I was afraid The Third Department was going to be hell since one of my co-workers was taking the rest of the week off, and it was.  Goddamn, I didn't leave last/Thursday night until 7:15 -- that's a 10:45 day.  I'm glad I got to the pizza place (in a gas station very close by me) before they closed.  But it might be just as bad today/Friday because there are a half-dozen tests coming in.  There were only supposed to be two yesterday/Thursday but that became six, goddammit.

Since I got home much later than I was hoping, all the things I thought I wanted to do I just didn't do -- not just because I got home so late, but also because I was so tired.  At least I have enough energy to blog post this complaint.

The Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey

#-1: Lynx (Last Week: -1).  Only one Game this screening Week as the WNBA came back from All-Star Weekend, and Minnesota beat visiting Toronto Tuesday, 100-93.  I have to admit I was wrong about Olivia Miles.  Not only did I underestimate how the team can basically set and forget the Point Guard position for at least the next five seasons, I didn't know she would be such a fucking showstopper.  Just take a look at this:

Olivia Miles goes between the legs on a drop pass to Kayla McBride for 3

[image or embed]

— CJ Fogler (@cjzero.bsky.social) July 28, 2026 at 7:41 PM

I'm still scared that Awa Fam will be better than her in two or three seasons, but right now, I'm buying the ticket and enjoying the ride.

Lynx have won eight in a row and still lead the W.  But look at the margins of victory: 6, 5, 4, 9, 8, 3, 10 and 7.  If you're a dominant team, you stomp the hell out of your opponents.  Is anyone bothered that the Lynx aren't doing that?  They held a 14-Point lead three Minutes into the Fourth Quarter and the Tempo still managed to cut it to three with eighty Seconds left.  And while Minnesota is currently best in Net Rating, the Lynx currently lag behind Golden State in Defensive Rating and trail Indiana and Las Vegas in Offensive Rating.  I'm a pessimist; I seek out reasons Minnesota teams fail because they invariably do.

They finish a home-and-home with Toronto by playing in Canada tonight/Thursday night.  They then host The Indiana Fever, the team with the most toxic fanbase and social media army of any North American sports team, Sunday afternoon to start a four-Game homestand.

#-2: Twins (Last Week: -2).  Went 4-2 over the past Week, and now the speculation, such as it is, is whether the Twins might be buyers this season.  We'll believe it when we see it, but, and this might be me being too slow on the uptake, The American League is pathetic this Year.  There are two runaway very good teams in the AL, Tampa and the Yankees (and neither of them are above .600).  The third-best squad is the White Sox.  The Twinks are only three Games behind them, and only a half-Game behind Houston for American League Wild Card 2.  They could not make a move and be in the thick of things, so even trading for an anonymous Bullpen arm could improve their chances disproportionately.

By the way, last/Tuesday night they were shut out by Kansas City, who are in last in The American League Central Division, at home, 4-0.  The winning Pitcher?  Randy Dobnak, former Twins Pitcher who infamously was an Uber driver before finally getting a toehold in the majors.  Happy he's back, but losing to Dobnak doesn't make the Twinks look good, no offense to him.

After finishing up with the Royals this/Thursday afternoon, they travel to Seattle to play a three-Game series vs. the Mariners this weekend, then visit Kansas City for a trio starting Tuesday.

#-3: United FC (Last Week: -3).  Technically they didn't lose Saturday night at home versus Vancouver.  But I watched that 0-0 Tie in-person, and I swear there was a big loser: The sport of soccer.  It was a dreary, listless affair.  If there were scoring chances, I scantly remember them.  They tabulate xG at the Match, and I swear the Loons finished with .07 xG while the Whitecaps finished with .06 xG, an indication of how moribund the Game was.  And now I look at ESPN and they say MNUFC led (or trailed, considering they didn't score what they were expected to score) in xG, 1.1-.44 (while meanwhile, the club's website has Vancouver with .6 xG -- man, Expected Goals is an unreliable fucking statistic, and it doesn't help if people can't agree what the goddamn number is, come on!).  The only other thing that sticks out is Referee Lorenzo Hernandez, three Yellow Cards issued notwithstanding, largely swallowed his whistle and allowed both teams to play and/or scratch and claw.

United FC remains in the ninth and final playoff spot in the West.  They host San Diego FC Saturday night before Major League Soccer, barely back from their World Cup-induced two-Month break, plunge into Leagues Cup play, hosting FC Juarez of Liga MX.

Ruined Showers; Times Before And At The Very Start Of Supergirl

So I still don't know when they're coming back.  That's good in the sense that I still have the house to myself and I still have the opportunity to go through my things (even though I probably won't).  The bad news is is that I was hoping they would come home to at least a semi-clean house, but that won't happen till they, well, come home.  In the meantime it's still hotter than hell outside so I have taken a shower in both the upstairs (Monday) and downstairs (last/Tuesday night) bathrooms, thus "ruining" their cleanliness.  They might be coming home to bathrooms as dirty as they were before ****e* came to clean it on Sunday.  And sure, she last came over in February, so everything needed a cleaning, but still.

---

So I also sated my OCD/principles and watched Supergirl again last/Tuesday night, and this time I was able to get to the theater in time to see it from the start.  I timed the beginning of the movie to the point of the movie where I came in last week -- four minutes.  I missed the first four minutes of the movie.  If only I had gotten my ass out off the toilet just four minutes earlier, I wouldn't've needed to subject myself to this again.  However, one thing is irking me.  I timed the preview time, i.e. the listed showtime to the time when Supergirl actually started.  Backdating four minutes, the preview time of the film last week was 20 or 25 minutes.  When I went last/Tuesday night, 25 minutes had passed from the listed showtime and, I swear, they were still in previews.  So does the preview time change from week to week?  I though preview times shortened the longer a movie runs in theaters because fewer and fewer people pay for tickets to see it and therefore it doesn't make sense to show trailers of upcoming films for fewer and fewer eyeballs.  You mean to tell me that if I were running as late as I was last week to watch Supergirl this week, I would've made it to the start??  (Oh, by the way, last week I also watched Toy Story 5, and even though I was running 20-5 minutes late again, I got to my seat just as that film was about to begin.  To avoid getting bored by trailers, I will keep skirting preview times.)  

On the bright side, it wasn't a chore to see it a second time.  Knowing the general outline of what was going to happen next helped me understand the plot of the movie better.  Sure, it's not as if Supergirl is a deep film, but you know how confusing mass-market movies are these days.  And it wasn't the worst thing in the world to see.  I give it a, oh, B-/C+.

RIP, Smarter Than Staci

This happened about a month ago, and I feel bad I haven't blog posted about it till now.  It keeps slipping my mind, but I haven't given this enough respect, because it truly was an important part of my workday.

So when I started working back there, and I began to stay till 4:30, one of my former co-workers turned me on to KS95's "Smarter Than Staci," a long-time trivia segment of Staci & Hutch, which was the afternoon drivetime show on that radio station.  My ex-co-worker and a few of the others also working in the back always dropped what they were doing to play.  It consisted of two rounds of five questions usually read by Hutch.  The first round was played by a caller; the second usually by Staci or, if she wasn't available, another KS95 personality.  In the segment before, the answer to the first question is given.  Up until the end, the caller was able to ask for a replacement question if they didn't know the answer to one of the questions; Staci and/or the KS95 personality playing in the second round didn't get those privileges.  And even with those twin advantages, a lot of the times Staci won/the caller lost.

Not to toot my own horn, but I got enough of the trivia questions right that I cultivated a reputation for being, um, smart.  (Booksmart, yes, but when the question was about, like, reality show TV, I was completely useless.)  Whenever we got a question right, we would bump fists.  A good day was when we got all the questions right; I called it "running the table."  (Well, I guess everyone who knows the phrase would call it "running the table.")  And when we did not do well -- honestly, I was the one answering most of the questions, right or wrong -- the others picked me up and encouraged me.

It was a fun way to end the day, or, if I was working late, a late afternoon break that was fun.  I always looked forward to it and, frankly, to see if I could flex my intellectual superiority.  And it was a chance to at least talk for a bit with my co-workers, something I don't always do, especially when I'm busy.  "Smarter Than Staci" became a focal point, that thing you always do at work.

Unfortunately, Staci & Hutch was cancelled, and Staci and Hutch were fired from KS95, a month ago.  (I think the radio station has developed a reputation for just outright cutting personalities from their airwaves without warning -- that's not good for KS95.)  I don't know what replaced it -- honestly, I didn't listen to the afternoon drive show beyond trivia -- but I doubt whoever replaced them was going to continue doing trivia at 4:30.  And so, once we learned that that brief respite in the day was done and gone, I haven't listened to the radio we all used to listen to the questions since.  And with that, a little rosy piece of my workday went away.

Oh, well.  At least I don't feel compelled to drop everything and listen to the radio now.  I don't even feel compelled to stick around past 4:30 if I get my work done by then.  Nah, that's just coping; I still feel sad about "Smarter Than Staci" not being a thing anymore.

Addendum To: Where The Fuck Is She?

So I texted ****e* around 2.  She texted around 2:15 she'll be there in half an hour.  She suggested I leave with the door unlocked so she can just go in and start cleaning.  I thought about that, especially when she said she was taking at shit at a quarter to 3, but I decided to wait because she lives about 40 minutes away.

But then it's 3:30, and I haven't seen her and I haven't heard from her.  I asked for an ETA.  She says she's 27 minutes away.  So at 3:45 I really did say fuck this, shut the door but kept it unlocked, and just fuckin' left for Clear Lake.  ****e* said she would've gotten there earlier if she had known I was going down to Iowa, but I thought I made that clear when she initially postponed on Thursday.

Whatever.  I checked in with her at a gas station at 4:15.  I said my piece about the mix-up and that was that.  ****e* said she got there at 4.  Going to the The Day The Music Died Memorial took a lot longer than I thought, three hours as opposed to two.  And I don't like gravel roads, and I hated the humidity while I walked from the parking lot to the gravesite.  But I got there, a shrine embedded right in the middle of a cornfield.  Wish I could've stayed longer, but it was hot and it was getting late.

The nearest gas station to the memorial had 88 gas for $2.78-9/gal., 12-3 cents cheaper than I can get it here.  Still had to gas up before dropping off the rental (and by the way, I wanted to pre-pay so I could send the car back as close to the full line without going over, so I could save myself some money.  But six bucks brought me up short, goddammit, so I had to put my credit card to make sure it did go past the full line).  Anyway, after eating at Taco Bell and freaking out because one of the water leak pucks went off, I finally got home to see ****e* cleaning away.  (I think a hose in the boiler room overflowed because she was using hot water to wash out the kitchen sink.  Is that normal?)  And, per usual, she left everything spotless.  There were marks in the upstairs toilet I couldn't rub out, but she did.  Finally, she let me touch and even bite into her new tits.  She stopped me when I dropped my pants to start touching myself to her, though.  Oh, well.  Can't win them all.  And she's one hell of a cleaning lady, so I will once again tolerate her aloofness and tardiness next time.

Where The Fuck Is She?

OK, this is kind of pissing me off.  ****e* was supposed to tell me when she'll get here as soon as she wakes up, but she told me "early afternoon."  Well, it's past noon now.  I texted her, and I haven't heard back.  I have a rental car I need to use the fuck out of, and right now I am going to Clear Lake in the middle of the hot afternoon, plus there is an Extreme Heat Warning, both here and there.  I have half a mind to just say fuck her and leave.  I can't believe I'm being treated like this!  Well, actually, I can -- they're strippers.  But still, this is annoying as fuck.

Right Idea, Wrong Time

I should get a rental car and just go on roadtrips one weekend a year.  This has been fun.  Went up north on Friday, out east yesterday/Saturday and, hopefully, down through Iowa today/Sunday.  Now, I wish I had the foresight to not pick a weekend where gas prices are above four bucks a gallon because I will need to fill up the car I have a second time before bringing it in.  But yes, I can blame Trump for that.

Changing Plans (Stripper, Stillwater)

So right around this time I was supposed to see *****y at her cottage for a wank session.  Then, I would switch out of my porno pants and spend a couple hours around Stillwater close by.  Then, I would go home and nap before the Loons Match.

But nooooooooo, my stripper girlfriend changed plans again.  Instead of 1, which is when she wanted me to come over, she now wants me to come over a bit past 5, which is when her son goes to work.  Well, shit, why in the hell didn't you just say 5?  Your son doesn't know when he's working until the day before?  And of course this fucks up all my plans.  If I want to still hang out in Stillwater -- and I guess I do -- I now have to do it before getting jerked off by *****y, and then I can't come home because I might as well just hang out on that side of the Twin Cities and go down to St. Paul.  Weird to be doing something out in public after getting an HJ.  Oh, well.

Hanging all over this is the weather.  It's supposed to get hot starting today, but it's been cloudy all day.  That and, you know, meeting *****y when she first wanted me to cum over would lead me to going out and walking outdoors around Stillwater for an hour or two.  But not only will I not do that now, I might not do that at all because the Sun is supposed to come out later this afternoon.  I might be spending my time in Stillwater indoors, which may or may not be fun.

Random passive-aggressive lash-out: Sweat to fucking God, if that immature incel reacts to anything I say that he even remotely thinks questions his so-called superiority on the rules of football, I will say something.  Probably won't scream or completely insult him.  But I am too old for this shit, and I do not know if I can keep being stepped on by some twenty-something prick who believes he's got a ticket to move up in the industry he's wanted to work in since seeing SportsCenter for the first time without coming back on him.  Just saying that I cannot be complicit in my debasement for much longer.  Jesus, what a fucking goddamn asshole he was/is. ...

Is She Coming?

So ****e* became unreliable again.  She was supposed to cum yesterday/Thursday to work on the house, but she said she just got up, then she was moving slow, then her ex dropped off her kids, and then she said she was just not feeling good.

Whatever.  She now said that she's coming Sunday.  She said she no longer works weekends, but frankly, she needs to make this up to me.  After all, she promised she'd be here yesterday/Thursday.  But I have plans to make a run to Clear Lake, Iowa and see the The Day The Music Died Memorial.  It'll take 2 1/2 hours to get there, and it'll be hot as hell Sunday.  On top of that, she said she'll be here at noon.  It would be best for me to go down there as soon as I wake up to attempt to avoid the heat, but now I have to wait and answer any questions she might have and leave in the afternoon.  And what do I do if she's late?

And yet, because of this fuck-up, I am even more determined to go down there and see it.  Doesn't matter that I won't be back up here until it's 8 or so.  That's what I wanted to do Sunday, and I'll fucking do it even though ****e* basically fucked up my plans.  Shit, it might be good at this point that she doesn't cum.  Dammit, so fucking unreliable. ...