Christmas Sports

Jerome Simpson plays for the Cincinnati Bengals. His method of getting into the end zone to score a touchdown against the Arizona Cardinals, was pretty unusual, but definitely worth a look above.

No Boxing day football for me this year. What we did get though was a three NBA games in a row and a big local derby in the NFL between Green Bay and Chicago Bears... on Christmas Day. Have to say I was pretty surprised that there was so much going on on Christmas Day. I kind of gave some of the basketball a go, but to be honest, I'm not really having it. You can't really deny the fact that someone leaping from 6 yards out to dunk a ball as hard as they can through a basket is pretty fun, but just strolling around taking it in turns to score doesn't really have me on the edge of my seat.

Green Bay, with a metro population of around 300,000 are pretty much the best team around at the moment. I love the fact that with the smallest metro population in the NFL they are more than likely to win back to back Superbowl's and that their local rival (Chicago) has a population of just under 10 million. Green Bay beat Chicago 35-21. Chicago did though, with two of their quarterbacks injured had a chap that a few weeks ago was coaching high school football and hadn't played NFL football for 4 years. He did a pretty good job considering, and may have earned a contract for next year. Good one Josh McCown.

Kielbasy and Coal

After the easiest drive back from Ohio on Monday, the following day we took a drive with K's dad up to the "Coal Regions" of PA. The primary purpose of this trip was to go to Kowalonek's to get a big order of Kielbasy and various other related meats for all the family. The secondary purpose was a bit of a field trip for K including drives around Centralia (her mum's hometown) and Shenandoah (her dad's hometown) and various coal dependant towns and former towns in-between.

First port of call was Kowalonek's. Having left Bethlehem at 7.30 we arrived a bit after 9 and there was a queue outside the door. This was to be expected. While waiting in line we were given a $1,000,000 bill by a chap who then went on to talk about the million dollar question. Any guesses? Yep. What is going to happen to you when you die? We were being hit up by someone asking us if we were going to heaven in the line for some Polish sausage, probably the first and last time I will experience such a scenario.

When we actually got into the shop the ticker was on 10. K's dad pulled 36, a bit of a wait, but it was pretty fun overhearing how much people were spending on cured meats ready for the holidays. $156.27 here, $89.70 there. One chap ended up hauling out three boxes of the stuff, potentially not all for him and his family.

I was amused by the above sign and the shop's obvious desire to encourage people that they can eat Kielbasy all year round not just at Christmas and Easter. We were assured they are only ever as busy as they were when we were there during the holidays, but it would seem that the seasonal business is enough to keep them going for another 100 years and a few more generations.

After a bit of breakfast we stopped in the (former) town of Centralia, inspiration for some of K's writing. There are only about five or six houses left after an underground mine fire meant the town was pretty much razed to the ground when the local government bought out everyone that lived there at the time. We had visited once before, but this time it felt particularly sad and bleak, probably not helped by the weather and time of year, but still sad to think of what was a thriving place overgrown and pretty much deserted.

We passed plenty of derelict mining buildings all over the area, but also a good few working mines as we made our way back down from the area back to Bethleham.

Buses and Peanut Butter

Yesterday we decided that we needed some food and that we quite fancied going to see the new Diablo Cody/ Jason Reitman film, (Young Adult) in the evening; this meant four separate bus journeys and because of this, a COTA day ticket. Firstly, we needed to get change so that I was only paying the correct fare and not giving them a dollar more than I needed to. With my four $1 bills in hand we proceeded to wait a while for our Number 2 downtown bus to arrive. While waiting, we were treated to some (seemingly typical) terrible Ohio driving. Quite simply, in this case, one car was going slow and the car behind wasn't paying attention so drove into the back of him. There was no damage but they just hung around for a while holding up the traffic to the bemusement of all on-lookers.

There is usually a whole load of different things happening on the bus and yesterday proved no different. In chronological order, here is a rundown:

- Someone tried to sell me a Big Issue type publication and he was surprised I heard him as he said he was so quiet, so he repeated himself. I still didn't want one and he seemed to just keep talking to himself/ me.

- Two ex-soldiers tried to outdo each other with Iraq stories.

- A drunk sat in front of us (at 2pm), so drunk he seemed close to the point of passing out.

- People talked about the pirated Abba CD they are going to give for Christmas.

- Four Santas and a rudolph were off for a night on the town singing modified carols including the "F" word. The bus driver had to tell them to watch their language.

- A smile from the bus driver.... A rarity.

I never used to have much time for peanut butter, in fact I was kind of disgusted by it. Times are changing though and I kind of like the stuff now. The reason(s) for this are the Buckeye Candies you see above. They are pretty much very creamy peanut butter dipped in chocolate and they are great. More recently I have also been enjoying Hershey's Take 5 bar. These seem to have a combination of peanut butter, chocolate, caramel and pretzel; it's really very good. I'm not quite at a Reese's Peanut butter cup stage quite yet and actually spreading the stuff on a slice of toast is a long way off, but I'm opening up more peanut butter related candy avenues for exploration. Of course you'll hear more as I continue my American candy exploration...

MY Top 20...

So, I'm a bit of a sucker for end of year lists. I like and hate them in equal measure. With this being the first year that I have had a blog at the end of a year I couldn't really resist the temptation to do one of my own.

Here it is:

1. Kurt Vile - Smoke Ring for my Halo

2. Real Estate - Days

3. Tune Yards - Whokill

4. Pete and the Priates - 1000 Pictures

5. Gruff Rhys - Hotel Shampoo

6. F**ked Up - David Comes to life

7. Woods - Sun and Shade

8. Smith Westerns - Dye it Blonde

9. Metronomy - The English Riviera

10. Low - C'mon

11.Bill Callahan - Apocalypse

12. Veronica Falls - S/T

13. Lets Wrestle - Nursing Home

14. Mazes - A Thousand Heys

15. Wilco - The Whole Love

16. Wild Flag - S/T

17. White Denim - D

18. Destroyer - Kaputt

19. War on Drugs - Slave Ambient

20. St Vincent - Strange Mercy

In reality this could probably have been kept down to about 15 or 16 albums that have been released this year, but I kind of like the round "20". I'd say the last six or so are albums that I either thought I'd like more or just haven't listed to enough. I also wanted to like the Battles, Wild Beasts, Peaking Lights and Deerhoof albums from this year more. I think the Peaking Lights is starting to grow a bit more, but sorry chaps, it didn't happen quite soon enough.

On the other hand, had the albums by Beach House and Deerhunter that came out last year have come out this year then they would most certainly have made the list. I'm sure Bradford Cox is gutted.

And finally, if I had the money I would have already have brought albums by The Bats, Cymbals Eat Guitars, Stephen Malkmus and Iceage by now. But I don't and K's mom's christmas list request will do the job for them.

OK, maybe I'll write about Christmas soon!

Getting Wet and watching Diners, Drive Ins, Dives.

Today it rained all day. We didn't have any food for dinner. I went out with the help of the Hembrows' discarded NYC street vendor bought umbrella. It kept the rain off my head, but the lack of any discernible drainage on any sidewalk meant wading through puddles all the way there and back. I was, though, looking forward to an announcement from our favorite local gig promoter. Knowing that nearby locals Guided By Voices have a new album out in January and are playing some dates in Europe in May, it seemed not too much of a leap to think that they might stop here in Columbus sometime soon. Apparently Los Campasinos were the band... I don't hate them (I'll leave that to Kristen), but they certainly weren't what I was hoping for.

After our semi-regular dose of Seinfeld re-runs, it's a Monday night marathon of Diners, Drive-In's and Dives. Your larger than life host Guy Fieri gets around the US and even a bit of Canada trying to find surprisingly good/crazy food in not necessarily great surroundings. One particularly crazy place tonight in St Paul MN, featured STUFFED (with blue cheese) burgers called Juicy Blucys. Or, if that sounds a bit much, how about some Spam Bites... Featuring: spam, cream cheese and pickle breaded and deep fried.

Sadly, there haven't been any featured in Columbus so far, but I've already got a couple marked for our first trip to Cleveland in the new year. Check here for a video of the first DDD place we got to in Washington DC.