Taking pages from both Couture and Craig Barker, I give you my five word month-by-month recap of my 2003.

January - Newly Britainicized, return to snow.
February - BU wins yet another Beanpot.
March - War, not bacon, during Lent.
April - TRASHionals in Boston kicks ass.
May - Tummy trouble while closing Babson.
June - LA, Carolina, a new car.
July - Millionaire audition and wedding prep.
August - I turn 34, RAs return.
September - School opens, Sox cowboy up.
October - We do, kiss kiss, Ireland!
November - Knee stops bending, Millionaire taping.
December - Work sucks, but Happy Merry!

While I can't say that I'm surprised at any of the NFL head coach firings to date, I will say that I feel somewhat badly for Dick Jauron and Dave McGinnis. Not that either man is blameless for the lack of success that led to unemployment, but neither has sole culpability, either.

The problems with the Arizona Cardinals defy enumeration. There's also a history of poor play, which doesn't help matters. I don't know how much of their ongoing misery is due to McGinnis and how much comes from upstairs, but I do see a pattern with this team. They've not had a coach last five full seasons since Jim Hanifan, who was head coach from 1980 to 1985 - when the team was still in St. Louis.

It's not that they should just stick with coaches for the hell of it, but there's a pretty clear cycle of hiring and firing without any improvement in record. When that happens, it's time to look at what's been the constant during this run of futility - and that leads straight to the Bidwell family, owners and administrators of the team. A new stadium slated to open in 2006 is supposed to help with revenue, but it's not like they haven't opened their checkbooks before (hello Emmitt Smith and Dexter Jackson). Perhaps they'd have been better off keeping David Boston.

For Jauron, you'd have to think that trying to win with the likes of Jim Miller and Kordell Stewart would buy him some time. But when you only win 11 games in the two seasons following a 13-3 campaign, getting pink slipped isn't all that surprising. Oddly enough, the Bears will probably be pretty good thanks in part to Jauron playing a lot of younger guys. Grossman, Thomas, Booker, and Terrell combined have fewer years in the league than Chris Chandler.

I wouldn't feel so badly about this if it didn't mean more opportunities for teams to poach Romeo Crennel or Charlie Weis from the Pats.

As I set up housekeeping on my cell phone, I find that I'm not particularly pleased with the selection of ringtones. I can punch in my own (it's a pretty basic phone, so no polyphonic nonsense), but in what little web searching I've done it seems that everyone expects me to actually pay for ringtones. That ain't gonna happen.

So, if anyone can point me to a location where I could get free ringtones, or have ones that you'd be willing to share, by all means drop me a line.

Sarah is watching more of MTV's highly annoying Rich Girls, and from what I could tell from the six minutes I was exposed to it one of the twits was unable to make nachos, and in return got sent to a rich aunt and uncle's place in Seattle and was given a set of sapphire and diamond earrings. Maybe they should have given her a cook book instead?

Between this show, that Paris Hilton debacle, and Jessica Simpson's dumbfest, I really am starting to consider killing my TV. I don't think there's a jury in the country that would convict me.

I suppose I shouldn't complain, as I was allowed to watch the entire Pats game in relative peace (Sarah and her mom were out shopping for most of the first half, and even brought me lunch). That the game ended with a 31-0 score seems too perfect. It's omens like that that make me nervous.

While the day after Christmas isn't often a day for self-loathing (self-loathing having been used up during the previous week, either due to too much time in the mall or a mistletoe and eggnog-induced session of tonsil hockey with someone from the mailroom during an office holiday party), I do find that, on this Boxing Day, there's a small part of myself that hates me. Why?

I gave the green light for the wife to get me a cell phone for Christmas, and she went ahead and did it.

To some extent, my position on cell phones remains unchanged. They are a tool of evil, allowing rising self-importance levels and facilitating any number of roadway fatalities because a soccer mom piloting a Ford Excursion is discussing the latest offering from Starbucks with another soccer mom driving another Ford Excursion rather than doing something as passe as looking at the road.

There is also the secondary problem, that being one of over-availability. For that, at least, I have the comfort of the power button. I suppose if I only have the phone on when it seems most necessary, I can mitigate most of the dark power cell phones generate. But that strikes me as the same fallacy that one employs upon getting that first credit card that you swear is only going to be used for emergencies. The day comes where you're a little short of cash and you charge your textbooks. Next thing you know going to Cancun for spring break is a Defcon-1 emergency and you're maxed out.

Clearly, I have more thinking to do on this issue.

I'm writing from Maine, where my mother-in-law got a new computer for Christmas. Considering the old one was running Windows 95 and was probably running a 486 (at best; it may have even been a 386), things are going much quicker now.

Regarding the alternate holiday greeting, only Matt Boggie sent something along, and it was a good one. According to him, a co-worker developed the saying "Happy Merry," which manages to combine the usual adjectives and can be used in as sarcastic a fashion as needed (or even non-sarcastically, go figure).

So a Happy Merry to all!

Comments on a couple of stories I've seen in the last day or so.

1. You've all probably heard by now about the cow in Washington that had mad cow. While that concerns me, what concerns me more is that even after the cow tested positive, the "unaffected" bits of cow were allowed into processing. Most quotes I've read makes this practice seem perfectly normal. I can't say I share the sentiment. I may be over-reacting, but I'd like to think that when it comes to food safety a little over-reacting is OK.

I'm also of the understanding that a law that would have prevented meat from mad cows from going to processing was passed by the Senate but died in the House. I'm sure there are some holiday steaks going to honored representatives as we speak.

2. Ralph Nader isn't running for president, at least as a Green. This leaves the party with several options, the most notable of which is Peter Camejo, one of the 800 or so people who ran for governor in California during the recall. He finished fourth with three percent of the vote.

Related to this the Greens are trying to figure out if they should run a national campaign or a "safe state" race so as to not draw off votes from the Democractic candidate. I don't think that's going to be as much of a problem this time around, especially if Dean gets the nod. I think he'd appeal to the Green crowd a lot more than Al Gore. There's also some percentage of voters out there who were just sick and tired of the Clinton-Gore thing and voted Nader in, well, maybe not protest. Call it resignation, I suppose.

In any event, they should run a national campaign. If they're serious about being a viable third party option, what's the point in skipping states? Might as well continue to build a base.

I think I broke my blog. It seemed to get stuck on the publishing page, and now it's being problematic to load. Hopefully it'll clear up when I publish this.

Oh, something else that bugs me about the holiday season. Do you know anyone who, with just a pair of scissors and the right application of pressure and force, can cut wrapping paper so that it looks like it was cleaved with some sort of diamond-tipped instrument? Well, I'm not one of them. Seriously. Whenever I try to cut wrapping paper, it looks like a grade schooler went at things with safety scissors. I'm the person they were targeting when they invented gift bags. But I know the visceral thrill of tearing into paper on Christmas day, so still I wrap. But just Sarah's presents. She's done yeoman's work on the others.

I won't even get into the mystical art of wrapping, which I've not been able to master, either, though I'm hardly alone among my gender in that regard.

I've come to discover that one of the things I most dislike about the holiday season isn't specific to it, but is rather something I loathe year-round that gets exacerbated by the holidays.

Dawdlers.

Here's an example. This afternoon I was working my way from the Copley Place mall to the Prudential mall. The two are connected by a walkway above Huntington Avenue. The walkway is of medium (and usually plentiful) width, with the columns that support the walkway blocking off the middle every so often. This creates the usual left and right lanes, with some opportunities for passing in the middle.

Today I got blocked by a quartet of dawdlers who were strung out across 2/3 of the width of the walkway. Oncoming pedestrians made access to the middle impossible. I had to cut my stride way down (I tend to have an even longer stride in malls when I'm alone, as I tend to view shopping in such a fashion as something of a military exercise that must be completed post haste) and bide my time, growing more irritated with each passing second. Finally, I was able to break through a gap, hold up for a second behind another pair of dawdlers, and break clear.

Only to be held up at the doors into the Prudential mall by teen dawdlers. Blast! They were more easily circumvented, but still an added annoyance.

As it turns out, I made my way to the intended store, nosed around, picked something out, waited to pay for it, actually paid for it, put it in my backpack, and was leaving the store when the original foursome strolled by.

As you may have surmised, I'm not much of one for window shopping or people watching.

In other holiday news, the wife raised a good point today when she voiced a growing frustration with having to say "Happy Holidays" when talking to people of indeterminate holiday practice. Given that it's not always easy to ask what holiday is most appropriate, she's left with the most general blandishment, which gets old after the hundredth time saying it in a day (the perils of doing a lot of work over the phone).

So we tried to come up with something more appropriate, or at least more accurate. Sarah was good enough to fix my suggestion, "Felicitous Gift-Giving Occasion," improving it to "Joyous Gift-Giving Occasion." I have to admit that I liked using felicitous, given that it (a) sounds like something the Victorians ginned up, and (b) said correctly, there's a suggestion of mockery that can't be proven.

I'm trying to come up with something that better suggests the crass commerical aspect of the season, but am only making the thing longer. "Joyous Consumptionary Spending Period," for example, sounds like a holiday message penned by the Fed.

Anyway, suggestions along this line are more than welcome. I'll even post them on Christmas to give us all a little holiday cheer (assuming I can log on from Maine).

For a while, when I would sign up for things on-line or otherwise give personal information for something spamtastic, I would use an alias rather than my given name. I'd completely forgotten about it until this past weekend, when I started to get a slew of spam at my Hotmail account that used my alias. I wonder what list left in a dusty corner of some spammer saw the light of day?

In unrelated news, today was my first day off for the two weeks we're closed at Babson. Sarah doesn't get the early part of this week, so I got to do something I've not done in some time today: goof around in the apartment on my own. Now, it's not that I like to be rid of my spouse, but I don't get that much time to be on my own.

And, in true form, I used that time to little purpose, watching TV, reading, and playing Taipan, a game based on the novel of the same name where you try to make your pile trading various things (mostly opium, if you can afford it). I did do some laundry, and made a pretty decent chicken chili. I'm thinking I'll have to attempt a chowder next, probably corn. The dining hall here does an OK one, but you can't beat homemade.

Thanks to all who played along with the beards quiz a while back. Figure it's time to give the answers, though there was only one picture that seemed to give people trouble.

The answers:

a. Fidel Castro
b. Saddam Hussein
c. Johannes Brahms
d. Karl Marx

Many thanks to Scott Monty for suggesting Brahms.

There may be a bit of a controversy about the Marx picture. As Matt Boggie writes:

"C, I’m not sure of, and frankly, there’s no way anyone else but me would get D. I’m not quite sure how you got the photo, or how you might know him, but he’s obviously Mr. Clo, the retired band director from Gloversville High School, Gloversville, NY. He also played French horn in the Fulton/Montgomery County Concert Band. He once convinced a young trumpet student of his that he’d had a plastic lung installed in his stomach to allow him to sustain notes longer, which he inflated and deflated by raising and lowering the elbow of his right arm while playing."

I know things should be buzzing, what with Libya playing nicey-nice and Clay Aiken graduating from college, but I really don't have much to say on the major issues of the day (that being if you can accept that what the Yahoo news headlines are constitute the major issues of the day).

What is sticking in my craw a little bit is the issue of rental books at public libraries. I suppose it's a good way to raise money, but to me the idea of a public library is that I should have access to books without needing to pay for them (outside of whatever taxes I paid to get them on the shelves in the first place). And, really, do we need to create another barrier to getting people to read, even if it is relatively small?

Three football posts real quick while the Jets have the ball.

1. Congrats to the Fighting Blue Hens of Delaware on their 1-AA football title. As much as I'd have liked to see Colgate take the crown given their improbable run (considering the school does not give athletic scholarships), it's good to see an old Yankee Conference school take the title.

2. Congrats as well to the Johnnies of St. John's of Minnesota. They end a season that saw their coach, John Gagliardi, become the winningest coach in college football history by winning the division 3 title over Mount Union, who was riding a 55 game winning streak into the game. Maybe the no-contact practices and calling your coach by his first name will catch on elsewhere.

OK, maybe not.

3. If you've been watching the Pats-Jets game, you may have gotten to see Suzy Kolber interview Joe Namath on the sidelines. You know all that crap that William Shatner takes for talking like every word is its own sentence? Namath was actually doing that. He also said on no fewer than 3 occasions that he wanted to kiss Kolber. Thankfully, we didn't get to see if he succeeded.

When Joe Theisman said that Namath was a "happy guy," Paul Maguire concurred with a knowning "Oh yeah, he's happy." Surprisingly, no references to Christmas cheer.

I was chagrined to see that Mike Jarvis, aka "Baldy," has been let go as coach of the St. John's men's basketball team. But then I saw that the Red Storm had lost to Hofstra and Fairfield this season - both times at home. It didn't help that his recent rosters were festooned with reprobates. Well, OK, maybe not festooned, but he did have a couple of players who spent more time at municipal court than at the basketball court.

Anyway, the reason for the chagrin on my part is that Baldy was the coach at BU when I was first a student there, and he did a good job with a non-marquee program. Which is probably a good thing, as he might have to go back to that level.

If you're interested in baseball (and perhaps even if you're not), you've probably heard by now that the Manny for A-Rod deal is toast. Bud Selig used his tinhorn despot powers to put the kibosh on further negotiations, and the Sox management termed the talks "dead," which isn't encouraging.

So I've been trying to come up with alternate deals, and have come up with two off the cuff and not particularly well thought-out options:

1. Send Manny to the Orioles for prospects, use money to sign Vladi. I think Angleos is just crazy enough to buy into this, though we'd probably have to pay part of his salary. I'm also not sure what Vladi's target figure is, but he turned down $14 mil a year in Montreal.

2. Send Manny to the Devil Rays for their starting eight, keep Rocco Baldelli, and trade the rest as needed. I imagine this would also require trading off Johnny Damon, though I suppose they could platoon for a year.

In either case, we'd still have the Nomar question. Going back to an earlier post, this is taking on even greater shades of the Carlton Fisk debacle. I can see him moving on after a disgruntled '04 and us getting nothing for him. We'd then get to watch him spend another decade playing high-level baseball for someone else, wondering where it all went wrong.

And let's not even begin to consider Pedro and the other free agents at the end of '04.

Oh, I forgot a trailer.

The Butterfly Effect stars Ashton Kutcher as a guy who can manipulate time with his mind. I'll give you a sec to stop laughing at that image.

Said guy uses his power to try to bring back a girlfriend of his who'd died, but winds up screwing up someone else's life. So he goes back again, and you can see where this is going. Any resemblance to the sketch "Time and Punishment" from The Simpsons' "Treehouse of Horror V is probably incidental. At least it never rained doughnuts in the trailer.

Inasmuch as I was astounded by an Ashton Kutcher movie trailer that didn't immediately make me want to retch, I was more pleased with his appearance in a trailer for Cheaper By the Dozen that I saw while in the concessions line, wherein the family dog bites Kutcher's character in the genital area and refuses to let go. I know, it was a movie, but it made up at least partially for his year of over-exposure.

I am happy to report that The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King pays off much better than The Matrix Revolutions. Granted, it would have difficult for it not to. I was happy to see the hobbits get to kick some ass, but not so happy to see less of characters like Legolas and Gimli (though they made the most of their time on screen).

The logisitical geniuses who run the local theater had it playing at the same time in two theaters adjacent to each other. You can imagine what it was like getting in and getting out. I suppose it helps them in terms of concentrating the madness, but crowd control wasproblematic, and there was a great deal of congestion getting out. It was also the first time I've ever seen the cleaning crews clean up after a line of people waiting to get into the theater.

One person I went with also had the great fun of becoming line buddies with a very loud-talking guy who'd already seen the movie at a midnight showing and was planning to go back again on Friday. And, as line dynamics often indicate, we let our comrade take one for the team while we did what we could to avoid eye contact with loud-talking guy, lest we get drawn into it. The wingman isn't just for bars.

And, of course, there were many previews:

Spider-Man 2 had a pretty good trailer, nothing too out of the ordinary for the superhero/action genre. I'd either forgotten or not known that Alfred Molina is playing Dr. Octopus. I find that funny for some reason.

Walking Tall is a remake of the 1973 film starring Joe Don Baker as Buford T. Pusser, a Tennessee sheriff who's out to rid his town of corruption. Filling the role of Pusser is The Rock. I'm a little ashamed to say that I want to see this, but I like The Rock's action movie persona.

The Mask 2 - or Son of the Mask or Untitled Mask Project depending on where you get your titles - would be on the short list of Least Essential Sequel Ever. The trailer was bad - some dramatic intoning about Loki that turned into a baby doing some sort of acrobatic flip out of a walker to a standing, arms-outstretched "ta da!" sort of pose. I don't even think they mentioned a title, come to think of it, which bodes poorly. Oh, they've also apparently replaced Jim Carrey and Cameron Diaz with Jamie Kennedy and Traylor Howard (the girl in Two Guys, a Girl, and a Pizza Place).

All I can think is WHY?

The Chronicles of Riddick features Vin Diesel as the title character, who is apparently a central figure in some sort of sci-fi/fantasy clash that involves a character played by Dame Judi Dench. And if that isn't a sentence I never thought I would write, I don't know what is.

It's apparently a sequel to Pitch Black. Not having seen it, the odds of seeing the sequel are long. Very long.

I, Robot had a trailer that was done in the style of an advertisement, but said almost nothing about the movie. I suppose that's the point, but I never really care for trailers that do that sort of thing. I could go to the website, but I can't remember the URL, even though it was prominently placed in the trailer. Guess I'm not geeky enough.

Can I also note that there seemed to be twice as many ads before the movie as usual? While I assume it's because it was the opening night of one of the biggest movies of the year, I fear that it's a trend. The last thing we need is a half-hour of ads and trailers before the movie even starts.

Quick question for anyone out there who is/was watching Monday Night Football. When Lisa Guererro was interviewing Mark Duper on the sidelines, did she actually use the phrase "bitching and whining" in reference to current WRs and their desire for the ball? I was only paying half-attention, and the crowd noise presented further difficulties. Anyway, if anyone can confirm or deny, drop me a line.

Prompted by recent news, here's a little quiz for you all.

I wrote a bit of a weekend recap, but apparently the blog gods didn't want you to read it, as it was eaten during the publishing process (though, to be fair, I was also doing something else in another window and may have caused the problem myself). So rather than try to write it all again, I'll mention two things I did not mention at the time:

1. Commiserations to the Bruce, who in the span of the weekend saw his A's lose both their closer Keith Foulke to the Sox and their MVP shortstop Miguel Tejada to the Orioles, of all teams.

Having said that, keep an eye on the O's. They're also after Vladi Guerrero and Ivan Rodriguez. Not sure if they have the scratch to land them both, but even one of them would be a big boost.

2. I've now seen two (which may be both that have aired) episodes of the Celebrity Poker Showdown on Bravo. One features a table of Ben Affleck, Don Cheadle, Willie Garson, Emily Procter, and David Schwimmer; the other five cast members from The West Wing (Timothy Busfield, Alison Janney, Richard Schiff, Martin Sheen, and John Spencer). There's some fairly atrocious card playing, but some good as well. Kevin Pollak hosts, dressed like a generic Vegas hipster doofus doing an impression of Kevin Pollak. Poker pro Phil Gordon provides expert commentary.

If you've watched either the World Poker Tour or ESPN's coverage of the World Series of Poker, the Bravo show will be hard to get used to. It's a lot more chummy, you can hear the crowd a lot more, and there's much less lingo. But it's not particularly bad, just more like watching your weekly game, but with famous people.

The game featuring West Wing cast members is doubly incestuous, as the show is appearing on Bravo in reruns and Josh Malina, who plays Will Bailey on the show, is executive producing the poker series. This all puts the Sports Night episode "Shoe Money Tonight" into perspective; sadly, Felicity Huffman isn't playing in the tournament. But Scott Stapp from Creed is. The Lord goes all in!

My prediction of us being snow-free after yesterday proved a little premature. We did get rain, and there was significant melt, but there's still a lot of white. And now we're getting more snow on Sunday. At this point it'll be followed up by a mix on Monday, which should be lots of fun for the commute (even my commute, which is a 2 minute walk but all downhill; there's a good chance I'll slip and fall on my ass).

We had our divisional holiday party yesterday, which was festive. I was subcontracted out to write a sequel to last year's quiz, so I got to spend a good 15 minutes taunting co-workers who were looking for answers. I also managed to not get stiffed during the yankee swap, getting a Barnes and Noble gift card in return for an assortment of savory goodies presented in some sort of canoe looking thing. Today is the college holiday party, which will be moderately festive.

I'm not brimming with holiday spirit quite yet, and I think I had a little beaten out of me in the three seconds where I was exposed to Ebbie, the version of A Christmas Carol starring Susan Lucci in the Scrooge role. I also wound up passing on the Mr. Magoo version, as I wasn't in the mood for its musical interludes the night it was on.

After much foot-dragging, the recap of the Ireland trip is now available at left. It's OK; I hope the delay hasn't created expectations that the finished product won't meet. Though, really, was there much danger of that to begin with?

As some of you long-term readers may remember, today is my sister Cathy's birthday (for those of you who in the short- and medium-term, here's some background). She'd have been 36 today, which seems almost impossible given that I can't think of her as being anything but 20.

In any event, for today I'm asking readers to do one thing for me: if you have a sister, call her. If you have more than one, call all of them. Use the opportunity while you can, because it sucks when you want to make that call and can't.

I don't know how I feel about the possible Nomar trade. Inasmuch as A-Rod would provide greater scoring punch without giving up defense, Nomar is one of us. He's used to the crazy fans and cranky media. I'm getting a Carlton Fisk vibe, wherein a well-loved player gets sent packing for money reasons and spends the bulk of a hall of fame career elsewhere. We got lucky in that Fisk got jerked around even more by the ChiSox, greasing the skids for a return to Fenway (albeit as a retired player). I don't think we'll get the same thing with Nomar, if the war of words between John Henry and Nomar's agent, Arm Tellem, is anything to go by.

And while I'm loathe to back baseball owners, if the figures that have been bandied about are accurate, Tellem is stuck in 2000. The bubble has burst.

I also thought it was interesting that Al Gore endorsed Howard Dean, leaving former running mate Joe Leiberman out in the cold. I've not read much of this, but I wonder if Al's thinking back to his own campaign and how the more liberal Dems voted for Nader. The flip side, of course, is the possibility of losing more conservative Dems who don't want the guy who legalized gay marriage in the White House. This might be a case where the Democratic dads who voted for Reagan have Democratic sons who vote for Bush.

For those of you who remember The Station nightclub fire that happened in Rhode Island in February, you may be interested to learn that the owners of the club and Great White's tour manager were indicted today on 100 counts of involuntary manslaughter with criminal negligence and 100 counts of involuntary manslaughter in violation of a misdemeanor.

That's a lot of counts. Even if they only got 30 days per count, that'd be over 16 years of jail time.

Got back from a weekend in Chattanooga, Tennessee about an hour ago, and look at all the snow! Seriously, look at it; given the weather report for this week, it'll all be gone by Thursday at the latest.

I was in Chattanooga for TrashMasters, probably the top invitational trash tournament in the country (well, it and Michigan's Ann B. Davis are 1 and 1a). Quick recap: my team finished second after losing to the the team that won three times: once in prelims and twice in the playoffs. Had we beaten them at any one time, we'd have won the whole thing. Clearly, though, you lose three times to one team and it's meant to be.

Personally I started well, and was the tournament's leading scorer fairly deep into it (trading the spot on and off with Craig Barker, linked at left) until one of my teammates (Greg Sorenson, also linked at left) got back to his usual self and wrested the title away. Finished fourth overall, not bad, but I'd have preferred playing a little better in the playoffs and actually winning the thing.

Unrelated to the tournament, some observations:

* For all the weather hoopla, I had a mostly problem-free travel experience. We left Logan late on Friday morning due to poor visibility in Atlanta, but landed on time. We left Atlanta a little late today, and considering that Logan was closed until 1 pm that we left at all was surprising. We were a little late, but we had to wait for a plane to leave so we could take its gate.

* At the airport today I was subjected to Denver-Kansas City, even after it became a whitewash. I'd have appreciated a cut to the then-still close Pats game, which I heard most of the first half of on the drive to Atlanta.

* While Boston has the Big Dig, Chattanooga has the Little Dig, some sort of street improvement project that I suppose looks more daunting to navigate than it really is. I think we did have to make one detour, but nothing serious. At least not as serious as the parade that sent our dinner convoy on a bit of a roundabout way.

* Krystal, the southern knock-off of White Castle, is OK, but it is no White Castle.

* I also got to eat at Sonic, and had a combo I'd not recommend: the pancake on a stick (which has a sausage in the middle) and a watermelon Coke. The pancake on a stick actually wasn't that bad, but the watermelon Coke will remain a once in a lifetime experience.

* Finally, I rounded out a "places I've not eaten at" trifecta by lunching at Buffalo Wild Wings. Tasty.

* Going back to Friday, I spent a lot of time at the Atlanta airport waiting for various people, and got to learn that it has several shops, but no arcade. I suppose getting your money a quarter at a time is less efficient, but throw us a bone.

* We then decided that the airport probably had a lone '80s arcade game in a neglected corner of one of the more remote terminals. And it was probably this one.

* There was also a crazy man at the airport who missed his flight, had to rebook, and then decided not to get a hotel room because he'd already spent $150 on his new flight. He spent most of his time pushing around a Smart Carte with a couple of suit boxes on it talking to anyone who'd listen and asking people to read a screenplay he'd written. I imagine it involved a talking pie.

* While not part of the trip per se, anyone who can explain in a satisfactory manner how USC can be #1 in both polls and not playing Oklahoma or LSU should write me. The BCS people are talking about how we're getting two great bowl games out of this (Oklahoma-LSU and USC-Michigan), but I'd have to think Oklahoma-USC and LSU-Michigan would be pretty good, too.

* And while I don't know if it can happen, I'd like to see Delaware and Colgate make the 1-AA football final. Funny how they can decide the national title on the field.

* Anyone who saw the Al Sharpton episode of Saturday Night Live should write me with a review. The NBC affiliate we had showed a best of Steve Martin.

While I've been able to throw up the usual sort of pop culture nonsense that often populates my posts, it's actually been a pretty trying week.

Today, my aunt had a fairly serious operation. She's 78. "Fairly serious operation" and "78" is not a combination that instills confidence, especially as she'd been hospitalized not that long ago due to the problem that led to today's visit to the OR.

As it turns out, things went very well. We actually spent about an hour talking with her at the hospital. She was a little tired not surprisingly, but otherwise in good spirits. Of course, the Coen women seem to have a pretty sturdy constitution (I had two great aunts who lived well into their 80s, and my grandmother, while not a Coen by birth, lived to 92).

We're not completely out of the woods where my aunt is concerned - there are other health concerns that may prove equally problematic - but we're doing pretty well right now, which is nice.

The less enjoyable part of the week started Monday night, when it was discovered that one of our students took their own life at some point during the day. Sarah and I were actually heading off campus when police first started to respond, though at that point it wasn't clear that anything that serious was happening. It was when we returned and saw the collection of vehicles - including a couple of unmarked police cars and an ambulance that was eerily parked at a distance from the building in question - that we started to suspect something serious was afoot.

I've been lucky in my 12 years of RA/RD experience that I've never had to work on a suicide. I've known people who did, and I have to say that their experiences were pretty much borne out over the 72 hours following the first report. It was a less than optimal combination of the nightmarish, the surreal, and the depressing.

From a professional standpoint, it's clear to me now that you can have all of the crisis management and operating procedure you want, but it's still going to be a mess. This is especially true after hours, when you're trying to track down staff that's gone home or is out for dinner or what have you. I will say that I think we did a pretty good job of tracking people down and getting plans set into motion. I had the dubious honor of trying to console some residents who clearly needed someone with more of a counseling background. I think I did OK, but at the time it was painful. I honestly didn't feel like I was making a damn bit of difference.

As the night wore on I had a chance to do more informational stuff with our residents, which was better. I actually had information and could answer questions about what services were available and what the next day or so would bring on campus. I don't know that I told people much new information, but students did seem to appreciate the effort.

Things slowly got better as the week continued - there was a short remembrance service the next day, and a candlelight vigil last night that gave people a chance to talk and share memories and stories. The funeral was today, and a number of students were able to attend, which also helped.

I will say that one of the more unusual aspects of the entire thing was seeing the reaction of the student body. It really ran the gamut. There were a number of students who were deeply hurt - classmates, teammates, etc. - but there was also a not insignificant number of students who seemed to have little reaction. I suppose if you don't know the person the reaction isn't as strong, but there was in some cases even little reaction that it had happened at all. Everyone approaches this differently, so there may be more reaction later. Hard to say.

I'm pretty proud of the work our RA staff did this week, especially those folks who had a deeper reaction. I often wonder about the job they do, given that I don't get as much chance to see and talk to them as I would like (there being 22 of them, I don't always get a depth of interaction), but this week they definately stepped up.

Anyway, that's the sort of week it's been. It's getting better, and even the Yankees getting Javier Vasquez can't prevent that - for now. :P

Unbeknownst to many, New Hampshire is getting a minor league baseball team. As is often the case, the team held a contest to choose a name. One clearly stood out - the New Hampshire Primaries. It both reflects the state's historic role in presidential elections, it also had a cool logo.

So what happens when you let the people vote? The obvious choice comes in LAST.

The team will henceforth be known as the Granite State Fisher Cats. The fisher, for those of you who don't know, is a type of weasel (so in a way it appears they've still honored their political connection).

The other three names in contention were the Manchester Millers (which lost by less than 25 votes), the Granite State Mountain Men, and the New Hampshire Granite. I like the Millers (I wasn't aware that a lot of milling went on in Manchester, but I'm likely ignorant on the topic) and Granite (even though it's one of those non-plural nicknames), but Primaries was perfect. Maybe too perfect.

Just remember that this decision came from the state that we entrust with an early position in selecting our presidents (and as Chris Rosenberg pointed out, went for Pat Buchanan twice).

Reader Shawn De Veau notes that he was subjected to Bobb'e J. Thompson during NBC coverage of the Macy's Thanksgiving parade (shocking that NBC would use the parade to promote their shows!). His appearance included a number of athlete impersonations and thanking God for his success. Another reason I'm glad I don't really watch the parade.

In other TV news, we were (well, I was) channel surfing during 24's commercial breaks and found that Lingo has made some improvements to their set. This does not include the dim yet bubbly woman who is now apparently Chuck Woolery's co-host. She's basically Vanna White without the walking around and clapping. According to a press release I found on-line, her name is Stacey Hayes, and she is both co-host and on-air judge, telling Chuck when words aren't spelled right and so forth. She does have a fair bit of on-camera experience according to her bio at covergirlinternational.com, though I'm sure "eye candy" was high on the list of qualifications desired at hire for the co-host spot.

While I can verify that The Tracy Morgan Show isn't bad, I can't really say that it's good, either. For every funny moment there was another one that didn't quite work, and for every part of genuine acting there was a part where it felt like those late-in-the-show SNL skits where everyone's reading off cue cards (or are those the early skits now?).

In any event, the show is at least entertaining enough to ride out the season. The cast also has some semi-recognizable faces in Heavy D (appearing without his Boyz, playing an auto mechanic), Marc John Jefferies (former People PC spokeskid) as the older son, and Tamala Jones (whose been in a number of movies, including Head of State, The Brothers, and Booty Call) who plays Morgan's wife. (Oh, and let's not forget veteran actor John Witherspoon, who also plays a mechanic).

But the cast member you've probably heard most about is Bobb'e J. Thompson, who plays the younger son. Aiming to be this generation's Webster/Arnold Drummond, he at least doesn't have to play an orphan. As much as you may want to fight the idea of a savvy, smart-talking seven year old, you can't look away, either.

If nothing else, the show provides a half-hour respite from crap like The Simple Life, which I'm sure will do better in the ratings but will cause more neurological damage, too.

While the Frank Solich thing may not hit a nerve with folks, hopefully the issues surrounding Tommy Tuberville at Auburn will. In this case, the school's president and athletic director had a secret meeting with the head coach at Louisville about replacing Tuberville. Not only did the bulk of Auburn's trustees not know, but the Louisville president and AD weren't in the know, either.

Tuberville's had even less success at Auburn than Solich had at Nebraska, but it still doesn't excuse this cloak and dagger crap.

In related bowl news, TCU is passing on the GMAC Bowl due to exam dates (they prefer a couple of other CUSA-aligned bowls). Turns out the GMAC folks may look outside of CUSA for a team. Time to write them about UConn!