I was driving to downtown to get my shoes shined. I planned on parking at the curb and using coins to feed a meter. But I came in a little too hot, so hot that I grinded my driver's-side front rim into the curb. Actually felt like it got stuck and I couldn't move forward or backward.
Finally got myself unstuck, but I heard such a noise up there that I had to check. And, sure enough, there are huge gouges -- not scratches, gouges -- on the part of the rim that hit the curb. Goddammit.
The car's now ruined. It is. It's been just over a year, maybe 13 months, since I got the car. And it looks ... used now. God, I'm such a bad fucking driver. I continue to do this, and I hate it, but I can't change how careless I am.
But you know, maybe the car's already ruined for real. It wasn't one month before the car was damaged by hail. Also, oftentimes I park at the Brit's downtown ramp, and the exit is so steep that I hear a scraping sound underneath my car, so I guess that if I look under it it's all scraped up and shit. However ... this is the first real visible sign that my car is old. I don't know if it's obvious, but you don't have to look that closely to see the damage. Plus, I know it's there, and for the intermediate term it's going to drive me fucking nuts.
Driving to the library close to the house party I could feel as if those gouges is affecting the car's performance. Part of me thinks that the gouges is causing the aerodynamics with the car to be off, and so it's not as efficient as it was. Part of me also thinks that I hit the curb so hard that there's something really damaged to the car. Probably paranoia, though.
Goddamn, this fucking sucks. Oh, and the worst part of this? I couldn't get my shoes shined because they closed at 3, not 4. So I paid 50 cents to park at a place I didn't have to go, and so could have avoided all of this shit.
Man, I need this blowjob so fucking bad now.
Tuesday, May 31, 2016
RIP, Part One: Brooklyn Park Library
Death -- well, OK, changes -- comes in threes. That may be the case here, even though I might only be arranging that in my mind.
This first one is coming late; even though I knew the date was coming and I made plans to be there on the last day, posting in time before it closed for good slipped my mind. I am talking about the Brooklyn Park Library, which is the library across a parking lot from the community center I work out at. It closed for good Memorial Sunday, and I was able to take in one final computer session that afternoon in commemoration. (I would have stayed till the bitter end, 5 o'clock, but I had to hightail it home at 3:45 because my brother, sister-in-law and niece were having dinner at home.)
It may have been a good thing that I spent about 15 minutes there. As usual in a place that's about to be shut down permanently, they didn't turn on the air conditioning, so even though they ran fans, I didn't feel all that comfortable sitting there, either the 15 minutes on Sunday or the 45 minutes-or-so earlier that week. Can't imagine how the workers sticking it out there the whole frickin' day felt.
It wasn't as if the library was falling apart, but it was old. It was built in 1976, the year I was born. It doesn't have the bells and whistles of modern libraries, and frankly, I could use a coffeeshop like some of the more new-fangled ones around town. But there was a roof that held, and the people there were almost universally nice every single time. There were plenty of computer workstations for me to use, at least most of the time. And they had a small quiet study area that I used often. It was good to get away from the rabble and share time with people who at least also wanted to be quiet.
There were two glaring things wrong with the library that I think I can attribute to its old age. First, and this probably is the less forgivable, is that the Internet browsers on the computers went buggy, especially lately. I don't know how a library would allow something that so many people use to not be updated or fixed. It was sometimes maddening when I try to bring something up and all I get is that circle. When I was in El Paso I tried going to a library and it took minutes to load up a page. Sometimes at its worst, surfing the Internet at the BP Library reminded me of the even worse El Paso Library Internet access.
The other thing is just stranger. There was one bathroom, in the foyer between the double-doored entrance. There are no doors in the men's bathroom. Instead, there is a half-wall separating the door to the bathroom from the two sinks. Then, there is another half-wall, although I saw a hinge attached to the wall that makes me think there once was a door there. On the other "side" of this half-wall, at the very end of the men's room, there is both a urinal and toilet. Side-by-side. Without a partition between them. Oh, and the door to the bathroom doesn't lock. So if there's a guy who needs to poop, there's nothing preventing another person from just going in and peeing right next to him.
I remember once when I was not familiar with the floor map of the men's room that nature was calling and I had to go. I then see this and look back to note that the front door doesn't lock. So I held it and drove like heck back home.
Guess this was one of those 1976 things, or the people who decided to take down this hypothetical door didn't think about the implications of the lack of privacy. However, for this reason alone, I think closing this library down is a very good thing.
So I assume that when this brand-spankin'-new library opens next month (several minutes further away from the gym, unfortunately), they will have doors (if not single stalls) for every single bodily fluid receptacle and their Internet browsers will be fully updated and working 100%. Progress!
This first one is coming late; even though I knew the date was coming and I made plans to be there on the last day, posting in time before it closed for good slipped my mind. I am talking about the Brooklyn Park Library, which is the library across a parking lot from the community center I work out at. It closed for good Memorial Sunday, and I was able to take in one final computer session that afternoon in commemoration. (I would have stayed till the bitter end, 5 o'clock, but I had to hightail it home at 3:45 because my brother, sister-in-law and niece were having dinner at home.)
It may have been a good thing that I spent about 15 minutes there. As usual in a place that's about to be shut down permanently, they didn't turn on the air conditioning, so even though they ran fans, I didn't feel all that comfortable sitting there, either the 15 minutes on Sunday or the 45 minutes-or-so earlier that week. Can't imagine how the workers sticking it out there the whole frickin' day felt.
It wasn't as if the library was falling apart, but it was old. It was built in 1976, the year I was born. It doesn't have the bells and whistles of modern libraries, and frankly, I could use a coffeeshop like some of the more new-fangled ones around town. But there was a roof that held, and the people there were almost universally nice every single time. There were plenty of computer workstations for me to use, at least most of the time. And they had a small quiet study area that I used often. It was good to get away from the rabble and share time with people who at least also wanted to be quiet.
There were two glaring things wrong with the library that I think I can attribute to its old age. First, and this probably is the less forgivable, is that the Internet browsers on the computers went buggy, especially lately. I don't know how a library would allow something that so many people use to not be updated or fixed. It was sometimes maddening when I try to bring something up and all I get is that circle. When I was in El Paso I tried going to a library and it took minutes to load up a page. Sometimes at its worst, surfing the Internet at the BP Library reminded me of the even worse El Paso Library Internet access.
The other thing is just stranger. There was one bathroom, in the foyer between the double-doored entrance. There are no doors in the men's bathroom. Instead, there is a half-wall separating the door to the bathroom from the two sinks. Then, there is another half-wall, although I saw a hinge attached to the wall that makes me think there once was a door there. On the other "side" of this half-wall, at the very end of the men's room, there is both a urinal and toilet. Side-by-side. Without a partition between them. Oh, and the door to the bathroom doesn't lock. So if there's a guy who needs to poop, there's nothing preventing another person from just going in and peeing right next to him.
I remember once when I was not familiar with the floor map of the men's room that nature was calling and I had to go. I then see this and look back to note that the front door doesn't lock. So I held it and drove like heck back home.
Guess this was one of those 1976 things, or the people who decided to take down this hypothetical door didn't think about the implications of the lack of privacy. However, for this reason alone, I think closing this library down is a very good thing.
So I assume that when this brand-spankin'-new library opens next month (several minutes further away from the gym, unfortunately), they will have doors (if not single stalls) for every single bodily fluid receptacle and their Internet browsers will be fully updated and working 100%. Progress!
Monday, May 30, 2016
Hey There, Cutie; Memorial Day Observations; They're Now Too Young
Happy Memorial Day, and I too thank all those who have died in the service and the name of this country.
I have enjoyed my freedom by going to Hooters at the Mall of America. I noticed a few days ago that one of the hot waitresses there is back from her time in college. I came in today hoping that she'd be working, and I figured that if she had the holiday off, there would be another hottie there familiar enough with my face to be served by. Not needed; she was one of four babes just talking at the welcome kiosk. It was nice to see her, and hopefully she thought the same. And if she doesn't, well, the Hooters trick of flattering customers into thinking they really think a lot about them works.
---
I was so drunk, and I needed to blog this, that I didn't do anything else after Hooters except go straight to my car to sleep off the big mug of Apple Orchard I had, and once I was done sleeping, I had no time left to do anything except go to Caffetto.
However, on my way out, I saw some people shopping -- not a lot, since this weekend most people are either up north in the family cabin or some place outside. I also noticed that all of the shops were open. I forgot that if shops had the option to close this day -- like Easter, when I noticed in years past that some stores would actually stay closed. So it seems like after Christmas and Thanksgiving, the most "sacred" holiday, at least according to commerce, is Easter. Just to let you all know.
---
I need an excuse to finally call Grandmother (and this time I hopefully won't forget), and I think "going out tonight to a Memorial Day barbecue" should do it. Instead of a BBQ, I think I'll go to My Favorite Stripclub (Non-Cover Version), which should be open in the evening, and might even be serving actual barbecue, now that I think about it. So I might not be lying after all!
Since it's a school night, I could and should stay in. Besides, there's a lot of stuff I could watch on TV. The Stanley Cup Finals begin tonight. So You Think You Can Dance also starts tonight. However, in a flailing attempt to stay on the air, they are jumping on the Little Big Shots bandwagon and turning the dance competition to kid contestants only. And therefore I will not watch because I now cannot fantasize (and, maybe, masturbate) to legal women. This replaced The Mole as my favorite reality show on television, but now I can't watch it.
Maybe while at the titty bar I can watch Game 7 of the Western Conference Finals. That might be another excuse to leave the house for the evening.
I have enjoyed my freedom by going to Hooters at the Mall of America. I noticed a few days ago that one of the hot waitresses there is back from her time in college. I came in today hoping that she'd be working, and I figured that if she had the holiday off, there would be another hottie there familiar enough with my face to be served by. Not needed; she was one of four babes just talking at the welcome kiosk. It was nice to see her, and hopefully she thought the same. And if she doesn't, well, the Hooters trick of flattering customers into thinking they really think a lot about them works.
---
I was so drunk, and I needed to blog this, that I didn't do anything else after Hooters except go straight to my car to sleep off the big mug of Apple Orchard I had, and once I was done sleeping, I had no time left to do anything except go to Caffetto.
However, on my way out, I saw some people shopping -- not a lot, since this weekend most people are either up north in the family cabin or some place outside. I also noticed that all of the shops were open. I forgot that if shops had the option to close this day -- like Easter, when I noticed in years past that some stores would actually stay closed. So it seems like after Christmas and Thanksgiving, the most "sacred" holiday, at least according to commerce, is Easter. Just to let you all know.
---
I need an excuse to finally call Grandmother (and this time I hopefully won't forget), and I think "going out tonight to a Memorial Day barbecue" should do it. Instead of a BBQ, I think I'll go to My Favorite Stripclub (Non-Cover Version), which should be open in the evening, and might even be serving actual barbecue, now that I think about it. So I might not be lying after all!
Since it's a school night, I could and should stay in. Besides, there's a lot of stuff I could watch on TV. The Stanley Cup Finals begin tonight. So You Think You Can Dance also starts tonight. However, in a flailing attempt to stay on the air, they are jumping on the Little Big Shots bandwagon and turning the dance competition to kid contestants only. And therefore I will not watch because I now cannot fantasize (and, maybe, masturbate) to legal women. This replaced The Mole as my favorite reality show on television, but now I can't watch it.
Maybe while at the titty bar I can watch Game 7 of the Western Conference Finals. That might be another excuse to leave the house for the evening.
Sunday, May 29, 2016
SAY SOMETHING, GODDAMMITT!!!
OK, so this thing about being 40 and saying whatever the fuck I want, but still worried that I'll offend people, all that thing, that contradiction, it's driving me fucking nuts.
So this woman I recently reconnected with, a woman to whom I sent a message nine years ago, she has a fascinating story. She is the process of adopting two children, something she has wanted to do since she herself was a child. She's been active about telling her story and her lovely time with these adorable newborns on Facebook. And she has been very willing to answer many questions, some of them probing, with some aplomb and humor. In other words, I didn't think too much was off-limits to a process that's still ongoing and needs to be somewhat secret to protect the identities of these two kids. I understand, and I think I've walked that line.
Yesterday, she was talking about tracking the development of both kids. The older one (although she isn't that much older) has been kind of slow in developing, I guess, while the younger one has been on a normal track. My friend said that she hopes that the older one can take a cue from her new brother and, for a lack of a better word, progress.
Now, I don't exactly know what that means. I don't have a kid; hell, I'm a kid myself. However, to me, my friend seemed to be intimating that this prospective daughter may have some kind of issues. But I didn't know. So, in the comments section, I asked if this child was, and I put this in quotes, "behind."
That's all I said. That's all I said.
I checked my Facebook. All of a sudden, my comment was gone.
I swear, I was totally nice in asking. And I never thought that she would take umbrage at it. But, unless there is some law where you can't discuss the health of prospective adoptees (which I didn't think applied here she may have talked about these issues), it looks as though she deleted my comment because she didn't like it.
As much as I have been talking about saying what I want to say and not giving two fucks about what anyone else thinks, I care about what she thinks. I really do. She didn't have to respond to a Facebook message I sent her nine years ago. And maybe it's also because I'm 40 that I feel such a tug of time that I want to make sure I do nothing to sever a connection I had with someone (OK, maybe "connection" is too strong a word, but this means a lot to me) when I was a lot younger.
So, what did I do? I sent her a message though Facebook. We've communicated like that before. I thought I could get an explanation and smooth things over with an apology. So I did -- I said sorry if I offended you, I thought it was cool.
Again, that's all I said. That's all I said.
I heard nothing. Well, I have heard nothing. And I don't get it. Usually she is loquacious, and since she often likes my comments as well as those of her "real" friends when she posts a status update I know she's on Facebook constantly. So why the silent treatment? Is she mad? I think she's mad. She deleted something she didn't like, and now she's not going to give me an explanation and let me twist in the wind. That's what it feels like. Look, if you're upset, just let me know. Then give me a chance to make up for it, or at least just tell me we're done. But this silent treatment -- come on!
My reaction to this has to have something to do with my childhood. My parents were always overbearing when it came to problems they thought I had. I would never hear the end of their probing, nagging questions -- "What's the problem?" "Why do you do this?" "Does it have something to do with school?" "Why can't you do better then?" Shit like that. And as much as I hate that, I have inculcated that incessant badgering, and the insecurity that is the reason behind it, whenever I see there's a problem ... well, whenever I perceive someone has a problem with me. However, my reaction towards my folks when they start this avalanche of questions was to shut down -- to give them the silent treatment. So it's a bit contradictory to get bent all out of shape when someone seemingly does it to me. I admit that. Still drives me crazy, though.
---
Such as it is, later yesterday evening, I saw that she went back to like a comment I made on a different status update she posted on earlier in the week. I don't know the reason behind it, but I guess it's a backhanded way of saying that we're cool. And, by the way, she has yet to unfriend me. But it's still weird. And I still don't know if she's mad. And therefore I'm still on pins and needles on this.
For God's sake, why can't she just say something?
So this woman I recently reconnected with, a woman to whom I sent a message nine years ago, she has a fascinating story. She is the process of adopting two children, something she has wanted to do since she herself was a child. She's been active about telling her story and her lovely time with these adorable newborns on Facebook. And she has been very willing to answer many questions, some of them probing, with some aplomb and humor. In other words, I didn't think too much was off-limits to a process that's still ongoing and needs to be somewhat secret to protect the identities of these two kids. I understand, and I think I've walked that line.
Yesterday, she was talking about tracking the development of both kids. The older one (although she isn't that much older) has been kind of slow in developing, I guess, while the younger one has been on a normal track. My friend said that she hopes that the older one can take a cue from her new brother and, for a lack of a better word, progress.
Now, I don't exactly know what that means. I don't have a kid; hell, I'm a kid myself. However, to me, my friend seemed to be intimating that this prospective daughter may have some kind of issues. But I didn't know. So, in the comments section, I asked if this child was, and I put this in quotes, "behind."
That's all I said. That's all I said.
I checked my Facebook. All of a sudden, my comment was gone.
I swear, I was totally nice in asking. And I never thought that she would take umbrage at it. But, unless there is some law where you can't discuss the health of prospective adoptees (which I didn't think applied here she may have talked about these issues), it looks as though she deleted my comment because she didn't like it.
As much as I have been talking about saying what I want to say and not giving two fucks about what anyone else thinks, I care about what she thinks. I really do. She didn't have to respond to a Facebook message I sent her nine years ago. And maybe it's also because I'm 40 that I feel such a tug of time that I want to make sure I do nothing to sever a connection I had with someone (OK, maybe "connection" is too strong a word, but this means a lot to me) when I was a lot younger.
So, what did I do? I sent her a message though Facebook. We've communicated like that before. I thought I could get an explanation and smooth things over with an apology. So I did -- I said sorry if I offended you, I thought it was cool.
Again, that's all I said. That's all I said.
I heard nothing. Well, I have heard nothing. And I don't get it. Usually she is loquacious, and since she often likes my comments as well as those of her "real" friends when she posts a status update I know she's on Facebook constantly. So why the silent treatment? Is she mad? I think she's mad. She deleted something she didn't like, and now she's not going to give me an explanation and let me twist in the wind. That's what it feels like. Look, if you're upset, just let me know. Then give me a chance to make up for it, or at least just tell me we're done. But this silent treatment -- come on!
My reaction to this has to have something to do with my childhood. My parents were always overbearing when it came to problems they thought I had. I would never hear the end of their probing, nagging questions -- "What's the problem?" "Why do you do this?" "Does it have something to do with school?" "Why can't you do better then?" Shit like that. And as much as I hate that, I have inculcated that incessant badgering, and the insecurity that is the reason behind it, whenever I see there's a problem ... well, whenever I perceive someone has a problem with me. However, my reaction towards my folks when they start this avalanche of questions was to shut down -- to give them the silent treatment. So it's a bit contradictory to get bent all out of shape when someone seemingly does it to me. I admit that. Still drives me crazy, though.
---
Such as it is, later yesterday evening, I saw that she went back to like a comment I made on a different status update she posted on earlier in the week. I don't know the reason behind it, but I guess it's a backhanded way of saying that we're cool. And, by the way, she has yet to unfriend me. But it's still weird. And I still don't know if she's mad. And therefore I'm still on pins and needles on this.
For God's sake, why can't she just say something?
Saturday, May 28, 2016
Bad Driver: 863 NYL
You, in the white Escape, here's a tip for ya: When someone's merging onto a lane, don't drive up to that lane and block that person from merging. Because that dude -- who's totally a nice dude so long as you don't fuck with them -- has nowhere else to go. He can't drive faster and cut in front of you because there's no lane left, and there's no way he can slow down because doing so will mess up the traffic (which you partially made) behind you.
I have absolutely no goddamn idea why you wouldn't let me merge in front of you. It's the right thing to do. It's the Minnesotan thing to do. What is neither right nor Minnesotan is the middle finger you gave me (possibly -- see, all I could see through my peripheral vision was you lifting your finger off of the steering wheel, which is also bad, because you should be fully attentive while driving at all times, like me, who was looking straight ahead as I finally rolled past your dumb ass) just because I honked at you/called you out.
God, I have this strange feeling I'm going to see you again, whoever the hell you are. 10:30 a.m. this morning, merging from Shingle Creek Park to 94 East.
I have absolutely no goddamn idea why you wouldn't let me merge in front of you. It's the right thing to do. It's the Minnesotan thing to do. What is neither right nor Minnesotan is the middle finger you gave me (possibly -- see, all I could see through my peripheral vision was you lifting your finger off of the steering wheel, which is also bad, because you should be fully attentive while driving at all times, like me, who was looking straight ahead as I finally rolled past your dumb ass) just because I honked at you/called you out.
God, I have this strange feeling I'm going to see you again, whoever the hell you are. 10:30 a.m. this morning, merging from Shingle Creek Park to 94 East.
Friday, May 27, 2016
The Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey
#-1: Gopher baseball (Last Week: -1). This is a very hard week to rank the teams. None of the three clubs really deserve the top spot, at all.
In the end, I have decided to give to U. of M. baseball nine. Yes, this is the team that went 1-3 this screening week. It is also the team that has lost three games in a row. And yes, those last two games happen to be in the Big Ten Tournament -- and since it's a double-elimination tournament, they are now out of the tournament. They are only on top this survey because that one win, on Friday night over Ohio St. (a game in which they were down 3-0 before scoring all four of their runs in the bottom of the sixth inning), gave them their first regular-season conference title in six seasons.
That may be the only thing thing this club can hang their baseball caps on since they fell flat on their faces by going 0-2 like a bitch in Omaha and leaving town before the Memorial Weekend even began. Looking around the bracketologies, which aren't much and haven't been updated since the weekend at least, the Gophers seemed to be safely in. Jim Shonerd of Baseball America, in fact, says the U. would be the 2-seed in what would be the Gainesville Regional against Florida, the writer's projected #1 overall seed. Could what theoretically be the 32nd-best team in the tourney slide all the way out of the postseason just because they failed to win a game in their conference tournament? Actually, since they ended their year losing three in a row and because the Big Ten is considered a mid-major conference at best ... I'm afraid the answer is yes.
But all of this means little to the team now. On Thursday, the same day the top seed was eliminated by Michigan, Todd Oakes, their Pitching Coach, finally succumbed to leukemia at the too-early age of 55. Memorial plans presumably will come soon, as will the team's selection to the NCAA Tournament.
#-2: Twins (Last Week: -2). The Twinks actually won a second game this screening week? I'm actually shocked; I thought only Wednesday's matinee vs. Kansas City (a game that, as it turns out, I did not go to because it was too rainy, and BTW, I'm shocked as shit that they were able to beat the World Series champs) was the only game they won, but they actually beat Toronto on Saturday as well. But I think I (and anyone else) should be forgiven, given that two really good teams nevertheless knocked around the Twins every which way, and at home, no less.
I still have no idea what exactly is the deal with this team, besides everything. Tyler Duffey is the first starting Pitcher on this damn club to actually win his second game. Striking out is on a record pace with this team, although I thought that sabermetrics dictates that striking out isn't a bad thing. And now I am very concerned with the big-league viability of Byron Buxton. So I have to admit that I should extol the virtues of one Joe Mauer, the only bright spot in this lineup. He's keeping his head above water when it comes to Batting Average, and he's the only one who's even decent in OPS. Yeah, he could be a hell of a lot better, but right now he's the only person in the lineup delivering good production and, just as important, doing so consistently. So, right now, I am glad that the squad hasn't traded him. I thought he was expendable last year because the youngsters had this situation handled. Now, they've proven that's the furthest from the truth. Thank Buddha, therefore, for the steady, introverted Mauer.
Road trip out west this week. At Seattle for the weekend for three games, then three at Oakland beginning Memorial Day, then they come back to Target Field for four games versus Tampa Bay starting on Thursday.
#-Infinity: Gopher softball (Last Week: 0). Wow. I didn't think a team supposedly this good would be so emphatically eliminated by the host and regional seed, in this case Washington. They were able to ping-pong from a first loss in the double-elim to the Huskies by beating North Dakota St. twice. But after losing to Washington 5-2 the first time, they were soundly whipped on their way to the end of the season by a score of 15-7. It was worse, sort of; they were trailing in the fifth inning by a score of 12-2. However, in embarrassing fashion, the Huskies were able to end the game an inning early. Look at that -- a ranked team throughout the season were eliminated via mercy rule. smh
Yeah, so the Goofs did get kind of screwed. But I didn't think Minnesota would exit so quietly even the face of such enormous odds. So, even though they had the best season in program history, their underclassmen look very promising and they arguably have the best Pitcher in the country ... well, maybe this team isn't as good as I thought. Sorry.
In the end, I have decided to give to U. of M. baseball nine. Yes, this is the team that went 1-3 this screening week. It is also the team that has lost three games in a row. And yes, those last two games happen to be in the Big Ten Tournament -- and since it's a double-elimination tournament, they are now out of the tournament. They are only on top this survey because that one win, on Friday night over Ohio St. (a game in which they were down 3-0 before scoring all four of their runs in the bottom of the sixth inning), gave them their first regular-season conference title in six seasons.
That may be the only thing thing this club can hang their baseball caps on since they fell flat on their faces by going 0-2 like a bitch in Omaha and leaving town before the Memorial Weekend even began. Looking around the bracketologies, which aren't much and haven't been updated since the weekend at least, the Gophers seemed to be safely in. Jim Shonerd of Baseball America, in fact, says the U. would be the 2-seed in what would be the Gainesville Regional against Florida, the writer's projected #1 overall seed. Could what theoretically be the 32nd-best team in the tourney slide all the way out of the postseason just because they failed to win a game in their conference tournament? Actually, since they ended their year losing three in a row and because the Big Ten is considered a mid-major conference at best ... I'm afraid the answer is yes.
But all of this means little to the team now. On Thursday, the same day the top seed was eliminated by Michigan, Todd Oakes, their Pitching Coach, finally succumbed to leukemia at the too-early age of 55. Memorial plans presumably will come soon, as will the team's selection to the NCAA Tournament.
#-2: Twins (Last Week: -2). The Twinks actually won a second game this screening week? I'm actually shocked; I thought only Wednesday's matinee vs. Kansas City (a game that, as it turns out, I did not go to because it was too rainy, and BTW, I'm shocked as shit that they were able to beat the World Series champs) was the only game they won, but they actually beat Toronto on Saturday as well. But I think I (and anyone else) should be forgiven, given that two really good teams nevertheless knocked around the Twins every which way, and at home, no less.
I still have no idea what exactly is the deal with this team, besides everything. Tyler Duffey is the first starting Pitcher on this damn club to actually win his second game. Striking out is on a record pace with this team, although I thought that sabermetrics dictates that striking out isn't a bad thing. And now I am very concerned with the big-league viability of Byron Buxton. So I have to admit that I should extol the virtues of one Joe Mauer, the only bright spot in this lineup. He's keeping his head above water when it comes to Batting Average, and he's the only one who's even decent in OPS. Yeah, he could be a hell of a lot better, but right now he's the only person in the lineup delivering good production and, just as important, doing so consistently. So, right now, I am glad that the squad hasn't traded him. I thought he was expendable last year because the youngsters had this situation handled. Now, they've proven that's the furthest from the truth. Thank Buddha, therefore, for the steady, introverted Mauer.
Road trip out west this week. At Seattle for the weekend for three games, then three at Oakland beginning Memorial Day, then they come back to Target Field for four games versus Tampa Bay starting on Thursday.
#-Infinity: Gopher softball (Last Week: 0). Wow. I didn't think a team supposedly this good would be so emphatically eliminated by the host and regional seed, in this case Washington. They were able to ping-pong from a first loss in the double-elim to the Huskies by beating North Dakota St. twice. But after losing to Washington 5-2 the first time, they were soundly whipped on their way to the end of the season by a score of 15-7. It was worse, sort of; they were trailing in the fifth inning by a score of 12-2. However, in embarrassing fashion, the Huskies were able to end the game an inning early. Look at that -- a ranked team throughout the season were eliminated via mercy rule. smh
Yeah, so the Goofs did get kind of screwed. But I didn't think Minnesota would exit so quietly even the face of such enormous odds. So, even though they had the best season in program history, their underclassmen look very promising and they arguably have the best Pitcher in the country ... well, maybe this team isn't as good as I thought. Sorry.
Thursday, May 26, 2016
Oh, And Another Thing ...
Going off on the "women need to be a tad more responsible when it comes to sexuality" tip: When you are a model, and you post an erotic picture that features your ass hanging out in a thong, or nothing, you should expect me and other people to say, "Wow! That's a nice ass!! I wanna fuck that ass!!!" I mean, if you show your ass, we can't comment on it? Oh, I think you damn well want us to comment on it! Otherwise, why the hell would you show it?
I've been counseled on a couple occasions by those very same models not to be perverted. What is more galling is that I've had "fans" tell me to back off and show some respect. I am showing respect -- I'm showing respect for that ass she's showing that I want to fuck!!! Seriously, I don't get it! If you models don't want us saying we have to jerk off to that fine booty, don't show it! And now I have girls running around getting all offended, and guys being chivalrous and sticking up for those models by threatening me. News flash, dickheads -- she's not going to live with you and marry you and love you for the rest of your lives because you want to kick my ass. She's never going to do that, so stop fucking seeing stars, for crissake.
I've been counseled on a couple occasions by those very same models not to be perverted. What is more galling is that I've had "fans" tell me to back off and show some respect. I am showing respect -- I'm showing respect for that ass she's showing that I want to fuck!!! Seriously, I don't get it! If you models don't want us saying we have to jerk off to that fine booty, don't show it! And now I have girls running around getting all offended, and guys being chivalrous and sticking up for those models by threatening me. News flash, dickheads -- she's not going to live with you and marry you and love you for the rest of your lives because you want to kick my ass. She's never going to do that, so stop fucking seeing stars, for crissake.
Wednesday, May 25, 2016
In Defense Of Slut-Shaming
OK, I am still not entirely sure this is true. I mean, a high school-aged girl decides she wants to get gangbanged by 25 members of the football team in the girls' room? This is something straight out of Big Tits In School, and therefore I can't quite believe it.
This reminds me of this semi-famous incident at an Enimen concert in Ireland in the summer of 2013, where concertgoers caught a girl sucking the dicks of people she apparently didn't know. Her life is ruined. And the girl who took two dozen football players in all of her holes is going to be disciplined for her illegal sex acts.
And you know what? Good.
Hear me out. I'm not letting the guys off the hook on this. Those who think the young men are "heroes" because they "scored" are seriously deluding themselves. I don't care if these young women are offering sexual services, and the excuse of, "Well, do you blame me?" is a patriarchal standpoint that absolves a party that is equally to blame for an act that, while great while you're in the middle of it, offends the social fabric and certainly shouldn't be allowed in a public place.
I also want to add the caveat that I don't think that I am fighting against a very popular opinion, at least I don't think so. In fact, I think a lot of people are troubled by the actions of the women -- and I do mean actions. The female at this concert three years ago and this teenager at the school are by no means victims. They may be misguided, but ultimately, I am certain they decided to orally pleasure and get reamed by these boys.
So, yes, they should be shamed for being sluts. Because, I'm afraid, they are. The (very small) minority opinion I hear from some dark, distant corners is that we shouldn't judge the females for doing what they want to do. No, you goddamn right I can judge them, and I should, and by the way, it doesn't matter that these girls might be girls and not women of legal age. I don't like to slut-shame, but goddammit, if you are going to partake in sexual activity with people you don't know, and decide to do it in a situation where you could get caught in public -- let alone potentially be videotaped -- I'm telling it like it is. You are a slut.
Yeah, many of my blog posts are about me paying money for sexual favors. I am arrogant enough to think what I'm doing is different from what those women are doing. For one thing, I am paying money, an equitable transaction for services rendered. For all I know, these two are doing it out of the goodness of their hearts, or they wanted to explore their sexuality, or they just wanted to please men. I guess those are all altruistic motives, but it still sounds strange to me do be so "generous" to people you don't know. And that leads to my second difference, and the one that might be more important. Nearly all of the women I've had dalliances with are people I know -- not completely, not in a way that I would consider them to be friends, but these are not people I just met at a concert, and these aren't people I'm delusional to believe that if I splay out my legs for them, they'll like me.
This brings up the difference between men and women. I can't shake that the fundamental difference between the sexes is biological -- that is, men have a penis and does the action, and women have the vagina and must take the action. From that difference becomes a multitude of beliefs and patterns and, really, history that has defined men and women since time immemorial, and probably will so long as humans exist. I'm afraid that that's going to be the way it is. It is unfair that, as the receptor in this relationship, women will have to defend any action they commit when it comes to sex. Men get to stick their dicks into everything they want (well, not everything -- men who commit rape are solely responsible for their actions), and women have to play defense because they have the mouths and vaginas men want to stick their dicks into. It is reprehensible. Bullshit, even. And yet, if you are willing to submit to these sexual acts, and there are no good excuses for you in doing them, especially to complete strangers (sexual abuse, drugs), are you completely without responsibility?
So let me say this. The slut who sucked all those dicks at the Eminem concert should be ashamed for giving it up to men she doesn't know. The men whom this girl went down on should be ashamed for prostituting themselves in a public forum. The girl in this bathroom should be ashamed for allowing her to be debased by 25 boys. The boys in this bathroom should be ashamed for assembling a fuck train on an underage girl in a goddamn school. All of these people are whores, men and women. Just admit it. All of you are whores for doing, and liking, these sex acts in such open places with people you certainly are not in committed and loving relationships with. And all of you should be damned for it. Just do it and accept the consequences and try not to bullshit me with saying you have free will or it's not fair for people to judge you. All of you, men and women -- if you do this, you're nothing but a whore.
So, by that logic, I should be ashamed too. Have I just contradicted what I said about me being better than these people at the concert and in the high school? Maybe. Am I a whore? Well ... of course. Will I stop? Probably not.
This reminds me of this semi-famous incident at an Enimen concert in Ireland in the summer of 2013, where concertgoers caught a girl sucking the dicks of people she apparently didn't know. Her life is ruined. And the girl who took two dozen football players in all of her holes is going to be disciplined for her illegal sex acts.
And you know what? Good.
Hear me out. I'm not letting the guys off the hook on this. Those who think the young men are "heroes" because they "scored" are seriously deluding themselves. I don't care if these young women are offering sexual services, and the excuse of, "Well, do you blame me?" is a patriarchal standpoint that absolves a party that is equally to blame for an act that, while great while you're in the middle of it, offends the social fabric and certainly shouldn't be allowed in a public place.
I also want to add the caveat that I don't think that I am fighting against a very popular opinion, at least I don't think so. In fact, I think a lot of people are troubled by the actions of the women -- and I do mean actions. The female at this concert three years ago and this teenager at the school are by no means victims. They may be misguided, but ultimately, I am certain they decided to orally pleasure and get reamed by these boys.
So, yes, they should be shamed for being sluts. Because, I'm afraid, they are. The (very small) minority opinion I hear from some dark, distant corners is that we shouldn't judge the females for doing what they want to do. No, you goddamn right I can judge them, and I should, and by the way, it doesn't matter that these girls might be girls and not women of legal age. I don't like to slut-shame, but goddammit, if you are going to partake in sexual activity with people you don't know, and decide to do it in a situation where you could get caught in public -- let alone potentially be videotaped -- I'm telling it like it is. You are a slut.
Yeah, many of my blog posts are about me paying money for sexual favors. I am arrogant enough to think what I'm doing is different from what those women are doing. For one thing, I am paying money, an equitable transaction for services rendered. For all I know, these two are doing it out of the goodness of their hearts, or they wanted to explore their sexuality, or they just wanted to please men. I guess those are all altruistic motives, but it still sounds strange to me do be so "generous" to people you don't know. And that leads to my second difference, and the one that might be more important. Nearly all of the women I've had dalliances with are people I know -- not completely, not in a way that I would consider them to be friends, but these are not people I just met at a concert, and these aren't people I'm delusional to believe that if I splay out my legs for them, they'll like me.
This brings up the difference between men and women. I can't shake that the fundamental difference between the sexes is biological -- that is, men have a penis and does the action, and women have the vagina and must take the action. From that difference becomes a multitude of beliefs and patterns and, really, history that has defined men and women since time immemorial, and probably will so long as humans exist. I'm afraid that that's going to be the way it is. It is unfair that, as the receptor in this relationship, women will have to defend any action they commit when it comes to sex. Men get to stick their dicks into everything they want (well, not everything -- men who commit rape are solely responsible for their actions), and women have to play defense because they have the mouths and vaginas men want to stick their dicks into. It is reprehensible. Bullshit, even. And yet, if you are willing to submit to these sexual acts, and there are no good excuses for you in doing them, especially to complete strangers (sexual abuse, drugs), are you completely without responsibility?
So let me say this. The slut who sucked all those dicks at the Eminem concert should be ashamed for giving it up to men she doesn't know. The men whom this girl went down on should be ashamed for prostituting themselves in a public forum. The girl in this bathroom should be ashamed for allowing her to be debased by 25 boys. The boys in this bathroom should be ashamed for assembling a fuck train on an underage girl in a goddamn school. All of these people are whores, men and women. Just admit it. All of you are whores for doing, and liking, these sex acts in such open places with people you certainly are not in committed and loving relationships with. And all of you should be damned for it. Just do it and accept the consequences and try not to bullshit me with saying you have free will or it's not fair for people to judge you. All of you, men and women -- if you do this, you're nothing but a whore.
So, by that logic, I should be ashamed too. Have I just contradicted what I said about me being better than these people at the concert and in the high school? Maybe. Am I a whore? Well ... of course. Will I stop? Probably not.
Tuesday, May 24, 2016
OK, Two Days In And This Lunch Ruse Thing Already Isn't Working
Because she loves me -- I know that -- ever since she came home from Las Vegas she has packed food for me to take to work. It always has consisted of a sandwich, done with love and quite tasty, and fruit, usually a banana. (Though sometimes I grab the banana on the way out.) What I usually do is eat the fruit first thing in the morning, then eat the sandwich for lunch after my lunch break while I'm working.
Now that I am not working, it's not necessary. What I do when I'm not working is go to a coffeeshop close by till lunchtime, then (at least ostensibly) have lunch at either a fast food place or a fancy restaurant, something I can't do while I'm working, then, like, work out or something. Chores and other things I can only do during the day will (or at least should be -- my goodness, I'm saying "at least" a lot) be sprinkled throughout my forced-upon sabbatical, although I will try and take the odd job here and there. But I'm not chained to a computer at work, so I can find my own food.
That, of course, can't fly. If I tell Mother that I don't need food, she'll then ask, "Why don't you?" And then I either am forced to lie, thus forcing me to keep track of those lies, or I won't be able to tell a lie and they'll know I'm not working, and that raises a whole holy hell of shit about unemployment.
So I will have to keep taking food to go to work in order for them to believe that I am going to work, and I will have no idea when in the day am I not full so I can just eat the food Mother gives me so I can get that out of the way. And I don't know about you, but eating food that's been in the car for a whole summer day isn't that great. Take yesterday, for example. I had to clear up my health insurance in St. Paul, and since I'm not out in St. Paul often, I had lunch there at a good place. It took me till the late afternoon when I had time to eat the sandwich Mother made for me, at the community center, dead tired, before I planned on working out, in my car. And the moisture from the deli meat and lettuce sopped into the white bread, so I was putting my fingers on this really squishy bread. It was alright, and I'm not sick yet, but it was messy, and I don't know if it really is safe to eat a hot sandwich. Also, in lieu of the banana (because Mother said they weren't ripe yet) she packed grapes and cherries for me. I had to sit down after my 40 minutes on the elliptical to eat them, just before I went home and had dinner.
So you see that I'm at a crossroads. I'm trying to do what I can just to get through to next week. What I wanted to do this morning is surreptitiously leave with the sandwich Mother made but without a banana, so I only have to chow down on one thing instead of two. But Mother was up in the kitchen early enough this morning where I had to grab a banana before I left. Man, she wasn't up that early yesterday morning. I need her (and actually Father too) to sleep in so I can just leave with just a sandwich so I could come back and, if they ask, say, "Whoops! Sorry, I just totally forgot on my way out!" But I can't now, so I'll have to find the time today to eat a soggy sandwich and a huge banana while eating a cookie and having a mocha in the morning (at the coffeeshop where I'm writing this now) but before I go to this taste test where I'm not supposed to eat anything a half-hour before it starts, and then after I watch Captain America: Civil War this afternoon.
This is my life, for God's sake. How can I go on with my life if these are the obstacles I have to overcome during my day?
Now that I am not working, it's not necessary. What I do when I'm not working is go to a coffeeshop close by till lunchtime, then (at least ostensibly) have lunch at either a fast food place or a fancy restaurant, something I can't do while I'm working, then, like, work out or something. Chores and other things I can only do during the day will (or at least should be -- my goodness, I'm saying "at least" a lot) be sprinkled throughout my forced-upon sabbatical, although I will try and take the odd job here and there. But I'm not chained to a computer at work, so I can find my own food.
That, of course, can't fly. If I tell Mother that I don't need food, she'll then ask, "Why don't you?" And then I either am forced to lie, thus forcing me to keep track of those lies, or I won't be able to tell a lie and they'll know I'm not working, and that raises a whole holy hell of shit about unemployment.
So I will have to keep taking food to go to work in order for them to believe that I am going to work, and I will have no idea when in the day am I not full so I can just eat the food Mother gives me so I can get that out of the way. And I don't know about you, but eating food that's been in the car for a whole summer day isn't that great. Take yesterday, for example. I had to clear up my health insurance in St. Paul, and since I'm not out in St. Paul often, I had lunch there at a good place. It took me till the late afternoon when I had time to eat the sandwich Mother made for me, at the community center, dead tired, before I planned on working out, in my car. And the moisture from the deli meat and lettuce sopped into the white bread, so I was putting my fingers on this really squishy bread. It was alright, and I'm not sick yet, but it was messy, and I don't know if it really is safe to eat a hot sandwich. Also, in lieu of the banana (because Mother said they weren't ripe yet) she packed grapes and cherries for me. I had to sit down after my 40 minutes on the elliptical to eat them, just before I went home and had dinner.
So you see that I'm at a crossroads. I'm trying to do what I can just to get through to next week. What I wanted to do this morning is surreptitiously leave with the sandwich Mother made but without a banana, so I only have to chow down on one thing instead of two. But Mother was up in the kitchen early enough this morning where I had to grab a banana before I left. Man, she wasn't up that early yesterday morning. I need her (and actually Father too) to sleep in so I can just leave with just a sandwich so I could come back and, if they ask, say, "Whoops! Sorry, I just totally forgot on my way out!" But I can't now, so I'll have to find the time today to eat a soggy sandwich and a huge banana while eating a cookie and having a mocha in the morning (at the coffeeshop where I'm writing this now) but before I go to this taste test where I'm not supposed to eat anything a half-hour before it starts, and then after I watch Captain America: Civil War this afternoon.
This is my life, for God's sake. How can I go on with my life if these are the obstacles I have to overcome during my day?
URK 513
I think enough years have passed, and my old car is still currently in storage (even with Father back in town), so it may not be taken out for a while, if ever, so I think it's safe to talk about this:
The license plate on my old car before it got old enough to be replaced with the license plate that's on there now was, get this, URK 513. URK, as in "irk." No, it's not a racist plate, but I always thought that while I was driving anyone who saw that plate long enough would get a chuckle out of it, and thus thought of me in a lesser, and less respectable, light. So I was glad I was able to get rid of it when they sent me the next one.
Had to get that off of my chest. Had thought about blogging about that for a long time.
Wait -- no one else thinks URK 513 sounds like a ridiculous license plate number?
The license plate on my old car before it got old enough to be replaced with the license plate that's on there now was, get this, URK 513. URK, as in "irk." No, it's not a racist plate, but I always thought that while I was driving anyone who saw that plate long enough would get a chuckle out of it, and thus thought of me in a lesser, and less respectable, light. So I was glad I was able to get rid of it when they sent me the next one.
Had to get that off of my chest. Had thought about blogging about that for a long time.
Wait -- no one else thinks URK 513 sounds like a ridiculous license plate number?
Monday, May 23, 2016
What Do You Mean You Don't Like My Comment?
So two of my friends on Facebook aren't my real friends. These Facebook friends are my Facebook friends because they're really hot. Most of the my "friends" on Facebook are babes. I really wanted to separate my real friends from the hot women I'm hunting by making separate profiles, but damn you, Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook made me verify my nom de Internet with a birth certificate. Holy intrusion, Batman!
If I were posting under a pseudonym I wouldn't be so bent out of shape over what I'm about to tell you, but since I'm not, I am. Do you ever have friends that regularly like all the comments for one of his or her status updates? I'm one of those people. These two hotties are, too.
Now, have you ever commented on a status update for this type of friend, and when you go check back on it on your Timeline, he or she has liked every comment except yours? That is what each of them did to me recently. And I am bothered by it.
So, what did they say, and what did I say? Well, one of them was talking about how her daughter wouldn't sit on her father's (her husband's) lap because she said the food he had in front of him was disgusting. I asked what this supposed disgusting meal was, and she said it was a turkey burger, to which I said, "Eh, your daughter's overreacting!" To be fair, she liked my first comment, but she didn't like my second, even though she liked everybody else's comment.
That made me nervous. We are only Facebook friends -- I mean, we're not, you know, actual friends. And I am trying these days to not obsess over what other people might think of what I say on the Internet. But I make an exception to my "I'm 40 so I don't have any more fucks to give" stance with her, and therefore I'm scared (and maybe I'm even paranoid) that I offended her -- specifically, that I'm judging her daughter for something she really thinks is innocuous. I think it is, too! That's why I said she was overreacting in a joking way. But you can't detect tone over the Internet, and I'm afraid that she took it the wrong way.
I'm so scared that she reacted badly to what I thought that, as soon as I saw she left out my second message her like barrage, I checked her profile page to make sure we were still friends. We are. Phew. But am I skating on thin ice?
---
The other one is someone who -- ahem -- I've seen in a magazine before. And honestly, even though it wasn't full nudity like it was before, and therefore it's an apples-and-oranges comparison because I can't see everything, she may look better now, in her forties after having two kids, than she did then.
She took a selfie of her fucking ripped body while she was on vacation (maybe it was business, I'm not entirely sure). It was her hotel bathroom, she had a black bikini on, and she was also wearing these Daisy Dukes but pulled her zipper down. If you know me, you know that I love shots where it looks as if clothing is being removed. But again, her body -- goddamn.
And, in a compliment, I said that -- not verbatim, but basically. The other people commenting on that picture did the same thing. But when I looked back, she like-like-like-liked all those comments, conspicuously skipped over my innocent comment, then like-like-like-liked all the rest.
What did I say? Seriously, what did I say? I didn't say anything creepy or perverted ... at least I don't think so. But she's unnerved by it? I don't get it, I really don't. I mean, if you're going to show off your body, people are going to comment on it, right? And if you look good, you should expect compliment, shouldn't you? That's all I did! That's all I did!
Just checked on Facebook. Still Facebook friends with her. For now.
If I were posting under a pseudonym I wouldn't be so bent out of shape over what I'm about to tell you, but since I'm not, I am. Do you ever have friends that regularly like all the comments for one of his or her status updates? I'm one of those people. These two hotties are, too.
Now, have you ever commented on a status update for this type of friend, and when you go check back on it on your Timeline, he or she has liked every comment except yours? That is what each of them did to me recently. And I am bothered by it.
So, what did they say, and what did I say? Well, one of them was talking about how her daughter wouldn't sit on her father's (her husband's) lap because she said the food he had in front of him was disgusting. I asked what this supposed disgusting meal was, and she said it was a turkey burger, to which I said, "Eh, your daughter's overreacting!" To be fair, she liked my first comment, but she didn't like my second, even though she liked everybody else's comment.
That made me nervous. We are only Facebook friends -- I mean, we're not, you know, actual friends. And I am trying these days to not obsess over what other people might think of what I say on the Internet. But I make an exception to my "I'm 40 so I don't have any more fucks to give" stance with her, and therefore I'm scared (and maybe I'm even paranoid) that I offended her -- specifically, that I'm judging her daughter for something she really thinks is innocuous. I think it is, too! That's why I said she was overreacting in a joking way. But you can't detect tone over the Internet, and I'm afraid that she took it the wrong way.
I'm so scared that she reacted badly to what I thought that, as soon as I saw she left out my second message her like barrage, I checked her profile page to make sure we were still friends. We are. Phew. But am I skating on thin ice?
---
The other one is someone who -- ahem -- I've seen in a magazine before. And honestly, even though it wasn't full nudity like it was before, and therefore it's an apples-and-oranges comparison because I can't see everything, she may look better now, in her forties after having two kids, than she did then.
She took a selfie of her fucking ripped body while she was on vacation (maybe it was business, I'm not entirely sure). It was her hotel bathroom, she had a black bikini on, and she was also wearing these Daisy Dukes but pulled her zipper down. If you know me, you know that I love shots where it looks as if clothing is being removed. But again, her body -- goddamn.
And, in a compliment, I said that -- not verbatim, but basically. The other people commenting on that picture did the same thing. But when I looked back, she like-like-like-liked all those comments, conspicuously skipped over my innocent comment, then like-like-like-liked all the rest.
What did I say? Seriously, what did I say? I didn't say anything creepy or perverted ... at least I don't think so. But she's unnerved by it? I don't get it, I really don't. I mean, if you're going to show off your body, people are going to comment on it, right? And if you look good, you should expect compliment, shouldn't you? That's all I did! That's all I did!
Just checked on Facebook. Still Facebook friends with her. For now.
Sunday, May 22, 2016
Expenses Without Receipts
Man, I still haven't been catching up as much as I want to. Starting from Sunday, May 22:
- Went to Hooters. Have a receipt, but I never remember what I paid. Since I just ate there, I'm going to write it down now. With tip: $16.
- ETA on 8:05 a.m. on May 28 that I forgot that I participated in that weekend's Art-A-Whirl. Saw a friend who lives close by and had a beer. Also went to this art gallery that I try to patronize. Stopped in for a bit and donated some cash: $3.
- On Saturday, May 21 I went to a party close to my house. Had to after My Fucking Father blindsided me by telling me I have to dust off my TV and then told me I needed to "set up a schedule." Fuck you. For all that shit, getting a blowjob from ****e was well worth it. Along with dances from Brooklyn and Mya and tip: $200.
- Thursday, May 19: Father surprised me by asking if I can get more money from AAA for their home insurance claim. I wanted to stay home, but off to the library I go instead, where he asked me to make a copy each of the check receipt and the contractor's new agreement. But apparently I oriented the originals incorrectly, so when I got them copied, they cut off the bottom half of both. Which meant I had to do that shit all over again. Waste of 20 cents. Along with the letter I made and printed out (twice), the total came out to: 60 cents.
- Weird thing when I got the printouts of the letter; when I reached into the change slot to retrieve my five cents, I pulled out two dimes instead. A person forgot to pick up his or her change. And you know what? It's not the first time that's happened. Moreover, as I wandered to another part of the library, I picked up a dime off the floor. So I got reimbursed for the two copies I wasted on the copier, plus that one effed-up invoice that printed only as a blank, which you'll see below. Maybe things in this world do balance out. An Infusion of: 30 cents.
- Wednesday the 18th ... My Father came home this day, and so I wanted to give him the impression that I was busy, so I went to the library -- ostensibly to "study," but I actually had to take a test for this job the temp agency said I could be hired for. Probably didn't make it, but I still used that as an excuse to print out a coupon for valet service from the Hard Rock Cafe. Price is just: 10 cents.
- On Tuesday the 17th, the night before My Fucking Father came home, I needed one last night to myself. So I went to Caffetto to work on some alumni club stuff. Ate a chocolate cake and washed it down with coffee. With tip and it came to: $5.50.
- I then stopped by My Favorite Stripclub (Non-Cover Version). Tips, coffee and an LD with Kirah: $29.75.
- Sunday, May 15 was Championship Sunday, the last day of the English Premiere League, and I had to be there, even though nothing important was at stake. In what is The Greatest Upset In The History Of Recorded Sport (and I am not joking about that), 5,000-to-1 shot Leicester City won the 38-game round-robin season, and Aston Villa, Newcastle and Norwich City were all relegated. (I feel sad for Norwich, which got promoted when the season began. Newcastle I don't care; they've become the NFL Washington club of the EPL. Aston Villa, which was one of seven clubs never to have been dropped from the EPL, brought this outcome on themselves; they finished dead last in the league by a mile, and they were officially relegated a month ago.) Both outcomes were decided before Champ Sunday. I went upstairs because the only intrigue left -- whether Manchester City or Manchester United could claim the final Champions League spot -- was short-circuited when the Man United-Bournemouth match was postponed due to a bomb scare. So I scrambled around to find games involving West Ham United and Southampton, the latter of whom displaced the former for a spot in the lower-level Europa League. To find the former game I went to an out-of-the-way nook on the first floor of Brit's Pub. For the latter I had to walk into a lobby and climb the stairs up to what seemed to be Brit's club room, which I had never seen before. I might go back there again. Oh, I had a big breakfast and paired it with a Bloody Mary. With tip: $23.
- That evening I went to Caffetto. Have been able to find spots here lately. Tiramisu, hot chocolate, tip: $7.60.
- Saturday the 14th -- In retrospect I should have charged the fake frap stuff I got at SuperAmerica on my way to work that morning. But since I opened up my wallet for that, by my own rule I had to find a way to spend cash on a second thing. Then I remembered that I had Sacagewea coins to unload. Then, while I was cleaning out my pockets for those gold dubloons, I saw what looked to be foreign currency that had the same size and feel of a quarter. And then I saw in English on the bottom of one side: "United Arab Emirates." Apparently somewhere (probably a vending machine) I got what is called a 1 dirham coin. Interesting! So even though it's worth 1 dirham, it probably was mistaken for 25 cents, so that is what it will go down for. I'm saving it anyway, along with the four Sacs. Total: $4.25.
- Friday, May 13 was the day I went to *****a's party. Got a VIP with *e***** to make up for the facial I accidentally gave her. Instead I was flaccid that I had to finish myself off. She quickly got dressed while I had my dick in my hands. It didn't take me long to realize that I was paying her even though I was jerking myself off. Stupid me. I got lappers from three of the other four there. The one that didn't goes to My Favorite Stripclub (Cover Version). They are hands-off, so it would have been deliciously ironic if I was able to lay my hands on her boobs. But, I had to leave. With cover and the total damage was: $175.
- Went to Glam Doll afterward. I wonder how often I'll be able to stop by now that Father's home? With tip: $11.
- To Thursday the 12th, where I thought it was a good time to use the other Chipotle coupon I had for a free burrito at the Mall of America. With Coke and tip it came out to just: $2.25.
- Don't exactly remember what I did afterward, but I wound up at Caffetto again, just on the computer, having a cup of coffee, which, with tip, came out to: $2.
- Then finished my night with an abbreviated stop at My Favorite Stripclub (Non-Cover Edition). The vibe was weird; there were only three dancers stripper on this shift, and I didn't really want to tip any girl than Kelsey, who was on-stage when I went in. Got so bored that I tipped her twice, didn't get caught without ordering a drink, and left about 15 minutes later. Total price for my "visit": $4.
- Tuesday, May 10, where, oh my God, a series of bullshit things happened at the library. Mother wanted me to print an invoice out, so I did. Then, a little bit before the library closed, I checked my phone to see that Mother, who said as I left the house that she only wanted one copy, in fact wanted two copies. So I tried going back into the e-mail where the invoice was and copy it, but when I printed it out, all I got was a blank square. I went back to the invoice, and it too was blank. Is it one of those one-print-only deals, if there is such a deal? So, just before the place closed, I had to copy the invoice. I hate burning money for bad printouts. Total: 30 cents.
- Sunday the 8th: To prepare for Mother's Day I took my car in for a wash. Charged the wash, but cash, of course, for the tip: $2.
- Afterwards I went to the library to print out more real estate stuff for Mother: $2.10.
- That evening Mother and I went to Murray's in downtown Minneapolis. If I had my druthers, we'd find free parking and walk there. But this is Mother's Day, after all, and we can't make Mother sweat. So we parked in the ramp next door. I wanted to use my credit card to pay on our way out, but the damn thing rejected my American Express. And it didn't just reject it; it spat it out, like a baby spitting up his baby carrots. Weirdest thing. So I had to break a ten, which meant I got four Sacagewea coins back -- the coins I put into storage later. Cost to park: $6.
- On Saturday the 7th, I decided to go across town, from the southeast Twin Cities to the southwest, after work because I wanted to bet on the Kentucky Derby at Canterbury Park. For the past few years the racetrack has sent me this free voucher from which I could get cash that I would ostensibly use to bet on the race. It could have given me a grand, but it was just two bucks, which it usually is. I bet that and much more on most of the horses in the field except Nyquist, the favorite and the horse that actually won the Derby. Whatevs. Cost of the bets plus a slice of pizza and the tip for that pizza equal: $15.25.
- Around the parking lot at Canterbury I found a quarter. An Infusion of: 25 cents.
- Friday, May 6: There was a party way south of the Twin Cities. I swore I wouldn't go down there because it's too far, but I didn't want to be a complete stranger and potentially alienate her, so I went because ****a was going to be there and I thought she would be down for a bunch of shit again. Big mistake. For a $20 cover I got entry to a condo that either didn't have air conditioning or was broken. The bitch who took my money (a former stripper!) was pushy. And ****a got so lit-up drunk that she was found passed out, then was found to have thrown up. Drank too much, she later said. So I wasn't able to pull it out. Instead I got some action with four of the dancers, one of whom charged me for two because she didn't stop and another who wanted to charge me for two even though we stopped at one. Not for a long time will I visit this place. Maybe in the dead of winter. Total cost for cover and five LDs total: $120.
- Wednesday the 4th ... drowned my sorrows the day of failing my first-ever test scoring test at the Chipotle at MOA, where I had planned to use a coupon mailed to me where I would get free chips and salsa with purchase of a burrito. Was so bummed that I ran out of salsa that I went back in line to buy some guacamole. With Coke and tip it came out to an expensive: $12.
- After Chipotle I went out to the library to print something out -- probably something of mine, not Mother's: 20 cents.
- Had a devil of a time getting those printouts, though I don't remember exactly for what. After I sat back down, printouts in hand, the guy who was waiting to print behind me came up to me and said, "Hey, you forgot your change in the change slot," and he gave me back what he thought was my change -- which paid for the two copies I had trouble making. This karma might be giving me good mojo. An Infusion of: 20 cents.
- On Tuesday, May 3 I stayed out for the evening to go to what turned out to be the only University of Minnesota baseball game I attended this year, a mid-season out-of-conference game vs. Kansas. It was a shootout, which the Gophers won. Program, hot dog and Coke came out to: $10.75.
- To Sunday the 1st, where I went to my only Golden Gopher softball game of the season, against Maryland. Program, hot dog and (smaller-sized) Coke (compared to the one I got at the U. baseball game): $9.25.
- That evening I went to Caffetto for a cherry pie and hot chocolate. I think they raised their prices around this time because prices used to be at quarters -- $3.25, $4.75, etc. With tip: $7.60.
- I went to My Favorite Stripclub (Non-Cover Division) after Caffetto. Sprite, tips and a lapper from *e***** totals: $29.75.
- Friday, April 29 -- After work I went to this ex-stripper who paid me back for lending her money earlier in the week, with 25% interest. She's normal! An Infusion of: $50.
- That night I chilled at Glam Doll. Two donuts, per usual, and a coffee, with tip: $12.
- And then I finished my night not getting chill at My Favorite Stripclub (Non-Cover Edition), where I didn't get a drink but tipped a lot and got a dance from two strippers, Kendra and Kelsey. Lot of money spent this evening: $44.
- On Thursday the 28th I went to ********a's party. I did what I used to do: Get one lapdance (with booby-touching!) from every single stripper working there, just to spread the wealth and love. Of her and the four other women, four of them have seen my dick, and I get the feeling the fifth wouldn't mind getting down; she joked after I got a dance from her that mine was "nice and big!" Well, you can tell for real next time! With cover: $115.
- Tuesday, April 26 ... I needed to go out this night for two reasons: To send in my evaluation regarding my grievances over The Move, and to find a Best Of The Twin Cities copy of City Pages before they're taken away Wednesday or Thursday. But I figured I could go to Milkjam Creamery and buy some ice cream and eat it while looking for a little kiosk in which there's a copy. I mean, there has to be tons of them up and down Lyndale Avenue, right? WRONG! Well, there was, but I had to walk a good half-mile before I could find one, and even then I was lucky to have found one of the last three copies in it. Oh yeah, ice cream plus tip: $5.
- And then I went to My Favorite Stripclub (Non-Cover Division) for tips and a Sprite: $7.75.
- On Monday the 25th I lent said money to the ex-stripper-turned-friend. Still not exactly sure why she needed to borrow money, and why she needed to borrow money from me, but she was decent enough to pay me back: $40.
- Sunday, April 24: Spent the morning at Anelace, a place but haven't been to in some time. Coffee plus tip: $4.
- Then had more coffee that night, at Caffetto. Salted caramel cheesecake, large coffee, and tip: $7.
- On Saturday the 23rd the alumni group went out to Como Zoo, a place I hadn't been to since a field trip in elementary school, if at all. It's a really nice facility, and it's free too -- well, if you don't count all the donation suggestions and not-so-subtle people standing in front of the donation boxes. That isn't pressure at all. Wish I could do that for the club. My donation: $4.
- After the trip I took in lunch at Maverick's, a place in a strip mall that is said to have the best roast beef in town. What they don't have, though, is enough workers. I saw a sign that said they were now going to close Sundays and Mondays (?!) due to a labor shortage. First of all, who gives a reason for why they're closed on certain days of the week? Second of all, if you have a labor shortage, why don't you pay people more? Would you have a "labor shortage" then? Finally, why is a mom-and-pop restaurant even using the term "labor shortage?" Why can't you say you're closed those two days, then, apropos of nothing, on the bottom of the sign that if you're interested in working, ask the manager. People will put two and two together without you looking like you don't completely grasp when certain terms should be used. Shoot, you charge so much for your food, you should be able to pay a new worker a decent hourly wage. With tip for a full meal: $12.56.
- Right on the parking lot of this strip mall is an old-time-looking Dairy Queen. It's small and it stands on its own in the lot, and you just walk up and order counter-style; you pick it up at the other window, then go to one of four tables and eat it. The old, crusty guy in front of me was complaining about something. When I got to the cashier, he looked at the guy, who wandered off to the pick-up window, and said, "That guy is always here complaining about something." Sounds to me like this is a shooting that's about to happen. Bought a hot fudge sundae, which is what I usually bought when I was young: $2.99.
- That evening I guess I went out, because I wound up at My Favorite Late-Night Italian Place, possibly for a burger and fries. With Coke and tip: $6.50.
- On Friday the 22nd I went to a party in St. Paul, right near the Green Line. It was my first time over at *****a's place because I think she just recently moved in. Got a dance from the host, but the main reason I was here was to get freaky with *e*****. I tried to take control of things, but I wound up shooting some cum into her eye. She didn't like that. Duly noted. That's why she would barely touch me the next time I was at *****a's party with her working there. With cover: $155.
- Finished up the evening at Glam Doll. Just one donut along with my coffee. Plus tip and the total was: $9.
- I think I found a penny on the floor of Glam Doll, heads-up. An Infusion of: 1 cent.
- Thursday, April 21: Because there's nothing on television on Thursdays, I went to My Favorite Stripclub (Non-Cover Edition), where I saw cute, underrated Tori for the first time in a long time. She seems like one of those strippers who makes a point to not become a part of the place and the lifers who've been dancing there -- you know, like she actually is only stripping because she has dreams of doing something else. Hope she doesn't, because she's got a hot body, and isn't afraid to use it! With coffee and tips: $30.
- And I think I found a dime there. An Infusion of: 10 cents.
Saturday, May 21, 2016
And, It's Over
I usually should be grateful for work, especially if it's slated to be the last day of a test scoring project, doubly especially if that project actually goes over its projected end date. However, even though I didn't really know how much work was left, I kind of thought that we wouldn't have a full eight hours of work left, like we did today. Came in at 7:30 and thought we'd leave by, at the latest, 1. That would allow me to catch the Gopher baseball season finale at Siebert Field at 2.
But no. With the help of extra papers that were dropped in our figurative lap last night (that's very odd; why would we get more papers the night after our supposed end date?), we stayed till 3:30. Actually, if a full day, we should have stayed till 4 and got lunch. I thought about just ditching the day at 1 so I could make it to the game, but again, there won't be work for another week-and-a-half or so, so I needed to curdle every single minute of work I can get.
(By the way, I tried going to the game after work, but I couldn't find parking close enough where it would justify me even catching the very end of it. But it was a good thing I bolted; the U. lost to Ohio St., 4-3, in ten innings. I would've been late to come home for dinner because the good guys lost. And doubly by the way, they won last [Friday] night, clinching the Big Ten regular season championship, so they may not have had much to play for today.)
So that is it. A project that featured a phantom guy swooping in as an immediate supervisor for a week then leaving (mental note: have to remember to complain about this to their Human Resources department), some bitchy passive-aggressiveness by leadership, a lot of being told to go back to my desk (had to complain about that in the evaluation; I still am pretty incensed about being lectured to like I was a child), me moving around from laptop to laptop (reading material in tow) like a refugee fleeing his war-torn country, and the entire project being moved four different rooms five times, and it's over after six weeks.
I am usually melancholy about the deaths of test scoring projects, but this cavalcade had so many disruptions that forced me and the entire room start-and-stop that it got to be very tiresome. In particular, moving from task to task because there were so few papers to score before we had to move on, and needing to buddy up with the person next to you to score papers several times a day, neither of which I have ever faced, was very irksome. Those two things, I'm afraid, might be a reflection of the new kind of tests -- evaluating essays as a reflection of Common Core standards -- that will represent The New Normal.
Oh, and the commute. I won't have to drive an hour there and waste 80 minutes going back ... at least until this project begins in August. The next project will be in the same city as the place I went to in years past, but it's a different building. I am afraid that it'll actually be a longer commute than the one I usually took last year, but I think it'll be shorter than the one I've had to endure the past month-and-a-half.
Also, there are things that I should do that I now have the time to do. My health insurance, for one. Maybe I'll talk about it later, but as of right now I don't have health insurance. I get to see my shrink. I should get back to exercising, and I'll be able to do that for now. I'll have reason to eat fast food for lunch (even though I'll have to take the sandwich Mother makes for me every day, just in order to keep up with the ruse that I'm working). I might even take in a Twins game, just to see how horrid they are now.
I should still get a full-time job, but for me, right now, this is good.
But no. With the help of extra papers that were dropped in our figurative lap last night (that's very odd; why would we get more papers the night after our supposed end date?), we stayed till 3:30. Actually, if a full day, we should have stayed till 4 and got lunch. I thought about just ditching the day at 1 so I could make it to the game, but again, there won't be work for another week-and-a-half or so, so I needed to curdle every single minute of work I can get.
(By the way, I tried going to the game after work, but I couldn't find parking close enough where it would justify me even catching the very end of it. But it was a good thing I bolted; the U. lost to Ohio St., 4-3, in ten innings. I would've been late to come home for dinner because the good guys lost. And doubly by the way, they won last [Friday] night, clinching the Big Ten regular season championship, so they may not have had much to play for today.)
So that is it. A project that featured a phantom guy swooping in as an immediate supervisor for a week then leaving (mental note: have to remember to complain about this to their Human Resources department), some bitchy passive-aggressiveness by leadership, a lot of being told to go back to my desk (had to complain about that in the evaluation; I still am pretty incensed about being lectured to like I was a child), me moving around from laptop to laptop (reading material in tow) like a refugee fleeing his war-torn country, and the entire project being moved four different rooms five times, and it's over after six weeks.
I am usually melancholy about the deaths of test scoring projects, but this cavalcade had so many disruptions that forced me and the entire room start-and-stop that it got to be very tiresome. In particular, moving from task to task because there were so few papers to score before we had to move on, and needing to buddy up with the person next to you to score papers several times a day, neither of which I have ever faced, was very irksome. Those two things, I'm afraid, might be a reflection of the new kind of tests -- evaluating essays as a reflection of Common Core standards -- that will represent The New Normal.
Oh, and the commute. I won't have to drive an hour there and waste 80 minutes going back ... at least until this project begins in August. The next project will be in the same city as the place I went to in years past, but it's a different building. I am afraid that it'll actually be a longer commute than the one I usually took last year, but I think it'll be shorter than the one I've had to endure the past month-and-a-half.
Also, there are things that I should do that I now have the time to do. My health insurance, for one. Maybe I'll talk about it later, but as of right now I don't have health insurance. I get to see my shrink. I should get back to exercising, and I'll be able to do that for now. I'll have reason to eat fast food for lunch (even though I'll have to take the sandwich Mother makes for me every day, just in order to keep up with the ruse that I'm working). I might even take in a Twins game, just to see how horrid they are now.
I should still get a full-time job, but for me, right now, this is good.
Friday, May 20, 2016
The Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey
#0: Gopher softball (Last Week: -1). There should be more publicity about this team. They currently enjoy a 14-game winning streak after claiming the program's third softball conference title over the weekend. The ousted the second-ranked team in the country, Michigan, in 10 innings by a score of 4-3 on an error. Sara Groenewegen (talk about players who don't receive enough pub) pitched all three games for the Gophers in State College, Pa., a total of 24 innings, striking out 11 Wolverines in the championship game. Groenewegen was named Player Of The Week by USA Softball. The Gophers have risen to #15 in the national rankings, and they earned an automatic bid to participate in the NCAA Tournament for the fourth straight year.
So they didn't get a national seed? They aren't good enough to host a regional? How do you figure? (Meanwhile, you could say that Michigan had nothing to play for, and you can at least say that their title game loss didn't hurt them; they are the #2 overall seed even after losing to the U.) In fact, they were placed in the same regional as the host and 11-seed in the tourney, Washington, along with Weber St. and the Gophers' first opponent this (Friday) evening, North Dakota St., a team, BTW, that was the nemesis in a midweek doubleheader that was cancelled due to inclement weather. So, if you go strictly by the S-Curve (and I know you shouldn't, since the softball tournament places teams sort of by region) Minnesota is only the 21st-best team in the nation. And if they win this regional, they likely will have to travel to 6-seed Alabama in the super regional. That doesn't seem to be fair for a club that finished the season 41-12 and 19-3 in-conference. And that's why I'm giving this squad only a 0 -- disrespect that pushes this team to an unenviable spot.
Regardless, good luck to the Gopher softballers. Right now, they seem to be our only hope in this godforsaken sports landscape.
#-1: Gopher baseball (Last Week: -3). Oh-oh. They followed up a road sweep of B1G bottom-dweller Purdue (although Friday's 4-3 result had to go to ten innings) with a ten-inning loss at South Dakota St. and, last (Thursday) evening, a 3-2 defeat at home at the hands of Ohio St. Finally, Pitching Coach Todd Oakes was moved to hospice care this week. It is the third time he has battled cancer, but when you go to hospice, well, I'm afraid it's the last ride. Maybe that's weighing on the team, and that's why they're on a two-game losing streak and in jeopardy of not winning the conference regular season title. (Although they're a half-game ahead of Indiana for the lead.) Hey, a series of bad results from here on out and the U. may slide out of the tournament altogether.
Meanwhile, the Buckeyes have won seven in a row (tops in the Big Ten) and they themselves have a chance to win the league this final weekend. And they face the Goofs two more times at Siebert. I should be at Saturday afternoon's season finale, which begins at 2, assuming I leave work early enough.
#-2: Twins (Last Week: -Infinity). 2-5 for the week. They managed to win a series in Cleveland over the weekend, but then got swept for the eighth time this year over the workweek in Detroit. Tuesday's game was particularly galling; Phil Hughes kept the Tigers scoreless but had to leave in the sixth inning, and the bullpen, as it has done way too frequently this year, choked on a 2-0 lead. And last (Thursday) night, Ervin Santana couldn't keep Toronto scoreless long enough as the Blue Jays eventually notched it at 2, then grabbed a 3-2 lead in the 11th that they didn't relinquish.
I'm telling ya, only two things are hurting the Twinks right now: Hitting and pitching. Fix those two things and everything will be fine. They are at Target Field the rest of the week; after finishing their four-game series over the weekend vs. Toronto, the World Champion Kansas City Royals come to town for three.
So they didn't get a national seed? They aren't good enough to host a regional? How do you figure? (Meanwhile, you could say that Michigan had nothing to play for, and you can at least say that their title game loss didn't hurt them; they are the #2 overall seed even after losing to the U.) In fact, they were placed in the same regional as the host and 11-seed in the tourney, Washington, along with Weber St. and the Gophers' first opponent this (Friday) evening, North Dakota St., a team, BTW, that was the nemesis in a midweek doubleheader that was cancelled due to inclement weather. So, if you go strictly by the S-Curve (and I know you shouldn't, since the softball tournament places teams sort of by region) Minnesota is only the 21st-best team in the nation. And if they win this regional, they likely will have to travel to 6-seed Alabama in the super regional. That doesn't seem to be fair for a club that finished the season 41-12 and 19-3 in-conference. And that's why I'm giving this squad only a 0 -- disrespect that pushes this team to an unenviable spot.
Regardless, good luck to the Gopher softballers. Right now, they seem to be our only hope in this godforsaken sports landscape.
#-1: Gopher baseball (Last Week: -3). Oh-oh. They followed up a road sweep of B1G bottom-dweller Purdue (although Friday's 4-3 result had to go to ten innings) with a ten-inning loss at South Dakota St. and, last (Thursday) evening, a 3-2 defeat at home at the hands of Ohio St. Finally, Pitching Coach Todd Oakes was moved to hospice care this week. It is the third time he has battled cancer, but when you go to hospice, well, I'm afraid it's the last ride. Maybe that's weighing on the team, and that's why they're on a two-game losing streak and in jeopardy of not winning the conference regular season title. (Although they're a half-game ahead of Indiana for the lead.) Hey, a series of bad results from here on out and the U. may slide out of the tournament altogether.
Meanwhile, the Buckeyes have won seven in a row (tops in the Big Ten) and they themselves have a chance to win the league this final weekend. And they face the Goofs two more times at Siebert. I should be at Saturday afternoon's season finale, which begins at 2, assuming I leave work early enough.
#-2: Twins (Last Week: -Infinity). 2-5 for the week. They managed to win a series in Cleveland over the weekend, but then got swept for the eighth time this year over the workweek in Detroit. Tuesday's game was particularly galling; Phil Hughes kept the Tigers scoreless but had to leave in the sixth inning, and the bullpen, as it has done way too frequently this year, choked on a 2-0 lead. And last (Thursday) night, Ervin Santana couldn't keep Toronto scoreless long enough as the Blue Jays eventually notched it at 2, then grabbed a 3-2 lead in the 11th that they didn't relinquish.
I'm telling ya, only two things are hurting the Twinks right now: Hitting and pitching. Fix those two things and everything will be fine. They are at Target Field the rest of the week; after finishing their four-game series over the weekend vs. Toronto, the World Champion Kansas City Royals come to town for three.
Thursday, May 19, 2016
It Starts!
Man, all I did was step out of my bedroom before My Fucking Father, barely 12 hours into his time back in Minnesota, tells me to take out the trash. That asshole was lucky that I was leaving to go to the library. But what bothers me is that he didn't know that; he said, "Hey, are you leaving?" That didn't stop him for telling me to take out the trash, something I never did before he took off for Las Vegas. So that prick expects me to just get out of my room because he doesn't want to take the trash outside anymore? Who does he think he is? Who does he think I am?
So no, I did not roll the trash receptacle down to the curb. I forgot, but he doesn't know that. For all he knows, I was rebelling. He probably went outside and did it himself because it was down there when I got home. So, My Fucking Father had to leave the house after all!
The first skirmish of many, I'm afraid. This is why we can't live together.
So no, I did not roll the trash receptacle down to the curb. I forgot, but he doesn't know that. For all he knows, I was rebelling. He probably went outside and did it himself because it was down there when I got home. So, My Fucking Father had to leave the house after all!
The first skirmish of many, I'm afraid. This is why we can't live together.
Wednesday, May 18, 2016
Being Able To Relax Is Over
Father comes home in the morning. Mother's picking him up. I will be long gone by the time they come home.
I am angry and resigned and melancholy. The past couple days I've shoveled all the shit he complains about into bags, all of which I have thrown into storage last (Tuesday) evening. After that and getting gas, I celebrated "my last day of freedom" (as I often do in the night before my parents come home) by going to Caffetto and tooling around my (very slow) computer and then going to My Favorite Stripclub (Non-Cover Edition) to get a lapdance.
There are still a bunch of things I could do that, if I don't do them, will incur My Fucking Father's wrath. There's still a lot of stuff in my room, no matter how much I remove them from sight. I surely haven't dusted my bedroom. And even though I made a laundry run on Saturday night, I still have a pile of clothes I know he'll want to throw into the washing machine (regardless that they have different wash and dry settings) as soon as he gets home. And he'll probably scrub my floor too, and then give a thorough cleaning to the bathroom. And then he'll yell at me for not doing any of those things while he's been gone, and then he'll follow up with, "Why aren't you going back to school?" and shit like that.
I can't win no matter what I do. So I do what I think is the most important stuff that I can do, which are the papers and hanging up my clothes, and then fuck the rest because I don't have the energy to do anything about it, so I'll just absorb the verbal abuse. It's what I've learned to cope. But I won't absorb it until after I get back tonight, which I am putting off as much as I can. I have an excuse: I am up for a job, but I have to take these online tests, and it's best to do them in a computer that isn't slow -- i.e. one at the library, not mine.
I have to confess: I have wondered what my life would be like once my parents died. And honestly, if my old man died, I don't think I'd be sad. In many ways, in fact, I'll be relieved. And our rocky relationship is a reason why I would feel that way.
Being able to relax is over. Now, wish me luck.
I am angry and resigned and melancholy. The past couple days I've shoveled all the shit he complains about into bags, all of which I have thrown into storage last (Tuesday) evening. After that and getting gas, I celebrated "my last day of freedom" (as I often do in the night before my parents come home) by going to Caffetto and tooling around my (very slow) computer and then going to My Favorite Stripclub (Non-Cover Edition) to get a lapdance.
There are still a bunch of things I could do that, if I don't do them, will incur My Fucking Father's wrath. There's still a lot of stuff in my room, no matter how much I remove them from sight. I surely haven't dusted my bedroom. And even though I made a laundry run on Saturday night, I still have a pile of clothes I know he'll want to throw into the washing machine (regardless that they have different wash and dry settings) as soon as he gets home. And he'll probably scrub my floor too, and then give a thorough cleaning to the bathroom. And then he'll yell at me for not doing any of those things while he's been gone, and then he'll follow up with, "Why aren't you going back to school?" and shit like that.
I can't win no matter what I do. So I do what I think is the most important stuff that I can do, which are the papers and hanging up my clothes, and then fuck the rest because I don't have the energy to do anything about it, so I'll just absorb the verbal abuse. It's what I've learned to cope. But I won't absorb it until after I get back tonight, which I am putting off as much as I can. I have an excuse: I am up for a job, but I have to take these online tests, and it's best to do them in a computer that isn't slow -- i.e. one at the library, not mine.
I have to confess: I have wondered what my life would be like once my parents died. And honestly, if my old man died, I don't think I'd be sad. In many ways, in fact, I'll be relieved. And our rocky relationship is a reason why I would feel that way.
Being able to relax is over. Now, wish me luck.
Tuesday, May 17, 2016
Stuff That I Don't Get: This Chanel Commercial
OK, I just realized that for the longest time I wanted to blog about this, and since I don't really want to talk about the other things I'm thinking about, it's about time.
Can anyone explain to me what the hell this Chanel commercial's supposed to be about?
OK, my issues with this:
1) Who's the girl?
2) He's a photographer ... and then he's an actor?
3) How did the girl wind up being a reporter? Is this a case of a reporter breaching her journalistic duty and falling in love with the actor?
4) Is his girlfriend's question the one the PR guy asks him whether he wants her to repeat?
5) Also, how in the hell does the girlfriend wind up in the press conference? Do people know they're together (assuming they are together)?
6) Why does looking at her face, and then flashing back to all the good times they had together, trigger something? I mean, what is the obstacle this protagonist faces which is solved with the help of gazing at her in that press conference? Is the obstacle the question he can't understand?
7) Why in the hell does he say, "I will not be the person I'm expected to be anymore?" Who is that person? Where in the flashback does that show that he would rather not be that person, whoever he is? Who are the people who do expect him to be that person he doesn't want to be? Really, the question is: Why is he so upset?
8) Why and how do the walls just suddenly slide to the floor, as if the guy just opened up a secret panel to unlock a box and discover the mystery inside it?
9) Finally, and most importantly: What the fuck does this ad have to do with men's cologne? Wait a second ... is this Bleu de Chanel even cologne? Or is it perfume?
Yeah, it's not a film, although I had just learned before blogging this post that the actor is Gaspard Ulliel and the ad was directed by none other than Martin Scorsese several years ago. I get that you can't really create an entire plot in 30 seconds, although (and again I just discovered this now) the full commercial is a minute. But goddamn, this spot has confused me so much that from time to time I still think about it, even though I haven't seen it on TV in a while (although it seems as though I have seen it in spurts half a year ago, and then in a similar spasm, like, a year before that).
Any insight, guys?
Can anyone explain to me what the hell this Chanel commercial's supposed to be about?
OK, my issues with this:
1) Who's the girl?
2) He's a photographer ... and then he's an actor?
3) How did the girl wind up being a reporter? Is this a case of a reporter breaching her journalistic duty and falling in love with the actor?
4) Is his girlfriend's question the one the PR guy asks him whether he wants her to repeat?
5) Also, how in the hell does the girlfriend wind up in the press conference? Do people know they're together (assuming they are together)?
6) Why does looking at her face, and then flashing back to all the good times they had together, trigger something? I mean, what is the obstacle this protagonist faces which is solved with the help of gazing at her in that press conference? Is the obstacle the question he can't understand?
7) Why in the hell does he say, "I will not be the person I'm expected to be anymore?" Who is that person? Where in the flashback does that show that he would rather not be that person, whoever he is? Who are the people who do expect him to be that person he doesn't want to be? Really, the question is: Why is he so upset?
8) Why and how do the walls just suddenly slide to the floor, as if the guy just opened up a secret panel to unlock a box and discover the mystery inside it?
9) Finally, and most importantly: What the fuck does this ad have to do with men's cologne? Wait a second ... is this Bleu de Chanel even cologne? Or is it perfume?
Yeah, it's not a film, although I had just learned before blogging this post that the actor is Gaspard Ulliel and the ad was directed by none other than Martin Scorsese several years ago. I get that you can't really create an entire plot in 30 seconds, although (and again I just discovered this now) the full commercial is a minute. But goddamn, this spot has confused me so much that from time to time I still think about it, even though I haven't seen it on TV in a while (although it seems as though I have seen it in spurts half a year ago, and then in a similar spasm, like, a year before that).
Any insight, guys?
Monday, May 16, 2016
My Losing Battle With Correspondence
Noticed lately that I have been falling behind farther and farther from catching up with all the messages I haven't yet read in all my online correspondence vehicles.
For instance, I have my Hotmail account. It's the first one I ever opened up. I remember doing it when I was in my summer class to Europe after I graduated; was at an Internet bar in Prague when I signed up for Hotmail. It (as well as another Hotmail account I created) became my secondary account because I gave some guy at a Barnes & Noble my e-mail address and he just used it to spam the shit out of it, and now I can't use it for anything important.
However, I have found a use for it as the e-mail address for anything I wanted to sign up for, but have to keep receiving newsletters every week or month for. I have signed up for a lot over the years, therefore the amount of junk electronic mail has piled up -- more than 20,000, in fact, and I am years behind. That's one reason why I am looking forward to potentially two weeks off before my next project: I hope to burn through all those e-mails in order to cut down on the five-figure correspondence. And no, I have not thought about just deleting them all. I signed up for these, the least I can do is take a glance.
What's unfortunate, however, is that the same e-mail creep is happening to my primary e-mail account, my Yahoo! I created the Yahoo! because of all the crap I kept getting on my Hotmail, and I wanted to start fresh. For the most part it's working. Although it's inevitable that I get spam, it usually finds its way into the spam folder, where I can completely ignore it.
However, I have been careless when it comes to signing up for things. In a moment of weakness, I give the Yahoo! address to something in order to buy it, or to receive newsletters that I really wanted to see at the time, and I knew I wouldn't even take a look if I sent it to the Hotmail. Well, I've used that so much that now that's piling up. I had been pretty good about keeping the pile low, but it was around early last month that I wasn't able to login and go through it, and I guess I strung a few days together and now ... I have 800 unopened pieces of electronic mail. I don't know how in the hell it got to be so many, but I have to have time to slay this dragon.
And now this crap is infecting my Facebook newsfeed! This is what I get for continually adding babes I don't know. I want to be a part of their lives, but I am now a part of so many lives that every time I check my Facebook I have, like, a dozen new notices. It wasn't so long ago where that was not the case. But the sheer tonnage of liking new hot models and bodybuilders -- both of whom naturally post picture after picture of themselves -- means I have to devote even more time to mowing that stuff down. Many days recently I had not been able to, but it has been under control since. But this is a beast that will permanently have to be contained, and even more so since I have no plans to stop being Facebook friends with hot babes.
No wonder I don't have time to go back to school -- I have to catch up with my mail.
For instance, I have my Hotmail account. It's the first one I ever opened up. I remember doing it when I was in my summer class to Europe after I graduated; was at an Internet bar in Prague when I signed up for Hotmail. It (as well as another Hotmail account I created) became my secondary account because I gave some guy at a Barnes & Noble my e-mail address and he just used it to spam the shit out of it, and now I can't use it for anything important.
However, I have found a use for it as the e-mail address for anything I wanted to sign up for, but have to keep receiving newsletters every week or month for. I have signed up for a lot over the years, therefore the amount of junk electronic mail has piled up -- more than 20,000, in fact, and I am years behind. That's one reason why I am looking forward to potentially two weeks off before my next project: I hope to burn through all those e-mails in order to cut down on the five-figure correspondence. And no, I have not thought about just deleting them all. I signed up for these, the least I can do is take a glance.
What's unfortunate, however, is that the same e-mail creep is happening to my primary e-mail account, my Yahoo! I created the Yahoo! because of all the crap I kept getting on my Hotmail, and I wanted to start fresh. For the most part it's working. Although it's inevitable that I get spam, it usually finds its way into the spam folder, where I can completely ignore it.
However, I have been careless when it comes to signing up for things. In a moment of weakness, I give the Yahoo! address to something in order to buy it, or to receive newsletters that I really wanted to see at the time, and I knew I wouldn't even take a look if I sent it to the Hotmail. Well, I've used that so much that now that's piling up. I had been pretty good about keeping the pile low, but it was around early last month that I wasn't able to login and go through it, and I guess I strung a few days together and now ... I have 800 unopened pieces of electronic mail. I don't know how in the hell it got to be so many, but I have to have time to slay this dragon.
And now this crap is infecting my Facebook newsfeed! This is what I get for continually adding babes I don't know. I want to be a part of their lives, but I am now a part of so many lives that every time I check my Facebook I have, like, a dozen new notices. It wasn't so long ago where that was not the case. But the sheer tonnage of liking new hot models and bodybuilders -- both of whom naturally post picture after picture of themselves -- means I have to devote even more time to mowing that stuff down. Many days recently I had not been able to, but it has been under control since. But this is a beast that will permanently have to be contained, and even more so since I have no plans to stop being Facebook friends with hot babes.
No wonder I don't have time to go back to school -- I have to catch up with my mail.
Sunday, May 15, 2016
The Drainage Issue Is Solved!
In the span of just over a week, the problem that the water from the washing machine overflows back up into the floor of the laundry room is no more. Completely gone. Kaput.
Solving the problem actually started more than a week ago, and it actually started when the problem got worse. One day after dinner Mother told me that the water back-up got into an adjacent room, the furnace room. Saw the huge puddle that seemed to seep under these wood blocks upon which lay a bunch of knickknacks my parents hoard -- papers, old VHS tapes of kung-fun movies, tools, etc. It was everywhere, and despite trying to clean it up, I looked at this as the worsening of a problem I couldn't solve when it was relatively small. I really was going to fight Mother (and, really, Father, because he was going to have to know about this) that we would have to call for someone to check this out.
Naturally, Mother ran to the sage advice of My Fucking Father, who told us to use that snake thing I tried to use to no success over the winter. Mother, Buddha bless her, thought that we could try later that night, together. That convinced me to give it one more try. However, when I moved the snake to the laundry room, she told me to move it back to where I found it -- in the furnace room, where this supposed new leak was. She had no experience of trying to drain the back-up, but she knew that the snake wasn't supposed to go down the spillover drain in the laundry room. In fact, there is a tributary pipe in the furnace room where you're supposed to dip the snake into. Mother has seen Father do that a lot, I guess.
Well, I stand corrected. I'll try anything different, and if what I tried was flat-out wrong, well, maybe this wasn't going to be so bad after all.
She did the heavy lifting. Mother fed the snake down the pipe. I just plugged the contraption in and stepped on the pedal that gave the snake the twisting motion to punch through any back-up as Mother pushed it further into the pipe. And that is exactly what happened: At some point, the snake punched through something, and Mother heard a gurgling noise indicating the standing water in this tributary pipe was quickly shooting through the standpipe, out of the house and away from any potential chance it would cause trouble for us. I didn't hear it -- that is how little attention I paid to this job because, really, Mother had it handled.
"How do you know that solved the problem?" I asked Mother.
"I know," she replied.
And you know what? I haven't had a problem since. I've done two loads of laundry, both of them big piles because Mother wanted to throw some of her dirty clothes in with mine, and there has not been any huge back-up of water ever since. Not even close. And that is a huge relief, knowing that the key was to push the snake down the right pipe. Not only is the problem gone for now, if it ever comes back, I think I know what to do from now on.
Moreover, I think I have solved the other back-up problem, the one from the sink down into the pipe. There are two partitions for our sink. And one of them (the one the drain pipe from the washing machine shoots its waste water into) always seems to drain slower, a lot slower, than the other one. Well of course the sink partition that the water lands into is the one that drains slowly.
But I realized there was an obvious reason for that -- the strainers for each sink partition. There is always lint that is injected out along with the waste water. That ultimately gets caught by the strainer, but that blocks the water from draining, so it drains slower. I continually have to reach my hand in to scrape out the link so it'll drain. But even though I theorize that link gets stuck in both strainers, the one on the right (the one the washer pipe shoots its water over to get to the other one) somehow still drains faster. Don't know why, but I figured tonight was the time to just switch the strainers. (I know I switched the strainers before, when I bought a new one for the right one.)
Well, even though I couldn't tell if any waste water spilled into the right one, the one now with the "bad" strainer, I went back downstairs just late tonight (I had planned on doing the laundry earlier in the evening, but I fell asleep trying to watch the Minnesota United match and then just waited till after Saturday Night Live) and saw that the standing water level in the left partition, the one with the "good" strainer, was low and noticeably draining water at a reasonable rate. I did scrape the strainer for lint, but luckily, the fast-moving water did not back up through the laundry room floor (like it did the last time) because Mother and I cleared up any clog in the furnace room.
So now that the clog in the pipe is fixed and the clog in the tub is OK-to-better-than-OK ... well, everything is hunky-dory!
Solving the problem actually started more than a week ago, and it actually started when the problem got worse. One day after dinner Mother told me that the water back-up got into an adjacent room, the furnace room. Saw the huge puddle that seemed to seep under these wood blocks upon which lay a bunch of knickknacks my parents hoard -- papers, old VHS tapes of kung-fun movies, tools, etc. It was everywhere, and despite trying to clean it up, I looked at this as the worsening of a problem I couldn't solve when it was relatively small. I really was going to fight Mother (and, really, Father, because he was going to have to know about this) that we would have to call for someone to check this out.
Naturally, Mother ran to the sage advice of My Fucking Father, who told us to use that snake thing I tried to use to no success over the winter. Mother, Buddha bless her, thought that we could try later that night, together. That convinced me to give it one more try. However, when I moved the snake to the laundry room, she told me to move it back to where I found it -- in the furnace room, where this supposed new leak was. She had no experience of trying to drain the back-up, but she knew that the snake wasn't supposed to go down the spillover drain in the laundry room. In fact, there is a tributary pipe in the furnace room where you're supposed to dip the snake into. Mother has seen Father do that a lot, I guess.
Well, I stand corrected. I'll try anything different, and if what I tried was flat-out wrong, well, maybe this wasn't going to be so bad after all.
She did the heavy lifting. Mother fed the snake down the pipe. I just plugged the contraption in and stepped on the pedal that gave the snake the twisting motion to punch through any back-up as Mother pushed it further into the pipe. And that is exactly what happened: At some point, the snake punched through something, and Mother heard a gurgling noise indicating the standing water in this tributary pipe was quickly shooting through the standpipe, out of the house and away from any potential chance it would cause trouble for us. I didn't hear it -- that is how little attention I paid to this job because, really, Mother had it handled.
"How do you know that solved the problem?" I asked Mother.
"I know," she replied.
And you know what? I haven't had a problem since. I've done two loads of laundry, both of them big piles because Mother wanted to throw some of her dirty clothes in with mine, and there has not been any huge back-up of water ever since. Not even close. And that is a huge relief, knowing that the key was to push the snake down the right pipe. Not only is the problem gone for now, if it ever comes back, I think I know what to do from now on.
Moreover, I think I have solved the other back-up problem, the one from the sink down into the pipe. There are two partitions for our sink. And one of them (the one the drain pipe from the washing machine shoots its waste water into) always seems to drain slower, a lot slower, than the other one. Well of course the sink partition that the water lands into is the one that drains slowly.
But I realized there was an obvious reason for that -- the strainers for each sink partition. There is always lint that is injected out along with the waste water. That ultimately gets caught by the strainer, but that blocks the water from draining, so it drains slower. I continually have to reach my hand in to scrape out the link so it'll drain. But even though I theorize that link gets stuck in both strainers, the one on the right (the one the washer pipe shoots its water over to get to the other one) somehow still drains faster. Don't know why, but I figured tonight was the time to just switch the strainers. (I know I switched the strainers before, when I bought a new one for the right one.)
Well, even though I couldn't tell if any waste water spilled into the right one, the one now with the "bad" strainer, I went back downstairs just late tonight (I had planned on doing the laundry earlier in the evening, but I fell asleep trying to watch the Minnesota United match and then just waited till after Saturday Night Live) and saw that the standing water level in the left partition, the one with the "good" strainer, was low and noticeably draining water at a reasonable rate. I did scrape the strainer for lint, but luckily, the fast-moving water did not back up through the laundry room floor (like it did the last time) because Mother and I cleared up any clog in the furnace room.
So now that the clog in the pipe is fixed and the clog in the tub is OK-to-better-than-OK ... well, everything is hunky-dory!
Saturday, May 14, 2016
Oh, So He Lied To Me
So when I was working for that health insurance company over open enrollment season, I was supervised, lightly, by this rotund, jovial man. He was as cool of an authority figure as I've ever had -- hands-off, trusting, not suspicious, nice, and knew that we could only do so much. So that's why, when he said to call him if I ever needed help finding full-time work with the company, that I felt safe that if I called him up, he would answer, or he would at least get back to me.
I've called him twice. He hasn't returned either of my voicemail. I actually saw him outside Target Field when the city screened Purple Rain the Saturday after Prince's death; he didn't acknowledge me, although it's possible he didn't recognize me. That was inbetween cars. I don't know if he's, like, really busy or something, but I'm starting to get the feeling that he's avoiding me, and that in fact he doesn't give a shit about me.
So if he didn't really want to help me find a job, that he was just bullshitting me and the other two guys I was working with, why did he call us in and say that he wanted to help us? Is he a liar?
I've called him twice. He hasn't returned either of my voicemail. I actually saw him outside Target Field when the city screened Purple Rain the Saturday after Prince's death; he didn't acknowledge me, although it's possible he didn't recognize me. That was inbetween cars. I don't know if he's, like, really busy or something, but I'm starting to get the feeling that he's avoiding me, and that in fact he doesn't give a shit about me.
So if he didn't really want to help me find a job, that he was just bullshitting me and the other two guys I was working with, why did he call us in and say that he wanted to help us? Is he a liar?
Friday, May 13, 2016
The Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey
#-1: Gopher softball (Last Week: -1). Welp, everything is coming up Milhouse for the Minnesota softball club. Although they didn't play the minimum 15 innings this past weekend at Iowa that closed out the 2016 regular season like I thought (only the Sunday game went the minimum 5, where they routed the Hawkeyes 12-0), they did sweep them. They finish the season winning 11 in a row, a record 19-3 in the Big Ten and 38-12 overall, and the second seed (behind Michigan) heading into this weekend's conference tournament at Penn St. They have a bye for the tourney, which started yesterday (Thursday), so they face Illinois this (Friday) afternoon. (Unlike in baseball, which is double-elimination, the softball tournament is single-elimination. Don't know why it's different; if anything, it should be softball that's double-elim because the games are shorter.)
In the meantime the accolades have come in. Third Baseman Sam Macken, Maddie Houlihan and Sara Groenewegen were all named First-Team All-B1G. Taylor LeMay was named the Catcher for the conference All-Defensive Team. Houlihan, who plays first, was named Big Ten Freshman Of The Year. And Groenewegen was named one of ten finalists for USA Softball Collegiate Player Of The Year for the second year in a row. This could be the greatest team in program history.
Most important of all, the U.'s entry into the NCAA Tournament seems assured. In the meantime, I wonder if there will be a mano-a-mano title game matchup Saturday night between the Gophers and top-seed Michigan, where Groenewegen will go toe-to-toe vs. the Wolverines' Megan Betsa.
#-2: Wild (Re-Entry!). I like the hiring of Bruce Boudreau as new Head Coach of the Mild. When the Anaheim Ducks cut him loose after they choked at home in Game 7 of their first-round playoff series against Nashville, the Mild rightly jumped on that shit like it was going out of style.
The Ducks had a reason to fire Boudreau. They won the Pacific Division this year, and it marks the fourth time he coached a team that lost a Game 7. Doesn't matter -- the Mild aren't really in a position to worry about that in what may be a very fragile part of their life cycle. What they need to lean on now is Boudreau's ability to kick ass throughout the regular season, something that this franchise has not been able to navigate without noticeable headwinds during the Mike Yeo and Todd Richards regimes. If he can get this club a second division title, we'll take a Game 7 loss because that would be progress.
The other thing that Boudreau possesses that this team needs is bluntness. Yeo's downfall was his inability to stand up to Zach Parise and Ryan Suter, who increasingly are becoming divas who don't produce on the ice. Boudreau doesn't mind cussing out any player that deserves. The thinking, the hope, is that he'll stand up to slackers and stupidity. At the very least the fanbase will appreciate that their views may be echoed in the locker room by the Head Coach; right now, the Wild may be the worst team of The Local Big Four (yes, even worse than the Twinks), and I would venture to guess the roster may be the most hated of The Local Big Four.
#-3: Gopher baseball (Last Week: -2). What a difference a week makes. This time last week the Gophers were leading the Big Ten standings. But after losing two-of-three to then-second place Indiana (at home, no less), they are tied with Michigan for second place (one game behind the Hoosiers), only 1 1/2 games ahead of Michigan St. and Nebraska. Only four games separate first from ninth, and remember, only the top eight teams reach the conference tournament. With six games left in the season, there's still a chance that the squad, which started so strong, could slide out of NCAA tournament contention. And it's not a great time to go on the road, even if it is a three-game series this weekend against Purdue, the worst team in the B1G with a conference record of 2-19 and an overall record of 7-39. (Wow, that sucks. I mean, that's, like, Twins bad.) Then on Tuesday they play their final non-conference mid-week game at South Dakota St. Finally, they begin the final series of the year Thursday against Ohio St. at Siebert.
#-Infinity: Twins (Last Week: -3). Lost all five games this screening week. They have lost seven games in a row. They were swept at the White Sox over the weekend and by the Orioles (it was only two games because the third was rained out, but hey, they still did not win a game) at Target over the workweek. It was the seventh time they've been swept this year. It is the second time they've been swept by the White Sox this year. The fucking season is only six weeks old. And they are on pace to go 39-123 -- that's Cleveland Spiders territory.
Gas this team. Now.
This week: In Cleveland, then in Detroit, then they come back home to start a four-game series against Toronto Thursday.
In the meantime the accolades have come in. Third Baseman Sam Macken, Maddie Houlihan and Sara Groenewegen were all named First-Team All-B1G. Taylor LeMay was named the Catcher for the conference All-Defensive Team. Houlihan, who plays first, was named Big Ten Freshman Of The Year. And Groenewegen was named one of ten finalists for USA Softball Collegiate Player Of The Year for the second year in a row. This could be the greatest team in program history.
Most important of all, the U.'s entry into the NCAA Tournament seems assured. In the meantime, I wonder if there will be a mano-a-mano title game matchup Saturday night between the Gophers and top-seed Michigan, where Groenewegen will go toe-to-toe vs. the Wolverines' Megan Betsa.
#-2: Wild (Re-Entry!). I like the hiring of Bruce Boudreau as new Head Coach of the Mild. When the Anaheim Ducks cut him loose after they choked at home in Game 7 of their first-round playoff series against Nashville, the Mild rightly jumped on that shit like it was going out of style.
The Ducks had a reason to fire Boudreau. They won the Pacific Division this year, and it marks the fourth time he coached a team that lost a Game 7. Doesn't matter -- the Mild aren't really in a position to worry about that in what may be a very fragile part of their life cycle. What they need to lean on now is Boudreau's ability to kick ass throughout the regular season, something that this franchise has not been able to navigate without noticeable headwinds during the Mike Yeo and Todd Richards regimes. If he can get this club a second division title, we'll take a Game 7 loss because that would be progress.
The other thing that Boudreau possesses that this team needs is bluntness. Yeo's downfall was his inability to stand up to Zach Parise and Ryan Suter, who increasingly are becoming divas who don't produce on the ice. Boudreau doesn't mind cussing out any player that deserves. The thinking, the hope, is that he'll stand up to slackers and stupidity. At the very least the fanbase will appreciate that their views may be echoed in the locker room by the Head Coach; right now, the Wild may be the worst team of The Local Big Four (yes, even worse than the Twinks), and I would venture to guess the roster may be the most hated of The Local Big Four.
#-3: Gopher baseball (Last Week: -2). What a difference a week makes. This time last week the Gophers were leading the Big Ten standings. But after losing two-of-three to then-second place Indiana (at home, no less), they are tied with Michigan for second place (one game behind the Hoosiers), only 1 1/2 games ahead of Michigan St. and Nebraska. Only four games separate first from ninth, and remember, only the top eight teams reach the conference tournament. With six games left in the season, there's still a chance that the squad, which started so strong, could slide out of NCAA tournament contention. And it's not a great time to go on the road, even if it is a three-game series this weekend against Purdue, the worst team in the B1G with a conference record of 2-19 and an overall record of 7-39. (Wow, that sucks. I mean, that's, like, Twins bad.) Then on Tuesday they play their final non-conference mid-week game at South Dakota St. Finally, they begin the final series of the year Thursday against Ohio St. at Siebert.
#-Infinity: Twins (Last Week: -3). Lost all five games this screening week. They have lost seven games in a row. They were swept at the White Sox over the weekend and by the Orioles (it was only two games because the third was rained out, but hey, they still did not win a game) at Target over the workweek. It was the seventh time they've been swept this year. It is the second time they've been swept by the White Sox this year. The fucking season is only six weeks old. And they are on pace to go 39-123 -- that's Cleveland Spiders territory.
Gas this team. Now.
This week: In Cleveland, then in Detroit, then they come back home to start a four-game series against Toronto Thursday.
Thursday, May 12, 2016
Wednesday, May 11, 2016
Suspicions
OK, so there are two people who are kind of throwing me off, which I don't like.
The first is what has come to be my immediate supervisor now since I fucking failed that goddamn test. She was the supervisor who finally chastised me for simply getting coffee after going to the bathroom. Ever since I knuckled under and held my bladder (well, I really couldn't; sometimes I go to the bathroom when it's not breaks -- hey, sometimes it's hard to hold it in for two damn hours!), however, she has been nothing but effusively praising my work. Too effusive, to be honest: The constant attaboys actually makes her sound fake, especially when you consider that she really came down on me when I tried to head to the break room. (She also was pretty terse with me with me after I asked how long was break after I learned that I had failed. She wasn't composed when I needed something, now, was she? That's the definition of being two-faced.)
But I have to be honest: The praise is working. When she told me I was a doing a good job Monday, I really felt the pressure lifted off my bladder. Really! I didn't feel like I needed to pee before break, and that was because she told me I was doing well. Something similar happened yesterday. I still have a nagging, uh, suspicion that she's just shining my ass. I mean, this could be a case of reverse psychology going on here, that really she's telling me I'm fast and accurate because I'm really slow and sloppy and that she just wants me to be fast and accurate. Wouldn't put that past her. But I am a sucker for approval, and the kid in me who always wanted my parents to say I was a good boy (I rarely heard that, by the way) just lights up whenever she says that. It could be cheap praise, but damn it, I'll take it.
Now to this other guy ... this guy really bothered me yesterday. He's known for two things. One, he always dresses up -- not quite in a business suit, but he always has on dress pants, a vest and a relatively fancy hat. And two, back on Saturday he carved up a melon and a watermelon in the shape of a goose. Very impressive!
But when I tried to thank him for the geese melons on Saturday, he just looked at me and didn't respond. That was odd. I thought I didn't speak up enough, or long enough, so I just sloughed it off. But yesterday, coming back from break, I held the back door open for him, and when he came through, he didn't thank me. I stayed behind for his fucking ass and he wasn't even grateful? How rude is this guy?
So maybe he's a dick. Or, maybe, he thinks I'm his rival. You see, he's the only other Asian in the room. And unlike me, that fucker actually passed the test I failed. I think he thinks I think of myself as the shit, and now that he passed a test I failed, he wants to usurp me as "the favored Asian," and he'll do it by undermining every kind gesture I pay him and just being a passive-aggressive son-of-a-bitch. Hey, it may already work; I know failing this test puts me behind the three-quarters of the room that actually passed that fucking thing (including that dick). I don't really see any advancement in this company anymore, if you know what I mean. But he does, and to bump me off once and for all he'll be as nasty of a piece of shit as he can while being an untouchable artist savant to the people who decide who gets to be immediate supervisors and who doesn't.
Have to keep my eye out on him. Her too.
The first is what has come to be my immediate supervisor now since I fucking failed that goddamn test. She was the supervisor who finally chastised me for simply getting coffee after going to the bathroom. Ever since I knuckled under and held my bladder (well, I really couldn't; sometimes I go to the bathroom when it's not breaks -- hey, sometimes it's hard to hold it in for two damn hours!), however, she has been nothing but effusively praising my work. Too effusive, to be honest: The constant attaboys actually makes her sound fake, especially when you consider that she really came down on me when I tried to head to the break room. (She also was pretty terse with me with me after I asked how long was break after I learned that I had failed. She wasn't composed when I needed something, now, was she? That's the definition of being two-faced.)
But I have to be honest: The praise is working. When she told me I was a doing a good job Monday, I really felt the pressure lifted off my bladder. Really! I didn't feel like I needed to pee before break, and that was because she told me I was doing well. Something similar happened yesterday. I still have a nagging, uh, suspicion that she's just shining my ass. I mean, this could be a case of reverse psychology going on here, that really she's telling me I'm fast and accurate because I'm really slow and sloppy and that she just wants me to be fast and accurate. Wouldn't put that past her. But I am a sucker for approval, and the kid in me who always wanted my parents to say I was a good boy (I rarely heard that, by the way) just lights up whenever she says that. It could be cheap praise, but damn it, I'll take it.
Now to this other guy ... this guy really bothered me yesterday. He's known for two things. One, he always dresses up -- not quite in a business suit, but he always has on dress pants, a vest and a relatively fancy hat. And two, back on Saturday he carved up a melon and a watermelon in the shape of a goose. Very impressive!
But when I tried to thank him for the geese melons on Saturday, he just looked at me and didn't respond. That was odd. I thought I didn't speak up enough, or long enough, so I just sloughed it off. But yesterday, coming back from break, I held the back door open for him, and when he came through, he didn't thank me. I stayed behind for his fucking ass and he wasn't even grateful? How rude is this guy?
So maybe he's a dick. Or, maybe, he thinks I'm his rival. You see, he's the only other Asian in the room. And unlike me, that fucker actually passed the test I failed. I think he thinks I think of myself as the shit, and now that he passed a test I failed, he wants to usurp me as "the favored Asian," and he'll do it by undermining every kind gesture I pay him and just being a passive-aggressive son-of-a-bitch. Hey, it may already work; I know failing this test puts me behind the three-quarters of the room that actually passed that fucking thing (including that dick). I don't really see any advancement in this company anymore, if you know what I mean. But he does, and to bump me off once and for all he'll be as nasty of a piece of shit as he can while being an untouchable artist savant to the people who decide who gets to be immediate supervisors and who doesn't.
Have to keep my eye out on him. Her too.
Tuesday, May 10, 2016
Need To Mark This First
For the first time in this project, and probably ever, my drive home from work was shorter, much shorter, than the one to work.
This morning my horrid commute was lengthened due to the rain; despite me leaving the house at a decent time, it took me 55 minutes to get to work. There was no rain coming back, but that has no influence on how excruciatingly long it takes to get home. The long back-up going north through the heart of downtown, from 35W up through the Lowry Tunnel or through the Midway area and Snelling, does.
Miraculously -- and I do mean miraculously because there is no way this will happen ever again in my lifetime -- the back-up to the tunnel was short. Very short. I got home in 50 minutes. And since I didn't dilly-dally in my car after work (that might be the reason why the back-up was so short, maybe?) I got home just in time to catch the start of the CBS Evening News, first time I've been able to see the start of the national nightly news while working this project.
Record-keeping, this is all this is.
This morning my horrid commute was lengthened due to the rain; despite me leaving the house at a decent time, it took me 55 minutes to get to work. There was no rain coming back, but that has no influence on how excruciatingly long it takes to get home. The long back-up going north through the heart of downtown, from 35W up through the Lowry Tunnel or through the Midway area and Snelling, does.
Miraculously -- and I do mean miraculously because there is no way this will happen ever again in my lifetime -- the back-up to the tunnel was short. Very short. I got home in 50 minutes. And since I didn't dilly-dally in my car after work (that might be the reason why the back-up was so short, maybe?) I got home just in time to catch the start of the CBS Evening News, first time I've been able to see the start of the national nightly news while working this project.
Record-keeping, this is all this is.
For the third consecutive night, I fell asleep in the evening well before I wanted to. And for the second consecutive night, I woke up right in the middle of the night with no way to fall back asleep. I may be lucky in that I woke up at 4:30 when at this time the previous night I woke up at 2:30.
Yesterday was hard because I had been up, essentially, for 5 1/2 hours just before I started work. By 3 o'clock my mind was out of it and I was getting extremely cranky. I don't know how in the hell people who wake up and immediately begin exercising before heading off to work do it. I'm guessing Adderall.
Regardless, I don't like how my body clock is now. I anticipate, even with two more hours of sleep, that I am going to fade fast in the afternoon, and I am doing all I can to forestall a repeat of the crap that happened Monday.
I knew around 9 last night that I was fading. I wanted to hop on the Internet because I had things to do, but my body, for some reason, simply told me that wasn't going to happen. So I hopped into bed and woke up -- first at 2:30, but then at 4:30 (both according to my watch), so I hope I fell asleep for an extra two hours. If I didn't, God help me.
This also sucks because all the things I wanted to do on the Internet I haven't done, and since I need to go to work soon I won't have time to do all the things I planned to do. Those things were the things that kept me up and prevented me from falling back asleep. It is so damn terrifying to realize that you're up early in the morning and you're still behind. I now feel guilty for getting a good night's sleep. I really should have toughed it out because I wouldn't have so much on my plate now and tonight. But it's too late.
Yesterday was hard because I had been up, essentially, for 5 1/2 hours just before I started work. By 3 o'clock my mind was out of it and I was getting extremely cranky. I don't know how in the hell people who wake up and immediately begin exercising before heading off to work do it. I'm guessing Adderall.
Regardless, I don't like how my body clock is now. I anticipate, even with two more hours of sleep, that I am going to fade fast in the afternoon, and I am doing all I can to forestall a repeat of the crap that happened Monday.
I knew around 9 last night that I was fading. I wanted to hop on the Internet because I had things to do, but my body, for some reason, simply told me that wasn't going to happen. So I hopped into bed and woke up -- first at 2:30, but then at 4:30 (both according to my watch), so I hope I fell asleep for an extra two hours. If I didn't, God help me.
This also sucks because all the things I wanted to do on the Internet I haven't done, and since I need to go to work soon I won't have time to do all the things I planned to do. Those things were the things that kept me up and prevented me from falling back asleep. It is so damn terrifying to realize that you're up early in the morning and you're still behind. I now feel guilty for getting a good night's sleep. I really should have toughed it out because I wouldn't have so much on my plate now and tonight. But it's too late.
Monday, May 9, 2016
Slouching Towards Gomorrah
Can I confess something? I hate going to work now.
It's many things. The commute, especially when it takes more than an hour to come back home, has been worse than I anticipated and has worn on my patience. That week where some guy came in and started ordering us around -- well, it was just a week, but like I said before, I quit my old job because something similar to this happened over there, and now I feel like even more of a fool for staying. And the scrutiny over when I pee and get my coffee still feels very infantilizing, even though me cutting down on the trips to the loo seems to have quelled the hectoring.
But it's the failed test that's turned me off on this project. Can't lie. All those other things are beyond my control, and therefore I don't feel a responsibility towards those bad things happening to me. This failed test, though, I feel so ashamed. It's a stain that I can't get rid of, even as I excoriate myself in order to scratch it off my skin like rough sandpaper. Everything, to me, seems ruined now. And to be clear, it's all my fault. I fucked up this test, and I don't know why, and the faith I had in myself is now shaken if not completely gone. And yet, because I need a goddamn paycheck, I have no choice but to go back there in a few hours.
So that's why it's so completely sickening to me to work there now. It's all ruined, it's all a mess. See, everything back at the old place (assuming I would be able to pass their tests, and that has gotten touch-and-go the past couple years) was great. Except that they had to fucking promote someone after two weeks of work. If they didn't pull that shit, I would be fine over there and everything would be gravy. But now, I wake up and go to someplace and do something I hate. It's all my fault, but I still hate it.
This project ends in two weeks. As much as I dislike unemployment, this project can't end soon enough.
Sunday, May 8, 2016
Horny MILF Message, Maybe
OK, so after debating about it for a while, I decided that I would post a Mother's Day message on Facebook saying, essentially, that all of you moms are beautiful on the inside but also pretty stunning on the outside too. First of all, you have to admit that there are a lot of hot moms out there, and I can safely say that not only am I Facebook friends with a bunch of MILFs, many (OK, not all, but I sure as hell wasn't going to say that on Facebook) women I know and grew up with are pretty good-looking despite motherhood. But moreover, this is me not having any more fucks to give because I'm 40.
I was fearing blowback, to which I would have replied that I meant that as a compliment. I always mean pervy comments as compliments. Why don't people get that? Such as it is, as of press time, I think I have had seven likes. All but two are from people I know. One of them is the mother of my ushering buddy. The last is a bodybuilder, and the type of woman (and mother) that comment is really directed toward. I wish I had more, and more from my "babe" group on Facebook, and there's a chance that some of my real friends are turned off by such a message. But hey, I gotta be me. So I'll take all the positive feedback I can get.
I was fearing blowback, to which I would have replied that I meant that as a compliment. I always mean pervy comments as compliments. Why don't people get that? Such as it is, as of press time, I think I have had seven likes. All but two are from people I know. One of them is the mother of my ushering buddy. The last is a bodybuilder, and the type of woman (and mother) that comment is really directed toward. I wish I had more, and more from my "babe" group on Facebook, and there's a chance that some of my real friends are turned off by such a message. But hey, I gotta be me. So I'll take all the positive feedback I can get.
Saturday, May 7, 2016
So Low-Calorie, It's Water!!!
So I'm about to finish the lemonade I bought about a month ago on a lark some Tuesday night because I wanted to have something to drink at night besides water. Ironic, isn't it ...
I usually buy the juice that's on sale. This time around this low-calorie lemonade was one of several items on sale at the same price of $1.50. Lemonade is tasty, and I see myself naked so I know I could stand to lose some weight, so I bought it.
Cracked it open as soon as I got home because I was just so darn thirsty. This lemonade says it gives only 15 calories per serving. Curious, I looked at the list of ingredients. The first one, and thus the one that comprises more of the item than any other, is "pure filtered water." The second? "Lemon juice from concentrate."
Wait a second ... I just bought a product that is majority water? And so what I'm drinking is lemon-infused water? I think there's a hotel downtown that offers in their lobby water with a bunch of fruit in them -- limes, strawberries, and lemons. And they offer those drinks for free. So basically that's what I bought? Water with some lemon zest in it?
If that's the case, I might as well buy full, caloric lemonade. That's something so different no one on earth is going to give away for free, and I wouldn't feel like such a dim nitwit for shelling out good money for it.
I usually buy the juice that's on sale. This time around this low-calorie lemonade was one of several items on sale at the same price of $1.50. Lemonade is tasty, and I see myself naked so I know I could stand to lose some weight, so I bought it.
Cracked it open as soon as I got home because I was just so darn thirsty. This lemonade says it gives only 15 calories per serving. Curious, I looked at the list of ingredients. The first one, and thus the one that comprises more of the item than any other, is "pure filtered water." The second? "Lemon juice from concentrate."
Wait a second ... I just bought a product that is majority water? And so what I'm drinking is lemon-infused water? I think there's a hotel downtown that offers in their lobby water with a bunch of fruit in them -- limes, strawberries, and lemons. And they offer those drinks for free. So basically that's what I bought? Water with some lemon zest in it?
If that's the case, I might as well buy full, caloric lemonade. That's something so different no one on earth is going to give away for free, and I wouldn't feel like such a dim nitwit for shelling out good money for it.
Friday, May 6, 2016
The Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey
#-1: Gopher softball (Last Week: 0). Yeah, the Minnesota softball squad gets the top spot for absolutely annihilating poor Maryland at Cowles Stadium this weekend. All three games were mercy-ruled at the minimum five innings, and the Terrapins scored only one run, on Saturday, while the Gophers pounded out 30 for the three-game series.
I was at Sunday's 9-0 rout. Although the fences are moved in to just over 200 feet, seeing players jack home runs deep over the outfield walls remains a powerful, majestic thing to behold, and it gets better the more you see it -- and on this day, I saw it a lot. On the other side, Sara Groenewegen was throwing a Perfect Game until she was pulled with, I think, two outs in the fifth, when the PG was ruined by a pop-up that fell at Shortstop. Nevertheless, this is a team that humbled a very bad club. Now they finish the regular season by playing three at Iowa this weekend. The Hawkeyes are 3-17 in conference play and 13-36 overall. The U. maybe be working the minimum of 15 innings again this weekend.
(Aside: As Sunday's sellout game wore on, I became less interested in the field of play as I was the crew that put up the "K"'s whenever Groenewegen struck somebody out. It's one of those gas station sign thingies, where you have a pole with a suction cup attached, you attach that sucker onto a "K," then slide it into these plastic brackets on a display. The trick is to dislodge the suction cup while the "K" remains in place in that holder. And truly, the two members of the U. crew had the worst time removing the suction cup from the "K" while keeping the letter on the sign. It was funny!)
#-2: Gopher baseball (Last Week: -1). A 4-1 week. They won the series at Illinois, dropping Friday night's nightcap 2-0. They then beat the hell out of visiting Kansas midweek, winning by scores of 19-7 Tuesday and 12-7 Wednesday. I was at Tuesday's game and there were six Home Runs. I got pretty cold near the end of the game; man, this is the time of year where weather that makes you feel hot while the sun is out can feel kind of cold once the sun is on the other side of the world. Anyway, I witnessed Jerry Kill bounce the first pitch (that's a no-no, Jer!) and a Gophers club that can absolutely mash the ball. I don't think I saw this much confident offense in this program's best teams of years of yore.
Even more surprising is that when I checked on the standings, the Gophers are actually on top. And this weekend they face a pretty important matchup; they host the second-place team in the B1G, Indiana, for a three-game series. I want to see at least one game, but I don't know if I can.
#-3: Twins (Last Week: -2). Honestly, I didn't think this organization would regress this badly. But indeed they have, part of the reason being a horrid 1-5 screening week. They got swept by Detroit at home, then managed to win only one game at Houston. That one game, however, was Monday's series opener, where Twinks wunderkind Jose Berrios won his first game (after only his second appearance), the lineup got to reigning National League Cy Young Award winner Dallas Kuechel, and they won away from Target Field for only the second time this season. Then, of course, they lost to the Astros by scores of 6-4 and, ahem, 16-4.
I don't know what the hell is going on with them. They open up a three-game set at the White Sox tonight (Friday night), then immediately come home and host three versus the Bastard St. Louis Browns.
I was at Sunday's 9-0 rout. Although the fences are moved in to just over 200 feet, seeing players jack home runs deep over the outfield walls remains a powerful, majestic thing to behold, and it gets better the more you see it -- and on this day, I saw it a lot. On the other side, Sara Groenewegen was throwing a Perfect Game until she was pulled with, I think, two outs in the fifth, when the PG was ruined by a pop-up that fell at Shortstop. Nevertheless, this is a team that humbled a very bad club. Now they finish the regular season by playing three at Iowa this weekend. The Hawkeyes are 3-17 in conference play and 13-36 overall. The U. maybe be working the minimum of 15 innings again this weekend.
(Aside: As Sunday's sellout game wore on, I became less interested in the field of play as I was the crew that put up the "K"'s whenever Groenewegen struck somebody out. It's one of those gas station sign thingies, where you have a pole with a suction cup attached, you attach that sucker onto a "K," then slide it into these plastic brackets on a display. The trick is to dislodge the suction cup while the "K" remains in place in that holder. And truly, the two members of the U. crew had the worst time removing the suction cup from the "K" while keeping the letter on the sign. It was funny!)
#-2: Gopher baseball (Last Week: -1). A 4-1 week. They won the series at Illinois, dropping Friday night's nightcap 2-0. They then beat the hell out of visiting Kansas midweek, winning by scores of 19-7 Tuesday and 12-7 Wednesday. I was at Tuesday's game and there were six Home Runs. I got pretty cold near the end of the game; man, this is the time of year where weather that makes you feel hot while the sun is out can feel kind of cold once the sun is on the other side of the world. Anyway, I witnessed Jerry Kill bounce the first pitch (that's a no-no, Jer!) and a Gophers club that can absolutely mash the ball. I don't think I saw this much confident offense in this program's best teams of years of yore.
Even more surprising is that when I checked on the standings, the Gophers are actually on top. And this weekend they face a pretty important matchup; they host the second-place team in the B1G, Indiana, for a three-game series. I want to see at least one game, but I don't know if I can.
#-3: Twins (Last Week: -2). Honestly, I didn't think this organization would regress this badly. But indeed they have, part of the reason being a horrid 1-5 screening week. They got swept by Detroit at home, then managed to win only one game at Houston. That one game, however, was Monday's series opener, where Twinks wunderkind Jose Berrios won his first game (after only his second appearance), the lineup got to reigning National League Cy Young Award winner Dallas Kuechel, and they won away from Target Field for only the second time this season. Then, of course, they lost to the Astros by scores of 6-4 and, ahem, 16-4.
I don't know what the hell is going on with them. They open up a three-game set at the White Sox tonight (Friday night), then immediately come home and host three versus the Bastard St. Louis Browns.
Thursday, May 5, 2016
Oh, I'm Such A Stupid Piece Of Shit
You know when I said that we had another chance of qualifying for the same test I failed at yesterday. Funny story: That's never happened in all my years working there. And I realized that just as I sat down to begin my day. I was like, "Hey ... what makes me think that we'd get another chance?!" And we just went to the next training and I just failed for the first time ever at this company, and that's that, ha-ha!!!!!!!!
Oh, and I fucked up my alumni thing too. I thought it was today, but actually it was yesterday. So I made all this social media hoopla for something that was a day late. Because I thought the day was Thursday, not Wednesday, you see?
God, I so fucking hate myself right now.
Oh, and I fucked up my alumni thing too. I thought it was today, but actually it was yesterday. So I made all this social media hoopla for something that was a day late. Because I thought the day was Thursday, not Wednesday, you see?
God, I so fucking hate myself right now.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)