Taking a holiday break

I'm going to step aside for the next week or so to enjoy the first Christmas with my entire family together.

On behalf of Jami, A.J., Logan and Mikaila - and, of course, yours truly - let me wish you and yours a wonderful holiday season. We'll be back in the new year with our usual breed of insanity.

Why I don't watch TV weathercasters (addendum)

OK, so the storm is over. How did our Chicken Little TV forecasters do? Well, here is yesterday's forecast map from CBS6 (which I posted with yesterday's initial entry).

And below are official amounts from the National Weather Service as of 10 a.m. Sunday (for the record, not a single flake fell in St. Johnsville, where we were forecast to get a dusting to 2 inches).

...LITCHFIELD COUNTY...

THOMASTON              4.8   800 AM 12/20 CT DOT
   BAKERSVILLE            2.8   939 AM 12/20 COOP
   LITCHFIELD             2.8   800 AM 12/20 CT DOT
   NEW HARTFORD 3.8 W     2.0   700 AM 12/20 COCORAHS
   NEW MILFORD            2.0   830 AM 12/20 TRAINED SPOTTER
   NORFOLK                1.0   939 AM 12/20 COOP
   NORTH CANAAN           1.0   800 AM 12/20 CT DOT
   CANAAN                 0.5   724 AM 12/20 WXNET 6
   WINCHESTER             0.5   800 AM 12/20 CT DOT

MASSACHUSETTS

...BERKSHIRE COUNTY...
   WEST OTIS              0.5   939 AM 12/20 COOP

NEW YORK

...ALBANY COUNTY...
   MEDUSA                   T   749 AM 12/20 WXNET 6
   POTTER HOLLOW            T   853 AM 12/20 WXNET 6

...DUTCHESS COUNTY...
   HOPEWELL JUNCTION      2.3   400 AM 12/20 METEOROLOGIST

...ULSTER COUNTY...
   ROSENDALEVLG2.4NNE     0.3   600 AM 12/20 COCORAHS
   SAUGERTIES             0.3   421 AM 12/20 WXNET 6
   HIGHMOUNT                T   719 AM 12/20 WXNET 6

Once again, the TV stations proved good at overstating the amounts and unnecessarily alarming people simply for the sake of getting a few extra viewers. The closest they got in this region was the 4.8 inches in Thomaston (just north of Waterbury, CT, my old stomping grounds), which was about half the 10-plus inches forecast.

The National Weather Service forecast for Christmas Day is right now for a mix of snow, sleet, freezing rain and rain. I'm guessing that by about Tuesday, the TV stations will be adding a swarm of locusts and an alien invasion to that report.

This week's picks

Believe me, I'm only doing this to maintain the commitment I made when I first started publishing them. I no longer expect to make any money with them, nor do I expect you to take much interest (unless you're looking for teams NOT to be on):

Best bet: N.Y. Giants (-3) at Washington - The only team in the NFL in more turmoil right now than the Giants are the Redskins.

Atlanta (+4 1/2) at N.Y. Jets - Every time I say the Jets just aren't that good, they prove me wrong. But damn it, the Jets JUST AREN'T THAT GOOD!!!

Cincinnati (+7 1/2) at San Diego - Never underestimate the power of tragedy to bring a team together. I don't think the death of WR Chris Henry will be enough motivation for the Bengals to win outright, but it should certainly keep them within a touchdown.

Minnesota (-9) at Carolina - With New Orleans' loss, the Vikings can at least sniff home field advantage and should use that as motivation to destroy a Panthers team with nothing to play for.

Seattle (-6 1/2) vs. Tampa Bay - The Seahawks are actually pretty good (4-2) at home, and the Bucs are just awful anywhere.

Why I don't watch TV weathercasters

So, it appears the region is going to once again escape the brunt of yet another historic winter storm. Parts of the mid-Atlantic region are looking at as much as 2 feet of snow by the time the storm winds down Sunday, but we'll get little more than a dusting, according to the National Weather Service.

Oh wait, that isn't what you heard from your local TV forecaster. Let me guess, they're still saying there's a chance the track of the storm might change and we could still get a foot or more of snow?

I can't say I'm surprised. You see, what I've observed over the last couple years is that local TV stations are less concerned with giving you an accurate forecast than giving you one that will have you coming back. It's like all the local stations hired Chicken Little as their meteorologist.

It's no big deal, of course, when there IS a big storm coming. I, as much as anybody else, want the latest information on when it's going to start, when it's going to end and how much it's going to leave us so I can plan  accordingly for a trip to work, etc.

It's situations like this weekend's storm, however, when the TV stations are at their slimy best. They try to keep you coming back and coming back and coming back by using such blatant come-ons as the possibility of a storm changing track or, even better, with those "computer models" that suggest a storm much stronger than is forecast. It's all a big con to get you to keep checking back for the latest right up until the non-storm passes and they again tell us we "just missed" a major weather event.

That's why I only trust the forecasts produced by the National Weather Service and posted at weather.gov. Not only does the federal agency tailor its forecast to your individual ZIP code, but it is not designed to do anything but inform.

While the TV newscasts have been teasing for several days the "possibility" that the track of today's big storm could change and dump a significant amount of snow on us, the National Weather Service has never wavered in its forecast that this area will get nothing more than a few flurries or snow showers. Why would the TV stations want to report that, though? If a viewer hears that at 6 p.m., they have no reason to tune in again at 11 p.m., or 6 a.m. the next morning, or noon.

Yes, as a longtime print journalist, I have never had much respect for TV journalists - who are, with few exceptions, empty suits doing little more than looking good while ripping off and taking credit for all the hard work done by we ink-stained wretches. It's gotten worse recently, though, as they spew crap designed to do little more than titillate viewers and encourage them to keep tuning in to give them the ratings needed to keep selling the advertising needed to pay the bills and keep the profits rolling in.

Yep, we in the newspaper business aren't the only ones who went from giving you the information you need to giving you the information equivalent of McDonald's (it satisfies you for the moment but does nothing to improve your life in the long run) just for the sake of the almighty dollar. And that remains the main reason why my chosen profession of the past 22 years now thoroughly disgusts me.

Jack Bauer meets his match

Courtesy of my college friend Mike, this is now my favorite Christmas video, produced by the folks at Rebel Christmas Card.

Oh yeah, less than a month until the new season of "24" premieres. Two-night, four-hour premiere begins Sunday, Jan. 17, at 9 p.m. I can't wait!!!

Called to BE Church-less

Well, it's official - I have now lost two of the only three Catholic churches I have ever regularly attended in my life.

Less than six months after St. Anna's Church in the Schoharie County hamlet of Summit closed its doors after more than 60 years comes word that St. Patrick's Church in St. Johnsville will cease to exist as of Feb. 13, 2010. You can read my story in today's Recorder HERE about the merger of western Montgomery County's three churches into one parish based in Fort Plain.

I understand and accept the basic premise of Called to BE Church, the 2 1/2-year effort by the Albany Diocese to more efficiently serve a declining number of parishioners with a declining number of priests and rising operational costs. There is no doubt that there is not the need there once was for as many churches as there were before the study began.

First of all, saying Masses in half-empty churches makes little sense financially, especially since the decline in parishioners obviously results in a decline in donations needed to support the churches. Second of all, with cities becoming much more heterogeneous, there is very little need for the ethnic churches that seem to be on every block in some cities.

Having said that, however, I do not totally agree with the final decisions the diocese made (you can see them all HERE). Specifically, I think they should have focused more on closing city churches and less on rural parishes like the two I have now lost. My reasoning is simple: The changing character of the cities over the past several generations have made those churches less relevant, both personally and within the community, while they remain a vibrant - though admittedly smaller - part of most rural communities.

My family was one of the founding families of St. Anna's, my parents were married there, I was baptized there 46 years ago and served as an altar boy there while growing up (even serving Mass on several occasions for Bishop Hubbard - who to this day I consider a family friend). Meanwhile, my wife's family has attended St. Patrick's for generations (it's almost right across the street from the house where her grandmother lived for much of her adult life), and our twins were baptized there just about 3 years ago.

Those connections are similar to stories I have heard from throughout both communities and similar rural towns throughout the region as I have reported on these closings first for the Gazette and later for the Recorder. They are also stories not as prevalent in the cities anymore. In many of those cases, while you still have some longtime parishioners, most moved out of those neighborhoods generations ago during the suburban flight of the mid- to late 20th century and have cultivated new history and traditions with suburban parishes.

To put it quite simply, the rural parishes that are being closed will be missed more than those in the cities and will leave a bigger hole in St. Johnsville, Summit and other small towns in the 14 counties that make up the diocese than in Amsterdam, Albany, Schenectady and the larger cities. The choice of city churches seems to me to have become less about ethnic identity and more about geographic location.

Church officials told me Tuesday that they have not seen much loss of parishioners with the closing and merger of  parishes, and I don't dispute that. But I also see how my father feels like an outsider attending Mass at St. Joseph's Church in Worcester after more than 60 years of making the trek up the hill from Richmondville to Summit.

I will admit I am no longer a very active Catholic, attending Mass usually only on special occasions. But it still bothers me that the diocese is choosing to remove what are more community centers than just liturgical centers in St. Johnsville, Canajoharie, Summit, Sharon Springs and other little communities and allowing aging, half-empty behemoths to remain in the cities that have little meaning other than being just one of as many as a half-dozen or more places to go to church there.

Tracking Santa

Bookmark THIS page for future reference (specifically on Christmas Eve). It's the OFFICIAL Santa tracker posted by North American Air Defense.

If anybody can track Santa around the globe, it would be NORAD - it's the group that almost started a thermonuclear war after getting hacked by a young Matthew Broderick and Ally Sheedy in the 1980s classic "War Games."

Anyway, the Web site offers a countdown until Christmas Eve, as well as a host of activities for kids, such as a cute video and a little game to see where Santa's elves are busiest right now. On Christmas Eve, however, you can watch as Santa works his way from Algeria to Zimbabwe and everywhere in between.

Why does the people responsible for protecting us from attack take time out of their busy schedule to track Santa? Here's the explanation from the Web site:

"For more than 50 years, NORAD and its predecessor, the Continental Air Defense Command (CONAD) have tracked Santa’s Christmas Eve flight.

The tradition began in 1955 after a Colorado Springs-based Sears Roebuck & Co. advertisement for children to call Santa misprinted the telephone number. Instead of reaching Santa, the phone number put kids through to the CONAD Commander-in-Chief's operations "hotline." The Director of Operations at the time, Colonel Harry Shoup, had his staff check the radar for indications of Santa making his way south from the North Pole. Children who called were given updates on his location, and a tradition was born.

In 1958, the governments of Canada and the United States created a bi-national air defense command for North America called the North American Aerospace Defense Command, also known as NORAD, which then took on the tradition of tracking Santa.

Since that time, NORAD men, women, family and friends have selflessly volunteered their time to personally respond to Christmas Eve phone calls and emails from children. In addition, we now track Santa using the internet. Last year, millions of people who wanted to know Santa's whereabouts visited the NORAD Tracks Santa website.

Finally, media from all over the world rely on NORAD as a trusted source to provide Christmas Eve updates on Santa's journey."

Merry Christmas!!!

This week's picks

OK, I've all but given up on hitting a parlay this season, so I'm gonna try to have a little fun with this week's picks and go with what I'll call a week for the dogs. With my luck, this will probably be the week I get them all right.

Best bet: Tampa Bay (+3) vs. N.Y. Jets - The J-E-T-S with Kellen Clemens at QB will have little success against a team that has shown some signs of life since they followed New York's lead and gave their rookie quarterback (Josh Freeman) a shot.

San Diego (+3 1/2) at Dallas - The Chargers are looking better and better to me each week, and the Cowboys look like they're making their annual December transition into the Cowgirls.

Miami (+2 1/2) at Jacksonville - I'm betting that the Dolphins team that shows up today is the one that embarrassed New England and not the one that was embarrassed by Buffalo.

San Francisco (+3 1/2) vs. Arizona - The Cardinals can clinch the NFC West with a win and a Seattle loss, but I'm not sure either is going to happen today.

Seattle (+6 1/2) at Houston - The only team that has been more inconsistent than Miami this season has been Houston, and I think this might be another down week.

What's your favorite Christmas song?

I have to admit I haven't been much of a fan of Christmas for about the past 25 years, since my mother passed away. Christmas had always been my mom's holiday; no matter where she lived, she pretty much always decorated, and we always found time for the whole family (including both my mom and dad, even though they had split before I was 5) to spend at least a little time together.

But the Christmas spirit has returned this year, most likely because this will be the first Christmas I will be celebrating in the same household as my beautiful wife and all three of my wonderful children. We've decorated the house (OK, well, Jami did about 90 percent of the decorating) and spent WAY too much on presents, especially for the kids (the blame for that can be split about evenly). Heck, I've even loaded my iPod with Christmas favorites and have been playing them at home, in the car and at work.

Anyway, a competing newspaper came up with the idea of doing an NCAA tournament-style contest to determine the region's favorite Christmas song. Right now, they're down to the final four, with the remaining contenders being Brenda Lee's "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree," Bing Crosby's "White Christmas," Bing and David Bowie's "Peace on Earth/Little Drummer Boy" and Vince Guaraldi's "Christmas Time is Here" from "A Charlie Brown Christmas."

There are so many great classic and contemporary Christmas songs out there that I really couldn't pick just one, so I'm going to share with you my five favorite Christmas songs and invite you to share your favorites with me.

5) "Christmas Eve/Sarajevo 12/24" by Trans-Siberian Orchestra - Hard rock meets classical, how could an old metalhead like me not like a powerful tune like this. I am amazed how this group can be so successful (and so profitable) by working basically six weeks out of the year.

4) "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer" by Elmo & Patsy - You just gotta have a sense of humor this time of year (especially as you're draining your bank account and maxing out your credit cards to buy presents), and this song never fails to bring a smile and a chuckle.

3) "Father Christmas" by the Kinks - One of a handful of songs that made contemporary holiday songs popular both with listeners and musicians, I'll take this one again because of its harder rock sound.

2) "Peace on Earth/Little Drummer Boy" by Bing Crosby and David Bowie - The symbolism of bringing together classic and contemporary artists is cool, as is the melding of classic and contemporary tunes.

1) "Santa Claus is Comin' to Town" by Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band - To me, this performance is what Christmas is all about - having a good time with friends and family. It doesn't hurt to have a kickass sax solo, either.

My other favorites include Elvis' "Blue Christmas," Run DMC's "Christmas in Hollis," Bobby Helms' "Jingle Bell Rock," Brenda Lee's "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree," Billy Squier's "Christmas is a Time to Say 'I Love You'" and "Happy Christmas (War is Over)" by John Lennon and Yoko Ono.

So, what are YOUR favorite Christmas songs, and why?

The best Christmas decoration

From co-worker Kevin Mattison comes without a doubt the best decoration of the holiday season for sick and twisted people like your's truly.

According to Kevin, the homeowner was told to take it down because it was causing traffic accidents and because a 55-year-old woman grabbed the 75-pound ladder and nearly killed herself trying to "rescue" the victim. Needless to say, she was none to pleased to discover the joke.

It kind of sums up my feeling about the whole "I have to outdo my neighbors" holiday decoration crap. Me, I love the Christmas tree we have in the living room and the stockings we have hung up, but I don't need anything more to celebrate.

For me, the holiday is about enjoying my family (BTW, this will be the first Christmas for the five of us as a family again, so this one is extra special). Here's wishing you and yours a happy holiday of your choice!!!