New Year's Recap - Part 2 (and Wildcard Weekend Preview)

We arrived in Seattle on Thursday night, fairly late, and Charles and Nate picked us up and whisked us off back to their relatively new and lovely home somewhere near Ravenna, north of the U District. It was cold the entire weekend, but clear, and again the mountain views from the city were gorgeous all four days we were there.

We woke up on the 31st, Friday, and Charles made delicious waffles. We went downtown during the day and walked around the market, had a drink or two at Kell's, ate lunch at Wild Ginger, and ran some errands for the party that night. Nate and Charles hosted the party, which was attended by about fourteen or so people. Gwen and I met various friends of Charles and Nate, mingled appropriately, and a good time was had by all.

On Saturday New Year's Day we relaxed most of the day. We stopped in Fremont for lunch and had a pretty good meal at a cultish vegetarian place where the food was fresh and the wait staff (all robed in Hari Krishna gear) was, frankly, creepy.

That evening the four of us met up with George, Cristin, Rodd, and Krista for a nice dinner at the Dahlia Lounge. I hadn't seen Rowdy Roddy since residency graduation and he went on to become the cover boy for every Tom Clancy Splinter Cell game by joining the real special forces. He couldn't tell us his official body count, but I'm betting it stands at 287 by now, the majority of his victims Pakistani Insurgents and most of those deaths coming via single silenced executioner-style head shot, though throat slitting is a close second.

Rodd did even less to dispel my commando image of him when he told of his home security system, which as I recall involves about fourteen different weapons scattered about the house and essentially has him camping out nightly in a sniper's nest in one of the upper corners of his family room. He lies awake each evening, deadly still, fingering the trigger of his modified Austrian assassin's rifle, just praying for someone to break in.

I kid, mostly.

RODD WAS IN A MOVIE ONCE

RODD'S KNIFE SKILLS, UNPARALLELED, COME IN HANDY ON HALLOWEEN

RODD AT WORK

After dinner we headed further into Belltown and stopped off at a bar on 2nd avenue. Then on a whim we ordered pitcher after pitcher of "PBR", trying to relive our old residency days I guess. Many stories and much catching up ensued, and by the end George, Rodd, and I were all fairly drunk. It was awesome to see everyone and I look forward to doing it again. (Favorite story: Rodd briefing a one-star general on one of his jungle deployments about some rabid monkeys who had bit some people and recommending they be brought in for "testing" followed by the description of the special forces hunt for them.)

RODD AND HIS UNIT BEGIN THE MONKEY HUNT

On Sunday I woke up with a solid hangover (mental note: avoid PBR in the future) but was feeling much better after a brunch at Rosebud. How many hangovers had I cured there when I lived in Seattle? Many. The food was delish and afterward I left Gwen, Nate, and Charles to their bar hopping while I wandered down to the old Fox Sports Grill, where I had wasted many Sundays in the fall while I lived there, and watched the last Sunday of regular season football. The Giants had a hope of making the playoffs, but only a fool's hope really, and even that ended with a Jay Cutler interception which propelled Green Bay to a win and a playoff berth over my beloved G-Men.

The Fox Sports Grill was a great place to watch football back in the day, I think, but since I've left the advancements in football viewership have kept coming and the place hasn't quite kept up. Mostly they lack HD screens and frankly I've become used to watching multiple games from the comfort of my own couch. As always week 17 is kind of odd, without the distraction of fantasy football as well as several meaningless "real life" games the viewing becomes a bit more distilled.

I sat at the bar and at some point a mildly attractive woman took the seat next to me. Following that I had the alternately amusing and annoying experience of a front row seat to multiple steakheads coming up to her and making their play. The woman was nice enough but not very bright - on several occasions she asked me "who needed to win today" in between ordering beer after beer. She would forget what I said and then ask again and again.

"I TOLD YOU if the Packers win they're in the playoffs!"

She was a Saints fan but New Orleans lost to the Bucs that morning. When that game was over she declared to me "I hate the Bucs - they beat us in the playoffs last year I think before we won the Super Bowl." I just stared at her for a few seconds and then resumed watching the games.

When it was over I joined up with the gang again and we had a few more drinks and took the picture below. That evening we headed out to Shiro's which lived up to all my prior expectations. I demanded we sit at the sushi bar for the best grub. Shiro was there, timeless, but we did get to sit in front of him, which was OK because the other chefs were rock stars too as far I'm concerned. As always at Shiro's, I tell them to fix me whatever they want and then I just sit back and eat and eat and eat in what becomes a euphoric haze of a meal. The Toro is made from real butter I here. Just awesome stuff.



When we got back to the place later we threw in this awful movie, called "The Room", which has become a cult classic for it's awfulness, and man was it bad. It was good-bad, though, and we were howling with derisive laughter at many a scene.

Monday we flew back to San Diego and well, that's about it.


And on to Football

The Season is over for the Giants, and I will have to wait another eight months before I get to see Eli Manning throw a tipped ball interception and follow it up with a world class Manning Face and his patented shucky shoulders. I've made my peace with the 2010 Giants season, because what else can I do? They seemed primed for a decent playoff run at least but it all went to hell in the last six minutes of that Eagles game. Now instead of rooting for big Blue I will be stuck staring daggers at the Eagles for the entirety of their playoff existence.

Papa Stup had this to say about the Giants season, which was sent to me right after the final game in a quick email:

"Giants won but looked like a team that was playing not to lose. ELI still very inconsistent. At least analyst are now pointing out his big problem is footwork. Not set, throws off back foot which causes ball to go high which is directly responsible for a lot of his interceptions. Special teams a F- all year. Too old linebackers need replacements. Faster secondary which wants to tackle not just throw the body. Need new running backs who are faster and can be thrown to out of the backfield to keep the defense honest. Three yards and a cloud of dust will not be acceptable for the future. Also wonder how smart some of these players really are. Seems to me they commit too many errors on coverage (defense) and routes (Offense). All of these are easy for anyone to see so the coaches should know and adapt during the game!!!"


He has also been harping on Eli's lack of strength lately, which has led to some amusing discussions as well. Eli is, by my dad's account, by far the weakest quarterback in the league. At this point I can't say I disagree.

Here's how the playoffs look right now, mere hours before the first game kicks off:

NFC
1)Atlanta
2)Chicago
3)Philly
4)Seattle
5)New Orleans
6)Green Bay

AFC
1)New England
2)Pittsburgh
3)Indy
4)KC
5)Baltimore
6)NY Jets

And here is my order of rooting priority for the playoffs:

1)Pittsburgh (for obvious reasons)

2)New Orleans (Still love Drew Brees and Sean Payton)

3)Green Bay (Would love Aaron Rodgers to stick it to the Favre legacy)

4)Indy (I think Peyton deserves a few more rings)

5)Seattle (Albeit there's no chance in hell they're winning)

6)Atlanta (Meh, I have less reasons to dislike this team I guess)

7)Chicago (Hate Cutler, but love the mascot)

8)KC (About as meh as I can get for a team)

9)Jets (I don't like this team, but I guess I like them better then the rest)

10)Pats (Brady sponsors Uggs now? Good God.)

11)Ravens ("And they cursed us (Ray Lewis)...MURDERER..." oh wait he's religious now so it's cool)

12)Season canceled, no champion crowned, football over forever

13)Nuclear War

14)Eagles (*initiate dagger staring*)