intercollegiate athletics are discussed, with respect to which a few matters of interest warrant our attention. These are they:

• After posting a 12-0 record in dual meets, the Lady Bulldogs swimming and diving team was ranked No. 1 in the final 2007-'08 College Swim Coaches Association of America dual-meet poll. The Georgia equestrian team won road meets at Auburn and at Kansas State over the weekend. (I hate Auburn.) Meanwhile, despite falling at Michigan on Friday, the Gym Dogs remain the top team in the land and they are the subject of our current poll question.
• Although the Georgia women's tennis team fell to 10-2 overall and 3-1 in conference play after the No. 3-ranked Bulldogs lost to fifth-ranked Florida, the Red and Black men's tennis team got the better of the Gators.

Hope y'all enjoyed it while it lasted.

• Over at Roll Bama Roll, new pinup gal Brittany Snow is producing buyer's remorse among Crimson Tide voters, while Bruins Nation boasts what undoubtedly is the feel-good story of the year.
• My congratulations go out to Rocky Top Talk and Sunday Morning Quarterback on their respective victories in the Best S.E.C. Blog and Best Writing categories in the 2007 College Football Blogger Awards. Counting the 2006 C.F.B.A.s, Dawg Sports has received five nominations, including two for Best S.E.C. Blog and two for Best Writing, and MaconDawg and I have four runner-up finishes to show for it. Unfortunately, Paul Westerdawg already beat me to the Susan Lucci line and, not only did the post-presentation conversation include a rehash of my debate with BCSBusters, it also included an observation by TigerBait's Joshua that the weblog you are now reading "is not that good." In short, in blogging, as in the rest of life, you have to take the good with the bad, but much-deserved congratulations are due to Joel and Matt. If we had to lose, it's good to know we lost to the best.

 

Kudos, y'all.

• Ordinarily, I wouldn't make a big deal out of this sort of thing, since I can't say I know much about the validity of how such rankings are compiled, but, since I could use a little validation after the C.F.B.A.s, I'm going to call your attention to the fact that Wikio has Dawg Sports pegged as the 32nd most influential sports weblog, at least for this month. Really, that may not mean much of anything, but I got an e-mail from a guy there about putting a Wikio R.S.S. button up on the sidebar. As all of you know, I am terminally unhip, so much so that I don't mix my media: I don't watch movies on my laptop or have phone conversations over my computer; I don't surf the internet on my television and I don't send e-mails from my cell phone. Instead, I watch T.V. on my T.V., I use my computer as a computer, I make phone calls with my phone, and the only thing I use to make pictures is a camera. Honestly, I don't know what R.S.S. is (or is that "are"?), but I know a lot of folks younger and hipper than me (read: those of you who are neither Bobby Bowden nor Joe Paterno) use them (or is that "it"?), so I'd be interested in getting your feedback on what sorts of new-fangled gadgetry you innovative whippersnappers would like to see here at Dawg Sports. Leave your comments below . . . but do it quickly, before I shuffle out onto my front porch brandishing my cane and yelling at y'all to get off of my lawn.
• The anticipated battle of the beards by the St. John's River will not happen, as Orson has capitulated in the face of my much superior beard, which nine of you think looks awful but five of you wisely believe looks great. Of the 78 ballots cast, the largest portions of the electorate took the view that I look like George Lucas (27 votes) or Lewis Grizzard (21 votes). Eleven of you opine that I look like the embodiment of the "Evil Richt" persona that will produce a national championship in 2008, whereas five of you think I resemble Obi-Wan Kenobi, although there is some dispute as to whether I better capture the essence of the Ewan McGregor or Alec Guinness portrayals. Honestly, though, it dawned on me the other day that the correct answer wasn't even among the choices at all:

 

Only younger, of course.

Go 'Dawgs!