On December 31, 2010, I was browsing my seven years(!) worth of blog entries. One in particular called out to me. Holy crap, I used to weigh 140 pounds? I was little more than a biological paperweight. A bit too skinny, if you ask me. So, I embarked upon a devil-may-care diet consisting mostly of pure grease and self loathing.

Well, six years and 70(!) pounds later, I began to rethink my decision to kneel at the altar of hedonism. After all, I figured, it probably wasn’t helping my prospects of having full intercourse with a woman in this lifetime. Luckily for me, I came to this revelation during resolution season. In the month since I decided not to fill my arteries with pure mayonnaise and doughnut glaze, I’ve lost 10 pounds (I think – I am too cheap to buy a scale, so I weigh myself weekly at the grocery store). I may have passed back onto the right side of 200, which would be a first since about two years ago.

Not that anyone reads this much anymore (I don’t fault you; I rarely update and when I do, it’s senseless drivel that the Internet would probably do better without), but I just wanted to put this out there. That way, if (when) I revert to my old habits, I can look back to this public admission of intent and perhaps regain some perspective on the whole weight issue.

The bikini calendar photo shoot is next week. Wish me luck.

A Charlie Brown Christmas, while charming, is really terrible.

I understand that part of the allure of gathering the tots around the tube every yuletide is to reflect back upon memories of simpler times while appreciating the historical significance of the cartoon, but c’mon: the production value of the thing is just awful.

Whenever I catch a Charles Shultz biography or similar documentary, they are quick to point out that, in a radical move uncommon to the industry, Charlie Brown cartoons used actual kids rather than grown-up voice actors for the audio track. Neat idea, I guess, but did they have to use the least convincing children on the planet for the job? The lack of trained child voice actors in the heyday of animation results in Shultzian quirks that, thanks to broadcast television’s annual promotion, remain with us to this day: long, awkward pauses; weird voice inflections; and a final speech by Linus that’s delivered so quickly it seems like he has to pee or something.

Also (and this is an aside not solely related to the original Christmas show), using child voiceovers necessitates whole new casts for future iterations of Charlie Brown cartoons. After they air A Charlie Brown Christmas, they air I Want a Dog for Christmas, Charlie Brown! with an entirely different cast. I realize that the latter was made decades after the former and that it would be nearly impossible to use the same cast for both, regardless of age, but something tells me it would be easier to emulate the original voices had they been well composed by professional voice actors. Just my two cents.

However silly these kids sound, though, I still watch A Charlie Brown Christmas every year (in all its terrible glory). I don’t know, maybe it’s that I’m a sucker for convention and to watch Peanuts cartoons on major American holidays is the most conventional way a middle class white kid can spend his youth. Maybe my relatively newfound discovery of jazz music has drawn me once again to the cartoon’s soundtrack. Or maybe I just like to watch for the purpose of participating in the greatest of all American pastimes, rampant and unfounded criticism.

Look out for my Christmas post next year, in which I attempt to discern the origins of this new-fangled “Rerun” character. That kid sucks.

As I grew up, I moved on to National Public Radio. First, it was Morning Edition in the mornings to keep me awake when I had to rise at 5:00 a.m. for high school, then it was whatever was playing on the station in Gainesville (Science Friday was and is a personal favorite). Now, I listen whenever I think about it since they did away with classical music and switched to jazz in the evenings on WUSF.

Either way, though, I don’t listen as much as I should. It’s not because of a lack of relevant and interesting programming; it’s because they ask for money all the damn time and I’m sick of it.

When one of the weekly pledge drives crops up on my radio, it’s an instant turn off. Whenever one of these events in monotony arrives, it’s all I can do not to imagine Ira Glass in his big, dumb hipster glasses with a tin cup begging for change outside of a 7-11.

I love public radio, but I think there should be a way to give those who actually donate a way to listen to all of their fine programming without degrading yourself and selling tote bags and DVDs for hundreds of dollars. It’s unbecoming.

Tonight, the (Devil) Rays lost their playoff series to the Texas Rangers. I can sit here and blame the absurdly terrible umpiring, the fact that our hitting coach is incapable, or the fact that we started Kelly Shoppach at catcher for this, the most important game of the year. And I did all of these things until five minutes ago. Five minutes ago, I shaved my playoff beard.

It wasn’t as gnarly as the 2008 incarnation, but it was there. I woke up with it, thought about how much it itched all day, and I went to sleep with it only to repeat the cycle again and again. When I scratched it, I thought about how much I love my team – twelve times every minute. I can’t be sure, but when we’d make an error or strike out looking or get hosed on an iffy call, I think I felt my follicles trying extra hard to push the strands out. I was so attached.

I shaved, and now I feel nothing but sadness.

The same thing happened in 2008: Eric Hinske struck out; Brad Lidge dropped to his knees; and I, feeling a whirlwind of emotions that ran the gamut from despair to pride to disbelief, walked to the bathroom and eliminated the facial project I had worked on for nearly a month. But after the whirlwind had died down, there was only one feeling left to feel. It’s the same one I feel now.

I realize that this is neither encouraged nor healthy, but I think that’s what’s so special about baseball. Five years ago, I was just a kid in high school who fooled himself into rooting for a ragtag bunch of losers. Today, I’m a kid in graduate school who fooled himself into rooting for a scrappy bunch of (almost) winners. And next year, I will fool myself into rooting for the boys – my boys – because that’s what needs to be done.

Maybe it’s not only sadness I feel. Maybe the time I spent shaving alone in the silence of my own locker room let me gain a bit of perspective. No, it’s not only sadness: it’s got a twist of hope with a dash of excitement and a whole lot of pride. Yeah, that’s it.

Go Rays.

I feel like I’m playing with one of those toys from the pediatrician’s office with the multicolor beads on a wire ground into a block of wood.

As we sat outside beneath the roar of planes from the airfield next door, everyone decided that it would be prudent to drink beer. If you have known me for any amount of time, you know of my rocky relationship with this most insidious beverage. It’s gross. It’s beyond gross. I smell it – nay, I look at it the wrong way – and I am mere steps away from an esophageal eruption on par with most active volcanoes.

However, as I sat at a picnic table with a bunch of other people around my age I realized that my life cannot proceed like this. As disgusting as beer is, it is becoming clear that the path to normal twenty-something relations invariably travels through a brewery.

So like I had done many times before, I told myself, “Self, it’s time to man up. You’ve got to learn to drink beer again. Your future depends on it!”

I stopped by Publix on the way home and bought a six pack of Killian’s Irish Red. I now realize that this was probably a poor choice for a new beginner. Regardless, I proceeded home, whipped up some dinner, and cracked open a longneck.

I took two sips.

Now there are now five beer bottles sitting in the fridge, wondering where their brother has gone and waiting for my father to get home so they can join him. I only hope my special condition isn’t too detrimental in my social life during the next two years.

Remember when CNN Headline News was, you know, actually a news show? Now, HLN has devolved into a hodgepodge of superficial news and uneducated opinions. Any given half hour of programming consists of about 20 percent news and 80 percent Twitter whoring. Look, I understand that it’s chic to employ social networking on the tube nowadays, but when your show is focused more on what Ethel May in Alabama thinks about building some mosque in New York rather than actually building the mosque in New York, I think your priorities are a bit backward.

The campus is nestled mere blocks from the hallowed halls of Tropicana Field with a quaint view of Bayboro Harbor and buildings that seem younger than I am, which is always nice when you consider that such edifices are more likely to have clean bathrooms. Also, their Chick-fil-A is on the waterfront, which I think is the perfect way to enjoy overpriced (but admittedly delicious) chicken.

But the best part? YOU SHOULD FEEL THE AIR CONDITIONING. I’m not kidding. I walked across 6th Avenue South after my appointment with human resources so I could scope out the building where most of my classes will be, and I’m pretty sure I somehow fell asleep and entered into that dream from Inception with all the snow. Trust me, after parading around in my avian disguise for the amusement of strangers in temperatures above one hundred degrees day in and day out, the frigid respite of the Peter R. Wallace Florida Center for Teachers is quite a welcome surprise.

In an unrelated matter, I’m pretty sure the hardest part about adjusting to J-school will be only using one space between sentences.