Mister Faded Glory | misterfadedglory.com

“See their bodies out on the ice … take my time. Am I evil? Yes I am…”

Diamondhead, Am I Evil?

The biggest NFL news today? It’s right here. That’s right, only a day after The Star campaigned for Bob Sanders as Defensive Player of the Year, the Colts locked him up for five more years – that’s a boatload of money into their five pillars: Manning, Harrison, Wayne, Freeney, Sanders. And is it worth it? So far it is. Expect the franchise tag in the offseason for Sanders’ Iowa teammate Dallas Clark (Unless the Colts feel compelled to expend it on Ryan Lilja or something.) and keeping him a Colt for another year, at least. Still, congrats to Bob, who’s morphed from headhunting Hawkeye legend into a human eraser, and a Ronnie Lott clone – the middle linebacker of a defense actually playing strong safety. We love him, but you knew that. He’s the baddest man in pro football, but you knew that, too.

Yep, that’s the biggest NFL News. Nothing else happened today. Oh, right. That. Let’s just say that if the entire free world had to pin their hopes on one team to derail this New England hype train, well, it wouldn’t be the dunderheaded, hamhanded Giants. Sigh. Penalties, miscues, and two horrid drives in the fourth quarter really did them in – under Coughlin, doesn’t it always? – but still, the game looked almost identical to the Colts game against New England, actually. Or the Ravens loss. Note to all teams: When you’re soundly beating the Pats, don’t go into the clock-killing offense, no matter what Bryant Gumbel and Cris Collinsworth are droning on about.

Speaking of sycophantic, apologistic media, good luck listening to sports radio or reading the newspapers for the next 20 days, unless you want to hear more rationales for why the Patriots don’t get flagged for poking players in the eye on live TV. Or cheap shots. (We’re still waiting for the CBS replay of a Patriot last year clocking Antonio Cromartie in the face before Cromartie earned a personal foul for retaliation and a stern lecture from Jim Nantz.)

But we’re not crying sour grapes, nor are we congratulating a classless franchise. We know they’re good, but no need to bother ourselves with any hand-wringing here. Let them be what they are, we gleefully look forward to the possibility of playing them in Foxborough. Until then, we here at MFG are not concerning ourselves with all things Patriot, not until we have to. We know the Pats are dirty, we know they’re cheap, we know they’re pricks, and we’re ignoring this whole thing. Until we have to.

No, sorry, Mister Faded Glory can’t help but be a Scrooge. Seriously, we curse ourselves for it every year. Even though Christmas is somewhat enjoyable, even though we somewhat enjoy the company, and even though we don’t even hate kids, the whole thing is just such a humongous hassle that we’re practically ecstatic when it’s over. Our outlook will no doubt change a little when Junior Faded Glories are running around (Don’t hold your breath, mom), but for now, Dec. 26 is a holiday in and of itself.

Even Franklin the Cat, official feline of Mr. Faded Glory, enjoyed his two-day run of the house with little destruction. He certainly didn’t go nuts like one of his brethren in San Francisco.

All kidding, aside, uh, what the hell? What in the world causes something like that? Is it the full moon? The animals banding together, planning an overthrow? Though somewhat of a zoo savant, I’ve never been to the San Francisco Zoo, and I certainly can’t imagine a loose tiger running around, scared and deranged, or imagine how the beast got loose. The story fascinates me, as tragic as it is. (Though, yes, if I had to choose a way to go out, a tiger maul would be on the short list. Still, it’s horrible to think of the kid killed just while enjoying a zoo.)

The tiger was kept in a grotto with a moat 20 feet deep and 15 to 18 feet across, surrounded by a 20-foot wall. Officials could not immediately say how the animal escaped, nor do they know precisely how long it was out of its enclosure.

Seriously! Are you kidding me? Did the cat have a freaking extension ladder?

Police then started to search for the tiger, finding it at the zoo’s Terrace Cafe, about 300 yards from the tiger enclosure. They approached with their emergency lights on.

Picture a Siberian tiger, sitting at an outside cafe table, calmly sipping a coffee and reading the Chronicle. Police approach, and the tiger puts down his frosted flakes, staring blankly into the emergency lights. (Who cares about the lights? Why is that a story detail? Not only are these stories absurd, horrible, and morbidly intriguing, they wind up as test cases in newswriting 101.)

So here I am, in the midwest, stupidly worried about my housecat scratching up my TV screen. Perspective, we found it.

Anyway, we returned home from the official in-law ranch of Mr. Faded Glory to find Franklin safe and sound. Promptly after feeding the hungry guy, however, Ms. Faded Glory began putting dishes and gifts and kitchen stuffs away in a cupboard, only to inadvertently knock the refrigerator’s cold water hose from the valve, re-enacting ascene from several Three Stooges movies, water spurting all over the kitchen, a frantic, parched Franklin attempting to drink straight from the pipe. A frantic Ms. Faded Glory rushing back into the room with towels.

Luckily, Mr. Faded Glory received a cordless drill for Christmas, and is now a licensed handyman and resulting badass. Seriously, though, he rushed to shut off the water valve and repair the fridge. This homeownership is trial by fire – had I not had to secure a third-party mover to install the fridge, I would have had zero idea what to do with the bursting pipe. After the ordeal of checking all the fans and motors and cleaning the floor and fridge, drying everything off, we’re now left with a ruptured cold water line hose. Tonight on This Old House, MFG will attempt to reconnect a new water line.

Ironically, (or perhaps just stupidly) the MFGs fretted for two full days that Franklin the Cat went batshit on the drapes, frustrated at Christmas solitude. However, within ten minutes of returning home, we (well, more accurately, MS. Faded Glory) destroyed our kitchen. Merry frigging Christmas.

Anyway, lest you think this is a blog about News of the Weird (sigh), Christmas (shudder), home repair (snore) or my cat (help, I’m emasculated), back to sports.

This morning we flipped on our favorite WWL show, Mike and Mike (tongue firmly in annoyed cheek), treated to a talking head segment worthy only of Sportscenter. (Well, maybe it was SC we watched, actually. I have a tough time telling the two apart, especially with snarky little bastard Greenberg missing from M&M.)

ANYWAY, fat loudmouth Chris Berman, practically spiling turkey gravy, politely interviewed fat loudmouth Bill Parcells, in a segment entitled: “Which of Bill Parcells’ Greatest Teams Could Supposedly Beat the Patriots.” (paraphrase and italics entirely mine.)

Now, these teams weren’t even limited to Parcells’ Giants teams, so it was basically an exercise in lazy showfilling, ratcheting up hype to new levels as pompous Parcells informed viewers how the 1978 Steelers would match up with New England. Verdict: Who the fuck cares.

However, we watched with a chortle as ESPN continues to prop the Patriots up as greatest team ever, even though they have yet to play a playoff game. We’re practically giddy seeing the hype swirl into a white sportswriter’s perfect storm – What easy angles! 15-0! Tom Brady is a white Adonis! Bill Belichick wins at all costs! Presumably Bob Sanders watched SportsCenter this morning repeatedly smacking his fists into a wall. Thinking no network could better serve as the Patriots’ mouthpiece than moronic ESPN, we stood corrected as CBS and NBC rushed to swoop up the Saturday night tilt with the Giants (And the NFL’s public relations blitz exploded). Hopefully karma will take care of all this.

Hopefully karma will allow the douchebag Patriots to finish 16-0 and lose promptly in the playoffs, either against an upstart smashmouth Jacksonville squad or the defending champs (Though, yes, we’re totally freaking out about San Diego, Norv Turner be damned), especially after ESPN, the NFL, and lazy, white sportswriters sucking at the NFL’s proverbial teat have upped the ante during a Pursuit of Perfection Hype Blitz? In four weeks, we’ll have our answer. In just six days, you can thank the writers’ strike for the gaggle of horrific announcers calling a meaningless game, on just about every channel. The NFL! It’s fantastic!

On a side note, doesn’t the NFL’s farming out of the game to networks signify an admission they were wrong to completely undercut their own business model by launching a watered-down mouthpiece network? Doesn’t it at least hint the league might now be aware that America’s thirst for pro football isn’t actually as widespread as it thought? Isn’t it shocking that no one rushed out, pounding on cable company doors when they couldn’t see that Niners-Bengals game? How can I type all these questions while laughing profusely?

… our Indianapolis Colts sleptwalked through a win over the Raiders and clinched a first-round bye, the No. 2 seed, another division title, and three weeks to get everyone healthy – namely Robert Mathis, Raheem Brock, Antoine Bethea, Ryan Diem, and Tony Ugoh; and maybe Marvin Harrison. With any luck, we’ll return from a post-novel-completion sojourn to Mexico just in time for Colts-Patriots X: For all the Marbles or whatever, in the AFC Championship game. Should happen, but we’re not proclaiming anything yet. Pressed facing a Steelers-Browns matchup; or Jags-Chargers, I’d actually much rather be the Colts. We’ll talk more in a month, you know, after all those exciting bowls!

With much fanfare, the evil Patriots moved one step closer to an undefeated regular season. Also, the world’s premier assmunch, Tom Brady, whom ranks Nos. 1 through 5 on my “People I’d like to bludgeon with a shovel” list,  killed my 12-1 fantasy football team in the semifinals of the playoffs courtesy of his horrid game vs. the Jets. Thanks, dickhead. Still, we’re okay with all the Patsies’ hype – nothing could top defeating the world-anointed “Greatest-Team-Since-Sliced-Bread” , er, one-dimensional thugs, in the playoffs after they’ve already been anointed as champs. But that’s far away. (And sorry for violating my tenet of mentioning a fantasy team in my column. I must be a mouth-breather after all. Will punch myself in the face, don’t worry. AND that’s what I get for employing Tom Brady. Some sort of deal with the devil, I guess. Or foreshadowing? I’m babbling.)

We’ve got some personal stuff going on around the holidays, so bear with us if you don’t receive any more updates, even until 2008. We’re also planning on finishing the novel, four months too late, maybe four years too late, but it will be done, and we’ll be shopping for agents. Anyway, you’ll have to wait for any Cubs evaluation (Short list: K-Fuk, good, Prior, bad, Matsui, good, Wood, fine, Jones/Rowand, thank heavens no, and Brian Roberts – who the heck cares.) until after the Christmas/Kwanzaa/Whatever break.

Till then, all the best.

I’m going to be blunt with baseball’s frustrating media. I’m even going to make an example of old friend Jayson Stark, who isn’t necessarily he most condescending, hypocritical or fractured reporter among baseball’s dubious media. He’s simply the most ubiquitous, or, perhaps, he rubs me the wrong way. Full disclosure, I suppose.

But he’s scarcely the only supposed baseball poet who turned a blind eye to steroids in the middle 1990s. He’s scarcely the only writer now petrified objectively understanding steroids, learn about testing. He’s scarcely the only baseball writer assuming any sort of backgrounding or context analysis would result in the dismissal of their current clubhouse access or gravitas or panache, or appearance-fee dollars.

He’s scarcely the only reporter shouting down the attempt, process, or hope to discover the depths of steroid use in baseball, if only to preserve some assumed tie with the players; like the football team water boy who shows off his letter jacket. And he’s scarcely alone, castigating the Mitchell Report in a self-serving attempt to preserve self-professed relevance. Perhaps ESPN should strip him of any “reporting” that he does, and actually just give him a blog (Interesting paradox that ESPN’s best baseball reporter does almost nothing but blog. I digress).

And, finally, Stark is hardly the only reporter preferring to speculate amidst casual, amateur legal analysis surrounding steroids – he simply does it at the most insulting and frustrating level possible (Check that, and read this happy moron. Try not to punch your screen after seeing the first paragraph). So here, now, we’re taking him to task, making him an example again, because his analysis of the Mitchell Report is as clueless as his fractured protectionism of sluggers past or the baseball bourgeoisie. Of course, it’s summarily an effort to bolster his own career.

Remember, Jayson‘s the writer who couldn’t hold a positive test against Rafael Palmeiro when the faux-slugger’s circumstantial smoke turned into fire with a positive test for roids. Jayson rushed to his defense, issuing an appalling “I can’t police the game” diatribe, apparently because Stark “didn’t actually see anything happen.” Prosecutors everywhere, don’t let Mr. Stark anywhere near your jury. Nothing short of DNA evidence, a smoking gun, or videotape, or actual signed confessions equates to guilt in Stark’s mind. Apparently he prefers to throw any entire evidentiary construct out the window when it comes to baseball, unwilling to use his Hall of Fame vote for its actual purpose – to enforce accountability among star players. No, Jayson, you’re not the police. But in baseball, which isn’t court (stick with us, this is important) you are, partially, a judge. Fucking act like it.

So there’s that. So it’s no surprise to read today’s column, where Stark expresses the same fondness for injecting legal argument where it’s convenient. Got it? (Would it help your distaste if we told you Deadspin endorsed Jayson Stark as the best recap of the day? We nominate Tom Verducci.) We shake our head softly, after the break.

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Will it ever stop? Yo, I don’t know.

Vanilla Ice, Ice Ice Baby.

How clever am I? But seriously, we’re currently being deluged with ice and I can’t be expected to keep up. To wit:

The Patriots are going undefeated. Nice division.

I’m locked in a neighbor war and custody battle for Franklin the Cat. Don’t ask. He’s here.

After this weekend, I’m forcing myself to give up High Life and single malt scotch.

The Wire Season 4 is on HBO On Demand. Will be tough to reach me for about four days.

And that’s about it. But only two weeks till Christmas. I’m off to stick my head in the oven. You know, to overheat myself before the impending power failure.

(And seriously, would the Cubs sign this Fuk-U guy already? I don’t really think he’s any better than Matt Murton, but his “Fuku” bootleg T-shirt will go nicely with my “Pagan” and “Riot” Ts. It’s basically a wet dream.)

I fail to link to remind you, but a few weeks ago I excoriated our favorite homer columnist for his incandescent diatribe against NFL officiating, assuming the whole league was against the Patriots.

Well, after tonight, I challenge any Patriot sycophants to champion that cause. It maybe was a penalty right there, at the end, but honestly, how often does it get called! I guess Baltimore’s crowning moment this week is going to be the release of season four of The Wire, after all.

Ooh! Tom Brady’s press conference is on, he’s being condescending to the media and his opponents! This I gotta see!

Shut up, shut up, shut up, you’re saturating me.

So how could I let this …

Bring me to my knees again?

Tool, Undertow

Here we are again, just like we thought we’d be two days ago. The BCS Title game (Can’t believe they haven’t sold the naming rights yet) features an untested and probably crappy Ohio State team against LSU (meh), and the rest of the bowl lineups are similarly crappy, owing only to corporate whims to explain which teams were selected, etc., etc. We’d say Mizzou has the biggest gripe, we’d say the whole thing is a snooze, we’d say Mark Richt is a boob – he actually argued for the articulation of some rule requiring a team to win its conference championship if that was the case, and perhaps UGa was slighted just because it didn’t win the SEC – shut up, Mark.

We’d say a lot of things. We’d say, additionally, that besides the resurfacing problem of bowl commissioners simply selecting their favorite teams, we also now predict strong non-conference scheduling will disappear. Ohio State and Kansas reaped huge benefits by playing no one in non-conference, and Mizzou reaped no benefit via a preseason against teams with a pulse. So what effect will this have, do ya think? Hell, K-State may have a shot at this yet. Presumably this is a massive overcorrection from those years in which the Big 12 was inflated too high and Oklahoma and Nebraska kept winding up in championship games undeservedly.

Our favorite result of another fractured season, however, is the number of columnists and talking heads attempting to either play parent or voice of reason. For example, The Big Lead castigates playoff touts as whiny, Stewart Mandel says it won’t happen, so don’t bother wasting breath, Kirk Herbstreit and Brent Musburger exasperatedly exhorted us on-air not to waste time pining for a playoff, and Dan Shanoff claims we should all shut up, we know nothing, and should instead consider ourselves lucky the season was so fun (Yay!). Wow, thanks, dad. If I keep bitching will they not bestow me with college football next year? Will I have to go to bed without supper?

Thank you, Big Lead, for dismissing the whole thing. Sorry to annoy you, by, you know, pointing out fault instead of just churning out a random power poll.

Thank you, Stew Mandel, actually a decent writer – but we assume you foresee your TV appearances, column inches, and blog traffic disappearing just because you have less manufactured controversy to attempt to muddle through. Wouldn’t want to have a concrete playoff to make your “bowl prognostication expertise” irrelevant.

Thank you, Kirk and Brent - for praising the controversy. Like you both, ABC and ESPN and the NCAA assume that all the nasty infighting, sniping, and bitching up and down the airwaves signifies the overall health of college football. If every radio jock and news columnist is writing about what’s wrong with the system, they’re at least watching the system, right? (This logic has worked wonders for Skip Bayless‘ career during the last hundred years).

And thank you, Dan Shanoff. God knows we needed a parent to perfectly encapsulate the role of college football. No, we shouldn’t bitch about something! Just as we shouldn’t complain about a war in Iraq, voting irregularties, poverty, child abuse, and any other evils we can only indirectly hope to change. Life is fucking wonderful, and college football is the cherry on top, according to Dan. (We’re grandstanding, and not comparing college football to stuff like that, but you get what I mean.)

The media heads are the last straw. The culture of brethren in college football’s beat writers and columnists assume that controversy equals success, and assume the same controversy prompts their requisite experience for lucrative media appearances and panache resulting from the need to drive the media cycle. It’s a virtual removal of all fourth-estate tendencies from a media who grows fat on a diet of early season formula columns, ballots and polls that serve as status symbols instead of evaluative tools, and happy press tours in warm cities, even if they cover a shitty 6-6 team. It’s a fraternity of stupidity, and we’re done with it.

This is the last college football column you’ll read on Mister Faded Glory. Like all those idiots said, you shouldn’t complain about it. And while I still passionately defend the right to complain about a system that’s horrendously inept, I’m at least going to shut up for my own sanity.  I’m no longer living in Iowa City, Greg Robinson is still at Syracuse, and like I said four months ago, I have no real reason to care.  So I’ll be quiet. But I won’t tell anyone else to shut up. Complain, whine, and expose this hypocrisy for all its worth. Please. But I’ll shut up.

For now.

“I can see you, on the hill. All comatose, but drinking still. Broken leashes, all over the floor. Keys left hanging in the swinging door. Why do I keep fuckin’ up?”

Neil Young, Fuckin’ Up.

By now, if you live in the midwest or south, you’ve noticed the palpable bitterness that permeates the landscape simply because of December’s role in the sports atmosphere. You see, it’s now the time of the year in which talking heads everywhere are lambasting everyone up and down the college atmosphere, pining for a playoff, defending the status quo, whatever, generally making more noise than necessary whining about a system that really hasn’t changed since the stone age and probably won’t until we’re all dead.

Anyway, as you know, we at MFG treat any and all arguments exhorting or championing college football’s ridiculous “pageantry and tradition” or college football’s idiotic deferment to corporate third-parties during its fractured postseason with bitter and utter contempt. Because this is sports. We play to crown a champion. And college football doesn’t do that.

This season, the BCS found yet another failure it couldn’t compensate for – greater parity. The BCS works when there are only two unbeaten power conference teams. When there’s not, the system is awful. By this time next week, we could be looking at a weird championship game featuring underwhelming Ohio State or West Virginia and but a handful of two-loss teams. It’s ridiculous. It’s annoying, and it’s never going to change, either because of in spite of the powers that be.

In fact, this season it appears the BCS has done yeoman’s work at least propping up newbie schools that were afterthoughts in always-ridiculous preseason rankings (Kansas, Mizzou, Oregon, etc.), yet that has spawned even more hypocritical arguments – BCS stalwarts now arguing for a playoff simply because teams like USC and Oklahoma aren’t factoring into the big bowl discussion. Hmm. Those arguments wouldn’t stem from corporate-type hypocrites tied to the Bowls, would they?

Anyway, you know we at MFG favor a playoff. You know we’d like to limit it to conference champs, and we like Dan Wetzel‘s idea (parroted by Soren Petro) and Wetzel’s spirited defense of said idea. But also, before, we’ve been in favor of a 6-team conference champ only playoff, or 8-team playoff, or three or four at-larges in a conference champion playoff, so there’s that. Simply put, we agree with all these columns every single year, but we can’t understand how Division I is apparently impenetrable to the common sense dictating a playoff at EVERY OTHER LEVEL OF FOOTBALL IN THE UNITED STATES. And we detest the following contrarian arguments, often bandied about by bitter, has-been pundits, writers and fans, so don’t bother bringing them up:

1. A playoff would make the regular season meaningless, just like it does in (pick one) college basketball, or the NFL.

I always cringe when I hear this argument. First, every game still matters. In any college football playoff scenario, conference championships or supremacy would factor into selection prominently. So assuming a team could simply punt one or two of seven or eight games is ludicrous; assuming that fans would choose to forgo a bitter rivalry and tailgating scene simply because the media couldn’t anoint it life-or-death, is even more fallacious. Secondly, it’s not as though the college basketball regular season fails to draw interest – in fact, after the first few warm-up contests, the conference college basketball seasons still sell out, still draw interest, still are just as spirited as any Border War.

And secondly, pundits like to decry pro football’s regular season, calling it less important than college football. Please. The NFL has no problem asserting the meaning, importance, or reaping the benefits of each and every regular season game. Why bourgeoisie beat writers, or conference officials consistently assert college football’s “meaningful” (Read: confusing) regular season, disparaging other major sports, is beyond me. It’s insecure and it’s fractured.

2. Even with a playoff, we’d still be squabbling about the last few at-large or qualifying teams, just like college basketball.

Sure, I remember last year bitching about Syracuse and K-State missing the NCAA Tournament. It was disappointing, just like it is for a bunch of bubble teams anyway – but none of these schools, year in and year out, stand a chance at winning the title. Same goes for college football. In Wetzel’s plan, it’s moot anyway, because 4 or 5 teams would be named at large. Any of these teams and their bubble brethren probably stood a few plays away from winning their conferences, and as we’ve seen, conference championships are key to playing in the postseason, with any college football playoff scenario. So there’s sour grapes, but not simply because of slight. In addition – the same holds true. No bubble team in college football, realistically, could pull off a run of four straight wins. What, you think Clemson, if given a chance, could roll through LSU, Missouri, and USC? Please.

3. The best team doesn’t always win the title in college basketball, but because of an impartial-but-featuring-prominent-human-bias system, the best team is always crowned in college football.

Since, as a Syracuse fan, we heard this non-stop after the Cuse surprisingly rolled to the 2003 title as a 3-seed, we emphatically disagree. If you’re good enough to get in, roll to a title win by winning 6 games (or 4 in Wetzel’s proposal), then I’m sorry, you’re the best team in the country. It’s not murky. It’s complete. I repeat, it’s the way football is decided AT EVERY OTHER LEVEL IT’S PLAYED WORLDWIDE. Why is the NCAA so different?

4. Bowls feature tradition and pomp and it’s awesome.

Bowls are administered by third parties hoping for corporate ad sales, sponsorships, and gate fees, and realistically have nothing to do with the NCAA or the universities; let alone with football’s best interests in mind. Sure, Notre Dame and Ohio State like to point out massive bowl revenues each year; but honestly, it’s fractured – how much profit would Ohio State stand to take in from two rounds of home playoff games? A monumental amount, and the conference to boot.

And tradition, well, who cares? Things change. The BCS rotating system already lopped the head off the conference tie-ins to most bowls – for example, if you’re an Iowa fan, you’re supposed to yearn for the Rose Bowl. But your team’s never gone, not even during two conference championships in which it should have, but because of the system, could not. So exactly why am I supposed to pledge allegiance to where the Big 10 tells me?

Seriously, the fucking bowls. And you know how to make your regular season “more” meaningful? GET RID OF THE FUCKING BOWLS. That way, conference play is even more crucial, with no roses, poinsettias, or flowers for middling teams. Conference play would fully reign supreme, and the playoff exists for the highest caliber only. You know, like in every other sport. Seriously, now college football is twisting me in knots – I cannot communicate accurately how much I detest “bowls.” Argh.

5. The regular season is a de facto playoff.

Don’t let yourself sink to this level. Because if it is, we should fully be able to discern this week the palpable differences between Missouri, Oklahoma, Kansas, USC, LSU, West Virginia, Ohio State, etc. But we can’t. The regular season is the platform for conference success. Conference championships breed the chance to play for a national title. That’s the way it is in every sport, but not this one. And no regular season is a “playoff” – just as no regular season is “worthless” just because a playoff exists. It’s a hopelessly contrived, ridiculously illogical construct.

And now I’m upset, having chewed up and spit all this out today. Seriously, what a sport – all it does is breed discontent with its structure, ill will between conferences, and contempt between fandoms. You wonder why anyone cares, but we all do.

And at the end of it, I guess, you just have to be happy for little things in sports, like a chance for a newbie like Missouri to win it all, or a conference championship with no promise of playoffs. Or, in my opinion, your baseball team NOT signing Kaz Matsui.

That’s something, right?

“And there’s reason to believe, maybe this year will be better than the last.”

Counting Crows.

Once again we’re left shaking our heads at Mister Faded Glory, wondering where in the world the year disappeared to. In fact, we’re wondering where last week disappeared to – after returning from the homeland we found no time to either update our blog, or finish the final revisions of These Monks, the official first novel of Mister Faded Glory. But it’s almost done, and will be complete during December. Which, now, is here.

If you’ll remember, I told you already that November would be crazy. Also, you’ll remember that Mister Faded Glory adopted Franklin the Cat. So you won’t be surprised to learn that December will be just as wild, with the usual holiday tripe (I’m not a Scrooge, I just require LOTS of me time), this year including requisite trips to the in-laws, requisite holiday parties, requisite online shopping, requisite yearend planning and fending off media representatives at work, opening up my holiday graphic design side projects (sometimes for pay, sometimes pro bono), all kinds of other stuff, and oh yeah, I’ve got to hang Christmas lights outside the new abode or the neighbors will lynch me. Or, at least, Franklin.

Anyway, in a roundabout way I’m trying to say we may check in only twice a week, at best, until the new year. Which is OK, I think, because it’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year most hopelessly frantically futile time of the year. Anyway, off to work on something, and I’ll scratch my head as I attempt to discern exactly what that is.