Feels good to take a shower, especially after getting your hair cut. I should shower more often.
So I had this clean feeling tonight when I starting writing. Then I got The Urge. Surfed to porn, took my cock out, and starting jerking off.
I thought that'd be it. I really don't like soiling myself after taking a shower. I got myself clean, so why immediately make myself dirty? Might as well not shower.
There is one photo that has stuck with me the past couple days. On Monday I leafed through the current Playboy. At the back of the issue, under the "Next Month" page, there was a photo of a striking, toned body wrapped around a stripper's pole. She threw her head back to disguise her identity. The caption said it couldn't reveal who it is, but gave a hint: "She's found in the arms of celebrities."
Well, I love a good mystery, especially ones teasing who'll be naked. But I had no idea who the fuck it could be, and the hint was no help. Then, suddenly, while I was about town, I got the hint -- Dancing With The Stars!!! It makes perfect sense!!!
But who? I had thought it was Anna Demidova. It kind of looked like her, tall and thin. She was only paired with a celeb once (legendary Dallas Wide Receiver Michael Irvin), but I thought it was her because any current professional on the show would probably be fired. It's not family-friendly.
Anyway, I came back to thinking about That Photo tonight. I had to go to the page online and see it again. Then I thought I should go to the Yahoo! Playboy group to see if anybody's discussing the mystery pictorial.
There, the identity was finally revealed. Some guy posted that Hef Tweeted who it was going to be. Not Anna Demidova, he said, but one of the hottest vets on DWTS: Karina Smirnoff!
No fucking way!!! I mean, I thought she could do it. But she's been on so many times I figured she'd stay loyal to the show and not risk sullying its reputation. Not to say that I'm bummed now that she's showing her bum. She's fucking hot!!!
Once I discovered this news, I ... I just had to touch myself. In salutation, of course. I regret making myself dirty. It's cum, and I can clean it up. But let's face it: If you've just washed yourself with soap, getting semen all over your dick and fingers kind of ruins it.
But, I had to. I went to the bathroom, rubbed one out, and cleaned up the very small amount of yellow jizz on the counter. (I already touched myself this morning, and twice the day before.)
Could've squirted out more, but hey, Karina Smirnoff.
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Everybody Knows About The Facebook Trick, Right?
Well, it's not necessarily a trick. Recently, Facebook went to this new thing where, when you click on a picture, a mini-screen comes on in front of the picture. I don't know why Mark Zuckerberg thought this would be better. At the very least it offers the same ability to like and comment.
However, when you get on this inlaid photo screen you're not allowed to do much else. What happens if I want to click to my own profile? You can't do that if there's this screen. And until I tried it just now, hitting the "x" on the upper-right corner didn't close it but sent you to the next photo in the album. That pissed me off for a long time.
Luckily some guy in a comment said that instead of hitting that "x," you can close that inlaid screen by hitting your F5 button. Cool -- those shortcut buttons above my keyboard really are worth something.
However, when you get on this inlaid photo screen you're not allowed to do much else. What happens if I want to click to my own profile? You can't do that if there's this screen. And until I tried it just now, hitting the "x" on the upper-right corner didn't close it but sent you to the next photo in the album. That pissed me off for a long time.
Luckily some guy in a comment said that instead of hitting that "x," you can close that inlaid screen by hitting your F5 button. Cool -- those shortcut buttons above my keyboard really are worth something.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Why Do I Eat Food That Hurts Me?
Fell asleep around 12:30 last night. Had things to do since Grandmother woke me in the 10 o'clock hour, but it's the first time in a long time I knocked off early.
However, before I fell asleep (and after I just got home from working out), I pounded down two slices of cheesecake. Grandmother, without prompting from anybody, had gone to Sam's Club to load up on food nobody asked for. She does this all the time, get food nobody asked for, and she always gets cheesecake. Why? I don't know.
I remember back when I was young that I loved cheesecake. In particular, I loved Sara Lee's, the one with the concentric indentations and the crumbs on top. Do they still make those? I don't know, we haven't bought those in at least a decade. Shit, I still love cheesecake. Every Christmas Eve I go down to the only Cheesecake Factory in town (Southdale Mall in Edina) and buy a slice.
I don't know about this particular Sam's Club cheesecake I don't like. Maybe it's the fact that Grandmother always fucking buys this pie when no one asked for it. And yet we always somehow manage to eat it all, eventually. She must take that as a sign that we like it. I just hate wasting food. Anyway, when she goes back to Sam's Club, she'll inevitably buy another pie.
Not only is it non-sensical for me to eat the cheesecake just because it's in the refrigerator, I usually eat two slices at a time. These things are huge, about 16 slices total, and they're about 3 1/2 inches in height. I'm eating two because if they're in the fridge long enough, I'm afraid they'll spoil. (There are two slices left, and I think Grandmother bought it about three weeks ago.) And almost every time I eat two, I run into a bad case of lactose intolerance.
This is the third two-fer I had with this pie. And inevitably, the next morning my stomach and intestines are churning and twisting themselves into knots. I run to the bathroom to shit out my diarrhea. Twenty minutes later I'm done voiding my watery load, but with this type of cheesecake, I usually make it, oh, two minutes before I run back into the bathroom. These succeeding times I shit very little, but it's the enzymes or some shit in my execretory system that induces this feeling that I have to expel more waste.
This morning was particularly bad. I think that I was so tired that, if my body didn't finally lose the battle with the dairy in the cheesecakes I ate last night, I could've slept till the moment Grandmother woke me. But the spasms and pangs in body woke me up instead. I usually relent and run to the toilet. But I'm still not on speaking terms with My Fucking Father, and it was that time of the morning where he was rummaging outside in the kitchen, getting something to eat before going back downstairs, tooling around the Internet (I think), and waiting for Mother to get up.
I just did not want to see his ass. So I stayed in my bed, trying to combat the lactose intolerance pains in my body by breathing deeply and switching body positions. Finally, around 7:15 or 7:30, I heard the front door slam shut. And I raced to the bathroom to deposit my execretions.
I should know better. If eating this food will hurt me, why do I eat two slices at a time? Why eat them at all? Why do I feed Grandmother's belief that this family likes this cheesecake, and therefore she should get another one the next time she goes to Sam's Club? I'm just going to go through all this shit again, literally.
However, before I fell asleep (and after I just got home from working out), I pounded down two slices of cheesecake. Grandmother, without prompting from anybody, had gone to Sam's Club to load up on food nobody asked for. She does this all the time, get food nobody asked for, and she always gets cheesecake. Why? I don't know.
I remember back when I was young that I loved cheesecake. In particular, I loved Sara Lee's, the one with the concentric indentations and the crumbs on top. Do they still make those? I don't know, we haven't bought those in at least a decade. Shit, I still love cheesecake. Every Christmas Eve I go down to the only Cheesecake Factory in town (Southdale Mall in Edina) and buy a slice.
I don't know about this particular Sam's Club cheesecake I don't like. Maybe it's the fact that Grandmother always fucking buys this pie when no one asked for it. And yet we always somehow manage to eat it all, eventually. She must take that as a sign that we like it. I just hate wasting food. Anyway, when she goes back to Sam's Club, she'll inevitably buy another pie.
Not only is it non-sensical for me to eat the cheesecake just because it's in the refrigerator, I usually eat two slices at a time. These things are huge, about 16 slices total, and they're about 3 1/2 inches in height. I'm eating two because if they're in the fridge long enough, I'm afraid they'll spoil. (There are two slices left, and I think Grandmother bought it about three weeks ago.) And almost every time I eat two, I run into a bad case of lactose intolerance.
This is the third two-fer I had with this pie. And inevitably, the next morning my stomach and intestines are churning and twisting themselves into knots. I run to the bathroom to shit out my diarrhea. Twenty minutes later I'm done voiding my watery load, but with this type of cheesecake, I usually make it, oh, two minutes before I run back into the bathroom. These succeeding times I shit very little, but it's the enzymes or some shit in my execretory system that induces this feeling that I have to expel more waste.
This morning was particularly bad. I think that I was so tired that, if my body didn't finally lose the battle with the dairy in the cheesecakes I ate last night, I could've slept till the moment Grandmother woke me. But the spasms and pangs in body woke me up instead. I usually relent and run to the toilet. But I'm still not on speaking terms with My Fucking Father, and it was that time of the morning where he was rummaging outside in the kitchen, getting something to eat before going back downstairs, tooling around the Internet (I think), and waiting for Mother to get up.
I just did not want to see his ass. So I stayed in my bed, trying to combat the lactose intolerance pains in my body by breathing deeply and switching body positions. Finally, around 7:15 or 7:30, I heard the front door slam shut. And I raced to the bathroom to deposit my execretions.
I should know better. If eating this food will hurt me, why do I eat two slices at a time? Why eat them at all? Why do I feed Grandmother's belief that this family likes this cheesecake, and therefore she should get another one the next time she goes to Sam's Club? I'm just going to go through all this shit again, literally.
Monday, March 28, 2011
It had been warming up about a week ago, which led me to finally go outside without my coat. But that was temporary and led me to a false sense of warmth; I continued to walk about with just a shirt on even though the past several days have had temps around freezing.
I guess that's why I've been feeling a cold the past couple days. Coughing, sniffling, sneezing, suffering ... just like that commercial for ... Vicks? I feel so shitty now that I think I'm going to cut my late-night Internet surfing short.
You know, I have to be honest that I'm scared I'm going to give what I have to my Grandmother.
I guess that's why I've been feeling a cold the past couple days. Coughing, sniffling, sneezing, suffering ... just like that commercial for ... Vicks? I feel so shitty now that I think I'm going to cut my late-night Internet surfing short.
You know, I have to be honest that I'm scared I'm going to give what I have to my Grandmother.
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Visiting Uncle
I've felt guilty for having the address to the nursing home where my uncle lives now and not going for a long time. Seeing that I might have a job now -- more on that some other time -- my free time will be gone soon. My uncle, too. So I finally got up the courage to confront his mortality, and my mortality, and took Grandmother and my aunt (his wife) to the home Friday.
I don't know why he's across the river. Aunt said that they had no room in any nursing home closer to their apartment. So we had to schlep a half-hour to see him. I don't know how often she gets to see him; she has no personal transportation, and my cousin (her son) does have a car but no current employment. However, seeing as she is part of the family, and knowing her, I wonder how much she really cares about being so far away and unable to see her husband on a regular basis.
The home's close to St. Paul but in a, shall we say, gentrifying neighborhood. OK, maybe it's a poor one. There isn't a parking lot, just side-street parking. The building's four stories tall, and the sidewalks weren't shoveled off after this week's snowstorm, so my aunt was clutching Grandmother as they walked to the front door.
When I opened the front door, the signature scent of hundreds of old, destitute bodies living together hit me like a sucker punch. There were old people everywhere. Nearly all of them were bound to wheelchairs. Few of them, it seemed, were aware of their surroundings -- just looking ahead or spacing out, slowly eating their meals or chewing the food slipped into their mouths. Meanwhile, I saw a lot of employees. Viscerally, they look to me like God's children, putting up with the deteriorating bodies and minds of those mere footsteps away from the waiting arms of Death.
We go up to the fourth/top floor. There are so many Hmong people in this nursing home that most of them are collected in their own floor, even though my uncle is not Hmong. A right, then on the left, then the back half (the one that has the window) is where he is. I didn't know in what state he would be in, so to not shock myself in case it was a lot more gruesome than I expected, once I saw Aunt go over to him, and once I saw a form of a foot, I stopped myself, then slowly inched my head forward past the end of the curtain.
There he was, my uncle. His head didn't look too emaciated or deformed. The thick head of gray hair I've always known he had was still there. But the skin over his facial bone structure (the rest of his body was under the blanket, which was tucked firmly under his chin) appeared stretched tight, a sign of weight loss.
Aunt started to speak to him, loudly. Uncle wouldn't respond, just stare at either Grandmother or I, or maybe the space between us. Then Aunt shouted. Then she slapped the pillow Uncle was resting his head on. Hey, no need to belittle the guy and do that, OK? Annoying. But, Uncle moaned something inaudible.
Aunt, in Chinese then pointed to Grandmother and asked him, "Do you remember Grandmother?" No response. "DO YOU REMEMBER GRANDMOTHER???" she repeated a few more times before Uncle warbled "Grandmother." At least I think, I couldn't hear him. Then my aunt pointed at me. "Do you remember Unforgivable Wetness?" she asked him. (Of course that's not what she said; names are changed to protect the innocent, namely me.) It took him a shorter amount of time to, I believe, stammer out my name. But maybe Uncle didn't want Aunt to slap his pillow again.
His side of the room (the guy with the half closer to the door) looked cramped and old. I don't expect granite furnishings, but there were old wooden drawers and an adjustable bed that works just fine even though it looked at least a decade old. The TV was probably older, but it had all the channels an old person would need -- foreign language channels, public access, free TV. Not that my uncle could understand it anyway, but now that nursing home-issued television set is his only friend. The same way it was my only friend when I was in elementary school.
So it was the four of us, just standing around. Aunt tried to talk to Uncle, and Grandmother seemed to talk only to my aunt. I tried making hand gestures to him, and I got small responses, mostly movements from a bump underneath his blanket, probably his hand or shoulder. But I'm still not sure that he recognized me or Grandmother and just took us for friendly faces. He stroked out, and I wonder how much of his memory has been taken from him. His ability to speak is largely gone. Sad.
I planned to be there as long as he, and if not he, my aunt, wanted to be there. I wouldn't know what to say, but I wanted to make sure I saw him in case anything happened. Doesn't matter if I'm a stranger to him; at this point in his life, I'm visiting him not necessarily for him, but for me. However, I don't think the visit lasted more than 30 minutes. Aunt asked us, "So, should we go?" and we did. She adjusted his pillow and raised up the bed so he could both see the TV and rest his head, and she tidied up the food tray that was bumping up against the curtain demarcating his side of the room from the other guy's. But that's it for the chores.
I was the last of the three of us to leave the room. I waved goodbye; the bump underneath the blanket moved a couple seconds after my wave. And just to make sure, I turned back around and gave one more wave. I think Uncle responded. Hope to see him again. Got this job during days, so I hope this will be good until that assignment's over. And I hope to Buddha he's doing OK, considering.
You know what's so amazing about him? He had a Medic-Alert bracelet. In case you don't know, those are bracelets with quick instructions for any emergency worker who would stumble upon him. Once I flipped it over. It said, "Allergic to all antibiotics." Are you shitting me? If you're allergic to them all, shouldn't you be dead already? But he still isn't, and I think he's in his late nineties.
I remember a strapping old man. He walked with a slow hitch, but he was mentally alert and physicall adept and doing things well into his seventies. In fact, he was the one who installed the locking knob on my bedroom door. There is no way in hell I know how to do that. And he did it for me. And now, seeing that pillar of strength be just a gaunt face, moving his gaze, unblinkingly, from side to side ... well, seeing him as half the man he used to be makes me very contemplative.
When the three of us got back into the elevator, there was a Hmong guy in a wheelchair. He made a noise and smiled. Is he my uncle's roommate? Is he crazy, or crazy and harmless? And still the waft of old men's stink wafted in the air.
I'd rather die than live out my last days in an unfamiliar place like a nursing home.
Saturday, March 26, 2011
The Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey
Oh my God. Oh my fucking God. I ... I can't fucking believe this.
I'm sorry to go all fucking crazy here. My Fucking Father's still not talking to me because he's being a brat, and I just saw two amazing endings to the games tonight (Friday night). But in researching the WMNSS this screening week, I went through all the local teams still in play: the Woofie Dogs, the Mild, Gophs baseballers, and the Swarm (which I have yet to come up with a derisive nickname for).
All of them lost this week. Every game they played. This is not a joke ... well, actually it is, but I'm saying it's true. From this past Saturday to Friday, every single contest those four teams played, they were defeated in. I don't know if that's ever happened in the WMNSS's history.
A week after the 1-2-3-4 sucker punch of four Gophers programs flaming out in embarrassing losses, and now this? This ... is too much to take. I'm about to flip out, like My Fucking Father. Except I have just cause.
So, to combat this recent wave of suckitude, I have to make a statement. For the first time in the two-year history of The Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey, I will not conduct a Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey. It's partly in protest of this shameful display of incompetence by the sports teams that represent this great state and metropolitan area of ours. But it's also because I wouldn't be able to rank them. I mean, which team is best when all of them lost? I guess I could put them in order of how many games they lost. I've done that before. But this week, I don't think I could just do that. Attention needs to be paid to this abortion of a sports scene.
Furthermore, I will not do another WMNSS until a local team wins a fucking game. That'll probably happen next week, and everything will be back as it was. But with the way all these fucking teams suck, who knows? We might have to wait until the second or third series the Twins play before I do one of these again.
I get to look on the bright side, however: This week's WMNSS is damn short.
I'm sorry to go all fucking crazy here. My Fucking Father's still not talking to me because he's being a brat, and I just saw two amazing endings to the games tonight (Friday night). But in researching the WMNSS this screening week, I went through all the local teams still in play: the Woofie Dogs, the Mild, Gophs baseballers, and the Swarm (which I have yet to come up with a derisive nickname for).
All of them lost this week. Every game they played. This is not a joke ... well, actually it is, but I'm saying it's true. From this past Saturday to Friday, every single contest those four teams played, they were defeated in. I don't know if that's ever happened in the WMNSS's history.
A week after the 1-2-3-4 sucker punch of four Gophers programs flaming out in embarrassing losses, and now this? This ... is too much to take. I'm about to flip out, like My Fucking Father. Except I have just cause.
So, to combat this recent wave of suckitude, I have to make a statement. For the first time in the two-year history of The Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey, I will not conduct a Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey. It's partly in protest of this shameful display of incompetence by the sports teams that represent this great state and metropolitan area of ours. But it's also because I wouldn't be able to rank them. I mean, which team is best when all of them lost? I guess I could put them in order of how many games they lost. I've done that before. But this week, I don't think I could just do that. Attention needs to be paid to this abortion of a sports scene.
Furthermore, I will not do another WMNSS until a local team wins a fucking game. That'll probably happen next week, and everything will be back as it was. But with the way all these fucking teams suck, who knows? We might have to wait until the second or third series the Twins play before I do one of these again.
I get to look on the bright side, however: This week's WMNSS is damn short.
Friday, March 25, 2011
Passive-Aggressive, Immature Cock Fight Between Son And Father Continues
Update: My Fucking Father's still not talking to me. Maybe the snow I left for him at his driver's-side door sent a message.
I actually beat them home. They came back later than usual, so I actually started clearing the rest of the patio, something I didn't want to do because, hey, if that asshole thinks he has to do everything around here, be my guest. He saw me in the back. If they were home, no use to continue shoveling.
Didn't want to give him the satisfaction of calling me out of my room when dinner's ready, so for the second day in a row I sat in the dining room well before it was ready. And I made damn sure I didn't even look at the prick the whole time we sat across from each other at the dinner table.
My Fucking Father was still his open, jovial self -- but not to me, of course, because I somehow betrayed him. Dumbass. Mother told him to pour some soup for me, but he refused. Fine, I didn't really like that shit anyway. Plus, Mother poured it out for me. The way he was passive-aggressively ignoring me, I was glad he didn't undercook the chicken in the toaster oven, or even poison them.
I gave it back to him by putting my dirty plate and utensils on the far side of the counter so he'd have to reach over. It's sad, it really is. But I learned all these puerile techniques from My Fucking Father. I'm trying my best not to let him get to me, yet I have to communicate how I feel to him. I swear that no other family operates this way. See, this is why I'm not having kids. I'm not going to be a good dad because I didn't have a good dad.
Plan on visiting my uncle in the nursing home tomorrow. Called Aunt to see if I could pick her up tomorrow. She called back, but no on my cell, but on the home phone. My Fucking Father hollered for me from downstairs. "Yeah, yeah, I heard ya!" I whined back at him. First thing that bitch said to me.
I actually beat them home. They came back later than usual, so I actually started clearing the rest of the patio, something I didn't want to do because, hey, if that asshole thinks he has to do everything around here, be my guest. He saw me in the back. If they were home, no use to continue shoveling.
Didn't want to give him the satisfaction of calling me out of my room when dinner's ready, so for the second day in a row I sat in the dining room well before it was ready. And I made damn sure I didn't even look at the prick the whole time we sat across from each other at the dinner table.
My Fucking Father was still his open, jovial self -- but not to me, of course, because I somehow betrayed him. Dumbass. Mother told him to pour some soup for me, but he refused. Fine, I didn't really like that shit anyway. Plus, Mother poured it out for me. The way he was passive-aggressively ignoring me, I was glad he didn't undercook the chicken in the toaster oven, or even poison them.
I gave it back to him by putting my dirty plate and utensils on the far side of the counter so he'd have to reach over. It's sad, it really is. But I learned all these puerile techniques from My Fucking Father. I'm trying my best not to let him get to me, yet I have to communicate how I feel to him. I swear that no other family operates this way. See, this is why I'm not having kids. I'm not going to be a good dad because I didn't have a good dad.
Plan on visiting my uncle in the nursing home tomorrow. Called Aunt to see if I could pick her up tomorrow. She called back, but no on my cell, but on the home phone. My Fucking Father hollered for me from downstairs. "Yeah, yeah, I heard ya!" I whined back at him. First thing that bitch said to me.
Thursday, March 24, 2011
My Father, The Brat (Have I Used This Title Before?)
Oh my fucking God, I am so pissed off and perplexed by My Fucking Father. Seriously, I cannot see how any other person has a dad as emotionally stunted as this guy is. Well, there probably are, and there are dads who are much worse. But reality is he's mine, I live with him, and I wish he were dead.
I've been playing phone tag with this city inspector for awhile. My Fucking Father has asked me to contact her to arrange a meeting with him because he believes his property is now up to code. Well, today I gave it a shot, and this was the first time I got her on the phone live, no voicemail. I wanted to see if there were any other questions she might have before arranging this meeting. She said she was skeptical that the house was up to code -- specifically, that the house's windows were reglazed already, and well before she was to reinspect the house in May.
Meanwhile I heard the beeps of an incoming call. How in the fuck am I in the middle of two calls at the same time for the second time this month? After hanging up with the inspector, I call back the number, which was my parent's work.
Just by coincidence, it was My Fucking Father. He called to say that he wanted to know if I was leaving the house because there was medicine that was ready for pick-up. Well, as long as I had him on the phone, I told him that I called the city inspector and she was ready and willing to move up the meeting a month to see if the building was ready as he said.
Knowing a person for decades, you can tell when he's about to do something -- particularly, at least in my case, when he's about to get mad. For My Fucking Father, he starts to breath heavily, and just before his outburst, his breaths become even louder and shorter, like he's gasping for air. And he is, because when he starts yelling at me, he says, in Chinese, "Son. ..."
This stupid time he followed up "Son" with some babbling bullshit about not understanding him. Apparently he thought that he told me to set up a meeting with the city inspector so she could go around telling him what exactly needs to be done. But he couldn't tell me calmly that I misunderstood (according to him). No, for him, My Fucking Father, who, by the way, is 66 years old, this was the right time to fly off the handle. He shouldn't have been yelling at me regardless; no purported adult should. But over this? Over ... shit, I could barely understand it myself ... this asshole thinks I told the inspector something different from what he thought he told me? Never mind the understanding part; you flip out over that?
He tops it with his usual passive-aggressive, wounded lion trick: "Never mind, forget it!" he says, giving up because I supposedly failed him and now all is lost. He pulls this drama all the time, even though this is some mundane property code violation inspection. I am so, so angrered by the way he verbally abused me today. But as I get older, and as he gets older, I'm absolutely amazed that he keeps throwing these temper tantrums whenever I tell him something that disappoints or upsets him. He's done that forever, and I keep thinking that he'll just get to fucking tired to do shit like that, but he's not.
And this is the day after I drove through a snowstorm to pick his ass up from the airport. This is the thanks I get? Ungrateful bastard.
As I've gotten older I have talked back to him whenever he does this. Here, as he hung up on me, I told him, "Stop being a little bitch!" But the anger and humiliation I always feel after meltdowns like this still well up inside me, and I feel it even more acutely as I write about this right now. My need for revenge is something I know I got from My Fucking Father. I hate it. But right now I know of no other way I can express my deep disatisfaction with the way he treated me.
But I was at a loss for what I could do to get back at him after My Fucking Father's disrepecting me. All I could do was shovel. I could've just left it, but as I have learned from my old man, passive-aggressiveness means that you do make some benevolent gesture. Besides, I might need to drive out the next couple days and I needed to know what exactly needed shoveling.
Five-and-a-half inches of snow. Goddamn, winter's not done with us yet. And it's the wet snow, the heart attack snow. I tried pushing it from one side of the driveway to the other, but halfway through I got stuck. It was too heavy. That's when I needed to use the snowblower. But after two passes up and down the driveway, it conked out. My Fucking Father bought this thing. I want everybody to know that.
I promised I'd do as much shoveling as I could before coming in for the start of the 5:30 national news or my heart gave out, whichever came first. When it was 5:28 I went inside, but I left the garage door open and the snowblower plugged in, just in case I still had time to clear the driveway before the 'Rents came home and if it miraculously started working, even though I kept trying to restart it. I didn't care if I left the snowblower in this somewhat pathetic repose as I stepped inside. In fact, I was going to clear a little bit of the patio on the way to the propane burner after I sat down and rested. I didn't care if they saw the snowblower just left out. I have a feeling that My Fucking Father would feel disappointment and shame to see that it wasn't working. Shit, I didn't care if the snowblower got stolen while I was inside.
Well, coincidentally enough, they came home while I was inside. "Is the snowblower not working?" Mother said at the front door. "No!" I replied at the back door.
He didn't talk to me at all during dinner. Asshole. He was still his jovial self to Mother, though, as if he didn't remember, or didn't care, that he yelled at me over the phone earlier that afternoon. Asshole. I'll be honest with you, that still hurts me, and that still irks me. I need to let him know how I feel; it's the lesson My Fucking Father taught me most and best of all. But how?
The only thing I could think of, at least today, was to go back outside after dinner and throw a couple piles of snow at the driver's-side door. I've cleared the path from the front door to the car, for the most part, but hopefully My Fucking Father would have to step into snow to get in the minivan and get his heretofore clean shoes dirty.
And how about the city inspector? I want to defy his "Never mind! Forget it!" brattiness and not forget it. But then again, I don't want to be manipulated by any reverse psychology if he truly does want me to arrange a meeting with her. Shit, I don't know what to do. I think I'll sleep on it, but my plan now is this: I'll call up the city inspector tomorrow. Hopefully I'll get her voicemail. I will apologize for the message I left her after My Fucking Father yelled at me, telling her that it was all a mix-up. And then I will say that My Fucking Father wants to take over this message relay. I will leave her his number and tell her that he now wants to talk to her face-to-face, broken English be damned. If he thinks he's the only person who can do things right, he can do this his goddamn self.
I've been playing phone tag with this city inspector for awhile. My Fucking Father has asked me to contact her to arrange a meeting with him because he believes his property is now up to code. Well, today I gave it a shot, and this was the first time I got her on the phone live, no voicemail. I wanted to see if there were any other questions she might have before arranging this meeting. She said she was skeptical that the house was up to code -- specifically, that the house's windows were reglazed already, and well before she was to reinspect the house in May.
Meanwhile I heard the beeps of an incoming call. How in the fuck am I in the middle of two calls at the same time for the second time this month? After hanging up with the inspector, I call back the number, which was my parent's work.
Just by coincidence, it was My Fucking Father. He called to say that he wanted to know if I was leaving the house because there was medicine that was ready for pick-up. Well, as long as I had him on the phone, I told him that I called the city inspector and she was ready and willing to move up the meeting a month to see if the building was ready as he said.
Knowing a person for decades, you can tell when he's about to do something -- particularly, at least in my case, when he's about to get mad. For My Fucking Father, he starts to breath heavily, and just before his outburst, his breaths become even louder and shorter, like he's gasping for air. And he is, because when he starts yelling at me, he says, in Chinese, "Son. ..."
This stupid time he followed up "Son" with some babbling bullshit about not understanding him. Apparently he thought that he told me to set up a meeting with the city inspector so she could go around telling him what exactly needs to be done. But he couldn't tell me calmly that I misunderstood (according to him). No, for him, My Fucking Father, who, by the way, is 66 years old, this was the right time to fly off the handle. He shouldn't have been yelling at me regardless; no purported adult should. But over this? Over ... shit, I could barely understand it myself ... this asshole thinks I told the inspector something different from what he thought he told me? Never mind the understanding part; you flip out over that?
He tops it with his usual passive-aggressive, wounded lion trick: "Never mind, forget it!" he says, giving up because I supposedly failed him and now all is lost. He pulls this drama all the time, even though this is some mundane property code violation inspection. I am so, so angrered by the way he verbally abused me today. But as I get older, and as he gets older, I'm absolutely amazed that he keeps throwing these temper tantrums whenever I tell him something that disappoints or upsets him. He's done that forever, and I keep thinking that he'll just get to fucking tired to do shit like that, but he's not.
And this is the day after I drove through a snowstorm to pick his ass up from the airport. This is the thanks I get? Ungrateful bastard.
As I've gotten older I have talked back to him whenever he does this. Here, as he hung up on me, I told him, "Stop being a little bitch!" But the anger and humiliation I always feel after meltdowns like this still well up inside me, and I feel it even more acutely as I write about this right now. My need for revenge is something I know I got from My Fucking Father. I hate it. But right now I know of no other way I can express my deep disatisfaction with the way he treated me.
But I was at a loss for what I could do to get back at him after My Fucking Father's disrepecting me. All I could do was shovel. I could've just left it, but as I have learned from my old man, passive-aggressiveness means that you do make some benevolent gesture. Besides, I might need to drive out the next couple days and I needed to know what exactly needed shoveling.
Five-and-a-half inches of snow. Goddamn, winter's not done with us yet. And it's the wet snow, the heart attack snow. I tried pushing it from one side of the driveway to the other, but halfway through I got stuck. It was too heavy. That's when I needed to use the snowblower. But after two passes up and down the driveway, it conked out. My Fucking Father bought this thing. I want everybody to know that.
I promised I'd do as much shoveling as I could before coming in for the start of the 5:30 national news or my heart gave out, whichever came first. When it was 5:28 I went inside, but I left the garage door open and the snowblower plugged in, just in case I still had time to clear the driveway before the 'Rents came home and if it miraculously started working, even though I kept trying to restart it. I didn't care if I left the snowblower in this somewhat pathetic repose as I stepped inside. In fact, I was going to clear a little bit of the patio on the way to the propane burner after I sat down and rested. I didn't care if they saw the snowblower just left out. I have a feeling that My Fucking Father would feel disappointment and shame to see that it wasn't working. Shit, I didn't care if the snowblower got stolen while I was inside.
Well, coincidentally enough, they came home while I was inside. "Is the snowblower not working?" Mother said at the front door. "No!" I replied at the back door.
He didn't talk to me at all during dinner. Asshole. He was still his jovial self to Mother, though, as if he didn't remember, or didn't care, that he yelled at me over the phone earlier that afternoon. Asshole. I'll be honest with you, that still hurts me, and that still irks me. I need to let him know how I feel; it's the lesson My Fucking Father taught me most and best of all. But how?
The only thing I could think of, at least today, was to go back outside after dinner and throw a couple piles of snow at the driver's-side door. I've cleared the path from the front door to the car, for the most part, but hopefully My Fucking Father would have to step into snow to get in the minivan and get his heretofore clean shoes dirty.
And how about the city inspector? I want to defy his "Never mind! Forget it!" brattiness and not forget it. But then again, I don't want to be manipulated by any reverse psychology if he truly does want me to arrange a meeting with her. Shit, I don't know what to do. I think I'll sleep on it, but my plan now is this: I'll call up the city inspector tomorrow. Hopefully I'll get her voicemail. I will apologize for the message I left her after My Fucking Father yelled at me, telling her that it was all a mix-up. And then I will say that My Fucking Father wants to take over this message relay. I will leave her his number and tell her that he now wants to talk to her face-to-face, broken English be damned. If he thinks he's the only person who can do things right, he can do this his goddamn self.
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Why Is NPR Pissing Their Pants Because Of Some Right-Wing Cheap Shot Artist?
This is a couple weeks ago, but did you know that the head of National Public Radio was "resigned?" And because some other top official was caught saying that right-wingnut teabaggers were racist?
First of all, this guy, Ron Schiller, a Vice-President with NPR, was right about right-wingnut teabaggers being racist. Second of all, this was yet another set-up by that lying little prick, James O'Keefe. He's the asshole who brought down ACORN and cost Department of Agriculture official Shirley Sherrod her job, even though it turns out the hidden videotapes used to "out" ACORN and Sherrod were heavily edited.
No matter. Ron Schiller apparently "resigned" about a week before the hidden camera leak. Afterward, there was so much heat that NPR was the true racists that its CEO, Vivian Schiller, was effectively told to follow him out the door. (Ron and Vivina Schiller are not related, which raises an non-sequitir question: Can you think of a last name less common than "Schiller" that two unrleated people in the same story share? I can't.)
I'm still stunned that an institution as huge and as vaulted as National Public Radio would be shaken to its core by the ambushes by some punk-ass kid. I mean, look at this fucker. He brought down NPR?
But it's the same political stereotypes at work again, manifesting itself to intensely I'm once again starting to think they're not stereotypes. Republicans are evil, duplicitous, cagey cheaters that can drum up false evidence to use as ammunition for their frequent verbal abuse disguised as self-victimization. And Democrats are innocent, unsavvy, idealist schmucks who see they're getting yelled at from all sides and, in an effort to show that they're "above it all," decides to keep the peace by sacrificing themselves. And O'Keefe and the right-wingnut teabaggers win again -- although media critics have since scrutinized the tape O'Keefe released about the lunch with the NPR exec and basically said, There's more shit going on here. And although Ron Schiller was doing nothing but telling the truth. And although James O'Keefe looks like he does.
Esquire gets it right: Fear is ruling the day, and the Republicans are the ones wielding it. Come on, NPR, I want to like you. I hated you back when I was assigned to listen to you by my college journalism professor, but now that I'm closer to death I listen to All Things Considered every afternoon. Conservatives think you're too liberal, and liberals think you're too conservatve, which means you must be doing something right.
But the way you immediately go to the PR crisis playbook and execute the first rule -- fire the people in the middle of the controversy -- upon the first whiff of a hit piece by some guy who, as Esquire said, "by all rights should be shucking crawfish in a Louisiana prison farm," is bizarre. Be like a Republican-run corporation and grow some balls for once. Say something like, "I do not like the comments Ron Schiller made in that piece of videotape, but we recognize the source as someone who has heavily doctored similar videos in the past, so until James O'Keefe agrees to give us his unedited evidence, Mr. Schiller remains an employee of NPR."
See? You should've done that. Now it looks like you droppe a deuce in your tighty-whities because of some 26-year-old. When you could have proven yourselves to be a paragon of rectitude you turned into a house made out of straw, demolished by an underhanded douchelord blowing his hot air.
Sad and pathetic.
First of all, this guy, Ron Schiller, a Vice-President with NPR, was right about right-wingnut teabaggers being racist. Second of all, this was yet another set-up by that lying little prick, James O'Keefe. He's the asshole who brought down ACORN and cost Department of Agriculture official Shirley Sherrod her job, even though it turns out the hidden videotapes used to "out" ACORN and Sherrod were heavily edited.
No matter. Ron Schiller apparently "resigned" about a week before the hidden camera leak. Afterward, there was so much heat that NPR was the true racists that its CEO, Vivian Schiller, was effectively told to follow him out the door. (Ron and Vivina Schiller are not related, which raises an non-sequitir question: Can you think of a last name less common than "Schiller" that two unrleated people in the same story share? I can't.)
I'm still stunned that an institution as huge and as vaulted as National Public Radio would be shaken to its core by the ambushes by some punk-ass kid. I mean, look at this fucker. He brought down NPR?
But it's the same political stereotypes at work again, manifesting itself to intensely I'm once again starting to think they're not stereotypes. Republicans are evil, duplicitous, cagey cheaters that can drum up false evidence to use as ammunition for their frequent verbal abuse disguised as self-victimization. And Democrats are innocent, unsavvy, idealist schmucks who see they're getting yelled at from all sides and, in an effort to show that they're "above it all," decides to keep the peace by sacrificing themselves. And O'Keefe and the right-wingnut teabaggers win again -- although media critics have since scrutinized the tape O'Keefe released about the lunch with the NPR exec and basically said, There's more shit going on here. And although Ron Schiller was doing nothing but telling the truth. And although James O'Keefe looks like he does.
Esquire gets it right: Fear is ruling the day, and the Republicans are the ones wielding it. Come on, NPR, I want to like you. I hated you back when I was assigned to listen to you by my college journalism professor, but now that I'm closer to death I listen to All Things Considered every afternoon. Conservatives think you're too liberal, and liberals think you're too conservatve, which means you must be doing something right.
But the way you immediately go to the PR crisis playbook and execute the first rule -- fire the people in the middle of the controversy -- upon the first whiff of a hit piece by some guy who, as Esquire said, "by all rights should be shucking crawfish in a Louisiana prison farm," is bizarre. Be like a Republican-run corporation and grow some balls for once. Say something like, "I do not like the comments Ron Schiller made in that piece of videotape, but we recognize the source as someone who has heavily doctored similar videos in the past, so until James O'Keefe agrees to give us his unedited evidence, Mr. Schiller remains an employee of NPR."
See? You should've done that. Now it looks like you droppe a deuce in your tighty-whities because of some 26-year-old. When you could have proven yourselves to be a paragon of rectitude you turned into a house made out of straw, demolished by an underhanded douchelord blowing his hot air.
Sad and pathetic.
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Fuck This Fuckin' Family, Part II
OK, so where was I? Oh yeah, fixing My Fucking Father's phone. ...
I forgot to add that before I reset it, I went outside to make sure his phone not receiving calls wasn't because of bad reception. While I was outside, nearing the end of a spring day where it was warm and the sun was still shining copious amounts as it set over the horizon, I heard this huge banging noise that seemed to come from somewhere in the backyard. Was it My Father, or one of the neighbors?
I tell Mother that I don't know what to do. Then, it slowly dawned on me. The day before she wanted help sending photos of some bad shipment to the people who sent it to my parents' workplace. At first I thought I could help over the phone. When that didn't work, I figure I'd help her once they came home. I tried everything to no avail. Once I told Mother about it, she asked me: "Can you download the images to one of the computers and send it through e-mail?" And I said, "Sure!"
Whoops. I realized when I fiddled with My Fucking Father's iPhone that it was hijacked. And when I tried to plug it into my laptop in order to rip the photos, I synced it up with my iTunes system. I guess that whenever you do that, you let Apple know that phone has been "jailbroken" and it shuts down phone service. And by the way, I still wasn't able to rip the photos.
---
As I was trying to deal with this problem-on-top-of-a-problem, Mother calls me upstairs. I go out to the backyard. It's My Fucking Father holding up what looked like the guts of an old TV.
Then I look to my right. The huge TV is gone. We had this giant Zenith that we used to watch everything one when we were young. It was an sixties- or seventies-era TV, and since my parents were busy being breadwinners, that became our babysitter, our friend, our true companion that would never hurt us.
But we hadn't used it since we got new TV's about, oh, two decades ago. Since then it's largely been used as a platform for our Buddhist votive (if that's the right word) -- where we put all the Buddhist incest pots and statues of the Buddha. It was in what we'd loosely call the "family room," except none of the family did anything there. My Father put the sculptures he believes are valuable on top of the TV, which sat right next to the plant that's gotten so tall it needs to be pruned.
But it's gone now, all of it. What the giant Zenith left in its place was a huge rectangular brown spot where it used to be. So that's what all the noise was coming from: He was tearing the TV apart! Now why would he do that? Why would he break down such an innocent appliance that was fine just where it was? Was My Fucking Father mad about the phone? Was he pissed off that he thought Grandmother stunk up the joint with her lunch? Was he pissed at me for switching propane tanks because he thought it was unnecessary? Knowing him, it was all of that, plus some other things I don't know and don't understand.
He needed help loading the inside of the TV, the cathode ray tubes and the huge monitor, into his minivan for dumping. At one point he yelled, "Hold it!" as we stumbled down the stairs and out the front door. Damn, that thing was heavy.
And it's gone. An obsolete TV, and years upon years of childhood memories.
---
Meanwhile, after I gave up on fixing My Fucking Father's phone, I went back to the online real estate thingy Mother wanted me to do. She fires up here laptop and shows me the bank statement that she was reading to me over the phone earlier in the day. It looked familiar, as did the website she sent me to over the phone.
She insists that she can pay this online because she did this before. This website, cabanc.com, sucks (don't go to it, you'll just be frustrated because it is not user-friendly). I try to get to a page where you can pay online one time. For five minutes I go over and over this fucking site. I ask her for the username and password because I know for a fact that we've been through this; that statement is something she showed me before, and we through a whole lot of bullshit to get this real estate company account set up. She says we haven't. I get angry and yell; she gets angry and yells.
Finally, by the grace of Buddha and God, I see what looks to be a registration page, where you send in your name and address and account number of the property in question. So I was about to type it in when My Fucking Mother said that she now wanted to know if we could pay monthly online. I thought she hated that! But I didn't verbalize that; I was too damned fatigue with her arguing with me, plus I wanted to see if I could exercise after I got done.
She wanted me to call. She rarely likes going to the phone. I hate going to the phone. And I despise going to the phone because My Fucking Mother wants me to. But for some reason she wanted me to call these "Cabanc" people to see if she could pay montly online. I was so goddamn frustrated by what I believed was this unnecessary change of heart that I called the wrong number; I used the Minneapolis area code instead of the real one, whichever that was.
I then dialed in the right number, that of the vice-president whose region oversees this state. A really nice guy, though I think I caught him in the middle of something, he deftly answered my question. Turns out they have a one-time payment system online but not a monthly installment plan system. Weird; most other sites I've helped set up accounts for Mother have it the other way around. She also made me ask this VP if there's a fee involved with paying online. I think it's a ludicrous question, but Mother says that most of the real estate sites extract a fee when you pay. There isn't.
So I thought that meant that she wants me to set this up. No, My Fucking Mother said, she'll just do it some other way.
"But I thought you wanted me to set this up for you!!!" I said.
"No, forget it," My Fucking Mother said.
"So I did all of this for nothing???" I screamed.
And she stammered something and I just got fed up and walked away. All of this bullshit for nothing. This was one of those days where I didn't accomplish a goddamn thing.
Fuck this. Fuck all of this.
I forgot to add that before I reset it, I went outside to make sure his phone not receiving calls wasn't because of bad reception. While I was outside, nearing the end of a spring day where it was warm and the sun was still shining copious amounts as it set over the horizon, I heard this huge banging noise that seemed to come from somewhere in the backyard. Was it My Father, or one of the neighbors?
I tell Mother that I don't know what to do. Then, it slowly dawned on me. The day before she wanted help sending photos of some bad shipment to the people who sent it to my parents' workplace. At first I thought I could help over the phone. When that didn't work, I figure I'd help her once they came home. I tried everything to no avail. Once I told Mother about it, she asked me: "Can you download the images to one of the computers and send it through e-mail?" And I said, "Sure!"
Whoops. I realized when I fiddled with My Fucking Father's iPhone that it was hijacked. And when I tried to plug it into my laptop in order to rip the photos, I synced it up with my iTunes system. I guess that whenever you do that, you let Apple know that phone has been "jailbroken" and it shuts down phone service. And by the way, I still wasn't able to rip the photos.
---
As I was trying to deal with this problem-on-top-of-a-problem, Mother calls me upstairs. I go out to the backyard. It's My Fucking Father holding up what looked like the guts of an old TV.
Then I look to my right. The huge TV is gone. We had this giant Zenith that we used to watch everything one when we were young. It was an sixties- or seventies-era TV, and since my parents were busy being breadwinners, that became our babysitter, our friend, our true companion that would never hurt us.
But we hadn't used it since we got new TV's about, oh, two decades ago. Since then it's largely been used as a platform for our Buddhist votive (if that's the right word) -- where we put all the Buddhist incest pots and statues of the Buddha. It was in what we'd loosely call the "family room," except none of the family did anything there. My Father put the sculptures he believes are valuable on top of the TV, which sat right next to the plant that's gotten so tall it needs to be pruned.
But it's gone now, all of it. What the giant Zenith left in its place was a huge rectangular brown spot where it used to be. So that's what all the noise was coming from: He was tearing the TV apart! Now why would he do that? Why would he break down such an innocent appliance that was fine just where it was? Was My Fucking Father mad about the phone? Was he pissed off that he thought Grandmother stunk up the joint with her lunch? Was he pissed at me for switching propane tanks because he thought it was unnecessary? Knowing him, it was all of that, plus some other things I don't know and don't understand.
He needed help loading the inside of the TV, the cathode ray tubes and the huge monitor, into his minivan for dumping. At one point he yelled, "Hold it!" as we stumbled down the stairs and out the front door. Damn, that thing was heavy.
And it's gone. An obsolete TV, and years upon years of childhood memories.
---
Meanwhile, after I gave up on fixing My Fucking Father's phone, I went back to the online real estate thingy Mother wanted me to do. She fires up here laptop and shows me the bank statement that she was reading to me over the phone earlier in the day. It looked familiar, as did the website she sent me to over the phone.
She insists that she can pay this online because she did this before. This website, cabanc.com, sucks (don't go to it, you'll just be frustrated because it is not user-friendly). I try to get to a page where you can pay online one time. For five minutes I go over and over this fucking site. I ask her for the username and password because I know for a fact that we've been through this; that statement is something she showed me before, and we through a whole lot of bullshit to get this real estate company account set up. She says we haven't. I get angry and yell; she gets angry and yells.
Finally, by the grace of Buddha and God, I see what looks to be a registration page, where you send in your name and address and account number of the property in question. So I was about to type it in when My Fucking Mother said that she now wanted to know if we could pay monthly online. I thought she hated that! But I didn't verbalize that; I was too damned fatigue with her arguing with me, plus I wanted to see if I could exercise after I got done.
She wanted me to call. She rarely likes going to the phone. I hate going to the phone. And I despise going to the phone because My Fucking Mother wants me to. But for some reason she wanted me to call these "Cabanc" people to see if she could pay montly online. I was so goddamn frustrated by what I believed was this unnecessary change of heart that I called the wrong number; I used the Minneapolis area code instead of the real one, whichever that was.
I then dialed in the right number, that of the vice-president whose region oversees this state. A really nice guy, though I think I caught him in the middle of something, he deftly answered my question. Turns out they have a one-time payment system online but not a monthly installment plan system. Weird; most other sites I've helped set up accounts for Mother have it the other way around. She also made me ask this VP if there's a fee involved with paying online. I think it's a ludicrous question, but Mother says that most of the real estate sites extract a fee when you pay. There isn't.
So I thought that meant that she wants me to set this up. No, My Fucking Mother said, she'll just do it some other way.
"But I thought you wanted me to set this up for you!!!" I said.
"No, forget it," My Fucking Mother said.
"So I did all of this for nothing???" I screamed.
And she stammered something and I just got fed up and walked away. All of this bullshit for nothing. This was one of those days where I didn't accomplish a goddamn thing.
Fuck this. Fuck all of this.
Monday, March 21, 2011
I Can't Fucking Watch March Madness Anymore
It is not because my bracket's in the shitter. It is, and I'm plenty pissed about it. But the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament will always be The Greatest Three Weeks In American Sport, and in time I will get over the fact that I lost in my pools again and look forward to March Madness. Happens every year.
However, this new TV deal CBS and Turner Sports has in covering the tournament sucks, big time. Not only is this postseason elegantly, almost perfectly, constructed, the way it's covered and broadcast was a moving work of art. Now, it has been destroyed, probably irrevocably. And that makes me hopping mad.
I had grave doubts about bringing in three cable networks so that every single game of the Big Dance, as they repeatedly say as a tagline, "can be seen in its entirety." So fucking what? A market was always designated a game with the most local interest, but unless Minnesota was playing here, CBS would inevitably shift us to a game that was close near the end, just to make sure we saw what would happen. March Madness, and CBS' coverage of it, was built on showing the wild finishes and buzzer-beaters and upsets. We got to see it all from the comfort of our Barcalounger, and we didn't have to miss a thing.
But this shit is way different. For the first round -- the "real" first round, not that play-in shit the NCAA insists on calling the "first round" now -- all 16 games on Thursday and Friday were spread out over four networks. Along with CBS, the other networks now carrying tourney games are TBS, TNT, and truTV. For a guy who doesn't have cable because he has, oh, priorities, I'm fucked. So are between 10 and 30 percent of the population that can't afford it.
What do you get? One game. The whole game. The whole goddamn, motherfucking game. Even if it's a blowout, you get that game -- "in its entirety!" CBS and Turner Sports chirpily say. Worst of all, they do not switch to more exciting games -- for the most part.
I am livid that I don't even understand a consistent policy from these guys. Sometimes, like with the, I believe, George Mason/Villanova game on Friday, the other networks did switch away from their contests (I was watching all the games at the same time because I was at a Hooters) to show it, although they shrunk the actual screen down in order to frame it with a title like "Live Look-In" and maybe, possibly show a sponsor. On the other hand, I was at home Thursday afternoon and noted the tight finish to the Morehead St./Louisville thriller. But since I didn't have cable, all I got was Kentucky/Princeton action. The only way I knew that the Eagles pulled off the upset was when the graphic that sits on the top of the screen for every single game you see showed the final.
Now how in the fuck is that better than switching to the final minutes of that game? Would it hurt ratings? Of course not. Would it hurt the, for lack of a better word, integrity of the new arrangement and the addition of Turner Sports covering some of the games? I don't think so. Instead I got a game that had no local interest and, even though it wound up being pretty good, was, I think, winding down the first half. We would've seen the last, like, four minutes of the upset of the Cardinals if it were a year ago. And the whole of College Basketball Nation would be buzzing about it. Now, a significant portion of the fanbase had no idea what happened until CBS ran an abbreviated, ten-second clip just after it happened. They couldn't show that live? What a joke.
The halftime shows and between-games patter is another problem created by the new TV deal. They used to be dominated by extended airings of games in progress, which was fucking awesome. But now we have, at least on the free TV side, Greg Gumbel and/or Ernie Johnson, Greg Anthony, Kenny Smith and Charles Barkley talking, talking, talking. Their analysis is fine; I am pleasantly surprised that the command Jet and Sir Charles have for the NBA translates to college b-ball (though I'm still irked they're just swooping in and telling us how it's going to be just as the Tournament starts). But I still want to see basketball! And it's there, on other channels, and they will no longer let us watch basketball!! That shit pisses me off, and I hope the vast majority of other people feel the same.
(Not as if this is the actual reaction to my rant, but I think the bigwigs at CBS and Turner will say, "Well, if you don't like it, change the channel." First of all, I don't fucking have cable. And second of all, if there are people like me who preferred it the old way, why in the hell aren't all four channels switching to basketball action? As much as I like the guys, I don't want three segments of studio talking heads breaking down what happened and what could happen. That's just bullshitting. I want b-ball, and I think others want b-ball, too. So, if I'm right, all you guys are losing rating by just having a studio show, right? Who's the dumb one now?)
The other thing that pisses me the fuck off is March Madness On Demand. Without cable, the only way I can see all the games are through my laptop. They've done it this way for years, but because CBS had always brought the action to me, I didn't need it. But now that they absolutely refuse to take shitty games off of our TV, I'm forced to watch through my computer. It's not a bad substitute ... if it works.
My modem at home is slow and kind of shitty. That means that, oftentimes, the game gets stopped because it can't stream or initialize or buffer or render or whatever the exact fucking word it's supposed to be. And I can't tell you how many fucking times a guy goes up for a shot only to see the goddamn screen freeze and that circle slowly trace itself counterclockwise. My connection's so bad that, at its worst, it happened about, oh, every 10-5 seconds.
The game would literally drag so it would be behind the point of the game in real time. If I did have cable and put it up on the TV, I'm sure what was on the computer would be late by about 15 seconds. Moreover, the computer screen had a running graphic showing the score and the time, and somehow that isn't synced up with the action. So, if the game I was watching kept freezing, I would know the actual score by looking up at the top of the screen instead of the game.
That produced some incredibly frustrating moments when close games came down to the wire. For the Butler-Pittsburgh and Arizona-Texas upsets, I was glued to my laptop ... until that goddamn circle started spinning around. The clock on the game broadcast was almost a minute after the clock shown on the graphic, so I knew there was a possibility that I would be able to see the score of the final before I saw how it played out on-screen. So I had to put my hands above my eyes to shield my line of vision from that graphic, like I was outside on a sunny day without my hate and wanted to reduce the glare to see what's in front of me.
Moreover, this screen has a twitter feed going on the lower-left hand corner. I didn't know if this reloaded as quickly as the graphic up top, but I didn't take any chances; at one point in the Arizona-Texas match, not only did I tilt my head down so as not to catch the score in the graphic, I put up my left hand to block my view of the twitter feed. It would have been pathetic to see what I looked like, squinting and leaning way close into my laptop just so I could see the game and just the game.
Luckily I didn't spoil myself; I saw the conclusions to both endings like they were in real time, although I'm absolutely convinced I could have seen the final score if I just looked up or down and to the left. Unfortunately, I still have Thursday and Friday where I'll need to keep up this self-seclusion in order to see the Sweet 16 games on TBS unspoiled.
I hate this new set-up, I hate it!!!
However, this new TV deal CBS and Turner Sports has in covering the tournament sucks, big time. Not only is this postseason elegantly, almost perfectly, constructed, the way it's covered and broadcast was a moving work of art. Now, it has been destroyed, probably irrevocably. And that makes me hopping mad.
I had grave doubts about bringing in three cable networks so that every single game of the Big Dance, as they repeatedly say as a tagline, "can be seen in its entirety." So fucking what? A market was always designated a game with the most local interest, but unless Minnesota was playing here, CBS would inevitably shift us to a game that was close near the end, just to make sure we saw what would happen. March Madness, and CBS' coverage of it, was built on showing the wild finishes and buzzer-beaters and upsets. We got to see it all from the comfort of our Barcalounger, and we didn't have to miss a thing.
But this shit is way different. For the first round -- the "real" first round, not that play-in shit the NCAA insists on calling the "first round" now -- all 16 games on Thursday and Friday were spread out over four networks. Along with CBS, the other networks now carrying tourney games are TBS, TNT, and truTV. For a guy who doesn't have cable because he has, oh, priorities, I'm fucked. So are between 10 and 30 percent of the population that can't afford it.
What do you get? One game. The whole game. The whole goddamn, motherfucking game. Even if it's a blowout, you get that game -- "in its entirety!" CBS and Turner Sports chirpily say. Worst of all, they do not switch to more exciting games -- for the most part.
I am livid that I don't even understand a consistent policy from these guys. Sometimes, like with the, I believe, George Mason/Villanova game on Friday, the other networks did switch away from their contests (I was watching all the games at the same time because I was at a Hooters) to show it, although they shrunk the actual screen down in order to frame it with a title like "Live Look-In" and maybe, possibly show a sponsor. On the other hand, I was at home Thursday afternoon and noted the tight finish to the Morehead St./Louisville thriller. But since I didn't have cable, all I got was Kentucky/Princeton action. The only way I knew that the Eagles pulled off the upset was when the graphic that sits on the top of the screen for every single game you see showed the final.
Now how in the fuck is that better than switching to the final minutes of that game? Would it hurt ratings? Of course not. Would it hurt the, for lack of a better word, integrity of the new arrangement and the addition of Turner Sports covering some of the games? I don't think so. Instead I got a game that had no local interest and, even though it wound up being pretty good, was, I think, winding down the first half. We would've seen the last, like, four minutes of the upset of the Cardinals if it were a year ago. And the whole of College Basketball Nation would be buzzing about it. Now, a significant portion of the fanbase had no idea what happened until CBS ran an abbreviated, ten-second clip just after it happened. They couldn't show that live? What a joke.
The halftime shows and between-games patter is another problem created by the new TV deal. They used to be dominated by extended airings of games in progress, which was fucking awesome. But now we have, at least on the free TV side, Greg Gumbel and/or Ernie Johnson, Greg Anthony, Kenny Smith and Charles Barkley talking, talking, talking. Their analysis is fine; I am pleasantly surprised that the command Jet and Sir Charles have for the NBA translates to college b-ball (though I'm still irked they're just swooping in and telling us how it's going to be just as the Tournament starts). But I still want to see basketball! And it's there, on other channels, and they will no longer let us watch basketball!! That shit pisses me off, and I hope the vast majority of other people feel the same.
(Not as if this is the actual reaction to my rant, but I think the bigwigs at CBS and Turner will say, "Well, if you don't like it, change the channel." First of all, I don't fucking have cable. And second of all, if there are people like me who preferred it the old way, why in the hell aren't all four channels switching to basketball action? As much as I like the guys, I don't want three segments of studio talking heads breaking down what happened and what could happen. That's just bullshitting. I want b-ball, and I think others want b-ball, too. So, if I'm right, all you guys are losing rating by just having a studio show, right? Who's the dumb one now?)
The other thing that pisses me the fuck off is March Madness On Demand. Without cable, the only way I can see all the games are through my laptop. They've done it this way for years, but because CBS had always brought the action to me, I didn't need it. But now that they absolutely refuse to take shitty games off of our TV, I'm forced to watch through my computer. It's not a bad substitute ... if it works.
My modem at home is slow and kind of shitty. That means that, oftentimes, the game gets stopped because it can't stream or initialize or buffer or render or whatever the exact fucking word it's supposed to be. And I can't tell you how many fucking times a guy goes up for a shot only to see the goddamn screen freeze and that circle slowly trace itself counterclockwise. My connection's so bad that, at its worst, it happened about, oh, every 10-5 seconds.
The game would literally drag so it would be behind the point of the game in real time. If I did have cable and put it up on the TV, I'm sure what was on the computer would be late by about 15 seconds. Moreover, the computer screen had a running graphic showing the score and the time, and somehow that isn't synced up with the action. So, if the game I was watching kept freezing, I would know the actual score by looking up at the top of the screen instead of the game.
That produced some incredibly frustrating moments when close games came down to the wire. For the Butler-Pittsburgh and Arizona-Texas upsets, I was glued to my laptop ... until that goddamn circle started spinning around. The clock on the game broadcast was almost a minute after the clock shown on the graphic, so I knew there was a possibility that I would be able to see the score of the final before I saw how it played out on-screen. So I had to put my hands above my eyes to shield my line of vision from that graphic, like I was outside on a sunny day without my hate and wanted to reduce the glare to see what's in front of me.
Moreover, this screen has a twitter feed going on the lower-left hand corner. I didn't know if this reloaded as quickly as the graphic up top, but I didn't take any chances; at one point in the Arizona-Texas match, not only did I tilt my head down so as not to catch the score in the graphic, I put up my left hand to block my view of the twitter feed. It would have been pathetic to see what I looked like, squinting and leaning way close into my laptop just so I could see the game and just the game.
Luckily I didn't spoil myself; I saw the conclusions to both endings like they were in real time, although I'm absolutely convinced I could have seen the final score if I just looked up or down and to the left. Unfortunately, I still have Thursday and Friday where I'll need to keep up this self-seclusion in order to see the Sweet 16 games on TBS unspoiled.
I hate this new set-up, I hate it!!!
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Too Late For Work Burn
I can drudge up a bad memory:
Happened about a month ago. There's enough distance from the incident so I won't get caught. Hopefully.
At "work" at the U. there was a little, uh, sabbatical from the series of runs I was doing for my "boss" and the person administrating for her. We were finishing up, but there was some work left for me, but he didn't know exactly when, so in the meantime I had this mini-experiment with another worker there who once worked for my "boss." You get that? Don't worry; it's possible that I have the timeline wrong and the last time I "worked" there was this abbreivated session.
Anyway, one would think they would try to get there on time. I've broken that convention most of times at this lab. But I kind of -- kind of -- wanted this time to be special because this may be the only time I "work" for her; no use being late if you're only working that one time. Well, for some reason -- I looked back in my day planner and I didn't write how much lunch was, so I maybe didn't eat beforehand -- I got there 10 minutes late. She didn't bitch at me when I got there. She never had.
I was getting near the end of this run. Don't know exactly how to describe this, but there are a series of bloops and bleeps, and depending on the type of bloop and bleep measured, there usually is a run of them that you go through. There are stops in the middle where the program prompts you to either continue the experiment or end it. Those are natural times, if you're at the end of the day, to quit.
However, in this particular experiment was that there is a running count of how many of these "runs" are left. There's the possibility that she would have more controls consisting of another series of "runs" for me, but if that were the case I would have to come back another time. At the top of the hour, when I would have been done save for the fact that I was late and I kind of felt bad, I had about two whole runs remaining. Do I leave them because there might be another subject who's coming in right after me?
After debating, I thought I could finish them quickly enough. I didn't see anyone outside, I felt bad for coming in late so I wanted to make up for it, and there was a possibility there were no runs after I finished what I was doing.
So I try and barrel through, and then I hear the huge, big door open from behind me. It's her. She's says something to the effect of, "Hey, I see you only have two of those things left. Can you stay a little long to finish these? I have nothing more after this. I mean, you did come a little late. ..."
Well. She wasn't telepathing, I guess. And I'm still shocked -- shocked, I tell you! -- to be semi-scolded like that.
Oh well. Haven't heard from her or from anyone else in the lab since. Was told that experiments could go on indefinitely because there's so much to hear. Oh well. ...
Happened about a month ago. There's enough distance from the incident so I won't get caught. Hopefully.
At "work" at the U. there was a little, uh, sabbatical from the series of runs I was doing for my "boss" and the person administrating for her. We were finishing up, but there was some work left for me, but he didn't know exactly when, so in the meantime I had this mini-experiment with another worker there who once worked for my "boss." You get that? Don't worry; it's possible that I have the timeline wrong and the last time I "worked" there was this abbreivated session.
Anyway, one would think they would try to get there on time. I've broken that convention most of times at this lab. But I kind of -- kind of -- wanted this time to be special because this may be the only time I "work" for her; no use being late if you're only working that one time. Well, for some reason -- I looked back in my day planner and I didn't write how much lunch was, so I maybe didn't eat beforehand -- I got there 10 minutes late. She didn't bitch at me when I got there. She never had.
I was getting near the end of this run. Don't know exactly how to describe this, but there are a series of bloops and bleeps, and depending on the type of bloop and bleep measured, there usually is a run of them that you go through. There are stops in the middle where the program prompts you to either continue the experiment or end it. Those are natural times, if you're at the end of the day, to quit.
However, in this particular experiment was that there is a running count of how many of these "runs" are left. There's the possibility that she would have more controls consisting of another series of "runs" for me, but if that were the case I would have to come back another time. At the top of the hour, when I would have been done save for the fact that I was late and I kind of felt bad, I had about two whole runs remaining. Do I leave them because there might be another subject who's coming in right after me?
After debating, I thought I could finish them quickly enough. I didn't see anyone outside, I felt bad for coming in late so I wanted to make up for it, and there was a possibility there were no runs after I finished what I was doing.
So I try and barrel through, and then I hear the huge, big door open from behind me. It's her. She's says something to the effect of, "Hey, I see you only have two of those things left. Can you stay a little long to finish these? I have nothing more after this. I mean, you did come a little late. ..."
Well. She wasn't telepathing, I guess. And I'm still shocked -- shocked, I tell you! -- to be semi-scolded like that.
Oh well. Haven't heard from her or from anyone else in the lab since. Was told that experiments could go on indefinitely because there's so much to hear. Oh well. ...
Saturday, March 19, 2011
The Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey
Positive Numbers: St. Thomas men's basketball (New!). Wow, what a surprise! The Tommies won the Division III championship this (Sunday) afternoon by crushing Wooster (in Ohio), 78-54. This was over early; the Tommies blitzed the Fighting Scots in the first half of the first half 34-5 and never looked back. This is the first time UST has ever won a men's basketball championship.
The prison sex they applied to Wooster is 180 degrees different from the way they had to win their semifinal match against Middlebury Friday. They were up by seven at the half but were down to the Panthers by seven about midway through the second half. But a 12-0 put St. Thomas up by five with two minutes left, and they held on.
I believe this is the first title the school has claimed since the baseball team won in 2009. That's two championships in the past three years. The U. hasn't done that; see below. At least one university is making the state of Minnesota proud. Congratulations, Tommies! Maybe I will attend your grad school!!
#-1: Gopher baseball (Last Week: -1). Besides the Tommies, this week's edition of the WMNSS is so fucking lame. These guys repeat on the top of this list because -- get this -- they are the only team, besides St. Thomas, which is a one-time thing, to fucking win a single goddamn game. And they went 2-2 this week, yet somehow this squad is, like, the motherfucking Yankees of this survey. It's pathetic.
Specifically, they lose two at Gonzaga (thereby losing two of three in their series against the Bulldogs), but win both games of a two-game midweek series at Sacramento St. That kind of tells you where they are in the world of college baseball.
They were supposed to begin a three-game set at Santa Clara last (Friday) night, but, for the second time this week, it was postponed due to weather (the other game being Tuesday's game against Sac. St.). So they tried to pull a doubleheader today (Saturday) ... but it's raining so much today (Saturday) that they decided to just fuckin' cancel the double-dip. Pffffffffffft, baseball. You know, we have a dome here in Minnesota; they could've played here without worrying about precipitation falling ... uh, never mind.
The Minnesota Nine will see if they will play Santa Clara at all Sunday. Then, they start their final series on The Road Trip To Begin The Season That Will Not End against Cal Poly.
---
A special note: I am listing the next six teams in protest. None of these clubs won anything this week. In fact, their efforts were so embarrassing, and the consequences of their ineptitude so deep and profound, that I don't know why I'm ranking them. I had so much trouble differentiating them that I had to stop and put some of them in a tie. They are all so fuckin' bad. Shit, I should just not write about them and leave them off of the WMNSS. I am absolutely disgusted with all these teams. And that all of them, all six of them, are showing their incompetence at the same time indicates beyond the pale the dreary winter sports scene in Minnesota. The winters the past several years have been mighty, mighty cold.
I must soldier on because, well, it'd be unfair to all the other WMNSS's if I just blew this off. But all these clubs below should be goddamn ashamed of themselves:
#-2 (tie): Timberwolves and Wild (Last Week, respectively: -2, -4). The Minnesota pro sports teams are so motherfucking lame they should just relocate. Get them the hell out of here; they're sticking up our great state. Putrid, the both of them.
With whom of these bottom-scraper shall I begin? Oh, I'll go with the team that should have absolutely zero interest to the community now that Kevin Love has had his double-doubles streak broken. Yes, KLove was shackled by one of the teams in the NBA known for its hard-nosed defense, Golden State. (I'm being sarcastic, by the way.) Wilt Chamberlain, rest easy; your record of 200+ straight games amassing double-doubles is safe. As is your record of fucking 20,000 women.
The Woofie Dogs went 0-3, all on the road. They now return home with shit on their faces. If you ever catch me paying for a ticket to a Timberwolves game, you have my permission to shoot me. This week: home to Sacramento, then at Dallas and The Bastard Seattle SuperSonics.
The Wolves, at least, aren't disappointing the Minnesota sports populace after being in the thick of a playoff race, which is exactly what the Wild are doing. Well, until recently -- now, they're out of it.
They usually vacate the Xcel Energy Center this time of year because of the boys' state high school hockey tournament and the WCHA Final Five. They were on a four-game road trip and they lost all goddamn four. They were outscored 15-4 in that sojourn, against teams that either are fighting for playoff slots or are the cream of the Western Conference. Shit, they even lost to The Team That Was Stolen From Us, which pisses me the fuck off royally.
They then played this afternoon against Columbus. They are the appetizer for the main course, the WCHA Final Five final tonight, in their own fucking building. And they skated scantly better: They gained a point, but they lost with 33.5 seconds left in the goddamn overtime to the BJ's, 5-4. So, technically, in my mind, they lost. Therefore, they have now lost five in a row.
This fatal skid now puts them in 11th place, five points behind The Bastard Atlanta Flames for the eighth and final playoff spot in the Western Conference. It's over. They host Montreal tomorrow (Sunday), then play at the X vs. Toronto on Tuesday.
#-Infinity (tie): Gopher wrestling, women's hockey, men's hockey, and men's basketball (Last Week, respectively: -6, -3, -5, -7).
The only reason I'm putting both teams above these four blights on the U. community, and the state of Minnesota, is that the seasons of the Woofie Dogs and the Mild aren't done yet. Per my rule, only teams whose seasons end (and with failure to win a championship) get designated with the "#-Infinity" rank. But this is the second year in a row where more than one -- maybe even more than two -- Gopher programs end their seasons the same screening week. That goes to show that these winter programs are just horseshit right now.
I'll begin with the grapplers. No player won a title. When's the last time that fucking happened? Sad. The Gophs, at the exact moment I'm typing this, is in sixth place. Their final place won't be decided until the whole tournament gets done tonight (Sunday night). So, I guess that technically the season for the Gophers isn't over yet. But the team is done, it can't play anymore. And besides, this season has been such a disappointment that I don't give a fuck.
Women's hockey? Please. They got the their asses kicked at Boston College last Saturday, a good team but one the Gophs could have, and should have, beat. It was over in the first 20 minutes as the Eagles scored all their goals in a 4-1 rout.
These Goof icers fail to advance to the Frozen Four for the third time in the last five seasons. This program was the first elite program in women's hockey. But since their back-to-back NCAA titles in the 2004 and 2005 postseasons, they haven't even been back to the the title game. What the fuck, Brad Frost?
Men's hockey was a goddamn tease. They actually went on a run to finish the regular season, not losing their last seven games. That put them in fifth place in the WCHA and home-ice advantage in their conference tournament series against Alaska-Anchorage. That's, like, 10,000 miles away from here.
But last Saturday night's 2-0 loss completed an inexplicable, inexcusable 2-0 sweep by the Seawolves. Let me re-emphasize: They got swept at home by Alaska fuckin' Anchorage. After being on the cusp of getting in as an at-large, this is the third straight year they won't make the NCAAs. Shit, this is the second year in a row they didn't make the WCHA Final Five, which is held in their metro-fucking-politan area. Plus another guy, Aaron Ness, said fuck this and quit the school.
Yeah, I think Don Lucia should be let go. So why in the fuckety-fuck is he going to get a contract extension?
Finally, men's basketball. I didn't end their season in the WMNSS last week because I assumed they were going to get into the NIT. And then on Sunday they didn't even fucking get into the NIT. Shit, 13 losses in 14 games is so awful that even the NIT thinks the Goofs are below them??
Just after they lost their last game I thought they didn't deserve the NIT and if they were invited, they should decline. Being in the Not Invited Tournament, to me, was almost as awful as not playing in the real tournament. But now that it turns out they really aren't playing in the postseason (there's a rumor that the College Basketball Invitiational, the third level of college basketball postseasons, wanted Minnesota, but Head Coach Tubby Smith couldn't hold his nose long enough to coach through that tourney), I'm thinking, "Oh my shit, this team is so fucking bad that they're not playing in any postseason? That suuuuuuuuuuuucks."
Joel Maturi seems to be a nice guy, and I wouldn't give his problems to a monkey on a rock, as David Letterman would say. But Jim Souhan is right.
The prison sex they applied to Wooster is 180 degrees different from the way they had to win their semifinal match against Middlebury Friday. They were up by seven at the half but were down to the Panthers by seven about midway through the second half. But a 12-0 put St. Thomas up by five with two minutes left, and they held on.
I believe this is the first title the school has claimed since the baseball team won in 2009. That's two championships in the past three years. The U. hasn't done that; see below. At least one university is making the state of Minnesota proud. Congratulations, Tommies! Maybe I will attend your grad school!!
#-1: Gopher baseball (Last Week: -1). Besides the Tommies, this week's edition of the WMNSS is so fucking lame. These guys repeat on the top of this list because -- get this -- they are the only team, besides St. Thomas, which is a one-time thing, to fucking win a single goddamn game. And they went 2-2 this week, yet somehow this squad is, like, the motherfucking Yankees of this survey. It's pathetic.
Specifically, they lose two at Gonzaga (thereby losing two of three in their series against the Bulldogs), but win both games of a two-game midweek series at Sacramento St. That kind of tells you where they are in the world of college baseball.
They were supposed to begin a three-game set at Santa Clara last (Friday) night, but, for the second time this week, it was postponed due to weather (the other game being Tuesday's game against Sac. St.). So they tried to pull a doubleheader today (Saturday) ... but it's raining so much today (Saturday) that they decided to just fuckin' cancel the double-dip. Pffffffffffft, baseball. You know, we have a dome here in Minnesota; they could've played here without worrying about precipitation falling ... uh, never mind.
The Minnesota Nine will see if they will play Santa Clara at all Sunday. Then, they start their final series on The Road Trip To Begin The Season That Will Not End against Cal Poly.
---
A special note: I am listing the next six teams in protest. None of these clubs won anything this week. In fact, their efforts were so embarrassing, and the consequences of their ineptitude so deep and profound, that I don't know why I'm ranking them. I had so much trouble differentiating them that I had to stop and put some of them in a tie. They are all so fuckin' bad. Shit, I should just not write about them and leave them off of the WMNSS. I am absolutely disgusted with all these teams. And that all of them, all six of them, are showing their incompetence at the same time indicates beyond the pale the dreary winter sports scene in Minnesota. The winters the past several years have been mighty, mighty cold.
I must soldier on because, well, it'd be unfair to all the other WMNSS's if I just blew this off. But all these clubs below should be goddamn ashamed of themselves:
#-2 (tie): Timberwolves and Wild (Last Week, respectively: -2, -4). The Minnesota pro sports teams are so motherfucking lame they should just relocate. Get them the hell out of here; they're sticking up our great state. Putrid, the both of them.
With whom of these bottom-scraper shall I begin? Oh, I'll go with the team that should have absolutely zero interest to the community now that Kevin Love has had his double-doubles streak broken. Yes, KLove was shackled by one of the teams in the NBA known for its hard-nosed defense, Golden State. (I'm being sarcastic, by the way.) Wilt Chamberlain, rest easy; your record of 200+ straight games amassing double-doubles is safe. As is your record of fucking 20,000 women.
The Woofie Dogs went 0-3, all on the road. They now return home with shit on their faces. If you ever catch me paying for a ticket to a Timberwolves game, you have my permission to shoot me. This week: home to Sacramento, then at Dallas and The Bastard Seattle SuperSonics.
The Wolves, at least, aren't disappointing the Minnesota sports populace after being in the thick of a playoff race, which is exactly what the Wild are doing. Well, until recently -- now, they're out of it.
They usually vacate the Xcel Energy Center this time of year because of the boys' state high school hockey tournament and the WCHA Final Five. They were on a four-game road trip and they lost all goddamn four. They were outscored 15-4 in that sojourn, against teams that either are fighting for playoff slots or are the cream of the Western Conference. Shit, they even lost to The Team That Was Stolen From Us, which pisses me the fuck off royally.
They then played this afternoon against Columbus. They are the appetizer for the main course, the WCHA Final Five final tonight, in their own fucking building. And they skated scantly better: They gained a point, but they lost with 33.5 seconds left in the goddamn overtime to the BJ's, 5-4. So, technically, in my mind, they lost. Therefore, they have now lost five in a row.
This fatal skid now puts them in 11th place, five points behind The Bastard Atlanta Flames for the eighth and final playoff spot in the Western Conference. It's over. They host Montreal tomorrow (Sunday), then play at the X vs. Toronto on Tuesday.
#-Infinity (tie): Gopher wrestling, women's hockey, men's hockey, and men's basketball (Last Week, respectively: -6, -3, -5, -7).
The only reason I'm putting both teams above these four blights on the U. community, and the state of Minnesota, is that the seasons of the Woofie Dogs and the Mild aren't done yet. Per my rule, only teams whose seasons end (and with failure to win a championship) get designated with the "#-Infinity" rank. But this is the second year in a row where more than one -- maybe even more than two -- Gopher programs end their seasons the same screening week. That goes to show that these winter programs are just horseshit right now.
I'll begin with the grapplers. No player won a title. When's the last time that fucking happened? Sad. The Gophs, at the exact moment I'm typing this, is in sixth place. Their final place won't be decided until the whole tournament gets done tonight (Sunday night). So, I guess that technically the season for the Gophers isn't over yet. But the team is done, it can't play anymore. And besides, this season has been such a disappointment that I don't give a fuck.
Women's hockey? Please. They got the their asses kicked at Boston College last Saturday, a good team but one the Gophs could have, and should have, beat. It was over in the first 20 minutes as the Eagles scored all their goals in a 4-1 rout.
These Goof icers fail to advance to the Frozen Four for the third time in the last five seasons. This program was the first elite program in women's hockey. But since their back-to-back NCAA titles in the 2004 and 2005 postseasons, they haven't even been back to the the title game. What the fuck, Brad Frost?
Men's hockey was a goddamn tease. They actually went on a run to finish the regular season, not losing their last seven games. That put them in fifth place in the WCHA and home-ice advantage in their conference tournament series against Alaska-Anchorage. That's, like, 10,000 miles away from here.
But last Saturday night's 2-0 loss completed an inexplicable, inexcusable 2-0 sweep by the Seawolves. Let me re-emphasize: They got swept at home by Alaska fuckin' Anchorage. After being on the cusp of getting in as an at-large, this is the third straight year they won't make the NCAAs. Shit, this is the second year in a row they didn't make the WCHA Final Five, which is held in their metro-fucking-politan area. Plus another guy, Aaron Ness, said fuck this and quit the school.
Yeah, I think Don Lucia should be let go. So why in the fuckety-fuck is he going to get a contract extension?
Finally, men's basketball. I didn't end their season in the WMNSS last week because I assumed they were going to get into the NIT. And then on Sunday they didn't even fucking get into the NIT. Shit, 13 losses in 14 games is so awful that even the NIT thinks the Goofs are below them??
Just after they lost their last game I thought they didn't deserve the NIT and if they were invited, they should decline. Being in the Not Invited Tournament, to me, was almost as awful as not playing in the real tournament. But now that it turns out they really aren't playing in the postseason (there's a rumor that the College Basketball Invitiational, the third level of college basketball postseasons, wanted Minnesota, but Head Coach Tubby Smith couldn't hold his nose long enough to coach through that tourney), I'm thinking, "Oh my shit, this team is so fucking bad that they're not playing in any postseason? That suuuuuuuuuuuucks."
Joel Maturi seems to be a nice guy, and I wouldn't give his problems to a monkey on a rock, as David Letterman would say. But Jim Souhan is right.
Friday, March 18, 2011
Roller Derby Follies, Part II
This story comes at the end of My Worst Week Ever, which was a couple or a few weeks ago.
I went to the Minnesota Roller Girls meet in St. Paul. My friend once again had a free ticket. She has yet to ask me to pay her back. I love her. I like her fiancé as well.
It was halftime and I wanted to go out and just people-watch. I had my ticket with me, just in case I get asked by the usher. I put it in the program I toted with me because I was afraid I'd lose it if I just held onto my ticket.
I was everywhere -- upstairs, downstairs, peeing somewhere. When I was about to go through the door to get to my quasi-trackside seat, I opened up my program ... and didn't see my ticket. Shit! I didn't need it to get back to my seat, I just wanted to have it as a souvenir. I have a tiny bag full of movie tickets and sporting event stubs that I keep. I don't think I've gone through them after I put shove them into the bag. But it's important to me. They are souvenirs of things that I did and want to remember, even if I don't go back and remind myself specifically of those moments. I hope that doesn't make me shallow.
Now, there are probably events I've lost the tickets/stubs for. But while I was sitting there, at my seat, spacing from a game that against the All-Star team from Washington, D.C. that very quickly turned into a blowout and wondering if I might've dropped it trying to wash my hands in the upstairs bathroom, I just couldn't shake my frustration over losing a ticket for this bout. And while this event wasn't over, I became determined to either find that ticket or, failing that, getting one to commemorate the evening.
I announced to my party that I was going to the bathroom. She didn't have to re-announce it for everyone; I didn't think I said that that loud. I took the next, oh, 10 or 15 minutes retracing my steps while looking on the floor to see if there's a ticket that matches my seat. Nothing.
I was despondent, truly, truly depressed. After all the shit that happened and all the shit I failed to do that week, losing something as simple as a ticket was the last straw. If I didn't have my druthers, I would have broken down then and there. But I held it together because I was sure I could get a souvenir.
So the bout ends. It's an after-bout ritual to walk up track-side and stick our your hand as the players roll through and give you high-fives. I wanted to do that, then go back and find a ticket left behind by a spectator. My plan was foiled, however, when the other three people in my party immediately jumped up and prepared to leave.
I went up trackside as a way to scope out some tickets on the floor, and I kind of took my time to gather my coat and hat and gloves to see if I could find one. Bastards probably thought this game was as special to remember as I. However, there was one ticket lying on the floor. Unfortunately, it was lying in a space reserved for a trackside seat on the floor, and there was a party of three, one of whose heels was almost touching it.
I didn't fucking care. I had to make a stand -- for my dignity, my sanity, for myself. So, acting surreptitiously (I think) I moseyed down to that trio. They seemed really into the conversation they had with each other, because I just bent down and, kneeling so low and so close that the person I was behind could have farted and I would have been directly hit at point-blank range, picked up the ticket. I then caught up to the my friends/party, who were either wondering where I was or were just waiting for me.
When we left the doors of the lobby we parted ways -- they were going in one direction, I was going in the other. Content with my pilfer, I started walking down the hall and outside into the night. But then ... well, shit, I don't know what exactly came over me. I think, though I kind of don't remember, that I really wanted to take one more shot and finding my ticket, not taking away someone else's. I was alone; I didn't have friends that would've needed to wait for me, or would think me strange if I wanted to go back. And if I couldn't go back or I couldn't find my ticket, well, at least I had this one I picked up off the floor. I mean, I have the souvenir, which is the most important thing. I won't remember that it's not technically mine, and I've already forgotten the section, row and seat number on my actual ticket.
So, as everybody was streaming out the auditorium, I forced my way. Good thing security didn't stop me. I acted like I lost something, something I could do because I used that excuse on my party, and they're not there to say, "Didn't you say that earlier this evening?"
That trio I bent down near to pick up a ticket? I started to feel intense pangs of guilt, as if the ticket is burning a hole in my pants pocket as it gets nearer its owner. So I went back to the area around this threesome, and I checked the ticket that I picked up to make sure that it wasn't dropped there by somebody else and that in fact it didn't belong to these people. But the area where I found the ticket corresponded to its exact location. One of those three strangers is the owner of a ticket I had stolen three minutes before.
"Stealing" that was pathetic. Didn't care -- and then I did. And at this point I could make things even worse by being overly dramatic about a slip of paper. But I couldn't live with myself not going back, and I couldn't just drop the ticket back on the floor without knowing if that stub was property of one of those three people who continued to just stand there and kibitz away.
So, even though I risked being labeled as "that guy who went up to us because we dropped a ticket right at our feet," I interruped their conversation and said that the ticket in my hand, the one "that I just found," might belong to one of those three. And it did; this group didn't decide to stand and talk in a place different from the seats for the bout. Well, I'm glad I knew I was pretty much stealing that ticket. I would've felt really, really guilty if I just took the ticket and left the auditorium when its rightful owner might have gathered his or her belongings and saw that his or her ticket was gone. They thanked me.
At this stage I was now fully committed to acting like I'm searching for something. And I am -- just for something that's not mine. I went back up to my seat, just in case I dropped my stub. Saw nothing. And I didn't see any stray tickets on the floor with no one adjacent. But ... when I looked at the next section, one row up, I saw a ticket! And no one was loitering in the section, let alone the row, let alone the seat. So what if it's not the one for my actual seat. I got my souvenir!
Maybe that broke my streak of bad luck.
I went to the Minnesota Roller Girls meet in St. Paul. My friend once again had a free ticket. She has yet to ask me to pay her back. I love her. I like her fiancé as well.
It was halftime and I wanted to go out and just people-watch. I had my ticket with me, just in case I get asked by the usher. I put it in the program I toted with me because I was afraid I'd lose it if I just held onto my ticket.
I was everywhere -- upstairs, downstairs, peeing somewhere. When I was about to go through the door to get to my quasi-trackside seat, I opened up my program ... and didn't see my ticket. Shit! I didn't need it to get back to my seat, I just wanted to have it as a souvenir. I have a tiny bag full of movie tickets and sporting event stubs that I keep. I don't think I've gone through them after I put shove them into the bag. But it's important to me. They are souvenirs of things that I did and want to remember, even if I don't go back and remind myself specifically of those moments. I hope that doesn't make me shallow.
Now, there are probably events I've lost the tickets/stubs for. But while I was sitting there, at my seat, spacing from a game that against the All-Star team from Washington, D.C. that very quickly turned into a blowout and wondering if I might've dropped it trying to wash my hands in the upstairs bathroom, I just couldn't shake my frustration over losing a ticket for this bout. And while this event wasn't over, I became determined to either find that ticket or, failing that, getting one to commemorate the evening.
I announced to my party that I was going to the bathroom. She didn't have to re-announce it for everyone; I didn't think I said that that loud. I took the next, oh, 10 or 15 minutes retracing my steps while looking on the floor to see if there's a ticket that matches my seat. Nothing.
I was despondent, truly, truly depressed. After all the shit that happened and all the shit I failed to do that week, losing something as simple as a ticket was the last straw. If I didn't have my druthers, I would have broken down then and there. But I held it together because I was sure I could get a souvenir.
So the bout ends. It's an after-bout ritual to walk up track-side and stick our your hand as the players roll through and give you high-fives. I wanted to do that, then go back and find a ticket left behind by a spectator. My plan was foiled, however, when the other three people in my party immediately jumped up and prepared to leave.
I went up trackside as a way to scope out some tickets on the floor, and I kind of took my time to gather my coat and hat and gloves to see if I could find one. Bastards probably thought this game was as special to remember as I. However, there was one ticket lying on the floor. Unfortunately, it was lying in a space reserved for a trackside seat on the floor, and there was a party of three, one of whose heels was almost touching it.
I didn't fucking care. I had to make a stand -- for my dignity, my sanity, for myself. So, acting surreptitiously (I think) I moseyed down to that trio. They seemed really into the conversation they had with each other, because I just bent down and, kneeling so low and so close that the person I was behind could have farted and I would have been directly hit at point-blank range, picked up the ticket. I then caught up to the my friends/party, who were either wondering where I was or were just waiting for me.
When we left the doors of the lobby we parted ways -- they were going in one direction, I was going in the other. Content with my pilfer, I started walking down the hall and outside into the night. But then ... well, shit, I don't know what exactly came over me. I think, though I kind of don't remember, that I really wanted to take one more shot and finding my ticket, not taking away someone else's. I was alone; I didn't have friends that would've needed to wait for me, or would think me strange if I wanted to go back. And if I couldn't go back or I couldn't find my ticket, well, at least I had this one I picked up off the floor. I mean, I have the souvenir, which is the most important thing. I won't remember that it's not technically mine, and I've already forgotten the section, row and seat number on my actual ticket.
So, as everybody was streaming out the auditorium, I forced my way. Good thing security didn't stop me. I acted like I lost something, something I could do because I used that excuse on my party, and they're not there to say, "Didn't you say that earlier this evening?"
That trio I bent down near to pick up a ticket? I started to feel intense pangs of guilt, as if the ticket is burning a hole in my pants pocket as it gets nearer its owner. So I went back to the area around this threesome, and I checked the ticket that I picked up to make sure that it wasn't dropped there by somebody else and that in fact it didn't belong to these people. But the area where I found the ticket corresponded to its exact location. One of those three strangers is the owner of a ticket I had stolen three minutes before.
"Stealing" that was pathetic. Didn't care -- and then I did. And at this point I could make things even worse by being overly dramatic about a slip of paper. But I couldn't live with myself not going back, and I couldn't just drop the ticket back on the floor without knowing if that stub was property of one of those three people who continued to just stand there and kibitz away.
So, even though I risked being labeled as "that guy who went up to us because we dropped a ticket right at our feet," I interruped their conversation and said that the ticket in my hand, the one "that I just found," might belong to one of those three. And it did; this group didn't decide to stand and talk in a place different from the seats for the bout. Well, I'm glad I knew I was pretty much stealing that ticket. I would've felt really, really guilty if I just took the ticket and left the auditorium when its rightful owner might have gathered his or her belongings and saw that his or her ticket was gone. They thanked me.
At this stage I was now fully committed to acting like I'm searching for something. And I am -- just for something that's not mine. I went back up to my seat, just in case I dropped my stub. Saw nothing. And I didn't see any stray tickets on the floor with no one adjacent. But ... when I looked at the next section, one row up, I saw a ticket! And no one was loitering in the section, let alone the row, let alone the seat. So what if it's not the one for my actual seat. I got my souvenir!
Maybe that broke my streak of bad luck.
Thursday, March 17, 2011
March Madness Predictions
I wanted to write about something more substantial, but a combination of other things I need to write about, fatigue, and needing to get up early in the morning to catch a bus have compelled me to blog something a lot shorter.
I thought about a few other things, then I thought, Hey, one of the reasons I don't want to blog so long tonight is because I want to watch the tournament games tomorrow!
So, my Final Four are three 1-seeds, Ohio St., Kansas, and Duke, and -- wait for it -- 13-seeded Belmont! Yes, the advanced sabermetrics are all over the Bruins. Add the incredible softness of the Southeast Region, where Pittsburgh, Florida, BYU and Wisconsin all reside, and I think Belmont makes history here.
But they will get crushed by Kansas in the Final Four, which will defeat Ohio St. (after beating defending champ Duke) handily.
Other things:
I thought about a few other things, then I thought, Hey, one of the reasons I don't want to blog so long tonight is because I want to watch the tournament games tomorrow!
So, my Final Four are three 1-seeds, Ohio St., Kansas, and Duke, and -- wait for it -- 13-seeded Belmont! Yes, the advanced sabermetrics are all over the Bruins. Add the incredible softness of the Southeast Region, where Pittsburgh, Florida, BYU and Wisconsin all reside, and I think Belmont makes history here.
But they will get crushed by Kansas in the Final Four, which will defeat Ohio St. (after beating defending champ Duke) handily.
Other things:
- Notre Dame, a 2-seed, will go down in the second round.
- Without Brandon Davies, 3-seeded BYU will also go down in the second round.
- There's always one double-digit seed from the BcS Six that reaches the second weekend. My pick: Michigan St.
- In fact, the Southeast Region will be in a shambles: Belmont plays the Spartans in that region's final. Yes, a 10 vs. a 13.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Fuck This Fuckin' Family, Part I
What a fuckin' day.
Tuesdays always seem to be like this. Yesterday, Mondays in general, are kind of slow. It's like I, and this family, are trying to ease into the workweek. But the next day, Tuesday ... it's a combination of two things: 1) finally feeling you're up to speed, and 2) needing to get some work done during the week.
So it began in the morning, when I went to the bank to cash some money for Mother. Right when I was conversing with the teller, my phone rings. It was a housing inspector with the city, one that My Father asked me to contact about one of his real estate properties. It's been a bitch trying to reach her, but after about, oh, almost a month running into a full inbox, the voicemail I finally left her was being returned by her. Too bad it was in the middle of me getting money.
I felt bad for doing this, but after she asked me a question that required me to concentrate -- and realize that I didn't have the answer, My Father did -- I told her I'd call her back. In fact, during this call I think I received yet another call that I missed.
Who was that? I called Mother. I got Father; Mother was busy. Told him about the question I was asked; he answered it. Went to McDonald's across the street to score a Shamrock Shake (mmm ... tasty. I hadn't had one in years. What's wrong with me??) and then called back the inspector. She didn't pick up. Great, another two weeks of getting full inbox messages and phone tag.
I savored the shake in the 20 minutes I was in McDonald's. The sun was streaming in through the window at my window-side booth. I usually don't like the glare when I sit in there, but it felt good yesterday, even better now that the sun's so intense that it felt warmer than the 40 or so degrees it was yesterday.
It would be the last moment of contentment for me yesterday.
---
Don't remember for sure, but Mother I think called me while I was slacking at McD's. Forgot to take the phone off silent, but I won't get bent out of shape this time.
Saw the missed call when I got back in my car. Called her, told her about the money. She said she had something for me to do online back at home. Good -- planned on going back anyway.
But as soon as I get back and warm up the computer and call Mother, she tells me she's busy and she'll call me back. Interfering with my nap time, Mother. I help Grandmother open the patio door and go to my bedroom.
I anticipate being woken up in the middle of a peaceful, restful nap, but I do it anyway. But then, just as I was slipping into unconsciousness, Grandmother bellows from outside. She's cooking something up outside at the propane tank but it appears to be empty. I check it; yes, it's empty. You wouldn't just not eat, would you Grandmother?
No, she said; change it. You fucking kidding me? This is Grandmother at her most needy and diva-ish. We have milk cartons to hold down the stove's lid; I throw them onto the deck in frustration. The change was a snap; getting the propane smell out of my hands was not, and I have it on me all afternoon.
Once I got done doing what Grandmother fucking wanted me to do, I hear my phone in my bedroom. Are you kidding me?! What the fuck is with people calling me when I'm in the middle of something today?!?!?! Mother told me about this website where she wanted to pay something for my parents' real estate property. Or something. What she said she saw on the screen is not what I saw, so she was going to take the sheet of people she was looking at home for me to see it.
This was the first sign that I was going to accomplish nothing because of Mother.
---
Needed to go to Barnes & Noble to research fantasy baseball. (Mental note: I have that draft tonight.)
Come back early to catch the beginning of the national news. Once again, I'm mere seconds behind. Shit!
Help Grandmother with her shot. She said that My Fucking Father yelled at her for cooking up fish indoors and making the kitchen stink. You mean the fish you cooked outside? Grandmother wants me to set the record straight with him. Why the fuck should I stick out my neck for you, you insufferable old woman??
But when I go out to the dining room to peep at the news, Father pantomimes for me: Pointing at the kitchen, then at Grandmother's bedroom, then fanning in front of his nose, saying, "She made things smell." Well, that was the opening to tell him what actually happened.
He goes ballistic when I told him I changed tanks. I pointed out which one I switched out. "But it's not empty!" he said. Bullshit, I tried it out. (This is a plant.)
Meanwhile, Mother tells me to look at Father's iPhone. I tried to download photos he took from it last night. I was already pretty frustrated that I couldn't help them, and now something happened to the phone I was working on?
My Father couldn't call with his iPhone. It said it had no service. So I spend the next hour or so trying to get service back. I'm skittish about what I try, but at the end I say fuck it and reset fuckin' everything. Didn't work.
---
Shit, so much goddamn shit happened last night that I'm going to stretch it to two posts.
Tuesdays always seem to be like this. Yesterday, Mondays in general, are kind of slow. It's like I, and this family, are trying to ease into the workweek. But the next day, Tuesday ... it's a combination of two things: 1) finally feeling you're up to speed, and 2) needing to get some work done during the week.
So it began in the morning, when I went to the bank to cash some money for Mother. Right when I was conversing with the teller, my phone rings. It was a housing inspector with the city, one that My Father asked me to contact about one of his real estate properties. It's been a bitch trying to reach her, but after about, oh, almost a month running into a full inbox, the voicemail I finally left her was being returned by her. Too bad it was in the middle of me getting money.
I felt bad for doing this, but after she asked me a question that required me to concentrate -- and realize that I didn't have the answer, My Father did -- I told her I'd call her back. In fact, during this call I think I received yet another call that I missed.
Who was that? I called Mother. I got Father; Mother was busy. Told him about the question I was asked; he answered it. Went to McDonald's across the street to score a Shamrock Shake (mmm ... tasty. I hadn't had one in years. What's wrong with me??) and then called back the inspector. She didn't pick up. Great, another two weeks of getting full inbox messages and phone tag.
I savored the shake in the 20 minutes I was in McDonald's. The sun was streaming in through the window at my window-side booth. I usually don't like the glare when I sit in there, but it felt good yesterday, even better now that the sun's so intense that it felt warmer than the 40 or so degrees it was yesterday.
It would be the last moment of contentment for me yesterday.
---
Don't remember for sure, but Mother I think called me while I was slacking at McD's. Forgot to take the phone off silent, but I won't get bent out of shape this time.
Saw the missed call when I got back in my car. Called her, told her about the money. She said she had something for me to do online back at home. Good -- planned on going back anyway.
But as soon as I get back and warm up the computer and call Mother, she tells me she's busy and she'll call me back. Interfering with my nap time, Mother. I help Grandmother open the patio door and go to my bedroom.
I anticipate being woken up in the middle of a peaceful, restful nap, but I do it anyway. But then, just as I was slipping into unconsciousness, Grandmother bellows from outside. She's cooking something up outside at the propane tank but it appears to be empty. I check it; yes, it's empty. You wouldn't just not eat, would you Grandmother?
No, she said; change it. You fucking kidding me? This is Grandmother at her most needy and diva-ish. We have milk cartons to hold down the stove's lid; I throw them onto the deck in frustration. The change was a snap; getting the propane smell out of my hands was not, and I have it on me all afternoon.
Once I got done doing what Grandmother fucking wanted me to do, I hear my phone in my bedroom. Are you kidding me?! What the fuck is with people calling me when I'm in the middle of something today?!?!?! Mother told me about this website where she wanted to pay something for my parents' real estate property. Or something. What she said she saw on the screen is not what I saw, so she was going to take the sheet of people she was looking at home for me to see it.
This was the first sign that I was going to accomplish nothing because of Mother.
---
Needed to go to Barnes & Noble to research fantasy baseball. (Mental note: I have that draft tonight.)
Come back early to catch the beginning of the national news. Once again, I'm mere seconds behind. Shit!
Help Grandmother with her shot. She said that My Fucking Father yelled at her for cooking up fish indoors and making the kitchen stink. You mean the fish you cooked outside? Grandmother wants me to set the record straight with him. Why the fuck should I stick out my neck for you, you insufferable old woman??
But when I go out to the dining room to peep at the news, Father pantomimes for me: Pointing at the kitchen, then at Grandmother's bedroom, then fanning in front of his nose, saying, "She made things smell." Well, that was the opening to tell him what actually happened.
He goes ballistic when I told him I changed tanks. I pointed out which one I switched out. "But it's not empty!" he said. Bullshit, I tried it out. (This is a plant.)
Meanwhile, Mother tells me to look at Father's iPhone. I tried to download photos he took from it last night. I was already pretty frustrated that I couldn't help them, and now something happened to the phone I was working on?
My Father couldn't call with his iPhone. It said it had no service. So I spend the next hour or so trying to get service back. I'm skittish about what I try, but at the end I say fuck it and reset fuckin' everything. Didn't work.
---
Shit, so much goddamn shit happened last night that I'm going to stretch it to two posts.
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
The Folly Of Obsessing Over An Odd Number Of Syringes
Back about a week ago, when I was going through my hebdonas horibilis (roughly "bad week" in Latin, though I'm told they didn't track the days in sevens back in the day), I was at the end of my rope. I was hoping for a sign, any sign, that things were going to get better.
And because I have OCD, what I started to obsess over was whether the insulin needles I have left in the bag are an odd or even number.
I keep an opened bag of needles right next to me, here on my desk where I usually blog. There are ten needles in each bag. My Grandmother needs to go through two a day.
So when I started out, I would go through and load up the needles with insulin for her to use the next day. And when I got through the entire bag, usually late at night I would go to the bathroom and to get another bag.
A month or so ago, however, Grandmother went to the casino. She forgot to take her syringe with, and she didn't use it when she got home, either. That meant that I had one syringe left over, and that meant I only needed to load up one for the next day, which meant that I now had an odd number in my bag. I was excessively bummed out when I reached into the bag a second time to see that it was empty, because then I had to remember to grab a bag in the middle of the day, and I know that I probably won't.
So I waited, pined, for the day when I could "get back even." And last weekend -- wait, maybe it was the weekend before ... yeah, the weekend before -- I got that chance. Grandmother went away for most of that Satureday and came back late, therefore she didn't use her needle. And I'm back even, yay!
So after I gave her her shot Sunday morning, I was more than happy to load up the other needle, which would mean that every syringe still in the bag now had a partner. I was staring at my computer while preparing the needle, however, and I flipped the syringe around to stick it into the vial, and/or when I was lying the two things up vertically so I could shoot the needle up, and, somehow, the syringe slipped out of my hands. And I saw the needle fall helplessly to the floor. NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I'll be honest: If the needle of the needle didn't touch the floor, I would have used it. I am that obsessed with keeping the syringes even. But it did, and throwing the now-contaminated syringe away, without using it once, and knowing that I was "back odd" because I was all goddamn thumbs, put me in agony. What a waste, and what a way to wrap up a week where nothing was going my way.
---
Zip to this Saturday. Grandmother went to the casino again. I was out watching the big-school boys' state high school hockey tournament championship game. When I came home late that night, there was an unused syringe. Back even!
Then, Sunday. She went to the casino yet again. I didn't go anywhere, but after watching the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament Selection Show and having dinner, I conked off -- but not before seeing Grandmother come home, around 8 or so. Didn't care about giving her her injection.
Woke up at around midnight. Checked the fridge. There was a needle. Back odd.
And now I realize what a mistake it is to obsess over something as frivolous as having an even number of syringes in a bag. Because it can all fucking change in a day.
And because I have OCD, what I started to obsess over was whether the insulin needles I have left in the bag are an odd or even number.
I keep an opened bag of needles right next to me, here on my desk where I usually blog. There are ten needles in each bag. My Grandmother needs to go through two a day.
So when I started out, I would go through and load up the needles with insulin for her to use the next day. And when I got through the entire bag, usually late at night I would go to the bathroom and to get another bag.
A month or so ago, however, Grandmother went to the casino. She forgot to take her syringe with, and she didn't use it when she got home, either. That meant that I had one syringe left over, and that meant I only needed to load up one for the next day, which meant that I now had an odd number in my bag. I was excessively bummed out when I reached into the bag a second time to see that it was empty, because then I had to remember to grab a bag in the middle of the day, and I know that I probably won't.
So I waited, pined, for the day when I could "get back even." And last weekend -- wait, maybe it was the weekend before ... yeah, the weekend before -- I got that chance. Grandmother went away for most of that Satureday and came back late, therefore she didn't use her needle. And I'm back even, yay!
So after I gave her her shot Sunday morning, I was more than happy to load up the other needle, which would mean that every syringe still in the bag now had a partner. I was staring at my computer while preparing the needle, however, and I flipped the syringe around to stick it into the vial, and/or when I was lying the two things up vertically so I could shoot the needle up, and, somehow, the syringe slipped out of my hands. And I saw the needle fall helplessly to the floor. NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I'll be honest: If the needle of the needle didn't touch the floor, I would have used it. I am that obsessed with keeping the syringes even. But it did, and throwing the now-contaminated syringe away, without using it once, and knowing that I was "back odd" because I was all goddamn thumbs, put me in agony. What a waste, and what a way to wrap up a week where nothing was going my way.
---
Zip to this Saturday. Grandmother went to the casino again. I was out watching the big-school boys' state high school hockey tournament championship game. When I came home late that night, there was an unused syringe. Back even!
Then, Sunday. She went to the casino yet again. I didn't go anywhere, but after watching the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament Selection Show and having dinner, I conked off -- but not before seeing Grandmother come home, around 8 or so. Didn't care about giving her her injection.
Woke up at around midnight. Checked the fridge. There was a needle. Back odd.
And now I realize what a mistake it is to obsess over something as frivolous as having an even number of syringes in a bag. Because it can all fucking change in a day.
I'm continuing to work on a piece when the Internet connection cuts off. I want to go downstairs but I see a dim light from the basement, meaning My Father's downstairs, awake, quietly seething that the modem doesn't work.
This is 1:30 in the morning. Should I go down there, acting like I need to do some writing, the research for which I need the Internet for? No. Too afraid of him bitching about the modem, which he'll use as a jumping-off point for telling me I should go back to school now that my birthday's this week and I'm turning -- whoa, 35?!
So instead, I wait. Had some sheets I needed to read over and fill out a quiz for. I decided that after that, if I came out and still saw he was there, and then, when I turned on my computer and it was still not working, I'd call it a night writing.
A half-hour later, I come out and see there is darkness downstairs. I don't care if My Fucking Father could hear me trundling down the stairs to unplug and replug the modem after he went to bed. I don't need his shit tonight.
Since I'm typing this, obviously that did the trick.
This is 1:30 in the morning. Should I go down there, acting like I need to do some writing, the research for which I need the Internet for? No. Too afraid of him bitching about the modem, which he'll use as a jumping-off point for telling me I should go back to school now that my birthday's this week and I'm turning -- whoa, 35?!
So instead, I wait. Had some sheets I needed to read over and fill out a quiz for. I decided that after that, if I came out and still saw he was there, and then, when I turned on my computer and it was still not working, I'd call it a night writing.
A half-hour later, I come out and see there is darkness downstairs. I don't care if My Fucking Father could hear me trundling down the stairs to unplug and replug the modem after he went to bed. I don't need his shit tonight.
Since I'm typing this, obviously that did the trick.
Monday, March 14, 2011
Bracketologists With Egg On Their Faces
I wonder whether Joe Lunardi, Andy Glockner, and all the other NCAA Tournament prognosticators will say they try to predict the college basketball teams that "should" be in the Big Dance, not who "will" be. Because if it's the latter, they had a poor, poor year.
The four schools that comprise teams 61-4, aka the lowest-seeded teams that won't need to play the play-in games, were, when I added up all the pundits' picks together, Michigan St., Colorado, Clemson, and Virginia Tech. Well, Clemson's in the play-in -- and Colorado and Virginia Tech are out of the Big Dance altogether.
What they all "agreed" were the Last Four In were Illinois, Georgia, USC and, in a gap of my methodology, Harvard. Illinois and Georgia are safely in; the Crimson are out.
The Last Four Out, as far as I can gather: St. Mary's, Alabama, VCU and UAB. The latter two are in the play-ins, and the committee is getting killed for their inclusions.
Me, I'm not that bent out of shape. When you're dealing with 68 teams, the last at-large selections will be made from a very unimpressive pile. Schools with such medicore CV's is testament that the field should not have been expanded, and in fact should be cut back to 64. If this means that my alma mater doesn't get in, that's OK, they didn't really deserve it.
Nevertheless, it's kind of a black eye for the progs. They use logic, but the committee, bless their souls, devise the bracket in secret, so the surprises are real surprises. If there's one thing you can point to as the difference between what the experts thought were going to be the invitees and who actually were invited, look at nonconference strength of schedule. Colorado and Virginia Tech played cupcakes before the New Year and were punished for it, regardless of their record. Meanwhile, USC and VCU actually tried to play against good teams out of their league, and even if their total records are similar to the Buffaloes and Hokies, they got in based on effort. They're invited because they tried.
The four schools that comprise teams 61-4, aka the lowest-seeded teams that won't need to play the play-in games, were, when I added up all the pundits' picks together, Michigan St., Colorado, Clemson, and Virginia Tech. Well, Clemson's in the play-in -- and Colorado and Virginia Tech are out of the Big Dance altogether.
What they all "agreed" were the Last Four In were Illinois, Georgia, USC and, in a gap of my methodology, Harvard. Illinois and Georgia are safely in; the Crimson are out.
The Last Four Out, as far as I can gather: St. Mary's, Alabama, VCU and UAB. The latter two are in the play-ins, and the committee is getting killed for their inclusions.
Me, I'm not that bent out of shape. When you're dealing with 68 teams, the last at-large selections will be made from a very unimpressive pile. Schools with such medicore CV's is testament that the field should not have been expanded, and in fact should be cut back to 64. If this means that my alma mater doesn't get in, that's OK, they didn't really deserve it.
Nevertheless, it's kind of a black eye for the progs. They use logic, but the committee, bless their souls, devise the bracket in secret, so the surprises are real surprises. If there's one thing you can point to as the difference between what the experts thought were going to be the invitees and who actually were invited, look at nonconference strength of schedule. Colorado and Virginia Tech played cupcakes before the New Year and were punished for it, regardless of their record. Meanwhile, USC and VCU actually tried to play against good teams out of their league, and even if their total records are similar to the Buffaloes and Hokies, they got in based on effort. They're invited because they tried.
Sunday, March 13, 2011
2011 Bracketology: Who's In, Who's Out, Who's Really In But Shouldn't Be
As of now, late Saturday night/early Sunday morning, the following bracketologists have the following teams around the cut line, in order:
Lunardi:
Michigan, Michigan St., Colorado, Penn St.
---
St. Mary's, Clemson, Virginia Tech, USC
===
Alabama, Georgia, Boston College, UAB
Bracketography
(they don't differentiate a "Last Four Without Byes," so this is an educated guess):
Penn St., Michigan St., Michigan, Illinois
---
Virginia Tech, USC, Clemson, Alabama
===
Boston College, Georgia, St.Mary's, Harvard
Rush The Court:
Illinois, Colorado, Michigan, Penn St.
---
Clemson, Virginia Tech, Alabama, Georgia
===
St. Mary's, USC, Boston College, VCU
Glockner (he has a "Last Six In," so I need to guess as to who is the next two after this "Last Six In," if you know what I mean):
Michigan St., Michigan, Penn St., Colorado
---
Georgia, USC, Clemson, Virginia Tech
===
Alabama, VCU, UAB, St. Mary's
Bracket Project's Bracket Matrix (a Bracketology aggregator):
Michigan, Michigan St., Georgia, Colorado
---
Penn St., St. Mary's, Clemson, Virginia Tech
===
Alabama, Boston College, UAB, USC
Michigan St.4
Michigan5
Illinois2
Colorado4
St. Mary's (2)(-3)=-2
Clemson (5)=2.5
Alabama (2)(-3)=-2
Penn St.4(1)=4.5
Georgia1(2)(-2)=0
Virginia Tech (5)=2.5
USC (3)(-2)=-.5
Boston College (-4)
UAB (-3)
VCU (-2)
Harvard (-1)
So, from my rough calculations, the consensus is:
Last Four Byeless (The "Real" Last Four In):
Michigan St.
Colorado
Clemson
Virginia Tech
Last Four In:
Illinois
Georgia
USC
Harvard (?!)
Last Four Out:
St. Mary's
Alabama
VCU
UAB
(Michigan and Penn St. have enough votes to push them into the bracket; Boston College has enough demerits to throw them completely out of the bracket)
Lunardi:
Michigan, Michigan St., Colorado, Penn St.
---
St. Mary's, Clemson, Virginia Tech, USC
===
Alabama, Georgia, Boston College, UAB
Bracketography
(they don't differentiate a "Last Four Without Byes," so this is an educated guess):
Penn St., Michigan St., Michigan, Illinois
---
Virginia Tech, USC, Clemson, Alabama
===
Boston College, Georgia, St.Mary's, Harvard
Rush The Court:
Illinois, Colorado, Michigan, Penn St.
---
Clemson, Virginia Tech, Alabama, Georgia
===
St. Mary's, USC, Boston College, VCU
Glockner (he has a "Last Six In," so I need to guess as to who is the next two after this "Last Six In," if you know what I mean):
Michigan St., Michigan, Penn St., Colorado
---
Georgia, USC, Clemson, Virginia Tech
===
Alabama, VCU, UAB, St. Mary's
Bracket Project's Bracket Matrix (a Bracketology aggregator):
Michigan, Michigan St., Georgia, Colorado
---
Penn St., St. Mary's, Clemson, Virginia Tech
===
Alabama, Boston College, UAB, USC
Michigan St.4
Michigan5
Illinois2
Colorado4
St. Mary's (2)(-3)=-2
Clemson (5)=2.5
Alabama (2)(-3)=-2
Penn St.4(1)=4.5
Georgia1(2)(-2)=0
Virginia Tech (5)=2.5
USC (3)(-2)=-.5
Boston College (-4)
UAB (-3)
VCU (-2)
Harvard (-1)
So, from my rough calculations, the consensus is:
Last Four Byeless (The "Real" Last Four In):
Michigan St.
Colorado
Clemson
Virginia Tech
Last Four In:
Illinois
Georgia
USC
Harvard (?!)
Last Four Out:
St. Mary's
Alabama
VCU
UAB
(Michigan and Penn St. have enough votes to push them into the bracket; Boston College has enough demerits to throw them completely out of the bracket)
Saturday, March 12, 2011
The Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey
#-1: Gopher baseball (Last Week: -4). Come Tournament Time, where most programs come face-to-face with the ceiling of their talent and postseason fortunes, this is a week where the top spot goes to a program that won't confront that reality for a couple of months and therefore can enjoy the spoils of going 2-1 without drilling too deep into the meaning of the wins and losses. But I will: The Gophs' loss was to a pretty good program, Oklahoma St. -- by a score of 16-2. Their two wins were over two schools that aren't close to sniffing the College World Series, Washington St. and Gonzaga.
They stay in Northern California as part of their forced road trip to begin the season (and which lasts all this month) by finishing their three-game set with the Zags, then playing a midweek pair against Sacramento St., and then starting a series versus Santa Clara.
#-2: Timberwolves (Last Week: -5). The Woofie Dogs, second in the WMNSS? After a week where they go .500?? And where they're coming off back-to-back blowouts???
I didn't plan on going to Wednesday's win over Indiana. But like I mentioned on a previous post, I was told to buy a microwave. Add that to the fact that I didn't have to stay at home to shovel, and that my friend had a complimentary ticket to the game, I decided to go.
I had incentive: Kevin Love had the opportunity to break Moses Malone's record for most consecutive double-doubles in the Modern Age of the NBA (since 1976, the time of the Association's merger with the American Basketball Association). There was a possibility that Love wouldn't suit up because he was injured, which made me question if I should change my mind about going after I changed my mind about not going. But I decided to go out.
And I'm glad I did. Love decided to play. And about halfway through the second quarter, he stepped up to the line for a free throw, and the ball bounced on the rim a few times before dropping in, giving him the record. I'm glad I was there to see the record, because clearly, that's the only thing this team has going for them at this point.
(It's funny: They did a "special" post-game interview with K-Love, which turned out to be the exact same length as any other post-game interview with anyone who didn't set a record, with the exact same softball questions. Well, except for one that Love made a tad more difficult: When the on-court "host"/hype man [former B96.3 DJ B-Right -- I like him, and I'm glad he still has work!] asked him whether the pressure's off now that he broke the record, Love paused. I remember seeing, hearing and reading how Cal Ripken, Jr. was laboring in the last few years of his record for most consecutive games played. There's a line somewhere about that that seems apt for Love: "When does The Streak become The Burden?" And I saw that when he paused after being asked a simple question from an employee of the Timberwolves. He so does not have a po-po-poker face.)
Is it shocking that the Wolves have won by margins of 26 and 21? Kind of, yes. But, this is March, where teams that have decided they can't compete for the title -- which, this year, is about 25 -- have started their rebuilding process in earnest, playing their youngsters and just seeing if they're going to amount to anything. And that helps the Timberwolves, who are farther along in their rebuilding ... even though they've been rebuilding for half a decade now.
After finishing up a three-game homestand (partially necessitated because other NBA teams had to flee their arenas because college basketball conference tournaments have been played there the past two weeks), they have a trio on the road this week: Golden State, the Bastard New Orleans Jazz, and The Basketball Team That Was Stolen From Us.
#-3: Gopher women's hockey (Last Week: -1). Well, this is it. They are where I thought they would be from the start of the season, where we all thought they should be from the start of the season, but this is where the rubber meets the road.
They were going to lose to Wisconsin, who's been #1 in the country the whole season (I think) and had not lost in 24 games, even if the championship of the WCHA Final Faceoff was at Ridder Saturday. It is heartbreaking, however, to see that they gave up a 4-2 lead and lost in overtime, 5-4.
So they go on the road to face Boston College, the fourth-seed in the eight-team tournament (only the top four teams are seeded) in Beantown today (Saturday) at noon. The teams are tied in the PairWise, but the Gophs are better than the Eagles in the RPI and this poll/sabremetric called the KRACH. So they can notch what would nominally be an "upset." However, because the NCAA wants to make sure there's a representative in the championship game not from the WCHA, which dominates the talent in top-flight women's college hockey, guess who Minnesota would face in the semifinals of Women's Frozen Four in Erie, Pa. Friday? Overall #1 seed Wisconsin. Time to earn your sand, ladies.
#-4: Wild (Last Week: -6). Michael Russo of Minneapolis's Star Tribune said this should be a playoff team. Really? After a 1-3 week that saw them fall all the way to 11th in the Western Conference? I understand things are always close in the race of a playoff spot in the NHL. But they are now four points out of the final spot in the West ... which is tied amongst four teams, so technically, the Wild are four points out of fifth place, too.
Still, they are in no playoff form right now. I saw the Colorado dismantling at the gym, and it's very dispiriting to see them follow that rousing victory with back-to-back 4-0 shoutouts at the road against Nashville and Dallas. Thus this makes the Wild the anti-Timberwolves for the screening week. They finish their four-game road trip with potentially bad stops in Vancouver and San Jose. Two more losses, and this team might be in a hole they will not be able to dig themselves out of.
(By the way, I was watching the sports on the news last [Friday] night. When they referred to the ass-kicking the Wild got in Dallas, they made no mention of the fact that the Dallas Stars once were, and should still be, the Minnesota North Stars. Not one single mention. I find that odd. Does no one else feel that way? I would've liked it if there was at least an acknowledgment that this was The Team That Was Stolen From Us. And if one of the sports anchors called them The Bastard North Stars, I would watch them forever. Just because they were taken from us almost 20 years ago doesn't mean it didn't happen, guys.)
#-5: Gopher men's hockey (Last Week: -3). You can't help but laugh, can you? They finish the regular season Saturday with a 3-2 overtime win at Bemidji St., giving the icers a seven-game unbeaten streak.
And I will be goddamn that they promptly lose Game 1 of the WCHA Tournament -- at home! -- last (Friday) night to Alaska-Anchorage. Alaska is so far away that even if the team flew in last week, they should still be suffering jetlag. And yet the Seawolves have now won two of three games played at Mariucci.
Right now, they are just on the outside of the PairWise Rankings; I'd say you have to be at least tied for 13th or so, and right now the Gophs are tied for 16th. That means they have some seriously climbing to do; after this series they play the second round of the tournament on Thursday and the semifinals on Friday. If they're still alive at that point, they have a case of making it into the NCAA Tournament. But first they have to come back from a 1-0 deficit and beat UAA this weekend. If they lose this series ... Don Lucia, Joel Maturi and the whole fucking team and program will be catching hell. And they should.
Oh yeah; Kent Patterson made the All-WCHA Second Team. Some good that did last (Friday) night. He's the only Gopher honored by the conference on Thursday.
#-6: Gopher wrestling (Re-Entry!). They were about the third-best team in the Big Ten, and in the conference championships last weekend, third is where they started on Saturday, and third is where they finished on Sunday. What is particularly disappointing is to see that no single Gopher won a conference title. Not one. Has that ever happened in the J Robinson Era?
NCAA Championships begin Thursday. Great timing; it's the same day of the "real" start of the men's basketball tournament. Piggybacking for synergy purposes, I guess. As for the Gopher grapplers, well, you guys ain't winning the title, so y'all are playing for yourselves.
#-7: Gopher men's basketball (Last Week: -7). And the collapse is complete. All hope of going to the Big Dance is dead after Thursday's loss to Northwestern, where, once again, they had a lead in the second half and allowed the opponent to make a huge run to win.
Did they quit? Yes, they did. But I heard one "expert" say that that's on the coach. No -- quitting should be blamed on everybody. Tubby Smith probably has lost this team, but the players still have the duty to play, and play hard. I cannot believe that lack of talent, and the injury to Al Nolen, are the reasons the Gophers finished the regular season losing 10 of 11. Everybody quit.
You know, I thought about throwing this team out of the WMNSS after this week. I mean, who cares about the NIT, or even worse, the fuckin' CBI? But I guess I'll wait. Besides, I don't even know if this team will play in a postseason tournament.
They stay in Northern California as part of their forced road trip to begin the season (and which lasts all this month) by finishing their three-game set with the Zags, then playing a midweek pair against Sacramento St., and then starting a series versus Santa Clara.
#-2: Timberwolves (Last Week: -5). The Woofie Dogs, second in the WMNSS? After a week where they go .500?? And where they're coming off back-to-back blowouts???
I didn't plan on going to Wednesday's win over Indiana. But like I mentioned on a previous post, I was told to buy a microwave. Add that to the fact that I didn't have to stay at home to shovel, and that my friend had a complimentary ticket to the game, I decided to go.
I had incentive: Kevin Love had the opportunity to break Moses Malone's record for most consecutive double-doubles in the Modern Age of the NBA (since 1976, the time of the Association's merger with the American Basketball Association). There was a possibility that Love wouldn't suit up because he was injured, which made me question if I should change my mind about going after I changed my mind about not going. But I decided to go out.
And I'm glad I did. Love decided to play. And about halfway through the second quarter, he stepped up to the line for a free throw, and the ball bounced on the rim a few times before dropping in, giving him the record. I'm glad I was there to see the record, because clearly, that's the only thing this team has going for them at this point.
(It's funny: They did a "special" post-game interview with K-Love, which turned out to be the exact same length as any other post-game interview with anyone who didn't set a record, with the exact same softball questions. Well, except for one that Love made a tad more difficult: When the on-court "host"/hype man [former B96.3 DJ B-Right -- I like him, and I'm glad he still has work!] asked him whether the pressure's off now that he broke the record, Love paused. I remember seeing, hearing and reading how Cal Ripken, Jr. was laboring in the last few years of his record for most consecutive games played. There's a line somewhere about that that seems apt for Love: "When does The Streak become The Burden?" And I saw that when he paused after being asked a simple question from an employee of the Timberwolves. He so does not have a po-po-poker face.)
Is it shocking that the Wolves have won by margins of 26 and 21? Kind of, yes. But, this is March, where teams that have decided they can't compete for the title -- which, this year, is about 25 -- have started their rebuilding process in earnest, playing their youngsters and just seeing if they're going to amount to anything. And that helps the Timberwolves, who are farther along in their rebuilding ... even though they've been rebuilding for half a decade now.
After finishing up a three-game homestand (partially necessitated because other NBA teams had to flee their arenas because college basketball conference tournaments have been played there the past two weeks), they have a trio on the road this week: Golden State, the Bastard New Orleans Jazz, and The Basketball Team That Was Stolen From Us.
#-3: Gopher women's hockey (Last Week: -1). Well, this is it. They are where I thought they would be from the start of the season, where we all thought they should be from the start of the season, but this is where the rubber meets the road.
They were going to lose to Wisconsin, who's been #1 in the country the whole season (I think) and had not lost in 24 games, even if the championship of the WCHA Final Faceoff was at Ridder Saturday. It is heartbreaking, however, to see that they gave up a 4-2 lead and lost in overtime, 5-4.
So they go on the road to face Boston College, the fourth-seed in the eight-team tournament (only the top four teams are seeded) in Beantown today (Saturday) at noon. The teams are tied in the PairWise, but the Gophs are better than the Eagles in the RPI and this poll/sabremetric called the KRACH. So they can notch what would nominally be an "upset." However, because the NCAA wants to make sure there's a representative in the championship game not from the WCHA, which dominates the talent in top-flight women's college hockey, guess who Minnesota would face in the semifinals of Women's Frozen Four in Erie, Pa. Friday? Overall #1 seed Wisconsin. Time to earn your sand, ladies.
#-4: Wild (Last Week: -6). Michael Russo of Minneapolis's Star Tribune said this should be a playoff team. Really? After a 1-3 week that saw them fall all the way to 11th in the Western Conference? I understand things are always close in the race of a playoff spot in the NHL. But they are now four points out of the final spot in the West ... which is tied amongst four teams, so technically, the Wild are four points out of fifth place, too.
Still, they are in no playoff form right now. I saw the Colorado dismantling at the gym, and it's very dispiriting to see them follow that rousing victory with back-to-back 4-0 shoutouts at the road against Nashville and Dallas. Thus this makes the Wild the anti-Timberwolves for the screening week. They finish their four-game road trip with potentially bad stops in Vancouver and San Jose. Two more losses, and this team might be in a hole they will not be able to dig themselves out of.
(By the way, I was watching the sports on the news last [Friday] night. When they referred to the ass-kicking the Wild got in Dallas, they made no mention of the fact that the Dallas Stars once were, and should still be, the Minnesota North Stars. Not one single mention. I find that odd. Does no one else feel that way? I would've liked it if there was at least an acknowledgment that this was The Team That Was Stolen From Us. And if one of the sports anchors called them The Bastard North Stars, I would watch them forever. Just because they were taken from us almost 20 years ago doesn't mean it didn't happen, guys.)
#-5: Gopher men's hockey (Last Week: -3). You can't help but laugh, can you? They finish the regular season Saturday with a 3-2 overtime win at Bemidji St., giving the icers a seven-game unbeaten streak.
And I will be goddamn that they promptly lose Game 1 of the WCHA Tournament -- at home! -- last (Friday) night to Alaska-Anchorage. Alaska is so far away that even if the team flew in last week, they should still be suffering jetlag. And yet the Seawolves have now won two of three games played at Mariucci.
Right now, they are just on the outside of the PairWise Rankings; I'd say you have to be at least tied for 13th or so, and right now the Gophs are tied for 16th. That means they have some seriously climbing to do; after this series they play the second round of the tournament on Thursday and the semifinals on Friday. If they're still alive at that point, they have a case of making it into the NCAA Tournament. But first they have to come back from a 1-0 deficit and beat UAA this weekend. If they lose this series ... Don Lucia, Joel Maturi and the whole fucking team and program will be catching hell. And they should.
Oh yeah; Kent Patterson made the All-WCHA Second Team. Some good that did last (Friday) night. He's the only Gopher honored by the conference on Thursday.
#-6: Gopher wrestling (Re-Entry!). They were about the third-best team in the Big Ten, and in the conference championships last weekend, third is where they started on Saturday, and third is where they finished on Sunday. What is particularly disappointing is to see that no single Gopher won a conference title. Not one. Has that ever happened in the J Robinson Era?
NCAA Championships begin Thursday. Great timing; it's the same day of the "real" start of the men's basketball tournament. Piggybacking for synergy purposes, I guess. As for the Gopher grapplers, well, you guys ain't winning the title, so y'all are playing for yourselves.
#-7: Gopher men's basketball (Last Week: -7). And the collapse is complete. All hope of going to the Big Dance is dead after Thursday's loss to Northwestern, where, once again, they had a lead in the second half and allowed the opponent to make a huge run to win.
Did they quit? Yes, they did. But I heard one "expert" say that that's on the coach. No -- quitting should be blamed on everybody. Tubby Smith probably has lost this team, but the players still have the duty to play, and play hard. I cannot believe that lack of talent, and the injury to Al Nolen, are the reasons the Gophers finished the regular season losing 10 of 11. Everybody quit.
You know, I thought about throwing this team out of the WMNSS after this week. I mean, who cares about the NIT, or even worse, the fuckin' CBI? But I guess I'll wait. Besides, I don't even know if this team will play in a postseason tournament.
Friday, March 11, 2011
I think -- I think -- the first time I heard about the earthquake was when I logged onto my e-mail for the first time. Yahoo!, in case you don't know or remember, gives you (or at least me) some headlines below the message where it says you have so many new messages. The first, main headline when I logged on late last night was something about an earthquake. I remember it saying it "8.9," but honestly, I didn't think anything more of it. After all, it's in Japan, very far away from me, and an earthquake, something that never happens here and often enough that news of it is just noise to me, even with the high mark on the Richter scale.
Then I read an article about how the city of Glendale, Ariz. is basically giving taxpayer money to the Phoenix Coyotes so they'll stay in the area is bullshit. I wanted to tweet it. But when I went on Twitter and checked my feed real quick, the only thing I found were tweets about the earthquake. And that is the moment when I understood that this wasn't your ordinary, run-of-the-mill earthquake.
I feel guilty about not appreciating the scale of this disaster from the outset. My thoughts and prayers go out to those in Japan personally affected by the earthquake and tsunami, and to those with loved ones there.
Then I read an article about how the city of Glendale, Ariz. is basically giving taxpayer money to the Phoenix Coyotes so they'll stay in the area is bullshit. I wanted to tweet it. But when I went on Twitter and checked my feed real quick, the only thing I found were tweets about the earthquake. And that is the moment when I understood that this wasn't your ordinary, run-of-the-mill earthquake.
I feel guilty about not appreciating the scale of this disaster from the outset. My thoughts and prayers go out to those in Japan personally affected by the earthquake and tsunami, and to those with loved ones there.
For The Son-Of-A-Bitch Who Broke Into My Parents' Minivan:
Why in the fuck would you do that? Are you on crack? Or are you just an asshole who doesn't appreciate that some shit just ain't yours? And you had to steal my folks' change and CD's? Those things were valuable enough to you to steal from them?
I don't care that they kept their doors unlocked. So what? Does that mean you had the right to take what wasn't yours? You loser asshole. Swear to fucking God, if I ever find you, I will make goddamn sure you are sorry for even thinking about stepping onto our driveway, you stupid thief, you motherfucking bastard.
I don't care that they kept their doors unlocked. So what? Does that mean you had the right to take what wasn't yours? You loser asshole. Swear to fucking God, if I ever find you, I will make goddamn sure you are sorry for even thinking about stepping onto our driveway, you stupid thief, you motherfucking bastard.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Update: I didn't plan on going out today because I thought I had to stay home to shovel the snow, but there wasn't any, which brought up a sticky situation where I asked My Father if he wanted me to stay home and shovel when there wasn't any snow at all, not even the two inches we were supposed to get. No hectoring accusations about, "How can you not know it's not snowing out? You're asleep at 1 in the afternoon, aren't you?!?!?!" stemming from my mistake from him tonight, thank dog.
And so I asked My Father if he wanted me to buy the microwave today. He said yes. I then made a mental note to try out the old microwave, partly to see for myself if it works, partly for one last spin with the good ol' machine. Maybe it's a power surge that temporarily rendered the microwave inoperable. Because My Father wanted me to order pizza for dinner tonight, I made sure I got home early, which would give me time to, say, put some water in my cup and put it in the microwave to see if it'll get hot. If it didn't -- well, I'd sure miss the poor guy, but I would know for sure it would need to be replaced.
So I get home a little before 5 ... and because I didn't get around to working on my article at the coffeeshop, I worked on that (well, inbetween Internet surfing) in my bedroom. Only when I saw My Father start to move the new microwave to where the old one was did I remember that I forgot to see for myself whether the old nuker worked.
It probably still wouldn't. Yesterday I took out a plate of vegetable stew Mother tried to warm up in there; the plate I was holding was at room temperature and I felt no heat coming from the stew. But as the old machine lies in my parents' minivan, upside-down, I don't know for sure. And I feel guilty that I forgot, after I promised myself to see the truth with my own eyes.
And so I asked My Father if he wanted me to buy the microwave today. He said yes. I then made a mental note to try out the old microwave, partly to see for myself if it works, partly for one last spin with the good ol' machine. Maybe it's a power surge that temporarily rendered the microwave inoperable. Because My Father wanted me to order pizza for dinner tonight, I made sure I got home early, which would give me time to, say, put some water in my cup and put it in the microwave to see if it'll get hot. If it didn't -- well, I'd sure miss the poor guy, but I would know for sure it would need to be replaced.
So I get home a little before 5 ... and because I didn't get around to working on my article at the coffeeshop, I worked on that (well, inbetween Internet surfing) in my bedroom. Only when I saw My Father start to move the new microwave to where the old one was did I remember that I forgot to see for myself whether the old nuker worked.
It probably still wouldn't. Yesterday I took out a plate of vegetable stew Mother tried to warm up in there; the plate I was holding was at room temperature and I felt no heat coming from the stew. But as the old machine lies in my parents' minivan, upside-down, I don't know for sure. And I feel guilty that I forgot, after I promised myself to see the truth with my own eyes.
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
The Impending Death Of Our Microwave
I had heard about this new-fangled machine called the microwave from the TV and friends whose parents got it. A machine that heats up food almost instantly, and without all the messy cleanup of an oven? Kewl!!!
And when my parents brought one home, it basically changed our lives. We could now "cook" for ourselves -- leftover rice, pizza from Red Baron, all those fries and fish sticks and onion rings with instructions on how to open the package but keep the lid covered over the food to help it heat up. It made me, my brother and my sister more independent. It probably also made us all fat.
But that microwave, that was a mainstay. It has fastracked dinner for us siblings, and then the family, for, shit, many years now. Did we get it in the early nineties? Could it have been the late eighties? My God, it's like our long-lived pet.
I'm getting very nostalgic about it because I realized tonight that the microwave Father wanted me to buy at the hardware store will be used to replace this one. I may or may not have blogged about My Father getting pisssed at Grandmother because he thought the reason the food he wanted to nuke in the microwave wasn't hot was because of her. Well, they've tried to cook more stuff in there, but it's not hot. They've come to the conclusion that the microwave is broken, and since it's so old and inefficient, might as well buy one that's smaller, infinitely more powerful, and cheaper to buy than the old one when it was bought (presumably new).
Hey, if it's broken, it's broken. But I remember so many things about it: The arc of bright colors indicating how hot the settings would b;, the roman numerals whose purpose on the machine I still don't understand to this day; the little brown square screen that Grandmother would always ask me to slide back on just under the microwave's ceiling fan even though I don't know how in the hell it came off, to this day; the loud "ding!" to indicate the end of the timer. I didn't think about those things in decades, yet now, knowing that Our Microwave is a dead box walking, I can still remember intimate details of it and memories evoked by it. That microwave became a part of our lives. I hope I didn't take it for granted, but if I did, it was because it was so reliable that the family didn't have to worry about it.
It has more than served its purpose and gave us loyalty for more time than we were obligated to ask. And yet ... this feels like death. Microwaves last a long time; I think my parents have one at work even older than the one on our counter right now. Maybe I should wish it could've lived on a little longer. Unless we're overlooking a simple solution, like unplugging it and letting it rest, an appliance that has been in my life for almost two decades is spending its last night in our kitchen.
And when my parents brought one home, it basically changed our lives. We could now "cook" for ourselves -- leftover rice, pizza from Red Baron, all those fries and fish sticks and onion rings with instructions on how to open the package but keep the lid covered over the food to help it heat up. It made me, my brother and my sister more independent. It probably also made us all fat.
But that microwave, that was a mainstay. It has fastracked dinner for us siblings, and then the family, for, shit, many years now. Did we get it in the early nineties? Could it have been the late eighties? My God, it's like our long-lived pet.
I'm getting very nostalgic about it because I realized tonight that the microwave Father wanted me to buy at the hardware store will be used to replace this one. I may or may not have blogged about My Father getting pisssed at Grandmother because he thought the reason the food he wanted to nuke in the microwave wasn't hot was because of her. Well, they've tried to cook more stuff in there, but it's not hot. They've come to the conclusion that the microwave is broken, and since it's so old and inefficient, might as well buy one that's smaller, infinitely more powerful, and cheaper to buy than the old one when it was bought (presumably new).
Hey, if it's broken, it's broken. But I remember so many things about it: The arc of bright colors indicating how hot the settings would b;, the roman numerals whose purpose on the machine I still don't understand to this day; the little brown square screen that Grandmother would always ask me to slide back on just under the microwave's ceiling fan even though I don't know how in the hell it came off, to this day; the loud "ding!" to indicate the end of the timer. I didn't think about those things in decades, yet now, knowing that Our Microwave is a dead box walking, I can still remember intimate details of it and memories evoked by it. That microwave became a part of our lives. I hope I didn't take it for granted, but if I did, it was because it was so reliable that the family didn't have to worry about it.
It has more than served its purpose and gave us loyalty for more time than we were obligated to ask. And yet ... this feels like death. Microwaves last a long time; I think my parents have one at work even older than the one on our counter right now. Maybe I should wish it could've lived on a little longer. Unless we're overlooking a simple solution, like unplugging it and letting it rest, an appliance that has been in my life for almost two decades is spending its last night in our kitchen.
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