Here we are at the precipice of another “new year”. As far as the calendar goes, at least.

There’s nothing new about it. Just as every day past and every day hence we will drift pointlessly and without meaning around some old ball of burning gas until all our friends die and we can finally get some goddamned peace around here.

With all the NFL games in whatever books they have for them, I must say I was pleasantly surprised with a few outcomes. The cheating sex criminals were caught cheating yet again this year. They can play it like it was just an innocent mistake but someone above those jamokes taking video of the sideline had to give them instructions and it isn’t as if their cheating coach doesn’t know what the hell is going on with everything to do with that team. It was ham-fisted, second-rate rule breaking. Thankfully they lost to the Dolphins and ended up without the bye.

A long string of dopey idiots on TV or what have you who know nothing about the actual game of football will regurgitate the same line this week about the criminals proving “us” wrong so often and they’ll show up and beat everyone just like they used to. Not happening. Bet Titans this week. They have the better QB. And bonus for not being a weird, incestous man-kisser.

Unfortunately Oakland, a great and loyal fanbase, loses their team again after this year. What a joke the league is becoming (again) with all these relocations. This kind of crass money-grubbing maneuvre in addition to the painfully bad instant replay spectacle is going to turn me right off of this league and probably all others in pretty short order.

And hey, look! The Browns went straight from lovable losers to very hateable losers. Amazing what drafting a QB with a Napoleon complex and then surrounding him with an inexperienced head coach and the purest locker room cancer in the league can do for a team. To hell with that whole crowd of pricks.

Other than that bit of joy in the failure of people I find irritating I thought the year in the NFL was pretty damn good. Some great games, tight playoff races, and the continued resurgence of power running football. It always comes back. Lovely stuff. The Seahawks missed their NFC West title by a few inches but at least got in and get to (hopefully) run roughshod over a bunch of plumbers wearing Eagles uniforms this weekend.

Curling:

The league is 24 teams so based on the record they put teams in brackets of four based on their record during the year. We were placed in the A group for the playoffs this past Friday so we had a shot at the overall title and the $30 pro shop gift card (for the whole team, that is) that awaits the victors.

The first game we played a team of 50ish men and one 30-something who were good guys and fun to play against. We pulled off a snug 4-3 win, taking it on the last rock. That meant we were off to the A final, yippee!

Last week when we played the sand baggers and we started winning they got sour and stopped moving our rocks off after the end. They’d only touch their own. Usually everyone just clears the house regardless of whose rocks they’re moving. So since I was skip I decided to try some mind-game tactics from my football days that are generally not used in curling. Nothing overt, I just started planting my very large and some might say “brutish” frame directly behind the house when they were throwing. Totally legal since I stayed still and the skip is allowed to stand there but I wanted my hideous visage to be right in their line of sight as they threw. Maybe it worked, maybe we just started making shots but regardless we beat the brakes off them after that shift. And they deserved it.

I tried the same tactic Friday in the A final match. It was a long night and I may have been over lubricated (I didn’t want a full bladder so instead of beer drank two or three tall 50/50 whisky and cokes before the tournament) as I tried just yelling loud curling words while we were between shots. Yeaap! Hard! Etc. My usual sweeping partner, Theresa*, even chastised me for my boorish behaviour. These boys we played were soft, though. Short and weak, hipster types. One had those ear spacer things and another was wearing an oh so clever ugly Christmas sweater and sporting an ironic moustache. The type you’d see crowded around a microbrewery table in too-small v neck T-shirts and lady jeans debating the merits of plastic bag bans or carbon offsets for their trip to Portugal.

We won 5-0 in three ends. They didn’t even want to play the last end of a half game. So we had to push all the rocks back to the other side of the sheet. No matter. We are the Friday Night Novice League champions and no one could, or would want to, take that away from us. I probably didn’t need to be an ass about it, though.

*name changes for no reason except they do it in news articles sometimes.

Now as I wrap up this merry batch of wonder (can you tell I’m sick of this holiday time?) while gazing into the gaping maw of a whale shark known as the new year I think back at the way it was and could be. People used to strive for mere existence. To pull themselves out of misery and filth. Now we even have newspapers whose pages are used to put up tweets that apparently take the pulse of the nation. Despite the fact only 15% or so of people use this idiotic and narcissistic method of “communication”.

For example, this asisine Home Alone 2 Trump scene thing.

This is only news because stupid people want it to be. Not this exact thing only but the decline of western culture to the point that this is what gets interest. Our forebears has actual real matters to care about. Not whether someone has a human right to force others to wax their dick or if someone who writes children’s books about wizards is friends with a person with a basic knowledge of biology.

We are surely not here to spend every moment agonizing over every little trivial matter some other waterhead thinks is offensive. Tell off a stranger. Get those plastic bags at 4 cents a piece. Your actions don’t matter and neither do mine so get the hell out of my kitchen. 

Thankfully I’m off work the rest of the week. I think I need some more sleep. Happy New Year, dames and fellas!