Ah yes, the Holidays are now coming to a close…another Christmas has come and gone and my birthday is coming up.  That’s right, mark January 5th on your calendars and prepare to send me tons of well-wishes and everything.  Personally, I think the official Holiday season should extend through January 5th to honor me, but that’s just my opinion.  I really couldn’t care less about New Year’s, so we need a new day to signify the end of the Holidays and January 5th sounds pretty good to me.  Man I hate New Year’s…not sure why but I despise it.  The only cool thing about it is that if New Year’s Day is during the work week, I get the day off and sometimes there’s a college bowl game on I want to see…other then that I absolutely hate it.  You know how you get those “bah humbug” types at Christmas?  I’m the EXACT same way about New Year’s.  I just don’t get it…I don’t understand what the big deal is.  I hate the dumb hats, the drunk morons screaming, the streamers, the stupid ball dropping in Times Square, and especially that song that gets played after everyone yells “happy new year”…I can’t remember the name of it, but I HATE that song with a passion.  In fact, I hate New Year’s Eve so much that I make it a point to NOT go anywhere.  I get this sick feeling in my stomach every year on December 31st and am always so happy once it’s January 1st and it’s all over.  But anyway, it is the end of the year so allow me to join in with the other millions of websites doing their big “year end” editions…and the funny thing is those people are serious about what they’re doing…like it matters…hahaha.  I do have to say that 2004 was quite a year for me.  This past year saw yours truly have a band that filmed a DVD and played some gigs, I got to witness the legendary metal acts of Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, and Slayer all in the same night, my beloved Atlanta Falcons are about to enter the playoffs with a first-round bye, and I finally gave up on TNA and got rid of totalnonstop.com once it got hacked.  Seriously though, I had given up on TNA months before I shut the site down, so the site basically became a tool of self-promotion for myself.  Yeah, there was a messageboard on it but a lot of the posters were dorks and I got soooo sick of seeing discussions on spot-fests and workrate and blah blah blah.  Basically wrestling is ruined for me and I have no clue if I’ll ever watch it again.  That says a lot coming from someone that had followed it for about 28 years.  I guess when you realize your time, energy, and money is going to support a lot of scumbags who constantly cheat on their wives, stab people in the back to try and get ahead in the business, drug addicts (I know I drink but it is legal), and gay dudes who use the talent pool as a personal playground in exchange for a better spot on that night’s show, you kind of start to wonder if your time and money couldn’t be better spent on…oh I don’t know… anything else.  But you know what cracks me up more then anything when it comes to pro wrestling?  How fragile the egos of those dudes are.  If a show gets a bad review, a lot of them will say stuff like “what does he know…he’s not in the business” or they’ll dismiss it because that person is a “mark”.  Of course what should I expect from a bunch of dudes that ‘roid up, lay in tanning beds all day, and pretend to fight while wearing their underwear?  Plus, the overall product is such a joke compared to what it used to be…it really is.  But enough on that…I just really hate pro wrestling now.  Let’s get to the real reason everyone is reading this, and that is to find out who deserves Rum & Coke Buzz Year End Awards.

However I must say this…I do have a goal for 2005.  Ever get a killer parking space at a store, and as you’re loading your car with stuff you bought, there’s someone sitting there with their turn signal on laying claim to your spot for when you leave?  I hate that.  So what do I do?  I take my sweet friggin time…that’s what.  I have to make sure everything is arranged a certain way in the car to maximize space.  Oh…and then one of my favorite thing to do is after I’m done is take the cart back to the holding area in the parking lot to one that is a little farther away from my car instead the one right next to me.  My goal this year is to see how long I can make someone wait before they drive off…because they hardly ever do.  No, once they see that spot coming open it’s theirs and NOTHING will take it from them.  The only time I have been able to get them to drive off for another spot is when I do this – I act like I’m about to leave, then get that look of “did I forget something?” so I open the back door looking around like I’m missing something….so I’ll shut the door and look a little irritated and start to walk back towards the store.  They drive off every time and you KNOW they have to be a little ticked off.  Now this wouldn’t be as funny if you didn’t finish it up just right.  Once that car moves up and out of the row you’re parked in, turn right around and open your back door, grab a random item holding it up to where the other person can see it and smile with that “it was here the whole time….whew” look and get in and drive off.  If you happen to catch a glimpse of the person in the other car, it’s priceless.  You can’t glance over obviously, but do it while turning your head around checking things out before pulling out.  My goal this year is to really see how many cars I can make drive off…hahahaha.

Ok, here’s the way all of this works.  I try to give awards to people that would probably be overlooked on year-end columns.  The categories change some from year to year depending on what mood I’m in and who I want to honor.  So this year the categories include the following –

1) Man of the year
2) Lifetime achievement award
3) Live act of the year
4) Movie of the year
5) Album of the year
6) Babe Achievement Award
7) Jackass of the year

This little awards thing originated when every wrestling site known to man would do these big “year end” awards things with such categories as “wrestler of the year”, “match of the year” and blah blah blah.  In other words…every site did the same thing!  Where’s the originality and thought?  But again, I’m looking for creativity from a bunch of guys that take wrestling waaaay too seriously and probably have never had a date.  Enough of all this though…let’s get to the awards.