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Reporting live, on tape, from my pocket

We went to Momma G’s tonight. The place is rich in history — even if they’ve recently leveled the floors. The walls are littered in posters and old Auburn newspaper clippings. I think they’ve finally done away with the old jukebox. But people still write on everything.

When graffiti is a calling card, your sandwich steamer better have mojo. This is never a problem at Momma G’s.

I like to think this one is a two-part piece. First the cheer and then an autograph by Ricardo Louis:

I wonder if this will be painted over or lost in context first:

I did the thing where I got up and offered to get refills for the table. As I did so I found five bucks on the ground. I wanted to give it back to whomever dropped it, but there was no one around. So, in the pocket it went and that was the most lucrative refill ever.

Adam was upset with this news. He just knew he should have gotten the drinks. Of course, I told him, if he’d topped off our cups he would have found a $100. That’s just the sort of luck he’s had lately. He doesn’t dispute it.

So we all sat there, the last people in the place. The guy trying to close made all the polite “Please get out of here so I can go home” noises. Not to be sentimental about it, but we’re down to counting the days before Adam leaves for his next adventure, so I find I’m trying to drag out conversations when we’re all together.

Things to read … Sign language interpreter at Mandela’s memorial a faker. Maybe you’ve heard about the guy playing knick knack paddy whack alongside world leaders. This is a bizarre story, and a disconcerting one when you consider what could have been. It should be interesting to see where this story goes from here.

More from the It Takes a Village file: Boy, 6, Charged with Sexual Harassment for Kissing Girl on Hand:

A 6-year-old Colorado boy was slapped with the label of sexual harasser and suspended, all because he kissed his classmate on the hand.

ABC News affiliate KRDO-TV spoke with the boy, who in the past kissed the same girl — his “girlfriend” — on the cheek.

[…]

The boy’s mother, Jennifer, is outraged, saying of the female student, “She was fine with it, they are ‘boyfriend and girlfriend.’ The other children saw it and went to the music teacher.

Being a child these days is hard, no doubt. We’re just making it harder.

(Update: A day later all of this nonsense has been happily resolved. Funny how widespread media attention and public scorn can do that.)

Mobile ads forecast to account for more than third of new ad revenue by 2016:

Mobile advertising is forecast to be the most important driver of the global advertising economy over the next three years, accounting for more than a third of the $90bn in new revenue expected by 2016.

Advertising delivered to smartphones and tablets will account for 36% of new global ad spend over the next three years, according to a new forecast by global media buying agency group ZenithOptimedia.

However, the growth in mobile advertising will be in addition to rather than at the expense of traditional media such as TV and newspapers, according to ZenithOptimedia.

If you aren’t planning for this, you’re behind.

Gannett to Add USA Today to Local Papers:

Gannett Company, one of the nation’s largest newspaper chains, will try to expand its advertising and circulation revenue by inserting parts of its flagship newspaper, USA Today, into its local newspapers.

Beginning in January, Gannett will add 12 to 14 pages of USA Today content each day to 35 newspapers in its largest markets.

Good luck to them. Hopefully it doesn’t come off as just trying to pad out the local publication with more wire copy at the expensive of in-house reporting.

If you haven’t seen Videolicious yet, and you make videos, you’ll want to check out this little tutorial on a basic, yet powerful, new tool you should add to your arsenal. It is push-button easy. I downloaded it recently, now I’ll just have to put it to use.

So now you have produced holiday videos to look forward to. This makes two video editing suites sitting in my pocket. Chalk this up to what I’ve been saying for years. Smartphones are just signals of future potential.

Auburn / football / photo / weekend — Comments Off
8
Dec 13

Toomer’s Corner after the championship game

The local police closed the intersection of College and Magnolia after the SEC championship game so people could celebrate. Later in the evening, when Ohio State stumbled against Michigan State, boosting Auburn into the BCS championship hunt, they closed the intersection again.

It was still closed when we finally got there, about an hour later as the revelry continued. Here are a few pictures:

People were having a grand time.

What do you know, David Housel was right last spring.

Who would have guessed he would be proven prophetic so quickly.

adventures / Auburn / football / photo / weekend — Comments Off
7
Dec 13

SEC championship game: Missouri versus Auburn

The setting, the Georgia Dome in Atlanta. The scene, the Georgia Dome in Atlanta. The stars, Auburn and Missouri. The extras, 60,000+ Auburn fans and several nice folks from Missouri. The ratio was overwhelming, but, of course, Auburn is just over an hour away. These things happen.

We made the trip with our friend Sally Ann. We had lunch with Kim and Murph and Jared and more. We saw some old friends before the game. We saw friends after the game. We had a nice time visiting with Missouri folks during the game. It was a fine day.

The best sign of the day:

Yep. No miracles needed. Just a lot of offense and some situational defense. But before you get to all that, here’s an almost-fair representation of the fan ratio:

Met this genius. I asked if he left the tags on his Missouri so he could take them back to the store after the game. His son said he did. Brilliant. Not “Let me sell these tickets and get some Christmas money or a mortgage payment” but, instead, “Let me see if I can make something funny out of this.”

Well, he saw a show, for sure. (Also that picture got picked up by CBS and plenty of other folks. It was seen by more than 216,000 Twitter accounts. Crazy.)

Cassanova McKinzy and Dee Ford say hello to James Franklin. That guy is tall and statuesque. He doesn’t take a drop, and he’s capable of picking apart a defense. Also, he can run. He did all of those things today, he also met more defenders than he liked:

Tre Mason, who is a man:

Tre Mason, who ran a lot:

Cassanova McKinzy pressures James Franklin again. McKinzy had something of a breakout game, leading the team in tackles:

See? Franklin just stands there, towering over everyone and flicking the ball to whomever he likes. He’s a serious threat:

Ricardo Louis, the hero of the miracle at Jordan-Hare, just running your standard jet sweep. He picked up 43 yards on three carries:

Tre Mason, who is a man, broke Bo Jackson’s school record for total yards in a single season:

Tre Mason, who is a man, also broke Cam Newton’s school record for most touchdowns in a season. He came within four yards (four!) of breaking the single-game rushing record, which has stood for 70 yards.

These guys up front are the ones that make it all happen. No one has talked about them much, but there’s at least one eventual first-rounders in there and at least three NFL caliber players. They have been pushing defenses around all season. From top to bottom: Greg Robinson, Alex Kozan, Reese Dismukes , Chad Slade, Avery Young and, behind them, fullback Jay Prosch.

Nick Marshall was 9 of 11 for 132 yards and a big touchdown pass to Sammie Coates:

Marshall also had 101 yards and a touchdown rushing:

Four different players scored on the ground for Auburn, including speedster Corey Grant:

The wirecam is carrying the ball to Ricardo Louis:

Tre Mason scored four touchdowns, cementing his incredible argument for Heisman consideration.

Anyone that’s watched this team play this year should know by now to never sell those young men short. There are 12 seniors on the team and in their four and five years they’ve been to a championship, lost teammates, lost family, gone 3-9, changed coaches and now are celebrating in confetti.

Auburn has done all they can do. The Tigers are 12-1 and SEC champions. They wrapped their season against a resurgent Georgia, top-ranked Alabama and a top 10 Missouri squad. All of those teams had great statistical defenses and Auburn got statistically better against each one. They are on the short list of best teams in school history and easily the most entertaining squad in recent memory. The final today was 59-42. There were only fleeting moments of defense but, if you didn’t watch, the game never felt that close.

Oh, and by virtue of Michigan State downing the laughable Ohio State in the Big Ten championship game. We watched that in a chain restaurant in Newnan, Ga., where we ran into more friends. Because of that game, Auburn is once again going to the BCS championship game.

We sit near people in Jordan-Hare Stadium that waited 53 years, from 1957 to 2010, to see another championship run. Now we’re going to watch Auburn chase a championship for a second time in just four years. My. Goodness. War Eagle.

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6
Dec 13

Who ratted out that dog?

The SEC championship game is in Atlanta tomorrow. Auburn will be there, facing Missouri. There are a lot of signs like this around town just now.

We’ll be there too. Auburn and Mizzou each received 16,000 tickets. Auburn makes theirs ridiculously difficult to acquire. Missouri was kind enough to simply sell them online, so a lot of Auburn folks bought their tickets from Missouri. Given the proximity, and the weather out their way, it should be something of a home game for the team in blue and orange.

It is hard to believe, and easy to get caught up in. Another conference championship is a possibility, just four years removed from the last one and one trip around the sun from last year’s unfortunate season and we’re going to watch a championship game tomorrow. Hard to believe.

Things to read … This has been making the rounds. A Stanford student wrote this about the Iron Bowl:

Stanford beat Notre Dame, but all we can talk about is the SEC and its raucous finale of Auburn-Alabama. And for once, I have no problem with that.

Even as a West Coast man, I cannot tear my eyes away from the Southland drama that exploded into being on Saturday night. It was the single most unlikely play in football unfolding at the absolute perfect moment. It remains wondrous and unknowable, some quantum shiver in nature slowly solidifying in our minds. As I write, the eyes of a thousand sportswriters still flicker desperately across the ghostly pages of history, searching for some apt comparison or even just something to describe what happened — even just words.

Now, more than ever, there are no words.

That guy is pretty good. Meanwhile, I turned my Iron Bowl post into a larger story with bigger pictures. Slightly new text, much more interesting format. You can read it again here.

Speaking of photos, When White House Photos Are ‘Visual Press Releases’.

Also speaking of photos, here is a photographer being tackled by security for trying to do his job and photograph a protest. Little by little, we’ll chill journalists.

This dog is a cat burglar:

That’ll be the day’s cutest video. This one, a time lapse from the space station, will be the most awesome:

And, now, the most truthful headline you’ll ever read. A pair of shoes for Christmas: ‘It’s a small thing, but it makes a huge difference’:

At an elementary school in Huntsville on Thursday, a boy about 8 years old went to his little brother’s pre-K classroom and approached the teacher. He said his little brother didn’t have shoes that fit, and asked if it would be OK if they went to the on-campus HEALS clinic. He’d heard the HEALS staff gave out shoes.

The 4-year-old brother was wearing a pair of worn-out shoes that were four sizes too big, and a too-big pair of athletic socks that were dirty and full of holes.

“The little brother was so upset and embarrassed by the whole situation that he started crying,” said Pam Clasgens, development director with HEALS, a local nonprofit organization that provides school-based medical and dental care for children.

If you’re looking for a charity, this one will make a lot of kids very happy.

football / iPhone / journalism / photo / Samford / video / Wednesday — Comments Off
4
Dec 13

I am not suspicious, just grading

The great sign:

A friend of mine’s father owns that place. I like to think that I’ve helped with a few of the football-related messages this season. Every week it is a great excitement to drive down that stretch of College, just to see what they have put up. They are always amusing messages.

Less amusing:

Is this standard, end-of-year fare? Or is it ACA driven? And is the font large enough, because, you know, vision center and all.

The last newspaper of the semester is in the books. They put it to bed early this morning and it was on shelves today and we critiqued it this evening. They are now halfway through their run. It always goes so fast, but they never believe it will.

Also, we had about 19 student projects nominated for awards in the Southeast Journalism Conference’s Best of the South competition. We managed to get those in with about 10 minutes to spare today. There is some great work in there, so we are excited to see how they’ll do next February when the awards are announced.

Otherwise, there are the things that always fill this time of year. The paperwork that approaches wrapping things up. The administrative work that goes along with it. Sign this, establish hours for that, consider what’s next. And, oh, don’t forget to grade everything. It is a great time of year. The only downside is that my hands are covered in newsprint and red ink. If I found myself in a conversation with a police officer he or she might be concerned.

We’re watching the Iron Bowl again tonight. I’m going to make a lot of references to this video: