Off The Desk 11/9/26

Hello and happy Monday. Thanks for joining us for another exciting edition of Off the Desk. I'm Kaylee Collins. And I'm Chris Pazakis. And I'm Nick Antonakis. Happy Monday. Happy Monday. Happy Monday. Good morning, guys. Yeah. Thanks for joining us, Nick. Julia's off this morning, so hopefully she had a good weekend. I know she was exploring throughout the city. Yeah, she was down in New York. Yeah, I'm sure we'll hear about it tomorrow. I'm happy to have Nick joining us here this morning. Yeah, good to be back. Thanks for having me, guys. I don't think I've done that. I was just about to put mine up. I don't know if it's going to go up. Um, I don't think we've done a show with us three in a long time. I don't know if ever, to be honest with you. Yeah, that's a good point. I feel like I've done a show with Kaylee and Julia when Chris was out. But I don't think I've ever done Kaylee, Chris, and myself. This might be the first time. It might be the first in history. It's a historic Monday. Wow. And feeling more like a typical November Monday, Chris. It is definitely feeling more like November out there. You said yesterday you even noticed it was a little chilly. I did, yeah, for sure. Yeah. So, yeah, I hope that you enjoyed the 70s while we had them because, as we expected, it is going to get colder. Thank 50s for much of the week, but yeah, by the weekend, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, I think we're only going to be in the 40s. Oh boy. So it is going to get quite chilly. you Yeah, Supposed to be a little unsettled by the end of the week as well with some rain, but I did very add on that there is a chance, maybe a little bit of a mix in some of the hill towns, like the Berkshires. absolutely. Oh boy, snow already. Yeah, I don't think it'll be anything major, but much. I wouldn't be surprised if we saw some wet snowflakes mixing with the rain there, or maybe a little bit of some freezing rain in some spots. That's later this week? Later this week. Okay. And it would just be confined to the higher elevation. Okay. It's all rain for the valley and much of southern New England, but if you want to find any snow, I'd say go up to Vermont, New Hampshire, like in the mountains up there, they'll probably get some good snow. Wow. But it is that time of year. It's November. Um, so. It's bound to happen at some point. It's going to happen. It's going to happen. As much as I enjoyed the 70s, I was kind of like... Over it, to be honest with you. I said the same thing, and I'm not a huge winter fan, and I know that you are, Nick, are you a fan? I am as well, yeah. Okay, yeah, I'm not a huge cold weather person, but I was getting to the point where I'm like, all right, it's November, I was mentally preparing for the chillier weather. I'm sure I'll probably regret saying that. And I did enjoy getting outside. I went for walks and stuff like that, but it's about time for the shift in weather. It's time. I like every season to have its turn. So we had plenty of warm weather in the summer and even the fall was fairly mild. It was a good, yeah, summer. It's been a good stretch of weather. But now I'm ready for more of a winter pattern. And that's also just me. Like I said, I'm a big winter guy and I like to ski. So I'm looking forward to getting some snow around here. But we'll see. I don't see any snow in the near future or anything significant. But it's bound to happen eventually. Yeah. So wait, you know, I've never gone skiing. Never. Really? Which is kind of crazy. Yeah. Give it a shot. I feel like I would like it. Skiing is a lot of fun. I've gone snowboarding, which I wasn't the most coordinated. But I've never gone skiing. And I have an uncle who is a ski instructor. Oh. And my brothers have gone. I'm pretty sure my dad. I just I've never. Skiing is one of those things that might be a little hard when you first start, but as soon as you get it, it's like riding a bike. Maddie was never great at it, and then since I'm a big skier, I took her a few times with me. And now she's got it down? Yeah, she's got it down. She won't go on like a black diamond or something like that, but she'll stay on like the greens and a blue every now and then. But at least she goes. Yeah. And it could still be fun. I'm sure like skiing is, the whole experience is fun to do the actual activity, but then being at like a lodge with your friends and enjoying that, it seems like a fun time. Something that I enjoy. Yeah, it's a good outdoor activity. Yeah. Especially past the time of the winter, you know, get you outside. Yeah, winter hobby. Yeah. Especially for people who really aren't, Big fans the winter. I think that that's a good thing. Yeah. To find some type of winter. Last winter was great. I mean, I tried to go. I went a good amount last winter, like on my weekends or even with our schedule. I'd go after work. That's nice. For a couple hours, get like a four-hour pass and just ski a little bit. Where do you go locally to ski? I like to switch it up. I mean. I'm obviously a little biased because I'm from Connecticut, so I go to Ski Sundown and Mohawk. But there's some good ones around here, especially out in the Berkshires, like Berkshire East, Yeah, yeah, yeah. Butternut, Otis Ridge. Those are all good ones. And then, of course, I like to go up to Vermont when I can. I like Mount Snow. I like Killington, Burke. Those are all good. Yeah. Good mountains. I'll make that, you know, my winter, I'll put that on my winter bucket list. Snowboarding is way harder than skiing. So if you did that, I bet you'll have an easier time with skiing. Like I said, I wasn't very good, but I still tried it. So yeah, I'll have to give it a try. I gave snowboarding a shot once just for the fun of it. And I did not like it. No? Mm-mm. My first couple of skiing times were extremely, extremely ugly. It was like unbearable to ski. But then after the first couple of times, I was like having it. It's like riding a bike. I think skiing. You can have more control with skiing. Yes. Both your legs are still free. If you were to fall, you can kind of steer yourself. When it's snowboarding, both your legs are like... Yeah, you're locked down. You're locked down. Locked down. That's it. That's a scary feeling. And you're either going to fall face forward or on your back. Yeah. And there's no other way. Like... Yeah. And then also, before you get in the chair lifts or whatever, you always got to unstrap yourself and strap yourself back in. Yeah. Kind of annoying. Geez. All right. Well, I'm going to try skiing. That's going to be something that... Yeah, you should. It's fun. I will, you know, give it a try this winter. But before we get into talking, I guess, about the winter season, let's just talk about our weekend. Yeah, right. We're jumping the gun. Yeah, seriously. Yeah, weekend was good. I think it was a very laid back weekend. Friday, I didn't do anything. Me neither. I hung out at home, watched a movie. That was kind of it. Nice. Uh, Saturday, very chill morning. And then at night, my brother came down to stay over because on Sunday morning yesterday, we had a baptism in the morning. Oh, you said that, yeah. Yeah, and then watch football. All day. Good Sunday. So yeah, it was kind of a laid back. The only time I really did anything was for that baptism, but that was kind of it. Although it was a disappointing afternoon for Patriots fans. We'll get into that later. Yeah. Nick, what'd you do this weekend? Yeah, my weekend was good. It was pretty chill too. Friday, I went out to dinner with some friends. We went to this really good Greek spot in Somerville. It was awesome. Oh, Then Saturday was my other friend's birthday. So we went out and celebrated him. So that was a good time. awesome. Sunday, went to church in the morning and then I kind of just chilled out in the afternoon. Unfortunately, wasted some time watching the Patriots get killed, but... It's rough. I didn't even finish the game, which is unlike me. But I was watching back in Arlington. Yeah, because Chris texted me, literally... We saw the touchdown to make it 41 to whatever we had at that time. Chris was like, we're so cooked. I'm like, I'm leaving right now. I'm not even finishing this game. I'm driving back to Chicopee. I'm done. Yeah. I don't even care anymore. Oh, gosh. My one positive of us getting killed is that at least I didn't have to be exhausted today because I went to sleep at a relatively normal hour. There you go. Last night, so. Seeing the positives. Yeah, it was good. Yeah. What about you, Kaylee? Rough. Yeah, Friday, I didn't do much. I, um... I think I was actually able to get take a nap at some point when Ava napped, which I don't really do because I'm trying to get stuff done around the apartment or whatever. But so that was nice because, oh, Bobby and I did have big plans to watch to get caught up on Love is Blind. Oh, yeah. And eat some pizza. So we did that, which was nice. And then the Love is Blind reunion was aired last night at nine. But I was asleep, so I haven't watched it yet. But I'm sure that's something Julia and I will discuss tomorrow. We might have something, some Love is Blind-related news for On the Desk later this week, but I'll just leave it at that. So yeah, that was on Friday night, and then on Saturday, I didn't really end up doing much. I was home. Ava and I were hanging out, and I did have one of my friends who lives in Philadelphia was home for this weekend. She'll be back home in a couple of weeks, but... I had plans to go and hang out with her and then Ava had different plans and her nap schedule was just way off. And then I was, I was supposed to stop at my parents' house and I did. And then I forgot her bottle and things that I needed at home. So I had to turn around and it just, the day went a little awry. It was fine. Ended up being fine. So I just hung out at home for much of the day. And then, um, Made dinner, went to bed pretty early on Saturday night. Sunday, I went to church in the morning. Bobby and I have been trying to go to a coffee shop after church, too, to do a little family outing. Oh, that's nice. Yeah, it's been fun to go and get coffee somewhere. We try to switch up the location. And then my sister had us over just for a hangout on Sunday afternoon, watched some of the football games, and came home and went to bed early. So we all had pretty chill weekends, I think. Cool. Now it's Monday. And now it's Monday. And we're back. It's already Monday. I know Chris will love that. It's already Monday. It goes by. I think it goes by so fast. It always does. It's flying by. Yeah. It feels like a Monday today, but. You want to take a break and we can come back and talk about Pats and stuff? Yeah. Talk about the Patriots. Cool. And maybe the National Day calendar. We'll be right back. Cool. All right. Welcome back to Off the Desk on this Monday morning. Yeah, we talked a little bit about the disappointing Patriots outcome yesterday. It was supposed to be a pretty good game, too, because it had a lot of excitement surrounding it. We talked about Tom Brady being there for the first time announcing the game at Gillette. And then Rob Gronkowski being inducted into the Patriots Hall of Fame. So there was some excitement going on as we headed into the game. And then it was just a disappointing outcome. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I would say I didn't ever think I had my hopes high for the game. I think it definitely was not what I expected. I think it was definitely going to be a closer game, and I was hoping it would be a competitive game, but if the Packers won, I wasn't going to be shocked. Yeah. It was a complete blowout, and it made the Patriots look pretty silly. Drake May had a rough one. Drake Maye had three interceptions, but I don't think it was just Drake May, and I think not all those interceptions were technically his fault. Yeah. I think The Patriots have a lot of injuries going on. Drake May doesn't have a lot of wide receivers to even work with. I also think Jordan Love and the Packers were just on fire. They just had one of the best games of the season. Jordan Love almost had a perfect game last night. I think a lot of things were playing against the Patriots last night. What do you think, Nick? Like Chris, I thought it was going to be very close going into it, but I had hope for the Pats going into it. I wasn't super psyched coming out of Miami. They didn't play great, but yeah, they won. I was expecting a turn of events when they came to play Green Bay, but that clearly did not happen. Drake Maye with the three picks, that's bad. People saying that this is his worst game of the year I think are wrong because they must have not watched the Jacksonville Jaguars game earlier in the season. I mean, that was just abysmal. At least we put up almost 30 points in this game and yeah, it was over, but I mean, at least we're putting up points. But for me, it was the defense. I mean... Christian Gonzalez got cooked yesterday by these wide receivers that, yeah, they're good wide receivers. Don't get me wrong. But my mom is there comparing Christian Watson to Gronk. And I'm like, mom, this is not similar. This guy, she's like, but he's so big. I'm like, it doesn't matter. Christian Gonzalez should be locking this guy up. He's making $35 million a year. He was getting absolutely obliterated all day. And they were targeting Gonzalez, Which is a very rare... thing for offenses to do. They just usually turn away from him all the time. But Jordan Love was just attacking him all game and it was working. So it was very unfortunate, very demoralizing. Now you have a tough game against Detroit in Munich. And the last time we were in Germany, I don't know if you guys remember, it was the complete abysmal downfall of the Belichick-led Patriots. Mac Jones got fully benched and then everything just exploded for them. So hopefully they can change the tides in Germany. Yeah, it's definitely high stakes because then you go into the bye week after that. You either walk in six and four, which, yeah, you're fighting for playoff position. You got a chance. You got some morale back. Or you walk into the bye following two huge losses and you're five and five. Things would not be looking good at all, especially considering how tough the second half of the season is for the Pats. Yeah. Yeah, I'm getting scared that we're not able to compete with these high-caliber teams. Like I mean, again, I think we have a lot of injuries, and that doesn't help anyone. But now I think we're also seeing the signs of us missing booty and missing digs and these terrible off-season moves I think we made. So we'll have to see how that plays out. I mean, AJ Brown is still nowhere to be found. Romeo Doubs was just heating up. you. And then of course he gets injured and lands on IR. It's unfortunate circumstances for the offense. No excuse for three turnovers for Drake May. Don't get me wrong. But that first pick to Mac Hollins, he just stopped running the route. Like, why did you stop running? The third interception with the second interception was just a really good play. Uh... The third was the one that was like all deflected around. So, I mean, it was just bad luck again. Kyle Williams in the deep route, but I don't know. And then got to see what happens for Montrez Stevenson. And now Will Campbell, but he's okay in the locker room after the game. He's like, I'm fine. I was going to come back in, but they told me no, because it was already over by that point. Stevenson though. I see. I didn't see the injury because I left. They both looked like they were in pain. Stevenson was on the ground for a little bit. And then Campbell... And Henderson's out long-term with his neurological issues. I got nervous because Campbell was on the ground for a little bit, and they had him on the ground. Then when he was walking off, they had the trainers trying to help him. And I was like, oh. Yeah, yeah. I mean, if Stevenson's out, what is our run game? We have Kiner. That's it. That's bad news. So hopefully Stevenson is okay. They got to get a win. They got to get something. They really got to win next week. And it doesn't get any easier. I mean, we go into December playing the Chiefs and Arrowhead, playing the Vikings. Bills again. The Bills again. It's going to get rough. So if the Pats can't get it together or we can't get some people healthy, it might be a pretty rough stretch coming up. I mean, just miss the Bill Belichick. Tom Brady. I don't know. Of course, we're celebrating 28 to 3, the day that this all happens. Like, yeah, 10 years since our major Super Bowl comeback, here's Tom Brady in the booth. Yeah. And then we get blown out in front of everybody. Bad. Just too bad. Oh, boy. I will say one thing I didn't notice though yesterday is in the past when Drake May has gotten like blown out or he throws that interception you can clearly tell it bothers him and then he shuts down for the game. Yeah. Yesterday I feel like it didn't hit him. He didn't give up. Yeah, no. Like he seemed like he was locked in all game and no matter what he was still throwing the deep ball. He was still, you know, given the risk. And even all the way down to the end, even though he knew he was shot you could just tell he was still trying to get down to the end zone. So I'm hoping that clicked. I'm hoping that he's starting to just be like Getting it out of his head. My panic buttons are not for him. It's for the rest of the team. I mean, the coaching staff wasn't ready. The offense was ready. Defense wasn't ready. It was just a mess. It's too bad, though, because he definitely did put the blame on himself. He said it was all his fault. I mean, I feel like that's kind of classic for a quarterback to take that. But we'll see what happens. But Bill Belichick, he had some good news over the weekend. He was in New England when UNC took on UConn. Oh, yeah. So he came away with the win. So I guess if you're a Belichick fan. I almost tried to go to that game because it would have been cool to see Belichick at UConn. That would have been cool. And then he's also not with that girl anymore. You know that? Yeah. They were probably a year ago. No one knew about that. It was like a quiet breakup and they're still friends. Did you guys see the clip of him getting asked in a post-practice press conference? So what's the status in your relationship? He was just totally like, I'm going to leave my personal relationships to myself if that's okay or something like that. I mean, who is asking that question to Belichick of all people? I mean, it's just crazy. That was a courageous question. Were they at People Magazine though? I know, what? I mean, but people were talking about it. People were very invested in that relationship and it made a lot of headlines. So it kind of, it doesn't really surprise me that it had happened like a longer time ago because we stopped hearing about them. We stopped seeing her. She was a very... prominent presence at UNC too, at their practices and whatever. So not seeing her for a while now makes sense. They ended their relationship. Interesting. There was a lot of messy games yesterday. I don't know how the Bears won with Caleb Williams throwing four interceptions. Oh my god, that was crazy. Somehow they won. And then the Cowboys almost crumbled. Cowboys almost crumbled. Against the Colts. Mahomes, I thought, was injured. I thought he broke his arm. That was... Oh, really? Yeah, he went running off the field in pain, holding his arm. And then... But the Eagles, too. J.J. McCarthy. He went running off the field in excruciating pain. He was on the sideline. Yeah, but then he comes back and clicks. He threw a ball and then he collapsed. That was crazy. And then he was back? Yeah. They show him on the sideline trying to throw a ball. I saw so many memes about that this morning. I was like, he literally goes, he's practicing throwing the ball. He goes like this. He goes, ah, and he falls to the ground. He falls to the ground. He's practicing? Yes. Oh, God. It was crazy. Oh, my God. I'll show you the video. He's all right. That's funny. Yeah, interesting day of football yesterday, but... Tonight should be good, though. Yeah. Bills-Vikings tonight. Bills 6-1. Go Vikings, please. The Pats really need the Vikings to win tonight. If the Bills can lose, you can still have a little light. A little bit of hope. In a Patriots life, yeah. A little bit of light at the end of the tunnel there, but... Yeah. All right. So that was a recap of Sunday football. Today is Monday, November 9th. We're only a couple of days away from Veterans Day. There's a lot of local, um, Veterans Day events taking place on Wednesday. So we have a bunch listed on our website. If you want to, you know, if you're interested in, you know, paying your respects and remembering all of those who You know, made the ultimate sacrifice and served our country. So, again, that's on our website if you want to attend any of those events. But also today being the 9th, it is National Fried Chicken Day. Not really much else going on on the National Day calendar. No, it's very quiet. It's pretty quiet. If you're from Louisiana, it's National Louisiana Day. There you go. It goes with the fried chicken because Louisiana is very famous for fried chicken. I was going to say, right? Yeah. Do you guys like fried chicken? Yeah. Variations of fried chicken. Oh, yeah. You gotta love fried chicken. Would you rather a fried chicken sandwich or like, you know, handheld like, you know, fried chicken fingers? That's a tough one. Depends on the mood. I was going to say the same thing. It depends on my mood. I'd probably pick fingers if I were to pick chicken fingers. Really? I think I used to do that when I was younger. That was like, every kid. I think it goes for the chicken fingers, but now I would say I appreciate a good fried chicken sandwich. Yeah, I love both, and I think it depends where you're getting it from. That's also true. Sure. Uh, But I just love dunking chicken fingers into a sauce. Oh, I thought you were saying dunking chicken fingers. No, no, no. Just dunking them in the sauce. Yeah, it needs to have sauce. Yeah, which you go to. Either barbecue sauce or honey mustard. I'm honey mustard. Yeah. I like buffalo barbecue. Thank you. I mean, well, what about this? Ranch or blue cheese? Have we discussed this before? I would say ranch. I do not like blue cheese. Neither do I. I'm not a blue cheese fan either. I feel like it's one or the other for people. Yeah, I was with one of my friends and I had made buffalo chicken dip and I make it with ranch. And then she had made wings and was putting out, you know, the sides and whatever, whatever else. grabbed the blue cheese and I was like oh do you have any ranch like you don't like blue cheese and was like astonished yeah like no I'm a ranch girl yeah some people like it's just the chunks yeah it's literally moldy cheese I know I'm not a fan I think it tastes terrible To each their own. But to each their own. Yeah. If you want to go dunk your chicken in some moldy cheese today, go ahead and do it. That's the day to do it. All right. On that note, we're going to take another quick break here. We'll come back in a couple minutes. Stay with us. Alright, we're back this Monday morning. During the break, we were further discussing our distaste for blue cheese, but I did learn by a certain someone who is also in the room with us, who is just happening to share their opinion, too, that there are some blue cheeses that are made really smooth, so the chunks aren't available in them, or present in them, I should say, but I still don't think I would go for it. I'm also, I know people are like, it's the texture, but I also am just not a fan of the taste. I just don't think I'm going to go for it at all. We learned that Nick Antetokounmpo's dad really likes blue cheese. He loves blue cheese, but he hates ranch. It's like, that's why I'm saying it's like one or the other. Like, I don't understand. Why it has to be one or the other, I guess. But I mean, I guess I'm in the same boat because I really don't like blue cheese. Honestly, if I get wings, I most of the time don't dip them in anything. You don't? Really? I like to dip a wing in a dip. Buffalo? I'd rather just have the buffalo taste. Wow. Give me the sauce, the buffalo sauce, whatever the sauce is in. Like, yeah, I mean, if there's ranch, maybe I'll dip a few here or there, but... There's times out there I ask you, do you want ranch or blue cheese? And I'm like, I don't want either. Like, just give me the blue cheese. Do you guys, that just reminds me, do you ever have like ranch with pizza? No. No. My brother does. I do that. And. Bobby sometimes thinks it's weird. I'll have a cheese pizza and I'll dip it in ranch. And he's like, wait. Wait, like- It makes sense more so if you're having a buffalo chicken pizza or something. But I'll do it with like random pizza. Actually a funny story about pizza and like the dipping sauces, but it's not really dipping sauce on this case. When Matt and I first came up to Enfield, there was a pizza place down the road and when we were moving in, obviously, we didn't have all of our stuff settled. So I was like, let's just order a pizza. And I'm a big Buffalo chicken pizza fan. This pizza comes and I was so hungry. We're moving everything in. I come, I open it up and it's like a... They put blue cheese all over the Buffalo chicken pizza. I freaked out, man. I was like... Oh, that's the worst. And I was like, maybe I'll give it a shot. I took a bite and I was like, this is not good. That's so disappointing. Well, I called them. I was like, hey, I didn't ask for blue cheese on this pizza. And they were like, oh, it comes with blue cheese. It's buffalo chicken. And I was like, well, I don't think I saw that. You don't have that. But Maddie had her like veggie side or whatever. So I just had some of that. And then I opened a bag of chips. But that's like one of the worst things that the disappointment you feel when you're really looking forward to a specific food item and either somebody else has eaten it or it's wrong. Yeah, it's wrong. And you're just like, oh, OK, so now I just have to be sad. not get to enjoy the food. Like I growing up with four siblings, it was like you had to make sure that your food was Just labeled and sometimes hidden so that other people wouldn't take it because the disappointment where you had in your head, okay, I have this snack or this leftover food that I can eat when I get home. And then one of your siblings ate it or your spouse has eaten it. Very disappointing. Yeah. Maddie still hides food from me sometimes too. Recently, it was about a month ago when I went in our sunroom and I opened up our ottoman because I was trying to find something. It was a bag of peanut butter pretzels just sitting in there. I was like, what's this? She was like, nothing to see here. Thank Keep your snacks to yourself, but um All right, yeah, so that is our divided topic about blue cheese versus ranch. I'm sure we could get into that. It's interesting because I don't think there are a lot of other condiments that have that level of, you know, divide. you. Yeah, it's a big divide. But there are people who like really loathe. Certain types of mustard or ketchup. I was going to say ketchup or mustard is probably the second thing I could think of in that. Yeah. But even then, that's not as heated as the blue cheese versus ranch debate. Like, I like yellow mustard, but I don't like spicy mustard. Yeah. I don't like mustard at all. We could continue this topic for a long time, but we are out of time of our off-the-desk show. Yeah, so we'll come back tomorrow for Tuesday. Maybe we'll ask Julia her opinion. Yeah, I'm sure she could weigh in. Happy Monday, everybody. Have a good day.