Archive for January, 2008

As you know, I have been on vacation for the past couple of days, soaking in some sun and working on my sunburn. Good times, really good times.

For the most part my time away has been good, but it wouldn’t be a vacation if I didn’t have something to complain about. The funniest thing about being away, though, was getting a call from Eagle One, who had one question for me: “You’re on vacation, why are you blogging?”

I told him that I guessed that I was bored, but the truth of the matter is that it’s hard for me to not write. If I get an idea, I have to type. If I don’t have any ideas, I still type, and wait for them to come. It’s sort of an addiction I guess, but it’s what I do.

So, to the issues. The following stories are all true, and hopefully somewhat funny to you at least.

So tonight we grabbed mom and dad’s Blockbuster card and headed to the store to look for a movie. If my father would just the bite bullet already and get cable or a satellite dish we wouldn’t have had to, but his TV gets all of five stations over the air, and two of them broadcast in Spanish (I’m not kidding, my kids were watching spanish cartoons the other day). Not only does he not get any channels (thank goodness I have wifi here or I’d be pulling my hair out), but the ones he does get either look like the Green Bay-Seattle blizzard game from a couple weeks back, or — and this will certainly date me — those Max Headroom Coke commercials, with all the weird lines all over the screen.

So we headed to the store and asked the clerk if she had any suggestions, explaining that we were looking for lite fare that we could watch with my parents, something to make us laugh, but not too dirty. She suggested The Heartbreak Kid, and said it “would do the trick.”

Never, ever, ever take someone you’ve never met at face value, ever. We trusted her.

It wasn’t that the movie stunk. It was actually somewhat amusing, even though I think that The Farrelly Bros. have lost their fastball. Ah, yes, I forgot to mention, it was a Farrelly Bros. movie.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t that upset to see Michelle Monaghan in a state of undress, but at the same time I didn’t want to see that with my mom in the same room. There’s uncomfortable, and then there’s that feeling you get when there’s intimacy on the screen while you’re watching the movie with dear old mom.

And then there’s the language. There were words used in that movie that were so dirty that my mother had not heard them before. I won’t go into detail, but when she asked once “what does that mean” I laughed out loud, and told her she was better off not knowing.

While it was certainly uncomfortable for my mom, it might not have been quite as uncomfortable for her as living in a small space with her for a week has been for me. I will preface this rant by saying that I love my mom, love her to death. But, living with her this week has been like setting the clock back 18 years, only I also have my kids and wife here.

Today Lyra and mom went to the store for a while and Lyra then asked my mom to stop at Starbucks so that she could get me an Americano. My wife’s good to me, what can I say.

Well, my mom said no. Not because she was in rush (she’s on vacation for months), nor because the franchise is out of the way (they had to drive right by it), but because it was a “waste of money.” Not her money, mind you, but mine. And “we have coffee back at home.”

Not to sound like Quentin Tarantino in Pulp Fiction, “but I like good coffee.” I don’t prefer coffee out of a vac-sealed can, even if it is organic, it is still out of a tin, a la chock full o’ nuts. I brew my own at home, but I also have a self-grinding machine and pick the beans myself. I take my coffee seriously.

But, here’s where it gets worse. My mom doesn’t like half-and-half for her coffee, she likes the full-deal. No, not whole milk, but cream, heavy cream, the kind of stuff that you could make your own Kool Whip with. I was afraid when I stirred it into the coffee that I would end up with a milk shake, or have a hot drink with whipped cream on top. Maybe $2 is too much for a single cup of joe, but I love the stuff — and am not afraid of what I’m drinking.

Oh, and I’ve been yelled at more this week for inane things than I care to remember. Seriously, I feel like I’m 15-years old, walking on egg shells and counting the day until my first day of college. People wonder why my first year of college went awry (except maybe for Eagle One), but imagine having all of that repressed freedom suddenly unleashed. You might go on a bender or twelve too.

Man, I hope she never reads this. With my luck she’s going to want to see what her son writes about — tomorrow.

If you happen to my parents, and tip my mom off, just know that I will hunt you down and seek retribution. Like the title of a movie I’ve yet to see, but want to, There Will Be Blood.

In New York City it would have cost me a quarter probably. Back home, I think it’s 50 cents, maybe 75. But, down here I paid $1.61 for the national edition of the New York Post on Monday afternoon.

“Why are you buying a New York paper?,” my mother asked, knowing that I pretty much despise anything New York.

“Comedic value,” I said.

The New York Post is tabloid journalism at its best, and worst. Everything about it is over the top and outlandish. But, they do have some very good sports writers and I thought it might be fun to see what the other side is saying in regards to Super Bowl XLII.

I was instantly insulted. A standing headline over the Super Bowl section was Giants vs. *. Yup, no name, just an asterisk, as if Barry Bonds himself was lining up against the G-Men on Sunday afternoon in Glendale.

Now the asterisk thing goes back to Spygate, and we really don’t need to get back into that. It’s just unreal that at the NY Post they think it is still relevant. The whole Spygate thing is older than the Empire State Building, and about as relevant as Rudy Giulani. It happened way back in September — over four months ago — and resulted in less than one-quarter (15 minutes) of “cheating.”

At the NY Post, though, that resulted in a season’s worth of asterisks next to the Patriots’ name in the standings. Underneath the standings, it read “* cheated.” Forget the fact that the team did not lose a game all year, in the eyes of the NY Post’s sports department, those 15 minutes apparently tainted what could be the greatest season in the history of professional football.

My feelings about Spygate have been documented in this space several times over. It’s a non-issue as far as I’m concerned. And since the New Yorkers aren’t about to set aside any championships that the Yankees won with Roger Clemens on the mound, I think I feel okay about still rooting for the Pats. Call me crazy, but something that happened in the first quarter of a the season opener, and did not factor in the final score of that game (a 38-14 win by New England).

I really shouldn’t get too fired up about all of this anyways. We are talking about a paper that ran a story that recapped the arrest history of all of the Patriots (digging up an infraction by Mike Vrabel from his college days made me laugh) and had one of their Page Six columnists write a piece on why she‘d rather hook up with Eli “A Real“ Manning over Tom Brady. Next in the NY Post, why the Giants red uniforms are superior to the Patriots’ silver and other inane pieces of journalism that in no way relate to the Super Bowl.

There’s no question that the majority of this country would like to see New England blow it on Super Bowl Sunday. It would somehow make the masses’ incomplete lives a little more full to watch a team on a run for ultimate glory fall on its face. That fits right into the NY Post’s mission statement anyways. They are the ultimate “Build ‘em up, and tear ‘em down” rag going, not that they ever really spent any time building up the Pats, but you know what I mean. Muckraking is alive and well in the city of New York. On one hand you’ve got the paper of record in the country, the New York Times (a bit too high brow for me) and then you’ve got the Post, lining better bird cages across the greater Tri-State area.

All I know is that I will certainly enjoy Monday’s headlines, especially if they read something like this “*Pats Win.”

I have nothing against the Giants, per se, but more than ever I’m rooting for the Patriots to kick their asterisks.

Over the last couple of weeks I have found a new love. No, not a replacement for my wife, but a new television show that I can watch non-stop.

Admittedly, this is hardly ground-breaking for many of you, but I missed the initial bandwagon hop for The Office. I had other Thursday night shows that I was watching, and didn’t have time in my life for another sitcom. I figured if it was really good, I’d catch up with it some day.

I did a few weeks back, and thank goodness. TBS recently started airing the show on Tuesday nights in re-runs, so I figured that I’d TiVo it and give it a try, and I laughed my tail off. I watched it here and there and laughed every time, and the love affair began.

It was set in concrete last week. I don’t know the name of the episode, but there was one where Michael (Steve Carrell) had a worker that had been in jail working for him, and that guy convinced the rest of the workers that prison was better than The Office, and all heck ensued. Somehow it got to a point where Michael felt that he had to convince the rest of the workers that he still trusted black people. He challenged everyone to name a white person, and he would name a black person that he trusted more. His first two answers were funny, because obviously they weren’t people he’d ever met (Colin Powell and Morgan Freeman), but then this exchange occurred.

“Okay, how about Jesus”

Michael’s response, quickly, and seriously “Apollo Creed.”

I laughed so hard it hurt. I am a Christian, and well, Jesus to me would have been the trump card. To me, that’s the answer that ends all arguments.

But, Apollo Creed, I can’t even describe the pain in my diaphram from laughter. A fictional boxer, in the boss’s mind, beat The Saviour.

So my good friend Chris lent me Season 1 of The Office to take on vacation with me. I loved it all, but here’s the problem, it was too short, way too short. I had no idea that the first season was just six episodes long. I watched them all and then started to search the disc for more shows. Where were they? Was there another disc that I missed?

I had to go to wikipedia to figure out what was wrong. Yup, just six shows in the first season. I almost want my tropical sojourn to end quickly so that I can get season two from Martha.

Well, not actually. I heard you guys got 14 inches of snow yesterday.

Hahahahahaha.

It was cold here today, too. It only reached 74. They’re calling it a cold front. Can you believe that, 74 is a cold front. They’re freaking out that it’s going to get down to 57 tonight. The weatherman actually said “bundle up.”

I almost laughed as hard as the Apollo Creed comment.

Almost.

It was a beautiful day today where I am. My mom complained about the cold, but I guess when you’re accustomed to 80 every day then maybe 72 feels chilly. Me, I think it’s just about perfect.

I have some funny stories to share, but right now I’m a bit too relaxed to type them out. You need a certain amount of anger and anxiety to re-tell travel stories and hit the right spots, and I’ve got to be honest, at this point in time, I’m not feeling that at all. Nope, life is pretty good right now. Decompression is good.

I know I said I wanted to stay away from Super Bowl hype, and I do. But — there’s always a but isn’t there — I found a great story at ESPN.com about Wes Welker that I had to share with you guys. Head to this link if you’re interested. WW became my favorite Patriot the day they traded for him. I remembered the way that he torched the Pats, and how they couldn’t stop him. I remember thinking, man I wish we had a guy like that. I remember smiling when I found out the Pat picked him up. I smiled bigger on Christmas Day when Lyra gave me a No. 83 jersey with his name on the back.

He’ old school. He’s fun to watch. I think there’s a good chance he could be Super Bowl MVP, call it a hunch. Without Wes Welker, the Pat lose some games this year. Maybe they’re still where they are today, but then again, maybe they aren’t.

I’m officially on vacation from work. Yup, at 5:10 PM I walked out the door at the Enterprise and I don’t have to be back in there until Super Bowl Eve. In the meantime the family and I are going to do some cool stuff, although the break hasn’t gotten off to a great beginning. Nothing horrible, I went down to Dino’s to play in the Thursday night donkey festival and got busted earlier than I wanted.

Dino’s is known for a couple of things when it comes to cards, bad players and fast levels. We were at 400/800 and I had only 3,600 left. There was a limper before me and I shoved the rest of my chips in with KQ. Got called by pocket 6’s and he flopped a boat. I did get a glimmer of hope when I hit a Q on fourth street, but it was not meant to be. C’est la vie.

Hopefully the rest of the break brings better times than that. Things are looking up right now, though. I just threw on the movie channels and ran into Smokey and the Bandit, a classic. So I’ve got that going for me, and I picked up the first season of The Office today, thanks to my buddy The Cruiser.

Smokey and the Bandit got me thinking, though. Everyone should really have a call handle, and entrance music, WWE style. A call handle would be great just because it’s like having a full-time nickname. Whenever you answer your cell phone you’d have a cool nickname. I’d be something like Pocket Threes or River Rat. As for entrance music, I always thought that Whiskey In The Jar by Metallica would work great.

Now if only we could Jim Ross to do play-by-play of our lives. Oh well …

I may update sporadically over the next few days. More than anything, though, I plan on decompressing.

Yeah, it’s about that time. The Super Bowl is still a week and a half away and the hype is already reaching obnoxious levels. Listen up friends, it’s only going to get worse.

Every story line is going to be killed over the next 10 days. You will hear ad nauseum about Tom Brady’s high ankle sprain, Eli Manning making it to the Super Bowl when his brother didn’t, New York and Boston’s natural rivalry, Spygate, the Giants resurgence, and the Pats’ run to a perfect season. It is going to be annoying.

So, I am going to try to go into blackout mode to the best of my ability.

What does that mean? Well, it means not watching any ESPN (well, less of it. I can never avoid it completely) and staying away from the hype as much as possible. For the next week I’m going to try to not write about it either, unless something crazy happens.

This will be a bit easier for me than for you. I will be taking a vacation starting on Friday. The laptop is coming to the undisclosed location, but I don’t know how much blogging I’ll be doing, if any.

Loyal readers you’ll survive without me. I might post something here or there, we shall see. When I’m bored, or inspired, I like to write, so there’s a good chance I’ll be throwing a couple of things up. If nothing else, I also write when annoyed, and when on a family vacation something is bound to irk me. It’s just human nature.

But, we’re going to try to avoid the hype. Trust me, it’s something you should attempt to do too. It’s much better for the psyche.

Just 28-years old, Heath Ledger was found dead in his apartment this afternoon. Details regarding how he died aren’t really available yet, but man what a horrible story.

Ledger’s final role was as the Joker in the upcoming Batman movie: The Dark Knight. A few weeks ago Lyra and I found some bootlegged material of the first five minutes of the movie online and watched it. He’s in it as The Joker for just a few seconds, but what he had seen was awesome. He had nailed that stuff, and everything else has been getting high marks.

Ledger was awesome in The Patriot. I did not see Brokeback Mountain, but he apparently was very good in that as well.

It’s a sad day. It’s sad that a talented young man is gone. It’s sadder that his wife Michelle Williams (Brokeback Mountain, Dawson’s Creek) lost her husband and their two-year old lost its daddy.

Under normal circumstances, I don’t like to watch big games in groups. I find that most people talk the time away and won’t shut up during the plays, making it impossible to pay close attention to the action.

Despite this, I went over my buddy Aaron’s place to watch the game on Sunday. Aaron is a huge Pats fan, and the friends we had coming over, Scotty and Unnamed, are too.

I got a call from Unnamed on Saturday night asking for a ride to Aaron’s, and of course I obliged, that’s what friends do. But, it got interesting.

“But, we’re not going to Aaron’s.”

“We’re not?”

“We are, but if she asks, we’re going to Greg’s house.”

“Umm, okay. Why can’t we tell her we’re going to Aaron’s.”

“She doesn’t like Aaron.”

This blew me away. Aaron and I met when we were in basically still in diapers and have been friends ever since. He was one of my groomsmen in my wedding and not only would I trust him with my life, but i’d trust him with my kids too.

I told Lyra what Unnamed had said and her response was nearly identical to mine. “How could anyone not like Aaron?”

Well, someone doesn’t, Unnamed significant other. Apparenlty when Unnamed and Aaron lived together she was jealous of the time that the two guys spent together, and vice versa. Aaron got over it, she never did. That was probably about a decade ago, but she holds grudges.

Anyways, we got over to Aaron’s place to watch the game and had a good time. The host not only had a big spread of food, but a new HDTV that he got for Christmas on display. Good times.

The HD was spectacular. The game was crisper than lettuce, and we had a great time pointing out which faces weren’t made for High-Def. Leading the way were Norv Turner, who looks like he has red spider webs all over his mug, and Jimmy Johnson.

Jimmy Johnson was also the biggest laugh riot of the day, thanks to his Coors Light commercial. We all wanted to be chick magnets.

Scotty had the other line that left me laughing, although it was certainly unintentional comedy. Unnamed said that he saw a movie about Yao Ming on ESPN and then we got to talking about how Ming would never measure up to someone like Shaq. That led to the quote of the day. “The problem with someone who’s 7-4 is that he’s lanky.”

Really, Scott? You think someone that tall’s lanky. Wow.

Many photos were taken during the day, including one of myself wearing a kids’ Pats helmet, my Wes Welker jersey and holding a football. It’s basically my own football card waiting to be made. The bulk of the photos will probably show as evidence one day in Unnamed’s divorce hearing.

“Mr. Unnamed, isn’t true that you told your wife you’d be watching the AFC championship game at Greg’s house?”

“Umm, yes.”

“Then can you please explain these photographs.”

By the way, I was under strict orders not to write about this, but Mr. Unnamed does not currently have internet access, so I’m not too worried about him seeing it. That would also mean that Mrs. Unnamed probably won’t see it either.

Of course, if she does, hilarity will ensue.

It’s fun to stir the pot.

It wasn’t the prettiest game we’ve seen from the Pats, but what the heck, I’ll certainly take it, and you will too. The Pats are going back to the Super Bowl, and I’m very happy about that.

The good things about this game: Wes Welker, Laurence Maroney and Kevin Faulk. Welker just makes things happen. Maroney’s been running very well the last couple of weeks (over 100 yards in the second half) and did a great job when he had to, and Faulk, what can you say about Faulk. He’s one of the few guys that has been around for the whole ride, and he was outstanding once again. He just makes so much happen.

Don’t get too hung up on the score not being one-sided. The Pats got the ball back in the fourth quarter with about 9 minutes to go, and never gave it back. They could have added on, but they decided to end the game right then and there, and did it with aplomb, killing the clock like a butcher.

It was another great chapter in this season full of great chapters. However, for the story to be complete, the Patriots have to finish things off on February 3, lest this story become a tragedy. I believe they will get the job done. You don’t come this far, and do this much, without finishing the job off.

Much more to come tomorrow …

This is when we have to ask ourselves if we’ve got proper perspective. OUR team is playing this weekend for the right to go to the Super Bowl. A few years ago that would have meant unyielding homer-ism from everyone east of Hartford and south of Nova Scotia over the next couple of days. No matter what, the Patriots could do no wrong.

It’s a bit easier, though, to put things into their proper perspective when your team has already won one (or two or three) Super Bowl titles in the last six years. You can at least attempt to have some sort of perspective when analyzing the conference championship game.

On paper, there is no way that the Chargers should be able to make this game close. They’re battered, they had an emotional win last week, and they’re not as good. The Patriots are on fire, winners of 17 straight.

I want to say that this weekend’s game should be a blowout, but I have this nagging feeling that it’s going to be a good game. I will go on record as saying that the Patriots will win, and probably by double-digits, but this is not going to be a walk in the park for a variety of reasons.

First, the Chargers have won eight in a row. They have some momentum on their side, and they can taste the Super Bowl too. That’s the only real reason I can come up with that would possess Igor “My 15 minutes of Fame” Olshansky into trash-talking the Pats. Remember Rocky I when Apollo treated the first few rounds like an exhibition and then started to take things seriously, well that’s how the Pats handled the Giants game a few weeks back. I don’t think they’ll take that route this weekend, but I do think that the Chargers could come out like Rocky and play with reckless abandon because they really don’t have anything to lose.

On paper, though, this is a classic mis-match. The Pats have the better quarterback and the better coach. Those are two huge plusses when you break the game down. Would you rather have your future in the hands of Brady and Belichick or Rivers/Volek and Norv Turner. When I think about this game, that’s what I keep coming back to.

Even if it were a mundane task like housesitting, which tandem would you trust more? If you left your abode to the Pats brain trust you would expect to come home to find the place pristine, maybe even better than when you left. If you left it to the Chargers QBs and coaches, well would you be that surprised to find the place in shambles. Couldn’t you picture Rivers saying, “well I asked Norv if I could have a couple of friends over, and it got a little out of hand. Sorry about the vase.”

Sure we’ve seen some chinks in the Pats’ armor over the past few weeks. The linebacking group is old, and really misses Rosie Colvin. Teams have been able to go up and down the field, especially early in games, against New England. However, to beat the Patriots, you’ve got to be able to outscore them. There are no ifs ands or buts about it. To beat the Pats, you’ve got to be able to hang at least 35 points on the board.

I could see the Packers in a Super Bowl match-up doing that, and the game being an outstanding shootout. The Chargers, though, I can’t see doing it. They’re too beat up. The starting QB is injured. The backup QB is a backup for a reason, and has never done it against a good team. The starting running back is a genuine star, but he’s also banged up. Their go-to receiver, Antonio Gates, has one of his toes sewed on at this point and runs at a pace that I could keep up with.

The Pats should win Sunday, rather easily. Still, it could be interesting.

My prediction: Patriots 38, Chargers 17.

As for the other game, well let’s just say that I’ve always questioned the Manning family’s intestinal fortitude. Archie never won the big one. Peyton’s history is not very good (let’s not forget that if not for a Reche Caldwell drop, he probably doesn’t go to the Super Bowl last year). Eli Manning falls into the Phil Rivers mode, I don’t think I’d trust him to watch a turtle for a week, let alone my house. He doesn’t exactly inspire confidence, and going into Green Bay on a cold night, I just can’t see the Giants’ “How’d They Win That One” Tour continuing.

Packers 27, Giants 13.