My Libido Is Back!

Hanging out at the State Fair and seeing all these hot women with their bellies hanging out and their hot tan lines (I'll blog post more about that soon) has gotten my blood racing down to my dick again.  (Shout-out, by the way, to the bartender I saw after the MNUFC Tie last/Saturday night who rolled up her t-shirt -to show off her hot midriff -- fap-fap-fap!!!)  Maybe I haven't been in a rut, per se, but I haven't been around so many good-looking women in a long time, and now I'm raring to cash in on my arousal.  I am trying to see someone today, but if that falls through, I have a Plan B and C, so I am gonna get cranked, dammit!!!

Expenses Without Receipt

Starting from Friday, August 28:

• We go back to Thursday, August 27, the first day of the State Fair.  Didn't have as much money as I wanted, so I relied on my credit card for the Blue Barn Sweet Squeakers (which is fast becoming an annual staple), the Frozen Blue beer, Swedish coffee, and Cherry Jumbo Limeade Float from, uh, that place (I should commit the shop's name to memory; I can see getting this year after year, too).  But I shelled out cash for the Gizmo (first time ever I've eaten at this place), the corn, and the Peachey's Amish donut.  With a tip for the Gizmo the total is: $26.
• On Tuesday the 25th I went to Caribou before work partly so I could get cash.  A medium mocha (just a mocha, not one of their signature mochas), minus trivia and plus, gets to: $7.25.
• That evening I had to go to our alumni Game-watching place to make sure it was OK for us to watch our Game, which is that Saturday, there.  We could.  With tip I spent: $37.
• All the way back to Saturday, August 15, where I went to Porchfest at the Wedge neighborhood.  Wish I could have spent some more time down there, walking through the streets and catching bands playing.  I tipped the bands, and I also got a cup of lemonade from a family selling it.  Total amount I spent for Porchfest: $5.
• Monday, August 3: ******a, oh, ******a: $150.
• We hurtle back to Tuesday, July 28, where I had to see Supergirl a second time because I missed the very start of it the first time.  Ticket, popcorn, pop, minus my $5 discount because I used points (I got food with a movie for the first time in a long time, and knowing how much it regularly costs, I won't be buying food again for a while) comes out to: $17.30.
• Sunday, July 26 ... this is the day I wanted to drive to Iowa, but I had to wait for ****e* to get here, and I finally just left because her lazy but nice ass couldn't get out of her house when she promised she would.  Not mad, just disappointed.  I got to The Day The Music Died Memorial, which is out on a private cornfield, in the early evening.  Wish I had went when it wasn't blisteringly humid, but you can't predict the weather.  Still, it was eerie and moving, and I'm glad I got to pay my respects.  And I got to pay it alone; I got to the parking lot, which is across the gravel street from the memorial site, as another person was leaving, and no one came after me.  There was an RV of someone who was tending to the gravel parking lot I parked at.  I got the feeling she and her family appointed themselves as caretakers of the memorial and the parking lot.  They had little trinkets to sell, and they asked for donations.  I appreciated that someone is dedicating themselves to keeping up the area, so I donated: $5.
• On Saturday the 25th I went out to Stillwater and got Nelson's Ice Cream.  This place is famous for heaping scoop upon scoop upon scoop of ice cream.  Their smalls are large.  I appreciate that in these days of paying more and getting less, but this was ridiculous.  With tip: $8.
• I wanted to get ice cream after I saw *****y, but her hot but finicky ass made me cum see her after ice cream.  And then she made me cum: $150.
• Thursday, July 23: I don't know if the date is right.  But I have this as the day I went to Nelson's -- not the ice cream shop in Stillwater but the deli place close to home.  Got a Hero, a medium chicken wild rice soup, and a can of RC Cola.  With tip the total was: $17.32.
• Wednesday the 22nd -- had to buy lottery tickets, both lotteries.  Total: $14.
• I then got gasoline.  Paid cash for it: $32.
• To Sunday the 19th, where I went to Grandpa Joe's for a Whistler pop.  Minus the bottle deposit I paid: $1.62.
• I then went to the Black Hart to watch some World Cup soccer.  Can of cider plus tip: $7.
• That night I went to a local theater to watch The Odyssey.  This is an historic one-screen place (although it's owned by a company that has a few historic one-screen places) that showed the film in 70mm.  This is a theater where the person running the screening is an aficionado, and he showed how better the resolution a flick is in 70mm by bringing out the reel in which the film is threaded.  I like the presentation.  I love the movie, too; it's fantastic, and the probable Oscar favorite for Best Film.  Small popcorn, small pop, and tips for concessions and the organist (I used my credit card for the ticket): $14.
• Finally, on Wednesday, July 15, I took that day and the following day off for World Cup Semifinals -- and, on this day, to take my car in for maintenance.  After the oil change and tire rotation, I took my vehicle to the car wash.  Paid for the wash, but the tip was in cash: $5.
• Because there was nothing seriously wrong with the car, I had time to go to Flameburger to take in breakfast.  Great to eat there; will return next year.  Got their meal of half an egg, hash browns and toast, and with a small apple juice and tip it cost me: $15.
• Later that afternoon I went to Brit's Pub to see Spain handcuff France, 2-0.  There went my World Cup pick.  With tip: $54.

I keep saying this because it remains true: I have to do these EWRs more often.

Good through August 28.

Still No Rest For The Wicked

Should try and stay home one of these days, but the last time I did that was Monday.  It could have been tonight, but my friend just told me she's stopping home this weekend, so I think we've just made plans to go to the State Fair.  (I say "I think" because I'm not 100% sure if she meant tonight/Friday night or tomorrow/Saturday night.  I can't go tomorrow/Saturday night because I have that MNUFC Match ... but, honestly, if that's the only time I can see her, I'd skip that.)

I'm not going to say this has "ruined" my night in, because honestly, I have thought about going to the Alabama Shakes concert.  They're in town to perform tonight and tomorrow night.  I'm not the biggest fan of theirs, but they have a new album that technically has come out now/Friday, and I think it's cool to see a band who's in town to play a concert on the same day their new album drops.  On the other hand, Alabama Shakes is playing at Surly Brewing Festival Field.  I've been to their destination brewery, and they have ample parking right there, but all of that is taken up when a band is playing, so I don't know where to park or whether I have to take public transportation in.  On top of that, work has actually been non-punishing this week.  I actually got out of work only a little bit past eight hours yesterday/Thursday.  If that happens again today/Friday, I will have too much time to kill between work and the concert, and my laziness might coax me not to go.

But I am doing something, apparently, and that is hanging with my high school buddy and eating our brains out.  Hey, YOLO, right?  What's the other appropriate axiom here -- I can sleep when I'm dead?  Yeah, that too!

The Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey

#-1: Lynx (Last Week: Positive Numbers).  I'm not all that bent out of shape in their home Loss to Golden State by 14 Monday night.  The Valkyries hadn't beaten the Lynx up till then, an 0-9 record that isn't that much better now that it's 1-9.  (The Valks fanbase was getting kind of thirsty with every Lynx Win.  It was getting pathetically funny.)  Courtney Williams broke her Ironwoman streak and didn't play for the first time in 196 Games because of a bad ankle/foot.  Naphessa Collier came off the bench.  Olivia Miles and Natasha Howard played less than 30 Minutes.  Maya Caldwell played 25.  Shit, everybody on the roster played: The very last four players got seven Minutes!  And finally, Cheryl Reeve experimented with a lot of new five-mans.

Clearly, Reeve was conceding this Game to work on her team.  No worries; their magic number to clinch Home Court remains at 1.  I think a result more representative of what the team truly is was Friday's ten-Point victory at a Washington Mystics outfit that is big enough down low to give the Lynx fits.  They're still the best team in the WNBA.  So even though they can't get above negative numbers, overall I still think they're the best team in local sports.

The big variable comes up after Sunday afternoon's tilt at Atlanta and new acquisition Dewanna Bonner, another big and beefy club Minnesota has to watch out for.  The entire league will take an almost-three-Week break for the FIBA Women's World Cup with the Lynx having only four Games left in the regular season.

#-2: Gopher soccer (Last Week: -1).  On Thursday in Fargo, the U. came back from a 1-0 Second Half deficit in just 46 Seconds, then 7:20 later, they took the lead on a Penalty Kick that turned out to be the Game-winner.  Both Goals were scored by Ava Westlund.

Impressive.  And yes, the Gopher soccer squad went "undefeated" this Week.  Plus, technically, they're still unbeaten this season.  I still don't believe that they're a good team, though, and until I see more Wins or even Draws in Games I expected them to tie or lose, I'll keep them as the middling club I have pre-conceived them to be.  And that's why I have them below the Lynx.  But there is an opportunity for Minnesota to make some more noise because tonight/Thursday night they visit 15th-ranked BYU.  (I take back what I said in last Week's WMNSS, when I derisively said the Gophs' Tie with Georgia is the only notable non-conference Match they'll play this Year.  But, swear to Buddha, I didn't see the Cougars on the schedule until now.)  They then come home to host St. Thomas Sunday afternoon.

#-3: United FC (Last Week: -2).  OK, where in the fuck did Saturday night's 5-1 rout at San Jose come from??  Kelvin Yeboah got a brace.  Joaquin Pereya tied the Match at 1 with ... what's called a rabona?  I've seen several replays and still don't understand what the hell happened.  Anyway, newly-installed starter Marcus Caldeira scored.  So did Mauricio Gonzalez to cap the scoring.  And the Loons won in Major League Soccer play for the first time since May 2, a stretch of nine winless.  It seems obvious these guys play a shit ton better on the road.

Based on tie-breakers, MNUFC are still out of the playoff picture, but Points-wise, they're in a four-way tie for seventh, so all is not lost.  But Saturday night they play Antoine Griezmann and Orlando City, another team clinging onto postseason hopes.  And United FC is playing at home, which may be a troubling omen.

#-4: Twins (Last Week: 0).  This may be the screening Week that puts them out of the playoff race for good.  Not when they got swept in San Diego, then lost two-of-three in Sacramento ... excuse me, West Sacramento to the cromulent (cityless) Athletics.  Believe it or not they're still in this; the Twinks are four Games behind ALWC3, which is not-so-great Cleveland.  But there are four squads ahead of them, so the chances are high one of those teams is going to catch fire and capture the last postseason berth.  Can they turn it around in a Week-long homestand against two divisional foes, the AL Central-leading White Sox and fellow playoff hopeful Detroit?

Keep having things I need to do, yet I still don't do them.  Then they pile up to the point where I have to do something, but then I'm so tired at night that I have to resort to masturbation in order to catch a second wind to do one of the things, namely send out an e-mail.  Shouldn't have to be this way, but by doing that just now, I can finally get around to reconciling my monthly expense list for July ... tonight/Wednesday night.  Well, maybe I'll do it tomorrow/Thursday night ... or Friday night.  Ugh, I'm procrastinating.

Addendum To: Addendum To: Fucking Sprinkler Head ...

There was such little work that, even though I came in early, I got done at 2.  Another sign that I should try and fix the sprinkler head!

The old and busted one worked, or "worked."  I just wanted to know if the head would stay screwed in, and it did.  (I also saw, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that it's broken; the inside sprung out of its case so much that is began spurting water from behind, and not just from the small hole in the front.  That's the reason why there was such a flood around the part of the backyard it was in.)  So it wasn't the pipe but the sprinkler.  I breathed a sigh of relief that all I need to do was buy a new sprinkler head ... but I decided to try and put in the one that was in the hole, just one more time.  I made sure it was screwed in ... and it worked, perfectly.  Well, I have to adjust the arc again, but besides that, I am where I was Sunday afternoon before I yanked the whole damn thing out.  I don't know how it worked now.  Like I've said, I screwed it in before, I swear.  But it, well, works now.

I'll turn on the cycle Saturday afternoon at the duration I want it to run.  If there are no problems then (Lord willing), I have fixed yet another cycle of sprinkler heads!

Addendum To: Fucking Sprinkler Head ...

So since I got out of work on time (and I don't know the last time that happened when I was tasked to do The Fourth Department), I figured this was an opportunity to go back to working on the fucking sprinkler head.

The first time I turned on the cycle it was worse than Sunday.  Not only did the shitty head pop out from the pipe, one of the other heads didn't pop up and water.  I presumed that this sprinkler system relies on pressure, so that when this shitty head popped out of its socket, there wasn't enough pressure for this other one to rise up and do its thing.  But this shitty head popped out on Sunday, and that other head worked just fine.

Anyway, after putting a wood pallet into my second storage unit, I came back and took another shot.  I made damn sure the sprinkler head was screwed into the pipe opening.  I pulled it up to make sure it was secure.  I turned on the system ... and I'll be goddamned, the head was just floating in its hole because it popped out of the goddamn pipe opening again.  (By the way, the sprinkler head that wasn't working earlier in the evening popped up and watered like it was supposed to, so there's that.)

I'm beside myself right now.  Swear to fucking God that thing was screwed in tight.  So I'm working on another theory, though I might be doing so just because any alternative would drive me up a wall.  Maybe, when I yanked the whole fuckin' thing off of the pipe, I broke the sprinkler head.  I took a close look and it, well, looks like the thing isn't retracting completely.  And for all I know, the threads (either on the bottom of the sprinkler head or on the pipe opening) were stripped, either through me or through years of wear and tear.

So what I'm going to do (possibly tomorrow since I work and presumably get home early) is take the old and busted sprinkler head and replace it with the old and busted sprinkler head I replaced in the backyard.  Yes, it's not working, and yes, it's just been laying around the past several weeks.  But what I'm worried about right now is if the issue with that sprinkler head is the sprinkler head or the opening it's supposed to be secured to.  If it's the head, I can just buy another one, and many of my problems would be solved.  But if the fucking thing pops out again ... well, I might need to call in the lawn maintenance company.  There is a bunch of dirt in the opening, and try as I might, I couldn't completely clear out the pipe.  It's possible that dirt is creating such a build-up of pressure that it's going to turn any sprinkler head that's screwed onto it into a projectile missile.  And so if it needs to be cleaned out, that'll require equipment, expertise, and patience I don't have.

God, I just hope a new sprinkler head will do the trick.  Fuckin' Christ, man, if I had just waited for the cycle to end, I think I could've kept the old sprinkler head and the cycle would have been perfect because there would be no water splashing onto the driveway or street.  Fuck!

Fucking Sprinkler Head ...

I thought I knew what I was doing after I fixed (I think) two others.  Next up was checking the arcs for a different cycle, also in the front yard.  Yesterday/Sunday afternoon I did, and I was OK with all but one, which was arcing in both directions so much that it was clearly wetting our driveway twice.

Learning what I learned before, I made sure to wait until the water got absorbed into the dirt enough to clearly twist off the head.  I oriented the arc so that its right-most would line up with the edge of the grassline bordering the driveway and no farther.  From there, I put in the key that shortens the arc to its left.  I had the cycle going on for 15 minutes, giving me plenty of time to see how far this head would go and either cut it or lengthen it so that it wouldn't sprinkle water on the driveway.

And I got it done.  It was perfect.  So, I pulled the key out of the top of the sprinkler head ... and the goddamn, motherfucking whole thing came out.  Without the sprinkler head, the water was coming out of just the open end of a pipe, so it just looked like water coming out of the ground.  I needed to stop it; fortunately, by the time I got to the garage, there was only one minute left in the cycle.  Water dribbled its way down to the street, but it stopped before it got really, really bad.

Swear to God I screwed it in.  But I have to admit that I had trouble when I didn't think I would have to worry about lining up the threads.  And for the goddamn life of me, I couldn't screw the fucking sprinkler head back in a second time.  I don't know what it was.  The threads at the bottom of the head seemed to be fine.  It's hard to look five inches deep into the grass, but I think the threads at the open end of the pipe are just fine.

There is only problem I could see, and it might be a big one.  There was dirt on and in the open end of the pipe.  I was able to scrape off enough so there was nothing blocking the threads so that I could screw in the sprinkler head -- I think; shit, I thought I did that the first fucking time, but apparently not.  The issue is that opening should be completely clean.  No dirt at all should be on or in it, because if there is, it would block the flow of water coming up through the pipe and into the sprinkler head.  I don't have a way of completely cleaning that opening, so now I have to wait until I have time (probably tomorrow/Tuesday evening, assuming it isn't raining) to turn on the cycle and see if water is flowing freely through that sprinkler head.  If it isn't ... shit, man, I could see enough pressure building that the goddamn head flies up in the air, or hits one of the cars, or dents the house, or conks some neighbor who's just walking.  If it's that bad, that sprinkler head is unusable, and since I can't turn off a sprinkler head, that whole cycle has to be shut down until, I don't know, I get the company to do what it does in order to blow out all the dirt that's in that pipe.

Motherfucking Christ, why in the fuck do we have this goddamn sprinkler system, huh?  In particular, I hate that My Fucking Father has saddled me with the responsibility of maintaining it.  It wasn't my goddamn idea to install a whole fucking system which, by the way, I have only used to only water the lawn only, like, four times so far (I've turned it on way more times to fix the arcs one some of the heads, a practice I'll continue to do until they're all correct).  He got off on something that made him feel like a tried and true homeowner, but the silly and stupid details like fixing this shit?  No, I deal with that because that bullshit is beneath him.

Let's go beyond that: Why do we have lawns?  Why do we need to constantly need to tend to grass?  What is giving a lawn a crew cut proving?  I think we do it just to keep up appearances, and as you all know, I don't give a good goddamn about keeping up appearances.  Fuckin' A, man, you should see how brown my lawns are.  And I don't care, and I don't have my parents here to make me care.

But now I have to fucking find some time to check out this sprinkler head and hope it's screwed on tight enough that it won't go flying from all the water pressure and smash one of my car windows or kill a stranger.  Oh yeah, then I have to hope that it still has the arc that I want.  This is just a frustrating pain-in-the-ass, man.  I just wanted to take the key out of it, that's all. ...

I Definitely Have Brain Rot

Woke up this morning to the sound of my sprinklers going.  Now, lately I've (or my body has) gotten into a pattern of going to sleep and waking early (at least when compared to when I usually go to bed).  But this/Sunday morning, man, I think I would've been able to sleep in ... if not for the damn sprinklers being my alarm clock.  I don't need an alarm clock this morning, especially since I did need one yesterday/Saturday because I was working.

The sprinklers were on because I turned on the sprinkler system yesterday/Saturday because I wanted them to water the lawns while I was off to work and not in the house.  I just forgot to shut the system off last night so it wouldn't wake me up.  And I forgot because I have brain rot.  I got home late from dinner after work last/Saturday night, and sure, I went off for some late night Taco Bell, too.  Oh, yeah, there was a lot of soccer I was watching, too.  (Hey, the Loons won -- whadathunkit!)  But I spent the vast majority of my evening doomscrolling.  Goddammit, man, my mind has atrophied not due to old age but because I'm on my fucking phone all the time, filling my brain up with short dopamine hits of what gets me off.  I think that if I wasn't so addicted to my phone, I would be way more attentive at doing things, like chores, or just remembering stuff, like turning off the water sprinkler system.  Shit, I have a bunch of things I should do now, and yet my cellphone is just waiting for me like a dealer in the alley.  And of course I'm going back to him -- definitely some time today, and possibly right after I blog post this.

I have a lot of stuff to do -- going through my stuff, the laundry, etc.  And I do want to fix the sprinklers; after I did a couple heads in one section of the front lawn last weekend (at least I think they're fixed), I want to try to fix the other heads in the front lawn.  But I wanted to do it on my own time ... well, my body's time, but my body was forced to wake up to the sound of the sprinklers out front, and I think because of that, I will be tired later on this evening when I want to go out.  May be overdramatizing, but maybe not.

Need to stop looking at screens and start looking at real life.

Feeling Faint Late At Night Again

I feel it right now -- I have that kind of tiredness where I feel my head is really heavy, and that I am barely hanging onto consciousness.  It's the type of fatigue where I can instantly pass out at any time.  If I'm holding something, I could pass out and drop it.  If I'm standing up, I could pass out and fall right where I stand.  It's that kind of tired.

Have any of you felt tired like that?  I felt that some time ago, but it went away, but now I felt it last night and now.  Don't know why.  I'm scared this is a foreshadowing of sundowning and how Grandmother turned into a demented monster come dusk.  Hope this isn't an omen.

Still need to power through, though.  Have some things I still should do.