Warning: This post may contain sarcasm

A “local-interest” piece in my local rag this past Sunday noted a bizarre phenomenon occurring these days on Capitol Hill.

Congressional staffers, those college kids and twentysomethings who secretly run the place, are wearing expensive clothes!

Yup, you heard it here first (well, Post first here second), scandal on the Hill, expensive clothes and accessories among Washington’s non-elite.

How can this be? Many of those people aren’t even paid, and the ones who are get laughably-low internship stipends that barely cover sublets in this increasingly-expensive town of ours.

You see (drum roll)… most of those kids have… rich parents!

Gasp.

The author notes the problem. These are the people who run our society. (That’s not a stretch: the idea is to parlay your internship into a full-time gig, and most of them do.) So our pool of applicants to run our society is a group of people with rich parents who don’t really need to work who’ve never earned anything in their lives and don’t mind spending other people’s money.

Yup, that’s the group of people I want to send my tax dollars to.

Spot on, author. So what’s your solution?

Give more money to those interns and junior staffers!

Yeah, with higher salaries, a greater cross-section of people will go for those internships and be able to spend my money for me. Awesome idea.

While we’re at it, why don’t we just pay everybody in Washington more to be fair about it? After all, they’ve got that big money tree there, right? Might as well spread it around a bit.

Awesome.

And with that we become hockey fans

It’s too bad the real Redskins and the real Packers had to show up for yesterday’s NFC Wild Card matchup at FedEx Field. I was beginning to like the new alternate reality personas adopted in recent weeks by said teams.

I suppose there’s always next year.

Let’s now hope our local hockey team can keep its regular season disguise on through the post-season for once.

Football, football

Just when the holidays are over and the cold weather hits, just when you think there is nothing good or worth looking forward to in this world, there is football, sweet football. Yes, I realize that through the fall there are way more games on every weekend, but this is special. Four highlighted NFL match-ups this weekend followed by the CFP National Championship on Monday night? That’s the football equivalent of March Madness right there.

I’m a bit disappointed that the game I care about most (Redskins vs. Packers) I’ve got to wait around until Sunday night to see, but I think that’s going to make watching it that much sweeter, and keep me interested in all those undercard games they’ve got going on Saturday evening and Sunday afternoon.

Somebody told me there’s some kind of political thing going on in Iowa too.

Whatever.

Reason number one million that following sports is better than following politics.

Let’s get our stories straight

A page-one story in my local paper Sunday enlightened me to a growing movement of so-called musicians who, instead of shooting solely for music stardom, are going to college to pursue “real” jobs too. Wanna-be musicians with day jobs? Never heard of this before.

You see, not every budding musician becomes an overnight millionaire. It’s not like the old days. Today you might need a college degree as something to fall back on.

This is the same newspaper that runs stories every week on how difficult it is for new college grads to find jobs. The world doesn’t place you in a comfortable, middle-income position in your field once you leave school? What?

I found particularly amusing the story of one young man profiled in the piece who realized, of course, that not everyone who plays in a band becomes a megastar. He’s gone so far as to have not one but two college majors.

Philosophy and religious studies.

Why have one worthless career path when you can have three?

Here’s the lesson for the day. Find something to do in this world that other people will pay you to do. Doesn’t matter whether it’s playing the guitar, fixing refrigerators, or leading expeditions of Mt. Everest. If somebody pays you to do it it’s a real job, no how many years you spent in college.

Or how many philosophy courses your parents paid for.

Happy New Year

Happy 2016, my friends.

Be it resolved, this year, not to make any resolutions, just to be good for goodness sake.

And for Notre Dame to beat Ohio State this afternoon.

My God that’s gonna be sweet.

Lordy, Lordy

The thing Tiger Woods has had going for him his whole life is that he is young. He was young when he played golf with Bob Hope on TV, he was young when he won the U.S. Amateur, he was young when he won at Augusta, and he was young when he won five majors, then 10, then 14.

Today Tiger Woods turns 40.

I’ve been a fan of Tiger Woods for 20 years. Since he was, you know… young.

I was young too.

I feel as though Tiger Woods needs me now as a fan, and I’ve written about this before. Tiger Woods is somehow now an underdog, like Tom Brady and LeBron James, Peyton Manning and Alex Rodriguez. A-Rod hit a home run on his 40th birthday, remember, one of 33 he hit during last year’s turn-around season.

Does Woods have it in him to play at that level again? Maybe not 57 home runs in a season, but 33? My God, it’s golf! String together four good days and you can win when you’re 60.

Woods will likely play a limited schedule this season (doesn’t he always?) following his second back operation in two years. Put that on top of about a dozen knee surgeries, an ACL, MCL, Achilles, “elbow strain,” and various bouts of mental and physical exhaustion, and yeah, I begin to doubt his ability to play competitively again let alone win.

But if anyone can do it it’s this guy, even when he’s 100.

He’s still golf’s number one attraction, even on crutches.

And even when he’s no longer… young.

Yes, Northern Virginia, there was a Santa Claus

When you’re a year and a half old and Christmas rolls around, it’s pretty much Nirvana from the word go. Presents, food, everyone doting on you… this is what my son got to experience, and it was pretty fun for me to be a part of it as well.

I thought nothing could be better than this Christmas Day. Then Saturday rolled around. And just as I thought things couldn’t get any better, I was brought back to a day in December of 1983, when I was a mere eighteen months and basking in the glow of impending holiday cheer. What happened on December 17, 1983? This was the last time Washington’s football, basketball, and hockey teams won a game on the same day.

Yes,  Northern Virginia, there was a Santa Claus. And this year he brought not only temperatures pushing 70, but wins for the Caps, Wiz, and ’Skins. The Caps, by the way, have the most points in the Eastern Conference these days, the Wizards have won four games in a row, and the ’Skins are going to the playoffs for the first time since 2012. Saturday’s victory was also the 600th in team history, and certainly one of the sweetest.

Sometimes Christmas comes late.

And it’s all good.

Christmas movies

There are three Christmas movies that stand out above all others and must be watched each year in the days leading up to the big day. They are: Home Alone (now 25 years old… wow), A Christmas Story, and It’s a Wonderful Life. I’d say they should be watched in that order, on the 23rd, 24th, and 25th, because somehow that just makes sense. Television stations will help you out on this one because these movies will be shown pretty much constantly this week.

The sort of “sleeper” pick for me as great Christmas movie, one that I must watch every year is Bad Santa, an underrated vehicle for Billy Bob Thorton as a boozing, thieving, department store Santa. Yes, the film is a bit silly, but isn’t everything, really? Don’t watch this one with your kids, though, as it is definitely not family friendly.

I should add that each year between Christmas and New Year’s I must watch the movie Diner, one of my favorites of all time. Sort of a Christmas movie, the action begins on December 25, 1959, and shows the week leading up to New Year’s 1960. It’s a movie about life and love and of growing up. I liked it when I was in high school, in college, post-college, and I still like it now. I think I’ll have Franklin watch it when he’s about 15.

And Bad Santa when he’s 27.