New Year's Eve: the Most Overrated Holiday of the Year

Happy New Year!

I might respond to that with a cheerfully sarcastic, "what's so happy about it?" But nonetheless, that's not really the point. The point is, this holiday is the most overblown, overrated thing of the year.

In all honesty, let's look at it. We celebrate watching the clock move one second from 11:59:59 to 12:00:00. Hooray!

This proclaimed "holiday" is just an excuse to go out party and get totally drunk. It seems to me kind of pointless, maybe that's because I don't drink. Who knows.

If you look beyond the sheer logistics of this holiday, it's the celebration of a passing year which, I guess I can go for. Granted, it doesn't really feel like a passing year. It's actually kind of a pain in the balls during January, the month in which probably 1 of 4 checks, homework assignments, and letters are written with the previous year's date on it because people haven't gotten used to writing 2006 etc.

It doesn't feel like a new year for me. (Or, it won't, at least... when the clock strikes 12.) Even when I go back to school... With finals after break, it's not really a new beginning, it's a half-assed attempt at re-learning what I learned in the months prior to being let out for break, and cramming this knowledge in my mind so I can perform well on a test that basically determines my grade for the semester. Kind of sucks.

Call me pessimistic if you want, but this is what happens when you stay home on New Year's Eve. You tend to realize how trivial it all is... maybe I am being a pessimistic jerk. I'll end on a positive note, however, maybe in college New Year's Eve will be more significant. More people to party with perhaps, and more of a significance in terms of finals being BEFORE break, and weeks after the holiday to finish work, as opposed to one day.

Sports: A General Overview 12.28.05

Since I'm not a *huge* sports fan, I'll just lump all of the various things I want to talk about into this post. Randing from multiple Bears wins, to the anticipation of the Fiesta Bowl on January 2, Holiday Break has been an exciting time for Midwest sports fans.

Bear Down, Chicago Bears
Da Bears and their clutch defense have been through much in the past weeks. They won against the Atlanta Falcons in negative degree weather on the 18th of December with the help of Rex. See- that's what it's about; if someone isn't scoring the points, they need to be reconsidered. On that note, Kyle Orton has had a hell of a decent rookie season, but with that in consideration - the defense probably scored more points than he has on offense.
When I heard the announcer say "and after the half, we'll see Rex Grossman for the first time in regulation play this season," I was blown away. Looking back, it was undoubtedly strategy on part of the higher-ups like Jerry Angelo, Lovie Smith, and the other coaches.
Grossman came back and within the first few plays everyone agreed that it was the right choice. He lead them to a victory over the Falcons, which was frickin *huge!*

Da Cheese
The Packers game was very solid football and held my entertainment until the final seconds. For a game like that on Christmas day, definitely lived up to the hype and the rivalry juices flowed. Too keep it breif - the final minutes of the game exemplified the whole game and relationship between the Bears and Packers; a valiant effort by Brett Favre, only to be shut down and shoved down his throat in a nitty gritty final few minutes. The deliverance of a solid ass-kicking, so to speak. (Yeah, somewhere in between the 2 consecutive sacks and the interception.)

The Fightin' Irish
All I have to say is;
January 2 - First BCS Bowl of the year - Fiesta Bowl
Notre Dame vs. Ohio State
It's gonna be huge.

Fick Family Party Wrap-Up

Apathy. Rage. Passion. Drama. All common themes at the Fick Family Holiday Party.

Okay. Definitely not... but it was entertaining to a point.

Yeah, so the precursor to this was a lot of BS, no one really wanted to deal with it from our family, and everyone was bitching and such. My family went out in the morning to Best Buy and this other random store and I got this sweet velvet-looking blazer (and the new Sin City DVD).

We got back to the house and my grandpa was putting up a ridiculous amount of no parking signs everywhere so the street wouldn't be blocked in, (oh, and btw, his house looks like Chevy Chase' house in Christmas Vacation, with about 10,000 lights.) So yeah, to cut to the chase, this thing starts up. All the proverbial old people start coming over, and these two sisters who I'm somehow related to who are about.. Late 20s'ish. My dad starts having a discussion with them about Vodka. Classic Mike O'Brien move. He's recommending all of these various vodka's and one of them is like "yeah I get all my alcohol for free - I have a friend who's a biochemist and whenever I want to try out a new brand of Vodka or something, I tell him, and his company goes out and buys it and he tries to emulate the flavor with all of these chemicals, then when he's finished he gives me a few bottles of the stuff." Classic.

Yeah, then later, I went and talked to these two kids with PSPs who were sitting outside (it's definitely like 50-70 degrees in STL btw, not 15 degrees or whatever). They were also bored out of their freaking minds, and didn't want to be there either. Maybe one day I'll appreciate these family reunion-esque things, that day will probably come when I'm past the age of 21. Not that I'm a huge advocate of drinking, but I could see how that would make a difference, seeing as most of the adults were thoroughly trashed.

Oh yes, and I can't go without mentioning what I have so aptly named the "Fick Family Clique," which consists of a sect of the family that is a bunch of locals who live near each other, and they chill with each other a lot. (That's the intel my mom gave me afterward.) I encountered this clique all sitting in a circle in the living room, having a seemingly exclusive conversation. I didn't want to go near them, it was kind of creepy. Freaked me out a bit.

And the final fun thing of the night, Ashley (cousin), my sister, and I became bored and hungry... SO, we decided it would be a good idea to roast marshmallows in the fireplace (inside). So we naturally looked for skewers (like for shish-kabobs), but were unable to find any. Then, we stole a hanger from the closet and used that. Very very tasty marshmallows... mmm.

All in all, not a bad event, I suppose. Funny seeing all the drunk people tho...

Top Five Worst Christmas Gifts 2005

1. XXX: State of the Union or a similarly crappy DVD (like maybe "The Fog") - This just sucks. Honestly, who comes up with this crap? I saw the Fog earlier this year... if I was unfortunate enough to get the DVD version of this, I would probably go ahead and slash my wrists and let it bleed all over the DVD packaging. Yeah, and you really can't take them back either, because the cheap SOB who bought it for you probably got it in a $10 bin at Blockbuster. Yippee-Kai-Yay MuthaF**ker!

2. Undergarments - Not only is this awkward, but it blows. If I need to buy boxers, I would just go freaking buy some cheap ones from Target or something. I don't need American Eagle boxers - totally unnecessary. As a general rule; unless it's from the "Very Sexy" collection at Victoria Secret (and for your female significant other), it's probably a no-go.

3. iTunes Gift Card - Here's an idea. Give someone a CD with Limewire downloaded onto it. Provide postage-paid envelopes as well. They can download music from there and then go ahead and send the artists a buck a song. Then the artist doesn't get screwed, you're not supporting a record company, and Apple's profit-share doesn't go up more than it needs to. After all, they make enough money as it is selling iPods and crap like that.

4. Starbucks Anything - Go buy a mocha-frappachino in a bottle! Not. Starbucks is soo lame. So is the whole teenage coffee generation. Why are people wasting their hard earned money from their $5.50/hr fast food jobs in coffee shops where a so-called "Double Cappachino" costs like $3.75. (The coffee beans for that cost about 21 cents.) And another thing about Starbucks. WTF is up with the ridiculous amount of coffee choices. Sometimes enough is enough. When you can choose your coffee by the individual f#cking village it came from, that's a bit too crazy, what if you just want to buy some regular coffee? Why all the bullsh##?

5. Hollister Clothes from some random relative - This is probably the worst gift ever. See this article (See December 21, 2005) for more information on Hollister kids. Not only do all of these clothes make you look like a stupid preppy little whore, if you want to return then, you have to delve into the atmosphere of a poorly lit, crappy music, jackass-employee Hell. They describe themselves as; "the newest southern Cali lifestyle retailer geared towards energetic and outgoing guys and girls." (Read: geared towards lameasses and crackwhores.) What the hell kind of place sells jeans for $69.50? Holy crap...

What didn't make the list:
- Monogrammed crap that you didn't ask for. Especially when they screw up your initials TJO? wtf happened to the capital B in "O'Brien?"

- Crappy regifts with the price tags still partially on. We're talking blatant regifts here, like a picture frame pillow, with the sticky price tag half ripped off, and ugly fabric.

- Anything that looks like it was free = scummy. Way to tell someone you care, buy them something that you got for free in the mail. (Or out of a cereal/crackerjack box.) Very classy.

NOTE: Contrary to popular belief, I did not recieve any of these gifts (with the exception of an Abercrombie shirt a few years ago, which is kind of like Hollister on the caliber of stupidity). These are gifts that I came up with or was helped to come up with by observing gifts others received and by asking relatives what their worst gifts were.

First Post

First post. Woo. Had to get off Xanga, it was driving me nuts. I hated the format and n00bish quality of it. Anyways, more to come. 1:20 AM and time to take a rest.