Mike O'Connell

Forget the night before Christmas. That is so 19th century. This is 2014, and in our supersized world we need a full seven days of nights before Christmas to get it done.

The week before Christmas is the week everyone else lives the way I like to live all the time: a flurry of social and economic activity that makes everything else seem dull by comparison. Good luck, friends, and hang on to those sled reins tight!

A certain hero of mine turns 99 today, and although Frank Sinatra hasn’t sung a note in nearly two decades, his voice remains as constant in the rhythm of American life as it did for his 60 years in show business.

It is trite to say, of course, “there will never be another Frank Sinatra.” Cliche or not, there won’t be. The world is simply too different now, the way stars are made and music is produced. But his music lives on, and the imitators (good and poor) keep trying. I should know. I’m one of those imitators.

I’ve written many words about Frank Sinatra over the past 20 years, some published, some not. I don’t think I’m going to add anything particularly brilliant today. He was and still is one of the most written about Americans in history. I’ve got two dozen of his biographies on my shelf, and there are probably 100 more I haven’t read. These writers are far more poetic than I, and I recommend them all. Was he a perfect role model? Of course not, but few people we know so well are. He was a human being. A human being like all of us, but blessed with so much talent and initiative, and he shared it with all of us. Those who knew him best echo this sentiment in his private life as well.

Happy Birthday, Mr. Sinatra! Ninety-nine looks good on you.

Well, this was inevitable. The system that was going to solve all end-of-year controversy in college football ended up doing nothing but stirring up more controversy and inflaming tempers and egos all over the country. Let me be the first to say told ya so.

The problem with every system to determine a champion in a sport with so many teams and so short a season (so not every team plays one another) is that it must be determined before the start of the season. It would be easy to decide, at the completion of the regular season, who is “worthy” enough to compete for a title. Sometimes there’s already a clear-cut champion. Sometimes there are two teams standing above the rest. Sometimes there are three, sometimes there are seven. Point is, you don’t know until the season is over. But with so much revenue on the line, playoff schedules and their accompanying TV slots must be decided months ahead of time, and you’re left trying to squeeze a square Big 12 team into a round CFP hole. Moral of the story is, it’s not two teams versus four teams, or human picks versus computer picks, but TV advertising and game revenue. In other words, follow the money.

In more pleasant news, I thought The Simpsons really brought it last night. Not exactly old-school Simpsons, just a really good episode. Kudos. 

But the Redskins… sheesh! Zero points? Cousins could have done that!

I take it back. The biggest story from Monday was not World AIDS Day or Ferguson or Colt McCoy but Cyber Monday. Monday, apparently, was something called Cyber Monday, during which we are supposed to make purchases, I guess, somehow, through this thing called the Interweb. Or Internet, or something. I received quite a number of alerts, actually, on my computing machine urging me to do so.

Folks, this is 2014. Is not every day Cyber Monday? Seriously, when was the last time you went to the store to buy something? My greatest purchase this year has undoubtedly been my Amazon Prime membership. In other words, the thing that makes it completely unnecessary to go to the store ever again.

Earlier this week I read that Girl Scout cookies, the last bastion of face-to-face commerce, will now be sold over the Internet. Face it, people, this is the new normal. I, for one, welcome our new Internet overlords!

It is here. The most anticipated holiday and hotly debated political topic of the year: Black Friday. Mark my words, before the decade is out we’ll be calling Thanksgiving “Black Friday Eve.”

Black Friday is the day on which no one admits to shopping, yet everyone seems to do so. Why the hell would stores be open if they had no customers? Ditto being open on Black Friday Eve or any other day of the year for that matter. This year I’ve read more “Black Friday shopping protest” articles than I ever have before, yet I’m pretty sure the only things people aren’t buying this season are newspapers. How ironic. Unsuccessful dig at capitalism from out friends in the media. Nice try, suckers. And the only thing keeping your dying industry afloat is… Black Friday ads!

How ironic.

So shop away, friends, and good luck to ya. Especially all amateurs who shop only on this day every year. Kinda like bars on Thanksgiving Eve, actually.

Make that Black Friday Eve Eve.