Anyway, if you’re one of the 700,000,000,000 who’ve descended upon my grand home town of Austin, Texas, for SXSW, I have two points of business for you:

1. Pick up your trash. I mean, seriously, Jesus, what were you, raised on a barn? We aren’t Philadelphia.

2. Any chance you’d like a pair of complimentary tickets to the world premiere of Summer League, the softball kickball film featuring With Leather editor-in-chief Brandon Stroud in not one, but TWO roles, just for being a With Leather reader?

Here’s your chance, friend. The film premieres on Monday, March 18, at the Alamo Drafthouse Slaughter Lane (5701 W. Slaughter Lane), red carpet and all, and the showing is completely sold out. However, I wear a duck mascot costume for a portion of the film and therefore have hella pull and can snag you a pair of tickets.

Here’s all you have to do … shoot the film’s director, Lex Lybrand, a message on Twitter. Tell him that you’re a fan of @WithLeather and you want to see his flick. There are only two tickets to be had, so he’ll do a random drawing based on whoever’s messaged him on … let’s say, Friday, and let you know if you’re the winner. Then boom, you’re at the red carpet premiere high-fiving a dude you know from a sports blog, watching a great little movie made by some passionate locals.

Oh, and if you haven’t seen me in my duck costume, hold on to your butts:

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We did it! We beat the three things that promised to kill us — the Mayans, the environment and the 2012-13 New York Jets — and made it to 2013. Congratulate yourself for a job well done. This is an accomplishment.

I guess we didn’t get the memo about from yesterday about enjoying ourselves and having a nice time, so we’re gonna try to do that today. Plus, I can barely move this morning and kinda want to sleep until 2014. Our regular posting schedule will resume tomorrow, including the Best and Worst of Raw report based on last night’s show, which I totally did not stay in and watch.

Do something important today. Oh, and stay out of the gym. Your resolutions about getting in shape are nice and all, but come on, you’re in the way of the people who’ll be there tomorrow.

He can do that, right? He’s Santa. He should be able to do anything.

Last year I got all sentimental about Christmas and a commenter told me I had Down syndrome, so this year I’ll stick to the basis.

On behalf of myself and Burnsy (and anybody ranking higher than us on the UPROXX hierarchy, which is … pretty much everybody), I’d like to wish everybody who has bothered to check this site in the last year a happy series of holidays, a Merry Christmas, and a joyous whatever else. We’ll be back on Monday with a fake fighting open discussion thread, but our normal schedule won’t pick back up until Wednesday. Take this time to get the hell away from the Internet, because it’s all Mayan apocalypse jokes and gun control arguments anyway.

We love you dearly, and we’ll be back Wednesday morning with some jokes about sports jerks. Be safe, and be well.

CHRISTMAS STUFF FOR YOUR ENJOYMENT:

- NBA Christmas Day jerseys
- YouTube getting bent out of shape about the NBA’s Carol Of The Bells commercial
- The Boston Red Sox using Christmas Vacation to sell season tickets
- Andre Johnson bought a bunch of toys for kids
- WWE wrestlers singing Jingle Bells
- NBA stars singing Jingle Bells
- Japanese wrestlers singing Christmas carols
- NBA stars singing Christmas (and Hanukkah) carols
- Santa Dirk giving hilarious Christmas presents
- The gaudiest-ever college basketball Christmas lights display
- Arnold Schwarzenegger talking to an old lady about bowling balls
- Taco from ‘The League’ wrote the best Christmas song ever
- Christmas trick shots, kinda
- The 12 Days Of MMA Christmas, aka Brittney Palmer in Christmas panties
- Happy Holidays from the Charlotte Bobcats LadyCats

Earlier this month, I enlisted the help of you, the With Leather readers (still unofficially known as “Leatherheads”), to help me choose a new NBA team to follow/love/write about. I’d had a tumultuous life of stop-and-go basketball fandom, but now that I’m settled in central Texas and running a sports blog, it’s important to move forward and actually watch the sports about which I’m tasked to write jokes. You hear the one about LeBron James? *does soft shoe routine*

Anyway, the results are in, and With Leather has made me a fan of the Houston Rockets.

You guys made some convincing arguments, and I didn’t let my previous opinion of the team (which is, in total, “they used to have Hakeem Olajuwon”) stop me from making good on my word. The Rockets brought in a whopping 55.98% of the vote, beating the second-place vote getter (“Other, Please Specify”) by almost 40%. For the record, Other Please Specify was mostly people going LIKE MY TEAM, WHO CARES IF YOU LIVE IN TEXAS.

To celebrate this momentous occasion, here’s my favorite shot from last night’s game:

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Back in August, I told you about Summer League, a softball-versus-kickball movie from the folks at Austin-based Greenless Studios. We were trying to raise enough money to rent a mascot costume for a crucial, duck-related scene near the end of the film, and thanks to us having the best readers in the world (and a timely tweet from the compassionate Mr. Vince Mancini) we ended up raising about a third of the film’s budget. Because we weren’t trying to scam you, Summer League exists now, and it looks GORGEOUS.

Of course, I don’t know if you just assumed this based on the fact that I’m a nerdy wrestling fan blogger, but I am not one of the beautiful, svelte ingenues on the primary poster, nor am I one of those guys behind them. I wasn’t born with that weird gene that makes facial hair grow in attractively. I did, however, make the secondary poster, and I did it in a motherf**king duck suit, because life is bizarre and With Leather is the best website ever.

That poster (the heel poster, for the record) and a Man Of Steel-quality teaser trailer, are after the jump. Share this with everybody you know so I’ll get to keep being in movies, would you?

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It’s NBA season, and I desperately need to stop dicking around and pick a team to follow.

Here’s a brief history of my basketball fandom. When I was a kid growing up in southern Virginia, I loved the Charlotte Hornets. They were the closest team to me, purple and teal were in because The 1990s and Larry Johnson was helping Eddie Winslow win basketball games on ‘Family Matters’. For whatever reason (Alonzo Mourning in big, flashing letters) I drifted away from the Hornets and had a brief love for the Golden State Warriors before moving on and going to college and not caring about sports for a few years.

Eventually I moved to Cleveland, and you know how that story goes. OH WOW, THE CAVALIERS! LEBRON JAMES IS GREAT HE WILL BE WITH US FOR shit, my heart. I was prepared to give up basketball forever, but now I’m the editor-in-chief of a comedy sports blog, so I can’t. I loved basketball before, and I can love it again.

Right now I’m living in central Texas. That means I’ve got three NBA teams within a reasonable driving distance, four if you count New Orleans, and actually seeing the team play occasionally is important to me. This is where you come in. After the jump I’ve provided a handy poll, and I’d like for you to choose a team for me to love, drop down into the comments section and explain why you chose them. Next Friday I will consult the results of the poll and the comments section arguments and reveal which team I’ve chosen to love, then cover them incessantly for the rest of the season. Sound good? Good.

Choose wisely!

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