Chasing Down Something Great With Something Somewhat Not-So-Great

It might've been my mood after seeing USC get their asses run up and down by Oregon.  (Seriously, it's like their weird special Nike uniforms had this slippery film on them.  They were going through the defensive line like quicksilver, and they weren't touched no matter how many Trojans got to the ball carrier.  I swear, they're on steroids, or they're cheating.)  I'm always a whore for pizza, so it doesn't take a whole lot for me to be happy.  And I forgot I already ate Pizza Hut earlier in the week.

Regardless and irregardless, I wholly recommend ordering a pizza from Red's Savoy.  There are two locations in the Twin Cities, and the Uptown location used to be this independent shop called Golooney's.  After eating their big-enough, spicy-but-not-too-spicy, altogether-filling mini pizza last night (and for only $6.50!), I think I have a new favorite pizza.

We have a lot of food at home.  Maybe I still had a high glycemic level oh I don't know what I'm talking about.  I needed to make my NFL picks on MySpace and I went downstairs to make sure the modem's connected, and I was still thirsty from Red's pizza, so I went to the fridge to grab a Sprite.

In the fridge there are a lot of pastries that Mother bought.  Even with what I ate last night, I decided to help myself to dessert to go with my Sprite.

So I was eating it while warming up the laptop.  It was good, but not as good as the pizza.  And then I had guilt for ruining my palate.  The aftertaste in my mouth and throat was so ... perfect with this newfound meal, and now I am defiling it with a cheap sugary treat.

I know I shouldn't've, but when I got home I ate the last two slices of pizza from Pizza Hut tonight.

They've been sitting in there since Monday.  These days my parents take them with to eat, and I've been more than happy to give them to them.  But they haven't done that for these slices.  Meanwhile, all I had today was large fries at McDonald's (to get the Monopoly pieces) for lunch and a hot dog during the volleyball game tonight.  The large mocha I had at the coffeehouse made me believe I had enough in my stomach.  And I probably did.  But damn, maybe something in said I was hungry, and when I got home there was this whiff of really nice-smelling meat in the air, and when I opened the fridge I saw the triangle-shaped tinfoil right there, beckoning me to consume it.  So I did.

I hope that my parents weren't planning on eating them tomorrow, when work slows down for them.  Really, I hope they're not pissed.  I just couldn't help myself, and they had four days to eat those leftovers.  What could a guy like me do?

The Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey

#-1: Gopher women's hockey (Last Week: -4). This program has to be the WMNSS MVP of the past two years. It's like when the Twins rule the roost, with the very real exception that the Twins play in the summer, where there is little competition, and the Gopher women regularly beat back seven competitors for to reach the top spot. Of course they piss down their legs come tournament time, but we'll just worry about that another day, shall we?

They rebounded from their embarrassing home sweep at the hands of North Dakota with an 8-0 road she-llacking (did you see what I just did there?) of St. Cloud St. Noora Räty stopped all 32 Huskie shots in the sweep and was named WCHA Defensive Player Of The Week. On the scoring goals end, Defensman Anne Schleper notched four points in those two wins and was thus named co-WCHA Offensive Player Of The Week.

Congratulations to them. Now, onto Duluth to face defending champion and prime nemesis UMD. They're ranked third; the Gophs sixth. And the Bulldogs have had the U.'s number recently; last year Minnesota won the first two games before UMD took the last four, the last two being the conference championship game and the NCAA semifinal.

#-2: Gopher volleyball (Last Week: -3). I don't like that up against superior but not overwhelming superior competition, and at home, the team lost to Illinois (albeit in five tense sets). But they also rebounded by beating rivals and teams expected to be in the bottom half of the Big Ten race, Wisconsin and Iowa. Middle Blocker Lauren Gibbemeyer is back and is currently hitting, I think, .566. If her wrists don't act up, this team could turn it around.

They have only one game this week: They finish their four-match homestand against Northwestern tonight (Friday night). For the first time in forever, I'm guessing, the Wildcats are favored, so this will be a dogfight.

#-3: Gopher men's hockey (Last Week: -5). The underachieving Gopher men's icers split with St. Cloud St. at Mariucci. Their win Sunday ended a three-game losing streak, but they lost to the Huskies Friday 5-2.

This team still has no rhythm, and they have yet to find any chemistry that will finally get this squad back to respectability. However, they may have found a new guy. Senior Goaltender Alex Kangas has been a brave and loyal soldier, but too many times in his tenure between the pipes he's been a sieve. Head Coach Don Lucia went to Junior Kent Patterson after Kangas let in all five St. Cloud St. goals on Friday midway through the second period. Patterson didn't let another one through, and he backstopped the next game, which gave the Gophs their first conference victory.

I assume Lucia will go to Patterson for this weekend's two-gamer at powerful Colorado College. The Tigers are ranked 19th in the current USCHO.com poll, Minnesota tied for 20th. I really thought the Tigers were, like, 4th and the Gophs unranked.

#-4: Wild (Last Week: 0). I really didn't think this team would beat anybody except Edmonton. But somehow, they defeated Alexander Ovechkin and the Washington Capitals, 2-1.

And then, while looking through articles and lists, the glass got more full. The Wild have won four games; I really thought they've only won, like, two. Then the Associated Press recap said the team has the best power play in the NHL. And we somehow slowed the Caps to 22 shots, a season low for them. That bag skate continues to produce dividends.

Well, hopefully. They host two games this week against last year's Western Conference Finals matchup: Saturday against Stanley Cup champs Chicago, then Tuesday vs. San Jose.

By the way, there is some dissension in the ranks. Martin Havlat, their big signing last year, was a healthy scratch one game this screening week, eliciting accusations by his agent.

#-5: Gopher soccer (Last Week: -2). They had the whole world in their hands. Now, they're fighting for their NCAA Tournament lives. I was there last Friday night when the distaff footballers were firing on Michigan at will. Then, in the 110th and final minute, Minnesota Goalie Cat Parkhill, trying to be aggressive, goal-kicked to midfield where it was intercepted by the Wolverines. Two passes later, a wide-open Nkem Ezurike deposited the ball into the top left corner. Despite being outshot in goal 8-2, Michigan beat Minnesota, 1-0, with 27 seconds left in double overtime.

It's heartbreaking. Frankly, it's also infuriating. And maybe that was the reason they only tied Michigan St. at 1 Sunday afternoon. So this means that the Gophers, who once were ranked in one poll 12th in the nation, have a four-game winless streak. Will they turn it around at Northwestern tonight (Friday night)?

#-6: Gopher football (Last Week: -1). I was also at this game, a 33-21 loss to Penn St. (for all my bitching about all Minnesota sports losing two weeks ago, Gopher athletics weren't all that much better last week). I actually thought this team had a puncher's chance against the Nittany Lions: They were facing a vulnerable squad that wasn't that big or tough, and the team had a new lease on life because of Interim Coach Jeff Horton. Oops.

Uh, there's nothing else to say. Excpet they host 11th-ranked Ohio St. this Saturday Night. Better brush your teeth and get your tackling drills in; this is the national game this week. Maybe the Gophs will spring the upset. Or maybe they'll be embarrassed by the Buckeyes and the entire country will know how badly this program sucks.

#-7: Timberwolves (New Entry!). Some people are actually encouraged by what they saw Wednesday night. I think it's the same old shit, and in fact things are going to get worse.

They had a shot to beat Sacramento, a team that has a lot more talent and more direction, but was raw enough to be taken at home. And still they lost, 117-116, after rookie Wesley Johnson skied in on a Wayne Ellington missed three. There was less than a second left, so it was either two points or none, but still.

Moreover, like the Wild, the Timberwolves are stirring up shit after benching their star. With the trade of Al Jefferson, Kevin Love's the best player with the Woofie Dogs. But for the last eight minutes of the fourth quarter, I think, Kurt Rambis kept Love off the court. Why? As Coach Kurt Rambis told it in the post-game press conference, he liked the energy Anthony Tolliver provided during the game. Anthony Tolliver, ladies and gentlemen. Love left after the game without making a comment. Which means that Rambis has lost Love for good. Or at least should have, because not playing Love at all during those eight minutes is at best strange and at worst a firable offense.

They have two more games in order to get a win. Tonight (Friday night) they host Milwaukee, then go to Memphis Saturday. The other games this week are at Miami Tuesday and at Orlando Wednesday. So yeah, the Era Of Good Feeling ends this weekend.

#-8: Vikings (Last Week: Positive Numbers). Fuck this. Fuck all of this. It is insane that the guy that has to lead the time is the only guy we have that could throw three interceptions, one of them an awful pick-six that reall looked like he was throwing to the Desmond Bishop, is also the same guy that could drive us to four touchdowns and a possible game-winning fifth. It's all wrapped up in Brett Favre, a 41-year-old egomaniac with a broken ankle and a gift of exposing his dick.

It's important to note that this is the second game we could have won but eventually gave away. Just like the Dolphins loss, a combination of tough defense, not-perfect officiating, dropped passes, bad luck and the questionable judgement of the Reckless Gunslinger late in the game contributed to a close defeat. But you start Tarvaris Jackson in Sunday night's loss to Green Bay and the Packers win by at least ten.

So who do you start this Sunday against New England? Well, I assume two things: 1) Technically, if you are on the field for the first play from scrimmage, you have "started," and 2) Favre's ankle is much painful, much worse, than people are letting on. If both things are true, Head Coach Brad Childress has to do the following: Get Favre out there for their first offensive play, make him hand it off to Adrian Peterson, then pull him for Jackson. Tarvaris at 100% is still better than Favre at the percentage he has to be at right now.

And they'll still lose and go to 2-5. Get those moving fans to Los Angeles ready, Wilfs.

It's Like They Were Made For Each Other!

OK, so my sperm pills, at least for the first two weeks, came in two large plastic books.  Open up the book, and there are seven rows of two capsules, one for morning and one for night.  And there are these two black half-circles on each end.

I had no idea how to open these things, and the graphic instructions on the book were no help.  Finally I realized that you were supposed to pop the moon tab, go around to the back of the book, and rip open the perforation from that tab.  That would expose the flimsy aluminum casing, and you pop the capsule through that, of course.

The first capsule was a disaster.  I almost tore the whole book just getting to it.  I was using my finger, just like the graphic instructions said, and I had to use superhuman strength to punch that half-moon tab through.

So I needed a tool.  And then, on my desk, I saw a bottle opener.  It's emblazoned with the Metromix logo and URL.  I guess Metromix is this online entertainment guide for cities in the country.  I don't even remember where or when I got it.

I thought what the hell; use this before getting a knife from the kitchen.  But when I applied the bottle opener to the tab, I saw something extraordinary, even miraculous: The top part of the bottle opener, the handle I guess is what it's called, was the same length across as the length of the half-moon tab!  It is perfect!!

So for the next two weeks I just took the bottle opener, pressed hard into the half-circle tab, and it immediately gave way.  Easy as pie.  No jeopardizing the integrity of the book, no frustration, I have gotten to all the capsules with ease.  And I got some use out of a free thing for the first time ever.

Too bad it's too late.  With my two-week supply gone, I now have to go the researchers to replenish my stash, and I've been told these will come in a bottle.  And with the cap that screws open, so I won't need the bottle opener.  Damn it.

Historic Weather Day

One of those archetypal fall days -- totally overcast, even darkly cloudly, jacket weather.  Too bad it was very windy today.  Like, really, really, really windy.  Like unprecedented windy.  The state set a record for lowest pressure ever.  I guess that's the cause of the incredible gusts we've been having all day.

The barometric pressure, as I read on the news today, is essentially the weight of the air above us.  When the pressure's low, that means the air's light.  And I guess that means the pressure above us is very low.  I learned very little from my science classes, but one of the things I do know is that all natural phenomena go from high to low, including pressure.  So the winds, I guess, go from areas of high pressure to low pressure.  And the lower the pressure, the easier it is to move in, therefore the quicker it gets here, therefore the winds coming in have gusted to 40, 50, 60 miles per hour.

I was feeling great when I woke up this afternoon at 12:30 to the sound of the door opening and closing.  Oh shit, My Father's here.  Never saw him and we didn't speak a word while he was here.  (Didn't say anything or act pissy towards me during dinner, thank Buddha.)  So that meant I could go about a half-hour later and watch The Social Network.

Quick review of the movie: If you don't like Aaron Sorkin scripts, you won't like this one.  And Fincher doesn't really put his directoral imprint on this; this seems like a film any craftsman can do, not just an artist like Fincher.  The story's the thing.  Ever since I heard they were making this movie I've been interested in how facebook came about.  And so I was mostly fascinated by the depiction of how the site came to be.  And if it is true, Mark Zuckerberg's an antisocial dick, Sean Parker is a goddamn motherfucker, and even Larry Somers, back to becoming President of Harvard, comes off as uncaring windbag.

The movie did feel a little long and slow, but that could've just been me.  I was sitting up at one point, and I felt myself lurching farther over than I intended to.  And then I figured out my head was a little light.  I was able to keep my attention on the TSN, but after it was over and I started to gather my trash, I was still light-headed.  When I got up, I felt top-heavy, like an out-of-control balloon at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.  I was, at one point, very scared that I wouldn't have the clear head to drive home.

But I did.  And I felt good enough to make my pre-dinner run for coffee.  I decided I wanted to go to Barnes & Noble because I hadn't been there in a long time, I wrote and sent in my article already, and I wanted to browse through some magazines because I like doing that and I hadn't done that in a long time.  I needed to go through the Internet one more time; however the light-headedness came back with a vengeance.  I didn't really know if going to the coffeehouse was a really good idea.

However, I left the car out in the driveway intending to leave, and I hate turning my engine on just to drive it into the garage.  So, despite not feeling well, I went, had coffee, came back, still felt like shit when we had pork chops for dinner, and I decided to sleep.

I don't know why, but at the first sign of summer becoming winter, my body, uh, switches.  It's not a good adjustment -- I get really, really tired and cranky, and I think I also get fat.  My body seems to shut down or slow my metabolism when it gets really cold outside, and this is definitely cold weather.  So maybe the cause of my light-headedness is my body, related to the weather.  Or, it's the low pressure, also related to the weather.

Whatever the case, I've always found that turning on my heater and sleeping it off helps much of my ills.  An environment where my body has time to repair itself in heat makes me feel much better afterward.  Even though I missed the results show of Dancing With The Stars 11 (Audrina Patridge got kicked off?!), my light-headedness is gone.  For the most part.

The downside is that I missed a friend's friend who wanted to hang out tonight.  He's leaving tomorrow morning.  Oops.

Inner Thoughts While Eating Pizza Hut Tonight

Parents wanted to cash in on "Medium Mondays" at Pizza Hut.  Unfortunately, it's gone, replaced by their brand new menu where there are only three price points.

Anyway, I got home with the pizza before they got home.  Phew!  So glad they weren't waiting.  In fact, they came home, like, two minutes after I did, so the pizza didn't sit around the dinner table getting old, either.

Three things in my internal monologue:

1) Grandmother came out, sat down, looked around, and waited.  I knew what she was thinking: She was not going to get a slice of pizza until I or either of my parents open the box.  Instead of opening the damn box herself -- and even though she's old, it's not as if the box lid is as heavy as the world Atlas had to hold up -- she waited for one of us to open it to get our own slice before sliding in and saying she wants one too.  Having gone through this charade before, I too waited, while my parents got around to getting their slices.

Father wolfed down his first slice and wanted to grab a second from the pizza box inbetween us, but it opened from my end.  I tried to spin it around and half-open it for him, but apparently being deaf and dumb during dinner didn't say anything and just putting at the box.  Another sign that he thinks he impregnated Mother just so he could have a servant around.

So I open it for him, and of course, like a fucking geriatric ninja, just as I close it Grandmother goes, "Ooh-ooh-ooh, give me one!"  (Maybe she didn't say "Ooh-ooh-ooh!" but I'm saying she did to make her sound stupid.)  Goddamn, foiled again!  So I sputter loudly, throw the pizza box I just opened on top of the other one, which was right in front of her, and throw open the lid, violently.  Honestly, I thought either of my parents would stop scarfing down their pizza, look at me with a slowly-angering stare, then yell, "What the hell was that for?"

Look, maybe I overreacted.  But I don't like my Grandmother's laziness and sense of entitlement, and I saw it coming a mile away -- and then I still got sucked into it.  She can't get her own fuckin' pizza?

2) We have a TV in the dining room, and I sometimes get queasy over what I watch.  Sometimes there's a show or a news story that somehow makes reference to a situation that relates to, uh, where I'm at right now.  That's happened when I saw a scene about someone not finding a job, or being 40 and still living with their parents.

It happened again tonight.  We were watching the PBS Newshour when a story came up about director Judd Apatow releasing a new book.  The piece covered the movies he directed, and how they all seem to deal with men in arrested development.  Apatow talked about the main theme going through his movies, namely guys who don't grow up, and how that reflected his life of not really assuming grown-up responsibilities like finding work and raising a family.  That sounds like ... me.

Thank Buddha Father got up and didn't see this.  But Mother did because she was still eating her pizza.  At  times when what the TV is showing cuts too close to the bone, I reach the for the remote.  I don't want either of parents to watch this and then turn to me and go, "So, have you found a job/are you going back to school/have you thought about moving out/have you found a girlfriend yet?" so maybe changing to Wheel of Fortune would prevent that.  On the other hand, maybe changing the channel lets them know I don't want them to see that and talk about it, and then they will talk about it.

I was paralyzed, so I didn't change the channel.  I let the piece on Apatow air to the end before changing the channel.  Luckily, neither Mother nor Father asked me about my future.

3) I ate six pizzas, which is kind of low for me.  And yet I feel so fat!  I put on the dress pants I plan on wearing for the week and I barely fit in them now.  I exercise, but since the fall TV season is on I don't do it as much.  I stayed in Saturday night and all day Sunday, and I racked up some big meals during that time without working out.  So I feel like my pants are hurting me even more.  Shit, the elastic pajama pants I'm wearing right now seem to be straining because of my rotund waist.

Another culprit: Monopoly.  If you haven't heard, the Monopoly game is back at McDonald's.  Since it started I've been going a few times a week and getting large fries and a medium drink.  I still think I'm reining myself in, yet since I've done this I think I've gotten fatter.

Moreover, my throat doesn't feel good.  Tonight I threw up a little in my mouth.  Actually, that's a common occurrence.  I think this is acid reflux disease.  I should go to the fridge and pop a Pepto-Bismol tablet, but now it's too late.  And my throat still feels queasy and acidic.

Person Who Should Be Fired: Sahari Of The U Of M Dental School

This idiot bitch pissed me off ever since she called me the first time for something.  She's a receptionist for the University of Minnesota Dental School, a place I now go to (well, maybe not anymore; more on that later).  Now, I like the dental school since it's a teaching school.  That means the dentists are actually students, and before they start cleaning your teeth they have to call a teaching supervisor over and tell him or her what he or she is going to do, and then the supervisor okays it.  It takes a hell of a lot of time, but the trade-off is it's cheaper.  Plus, for me, I take some satisfaction in helping someone learn by providing my body as an experiment.  That's why I undergo experiments.  So even though other people, such as my mom, can't bother to deal with the hassle, I don't mind it.

What I don't like are the receptionists.  Ever since I began going to the U. Dental School I've had to deal with a few of them, and I wouldn't mind smacking the shit out of each and every one of them if I ever see them.

I called in to make a reservation, and from this and next few times I called to reserve, I got service that was both off-putting and slow.  I wasn't greeted with a "hi" -- maybe not a big deal, but if you're in customer service, it seems like something you do, you know?  And then when I asked my question, all I got was a "Let me see," then some typing, then a date that was open, and that was that.  Terse, OK, and so maybe I should be glad I got an appointment.  But compared to the much better customer I get from private clinics (they need me to give them hundreds of dollars, of course), this rubbed me the wrong way.

This bitch Sahari is the worst.  Once I was assigned to a girl who's part of this teaching group, apparently this Sahari is the one receptionist you talk to to arrange appointments if you're physically there.  I think I spoke to her once or twice over the phone before, and what Sahari provided was a level of interaction that was even lower than the other bitches that work the phones there.  She didn't say hi.  She spoke very little.  Sahari said, "Just wait a second while I take a look," she would instead just let the silence hang over the phone while she banged on her keyboard for something that really should've taken a lot less time.  And she was very quick to hang up the phone on me.  At her best, she treated me like I worked with her.  At worst, she made it clear that she didn't want to deal with patients like me.

I remember my last two of my last three dealings with her somewhat vividly.  Sahari called me to schedule an appointment some time in September.  I remember this vividly because she called me at 8:30 in the fucking morning.  Now, I have been out of the workplace for awhile now, but I know that you don't call anybody unless you're in the same workplace until 10.  What is that bitch doing calling me so early?  For her part, Sahari acted as if she had no idea she was being rude.  Idiot.

I should put a condition on my remark that I remember my dealings with her vividly; I recall her calling me up so goddamn early, I don't recall the day and time she scheduled me.  So when she called again -- at a more decent time, 9:30, I guess -- I had to be profusely sorry and ask if she can find a different time.  From there, Sahari didn't even say "hold on."  She just fell silent, and I heard the typing of her keys.  At one point she even asked somebody in her office, "How do you do this?"  Really, I get to eavesdrop on this shit?  Dumbass.  Do you guys even have hold music?  Well, maybe not, it is the U., and Tim Pawlenty is starving the shit out of post-secondary education because the people of Minnesota want that.

Anyway, she gave me a time, and I couldn't do that, so she said she'd call me back.  This third call is the most infuriating.  My Grandmother gave me the phone and told me it was asking for me.  It was Sahari.  First of all, this cunt called me up at 8:30 again.  Then she said, ahem, "I have you down for an appointment for today at 9:30."

That's when I went ballistic.  First off, as far as I knew, I didn't have an appointment scheduled; that she acted like I did and was only reminding me was the culmination of a bunch of slights and indignities that made me roil inside.  Second, she called me an hour before this appointment I didn't know I had.  Third, this appointment was for a time and date that I told her in my previous call I couldn't meet.  And this dumbfuck apparently scheduled it for me anyway, and only bothered to tell me now.

"OK," I said to Sahari, leaving out the fact I told her I couldn't come in this particular day, trying to control my temper, because I needed to let her have it, "I can't make this appointment.  And for future reference, I can't be told of an appointment an hour before the appointment, OK?"

"Well, you're a hard person to get ahold of," Sahari said.  Point taken; I didn't give the U. School my cell, just my home.  Still doesn't excuse her early morning calls, nor her blank attitude over the phone, nor forgetting what I told her.

Seeing that this is a dental school, and she can't see too many people because they each take a lot of time while she gets the OK to perform her services, and there are a lot of people who want to get their teeth checked and cleaned for cheap, my dentist is all booked through the end of the year.  "Well," Sahari continued in a tone of voice that was flippant and slackerish, "When you have time on your schedule, call me."

"And if you have a cancellation, please let me know," was my olive branch to her.  If I had any pride, I'd go to this clinic Mother now goes to instead of the U.  But I wasn't happy with my previous private clinic, and I see no reason to think these guys are going to be any better.  Besides, I don't think they take my insurance.  So either I don't get my teeth cleaned -- a distinct possibility -- or I have to go back to the U. for an appointment.  Where I'll have to deal with this goddamn woman again.

I really want to throw something at her, just to let her know how she makes me feel.

Nail This Phelps Asshole

I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. -Voltaire (not a direct quote, but a summation of his thoughts written by others)

Yeah, fuck Voltaire. Why in the fuck would you defend someone who says something you disagree with? You've got a side to defend -- help them. Defend to the death, whatever. I've got some masturbating I need to do.

I think of this whenever there are stories of odious, evil people saying obnoxious, hurtful things and saying, "Well, it's free speech!" One of these people is Fred Phelps, head of this crazy, sick Westboro Baptist Church. He and his followers, all of whom are family, go around to military funerals and make fun of them, saying they died because America hasn't done enough against homosexuality. I guess. Yeah, how Phelps and his demented offspring make the case that God is punishing soldiers, and soldiers only, for our country because of sexual orientation tolerance remains beyond the logic of any decent man. And I have no idea why they want to protest a funeral.

And yet, because of this fucked-up thinking, they have gone around these ceremonies and ridiculing them, absolutely reveling in their deaths with such venom. You could chalk it up as a bunch of crazy people, which they are, but the viciousness of their free speech, along with the fact that they make this their full-time job, means somebody has to put a stop to it.

The only people who can do that, at least for the moment, is the Supreme Court. Albert Snyder, the father of his dead son, Matthew, is suing the Phelpses for defaming, invading the privacy of, and inflicting emotional distress on him when picketing at the memorial for his son four years ago.

Snyder won first, then the federal appellate court overturned the verdict. So Snyder appealed to the Supreme Court. By this account by the Associated Press, the Justices really want to nail Phelps, but don't think they can.

Yes, they can. Why? These guys are the same people who said businesses can spend as much as they want for political campaigns without people knowing who they are in the Citizens United case. Every decent individual in the country thinks that was a stupid idea, but the Supreme Court did it because it's the highest court in the nation. I ain't no constitutional scholar, but I think it's bullshit what the Supreme Court did in that case. I don't believe allowing corporations to spend money freely and without transparency is what the Framers of the Constitution had in mind. But the Court did it anyway.

So why not do apply that same flimsy, bendable call to get these Westboro assholes, too? It seems obvious that this Court will interpret the Constitution the way it wants to, however inaccurately the interpretation turns out to be. So I don't care that the Court doesn't know if they can help Snyder. They've done it once before to "save" conglomerates; do it again in order to finally stop these cruel, delusion motherfuckers once and for all.

I'll go one step further. I'm sick of thinking that these Justices will have to side with that bigot Phelps because the Bill of Rights guarantees free speech. Fuck that. If the Framers would believe that, fuck them.

And fuck the First Amendment. Seriously, fuck it! Cruel, evil men from the beginning of this nation have relied on that to spew hateful lies about innocent people, Phelps currently being the most egregious case. They wave free speech as this unassailable banner that we all wave together. And they all try and scare us with snowball tactics -- that if their free speech rights are limited or struck down, our free speech rights are next.

That's the line of thinking by the most obnoxious of advocacy groups, the ACLU, as well as, unfortunately, newspaper groups, both of whom have filed friends-of-the-court briefs in support of the Phelps and their assertion to their sick bile. This is why I can't stand the ACLU most of the time, and why I never became a newsman.

First of all, the First Amendment is not absolute. You can't yell "Fire!" in a crowded movie theater just because of free speech. And there are time, place and manner restrictions an authority can place on a protest or any other gathering. So why not do that here? Can't you set up a temporary rule that says, for example, that whenever there's a funeral going on you can't protest within, say, 20 miles of the ceremony? Why not, corporation-loving Supreme Court?

Moreover -- and this is the point I really want to make, even though I probably won't articulate it well -- I truly resent alarmists telling me that my free speech rights are on the line whenever a Nazi group or white power group or these Westboro bastards. Nothing I say is anywhere close to the vile, mean shit these people spew out of their mouths. I talk about sex, masturbation, and sometimes poop. That's a hell of a lot different from hoping "fags" die, or saying that minorities are inferior to whites, or wishing that Jews need to be deported out of the country or shot.

My free speech is different from their free speech. My free speech isn't crazy. My free speech doesn't go out of its way to hurt people. My free speech doesn't lie. Those people, all they want to do is to hate, demean people, delight in other people's misery, make other people feel threatened, inferior, unsafe. Fuck those people. These people's supposed free speech rights need to be taken away from them for both the safety of certain members of society and, I think just as important, the civility of this country.

What, is civility not mentioned in the Constitution? As I said before, who cares? Somebody needs to stop these people, if only to reclaim a sense of decency. Now, the AP article states that, surprisingly, the conservative wing of the Court (Chief John Roberts, Samuel Alito and hateful archconservative Antonin Scalia) tried their damndest to get Phelps. But his side, represented by their daughter, appartenly was very effective, according to one reporter I saw reporting on it on Washington Week. Goddamn I hate it when these hatemonger pricks know how to use the First Amendment for their twisted purposes.

It looks like, if the Supreme Court strictly reads the Constitution, Phelps is going to get away with it and be free to impugn Mr. Snyder and other families of dead men and women service our armed forces and glorifying in their deaths because it's God's retribution. But please, Supreme Court, just this once, nail that son-of-a-bitch Phelps to his own goddamn delusional cross and let Snyder and all the other families Phelps and his followers stalked and mocked take them to court for what they did to them. Do it, for their sake, for my sake, for our country's sake. America will be fine with an iffy decision to shut down Phelps. And we'd be better off as a nation trying to do its best instead of one merely needing to do what is the law.

So after my little traffic debacle, I parked my car in front of My Favorite Coffeehouse and listened to the end of the Rangers-Yankees American League Championship Series game.  After the Yankees lost -- thank fucking God -- I came out of my car and started getting my laptop out of my trunk.

I saw two guys walking by, one of whom was wearing a Rangers shirt.  I thought he'd be so happy learning his team just won the pennant and would be going to the World Series: "Hey, your team just won."

"I know," he said, "I just saw it on TV."

And I forget that even though this is Uptown, there are sports bars in the area, including one just 40 yards away.

I'm thinking he didn't think any more of this, but I kind of feel like a dork.

Bad Driver: 695 DGJ

What I hate most when driving are cars being able to get ahead of me in traffic when I can't.  I'm not a great driver.  I'm OK, I'm passable, I haven't gotten into an accident in years.  But there are a hell of a lot more nimble people in vehicles more agile than mine that, through deft driving and luck, roar up behind me, cut in front of me, and before I could chase him, he's slalomed his way up through the gridlock.  And I'm in the back going, How the fuck did that asshole do that?

That happened tonight from my trip from Robbie Stadium to My Favorite Coffeehouse in Uptown.  It was really busy, and there are only two lanes going each way, and the bus complicated things.  But this black VW somehow zipped past me, and when I tried to copy him, I couldn't because I was timid and, worst of all, I made the wrong choices.  I really hate it when I decide to switch from the lane with all the cars turning left for the one with the bus in front of me, thinking it won't stop, but it does.  And then I decide to switch back because the bus in front of me will stop again but none of the cars on the other lane look to be taking a left, only all those cars stop to wait for oncoming traffic because they are taking lefts, and the bus blows right by me.  It was that kind of drive, and while I made every wrong decision, this asshole made every right one.

I got so pissed off that I ditched my route to see if I could chase him down.  I drove another half-mile past where I planned on going to find him, but he was gone.

Fuck you, Mr. black VW with the license plate 695 DGJ.

The Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey

(Before I begin this WMNSS, I have to take the unprecedented step and write a foreword to it. It's necessary because there has been unprecedented failure with the University of Minnesota this screening week. Because of it, I believe I need to make a point. Therefore, not only are both pro teams elevated to the top by virtue of, you know, winning, I am lifting them out of negative numbers, even though both the Vikings and the Wild have massive problems now and in the near future.

Just for one week, the problems with the athletic department at the U. has to be highlighted the best way I know now. Yes, this is a message to Athletic Director Joel Maturi. No, all the losses this week should not be seen as reason to fire him. But it is a sympton, a confirmation that things are continuing a downward slide, and at some point, Maturi will, and should, be held responsible.)

Positive Numbers: Vikings (Last Week: -7). Despite Donggate and the fact that the offense is still not the high-powered engine it needs to be in order for the team to win the Super Bowl, they did manage to win their only game this screening week, over the surprisingly 1-4 Dallas Cowboys, on Sunday to finish on top of this week's WMNSS. Moreover, shockingly, people project a lot of upside to this club, especially since all three NFC North opponents lost last week.

That's dangerous to believe -- I attribute the fans' optimism to the fact that they need to be optimistic about something, especially after the Twins -- but there is some compelling evidence: the Bears have an offense just as the shitty as the Vikes', and they don't have Randy Moss now and Sidney Rice coming back, and the Packers, whom the Vikings play in the Sunday night game, are as riddled with injuries as an team in the NFL. Even though it is on the road, this game is for the taking, and if they make it to 3-3, all of a sudden their early-season struggles (again, Donggate excluded) are a thing of the past.

#0: Wild (Last Week: -3). They go 2-1 for the week, and the one loss may be the reason for the two wins. The morning after the 3-2 home loss to Columbus Saturday, Head Coach Todd Richards put the team through what I guess is called a "bag skate," basically making the players skate around until their lungs burn, and then skate them a lot more. (I just heard on The Common Man Progrum that the reason it's called a "bag skate" is that you practice without pucks -- the pucks remain in the bag.)

Well, that version of corporeal punishment worked, because they won their next two games. Maybe Vancouver Canuck players sympathized with their counterparts because they laid down to the Wild Tuesday night at the X, 6-2. Well, maybe Rick Rypien gave a damn, judging by how he shoved a fan on his way back to his locker serving a penalty. And then they beat Edmonton at Edmonton last (Thursday) night, 4-2. Who knows if this will hold up; they have at Vancouver in a back-to-back tonight (Friday night), then host vastly improved Los Angeles Monday and Aleksandr Ovechkin and Washington Thursday. But if this team is ever going to improve, and if they do, this will have to be seen as the turning point, no?

(OK, y'all ready for the carnage? Here we go. ...)

#-1: Gopher football (Last Week: -6). Yes. The team that fired their coach over the weekend is better than all the other U. teams this week. Why? Two reasons. One, they only lost once. Two, by shitcanning Tim Brewster, the program can now see the light at the end of the tunnel. OK, so they might go 1-11 the rest of the year. They won't have Coach Brew leading this team anymore!

So Interim Coach Jeff Horton is playing with house money. And his first game is this Saturday morning, at the Bank, against a wounded and somewhat listing Penn St. program. They could win this game. I will be there with my friend watching to see if the team responds better this week, thereby cementing the feeling that the failures of this squad were Brewster's fault.

#-2: Gopher soccer (Last Week: -2). Lost at Penn St. and then at a ranked Ohio St. team in OT. They are second amongst all U. squads because their losses were on the road and tighter. They have now lost three out of their last five and stand 2-3-1 in the Big Ten.

What I thought was a golden chance to take the conference now becomes a fight to make the NCAA Tournament. They have their final home games of the year this week: vs. Michigan tonight (Friday night), a game I''m planning on going to, then vs. Michigan St. Sunday afternoon.

#-3: Gopher volleyball (Last Week: -5). Another double loss, also at the eastern edge of the conference. I understand losing at Penn St., even if they did clip a set off the Lady Lions, because they're still good. But getting swept at unranked Ohio St. is, well, unacceptable. Now, Middle Blocker Lauren Gibbemeyer was out for the past dozen games until these two games because of a bad wrist, and don't forget Outside Hitter Hailey Cowles is out for the year. But you don't lose to an unranked Ohio St., let alone in three goddamn sets.

Even last year's squad, which was shuffling all year before turning it on and getting to the Final Four, didn't do this. Their only salve is that they have a four-game homestand. Unfortunately, their first game, tonight (Friday night), is against Illinois, which is currently ranked sixth in the nation and has displaced Penn St. as the top team in the Big Ten. They also host Wisconsin, but this one is their annual Williams Arena game, where tickets are a buck and all proceeds benefit breast cancer charities.

#-4: Gopher women's hockey (Last Week: -4). OK, I've accepted the fact that the image of U. women's hockey doesn't match the reality, which is they are permanent bridesmaids to UMD.

However, I didn't think they'd sink to new depths by getting swept, at Ridder, to North Dakota. No, this is not the men's team. This is the women's team and a program that has not achieved the success in women's hockey that the Gophs or the Bulldogs have. They should have beat this team, even if they were ranked in the USCHO.com Top Ten. Now, the Fighting Sioux is ranked ahead of Minnesota.

This weekend the team go up 94 and play a pair at St. Cloud St. It's an unranked team; will they win?

#-5: Gopher men's hockey (Last Week: -1). Basing it on just the results last week, you can make an argument that the male hockeyers shouldn't be at the bottom. Plus, there's a malaise with this program, an expectation that they will not drop a game or two at home.

But to get swept against Nebraska-Omaha, a team that is playing its first-ever series as a member of the Western Collegiate Hockey Conference after jumping from the CCHA, a team that has existed in Division I for only 13 years, a team whose initials spell out a children's fucking card game, UNO, at Williams Arena ... well, Don Lucia has to be on notice now. Whatever pull he had when winning those titles earlier this millenium is completely gone now that you lose to the ... what are they called, the Mavericks? How the fuck do you lose to UNO?

Maturi already is facing heat for being entrusted to hire another football coach; I'm developing a rule where an Athletic Director gets to fire and hire only one person per sport before being moved out. With football going through another rebuilding phase, men's hockey now has to be the program Maturi, or more able people than Maturi, have to concentrate on.

This weekend they host St. Cloud St., which is 14th in the USCHO.com Top 20; the Goofs are 20th. Hey, maybe they won't think their name will carry them past another supposed inferior school like they did last week!

Oh Yeah ... How Did Painting With An Old Brush Turn Out?

Um, OK, or at least good enough that I didn't switch to a new paintbrush like I could've.

I was in a rush to finish re-painting the fence on the sides of our house red, but I took two days off after spending the weekend two weekends ago trying to bang out that project.  I wasn't done -- I had the outside and the front of the right fence to do -- but I had to go to "work" and do some other stuff, so I couldn't finish the job till later in the week (which was last week).

I hate it when the paint on a brush dries.  I tried using them before to no avail; they're all crusty and can't pick up any paint.  I went to the hardware store to find solvents that could strip the brushes of the paint, but they're considered hazardous materials and therefore have to be disposed of properly, and I didn't want to deal with that, so instead I just buy more brushes.  I think there are about six or seven of them in a bag in the shed.

When I resumed painting, I noticed that when I spackled it on the fence that paint wouldn't go on evenly across the paint.  By that I mean that I saw these black lines in the same direction as I painted; the width and color of these streaks match the bristles of the brush.  I don't know if that meant that the bristles were so dry that no paint was being transferred from the brush to the fence and that the only paint on the fence was carried between the bristles or what; it was something I noticed.

Maybe I thought that same phenomenon happened when I used the brush for the first time, or maybe I was just too lazy to care.  But the paint worked well enough that I stuck with it.  A part of me still looks at the fence and thinks there's a distinct difference between the look of the part of the fence that was painted with the virgin brush and the part painted with the used-up one.

---

Oh, by the way, I didn't know how long the job was going to take, but I wanted to finish re-painting the fence that day (Friday) while not having any paint left over.  And I don't know how, but not only did I complete the whole thing in about three hours, I had just enough paint to re-paint the whole thing, no more, no less.  I had a feeling of accomplishment.

Moved To A Different Position

So I got a call today hiring me for the next Vikings game.  I call him back and says I should report at 6 in the morning.  It's a very early call time, three hours earlier than usual for a noon game.  But the last time I worked with this crew I was told to come in at 6 because I was spotting, the job I was talking about when I blogged about not knowing if I did a good job or not.

"So," I asked when I called him back telling him I could work that game, "I'll be spotting?"

I was in a Target getting meds for my Grandmother, so I only think he said, "No, just stats."

Oh.

You know, it was my first time, and I wasn't that good.  But I was trying to put a positive spin on things.  I have a lot of room for improvement, but I really wanted a chance to get better at it.  Now, I understand if the director needed or even wanted a new voice to help him.  But it stings, it really does.

Grandmother's Going To The Doctor Today; Meanwhile, These Are The Days Where Mornings Look Like Night

I kind of like mornings these days.  I woke up at 6 in the morning (not by choice) and it was still dark outside.  That's fantastic, isn't it?  It's like Mother Nature's saying, "No, you can sleep some more."

There's something about this time of year, when the workday starts right around, and maybe even for some, before dawn.  I like night in general.  It's also the time of year where it starts to get dark earlier in the evening, and while that's alright, it's not the same.  No, having those extra minutes when you wake up, where the sun is still at rest over the horizon, and the world is still calm, and your body doesn't get energized by the rays and you don't feel like you have to get up at 6 in the morning, those are special days.

Maybe I like them so much because they're around for such a short time.  In a couple weeks, I think, Daylight Saving Time ends, and so humans will get up just after the sun rises.  And in exchange, the workday will end just after the sun goes back down.

Again, I like it, but it's different.  That adjustment, especially the Monday after the fall back, devastates my body.  After dinner, I completely shut down and sometimes I get, like, a dozen hours of sleep.  I like sleep, but not when I have so little control over when I pass out.

In fact, it's kind of happening to me now.  I think my body's taking cues from the sky, but I worked a lot Sunday and had to rest, then I woke up early Monday, spent the day without a nap, helped Mother with some Bank of America online paying issue (maybe I'll talk about this later), and was run so ragged after that issue that I just rested in my bed watching Hawaii Five-O.

If Dave and/or Jay were new, I would've stayed up, but since they weren't, I shut the TV off at 11 telling myself I'd watch Kimmel (who's new, thank Buddha) if I couldn't sleep.  And I did, for seven hours.

I would like this schedule if I were working the same way and time as everybody else.  But since I'm not, I don't.

Stripper Shit

I wanted to talk to the stripper I saw perform Friday before I left.  Told her I was going to the club next week, but Monday (today).  It was a way for me to tease a reaction from her that'll show me how she feels about me after the time I took out my pee-pee in front of her.

She told me she'd be working there, but not Monday (today).  However, she did tell me the times she would be working.  I guess that means that she didn't mind me taking out my pee-pee.  Is she inviting me to take out my pee-pee again?  Hope so.  Will see.

---

Was at My Favorite Stripclub last night.  The stripper-turned-waitress, the girl who told me to go fuck myself after turning down my request to flash me her tits like she always did before, I saw her expose her mammoth mammaries to another guy.  Apparently it was his birthday, but she was hanging on him like they're boyfriend and girlfriend or something.

I assumed she didn't do that anymore.  But I guess she does, but not to me.  I was incensed, and I don't think I was able to hide it.  I was looking her way while she was all over him, and she looked back at me a couple times.  Did she get my message?

Come to think of it, what kind of message can I send?  That I didn't like what she was doing to this guy and not to me?  Like she cares.  Great, maybe my face wrote a check my ass can't cash.

She said she still does private parties.  After all the shit I saw last night, I still want to go and see her naked and maybe have her touch my pee-pee.  But I don't know if I can after the daggers I shot her.

Another Nightmare

Don't you hate it that after you wake up from a nightmare you can't remember most of it?  Well, I want to recall one that I had yesterday morning, but I can't.  I know I didn't have too many details when I woke up then, but now that I've been doing other things, I remember even less.

What I can say now is that involved seeing a group of people, maybe friends, get killed, possibly one-by-one style, by some people, I think.  The last scene was me having a face-to-face conversation with a guy I worked with when I was an usher, someone whose wedding reception I attended.  I guess he was in my nightmare because I feel guilty for quitting without saying goodbye.

That's all I remember about my nightmare.  Well, I was scared shitless too, I recall that.

What Exactly Is "Empty?"

So I was at a burlesque show tonight because it featured a hot girl I know.  I was almost -- repeat, almost -- done with my beer when I put it on the table.  Almost immediately -- and possibly while I was still fucking holding it in my hands, I don't remember because I was shocked -- one of the guys working there took the bottle.  It wasn't empty, dude, and I emitted body language indicating such.

But this girl I like was performing, and it was 2-for-1 and I still had my second beer, so I forgot it.  But I was demonstrative enough for the guy to see me, because he came up to me, shoved the bottle he took from me just beyond my peripheral vision, and said, "It's empty."

So I looked at the bottle again, in the air, neck resting on the guy's hand, tilted at a sharp angle.  It was kind of fizzy, but there was still some Grain Belt Premium in there.  Maybe not enough for a gulp, but to me, when you say "empty," you mean, "there's nothing left."  And was some beer left.

But I couldn't make a big deal out of this because I was watching this hot chick do tricks in the air.  So I turned away and waved my hand, hopefully saying, "OK."  Even though it wasn't.

Am I wrong?  Even if I am, he may've ripped the damn thing out of my hand.  What the hell is that shit?

The Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey

#-1: Gopher men's hockey (Re-Entry!). Only undefeated team for the week that won more than one game; that's not damning with faint praise, but I have to put the only mult-winning squad at the top of this week's WMNSS. They swept a two-game series with UMass last weekend at Mariucci, thanks in large part to Senior Forward Jay Barriball, who scored four of the team's ten goals (five in each win) and was named WCHA Offensive Player Of The Week. Honestly, I don't remember the last time they swept a home series.

I did not know this, but they begin their season with their longest homestand, six games over three weekends. This weekend they pop the WCHA cherry of Nebraska-Omaha, transplants from the CCHA.

#-2: Gopher soccer (Re-Entry!). Was at their only game this week, a 4-1 win over Purdue. I haven't been to a soccer match at Robbie Stadium in the afternoon in a long time, but I have always loved the view. It's absolutely gorgeous in the fall -- girls at play in a perfect field, and out in the distance only a humble two-lane road runs through gorgeous trees turning their leaves and verdant rolling farmland. It's a perfect place to have a game in a non-revenue college sport.

Even better, after a scoreless first half, the squad lit up the Boilermakers in the second. The four goals come in two sets of two, the second of both coming rapidly after its predecessors, seemingly when Purdue was demoralized. The second Gopher goal came on a touch pass from about thirty yards out to a streaking Shari Eckstrom in front of the goal 33 seconds after Minnesota drew first blood. And the fourth goal was a doozy; 58 seconds after the Gophers made it 3-0, a touch pass just outside the box was headed (don't know who it was, but her back was facing the Purdue goal) to a cutting Molly Rouse in front of the net. I don't know if I've seen better passing on a soccer goal in person in my life.

This week is, at least according to the school website, the hardest weekend in their conference schedule: at Penn St. Friday and at Ohio St. Sunday. The Buckeyes are ranked, albeit behind Minnesota; both teams currently sit at or near the top of the Big Ten standings. They could cement a bid to the NCAA Tournament with a sweep.

#-3: Wild (Last Week: -5). Shocking -- OK, maybe not so -- that up until Thursday (last) night's win over Edmonton in the home opener the Wild's only victory this albeit newborn season was against some stupid damn club team from Finland. And yeah, maybe the Oilers aren't that much better than that club team. But a win's a win, and assuming that victories will be in short supply again this year, they should revel in the fact that the organization won their ninth straight home opener a little longer than a good team would.

With enough time to overcome their jetlag, the Wild now get into the swing of things with three games this week: vs. Columbus Saturday, hosting Vancouver Tuesday, then at Edmonton Thursday. The Blue Jackets game is the same night as the season opener of the Minnesota Rollergirls bout at the Roy Wilkins Auditorium right next door to the X. They always schedule matches on the same night -- why? Shit, now I'll have a bitch of a time finding free parking. Goddammit.

#-4: Gopher women's hockey (Last week: -1). They drop down mostly because of variety; they'll be good most of the year, so what's one week in the middle of the pack?

They also won only one game that counted, a 1-0 win over Wayne St. (Before that they defeated the local pro club, the Minnesota Whitecaps, 3-2, but only after Forward Jen Schoullis scored twice.) Forward Amanda Kessel scored the only goal in the Gophers' win over the Warriors. As they have many times before, they have started the season undefeated, albeit (I'm using that word a lot this entry) 3-0. They test that record in a home twofer against North Dakota.

#-5: Gopher volleyball (Last Week: -2). OK, now this is shocking. I still remember last year, when they looked like they didn't have their shit together all year, yet were able to put it all together come tournament time and (thanks to having the regional at the Sports Pavilion) make it to the Final Four.

But last year's team didn't lose to Northwestern. In fact, I can't remember the last time Minnesota lost to Northwestern in four sets, like they did last Sunday. And in a very dispiriting continuation of a pattern, they started off well, winning the first set, before getting swept the next three.

The stat of the match was blocks: The Wildcats doubled up the Gophs, 18-9. Middle Blocker Sabel Moffett got, get this, 14 of them, one short of tying the all-time high in school history.

This team ain't no scrubs; Northwestern improved to 15-2, the program's best-ever start through 17 games, and the team was ranked in the AVCA Top 25 at #24. The 'Cats are now 20th, while somehow, Minnesota is still ahead of them, at 19th.

That should change this week: They're at Penn St. Friday night (tonight). They'll get swept. Will they show some fight at Ohio St. Saturday (tomorrow) night?

#-6: Gopher football (Last Week: -4). You know, I feel sorry for Tim Brewster after his 41-23 beatdown at Wisconsin. Badgers Head Coach Bret Bielema was running up the score when he went for two late. Yeah, yeah, I hear, "Well, if you don't like it, stop 'em!" The Gophs were down by at least two scores and they looked ragged the second half; they weren't stopping anybody. There was no reason Wisconsin had to rub it in.

Now, this proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that Brewster will be fired after this year. But for the first time, instead of a shrug, I kind of wanted to give him a shoulder to cry on. These days, he isn't brimming with confidence. In his press conferences he looks like a guy groping for truth, a man existentially lost. But there may be salvation this weekend: They can beat Purdue in Purdue, even if the Gophs are 5 1/2-point underdogs.

Quick overview on the rest of the season: They have a prayer at Purdue, next week at home against Penn St., and next month at Illinois. This can be a 4-win season ... which means Brewster will still be fired. But they can also go 1-11, in which case he definitely will really, really be fired.

#-7: Vikings (Last Week: -3). I've heard a lot of people think they somehow turned the corner late in the third quarter of their 29-20 loss to the New York Jets. Yeah, Brett Favre started clicking with his receivers ... or at least that's what I heard. They were playing so shitty in the first half that I would up watching Hawaii Five-O then turned off the TV and tried to pass out.

Maybe Minnesota fans need to be optimistic after the Twinks pissed down their legs, but I cannot see how anybody can look at this team as a glass with half-full purple Kool-Aid. Brett Favre is now under investigation for sexting his 41-year-old dick to Jenn Sterger. (Aside: Look at her. I can understand Favre wanting to show her his cock. Shit, I'd do it. Fuck, I might show it to her in person!) He has tendinitis in his arm. By suspension or through injury, he might have to sit out for one or two games. Our backups are Tarvaris Jackson and Joe Webb. And we are 1-3.

The Vikes face the Dallas Cowboys at the Dome Saturday afternoon in a game that will go national. Dallas, like the Vikes, are 1-3 and had Super Bowl aspirations. This is a de facto elimination game: No team since the last whatever years have started their season 1-4 and made the playoffs. Shit, the percentage of teams that were 2-3 and made the playoffs aren't very good, either. And do you think either team can win it all right now? This is a game that could feature two dead teams walking.

#-Infinity: Twins (Last Week: -Infinity). OK, first of all, to all the guys bitching about people bitching about the payroll disparity: I understand what you're feeling, but they're right. Now, having one-half the salary roster of the Yankees doesn't excuse the team from going 2-for-18, or laying down in Game 3. But they're the best team money can buy, year in and year out, and that allows them the luxury of knowing they're going to be in the playoffs almost every year. The Twins, for all the good they do in the regular season, cannot say that. And that's because the Pohlads cannot and/or will not spend to the level of the Yanks. No team can.

Also, letting players know they will spend money (within a system that allows profligate spending and has feebly tried to level the playing field through revenue sharing) allows the Yankees to not only get the best free agents, but to replace them with other players in case the big-money guys fail. Again, spending so much money allows you to make mistakes. The room for error for virtually every other team is small. You just have to take a look at next year, when everybody knows Cliff Lee will be signing with the Yankees. And the rich get richer. The Twinkies' flameout has nothing to do with payroll disparity, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Those who think the choice for what happened comes down to either performance or money is making a false choice; the answer is both, or yes.

So, what to do about it? Well, this organization could use a lot of things. They could use an ace, a shutdown pitcher. They could use some left-handed power. I really do think they need an asshole, some guy who's going to irritate his teammates but will make them focus on winning a World Series (I think getting back A.J. Pierzynski would be a great move.

And, even though it flies in the face of rewarding good people, I wouldn't mind a switch in Managers. Ron Gardenhire looked impotent in this American League Division Series, and while I'm a huge fan in stability, shit like that ain't gonna fly, not when the taxpayers in the metro area are giving $360 million to this team for a new ballpark they've been bitching for for 15 years. So what if he's going to get AL Manager Of The Year? (And I thought Ron Washington is going to get it. He's going, "Hey, what about me? We actually won a playoff series?" Well, he's probably concentrating on the AL Championship Series, which begins tonight. Either that or snorting cocaine.) Why not get Joe Torre? He's got the talent; all he has to do is flash his rings and they'll play every fucking day if he wants them to.

But the main thing these fuckers need is to grow some goddamn balls. The emasculation these guys took was embarrassing. Until these 25 guys grow a spine, they'll never beat the Yankees. And the decision to give the Twins a new edifice before the Vikings (who play under a salary cap system that forces a much more level playing field for all teams) will remain a big mistake.

Family's Making Me Insecure Again

Another instance of miscommunication again tonight, right around dinnertime, right around the time I was leaving to work out.  Grandmother thought my parents were running late.  As told my Grandmother I was leaving, and I should've told her earlier, because she responded by saying: "You are?  My God, so that's why they're late!"  (I recently found out that if I'm not going to be home for dinner, my parents don't cook at home; instead they bring Burger King home.  No other place, just BK, without fail.  I see the bags and trash when I come home.  Funny.)

She started to make rice in anticipation of them coming home to make dinner.  "Now I have too much food I'm cooking," Grandmother said.  Man, I forgot to tell her I wasn't eating tonight.  Dammit.

---

Came home around midnight.  Went downstairs to check and see if the modem was plugged in.

Just as I saw that it was, I heard the master bedroom door open.  It was Father, groggy and limping from another hard day at work and a long rest in his bed, saying to me, "Are you OK?  OK, OK, OK" as he walked into the bathroom.

Later, when I was in the bathroom, I heard this loud lurching up the stairs.  Father, getting a late-night snack.  I always hate situations like these because, invariably, when I try to cross him at the dinner table he asks me for something.  Really bad, bad memories about this.

But he was too busy chomping loudly on food opened loudly to notice me, I guess.  That or he was hungry.  Father didn't talk to me while I passed him.  Hopefully he isn't suppressing his anger at me coming home so late from exercising.  Never know with him.

NIghtmare

Passed out around midnight, just before Jimmy Kimmel Live.  Woke up around 3:30 in the morning.

At the end of my slumber was a vivid but vague nightmare.  I was with my parents at their store.  Darkness.  And a series of swinging hooks and blades that I had avoid, and presumably my folks had to avoid too.  Me and my parents were being chased or attacked by someone or something while in the store.

That's all I could gather from the nightmare.  Well, I woke up before I got killed.

The Depressing State Of Minnesota Sports

All I can say right now is that it sucks being a Minnesota sports fan right now.  First you have the Twins pissing down their legs, and now the Vikings losing to the Jets, and now Brett Favre Donggate.

It's not going to get better.  This winter we get to watch (or not watch) the Timberwolves, who will suck yet again this year; the Wild, whose sellout streak has already ended and may face crowds that'll rival Southern cities unless the team shows improvement; Gopher men's hockey, which'll probably live down to the rich history of the program yet again this year; Gopher men's basketball, where we're about to turn on Tubby Smith if he doesn't turn it around; Gopher women's basketball, whose fall back down to the dredges of the Big Ten is almost complete; Gopher women's hockey, a program that has gotten stuck into a position of being a bridesmaid but not a bride (to the dozen people who give a shit); and the Swarm, who ... are the Swarm.

It's going to be a shitty winter.  Unless the Vikings surprise the world, this sports malaise won't lift until ... the Twins in the spring.  Oh God, it's not going to get better after the winter, either.

Could Not Finish My Steak

In an historic first, I was unable to eat all of the succulent T-bone Father cooked for me tonight.  It is possible that I haven't finished dinner before, but for the big foods that are mine alone to eat and that I love -- steak, pho -- I've always polished them off.  For those foods, tonight was the first time I had to quit.

I am shocked.  The only thing I ate today was the popcorn and pop I had when watching Easy A (quick review: story meandered and was kind of pointless, but I think it was made as a star vehicle for hot and sassy redhead Emma Stone, and seriously y'all, this is a career-defining performance).  Those snacks were huge, and in my advanced age I didn't wolf them down before the movie was half over like I did when I was young, but on an empty stomach I thought I could consume that, coffee before dinner, then whatever was in store for dinner (I learned we were eating steak when I called Mother about picking anything up for her at the grocery store just before getting coffee).

I'm a carnivore.  I love steak.  I know you'll live longer and better if you become a vegetarian, but damn, I'll sacrifice years off my life if I can eat a damn good steak.  And like I said, this was awesome.  But the aftereffects of the popcorn, all the butter and fat and cholesterol coating my veins and churning in my stomach, all of that caught up to an old fart like me.

I had salad, bread, and broccoli on the side of the steak.  No problem before.  Big problem now.  Maybe if I hadn't gone to the movies today I would've been fine.  Regardless, after Mother suggested a couple times that I quit, I offered my plate to her, whereby she stabbed the steak and packed it away.

I feel like less of a man.

Yesterday I answered Grandmother and showed her the raising bread I bought for her.  She wanted grapes, not raisin bread.  Goddamn.

I Was Shorted A Penny Just Now ...

... but I didn't say anything.  I felt like I should because I'm owed it, but shit, it's just a penny.

I loitered at the checkout lane a little longer than usual, pondering the change in my hand, wondering if I should say something.  Oh well, I thought, this makes up for the penny I found at the coffeeshop I ate at today ... which I promptly put into the tip jar, so that doesn't really count.

Part of me really wants to go back and demand my penny.  No, I'll keep the peace.  But if she does that again ...

Read This

Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone writer, can be very abrasive on the page.  In person, I'm sure he'll insult me so expertly he'll make me cry.  Yet a person with common sense who's worried about the direction next mont's elections are going to hail has no better champion that Taibbi, who writes in the latest issue about the co-opting of the Teabagger movement by the Republican Party and its well-connected and -funded overlords.

His main story involves crazy idiot Rand Paul, who's about to become the next Senator from Kentucky.  Taibbi has some admiration for Paul back when he was running in the GOP primary for his outrageous honesty in protesting the war and bailouts; I get kind of huffy whenever a crackpot gets lauded for his "honesty," as if he should be congratulated for being a wingnut.  But then he describes how Paul sacrificed his beliefs in order to receive support and, of course, money from the Republican establishment in exchange for his ardent supporters and their enthusiasm, like the Master after reaching the end of his 13 lives.

Scary stuff.  But the best part is his verbal asshole-ripping of Teabaggers, Republicans, and all rightwingers who are about to take over the House and quite possibly the Senate.  We may be on the losing end of this battle, but I feel better about fighting for a lost cause after reading this piece.

Father Wants To Get Into The Modem Business

I went downstairs because Mother needed help turning on the computer and Internet connection -- huh? -- when I saw a modem.

I assume My Fucking Father brought it home because he finally got fed up with all the times the modem I bought, the second I bought since we went to broadband, disconnected. It's hard to describe because I don't think this happens to anybody else, but at times, the modem will lose the signal or thing it gets from the Internet and disconnect. Sometimes it comes back, but sometimes it stubbornly goes haywire. It's distressing to see the Internet light on the modems I've had blink, then disappear, then reappear as a red light, then as a green one before blinking and starting the frustrating cycle all over again.

I had been on the phone with my ISP when it first happened, and the Indian rep told me that I had to exchange modems because the first one has had a history of dropping connections. But soon after I installed the second it also happened, so that's bullshit. I'm convinced it's not the modem. If it happens to a second modem, it's not the modem, it's the socket or the wiring. I really think it's because the house or its wiring is so old that it can't maintain connection to the Internet, especially when it goes on for a while or if it's really hot, the two conditions seemingly always present when the damn modem goes on the blink.

For some reason, however, one thing seems to fix it. The ISP person wanted me to test the modem by putting it in other phonejacks. I noticed that after I did that to both my modems, then put it back to where it was, the connection turned out fine, and it stayed fine. So now, after I look at my laptop and see there's no connection, then make sure the internet light on the modem is in fact not solid green, I unplug the whole thing, go into Mother's office, plug it into the power strip and phone jack, wait for half a minute, then take the modem back into the computer room. And except for one weird time, it works.

My Fucking Father doesn't know that. Maybe I told him, but if I did, he didn't care to listen. He thinks it's the modem I bought, which is bullshit, because the problem's with the wiring, which is the house, so it's his goddamn fault.

Oh, another thing: Over the summer he had me dump air conditioning water. Yeah, our HVAC system is so old that when we needed to cool off, the water generated to cool the house down didn't drain to some standpipe in the bottom of our house, but instead through a hose My Father had to connect it to. The other end sat in a pail in the middle of the HVAC room, and every, oh, six hours it would get full, so we had to make sure we took that pail and poured it down the drain. I'm definitely sure no other family with its shit together has to do that. But we do. So it's alright that we have to make sure we pour water waste down the sink, but dealing with a sometimes-spotty Internet means My Fucking Father has to get a brand-new modem? Fuck you, Father.

That's one reason why I got so apoplectic when I saw this modem in the computer room. There may be more, but after I calmed down, I noted the triggers to this:

• This shows My Fucking Father doesn't trust me, or thinks I'm stupid; his judgemental actions have always pissed me off;
• Doing this is a way to show me up -- "I know how to do this";
• He gave up on me -- "I gave you a chance to fix this, but now that you've failed, it's my turn";
• He once again is wading into territory he doesn't fully understand, though that has never stopped him;
• I paid for the modem that still works (I should ask for a refund if he goes through with this);
• I consider this an invasion of my privacy; while him fucking rearranging my room was an invasion of my physical space, this is an intrusion into what I feel is my responsibility and, compared with everyone else living here, my area of expertise -- both things that are mine, I believe;
• And, finally and most importantly, I think this is a way to control me and force me to leave the house.  I pay for Internet.  If he puts this modem in, he can say that he bought the modem, therefore he can dictate how it's used -- and, in my case, when.  If he wants it unplugged overnight so I can't "work," it's his modem, his rules.  Never mind that I pay for the house Internet.  If he takes this away from me, I truly am not at peace in this house.  And then My Fucking Father could throw me out.

To get back at him, I marched upstairs to the deck with his precious modem.  Even though my brother was talking to him, I didn't give a shit about making a scene.  "Just to let you know," I stammered, fumbling through my words, goddammit, "You're going to get the same problems with this modem as you do with mine."  To which he meekly said, "OK," in that tone of voice where you know he's ignoring and will do whatever the fuck he wants.  Once again, Fuck you, Father.

Just for that, I stayed out till 2 in the morning, then came storming down the stairs and into the computer room once I got back.  Well, at least he hasn't switched modems yet.  However, the computer was still on, and I saw the master bedroom was ajar.  Huh?  It kind of looked like there was some kind of incident or something.

The Separation Between My Facebook Real Friends And The MySpace Pornstar "Friends" I Want To Be Real "Friends" With Is Crashing Down

A corollary to what I wrote about stalking college coeds who posed for Playboy: What I noticed when I started hunting for them on social networking sites is that they tended to have MySpace pages more than facebook pages.

My line of thinking may have been cemented just by the first girl (in the "Girls of Conference USA" spread) I found, a really hot woman by the fake name of Tracy "Alexander," a coed from Southern Miss who appeared in a group shot with two other girls in bodypaint. She had a MySpace (since deleted; I don't know why she decided to erase any trace of her existence ... she's hot and I miss her deeply), and right then and there I decided I was going to get a MySpace so I could be MySpace friends with her! We exchanged a lot of messages with each other, many of them back-and-forth, like Instant Messages. I remember one time it sounded like she was hanging out at a party celebrating her birthday, and we exchanged messages about this website where she could get her own birth chart done for free. Good times. But now she's gone.

What I liked about instantly becoming "friends" with her is that I could see all the "friends" she had, and many of them were the other girls of CUSA who posed in the same pictorial with her. Most of them weren't even model types, just girls next door that wanted to connect online over their decision to get naked for everybody to see. So I "friended" them, and most of them said yes! It felt so good to be wanted.

One of the those CUSA chicks, Haydn Porter of Tulsa, had this special page on facebook where she was publicizing her entry in a modeling contest for some mascara company. I signed up on facebook, I think, just to do that. However, I almost instantly regretted that.

Before I signed up for facebook, I resisted all calls from my friends who were on facebook. And since I'm on it, I might as well connect with friends. But then they would see that I like this model who just happened to pose for Playboy, and then they'd my deep dark secret that I'm a pervert, and they'll judge me. For a guy who's trying to establish a professional image so he could find a job, maybe that's not the smartest thing to do. So I defriended or unliked that site, so my facebook was filled with real friends.

That was a hard wall -- facebook for real friends, MySpace for all nude models. You should look at my MySpace; with a few exceptions, all my friends are either Playboy models or porn stars. However, the fact is that, at some point, maybe even after I joined it, people stopped using MySpace. One of those people is Heather Ray Young, Miss February 2010. I was desperate to be somewhere in this hot babe's life, so for the first time I tore down the wall that I built up to prevent cross-contamination of my public and real personae just so I could friend Young. I breached it for at least one other girl, a 2009 Playmate named Kimberly Phillips. So I had two chicks on facebook. I didn't think that'd hurt me, and if someone asked, I could explain it away.

Fast-forward to about two weeks ago. Maybe because of the fever that came over me as I was looking up contact information of the "Girls of the Pac-10" that's in this month's Playboy and finding this Ophelia Shallot of Cal, I got curious. I think -- I think -- I went into one of the two Playmate's facebook and, getting my dick hard, started clicking on pages of their friends who were also Playmates. There was a moment where I had a choice, and I chose to not only obliterate but completely ignore that I was determined to keep up a wall between what I envisioned my facebook and MySpace to be.
I friended her. Then, as facebook does, it has a little graphic on the side showing another profile of someone you might want to friend because she's friends with the hottie you just added. This was a Playmate -- don't remember which one -- so I click on it and I immediately friended her. Then another one. And another one. And another and another and another and another and another. ...
I don't know how many of these girls I have now, but they may very well outnumber the "real" friends I have. I've done it so often I even tried to friend Playmates who don't want to add me. I've received dozens of warning messages from facebook that asking them to add me to their pages would be considered spam. It got to the point where they made me check a box acknowledging that I need to stop trying to friend people who don't want to be bothered and that my friending privileges, I guess, will be revoked. But there's no way to tell which people don't want to be bothered, so I keep trying to friend them when they pop up on my page. I can't help it; there's no way to track. How do you expect me to leave these chicks alone if I don't know which ones they are?

So what was a chance to look forward to catching up, even in a superficial way, on how my friends and acquaintances are doing has very quickly turned into a fishing expedition for personal stuff on Playmates and porn stars I want to fuck.
Guess in the end, the wall has to come down, and I have to be the lascivious hound dog I truly am.

The Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey

#-1: Gopher women's hockey (Re-Entry!). This team comes back to the WMNSS in a customery positions: At the top. They begin their season whitewashing Clarkson at Clarkson (which is in Potsdam, N.Y., by the way) by a combined two-game score of 8-0.

Ho-hum. We've been through this before; a loaded program stocked with talent runs roughshod over the competition, but when it comes to the elite teams in the tournament, this squad repeatedly folds and falls short of the title. This is how we're starting to feel about the Twins (more on them later). Call me when they get to the Frozen Four Final.

What isn't so ho-hum: Forward Amanda Kessel was named this week's Western Collegiate Hockey Association's Rookie Of The Week for tallying three goals and three assists in that sweep of the Golden Knights. This week they play an exhibition against the local women's hockey team, then play an actual game against Wayne St. at home Saturday afternoon.

#-2: Gopher volleyball (Last Week: -2). This team and the women's hockey team are interchangeable. These guys went 3-0 for the week; I put the them second only because they dropped a set to Purdue, while the distaff rink rats completely kept Clarkson from lighting the lamp.

The accolades continue to roll in for female Gophers playing in the non-revenue sports (wait a second ... all women's college sports are non-revenue sports); for the second time this year, libero Jessica Granquist was Big Ten Defensive Player Of The Week.

I just noticed that the schedule seems to pair Iowa and Northwestern together, but they don't play both matches on the weekend. So the 16th-ranked Gophs follow up their Wednesday road game at the Hawkeyes with a road game against the Wildcats Sunday afternoon, their only game of the week. No matter; it's an easy win.

#-3: Vikings (Last Week: -1). Now that's a way to keep yourself relevant on your bye week. In a move that now seems so obvious to miss, the Vikes shocked NFL Nation by reacquiring Randy Moss from New England. Dude, fuckin' Randy Moss, arguably still the best Wide Receiver in the league!

First of all, the Twins must be pissed over not the signing but the timing of it. From Tuesday night all the way through Wednesday, the day of the game, the Vikings dominated the news cycle. It was unfair, although, in the wake of the fucking mess they made on themselves, it now looks like the right thing. I'd like to see if there's going to be any friction between the two organizations.

On the field, the Vikings now have no excuses. Have you seen movie scenes of players playing poker, and one guy is so cocky he'll win his hand he not only pushes all his chips in, but throws in his car keys and the deed to his house? That's what the Vikes did. And they had to.

Brett Favre now has no excuse. He's been acting petulant all season because he can't just throw a ball downfield for his boy to get it without worrying about things such as coverage and accuracy. He needed to compromise with the corps he had. Instead, I really do think Favre said something to Head Coach Brad Childress about wanting to get this guy, and since you need to keep him happy, they did. That they only gave up a third-rounder for sure to get him is, well, it could be a coup.

If he's half the man he was when he started his career here, he should be a game-changer. Even when he doesn't catch passes he'll get coverage, which should mean more space on the underneath for Visanthe Shiancoe and the other receivers, and some room for Adrian Peterson and the offensive line to move. And if they ever get receiver Sidney Rice back -- the prognosis of which took a surprisingly bad turn; he might not be back halfway through the season -- watch out.

Randy Moss is a damn knucklehead, but he'll be fine this year. He whined enough to get what he wanted, so he'll shut up for the year. If he wants to win, he knows this is his best situation. Besides, who cares about whether he'll be back next year? The team's going to be broken up next year, let him go.

One other observation: Zygi Wilf is doing what we complained the Pohlads not doing up until this year. Ironically, it's Major League Baseball where spending works, not the National Football League. The New Orleans Saints won while staying under the cap. And if the Twins sacrificed what they needed to get Cliff Lee, I would feel a hell of a lot better that the Twins would win this series against New York. Nevertheless, Wilf is getting a lot of good pub for this move, espcially in the wake of the Twins' shittin' their pants. Maybe they'll get that new stadium after all.

Then again, I've heard few people bring up the fact the Vikes choke just as much as the Twins do.

#-4: Gopher fooball (Last Week: -5). Well, at least they gave it a go. I really thought they were going to get blown out by Northwestern, so I guess it's, um, OK, that the Wildcats kicked a late field goal to win the Homecoming game, 29-28.

However, take a step back: Head Coach Tim Brewster scheduled four straight home game early in the season in an effort to build some momentum and goodwill. They lost all four games. They include a wounded dynasty (USC), a bottom-tier Big 10 team (Northwestern), a supposed-to-be Mid-American Conference patsy (Northern Illinois), and a second-division program (South Dakota). Losses all. The Gophs are staring at 1-11. Brewster's staring at unemployment.

They head to Wisconsin this weekend. The line right now is 22. I actually think they'll cover it. But they won't win.

#-5: Wild (Last Week: -6). In the wake of Moss and the Twins, I think Minnesota fans forgot the Wild actually began their season -- and in fact the NHL regular season -- yesterday afternoon in Helsinki. And guess what? They lost too!!!

Bastard Hartford Whalers beat them, 4-3. Typical of many of their losses last season, they scored and took a lead, only to take a dumb penalty minutes afterward and cough up a goal and that lead. They played this (Friday) afternoon as well, and in a game that just ended, they lost to Carolina again, in a shootout, 2-1.

Just to let y'all know: Including exhibitions, the only team the Wild have beaten ... was some club team in Finland. They have about a week to get rid of their jetlag before playing Edmonton in their home opener Thursday.

Look, it's bad so far this year for the Wild. At least their season is just starting; there will be many occasions for this franchise to wind up in the bottom of the survey. Unlike a team whose season is winding down, like the ...

#-Infinity: Twins (Last Week: -4). Embarassing. Pathetic. Heartless. Gutless. Some of the adjectives I've read in the couple message boards I've read and radio shows I've listened to.

Cannot and will not dwell on this shit mess. I'll just relay some stats: Eleven playoff losses in a row. Eleven straight playoff losses at home. Eleven straight playoff losses to the Yankees. Seven straight playoff losses in a row to the Yankees at home. Fuck you, Twins.

That's why, for the first time in the illustrious (one-plus year) history of the WMNSS, I am putting the team #-Infinity before their season is over. Because this season, a season where the franchise promised a world title because we built and gave this fucking team the ballpark they've been bitching for for 15 years, only to see the Twins piss down their goddamn legs in the face of the Yankees yet fucking again, is just about over.

Fuck you, Twins. Fuck you in the asses.

Another Misadventure With Grandmother And Her Meds

Two days ago, Grandmother complained to me, yet again, that the pills she was taking weren't the same. I keep saying to her that it doesn't matter, that even though they may change shape and in numbering on the pills, it's still the same pills and she should take them. No, she insists, they're different, and she wanted me, for the first time ever, to go back to the pharmacy and ask if she could have the "old" ones.

She's my Grandmother; what could I do? So I go back. I feel incredibly terrible for inconveniencing them on behalf of my stubborn, batty Grandmother, but to my surprise, they did. I had the bottle of pills Granny didn't want, an oval-shaped one, and in return the pharmacist gave me round pills. OK, good to know I have that option.

So I go back and give Grandmother the new pills. "No!" she cried. The round pills are not the ones she wanted; the oval-shaped ones are the ones she wanted.

What changed in these arguments over her medications is the level of yelling we laid on each other. Maybe having an argument in front of a neighbor girl and her dad the other day thawed any hesitations about just going after each other, because in the kitchen, with no one else around, we just started screaming.

And the bad thing is, we probably didn't know what the other was talking about. I know very few words about pills and medicine in Chinese, and she doesn't in English. There's a possibility I'm not understanding her, but I really do believe she thinks she's getting different pills for the wrong medicine.

I continue to be incredibly pissed off that she bases this incorrect medicine charge by noting the shape and lettering on the pills. Furthermore, her memory seems to be foggy, so during our fight she continually asked, "OK, what's the number say on the pill?" First of all, I can't help her because I don't know what the lettering or numbering on the other pills are, and second, I was tired of the whole fucking conversation because I thought it was pointless. And I still do.

However, I cave. She wants the oval-shaped pills, she gets the goddamn oval-shaped pills. I go back the next day, apologize profusely to the pharmicist to change it back to what she had before (he understood, thank God; he has equally pig-headed parents), and now Grandmother's satisfied. The dosage is different, however; she takes only one pill twice a day instead of two. Now I have a different problem.

I love my Grandmother, I really do.

I Qualify!

Got the call yesterday, I think, saying that my cum was good enough to enter the study! That means I get to wank, and I get paid for it!! Thank goodness that this is a sperm donation that has no chance of finding its way into a woman's vagina.

Death By Old Cheesecake

I've mentioned before how Grandmother always buys way more food than she or we eat, so much, I mean a lot, of the stuff gets tossed out.

One time before she has bought not one, but two large cheesecakes. Like, 16-slice Sam's Club cheesecakes. I immediately took one to a food shelter. No fucking way we'd be able to finish that before the year.

But the last time she shopped at the warehouse club she got both angel food cake and another cheesecake. I hate the bland angel food cake, so I didn't even eat a crumb; after Grandmother tried to hack away at it, last week she decided to throw away the rest, about a quarter.

But for some reason, maybe because I felt kind of bad for giving away one whole cheesecake, I started hacking away at that. I like cheesecake. I just don't like it enough to eat 16 slices -- and because neither of my parents, or even Grandmother, wanted to eat it, it was left up to me.

These days seeing that would piss me off enough to just donate it. But again, I don't know, I started eating it, two slices at a time.

I started last week. I think the first time I started trying to finish this thing, I shit diarrhea the entire next day. But I kept plugging away.

With the end near this weekend, about five slices left, I finished with a guttonous flurry. Despite having fairly full dinners and not being hungry and knowing that eating just before bed is the worst thing you can do to keep the weight off, I ate two slices overnight Sunday, two overnight Monday, and the last one overnight tonight.

I feel really, really fat just typing this. The calories and fat from eating so much goddamn cheesecake the past few days as well as the past week is ... on my body, and it doesn't feel right. My urge to be slim is once again trumped by my need to not to waste food, helped by my eating binges.

Moreover, remember that Grandmother didn't buy this, like, two weeks ago. More like a month ago, and probably further back than that. I should've thrown it away on common sense. It was still in its original packaging, and when I opened it eat it, I made a point of not looking at the label lest I come across the sell-by date.

Also, the last three slices I ate didn't have mold or anything, but had these perceptible dimples in them. I tried to Google it, but it came up with nothing, so I thought that the worst I could get was feeling like I'm shitting my organs out. Say, that happened to me before; would that be, like, salmonella poisining, or is that, like, my lactose intolerance? Maybe I already have gotten sick from it and I didn't even know it?

Oh well, it's all gone, thank Buddha. But next thing I know, Grandmother bought another cheesecake. Because I like it so much. Ugh.