Christmas caroling: it’s a WAR!!!

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Well, okay, that title is not actually true at all. But a few minutes ago, inspiration struck on Twitter, as I tried to find a way to merge my “the SEC: it’s a WAR!!!” meme with the hashtag craze of the moment, #RejectedReindeerNames (a rather stupid craze, although I thought my “Wolf Blitzen” entry was fairly good). Anyway, after trying and failing to come up with a good SEC-related rejected reindeer name, I suddenly broke into song instead. Brandon Minich quickly joined in, and by the time we were done, we’d come up with this collaborative effort:

You know Big 12 and Big East and Big Ten and Pac-10
A-C-C, WAC, MAC and Sun Belt and Mountain
But do you recall…
The most warlike conference of all?

SEC the puffed up conference / Had a very big ego
And if you ever heard them / You’d be sure to say “no mo”
All of the other conferences / Used to laugh and call them names
They wouldn’t let poor Auburn / Play ‘SC in the title game

Then with fuzzy math one eve / The BCS came to say
Florida with your sun so bright / Play Ohio State tonight!
Four titles later, the love-fest / Lavished on the SEC:
“You’re such a warlike conference / You’ll go down in history!”

It’s not my best work, admittedly, but I like it. But alas, I’m afraid Kyle Kensing has Brandon & me both beat with his one-line suggestion: “Then one foggy Christmas Eve / Cecil came to say / If you pay my son just right / He’ll win you a title tonight!” LOL!

Fat guy FTW!

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For those who missed it (a group that includes me), here is the video of yesterday’s 71-yard kickoff return by 315-pound Patriots offensive lineman Dan Connolly, the longest kick return ever by an NFL offensive lineman and, according to the AP’s Ralph D. Russo, “without hesitation or qualifier…[the] greatest fat guy kick return in NFL history.”

Connolly didn’t quite manage to run it in for a touchdown — he was stopped inside the 5 — which is too bad. But the Patriots did punch it in three plays later, and won 31-27, so Connolly’s run was certainly a difference-maker in the game. Meanwhile, I suppose he left a little window for some other fat guy to come along and get a 70+ yard touchdown return. Hail to Thee, Fat Person!

Bah! Humbug!

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Deadspin’s list of 10 Things That Christmas Would Be Better Off Without (warning: profanity!) is very, very wrong — for instance, #1 is Jesus — but also very funny in parts. My favorite is number 3:

Christmas Cards That Do Not Include An Awkward Family Photo
The only reason to send me a Christmas card is so I can look at your family and pick apart each member’s looks one by one. Did you get fat? Why is your child wearing that john-john? Are you really that much of a snobby prick? Is that your living room? Looks like it was designed by a blind heterosexual. This is Christmas. It’s my season to JUDGE YOU. Don’t send me some Christmas card that has no picture in it. You may as well be sending me a FiOs direct mail piece. Into the fireplace with it. AND NO PICTURES OF JUST YOUR DOG. If there’s anything people care about less than your kids, it’s your stupid f***ing dog.

LOL! Also, number 6:

Gift Guides
Gawker proper has always railed against magazine gift guides featuring products you can’t possibly afford. And yet, they continue to thrive, even multiply. “Hey! Your Dad would love this $800 turntable that converts all his vinyl records to mp3s!” That’s true. You know what else Dad would love? A F***ING HELICOPTER. A f***ing $30 million Huey helicopter with f***ing double missiles on each side and a special cloaking device. And the Raiders! He would love the Oakland Raiders, and he’d also love a hovering sail barge, and this special Vuitton-designed Kindle carrying case that costs more than the original product! All perfectly realistic. F*** YOU AND DIE.

Heh. As for the “Dora the Explorer version of [‘A Christmas Carol’] with Swiper the Fox standing in for Scrooge,” I haven’t seen it yet, but I suspect it’s in my future. #PANIC!

Total eclipse of the Moon tonight

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There’s a total lunar eclipse tonight, visible in its entirety throughout the U.S. Here’s a complete timetable of eclipse events. Below are the key times, in Mountain Standard Time. (Add 2 hours for Eastern Time, add 1 for Central, or subtract 1 for Pacific.)

11:33 PM: Partial eclipse starts (first “bite” of the dark umbral shadow appears)
12:41 AM: Totality starts (Moon completely covered by Earth’s umbral shadow)
1:18 AM: Mid-totality
1:53 AM: Totality ends
3:01 AM: Partial eclipse ends

Much has been made of this being a “winter solstice eclipse,” but that’s only true in the sense that they occur on the same calendar day — not simultaneously. The solstice isn’t until 4:28 PM tomorrow, more than 13 hours after the eclipse ends.

P.S. Having said that… could a Winter Solstice / Eclipse Day also be the day when UConn’s 88-game winning streak finally ends? Hmm… yeah, probably not.

88

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UConn 81, Ohio State 50. Auriemma ties Wooden; the UConn women match the UCLA men. Eighty-eight straight wins. They go for record-breaking win #89 in a row Tuesday against Florida State — a team currently ranked #15, but sure to drop in the polls tomorrow after, perhaps looking ahead to UConn, they lost to 2-7 Yale yesterday — in Hartford. Game will be on ESPN2 at 5:00 PM Mountain Time.

6-way tie atop LRT Bowl Pick ’em Contest

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We have 39 contestants in the 6th annual Living Room Times Bowl Pick ’em Contest. You can view everyone’s picks here. I think you have to be a logged-in pool contestant to view those links, but anyone can see the current standings here.

Of course, everyone has 0 points for now — but not for long, with the New Mexico Bowl underway.

UPDATE: After the first day of bowls, there’s a 6-way tie for first place in the Pick ’em Contest: Zack Bloxham (@zbloxham), Ryan (@rpm002), Josh Rubin, Kelly Strutz, Randy Styles, Casey Zak are all 3-0.

There are no games tonight or tomorrow. Bowls resume on Tuesday with the Beef O’Brady Bowl. [Bumped. -ed.]

Incidentally… the most lopsided bowl, in terms of predictions, is the Fiesta Bowl, in which all 39 contestants unanimously picked Oklahoma over UConn. The next most lopsided is the Las Vegas Bowl, 39-1 in favor of Boise State over Utah, followed by the Holiday Bowl, where the picks went 37-2 in favor of Washington over Nebraska (only David K. and Loyette picked the Huskies).

The bowl with the most evenly split predictions? Yesterday’s Humanitarian Bowl between Fresno and Northern Illinois, which was 20-19 in favor of the Bulldogs (who lost), followed by the Rose Bowl, the Sugar Bowl, and the Pinstripe Bowl (21-18 in favor of Wisconsin, Ohio State, and Syracuse, respectively, over TCU, Arkansas and Kansas State).

CotW: Tron: Legacy Review

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It has been said that there are two kinds of people in this world: those that like Tron and those that love Tron.

(Before you ask, no I will never tire of repeating that joke. EVER.)

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of its sequel, Tron: Legacy, released today, some 18 years after the first chapter.

I took my seat with the expectation that I was about to watch a movie in love with its own spectacle. I was prepared to sacrifice plot coherence for moments of visual fireworks. So, imagine my surprise to find that T:L, as all the cool kids call it, was actually kind of an inert mass, severely lacking in impressive action set pieces.

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Shameless, unbelievable GOP cynicism reaches new heights of absurdity

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I’m pretty cynical and jaded, but this is truly f***ing outrageous:

This afternoon, as momentum began to build for repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) threatened that if Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) brings up a vote to repeal the ban, Republicans would not support ratification of the New START treaty. …

Other Republican Senators — including McCain and Graham — have privately hinted that they would oppose ratifying the treaty if the Senate voted on DADT, but Corker is the first lawmaker to publicly threaten to walk away from the measure.

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