#0: Gopher softball (Last Week: -1). Let us begin this WMNSS by giving some overdue praise to the softball team. They are in the middle of a 12-game winning streak after sweeping both halves of a Wednesday Doubleheader at Cowles vs. Wisconsin (both of which ended via Mercy Rule), and then -- and I have to say, this is extremely impressive -- not only sweeping Purdue, not only sweeping Purdue on the road, but not allowing a run in all three games this weekend. The total score for the series was 20-0, and you can say that Friday's 9-0, five-Inning beatdown set the tone. One phenomenal performance to point out: Amber Fiser tossed a Perfect Game vs. the Boilermakers on Friday, needing only 45 Pitches in a 9-0, Five-Inning ass-kicking. For that, she was named Big Ten Pitcher Of The Week for the third-straight week.
The only thing tempering my enthusiasm for this club is its record. The Gophers are a blistering 15-3 in the Big Ten, but only 17-11 out of conference play. That disparity, or contradiction, gives me bad flashbacks to last year, where they were arguably the best team at the end of the regular season but didn't even get a Regional, and in turn rewarded the NCAA's assessment that they weren't that good by losing to Alabama. I'm not quite sure that these players will even make the NCAA Tournament, as unbelievable as that sounds. But they are doing the one thing they need to do, and that is win.
This, believe it or not, is the last week of the regular season for the U. (I don't believe it because spring has just sprung.) They play a DH vs. North Dakota St. tomorrow/Tuesday, then play three against Penn St. All five games are at home; I think I'll try and catch Sunday's finale.
#-1: United FC (Last Week: -5). I really don't think I've seen two separate Games on the same day. I did see a Tripleheader of college baseball games a month ago at Das Bank v.2.0, but that was in the same venue. Going from Target Field to Das Bank v.1.0 to see a baseball game and then a soccer match? I don't think so. But the fact that both of my teams won is fantastic. I was hoping for a split and expecting a pair of losses, but the best possible outcome actually happened!
Yeah, the Loons won, despite Ethan Finlay matching Kevin Molino for ACL tears that have ended his season as well. (Could it be the FieldTurf at TCF Bank Stadium?) A depleted, chemistry-less side took to the field against a Houston Dynamo team that isn't great but, because of the opposition, would roll over them. And once again, the Loons' Backline made a hash out of an oncoming Dynamo rush and resulted in a yet another Goal conceded early in the match.
But thank Buddha for Miguel Ibarra! His cross to Darwin Quintero in the box induced a handball, which Quintero deposited on the Penalty Kick to tie the game. And in the Second Half, Ibarra's cross in front of the net plinked off of either Ibson's or the defender's foot and to the far post for the game-winner. I'm shocked as shit that MNUFC won, 2-1, but they were able to break their losing streak at four.
Two bad things, however. First, Christian Ramirez had to be subbed out in the First Half because of a hamstring pull. His status is uncertain. (Once again I ask, could it be the FieldTurf at TCF Bank Stadium?) Second is something that chaps my hide. Sports Illustrated writers Grant Wahl and Brian Straus puts out an annual Major League Soccer Ambition Rankings report. The Loons come in 15th out of 23 clubs -- but that assessment comes with no input from the organization itself, because they were the only franchise in MLS that refused to answer the reporters' questionnaire -- several times, according to Wahl and Straus. Now why in the hell would you refuse to answer some good journalists' fair questions? You think you're too good for them? That really chaps my hide. I hate that as a man who studied journalism and hopes to one day get back into it, and I hate that as a season-ticketholder who has a stake in the future of this franchise. I think I'm entitled to some transparency, and I think the reporters deserved some answers. I do not like this.
#-2: Gopher baseball (Last Week: -2). Sports fans who want a local club to root for -- besides the Lynx, who started Training Camp yesterday and won't be covered by the WMNSS because they won the WNBA championship last year and won't need me pestering the shit out of them for at least one year -- should look to the Gopher Male Nine. They are moving up the Top 25 polls -- 22nd in Baseball America, 20 in D1Baseball.com -- after tripling up South Dakota St., 6-2, at Siebert on Wednesday and then taking two-of-three at Ohio St. over the weekend. It could have -- should have -- been a sweep. On Sunday's finale the U. was leading 5-3 heading into the Ninth Inning. But the Buckeyes scored three to pull out the victory. The last two Runs were scored when OSU's Dillon Dingler ran into Gophers First Baseman Cole McDevitt, popping the ball (which was thrown from between the mound and Home Plate) out of McDevitt's glove. Those Runs were scored on an Error by McDevitt.
Be that as it may, the Gophers are still looking pretty good in reaching the NCAA Tournament. But this is a big week -- well, besides hosting Concordia-St. Paul tomorrow/Tuesday. The second-place Gophers take on the top team in the B1G, Indiana, for a three-game series at Siebert starting on Friday. Who could really help them is Pitcher Patrick Fredrickson; after pitching eight Innings to give Minnesota a 2-1 win on Saturday, he was named conference Freshman Of The Week for the third time this year.
#-3: Twins (Last Week: -4). Oh, you fuckers are doing it again. This club has yo-yoed from above .500 to 100 losses to reaching the Play-In Game in three years, but I didn't think they would go back in the toilet again. But that's where they might be going after dropping six-of-seven this screening week. They won only on Saturday, which, luckily for me, was the game I decided to go to. (I was downtown after watching soccer and there were a couple other things I wanted to do downtown and I was going to the United match afterward and if I saw this it would justify me not going to the bank and then to government center to get my tabs that day and thus using my credit card and being charged an extra four bucks to get them Thursday, there!) But after taking their annual wedgie from the Yankees in the Bronx (got swept all four matches), they dropped two-of-three from by far The Worst Team In Major League Baseball, the Cincinnati Reds, which won their first series of the season. Now they are not the worst team in baseball; the Twinks are, despite Saturday's victory breaking an eight-game losing streak.
There's just nothing. Pitching sucks. Bullpen really sucks; Fernando Rodney completed getting swept by serving up a three-Run Game-ender Thursday, and he put two on in the Ninth via Walks before finally inducing a pair of pop-outs to get the Save Saturday. And the lineup ain't hitting because Miguel Sano's still out and Byron Buxton has a hairline fracture in one of his toes. Look, it's a long season and we're technically not even in May yet. But it'd be nice if they found some mojo.
They have just begun a three-game series versus Toronto. They then go to Comiskey for four against the White Sox.
#-Infinity: Timberwolves (Last Week: -3). Yeah, the dancing thoughts in my head that these Woofie Dogs would make their firsr-round series versus Houston an actual series was ridiculous. The Rockets scored 50 points in the first half of Game 4 last Monday ... then scored 50 in the Third Quarter to let everybody know what's up in that game and that series. It was a similar story in Game 5, in that the game was close in the First Half, but Houston blew it wide open to start the second. And that, my friends, was that.
As I said at the start of the season, reaching the playoffs was the goal. The Timberwolves accomplished that. And with ostensibly young pieces Karl-Anthony Towns and Andrew Wiggins, the window for contending, at least in theory, is opening (by contrast, the playoff window for the Wild is closing, fast, and that means that the winter should be ruled on the hardwood for the foreseeable future). But the horizon looks cloudy and mighty low, to be honest with you. There are teams that have assembled the NBA version of the Avengers (Golden State, Houston). More notably, there are teams that no one gave a thought to winning the title this year that have legitimate chances to win, such as Boston, Toronto and, gulp, even Utah. (Aside: We all thought it would be the Warriors over Cleveland in this year's finals. This year should prove that no one knows what the future will bring. And on top of that, this year should prove that even with "Superteams," the NBA is quite capable of forming great teams in the season and thus surprising fans who despise predestined outcomes.)
But there is a pessimism that this squad, as currently constructed and coached, is nowhere close to contending. The Timberwolves are a contradiction: A young team out of step with the times. Not only are they shit on defense, but in a league where the three is the main (if not only) weapon of choice, these guys don't shoot threes and can't defend threes. Their chemistry before Jimmy Butler got hurt banked them enough wins for them to squeak into the postseason, but now you have to worry about extending his contract. And to be frank, neither Big KAT nor Big Wig broke through this year. You can say it's a chemistry issue -- maybe they deferred to Butler too much -- but you can also blame Tom Thibodeau for running those two, plus Jeff Teague and Taj Gibson, into the ground ... and, possibly, shortening their still-nascent careers.
You can be disappointed over what could have been. Remember, these guys were going to be the 3-seed about a month before the season was over. A five-game crash-and-burn lends credence to the thinking that this team could go south again, and it sure doesn't make them the next great superpower in the NBA. So what's next? Sign Butler? Get a long-distance shooter? Trade Wiggins? Dump Thibs? These are serious questions, and unfortunately, they're not being asked from a perspective of, "Oh, if we just do this, we'll win the title next year!" but instead it's one of, "How do we compete next year?" Those two perspectives bring different levels of enthusiasm for the future of this ballclub.
Monday, April 30, 2018
Sunday, April 29, 2018
The Thing About Deplorables/Republicans
Last/Saturday night was the White House Correspondents Dinner, and our dumbfuck President held a rally in Michigan because he needed zombies to kiss his ass so he would feel better about himself. So I want to write this because it's been percolating in my mind for awhile, even though I don't think my thoughts on it are fully formed. Really, though, trying to suss out just what the fuck happened in 2016 that led our country to ... this is something I won't ever completely understand, and I'm sure people whose jobs it is is to understand what happened will fail just as miserably. So even though this is just about a part of What Happened, I will say this anyway.
I have heard that some people think Donald Trump has been an utter failure. Well, he is in many ways, but I believe that the Republicans don't care because they needed a mouth-breather to rubber-stamp all the hateful, dreadful, racist, sexist, classist ideas they have successfully put into law in order to please the cis rich white men that give them money. What these people say is that we should be lucky that Donald Trump isn't more of an astute politician, such as, uh, Mike Pence or, ick, Dick Cheney. The thinking goes is that the Republicans would be able to slide anti-democratic policies past the American public so much easier if the loud, vile verbal diarrhea coming out of Trump's mouth right now was hidden under a patina of professional, political cool. People would be nodding their heads, and even smiling, while swallowing this Republican poison.
I'm not sure that's the case. It might appear at first glance that this is an argument of substance over style, but my argument is is that to these dumbshits, the style is the substance. Being loud and vile and openly misogynistic and anti-Semitic is what they want to be. It is becoming apparent to me, shocked though that I am, that there are a lot of racist assholes living in this country. And it's not enough just for someone who enacts laws that hurt non-white males. In fact, it's not enough to these pricks that our President hates non-white males as much as they do. It is extremely important to these prairie goons that our President says he hates non-white males as much as they do. These deplorables don't want to hide their hate. They want the freedom to spew their bigoted shit and not get called out for it. Fuck, they want to be applauded for it. They want to scream this garbage and have other deplorables say it back to them so they know they're not alone in this cruel world. That, in my opinion, is much of the reason why they voted for Trump: He is explicitly, and obviously, a man that is just like them, despite the fact that he, in so many ways, is not like them.
There is a scary subset of subhumans who will run into war with rubber spoons if Donald Trump tells them there are Muslims invading. The vicious combination of anger and openness is the one thing that animates and turns on these people. And so they won't like someone who plays it cool, even if that Republican guy (and it always has to be a guy) will sign bills that make non-cis, non-white, non-males just as oppressed as they appear to be now, from a hegemonic standpoint, under this Shitler as prez. It may be the case that this hypothetical Republican figure would make it easier to get such putrid laws passed. But putting aside my grander belief that Donald Trump pretty much represents Republicans and Republicanism, I don't think having someone from the same party will automatically keep these non-housebroken voters in a frenzied lockstep to vote Republican. If they get someone who couches his lying crap in euphemism and deft word-twisting and shit-eating grins, they'll just get confused, and they'll probably believe that such a candidate is a librul. No, they need a drunken, probably demented asshole who has no filter and opens his fat, disgusting mouth to unload whatever crazy, debasing bullshit that comes out of his shit mouth. There are Americans Living Among Us who hear Donald Trump and go, "FUCK YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" and then head to the polls to vote for him and douchebags like him.
There are legitimate worries about the future of our democratic processes: Gerrymandering, voter suppression, Russian influence. But who I'm most afraid of are these people, these deplorable Republican sheep who will believe anything some crackpot says so long as he also says things that make them feel good about the people they hate. These brainwashed psychos scare the living shit out of me.
I have heard that some people think Donald Trump has been an utter failure. Well, he is in many ways, but I believe that the Republicans don't care because they needed a mouth-breather to rubber-stamp all the hateful, dreadful, racist, sexist, classist ideas they have successfully put into law in order to please the cis rich white men that give them money. What these people say is that we should be lucky that Donald Trump isn't more of an astute politician, such as, uh, Mike Pence or, ick, Dick Cheney. The thinking goes is that the Republicans would be able to slide anti-democratic policies past the American public so much easier if the loud, vile verbal diarrhea coming out of Trump's mouth right now was hidden under a patina of professional, political cool. People would be nodding their heads, and even smiling, while swallowing this Republican poison.
I'm not sure that's the case. It might appear at first glance that this is an argument of substance over style, but my argument is is that to these dumbshits, the style is the substance. Being loud and vile and openly misogynistic and anti-Semitic is what they want to be. It is becoming apparent to me, shocked though that I am, that there are a lot of racist assholes living in this country. And it's not enough just for someone who enacts laws that hurt non-white males. In fact, it's not enough to these pricks that our President hates non-white males as much as they do. It is extremely important to these prairie goons that our President says he hates non-white males as much as they do. These deplorables don't want to hide their hate. They want the freedom to spew their bigoted shit and not get called out for it. Fuck, they want to be applauded for it. They want to scream this garbage and have other deplorables say it back to them so they know they're not alone in this cruel world. That, in my opinion, is much of the reason why they voted for Trump: He is explicitly, and obviously, a man that is just like them, despite the fact that he, in so many ways, is not like them.
There is a scary subset of subhumans who will run into war with rubber spoons if Donald Trump tells them there are Muslims invading. The vicious combination of anger and openness is the one thing that animates and turns on these people. And so they won't like someone who plays it cool, even if that Republican guy (and it always has to be a guy) will sign bills that make non-cis, non-white, non-males just as oppressed as they appear to be now, from a hegemonic standpoint, under this Shitler as prez. It may be the case that this hypothetical Republican figure would make it easier to get such putrid laws passed. But putting aside my grander belief that Donald Trump pretty much represents Republicans and Republicanism, I don't think having someone from the same party will automatically keep these non-housebroken voters in a frenzied lockstep to vote Republican. If they get someone who couches his lying crap in euphemism and deft word-twisting and shit-eating grins, they'll just get confused, and they'll probably believe that such a candidate is a librul. No, they need a drunken, probably demented asshole who has no filter and opens his fat, disgusting mouth to unload whatever crazy, debasing bullshit that comes out of his shit mouth. There are Americans Living Among Us who hear Donald Trump and go, "FUCK YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" and then head to the polls to vote for him and douchebags like him.
There are legitimate worries about the future of our democratic processes: Gerrymandering, voter suppression, Russian influence. But who I'm most afraid of are these people, these deplorable Republican sheep who will believe anything some crackpot says so long as he also says things that make them feel good about the people they hate. These brainwashed psychos scare the living shit out of me.
Saturday, April 28, 2018
The Fuck Did I Leave Work Early For?
So I need to get this off my chest. I had training for this new responsibility I have at work. (Don't know why I'm being trained if this is the last month at this job, but no matter.) Because the trainer and my co-trainee take only half-hour breaks, I decided that, for this one day, I would cut my lunch hour in half. That would mean that I was out of there at 4:30. That it was Friday, and that it was really nice out, made this a real good idea in my mind.
But then traffic came. There was a huge back-up from Cedar North onto Crosstown West. This was a lot more manageable during our prolonged winter, but I guess the sunshine means more people want to be out on the roads at the same time or something. Because of the huge back-up, I decided to take my alternate route home: Cedar all the way to 55, where I would take that West, then hop onto the 94 West exit.
Big mistake. There was a massive, half-hour back-up on the on-ramp from 55 West to 94 West. The increased bumper-to-bumper traffic, probably due to the nice weather, was a contributing factor. But I totally forgot that construction just began in that area around downtown and it's fucking everything up.
It took me 70 minutes to get home. That happened occasionally in past years, but not within the past, oh, two years. I really thought that since I would leave work at 4:30, I would get home at the decent time of 5:30, and since it hadn't taken an hour to get home in a long time, I thought I had a chance to come home at 5:15. But first I was foiled by needing to stay late because I ran into an issue with something I trained for, so I left at 4:45, not 4:30. Then all this shit happened, so I got home just before 6.
The worst thing about all of this is the flip-flopping I did to Mother. In the morning, because I thought I didn't think I could eat the banana Father gave me for lunch, I told her I'd be back at 6 or 6:30 so I could eat that banana just before coming home. Then, not only did I agree to a half-hour lunch break, I actually was able to eat a banana at work, so I texted Mother to say I'd be home an hour earlier. But at the back-up on the on-ramp it was obvious I wouldn't make it, so I texted her on the highway to say 5:45 instead. And when I still didn't get past this goddamn on-ramp I just told her that I thought there was an accident and that I'd be home by 6, which was just about the time I originally said I'd be home. I thought I needed more time to get home, then it turned out I thought I needed less, and then it turns out I needed more time after all. All because of stupid traffic.
I always said that the worst thing about working at the health insurance place was the commute. If this keeps up, I won't miss working there a bit.
But then traffic came. There was a huge back-up from Cedar North onto Crosstown West. This was a lot more manageable during our prolonged winter, but I guess the sunshine means more people want to be out on the roads at the same time or something. Because of the huge back-up, I decided to take my alternate route home: Cedar all the way to 55, where I would take that West, then hop onto the 94 West exit.
Big mistake. There was a massive, half-hour back-up on the on-ramp from 55 West to 94 West. The increased bumper-to-bumper traffic, probably due to the nice weather, was a contributing factor. But I totally forgot that construction just began in that area around downtown and it's fucking everything up.
It took me 70 minutes to get home. That happened occasionally in past years, but not within the past, oh, two years. I really thought that since I would leave work at 4:30, I would get home at the decent time of 5:30, and since it hadn't taken an hour to get home in a long time, I thought I had a chance to come home at 5:15. But first I was foiled by needing to stay late because I ran into an issue with something I trained for, so I left at 4:45, not 4:30. Then all this shit happened, so I got home just before 6.
The worst thing about all of this is the flip-flopping I did to Mother. In the morning, because I thought I didn't think I could eat the banana Father gave me for lunch, I told her I'd be back at 6 or 6:30 so I could eat that banana just before coming home. Then, not only did I agree to a half-hour lunch break, I actually was able to eat a banana at work, so I texted Mother to say I'd be home an hour earlier. But at the back-up on the on-ramp it was obvious I wouldn't make it, so I texted her on the highway to say 5:45 instead. And when I still didn't get past this goddamn on-ramp I just told her that I thought there was an accident and that I'd be home by 6, which was just about the time I originally said I'd be home. I thought I needed more time to get home, then it turned out I thought I needed less, and then it turns out I needed more time after all. All because of stupid traffic.
I always said that the worst thing about working at the health insurance place was the commute. If this keeps up, I won't miss working there a bit.
Friday, April 27, 2018
Thinking About Death Again
Lately, I don't know how long, I'm back to, just before falling asleep, catching myself before falling asleep and thinking, "What if I don't wake up?"
I've been thinking about death a lot lately. People around me -- not in my immediate circle, and not even an intermediate circle -- have died, and it's been affecting me a lot. First of all was the first stripper from My Favorite Stripclub (Non-Cover Edition) to give me a handjob (well, squeeze my cock once really quick, and only after I badgered her into doing it). She died a year ago, and she died unexpectedly and in her sleep. I had not seen her in years, and our last interaction was her answering a question about her son on a Facebook status months before her death. But she was younger than me, and, well, young.
This week I was told by a hot Facebook friend that her friend, a Playboy Playmate who went by Nichole Van Croft in the magazine, died. She also died unexpectedly and in her sleep, at least as far as I know. She had been through some black days, but all the status updates indicate that she kicked those addictions and was living the good life. Most touching to me is that she personally replied to a couple of comments I left on a couple of her status update photos. I hope there is an autopsy so we know exactly what happened. Nichole died at the age of 44, only two years older than I. Regardless of how hard her life was, that is too young to die.
So with those blindside deaths before their time, I have been thinking a lot about my parents. They seem to be in great health, and yet I am deathly scared that one of them also will die in their sleep. It's been an encroaching menace in my life, and my folks aren't getting any younger. So I ... wonder, about them but also about me. I mean, I'm 42. I could fall asleep and not wake up, right?
In the meantime I should remember to text other family members just to see how they're doing.
I've been thinking about death a lot lately. People around me -- not in my immediate circle, and not even an intermediate circle -- have died, and it's been affecting me a lot. First of all was the first stripper from My Favorite Stripclub (Non-Cover Edition) to give me a handjob (well, squeeze my cock once really quick, and only after I badgered her into doing it). She died a year ago, and she died unexpectedly and in her sleep. I had not seen her in years, and our last interaction was her answering a question about her son on a Facebook status months before her death. But she was younger than me, and, well, young.
This week I was told by a hot Facebook friend that her friend, a Playboy Playmate who went by Nichole Van Croft in the magazine, died. She also died unexpectedly and in her sleep, at least as far as I know. She had been through some black days, but all the status updates indicate that she kicked those addictions and was living the good life. Most touching to me is that she personally replied to a couple of comments I left on a couple of her status update photos. I hope there is an autopsy so we know exactly what happened. Nichole died at the age of 44, only two years older than I. Regardless of how hard her life was, that is too young to die.
So with those blindside deaths before their time, I have been thinking a lot about my parents. They seem to be in great health, and yet I am deathly scared that one of them also will die in their sleep. It's been an encroaching menace in my life, and my folks aren't getting any younger. So I ... wonder, about them but also about me. I mean, I'm 42. I could fall asleep and not wake up, right?
In the meantime I should remember to text other family members just to see how they're doing.
Thursday, April 26, 2018
Who Fucking Stole My Pop?
Yeah, most everybody has to deal with the perils of a communal workplace refrigerator, and I'm sure everybody has had their food and/or drink stolen at least once. It had not happened yet in my current position, though, and I felt like I was entitled to a sense of security. UNTIL YESTERDAY.
I had two bottles of pop in there, one Pepsi, one Coke. Per policy, I wrote my name on there, and even though one doesn't have to, I put the date on there too because I did that on other jobs and other workers at my company date their stuff. I thought that would be good enough for someone not to fuck with my stuff. I checked Tuesday; even though one bottle was left there for a few days and the other upwards of a week, they both were there, albeit pushed all the way to the back.
Fast-forward to yesterday/Wednesday. For the first time in a long time I got chili because Father gave me breadsticks he got from my parents' cruise. And you have to have a Coke with chili, right? I hadn't touched either pop in that fridge in a few days, but I assumed that they'd be safe because, hey, no one at work would be a thieving dick, right?
Grrrr ... I look in there and I don't see either bottle. I know which shelf it was; it was the tall one, in the middle, the only one where both bottles that tall could stand. I remember, explicitly, seeing them at the back of that shelf. And now they weren't there. I tried looking all around it. Maybe someone moved it to another shelf, or to one of the shelves connected to the door. I will admit that I haven't done a thorough search of the fridge. It's hard to do when there's a damn bundt cake right in front of everything. But I feel safe to declare that they're gone.
Again, just leaving stuff in a fridge that's shared by everyone is fraught with disaster, and yet I still feel pretty fucking violated. I followed the rules: If I wrote my name on it, it wouldn't be taken or thrown away. So where the fuck is it? And why the fuck did some prick steal it? Either it's because someone wanted to drink my half-empty bottle of pop, in which case, ew, or some overbearing nun of a co-worker saw the dates on my bottles, determined they were too old to stay in the fridge, and took it upon her- or himself to toss them. That line of thinking, if true, pisses me off. A bottle of half-drank Coke does not stink up a fridge, and even if it does, that does not give some cog in a company the right to throw away my stuff.
Obviously I can't do anything about it. Well, I did do something anyway. I embarrassed the shit out of myself by asking the cleaning lady before I left for the day if she throws shit in the fridge away. Like I thought, she said that she does not touch anything inside that appliance. Of course she doesn't; that's not her job, and in fact she would get in trouble if she even opened the door. Why in the fuck would I ask that stupid goddamn question besides to make an ass out of myself, humiliate her, and permanently rupture any superficial comity we had with each other when we crossed paths?
I can't just go around asking/accusing people of stealing my Coke. And, ultimately, it was one-third of Pepsi and two-thirds of Coke left to drink, so that's basically a full bottle ... uh, so I'm the equivalent of a full bottle, or two bucks. And yet I have to admit that this grinds my gears. Stuff was taken from me in the fridge by some asshole I work with, again. Un-fucking-believable.
Obviously I can't do anything about it. Well, I did do something anyway. I embarrassed the shit out of myself by asking the cleaning lady before I left for the day if she throws shit in the fridge away. Like I thought, she said that she does not touch anything inside that appliance. Of course she doesn't; that's not her job, and in fact she would get in trouble if she even opened the door. Why in the fuck would I ask that stupid goddamn question besides to make an ass out of myself, humiliate her, and permanently rupture any superficial comity we had with each other when we crossed paths?
I can't just go around asking/accusing people of stealing my Coke. And, ultimately, it was one-third of Pepsi and two-thirds of Coke left to drink, so that's basically a full bottle ... uh, so I'm the equivalent of a full bottle, or two bucks. And yet I have to admit that this grinds my gears. Stuff was taken from me in the fridge by some asshole I work with, again. Un-fucking-believable.
Wednesday, April 25, 2018
And There Goes My Job (Addendum To: So Am I In Or Am I Out?)
So before I left work Monday I asked my boss about the possibility of taking a vacation in May. I did not tell her I had already booked a flight to Denver. Yesterday (Tuesday) morning I got a reply from her. She said that there would be no impact from me taking a vacation in a month's time. They are not hurting for hands, so if I wanted to leave then, it wouldn't impact my department.
However ... she talked further about workflow, and my future there. Her intention is to keep me till the end of May/Memorial Weekend. But she said that some of the things I've been asked to do I won't need to do anymore, and she implied that if the work isn't there, I might not make the beginning of summer. She will have a further understanding of what else I can do by Friday.
And that already scares the shit out of me. I trust her, and take her assertion that she doesn't know how it's going to go for me yet at face value. But I have a bad feeling about where all of this is headed. I had said that I might not be around in two weeks, and when she said that, that became a definite possibility.
You know why? I don't have much else to do. On Monday, the mail basically knocked me out for the day. But that was Monday, when weekend mail piled up. There was much less on Tuesday. I had one other task I could do, but I could tell that if I worked at 100% it wouldn't last me till the end of yesterday, so I slow-played it (well, as much as I could in my open space). I indicated to my boss that this other task was all I got, and I don't know if it'll last me today until the mail comes in. And if the mail is fairly manageable today as well, then what do I do? And if there is nothing else, well, what am I doing there?
The anxiety of unemployment hit me like a hammer again yesterday. I was unfamiliar with it for so long, and yet once it smacked me I thought, "Oh, hello, old friend." I checked my accounts to see that I don't have as much money as I should. I've been thinking about checking the online want ads. I'm wondering if I can latch back onto the test scoring places this late into the season. I'm scared of not having a job and not having one lined up. And if I'm back out on the street, I can't get unemployment because my parents are here and they'll know that I'm back on the dole. (At least I can tell the county and state I'm unemployed again so I'll have free health insurance again.)
It's becoming tiresome to look for yet another job. Possibly the accomplishment, such as it is, I'm most proud of last year (besides seeing Grandmother before she died) is not getting unemployment even one week. It looks like that I may have to if I want to, you know, live. That's depressing, and humiliating, and I'm trying my hardest to forestall that fate.
So yeah, going to Denver next month is out ... unless the only job I can find is at the test scoring place and it starts in June. (Just as an aside, it would actually make more sense if I lose my current job sooner than later. That would open up the possibility that I would be able to catch onto a scoring project in time rather than be ineligible because it already started.) In the meantime, the job at this health insurance place that a co-worker of mine tried to hook me up with came open Monday. I had worries that this would not be the right fit for me, but right now, I'm so glad I applied for it this evening. And now I hope I get it and avoid the anxiety of trying to find and latch onto another job, another paycheck, another vine I have to swing to in order to, you know, live.
Things are just falling apart, again, and I'm scared, again.
However ... she talked further about workflow, and my future there. Her intention is to keep me till the end of May/Memorial Weekend. But she said that some of the things I've been asked to do I won't need to do anymore, and she implied that if the work isn't there, I might not make the beginning of summer. She will have a further understanding of what else I can do by Friday.
And that already scares the shit out of me. I trust her, and take her assertion that she doesn't know how it's going to go for me yet at face value. But I have a bad feeling about where all of this is headed. I had said that I might not be around in two weeks, and when she said that, that became a definite possibility.
You know why? I don't have much else to do. On Monday, the mail basically knocked me out for the day. But that was Monday, when weekend mail piled up. There was much less on Tuesday. I had one other task I could do, but I could tell that if I worked at 100% it wouldn't last me till the end of yesterday, so I slow-played it (well, as much as I could in my open space). I indicated to my boss that this other task was all I got, and I don't know if it'll last me today until the mail comes in. And if the mail is fairly manageable today as well, then what do I do? And if there is nothing else, well, what am I doing there?
The anxiety of unemployment hit me like a hammer again yesterday. I was unfamiliar with it for so long, and yet once it smacked me I thought, "Oh, hello, old friend." I checked my accounts to see that I don't have as much money as I should. I've been thinking about checking the online want ads. I'm wondering if I can latch back onto the test scoring places this late into the season. I'm scared of not having a job and not having one lined up. And if I'm back out on the street, I can't get unemployment because my parents are here and they'll know that I'm back on the dole. (At least I can tell the county and state I'm unemployed again so I'll have free health insurance again.)
It's becoming tiresome to look for yet another job. Possibly the accomplishment, such as it is, I'm most proud of last year (besides seeing Grandmother before she died) is not getting unemployment even one week. It looks like that I may have to if I want to, you know, live. That's depressing, and humiliating, and I'm trying my hardest to forestall that fate.
So yeah, going to Denver next month is out ... unless the only job I can find is at the test scoring place and it starts in June. (Just as an aside, it would actually make more sense if I lose my current job sooner than later. That would open up the possibility that I would be able to catch onto a scoring project in time rather than be ineligible because it already started.) In the meantime, the job at this health insurance place that a co-worker of mine tried to hook me up with came open Monday. I had worries that this would not be the right fit for me, but right now, I'm so glad I applied for it this evening. And now I hope I get it and avoid the anxiety of trying to find and latch onto another job, another paycheck, another vine I have to swing to in order to, you know, live.
Things are just falling apart, again, and I'm scared, again.
Tuesday, April 24, 2018
There Goes My Health Insurance
For the past couple years I have not had to pay anything for my health insurance, which I got through the state. I don't know how I got it beyond going to St. Paul when I did not have a job and telling someone that I was unemployed. I will admit that the insurance I have received has been excellent. Of course, when you get good care and don't need to pay anything for your doctor's visits, teeth cleanings or medications, it's totes excellent.
But that's coming to an end, I'm afraid. Every year the state and county sends me an annual renewal form. I have just signed it and sent it back, and I have had no trouble getting my free insurance re-upped. I did the same thing this year, and for some reason they scrutinized my application. They asked me for my stubs from work, and I got a message back "bumping up" my insurance from one that's totally free to one, I believe, which I have to pay for. I don't mind that, so long as my monthly premiums are reasonable. The last time I had to pay I paid about ... $60? I can part with that every month. More? I don't think so.
And that's not the end of it. The county sent me another form asking for information about my wages for the past two years. That's information that's best filled out by my temp agency. So I now have to contact the temp agency to get contact information from them which I will give to the county so they can contact my temp agency. I'm not sure why they need this information when they already have my pay stubs. The only, and I mean only, reason they would want them is if they are demanding back premiums the past two years. My God, can they do that? Would they? I mean, that's a shakedown that red states do, not Minnesota.
But that's coming to an end, I'm afraid. Every year the state and county sends me an annual renewal form. I have just signed it and sent it back, and I have had no trouble getting my free insurance re-upped. I did the same thing this year, and for some reason they scrutinized my application. They asked me for my stubs from work, and I got a message back "bumping up" my insurance from one that's totally free to one, I believe, which I have to pay for. I don't mind that, so long as my monthly premiums are reasonable. The last time I had to pay I paid about ... $60? I can part with that every month. More? I don't think so.
And that's not the end of it. The county sent me another form asking for information about my wages for the past two years. That's information that's best filled out by my temp agency. So I now have to contact the temp agency to get contact information from them which I will give to the county so they can contact my temp agency. I'm not sure why they need this information when they already have my pay stubs. The only, and I mean only, reason they would want them is if they are demanding back premiums the past two years. My God, can they do that? Would they? I mean, that's a shakedown that red states do, not Minnesota.
Monday, April 23, 2018
The Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey
#0: Gopher men's gymnastics (FIRST TIME EVER!!!). I am going to change it up a little and reward not only the top spot but the uncommon distinction of a non-negative number to a team that I have never covered before. In fact, I am recognizing the University of Minnesota men's gymnastics team even though they didn't win shit.
However, in this weekend's NCAA Championships, the Golden Gophers finished second, to Oklahoma, for the team title. They have yet to ever win it, but it's the fourth time in school history they finished second, even though it's the first time since 1990. I remember back in the nineties, I think, that men's gymnastics and the golf teams (both genders?) were named by the U. to be cut in order to balance the athletic department budget. They were saved through fundraising and a model that (and I could be wrong) makes that program partially privately funded now. If that's the case, I don't know how that doesn't make the program just a privately-funded team as opposed to a varsity school funded by the university, but no matter. Congratulations on the runner-up finish, guys! I am genuinely happy for all of you!
#-1: Gopher softball (Last Week: -1). I did not know this: With the weekend sweep of Nebraska (the most impressive of which was Friday's 10-1 victory in only Five Innings), the Golden Gophers have won their last 25 games at Cowles Stadium. That's good. Have no idea if that gets them into tournament conversation, however.
Winter is finally dead and yet its effects still reverberate. Last week's midweek Doubleheader versus Wisconsin had been cancelled, but it's been rescheduled for Wednesday. The team then heads off to Purdue for a trio over the weekend.
#-2: Gopher baseball (Last Week: -2). Congratulations to the baseball Nine; D1baseball.com, a website I'm not familiar with, put the Gophers in their Top 25 last week. On top of that, they put the U. in their bracketology as a two-seed!
The squad's poll standing and lofty projection may have taken a hit this weekend against Iowa. Well, first of all, I have to point out that because of conditions to Siebert Field, the first two games of their three-game series against the Hawkeyes were moved to Target Field, which was possible because the Twinks were getting their asses handed to them by the Bay Rays in Tampa, Fla. Sweet! They won Friday, 4-3 and Saturday, 3-0, and they should have stayed at Target Field, because they were able to play at Siebert yesterday/Sunday afternoon and they lost, 5-3, which snapped their winning streak at nine games (not counting cancelled and suspending games, of course). I really do wonder if that loss has an outsized effect on the team's chances of making the tournament.
The Gophers were supposed to play South Dakota St. Tuesday, but it was postponed due to field conditions as a result of "inclement weather." That game has been put back on the schedule for this Wednesday at Siebert. The team then travels to Ohio St. for a weekend series.
#-3: Timberwolves (Last Week: -5). In a horrible screening week for the local pro teams, it's the NBA squad that is giving us fans the most hope. And all of that stems from one freakin' game.
I still think The Bastard San Diego Rockets will kill the T-Wolves, but at least for now, let's just bask in that Game 3 win Saturday night, shall we? I was at My Favorite Stripclub (Non-Cover Edition), and while peeping at the strippers I saw the T-Wolves slice and dice their way through a Rockets club that, to be fair, was sort of mailing it in. The Timberwolves looked poised and engaged. Better yet, they were actually making shots -- from behind the arc, too! Look, Derrick Rose looks like a good player with two decent legs!! And the players don't seem to be tired at all!!!
This is the team that Wolves fans expected all year. This was the team that was until about six weeks ago. A team that has sucked for so long accrues talent that, assuming nothing goes haywire, will manifest itself into playoff wins like the one Saturday night. It's not just natural; it's expected. And yes, it was glorious to see this franchise win a playoff game for the first time since 2004.
Can they win another Game? Can these guys make this a series? Can they -- dare I say it -- win? If they can take Game 4 tonight (Monday night), expect to hear the "Rockets are choking" hot takes. (Also, if they win Game 4, the Timberwolves would show more fight in the postseason than the Wild did.) I would still bet against it, but if James Harden continues to not show up on the road, and if somehow the Timberwolves can hold court not just in Game 4 but a potential Game 6 ... who knows?
#-4: Twins (Last Week: -3). I don't know if it was the trip to Puerto Rico. Great PR and all, and at least they split the two-game series with Cleveland, but I don't know how in the fuck you go to Tampa and get swept by a Bay Rays organization expected to lose about 100 games. Simply unacceptable. They were in first place in the division some time this week, and now, they're not. When you look back on the season, you lament series like this.
Ah, fuck it, that's all I have to say, it's late at night and I'm tired. This week: Four at Yankee Stadium, then they finally return home for three games against the Cincinnati Reds. Hmmm, the Reds ... they don't come hear all that often. Maybe I should go to a game?
#-5: United FC (Last Week: -6). OK, this shit is starting to get really old. There were writers who thought that they could escape this Cascadia two-fer (Portland last week, Seattle yesterday/Sunday) with at least one Point and maybe two Wins. People point out that both opponents were far from healthy and in a funk, and what a time to play and possibly pip wins on the road in traditionally hostile environments?
Nope! Two losses, and I say neither result was in doubt. I made it to Brit's Pub in the afternoon at the start of the game vs. the Sounders, and once Seattle went up 2-0, it was fucking over. Christian Ramirez finally got off the schneid, thank Buddha, but they still lost, 3-1. Seriously, where is the defense? Where is the link-up play? Where is the competence in getting to goal? I can forgive running around like schoolchildren at recess last year because it was an expansion year. But for crissake, there should be some goddamn improvement now, and there isn't. These two foes were there for the taking, and you skulk back home with two defeats -- and, I have to add, you now are in the midst of a four-game losing streak? I blame everybody right now.
This Saturday they're home to face Houston. I have to watch the match because I'm a season-ticketholder.
#-6: Gopher women's basketball (Re-Entry!). Totally forgot the big news from the previous week about this team: Lindsay Whalen is going to be the new Head Coach of the Golden Gopher women's program! And WTF!!
First, a quick word about Marlene Stollings. I remember standing next to her for a Gopher softball game just after she got hired. That's my Marlene Stollings impression. I was not terribly impressed with her first three seasons, where Rachel Banham just did her own thing and Stollings piled the whole team on her back. Carlie Wagner wasn't making a huge impression on the program, either. But this past year, it looked as though Stollings decided to diversify the offensive attack, where Wagner did not do what Banham had largely done. By getting other players to contribute, the U. became a scrappy, even dangerous team. And I felt really heartened that the team won an NCAA Tournament game for the first time in almost a decade. Things were looking up.
I have no idea what was going on behind the scenes. At first blush this looked like a move a Head Coach from a men's mid-major (or in this case a BcS school) would do: Get his (or in this case her) club into The Big Dance, win a game or two, then jump schools for a big payday. Texas Tech dangled a lot more money in front of Stollings, and she decided to move. But is there more to that? Hardcore fans decried that her teams never seemed interested in defense; was there enough disenchantment coming from boosters and Athletic Director Mark Coyle (who, to note, did not hire Stollings; she is a Norwood Teague hire) that they didn't mind seeing her walk away?
With Stollings gone, the early candidates to replace her were the same ones competing with Stollings four years ago. I would have been ecstatic if it was either Aaron Johnston, current Head Coach at South Dakota St., or Niele Ivey, Associate Head Coach and lead recruiter at NCAA Champion Notre Dame. And yet the early speculation centered around Whalen, the Hutchinson native who put the Golden Gophers, and women's b-ball in the state of Minnesota, on the map. "The 800 lb. gorrilla," The Daily Gopher and other sites called her. Would the prodigal daughter come home to guide the program she virtually created with her passing and court vision?
The answer, by God, was yes. Yes? REALLY?!?!?! I heard about listening to The Common Man on The Fan and I couldn't believe they actually pulled it off. But how? And more importantly, why?
I will say this right now: The hype surrounding the thought of Whalen becoming HC at Minnesota astounds me. The biggest and most obvious reason: She. Has. Never. Been. A. Coach. Period. Never a Head Coach, ever an Assistant. And now she's going to pilot not only a school but a BcS school? And you think she's just going to step in and flourish? There have been so many writers who think Whalen could just walk off the court and onto the sidelines and not miss a beat. I have no idea what the fuck they're thinking. She has not recruited, she has not instituted practices, and she has never been asked to instill discipline and punishment. Hell, Whalen hasn't been certified to recruit yet, has she?
And on top of that, SHE'S STILL PLAYING! Her contract allows her to play for the Minnesota Lynx this year ... and there's a chance that she might do so the year after that, too! She will literally be on the court during the time of year where Geno Auriemma and Muffet McGraw will be visiting recruits' homes -- something, by the way, Whalen has yet to do. And all those writers who think she can just step into the HC role also think she can just saunter into a house, say "Hi, I'm Lindsay Whalen," and high schoolers will just sign on the dotted line. Those high schoolers were elementary school kids -- if not toddlers -- the last time the U. went to the Final Four. And just because the Point Guard on that team is now Head Coach means kids from the state are just dying to sign with the U.? Especially when that HC is actually playing and not doing her job?? You've got to be fucking kidding me!
The only reason Coyle decided to hire Whalen is Public Relations. I thought the squad's NCAA run was enough of a shot in the arm, but Coyle apparently didn't think so. He actually believes that the name recognition of Whalen will be enough for people to come to Williams Arena, and for Minnesota players to stay in Minnesota. In truth, we have absolutely no idea whether this will work.
Look, the best-case scenario for the head coaching career for Lindsay Whalen is Dawn Staley. While coaching at Temple, she played in the WNBA -- for six years and two teams! She has won an NCAA title ... with South Carolina, the second school she's coached at. That's the best Whalen can hope for, and if she follows that template, I don't know that benefits the U., and even then there are so many questions that people who think this moonshot is a great idea have not been able to answer. Good luck to Whalen and the U., but by God, this hire could go fucking flame out in spectacular fashion.
#-Infinity: Wild (Last Week: -4). Fuck this team. In fact, fuck this organization. Out of all the early-round exits this club has treated their teams with, this meek five-game departure to The Bastard Atlanta Thrashers has to be the most infuriating. (Granted, I could have said this last year as well.) I open up my computer Friday to see that they were already down 4-0 after a period and I stopped caring. And I know I'm not the only one.
Let's forget the statistic that the Mild are one of only three squads to make the Stanley Cup Playoffs the past six seasons. That's a stat some low-level Media Relations n00b had to scrounge up in order to suck up to his or her boss. These guys, for all their good rigor during the regular season, was completely uncompetitive this series. Injuries to Zach Parise, sure, blah-blah-blah.
So now we have to look at the larger picture. There is a system that has been in place for several years under General Manager Chuck Fletcher, and frankly, it has gotten stale. I understand, and even somewhat appreciate, this long-term plan of signing Parise and Ryan Suter (whose season ended before the playoffs started and thus contributed to the end of the Wild's season) as tentpoles and building the team around them. But the team that surrounds them has been lacking each and every year. One stat that should have everybody fucking freaking out: The Mild were the second-oldest team in the playoffs. The window is closing. It may have already closed.
And it's downright upsetting to see the fortunes of this franchise compared to the one it just got humiliated by. When this run of good years started, The Bastard Atlanta Thrashers ... well, they were in Atlanta, for one thing, but they sucked, too. Big time. In the intervening years they got better and they leaped into the playoffs this year, where a younger, hungrier squad (led by teenage asshole Patrik Laine, who needs to get the shit kicked out of him) made the Mild their bitch. Minnesota has been steady -- steady and mediocre. The Bastard Thrashers have gone from terrible to surprising, and their trajectory is headed upward. Which team do you want to root for now?
This entire organization is in an identity crisis. You could look to youngsters like Joel Eriksson Ek and Jordan Greenway and think that the future is bright. I would believe you're fucking high. Besides Eric Staal and Jason Zucker, everyone on that team underachieved this season, and you can say that all of those underachievers are on the downside of their careers. Fletcher showed loyalty to them by signing them to long-term deals, so that makes it quite difficult to change this team on the fly. And yet doing nothing will be the worst thing this club does, because staying the course has gotten them absolutely nowhere.
This could be emotions talking, but there is nothing there, absolutely nothing. Being steady with the players they decided to sign has brought them nothing but first-round exits. That's worse than being the worst team in the league. So, I say just fucking blow this team up. Thank Chuck Fletcher for trying, but he has to go. Trade your best players for picks; trade your role players for expiring contracts. Suck for several years so you can finally get that Patrik Laine you need to actually win Stanley Cups because there ain't no one on this fucking team who can do it now. You may be in the woods for a while, and even then the strategy might not work. But doing what you're doing now isn't working, either. Anything else but this. For God's sake, anything else but this.
Oh, and get the North Stars name back, too, the name "Wild" is an absolutely shitty name.
However, in this weekend's NCAA Championships, the Golden Gophers finished second, to Oklahoma, for the team title. They have yet to ever win it, but it's the fourth time in school history they finished second, even though it's the first time since 1990. I remember back in the nineties, I think, that men's gymnastics and the golf teams (both genders?) were named by the U. to be cut in order to balance the athletic department budget. They were saved through fundraising and a model that (and I could be wrong) makes that program partially privately funded now. If that's the case, I don't know how that doesn't make the program just a privately-funded team as opposed to a varsity school funded by the university, but no matter. Congratulations on the runner-up finish, guys! I am genuinely happy for all of you!
#-1: Gopher softball (Last Week: -1). I did not know this: With the weekend sweep of Nebraska (the most impressive of which was Friday's 10-1 victory in only Five Innings), the Golden Gophers have won their last 25 games at Cowles Stadium. That's good. Have no idea if that gets them into tournament conversation, however.
Winter is finally dead and yet its effects still reverberate. Last week's midweek Doubleheader versus Wisconsin had been cancelled, but it's been rescheduled for Wednesday. The team then heads off to Purdue for a trio over the weekend.
#-2: Gopher baseball (Last Week: -2). Congratulations to the baseball Nine; D1baseball.com, a website I'm not familiar with, put the Gophers in their Top 25 last week. On top of that, they put the U. in their bracketology as a two-seed!
The squad's poll standing and lofty projection may have taken a hit this weekend against Iowa. Well, first of all, I have to point out that because of conditions to Siebert Field, the first two games of their three-game series against the Hawkeyes were moved to Target Field, which was possible because the Twinks were getting their asses handed to them by the Bay Rays in Tampa, Fla. Sweet! They won Friday, 4-3 and Saturday, 3-0, and they should have stayed at Target Field, because they were able to play at Siebert yesterday/Sunday afternoon and they lost, 5-3, which snapped their winning streak at nine games (not counting cancelled and suspending games, of course). I really do wonder if that loss has an outsized effect on the team's chances of making the tournament.
The Gophers were supposed to play South Dakota St. Tuesday, but it was postponed due to field conditions as a result of "inclement weather." That game has been put back on the schedule for this Wednesday at Siebert. The team then travels to Ohio St. for a weekend series.
#-3: Timberwolves (Last Week: -5). In a horrible screening week for the local pro teams, it's the NBA squad that is giving us fans the most hope. And all of that stems from one freakin' game.
I still think The Bastard San Diego Rockets will kill the T-Wolves, but at least for now, let's just bask in that Game 3 win Saturday night, shall we? I was at My Favorite Stripclub (Non-Cover Edition), and while peeping at the strippers I saw the T-Wolves slice and dice their way through a Rockets club that, to be fair, was sort of mailing it in. The Timberwolves looked poised and engaged. Better yet, they were actually making shots -- from behind the arc, too! Look, Derrick Rose looks like a good player with two decent legs!! And the players don't seem to be tired at all!!!
This is the team that Wolves fans expected all year. This was the team that was until about six weeks ago. A team that has sucked for so long accrues talent that, assuming nothing goes haywire, will manifest itself into playoff wins like the one Saturday night. It's not just natural; it's expected. And yes, it was glorious to see this franchise win a playoff game for the first time since 2004.
Can they win another Game? Can these guys make this a series? Can they -- dare I say it -- win? If they can take Game 4 tonight (Monday night), expect to hear the "Rockets are choking" hot takes. (Also, if they win Game 4, the Timberwolves would show more fight in the postseason than the Wild did.) I would still bet against it, but if James Harden continues to not show up on the road, and if somehow the Timberwolves can hold court not just in Game 4 but a potential Game 6 ... who knows?
#-4: Twins (Last Week: -3). I don't know if it was the trip to Puerto Rico. Great PR and all, and at least they split the two-game series with Cleveland, but I don't know how in the fuck you go to Tampa and get swept by a Bay Rays organization expected to lose about 100 games. Simply unacceptable. They were in first place in the division some time this week, and now, they're not. When you look back on the season, you lament series like this.
Ah, fuck it, that's all I have to say, it's late at night and I'm tired. This week: Four at Yankee Stadium, then they finally return home for three games against the Cincinnati Reds. Hmmm, the Reds ... they don't come hear all that often. Maybe I should go to a game?
#-5: United FC (Last Week: -6). OK, this shit is starting to get really old. There were writers who thought that they could escape this Cascadia two-fer (Portland last week, Seattle yesterday/Sunday) with at least one Point and maybe two Wins. People point out that both opponents were far from healthy and in a funk, and what a time to play and possibly pip wins on the road in traditionally hostile environments?
Nope! Two losses, and I say neither result was in doubt. I made it to Brit's Pub in the afternoon at the start of the game vs. the Sounders, and once Seattle went up 2-0, it was fucking over. Christian Ramirez finally got off the schneid, thank Buddha, but they still lost, 3-1. Seriously, where is the defense? Where is the link-up play? Where is the competence in getting to goal? I can forgive running around like schoolchildren at recess last year because it was an expansion year. But for crissake, there should be some goddamn improvement now, and there isn't. These two foes were there for the taking, and you skulk back home with two defeats -- and, I have to add, you now are in the midst of a four-game losing streak? I blame everybody right now.
This Saturday they're home to face Houston. I have to watch the match because I'm a season-ticketholder.
#-6: Gopher women's basketball (Re-Entry!). Totally forgot the big news from the previous week about this team: Lindsay Whalen is going to be the new Head Coach of the Golden Gopher women's program! And WTF!!
First, a quick word about Marlene Stollings. I remember standing next to her for a Gopher softball game just after she got hired. That's my Marlene Stollings impression. I was not terribly impressed with her first three seasons, where Rachel Banham just did her own thing and Stollings piled the whole team on her back. Carlie Wagner wasn't making a huge impression on the program, either. But this past year, it looked as though Stollings decided to diversify the offensive attack, where Wagner did not do what Banham had largely done. By getting other players to contribute, the U. became a scrappy, even dangerous team. And I felt really heartened that the team won an NCAA Tournament game for the first time in almost a decade. Things were looking up.
I have no idea what was going on behind the scenes. At first blush this looked like a move a Head Coach from a men's mid-major (or in this case a BcS school) would do: Get his (or in this case her) club into The Big Dance, win a game or two, then jump schools for a big payday. Texas Tech dangled a lot more money in front of Stollings, and she decided to move. But is there more to that? Hardcore fans decried that her teams never seemed interested in defense; was there enough disenchantment coming from boosters and Athletic Director Mark Coyle (who, to note, did not hire Stollings; she is a Norwood Teague hire) that they didn't mind seeing her walk away?
With Stollings gone, the early candidates to replace her were the same ones competing with Stollings four years ago. I would have been ecstatic if it was either Aaron Johnston, current Head Coach at South Dakota St., or Niele Ivey, Associate Head Coach and lead recruiter at NCAA Champion Notre Dame. And yet the early speculation centered around Whalen, the Hutchinson native who put the Golden Gophers, and women's b-ball in the state of Minnesota, on the map. "The 800 lb. gorrilla," The Daily Gopher and other sites called her. Would the prodigal daughter come home to guide the program she virtually created with her passing and court vision?
The answer, by God, was yes. Yes? REALLY?!?!?! I heard about listening to The Common Man on The Fan and I couldn't believe they actually pulled it off. But how? And more importantly, why?
I will say this right now: The hype surrounding the thought of Whalen becoming HC at Minnesota astounds me. The biggest and most obvious reason: She. Has. Never. Been. A. Coach. Period. Never a Head Coach, ever an Assistant. And now she's going to pilot not only a school but a BcS school? And you think she's just going to step in and flourish? There have been so many writers who think Whalen could just walk off the court and onto the sidelines and not miss a beat. I have no idea what the fuck they're thinking. She has not recruited, she has not instituted practices, and she has never been asked to instill discipline and punishment. Hell, Whalen hasn't been certified to recruit yet, has she?
And on top of that, SHE'S STILL PLAYING! Her contract allows her to play for the Minnesota Lynx this year ... and there's a chance that she might do so the year after that, too! She will literally be on the court during the time of year where Geno Auriemma and Muffet McGraw will be visiting recruits' homes -- something, by the way, Whalen has yet to do. And all those writers who think she can just step into the HC role also think she can just saunter into a house, say "Hi, I'm Lindsay Whalen," and high schoolers will just sign on the dotted line. Those high schoolers were elementary school kids -- if not toddlers -- the last time the U. went to the Final Four. And just because the Point Guard on that team is now Head Coach means kids from the state are just dying to sign with the U.? Especially when that HC is actually playing and not doing her job?? You've got to be fucking kidding me!
The only reason Coyle decided to hire Whalen is Public Relations. I thought the squad's NCAA run was enough of a shot in the arm, but Coyle apparently didn't think so. He actually believes that the name recognition of Whalen will be enough for people to come to Williams Arena, and for Minnesota players to stay in Minnesota. In truth, we have absolutely no idea whether this will work.
Look, the best-case scenario for the head coaching career for Lindsay Whalen is Dawn Staley. While coaching at Temple, she played in the WNBA -- for six years and two teams! She has won an NCAA title ... with South Carolina, the second school she's coached at. That's the best Whalen can hope for, and if she follows that template, I don't know that benefits the U., and even then there are so many questions that people who think this moonshot is a great idea have not been able to answer. Good luck to Whalen and the U., but by God, this hire could go fucking flame out in spectacular fashion.
#-Infinity: Wild (Last Week: -4). Fuck this team. In fact, fuck this organization. Out of all the early-round exits this club has treated their teams with, this meek five-game departure to The Bastard Atlanta Thrashers has to be the most infuriating. (Granted, I could have said this last year as well.) I open up my computer Friday to see that they were already down 4-0 after a period and I stopped caring. And I know I'm not the only one.
Let's forget the statistic that the Mild are one of only three squads to make the Stanley Cup Playoffs the past six seasons. That's a stat some low-level Media Relations n00b had to scrounge up in order to suck up to his or her boss. These guys, for all their good rigor during the regular season, was completely uncompetitive this series. Injuries to Zach Parise, sure, blah-blah-blah.
So now we have to look at the larger picture. There is a system that has been in place for several years under General Manager Chuck Fletcher, and frankly, it has gotten stale. I understand, and even somewhat appreciate, this long-term plan of signing Parise and Ryan Suter (whose season ended before the playoffs started and thus contributed to the end of the Wild's season) as tentpoles and building the team around them. But the team that surrounds them has been lacking each and every year. One stat that should have everybody fucking freaking out: The Mild were the second-oldest team in the playoffs. The window is closing. It may have already closed.
And it's downright upsetting to see the fortunes of this franchise compared to the one it just got humiliated by. When this run of good years started, The Bastard Atlanta Thrashers ... well, they were in Atlanta, for one thing, but they sucked, too. Big time. In the intervening years they got better and they leaped into the playoffs this year, where a younger, hungrier squad (led by teenage asshole Patrik Laine, who needs to get the shit kicked out of him) made the Mild their bitch. Minnesota has been steady -- steady and mediocre. The Bastard Thrashers have gone from terrible to surprising, and their trajectory is headed upward. Which team do you want to root for now?
This entire organization is in an identity crisis. You could look to youngsters like Joel Eriksson Ek and Jordan Greenway and think that the future is bright. I would believe you're fucking high. Besides Eric Staal and Jason Zucker, everyone on that team underachieved this season, and you can say that all of those underachievers are on the downside of their careers. Fletcher showed loyalty to them by signing them to long-term deals, so that makes it quite difficult to change this team on the fly. And yet doing nothing will be the worst thing this club does, because staying the course has gotten them absolutely nowhere.
This could be emotions talking, but there is nothing there, absolutely nothing. Being steady with the players they decided to sign has brought them nothing but first-round exits. That's worse than being the worst team in the league. So, I say just fucking blow this team up. Thank Chuck Fletcher for trying, but he has to go. Trade your best players for picks; trade your role players for expiring contracts. Suck for several years so you can finally get that Patrik Laine you need to actually win Stanley Cups because there ain't no one on this fucking team who can do it now. You may be in the woods for a while, and even then the strategy might not work. But doing what you're doing now isn't working, either. Anything else but this. For God's sake, anything else but this.
Oh, and get the North Stars name back, too, the name "Wild" is an absolutely shitty name.
Sunday, April 22, 2018
Expenses Without Receipts
Starting from Saturday, April 21:
- Saturday was not only the second anniversary of Prince's death, but it was also Record Store Day. (And just before I started typing this, I found out it was Earth Day, too. These three events are going to clash together for the rest of my life, won't they?) It's great that this year, RSD appears to coincide with the first real weekend of the spring. It's crazy to remember that this time last week we were in the middle of digging out of, at least in my town, 18 inches of snow. Most of that snow has disappeared from our front yard, and assuming that there won't be any more snow for the rest of the season (you never know!), all of it will be gone soon. Plus it was sunny and warm out, it felt like the entire Twin Cities was at a record store, or at least outside, enjoying the weather for the first time all year. It was great. Anyway, I wanted to just enjoy RSD by thumbing through vinyl records and not buying them because I don't have a record player. But I do have a mouth, and on this day I celebrated by eating and drinking my way through my record store crawl. It started at Flashlight Vinyl, where the place called, and I think I'm getting the name of it wrong, SSSSSSSSSSSSDUDE-NUTZ, had its truck outside. It's a donut shop that used to have a brick-and-mortar place at the U. They closed that down to be mobile only, but I remember that they had great-tasting donuts with the weirdest names possible. That hasn't changed; I got the I Don't Fuck Witchu, a combination of chocolate and buttercream. It was fantastic, so much so that I didn't totally mind how goddamn expensive it was. Plus dollar tip: $4.
- I then went to the Electric Fetus, which was incredibly busy (at least on this day) despite the Franklin Ave. Bridge still being constructed. There were so many customers at this site wearing purple. Is it because the Fetus is the most well-known record store in the Twin Cities, or did they naturally go there because Prince was there for RSD '16 just a few days before his death? Anyway, I went to the Fetus because I knew they had a few food truck there and I wanted something for lunch. I decided on O'Cheeze and got their Mac sandwich. Chips came with; it was good going down my throat and, not to be too graphic, coming out of my butthole. With tip: $9.
- Then I went to Hymie's, named RSD in the TC for 2018, at least according to City Pages. I loved the set-up; they closed down a corner to set up a stage in the middle of the street straddling Hymie's (and the coffeeshop at the corner) with a restaurant on the other side of the street. The Fulton Brewery set up shop on the parking lot of that restaurant to serve beer. Now I understand why it was given this year's award. The Southside Aces, a Dixieland jazz group that ended their set with their rendition of Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance," tore it up. And I liked the can of Fulton Standard that I bought, too. (Oh, I browsed Hymie's -- fun and funny place.) The beer plus tip cost me: $6.
- Finished my RSD crawl with a quick trip to Fifth Element. No food trucks or drinks there, but Sebastian Joe's was up the street, and I hadn't been there in a year. And it just so happened that they made City Pages' Best of issue, for Best Dessert. I got said dessert, their chocolate chip cookie sandwiches. I got the one filled with their famous raspberry chocolate chip -- tasty! And expensive. With tip: $7.
- Went back home, slept for a second, ate dinner, took a shit, then went back out. Went to My Favorite Stripclub (Non-Cover Division) just because. But I've noticed something that's happened the past few times I've been there: When I ask for a dance, that dancer asks me to pay for a drink. Is this a thing now? Have the strippers coordinated on this? Is such a practice now mandated by the bar? I acquiesced because I wanted to get a dance from the interesting and big-boobed Belle, but that Long Island Iced Tea is no monetary joke. With coffee for me, and stage tips, it all came out to: $42.75.
- Because I spent so much goddamn money I didn't mind picking up a quarter I saw on the bar floor. An Infusion of: 25 cents.
- I then went to Glam Doll Donuts (I'm blogging this part of EWR here right now). Haven't been here in a couple weeks. All told, with tip: $10.38.
- Let's go back to Wednesday the 18th, where I was coaxed out to My Favorites Stripclub (Non-Cover Version) because a few veterans who no longer work there said they were raising funds to the Humane Society. I gave $20 to one of the girls there, but since she may have been drinking at the time, I'm not totally confident that she didn't pocket the money to use for herself. Meanwhile, another girl asked me to buy a shot and a Diet Coke for her ... and when I tipped the bartender, she took one of those dollars and pocketed it herself. Now when you're running a fundraiser, why in the fuck are you taking money for yourself? Plus stage tips, coffee for me and a dance with a girl named Lotus so she wouldn't bitch about me not giving her five bucks onstage, and it all came out to: $64.
- On Sunday the 15th I was getting cabin fever. The day before was when the heaviest of the blizzard fell -- about a foot, I believe. There was supposed to be between three and six more inches falling on this day. But since we were inundated with so much snow the day before, I and a few other people in this town went, "Half a foot? That's nothing!" and so I went out to the library because I had to make copies of my tax forms and to just get out of the fucking house. I made two mistakes copying my returns: I didn't put enough money in to make all the copies from a stack of originals, and then I made two copies from the same original when I only wanted one. A waste of twenty cents out of a total of: $1.90.
- Thursday, April 12 -- Had to head out in the evening to Caffetto to work on some alumni club stuff. This was one of those busy times where there was no place for me to work. But, in a first, a complete stranger volunteered to share a table with her. So I did and we ... respected each other's privacy by not making chit-chat. I have to say, though, that her gesture by itself means she was really nice, and I have to say, she didn't look too bad, either. When she left Caffetto and I thanked her for sharing, she showed her thin, tall, tight body. She was ... hot, she was hot. Apple pie, hot chocolate, tip: $7.
- I then went to My Favorite Stripclub (Non-Cover Edition). L**** was there. I used to get HJs from her, but I didn't expect her to ever be working there again. But she is. I don't know if I'll ever get down and dirty with her again, so I got a dance from her. But not before she asked me to buy a shot for her. Fuck Christ ... I seriously am getting bled dry from these bitches asking me to buy drinks for them. I have to stay away from this place for a bit, I think. Plus coffee for me and tips: $37.
- On Monday the 9th I went to the library to print out both tax forms to work on (I started on them late) and paystubs for my health insurance. I should blog about that soon. Total: $1.20.
- Sunday the 8th ... I went to Caffetto in the morning. Small hot chocolate and tip: $3.25.
- Found a penny at Caffetto, heads-up. An Infusion of: 1 cent.
- Saturday, April 7 ... I went to downtown St. Paul in a fruitless attempt to get a ticket for the Frozen Four Final. I stopped that afternoon at Frozen Fest, held at the parking lot across from the Xcel Energy Center, where I had a Goose Island IPA at the Buffalo Wild Wings pop-up station. I used that to wash down the free Wendy's hamburger and Frosty I got there. I charged the beer, so this EWR is tip-only: $1.
- I didn't get a ticket, but instead of just leaving, I went to Patrick McGovern's because I really wanted to see the game anyway. Pathetic me. I stayed on my feet for the first two periods because there was no space to sit. Later I found a barstool and ate a huge plate of nachos for no good reason. Charged the nachos, but the beer (plus tip) set me back: $8.25.
- Went to My Favorite Stripclub (Non-Cover Division) after the game. Didn't get a dance, and no one hit me up for a drink. Just coffee and tips this time around, ah!: $10.
- To Thursday, April 5, which was the Semifinals of the Frozen Four. I had a ticket, and I altered my workweek in order to free myself for the afternoon. I wanted to do a few things I hadn't done in some time, and I used the afternoon to do it. One of them was seeing my therapist for the first time in a few months. The other thing is to get my Docs polished. Since the LRT is right across the street from work, I just left my cubicle and went down to catch the train. And since the trip downtown was less than 2 1/2 hours, I needed to pay only one fare: $2.
- There was a guy ahead of me, so I decided to get a donut -- excuse me, a doughnut -- from the Bogart's kiosk. With tip: $4.25.
- I think Lisa's prices have gone up. Still, I need her to shine my shoes. And she had a pencil to brighten my yellow stitches! With tip: $15.
- Went back down to Bloomington, got into my car, saw my shrink in Roseville. Then I went to the Target on the light rail and parked, and I was scared as heck that it would get towed, but it didn't. Had to pay a ticket going to the X and coming back. Total: $4.50.
- At the Frozen Four there was a Designated Driver kiosk, where you can sign up and get a free Coke for not drinking alcohol, then be entered into a drawing to get a free Frozen Four hat. And then I realized: They are selling alcohol for a college event. Since people under the age of 21 aren't allowed to drink in the U.S., college events have historically been booze-free; if a tournament event is being held in a big, no-college-based stadium or arena, they turn off the taps. But the NCAA began a pilot program where they allowed alcohol to be sold at the 2016 College World Series, and that was extended to several other postseason events, including the Frozen Four earlier this month. It appears as though all NCAA-sanctioned postseason events will now allow alcohol starting in the fall. Hey, alcohol doesn't rule my life, so I didn't mind not drinking beer at a college game. Anyway, I paired my free Coke (no ice) with a hot dog. Add a program to that and I got away from the X spending only: $16.
Saturday, April 21, 2018
So Am I In Or Am I Out?
So I moved cubes yesterday/Friday. Turns out it isn't as big as I thought. I measured using my wingspan; my new spot is a few inches wider. However, the desk goes all around my new spot while, even though it wasn't useful, the desk at my old place did not. That my new cubicle was bigger is only an illusion because the walls don't go as high and they do not fence off more of my space. That means people peer over my shoulder to see me on the Internet, dammit -- caught again!
While I was moving I was thinking about my future there. While this new job hasn't materialized on the Internet yet, I'm not sure how long I'm going to be here. I worry about money and my next job, sure, but I just booked a flight to Denver next month. Tickets were $50 and last week's blizzard kind of broke me, so I feel as though I need to get away from here. But not if the week I plan to leave is the last week of my job; wouldn't make sense to spend money instead of working the last week of my position there.
But I sure as heck can't bring it up, at least right now. How would you do it? I relied on signs yesterday, and they conflicted as all get out. First of all, for example, wouldn't me moving be a sign I'll be here a while? If I weren't, why would they bother to move me? But then I ask my boss for a a vertically-moving monitor set so I can stand at work once in a while, and she said she probably couldn't get one for me because she thinks one will need to be ordered, "And I don't know how long you're going to be here." Well, shoot, how long am I going to be here?
And then I check my e-mail and I get these usernames and passwords for new health insurance portals. That means, in my mind at least, I have new responsibilities at this job. So that means I'll be here, at least a little while longer -- right? But I get a mixed message in the afternoon, when I ask my boss if I can switch back to my old chair. "Yes, you can," she says, "Just bring me the chair that is at your new cubicle -- when we find someone full-time, we'll need to put that chair back into that cubicle." But wait ... can't that full-timer be ... me?
So at some point I'll have to gin up the courage to ask my boss about when I'm gone, or at least if I am able to take a vacation next month. It's not the end of the world if I can't go; I haven't made hotel or car arrangements yet. But before I fell asleep last night I went through the cost of going, and two weeks' worth of pay might make this trip to Denver affordable. And I'm not sure if I'll be working there another two weeks, if the worst-case scenario happens. Then where will I be? And if I'm gone two weeks from now, what was all this moving for?
While I was moving I was thinking about my future there. While this new job hasn't materialized on the Internet yet, I'm not sure how long I'm going to be here. I worry about money and my next job, sure, but I just booked a flight to Denver next month. Tickets were $50 and last week's blizzard kind of broke me, so I feel as though I need to get away from here. But not if the week I plan to leave is the last week of my job; wouldn't make sense to spend money instead of working the last week of my position there.
But I sure as heck can't bring it up, at least right now. How would you do it? I relied on signs yesterday, and they conflicted as all get out. First of all, for example, wouldn't me moving be a sign I'll be here a while? If I weren't, why would they bother to move me? But then I ask my boss for a a vertically-moving monitor set so I can stand at work once in a while, and she said she probably couldn't get one for me because she thinks one will need to be ordered, "And I don't know how long you're going to be here." Well, shoot, how long am I going to be here?
And then I check my e-mail and I get these usernames and passwords for new health insurance portals. That means, in my mind at least, I have new responsibilities at this job. So that means I'll be here, at least a little while longer -- right? But I get a mixed message in the afternoon, when I ask my boss if I can switch back to my old chair. "Yes, you can," she says, "Just bring me the chair that is at your new cubicle -- when we find someone full-time, we'll need to put that chair back into that cubicle." But wait ... can't that full-timer be ... me?
So at some point I'll have to gin up the courage to ask my boss about when I'm gone, or at least if I am able to take a vacation next month. It's not the end of the world if I can't go; I haven't made hotel or car arrangements yet. But before I fell asleep last night I went through the cost of going, and two weeks' worth of pay might make this trip to Denver affordable. And I'm not sure if I'll be working there another two weeks, if the worst-case scenario happens. Then where will I be? And if I'm gone two weeks from now, what was all this moving for?
Friday, April 20, 2018
Tales From The Gas Station, Part I: Taco Bell
So there are two gas stations closest to my house. I used to patronize one because my gas coupons got me double the discount on Tuesdays. But once that gas station ended that promotion and when the dealership from which I got my Honda gave me a five-cent-off card which I could use with my gas coupon every time I fill up, I went to this other one. I believe it was the one whose development, a long time ago, residents tried to stop because they were afraid it would cause pollution, noise and traffic problems. I don't think those have occurred, but then again, I don't live that close to the gas station. I get the convenience without all the headaches.
There is a Taco Bell connected to this gas station I frequent. I frequent this Taco Bell a lot, sometimes when I go somewhere after eating dinner. It's crap, but it's nearby, relatively cheap and tasty crap. Sometimes the customer service is great; sometimes it's meh.
But a weird thing had happened on consecutive visits. Taco Bell is currently pushing a pair of new items, a Triple Melt Burrito and Triple Melt Nachos, both for $1. The first time I saw these two things I bought the Triple Melt Burrito. Next time I came in I asked for the Triple Melt Nachos ... but when I got my tray, they gave me the Triple Melt Burrito instead. And that happened on my next visit as well.
This second time I had a passing thought of saying, "Hey, I ordered the Triple Melt Nachos, not the Triple Melt Burrito." But I didn't. At that moment, to me, wanting exactly what I asked for was not worth throwing away perfectly good food. Besides, it was just a buck. But the second time it happened irritated me, if only because it was the same person taking my order both times. I don't believe she was the one making my order, and I checked the receipts to make sure she entered nachos and not the burrito (she did), but I find it bizarre that my order was made wrong not once but twice. Again, this is retail customer service. But these guys are overall OK by me. And doing it wrong twice in a row?
I swore to raise my objection if I got the Triple Melt Burrito instead of the Triple Melt Nachos a third straight time; at this point I was obsessed with what the Triple Melt Nachos looked like. So I came in a third time, ordered the nachos ... and I got the Triple Melt Nachos! But it was really small and no great shakes, so the buildup wasn't really worth it. But hey, at least I finally tasted them, and they got my order right ... although the person taking my order this third time was different from the one who took my first two.
There is a Taco Bell connected to this gas station I frequent. I frequent this Taco Bell a lot, sometimes when I go somewhere after eating dinner. It's crap, but it's nearby, relatively cheap and tasty crap. Sometimes the customer service is great; sometimes it's meh.
But a weird thing had happened on consecutive visits. Taco Bell is currently pushing a pair of new items, a Triple Melt Burrito and Triple Melt Nachos, both for $1. The first time I saw these two things I bought the Triple Melt Burrito. Next time I came in I asked for the Triple Melt Nachos ... but when I got my tray, they gave me the Triple Melt Burrito instead. And that happened on my next visit as well.
This second time I had a passing thought of saying, "Hey, I ordered the Triple Melt Nachos, not the Triple Melt Burrito." But I didn't. At that moment, to me, wanting exactly what I asked for was not worth throwing away perfectly good food. Besides, it was just a buck. But the second time it happened irritated me, if only because it was the same person taking my order both times. I don't believe she was the one making my order, and I checked the receipts to make sure she entered nachos and not the burrito (she did), but I find it bizarre that my order was made wrong not once but twice. Again, this is retail customer service. But these guys are overall OK by me. And doing it wrong twice in a row?
I swore to raise my objection if I got the Triple Melt Burrito instead of the Triple Melt Nachos a third straight time; at this point I was obsessed with what the Triple Melt Nachos looked like. So I came in a third time, ordered the nachos ... and I got the Triple Melt Nachos! But it was really small and no great shakes, so the buildup wasn't really worth it. But hey, at least I finally tasted them, and they got my order right ... although the person taking my order this third time was different from the one who took my first two.
Thursday, April 19, 2018
I'm Moving (To A Different Cubicle, Dammit)
Bomb dropped on me when I returned from my car for lunch yesterday/Wednesday afternoon: They are moving me from my current cubicle to a new one. My boss has told me for the past few weeks that they have been looking at moving me, a thought that I believe has accelerated since my responsibilities have shifted from helping work claims to, well, opening mail. I actually have been working from this new space for part of each of the last two days to open and sort the mail that's been coming in. It is closer to the rest of the team I will be working with/for, and it is slightly closer to my boss's cube.
The big upgrade to this new cubicle, from my standpoint, is it's bigger. Well, there's another thing: My old cube still has some detritus from before I moved in, namely a bunch of monitors and monitor stands that were shunted off to the side so I could work. They've been there since I started this job, and it's gotten to the point where I no longer notice them. Heck, I just remembered these old monitors while just writing this paragraph. Those mons, I assume, will stay right where they are.
Unfortunately that's the only upgrade to moving. Now, let's count the downgrades. My current/old cube has high walls to keep me secure. There are no such walls at this new place. My current/old cube is well away from my boss and everyone I have worked and will work with and/or for. When I started this position they just needed a place to put me in, and so they shoved me into an area on the floor in a completely different department. (That probably explains the pile of monitors and monitor stands.) My boss and anyone else who wants to speak with me has to travel half the floor and into a different department to speak with me. Frankly, that's awesome. It makes me feel special, and it's just my personality to be as far away from the people I'm in the same department with.
But the most important downgrade is a more straightforward type of lack of privacy different from the proximal one I just outlined. This new cubicle is along a well-traveled area on the floor. My current/old cube is tucked away at a relatively secluded area of the floor. Besides the guy who has to walk past my opening to get from or to his space right next to the window (and BTW I can't recall what he looks like and in fact I'm not even sure I've ever seen his face, tbh), there is no one else who would ever need to cross my cubicle unless they want to come talk to me. (Although that didn't stop my boss from catching me on Facebook yesterday, however. I wonder if her catching me online contributed to her having me change workspaces.) But in this new place everybody will come across my cubicle to get all up in my business. I will not be able to hide at all, and that really, really blows.
Look, I'm not really paranoid about this change. Honest! I understand that my boss wants me working closer with the rest of the team, and she has told me about this for a few weeks now. I'm just saying it sucks. I don't like moving all my stuff, I fear change, and I outlined all the things I'll lose come next week. But if I can get one of those Vari-Desk things, a monitor that I can move up or down so I can stand while working, I can tolerate it.
The big upgrade to this new cubicle, from my standpoint, is it's bigger. Well, there's another thing: My old cube still has some detritus from before I moved in, namely a bunch of monitors and monitor stands that were shunted off to the side so I could work. They've been there since I started this job, and it's gotten to the point where I no longer notice them. Heck, I just remembered these old monitors while just writing this paragraph. Those mons, I assume, will stay right where they are.
Unfortunately that's the only upgrade to moving. Now, let's count the downgrades. My current/old cube has high walls to keep me secure. There are no such walls at this new place. My current/old cube is well away from my boss and everyone I have worked and will work with and/or for. When I started this position they just needed a place to put me in, and so they shoved me into an area on the floor in a completely different department. (That probably explains the pile of monitors and monitor stands.) My boss and anyone else who wants to speak with me has to travel half the floor and into a different department to speak with me. Frankly, that's awesome. It makes me feel special, and it's just my personality to be as far away from the people I'm in the same department with.
But the most important downgrade is a more straightforward type of lack of privacy different from the proximal one I just outlined. This new cubicle is along a well-traveled area on the floor. My current/old cube is tucked away at a relatively secluded area of the floor. Besides the guy who has to walk past my opening to get from or to his space right next to the window (and BTW I can't recall what he looks like and in fact I'm not even sure I've ever seen his face, tbh), there is no one else who would ever need to cross my cubicle unless they want to come talk to me. (Although that didn't stop my boss from catching me on Facebook yesterday, however. I wonder if her catching me online contributed to her having me change workspaces.) But in this new place everybody will come across my cubicle to get all up in my business. I will not be able to hide at all, and that really, really blows.
Look, I'm not really paranoid about this change. Honest! I understand that my boss wants me working closer with the rest of the team, and she has told me about this for a few weeks now. I'm just saying it sucks. I don't like moving all my stuff, I fear change, and I outlined all the things I'll lose come next week. But if I can get one of those Vari-Desk things, a monitor that I can move up or down so I can stand while working, I can tolerate it.
Wednesday, April 18, 2018
I Recommend The Toro Power Max 724 OE
So this blizzard over the weekend, the worst blizzard in recent memory and possibly in my memory, may actually be the last snowstorm we get this protracted winter. And before the snow melts (and since we got so goddamn much of it -- I guesstimate 16", but the city officially measured 20" -- it'll melt slowly), I want to sing the praises of the snowblower that kicked ass and took names over the weekend, as well as the entire winter and the past few winters.
I remember Father coming home several years back with a big, black snowthrowing Goliath, albeit one bought secondhand on the cheap. This monster surely would toss the snow from our driveway over our yard and to the yard of our neighbors, and do so in about five minutes. Unfortunately, the damn thing didn't work. So it's now gathering cobwebs in the shed.
Some time ago Father came home with a more modest machine: A Toro Power Max 724 OE, Model #37770. It still had its bells and whistles, but it was nowhere near the behemoth that black piece of junk was. And contrary to that piece of junk, this Toro worked -- well, most of the time. Before my parents left for Las Vegas in the fall, Father brought in the snowblower because it wasn't starting. The carburetor needed to be replaced. But since then, with the exception of one aborted start a couple weeks ago, it has done a marvelous job. The blades auger just fine, the chute shoots out the snow off our driveway, and it doesn't break down. It takes an hour, tops, to clear our driveway, and I have had few problems working the machine all winter. I used it twice while my parents were gone, and it worked perfectly both times. And when it came time to clear the snow out in stages over the weekend, calling for its services three times (Saturday morning, Sunday morning and Sunday evening), it answered that call every single time.
So even though I don't think they make that particular Model anymore, if you are in the market for a snowblower and can find the Toro Power Max 724 OE, buy it. I highly recommend it.
I remember Father coming home several years back with a big, black snowthrowing Goliath, albeit one bought secondhand on the cheap. This monster surely would toss the snow from our driveway over our yard and to the yard of our neighbors, and do so in about five minutes. Unfortunately, the damn thing didn't work. So it's now gathering cobwebs in the shed.
Some time ago Father came home with a more modest machine: A Toro Power Max 724 OE, Model #37770. It still had its bells and whistles, but it was nowhere near the behemoth that black piece of junk was. And contrary to that piece of junk, this Toro worked -- well, most of the time. Before my parents left for Las Vegas in the fall, Father brought in the snowblower because it wasn't starting. The carburetor needed to be replaced. But since then, with the exception of one aborted start a couple weeks ago, it has done a marvelous job. The blades auger just fine, the chute shoots out the snow off our driveway, and it doesn't break down. It takes an hour, tops, to clear our driveway, and I have had few problems working the machine all winter. I used it twice while my parents were gone, and it worked perfectly both times. And when it came time to clear the snow out in stages over the weekend, calling for its services three times (Saturday morning, Sunday morning and Sunday evening), it answered that call every single time.
So even though I don't think they make that particular Model anymore, if you are in the market for a snowblower and can find the Toro Power Max 724 OE, buy it. I highly recommend it.
Tuesday, April 17, 2018
Tax Day -- Thanks, Republicans! (Just Joking; Fuck You, Republicans)
Tax Day is today. Got them handed in yesterday. Assuming I got it right (and why wouldn't I?), I am getting about $325 from the fed and about $150 from the state.
Getting money back is always good. But I have to remember that if I'm getting a refund from my taxes, that means money that is supposed to belong to me has been in the hands of the government this whole time. Also, I'm sure that Republicans rigged this new tax cut in order to engender peasants like us with good feelings from the paltry refunds we're getting so we don't bitch about the billions of dollars in tax breaks the rich people in this country are getting. I see you, Republican whores. And I don't mind actually paying a bit in taxes if that means the people you whore for no longer get away with taking our money.
Getting money back is always good. But I have to remember that if I'm getting a refund from my taxes, that means money that is supposed to belong to me has been in the hands of the government this whole time. Also, I'm sure that Republicans rigged this new tax cut in order to engender peasants like us with good feelings from the paltry refunds we're getting so we don't bitch about the billions of dollars in tax breaks the rich people in this country are getting. I see you, Republican whores. And I don't mind actually paying a bit in taxes if that means the people you whore for no longer get away with taking our money.
Monday, April 16, 2018
The Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey
#-1: Gopher softball (Last Week: -4). With all the stuff you can find on the Internet, softball bracketology sites is not one of them. I Googled "softball bracketology" to make absolutely sure the Golden Gopher softball team has no chance of reaching the NCAA Tournament. I have found only site: The one by the angels at College Sports Madness. And wouldn't you know, Minnesota is in the tourney, albeit on the road at Seattle.
I really didn't think they had a chance, after the Gophers finished with a 17-11 non-conference schedule. But one (well, the only) site thinks the Nine is in. And that projection has been further boosted by their three-game sweep at Iowa last screening week. Weird note: None of the three games ended exactly in regulation. The middle game, which the Gophers won 6-2, went into extra Innings; the 8-0 series opener and the 11-1 series closer didn't least even seven.
By the way, due to "inclement weather" (I've been using that phrase and quotation marks a lot lately), the U. and the Hawkeyes on Wednesday pushed the series up a day. And then on Friday they announced that the scheduled contest on Saturday would instead be the back part of a Friday Doubleheader. Good that they were able to get in all three games, and hope the club got home safely. But with even more goddamn snow coming in for Wednesday, will they get to play the scheduled DH vs. Wisconsin that day? And just because I'm now paranoid about anything weather-related, will they get in the weekend series against Nebraska?
(By the way, all the details as to why the series-ender was cancelled I got from the Purdue athletics website. The Gopher site just blamed the cancellation on "poor field conditions" and the curfew. It may be obvious, but it's important to note that the conditions of the field was the result of rain. Why wouldn't they just state that?)
I don't know if there are more college baseball bracketologists, but I know that Baseball America has been around a long time. They project the NCAA tourney, and right now they say the U. is in. That status should be bolstered by this pseudo-sweep. Even though the softball squad takes the top spot this week because they went 3-0 and these guys went 2-0, I think the baseball team has the stronger case for the postseason than the softball team. We'll see if they can keep this roll going as all their games this week are at home: North Dakota St. for a game Tuesday, then three versus Iowa this weekend. Fingers crossed that they can actually play them.
#-3: Twins (Last Week: -2). In what may be the most weather-affected week the Twinks have ever had, the last three games of their four-game series vs. the Chicago White Sox at Target have been postponed because of, well, no shit, The Tax Day Blizzard of 2018. But at least they got Thursday's opener in, and Jose Berrios was superlative, matching his career high of 11 Strikeouts in a 4-0 win. Moreover, at the beginning of the screening week they took two-of-three from The Defending World Series Champion Houston Astros. Wednesday afternoon's rubber match was the best of them; they choked on an 8-1 lead, but with two Strikes and two Out in the bottom of the Ninth Inning, Max Kepler uncorked a lining Homer to Right for the game-ender. They need more games to evaluate where they are, but going 3-1 is pretty good.
They are "home" for a two-game set against Cleveland. But they are not at home (which is a good thing; more fucking snow is coming Wednesday). Instead, they are in San Juan, P.R. for an outreach series that will still count in the standings. That does mean two fewer home games, but for the greater good, I don't mind. The team is down there right now and will practice today (Monday) for the games tomorrow/Tuesday and Wednesday. They come back to the mainland Thursday and then face the Bay Rays in Tampa over the weekend.
#-4: Wild (Last Week: -3). OK, so they didn't get swept. That's a good thing -- for obvious reasons, for one, and two, it looked like The Bastard Atlanta Thrashers were decisively better than the Mild in all facets. In particular, it felt as though the speed that our team is predicated on ran into the customary wall where Toughness Wins Stanley Cups. That may have been the case in Games 1 and 2 (especially Game 2; damn, they had their shot in Game 1), where home-ice gives you last shift, but it was bombs away at the X last (Sunday) night, and the pucks were flying into the net, leading to a 6-2 victory.
Again, that's good. But can they repeat that tomorrow/Tuesday for Game 4? One statistic I was not aware of until I saw it last night: The Bastard Thrashers and the Mild are the two teams with the best home records in the National Hockey League this year. Minnesota needs to fight that stat if they want to win this series.
Again, that's good. But can they repeat that tomorrow/Tuesday for Game 4? One statistic I was not aware of until I saw it last night: The Bastard Thrashers and the Mild are the two teams with the best home records in the National Hockey League this year. Minnesota needs to fight that stat if they want to win this series.
#-5: Timberwolves (Last Week: -5). Gosh, it's so weird to go to the team's Schedule page and see at the end there is a section for "Post Season" and have the same foe logo seven games in a row.
They finished the regular season on a three-game winning streak. They crushed The Bastard Vancouver Grizzlies Monday by 19 and then, more importantly, they proved me and much of their hate fans wrong by outlasting the Denver Nuggets Wednesday in a winner-take-all match, 112-106 in Overtime. But they were gassed as fuck by the end of that game; they had a late lead and choked it away, and while I was listening on the radio I thought for sure they were toast. But somehow, they held on.
Even more surprising was Game 1 last/Sunday night. They lost, no surprise, but they were in it all the way, losing only by a 104-101 margin; just like with the Wild, the Wolves had a chance to steal Game 1 on the road and couldn't take it. That is a spirited effort. And seeing that I thought the main goal was only to just freakin' make the playoffs, the season in my mind is a success, even if the club was in line to grab the 3-seed just five weeks ago. So yeah, I can take a moral victory away from Game 1. Of course, this is the wake-up call The Bastard San Diego Rockets need to blow the Woofie Dogs out the rest of the way. We're still talking about the most 3-reliant -- and 3-making -- team in the National Basketball Association against a team that neither defends nor shoots the 3 well. The stretch goal for this squad is winning a game.
They finished the regular season on a three-game winning streak. They crushed The Bastard Vancouver Grizzlies Monday by 19 and then, more importantly, they proved me and much of their hate fans wrong by outlasting the Denver Nuggets Wednesday in a winner-take-all match, 112-106 in Overtime. But they were gassed as fuck by the end of that game; they had a late lead and choked it away, and while I was listening on the radio I thought for sure they were toast. But somehow, they held on.
Even more surprising was Game 1 last/Sunday night. They lost, no surprise, but they were in it all the way, losing only by a 104-101 margin; just like with the Wild, the Wolves had a chance to steal Game 1 on the road and couldn't take it. That is a spirited effort. And seeing that I thought the main goal was only to just freakin' make the playoffs, the season in my mind is a success, even if the club was in line to grab the 3-seed just five weeks ago. So yeah, I can take a moral victory away from Game 1. Of course, this is the wake-up call The Bastard San Diego Rockets need to blow the Woofie Dogs out the rest of the way. We're still talking about the most 3-reliant -- and 3-making -- team in the National Basketball Association against a team that neither defends nor shoots the 3 well. The stretch goal for this squad is winning a game.
#-6: United FC (Re-Entry!). Did you see Zlatan Ibrahimovic score the tying and winning Goals for the L.A. Galaxy over LAFC in his Major League Soccer debut? It was exquisite, but that prodigious performance reinforces how minor league, IMHO, MLS remains when compared to the big European club leagues. This is the MLS' problem in a nutshell, and it might be permanent: Even seeing how far the league has come from its amateurish beginnings, the level of talent there is such that a world superstar, on the downside of his career and riding his club's bench (in this case Manchester United), can flit away to the United States and immediately be The Best Player In The League. From David Beckham to Robbie Keane to Thierry Henry to Bastian Schweinsteiger, those from Europe see the money and the fame and the potential and the inferior competition and see a chance to not just play but to dominate, a flashback to their primes.
On a much smaller scale, I see that happening with the Loons. Saturday night in Portland saw the debut of the first Designated Player in team history, Darwin Quintero. The winger is probably playing as a #10, and in my estimation, at his best he already is more talented than any other player on MNUFC. He was the only Loon to score a Goal in the match:
The good guys still lost, though, 3-2. The other Minnesota tally was an own-Goal. There were also Goals from both sides that was overturned by Video Assistant Referee. Adrian Heath was happy with the effort but not the result. I am neither happy with the effort nor the result. This is the 18th Game in a row where the team conceded at least one Goal. As important a role Quintero might play from now on, he can't be the only one playing defense for 90 Minutes. I still wait for an encouraging sign from these guys.
They are at Seattle Sunday afternoon. With the "inclement weather" here, I wonder if they shouldn't just stay out in the West Coast all week.
On a much smaller scale, I see that happening with the Loons. Saturday night in Portland saw the debut of the first Designated Player in team history, Darwin Quintero. The winger is probably playing as a #10, and in my estimation, at his best he already is more talented than any other player on MNUFC. He was the only Loon to score a Goal in the match:
The good guys still lost, though, 3-2. The other Minnesota tally was an own-Goal. There were also Goals from both sides that was overturned by Video Assistant Referee. Adrian Heath was happy with the effort but not the result. I am neither happy with the effort nor the result. This is the 18th Game in a row where the team conceded at least one Goal. As important a role Quintero might play from now on, he can't be the only one playing defense for 90 Minutes. I still wait for an encouraging sign from these guys.
They are at Seattle Sunday afternoon. With the "inclement weather" here, I wonder if they shouldn't just stay out in the West Coast all week.
Sunday, April 15, 2018
Addendum To: It's Snowing. It's April 14 And It's Fucking Snowing.
I'm done. I'm fucking done.
Went outside this morning and we got, according to my yardstick, 12 1/2 inches of snow. Most I can remember.
It's plowed, all of it; thank Buddha that the snowblower works. But we're supposed to get another three-to-six inches today. That's bad enough in and of itself. But on top of the foot we already have?! Fuck that shit. Really, I'm over all of this. Last night I looked up places to vacation. I don't need warm places; I'm thinking of going to Denver and then back to St. Louis. But anywhere besides fucking here, and I don't care if I'm going in the summer, when there's no snow falling here, MAYBE!
---
It helped tremendously that Father plowed nearly the entire driveway. It helps to delegate things and not need to keep track of everything. However, at least for me, when other people are assisting on a task, I forget things because if I'm not the only person taking care of it, I think as though other people are taking care of those things that actually are my responsibility -- those things I forgot.
I finished plowing the snow. Father offered me a broom to sweep down the plow, but then set it against the house instead of handing it to me. Pissed (that's passive-aggressive crap he always pulls), I take several minutes to brush the snowblower down, then a couple more minute to shovel the snow the blower didn't blow onto the yards. And then, tired and sleepy, I went inside.
Before I went from the backyard back to the frontyard (Father told me to sweep away the back deck while he plowed the driveway, Mother wanted lemons from the local grocery store. I didn't think anything of it after she asked that question. She idly asks questions like that. Anyway, I was back in my room, done (at least for now), when I heard Mother ask Father if he thought the roads were passable. He said it was; she asked him to get lemons. He went outside.
"Hey, the garage door is still open," Father told Mother.
Shit. I forgot.
I apologized to him while he was walking to the minivan. He looked my way, then looked back. He didn't accept it.
Am I going to catch shit for this? Maybe. I should have remembered to close the garage door, but sheesh, it's snowing outside and I'm tired and it's been kind of hectic, you know?
Went outside this morning and we got, according to my yardstick, 12 1/2 inches of snow. Most I can remember.
It's plowed, all of it; thank Buddha that the snowblower works. But we're supposed to get another three-to-six inches today. That's bad enough in and of itself. But on top of the foot we already have?! Fuck that shit. Really, I'm over all of this. Last night I looked up places to vacation. I don't need warm places; I'm thinking of going to Denver and then back to St. Louis. But anywhere besides fucking here, and I don't care if I'm going in the summer, when there's no snow falling here, MAYBE!
---
It helped tremendously that Father plowed nearly the entire driveway. It helps to delegate things and not need to keep track of everything. However, at least for me, when other people are assisting on a task, I forget things because if I'm not the only person taking care of it, I think as though other people are taking care of those things that actually are my responsibility -- those things I forgot.
I finished plowing the snow. Father offered me a broom to sweep down the plow, but then set it against the house instead of handing it to me. Pissed (that's passive-aggressive crap he always pulls), I take several minutes to brush the snowblower down, then a couple more minute to shovel the snow the blower didn't blow onto the yards. And then, tired and sleepy, I went inside.
Before I went from the backyard back to the frontyard (Father told me to sweep away the back deck while he plowed the driveway, Mother wanted lemons from the local grocery store. I didn't think anything of it after she asked that question. She idly asks questions like that. Anyway, I was back in my room, done (at least for now), when I heard Mother ask Father if he thought the roads were passable. He said it was; she asked him to get lemons. He went outside.
"Hey, the garage door is still open," Father told Mother.
Shit. I forgot.
I apologized to him while he was walking to the minivan. He looked my way, then looked back. He didn't accept it.
Am I going to catch shit for this? Maybe. I should have remembered to close the garage door, but sheesh, it's snowing outside and I'm tired and it's been kind of hectic, you know?
Saturday, April 14, 2018
So Why Does It Feel Like I Lost?
So I didn't get into the Frozen Four Final last Saturday. I tried. Lord knows I tried. Told everyone on Craigslist I was looking, and yet except for one gentleman, no one replied to me. I went down to St. Paul about four hours before the game and walked around. My scalper had one ticket, and he demanded a big price for it. Same for all the other asshole scalpers at the X. There were dozens of us, pathetically holding up fingers indicating the number of tickets we need, and there were people right there, holding tickets to sell, and it doesn't look as though those scalpers sold them for anything close to a reasonable price. (Well, there was one guy, an old man in Notre Dame gear and a black overcoat. He had one ticket to sell. He asked for $100; I said $50 while walking away from him. I wonder if I should have walked back to him and tried to talk him down, but I think that he got his $100 asking price from a scalper. Or maybe I'm just trying to make myself feel better.) I swear, these goddamn pricks don't know how to sell at a loss. They'd rather eat a ticket than sell it for less profit than they feel entitled to? Bullshit. There were dozens of empty seats in that arena, I know it, and they went unsold because scalpers walked away with them.
Guess I'll jump at a ticket for the final before the final. But not too quickly, because they could magically go down in price, like it did in the week leading up to it, so I should wait, at least a bit. Oh, fuck it all. This is why I walked away from the game. I'm not going to blow a hole in my wallet just to go. It was a good game, but I went to Patrick McGovern's and I watched it just fine. And I walked away, like I said, with some money in my pocket and some shreds of dignity left.
So why does it feel like I lost? This is one of those huge sporting events that don't come around here all that often, and I was determined to go. Until the price became too exorbitant, and then I decided I wouldn't. I wish that sticking to my principles felt better, but for some damn reason, right now, it doesn't, it really, truly doesn't.
Guess I'll jump at a ticket for the final before the final. But not too quickly, because they could magically go down in price, like it did in the week leading up to it, so I should wait, at least a bit. Oh, fuck it all. This is why I walked away from the game. I'm not going to blow a hole in my wallet just to go. It was a good game, but I went to Patrick McGovern's and I watched it just fine. And I walked away, like I said, with some money in my pocket and some shreds of dignity left.
So why does it feel like I lost? This is one of those huge sporting events that don't come around here all that often, and I was determined to go. Until the price became too exorbitant, and then I decided I wouldn't. I wish that sticking to my principles felt better, but for some damn reason, right now, it doesn't, it really, truly doesn't.
It's Snowing. It's April 14 And It's Fucking Snowing.
And it's a goddamn blizzard we're having, or going to have. I don't know, but it sounds gnarly outside with the howling winds. It might really be stacking up too, but I have only looked at the back porch and there isn't much piling on there.
Apparently, this storm is coming in two phases. We're in the middle of the first phase now. The second phase, where the bulk of the snow is supposed to come, comes this afternoon or evening, hopefully wrapping up overnight/this time tomorrow. I have seen totals as few as five. I have seen totals as many as -- goddammit -- 18. IT'S FUCKING APRIL!!!
The worst thing about this ... well, the worst thing about this is trying to clear all the goddamn snow, but the second-worst thing about this is that I'm cooped up at home all weekend. That means I'll have to deal with my folks begging me to clean my room and the house. I may as well; I have nothing better to do. But geez, it feels ... awkward being around them for a full day, let alone the two I'll probably have to spend with them. That's why I'm looking forward to the time between these two phases. If it's large enough, if it falls in a good part of today, and if I'm able to clear the snow from our driveway, I'm out until the next phase of snow comes over us. I've got tax crap I need to do, and I would like to do it at a library, and not at home. Oh, and I want to see some EPL in the morning if circumstances permit.
But circumstances probably won't. I'm guessing it'll be bad outside, and I might be too tired to wake up early enough to shovel out and then drive out. This sucks. IT'S FUCKING APRIL!!!
Apparently, this storm is coming in two phases. We're in the middle of the first phase now. The second phase, where the bulk of the snow is supposed to come, comes this afternoon or evening, hopefully wrapping up overnight/this time tomorrow. I have seen totals as few as five. I have seen totals as many as -- goddammit -- 18. IT'S FUCKING APRIL!!!
The worst thing about this ... well, the worst thing about this is trying to clear all the goddamn snow, but the second-worst thing about this is that I'm cooped up at home all weekend. That means I'll have to deal with my folks begging me to clean my room and the house. I may as well; I have nothing better to do. But geez, it feels ... awkward being around them for a full day, let alone the two I'll probably have to spend with them. That's why I'm looking forward to the time between these two phases. If it's large enough, if it falls in a good part of today, and if I'm able to clear the snow from our driveway, I'm out until the next phase of snow comes over us. I've got tax crap I need to do, and I would like to do it at a library, and not at home. Oh, and I want to see some EPL in the morning if circumstances permit.
But circumstances probably won't. I'm guessing it'll be bad outside, and I might be too tired to wake up early enough to shovel out and then drive out. This sucks. IT'S FUCKING APRIL!!!
Friday, April 13, 2018
All It Takes Is A Gift?
This happened last week, a few days after both parental units waylaid into me for no good reason.
I was finishing up dinner with my folks. Mother spoke to me about stuff, but Father did not, a sign that he was mad at me. (My psychotherapist accurately said that the problem I have with my parents is that I don't know when and how they come at me. It's like I have PTSD or something.) But as I was cleaning up after eating, My Father points somewhere and says, "That's for you."
"What? Where is it?" I replied, and I saw what he was pointing at: A Hard Rock Cafe bag.
I don't know if I've said this yet on Wailing And Failing, but I collect Hard Rock Cafe memorabilia. It's a really dorky hobby to have. When I had my first big trip, which was to Europe after my senior year in high school, I wanted to have some souvenirs. And at the time, seeing all these t-shirts with the venerable HRC logo and the city underneath it sounded like the perfect way to signal where in the world you've been. I decided early on that I would get two things whenever I hit a cafe in a city for the first time: A white tee with the original logo and the city under it, and a specialty pin, one that has local significance.
My HRC collecting continued to expand while I had the means to travel to Asia, then back to Europe again after graduating from college, and then on my trips around the U.S. But life takes over, you know. There are many cities I haven't gotten to, and so my sister and brother-in-law, who have dedicated a big portion of their lives to globetrotting, stepped in and bought me t-shirts and pins for the places they vacationed at.
I never got the feeling that my parents approved of my hobby. Mother kept her mouth shut about it while Father had said on occasion that it's a waste of money. So I was shocked, absolutely gobsmacked that they took time out of their two-month cruise to head to the cities in South America that had Hard Rock Cafes and buy stuff there for me. They indulged in my hobby, and it's the first time they showed any interest, genuine or otherwise, about something I like to do.
I don't know what prompted it, although last year I bought both of them hats with my alma mater on them. I just didn't think that with my parents' nonplussed attitude towards my collecting, and then them laying into me just a few days prior, that they would think about me and do this. When I told my shrink about it, his first thought was that they did it because they cared about me. Really???
After I took the bag with those goodies to my room, do you know what my first thought was? I should go back to school. Yep, either I felt so guilty that they would do such a nice thing for me or I operate on a callous, transactional, quid pro quo way of thinking that it was not only right but fair that I go back to school. That feeling has subsided ... and yet, just writing this paragraph makes me think that I'm obligated to go back to school. Maybe all it does take to go back is a gift.
Don't tell my folks, but however they thought of it, or even if only one of them thought about doing it, I think it's a really nice gesture. I was barely able to stammer out a thank-you to My Father, but I meant it. And even though I have yet to look through the contents of the bag (it's just sitting on the floor right next to my bed), it is still really thoughtful of them.
I was finishing up dinner with my folks. Mother spoke to me about stuff, but Father did not, a sign that he was mad at me. (My psychotherapist accurately said that the problem I have with my parents is that I don't know when and how they come at me. It's like I have PTSD or something.) But as I was cleaning up after eating, My Father points somewhere and says, "That's for you."
"What? Where is it?" I replied, and I saw what he was pointing at: A Hard Rock Cafe bag.
I don't know if I've said this yet on Wailing And Failing, but I collect Hard Rock Cafe memorabilia. It's a really dorky hobby to have. When I had my first big trip, which was to Europe after my senior year in high school, I wanted to have some souvenirs. And at the time, seeing all these t-shirts with the venerable HRC logo and the city underneath it sounded like the perfect way to signal where in the world you've been. I decided early on that I would get two things whenever I hit a cafe in a city for the first time: A white tee with the original logo and the city under it, and a specialty pin, one that has local significance.
My HRC collecting continued to expand while I had the means to travel to Asia, then back to Europe again after graduating from college, and then on my trips around the U.S. But life takes over, you know. There are many cities I haven't gotten to, and so my sister and brother-in-law, who have dedicated a big portion of their lives to globetrotting, stepped in and bought me t-shirts and pins for the places they vacationed at.
I never got the feeling that my parents approved of my hobby. Mother kept her mouth shut about it while Father had said on occasion that it's a waste of money. So I was shocked, absolutely gobsmacked that they took time out of their two-month cruise to head to the cities in South America that had Hard Rock Cafes and buy stuff there for me. They indulged in my hobby, and it's the first time they showed any interest, genuine or otherwise, about something I like to do.
I don't know what prompted it, although last year I bought both of them hats with my alma mater on them. I just didn't think that with my parents' nonplussed attitude towards my collecting, and then them laying into me just a few days prior, that they would think about me and do this. When I told my shrink about it, his first thought was that they did it because they cared about me. Really???
After I took the bag with those goodies to my room, do you know what my first thought was? I should go back to school. Yep, either I felt so guilty that they would do such a nice thing for me or I operate on a callous, transactional, quid pro quo way of thinking that it was not only right but fair that I go back to school. That feeling has subsided ... and yet, just writing this paragraph makes me think that I'm obligated to go back to school. Maybe all it does take to go back is a gift.
Don't tell my folks, but however they thought of it, or even if only one of them thought about doing it, I think it's a really nice gesture. I was barely able to stammer out a thank-you to My Father, but I meant it. And even though I have yet to look through the contents of the bag (it's just sitting on the floor right next to my bed), it is still really thoughtful of them.
Thursday, April 12, 2018
Addendum To: Dang, I Wanted To Talk About Yesterday Yesterday
Well, I can make up for the previous (late) blog post by talking about today today. Right now, with the muted overcast sky streaming whatever brightness it has through the closest window to my cubicle, it looks real good outside. Perfect even, at least according to me. Of course there is the caveat that rain is coming as soon as tonight ... with a goddamn blizzard coming in the next 48 hours.
Yeah, this quick blog post took a dark turn, didn't it?
Yeah, this quick blog post took a dark turn, didn't it?
Dang, I Wanted To Talk About Yesterday Yesterday
Yesterday/Wednesday was what I would consider the perfect winter/early spring/fall-ish day for me. Not hot so I didn't sweat through my clothes. Not so cold that my teeth chattered every time I walked outside. No wind to make it seem colder than it was. No precipitation, 'cause that blows. And, most of all, no sun that could blind me. I appreciate the sun, but sometimes, and especially in the cool half of the year (and actually in the hot half of the year too, because that means it won't be as hot out in the summer), it makes the environment around me feel more ... manageable and less overwhelming. The sun didn't even come out just before dusk, when the sun is apt to shine because it's diving below any cloud cover in the sky.
Just want to note that because I should remember peaceful, modest days like that. Wish I had done so before Wednesday turned into yesterday, but still, I want to note this.
Just want to note that because I should remember peaceful, modest days like that. Wish I had done so before Wednesday turned into yesterday, but still, I want to note this.
Wednesday, April 11, 2018
At Some Point, Getting Caught Means This'll End, Right?
Yesterday my boss caught me on the Internet three times when I was supposed to do the mail. One time she said, "Are you bored?" to which I said, "A little." But I don't know if she was being sarcastic or passive-aggressive. At some point, she actually took the mail away from me and had me do something else. I did it so fast that she gave me the mail back to finish, which I did; I get the feeling that I thought she thought I would be done with the mail a lot sooner, instead of dinkin' around the Internet.
See, a part of me thinks that because she caught me on the Internet (and why she was over at my cube three times yesterday I don't know), she actually wanted to help me by making me do tasks that I was actually engaged in. I appreciate that sentiment, if that was her intention, but I want to convey the notion that I will do anything that is asked of me. And I want to say, above all, that I like this job, and I like her, and I like working at this company. But beyond that, a part of me believes that she is disappointed in what I am doing compared to the projection I gave of myself when I interviewed with her. I don't know if she's cool with what I've done or if she's secretly roiling inside. Then again, I don't think I know the intention of any person. Hell, I don't know my own intention many instances. In any case, if she is truly not liking me just dinkin' around the Internet, maybe it's best if I don't stay.
---
I am to look for another job. The guy who's been helping said last week that the job he thinks I'm perfect form will now pop up this week. I thought it was supposed to pop up last week, which makes me wonder whether this job will appear at all. And I barely know the specifics of what this position entails, so I don't know whether I'm good or even appropriate for it. I want to stay positive; this guy is looking out for me. But I have to know whether or not I'm a good fit.
However, my recalcitrance over leaping over to this new job, potentially, has subsided a bit. What happened yesterday is a part of it; just in case, maybe I should leave because my current boss thinks I'm slacking. I'm also worried that these tasks I'm flitting about doing means that eventually there won't be any work. This job I have has already morphed away from its original purpose. While I have been kept busy doing other things, my boss mentioned that I will be jumping from job to job "as long as I am here." Well, I would like to be here permanently, which means I may have to go look at this other job. Hope she understands. Then again, if she doesn't like me on the Internet, maybe she isn't totally loving my work ethic either, in which case maybe I should leave.
See, a part of me thinks that because she caught me on the Internet (and why she was over at my cube three times yesterday I don't know), she actually wanted to help me by making me do tasks that I was actually engaged in. I appreciate that sentiment, if that was her intention, but I want to convey the notion that I will do anything that is asked of me. And I want to say, above all, that I like this job, and I like her, and I like working at this company. But beyond that, a part of me believes that she is disappointed in what I am doing compared to the projection I gave of myself when I interviewed with her. I don't know if she's cool with what I've done or if she's secretly roiling inside. Then again, I don't think I know the intention of any person. Hell, I don't know my own intention many instances. In any case, if she is truly not liking me just dinkin' around the Internet, maybe it's best if I don't stay.
---
I am to look for another job. The guy who's been helping said last week that the job he thinks I'm perfect form will now pop up this week. I thought it was supposed to pop up last week, which makes me wonder whether this job will appear at all. And I barely know the specifics of what this position entails, so I don't know whether I'm good or even appropriate for it. I want to stay positive; this guy is looking out for me. But I have to know whether or not I'm a good fit.
However, my recalcitrance over leaping over to this new job, potentially, has subsided a bit. What happened yesterday is a part of it; just in case, maybe I should leave because my current boss thinks I'm slacking. I'm also worried that these tasks I'm flitting about doing means that eventually there won't be any work. This job I have has already morphed away from its original purpose. While I have been kept busy doing other things, my boss mentioned that I will be jumping from job to job "as long as I am here." Well, I would like to be here permanently, which means I may have to go look at this other job. Hope she understands. Then again, if she doesn't like me on the Internet, maybe she isn't totally loving my work ethic either, in which case maybe I should leave.
Tuesday, April 10, 2018
Fox News And Republicans Are Delusional, Stupid, And Laugh-My-Ass-Off Hilarious
This says it all:
Fox News, and the brain-dead sheep who continue to watch it, are the ones ruining America, and right now, they deserve nothing but us laughing at all of their dumb asses.
Breaking News on...— Patrick S. Tomlinson (@stealthygeek) April 10, 2018
CNN: Cohen raided by FBI
NBC: Cohen raided by FBI
CBS: Cohen raided by FBI
ABC: Cohen raided by FBI
FOX: ... pic.twitter.com/DRV9e1Q3ig
Fox News, and the brain-dead sheep who continue to watch it, are the ones ruining America, and right now, they deserve nothing but us laughing at all of their dumb asses.
Monday, April 9, 2018
The Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey
#-1: Gopher baseball (Last Week: -2). Ranking the teams this screening week was a breeze. There is only one team that went undefeated. And when you consider what the Gopher Nine had to go through, I want to give bonus points, too.
So their two-game midweek series versus Saint Louis was cancelled even before they starting packing for the trip because of "inclement weather" (I've seen that phrase used a lot on the Gopher athletics website -- they mean it's too damn cold to play). Then on Wednesday, what I wasn't sure would happen in fact did not happen: They did not play a three-game set against Penn St. to open Siebert Field because "inclement weather."
But this is where it gets interesting. My first thought when they announced they wouldn't play the games at Siebert was that they would instead play them at Medlar Field, which is the stadium for Penn St. What was a Gopher home series would instead be a Nittany Lion home series and that's it. But, and I'm just guessing here, you cannot just flip a series from one team to the other. To be fair, conference rules I presume require that if the home team cannot host, they will find an alternate, neutral site. And they found one at Alexander Field, home stadium for Purdue. They decided on West Lafayette, Ind., because it's roughly equidistant from Dinkytown and Happy Valley and because the Boilermakers were visiting Indiana over the weekend, so the venue was free. (And by the way, this is not the first time the U. was involved in such an arrangement. On March 22-3, 2014, they played Northwestern in, of all places, St. Charles, Mo., a place that obviously isn't the home turf of any Big Ten club. I don't remember this on that particular WMNSS.)
And that damn move still didn't prevent the cold from fucking up their plans, because Friday's first game was suspended after the Fifth Inning because "inclement weather." But that turned out to be a good thing for the Golden Gophers. They were trailing PSU 6-4 when they resumed the game at noon Saturday, and at the bottom of the Sixth they plated three Runs to take the lead and eventually win, 7-6. It got even better for the second game that day because Minnesota Freshman Pitcher Patrick Frederickson had a No-Hitter through Seven Innings and struck out seven as the U. whacked around the Lions, 17-2. Finally, the weekend finished as well as it could have, as the Gopher completed a sweep yesterday/Sunday by beating Penn St. by a score of 8-2. So yes, the lineup can hit, and if Frederickson keeps this up, this squad might be able to make some noise.
Presuming winter is behind us (fingers crossed), the team will be able to get in all four games they plan on playing this week. They return home to play a one-off vs. North Dakota St. tomorrow/Tuesday. And then they ... have to travel back to Alexander Field?? So they would be an actual road team as they play the Boilermakers for three this upcoming weekend. Going to a spot you didn't plan on spending a weekend, then returning to that same spot for a weekend you did plan on spending there? They might as well cancel the game against the Bison and just stay in West Lafayette for the entire week. They can visit my hot Facebook friend who posed for Playboy.
#-2: Twins (Last Week: -3). Inclement weather, which postponed the Twins' series-capper against Seattle at Target Field yesterday (Sunday), combined with the traditional spacing out of the first series of the season (remember that this club had both Tuesday and Friday off, and both days were planned days off), makes it difficult to gauge how dialed in the team is. So I really have to look into the raw data, and seeing that these guys went 2-1 and split a pair with both the Pittsburgh Pirates (on the road) and the Mariners makes me think ... eh, nothing. Well, Jose Berrios was boom-and-bust in Saturday's 11-4 defeat to Seattle. He struck out seven, yet only lasted 4 2/3 Innings while allowing five Runs.
Did not notice this till now: They are currently in one of their longest homestands of the year. They play defending World Series champions(and bigots) the Houston Astros for three games, then the White Sox for four.
#-3: Wild (Last Week: -4). I said in last week's survey that the Wild could sew up a playoff spot last Monday with a win over Edmonton and some help. That's exactly what happened: The Wild shut out the Oilers, 3-0, and even though one of either Colorado or St. Louis was able to gain a Point while the Wild clinched a spot in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, both The Bastard Quebec Nordiques and the Blues lost outright.
I'm don't remember at what point this club was locked into third in the Central Division, but at some point, the last three games of the regular season, all on the road in California, became meaningless. This was the time to rest your starters, play your role players, and pray to God no one gets hurt. (That prayer came too late for Luke Kunin, who is gone for a full calendar year for a torn ACL.) I'm not too bent out of shape that they lost to Anaheim and Los Angeles, but I am pleasantly surprised that they doubled up San Jose on Saturday, 6-3, in a game where, if the Sharks won, would take home-ice advantage over Anaheim. So they finished with the 11th-most Points in the NHL, and reached more the 100-Point plateau for the fourth time in franchise history.
And they will face The Bastard Atlanta Thrashers, a squad that has two powerful lines and isn't as banged up as Minnesota is. Let's face it: The Mild have been carried this year by two players, Eric Staal (who should get votes for the Hart Trophy) and Jason Zucker. They need to score this series. Other players need to score this series. And the young Defensemen who need to replace Ryan Suter and, potentially, Jared Spurgeon need to grow some pubes real quick.
Saying that, I predict the Mild get swept. Any takers?
#-4: Gopher softball (Last Week: -1). Seasons like this puts into stark relief why the best players in outdoor sports go south to play collegiate sports. The lady Nine were to play a trio at Michigan St. "Inclement weather" dictated on Friday that that day's game would not be played and instead the two teams would play a Doubleheader Sunday. And then Saturday's tilt was cancelled because it was too fucking cold. But it was warm enough to get two in yesterday (Sunday), where they lost to the Spartans 3-2 in the first game but tripled them up in the second, 6-2.
The team, which is now 4-3 in the B1G, travel to Iowa this weekend for a three-game series (fingers crossed).
#-5: Timberwolves (Last Week: -5). Welp, this squad is in a predicament of their own making. On Thursday they blew a lead in Denver to a Nuggets team that has become the final stalking horse preventing the Woofie Dogs from getting into the postseason for the first time since 2004. They somehow pulled out a victory the next night in Staples against The Bastard Minneapolis Lakers, an outfit that had been playing quite well.
With two games to go in the season, they are tied with Denver record-wise, but they appear to own all the tie-breakers; if it gets that far, the Wolves have a decisively better Conference record than the Nugz. In fact, like the Wild last Monday, the Timberwolves could clinch a playoff birth with a win this Monday/tonight at Target Center over The Bastard Vancouver Grizzlies and some help, namely Portland going into Denver and defeating the Nuggets and, weirdly enough, San Antonio beating The Bastard Cincinnati Royals/Kansas City-Omaha Kings in San Antone.
But you may remember that Memphis was here two Mondays ago and, even though they had nothing to play for, they controlled the Woofs all night and beat them, 101-93. Portland already clinched -- the Trail Blazers are currently third in the West, a spot Minnesota was in a month ago -- and have nothing to play for in the Mile High City. And the Spurs are in strange disarray over the continued absence (and obstinacy) of Kawhi Leonard. This could all come down to the last day of the NBA regular season, Wednesday, where the Timberwolves host ... the Denver Nuggets. That game could be for all the marbles. And I know there are some local fans here who would not mind at all if the local NBA club completes its collapse and misses out on the playoffs for a 14th consecutive year. We shall see if these guys have the intestinal fortitude to seal the deal.
So their two-game midweek series versus Saint Louis was cancelled even before they starting packing for the trip because of "inclement weather" (I've seen that phrase used a lot on the Gopher athletics website -- they mean it's too damn cold to play). Then on Wednesday, what I wasn't sure would happen in fact did not happen: They did not play a three-game set against Penn St. to open Siebert Field because "inclement weather."
But this is where it gets interesting. My first thought when they announced they wouldn't play the games at Siebert was that they would instead play them at Medlar Field, which is the stadium for Penn St. What was a Gopher home series would instead be a Nittany Lion home series and that's it. But, and I'm just guessing here, you cannot just flip a series from one team to the other. To be fair, conference rules I presume require that if the home team cannot host, they will find an alternate, neutral site. And they found one at Alexander Field, home stadium for Purdue. They decided on West Lafayette, Ind., because it's roughly equidistant from Dinkytown and Happy Valley and because the Boilermakers were visiting Indiana over the weekend, so the venue was free. (And by the way, this is not the first time the U. was involved in such an arrangement. On March 22-3, 2014, they played Northwestern in, of all places, St. Charles, Mo., a place that obviously isn't the home turf of any Big Ten club. I don't remember this on that particular WMNSS.)
And that damn move still didn't prevent the cold from fucking up their plans, because Friday's first game was suspended after the Fifth Inning because "inclement weather." But that turned out to be a good thing for the Golden Gophers. They were trailing PSU 6-4 when they resumed the game at noon Saturday, and at the bottom of the Sixth they plated three Runs to take the lead and eventually win, 7-6. It got even better for the second game that day because Minnesota Freshman Pitcher Patrick Frederickson had a No-Hitter through Seven Innings and struck out seven as the U. whacked around the Lions, 17-2. Finally, the weekend finished as well as it could have, as the Gopher completed a sweep yesterday/Sunday by beating Penn St. by a score of 8-2. So yes, the lineup can hit, and if Frederickson keeps this up, this squad might be able to make some noise.
Presuming winter is behind us (fingers crossed), the team will be able to get in all four games they plan on playing this week. They return home to play a one-off vs. North Dakota St. tomorrow/Tuesday. And then they ... have to travel back to Alexander Field?? So they would be an actual road team as they play the Boilermakers for three this upcoming weekend. Going to a spot you didn't plan on spending a weekend, then returning to that same spot for a weekend you did plan on spending there? They might as well cancel the game against the Bison and just stay in West Lafayette for the entire week. They can visit my hot Facebook friend who posed for Playboy.
#-2: Twins (Last Week: -3). Inclement weather, which postponed the Twins' series-capper against Seattle at Target Field yesterday (Sunday), combined with the traditional spacing out of the first series of the season (remember that this club had both Tuesday and Friday off, and both days were planned days off), makes it difficult to gauge how dialed in the team is. So I really have to look into the raw data, and seeing that these guys went 2-1 and split a pair with both the Pittsburgh Pirates (on the road) and the Mariners makes me think ... eh, nothing. Well, Jose Berrios was boom-and-bust in Saturday's 11-4 defeat to Seattle. He struck out seven, yet only lasted 4 2/3 Innings while allowing five Runs.
Did not notice this till now: They are currently in one of their longest homestands of the year. They play defending World Series champions
#-3: Wild (Last Week: -4). I said in last week's survey that the Wild could sew up a playoff spot last Monday with a win over Edmonton and some help. That's exactly what happened: The Wild shut out the Oilers, 3-0, and even though one of either Colorado or St. Louis was able to gain a Point while the Wild clinched a spot in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, both The Bastard Quebec Nordiques and the Blues lost outright.
I'm don't remember at what point this club was locked into third in the Central Division, but at some point, the last three games of the regular season, all on the road in California, became meaningless. This was the time to rest your starters, play your role players, and pray to God no one gets hurt. (That prayer came too late for Luke Kunin, who is gone for a full calendar year for a torn ACL.) I'm not too bent out of shape that they lost to Anaheim and Los Angeles, but I am pleasantly surprised that they doubled up San Jose on Saturday, 6-3, in a game where, if the Sharks won, would take home-ice advantage over Anaheim. So they finished with the 11th-most Points in the NHL, and reached more the 100-Point plateau for the fourth time in franchise history.
And they will face The Bastard Atlanta Thrashers, a squad that has two powerful lines and isn't as banged up as Minnesota is. Let's face it: The Mild have been carried this year by two players, Eric Staal (who should get votes for the Hart Trophy) and Jason Zucker. They need to score this series. Other players need to score this series. And the young Defensemen who need to replace Ryan Suter and, potentially, Jared Spurgeon need to grow some pubes real quick.
Saying that, I predict the Mild get swept. Any takers?
#-4: Gopher softball (Last Week: -1). Seasons like this puts into stark relief why the best players in outdoor sports go south to play collegiate sports. The lady Nine were to play a trio at Michigan St. "Inclement weather" dictated on Friday that that day's game would not be played and instead the two teams would play a Doubleheader Sunday. And then Saturday's tilt was cancelled because it was too fucking cold. But it was warm enough to get two in yesterday (Sunday), where they lost to the Spartans 3-2 in the first game but tripled them up in the second, 6-2.
The team, which is now 4-3 in the B1G, travel to Iowa this weekend for a three-game series (fingers crossed).
#-5: Timberwolves (Last Week: -5). Welp, this squad is in a predicament of their own making. On Thursday they blew a lead in Denver to a Nuggets team that has become the final stalking horse preventing the Woofie Dogs from getting into the postseason for the first time since 2004. They somehow pulled out a victory the next night in Staples against The Bastard Minneapolis Lakers, an outfit that had been playing quite well.
With two games to go in the season, they are tied with Denver record-wise, but they appear to own all the tie-breakers; if it gets that far, the Wolves have a decisively better Conference record than the Nugz. In fact, like the Wild last Monday, the Timberwolves could clinch a playoff birth with a win this Monday/tonight at Target Center over The Bastard Vancouver Grizzlies and some help, namely Portland going into Denver and defeating the Nuggets and, weirdly enough, San Antonio beating The Bastard Cincinnati Royals/Kansas City-Omaha Kings in San Antone.
But you may remember that Memphis was here two Mondays ago and, even though they had nothing to play for, they controlled the Woofs all night and beat them, 101-93. Portland already clinched -- the Trail Blazers are currently third in the West, a spot Minnesota was in a month ago -- and have nothing to play for in the Mile High City. And the Spurs are in strange disarray over the continued absence (and obstinacy) of Kawhi Leonard. This could all come down to the last day of the NBA regular season, Wednesday, where the Timberwolves host ... the Denver Nuggets. That game could be for all the marbles. And I know there are some local fans here who would not mind at all if the local NBA club completes its collapse and misses out on the playoffs for a 14th consecutive year. We shall see if these guys have the intestinal fortitude to seal the deal.
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