-spent the last several days in Gatlinburg with the family. Beautiful this time of year if you get away from the crowds and head up into the mountains. If you have any insecurities about your physical appearance, though, Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge will make you feel 100% better about yourself. I saw a tatted up obese adult female with blue hair wearing a t-shirt that read "I pooped today." Now, I'm certainly not an anti-poopite, but come on. What's worse is she didn't really stand out from the crowd that much. And how in the world some of these places stay in business is beyond me. How many airbrush places do you really need?? Not to mention a ****-ton of pancake houses, tacky souvenir shops, outlets, fudge/candy shops, and all varieties of Ripley's Believe It or Not establishments.
-it's entertaining to get my uncle started on the whole PVW/bourbon hype. According to him it has little to do with bourbon and everything to do with marketing/status. Ironically, he's generally grumpy about the whole phenomenon. He spent his whole career immersed in the intricacies of bourbon, and resents the fact that hype, rather than an appreciation of the bourbon itself, drove the "bourbon bubble" of the last decade or so. The "age is better" thing also pisses him off because people get fixated on that and miss out on some great bourbons. The bourbon "sweet spot" is generally 8-12 years for rye, and 12-15 for wheated. Beyond that and you're paying for hype and, in most cases, an inferior product. He compares it to what happened with wine. It wasn't too long ago when people were clamoring for higher-priced wines, based largely on marketing and status. Then people began to worry more about what they truly liked, versus what they were told they liked, and there was a shift to wines in the <$20 category. The same thing will happen with bourbon.
-loving Hillbilly Elegy so far. Still toward the beginning, but he's hitting on things that I remember my grandmother talking about, such as the Hillbilly Highway. Her brother was one of those that emigrated from the mountains of E. Ky. to Ohio. Unfortunately he died young, so I never got to meet him. I wish I'd asked more questions of my grandmother, but reading Vance's story gives me insight into what they experienced. At one point, my grandfather wanted to move back to the mountains, but my grandmother flatly refused. She loved her family, but hated that life.
-fairly or unfairly, it will take a lot from Stoops to make me forgive the meltdowns against UofL and USM, or more generally the late season meltdowns from the past two seasons. And, admittedly, I'm jealous of what Petrino is doing down the street. I shouldn't compare, but it's hard not to. Sort of reminds me of a Richard Pryor bit - we're lucky women f**k us at all now, because they got all those machines and ****. You ever seen them plug those bad boys in, and they got all the numbers and ****? *loud growling roaring engine sounds* And you be standing there with just a dick. I'll let you decide who's the machine and who's the dick.