Fantasy Football 2009!!

Well, another football fantasy draft is in the books. This is Michael showing off the belt that he gets to hold for the next year as the defending champion. There were quite a few surprises this year. Not many picks went as everyone expected. The completed board (while unreadable at this distance) looked like this:

Many thanks to Jennifer Ivey who was a great draft board writer (not the most exciting thing to do in the world) and also made a giant portion of her famous black bean salsa (with avocado!) that I will continue to get to enjoy today. Thanks to Michelle Patterson for standing in for our California friend Ryan Dills. All the food everyone brought was great and I think it turned out very well. I can only hope that this is Calvin Johnson's year and I will not end up looking like an idiot for taking him 3rd overall. Either way, thank God football season is almost here! Absolutely the best time of year.

Couple Reviews

I finished up

yesterday and it was a great read. I'm not going to review it anymore here, as it already has a well-written review by

Jennifer Ivey

on her website http://www.jenniferivey.com/. She most certainly does the book justice. I also finished reading

I really enjoyed the beginning of the book, as Kevin Smith is a favorite person of mine and it was pretty cool to get a glimpse into his everyday life. It did get quite monotonous, however, as it turns out that his life is usually just as "boring" as most of ours. Sure, he hangs out with Ben Affleck every once in awhile, but he's usually just going to get take-out Quizno's and playing rummy with his wife and daughter. If you don't really care about the day-to-day happenings of the Smith family, you should still try to find a way to read the section "Me and My Shadow" where he details his struggles in trying to help Jason Mewes kick heroin. It's a great read for anyone who has ever tried to help a friend or love one kick an addiction and really exemplifies the fact that you can never help someone who does not want to help himself. Plus, it ends happily, as Mewes is, to the best of my knowledge, still heroin-free today.

Snack Money

Something weird happend the other night. It was around 11:30 p.m. when I saw a shadow move across the window looking out onto my front porch. This was swiftly followed by a hard knock at the door. As I don't exactly live in the safest neighborhood, this was a little alarming. I walked over to the window to see who it was. I saw a young, innocent-looking guy that I definitely did not know standing patiently at the door. I cracked it a bit in case four or five other guys were hiding somewhere out of sight and ready to barge the door.

Me: "Can I help you?" (Or something to that effect).

He did not speak, but he did hand me a small note.

Small note: "I need three dollars for a snack."

I am not making this up. I looked a little more closely at the guy. He did have a sort of "off" look to him. I began to think that he must be mute and was obviously in need of help. I began to reach in my pockets to see if I had anything to spare. I was stopped quickly by a voice of reason (unfortunately not mine, as I am often a giant idiot).

Voice of Reason: "What are you doing? You can't give him any money!"

Me (Brainless Wonder): "Why not? He seems kind of off."

Voice of Reason: "You cannot go knocking on the door of a complete stranger's house at 11:30 at night and ask for money. I don't care what's wrong with you. If nothing else, it's not safe for him to be doing it. You absolutely cannot encourage this type of behavior."

Me (Slowly Coming Around): "You are absolutely right."

Me (To our late night visitor): "I'm sorry. I can't help you."

He gives me a little okay sign, I cut the porch light off, and my night slowly returns back to normal. I've thought about this incident quite a bit over the last couple of days, and I have come to some conclusions. Well, mostly just one conclusion.

1. I will never give money to panhandlers again.

Well, this does come with an amendment.
Amendment A: Rule 1 is null and void if said panhandler is missing an appendage. I simply am a sucker for a lost limb. I just feel like these people show an obvious need, so I always feel worse if I do not help them.

ANYWAY, I am not a bad person for not wanting to perpetuate this panhandling business. I like to help people. I just don't think that dropping money on someone just sitting on the street asking for it is helping. I used to. I'm starting to understand that giving someone some change at that moment does nothing more than just make you feel a little better about yourself for a few moments. It's the absolute least you can do. You have no idea if that bit of money will help them, or if they will use it to further dig themselves in a drug or alcohol hole. It's like sticking an "I Support the Troops" bumper sticker on your car and leaving it at that. If you supplement your bumper sticker with some Care Packages over to Iraq, a donation to the VFW hospital, a letter to a friend or family member serving, etc....then, yes, you support the troops. If you don't do anything but stick a bumper sticker on your car, the only thing you are supporting is the bumper sticker industry.

There are many organizations right here in Asheville that are set up to help people in need. Habitat for Humanity, The Asheville Homeless Network, The Salvation Army, Spare Change for Real Change and Homeward Bound are but a few places where people work hard every day and volunteer a lot of time to help these people. They need and deserve your support and I know that every dime you give them goes to help the greater good. These are the organizations that will get my "snack money" from now on. I really believe that it is the only way to make a real difference.

World Champ

C.E.D. Hendersonville is now home to the HVW World Champion, and proud we are.

FOOTBAPOCALYPSE

It's official. It just sunk in. It's taken six days, but I'm ready to deal with this. Tom Brady is out for the rest of the season. He only made it 8 minutes this year. It happend on this play:

If you want to see something that makes my stomach turn, here it is:

I can basically kiss this NFL season goodbye. Our defense is just average and our backup QB (Matt Cassel) has not started a football game since high school. There's still some talent on offense, but this looks really bleak. I am thus far undefeated in two fantasy leagues, but it's a small consolation to losing your favorite player for the season 8 freaking minutes into it. I wish I could turn to the college ranks to make myself feel better, but Michigan looks completely awful. We will be lucky if the game against Notre Dame even finishes today. I'm not sure that either team knows enough football to fill four quarters. My new team, Clemson, on which I sprung for season tickets, started out the year ranked in the top ten and then proceeded to be embarassed on national television by Alabama. Possibly the only thing worse than losing a million hand in foot games in a row to Bo Ivey is having his team throttle yours as a major underdog in the first game of the year. He has shown remarkable restraint following this victory, as I have not (yet) been subjected to any type of taunts regarding this calamity. I would have been down at the zoo taking pictures of me feeding the Tigers old Bear Bryant hats by now. Roll tide indeed.