The Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey

Positive Numbers: Gopher softball (Last Week: 0).  Don't look now, but the U. softballers are on a holy roll.  Five wins this week, two sweeps of their two closest geographic rivals -- a Doubleheader sweep at Wisconsin Wednesday, a three-Game sweep of Iowa at Cowles over the weekend by a combined score of 23-1.  Suck it, Kendyl Lindamann!

This team has won its last 11, stand at 37-10 overall and 18-1 in the Big Ten.  It is now very appropriate to project where the U. will be placed in the NCAA Tournament.  The only college softball bracketologist on the Internet has, as of press time, Minnesota as the overall eight-seed.  So not only would they host a Regional (which would be sweet seeing as I have not been to a softball game yet this year) but, if they win out, be in line to host a Super Regional, too.  And maybe make it to the club's first-ever Women's College World Series??

And yet, despite all of their powerful bona fides, the Golden Gophers are not in first place in the B1G.  In fact, they're not even in second.  Michigan is a half-Game ahead of them at 19-1, and Northwestern is leading the conference at 20-0.  Which makes this weekend so mouth-watering.  The Gophers play the Wildcats to finish out the regular season at home.  Considering that both the 'Cats and the Wolverines are projected by College Sports Madness to make the field but as unseeded squads, this should mean that Minnesota is favored.  Heck, if the Gophers sweep, they might take the regular season conference title.  I feel bad, then, that I'll probably miss the series.

#0: United FC (Last Week: -3).  Well, at least the Loons went undefeated this screening week.  On Wednesday, without the services of Jan Gregus and Francisco Calvo (both of whom got Red-Carded late in the defeat to Toronto), a fortified Backline of substitutes Brent Kallman and Eric Miller battled to a scoreless draw against the Los Angeles Galaxy (a match I had to miss because I was filling in at work second shift).  Adrian Heath, a Manager loathe to change starting lineups if his starters are healthy, apparently liked what he saw during that match (in particular the combination of Kallman and Ike Opara bottling up Zlatan Ibrahimovich) and not only kept Calvo but also Michael Boxall (who did not start midweek because of, well, sucking) on the bench Sunday afternoon against Wayne Rooney and D.C. United.

And, finally!



Courtesy of a (admittedly weak) tap-in by Angelo Rodriguez (with an assist by Romain Metanire, a Defender who is fast becoming a godsend for MNUFC), the good guys finally won their first match at Allianz Field. (It also helped that a D.C. United Goal was overturned after VAR.) So four Points and no defeats this week means that, as of right now, United FC are in a playoff spot. (Not a difficult challenge; more than half the teams will make it.)

Can the XI continue their non-losing ways at home Saturday versus Seattle?

#-1: Twins (Last Week: -1).  A lot has been made that the Twin Cities is the worst of the metropolitan areas with Quadspo (that is teams in the Big Four Sports) since the Wild were eliminated from the playoffs.  That means that neither the Wild, Timberwolves, Vikings nor Twins made it to the postseason their last year.  That fact has recurred a lot over the past two decades.

But if you have to take a guess as to which of those four franchises has the best chance of winning a championship, no foolin', you might as well bet on the Twins.  Sure, they began this screening week by dropping the last two Games of a series in Houston.  And sure, everybody will probably beat up on the Baltimore Orioles the same way Minnesota did at Target over the weekend (they swept the season series, 6-0, and have Major League Baseball's active streak of most consecutive wins over another squad).  But last (Monday) night Jake Odorizzi somehow outdueled the Astros' Justin Verlander (who smoked the Twins back on Wednesday, 7-1) in a 1-0 thriller, thus ending the Twins' week at 4-2.  Better yet, they sit atop the American League Central.

But maybe best of all is the feeling you get around these guys.  They are young, they are a tad cocky, and they are fun to watch.  Mostly it's because of their full embrace of analytics, and the dividends they are beginning to reap from obeying them.  The Twins currently lead the majors (I think?) in Slugging Percentage.  (It helps to uncork, like, a dozen Home Runs against The Bastard St. Louis Browns.)  Jose Berrios and Kyle Gibson are rounding into form as good, and maybe even reliable, starters.  And all this without Miguel Sano, who finally can start facing at-bats in the minor leagues this week.  In short, this is a team that feels like it's on the rise.  And it's possible that this season is going to extend into October.  Really, I have never felt so good about a team that finished third in a Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey!

But first things first: Three more against Houston (who leads the American League West) at Target Field, then the dreaded annual trip to the Bronx to face the Yankees.  Then they cross the border to start a three-Game set against Toronto starting on Monday.

#-2: Gopher baseball (Last Week: -2).  And finally, bringing up the wah-wah rear, are the Goofer male Nine, who lost two-of-three over the weekend at 23rd-ranked Indiana.  (Weirdly, the winning team scored seven Runs all three tilts.)  Oh, and tonight's (Tuesday night's) match vs. North Dakota St. at Siebert has been cancelled because rain's supposed to move into our area this evening.  But tomorrow's (Wednesday evening's) home Game against Wisconsin-Milwaukee is still supposed to be on.  That is scheduled to be the first of nine Games that will end the home portion of this club's schedule; they host Ohio St. over the weekend.

Hottest Babe In The Hooters Calendar: March

Need to do this before I get more than a month behind.

And it is difficult to assess the girls for March.  Partly it's because I've had to hide the calendar from my parents, so I haven't been able to look at the pretty babes every day and, through osmosis, passively analyze them.  But also (and this may be a byproduct of looking at them just now and quickly) I don't think this is a great batch.  For example, the "cover girl," Kaylee out of Flint, Mich., looks nice enough, but she's lying on her side, so she's not showing much.

In fact the other nine hotties for this page aren't showing much.  Some of them have too much covered up.  A disturbing number of them are shot from the side, for some reason.

But three stand out, and I just now decided that I won't do a three-way tie (which would be a first) and I instead will select a winner.  First, in third place is Phoenix's Nekkei.  Scoop-line bikini top, beautiful sideboob and ample titties.  The only problem I have with her is that she's posing with her arms bent vertically, which I find distracting.  The second-place finisher, Katrina from Farmingdale, N.Y., also does this; in fact, she's clutching the straps of her bikini top.  But she's got better-defined abs and she's wearing a Hooters bikini.  Being on message is always a plus in my book.

But the best babe for March is New York City's own Victoria.  I have seen more attractive, to be quite honest.  But she does have a nice smile, and she is sporting a red two-piece, her body parts are nice, and she's directly facing the camera, full frontal.  That's good enough for me.  So Victoria, congratulations, you win!

And I hope to have time to masturbate to all these chicks as I start working nights as well as days.

Creepy Man In The Neighborhood

Just for the record, coming home late this afternoon, I see this dirty-looking, crazy-looking, old white dude with a mustache, beard and what looks like a stack of branches hanging from his bag walking down my street just as I was going up my driveway.  I couldn't help but look at him, at which point he locked eyes with me with an expression that basically was, "What are you lookin' at?!" to which point he took a left away from my house and up the nearest cross street.  But dude looked like he was trippin'.  He had those murderous eyes to him.  And he probably could tell which house I live in.

So if I or my parents die, you know who did it.

Guess It's That Time Of The Year When I Molt

So last Sunday I went to Siebert Field to catch the Minnesota Gophers baseball game against Oklahoma.  It was perfect weather for a baseball game -- no rain, a wind that was there but not stifling, temperatures warm but not hot ... and mostly sunny skies.  It certainly wasn't the same weather as, say, the Allianz Field opener.  Temperatures may not have reached 50, and it was overcast all day, so I broke out my long underwear for just that one day.  The game Sunday, well, that was summer weather, so I wore just a t-shirt and shorts, the first time all year I wore the latter (obviously).

I did not expect, however, that the sun would be so, uh, hot.  It probably got past 70, but (and I know I shouldn't think like this) to me, that wasn't a high enough temperature to put on sunscreen.  I, in fact, thought that, since it was my first real exposure to the "hot" sun, my exposed skin could withstand it.  It felt good for most of the game, but near the end, I started feeling something.  It felt like my skin was burning, and not just tanning.  I am familiar with this feeling before, but I swear I had no idea this would happen to me just sitting and watching a baseball game.

After I got home, and probably the day after, that's when the pain hit me.  I remember reading once that a sunburn is like killing off your skin cells, and the burning sensation felt like I just let my skin cells fry and die in the sun.  My arms (well, the one that was facing the sun for most of the game) and, to a lesser extent, my legs felt painful to the touch.  I thought those areas would tan; instead, it went from pale to red, not brown.  It got so bad that I went online and have used two things that is supposed to lessen the pain from sunburns: Taking ibuprofen and rubbing something with aloe on the affected areas.

It has been a week, so the most painful sensations have gone away.  But not all of it; I still feel the burn whenever I twist my arm, or the shirt I'm wearing rubs up against my arms or legs.  And now I see that the skin on my right arm is starting to peel.  This time last night it was a small spot.  Now that spot has grown, and an even bigger one has popped up and started to spread.  It looks as though to fight a sunburn, you have to contain the damage and then push it up into the dermis, whereby my body can get rid of it by exposing the dead skin cells to the outside and the elements.  I wonder if the peeling skin will get worse.

This should convince me to wear sunscreen, even on a spring day.  But I know I probably won't do that.

Seeing My Late Grandmother's Best Friend

I don't think I've blogged about her.  If I haven't, or even if I already have, I should.

So I visit Grandmother's best friend, who, because of her late husband, gets to live in a veterans' home.  It's hell of a long way from where I live, and it is a pain in the ass.  But it was a pain in the ass to visit Grandmother in St. Paul, but I did it because I love her.  I love Grandmother's friend, too, even though, as a kid, I would always be angry about her cutting my hair.  That's how I know her: Grandmother would always take me and my brother to see her, when she didn't live too far away, and she would cut my hair.  She was good, even though I never was mature enough to admit that to her.

My days of getting my hair cut by her have been long gone, of course.  She got older, she lost her husband, had to stop cutting hair and then, eventually, moved to a home.  (This is her second home; the first one was close to our house, and she had an apartment.  I think she said that she had to move out because it was getting too expensive.)  And even though I tried getting those two to talk to each other once we shipped Grandmother out to Hong Kong, the time difference, where we would have to initiate the call at around midnight, made it impossible.  I think I remember the last time those two saw each other, when Grandmother was in the St. Paul home.  I brought Grandmother's friend there, and I think she arranged plans to get picked up by someone else.  I hope the visit was worth it for them.

I've tried to see this friend a little more often now that Grandmother has died.  I try monthly, but when I visited this afternoon it probably was closer to two months.  Her frailty is getting to her.  When she was first in the nursing home, we had conversations where she would start to meander, but I thought it was just because she was so lonely.  Now, I can tell what she is going to say because it's the same things she says every time I come over: How long has Grandmother been gone; I plan on going to Paris to see my friend; there's this guy on the floor who likes me, etc.  She has gotten to a point where she sometimes repeats things she has said on my visit already, and that makes me sad.  But I never got the impression that she was physically on the decline.

However, I have always been afraid of that, because one day, she will physically be on the decline.  In fact, because I am not family, if she dies, I won't know that until I go down to her home, visit her room, and see a nameplate with a different nameplate.  It'll be such a macabre and sad feeling, made worse by the tragic comedy of thinking she was alive and then learning through a nurse that she's dead.  And since I have no business being there besides her, I'll have nothing to do except, you know, leaving.  Just show up, "Oh, she died, sorry," and sign myself out.  That sequence of events is so pathetic, and yet I know that's going to happen one day.  And maybe soon.

I dropped down to see her this afternoon, but she was asleep.  She was lying face up, and she appeared to be a little more frail around the face than I remember.  (Better than the bruises I saw she had a couple visits ago; hope to Buddha that was from a fall and not, uh, man-made.)  I didn't want to wake her up because, hey, would you want to be waken up from a good sleep just to say hi?  I sure wouldn't.  But I'm scared as all get-out that that is the last image of Grandmother's best friend I will have while she's alive.  It has gotten to be a chore to listen to her, to be honest.  But better that than the day I learn she is gone.

Addendum To: Once Again, I'll Miss Second Shift

By the way, what really helped out this week (which is not specific to second shift because it applied to all shifts) is that we are celebrating ourselves this week.  To celebrate, amongst other things (such as a free raffle for prizes and special classes on country-line dancing and origami), the company has given us food from Sunday till tomorrow.  It was, in order:

• Sunday: donuts (which I didn't find, even though I made a special trip [even though I don't work Sundays here])
• Monday: bagels
• Tuesday: fruit
• Wednesday: pizza, salad and pop
• Thursday: bread with cinnamon-apple butter
• Friday: popcorn
• Saturday: bagels again

Free food makes the workday go by a lot better, if not faster, since I'm fatter now.

Expenses Without Receipts

Starting from Thursday, April 25:

• One of the things I wanted to do during this week of second shifts is go back to Caribou, a place where, when I was unemployed, I went to every morning to fool my parents into thinking I was working during the day.  It's been months since I've been here, and it's felt really good to come back to do something that was once routine for me, even if it was for one day.  Large mocha (which was a dollar off this day), small oatmeal chocolate chip cookie, minus ten cents for getting it right.  Got a receipt for that, so this EWR is just for the tip, which is: $1.
• Tuesday the 23rd -- With the shift on my workday for the week to second, uh, shift, I had wondered what to do with my mornings and afternoons.  Should I stay in and save money?  Should I go out and exercise?  Are there things that I haven't been able to do during the workday that I could do this week?  Ultimately I decide by asking what I usually ask: Are there things that I won't be able to do again if I decide to skip it?  Well, I'm not sure if there will be another weekday where the Nomad Pub will be open, so I left early on this day to take in Tottenham Hotspurs' EPL match against Brighton and Hove Albion, at least for the First Half.  (Spurs won with a Goal late, 1-0.)  Since there is no food served at the Nomad besides Heggies Pizza, I got there early, walked to Chipotle, and brought my bowl (first time I eschewed a burrito from Chipotle ... but I think I'm going back to burritos because I don't think I got a whole lot in my bowl) into the bar to watch the match.  I bought a Surly Hell, on special for soccer games, to wash the Chipotle bowl down.  With tip the beer cost me: $5.
• On Monday the 22nd I went to the library -- ostensibly to finally get tabs for my car, but Mother asked me to print something, and then while I was at the library she asked me to print something else.  Turns out neither of the two things I printed for her was what she wanted, so I'll have to go out again and get that printed for her.  Anyway, I printed six pages' worth, so I spent: 60 cents.
• Monday was Earth Day, and Dunn Bros. was selling all drinks for a buck off of what would be a small (regardless of the size of your mug) if you brought in your own mug.  I was starting my week on second shift, and I really wanted to switch it up, even though I didn't want to buy coffee every single day of the week.  But normally, if you bring your mug into Dunn Bros. you would only be charged for a small (no extra dollar off, like on Monday), so to switch it up just this one time, I went in.  It was still expensive, IMHO.  With tip: $4.75.
• On Sunday the 21st I went to the Golden Gopher baseball game against a school that doesn't come up these parts to often (well, not at all, at least not in half a century), Oklahoma.  Got one hell of a sunburn; should blog about that.  And the Sooners put the kibosh on the U.'s at-large hopes with a come-from-behind win.  In other news, they finally caught me.  I presented them with my decades-old student ID, and the person at the ticket window said that all students now have to go through the application.  I have no idea if it would work for me, and besides, the game was about to start, so I just paid for a ticket, albeit the student price of five bucks.  I don't remember what I paid for my hot dog and souvenir-sized Coke.  Add a program (which was a buck) and I am guessing at how much I spent at the game: $19.50.
• After the game/loss I had time to go to St. Paul and finally go to Mickey's Diner for the year.  Best to do it on this date: I could take in an afternoon snack in the afternoon, go to downtown St. Paul on Sunday when meters are free, and I'm going when there's nothing going on.  I mean, there ain't no Wild playoff game, heh-heh!  I was going to eat big at home in a few hours, so I just got a Potatoes O'Brian and a chocolate shake.  With tip: $12.50
• Friday, April 19 ... had this urge to get my hair cut.  Paid full price at Great Clips, even though it seems obscenely expensive to do so.  With tip: $19.
• That evening, after dinner, I went to McKinney Roe, this swank new bar in downtown Minneapolis, which was hosting the MNUFC watch party.  Great room and great atmosphere, even though the eventual come-from-ahead loss was ultimately a downer.  All Summits were on sale, so I got a Summer Ale for the less-than-90 minutes I was there.  With tip: $7.
• Went to Glam Doll afterwards.  Got a free donut this time around!  One paid donut, pour-over, tip, and a dollar for the free donut equals: $9.29.
• Tuesday the 16th I was in Dallas, where I spent much of my time with my friend with who I was staying with (well, she and her husband).  We went out to the Rangers game (they beat Anaheim).  I am fanatical for not paying for parking, but she insisted that we park as close as possible because she didn't want to walk.  In any relationship you compromise, so I paid for parking and she paid for food.  And I paid -- oof: $20.
• And then my friend found a couple stray dollar bills in her hand and gave them to me.  She didn't have to -- she was saying for food -- but she insisted.  I love her.  An Infusion of: $2.
• On Monday, April 15 (aka Tax Day) I left the hotel I stayed at for the day.  It was a run-down big hotel that had its days.  I wouldn't say it was a grand hotel, just big.  It was one of those that had balconies on the inside of the building, not the outside.  I find such a set-up fascinating, and if the people staying there were businesspeople and not those who are struggling financially, I would really like staying there.  Nevertheless I had a great room which I regret not staying in for more than a day.  Well, the toilet didn't flush.  I would press down the lever and the water in the bowl would just gurgle.  Oh, and my room was a weird mish-mash of old and new features.  The bathroom (toilet excepted) looks incredibly modern, but the walls in the bedroom are made of stucco.  Oh, and the TV is new school ... but after the evening I couldn't get the volume to work.  Anyway, morning housekeeper tip: $1.
• I've been to the Big D three times, and I have been to the institution called Sonny Bryan's every single time, including on this day.  Was treated nicer this time.  One of several instances I got sweet tea, which seemed natural to buy in this part of the country.  With tip the meal was: $10.63.
• Had an afternoon free, so I went to arguably The Greatest Soccer Pub In The U.S., the Londoner.  I underestimated the length of time I needed to drive from close to downtown Dallas to a suburb north, and so I was late for the game, which I hate, but hey, I had never been up there before, so I have to give myself some slack.  Smells like a soccer pub, which means a lot to me and may not make a lot of sense to you.  Per a recommendation on a Thrillist article on Dallas soccer pubs, I got a craft beer called the Blood and Honey from Revolution Brewery.  Really good.  In fact, I was impressed by all the craft beers I got while down there.  With tip: $6.
• Sunday, April 14 is the first day of my vacation to Dallas, whereby I was going to succeed in my twin goals of 1) seeing my friend and 2) seeing a Rangers game at Globe Life Park before they close it down at the end of the year.  (I needed to go in April instead of later in the year because I would lose all my Southwest Airlines funds if I didn't go before the 20th.  Have I blogged about this before?)  Tip for the rental shuttle: $1.
• My arrival time to Dallas was several hours before my departure time from Dallas.  If I had reserved a rental car for my entire stay in Big D, I would have had to pay for an extra day to cover those several hours.  I was not going to do that, so I gave myself a choice: Either stick around Dallas Love after arriving and maybe have a big lunch before getting the car, or return the car and get to the airport early and may have a big lunch then.  I decided to spend most of my time during my vacation watching baseball.  I wanted to take in a college baseball game, and I thought it would be at, of all places, Texas-Arlington hosting TCU.  But with my friend being free only on that night, and me deciding that we would spend that night at the Rangers game, that would mean that if I wanted to take in a college baseball match, it would have to be different.  Well, I had only one other option: TCU again, this time hosting, of all teams, Seton Hall.  Decided I would get the rental early -- touch down and get going.  (My friend had time Wednesday afternoon, so after I brought my car back in time, we had time to eat barbecue and sit alone together.)  The stadium at Fort Worth is faded, but it is a bona fide small baseball stadium.  Too bad the team lost to the Pirates, 7-3.  (Only saw after I got back home that TCU is actually a Top 25 team.  Didn't see it that day.)  The Horned Frogs also apparently started selling beer this year, what with the signs indicating that beer was available.  It was weird, though, to see a young girl, obviously too young to drink beer herself, pouring me a Deep Ellum IPA -- and twice, since her hand slipped off the first can she needed to pour into a generic purple (the main color for Texas Christian University sports) plastic cup and dunked the whole can in it.  Sunday was Dollar Dog Day, so that's what I ate.  With ticket: $23.
• Even though I didn't have the money, I had to go to a strip club, and so I went to "The" strip club in town, Baby Dolls.  Babes everywhere, and one babe, a domestic one, uh, made me cum.  Cover, tips, a Shiner Bock (a well-known Texas beer) and that lapper: $152.75.
• Saturday the 13th ... MNUFC's first-ever game at beautiful Allianz Field.  I wanted to record the opening kick, and goddammit, I forgot to press the button on my phone.  I charged my food on my credit card, but I tipped one of those drummer-buskers on my out of the match: $1.
• Oh, I parked at Rosedale and rode the A Line from there and back.  Because I wanted to make sure I wasn't fumbling around with my wallet if the bus taking me there was there, I charged the ticket on the way to the stadium.  But I used cash on my way back to the mall: $2.
• Tuesday, April 9: This was the day where I finished up my taxes.  I went to the library in order to make the copies of them: $1.50.
• On Monday the 8th, amongst other things, I went to get my shoes shined at Lisa's.  With tip: $15.
• Back to Sunday the 7th, where I spent the morning inbetween my stint working the Final Four at Diamonds to concentrate on my taxes.  I should drink tea more often, and I decided this was the day to do so.  Besides, I was drinking coffee like a fiend each and every day working the FF, about four cups a day.  With tip: $3.75.
• I then went to the Egypt's Sunken Treasures (or something like that) exhibit at the Minneapolis Institute Of Art.  Bought the ticket beforehand online and I charged the audio tour.  I threw in a donation on my way out, specifically: $3.
• Then went to the library.  When I was working on my taxes at Diamonds, I believed I needed to print out more forms.  That's what I did, and I printed out a letter for Mother, I think.  Total: 30 cents.
• Went to My Favorite Stripclub (Non-Cover Version) at night, I think.  With the price of coffee going up again there, I decided fuck it, I'll just get a beer like everyone else.  It's not as if I'm walking into that bar again come the New Year.  With a tip for the Budweiser, stage tips and possibly the first-ever lap dance I got from the big-titted veteran Julie U., I spent: $34.
• Wednesday, April 3 -- went to the library in the middle of my stint at the Final Four.  Went to the library after work, and I was so tired and flustered while working on my taxes that I forgot my fucking change.  Still mad at myself about it.  Printouts of tax forms and the change I "donated" to the library: $1.

Once Again, I'll Miss Second Shift

Without any authority figures around me -- once again I have the run of the department all to myself -- I can do my work at my own pace.  And since the people I'm supposed to help (from the other room) understand that there are many slow spots during the night (although not as much as I thought for a shift that ends at midnight), I can feel like I can blog this at work without feeling much heat (although I had one of them step into the room as I had a screen showing listings for satellite radio because I forgot to flip it to another window).  I should have taken my lunch already, but because I wanted to hear the NFL Draft, I still haven't done it.  And you know what?  I don't think I'll get much blowback.

I love working by myself!

To The Teenage, Privileged, Punk-Ass Virginia Thief (Getting This Off My Chest):

Takes a lot of balls to barge into the dining tent and take water bottles.  What made you think you could do that?  Was there a sign that says "FREE WATER?"  I know there wasn't.  And it sure as shit didn't look like you were working for us.

Why did you take water bottles from us?  Were you parched?  Were you going to die of thirst if you or your buddies or your family didn't get water immediately?  Your smirk while you were stealing water from us and then casually walking out the door made me think you weren't on your last legs, buddy boy.

The only reasons I didn't stop you were: 1) I was on my phone; 2) I didn't think anyone would have the balls, let alone the impropriety of taking things that were not theirs, to walk into a place you're not allowed; and 3) the catering company had bags and bags of water, and you taking several was not going to bankrupt them.  That still gives you no goddamn right to do what you did.  Those were not your bottles of water to take.

But the most galling thing of all?  You didn't even flip the cooler lid down.  You put it up, took the water ... and left it up.  You didn't have the fucking decency just to put it down, asshole?  Why not?  You wanted to show me up?  Were you being a troll?  Were you making a political statement?  Were you trying to stick it to The Man?  Because, to me, looking at the slick Virginia jacket you were wearing (after your team won the title game, by the way) and how you were acting, you're a Republican little shit who thinks taking things from people is his birthright, no matter how illegal what you did is (and yes, what you did is illegal even if I didn't stop you).  Stephen Miller is probably your spirit animal.

Next time you're probably going to steal something of real value, and that's when I, or someone with a much worse temper, will have to stop you by any means necessary.  Bitch.

Yeah, So What I Was Afraid Would Eventually Happen Did Happen

Got home late because I wanted to eat at the Pizza Luce in Roseville.  (They close at 2:30.  A hip, alcohol-serving, suburban sit-down place closes at 2:30.  There needs to be more places like this.)  Wanted a ticket to the MNRG bout Saturday (a friends' final game announcing) and then I wanted to eat at Pizza Luce.  Got home at around 1:30; went to bed soon after.

Woke up at 8:30.  Turned on Stephanie Miller.  Faded back to sleep, off-an-on.  Finally, just before 11, Father yells through my bedroom door, "Are you awake?"  To which I say yes and -- this might be where I erred -- I opened the door, which gives him the opportunity to say, of course, "Yeah, maybe you should find something to do in the morning!"

I slam the door shut so I could gin up the courage to say what I wanted to say to him under my breath: "I got home at 1:30, asshole, I WAS SLEEPING!!!"  But whatever, man.  I think I'll find "something to do" in the morning, like have coffee and talk to my therapist about you and the damage you continue to do to me.  And by the way, I should look up that test scoring job that might start during the evenings next week.  That'll give me another "something to do," huh, old man?

Re-Ice Out

Forgot to note that with the blizzard we got about two weeks ago, I think -- I think -- it was Thursday, April 18 where the last remnants of that snow finally melted away.  I came home from Dallas the previous evening, and by the time I went out to work in the morning, I think the rain overnight melted it all.

Good talk.

The Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey

Positive Numbers: Gopher men's gymnastics (BRAND NEW!!!).  I should try and include other Golden Gophers sports teams on the WMNSS, and pleading ignorance is getting to be a weaker and weaker excuse to leave them out.  I do have a reason to throw them in here for the first time ever, and no, them finishing as runners-up last year does not count -- not because I'm a year too late, but they were a place for the worse.  But yeah, this is the first time I realized that they finished second in the NCAAs overall in 2018, so congratulations to last year's team.

But the real reason I'm putting them on here, and on top of the survey is because of Shane Wiskus.  (He's One Of Us; he's from Spring Park.)  Wiskus became the U.'s first individual champion in any discipline for men's gymnastics when he won in Parallel Bars.  So, congrats, Shane!

By the way, the club ended their run in the Semifinals.  Stanford won the overall title.

#0: Gopher softball (Last Week: -1).  We should start to look forward to this team's potential in the NCAA Tournament after swept a three-Game series at Nebraska over the weekend.  The Gophs were led by Amber Fiser, who went the distance in the sandwich Games (that's the first and last, on Friday and Sunday) and was thus named Big Ten Pitcher Of The Week.  (They outscored the Cornhuskers, 20-6.)  They have won their last six and have lost only once in conference play.  And they are the best-ranked team in the polls from the B1G -- either 18th or 12th, depending on which poll you look at.  That puts Minnesota in the running for a Regional ... although I think we can remember the last time we thought this team was in line for a Regional.

They need to continue winning and hope both Northwestern and Michigan slip.  They don't face the Wolverines this year; they host the Wildcats in the final series in B1G play.  But first they finish up the road portion of their schedule with a Doubleheader delayed by a week tomorrow/Wednesday at Wisconsin.  They then begin to wind the home part of their sked this weekend versus Iowa.

#-1: Twins (Last Week: -3).  Don't look now, don't believe it if you must, but the Twinks are leading the American League Central Division.  They went 5-1 this screening week -- avoided a four-Game series sweep at home against Toronto by pipping the Blue Jays Wednesday, 4-1, then swept a three-Game series in Baltimore (the first two of which was a DH because Friday's Game was postponed due to rain), then won last (Monday) night at Houston, 9-5.  Feel bad that these guys are only the third-best on this WMNSS.

I may be getting ahead of my skis here, but I agree with many other people that things are looking up for this organization.  The lineup remains the best thing they've got going, and right now they are being led by Eddie Rosario and Jorge Polanco.  The rotation is solid, if unspectacular.  And the bullpen has been doing much better than I thought.  Advanced statistics, in particular, show that the arms on this ballclub are the hardest-throwing in franchise history.  We are finally rid of the "pitch to contact" philosophy.

After finishing up a three-Game road series at the Astros, they will come home and host ... Baltimore for three over the weekend, then Houston starting on Monday.

#-2: Gopher baseball (Last Week: -2).  Yeah, it's gonna be conference tournament-or-bust for this team.  They final (best?) chance to boost their RPI probably fell by the wayside as they dropped two-of-three against Oklahoma, a school they hadn't played in almost half a century.  Started off well, an 8-1 shellacking Friday at Siebert.  But in the marquee match, Saturday afternoon at Target Field, the Sooners nipped the U., 2-1.

I managed to make it to Siebert Sunday for a Game moved up two hours to 11 a.m. to accommodate Oklahoma's changing flight home.  And I have to be honest with you: Even though the Sooners came back to beat the Goofers, 5-2, I think I saw the most effecting performance by a U. Starting Pitcher since, no joke, Glenn Perkins way back in the very old Siebert Field.  That's not a high bar.  Plus he petered out by the time he got pulled in the Sixth Inning, got hung for the loss, and got tattooed by a three-Run Home Run to give up the lead for good in the Fifth Inning by Brady Harlan.  (Long story short: The Right Fielder was put into the game to replace Blake Brewster, after he may have spiked Gophers First Baseman Cole McDevitt while trying to run out a grounder in the top of the Third.)  At any rate, Joshua Culliver of Omaha, Neb., struck out seven batters while walking no one.  And he had a vicious Curveball working and fooling Sooner after Sooner.  Again, it would have been much more impressive if Culliver could have gone six more Outs.  Or won.  But he averaged more than a Strikeout per Inning, and he walked no Oklahoma player.  I haven't seen that in a long time, if not ever.  John Anderson, mold this clay.

At Indiana for the weekend.  The squad stands at 17-20 overall, by the way.

#-3: United FC (Last Week: -4).  I said what I wanted to say in the wake of my initial trauma over witnessing my team blow two leads in Toronto and lose Friday, 4-3, here.  But after distancing myself over that and thinking for a bit, I have more to say about the match:

• It is never good to be red-carded in the dying moments of a match.  But even though I have not seen any replays, I don't think the send-offs of both Jan Gregus (which I pronounce "Grey Goose," even if you're not supposed to pronounce it like that) and Francisco Calvo were especially egregious.  The team was down a Goal and were desperate to get the ball back.  None of the fouls were retaliatory.  And I certainly don't see how either Loon was playing recklessly.
• With that being said, Calvo should not be criticized for being sent off and unavailable for tonight's (Wednesday night's) game vs. the Los Angeles Galaxy.  Criticize him, instead, for not contributing during Friday's match.
• If anyone on the XI deserves to be the goat for the defeat, my money's on Michael Boxall.  On that Game-winner, what in the hell was he doing waiting for the ball to bounce in order to head it while he was standing in front of his own goddamn goal?  And as a TFC player was rushing in from behind to stick it home?  Oh, and Boxall forgot to mark a guy on an earlier Toronto Goal.
• MNUFC is on pace to allow 72 Goals, which is one more than last year, which was one more than the previous year, the Loons' inaugural year in MLS, and a mark which was an all-time record for Goals Allowed at the time.
• Why in the fuck did Adrian Heath not use his third and final Substitution?  If anything he should have started switching out offense for defense as soon as his team took a 3-2 lead.

The Second Shift

For this week, I am filling in for this person in the second department I trained for, again.  This time, however, my hours are two hours later than I had when I first subbed for her -- 3:30 till midnight instead of 1:30 until 10.  She starts at 3:30 (which, by the way, is the time I usual end my shift) and always has.  So if I had filled in for her before, why didn't I just start at 3:30?  Now I understand why everyone looked at me strange when I came in at 1:30 those weeks I substituted for her.

Once again I am torn.  On the one hand, I remember that guy going nuts when I was trying to look for that file that I couldn't find.  It was in this department and late in the day, so the conditions are perfect for this crap to happen again.  However, I will be surrounded by people for, at most, the first half of my shift.  There is one person who likely will be working in the evening with me.  But there is a very good chance I will have the run of the place, on my own, for several hours.  I can do whatever I want, especially with these "new" hours where I can't believe anybody would even interact with me after 10, or maybe even after 8.  If I am able to do my tasks at work, I will be free to do other things -- such as, especially, catching up on my receipts.  I have yet to reconcile March in my day planner, for starters.

It'll be weird to be at work till midnight.  I'm not sure there's even a reason.  But I am supposed to be there until then.  I'll hopefully make the most of it, and I'll hope nothing untoward happens, both tonight and for the rest of the week.  Wish me luck.

She Texted Me!!!

OK.  ***a*, the white girl who I made house calls to, who initially sucked me off raw and then, eventually, allowed me to fuck her raw -- and, then, stopped allowing me to visit her and then stopped communication altogether ... well, I think the reason she stopped allowing me inside her is because she found God.  She had been into religion for some time.  We even talked about as we were about to make love, and sometimes when I did sink my cock inside her.  (I swear I talked about this before on WAF.)

Anyway, I do miss being inside her, but more than that, I miss her.  Look, I will always miss her making love to me, but I want to be a part of her life, somehow, and so if she wants me as a friend but doesn't want to do all that sex stuff anymore, I'm OK with that.  Because not seeing her at all is killing me.  It makes me feel as though ***a* doesn't want to see me anymore because I did something to her during our fuck sessions.

I still haven't totally given up communication with her.  And so I have texted her, once in a while.  Since telling me she doesn't want me to drop by anymore I hadn't heard a peep.  Still insist on trying, though, at least until she changes her number or blocks me.

So, today is Easter (aside: It has become a de facto "seventh" holiday).  I figure I would take another shot, so I texted her this morning.  And guess what?!  ***a* texted me back!!!  WHEEEEEE!!!!!!!!  It was a, "Thanks, you too!" type of text, but I'll take it!

So ... maybe she'll let me fuck her again.  Nah, it don't matter.  I'm just glad she still talks to me ... although I did reply with a, "Thanks!  Hope you're well!" text and, uh, she didn't reply to that.  Maybe I overplayed my hand?

Blogging To Get Back On Schedule

Still haven't finished inputting Mother's missing flights for mileage requests.  I'll get around to them ... soon.

Meanwhile I'm going to go to the University of Minnesota baseball game.  But seeing as this is a Sunday, there might be free parking available closer to Siebert.  So, I can park close and thus leave late, but potentially find that they're all taken and be forced to be late after parking so far away.  Or, I can leave now and just park at my usual spots where I know there is parking and walk hella far to the ballpark, and see a bunch of spaces way closer on the way there.  What to do, what to do. ...

I know I should be more patient, but as soon as I got home Mother started asking my help about getting AirPlay to work so she could see her Chinese movie online through the dining room TV.  I got it to work -- eventually, somehow -- but through her pathetic pleading and questions I don't have the answers to, it was a typically frustrating situation to deal with a child-like maternal figure.  I'm just glad she didn't accuse me of anything.

I need to go exercise.

Losing As Trauma

Went to an MNUFC watch party just now at a swanky spot in downtown Minneapolis.  I don't have much money, but I really needed a haircut, and since I spent money for the cut, I decided to spend more by going to a game with fellow Loonies and having myself a beer.

For the second game in a row (the first being Saturday's tilt against NYCFC that opened Allianz Field), United FC were involved in a back-and-forth barn-burner ... and also gave up the final Goal.  Against NYCFC it was the one that made the match a draw.  This time around, vs. Toronto FC, it was one that made the match a loss -- one where they took the first lead, coughed up two Goals to fall behind at Halftime, scored two Goals to get back up on top, then give up the final two Goals to go from winning three Points to winning zero.  Oh, and two of our guys got red-carded in the dying moments of the game at BMO Field.

And frankly, it has soured my mood ever since.  One of the lingering thoughts I have in my head is, "Why in the hell am I spending so much money on a team that sucks?"  I'm not a die-hard.  I may be a season-ticket holder, but if the losing continues like this for the next ... oh, year or two, why should I stay one?  I get no joy from my team losing games, especially in the way they did tonight.  This feels like throwing my money, which I don't have much of right now, down the sewer drain.

You know what?  This is not an unfamiliar feeling.  I may be a STH for the first time ever with the Loons, but I have paid a pretty penny for big games from Minnesota sports teams, and more often than not ... OK, usually my teams lose.  And I get the same humiliating, traumatic feeling walking out of the stadium or arena like I have now: Why in the fuck do I do this to myself?

Listen to The Common Man Progrum every day, and he came up with the acronym AVATAR, a "syndrome" which stands for Anticipatory Vikings ... I don't remember the rest.  But it has something to do with living and dying with the Vikings to the point where defeats mean your day, and possibly your life, is ruined.  Common's point is, Why in the hell are you allowing a sports team, consisting of people who don't know you even exist, to affect you so deeply?

He's right.  I have, uh, ALATAR syndrome, bad, and right now I can't shake it.  Dan Cole's cure is to just let go, even turning off the TV and not listening, so it's easier to stop caring about Twin Cities teams that'll only break your heart.  I should take his advice, even though, as an STH, it's -- well, it's impossible.  But really, more dumbshit losses like this and you're damn right I'll walk away.

Addendum To: Phew! Glad I Remembered To Blog!

And I almost forgot to blog on this day, too!  This is why I need to get on this early in the day and not wait till after work and dinner.

Anyway ... I went through a large chunk of Mother's boarding passes.  Needed to scan them and then upload those scans to Delta.  But before that, I had to put in a request for date-of-birth change on her account because, for some damn reason, her birth year is wrong.  So that took an hour.

And I'm still not done.  She also dropped on me a bunch of e-mails for even more flights that my parents took which she believes she can request miles from.  Sorting through those e-mails was extremely frustrating, and I had to control my temper over being bogged down by crap she dumped on me.  In the end I think I said, "Screw it, I'll do it another time when I feel like it."  I thought that time would be after I got home from the library.  But no, I still don't feel like doing it.

Yes, I understand that Mother doesn't know what to do.  Still resent it.

Phew! Glad I Remembered To Blog!

I was about to take a shower.

Hmmm, what to write about ... well, Mother just sent me a series of forwards in regards to a bunch of flights she and Father took that she wants counted on her frequent flier account.  This barrage of e-mails despite the fact that there is a good chance Delta has already asked her (and, therefore, me) to scan the actual boarding pass instead of just passing along the information.

This feels like Mother acting like a child again, going after something she wants like Smeegol and the ring, and not taking it well if she doesn't get it.  I have no idea how she'll react if, like I fear, the airline says that they need the boarding pass, period.  There'll be hell to pay then, I'm afraid.

The Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey

I totally forgot about this until just now, so I'll have to make this short in order to get this in before midnight:

#-1: Gopher softball (Last Week: -1).  Weather wreaked such havoc in the Twin Cities last weekend (apparently) that it cost the Gophers and Michigan St. one of their three games.  The other two were scrunched into a Doubleheader, which, thankfully, the Gophers swept, 7-1 and 9-5.  There was a scheduled DH tomorrow/Wednesday at Wisconsin, but because of weather it's been postponed to next Wednesday.  (The Gophers were supposed to play North Dakota St. on that April 24, but that will be postponed to another date that is available.)  But the road series at Nebraska this weekend is still on.

#-2: Gopher baseball (Last Week: -4).  Bad weather turned the Gophs' three-Game series versus Illinois at Siebert into something special: A Doubleheader Sunday followed by a series-ender on Monday.  The U. could do that because they were hosting South Dakota St. the next day, today (Tuesday).

Well, how did they do?  Well, the Fighting Illini swept Sunday's contests, 4-2 and 13-3 (ouch).  The U. took the getaway Game, 5-4, then beat the Jackrabbits, 5-1.  Oh, and defeated North Dakota St. last Tuesday, 4-3.  But by far the most important Games were the ones against Illinois, and they lost two-of-three.

The marquee series of the 2019 U. baseball season is this weekend.  Oklahoma comes to town for three, the middle game of which will be played at Target Field.

#-3: Twins (Last Week: -2).  A 3-3 screening week -- split a two-Game series at the Mets, took two at home against Detroit (the Friday game was postponed and rescheduled for next month) and, so far, have dropped two games at Target vs. Toronto.  They finish their series (and the homestand) against the Blue Jays before heading out for Baltimore for the weekend and then to Houston (for three tilts, just like the Orioles, the first Astros game for which is on Monday).

#-4: United FC (Last Week: 0).  I just want to note three things:

1. The day MNUFC announced it was entering MLS, there came a huge rainstorm.  It was so bad that the after-announcement concert featuring Doomtree was cancelled.
2. The first-ever home game for the Loons, at TCF Bank vs. Atlanta, was in the middle of a blizzard.  Oh, and Atlanta United crushed them, 6-1.
3. And at the first-ever game of Allianz Field Saturday, vs. NYCFC, two of the five panels that were supposed to make up the tifo tore.

Let's just say these are omens, another of which may be coughing up a lead (via a howler from NYCFC's Sean Johnson) which resulted in a 3-all Draw.  They needed to win that fucking game, because of the opponent and for the occasion.  They are at Toronto Friday.

#-Infinity: Timberwolves (Last Week: -3).  Ended the season with a 20-Point loss to Toronto at Target and a come-from-ahead loss in Denver on back-to-back days.  Like the Wild, this is a team not good enough to make the playoffs but not horrible enough to get enough ping-pong balls in the Draft Lottery.  So they'll have a middling mid-round pick in order to try and bolster an underachieving group which, by the way, will be butting right up against the salary cap.  The path to improvement seems difficult to figure out from here, but for a damned franchise like the Woofie Dogs, you can figure that would be apt.

One of the things I wanted to do on this trip is to talk to my friend, who I am staying with.  Had a great convo just now, catching up on things, talking about stuff.

We are both in what we both call a holding pattern, at least when it comes to our careers and ambitions, right now.  We had no breakthroughs or anything, but we both came to a conclusion, maybe one we have realized for a long time now: Not making a choice is a choice.  It's not a bad thing; we both have reasons for what we did or did not do.  But not making a choice is a choice, and we feel bad about it until we don't.

This has been philosophy talk.

Finally Baptized My Porno Pants

You know, Baby Dolls has great talent but is mostly a clean club.  It still is, even though, I'm proud to announce, I finally got my porno pants dirty in there.

"She" didn't touch it; she was toeing the line on that.  However, she groped my dick through my pants and reached under my shirt to play with my nipples, plus we were in the dark upper balcony, so I went for it -- I took my cock out of my pants.  See, that's what the porn pants are for.

"She" saw it.  Oh, fuck yeah, "she" saw it.  But she wouldn't touch my thing with a ten-foot pole.  Well, that doesn't make sense.  She sat on it, and turned around and caressed it with her fine ass.  And, well, I hadn't done myself in a while, so that was enough.  In fact, I felt I was about to burst just as she stood up and asked if I wanted more dances.  I sheathed my pee-pee and tried to control myself, but ... oops.

By the way, I gave her $110 total.  She quickly accepted it, so quickly that I'm afraid I might have given her too much.  Well, I just have to tighten my belt some more.  Besides, I still have some cash left over after Baby Dolls.  But I just might be rationalizing.

Anyhoo ... I creamed all inside my porno pants.  Spent a few songs in a stall trying to blot out the semen.  Good times, great oldies.  I wore these pants to Dollies, when I was fucking my ATF, but there these pants were around my ankles.  This was total through the fly, and total cum in my pants.  Although my plans were to try and wait for a time where the stripper would actually wank me, it's all good because I feel good.  So yeah, my porno pants has been defiled forever, Buddha bless it!

Broke And Tired

Staying up to blog this.

Have to wake up early tomorrow morning for my trip to Dallas.  No rest for the wicked; I basically hit the ground running, trying to get to the TCU baseball game, then going to Hooters, then the hotel (and maybe resting up) before going to the Hard Rock Cafe and a strip club.

That's gonna cost money, money I still don't have.  Just realized that I needed to pay off my state taxes through the Internet, which I did, but now I have less money in my bank accounts than all those times I complained about not having any money in my bank accounts.  How in the hell could I have a full-time job and be in such debt?!

Plus I'm not entirely packed for the trip, and I feel as though I will forget to pack something.

I'm starting to not make sense again.  Time for shuteye.

Phew! Potentially Dodged A Bullet From Mother

I could not do what I wanted to do last evening (most notably packing my things for my vacation this weekend) because, once again, Mother wanted me to do something that hijacked my entire evening.  (OK, maybe not; maybe if I just put my nose to the grindstone I could finish packing.  But why do that when I have a ready-made excuse?)

She said that she needed me to check up on a credit card bill I paid while they were gone on vacation.  She got another bill that showed that the previous month's bill was not paid, and therefore my parents were hit with a late fee and interest.  And the interest was going to be huge because the bill was in the thousands.

So I called.  I got spooked by a security question I was asked; I was going to talk about it because I felt humiliated, but it doesn't matter compared to what happened next.  I called a second time, got another person, and was told that I needed to call another department which, at that time, had an hour-long wait.  Once I told Mother, she, who was extremely bent out-of-shape over paying money she didn't think she should pay, decided not to wait and spent an hour in her office holding on the phone.

In the meantime I retreated back up to my bedroom.  But I still was able to hear Mother because her office is right below my bedroom.  I was also able to hear her because when she gets upset, my God, she becomes a bitch on wheels.  The yelling and anger I heard her spew on the poor representative who got her call was humiliating and, honestly, familiar.  Remember that when I grew up, I didn't really see her because she and Father worked at The Store from sun-up till sun-down.  All they did then was retreat downstairs and immediately take a shower together, whereby Mother would just bitch and bitch and bitch and bitch at Father for something.  And she did the exact same damn thing last night.

Customer service always seems to bug her.  She gets her dander up as a defense mechanism just so she won't get screwed over by people to whom she's giving money.  That is great when, for example, I needed to get my new car -- I mean, fuck car salesmen, they're dirty anyway, amirite?  I see myself in her whenever she is outraged at something that hits her checkbook.  I learned to yell because of her, to be quite frank.  Anyway, acting petty and juvenile over a late payment when the person on the other end of the line did nothing to impose a late fee and interest, is, to put it mildly, is unwarranted.  But she didn't care.  I don't know if she was screaming because she wanted someone to waive the late fee and interest or because she was really angry.  Probably both.  But eventually, another person (maybe it was the manager Mother demanded while on her tirade) got on the phone and gave her everything she wanted: A waiver of the late fee on the statement and interest that may have accrued in exchange for paying off the original charge right then and there.

Glad that is over.  And yet I could not help but look at her with complete disgust while this embarrassment was going on.  So what if she got what she wanted?  There were much better ways to prove that I paid on time.  Why couldn't she just give the rep on the phone the Confirmation Number I wrote down for her, precisely for cases such as this?  But that's not my retirement-age Mother's style.  No, she will raise fucking hell until she gets what she wants.  Raising her voice, making up lies, accusing the other person -- all to "prove" she was right.  And being on the other side of that often -- especially the accusations, which I hate about her -- confirms once again why my main relations with other women consists of money for sex.  Mother fucking ruined me.

Oh, here's the kicker: There's a chance, a very small chance, that this may have been my fault.  You see, while my parents were away, there was a bill I paid which I subsequently cancelled.  I remember that (did I blog about this?) because I needed to thumb through a checkbook in order to enter the account number online.  For this particular bill I found the checkbook Mother wanted me to use to pay.  But after I established the payment, I looked through the checkbook again and saw that, for some goddamn reason, there was another set of checks, from a completely different account (and therefore a completely different account number) within this checkbook.  I entered the wrong number, and so I needed to cancel that payment and set up another payment with the right number.

I am almost 100% sure that the bill for which I originally cancelled a payment I subsequently re-did.  In other words, there's almost no chance that I somehow overlooked paying this bill.  Not only could I not because I did pay attention, but 1) this was a huge bill that 2) Mother actually called home to tell me about.  On top of that, I got a Confirmation Number.  How could I cancel a payment after I wrote down its Confirmation Number?

Well, that's the thing.  Maybe ... I did set up a payment, realized I put in the wrong account to pay for that payment, cancelled it ... and that was it.  The poor phone rep who took My Fucking Mother's wrath insisted that someone (namely me) established a payment two days before the day I said I paid the bill, and then she said that that payment was cancelled, and there was no activity after that.  I really don't think that cancelled payment was the one I wrote down on the statement for Mother -- but am I 100% sure?  Don't tell Mother, but ... no.

Doesn't matter.  She berated the credit card company into removing the late fee and interest.  (After she got off the phone she cut up that credit card; knee-jerk reactions are another thing I learned from her.)  But I have to honest about one other thing: I am so, so glad she doesn't believe I screwed up.  During her call, she asked Father to ask me if I cancelled the payment.  I told him, and then her (after I went downstairs to her office and overheard the resolution to the call).  Now, I didn't completely lie to her.  I did cancel a payment, but I don't know if that is this payment, and even if it was, I am almost certain I replaced it with a good payment.  But am I completely certain?  No.

Mother believed me instead of the credit card company, however.  So don't bother Mother.  Let her believe those people are snakes.  And let me be at peace.

Taxes This Year

Because of my impending trip and the winter storm I'm currently hunkering down for, I finished my taxes earlier than I have ever done them.  It feels good to get it out of the way; after lining up for more than an hour just to get a goddamn stamp, I have since never filed on Tax Day.  It is good to get it out of the way, even though it was by necessity.  Still, it really sucks -- not just taxes in general, but these taxes, this year, specifically as well.

I will be honest: I have heard that Trump and the Republicans really did screw over those who have regularly expected a refund around this time of year, but I don't think that has affected me.  For one thing (and I hope this doesn't make me sound like a fucking Republican) you would rather owe than be owed come Tax Day.  When you get a refund, that means that the country has been borrowing your money tax-free; if you owe, you are essentially giving back to the country money that belongs to them, and hopefully all this time you've been using it wisely instead of spending it on hookers and blow, like me.  But I think the more important reason I still am owed by the country this year is because I still don't itemize deductions.  In their sleight-of-hand tax break for millionaires, the Republicans slashed the number of deductions people (mostly middle-class people) can take.  Sure, that eventually meant that ordinary people got to take home more money each payday.  (Oligarchs that Republicans whore for got to take home a hell of a lot more.)  But payback comes when you realize that that mortgage or Earned Income Tax Credit isn't going as far as you thought it would.  So people who expected big refunds will get smaller ones, and those who expected any money back from the federal will instead pay them.  This is what Republicans do: Fuck the common person over.

I'm still taking it in the shorts, however.  While the country owes me, I still have to pay the state.  Minnesota did not resolve their tax tables to coincide with the new tax laws from the federal so that the tax bills for Minnesotans would roughly be as much as a resident would have expected the year before ... or something like that.  Anyway, if the new Republican laws gave me a break, the state, using its old tax tables, did not.  Overall, I owe more than $330, I believe.  And while that sucks -- I have no money now; remember, hookers and blow -- I truly think that taxes are the literal price we pay for a civilized society and functioning government.  Maybe I would be getting more money back this year if Republicans hadn't taken it and given it to the rich.

But that is assuming I did my taxes correctly.  For the first time ever, I got a 1099-MISC, basically a "contracted worker" tax statement.  It stems from the guy who hired me for the Super Bowl and a Vikings exhibition game.  I did not fill out a W-4 Form for him.  Instead, as I found out when I started doing my taxes, in the law's eyes, I am not "working" for him so much as I am an independent contractor.  That means that instead of him (what would be my employer) sending me a W-2 for the year, I get this 1099-MISC.  And since I am only a contractor, he did not pull out the taxes from the wages he paid me.  Instead, the MISC shows me the total amount of money he paid me for those two gigs -- and it's up to me to figure out the tax.

That was the biggest obstacle I had to overcome in doing my taxes this year.  With a 1099-MISC I would have had to fill out both a Schedule C and a Schedule SE; after doing that, I would add the Self-Employment Tax to the 1040, and I certainly would be paying a hell of a lot more than I am now.  On top of that, I don't have the brain power to figure it out.  Now I understand what a pain-in-the-ass contractors -- construction subcontractors, freelance writers, and, most notably, strippers -- have to go through this time every year.  My only saving grace is the requirement, on the IRS page itself, that my wages through my freelance work is "regular and continuous."  I have no idea if this guy is going to hire me again for a different job.  I really don't.  And so, if these gigs are one-offs -- that my work for him is not regular and continuous -- then I don't have to fill out those two schedules but instead can just shove them into Schedule 1.  That would make things a lot simpler.  I just don't know if this will fly with the IRS, as provable as it is.

Other than that, I have to note the radical changes to the federal tax forms.  I haven't been able to use either the 1040A or 1040EZ for a long time, but when I started doing my taxes last week and saw that they have been phased out, I truly bugged my eyes out.  And then I went apeshit when I saw the 1040 was only half a page long (albeit on both sides).  This was the Republicans' enticement to us common folk in order to pass this tax giveaway to the billionaires: You could do your taxes on a postcard, former House Speaker Paul Ryan said.  But doing your taxes simply doesn't mean you save more, as many people have found out so rudely.

Moreover, these tax forms are not more simple.  I am not being backwards when I say this: The 1040 was a lot less complicated last year when it had more spaces.  There are a lot of spaces missing in the new 1040.  I don't know where they all went, but some of them went to these new "Schedules," two of which I had to do.  I see no fucking reason they couldn't have stayed on the old 1040; if they didn't pertain to you, skip over them.  And another thing: There were a couple of spaces on the 1040 where I had to do the math before putting in the number for that space.  There are additions and subtractions you have to make throughout the tax form, and in the old 1040 you would have the spaces to do it, you know?  Like, "Add up Lines x through x"; followed by "Write in amount on Line x from Schedule y"; followed by "Subtract Line z from a" -- stuff like that, you know?  But on the "simpler" 1040, there are no spaces for step-by-step computations.  I had to do the math before putting in the final answer.  That is an open invitation to mistakes, and I know these fucking dirty Republicans are hoping for mistakes because then the IRS will have to audit them, them being mostly the middle class and poor.  This cutting through bureaucracy actually is a trick to shake down the proletariat for more money.

I've vented.

The Urge

I have so many things I want to write about, but they have to be long, and I have no time to blog since I need to wake up early because of the winter storm that awaits my morning commute.  So I'm just going to say that I have this urge to fuck my whore, ****e.  I haven't heard from her in some time, and even if I do get in touch, I won't be able to see her for quite a while.  But I think about her -- her figure, her look, that she cooks for me, that she calls me into her bed and tells me to take my clothes off, that she sucks me then fucks me raw.

I've been getting harassed by a couple girls who want to get with me.  I like one more than the other because that other has been increasingly annoying to deal with.  But frankly, neither of them turn me on.  OK, I should differentiate between the two.  One of them is hella frustrating to deal with and puts me on the clock when I see her.  The other is much nicer, and way more accommodating.  I really do want to see her again, because like with ****e, she pretty much does everything to me and lets me do everything to her.  But ... dammit, I'm not attracted to her.  So even though I have real, ready-made excuses (I don't have the time to see her and I really don't have the money), I am also putting her off because she doesn't float my boat.

But ****e does.  And I want to contact her, just to see how she's doing, even though she'll probably think I want to go to her place and fuck her.  Which I do ... once I have the time and the money.  

Winter Has Come Again, Goddammit

So there is a blizzard that has just started.  Maybe it's a blizzard.  See, last week the meteorologists saw this coming, and they were saying that the models had forecast snow of up to, get this, 18 inches.  They have backed way the bleep off of that -- I think.

The two forecasts I saw yesterday were pretty far apart.  We're not supposed to get a foot and a half of snow anymore because apparently, at some point between now and Friday morning, a slug of warm air is going to penetrate the upper atmosphere above us.  Not only will that stop the falling of snow, but the precipitation that will be falling (and precip will be falling for the next 36 hours) will be sleet or even rain, thus cutting down the amount of snow that will accumulate.  I am hoping to the gods above for that.

So one forecast said 3-6".  The other thought about a foot.  I'll take the former, but what I really want is a period of rain that'll melt away all the snow that came before it.  I don't want to shovel.  It's April, for God's sake!!!

The Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey

#0: United FC (Last Week: -5).  Honestly, I gave the Loons ... oh, a 15-20% chance of beating the Red Bulls in Harrison, N.J.  As I said in last week's survey, while RBNY are vulnerable, so is MNUFC, and since this game was on the road (the last of five to begin the year), I thought the effort our boys would give would be akin to that vs. a poor New England side.

But thankfully I was wrong.  Abu Danladi put United FC on the board in the 34th, and then Angelo Rodriguez spun and fed Romario Ibarra in the box in the 50th, a scintillating kick begetting another scintillating kick that resulted in the Game-winner.  And finally, the Loons beat a club that 1) is a model for how to develop talent and 2) seems to have Minnesota's number.

So, to give construction workers time to get Allianz Field together, MNUFC goes 3-0-2.  Those nine Points (let alone three Wins) are more than they have in either of their previous two seasons on the road.  And with Saturday finally opening up the gorgeous Allianz against NYCFC (I'm leaving work early to do this, and I think people are upset), things are looking up.  Therefore, I am putting United FC up top, and I'm going to push them past negative numbers.  Cool!

#-1: Gopher softball (Last Week: -1).  The U. softballers won their series at Illinois over the weekend.  Unfortunately, they lost the first game of a Saturday Doubleheader in extra (eight) Innings, 4-3.  They host Michigan St. this weekend.

#-2: Twins (Last Week: -2).  Won both games in Kansas City, then lost a series in Philadelphia over the weekend.  They sit third in the division, I think, but some observers see a confidence, even a swagger, with this ballclub that has been entirely absent in recent years.  Maybe it'll be the Twinks who will break the Twin Cities out of their major league postseason drought (sorry, Lynx).

They are about to begin a two-game series in Queens against the New York Mets, completing a ten-day, seven-Game road trip.  They come home and play Detroit over the weekend for a trio.

#-3: Timberwolves (Last Week: -4).  Couldn't complete a season sweep of The Bastard Seattle SuperSonics Sunday, but they did beat two downtrodden teams and the superstars probably hanging up at the end of the year -- Dirk Nowitzki's Dallas Mavericks and Dwyane Wade's Miami Heat.  Sure, both wins were only by two Points, but a win's a win, especially when the club is just playing out the string.  The season ends, mercifully, in mere hours.  Tonight (Tuesday night) is the final home game, vs. Toronto.  Tomorrow/Wednesday night they complete the year in Denver.

#-4: Gopher baseball (Last Week: -3).  For a club that scheduled tough and then did not do much against it, it has very little margin for error to get to the NCAA Tournament.  And that margin thinned even further after dropping two-of-three at Michigan over the weekend.  (And no, their Tuesday win over St. Scholastica does not count, at least not in my eyes.)  They are hosting North Dakota St. right now (Tuesday evening); hope the Bison can get back home safely in the midst of this blizzard that's coming.  And I hope the Gophs can play all three Games of their series versus Illinois at Siebert this weekend.

#-Infinity: Wild (Last Week: -6).  A 5-1 home win Tuesday over The Bastard Atlanta Thrashers in fact was a desperate attempt to stay in the playoff chase against a disinterested party already in the playoffs.  But The Bastard Quebec Nordiques won that evening, and so The Minnesota Mild will sit out these playoffs after seven straight seasons.  The team responded to that failure by promptly capitulating to shutout losses at the hands of Boston (at home) and The Team That Was Stolen From Us (on the road).  So this organization is in the worst of both worlds: Not reaching the playoffs of a sport where an underdog has a good a chance of winning a title as any, but not so bad (Minnesota is only the 11th-worst record in the NHL) that they get a high draft pick.  In other words, purgatory.

You can make the case that the Mild have been in purgatory for some time.  As the litany of years ending way short of the Stanley Cup runs the signings of Zach Parise and Ryan Stuer were supposed to portend, it has become clear, and then obvious, that this simply wasn't going to work.  There is some pride in making the playoffs so many seasons in a row, but I think a lot of fans were not just resigned to this run ending this year; a lot of people want General Manager Paul Fenton to begin the rebuilding and so are basically thinking (and I'm quoting the Geto Boys here), "If it's going down, let's get this shit over with."

Then again ... Fenton has managed to reverse the moves previous GM Chuck Fletcher made, sending away the supporting layer around Parise and Suter (Nino Niederreiter, Charlie Coyle, Mikael Granlund), so the change is underway.  They are getting younger (Ryan Donato, Kevin Fiala) and more flexible, something Fletcher chose not to do when putting faith in those young guns that they'll all improve as a unit.  And as much as Mikko Koivu and Matt Dumba drive us crazy, their absences were felt.  Michael Russo noted on Twitter that the Mild scored the fewest Goals in the league after Dumba was lost for the season.

So maybe there needs to be a few years of deep wallowing, where the squad hasn't bottomed out yet.  Or, maybe these new young guns will improve as a unit, and both Koivu and Dumba come back at 100% next year.  Maybe, just maybe, they don't need to retrench with a high draft pick this year.  And maybe, just maybe, this season really is only an anomaly.

I've Been Cleaning Too Many Bathrooms

You know what I was nightmaring about last night?  Cleaning toilets.  All I can remember is that I was looking at and fretting over a series of nasty toilets that needed cleaning.  And for some reason they all had this thin plastic plate going through it, and I was really afraid and/or disgusted with cleaning it.

There is a huge mobile bathroom on our parking lot.  It actually looks really nice.  It has wood and carpeted walls, and if it were an apartment I would love to live in there.  But there is only one small office wastebasket and the damn thing not only overflows due to too many towels, but the wastebasket is mis-aligned underneath the hole so a lot of men miss the garbage can.  I've gone in there, with stuff covering my hands, to clean up and haul away all of that.

And now it's seeped into my nightmares.

Maybe it's time for this gig to be over.

Ice-Out: April 7 ...

... I think?  Got home just past midnight, and the last patch of snow, right next to the edge of Grandmother's garden, appeared to have been gone.

Just record-keeping.

Playing Dress-Up While Cleaning Up The Garbage?

Just like with the Super Bowl, I feel it's appropriate to pay homage to the Final Four here by wearing a suit.  And that is what I plan to do, weirdness be damned.  But I would rather not clean out the trash while wearing a suit.

So, do I dress up and risk ruining my suit?  Or do I dress down and be stuck with my khakis and risk breaking my own rule?  Sure, I can wait until I'm all done at the tent and then change.  But seriously, I would have to change in, like, a closet in the mobile bathroom that might have crap all over the toilet seat or something.  And I won't be able to change in the stadium because it'll be busy preparing for the two games tonight.

Or maybe it doesn't matter at all since I could be at the tent all day, so why change at all?  And actually, I have no idea if I'm going to be in the stadium at all.  Why wear a suit if I'm not going to even be in the stadium?

(sigh) I have no idea.  All I know is I'm late.

Crashing, Getting Testy

Again, this is not rocket science, what I'm doing.  But it is tedious, and the accumulation of things that need to be done on deadline nonetheless triggers short tempers in me and in people I'm working for.  I kind of got testy and pushed back and people who were similarly annoyed by the grind of this event.  But hopefully we'll be able to all laugh at this at the end ... right?

Nah, probably not.  We'll see this morning, and then Saturday, and then Monday.

I Have Become What I Mock (Scheduled Post)

I actually got out of this week-long work at a decent hour, 6:30.  I could have stayed, but I really, really needed to go to the library to do two things: Print out the tax forms I'll need and to start writing this real estate letter for my parents.

I printed out a total of six pages of tax forms.  I put in a dollar because, I think, I put all my coins away because this week-long job entails going through security multiple times a day.  I got my printouts just as the library was closing for the day.  And only on my way from the library that I realized that ... I did not take the change from the printer.  FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK

I have my reasons: I was tired from a long day at work; I was preoccupied with figuring out how to do these new tax forms (have you all noticed that the tax forms are now shortened?  It's gotten more complicated this way!); I got blindsided by the fact that the home builder is no longer at the address Father gave me; it was closing time at the library and I needed to get out of there.  But let's face it: I didn't pay attention, and so I pissed away 40 cents.

And that is the great irony.  I have occasionally noted on my Expenses Without Receipt(s) blog posts that I regularly check the change dispenser at the printer and am surprised at how many times I have found change that was just left there.  It had become an almost-reliable source of income.  I have ridiculed people for being so forgetful as to leaving their change there.  And now I have been the stupid one for doing the same damn thing.  Yeah, it's only 40 cents.  I still hate myself.

OK, Working March Madness Is Nuts

I have heard people in this line of work complain about long hours, but I never really lived it until yesterday.  Got in at around a quarter after 8 in the morning, and I didn't leave until about a quarter after 8 at night.  The saving grace to these long hours is there is a lot of downtown inbetween.  There were many points during my day yesterday where I just sat and looked at my phone.  But the killer was at the end, when I was taping up signs all over the trailers in the stadium.  Took me over an hour.  How in the hell did taping up signs take over an hour?

Got home so late that I decided it was ridiculous to come home and eat at, oh, a quarter to 9 at night.  I'm just going to say I'm not coming home to eat the next two days, and if I do get out of work at the trucks at a decent hours, I'll go to the library to print out tax forms and work on this complaint letter regarding one of their real estate properties in Las Vegas for Father.  And if that's the case, I still will have a long and (somewhat) arduous workday the next two days.

I like working around sports and I'll appreciate the paycheck (assuming I'm getting paid what I think the work is worth).  But right now, I have to say, I can't wait for this gig to be over.  I know I'll either regret saying that or take it back, but right now, that's how I feel.  I mean, my feet are killing me!!

The Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey

#-1: Gopher softball (Last Week: -2).  The only team this week that finished undefeated should get the top spot.  And the softballin' Gophers get that with a three-Game home sweep of Purdue.  Although none of the games were Mercy-Ruled, they outscored the Boilermakers over the weekend, 18-4.  Nice to overwhelm an overmatched opponent.

This week they travel to Illinois for a three-Game set.

#-2: Twins (Re-Entry!).  Take your victories where you can; the Twinks start off the season winning  a series at Target Field versus Cleveland.  And the pitching in those two Wins reflect the surrender to sabermetrics that Derek Falvey and Thad Levine have finally been able to institute in its entirety.  For Thursday's season-opener, Jose Berrios mowed down ten over 7 2/3 as they won, 2-0.  And on Sunday, the club used a quasi-Opener in Michael Pineda (pitching for the first time in two years; remember, this is the guy they signed knowing he would have surgery and would miss the entire 2018 season) and used (among other things) a two-Run Home Run by Nelson Cruz to triple up the Tribe, 9-3.

It's so weird to head into a season without Joe Mauer.  But as good as it was for a fanbase to grow up with a talisman for all these years, it does feel sort of refreshing to have the weight of his albatross of a contract off of this organization's necks.  What is there, though, is still up for debate.  The starting rotation remains a question mark (this series' results notwithstanding) and the bullpen remains a mess.  So how are some people thinking these guys can win the American League Central?  I don't get it.

Note that this first series of the year was at home, at a time of the year where it's very possible Minnesota would see snow.  Luckily for us, the weather was quite nice.  Nevertheless, the franchise gets treated with games away from the Twin Cities.  In fact, it's one of those maximum-long, week-and-a-half road trips, although since it's early, there is a two-Game series dropped in there, namely Kansas City Wednesday and Thursday.  They face Bryce Harper and the Phillies in Philadelphia this weekend.

#-3: Gopher baseball (Last Week: -1).  Took two-of-three at Siebert against the Nebraska Cornhuskers, and both wins were of the Game-ending variety.  On Friday, Eli Watson blasted a three-Run Home Run to give the Gophers a 5-2, Ten-Inning victory.  And then on the back half of Sunday's Doubleheader (Saturday's game was pushed back a day and the schedule for Sunday was rejiggered), a Wild Pitch ended the 15 consecutive donuts on the board (each team scored two in the First Inning) and gave the U. a 3-2 win.  Oh, and they tripled up Augsburg Wednesday, 9-3.

I swear the team switched opponents for tonight (Tuesday night).  Earlier it was announced that they dropped in a tilt vs. Bethany ... something or other.  But now it's local school St. Scholastica.  Whatever; the real games are this weekend at Michigan.

#-4: Timberwolves (Last Week: -3).  A despairing 1-3 screening week where all the Games were at home.  The misery of the week was capped off last (Monday) night, when the Portland Trail Blazers stretched out to a lead of as many as 19, got reeled back to a four-Point lead, then romped to a 132-122 victory.  The Woofie Dogs also lost to the Clippers and 76ers.

However, they did beat the Golden State Warriors Friday, in Overtime, 131-130, with a final sequence as nutty as a basketball fan will ever see.  Down by three in OT, Kevin Durant drained a 3 off an inbounds and while, presumably, getting fouled by Rookie Keita Bates-Diop (who, by the way, is getting a lot of needed and smart late run with the season now meaningless).  However, the official making the call said Bates-Diop fouled Durant before shooting.  They re-rack the inbounds, and this time, Stephen Curry drains a 3 with Jerryd Bayless draped all over him to tie the game.  (It was Curry's third 3 in the last 90 seconds of OT.)

The Wolves called a Time Out after that, at which point Curry and a few other Warriors pointed fingers and laughed at the ref who called the Durant foul on the floor.  I have never seen players (not just one player, but players) openly disrespect an official like that, no matter how bad the call was.

Veteran ref Leon Wood saw that.  He had to have seen that.  And while more precise (and appropriate) payback could have been made by calling a Technical Foul on Curry after that showing up, Wood clapped back at the Dubs more passive-aggressively/Minnesotan.  On the ensuing T-Wolves inbounds (from half-court; the Wolves' TO gave them the right to move the ball up the floor), the pass was sailing way over the head of Karl-Anthony Towns, who was running away from the inbounds and Durant, hoping for a lob up top.  There was little chance he could have caught the ball.  But Wood called a foul on Durant that was probably phantom and 100% revenge for the Warriors' taunting.  Towns made the first, and that's all the squad needed.  God, that felt good to write.

This week (in a middle of a stretch of six matches where they play every other day): At Dallas, then home to Miami and The Bastard Seattle SuperSonics.

#-5: United FC (Re-Entry!).  Uh, what happened to this team being much improved?  They went into New England to face a Revolution XI that is uninspiring and there for the taking, and they leave Gillette with a 2-1 loss?  A quick look at Alex Schieferdecker at FiftyFive.One shows that the Fullbacks, Francisco Calvo and Romain Metanire, have been pinned back these last two matches, both losses.  And that Angelo Rodriguez can play footsie with the ball and not much else.

We all thought next week's game at the New York Red Bulls would be an automatic loss.  But they are 1-1-2, so maybe they can pull out of this slump Saturday night.  Turns out RBNY can be beat.  But right now, so can the Loons.

#-6: Wild (Last Week: -4).  The franchise's streak of reaching the postseason looks like it will end this season at six years.  They held on to beat the Golden Knights in Las Vegas Friday, 3-2, but in a Game (and really a closing stretch of Games) where they basically needed to be perfect, on Sunday they shit themselves and curled up to die, getting crushed by The Bastard Winnipeg Jets (a team still out of a playoff spot but nevertheless in the hunt) in Glendale, 4-0.  The complete lack of effort may be emblematic of an old, wheezing team that finally needs to be put out of its misery.  And yet not reaching the playoffs seems like a reasonable enough goal that not reaching feels quite humiliating.

Worse yet for the Mild, their next two contests are at home (Tuesday vs. Winnipeg, Thursday against Boston).  I don't know for sure, but it feels like the Mild need to win all three of their final regular season Games (they wind up the 2018-9 season at The Team That Was Stolen From Us) and have the club that's currently in eighth, The Bastard Quebec Noridques, lose all of their remaining Games.  Oh, and the Coyotes have to lose all of theirs.  Minnesotans are a passive-aggressive lot, and Wild fans that much added with a touch of prickliness.  If the Wild lose or are otherwise eliminated from playoff contention either on Tuesday or Thursday, I expect -- no, I demand -- at least a shower of boos from the Xcel Energy Center crowd.  Fuck, I wouldn't mind a drink or two thrown onto the ice.  It's the least we can do, but that's what we got from this team -- the least.

Expenses Without Receipts

Starting from Sunday, March 31:

• Didn't spend anything on the 31st, so we start on Saturday the 30th -- Blue Sun Soda (they should call it "Pop") Shop they had another taste test, this time for Harry Potter Butterbeer.  I chose the version they made and had warmed up.  The taste tester administrator said Universal Orlando has its own version of Butterbeer and they serve it warm; is that true?  Anyway, they had a food truck outside, Bacon Me Crazy.  Even though I was having dinner at home in just about an hour, I wanted to break free from food from my parents.  I got their tater tots bathed in cheddar cheese and bacon bits.  A combination like that is always good.  With tip that cost me: $8.
• I really didn't have a good reason to go out after dinner.  I even showered, a sign that I was packing it in for the night.  But (and I know this is juvenile) Mother forced me to drink this Chinese sugar soup which I've hated all my life, and going out has always been my petty way of rebelling.  So I went to Wesley Andrews for a cup of pourover and, well, to start working on this.  With tip: $4.89.
• I then went to Glam Doll, a place I haven't been in a couple week and won't be for another couple weeks.  With tip: $11.86.
• All the way back to Tuesday, March 26, when I left St. Louis.  I stayed at a Days Inn way out in Pontoon Beach, Ill.  It's remote, but it was clean, and I regret I spent a day (actually less than a day) there.  The thing I noticed the most?  I was able to park in a spot in front of the main entrance, and at night there were still several spots available.  At the previous hotel I had to drive all the way down the side of it to find a spot.  Most of the hotels I get for these trips I take have the parking spots all filled, especially at night when people are turning for the night (of course) and I am actually hitting the town for some illicit fun (of course).  Anyway, I left a tip: $1.
• On Monday the 25th I left a tip for the housekeeper before I left my first hotel.  I stayed two nights there; I went to a second hotel and used my credit card points because I am damn poor now: $1.
• I do not like taking only three-day vacations.  I cannot just not do things I want to do.  And when it comes to St. Louis, I always have a list of things I do every time I go there.  With only three days I am scrambling.  Now, there is a counterweight to that, namely that I have such little money right now I really can't do a whole lot at these places.  That evinced itself on this afternoon, where there were three casinos I had to hit, and I strafed through them -- as in, I made sure I walked the entire floor, got a quick Coke, plopped down at a slot machine, and quickly made one spin.  And one spin was all I needed at my first stop, Ameristar, because I actually hit the jackpot.  Well, it wasn't a jackpot, but it was an Infusion of: $8.
• That further cemented my urge not spend a whole lot at these casinos.  Not only did I not have a lot of cash to spend, I did not want to blow my entire "jackpot" and piss it all away at the other casinos.  So I went to Hollywood Casino for the express purpose of pulling a slot machine just once.  And yes, I lost, but only: $2.
• And then I went up to Alton, Ill., to pull one slot machine, just to tell the casino that I was there.  And I spent also just: $2.
• On Sunday the 24th I was able to wake in the morning, which was perfect for me to go to a place I should regularly go to whenever I vacation in St. Louis -- the Waffle House.  With tip: $14.
• I was staying at a Quality Inn, a much higher-, uh, quality hotel than I usually get through Priceline.  This had a luggage trolley and a second floor and a light board with departing flights and a shuttle to the airport and everything!  I wish I could have stayed longer at this place, even though (like I said) it is usually so full of cars that parking is a hassle: $1.
• I spent this day figuring out where to go, deciding too late, then getting there too late.  Went to the Billikens baseball game too late, then got to Pappy's Smokehouse too late to get what I wanted, so I went back to watch the end of the baseball game (Dayton won).  But at least I knocked Ted Drewes off my to-do list: $5.70.
• I went to the Weezer concert at the Enterprise Center that night because 1) I had nothing else to do and 2) unlike other days, St. Louis meter parking is not enforced Sundays.  Yes, I like Weezer, but I could take it or leave it.  I remain a concert neophyte.  I sauntered down there because I had never heard of the opening act and really wanted to see the featured act, The Pixies, before seeing Weezer, the main act.  Imagine my surprise when, as I am looking for my seat, I hear "Where Is My Mind?" blaring.  The usher I saw had the vom sideways from Frank Black & Co., and I was mesmerized at seeing them so up close, if but for a second before the usher snapped the curtain shut.  After The Pixies got done, I and a bunch of people in my section went up the stairs to use the bathroom and find a drink.  Upstairs happened to be suite level; as I was walking down the hall I heard an usher speak into his walkie-talkie that people should not have gone up there.  Why?  Well, I sauntered into a bar that was really hoity-toity: A carve bar, a place for sweets, etc.  I went up to the bar and finally picked up a bottle of Budweiser.  As I reached for my wallet the bartender said, "Oh, it's complimentary."  Oh!  I appreciate that, but that convinced me I definitely should not have been up there.  I didn't want to make a scene, so I didn't press my luck; I had two scoops of snack mix before leaving the bar and heading over to a table outside the bar to enjoy my free beer.  And I didn't even pay a tip for it.  But I did pay a scalper for a ticket.  Thanks to the guy for walking me up to the scanner to ensure that I could get in and he was not scamming me with a fake ticket: $30.
• I then went to Lumiere Place, the fancy casino downtown, to play craps and slots.  Predictably, I didn't win any points at the craps table.  (Attendant was an ass, too.)  Pulled slots a few times, and lost there, too.  Ugh: $38.
• Almost forgot my night at Scarlett's.  In fact I did; the old Hollywood Show Club was a complete dud.  Girls were nice, but no one came up to see me.  Nothing?  No one?  At least I saved up my money.  Cover, a beer and a lot of tips amounted to just: $33.
• Saturday, March 23 was my day out to the Loo.  Got picked up by the shuttle for Dollar, my rental company for the trip.  Do people tip shuttle drivers?  I did, at least this time: $1.
• The first thing I did after hitting the hotel was to change into my new porno pants and head off to Dollie's.  Thank God that A***** was still there.  We made love.  Yeah, I said it.  She trusted me enough to confirm to me her real name.  And she said she'll probably leave at the end of the year.  She was only working that week on Saturday, so thank goodness I had the good sense to immediately drive down there.  With cover, drinks for her and me, tips to other girls there and an impromptu massage from A*****, the total was just: $127.
• Went to the Casino Queen, the STL casino on the Illinois side.  Tosser hit two 7's, and that's it for good luck.  Along with losing money on the slot machine, I spent: $41.
• Somewhere on this day I found a penny.  An Infusion of: 1 cent.
• Now to go all the way back to Tuesday, March 19, when ***e* came over to do a quick cleaning of the house.  This was a way to pay me back for the $200 I lent her so she could buy snow tires (shrug), but she still wanted some gas money.  Oh, and I bought her cigarettes and a Sprite, too.  The cash I gave her was just a: $20.
• Monday the 18th ... finally got around to getting the car washed.  For the second time in a row they didn't clean the trunk, but this time they told me it was an extra three bucks.  My hatchback trunk will cost me an extra $3?!  I swore this before, but I now really need to find another car wash.  Charged the wash, but I paid cash for the tip: $2.  Edited April 28, 2019 at 8:54 p.m. because I was wrong about charging the wash.  According to my day planner, and backed up by no record on either of my credit card statements, I paid cash for the whole was, tip and all.  That total is: $22.41.
• This is the day where I went downtown to get my shoes shined.  Lisa gave me this shine for free because the last time I went in, she had to close up shop to go to a doctor's appointment.  She didn't even accept a tip from me.  Cool!  I got Bogart's across the way.  It was the time of day where I got one free when I bought one, and the cashier gave me another doughnut to clear her inventory.  With tip those three doughnuts cost me just: $4.25.
• Went to the library in the evening, I think, to print out the KenPom standings I rely on for my bracket (some good it did this year) and the bracket that I filled out.  Total: 60 cents.
• I found a penny at the gas station, heads-up.  An Infusion of: 1 cent.
• Sunday, March 17, aka my birthday -- I went to the National Women's Hockey League Championship Game in St. Paul, and since Mickey's Diner was too crowded, it gave me the opportunity to cash in on the free birthday drink from the nearby Dunn Bros.  Large mocha for free -- but with a tip: $1.
• I spent bucks on the Whitecaps' 50/50 Raffle.  I don't know why; I never win these damn things: $3.
• After the 'Caps won, I scurried out and over to the Black Hart, the drag bar that is now a combination drag bar/soccer pub.  I'm not sure if those two concepts can coexist, but there were a couple other groups who were there to see the same particular match I did: FC Cincinnati's first-ever home game as a member of Major League Soccer, versus the Portland Timbers.  And FCC kicked the Timbers' ass, 3-0.  You know, I've visited that city only once, but I'm really happy for them.  Aside: As a few groups (and me) were there to watch the soccer game, a couple people there came to watch, of all things, a women's tennis final.  If there is a relatively obscure sport I want to watch, maybe the Black Hart is the place to go.  Surly, Heggie's pizza (have I ever had them before?), and tip: $19.
• Because it was my birthday, I went to My Favorite Stripclub (Non-Cover Edition) to rock out.  My ideal was to get dances from all four strippers on the shift, but I only got LDs from Sky (fuckin' mistake; that bitch blows hot and cold) and MILFy vet Julie U.  Got a beer, a Heineken; it's more expensive than coffee, but it's my birthday, and besides, I can't accept the fact that a fuckin' coffee here costs more than at Starbucks.  Plus tips: $54.
• To Saturday the 16th, where I didn't intend to use cash this day, but the cashier at Blue Sun (I was there for their special event where they give us ice cream for root beer floats) gave me deposits back for bringing in reusable Whistler pop bottles.  Brought one in to exchange for a bottle which I used for the root beer float, then exchanged that for another one, which I took home with me.  Two bottles returned at 50 cents a pop (pun intended) and I got back: $1.
• Let's go all the way back to Saturday the 9th, where we had our alumni volunteer event.  I felt like donating and I did: $5.
• Friday, March 8: Went to Subway.  Probably used the rest of the gift card I got as a Christmas gift from work.  Tipped: $1.
• My Favorite Stripclub (Non-Cover Version) at night.  Tips, water (tried that out once; costs the same as a coffee, and it's fucking water!), and a lapper with Cicily equals: $28.25.
• Followed that up with a coffee at Wesley Andrews.  With tip: $4.89.
• And then around the corner to Glam Doll.  With tip (and a free donut!): $12.
• We go back to Monday, March 4, where I unfortunately went to **a*'s place for what I thought would be a good handjob.  But it wasn't.  First her kid was there when I got to her apartment at the appointed time.  Then she decided she wasn't going to get naked.  Then she set up a strict services limit for the money I was willing to spend.  Then she gave me a strict time limit.  So imagine this girl, in her bar and panties but her hair in a towel, wanking me weakly and then saying, "OK, that's it."  Fuck that shit.  I thought her moving up closer to me would be great, but that was some bullshit: $120.
• I had better pleasure at Jersey Mike's, the coupons I get through the mail for which I used every month.  Charged the sandwich, chips and root beer, but the tip was money: $1.
• On Sunday the 3rd I went over to the local grocer for some stuff.  On may out I saw that a Girl Scout troop set up near the exit.  Oh yeah, it's Girl Scout Cookie time!  They do this every year, and I keep forgetting.  Well, I didn't forget this time; I bought a box.  But in a sign that other tip creep is seeping into everything or the Girl Scouts are teaching not just entrepreneurship but craven opportunism, the troop set up a tip jar.  I should have refused, but I didn't.  So, a box of cookies and a tip comes up to: $6.
• This was the time of the winter where it was really, really cold.  I got back home.  There was a ringing at the door.  I thought about ignoring it, but for some reason, I answered it.  It wasn't some dumb solicitor.  Nope, it's a woman, with her daughter in tow, Girl Scout sash and all.  They (well, I think the mother) was selling those Girl Scout Cookies door-to-door, in temperatures well below zero.  Now, I don't want to encourage such behavior, but goddammit, what she did took a lot of balls.  Plus I wanted some Thin Mints.  So I bought another box, the second that day: $5
• This was the day my other stripper-maid came; she came 16 days before ***e* cleaned things up again.  But this one is more thorough, albeit slower and more expensive.  Nevertheless, because it had been a mere four weeks since she was here, she quoted me a price thirty dollars less than usual.  God bless her: $150.
• Oh, and in the meantime, while I was packing up my things to take to storage, I volunteered to get her a Sprite.  She gave me two bucks, but it cost $2.24, plus I gave a penny to the penny dish, so. ...: 25 cents.
• Saturday, March 2: Went to the library just before it closed so I could print out the ticket to this student burlesque showcase (yes, there is such a thing) at a theater close by my house.  Not bad for a student showcase, although I didn't have to see the men in pasties.  Total: 10 cents.
• This day was the kickoff day for Major League Soccer, and I wanted to see MNUFC play San Vancouver.  I thought the Mill NE, a place I had been to once before and was close to this library, had a TV at the bar, but it didn't.  Still, my heart was set on this place so I had a bite to eat.  Price-wise, it was a lot more than a bite; with tip: $20.50.
• That night, just because, I went to White Castle.  I usually have order twice because the sliders are small.  Have a receipt for the first order, but the cashier didn't give me my receipt for the second one, for some damn reason.  But it's: $3.21.

Good through March 31.