While in wonder of the hotel room in Toronto we were given for free, I stumbled upon something in the bathroom. This is Canada, so they were once a territory of the British Empire, which is European, so at the end, across from the toilet, there was a bidet.
It may have been the first time I ever had a bidet in a hotel room I had. If it wasn't, it had been in one when I was vacationing either in Europe or Asia, a long, long time ago. And I know I didn't use it then.
So I'm looking at this thing to see how it works. I know that it's supposed to clean your, um, undercarriage. But I was too scared to use when I first saw it (if I ever had indeed seen such a thing before), even though (just between you and me) its very purpose turned me on. Well, seeing as I just got through quite possibly the worst travel-related disaster in my life and I didn't know if I'd ever encounter a bidet again, I decided that I would try it after I shower.
In case you've never seen one and don't want to Google an image of it, it looks like a toilet except there is no lid, no tank and no seat, and the bowl is flatter and more shallow. There's a drain right in the middle of it, and at the back there are two dials, one for hot and one for cold.
So after cleaning my naked self, I mosey on over to the bidet. I turn it on. At the bottom of the bowl are two things, a drain plug and a cylinder with holes in it. That cylinder started shooting out water. I guess that's where I put myself. But there's no seat, which shocks me. It reminded me of the time I really needed to take a shit in a Chicago Metra train, and I was trying to find a seat but there wasn't one, but I had to go so fucking bad that I just sat and once I was done I saw the seat was just lifted up. (BTW, never see feces that's not immersed in water. Jus' sayin'.)
As I was trying to figure out what else there is to know, the water started to either overflow from the top or seep through the bottom. I don't know whether I concluded that the drain would fix that. The drain was closed and there wasn't water flowing in. I needed to do something, but I hesitated sticking my hand in the bowl and lifting up the plug because ... it's like you're reaching into a toilet bowl. I know it's not, but you never know if someone who was in the room before me mistook the bidet for a toilet ... or screwed around and used the bidet as a toilet. It's weird.
But the water wasn't going anywhere, so I sucked it up and yanked out the plug a little bit. The water was still coming in faster than it was going out, so I turned down the water. But then the water wasn't gushing out above the level of the bowl, so I wouldn't be able to wash my twig and berries. This bidet doesn't work unless I just take the whole drainplug out of the bowl. Do all bidets (not) work like that?
There wasn't any soap. Shouldn't there be a soap dish. So I grab the soap out of the shower, put it next to the hot water tap (the plug was next to the cold water one -- that seems so half-ass) sit on it, adjust myself so the water shoots up my fumunda place, and wash myself. I think that when I shower I get everything. But apparently, because Europeans are known to have very clean down-theres, using a bidet can be useful.
It's weird to watch myself soap myself without water coming down on me. I feel like the soap will dry and cake if water doesn't activate the liquid properties of the soap immediately. And I didn't know when to stop; I reached down under there, but then I soaped up my genitals, and then the crack of my ass. And then I started going down the back of my legs. Geez, I'm just showering again, aren't I?
And of course because I have my torso all soaped up I didn't know how to wash off the soap. The bidet only shoots up the water in one direction, up. I'd have to, like, bend down to get my cock and balls, then turn around and arch my back to get the soap off my buttcrack. That's just too unwieldy. So I hopped back in the shower to complete everything.
I felt clean. Was I cleaner? I guess, only because I just washed myself twice. I don't know if I used the bidet right, but I don't know if I would use it regularly.
I didn't see a bidet in Milan. Saw one that folded down from a wall in the bathroom in Florence. And there was one in the villa in Siena, which I used. In that one, the water came down the underside of the lip on one end of the bidet. That made it easier to rinse myself off, but then the water went everywhere, and I had to be careful not to make a mess on the floor. Besides that, I still had the same issues with the Siena bidet as the one in Toronto -- no soap dish, no seat, the water flow flows faster than it drains if you keep the plug partiall in. And this one wasn't cleaned; there were hard water stains around the rim. Ew.
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Pissed Off Over My Furlough
I'm writing this a few hours after I was told in my day job that there is no other work for us to do, so even though we'll get paid for the whole day, we don't work for the rest of the week. In fact, we're supposed to come in the day after the 4th of July -- and that's it.
A project like this never guarantees that it'll end when it's scheduled to end. I've been in three now, and all three cut short by at least a day. But this is a project that actually furloughed me in the middle of the project. It started on the 16th and was scheduled to end around the 6th. I've missed six days between the beginning and the end, and I left early on two of them. So I can say that I worked half as much as I thought I would. And I'm pissed off as hell.
Yeah, I guess beggars can't be choosers. And like I said, scoring papers is something that has a nebulous life. But there has to be some point where the company you work for says you will be employed for these dates. Not only did that not happen, they way underestimated the number of papers we would have to go through and thus overestimated how much time I needed to be there.
I was mighty angry last week, when I was gearing up for a full week of work -- and the desperately-needed wages that go with it -- and I was told to leave at lunchtime on Tuesday. We were told that papers were not being scanned in on time and I'm depending on this gig for trips I want to take the next few months to St. Louis and Miami, plus some upcoming work that needs to be done on my car -- and, of course, stripclubbing. Having the rug pulled out from under me like this is something I really don't appreciate.
The good thing is is that the company seems to like me. I've been assigned to a project that starts in a couple weeks. I like that because it gives me about a week to goof off, recharge my batteries, and allow my body to reset back to its natural circadian rhythms. But the other people working in the same project as I were assigned to other ones that starts next week. Kind of don't understand, kind of wondering why I didn't get that. It runs roughly the same length as mine -- but, considering the way they fucked this up, we'll be done in, like, two days. Then, back to the unemployment grind.
A project like this never guarantees that it'll end when it's scheduled to end. I've been in three now, and all three cut short by at least a day. But this is a project that actually furloughed me in the middle of the project. It started on the 16th and was scheduled to end around the 6th. I've missed six days between the beginning and the end, and I left early on two of them. So I can say that I worked half as much as I thought I would. And I'm pissed off as hell.
Yeah, I guess beggars can't be choosers. And like I said, scoring papers is something that has a nebulous life. But there has to be some point where the company you work for says you will be employed for these dates. Not only did that not happen, they way underestimated the number of papers we would have to go through and thus overestimated how much time I needed to be there.
I was mighty angry last week, when I was gearing up for a full week of work -- and the desperately-needed wages that go with it -- and I was told to leave at lunchtime on Tuesday. We were told that papers were not being scanned in on time and I'm depending on this gig for trips I want to take the next few months to St. Louis and Miami, plus some upcoming work that needs to be done on my car -- and, of course, stripclubbing. Having the rug pulled out from under me like this is something I really don't appreciate.
The good thing is is that the company seems to like me. I've been assigned to a project that starts in a couple weeks. I like that because it gives me about a week to goof off, recharge my batteries, and allow my body to reset back to its natural circadian rhythms. But the other people working in the same project as I were assigned to other ones that starts next week. Kind of don't understand, kind of wondering why I didn't get that. It runs roughly the same length as mine -- but, considering the way they fucked this up, we'll be done in, like, two days. Then, back to the unemployment grind.
I Ran Into A Racist For The First Time In A Long Time
Oh. My. Fucking. God. I was a victim of racism tonight.
I was just walking through Uptown. Wanted to go to the mall there. Waited at the intersection, where an African-American woman, wearing a purple shirt and sunglasses and holding a couple CD cases, was also waiting.
All of a sudden, while I was staring ahead at the stoplight, I hear her behind me: "You Asian motherfucker." What?
And she went on: "You think you're better than me, walking around like that? You piece of shit. Go back to ... doing nails or something. Get the fuck outta my face, you motherfucker."
Oh my God. I felt a chill go up my spine when I first heard her, but I didn't turn around and give her the satisfaction. I didn't want to escalate the situation and play her game by saying something, so for the first time in a long time I bit my tongue and didn't start to argue. And then I thought that she was being so over-the-top that she was putting me on, like she's intentionally trying to push my buttons for some experiment she's running, or a performance art piece she's recording. But then she told me to get out of my face when she was still behind me. I kind of thought she had to be crazy to be to insult me racially in public, but accusing me of getting in her face with my back towards her convinced me that, yes, she really is fucking nuts.
Thank God the light finally turned green. I had to say something, so just before I started walking across the street, I finally looked back to her and said, "Have a nice day!" To which she replied, "Shut the fuck up!"
I thought I handled it better than I would have in years past. I would've thought about punching her in the face, right then and there at the intersection. Now, I just wanted to avoid her at all costs. I walked through the mall -- I wanted to go in just to people-watch -- but when I poked my head into the hallway leading out to the doors where I came in, she was outside! Either she was waiting for the bus or ... goddamn, that crazy fucking lady was stalking me!
So I went out through another door, where I hung out at his used album place (another place I wanted to go to) before getting coffee and then the stripclub. Thankfully, that racist bitch didn't follow me.
This brings back bad, and weird, memories of the last racist thing that happened to me. It was, gosh, 10-5 years ago? I was at a Shinders in Edina, sneak-reading stuff. All of a sudden, this guy pushes his way past me to get a magazine I was right in front of. "What? What's your problem?" this crazy asshole says, and he starts shouting "Whaaaaaa!!!!!!!" -- you know, what Bruce Lee says when he's kicking ass. Totally racist, right? He keeps going on with that shit, then leaves. The Shinders employee looks at him after he leaves the store.
I'm not naïve to think that I won't be jumped by a racist again. Still, I'm shocked. Honestly, a part of me so couldn't believe the shit this mentally ill woman was saying to me to that, during this whole incident, I thought to myself, "Well, I have something to blog about now!"
But there's a sensitive side to me, a side that doesn't understand idiots, or the sick people in this world. That side heard what she said and still remembers, and that part of me is crying his eyes out.
Maybe I don't think she's just out of her mind. Maybe I'm kidding myself when I say I can get over it.
The worst part about this is I really feel I should talk to my friends about what happened to me, but I'm so ashamed that I don't think I can. It's this secret that this bitch has shamed me into keeping. Goddamn her, I hate that.
I was just walking through Uptown. Wanted to go to the mall there. Waited at the intersection, where an African-American woman, wearing a purple shirt and sunglasses and holding a couple CD cases, was also waiting.
All of a sudden, while I was staring ahead at the stoplight, I hear her behind me: "You Asian motherfucker." What?
And she went on: "You think you're better than me, walking around like that? You piece of shit. Go back to ... doing nails or something. Get the fuck outta my face, you motherfucker."
Oh my God. I felt a chill go up my spine when I first heard her, but I didn't turn around and give her the satisfaction. I didn't want to escalate the situation and play her game by saying something, so for the first time in a long time I bit my tongue and didn't start to argue. And then I thought that she was being so over-the-top that she was putting me on, like she's intentionally trying to push my buttons for some experiment she's running, or a performance art piece she's recording. But then she told me to get out of my face when she was still behind me. I kind of thought she had to be crazy to be to insult me racially in public, but accusing me of getting in her face with my back towards her convinced me that, yes, she really is fucking nuts.
Thank God the light finally turned green. I had to say something, so just before I started walking across the street, I finally looked back to her and said, "Have a nice day!" To which she replied, "Shut the fuck up!"
I thought I handled it better than I would have in years past. I would've thought about punching her in the face, right then and there at the intersection. Now, I just wanted to avoid her at all costs. I walked through the mall -- I wanted to go in just to people-watch -- but when I poked my head into the hallway leading out to the doors where I came in, she was outside! Either she was waiting for the bus or ... goddamn, that crazy fucking lady was stalking me!
So I went out through another door, where I hung out at his used album place (another place I wanted to go to) before getting coffee and then the stripclub. Thankfully, that racist bitch didn't follow me.
This brings back bad, and weird, memories of the last racist thing that happened to me. It was, gosh, 10-5 years ago? I was at a Shinders in Edina, sneak-reading stuff. All of a sudden, this guy pushes his way past me to get a magazine I was right in front of. "What? What's your problem?" this crazy asshole says, and he starts shouting "Whaaaaaa!!!!!!!" -- you know, what Bruce Lee says when he's kicking ass. Totally racist, right? He keeps going on with that shit, then leaves. The Shinders employee looks at him after he leaves the store.
I'm not naïve to think that I won't be jumped by a racist again. Still, I'm shocked. Honestly, a part of me so couldn't believe the shit this mentally ill woman was saying to me to that, during this whole incident, I thought to myself, "Well, I have something to blog about now!"
But there's a sensitive side to me, a side that doesn't understand idiots, or the sick people in this world. That side heard what she said and still remembers, and that part of me is crying his eyes out.
Maybe I don't think she's just out of her mind. Maybe I'm kidding myself when I say I can get over it.
The worst part about this is I really feel I should talk to my friends about what happened to me, but I'm so ashamed that I don't think I can. It's this secret that this bitch has shamed me into keeping. Goddamn her, I hate that.
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Post Road-Rage Incident
This happened a couple weeks ago, maybe longer.
I was at a local grocery store. Walking out, I saw this woman sternly confronting/lecturing this young teen just outside the automatic door. From what I could hear as I passed them by, she was confronting him about something that just happened out in the parking lot. What I remember her saying is something to the effect of, "Why did you honk at me while I was waiting for a parking spot? Did you really want it that bad?"
It was kind of surprising to see that. And I don't exactly know how I feel about it. Part of me was scared to see a woman snap in public like that. A series of small indignities suffered day after day adds up, and she just didn't want to take it anymore. I understand. That could have been me. Shit, that could still be me.
But, another part of me goes, "Good for you, standing up for yourself!" This punk had this "what the fuck is this lady talking about?" doofus look on his face, but he's looks like the kind of guy that owns a whip with a really loud muffler because he wants to be as fucking obnoxious as possible on the road. He totally looked like a guy who honked and annoyed his way past someone waiting for a parking spot. So he deserved the tongue-lashing he got, even though I probably don't have the stones to do it myself. But I have to say that guy on the receiving end of that new one-ripping could have been me, and still could be me.
You see, that incident reminds me of two memories, one each from both sides of that confrontation. One of them happened to me.
A long time ago, when I was ushering, I wanted to go to the local Barnes & Noble before heading off to work. I parked and was just making my way to the store when I see this old guy just go off on this teenager. He was shouting, so I just tried to get away from that crazy man.
I saw from my periphery that the teen tried to get away. Then this Good Samaritan joined in on the one-sided conversation. The teen thought this was his chance to get away from him and so he started backing away. Meanwhile, the old guy started arguing with the Good Samaritan. And after about three seconds, the old guy started shoving and punching the Good Samaritan.
I couldn't believe it. Here I was, in the middle of suburban America, seeing a man snap before my very eyes. And yet all I could selfishly think about was not getting into the middle of this. This poor guy wanted to help out, and now he's getting his ass kicked by a guy who should be tased, but I ain't doin' a goddamn thing about it because he might come after me next. And I have work to get to.
So I did the bravest thing a guy too timid to get involved would do: I called for help. I saw the teen walk/run towards Shinders, this comics place with porn in the back that I would go to all the time. I chased him in.
The teenager already was talking to the guy working there about getting help. I asked the teen, "What happened?" He said something like he got into an argument with him over honking his horn and/or while getting into the strip mall.
"Did you?" I asked.
He didn't say anything. So he did.
By the time I looked back out, the crazy old man stopped assaulting the Good Samaritan, who was starting to walk away. I had work to get to, so I just left.
The other incident was one where I was accused of the road rage. I was going to a gas station close to the movie theater I go to all the time now (although I don't remember if I was specifically going to watch a film that night). But I guess I was in a bad mood when I went to fill up for gas, because while I was going inside to pay, some stranger walks up to me and says (paraphrashing because it's been years), "Dude, you cut me off. Don't do that. If I were a different guy, I'd be a lot more pissed off and then you'd have real trouble. I'm doing you a favor; watch yourself next time, alright?"
I've never gotten into a physical road rage incident after I left my car, but I certainly had never gotten into a confrontation where a guy told me he could have fought me after a road rage incident. And to this day I feel a certain umbrage at not only him confronting me, but what he said and the way in which he said it. I found him to be very condescending. First of all, I may have been a bit curt when driving that evening, but I don't think I cut anybody off. And even if I did, I don't think I deserved to be, for lack of a better word, dressed down like he did. And to use a soothing tone, like he's a doting father trying to impart a Life Lesson -- that's the part that still pisses me off to this day.
I didn't say anything but, "Oh, OK." But my visceral reaction was to think in my head, "Well!" to his haughtiness. And now, I would rather him just fight me in the gas station store.
The world is crazy. But we did our part to make it crazy. All of us.
I was at a local grocery store. Walking out, I saw this woman sternly confronting/lecturing this young teen just outside the automatic door. From what I could hear as I passed them by, she was confronting him about something that just happened out in the parking lot. What I remember her saying is something to the effect of, "Why did you honk at me while I was waiting for a parking spot? Did you really want it that bad?"
It was kind of surprising to see that. And I don't exactly know how I feel about it. Part of me was scared to see a woman snap in public like that. A series of small indignities suffered day after day adds up, and she just didn't want to take it anymore. I understand. That could have been me. Shit, that could still be me.
But, another part of me goes, "Good for you, standing up for yourself!" This punk had this "what the fuck is this lady talking about?" doofus look on his face, but he's looks like the kind of guy that owns a whip with a really loud muffler because he wants to be as fucking obnoxious as possible on the road. He totally looked like a guy who honked and annoyed his way past someone waiting for a parking spot. So he deserved the tongue-lashing he got, even though I probably don't have the stones to do it myself. But I have to say that guy on the receiving end of that new one-ripping could have been me, and still could be me.
You see, that incident reminds me of two memories, one each from both sides of that confrontation. One of them happened to me.
A long time ago, when I was ushering, I wanted to go to the local Barnes & Noble before heading off to work. I parked and was just making my way to the store when I see this old guy just go off on this teenager. He was shouting, so I just tried to get away from that crazy man.
I saw from my periphery that the teen tried to get away. Then this Good Samaritan joined in on the one-sided conversation. The teen thought this was his chance to get away from him and so he started backing away. Meanwhile, the old guy started arguing with the Good Samaritan. And after about three seconds, the old guy started shoving and punching the Good Samaritan.
I couldn't believe it. Here I was, in the middle of suburban America, seeing a man snap before my very eyes. And yet all I could selfishly think about was not getting into the middle of this. This poor guy wanted to help out, and now he's getting his ass kicked by a guy who should be tased, but I ain't doin' a goddamn thing about it because he might come after me next. And I have work to get to.
So I did the bravest thing a guy too timid to get involved would do: I called for help. I saw the teen walk/run towards Shinders, this comics place with porn in the back that I would go to all the time. I chased him in.
The teenager already was talking to the guy working there about getting help. I asked the teen, "What happened?" He said something like he got into an argument with him over honking his horn and/or while getting into the strip mall.
"Did you?" I asked.
He didn't say anything. So he did.
By the time I looked back out, the crazy old man stopped assaulting the Good Samaritan, who was starting to walk away. I had work to get to, so I just left.
The other incident was one where I was accused of the road rage. I was going to a gas station close to the movie theater I go to all the time now (although I don't remember if I was specifically going to watch a film that night). But I guess I was in a bad mood when I went to fill up for gas, because while I was going inside to pay, some stranger walks up to me and says (paraphrashing because it's been years), "Dude, you cut me off. Don't do that. If I were a different guy, I'd be a lot more pissed off and then you'd have real trouble. I'm doing you a favor; watch yourself next time, alright?"
I've never gotten into a physical road rage incident after I left my car, but I certainly had never gotten into a confrontation where a guy told me he could have fought me after a road rage incident. And to this day I feel a certain umbrage at not only him confronting me, but what he said and the way in which he said it. I found him to be very condescending. First of all, I may have been a bit curt when driving that evening, but I don't think I cut anybody off. And even if I did, I don't think I deserved to be, for lack of a better word, dressed down like he did. And to use a soothing tone, like he's a doting father trying to impart a Life Lesson -- that's the part that still pisses me off to this day.
I didn't say anything but, "Oh, OK." But my visceral reaction was to think in my head, "Well!" to his haughtiness. And now, I would rather him just fight me in the gas station store.
The world is crazy. But we did our part to make it crazy. All of us.
Monday, June 27, 2011
I Worship Hef, But. ...
You've probably heard by now that Hugh Hefner was dumped by Crystal Harris, Playmate and his fiancé (six decades his junior, that dog!), five days before they were supposed to wed.
I've been able to facebook friend dozens of Playmates and Playboy models, and from what I've heard, most of them immediately reacted to that news by saying, essentially, that the runaway bride ain't nuttin' but a bitch. They note that she announced she was leaving Hef at the altar the same day her single dropped (has anyone heard it? Didn't think so) and recently tried to pawn off the $90,000 engagement ring he gave her (and, apparently, didn't ask her to give back). Gold digger, they say. And it looks like they're right.
But if you think Hugh Hefner was hurting over this sudden change-of-heart from someone who wanted to pledge her life to him, you don't know Hef. The man who introduced porn to America -- and thus should be idolized as a God by all heterosexual men, like me -- has been able to fuck tons of impressionable, nubile women who wanted to get naked in the pages of his magazine.
And the guy's still got it. If evidence that he bagged Harris wasn't enough, he was able, after a breather, to hook up with one of his Playmates, Anna Sophia Berglund. And now he's able to get yet another girlfriend, another PM, Shera Bechard. Hef, who had a trio of "Girls Next Door" to fuck in rotation, is back to being polyamorous.
So that's why I find it very hard to symathize for him. It was horrible what Harris did. But Hef has and always will be a player. If he was so goddamn heartbroken, he wouldn't've dove so quickly back into the pool of babes he has at his disposal.
In fact, this surprise dumping may not be a "surprise." I don't have any evidence, but this arrangement seems too ... dramatic to appear to be genuine. Harris knew what she was getting into, and yet she decided to make news by dumping her man several days before a wedding? Hef knew what he was getting into, and yet he just decided to let her go without even a plea of, "Why are you doing this to me, Crystal?!" And they seem just ducky living apart when they were supposed to wed, for better and for worse (weight of those words excepted) 120 after their break-up.
What I'm saying is, the timing of this seems designed for maximum tabloid exposure. I don't think Mr. Hefner would stoop to such publicity; he seems like an old-school, classy guy, his empire of porn notwithstanding. But then again, I don't know him personally. (Though I did get a coffee table book signed by him once when I was in college, where I could've enrolled in a course on the First Amendment that he lectured.)
I like the guy, I really do. But for those hot Playmates who feel sorry for him and thus cheer for him that he's "recovering" nicely, please. He's 85 years old and yet can pull as much tail as he wants. And he has always been able to. I feel sympathy for neither party in this one. Just stick your ossified penis into as many of your father figure-starved "employees" as you can, sir.
I've been able to facebook friend dozens of Playmates and Playboy models, and from what I've heard, most of them immediately reacted to that news by saying, essentially, that the runaway bride ain't nuttin' but a bitch. They note that she announced she was leaving Hef at the altar the same day her single dropped (has anyone heard it? Didn't think so) and recently tried to pawn off the $90,000 engagement ring he gave her (and, apparently, didn't ask her to give back). Gold digger, they say. And it looks like they're right.
But if you think Hugh Hefner was hurting over this sudden change-of-heart from someone who wanted to pledge her life to him, you don't know Hef. The man who introduced porn to America -- and thus should be idolized as a God by all heterosexual men, like me -- has been able to fuck tons of impressionable, nubile women who wanted to get naked in the pages of his magazine.
And the guy's still got it. If evidence that he bagged Harris wasn't enough, he was able, after a breather, to hook up with one of his Playmates, Anna Sophia Berglund. And now he's able to get yet another girlfriend, another PM, Shera Bechard. Hef, who had a trio of "Girls Next Door" to fuck in rotation, is back to being polyamorous.
So that's why I find it very hard to symathize for him. It was horrible what Harris did. But Hef has and always will be a player. If he was so goddamn heartbroken, he wouldn't've dove so quickly back into the pool of babes he has at his disposal.
In fact, this surprise dumping may not be a "surprise." I don't have any evidence, but this arrangement seems too ... dramatic to appear to be genuine. Harris knew what she was getting into, and yet she decided to make news by dumping her man several days before a wedding? Hef knew what he was getting into, and yet he just decided to let her go without even a plea of, "Why are you doing this to me, Crystal?!" And they seem just ducky living apart when they were supposed to wed, for better and for worse (weight of those words excepted) 120 after their break-up.
What I'm saying is, the timing of this seems designed for maximum tabloid exposure. I don't think Mr. Hefner would stoop to such publicity; he seems like an old-school, classy guy, his empire of porn notwithstanding. But then again, I don't know him personally. (Though I did get a coffee table book signed by him once when I was in college, where I could've enrolled in a course on the First Amendment that he lectured.)
I like the guy, I really do. But for those hot Playmates who feel sorry for him and thus cheer for him that he's "recovering" nicely, please. He's 85 years old and yet can pull as much tail as he wants. And he has always been able to. I feel sympathy for neither party in this one. Just stick your ossified penis into as many of your father figure-starved "employees" as you can, sir.
Sunday, June 26, 2011
A Massive Case Of Writer's Block
I have gotten some time off from my project -- unexpectedly, as I will detail in the future once I know it's safe to talk about it. I haven't written a lot for my website, and I didn't plan on doing a whole lot because I was working. But I had time off since Tuesday, so I could have written one, two or even three columns for it. And I should have.
But I haven't. I go back to work, presumably because there now is work, tomorrow. I want to write and throw something up on the site before then. But I have nothing sports-related to write about. I'm quite ashamed. But I'm not inspired to put my thoughts down on anything. Well, actually there is something I'm working on. But I'm not working on it right now because 1) I'm writing this and 2) I really don't feel like it.
It's a waste, having five days' worth of free time to write and not writing anything at all.
But I haven't. I go back to work, presumably because there now is work, tomorrow. I want to write and throw something up on the site before then. But I have nothing sports-related to write about. I'm quite ashamed. But I'm not inspired to put my thoughts down on anything. Well, actually there is something I'm working on. But I'm not working on it right now because 1) I'm writing this and 2) I really don't feel like it.
It's a waste, having five days' worth of free time to write and not writing anything at all.
Saturday, June 25, 2011
The Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey
#-1: Wild (Last Week: -1). Attending the NHL Draft being held at the X in St. Paul. (Both days; in fact, I'm blogging this from the second day of the draft -- upper level, just about the other side from the stage.) About as boring as I feared. It's strictly a made-for-TV event, so if you're here in-person, the announcements of the draft picks (alongwith the players standing up from the seats and being hugged by their families -- that's a sweet moment) is punctuated with promotional videos of the team on the clock, interviews with the just-drafted players, and a lot of waiting.
And yet I'd recommend anyone go, if possible. I think the NFL and even NBA drafts would be more entertaining, because there are more fans, but to see the business of franchises rebuilding their teams for the future is a wonk's wet dream. Plus, you get to witness some important moments -- Aaron Boogaard's brother remembering the late Boogeyman by announcing the Rangers' first-round draft pick (to a standing ovation), or the first official announcement that the newstolen team from Atlanta will indeed be named the Winnipeg Jets.
For me, and for the Wild, the big news was the blockbuster (at least in hockey terms) of the first trade that went down Friday: Minnesota traded Defenseman and All-Star Brent Burns (and a second-round pick in next year's draft) to San Jose for the Sharks' first-round pick in this draft, current college forward Charlie Coyle, and current forward Devin Setoguchi. Setoguchi was just signed to a three-year, nine-million dollar contract yesterday.
Some people are pissed off that they traded away Burns, a fan favorite. He seems like a nice guy, but I'm not as high on him as others, and I think his All-Star nod last year was a gift. He's injured too much of the time, and he gets out of position too much for my liking. Consistency's a problem with the guy who's supposed to make an impact next year, Setoguchi. But he and Coyle are the scoring punch the Mild need.
There were other critics before the trade that bashed General Manager Chuck Fletcher for not adding offense to the organization. I ran through 19 mock drafts and they came up with eight different guys -- none of them the man the team draft tenth overall, a Swedish defenseman named Jonas Brodin. Last year he had four assists ... and scored no goals. Our D is overrated, but can we get some scoring?
But look at their second first-rounder: a guy who scored 38 goals last year. Zack Phillips is a Center from a Quebec Majors team, Saint John, that won its league championship and had three of its guys in the Central Scouting Domestic Skater Top 30. This is considerd to be a weak draft, but nevertheless, Phillips is 15th, so if you just go by these rankings, the Wild got a steal with the 28th pick. (In fact, one guy did think the Wild would select Phillips with the 10th pick: Adrian Dater of SI.com.) There's no way to know why whether these guys will pan out, but with what they know they need now, and what these prospects bring to the table at this time, this is a very good draft. Grade: A-.
#-2: Timberwolves (Re-Entry!). The Woofs didn't fuck it up! The Woofs didn't fuck it up!! They had the second pick in a two-man draft (OK, I thought it was one-man, but I let my emotions get the better of me) and they choose the other guy -- Derrick Williams, the Arizona forward who blew up and single-handedly destroyed Duke in the tournament this year. My friend thinks he's going to have the career arc of Corliss Williamson, Glen Davis, or even Tyrus Thomas. I hope not, but all my instincts and all the advanced metrics say Williams is going to be a beast. And with the athleticism he displays in his highlights, he could be this year's Blake Griffin.
KFAN's Dan Barreiro is getting hung up by the fact that the Timberwolves used their second first-rounder, #20 overall, to trade down and down and down through the second round. They accumulated a lot of cash -- all of which will be used to fire Head Coach Kurt Rambis, who, even though he sucks as a coach, has been cruelly frozen out of recent team dealings (a weasel move, David Kahn) -- a future first-round pick, and Malcolm Lee, a Guard from UCLA some progs like as a defender. They actually selected three international big men and subsequently traded them for picks later in Thursday's draft. I'm not too worried about it because 1) this team has so many holes they don't know where to start, 2) this draft, like the NHL one, is lame, so maybe that future first-rounder, albeit lottery-protected, will be in a draft a lot stronger than this one, and 3) I think international big men are overrated. The Wolves have a long way to go compared to the Wild, but they had a good draft, too. Grade: B.
#-3: Lynx (Last Week: Positive Numbers). A 1-1 week, with their five-game winning streak snapped at Seattle. Not a bad loss, but right now all but Tulsa are .500 or better in the Western Conference. This might be a sign of things to come. For example, the Storm held Rebekkah Brunson to only seven rebounds and two points, denying her of a WNBA record seventh double-double to begin a regular season. Come on, Jynx, we need a winner here! Two games this week: home to Indiana Sunday, at Tulsa Thursday.
#-4: Twins (Last Week: 0). Their hot streak is no more. A 3-3 week that started with finishing a sweep of San Diego ends with a three-game losing streak. The good thing is that haven't lost badly; they dropped the last two games against San Francisco and their incomparable pitching (Tim Lincecum struck out a dozen Twinks in their win 2-1 loss Thursday afternoon), and they weren't blown out in any of their defeats. But with the hole they dug themselves in April and May, any single loss could be fatal. This week: finishing at Milwaukee, then a trio at home against Los Angeles (I hope to catch a game, maybe Tuesday's) before starting the home-and-home against the Brewers at Target Friday.
(One other thing: This game marks the first-ever time that Joe Mauer, our hometown hero, has been showed up publicly by a teammate. After last [Friday] night's loss to Milwaukee, Jose Mijares called out Joltin' Joe for demanding all fastballs in his at-bat against Prince Fielder. In a situation like that, a lefty pitcher throwing to a righty batter, I guess the call is to throw sliders. The sixth and final fastball was sent into right field by Fielder, bringing home the tying and game-winning runs.
It looks like both ends of the battery are to blame. Catchers are supposed to know you don't pump fastballs on a guy as powerful as Fielder. And as you can see in Joe Christensen's write-up about this controversy, Manager Ron Gardenhire seemed to have expected sliders as well. On the other hand, Mauer said that Mijares's slider was sucking the last time he pitched. Moreover, as you can see in this Twitpic, Mijares threw that heater down the pipe when Mauer set up outside. So, it looks like the pitcher badly threw a pitch the catcher shouldn't have called.
Remember that both players are struggling. However, of Jose Mijares or Joe Mauer, take a guess as to who takes the fall. Could he even be traded or cut?)
And yet I'd recommend anyone go, if possible. I think the NFL and even NBA drafts would be more entertaining, because there are more fans, but to see the business of franchises rebuilding their teams for the future is a wonk's wet dream. Plus, you get to witness some important moments -- Aaron Boogaard's brother remembering the late Boogeyman by announcing the Rangers' first-round draft pick (to a standing ovation), or the first official announcement that the new
For me, and for the Wild, the big news was the blockbuster (at least in hockey terms) of the first trade that went down Friday: Minnesota traded Defenseman and All-Star Brent Burns (and a second-round pick in next year's draft) to San Jose for the Sharks' first-round pick in this draft, current college forward Charlie Coyle, and current forward Devin Setoguchi. Setoguchi was just signed to a three-year, nine-million dollar contract yesterday.
Some people are pissed off that they traded away Burns, a fan favorite. He seems like a nice guy, but I'm not as high on him as others, and I think his All-Star nod last year was a gift. He's injured too much of the time, and he gets out of position too much for my liking. Consistency's a problem with the guy who's supposed to make an impact next year, Setoguchi. But he and Coyle are the scoring punch the Mild need.
There were other critics before the trade that bashed General Manager Chuck Fletcher for not adding offense to the organization. I ran through 19 mock drafts and they came up with eight different guys -- none of them the man the team draft tenth overall, a Swedish defenseman named Jonas Brodin. Last year he had four assists ... and scored no goals. Our D is overrated, but can we get some scoring?
But look at their second first-rounder: a guy who scored 38 goals last year. Zack Phillips is a Center from a Quebec Majors team, Saint John, that won its league championship and had three of its guys in the Central Scouting Domestic Skater Top 30. This is considerd to be a weak draft, but nevertheless, Phillips is 15th, so if you just go by these rankings, the Wild got a steal with the 28th pick. (In fact, one guy did think the Wild would select Phillips with the 10th pick: Adrian Dater of SI.com.) There's no way to know why whether these guys will pan out, but with what they know they need now, and what these prospects bring to the table at this time, this is a very good draft. Grade: A-.
#-2: Timberwolves (Re-Entry!). The Woofs didn't fuck it up! The Woofs didn't fuck it up!! They had the second pick in a two-man draft (OK, I thought it was one-man, but I let my emotions get the better of me) and they choose the other guy -- Derrick Williams, the Arizona forward who blew up and single-handedly destroyed Duke in the tournament this year. My friend thinks he's going to have the career arc of Corliss Williamson, Glen Davis, or even Tyrus Thomas. I hope not, but all my instincts and all the advanced metrics say Williams is going to be a beast. And with the athleticism he displays in his highlights, he could be this year's Blake Griffin.
KFAN's Dan Barreiro is getting hung up by the fact that the Timberwolves used their second first-rounder, #20 overall, to trade down and down and down through the second round. They accumulated a lot of cash -- all of which will be used to fire Head Coach Kurt Rambis, who, even though he sucks as a coach, has been cruelly frozen out of recent team dealings (a weasel move, David Kahn) -- a future first-round pick, and Malcolm Lee, a Guard from UCLA some progs like as a defender. They actually selected three international big men and subsequently traded them for picks later in Thursday's draft. I'm not too worried about it because 1) this team has so many holes they don't know where to start, 2) this draft, like the NHL one, is lame, so maybe that future first-rounder, albeit lottery-protected, will be in a draft a lot stronger than this one, and 3) I think international big men are overrated. The Wolves have a long way to go compared to the Wild, but they had a good draft, too. Grade: B.
#-3: Lynx (Last Week: Positive Numbers). A 1-1 week, with their five-game winning streak snapped at Seattle. Not a bad loss, but right now all but Tulsa are .500 or better in the Western Conference. This might be a sign of things to come. For example, the Storm held Rebekkah Brunson to only seven rebounds and two points, denying her of a WNBA record seventh double-double to begin a regular season. Come on, Jynx, we need a winner here! Two games this week: home to Indiana Sunday, at Tulsa Thursday.
#-4: Twins (Last Week: 0). Their hot streak is no more. A 3-3 week that started with finishing a sweep of San Diego ends with a three-game losing streak. The good thing is that haven't lost badly; they dropped the last two games against San Francisco and their incomparable pitching (Tim Lincecum struck out a dozen Twinks in their win 2-1 loss Thursday afternoon), and they weren't blown out in any of their defeats. But with the hole they dug themselves in April and May, any single loss could be fatal. This week: finishing at Milwaukee, then a trio at home against Los Angeles (I hope to catch a game, maybe Tuesday's) before starting the home-and-home against the Brewers at Target Friday.
(One other thing: This game marks the first-ever time that Joe Mauer, our hometown hero, has been showed up publicly by a teammate. After last [Friday] night's loss to Milwaukee, Jose Mijares called out Joltin' Joe for demanding all fastballs in his at-bat against Prince Fielder. In a situation like that, a lefty pitcher throwing to a righty batter, I guess the call is to throw sliders. The sixth and final fastball was sent into right field by Fielder, bringing home the tying and game-winning runs.
It looks like both ends of the battery are to blame. Catchers are supposed to know you don't pump fastballs on a guy as powerful as Fielder. And as you can see in Joe Christensen's write-up about this controversy, Manager Ron Gardenhire seemed to have expected sliders as well. On the other hand, Mauer said that Mijares's slider was sucking the last time he pitched. Moreover, as you can see in this Twitpic, Mijares threw that heater down the pipe when Mauer set up outside. So, it looks like the pitcher badly threw a pitch the catcher shouldn't have called.
Remember that both players are struggling. However, of Jose Mijares or Joe Mauer, take a guess as to who takes the fall. Could he even be traded or cut?)
Friday, June 24, 2011
Thinking With My Dick Again -- And This Time, I Was Right!!!
There's a private party every Monday at this place about a half-hour away. Four girls, some of them that work for My Favorite Stripclub (Non-Cover Version) work it. (One of those girls invited me to it.) It's better because they let me touch their titties here. But I've slowly started to get bored with it. There's still no privacy, and at some point I want to take my dick out and show it to her. There are just too many guys around that could see, and so I'm frustrated. It's not worth it to go out of my way to this party, at least beyond an irregular frequency, and that would save me their $5 cover.
So I didn't plan on going last night for those reasons, plus that Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Finals was on and I wanted to see the whole thing from the comfort of my own bed. When I went to My Favorite Stripclub and saw Jasmine, the waitress with the humongo-boobs, and she told me she was invited to work the party, I told her I couldn't. And when Amber, the girl who initially turned me on to this party, texted that she would also be at the party, I told her maybe next time.
She prefers texting to talking. All the young'uns prefer texting to talking nowadays. What's wrong with talking? Besides, I don't have a texting plan. I have all the minutes you'd want to spend (and I don't spend half of them every month), but texts cost me, one at a time. Anyway, she texted back twice (twenty cents, damn!). First, she said, "k." And then, as if she didn't want to leave the impression that she was mad or disappointed, she sent a second one, just a smile emoticon: ":-)"
Well, that was it. She tugged at my heartstrings, and I was incapable of resisting. That smiley face made me feel bad, so, so bad. I was "working" at the U. when I saw that text, and for the rest of my session in there I couldn't help but think about how I disappointed her. So, even though I was going to miss potentially one hell of a game and the last pro hockey game of the year, I decided that I was going to go to that party.
First I left a message for Amber. Then I called Jasmine to let her know I changed my mind. She was typically brusque, borderline rude: "You don't have to call me to let me know that you're coming!" is what she said hurriedly, like she was in the middle of something, before she hung up. Well.
I was still not totally happy with the setup. So after thinking through any last-minute doubts and reaffirming that, yes, I will go out instead of staying in and watching the game, I'll try something different. I used to go just as the party officially started because no one would have rolled in by then and that meant I could get as much privacy (whether it be on the couches or surprising them in the bathroom or their changing room) as I would get. Ideally, no guy would be there. But for the past several times there's been this, uh, bouncer/overseer/protector that's always there. He seems like a nice guy, but he's obviously there to keep the peace and make sure no one takes his dick out. Boo.
Instead, I decided I'd go at the end of the party, close to 11 o'clock. There probably will be guys still milling about, but the chances of them not being there are just as good as they are earlier in the evening, and I've never gone there that late, so why not try it? Plus, the darkness might help me in shrouding my pee-pee in secrecy so that only the dancer and I know it's out. Finally, my parents came home late Monday, I wouldn't've been able to get to the party's beginning even if I wanted to. So I ate dinner, went to exercise at the gym, and then went to the condo (it was on the way).
I'll say this: At least the game was a blowout. If it were close, I'd be kind of peeved that my attention wasn't 100% on hockey. But it wasn't, so I wasn't. Plus, something at the party made it all worth it.
Just as I got to the condo to find a space to park, I see Jasmine come out with a huge bag with her. That's her dancer bag, and she was leaving. This is about 10:30, about a half-hour before the party officially ended. I've seen a dancer leave; it's not as if one gets punished if they leave early. But I did call her earlier that evening. It would've been nice for her to let me know she was leaving early, if she knew beforehand that she would.
I waved; I think she waved back, but maybe she couldn't see through my car window at night as I was driving into the cul-de-sac. She's parked just outside the dead end, so I figure that if she's leaving, if I can't get a lapdance from her, I might as well just take her spot. So I wait there for, like, ten seconds. She started her car, but she doesn't move. She probably thinks I'm stalking her. She can be a bitch at times -- well, more than half the time. Don't matter; I can walk. I drive past her and park where I normally do when I go this party, about three blocks down.
My dream that it was just me and the girls were quickly dashed when I saw about five guys there. Three of them were black; why do I always see black guys at a stripclub when it's late? Anyway, my M.O. usually is to immediately head to the head so I can unbutton my fly; if I enter the condo with the barn door open, I'm always afraid someone will take the initiative of frisking me.
I made a beeline to right next to the bathroom, so I don't know if Amber's out in the kitchen, where everybody hangs out. I wait and wait. I don't want to be a dick; I can see from the bottom of the doorway that the light's on. But I continued to wait, for about five minutes. When the stripper I saw dancing when I came in got done, that's when I knew I had to check again.
I knocked on the door. And there I saw the door was ajar. No one was in there. It was unoccupied the whole time. Now why in the fuck would you keep a bathroom light turned on? It makes people think people are in there. My Fucking Father (Happy Father's Day, but the way) does that all the time in his hotel room when he's on vacation. Either he does that because he doesn't want to get lost when he inevitably wakes up to pee, or he does it because he's afraid of the fucking dark. Neither really applies here. Besides, the light at the hall outside the door is on. I don't get that. Humiliating. The guys there must have been laughing at me.
So I pee, keep my fly unbuttoned, then come out to the kitchen. Yep, Amber was there. And she was so happy to see me! She said she even sent me a photo of her to my smartphone ... except that I don't have a smartphone. Oh well.
With less than half an hour left to go in the party, she was ready to get me my LD -- but first she had to freshen up in the bathroom. I was mentally rubbing my hands together with delight; ha-ha, now's my chance!! She told me to pay the $5 cover before she went. And now I have an excuse to go after her.
All this time while I was at the party there was a guy sitting on a chair and just hanging out. From the bathroom his back would be turned towards it. Also, there were still a couple other strippers and a few guys (including the bouncer fellow) still milling around the kitchen. Any one of them could have seen what I was about to do next: I disobeyed her orders to just stand there, went to the bathroom, and asked if she had change for a ten-dollar bill ... while reaching into my fly and taking out my cock!
I don't exactly recall what she said. All I remember -- all I really give a shit -- is that she didn't scream or get mad at me. All she said, I guess, was, "You're so bad!" Or maybe I'm dreaming that she said that, and instead she said, "You're going to get us in trouble," or "I thought I told you stay outside!"
She did run out to the living room to get the purse she left on the couch. I think she told me to wait out there again. But me being so horny, I decided to disobey her again and go back to her in the bathroom after five or ten seconds and take out my cock again.
I think -- I've been saying that a lot in this blog post, huh? -- she said that I was going to get her in trouble, or that someone might see us. So I asked her, pleaded with her, "Just touch it and then I'll put it away." And by God, she did! She wrapped her left hand around the top of my dick, from the tip halfway down, and gave it a quick squeeze!! And I was over the moon!!!
I did put myself back in after her pseudo-handjob. I really did need change from her. And luckily she did what she did to me and I did what I promised to do after she did what I wanted her to do to me, 'cause there was a guy that came up behind me wanting to use the bathroom. Man, if he was there, like, 30 seconds earlier. ...
I feel kind of bad for not listening to what she told me to do and for constantly pleading, cajoling and egging her into masturbating me. But honestly, I don't feel kind of bad too, you know? What can I say, I'm a perv.
More importantly, she wasn't pissed at me, like Jasmine would have been. I got a dance from Amber, and then she talked to me without any tone. Even better, she invited me to this other dancer party tomorrow. It's at an apartment of an ex-dancer turned massage thearpist who once gave me her card intimating her massages might not be up-and-up, if you know what I mean; have I blogged about her before? Best of all, she said that there won't be any bouncers or muscle "protecting" the dancers. Good -- that means more chances of these hot strippers touching my pee-pee!
Details (good, bad and otherwise) after. Wish me luck!
So I didn't plan on going last night for those reasons, plus that Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Finals was on and I wanted to see the whole thing from the comfort of my own bed. When I went to My Favorite Stripclub and saw Jasmine, the waitress with the humongo-boobs, and she told me she was invited to work the party, I told her I couldn't. And when Amber, the girl who initially turned me on to this party, texted that she would also be at the party, I told her maybe next time.
She prefers texting to talking. All the young'uns prefer texting to talking nowadays. What's wrong with talking? Besides, I don't have a texting plan. I have all the minutes you'd want to spend (and I don't spend half of them every month), but texts cost me, one at a time. Anyway, she texted back twice (twenty cents, damn!). First, she said, "k." And then, as if she didn't want to leave the impression that she was mad or disappointed, she sent a second one, just a smile emoticon: ":-)"
Well, that was it. She tugged at my heartstrings, and I was incapable of resisting. That smiley face made me feel bad, so, so bad. I was "working" at the U. when I saw that text, and for the rest of my session in there I couldn't help but think about how I disappointed her. So, even though I was going to miss potentially one hell of a game and the last pro hockey game of the year, I decided that I was going to go to that party.
First I left a message for Amber. Then I called Jasmine to let her know I changed my mind. She was typically brusque, borderline rude: "You don't have to call me to let me know that you're coming!" is what she said hurriedly, like she was in the middle of something, before she hung up. Well.
I was still not totally happy with the setup. So after thinking through any last-minute doubts and reaffirming that, yes, I will go out instead of staying in and watching the game, I'll try something different. I used to go just as the party officially started because no one would have rolled in by then and that meant I could get as much privacy (whether it be on the couches or surprising them in the bathroom or their changing room) as I would get. Ideally, no guy would be there. But for the past several times there's been this, uh, bouncer/overseer/protector that's always there. He seems like a nice guy, but he's obviously there to keep the peace and make sure no one takes his dick out. Boo.
Instead, I decided I'd go at the end of the party, close to 11 o'clock. There probably will be guys still milling about, but the chances of them not being there are just as good as they are earlier in the evening, and I've never gone there that late, so why not try it? Plus, the darkness might help me in shrouding my pee-pee in secrecy so that only the dancer and I know it's out. Finally, my parents came home late Monday, I wouldn't've been able to get to the party's beginning even if I wanted to. So I ate dinner, went to exercise at the gym, and then went to the condo (it was on the way).
I'll say this: At least the game was a blowout. If it were close, I'd be kind of peeved that my attention wasn't 100% on hockey. But it wasn't, so I wasn't. Plus, something at the party made it all worth it.
Just as I got to the condo to find a space to park, I see Jasmine come out with a huge bag with her. That's her dancer bag, and she was leaving. This is about 10:30, about a half-hour before the party officially ended. I've seen a dancer leave; it's not as if one gets punished if they leave early. But I did call her earlier that evening. It would've been nice for her to let me know she was leaving early, if she knew beforehand that she would.
I waved; I think she waved back, but maybe she couldn't see through my car window at night as I was driving into the cul-de-sac. She's parked just outside the dead end, so I figure that if she's leaving, if I can't get a lapdance from her, I might as well just take her spot. So I wait there for, like, ten seconds. She started her car, but she doesn't move. She probably thinks I'm stalking her. She can be a bitch at times -- well, more than half the time. Don't matter; I can walk. I drive past her and park where I normally do when I go this party, about three blocks down.
My dream that it was just me and the girls were quickly dashed when I saw about five guys there. Three of them were black; why do I always see black guys at a stripclub when it's late? Anyway, my M.O. usually is to immediately head to the head so I can unbutton my fly; if I enter the condo with the barn door open, I'm always afraid someone will take the initiative of frisking me.
I made a beeline to right next to the bathroom, so I don't know if Amber's out in the kitchen, where everybody hangs out. I wait and wait. I don't want to be a dick; I can see from the bottom of the doorway that the light's on. But I continued to wait, for about five minutes. When the stripper I saw dancing when I came in got done, that's when I knew I had to check again.
I knocked on the door. And there I saw the door was ajar. No one was in there. It was unoccupied the whole time. Now why in the fuck would you keep a bathroom light turned on? It makes people think people are in there. My Fucking Father (Happy Father's Day, but the way) does that all the time in his hotel room when he's on vacation. Either he does that because he doesn't want to get lost when he inevitably wakes up to pee, or he does it because he's afraid of the fucking dark. Neither really applies here. Besides, the light at the hall outside the door is on. I don't get that. Humiliating. The guys there must have been laughing at me.
So I pee, keep my fly unbuttoned, then come out to the kitchen. Yep, Amber was there. And she was so happy to see me! She said she even sent me a photo of her to my smartphone ... except that I don't have a smartphone. Oh well.
With less than half an hour left to go in the party, she was ready to get me my LD -- but first she had to freshen up in the bathroom. I was mentally rubbing my hands together with delight; ha-ha, now's my chance!! She told me to pay the $5 cover before she went. And now I have an excuse to go after her.
All this time while I was at the party there was a guy sitting on a chair and just hanging out. From the bathroom his back would be turned towards it. Also, there were still a couple other strippers and a few guys (including the bouncer fellow) still milling around the kitchen. Any one of them could have seen what I was about to do next: I disobeyed her orders to just stand there, went to the bathroom, and asked if she had change for a ten-dollar bill ... while reaching into my fly and taking out my cock!
I don't exactly recall what she said. All I remember -- all I really give a shit -- is that she didn't scream or get mad at me. All she said, I guess, was, "You're so bad!" Or maybe I'm dreaming that she said that, and instead she said, "You're going to get us in trouble," or "I thought I told you stay outside!"
She did run out to the living room to get the purse she left on the couch. I think she told me to wait out there again. But me being so horny, I decided to disobey her again and go back to her in the bathroom after five or ten seconds and take out my cock again.
I think -- I've been saying that a lot in this blog post, huh? -- she said that I was going to get her in trouble, or that someone might see us. So I asked her, pleaded with her, "Just touch it and then I'll put it away." And by God, she did! She wrapped her left hand around the top of my dick, from the tip halfway down, and gave it a quick squeeze!! And I was over the moon!!!
I did put myself back in after her pseudo-handjob. I really did need change from her. And luckily she did what she did to me and I did what I promised to do after she did what I wanted her to do to me, 'cause there was a guy that came up behind me wanting to use the bathroom. Man, if he was there, like, 30 seconds earlier. ...
I feel kind of bad for not listening to what she told me to do and for constantly pleading, cajoling and egging her into masturbating me. But honestly, I don't feel kind of bad too, you know? What can I say, I'm a perv.
More importantly, she wasn't pissed at me, like Jasmine would have been. I got a dance from Amber, and then she talked to me without any tone. Even better, she invited me to this other dancer party tomorrow. It's at an apartment of an ex-dancer turned massage thearpist who once gave me her card intimating her massages might not be up-and-up, if you know what I mean; have I blogged about her before? Best of all, she said that there won't be any bouncers or muscle "protecting" the dancers. Good -- that means more chances of these hot strippers touching my pee-pee!
Details (good, bad and otherwise) after. Wish me luck!
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Our Garage Is Where Beetles Go To Die
Weirdest thing. I think I saw yet another beetle, face-up, legs semi-curled in the fetal position, just lifeless on the garage floor as I was going out to "work" at the U today.
It's the third of fourth I've seen in the garage. One I ran over even though it was alive and I thought wasn't in the path or was walking out of the path of my reversing tires. Dammit.
Weirder, one I saw for a couple, maybe even a few, days upside down, legs kicking as if it was struggling to right itself, with something attached to its body and maybe holding it down that way. After a couple or a few times walking around it to get into my car, I decided to help it out; I used (I think) my keys to put him upright. And away it went, somewhere around my garage.
The next day, I believe, while getting into my car, I saw, I believe, that same beetle. It was back in the position I first found it, face-up. Only it was kicking its legs. It was dead. The hell?
When, how and why is our garage a beetle hospice?
It's the third of fourth I've seen in the garage. One I ran over even though it was alive and I thought wasn't in the path or was walking out of the path of my reversing tires. Dammit.
Weirder, one I saw for a couple, maybe even a few, days upside down, legs kicking as if it was struggling to right itself, with something attached to its body and maybe holding it down that way. After a couple or a few times walking around it to get into my car, I decided to help it out; I used (I think) my keys to put him upright. And away it went, somewhere around my garage.
The next day, I believe, while getting into my car, I saw, I believe, that same beetle. It was back in the position I first found it, face-up. Only it was kicking its legs. It was dead. The hell?
When, how and why is our garage a beetle hospice?
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Chronicles On My Trip, Part III: Trying Not To Reach Out And Touch Someone
I'm so glad that I had this fucking hotel fiasco behind me, and thank Buddha I still had enough energy and foresight to remember that I still had to deal with my sister and what we're going to do now that our itinerary has been pushed back a day.
My parents and I talked about communication during our trip, especially if something bad happened. I didn't even bother making plans for my phone; I'm not paying any international roaming fees, I just wasn't going to use it.
However, my brother made plans for Mother, with whom he shares a family plan. (Father and I share another plan; I'll get to how that happened some other time.) She still needs to keep in touch with the store, so she said that he set up some extra texting plan; if she needed to send a message regarding the store, she would text my brother (who was staying in the States until the middle of the week when he had to be at the Italian villa for my sister's wedding) and he would be the liaison to the store. Obviously it was going to be used for emergencies like flight delays as well.
While we were in line at Air Canada rebooking our flight, she thought I should help her text my brother an order that my uncle, running the store in my parents' place, needed to fill. But since he needed to know information about our delayed flight, I suggested that we wait and send two messages in the same text. She agreed.
Like I said in the Chronicle Part II, the only good thing about the fucking fleabag known as the Sandalwood Suites is that they had free and working Internet because I was then able to e-mail sister about our predicament (oh, as well as that order for my uncle at the store, just in case my brother didn't get the text). The Hilton also had complimentary e-mail, so I checked in to see whether my sister got the message and sent something back; hell, I wanted to make sure I hit the "Send" button in my rush to get to the van outside the Sandalwood.
I checked my e-mail, on a computer on a stand-up stand in a shrouded area of the ground floor of the hotel, feet away from the main lobby. Whew! I wasn't so clumsy that I just forgot to send it, because my sister responded to that e-mail a little more than a half-hour after I sent it, I think. She actually sent two or three. In the first one she was confused as to why we missed it; I didn't specify that we indeed missed it, or maybe she couldn't believe we missed it.
The second was her explaining how this ruins our plans. We were supposed to have the whole day with my sister and brother-in-law, crash at their place overnight, then take a train to Milan the next morning. I was really looking forward to the tour she booked for my parents and I; shortly after arriving at the train station, we were supposed to attend a tour that would take us to see The Last Supper. I want to see that. But that seemed well nigh impossible at this point.
But the one thing that stuck out to me on her furious, worried correspondence to me was the one think I assiduously wanted to avoid: She wanted us to call her. Shit, do we have to? Isn't e-mail enough? She was panicking, but from our end, there wasn't much we could do besides what has been done, which was that we missed our flight, the earliest one is the next flight the next day, and we frankly don't care what happens once we get to Switzerland. My thought was that seeing them is important enough that we'd punt Milan and spend that day with them. But I guess that wasn't her line of thinking, or that she didn't want to make a decision until she heard from us.
Mother called me from my hotel phone and wanted me to come over. With the hell of the evening behind us and a luxurious night in a city we didn't plan on being in its limits ahead, this was the time where she wanted me to finally text my brother about not only that order but also what happened to us. Oh, and she wanted me to recharge her iPhone while I'm at it.
So I now have Mother's phone -- one that works, one set up (whatever that actually means) for international roaming, and we are still in North America. And all I could think of was preferring not to communicate with my sister in the way she wanted me to at that moment.
But that wasn't fair to her. Yeah, I really thought things could be cleared up through e-mail. But maybe with this fuck-up, we need to, you know, talk to each other. Besides, the parents would understand me using Mother's cell to call her. This kind of counts as an emergency, doesn't it?
So after checking e-mail one more time -- where she may have sent me a third message stating that she has calmed down and arranged new train tickets for us, although this may have been early the next morning -- and finally texting my bro, I went upstairs and, around 2 in the morning, way after my point of exhaustion, I bit the bullet (well, Mother's bullet, because she's paying for this) and called my sister long distance.
"Mama!" my sister exclaimed, finally being released from my unintended silent treatment that I realized only then was kind of killing her.
"That is incorrect," I replied, to which she said, "Oh." Wouldn't expect nothing more than that enthusiasm coming from her.
And so we talked for aboutfifty bucks ten minutes about what happened (Pearson airport in Toronto starting suffering back-ups because they decided they wanted to, like, construct a new runway that evening) and what we should do. She really emphasized the importance of getting to Milan: "We have train tickets. TRAIN TICKETS!!!" she said, twice, to which I responded, "You say that like it's important." (Maybe I said that, but maybe I said something less jackassy.) I reiterated what I thought was important, which was seeing them. But eventually I just told her that I was fucking tired, and if she thought that getting on a train to Milan was more important than spending some free time with with the new addition to our family, well, fuck it, I told her that she should do what she thinks is best.
I wanted to go to bed ... naw, I really wanted to look around and enjoy my awesome surroundings. Seriously, I haven't been in so swank a room since I went to Dallas for a week to attend the Minor League Baseball Job Fair and I got this suite with a balcony. (Had old chicken bones on the floor, but whatever.) But she told me she'd call back after she thought things through with her current (and soon-to-be-once-again) husband. Call us back? If she was so concerned, why didn't she just call Mother in the first place? Did my sis think she'd be mad if she took the initiative?
After about, oh, half an hour, she finally called back. She decided they were going to go down to the train station and change our tickets. We would definitely miss The Last Supper tour, but the main thing was not to burn the hotel reservation in Milan (that was already paid for), getting to the train that would take us from Milan to Florence in time and getting back on schedule. They'd take care of it. OK.
The bill for this month probably already came in. I'm not going to even bother asking Mother how much these international calls and texts cost now. But a Plan B was decided upon and communicated that early morning. Much good money was thrown after bad, but things worked out as good as they could.
One final phone cock-up: I was woken up the next morning, very early, by my brother. I bolted out of my bed on hearing my Mother's ringtone, a Chinese version of "Pretty Woman." When I ran toward the socket where the iPhone was being recharged I was still in a daze, a result of not getting enough sleep from my hectic, hellish night before.
I drag the phone over to activate. I vomit out a "hello?" It was my brother. That's one of the few things I remember about the call. To this day I still wonder what exactly he said to me. I know that he was expecting Mother and that the call was very short. There's also the possibility I had reception issues. I told Mother some time after that that he called me when he was trying to call her; she said that he called her later and said not to text via the phone anymore. Sort of ironic; all this time I tried to avoid using the phone, and the one connection we had back to the States, Mother's iPhone to my brother, he tells us to stop using.
My parents and I talked about communication during our trip, especially if something bad happened. I didn't even bother making plans for my phone; I'm not paying any international roaming fees, I just wasn't going to use it.
However, my brother made plans for Mother, with whom he shares a family plan. (Father and I share another plan; I'll get to how that happened some other time.) She still needs to keep in touch with the store, so she said that he set up some extra texting plan; if she needed to send a message regarding the store, she would text my brother (who was staying in the States until the middle of the week when he had to be at the Italian villa for my sister's wedding) and he would be the liaison to the store. Obviously it was going to be used for emergencies like flight delays as well.
While we were in line at Air Canada rebooking our flight, she thought I should help her text my brother an order that my uncle, running the store in my parents' place, needed to fill. But since he needed to know information about our delayed flight, I suggested that we wait and send two messages in the same text. She agreed.
Like I said in the Chronicle Part II, the only good thing about the fucking fleabag known as the Sandalwood Suites is that they had free and working Internet because I was then able to e-mail sister about our predicament (oh, as well as that order for my uncle at the store, just in case my brother didn't get the text). The Hilton also had complimentary e-mail, so I checked in to see whether my sister got the message and sent something back; hell, I wanted to make sure I hit the "Send" button in my rush to get to the van outside the Sandalwood.
I checked my e-mail, on a computer on a stand-up stand in a shrouded area of the ground floor of the hotel, feet away from the main lobby. Whew! I wasn't so clumsy that I just forgot to send it, because my sister responded to that e-mail a little more than a half-hour after I sent it, I think. She actually sent two or three. In the first one she was confused as to why we missed it; I didn't specify that we indeed missed it, or maybe she couldn't believe we missed it.
The second was her explaining how this ruins our plans. We were supposed to have the whole day with my sister and brother-in-law, crash at their place overnight, then take a train to Milan the next morning. I was really looking forward to the tour she booked for my parents and I; shortly after arriving at the train station, we were supposed to attend a tour that would take us to see The Last Supper. I want to see that. But that seemed well nigh impossible at this point.
But the one thing that stuck out to me on her furious, worried correspondence to me was the one think I assiduously wanted to avoid: She wanted us to call her. Shit, do we have to? Isn't e-mail enough? She was panicking, but from our end, there wasn't much we could do besides what has been done, which was that we missed our flight, the earliest one is the next flight the next day, and we frankly don't care what happens once we get to Switzerland. My thought was that seeing them is important enough that we'd punt Milan and spend that day with them. But I guess that wasn't her line of thinking, or that she didn't want to make a decision until she heard from us.
Mother called me from my hotel phone and wanted me to come over. With the hell of the evening behind us and a luxurious night in a city we didn't plan on being in its limits ahead, this was the time where she wanted me to finally text my brother about not only that order but also what happened to us. Oh, and she wanted me to recharge her iPhone while I'm at it.
So I now have Mother's phone -- one that works, one set up (whatever that actually means) for international roaming, and we are still in North America. And all I could think of was preferring not to communicate with my sister in the way she wanted me to at that moment.
But that wasn't fair to her. Yeah, I really thought things could be cleared up through e-mail. But maybe with this fuck-up, we need to, you know, talk to each other. Besides, the parents would understand me using Mother's cell to call her. This kind of counts as an emergency, doesn't it?
So after checking e-mail one more time -- where she may have sent me a third message stating that she has calmed down and arranged new train tickets for us, although this may have been early the next morning -- and finally texting my bro, I went upstairs and, around 2 in the morning, way after my point of exhaustion, I bit the bullet (well, Mother's bullet, because she's paying for this) and called my sister long distance.
"Mama!" my sister exclaimed, finally being released from my unintended silent treatment that I realized only then was kind of killing her.
"That is incorrect," I replied, to which she said, "Oh." Wouldn't expect nothing more than that enthusiasm coming from her.
And so we talked for about
I wanted to go to bed ... naw, I really wanted to look around and enjoy my awesome surroundings. Seriously, I haven't been in so swank a room since I went to Dallas for a week to attend the Minor League Baseball Job Fair and I got this suite with a balcony. (Had old chicken bones on the floor, but whatever.) But she told me she'd call back after she thought things through with her current (and soon-to-be-once-again) husband. Call us back? If she was so concerned, why didn't she just call Mother in the first place? Did my sis think she'd be mad if she took the initiative?
After about, oh, half an hour, she finally called back. She decided they were going to go down to the train station and change our tickets. We would definitely miss The Last Supper tour, but the main thing was not to burn the hotel reservation in Milan (that was already paid for), getting to the train that would take us from Milan to Florence in time and getting back on schedule. They'd take care of it. OK.
The bill for this month probably already came in. I'm not going to even bother asking Mother how much these international calls and texts cost now. But a Plan B was decided upon and communicated that early morning. Much good money was thrown after bad, but things worked out as good as they could.
One final phone cock-up: I was woken up the next morning, very early, by my brother. I bolted out of my bed on hearing my Mother's ringtone, a Chinese version of "Pretty Woman." When I ran toward the socket where the iPhone was being recharged I was still in a daze, a result of not getting enough sleep from my hectic, hellish night before.
I drag the phone over to activate. I vomit out a "hello?" It was my brother. That's one of the few things I remember about the call. To this day I still wonder what exactly he said to me. I know that he was expecting Mother and that the call was very short. There's also the possibility I had reception issues. I told Mother some time after that that he called me when he was trying to call her; she said that he called her later and said not to text via the phone anymore. Sort of ironic; all this time I tried to avoid using the phone, and the one connection we had back to the States, Mother's iPhone to my brother, he tells us to stop using.
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Shit, Did I Forget Again?
I thought I blogged something on Monday. I did not. I was quickly finishing up something for Sunday on Sunday night, then I got sidetracked doing ... something, I don't remember what, it's not important now that I realize I forgot to blog something for Monday. I was working today, but I was at home all day tonight, watching TV. All the while I thought I had put something in the can for last (Monday) night. But I didn't.
Goddammit. Really, that fucking sucks. That's 16 straight months plus (since Feb. 3, 2010) since the last time I didn't blog on a day I wasn't on vacation. That last time I thought I posted something that I actually only saved. This time around I thought I already had published something, anything, and I just plain didn't. I'm embarrassed, quite frankly.
One of the reasons why I haven't been able to keep up is that I currently am working on two long blogs, one continuing my trip to Europe a couple weeks ago, another on a sexual encounter I had recently. I'm still banging them out, and that's partially why I haven't been able to spit something out onto W&F early in the morning, the time of day when I usually have been able to blog post something.
Shit. To make up for this, I've got to start double-posting. I've got to bang out these Chronicles On My Trip To Europe. And I have to jot down more trivial things that happen during the day.
I'm sorry.
Goddammit. Really, that fucking sucks. That's 16 straight months plus (since Feb. 3, 2010) since the last time I didn't blog on a day I wasn't on vacation. That last time I thought I posted something that I actually only saved. This time around I thought I already had published something, anything, and I just plain didn't. I'm embarrassed, quite frankly.
One of the reasons why I haven't been able to keep up is that I currently am working on two long blogs, one continuing my trip to Europe a couple weeks ago, another on a sexual encounter I had recently. I'm still banging them out, and that's partially why I haven't been able to spit something out onto W&F early in the morning, the time of day when I usually have been able to blog post something.
Shit. To make up for this, I've got to start double-posting. I've got to bang out these Chronicles On My Trip To Europe. And I have to jot down more trivial things that happen during the day.
I'm sorry.
Sunday, June 19, 2011
Mosquitos' Lunch With Me
Because the sun was not out today, I decided that this afternoon was perfect to paint. I thought that because it wasn't sunny, there'd be no mosquitos. Plus it takes a lot of time to spray bug spray, so I thought I didn't need it.
And then, while getting out the ladder in the backyard, I see a mosquito hanging on my left elbow and smack ... something (not necessarily a skeeter) on the back of my neck. Fine, bug spray it is.
I knew I was low, but I assumed I still had some left. I didn't. What little I had I sprayed around the cuffs of my khakis. And when I tried spraying around my head, I didn't hear that hiss indicating the aerosol is working. Shit. I was reduced to getting whatever drops were still in the can by shaking it down and collecting what comes out.
It was enough. Well, I thought it was enough. It covered what needed covering, and for most of my afternoon painting I was fine. But then I felt an itchy feeling on my left thigh. Did a mosquito crawl up my leg? Can it sting through thick pants?
Then, just as I was finishing up, I felt this sensation on my inside left wrist, where all my veins are, where one would cut oneself if you want to commit suicide. Can you get a bite there? And after I saw that, I saw a mosquito, a good-sized one, on my right arm. I tried to kill it but I missed. I think my kill rate is 5-10%. I wish it were higher. Could a bug's senses be faster than my swatting motion?
So I go in and see these two bumps forming on my left wrist and right arm. I hate that. But I didn't scratch them. Not because I was trying to resist, but because it didn't feel like they needed to be scratched. Weird; when I was young, whenever I got a mosquito bite I'd be tearing into my skin. Am I somehow getting immune in my old age?
Note to self: Buy bug spray. Could've gotten them the two times I went to Target last week. Oh well, I'll probably be going to Target two times this week even if I didn't need mosquito repellent.
And then, while getting out the ladder in the backyard, I see a mosquito hanging on my left elbow and smack ... something (not necessarily a skeeter) on the back of my neck. Fine, bug spray it is.
I knew I was low, but I assumed I still had some left. I didn't. What little I had I sprayed around the cuffs of my khakis. And when I tried spraying around my head, I didn't hear that hiss indicating the aerosol is working. Shit. I was reduced to getting whatever drops were still in the can by shaking it down and collecting what comes out.
It was enough. Well, I thought it was enough. It covered what needed covering, and for most of my afternoon painting I was fine. But then I felt an itchy feeling on my left thigh. Did a mosquito crawl up my leg? Can it sting through thick pants?
Then, just as I was finishing up, I felt this sensation on my inside left wrist, where all my veins are, where one would cut oneself if you want to commit suicide. Can you get a bite there? And after I saw that, I saw a mosquito, a good-sized one, on my right arm. I tried to kill it but I missed. I think my kill rate is 5-10%. I wish it were higher. Could a bug's senses be faster than my swatting motion?
So I go in and see these two bumps forming on my left wrist and right arm. I hate that. But I didn't scratch them. Not because I was trying to resist, but because it didn't feel like they needed to be scratched. Weird; when I was young, whenever I got a mosquito bite I'd be tearing into my skin. Am I somehow getting immune in my old age?
Note to self: Buy bug spray. Could've gotten them the two times I went to Target last week. Oh well, I'll probably be going to Target two times this week even if I didn't need mosquito repellent.
Saturday, June 18, 2011
The Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey
Positive Numbers: Lynx (Last Week: -1). As I've harped on many times already, this sports market is waiting -- pining -- for some team to step up and be great. The Mild and the Woofs won't be good for generations. The ViQueens were supposed to be good, then the Dorian Gray painting for Brett Favre broke. And the Goofs? Not holding my breath.
Could the local Women's National Basketball Association team be our salvation? And will local fans be willing to embrace this team, and this sport, or will they continue to resist because the players are usually tall, black, ugly lesbians? I'd rather not spend my time rooting for losers to come around, so even though it's early (again, this team has often started fast, only to fade at the end), their 96-85 win over the Atlanta Dream last (Friday) night, bringing their record to 4-1, we should all be paying attention to this team.
They continue to do what they should do: Put the focus, as diverse as the attack is so far, on Forward Rebekkah Brunson. She had 18 points and, more importantly, 14 rebounds for the Jynx. That will give the starting backcourt of Lindsay Whalen (who had 16 points and eight assists) and Seimone Augustus (who led the team with 25 points) some cushion in case they get have bad shooting nights. They're still pretty thin in the depth chart back there (the reserves are the great Candice Wiggins and the second-year Monica Wright, and I don't think either runs the point exclusively), so they need the frontcourt to produce night in and night out. If that all holds up, Maya Moore will have the space to learn the WNBA game, and when she does, I'm sure she'll become the new face of this team -- and then, watch out, everybody else. But like I've said before, this should be expected; with eight first-round draft picks on this squad (five of them by the Lynx), they should've been in the playoffs two years ago.
Two games this screening week: They finish a delayed home-and-home when they visit Atlanta tomorrow (Sunday) afternoon, then visit Seattle again Friday. Remember, the Lynx snapped the Storm's 18-game winning streak at home on the 9th.
#0: Twins (Last Week: -2). It might be too little, too late, but you have to give mad respect for the Twinks for what they did this past week: 5-0, including taking 3-out-of-4 from the American League West-leading Texas Rangers and a 2-0 sweep (with an unfortunate rainout, third of the season at Target Field, fourth in its history, and four more than at the Metrodome) of the Chicago White Sox. They have now won 12 of their last 14 games.
Starting pitching is the reason. A nondescript rotation that the team nonetheless pinned their hopes on before the season began is now rounding into form. Carl Pavano, Francisco Liriano, Nick Blackburn, Scott Baker, and Brian Duensing might comprise the best rotation in baseball right now -- Philadelphia Phillies included. It's as if they all finally decided to not depend on the crappy bullpen and pitch into the eighth. Well, they've cut the deficit in the A.L. Central to single digits, so it's working.
And now the cavalry is coming: Tsuyoshi Nishioka and Joe Mauer are back, and Jim Thome and Joe Nathan will be back soon (even though his arm may still not be 100%; they say that after you fully heal from Tommy John surgery, you need another year of regular pitching work to get back to where you were and find out how much you still have left). On the downside, Justin Morneau is back on the Disabled List; aftereffects from that concussion must seriously be hurting him.
They continue interleague play by finishing their series (and homestand) against the San Diego Padres, then going on the road for three games at the defending World Series champion San Francisco Giants and a weekend series at the Milwaukee Brewers.
#-1: Wild (Re-Entry!). Yeo-Yeo-Yeo-Yeo-Yeo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Had to get that off my chest.
I don't get it, mostly. Todd Richards was hired as the second-ever coach of the Mild because he was young and his fresh face and ideas could be a breath of fresh air. But lack of experience was one of the reasons General Manager Chuck Fletcher canned him after only two years. The assumption, then, was that he would find the anti-Richards, someone with a ton of experience, who knew the National Hockey League conventions of changing lines, and would not seem outcoached during games. Someone like putative front-runner Craig MacTavish.
But no, Fletch decides on Friday to go with another fresh face who lacks experience, Mike Yeo. Mike Russo of the Star Tribune defends the hire (or at least looks on the bright side) in his opinion piece, and he makes an impressive case. But I still think Fletcher hired him because of his time coaching at AAA Houston. This organization is bottoming out right now, but starting at the end of next year, they're going to be able to wring out the bad contracts former GM Doug Risebrough handcuffed them to. When the youngsters come up to the Big Show, I think Fletcher wanted them to remain under the tutelage of the guy who coached them in the minors.
That makes sense -- but that's a very long-term view for a team that is listing badly. Plus, the perception that they're going to not bullshit and get the veteran coach was out there, and now that the rug was pulled out from under fans, and that the new coach has the same fallow bona fides as the previous failed one, Wild fans are going to know why the fuck did Fletch pull this bait-and-switch. And I'm one of them.
This team is still going to blow, especially on the offensive end. Russo says his one year at Houston (his only year running a hockey team of any kind) was impressive especially because he was able to maximize offensive output from a team that has no offense. Well, it's going to be the same situation here, but let's see how similar the minors are from the majors in that respect. And unfortunately, he's not going to have a lot of time. Richards only got two years. And Fletcher only has two years on his contract.
Yeo apparently was very impressive during the news conference introducing him as new Head Coach. He ingratiated himself to writers who probably didn't know him by saying all the right things. Who was the last person to do that? Oh yeah -- Tim Brewster of Gophers football. That went well.
Could the local Women's National Basketball Association team be our salvation? And will local fans be willing to embrace this team, and this sport, or will they continue to resist because the players are usually tall, black, ugly lesbians? I'd rather not spend my time rooting for losers to come around, so even though it's early (again, this team has often started fast, only to fade at the end), their 96-85 win over the Atlanta Dream last (Friday) night, bringing their record to 4-1, we should all be paying attention to this team.
They continue to do what they should do: Put the focus, as diverse as the attack is so far, on Forward Rebekkah Brunson. She had 18 points and, more importantly, 14 rebounds for the Jynx. That will give the starting backcourt of Lindsay Whalen (who had 16 points and eight assists) and Seimone Augustus (who led the team with 25 points) some cushion in case they get have bad shooting nights. They're still pretty thin in the depth chart back there (the reserves are the great Candice Wiggins and the second-year Monica Wright, and I don't think either runs the point exclusively), so they need the frontcourt to produce night in and night out. If that all holds up, Maya Moore will have the space to learn the WNBA game, and when she does, I'm sure she'll become the new face of this team -- and then, watch out, everybody else. But like I've said before, this should be expected; with eight first-round draft picks on this squad (five of them by the Lynx), they should've been in the playoffs two years ago.
Two games this screening week: They finish a delayed home-and-home when they visit Atlanta tomorrow (Sunday) afternoon, then visit Seattle again Friday. Remember, the Lynx snapped the Storm's 18-game winning streak at home on the 9th.
#0: Twins (Last Week: -2). It might be too little, too late, but you have to give mad respect for the Twinks for what they did this past week: 5-0, including taking 3-out-of-4 from the American League West-leading Texas Rangers and a 2-0 sweep (with an unfortunate rainout, third of the season at Target Field, fourth in its history, and four more than at the Metrodome) of the Chicago White Sox. They have now won 12 of their last 14 games.
Starting pitching is the reason. A nondescript rotation that the team nonetheless pinned their hopes on before the season began is now rounding into form. Carl Pavano, Francisco Liriano, Nick Blackburn, Scott Baker, and Brian Duensing might comprise the best rotation in baseball right now -- Philadelphia Phillies included. It's as if they all finally decided to not depend on the crappy bullpen and pitch into the eighth. Well, they've cut the deficit in the A.L. Central to single digits, so it's working.
And now the cavalry is coming: Tsuyoshi Nishioka and Joe Mauer are back, and Jim Thome and Joe Nathan will be back soon (even though his arm may still not be 100%; they say that after you fully heal from Tommy John surgery, you need another year of regular pitching work to get back to where you were and find out how much you still have left). On the downside, Justin Morneau is back on the Disabled List; aftereffects from that concussion must seriously be hurting him.
They continue interleague play by finishing their series (and homestand) against the San Diego Padres, then going on the road for three games at the defending World Series champion San Francisco Giants and a weekend series at the Milwaukee Brewers.
#-1: Wild (Re-Entry!). Yeo-Yeo-Yeo-Yeo-Yeo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Had to get that off my chest.
I don't get it, mostly. Todd Richards was hired as the second-ever coach of the Mild because he was young and his fresh face and ideas could be a breath of fresh air. But lack of experience was one of the reasons General Manager Chuck Fletcher canned him after only two years. The assumption, then, was that he would find the anti-Richards, someone with a ton of experience, who knew the National Hockey League conventions of changing lines, and would not seem outcoached during games. Someone like putative front-runner Craig MacTavish.
But no, Fletch decides on Friday to go with another fresh face who lacks experience, Mike Yeo. Mike Russo of the Star Tribune defends the hire (or at least looks on the bright side) in his opinion piece, and he makes an impressive case. But I still think Fletcher hired him because of his time coaching at AAA Houston. This organization is bottoming out right now, but starting at the end of next year, they're going to be able to wring out the bad contracts former GM Doug Risebrough handcuffed them to. When the youngsters come up to the Big Show, I think Fletcher wanted them to remain under the tutelage of the guy who coached them in the minors.
That makes sense -- but that's a very long-term view for a team that is listing badly. Plus, the perception that they're going to not bullshit and get the veteran coach was out there, and now that the rug was pulled out from under fans, and that the new coach has the same fallow bona fides as the previous failed one, Wild fans are going to know why the fuck did Fletch pull this bait-and-switch. And I'm one of them.
This team is still going to blow, especially on the offensive end. Russo says his one year at Houston (his only year running a hockey team of any kind) was impressive especially because he was able to maximize offensive output from a team that has no offense. Well, it's going to be the same situation here, but let's see how similar the minors are from the majors in that respect. And unfortunately, he's not going to have a lot of time. Richards only got two years. And Fletcher only has two years on his contract.
Yeo apparently was very impressive during the news conference introducing him as new Head Coach. He ingratiated himself to writers who probably didn't know him by saying all the right things. Who was the last person to do that? Oh yeah -- Tim Brewster of Gophers football. That went well.
Friday, June 17, 2011
I'm going to get only three hours of sleep in time for work tomorrow. God help me if I miss work.
I'm so tired that I just realized that in the column I just filed, about Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals on Wednesday night, I left out something that was one of the first things I wanted to put into it: That the team scoring first in each game won all seven games, and yet because the road team scored first, that broke the pattern of the home team winning the game.
I guess I could go back. But I have shit to do. Besides, the essay runs so long and marks my meandering thoughts on the game and the series (I need an editor, or at least a bullshit filter) that I don't think I can shoehorn that fact somewhere. Oh well.
(I'm sorry that I'm using this as my daily blog post. I was watching So You Think You Can Dance 8 and helping out my folks with this letter they wanted me to type regarding the properties they own in Vegas, and then I was watching the news and the late-night talk shows and ... oh, I'm just going to bed.)
I'm so tired that I just realized that in the column I just filed, about Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals on Wednesday night, I left out something that was one of the first things I wanted to put into it: That the team scoring first in each game won all seven games, and yet because the road team scored first, that broke the pattern of the home team winning the game.
I guess I could go back. But I have shit to do. Besides, the essay runs so long and marks my meandering thoughts on the game and the series (I need an editor, or at least a bullshit filter) that I don't think I can shoehorn that fact somewhere. Oh well.
(I'm sorry that I'm using this as my daily blog post. I was watching So You Think You Can Dance 8 and helping out my folks with this letter they wanted me to type regarding the properties they own in Vegas, and then I was watching the news and the late-night talk shows and ... oh, I'm just going to bed.)
Thursday, June 16, 2011
This Technically Would Be A Chronicle Of My Trip To Italy, But It's Been Over A Week Now, Plus I Need To Write Something Today
After we got home Mother told me that my sister wanted me to return some of the things she ordered, had sent to the home, and wanted us to bring in our luggage when we saw her. This was news to me, but a lot of shit concerning family is news to me.
I was still jetlagged, plus I had "work" at the U., plus I needed to find work, too. So I put it off. No big deal, right?
Well, just in case, I e-mail sis several days after (or into) her honeymoon with my brother-in-law. Do you want me to return these things, I said. Yes, she said -- and please do them soon because there's a deadline and I don't want to pay on my credit card ... or something, I don't remember, but it's something not good for her, and so I stepped on it.
Well, sorta stepped on it. I still had "work" this week, I finally found work last week (the job that started today) and when I got around to boxing up the items to return, I wanted to check their website to make sure. Two things I found out: I needed to return the items within 30 days of it coming here, and I needed to print out a return label. I just can't print any label, though; I had to print one specifically for the items my sister bought. And that means getting into her account, which means knowing her password. So I couldn't do it Tuesday, when I wanted to.
I e-mail her, and she e-mails me that night (maybe she's already back?) with the password. I print it out, tape it on, tape the box down, and prepare it for shipping it, for free, yesterday, which I did, without a hitch.
I tell her this yesterday, and I add that since it's postmarked 30 days after the first of the two orders she placed with this company got to our house, she should be good.
So she writes back. She copied what the return policy on the website. It's receiving the items up to 30 days after date of reception, not postmarked.
She's going to have to settle for store credit, not a refund. And there's a stocking fee for this too.
I'll have to pay for this fucking thing, too. Fuck.
I was still jetlagged, plus I had "work" at the U., plus I needed to find work, too. So I put it off. No big deal, right?
Well, just in case, I e-mail sis several days after (or into) her honeymoon with my brother-in-law. Do you want me to return these things, I said. Yes, she said -- and please do them soon because there's a deadline and I don't want to pay on my credit card ... or something, I don't remember, but it's something not good for her, and so I stepped on it.
Well, sorta stepped on it. I still had "work" this week, I finally found work last week (the job that started today) and when I got around to boxing up the items to return, I wanted to check their website to make sure. Two things I found out: I needed to return the items within 30 days of it coming here, and I needed to print out a return label. I just can't print any label, though; I had to print one specifically for the items my sister bought. And that means getting into her account, which means knowing her password. So I couldn't do it Tuesday, when I wanted to.
I e-mail her, and she e-mails me that night (maybe she's already back?) with the password. I print it out, tape it on, tape the box down, and prepare it for shipping it, for free, yesterday, which I did, without a hitch.
I tell her this yesterday, and I add that since it's postmarked 30 days after the first of the two orders she placed with this company got to our house, she should be good.
So she writes back. She copied what the return policy on the website. It's receiving the items up to 30 days after date of reception, not postmarked.
She's going to have to settle for store credit, not a refund. And there's a stocking fee for this too.
I'll have to pay for this fucking thing, too. Fuck.
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Oh, shit!!! I totally forgot I hadn't blogged about anything today.
And oh, shit!!! I'm still not taking seriously that I'm restarting my scorer's job tomorrow morning. I should be tired because I could then go to sleep and get a full day's rest for a full day's work tomorrow. But I'm not tired, or at least going to bed, because I want to write and see these riots going on in Vancouver because its Canucks shit the bed in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals at home. 4-0!!!
I hope to God that I wake up in time tomorrow. I need the money. I just don't know why my full consciousness isn't taking this seriously.
And oh, shit!!! I'm still not taking seriously that I'm restarting my scorer's job tomorrow morning. I should be tired because I could then go to sleep and get a full day's rest for a full day's work tomorrow. But I'm not tired, or at least going to bed, because I want to write and see these riots going on in Vancouver because its Canucks shit the bed in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals at home. 4-0!!!
I hope to God that I wake up in time tomorrow. I need the money. I just don't know why my full consciousness isn't taking this seriously.
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
OK, so just now my folks, while making dinner, called me out of my bedroom (while I was surfing and writing on my laptop) to point out the moldy ham in the small Tupperware container. It is ham Grandmother bought. It was also ham that was prominently placed in the front of the refrigerator at eye level. They didn't call me out on not seeing it, but yeah, I saw it.
So, why didn't I throw it away while I had the chance? I've seen this ham since the weekend. What I envisioned was waiting for the right time to surreptitiously dump the ham. But when? I thought about doing it overnight, but then it would just be in the trash for an entire day for my parents to see ... and they'd get mad and yell, including at me. In the morning or during the day? My Grandmother might notice, and I don't want to embarrass her, plus my folks could see it once they get home and ... they'd get mad and yell, including at me.
So I just didn't do it. And I put it out of my mind until just now, when they discovered the conspicuously spoiled ham in front of the fridge at eye level ... and they got mad and yelled at me.
Shit. I just avoided trashing the ham because I didn't want to get yelled at, and I got yelled at anyway. So I did I wait? Why didn't I just throw away the ham as soon as I found it?
So, why didn't I throw it away while I had the chance? I've seen this ham since the weekend. What I envisioned was waiting for the right time to surreptitiously dump the ham. But when? I thought about doing it overnight, but then it would just be in the trash for an entire day for my parents to see ... and they'd get mad and yell, including at me. In the morning or during the day? My Grandmother might notice, and I don't want to embarrass her, plus my folks could see it once they get home and ... they'd get mad and yell, including at me.
So I just didn't do it. And I put it out of my mind until just now, when they discovered the conspicuously spoiled ham in front of the fridge at eye level ... and they got mad and yelled at me.
Shit. I just avoided trashing the ham because I didn't want to get yelled at, and I got yelled at anyway. So I did I wait? Why didn't I just throw away the ham as soon as I found it?
Monday, June 13, 2011
Do you know what's pissing me off right now, and has been for some time, but I haven't realized that I should blog about it till now? The wheel on my mouse. I use it sometimes to scroll down, but for some reason it doesn't go down or up as much as I remember, and jerks back in the other direction. I'm tracking long essays or scrolling to a link, but then it quickly backs up. It either breaks my rhythm and concentration, or worse it makes me link to something I didn't want to link to.
I hate that shit. It pisses me off. Does anybody know what I mean? Can I do anything about this?
I hate that shit. It pisses me off. Does anybody know what I mean? Can I do anything about this?
Sunday, June 12, 2011
Chronicles On My Trip, Part II: The Night There Were No Fucking Hotels In The T.O.
So after our new flight was straightened out we got ourselves a hotel, at the Sandalwood Suites. We had to go down to get the shuttle, but not before we had to shlep to the baggage carousel and grab the luggage that actually was supposed to get to Switzerland. Luckily, the airport told us that the luggage will be travelling with us tomorrow because we were booked on the same flight.
That would be the last good break we would have for the next seven hours.
So we went out to the part of the sidewalk just out the terminal where the shuttle would take us to the hotel and we waited. And waited. And waited. Boy, these guys are busy!
There were shuttles coming in from everywhere except for our hotel. We started to veer away from our appointed hotel shuttle pick-up spot; Mother made me walk down to this large, nondescript white van. It didn't say "Sandalwood Suites" on its side; it said something else. But in our frustration I decided to ask this driver, a South Asian man with a Blackberry attached to his ear, if he could take us anyway. He said yes ... but after I motioned to my parents to get our things, he said, "It'll cost you $16." Now, I could have been wrong, but I swear that this shuttle was complimentary. It is Canada, but I think we're owed a free trip to the hotel. So I pushed my 'Rents away, apologized to the driver, and sent him on his way.
He didn't go anywhere but up to where my folks were and stopped there. Was it a way to tempt, or even goad, us? But soon a couple boarded his van. Didn't know if they were able to board for free or if they were just willing to pay.
After he took off we waited some more. A lot more. My folks got so frustrated that we went inside, found a payphone and called the hotel. No answer.
We go back outside and wait some more. Then, finally! we see a white van with the Sandlewood Suites logo on its side. Fuckin' A. So I call them over so we can finally get to our hotel room.
But then I see the driver. It's the same fucking South Asian I shooed away the first time! He just switched hotel signs on the side of his car and came back to the airport to try and trick me into getting in the van. Did he actually think that would work? Can people do that in Canada?
So I had to ask him if we still had to pay him $16 even though he now "is" the shuttle for the Sandalwood Suites? He says, and I might be paraphrasing, "It's free until 10 p.m., and since it's after 10 p.m., it costs you $16." I could feel the pressure sell. And we were dead tired. But what he said felt like bullshit. And I still don't want to get screwed. So I shooed him away again: "Go. That's fine. Leave." And we wait, principles intact. Meanwhile, like he did the first time, he moseyed up several yards, right in front of where my parents were standing. He kept the car running. And the exhaust pipe was directly in front of them. I stood nearby my folks, and I have to tell you, the exhaust was nauseating. I swear that asshole driver was doing that to us on purpose, trying to piss us off.
We waited for, oh, about an hour, maybe 90 minutes. My parents insist it was two hours. It only felt that long. But after a lot more pressing by them -- seriously, I could have stayed out there all night so long as I didn't have to pay -- we went back inside. I called the hotel on the payphone again and asked them if I really had to pay $16 to get a ride. The man, with a deep African or Caribbean accent, said that is absolutely true. And I was even more resolute to not pay because I immediately thought he was also trying to fuck with me.
---
We went back out, maybe, I don't remember. But my parents just got fed up and we went upstairs back up to the Air Canada desk where we got the hotel voucher. But it was so late, that window closed. So we we were told to go back downstairs to the ground floor, right where we had past this huge queue of people. I thought those were folks that needed to leave. I guess they were getting hotel vouchers for a room after missing their flights ... like us.
I still tried to remain patient in getting a resolution for this, but my folks, understandably tired, kept trying to force me to get something done. Not my style, guys. But there was an Air Canada representative standing out in the middle of the hallway, away from the huge line of people, fielding questions from other people stranded like we were. Mother and Father finally had someone to yell at, a focus for their anger.
Father was too fatigued to stand up. Mother at first tried to push me into the middle of a conversation this rep was having with these people, and after I refused, she took the hotel vouchers we were already given, sidled up to her, and started to talk very loudly about how we've had to wait for two hours (again, exaggerating, though not by much) to get a hotel.
I felt sorry for the Air Canada rep. She was beset by the group before us, and then another group, led by an Indian woman in a sari, also yelling at her. (I must admit that my sympathies for her may stem from the fact that she was kind of cute.) As Mother kept interrupting her trying to ask questions, she finally resorted to, "Please stop yelling at me." I would've stopped at that moment of Canadian modesty. But this is Mother. She continued to yell. But she did get a result; the rep walked away, went to the service counter and, even though there were hundreds of other people waiting to be served, she came back out to see us.
What she gave us was ... a free limo voucher. Instead of waiting for a shuttle, she told us to wait somewhere else and get picked up by a limo; it would take us to the Sandalwood Suites. Mother and Father (who was so beaten down that all he could do was yell from a chair) was convinced that the problem was the hotel. I didn't think so, and besides, this was the best Air Canada Girl could, or would, do. There was so many other people needing help and that was all she was going to give us, so I started to make my way up to where these limos are. I don't know if my parents were convinced; either way, we all started to go up the escalator to the waiting place for these limos.
---
Now this is different, limos taking us to hotels. There are two kinds of limos in Canada, apparently: Your ordinary, run-of-the-mill, rich people limousines, and "airport" limos. The latter, which has a "Airport" or "Airline" decal on its front windshield (I guess it's the law -- God bless Canadian regulations!), seems to have agreed to take nominal fees from the airport in exchange for the steady business of shuttling weary travellers to hotels in style for the night, and with no expectation of a tip (I think). I'm pretty sure the seats of our limo were dried and cracked, but hey, it's a limo. And we finally reached the fucking Sandalwood Suites.
We go the front desk where the guy, who I'm sure is the same person who was fucking with me over the phone, was. I give him the hotel voucher which assured us two rooms. But after staring blankly at his screen and looking at a paper, he said there were no more rooms available. What??? This was another chance for this motherfucker to screw with me.
(Aside 1: This is My Fucking Mother at her worst. She started yelling at the guy. He said there was one room available, smoking. They didn't like it. There was another girl that was waiting behind me. She asked that, if we didn't want the room, if she could take it. When I offered, Mother first shushed me. And when I reminded her she said we didn't want it, she started yelling at me, ending her rant with, "You know, you're not really acting like a man right now." Whatever, cunt. Goddamn, I hate it when she calls me effeminate. This is why I dream of getting fucked in the ass by a woman with a strap-on, Mother!)
(Aside 2: I saw that Indian motherfucker who tried to make us pay to get a trip to the hotel. He was going back to the airport to get more fares. Why? There's no room in the inn. Thank Buddha I stuck to my guns and didn't pay him, otherwise we would've shelled out $48 for absolutely nothing. The son-of-a-bitch didn't even have the balls to look me in the face while he was at the front desk. Bastard.)
I let Mother wear the pants on this one; eventually, she always wears the pants in the family. In the meantime I took advantage of the only fucking thing that was operating correctly in the Sandalwood Suites: The Internet. My sister needed to know what the fuck was going on. More on this in my next blog post, I think.
I was called by Mother; while I was e-mailing my sis, the hotel guy got a van. Finished sending my message just in time. The van was carrying us and two other groups. I actually thought they were taking us to another hotel that might have rooms. But even though he gave us a choice, the driver of this shuttle thought it best to go back to the airport instead of going on a wild goose chase.
---
What happens next is burned into my memory. This is just like the time I saw Father physically abuse Mother when she wanted to leave the house. And whenever they lecture me on my temper, I hopefully will bring this up, and hopefully this will shut them up.
We were dumped back at the airport, exactly where the hotel shuttles were supposed to pick us up. Maybe Air Canada people are still there, we thought, so back in the airport terminal we went.
There, there was a woman walking away from us, about half a football field away. I could recognize the long, free-flowing blonde hair from behind: It was the Air Canada representative that gave us the limo voucher.
To Mother, it was like seeing a matador flick his red cape. She blamed this Run-Around From Hell we were going through the past three hours on her -- not the airport authorities, not the asshole shuttle driver, not the prick at the hotel, her. That's what I hate about her; she disproportionately hates women, particularly young girls. I've seen it, I know it.
Once she saw her, I see Mother immediately run after her, like a cheetah trying to chase down an antelope. I've never seen her run before. Actually, I've never seen anyone "run" the way Mother did. She had her backpack on, and she wasn't holding onto the straps. Plus, she was sort of bouncing up and down as she was running, so all I could see was this woman kind of pogoing down the airport hallway, backpack jumping on her shoulders the whole time. It's a very funny image; it just wasn't at the time because we were still looking for a comfortable bed in a quiet area.
What she didn't choose to see in her haste -- and temper -- is that she ran past the service counter where all those people were lined up, and there were still a couple of Air Canada people there. I walked up to them and explained our situation as I saw Mother gamboling down the hall. I actually thought I should've went after her first, lest she do anything stupid, like slap the woman who "helped" us. Mother's a violent woman, she would do such a thing, I know it. Meanwhile, Father was no fucking help; when the Air Canada guy started doodling on his computer, he just leaned on the counter next to us and said nothing. So, after a minute, I decided to excuse myself and run like hell down the corridor to prevent Mother from getting arrested. Then we definitely wouldn't've make it to my sister's wedding.
I got to the end of the hall, which made a left turn and ended at a bank of elevators. When I turned the corner I saw Mother slowly walk back towards me. No sign of Air Canada Girl.
"What did you do??" I asked her, loudly.
"I yelled at her," she replied.
"Is that it?" I shot back, "You didn't hit her or anything?"
"No! I just wanted to tell her you made us go to this hotel and they were all booked up." That'd damn well better be the only thing she did.
Swear to fucking God, these two are the goddamn reasons why I have a temper. Why in the fuck should I control mine if they won't control theirs?
The great thing about the Air Canada rep we got this time was that he was Chinese. He started speaking it, and it seemed as if My Father immediately breathed a sigh of relief. Also, he got things done. He did say that all shuttles were free, and that the Sandalwood Suites should not be charging anybody any money at any time of night. I knew it!!! And then he gave us a brand new voucher to another hotel that he said he knew had rooms available, the local Hilton. I was helpless and desperate: "Are you sure they have rooms available?"
"If they didn't have rooms available, I wouldn't give you this voucher," he said. And then he walked away without saying goodbye. Was I being rude? Dude, I was only tired. I thought Canadians were nicer than this.
---
Anyway, we went back outside to wait, and thankfully, it was a couple minutes, maybe less, when the Hilton shuttle came by. We got in (for free), and we were taken to this really swanky-looking, well-appointed hotel -- in other words, what you'd expect from a Hilton. And everybody was nice and, above all, professional. The girl who checked us in, Ilona, got us everything we needed -- keys, free food vouchers, everything -- with minimum guff. And she was hot, too!
Even better, the room I got for myself was not only on a different floor from the 'Rents', it was in a totally different tower. Good! I need the distance to get the fuck away from them!! Now!!! Best of all was the hotel room itself. My God, this was heaven, and well worth the hell we were put through. I had a living room. I had not one but two closets. My TV was a flat-screen ... and it could swivel 180 degrees so I could see it either from the living room or from my bed. Greatest. Hotel Room. Ever. (The Old Folks' wasn't bad, either; in fact, they had two TV's.)
So at least our night finished on a high note, even if it went too long, even if it wasn't spent on the continent we planned on being in. In short: If you're ever stuck in Toronto, and even if you need a place to stay in the T.O., I highly recommend the Hilton Toronto Airport Hotel & Suites (and hopefully Ilona is there!). And I suggest you stay clear the fuck away from the Sandalwood Suites. I would give you a link, but theirs doesn't fucking work. Figures.
The night finished on a high note, but that didn't mean my night was over. To Be Continued. ...
That would be the last good break we would have for the next seven hours.
So we went out to the part of the sidewalk just out the terminal where the shuttle would take us to the hotel and we waited. And waited. And waited. Boy, these guys are busy!
There were shuttles coming in from everywhere except for our hotel. We started to veer away from our appointed hotel shuttle pick-up spot; Mother made me walk down to this large, nondescript white van. It didn't say "Sandalwood Suites" on its side; it said something else. But in our frustration I decided to ask this driver, a South Asian man with a Blackberry attached to his ear, if he could take us anyway. He said yes ... but after I motioned to my parents to get our things, he said, "It'll cost you $16." Now, I could have been wrong, but I swear that this shuttle was complimentary. It is Canada, but I think we're owed a free trip to the hotel. So I pushed my 'Rents away, apologized to the driver, and sent him on his way.
He didn't go anywhere but up to where my folks were and stopped there. Was it a way to tempt, or even goad, us? But soon a couple boarded his van. Didn't know if they were able to board for free or if they were just willing to pay.
After he took off we waited some more. A lot more. My folks got so frustrated that we went inside, found a payphone and called the hotel. No answer.
We go back outside and wait some more. Then, finally! we see a white van with the Sandlewood Suites logo on its side. Fuckin' A. So I call them over so we can finally get to our hotel room.
But then I see the driver. It's the same fucking South Asian I shooed away the first time! He just switched hotel signs on the side of his car and came back to the airport to try and trick me into getting in the van. Did he actually think that would work? Can people do that in Canada?
So I had to ask him if we still had to pay him $16 even though he now "is" the shuttle for the Sandalwood Suites? He says, and I might be paraphrasing, "It's free until 10 p.m., and since it's after 10 p.m., it costs you $16." I could feel the pressure sell. And we were dead tired. But what he said felt like bullshit. And I still don't want to get screwed. So I shooed him away again: "Go. That's fine. Leave." And we wait, principles intact. Meanwhile, like he did the first time, he moseyed up several yards, right in front of where my parents were standing. He kept the car running. And the exhaust pipe was directly in front of them. I stood nearby my folks, and I have to tell you, the exhaust was nauseating. I swear that asshole driver was doing that to us on purpose, trying to piss us off.
We waited for, oh, about an hour, maybe 90 minutes. My parents insist it was two hours. It only felt that long. But after a lot more pressing by them -- seriously, I could have stayed out there all night so long as I didn't have to pay -- we went back inside. I called the hotel on the payphone again and asked them if I really had to pay $16 to get a ride. The man, with a deep African or Caribbean accent, said that is absolutely true. And I was even more resolute to not pay because I immediately thought he was also trying to fuck with me.
---
We went back out, maybe, I don't remember. But my parents just got fed up and we went upstairs back up to the Air Canada desk where we got the hotel voucher. But it was so late, that window closed. So we we were told to go back downstairs to the ground floor, right where we had past this huge queue of people. I thought those were folks that needed to leave. I guess they were getting hotel vouchers for a room after missing their flights ... like us.
I still tried to remain patient in getting a resolution for this, but my folks, understandably tired, kept trying to force me to get something done. Not my style, guys. But there was an Air Canada representative standing out in the middle of the hallway, away from the huge line of people, fielding questions from other people stranded like we were. Mother and Father finally had someone to yell at, a focus for their anger.
Father was too fatigued to stand up. Mother at first tried to push me into the middle of a conversation this rep was having with these people, and after I refused, she took the hotel vouchers we were already given, sidled up to her, and started to talk very loudly about how we've had to wait for two hours (again, exaggerating, though not by much) to get a hotel.
I felt sorry for the Air Canada rep. She was beset by the group before us, and then another group, led by an Indian woman in a sari, also yelling at her. (I must admit that my sympathies for her may stem from the fact that she was kind of cute.) As Mother kept interrupting her trying to ask questions, she finally resorted to, "Please stop yelling at me." I would've stopped at that moment of Canadian modesty. But this is Mother. She continued to yell. But she did get a result; the rep walked away, went to the service counter and, even though there were hundreds of other people waiting to be served, she came back out to see us.
What she gave us was ... a free limo voucher. Instead of waiting for a shuttle, she told us to wait somewhere else and get picked up by a limo; it would take us to the Sandalwood Suites. Mother and Father (who was so beaten down that all he could do was yell from a chair) was convinced that the problem was the hotel. I didn't think so, and besides, this was the best Air Canada Girl could, or would, do. There was so many other people needing help and that was all she was going to give us, so I started to make my way up to where these limos are. I don't know if my parents were convinced; either way, we all started to go up the escalator to the waiting place for these limos.
---
Now this is different, limos taking us to hotels. There are two kinds of limos in Canada, apparently: Your ordinary, run-of-the-mill, rich people limousines, and "airport" limos. The latter, which has a "Airport" or "Airline" decal on its front windshield (I guess it's the law -- God bless Canadian regulations!), seems to have agreed to take nominal fees from the airport in exchange for the steady business of shuttling weary travellers to hotels in style for the night, and with no expectation of a tip (I think). I'm pretty sure the seats of our limo were dried and cracked, but hey, it's a limo. And we finally reached the fucking Sandalwood Suites.
We go the front desk where the guy, who I'm sure is the same person who was fucking with me over the phone, was. I give him the hotel voucher which assured us two rooms. But after staring blankly at his screen and looking at a paper, he said there were no more rooms available. What??? This was another chance for this motherfucker to screw with me.
(Aside 1: This is My Fucking Mother at her worst. She started yelling at the guy. He said there was one room available, smoking. They didn't like it. There was another girl that was waiting behind me. She asked that, if we didn't want the room, if she could take it. When I offered, Mother first shushed me. And when I reminded her she said we didn't want it, she started yelling at me, ending her rant with, "You know, you're not really acting like a man right now." Whatever, cunt. Goddamn, I hate it when she calls me effeminate. This is why I dream of getting fucked in the ass by a woman with a strap-on, Mother!)
(Aside 2: I saw that Indian motherfucker who tried to make us pay to get a trip to the hotel. He was going back to the airport to get more fares. Why? There's no room in the inn. Thank Buddha I stuck to my guns and didn't pay him, otherwise we would've shelled out $48 for absolutely nothing. The son-of-a-bitch didn't even have the balls to look me in the face while he was at the front desk. Bastard.)
I let Mother wear the pants on this one; eventually, she always wears the pants in the family. In the meantime I took advantage of the only fucking thing that was operating correctly in the Sandalwood Suites: The Internet. My sister needed to know what the fuck was going on. More on this in my next blog post, I think.
I was called by Mother; while I was e-mailing my sis, the hotel guy got a van. Finished sending my message just in time. The van was carrying us and two other groups. I actually thought they were taking us to another hotel that might have rooms. But even though he gave us a choice, the driver of this shuttle thought it best to go back to the airport instead of going on a wild goose chase.
---
What happens next is burned into my memory. This is just like the time I saw Father physically abuse Mother when she wanted to leave the house. And whenever they lecture me on my temper, I hopefully will bring this up, and hopefully this will shut them up.
We were dumped back at the airport, exactly where the hotel shuttles were supposed to pick us up. Maybe Air Canada people are still there, we thought, so back in the airport terminal we went.
There, there was a woman walking away from us, about half a football field away. I could recognize the long, free-flowing blonde hair from behind: It was the Air Canada representative that gave us the limo voucher.
To Mother, it was like seeing a matador flick his red cape. She blamed this Run-Around From Hell we were going through the past three hours on her -- not the airport authorities, not the asshole shuttle driver, not the prick at the hotel, her. That's what I hate about her; she disproportionately hates women, particularly young girls. I've seen it, I know it.
Once she saw her, I see Mother immediately run after her, like a cheetah trying to chase down an antelope. I've never seen her run before. Actually, I've never seen anyone "run" the way Mother did. She had her backpack on, and she wasn't holding onto the straps. Plus, she was sort of bouncing up and down as she was running, so all I could see was this woman kind of pogoing down the airport hallway, backpack jumping on her shoulders the whole time. It's a very funny image; it just wasn't at the time because we were still looking for a comfortable bed in a quiet area.
What she didn't choose to see in her haste -- and temper -- is that she ran past the service counter where all those people were lined up, and there were still a couple of Air Canada people there. I walked up to them and explained our situation as I saw Mother gamboling down the hall. I actually thought I should've went after her first, lest she do anything stupid, like slap the woman who "helped" us. Mother's a violent woman, she would do such a thing, I know it. Meanwhile, Father was no fucking help; when the Air Canada guy started doodling on his computer, he just leaned on the counter next to us and said nothing. So, after a minute, I decided to excuse myself and run like hell down the corridor to prevent Mother from getting arrested. Then we definitely wouldn't've make it to my sister's wedding.
I got to the end of the hall, which made a left turn and ended at a bank of elevators. When I turned the corner I saw Mother slowly walk back towards me. No sign of Air Canada Girl.
"What did you do??" I asked her, loudly.
"I yelled at her," she replied.
"Is that it?" I shot back, "You didn't hit her or anything?"
"No! I just wanted to tell her you made us go to this hotel and they were all booked up." That'd damn well better be the only thing she did.
Swear to fucking God, these two are the goddamn reasons why I have a temper. Why in the fuck should I control mine if they won't control theirs?
The great thing about the Air Canada rep we got this time was that he was Chinese. He started speaking it, and it seemed as if My Father immediately breathed a sigh of relief. Also, he got things done. He did say that all shuttles were free, and that the Sandalwood Suites should not be charging anybody any money at any time of night. I knew it!!! And then he gave us a brand new voucher to another hotel that he said he knew had rooms available, the local Hilton. I was helpless and desperate: "Are you sure they have rooms available?"
"If they didn't have rooms available, I wouldn't give you this voucher," he said. And then he walked away without saying goodbye. Was I being rude? Dude, I was only tired. I thought Canadians were nicer than this.
---
Anyway, we went back outside to wait, and thankfully, it was a couple minutes, maybe less, when the Hilton shuttle came by. We got in (for free), and we were taken to this really swanky-looking, well-appointed hotel -- in other words, what you'd expect from a Hilton. And everybody was nice and, above all, professional. The girl who checked us in, Ilona, got us everything we needed -- keys, free food vouchers, everything -- with minimum guff. And she was hot, too!
Even better, the room I got for myself was not only on a different floor from the 'Rents', it was in a totally different tower. Good! I need the distance to get the fuck away from them!! Now!!! Best of all was the hotel room itself. My God, this was heaven, and well worth the hell we were put through. I had a living room. I had not one but two closets. My TV was a flat-screen ... and it could swivel 180 degrees so I could see it either from the living room or from my bed. Greatest. Hotel Room. Ever. (The Old Folks' wasn't bad, either; in fact, they had two TV's.)
So at least our night finished on a high note, even if it went too long, even if it wasn't spent on the continent we planned on being in. In short: If you're ever stuck in Toronto, and even if you need a place to stay in the T.O., I highly recommend the Hilton Toronto Airport Hotel & Suites (and hopefully Ilona is there!). And I suggest you stay clear the fuck away from the Sandalwood Suites. I would give you a link, but theirs doesn't fucking work. Figures.
The night finished on a high note, but that didn't mean my night was over. To Be Continued. ...
Saturday, June 11, 2011
The Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey
#-1: Lynx (Re-Entry!). Ooh, a promising start! After dropping the season opener in Los Angeles, they have ripped off three in a row, including an 81-74 victory at defending Women's National Basketball League champion Seattle, the first time anyone has beaten the Storm in Seattle in 19 regular season games.
The Jynx have gotten off to hot starts many times before. But without providing details because I don't have the time, this fucking team is loaded, and there should be no more excuses for building on this 3-1 start and getting into the playoffs this year.
I'm starting to see how Head Coach Cheryl Reeve is going to distribute minutes. The big loser is Charde Houston, who went from supersub that always does the "Comanche" dance in the middle of the court for fans after victories to the end of the bench. Candace Wiggins maintains her Sixth Man status even though she was lost for virtually all of last year due to injury. I think they remain very thin in the backcourt, as Lindsay Whalen and Seimone Augustus still log heavy minutes (and, to be fair, contribute heavily).
Maya Moore, the overall #1 pick this year, is automatically in the starting lineup. Good call, hopefully Reeve will put her everywhere she can because she can shoot from outside and inside. But I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the difference-maker for this team will be Rebekkah Brunson. She's tall, strong, tough, and a hell of a rebounder, and she's the nasty inside presence this team needs in case things bog down on the offensive end. She led all Lynx players with 22 points in the Storm upset. I don't mind Brunson being the #1 go-to scorer.
Alright, now for some reason they have eight days off. My only report will be on a game in Target Center against Atlanta Friday. The hell? Is the league taking a break for finals?
#-2: Twins (Three Weeks Ago: -2). I bought an issue of the International Herald Tribune on my flights back to the States (it was four Euros, about five bucks!!! Can you fucking believe that???). They had baseball standings, thank Buddha. And the Twinks were still losing two out of every three games. Guess leaving the continent didn't break them out of their funk.
Pundits say they've righted the ship, pointing out that they've won seven out of their last nine games. I look back three weeks and see that they've gone 9-11 since I last did a WMNSS -- far from the shitty start they've given us, yet they're no where close to competing.
The bullpen's still shit. The big guns, especially Joe Mauer, The $23 Million Man With the 23-Cent Legs, are still out. And they can't close. Unless those things change, and they go on a mammoth roll, this season will be lost. They might as well continue to tank.
At least some things are changing. Some of the bats, including some called up from AAA Rochester, are finally heating up, Alexi Casilla's, especially. And the starting rotation has stopped sucking, last night's 9-3 drubbing at the hands of the Bastard Washington Senators v.2.0 notwithstanding. So there's that.
They're in the middle of one of their two biggest homestands, ten games. I will be attending this afternoon's game against Texas. After they finish off playing the Rangers, the host the White Sox for two and then end the screening week resuming league play with a game against San Diego.
#-Infinity: Gopher baseball (Three Weeks Ago: -1). Hey, what can you do, baseball's not a Big Ten sport. In a system I still find kind of wonky, the Goofs were put behind the eight-ball ever since their tournament-opening loss to Ohio St. But they climbed back, all the way back, to be the third-to-the-last team eliminated in the conference tournament (OK, there are only six teams, so they were the fourth bumped off). Their season ended with a 6-3 defeat to Michigan St. on Saturday. But the three teams that were eliminated from the tournament before them? The Gophers were the ones that showed them the door: Penn St., Purdue, and the Buckeyes that put them in the loser's bracket in the first place. I like that expression of defiance and spite.
Alas, it was over; the Spartans lost Illinois in the final, by the way, which meant the Illini was the only Big Ten to make the NCAA Tournament, and I'm sure they didn't make it out of regionals. A bunch of Gophers were selected in the Major League Baseball draft. John Anderson will probably stick around one more year. The campaign to replace Siebert Field continues as the old park is about to be condemned. And we start all over again to a season that will probably yield little to no success.
The Jynx have gotten off to hot starts many times before. But without providing details because I don't have the time, this fucking team is loaded, and there should be no more excuses for building on this 3-1 start and getting into the playoffs this year.
I'm starting to see how Head Coach Cheryl Reeve is going to distribute minutes. The big loser is Charde Houston, who went from supersub that always does the "Comanche" dance in the middle of the court for fans after victories to the end of the bench. Candace Wiggins maintains her Sixth Man status even though she was lost for virtually all of last year due to injury. I think they remain very thin in the backcourt, as Lindsay Whalen and Seimone Augustus still log heavy minutes (and, to be fair, contribute heavily).
Maya Moore, the overall #1 pick this year, is automatically in the starting lineup. Good call, hopefully Reeve will put her everywhere she can because she can shoot from outside and inside. But I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the difference-maker for this team will be Rebekkah Brunson. She's tall, strong, tough, and a hell of a rebounder, and she's the nasty inside presence this team needs in case things bog down on the offensive end. She led all Lynx players with 22 points in the Storm upset. I don't mind Brunson being the #1 go-to scorer.
Alright, now for some reason they have eight days off. My only report will be on a game in Target Center against Atlanta Friday. The hell? Is the league taking a break for finals?
#-2: Twins (Three Weeks Ago: -2). I bought an issue of the International Herald Tribune on my flights back to the States (it was four Euros, about five bucks!!! Can you fucking believe that???). They had baseball standings, thank Buddha. And the Twinks were still losing two out of every three games. Guess leaving the continent didn't break them out of their funk.
Pundits say they've righted the ship, pointing out that they've won seven out of their last nine games. I look back three weeks and see that they've gone 9-11 since I last did a WMNSS -- far from the shitty start they've given us, yet they're no where close to competing.
The bullpen's still shit. The big guns, especially Joe Mauer, The $23 Million Man With the 23-Cent Legs, are still out. And they can't close. Unless those things change, and they go on a mammoth roll, this season will be lost. They might as well continue to tank.
At least some things are changing. Some of the bats, including some called up from AAA Rochester, are finally heating up, Alexi Casilla's, especially. And the starting rotation has stopped sucking, last night's 9-3 drubbing at the hands of the Bastard Washington Senators v.2.0 notwithstanding. So there's that.
They're in the middle of one of their two biggest homestands, ten games. I will be attending this afternoon's game against Texas. After they finish off playing the Rangers, the host the White Sox for two and then end the screening week resuming league play with a game against San Diego.
#-Infinity: Gopher baseball (Three Weeks Ago: -1). Hey, what can you do, baseball's not a Big Ten sport. In a system I still find kind of wonky, the Goofs were put behind the eight-ball ever since their tournament-opening loss to Ohio St. But they climbed back, all the way back, to be the third-to-the-last team eliminated in the conference tournament (OK, there are only six teams, so they were the fourth bumped off). Their season ended with a 6-3 defeat to Michigan St. on Saturday. But the three teams that were eliminated from the tournament before them? The Gophers were the ones that showed them the door: Penn St., Purdue, and the Buckeyes that put them in the loser's bracket in the first place. I like that expression of defiance and spite.
Alas, it was over; the Spartans lost Illinois in the final, by the way, which meant the Illini was the only Big Ten to make the NCAA Tournament, and I'm sure they didn't make it out of regionals. A bunch of Gophers were selected in the Major League Baseball draft. John Anderson will probably stick around one more year. The campaign to replace Siebert Field continues as the old park is about to be condemned. And we start all over again to a season that will probably yield little to no success.
Friday, June 10, 2011
Internal Conflict Over Extra Pizza
So I'm at a meeting last night. The board is paying for dinner, which is a hell of a lot of pizza. As usual there's more food than people to eat it. The guys I'm with have steady-paying jobs and aren't living check to check, so they don't need the extra pizza and leave it up to me to take or leave.
Of the three pizzas purchased, there was enough to construct another whole pizza. Damn, that's a lot of wasted pizza. We even ordered three sides of cheese bread. I don't think the place would give them to a homeless shelter at the end of the night, so even though I was all carbed out, I asked for a couple boxes and took all 12 slices of pizza, the two remaining cheese breads, and a cup of sauce to go.
And all this time I'm wondering, How the hell am I going to eat this all? I have this McDonald's coupon I plan on using (which has been further complicated because Father wants me to take him to St. Paul this afternoon), and Saturday I work at a place that provides lunch. The 'Rents might help, but a dozen slices? They could easily throw them away before I even touch my first one. Maybe grouping them up in twos and wrapping them in foil will help. They always take leftovers that are wrapped up in manageable sizes. Work for me last night.
But ... I was going to go over to My Favorite Stripclub (Non-Cover Edition) because I hadn't visited in a while and because I wanted to finally see some part of the NBA Finals. (Hell of a game, by the way.) Just because I didn't want to deal with perfectly good pizza, I asked the first dancer to come up to me -- someone I knew -- whether she wanted some pizza. And, I really couldn't believe it, she said yes! I guess strippers don't bank as much money as I thought they do. Guess I didn't bruise her ego when I asked.
And apparently this club doesn't mind outside for the ladies even though they sell pizza here, too. She asked me to go out to the car and grab them, I went out, came back in, and even though the bouncer said, "What the hell is that!" the current manager at the time let me in. The hot stripper cleared it with him. So yay! I got the burden of a full large pizza and two cheesebreads off of my hands -- and I got the appreciation of at least one starving stripper to boot, with kisses on the cheek!!!
But ... you know, those were good pizzas. Maybe I could've had, say, half of them? Maybe a quarter? OK, OK, maybe one or two. I didn't pay for the pizzas or anything, but it would've been nice to take home, you know?
And this gift added another complication: Should I get a dance from these dancers now? I'm familiar with all four of them and have gotten dances from three of them. I was set out to get an LD from someone last night because I hadn't gotten one in so long. But then I thought, Well, if the strippers are eating a pizza, isn't that enough? Wouldn't it be overkill if I gave them food and then gave them cash just for a lapdance? And the girls weren't being aggressive with their come-hither seductions last night, so I kind of pulled back and thought, Well, you got pizza from me tonight, and I think that's enough.
Now, do they think that because I gave them pizza that that greases the way for more interaction -- and thus a seat? I hope not, but I kind of felt like after I got them pizza and they hit me up for some conversation, they kind of got the sense that I was stoning them, and so they curbed their enthusiasm and cut their losses. Those kisses could then be just a way of making nice.
God, did I do something wrong? I'll try and make it up to them in future visits, when I don't pizza to give them and have only my wallet instead.
Of the three pizzas purchased, there was enough to construct another whole pizza. Damn, that's a lot of wasted pizza. We even ordered three sides of cheese bread. I don't think the place would give them to a homeless shelter at the end of the night, so even though I was all carbed out, I asked for a couple boxes and took all 12 slices of pizza, the two remaining cheese breads, and a cup of sauce to go.
And all this time I'm wondering, How the hell am I going to eat this all? I have this McDonald's coupon I plan on using (which has been further complicated because Father wants me to take him to St. Paul this afternoon), and Saturday I work at a place that provides lunch. The 'Rents might help, but a dozen slices? They could easily throw them away before I even touch my first one. Maybe grouping them up in twos and wrapping them in foil will help. They always take leftovers that are wrapped up in manageable sizes. Work for me last night.
But ... I was going to go over to My Favorite Stripclub (Non-Cover Edition) because I hadn't visited in a while and because I wanted to finally see some part of the NBA Finals. (Hell of a game, by the way.) Just because I didn't want to deal with perfectly good pizza, I asked the first dancer to come up to me -- someone I knew -- whether she wanted some pizza. And, I really couldn't believe it, she said yes! I guess strippers don't bank as much money as I thought they do. Guess I didn't bruise her ego when I asked.
And apparently this club doesn't mind outside for the ladies even though they sell pizza here, too. She asked me to go out to the car and grab them, I went out, came back in, and even though the bouncer said, "What the hell is that!" the current manager at the time let me in. The hot stripper cleared it with him. So yay! I got the burden of a full large pizza and two cheesebreads off of my hands -- and I got the appreciation of at least one starving stripper to boot, with kisses on the cheek!!!
But ... you know, those were good pizzas. Maybe I could've had, say, half of them? Maybe a quarter? OK, OK, maybe one or two. I didn't pay for the pizzas or anything, but it would've been nice to take home, you know?
And this gift added another complication: Should I get a dance from these dancers now? I'm familiar with all four of them and have gotten dances from three of them. I was set out to get an LD from someone last night because I hadn't gotten one in so long. But then I thought, Well, if the strippers are eating a pizza, isn't that enough? Wouldn't it be overkill if I gave them food and then gave them cash just for a lapdance? And the girls weren't being aggressive with their come-hither seductions last night, so I kind of pulled back and thought, Well, you got pizza from me tonight, and I think that's enough.
Now, do they think that because I gave them pizza that that greases the way for more interaction -- and thus a seat? I hope not, but I kind of felt like after I got them pizza and they hit me up for some conversation, they kind of got the sense that I was stoning them, and so they curbed their enthusiasm and cut their losses. Those kisses could then be just a way of making nice.
God, did I do something wrong? I'll try and make it up to them in future visits, when I don't pizza to give them and have only my wallet instead.
Thursday, June 9, 2011
My Blow-Up At Quizno's
I wanted to eat before going to the lab. But where?
I should be on a budget. What I have coming in as a PCA and at the U. won't be enough to cover the bills, so if I do eat out -- and really, I shouldn't -- I should always eat the value menu. But that's so boring!
Where I usually eat, and this is kind of sad because it shows how easily manipulated I am (at least IMHO) is what's new in restaurants. Right now, for example, the only new food item I see advertised (and I'm kind of surprised) is Arby's new mushroom-and-swiss-cheese sandwich. I decided that is where I was going to go; in fact, when I woke up yesterday morning I thought I would go there. But there's no Arby's close enough around me. I would have to go a bit of ways away from my commute, and my late ass (along with getting some watermelons on sale for Mother) put the quick kibosh on that idea.
When I took my Grandmother to the produce store so she could buy shit she won't eat, I looked at the back of the receipt. The local Quizno's, right across the street from the store (which is so close to my house I can walk here, and have) had their occasional coupon. This one offered to lop off two bucks off a large sub or give you free chips and pop. I take this as a sign because I see no others.
So after I dump Grandmother at home, and even though it's a bit past noon and I have less than an hour to get to the U., I want to eat, and I want to eat at Quizno's. So I go back to the same place I went to, just about, and go inside.
Place is busy for lunchtime. Always worry that this place will close down because I always see it when it's empty. A Vietnamese couple runs the place, but a Latina lady, one I've seen a couple times I've been here, is helping me. I don't come into here without a coupon because, even though the food's very tasty, it's so expensive that I deign to walk in there without some discount.
Per usual, I show the person who's about to prepare my sandwich my coupon, to make sure they know. I wanted to try the new sub they're pushing, the Southern BBQ sub that is advertised, apparently, only in large. Just in case, I ask her if I can use the coupon for a small Southern BBQ sandwich.
The Latina sees it, then glances over at the male owner, who was right there. I'm dealing with two people who speak English fluently but with heavy accents. And I hear the guy say that you can use that, but only with regular-sized sandwiches. Hmmm, the Southern BBQ only comes in a large? OK.
So I look over the menu and I ask for a small, uh, traditional sub because it was the cheapest. The Latina then kinda-barked, "You must get it in a regular size." Or at least that's what I thought she said; the combination of her accent and her quiet voice forced me to re-think what she said. And since I was stymied a second time ordering what I want, I kind of lost it.
Why the hell can't I use it for small subs? And why fuck won't she or he point it out to me? Do I need to read the goddamn fine print to ... oh. As I see the fine print it says, "Excludes small subs." Well, that does provide the answer I need. Of course, I'm going to act like my whiny, prideful Father when I declare that one of them should have pointed this out, or even physically showed me where it said "Excludes small subs."
For a nanosecond I wanted to walk out. But shit, I had to eat. So I ordered the cheapest sub available -- in a regular size. She went through the motions: "What kind of bread do you ..." "Wheat!" I barked. "Lettuce, tomatoes, onions and ..." "Yes!" I barked again.
OK, so I can't go back to this Quizno's, at least not for a while. Yeah, I guess I should've read the fine print, although, in my defense, I had never seen such a restriction at this place before. And so, yeah, I guess I flipped out even though I shoudn't have.
I should be on a budget. What I have coming in as a PCA and at the U. won't be enough to cover the bills, so if I do eat out -- and really, I shouldn't -- I should always eat the value menu. But that's so boring!
Where I usually eat, and this is kind of sad because it shows how easily manipulated I am (at least IMHO) is what's new in restaurants. Right now, for example, the only new food item I see advertised (and I'm kind of surprised) is Arby's new mushroom-and-swiss-cheese sandwich. I decided that is where I was going to go; in fact, when I woke up yesterday morning I thought I would go there. But there's no Arby's close enough around me. I would have to go a bit of ways away from my commute, and my late ass (along with getting some watermelons on sale for Mother) put the quick kibosh on that idea.
When I took my Grandmother to the produce store so she could buy shit she won't eat, I looked at the back of the receipt. The local Quizno's, right across the street from the store (which is so close to my house I can walk here, and have) had their occasional coupon. This one offered to lop off two bucks off a large sub or give you free chips and pop. I take this as a sign because I see no others.
So after I dump Grandmother at home, and even though it's a bit past noon and I have less than an hour to get to the U., I want to eat, and I want to eat at Quizno's. So I go back to the same place I went to, just about, and go inside.
Place is busy for lunchtime. Always worry that this place will close down because I always see it when it's empty. A Vietnamese couple runs the place, but a Latina lady, one I've seen a couple times I've been here, is helping me. I don't come into here without a coupon because, even though the food's very tasty, it's so expensive that I deign to walk in there without some discount.
Per usual, I show the person who's about to prepare my sandwich my coupon, to make sure they know. I wanted to try the new sub they're pushing, the Southern BBQ sub that is advertised, apparently, only in large. Just in case, I ask her if I can use the coupon for a small Southern BBQ sandwich.
The Latina sees it, then glances over at the male owner, who was right there. I'm dealing with two people who speak English fluently but with heavy accents. And I hear the guy say that you can use that, but only with regular-sized sandwiches. Hmmm, the Southern BBQ only comes in a large? OK.
So I look over the menu and I ask for a small, uh, traditional sub because it was the cheapest. The Latina then kinda-barked, "You must get it in a regular size." Or at least that's what I thought she said; the combination of her accent and her quiet voice forced me to re-think what she said. And since I was stymied a second time ordering what I want, I kind of lost it.
Why the hell can't I use it for small subs? And why fuck won't she or he point it out to me? Do I need to read the goddamn fine print to ... oh. As I see the fine print it says, "Excludes small subs." Well, that does provide the answer I need. Of course, I'm going to act like my whiny, prideful Father when I declare that one of them should have pointed this out, or even physically showed me where it said "Excludes small subs."
For a nanosecond I wanted to walk out. But shit, I had to eat. So I ordered the cheapest sub available -- in a regular size. She went through the motions: "What kind of bread do you ..." "Wheat!" I barked. "Lettuce, tomatoes, onions and ..." "Yes!" I barked again.
OK, so I can't go back to this Quizno's, at least not for a while. Yeah, I guess I should've read the fine print, although, in my defense, I had never seen such a restriction at this place before. And so, yeah, I guess I flipped out even though I shoudn't have.
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Chronicles On My Trip, Part I: Getting There Is All The Headache
OK, so we started out trip by hopscotching from here to Toronto to Switzerland. My folks -- well, come to think of it, probably only Mother -- wanted to hang out with my sister and brother-in-law at their place before their wedding.
We make it to the airport just fine. But, at some point during our stay at the airport, I don't exactly remember when, we were told our flight to Toronto was delayed. It had to have been before we got on the plane because I don't remember being stuck on the plane for an inordinate amount of time. All I know is that we were strapped into the plane, and then I heard through the PA system that our new time of arrival was going to be about ten minutes after our connecting flight is supposed to take off. Shit.
Nothing we could do except bitch. The reason, apparently, was runway construction. You're constructing a runway? During the middle of the day?? When planes are taking off and coming in??? That's the reason our plane was delayed????
Not only did we wait on the ground, apparently we had to loiter above Pearson, also because they were building a new runway or some other fucking thing. When we finally touched down and raced through the airport, we were told that our connecting flight into Switerzerland took off 25-30 minutes before. This is why I hate international flights: If you miss yours, you are fucked basically for an entire day.
As we were. We were running all over Pearson. After noting that our bags were at the carousel, we immediately went to Air Canada to get another flight. We asked for everything: Another transit point to get us into Zurich at about the same time or earlier, flip us back to the States so we can leave in the morning, etc. The woman who tried to help us, though nice, did not inspire a lot of confidence. She gave us a lot of stares at the computer, slow glances down towards some sheet she had beside her, and then, finally, a morbid shake of the head. No, she couldn't guarantee us a potential itinerary through London because we were on our own if British Midlands didn't have a spot for us in England. In fact, she told us that the flight we were going to be on for the next day was totally booked. Fuck.
Finally, she gave up and asked her supervisor for help, and she promptly just crammed our names into the next day's flight. We could not get into Switzerland any earlier, which meant that the one day and four hours we were planning on spending with my sis and bro-in-law was now reduced to four hours. What was the point? I needed to figure out what the plan was now. We were now up against a scheduled train trip to Milan and, more importantly for me, a tour to see The Last Supper.
The conversations I had with my sister to figure this out is its own blog post, as well as what happened after we got our hotel voucher. My God, just thinking about those two subjects makes me want to lie down in bed and cry.
We make it to the airport just fine. But, at some point during our stay at the airport, I don't exactly remember when, we were told our flight to Toronto was delayed. It had to have been before we got on the plane because I don't remember being stuck on the plane for an inordinate amount of time. All I know is that we were strapped into the plane, and then I heard through the PA system that our new time of arrival was going to be about ten minutes after our connecting flight is supposed to take off. Shit.
Nothing we could do except bitch. The reason, apparently, was runway construction. You're constructing a runway? During the middle of the day?? When planes are taking off and coming in??? That's the reason our plane was delayed????
Not only did we wait on the ground, apparently we had to loiter above Pearson, also because they were building a new runway or some other fucking thing. When we finally touched down and raced through the airport, we were told that our connecting flight into Switerzerland took off 25-30 minutes before. This is why I hate international flights: If you miss yours, you are fucked basically for an entire day.
As we were. We were running all over Pearson. After noting that our bags were at the carousel, we immediately went to Air Canada to get another flight. We asked for everything: Another transit point to get us into Zurich at about the same time or earlier, flip us back to the States so we can leave in the morning, etc. The woman who tried to help us, though nice, did not inspire a lot of confidence. She gave us a lot of stares at the computer, slow glances down towards some sheet she had beside her, and then, finally, a morbid shake of the head. No, she couldn't guarantee us a potential itinerary through London because we were on our own if British Midlands didn't have a spot for us in England. In fact, she told us that the flight we were going to be on for the next day was totally booked. Fuck.
Finally, she gave up and asked her supervisor for help, and she promptly just crammed our names into the next day's flight. We could not get into Switzerland any earlier, which meant that the one day and four hours we were planning on spending with my sis and bro-in-law was now reduced to four hours. What was the point? I needed to figure out what the plan was now. We were now up against a scheduled train trip to Milan and, more importantly for me, a tour to see The Last Supper.
The conversations I had with my sister to figure this out is its own blog post, as well as what happened after we got our hotel voucher. My God, just thinking about those two subjects makes me want to lie down in bed and cry.
Watching NBA Finals Fail
This has been, from all reports, the greatest NBA Finals in a long time.
I haven't seen a single fucking game yet. And I'm kind of upset.
Obviously the first three games I couldn't see because I was in Italy. (I'll get to my stories in a bit, I swear.) But Game 4 was tonight, and I wanted to see for myself how good this series is going.
Well, first of all, I'm still tired. I went to bed a bit past midnight last night because I still was feeling the jetlag from coming in from Europe Sunday. I would have stayed up, but Jimmy Kimmel Live apparently was in reruns, at least for its Monday show, but it wasn't, so I turned off my TV and rolled over to my side to see if I just pass out. And I did.
So I wake up after 6 in the morning, stayed up for an hour, then fell asleep for an hour, then stayed up for good. Thank God I blogged about something this morning, because I thought I had to rush out and do this. Anyway, I had to mow because the grass was getting high, even if it is hotter than hell.
(By the way, what the fuck??? I get home and it's the hottest two days we've had in, what, 23 fucking years??? Thank you, Minnesota! I thought it was hot in Siena, but at least it was a heat [and humidity] I was used to. But this shit ... man, my car sounded weird because I turned on the air conditioning. I don't need this shit.)
I could have tried to fall asleep and mow, like, on Thursday. But I'm trying to appease My Father. Things are actually good between us after my blow-up on Florence; I'll get to that later. Mowing the lawn on a hundred-degree day will, or at least should, be appreciated.
I get tired. It's hot. I go see Bridesmaids before it leaves theaters. (By the way, great movie! Truly a feminine version of an Apatow flick, which is not a surprise because Apatow was a producer. I often hate Kristen Wiig on Saturday Night Live for being incredibly obnoxious with her original charactes, but I've seen her a lot in movies, and I like her. And honestly, she gives a revelatory performance as the lead. Funny yet very poignant portarying someone with no money and being the maid of honor of a friend who looks like she's growing apart from her. She could get a Golden Globe Lead Comedic Actress nomination out of this. Seriously, y'all. At the very least she should leave SNL, because her career -- dramatic as well as comedic -- will never be hotter. Go watch it.) Ice cream at Dairy Queen followed by an mocha icecrema at Dunn Bros. cools me off a little but makes my tummy hurt. I eat a little stew, then I set down and get ready for Game 4.
But when I turn on my TV the fucking reception doesn't come in for Channel 5, our ABC affliate. I do all I can to get it to stop pixelating and, well, stopping -- which means moving the antenna around, even putting it on its side -- but I can't get it to work. I swear, I hate this fucking new digital signal. With analog I can still watch through snow. Here, if it's bad enough, it doesn't come through. Fuck.
Plus, I'm tired. And hot; the air conditioning was just turned on, so it wasn't getting any colder. I figure that, like late Monday, I'll just roll over; if I'm still up by the time the game starts, around 8, I'll give it another shot.
So I wake up around 11. Hey, maybe the Heat blew the Mavericks out. No; like in Game 2, Dallas trailed in the fourth quarter but came back to win, tonight by 3.
This seems like a hell of a series. Too bad I haven't seen a single second.
Maybe I'll get a chance for Game 5 this Thursday. I have to be at a meeting then, so I should be able to stay up to see it, and probably at a place with actual reception.
I haven't seen a single fucking game yet. And I'm kind of upset.
Obviously the first three games I couldn't see because I was in Italy. (I'll get to my stories in a bit, I swear.) But Game 4 was tonight, and I wanted to see for myself how good this series is going.
Well, first of all, I'm still tired. I went to bed a bit past midnight last night because I still was feeling the jetlag from coming in from Europe Sunday. I would have stayed up, but Jimmy Kimmel Live apparently was in reruns, at least for its Monday show, but it wasn't, so I turned off my TV and rolled over to my side to see if I just pass out. And I did.
So I wake up after 6 in the morning, stayed up for an hour, then fell asleep for an hour, then stayed up for good. Thank God I blogged about something this morning, because I thought I had to rush out and do this. Anyway, I had to mow because the grass was getting high, even if it is hotter than hell.
(By the way, what the fuck??? I get home and it's the hottest two days we've had in, what, 23 fucking years??? Thank you, Minnesota! I thought it was hot in Siena, but at least it was a heat [and humidity] I was used to. But this shit ... man, my car sounded weird because I turned on the air conditioning. I don't need this shit.)
I could have tried to fall asleep and mow, like, on Thursday. But I'm trying to appease My Father. Things are actually good between us after my blow-up on Florence; I'll get to that later. Mowing the lawn on a hundred-degree day will, or at least should, be appreciated.
I get tired. It's hot. I go see Bridesmaids before it leaves theaters. (By the way, great movie! Truly a feminine version of an Apatow flick, which is not a surprise because Apatow was a producer. I often hate Kristen Wiig on Saturday Night Live for being incredibly obnoxious with her original charactes, but I've seen her a lot in movies, and I like her. And honestly, she gives a revelatory performance as the lead. Funny yet very poignant portarying someone with no money and being the maid of honor of a friend who looks like she's growing apart from her. She could get a Golden Globe Lead Comedic Actress nomination out of this. Seriously, y'all. At the very least she should leave SNL, because her career -- dramatic as well as comedic -- will never be hotter. Go watch it.) Ice cream at Dairy Queen followed by an mocha icecrema at Dunn Bros. cools me off a little but makes my tummy hurt. I eat a little stew, then I set down and get ready for Game 4.
But when I turn on my TV the fucking reception doesn't come in for Channel 5, our ABC affliate. I do all I can to get it to stop pixelating and, well, stopping -- which means moving the antenna around, even putting it on its side -- but I can't get it to work. I swear, I hate this fucking new digital signal. With analog I can still watch through snow. Here, if it's bad enough, it doesn't come through. Fuck.
Plus, I'm tired. And hot; the air conditioning was just turned on, so it wasn't getting any colder. I figure that, like late Monday, I'll just roll over; if I'm still up by the time the game starts, around 8, I'll give it another shot.
So I wake up around 11. Hey, maybe the Heat blew the Mavericks out. No; like in Game 2, Dallas trailed in the fourth quarter but came back to win, tonight by 3.
This seems like a hell of a series. Too bad I haven't seen a single second.
Maybe I'll get a chance for Game 5 this Thursday. I have to be at a meeting then, so I should be able to stay up to see it, and probably at a place with actual reception.
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