Today UGA hosted Charleston Southern University. I only went to this game for one reason: I couldn't find anyone to take the tickets. I almost didn't go, but I finally decided that someone had to go to the game to cheer on the Bulldogs. And today, that someone was me.

Despite the final score being the expected blowout (55-9, UGA), I still had a good time. The most fun I have at games are when I'm least expecting to. Life constantly reminds me that keeping my expectations low is the key to being satisfied.

It's worth mentioning that UGA pulled out all the stops in a belated halftime salute to Veterans Day, including visits from Medal of Honor recipient General James Livingston, an assembly of Purple Heart recipients, and "God Bless the U.S.A." singer Lee Greenwood. (Aaron Murray also made a surprise appearance, though I don't think that had anything to do with the day's theme.) Once that show was over, we went home.

(Postscript: Mom spent most of the ride to and from Athens arguing with Sirius XM customer service about a malfunction of the Sirius Traffic app. Google arrived to save the day just before she lost her temper. Thanks Google!)

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Final five movies from October:

181. (718.) Being There (1979)
I have more than once heard this called one of Peter Sellers' best films, and it is. It is not, however, anything I was expecting. For a comedy, it's incredibly critical of human behavior, whether it be in our approach to politics, business, commercialism, romance... . We're really all just horrible people.

182. (719.) Blonde Venus (1932)
TCM presented this movie as something "shocking," but the only thing shocking about it is that the female protagonist goes back to her asshole husband after how he's treated her. You'd think the NFL produced this.

183. (720.) George Washington Slept Here (1942)
More Jack Benny. He's got a lot of great lines in an otherwise mediocre family-friendly comedy.

184. (721.) F for Fake (1973)
That Orson Welles knows and admits that this "documentary" of manufactured truths is the height of pretension doesn't exactly salvage this film, but it does make it bearable. (I would have sworn while watching the first 30 minutes that I'd seen this somewhere before. Art school? But the last 30 minutes I'm sure was completely new to me. But then, I did always fall asleep in class once the lights went out.)

185. (722.) Mr. Doodle Kicks Off (1938)
Joe Penner is to the 1930s as Adam Sandler was to the 1990s. Some funny stuff.

More coming in November.

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Last week a friend complained that he couldn't search my blog to see if I'd seen a particular movie. That's because at the time, the Wriphe.com search function only checked against keywords. I've since upgraded the search function so you can now look to see if I've ever posted about, say, my favorite Batman villain Harvey Dent (aka Two-Face) or my favorite food group, chocolate. And, naturally, I've left the old keyword search in place as well, if you just want to click on a keyword below a post to find related posts.

That movie he was checking on? The Seven Voyages of Sinbad, which I have seen before but have never mentioned on the blog. In recent years, I've only been posting reviews of new-to-me movies, so if I saw something before 2012, it's likely not mentioned here unless I either loved it or hated it, in which case it might have its own keyword.

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Last year, Auburn won on a prayer. Even that wasn't enough this year as UGA crushed the Tigers 34-7.

If it wasn't the coldest UGA game I've attended, it was close. And being a night game, the drunks were out in full force. (A UGA fan head-butted an Auburn fan 3 rows in front of us, and the dudes behind me insisted on yelling "faggot" at Gus Malzahn and the officials every 30 seconds. Not pleasant.) What made it tolerable was the Bulldogs' impressive on-field performance. Auburn was unstoppable on their opening drive, then never scored again.

We were all super excited to have Todd Gurley back. The poor kid came back from his month of NCAA-forced vacation only to tear his ACL. Should Missouri lose one of their final two games, Gurley will be unavailable for another shot at the SEC Championship. He'll probably never play ball for Georgia again. It's a disappointing end to a great collegiate career, and it makes taking a payment for his autograph seem like the right decision.

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I have now tried Coca-Cola Life, the new cane sugar/stevia soda from the maker of my favorite beverage. Perhaps you've already seen it. It's the Coke bottle with the solid green label that looks like the box has been sitting outside of your local QuikTrip a few months too long.

Coca-Cola Life is being marketed as a lower calorie alternative to Coca-Cola's flagship brand. To give credit where it is due, Life does taste like Coca-Cola, if slightly sweeter. It just doesn't feel like Coca-Cola.

While I love the taste of Coke, I even more enjoy the "bite" of carbonic acid as it burns the back of my throat. Life doesn't have that. After the initial taste of flavor passes, there's not a lot to remind you that you just drank a Coke. And if you aren't savoring it, you might as well be drinking water. That also has fewer calories than Coca-Cola.

Who is the target market for this cola, anyway? If you're really counting calories, you're drinking Diet Coke or Coke Zero. If you have a problem with high fructose corn syrup, you drink Coke imported from Mexico. Who's demanding Coke Life? Someone who can't find a bottle of Pepsi Next?

I guess the best thing that I can say about Coca-Cola Life is that I don't hate it. Maybe one day they'll find a way to improve the world's most perfect beverage, it's just not Coca-Cola Life.

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I only watched 15 new-to-me movies in October (plus a few Halloween classics), which is why I'm breaking them out into 3 groups of 5. Here's the second group:

176. (713.) Khartoum (1966)
I enjoyed this semi-fictional story based on the Siege of Khartoum. You know, I've read multiple times in recent years that more movies have been "based on a true story" since 2000 than before. Wikipedia even has an article on it! But I don't believe that, and not only because this movie isn't on that Wikipedia list. Hollywood has always relied on the "true story" to inspire its never end crusade illuminating the human condition. Like snowflakes, every movie needs something real to crystallize around, whether it's a major battle in the fall of the British Empire or a ghost story told to the writer of The Exorcist.

177. (714.) The Sniper (1952)
I watched this movie because I saw its poster was included in a recent book about great noir movie posters. It's a pretty good movie, too, unusual in the fact that the protagonist is also the killer. That may be common in post-Sopranos America, but was unusual in 1950s cinema.

178. (715.) Gone Girl (2014)
Meh. Too long. Too much distracting product placement. Too reliant on unexplained character quirks. (The whole movie doesn't work if the protagonist isn't just an inexplicably horrible human being who lies about random things for no good reason.) But I will praise the stunning acting by Rosamund Pike. Her performance is Oscar-worthy if anything is.

179. (716.) Third Finger, Left Hand (1940)
A romantic comedy of errors featuring Myrna Loy. She's so dreamy.

180. (717.) Magic Boy (1959)
Shown during an animation marathon on TCM, this film is apparently the first anime film released theatrically in the US. The finale is great, but the rest is a little boring. While I can't really recommend the movie (despite an occasionally impressive scene, including the finale), I do recommend the theme song that spells out the entire plot.

"Deep in a spooky forest lived a boy
a wicked witch was trying to destroy.
He said, 'to fight a witch
who uses magic tricks,
I'll have to learn to be a maah-gic boy'!"

So, so good. Take a listen:

"Magic Boy"
written by Fred Spielman and Janice Torre
performed by Danny Valentino and Ray Ellis
from the 1961 MGM release of Magic Boy (aka Shônen Sarutobi Sasuke)

More to come.

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From the Those Who Live In Glass Helmets Department:

Hit Comics #6, December 1940

Six months into his run, and the Red Bee finally realizes that his trained pet bee, Michael, is good for more than just disarming handguns. He can also disarm swords!

Bonus: Issue 6 also features the Red Bee's first super villain! That is if you can count wearing thick clothing and a bowl over your head as "super powers." Let's credit the Red Bee for knowing his place. If your main weapon is a single bee, your arch-villain should probably be someone who specializes in taking candy from babies at picnics.

For the record, the evil midget Kulak is defeated when Michael slips inside his glass helmet and makes him drop his electrically heated cattle prod on his own feet. This is after Michael has saved the Red Bee's life from those swordsmen and a topless strongman named Rog and before Michael leads the Red Bee out of the villain's lair as it burns down around them. I'm beginning to suspect that Michael isn't the sidekick in this relationship.

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Georgia lost to Florida, putting the Bulldog's chance of winning the SEC East into jeopardy. To soothe my troubled psyche, I traveled deep into the soul of my tormentor. By which I mean that I went to the beach.

Panama City Beach, to be specific. It's the beginning of the off-season in PCB. That means no crowds, great rates, and cold weather. Brr.

The weather was so bad — cold and windy — the annual Ironman triathlon canceled its swimming portion. So you can look, but don't touch that beautiful blue water. It's iced over.

Of course, all this natural beauty didn't do much to make me forget about UGA's loss. But it did make sorrow easier on my eyes.

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