Slept in. Watched television. Also, I think I might have taken a brief nap.
In the afternoon and evening I put together two lectures for class. I did laundry. Took a few Catember pictures. We enjoyed the rain, read about the wind damage to the north and tried to be productive. I fought the urge to indulge in that nap.
Labor Day.
It was dreary and raining. There were no big outdoor events and they would have been canceled anyway. We had four tornado warnings — just another day in the south — in our county. Two of them nearby. It would seem we were bracketed on either side, but we heard of no damage and saw none in our brief foray out.
Watched a bit of the Miami at Maryland game. That is one ugly uniform. Sports producer Dennis Pillion said it best:
These Maryland uniforms are just as terrible as everyone says. It’s like a crash test dummy mated with a crusader.
They call it Maryland Pride, but they should call it a corporate billboard. As this is all a design to merely get people talking about Under Armour (Look! It worked! Your unis are as dreadful as Nike’s! Have a nice day.) this is a shameless aspect of college football, the most direct and obvious exploitation of college football players in an industry built on a series of even and uneven exchanges of services.
Now, Auburn is an Under Armour school. And the schools have seemed to flex some muscle in whether they are willing to have these random designs put upon them. Auburn, full of staid and conservative people when you get right down to such decisions, have resisted the urge to make major changes to the uniform insomuch as it is a brand. I would encourage them to retrench.
It is an interesting discussion, though. For whom are these designs made? High school kids? Football recruits? It probably works for them. Television’s talking heads? Uniform changes for the studio fashionistas are a hit-or-miss thing beyond the purely “They’re talking about us” The older alumni? That’s where any given program’s money comes from, and I doubt they like it insofar as tradition is a big component of what they appreciate.
And after seeing the fashionable offerings by the big two uniform makers this weekend I’m inclined to welcome a return to Russell (which has the Samford apparel account) or Adidas. Because Maryland Pride is a technicolor folly.
Dinner at Cheeburger Cheeburger tonight. And now I have that much more to work off this week. Totally worth it, though.
He said, with the memory of an Oreo milkshake still fresh on his mind.
