2021 is here. Huzzah!

2021 is here.  Huzzah!

The Cast by The Fillerbuster

30 December 2020

Sure, I could write some touching summary of my year, the world’s year, or your year, and it might end up being quality stuff.  But, writer upon writer has already done this very effectively as 2020 drags to an end, and perhaps we are even slightly oversaturating those deep thoughts.  I thought it would be more effective to summarize 2020 a little by looking at 2021, which we all are excited to get to.  So, although the below misses a lot that has ran through our heads over the last 9 months, I used present, recent stories to reflect on 2020 and move forward to 2021.  These are some of the New Year’s resolutions from sports, people, pop culture, etc.  Hope you enjoy and talk to you on the flip side, all.

(Forgive any minor grammatical errors.  I cleaned up the rough draft version once I decided on a direction, but then just added items in the day or two before release without editing.)

SPORTS:

• Postponement of games will again be anomalies as opposed to normalcy each week.
• I would like to have it be very rare again that players are on any type of COVID list, and let’s get back to whether they are simply injured or not.
• I will stop making life difficult to bettors, as not having fans is not really any home field advantage at all, having key players out because of COVID is last minute and necessitates last minute research, and having shortened seasons in bubbles and hubs is very much an unpredictable moving target, to say the least.
• I will try to not start out pandemics by eliminating all sports, the one thing that could keep us sane.
• Although we were all entertained by fake crowd noise, let’s not do that again.  And we all know that the cardboard cutouts for fans, even with some teams’ funny twists on the concept, have become downright creepy.
• I will tell DirecTV to get along again with all NBC affiliates, as that was an inconvenience a couple of times for last minute afternoon NFL games.
• I will try not and have 11am NBA playoff games in the future because it was a pandemic, although it was pretty cool to have IMPORTANT sports on ALL day in the background.

NFL:

• I will keep NFL football to Thursdays, Saturdays, Sundays, and Monday only as opposed to Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons.  It was fun, for sure, to have more football, but not optimal for injury, prep time, betting, amount of games played, work, etc.
• I make a resolution to have more good guys in the league like Kevin Greene.  That guy walked on at perennial power Auburn, was equally beloved by all four teams he played for, ended up #3 all-time in sacks, was a HOF’er, and was just as good off the field as on it.  He died at way too young of age in the last weeks and we will miss him.  I will create more Kevin Greene’s.
• I will continue to indirectly punish players who dance on the opposing team’s logo pregame.  In what part of his brain did Juju think this was normal?  Your Twitter and IG followers did not override being respectful to your opponent.  Talking trash is fine, but don’t poke the bear beyond that.
• I will stop the media from discussing possible undefeated seasons when the team winning clearly has no run game in the league that demands that type of balance.
• I will continue to persuade players who have a losing team record, were a high first-round draft pick, are captain of the team, and still somehow in contention for a division title to NOT go to a strip club during the second wave of a pandemic.  Dwayne Haskins is no longer with the Washington Football Team and what he did makes no sense as far as timing for team, league, fan, or pandemic.
• I will learn from the pandemic year and not have any actual Pro Bowl games in the future also.  The game has been stupid for decades, and it took a pandemic to finally wipe it out.  Nice job.
• I will still have teams like the Jets who suddenly start winning to make sure they lose sight of a generational talent like Trevor Lawrence.  Tough conversation to have, even with yourself, on tanking, but they sure surprised the hell out of the last two teams.
• I will still have teams like the Browns who lose to those suddenly upstart Jets teams when a divisional title was within their grasp and would be settled one on one with their rival Steelers.
• I will still have teams like the Rams that lose the game to that same Jets team when favored by 18 points.  That is why they play the game.
• I will figure out a playoff method to dodge the NFC Least results that occurred this year.  Six and seven win teams hosting a playoff game is ridiculous.
• I will find a home for Carson Wentz, whether on a bench, with a new team, or wherever.  He certainly did cast a shadow on himself somehow.  Maybe him and Cam Newton can go out for drinks, as they both had full control of their last chance beyond a doubt.
• I will continue to have teams that draft first round QB’s when their present QB has them #1 as of Week 16 in the NFC and their QB is the fastest to 400 thrown TD’s.  If Aaron Rodgers is not delivering the wittiest comeback for that pick of Jordan Love when they should have been getting him a WR, I don’t know what is.
• I will continue to tease players like Josh Gordon with playing.  He is going to be a heck of a trivia question someday, and might end his prime right when all teams allow weed.  Wouldn’t that be ironic?
• I pledge to only have Johnny Manziel be at the top of the sports news wire for joining a random fan league ONLY in 2020, and NOT in 2021.  Let’s get back to normal things!
• I will allow Ryan Fitzpatrick to continue to throw game-winning passes while his face mask is literally at a 90-degree angle.  That throw was ridiculous.
• I promise to make the Chiefs look like they should win every game by 40 yet somehow win by a single possession, like Mahomes has Jedi powers and wants to find new, last minute ways of winning each time.  Like he is bored…
• I promise to jump on to a table and break it if the Bills somehow win the whole thing.
• I will offer the public an easy explanation to what is bitcoin now that I have paid a player salary with it.
• I will continue to have JJ Watt rip his team after a subpar performance in an honest, transparent, and emotional tirade.  It was freaking awesome.
• Give me the Packers over the Chiefs 37-31 in the Super Bowl.

COLLEGE FOOTBALL:

• I will not have another 6-win team in the college football playoff, as it relies too much on preseason rankings.  Ohio State ended up there because their preseason ranking had them initially up high.
• I will have no more years without Ohio State-Michigan, as it is a necessary evil in the sports world whether you hate, love, or are indifferent to either team.
• I will continue to allow historical powerhouse Auburn to randomly fire and search for coaches with no visible methodology.
• I will not allow teams in the college football playoff who got beat by 24 points in the league title game that one team isn’t really even a member.  Trevor didn’t play and they couldn’t even beat them in regulation.  I sort of hope you get smoked in the rematch, Notre Dame (BUT, you did play a lot of games, so you should be there over Ohio State).
• (if you can’t tell, I sort of think 2020 was crazy, and therefore A&M and Cincy should have made the playoff just to throw some fun in the mix)
• I will continue to create stories such as the Sarah Fuller one at Vandy.  The story might not start a permanent trend, but will remind everyone that anything is possible.
• I pledge to tell fans who are tired of Bama and Clemson being in the mix that “even during a pandemic where anything goes, you couldn’t override their consistent normalcy.”
• I will try and not let Bama insult the college football world in future years by having them get TWO Heisman finalists in one year.
• Give me Clemson 33-27 over Bama in the title game.

NHL:

• I want no more hubs, and this crazy new Canadian Only/ US division structure to not irritate us TOO much. 
• I want outdoor professional hockey games to be played NOT because of outdoor social distancing but because it is pure and awesome in its own right.
• Crazy format that makes it tough to predict any Stanley Cup prediction (there are no conference borders).  The divisions will collide based on the point total for the year after the new division only round, and since that makes it pretty much a crap shoot, give me the Avs over the Flyers in 6.

COLLEGE BASKETBALL:

• I promise to not cancel another March Madness.  Ever.  We will put it in a bubble if we have to.  To have the pandemic happen RIGHT before March Madness (and my sometimes annual trip out to Vegas for it) was insult to injury.
• KU looks good now and COVID pretty much ruined their shot last year (when they looked the best in the land), so I promise to try and give them a fair shot this year.
• I will have no more two-year title holders, even if it IS my Cavaliers in a rebuilding year.  Although they certainly didn’t look like they were past the rebuild during the Gonzaga game on the 26^th.
• I promise to try and not have sad stories like Florida’s Keyontae Johnson at all, but make them motivational like what recently occurred if they do come about.
• I promise to have fun with the rest of the country by occasionally making Kentucky and Duke both VERY beatable in the same year.  In THIS year, it sounds just like a 2020 excuse.  During March of next year, it will be very odd.
• I promise to try and not have “bubble teams” have double meaning past the year of 2021.
• I promise to allow teams more early season time to play together next year, and have more warmup games so the preseason tourneys are more true of what each team is.
• I promise to not have it normal that Coach K. asks why they are playing at all and the school’s women hoops team simply quit the season, and that is just normalcy.
• Give me Gonzaga, West Virginia, Villanova, and Iowa in the Final Four from what I have seen thus far.

NBA:

• I promise to try and not have a player demanding a trade with extra weight baggage and Dream Team wishes to show up on social media with strippers BEFORE the first game of the season.  Way to make it harder to trade you, James Harden.
• I promise to not believe a FOUR restaurant NBA travel restriction this year will work at ALL.
• I promise to have more stories like Bam Adebayo buying his mom a house.
• Now that Kyrie Irving is back healthy, I promise to have more stories about the earth being flat.
• I promise that when I expand the league, as is the talk, to replenish the city of Seattle I so horribly robbed before.
• My resolution is to stop giving guys like Luke Kennard 4 years for $64 million overall on a contending team, when his career average is 9.8 ppg and 2.2 apg.
• I vow to TRY not and have talented, exciting, young guys like Ja Morant out for 3-5 weeks when we are just trying to get back to basketball normalcy.
• I promise to have more top tiered players sign with smaller town teams like Milwaukee and give fans reason to believe.  Thank you, Giannis.
• I promise to continue the new trend of Super Team duos only, as this is more fun than matching three of them.  I can tolerate LeBron/Anthony, Kevin/ Kyrie, and Paul/Kawhi.  Three was too much (like Steph, Klay, and Kevin) and wasn’t fair.
• I promise to try and provide society with more class act winners like KC Jones, who won 12 titles as a player and coach, won two national titles in college, and one Olympic gold medal.
• I will try not to have this short of offseason in the future, as it is unfair to the bubble teams that made it farther, which is demonstrated by a 50 point halftime lead and a 47 point win all involving 4 solid, late playoff teams from this past year.
• Give me the Nuggets over the Bucks in 7 for the title.

MLB:

• I promise to be politically correct with team names, but not going too far, as society can find a problem with anything if it wants to.  The Indians should right the ship and let’s leave things be moving forward.
• I promise to not have small budget teams like the Rays treat their fans in the way of getting two wins from a title and then trading their best pitcher immediately in the offseason.
• I promise to have more teams like the Padres, who apparently who trying to shoot the moon by not only getting Snell from the Rays, but Darvish from the Cubs.
• I promise to have MLB teams built more for the long haul, as it must be depressing to see the Nationals and Cubs literally dismantle their team like the old school Marlins.
• Give me the Padres over the Yankees in 5 games in the World Series.

GOLF:

• I promise to not allow the world’s media to overload us for the next 10 years on every golf progression of Charlie Woods, since hopefully we got exhausted enough in December during the father-son tournament.  The Fillerbuster is a monstrous fan of Tiger and STILL wants some oxygen from that coverage.
• I promise that although the experiment was an experiment that did not ruin the atmosphere of the Major, to make sure The Masters stays in April where it should be.
• I will make sure there is a British Open in 2021, as that missing from the schedule was horrible, history altering, and just plain old sad.
• Dammit.  Tiger will win the freaking Masters, OK???  And Rickie better win ONE of them.  Geez, Rickie.

SOCCER:

• This somehow barely missed any time, so we will just keep on trucking as normal with this sport.

TENNIS:

• You have to stay quiet as a crowd anyway during points, you can’t heckle the players before the points, and the players can’t be coached during match anyway, so it worked out great.
• Give me Nadal in the French as I go out on a limb.

OLYMPICS:

• I will continue to bring back random sports like breakdancing to the Olympics to make us smile after a quarantine.

HIGH SCHOOL SPORTS:

• I will try and not let Emmanuel Duron, the Texas football player who attacked the referee after being ejected, ever play any top level of any sport for his entire prime.

WORLD:

• I promise to not allow Trump run again in 2024.  Him combined with the pandemic was beyond overload, no matter which party side you are on.
• I pledge to try and not have weather anomalies add to the pain we felt this year being isolated.
• I know the George Floyd event might have been badly timed, but any event at any time can and should teach society to simply be more loving, accepting, and open.
• I promise to not close casinos again.
• (but don’t feel too bad for them, as they just had one of the largest monthly takes in about a decade at their SPORTSBOOKS)
• I vow to never have church services with pews with police tape socially distancing people (that was my Christmas service).
• I promise to not try and end the weird year by taking away loveable and heavily debated characters such as Gilligan’s Island’s Mary Ann again.  Just added that because I was saddened to read she died from COVID complications.
• I hope to never again have a tequila bar need to register as a church to stay afloat.
• I promise to try and not have a second wave of a pandemic hit the holidays and sort of ruin the family experience after a long year.
• I pledge to remember that having physicals with doctors virtually, although better than nothing, is kind of dumb long term.  I had one today, and it was relatively pointless.
• I pledge to try not put the world in situations where there are “mask fights.”
• For the sake of the writer of this blog, I promise not to have the UK variant spread FIRST to Colorado during the next pandemic.

POP CULTURE:

• Musicians will have no more of going through quarantine without releasing mass amounts of music.  I am not a Taylor Swift fan by any means, but she at least worked during quarantine and provided her fans with plenty of new material.
• (I get you need to tour and get spontaneous ideas sometimes to write songs, but go lock yourself in a barn like Queen did and make some crazy music minimally)
• I will not let a big break in movies, shows, and music occur like in 2020.  It ruins the flow of life, the evolution of records and movies, and makes us miss concerts and theaters even more.
• I promise to not let the movies Christmas Story and Elf ever get old, whether quarantined or not.
• I promise to keep making emotional sports movies like Safety.
• I promise to keep trying to make quality shows we could binge-watch during pandemics like The Wire.
• I will try and not make The Voice do an entire season standing six feet apart or fully remote.
• I know we are all tired of weird crowds on individual monitors making fake noises for every event, and will try and cease that quickly into 2021.
• Can’t promise anything, but I will try and not allow society to lose epic legends like Eddie Van Halen during an already sad time.
• I want to not make live streams a necessity, although it was interesting watching live acts pivot in making live streams during quarantine.
• I promise to not try and end the weird year by taking away loveable and heavily debated characters such as Gilligan’s Island’s Mary Ann again.  Just added that because I was saddened to read she died from COVID complications.
• I promise to have TV show writers keep making comedies like The Great.  Brilliant, abrasive show.  Huzzah!
• I promise to make more cartoon movies as high quality and trippy as Soul.  It appeals perfectly to the child AND adult.
• I vow to do my best on finding someone besides Mahomes and Rodgers for State Farm commercials, and find a different spin on both Progressive and AT&T commercials with their ladies.

FOOD:

• Glad everyone learned on the fly, but I promise to not have society rely on delivery of food meant to eat inside in atmosphere.
• Tents and igloos for dining are cool and a nice pivot, but no mas!

LOCAL:

• I promise to remember some cool places we lost during the pandemic.  Revelry, Sarto’s, The Pour House Pub, Local 46, Armida’s, Punch Bowl Stapleton, Avenue Grill, Racine’s, Butcher’s Bistro, Rock Bottom, Scratch Burrito, and Red Onion (Aspen) hurt a little more personally than others for me.  Let’s also say a few uplifting words for LoHi Steakhouse, who appears to be cutting it close after a trip or two there.
• I will remember that although eating it in the cold still was tasty, that The Fillerbuster enjoys the ultimate lasagna from White Pie much more indoors in their incredible atmosphere.
• I promise to remind everyone that this COULD happen again and to invest when you can.  For example, Acova in the Lower Highlands invested and the patio experience is delightful now, and will continue to provide overflow in the winter months even post-pandemic.  And I am sure other places won’t throw away their heated tents.
• The Edgewater Market kept afloat, and I found out very late in quarantine about the incredible Moontime Crepes (yes, Widespread Panic themed) being served for weekend breakfast…outside.
• I went to the Denver Zoo Lights on the 28^th, and I was sad to read about how they were having a hard time feeding the animals with the reduced capacity affecting income.  But the TIME spent in doing those lights is amazing.  Saw a tiger, seal, taki, and a couple of other animals too.

PERSONAL:

• I will continue to embrace road trips as much as I can, as we hit up Aspen, Telluride, Steamboat, along with other places.
• I resolve to enjoy Pagosa Springs at the end of January, take care of the Golden Retriever my wife and I are getting there, fix my car before then fully, continue to embrace Rocky workouts in the snow even when the gyms open back up fully, leave up my Christmas lights a little later because it was a weird year, order the Mac and Cheese Pizza from Ian’s more, use my stationary bike and garage space and space downstairs more to excel than just maintain, continue to do my quarantine promises even when not quarantined, update my full website at some point (which somehow I didn’t get to at all during quarantine), get to more household projects that I might have procrastinated on with more free time during quarantine, not drink anymore Iced Tea (my favorite drink ever) as I have been told it causes kidney stones, continue to embrace eating outside, enjoy the hell out of concerts once they return, not complain about anything while traveling on a plane because I am finally traveling on a plane again, embrace people’s smiles and frowns that we haven’t seen for 9 months because of masks, take my time to go through a grocery store in a few months because I am less scared of germs, remember how awesome simple things are that went away like trying on sunglasses and renting scooters or picking out a birthday card, love my TRX more since it got me through the no-gym time, continue to learn Spanish, continue to sharpen my piano skills,  continue to learn guitar, cherish friendships more and stay more connected, volunteer somewhere, sing in the shower every day, interrupt people less, get the rook tattoo on my chest, not complain about traffic since we had a year off, read more books, leave reviews when things went well instead of just when they went bad as businesses depend on us more, continue to love our old school record player which was great on many in-house days, hope my mother embraces Zoom and remote meeting apps more during any future pandemic so we can connect like we did with so many friends remotely, learn jazz piano as opposed to the specialties that I have (classical, most other), recognize that my weakness in sports betting is over-unders and to stop doing them,  and say the word “Huzzah” a lot more.  Just to name a few things on my long list…
• The random blog theme?  The Great.  Just finished watching it, it has nothing to do with New Year’s resolutions, but I need no excuse in 2021 to say Huzzah.

LESSONS:

These aren’t all of the lessons of course, as my blog idea didn’t hit me until a couple of days ago.  But, these are some that jump out.

• Read Man’s Search For Meaning by Viktor Frankl and you won’t complain about anything during the next pandemic.
• We will be talking about this year for decades to come.
• I will be building a bunker along with creating a Go-Bag for Pandemic II, War, etc.
• But, if you don’t want to build a bunker, at least have a list of Costco items ready to go if things look shady.  I would just build a bunker or side room or closet with stuff in it.
• The George Floyd incident doubled up the pandemic, but is the more important takeaway from the last 9 months.  Love everyone, folks.
• Are we in a new world of not shaking hands?  So weird, and I look forward to my first business trip to make jokes about the awkwardness.
• We pretty much wrote off everything.   “ _______  is weird as heck, but it IS 2020.”
• Eating outside in the cold can be normal.
• We will mourn the loss of local businesses, and hopefully many businesses will now have a fallout plan.
• Road trips saved me mentally during this thing and I will appreciate them more than ever.
• When you have a pandemic, take a day at the beginning of it no matter how jacked up things are, meditate, and think about companies to buy stock in.  Amazon, Nintendo as examples.  I did not and regret it.  Don’t think they were THAT tough to figure out.
• Be thankful every single day that you have a job that you like.
• There is always a silver lining on everything.
• Stay connected with people after this quarantine.  Embrace time together with friends and enemies more.
• Make every single goodbye better moving forward.  You never know when something will happen to delay it by 9 months.
• Be kind and giving to the service industry, who either barely made it through or didn’t make it.
• Don’t be mad at yourself for anything you didn’t accomplish during quarantine.  We were all in an unknown place.  If you didn’t do what you should have, do it now.  You don’t need a pandemic for motivation, but just need the pandemic lessons for motivation.
• Many, many people out there lost more than any one of us did.  Remember that when joking too much about the quarantine, the pandemic, or the lost time of our lives.  We are mostly very, very lucky and sympathize greatly with anyone who lost anyone in any part of their circles.

Have a great beginning of your 2021, and we will talk soon, friends.  Huzzah.