The Twelve Days of Gheorghemas: Day Eleven, All the Filler That Was Fit to Print

On the eleventh day of Gheorghemas, Big Gheorge gave to me

Eleven Months of Gheorgheness

10 Awesome Auction Items and Much Much More!
Nine things worth dancing over
3 Genetic Tests on day 8.5
Eight Things I'm Thankful For
Seven Books for Reading
Six Top Episodes of Ted Lasso
Five Beers and Tunes
Four Resolutions
Three Gheorghemas Gifts to Give Yourself
Two Stones of Weight Loss (Your Mileage May Vary)

and Running Gags with Quatro Kitties

I got a text from my man Z earlier in the week, informing me that The New York Times had purchased The Athletic for $550m. I told him I'd sell G:TB for 0.1% of that amount (we're more profitable, to boot). "$550k split 6-9 ways is a nice windfall," he said. "We really do have good content. When we try."

That "when" is doing a lot of work, but he's not wrong. Let's take a trip back through the first 11 months of the Gheorghian year, shall we?

January

We dropped a solid 251 posts this year, coming off 258 in 2020. The pandemic, it seems, is good for content creation, if nothing else. The first month of the year was our most prolific, with 27.

Z and I started the year with musical collages about very different topics.

Then we went on a run of political and policy commentary that started OBX Dave's endorsement of universal basic income and ended with Z's thoughts on the January 6 fuckery.

The Hoff put a bunch of stuff up for auction.

TR lost a bunch of weight.

Derrick Henry got the Z treatment.

Whitney copped to being a fornicator.

My uncle Hoopa retired.

Squeaky's first post was a heart-stopper.

I come from witches.

OBX Dave wrote on the Baseball Hall of Fame.

February

23 posts in the year's second month. Robust.

Randy Newman bit us again.

TR is a mathsplainer and his boys are gross.

We had some fun Mardi Gras content, which included a Les Coole/Ned Henry original.

Whitney's annual Rock and Roll Hall of Fame post dropped.

Kouign Amman for all my men.

OBX Dave tilted at Alden Capital's windmills.

March

We liked doing 23 posts in a month so much that we ran it back.

NJ Dave finally posted something.

First Wrenball post of the year was desultory. As the entire year of Wrenball has been.

More Les, this time with a Hampton Coliseum memorial.

I pulled off the second greatest feat of prognostication in history.

Fashion is Dumb made a triumphant return, as did the Teej.

Hot Diggity Dog!

April

We worked pretty hard in the first quarter, so we slowed it down to a walk - 19 posts for the month.

Daniel Bard overcame the yips.

A counterfactual, and the comments are fun.

Taylor Swift killed Prince Philip.

Z and Whit took very different approaches to writing about the COVID.

Whit showed us his homework.

Team TR made a decision to make a move.

The prologue episode of Rob Lasso went live. This series of recurring posts and the events that inspired them were among the most fun things I've done in the Gheorgheverse.

As did the first episode. (Not gonna link to all of them, promise.)

May

Just started drinking while working on this. It's grueling. We'll see how that affects the rest of the post. Of which there were 22 in May.

May 3 is a holiday of holidays, and thanks to Whit, we know it.

If we were to calculate the ratio of quality stuff to filler for each member of the G:TB staff, OBX Dave would rank first by a considerable measure. Here, he wrote about poop.

The NYT Mini makes me anxious.

Z won the Pinewood Derby.

OBX Dave is (was?) a callous douchebag.

Nate Knight belongs in the league.

In addition to being gross, TR's kid is a dickhead. I like that kid.

We lost Eric Carle.

Squeaky wrote about his first ten concerts. I'm confident I couldn't tell you what mine were.

June

Lotta filler in June. Must be a summer thing. Still, 25 posts made it our second most prolific month of the year.

Zman took us to a Jerzy wedding. There was ass clapping.

The first NOTify dropped.

Whitney taught us about being drunk. Not for the first time.

The season finale of Rob Lasso was a bit of a downer.

Z hipped us to ticks.

Tales from the dugout, courtesy of TR.

Z learned to drive.

I went to Boulder, looking for answers.

Like Voldemort, jorts are back. Voldejorts, anyone?

July

We eased off the gas and fully into summer in July. 21 posts, most of them ephemeral. Nonetheless:

G:TB offered its first NIL deal.

First WCSAGD of the year was for Juan Carlos. It's a beaut.

Towards a Unified Theory of Fuckery.

Z opined on gluttony.

Rootsy revealed an important secret.

August

Twenty-one more posts during the dog days. Good job, good effort.

TR walked it off.

Gotta post at least one Gheorgasbord in the 'best of' recap.

Z wants your shoe game to be better.

The first WFCSGAS went live. Poor Z got stuck with Norwich.

OBX Dave is the only one amongst us qualified to write about Miles Davis. Because he's old.

Requiem for a...cottage?

Cuisine is stupid.

@mandypatinktok @alaska_webb thank you for finding us and sharing this! ✨ Sending big love and light to you and yours. More in comments. #grieving #cancer #dads ♬ original sound - Mandy Patinkin and Kathryn G

Azzi Fudd, Paige Bueckers, and us. 

TR moves to Colorado, shits himself, feels right at home.

September

You know how when you're doing interval work and you bust your ass and then rest for a while? September was like the latter, a year-low 16 posts.

Miami Vice was a great show.

Whit brought the heat, sociologically speaking.

We were introduced to Big Dunc.

There was a lot of tennis (and some Tennys) around these parts during the U.S. Open. Z told us about Dylan Alcott.

My wife and I went to see Harry Styles. It was awesome.

October

A modest increase in level of effort, with 19 posts to start the final quarter of the year.

TR doesn't care for constipated princesses, Evan Hansen.

McRib, chomp.

OBX Dave considered the cephalopod.

There's a fucking world cup for balloon keepie-uppie. And it's amazing.

TR taught us about pet-eating coyotes.

Someone wrote about testicle baths. I'll give you one guess.

Pretty much the G:TB Prime Directive right here.

November

We were running out of gas, friends. 17 meager posts. Well, a few of them weren't meager.

The world lost the RemDog. Tooth hurty.

Up the Teej!

Z's hate for Roger Goodell is cathartic.

I am pessimistic about the future of the Republic. 

Whit celebrated Phil Collins. We all learned a few things.

And the big finale

That's a fitting coda to another trip around the sun. If you've made it this far, you're probably a bit drained, and so I'll not wax too lengthy. As the years pass, I'm more and more appreciative of this place, even if it isn't worth $550m - at least not in material terms. Ernie Johnson's message is one to live by: love you, too, Gheorghies.