GET YOUR NFL PICKS HERE!

As I write this I am sitting in a room with my Mother and Lovely Girlfriend, on the heels of four hours worth of sleep and a five hour round trip to the Portland Jetport.  As you can imagine I am only moments away from blowing my brains out.  In an effort to take my mind off their endless prattle I am delivering my week 17 NFL picks.

Detroit -2.5 over GREEN BAY  - This is why I hate the last week of NFL games.  They mean almost nothing to just about everyone.  Neither of these teams are in must win positions so it's really just a matter of how many guys need a rest.  I'll take the Lions only because if they do win they get the five seed instead of the sixth seed.  It's not much but at least it's something.

San Fran -10 over ST. LOUIS - The Niners need an easy W over the Rams to grab the #2 seed.  They're playing for something real (a week off) and beating the Rams by 10 is something that most practice squads could do.

MIAMI -1 over New York Jets - After seeing all the various Jets give interviews this week I'm convinced this team is a total train wreck.  Next year may be Sexy Rexy's last. 

Chicago +1 over MINNY - This game comes down to a chance for the Bears to end the year with their heads held high.  That's all they are playing for at this point and with all those veterans on the Bears D they should pull it off.

New England -10 over BUFFALO - The Pats have to win if they hope to keep home field throughout and there is nothing Belichick is better at than grounding his team down to a nub in the final weeks of the season.  Congrats Pats fans on another One and Done playoff run!

NEW ORLEANS -8 over Carolina - Another must win game for one team and a one day layover before vacation begins for the other. 

PHILLY -8 over Washington - Can the Eagles save Andy Reid's job?  I doubt it but they will try like hell.

Indy +5 over JACKSONVILLE - In a brilliant coaching effort Jim Caldwell will valiantly lead the Colts to the much sought after Second Pick in the NFL draft.  Blowing not just the season but also the off-season for Indy fans.  Way to go Coach!

Tennessee -2 over HOUSTON - A basically meaningless game but with a good bit of help the Titans could squeak into the playoffs.  Hopefully this will be enough motivation to get them to play hard.

ATLANTA -10.5 over Tampa Bay - The Falcons got absolutely rung up on national television last week.  The Bucs look like a pretty good opportunity for a little get back.

CINCY +3 over Baltimore - I'm predicting that not only do the Bengals cover the spread but they beat the Ravens!  That's right.  Thanks for keeping the top spot in the AFC North warm for the Steelers. 

Pittsburgh -7 over CLEVELAND - The Steelers walk into a first round bye!

Kansas City +3.5 over Denver - Kyle Orton takes his revenge!  If there is one rule in life to live by it's don't ever cross a guy named Kyle. 

San Diego +3 over OAKLAND - I know this game means nothing to the Chargers but they hate the Raiders so damn much I'm betting they want more than anything to ruin their playoff hopes. 

Seattle +3 over Arizona - Another totally meaningless game.  I think the Seahawks under Pete Carroll will give a better effort.  Honestly, I don't care.

NY GIANTS -3 over Dallas - Congrats to Opie Cunningham for totally under performing in his one and only season as Cowboys head coach.  Also, congrats to Jeff Fisher for his new gig as Cowboys head coach!

Last week - 8-8

As A Baby's Bottom

If you are a man that has put on some sort of lotion in my presence then I have mocked you.  Either out loud or in my head, I have mocked your sensitive skin and your delicate skin care regimen.  I probably called you Sally or Twinkie.  Maybe Nancyboy, Cupcake or Tinkerbell.  You and your soft hands and face were in no way man enough to live in my world.  A world filled with calluses, blisters, hangnails and on some occasions - razor burn.  You did not want any part of my world!  Your supple hands and shiny cheeks wouldn't last ten minutes in my non-moisturized world.  You'd be begging for aloe vera in a matter of moments.  I would throw my head back in maniacal laughter then slowly rub my dry and scratchy palm over the back of your perfectly Jojoba oiled hands.  It wouldn't hurt so much as it would irritate and you could wind up with a slight abrasion - I'm not a monster.

Karma has a sick and twisted sense of humor.  For the last week or so I have been one large rash.  My arms and legs itch to no end.  I was concerned this could be a side effect of the radiation.  I asked the doctor if this was something I'd have to live with for the next three weeks.  I was informed that it was probably just dry skin.  Just dry skin!  That's what I call Real Man Skin!  So tough it could be mistaken for a canvas tarp.  I did not need a lotion for just dry skin.  It had to be more than that.  Still, he insisted.  Maine winters can be tough, he said, it'll really dry you out, I moisturize every morning.  I nearly attacked his cottony soft face.  This couldn't be happening to me.  I grew up here.  I know all about Maine winters.  I didn't require lotion then and I don't now.  He wrote down a word.  Eucerin.  It's not cheap but it works he said.  I am disgusted with myself for now knowing what this is.  For having googled it.  For comparing the ingredients of various creams.  Disgusted.

I have resorted to lotions, creams, moisturizers, oils and anything else that may put a stop to this never ending scratching.  My palms are now so soft I have trouble holding things.  I can no longer open tight lids.  I could barely get the gas cap off my truck.   I no longer deserve to be driving a truck.  With the weight gain and resulting man-boobs and now the skin cream usage I'm basically a frilly dress away from becoming a full blown woman.  A bearded woman but a woman none the less.  Nancyboy.  Sally.  Twinkie.  Cupcake.  Tinkerbell.

Earn your Degree Online

In case you haven't noticed, the ads are back!  I don't know what made them go away.  I don't know what got them to return.  I don't know how to make them advertise something a little bit better than Get Cancer Info, sign up for ITT Tech or... well, that's about the main two forms of ads on this blog.  Apparently the good folks at ITT love people with cancer and the people that read about people with cancer.  It'd be great if when you arrived at the site you could win prizes, get discounts on hotels or airfare or shop for expensive cars.  Those ads have never popped up as far as I know and I don't have the foggiest idea as to how to make them.  It could be that somehow they know my general audience can't afford nice thing or vacations.  In which case, you've only got yourselves to blame.  I do know that if you CLICK ON AN AD someone pays me money.  I haven't seen any of that money yet, I'm hoping it slowly builds into an amount large enough to one day, I don't know, maybe buy a full tank of gas.  A guys gotta dream. 

It's probably considered bad form in the blog universe to dedicate a post to reminding readers to CLICK ON AN AD but fuck it.  I don't care.  If you've been a reader of this blog then you should know by now that the things people say you are or are not supposed to do rarely matter to me.  Those pennies don't just grow on trees. 

CLICK ON AN AD.  Help a marginally talented, perpetually unemployed writer/actor Earn A Buck.  So I don't have to actually Get A Job. 

Our First Christmas

Christmas was, by far, my Father's favorite holiday.  He wasn't the type to go crazy over holidays.    We never made grand vacation plans for the Fourth or Memorial or Labor Day.  He didn't care much at all about his birthday.  He tried to approach every day the same - happy to be there and looking for a laugh.  I'm not talking about how he behaved after his cancer diagnosis.  This was his attitude every day that I can remember and based on all the stories of what went on before I was born and before I can remember from his friends and family that was how he lived every day of his life.  But he loved Christmas.  Not simply December 25th or even the 24th and the 25th.  He loved the Christmas season.  I think a large part of these feelings were based on his affection for Egg Nog.  If it were readily available all year long I believe he would have based his dietary needs around it.  Also, you would be hard pressed to find another man more willing to sit through Meaningless Bowl Games.  Many a time he would call me to ask if I was watching the Beef O'Brady Bowl or who I was rooting for in the Akron v. UTEP matchup later that night.  He would laugh while claiming "You can throw the records out when those two rivals get together." 

Those of you that were on his yearly Christmas mailing list should recall his claims that he was on his 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th and finally 9th last Christmas.  I always believed he wrote that more out of defiance of the prognosis rather than an actual acknowledgement he wasn't planning on being around for the next year.  Thumbing his nose at the experts that only gave him eighteen months from the beginning.  He loved writing those letters.  I don't know that any one in our immediate or extended family were prepared last Christmas for it to truly be our Last Christmas.  I know I wasn't.  Mother made a concerted effort to stick with the tradition.  She even insisted on signing each one individually.  As opposed to my suggestion of signing one and photocopying the rest.  To be honest, it wasn't out of laziness that I looked for a shortcut, as is usually the case.  I did not want to sit down and sign a pile of letters announcing the passing of my Dad.  When I did finally get around to it, I hardly looked down at them.  Breezing through as quickly as I could while focusing on whatever I could find to keep my mind occupied on the television.

Yesterday was our first Christmas without him.  We tried to stay upbeat but it was still kind of sad.  Even more than sad, it was empty.  It didn't help any that my Lovely Girlfriend was on the other side of the country.  Having thirty-five hundred miles between us wasn't the ideal situation but I will see her again.  We will have another chance to spend Christmas together, next year and beyond.  We will build our own holiday traditions with our own little family.  I'm sure I will tell our children just how much their dearly departed Granddad loved Christmas and how much he would love them.  I am both looking forward to and dreading those eventual moments.
Hopefully, this will be the hardest Christmas to get through.  With a little luck, it will get better from here.  I've always felt bad for people that don't like the holidays.  I've never wanted those words to come out of my mouth but I had to stop myself from saying it a number of times over the last month.  It's not that I don't like the holidays.  It's that I currently do not feel like celebrating them.  With time, I hope, that feeling passes.

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVE! NFL WEEK 16!!

I've heard a bunch of people complaining about the NFL playing on Saturday instead of Sunday because of Christmas.  I don't get it.  I'll take football any time I can get it and on top of that we still get a game tomorrow.  How is this a bad thing?

Denver -2.5 over BUFFALO - Poor Chan Gailey.  I'd bet early this season he actually started unpacking most of the boxes he's been storing in the basement since last year.  "It's okay, honey, we're good.  I'm gonna be here a while.  We can hang pictures up and everything.  I swear!"  Chan's going to be on the long list of coaches that get the boot at the end of this year.

CINCY -4 over Arizona - Bad news, Bengals fans, the Brown family increased their holdings in the team.  Furthering their commitment to mediocre and whenever possible down right terrible professional football. 

TENNESSEE -7 over Jacksonville - The Titans absolutely must win this game to stay in playoff contention and the Jags are one of the worst road teams in the NFL.  I'm not in love with this pick but I feel like Blaine Gabbert will help cement his status as the ultimate check-down QB and lead the Jags to a stunningly poor offensive performance.

Oakland +3 over KANSAS CITY -  Is Vegas actually sold on Orton and Romeo already or is this all because of the supposed "momentum" the Chiefs got because of the Packers win?  I don't get it.  I know Oakland's on a three game slide but they strike me as a much better team plus they travel pretty well.  They are 5-2 against the spread on the road.

NEW ENGLAND -8.5 over Miami - I'm gonna say braving the cold two weeks in a row is going to be too much for the Fins.  Also, I don't see them having enough legitimate scoring threats to keep this close. 

New York Giants +3 over NY JETS - Both teams have been wildly inconsistent.  Both have under performed in games that they had to win.  Both have shaky QB's with a knack for cringe worthy games and then miraculously pulling it out in the end.  The only reason I'm taking the G-men is because I like them better as a fan.

PITTSBURGH -11.5 over St. Louis - There is no way for me to feel good about this pick no matter what side I take.  A bet on Charlie Batch is like piling your money up and setting it on fire but does anyone actually expect the Rams to play well against the Steelers looking for a little revenge after losing to a Niners team they are clearly better than with a healthy Roethlisberger? 

WASHINGTON -6 over Minny - Any chance the Vikes coaching staff pulls out all the stops to lose this game, grab the number one pick and dump Ponder for Luck even though Ponder looks like a guy that can be a legit QB in the NFL?  I say yes!

CAROLINA -6.5 over Tampa - I'm pretty sure anyone that was on the fence about Josh Freeman and Raheem Morris belonging in the NFL as a starting QB and a head coach climbed down off that fence weeks ago.

BALTIMORE -12 over Cleveland - We've seen this a couple times earlier in the season.  The Ravens under perform one week and then take out all of their frustrations on a lousy team the next.  This will be a drubbing.

San Diego +3 over DETROIT - The Chargers like to keep it interesting until the bitter end.  Even on the road, finally deciding to play to their full potential the Chargers are a much better team.

Philly +3 over DALLAS - I feel like I'm getting sucked into the whole "the Eagles are finally good" thing only to have it blow up in my face with some 41-14 showing against the Cowboys this week but I'm still not sold on the Cowboys.  I think they blow this game and miss the playoffs.

SEATTLE +2 over San Fran - The Seahawks are absolutely on fire!  The Niners will come down a bit after beating the Steelers.  I have a feeling they looked at that game as a proving point, that they could beat an elite team.  I expect them to have a hard time keeping that same intensity this week.

GREEN BAY -11 over Chicago - No Forte, no Knox, no Cutler = no offense.

Atlanta +7.5 over NEW ORLEANS - Two many points to give to a team that is just a capable of hanging a huge number on offense as the Saints are. 

This week so far - 0-1

Last week - 6-10 

Jules & Track

In my ongoing effort to throw as many different things as possible into this blog to see what will stick, I now unveil my first ever Automotive Review! 

The Chevrolet HHR, msrp -18,720, as tested - 240.00 for the week from Alamo with unlimited miles. 

As soon as I climbed into the drivers side of the HHR I thought "wow, so this is what it feels like to drive a fantastically small shower stall."  The center pillar was conveniently placed tight up against my left shoulder giving me that always comfortable wedged in feel.  The roof line ended somewhere around the bottom half of my line of sight.  I quickly realized if I were to see the road I would need to scooch down considerably in the seat and tip my head to the side.  The right side, of course, thanks to the giant door jam that prevented me from moving my head left.  I can't blame Chevy for this as at 5'11" I am well above our nations average height... by a whopping two inches.  Ironically, HHR stands for Heritage High Roof.  I don't think the drivers I came remarkably close to hitting due to the bevy of blindspots would have found that quite as ironic as I did.   

On the plus side, this car is equipped with a whopping 155 horsepower to go with 4200lbs of curb weight. As you can imagine this vehicle has no problem going 65mph up most (but not all) hills.  For every up hill there is a down and once gravity takes over, look out!  This thing was down right zippy on the declines.  There is a large amount of storage space.  We were easily able to fit luggage for two people and a couple dozen bottles of wine in the back with room to spare.  Also, we were able to park the HHR in all sorts of bad neighborhoods knowing full well that even the most desperate of car thieves would want nothing to do with stealing it.  Not because of it's state of the art theft deterrent system (as far as I know it doesn't have one) but because the HHR is it's own theft deterrent.  No one wants to be seen in an HHR. 

Final Analysis:  If you are renting a car from Alamo at the compact rate of 240 per week and when you show up they tell you they are all out of compacts but they have an HHR you could take for the same rate - wait around. 

A Little Rain, A Little Snow, a Slight bit of Gloom

I don't want to spend too much time on this topic as I don't feel that the offending "company" deserves the space in my uber-popular blog negative or otherwise but I have to share this with you.  The United State Postal Service is flat out terrible.  For the life of me I cannot understand why anyone ever mails anything of importance through the USPS.  If they weren't a quasi Federal department with a monopoly on standard mail delivery I highly doubt they would be able to remain in business.  Here was my conversation on Monday with the surly postal worker at my local post office. 

Me - "Hey, Merry Christmas, how are you today?"

Postal Worker - "Go fuck yourself."

Me - "Wow, guess I should have said Happy Holidays.  It was wrong of me to assume you celebrated Christmas"

Postal Worker - "Are you still here?  What do you want?"

Me - "I'd like to mail this package of gifts to the love of my life, is there anyway I can make sure it gets there by Christmas."

Postal Worker - "You're lucky I don't climb across this counter and gouge your eyeballs out."

Me  - "I hate to do this, I'm normally a very level headed person, but I must request to speak to your supervisor."

Postal Worker - "Hey boss, there's some super handsome asshole here that wants to talk to you."

Postal Manager - "Damn!  He is good looking!"

Alright, that could be (just possibly) a slight exaggeration of the events.  I cannot exactly recall if they referred to me as handsome or stunning.  It was pretty hectic in there, what with mail clerks pummelling the unsuspecting residents of Old Town who'd wandered in believing they could send or receive mail in an expedient manner.

Here's the truth.  I asked - can I make sure the Lovely Girlfriend would receive the package by Christmas (six days away)?  No, we make our best effort to get it there by then but no, there is no guarantee.  Okay, could I insure it?  Someone will have to sign for it.  The Lovely Girlfriend works during the day, can I leave instructions as to where it could be left in a secure location or possibly signed for by a neighbor?  You can leave the instructions but there is no way to promise those instructions will be followed by the mail carrier.  Fine, where is the nearest FedEx or UPS maybe they can handle this daunting task?  I don't know.

I don't know.  The lack of assistance was so great that the postal worker actually pretended that they didn't know where or if there were any competitive stores in the area.  Someone standing behind me in line, waiting their turn to be yelled at, was nice enough to point me toward the UPS store on Broadway in Bangor.  I paid about seven dollars more at UPS, was treated like a human being and not a convicted sex offender and they absolutely guaranteed that six days was more than enough time to deliver the package by Christmas.  As the UPS worker pointed out - If we can't get it there in six days we're not worth much.

Exactly.     

Thursday Night NFL

Houston -6.5 over INDY - I know the Colts got their first W last week but so what?  They're still a absolutely lousy football team.  The Texans had a little bit of a division winning hangover last week, they'll get back on track by wailing on the Colts tonight.

Last week - 6-10

Tebow to the rescue!

Two successful blasts of radiation down, eighteen to go!  The failed maiden voyage on Monday, complete with shooting pain and an intense feelings of being trapped so powerful I felt like I could use an Elisabeth Shue Leaving Las Vegas shower, has given way to mild discomfort and slight claustrophobia.  It is mostly due to the extremely understanding Radiation Nurses and Techs working at Cancer Care that I would like to think have dealt with patients more difficult than me but probably not.  

The moderately more tolerable treatments are also due to a little inspiration in the way of Timmy Tebow.  Crazy, right?  That an only mediocre NFL quarterback on a team that I really don't care for would lend a hand in my cancer treatments?  It's true.  After the Monday fiasco I was not looking forward to continued attempts with the Hannibal Lecter mask and the table that makes economy airline seats feel roomy.  While driving to Cancer Care on Tuesday I was listening to sports talk radio and the subject (as is now the new Federal Law with all sports discussions) turned to Timmy Tebow and the fact that apparently he sings children's religious songs while on the sidelines.  The host and callers took great glee in pointing out that this is the kind of behaviour you would expect from a junior high or high school kid at a crazy christian school and not a veteran professional athlete. 

Two things came to my mind.  One, this was kind of a cheap shot by the host and callers.  Two, and this is purely speculation, maybe he was doing it to calm himself down?  I've got to believe Tebow listens to all the television and radio experts repeatedly burying him over the last nine weeks and I'm sure it burns his ass.  In his ongoing effort to prove that he belongs in the NFL (as a quarterback, I'm sure few would argue he could make it at another position) he has, by in large, played well below average.  Perhaps, just perhaps, he feels the singing helps him focus.  Maybe it calms him down.  Maybe the games don't seem as daunting.  Granted, I was looking for something, anything, to cling to that might help me get through a radiation session so I was probably projecting more than a little bit.

No, Tebow did not compel me to turn my life over to God while on the drive to radiation.  As I've mentioned in previous posts, I already believe I'm just not 100% certain what it is I believe in.  No, what Timmy did was give me something for my brain to latch onto while my neck was pinned back and I was losing feeling in my arms.  Now I sing.  Not out loud, that would be impossible due to the snugness of the mask.  In my head I sing Van Morrison songs and it relaxes me enough to get through.  Van does have a pretty extensive catalogue of hymns to choose from but I went for his secular music instead.  For the past two sessions I've had a veritable Van Morrison concert running through my head in an effort to not rip the hockey mask off and bolt from the table.  So far it's worked.  Hopefully it will keep working.  Thanks to his multiple decades of making amazing music I won't run out of Van songs anytime soon.  Below are a few that he played in my head the last two days.

Not so Radiant

I don't often sit still.  I wouldn't say that I'm fidgety but I'm certainly no statue.  As a write this I am forty minutes removed from what could easily be the most physically difficult sixty minutes of my life.  I have just returned from a failed attempt at radiation.  I was really looking forward to this first radiation as it is my final leg of treatment and I was also secretly hoping a spider would slip into the radiation chamber, bite me while I was under the laser (I don't really know if it's a laser but doesn't a laser seem cool?) and I end up with Super Powers.  As I'd previously reported, the chemotherapy briefly altered my DNA which I believed could give me the Super Powers I've long desired.  If intermittent killer gas is a Super Power than mission accomplished but forgive me if I was looking for more.

So today was supposed to be the day when I either Hulked Out, gained some Spidey Senses or perhaps shrunk down to a sub-atomic level.  Okay, that last one is lame, probably why AntMan and The Atom never had much of a following.  I eagerly laid down on a table about as comfy as a bed of nails and easily as wide as my laptop.  The Techs tried to strap a plastic mask (we'd made it two weeks ago, it's looks a little like a mesh strainer) down over my head but apparently my head got significantly fatter in the last two weeks and it won't snap into place without me flipping out into some kind of waking up while being buried alive moment.

Not wanting to quit we try a multitude of alternate options all the while my never properly healed neck injury from college is slowly turning my arms numb.  Only numb is not the proper description of the intense burning sensation that is moving from my fingers to my palms to my forearms and beyond.  We finally get everything all lined up and we are going to (I think) start this whole radiation thingy.  I lay as motionless as any still living human possibly can for what seems like an eternity (probably 7-10 minutes) as the numbness/burning sensation in my forearms moves beyond my elbows to my bi's and tri's.  Finally the clicks, whirs and buzzes end.  I hear the door open and a tech comes in.  I pick up my head just as I hear her say "okay, we are ready to begin."  Fuck this shit is the first and only thing that comes into my head.  At that point my neck is absolutely killing me.  My arms are so unresponsive I'll have trouble steering the truck on the drive home and my head is pounding.  On top of all that, because I'd just moved my head we had to start over.  You cannot begin to imagine how close I was to bursting into tears. 

We did not start over.  I jumped down off that 2x4 of a table and shook out my arms.  The Techs were probably as fed up with me as I was with them and all of this.  We decided another simulation (the same kind that I breezed through two weeks ago that seemed so simple and helped convince me that radiation was going to be a snap) would be the best measure before the zapping can actually begin.  Tomorrow morning we do the simulation.  Tomorrow, late afternoon (hell, just call it night since it gets dark in Maine at 3:30) we will try to give me radiation again.  If I don't wind up with some serious Kick Ass Super Fucking Powers when this is all over, there will be hell to pay.

NFL WEEK 15 PICKS

I had written a little blurb to start this column about how I've been doing with my picks over the last month or so.  I deleted that as I did not want to jinx myself so I'll just say - I'm hoping that someone, somewhere is making a little bit of $$$ on them.  I'm already 1-0 for the week thanks for the Jags spending most of their remaining time this season working on their holiday plans.  Let's hope the Browns, Rams, Colts and the rest of the horrible teams that make up nearly half of the NFL are doing the same.

TAMPA +8 over Dallas - Jerry Jones gave little Opie Cunningham the dreaded statement of support.  He made it an emphatic one too.  That's never a good sign.  It looks to me like the Cowboys are reeling right now and as horrible as the Bucs they're playing at home and more than a touchdown on a home-dog is almost always a good bet.

BUFFALO +2 over Miami - Explain to me why the Dolphins fired Sparano after the team finally started to play up to their ability?  I know it happens in the NBA quite frequently but it's not often you see an NFL team intentionally tank their final four games in an effort to lock in a high draft pick.  I know the experts are claiming the Dolphins did it so they'd be in the hunt early for guys like Cowher, Fisher and Gruden but I don't buy it.  They didn't want to go from a possible top 5 pick all the way down to out of the top 10 which is where they looked like they were headed.

Seattle +4 over CHICAGO - The Seahawks are on Fire!  I am totally stunned by this as I was all but certain that the Pete Carroll era would be one of great comedy.  It's the total opposite.  If not for close losses to Atlanta (they'd probably still lose if they played again) and Cleveland (they would kill Cleveland if they faced them a second time) this team would be smack dab in the playoff hunt.  Also, Chicago is D-O-N-E.  You can see it on their faces.  Shell shocked by the injuries and the blown games. 

Tennessee - 6 over INDY - Jake Locker is for real!  I don't know if you'll see him in this game or not and I don't really think it matters but lookout 2012 and beyond because the Titans with Locker are going to be tough. 

Green Bay - 13.5 over KANSAS CITY - I'm no Todd Haley fan but it's hard to blame him for the wave of injuries that hit the Chiefs.  Seemed like from the very first week they were battling injury problems.  Either way, Romeo Crennel is only inspiring to fatties at a Hometown Buffet.  I don't know exactly what that means but that's how I feel.

Cincy -3.5 over ST LOUIS - The Bengals gave up 17 points in the fourth quarter to lose to TJ Yates and the Texans.  They've got to be pissed and although their playoff hopes are few and far between I'm guessing they are still looking for someone to take that choke job out on.  The Lambs look like a pretty good target.

New Orleans -6 over MINNY -  The Saints have to have this game in order to stay in the hunt with the Niners for the second playoff seed.  Even with AD's return and the Saints troubles on the road you've got to like them to win by at least 7.

NY GIANTS -6 over Washington - Now comes that time of year when the G-men run the table, save Coughlin's always tenuous job and head into the playoffs as the team no one wants to face. 

HOUSTON -4 over Carolina - Don't know how the Texans keep racking up the victories but they do so I'll jump on this bandwagon and see how long it takes to get thrown off.  Houston's D is pretty stout and it looks to me like more and more teams are catching up to Cam Newton over the last two months.

OAKLAND +2 over Detroit - I know the Raiders have looked beyond awful the last couple of weeks but that was against the Packer (best team in the league and FUCK GREEN BAY) and going all the way across the country to play Miami.  They're a different team at home and I think the Lions have a lot of in house issues going on right now. 

DENVER +7.5 over New England - Timmy Tebow.  That's my only reason for this pick.

New York Jets +3 over PHILLY - A team that has to win in order to stay alive in the playoff hunt vs. a team who's season was long gone about 4 weeks ago.  I'm going with the must win team every time.  Can't believe a 5-8 team is giving points to an 8-5 team.  Crazy.

ARIZONA -6.5 over Cleveland - Not that I would expect the Browns to win this game if McCoy was playing but having Seneca Wallace taking the snaps from center can't help their chances.  Also, it's kind of amazing but the Cards are almost half-way decent when playing at home.  Really, they are nearly a okay football team.

SAN DIEGO +3 over Baltimore - Phillip Rivers is playing like the Rivers of old.  The Chargers are making their trademarked late season last minute run. Norv Turner in an effort to save his job appears to be paying attention to whats going on out on the field.  This seems like 2010 and 2008 all over again right? 

Pittsburgh +3 over SAN FRANCISCO - If Roethlisberger plays than I'm happy to take these three points but if he doesn't I would have liked about three more.  Since this is the Monday nighter I reserve the right to change this pick based on injury report news come Monday.  Also - Free James Harrison!

Last week 10-5-1

So far this week  1-0

Frank and Dino and the boys

When we last left off the Lovely Girlfriend and I were braving the tough Scandinavian-esque Christmas Village of Solvang (the local street gang goes by The Evil Elves) looking for a parking space.  Behind their chubby cheeks, broad smiles and windmills the Danes are a vicious bunch that would just as soon snap your neck as hug you but it's nearly impossible to resist their hugs because they are all so cuddly.  Truth be told I know nothing of Danish stereotypes.  I don't think they are interesting enough to deserve a stereotype.  Anyway, we fought through the stop signs and foot traffic and found a parking spot on the outskirts of the downtown.  We avoided the back-alley Danish thugs with their white herring and open faced sandwiches and made our way to our final destination - Sort This Out Cellars Tasting Room!

Two plus years ago, the Lovely Girlfriend and I went on a wine tasting trip through the Santa Barbara area while she was up there for work.  We found the original Sort This Out Cellars Tasting Room in a tiny strip mall in Beullton.  My recollection is they were bookended by a couple of accountants offices but this did not keep them from being an extremely cool stopping point.  They have since moved from that tiny strip mall to a sweet little spot in the heart of Solvang.  I don't normally go for the whole "Vegas Rat Pack" thing as most places try too hard and instead it becomes some kind of sad Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin as done by female impersonators routine.  Sort This Out does not have this problem.  Somehow they nailed it.   The tasting room was damn near packed when we got there.  We were lucky enough to grab the last bit of bar space before an large wave of foot traffic filled the tables along the wall and then the whole room.  I've been to several dozen wineries of the last couple years and I don't think I've ever seen a tasting room as hopping as this one. 

Sort This Out has a couple of different categories of wine that they make with labels to match.  Their Black Label collection is a tribute to gambling with the wines named after gambling terms.  Their Viva Las Vegas line is a tribute to 50's and 60's Vegas advertising.  The Suited line comes complete with pin-up girl art, we got a bottle of their holiday merlot with mulling spices for Gourmet Biker and Dead Red.  Finally they have VinoNostra, a tribute to the California winemakers that survived Prohibition by going underground.  We tasted at least one from each and they were all exceptional.  The VinoNostra "Bootlegger" was out of this world.  An Oh My Gosh Grenache absolutely killed.  They had their Suited Holiday Merlot mulled wine cooking in the back and were nice enough to hand out seconds and thirds on it.  The ladies pouring the wine behind the bar were fantastic plus they threw in a "Congrats on beating cancer" bottle of their Viva Las Vegas Merlot with our purchase.  I really can't say enough things about this place.  We joined the wine club, an incredibly reasonable seventy bucks four times a year with as many as six bottles in a shipment.  Sort This Out is now on our must stop list whenever we are headed up to San Francisco.

After at least two hours tasting and chatting we reluctantly said our good-byes and stepped back out into the rough and tumble Hans Christian Anderson style streets of Solvang.  We hustled past the cutthroat Coo-Coo-Clock stores and bad to the bone bakeries to the safety of our car.  Vowing to return and hoping that one day the picturesque town of Solvang cleans up it streets of the Danish riff-raff of Rolf's and Rasmus's.  Allowing God Fearing American's to roam Santa's Shantytown streets without being harangued by pickled gherkin peddlers promising you a quick fix.  The first ones always free.  Seriously, are there any Danish stereotypes out there?  Throw me a bone here.

NFL Thursday Night

ATLANTA -12 over Jacksonville - Atlanta needs this to stay in the thick of things in the NFC playoff picture.  Jacksonville, despite their destruction of Tampa last Sunday, is terrible.   

Wine a little, you'll feel better

You don't expect to bite into the greatest roast beef sandwich you've ever tasted in a place like Morro Bay.  Those moments are reserved for big cities with large Italian, Jewish, possibly Polish, hopefully not Irish, populations.  You certainly don't expect it to be in a lily-white, high rent town on California's Central Coast.  But that is what the Morro Bay Hofbrau provides.  A massive, hand carved, roast beef sandwich so good I would have quite willingly paid two or three times the remarkably reasonable price of $8.50.  The Lovely Girlfriend couldn't finish the other half of hers.  She also couldn't even finish her sentence "do you want this" before I was devouring the tender juicy goodness.  I tried to talk her into going there for breakfast the next day, and no, they don't serve a breakfast menu. 

After a nice walk around downtown Morro Bay we headed to Solvang/Buellton.  This is the wine country area that was featured in Sideways and the prices reflect it.  We started with Mosby, an Italian style winery that was packed and pricey.  Their wine was only average so we gulped down our tasting and quickly left in hopes of greener and cheaper pastures. 

While perusing the handy wine map we spotted an interesting area titled The Lompoc Wine Ghetto.  Since Lompoc is best known for its prison and military base we figured this was a not to be missed tasting spot.  Like doing a scotch tasting at a Wal-mart in the middle of the Scottish Highlands.  We were only partially correct.  The Lompoc Wine Ghetto is located behind the Home Depot (honestly) but it is far more Ghetto Fabulous than just plain ghetto.  As someone that grew up surrounded by real life hillbillies, rednecks, hicks and all around poor-white-trash in Northern Maine I take offence to the trend of transforming the poor into the posh.  Making a camo trucker hat a must have fashion statement is insulting not just to the people that grew up wearing them but to those of us that grew up surrounded by them all the while telling ourselves "thank God I've got more sense than that!"  When we look back a old photos are we to think that somehow Jethro was an ahead of his time fashionistas?  I'm not saying I don't have a rather large soft spot for backwoods culture, I've been to my fair share of gravel pit and trailer park parties.  Those parties were free to attend and the booze was cheap.  Nobody was trying to sell plastic cups at ten bucks a pop throwing in a splash of keg beer then explaining to you the intricacies of the hops and barley.  If I'm going to be doing my drinking in a corrugated metal shed I expect the prices, pours and conversation to reflect it.  We hit two tasting rooms, Fiddleheads and The Flying Goat.  I won't lie, the wine at both places was absolutely excellent but holy shit was it pretentious.  I'd expect that at one of those giant phony french villas that's piping in orchestral music and brandishing a scenic overlook.  We were in a low-rent business park.  Our view was a shade-free parking lot and more corrugated metal.  There have been few times in my life where I've felt more mislead by a name. 

In an effort to save the day we headed back toward Solvang with one of our favorite tasting rooms Sort This Out Cellars in our sights.  I will be dedicating tomorrows entire posting to the good people at Sort This Out.  They deserve their own spot but if you are reading this while currently on a wine tasting adventure through Solvang/Buellton and you cannot wait for tomorrow I will tell you go there now!  1636 Copenhagen Drive Solvang, CA 93463.  Great time, great wine.  Full report tomorrow.

Before we made it to Sort This Out we stopped at Casa Cassara's tasting room.  I'd been there before on my own a few years back while the Lovely Girlfriend was working in Santa Barbara.  Last time I was there they had a tempranillo that was out of this world so we had to stop.  They weren't tasting the tempranillo that day but we did get a whole bunch of other very tasty wine to sample.  All at reasonable prices, tasting fee waved when we purchased a bottle.  The young girl doing the pouring was super personable and extremely informative.  We even joined the wine club.  Take that Lompoc Wine Ghetto!  We've got $$ to spend (well, the Lovely Girlfriend does anyway) but we don't want to feel like we're taking it in the shorts while we spend it. 

From Casa Cassara we headed to Sort This Out Cellars but since I've already stated that they will get their own posting I will leave you with this cliffhanger.  Did we find parking nearby?  Did we have to pay for it???  Were we  forced to walk several blocks?????  Tune in tomorrow to find out! 

Happy Birthday to Me

Yesterday was my birthday.  I turned 38 years old.  I turned  35 on imdb.com.  Neither of these milestones are particularly, uh... stoney but since I just spent the last half of the year whomping on cancer like it stole from me I suppose yesterday should have come with some kind of celebration.  It didn't.  Unless you find chicken tacos and carrot cake at home with your mother and sister a wild time.  If that's the case then I have some tickets to a forensic accounting seminar you may be interested in.  The part of me that beat cancer could still not manage to beat the part of me that finds big birthday celebrations by full grown adults moronic.  Beyond the age of 21 and before the age of, I don't know, say 70 any big birthday celebration you have is really just a celebration of you not being so stupid as to accidentally kill yourself in a given year.  Congrats on the big 2-9!  Way to not succumb to that odd and still unexplained jungle rot you got while on vacation in Cambodia!  Are you still claiming it wasn't a sex tour?  Happy Birthday, you pervert! 

Some of you read that last paragraph and thought, didn't I attend your birthday party just last year?  Others are reading that last sentence and thinking - how come I didn't get an invite to your birthday party?  The answer to both questions is it wasn't my birthday party.  It was a party, thrown by my Lovely (persistent and sometimes overbearing) Girlfriend in my honor.  It happened to fall on my birthday and she just happened to hang a "Happy Birthday" sign from the wall but I promise you - it was not a birthday party.  And if you never heard about - it's because you weren't invited.  My hypocrisy aside, a yearly birthday party for yourself when you reach adulthood is either one of two things.  A cheap excuse to get hammered or a cheap cry for attention.  This explains why I can vaguely remember drunkenly sobbing that nobody likes me during the waning moments of last years party. 

A couple of facebook friends mentioned on their happy b-day posts to me that I had earned the right to truly whip it on this year.  I guess that's true.  I've never looked for a reason to tie one on but certainly I've got ample ammunition at this point.  At the same time, I feel like that eventual celebration cannot truly happen until I get my official clean bill of health and anything else would be premature.  And if you ladies know one thing about me it's that I am never, ever, prema-- ohhhhh, uhhhh, yeahhh.  Sorry, that's really embarrassing.  Give me a few minutes and then we can continue.

Okay.  I'm all cleaned up and ready to finish this post.  Like I was saying, the big cancer-free celebration will happen in 2012 and then each year after on the date of my final radiation treatment.  Also, at the five year mark (the Rubicon for Hodgkin's patients) there will be another huge blowout.  Those will be cancer celebrations, they will have their own date, separate from my birthday.  Maybe I'll just go the route of the militant recovering addict I ran into years ago who claimed he was only thirteen.  He was thirteen, he said, because that's how long ago it was that he beat alcohol and drugs.  I didn't want to be the one to tell him he would have trouble passing for seventy-five since he had just shared his life story with me after I'd asked such a probing question like "I'm doing pretty good, how bout you?" while sitting down two tables away with my coffee and newspaper.  I wonder if imdb.com will let me change my age to One-year old?

NFL NFL NFL NFL NFL NFL NFL

I knew I shouldn't have taken the Steelers last night.  I freakin knew it!  I talked myself into because I love the Steelers and I hate to ever pick against them even though I know damn well it's a sucker bet to give up 14 points.  That's always the risk when picking for or against your favorite team, too much heart not enough head.

CINCY -1 over Houston - I'm impressed by Houston's ability to crank out the W's in spite of an ever mounting list of injuries but I've got to believe that run of luck ends now.  In Cincinnati, of all places.  Seriously, Cincinnati.  I'm as surprised as the rest of you.

Minny +12 over DETROIT - Minny is truly not bad enough to deserve this kind of a spread especially in a divisional game.  Plus it still looks to me like the Lions have slipped significantly.

New Orleans -3 over TENNESSEE - The Saints are hot again and the truth about the Titans is despite their record all season they have beaten the teams they should beat and lost to the teams that they should lose to.  And none of those loses have been particularly close.  Classic weak schedule = possible playoff spot team.  It happens to some squad every year.

MIAMI -2 over Philly -  A team that looks like they've given up (on the road) vs. a team trying to prove to everyone that they aren't as bad as their record (at home).  I'll take the Red Hot Dolphins.

NY JETS -10.5 over Kansas City - Had Dexter McCulster not been standing at the right place at the right time last week the Chiefs/Bears game would have ended in a 3-3 tie.  I don't see anyway the Chiefs can score enough points to keep this close.

WASHINGTON +9 over New England - The Pats gave up 24 points to the Colts.  The F'ing Colts!  The Skins are slowly improving (although anything would be an improvement from where they were during those John Beck games), they can run the ball and play D.  Should be enough to keep it close.

Atlanta -2.5 over CAROLINA - Falcons have to have this game in order to stay in the playoff hunt after last weeks loss.  The Panthers are out of it and we have reached the point in the season where guys on losing teams start making plans for the off season and stop showing up as much for games.

Tampa Bay -1 over JACKSONVILLE - Horrible v. Terrible.  Atrocious v. Disgraceful.  Inept v. Unskilled.  I am taking the Bucs simply because they still have the head coach and owner they started the season with.  Consistency like that should count for something.

Indy +18 over BALTIMORE - I'm only taking these points because I think Indy can score at least seven points and I don't think the Ravens can score more than twenty-one.  Also, the Ravens are one of those teams that have their worst games against the worst teams. 

DENVER -3 over Chicago - TEEEEEEEEEBBBBBBBOOOOOOWWWWWWW!!!!!!

San Fran -4 over ARIZONA - Kind of feel like the Cards emotional OT win against the Cowboys last week was their Super Bowl.  Niners are too well coached to allow a let down after wrapping up the division last week. 

GREEN BAY -11 over Oakland - Packers cruise into the number one playoff spot in a whopping of the Raiders.  I'm thinking something to the tune of 38-14.  Fuck the Packers.  Fuck em.

SAN DIEGO -7 over Buffalo - I'm looking forward to the Chargers winning out the rest of their season, missing the playoffs because they dumped to Denver at home in OT and somehow Norv Turner winds up keeping his job because he's an AJ Smith lackey.  I love it when I can see the future.

New York Giants +4 over DALLAS - The Giants should have beaten the Packers last week.  I'm betting they know it, are pissed about it and are looking to take it out on somebody.  Giants are strong on the road and correct me if I'm wrong but aren't we entering that certain part of the season when Tony Romo starts to fall apart? 

SEATTLE -8 over St. Louis - Pete Carroll has actually found a group of professional football players that respond to him!  This team could be in the hunt next year.  I'm amazed and impressed.

10-6 last week. 

In Vino Magis Veritas

I believe when I left off on my review of the Central Coast Wine Tasting Experience we had completed Day One.  I failed to mention that near the tail end of Day One with damn near 35 shared one ounce tastings in our collective bellies The Lovely Girlfriend was a little more than nicely toasted.  I'd say she was lit up like a Christmas tree but as we weren't yet in the Christmas season, rather just days away from Thanksgiving so let's go with she was glazed like a turkey.  This created in her a hybrid wino/sophisticated drinker of sorts.  Gulping down pours so fast it barely glanced off her taste buds, rambling on about the jammyness of the blend and occasionally asking other vinophiles in attendance "What are you looking at?" and "Wanna take this outside, old lady?"  Thankfully no one was foolish enough to take her up on the offer.  She's surprisingly strong for a tiny girl.

After Thanksgiving, as we were driving south on the 101, we decided we had such a good time on the way up we'd do it again on the way down.  We cashed in some more of The Lovey Girlfriends hotel points, this time getting a very nice room in Morro Bay, and started searching for wineries.  Thankfully, this is not a difficult search in Paso Robles.

Our first winery of the day was Rabbit Ridge.  It wasn't our original destination winery, that was further down the road.  I've bought bottles of Rabbit Ridge in Trader Joe's before and always had good luck with it so I figured since we were driving by why not check in.  Absolutely worth the stop.  They specialize in Zins and had about thirteen bottles open for tasting with very little concern if you stuck to the six or seven on the menu.  The tasting room is actually in the barrel room which for some reason I always find very cool.  The owner (or perhaps co-owner), a very nice woman, was doing the pouring and had some pretty long arms.  Great wines at very reasonable prices.  I'd highly recommend this place.  After buying a case of their 3Clusters Syrah at a Black Friday sale price of 100.00 (normally 400) we vowed that would be our only purchase of the day.

Mondo Cellars has to have one of the most amazing views of any winery in the area.  At the very top of a hill, outdoor tastings (no fee!) in a bar/restaurant setting, a really fantastic setup.  Great wines, a little pricier than Rabbit Ridge but within reason.  We left with a bottle of The Trunk promising ourselves that we had absolutely, positively, bought our final bottle of the trip.  It was only because they did free tastings, we declared.  Buying a bottle in return for the gratis vino is the respectful thing to do.

Down the road a bit we hit Chronic Cellars.  This was our original destination, recommended to us by a number of people while on Wine Tasting Day One.  I can see why it's so popular.  Chronic does a tasting room the way a fraternity house might organize a tasting room.  There is a pool table, some borderline trashy ladies (I don't remember if they worked there or were passing through but there were a lot of them), loud music and lots of Ed Hardy-esque art of the walls.  Sadly, most of their wine was only decent.  The bottles the wine came in, however, were very cool.  Lots of work went into these labels.  More work than went into the wine, I'd be willing to bet.  We bought a bottle of what we felt was their best - just for our friend Dead Red, it was her birthday and the label reminded us of her (a skeletal remains version of her, in a hat).  If it wasn't for her birthday we would have never bought another bottle.  That's it.  Just tasting fees from this point on.

Across the street from Chronic is Vines on the Marycrest.  Simply put - great fucking wine!  This is an absolute mom and pop shop and it was quite possibly the best wine we tasted (right up there with Dark Star) on our trip.  The tasting room is not only also the barrel room but it's also in the crushing room and the bottling room.  It's one whole wine making operation in a barn, laid bare for all to see.  If you are into that (and we are) it's a blast to see.  While we were tasting, the winemaker was washing out bins and working the crank on the press.  I can't stress this enough - every wine we had was fan-freakin-tastic.  They specialize in Zins and blends and holy crap were they tasty.  We limited ourselves to a single bottle of 'Round Midnight.  Just to support the owners.  They're a nice couple and they were from Culver City.  Otherwise we would have stuck to our vow of no more purchases.  Again, helping support local business over some giant wine conglomerate, it was the right thing to do.

On the top of a twisty dirt road stands Le Cuvier.  If you are hungry and in need of a quick tasty snack while tasting -go here.  They offer free food pairings with each of their tastings.  It's a good thing that they do because honestly their wine wasn't that great.  Actually, let me amend that, their wine was a lot to handle.  Super powerful, alcohol heavy wine.  And expensive.  We did not buy a bottle here.  Finally.

We were going to head for Morro Bay at this point but instead I got talked into driving clear across town so we could visit Silver Horse Winery.  The winery we were supposed to be visiting when we went to Wild Horse instead and got served average wine by that asshole.  (See why it pays to be nice to people, dude?  I've now negatively mentioned your winery twice in this blog and I've got a readership of dozens.  Literally, dozens.)  As it turned out, Silver Horse was worth the trip.  It's two wineries in one.  Tassajara is also in the same building.  Both had some great wine.  Since it was the day after Thanksgiving they had assumed it was going to be slow so they only had one person working the two tasting rooms.  It wasn't slow.  It was packed.  The woman working (don't recall her name) was crazy busy but also extremely nice.  Knew loads about the two wines and poured tastings like it was dollar drink night at the college bar.  Your glass was never empty.  We bought a bottle of Tassajara but only because she was so nice, gave us so many additional pours and had been sweet to the Dog when the Lovely Girlfriend had stopped in a couple of months ago.  Otherwise we would have absolutely stuck to our no buying more wine rule.

On the way out back from Silver Horse/Tassajara, as the 5pm, last call on tastings bell was tolling we came upon EOS.  We didn't want to go in but their was still time for one more tasting, what choice did we have?!  EOS is just OK.  I don't remember tasting anything exceptional.  They were nice enough to let us have a tasting well past their last call so they've got that going for em.  We bought a bottle.

We headed for Morro Bay with a trunk full of wine and a vow that even though we were going to do more tastings tomorrow in the Solvang/Buellton area we would procure no more bottles.  And we meant it!

PITTSBURGH -14 over Cleveland - I hate giving up this many points with a wildy inconsistent offense like the Steelers have but Cleveland is horrible.  Awful.  Bottom of the barrrel. 

Last week - 10-6

On this episode of Rides...

POS Cars.  We've all owned them.  I've had more than my fair share.  Over the course of my life as a licensed driver I have yet to own a vehicle less than ten years older than the current model year.  That doesn't necessarily make them Pieces of Shit.  Far from it in some cases.  If you own a Subaru, Toyota or Honda it can be thirty years old and still as reliable as anything rolling off the line from England, Italy or France.  My current vehicle is a 1992 Toyota Pickup.  I've owned it since 2005.  During that time I've put over 85,000 miles on it and had to repair or replace four things - the main rear seal, the radiator, the battery and the ignition cylinder.  160,000 total miles and it fires up like clockwork.  It cost me $1800.  Also, with body damage on the rear passenger side and a badly bent bumper it delivers exactly the right message to the other cars on the road - Uninsured Driver.  Rarely does anyone jockey for position with me in rush hour traffic.  That truck is like Meryl Streep.  Not much to look at but brings its A game every time.

My Lovely Girlfriend, on the other hand, has a legit POS car.  Amazingly it's only 7 years old.  Truth be told it was a total and complete Piece of Shit the day it rolled out of the factory.  The Saturn Ion 3.  A car that must have been exclusively conceived for and marketed to women that go car shopping without the aid of a man.  Want to check your fluids?  Good luck with that!  You can't even check the tranny without the aid of a lift and some wrenches.  Why?  Because as the owners manual conveniently points out, you don't need to ever check the transmission fluid.  Oh, thank you good people of Saturn for deciding what I do and don't need to check on my own fuckin car!

So what was the first thing to go on this trash can with wheels?  That's right, the transmission.  After only 120,000 miles.  That's a warm up on a Toyota.  Guess what she's driving while I'm back in Maine and Sophie's Choice is sitting in a driveway in Los Angeles?  She already is talking about fixing it up so she can be the cool sexy chick that drives around in a hot truck.  I'm fine with it.  I'll be driving my Dad's Tacoma across country when I'm done radiation.  It's a 2001.  It's no POS.  It's a great truck and I'm proud to drive it knowing that I got if from my Dad.  On top of that it maintains my record of not owning a vehicle less than ten years old. 

A Return to Punching Things

I've never been very good with the whole calorie counting/calorie burning thing.  I've both read about and been told exactly how many calories I'm supposed to be consuming/burning in a given day to lose/maintain weight and yet I never retained that information any longer than it takes for me to sit down at my next grease filled delicious meal.  I know I've hit on my weight a number of times on this blog but trust me this is not another "I'm getting fatter" post.  Quite the opposite.  Last night, for the first time since June, I made my triumphant return to Punching Things! 

There are few things in life as satisfying as delivering a perfect punch.  I'm sure some sissy's are reading this and arguing - the birth of my child or when I first met my husband/wife or a beautiful sunset - to that I say stuff it.  I'm sure all those moments were lovely but you know what would have made them even lovelier?  If a dude holding Focus Mitts shouted out a four punch combo, you spun around from the umbilical cord cutting, set yourself, and absolutely nailed it.  Take that new baby!  I just ate your lunch! 

As a matter of fact, on the list of fun but completely useless shit I plan to blow my money on once I've got a lot of it, a dude that follows me around with focus mitts for big occasions is high on it.  Sign a three picture deal - double jab-right-hook!  Film opening - lead right- hook- uppercuts-uppercuts!  Win an Oscar - jab-hook off the jab-right cross-front kick-knees!

As I was saying, I don't know exactly how to figure total calories burned last night with my first workout in six months but I'd guess it was around 16,800.  I've got no way of explaining to you how I arrived at that number other than it just sounds right.  If my Mother and Sister had their way I would have spent my first official workout briskly walking.  I keep telling them That Is Not a Workout!  If I was a senior citizen, working on my third hip replacement, perhaps then a brisk walk would be acceptable.  Perhaps.  Walking has always struck me as the workout of choice for the unfit.  Just like spending time in a sauna.  Sure it's relaxing and it feels good to get a sweat on but the only people using a sauna as a form of weight loss are the fat.  You know what you never see?  Fit people leaving a sauna talking about how much weight they lost in the last twenty minutes.  That's a conversation strictly reserved for us fatties.   

I'm very happy with my return to punching things.  Everything looks a lot sunnier when you know that in a few hours you'll be back at the gym laying down the leather.  I already feel like I'm healthier than I was on Sunday, when I was still in my not-punching-things mode.  I'm sore all over and it's the best feeling I've had in a long long time.  Where's my dude with the focus mitts calling out combos when I need him?

NFL WEEK 13 PICKS!!

As someone with at least a modest connection to Philadelphia I was sad to see two things happen yesterday.  McNabb clearing the waiver wire and the Eagles giving up on Andy Reid.  I know that there is at least an outside chance that Reid survives the off-season and returns as coach based on how much the Eagles would still have to pay him but I've got to believe last nights game officially signaled the end of the Reid era.  The McNabb era ended about four games into last season with the Redskins but I have a feeling that Donovan is just now getting the memo.  Sad day for Philly fans.  Especially my Mother who has been astoundingly loyal to McNabb despite his rapidly diminishing skills.  There is something to be said for fan loyalty that extends beyond team affiliation or ability.  My Mom is loyal but I already knew that.  I hope that the rest of the NFL remembers both McNabb's and Reid's careers in Philly as fondly as I know my Mother will.

Onto this weeks picks.

Tennessee +3 over BUFFALO - I'm starting to believe that Tennessee is not half bad and Buffalo is now all bad.  This makes me sad because I've always hated the Titans and always secretly supported the Bills.  I'm not a fan of the Bills but I feel so bad for the good people of Buffalo that I always hope they succeed.  Assuming it's not in a game against Pittsburgh.  Hang in there Buffalo-ians, it could always be worse you could live in Cleveland, Cincy, St. Louis, Kansas City or worst of all - Baltimore. 

CHICAGO -7 over Kansas City - Two teams without their starting QB but at least Chicago still has a great running game, special teams and defense.  KC has basically none of it at this point.

MIAMI -2.5 over Oakland - On a neutral field and without the 10am start time for a west coast team I'd take Oakland but since neither of those things are happening I'll take Miami in a tight one.

Denver +1 over MINNESOTA - Tim Tebow is easily the most confounding person not just in football but in all of sports.  He's a sub .200 hitter but he's also the guy you most want up to bat with men on, down by a run in the bottom of the ninth.  He's a 30% shooter who does nothing but drain threes in the final two minutes.  A boxer that takes it in the face all night only to throw that brutal uppercut to end the fight while down on all the judges scorecards entering the 12th round.  What I'm getting at is he just plain wins and until I see somebody figure out how to stop him on a regular basis I'll take any points I can get on him.

NEW ENGLAND -20 over Indy - So the answer to Indy's losing streak is to start Orlovky at QB - the same guy who lead Detroit to an 0-16 record?  Makes sense to me.  Congrats to Jim Caldwell for being the first head coach ever to lose both a Super Bowl and an entire season of NFL games.

Cincy +7.5 over PITTSBURGH - I hate to make this pick but I've got to believe this game is going to be even closer than the last.  I can't talk any more about this, I'm already starting to worry.

Carolina +3.5 over TAMPA - Bucs are getting worse by the week.  Panthers are getting better.  I had to look at this spread twice just to make sure I wasn't reading it wrong and the Panthers were laying the points.

WASHINGTON +3.5 over NY Jets - Looks to me like Rex Ryan is having trouble keeping his team and the Redskins are (surprisingly) halfway competent at home.  Also, is Sanchez playing his way out of the starting job?  Seems like the Jets fans have already given up on him.  Will they be drafting a QB this April in an attempt to motivate him?

Atlanta -2.5 over HOUSTON - Vegas must LUUUUV Tj Yates otherwise how could this spread be under 3 points?  How the hell could it be under 7?  All Houston can do is run the ball with any real strength and Atlanta is in the top five in the league against the run.  I'm going to assume this is one of those games where Vegas knows something no one else does and this pick will blow up in my face come 1pm Pacific Time on Sunday.

Baltimore -6 over CLEVELAND - The Ravens have an incredible knack of playing to the level of their competition but I'm not sure anyone can play to that low of a level. 

NY GIANTS +7.5 over Green Bay - I'm about 99% certain this pick won't work out but Fuck The Green Bay Packers.

DALLAS -4 over Arizona - Some of you savvy fans may be saying to yourself - this isn't a Cowboys home game.  To that I say - just watch the game and listen to the crowd.  Arizona is Dallas's home away from home.

SAN FRAN -13 over St. Louis - I never like to give up so many points on a team that I'm still not convinced is that good but man, oh, man are the Rams terrible.  Even with a nearly certain number two seed, a bye week and a home playoff game I still believe the Niners don't make it past a single playoff game.  I don't yet know who they will lose to in the second round but I know they will lose.

NEW ORLEANS -8 over Detroit - Feel like it's a bit of too much too soon for the Lions at this point.  Maybe they bought into their own hype or maybe they are starting to fall apart a bit under Schwartz's crazy intensity.  Either way, Saints are rolling right now and Detroit is experiencing some growing pains. 

San Diego -3 over JACKSONVILLE - The Countdown to the LA Jaguars begins!  The Chargers are bad but not Jags Bad.  Not even Norv Turner, on the other side of the country, can screw this up.  I'd say there is the chance of the Jags rebounding on Del Rio's firing to trounce some unsuspecting team but with the recent sale of the team thrown in I'm gonna rely on the fact that most of the squad has been too busy pricing homes in Malibu all week to pay attention to this weeks playbook.  Also, what a shit game for us on Monday Night!  What the hell?  I thought they came up with some rule a few years back to prevent a game like this from eye-raping the general football watching public.  Poor form, NFL.  Poor form.

Last week - 7-8-1

Conference Championship Picks

Georgia +14 over LSU
HOUSTON -13 over Southern Methodist
VaTech -6.5 over CLEMSON
Michigan St +11 over WISCONSIN

Last week 2-2

Not Fit For Man Nor Beast

Over the last couple of months The Lovely Girlfriend had been taking care of her parents dog (we'll call her Dog, cause that's what she is) while they were away on vacation.  I am a big fan of just about every kind of dog with the exception of the annoying yip dogs that pseudo-celebrity bimbos tend to keep in their purses.  Otherwise, I love dogs.  I grew up with dogs.  I also grew up with cats but I can't say that I am a fan.  If you have a cat in your house that also means you probably have a box of shit in your house.  Who wants to live with that?  Anyway, dogs are aces in my book.  So I was more than happy to have a dog at our place when I returned to Los Angeles. 

Since we were staying the night in a hotel in Paso Robles and bringing the dog with us we needed to book a pet friendly motel.  Despite growing up with pets I don't think my parents ever brought them with us on a trip.  As such I was never exposed to the horror that is a pet friendly motel.  Otherwise, I would have known that pet friendly is code for "we do not employee maids."  The Dog didn't seem to mind although, truth be told, she was cleaner than the room.  The Lovely Girlfriend and I made the best we could out of it.  Reminding ourselves that we'd only paid seven dollars for the room after cashing in a hotel credit on hotels.com.  Seven dollars still seemed a little steep for these accommodations but hell at least we checked in late and would be checking out early.  The less time spent there the less likely we were to catch some sort of flesh eating bacteria. 

On the plus side, this pet friendly hotel was equipped with a thirty by thirty patch of grass as lush as I've ever seen.  Of course, when no one picks up after their dogs the lawn is bound to get pretty well fertilized.  This could have been the rough at the Masters.  I didn't dare venture out onto it as it was dark and I was wearing flip flops.  I just let the Dog roam free and blocked the exit in case she, like me, was disgusted by the conditions we were subjected to and tried to make a run for it.  I wouldn't have blamed her but thankfully, she didn't.  I guess she realized we were all in this together. 

So, if you are planning a stay in Paso Robles and are travelling with a pet you may want to consider simply camping out under an overpass.  It's probably got better amenities than the Travelodge at 2701 Spring St. Paso Robles, CA 93446.

In Vino Veritas

If you've never gone wine tasting then you have never taken the opportunity to unleash the pretentious asshole that lurks inside each one of us.  It's truly amazing how quickly the transformation takes place.  I'm kind of surprised no one has done a sociological experiment with some Bubba from a truck stop plopped into a tasting room and timed how quickly he goes from "that's some tasty grape juice" to "this Mourvedre is an assault on the senses."  I always try to keep this in the back of my mind whenever the Lovely Girlfriend and I go tasting.  I'd rather be the meathead mispronouncing the names instead of the preppy in a Brooks Brothers sweater slipping into a faux French, Spanish or Italian accent.  There is no need to go all Ricardo Montalban on the room when asking to re-visit the Tempranillo.

As a general rule the Lovely Girlfriend and I like to visit wineries that aren't perpetually indulging in the verbal masturbation of how smart they are.  You can almost always nail these places the moment you walk in.  The tasting rooms come across as galaxtically self-important.  As if you'd need to be sponsored by a member in good standing then a vote by committee before they'd take your tasting fee.  We tend to do the walk-in/walk-out on those spots.  Whenever possible I like to try and drop some noxious gas before exiting so they know a proud member of the unwashed masses has been there. 

With all this in mind, I will now roll out my multi-part Wine Tasting/Thanksgiving Road Trip review.  We took the Sunday before Thanksgiving week to drive up to Paso Robles and hit some wineries then the Friday and Saturday after Thanksgiving to bounce around the Central Coast and hit some more.  Here's my completely unsophisticated gulp by gulp review.

November 20th
10am - We wake up a little hung-over from the Cancer Party the night before and hit the road to Paso.  After a few moments of spirited debate we choose to drive the 101 all the way up rather than the barren wasteland that makes up the 5.  When I say debate what I really mean is I was driving and in spite of my Lovely Girlfriends protestations I simply took the 101 exit from the 405 and trusted that she wasn't going to grab the wheel.  I've learned a number of life-lessons from my Dearly Departed Dad, always take the scenic route is one of his best. 

1:30 - We need to make a pit-stop and what better place to go but a rest stop that doubles as a tasting room.  We hit Costa de Oro in Santa Maria mostly because it was there and we felt like it was time to start tasting.  Conveniently located right off the highway and near a gas station for all your tasting/traveling needs.  Tasty Pinot, friendly pour-er plus a fair amount of snacks to purchase for the road.  It was like an AM/PM with a wine bar.  I'm sure that's not what they were going for but it works.  We picked up two bottles for Thanksgiving Week.

2:15 - We officially make it to our first real winery of the trip, Wild Horse Vineyards.  The Lovely Girlfriend is thrilled because she was there just a month or so ago and loved the place.  Only when we pulled in she realized it was not the same place she was thinking of.  We went in anyway because, hell, they've got wine in there and we had a complimentary tasting coupon.  What the coupon didn't say is "Smug Attitude also complimentary."  The guy behind the counter was Pure Asshole.  We had our tasting and quickly left vowing to tell everyone we ran into today to avoid this place.

2:45 - We come across Anderson Road and pull into Eagle Castle.  Imagine wine tasting in DisneyLand.  Huge parking lot, fake castle, large crowds.  We quickly moved on rather than fight the crowd around the bar and discovered that Anderson Road is chock full'o boutique vineyards.  My favorites in order, Dark Star, Midnight, Brian Benson, Caliza and Booker.  At Dark Star each one of their red wines were blow your mind delicious, just amazing.  A little pricey but if you want to splurge on a single bottle you will not go wrong here.  The people working at Midnight were super friendly, their prices were reasonable and they're extremely generous with their pours.  They also had a reasonable wine club and half-off on some cases.  Great place all around.  Brian Benson was solid but not nearly as good as his Dad's place, Dark Star.  Seemed like they were trying awfully hard to be hip and it came across as such.  Apparently the kid that owns the winery is into hot rods so they have a lot of rat rod-esque art on the walls.  That's cool if you didn't have a winery given to you and it just comes across as Paris Hilton in a Mac Trucks hat if you did.  Caliza was on the spendy side but they too handed out some generous pours as well as plenty of local inside tips where to eat/drink.  Finally, Booker was far too over the top fashionable for me to enjoy the place.  It reminded me of a Tapas joint that hands out the smallest possible plates for the largest possible prices all in the name of ambiance.  Also, they only had three wines on their tasting menu for ten bucks?!  That's unacceptable.  Additionally, at every single one of these spots we told anyone that would listen that Wild Horse was a waste of time.  Hey, Pissy Dude pouring wine at Wild Horse - be nice to people, you never know who's got a blog or is willing to let everyone know what a prick you are.

That pretty much filled our day so I will pick this back up with part two tomorrow.  In the meantime - here's tonight's NFL pick.

SEATTLE +3 over Philly - I've got to believe that at this point the Eagles have completely given up on the season and Andy Reid.  On top of that I'm a little amazed to report that it looks like the Seahawks are responding to Pete Carroll.  One team on the way down, another on the way up (I'm stunned to say) so I'll take the points for the home dog.