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Former American Press sportswriter Carl Dubois blogs about the games people play, in and out of sports, and the people you meet between and outside the lines.

Carl is an award-winning reporter and columnist based in Baton Rouge. He is associate editor of Tiger Rag magazine.

Back on the beat

Posted November 4, 2009 at 3:03 pm
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BATON ROUGE — Fourteen months after leaving the world of daily newspaper work to free-lance and pursue other options, I’m back on a regular schedule. This week I became associate editor of Tiger Rag, a magazine (with companion Web site) that covers LSU sports.

I don’t plan to stop visiting with you here occasionally. Hope you don’t mind.

See you soon.

Moon in a light blue sky

Posted November 4, 2009 at 7:13 am
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That was my reward for leaving the house early yesterday: a breathtaking view of the moon fairly high in an already blue morning sky.

I wish I had the photographic skills to be able to show it to you. Maybe if you’re up early today, we’ll both get to see a new one.

It’s about time

Posted November 1, 2009 at 10:44 am
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BATON ROUGE — Were you early for church today? Does something just not seem right?

Check the time on your cell phone and compare it with the time on watches, computers, car radios and such. Chances are, the early time is the correct one.

Standard time returned at 2 a.m.

Fall back, remember?

If you have a notion to fall back asleep after reading this, go ahead. You have an extra hour.

You Save: $3,540.90

Posted October 27, 2009 at 11:23 am
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I don’t even know what to say:

This watch is on sale. On sale. <—click there and exercise your eyebrows.

raised eyebrows [Desktop Resolution]

Craig, at times your list is a pain

Posted October 27, 2009 at 9:59 am
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BATON ROUGE — So, I decided to have a virtual garage sale, with Craigslist the liaison between me and my customers. Oy.

This morning I watched as 60something spam e-mails popped into my in-box within seconds. Once the spambots were done with their special brand of evil, I had to go through each one to make sure I wasn’t missing out on a potential sale.

At least 40 were a variation of this:

I found your (pick an item Carl is selling, and it was here in the first sentence) here (insert Craigslist address for my ad). I’ve been doing
the same thing exactly since we both lost our jobs. 3.5 months
ago, it was terrible, but I had to sell (my son’s Xbox / my son’s laptop/ my son’s PlayStation / my daughter’s doll collection) just to survive and it was without a doubt the saddest moment in my life.

Saying it was excruciating could not even begin to describe it clearly,
but I needed to make the house payment or we would be on the street (we were already 4 months behind).

Thank God that will be the last time I have to hurt my kids like that.

One of my (cousins / good buds / neighbors / whatever) showed me what he is doing to earn great income on-line. I could not believe he’d share this with me, but I am truly appreciative that I am sharing this with everyone who needs a financial break and who might be in a similar situation.

Thank God it’s easy or I would not have been able to do it, not to mention it is the most financially set I have ever felt before. I promise you will find this page worth the 90 seconds it it takes you to look it over.

Oh, and here is the link: (insert link to evil here).

Take care, and God Bless You!

“Oh, and here is the link.” Don’t you like that? Very casual. Oh, I almost forgot! Here is the whole point of why I decided to ruin your morning and maybe your financial future!

Oh, and here is hell. And it’s a special brand of evil, because of this line:

Thank God that will be the last time I have to hurt my kids like that.

There is a word. A bad word. I am thinking of it. I am not typing it.

Anyway, these e-mails came from “people” with the most bizarre made-up names: King Ascione, Cyber Panjab, Marguerite Wylfkinstocking, Margitt Boone, Puffball Caviness, Pubescent Neutra, Lisha Quintana, John Cocktoasten (OK, that’s from “Fletch”) and many others.

Please.

One e-mail had this subject line: I WILL BUY YOUR CABINET ASAP! In the text, it said: I love your cabinet. I would love to pick it up tonight if I could. Please let me know. Thanks!

It was from Deepto Mukherjee. Now, after all the others, I’m prejudiced to think this is another fake, but is it? Somewhere in this big world, someone probably has that name.

Finally, I got a series of e-mails that read as follows:

How about this?

up to $2,201 per month 19hrs a week
up to $4,110 per month 28hrs a week
62 People Wanted asap!

(insert link to shady Internet business here)

mwdfqepjmry

Is that the person’s signature? mwdfqepjmry?

If I found the person responsible for all this spam, I’d send them 100 versions of this in an e-mail:

Uh, how about this?

fist [Desktop Resolution]

OK, I’m not really a violent person. So, how about this?

Oh, when the Saints …

Posted October 22, 2009 at 11:43 am
Filed Under People, Sports | Leave a Comment

BATON ROUGE — You know where I’m going with that headline. It’s not where the song’s lyrics go.

Like all long-suffering fans of the New Orleans franchise in the NFL, I’m waiting for something to go wrong. Oh, when the Saints come crashing down to Earth.

So, that’s why I haven’t changed the side-saddle I use for my column and story posts on TigerDroppings.com. As soon as I would, the Saints would start losing. I promise you.

They’re trying to lure me back to believing. It won’t work.

It reminds me of a few years ago, when The Times-Picayune’s Jim Kleinpeter, an Astros fan, tried to talk me into believing in them again.

“There’s room for you on the bandwagon,” he said.

Nope. That’s just what they want me to do.

Same deal with the Saints. That’s why I’m keeping my side-saddle the way it is.

(For now)

Dishpan hands holding a football? Oh my!

Posted October 15, 2009 at 10:18 am
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BATON ROUGE — Not long ago I was in Lake Charles doing research at the library, looking at old copies of the American Press on microfilm. One of the most enjoyable aspects of such research is seeing ads, the prices of goods and services many years ago, and the way people talked — and wrote, and thought – in previous decades.

Sports sections were very different in the early 1970s, and in more ways than one. I found a front page that featured a photo of a University of Georgia kicker booting a field goal or PAT on the practice field while a woman, perhaps a college student, held the ball for the placement kick. The look on her face (with eyes closed) suggested she wasn’t entirely prepared for the speed and proximity with which the player’s foot moved through her personal space and — whack! — hammered the ball.

This was part of one of those Football 101 or Football for Ladies seminars coaches and teams put on every year to give women a chance to see behind the scenes and learn some of the finer points about the sport. Vince Dooley, then the coach at Georgia, was in the photo.

A good friend of mine hates those events. She considers them condescending and sexist. There’s a good chance she would have thought the same about what was under the photo. The cutline, what most readers would probably call a caption, explained what was happening — the who, what, where, when and why. The “kicker,” what is best described as a headline for the caption, is what caught my eye.

Frightening as a sink of dishes

I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that was written by a man. I’m going to also speculate, with reasonable certainty, you would not find anything like that in a 2009 publication.

For your viewing pleasure:

dishpan

Perhaps we should call it semi-retirement

Posted October 7, 2009 at 10:37 pm
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BATON ROUGE — LSU will ceremoniously retire the No. 37 jersey of Tommy Casanova, the only three-time All-America football player in the school’s history, Saturday in Tiger Stadium.

Casanova’s jersey was retired in May, as you will see if you click on this link, but away from any crowds and fanfare. With No. 1-ranked Florida playing No. 4-ranked LSU, the atmosphere will be electric when LSU goes the formal route.

This paragraph jumped out at me from the above-linked story at LSUSports.net:

The retirement of the jerseys of Casanova, McDonald and Macklin comes under a new provision of the LSU jersey retirement bylaws that says the retirement of an athlete’s jersey in a particular sport does not preclude a current student-athlete in that sport from wearing the jersey number in that or any other sport, subject to the discretion of the head coach. This provision applies only to jerseys retired after January 1, 2007, so the numbers worn by Maravich, Pettit, O’Neal, Cannon and Bertman may never again be worn by future student-athletes in their respective sports.

So, LSU sophomore defensive back Karnell Hatcher can continue to wear No. 37, apparently. So, it’s the jersey, not the number. So, it’s the laundry?

Let’s hope they long ago retired Casanova’s jock, socks and shoes.

Looks like an OK Corral to me

Posted October 2, 2009 at 12:28 pm
Filed Under People, Sports | 1 Comment

I have a new neighbor here at my virtual blog cabin. Alex Hickey, who covers McNeese for the American Press, has joined the fold. You can find his blog here and on the home page of the Web site.

I look forward to reading his stuff. I’m sure you’ll enjoy it too.

Howdy, neighbor, and welcome.