The Colts And The Playoffs

Well, they halfway lucked into it and halfway played into it.

The Indianapolis Colts, my hometown team, will play the New York Jets Saturday night in the first round of the NFL's playoffs to see who goes to the Super Bowl.

They backed into the playoffs when the Jacksonville Jaguars, their biggest divisional rival, lost 34-17 to the Houston Texans. They played into it by defeating the Tennessee Titans 23-20 on an Adam Vinatieri field goal with no time left on the game clock.

I'm a little surprised that the Colts made the playoffs. They had suffered a boatload of injuries during the season; 17 players were on the injured reserve list.

And back on December 5, they stood 6-6 after a 38-35 loss to the Dallas Cowboys.

But they won four straight, including a 34-24 victory over the Jaguars. It was needed because the Jaguars beat them 31-28 earlier in the season. They also had two wins over the Titans.

As for Saturday night's game, I won't be surprised if the Jets win. They have the better team this season. Also, the Colts won -- as well as lost -- a lot of close games this year.

But I also won't be surprised if the Colts win it. Peyton Manning can pull something or anything out of his pocket to make sure of a victory.

But if they do win, they must go to Pittsburgh to play the Steelers on Jan. 15.

At the least, the Colts made it into the playoffs. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers and New York Giants both had 10-6 records -- the same as the Colts, by the way -- but won't be in the playoffs because the Seattle Seahawks won the NFC West title -- with a 7-9 record. And division winners, no matter how bad they are, get into the playoffs.

First Conversation Of The New Year

Ace: First...happy new year.

Deuce: And a happy one to you, too.

Ace: Did you celebrate last night?

Deuce: Yep. Started about ... oh...about 3 in the afternoon. Maybe 3:30. No later than 4. Started drinking the bubbly. Some sort of sparkling wine. Asti Spumanti, if I remember the name. Had some cheese and champagne crackers with it.

Ace: For dinner?

Deuce: More or less.

Ace: Damn. Eat healthier. Try to make that one of your new year's resolutions. I just opened a bottle of some dry red wine and drank two glasses of it . Went to bed around 10 p.m.

Deuce: I gotta admit, I went to bed a lot earlier than that. Woke in the middle of the night and finished off the sparkly. Hair of the dog and all that.

Ace: You did all of this at home?

Deuce: Yes.

Ace: Good. You stayed off the roads. I know you can be dumb sometimes and crazy at other times, but at least you're not stupid.

Duce: Hey, you were talking about new year's resolutions. You got any?

Ace: One of them is to stay away as much as I can from racists. Cut them out of my life if possible. And I think they're going to be more prominent. Obama's halfway through his term. He's had a lot of opposition. From the public, and I know --I just know -- that's a lot of it is because he's black. And it's true schadenfreude on my part to know that it gives them pain that a black man is president. To them, he's an inferior person; if he's a person at all and not some cross between a primate and a human.

Deuce: How do you think he's doing?

Ace: As best as he can. The Republicans in Congress will be sand in the gears of government and will act worse than they did during 2009 and 2010. They'll oppose him for the sake of opposing him.

Obama's too reasonable. You can't be reasonable with them. They're like dogs. You gotta be hard with them. It's the only thing they respect.

And who's more like an animal: Obama or the congressional Republicans?

But fuck them and fuck those who support them. They remind me of Nazis.

Deuce: You know what they say on the internet. Once you mention Nazis, it can only go downhill from there. Or so I remember.*

Ace: Fuck that fucking bullshit. I'm not talking about your redneck stormtroopers or your psychopathological SSers. I'm talking about your basic hometown Nazis. Like a lot of Germans were in the 1930s.

But at the same time I realize these Republicans and their supporters aren't Nazis, who wanted to a big transformation of Germany. They're more like Francoists; Instead of radical revolutionaries, they're radical reactionaries, with evangelical Protestantism and big business taking the place of the Catholic church and the nobility in Spain. So you might as well call them home town quasi-fascists.

Deuce: Damn. You don't like those people.

Ace: I never have. When I was younger and Richard Nixon was president, they used to show the uglier sides of their souls too much in public. Nixon was the dark soul, the demonic side -- their shadow, to be Jungian about it -- of what they were.

I also used to read and see a lot of comparisons between a lot of my "fellow citizens" and Nazis in the 1970s. By the early 1980s, those comments disappeared. Don't know why. It still applies.

But enough of that now. I gotta start walking. Wanna get in shape and lost some weight.

Deuce: I'm gonna go to the grocery story. Get some green leafy vegetables. You're right. I should eat better.
*
ADDENUM: Deuce was referring to what's been called Godwin's Law. For an explanation of it, please click here.

A Toast...

to the upcoming year.

The other projects I mentioned before are going all right, but slower than I expected.

Just thought I'd post this picture to keep a little bit active in this blog. And damn...I didn't realize that I hadn't posted here in 20 days.

I wish all of you a Happy New Year, along with a healthy and prosperous 2011.

Goodbye For Now

I'm sure you've heard of the old saying, "See you later, alligator!"

But I found recently that there are other ways to say goodbye and use animals in the salutations:

• Keep it real, spotted seal;
• Oh take care, gruff black bear;
• Lotsa luck, you silly duck;
• All best wishes to little fishes;
• Gotta go, buffalo;
• In a few, cockatoo;
• Bye bye, fruit fly;
• See you soon, you big baboon;
• Peace out, river trout;
• Good day, sting ray;
• Another time, porcupine;
• Ciao, brown cow;

And my favorite:

• I bid adieu, mon caribou.

A Happy Hanukkah...

which starts at sundown tonight, to all of my Jewish readers, and especially to Ben Grimm, also known as The Thing of the Fantastic Four.

You didn't know he was Jewish? I cite Wikipedia:

Born on Yancy Street in New York City's Lower East Side to a Jewish family, Benjamin Jacob Grimm had an early life that was one of poverty and hardship, shaping young Grimm into a tough, streetwise scrapper. His older brother Daniel, whom Ben idolized, was killed in a street gang fight when Ben was eight years old. This portion of his own life is modeled on that of Jack Kirby (co-creator and original artist of the Fantastic Four)...(Kirby) was born Jacob Kurtzberg, grew up on Delancy Street, his brother died when he was young and his father was named Benjamin.

If you want to read the rest of the article, please click here.

By the way, the drawing was done by Kirby.

As for the writing on Ben's collar, I don't know what it says. This gentile is no Hebrew scholar.