Duke played Loyola at 4:00 and continued the nation-wide record of non-conference home wins (65 games) with a 92-51 win.  Nolan Smith injured his knee early in the game, which is some cause for concern, but from what I’ve read afterwards it was just bruised and it shouldn’t be a big deal.

Gerald Henderson continued to do well, and Kyle Singler and Jon Scheyer (who, with Smith out, played point when Greg Paulus was on the bench) both scored in double figures.  So did Brian Zoubek, for that matter.  The second strong didn’t look too great, but at least they got some good in-game time.  I really hope Paulus’ arm will hurry up and heal so he can get his three-point shot back.  The Devils might need it later in the season.

We were invited to a few different New Year’s Eve parties and were going to try to make an appearance at a couple different ones, but we ended up just going over to Blake and Stephanie Konny’s.  I’m glad we did because they had a nice spread, but we were the only ones who ended up being able to make it.

We mostly just sat around and caught up, talked about life for a while.  Blake happened to have bought Settlers of Catan with some Christmas money, so we all taught Stephanie how to play.  We took a break late in the game to watch the ball drop then, with the next roll, I got what I needed to win the game.  It was a pretty close one throughout though, and Stephanie came in second.  Not bad for her first time playing.

So here’s something interesting.  Time Warner Cable and Viacom, the company that owns MTV, VH1, Nickelodeon, Comedy Central and other stations, are having a disagreement and come tomorrow we might not have any of those channels.  The only one I’d really miss would be Comedy Central (and VH1 when it’s time for The Pick Up Artist), but with the baby coming I’m sure we’d start to miss Nockelodeon as well.  We’ve been wanting to cut back on our cable package, so maybe this will give us the excuse to do that.

So, that’s it for 2008.  Amanda had surgery, we got pregnant, America elected a black president and the economy is in the crapper.  Here’s to a bright 2009!

Zach Dotsey