Fantasy Football Time!

Went over to my man J. Heinz's place for my fantasy football draft this evening. Good times were had. Drinks were drunk, food was ate, poker was played, and 19 rounds of sweet, sweet fantasy football were drafted. I drew the third pick, in a ten team league, with the following positions:

1 QB, 2 RB, 3 WR, 1 TE, 1 K, 1 DEF, 1 DL, 1 DB, 7 BENCH

The first two picks were Tomlinson and Peyton. In odd numbered rounds I had pick #3, and in even numbered rounds I had pick #8, as the draft snaked. I made the following picks -

Rd Pos Pick
1 RB Shaun Alexander - Best non-QB on the board. Quite happy.
2 RB Kevin Jones - Excited about this pick. KJ is awesome and slipped too far.
3 RB Rudi Johnson - Couple of mediocre backs taken instead of Rudi, I benefited.
4 QB Matt Hasselback - Best QB on board after Peyton, Culpep, and McNabb.
5 WR Hines Ward - Waited a little long for this pick, but happy with him in Rd. 5.
6 TE Jason Witten - Several TEs had already gone, but Witten was #1 on my board.
7 WR Drew Bennett - The great white hope was the best remaining WR on my board.
8 QB Tom Brady - Maybe a little early here, but QBs are most valuable pos in this lg.
9 K David Akers - First big mistake, should have taken DB Ed Reed.
10 RB Cadillac Williams - With Reed gone, and top tier DEFs gone, went back to offense.
11 DB Ronde Barber - Best DB on my board after Reed. Little risky, getting old.
12 WR Rod Smith - Big steal here, he slipped way too far.
13 DEF Chicago Bears - Best good defense left, couldn't let DEF slip any further.
14 DL Keith Bullock - Best D player on my board, very happy with this pick.
15 DL Donnie Edwards - 2nd best D player on my board, similarly happy.
16 WR David Givens - DG. Good pick here in 16th round, could have big year.
17 DB Dunta Robinson - 2nd DB, was very good in rookie season last year.
18 WR Brandon Lloyd - SF #1 receiver, good value here because of that.
19 TE Ben Watson - Waiting for the breakout, lots of potential.

All in all, I am very happy with this draft. My position grades:

QB: A Hasselback, Brady
RB: A Alexander, Jones, Johnson, Williams
WR: B- Ward, Bennett, Smith, Givens, Lloyd
TE: A Witten, Watson
K: A Akers
DEF: B CHI
DL: A Bullock, Edwards
DB: B+ Barber, Robinson

I don't think I had the best WR draft from a talent standpoint, but I believe I got good value for the rounds in which I drafted them. At QB, RB, TE, K, and DL, I got at least 1 player in my top 3, which is astounding. Either I got lucky or I have a warped sense of value, because no one should get that many of their top players. I'm looking forward to this season a great deal, and think I have a great squad at the outset of the season.

Condiment Rankings, Part I

Condiments are a vastly underrated component of the food world in which we live. Today, let's look at store bought condiments. Tomorrow, we'll look at condiments that you get at various eating establishments.

#1) A1 Steak Sauce - I don't know how you could pick anything else.
#2) Kraft Light Parmesan Cheese - On top of Mt. Smoky...
#3) Ranch dressing - Always a great choice. Hard to screw up ranch dressing. Fat Free Hidden Valley Ranch with Bacon is especially good.
#4) Heinz ketchup - None of that Hunt's crap.
#5) Kraft Light Mayo - Hellman's had its day in the sun, but that time is over. In general though, don't buy mayo these days, trying to wean myself off my once disastrous mayo habits.
#6) Kraft Thick and Spicy Honey BBQ sauce - Mmm...honey bbq sauce.
#7) Tostitos Chili con Queso - Perfect with Tostitos Gold chips and NFL football (preferably Pats)
#8) Caesar salad dressing - Along with ranch dressing, these 2 dressings make salads palatable.
#9) Log Cabin Maple Syrup - Always look to find good local maple syrup, like in Vermont and Canada, but when you have to go grocery store, nothing beats Log Cabin. Move over Aunt Jemima!
#10) Tie - French's Honey Dijon Mustard and Sour Cream - Sour cream of any brand is good, as is honey or dijon mustard. French's has combined both, and there's not a lot better than that. Except the other 9 items on this list of course.

You may look at this list and say, hey what the hell happened to peanut butter and cream cheese? Well my faithful reader, those are good enough to actually be meals, so they don't fall under the condiment umbrella. The deciding factor is, would you eat a spoonful of it without anything else? For these eleven condiments, the answer is likely no (never say never). For peanut butter and cream cheese, I have eaten spoonfuls, and probably will again in the future, so they get bumped up to "meal" status. Tune in tomorrow (or whenever I get to it) for the fast-food list.

food

Have you ever had a left over oven-fried pork chops sandwich on wheat toast, with shredded cheese and fat free bacon ranch dressing? well, i did this afternoon, and it was delicious.

Been a while

Checking in, haven't posted in awhile. Just relaxing tonight, I haven't technically had a day off since the 7th, (I called in last Tuesday) and I don't have to work tomorrow. Not that I'm going to be really taking it off. I have some SRO work to do, for my newest account. Most of my attention recently has been focused on my upcoming event I am planning at the Rockies. My colleague and friend John John are planning the spectacular "First Annual College Night with the Colorado Rockies". It's going to be a great time. We have been all around the Denver area making visits at colleges, getting the word on the streets. Today I was up in fabolous Greeley, home of the Monforts, at Aims Community College. They had what was probably the nicest community college campus I have ever seen.

My fabulous sister-in-law Chandel Marie left us this past Saturday, having spent a month with us here in the D-Town. She was doing field work over at Children's Hospital, where she built invaluable experience as she strives to become a Child Life Specialist. She's doing great so far.

My sister Laila is also about to make a big step, she's got her bags packed for the Big Apple. She's wanted to move to the Dirty Rotten since she was 17, so I'm glad she's finally taking the plunge. It just seems like something she has to do. Hopefully she can keep her head above water, or I will make fun of her a lot. But I don't anticipate that. I think she'll do just fine for herself.

Me, it's another day another dollar, just filing Prospectus Notebook articles and hoping for the best for my wife and myself. Say a prayer for her, she takes the first leg of her CPA this weekend.

Weddings, Receptions, and Honeymoons, oh my!

On July 9, I went to the best wedding I've ever been to. Which is fortunate, because it was my own wedding. The day started harmlessly enough, as my sister took me to an overcrowded IHOP. We didn't wait long, being a party of two. I had my traditional Cheese Blintz with Strawberries and Sour Cream, with a bagel and cream cheese on the side. I don't remember what Laila had, but I remember she liked it a lot.

Following breakfast Laila had to scamper off to the hotel, and I was left alone with my parents and my friend Kevin, who was staying at my parent's house with me. We hung around for awhile figuring out what everyone in my wedding party was doing. My best man Nick, and my three cousins Dave, Danny, and Russ, all ended up coming over to the house to get dressed in our tuxes with Kevin and I (Kevin was also one of my groomsmen). Only my groomsman Andy, who didn't have a lot of sleep that week, had to meet us at the church.

Once we arrived at St. George's Orthodox Cathedral we had some time to kill. The only other person at the church was Fr. Michael, and he was as usual tending to some business in the church office, so we kept to ourselves. The cathedral has a wall with plaques that remember parishioners who have passed away. I used to see the same names on the wall each Sunday, but looking at it that day drove home the point of how infrequently I'm there now that I live in Denver. In any event, people started filing in, and since it wasn't appropriate for Nick and myself to stand in the front of the church and just hang out and wave to people, we went into the altar. I was in the altar no more than two minutes when I got the first of many annoying requests from the photographer to come outside and take some pictures.

Once back in the altar, I was able to properly greet the other clergy who would partake in our Wedding ceremony, Bishop Basil, Fr. Romanos, and Dcn. Seraphim. It was a pleasure to see them all, and catch up, however briefly.

Before I knew it everyone had arrived and it was time for the ceremony to begin. Nick and I actually emerged from the altar late, as two of the groomsmen and bridesmaids had already arrived on the altar. Oops! But I was there in plenty of time to see my beautiful bride walk down the aisle. She looked exquisite in her gown, and I was glad to wait so long to be surprised by it.

The only hiccup in the ceremony was when Summer had to sit down from the heat. She's so cute, I wanted to sit down with her, it was so hot in the church. The church has an extremely high ceiling, and the air conditioner definitely wasn't turned on in time to cool the church sufficiently. Nevertheless, the ceremony continued unabated. The Orthodox ceremony is not like the typical ceremony we are used to seeing from Hollywood, but it is much more meaningful, rooted in our beliefs of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The ceremony took about 45-50 minutes, and then Summer and I walked back down the aisle as husband and wife.

We decided not to do a receiving line, because they are extremely awkward and we were worried it was going to start raining as well. After we walked back down the aisle, we sat down in the limo to quickly catch our breath. Then we headed back onto the church lawn to take pictures. We took bridal party pictures, family pictures, just us pictures, so many pictures. I was very concerned that it would start raining and ruin Summer's beautiful dress though. Once we were finally done with pictures, we hopped into the limo and he drove us the fifteen or so miles to the Indian Meadows Country Club, where we had our wedding reception extraordinaire. Right after Summer and I stepped inside, the sky opened up and it poured for a half hour. We got in just in time.

Once inside, we joined our bridal party in a room set off from the reception, where we enjoyed some appetizers and cocktails. Kevin gave a really nice, but brief toast, as did my mother, and then it was time to be introduced to our adoring public. Everyone filed in, announced by the DJ, Summer and I going last. Nick had us stay out on the dance floor while he gave the Best Man toast to the entire audience, and he did a fantastic job. He fooled everyone in the crowd when he said, "And I'd like to thank the two people who brought us here, without whom this event wouldn't be possible....the BARTENDERS!" That was funny. We mingled with people before and after dinner, making our way to every table. It was great so see everyone. We had people come from all parts of the world: lots of local people obviously, but also Virginia, DC, Atlanta, Chicago, Denver, LA, Ireland, Australia, etc. Good times.

Overall, the reception went off without a hitch. The DJ didn't have a real great music selection, but it was good enough to keep our drunk asses on the dance floor. We also got a brief set of Arabic music from Richie and Eddie, which was classic, almost everyone danced to it. The photographers, while annoying, did a good job. The flowers were good, because I never noticed them and the women loved them, which is exactly how flowers should be. And the food was tremendous, our host Kenny went out of his way to get us some of the juiciest prime rib I've ever had, and we got tons of compliments on it.

Once the reception was over, Summer and I changed and my dad whisked us off to the Hotel Commonwealth, where we spent our wedding night. While most of the young people headed off to carouse some more at J.J. O'Rourke's, we were at the hotel that overlooked the place we first met, Floor 2X of Myles Standish at BU. While the stay was short-lived, we were only there about six hours, I highly recommend that hotel, excellent in every fashion, and close to Fenway.

When we got to the airport, I was stunned to see so many people in line so early in the morning. Good ole US Air. Fortunately, there was a separate line for flights to Aruba, which is where we were headed on our honeymoon. We got through security swiftly, and had some time to eat breakfast and wait for our flight. The flight was uneventful, sleeping and reading for me, and Summer actually dozed off a little, her drugs and fatigue combining to temporarily numb her fear of flying.

Once on the ground, we went through customs, which wasn't too bad, and found the bus that we got with our package deal, set up by my cousin Lorrie, who's a great travel agent. I wasn't ready to truly relax until we got into our room. We had a momentary scare on check-in when they told us there were no king-side beds available in our room size, and that we would need to pay $50 a night extra to upgrade. After I explained to the woman at the front desk that we were honeymooners, the room that we were supposed to have magically appeared. Funny how that works.

We did a whole lot of nothing that Sunday, just hanging around in our room and resting. To be sure, most of the week followed that same pattern, hanging around in our room, at the pool, or on the beach. I didn't end up getting much of a tan, but Summer did because she already had a base tan. We had an all-inclusive package, so we ate all of meals at the hotel minus one dinner. The only other food we ate consisted of some popcorn when we went to see War of the Worlds, and some Haagen Daaz after said movie. The dinner we had outside of the hotel was at the Amazonia Steakhouse, which was incredible, I highly recommend that to everyone visiting Aruba.

Other things we did in Aruba included taking the bus down to the local supermarket, then for some shopping as well. We went shopping twice, though mostly just to buy presents for family. We also took a nice, long walk on the beach walkway, spent some time in the hotel casino, and right before we left on Saturday we got facials at the hotel spa. Other than that, it was lounging , maxin' and relaxin', armed with some fruity drinks, a nice book, our wedding bands, and really big smiles. I wouldn't have had it any other way, and I definitely had the time of my life.

The trip back was not much fun at all, between our delayed flight from Aruba, running through the Philadelphia airport to catch a connecting flight, our temporarily lost luggage, and finally our delayed flight out of Denver to Boston, which forced us to rely on a $70 cab ride rather than my friend Johnny to take us back to Centennial, but I don't want to dwell on the negative. I got to spend a wonderful week with my family, a wonderful week with just my baby, and in between I had the best wedding any man could ever hope to have. Amen.

Peter "Don't call me wrong next" May

Peter May is up to his old tricks. There is no question that May has learned little from watching the C's last year, which given his insider status and job description, is astounding. One can only hope that as training camp rolls around May will change his tune, but it looks like he's about to be very wrong once again. Steve Bulpett, on the other hand, has got the right idea, highlighting the qualities of Green, Reed, and Delonte during Summer League play. Memo to Peter May: young players do develop, and the way to build a winner is to have them all do it at the same time. Just because it doesn't happen often in the lazy world of the NBA, doesn't mean it is not the right approach. Even if it doesn't work out, the C's will be able to garner significant demand for their plethora of young, talented players. At this point we should all know better than to start questioning Ainge's plan. I know that I'm not. Go C's!

Your Love is like a Shadow

I came back from my honeymoon (more on that later) to hear my friend Adam comparing Wedding Crashers to Old School. I wanted to see Wedding Crashers already, but this merely upped the ante. The result: Wedding Crashers does not in any way, shape, or form compare to Old School.

Don't get me wrong, Wedding Crashers is funny, but it can't hold a candle to Old School. The major difference is that Wedding Crashers features legitimately sad moments, something that Old School simply does not have. Was it funny when we see a despondent Owen Wilson reading the "Don't Jump" book? No. That's very much sad-making. Possibly the saddest moment in Old School, when they are all expelled, is hilarious, because Weensie details how his mother will kill him. When Blue dies, there's Will Ferrell singing, and Vince Vaughn telling Luke Wilson that "hey that's what old people do, they die".

Another black mark on Wedding Crashers is that the scene with and cameo by Will Ferrell was not even remotely essential to the plot. It was like they were sitting around at the last minute and said, "hey wait this isn't funny enough, maybe we should actually have a scene with Chaz, get Will Ferrell on the phone".

Wedding Crashers does have Christopher Walken, but Old School has a whole movie worth of Will Ferrell, plus Snoop Dogg, Sean William Scott, Craig Kilborn, Andy Dick, Elisha Cuthbert, more nudity, more explosions, and more KY wrestling. Not to mention Jeremy Piven, one of the more underrated actors of my generation.

Also, the plot of Old School is only going to lead to more frat-related shenanigans. Wedding Crashers could have some serious societal ramifications. How many assholes that think they're smooth are going to try to crash weddings and funerals trying to get laid now?

Another point against Wedding Crashers is that they utilized the deceptive trailer pitch. The trailer makes it seem like the whole thing is about crashing weddings, when it really only focuses on one wedding, and then becomes a love story, with a cheesy, very predictable ending. Old School employed no misleading advertising.

Wedding Crashers had no bloopers in the credits. What the &^*)_ ? Sorry, I need to see some Vince Vaughn out-takes. And a lot of the comedy was physical comedy, like when hothead kept decking Vaughn in the football game, or beating up Owen Wilson, or Vaughn decking him at the wedding. Little comedic value there in contrast to say, Will Ferrell kicking a stranger's shopping cart at the grocery store and yelling "I am BACK!".

Overall, there really is no comparison. Wedding Crashers comes off more as a Wedding Singer or a 50 First Dates. You know it's funny, but the jokes are a little less funny each time. It's kind of a guy's chick flick. Whereas Old School is right up there with Animal House, Spaceballs, Stripes, etc. as one of the funniest movies of all time, one that loses no comedic value each time it is viewed. Wedding Crashers just doesn't have lines like "Hey you think KFC is still open?" or "Maybe Bed, Bath, & Beyond. I don't know, I don't know if we'll have enough time".

Old School is a 10. Wedding Crashers is an 8. That's not to diss Wedding Crashers, as far as movies go, an 8 is damn good. It's just not a 10.