Time to finish doing our Christmas shopping, start thinking about New Year’s Resolutions, and time to look back on what was, what should have been, and what could be in the coming year.

As I write this I am feeling a little under the weather. Oh who am I kidding, I feel like crap okay? My wife and I went to both Disneyland and California Adventure this past weekend and we apparently picked up some kind of bug. We just got back from the doctors, hoping to get some anti-biotics to knock whatever this is down in time for Christmas. Wrong! Turns out that what we have is a viral infection that has settled in our throats and there is nothing we can do but wait it out. Ulceritis Pheringitis is the name of this lovely contagion. In plain English doctor? We have blisters in our throats. So we may be over this by Christmas, or we could be fighting this until New Years.

So as I sit here fantasizing about French-kissing the little puke that gave us this little Christmas present, I am thinking about all that has happened not only in the area of PC Football, but in the world in general. I’ve done this the past couple of years on my own website, so I figured that it would translate to this column as well.

So as a Christmas gift to all of you I give onto you the Good, the Bad, and the downright Idiotic:

Good – Meeting Bret on Maddenmania.com and discovering that I was not the only XFL fan left on the face of the planet.

Bad – Bret’s banishment from the MM boards.

Good – Being able to find him over at soapbox-tech.com

Bad – The owners of that site being intimidated by David Branda.

Good – Bret creating PCFootball.net

Bad – Database troubles early on.

Good – The creation of the TotalMadden Instigators.

Bad – The near death of the Instigators before a game was played.

Good – The franchise shift of the Instigators to PCFootball leading to a new uniform scheme and logos.

Bad – The attempted theft of the Instigators leading to the banishment of JoeRam from Maddenmania.

Good – Brian over at football-gaming.com for his affiliation with us early on.

Bad – David Branda calling Brian trying to sabotage the relationship before it even started.

Good – Brian has a mind and a will of his own.

Bad - …well, there is no bad there.

Good – The influx of posters from MaddenMania.

Bad – Some of them have come here only to start fights between members so that they could go back to MaddenMania and say "see, see, all they do is flame each other and talk smack about this site and they never talk about Madden or football over there."

Good – The fact that in recent weeks we here have been making a concerted effort to clean up our act, clean up the site, and not give in to the temptation to respond to attacks from the outside or fight amongst ourselves.

Bad – It took the loss of two of our moderators to give us all the kick in the ass we all needed in order to finally do it.

Good – Bret, Nob, Clay, Jaq, yick, tider, Ben, gunzlinger, Alandawg, Crewe, Croydo, phenom, Raw, skinsfan, and everyone else on these boards who have not only proven themselves an asset to the world of PC Football, but to the gaming community in general.

Bad – Certain individuals in the gaming community whose sole purpose is to tear down this site and those associated with it as some kind of lunatic fringe who have no right to express their opinions whatsoever.

Good – The free speech principles these boards were based on.

Bad – People abusing those principles to fulfill their own selfish agenda.

Good – The desire to end the forum wars once and for all by not taking the bait being thrown at us.

Bad – The fact that we swallowed said bait in the first place.

Idiotic – In spite of all our efforts to clean up the site and end the feud, TrueChiefsFan continues in his attempts to stir the pot.

Really Idiotic – TrueChiefsFan posting his picture in the Soapbox at Maddenmania. Dude, what is up with the eyes?!? Get some sleep for the love of Christ!

Good – The release of Madden2003.

Bad – It’s supposed to be out when?

Good – The gameplay of M2k3 is great out of the box, you don’t need to do much tweaking with the sliders, and all of the classic teams and all-time teams are available without having to enter in any codes.

Bad – No online franchise and the roster editor is problematic and tedious at best.

Good – The patch fixes some of the problems in the game.

Bad – the patch fixes some cosmetic problems and doesn’t fix enough of the problems in the roster editor.

Good – A 3^rd party roster editor is under development.

Bad – The code is so complicated it will be awhile before we see the finished product.

Good – Jeremy Strauser agreeing to give us an interview.

Bad – His schedule won’t allow for much more.

Good – The release of Front Office Football 4, Football Mogul 2003, and Season Ticket Football 2003.

Bad – The less than stellar reviews.

Good – The development of Division Rivals, Maximum Football and Football.net.

Bad – Having to wait for their release.

Good – Someone finally developed a Utility to make running an online franchise easier.

Bad – Tim over at all-madden.org charged people $20 for it and then took off with their money.

Idiotic – After ripping everybody off, apparently Tim has re-registered at all-madden under a different name.

Personal feeling – The guy should be given the "Pete Rose" treatment and be banished for life. Not just from all-madden, this site or MM, but every gaming site on the internet. What he did was a slap in the face to gamers everywhere, not just Madden players. He is a worthless piece of crap and we do not need him festering like a lanced boil in our community. The longer he is allowed to stay, the more foul the air becomes.

Good – Someone came up with a utility to make web pages from you franchise logs for Madden 2003.

Bad – I had to get it at MaddenMania, sorry Bret.

Good - PC Gamer does a special report on the state of sports games for the PC.

Bad - PC Gamer does a special report on the state of sports games for the PC.

Good – The new alignment in the NFL

Bad – Indianapolis in the South?

Good – The reemergence of Tommy Maddox.

Bad – People who think that a stint in the XFL is worse than turning your ex-wife and her waiter into Pez dispensers.

Good – The race in the AFC West brings back memories of the old AFL.

Bad – The play of the St. Louise Rams brings back nightmares of the early 90’s.

Silver Lining – At least now there is no possibility that Georgiaenthal will get her slimy, skanky, gold digging talons on the Vince Lombardi Trophy.

But I’m not bitter.

Good – The Shield, Buffy, Angel, Charmed, ER, Will & Grace, Enterprise and the West Wing.

Bad – The cancellation of Farscape.

Good – The TV Academy finally showing some sack and giving a well-deserved Emmy to Michael Chiklis for his portrayal of Vic Mackey.

Bad – Yet another snub for Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Good – The G4TV network. The first network devoted entirely to gaming.

Bad – Waddya mean it’s not on basic cable?

Good – Proof was discovered that Enron and others ripped us off during the energy crisis.

Bad – We still can’t get out of the contracts we signed. Thanks a lot Gov. Davis.

Good – W’s leadership in the aftermath of 9/11. OK I’ll admit it. I didn’t vote for the guy but he showed some tremendous sack in dealing with the attacks and the search for Osama.

Bad – Speaking of which, Osama’s still alive?!?

Good – People are agreeing that women will someday be granted membership at Augusta National Golf Club.

Bad – People not realizing that if women force their way in, then it means that Augusta caved and can be bullied. That will bring every other special interest group out of the woodwork looking to get their 15 seconds.

Idiotic - The personal war going on between Martha Burke and Hootie Johnson. Come on you two. This is not doing anything to further the cause of women who would rather have equal pay, equal treatment in the workplace and affordable child care then the right to play 18 holes of golf!

Good – After 2 ½ years of struggle against the censorship efforts of the Parents Television Council, wrestling fans around the world can savor the final victory. Bozo the Censor had to publicly apologize to the fans of the WWE, WWE stockholders, and to their advertisers as well as pay the WWE $3.5 million in damages and legal fees.

Bad – Phil Mushnick is still around – and he now has problems with Madden apparently.

Thanks – Bret, for asking me to come aboard. Posters like Phenom, Nob, Jaq, Concussion, Croydo, skinsfan, gunzlinger, rollintider, yick, alandawg and crewe for keeping things interesting. GoChiefs for never letting us get bored. David Branda for giving me more time to devote to this site and for giving me something to write about. All the people who have patted me on the back for previous columns. And a big thanks to a huge influence and a man who I give a nod to every time I end a column by using his signature line as my way of saying thank you for helping my eyes to open a little more every day by taking a good look at what is happening around me – thank you Bob Magee.

Well that’s about all I’ve got for this year.

I hope that everybody has a Merry Christmas and a safe and Happy New Year.

Until next year…