Christmas is about to sneak up on us again. When I doubt my gift selecting ability, I turn to tradition as a guide, ensuring that my gifts will adhere to the good, honest, decent American values that made this country, and the show Mad Men, great. That's why this year, I'll be giving Camel cigarettes. Former President Reagan's endorsement notwithstanding, I was initially skeptical of cigarettes as a gift, since they get so much bad press, but that was before I found out that more doctors smoke Camels than any other cigarette. So Merry Christmas everyone! Smoke 'em if you got 'em!

Christmas. Yeah, we're going there. I never said this would be a smooth ride. Christmas is of course the celebration of the day Jesus was born and placed in a manger because there was "no room at the inn". Seriously?  Who was running this inn? Messianic prophecy or not, it's a couple who had a baby 5 minutes ago, you can't make some space? Hell wouldn't even pull that shit, and we're talking about a place that dedicates an entire high-rise to gleefully forcing glass shards under the eyelids of false witnesses.

Christmas is also the beginning of Christmastide, the so-called 12 days of Christmas, made famous in the song of the same name. Allow me to take a breath before going into this one. Let's think about this. The first 4 days, the singer's "true love" - and I put that in quotations because I'm not sure I buy that designation for reasons I'll explain - gives her (Yeah, her. I've lived so long I stopped counting my age when we went from Roman to Arabic numerals, and I can tell you this: chicks don't buy guys multiple swans. Sorry boys, ain't gonna happen.) a partridge (with tree), 2 turtle doves, 3 french hens, and 4 colly birds. The song seems to suggest that these things are stacked every day, so on the first day it's a partridge in a pear tree, and on the second day it's 2 turtle doves and a second partridge in a pear tree, and so on. I'm going to assume that's not the case, and that each subsequent mentioning of a gift is a reference to the original, and not a duplicate gift. If I'm wrong, then what I took to be merely absurd is actually whatever is above absurd. Preposterous?

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The road to professional sports is one of the most effective sociopath assembly lines in the world. Separated from their peers by talent as kids, pandered to as teenagers, and idolized as adults, today's college and professional athletes know that forgiveness is only one contrite press conference away. We keep track of their antisocial behavior and marvel at their sociopathleticism in the Sociopathlete Round-Up.

Sociopathlete: Lawrence Taylor, former Linebacker, New York Giants
The real LT appeared in court the other day to claim that police violated his rights when they entered a hotel room he was sleeping in to seize evidence that he had paid a sixteen-year-old runaway $300 for sex. Court papers in a related but separate case say he admitted to sex acts with the girl. What they don't say is that LT didn't even practice soliciting prostitutes during the week, he just showed up on soliciting-prostitutes-day and made it happen. But at least he's taking it seriously.

Sociopathlete: Albert Haynesworth, Defensive Lineman, Washington Redskins
Brett Favre made the list last time for doing his job. Haynesworth makes it for refusing to do his. Coach Mike Shanahan suspended him for the final four games of the season without pay. Haynesworth didn't want to play nose tackle in the team's 3-4 defense. But he also didn't want to find a new team and give up his 21 million dollar contract bonus. So he just stayed on, but also didn't do his job - the best of both worlds. He also needed 10 days to pass a conditioning test at the start of training camp, showing that you don't need athleticism to have sociopathleticism.

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Good British humor from ‘Walk On The Wild Side' show.

Well, it's happened again. You've blasted through another year and suddenly it's Thanksgiving again. We do a big Thanksgiving down here. It's a good holiday for a diverse crowd, since it's secular and you don't really need to explain much, even to people who have never heard of it. Have a big feast, open a few bottles of wine. Everybody "gets it". And holidays that center around cooking are big in Hell, since heat is easy to come by in a lake of fire that burns hotter than the hottest earthly flame.

I'm hosting this year like I always do. It used to be a real treat for everyone to come to my place, since I lived in the most exclusive neighborhood in all of Hell. Guests would make jokes like "What's the cover charge going to be?" But while my neighborhood was nice when I moved in, it's pretty shitty now. One of the hazards of eternity, I guess, unless you want to move every hundred years. Now the place is really run down and all the businesses have left. I knew we'd hit the skids when I drove by a Souplantation with my neighbor Ron and he said, without irony, "It would be really cool if we could get one of those". It's come to that. Now people make jokes like "Yeah, we'll be there, just let me get my flak jacket out of the attic".

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The week ahead holds plenty of possibilities for any T.V. junkie. Here are a few picks you should definitely consider not checking out.

Monday: The Event. It has a backwards "E" in the logo! Don't you understand?! That is AWESOME! It has aliens! And intrigue! Assuming you were as enraged as anyone at the lack of accountability demonstrated in the storytelling of Lost, wouldn't watching this show put you neck-and-neck with a battered woman who meets her next boyfriend in a police drunk tank? The Event airs Monday nights at 9PM on NBC.

Tuesday: NCIS: Los Angeles. Person A: "Who's the special agent in charge here?!" Person B: "Chris O'Donnell." Person A: "I'm serious!" Person B: "So am I." Person A: "Wait, really?" NCIS: Los Angeles airs Tuesday nights at 9PM on CBS.

Wednesday: The Middle. Husband and wife. 3 kids. Oldest, jock. Middle, awkward. Youngest, precociously smart. Were you in a coma for the sitcom era of television? No? Oh, then never mind. The Middle airs Wednesday nights at 8PM on ABC.

Thursday: The Big Bang Theory. Want to see what T.V. writers imagine the extremely educated to act like? You don't have to. It turns out they act like every stereotypical nerd you've ever seen on television and in the movies.  The Big Bang Theory airs Thursday nights at 8PM on CBS.

Friday: CSI: NY. Hey, know what would be interesting? A police procedural about crime scene investigators! Sweet! Hey, know what would also be cool? If there was a version that took place in New York City. Can you imagine? A cop show in New York?! Where's our Emmy?! CSI: NY  airs Friday nights at 10PM on CBS.

Saturday: Click. In case you never saw one of the million and a half student films that tackle the concept of a television remote that influences reality, Fox is running Click, the story of a man with a television remote that influences reality. I wonder if he'll learn a valuable lesson in the end. Click airs this coming Saturday at 8PM on Fox.

Sunday: The Amazing Race. They've had 17 seasons. How can it be amazing if it's been done 17 times? I don't know, but I plan to not find out. The Amazing Race airs Sunday nights at 8PM on CBS.

The objective of any social situation is to make everyone else feel dumb and always have the last word. Here are a few issues to discuss at tonight's dinner engagement, and a couple ways you can be a pompous, know-it-all prick when talking about them.

Talking Point: Obama's Asia trip was a disaster!
Anyone who brings this up is probably referring to Monday's Slate article written by Eliot Spitzer. But you don't have the schooling to discuss international politics! Divert attention from the real issue by taking a cheap shot at Spitzer for the prostitution scandal (which I'd estimate is still 2 years away from being stale) by doing something like pretending to confuse Spitzer with Charlie Sheen, then exclaiming "Oh sorry, I can't imagine how I mixed those two up!" to peals of laughter. Fair warning, though, in the wrong crowd this could lead to an earnest discussion of Two and a Half Men.

Talking point: Prince William is marrying a commoner!
Key know-it-all prick info: The notion that British royals are bound to marry other royals is actually false (note the use of the word "actually" here. "Actually" is a really good way to sound like a know-it-all prick). They've been marrying outside their own ranks for years. And thank god, because they were becoming known for their inbreeding. As for any issues the Queen has about the marriage, whip this one out: According to George Bernard Shaw in Pygmalion, "It is impossible for an Englishman to open his mouth without making some other Englishman hate or despise him"! Everyone is sure to laugh uproariously at this, and you'll be remembered for the most deftly applied Shaw quote of the season!

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I'm sure it's very stressful, being a game show contestant. But, some of these people should have thought before they gave their answer.

Probably not the best way to show appreciation.

Scoring against your own team...that's not gonna go over well.

Talk about skills, man...this guy's great.

Talk about selling yourself.

You know what, if you spend that much time working on your body. You should show it off, every chance you get.