Football Counter-Programming 2024: Who even cares what week it is?

(It occurred to me just now that I haven't formatted this year's FC-P photos with the AYRFSFC-P??!! text. Sorry. Maybe next week.) 

I've missed the last two weeks of the Football Counter-Programming project. And I'm sorry that you have not had me to misdirect* and distract you from the scourge of non-professional Saturday gridirony.

*I initially typed mislead. And that might be technically true. You'd have to fact-check me on that.** But I'm not going to go back and measure the veracity levels of past FC-P posts.

**HA!

ANDBUTSO . . . I'm sitting here on a Friday and not feeling particularly motivated to work. I'm alone downstairs in the house and Lynda is up in her office working. It's a grey, blustery sort of Friday and the arms of Tropical Storm Helene (nee Hurricane Helene) blow their way up into the Midwest. I've been getting texts of Mom in Tifton, after the worst of the wind passed over last night and this morning. She and Dad are safe. Big trees blew down along the driveway. Which makes me feel sad.

And Lynda's family is okay in Waycross. More trees down and flooding here and there. But no one that I know if injured. But I'm sure there are plenty of people I don't know who will be struggling through this in the months ahead. Sure hope that the government has enough tax money to fund their recovery efforts that are needed. (But I won't get any more political than that about that in this post.)

So, yeah . . . sad.

Sad to see big pecan trees blown down, then chainsawed away. But necessary because Mom couldn't use the driveway until it was cleared. Sad to think of the change that time brings. Sad to think of Dad--even though he doesn't now really know that the trees are gone. But I wish I could have a conversation with him about the fact that the trees are gone. But knowing that I can't really have a conversation like that with him anymore.

Sad.

I'll see him during the end of year holiday travels. But it is always bittersweet.

It is also unavoidably the reality of life. And I'm happy at least that life is being had. Through storms and daily living, he continues. And God bless Mom, who soldiers on every day. Relying on everyone who team together to help Dad. But also give Mom the space to find her own help. 

Life just keeps on coming. No matter what you do. No matter how things happen around you--be they work changes or weather storms. Be they growing kids or other facts of life.

It is still life.

And we still have it.

And it is better than most.

So . . . don't define your life with football. (You'll now pardon me as I have to get back to work so that I can spend the Friday evening in support of football-related activities.)

That is all.

Football Counter-Programming 2024: Week 1 (or is it week 2?)

As I was driving around my town this morning, I thought that my color-blindness was acting up or altering. Didn't everything seem more red than normal?* Had I burst a capillary in my eyeball? Did my hair dye slip into my eyes last night?Was something else wrong going on?

But then I checked the calendar and I realized that it was Saturday in Ohio. It's Buckeye time. All the scarlet is out and it must be football time.

And when it's football time . . . it's Football Counter-Programming time!

(Even though I missed counter-programming you last Saturday, when I have been informed that gridiron games did occur. My two older brother's alma maters faced off and they were . . . both surprised by the GT/FSU game.

But I'm not here to give you mentions about football. Check the title. I'm here to distract you FROM college football. (I guess the college part is implied. But if you've been an avid reader of WWYG?! FC-P coverage over the last many years (search the blog labels in the right sidebar to see more) or if you read between the lines that I'm talking about Saturdays . . . then you know that its the college game I'm up against.

ANDBUTSO--this is already too much about football.

It's also Labor Day weekend here in Ohio--and, coincidentally, throughout the entire United States. So the other momentous thing happening around now is the cultural end of summer and the retirement of the 2024 Summer Hat. #OfficialHat2024 has done its job well, sheltering my head and hiding my hair when I didn't want to spend lots of time coiffing. (Did I spell the verbing of coif correctly? Do your worst in the comments!)

I hope to find time on Sunday to film and prepare my traditional goodbye to this year's #HatofSummer and to put a close to another season of one of the internet's strangest traditions. (I say that like a. I'm an expert on the internet and b. my dinky little project has any significance at all in the vast ocean of flotsam that is the World Wide Web. But a person can always dream.)

Truth be told, I didn't wear the #HatofSummer as much in the end months of summer as I might have. This definitely was impacted by my decision to let Jay dye my hair red. (See asterisk . . .) Wanted to show off the crimson locks. And they will be in full display from now until early November. (Again . . . see the asterisk. And follow my on Facebook for more marching band related content.)

And that's it I think for this week.

Until we meet again, get your eyes checked regularly . . . and don't forget that your alma mater's cornerback might have better eyesight than you do. But he'll be sore at the end of the day and you might not be.

* And, before you say anything . . . this isn't a stealth promotion for the 2024 Westerville North Marching Warriors show "RED." . . . or is it?

Twenty Years!

 I was gonna begin the anniversary post with a photo of Old Steve Rogers sittin' and ruminatin'. 

But Old Blogger wouldn't let me.

Is that because Blogger is itself too old? Or is the Old Steve pic so fresh and new (?) that the lawyers won't let me meme it for my self-promotional purposes?

Still, there has to be an acceptable (legal) way to celebrate that Why Won't You Grow turned 20 years old yesterday. And unlike Steve Rogers, it shows its age.

For one, it still sits on Blogger--the Hammer Tech of blog platforms. But I guess I'm ride or die at this point. I'm pot committed. All of my very important thoughts over the last two decades is here--for better and very much for worse.

It will all evaporate someday. Maybe an EM pulse will shut everything down. (No one will more the loss of WWYG?! but a small spec of individual expression will be gone.  . . . Right?)

How to celebrate 20 years of random flotsam? (Other than the simple acknowledgement that is happening now?) Well, last night I was sitting with Grace, enjoying a few episodes of her first self-directed LOST Rewatch and what episode appeared?

It’s not even my birthday! pic.twitter.com/vMXerghlJx

— David (@dtm1971) August 13, 2024

If only I have reached that point in my own LOST Rewatch/repost.

But anyway . . . Happy Anniversary to me!

Abrams did it to me again . . . for the FIRST time!

 Didn't George Lucas say something about how stories, like poetry, rhyme? (Meaning it as a justification that the repetition in his stories and what some might perceive as a weakness in story telling was actually a feature and not a bug.)

checking . . .

According to this source, he said "Again, it's like poetry, so that they rhyme. Every stanza kind of rhymes with the last one."

Well . . . he is definitely not the only one.

Because tonight I'm minding my own business and watching a rerun of an Alias episode. ("Almost Thirty Years" which aired May 21, 2002.) And at the end of the episode, Sydney blows up a big Rambaldi device that collapses a sphere of red water being suspended in anti-gravity whatsis. This begins a flood within the building. And so Sydney and Vaughn run to escape the rushing wall of liquid. Sydney safely gets on one side of a bulkhead door (which has a window). And Vaughn is trapped on the water side and so Sydney gets to watch as he is surrounded by the water.

DOES THIS SOUND FAMILIAR TO YOU?!

DOES IT RHYME?!!!!!

Maybe it would help if I shared a clip of this episode of LOST ("Through the Looking Glass--season 3, episodes 22 and 23, which aired May 23, 2007)

So . . . as you can see . . . Mr. Abrams's creative partners Lindelof and Cuse were happy to take a bit of Alias lore and hit me with it again almost exactly five years later. 

And I didn't make the connection until over seventeen years after that.

It shocked me, let me tell you.

 via GIPHY

(Yes, Will. It shocked me almost as much as that.)

#HatofSummer 2024 Revealed

 Look. I'm sorry that the #HatofSummer has been official for weeks and I forgot to cross post this video from my other social media feeds over here.

Fifteen-years-ago me would be severely disappointed.

But current me is who he is. And that's just how it goes. I encourage you to get over your disappointment and surf back through the WWYG?! archives and feel better about when this was more vibrant and vital and we all had more pep in our step.

None of that, however, takes away from the very satisfying fact that #OfficialHat2024 is out there and the #HatofSummer project continues--even after all this time.

So not everything slowly withers on the vine.

As much as the hat's simple existence, I am happy with the new style and video elements I added this year. No, I didn't experiment as much as I thought I would. But it gives me confidence that I might make another step next Spring when #OfficialHat2025 approaches.