2005: A Year in the Rearview

It’s that time of year, when every person with a column, blog, bully pulpit, etc. takes a stab at reflecting on the news of the year. As I considered doing the same, a part of me said, let’s buck that trend and not do a year-end recap. The other part of me chimed in, saying, it’s been eight days since I’ve blogged, and because of the near-constant gorging on turkey and mac-and-cheese, my brain is essentially mush.

Sore winners… for 33 years and counting

Well, yesterday the inevitable happened: the Indianapolis Colts lost a game. And the even-more-inevitable happened: members of the 1972 Miami Dolphins — the last team to go undefeated for an entire season — partied down. Well, as much as guys who played football before I was even born can party down.

Sweet Monkey Pie is spreading… kinda

I did a quick search for “Sweet Monkey Pie” in Google. We’re not the top page yet (and what the hell is that about?), but the top search result is this really odd online cartoon that’s, 1) about pie, and 2) uses the phrase “sweet monkey Tuesdays.”

It’s a stretch, but I think the SMP craze is on the precipice. Or, we’ll have to change this site to sweetmonkeytuesdays.com.

The genius of the movie "Boomerang"

Back in college, I saw the movie Boomerang, the 1992 film starring Eddie Murphy, Robin Givens and Halle Berry. Before long, it came out in VHS (remember that quaint invention, the VCR?), and after watching it a few dozen times, Nipsey and I began to quote the thing dang near non-stop. Hell, it was our Citizen Cane. Just with more sexual humor. And since Orson Welles was in Cane, that’s a good thing.

The most critically bad team ever

It’s basketball season, and a young man’s thoughts often turn to… well, the most god-awful, yet entertaining team ever seen at the University of North Carolina. Nope, not the 8-20 team that imploded in front of our eyes a couple of years ago. I’m talking about the rec-league basketball that I started as a freshman: Critically Caucasian.

Old jocks never die… they just annoy me on TV

Tonight, I’m watching UNC play St. Louis on ESPN2. The most troubling thing for a Tar Heels fan like myself isn’t the fact that the Billikens (whatever that mascot is) are giving UNC a good game. Like any televised sporting event, the bad part is the commentary — tonight provided by Terry Gannon and Len Elmore. Hmmm, grads from NC State and Maryland , respectively, calling a UNC game taking place in Chapel Hill. I’m just waiting for one of them to drop the f-bomb when describing the home team.

A Skeeter by any other name…

In an earlier post about Skeeter, I mentioned that he had more than one nickname. Well, the first came from his near-crippling addiction to NASCAR. The second? Because — and this shouldn’t be much of a surprise — he is quite possibly the whitest man in the world.

A little "Lost" at the office

Back in the summer of 2000, practically everyone in America started watching the first season of Survivor. My officemates were no different. One day out of every week was practically a lost cause as people went from cubicle to cubicle talking about the previous night’s events. “Did you see what Richard did?” “Can you believe they’re forming an alliance?” “What’s the deal with [insert contestant's name here]?”