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