- Christmas is for kooks too. The weirdos don’t simply stay
inside and mercifully deprive the world of their company on one of the biggest
holidays of the year, meaning there are scenes like the one that took place
Thursday in Berlin, where Christmas is still a time to sing holiday songs, don
ridiculously ugly garb and drink a whole lot of damn good beer. It is all of
those things, but it’s also time for the German version of your local Polar
Bear Club to find a frigid body of water and do what comes so naturally to
their freaky selves. Dozens of swimmers from the Berlin Seals club flocked
to the German capital's Oranke Lake for their annual Christmas dip, clad in
their full Christmas outfits topped by bright red Christmas hats. This year’s
swim was much milder than normal, with temperatures clocking in at an
unseasonable 41 degrees Fahrenheit. That made it a bit easier to dive into the
still-chilly water, but not before participants warmed up their lungs and
spirits by singing Christmas carols prior to getting wet. Ask these weirdos why
they do what they do and their answers are predictably nutty and positive, just
as you’d expect from someone who can jump into a body of water that’s almost
cold enough to freeze and come out doing anything other than cursing robustly
and looking for someone to punch in the face. "The best is the feeling
afterward. There is prickling all over the body -- it's like a sauna but
backward,” swimmer Beate Korehnke said. Glad you enjoyed it, B………
- There is nothing that screams Christmas spirit quite like
a rapper dropping a holiday album while he’s incarcerated on a federal gun
charge. Allow your holiday to be jolly-fied by Gucci Mane, who is behind bars
but refuses to have his yuletide spirit locked up. Instead, he has released a
new Christmas mixtape, “East Atlanta Santa.” Mane shared the album online,
offering up its 15 tracks to bring some swag to the season. He’s been a busy
man in 2014, releasing a host of mix tapes including “Trap House 4,” “The
Return of Mr. Perfect” and “The Oddfather.” Four albums in a single year,
including a Christmas album, is a pretty prodigious 12 months, but Mane
reportedly has a fifth project, titled “Trap House 5,” that he is expected to
release soon. Multiple releases in 12 months is part of a strategy Mane laid
out for his fans in an open letter he penned earlier this year. "My idea
is to take my career to the next level. I am planning to take my music to a
higher level and use the attention and influence to sell movies, books,
clothing and be a living testimony to all people showing that you can start
from humble beginnings and transcend to something greater," he wrote. "It
feels great to see my plan take root and begin to blossom even though I’m
physically incarcerated but spiritually and mentally I’m free as ever.” Having
a famous prison pen pal who also churns out more music in one year than a lot
of major artists produce in five is a nice thing to have, even if the only way
to hear a Gucci Mane show these days is to commit a federal crime and hope you’re
assigned to the same cell block…….
- Losers abound, world. At least one of them lives in Hillsboro, Oregon. Her name is
Jeanie Ganz and the proof of her loser-dom is plentiful and made of wood and
plastic. Ganz is the (unjustifiably) proud owner of some 700 nutcrackers, a
collection she began more than 20 years ago. "I'd say I have about 700. It started
out with one, then two and I don't know what happened," Ganz said. Exactly.
When one amasses such an inexplicable mass of pointless objects to the extent
that they can safely be called part of the lunatic fringe, they don’t follow
any sort of logical path that can be laid out in a reasonable fashion. "I
bought one on sale. and then I went back and they reduced them, and so I bought
another. And they reduced them again until I ended up with eight of them,” Ganz
said. According to German folklore, nutcrackers bring protection and good luck.
In Ganz’s case, they ought to bring scorn and ridicule. Her late husband built
an attic just to house the collection and since his passing, it has grown to
fill Ganz’s stairwell and every hallway in the house. Some of the
nutcrackers are massive, reaching well over six feet. Each comes with a story
that proves her loser-dom to an even deeper degree. Some were made in Russia by
a man who was later murdered, while others have happier tales behind them. Ganz
claims that much like the children who are undoubtedly horrified to visit her
and always ask her to come over to their houses instead, she doesn’t have a
favorite nutcracker and loves them all. “If you pick one up and look at it,
each one has its own personality,” she said, further proving her delusionality………
- Geno Smith is a terrible NFL quarterback. He’s ranked 31st
of 32 starting quarterbacks in the league for Total Quarterback Rating, he lost his job for three games and has
thrown an interception in 10 of 12 starts and has a 2-10 record under center,
but all of that hasn’t convinced him that he doesn’t have what it takes to get
it done as a signal caller in the league. In fact, Smith believes he can still
shepherd the wayward Jets back to the land of competitive football. "I
see myself being the quarterback here for a long time," Smith said.
"I see myself helping this team turn things around. Obviously, I'm part of
the reason why we're in this position, so I'd love to be part of the
solution." Ironically, he is almost certainly part of the solution – the
part that the Jets trade or release this offseason to make way for a
quarterback who doesn’t suck. Admitting that you’re a big part of the reason a
team is 3-12 is fine, but nothing Smith has shown on the field suggests that he
has any future starting in New York – or anywhere else, for that matter. Both general
manager John Idzik and head coach Rex Ryan are expected to be gone after the
season ends Sunday and a new coach and GM with no allegiance to Smith aren't
likely to break down game tape from the past two seasons and find some hidden
gems of promise that everyone else missed. The Jets will have a top-6 pick and are very likely to select a quarterback
with that pick or their second-round selection. "I know that it takes hard
work and not everyone is going to see the same things, but within this locker
room, within this group of guys, we all see the potential we have as a
team," Smith added. "Obviously, that's not saying much with the
record we have right now, but we believe we can turn things around." Those
words would have more weight if Jacksonville Jaguars rookie Blake Bortles
wasn’t the only quarterback with a lower QBR score than Smith, but give him
points for hope and optimism, even if those qualities have zero bearing on his
ability to put points on the scoreboard………..
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