Let the Holiday Season begin...

GTB hopes everyone had a relaxing Thanksgiving Break, full of much food and sports...I sure know I did. With the introduction of ESPN's college hoops Feast Week last week I now have the NFL, NBA, NHL (you know, hockey...you remember hockey right?) and College Basketball on my sports plate. Good times all around. Plus there's only 27 shopping days left until Christmas...get in line now for your XBox 360...

You know how I really know it's the Holiday Season? (besides the fact there were approximately 1 million donkeys, myself included, staring at an undecorated tree in Rockefeller Center Saturday) I heard that god awful "Christmas Eve in Washington" song yesterday for the first time, which actually is quite shocking because our local "All Christmas Tunes All The Time Station", WASH FM 97.1, had the audacity to start playing holiday tunes a WEEK before Thanksgiving. You've gotta be kidding me...while driving roughly 975 miles this weekend we must've passed by 20 stations on the East Coast devoted to all holiday tunes all the time. But only here do we get that fucking terrible "Christmas Eve in Washington" song. It makes me long for the song about the poor kid who can't buy his dying mom some shoes or some shit, I don't know, real touching crap. Or even "Dominic the Italian Christmas Donkey". Now that's a holiday tune...

WaterBall...(sorry about that, force of habit...moving on...)

Ah yes, the aforementioned ESPN Feast Week. I love me some college hoops, and Feast Week did not disappoint (quick aside - did John Gulager's Project Greenlight film "Feast" ever get released? After watching quite a few of those episodes, I thought that movie had some promise. At least more than that piece of shit "Stolen Summer" film). The guy getting the most pub coming out of Feast Week is Gonzaga's Adam Morrison (dropping 43 in a triple OT victory will do that for you), but I wanted to mention two other guys I saw shine last week (and maybe mention them before Dickie V gets all their junk in his mouth):

• Maurice Ager, Michigan State - Ager, along with 12-year college vet Paul Davis, can make this a special season in East Lansing (hey, looks like Mooch will soon be there as well...) Ager carried the Spartans in Maui (and had an epic battle with Morrison), and looks like he might finally be able to consistently nail a jumper.
• LaMarcus Aldridge, Texas - Aldridge looked like Kenyon Martin or Marcus Camby during the Guardians Classic. He was a beast at both ends of the floor, and Texas looks like a serious contender for a national title as long as he stays healthy (and P.J. Tucker opens a book).

And in case you missed some of Feast Week, the ACC/Big Ten Challenge is this week. It's time to shift a little of that NFL concentration to the hardwood...root for Duke to lose (let's see if Dennis is paying attention).

It's been a tough month for DC sports teams. I don't think I need to mention the Redskins woes of late, I'm sure the Wheelhouse will tackle that this week. I guess the only saving grace for Skins fans is that they don't have to play another AFC team this year (Danny's boys are 0-4 against the AFC this year). At 5-6, they're not dead yet, especially with St. Louis and Arizona up the next two weeks, but it's an uphill climb. And what about my dearest Wizards? Uh, where do I start...well, not here, because I have a tad more real work to do, but tomorrow we can address the terribly inconsistent Wiz (6-7 on the year) and see what the hell is going wrong on Fun Street (thank god their division is absolutely atrocious). Oh yeah, DC has a hockey team, the Capitals. They play at the MCI Center. I don't think they're very good.

GTB Money Saving Tip of the Day: For the love of god, DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT spend your money on the John Cusack/Billy Bob film "The Ice Harvest." It fails as a black comedy, it fails as a caper movie, it just plain fails. Trust me...and I am a big Cusack fan. I'm not even sure the people who made the movie read the book it's based on...just complete junk. The only highlight of this trip to the movies was the preview for the upcoming Johnny Knoxville vehicle, in which he plays a normal dude pretending to be handicapped so he can win the Special Olympics, with Rip Torn as his coach. I smell Oscar...

Sideline question of the year, courtesy of ABC sideline reporter Suzy Shuster, after Nebraska coach Bill Callahan had a Gatorade bucket dumped on his head (amazingly, Nebraska destroyed Colorado after looking like dung all season):
"Was that one of the more gratifying dumps you've had?"

And finally...WaterBall (sorry, couldn't help myself)