- While the hotel is situated in a safe place, it's so damn far from everything that it is ruining what I want to do on my vacation. It takes 40 minutes to get anywhere I want to go.
- Stupid me, I forgot to take with my Tilted Kilt coupon I printed out for filling out a survey. When I saw I thought, "Perfect! I'm going there next week! It's like a sign!" And then I completely forgot about it. I'm an idiot.
Monday, August 31, 2015
Trip Things
Saturday, August 29, 2015
You Can Have Hannibal
Hannibal, the TV adaptation of the Hannibal Lecter books which resulted in the movies The Silence of the Lambs and Red Dragon, airs its last-ever episode tonight (Saturday night). In its three seasons it's been heralded as a different kind of TV you don't see over broadcast. In fact, many critics have loved it so much that, arguably, it contends with The Good Wife as The Best Free TV Show In America.
I don't get it. At all. I finally got around to seeing some episodes this year after hearing that this acclaimed show was axed by NBC and, try as they might, the showrunners could not get a last-second reprieve to live on in new television media like Netflix or Hulu. It was on life support anyway, since this season was shunted to the summer (moreover, the first two seasons premiered mid- or late-season). Knowing that Hannibal was about to die, and seeing that I didn't have much to do in the summer, I finally checked it out.
What I saw was remarkable -- remarkable in the sense that it frustrated me in two ways, each of which almost diametrically oppose the other. I could not and do not understand the story, which is what I get for jumping in the third season. But it was scene after scene of lines spoken in very quiet, very sterile rooms, combining to form soliloquies of stuff that was pretentious whenever I could understand it. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, the violence begins. There's a scalpel slicing into a face. There's a guy whose head is shoved into a large tank where, coincidentally, an electric eel enters the guy's suddenly wide mouth and ostensibly chokes him to death. And then, in last week's penultimate series ep, a bad guy runs on all fours towards a man he has tied to a chair and bites that guy's tongue off, but not before stretching it by two or three feet. Are tongues that long? Are they that elastic? And do they have the consistency of taffy?
As far as I can tell, that is Hannibal in a nutshell. Either it's haltingly purple prose or it's revolting gore. And that's what pisses me off and eventually forced me to turn it off. It grossed me out whenever it didn't bore me to death. And this juxtaposition really tests my patience in another way. These highfalutin monologues, replete with pauses as large as the Octomom's, come off as high art, which is something broadcast TV sorely needs. But then it hits below the belt, with gruesome scenes never before seen over the airwaves, ostensibly to attract the horror crowd. That is low art -- very, very low art. So, in my humble opinion, Hannibal wants it both ways. Hey, you either aspire to be Shakespeare or The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. You make no damn sense if you try to do both.
The finale aired in Canada Thursday. I read the synopsis on Wikipedia, and suffice it to say, the show stays true to its maddening (in more ways than one) self all the way to the final scene. (SPOILER ALERT!!!) There is shown a stately dinner table with place settings for three. A woman is the only one there, seemingly waiting for the other two guests to arrive so they can begin to eat the meal that has already been presented. The meal? Her own leg.
I want to puke over the description. But truthfully, that whole scene actually sounds quite tedious. You "Fannibals" can have it. All of it.
I don't get it. At all. I finally got around to seeing some episodes this year after hearing that this acclaimed show was axed by NBC and, try as they might, the showrunners could not get a last-second reprieve to live on in new television media like Netflix or Hulu. It was on life support anyway, since this season was shunted to the summer (moreover, the first two seasons premiered mid- or late-season). Knowing that Hannibal was about to die, and seeing that I didn't have much to do in the summer, I finally checked it out.
What I saw was remarkable -- remarkable in the sense that it frustrated me in two ways, each of which almost diametrically oppose the other. I could not and do not understand the story, which is what I get for jumping in the third season. But it was scene after scene of lines spoken in very quiet, very sterile rooms, combining to form soliloquies of stuff that was pretentious whenever I could understand it. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, the violence begins. There's a scalpel slicing into a face. There's a guy whose head is shoved into a large tank where, coincidentally, an electric eel enters the guy's suddenly wide mouth and ostensibly chokes him to death. And then, in last week's penultimate series ep, a bad guy runs on all fours towards a man he has tied to a chair and bites that guy's tongue off, but not before stretching it by two or three feet. Are tongues that long? Are they that elastic? And do they have the consistency of taffy?
As far as I can tell, that is Hannibal in a nutshell. Either it's haltingly purple prose or it's revolting gore. And that's what pisses me off and eventually forced me to turn it off. It grossed me out whenever it didn't bore me to death. And this juxtaposition really tests my patience in another way. These highfalutin monologues, replete with pauses as large as the Octomom's, come off as high art, which is something broadcast TV sorely needs. But then it hits below the belt, with gruesome scenes never before seen over the airwaves, ostensibly to attract the horror crowd. That is low art -- very, very low art. So, in my humble opinion, Hannibal wants it both ways. Hey, you either aspire to be Shakespeare or The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. You make no damn sense if you try to do both.
The finale aired in Canada Thursday. I read the synopsis on Wikipedia, and suffice it to say, the show stays true to its maddening (in more ways than one) self all the way to the final scene. (SPOILER ALERT!!!) There is shown a stately dinner table with place settings for three. A woman is the only one there, seemingly waiting for the other two guests to arrive so they can begin to eat the meal that has already been presented. The meal? Her own leg.
I want to puke over the description. But truthfully, that whole scene actually sounds quite tedious. You "Fannibals" can have it. All of it.
Friday, August 28, 2015
The Clusters Be Fucked
A couple of spanners in the works are harshing my vibe right now. I certainly didn't intend for this to happen, but they happened, and I have to deal with it. And in both cases, the breakdowns in communication made bad situations worse.
---
I'll talk about the more benign situation, which happened today here, at Caribou. I usually get a fancy mocha -- you know, a turtle mocha or one with caramel -- along with a cookie. Recently, I turned down the fanciness and asked for just a plain mocha. It saves me 40 cents, and I am on the dole. Today, they ran out of cookies, so to make up for that, I asked for a fancier turtle mocha. But the barista, someone who has been my barista for years (it could be more than a decade, in fact) made me a plain old mocha.
So what to do? I paid for a fancier mocha than I got. Actually, another day I would just take it. But not this day. At first my barista said she was just going to dump the mocha. But it was a perfectly good mocha, and it would be a waste to just pour it down the drain. I asked if I could just get the difference in change back. The barista said she couldn't do that. Then she said she could just make another one while giving me the boring mocha. But I didn't want both because that's way too much. So she just took and poured out the first mocha she made for me to give me the one I ordered.
She said she should have looked at the screen to see that I switched up my order, and yes, I guess she should have. But I did switch things up on her, too. Whatever the rate, I feel really bad for kind of jerking her around, as well for ruining a perfectly good mocha. And as I write this now, my stomach isn't so full that, possibly, I could have drank a second mocha.
---
The more important fuck-up is the experiment which stands in as my source of income right now. I realized too late that the study I had begun in earnest requires 14 consecutive visits to their office (something, by the way, I thought was not pointed out to me on the flier I clipped the phone number from, but now that I have seen the in the office ... well, maybe I didn't read it all the way through). I called to make sure if I was still eligible, and the coordinator apparently said that, even though I would be out of some money, I could go on.
Yesterday, before I left for the day, I reminded them that I'll be gone the first part of next week and that I'll see them Thursday. The coordinator basically said, "What?" and went on to say that since I'll be missing too many dates, all of the data I was giving them would be unusable. Man, I thought I had already cleared that with her.
So I compromised. I told her that I would be coming back in the afternoon, and she took advantage of that. I will have to miss two days, apparently the maximum allowed for this research study. But to make sure all of the data doesn't go to waste, I am to immediately disembark from the airplane when I touch down at MSP and get my butt to downtown Minneapolis to take in a session. That means that the plans I was entertaining of getting my car back from the repair shop on Wednesday is now shot (I haven't talked about that part, but it's the car that's robbing me of money). I don't think I'll tell my parents to pick me up from downtown Minneapolis because that opens up a whole can of worms I can't deal with, so after I get done with this session (which might be as long as 90 minutes) I'll probably go back down to the airport so they can pick me up there. I'll just have to lie to them about when the plane arrives.
You know, I told her this over the phone, and I thought I told her I'd be missing three days. But if I had just looked at this flier and remembered that I will be out of town these next several days, maybe I would have either jumped on this so I would've started sooner so I would have been done with this before taking my vacation, or maybe I would delayed this until I came back from vacation. (Of course, if I delayed it, I would have a full month of going through the charade of working in the morning. Also, I might have found a job and therefore I might not have done this experiment at all.) So now people are changing things around just for me, and that makes me very uncomfortable and sad. Just so I can get $360 plus parking reimbursement. Yay.
Oh, one other thing. She automatically set up an appointment for 3:30. I thought that would give me plenty of time to get from the airport. But then I looked at my itinerary. I actually get back into town at 3:50. (I should look at things a little closer next time.) Should I tell her that we need to push our time back? No; she might end my involvement with the study entirely. I'll tell her the day of that "something came up" and I'll be there closer to 4:30. She did say that if my flight was delayed she could stick around -- "within reason." I hope an extra hour, for something that "happened" the day of, will be reasonable enough.
This is just so bad.
---
I'll talk about the more benign situation, which happened today here, at Caribou. I usually get a fancy mocha -- you know, a turtle mocha or one with caramel -- along with a cookie. Recently, I turned down the fanciness and asked for just a plain mocha. It saves me 40 cents, and I am on the dole. Today, they ran out of cookies, so to make up for that, I asked for a fancier turtle mocha. But the barista, someone who has been my barista for years (it could be more than a decade, in fact) made me a plain old mocha.
So what to do? I paid for a fancier mocha than I got. Actually, another day I would just take it. But not this day. At first my barista said she was just going to dump the mocha. But it was a perfectly good mocha, and it would be a waste to just pour it down the drain. I asked if I could just get the difference in change back. The barista said she couldn't do that. Then she said she could just make another one while giving me the boring mocha. But I didn't want both because that's way too much. So she just took and poured out the first mocha she made for me to give me the one I ordered.
She said she should have looked at the screen to see that I switched up my order, and yes, I guess she should have. But I did switch things up on her, too. Whatever the rate, I feel really bad for kind of jerking her around, as well for ruining a perfectly good mocha. And as I write this now, my stomach isn't so full that, possibly, I could have drank a second mocha.
---
The more important fuck-up is the experiment which stands in as my source of income right now. I realized too late that the study I had begun in earnest requires 14 consecutive visits to their office (something, by the way, I thought was not pointed out to me on the flier I clipped the phone number from, but now that I have seen the in the office ... well, maybe I didn't read it all the way through). I called to make sure if I was still eligible, and the coordinator apparently said that, even though I would be out of some money, I could go on.
Yesterday, before I left for the day, I reminded them that I'll be gone the first part of next week and that I'll see them Thursday. The coordinator basically said, "What?" and went on to say that since I'll be missing too many dates, all of the data I was giving them would be unusable. Man, I thought I had already cleared that with her.
So I compromised. I told her that I would be coming back in the afternoon, and she took advantage of that. I will have to miss two days, apparently the maximum allowed for this research study. But to make sure all of the data doesn't go to waste, I am to immediately disembark from the airplane when I touch down at MSP and get my butt to downtown Minneapolis to take in a session. That means that the plans I was entertaining of getting my car back from the repair shop on Wednesday is now shot (I haven't talked about that part, but it's the car that's robbing me of money). I don't think I'll tell my parents to pick me up from downtown Minneapolis because that opens up a whole can of worms I can't deal with, so after I get done with this session (which might be as long as 90 minutes) I'll probably go back down to the airport so they can pick me up there. I'll just have to lie to them about when the plane arrives.
You know, I told her this over the phone, and I thought I told her I'd be missing three days. But if I had just looked at this flier and remembered that I will be out of town these next several days, maybe I would have either jumped on this so I would've started sooner so I would have been done with this before taking my vacation, or maybe I would delayed this until I came back from vacation. (Of course, if I delayed it, I would have a full month of going through the charade of working in the morning. Also, I might have found a job and therefore I might not have done this experiment at all.) So now people are changing things around just for me, and that makes me very uncomfortable and sad. Just so I can get $360 plus parking reimbursement. Yay.
Oh, one other thing. She automatically set up an appointment for 3:30. I thought that would give me plenty of time to get from the airport. But then I looked at my itinerary. I actually get back into town at 3:50. (I should look at things a little closer next time.) Should I tell her that we need to push our time back? No; she might end my involvement with the study entirely. I'll tell her the day of that "something came up" and I'll be there closer to 4:30. She did say that if my flight was delayed she could stick around -- "within reason." I hope an extra hour, for something that "happened" the day of, will be reasonable enough.
This is just so bad.
Thursday, August 27, 2015
The Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey
Positive Numbers: Twins (Last Week: -2). OK, I'll give props. A week after I and many other people left the Twinks for dead after a three-game sweep at the hands of the Yankees, they march into Baltimore, a fellow Wild Card aspirant, and swept a four-game sweep of the Orioles, three of them by a run, one and maybe two of them of the come-from-behind variety. And then they went into cavernous Tropicana Field and have taken the first two games of a three-game series from the Tampa Bay Rays. Therefore they are on a season-high six-game winning streak. It's the first time they've won six in a row on the road in seven seasons. And most important, as of right now, they have reassumed American League Wild Card 2, a 1/2-game up on The Other Washington Senators.
Two things stand out from their perfect 6-0 screening week. First of all, they have impressed with the variety of ways they've won. The three one-run victories over the Os stand out. But in their first game at Camden Yards they blasted The Bastard St. Louis Browns 15-2. On Tuesday they overcame yet another shitty performance from the busted Ervin Santana (who didn't make it out of the third inning) to outhit and outrun the Bay Rays 11-7. Then yesterday (Wednesday) they overcame a 12-strikeout performance from Bay Rays budding ace Chris Archer and scratched out enough runs (including two solo Home Runs from Eddie Rosario, who also gunned down a runner trying for Third Base to end the Tampa inning) to hang Archer for the 5-3 loss. They currently have allowed more runs than scored, which has proven to be a prime indicator for success. So I guess they're in ALWC2 based on things sabermetrics can't analyze, like guts and clutch!
The other thing standing out is how the really young players on the Twins roster are starting to assert themselves. You have to start with Miguel Sano, who is well into the teens in homers. Rosario I've already told you about. Byron Buxton continues to excel in the outfield and on the basepaths, and he's no longer an embarrassment at the plate. Even Aaron Hicks has proven he can be competent in the Major Leagues. Add in veterans coming into their prime like Brian Dozier and Trevor Plouffe and veterans still gutting it out like Torii Hunter and Joe Mauer and you have a lineup that has gotten back off the mat for now and could be very, very good in the near future. Like I say, avoiding 90 losses is the goal for this year; if they can contend for a playoff spot -- not necessarily win, just contend -- that's gravy.
They go for the sweep of the Bay Rays tonight (Thursday night), then come home from their long road trip to face arguably the best team in Major League Baseball right now (and the template for what the Twins want to do), the Houston Astros for a weekend trio. After a day off, they host three with the Chicago White Sox.
#0: Gopher soccer (Re-Entry!). They open their 2015 campaign with a decisive 3-0 over North Dakota St. Friday, followed by a scoreless draw with Kansas Sunday. Because of her pair of clean sheets (totaling eight saves for both matches), Goalkeeper Tarah Hobbs was named B1G Defensive Player Of The Week.
I was there for their 0-0 game against the Jayhawks, a team that is ranked around the same area as the Gophers in last week's and this week's fully comprehensive rankings from this site I just heard about, Hero Sports (one of whose writers is the founder of All White Kit, the only blog I know dedicated to women's soccer). For much of the first half Kansas was by far the dominant team, while Minnesota looked listless whenever they looked overwhelmed. But things slowly turned after that, and despite getting outshot, they looked much more like the team predicted to finish sixth in the conference and just out of the projected NCAA Tournament. (I really don't mean that as faint praise.)
The club goes on the road for the next two non-conference weekends. This weekend they will be in Baton Rouge, La., to take part in the Battle Of The Bayou Tournament. They play Stephen F. Austin Friday and host LSU Sunday (Western Kentucky is the fourth team which does not play the Gophs).
#-1: Lynx (Last Week: -3). This squad is still in deep shit. They followed up their beating of San Antonio in San Antonio with an offensive brownout at Phoenix, who are 2 1/2 games behind them in the West yet still look like the much better team. Meanwhile they technically remain behind New York for best record in the WNBA. Head Coach Cheryl Reeve said they're just going through a bad stretch of bad ball. I say Seimone Augustus still isn't fully healed and may never be fully healed. Regardless, they need to get their shit together for two extremely important games this weekend: At the Liberty in Madison Square Garden Friday, then home to the Mercury Sunday evening.
Two things stand out from their perfect 6-0 screening week. First of all, they have impressed with the variety of ways they've won. The three one-run victories over the Os stand out. But in their first game at Camden Yards they blasted The Bastard St. Louis Browns 15-2. On Tuesday they overcame yet another shitty performance from the busted Ervin Santana (who didn't make it out of the third inning) to outhit and outrun the Bay Rays 11-7. Then yesterday (Wednesday) they overcame a 12-strikeout performance from Bay Rays budding ace Chris Archer and scratched out enough runs (including two solo Home Runs from Eddie Rosario, who also gunned down a runner trying for Third Base to end the Tampa inning) to hang Archer for the 5-3 loss. They currently have allowed more runs than scored, which has proven to be a prime indicator for success. So I guess they're in ALWC2 based on things sabermetrics can't analyze, like guts and clutch!
The other thing standing out is how the really young players on the Twins roster are starting to assert themselves. You have to start with Miguel Sano, who is well into the teens in homers. Rosario I've already told you about. Byron Buxton continues to excel in the outfield and on the basepaths, and he's no longer an embarrassment at the plate. Even Aaron Hicks has proven he can be competent in the Major Leagues. Add in veterans coming into their prime like Brian Dozier and Trevor Plouffe and veterans still gutting it out like Torii Hunter and Joe Mauer and you have a lineup that has gotten back off the mat for now and could be very, very good in the near future. Like I say, avoiding 90 losses is the goal for this year; if they can contend for a playoff spot -- not necessarily win, just contend -- that's gravy.
They go for the sweep of the Bay Rays tonight (Thursday night), then come home from their long road trip to face arguably the best team in Major League Baseball right now (and the template for what the Twins want to do), the Houston Astros for a weekend trio. After a day off, they host three with the Chicago White Sox.
#0: Gopher soccer (Re-Entry!). They open their 2015 campaign with a decisive 3-0 over North Dakota St. Friday, followed by a scoreless draw with Kansas Sunday. Because of her pair of clean sheets (totaling eight saves for both matches), Goalkeeper Tarah Hobbs was named B1G Defensive Player Of The Week.
I was there for their 0-0 game against the Jayhawks, a team that is ranked around the same area as the Gophers in last week's and this week's fully comprehensive rankings from this site I just heard about, Hero Sports (one of whose writers is the founder of All White Kit, the only blog I know dedicated to women's soccer). For much of the first half Kansas was by far the dominant team, while Minnesota looked listless whenever they looked overwhelmed. But things slowly turned after that, and despite getting outshot, they looked much more like the team predicted to finish sixth in the conference and just out of the projected NCAA Tournament. (I really don't mean that as faint praise.)
The club goes on the road for the next two non-conference weekends. This weekend they will be in Baton Rouge, La., to take part in the Battle Of The Bayou Tournament. They play Stephen F. Austin Friday and host LSU Sunday (Western Kentucky is the fourth team which does not play the Gophs).
#-1: Lynx (Last Week: -3). This squad is still in deep shit. They followed up their beating of San Antonio in San Antonio with an offensive brownout at Phoenix, who are 2 1/2 games behind them in the West yet still look like the much better team. Meanwhile they technically remain behind New York for best record in the WNBA. Head Coach Cheryl Reeve said they're just going through a bad stretch of bad ball. I say Seimone Augustus still isn't fully healed and may never be fully healed. Regardless, they need to get their shit together for two extremely important games this weekend: At the Liberty in Madison Square Garden Friday, then home to the Mercury Sunday evening.
Wednesday, August 26, 2015
I Need Two Bars Of Soap
Oftentimes when I shower (I need to note that, despite the "contract" I signed, I haven't done that daily lately) I often have left the bar of soap right next to the sink, where I use to wash my hands. And by the time I realize this I have to jump out of the shower to get it and put it right next to the bathtub. And the sink isn't right next to me. Oh, no, I have to put my food on the bath mat to reach over and grab the soap tray. My foot therefore leaves a big, wet print on the mat that I can see, and it pisses me off. It fades once I'm done with my shower, but I know that there is water there, slowly accumulating to the point where that mat will become a moldy, smelly mess.
I kind of fucked it up last night. I once again forgot that I took the tray from off the tub and right next to the sink, so I stepped out of the shower. But this time, I think I pulled the curtain out as I was coming out of the tub.
When I got back in the shower I looked at the mat. There, there was a huge blotch of water that had seeped into the mat, and some droplets on the mat just waiting to be absorbed. It looks as though I knocked the curtain out in such a way that the water coming out of the shower head landed on the curtain and flowed downward and out of the tub onto the mat. I frantically took the mat, used it to push in the curtain so the mat would be above the tub while the water from the head continued to stay on the inside of the tub, and shook and wrung out the mat so I could get as much water out of it as I could. I think I managed to shake off all the water that hadn't been sucked into the mat's fibers, but when I put it back down I still saw that huge blotch.
And when I finished my shower there was still a blotch that was obviously there. And it was there when I left the bathroom. And I could still see a somewhat faded but still apparent blotch later in the night. And this morning, although it was faint, you could see it. Usually, when I use the mat to step onto it when I'm done with the shower of course there's a print (that pisses me off too), but I don't see it in a few hours. But you could make out the outline of this massive spill hours after it happened. A lot of water seeped into the mat when I stepped out of the shower to retrieve the soap. Therefore, I failed.
Now I have to find a day where I can put in this huge mat into the washer and dryer. It's machine-safe, but how do you wash something as big and inflexible as that? Will I ruin it if I do? I mean, what if it folds in the washer; will it unfold? And do I waste a bunch of water in order to clean it? If not, what else would I put in with a dirty, stinky mat? Won't the dirt and stink latch onto whatever else I throw into the mat? Maybe I shouldn't clean the mat at all. But then I'll just be stepping on a bunch of fungus every time I get out of the shower.
Man, all of this bullshit just because I forgot to bring the soap over to the bathtub. Why don't I just fucking get a second bar of soap?
I kind of fucked it up last night. I once again forgot that I took the tray from off the tub and right next to the sink, so I stepped out of the shower. But this time, I think I pulled the curtain out as I was coming out of the tub.
When I got back in the shower I looked at the mat. There, there was a huge blotch of water that had seeped into the mat, and some droplets on the mat just waiting to be absorbed. It looks as though I knocked the curtain out in such a way that the water coming out of the shower head landed on the curtain and flowed downward and out of the tub onto the mat. I frantically took the mat, used it to push in the curtain so the mat would be above the tub while the water from the head continued to stay on the inside of the tub, and shook and wrung out the mat so I could get as much water out of it as I could. I think I managed to shake off all the water that hadn't been sucked into the mat's fibers, but when I put it back down I still saw that huge blotch.
And when I finished my shower there was still a blotch that was obviously there. And it was there when I left the bathroom. And I could still see a somewhat faded but still apparent blotch later in the night. And this morning, although it was faint, you could see it. Usually, when I use the mat to step onto it when I'm done with the shower of course there's a print (that pisses me off too), but I don't see it in a few hours. But you could make out the outline of this massive spill hours after it happened. A lot of water seeped into the mat when I stepped out of the shower to retrieve the soap. Therefore, I failed.
Now I have to find a day where I can put in this huge mat into the washer and dryer. It's machine-safe, but how do you wash something as big and inflexible as that? Will I ruin it if I do? I mean, what if it folds in the washer; will it unfold? And do I waste a bunch of water in order to clean it? If not, what else would I put in with a dirty, stinky mat? Won't the dirt and stink latch onto whatever else I throw into the mat? Maybe I shouldn't clean the mat at all. But then I'll just be stepping on a bunch of fungus every time I get out of the shower.
Man, all of this bullshit just because I forgot to bring the soap over to the bathtub. Why don't I just fucking get a second bar of soap?
I Hate This Game
So the experiment I'm doing now is unlike any I've ever done before. Many aspects of it are familiar, but they haven't been squished together like this. Add other new wrinkles on top, and I'm sure I'll never see the likes of this study ever again.
First off, it's long. It was supposed to be 14 consecutive workdays of dropping by this office. That would have been fine, even great, had I not realized that there was a vacation right in the middle of this study. Like I said before, I wish I knew, because then I wouldn't have been out $40. If I knew, I would have either called and set this all up sooner or pushed it back until after I came back from my vacation. Either way I would've crammed in all of my visits instead of missing two of them.
Also, this study, which I found on a flier at the University of Minnesota, isn't being done at the U. It's being done in downtown Minneapolis; while I remember going to a breathing study in Nordeast once, this is the first time I've ever tried to find parking in order to go do an experiment. That has brought up its own predicaments. They reimburse you for parking (after the whole experiment's over and not when you could use the money, of course), but finding it has become a huge hassle. I have had to walk a few blocks over the office because I couldn't find anything closer. They put down new black tar on Washington Ave. a few days ago, thereby eliminating a bunch of spots I could've used. And for how long do I reserve my spot for? Guess it doesn't matter since the study will pay for it, but I still don't want to pay for too short a time or too long a time. The rules state (and they can be a little fudgy) that they will only pay up to a half-hour before and a half-hour after your appointment. So far so good, I reckon; now I just need to make sure I have my receipts with me.
From then on the study looks kind of familiar. It's one of those things where they strap a net of electrodes on your head to record brain activity related to eye movement ... maybe? That's done while I'm playing a series of games, which is something I've done before. What is new to me, however, is the absolute difficulty of playing this game. I swear, this takes me back to the times I was playing on my brother's Nintendo or Super Nintendo and I threw the controller across the room because I got frustrated over losing.
I can't reveal too much, partly because I shouldn't say what it is, partly because I can't explain it myself. But this is what I can tell you. All of the games are played by pushing both shift keys. Each game has its own set of rules. Some of them are difficult. Some others are just impossible. Here is an example of one of those impossible games: You see this part on a ring with a color on it. If the color is blue, you then look at the shape of the head. If it matches the one you saw three parts ago, hit left shift; if not, hit right shift. Now, if the color on this ring is red, you look at the logo on the body. If the logo on that body is military in nature, hit right shift; if not, hit left. Oh, and if you see an additional yellow ring while looking at this part, you don't hit either shift key. And by the way, you're timed at this, so not only do you not get any points if you hit the wrong button, you may not get any points if you don't hit a button in time. Unless you see a yellow ring, in which case you do wait so you do get the points, otherwise that part gets zapped.
See what I mean? Not all of them are that complex, but some of them are, and when I see those very hard ones (especially the ones that ask me to remember what I saw two or three parts ago), honestly, I kind of check out and go, "OK, I'm gonna shit the bed on this one." And when the two minutes are up and see that I missed more than half of the parts (and by the way, I'm not completely convinced that is true; I think this game is trying to fuck with me), I flash both middle fingers at the laptop screen and hope that I'll be done with it soon.
I get so demoralized after I'm done that, on Thursday, I forgot to take my hat and watch from the station I was at before leaving. It was a very busy day, what with trying to get to a stripper party immediately after that and then the Saints game in St. Paul that evening. But after that net of electrodes was peeled off of my scalp I couldn't wait to get the fuck out of Dodge, so much so that I left some things behind.
Honestly, I am working way too hard to continually fail at these games. I hope that's part of the overall design. But with this experiments, there is always some ulterior motive lying underneath. I don't know what that is, and frankly, it's not important. I just want to be done with it and collect my money ASAP.
First off, it's long. It was supposed to be 14 consecutive workdays of dropping by this office. That would have been fine, even great, had I not realized that there was a vacation right in the middle of this study. Like I said before, I wish I knew, because then I wouldn't have been out $40. If I knew, I would have either called and set this all up sooner or pushed it back until after I came back from my vacation. Either way I would've crammed in all of my visits instead of missing two of them.
Also, this study, which I found on a flier at the University of Minnesota, isn't being done at the U. It's being done in downtown Minneapolis; while I remember going to a breathing study in Nordeast once, this is the first time I've ever tried to find parking in order to go do an experiment. That has brought up its own predicaments. They reimburse you for parking (after the whole experiment's over and not when you could use the money, of course), but finding it has become a huge hassle. I have had to walk a few blocks over the office because I couldn't find anything closer. They put down new black tar on Washington Ave. a few days ago, thereby eliminating a bunch of spots I could've used. And for how long do I reserve my spot for? Guess it doesn't matter since the study will pay for it, but I still don't want to pay for too short a time or too long a time. The rules state (and they can be a little fudgy) that they will only pay up to a half-hour before and a half-hour after your appointment. So far so good, I reckon; now I just need to make sure I have my receipts with me.
From then on the study looks kind of familiar. It's one of those things where they strap a net of electrodes on your head to record brain activity related to eye movement ... maybe? That's done while I'm playing a series of games, which is something I've done before. What is new to me, however, is the absolute difficulty of playing this game. I swear, this takes me back to the times I was playing on my brother's Nintendo or Super Nintendo and I threw the controller across the room because I got frustrated over losing.
I can't reveal too much, partly because I shouldn't say what it is, partly because I can't explain it myself. But this is what I can tell you. All of the games are played by pushing both shift keys. Each game has its own set of rules. Some of them are difficult. Some others are just impossible. Here is an example of one of those impossible games: You see this part on a ring with a color on it. If the color is blue, you then look at the shape of the head. If it matches the one you saw three parts ago, hit left shift; if not, hit right shift. Now, if the color on this ring is red, you look at the logo on the body. If the logo on that body is military in nature, hit right shift; if not, hit left. Oh, and if you see an additional yellow ring while looking at this part, you don't hit either shift key. And by the way, you're timed at this, so not only do you not get any points if you hit the wrong button, you may not get any points if you don't hit a button in time. Unless you see a yellow ring, in which case you do wait so you do get the points, otherwise that part gets zapped.
See what I mean? Not all of them are that complex, but some of them are, and when I see those very hard ones (especially the ones that ask me to remember what I saw two or three parts ago), honestly, I kind of check out and go, "OK, I'm gonna shit the bed on this one." And when the two minutes are up and see that I missed more than half of the parts (and by the way, I'm not completely convinced that is true; I think this game is trying to fuck with me), I flash both middle fingers at the laptop screen and hope that I'll be done with it soon.
I get so demoralized after I'm done that, on Thursday, I forgot to take my hat and watch from the station I was at before leaving. It was a very busy day, what with trying to get to a stripper party immediately after that and then the Saints game in St. Paul that evening. But after that net of electrodes was peeled off of my scalp I couldn't wait to get the fuck out of Dodge, so much so that I left some things behind.
Honestly, I am working way too hard to continually fail at these games. I hope that's part of the overall design. But with this experiments, there is always some ulterior motive lying underneath. I don't know what that is, and frankly, it's not important. I just want to be done with it and collect my money ASAP.
Tuesday, August 25, 2015
Now The Other Car Is Taking Money From Me
Why, oh why, could we not put the new car in the fucking garage from the outset? Why, oh why, is there so much shit in there that forces me to park my car out in the driveway? (They complain about all the shit I accumulate in my bedroom, yet they throw their shit in the garage -- hypocrisy much?) I was able to park my old car in there for years, and it was older than my new car. That would have prevented my new car from getting hit with that goddamn hailstorm we had last month and I wouldn't have to go through this bullshit with the car now.
I am still fine with it. I was blissfully unaware of the damage until My Fucking Father decided he wanted to point it out to me. So then I have to get the damage appraised by insurance, which cut me a check -- minus, of course, the $500 deductible.
So now I just shop around and get a good price, right? No, it's not so simple, at least with hail damage, at least with this hail damage. All the shops I went to say that there is no negotiation; I am supposed to give them the check the insurance company cut along with the price of the deductible; if it costs more, the insurance company is going to give the repair shop more money; if it's less, the insurance company cuts me a check.
I didn't like that. Well, I actually turned to my parents, and they didn't like that, so I went to two other places. One of them was a phone number for a flier that was sent through the mail, kind of like the days when I filed a claim after I got into a car accident and all these personal injury lawyers sent me mail. I met them and they said that their price was basically the same as all the other estimates, and they would also talk to the insurance company in case their price for removing all the dents from my car would be different. The other is this place I went to after the hood bent on my old car. They said they would do it for $1,500, which would save me several hundred bucks. But instead of this Paintless Dent Repair (PDR) all the other guys said they would do, these guys would strip the paint off the whole car, fix all the dents, then repaint it.
When I told my folks this over dinner, my brother and sister-in-law dropped by so my parents (well, actually just Mother) could play with my niece. Father was OK with that, but Mother didn't think those guys did a good job with the old car. Then both my brother-in-law and sister said that getting the paint stripped off my car (a brand new one, by the way) would be a huge mistake; the new coat would not be the same. To be honest, I was only OK with their job before. Moreover, the finish on the hood and the left side of the car, both of which they worked on, seems to be different from the rest of the car. It looks like a matte finish when the rest of it looks like a glossy. Also, and I guess more important, the hood doesn't close cleanly -- as in, if you look really close on the left side, the closed hood has an open crack.
Sunday night Father "suggested" I just get PDR from the auto body shop affiliated with the dealership I got the car from. I think he was convinced by brother and sister-in-law that the job needs to be done right. Actually, so was I. But honestly, I was ready to just keep the damn money the insurance company gave me. Really, if My Fucking Father hadn't pointed out all the dents that annoyed him, I wouldn't have even noticed. I'm going on vacation soon, and I'm still unemployed, so I could use the fucking money. But I did notice, and it is kind of bugging me too, and so upon "advice" from him, I made a call and a visit Monday, and it's going to be brought in next Monday.
By the way, I wanted to wait until the severe summer weather season was over, just in case this otherwise benign summer had one last hailstorm in it. But there was another wrinkle: My parents are shutting off the insurance on the old car as of this week. That insurance was bundled in with the insurance for the house, and they are pissed (or at least My Fucking Father is) because the hailstorm that damaged my car didn't do enough damage to the house, even though My Fucking Father saw contractors rebuild the roofs of all the houses surrounding ours. He blames the insurance company, and for revenge he decided to pull all of the policies, which includes the old car.
So now I can't wait, or at least not really. Since they're taking two to three days, it's possible it won't be ready for me by the time I get back ... which sucks, because this experiment really needs me that Thursday, and I already am in the doghouse with them for missing the first half of next week for a vacation. I don't really know what I'm going to do if the car's not ready by then.
See, now you know why it would have been better to just take the money and run? And like I've said before, that's the problem with new cars: New cars get old.
I am still fine with it. I was blissfully unaware of the damage until My Fucking Father decided he wanted to point it out to me. So then I have to get the damage appraised by insurance, which cut me a check -- minus, of course, the $500 deductible.
So now I just shop around and get a good price, right? No, it's not so simple, at least with hail damage, at least with this hail damage. All the shops I went to say that there is no negotiation; I am supposed to give them the check the insurance company cut along with the price of the deductible; if it costs more, the insurance company is going to give the repair shop more money; if it's less, the insurance company cuts me a check.
I didn't like that. Well, I actually turned to my parents, and they didn't like that, so I went to two other places. One of them was a phone number for a flier that was sent through the mail, kind of like the days when I filed a claim after I got into a car accident and all these personal injury lawyers sent me mail. I met them and they said that their price was basically the same as all the other estimates, and they would also talk to the insurance company in case their price for removing all the dents from my car would be different. The other is this place I went to after the hood bent on my old car. They said they would do it for $1,500, which would save me several hundred bucks. But instead of this Paintless Dent Repair (PDR) all the other guys said they would do, these guys would strip the paint off the whole car, fix all the dents, then repaint it.
When I told my folks this over dinner, my brother and sister-in-law dropped by so my parents (well, actually just Mother) could play with my niece. Father was OK with that, but Mother didn't think those guys did a good job with the old car. Then both my brother-in-law and sister said that getting the paint stripped off my car (a brand new one, by the way) would be a huge mistake; the new coat would not be the same. To be honest, I was only OK with their job before. Moreover, the finish on the hood and the left side of the car, both of which they worked on, seems to be different from the rest of the car. It looks like a matte finish when the rest of it looks like a glossy. Also, and I guess more important, the hood doesn't close cleanly -- as in, if you look really close on the left side, the closed hood has an open crack.
Sunday night Father "suggested" I just get PDR from the auto body shop affiliated with the dealership I got the car from. I think he was convinced by brother and sister-in-law that the job needs to be done right. Actually, so was I. But honestly, I was ready to just keep the damn money the insurance company gave me. Really, if My Fucking Father hadn't pointed out all the dents that annoyed him, I wouldn't have even noticed. I'm going on vacation soon, and I'm still unemployed, so I could use the fucking money. But I did notice, and it is kind of bugging me too, and so upon "advice" from him, I made a call and a visit Monday, and it's going to be brought in next Monday.
By the way, I wanted to wait until the severe summer weather season was over, just in case this otherwise benign summer had one last hailstorm in it. But there was another wrinkle: My parents are shutting off the insurance on the old car as of this week. That insurance was bundled in with the insurance for the house, and they are pissed (or at least My Fucking Father is) because the hailstorm that damaged my car didn't do enough damage to the house, even though My Fucking Father saw contractors rebuild the roofs of all the houses surrounding ours. He blames the insurance company, and for revenge he decided to pull all of the policies, which includes the old car.
So now I can't wait, or at least not really. Since they're taking two to three days, it's possible it won't be ready for me by the time I get back ... which sucks, because this experiment really needs me that Thursday, and I already am in the doghouse with them for missing the first half of next week for a vacation. I don't really know what I'm going to do if the car's not ready by then.
See, now you know why it would have been better to just take the money and run? And like I've said before, that's the problem with new cars: New cars get old.
Monday, August 24, 2015
Gas Prices Going Down My Ass!
Things are just kind of fucked up in these parts when it comes to gas prices, I'm convinced of it.
As you may have heard, the price of a barrel of oil is cratering through the floor, even moreso than last year, when it inexplicably started to freefall. As of press time, the price is now below $39/barrel. And obviously lower barrel prices will trickle down to mean lower gas prices at the pump.
I'm not complaining about it, at all. I just don't see lower gas prices here, or anywhere in the Midwest, actually. When the recent news of plunging oil prices started a couple weeks ago, the price of gas here actually went up. The most egregious case of this came when the price of a gallon of gasoline went up, get this, twenty cents (I think) from $2.60 to $2.80. I don't know what the nationwide average is, but we here in Flyover Country are way over it.
Why the hell is that? Really, I don't know. The given answer, at least according to news reports, is that a refinery in the Midwest had to shut down for repairs. To repeat: A refinery "had to" shut down. What pisses me off about this is that these blindside shutdowns seem to happen when we most notice them. When prices are high, refineries seem to shut down, sending gas prices even higher. And when they're supposedly low, like they are now, they also seem to shut down. You don't think oil companies are making money when those things happen, do you?
There is another reason I can theorize. It's based on a very old investigative report, but the circumstantial evidence is apparent. We here in Minnesota (if not necessarily in the Midwest) are dominated by regional chains that other parts of the country are not familiar with. Grocery stores are one thing, and I might blog about that in the distant future. But when it comes to gas stations, there are no more Amocos or Phillips 66's, the British Petroleum (BP) stations are hard to find, and I know of only one Shell station in the Twin Cities (even though it's close to me). Instead, the Twin Cities gas station market is dominated by two chains, SuperAmerica and Holiday, and I believe SA has a sizable advantage.
Economics say that if a market is dominated by a few chains (or, if you look at it that way, only one in this case), prices are not dictated by the market but are instead set by that chain or those chains. In this report, they showed graph after graph of spikes in the local market set by SuperAmerica, followed closely on other lines by similar spikes by the other chains in the MSP area. When SA sets the price, either higher or lower, it makes the market palatable for a price increase or hostile thus causing a price decrease. Regardless, prices here and possibly around the region don't go by the price of oil but by what SuperAmerica says it is.
And if so, that blows, that absolutely bleepin' blows. Because the news I see and hear doesn't match the reality I see whenever I drive by the signs at the stations. And it should. Luckily, SA and the other gas stations are now showing prices back down around $2.60, and assuming more refineries don't spontaneously "shut down," they may get cut even further because oil companies are switching to cheaper gasoline blends for the fall. Nevertheless, we have to recognize that, at least around here, the price of a barrel of oil means nothing when we fill up our gas tank.
Sunday, August 23, 2015
OK ... sorry to sneak onto that seat. I just wanted to be one of the first people to leave the match early because I needed to get my hair cut because Mother said they're on sale for one last day only and the place was going to close at 5 and we went into Extra Time. But the way you looked at me, just stared at me, it was just, just ... creepy. Yeah, your stare was a cue for me to ask, "Is someone sitting here?" so I guess it worked, and it turned out your wife was sitting there, but -- shit, man, you're an asshole, OK? You are a rude asshole! Man, sorry for sitting down, shit. ...
Unhygienic Me
I have noticed that I have fallen asleep so early in the evening so often lately that I have not brushed my teeth in at least a week ... maybe? Look, I'll admit, I have never been the most consistent nor mindful person when it comes to brushing my teeth. My parents nor Grandmother never emphasized it when I was young. I remember I was given this paper health "sheet" from school where you are supposed to write down all the times you brush your teeth, take a bath, eat an apple, etc. One night My Fucking Father was yelling at me for not brushing my teeth. At the time I had this sheet in front of me, and the row of crosses for the days I was supposed to brush were very few and far between.
They still are, even though I have had warnings about it. For example, the last time I went to the dentist I was warned that I have a cavity coming in. (Have I blogged about this already?) They said, however, there is a way to fight this: Brush regularly, concentrating in that area. I have tried doing that; after all, I don't want to lose a tooth. But I have fallen off the teeth-brushing wagon often, and this recent stretch certainly isn't helping.
Brushing my teeth often goes hand-in-hand with taking a shower. And until last (Saturday) night, when I finally had time after I just gotten home, I don't think I took a shower for days, if not a week. Back in the day, there were times where I would take only weekly showers. I miss those days -- really, I do. Less time wasted cleaning myself, eesh, and then I have to wait for my hair to dry, so I can't lie asleep ... God, I hate that. But now I understand it's ultimately good for me. Still, I reverted to my natural state this week: Unhygienic me. I'll sacrifice it for sleep, though. Every time.
They still are, even though I have had warnings about it. For example, the last time I went to the dentist I was warned that I have a cavity coming in. (Have I blogged about this already?) They said, however, there is a way to fight this: Brush regularly, concentrating in that area. I have tried doing that; after all, I don't want to lose a tooth. But I have fallen off the teeth-brushing wagon often, and this recent stretch certainly isn't helping.
Brushing my teeth often goes hand-in-hand with taking a shower. And until last (Saturday) night, when I finally had time after I just gotten home, I don't think I took a shower for days, if not a week. Back in the day, there were times where I would take only weekly showers. I miss those days -- really, I do. Less time wasted cleaning myself, eesh, and then I have to wait for my hair to dry, so I can't lie asleep ... God, I hate that. But now I understand it's ultimately good for me. Still, I reverted to my natural state this week: Unhygienic me. I'll sacrifice it for sleep, though. Every time.
Saturday, August 22, 2015
The Best Nap In The Car I've Ever Had
Parked my car downtown this morning, from where I would walk to Brit's Pub to watch the English Premier League and then go to the Chipotle Cultivate festival. But between those two events, the Absolut Bloody Mary I had at Brit's made me sleepy enough to at least attempt to sleep in my car.
I did not know how it was going to go. It was warm and humid outside (or at least it was supposed to be), and those are the two killer conditions which would prevent me from sleeping without getting sweaty and bothered. Also, I got out of Brit's at 11, and that's when the festival began. I remember how crazy it got last year, with the long lines going everywhere. I speculated that the best way to avoid those lines is to get there as soon as it began, and so I felt like I was going to hate myself when I decided to try and take a nap instead. To my advantage, I managed to find a spot that was mostly cast in shadow, and it was only partly-to-mostly cloudy, so the sun wasn't out long enough to cook the interior of my car. At the end of it all, I was tired, so I was going to go to sleep (which, by the way, is what I often do after drinking at the pubs for EPL games), and if I couldn't, I'd be frustrated and I go to Cultivate.
Well, guess what? I got to my car a bit past 11, probably conked off shortly thereafter, and I got up at about ten till noon. And honestly, not only did I wake up refreshed, I don't remember any of that rest. That means I had a good nap. I mean, like, a real good nap. I've had good naps before. For example, Brit's has a parking ramp, and sometimes I sneak in a quick cat nap after watching a match there, and because the ramp shields the sun and the hot weather, I lose consciousness and then wake up totally fine. But this one ... man, I'm not sure if I've had a better nap in my car, or any car, ever. I guess I'm chalking that up to me overcoming the adversities, namely the partly-to-mostly cloudy sun and the supposed humidity. But damn, I felt really good, which was very important to not only persevere through but to also enjoy the food festival, which I did!
I did not know how it was going to go. It was warm and humid outside (or at least it was supposed to be), and those are the two killer conditions which would prevent me from sleeping without getting sweaty and bothered. Also, I got out of Brit's at 11, and that's when the festival began. I remember how crazy it got last year, with the long lines going everywhere. I speculated that the best way to avoid those lines is to get there as soon as it began, and so I felt like I was going to hate myself when I decided to try and take a nap instead. To my advantage, I managed to find a spot that was mostly cast in shadow, and it was only partly-to-mostly cloudy, so the sun wasn't out long enough to cook the interior of my car. At the end of it all, I was tired, so I was going to go to sleep (which, by the way, is what I often do after drinking at the pubs for EPL games), and if I couldn't, I'd be frustrated and I go to Cultivate.
Well, guess what? I got to my car a bit past 11, probably conked off shortly thereafter, and I got up at about ten till noon. And honestly, not only did I wake up refreshed, I don't remember any of that rest. That means I had a good nap. I mean, like, a real good nap. I've had good naps before. For example, Brit's has a parking ramp, and sometimes I sneak in a quick cat nap after watching a match there, and because the ramp shields the sun and the hot weather, I lose consciousness and then wake up totally fine. But this one ... man, I'm not sure if I've had a better nap in my car, or any car, ever. I guess I'm chalking that up to me overcoming the adversities, namely the partly-to-mostly cloudy sun and the supposed humidity. But damn, I felt really good, which was very important to not only persevere through but to also enjoy the food festival, which I did!
Friday, August 21, 2015
(crickets)
So despite a lot of guilt and procrastination I posted on our alumni club's Facebook page asking for help regarding getting our group together to watch our alma mater's football games. I was hoping someone would step up and open up their house for us to watch. But what have I gotten in the two days since I put up that plea for help? The titular nothing.
I don't know what to do. And this lack of participation/refusal to participate extends to other events as well. I'll blog about the party a few weeks ago soon, but I put out an all-call for volunteers, and only one person did. We would be nowhere without his help, but I could have used another pair of helping hands. And I asked for help, a lot of it. What did I get? Crickets.
Yes, I am pitying myself. But there are very important events that are coming up in the fall, and if people don't want to help out, and if people don't even want to fucking show up, what the fuck am I doing this for? When I woke up (very early) this morning my unrequited calls for assistance made me think what would really happen if I just shut the club down, either through making an announcement or just neglect. Like, if I just stopped posting stuff and stopped going to the bar where we usually watch games and if I just didn't answer anybody who did somehow reply (I think it's called "ghosting"), what would happen? There might be some consternation, but eventually it would die down, and no one would care about the chapter or the money the club still has, nothing.
That's what I'm facing now. There are games coming up and we have no place to watch them, and no one seems to give enough of a damn to step up and volunteer. So I ask into the ether again: What the fuck am I doing this for?
I don't know what to do. And this lack of participation/refusal to participate extends to other events as well. I'll blog about the party a few weeks ago soon, but I put out an all-call for volunteers, and only one person did. We would be nowhere without his help, but I could have used another pair of helping hands. And I asked for help, a lot of it. What did I get? Crickets.
Yes, I am pitying myself. But there are very important events that are coming up in the fall, and if people don't want to help out, and if people don't even want to fucking show up, what the fuck am I doing this for? When I woke up (very early) this morning my unrequited calls for assistance made me think what would really happen if I just shut the club down, either through making an announcement or just neglect. Like, if I just stopped posting stuff and stopped going to the bar where we usually watch games and if I just didn't answer anybody who did somehow reply (I think it's called "ghosting"), what would happen? There might be some consternation, but eventually it would die down, and no one would care about the chapter or the money the club still has, nothing.
That's what I'm facing now. There are games coming up and we have no place to watch them, and no one seems to give enough of a damn to step up and volunteer. So I ask into the ether again: What the fuck am I doing this for?
Thursday, August 20, 2015
The Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey
Before I begin, I want to take one last look at what is supposed to be the nadir of the length of the WMNSS for a long while. Fall's beginning soon. Believe it or not, the college sports season begins this weekend when soccer starts; for the survey's purposes, that means that the University of Minnesota women's soccer team will be ensconced as a third item. The week after that the Gopher football comes aboard, then the Vikings come the week after that, and we're ramping up the busy season, all the way until March. This week's putatively barren survey is somewhat busy, since there is very heavy news concerning the Vikes, who have you to play a meaningful game yet. But the WMNSS is still manageable now; writing this in the middle of the winter will be hell, and I'll look fondly at the survey when I can do it quickly and with some justice.
#-1: Vikings (Re-Entry!). When the team that is tops in the survey for the week loses a starting player for the year, you know that times are now tough, very, very, tough, for the local sports scene. But yet, they are the only team to be above .500 for the week. Yeah, it was an exhibition win over Tampa Bay (and by the way, Jameis Winston did not look that bad in that game; that one drive where he dove the ball in for the Touchdown was pretty good), and really, that doesn't count. But really, the other two teams' weeks were way worse than what the Vikes experienced, losing Right Tackle Phil Loadholt, aka The Load, for the rest of the season because of a torn Achilles. Their Offensive Line was downright shitty last year, and now they lose one of their few starters. Then again, Loadholt was part of the line that was awful last season, so maybe this is an improvement. As for Teddy Bridgewater, he was the efficient game manager the Vikes are making him out to be. Maybe he has the decision-making to be a difference-maker, but right now, on this one game, he made all the right moves before he was yanked.
But still, needing to retool an already-retooled O-line? Geez, that sucks.
#-2: Twins (Last Week: -2). The more I write this, the more this becomes my least favorite WMNSS of all-time. They fail to sweep The Bastard Washington Senators v.2.0 on Thursday, then they get their only two victories of their screening week in winning their series against Cleveland at Target Field (the first time they have won back-to-back series since the All-Star Break), but then go to the Bronx and promptly put on the ball gag and spread their anuses wide open for those goddamn Yankee oppressors to put their dicks in them, three times in a row. The most submissive of these was the bullpen, which was touted as a strength earlier this year, and stupid me came around to believe that, even though I should have stuck to my guns in the pre-season in thinking it remained an Achilles' heel. They blew leads in all three games -- has that ever happened before? Wait, what am I saying? Of course it's happened before. It's the Twinks, and they're playing the Yankees.
Do you know how fucking shameful this is? Some Triple-A call-up whose been with the Yanks only a week named Greg Bird hit two Home Runs yesterday (Wednesday). The Pitcher who got shook up by a minor-leaguer was Ervin Santana, who has been shit since he was allowed to pitch with the club. We waited as Santana did an 80 game-bit for drugs for this bullshit? And there's something seriously, seriously wrong with Glen Perkins, who has an ERA of, like, 80 since the ASG. Reports say he'll avoid the Disabled List; knowing Twinks fans, he's probably safest there.
They have a four-game series at Baltimore they start today (Thursday). Then they begin a three-game series against the Tampa Bay Rays Tuesday. God, I'm done trying to figure out this fucking team.
#-3: Lynx (Last Week: -1). OK, something is now very, very wrong with the Jynx. First, they had to come back from double digits to be the Dream in Atlanta. They then laid in egg in Washington. After that, Head Coach Cheryl Reeve met with Maya Moore, Lindsay Whalen, Seimone Augustus and Rebekkah Brunson in a private meeting to discuss just what the hell is going on. It took 3 1/2 hours, so long that they had to skip practice.
Closed-door meetings like that usually means the team will come up with vim and vigor the next game. Guess what? They scored ten fucking points in the third quarter and the Mystics took the other fucking game of the home-and-home Wednesday night, by 18 points. EIGHTEEN FUCKING POINTS?!?!?! This club has now lost four out of their past seven games. Also, even though they remain the only team to have clinched a playoff spot, they technically have lost the best record in the WNBA to New York. It is for those reasons, although it's mostly for that absolute after-meeting shit show they put out last (Wednesday) night that prompts me to place this team underneath the Twinks this week.
What the fuck is wrong with this team? If you respond after a closed-door panic session with a blowout loss, I ... I don't know what to say. Except I'll make this prediction this right now: The Jynx, who went all-in on winning the championship this year, won't. And it'll be absolutely fucking embarrassing.
And now they go on the road to play San Antonio and Phoenix this week. Goddammit, I'm done trying to figure out this fucking team, too!
#-1: Vikings (Re-Entry!). When the team that is tops in the survey for the week loses a starting player for the year, you know that times are now tough, very, very, tough, for the local sports scene. But yet, they are the only team to be above .500 for the week. Yeah, it was an exhibition win over Tampa Bay (and by the way, Jameis Winston did not look that bad in that game; that one drive where he dove the ball in for the Touchdown was pretty good), and really, that doesn't count. But really, the other two teams' weeks were way worse than what the Vikes experienced, losing Right Tackle Phil Loadholt, aka The Load, for the rest of the season because of a torn Achilles. Their Offensive Line was downright shitty last year, and now they lose one of their few starters. Then again, Loadholt was part of the line that was awful last season, so maybe this is an improvement. As for Teddy Bridgewater, he was the efficient game manager the Vikes are making him out to be. Maybe he has the decision-making to be a difference-maker, but right now, on this one game, he made all the right moves before he was yanked.
But still, needing to retool an already-retooled O-line? Geez, that sucks.
#-2: Twins (Last Week: -2). The more I write this, the more this becomes my least favorite WMNSS of all-time. They fail to sweep The Bastard Washington Senators v.2.0 on Thursday, then they get their only two victories of their screening week in winning their series against Cleveland at Target Field (the first time they have won back-to-back series since the All-Star Break), but then go to the Bronx and promptly put on the ball gag and spread their anuses wide open for those goddamn Yankee oppressors to put their dicks in them, three times in a row. The most submissive of these was the bullpen, which was touted as a strength earlier this year, and stupid me came around to believe that, even though I should have stuck to my guns in the pre-season in thinking it remained an Achilles' heel. They blew leads in all three games -- has that ever happened before? Wait, what am I saying? Of course it's happened before. It's the Twinks, and they're playing the Yankees.
Do you know how fucking shameful this is? Some Triple-A call-up whose been with the Yanks only a week named Greg Bird hit two Home Runs yesterday (Wednesday). The Pitcher who got shook up by a minor-leaguer was Ervin Santana, who has been shit since he was allowed to pitch with the club. We waited as Santana did an 80 game-bit for drugs for this bullshit? And there's something seriously, seriously wrong with Glen Perkins, who has an ERA of, like, 80 since the ASG. Reports say he'll avoid the Disabled List; knowing Twinks fans, he's probably safest there.
They have a four-game series at Baltimore they start today (Thursday). Then they begin a three-game series against the Tampa Bay Rays Tuesday. God, I'm done trying to figure out this fucking team.
#-3: Lynx (Last Week: -1). OK, something is now very, very wrong with the Jynx. First, they had to come back from double digits to be the Dream in Atlanta. They then laid in egg in Washington. After that, Head Coach Cheryl Reeve met with Maya Moore, Lindsay Whalen, Seimone Augustus and Rebekkah Brunson in a private meeting to discuss just what the hell is going on. It took 3 1/2 hours, so long that they had to skip practice.
Closed-door meetings like that usually means the team will come up with vim and vigor the next game. Guess what? They scored ten fucking points in the third quarter and the Mystics took the other fucking game of the home-and-home Wednesday night, by 18 points. EIGHTEEN FUCKING POINTS?!?!?! This club has now lost four out of their past seven games. Also, even though they remain the only team to have clinched a playoff spot, they technically have lost the best record in the WNBA to New York. It is for those reasons, although it's mostly for that absolute after-meeting shit show they put out last (Wednesday) night that prompts me to place this team underneath the Twinks this week.
What the fuck is wrong with this team? If you respond after a closed-door panic session with a blowout loss, I ... I don't know what to say. Except I'll make this prediction this right now: The Jynx, who went all-in on winning the championship this year, won't. And it'll be absolutely fucking embarrassing.
And now they go on the road to play San Antonio and Phoenix this week. Goddammit, I'm done trying to figure out this fucking team, too!
Wednesday, August 19, 2015
Ever Throw Up In Your Mouth?
For some reason (although I did feel sleepy) I crashed at around 7:30 tonight and woke up at 11:30. And how did I wake up? I threw up a little bit in my mouth. Not a good way to wake up, I don't recommend it. And I haven't felt right ever since.
I thought I did relatively good in limiting what I ate yesterday (Tuesday) -- an apple and a peach Father set out for me, a popcorn and pop from watching the latest Mission: Impossible, and some noodles and vegetables for dinner. That's all. How I got acid reflux from that, I don't know. The only conceivable thing I can think for throwing up a little in my mouth is all the crap I've eaten in days and weeks past, and the HCl in my stomach just boiled over -- or up through my esophagus.
Because I've been eating too much I told my folks I wasn't eating at home the next two days. I always believe that dinner is the problem, but look at what I'm doing instead of eating at home. Tonight (Wednesday) is the last night of the 40th anniversary of Rudolph's, a barbecue place my family went out to a lot when I was young. Today (Wednesday) is the last day where they will celebrate by presenting a menu with 1975 prices. I think a full plate of ribs with the all the fixins is less than ten bucks. Lines have been two hours long, so I'd have no chance to eat there and then eat at home, even assuming that would be smart for my gut. And Thursday a couple of friends and I are supposed to go to the St. Paul Saints game, and before then I might go to this restaurant that offers a free beer and a jar of peanut butter if you order an entree.
Man, knowing what I'm going to eat the next 48 hours, I might be throwing up all over the place. And getting fatter, too. Why do I do this to myself?
I thought I did relatively good in limiting what I ate yesterday (Tuesday) -- an apple and a peach Father set out for me, a popcorn and pop from watching the latest Mission: Impossible, and some noodles and vegetables for dinner. That's all. How I got acid reflux from that, I don't know. The only conceivable thing I can think for throwing up a little in my mouth is all the crap I've eaten in days and weeks past, and the HCl in my stomach just boiled over -- or up through my esophagus.
Because I've been eating too much I told my folks I wasn't eating at home the next two days. I always believe that dinner is the problem, but look at what I'm doing instead of eating at home. Tonight (Wednesday) is the last night of the 40th anniversary of Rudolph's, a barbecue place my family went out to a lot when I was young. Today (Wednesday) is the last day where they will celebrate by presenting a menu with 1975 prices. I think a full plate of ribs with the all the fixins is less than ten bucks. Lines have been two hours long, so I'd have no chance to eat there and then eat at home, even assuming that would be smart for my gut. And Thursday a couple of friends and I are supposed to go to the St. Paul Saints game, and before then I might go to this restaurant that offers a free beer and a jar of peanut butter if you order an entree.
Man, knowing what I'm going to eat the next 48 hours, I might be throwing up all over the place. And getting fatter, too. Why do I do this to myself?
Tuesday, August 18, 2015
Out $40 Because Play Interfered With Work
I am not giving a shit right now, but I am fully aware that I have no steady income coming in (and unemployment does not count). Nevertheless I am, at least not right now, panicking that the temp agency hasn't called me about anything good besides the flu biller job. It may not help that I'm not calling them every day, either, but I am assuming that I won't lose my weekly check because I'm not. So, for the time being, I'm in "not working because YOLO" mode.
Nevertheless I still look for work in my own sweet way -- and that is through research studies. I lucked out in that one of them, through the U.'s Carlson School Of Business, sent me a multi-day online one that will pay me ... $200(?) once I get done with it this week. Also, after going to the East Bank and ripping through every tear sheet of every experiment that I qualify for, I signed up for another multi-day experiment. This is one where I had to appear in person at a nondescript place in downtown Minneapolis (which probably used to be a nightclub) where, as I discovered my first day yesterday (Monday), I perform cognitive tasks while a net of electrodes are stuck on my head. There is some big money being put behind this study, and this time it'll actually trickle down to us plebians: $20 per visit for up to 14 visits on consecutive days during the workweek, plus a $160 completion bonus, for a $400 payday. I don't think I've ever been paid so much for a research study ... until I realize that that is being spread out over three weeks, which means I pocket $133 per week (plus reimbursement for parking). And then you have to factor in exactly how long each visit is. The second visit, for today (Tuesday), is supposed to be up to four hours long, but it's still going to be $20, which means I have an hourly rate of $5, which was the minimum wage for Minnesota back in 1971.
Anyway, that's not the point of this blog! The point of this occurred when I decided I should take coffee before I headed to this office, and to get that coffee downtown in case I ran into traffic or construction, which I did, which turned out to be a good idea because there are detours everywhere in downtown. On the way there, I remembered that in the e-mail detailing how the experiment was going to work that there were to be 14 sessions, even though in the phone call I got confirming all of this on Sunday said there was only to be ten of them ... or, that's what I thought he said. The problem is that I have vacation coming up in three weeks, and it appears as though you're not supposed to skip any days. Oops.
I didn't know quite what to do. I thought I should have stopped and asked before we even started. But I decided to just go through the first day and then, in the afternoon, I would call the scheduler and say that when I turned my phone back on after shutting it off for the experiment, "something came up" and I have to know how "being forced to go out of town" will impact my participation in this event.
It took a few minutes for the scheduler to consult with other people. In the meantime I wanted to see the beginning of whistle of Liverpool-Bournemouth after being late to see the starts of games Saturday and Sunday morning. (It was beginning to piss me off that I arrived at those pubs too late to see the very start of the game. I'm OCD like that.) Finally they reached what can be considered a contingency plan: I can do most of the project to the point I would have "completed" it and thus get the $140 bonus. But because of timing as a result of my vacation and that, I think, I am going to miss some days, I will have to lose two training sessions and thus the money I would have received for working them. Overall, then, I will be paid a total of $360 for this research study only -- assuming, of course, I don't find another job before then.
Well, at least I wasn't told I couldn't do the experiment anymore. But on the other hand, for a guy who has no steady work, $40 is a lot. If need be I would rather not partake in this experiment until after I got back from vacation. I would rather do that if it means I would get the full complement of visits I'm supposed to have. But, by then I could have a full-time job, so I'd be out the full $400. You know, I just wished I knew from the start that there would be 14 visits; then, I would have signed up sooner so I could get all of it done before I had to leave. But now I'm out $40.
Maybe I should cancel my trip? No ... I booked my hotel and car through Priceline, and those are non-refundable. I really am out $40. But hey, it's slave wages, so can I really care all that much?
Nevertheless I still look for work in my own sweet way -- and that is through research studies. I lucked out in that one of them, through the U.'s Carlson School Of Business, sent me a multi-day online one that will pay me ... $200(?) once I get done with it this week. Also, after going to the East Bank and ripping through every tear sheet of every experiment that I qualify for, I signed up for another multi-day experiment. This is one where I had to appear in person at a nondescript place in downtown Minneapolis (which probably used to be a nightclub) where, as I discovered my first day yesterday (Monday), I perform cognitive tasks while a net of electrodes are stuck on my head. There is some big money being put behind this study, and this time it'll actually trickle down to us plebians: $20 per visit for up to 14 visits on consecutive days during the workweek, plus a $160 completion bonus, for a $400 payday. I don't think I've ever been paid so much for a research study ... until I realize that that is being spread out over three weeks, which means I pocket $133 per week (plus reimbursement for parking). And then you have to factor in exactly how long each visit is. The second visit, for today (Tuesday), is supposed to be up to four hours long, but it's still going to be $20, which means I have an hourly rate of $5, which was the minimum wage for Minnesota back in 1971.
Anyway, that's not the point of this blog! The point of this occurred when I decided I should take coffee before I headed to this office, and to get that coffee downtown in case I ran into traffic or construction, which I did, which turned out to be a good idea because there are detours everywhere in downtown. On the way there, I remembered that in the e-mail detailing how the experiment was going to work that there were to be 14 sessions, even though in the phone call I got confirming all of this on Sunday said there was only to be ten of them ... or, that's what I thought he said. The problem is that I have vacation coming up in three weeks, and it appears as though you're not supposed to skip any days. Oops.
I didn't know quite what to do. I thought I should have stopped and asked before we even started. But I decided to just go through the first day and then, in the afternoon, I would call the scheduler and say that when I turned my phone back on after shutting it off for the experiment, "something came up" and I have to know how "being forced to go out of town" will impact my participation in this event.
It took a few minutes for the scheduler to consult with other people. In the meantime I wanted to see the beginning of whistle of Liverpool-Bournemouth after being late to see the starts of games Saturday and Sunday morning. (It was beginning to piss me off that I arrived at those pubs too late to see the very start of the game. I'm OCD like that.) Finally they reached what can be considered a contingency plan: I can do most of the project to the point I would have "completed" it and thus get the $140 bonus. But because of timing as a result of my vacation and that, I think, I am going to miss some days, I will have to lose two training sessions and thus the money I would have received for working them. Overall, then, I will be paid a total of $360 for this research study only -- assuming, of course, I don't find another job before then.
Well, at least I wasn't told I couldn't do the experiment anymore. But on the other hand, for a guy who has no steady work, $40 is a lot. If need be I would rather not partake in this experiment until after I got back from vacation. I would rather do that if it means I would get the full complement of visits I'm supposed to have. But, by then I could have a full-time job, so I'd be out the full $400. You know, I just wished I knew from the start that there would be 14 visits; then, I would have signed up sooner so I could get all of it done before I had to leave. But now I'm out $40.
Maybe I should cancel my trip? No ... I booked my hotel and car through Priceline, and those are non-refundable. I really am out $40. But hey, it's slave wages, so can I really care all that much?
Monday, August 17, 2015
Hello Carpal Tunnel, My Old Friend
OK, so as President of my alumni club (and, as of right now, the only person running the whole thing), I have to communicate to the masses from time to time. When I want to send out a mass e-mail (guess it's called an "e-mail blast!" in business action jargon), I have to go to the website of this ... I don't know what you call it ... the program? Software? Tool? Module? I have to go this whatever, sign in using my university-given password, and go through these steps in order to send out this communique to everyone in the club who signed up to get my occasional missives.
It sucks. It absolutely sucks. There are too many steps I need to take; I have to go here, then go here, then go here. ... Then, for some reason, there is this small window which looks like the interface when you start up a Word document that you use to type in your words. There are form templates on the top and bottom that, when you finally send, remain the same logorrhea of code that you have to get around when you start typing your e-mail. And then, according to the training I got to figure out how to use the damn thing, I have to push buttons that make no sense. I wonder what would happen if I just saved the whole thing without going through those steps, but honestly, I was afraid I would break something if I cut corners.
After that I have to save it, go to this form, go to that form, check it there, go to another form, then schedule it, and finally approve it. Doesn't an e-mail blast work where you can just type in keyword and the e-mail addresses of everybody in the club that signed up would just appear? And all of this is done with a color scheme and graphic user interface that comes out of the mid-nineties. It's the Wolfenstein of programs/software/tools/modules.
But still I use it because there are people in the club, good people, whom I can only reach with this irredeemably clunky method. Well, until this weekend. Maybe due to the uproar of how shitty that thing is, last month we were told that they were going to switch over to a new ... uh, way of sending out mass e-mails. We were told that Sunday was the last day we could use the old system. Or maybe they said that starting Sunday we could not use the old system. Semantics.
In the meantime I had things I need to talk about, which I wanted to avoid to the very last minute. Football season starts in three weeks and this fundraiser comes soon thereafter, and I had to talk about those things now before it became too late. And while I'm not nostalgic about it, this thing we use to send out e-mails was either going to come crashing down on Sunday or already was being closed down before Sunday. I will always try to use something "one last time," whatever that something may be.
What I was afraid of all week leading up to Sunday night was how much I really needed to talk about, and thus how long this e-mail was going to be. I broke it up into numbered bullet points, of which there were six, but I had to go into detail about what was going on and what I wanted/needed. But it was still a damn long e-mail/dissertation. I tried going to Caffetto Sunday afternoon to at least start, but I sidetracked myself, so I had to bear down once I got home in the evening.
There, the gremlins associated with this thing reared its ugly head. Worse, it then commingled with my slow and worn-out processor that powers -- well, "powers" -- my laptop. While churning through paragraph after paragraph I would hear my computer go "Whirr!" whenever the graphics from one of the webpages I did not click to demanded more power. There was one page I kept up that was giving me the circle thing, indicating (I think) that not all of the graphics on that page loaded in time. But besides that, the only thing I was doing was writing. Yet, it felt as if my laptop just couldn't cope with me finally writing a mile a minute.
Finally the damn thing conked off. I was just about done when I clicked onto another page to check on something, and I got the circle thing on that page. I tried clicking back onto my e-mail blast, but I got the dreaded "Not Responding" message on the page head. This is where I run into another huge problem with this fucking thing: It gives you a warning message that it'll automatically log you off after a minute of inactivity. That's burdensome enough. But that message pops up even when you are active, like it did a couple times while I was typing that thing up. All I needed to do was click on the box that said "Click here to remain active" or something like that, but really, any similar software made in this millennium would have found a way to avoid needing its users to push that fucking button.
Of course, it didn't help that my computer's fucking slow. So when I finally was able to click back onto my message (after probably five, more like ten minutes), the minute of "inactivity" had more than ran out. I basically lost it right then and there. However, before it automatically sent me back to the sign-in screen (another fatal handicap with that stupid fucking program) I at least had the wherewithal to copy everything I had written and pasted it onto the Word template I had opened. I actually should have done that while I was writing it. But at least I opened up Word. You see, while I was at Caffetto I did save a message with just the title. However, when I tried to go back to it, like a saved Word document, I couldn't change the subject line of the e-mail to something I preferred. I wound up deleting it and thinking that if anything happened, I couldn't save anything onto that tool, so I would have to copy-and-paste to Word, then copy-and-paste from Word back onto that module.
So I finished up the message on Word, closed all the other webpages down and opened up only that thing on the Internet. And I tried copying-and-pasting ... but the type was so fucking tiny! In retrospect I guess I could have tried to see if I could have changed the font size. But I was so mistrustful of that damn program that I decided I had to delete thing and type the whole thing over. That's right -- the whole fucking thing.
I don't remember typing anything that fast, or hard, since college. When I want to write for Wailing And Failing I don't type with the fervor I had in re-typing that message. I was doing that thing where I was bouncing my knees up and down so I could spur myself to get through copying that fucking thing from my Word back to this template as fast as possible. And when I got close I talked out loud, to myself, just to make sure I didn't miss anything, even though I was so fuckin' pissed off at that point that I didn't really care if I skipped a word or sentence or paragraph or thought.
While re-conjuring my talking points another long-lost friend visited me: My carpal tunnel. Typing up a storm inflamed the veins where my right wrist is, and it still really hasn't tamped down. I need the firefighters battling those blazes out west to douse the fiery tingling that's crippling my right hand now. And it doesn't help that my fingernails are kind of long, throwing off my tactile sense and making me type in a more painful way and pace.
Two hours. It took two goddamn hours to re-type that whole thing, to Alt + Tab between that shitty module interface and the Word document that had my first draft. After going there and saving and then going there and saving, I finally got it sent away. And, even though I wasn't sure that my college wouldn't just bounce it back if we weren't supposed to use it anymore, I got the e-mail I created in my inbox. Whew.
And now I end this blog post because my carpal tunnel is acting up again.
It sucks. It absolutely sucks. There are too many steps I need to take; I have to go here, then go here, then go here. ... Then, for some reason, there is this small window which looks like the interface when you start up a Word document that you use to type in your words. There are form templates on the top and bottom that, when you finally send, remain the same logorrhea of code that you have to get around when you start typing your e-mail. And then, according to the training I got to figure out how to use the damn thing, I have to push buttons that make no sense. I wonder what would happen if I just saved the whole thing without going through those steps, but honestly, I was afraid I would break something if I cut corners.
After that I have to save it, go to this form, go to that form, check it there, go to another form, then schedule it, and finally approve it. Doesn't an e-mail blast work where you can just type in keyword and the e-mail addresses of everybody in the club that signed up would just appear? And all of this is done with a color scheme and graphic user interface that comes out of the mid-nineties. It's the Wolfenstein of programs/software/tools/modules.
But still I use it because there are people in the club, good people, whom I can only reach with this irredeemably clunky method. Well, until this weekend. Maybe due to the uproar of how shitty that thing is, last month we were told that they were going to switch over to a new ... uh, way of sending out mass e-mails. We were told that Sunday was the last day we could use the old system. Or maybe they said that starting Sunday we could not use the old system. Semantics.
In the meantime I had things I need to talk about, which I wanted to avoid to the very last minute. Football season starts in three weeks and this fundraiser comes soon thereafter, and I had to talk about those things now before it became too late. And while I'm not nostalgic about it, this thing we use to send out e-mails was either going to come crashing down on Sunday or already was being closed down before Sunday. I will always try to use something "one last time," whatever that something may be.
What I was afraid of all week leading up to Sunday night was how much I really needed to talk about, and thus how long this e-mail was going to be. I broke it up into numbered bullet points, of which there were six, but I had to go into detail about what was going on and what I wanted/needed. But it was still a damn long e-mail/dissertation. I tried going to Caffetto Sunday afternoon to at least start, but I sidetracked myself, so I had to bear down once I got home in the evening.
There, the gremlins associated with this thing reared its ugly head. Worse, it then commingled with my slow and worn-out processor that powers -- well, "powers" -- my laptop. While churning through paragraph after paragraph I would hear my computer go "Whirr!" whenever the graphics from one of the webpages I did not click to demanded more power. There was one page I kept up that was giving me the circle thing, indicating (I think) that not all of the graphics on that page loaded in time. But besides that, the only thing I was doing was writing. Yet, it felt as if my laptop just couldn't cope with me finally writing a mile a minute.
Finally the damn thing conked off. I was just about done when I clicked onto another page to check on something, and I got the circle thing on that page. I tried clicking back onto my e-mail blast, but I got the dreaded "Not Responding" message on the page head. This is where I run into another huge problem with this fucking thing: It gives you a warning message that it'll automatically log you off after a minute of inactivity. That's burdensome enough. But that message pops up even when you are active, like it did a couple times while I was typing that thing up. All I needed to do was click on the box that said "Click here to remain active" or something like that, but really, any similar software made in this millennium would have found a way to avoid needing its users to push that fucking button.
Of course, it didn't help that my computer's fucking slow. So when I finally was able to click back onto my message (after probably five, more like ten minutes), the minute of "inactivity" had more than ran out. I basically lost it right then and there. However, before it automatically sent me back to the sign-in screen (another fatal handicap with that stupid fucking program) I at least had the wherewithal to copy everything I had written and pasted it onto the Word template I had opened. I actually should have done that while I was writing it. But at least I opened up Word. You see, while I was at Caffetto I did save a message with just the title. However, when I tried to go back to it, like a saved Word document, I couldn't change the subject line of the e-mail to something I preferred. I wound up deleting it and thinking that if anything happened, I couldn't save anything onto that tool, so I would have to copy-and-paste to Word, then copy-and-paste from Word back onto that module.
So I finished up the message on Word, closed all the other webpages down and opened up only that thing on the Internet. And I tried copying-and-pasting ... but the type was so fucking tiny! In retrospect I guess I could have tried to see if I could have changed the font size. But I was so mistrustful of that damn program that I decided I had to delete thing and type the whole thing over. That's right -- the whole fucking thing.
I don't remember typing anything that fast, or hard, since college. When I want to write for Wailing And Failing I don't type with the fervor I had in re-typing that message. I was doing that thing where I was bouncing my knees up and down so I could spur myself to get through copying that fucking thing from my Word back to this template as fast as possible. And when I got close I talked out loud, to myself, just to make sure I didn't miss anything, even though I was so fuckin' pissed off at that point that I didn't really care if I skipped a word or sentence or paragraph or thought.
While re-conjuring my talking points another long-lost friend visited me: My carpal tunnel. Typing up a storm inflamed the veins where my right wrist is, and it still really hasn't tamped down. I need the firefighters battling those blazes out west to douse the fiery tingling that's crippling my right hand now. And it doesn't help that my fingernails are kind of long, throwing off my tactile sense and making me type in a more painful way and pace.
Two hours. It took two goddamn hours to re-type that whole thing, to Alt + Tab between that shitty module interface and the Word document that had my first draft. After going there and saving and then going there and saving, I finally got it sent away. And, even though I wasn't sure that my college wouldn't just bounce it back if we weren't supposed to use it anymore, I got the e-mail I created in my inbox. Whew.
And now I end this blog post because my carpal tunnel is acting up again.
Sunday, August 16, 2015
"Nightmare"
You know, when I woke up this morning, I was so glad that I had this "nightmare." First of all, having such vivid dreams meant that I had a deep sleep overnight, which is something I haven't done often. Also though, this wasn't a really bad nightmare, so it wasn't as if I was waking up in a cold sweat and breathing heavily. Unfortunately, I remembered all the details about this dream immediately after I woke up, but those memories faded very quickly as every second ticked by. Not minute -- second. As soon as I decided I wanted to remember it, I couldn't remember it. Does that make any sense? That always happens with nightmares, doesn't it?
So I put in my Notes in my iPhone what I remember. Which is, I think, this: Current late-night host James Corden and former late-night host (and loudmouth) Morton Downey, Jr. plus another guy I completely forgot as soon as I was totally awake accompanied me around after I left a dry cleaners. For what, I forget.
What does this mean? Well, I am using these new dry cleaning place for a few things. It's something I've never done before; I go to the office tower where my psychiatrist's office is, go to this locker, and I leave these clothing items that I need cleaned in this locker. A few days later the drycleaners returns it to the locker, where I can pick it up at any time. (There's an added wrinkle to this. One of my items is a long coat Father gave me. The guy contacted me and said that they could repair the lining for $40. I said, What the hell.)
Corden? I like the guy, and I watch him, moreso than Seth Meyers, his rival on NBC. Downey? Couldn't stop watching him when he had his show. But why am I dreaming about these guys? And together? And with me stopping at the dry cleaners? Hell if I know.
So I put in my Notes in my iPhone what I remember. Which is, I think, this: Current late-night host James Corden and former late-night host (and loudmouth) Morton Downey, Jr. plus another guy I completely forgot as soon as I was totally awake accompanied me around after I left a dry cleaners. For what, I forget.
What does this mean? Well, I am using these new dry cleaning place for a few things. It's something I've never done before; I go to the office tower where my psychiatrist's office is, go to this locker, and I leave these clothing items that I need cleaned in this locker. A few days later the drycleaners returns it to the locker, where I can pick it up at any time. (There's an added wrinkle to this. One of my items is a long coat Father gave me. The guy contacted me and said that they could repair the lining for $40. I said, What the hell.)
Corden? I like the guy, and I watch him, moreso than Seth Meyers, his rival on NBC. Downey? Couldn't stop watching him when he had his show. But why am I dreaming about these guys? And together? And with me stopping at the dry cleaners? Hell if I know.
RIP, Bob Parlocha
Don't know exactly when I fell in love with jazz, but when I started to fall hard for it I started listening to this program called "Jazz With Bob Parlocha." It was a syndicated program, but in the Twin Cities he was played on 88.5 over the overnight hours.
I don't remember when I first stumbled upon him. It may have been when I had the night shift job downtown, which is now about a decade ago. He played what I consider "real" jazz, what I guess is really called "bebop," jazz once Miles Davis put his imprint on it and tore it away from its big band, Louis Armstrong/Dizzy Gillespie roots. I still can't describe jazz that well, but it was ... cool to listen to. It's music to run towards while you're running away from the world, and its prying eyes. It was your dirty little secret, something you go down the stairs to the basement to hear, but only after you peer back and forth a couple times to make sure no one sees you going down those steps. Since Parlocha's program came on late at night, it was perfect for me to listen to (sometimes, not all the time, but sometimes) while I was trying to stay awake at work. Maybe it was due to listening to him in that dungy basement I imagined in my head, with his deep and rich voice, his hearty chuckles and the stories that he could spin that I concluded once and for all that it's absolutely absurd to listen to jazz when it's sunny outside. It is, don't you know.
Since I've gotten so busy lately -- really since I started the flu biller job a few years ago -- I haven't been able to listen to "Jazz With Bob Parlocha" except weekends when I was awake and remembered to flip the dial to him. However, in the past few months, when I turned my radio over to KBEM between 11 at night and 5 in the morning, I didn't hear his honeyed words. And when it was late at night and I heard blues on at the station (they play the blues, but I thought it was only on Friday nights) I wondered if something was wrong. He was getting up there in age, and I was afraid I didn't catch him retiring or something.
Just now, tonight, I finally remembered to go online and see if something happened to him. And I am afraid something did: He died of a heart attack. And unbeknownst to me, he succumbed to it back on March 15. Comments from Parlocha's fans saying they didn't know he had died have poured in throughout the summer. Maybe they didn't know until well after the fact because he regularly taped his shows months in advance, and his voice was heard with new blocks of music (which always starts off with one song at the beginning of the hour, then three songs before breaking to introduce himself, then two before talking about those songs, and finally two or three to end the hour, where he would then sign off for that hour in case the station was going to go to different programming -- that was his clock, and it was dependable) as if nothing bad was about to happen. Heck, whenever I and probably anyone listened to Bob Parlocha, his hepcat rasp had enough energy to make you feel like he was going to live forever.
Well, news of his untimely passing (even if he did live a very productive 76 years, the earliest ones as a psychiatric nurse at Cal-San Francisco before he submitted an air check tape to see if he could turn his hobby into a jazz DJ stint) has finally crashed onto my shores. And I feel bad about it, and I really feel bad that I didn't know at the time it happened. The most personal way Parlocha touched me is when I once took him up on his offer when he would say he could be reached through e-mail. There was a song that he played that I really liked, and he said the name of the album but I couldn't quite hear him. I may have not been awake during my night shift at the time. But I remembered to e-mail him about the name of the record and a couple days later he e-mailed me back, thanking me for being a long-time listener and saying that the album's name is You Get More Bounce With Curtis Counce! (Check out the album cover. That would be a scandalous photo nowadays; an album looking like that must have been stashed in the porno section of a seedy bookstore when it was released in the mid-fifties.)
And with that I felt a connection to him, even when that e-mail was about a decade ago. But he is gone. My love for jazz will never quite be the same. To commemorate him I should buy a t-shirt bearing the name of his program, or finally get that Counce album. All in tribute to a man who cemented my love for jazz.
Rest In Peace, Mr. Parlocha.
I don't remember when I first stumbled upon him. It may have been when I had the night shift job downtown, which is now about a decade ago. He played what I consider "real" jazz, what I guess is really called "bebop," jazz once Miles Davis put his imprint on it and tore it away from its big band, Louis Armstrong/Dizzy Gillespie roots. I still can't describe jazz that well, but it was ... cool to listen to. It's music to run towards while you're running away from the world, and its prying eyes. It was your dirty little secret, something you go down the stairs to the basement to hear, but only after you peer back and forth a couple times to make sure no one sees you going down those steps. Since Parlocha's program came on late at night, it was perfect for me to listen to (sometimes, not all the time, but sometimes) while I was trying to stay awake at work. Maybe it was due to listening to him in that dungy basement I imagined in my head, with his deep and rich voice, his hearty chuckles and the stories that he could spin that I concluded once and for all that it's absolutely absurd to listen to jazz when it's sunny outside. It is, don't you know.
Since I've gotten so busy lately -- really since I started the flu biller job a few years ago -- I haven't been able to listen to "Jazz With Bob Parlocha" except weekends when I was awake and remembered to flip the dial to him. However, in the past few months, when I turned my radio over to KBEM between 11 at night and 5 in the morning, I didn't hear his honeyed words. And when it was late at night and I heard blues on at the station (they play the blues, but I thought it was only on Friday nights) I wondered if something was wrong. He was getting up there in age, and I was afraid I didn't catch him retiring or something.
Just now, tonight, I finally remembered to go online and see if something happened to him. And I am afraid something did: He died of a heart attack. And unbeknownst to me, he succumbed to it back on March 15. Comments from Parlocha's fans saying they didn't know he had died have poured in throughout the summer. Maybe they didn't know until well after the fact because he regularly taped his shows months in advance, and his voice was heard with new blocks of music (which always starts off with one song at the beginning of the hour, then three songs before breaking to introduce himself, then two before talking about those songs, and finally two or three to end the hour, where he would then sign off for that hour in case the station was going to go to different programming -- that was his clock, and it was dependable) as if nothing bad was about to happen. Heck, whenever I and probably anyone listened to Bob Parlocha, his hepcat rasp had enough energy to make you feel like he was going to live forever.
Well, news of his untimely passing (even if he did live a very productive 76 years, the earliest ones as a psychiatric nurse at Cal-San Francisco before he submitted an air check tape to see if he could turn his hobby into a jazz DJ stint) has finally crashed onto my shores. And I feel bad about it, and I really feel bad that I didn't know at the time it happened. The most personal way Parlocha touched me is when I once took him up on his offer when he would say he could be reached through e-mail. There was a song that he played that I really liked, and he said the name of the album but I couldn't quite hear him. I may have not been awake during my night shift at the time. But I remembered to e-mail him about the name of the record and a couple days later he e-mailed me back, thanking me for being a long-time listener and saying that the album's name is You Get More Bounce With Curtis Counce! (Check out the album cover. That would be a scandalous photo nowadays; an album looking like that must have been stashed in the porno section of a seedy bookstore when it was released in the mid-fifties.)
And with that I felt a connection to him, even when that e-mail was about a decade ago. But he is gone. My love for jazz will never quite be the same. To commemorate him I should buy a t-shirt bearing the name of his program, or finally get that Counce album. All in tribute to a man who cemented my love for jazz.
Rest In Peace, Mr. Parlocha.
Saturday, August 15, 2015
Sorry I Didn't Want To Be Charitable!
So I went to Dairy Queen after working out today because it ties Friday for Hottest Day Of The Year, and I wanted to try out their new Rolo Blizzard. (It was alright.)
DQ is in the middle of a charity drive -- you know, they ask you if you want to donate a dollar. And sometimes they throw in a coupon as incentive: You give an extra buck, you can use this for, like, a buck off a Blizzard the next time you come in. Or at least that's what I think the coupon was. At any rate I do what I usually do, which is say no. And the old woman who was taking my order didn't say "Thank you" after she gave me back my change. I totally know it was because I rejected her offer to upcharge me. I know this because the people before me did decide to be charged an extra buck and she said thanks to them.
Sorry that you think I'm an asshole. Or do you get financial incentives for getting upcharges and I fucked up your plans? Sheesh, it's not like I'm made out of money.
DQ is in the middle of a charity drive -- you know, they ask you if you want to donate a dollar. And sometimes they throw in a coupon as incentive: You give an extra buck, you can use this for, like, a buck off a Blizzard the next time you come in. Or at least that's what I think the coupon was. At any rate I do what I usually do, which is say no. And the old woman who was taking my order didn't say "Thank you" after she gave me back my change. I totally know it was because I rejected her offer to upcharge me. I know this because the people before me did decide to be charged an extra buck and she said thanks to them.
Sorry that you think I'm an asshole. Or do you get financial incentives for getting upcharges and I fucked up your plans? Sheesh, it's not like I'm made out of money.
Things I'm Slacking Off On (But Wait, A First!!!)
Never mind the alumni club stuff; I think I'll just wind everything I need up into one e-mail and then beg the group for forgiveness, saying it's been so hard for me with everything else I'm doing to figure out what I need to say. You would think that with unemployment I would have oodles and oodles of time to do the things I couldn't do when I was gainfully employed. But I haven't, and I won't for the foreseeable future.
I could work on those damn papers in storage, for example. But after going through a small sliver of one, I don't plan on going back to my spot for a while. I could also go back to writing. There are a lot of things I could write; for example, this sports place that rejected me are looking for people to write previews, and I should write a strip club review because that'll give me a free month of viewings for the clubs of East St. Louis, where I'll be going next month. (You know, that is something I should do, now that I think about it.) If I'm such a good writer, I should be spending, like, 10,000 minutes writing. But I won't be doing that.
What will I be doing? Well, after doing this daily blog I'll be going downtown and enjoying a Bloody Mary while watching soccer. I might take a nap in my car after that, I might not. Then I might go to a coffeeshop to write, then exercise. Or, I might get lunch at Kentucky Fried Chicken (and find inspiration to blog; more on that later, if I do go to KFC), then exercise. Or I might go straight to exercising (I really think I've got a huge gut right now) and then write a strip club review.
Regardless of what I do, I won't be doing things I could and should be doing. What did Calvin say?
Oh wow -- my first-ever image imbed on Wailing And Failing! This blog post in fact has not been a waste!!
I could work on those damn papers in storage, for example. But after going through a small sliver of one, I don't plan on going back to my spot for a while. I could also go back to writing. There are a lot of things I could write; for example, this sports place that rejected me are looking for people to write previews, and I should write a strip club review because that'll give me a free month of viewings for the clubs of East St. Louis, where I'll be going next month. (You know, that is something I should do, now that I think about it.) If I'm such a good writer, I should be spending, like, 10,000 minutes writing. But I won't be doing that.
What will I be doing? Well, after doing this daily blog I'll be going downtown and enjoying a Bloody Mary while watching soccer. I might take a nap in my car after that, I might not. Then I might go to a coffeeshop to write, then exercise. Or, I might get lunch at Kentucky Fried Chicken (and find inspiration to blog; more on that later, if I do go to KFC), then exercise. Or I might go straight to exercising (I really think I've got a huge gut right now) and then write a strip club review.
Regardless of what I do, I won't be doing things I could and should be doing. What did Calvin say?
Oh wow -- my first-ever image imbed on Wailing And Failing! This blog post in fact has not been a waste!!
Friday, August 14, 2015
Addendum To: I Am Expecting The Worst
So I didn't meet with this advisor/adviser after all. Turns out that the e-mail I got wasn't really a confirmation; the secretary needed to get back with the professor I was to speak with to make absolutely sure she was free. First she was, just an hour earlier than I was told. Then, she was not free, period.
That sucks in one way. I could have used some advice on how to proceed in starting this program. Now, if I see her, it'll be the week when classes for the fall start. In other words, too late. So now I don't know what the hell I should do. Guess I should just fucking take a class for the hell of it, see if I sink or swim. Got nothing else to do. Guess I could talk to the temp agency and tell them to find me work, but honestly, I don't feel like working right now. So I wait until the fall. Maybe I could bone up and read on my own, but nah, I probably won't, because that's boring.
Well, at least I am spared the anxiety of meeting with someone who might not like me, or whom I might not like. And I was able to catch most of the Friday afternoon EPL game at Nomad. Hot and humid weather aside, it was a stress-free day.
That sucks in one way. I could have used some advice on how to proceed in starting this program. Now, if I see her, it'll be the week when classes for the fall start. In other words, too late. So now I don't know what the hell I should do. Guess I should just fucking take a class for the hell of it, see if I sink or swim. Got nothing else to do. Guess I could talk to the temp agency and tell them to find me work, but honestly, I don't feel like working right now. So I wait until the fall. Maybe I could bone up and read on my own, but nah, I probably won't, because that's boring.
Well, at least I am spared the anxiety of meeting with someone who might not like me, or whom I might not like. And I was able to catch most of the Friday afternoon EPL game at Nomad. Hot and humid weather aside, it was a stress-free day.
I Am Expecting The Worst
So upon not hearing anything after I sent a message saying I could meet with this adviser, her secretary replied to a second one I sent a couple days ago. She can meet me -- the next day. Which is Friday/today. Damn; I was planning to head to the Nomad to see a special edition of Friday afternoon English Premier League soccer (Friday evening to them).
I talked about this adviser/advisor before; she sounds like an unhelpful bitch. And this is what bitches do: Stonewall you, then blindside you by saying she has this one specific time she can meet with you the very next day, so drop everything and see her, or you'll have to wait months. I wouldn't have to wait months, but the next appointment time would be the week fall semester begins, and that's too fucking late. So I have to see her today (Friday).
I am nervous, and therefore expecting the worst. Like I said in my previous post in trying to arrange a meeting with her, I don't know what exactly to ask or to bring to this meeting. I don't think I have all the answers to any questions she might have. In fact, I don't think I can exhibit the drive and determination she might want in someone who is inquiring about entering this program. But that's because all I have our inquiries. I'm not deeply passionate about this, at least not yet. (I indicated in that linked blog post that I thought about taking a class online; no, I did not do that. Because I'm lazy. OK?) I want to do this because because of the job security, which I am now looking for. To do that, I need to know how to prepare myself, and what are the next steps so that I don't embarrass myself from the outset. That's all. But judging by her preconceptions of me, she'll just dismiss me as some over-the-hill hack who doesn't deserve to smell her bloody tampon.
---
Carole Bellamy. When I was in college I looked at my bill and saw that the grant I thought I had junior year wasn't there, and that there was an $20,000 hole I had to make up. I was going through some things over the summer where I had to apply to this grant. And when I said I was going through some things, I mean that Mother one day over dinner said that I will go for this major or else they won't pay for my schooling, and I got so depressed I just sat in my room and masturbated the summer away.
When I realized what I had done (or not done), I went to the office of this financial advisor and basically through myself at her mercy. And while I was crying and shaking, do you know what she did? She took a box of tissues and set it right in front of me. I needed $20,000 that I didn't have and she gave me not a damn ounce of sympathy, but instead some fucking knockoff Kleenex. Had to take out loans. I hope that mean cunt is dead.
Now, we're not talking about money here, but I'm afraid that I'll get the same cold, unhelpful, even hostile treatment from her that I got from Carole Bellamy. She might chew me up and spit me out if I don't have the confidence (let alone the answers) she wants from me when we meet. Hell, I don't know what the fuck to expect from myself ... I think I should just go back to school. So I'm just going to take a take-it-as-it-comes attitude, even though that might be the worst attitude to take. Guess we'll see.
I talked about this adviser/advisor before; she sounds like an unhelpful bitch. And this is what bitches do: Stonewall you, then blindside you by saying she has this one specific time she can meet with you the very next day, so drop everything and see her, or you'll have to wait months. I wouldn't have to wait months, but the next appointment time would be the week fall semester begins, and that's too fucking late. So I have to see her today (Friday).
I am nervous, and therefore expecting the worst. Like I said in my previous post in trying to arrange a meeting with her, I don't know what exactly to ask or to bring to this meeting. I don't think I have all the answers to any questions she might have. In fact, I don't think I can exhibit the drive and determination she might want in someone who is inquiring about entering this program. But that's because all I have our inquiries. I'm not deeply passionate about this, at least not yet. (I indicated in that linked blog post that I thought about taking a class online; no, I did not do that. Because I'm lazy. OK?) I want to do this because because of the job security, which I am now looking for. To do that, I need to know how to prepare myself, and what are the next steps so that I don't embarrass myself from the outset. That's all. But judging by her preconceptions of me, she'll just dismiss me as some over-the-hill hack who doesn't deserve to smell her bloody tampon.
---
Carole Bellamy. When I was in college I looked at my bill and saw that the grant I thought I had junior year wasn't there, and that there was an $20,000 hole I had to make up. I was going through some things over the summer where I had to apply to this grant. And when I said I was going through some things, I mean that Mother one day over dinner said that I will go for this major or else they won't pay for my schooling, and I got so depressed I just sat in my room and masturbated the summer away.
When I realized what I had done (or not done), I went to the office of this financial advisor and basically through myself at her mercy. And while I was crying and shaking, do you know what she did? She took a box of tissues and set it right in front of me. I needed $20,000 that I didn't have and she gave me not a damn ounce of sympathy, but instead some fucking knockoff Kleenex. Had to take out loans. I hope that mean cunt is dead.
Now, we're not talking about money here, but I'm afraid that I'll get the same cold, unhelpful, even hostile treatment from her that I got from Carole Bellamy. She might chew me up and spit me out if I don't have the confidence (let alone the answers) she wants from me when we meet. Hell, I don't know what the fuck to expect from myself ... I think I should just go back to school. So I'm just going to take a take-it-as-it-comes attitude, even though that might be the worst attitude to take. Guess we'll see.
Thursday, August 13, 2015
The Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey
#-1: Lynx (Last Week: -1). I may have said this before, but I'll say it again. Don't be fooled -- there is something rotten in the state of Minnesota sports. The Jynx have earned their fifth consecutive playoff spot, but this team is leaking oil, big-time. First, they got blown out in the fourth quarter in Phoenix Friday and lost to the hard-charging Mercury, 73-66. Combined with the 83-61 ass-kicking they received from the L.A. Sparks Tuesday, it was their first losing streak of the year. Phoenix now stands two games behind the Lynx for the top spot in the Western Conference. After the flurry of trades they made it appeared as though they were going to win the conference by fiat. But, in fact, it may be better for the Jynx to lose the lead to the Mercury; that way they avoid the four-seed, which is a suddenly 100% Los Angeles (now that Candace Parker is back on the team), and draw for the first round of the WNBA playoffs instead the Tulsa Shock, which are sliding down the standings because they are finally suffering from the absence of Skylar Diggins, lost for the year due to a torn ACL.
If you look closely, you can see some troubling signs in the two wins, too. Minnesota started off Sunday's game against the Sparks by outscoring them in the first quarter 20-8. But the Sparks responded by outscoring the Jynx 24-17 in the second. Then they went into halftime of Tuesday's game vs. San Antonio (at home, as was the game against L.A.) down 46-35. They dug down deep and outscored the Silver Stars in the third quarter 30-13, but while that shows a lot of resilience, this is not the play of a dominating team we were led to believe Minnesota was becoming with the additions of Anna Cruz, Renee Montgomery, Ashja Jones and Sylvia Fowles. And right now they are technically one game ahead of the current leader in a very interesting Eastern Conference race, another hard-charging team, the New York Liberty.
I remember a t-shirt a long time ago with a tagline that I have always remembered: "The dog with the bone is always in trouble."
This week: At Atlanta (currently last place in the East) Friday, then a really long home-and-home against the Mystics: They visit Washington Sunday, then play at Target Center Wednesday.
#-2: Twins (Last Week: -2). That abortion of a road trip disguises the fact that they finished their screening week 3-3. They finished getting swept -- and in fact being largely non-competitive -- at Toronto Thursday, losing 9-3 (and getting bypassed by the Blue Jays for ALWC2, probably for good), then dropped two-of-three at Cleveland over the weekend. And the only victory was a 10-9 slugfest. Yet, home cookin' has done them good; Tuesday they came back in the bottom of the ninth to score two and beat Texas 3-2 (helping Major League Baseball to its first 15-for-15 day for home teams in history). Then last (Wednesday) night Miguel Sano launched two Home Runs (the second into the upper deck in Left Field) and scored six RBI and Aaron Hicks went 4-for-4 as they trounced The Bastard Washington Senators v.2.0 11-1.
I have little else to say besides highlighting Joe Mauer. Over the weekend I heard on the radio that he essentially has a WAR of 0. Now, I still question both the calculation and the concept of WAR (I still don't know what the fuck it means), but basically it means that you can get any chump off the street and, when it comes to producing good results at the plate and on the field, he would be just as good (or bad) as Mauer. What a fall from grace for a guy who has won three batting titles and has been American League Most Valuable Player twice. Now, it might look as if he doesn't have the length of good numbers to make it to the Hall of Fame.
That brings up a question that some people have quickly said yes to: Should the Twinks just trade or even dump Mauer? He is virtually doing nothing at First Base. Never mind the fact he is being paid $20 million at a position where you shouldn't pay anyone $20 million; he can't give you value wherever he plays. (Just like with what the Boston Red Sox should keep doing with David Ortiz, Sano should be at 1B.) That same contract renders him untradeable. This is the second straight year of non-Mauer-like productivity; what ailed him in 2014 now seems to be The New Normal for him. And fans (including yours truly) have turned on him. It would make sense to cashier Mauer immediately; I think sabermatricians would agree.
It would make sense -- if sense is the only criterion you should use to make baseball roster decisions. Like it or not, Joe Mauer was The Face Of This Franchise for a long time. Those same people who boo him now (including yours truly) were cheering for him when he was young and healthy. He probably got all those cheers because he is One Of Us, and Minnesotans, do not deny that we can be a very provincial people. Finally, for good and for ill, Joe Mauer got the Pohlads Target Field. He may not have been the sole reason for the Twins staying, and any riches that came with the new stadium funnel into the Pohlads's pockets, but I don't see too many people complaining about Target Field now, and it came about at a time when we needed The Hometown Boy to stay in his hometown, and that's why we didn't run to the streets in pitchforks to stop the city and state from giving the organization $360 million in taxpayer to build a brand new (albeit beautiful) ballpark. And that's partly because of Mauer.
To jettison him now, or at least to find extraordinary to rid this franchise of his huge contract, is, in a way, being hypocrites. The Twins used him for their purposes. In a sense the fans did, too. The least you can do is honor his contract. I think Mauer even knows the writing's on the wall. So make him the Designated Hitter, or even move him to the bench. Sano is the future, and it looks as though the only thing he needs is regular reps in the lineup, so let him replace Mauer. But whatever you do, find a way to make Mauer's exit dignified. Because all he has done is try to be the most valuable Catcher in the big leagues (and for a few years he was that), stay out of trouble and be an honorable representative for the club. His class has not fallen off the way his productivity has, and I don't think advanced metrics can measure class, at least not yet.
After finishing the series against Texas this (Thursday) afternoon they host Cleveland for three, then they go to the Bronx and play the New York Yankees for three starting Monday.
#-3: Timberwolves (Re-Entry!). Thoughts go out to Head Coach Flip Saunders as he battles Hodgkin's Lymphoma. Luckily it's one of the most treatable forms of cancer: Hodgkin's Lymphoma has a survival rate of just over 87%. Nevertheless, I have to note that a squad that has been through a lot of bad times (nearly all of them by their own doing) does not need bad luck like this, and that's why they appear at the bottom of this week's survey. The Twins have shown this year (well, before the All-Star Game) that the worst can finally be behind you. Hopefully this will be that year for the T-Wolves ... ?
If you look closely, you can see some troubling signs in the two wins, too. Minnesota started off Sunday's game against the Sparks by outscoring them in the first quarter 20-8. But the Sparks responded by outscoring the Jynx 24-17 in the second. Then they went into halftime of Tuesday's game vs. San Antonio (at home, as was the game against L.A.) down 46-35. They dug down deep and outscored the Silver Stars in the third quarter 30-13, but while that shows a lot of resilience, this is not the play of a dominating team we were led to believe Minnesota was becoming with the additions of Anna Cruz, Renee Montgomery, Ashja Jones and Sylvia Fowles. And right now they are technically one game ahead of the current leader in a very interesting Eastern Conference race, another hard-charging team, the New York Liberty.
I remember a t-shirt a long time ago with a tagline that I have always remembered: "The dog with the bone is always in trouble."
This week: At Atlanta (currently last place in the East) Friday, then a really long home-and-home against the Mystics: They visit Washington Sunday, then play at Target Center Wednesday.
#-2: Twins (Last Week: -2). That abortion of a road trip disguises the fact that they finished their screening week 3-3. They finished getting swept -- and in fact being largely non-competitive -- at Toronto Thursday, losing 9-3 (and getting bypassed by the Blue Jays for ALWC2, probably for good), then dropped two-of-three at Cleveland over the weekend. And the only victory was a 10-9 slugfest. Yet, home cookin' has done them good; Tuesday they came back in the bottom of the ninth to score two and beat Texas 3-2 (helping Major League Baseball to its first 15-for-15 day for home teams in history). Then last (Wednesday) night Miguel Sano launched two Home Runs (the second into the upper deck in Left Field) and scored six RBI and Aaron Hicks went 4-for-4 as they trounced The Bastard Washington Senators v.2.0 11-1.
I have little else to say besides highlighting Joe Mauer. Over the weekend I heard on the radio that he essentially has a WAR of 0. Now, I still question both the calculation and the concept of WAR (I still don't know what the fuck it means), but basically it means that you can get any chump off the street and, when it comes to producing good results at the plate and on the field, he would be just as good (or bad) as Mauer. What a fall from grace for a guy who has won three batting titles and has been American League Most Valuable Player twice. Now, it might look as if he doesn't have the length of good numbers to make it to the Hall of Fame.
That brings up a question that some people have quickly said yes to: Should the Twinks just trade or even dump Mauer? He is virtually doing nothing at First Base. Never mind the fact he is being paid $20 million at a position where you shouldn't pay anyone $20 million; he can't give you value wherever he plays. (Just like with what the Boston Red Sox should keep doing with David Ortiz, Sano should be at 1B.) That same contract renders him untradeable. This is the second straight year of non-Mauer-like productivity; what ailed him in 2014 now seems to be The New Normal for him. And fans (including yours truly) have turned on him. It would make sense to cashier Mauer immediately; I think sabermatricians would agree.
It would make sense -- if sense is the only criterion you should use to make baseball roster decisions. Like it or not, Joe Mauer was The Face Of This Franchise for a long time. Those same people who boo him now (including yours truly) were cheering for him when he was young and healthy. He probably got all those cheers because he is One Of Us, and Minnesotans, do not deny that we can be a very provincial people. Finally, for good and for ill, Joe Mauer got the Pohlads Target Field. He may not have been the sole reason for the Twins staying, and any riches that came with the new stadium funnel into the Pohlads's pockets, but I don't see too many people complaining about Target Field now, and it came about at a time when we needed The Hometown Boy to stay in his hometown, and that's why we didn't run to the streets in pitchforks to stop the city and state from giving the organization $360 million in taxpayer to build a brand new (albeit beautiful) ballpark. And that's partly because of Mauer.
To jettison him now, or at least to find extraordinary to rid this franchise of his huge contract, is, in a way, being hypocrites. The Twins used him for their purposes. In a sense the fans did, too. The least you can do is honor his contract. I think Mauer even knows the writing's on the wall. So make him the Designated Hitter, or even move him to the bench. Sano is the future, and it looks as though the only thing he needs is regular reps in the lineup, so let him replace Mauer. But whatever you do, find a way to make Mauer's exit dignified. Because all he has done is try to be the most valuable Catcher in the big leagues (and for a few years he was that), stay out of trouble and be an honorable representative for the club. His class has not fallen off the way his productivity has, and I don't think advanced metrics can measure class, at least not yet.
After finishing the series against Texas this (Thursday) afternoon they host Cleveland for three, then they go to the Bronx and play the New York Yankees for three starting Monday.
#-3: Timberwolves (Re-Entry!). Thoughts go out to Head Coach Flip Saunders as he battles Hodgkin's Lymphoma. Luckily it's one of the most treatable forms of cancer: Hodgkin's Lymphoma has a survival rate of just over 87%. Nevertheless, I have to note that a squad that has been through a lot of bad times (nearly all of them by their own doing) does not need bad luck like this, and that's why they appear at the bottom of this week's survey. The Twins have shown this year (well, before the All-Star Game) that the worst can finally be behind you. Hopefully this will be that year for the T-Wolves ... ?
Wednesday, August 12, 2015
Paralyzed
I should be worried about finding work, and I am. I should be making plans to go back to school, which I am thinking stronger and more about. But right now, at this point, all the demons in my head surround the alumni club, of which I am putative president.
There is so much to do; I have to arrange this fundraiser event, which we've done each of the past. say, four years, and should be coming up in less than a month. I have to worry about these games we need to find a place to watch them, when is also coming up in less than a month. And finally, I need help running this club. I should get the word out on all of them; the next step is asking if anyone can help with this fundraiser or hosting these parties or becoming members of the board. But I haven't done that, at least not yet.
Why? Really, I wanted to give myself a break after this huge party, which is now more than a week ago. But honestly, I am also paralyzed as to what to do next. The next step I have taken -- and it was really hard to do even that -- is to visit the bar where we go to to see if everything's cool and if we can come back next year. I even ate at his place twice in the past few days, but he wasn't there, and I can't get ahold of him through e-mail. I don't think I can proceed until I am absolutely sure we're good as our bar for this upcoming football season. But I could just be talking out of my butt; of course I can do other things, I just don't want to.
You know why I'm not doing it? I'll be judged. I'll talk about the party later, but there are a few other people who, in my opinion, are judging me. And they will judge any decision I make regarding where we watch our games, which is very important. What if I do something or post something on Facebook and they don't like it? They could go beyond judging me. They could badmouth me, they could undermine me behind the scenes, they might even decide to overthrow me and take over the club. Which, to be honest, wouldn't be the worst thing. I think the club could be better run in another person's hands. But what I don't like is the humiliation over being potentially ousted because people who are powerful and more organized than I decided they don't like me.
I know, for example, that those people get on Facebook and see me like stuff and be friends with lady bodybuilders and play Mafia Wars and shit. And they're thinking, "Hey, shouldn't he being doing stuff with the club? He's derelict in his responsibility!" That's what I'm afraid of: If I post these things, these cries for help on Facebook, they'll say something like, "Why has it taken you so long to ask? Haven't you been on Facebook for the past week-and-a-half?" And I'll have nothing good to say in response to that. That's why I haven't acted on that -- fear.
But I have to. I have no choice. I have to confess that I need help. I also need to get in touch with this guy and set up this fundraising thing, too. I just hope it's not too late, and then I hope I don't get blindsided just for asking.
There is so much to do; I have to arrange this fundraiser event, which we've done each of the past. say, four years, and should be coming up in less than a month. I have to worry about these games we need to find a place to watch them, when is also coming up in less than a month. And finally, I need help running this club. I should get the word out on all of them; the next step is asking if anyone can help with this fundraiser or hosting these parties or becoming members of the board. But I haven't done that, at least not yet.
Why? Really, I wanted to give myself a break after this huge party, which is now more than a week ago. But honestly, I am also paralyzed as to what to do next. The next step I have taken -- and it was really hard to do even that -- is to visit the bar where we go to to see if everything's cool and if we can come back next year. I even ate at his place twice in the past few days, but he wasn't there, and I can't get ahold of him through e-mail. I don't think I can proceed until I am absolutely sure we're good as our bar for this upcoming football season. But I could just be talking out of my butt; of course I can do other things, I just don't want to.
You know why I'm not doing it? I'll be judged. I'll talk about the party later, but there are a few other people who, in my opinion, are judging me. And they will judge any decision I make regarding where we watch our games, which is very important. What if I do something or post something on Facebook and they don't like it? They could go beyond judging me. They could badmouth me, they could undermine me behind the scenes, they might even decide to overthrow me and take over the club. Which, to be honest, wouldn't be the worst thing. I think the club could be better run in another person's hands. But what I don't like is the humiliation over being potentially ousted because people who are powerful and more organized than I decided they don't like me.
I know, for example, that those people get on Facebook and see me like stuff and be friends with lady bodybuilders and play Mafia Wars and shit. And they're thinking, "Hey, shouldn't he being doing stuff with the club? He's derelict in his responsibility!" That's what I'm afraid of: If I post these things, these cries for help on Facebook, they'll say something like, "Why has it taken you so long to ask? Haven't you been on Facebook for the past week-and-a-half?" And I'll have nothing good to say in response to that. That's why I haven't acted on that -- fear.
But I have to. I have no choice. I have to confess that I need help. I also need to get in touch with this guy and set up this fundraising thing, too. I just hope it's not too late, and then I hope I don't get blindsided just for asking.
Tuesday, August 11, 2015
Expenses Without Receipts
From Monday, August 10:
- Started off yet another week of unemployment (probably) by going to Anelace. It's on the way to the U.; I thought it would be a good day to go there to pick up some research study fliers. I'm desperate for money. (I see that the U. has closed off the student union for now because they found a suspicious bag. I have great timing.) With tip: $3.25.
- After visiting downtown to see if the guy who owns the bar we see our games at was there (he wasn't), I went over to the Nomad to see Monday "Night" "Football" on the EPL, where Manchester City went into West Bromwich Albion and kicked the shit out of the ... Baggies, 3-0. Forgot that Happy Hour there starts at 2, which was the start time of the game. At least I lucked into getting one of the beers subject to Happy Hour; Lagunitas A Little Sumpin' Extra was pretty good! With tip: $4.
- On Sunday the 9th I went over to the Minneapolis Institute of Art -- not "Arts," but "Art." Singular now, unveiled as part of a huge announcement that MIA is undergoing a brand-new branding and marketing campaign. I'll try and blog about it some other time, but this appears to be another step in the wrong direction. Anyway, I wanted to see the latest loan MIA is showing before it's gone: Raphael's "The Madonna of the Pinks," on loan from the National Gallery of London. And what did I see but a block party right in front of the building as a way to celebrate this week's transformation from MIA to "Mia." (Ugh.) I couldn't help but celebrate; hey, it is a party, right? So what do I always do when I want to celebrate? Buy some food. There were a couple food trucks there, and I wanted to go to the one with the shorter line: Tatanka Truck, which is serving Native American food. Got one of the cheapest items there, corn on the cob. Would have been really nice if the girl actually would've mentioned my name after my corn was ready, instead of letting it sit for a good five minutes. The corn was fine, but I'm still wondering why in the hell I tipped her for such shitty service. At least it was only (even with a buck tip): $3.
- And then I threw in the customary donation to "Mia." No way am I going to fucking give you guys ten bucks. You'll get: $1.
- Then I went to the place where we usually see our football games, to keep up relations. But the owner wasn't there. Hopefully he will be there tomorrow. Chips, salsa, beer and tip: $10.50.
- Finally I marched right back into My Favorite Stripclub (Non-Cover Division), where that stripper bitch was working -- as a stripper, not as a waitress. Well, I tried to act like I belonged there, but all I did instead was do my best to avoid her. I still watched sports and ogled the ladies, but I did get a dance, the first time in a long time, from a vet named Sierra, who was really nice and was really grabby. The Sprite I ordered was, once again, $2.75. And I gave a dollar tip. What the fuck am I doing just pissing away money like this? Along with stage tips and Sierra: $27.75.
- Friday the 7th: Caribou, for the third day in a row. Mocha, cookie and tip equaled: $6.
- For the final time I went to Saba's Flowers. One day I noticed that the flower shop, which was in an odd place to be selling flowers from the outset, was going to close its doors after 30 years in the business. Being the son of parents who closed down their mom-and-pop business after decades, I wonder if they're shuttering because it's no longer making money or because the owner wanted to do something else. I hope to God it's the latter, but that may not be the case. I popped in my head earlier in the week to ask when specifically they are closing. These are the people I have relied on for flowers when I visit my prom date and my grandmother at their respective cemeteries. She said Friday. Well, crap -- I had last seen my friend in late June, and I didn't think to see her again just six weeks later. But as a tribute to a business that I've needed when I have needed them, I moved up the time I was going to see her from late August to now. Unfortunately, the person who helped me may have had one foot out the door: She did not ask me if the flowers were going to be in water in half an hour, she didn't throw in flower food (although they may have run out of packets), and she didn't cut the stems at an angle nor put those little tubes of water to keep the flowers moistened. The service was nice -- the customer service here was always nice -- but, well, that was her last day and I can empathize with her acting like it. Hey, I got my flowers: $3.21.
- After working out and seeing some guy to estimate the hail damage to my car, I went to the Minnesota RollerGirls punch party at the old Surly Brewing factory (is it a factory?). Was given three free drinks and I both made it through drinking all of them and then, alas, driving home. There was also a food truck that made this great brisket with rice pilaf and some excellent slaw and greens. That meal was comped by the MNRG, so I thank them! Also, it was only right to at least throw some tips to both the truck and the beer servers. Near the end I was worried that my stomach was only dealing with the alcohol, so I went back to the truck to get a fried egg with cheese that hit the spot, and I (ahem) took two slices of cake. Forgive me. Anyway, tips for the beer and the brisket bowl, then the price for the friend egg and cheese (at that point all the allocated comp money was gone, so I had to pay for that) with tip came out to: $8.
- On Thursday the 6th I started my morning at Caribou. It's my second straight time here, and even though I think I've been here as many times in the past two weeks as I have the previous two months, I think I might be coming here a little too often. Mocha, cookie, tip: $6.50.
- For lunch (God, I'm eating so much fucking money) I went to Jersey Mike's. I went to that place once before after a game at the U., but this is the first time I got myself a "proper" meal -- sandwich, chips and drink. Not bad, but I don't quite see how these guys are substantially better than Subway. With tip: $8.75.
- *a***. More on her later: $120.
- After seeing *a*** I went across town to see this play at the U. that my friend was in. But I had time before the play to stop by this dive bar called Palmer's, which recently was named one of the best dive bars in America, according to Esquire. I can say, unequivocally, that it is, indeed, a dive bar. A Lone Star (one of the notable beers I can drink; everything else just tastes the same) was on sale for four bucks. With tip it came out to: $5.
- First of all, I thought the play, which is a part of the Fringe Festival, was going to cost me $16 ($12 for the ticket, $4 for a button that is required to gain admittance into any other play in the festival), but it cost me more. And I guess I wouldn't be so peeved if the play my friend was a part of wasn't so ... bad ... I'm afraid. The thing about the Fringe Festival that people may not know is that anyone, virtually anyone, can enter this lottery for an hour-long play that they create. And it doesn't matter how much experience you have. There are Fringe Fest veterans and there are people who've never done a play before, but it doesn't matter; you put your name in a hat, and you get a spot in a stage around the Twin Cities or you don't. There is something supremely democratic about that; there is a space, potentially, for people to put up a play that may not be that good. Unfortunately, the downside is that you will say a play that may not be that good. My friend was nice, and the music was glorious, but the rest was ... um, shit. But at least I was able to support my friend. Ticket cost: $18.
- Wednesday, August 5 ... As long as I'm unemployed, I have time to see my shrink. But these days he'll be able to see me on Wednesday afternoons. That runs smack dab in the middle of what I usually do on Wednesdays when I'm on the dole: I go to the nearest library and just veg out there all day. I see him starting next week, so this particular Wednesday would be the last day I can do that. So anyway ... I started off the morning by going to Caribou to see my regular barista. Used up the rest of my gift card (I'll talk 'bout this later, I think) for a mocha and cookie. Add a tip and you get: $1.75.
- I keep complaining about eating too much to pass the time, yet after having breakfast I go to Arby's for lunch. First time in a long time I've been able to use a coupon there. When I came over the cashier was writing down my order on a piece of paper. When I asked what was going on, she said their computer is down so they're doing everything by hand. And it appeared as though they didn't (or weren't able to) calculate tax, so they just added raw totals and rounded up. Bad for them, but good for me! Total: $6.50.
- Went to this library where I expected to hang out the rest of the day, but for some reason my computer wasn't working. I thought it was the library, so I decided to drive all the way to another one (where I am writing this EWR now), then I remembered that the reason I could not connect to the first library's wi-fi has to do with my settings. Once I fixed it, everything was fine. If only I knew to do that before I drove off. Oh well; I was able to eat my apple, take a shit and sneak in a nap at a shaded parking ramp. Now I'm up and working on this at my second library today ... but I had a white mocha IceCrema at the nearby Dunn Bros. With tip: $4.75.
- On Tuesday the 4th I had this "job" (well, really a research study) at the U., so I had coffee at Anelace because it was on the way. Had the cheap drip coffee. With tip: $3.25.
- These types of studies are on the West Bank, and usually I would park at my usual spot and walk all the way across campus to get to the building. That takes a long time, and one time I got there too late and lost my spot and basically lost money. Since then, however, I have started to get familiar with the West Bank (which is where the Nomad Pub, noted local soccer hub, is). There are a lot of parking spots there; however you can only park at these places during the daytime for an hour maximum. That is perfect for this particular study because it was only one hour long. So I don't have to walk 15 minutes to the study; I only had to walk 5, was there at the study for a half-hour, and got back to my car and drove off well before my hour was up. So I made money that day, an Infusion of: $20.
- I planned on going to a movie after the study because it was Discount Tuesday. It was going to be Trainwreck at 12:30, but once I realized I could get done with the study by 10:30, I could drive to the movie theater and catch the 11 o'clock showing, and that would mean I would have time to fit in a workout in the afternoon. So I did get to theater ... and realized that there is no 11:00 Trainwreck. But there was an 11 o'clock screening of Ant-Man, a film I was planning on seeing next Tuesday. Oh, well, I saw that instead. Another fitting entry into the Marvel universe. I liked the microscopic milieu, but there were some, say, far-fetched moments. Ticket, popcorn and pop: $9.75.
- After taking a nap at the park 'n' ride, I went to the community center, and since I'm out of work right now I can go get a monthly membership because I think I have the time to go enough times to more than make up for the $15 price tag. When I got done, I saw that their "historical museum" was open. It's only open once a month, the first Tuesday of the month, and it just so happens that the 4th is that said day. It was kind of weird; it's just a long room with the door propped open and the lights turned off. There wasn't many "artifacts"; most of the things there are paper copies of old articles about the city and area pasted and stapled onto boards. There are also names of the people who built the city, all the way up to Jesse "The Body" Ventura, who was once the city's mayor. For all the "modest" stuff they offered, I had to make a donation. So I placed a single dollar in the box near the entrance. So, the total for my trip the community center is: $16.
- Back to Monday the 3rd, where I had that interview downtown (which I didn't get), and because of that I also went to Anelace because it too was on my way there. This day I got the more expensive drip coffee. With tip: $4.
- After work I wanted to go to our place where the club watches games, which is also in downtown Minneapolis, but I saw that the place was closed. Huh? Should talk to him. So I then texted my friend who works downtown to see if she wanted to grab a bite to eat at a food truck, but she already ate. So I went to Pizza Luce to eat lunch before seeing her for an afternoon walkabout. Slice of pizza, beer and tip: $10.
- Sunday, August 2: That was the day of our big event. Went to Tongue In Cheek afterward to decompress. Really good food, although the surrounding area ain't that great. I really wanted to make sure that the totally amount of money I spent, when added to the money I paid for the LivingSocial coupon, would be less than the value of the coupon I got. But the chef/owner was there sitting next to me, even though it was my day off. And he was nice enough to not only talk but to buy me one of his very unique appetizers. So I had to fork over: $24.
- And then, to decompress even further, I went to My Favorite Stripclub (Non-Cover Version) where the waitress/stripper that bitched me out wasn't there. Expensive Sprite, tips and a dance from Danielle equal: $27.75.
- Friday, July 31 -- started off my morning at Anelace for a mocha. With tip: $5.25.
- Thursday the 30th ... started off my morning at Caribou. And I finally found that gift card a co-worker of mine from the flu biller place got me over the winter. I had been meaning to find it, and then to use it, but I had been too lazy to do both until now. But it's about time, and using it when you're unemployed seems to be the smart thing to do. Only used money for the tip: 50 cents.
- I was going to eat lunch at the place where we see our games; have to keep up relations, you know. I was willing to pay for downtown parking, something I am usually loath to do. But it was then that I realized that these new parking meter stations don't take dollar bills. No? Well, the old meters don't take bills, either. I just figured these new stations are so new-fangled that they would take bills. Alright, whatever. I didn't have enough coins and this was a "no credit card" day, so I decided to not eat there. Hey, it's my principles. That's when I remembered that Dairy Queen was holding its annual Blizzard Day, where DQ gave a donation for every Blizzard purchased. It would be a good idea to eat that for lunch; it's a light lunch and I can do some good in the process. So I went to a mall to eat one. With tip: $4.75.
- That afternoon I went to a stripper party. This girl named ****e* told me that she was doing one at, ahem, her mom's place. I lost my job unexpectedly earlier that week, so I indulged by getting a dance (and feeling up the titties) of each of the four girls dancing. It was a plus being early to the party; in fact, I was the first one there, which gave me the house all to myself ... well, except that there was a dude there, a cool dude, but a dude nonetheless. No matter; he didn't bother us during my dances. We actually did them in a room within the house, where there was only one chair. That gave me the freedom to take my dick out to the girls who I thought would "appreciate" it the most! With cover, which was an expensive fifteen bucks: $95.
- To Sunday, July 26 ... used a coupon at Hooters at MOA, then went to Cupcake to eat one of their delicious cupcakes. Seriously, all cupcakes are good, but the cupcakes at Cupcake ... I don't know, there's something to them. Also, they make me regular. Which is a plus. With tip it comes out to: $3.
- Then I went to Caffetto to hang out. Just outside there I found a dime on the sidewalk. An Infusion of: 10 cents.
- Too hot for coffee, so I got a Squirt instead. Never had Squirt before; I guess I wanted to try it because Caffetto has a wide selection of craft soft drinks. Is Squirt still a national brand of soft drink? Was it ever? With tip: $3.
- Saturday the 25th -- Went to Taco Bell, but because I had plans I got there before 11. To me, the 10 o'clock hour is an eating No Man's Land, at least during the week (during the weekend it's totally brunch time) -- too late for breakfast, too early for lunch. I got there and it literally took me five minutes to decide whether I should eat breakfast or go through my original plan when I decided to eat at TB (but before realizing I would get there before 11) and try their new Bacon Club Chalupa. I was going to eat lunch early, but then I saw this wall cling that said I could get a free Kickstarter if I bought a breakfast item. I never tried Kickstarter, and I never wanted to. But hell, I'll try anything for free! So I bought a biscuit in order to get that free drink, as well as a California wrap. But when I looked at the total, something wasn't right. I was looking at the prices on the menu and made some quick calculations, and it wasn't adding up. So I took a good look at the receipt and saw that I was charged 30 (or maybe it was 20) cents more for my biscuit and 30 cents more for the wrap. When I brought it to the guy's attention, though, all he did was say, "Well, I guess we need to change the menu." Ah, wrong: You should have given me a refund for the difference. I hope it's not too late to complain to them on their feedback website. Begrudgingly I put on a shit-eating grin and shelled out: $5.24.
- I then went exercising. Admission: $3.
- On Friday, July 24th I went to *******a's party. This is where this happened. I forgot the fact that to make up for me whipping it out and her accidentally biting my dick, I gave her a second dance, which is something I don't do. Plus dances from the host ********a and ****e* and tip and it's an even: $100.
- Went to My Favorite Late-Night Italian Place afterward for a California burger and fries. With Coke and tip: $6.50.
- Wednesday the 22nd: Had time before work to go to Caribou for a coffee, and I was feeling frisky, so I also got cinnamon bread. With tip, I think it came out to: $4.
- After work, and knowing that I didn't have too much at this particular test scoring place before I would have no reason to be around this part of town till next scoring season, I hit this restaurant close by called the Sunshine Factory. The reviews on Yelp weren't great (complaints centered around the food and the service), but hey, it was a place I hadn't been to before, so I wanted to go there at least once. Got a huge plate of salsa rather quickly and it was ... well, it was hot and chip-like, so no complaints there. With beer and tip: $9.
- Decided not to eat at home this day, so I instead went on my computer and "worked" while at Caffetto, where I think I got a mocha. With tip: $4.75.
- Sunday, July 19 ... worked out: $3.
- Then at the library I printed out e-mails for my parents. Real estate stuff. A lot of papers: $2.40.
- And then I read on the Internet that it was National Ice Cream Day, so I had to celebrate by going to Sebastian Joe's, one of the best ice cream shops in town. And I think I allowed myself a second scoop this day ... you know, to celebrate. With tip I think it came out to: $6.
- Finally, on Saturday the 18th I was at My Favorite Stripclub (Non-Cover Division),
back when there was no drama, back when I felt safe and happy there, back before they didn't jack the price of pop to $2.75. Tips and Sprite: $7. (ETA at a little before 5 p.m. on Friday, August 14 that my recollection was totally wrong. This was, in fact, the day where I no longer felt safe and where in fact there was drama, as I chronicled here. But the amount is still correct.)
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