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Well, the NFL season is firmly into its “if Team A wins three of their last four while Team B gets arrested in Mexico for indecent exposure, and as long Team C doesn’t cannibalize itself in a plane crash in the Andes, Team D has a slight chance of securing a Wild Card Spot” period, and it’s time to check in with my little NFL Picks contest.
Never before have I sucked more in making my picks each week.  I am an abysmal 85-107, which is 44.3%.  I could, theoretically, do better by flipping a coin.

Here are the current standings, with 4 regular season and all the playoff weeks/games still to come:

Graham the Conqueror is on top with the only 50%+ score:  99-93 (51.6%)
Next is the always near the top reverseflash with 92-100 (47.9%)
spragger2002 & Jim Simmonds are tied for third with 90-102 (46.9%)
RFTT1985 started out strong this season, but fell down the standings to 89-103 (46.3%)
Yours Truly, annekenstein, is at the bottom of the barrel, with a paltry 85-107 (44.3%)

And it’s not just a couple of bad weeks which have done me in.  Every week, I’ve sucked in my picks.  Except, I think, two weeks ago when I got something like 9-6.

My Dolphins have had a remarkably frustrating season, too, by the way.  A 1-6 start to the season doomed them to any realistic chance of making the playoffs.  They’re currently 5-7 and can only hope to play spoiler for others from here on out (even though they are not yet mathematically eliminated from playoff contention).

Here is a great gallery of some pics of kids with Santa.  Some of those Santa’s would make me cry too.

From DaveS comes this meme.  Sorry for using the word “meme”.  But it’s a good meme, I think.
 

Waking Up:
What My Woman Can’t Do (Can’t Be Done) – George Jones

First Day at School:
Squeeze Box – The Who

Fight Song:
Green Onions – Booker T. and the MG’s

Breaking Up:
Dancing Queen – Abba

Prom:
She’s Electric – Oasis

Life:
Snowin’ On Raton – Townes Van Zandt

Mental Breakdown:
I’m Looking Through You – The Wallflowers (cover of The Beatles)

Driving:
Beat Surrender – The Jam

Flashback:
Boarded Up – XTC

Getting Back Together:
My Heart Cries For You – Ray Charles

Wedding:
Sex Drugs and Rock & Roll – Ian Dury and the Blockheads

Birth of Child:
Pink Cashmere – Prince

Final Battle:
It’s Gonna Take An Airplane – The Destroyer

Death Scene:
Rise Above – Black Flag

Funeral Song:
Dark Side of the World – Marvin Gaye

Closing Credits:
Everything In Its Right Place – Radiohead

For the record, I skipped ahead once.  Once, instead of a song, I got a podcast, so I didn’t allow that to count.
Otherwise, a pretty cool soundtrack, if you ask me.  All over the place.  I am particularly happy with the Opening and Closing Credits choices.  Also happy to have Black Flag playing for my death scene.  Wonder where that’ll be, and what the circumstances will be?

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The men’s bathroom on the 3rd floor has got to be one of the busiest bathrooms in Charlottetown.  There is practically a constant rotation of bowel and bladder bothered men in there.  Often it’s a no-vacancy situation that forces me to go down one floor to the men’s bathroom that doesn’t seem to see half the action of the 3rd floor’s.

There are two stalls and one urinal.  One of the stalls is extra-wide for the wheelchair-enabled.  By choice, I don’t use that stall.  Even though I think I have as much right to use that stall as a handicapped person, I don’t. 
But today, I needed to pee, and while the second stall was free (urinal was in use), I decided on a whim to enjoy my piss in the vast openness of that extra-wide stall.  No sooner did I unzip my pants when I hear a click-click-click in the room.  I instinctively knew it was someone with a disability.  As I hadn’t yet started to vacate my bladder, I decided I’d vacate the stall and give it to the handicapped person.  Zip up and exit the stall, and I see the guy has already taken up residence at the urinal.  It’s a blind guy, and his white cane provided the click-click.
Since he’s already relieving himself at the urinal, I decide to go back to the extra-wide stall and relieve myself.  Decision made, and I do my business.
Even though I, like I said, feel I have as much right to use that stall as handicapped people, I obviously feel guilty for doing so. So, yeah, it’s odd, I think, to feel like I’m cheating by using it.  I felt a bit of guilt for almost being caught for using it.
I’m glad it didn’t turn into something with this guy, too.  Not that he would’ve turned it into anything, but I’ve had one other embarrassing (for me) experience with him.  We were both in the elevator, making our way to the third floor.  We had one of those inconsequential elevator conversations, and as the door opened, and we exited, I said to him, as a way to end the conversation “See you later”.  To a blind guy.  I’m sure he gets it all the time, but it caught me off guard, enough for me to try and stop myself in mid-sentence.  That made it worse.  Sort of like “See you… Later”.  Don’t think it phased him in the least, but I felt stupid for saying it.

This, from Good Housekeeping, 1955.  Here’s hoping my wife reads this.

• Have dinner ready. Plan ahead, even the night before, to have a delicious meal ready, on time for his return.  This is a way of letting him know that you have been thinking about him and are concerned about his needs.  Most men are hungry when they come home and the prospect of a good meal (especially his favourite dish) is part of the warm welcome needed.
• Prepare yourself. Take 15 minutes to rest so you’ll be refreshed when he arrives.  Touch up your make-up, put a ribbon in your hair and be fresh-looking.  He has just been with a lot of work-weary people.
• Be a little gay and a little more interesting for him.  His boring day may need a lift and one of your duties is to provide it.
• Clear away the clutter.  Make one last trip through the main part of the house just before your husband arrives.
• Gather up schoolbooks, toys, paper etc and then run a dustcloth over hte tables.
• Over the cooler months of the year you should prepare and light a fire for him to unwind by.  Your husband will feel he has reached a haven of rest and order, and it will give you a lift too.  After all, catering for his comfort will provide you with immense personal satisfaction.
• Prepare the children.  Take a few minutes to wash the children’s hands and faces (if they are small), comb their hair and, if necessary, change their clothes.  They are little treasures and he would like to see them playing the part.  Minimise all noise.  At the time of his arrival, eliminate all noise of the washer, dryer or vacuum.  Try to encourage the children to be quiet.
• Be happy with him.
• Greet him with a warm smile and show sincerity in your desire to please him.
• Listen to him.  You may have a dozen important things to tell him, but the moment of his arrival is not the time.  Let him talk first – remember, his topics of conversation are more important than yours.
• Make the evening his.  Never complain if he comes home late or goes out to dinner, or other places of entertainment without you.  Instead, try to understand his world of strain and pressure and his very real need to be at home and relax.
• Your goal: Try to make sure your home is a place of peace, order and tranquility where your husband can renew himself in body and spirit.
• Don’t greet him with complaints and problems.
• Don’t complain if he’s late home for dinner or even if he stays out all night. Count this as minor compared to what he might have gone through that day.
• Make him comfortable. Have him lean back in a comfortable chair or have him lie down in the bedroom.  Have a coll or warm drink ready for him.
• Arrange his pillow and offer to take off his shoes.  Speak in a low, soothing and pleasant voice.
• Don’t ask him questions about his actions or question his judgment or integrity. Remember, he is the master of the house and as such will always exercise his will with fairness and truthfulness.  You have no right to question him
• A good wife always knows her place.

You know, if women would just abide by these simple rules, the world would be such a better place.

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Or… Donald Rumsfallen and he can’t get up.

I didn’t even know he was sentenced to be sick.

http://www.youtube.com/v/z04msEnyhIg

I forget how it came around to this, but today at lunch I was telling DaveS about one of my favourite scenes from the movie Harvey. While Harvey is not one of my favourite movies (I find it a bit slow moving in parts, it does contain a few fantastic scenes, mostly from Jimmy Stewart.. He had commented that the scene I was telling him about would maybe make a good monologue to have at the ready, say, for an audition. That was a thought I had when I recently watched the movie again, after not seeing it for a long time.
Well, through the wonder of YouTube, I was able to find a re-enactment of that very scene. And while this clip doesn’t do the actual film scene any justice (Jimmy Stewart was a hundred-fold better than the actor in this clip), it does show the scene in its entirety. The re-enactment is performed by a YouTube regular, Brandon Hardesty, who has, among other videos, almost 20 re-enactments of movies, in which he plays all the roles. You should check some of them out.
Anyway, in this scene, Elwood P. Dowd (who is something of a town-drinker, and who claims to be friends with a pooka, named Harvey, who takes the form of an invisible 6 foot tall rabbit) is in an alley behind a bar, talking to a psychologist who is trying to figure out just how crazy Dowd is, to see if he should be institutionalized. The doctor asks Elwood how he came to know Harvey, and the scene is Elwood answering him. Again, while the re-enactment is somewhat entertaining in its own right, it nowhere does justice to Jimmy Stewart’s performance on screen. Some night when you’re in the mood for a good old comedy, and you’ve seen all the “great ones”, this is one definitely worth checking out.

I’ve been a fan of Steve Coogan, ever since I first saw took notice of him in 24 Hour Party People, and most recently in the odd (in a good way) Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story. I absolutely loved his segment with Alfred Molina in Jim Jarmusch‘s Coffee and Cigarettes.  (had enough with the links?)  He is universally heralded for his performance of the title character on “I’m Alan Partridge”, a TV show I’ve never seen, yet since it gets such glowing reviews, one I should probably search out.  I like his easy, natural acting style, and, although he’s primarily a comedic actor, looks like he’d be able to handle dramatic stuff without problem.
Anyway, this weekend, I read a brief review in Salon (I won’t link to it), about a new-ish series of his that’s airing (or has aired) on BBC-America.  The show is called Saxondale.  Me, being a child of the internet age, promptly downloaded the whole 7 episodes of Series One of the show (I don’t know if there’ll be a Series Two).
After watching the first three episodes, in a row, I can say that this show is definitely worth the effort to find it and watch it.  It is quite wonderful, in all kinds of subtle ways.  Coogan plays the title character (he also is co-writer on all the episodes), Tommy Saxondale, who is a somewhat burnt-out former-roadie for all the big bands in the 70’s and 80’s.  Now that he’s middle-aged, he makes a living as an independently subcontracted pest control guy.  He’s married to a rather BBW woman who makes her living creating and selling t-shirts (the “creativity” primarily consisting of putting pictures of famous uptight people on t-shirts, superimposing them with a joint in their mouth/hand whatever).  So, basically, he’s a middle-aged guy who has hundreds of stories of his wild youth, who is now a rather comfortable middle-aged man with anger-managment issues.
While the plots are sometimes thin, that’s not really an issue.  Because Coogan so totally inhabits this character (who is reminiscent of an older, British version of Dude Lebowski), that it’s simply a joy to watch him act.  He enjoys spouting his opinions everywhere/anywhere, and often finds himself going too far in his opinions, as he gets himself worked up into an angry froth.  While this may sound rather boring and too one-noted, it’s really not.

Check it out, and then agree with me.  If you’re looking for something to replace the weekly fix of downloading and watching Extras, now that Series Two of that is ended, take a look for Saxondale.  I think you’ll like it.

Technorati Tags: Saxondale, Steve Coogan

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