Buh, Buh, Buh... Another Year Bites the Dust

Happy New Year, everyone. I'm back from my hiatus (11 days off from work will do that to the best of bloggers). I spent the christmas half of my break at home in MA, and the New Year's half back in NY. I think I'll just throw some things out there as I think of them, ideally in chronological order.

- Sat. Dec 23rd: As an early christmas present, I wanted to take my uncle, Chris, to a Bruins game. He's a solid Red Sox/Bruins/NY Giants fan, but he and my aunt live in VT. (Yeah, I don't know how that last team fits in, but it must have something to do with Rutland not being very far from NY) As I found out later, he hadn't been to a Bruins game since the late '80's, Boston Garden style, so he was initially a bit shocked and then very pleased to be going. So I went to the game, against the Montreal Canadiens, with him and my dad. As a bonus, it was a fantastic game. About one million times better than the one I went to last year, a dreary, lifeless 4-1 loss to the Maple Leafs where there was really very little to enjoy besides the company of Ms. Courtney DeFrancesco. But I digress. The B's jumped out to an early 2-0 lead despite being completely outplayed for the entire first period, but Montreal eventually tied it by half way through the game. Then in the third period, Milan Jurcina got a power slap shot goal and Stanislav Chistov scored a very pretty deke the defender, nail the top right corner from the left side goal. After that, Montreal completely fell apart, and the Bruins went on to win 5-2. It was close, exciting, and the place was nearly packed and really into it (suprised on both accounts). I think Chris had a really good time, so I was overall very pleased about how it all went.

- Sun. Dec. 24th: Got out of going to church for the second year in a row. Phew. Also completed my xmas shopping on this day (though, in my defense, I was nearly done FIVE days before xmas, which for me is quite a feat).

- Mon. Dec. 25th: Santa visits.

- Tues. Dec. 26th: Saw my high school friend Ali for the first time in about a year, we went to Fire & Ice. If you don't have one of these near you, you're missing out. It's one of those dump lots of things in your bowl, pick a sauce, watch them cook it on the big circular grill. I generally rotate between BBQ chicken, chicken alfredo, and fish in the fruit sauce (might sound weird, but it's good). This time I made two trips for the bookends above.

- Fri. Dec. 29th: Spent all day in NYC for really the first time ever.

Sat. Dec. 30th: Slept almost 12 hours. Got up for three. Slept three and a half more. Classic vacation day.

Sun. Dec. 31th: New years eve! Kristin and I spent the evening with Adam & Lindsay and Mike & Jen and played games for the most part. Started with a game kind of like ... I can't remember the name of either game, so never mind. All I know is that I ruined the second game because I couldn't get anyone to say "Aretha Franklin" :) Then we moved onto the bowl game, the Vermont incarnation that we have now passed on to other friends. After Adam and Lindsay gave us the boot because Adam had to work in the morning, the remaining four of us stayed up until about 6:30 am playing Balderdash. I must comment on a horrid moment that occurred during the night, however. I'm not really into the new years TV stuff, but we flipped it at about 11:50 to catch the ball drop. Let me just say - I have no idea what Dick Clark was thinking. The man had a stroke and only slurs out his words now. Perhaps the idea is that he keeps on keepin' on or that it was supposed to be an uplifting story of perseverance or something, but we pretty much all agreed that it was actually just sad and depressing. Hang it up, Mr. Clark. You had a good run. But when it gets to the point that your countdown is about 4 seconds behind the real one, so you skip about 5 numbers and are still off by a second or two by the time midnight rolls around... you're done. I can't stress this enough. Embarrassing.

Mon. Jan. 1st: Kristin allegedly defeats me in Scrabble. I have no comment to the press.

Tues. Jan. 2nd: I win Tuesday Night Poker for the third week in a row. Eric says hey, I've been getting the cards, but you don't just win three weeks in a row, this time in a nine person game, by accident. He also made a comment earlier that night that he wished he could take me out. Oh yeah. I'm getting under his poker skin. He's jealous.

Football playoff picks coming soon!