My Exercise In Humiliation

So I gave My Fucking Mother $100 after I got home from work tonight.  Took so long to drive to the bank, then to the storage unit, that I was more tired and thus aggravated than usual.

I even fucking bowed my head to her as I presented the envelope, my God.  But I didn't seal it.  Why?  It's just $100.  Call me lazy, I don't care.

And she took it.  Just like that.  Like she felt entitled to it.  Fuck me, am I going to have to do this shit every year now?  Why the fuck didn't they ask for birthday gifts before?

Yesterday I went up one floor to the place I used to work to say goodbye since my last day is tomorrow.  I'm talking to someone when this woman walks between us and says, "I don't want to break up the party!"  And that would be innocuous except that this woman has always given me Resting Bitch Face and has been passive-aggressive around me (if not necessarily toward me) every time I see her.  She is definitely not a person I want to be around, and she knows it, and she acts like it.

You know, if I ever get a job back up there, I wonder what it would be like to work next or even near her.  Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think she would be a pleasant co-worker.

That's What Friends Are For ... Right?

My goodness, I think I've gotten myself into a hell of a pickle.

********a, my stripper friend who I helped move last year, needed a ride to the hospital to get staples from a very bad accident removed tomorrow.  Memorial Night she texted me asking for a ride tomorrow (Thursday) at 11.  That is right in the middle of my day, and the penultimate day of my time at the health insurance place, natch.

I tell her all those things, and from the tone of her texts (I know that's impossible to tell) she seems bummed.  So I give her an out: If by, uh, last/Tuesday night she still can't find someone, I'll take her.

That's what friends are for ... right?  Well, I didn't think through all the permutations.  For one thing, since this is my last week there, I still want to get my 32 hours in, so now I have to shuffle my week and extend my hours in order to take time off to take her to the hospital.  I was lucky to do it yesterday/Tuesday because I was doing the mail, and there was so much mail (since, of course, there was no mail delivery on Monday/Memorial Day) that I had enough work for me to stick around an extra 90 minutes.  (And BTW, I still didn't get all the mail done then.)

Meanwhile ********a sent up a message on Facebook asking for drivers.  Look, I really want to help her, but knowing that I have had to make time for her has been stressful enough.  And when no one answered her prayer -- albeit after only two hours -- I texted her saying that I'll just do it.

We then texted back-and-forth about it.  A friend of hers finally answered her on Facebook.  Honestly I was relieved.  But then she said he is drunk and unreliable.  Well then why the fuck would you answer?  Without hearing from anyone else, I was ... well, I shouldn't use this word ... resigned to helping her ... with one condition: A friend of hers was going to get back to her in the morning.

That was this morning, and I didn't hear a peep.  Finally I texted her early this afternoon.  Her texts had not been coming in at all, but then, once I got on the company's wi-fi, I saw the texts she sent hours before.  Texts come through phone lines, don't they?

Anyway, ********a really did not want to burden me with rearranging my schedule, so she said she was going to Uber to the hospital and get her friend (presumably the one she was waiting to hear from this morning) to drive her back.  I volunteered to take her to the hospital so she can save the cab fare.  Deal, she said -- even after some fucking slowpoke volunteered to drive her.

Well, at least it's official.  I'm taking her to the hospital tomorrow.  I'll get up, drive from the north metro to the south metro, work for 90 minutes, get back in my car, drive back up north, pick up ********a, drive her out to the northwest metro, drop her off, hightail it back to the south (actually southeast) metro, work for the rest of the day, then drive back up north.  I just traced the entire path of my day tomorrow on Google Maps -- 116 miles I'll be driving, and that's not counting me going to the storage unit to drop off some of the stuff I have at work and then going to get gas for my car.  That's 127 miles total, the distance from Minneapolis to Brainerd.

God, I hope my engine doesn't overheat from all the fucking driving.

So Now I've Gotta Fucking Bribe Her?!

Got home from watching Avengers 4: Infinity War.  (Good, momentous, but I really did think most of the deaths people were talking about were reversible, and they are.)  I had planned on going out because this was the first time I could go to the Mall Of America's brand-new theater, and it was $5 Tuesdays (although the pop I got sure as fuck wasn't cheap).  Since this is my last Tuesday workday close to MOA, this was the time to check it out.  That it just so happens to be a week after My Fucking Mother melted down on me isn't lost on me; it was just a happy byproduct.

So to make myself ... I don't know, "friendlier" at home, I guess, I went downstairs to see Father at the computer.  I know he stays up when I'm out late to make sure I'm home, but I don't tell him that.  But I do strike up a conversation to ingratiate myself with him.  It was about resetting the modem to make sure Russians don't hack it.  I told him because I really do think we need to do that.  And I will do so after I blog this post.

After I go up to my bedroom Father knocks on my door.  He reminds me that My Fucking Mother's birthday is Thursday.  Well, I've always been told to write that down as her birthday.  As far as I know, neither of them really know what their birthdays are, or they do know and never told any of us.  Whatever, it's the DOB we write down.

Anyway, for a birthday, Father recommends that I give her money.  You know, Chinese New Year-style.  I have never done that before, giving money to my mother.  My Father has never, ever recommended I give her a gift, let alone a gift of money.  This blindside was truly out of the blue.  Is this so that I can get back in her good graces?  She fucking flips out on me over not being able to see some photo of a newborn and the only way to keep the peace is to give her money??  Is she broke???

And you know what?  I'll probably fucking do it.  I cannot believe I'm bribing her with goddamn money.  But fuck it, I'll do it.  Just stop fucking yelling at me over stupid shit, Christ. ...

You Know What? I'm Scared.

My string of not needing to get onto unemployment is about to end -- if I can't find work for after Friday (or when I come back from vacation) and if I won't be able to not save what meager money I have.  I keep calling and searching, and even though I know it's Memorial Weekend, that I haven't found anything scares me.

Meanwhile, you know what I did yesterday morning?  Looking to go back to school.  Seriously!  But this actuarial track only has classes in the afternoon.  So to go back to school I'm going to have to not make money or eat?  That is very, very depressing, so I stopped looking.  I still have time.  I guess.

I don't know what to do.  I really don't know what to do.  I can just ride it out, act as if I'm going to work and then just have coffee and go to the library and exercise all day, but ...

The Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey

Positive Numbers: Gopher baseball (Last Week: 0).  Well, damn.  When I first saw the University of Minnesota Golden Gophers baseball team this year, they were playing at U.S. Bank Stadium because, of course, they had to in order to play in non-inclement weather.  It was the day where I saw all three games of the Sunday portion of the Dairy Queen Classic because, as I've said before, there are many, many worse ways you can spend a day on this Earth than at the ballpark.  But after the nightcap, where the U. went meekly against UCLA, 6-1, I thought it would be another middling team -- not horrible, but not good enough to make noise.  The NCAA Tournament was the goal, and I didn't know how realistic it was.

Consider this year's team a sign that ballclub can transform, and improve, over the course of a college baseball season.  Because after rolling through the Big Ten Tournament in Omaha, Neb., this weekend, winning all of their games, they have proven themselves to be the best Gopher baseball squad in a long time.  I've followed this team for years, and I don't really remember a team that's this good.  Maybe, I guess, since 2000, which is the last time the U. hosted a Regional; and I don't know if this came as a surprise, but after all the games in Division I were played last (Sunday) night (I presume), the NCAA named its 16 Regional sites, and Siebert Field is one of them!

Everything clicked over the weekend.  Going into this year I thought the lineup would be able to hit but the pitching would let the team down.  Oh, I'm so glad I was wrong.  The team allowed only seven Runs over their four games, four of them coming in a back-and-forth B1G Final Saturday vs. Purdue.  Meanwhile, the Nine just raked, led by tournament Most Outstanding Player Jordan Kozicky.  He was named to the All-Tournament Team along with DH Toby Hanson, 2B Luke Pettersen, RP Max Meyer and SP (and Conference Freshman Of The Year ... and Conference Pitcher Of The Year) Patrick Fredrickson, who made the All-Conference First Team with Meyer and SS Terrin Vavra.  John Anderson was named B1G Coach Of The Year for the eighth time in his career.  Minnesota cruised to its tenth tournament championship and became the first team since Indiana '14 to pull off the double (winning the Big Ten regular season and tournament titles).

Let me say this now: I think this season is already a success, regardless of what happens to this club from this point forward.  It'll be a massive buzzkill if they lose this Regional.  Particularly I'm wary of institutional disadvantages -- that is, Minnesota, as a Northern school, is ripe for an upset as a 1-seed vs. a Southern school, particularly if that school comes from the SEC or ACC.  But I just saw the Minneapolis Regional tweet, and there is no Southern school.  There are, however, two West Coast schools, 3-seed Gonzaga and 2-seed ... UCLA.  Oh, shit.  Beyond that, as the #14 overall Seed, they would be in line to go to #3 overall Seed Oregon St. in the Super Regional.  If somehow the Beavers get upset and the Gophers win, they could very well host its first-ever Super Regional against the 2-seed in the Corvallis Regional: SEC school LSU.

Deep breaths.  This is still The Best Minnesota Baseball Team in a long time, and possibly in this millennium.  Go Gophers!

#0: United FC (Last Week: -1).  In another game at home vs. a team bad enough that they should beat, the Loons this time did not disappoint.  Despite a sluggish First Half, the duo of Superman (Christian Ramirez) and Batman (Miguel Ibarra) tallied to put away the very bad Montreal Impact Saturday, 2-0.  Now this was the result (if not exactly the effort) I expected from these guys when they lost to San Jose.  So in this strange long-ish homestand, where they played five-of-six at TCF Bank Stadium over the course of four weeks, MNUFC went 3-1-2, garnering ten points out of a possible 18 (15 if you throw out the only road game, the desultory 2-0 loss to LAFC).  When you step back and look at it, that isn't bad.  They are in a three-way tie for seventh in the Western Conference, but the squad is only a point behind Vancouver for the sixth and final playoff spot.

There is a World Cup-induced break after the Loons play Sunday.  It'll be at Kansas City, still the best team in the West and the foe against which Minnesota registered its only draw over this homestand over the month.

#-1: Twins (Last Week: -2).  After winning the season series at home versus Detroit earlier in the week, the Twinks have now lost four in a row, capped by a far-off-seeming sweep at Seattle, even though the margins of defeat were by 1, 1 and 2 Runs, respectively.  Cleveland is leading the American League Central even though, as of press time, they are only a game above .500.  The Twinks are now 21-27 overall, but they are only 3 1/2 Games behind Cleveland.  This division, once again, sucks.

Meanwhile, let us bow our heads to the end, finally, of The Phil Hughes Era.  After designating him for assignment, the ballcup managed to unload Hughes, along with the 74th pick in the MLB Draft coming next month and cash, to the San Diego Padres in exchange for Janigson Villalobos, a no-prospect Catcher.  For the Twins, this move mainly was to offload Hughes's contract, even though they reportedly paid the Padres more than $14.5 million to offset the $26.4 million he is owed both this and next year.  But it's interesting to note the common belief between the man who signed Hughes to this contract, former Twinks General Manager Terry Ryan, to another deposed GM, Chuck Fletcher of the Wild.  Both GMs put faith in prospects they found and rewarded good seasons with long contracts with the thinking that those players will improve.  And like with Charlie Coyle and Nino Niederreiter, Hughes's one good season wasn't followed up with a great one, and so the long contract became an albatross around the team ... and eventually choked the GM.  But at least with the Twins, they were able to trade their bad contract.

The club is in Kansas City for three beginning Memorial Night.  They then begin yet another long homestand by playing four vs. division-leading Cleveland over the weekend.

I Heard What You Did There. Cunt.

My parents have a vicious habit of talking in Chinese about us (my brother, sister and I) when they're mad at us and want to insult us and pick on our inability to understand Chinese at the same time.  Happened just now for dinner.  Father was full on the steak he was eating and offered My Fucking Mother some.  And even though I do not understand what she said, I know she said something to the effect of, "Offer it to your little shit."

Fuck you, bitch.  Fuck you to hell.  If I weren't so goddamn scared to live on my own, I would've chewed a piece of the steak and spat it at your face.

Expenses Without Receipt

Been slacking off.  From Saturday, May 26

• I'm typing this part of the EWR Saturday night, and I spent a hell of a lot of money on eating food.  Shit, I'm fat.  But it's hot outside and I did plenty of walking so ... it balances out?  Followed up lunch at The Local (a Minnesota Burger which turned out to be a bison burger because the waitress misheard me) while watching the Promo Game (Fulham beat Aston Villa) by going to Hooters for the UEFA Champions League Final and using the May coupon I got for buying the Hooters calendar.  Wrote down the amounts I spent on both.  But in the evening I went to the United match and I got a cup of Surly Rising North and a regular tray of cheese curds.  With tip for the beer: $20.
• And then I went to Glam Doll.  I'm typing this EWR there -- uh, here, right now.  Plus tip: $9.
• On Wednesday the 23rd, to get away from My Fucking Mother the night after her meltdown and because I would not be around that area of town after June 1, I went to My Favorite Stripclub (Cover Edition) to see my ATF ******a.  She said the last time I was there that she took her DNA test on Ancestry.com and she is, in fact, 13-4% Chinese.  Uh, OK.  Got nine dances from her, and then I gave her a massage.  I also got a couple table dances from Maria, a girl with deflated pancake tits.  I had to get dances from her because, when she was onstage, she complemented my nautical-themed shirt.  It was one my sister thought I should buy while we were at Grandmother's cremation in Hong Kong.  There is a pattern on the shirt.  She was onstage, so she couldn't quite see it.  Maria thought the pattern was maracas or serving spoons.  I told her those were anchors.  I did not look down, however, nor did I remember what the pattern was when I bought it.  Only when I looked down while ******a was giving me TDs that I saw that those icons are crossed oars.  I felt back for steering Maria wrong, and so I got a couple dances from her.  She later was so bored that she sat down in a chair by herself and almost fell asleep.  Days are slow there.  Bringing a food item, by the way, only knocks off two bucks from the cover, and since the instant ramen was more than a buck, I got, like, a 78-cent discount.  With a tap of the special Diamond Draft beer and tips, the total was: $130.
• And I still didn't want to go home without seeing more boobs, so I went to My Favorite Stripclub (Non-Cover Edition).  Is this the first time I went to both places on the same night?  Good thing I did, because I saw two regulars I hadn't seen in ages, one of which was *****y, who sometimes hosts Friday afternoon parties, which are fun and which I may not be able to go to now that I have the time -- but I might not be able to go to because, ironically, I might not have the money.  The other vet there, *e****, grab my nips but then passed me over to *****y for an LD.  Now that's generosity!  Gave a couple bucks to the other two girls there, the ever-effervescent ****y and the new and hot ****e.  With coffee and the total is: $30.
• Sunday, May 19 20: United FC played in the afternoon.  Signed up to be a designated driver -- driving myself, naturally -- so I could cash in on the free medium Coke.  With hot dog: $5.75.
• Afterwards I went to a place I hadn't been to in years: Grandma's, in my hometown.  I have a faded and ragged frequent-eater's card that I still have in my pocket, and since it was hot, I thought it was a good time to finally go there.  I got a malt, which hit the spot.  Unfortunately it's a little pricey for what I think it should be.  With tip: $8.
• I think I found a penny this day.  An Infusion of: 1 cent.
• ETA on 12:25 p.m. of May 28 that Father paid me back for Powerball tickets I bought for him, an Infusion of: $10.  (ET also A at 10:49 a.m. on June 5 that this EWR should be listed under Saturday, May 19.  Sorry for the goof-up.)
• Back to Tuesday, May 15 ... I finally finished the Facebook claim form for my folks.  The stuff I needed to stuff into the envelope made me think it would be more than the usual price of a letter, so I went to the mail room at work and asked them to post it for me.  The cost to send the claim form: 67 cents.
• Went to My Favorite Stripclub (Non-Cover Version) in the evening.  Don't remember why.  But I got a dance from Effy, an MMA fighter who, as I was talking to her, seems to have ADHD.  But she's cool, don't get me wrong.  With tips and coffee: $30.
• ETA on 12:25 p.m. of May 28 that Father paid me back for Powerball tickets I bought for him, an Infusion of: $10.
• Monday the 14th: So me getting late home from work, plus me not trying to arouse suspicions that I was doing nothing except working out, made me late for the NAHL Robertson Cup at Fogarty Arena in Blaine.  I think I got there with seven minutes gone in the First Period.  But I caught all three Goals scored in the championship game -- one by massive underdog Minot, but two for Shreveport.  Cool atmosphere, and it was nice to see fanbases travelling here to support their clubs.  Ticket, hot dog, a can of Utepils Pils (Utepils sponsored the Robertson Cup) and tips means the night set me back just: $20.
• On Sunday the 13th, aka Mother's Day, I was able to spend my whole afternoon at Siebert Field as I saw the Minnesota baseball team (red-hot as of press time, BTW) beat Michigan St. in their final home game ... at least for the regular season.  Hot dog, medium Coke, program: $11.
• Before I went home, I went to Dairy Queen for a mini-Blizzard: $3.20.
• Saturday the 12th ... MNUFC.  Signed up for a free Coke.  Price of the hot dog: $5.75.
• Thursday, May 10 -- even though ****e is in Burnsville, once I knew I wasn't going to be working in Bloomington for a while, if not ever, I would not have any other time I would be even close to her neck of the woods.  Plus, I felt the need to rawdog someone.  So I texted her, asked if I could fuck her, and she said yes.  And since this was in the evening, after work, she made me dinner -- a whole steak with bread and everything.  I have never been treated this nicely when having sex.  Now the sex itself ... eh.  She wasn't the feral cat that she's been before.  I did all the work, and her dick-sucking was half-ass.  And ****e was agitated while cooking me dinner.  I saw a medicine bottle on the windowsill.  She's on antidepressants.  Shoot, I hope I catch her on a better day the next time I fuck her.  Total: $120.
• Somewhere this month I found a dime.  I'm just gonna stick that Infusion here: 10 cents.
• On Monday the 7th I went to DQ for a mini-Blizzard.  Probably after dinner.  Don't know why I was out.  Cost: $3.20.
• Back to Sunday, May 6, where I went to Diamonds to work because the construction around 94 made it impossible to get to Caffetto.  No coffee; instead I got an egg biscuit and lemonade.  With tip it came out to: $8.
• In the afternoon I went to the Golden Gopher softball regular season finale, where they slaughter-ruled Penn St.  Hot dog, Coke, program: $9.50.
• Coming home I stopped by Grandma's for the first time before the above time.  Got a shake, which was a quarter less than the malt because of the malt powder, but with tip I think I spent the same amount as I did about two weeks later: $8.
• Saturday the 5th: United match.  Free coke, so I only spent money on cheese curds -- a tray of, I think, Surly-infused balls: $8.

Done through May 26.

Hello, Old Friend!

Because of the deterioration of the minivan (even though they brought it in to replace the muffler), my parents finally took my old car out from under the tarp and from behind the side gate.  The battery had been removed when it went into storage (which I want to say was almost two years ago), and it was old anyway.  The hood did not shut by the time I put the tarp over it.  And who knows what else had happened to the car as it's been lying dormant next to our house all these months.  But my folks, with the help of some guy, put in a new battery, fixed the hood, cleaned out the inside (My Father bitched about the melted candy in the inbetween panel) and the trunk (saw a bunch of stuff thrown in the recycling bin; decided to not fight it nor look through it), and took it out for a ride.  It is now usable again -- far from the sleek ass-kicker it was when I first drove it in 1994, but it runs.

My Father recommended I take the old car when I went exercising (for real this time!) last night.  That was a good idea.  I wanted to see how, and if, the car was working.  And I've got to be honest: Even though I was scared as hell of how the car was going to respond to driving, when I went in there for the first time in, I'd say, 20 months, it took me back.  The leather, now faded and un-stitched.  The radio, which I was reminded doesn't work when I turned the broken dial back and forth.  And the shifter, as sticky as the last time I drove it from the driveway in past the gate.

But the engine turned over like it should have.  And it didn't overheat on the way to the gym, or Dairy Queen (where I stopped by for a Blizzard) or home, which was one of my worst fears.  It didn't accelerate as smoothly as it did the first years I drove it, but hey, what do you expect with a car a quarter-century old?  The big "problem" I can detect is that there is a huge gurgling or grinding sound whenever I accelerate.  The transmission shifts just fine, but where could that sound come from?

Otherwise, it worked just fine.  I don't know if it'd survive a cross-country road trip.  But to the gym?  It'll work.  Could it take a day around town?  I didn't think it would initially, but now, I don't know.

I'm just (and don't tell my folks) so happy that it's working.  My Father did yeoman's work; he reclaimed something from the scrapheap of the past because he thought it would still work, and with some care and, more importantly, a little luck he was totally right.  And I can feel like I'm 18 years old again.

Bad Driver: WAM 163 (?)

I hate asshole drivers who feel the need to go around you and back onto the same lane you're on as you're going through the same ramp or exit.  And this is what this small-dicked he-bitch did a couple weeks ago as I was on my way home.  He careened around the cross-street to the lane to my left, which eventually led to the ramp that leads to the highway I wanted to take.  But I avoided going onto that lane immediately because there is this, like, deep manhole cover and it always jars the car, so I avoid it to extend the life of my shocks.  After I got around the bend, where that manhole is, that's when I merge onto this lane.  And this fucking truck didn't like that, so he sped up, passed me, and got back into my lane.

So as we tumbling down this long ramp I tried to chase him down, but the usual slow cars blocked my way.  Finally I dusted him as he slowed down as he was going to an exit.  Yeah, I showed him.  No, I really didn't.  But that was a realization that I have been driving really aggressive lately.  Oh, and as a result, I now can say that my car has a lot of pep to it.  You put your foot down and it accelerates like a jackrabbit.  Oh yeah, what was I saying ... yeah, asshole driver, glad I won't ever cross your path in a week.

A Sign That The World Is Out To Get Me

It wasn't a good day for me.  Fearing how My Fucking Mother is going to come at me, or the thought of coming home to see all my stuff out in the driveway, or have both parents at the dining room table, presented with a pamphlet for this nice and affordable apartment I can move into (that thought still can happen, and that frightens me to tears) occupied my mind so much that my work suffered.

So I didn't need the world or karma or whatever it is piling on with this oddly coincidental story that broke yesterday about a 30-year-old ordered by a judge to leave his parents' house.  (I won't link to it, nor will I read it.  It hurts too much to even think of it.)  I know my folks saw this story and thought of me.  They don't need any fucking ideas.

Oh My Fucking God, My Fucking Mother Went Crazy Last Night

A part of still doesn't understand what the fuck happened.  So I was late getting home to eat dinner.  My Fucking Mother talks to me about finding a picture of my cousin's new baby girl.  She tried to get on his Facebook yesterday morning but couldn't.  The thing is, I think she started to get upset with me that morning because I had to run out of the house because I needed to get my driver's license changed.  (I was going to blog post about that, but, uh, circumstances changed.)

She really, really wanted to see a photo of the baby, for some reason.  After some agitated back-and-forth, I told her I'd get on that.  Then she immediately flipped to another subject, one that blindsided me and one that I still don't quite get.  "Are you on your niece's group?" My Fucking Mother asked me.

"What group?" I asked.

"Your niece's group."

"Mom, what group?"

"DON'T YELL AT ME!  OH MY GOD, I WANT TO COME OVER AND HIT YOU WITH THIS FRYING PAN!"

And in my mind I'm going, what the fuck?  How did me asking a question turn into me yelling at her?  If anything, she was yelling at me.  She yells.  She's a yeller.  Always has been.

I tried to reason with her -- "Mom, are you talking about a group on Facebook?  A text?  What?"  But she was off on this rant, pointing the pan she had in her hand at my face and still threatening to beat me over the head with it because I was "disrespecting" her or some shit.  She can't beat me around like she did when I was young, however, so I defended myself: "Don't you even dare."  At which point this fucking crazy bitch comes around the kitchen.  I get up off my chair and stare her down, trying to listen to her insane ramblings about how I don't appreciate her cooking and how I treat this place only as a hotel or some shit.  The disrespect card is shit My Fucking Father pulls, not her.

I still cannot comprehend what she's talking about.  I can only think missing photos of newborn family members triggers something in her.  And possibly the "disrespect" card comes from the fact that I give off this bothered attitude every time she asks me for something.  I will cop to that; yes, it annoys me often when My Fucking Mother asks me for something.  But I don't think I need to help out with a shit-eating grin on my face when my whole life, when I've asked for something, My Fucking Mother (both my parental units actually) couldn't seem bothered to smile either.  Also, let's look at the bullshit My Fucking Mother asks me to do.  Invoicing, even though I get pissed when she lays down invoice after invoice without telling me how many invoices she needs me to proofread, is a legitimate ask.  But downloading an app, or asking how to play this game on her phone, or trying to set up her brand-new iPhad are not asks, especially if I don't know how to work them.  My Fucking Mother is a teenager, if not a kid, whose retirement seems to be filled with games she plays, and she's regressed to a juvenile attitude where, if I can't get something to operate correctly and immediately, she accuses me of not caring.

Well, I don't care.  I fucking don't.  And despite what My Fucking Father seems to be advising, I'm not going to give in to her spiteful attitude and profusely apologize.  Fuck that cunt!  I need to tip-toe around her crazy moods whenever she feels like lashing out?  This landmark argument got so bad that, when she told me I have three months to move out of the house, I thought, OK.  I have no way of supporting myself, and I will be out on the street within a month.  But if that means I don't have to put up with this batshit-crazy bullshit anymore, man, I'm totally fine with it.  Because My Fucking Mother is fucking nuts.

We'll see if she takes her pills in the morning.  In the meantime I am falling back into placating her bitch ass.  I wonder if I should ask my cousin to bring her daughter to the house.  I won't be there.  Fuck that, I need to stay the fuck away from her.

(Aside: This out-of-the-blue temper tantrum, along with the myriad requests in the past to help her set up her toys, makes me think that she will develop Alzheimer's.  Just saying.)

If You Think I'm Obsessing Over Not Paying For A Duplicate Driver's License, It's Because I Am Obsessed

I just spent a good hour looking through my desktop (my literal desktop, not the computer that sits on my desk) and in my nightstand drawer to look for the receipt that should confirm that the mistake made on the name of my license is their fault, not mine.  No dice.  I looked through areas and piles of receipts, bunches of papers, and plastic cups in which I store a bunch of my stuff, all of which were dated recently enough to make me think I could have thrown that receipt in with them.  But, no dice.

Late Sunday afternoon I went to my storage bin to look for this receipt too.  It was a tortuous task, and I stopped when I came upon what I think is the only bag of stuff I threw into the storage unit that I filled up around the time I think I last saw that receipt.  It wasn't in there, so I don't think it could be in any of the other bags in the unit, so I stopped.  But did I store a second bag?

I had to make a good-faith effort to find it, because I have no belief that I'm going to get a fair shake this (Tuesday) morning from the DMV.  The asshole at the counter will either say they cannot look up my receipt or, worse than that, they refuse to call around to see if there is a central office where a scan of my receipt might be stored.  I have my birth certificate to take with me, but I am willing to take a couple days off from the start of my workday to exonerate myself and get this new license for free.  'Cause this is ridiculous.

You know what will happen.  I'll pay full price for this license, come home tonight, then stumble across my receipt.  I'm afraid that'll happen too.

The Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey

First of all, I know the Lynx started their season last (Sunday) night (and, BTW, lost).  For all of you wondering why I'm not talking about the team, I'm not leaving them out, I don't think women's basketball is inferior (far from it), I just have a rule: If you win your league's title, I don't bitch about your team until the moment after you end your season short of a championship.  So if the Lynx can somehow (and finally) go back-to-back, I won't have to complain about them for two years.

I'm afraid I'll have to throw in that proviso with every survey.  Anyway:

#0: Gopher baseball (Last Week: -1).  Rain once again wreaked havoc on the club's schedule, the last week of the regular season, but no matter.  First of all they doubled up St. John's in Queens Tuesday, 8-4, in a game shortened by an Inning because of, you guessed it, rain.  They then finished up the regular season with a weekend series at Rutgers.  The very last game on Saturday was outright cancelled due to, you guessed it, inclement weather (guessing it's rain).  But they got the first two games in, and the U. won both, 4-0 and 5-3 (both in nine Innings) and thus clinched the B1G Regular Season title, their 24th in history.

Congratulations to them, and good luck in this week's B1G Tournament taking place in Omaha, Neb., site of the College World Series.  As the #1 seed they will begin play in the eight-team, double-elim tourney Wednesday versus Michigan St., a team they beat two-out-of-three last week (and BTW, they won all eight conference series this year, as well as the past ten (that includes said Red Storm and TCU, both earlier in the season).  The only thing I fear is that this current hot streak (five in a row and nine-of-ten) still is not enough for the NCAA Selection Committee to believe the Gophers deserve to host a Regional.  If they did, it'd be the first time in god-knows-how long, and I would have the weekend free to see as much of it as I can, which would be sweet.  But if these guys get bumped off before the title contest, I don't think I'll get that opportunity.  This is a special team, and I hope to Buddha they make noise.  But the winning needs to continue.

#-1: United FC (Last Week: -3).  There are no moral victories.  But so long as there are ties in soccer, I have to shade my thinking in order to analyze what happened in order to rank for the survey.  And I believe I am out of step compared to other writers about the Loons' 1-all draw against The Kansas City Wiz at TCF Bank Stadium yesterday (Sunday) afternoon.  Many writers post-match concentrated on the fact that United dropped two points, and that they still have many deficiencies they haven't been able to fix.  I'm thinking that against the best team in the West, after a shit-ass loss at home to the worst team in the West (San Jose) last week, where Sporting Kansas City quadrupled the side in Shots (24-6), had possession of the ball 61% of the time, racked up nine Corner Kicks and allowed zero Corners to the Loons (is that a first?), I think a tie is a great thing!

First of all, my adventure in getting to the game.  I thought I built myself enough time after leaving The Local and drinking a Strongbow.  (I wanted to see a Serie A match, but the guy who does the soccer on TV stuff wasn't there, so I saw softball and, uh, hurling instead.)  I thought I was making great time, till I turned onto a street that was reduced to one lane because of fucking construction.  I was race to the stadium, where I get there on time, but had no time to put onions, relish and sauerkraut on my hot dog, and you all know how much I hate that.  Didn't see the anthem or the starting lineups, even though I heard an audible groan coming from the masses when the PA announcer said Francisco Calvo was once again starting.

Well, he was marking the Khiry Shelton, the SKC player who scored his team's Goal -- once again early in the game, once again off a Set Piece, two weaknesses that are fast becoming character traits for MNUFC.  But thank Buddha for Miguel Ibarra!  The pest was all over the place (at least in the first half), and a Cross finally connected, as Darwin Quintero fired and stuffed the rebound into the net to tie up the game.  K.C. substituted out Jimmy Medranda for an injury, but it proved to be very fortuitous; his replacement, Seth Sinovic, locked down Ibarra and pretty much the entire Loons Offense from the 36th Minute on.

That's another reason why I felt good about the tie; the club was basically on its heels the entire Second Half and yet they held.  Oh, I also feel a bit better about Calvo's play, besides giving up the Goal.  Oh, and best of all, Adrian Heath finally found the key to unshackle Brent Kallman from the bench, putting him in place of the potentially-concussed Rasmus Schuller.  He has the strength, the guile and the leaping ability to head a Goal or two in.  He was supposed to be on the receiving end of a Free Kick late in the game that just didn't connect, but it's that combination of skills which made me wonder (there I go using that word again) why Kallman hadn't played a minute of Major League Soccer action until now.  Maybe Kallman proved he belongs on the pitch.

This long stretch of home games (five out of the past six) ends Saturday when with a match vs. Montreal Memorial Saturday.

#-2: Twins (Last Week: -2).  Went 2-4 this screening week: Lost the make-up date (which was delayed a couple hours due to rain) to Seattle, split the two-game series against St. Louis, then lost two-of-three this weekend versus The Bastard Seattle Pilots, all at Target.  The main takeaway, I think, is the bloom falling off of Fernando Rodney.  He was mighty vulnerable in Saturday's game, striking out only five and giving up four Runs when, up until to that start, he had given up only one Earned Run.  Still can mow down batters by himself, but he still can't get through many Innings and now it seems as though The Show has caught up with him.  Hope he can adapt, and soon.

This week they end their long homestand by hosting ex-Twins Manager Ron Gardenhire and the Detroit Tigers for three.  They then visit Seattle for a three-game set over the weekend.

#-Infinity: Gopher softball (Last Week: 0).  I wonder if the popularity of the Golden Gophers softball program spiked after news of them "getting screwed" by the NCAA last season.  Well, this season it looks as though they were, again, properly seeded, as they were the last team to fall in the Seattle Region to host and overall 5-seed Washington.

They were behind from the get-go in the double-elimination format, losing 2-1 to Texas (which I thought was the higher seed, but I looked at the box score and it looks as though Minnesota was the home team, meaning the Gophs was the 2-seed in the Regional, not the Longhorns.  Who knows?).  But on Saturday they battled back, knocking off runt Boise St., 11-3, then exacting revenge on Texas, 3-0.  To make it to the Super Regional they had to knock off the Huskies twice yesterday/Sunday.  Sadly they couldn't even win the first one, going down for the 2018 season by a 5-2 count.

I don't know what to make of the autopsy of this team.  They had a very good year.  They won the Big Ten Tournament title, which is not nothing.  They have Kendyl Lindamann, who may be one of the 20 best players in College Softball Nation.  And like I said, they should be a force for years to come.  The transition to Jamie Trachsel as Head Coach appears to have been seamless.  And yet I'm worried that this is as good as this squad will be, which would be a huge waste of Lindamann's talents, the same way Minnesota couldn't reach the heights befitting of the wondrous Sara Groenewegen.  Oh, well, we'll see next year.

Luckiest. Team. Ever.

Call me a hater, fine.  But the goddamn Las Vegas Golden Knights, going all the way to the Stanley Cup Finals in its expansion year after beating The Bastard Atlanta Thrashers is fucking blasphemy.  There is no goddamn way a first-year squad should be entitled to the Stanley Cup Finals.

We all know how this club was rigged to be this good immediately.  The Expansion Draft was set up to allow that team to grab a player from every other team in the NHL.  I don't remember the Mild getting those many good players.  The Knights were born on third base, and people are thinking they hit a triple and are headed toward home.

We also know why they were set up for instant success.  This is the first pro team in Las Vegas, a till-now untested sports market.  Furthermore, I think it's safe to say that Las Vegas is not a hockey city.  To ensure popularity, the NHL believed that the Knights needed to be good fast, quickly, if not instantly.  And that's why they were given this shitload of talent from Day One.  Now they are the hottest ticket in town and the biggest (though not best) story in the NHL.  All to ensure survival in Vegas.  When I first heard about this team, I gave it 15 years in that city, tops.  But it's a hell of a lot harder to move this team now that they've reached the Stanley Cup Finals ... and it'll be next to impossible to relocate it if they win it.  Very clever, Gary Bettman.

One other thing: Doesn't the rigged success of the Las Vegas Knights delegitimize the NHL, if not hockey.  How can a first-year team play for a title?  And should it?  I'm not watching the Stanley Cup Finals because of this.  That these guys can win it in its first year is kind of a joke, tbh.

Addendum To: Fucking Driver's License Change

So they did in fact charge me.  Well, they would have.  The person I talked to said that without proof, I would have to pay for it.  There are two ways to prove that: Give them the receipt, or come back during the day where the, um, central office could be called and asked to provide a copy, which they may (emphasis, hers, on "may") have one scanned in.

I sure as fuck am not at fault for this.  Therefore, I decided to not pay, go back home, and find the receipt myself.  Because I remember seeing the receipt once and thinking, "Hey, maybe I should keep this."  But I can't find it anywhere -- not on my desk, or nightstand, or pockets, anywhere.  I had a bolt of inspiration thinking I threw it into my day planner, but nope, that bulging piece of paper was my prescription.

Goddamn, I am so pissed at myself right now.  I swear I would not throw such a thing away.  But the more I think about it, maybe I did.  I mean, I think that if I thought I should keep it, I would have found it while tearing through my room yesterday afternoon.  Not seeing makes me think, instead, that I did look at it and think at the time, "Nah, I can throw this away."  That would be so fucking stupid of me, even without the need to change it because of this signature I put down.

There is one other place I could have put this receipt: Storage.  I think I could go after this afternoon's United match to storage and look for it.  But I have dozens of paper bags in there; where would I even start?  Maybe it's a waste of time and I shouldn't even bother.

Anyway, so I came clean to my parents: I refused to pay for the license change.  I plan on going to a license center some time during the day (I'll have to let work know I'll be coming in late) and asking if they can call this office to see if they have a copy of the receipt.  I won't like it if they do have a copy and somehow I did fuck this up.  I'll be plenty angry if, as I fear, they somehow don't have a copy of this receipt.  And I'll be pissed the fuck off if the person I get gives me attitude and says that the office does not have copies of the receipt.  It's not much money getting this license replaced.  But as a guy who's about to be unemployed, every cent counts.  And more importantly, I.  Did.  Not.  Make.  This.  Mistake.  I have my principles, goddammit.

Fucking Driver's License Change

So my parents and I went to the bank this morning because they want my name on their security deposit box because ... they're gonna die soon, or something.  Don't tell them this, but that's when I remembered that my middle and last names are transposed on my driver's license.  Never bothered me, so I didn't feel as though I needed to tell anyone or, uh, do anything about it.  But when the bank rep (who, I have to admit, I was rude to) put in my name wrong, I then realized that this was a problem that needed to be fixed.  So did my parents, who didn't take a breath yelling at me all the fucking way home.

So now I'm at the library.  Well, I'm at the library now, but there's a license center attached to the library.  Spent a goddamn half-hour getting in line in order to get an application to change it.  I wonder, though, if it'll make any difference to them that the center got the name wrong and not me.  Is the difference responsibility in changing my license?  In other words, do I have to pay this?  I mean, this isn't my fuck-up, it's theirs.  Goddamn -- if I have to pay for someone else's mistake. ...

About Work

Hmmm ...

First of all, I was largely left to my own devices today.  Unbeknownst to me, my supervisor, the person I'm most closely working with right now, took the day off.  That meant that nearly every question I would have asked her I have now instead e-mailed to her.  I have assailed her with so many of my dumb queries that I think she just needed to take a break from me.  I really do feel bad that I'm now drowning her with questions that await her Monday morning.

I guess I should be glad I was just doing my own thing today.  But I don't think I made a whole lot of progress.  Having questions meant that I couldn't move forward.  I spent the last hour typing up the e-mail to my supe.  That's not productive to me.  And while I like the independence, many times today it felt like I was just cut off, if not neglected.  The other people were doing their own things, of course.  But especially with two weeks before I'm fired, I feel sort of cut off now.  Maybe there are worse ways to make a paycheck.  I just don't know if the radio silence around me is about me.

Oh, one other thing.  Someone mentioned in our daily meeting that there is a job on the floor I worked at last year available, but she was surprised that no one applied for it.  That's funny, because I know that I applied for that very job.  Is she wrong?  Did my application somehow not go through?  Or has my worst fears been realized ... and that the people running this search thought that, even though I've worked there the past three seasons, my resume is so awful they won't even consider me for an interview?  I really need to know the status of my app, but if they've already rejected me, maybe I don't want to even ask.  Christ, what a bind I am in.

DNS Server Isn't Working My Ass

First time Comcat Internet has really gone down.  Worked till about midnight, and have tried resetting and flushing caches last night, this morning and after I came home from work, to no avail.  (That's why I'm blogging so late.)  Father thought it wasn't working because I hadn't paid my bill.  I scoffed at that idea ... then came here to the library to pay it, even though I did check my bill and it's not due until the 22nd.

I have no goddamn clue what it could be.  The only concurrent thing that has happened with this outage is the rise in heat and humidity, but I thought Internet cable was invulnerable to the heat.

So now I have no idea how to fix it.  And I have to -- fuck -- talk to Comcast about this.  One of my worst fears in life is to go into that rabbit hole called Comcast customer service.  I have heard horror stories from that circle jerk, and now I have wrestle with the beast.

Can I Call It, Or Can I Fucking Call It?!?!?!

Yep, just like I thought!  Yesterday my boss came back from vacation, we had our daily meeting, and after that meeting, I open up my e-mail and she says that I'm done as of the 1st.  Man, I tell ya, I should start gambling money with the way I can predict the future.  Of course, I won't have any money to gamble because I'm back on the fucking street, but still!

Look, I'm not upset.  Well, I'm not too upset.  I was swamped with stuff to do yesterday, and I think that'll be the same case today at work, and probably through the end of the week.  I don't feel as though I'm running out of work.  But my boss knows, so she's probably right.  Or, she doesn't have either the budget or the mandate to keep me past the 1st.

Regardless of the reason, it fucking blows.  Beyond the commute, I really felt safe, productive, and respected at this company.  I totally could see myself working there full-time, and for years.  But, well, reality set in, and now I'm mentally racing off in a million different directions trying to snag the next place that'll give me a paycheck.

In the meantime I immediately battened down the financial hatches.  There is a slew of stripper parties coming up, but damned if I can afford to go to any of them.  I'm doing my best to avoid the cafeteria for the next fortnight.  And I have to worry about how to occupy my free time while saving money.  The only bright spot for me is that I'll save trips going down to the south metro.  Not only will I be saving gas, I will need to suffer only two weeks of the 35W-to-94W ramp that will be closing starting this weekend.  The traffic might make this change OK.

But it still is a change.  I've been going to this job for the past four months, and the health insurance company since October.  It'll be a horrible wake-up call not to need to go there.  And I highly doubt that the guy who hired me for the past three open enrollment seasons will ever need to call me back in again.  Once I walk out that door on the 1st, I might never go back in again.  (By the way, I just checked the status of the job that I applied for.  They haven't closed it nor made a decision.  But if I haven't heard anything back by now, and it's been more than three weeks, I don't think they are even considering me, right?)

So, where do I go now?  Fuck if I know.  Tomorrow I'll be calling the test scoring places to beg for projects.  It's a good thing I didn't desubscribe to those dozens of want ads that come into my inbox every day, because I knew the day would come where I would have to apply like goddamn crazy.  I do have some vacations lined up, but how can I take a fuckin' vacation if I don't have the money to spend during it, or if I don't have a job whose wages will pay for it afterward?

This temp shit is getting old.  Why don't I just fucking start over with going back to school?  Maybe then I'll find something that won't force me to look for work every six goddamn months.

And Then Just Like That -- Boom! Dunzo!

Believe it or not, I've actually been very busy at work.  I am neck-deep in this project, and yesterday I learned something new.  It seems that my work is evergreen, since it's based on a report that gets sent to us periodically.  I may be getting faster as I learn the ropes, but it took me the better part of two weeks to get through what I was supposed to get through ... and that was only one small part of the report.  Heck, I couldn't really surf on the Internet yesterday -- that's how busy I was!

That would make me believe that I would be staying on for a little while longer, if not (fingers crossed) permanently.  But I have to face the music.  My boss told me that she can keep me around till the end of the month; I'm guessing that is at least until Memorial Weekend, aka another week-and-a-half, but possibly until June 1, which is but a fortnight away.  I figured that I have stayed this long because the team I am currently working with had their two most senior positions take quick vacations.  My supervisor, the very nice person who has been helping me with this current project, had her vacation the week before last; my boss is coming back from hers today.  And unless there's another person from the team who's going to be gone, or something drastically changes, well, I'm dunzo.

It feels really weird to just not have a job after four-plus months, especially when I feel like I'm in the middle of a bunch of things right now.  The other ladies on the team regularly get overtime.  I'm not saying I'm entitled to OT, but if they're getting it, doesn't that mean that there's enough work that a dude like me can work 40 hours a week full-time?  But again, I've been told otherwise.  And since the end of the month is coming up, and my boss is returning from vacation, I would not be (or at least should not be) surprised at all if I get called to her desk or sent an e-mail saying I am done in the not-too-distant future.

If that comes to fruition, well, it's back to the fucking drawing board for me.  Say, that reminds me that I need to look up the status of the job at the health insurance place I applied for.  Has there been absolutely no movement on that?  Or have they moved on?  It's strange, and a little be disconcerting, that I haven't gotten an answer by now.  Oh, I wish I wish I'm still in the running for that job; I sure as hell need it now.

The Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey

Positive Numbers: Gopher men's tennis (FIRST TIME EVER!!!).  There are many U. sports I probably will never follow on a regular basis.  The Survey is big enough as it is, and I have had to leave off many sports I simply have not followed when I was young.  Tennis is one of them.

Nevertheless, when looking at what the Golden Gopher softball and baseball teams are doing, I noticed that the men's tennis squad is making some big noise in the NCAA Tournament.  Unranked in the tourney but ranked 37th in the polls (what poll?  Beats me!), they upset #19 Georgia in the First Round, then swept 14-seed (and Regional host) Oklahoma in the Second.  For the first time since 2000, the Golden Gophers are in the men's tennis version of the Sweet Sixteen!  Congratulations to them!

The rest of the racket bracket will be held at Wake Forest in Winston-Salem, N.C., next weekend.  Friday at 11 Central they have a rematch with Big Ten foe, and third-overall tournament seed, Ohio St., who beat the Gophs in the regular season and eliminated them in the Semifinals of the B1G Tournament.  Good luck!

#0: Gopher softball (Last Week: -2).  Did not know this: The U., in winning the Big Ten Tournament yesterday/Sunday, have won their their straight conference tourney title, fourth in five years, and fifth overall.  That is a hell of an accomplishment, and so congrats go out to them on a successful weekend in Madison, Wisc.

It was a wet weekend, too.  It is weird that while the Twin Cities had great weather (besides a cloudy and cool Friday), Madison, a city not too far from here in the global scheme of things, was racked with "inclement weather."  The league wasn't able to squeeze all four First Round games in on Thursday, and that started a domino effect (including more weather delays) which resulted in the Final, which was scheduled for Saturday night, getting pushed into Sunday morning.

No matter for the softball Nine.  Despite playing as the road team (why is that?  They were the higher-seeded team), the second-seeded Gophers dispatched 4-seed Northwestern (top-seed Michigan was bounced in the Quarterfinal by 8-seed Michigan St.) post-haste, 9-6.  The most challenging of the three matches the club had was the Quarterfinal vs. Indiana.  The U. coughed up a 3-0 lead as the Hoosiers plated four in the top of the Fifth Inning.  But Minnesota scored two in the bottom of the frame to take back the lead, then cemented the win with four in the sixth.

The team finished the season winning 19 of their last 20 games, and records of 17-4 in-conference and 39-15 overall.  I had a passing thought that the U. might actually get to host a Regional this year.  Oh, silly me.  Not only are they shipping out to Seattle to be a part of 5-seed Washington's Regional, they are the 3-seed in the four-team pod.  Well, that formidable non-conference slate, and going only 22-11 against it, kind of doomed their chances of being seen at least as one of the 16-best teams in College Softball Nation.  (I also overlooked, for most of the season, that the U. is only in the Top 25 of one of the three polls I could find on the Internet.)  That uphill climb, along with the sour taste I still have in my mouth about how the NCAA done the Gophs dirty, and then subsequently proved them right, busts them down to non-positive numbers.  Nevertheless, this is a damn good team, led by B1G Player Of The Year Kendyl Lindaman (who has replaced Sara Groenewegen as The Next Legend In The Golden Gopher Softball Program), Outfielder and Tournament Most Outstanding Player Maddie Houlihan, Second Baseman MaKenna Partain and Pitcher Amber Fiser.  They can make noise this year and the years to come.

#-1: Gopher baseball (Last Week: 0).  Surprised that the fam did not schedule any Mother's Day festivities for the weekend, so any potential time crunch whereby I would not be able to watch either the United match (on second thought maybe that wasn't such a good thing; see below) Saturday or the Gopher baseball home finale versus Michigan St. Sunday completely went by the wayside.  I was able to take in my annual sojourn to Siebert Field and watch the Gophers beat the Spartans 3-1 in a tight contest.  I was more impressed with the relievers who relieved the starters.  Mitchell Tyranski struck out three and allowed only two baserunners (one of which turned into Minnesota's insurance Run) in two Innings of work; Max Meyer replaced Jake Stevenson with two outs in the Sixth and a 2-1 lead and got a ten-Out Save, his 13th Save of the year.  Half of those Outs came via Strikeout.  I knew that the lineup could rake, even though they really didn't do that yesterday/Sunday.  But that Meyer man, man is he lights out.

But the Gophs did not sweep.  They doubled-up the Spartans on Saturday, 10-5, coming back from a 4-1 deficit to score eight in the Seventh Inning.  But Sparty broke a 5-all tie with a Run in the top of the Sixth to take Friday's series-opener.  I don't know how much margin of error this club has.  I would love to see these guys host a Regional at Siebert.  But that loss Friday may prove to be very damaging.

Nevertheless they have chances to re-burnish their bona fides in the final week before tourney play.  On Tuesday they go to Queens to face St. John's for a fourth time this season; they won two-of-three against the Red Storm in the Gophers' final games at U.S. Bank Stadium.  (I was at the final game, a 6-3 win Saturday, March 31.  And by the way, playing four games against St. John's is one more than the U. will have played against most teams in their own conference.  There will be teams in the B1G the Gophers won't play at all this season.  Weird.)  They then finish up league play with three at Rutgers this weekend.

#-2: Twins (Last Week: -3).  Took both ends of a week-beginning two-fer at St. Louis, then split four matches against The Los Angeles Angels Of Anaheim Angels Of Los Angeles Angels Of Anaheim Angels Of ...

Heard Gleeman And The Geek on my way home from the Gopher baseball team's win Sunday/yesterday and they were sort-of touching on how the Twins' season changed, and maybe was saved, when Fernando Romero was called up and stanched the bleeding from that horrible stretch by beating Toronto 4-0 back on May 2.  I, and many others, are really psyched of what this Romero kid can do.  I've never heard of this guy until he got called up, and now Gleeman and The Geek believe he could turn into something special.  The main thing Romero has got going for himself is that he is capable of striking out pitchers with his fastball-slider-change arsenal.  He struck out six on Sunday vs. Anaheim, and he allowed his first major-league Run, in his third start in The Show.

Unfortunately, for the third straight time, he didn't last long.  He got pulled to start the Sixth and was hung for the loss because his counterpart on the mound, Shohei Ohtani, struck out 11, albeit in 6 1/3 Innings.  And then Zach Duke coughed up the game-ending score ... 2-1 Anaheim.  I remain very ambivalent about the relief corps.  But this Romero kid?  He's got potential.  I just want to see him last into the Seventh or Eighth -- you know, be the superstar that gives the bullpen a day off.

While the bleeding has been stanched, the effects still ripple; right now the Twinks stand at 17-19.  Maybe some home cooking will do them good.  They have yet another maximum-sized homestand that commences this week.  And in what might be a first, four teams are coming into Target Field for this homestand, three of them this screening week.  This (Monday) evening Seattle, which is stopping here before going home after finishing up a series in Detroit, makes up the April 8 date that was snowed out.  Then the Cardinals return the favor by playing Tuesday and Wednesday here.  Gosh, should I go to that Tuesday game?  Thursday they have off, then The Bastard Seattle Pilots are here for a three-game series over the weekend.

#-3: United FC (Last Week: -1).  This may have been the most horrible on-pitch week in the Loons' short history.  Forget the 2-0 loss Wednesday at LAFC (which I will start to refer to as "Laugh-See"), because the side did.  Facing a quick midweek game sandwich between weekend dates at home, with several people out injured and several more hurt, and facing a very rich good team on the road, Adrian Heath gave the B team many spots to start and basically punted this match.  I don't like it, but if this was a way to maximize their chances to win Saturday at home against San Jose, the worst team in the Western Conference, well, I can't get too mad at that.

But what the fuck do you do when you can't even do that?  After shaking my head, spacing out and then detaching from my emotions at the end of that horrid 3-1 loss to the Earthquakes, I felt, and I still feel, that this was the first time I regretted being a season-ticketholder.  The preview/buildup by David Martin of FiftyFive.One made me believe that a Loons triumph in this match was both probable and necessary to show this team has made real progress.  Well, they through seemingly the entire trajectory of the whole organization into the shitter when the Quakes scored on the Penalty Kick in only the Second Minute when Jerome Thiesson -- no, not him too! -- fouled in the box.  However, Christian Ramirez scored off a San Jose backpass/fuck-up that was so surprising, I didn't even see it until it was humping over the Earthquakes Goalie and into the net; that was the spacing out part.  And then MNUFC was on the front foot for the rest of the First Half.  They were close, clanging shots off the bar and juuuuuust misconnecting on passes.  But it felt as though the better team on paper was finally asserting its talent; the tallies were going to come.

But they didn't.  Yet another Backline screw-up cost us the game, when Francisco Calvo didn't pressure the ball on the Loons End Line because he didn't want to concede a Corner Kick but conceded an entry pass that found the back of the net for the deciding goal.  Calvo handballed the third Goal, a second PK for the Quakes.  And for the first time with this squad, I felt that I had totally wasted my money and time.

Another writer for FiftyFive.One, Alex Schieferdecker, kind of talked me off the ledge in his regular review piece.  He, like many fans, thinks it's time to sit the Centerback pairing of Calvo and Michael Boxall.  Calvo in particular has been conspicuously bad lately, and he has responded by beginning to get surly with reporters.  According to Megan Ryan of the Star Tribune, he got fed up with a question by the scrum surrounding him and he asked the Public Relations department to throw that reporter out of the locker room.  Thank Buddha the PR people told him no.  I have begun to notice how shittily Calvo has been playing, and I'm not a soccer expert.  And I really, really don't like how he is trying to manipulate the media.  Who the hell does he think he is, Donald Trump?

However, Schieferdecker is continuing to emphasize how Calvo may only be the person making the most conspicuous mistake, pointing out that his mistake is the result of others', and that he has been capable of outstanding play at times this season.  (There is also the mysterious issue regarding his son, who he cryptically worried about in a previous press conference.)  Moreover, he points out, logically, that he and Boxall continuing to play and being in the middle of many Goals allowed this season is in fact a coaching problem, and so he has turned the heat up on Manager Adrian Heath.  He has a very good point there, too.  I still am flummoxed why Brent Kallman, who at times played spectacularly last year (and, by the way, is One Of Us), still hasn't seen a second of play this year.  Why not start Rookie Wyatt Omsberg alongside him and see if that CB pairing is better?  It sure as shit can't get any worse.

Regardless of the fallout and what United FC does, I think this loss is a turning point for the franchise, and its relationship with the Twin Cities fanbase.  I believe that many casual fans who want to follow the Loons looked at the Earthquakes' record and went, "Well, that should be a win!"  Many writers thought that, too.  The loss, and the incompetent way that they lost, I believe angered many people in the stadium, including the supporters.  I don't think that the Dark Clouds and True North Elite are going to start throwing flares and smoke bombs onto the pitch like Hamburg fans did after Saturday's relegation for the first time in both Bundesliga and club history.  But this humiliating defeat means that the honeymoon period for the Loons is over.  They are now just any other Minnesota team, scrutinized for their bad play and questioned about what they're going to do about it.  It sure as hell isn't pretty, but it's inevitable to be considered a real pro sports franchise.

Any changes might prove futile for their next match, Saturday afternoon vs. Sporting Kansas City, who are the best team in the Western Conference.  But if Calvo's and/or Boxall's name is announced in the Starting Lineups, I'm going to fucking hear some boos.  Welcome to the big time, MNUFC.

Usher Stole My Identity!

Talked about going to the U. softball game last week, but I didn't tell you guys about this.

For sporting events besides football, basketball and men's hockey, you can get in for free if you have a student ID.  I've blogged about the pitfalls of re-using my extremely old University of Minnesota student ID before.  Nevertheless I still use it because it saves me the cost of admission.

What I may not have told you guys (even though I'm pretty sure I did, I just can't find it) is that it has my social security number on it.  That means that whenever I flash that card, I'm showing an usher or ticket seller the prime identifier to everything that makes me an American.  I was reminded of that very risky risk when I handed my ID to the usher at the gate leading into Cowles Stadium.  He looked at the front, containing my SSN, flipped it to the back, which had my photo, then looked up at me ... while smirking.  He gave me my ID and said, "OK."

Oh, sure, he could be admiring how old my ID is.  Or he could be memorizing my social security number in order to steal my identity.  Shit, my identity may already be stolen for all I know.

Why do I keep doing this to myself?  I'll do it again today, as I plan on going to Siebert Field to catch the home regular season finale of the Golden Gopher baseball team.

If I'm a victim of identity theft, I know how my Suspect #1 is.  Remember his face and everything.  Hell, that usher might be there this afternoon, too!

And by the way, this is as good a time as any to go back to school, if only to get a new damn identification card.

Poor Bastard Of The Moment: Dwane Casey

Dwane Casey was Head Coach of the Minnesota Timberwolves from 2005 to 2007, right in the middle of the Dark Age of the franchise.  He, however, provided the brightest light during that time.  He finished 33-49 in his first and only full season leading the Woofie Dogs -- not great at all, but this was the season after Latrell Sprewell was out of the league after bitching about not getting a contract extension and Sam Cassell was traded to the Clippers, thus breaking up the MV3 that led the Wolves to the Western Conference Finals in 2004.

Things were getting marginally better in the 2006-7 season.  At roughly the midway point of the season, Casey got this team at 20-20.  Then, out of nowhere and, as far as I know, for no good reason, General Manager Kevin McHale (who preceded Casey as HC after he fired Flip Saunders and resumed coaching duties for himself) fired him.  I think McHale said something like, "I think we can do better."  He thought his friend, Randy Wittman, could get this team into playoff contention or better.  Instead, the team nosedived, going 12-30 the rest of the way and sunk to the bottom, only now getting their heads above water by reaching the playoffs for the first time since '04.

People kind of forget about this era of the Woofie Dogs, but those in the know remember the firing and thinking how much of a raw deal Casey got.  We have no idea how well he would have done had he not been shitcanned mid-season, but the record of the 2006-7 season while and then after Casey was Head Coach should be evidence enough that he made a positive difference.

Apparently, he got fucked over again Friday.  He got another HC job at Toronto for the 2011-2 season, and although the Raptors had some lean years, the front office stuck with him.  Finally, with a nucleus of Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan, they got better, and this year, with a bench that became formidable, the Raps beat out preseason East favorite Cleveland and early surprise Boston to get the best record in the Eastern Conference.

With that home-court advantage, however, they faced LeBron James and the Cavaliers in the Eastern Conference Semifinals and were promptly dispatched by them in four games.  Now, it took a back-and-forth Game 1 and a game-ender by King James in Game 3, but they were swept nonetheless.

Now remember, Toronto had never been the #1 seed in the East in franchise history.  They've won at least one series each of the past three years.  They reached the Conference Finals in the 2016 playoffs.  They have just been eliminated by the Cavs the past three postseasons, the last two via sweeps.

And Friday, it got Casey fired.  Apparently, Casey, the man who stuck through a couple bad seasons in the beginning of his tenure, is now considered the obstacle to an NBA Finals appearance.  Never mind that Brad Stevens is doing magical work in Boston, or that The Best Basketball Player In Our Era is also playing in the Eastern Conference, or that LeBron is likely playing elsewhere in the Western Conference next year.  I think someone with the Raptors organization believes that the Cavaliers have gotten into Casey's head, and they think just changing the Head Coach unlocks the final step for the franchise.  Well, be careful what you wish for.  The last time Casey was canned, that team fell into a tailspin.

Hey, at least for Casey, he now has a reputation of being a team whisperer.  One that can be disposed of as soon as management believes the team is onto something really good.  But that should mean that he gets another HC job somewhere in the NBA.

Till then ... Poor Bastard.

Where The Hell Did She Go?

So I fucked *a*** last night.  It was ... well, I can't complain, let's put it that way.  She made me dinner.  Then we fooled around, although this time I did nearly all the work and she only bobbed the tip of my penis into her mouth.  But I got to rawdog her, so that's something.  After I came on her stomach she took a shower and went ... somewhere.  I never saw her the rest of the time I was in her house.  But she let me loll in her bed for a couple hours, watch TV and shower (even though the shower head was missing ... what's up with that?).

When it was time for me to leave, I opened the door from the bathroom to the living room -- and I didn't see her.  She might have been in another bedroom, or she may have been downstairs with her roommate (I wish I could have been louder, but that dude down there totally would have heard me!).  I don't know, but I think it's weird that the person who you fucked is just nowhere to be found at the time you told her you had to leave.  (Maybe it's the Prozac she uses?)  The last time she just blew town when I had to leave, I thought I would get away with leaving $100 instead of $120.  *a*** to this day has not called me out on that.  I thought about doing it again, but I figure that if she keeps this up, I might as well not see her as much, or anymore, so I threw in the whole $120 and left.

But man, it's weird, man, all of it.  Making dinner was weird, but that's good.  The not being around to say goodbye thing?  That's weird, and that's bad.

Just Be Honest!

Not to be so arrogant as to chime in on the #MeToo movement; this may not have anything to do with it.  But lately I have had the urge to be a pervert, and to blurt out exactly what I'm thinking and what I want to do with hot women to these hot women.  And I haven't been chastised or called out or anything.  In fact, they have reacted, uh, favorably.

For example, I have an Instagram with which I follow porn stars, bodybuilders, models and other hot women.  I use a fake name and, starting recently, going Incognito in order to tell all these girls how much I feel the need to masturbate to their photos and videos and, hopefully, get away with it.  There is this mature bodybuilder who posted a video of her exercising while two guys in sweats were lifting weights in the background.  I comment that seeing her fit abs and tight ass, they would be so hard and horny that they'd pull down their pants and show her their cocks right then and there.  That's all I said!

Now, when someone says that and she's not a porn star, chances are the comment will get erased and I might get banned.  But no!  She instead gave me three of those "see no evil" emojis.  And then she followed me.  Not so offended after all, now, huh?

My two other examples are strippers who I fuck.  One of them, *****a, I fuck at house parties.  The other, *a***, I fuck at her place.  When I texted both of them recently (in separate conversations) about arranging our trysts, I just blurted out, "I wanna come over and fuck.  Cool?"  So yes, that's really direct.  But they're strippers, and they do this shit, so instead of saying, "I'm offended!" they just said "lol."  Score!  (Yeah, I'm paying them, but still!)

For the record, I did go over to *****a's party and fuck her.  This was about six weeks ago.  And with *a***, I texted that I wanted to fuck her yesterday.  I will be going over to her place after work in the evening.  To fuck.

See, I understand that being an out-and-out perv and just telling women that you want to have sex with them might get you in really hot water.  However, if my examples are in the realm of any real possibility, you can bet that there is a woman out there who is at least decent-looking and who won't be offended by your blunt proposal ... and might even say yes.  That is why men still proposition women out of the blue.  That is why you never, ever give up.

This brings up a story.  I bought the 2018 Hooters calendar earlier this year at the Hooters at the Mall Of America.  I bought it on the day of a signing there.  Several women who appear in the calendar were there to sign.  As I was working my way through the assembly line of autographs, I saw a slip of paper on the floor just under the table.  I picked it up and, since it was open, inspected it.  It was a guy's name, a phone number, and social media account handles.

"Uh, someone left you his number," I told the hot Hooters girl while I tossed this slip back on the table and she was signing my calendar.  "Yeah," she replied, "that is someone who will not get a call from me!"  Thought so.  And yet, if you come across a bodybuilder on Instagram or two strippers who will fuck your brains out, such advances are tolerated, if not welcomed.

I mean, what do your parents always say if you are afraid to do something?  How do you know if it won't work unless you try?  What is the worst thing that could happen -- she'll say no?  Just be honest!  If that's the advice you're given when it comes to, say, trying out for the school musical or asking for a raise, why can't that be the advice for going up to a hot girl you've never seen before and propositioning her for sex?  Amirite?!

Am I Doing This Right?

Right now I am in the middle of, in my opinion, a difficult task.  It's hard to describe even if I think I can disclose it, and I don't think I can, at least no completely.  I have to look up a member's health insurance policy to see if the government has the right information -- I'll put it that way.

It's difficult for several reasons.  First, there are so many ways you can gather all the information you need to make a determination, and I know I've forgotten a few times.  Worst of all, once I get (or believe I get) all the information, I find it difficult to make a determination.  Actually doing it is the easy part; knowing what to do is something I still don't have a grasp on, and I feel as though I have been really, really slow.

The person who trained me in on this project is returning from vacation in the morning.  I am afraid that she is expecting that I have done more than I have.  I've really cut down on the screwing around, I swear -- it's just hard to keep track of where I am, and I still am not totally confident enough to think I'm doing this right, so I have a bunch of questions for her this workday.

I still have no idea how long this job lasts.  My boss said that I'm there until Memorial Weekend.  She is on vacation now; that makes me think that I'm sticking around just because these two had vacations coming up, and once they're done with taking time off, there will be no need for me.  A part of me hopes, however, that I can stick around, but that would mean I can show some basic competence in something like this project.  I have no idea if any extension of this temp job hinges on doing a good job with this, but if it does, I'm not sure I've demonstrated enough to them to keep me around.

The Fatigue Is Catching Up With Me

For the second day in a row I went to bed much earlier than usual.  On Sunday it was, no joke, 7:45.  (That's why I was able to do the WMNSS before going to work.)  And yesterday, feeling the fatigue shrouding my body, I turned the lights out at around 11:30 and the alarm woke me up.

I've been regularly passing out in my car during my lunch break, too.  Not that I'm complaining; I just want to make sure that when I fall asleep, I eventually wake up.  But I'm in a tired period right now and I don't know why.  Maybe my body needs to adjust to the warmer weather the same way it has to adjust to colder weather in the fall?

I should get to work.

The Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey

#0: Gopher baseball (Last Week: -2).  Sunday afternoon both the Gopher baseball and Gopher softball teams were playing at home at the same time.  I don't know if you've ever seen either game on campus, but Siebert Field and Cowles Stadium are right next to each other.  In fact, they "share" the same behind-the-wall area; I can believe that a major-league slugger, given a fat meatball to swing at, could launch a homer from Home Plate in other ball park and have it land in the outfield of the other ballpark.  That's how close they are.  (And by the way, with the athletics complex now done, it looks pretty good.  It's a walkable area not unlike going through campus itself.  And you can go through this complex in order to get to the entrance of either Siebert or Cowles if you want to.)

Right up to the start of both ballgames, I didn't know which game to go to.  There were a number of factors I had to run through my head, all of which made me procrastinate in my decision.  The main one, actually, is Mother's Day.  I don't know if there's going to be a big dinner in Mother's name.  If we are going out to eat, I haven't been told which day; that day, I probably have to be home in the late afternoon.  Moreover, while both teams are playing at home, only the baseball team is playing at home next week.  Meanwhile, not only is the softball team not playing at home next week, this weekend was the regular season finale for them.  And finally, the Loons play at TCF Bank Stadium Saturday afternoon, which is around the same time the baseball team plays Michigan St. at Siebert, which precludes me going to that game.

Beyond the factors, there were preferences.  The baseball team had what is considered to be The Most Anticipated Series In Big Ten Baseball This Year, as the Gophers played Indiana, regarded as the two-best teams in the conference, even though they don't have the two-best records in the conference.  That should make for a good, or at least important, series, but then again, Minnesota might lose.  By contrast, the Gopher softballers, in second-place in the B1G themselves, was hosting a really bad Penn St. squad.  They should win Sunday, I thought.  Then again, they should have won Friday, but they were upset at home, 2-1, in Eight Innings.  Any prospect of them hosting a Regional, faint as they were, vaporized with that defeat.  And on top of that, I'm still salty that this team was ranked #1 in the polls, did not even host its Regional, and then proved the NCAA right by failing to win its Regional.  I still blame the softball team.

In the end, I decided that I would take a chance on being able to see one game from the baseballers vs. the Spartans next week.  Also, I had to fax something for Mother, and I don't know if I could do that in a long baseball game.  College softball is only seven Innings, and chances are it would be fewer than that, especially from the wake-up call that came from Friday's shock defeat.  There were some things I needed to do last/Sunday afternoon, and that was the final factor in deciding to walk to Cowles instead of Siebert.

I know that this entry is for the baseball team; bear with me.  After the softballers mercy-ruled the Nittany Lions (and, now that I see the softball bracket, ended the Lions' season), I sauntered through the athletic complex to see if I could get a close-up of those sweet, solid red Indiana jerseys that team was wearing yesterday afternoon.  I couldn't without stepping up to the front gate, so I walked to my car.  But not before being able to see a close-up of the big outfield scoreboard which, if I recall correctly, had the Hoosiers leading the U. somewhere in the Fifth by a score of 5-3.  I hate witnessing losses, it was about 3 o'clock in the afternoon, and I had chores I could do, so I think I made the right decision.

But blow me down, the Gophers came back to beat the Hoosiers, 7-6, in ten Innings!  Those boys tied it with three in the Eighth Inning -- and in a sign of how powerful the line-up is, those three Runs were all solo Home Runs.  (Terrin Vavra opened the U.'s scoring with a Homer in the Second.)  And in the bottom of the Tenth, Luke Pettersen singled through the right side of the infield to bring home Cole McDevitt and complete the comeback.

And that in fact completes a sweep of the Hoosiers; they beat them 4-1 Friday and 9-1 Saturday.  The Gophers are on a four-game winning streak (they blanked Concordia-St. Paul 5-0 Tuesday), and they are tied with Michigan atop the standings.  The squad will certainly be the top-ranked B1G squad in the polls.  And now, after sweeping a really good (and higher-ranked) Indiana club, there is faint talk that the U. could actually host a Regional this year.  That would be something.  These guys are clearly tops in the WMNSS this screening week, and talk of hosting a Regional lifts them up negative spots.

This weekend's series against Michigan St. is the last one at home for these guys.  It may be the most unheralded seat in town.  And if seeing the crowd from the other side of Cowles Stadium is any indication, more people have discovered the joy of Siebert Field this year than they have in any previous one.

#-1: United FC (Last Week: -1).  All I can say is, thank the gods for Miguel Ibarra and Bobby Shuttleworth.  The Loons were playing the last 40 Minutes of their game against Vancouver a man down after rookie Striker Mason Toye, making his first start of the year for MNUFC, elbowed Kendall Watson out of frustration in the Whitecaps' box and immediately got Red-Carded.  But Ibarra, who apparently has the heart of a hummingbird, finally made his non-stop pestering pan out with a second-effort Goal from the equally hard-working Darwin Quintero in the 60th.

I hope that with the heart that he's shown this and last year, Adrian Heath now has complete trust in Batman. All Ibarra does is give 100%. It may not pay dividends, but the effort is there. Heath does have enough trust in Ibarra that earlier in the week, before the Transfer Window closed, MNUFC traded a different Winger, Sam Nicholson (who just got here), to Colorado for Defender and One Of Us, Eric Miller.  (Note: I'm surprised, in a good way, that both Miller and Nicholson started their first games after being traded for each other.)  Once again the Loons need help on D and went to the Rapids to find reinforcements.  That trade last year, which sent back Marc Burch and Sam Cronin, immediately stanched the bleeding Backline last year; early indications with Miller after one match shows that this could be happening this year as well.

Have to note Shuttleworth's heroics in shutting out the Whitecaps (the team's first clean sheet of the season) Saturday afternoon.  MNUFC was badly outshot, especially after Minnesota went up 1-0, but he made save after save to keep them off the scoreboard -- especially on a leaping save from Vancouver sub Brek Shea.  (I really wanted to embed highlights from both the Ibarra Goal and the Shuttleworth Save here, but I can't find a decent video for either of them.  Weird in this day and age.)  So a four-game losing streak has turned into a two-game winning streak, and as it stands right now, they're in the playoffs.  That's what home cookin' does for ya!  They play five-of-six, virtually the entire month of May, at TCF Bank Stadium.  But this week will be tricky: They go to the brand-new Banc Of California Stadium and play LAFC Wednesday night, then come back to host San Jose (that game where the Gopher baseball team will be playing Michigan St. not too far away from the stadium and Siebert Field) Saturday afternoon.  Tricky week aside, things are looking up for this squad.

#-2: Gopher softball (Last Week: 0).  I pretty much recapped this club's screening week in the baseball entry.  None of the games they played against Penn St. went the natural seven Innings: There was Friday's match which they went on to lose in eight; they came back Saturday by slaughtering the Nittany Lions, 19-0, in the minimum five Innings; and in the contest I watched, they also mercy-ruled the Lions, 8-0 in six.  While this team probably will not host a Regional, they definitely are in the NCAA Tournament, even if they flame out in this weekend's conference tourney, being played in Madison, Wisc.  Note that this is single-elimination involving all but the teams with the two-worst league records (which are Penn St., which had faint hopes of making the tournament and Rutgers).  The Gophers' first game will be Friday early afternoon versus either the host Badgers or Purdue.  The Semifinals and Final will be played Saturday.

#-3: Twins (Last Week: -3).  Went 4-3 this screening week, and although it's important to note that the Twinks had lost 11-of-12, including the first two games of their series at home against Toronto, they currently have won four of their last five, so maybe we all can put that horrible losing funk behind us.  Credit for finally stopping that funk goes to Fernando Romero.  The organization's best pitching prospect was called up for Wednesday's game against the Blue Jays, and he responded by going 5 2/3 Innings and allowing no Runs while striking out five.  And even though they went to Comiskey and promptly lost the first game of the series to the White Sox Thursday, they took the last three.  The White Sox: MLB's slump-buster?

They remain on the road this screening week.  Romero makes his second start in The Show tonight (Monday night) at Busch against St. Louis in a two-game series.  After taking a rare Wednesday off, they are in Anaheim to play the Angels and newly-minted 3,000-hit man Albert Pujols for a four-game set for the weekend.

#-4: Vikings (Re-Entry!).  Forgot to talk about the NFL Draft in last week's WMNSS.  All I can (and will; I have about 45 minutes before I have to wake up for work) say about the draft is that I'm disappointed that they didn't get more Offensive Line help.  Yes, I hear that O-Line prospects were relatively meager this year, but that doesn't mean the Vikings didn't need the help.  Instead, they spent their First-Round pick on Mike Hughes, a Cornerback from Central Florida who was kicked out of North Carolina his freshman year for fighting.  On top of that, Hughes has a rape rap on him that's been dismissed.  I'm saying that this isn't a guy one takes a chance on, and certainly not when the Vikings have decent bodies (not necessarily depth) in a position relative to other positions.

This is shaping up to be a make-or-break year.  If this is any indication, this club will once again fail to come through in the face of overwhelming self-imposed expectations.

#-5: Wild (Re-Entry!).  I also am tardy talking about the ouster of General Manager Chuck Fletcher.  Let me say that while he seems to be a good guy, eight years of not even reaching the Western Conference Finals is enough.

I am still pessimistic about the long-term prospects of this team, and those worries are only exacerbated when Owner Craig Leipold said that this franchise needed a tweak and not an overhaul.  I don't know if Leipold understands that he has one of the oldest teams in the NHL.  And he may not know (at least I didn't) that there is the appearance that the two long-term signings Fletcher made Independence Day 2012 of Ryan Suter and Zach Parise has instilled a culture where those two guys run the show.

Hey, all the credit to Fletch for making the signing, and to Leipold for okaying the money.  The Mild were dead in this town, not having made the playoffs the previous four years prior to the Double Major signing.  But frankly, I don't care how you win -- just win.  If you lose, it doesn't matter if you showed you cared by signing top free agents.  There are many teams still in the playoffs who have won by building through the draft.  Those teams are in a better position now than the Wild.  And these guys need just a tweak?  All I can see out of these guys now is longstanding mediocrity, if not a painful slide into irrelevance.

I Was Waiting To Write Today's Blog Post Until The Morning, When I Had Something To Write About. And I Do!

Father is rampage-cleaning the house again.  Thought I would show him I was sort-of serious about cleaning, so I actually took time this morning to clean the tub and sink, and to do some cursory picking up and dusting in my bedroom.  Didn't seem to matter to him, as he cleaned the upstairs bathroom a second time.  Man, if you want me to clean, and then you clean after me, why do I clean?

---

As I left for Diamonds, at which I am typing this blog post right now, Father marched up the steps and opened the door to my bedroom, which is something I thought he would do.  But he marched up the steps with a mop -- not a Swiffer, but a huge, dirty mop that's been in more dark places than my dick has been, which won't do anything except push things around.  And I thought, Ew, my room is going to get dirtier, not cleaner!  Now I really want to clean my bedroom with the Swiffer.  Which would be ironic justice; he cleans the bathroom after me, so I clean my bedroom after he does.

---

While looking through things to throw away to show Father I'm serious about cleaning, I found one of the letters from the county I hadn't yet opened.  Glad I did this morning; it was the first bill for my new health insurance.  After years of not needing to pay for it, I now have premiums.  And it's ... $16 a month.  Whew!  Thought it would be worse.  I can actually pay that and not go into bankruptcy!

Expenses Without Receipt

OK, starting from Friday, May 4:

• The first of two big parties for the week.  This was at ******s's place, the one who sexted me her big ass.  I fucked her as much as I could, but two days after blowing my wad, I couldn't cum the conventional way, so I had to just jerk myself off onto her tits and vaginal area.  It still was good.  There were several other girls there, but I only got a quick lapper from ****a, who understood it wasn't her time to go into the bed with her, because the last time I was at ******s's party, I took ****a to the back.  There was another girl who I met, clothed, at My Favorite Stripclub (Non-Cover Division).  I remember promising on Facebook to get an LD from her, but I didn't know she was there.  Well, either that or I didn't know her stripper name, so I was surprised she was there, although on Messenger she did say she thought she was going to be working ******s's party.  I totally forgot that until I decided to leave.  I would have given more money, but the fucking cover was $20 and I had to tip the doorwoman, *a***, who is eight months pregnant and, I believe, drank a glass of wine while I was there.  Total: $165.
• Back to Wednesday the 2nd, which is about a week after my niece's birthday.  I feel really bad that I can't see her as often as I should, and I think that giving her fits is a way to remind her that, you know, she has an uncle who cares for her.  I asked my sister-in-law for advice and she said either a board game or a book.  I quickly decided on Corduroy, the classic book about the bear.  The evening after I gave my sister-in-law her daughter's gift, she texted me back video of my niece opening up the gift ... well, trying to.  I had it wrapped at the only mall I know that can wrap gifts.  And apparently the worker was so good at it that of the 3 1/2 minutes of the video, all but a minute of it was my niece and her mom trying to unwrap the gift.  But in the end, that smile and her saying my name melts my heart.  It's funny: She knows who I am, yet back on Christmas Eve, when I visited her, she wouldn't get near me.  Is she so spoiled that the only way to get into her good graces is to bribe her with gifts?  If so ... yeah, maybe I'll do it.  I got Corduroy at Barnes & Noble, so I have a receipt.  But I don't have a receipt for the gift-wrapping, so I'll record it here: $4.50.
• I bought this on this date, even though I am kind of late for my niece's birthday gift, because it was in the same city as my first party of the week.  I noted all my exploits here.  With cover: $195.
• Let's take it back to Sunday, April 29, where I started my day at Caffetto, where I thought I would be there for a while, then realized I shouldn't.  Hot chocolate plus tip equals: $3.75.
• I remembered that the Big Ten Women's Tennis Tournament Final was being held at the Baseline Tennis Center at the U.  It was a way to burn a couple hours, but that meant that the other things I wanted to do, namely get a haircut and go to the library to make some copies, I had to find the time for.  So I made a reservation at Great Clips for a haircut, which was being sold for nine bucks from Thursday till Monday, and jetted to the Quarry.  And just in time, too; the woman who buzzed my hair said that there would be a rush of people coming in from church.  I was there a half-hour, max, thank goodness.  Cost with tip: $1211.99.
• So this was the first tennis event I ever went to.  Going in was free; the U. just opened up the gates and there I was, at eight tennis courts on a plot of land that, a quarter-century ago, was a parking lot.  I really had no idea what to expect.  All I knew was this was the title match between Northwestern and Michigan.  In the end, the 2-seed Wolverines upset the top-seeded Wildcats by winning the final two singles matches to finish.  I was right in front of the Wolverines player after she put away Championship Point; if I were a photographer, I would have had the perfect vantage point of her teammates rushing from background to foreground to mob #2 player.  I'm glad I went.  I just wish I put on some sunscreen and/or realized that I would be there for 3 1/2 hours, because I got a sunburn on the left side of my face, head and neck.  This EWR is for the program I bought: $5.
• Jetted to the library after the tennis matches.  I don't think I printed anything out, but I was pressing as shit just before the library closed because there was a line of people using the only two copy machines in the library, and one of them wasn't working, or so I thought.  At a quarter or ten to 5, I got the two copies of forms related to filling out this claim form for (potentially) applying for compensation money as part of a stock settlement regarding Facebook.  Total of: 20 cents.
• Saturday the 28th ... I went to the Twins game.  I got to start either thinking about snappy comebacks against asshole scalpers or avoid them altogether.  No goddamn way he was able to sell that ticket for what he wanted for it, bojanglin' slapdick.  But his loss was the organization's gain.  Sitting in the Center Field bleachers made me realize how hot the sun is even in late April.  On my way in I was given two free samples of yogurt.  I was told I could take them into the ballpark.  And then I decided I wanted a hot dog and a souvenir-sized Coke, because I thought I was too skinny.  So the total cost for the ticket, the hot dog and the big Pepsi came out to ... a very reasonable: $30.
• After the game I went up the street to my alma mater's spot for watching football games.  Wanted to pop in there to keep up relations, and to have a place to go before going to the United match.  Just a bottle of Bud Light, since it was Happy Hour.  Plus tip: $3.75.
• At the MNUFC game I had my usual: A hot dog and a Redd's.  Total: $15.25.
• After the win (and again I was surprised I went to two games on this day and saw the home team win both; that, seriously, never fucking happens) I went to Glam Doll to celebrate.  Got a free donut this time around.  With tip: $9.25.
• Reeling back to Wednesday, April 25, where I went to the library to print some stuff out for Mother.  Total: 20 cents.
• On Sunday the 22nd I ate at McDonald's for the first time in many a moon.  Don't remember which Mickey D's or why, but I took advantage of their value menu.  I like trying new, more expensive items, but eating a cheeseburger, small fries and a small Coke is more then enough of a lunch for me these days.  Lunch set me back: $3.97.
• I then went to the library to type out some letters for Mother, I think.  But three?  How come?  Probably because when I printed out my first letter I forgot to put something in, and then I remembered I had to put something in a second time.  Dammit.  Total of: 30 cents.

It's been only a dozen days, but I thought I would have a hell of a lot more EWRs to note.  I don't.  Phew!  Good through May 4.