New Thing #5: Playoff Fantasy Football

I used to be crazy about fantasy sports. Ridiculously crazy. Stats, records...I immersed myself in it.

I still get into it, just not with anywhere near the same level of intensity.

I'm still willing to try some fun new fantasy twist.

Thus, this year's foray into NFL.com's Playoff Fantasy Football.

It actually wasn't my idea.

My friend Kevin (I'll introduce him further at another time...I'm sure he'll pop up again multiple times over the course of the year) sent around an e-mail to a few of us who play fantasy baseball together suggesting we sign up. It doesn't take much more than that to convince me.

What's striking about this game (actually called "Fantasy Playoff Challenge"), though, is how different it is from anything I've attempted before. You get somewhat traditional fantasy points from each player, but the longer they are on your team the more the points are worth. So you kind of get double-rewarded for picking players who last deep into the playoffs. And if the player has a bye in the first week, you still get double points in his first game if you have him the first week. (Hence the gamble I'm taking at QB and TE...I still think the 49ers are going to the Super Bowl, and I don't know if there's a better tight end out there than Gronkowski.)

And I am sure that I know nothing more here than the others in the mini-league, which is why I have no qualms about publishing my roster here.

I don't want to get too deep into sports details here on you, but I'll wrap up with this: I've done playoff pools (and I'm doing one this year), I've done fantasy football before where you pick a team and stick with that team straight through the Super Bowl, but I've never done it like this. And there's nothing at stake here other than pride.

I'm excited about trying out a new fantasy sports activity. And with the Jets missing the playoffs for the second straight year, it's good for me to have as many possible things to root for in the post-season that distract me from that fact.

New Thing #4: 'Bullseye' Podcast

I enjoy a good podcast. There are 9 I listen to regularly right now; I'm open to adding more, but I definitely won't be subtracting.

I love the ones I listen to.

The latest on my list of favorites is "Bullseye with Jesse Thorn".

I've actually been listening to the show for about a month, but it's still new enough to qualify as 'new' for 2013.

I think I first learned about Jesse Thorn and "Bullseye" through Marc Maron's "WTF" podcast, another of my favorites. If I'm remembering correctly from his early episodes, Maron credited Thorn with coming by, setting him up with the appropriate podcasting equipment, and getting him started on what has become one of the most successful podcasts out there. I think Thorn was even a guest on Maron's show at some point. I don't remember the details from that interview, but maybe I should look it up again. I think Thorn has roots in comedy (at the very least he's a huge comedy fan), but I'm not sure about very much of his story.

Back then, though, Thorn's podcast (well, this particular one of his podcasts - the man has a ton of them and I'm interested in giving each a listen, but I'm afraid I'll get sucked in and have to listen to every episode of each of them and....well, I just don't have time for all that) was called "The Sound of Young America". At some point there was a brand change. I've been catching up on some past episodes from when it was "Sound of Young America" and I've been listening to the most recent episodes when it's been "Bullseye", but I haven't yet hit the point where the name changes or why.

Anyway, I've digressed. What I look for in a podcast is a feeling that when I'm done listening to it I've either been simply entertained, or I've learned something, or I've been entertained while learning something, or I'm listening to a compelling interview.

"Bullseye" meets all of those criteria. Each episode features a great interview with someone I'm interested in hearing from. (Or someone I didn't know who it turns out I should have been interested in hearing from.) Each episode also features some kind of pop culture review - there are experts who talk about the fields of music, comic books, television, movies, books - and Thorn weighs in at the end with his outshot, where he talks up something that's a favorite of his and that's usually new to me. (I'm sure I'll be drawing on some of those for some of my '365 New Things in 2013'. )

The latest episode of "Bullseye" is from New Year's - it's a roundup of the show's favorite comedy clips of 2012. It's great. I'll be writing much more about my enjoyment of - and hopefully participation in - stand-up comedy this year, but for reasons I'll probably explain at a later date I haven't been watching too much stand-up recently. This was a great round-up of the comedy I've missed in the past year.

In the episodes I've listened to so far Thorn has also conducted great interviews with Ice-T, R.A. Dickey, Demetri Martin, and Dolly Parton, among others.

It's a great listen, and clearly, despite my lack of knowledge about him, Thorn is a giant in the podcasting industry. He's the proprietor of maximumfun.org, which is the home to all of those other podcasts I alluded to. There was also news in the last couple of weeks that there are changes in the works, among which, I think, was the fact that "Bullseye" would no longer be affiliated with Public Radio International. I'm not sure how that will affect it in the future...but as long as it's around anywhere close to its current form I'll be a listener.

New Thing #3: Ice Skating With My Daughters

I came late to ice skating. It just wasn't all that popular an activity for us growing up in Queens, New York.

It became a fun thing for me and some friends to do - on our own, without parents - in high school, and so I bought a pair of ice skates sometime in my mid-to-late teens.

And I think once or twice in college I went ice skating.

But before Wednesday, I'm pretty sure it had been a good 10 to 15 years since I had stepped on an ice rink.

The occasion was a birthday party for a classmate of my oldest daughter, and my middle daughter was invited to skate as well.

The girls were given helmets, and crates to lean against and help them balance as they skated. It was interesting to see how young kids are taught to skate. I never learned. I was a somewhat reckless teen who kind of figured it out as I went. As a result I'm sorely lacking in certain skills...but I'll get to that later.

The act of skating wasn't new for me - it was the fact that I got on the ice with my girls that was such a big deal here. They can be somewhat cautious, my daughters, and are reluctant to try something that sounds like it might be way out of their realm of expertise. (Gee, I wonder where they get that from.) But given an impetus - like the good kind of peer pressure at a friend's birthday party - they expand their comfort zone a little bit.

The jury is still out on whether they'll agree to take lessons...but it was a successful start. They've now been on the ice, and I at least have some ground to stand on if I want to take them again. "Remember that time you had so much fun skating at the birthday party...?"

As for me, it was successful on that front too. I was never able to skate backwards, but after giving it some logical thought on Wednesday, I managed to glide in reverse a couple of times. I don't know how to come to a hard stop, but I managed to fake it well enough so I didn't have to go slamming into the boards like some of the 5-year-olds.

And of course, my biggest measuring stick of how I fared hasn't changed over the past however many years since I last stepped onto the ice: I didn't fall down once.

New Thing #2: A Winter Walk

It's only new thing number 2, and I can already hear your skepticism:

"A winter walk? That's nothing new."

Maybe not for you. But it's not something I do very often...if ever.

But I did it on New Year's Day. And I didn't even intend it to be a new item in the list. But it was such a pleasant experience that it ended up becoming New Thing #2.

As you can see, the walk was kind of picturesque.

Some snow on the ground, but not enough that I couldn't walk on pavement most of the time.

It was the morning of New Year's Day, so the streets were quiet. There are no cars in this picture, and that pretty well illustrates the entirety of my walk.

I wanted to walk partly because I've been on an exercise break over the holidays and it was time to do something active, but also because it was such a nice day. Had it been a few degrees colder I'm sure it would have been a much different experience - but as it was, I actually broke a sweat on the way home.

I walked the route that I usually run, and that's what made this such a unique experience. In the spring and summer if I have a half-hour of free time I'll jog this route (or maybe half of it, stop for ice cream, and walk back) and won't think twice about it. I'll even bring my youngest in a stroller so I'm not leaving my wife with three kids back home.

But in the winter, this hardly ever happens. To be honest, the biggest reason is that usually everything is so salted and sanded that I feel like I'm destroying my shoes when I walk in the street. And I'm always afraid I'll slip on the ice if I run in the slushy, icy winter streets. But as I walked and the sun beat down Tuesday morning, I considered running.

So even though my winter walk wasn't intended to be New Thing #2, it may even result in another new thing - stay tuned to see if a winter jog ends up on the list.

New Thing #1: Trying New Things

Hi. Happy New Year. Thanks for visiting.

I hope you're excited. Because I sure am.

In the year 2013 I'm going to try something new: Trying new things.

We're kicking it off today, January 1st, with New Thing #1: which is none other than the fact that I'm going to try new things.

First, some background:

Two of the past three years I've done a little experiment on Facebook: 365 status updates in 365 days. (Last year was a leap year, so it was actually 366 updates in 366 days.) I like the idea of doing something every day of the year and ending up with 365 of something, but if I'm being honest, I'm growing tired of Facebook. Early in 2012 I kind of wished I hadn't started with the status update thing again. But I needed to see it through to the end. And I did. And I started to think about something new I could try in 2013.

My only real requirement was that it was something for which I could use this site pretty extensively. I received some good suggestions, variations of ideas I had thought about from the moment I first decided I needed something new. A picture a day, a thought a day...but I felt some of that would end up feeling forced on certain days.

The one that kept sticking with me, though, came from a cousin soon after my wife suggested it: How about a new food or drink every day, ending up with 365 new possibilities. The problem is that I could just see that becoming really hard some busy weeks at work. But I like the idea of trying new foods. What if I could do that occasionally...along with other new things?

But here's the thing. I'm a creature of routine. I settle into habits. Most of the time I do not like trying new things. I am not the biggest fan of meeting new people or doing something new.

Or am I? Maybe I just like routine so much that I am resistant to doing new things...but maybe I'll like it. I should at least try.

So here we are. Here's how this will work:

I may not try something new every day. And I may not be able to post every day. But I promise that if I miss a day, I'll make it up. And December 31st, 2013, I will post New Thing #365, and we'll see what kind of experiences I've had. Or food I've tried. Or music I've listened to. Or whatever new thing comes about.

I'm excited. Thanks for being with me for this adventure.

Of course, I welcome e-mails, tweets (@jsucich), or comments with suggestions for anything new - or whatever you have to say.

January 1st, 2013. The day I start trying new things. On to New Thing #2.