December Arrives, This Month at the Movies, NBA Rant and NFL Week 13 Picks!

Weeeeooo! Long live December! December my 3rd Favourite month of the Year. Just happy to be here after the last 30 days or so, what's it called again, ah yes, November, Movember, whatever, move along, make room for the holiday season.

November, what a drag, quite literally I mean, this month seems to have dragged on for months on end. A month which, for the better part, saw me abstain from all types of fun and folly. A month in which I decided just 10 days in, to embark on purifying my mind, body and soul. Since November 10th, I have been on an Isagenix Health cleanse, no alcohol, no caffeine, no sugar, no food or drink based socializing, and most of all no sex, er I mean, cuddling, and what's worse, I did this all voluntarily! (Well, everything except for the sex part.) Needless to say it's been a looong month. It's surprising to reflect on just how much of  a socializing staple food and drink are to our (my) way of life. Now I know you're going to say, something to the effect that you can have fun without drinking or eating, but I'm here to tell you that you can't. I've tried it, it's a no go. Cannot be done. Jokes aside, I'm glad to be 24 days in and I'll no doubt finish my final 6 days to come away a leaner, cleaner, slightly less poor, young-ish man. It's been a good experience, if not a bit of a lonely one at times. But I kid you not, so many of the social things I do, whether it be going out to eat with friends, having a beer and enjoying a basket of wings, or my habitual drinks on a Friday or Saturday night. It seems all fun  involves food or drink in some capacity. So without them, November was very much lost on me.

But there is a light at the end of the tunnel, many, many bright lights, with an array of different colours, for December and it's holiday cheer have finally arrived. Jolly old December, my 3rd favourite month of year, right behind July and August. December is chalk full of all kind of great fun. You have the NFL shaping up quite nicely, the it's NCAA college bowl game season, the NBA is going to feature 3 weeks of  free agent mayhem punctuated by the start to the season just in time to celebrate Jesus' birthday on the 25th of December. Which incidentally is also international gift giving day. Friends, family, food and Hanukkah, it's going to be great. Come on in December, stay awhile.    
In my last blog I railed into Empire Theatres for providing us with a bunch of shitty family films for much of October and November. Maybe it wasn't all completely deserved (maybe it was?) regardless there should be no excuse in December as there appear to be plenty of quality films to see this month. Some blockbusters and some films that will get some Oscar attention on into January. So head out there buy someone some theatre gift cards as stocking stuffers and then use them for yourself and go see some of these flicks this month. See ya there. Here's a few of the films you might catch me at:

Michael Fassbender (X-Men, Inglorious Basterds) continues to dominate the film scene in 2011 "Shame" hits theatres Dec. 2nd. Not holding out much hope that we'll get to see it here, but maybe.

A film adaptation of John le Carre's timeless spy mystery, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy hits theatres on the 9th of December and if the film rivals the books entertainment value for me that will be saying something.

Many are greatly anticipating acclaimed director David Fincher's adaptation of Steig Larsen's worldwide best seller, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.This is the first instalment of the 3 part Millenium Series trilogy. Whether there will be future films may depend on how this film turns out. This should be dark - and if Fincher has shown us anything from his past catalogue, (Se7en, Fight Club, Zodiac) it's that he can do dark.  Loved all the books and can't wait for this one to see this one come to life on film.

We also have the annual holiday blockbusters in the presence of Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows and the animated classic The Adventures of Tin Tin: Secret of the Unicorn. Of the three, I'm most excited for Tin Tin. How I can include Sherlock Holmes in light of the fact I have yet to see the first instalment, I know not.

And we'll throw in Johan Hill's new comedy "The Sitter" for a few laughs to counter all the drama and action above and there's plenty to smile and get excited about when we head to the theatres this month. Hopefully Crystal Palace gets there renos completed and we have a whole new environment to enjoy all this entertainment in. 

I'm probably missing another couple of Oscar contenders and other good comedies. And of course there is also the star studded cast of  the New Year's film spectacle titled, "New Years Eve". It would be easier if I listed the stars not present in this film rather than list all of the celebrities that are. How that will work out, I will likely never know. I'm okay with that.

And now time for my NBA rant, who's to blame and why the NBA lock out pissed me off! Here we go. For the most part this whole lockout, all the reports, all the shit talking and posturing amounts to a whole heaping load of BFD. Big Fucking Deal. I think it has been stupid, selfish and about another 30 odd synonyms in the same vein as silly. The whole process has been handled poorly on both sides from the get go. NBA players were and still are, highly overpaid - so get over yourselves. You make an absurd amount of money to play a sport and were on the verge of shutting a season down based on the difference between making 5.2 and 4.9 million dollars in a season. Ridiculous. So you piss me off, and I blame you that we got into this mess from the beginning.

The NBA owners decided the current system wasn't working and they wanted to see it changed. They decided that the players were being over paid at the current BRI scale (players getting 57 percent) and wanted to see that number go down to what they felt was a more reasonable number of 50 percent . I think that's pretty fair. The current economy called for the owners to re-assess how they could make their business profitable again and this is what they came up with. It's their league and it is BIG business here, so I'm okay with that. Business was doing better in '99 when they came up with the old system and with the downswing in the economy in general, coupled with the growing trend of people wanting to watch the game of basketball at home on their high definition big screen televisions, rather than jamming into the nose bleed sections of huge stadiums may have something to do with that. They decided the players value was slightly below what is was last time around (1999) and leverage was in their favour. It's like Bill Simmons has alluded to in his columns regarding the issue, "you're not paying Tom Cruise the same amount for Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol (MI: 4) that you paid him for Mission Impossible 1 or 2, you're just not. He's not as valuable as he may have been 10-12 years ago." And in this case the leverage lay in the hands of the owners. The thing that pissed me off about the whole thing was the owners arrogance and obstinacy throughout the whole ordeal. The owners had the leverage and used that to drill home the point that if they lost a season - no big deal. After all, the owners aren't going anywhere, you can own a team for years, sure they'll lose a little this year but over time they can make it back. Players on the other hand, only have the here and now to make their money. They don't have years and years to make back anything they lose this season.
 
Both sides approached the lockout with arrogance, somehow deluding their sides into thinking the could exist on their own. The players thinking they could find suitors worldwide, (but who wants to travel all over the globe for a pay cut when if they could just take a slight pay cut and get back to playing right here at home?) or simply create their own league, (without stadiums or TV deals from major networks? What are you guys thinking? ) or perhaps a superstar tour. (Sure that likely would have made dollars but only for a small percentage of the elite, leaving the vast majority to join Delonte West at Home Depot. ) The owners had the leverage and bullied the players throughout this ordeal, which pitted the players against the owners, owners against players; rather than accepting the fact that the two are far better off when they work together. In the end it took the players deciding to take the matter to court by de-certifying that finally gave the situation any urgency and got us to the point we're at today - or did the NBA reveal it's true breaking point, losing the Christmas Day games?

Either way the whole thing amounts to big fuckin' deal because we ended up where we should have ended up months ago. Big fuckin' deal because I realized as much as I love basketball, I don't really care about it thaaat much in November and December.  Not when I can get my fill of NFL football, college football, early NCAA, NHL Hockey, what I mean to say is there is still plenty of distractions out there in the early months and it's just not that important to me to see the season drag it's way through the first couple months of the season. 82 games in a season is a long season. Hmm 66 games seems about right, so maybe the season should always start on Christmas day? So again I say, we lost November and December, but big fuckin deal, the madness of the next 3 weeks should provided enough excitement to more than make up for it. The lockout pissed me off because I foolishly got drawn into caring about it more than the owners or the players seemed to. And then in the end we arrived at a place where we would have if we'd approached this situation with any urgency months ago. So that's my rant, I blame both sides and their me first approach but in the end, who cares we're gonna get our season and not a whole lot has changed in that regard. And that's the last I'll speak on the past and the NBA lockout, it's time to get excited about what's lies in store for the future. In my next blog, I'll break down the new deal and I'll also take a look at a couple of things that have me most excited for the coming season.    

My NFL Week 13 Picks of the week. If these teams don't win I'll be broker than I already am.

Denver over Minnesota - All aboard the Tebow train. After starting the week as 1 point dogs it appears the public has finally come to their sense and are finally backing the Jesus freak. Tebow and the Broncos have won 3 straight and the 4 of 5 since he became the starter after a 1-4 start shelved Kyle Orton. The defense has picked up in the last couple weeks and Tebow has the Broncos believing again. I'm a believer that the good times will continue this week against the hapless Vikings, who will likely be without all world running back Adrian Peterson again this week.  I think Denver continues to pound the rock and take care of it, waiting for rookie QB Christian Ponder to make a mistake a give the Broncos the edge they need.
(Denver -1)

Carolina over Tampa Bay - Maybe the OVER is the better play here with two swiss cheese like defences squaring off. Both teams have huge holes on defence but I give the edge to the panthers who seem to have more play makers on the offensive side of the ball with dynamic rookie quarterback Cam Newton and his favourite target Steve Smith. It appears Tampa QB josh Freeman will be out this week, thrusting John Johnson into his first start of the season. I'll take the Panthers who will likely be more organized offence and will likely utilize a deeper playbook than the Bucs with the back-up QB thrust into action.(Carolina +2.5)

Jets over Redskins - Rex Grossman cannot play 3 good games in a row. It's just not in his make up. Atleast not as far as I'm concerned, and that is all the analysis I need. Beyond that, the Jets need this one to keep pace with a guaranteed victory by the Pats over the Colts. Last week was a tough inner-division tilt with the Bills but I think credit is due to the Bills who played a hard game, I think this week the Jets have their way this week. Hunch maybe, or just the anti Grossman factor. After all thre can only be one Sexy Rexy, and I prefer mine to fill out a sweater vest.
(NYJ -3)