I guess it's time to catch up, eh? You can thank a combination of being busy and being lazy -- no real excuse here.

-- Congrats to Kristin and Justin on their wedding. I'll let Kristin handle much of the narrative on it (plus links to photos since most of mine pretty much suck). However, I will say I had a fun time in Baltimore (with the hotel two blocks from Camden Yards), seeing many familiar faces and meeting some cool new ones. Plus, it was fun to be hanging out with friends on New Year's Eve. Thanks for letting me be part of all the fun.

-- Yes, there was lots of football on my plate, although I got to watch the Orange Bowl rout in peace at home. No arguments about the results, but one thing that kinda struck me about the debate over a playoff -- if people are so adamant about the regular season being the real deal, then why are there conference championship games (which are, in my opinion, precursors to a playoff)? That's where the no-playoff argument seems to ring a bit hollow.

-- I went 3-for-4 on playoff picks this week, missing only the Moonesota Vikings' win at Lambeau. A couple of those upsets probably is weighing heavily on one of my friends in our playoff fantasy league, who was autopicked Daunte Culpepper and Curtis Martin because of computer issues that forced us to redo the draft. Whoops. Somehow, my team is heavily dependent on either the Rams or Eagles reaching the Super Bowl (although we can do waiver claims throughout to replace eliminated players).
My team was, in draft order (picking 9th in odd rounds and 4th in even rounds):
1. Donovan McNabb
2. Plaxico Burress
3. Steven Jackson
4. Rod Smith
5. Ryan Longwell
6. L.J. Smith
7. Rams defense
8. Terrell Owens
(We start 1 QB, 1 RB, 2 WR, 1 TE, 1 K, 1 D; plus one bench spot.)

-- I was pulling for the Jets to win, but wasn't comfortable enough in drafting them in a playoff league (although I did get beat out for Justin McCareins toward the end, thus prompting my last pick of Owens, just in case).

-- With a slow Sunday night after the playoff games (and after watching the 24 premiere -- starting the season with four hours over two nights is a good thing), I ended up spending a lot of time watching the second most useless major awards show, hosted by fake Kornheiser and Wilbon, otherwise known as George Costanza and Theo Huxtable.

While it was good to see them using online voting as a component, thus eliminating the question: "Do you know anyone who might have actually voted for the Peoples Choice Awards?", I swear they were making up some categories along the way or at least stealing them from the MTV Movie Awards. Favorite Movie Sequel? Yikes. Favorite Remake (aka Best Cover of the Year)? Are you kidding me?

There was even a big deal about Fahrenheit 9/11 winning "Best Picture of the Year," except that given the way the movie categories were set up, it's probably best to call it "Best Picture of the Year -- Other" since The Passion of the Christ and Shrek 2 also won movie awards for drama and comedy, respectively.

Yes, I've spent way too much time analyzing these awards, but hey, it's fun to figure out what the "people" have to say, although at least this time the "hipness" quotient was slightly above square thanks to the online voting. God forbid it was another Gallup poll or something determining these things. Plus, it's a good runup to the Golden Globes, where things will get even goofier I'm sure.

-- Speaking of films, I did see The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou the other day. I guess I'm surprised it was a "big budget" Wes Anderson film, since it looks and feels like anything else he's made. It was entertaining enough, but nothing overly impressive or negative about it. I did enjoy the goofy set design, but otherwise it was just weird for the sake of being so -- including such things as the Filipino pirates, the guy singing David Bowie songs in Portugese and Bud Cort.

-- One last review, the Seinfeld Season 3 DVD set is amazing. I think you can figure out why it took them so long to put them out on DVD -- they went the extra mile in piling it on with featurettes on a number of episodes, plus the usual commentary tracks (some better than others, especially those not featuring the actors or Larry David).
But the kicker is the "Notes About Nothing," the pop-up video bits that you can activate and run throughout the episodes. There are some boilerplate bits like the first table reading/filming dates as well the original Nielsen ratings, but they go beyond the call of duty in reciting the credits of every guest star, whether it was an Oscar nominee like Katherine Keener or well-known character actor Philip Baker Hall, or a receptionist whose other credits were as minor guest roles long-forgotten and short-lived sitcoms. And then there's all the other trivia, including some great baseball rundowns when involving the Keith Hernandez episodes.