There's many drawbacks to Christmas and New Year's falling in the middle of the week, say on a Tuesday for example. But there's one huge benefit that overrides all - before you have the chance to blink, it's Friday already. Sweet.
To celebrate this occassion of a 2.5-day work week, followed by another four-day weekend, I've got kind of a scattered notebook of thoughts and observations for you. Enjoy, and an early cheers for 2008.

• With Warren Central's hiring of former Evansville Reitz football coach John Hart recently, I've heard some different rumblings and opinions that seem to come up routinely when money is being spent. One of the arguments I hear is that it's ridiculous for schools to put all this money into coaches, new facilities and athletic funds when this money could be put elsewhere. One main point to this argument is that the money needs to be spent on education-based activities...AKA "learning." I see what people are saying, but I'd like to throw out the argument that a high school student can learn comperable and important lessons on the field of play as they can in the classroom. A good coach can be a vital parent figure to our area student-athletes. If a school has a good coach, in more ways than X's and O's, then the money is being spent wisely with the lessons they teach on the field - leadership, teamwork, adversity, success and many more. Athletics are about more than wins and losses, but let's be honest, the mainstays of football and basketball are what brings a little revenue to the school.
• The Cathedral boys hoops squad is off to a solid start, including last night's one-sided affair against Brebeuf. The Irish have started to show their inside-outside capabilities with junior Errick Peck low in the post and sharpshooters Sean Esposito and Patrick Paligraf on the outside. Throw in slasher Kelsey Barlow and you've got some versatility on the floor. Saturday night, Cathedral has its make-up game against Howe that should be the Irish's toughest test to date.
• One of the holiday tournaments taking place this week down south is the Shelby Shootout, where host Shelbyville notched a thrilling 76-75 win over rival Rushville last night. Josh Kredit-Phelps knocked down the game-winner with four seconds to play and totaled 29 points in the contest. The Golden Bears will be playing Roncalli on Saturday at 8 p.m. in the tournament championship after the Rebels beat Heritage Christian, 54-41.
• Well, the introduction of the McConnell Mailbag has been a resounding failure thus far. At least I can say that I tried. And in response to "Tim G." who posted a comment about the Mailbag introduction a few weeks ago, no, I will not need to pay royalties to Bill Simmons if I can't even post the Mailbag in the first place. But the thought of even being included in the same arena as Simmons is quite flattering...can I just have his job? I'd still like to answer questions whenever they might be asked, so feel free to post one here or e-mail me at dave.mcconnell@hsstm.com.
• Is New Year's Eve the most overrated "holiday" ever? Discuss. I say yes.
• Christmas in the McConnell family was a blast this year, with my 2-year-old nephew absolutely stealing the spotlight. And I was officially introduced to kid TV, having to sit through multiple episodes of the Doodlebops. I hope most of you don't even know what the Doodlebops are. If you care to be weirded out, visit www.doodlebops.com and tell me you expected to see blue, purple and yellow people.
• As a reminder, our January issue will hit Marsh and Blockbuster stores on Friday, Jan. 4. We will be sending out the digital copy a few days before, so if you haven't yet subcribed to the ditigal copy for free, you can do that here.