Handsome B. Wonderful's Fortieth Annual List of the Top Ten Rock Albums of the Year

SATAN LAUGHS AS YOU ETERNALLY ROT.

Weird year, man. Got more shit to say than ever punches fucking tired of circle jerks in the temple of your dreams. Philosophy is naught but destroying eardrums in my own private forest, tossin' scrawls in the can. Poor man's withdrawal, son, 'cause the hard stuff's too much scratch. The rest is crap 'cept Hanneman.

1. Darkthrone, The Underground Resistance.
Fuckin' metal, man.

2. Alice in Chains, The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here.
Fuckin' reflection, man.

3. Uncle Acid & the deadbeats, Mind Control.
Fuckin' cults, man.

4. Cathedral, The Last Spire.
Fuckin' Hammer, man.

5. Monster Magnet, Last Patrol.
Fuckin' testosterone, man.

6. Cultes Des Ghoules, Henbane.
Fuckin' Satan, man.

7. Rome, Hate Us and See if We Mind.
Fuckin' angst, man.

8. Ranger, Knights of Darkness.
Fuckin' speed, man.

9. SubRosa, More Constant Than the Gods.
Fuckin' doom, man.

10. Bones, Sons of Sleaze.
Fuckin' Helpless, man.

11. Iron Dogs, Free and Wild.
Fuckin' 1982, man.

12. Tribulation, The Formulas of Death.
Fuckin' spooky, man.

13. Fuckin' everyone else, man. The days get later, I get lazier. Bloody Hammers, Spiritual Relics. Ihsahn, Das Seelenbrechen. Windhand, Soma. Hail of Bullets, III: The Rommel Chronicles. Autopsy, The Headless Ritual. Moss, Horrible Nights. Throwing Muses, Purgatory/Paradise. Magic Circle, Magic Circle. Orchid, The Mouths of Madness. Jucifer, За Волгой для нас земли нет. Inquisition, Obscure Verses for the Multiverse.

Sick engine, the piston hammers away

Remember when this came out, Thriller McCartney bitching "cover's in color!" Sure, a couple tunes could use some Perry White, and if the platter ain't General Zod, it's at least Non and he could fuck up most things.

There was some other gig, but I forgot.

Man, fuckers in class are fucking dumb. I mean, I'm a sack of evaporated Venusian stone but whoa: 'taint no STEM, so plants'll be 0.07% less toxic.

That wasn't it. Hail Something.

You know my only pleasure is to hear you cry

No better reason to temporarily halt hermitage than to celebrate this motherfucker turning thirty. See you in the next d6 months, unfortunately. People, man.

I'm a lazy, lazy man, Roger.

Carry on, wayward sons.

JESUS FUCKING SATAN

GET YOUR FUCKING HEAD OUT OF YOUR FUCKING GAME ALREADY.

Drunken slaughter ought to carry a shorter prison term than wallstreeting.

Quarter pounder with cheese

Not this stink again.

AFC East: The Fucking Patriots have a quarterback, the Dolphins, whose new unis suck but don't suck as much as the Arena League circus threads of The Fucking Broncos or Seahawks, might, the Toronto Bills don't, and neither do the H-A-A-A HAAA HAAA HAAA.

AFC North: Geno Atkins doesn't live in Cleveland, he lives in Cincinnati, unfortunately. The tools retooled HEY FRISCO FUCKING RUN THE BALL, this is the year beefy scrubs at last toll the bell for Big Ben We Hardly Knew Ye, and I'd rather not talk about Browns 2.0.47.

AFC South: Never did a quarterback's surname and team results mesh so poetically, the Titans are a textbook 6-10/10-6er, and I'd lay five bucks that the Jagwires are worse(!) than the Clowns, which leaves Planet Hooston by the two greatest words in the English language.

AFC West: The Fucking Broncos walk the cake; poor Philip Rivers, forced to handoff to a guy with nine broken collarbones, a gassed retread, and a guy not much taller than yours truly; and I'd lay five bucks that Al Davis' Shiny Tracksuits are worse(!) than the Clowns, which leaves the Walrus's second rebuilding job to tooth & nail for a shot at the newest shiny ring of blood diamonds.

NFC East: A four-flaw, round-robin sock 'em up. Ball's in your jockstrap, Mr. Griffin.

NFC North: Unless Aaron Rodgers dies in a demon summoning ritual gone horribly expected, the Packers snooze to at least one home playoff game. I'm further convinced that I'm the only semi-fan of semi-head case Jay Cutler which says much. Keep him upright, and there are 10-11 wins. Adrian Peterson's a yin playing on a team of yangs, and the best reason to watch Detroit is the hope that Stafford chucks the ball 800 times.

NFC South: Fuck Atlanta, America's second worst sporting town I'm looking at you Miami. Geaux Saints. Remember those 6-10/10-6ers, there's two more here. YOU figure out what they're gonna do, smart guy.

NFC West: Clash of the titans, non-speed metal divison. Been a loooong time since one geographic stratum boasted the league's two (arguably, pistols at dawn, knave) best armies. Poor St. Louis though not really since they're a franchise that should be sentenced to outlawry for such thievery but since they stole from Los Angeles, poor St. Louis. Carson Palmer's still in the league? Huh.

AFC playoff seeds: Denver, New England, Cincinnati, Houston, Baltimore, Kansas City.

NFC playoff seeds: Green Bay, Seattle, New Orleans, Washington, San Francisco, Atlanta.

Super Bowl: Seattle over The Fucking Broncos. This one's for you, Jim Zorn.

The Fucking Browns: Double digit stinky cheese. Again.

Broken record

Another semester, another layer of lawn off-getting deposited on the gunk.

I have a really strong sphincter about the badness of really bad stuff.

Forest hermitage.

METAL.

Abysses and eyeballs

Fuck you dumb public
fuck you stupid work
fuck you humidity
now that's fuckin' poetry
hell no says you
well fuck you too.

Doing the right thing

Frogger, deconstruct D)all of the above*

*did jam ninja-ly** to a stack of Darkthrone discs this weekend so hail hail rock and/or roll for truth in advertising for once

**sans air guitaring and/or neck wrecking***

***one wreck's good n' plenty****

****do "they" still make these?*****

*****I know "they" still puke out the great taste of Charleston Chew******

******66, the number of the beast, ******66, the one for you and me

Trust no one especially me

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Am I evil?

Blood on Satan's Desert Island.

What's that nagging, needling, niggling Ipecac wretcher called when there's a billion blatherers dying to upchuck on a zillion chunks of this, that, t'other but, lo! out the black blood of the earth! a quadrillion don't cares have erected a Godzilla-sized Erector set bricked up with Lego bricks of adamantium that even a doped-up Ghidorah can't fuck with?

Albums make much better companions than people.

Now, back to your regularly scheduled egads-a-thon.

When it's cold, and when it's dark, the freezing moon can obsess you

Jesus H. Cthulhu, I hate summer. Fuck this fucking season.

Twenty-one gun salute

Yes, the marriage to the SBH is now old enough to drink. And drink I shall.

Slowly we rot, or, better late than never

Greatest DM (death metal or dungeon master, listener's choice) album ever?

Don't sleep on Altars. Seriously, don't, or you'll wake up the not-that-secret ingredient of a pentagram stew. Mmmm, stew. Bunch of crazy crap happening in meat world, but fancy gizmodic contraptions aside, new shit same as the old shit YEEEAAAARRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHH. 'twas vaguely Daltrynstic no? though I'm more skilled in the Axl arts, not the paparazzo face punching bit 'cause I love you all like Ozzy. Reference your own frontdude/chick for three easy installments of 39.95, please allow 6-8 weeks for delivery.

Been cleaning [read: attempting to maybe possibly try] out the house 'cause like every firstworlder, got too much garbage even for Oscar, and came across a shot of the fam post-arrival of the alien known to interwebzians as Offspring the Elder, mom classy in a Justice tee, yours truly nattily clad in a Seasons, both sporting giant glasses which was, along with onions on the belt, the style at the time.

No, I didn't wallow in any of that stupid "woe to you o earth and sea what a world what a world we leaveth with thee" shit because are you fucking kidding me, life expectancy and an end to feudalism aside though I hear that's making a comeback in select markets, see above.

In the past, you couldn't ignore what was stabbing you.

Thanks to cheap anesthetic hawked by the real Satanic cult, now you can, but you're still gonna end up as someone's meal.

Midlife, no crisis

Look man, adrenaline junkie shtick's fine for vapid hacks surfing vapor trails to nowhere. Me, I dig a grimy rut slicked with oily mope. It's right there, points the skeletal digit, hand hallucinating over a shaky ticker, ears flapping as yours truly breezes wearily through discarded puns on the band's name and/or the Cretaceous. Eureka, that signifies old, and lo, a couple more greys than yesterday.

So what? As we learned last time out, "maturing" is for musical halfwits, but aging fully graced, a magically different ballad. Once upon an Angus: "I'm sick and tired of people saying that we put out 11 albums that sound exactly the same. In fact, we've put out 12 albums that sound exactly the same." Here, a stretch, but it's new Alice, they've been at it since before my kids were born and so know what the fuck they're doing, the unbreakable Motörhead of mood metal.

Don't get naming the entire album after the sole "topical" track, The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here for the under-a-rock adjacent, but everyone's brainwaves are different. Song's certainly eerie, though, though Hung on a Hook, whoa, Layne or no, see despondency through a glass, darkly. Funny how Chuck Woolery infernos used to blast open proceedings, but a deep (ten of twelve tracks clocking over five minutes) Hollow has good n' plenty of a sticky, bendy gait, defiantly smacking away one of the album's few flaws, namely that a speedy, let 'er rip once in a full moon would be keen.

Contradicting myself, brick wall drones are wheelhoused, but second single Stone hasn't stuck yet (neither had Lab Monkey, which I already like thrice more than Monday), but the Jar of Flies-worthy Voices, lordy, 'tis No Excuses horizontal harmonizing with a daydream haze, birthing their love child. Opposite, 99 44/100% pure facelifting with the chromatic, rambling, ergo self-titled-ish Phantom Limb, and har ye har ye, new guy getting more turns at the mic this time around beyond righteous and mandatory two-parts.

We all wanna tap our foot, crack open our skulls on the stage, feast on the goo inside. It's why pop craft welded to brontosaurs riffs makes overcast barbs like Low Ceiling soar, whilst Scalpel is cut primarily out of the former, a chorus of pure fucking ear candy. Being either moody or cranky or both, this stomper of a record, peppered with singer-songwriter longhair jams once strung out so lovely in Cantrell's solo oeuvre, perhaps less black and more grey, riffs that once lopped off bloody chunks now grinding gobs of weathered flesh instead, still guards the sound of a cold, rainy day. Like today! (sadly, not that cold) Brings an invisible ink smile to my face.

Paranoia is just a kind of awareness, and awareness is just a form of blotto

No album cuts cuz Metal Blade's gang of Patrick Batemans says nein.

Animals are blissfully ignorant of our gold star acid banging till we leave a pile of garbage on their house 'cause we if we know anything we know shit, and in the sun that motherfucker smells like civilization.

No wonder stray folks hither and tither self-medicate, murder.

The previous platter drunk from grindhouse Hammer teats. This latest treat is rotten Spahn ranch dressing, leaves ripped from mellow yellowing, vomit-pocked copies of Helter Skelter and Mindfuckers stashed under the seat with empty wrappers, undies. Opener Mt. Abraxas, contra the last first strike, climbs molasses slow, sand dune stumbling for a couple of warm beers and pocket change 'fore channeling God, i.e. Sabbath circa 1970-75, hypnosis wielded like a drugged wizard unable to just say nyet. And we've all taken turns as that Mind Crawler hammer, if not convincing someone to go all Tex Watson then certainly to fuck with the psyche of the ones we love, a word redefinable by the happy hour. Celebrate good times come on.

Jonesing for a blood lusty fix, Poison Apple b/w Under the Spell are a pair of Buck Blackmore rockin' holes in the sky metal pin punched by Desert Ceremony's active Iommi octaves oh so mesmer, and dig Uncle's eerie un/intentional Robin Zander Evil Love tribute complete with T.V. Eye submission and name-drop shout-out over Maiden/Priest axework.

The ante's high in Death Valley Blues, Marshall stack psych hiding from piggish sobriety along with the rest of the worded weirdos, anxiously kicking the on sale! today only! bobblehead down the road with the droning, lysergic Follow the Leader. The burnt So Cal concrete and dusty Chevy van monochrome of Valley of the Dolls is at first tab the only (slight) misfire, but patience, grasshopper. At last, at last, our crazy kids land a gig doing the Devil's Work, the knife blade broken garage rock endgame that, like every idea good bad or ugly, stutters to nothing under the bleaching sun.

This stack of oh yeah ain't a carbon copy of their oldies, yet there's blissfully none of the lobotomy promoted by onanist music critics,"maturing" -- c'est-à-dire, agitprop praising the sacrifice of The Holy Riff for "atmosphere" -- just one more thorny hike through one more nuclear-baked shithole. Play that funky music white boy and sing how every wasteland, whether gated Swiss bank silicone, upper lower middle class timebomb, or dumpster diver felony, is run by variations on a nutjob, as it was, is, and always shall be. Amen.

A portrait of the catharsis as a middle-aged man

Space Casino junkies before, Space Casino junkies after, but where's the valet parking for the discerning headbanger, Comic Sans, where, I ask?

The Boys from Sweden parlayed their mood music for mopes into conjuring a joyful sadness. If only they'd fold the electro-noodling in the spaces twixt and bet on guitar runs à la Tonight's Decision or the new platter, they'd be always ace.

Katatonia @ House of Blues: Buildings, Day and Then the Shade, My Twin, Burn the Remembrance, Soil's Song, The Racing Heart, Lethean, The Longest Year, July, Dead Letters, Forsaker.

Dear Mr. Mike, didja notice the crowd, polite nodding for the smoking jacket rock, raging pits and fists of fury for the death man's hand? Take the hint.

Opeth @ ditto: The Devil's Orchard, Ghost of Perdition, White Cluster, Hope Leaves, You Suffer, Atonement, Deliverance, Hessian Peel, Häxprocess, Demon of the Fall, Harlequin Forest, Blackwater Park.

Ebb tide

Was unofficially saving this, the riffyard where I lifted this dump's subtitle, for the final whatever, but whatever. Kinda struck me the other house on haunted hill, mind and matter meeting over reruns and free beer I forgot about: I'm tired, out of shape, dead & bloated minus the dead but the bloat's a boat not far in the harbor, a place to go in the quest for firing negative reactors because doing so saves lives, or so we're told. Easier said when the Surround Silence isn't 'round tick tock.

Should be a bit o' yay honey since the oh-fer's now a one-fer, but you know, so? Brain's still a tumescent sloth happy to pine box space out, too, see above. Leave summer blockbuster clawing for the undead and characters from Poe.

Hell ain't just them but sing song, yingless yang -- hey, I should use that -- Newton's cradle stuck on static. Okay, five minute rule: sucks. Fine line between yabba dabba doo. A wonder anything's scrawled with this screaming quiet.

But hey, that's on you. J'accuse, accuser. You all through two of 'em, base ten. Seems this is how it's gonna be until we're worm's-meat. Yippee.

Maybe it's got everything to do with me.

Fuck the pen! because you can die by the sword!

Jeff, welcome back. 
-- Satan

SHE WAS IS A BLOODY DISGRACE

BLOTTO AND STUCK. UNLESS YOU'RE GIVING ME BOOZE, FUCK OFF.
THIS IS THE WORST DRUNK POST EVER. DAMN CAPSLOCKDOWN.

Black sabbatical

Bored with bitching 'bout the same fucking rot.
Back when there are some new tunes out, or not.

Swing and a miss

Suburbia hole-up tea chug, Stooges on repeat, half oblivion to the FA Cup on the tube & the usual too, the page dirtied by shit verse #752 = ¡Viva la Revolución!

Because I'm easily amused and that trumps one more try yet again at a half of a half-decent post

Commie plots and cardinal virtues

The title always seems to be more beguiling than the post, but at least I finally nabbed that rarest of birds. No, seriously, that's not a ketchup-smudged lens.

Passive aggression

It's taken decades, but I think I'm beginning to get why some, many, most, who knows, prefer clinical cold to that gummiest of monkey wrenches one finds jamming up the circulatory warp and weft so often that of course it was built that way, it's just that I really hate math. Where's that confounded bridge?

Family, religion, friendship. These are the three demons you must slay if you wish to succeed in blah.

I'm sure I've played this a dozen times last week, so here's a dozen and one butchering the baker's count for making candles von too tree ha ha ha make sure they're weird. On second synapse, monkey's tired of dancing. Always tired.

Ergo, stop hanging around and go frolic in the street.

Curse ye and thy ninth-level spell of disjunctive unmotivation!

Rock and/or roll, the only* constant 'fore the mortal coil shuffle.



*yes, yes, the banality of most everything else.

If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to ignore it, does it still talk to itself?

Blah blah blah.

Clap your hands say fuck yeah that's over

Sitting on the can early [read: early] Friday morning feverishly watching the brine bubble up out of pore after pore, my body's tubing behaving as if I had just downed a fifth and a box of prunes, c'est-à-dire, the Compleat St. Patrick's Day, but without all that pesky socialization.

To celebrate my victory, some select pieces of delicious ear candy. To celebrate yours, that I didn't go into even more detail, feel free to suggest others.

Riddle me this, Adam West

Being around others is exhausting.
Being by yourself is draining.
Solve for x.

CRACK. 



Nod.

This show's overdue for a reboot.

Fuck off and die

Spending spring break at home, the scribbling of my stupid paper and watching stupid footie sandwiching the stupid ham of stupid darkthroning. Sorry, ladies, this hunk of burning excitement's unavailable, though my wife wishes I wasn't. Zing. Thank you thank you, enjoy the veal, because if you saw the kitchen, you'd know it was your last meal. Badoomboom.

Bonus!



Fenriz freaky channels Sean Harris and Bruce Dickinson. 

Dead Early like 1982 early, Cirith Ungol, Diamond Head, Manilla Road. Ain't black, ain't crust, is Heavy Fucking Metal, all the influences us near-, at-, over-forty-somethings scarfed with greasy gusto, The Ones You Left Behind leaving a heaping plate of end rhymes like 22, Acacia Avenue was whoring its rhythm out to every Norwegian hesher.

Six tracks of classic filtered through the warped skulls of Ted and Gylve, but oh so special mention must be made of thirteen-plus minute closer Leave No Cross Unturned, King Diamond Satanic magic carpeting over boundless epic, dynamic speed, and Oxford commafuls of tempos shifting pitch. What the fuck just happened, Darkthrone just fucking happened. If only I could bellow joy like Kim Bendix Petersen and only you could hear.

More monkey dancing

Heavy as a really heavy thing. Not so much were the two local openers which, as usual, didn't match the sonic aesthetic of the headliner, but that's the biz, kidz. Furthermore, Now That's Class, despite being a venue eminently digable for live tuneage, is arctic molasses slow in getting the proceedings a kick in the ass.

So, a late start regifted us some run o' the mill deathy grindcore drone. Capable players, but boring as your favorite band unless it's mine, too. Then even more time wasted by neo-punkish organ-y riffing on the Misfits style that, unlike the Misfits, sucked, but at least they didn't suck as much as the incredibly sucky lead singer/suckiest bag of suck who ever sucked who, in troo anarkee fashion, chucked, randomly or not I don't know, a full beer bottle in the audience that hit a chick smack in the skull.

Thank Odin she was okay, confronting the douchebag after the set who, apologetic like a child stuck playing the "oh shit I got caught" card, evident in the rapid downsizing of his vocal rage after said chucking witnessed by all of us outside the stage grabbing fanboys. According the Duchess, there's at least one other local club they've been banned from. Wonder why.

Full tour opener Ancient VVisdom gave us Agalloch-via-Austin paeans to heathenry and such, so shit I dig. As the cooler half of the Peonage has pointed out before, yeah, the lead singer may veer into rock and/or roll posturing on occasion, but it's only rock and/or roll, and I like it. Theatre. Plus, musically, they're a sparkling spring carrying away the effluvia of the vanquished.

Sans posture is headliner Royal Thunder, but what a raucous ruckus. Drummer Lee Smith, no, the other Lee Smith, beats his drums like CIA goons beat prisoners for useless information, guitarist Josh Weaver, doing yeoman's work for injured second stringman Josh Coleman, pogos up a down like a demonic apple bobber on the Titanic, and singer/bassist Mlny Parsonz is fucking intensity personified, archetyped, and cloned from herself so chew on that stupid paradox. It's intense.

Can't remember the exact setlist because I'm angry and tired, but they played most of their one and only album, encored with the grinding Parsonz Curse off said record, and, because we were awesomely appreciative, encored a second time with a barnstorming Mouth of Fire off the debut EP. Jesus H. Cthulhu were they heavy. A bit o' Zep, a pinch o' Alice, and a truckload of this. Yeah, I'm pointing to the ticker.

Axiom grease

If something's going good, give it twenty-four hours.

Every three months, The Blizzard rages.*

Here's some metal, 'cause monkeys dance.



*not exactly axiomatic, but what is the internet but lies and porn?

His brains are boilin' when he hears the guitars roar

Messrs. Shermann & Denner, young & wild. 

A choice ironically comical or comically ironic, haven't decided yet.

Nothin' goin' on, no gong-banging, no it got-on, just stuck in neutrality like Switzerland. Sans Nazi ingots, of course. Such a stash could fuel serious bootleg acquisition. Since I'm no DaiMon, no Rules, only old shows once too young.

Bunch o' other crap, but who fucking cares. Brain's tired of hearing it, and so would you if you already aren't here, there, mmmm, Cadbury creme eggs.

Thine jaw stands slack 'fore the mysteries of life

As an occasional connoisseur of horror both great & Z-grade, 'tis a wonder numbered among the seven that I've not seen until last night this awful piece of claptrap that commands a furious retch. Hath Plan 9 met its mighty match?

And that was the highlight of my weekend.

I'd tear my own heart out, I'm so Indiana Jonesing for you

'cause I haven't posted metal in awhile, and 'cause you know it, no bitchin', 'tis what twixt is

[an infinity of redaction 'cause imma 1.7 track mind and where I do push pen you can't see and you don't wanna be trust me 'cause it sucks like a Mack truck of godawful fuck sixteen tons and whaddya get space cadetted that's what]

Blah blah big brother blah blah blow em up blah blah

WHERE 
ARE 
ALL 
THE 
FUCKING 
PEN 
CAPS

Because I've got nothing better to do

Browns Super Bowl highlights.

The Fucking Ravens vs. San Francisco: God told me to tell Ray Lewis to fuck off. Not to his face, obviously. I don't want to get stabbed or choke on deer antler. The better team comes from the bay, but the better team brayed 'fore Baltimore the last two final whistles, but I also don't care, nor does the Dutch Wizard. Niners 27-17.

Naval lint

The oceans are full of sailed ships.

You, 61° in Cleveland on January 30th, I hope you die of heat stroke.

Doing the right thing can be incredibly unfulfilling.

Each time I think I might want to make an actual friend, I thankfully remember that people are terribly overrated.

Responsibility [and X-Files reruns] keeps me from being a woodland hermit.

This post was paragraph after paragraph, surprisingly poetic -- not grandiloquent and moving, more easy flow rhyme-ish shit never there during actual tries.

Ergo, should turn discards into verse, or chuck this writing gig altogether.

Hey look, a shiny thing.

WHERE'S THE POLISH SPAMBOT

WHERE, DAMMIT, KEEP THE RUSSKIES OUT

And I'd rather be shot in the face than hear what you're going to say

You sunk my battleship

Why do I do this to myself?  

San Francisco @ Atlanta: Kaepernick is Dutch for wizard. In other observations, Dom Capers (51 points allowed in 2009, 37 in 2011, and 45 in 2012) is a master hypnotist, and the over/under is two years before Young Colin becomes friends with Dr. James Andrews. Because Mike Nolan won't simply squeak "go get 'im, boys" like an aforementioned doofus, Niners 34-31.

The Fucking Ravens @ The Fucking Patriots: Browns fans, might as well jump -- no, the other kind -- 'cause corporate naming rights will pay for a new executive suite coach in three years. As concerns this game, [SPOILER ALERT] since The Fucking Giants won't be in the bowl, well, you see where I'm going with this but, more importantly, for the first time in ages [read: February 2011], I'll have at least a mild rooting interest in two weeks. The Fucking Patriots 31-23.

Hell is other semesters

No fucking wall so the stupid public can stare while I sit at my desk is one very annoying gig, but a fucking presentation, too? The third thing is icing on the poison cake. Eat it, eat it, don't you make me repeat it.

Going through the illegal motions

Obligatory 25 Years Ago We Didn't Suck gig.

The Fucking Ravens @ The Fucking Broncos: I hate you both. I'm going for a walk. The better team, the better Manning 31-17.

Green Bay @ San Francisco: Smith's less Justin and more Granny thanks to trench arm, which affects everyone. As for thee, cheesy grasshoppers, balance. The game's best downfield chucker will appreciate it. Packers 31-27.

Seattle @ Atlanta: Curious to see if the Falcons become the latest team to lose to the eventual Shiny Thing champs for a third straight year; Buffy researching tells me it's happened more than ye think. After confabbing with a bunch of scienticians, grunge is better than crunk, Beast Mode outgains Ole' Washed-Up Turner, and a third thing. Seahawks 26-24.

Planet Hooston @ The Fucking Patriots: Via the auncient art of castling, channel this to your teammates, Meister Watt, and mayhap thou can keep it within a touchdown. Bonne chance. The Fucking Patriots 34-20.

Spiritual Meltdown, Day 1+n

Mo' better blues

Of course I'm going to bring up that once upon a time we didn't suck. 

Exhibit A: lost 4 of their last 6, by counts of 39-27, 48-20, 35-14, and 47-7.

Exhibit B: lost their last three, two of them at home.

Exhibit A is the 2008 Cardinals, coming within a Roethlisberger bullseye or a The Fucking Harrison pick-sixer [reader's choice] of hoisting a shiny thing. Exhibit B is the the 2009 Saints before they hoisted a shiny thing. Momentum, like running to set up the pass, is as worthless as Joe Morgan's brain. Have more talent than the other chumps, don't turf the ball, and roll eight the hard way. 'tis a simple game.

The Fucking Bengals @ Planet Hooston: Cincinnati's won 7 of 8 whilst the Oilers Texans [damn, I miss Tecmo Super Bowl run n' shoot Warren Moon] have resembled the Browns of late, current, and early, but since that means Jack Frost Giant, pay attention, it comes down to a game of whom do you trust, Doolin' Dalton or the death-spiraling Matt Schaub? I'll take door number three, Monty. Hey, J.J. Watt! Texans 24-17.

Adrian Peterson @ Green Bay: Repeat after me, to the tune of Lollipop Guild  ♪ this is a quarterback's league ♫ and ponder that it's up to Ponder. If he had had one of his trademark 15-of-33 clusterfucks, Lovie Smith would still have a job. The truly transcendent aside, running backs are a dime a baker's dozen, Yo! Adrian's the former, but Christian's still gotta keep the apostasy on the back crucifix. Ain't gonna. Packers 31-24.

Night Moves @ The Fucking Ravens: Chuck Pagano giving leukemia the bird notwithstanding, a pox upon both these blights upon a sporting reality that never existed. Andrew Luck's good but, like his team, lucky, and as of this moment, not as impressive as Russell Wilson, see below. Lest ye think I come not to praise but bury Indy after dragging its corpse up and down the boulevard, six out of the last seven playoff teams that were outscored by 30 or more in the regular season won their first game, and the one that didn't was playing one of the other six, i.e. because why not march behind completely baseless trends involving laundry from decades ago. Furthermore, half of Baltimore's defense is torn and frayed, but because Harbaugh the Elder ought to be smart enough to ignore all this Yay! Quarterback shit and run Ray Rice 45 times against the sieve that gave up a century mark to Peyton Hillis, Ravens 27-17.

Seattle @ Washington: Russell Wilson. Caveat the first: none of these are adjusted for era. Thus, Dan Marino doesn't get the benefit of the 7,963 rule changes since yesterday to assist the offense and would still own his once-sick marks. Caveat the second: RGIII is a man among men, but tossing against the styrofoam of the NFC East isn't quite the iron gauntlet Our Man Flint had to deal with. That and a corner tandem that harkens back to a certain pair of Browns, the choice is sorta clear, even if their twee threads make me wish I was blind. Seahawks 23-16.

365 364 more days of the same old crap

"Are you open on Saturday?"
"Nope!"

It's the little things. And it's the big things that counter them through a sledgehammer attack so surreptitious that you don't realize until after the fact that you've spent gobs of Time Oodles picking up powdered shards and put them back together, malformed like a post-Krazy Glue Humpty. Dance? Not even in the Burger King bathroom. Any further cusp-of-grunge requests? No?

Aw yiss.

Plus I've got that shiny new abstract bauble to distract for awhile.

The new year's already an improvement, though the day is young(ish).