Fantasy vs Reality

I traded Steve Nash in my fantasy basketball league last week.

Yes, that Steve Nash.

The two-time NBA MVP and still one of the top point guards in the game.

In our league, the mother of all fantasy leagues, we have a salary cap, performance raises, a rookie draft and three websites.

If you are into fantasy sports, it is paradise.

If you are not, it is pathetic.

Actually, fifty steps beyond pathetic.

But we love it.

And we have been loving it since 1993, when the league started.

And every year, a bunch of us act like we own a real team.

My team name is the Dunkin' Donuts.

And it has been since the beginning.

I have always been searching for corporate sponsorship.

And I deserve it.

I have won eight championships in our 16 years.

The last five thanks to Mr. Nash.

If you don't follow basketball, let me tell you, this six-foot-three dude is incredible.

But even with all his success, the reality is that my team has no chance to win our fantasy league this year.

Zero.

The top four teams finish in the money and quite frankly we are not good enough.

And since you can’t fire the owner, you need to trade the players.

**** NERD ALERT ****

So I decided to deal Nash and his $69.05 salary, which was 21% of my total salary as one of the 16 players on my team, even though he still shoots 50% from the floor, 40% from 3 and 90% from the line.

**** NERD ALERT ****

That, plus he's almost 37 years old.

Which is like 900 in basketball years.

Now if I've learned anything from being let go from my last two jobs, it was:

• Why pay a talented experienced person a lot of money, when you can pay an inexperienced person little-to-nothing.

It’s the American way.

And since Nash is Canadian, I figured it was better to deal him away a little too early than a little too late.

As much as that broke my heart.

I offered him to pretty much every team in the league and negotiated with the teams that made me a good offer.

And that negotiating experience was very handy.

That’s because, while I was living in fantasyland, we were also trying to find a real place to live too.

A new house for our family.

And as luck would have it, around the same time I traded Nash, my wife and I found that house.

The perfect house?

No.

A nice house?

Absolutely.

The right house?

Not sure.

I went to look at it four times.   She saw it twice.

And after speaking with our real estate agent, we decided to put a bid in.

I’ve been looking at homes since I got back from New York.

And we kept hearing, “it’s a buyer’s market out there.”

Out where?, I say.

Not here.

Sure, there are a lot of homes for sale.

And some of them are affordable.

But as William Shakespeare once said, “nobody is giving nothing away.”

Our real estate agent ran the comps for the neighborhood so we could put in the proper bid.

Webster defines the comps as the comparable homes.

And we define the proper bid as “the lowest amount possible.”

So we did.

And a few hours later, the sellers came back with their own version of the comps.

And their version of the the proper bid.

We went back and forth, just like when I traded Steve Nash, and we eventually agreed.

Agreed to disagree.

Unlike my fantasy dealings, we were never able to seal the deal on the house.

We think they were asking for too much.

They think we were not willing to offer enough.

So after a weekend of heavy negotiations, we still don’t have a house.

And even more devastating, I no longer have Steve Nash.

Talk about a lose-lose situation.

P.S.   In case you have no life, like me, and you couldn't sleep without hearing the actual details of the trade:


     --  Dunkin' Donuts traded Steve Nash, Tyrus Thomas and Donte Greene to Drivin' Miss Daisy for Roddy Beaubois, JaVale McGee, Al Thornton, Amir Johnson and Daisy's 2012 first round pick.    Then I traded Amir Johnson and Chris Andersen to In Denyle for Anthony Morrow, Denyle's 2012 first and second round picks.




Now back to reality.

Time For Change

Unfortunately George Carlin was a wee bit before my time.

Rumor has it he was hilarious.

Actually, I’m well aware that he was the first ever host of Saturday Night Live.

And I’m well aware of his seven dirty words skit.

I’ve even used all seven of those words in a sentence.

If you don’t believe me, just ask my kids.

But one of his routines that I have seen, and that made me laugh out loud, is his routine on “Stuff.”

If you haven’t seen it, just click here, AFTER you’ve finished my blog.

I know he was just trying to be funny.

And he was.

But his was act was pretty darn true too.

Like the part about your house being a place to keep your “stuff” while you go out and get more “stuff.”

Or the part about “their stuff is junk” and “your junk is stuff.”

Except he used one of those seven words for junk.

There’s nothing really funny about moving.

I suppose if you are going to a bigger place... in a better place... it can be fun.

But funny, not really.

One of the little hidden gems of moving is the process of changing your address.

If you haven’t moved in a while, you have NO idea what fun you are missing.

Since we are in between homes at the moment, I hired a P.O. Box to be our home address for the time being.

Then I started writing down all of the places I needed to contact to change our address.

There were the obvious ones, like banks and credit cards.

And magazines.

The less obvious ones, like grocery stores and old employers.

And frequent flyer airlines.

And then there are the ones that I forgot all about.

When the list was complete, the tally had reached 77.

77 different places where I needed to change my address.

Talk about stuff.

Some companies made it easy by doing it on their website.

As long as you remembered your user ID.

And your password.

Or your security question.

And the answer to that question.

Other companies make you fax them.

Does anybody really own a fax machine?

Other companies want you to write them.

And then there are most of them who I needed to call.

As someone who is sans employment at the moment, I was fortunately able to carve out some significant time in my busy schedule to get this done.

And that still wasn’t enough.

The first call was to my old mortgage company.

Since I was in full multi-task mode, it was no big deal when they put me on hold.

For five minutes.

Then ten.

Then fifteen.

Really.

Apparently they “were experiencing high call traffic” or something like that.

But I finally got that one done and moved onto the next.

Did you know that menu options have changed?

I must’ve heard that one a thousand times.

“Please pay attention because our menu options have changed.”

Menu options?

Who did I call, Denny’s?

I wish I had a postage stamp for every time I was told that my call would be “monitored or recorded for quality purposes.”

Really?

As if the job of being on the phone with losers like me isn’t bad enough.

There are people whose job it is to listen to our phone calls.

Wow.

I’d rather dress up like a sandwich and hold one of those signs telling drivers that there is a Subway restaurant in that mini-mall.

At least they can listen to music all day.

One of the companies I called had a list of security questions to make sure I was who I said I was.

One of the questions asked, “what county did I live in when I was in high school?”

Really?

First of all, I went to high school 26 YEARS AGO.

Second of all, I went to three different high schools in three different cities on two different coasts.

I can’t remember ANYTHING I learned in high school.

How in the world can I tell you what county I was in?

I was also asked to verify my last four addresses.

Good luck with that.

By the time the day was done, I was wiped out.

But my mission was accomplished.

Well almost.

I still have about 15 to go.

And then I get to do it all again when we find a permanent residence.

That’s where those seven words come in.

Oy Tannenbaum

When it comes to religion, my Jewish ancestors got a whole bunch of things right.

Matzo ball soup.

Fiddler on the Roof.

Rod Carew.

But nobody is perfect.

Who in the world signed off on making bacon illegal?

Now when it comes to creating a winter holiday for all the people to celebrate...

Advantage Christians.

Sure, Chanukah is fun.

Adam Sandler’s song is a classic.

I love them Potato Latkes.

And the idea of getting gifts on eight consecutive nights is a great concept.

Especially for a kid.

But nothing compares to Christmas.

The music.

The tree.

The bearded superhero.

Sure, my people have tried to ride the coat tails of the Christians.

Introducing Hanukkah Harry and the Chanuka Bush to the young kids of today.

But we can’t even agree on how to spell our holiday.

According to something called joemaller.com, there are 16 ways to spell the festival of lights.

Clearly we need a new marketing firm.

Not to mention, every time I light the menorah, I feel like I am going to burn down the house.

Christmas, on the other hand, is as simple as they come.

Shop for presents.   Wrap the presents.   Open the presents.


Done.


I've never been to Midnight, Mass.


But my dad was born in Worcester.


Growing up in Southern California, we would always spend Christmas with some friends in the San Fernando Valley.

Like us, they had a Jewish father and a non-Jewish mother.

Although, mine converted.

So we would always pretend to celebrate both occasions.

But there was no doubt what the headlining holiday was.

Each year, us kids would wait at the top of the steps at 6:30 on Christmas morning.

Waiting for the ok to go downstairs to see what Santa brought us.

Santa?

Believe?

Hellz ya!

I never once questioned Santa.

I never once questioned Santa bringing me presents.

I never once questioned why Santa would bring presents to a Jewish kid from the San Diego Hebrew Day School.

And neither would you.

It’s all about the presents, right?

And the children of today are no different.

My kids have no idea what the nativity scene means.

But they sure know how to build a Gingerbread house.

My kids have no idea where the city of Bethlehem is located.

But they know exactly where to find their stocking.

My kids have no idea who Jesus is.

But my son can name the other Alou brothers.

Call me a traitor.

Call me a phony.

Call me anything you want, but I LOVE CHRISTMAS.

And I always will.

I love the lights.

I love the songs.

I love the gifts.

Ok, that last part has changed.

I used to love getting the gifts.

What kid doesn’t.

Now I love giving the gifts.

And I especially love the mystery surrounding it.

I love the idea that my three kids are sleeping in a room tonight with their three cousins.

And all they can do is talk, think and dream about what presents they are going to get in the morning.

And let’s not forget the annual traditions.

The egg nog.

The spiked egg nog.

The Lakers game.

As the great Apostle Zero Mostel once said...

“Tradition, Tradition!”

Wait a minute.

Advantage Jews.

Growing up, we NEVER opened a gift before Christmas morning.

It was torture as a kid, but that is one rule I won’t bend on.

How funny is that, the Orthodox Jewish kid won’t let his half-Jewish, half-Korean kids open up their Christmas gifts until Christmas morning.

And it’s not even my holiday.

Every year, they pretty much beg me to open one gift on Christmas Eve.

And every year, I say no.

Now there is a part of this holiday season that we can all agree to.

And that is the day after Christmas.

As in, the day after Christmas sales.

Or as I call it, the Jewish Christmas.

Nobody likes a deal more than us.

Merry Christmas to all.