Chan's "sick," so I'm not in Times Square, but on a couch at Gumby's house, as the year the drought ended comes to a close. His team, the Florida Gators, is on TV in the Chick-Fil-A Bowl, and conveniently he's too sick to go out. He had me all psyched up to go to Times Square, too. Would've been my first time since '97. Only this year it's like 50 degrees, when it should be 20. Terrible job, Chan. Oh well, I've definitely done the sit-around on New Year's Eve before. I'm more into the Twilight Zone marathon than the doing whatever adult-types do on New Year's Eve, with the hats and the champagne and the kissing strangers.

Now it's after midnight. Chan's laptop has been charging. It's 2005. We just watched that really freaky Twilight Zone episode "The Hitchhiker." Earlier we saw "Midnight Sun," another one of my favorites.

Earlier, we ate at the Mexican restaurant, and while I was eating my black bean burrito with no sour cream, I got to thinking about how I'm supposedly going to die one day, although that hasn't been proven. I was saying to Chan and Gumby how sometimes I feel like I just can't take my job any more. My job where I sit there all day, in a nice temperature controlled building, never having to challenge my muscles, or even my brain, really. Maybe I just feel like I'm wasting my life away. I said how I want to drive to Florida in March, sleep on the beach, watch some spring training games, and come back to where my problems will be waiting for me again. "What problems," they said. Exactly.

Then last night (which would be BEFORE the Mexican restaurant incident. I guess the story doesn't time, much live Nirvana's "Sliver": "I fell asleep and watched TV."), we were playing Scrabble, listening to music from Chan's computer, and I decided I wanted to hear that song from the Charlie Brown Christmas special. So I plunked a Susan B. Anthony on the table, and told Chan to download the tune, so I could hear it immediately. I thought first of how amazing technology is: I want to hear a song, I tell Chan which one, he hits a few buttons, and the song is magically playing. I feel like we should all have silver suits on. But then I thought, What the hell? People are dying, drowning, getting washed off the face of the earth, while others have no food to begin with and are sleeping in the street, a few minutes from where I sit in a comfy chair in a heated living room...and what am I spending my dollar on? A goddamn song that I don't need to hear. At all. I can hum it in my head.

I did think that maybe hearing the song might inspire you to do something to help people in some way; after all, music is medicine, but what's my excuse for buying that 80 cent package of Devil Dogs. Or that tenth Red Sox World Champs T-shirt? Couldn't I have one less T-shirt and give a little money to some homeless person?

What other pleasant thoughts do I have on this first day of the rest of Chan's life? Let's see....Chan's been playing this Nellie McKay person. She's pretty interesting. I feel like she's trying too hard with her lyrics sometimes, but I think I like her and her many different musical styles. She's no Joanna Newsom, though. She plays the harp (not harmonica) and has a weird voice. Why did I even compare the two? Because they both were born with female sex organs? Thanks, society, you've corrupted me. Sometimes I'll hear someone talking about a doctor, and without actually making a conscious decision, I'll get a picture of a man in my head. Then they'll specify that the doctor is a woman, and I get really mad at myself. But again, I blame society. Terrible job, society.

The Florida Gators lost. Their quarterback just refused to follow through when throwing. At one point, with only a glimmer of hope left, he tried to throw a ball out of bounds, and he couldn't even do that right. The ball floated up and then came down, on the edge of the end zone, where a defender reached out and caught the ball, barely keeping his feet in bounds. All the dude had to do was throw the ball into the stands. Instead he left it where it could get picked off. My dad used to do this on purpose when we'd play one on one football in the front yard. He'd just throw the ball away to avoid a sack, but would leave it hanging up enough so that I'd have a slight chance to run and catch it. Switching without even the aid of a new paragraph to Life Aquatic talk, it was cool how the very first line from the first Bowie song you hear in the film is "Look at all the cavemen go," because there's a band from around here called "The Cavemen Go," one of whose members is a big Sox fan. So...

I'm going to see Bill Murray get interviewed in NYC next weekend, thanks to my mom. (Xmas present.) How sweet is that? How often does Murray make a public appearance? I've got front row seats (thanks again, mom) and I was thinking about wearing a shirt that says "Don't hassle me, I'm local," like the one he wore in What About Bob? I think it'd be really funny, especially if everyone else is wearing, you know, normal people clothes.

I got some good answers on the last quiz. I liked the guy that said 420 doesn't belong, because he doesn't smoke the weed. Me neither, buddy, you get a point, but that's not what I was thinking of. Someone else mentioned the distances of the fences at Fenway, and picked 302, which is correct, but the reason was wrong. Keep thinking.

Speaking of weed, right after it hit midnight, they showed Snoop Dogg's message to Dick Clark.

Whoa! It's two in the morning, these guys are begging me to go home, and Chan just flipped to the Late Late Show, and who was on but Nellie McKay. She looks way different than she sounds. She just sang the line "I don't know how to shmooze." Awesome. Okay, she's almost as cool as Joanna Newsom because of that. Okay, I've gotta go. They got mad that I said I had to write about McKay just because we saw her on TV. But now I'm going home. Happy New Yizzle everybody. Be safe. Although by the time you read this, if you were unsafe, the damage is probably done. So I hope you were safe, how's that?

Which one doesn't belong and why...

302
380
420

When I first saw The Brady Bunch Movie (the 90s one), I saw the Greg character (Christopher Barnes, NOT the same Chris Barnes who played Tanner in The Bad News Bears) and said, There's that guy from the cheesy 80s sitcom Day By Day.

When Courtney Thorne-Smith got famous, I said, That's that girl from the cheesy 80s sitcom Day By Day.

When Seinfeld started, I looked at Elaine and said, There's that lady from Saturday Night Live...and, of course, the cheesy 80s sitcom Day By Day.

While watching the Seinfeld DVDs yesterday, one of the "notes about nothing" mentioned Julia-Louis Dreyfus' role on Day By Day, and said it co-starred Thora Birch. Thora Birch? Yes, me, Thora Birch. She was the six year old girl on the show.

How many more people are gonna come out of that cast? Am I going to find out that a young David Ortiz played the wacky Dominican neighbor?

Am I the only person who watched that show. It came on '88, was on Sunday nights, NBC. Around the same time as Eerie, Indiana, Mark & Brian, and Our House. And that one where the girl had two dads--My Two Dads, that's it. And Alf, and Valerie. That was a weird era. Even then I got the feeling that no one else was watching these shows.

WCBS radio reported all day today that the Randy Johnson trade is imminent and could even happen today. Somebody just tell me when it actually happens. How is this even news? There's no "almost" news. There's just news. And there is no news to report.

If they get the tall unattractive one, it'll be that much sweeter when they don't win. Just like I said a hundred times last year. And if they don't get him, we get to say "Poooor Georrrrge." And they still won't win.

This tsunami is pretty crazy, huh? We're at 9/11 times 25 in terms of death toll now, and with all the contaminated water that's supposed to double. Those poor people. They didn't even know it was coming. Bush, or someone from the US government, said that there was no way of warning them, but someone on Pacifica radio pointed out that had they just announced a warning on, say, CNN, thousands could have been saved.

The company I work for has a bunch of workers over in India. I feel bad that I didn't even think of them until I saw an email from them taped to our fridge. It said that they're a few miles from the water, so they're okay, but some of them lived even closer to it, and it's a total disaster where those people live. Water is scary.

Looking for another puff piece about the chicken man? You won't find it here, my friend.

Let's take a look at the only member of baseball's 3000 meaningless hit club.

Ask anyone who knew me in the eighties. I was decidedly anti-Boggs.

He was the first Red Sox player I grew to NOT like. I remember in early '83 standing on my dead end street with my dad and my friend Chris, talking about a rookie whose name, I thought, was Wayne Boggs. My dad insisted it was Wade, not Wayne. Terrible job by me. But come on, I was seven years old.

I was happy with that first season, with the .361 average and all. I had his poster (the white bordered, black upper/lower case lettered Sports Illustrated kind), and the book "Boggs!", but within a few years, I knew the truth: Rarely any hits that weren't singles, no defense, and NEVER a clutch hit. I'd rather have Greenwell up in a key spot any day. Benzinger, even. ZUPCIC, even.

If Jim Rice and Dwight Evans aren't in the Hall of Fame, Wade Boggs definitely shouldn't be in. Those guys played solid D every year, hit for power and average, and didn't crack under pressure. If a pre-teen could figure this one out back in the eighties, grown voters should be able to now.

I could relate to the superstitions, and I was a singles hitter myself in the eighties, but I wasn't down with the womanizing, the mustache (and later red beard), the repeated ground outs to the pitcher (my grandpa loved to point that out), or the way he'd arrogantly hold the bat where (he felt) it had stopped on a check swing to show the third base ump that he definitely didn't go around. And I guess it was fitting that the one Red Sox player I didn't like in my childhood went on to play for the yankees and ride around on a stupid cop horse.

I've never used the word "douchebag" on this blog before. But I've never talked in depth about "Bogus" before. So here goes.

Rice: Hall of Famer
Evans: Hall of Famer
Boggs: Douchebag

I compare Boggs getting 3000 hits to someone donating to a homeless shelter 3000 times, but 2950 times making the check out for zero dollars. Whoopdee freakin' doo. Even Jeter will probably end up with 3000 bloop hits. So what?

And for the record, I was at a game at yankee Stadium where Boggs didn't come out of the dugout until 7:18. He must've been skeezin' wit' a ho in the clubhouse and missed his special time. So I don't want to hear about "he always came out at 7:17."

Looks like this anti-yankee blog is here to stay: yankee Despiser.

Also, if you still don't have season tickets at Bullshit Memorial Stadium, you're missing out. I still don't know why more sites don't link to it.

I was promised a RemDawg DVD before Christmas for renewing my 10th Man Plan. Today, two days after Christmas, I received a Red Sox World Champs stocking, with a note saying the DVD isn't ready yet. Oh well, all is forgiven. You know why. Also, since Pat & I split the plan, maybe he could get the stocking in odd years and the DVD in even years or something. We'll figure it out.

On WCBS 880 AM, they have these little messages from soldiers overseas that they play every once in a while. I heard one from a soldier from Windsor Locks, CT, whose message was: "Happy holidays to my family and thank you Boston Red Sox!" This is extra sweet because WCBS is the home of the yankees. It is kind of weird that they actually recognize their Connecticut listeners and report on Red Sox news occasionally.

I may go to Times Square for New Year's Eve. I need to make a sign that will A. piss off yankee fans and B. tell which team is the World Champion. If anyone has any suggestions, let me know.

Also, the non-coat streak is over. When the temperature is one syllable, I have to protect myself.

Simpsons and AD were reruns tonight, but the Simpsons was the "blackened dessert dogs" episode.

I saw The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou again today. I think I've placed it at the top of my all time list. I just can't think of a movie that's better.

Here's an odd thing to pick to discuss about this movie. There's a character who says "F'ing," because she wants to stop the habit of swearing, since she's about to have a baby. I think this is hilarious. I think it's way funnier to avoid swearing. Swearing's kind of like the easy way out. It's like saying "I can't think of an adjective." Sometimes it can work, especially if you wait for your moment. I personally really only bring out the big guns when talking about something I can't stand. (Sift through this blog and you'll notice the F-bombs really only drop when I'm talking about the yankees.) Even that right there--"F-Bombs"--much funnier than saying "fuck's." Granted, abbreviating a word isn't much more creative than just using the word, but at least it can make for some variety and hopefully some comic results. My friend Brian will sometimes say "F that S." I think that S is hilarious! One time I saw this book that tried to show how abbreviating swears is a big wuss-out. The author though they were so F'n cool, acting like they were so hip to just say the word, instead of dancing around it. But now with Life Aquatic leading the way, I think the world is switching over to my side.

No I don't. I'm totally full of shit.

See? You throw it in when no one expects it to get the full effect. If I'd said "shit" ten times in this rant, that last one wouldn't have meant shit.

Now that one wasn't as effective, because I'd just used it.

Shit. This is going nowhere.

Not effective at all. Totally fucking overused now. Overuse is shitty.

Well, you see where I'm going. So, yeah, go see that movie.