NUFCED by wikkidpissah

FALALALLIES

My favorite joke of this Christmas season:

Define “falalalala”.
George W. Bush trying to pronounce Fallujah.

Now that the 800-lb gorilla of holidays has passed, I would like to join my LOCKERROOM colleagues by making another unChristmassy observation. I am not a Christian, do not have any family locally and am fairly non-materialistic, so my only important pleasure during the holiday season has been in people being just thiiis much more civil to each other in the last month of the year. My contribution to this gestalt usually rests in a small amount of charity work and a few Random Acts of Kindness (giving large, unexpected tips, telling a harried mother with a kid on her hip in the grocery line that her purchase is on me, taking a homeless person to the store for shoes or a coat). I became rather famous at my last workplace for making my sports & dare bets in the form of the loser having to perform an RAK, but have converted several customers & fellow employees to the art in the process. I still get a good feeling from stuff like this, but I’m noticing steep declines in the Civility Quotient around me each passing year.

With 90% of my gift-shopping done early with the need for mailing them out of state, I like to leave my final bit of shopping til the last minute, so better to enjoy the local decorations (ristras, farolitos & luminarias making the New Mexican Christmas brighter and less gaudy than most areas) and the late crush of hollyheads. With my cousin’s movie premiering Friday (“Geisha” not too bad for a chick flick), we took in the matinee, a late lunch and an hour of shopping. Well, the reviews are in and you are all SLIME!! Outside of the monotonous and monotonal intonation of politically-correct Yuletide wishes, I saw nothing but the same glazed self-involvement, inverse bullying & willful passive-aggression that I witness in public places the rest of the year. Now we’re not talking the rush to greed at WalMart the day after Thanksgiving – in fact the better-heeled the shopper the more of the heel they resembled. Worst by far are women of mothering age - not only do they feel no one to exist but them & theirs, no need to govern or disparage their precious broods for any behavior but, now, they have a new fetish – taking the path of an oncomer in order to drink in the pleasure of making men divert their course. Much like George Costanza feels we have a deal with the pigeons, I am verrry close to shitstomping the next soccer mom who feels she triumphs over the natural order of things by walking thru a large man with as much to do and more right to the path as she. People – I realize that commuting makes folks less likely to offer kindnesses that usually do little more than cause greater delays and that some lives are more dense with task & worry than others, but I’m about to start grabbing the blouse collars of Oprahites who take my good manners for granted, if they don’t start showing some respect.

A wise man once told me that the path to a good & happy life lay in observing three public & three private obligations – public: to be decent, responsible & kind; private: to love, reach & enjoy. As well as that axiom has served me, the careening selfishness of the world around me may cause me to add a list of three preventive measures to show the narcissist the cost of perfidy. Maybe your Random Act of Kindness can be to embrace the cause & pass the word. God bless us, every one.

On to the games of week 16...

MIA 24 TEN ten
2005 fantasy playoff flashback: Volek-to-Bennett TD...Haven’t given Chris Chambers props for his incredible 2nd half, so I’ll do it this way: since when do you have to be injured to qualify for the Comeback of the Year award? Everybody & their monkey is touting Steve Smith for the award but, much as I love Smitty, all he came back from is an injury similar to those which happen to dozens of players each year. Now, in the cases of Robert Edwards and Garrison Hearst, who came as close to losing a limb as to seeing the playing field again, I can see it. But shouldn’t “Comeback” go to someone who resurrects a career everyone had left for dead, like Rod Smith, or someone who had outlived their promise but then reached down to find that something extra, like Chambers, over one who merely returned from the rehab room like so many others?

KC 20 SD 7
This is the 2nd consecutive season that LT2 has half-played for like a month due to injury. Sometimes, being the main man entails knowing when you’re not the best option for your team and stepping aside...I haven’t seen such a brilliant, relentless & powerful run of games like LJ has had recently since Terrell Davis was healthy.

JAX 38 HOU 20
This game was a LOT closer than the score indicates. Houston almost kept pace with the Niners in ruining the Bush Bowl. JWells, who I really liked coming out of THE OSU but lost respect for during his “am I a fullback?” years, will be a very serviceable complement to Reggie should it fall that way. But what do they do with DD?...It took several weeks for Lefty to develop his connection with EWilford and now, after several weeks, it appears Garrard has found him as well. Those few with a week 17 Bowl might find Ernie a useful option.


PGH 41 CLE 0
Look out for the Steelers – they could be the team whose buttkickin' defense peaks at the right time & interrupts the Super Bowl path of a seemingly undeniable juggernaut, as often happens during the championship season...Ever played that game of “stop & start” with a hitchhiker or friend you wanted to goof with? That’s what the Steelers did on their path to the shutout. After a dominant 1st half that put it outta reach, they spent the entire last half playing cover 3 til poor Charlie would cross into Pgh territory, then bitchslapping him mercilessly. Final insult came when they got inside the 10-yd-line wirh 30 seconds left, but a sack robbed the Brownies of their final chance. Hilarious!

BUF 37 CIN 27
Amid all the tent-folding that goes on with failed or hard-luck franchises this time of year, there’s always a game or two where the “I don’t give a shit anymore” vibe turns into the wonderful upset of a contender and, lord help me, I love it!...Starting to have some questions about Coach Marv. His team is waaay too cocky for a squad that has accomplished as little as they have & he set the tone for this loss with a run of uninspired, almost disinterested playcalling. The Bills couldn’t stop Rudi early, yet Webster backed off from ramming him down their throats and, now, they have an extra game to play in January. Not, not , NOT smart.

DAL 24 CAR 20
Can always count on a “character” game from the Tuna when he needs one...Gotta hand it to Bledsoe – there have been a number of times this season where he could have reverted to his old “don’t care how bad I’m doing” ways, but hasn’t...Lame call on Smitty’s ejection. His “contact” was closer to a reacharound than a threat.

WASH 35 NYG 20
Schizo bunch, the DC eleven – start the season 3-0, then 2-6 for the middle part, now four wins in a row...How the hell could the Gints get drawn into a pass-first offense after the ungodly game Tikitikitiki had last week?!...Interesting to see what impact Joe Gibbs’ utter lack of confidence in PRamsey will have on their vital last contest.

SF 24 STL 20
Man – Niners are so bad they can’t even suck when it’s in their best interests to do so...If the Rams had told SJax to sit & given that Faulkin guy his last-home-game showcase, they woulda run away with this’n.

DET 13 NO 12
Nufced

AZ 27 PHIL 21
OK, OK – I should have guessed by the fact that he couldn’t beat Joey out of a job, that McMike was a terrible quarterback. Still would have liked to see them go all-shotgun when they made him starter...End of Ryan Moats’ 15 minutes? Since his long TD run last week, he’s rushed 20 times for 32 yds...Have there ever been sooo many excellent WRs being thrown to by soooo many bums, idiots & lameoids?! More on that later.

SEA 28 INDY 13
I usually don’t comment on the tragedies of people I don’t actually know – after all, 40,000 people die each day from the simple inability to sustain life & isn’t it hypocritical to suffer the one due to celebrity & ignore the many? – but my heart goes out to the Dungy family. Having worked in adolescent psych for a few years, I can tell you it’s immensely frustrating when you can’t get a young person to see that tomorrow is the cure for the worst thing that could possibly befall them...Do you realize that, if the Colts’ starters do a one-&-done next week as expected, by the time they face their 1st playoff foe it will have been 35 days since their 1st unit has played winning football? Hmmm...

DEN 22 OAK 3
Raiders suck so much that I couldn’t enjoy a victory in this, my favorite rivalry in football...Denver would open a can of whoopass on any NFC playoff team, yet I don’t think they’ll win a postseason game in their own conference this year.

CHI 24 GB 17
After all the weeks of comparing this awful season to Willie Mays’ final year with the Mets, I realize it’s not Say Hey to which Brett is most similar, it’s Muhammed Ali vs. Spinks, Holmes & Berbick. Favre is punchdrunk & I hope someone tells him so. If he quits now, we’ll blame ’05 on his team. If he plays next year, there will be more tarnish than shine on our memories of him.

BAL 30 MIN 23
The horrible thing about this end-of-year minirun is that it may have Billick thinking he has a QB for ’06. These two games were against the NFC Morris, coach – Kill Boller is still a bum. Woe to any who might think otherwise...I thought this was gonna be, in the wake of Belichick success with altitude-challenged wideouts, the Year of the Mini WR. Unfortunately, for every SSmith & SMoss there was a Mason, Evans and now this kid who could end up being the best Mark Clayton to ever play WR, who have such recondite slobs tossing the pig at them that their stars could do no more than flicker. Oh, well, flick it.

Though the staff of LOCKERROOM may have gone too far in the other direction, I am very proud of the fact that none of them fell back on “What I’d give blah-blah-blah for Christmas” as a columnistic device. Now, if we can just get thru this week without making resolutions on anyone’s behalf, we’ll be just fine. Play hard -