Last day of 2009...

What better way to end it than with some snow?!?

(Followed by an Oklahoma bowl victory...)

Best we can do...

Food 4 thought...

"He was older now; a man in the prime of his life. His face had not the harsh and rigid lines of later years; but it had begun to wear the signs of care and avarice. There was an eager, greedy, restless motion in the eye, which showed the passion that had taken root, and where the shadow of the growing tree would fall."

The Colts SUCK...

See the Fantasy Championship within your reach. See Dallas Clark score a crappy 5 points and then get pulled from the game like a school girl. Then see your reserve tight end, Brent Celek, rip off 18 points. See your championship dreams fall short by 9 points.

Do the math. The Clark/Celek eff-up cost us 13 points and the championship.

All because the Colts' decision makers (read: Bill Polian) decided to play like pu$$ie$.

We hope those A-holes lose every frigging game until they descend into hell. And never again (never!) will we draft another Colt onto our fantasy roster.

The fantasy ends today...

Well, today is the final day of the season in Fantasy Football. As previously stated, we are in the Super Bowl. Unfortunately, we are up against a helluva team. We opened as 2 point favorites, but 24 hours later we had become 22 point dogs. (Not sure how cbssports.com had such a wide swing.) Anyway, we are already down 42-zip, as the other team had three players playing on Christmas Eve. Unless Drew Brees goes off for 40-something and Larry Fitz, Ricky Williams (or Ryan Grant) and Dallas Clark land in the high 20s, we have little shot of winning.

And we're OK with losing in the Super Bowl in our first season ever of fantasy.

We are also still alive in the Brent Suicide Pool. Yes, 16 weeks in we are one of two people vying for the $400 pot. Today we are going with the Packers.

Christmas leftovers...

Christmas Present #1

Another year of good health and happiness.

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Present #2

Stockings all hung by the fire...

Christmas Present #3

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

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About 20 years ago, we were hanging out with HS friends during college Christmas break. El Deano announced, "Once the beer is gone, I'm gonna go to bed and read A Christmas Carol." As an English major and Christmas fanatic, we found this ultra interesting. The next year we bought a copy and read it during December. It's now a Christmas Tradition. Every year, we start it the week before Christmas. The picture above was taken during The Blizzard last Sunday, minutes before we started the book.

This kid has the holiday spirit...

He quickly flips off the camera before the guy (dad?!?) next to him grabs him.

Tonight, we ride...

We kicked down the damn door to the Super Bowl last night, topping our fantasy opponent, 90-73. And with that, we advanced to the finals of our very first season of Fantasy Football. We must admit we are surprised to have won. Our receivers are completely injured. Jeremy Maclin did not play. We gambled that the injured Mike Sims-Walker would be a non-factor. (A gamble we lost, as he scored 12 points.) Our star, Larry Fitz, was injured and got us just 9 points. Underachieving Michael Crabtree continued to do just that and earned a piss-poor 2 points. We were so desperate for a live body we hit the Saturday night waiver wire for the second straight week and added Hakeem Olajuwon Nicks (6 points). All told, our receivers gave us just 17 points. Drew Brees had a bad game, too, with 11 points. Thankfully, the rest of the starters did well -- or well enough to get us the W: Ryan Grant (9), Ricky Williams (14), Dallas Clark (21), David Akers (9) and Denver's D (9).

In the Super Bowl we will encounter the team that has been ranked number 1 since late September. Amazingly, we have been installed as 2 point favorites. Perhaps even better, cbssports.com has given us a "slight" coaching advantage -- a fact we proudly boasted about to our students today.

Classic.

Christmas Present #4

Captain Ray brought these bad boys over to tune up the snow thrower blower before the blizzard. What every white collar husband/dad/coach needs: a pair of gloves for blue collar jobs.

Holiday Odds & Ends On A Short Week...

1. Fantasy Football Update! Entering the final game of the regular season last week, we had a one game lead but had to end the season playing the team we had the lead on. If we lost, they would have won the tie breaker against us (having defeated us twice this season). We were not confident at all, as Jeremy Maclin, Larry Fitz and Mike Sims-Walker were all injured. We hit the waiver wire late Saturday night and took a chance on rookie Kenny Britt (who ended up with a respectable 7 points). Thankfully, Dallas Clark (22), Drew Brees (29), Ryan Grant (25) and even Michael Crabtree (14) all came up LARGE. We ended up pistol whipping our opponent, 124-79, which put us in the four team playoff this past weekend. We still have work to do tonight, but things look good at this point. (Thanks, in part, to Minnesota's D doing the unthinkable and allowing Carolina to score 26 points.)

2. UMass! We took The Playmaker into The Garden Saturday to watch UMass and Memphis. His friend's grandfather is a professor @ UMass and gave us suh-weet tix. We were right behind the Minutemen bench, 9 rows from the court. It was our first look at junior guard Anthony Gurley (a Boston kid who transferred from Wake Forest). The kid is a player. ("Let me meet this playah...") He has an NBA body (in fact, he has an NFL strong safety's body). He does not have the outside shot (yet) for the NBA. But he could go to Europe right now and earn some good coin. Other good things: Oh, yeah, UMass won at the buzzer. And The Playmaker caught a UMass T-shirt thrown into the stands during a timeout.

3. Go Bucks! The Playmaker's hoop season kicked off December 5. The first three weeks were practices and the season opens January 2. We did scrimmage another team on Saturday for the final 15 minutes of practice. And?!? It's not our style to brag, but we kicked the crap out of them -- something like 14-2. The Playmaker scored 4 points (2-2 shooting), had 2 assists and 2 rebounds while playing with a cold and being subbed for liberally. The obvious comparison to great Bucks players past and present?!? Let's see...Sidney Moncrief? Michael Redd? The immortal Paul Mokeski ("I have two kids...")? Um, we'll go with current hotshot Brandon Jennings. Much like Jennings, it appears The Playmaker can get down the paint and to the rim on anyone anytime. Again, not our style to brag.

Christmas Present #5

A 14 inch snowstorm the week of Christmas!

Christmas Present #6

A UMass Win Over Memphis @ The Buzzer!

Christmas Present #7

Tony Bruno

The best in sports talk radio!

Christmas Present #8

Kenny Stills

The top rated prep receiver is deciding between Oklahoma and Florida. He would be the top flight flanker the Sooners need to put opposite Ryan Broyles.

Christmas Present #9

The best Christmas movie. Ever.

Christmas Present #10

www.sky.fm/christmas/

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Commercial free Christmas music. 24/7. It's been softly playing on our classroom computer since December first. Great stuff.

Christmas Present #11

Wired Magazine

Simply the best non-sports-slash-cooking magazine around.

Christmas Present #12

The Gift of Charity

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Today we dropped off presents for the two angels we adopted this Christmas. One is an 8 year old boy and the other a 15 year old girl. The boy got jeans, sweatpants and a gift card to GameStop. The girl got a Target gift card and one to Aeropostale. The money we dropped is not important. What is is the fact that by helping those less fortunate than you, you truly feel good. And you teach your own kids a valuable lesson. Those who can do so should help those less fortunate.

Christmas Present #13

Classic Christmas Commercials

Christmas Present #14

The Heisman Trophy

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This gift should go to Stanford running back Toby Gerhart. But it won't. It may go to Alabama running back Mark Ingram. And we'll be fine with that. Except that we can't shake this fear that Texas quarterback Dolt, errrrrr, Colt McCoy will walk away with the trophy tonight. Texas' offense was anemic for much of the year. And they failed to beat a top 20 team all season. So tell us why he deserves The Heisman?!?

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Here's our list:

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1. Toby Gerhart, RB, Stanford

2. Mark Ingram, RB, Alabama

3. C.J. Spiller, RB, Clemson

4. Ndamukong Suh, DT, Nebraska

5. Colt McCoy, QB, Texas

Christmas Present #15

The Gingerbread House

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True, it's kind of a pain at times to construct. And the clean-up is no fun. But it is tradition. Everyone needs to make one during the Christmas season. The Playmaker and The Playmaker's Sister made this one today.

Christmas Present #16

Best knife we own. Made by F-Dick. Cost $37 and is better than our Viking knives that cost three times as much. Go to fdick.com!

Christmas Present #17

There is no gift today. Instead we want to thank someone for providing gifts to us on a regular basis. That would be Tennessee football coach Lane Kiffin. He has been busted for no fewer than six recruiting violations in less than one year at Tennessee. The latest is a classic one. Kiffin had Tennessee Vol hostesses (read: HOT co-eds) attend high school games of Big Time recruits and hold signs that read "Come to Tennessee". One of the recruits, when asked about the hotties, said they were all "real pretty." Shocker!

It goes without saying that when we pick five people to dine with, Lane Kiffin makes the short list (with the hostesses, of course).

Christmas Present #18

SpitJack Fireplace Grill

This thing looks suh-weet! It fits right into your fire place. And it has a drip pan to prevent flareups. You can be a cowboy or a pit master right in your frigging living room. So what's the problem?!? Well, The Misses won't let us get it. Plus, the least expensive model is $160 -- not exactly cheap. Still...

Christmas Present #19

Back in the day, Mike Lupica gave us a huge plug for our underground college football and basketball newsletter. Fifteen years later, we now just wing it on the web and Lupica is a best selling children's author. His first effort, Travel Team, is his best. Copies of it are sprinkled around our classroom. His latest is Million-Dollar Throw. We have not yet read it. However, we did snag a copy from the school librarian before she even put it out for middle school consumption. We brought it home for The Playmaker's Sister. It was her first Lupica book and she polished it off in one weekend. She absolutely loved it.

Christmas Present #20

Merry Christmas by Johnny Mathis is, without a doubt, the greatest Christmas CD ever. Ever! Thirty-something years ago, we listened to it on our parents' 8 track tape player. Then they got the album. Now, we wait until we are decorating the Christmas Tree to play the CD. Then we play it every day until New Year's.

Snow on Christmas Tree Saturday

(Note the Diamond tunes...)

Christmas Present #21

Christmas Tree Saturday

Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day...The three best days of the year. But Christmas Tree Saturday is right there with them. It's the first Saturday in December. The day we go to get The Tree (as well as the wreathes). Red Camry and a green tree. Nice touch, no?!?

Christmas Present #22

Do yourself a favor. Go down to the local card shop (as if there are any still around) and get a Kyle Drabek rookie card. You can get one for about $10. A great investment for the 2012 Cy Young Winner. And an even better present for a Phillies fan.

Christmas Present #23

This is one we actually don't have. But it sounds damn cool. It's called Slingbox and has been around for about two years. It allows you to watch and control your home television from your laptop or iPhone no matter where you are in the world.

Have 200 plus HD cable stations on your TV at home?!?

Now you can watch them anywhere.

Think about the possibilities.

The bathroom. The garage. Your office. A restaurant.

Good gawd, it would allow us to be more anti-social than we already are.

We can picture ourselves glued to it during the first two days of March Madness when games come on at noon.

"Ah, kids, today you be will reading independently the ENTIRE class while I do some research in the back of the room on my laptop."

See what we mean?!?

The price tag is $179 for the base model and $299 for the HD one.

Christmas Present #24

Seems like a dumb gift, right?!? Giving someone a Legal Pad for Christmas?!? Yet, we can't tell you how many of these we go through during the course of a year. Every day we pull one out and use it for something. Grocery list. Shopping list. To do list. Planning out the week. Stuff to do at school. The Thanksgiving food schedule. Christmas shopping. Books we want to read. Recipes to try. We could go on forever. A thick, sturdy one will set you back about $4. But its collective worth is about 100 times that.

Magic Number = 2

Huge fantasy weekend. With the aid of Drew Brees (44 points), we overcame lackluster performances from our receivers (Crabtree, Larry Fitz and Sims-Walker combined for a pathetic 12 points) to win our game, 125-97. That win puts us at 8-4 and gives us a 1 game lead in the division with 2 games to play. Our ranking in the Power Poll is all the way up number 2 (out of 12).

Christmas Present #25

As we do every year, we will be posting a present to give/ask for every day between now and Christmas. Many are things you can actually go out and buy. Some are realistic in price. Alas, a few are financially unrealistic. (Last year an $8,000 Viking oven made the list.) This time of year truly is the best part of the calendar. People seem to be just a tad nicer. And if you have kids, how can you not relish the looks on their faces as they open presents in the early morning hours of December 25?!?

But we figured we would start this season off not with a gift that can be placed under the Christmas tree. Rather, we want to begin with something that all of us can give as well as receive. And it doesn't cost a penny.

It's called ... wait for it ... A Better Attitude.

And 99 percent of us can use one.

To bitch and moan is to be human. And we're not asking you stop bitching and moaning. Instead, we just ask that as a present to yourself, you bitch and moan less.

Think about it. A majority of us don't have much to truly bitch about. Feel tired and overworked?!? Tell that to someone who is terminally ill. Hate your boss?!? Tell that to someone on welfare. Think your house pales in comparison to others?!? We're guessing the father of a homeless family would love to call your house his own.

The Playmaker's Sister spent last Saturday night with her grandparents and aunt. When she came home from the sleepover, she did so with a new pair of UGGS -- complete with a price tag of $110. Unfortunately, she discovered a scuff mark on them. No worries, as her mom exchanged them the next day. This time, however, we discovered there was a small rip in one of the UGGS. The boots would be exchanged for flawless ones. But not until this coming weekend. Our daughter was devastated. She so wanted to wear the new kicks to school and was despondent that she would now have to wait a week. Later that same day, we took her to the grocery store to get some grub. In the front of the store was a Christmas tree that had angels on it that you could "adopt" for Christmas. The angels were local needy boys and girls. Adopting one means you give the gifts that are lifted on the angel card. We adopted a 15 year old girl and an 8 year old boy. (The girl wants a Target gift card. She will get one from us, plus a gift card to Aeropostale. The boy wants a gift card to GameStop. He will get that, plus one to the Gap.)

On the way home, we ripped into The Playmaker's Sister for being selfish and spoiled. We asked her if she thought anyone on that angel Christmas tree could afford UGGS. She, of course, knew the answer and where the conversation was headed. We told her just what we wrote above. That everyone complains -- even her father. But that none of us really has much to gripe about. It clearly resonated with her -- because within a minute or two she was back to her normal cheerful self. And the UGGS have not been brought up since.

So we share that story not to thump our chest as father of the year. Instead, it's a simple lesson that most of us really, truly have nothing to bitch about. Let's all shut our mouths and improve our attitudes. (And if possible, try to help someone or some people who truly need it.)

And in the process, we will be giving ourselves and those around us a wonderful gift. And we will enjoy the Christmas season more than ever.

Nice...

Tebow

Did you eat or drink too much?!? (Kind of a rhetorical question...)

This will help. Well, maybe it will help.

Thanksgiving Leftovers: Yesterday's Decorations

The Playmaker made the short turkey. The tall Indian was made by The Playmaker's Sister last year.

Thanksgiving Leftovers: Yesterday's Gravy

This was money. And we had nothing to do with it. The Wife whipped it up.

Thanksgiving Leftovers: Yesterday's Bird

Turkey, 8.0...The chef's seating card

Card made by The Playmaker's Sister -- including Shrinky Dink Eagles helmet and Daddy label!

Turkey, 7.0...High heat for 30 minutes

Yanked after 30 minutes @ 500 degrees...

Breast covered in foil and back in the oven @ 350 degrees...