The Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey

Positive Numbers: Vikings (Last Week: 0).  OK, now that the Vikes marched into Charlotte and knocked off the defending National Football Conference Champion Carolina Panthers, and by a comfortable 22-10 score, maybe, just maybe, these guys are for real.

What stands out is, like the victories over the Titans and Packers the first two weeks, this team came back from behind to win.  Also, it was the Vikes' defense that kept them in this game; only once has Cam Newton ever been sacked more times in a game than the eight provided by Minnesota Sunday afternoon.  Three of them came courtesy of Defensive End (and Trojan alum) Everson Griffen, who, for those efforts, was named conference Defensive Player Of The Week.  And one of those sacks was a Safety, which finally put the Vikings on the board after Carolina started the game with a 10-0 lead in the first quarter.

And the Panthers didn't score for the rest of the game.  The club intercepted Newton three times in the game.  Meanwhile, the special teams got into the action, as the steadfast but lightly-heralded Marcus Sherels took a punt 54 yards to the house.  (How long has Sherels been the team's Punt Returner?  How long has he been with the Vikes?)  And the offense remains, uh, efficient, as Sam Bradford connected with Kyle Rudolph for a Touchdown for a second week in a row.  And Blair Walsh hit two Field Goals, although he missed yet another Extra Point.  The squad's O could be a lot more potent, but it's the defense that's clicking right now, and if they can keep this up and stay off the injury list, the team will be a force to be reckoned with all season.

And they play on national TV again because they host the Monday Night game against the New York Giants, a team who, mysteriously, are the Vikes' bitches.  I wonder if there's going to be a regression to the mean, but frankly, I kind of think the chances Minnesota goes 4-0 after Week 4 is pretty good.

#0: Gopher volleyball (Last Week: -1).  Started off B1G play last weekend with a pair of home wins, sweeping Maryland and beating then-#17 Ohio St. in four sets.  Outside Hitter and Eden Prairie native Sarah Wilhite was named Big Ten Player Of The Week for the second time this year for racking up 30 kills in both games.  The Gophers are on a nine-game winning streak.  And the U. is now ranked third in the Hero Sports poll and second in the AVCA Top 25.  They now hit the road to the state of Indiana.  Friday they play the Hoosiers, but the greater challenge is Sunday afternoon's matchup against Purdue, which is ranked 14th in the AVCA but 6th in Hero.

#-1: Gopher soccer (Last Week: -2).  The volleyball team is going to the state the soccer team is coming from.  And even though the opponents weren't exactly world-beaters, the side comes back to Robbie with a pair of clean sheets over the weekend, 3-0 at Indiana Friday and 2-0 at Purdue Sunday.  Goalie Tarah Hobbs goes back-to-back as conference Defensive Player Of The Week for keeping her sheet clean.  (See what I did there?)  They remain a step ahead of Penn St. for the top of the B1G.  And the IX is now in the Top X.  (See what I did there?)

The Gophers now begin a three-match homestand.  Wisconsin comes to St. Paul Saturday; Iowa visits Thursday.

#-2: Gopher football (Re-Entry!).  Again, I wish it were Alabama, but Colorado St. is ... a school with a name, and they beat them, albeit at home (where they have yet to leave -- kind of like me!), by a score of 31-24.  Remember that this team has been as nondescript a team as I've lived with all my life in Minnesota.  There have been several times this program has started a season 3-0, buoyed with a rigged schedule where they have all their non-conference games at home.  But it beats being winless.

We will finally have some indication of how good this team actually is now that they finally have to start conference play.  And they finally hit the road, too -- Penn St., Saturday afternoon.  If they aren't complete paper tigers, the Gophers should win this game.  Right?

#-Infinity (tie): Twins and Saints (Last Week: -Infinity and Re-Entry!, respectively).  I'm so glad that it's starting to feel like fall, because my God, the boys of summer absolutely suck.

I think it's fair to throw in the local minor league baseball team, but first we have to talk about the (at least in theory) major league baseball team, which is on the brink of the most humiliating of records a franchise can set.  After this screening week's four losses (against just two wins), the Twinks now have, as of press time, 102 losses, which ties the execrable 1982 team as The Worst Team In Minnesota Twins History.  (Applause!)  Weeks like this week's 2-4 contributes to that.  Losing streaks like the seven-game skid they finally broke Saturday also contributes to that.  But, of course, it comes down to pitching and offense, two things that were in seriously short supply this season.

Which makes the season Brian Dozier is having all the more remarkable.  He now has 42 Home Runs, the most hit by a Second Baseman in the American League.  The Major League record is 43, by Davey Johnson.  Unfortunately, Dozier's last Homer was on the afternoon of Thursday, September 22, and he has three games left, at the White Sox, to beat the record and end this annus horribilis with some value.  Fuck the record; the Twinks are going to lose at least one more game and go down in history with awful notoriety.  Just throw some softballs Dozier's way, please!

Now to the Saints.  I have to write (and ridicule them) because, for a second year in a row, they finished the regular season with a great record and finished first in the North Division ... and lost in the Division Series.  Last year they got upset by the Sioux City Explorers in four games.  This year may be more excruciating because they had a 2-1 lead in the best-of-five series and lost the last two games -- and since they won their division, they played, and lost, Game 5 at home.

Maybe I shouldn't bitch about the on-field play of minor league baseball squads -- Bill Murray, who has pulled the wool over everyone's eyes, would flip his shit if he knew I was bitching about the team he co-owns -- but let's face facts.  For all the success this franchise has enjoyed (parlaying it into a beautiful ballpark that anchors the east side of downtown St. Paul), the Saints last won a league title in 2004.  Independent baseball leaves it up to individual clubs to find and sign their own players.  You would think that the Saints would get the pick of the litter because of the support from ownership down to the fans.  So why in the fuckety-fuck have they not won a championship in a dozen goddamn years?  It's about time, for God's sake.

OK, rant over.

But Which Stripper Party?

Tomorrow cums one of those problems I should be lucky to have.  There are two house parties coming up, and in both there is at least one girl who's willing to suck me off.  Moreover, there is ***a*, who told me earlier this week that she might have some free time tomorrow to fool around.

It's an embarrassment of riches, yet it's also a crossroads, one of my own making.  When I was horny and desperate, not too long ago, I sent out a storm of messages to all the strippers I knew asking if there were any parties they were working.  I got a couple replies; one, from *****a, was the only one I would be in town for.  Better than that, it would be the last free day before I begin work, which is on Monday.

I was totally down for that.  But then things started to get complicated.  First of all, I realized that the University of Minnesota women's hockey team would be raising their championship banner (their third in a row!) Friday night.  I thought I would be able to sneak into the party before going to the game, or maybe I'd go after, but I thought I would still go.  But then, when I went to My Favorite Stripclub (Non-Cover Division), another girl, *i****, told me she was going to hold her party Friday afternoon.  This was one I went to not too long ago, and I was shocked that a girl (not *i****) blew me.

That was when I made my decision: I would go to this afternoon party, not the one in the evening.  I have only so much money and, in my advanced age, only so much, uh, "energy" to do the things I want to do.  Moreover, I wanted to build up some loyalty with *i****, and going to that party would do that.  I have been to *****a's party a few times, and I think I've built enough trust with her that I could skip this party and she'd be OK with it.  Also, since she usually holds her parties at night, I could conceivably go to her parties while holding down this job.  Finally, I have in the past texted her about missing her parties, and she's been totally chill with that.  I hope to rely on that again tomorrow, when I text her.  Maybe.

It's ***a* that bothers me a bit.  I've gotten BJs from her several times now.  But for some reason I feel as though I need to keep up my visits with her because I don't know if she would take these "house calls" on a regular basis.  In fact, I don't know if she has this arrangement with anyone else.  Plus, I think she's a bit on the poor side, and giving her money in exchange for sexual services rendered makes me feel better because it helps her out financially.  Believe it or not, I do care about her.

But when she texted me Tuesday about having free time Friday, she told me that it would be in the morning, and I planned on doing the WMNSS then.  The way I had softly plotted out my schedule, having my sexytime in the afternoon would be best.  So, even though I had initially asked her, I ultimately said no.  Unlike *****a, I'm not exactly sure she understands or accepts it, and I'm really scared that she'll no longer invite me over from some cock-sucking time in the afternoon once my assignment ends.

I wish I could please everybody and go to all three, but I can't.  I made my decision, and therefore I shall stand in judgement for it.

To Cum On Tuesday Or Wednesday?

So right now I am at the library, trying to piece together what to do for the rest of my day.  I leave for home tonight, but I have a rental that has to be returned by 5.  That means I need to figure out what to do with public transportation while doing what I can do with a car.  And neither of those things have anything to do with blogging about this on the library, which is the start of a couple things I feel like I need to do before I go back to sightseeing.

One thing I'm not doing is going to the stripclub to get sucked and fucked by my regular down here in ESL.  I saw her Monday and she rocked my world; in fact, I made the decision that I wanted to be inside her, something I held off on for years.  It was time.

But I wanted to see her again, and when planning this trip I didn't know which day, Tuesday or Wednesday.  I finally decided on Tuesday, but the problem was I had no more, uh, energy to cum.  It was embarrassing that I had to finish me by myself.

I should have waited a day.  But I didn't know if I would feel I would have the time to spend an afternoon with her and then leave for the rental car center.  Plus I would have to find a place to put on my underwear, and I so I thought I would feel rushed ... which, come to think of it, is what I feel right now.

Once again, I'm at one of those times where I don't know if I'm doing the right thing.  There are a lot of opportunities, and maybe better organization, I feel like I'm passing up whenever I decide to do something, such as go to the jack shack yesterday instead of today.

Well, whatever the case is, I'm doing a chore now, and every minute I'm here means a minute less of sightseeing.  Wherever I'm going to sightsee.  Man, I still don't know what I'm going to do after 5. ...

Lemme just say that I don't need to have my balls busted/get harangued by my contact at the temp agency to get my damn background check done.  I'm on vacation and I have a week left before I begin, and so I don't need you henpeck me about getting this done.  And I really don't appreciate it when I gave her the courtesy of getting back in touch with her about the dentist appointment that will conflict with the first week of my assignment.  I needed to get back in touch with her that I cannot move it, and she gave me every indication that she needed to know whether or not I needed to take that day off, and as soon as I told her I needed to, she said, "Yeah whatever hey have you done your background check yet?"

I thought the bad manners was over once the other woman left for another department, but apparently I have a new one.  I swear, where do they hire these people?  I could do a better job, damn. ...

Getting Ripped Off On All Sides Now When It Comes To St. Louis

Maybe I'll talk about how lost I've been in the STL in my next blog post.  (Swear that I've been here 15 times and I still don't know my way around.  I actually, arrogantly, thought I was going to the right exit when I realized I had the wrong one and had to double back.  I am so fucking pissed at myself right now.)  But I've got to talk about how I'm pissing away money through my fingers when it comes to this vacation.

In a nutshell, here are the ripoffs:

1) Just before I left for St. Louis I was looking over my itinerary for the hotel I got through Priceline.  As I was scrolling down through the fine print of the hotel information, they had a blurb that said, "Now that you have a hotel, you can get your rental -- and at special prices!"  And they were special.  The prices they were giving were for $17 a day.  I got my car for $27 a day.  I did not ever look through the itinerary to see, just in case, that they would offer a car that would actually be cheaper than what I would find on my own.  I never thought it would ever be cheaper.  But it turns out it was $40 (plus taxes and fees) cheaper.  Why in the hell didn't I just look there?  The only saving grace I can find is that the smallest car they were offering at $17 was a mid-size.  I don't like driving cars that big, and maybe the mileage on the compact that I did select would somehow compensate for the gas I would be burning through in a mid-size.  But I have to say this: Even though the itinerary where these special rental prices was sent, oh, three weeks before I came across these prices, I clicked on the car and they still gave me a quote ... which was less than $100.  Could've gotten that for this trip.

2) My return flight is well into the evening, but my leaving flight was in the afternoon.  I did not want to spend an extra day's worth of a rental, so I made it so I would spend a couple hours in the airport once I touched down, and then I would, oh, go on the St. Louis light rail to kill a few hours before I had to be at STL for my flight back.

In an attempt to kill two birds with one stone, I went to the Pasta House, a big Italian chain in the area.  Have always wanted to go but haven't had the opportunity till now.  It isn't great; it's like of like a regional Olive Garden.  But I wanted to try it anyway.

I paired a glass of red wine with my spaghetti and The Special Salad that The Pasta House is known for.  The price of the red wine was more than the plate of spaghetti.  I asked the bartender if that is right.

My God, I just wanted some fucking red wine with my spaghetti!

3) Oh, the casinos fucked me over good Saturday night, so bad that I might not go back there for the rest of my stay.  But crapping out three straight times without winning dick is going to happen.  Combine that with losing ten bucks on a slot machine in another casino, and $50 down the toilet makes me a very parsimonious man.

Eh, fuck it, I'll probably try again.

4) I had a $5 coupon for the Hard Rock Cafe because I filled out a survey.  And I had another coupon for $15 off that I could combine with the first coupon.  Score!  I could eat dinner and whack $20 off my meal!

No, that wasn't the case.  First of all, in a stipulation that I know about and continually forget, there is a minimum purchase requirement on the $15 off coupon, and those requirements specifically exclude alcohol, like the beer I washed down my burger with.  What I was left with was that burger which cost me only $14.95, and the goddamn minimum purchase was, you guessed it, $15.

The bartender had mercy on me, but in a way it got worse.  He added a charge that would put me over $15 so he can apply the $15.  So I still had to pay for the beer and the tax (this $15 off I guess was after tax).  That came out to more than eight bucks.  I wanted to adjust the total amount of money I'm paying him down because I didn't want to pay for the extra buck for the, uh, extra burger patty he added onto my bill.  But he did it for me anyway, so I did what people often say I should do even though I vehemently am against it: I tipped compared to the full price of my meal instead of the post-discount price.  Oh, and I tipped on the tax, too, which really annoys me.

So the total I eventually paid was $13 -- a huge chunk of change less than full price.  For some reason the bartender was able to use the $15 off coupon but not the $5 off one.  Full price (without the phantom extra dollar) was more than $22.  So you mean to tell me that $15 off isn't $15 off, but $9?!?!?!  What the hell is the discount then good for?  I can see where the difference comes from: $5.50 for the beer, $2 and change for tax.  And I guess I should have known that, and I guess I could have just stiffed the bartender and paid out less.  But this isn't a $15 discount, is it?  It's only nine.

---

OK, so the ripoffs quantitatively go like this:

Rental car: $40+
Pasta House: Shoot, I don't know, but the wine should be less than an entree, shouldn't it?  Eh, I'll say three bucks plus tax.  Yeah, wine is expensive.
Gambling: $50
Hard Rock: $9 plus tax

Plus tax and ... oh, I think I fucked myself out of $105 so far in St. Louis.  Gosh.  When I put it in those terms, I should just save whatever money I have left and stay in my hotel bed for the rest of the night.  Wouldn't be wasting money that way.

Man, I just fucked this up in so many ways. ...

Three Thoughts On The STL

Well, I'm in St. Louis right now, and I have a few thoughts I want to send out.

1) I'm drinking a lot of beer.  And I'm not sure it's just because I'm in St. Louis, previous headquarters of Anheuser-Busch.

2) While I think it's getting fall-like in Minnesota, it is, at least through today, summer-like down here.  I don't like re-familiarizing myself with smelling my own sweat.

3) I think I've been here fifteen times now, and I still get lost.  Hate it.

The Clothes I Donated To Goodwill Friday/Yesterday

• Checkered-dark-blue-and-dark-green pajama bottoms from Croft & Barrow, which my parents probably bought for me.  The elastic waistband is worn off; when I stretch it, it does that crunchy sound.  So it's now too large, even for me.
• Light tan/beige, Easy Fit Plain-front shorts from the Gap, Waist size 28.  It has a really short hem line.  Just got too small for me; couldn't button it no matter how hard I sucked my gut in.
• Dark green/olive Old Navy shorts.  Button was re-sewn, probably by my aunt.  Some red marks indicate that I used these as "work shorts" once, but it also got too small for me.
• The blue long underwear from Joe Boxer I bought from the K-Mart close to us that's now closed.  Always noticed that it was so checker-textured that it chapped my ass when I sat down.  Got so torn in the asshole area that I had to retire it.
• Beige 34 x 32 khakis from Structure.  It has a tie-up string band as well as a button.  Father gave this to me, and recently, so it's very new.  I wore it once, to work, but it's too long, and it's too big so that when I roll up the hems it still falls and drags along the ground.  Had to drag those pants around while working, for crissake.  Sorry, Dad.
• 3 ... the three boxer briefs I think I bought from H&M in Zurich, the ones with varying shades of, uh, brownness.  All of them are now torn up in the, uh, from-under place.  All three of them damaged in the same area?  That seems too coincidental.
• 7 ... seven socks.  Only two of them are a pair.  That pair is black.  So are three of the singles; the other two are white.  All of those single five have different stitchings and patterns, which makes me believe they cannot be paired up with each other.  All of the socks except one, a white one, have holes in the heel, holes so big I cannot wear them anymore.  The white sock that does not have a hole also has elasticity that isn't elastic anymore.  I stretch it, it makes that crunch sound like the C&B pajama pants noted above, and it stays, well, big.  So I probably wouldn't be able to wear it because it would fall to my ankle.  Besides, I don't know where its pair is.

Finally, there is this drawstring bag, blue with red letters saying "FDNY," a red-white (maybe gray due to the dirt)-red triple-stripe below the initials, and a label that jokingly states, "Stay 200 (?) Feet Back," which was thrown onto our front yard several years ago.  I picked it up in the afternoon thinking that the kids across the street ran onto our yard; some kid probably got bullied and threw the bag and left it on our property.  No one rang our doorbell and asked for it back, so now's the time I divested myself of it.  There were sheets of paper in there, which I took out.  But along with the bag I will donate what's in it, which are:

• 5 ... five shoes, two pairs and a single.  All are small, all seem to be women's shoes.  One pair are flip-flops, brown-ish, with high-ish heels, from Limited Too.  Another pair are black, from Footprints by Birkenstock; inside the left shoe it says 37/240.  Finally, the single is a right shoe.  It is white, it says "Dr. Scholl's Gel Pac" inside, and it says its size is a 7W.  All of them seem to be in good, wearable condition.  So why did no one come to take these back?

The Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey

#0: Vikings (Last Week: 0).  I've been elevating the survey too many times this year.  Perhaps that's because I'm a softie, or I have to face facts and that things are kind of good with the local teams this year.  At the very least, though, I have to give recognition to the Vikes, who, in their curtain-raising game at the brand-new U.S. Bank Stadium, outlasted the hated Green Bay Packers Sunday night, 17-14.

The revelation, of course, is the offensive potency provided by Quarterback Sam Bradford, who was sent to the Vikes in a trade (for a first-round pick, and I'm still incredibly peeved about that).  He looked like a world-beater, dropping in perfect passes to his receivers, most notably Stefon Diggs, who I believe was perfect in catching the passes Bradford targeted for him.  I'm ready to give these two a 'Ship name -- Diggsford!

The Peterson injury -- and I don't mean this to mean that I'm glad that he tore his meniscus and could be out for the rest of the year -- could be a blessing in disguise.  First of all, let's be honest -- All Day is not the man he once was, and yes, I understand he led the league in rushing last year.  He's past 30, the Magic Age after which Running Backs slow down and break down.  Besides, him leading the league raises my next point: It's a passing league.  Peterson led all rushers last year because not as many teams run as they did before.  And finally, with the platoon replacement of Jerrick McKinnon and Matt Asiata, maybe they together can make up for some of the deficiencies Peterson was never able to fix, namely pass-blocking.  They may not make up for AD's production, but again, if Peterson isn't able to produce like he did before, how much of a gap will the platoon have to make up?  And besides, without needing to give Peterson his carries, this offense could reorient itself to become a passing team and finally join the 21st century.

Now, I understand that the offense wasn't really firing on all cylinders.  The Vikings only won by three points, and remember that Green Bay went for it on 4th down (and failed) when they could have kicked a chip-in Field Goal; if they took the points instead, this game would have been tied and then who knows what would have happened?  (That's why I cannot give this club Positive Numbers.)  But Aaron Rodgers was bottled up all night, and therefore I have to shine an angelic spotlight on the defense, which is more than earning its keep.  They'll need to show up in force again Sunday afternoon in (I'm assuming, unless the riots there get really violent again) Charlotte, where they play the NFC Champion Carolina Panthers.  I'm scared that Bradford will not be able to replicate what he did last week this week.

(Oh, by the way, the eerie, uh, coincidence of the first Touchdown ever to be thrown at Ooooosbahnk Stadium, Rodgers to Jordy Nelson, in the house of the team in the state of one of its most famous sons, Prince Rogers Nelson [duh-duh-duuuuuuuuuuuuh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!] ... uh, let's pump the brakes on that.  It's just a coincidence, that's all.)

#-1: Gopher volleyball (Last Week: Positive Numbers).  Given the meager opposition, it's no surprise that the squad won its Diet Coke Classic and the Sports Pavilion.  They beat North Dakota, Toledo and Wisconsin-Green Bay.  Nevertheless, I noticed that these Gophs actually dropped a set to the Fighting Hawks.  They lost a set to UND?  I don't get it.  And that's why they slip behind the Vikings in this survey.  Congratulations to Samantha Seliger-Swenson, by the way.  Not only was she named the MVP of the DCC, she three-peated as Conference Setter Of The Week.

This weekend the U. begins conference play with home games vs. Maryland tonight (Friday night) and, in a much tougher game, Ohio St. tomorrow (Saturday) night.

#-2: Gopher soccer (Last Week: -1).  Haven't attended games at the U. this fall yet.  Could've gone to volleyball, and I like the Diet Coke Classic, but I've realized that a team this good will roll over inferior competition, so I would rather watch them play against, say Penn St. or Nebraska.  Meanwhile, the soccer side had may be its most challenging 1-2 punch last weekend, and I had time to see both.  And it was worth it.

Friday night, while getting bit all over, I saw Simone Kolander tie up a very important contest against Penn St. on a corner kick.  That match ended in a 1-all draw.  Then, on Sunday afternoon, the Gophers routed Ohio St., 3-0.  In both games they took the game to them.  They looked fast; in particular, Kellie McGahn consistently beat her defender on long balls down the field.  I guess it might be better if they could pass their way down the field, but hey, I'll start really complaining if the rest of top-flight women's soccer does that.

After a very successful weekend, the U. still hovers around the Top 10 in the polls.  The B1G recognized that as well; Kolander was named Offensive Player Of The Week and Goaltender Tarah Hobbs Defensive Player Of The Week.  This week they hit the road and travel to the Hoosier State for games against Indiana (tonight) and Purdue (Sunday afternoon).

#-Infinity: Twins (Last Week: -2).  Ugh.  Lost all six games this week; got swept by the Mets and Detroit.  And this shit happened yesterday:



Look, one of the co-owners of this team went to my alma mater. But even they have to agree that this is fucking unacceptable. My God, if I were there, I would've thrown my trash onto the field. Because like deserves like.

They finish playing at home this weekend against Seattle (allowing the Mariners to get back into the Wild Card chase), then head to Kansas City for three starting Tuesday.

Rained Biblically

My God, I have never seen so much rain come down so hard, so fast, so often.  I was coming home from the MRI machine last night and, although I was make it to my car before it began, the first massive deluge came on my way to Barnes & Noble.  I took a side street, and although I may have driven through there when it has rained heavily before, I don't remember driving through it while there was so much standing water that I was really afraid it would seep into my car through the bottom of my doors.

It has rained for long periods in Minnesota before, but not like this.  The rain was start-and-stop through the evening after I reached home, but when it started, it poured.  There were three more periods where I could tell it was raining torrentially, biblically.  (That makes the fact that I was able to walk around town and get through the front door with only a couple of drops landing on my head that much more miraculous.)  Each alone seemed like a rainstorm that was as powerful as I've ever seen.  But four of them, all in the same night?

I have been on this earth for 40 years.  I remember the rainy season in Los Angeles in January, where for one week that month every year it would just rain and rain and rain.  That's the closest I've seen to rain strong, hard and copious enough to cause floods, and still, what I saw and heard several times last night was a level beyond.

I am seriously afraid that the basement in our house is flooded.  I thought about going downstairs to at least check the laundry room to see if water has seeped in from the bottom, but I didn't go.  Maybe I should have.

The weather radar showed the reason: The storm laid a meteorological track through the north metro, therefore all the rain was "training" through our area.  Five inches came down in my city.  More than nine inches fell in a city in the northwest Twin Cities.  My goodness.

The forecast calls only for sporadic showers today.  Guess it'll still going to rain, but not heavily, so hopefully the sewers and sump pumps now have the time to digest all the water that's come down.  Fingers crossed; hope all of you in MSP are OK.

The Difference Between 3 And 4 Is Huge

So I have a radio (it's not really a boombox, but it's not, like, a small radio -- want you to be able to imagine the size of this thing) that my parents/family gave me as a birthday gift back in high school.  Still have and use it to this day.  I don't use it much, and the alarm I used to rely on to wake me up, which I liked because the alarm is just the CD I would put into it -- and so, said CD was Chopin, which is a great way to ease into consciousness -- broke, so it's just a radio and CD player.  Nevertheless, I use it -- sparingly, but just a couple days ago I listened to the jazz station and the Monday Night Football game on it.  It's a good machine.

But ever since I got it, I noticed something: There is a huge jump in volume between Setting 3 and Setting 4.  While sometimes I actually want to hear something, sometimes I have to keep the volume down because I don't want to be too loud.  So I hit the button going down, and it seems as though the decrease by going one step down is not proportionate to what it should be, you know?  Similarly, I go one Setting up and the sound I hear goes from a murmur to a rock concert.  Just by going from 3 to 4?

The first time I noticed this I spent a good 60 seconds toggling between the Volume Up and Volume Down buttons.  I can't believe that this could happen because it's, in my opinion, "wrong" -- there has to be a way of fixing this.  But not only have I noticed it with my radio, but I also notice it with some other devices, though not all.  And it appears to come from the lower end of the volume spectrum; at some point that low, the volume seems to have to bust out to a normal level.  Still don't know how that can't be controlled, but if I have encountered more than one device that does this, this may be a problem more common than I originally thought.

This is not something I'm going to complain over.  It's just something I've noticed.

Darn Mosquitoes In The Fall

So I went out to the U. women's soccer team's game against Penn St. Friday (1-all draw, BTW).  Because it was packed -- it was Dollar Seat Night -- I decided to eschew the crowds and walk to the other side of the pitch to watch the game.  It was the Student Section, and since I had a student ID, I got in and could watch the game standing up from there.  More U. students filtered in throughout the match and so my vantage point got more obscured, but I still managed to enjoy the night.

Somewhat.  I should have remembered that mosquitoes love to hang out on grass.  Add that it was an unseasonably hot day, reaching a high of 84 degrees (though not humid, necessarily), and they were out in droves, feasting on me like a pig in a luau, for Christ sake.  I think I got bit at least a dozen times, and although I tried to resist, I finally couldn't help it and scratched all over my arms, hands, legs, and even my butt.  I now have bumps everywhere, and it's uncomfortable.

Wished I had the foresight to bring bug spray with me.

Something Missing From My Franklin Quest

On August 14 I was thumbing through my day planner when I noticed something that I forgot about till just now, when I was putting away the month of August: One of the pages is missing.

I have a weekly calendar now, where the surface of my planner, the two pages, show lines and spaces for a week instead of just a day.  Since I no longer use my FQ as the primary spot where I jot down notes, I don't think I need that much space anymore -- just enough to write down my expenses.

Color me shocked, then, when I flipping through the pages for August 1-7 and didn't see the left side, the one that has the dates for August 1-4.  And I looked everywhere for it, like I didn't pick up that particular page when I was shuffling my refills around.  But no, I think I looked everywhere, and I didn't find it.  So, I had to make do and wrote down I needed to write (which was only expenses) in a blank page, of which there were many in the packet.

Never seen that before.  Think I've used Franklin Quest pages for a decade and a half, but never before now have I lost a page.

Just wanted to say that.

I Finally Got On Top Of My E-Mail

I've forgotten in all the stuff I've been doing lately this sort-of milestone: I finally was able to catch up with all of my e-mails in my main account.  The backlog I allowed after not going through them for, like, a two-week period in May I finally cleared on ... uh, when was that ... it was a Saturday before we left on our roadtrip.  Saturday, August 27 or Saturday, August 20, one of those two dates.  I was at a library, and I could whip through the e-mails, and I did, and I was done.  (Well, not entirely; there's one left, and finding it should be a blog post in the future.)

I'm telling y'all, that's one hell of an accomplishment in my eyes.  It got so bad that some nights I didn't know if I was ever going to catch up.  But I knew the consequences of not taking advantage of all the free time I have right now, so I put my nose to the grindstone and I went through all the junk.

And man, I have a lot of junk in my e-mail.  It just gets away from you, you know -- you buy something, they ask if you want to be continue to be notified of the things you like at the time enough to sign up, and then you get a message from them every day.  And then, unless you do something about them, they get sent for so long that you forget how you signed up with them in the first place.

That's the epiphany I had, and so I finally made the decision to unsubscribe to some of them.  But not all of them.  In fact, I probably kept half of the junk e-mail sources because, just in case, there might be a special that could capture my attention that I would want to know about.  But for the others, such as coupons or chocolate, eh, I'll risk something good passing me by.

I may or may not be seeing the good effects from desubscribing.  First of all, many of them say it'll take, like, three months for someone to get around to taking my e-mail off their lists.  Yeah, OK.  And I realized that I'm taking these companies on faith.  They may have no intention of ever taking my e-mail off of their lists.  But, as I am able to stay on top of my e-mail every day, the amount I get every day seems to have lessened.  Maybe.  And after three months or so, it might decrease even further.  So we'll see.

Nevertheless I'm so glad I'm on top of my main e-mail account.  Now to the other e-mail account, which is at (checking my phone) 23,525 messages stretching back about five years and counting.  I'll get right on that.

Should I Have Hustled The Group For Money?

As I suspected/feared, since my alma mater got trounced two weeks ago, the pretty good crowd we had dwindled for this game last (Saturday) night, though not by as much as I thought.  We actually had a decent turnout for a team that already will fail to reach the lofty expectations we traditionally have for it.

It didn't start out that way.  First of all I was afraid no one else was going to show up.  Then one did, then another.  Then a couple came in, and they were new, which is great.  So I was more than overjoyed with five.  But then two other people, someone I know and her friend, came in the first quarter.  And so all seven us -- wow, seven!!! -- were in downtown Minneapolis to watch our team lose yet again.

And so I was faced with a question.  As president, I need to find ways to raise money for our scholarship fund.  One way to do this is to conduct a raffle at our watch parties.  But I have been reluctant to do it in the past if there wasn't enough people.  But I faced an internal crossroads last night: Is seven people enough to pull off a raffle?

In the end, I decided against it.  I didn't want to freak out the new couple by hitting them up for money the first time I saw them.  But I did it two weeks ago with at least a couple people.  Maybe I hesitated because the two who sauntered in in the first quarter didn't seem to be the raffle ticket-buying type, so why bother.  But did I really know?

Or maybe I should just face facts: I was afraid to hustle money for the fund because I didn't know whether I would lose face.  I didn't want to think of a money-grubber, and so I abdicated on one of the main functions of my job.

Or maybe I did the right thing because otherwise I would be too pushy?  Dammit, I don't know.

Reasons Why This World Cup Of Hockey Is Already A Big Mistake

Hey, today marks the beginning of the World Cup Of Hockey!  Don't you know that?  Come on, it's now the biggest hockey tournament in the world for players playing for their country!  And you don't know that it's beginning today?

Well ... actually, yes, it is, in fact, quite possible that you didn't know that this is World Cup Of Hockey season.  And that is a problem -- not for you or the casual fan or even hardcore hockey fans, but for the WCH itself.  The National Hockey League and its Players' Union decided to resurrect this tournament, which has ancient roots in the Canada Cup, because they no longer wanted to abide by the terms the International Ice Hockey Federation mandated for NHL players and the NHL when they participated in the Winter Olympics.  When it was announced that there would be a 2016 iteration of this World Cup Of Hockey, I took it to mean that those two organizations decided in tandem to totally pull its players out of the Olympics for the time being.  Recent rumblings have hedged that; maybe they'll also go to Pyeongchang two years after this tournament, which will take place entirely in Toronto over the next two weeks just before the NHL season begins.

But if the NHL and NHLPA thinks this is going to be a success, they're fooling themselves.  I am a fairly ardent hockey fan, and I love when players from any sport play for country and not club.  But this idea, the World Cup Of Hockey in 2016, is a horrible idea, and if I am correct, this will prove to be a total effing failure, one that smart people should have seen coming and one that will have consequences beyond itself.

Why?  Here are my reasons, in no particular order.

1) You're doing this right in the middle of football season.  Yes, the NHL begins during the thick of football season, so there is no getting around it.  Still, this much ballyhooed tournament is like shouting at the top of your lungs into the gale of all those football fans after you tried talking in your indoor voice (in this tortured analogy, that's the NHL season) in the middle of said storm.  No one, at least no one in the United States, is talking about this tourney, not at all.  (Canada, at least in Toronto, is a different story, if seeing ads for it plastered everywhere in town is any indication.)  So the NHL or ESPN, the network exclusively carrying the WCH, is just throwing good money down the drain.

2) ESPN is the wrong network to carry this tournament -- or hockey, for that matter.  I remember when The Worldwide Leader broadcast hockey.  They did their best to popularize the sport.  They even, in an embarrassing effort to bring "rad" teens to hockey, put it mostly on ESPN2 when it had snazzy graphics denoting that it's the "cool" sports channel.  But there were howls of protest from diehard hockey fans who didn't think ESPN respected the sport enough to cover it with the dignity they felt the sport was entitled to.  I didn't necessarily buy into the whole bone of their contention, but I did feel that the sport was being squeezed when it came to network coverage and appeal from other sports that, admittedly, were more popular -- sports such as football, though it was far from the only one.

When it was announced several years ago that NBC Sports took the primary NHL package from ESPN (which, I don't think, put up much of a fight to retain), those hardcore hockey fans cheered.  Finally, they said, a network that would put hockey first.  The NBC Sports Network didn't have much of a choice back then; back then hockey was the only sport whose rights it had.  But because of that, NBCSN lavished heaps of attention on the only major sports property they had at the time, and they covered the games, and the game, quite well.  And they still do.

Now, NBC is the network to go to when it comes to hockey.  So why did the league and the players' union decide to give broadcast rights to what they are touting as the premier worldwide tournament in their sport to a network which many people even in the NHL believed was giving them short shrift?  NBCSN was the perfect fit: It's been good to the league, the tournament would naturally lead into the start of the season, and most important of all, it doesn't have football or baseball games that would conflict with the two-week tournament.  (It does have special events like the Ryder Cup and the Paralympics, but the NHL remains its most visible and reliable broadcast partner, so I believe they would easily make room for it.)  It seems like a win-win; the NHL has a broadcast partner that would promote them relentlessly (and probably with some positive spin), and the network has content that would bring in more ad dollars for them.

Instead, the World Cup Of Hockey is being aired by a network with no huge relationship with the NHL in the present, a very rocky relationship in the not-too-distant past, and lots of college football, baseball, and Monday Night Football games that will cannibalize ratings and divert attention away from the tournament, and it doesn't matter that ESPN has ocho channels and could put the entire tournament exclusively on one (it'll be on ESPN2 most of the time, I think).  The WWL is going to be concentrating on football when it doesn't concentrate on baseball.  This tourney, at best, will be the fourth wheel in coverage and newsworthiness, behind the NFL, college football, and MLB.  Why the NHL and NHLPA decided to lay down in this maelstrom, especially when they've been screwed over by this network before, is beyond me.

3) Not many people care about hockey.  Heck, I'll let you in on a little secret: Not even Minnesotans care that much about hockey, although when it comes to states we probably care more about it than every other state except, maybe, Massachusetts.  All this self-generated hype is falling on deaf ears (again, at least here in the U.S. -- I think they're going nuts over it in Canada).  So while putting this on NBCSN would probably be the best situation, it's still going to be drowned out by the other sports being played this time of year.  Heck, the NHL usually gets the shaft when it comes to the sports fan's consciousness, especially when the NBA season starts up.  So I don't think the dividends and impressions the league will actually get from the staging of the WCH will come anywhere close to what they think it will be.

4) The World Cup Of Hockey has no history.  The last time it was played was all the way back in 2004, when the seventh and eighth teams in the eight-team tournament were Germany and Slovakia, games were played in several countries on both sides of the pond, and even I managed to attend the quarterfinal and semifinal games played at the Xcel Energy Center.  I still have the plastic souvenir cup.  (For the record, the U.S. beat Russia in the quarters but lost to Finland in the semis, and gosh, there was this hot Finn chick sitting a few seats to the left of me.  I thought Finns were such dour folk, but holding a beer in her hand she looked like a lot of fun, but I digress.)  The league is touting this as the next edition of this grand tournament, but it can't be if the last edition if it was a dozen years ago.  This obviously is as a dusty trinket hauled out of storage because the league finally decided they wanted to own the profits from a worldwide tournament that they feel they've been giving away to the IIHF whenever they go to the Olympics.

And by the way, before 2004, the World Cup, technically the first-ever World Cup Of Hockey, was last held in 1996.  That replaced the somewhat fabled Canada Cup, whose frequency was also all over the place -- going backwards, the last Canada Cup was 1991, and before it were '87, '84, '81 and '76.  So that tourney was held with much more frequency, but come on, they do another one in five years and then in three and then three and four and finally five?  The constantly changing intervals between tournaments suggest disorganization and, ultimately, an indifference to whether they want to hold a tournament of this type or not.

So, really, this is a brand-new tournament -- and one, like I said, that feels like a ginned-up sham because the NHL and NHLPA arrogantly thinks they can do their own thing and no one would be the wiser.  Sports fans who don't have their heads up their behinds can see through it ... and then they'll see past it as they channel-surf to the football or playoff baseball game.

And one other bad reason that isn't specifically about this World Cup but is tied into all of the reasons stated above:

5) The NHL needs the Olympics, and the Olympics needs the NHL.  When it comes to niche sports -- and let's face it, hockey is the Shemp of The Big Four Sports -- they need all the publicity it can get.  With the introduction of pros playing in the Olympics, and just as important, the fact that everyone knows that the Winter Olympics are held every four years, a cycle of buzz has been established, creating a popularity for this nation tournament that only helps the NHL when its season starts.  That has only gotten bigger with each passing Olympiad, and it at least partially led to the burgeoning contracts the league has extracted from NBC Sports when not too long ago its puny TV contracts were an embarrassment to the league.

But there can only be one tournament for a sport whose players play for country.  That is the Winter Olympics, whether the NHL and players' union like it or not, and they cannot simply replace that with their own tournament and make us fans think that it's legitimate.  We'll be all, "Get back into the Olympics, you hosers!"

This might end up being a lose-lose situation.  While the NHL and NHLPA may go down in flames over their contrived contraption, the Olympics (along with the IIHF and the International Olympic Committee) will see popularity on what arguably is the signature sport of the Winter Games (although you can make a case for figure skating) nosedive.  No one wants to see college players and scrubs man Team USA, Team Canada, or any country whose hockey federation forbids its players from playing in these games because it has the WCH instead.  And if the Americans that trot out to South Korea get hammered so badly they don't even get out of the group stage, the already anemic Winter Olympics ratings, which traditionally pale in comparison to the Summer Games, the most recent iteration of which (in Rio just over a month ago) fell into the toilet, will simply vanish.  Then where would the Winter Olympics be?

I still have a soft spot of thinking that the Olympics should be all about amateurism.  I have given up that ideal and just enjoyed seeing the best players in the world bearing flags on their jerseys, however -- so much so that if Team USA or any other Olympics squad goes back to sending amateurs because the NHL forbids its best players to play in that tournament, I won't watch.

Don't want to sound like Donald Trump, but this is a disaster in the making, and it'll create nasty ripple effects to the connected parties for years.  But go ahead, watch the World Cup Of Hockey and think it's really awesome and stuff.  I might even watch it; it's live sport in the daytime, so I can watch it while I'm working out.  Doesn't mean it's important, and it sure as heck doesn't mean it makes any darn sense, either.

The Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey

Positive Numbers: Gopher volleyball (Last Week: 0).  Don't know what's gotten into me.  I'm working on this at the Caribou I went to Monday -- this one -- to look for my keys, and alas, they weren't there.  So maybe I'm pushing up all the teams in this week's survey a couple notches to make myself feel better.  GODDAMMIT, WHERE ARE MY FUCKING KEYS?!?!?!

OK, so the volleyballers went to Chapel Hill, N.C. for the Big Ten/ACC Challenge and won both both matches, sweeping Louisville and then beating host and then-#8 North Carolina in four sets.  By virtue of those victories, the Gophers have floated up from fifth to third in the AVCA.  Gushing over this squad may be premature, but right now, they're 5-1, and four of those wins have come against not only ranked teams, not only teams that are ranked as of this week's poll, but also against teams that are still in the Top 20.  That's a hell of a resume.

This week they host their annual Diet Coke Classic.  This appears to be a palate cleanser weekend; their opponents are North Dakota, Toledo and Green Bay.

#0: Vikings (Last Week: -3).  Sunday was our last day of the roadtrip.  Specifically, we were dinkin' around Chinatown in Chicago before headed off for home in the afternoon.  My sister and brother-in-law were getting bubble tea and my parents were looking for crispy pork while I booted up my SiriusXM app and listened to the Vikes unable to score while allowing The Bastard Houston Oilers in the first half of their season opener.  I will admit that I thought they were done for, the first step in what would be a long season.

But then the Vikings turned it around in the second half.  Well, the Vikings defense turned it around in the second half, with Eric Kendricks picking off the Titans' Marcus Mariota for a pick-six and Danielle Hunter's scoop-and-score powering Minnesota to an impressive 25-16 come-from-behind victory.

Nevertheless I think there are major problems with this club.  People were praising Shaun Hill for managing the game, but from looking at that first half, there wasn't a whole lot of managing going on.  Not turning the ball over is faint praise.  The problem with the QB may be exacerbated this week since, even though Head Coach Mike Zimmer isn't talking about who will start, it looks as though the coaching staff believes Sam Bradford has now had enough study and practice to go under center.  Sam Bradford?  The oft-injured Sam Bradford you guys coughed up a first-round pick for?  The one whose production last year was similar to that of Mark Sanchez, who was cut and could have been picked up off the street without needing to trade a first-round pick?  And they're going to switch horses midstream, too?  Look, Bradford is going to have to invoke the spirit of, oh, prime-era Tommy Kramer for me to think any of this is a good idea.

And we have to once again talk about Blair Walsh, who missed two Field Goals and an Extra Point Sunday.  That is seven points, obviously -- the Vikings should have doubled-up The Bastard Oilers (the score should have been 32-16), and if Tennessee capped off their late Touchdown with a Two-Point Conversion, this would have been a one-score game.  That margin is too close considering all the free points Walsh gave away.

So Sunday Night is Football Night for the Vikes, who get to show off the brand-new U.S. Bank Stadium in prime time for the first real game in their new house, and as it should be, it's against the Green Bay Packers.  Don't know how this game is going to go.

#-1: Gopher soccer (Last Week: -1).  Well, they got killed at Stanford Friday, 4-1, but the Cardinal is ranked second in poll and first in another.  But then the side beat Santa Clara at Santa Clara Sunday, 2-1.  That road split keeps the U. in the low double digits.  This team is 6-2, but unlike the volleyball team, this team's victories are against non-ranked scrubs.  That makes me believe that they have a ceiling and we can see it from here, if you know what I mean.  But this weekend they begin conference play at home with a hell of a one-two punch: Penn St. tonight, Ohio St. Sunday.  And get this: Even though the Nittany Lions are the established power in the B1G, but it's the Buckeyes that are ranked in the Top 10 of the polls (the Nittany Lions are in the upper teens).  Minnesota could show it has more mettle than they've shown up to now if they can come away with positive results.

#-2: Twins (Last Week: -2).  There is one week left of home games for the Twinks, and because there are no weekday matinees, I probably will not go to any game at Target Field for this season.  And I feel bad, because one of the two reasons I would go to a game late in the year to see a shitty team, seeing a player playing great, is happening right now.

Holy shit, Brian Dozier is having a hell of a second half, isn't he?  With his 40 (40+) Home Runs, he joins Ryne Sandberg, Rogers Hornsby and Davey Johnson as the only Second Basement to hit that many Homers in a season.  I got that fact from Mike Bates, who writes for SB Nation's MLB Daily Dish, who then opined about whether Dozier should be traded now that he has improved his own trade value.

Bates says that he could see an equitable trade if the organization can get three guys, two starters and a really good prospect, for him.  He also says that trading away a prime 2B usually doesn't result in getting more net worth in return.  That would be one reason why I say you can't trade Dozier.  The bigger reason, in my opinion, is that this franchise has been in the abyss for so long that the dwindling fanbase needs to hang onto someone good, even if trading that asset ignites or accelerates the rebuilding process.

Let's face it: The ballyhoed wave of prospects has been a disaster.  Byron Buxton can't hit in the majors if it's slow-pitch softball.  Miguel Sano can't seem to stay off the DL.  Byung-Ho Park hasn't been able to fully adjust to American ball.  Jose Berrios appears, at least for this first year, to be overwhelmed in The Big Show.  And any other longshot prospect the Twinks have trotted up to the Twin Cities has done nothing.

The only out-of-nowhere success for this cursed club this season has been Dozier's second half.  And with his steady (if not stellar) production over the past few seasons and with Joe Mauer becoming nothing more than the "R" in WAR these days, Dozier's The Face Of This Team.  It may not make sabremetric sense, but if you want kids who are still going out to the ballpark for these shit games because they're family got free tickets to actually pay for tickets to future games when they're adults, you need to give them a hero.  Brian Dozier's it.  Trading him severs any emotional goodwill you have generated with a populace that is trying to latch onto any reason to give a shit about this team.  Besides, Terry Ryan locked him into a contract that pays him $15 million this and next year.  He is not a millstone, unlike Mauer.  Keep him.

Oh, they finished 3-4 this screening week, by the way.  I thought this squad was done with interleague play, but out of the blue they're hopping over to Queens to play the Wild Card-contending New York Mets this weekend for a three-game series.  They then come home Tuesday to start their final homestand for the 2016 season with a three-game set against Detroit.

#-3: Gopher football (Re-Entry!).  They beat Indiana St., blah-blah-blah.  They're here because the football team is again in the police blotter, as four suspended Gophs are being investigated for rape.  I guess I shouldn't be surprised that this team -- no, really any team -- would have its players investigated for sexual assault.

They have this week off.  They host Colorado St. next Saturday.

Asshole Driver: 630 RTU

This one is important, guys.  Of all the Bad Drivers I've encountered, this prick scares me the most.  So, just in case this asshole comes after me, well, you heard it here first.

Alright, you motherfucking Trump supporter.  I was waiting on the off-ramp because cars were coming by.  I did see the lane in front of me, but since we were going to the mall, some cars veer into that lane, so just in case, I let them move ahead first.  Oh, by the way, I also stopped on that off-ramp because I had the fucking Yield sign.

You seem to be really pushy, aren't ya?  Getting all by me even though we both were racing through the stop signs.  What, you needed that special spot underneath the two-floor ramp before me?  But I will admit that you really pissed me off when you slammed on your brakes right in front of me after you cut me off.  I do not want to waste my good, new brake pads and rotors for a piece of shit like you.

Finally: Yeah, I see your "Locked And Loaded" decal on the back of your camper shell.  I'll be honest: I am intimidated.  You were looking at me like you were catching every single detail of my face and car.  I wouldn't be totally surprised if you left a bullet in our mailbox, or if you go to the DMV, look up my license, and head to my house with one of your arsenal of guns.  But you're not going to shut me up, because you're a road-raging asshole, and you need to be put on blast.

So I don't have any idea whether the county police paid a visit to you or your car if you were still parked at the mall after I called your punk ass in.  I don't know if they can or will do anything at all.  But I know one thing: Pretty soon, I'm going back to that mall, and I'm going to park there, and I'm going to walk into that mall to do whatever the fuck I want, because I have a right to do whatever the fuck I want without being shoved around by some rude Second Amendment-loving chump who decides he doesn't have to wait.

What the hell are you going to do about it?

Back To Losing ... Things, I Mean

More and more I hate breaks from my routine because I just lose track of shit.  Last night, for example, I realized that I don't have my house keys in my pocket.  I kind of freaked out that it may be in my rental, until I realized I used those keys to open the front door after coming back from our roadtrip, so it has to be somewhere.


I also realized that the windbreaker vest Father gave me is nowhere to be seen.  Out of the blue, during the trip, he gave me it to wear, saying I would be cold.  I wasn't, of course, but I wore it, and he gave me the goddamn thing.  I didn't want it and I didn't need it, and so I didn't realize until this morning that I don't know where it is.  I'm sure I didn't leave it in the hotel in Chicago -- that I wore it instead, and once the sun came out I took it off and threw it in the driver's seat.  Or maybe I didn't.


See, he always does this.  This guy is militant about clutter, and yet he gives me clothes I don't need -- clutter.  I'm now responsible for something I have no time to be responsible for, so of course I lose it.  And now I feel guilty about losing a vest that, while is nothing I need nor want, was still a pretty good vest.


So, what now?  Maybe the vest is gone, but I need to find those fucking keys, I have my life in them.

I Now Stand And Fight The Battle Of The Bulge

This is it.  I've had enough.  Too many times where my stomach has been pressed up against the front button of my pants, too often jiggling my beer belly when I'm sitting and bored, and getting pissed off that I suddenly now feel both full nearly all of the time and out of breath when I sit down.

I finally caved into Father's exhortations and weighed myself on a scale, which the JW Marriott furnished because it is the JW Marriott.  (Last night Mother told me how much they paid for our three rooms for two days, and she blew a damn gasket.  So we'd better have a scale.)  I weighed, get this, 187 pounds.  For God's sake, I did so much damn walking in Toronto and Chicago and I actually gained weight from when we started our roadtrip.

This was my tipping point.  Earlier in the trip My Father said I should get on a diet as soon as I got home, and even though I hate saying he is right, he was right.  I vowed near the end of the trip to go on a diet, and I have started to go on it this week.

This might be a situational problem.  As a family we eat a lot, and the vacation was no exception, so maybe it wasn't too far-fetched that I would put on the pounds.  There was the State Fair I went to before we hit the road.  And even though I should stop putting all of this on my parents, it doesn't help that Mother's food is so goddamn good I couldn't stop eating it for dinner.  (When my parents left last fall, my weight dropped.)  I was fortunate that Mother didn't pack me a full lunch for "work" and that I finally decided I couldn't have fast food for lunch every fucking day.  Without making those two decisions, I likely would have cracked the 200-lb. barrier.

Still, getting up to 187 shocks me.  As a kid I was a stick, and a proud one, too.  Sometimes I would look at myself in the bathroom mirror and breathe so deep that I could see my ribcage.  For some reason I wanted to see it.  I was less than 100 pounds when I hit high school, then slowly creeped all the way up to about 125 by the time I left for college.  I don't know exactly know when, but in adulthood my metabolism was zapped out of me, and I no longer was able to blast all the food that I ate through some powerful furnace in my stomach.  I developed a gut instead.

At least I have an excuse to finally push back from the dinner table instead of giving in to eating Mother's food.  I really believe that with her, food = love.  When I was a kid I didn't eat because I wasn't hungry, and I kind of feel that lent to her resenting me and not my fatter brother.  But at this point even she could see that I am bloated, that I can barely fit into my pants and that something has to change.

The coming down will be difficult.  I once attended a lecture by Henry Rollins, who rolled out his diet plan in six words: "Eat less, eat better, exercise more."  That really is it, but it is far easier said than done.  I think I've been pretty diligent in working out, and as long as I don't have an actual job, I will have plenty of time to get on the elliptical, which is good.  But I still get those cravings, man, and that leads me to eat in the hopes that I still don't balloon because I haven't eaten a ton as opposed to a lot.  For example, on Tuesday, after working out in the evening, I couldn't help but go to Taco Bell and try out that new Cheesy Core Burrito thing and wash it down with a Coke.  (Verdict, BTW -- overrated; the cheese was pumped into the side, not in the middle of the burrito like it was supposed to.)  I felt that in my gut all night.  Wednesday afternoon my fat bomb occurred in the afternoon, where, after seeing my IRA advisor, I decided to swing on over to Hooters, where I ordered a full plate of nachos.  At least that was in the afternoon; I exercised at night, and have contended myself with just water after coming home.

Mother, however, still clings to the notion that I need to eat something, and therefore, the "eat less" part of the Hank Rollins Diet Plan is still being worked on.  Mother said that she will now make salads for me, and the first one will be flecked with chicken from Popeye's.  OK, maybe not the healthiest thing, but I like to eat chicken, and so long as it's a salad it'll be fine, right?  But when I came home, I see that the salad is in one of the big pho bowls she uses.  Oh, crap.  She knows I need to eat healthier, but either she doesn't understand or that she still can't help but think that it's also important to eat smaller meal portions.  This is Mother's way of overcompensating.  And that is not good, because it took me 90 minutes to eat that gigantic salad bowl.  (Granted, I ate nachos at Hooters a couple hours before.  It didn't help, and it also doesn't help that 20 or even 10 years ago I could've eaten both without a problem.)  I didn't want to finish the salad but did -- another bad sign.  And I also felt the lettuce and tomatoes and chicken travelling to my belly.  Tried to work out extra hard afterward.

This will be rough.  This is The New Normal.  It's not as if, after I reach my goal weight (and I don't know if I want to lose 10 or 15 or 20, but 25 wouldn't be bad) I can just go back to eating everything Mother makes at night because I would be right back where I started from.  Last night was the only time this week where I would be having "dinner" at home.  My parents understand the reason why, but will they understand that I really need to skip dinner at home for multiple times a week -- and not just eat less, because Lord knows I won't be able to control myself -- seemingly forever?  I don't like doing that, and for sure they don't like me rejecting food they made for me.  But they don't like me getting fat either, and so, at least for now, I have some leeway in just not eating home with them.  Just drop the pounds -- that's the objective.

The New Normal Is Back To The Old Normal

It is was getting kind of crowded at home with my sister and brother-in-law back.  And there was a huge adjustment accounting for two extra people who know a lot more about what I do behind closed doors.  It was kind of weird to share a bathroom again, and I kind of held my nose when taking a shower fearing I would, uh, smell their bare essence, in particular my brother-in-law's, because I think it's kind of skeevy.

In fact, I'll be honest: It is getting more difficult to accept that my brother-in-law is a full-fledged part of the family.  He's a great guy, and I know he will support and protect my sis, which is all I need him to do.  (Come to think of it, my sister needs to thank her lucky stars, because she is the one who married up.  My brother too, but that might be another topic for another time.)  But as I hope to detail in the years ahead about this trip, the barrier between the blood family and the relations family still exists and is still tall and strong.  And it exists within me, too.  It was hard to open up and feel totally relaxed with him around.  He has not been with us since Day One, whatever that means.  He does not know all of our secrets, although I'm sure my sister has caught him up on the family dynamic.  And, I'm afraid, that fact that he's white and we're not Chinese is still something I need to work very hard to overcome.  My brother-in-law has been open enough to look outside his country and his race to pledge his undying devotion to my sister, and I have to work hard to respond in kind to him.

Yet, after two weeks (one spent cooped up together in a rented minivan), they're off, back to the continent of Europe.  And now it's back to where it was two weeks ago ... and it feels weird.  I haven't gotten used to everything in two weeks, but this too feels like an adjustment.  Moreover, I feel kind of scared because now it's just my parents and me -- no, my parents vs. me.  And without fail, they go back to the find a new job/when are you going back to school haranguing after we get back from a vacation, like it's causal, like they're saying, "OK, I've given you your fun -- when are you going to shape up?"  That's one of the main reasons why I don't like going on vacation with them: They feel like I now owe them.  And ... I don't want to feel like I owe them.

You know, this sounds like I no longer feel safe in my house.  I feel attacked, but I don't feel unsafe, if that makes any sense.  It just would help to have someone who I can talk to -- not necessarily about my parents, but just about things in general.  And I had two of them.  But now they're gone, and I have to go back to the normal I had trouble adjusting from.

(shrugs)

The Four Babes At The Caribou I Went To Yesterday Morning

Since my sister and brother-in-law have been in town, I've been a good boy when it comes to jerking off.  Sure, I rubbed one out just before we left on our roadtrip in the middle of the night, hoping those two couldn't hear me through the wall.  And, yeah, I abused myself in Toronto Thursday morning as soon as my parents left our hotel room.

Well, OK, I haven't been that good of a boy.  But I feel a rising level of horniness inside me, and as soon as I get home tonight after dropping them off at the airport, I might just walk around my bedroom with no pants on and spew my semen all over the fucking place.  I don't know if my libido has been this turned on since I was having wet dreams in my teen years.

While I have been suppressing my needs, I have been more keen to look at babes around me.  There are a lot of beautiful women in the world, as the roadtrip attested to.  (It helped that there was a heatwave last week in the places we drove to; all these women showing off their barebellies in order to beat the heat -- yow!)  And I would have been alright to just give a look and say, "hey now!"  Right now, however, I am staring at babes.  I am ogling at them.  And I would do that thing where my eyes bulge out of my sockets and my tongue rolls out of my mouth like a red carpet if I knew 100% I wouldn't get arrested.

My pervertedness came to a crescendo at the Caribou I went to yesterday morning.  It was a different Caribou from the one I usually go to because I was afraid that my sister and brother-in-law might want to spend a morning having coffee there and catch me.  Thank Buddha I went there because the babes were out in force.  In particular, there were four of them.  And I will describe them in some detail here:

1) The barista.  In what I consider to be an ethnically heterogeneous area, the staff was staffed with middle-aged white women.  The woman who helped me was blonde, maybe in her fifties, and was wearing a low-cut top that showed off her ample cleavage.  And when she was looking down to get me my change, I slyly looked down and saw that she had some really big boobs, too.  Best of all, she was really friendly and sweet, giving me the fantasy that she wouldn't mind fucking me in bed if we got drunk enough one night.

2) The quietest one was by herself, studying.  But she was thin, as evidenced by the tight brown shirt she decided to wear.  It wasn't low-cut, but it showed off her thin silhouette!

3) Then it's the two girls who sat and studied together.  Maybe she was the hottest one.  I first noticed her when she was sitting with her back to me, and she was wearing a sweater short enough to show off the small of her back!  And more importantly, she didn't care to pull it down!  She probably couldn't've since it was so short!

When I was walking past her to see her face, wow, she's hot!  She's blonde with long and curly hair, and she had on these thick black nerd/hipster glasses -- not unlike what I'm wearing right now.  Didn't notice what top she had on because she was, gosh, gorgeous!

4) Her friend wasn't too bad, either.  She was a tad chunkier, but just a tad.  What made me for her was the low-cut shirt she was wearing.  From my seat I could spy that she had some kick-ass cleavage going on too, and through her shirt I could tell that she had some serious boobage going on, too!

Wow, where did all these babes come from?  Or did I not notice them until now?  Doesn't matter -- fap-fap-fap!!!

Expenses Without Receipts

Uh-oh, getting out of control.  Starting FROM Sunday, September 11:

• I'll be honest: I don't know if tipping housekeeping is standard practice anymore.  This is the first time in at least a couple years I have ever spent a night at a chain hotel that provides daily housekeeping service.  But I threw down a couple bucks anyway because 1) the hotel room was totally opulent and 2) they had to clean up a heck of a mess we made both nights we stayed there: $2.
• On Saturday the 10th I did the same thing: $2.
• ETA on 8:49 a.m. on Tuesday, September 13 because I remembered that, when we took a sidetrip from getting to our hotel to Chinatown to meet up with my brother and sister-in-law, Mother gave me coins to put into the paybox to park.  An Infusion of: $2.
• Thursday, September 8 -- While walking around Toronto my sister and brother-in-law gave me money.  They were paying me back because, on an earlier day at MOA, they needed me to use my credit card to pay for something they wanted to buy.  An Infusion of: $20.
• Monday the 5th, aka Labor Day ... oh my God, at some point I have to talk about the goddamn number of tolls we drove through on our roadtrip, 'cause this is absolutely fucking insane.  Possibly the first one we encountered as we headed east, we were adamant (or at least Mother was adamant) about giving exact change.  At this booth I volunteered to give four bits because the toll was, like, $1.50 or $10.50 or something.  So I provided: 50 cents.
• On Friday the 2nd I started my morning at Caffetto for a small hot mocha and a chocolate chip cookie.  Typing that, that seems like a pretty full breakfast.  With tip: $6.25.
• I then went to the State Fair that afternoon (maybe that's the reason why I'm so fat) to meet up with my brother-in-law, sister, her best friend and her best friend's partner.  I ate a chili dog from Peter's (never went there but I had a coupon) and a pina colada from Manny's Tortas, which uses a hollowed-out pineapple as a cup.  Love it.  Total: $10.75.
• That night I had to escape out to Glam Doll for some alone time.  Plus tip: $11.
• On Thursday the 1st I also went to the Fair, possibly because I had one discount ticket I didn't think I would have the time to use anytime else.  I bought and ate the following: a Spicy Pork Bowl, one of the most recommended new foods of this Fair; a Summit Blu, a buzzed-about new beer from last year's Fair; a foot-long hot dog for which I had a coupon; the underrated MinnePumpkin pie with a scoop of vanilla ice cream; and a small Coke.  With tip for the Blu it comes to a, now that I think about it, respectably valuable: $27.
• After that I went to Great Clips to get a haircut in anticipation for the trip.  Charged the cut, gave cash for the tip: $3.
• To Wednesday, August 31, where I went to the Starbucks close to my shrink's, who I was visiting in the early afternoon.  A mocha frap plus tip: $4.75.
• After seeing my psychiatrist I went to the Hooters at MOA to ask about getting my Mug Club Card renewed.  It's the third time I am trying to get it renewed.  The first time I was given a "returning" Mug Club Card where I only had to buy 10 mug-sized beers in order to receive the discount instead of the usual 20.  The second time I had to renew, the girl just renewed it -- no probationary 10-beer requirement required.  Well, I think the babe last week (one who knows me, and is hot) said that I had to do the whole thing all over again.  Not even the 10-beer shortcut?  If that's the case, I'm out.  We'll see what really happens when I go eat at Hooters this afternoon; I have to be down there because I'm returning the rental car today.  With tip: $12.75.
• On the afternoon of Monday the 29th I went to Anelace for coffee.  With tip: $4.50.
• I then went to a party at *i****'s place in St. Paul.  It was the first time I was at the home of this chick, whom I've known for some time.  I, in fact, surprised her with my pee-pee once.  I did not show her my pee-pee this time, however.  For one thing, when I showed her the first time, I didn't know whether or not she liked it.  (I will say, however, that when I was getting a lapdance from her at My Favorite Stripclub [Non-Cover Version] recently she commented on it.  So maybe there's a chance!)  And for another, I wasn't going to get a bed dance from her, even though she is the host, because I was invited to this party by ****e, a recent new dancer to the titty bar and who started to grope me when I got an LD from her there.  That LD is when she informed me of the party, and it has become my procedure to give the most expensive dance to the one who invited me.  Let's just say ****e didn't disappoint, although I am disappointed in myself that I didn't cum through her tits, lips and mouth.  I had to do it myself, and she is such a fucking pervert that she may have licked the cum off of my fingers.  Suffice it to say I need to see her again.  There were three other women there whom I gave ordinary dances to: host *i****, Heaven and Sunny.  With cover and the total hot fucking damage comes out to: $170.

Whew!  Done through 9/11.

And Now The Trip Is Over

Besides a fucking lecture from My Fucking Father about picking up a piece of dim sum by using my chopstick as a fork -- I'm 40, you idiot, and living at home with you does not make me an exception -- this day actually turned out alright.  Got home later than I thought, past sundown, and when My Fucking Father suggested my brother-in-law drive all the way home I thought that he was subtly saying that he now prefers him over me.  But I am typing this now from my bed in my room in the only home I have ever known and ever want to know, and I am fine.

Saying that, it was nice to go out and see some new sights (Buffalo, Niagara Falls), go in-depth into a couple places I have been to (Toronto, Chicago), and stop in a city just for lunch (in Cleveland, a place I've been to once before and might want to go back to again).  Heck, even staying the first night of our road trip in Mishawaka, Ind., right next to South Bend, was nice because I got to drive past Notre Dame, our hated rival.

The company?  Eh.  My sister and brother-in-law, we got along, but it was getting hairy there near the end.  Sister-in-law was her cheery self.  Niece still looks at me like I'm dead to her, but that's fine.  Brother?  Yeah, I'm glad we won't be seeing each other for a while.  Parents?  We needed to be separated, and them being in the basement right now is perfect.

But I'll say this: We constructed this roadtrip because Mother wanted to cross Niagara Falls off of her bucket list.  The stops in Toronto and Chicago were, I think, the ideas of my sister and brother, respectively, and that's why we made this a weeklong roadtrip.  But it was predicated on Mother, and when we finally got to the driveway, I patted her on the shoulder.  She accomplished something she wanted to do, and I at least respect that.

I Can^t Wait For This Trip To Be Over

<mz fucking brother telling me not to give him his boat ride trip.  <mz Fucking Father lecturing me, again, on the subtleties of tipping.  <mz Fucking <mother telling me not to each anz french fries because <iäll get fat, even though itäs her goddamn food <8which is delicious, except for that fucking swill she makes me drink everz fucking night) thatäs reallz making me fat, and that that thought seems to be bezond her reasoning absoutelz pisses me off.

And now we have one more big daz in Chicago, where we have to hit Chinatown for what appears to be several hours, before heading home.  We might not get back until late at night, which reallz isnät the plan.  Whateverö <iäll be <äworking<ä tomorrow regardless.

<i canät wait for this trip to be over.

(Oh, bz the waz, sorrz for all the errors, Iäm tzping this on mz brother-in-lawäs Apple, and I donät have time to find where all the right buttons are.)

The Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey (Scheduled Post)

You know what?  I don't think I have time to write down anything for any of the entries in this week's survey.  So I am going to just list them and hopefully talk more in depth about the events that happened this screening week down the line.  Sorry, but I think I need to go up to my hotel room lest my parents get mad.

#0: Gopher volleyball (Last Week: -2).  Impressive wins over Texas A&M and Florida St.  This week: A tournament in North Carolina against Louisville and the Tar Heels.

#-1: Gopher soccer (Last Week: 0).  In a tourney in Durham, N.C., crushed Villanova but lost a close one to Duke.  This week: At Stanford, at Santa Clara.

#-2: Twins (Last Week: -3).  A 2-4 week for The Worst Team In Baseball.  But now Brian Dozier is receiving a lot of pub for his torrid Home Run effort.  This week: Home to Cleveland, at Detroit.

#-3: Vikings (Last Week: -Infinity).  Losing Bridgewater is bad; willingly giving up a first-round draft pick to get Sam Bradford, a guy whose legs are now made out of sticks, is even worse.  Either he or Shaun Hill starts against The Bastard Houston Oilers to begin the season Sunday.

#-Infinity: Gopher wrestling (Re-Entry!).  J Robinson -- where to begin?

Will My Parents Be Pleased? (Scheduled Post)

Tomorrow/today/Thursday will be the first of two days where we stay in the same place for back-to-back days.  That has its drawbacks because, while it's great to finally have a day where we won't have to pack up and leave, I feel the pressure of finding stuff for the family -- and really my parents -- to do.

We had a meeting last (Wednesday) night about what we're going to do.  The only thing that was a necessity was my sister meeting a friend.  Per my sister's friend, there is a recommendation to go to two restaurants, one of which we'll probably hit for the day.  The rest, I'm afraid, is up in the air.  And for all of our recommendations and the plan we cobbled together, I don't know if my parents are approving of the idea of going around the new Chinatown in Toronto and then hitting a marketplace.

See, this is why I want to vacation alone.  I set my own expectations, and if I am disappointed, I am the only one to blame, and since I really can't blame myself, I'm not that disappointed.  But for all the stuff I and my sister try to do, I don't know if it's good enough for my folks.  And it really does suck that I have to please my parents on a vacation, you know?

I think I fell asleep last night to the smell of My Fucking Father's underwear.  For some goddamn reason he needed to air out his undies, and so he hung them on a coat hanger and hung that in front of the air conditioning vent -- in front of which was the sofa bed I slept on overnight.

I've been smelling the fumes from My Fucking Father's from-under place all goddamn night.

Being a fifth wheel sucks, and I can't wait for this vacation to be over.

Continue To Get Stuck Alone With My Fucking Father (Scheduled Post)

I know shit would go bad as soon as my sister and brother-in-law said that they wanted to walk back to the hotel.  That meant I was alone with My Fucking Father, and after all the bonhomie of figuring out that "Meijer" is actually pronounced "Meyer," he then blindsided me by telling me, "You need to do something with your life."

Fuck you, Father.  I'm just going to die anyway.  Why fucking bother?

I felt the same way when my sister and brother-in-law decided to take my parents' minivan back home, leaving me to take the rental car back home with My Fucking Father.  It's like I'm an altar boy getting stuck alone with a priest who then molests him, except that I'm not getting molested.

And there's gonna be seven more days of this shit?  Some of those days where I'm stuck in the same fucking room with my parents, alone??

Is There An Opposite Of Hangry?

If there is, well, I feel that way now, and in fact I often feel that way.

Last night my family had a feast at my brother and sister-in-law's place, and while the food was great, I had my fill after eating the baked potato and corn.  They weren't bad; it's just that I felt obligated to eat it all, and I quietly resented it.  It's way past the point where I can just eat and eat and eat; I don't have the metabolism I had twenty years ago.  But now it seems as though my limit on what I can eat before I get upset has become less and less even though whenever I am in a family or social setting people keep saying, "Eat, eat, eat!"

I remember, when I was young, reacting ... not well to being told to eat more.  And that was when I could eat everything.  So, several years back, when I started seeing the made-up word "hangry," which is a blend of hungry and angry, I really didn't understand the concept.  I don't get mad when I need to eat.  I don't think I ever have.  I was at the Megamall on Saturday and I saw the word "HANGRY" on a t-shirt.  My God, it's definitely a thing millennials say these days.

In fact, if anything, I get upset when I am definitely not hungry, and in my old age my tolerance for food and for eating has gotten shorter.  So I hope this doesn't become an issue when my family and I hit the road.  If Mother insists I stuff my face for dinner or even while I'm driving, and I don't feel I need to eat (and I probably won't most of the time), I'll get angry.

Full and angry.  Could that be called "fullangry?"  I'll work on it.

Mercurial Fantasy Footballers, Mercurial Coffeeshops

I have two fantasy football leagues I'm a part of.  Of the two, I have one that's more important to me because 1) I am the commissioner of the league and 2) the other league is run by a friend I'm having a falling-out with ... don't want to talk about it now, maybe later, but he's not behaving any better than our beef stemming from my old third fantasy league, which I will not revive for this or any season.  (And oh, I don't want to talk about that now either, maybe later.)

Because of my family roadtrip, I set the auction for the Friday before Labor Day.  That is very early, considering the actual season starts on September 8.  Ideally, I would have done this the night before, on Wednesday the 7th.  But after someone asked that we move it to Sunday, and after thinking that it's possible to have a late dinner at home after hanging out at the Fair with my sister and brother-in-law, I did it.

Then I got into a swirl of what-ifs.  I initially thought to do it at the same time.  But I have to pick up the rental car we're using Sunday night, and there might be a big Sunday dinner that evening.  So, I asked the fantasy footballers if we could do it in the afternoon ... where I would be conducting the auction at my brother and sister-in-law's place, where we are having Sunday dinner after my sister called an audible so she and her husband can see their place and visit our niece again.  People seemed to be cool with that, except for my friend, who preferred it late in the night so as not to coincide with putting his daughter to bed.

At this point I'm babbling in tongues and going cross-eyed in finding the right time to conduct the auction.  Finally, for the sake of continuity and my best friend's schedule (as well as that of the another person), I kept it in the evening, but pushed it back a half-hour to 7 o'clock.  That way I hope I'll be done with dinner, but I'll still have enough time to control my team before we have to go pick up the car.  Fantasy football leagues are won in the late rounds, but it's the best I can do.  Besides, I won last year mostly by cutting and adding free agents, and so I can do it again this year, no problem.

---

Meanwhile, I think it's more than time to get a new computer.  Both Caffetto and Urban Bean have had hiccups lately when I wanted to sit down and work.  It's maddening to have your day ruined by an unconnected laptop.

But the weird thing is, I went to Caffetto Thursday and Friday and both times, my computer worked just fine.  Got on the Internet to work and everything.  This was after my lap hadn't worked twice.

This still bothers me.  I'm thinking that I would get hooked up to these two coffeeshops' wi-fi just fine every time if I had a newer laptop.  And I need a new computer for other reasons.  But if this old workhouse can still get on these places, at least some of the time, then the problem isn't this thing, it's them.  And if that's the case, why should I replace my laptop?

It's just maddening that something I think you should be able to reasonably rely on isn't, and it's doubly maddening that you can't pinpoint the reason why.

To Be The Black Sheep Of The Family (Scheduled Post)

You know, Friday wasn't a bad day.  There wasn't anything I had to do.  I certainly didn't have to go to work.  I went to Caffetto in the morning, and my computer worked there.  And then, later in the day, I went to the State Fair to hang out with my sister and brother-in-law.  I really have nothing to complain about.

But yet I have everything I can complain about, and I am.  My weight gain is still out of control; goddamn, I love the State Fair, but I'm packing on an extra 12 pounds for the 12 days of The Great Minnesota Get-Together.  While at the Fair my sister informed me that my brother and sister-in-law are coming over, for dinner, with our niece.  I still have to route our trip to Niagara Falls.  And I'm still stressing over hosting the game tomorrow.  And by the way, I have lost the keys to the alumni club lockbox.

Seeing the whole family at dinner tonight and seeing that everyone is paired up except me (and my niece, but she's only 2 1/2, so she doesn't count), it's obvious that there are many adult things everybody else in family has gotten and accepted and is, for lack of a better word, dealing with that I cannot even fathom.  Being an adult doesn't sit well with me.  And the fact that I felt so overwhelmed when, if I take a step back and take a deep breath, there might not be that much going on, could be a reason why.  What I mean by that is is that I feel so overwhelmed by setbacks that roll off the backs of the other members of my family, and I think most people.

I felt so overwhelmed that, after dinner, I left for Glam Doll, just for some me time -- even though I had a lot of me time in the morning, and even though I left at half past nine at night.  I made up an excuse that the bar where we're watching the game e-mailed me about something that I didn't like, and I had to go over there to make sure we could watch the game.  Pure bullshit, but as I type this right now I feel so free because I'm away from my family.

I'll need it, because for a whole week I'll have nothing but my family.  I'll be alienated every second of the day.

The Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey

#0: Gopher soccer (Last Week: -1).  The survey is getting crowded.  But the U. footballers continue to reign on top after ripping both the North Dakota Fighting Hawks and the Eastern Michigan Eagles last weekend by matching 3-0 results.  They are now firmly entrenched in the polls, with the NSCAA ranking the Gophers at #9.  Lofty.  And they are one of maybe a handful of sides that have won all of their games so far.  That's why I put them at #0 for the week.  No conference Players Of The Week, though.  Hmmm.

They are now away from Robbie Stadium for the rest of the non-con schedule.  And it's going to be a competitive weekend -- they visit Villanova this (Friday) afternoon before playing at Duke Sunday afternoon.

#-1: Gopher football (Re-Entry!).  I was out taking my sister and brother-in-law to seeing my cousin and his girlfriend, so I don't exactly know what the Twitter hubbub surrounding the end of this squad's first game of the year is about.  Seeing the box score, it looks as though that they were trailing the Oregon St. Beavers, 23-17, scored a Touchdown to take a one-point lead, scored another TD ... and then went for two, even though they were leading 30-23 at the time.  The pass by Quarterback Mitch Leidner (the second-best Senior QB in top-flight college football, according to one person on ESPN.com) failed, and so I guess people were wondering why in the hell Head Coach Tracy Claeys didn't just kick the Extra Point and take an eight-point lead.  I agree, and if I were watching the game I would be pulling my hair out.  But this is the Gophs were talking about.  They beat a fellow BcS school, and they managed to not give up the tying score, and in fact came back to win by shutting out the opponent in the fourth quarter.  I choose to look on the bright side with this program, at least for this game.

With the U. doing their part in scheduling a big opponent (or big enough, at least) for what is being billed as The Biggest Opening Weekend In College Football, they now are treating themselves to dessert, namely second-division Indiana St. on the 10th.  I may not write up the result of this game unless they lose.

#-2: Gopher volleyball (Re-Entry!).  I will say this for the volleyballing club: Unlike last year, they are scheduling against some of the best in the sport this year.  Unfortunately, they followed up a four-set win over San Diego with a four-set defeat to Stanford Invite tournament host Stanford.  This is a Senior-laden group which nonetheless loses Daly Santana (graduated out) after a Final Four loss to Texas last year where they were close but just couldn't close out the sets to win.  I am fully convinced the program is back, but they have the horses that can win now -- it's just a matter of being able to fight off defending NCAA champion Nebraska, perennial powerhouse Penn St. (which nevertheless suffered a rare non-conference loss to North Carolina), and the rest of the Big Ten, which has emerged as The Toughest Volleyball Conference In College Volleyball.

For Labor Weekend they participate in the Puerto Rico Tournament in San Juan, where they face two damn good programs tonight and tomorrow night: Texas A&M and Florida St.

#-3: Twins (Last Week: -Infinity).  My Fucking God.  If these Twinks didn't win at home to the Chicago White Sox last (Thursday) night, I would have put these guys next to the ViQueens in #-Infinity.  A loss would have set the franchise record for most consecutive defeats ever.  But they've already tied it, and they still got swept against the Royals, Tigers and, this screening week, the Blue Jays and Cleveland.

You can boil down the problems this club has to two things: pitching and hitting.  The arms are a fucking shambles, and the fact that now-doubted prospect Byron Buxton has been called up for what seems to be the 14th time shows that the lineup has been a horrible disappointment for much of the year.

Last (Thursday) night may have been The Busiest Sports Night In Minnesota History.  The Gopher football team and the Saints were playing actual games at home, and the Vikes were playing a fake game at home.  Plus, you had the State Fair and U. students still moving in, and you had a shitshow on the roads.  Frankly, I wonder how 20,000 people decided to brave all that traffic and go to the Twinks game.  But that was the announced number of tickets sold; the actual attendance might have been much, much smaller.  Oh, well: The people who did watch the baseball game actually saw this team's first victory in two weeks.

The Twinks are in the midst of the final big homestand of the year.  After finishing up a four-game set against the White Sox, Kansas City comes in for three.  They need to take advantage of every advantage they can get as they fight Atlanta to avoid The Worst Record In Baseball.

#-Infinity: Vikings (Re-Entry!).  Well, fuck.  Honestly, I wasn't all that high on the squad's prospects this year unlike others: With a tougher schedule and my lingering doubts on Teddy Bridgewater's arm, I figured they would lose out on a spot and go 9-7.  But now with Bridgewater gone, and Shaun Hill expected to be the replacement for The Most Important Position In Football, it's 5-11 for this team, at best.  Any hopes of these guys winning the Super Bowl are now gone, and if they're not going to make any headway in the playoffs, they might as well tank the season and get a high draft pick next year.

What's really was that Bridgewater tore his ACL without contact.  Those are the worst.  If someone can suffer an injury, and especially a horrific injury like Bridgewater, without someone hitting him hard, that means his bones are pretty fragile to begin with.  Not only that, but studies have proven that if you have suffered significant injuries in the past, you are now much more likely to suffer an equally significant injury in the future.  So now the organization has to begin to doubt whether Bridgewater can be the long-term man at QB.  What was once a bright future for Bridgewater and this team has clouded up, all in a matter of days.  And the fucking season hasn't even started.

My God, the Minnesota Vikings might be a cursed team.