Nobody Cares About the Nonsensical Ravings of a Lunatic Mind

Alright folks, I'm back from the holidays rejuvenated, reinvigorated and ready to start the new year off right with some random thoughts and observations!

1. Haley and I went to see Sherlock Holmes over the weekend and I am not exaggerating when I tell you it is one of the best movies I saw all year. First of all, Guy Ritchie is a genius. I've always loved his "real" movies (and I say real because I don't count "Swept Away" when he had obviously slipped over that thin line between genius and madness by marrying Madonna and deciding to make a movie for her) because they were just cool enough to make you want to be a London gangster and just gritty enough to make you realize you'd never last a day as a London gangster. Add to that that this movie is set in Victorian England which holds particular fascination for me because I always thought the Victorian Age was such a turning point in the intellectual progress of the world. At what other time was there such enthusiasm for understanding the world around you in a rational and tangible fashion set against such equal enthusiasm for supernatural pursuits like the occult (check out Aleister Crowley if you need an example)? And this dichotomy is the perfect backdrop for this movie (I won't spoil any of the plot points but the story revolves around a Masonic-like group that uses what appears to be magic to try and influence the world order). Very cool stuff in my humble opinion.
2. Haley bought me an Amazon Kindle for Christmas this year which is hands down one of the coolest pieces of technology I've ever owned. For those who don't know, a Kindle is basically an IPod for books and magazines. You can purchase an item on the Kindle itself or buy it on Amazon.com and it's wirelessly sent to your device. If you choose to subscribe to a magazine or newspaper then the latest edition is sent to your device every night. As for the actual operation of the device, from what my technologically feeble mind can discern, it works a lot like an Etch-A-Sketch with some kind of magnetism electronically shaping ink stored under the display into the words for that particular page you're reading. More very cool stuff in my continuing humble opinion.
3. I've had a subscription to GQ for almost 2 years and have a been a fairly religious reader of the magazine for almost 10 years now. I've always enjoyed (and certainly valued) the lifestyle advice that the magazine had to offer but lately I've noticed that far too often it devolves into a mouthpiece for the left. The editor's section rarely points out anything other than how terrible the country is because of Republicans which seems an odd thing for him to do since his focus is fashion journalism and his educational background doesn't really lend itself towards trying to influence people politically, and when they actually stuck to their milieu and did an analysis of the fashion trends amongst Washington, D.C. power players, nearly every stylish entry was for a Democrat and every slovenly example was a Republican. Seemed almost petty to me. I hope the magazine figures out that this is pretty off-putting and gets back to focusing on helping gentleman to lead a gentlemanly lifestyle.
4. I've been pretty lukewarm to this year's bowl season so far. No super intriguing match-ups and the ones that did hold some interest have so far turned into non-events. Couple of points of note:
   

• What's the over/under on how many times Les Miles is going to absolutely butcher LSU's chances in close games with his miserable clock management before someone in Death Valley picks him off from a clock tower?
• What a terrible ending to a great Auburn/Northwestern game. Back and forth the whole game with a Big 10 team actually showing some heart against a (probably overrated) SEC representative only to have your kicker blow two kicks (one of which was a chip shot) and then your coach (gunslinger though he may be) call a fake field goal that looked more like a monkey trying to f*&k a doorknob (excuse the language folks) than a football play! How do you not give your backup kicker a chance at a 28 yard field goal? Why would you even recruit the kid if you didn't think he was capable of making basically an extra point?
• I may be the only person outside of Gator nation (and the big UGA fan in me hates me for what I'm about to say) that's actually kind of sad to see Tim Tebow leaving college football. He had a terrible delivery and when he ran he didn't look all that fast (even though he was usually pulling away from DBs like they were standing still) but damn if he didn't have the heart of a champion. Two things you could count on with him was that he would always have a haircut you could set your watch to (seriously - who still sports that much of a flat top outside of the military) and if there was a way for him to will his team to victory, he'd find it.
• And that brings me to Tim's final opponent, Cincinnati. Given the Bearcats performance I think we can all now feel comfortable in taking away the automatic BCS bid for the Big East right? Who's with me?
• Since I basically betrayed my all Bulldawg brethren (and for those of you wondering why I'm a UGA football fan when I went to Duke just check out the Blue Devil's record over my college career and you'll understand why I spent my fall weekends watching Georgia games with my good buddy Justin) in lauding Tim Tebow I feel obligated to point out that we looked REALLY good against the Aggies and, now that Joe Cox is gone, there is reason to be hopeful for next year.
• Of the games left I'm excited to see Orrin Hatch's wet dream tonight in TCU/Boise St.
  
• As for the national championship I'm taking Bama - hopefully they'll have the game down in Jamaica!

Well that does it for the first addition of the new year. Hope everyone had a blessed holiday season and best wishes for a prosperous and healthy 2010!