Ray Stonada

Uh, that’s not what I said.

Well, we came to New York City for Christmas to spend it with some family. This morning, we woke up to 5 inches of snow on the ground, including the balcony of the relative's apartment we're staying in. Kids went nuts, made a snowman out there, filled the freezer with snow balls, just had a great time. Great morning. I take the 2 year old on a walk at 7am, still snowing. Just beautiful, quiet, snowy morning in the city. Even the scraggly trees and huge piles of trash look beautiful covered in snow. We pass a garbage truck. My daughter's favorite thing to watch. Two massive guys were tossing huge black bags, piled twenty deep on the curb, into the truck from about ten feet away. The compactor was going, snow falling, bags popping with "garbage juice," as they call it. Kid was loving watching this, so we hung out for a couple minutes. One the guys was about 6'8", a real hightower, his face resembled O'Cyrus Torrence. He looked over at us, and in a classic Brooklyn accent, called out: "You're wearing the right hat." (I had my Bills winter hat on.) I said, "You're a Bills fan?" "Yeah. Converted about 7 years back." Me: "From the Jets?" (Guy didn't seem like a Giants fan.) ""Yeah. Man, they're just awful. The owner sucks. It isn't fun to watch. " Me: "I hear you." "Man, I could talk about that for hours. But happy holidays! And go Bills!" "Go Bills!" Now, I was born and raised in Buffalo, and NYC natives over my four decades generally disdain everything about Buffalo. Now they're Bills fans. Put a big smile on my face. Anyway, merry Christmas and happy New Year to everyone here.

I got really into making clam chowder a while back and started with Jasper White’s recipe, the most classic and simple one. It’s just a great dish, and totally American. But if you really wanna go back, there’s a recipe in the novel Moby Dick. I made it once and it was like a very buttery, salty and rich clam stew. Delicious but very heavy.

Nice. I love Manicotti.

Bills 40, Pats 24

This weekend we are in NYC so watching the game at Pennsylvania 6 (first time going), the Bills bar. Wings and beers probably. They do have a lobster roll. Anyone been there? BTW Detroit pizza with pepperoni and pickled jalapeños was great. Thanks for the recipe!

What the heck is the point of Wednesday games??

When we get to the playoffs, I hope we play the most capable guy, whether it's Milano or not. No more playing an injured/ancient guy like Milano or Klein and getting shredded, please.

It's weird. They get up three scores and then move both safeties back 25 yards, and it backfires. The other team gets to move into into the red zone in less than 2 minutes, or even worse, a speed WR catches an intermediate pass with tons of space and accelerates past every one. It's like the fear causes the thing they're afraid of to happen.

Agreed. I was just marveling that Lamar has at least six 5 TD games, when to my eye, Josh is clearly the superior passer.

Best I can remember, Josh has not thrown 5 TDs in another game. Lamar has done it a few times. He is obviously one of the best playing right now, IMO. Still, I think Josh is the better quarterback, but maybe the Bills let up more than Baltimore after they get up three scores?

I like your optimism, OP. Ideally, our defense will get some guys back the next 3 weeks, and also start giving more snaps to the guys who do better. If our D improves, we could even win some games by scores like 24-13. It helps to be able to win that type of ball game in the playoffs. Even the most high flying offenses will have games where they are off or a playoff defense just solves them for a game.

As a huge Bruce fan who named a pet Bruce, and stood line for hours age 15 at Hills for Bruce's autograph, I have to go with Josh. The reason is that "best" to me means the player who most helps their team win. The impact Josh is having on football games is unprecendented, not just by a Bill, but by any NFL player.

Josh Allen’s great-grandfather has got to be Paul Bunyan. Further back he’s probably related to Apollo.

If we win out I think they only need to lose two games, for us to get the one seed. (We have the tiebreaker, having beaten them.)