How about those Oklahoma State Cowboys? They really put it to No. 3 Missouri. Congrats to them!

Yeah, yeah, the mighty Sooners slipped up and lost to Texas. My neighbors across the street are now flying their TU flag. I was talking to the wife earlier and she said, "What can I say?" I suggested, "Thank you, officials." C’mon! Colt McCoy was not roughed up out of bounds on those two penalties. The dude should be a theater major. Yes, our punter did the same thing once (and was not as good an actor). It was a good game. The bad guys win sometimes.

It’s been a week for football, I tell ya. The school where I teach had its homecoming on Friday. As sophomore class sponsor I was slammed all week, getting our T-shirts (students order shirts for everything these days), working on penny wars, shopping cart decorations, food sculptures, etc. Then we got spanked in the actual game. I’ve got to say I was very proud of my sophomore class, though, especially our officers. They were dedicated and worked hard, and really did a good job on the penny wars, where we finished last only because I pissed off the senior class. We filled our bottle, but ended up with a negative $14 balance because the seniors were putting in $5 bills after I punished one of them for sticking chewed gum on our cart; I made her donate $5 in bills to the senior fund, or risk having the seniors disqualifed for sabotaging our cart. She did it, and her classmates decided to make my class pay. But hey, all the money goes to charity, so it’s good. The school raised over $1,500, and you have to remember this is an inner city school.

I only have seven more days with my Creative Writing and Science Fiction classes. This is mostly a good thing. I’ll miss the Creative Writing, but the sci-fi class has been a pain in the butt. You would not believe the struggle I had dragging them through Fahrenheit 451. I ended up buying the audio book with Ray Bradbury reading the novel. We had to start over, and they still bitched, saying Bradbury sounded too old. All they want to do is watch movies. Anyway, when those two classes end they are replaced by two sections of AP English Literature and Composition. I look forward to that, particularly since I got to talk to the mothers of two potential problem students this week.

In other news, I cannot wait until my term as a trustee of the Horror Writers Association ends this month. I have a lot of respect for President Deborah LeBlanc, the other officers and most of the trustees, but there is one trustee who I think is a self-righteous pompous ass and I only hope my term ends before I tell him what I think.

I was browsing the $5 DVD bin at Wal-Mart this evening and found a copy of Exorcist II: The Heretic. No, I didn’t buy it. I’ve tried watching that thing twice and I just can’t do it. How was such an abomination ever made? The screenwriter must have been possessed to think what he was doing was good. Once upon a time, in the early days of VHS, I looked forward to October and the stores carrying horror movies, especially the cheap classics with Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff. (Remember when AMC used to show actual classic movies?) Oh, and Wal-Mart should just do away with their Halloween section. Hell, there’s nothing scary there. It’s all cutesy or cheesy crap. Once upon a time it was okay to be scary for Halloween.