Year End Awards

What would the end of the year be without awards? What would the awards be if I didn't make a bunch up while I waited for Christmas break to start? We have a lot of awards to get to. Good luck getting through it. Without further ado :

The 2008 Doug Norrie Year End Awards!!!!!! Clap, clap, clap.

Person of the Year (Fictional character award):

Vic Mackey – no one had a more badass, manipulative, disaster of a year than this guy. If you don’t watch The Shield, well, I won’t ruin it for you. Let me just say that Pat Griffin wants nothing more than to be Vic Mackey and that alone makes him my POY.

Person of the Year (dedication to a cause award):

Joe Keiser – no single person has done more to advance the cause of Beer Pong and Beer Pong education than this man. In addition to holding the annual KeiserPong tournament (a yearly ritual in this family for sure) he has also expanded to the franchise to the KeiserPong Winter Invitational. Coming soon: KeiserPong: Elementary School Knockout!! Keep fighting the good fight my friend.

Movie of the Year (Only one I saw in the theater award):

Dark Knight. Assuming I get this thing out by the 23^rd, this will be my last shot at making sure this movie lands in my stocking Festivus morning. If not? Well, I don’t want to say that the holiday is ruined, but I really couldn’t have dropped anymore hints about this.

Douchebag of the Year (Creeping me out award):

Alex, my wedding videographer. Lots of candidates for this award. Some from today alone. But when you look like you finance your whole business with a secret kiddie porn operation, get cut off at the bar during the wedding for having 9 glasses of wine, push one of my guests out of the way for being “in the shot,” and just generally creep everyone out? Then you are a man among boys (probably literally).

Wedding Guest of the Year (No Show Award):

Danny Difabio in a walk. He spent our wedding at the bar about ½ mile away while my best man Pat ate his meal. Nice job. (added award to his wife Kelly for not murdering him on site) In awards given out before the ceremony Danny also walked away with the Clutch Plumbing Award and Ponytail Award.

Engagement of the Year (Secrecy Award):

Justin Starling. At our party the other night he conveniently went the whole time without telling anyone he had just asked his longtime girlfriend Amanda to marry him. Huh? I guess the talk about our fantasy football teams and the Ravens/ Cowboys game were just a little more important. Congrats my friend!

Forward thinking of the Year (Colleague courtesy award):

Anthony Carsillo. As a fellow male teacher, Anthony had the foresight to stock the only men’s faculty bathroom with magazines and air freshener. Nice.

Dog of the Year (independence award):

This one was difficult as there were many new dog additions to my group of friends and family. After much deliberation the winner is Bentley Carruthers. Bentley won for being the one dog in the group that just does whatever the f@#k it wants. Plain and simple. I aspire to be Bentley. Head out the window, wind in my floppy ears and just chewing whatever couch happens to be in the room. He’s a top dog in my book.

Retirement Announcement of the Year (Unclear if my mom knew it was coming award):

To my dad: The Reverend Jack Norrie for stepping down from the pulpit and into the unknown. No one could put me to sleep faster than my dad when he got up there for the sermon. It took my years to come to my senses and realize I was missing some really good stuff. Me think me learn gift of words from me dad.

Bravest Guy of the Year (Arachnid fighting award):

To the stoic Mexican resort worker unlucky enough to draw the short straw and have to come to our room to kill the scorpion on the drapes. Faced with the deadly beast and with Sabrina and I screaming “MIRA MUERTE! MIRA MUERTE!” (we thought we were saying we wanted to see it dead, but I think were screaming “WE SEE DEATH!!”) he calmly hit it with a towel, took it to the hall and killed it. My man was cool, calm and collected.

Moment of the Year (Personal happiness award):

Goes in a landslide to the Giants winning the Super Bowl. I haven’t been that happy in a long, long time. Distant second: my wedding.

Book of the year (One I almost bought as a joke award):

Monday Night Jihad by Jason Elam. A book about a Muslim terrorist threat at a football game thwarted by a player/ government operative written by an NFL kicker? Surprised Oprah didn’t latch on to this bad boy. I was going to make a joke about a possible sequel, but when I found the book on its website I discovered there actually is a sequel. It seems linebacker Riley Covington is back to play some football and kick some terrorist ass. (I laughed out loud typing this whole paragraph)

Conversation of the Year (I wish I had the transcript award):

Goes to the conversation I had with Colin Walsh about music at the New Year’s party last year. I was on complete fire. Witty, smart, funny, introspective, and had no one else jumping in with their inferior opinions. I walked away amazed and thoroughly impressed with my intellect and verbal prowess. Unfortunately, I can’t remember anything I said because it was about 6 hours and 15 drinks into the party.

Injury of the Year (Ridiculous award):

To the herniated disc I suffered on the drive home from my bachelor party. I got it from sleeping passed out hunched forward for about an hour and a half. All three guys in the car agreed, “It looked like you were dead.” Great weekend.

TV Show of the Year (Cultural Advancement Award)

Hole in the Wall. If you haven’t seen this show, well you are really missing out. I could take a page just describing the levels of disaster occurring on this show and it wouldn’t do it justice. Bottom line: people with IQs below the retardation line, trying to contort to fit in a various holes in a moving wall? Masterpiece Theater watch your back.

Announcement of the Year (Knowing is half the battle award)

The upcoming GI Joe movie. I am not sure if I have ever been more excited for a movie. As long as they have the B.A.T.S and Zartan I will be good.

And Finally...

Visual of the Year (Children are our future award)

To the kid I saw unabashedly humping a giant Stewie doll at Great Adventure for at least 15 minutes while his parents and about 50 others watched in horror. My sister-in-law has video confirmation of this. It was intense, unapologetic and very, very disturbing. Great Adventure was full of unforgettable white trash moments, but this one wins in a romp.

It’s been a great year. More newsletters to come in 2009. Thanks for reading, sending along your comments, and not asking me to remove you from the mailing list! I love you all.

A fellow sufferer

From the one and only Albert Hernandez:

Hey all I got to say is gambling is a sin. But i broke that sin and every other sin that there is a long time ago. But your wrong Doug. You go thru so much pain even if you win. I was crying the whole night watching Eli get sacked and have him start in my fantasy. I still won but only by three points but i went thru so many emotions and I almost started to wonder is it worth all this pain and suffering to win one game. Now I feel like I wish I had lost so I don't have to endure all the pain again in the champion rd. and what makes it worst is if i lose I will come in second and I will be even more upset that I was this close to winning it all and lost.


Well said brother

Football Season

I shouldn’t gamble. At all. Ever. I don’t have a gambling problem. Far from it. I never make bets on games. I don’t go to casinos. I don’t check betting lines and have never had a bookie. I play a little poker, run the NCAA tournament brackets for my work and participate in fantasy baseball and football. That is about it. So why is it a problem? Let me walk you through my day Sunday. Woke up. Ate breakfast. Drank my coffee. Checked email. Went out and looked for the cheapest Christmas tree I could find. Sat and cursed at the TV and computer for ten straight hours as I watch my fantasy football season end in crushing fashion. That pretty much encapsulates all of my Sundays during fantasy football season.

Sunday I lost in the semifinals of my home league for a number of different reasons including: bad roster choices, bad luck, the universe conspiring against me, whatever god you worship hating me, the Cowboy's Tashard Choice, being jinxed because I didn’t help Sabrina decorate the Christmas tree, 8 years of the Bush presidency, broccoli, the stock market, the kid that stole my bike in 8th grade and snakes. All of these things factored in equally in my loss yesterday. As I sat and lamented this devastating series of events I thought, “This is supposed to be fun?” Even when I was winning, my Sunday (a beautiful day in the GW) was ruined as I sat nauseously through a day of football. It was anything but fun. It was torture.

A friend and I were talking this weekend about gambling and he said that problem gamblers have an addiction because there are times where the losses have more rush than the wins. What? I can say assuredly that the rule does not apply to me. As Tashard Choice scampered 38 yards into the end zone at the end of the Giants-Cowboys game Sunday night, and Sabrina curled into a protective ball on the couch lest she get hit with a stray flying pillow, remote or expletive during my Tazmanian devil-like destruction of the living room, I thought, “Today sucked.” (Would this read differently had I won? Of course but my mood the rest of the day was unchanged.)

In the end, I think I have learned some things about myself, foremost being I may not be cut out for high pressure, nerve racking situations. (In this instance the high pressure situation was watching grown dudes run around a field tackling each other). What will I do about it going forward? Probably very little as I am sure next fall you will find me in my basement, holding the draft, making fun of Albert for choosing Ahmad Bradshaw in the third round and thinking, “God I love this time of year."

Writer's Bloc? Try Time Travel

This article is posted at Cinemablend.com/television

During the first season of Heroes, I, like many others, used to think about which super power I would most enjoy exploiting for my own personal gain. (Eliminate Peter and Sylar’s powers as those are cop outs akin to asking the genie for more wishes) At first Nathan’s flying ability seemed appealing as I could do the traveling my wife always wants to do. Then it was Jessica’s super strength making armed robbery a cinch. Parkman’s mind reading abilities were also right up my alley, but then I realized Parkman’s real ability was to make me want to shut the TV off every time he came on. Finally, I settled on Hiro and the power to travel infinitely through time and space; the best, most prolific and easily exploitable power. Gambling, vacations, more gambling, practical jokes. The world would have been my oyster. Unfortunately, while Hiro’s ability seems the most advantageous, it is also the very power the show’s writers should never have introduced.

Time travel is a tricky thing (Just ask Marty McFly and Doc Brown). Unlimited time travel in a TV series is a nightmare. In movies, time travel has constraints because of production length and story. We can find holes but just as we are asking our questions, the end tidies up and the credits roll. (example: Wait a second how is John Connor’s father from the future? F-it who cares that movie was awesome!) Not so the case in television. Consider this email I sent to Cinema Blend’s TV editor Kelly West, about why I stopped watching Heroes:

I stopped watching Heroes about 4 weeks ago because of this very problem. I just felt the show was stuck in this endless loop of: save the future, go back to the past, mess something up, try again, deal with another annoying Parkman arc, back to the future, realize they failed, start again. I just gave up.

Too bad because that show's first season was excellent. All down hill from there.For big Heroes fans out there Kelly swears the last few episodes have been great, but for me it is ruined. Heroes established a power with so many infinite possibilities and limited constraints that it matters little what happens from episode to episode. When in doubt, screw it, send Hiro or Peter back to figure out how to change it. Or send them forward in time to figure out what the future holds. Good for gamblers; bad for TV.

Time travel on TV needs rules. The rules need to be set early and deviating from them can cause problems. On Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles time travel is used as a link from the future, but not as a two-way portal. In essence, the writers use the concept on a functional level. Machines and resistance fighters return to the present to protect their future interests. This link to the future provides the characters with goals to work towards and information on how to complete missions. The show even touches on the idea that things the characters do to stop Judgment Day may just be an exercise in futility. Everyone is racing back to stop the other side from winning but we (viewers) are slowly learning that the little battles being fought rarely stop the time-honored march of inevitability. (I mean if they stop the machines for good the show would just end wouldn’t it?) In the end, time travel acts as a means to an entertaining end. We aren’t left considering its implications because it rarely affects the overall story.

In another example take the cut-too short show Journeyman. Dan Vasser suffers from literal bouts of uncontrollable time travel. Much like Quantum Leap, he gets a funny feeling, and seconds later vanishes back into the past to work on some sort of job to help the future. He has to determine his mission in each episode, and doesn’t know when or why he’ll zip back in time. The show had just started working on the future implications of his actions (the shifts in time lines and time theory) when it was canceled thus leaving the 4 of us (my wife and I and probably some other loser couple out there) that watched it to only wonder. Regardless, because his power held him powerless the writers were held relatively in check.

Back to Heroes. Maybe they have addressed some of these issues in the last few weeks when I haven’t watched. I doubt it. Any scaling back to the time travel aspect of the show would just seem to be damage control at this point. They already screwed the pooch. Tip to future TV writers: handle time travel carefully. Once you start fiddling you can’t go back. (pun?)

Ahh the gift of giving

Hey Doug,
I have a torturous gift-giving experience. I was actually on the giving end for this one. My grandma is a silly 91 year old that has lived with my family all my life. Like most senior citizens she loves Bea Arthur so I figured I'd get a little nostalgic. On one of my frequent trips through Best Buy last year I picked her up the first season of Maude DVD. You may have heard a clip from Family Guy or O&A recently but for those of you unfamiliar with the program here's a little taste of the theme song, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NglGyn8yE20 . Now just imagine having to be subjected to this gem in blaring 5.1 surround sound. It’s no box of crap but for the auditory senses it’s very comparable.
Later,Carsillo

The family with actual dogs

Tis the season

I hope everyone enjoyed their holiday as much as I did. Highlights included: A record 3 naps at Sabrina’s grandmother’s on Thursday, an awesome second Thanksgiving at my parents’ complete with a frenzied dog show (cast included one of these , one of these , add in this little guy , and finish it off with this), a two month belated surprise birthday party on Saturday night and a day of football and general sloth on Sunday. All in all the weekend was everything dreamt of and more.

As we enter the season of excessive gift-giving, gift paranoia, stress shopping, 24 hour showings of A Christmas Story , and general complaining about a holiday season that should be the best ever, but is turned inside-out by expectations I think it is important to stop and reflect. Reflect on what it means to give and receive. Reflect on family and why they are so important and how much they love us. To illustrate this I have brought in a guest contributor for this edition. When I first heard this story over the summer I thought it was too good to not share with the masses. I tried thinking of ways to convey it properly, couldn’t, and just decided to have Ashley do the honors herself. A couple of quick things to know beforehand: Ashley’s birthday falls very close to Christmas, Rich is her stepfather, Taylor is her sister and Shadow is her family dog. With out further ado, Ashley Comaites:

It was, I think, my 14th or 15th birthday. We were sitting in the living room under the Christmas tree (my birthday presents were always kept under there) and I had just finished opening all of my gifts. Rich left the room and came back with another box that he had found. These were always the best gifts, the "surprise" ones that parents pretend they forgot about. So I was naturally very excited. I was sitting on the floor and Shadow came running over and sat right next to me. He just stared eagerly at the box. This led me to believe it was some awesome gift, and Shadow inherently knew it. So I was super excited to open it. The whole time Shadow sat next to me seeming very intrigued. Rich and Taylor could hardly contain their excitement. I tore open the gift, expecting possibly the best gift of my life. It turned out to be Shadow’s poop wrapped up nicely in a box. Taylor and Rich couldn’t stop laughing, my mom couldn’t hide her disgust, and I was just shocked and disappointed. I think it was Rich's idea, with Taylor backing him up and making him follow through on it.

On that note, let’s gear up for the holiday season. Get those gift ideas ready. If anyone has a comparable gift-giving example like this please send them in. I will post them.

Like TV?

I wanted to let you all know that I am now currently contributing to the website www.cinemablend.com . It is an entertainment website. The section I contribute to is the television section and I am covering Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. If you have any interest my first submission is up today. Just trying to hit my readership :)

I should have a new article up every Tuesday morning.