Month: December 2007

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Browns 8, Bills 0

Well, that was disappointing, wasn’t it? I mean, I suspect that everybody already knew in their heart of hearts that the Bills weren’t ready for prime time yet, but still, it’s a bummer to see it laid out so plain. And this game was pretty useful, I think: it laid out in one afternoon all of the faults that the Bills need to address in the looming offseason if they want to get better in 2008 and finally end the playoff drought. I truly believe they can get there, if they do the right things. Yesterday’s game pretty much wrote the Bills’ faults on a piece of white paper and then took a pink highlighter and made them all stand out.

But it’s still worth noting that I said before the season that I’d be impressed if the Bills managed to equal last year’s 7-9 record with this much-younger team, after everyone looked at the players they sent packing last offseason and concluded that they’d be Teh Suck. My attitude was, “They were losing with those guys, and they can lose without ’em”. Well, I’ve seen enough this year to make me think that they might be not losing, but learning how to win. And just think: these young guys will be coming of age when the Colts and the Force For Evil From Foxboro are in physical decline.

Woo-hoo!

:: The Bills didn’t self-destruct, and they didn’t shoot themselves in the foot with disastrous mistakes, penalties, turnovers, and so on. Their failures yesterday were failures to capitalize and make things happen, not gaffes that allowed Cleveland to dominate.

Meh.

:: Trent Edwards. I’m cutting him slack because he’s a rookie, and yesterday’s weather at Cleveland was anomalous even for that city (and ours), but he’s got to learn to play in snow sometime. It took until the fourth quarter before it seemed like he figured out how to keep his passes from sailing on him.

D'oh!

:: The line of scrimmage, on both sides of the ball. The Bills were dominated. Offensively, pass protection was decent but run blocking was inconsistent. Meanwhile, the Browns were able to contain Marshawn Lynch and they were able to control the tempo of the entire game with their own rushing attack. On offense, the Bills don’t blow anyone off the line; on defense, the Bills to to get blown off the line. This has to be the top priority this offseason.

:: The Bills’ receivers. I’ve been buying into the company line that the Bills have a number one receiver (Lee Evans) and a bunch of number three’s, with no real number two. But frankly, after watching Evans fail to haul in passes that may not have been thrown on the numbers but were at least within range of his fingertips, and after watching yet another game where Evans’s contributions didn’t come until halfway through the third quarter (he had one catch in the first half, on a three-and-out drive), I’m wondering if what we have here is a number two receiver and a bunch of number three’s, with no number one. And they don’t have any real size at receiver, which is turning out to be a giant liability. There’s nobody the Bills have who can outleap a typical corner for the ball.

:: Tight ends. The Bills’ tight ends suck. There’s just no other way to say it: they’re a terrible bunch. And after dropping a perfectly-thrown pass on which he was wide open and on which he had nothing but open field ahead of him (he might well have scored had he caught the ball), Michael Gaines said this after the game (emphasis added): “I feel like I let my team down a little bit because if I would have caught it, I was one on one with the safety, and I like those odds.” A little bit? Ya think?! Look, when you muff a pass like that in a game that you lose 8-0, I personally think that your postgame interview should consist solely of you repeatedly banging your head against the door of your locker while you say “Stupid! Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!” over and over. Ye Gods.

:: The Miami Dolphins. Way to win yesterday, you jerks. Now you have nothing to play for next week, when you take on the New England Iagoes. Dummies.

:: On the topic of the Iagoes, what is up with this “revenge on the Jets” and the chip on their shoulders? By what right do these guys get to be angry about anything? They’re the ones who cheated! This reminds me of all those cop shows where the cop who turns in the dirty cop to Internal Affairs is ostracized more than the dirty cop himself.

Next up: The Giants come to Buffalo. Only two games left, and then it’s “Wait ’til next year”, and then I get my Sunday afternoons for movie watching.

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Books: I like ’em

Time for a rundown of some reading I’ve done lately:

:: Born Standing Up, by Steve Martin. If you come to this book expecting a “wild and crazy” book of comedy-in-print, you’ll walk away disappointed. If you come, instead, looking for Martin’s insights as to the early parts of his career when he toiled in obscurity before finally bursting onto the national scene, then you’ll find the book worthwhile. It’s a surprisingly unfunny and unflinching look from afar at Martin’s career. It’s not completely unfunny, mind you, but the prevailing tone is one of seriousness, and reading it, I get the impression that Martin’s own feeling is that, despite the things he’s accomplished, he’s missed as many opportunities as he’s taken advantage of.

The book starts off with Martin’s early life, and he doesn’t flinch as he reveals the emotional distance at the heart of his family relationships for much of his life. His father, it turns out, was largely emotionally abusive (and sometimes physically, as well), while his mother mostly looked the other way. Martin’s show-business career started not with comedy but with magic, and he only came to comedy gradually as opportunities arose and others fell by the wayside. It’s interesting, then, to read Martin’s analytical and theoretical approach to the craft of comedy, such as the theory he creates about an act that contains no punchlines, so that the audience will eventually start laughing out of a response to unresolved tension.

I’ve seen Martin in interviews in the years since his stand-up career ended, and he always seems reluctant to discuss those years in any great depth. It’s telling that the book’s discussions of Martin’s legendary appearances on the early years of Saturday Night Live are fairly brief, and he doesn’t mention what might be his most famous sketch, “King Tut”, at all. (It’s referenced in a single photograph of Martin, in his trademark white suit from the time with his Tut head-dress on, walking onto the stage at a stand-up show of his from the era. The photo is taken from behind.)

The book ends pretty much as Martin’s movie career begins, which I hope implies that a follow-up volume is in the offing, since I find Martin’s film work more interesting. Only The Jerk is much covered here at all, which is a shame because I’d like to know more about his better films, such as Roxanne, LA Story, All of Me, Bowfinger, and his dramatic turn in Grand Canyon. (Hell, I wouldn’t mind reading about his work on such “Huh-whuh?” projects as Sgt. Bilko and the recent Pink Panther remake, which I found funny but, well, definitely not good.)

:: I’ve noted a number of times that comics might be the ideal medium for Joss Whedon to maintain the Firefly universe; little did I know (because nobody told me!) that he’s already been doing so, with a graphic novel called Those Left Behind. The book is set before the movie, apparently, and while I enjoyed it, I was surprised that it basically feels like a standard episode of the TV series. In a comics series, the concerns over effects budgets and pacing for commercial breaks don’t exist, so I was surprised at the still relatively limited scope of this series.

It’s a typical kind of Firefly plot, where Captain Malcolm Reynolds and crew are struggling for money and looking for any kind of job they can get, eventually settling on a gig that’s probably more risk than reward, as many of their jobs end up being. In terms of story, Those Left Behind is nothing really spectacular, but the tone of the dialogue and the character interactions are spot on. Early on, there’s a moment when a villain has the upper hand on Mal and crew, but when he decides to rub Mal’s nose in it, Mal simply says, “This thing’s goin’ your way. Don’t make it go another.” And there’s this exchange after a job falls apart completely and Mal, Jayne and Zoe have to make their escape via the sewer:

JAYNE: Gonna take a while for the stink of this to pass.

ZOE: Just a sewer, Jayne.

JAYNE: Weren’t talking about the sewer.

MAL: Now ain’t the time, Jayne. Understood?

JAYNE: Well, you just be sure and say when.

I like that exchange. All through this book, you can hear the show’s actors saying these lines.

As I noted the other day, another Firefly comic is in the works. Since the next one will be a three-issue series, as was Those Left Behind, I’m concerned again about the scope of the story. Those Left Behind is simply too short. Maybe I’m overestimating the size of the market for Firefly comics, but I do wish that Whedon would be given some room to really tell a big whopper of a story…

:: …kind of like how he was allowed to do on The Astonishing X-Men. I’m not sure how long Whedon’s run on Astonishing lasted (or if it even ended), but what a run it was! Fun and exciting, with lots of terrific character moments as well as that typical Whedon “snap” in the dialog. A lot of the generic plot-devices of your typical X-Men story are on display here: the constant “anti-mutant hysteria”, the rivalry between Logan and Scott Summers, the fact that the X-Men can save New York City in full public view of just about everybody and still get absolutely no credit for it, and so on. This was the first X-Men story I’ve read in quite some time, so I was unaware of some of the more recent developments in the X-verse, such as Emma Frost joining the X-Men (other developments I’ll not mention, since they could be spoilers), but for the most part, it was very easy to get back into the swing of it all.

(And whoever’s fault it is that Whedon’s not on the Wonder Woman movie anymore can bite me.)

:: Saving the best for last in this post, Alex Ross‘s The Rest is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century is a remarkable book. It’s a history of the classical music of the twentieth century, a century that saw classical music fall from grace in the eyes of many as other forms of music took hold of popular imagination. Ross’s gift is his ability to show the continued relevance of classical music, and to demonstrate that it has, in many ways, remained vibrant all along, even as it moved into territories that most listeners were unwilling to go.

Ross takes a wise approach of avoiding a rigidly chronological approach to his subject, instead focusing each chapter on a specific subject: sometimes a single composer (Sibelius and Britten), sometimes a group of composers (American composers from Ives to Ellington), sometimes the musical life of a particular nation. The overall organization of the book is chronological, but the chapter-by-chapter focus is maintained in such a way as to keep the book from becoming a slogging parade of names and dates and musical works and musical terms. In this, Ross’s approach reflects that of the great history writer Barbara Tuchman.

A book on this topic cannot succeed, however, unless its author is good at writing not just about personalities and historical trends but about the music. Here, Ross’s gifts, long on display at The New Yorker as a classical music critic, shine especially brightly. He has that unusual ability to write about a musical work in such a way as to make you feel like you’re actually hearing it (although I did find myself often wishing for a companion CD, only to learn of this page of audio samples after I finished the book).

The Rest is Noise is one of the best books on classical music I’ve read. Strongly recommended.

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Merriment, or else!

I snagged this from SamuraiFrog, because if there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s snagging quizzes for the blog. Except for the dirty quizzes. Because those are, well, dirty. Ick!

Favorite traditional Christmas song: I love Christmas songs, the old ones, that is. “Angels We Have Heard On High” is a favorite, and it’s also The Daughter’s favorite. (In fact, at her very first Christmas church service, when she was all of six months old, when that one got to the melismatic “Gloria” part, she noted everyone around her singing and joined right in.) “Hark I Hear the Angels Sing” is great. Each year, the service we attend at our current church ends with “Silent Night”, sung by the congregation in candlelight, with no organ accompaniment; it’s moments like those that put me in touch with The Mystery.

And why stop at vocal music? In my college years, the orchestra’s Christmas program always included Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite and Anderson’s Sleigh Ride, both of which are dear favorites of mine. And there’s the genius of Vince Guaraldi’s music for A Charlie Brown Christmas.

Favorite contemporary or modern Christmas song: I’ll define this fairly loosely, with “Modern” meaning, “written since 1900” or thereabouts. That said, I adore “The Little Drummer Boy”. I just love that song to pieces. And yes, the definitive version for me is that wonderfully corny Bing Crosby-David Bowie duet. That thing makes my heart melt. I do like “White Christmas”, although it’s kind of ubiquitous this year. “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” is a bittersweet gem of a song, but the original version, the one sung by Judy Garland, not the one with the lyrics altered for Frank Sinatra. (Although that one is Sinatra, which is always fine as that goes.) “Do You Hear What I Hear” is always lovely. Bing Crosby was a great singer of Christmas music, I’ve found. And call me crazy, but I love “Feliz Navidad”.

Least favorite Christmas song: I’ve added this question to the original, because you can’t love all the Christmas songs that are out there, can you? So, that said: I hate “Carol of the Bells”. I just hate it. I’ve never heard a rendition of it that I liked. With respect to SamuraiFrog, I can’t abide that Chipmunks song, either. Or “All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth”. Or “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus”, because all I can think of is, what if the kid had come into the bedroom fifteen minutes later.

Christmas song that makes you cry: Any of them, if I’m in the right mood.

Real or artificial tree: It used to be real, but we received an artificial tree as a gift a few years back, and since then, that’s what we do. We get the pine smell by burning pine candles and incense.

Favorite Christmas edible treat: Decorated sugar cookies. Caramel corn. Chocolate. English toffee. Peppermint ice cream. Christmas is a time of wonderful food.

White lights or multi-colored: White, although I like multicolored too. And you have to have lots of lights. Nothing’s worse than a tree with not enough lights. On a lighting-related tangent, one of our family traditions (inherited from The Wife’s family) is that after our Christmas Eve service, we drive around looking at the lights on all the houses for a while before going home to presents and family together-time. Also, there’s a church in Ellicottville, NY that has in its yard a white marble statue of the Virgin Mary. It’s a very simple statue, not gaudy or ostentatious in the way that many such things are. They don’t do it anymore, to my knowledge, but they used to light that statue up during Advent with a pair of blue floodlights. It was among the most gorgeous things I have ever seen.

How many Christmas parties will you go to this year: One, it seems, at The Wife’s workplace. I like Christmas parties and wish I got to attend more of them.

Favorite act of kindness to perform during this season: The best ones are the small ones, I think.

Favorite sounds of Christmas: Music. Pots and pans in the kitchen. The tearing of wrapping paper, followed later by the sudden snappings and rustlings as the cats attack the torn sheets that litter the floor. The Daughter’s squeal of “This is it!” when she opens the gift she really wants. And silence.

Favorite things to wear: I made a red and green sweatshirt last time I did tie-dying; I like to wear that a lot in Christmastime, along with various combinations of red and green. (Under the overalls, of course.)

Favorite Christmas movie/TV special: Of course, A Charlie Brown Christmas; Linus’s recitation of Luke chapter 2 may be the single best animation voicing ever. I also like Rudolph, although not as much as Charlie Brown. (I have to admit that I’m not a fan of the Grinch.) I actually liked The Polar Express, and I didn’t hate the motion-capture animation, either. Love, Actually takes place at Christmastime, although I’m not sure I’d consider it a “Christmas movie”. Ditto Lethal Weapon and On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. I recall Christmas viewings of Holiday Inn, with certain family members of mine, after several beers, waxing indignant over the inherent insanity of casting Bing Crosby as a romantic lead.

I honestly don’t like It’s a Wonderful Life, and in an embarrassing admission, I’ve never seen A Christmas Story.

Favorite Christmas episode of a TV Series. I’m adding this question, too. The Christmas episode of My So-Called Life is amazing, as is the one from the first season of Once and Again. There’s the Seinfeld episode where Kramer becomes a department store Santa and starts telling kids Communist propaganda. And yes, the Brady Bunch episode where Cindy asks Santa to give Mommy her voice back so she can sing in the Christmas church service. The brilliant Millennium‘s second season episode “Midnight of the Century” is amazing. The first season of The Wonder Years, where Kevin searched for the perfect gift for Winnie Cooper, was terrific. And while Friends had a lot of fine Christmas-related episodes, the one where Ross dresses up as “the Holiday Armadillo” in an attempt to get his Christmas-focused son interested in Hannukah is still one of the funniest TV episodes I know.

Eggnog or hot chocolate: Hot chocolate. I do like eggnog, but nobody else in the family does, so I rarely have it. Of course, hot chocolate mixed with coffee or a shot of espresso is best.

Favorite Christmas book: Huh. I genuinely can’t think of one, other than Christopher Moore’s The Stupidest Angel.

Christmas books on my “to read” list: None that I know of, although I suppose I should re-read A Christmas Carol one of these years. I haven’t read it since eighth grade.

Peppermint or cinnamon: Both. Two of my absolute favorite flavors.

What’s on the top of your tree: An angel with lights.

Traditional Christmas meal growing up: A turkey dinner, virtually identical to our Thanksgiving meal. These days we seem to have ham a lot, because I’m always in the mood for it. (Except for a few years back when The Wife got sick at Christmas and wasn’t in condition to cook, so I whipped together a pastitsio and we had our “big meal” a few days later when she was better.)

Online shopping or traditional “go to the store” shopping: Both. For things I know I’m not going to be able to get in a store around here, I go online. But I love to shop in real stores. Christmas shopping at Vidler’s should be legally required of every Erie County resident.

Something you received as a Christmas gift as a child that you still have: A nesting doll in the shape of a sailor, with his wife and kid inside. I got that in first grade.

How many Christmas cards you have mailed so far: None. I am so bad at getting cards out to the people who don’t read this blog. Ugh. There’s one dear old friend of mine – two, actually, they’re married to one another, I played trumpet at their wedding – who always send us a card, but whom I never send anything. Wow, I’m a horrible person. I think I’ll send her the link to this blog right now. Be right back….

Favorite source for Christmas ideas: You mean, how do I decide what to get people? I just kind of wander about until I think of something and a person to go with it – “Hey, ____ might like that!” That sort of thing.

Coordinated/themed or hodge-podge tree decorations: Hodge-podge. I find themed Christmas trees a bit disturbing.

What’s on the top of YOUR Christmas wishlist: I don’t really have a Christmas list this year. I just want some happiness for my family.

Roles you’ve played in Christmas plays/programs: I was never in a Christmas play or program as such. My college had a yearly Christmas musical program that involved each of the three major musical ensembles, so I sat in the trumpet section thereof.

Wrapping paper or gift bags: It depends; I tend to do both to a small degree. I also like to hide presents inside other presents: boxes within boxes, something tiny inside a nifty leather pouch, that sort of thing. (And when giving one’s wife a new pair of overalls, the bib pocket is an ideal place to hide jewelry!)

When do you put up the tree: When we get around to it, really. We’d love to have it up earlier, but we usually have to wait until work schedules align so that we’re all home some night. Our tree still isn’t up for this year, sadly enough. The earliest I think we ever put it up was two years ago; we had it up a week or so after Little Quinn’s death, just a few days into December.

When do you take the tree down: When we feel like it. Maybe we tend to put it up late so we compensate by taking it down late (we’ve been known to have it up as late as the first week of February). I don’t really understand the impulse some folks have to rip it down within a day of Christmas ending. A Christmas tree is a beautiful thing; why remove something beautiful that quickly? I may not be wild about stores having Christmas merchandise for sale in October, but I have no problem with Christmas lights being up that early.

Do you have a nativity scene: Yes. It’s a pretty standard affair. We also have a number of Christmas ornaments that depict the Nativity.

Hardest person to buy for: Nobody. Gift-giving became a lot easier with the advent of gift cards and my shift in gift-giving philosophy to giving stuff that reflects my tastes rather than the receiver’s. I like to give copies of books and music that I love, for instance.

Easiest person to buy for: The Daughter, unless she’s asking for something freakishly expensive. (She still believes in Santa, so shhhhh!)

Worst Christmas gift you ever received: Maybe I’ve just been lucky, but I don’t recall receiving any gifts that I hated or were sheer crap. I don’t remember it, thankfully, because I was only two at the time, but apparently I received a pair of Ernie slippers from my sister and I would have nothing to do with them. So began a lifetime of sibling hostility that only ended when we took up lightsabers and…OK, that didn’t happen. But it’s amazing how guilty you can be made to feel for stuff you don’t remember doing, especially when you have a perfectly good reason for not remembering it, as opposed to not remembering it because the incident involves a large bottle of bourbon!

When do you start shopping for Christmas: I used to start really early. Like, October early. In recent years, I’m scrambling late in December. I’ll be finishing my shopping this week, for instance. Ugh. I hate waiting that long.

Have you ever recycled a Christmas present: Nope, unless you count the bottle of liquor that I received at a work party one year. I don’t remember what brand it was, but it was something I didn’t care for so I toted it around for years until a couple of guys helped us with out last move. These guys were good guys, but they were the type of fellows who would drink anything you handed them. Sure enough, they were gleeful when we handed them twenty bucks and that bottle of whatever-it-was.

Travel at Christmas or stay home: We stay home, although we don’t rule out traveling someday. Sadly, it’s now becoming tradition that at some point Christmas day we drive out to Little Quinn’s grave.

Can you name all of Santa’s reindeer: Yes. I could do it here, but even if I did, you could just haughtily suggest that I Googled them.

Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning: Christmas eve, after church and our annual “drive around and look at lights”. We find that opening Christmas eve makes Christmas day a lot less hectic. We do keep a couple of The Daughter’s gifts in reserve to be “from Santa”.

Most annoying thing about this time of year: Hmmmm, tough one. Sanctimonious “more Christian than you” types who kvetch about the “war on Christmas”. (A special subset thereof is people who whine about how we can’t put Nativities on the town park or whatever. You want to put up a Nativity? Put it on your own lawn.) People who grunt about how much they hate Christmas, for no good reason. People who let their internal meanness show anyway. People who drag their kids on long days of shopping and openly yell at their children in the stores.

What I love most about Christmas: Snow. Quiet. Food. Light. Music. Good wishes, shared among friends. Bells. Cats in the wrapping paper. Red, green, silver, gold. Hugs. Family. Love. Luke, chapter two (and Linus’s recitation of part of that book thereof in A Charlie Brown Christmas, surely the greatest single voiceover in animation history).

I tag everybody! Huzzah!!!

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Stuff!

Some lazy linkage for a snowy Thursday evening:

:: Lynn Sislo hasn’t posted in several days. As she lives in Oklahoma, I assume that this is due to the ice storm they had in those parts. I hope she’s back online soon.

:: Do check out this wonderful article about visual injokes in Pixar’s movies. I love stuff like this.

:: I suppose I should start reading Terry Pratchett sometime soon. He has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.

:: When I become Supreme Ruler of Teh Universe, my first decree will be that all gas stations shall be one-way only, and that it will be illegal to swing your car into the opposite direction just because the one open pump is on the opposite side of your car as the gas cap. I am really tired of trying to figure out how to line up for a pump, when more often than not, the cars at the pumps will be facing me no matter which way I queue up.

:: Via Michael May I see that Joss Whedon’s not done with the Firefly universe, and will tell more stories there in the best medium for the job: comics. In fact, he’s apparently already done a comic of Firefly; I’ll have to track that down. It’s called Those Left Behind; the new one will be called Better Days. Cool. (Note to self: finish watching Firefly and then watch Serenity one of these days.)

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Light posting ahead

Hey, all you fine readers!

Just a quick note that the next couple of weeks will see a reduced frequency of new material on this blog, as the Gods of Hectic have decided to make me their plaything this year. Wow, have things gotten hectic. They’ve become so hectic that I just used the past participle of “got”. You know it’s hectic at Casa Jaquandor when that happens!

I’m not going on any kind of full hiatus or anything, because the blog still represents an island of sanity for me. (And there’s a statement about my life, I guess — I hang out in Blogistan for my daily dose of sanity.) But if two or even three days pass without anything new here, don’t be alarmed.

It may be a while before I get back to fixing the Star Wars prequels or the 100 Movies You Must Like If You And I Are To Be Together Forever, but they won’t be forgotten. Oh, and read the story I posted the other day! It’s long, but it’s one of my favorites of the tales I’ve spun in the past.

Anyway, now I gotta go. The Daughter has her first ever school concert tonight. Wow, she’s growing up fast. Luckily, I have stopped aging completely.

Yeah, right….

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Sentential Links #121

Eleven Squared! Woo-hoo!

:: Anybody out there had any experience or have insights into ear candling? (Sounds like hooey to me.)

:: Why Al Roker is in my dreams, I don’t know. (This man needs some stronger hallucinogenics. Salty language alert.)

:: I did the fake Christmas tree for a few years. But every year when I put that thing together, I would end up with scratches up and down my arm, some kind of puncture wound, a tree that looked like a drunk person put it together and a near nervous breakdown. (Nobody told me that Michele of formerly A Small Victory was blogging here. Demerits for all of you.)

:: I have to admit, though, that every time I see a new smear on Clinton, I waver. I figure if the fringe right hates her that much, she’s probably just what we need. (I’m in a similar quandary. I actually lean toward Obama, but part of me really wants a Hillary Clinton presidency, just so I can watch Republican heads explode.)

:: I am pragmatic enough to recognize that many things I hope for will never come to pass. But I will deal with that each time it happens. I am still holding hard onto hope. (Not sure Belladonna would approve, but I can’t help but read this with my mind doing the voice of Morgan Freeman.)

:: Now suppose you’re in your favorite bar and a big guy dressed in black leather, hung about with chains, walks over and bets you a hundred bucks that you can’t name the twelve cranial nerves. Here’s how you can conquer and win his hundred. (Great. Now he tells me.)

:: Imagine the Buffalo Skyway creatively re-engineered and readapted to function as a signature “green” multi-use mega-structure, complete with a glass enclosed “green roof” and pedestrian pathway instead of as an overhead roadway. (Wow. Just…wow.)

And there we have it.

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Bills 38, Dolphins 17

Wow, they’re actually in playoff contention! I certainly never expected this. I still don’t expect them to actually make the playoffs, but the Bills have turned in one gutsy season, haven’t they?

Woo-hoo!

:: Trent Edwards: poise, confidence, and he showed that he can throw deep. Sorry, JP, but Trent’s our boyfriend now.

:: Marshawn Lynch and Freddie Jackson, the newest Dynamic Duo of running backs. Here’s hoping we’re looking at the second version of Thurman Thomas and Kenneth Davis!

:: In the playoff hunt!

:: Over .500! Seriously, that to me is huge, especially the way this season started. Remember, I forecasted a 5-11 finish for this team, figuring that if they could go 7-9 with a younger group of players than the squad from last year that also went 7-9, I’d be highly impressed. And now, with three games left, they’ve equaled that win total. Wow.

Meh.

:: John Beck. It’s not like the Bills feature one of the NFL’s stiffest defensive lines, but man, did Beck look like he had no idea what was going on. So far I’m not impressed.

:: The Dolphins. Man, have they fallen on hard times. Wow.

D'oh!

:: Bills safety George Wilson, who is now out for the year with a rib injury. This is a guy who was converted to safety from wide receiver, and has been playing quite well in that role. Bummer.

On another NFL note, I hereby proclaim Steelers safety Anthony Smith the NFL’s Biggest Dumb-ass. Guaranteeing a win against the New England Richard Nixons? Come on! Why would you give those guys anything for their bulletin board at all? Sure, they’ve obtained their talent by consuming the souls of the innocent in blood-soaked rituals convened upon an altar of stone by the light of a full moon, but they’re still the NFL’s best friggin’ team. Yeesh.

I’d like to see someone try reverse psychology against these guys. Have someone say, “Wow, they’re going to kill us. I just hope we manage to only be behind by ten points as we go into the second quarter. We are so screwed.” As soon as I saw that quote in the news last week, I immediately thought, “Well, so much for the Steelers restoring goodness and integrity to football. Maybe the Jets can do it the week after.”

Yeah. Because if there’s one group of guys who can pull it off, it’s the Jets. And if Luke hadn’t been there for the Battle of Yavin, Porkins could totally have destroyed the Death Star.

Next week: Buffalo at Cleveland, in the first really meaningful game, playoff-wise, for the Bills since the 2004 season finale (when they lost to the Steelers in a game that would have put them in the playoffs had they won). The Bills pretty much have to win out to make the playoffs, and anyway, this is their last game against an AFC opponent (their last two are against the Giants and Eagles), so for tie-breakers, this one’s essential. How likely is a win? Who cares? I’m really starting to think that the Bills may be a serious contender next year, depending on how their draft and free agent acquisitions turn out.

The New England Nixons may have the wins…but there’s no doubt that the Bills are the character champions of the NFL. Too bad they don’t hand out the Lombardi Trophy on that basis!

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