Saturday is of course, New Year’s Eve. I’m still not totally sure as to what I’m doing. All I know is that I am definitely not doing what I did last New Year’s Eve. Last year, for those of you that don’t know, myself and two friends went to Times Square on New Year’s Eve. I look back with great fondness at that trip; there was such a sense of adventure and the excitement of the unknown that came with that trip. So, here are some pics taken on December 31 of last year along with my attempt to upload a video of us shortly before midnight.

This is me and my friend Kristine at the top of the Rock, Rockafeller Center.

This is the three of us obviously at the Empire State Building. I don’t know why, but I look tall in this pic.

This is me and my friend Christie waiting in line to get into Times Square.

This is obviously the legendary Radio City Music Hall from where we were standing in Times Square.

I know this might LOOK like we have just eight seconds until 2011, but this was actually taken a couple of hours before midnight. Turns out there is a countdown every hour on the hour for the previous six hours or so.

There was supposed to be a video that went with this post, but it is not loading for some reason. Let me try it again.

Awww shit, I did it! I actually added a video to my post, for the first time ever! Yay me. Wait, I haven’t confirmed that it works. Let me submit it first before celebrating.

Since I’m on vacation this week and being quite the movie buff, of course I decided to watch some movies this week. Recently I’ve made it a point to start watching some of the classics that I’ve long heard so much about but never took the time to watch. So yesterday, I watched what many consider to be the greatest movie ever made, Casablanca. Being that it was from 1942, you might not have seen it or even be too familiar with it. You are, however, no doubt familiar with some of the lines from the movie as it has not just some of the most famous lines in the history of American cinema but lines that are legendary pop culture lines that you might have even said without realizing what they were from. Among them:

• “Here’s looking at you, kid“. This one was spoken by Humphrey Bogart to Ingrid Bergman on multiple occasions.
• “Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.” This is the last line of the movie. 
• “Play it Sam. Play ‘As Time Goes By‘”. This is quite possibly the most misquoted line ever. This was the line but for some reason it is remembered as “play it again, Sam.”
• “Round up the usual suspects“. Honestly, I had no idea this was from Casablanca. 
• “We’ll always have Paris.” Again, perhaps I’m just clueless but had no idea this was in Casablanca. 
• “Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world she walks into mine.” I always knew this line but never quite knew how it went exactly.

As for the movie itself, I thought it was fantastic, much better than Gone With The Wind. I think a lot of people think movies from that era were all really long since Gone With The Wind takes like your whole fucking life to watch, but Casablanca is under two hours and much more easy to understand and relate to. 

We are just a few short days (or long days if you are stuck working) from 2012. I have to wonder, what does 2012  hold in store for the world? What will happen in my life in 2012? I always hate doing a post about the year past while still in that year which is why I usually save my year in review post for the new year. But, I need something to post about so why not 2012 now while we are still in 2011.

First of all, I should ask, how do you pronounce the year, do you say twenty eleven or two thousand eleven? I say twenty eleven because it is consistent with the previous century, after all we wouldn’t say nineteen hundred and eleven, would say nineteen eleven. And nowadays I hear people use both terms but I do hear more and more people going with the twenty route instead of two thousand and so forth.

I always like to try to attempt to make some half ass predictions about the coming year. The only thing I will predict and guarantee is that the world will not end in 2012 unlike what some people believe, based on the their own beliefs or the Mayan calendar. This is a fairly safe prediction because let’s just say I’m wrong, well there is no way that it can ever be proven because we would all be fucking dead. But, since I’m a betting man, I would put heavy money on the fact that we will go on beyond 2012.

As for myself, 2011 was such an amazing and awesome year for me. It was by all accounts the best year of my life. Although I had goals I wanted to accomplish, I could never have predicted much of the stuff that  happened to me in 2011. In 2012 though, I do have some goals and things I want to accomplish. So what better place then to document those goals here:

• Continue to learn how to swim. One of my 2011 goals was to learn how to swim. I kinda did, as I can float now and swim a little underwater. The next class starts up on January 5 and I am already signed up for it, so this should be the easiest goal.
• Make a movie for my friend’s wedding. I’m co best man at my friend’s wedding and he is getting married in Jamaica on May 4, 2012. We leave on May 2, a scant 126 days away. I told him I would like to make a documentary style movie/video of his wedding and all of the events leading up to the wedding. My vision of the video is probably way more ambitious and bigger than I will probably be able to pull off, but we will see.
• Enroll in a improv class at Second City Chicago. This is something I have always wanted to do; kind of my dream job of sorts, to work improv and comedy. I’ve got a gift of being able to make up stories on the spot off the top of my head. Certainly there has got to be a use for this.
• Remodel another room in my house. This should be very doable since I’m taking part in a monthly project day with my friends. Last year my goal was to remodel my kitchen. That didn’t happen, but I was able to remodel my front room, hall and bedroom.
• Come out to more people. This SHOULD be a doable goal, but I’m not nearly as brave and courageous as one needs to be to take such a dramatic step. All I know is that it is getting harder and harder to be halfway out of the closet. Oh, and as requested I will have to do a post about why I choose to live my life like that.
• Meet the guy I have been pining for and carrying a torch for. I did a private post about this a few weeks ago. I’ve got it bad for somebody. And what is sad is that while we have had hundreds of conversations online, we have never actually met. Yet, I want him so. Of course he does not want me back and actually reaching this goal is very very unlikely. But, all of my goals can’t be easy now can they?

So check back with me next year to see how many of these I actually accomplished. And be sure to read next week when I review what my 2011 was like.

Even though I am an Atheist, I kinda half assingly celebrate Christmas. I mean, people invite me to their house for dinner on Christmas Eve and Christmas day, so why should I say no? Oh and maybe, I plan some of this on my own. But, again, some of these traditions I have been doing since before I was an Atheist. It doesn’t make sense to stop doing it just because I’m not a Christian, after all, I love hanging out with people.

The weekend started on Saturday morning  at 9 in the A.M. when me and 28 of my friends and family met for Christmas Eve breakfast at a local place about 15 minutes from my house, but centrally located for many of the people going. My friends and I have been doing this since 1996 when there was just two of us who went out to breakfast at Bob Evans.

Saturday night was dinner at my cousin’s house. Every year I play Santa Claus for the kids. Think I’m too thin to be Santa, eh? Well I guess I’m Santa after the lap band surgery. Besides, it’s not how fat you are but how enthusiastic you are as Santa. The problem though is that my nieces have figured out it is me so this year, I was not planning on doing it, but I brought the suit so that somebody else could do it. Well, turns out that one of my cousin’s kids was sick and two of the guys who I had in mind to do it weren’t there. But, my brother’s kids kept asking when Uncle Mike was going to dress as Santa. So, on I went with the show. As soon as I sat down, my four year old niece loudly proclaimed that it was me as Santa. In fact, both she and her older sister pretty much knew. Their brother on the other hand, not so much. Than again, isn’t it the boys who are more clueless? The funny part is that my brother said that on the way home, my nephew somehow convinced his sisters that it was not me playing Santa Claus. So now, they believe again. Funny.

Christmas morning we had my brother and his family over for Christmas breakfast and whatnot. Then in the afternoon and evening, we went to my sister in law’s parents house for dinner. Usually we sit around playing games after dinner. This year was a little different because the games were on t.v.: Bulls at Lakers and later on, Bears at Packers. We still played games though as the games were on the t.v. The Bulls won in exciting fashion, the Bears lost in typical fashion. And I got drunk on wine in normal fashion. Ahhh, good times.

I’ve long had a great, well quite frankly, amazing memory. At least when it comes to long term. I can remember what I was wearing certain days or specific things that might have happened or been said. And sports knowledge or useless trivia, well I rattle off any number of things without much though or concentration. In fact, my friends have a game that they play with me they call Maybe Mike Knows in which they ask me random sports trivia just to see if I know the answer. And most times I do. Not all times though, after all the name of the game is Maybe Mike Knows not Mike Always Knows. I’m also pretty good at remembering certain numbers. Like with birthdays. I usually always remember birthdays. One of my keys to remembering things is to associate what you are trying to remember with certain events. For example, I can always remember that one of my former friends broke up with her boyfriend on Super Bowl Sunday 1997 because I remember saying how bad of a day it was for him; she broke up with him and the arch rival of his favorite Chicago Bears, the Green Bay Packers won the won the Super Bowl that day. Now mind you I don’t talk to this friend anymore, but yet, I still remember that. Go figure.

But the human mind is a wonderful and strange thing at times. As good as I am about remembering long term things and numbers, I am absolutely horrible with remembering certain things and downright absent minded other times. Now, I know that short term memory is defined as anything under 19 seconds, but for the purposes of this post, it is going to be anything under say, an hour. For example I was playing a game with friends over the weekend that required me to do a certain thing every time I spoke. Uh, yeah, that lasted for about five minutes. And my brother was more than  happy to point out that as he put it, “Mr. Memory” forgot his rule.

I know I said I was good with numbers but for some reason, there are some numbers I can’t remember, like my license plate number. I know there is a one and a seven in there but to hell if I can remember the rest of it. So I have it saved on my phone. Another thing I have saved on my phone is the type of razor I use. I can never seem to remember which blades I need to buy when I’m at the store. The funny thing is that I have been shaving with this razor for probably 12 years. And if I had  dollar for every damn post I thought about writing and forgot………..or forgot to put something in a post. Like last week’s post titled “Well I Never!”, I came up with the whole thing when I saw a show about horse racing and realized I would never want to be a jockey. Then, when I wrote the post, I totally forgot to include it.

 But, ask me who played centerfield for the Cubs in 1989 and I can quickly rattle off Jerome Walton. He also batted lead off. I think he hit exactly .290 that year. Let me confirm that for you. Shit, fuck me, I must be getting old………….he actually hit .293 that year. Whatever, I still remember that my all time favorite athlete Andre Dawson hit .287 with 49 home runs and 137 RBIs in 1987. Yep, just confirmed that one, I was dead on.

I also have issues remembering people’s names. Shit, I even have trouble remembering their faces. I think that is more of a sexual thing though. If I find the person hot, I will most certainly remember their face and damn near everything else. Then again, that is not always true either. I guess the key to it all is just having something to associate it with. If I can associate it with something then I can remember. Except for razors and license plates. Fuck the license plate.

Recently there has been a sexual abuse scandal that has rocked a long standing institution complete with cover ups and strict denials and lack of accountability. Think I’m talking about the Catholic Church? Well of course they are guilty of all of the above, but sadly the sports world has been given the Catholic Church a run for it’s ill gotten money.

By now everybody knows about the case involving Penn State and their former coach Jerry Sandusky, who is quite possibly the only person who has had a worse year than Osama Bin Laden. But there is also the case involving former Syracuse assistant basketball coach Bernie Fine. Also there is the case of the former Boston Red Sox clubhouse manager, the deceased Donald Fitzpatrick who has been accused of molesting boys in the 1990s. And the former NHL player who sexually abused by a junior coach in Canada when he was growing up. Seriously, what the fuck? It is not a stretch to believe that this is only the beginning of a sexual abuse epidemic that is about to hit the sports world. All the signs point to the potential for abuse; you’ve got a heavily male dominated culture (like the Catholic Church), a place in which nudity is prominent such as the locker room (or in the case of the Church, alter boys changing in the back of the church), people who want to cover things up and think only of the best interest of the program or the institution (exactly like the Catholic Church) and enablers who allow the abuse to continue or look away (sooo much like the fucking church that is is frightening).

The last two are the things that might be the most disturbing and shocking, you know as if the abuse wasn’t bad enough. Take the Penn State case. It certainly seems like all of the people involved were more concerned with how it made the program look than the actual victims. The motto, as is the case at pretty much every single major university in the country, seems to be protect the program. It happens with the numerous recruiting violations. Only this is not recruiting. It is child fucking rape and it destroys lives.

At the end of the day though, whether the Church of the world of sports, it is all about money and greed. Sure, the Pope, Joe Paterno, and any of the other people in charge may not be the ones abusing the children, but they all share in the blame of some of the atrocities that were carried out once they were made aware of the abuse. And they all made the decisions to find ways to cover it up and spare the institutions the embarrassment because essentially, it might eventually cost them money.

One has to wonder which sports team or league will be the next to deal with accusations of abuse. And more importantly, how they reacted to the abuse and what they will do in the future to prevent the abuse.

I was driving yesterday past a mall amid tons of traffic waiting at a red light which featured on ALL FOUR corners a group of people holding crosses with the words “Merry Christmas” written on them. They were a happy bunch of people who kept on shouting Merry Christmas at everybody who past by. Obviously, this was a statement for people to say “Merry Christmas” and against stores saying “Happy Holidays.” As an Atheist I was mildly annoyed by this, but as a driver I was extremely bothered by this because while there certainly was a ton of traffic on the last Saturday before Christmas weekend, it was also clearly a distraction to the drivers passing by which of course, caused some gridlock.

Of course, the ironic part is that these so called protesters don’t get it and will never get it. They are fed up with stores saying Happy Holidays and believe because of this the stores have taken the Christ out of Christmas. And then you get pompous asses like Bill O’Reilly who lead a belief that there is a war on Christmas. What these people fail to understand is that Christ was taken out of Christmas decades ago and long before stores stopped saying Merry Christmas.

I find it ironic that they are so offended by the fact that the stores don’t say Merry Christmas, yet they don’t protest or say a peep when their high holy holiday is overtaken by greed, money, and materialistic things. Where are these people on Black Friday when people are LITERALLY fighting over toys and other goods? Oh, right, instead of protesting, they are right there among them trying to buy gifts. Sorry to disappoint them, but Christmas ceased to be about Jesus the first twenty times people got into physical altercations over the hottest toy of the season.

But again, the fighting doesn’t offend them enough to protest. And neither does the materialistic spending on gifts to teach the kids the real meaning of Christmas: behave all year long and I will reward you by putting myself into debt for the next year. Yeah, the frivolous debt spending bothers many of these people if it is government spending, but they tend to look the other way when it comes to consumers at Christmas, none of which is meant to honor their Jesus.

These people have the same whole assed, backward thinking on gay marriage. They fight and protest against gay marriage and believe it is the biggest threat to heterosexual marriage, yet never seem to say a damn thing or protest at all when it comes to divorce. You know, divorce, the one thing that is an actual, literal threat to marriage.

If only these people put as much time, money and energy into spreading their Jesus’s true message of love and helping the poor as they do into protesting two words or the love of two consensual adults.

I’ve long been a big fan of the 80s and 90s metal band Savatage who you might know from a couple of songs on my playlist. Many of you probably don’t know them as they were not very well known but you might know one of their biggest songs that they are not known for. Sound confusing? Well let me explain.

Savatage released a concept album in 1995 called Dead Winter Dead that dealt with a Serbian girl and a Muslim boy who fall in love during the Bosnian war. I was a big fan of the album which featured a song that, well this time of year is quite possibly the most played song on the radio. You do know the song even if you don’t know the name of it. It is called “Christmas Eve (Sarajevo 12/24)” and it is an instrumental combo of “God Rest Ye Merry Gentleman” and “Carol of the Bells.” The song gets air play on such a wide range of stations this time of year, everything from oldies stations to classic rock stations (some say they are one in the same) to progressive, to adult contemporary to even a pop/dance station. And every time it comes on, I have to laugh knowing that while people know it as being done by the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, I know it’s true origins: Savatage.

So just a quick post about the background of the song you probably all know but not the band.

I was thinking about something the other day. Everybody has jobs they would never do even if paid an obscene amount of money. It is not that they are above those jobs or the jobs are too menial but there could be any number of reasons for not wanting to do those jobs. So it got me to thinking what jobs I would never do, no matter what the pay:

• Window washer- Although I have gotten much better with my fear of heights, I still have a fear of heights. And I’m not even talking about those 100 story skyscrapers, shit those are way the fuck out of the question. I couldn’t even do like a two story building. Look, I’m a fucking klutz. I might not fall the first hour I was up there, but doing it every single day, shit, I would be concrete splat just waiting to happen.
• Head coach of a college or professional sports team- Okay so this one is not realistic in the least, but even so, I don’t care if they were paying me five million dollars a year, I would never want to put up with the shit these guys go through. They live their job. Everything they do revolves around their job. A lot of coaches have health problems because of the rigors of their job. And guess what, it is never enough, they constantly get second guessed from EVERYBODY even when things go right. And even though they work 18 hours a day, many times they get fired after one bad season. Fuck that shit, talk about unappreciated.
• Phlebotomist- I’m not a fan of needles, especially in my arm. I squirm and get queasy just watching somebody get a blood test on t.v. so I would imagine the person I’m sticking with the needle wouldn’t have a chance being comfortable with me.
• Dental hygienist- I’ve got absolutely no fear of the dentist, but spending all my day rooting through some slobs mouth, no fucking thank you.
• Electrician- I’m a pretty damn big pussy, as if you can’t already tell. I think that is all that is really needed here.

I was trying to think of jobs that I feel would be below me but honestly, none come to mind. I’m sure there are some, I mean everybody has some jobs they think they are too good for, but I was unable to come up with one right now. As for the above jobs, I think basic fear is the main reason why I would not want to do any of them

I swear I need a gay guy in my life. I mean, besides myself. I’m just not gay enough as I am. I need to find ways to gay it up a bit. I realized this when I went to the World of chocolate a couple of weeks ago. Being an AIDS fundraiser, of course it was filled with lots of gay guys. I made an effort to dress gay only to be told that I didn’t look in the least bit gay. Of course, this makes it much harder to get a gay guy if they think you are straight. Unfortunately, nothing about me screams gay. And since I have absolutely no fashion sense whatsoever, I can’t even make a half ass attempt at dressing gay. Hell, I can’t even manage to dress like a stylish straight guy.

I don’t have any close gay friends. Pretty much all of my friends of both genders are straight. With all do respect to my female friends, none of them know how to dress like a gay guy. I’m thinking that before I can find a guy, I need to find a gay guy to come in and give me a total gay makeover. Then again, do I even want a guy? I mean, there is A GUY that I want, but outside of that I’m not even convinced I want an actual relationship. But, regardless I definitely can stand to dress better.

Wow this wasn’t much of a post. Meh, I didn’t have much to write about.