Thursday, December 15

At Atlanta -12 Jacksonville
The Falcons are headed
to the playoffs and the Jags
are going golfing. PICK: FALCONS

Saturday, December 17

Dallas -7 At Tampa Bay
I want to go to
St. Petersburg in Russia.
Florida smells old. PICK: COWBOYS

Sunday, December 18

At NY Giants -7 Washington
The Giants should win,
so that means that the Redskins
will probably win. PICK: REDSKINS

Green Bay -13.5 At Kansas City
Chiefs just fired their coach!
They’ll win if their new coach is
Zombie Lombardi. PICK: PACKERS

New Orleans -6.5 At Minnesota
These Vikings couldn’t
beat a parking ticket with
a damned reacharound. PICK: SAINTS

At Chicago -3.5 Seattle
Skittles will be thrown
when the Bears Offense again
forgets to score points. PICK: BEARS

At Buffalo PK Miami
The Dolphins fired
their coach and no one wants to
be their next coach! Aw! PICK: BILLS

At Houston -6.5 Carolina
The Texans just clinched
a playoff spot so they may
still be crazy drunk. PICK: PANTHERS

Tennessee -6.5 At Indianapolis
Finally this week
Indianapolis wins!
Ha ha ha ha ha. PICK: TITANS

Cincinnati -6.5 At St. Louis
With an injured QB
the Rams look like some kind of
sad, wet, blue pancake. PICK: BENGALS

Detroit -1 At Oakland
You know who the cops
in Oakland should teargas next?
Insane Raiders fans. PICK: LIONS

New England -6.5 At Denver
Nobody beats Tim Tebow.
God likes him a lot and hates
the rest of you jerks. PICK: BRONCOS

At Philadelphia -3 NY Jets
Dream Team can bring to
an end the playoff dreams of
Mr. Rex Ryan. PICK: EAGLES

At Arizona -6.5 Cleveland
This game shouldn’t be
televised. Instead show a
dog fighting a cat. PICK: BROWNS

Baltimore -2.5 At San Diego
The Ravens only
show up against the best teams.
Chargers are garbage. PICK: CHARGERS

Monday, December 19

At San Francisco -3Pittsburgh
A Preview of the
next Super Bowl. Not really,
but who knows, maybe. PICK: 49ERS

Last week’s Haiku Picks went 7–9. Season to date is 95–112–6. We need a miracle!

Jim Behrle tweets at @behrle for your possible amusement.

“Does having a payment model that rewards controversy encourage writers to bait readers with offensive material?” Do Jews love money?

This is just a remarkable performance of the holiday classic. I’ve watched it several times already and will almost certainly do so again. Then I need to go see the brain doctor, because something bad is clearly going on up there in my head.

It is that time of the year again: Awl pal Alex Pareene’s Hack List is back! Who is he going to be mean about this year? YOU NEVER KNOW.

“I’ll Be Your Wingwoman”: Two Friends Walk Into A Bar

by Katie Heaney

The second in a short series about sharing, caring and not going it alone. In this installment: Friends and roommates Katie Heaney and Rylee Main practice pick-up strategies.

Katie: So as you may know, one of the two us generally has a boyfriend, and the other one of us usually never does. And, hypothetically speaking, it doesn’t totally matter which one of us is each of those people. Right? But you are the one who always has a boyfriend. And sometimes, because of that, I consider you to be somewhat of a man wizard. Not like you ARE a man, but that you are a wizard, with a high-level O.W.L. in men.

Rylee: Well, I have been known to sack a few potatoes if you know what I mean. Haha, errr, but you’re right, my wizarding skills are superb.

Katie: Exactly. And because you are so benevolent and wise, sometimes when I whine about “whyyy am I siiiiingle,” you suggest that we go to a bar to practice having you be my wingwoman. Which, in theory, is a good idea, except for that I pretty much hate the idea of meeting boys in bars. I would prefer to just meet them doing things I actually like to do. Like, at the Christmas model train exhibit we went to before the bar, or while sitting quietly in my room alone. But anyway, you made me go to a bar.

Rylee: True, you definitely like small Christmas-y things. And you definitely do not like “meeting boys at bars.” If I remember correctly, your exact words when we were getting ready were, “I don’t care if the guys there think I’m a lesbian, I don’t want anyone to talk to me.”

Katie: Wellllllll. Maybe. But I still went! Because you told me that sometimes I have to leave my comfort zone and so I did, because you were going with me for moral support. So this past Saturday night, after I SOMEHOW did not meet a perfect single man wandering alone amongst the Christmas model trains, I went with you to a bar downtown.

Rylee: And it didn’t even turn out that badly! Well, we did have a bit of a shaky start. Apparently it is acceptable in society to give a bar one name, but have a separate and unrelated label on the windows and door. So, basically, the first boys that saw us were the ones that, from their cozy table inside, watched us walk by the window, four times.

Katie: It was probably worse because we got there at 8:30. But the nachos we got to keep us occupied until boys got there were so good. That was probably my favorite part, really.

Rylee: I still maintain that any upstanding, or even downstanding (?), party should start at 7:00. What’s the point of making everyone suffer and practically fall asleep before we are allowed to start eye-sexing each other?

Katie: I know, right? Like, what do they think I am, 19? But around 9:30, things started to pick up a little. For instance, this boy (or to be honest, he was a MAN) sat down at the table behind you and he was literally the hottest person I have ever seen. He looked like Dr. Jackson Avery from “Grey’s Anatomy,” but with a ponytail, which I don’t even normally enjoy, except for on this man and Heath Ledger. And I felt bad for you, that you couldn’t see him. At first I thought he was married, but actually his ring was on his middle finger (hot). In any case, he came to the bar with a lady.

Rylee: I felt bad for me, too. But lo and behold, MAN #2 showed up, and we reluctantly turned our attention away from Dr. Jackson Avery to this other stallion at the bar. “Aha,” I said to myself, “here is my first chance for some advice-giving.” It was a perfect opportunity for you to go get a drink at the bar, standing at the open spot next to MAN #2. Despite your initial resistance, I was proud that you eventually remembered why we were there in the first place, and took my advice to make yourself noticeable by catching his eye at the bar. As I recall, it didn’t turn out too badly.

Katie: Well, technically, he was with another guy, and, technically, I didn’t “catch his eye” so much as stand there and hope that osmosis would do… something. But it worked! I mean, ok, the weird part is that I was eavesdropping, obviously, and the second guy was telling the hot guy, “See the thing is, when you look at the butt, you also have to look at the thighs.” Which: ??? And they were showing each other iPhone pictures, and I tried really hard to look but I couldn’t see what they were. And then the second guy was telling the hot guy about how age differences in couples shouldn’t matter, because 45-year-old men used to marry 14-year-old girls all the time. So that was not ideal.

BUT the hot guy took that as an opportunity to ask me to guess their ages, which I did. I put him at 27 but he was actually 26. And then he guessed my age (25) and he was right. And then he was like, good job, and he smiled, and that was it. I scurried back to our table. But I will admit that I was still a little delirious with power.

Rylee: YAY! That’s really all I ever wanted for you. To feel the power of your womanly charm as dozens of suitors wait desperately for the chance to seek true love’s kiss. Maybe that is just from Enchanted, but regardless, it was a start. Unfortunately, he was the WORST eye-sexer I have ever seen. With no eye contact being made after the age chat, and all the hugging he was doing of his male counterpart, we started to wonder if maybe the two of them were a couple, and after that things kind of went downhill.

Katie: So the next thing that happened is everything I hate about being a woman in a bar. These three guys, all of whom looked exactly the same and turned out to be brothers, encircled our table like the drunkest possible vultures. And we literally could not understand 80% of what they were saying. It was unbelievable. I know they asked us if we were single — we both said no; I lied — and we gathered that it was the eldest brother’s birthday. You were his favorite by leaps and bounds, by the way. Typical.

Rylee: Haha, well, drunk guys are just attracted to blond hair. It’s just like me and bees. Bees just fly around crazily until they see my blond hair and then attack me. Bees = drunk guys. (I really hate bees.) Anyways, the only thing I could hear was when birthday brother said to me, “I don’t mean to be so forward… and so backward at the same, but you look like it’s a good time… for a bad time.” I was like, “no thank you.” It took some coaxing for him to leave, and they came back at least three more times.

Katie: HAHA! That part was a little bit amazing. When they left, one of them stopped by to alert us to their departure, and said, “I wish… I had… more time… to spend… with you all.” And we were like, “Us, too, buddy. Us too.”

Then, after that, one of the servers stopped by our table and told us that somebody named “Adam” had bought us shots. It was just like a movie! I mean, that has never happened to me before. But it seemed a little suspicious, because the server was kind of laughing a lot? But also, they were free, so we didn’t worry about it too much.

Rylee: And then the guy that bought us the shots, “Adam,” and his friend came over, separately, to apologize and explain that the server wanted them to buy more shots, but they didn’t want any more, so they bought them at the server’s insistence that they give them to “the table of girls” at the other end of the bar. They did not use the opportunity to talk to us more, or flirt, or buy us more drinks — only to clarify that the shots were not intentionally bought for us specifically.

Katie: Yeah, like, “Let us be perfectly clear. We could not have been thinking of you less when we bought these.” But I’m putting that on them, you know? That is their lost golden opportunity. And a generally weird response to having given something to someone, to then immediately and profusely apologize for your action.
 .
Rylee: Yeah, well… good riddance!! So as we neared the end of our night I realized I barely gave you any actual advice. I might have said, “Any attention is good attention!” but that was probably just me being all hopped up on my first glass of beer. Overall, I would say, I’m proud of you for trying, but the problem with bars is that you have no idea if the boys who are here to watch gross UFC Fight Night share any of your interests or preferred personality traits. Maybe you were right in the first place: Best to find one doing the things you enjoy anyway. Except the part about finding a boy when alone in your room, that would just be weird.

Katie: I was envisioning that maybe he could crash through my ceiling, while doing construction in the upstairs apartment or something. That is practically a romantic comedy. “Sometimes when love shows up unannounced, it can make a real mess.” And then there’s like a shot of me with pieces of crumbled insulation and ceiling in my hair, and this cute person picking it out for me, and then our eyes meet… Anyway! Thanks for being my wingwoman, both last Saturday night and for the rest of our lives.

Rylee: I am always happy to be your wingwoman. Next stop: Boy hunting on our road trip to Area 51! There have to be SOME hot boys who love aliens as much as you.

Katie: Mulderrrrr!!! Haha. But yes, possibly. Trust no one, the truth is out there, etc.

Katie Heaney writes and Rylee Main slays everyone worldwide in Mario Kart. They are BFFs and roommates.

Sponsored posts are purely editorial content that we are pleased to have presented by a participating sponsor; advertisers do not produce the content. This post is brought to you by Serve by American Express. Sign up now and receive $10 credit towards your first use.

In a naked bid for high-yield SEO-related traffic, the Daily News has launched… a book blog? It is called “Page Views” though, which is actually kind of “ugh why didn’t I think of that” hilarious.

10. Soft boiled
9. Poached
8. Coddled
7. Deviled
6. Hard boiled
5. Sunny side up
4. Shirred
3. Fried
2. Scrambled
1. Omeletted

Earlier: Pizza Toppings, In Order

Photo by ilolab, via Shutterstock

What are YOU doing January 17th? I’ll be at Joe’s Pub

for GRIZZLY ADAMS:A true story of bears, brawn, and brain injuries, a “concert/staged reading/awesome performance of a new musical performed by bears.” The show is “about the legendary mountain man and bear tamer Grizzly Adams, tracing his path to stardom from a dirty basement in San Francisco to the streets of the Lower East Side, where he found near-gainful employment with PT Barnum before dying from head injuries sustained in service to his art,” which is pretty much all I need to hear. Plus, the score is by Corn Mo. Corn Mo! I am so there.

You know, if a fellow can’t set up his own home sperm lab without the long arm of the law reaching around to jam him up then something is seriously wrong with this country. It’s time to get the government off our backs. And fronts.

“Not all red wines pack the same punch in the heart-helping stakes. University of Mississippi scientists studied 11 varieties and found Californian Pinot Noir and French Beaujolais contain up to three times more of the heart-boosting antioxidant resveratrol than other tipples.”
 — That is all you need to read about the subject, because it goes on to spout some nonsense about more than two glasses a day being bad or whatever, which is lies.