For The Weekend

It's late late Sunday evening. It's snowing in New York City, there's a thin coat already on the ground, the night is beautifully quiet in Stuyvesant Town and blogging conditions are excellent.

It was another fine weekend.

So you didn't do anything cool like you used to do, like pull your plonker out on the streetcorner or shoot off 99 Flaming Balls and other assorted fireworks or pretend to be a sexually confused 14 year-old boy or steal a homecoming float or offer to sock a crazy street person in the face to protect your crew or sell Loverboy tapes on the L train or ride around Chicago drunk in the trunk of a Honda Civic or tell a bearded college kid in a diner that you and your lady were starting a new society on the side of a mountain someplace and did he want to come along? or get beat up by a dozen skinhead townies or wake up with mysterious blood on the (open) door to your shitbox apartment or convince a cute girl to get off the other dude's lap and come sit on your lap to win a juvenile bet or try to steal a crane or try to steal a boat or set yourself on fire trying to consume a flaming shot or climb a building and sit in a covered wagon or streak for a good 2 miles or throw fruit onto rooftops or pee on a hot grill or invent a new dance called The Unknown Soldier or drive drunk to Chicago or listen to "Unsatisfied" like 68 times in a row at 4am while eating Cheetos in your friend's car in a Howard Johnson's parking lot in Madison, Wisconsin or bury a note and a beer in a box of crackers on a hill or politely walk a girl out of a bar so she could theoretically get on her bicycle and ride home but instead you both pause by the bike and stare at each other and make nonsense talk for like five minutes until it becomes comically awkward and she asks you if you are gonna kiss her or what and you say, no I don't think I can but maybe another time even though you want to more than anything and she shrugs and rides away on her broken down old bike and then like four years later she dies in a car accident and you hear they think it was a suicide. But you end up kissing her in between those two nights -- the night when you didn't kiss her and the night when she died -- on the night when the guy with the ponytail gives you a drunken ride home on his motorcycle the wrong way down a one-way at like 60 mph and she rides her bike and meets you there so you can all watch The Maltese Falcon. And then ponytail guy falls asleep watching the movie and you end up kissing her. He wanted to kiss her, wanted to kiss her even more than you did but he fell asleep and you snooze you lose and truthfully he never had a chance anyway. He's probably dead now too. Dead or like 42, either way it's bad news. But that's his problem.

That's not how you spent this weekend, I bet. But who cares about any of that, weekends are still pretty fucking sweet you ungrateful bitches. Just breathing weekend air and eating weekend food and doing weekend things, whatever they may be.

I played basketball for the third Saturday in a row. That's the plan now. We used a Brand Squeaking New NBA Game Ball, Classic Edition. I guess it needs to get broken in 'cause it felt terrible, like a plastic toy, slick and hard and difficult to control. I am wondering if maybe the New Non-Classic Game Ball might not have been an improvement after all if this is the alternative. What happened to the buttery leather Game Ball of my youth, the one Kissel bought at a Flea Market in Cape Cod and kept pristine for years before some joker dribbled it on concrete and ruined it?

Whatever the case my game is wack like Roberta Flack and I need to keep working at it or it's time for the glue factory. Maybe we need to get the whole crew back together for an over-the-hill VCS classic.

I drank some of the Guinness Draught cans this weekend, including tonight. Them are really not bad. Not the same as a real draft beer but smooth and satisfying nonetheless.

What did you do this weekend? Did anybody watch Steve Nash play? He's good. My dad refers to him as "my hero." We could go through a long discussion about why white basketball fans love white basketball players so much, but there's just no time right now. Instead, just marvel at Nash and remember, his career was on the scrap heap before he suddenly became an unlikely all-star in Dallas, and then he went back to the lab and figured out a way to get even better again. He's the two-time reigning MVP of the greatest basketball league on the planet. He is, in his own peculiar way, the best basketball player in the world. Hard to believe.

For 24 GP's, whodat?

8 thoughts in 12 minutes

1) One of my worst days in a long time: criticized by my boss (constructively) and by my FORMER boss (less than constructively). Unpleasant as hell. Then as I left the office after an 11 hour day, a (nice) dude I work with playfully said to me, "Must be nice, getting to leave at 8 o'clock." I snapped back: "Why don't I give you a call tomorrow night when I'm here til midnight and you're home sleeping like a baby?" As usual, I grouched the wrong person.
2) Buying a Mac was the greatest gadgetary decision I've ever made.
3) Indian food repeats on me.
4) PB had a beautiful post today about his youth in Austria. It made me wonder if I could drink special Austrian soda without officially snapping my 25 day no-soda streak. I'm like the Cal Ripken, Jr. of no soda.
5) FJM is the most consistently amusing site on the internet. (Um, if baseball is interesting to you.) Then again, there was a time when I felt the same way about Vice's mean-spirited do's and don'ts. I may change my mind on this one.
6) There are a lot of things in my past that I sit back and wonder about. I think that's OK.
7) How the fuck am I ever gonna get rich?
8) Are there 20 year class reunions? If I go to mine, and I wear a T-shirt with a message on it, what should it say (10 pts. per answer/max. 2 answers per person)?

suitable replacements

15 bad things I wish I didn't like so much and 15 more enriching/less harmful alternatives that I wish I liked:

1. Cheetos/Broccoli
2. Old NBA Games from 1988/Old Movies from 1948
3. Granny Porn/Classic Works of Literature
4. Coke/Diet Coke
5. You/Me
6. Procrastination and Ensuing Panic/Industriousness and Organization
7. Morning Sleep/Evening Sleep
8. Calling my Johnson "Your Next American Idol"/Calling my Johnson "The Purple Phantom"
9. The Pass/The Run
10. Shitty Bars/Live Music
11. Immaturity/Maturity
12. Moustaches/Sideburns
13. Thinking About/Doing
14. Regret/Enthusiasm
15. Fisting/I'd probably still have to go with Fisting

2 GP's per pair for your own vice/replacement combos, maximum 10 pairs per person

Hey Chucky! Nice bald spot!

I played ball for an hour and a half yesterday. 4 on 4, same teams, lost like 8 out of 9 games. The other team was way better and they offered to switch it up after awhile, and I said no way. We battled and lost with dignity, and the one game we won was something like 15-2. That felt good. I would rather lose close ones all day than switch teams and win with the stacked squad. That's what separates me from Gary Payton. That and the fact that I still shout "Scrilla!" whenever I score, while he does not.

Exercise felt bad, then good. Now bad again. That's two weekends in a row, body is holding up OK. I would play basketball every day if I could. It's that much fun for me. It's kind of sad that I never got to be really awesome at it. I deserve to be. Oh well, I'm better than some people. If you're one of them, give me a call and we'll go play.

Remember when Nike ads used to be original and cool? They're just going through the motions (click "view the TV spot"). I mean, the production values are there, but it's totally uninspired. And it actually manages to make Steve Nash look like an annoying guy to play with.

OK, you asked for a little bit about Don Mattingly, so here is what I got.

Ten Things I Can Honestly Say About Don Mattingly

1) In their respective primes, he was better than Cal Ripken. His best year was better than Ripken's, and he had more great years than Ripken, even though his body collapsed when he was about 27. However, Ripken stuck it out and had a far better career. And he played a much tougher position. And won 2 MVP's to Mattingly's one. So there ya go. I love Ripken, btw. Just feel that for one at-bat in their peak year, a pitcher would much rather face Ripken than Mattingly. Mattingly seemed to hit the ball hard almost every time up.
2) It actually took me a few years to completely warm up to Mattingly. When he came up for good in 1983, he was an outfielder and he took some PT away from my favorite player, the cosmically doomed Steve Kemp. So I ended up resenting him until like 1985 or 1986, and I never formed a truly jizzmatic bond with him the way BJL and Joe M. did. By the time I forgave him and realized I had to treasure him, he was already on the decline, which still sorta bums me out.
3) No way should dude be in the HOF. Not that I want to start talking about the HOF.
4) He may have looked better playing baseball than anyone who's played over the last 25 years. At least among first basemen. Ken Griffey Jr. in his prime was probably more perfect. But Mattingly definitely looked smooth.
5) He was good buddies with Rickey Henderson, which makes sense because they put a lot of money in each other's pockets over the few years Henderson was in NY.
6) With assistance from Tom Selleck, he made moustaches safe for white people again. For a little while, anyway. In light of this, maybe I need to rethink my stance on Mattingly and the HOF. Is there a moustache HOF? There fucking should be. Get that going.
7) He played third base and second base a couple of times. Not easy for a lefty. For twenty GP's, who was the last lefty thrower to play third in the majors (Mattingly aside)? Hint: I have no idea and you can probably bluff me on this one.
8) He's kinda religious and seemingly less humorous these days (not that those two necessarily go hand in hand), but he seemed like a good wise-cracker in his playing days. Remember this one?
9) I bet he is good at all sports.
10) From 2003-2005 he posted "interviews" on his website (more like people sent in questions and he answered them and some dude typed it up) and they are a source of consistent happiness. Here are two of my favorites:

-Michael wrote:

Mr. Mattingly:

I'm just finishing a book, that will be published this coming May, in which you make a brief appearance. You were the boyhood hero of Scott Hatteberg, now of the Oakland A's, and he is one of the central characters of the book. He modeled his swing after yours, snuck into your Spring training facility to watch you in the cage, drove three hours to watch you play every time you played in Seattle, etc. His first big league at bat came with the Red Sox in Yankee Stadium. He turned a double into a single against David Cone on Sept 8, 1995, just so he could stop at first base and meet you.

That's a longwinded way of getting to the question I'd like to ask you: who did YOU model your approach to hitting upon? My phone number is 510 540 7532 but you can answer here if you get this. Thank you in advance.

Regards

Michael

---

Michael,

I modeled my swing after Rod Carew. I tried to hit the ball to all fields like he did. Good luck with your book.

Don Mattingly

Do you think that was Michael Lewis of Moneyball fame writing in? I would think so. If so, you now have his digits.

And my favorite:

Reggie Wrote:

On the date the Yankees retired your number do you remember hearing a fan yell out "Hey, Chucky! Nice bald spot."? It happened while you were giving your acceptance speech during a pause. You did smile and I was wondering if you had heard it and what you were thinking. It was I that yelled it at a friend who was sitting about 10 rows in front of me.

Don Mattingly Wrote:

Reggie,

I definitely did not hear it. It is hard for me to remember anything about that day. It was such a busy, hectic, and overwhelming day. Sounds like it would have been very funny if I had heard it.

Sincerely,
Don Mattingly

Oh, Reggie. Incidentally, from reading the site I also learn that Mattingly is a not-straight-ticket-voting Republican, that his favorite book is the Bible, and that his favorite movie is National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation.

OK, on to some exciting other biz. Dan K. is blogging again! After an abandoned side project called "Control-X", he has returned to his old website DanKois.com and he has some fine content up there already. Please check it out right now and go back every day.

Seeing that Dan had used the Blogger software to publish his blog to his own site, I decided to try to do the same thing. So I switched to the New Blogger, fucked around for about an hour with some settings that I don't quite understand, and I got it to work! So from now on, you will access this blog at our old site, verbungle.com. Please re-update your bookmarks. The blogspot address should expire in a few days. Unless I screwed something up.

Expect a few errors over the next week or so while we hammer down some loose edges. After that, just expect a good time.

Good football games this weekend. Rex Grossman = worst QB ever to start a Super Bowl? Maybe David Woodley? Tony Eason? Stan Humphries? James Vanderbeek? Just checking to see if you're still paying attention.

I still haven't had a sugar soda in '07. I have had cheesecake, cookies, Doritos, cheese puffs, and one lonesome cheeseburger. PB made a good point about carnivorism the other day which pretty well summarizes my beliefs about eating animals:

Animals are intelligent and have feelings and emotions. We vastly underestimate their capacity for thought and feeling because we like to eat meat.

Yep. You've seen animals run for their lives. They want to fucking live, man. Especially the big ones like cows and pigs -- they ain't dumb. I think that within 600 years all developed nations will be more than 75% vegetarian. Give me a holler then. I remember talking to a guy I know once, let's call him Nuge, and his attitude towards meat was "We are biologically programmed to want to eat animals. It's in our DNA. And these animals, the cows and pigs, are just here on earth for us to live off their meat. Being a vegetarian is completely unnatural."

What a load of horseshit. There are lots of things that we are "biologically programmed" to want to do, like fuck every able-bodied partner in sight. But we don't do it because we have a capacity for reason. We are capable of being more than animals. We can make philosophical judgments of right and wrong, wise and unwise. And because we are more than animals, we should, and eventually will, stop eating them.

I am dreading Monday more than usual this week. An egg and cheese sandwich will get things off to a decent start.

I am getting baptized in a couple of weeks. Any tips?

Crotcho Libre

Damn, you guys came through with some real fine pornofied movie titles. When it comes down to it, who doesn't like coming up with pornofied movie titles? I am giving points for all of 'em (capping it at 100 pts.), but here are my faves (no order):

Bi-Curious George
Position: Impossible III
Submission: Impossible III
Little Miss Where the Sun Don't Shine
Wet Dreamgirls
Jack's-ass: Number II
Thank You For Smoking Poles

Lots of other good ones. Nice damn job.

I would add a few or my own but that's not what this is about. Still, if you are late to the party and want to squeeze a couple in, go right ahead (maximum 30 pts.).

I like to think about BA billing clients as he sat at his desk for an hour and a half coming up with pornofied movie titles. He had some major funnies, all while posting a positive tally in the working stiff's Stick It To The Man scoring column. Do lawyers count as working stiffs?

BA also told me that he was watching the Wisconsin basketball game the other day and became unable to tolerate Dick Vitale. He muted the TV, and then just as an experiment he and his wife would unmute it periodically to see who was talking. It was Vitale every time except one (approximately 8 tests).

Every once in awhile we dip into our Tony Robbins/Stuart Smalley mode here, so please forgive me for the following:

I was playing hoops the other day and I would go through periods of tiredness and lameness and wow-I-suckness and I'll-just-run-around-without-really-being-involvedness. You know, where like ten possessions go by and you don't even look to get the ball. And then I would do something that I've always done when I'm playing basketball and lulling out like that. I'd give myself a little internal pep talk, including the following sentiment: You are the best player here. Go get the ball and make something good happen. Don't be afraid to miss a shot. You are way better than all these guys and you know it. Show 'em.

Of course, to be honest I was probably only the third best player out there, but when I pumped myself up I honestly believed I was the best. And I would be successful, or at least aggressive, for a few moments. I've always done that. When I was 22, the pep talk might carry me through ten minutes, now it's about a minute and a half. But that minute and a half feels good.

It feels good because normally (not just in sports) I am crippled by insecurity and self-doubt. It happens to me at the job, it happens to me when I am hanging a bookshelf or posting a blog post or singing karaoke (1 time in my life, disaster). I kind of (usually accurately) suspect that my abilities for the task at hand are subpar in some critical way. But deep inside, I harbor an unjustified streak of wild confidence, of certainty that I am The Best. The Best at whatever it is and I will prove it if I need to. And when I am feeling particularly down, like when I screw up something at work or somebody insults me in a way that actually stings, I call upon it and it makes me feel euphoric for a brief period. I just rise and float, motherfucker. Long enough to move on with my day.

You should try that shit. Because don't you kind of suspect that you really are The Best? Hell, you might actually be The Best. As long as I'm not around. Because I am actually The Best.

I ate bad food and got a sick tummy today. 10 points for each component of the suspected tainted meal that you can name.

You know how some blogs put little keywords on the bottom of their posts (I'm sure there is a technical term for these keywords but I don't know it)? Like: file under: sports; Don Mattingly; moustaches. If I were to do that, I think there would only be like ten categories. My life is that simple.

Dazed and Confused
Fast Times
Basketball
Baseball
Music
Work
Drinking
Self-help
Gatorade
Facial Hair
Miscellaneous Lightweight Bullshit

Which category would you like the next post to be drawn from?

Johnson, Party of One

Dear friends,

I was trying to get a rise out of you with the previous 1990-hating post. Didn't really work. Whatevs. Lots of good stuff in 1990 (Jeezus -- GOODFELLAS!), although probably nothing as good as the ol' reverse weave sweatshirt. I guess Champion is bringing them shits back, too. Go ahead and buy me one, then un-stitch the logo so it's plain. Thank you.

Good weekend. Played fullcourt ball for the first time in about 9 months. Missed a wide-open layup on a 2 on 1 fast break the first time I touched the ball. Got better after that. Was told I looked skinnier (unlikely) and that I didn't look rusty. I am going to try to play every weekend in 2007. If I can make it every other weekend that'll be fine. Cliff Robinson is still going, why not me?

I wore my Air Jordans. What the hell am I doing in Air Jordans?

Hey wait a sec -- whatever happened to Keith Van Horn?

Ran into the Monkeyweb family, including Uncle Hank, at one of the two (soon to be three) local restaurants. When Stuytown finally prices us all out in a couple of years, that is one thing I'll miss. Having so many friends around to run into. Did you know that Big Jim Lang, Isired, Joe & Mrs. Monkeyweb, EJ, and I all live in the same apartment complex? It's like a small town. Complete with strange sense of isolation.

Drank a couple of beers down. Remember when I used to drink like 80 of 'em? Drink drinkity drink. Another please. These are delicious. Let's go steal something. I'm hungry. I'm sorry I said that. Glug glug glug. Dag, those days is gone. The one thing I miss about benders (actually it's probably one of like 12 things I miss about 'em) is the sense that you were doing something spectacular. Even if it was your same goofy friends in your same shithole bar, if you drank enough, something was gonna HAPPEN. Something BIG. An EVENT. A STORY. At least I always felt that way. Booze brings out my inner superstar.

Good football games this weekend. Even though I don't follow it very closely, I must admit that football is a marvelous game. The teamwork is beautiful to watch. Bodies flying everywhere, pain and blood and tight pants and triumph and pulled hammies, and it looks real real good in HD. And could that Tom Brady be any dreamier? No. Don't think so.

I also did some childproofing in Baby Bungle's room. I basically just attached a couple of shelving units to the wall so they don't topple. Crsmal, I coulda used you. It wasn't pretty. I couldn't find a stud. Then I put the brackets in a place that would leave the shelves too close to the crib and Ma Bungle made me do it over again. The shelving units are annoying, they only have a partial back to them. Whatever, it's done and it's at least a little safer than it was before.

I will spend MLK day at the office, sacking away like any other Monday. Sacking shit, MLK Day, what else do I have to say?

I downloaded limewire yesterday. Not sure how I feel about it. I like the logo.

Here are a couple lines that occured to me over the last few days. You can use them in your next screenplay/novel/affidavit/marital spat:

1) "You taught me everything you thought you knew" (alternate: "You taught me everything you didn't know" or "You taught me everything you never knew") -- this might work for a scene when a son is confronting a father in some big emotional showdown.

2) "I had to peel back all the truths to get to the big lie in the center" -- a modified version of something I overheard a dude saying on a stoop the other day on East 9th street. This one will work well in your pivotal breakup scene.

Sincerely,

Tank D. Johnson

P.S. 10 GP's for every decent porno-adjusted title for a movie released in 2006. You can use this as a guide.

For instance, Apocalypto could become Acockalypto or Apussylipto or A Cock I Licked, Yo. Or something better.

kofoed's tan

Things that seemed good in 1990 that don't completely suck in retrospect:

reverse weave champion sweatshirts

I think that's it.

Ooh that smell

So I guess you heard about the big cloud of gassy shit that was hovering over our city this morning. I assume it was an Al Qaeda practice run of some kind. Pete has a more intelligent interpretation. I will only say this: Mayor Bloomberg, FBI, NYPD, federal government, special task force, Mod Squad, Officer Krupke, Bell Biv DeVoe -- I don't care who gets assigned to this case -- just hear me out. Don't take anything you get from the people you are interrogating at face value. In cases like these, it's perfectly plausible that whoever denied it may very well also have supplied it.

Seeing Pete's prediction up on the 'ol Bungle reminds me that there used to be an ol' Bungle. I enjoy the ease of working on this new Bungle so much that I had almost forgotten there was ever another way. Do you miss it? You miss it, don't you Pookie? Maybe we'll cue that shit up again if we can find a reason.

Opinion: in an era of ill-fitting shorts, Cedric Maxwell's may have been the ill-fittingest.

Oh, and there's something I've been meaning to say for a long time. Maybe I've said it already.

I hate Sarah Silverman.

In fact, all the things that you probably love about her are the things I hate the most.

I don't think she's funny.

I don't think she's "hot" -- not that it matters but I always hear dudes saying she's "hot." No. Not hot.

I think she's mean-spirited. And not particularly creative about it.

I think that the only reason she has any significance whatsoever, the only reason she occupies even one shady corner of the cultural landscape, is that she's reasonably decent-looking and she says wildly inappropriate things. Some men apparently find this combination irresistible.

Not me. I think she sucks. I wish her career harm. And I feel the same way about Jimmy Kimmel. He's a big turd.

I haven't seen her movie, nor will I watch her lameass new TV show. But I have seen plenty of her act and I find it to be quite shitty.

Thank you.

Just a couple more things and then it's bedtime for Bungo. One, I was listening to the iPod today and I came across a real gem that I didn't realize I had. First, a disclaimer from our disclaimer department. If you are not into Bruce Springsteen, particularly Early Bruce when he was cramming a bunch of hokey rhymes into every line in an attempt to be poetic or Dylanesque or whatever, when the songs had corny titles that sounded like they were made up by a 6th grader, like Mary Queen of Arkansas or Balboa vs. The Earth Slayer, when the whole deal was earnest and emotional and a little bit embarrassing, you probably won't like this one. But I eat that shit up. And I like the delivery by this Allan Clarke dude -- sounds like Mott the Hoople or David Bowie with an American twist. Enjoy: If I Was the Priest.

I know I promised some more California Hoop action. Now I am delivering. I figure that watching video of mellow one on one games on quiet Orange County basketball courts is of interest to at least two people: those two people who are playing. The rest of you fall into three categories:

-Still highly interested, highly interested enough to wait for the huge, full-res version of our first game to download to their computer (240MB): this group reprsents about .0000007 % of the universe, I'm guessing.

-Not that interested, but bored as hell at work, and willing to watch a compressed, YouTubed version of the file to pass two minutes and change and get a little closer to punchout time. Here you go:



-Completely uninterested, and would rather watch video of The Replacements performing "Talent Show" on some awards show that they didn't belong on in 1989. They agreed to have the line "We're feeling good from the pills we took" bleeped, but then decided to have a little fun afterwards. Check out the end with Matt Dillon delivering props while everyone else applauds politely.

For those of you who watched the hoops video all the way through, feel free to drop some feedback on the production values/basketball action. Here are my own thoughts:

-I don't think either of our feet ever got more than eight inches off the ground.
-If you downloaded the full-res version, you can slo-mo back and forth with the arrow keys to soak in all the glorious action.
-I think my right knee, the one I had 'scoped in 2000 after Big Jim Lang used me like a mule as he departed the Bronnix, is done. It just sort of sits there.
-My overall physique is spectacular -- comparable maybe to Bill Parcells or Charlie Weis. A football coach look. I just need some new shorts.
-The video is heartbreaking, but it could have been worse if we left in the missed shots.
-What would you like to see in the next video? Music ("Old Man" by Neil Young comes to mind)? Commentary? We also shot some rather hi-larious cutaway footage that we can put in there.
-My opponent, who wishes to remain nameless, will appear in future videos as well.

And you like bar pics? Here are some more bar pics from a couple weeks back:

This was a joke we kept doing but I forgot how it goes:

PBdotC looking devilishly content, as if he's about to hit it big in the stock market:

The typical Graffiti Bridge and Tunnel Crowd.

I'm so sick of papparazzi.

Friends with benefits:

Only 60 beers behind Wade Boggs:

If you made it this far and you can tell me wheredat in the picture on top of the post, help yourself to 12 GP's.

this is a hundred million dollar movie, son

Hey internet! How ya doin'? It's been awhile. I was in California for the last eight days and apparently the neighbors read PBdotC's annual chicken soup column and secured their wireless networks, cuz I couldn't get online the whole time. Thanks Pete.

It was a fun trip anyway. I will gladly accept a lifetime of Christmas vacations in Southern California. It's pretty much the same as NYC except in every single imaginable way. I could never illustrate this point any better than the salesgirl who helped me at the mall the other day did.

I was doing a little last-minute holiday shopping for Ma Bungle at a pricey chain store, and I had to fill out my address on the charge slip.

"You're from New York?" the salesgirl said after taking a look at the slip. "What part?"

"Um, Manhattan...sort of near the East Village...there's a huge apartment complex called Stuyvesant Town..."

"I went to New York once," she said. "You have to pay for refills there."

That you do, my dear.

I kinda lost track of the universe while I was there, but here is some shit I noticed/heard/did/thought about since I last posted like three years ago:

-2006 was mostly a shit year for me. Outside of the continuing excellence of Baby Bungle, I haven't taken much joy out of these last 350 + days. Here's some 2006 crud that I didn't like:

-worked about 60 hours a week
-failed to hang out with my friends
-only played basketball about 6 times
-blogged less often and less well
-pop got very very sick and had to be hospitalized twice
-saw one movie all year (Invincible); it sucked and the projector went out like 19 times
-my teams all lost as usual
-Steve Kemp left off all Hall of Fame ballots once again

OK, that first part of the post was from like two weeks ago. Here is the new part containing more shit that I noticed/heard/did/thought about since then:

-Went out for beers with cW, PBdotC, cW's friend Darren and his bro just before Xmas.
Location: Tom & Jerry's
Beer: Unironic PBR
Subjects discussed: the fabulous-looking clientele in the bar that night (outside of our less fabulous, more workmanlike group); Wade Boggs' 64 cross-country beers; the "century club" and how hard it would be to do it (I say not hard, especially if it was PBR, which can be consumed indefinitely and at any pace; cW says he's done it and it is plenty hard); Stuytown rents (Darren's bro says we should challenge our rent increase); Dick in a Box (which cW insists would be funnier as "Cock in a Box," I disagree); the middle-aged bartender's fauxhawk; stock tips; and PBdotC's screenplay idea:



Oh, and I came back from the bathroom and told everybody that I tried to take a photograph of my dick but my camera didn't have enough megapixels.

-I played basketball in California about 6 times. Mostly one on one with the brother-in-law. One successful day in Laguna Beach. By the end of the trip Bro-in-law was getting the upper hand on me. We took a bunch of low-grade video. Some of it will be on YouTube in the next week or so. You will see just how old and slow I am. But don't crowd me or I will spin and make an awkward lefthanded layup. Or toss in one of these.




Then what are you gonna do?

-Being in California exposed me to daily Phil Jackson press briefings. Since he hasn't had a relevant team in a while, I had begun to forget just how annoying and snide that motherfucker is. Take a look at the LA Times over the last week or two and see how he rips his players. I'm sure the press considers it a series of psychological masterstrokes but the truth is that the guy is just an asshole. I really hate him.

-I guess both the Giants and Jets made the playoffs. How the hell did that happen? I just hope Freeman McNeil stays healthy.

-I saw two movies, the James Bond one (22.5 on the VRS) and The Good Shepherd (16.273).

-Wisconsin is in the top 5 in football and basketball right now. And the badger remains the second-most ferocious mammal in North America.

-I made one New Year's Resolution. That ain't saying I only want to improve/change one thing; just that most likely I will be pretty much the same schmuck this year as I was last year so I may as well set a realistic single goal for something that I might actually do. And that thing is giving up sugar soda. No more sugar soda anymore. That stuff is just no good. Delicious, but no good. It won't be easy but I can do it. And if I succeed, I might move on to some other resolutions. You'll be the first to know.

-D. Lee gets the 4C iced tea freshman dorm points. The boombox was made by Aiwa. Aiwa was the shit back then. Maybe not. I was drinking 4C iced tea, what the hell did I know?

-For ten points, a photo from what classic TV show formed the background for the dry-erase message board hanging from my sophomore year dorm door?