[CaptainCrunch]

I have this tradition going on a few years. I go out to the liquor store and buy a bottle of nice scotch and a few good cigars (monte Cristo's) and I spend the night alone, drinking scotch and smoking a cigar or two. This year was kind of fortunate because frankly we have a Flames game on and after two periods it looks like a solid teeth kicking is taking place.

You see, on the 24th and 25th and 26th I usually have family things happening. Now I would be dishonest if I said I love spending time with my family, its something that needs to be done and is tolerable. But there are lots of scars and lots of negatives that I've really struggled to overcome and become the better man.

But this tradition, this drinking and smoking is all about putting the year in the past. I don't have to work until July 3rd, so its an opportunity to file the previous year into the file cabinet of my sometimes twisted and dangerous mind and turn the key locking it away.

And 2016 was a miserable year. Between the bad economy throwing dear friends of mine our of work and into scary situations, and even the professional what I would call failures of the year where I lost a lot of income through to economic reasons, this drinking and smoking by myself is an opportunity to take all of those negatives and put them in a burlap bag with a couple of kittens and throw it into a raging river to sink and perish.

And yes, I'm loaded and when I'm loaded things can get weird.

But the real reason for this post besides to vomit things into the electrons of the anonymous internet is to thank you the members of the CalgaryPuck community.

Hang on my glass is empty.

ahh sweet sweet scotch that will make tomorrow morning an exercise in pain and lethargy.

But continuing my thoughts. I'm not new, I know that I'm interpreted here at times as that weirdo on this board. And sometimes as that angry right wing anti-Oilers anti-Liberal Anti-NDP bastard with a closed mind and a closed ear. But at the end of the day, I stay with this community because I love the level of communication.

I love the idea of electrons bouncing back and forth between IP addresses with thoughts and opinions moving at the speed of light. And sometimes, I tend to think of this board as far less dysfunctional and threatening then family members because at the end of the day, the thing is that we don't know each other and we don't sit face to face with each other so there is a higher level of honesty here and hurt feelings are responded to with silence and not a nasty in your face blast of rage and anger.

I know weird right.

I know that I am certainly not on the same page as a bunch of posters here. But at the same time and you know who you are, I respect your opinions and value things and like a brick wall at some point maybe just maybe a opinion is broken through and changed and as a person I become better informed and maybe a little more balanced.

Now I'm not going to sit here and roll out a grocery list of individual posters to recognize them or thank them or do something lame and tear inducing like that, because frankly everyone on this board deserves the best and most successful 2017.

So I leave this post with a few Christmas wishes

To every single one of you, I wish you absolutely nothing but the best in the new year. I hope in these treacherous and dangerous times economically that you all come through unscathed and unharmed.

I wish you all peace and happiness in the new year whether your a person with a family and kids, or that single person looking for that connection in the real world, I hope you all find everything that you want and need.

I would include a thing for all mankind, but I'm unsure of where that would start except. I wish for a peaceful and preposterous 2017 in what appears to be a scary time where world anger looks to cast a dawning shadow over the concepts of compassion, and unity and peace. I know that we're all freaked out by the indications of a new cold war with Trump on one side and Putin on the other with a new arms race and hot points all over the world. But I remind you of this very important fact. The only way that you can change the world is to look after your family and to help your fellow neighbors or workmates or friends. Take care of them and the world will become a better place.

To the people on this board who are sick or suffering or have family members that are sick and suffering I wish nothing but the best, and pray for nothing more then hope. I hope that everything works out and everything gets better.

And to Scarlett Johansson, I sent you my address, that would be the best gift of all, but I know it simply won't happen.

Merry Christmas to all, peace to all mankind and I still have a 3rd of a bottle to go.

Thanks for the indulgence CalgaryPuck.