Farewell To 2019

I wish I had more time to ruminate on this, but I endeavor to publish this before the clock strikes midnight.

All in all, an uneventful year.  Well, the continuing dread by the leadership installed to run this nation casts a palpable pall over the entire world and, I've got to say, my general mood.  But beyond the direction of our country, I have no complaints.  I'm getting into a groove at my full-time job (mix-up today in the filing department notwithstanding, and I assume things will just blow over).  My entire family remains healthy.  I think that my parents and I are having fewer fights, which is a good thing.  And my sex life, while expensive, remains healthy.  My erect penis is trying to find back Father Time with every stripper party.

When it comes to momentous occasions, I will point out two.  The first is the week I worked for the Final Four.  Nothing really beats working the Super Bowl, a more important sporting event.  But for six days I worked at a hobby job that I still pine can become something akin to a full-time job in the vocation I still dream of working in.  Oh, and I got paid handsomely for those six days, too.

But come to think of it, the most momentous thing of 2019 is a bad thing ... and it happened just eight days ago.  The closing of My Favorite Stripclub (Non-Cover Version) is something that I still have not processed.  In fact, right now I am actively avoiding even driving around the area lest I look up and see its lights off or, worse, parts of the building already torn off.  I'm not sure if I can wait that long, but I'm not sure if, after a sufficient amount of time, I do drive past the area and see an entire vacant lot, or the thing that's supposed to come after it, whether it be condominiums or a gym.  It truly was My Home Away From Home.  It was a tradition for me to go there after working Vikings Games, but after Sunday, I had to remind myself not to instinctively drive back there because it's closed.  I have no home away from home to go to.  Now, that may save me money.  But, first of all, the stripper diaspora has told me where they now work, and if I make it a habit of visiting all of them at these clubs that do charge cover fees and exorbitant prices on drinks, I could lose even more money.  And second of all ... well, of course it's not the same.  One of my most cherished establishments is now a memory.  And even though I'm so grateful for all the stripper girlfriends who'll give me handjobs and blowjobs for a certain price, dammit, I'll miss that place.

So, so long, 2019.  And so long, BJ's.

The Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey

Note: This is, obviously, the last WMNSS of 2019.  As convention, the surveys for the next year will fall on whichever day of the week January 8 is.  (That's because, when I began Wailing And Failing, The Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey captured the results of the, well, week, which was January 1 to January 7.  I didn't want to get set over publishing the WMNSS the same day every week on WAF, so I decided to shift the day every year upon the New Year.)  So if you read the survey religiously, just know that in 2020, you'll have to wait an extra day.  Thank you.

#-1: Gopher men's hockey (Re-Entry!).  So the Mariucci Classic was this past weekend.  I remember the name "Mariucci Classic" as the non-conference tournament the Gophers hosted every year.  Well, they didn't the past two years, but they did this year.  This year, and I presume from here on out, the Mariucci Classic will feature the U. and three of the other four top-flight men's hockey programs from the state of Minnesota.

Are you familiar with the North Star College Cup?  It was supposed to be The State Of Hockey's answer to the Beanpot: An annual tournament featuring the schools from the state fighting for Minnesota college hockey supremacy.  It's a great idea.  And after two years, I think, they scrapped it.  It was played at the X both years, but there just wasn't enough interest and ticket sales to make it financially viable.  The weekend the North Star College Cup took up -- I think it was late January -- was seen by the five schools as a valuable weekend to schedule in-conference or for their own non-conference matchups.  I thought the North Star College Cup was a great idea, and I think they should have stuck with it.  The meaning of hosting such a tournament in the state where this sport is so revered has to mean something.  And maybe, if you give it several more years -- especially around now, where the big-school Minnesota actually may be the worst of the schools in-state -- interest would finally come around and pack the Fusebox.

Well, maybe the five schools didn't so much scrap the idea as try to create a lower-scale version of it.  And so maybe that's why they retrofitted the Mariucci Classic into a semi-NSCC.  If so, I can accept it.  And also if so, the Golden Gophers may also accept it, because they defeated both Bemidji St. and St. Cloud St. to capture the title.  I can't remember the last time Minnesota won one of these mini-tournaments, so for that, I'll give them the top spot for the final WMNSS of 2019.

The downside is that this appears to be the last non-conference opportunity to goose up the PairWise.  It probably did not do much; last I checked, Minnesota ranks 30th.  And they are just 7-9-4 overall.  So they have massive catching up to do.  And they will do it in two weeks' time, for they visit Michigan St. Jan. 10-1.

#-2: Gopher women's basketball (Last Week: -2).  This club returns to the AP Top 25 after opening up their non-conference slate Saturday defeating Penn St. at Happy Valley, 81-74.  After starting the season with a loss, they have won 11 in a row.  They ring out 2019 with a home date tonight (Tuesday night) versus Ohio St., then visit Nebraska Saturday.

#-3: Gopher wrestling (Re-Entry!).  OK, so these grapplers were in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., for the South Beach Duals.  And unbeknownst to me, the tourney is a bunch of schools squaring off against one another.  In that sense, these guys had a good week, going 3-1.  They lost to Lehigh, 29-10 (!!!), but they dominated Old Dominion and Cornell, and yesterday (Monday) afternoon they wiped out Duke, 53-0 (!!!).  Not bad.

Off until the 10th, when they host Wisconsin to begin conference play.

#-4: Gopher men's basketball (Last Week: -1).  Finish their non-con clubbing Florida International -- the school Richard Pitino coached for one year before jumping ship for Minnesota; either Pitino is trying to make it up to FIU or his release from the school was predicated upon him playing FIU -- at Williams Arena Saturday afternoon, 89-62.  In that tilt, Daniel Oturu scored 21 Points and brought down 20 Rebounds.  It was the first 20-20 Double-Double by a Gopher player since Tom Kondla did it in 1966.  For that, Oturu was named B1G Player Of The Week, the second straight week a Golden Gopher was bestowed that honor.

The conference schedule picks up after the New Year -- at Purdue Thursday, home to Northwestern Sunday evening.

#-5: Timberwolves (Last Week: -6).  Looks Can Be Deceiving, Part I.  The Woofie Dogs sit at 12-20.  Andrew Wiggins has been absent the past few Games because of, maybe, the flu.  Karl-Anthony Towns has been unavailable the past several Games because of a knee -- and in the past half-day, leaks have been springing about The Big Meow being unhappy with Minnesota.

And yet I'm putting the Wolves above the Wild for this screening week.  Why?  Well, it's mostly prosaic; I usually go by weekly record, and believe it or not, these guys went 2-1.  They had to scratch and claw Thursday to defeat the Kings in Sacramento in Double Overtime, but they finally broke an 11-Game losing streak and won for the first time in almost a month.  A bad slip-up to Cleveland at Target Center followed on Saturday, extending their home losing streak to nine.  But in single Overtime, the undermanned Wolves pushed ahead of the similarly-undermanned Brooklyn Nets last/Monday night to break that home drought.  (I was going to go to this Game, but a snowstorm came through.  It wasn't that bad, I didn't think, but just in case I checked on Twitter, and Minneapolis declared a snow emergency.  Parking at a meter was going to be kind of tricky as it was, and even though I got this ticket for free, I didn't really feel like paying through the nose to park at a lot.  So I didn't go.)  And such as it is worth, they are only 1 1/2 Games behind Portland for the eighth and final playoff spot in the West.  This team is not good, but it's not like they're the Golden State Warriors, either.

Speaking of the Warriors, they are the foe for the only home Game the Timberwolves have this week.  It comes on the back end of a back-to-back that begins Wednesday/New Year's Day in Milwaukee.  Road contests versus the same Cavaliers and Memphis beckon afterward.

#-6: Wild (Last Week: -5).  Looks Can Be Deceving, Part II.  The Wild have racked up the most Points in the NHL since November 14.  They have scored the second-most Goals Per Game in that time frame.  (Oh, and Eric Staal was named to the NHL All-Star Game, so congrats to him.)  But they still are out of the playoff picture; they are two points behind Winnipeg and Calgary for the last spot in the West ... and they have Edmonton a Point ahead of them.  And despite winning a wild win in Colorado Friday, 6-4, they blew a lead at home to the Islanders Sunday evening and lost, 3-1.  They dug a huge hole early in the season, and now they are taking inexplicable losses at the X.  So I don't know which Twin Cities pro winter team has the bigger upside now.

Host Toronto tonight/New Year's Eve.  Then they have a back-to-back-homestand this weekend where they face ... well, wouldn't you know it -- Winnipeg and Calgary!!

#-7: Vikings (Last Week: -4).  The last team to end its season, the Gopher women volleyball team, went from Positive Numbers to -Infinity.  I set up the criteria for the WMNSS for such super-high falls from grace to happen constantly.  Say, you make a run in the playoffs, but you're eliminated, so you go from the penthouse to the outhouse.

Well, I don't think I'll need to do that with the ViQueens this year.  Sure, they made the playoffs.  But they limp in at 10-6.  They rested their starters Sunday in the regular season final vs. Chicago Sunday at Das Bank v.2.0 and lost, 21-19.  Now, these guys aren't a juggernaut.  But I really did think they had enough talent to beat the Bears.  Instead, they got swept by them (got swept by the Packers, too -- they finished 2-4 in-division) and showed that they have very shaky depth.

Worst of all, they draw New Orleans in the Wild Card Round.  Seattle I would've taken; the Vikes played them tough in Seattle earlier in the year, and both sides of the ball don't seem to be clicking as they were in years past.  Green Bay, despite them sweeping the Vikings, aren't all that great, in my estimation; Aaron Rodgers still doesn't have that telekinesis with his Wide Receivers.  And although San Francisco was good enough to claim home-field advantage, they are susceptible to play-action, of which Minnesota employs a ton.  I don't know if I would favor the Vikes over any of them, but of the squads they could be facing next week, the Saints would probably be the worst match-up.  And they got 'em, and on the road, and with both The Minneapolis Miracle and the PI no-call motivating their fanbase.

Vikings lose by 30 Sunday.  Book it.

Working Saturday, Working Monday

Saturday was great.  Had the department all to myself.  The work did not last the day for most, but I, thankfully, am not most.  Other people were let go while I was asked to switch departments and do clean-up work.  With that, I barely got done with everything I had to do at my first department, actually.  So while it was unusual, I liked how that day worked out.

Monday was ... eh.  Work was also slow today.  We were reaching down to find stuff to do.  I was fortunate enough to be moved to another department where there was work, and that made the morning fly by.  Later, I moved back to where I was supposed to be, and while waiting for the work we had to do, we were making boxes.  Yep, making boxes.  What I was not looking forward to the most on Mondays, going to the lab, was something that I actually did at the tail end of my workday (it is projected to be the thing I do the first half of the day).  That made the day palatable, but I once again I stumbled trying to gear up that I literally processed only one form before I had to leave.  Maybe it's better to end my day like that than to spend 3-4 hours there working till I die of boredom, but like I said before, if I'm going to be there, I might as well learn how to do the work in there.

I was told by everyone there today that my Monday-Friday schedule is something to be coveted.  OK, I'll tough it out.

Will I Make A Mountain Out Of A Molehill? Will I Normalize?

OK, so my alma mater go their asses kicked Friday night.  We were all frustrated.  But there was one guy in our membership -- who I know has a temper -- started cutting open a vein on our Facebook.  But, I think, it went over the line.  Many of us are upset at the head coach, athletic director and new president.  But this guy, for no reason, started going after us, the membership.  He didn't name names, but he said, "If you still believe this is the right guy for the job, you're stupid."

I don't know really know what to do.  My first instinct was to, actually, like his post.  But then I thought to myself, "Wait a second ... who's 'you'?"  Is he referring to ... me?  That's when I started to believe he made it personal.

But I haven't made a post yet.  Because I'm afraid there are downsides no matter what I do, or don't do.  I could just let this slide.  But maybe the membership is actually insulted by what he said, and is hoping I step up.  And if I don't step up, I'll be seen as feckless and they'll turn away from the group because it'll feel mean and unwelcoming.  However, if I do say something, what do I say?  I'm ruling out trying to be conciliatory and compromising because that's so worthless I would be better off not saying anything.  But what is too forceful?  I do not want to add to the anger that this guy injected into our Facebook.  And I could, theoretically, be accused of thinking he is angrier than he actually is, and then he'll start accusing me of, well, being accusatory.  It is just one guy, but this is one guy who has been active in the membership, especially relative to others.  If I piss this guy off, it's over.  Or -- and I wish I weren't so scared of this -- he might come after me.

You know, I think the thing I need to not do is be afraid of people who might want to bully me.  If that's my guiding light, I'll have to say something, and I'll need to err on the side of overreacting.  I can understand anger.  But as President, I need to do what's best for the group, and I think it's fairly simple to understand that you don't turn your guns on the group, especially when they have little influence on the hiring or firing of the heads of a football team.

Man, I just wish grown-ups would know how to behave.  That's not too much to ask.

Will I Miss Working Saturdays?

Today, Saturday, will be my last regular Saturday at work.  (I might work other Saturdays, but only if I'm asked, and only in exchange of time off another day or overtime.  In fact, this might be a not uncommon occurrence.)  Through a series of staff switches precipitated by one woman living her post because she wanted to live with her father in New England, a couple weeks ago I became the next-to-last domino to fall.  In short, I am moving not jobs, but shifts: I used to be Tuesday-Saturday, but as of Monday I will be on a, well, Monday-Friday schedule.

And I don't know if I like it.

I jumped at the chance because of what happened to me in the fall.  Well, football happens in the fall. Saturdays are when my alma mater plays Games (or, seeing their performance in the Holiday Bowl, "plays"), and I have had to take paid time off on several occasions to be there to run the event on time ... or, if it was too late for me to beg to take the day off, I would have to forgo the event until my shift was over and I would get there, usually, late in the Third Quarter.  That seems to wrong for the president of the club, and shifting to a normal workweek would obviously obviate that issue.

The pros take over Sundays.  I had worked at my day job on Sundays when the department was underemployed, but otherwise I was free to do the day work for Vikings telecasts I have done for the past 15 years.  However, there were opportunities, especially when the coordinator over the summer e-mailed me, to get work in as a runner on set days, aka the day before Game day.  I literally was offered the chance to work the day before seven of the eight Vikings home Games.  And I couldn't because my schedule at work had me penciled (more like "penned") in as an indispensable part of this or that department.  I couldn't take paid time off at my main job to maximize my hobby job, even if I have been at that hobby job for a decade and a half.  There was one exception: When I was sent this e-mail, the calendar only extended a few months, and I had the day before the Game against Detroit earlier this month open, so I did use paid time off for that Saturday before my boss would put me in a spot where I would feel I'm letting my team down if I said I wouldn't come in to work.  (This also allows me to get money from one job while actually earning money on another -- the "double dipping" I'm so fond of doing.)  That headache is gone now that I have my Saturdays ostensibly free.

And yet ... and yet I have to admit I've gotten used to working on Saturdays.  I might be used to it because, back when my brother and I were young, my parents forced us to help them at The Store.  So unusual work time frames are something I'm used to.  And this Tuesday-Saturday work schedule is something that I have gotten accustomed to.  The bulk of my duties at my job are data entry, and that's dependent on the forms that are delivered to us, and those depend on people coming and giving urine samples ... which are usually done in a normal, Monday-Friday schedule.  It takes a day for those samples to get here, so that is why most of the people in my main department work Tuesday-Saturday.

Data entry is boring, but at least I can listen to the radio while I do it.  Mondays are dependent on forms filled out on Sundays, and since most businesses aren't open on Sundays, there is relatively little data entry on Mondays.  So, as confirmed by my boss yesterday/Saturday, what usually happens is we go into the lab (the same lab I refused to go into to pad out the rest of my workday yesterday/Saturday) to process these other forms that ... well, I don't know when they come in, but my boss says that there is usually these types of forms to enter into the system in the lab on Mondays.  The rest of the day we go back out to the data entry department to enter the rest of the information from these "special" applications.

So the way he describes it, I'm sort-of terrified of what my Mondays will be like.  It's boring as hell in the lab; you cannot wear earphones while in there, although you can bring in a radio and blast it.  I have a satellite radio device, but I don't know if I can bring it in the lab.  If I can't, I have to rely on terrestrial radio, which is stultifying to listen to for four hours, or use my data and listen to Sirius XM over the phone, and that might drive me to my limit in no time flat.  I'm in a no-win situation there.

Also, I'm slow to do these forms, mostly because no one calls me out on it and I'm allowed to daydream.  I don't know if there is space for my pace to be scrutinized by higher-ups, but if so, I'll have to step to it, and I don't want to step to it.

Finally, my trepidation on working Mondays has an opportunity cost: What I lose by working Saturdays.  Take this Saturday, for example.  I am in ... let's just say I will be in the department where I am the only one.  I am left alone, no one is looking over my shoulder, I can work at my own pace, I can take breaks when I want, I can take my lunch nap whenever I want, and I can blast my satellite radio in there.  (Oh, and in that part of the building, my Sirius XM receiver has just about perfect reception; can't say that completely in data entry, and who knows if I can even get a signal if I'm stuck in the lab.)  If I'm working a Saturday there, it is just about bliss.  I usually am working in data entry, and it'll get mind-numbing to keep myself entertained (moreso when I get to the spring and summer when I can only listen to baseball), but even then, I don't truly mind it.  Plus, there's no traffic to fight on Saturdays, when there's all kinds of traffic to confront on Mondays.

The more I think about it, the more I am talking myself out of thinking this switch is a good idea.  Which brings me back to what I said about the "dominoes that fell."  See, that woman who left for New England had a filing job.  A supervisor in filing decided he no longer wanted to be a supervisor, so he took her job.  That left an opening for a supervisor, and a woman who has the same title as I finally decided that it was time to move up in rank, and she took that job.  Her job was Monday-Friday.  I'm taking over her schedule.  That naturally opened up my shift, Tuesday-Saturday.  And another guy who has the same job as I, who has a weird shift of 10-hour days from Saturday to Tuesday, is assuming my schedule.  (His four-day/ten-hours-per-day shift is probably going to be put in the classifieds.)

Do you see what I mean by dominoes falling?  It feels as though all of us are in an ordered chain, and so we all move up whenever a link is altered.  In other words, even though missing Saturdays this fall has been a pain in the ass, I felt kind of ... obligated to take this shift because it ... feels expected of me.  Otherwise, this four-day/ten-hours-per-day guy "leaps" over me to take Monday-Friday.  And he got hired after me.  (Well, he technically wasn't; he was laid off from this company even though he had spent many, many years there.)

So ... yeah, I don't know if this is the right decision.  I need to stay on these days for at least six months before I ask about doing something different.  Maybe this will grow on me.  Or maybe I will despise it so much that I'll ask the guy "behind" me if he wants to do Monday-Friday instead so I can re-take Tuesday-Saturday.  I hate the unknown and not knowing if I'm making the right decision.

Regret Leaving Work Early

Maybe I should've taken it more seriously, but I didn't think I would be cut early today like I was yesterday.  After all, yesterday technically was a workday, so businesses would be open, which means urine tests would be taken, and thus they'd be flown in and driven here for us to process.  There was stuff to process, but in fact, there was a little less to process today than yesterday.

I didn't want to use my paid time off for a second day in a row.  But, like yesterday, I was given the impression that there just wasn't anything else to do.  Well, at least initially; stuff was delivered for the lab, so I could go in there and process those applications.  This is something I will be doing on Mondays as I shift my schedule -- more on that tomorrow -- and so I thought that, well, boring as hell job would be my salvation.

But then I remembered there's a stripper party this afternoon!  I was invited by *****y, a woman whom I've known for years and just recently started to give me handjobs.  When she hosts, she usually does it Friday afternoons, and I am at work then, obviously, and I told her I couldn't come.  But, with the sudden cutting from work, I considered it a sign that in fact I should go.  Plus, it would be nice to dive back into seeing boobs four days after the closure of My Favorite Stripclub (Non-Cover Division), a place where I met *****y and where the other three girls scheduled to work worked previously or up until the bitter end.

I don't like this about myself: Once I remembered I could go to the party, I found other reasons around my workplace to leave early.  I gazed through the window into the rack where the applications are stored.  It looked as though they were all still in their envelopes.  Usually when I go in there to process those apps, they are already opened and pulled out and flattened.  Since the envelopes weren't open, I didn't feel like working the rest of the day back there.  Sad, really.  But I saw Parasite with my sister and brother-in-law last night, and there was a sex scene, and I got horny, and then I remembered the house party.

So I made sure I heard my boss correctly and took him up on his offer to leave early.  And I got ready: I went to the gas station to get money, and then I went home to change and put on my porno pants.  And then, 47 minutes after I texted her about me going to her party, *****y told me she cancelled it because the host (it's not at her place but at some guy she knows, apparently) and one other stripper cancelled.  Shit.  I texted her just before I left in case she was able to get back to me immediately and tell me this party was cancelled.  But she didn't.  I wish she did, because although I had paid time off to spare, I didn't want to spare it.  What happens if there is no work tomorrow?  Or next week?  (One of my bosses noted that she didn't think we would be cut today, but the paucity of work is something she hasn't seen at this point of the year in a long time, if not ever.)  At my company, if you run out of paid time off, you leave without pay.  So obviously, if I had known that there is no party to go to, I would have stayed at work, bit the bullet, went into the lab and ripped open those envelopes, even if the boredom would have killed me.

I went home to change into my porno pants when *****y inconveniently told me the party was off.  It's in cases like this, where I take a chance and my plans are ruined on me, that I get into guilt mode and I have to do something productive.  I used the time I would have spent on work going to the bank and depositing a check for my parents, then ... well, blogging but I fell asleep for an hour before I finished.  Technically, I'm doing this at a time when I would be finished with work.  All in all, it wasn't a complete waste of time, but dammit, I should be making my way home now instead of 3 1/2 hours ago.

Roommates For 2 1/2 Days

So my sister and brother-in-law are here, right in this house, for a few days.  And things are weird now.  The house feels a lot more crowded.  Yes, I love that I can see them for a few days since they live so far away now.  Still, things are just ... not to my liking right now because two other people are living with me.

For example, I went to the bathroom and saw my sister's stuff everywhere.  And then breathed in through my nose and the smell was ... different.  Well, fragrant but different.  There are a lot of changes I'm just not used to.

Another thing: My sister insists on using the new car because she's afraid the old car will go kaput on her.  So today and tomorrow I'm using the old car to go to work while they fly all around the Twin Cities in the new one.  I don't mind; they're my guests, and the old car can take me 15 minutes away from home.  It's just that in cases like this, my bad luck will bite me, and the old car could, like overheat or something.  I wouldn't have to worry about such a thing if other people weren't living with me.

Regardless, about 60 hours from now it won't matter because they'll be flying away.

Christmas Dinner Thoughts

I pride myself on eating everything that's put on my plate.  When I was young I didn't do that at all, and so my parents beat me until I did.

So it wounded my pride when I was told by my sister-in-law to throw away the rest of my dinner even though I was showing visible signs I wouldn't make it.  And I didn't.  Sure, I finished the prime rib.  But there were still green beans, Brussels sprouts and mashed potatoes I wanted to finish, and I frantically picked at them until my sister started commenting, and then I threw it away.  Didn't want to do it because that's wasting food, but (shrug)

---

Another thing.  I was nursing several drinks during the course of the visit.  I had a few glasses of wine, a Cherry Coke, and some water.  Oh, and I had a cup of tea, too.

After dessert we walked over to a different room to play board games.  I had the cup of tea that I was able to drink, but I thought about all the other drinks I had, namely the water in the red Solo cup and the stemmed glass with the wine that I bought for about $35 that still had, oh, three sips in it.  But the game were going to play involved throwing dice, and I didn't want to spill the glass of wine.  That glass and cup were going to be just fine on the dining room table.

No, it wasn't.  I got up after the game to sip the wine ... and the glass, as well as the cup, was gone.  And I saw two glasses in the shape of the wine glass I was using all afternoon and evening next to the sink, empty.

My sister-in-law's mother -- which makes her my ... aunt-in-law? -- probably did the Asian thing and cleaned up even though no one asked her, and even though I wasn't done with that wine.

Dammit, there was, like, three bucks' worth of wine I still wanted to drink.

Oh, The Annual Christmas Song

Forgot about this tradition.

Frankly, I think I've gone through all the Christmas songs I love, so I'm going to start highlighting the ones I like, of which there are many.

As a tie-breaker, I go to the Billboard charts.  You may not know this, and I didn't until this week, but Billboard magazine has tweaked its formula for the Hot 100, aka The Singles Chart.  Christmas songs are everywhere, of course, but the mag usually did not count them because, well, radio stations change their format to Christmas every year, so the same songs crop up every year, and it's not fair for the same songs to dominate the chart every year around this time.  I actually think it's still a good idea.

However, with the advent of new ways songs are listened to, the very concept of popularity had to be reckoned with.  And, eventually, Billboard had to face the fact that the Hot 100 has to reflect the songs most popular that week, regardless of whether or not they've been heard every year around this time of year for the past half-century.  So they've built in formulae for streaming as well as radio play (and, to a much lesser extent, sales) and have, for a while now, given us a new formula to tabulate most popular singles.

As of press time, the #1 song in the Singles Chart is, you guessed it, "All I Want For Christmas Is You," by Mariah Carey.  But I spoke about this earworm to end all earworms before on WAF.  I'll go to the next most-popular Christmas song and at #2, by golly, it's "Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree," by Brenda Lee.  A worthy song at #2:

Christmas Fucking Overwhelmed

Yesterday/Christmas Eve I did my customary solitary traditions, things that may seem superfluous or even trite to you but mean a lot to me.  I hit Southdale (after work) to go around every store, even though I don't buy anything.  I finish at the Cheesecake Factory where I buy cheesecake, then go home.  Sort-of watched It's A Wonderful Life, even though I took a nap later, waking up just to see the end title and "The End" splashed across the screen.  I finally went back out, in the above-freezing temperatures, totally drivable roads and fog in the air to Merlins Rest, where I had time to myself to think and to sort through my receipts.

Except for that latter thing ... well, I kind of didn't have time to myself.  When getting a second half-dram of whiskey, I met up with a friend, who was hanging out with someone he's dating.  I then was introduced to the date's sister, who cajoled me into giving a friend she was with a drink because it was his 21st birthday.  I wound up buying him two half-drams of whiskey.  I was able to sort my receipts in chronological order, but I was unable to write them down like I wanted to because, well, I got sidetracked.  (Oh, and the sister's friend?  Not so much; this friend lived a half-block away and came in because he worked at the bar before, and this woman just started chatting him up because she was drunk.  Still a good dude, though.)

Getting sidetracked/overwhelmed is happening now and won't abate anytime soon, dammit.  I loved doing what I did yesterday, but once I got home I was so wiped out that I felt that if I went to bed without setting an alarm, I'd sleep so long that I would miss Merlins Rest -- and I was right that the alarm I set at 9:55 was the only thing that woke me up.

But beyond feeling tired, there are other circumstances that make this holiday season a lot more stressful than years past.  Most notable among them -- and I love them -- my sister and brother-in-law is fucking up a lot of my plans of easing through this holiday season.  They're going to be staying here for a few days beginning on Boxing Day, although they're living with my brother and sister-in-law now, and I have no idea how they're going to get up here.  I have to entertain them, of course, so my Saturday will be full.  (Can't do anything with them Friday because that's my alma mater's bowl game.)  And then they leave early Sunday morning, so I have to get up and take them to the airport ... hours before I work the Vikings Game.  They might leave so early I'll have time to come back home and rest before going back downtown.  Or not.  (That also means I need to find a good time to get my credential since Saturday night might not be possible.)  And on top of all that, there might be a snowstorm Saturday night/Sunday morning.  I'm already fucking freaking out over doing all this shit under inclement weather.

On top of that, unlike in dinners past, my sister-in-law has invited her entire family over for Christmas Dinner today.  So, she asked me to bring wine, dessert (that's what I bought Cheesecake Factory for) and, because I want to appear sociable, a gift for the exchange the family is doing.  That, the gift in particular, took so long this past week that I was wiped out from doing much of anything else.

After they leave it still won't get better for a while.  I have to readjust my schedule because I work Mondays from now on; I'll blog about that.  New Year's Eve comes the next day, and I need to reconnoiter back with my friend to see if he'll have me over again.  And, back to my own tradition, I want to stay at home on New Year's Day -- not even cracking open the door -- and instead will try to make spaghetti for myself.  That'll be, hopefully, a good busy.  So it'll be, I reckon, Thursday the 2nd before I can just go to work and then go home to sleep.

Shit, I just remembered I need to buy glasses before the year is out.  Oh, and I've had to clean and pick up my stuff so the house looks presentable.  Goddamn, all of this is just so fucking stressful!!!

The Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey

#-1: Gopher men's basketball (Last Week: -1).  In a wan and quiet screening week (especially in Dinkytown), I'll give the top spot to the Gopher men ballers, for they had the victory over the bigger name, and they did it away from The Barn.  It was a 20-Point pummeling of a probably not very good Oklahoma St. club (which, for the record, was a return Game for the one the Cowboys played in Minneapolis but at U. S. Bank Stadium as a dress rehearsal for the Final Four last year), which was played Saturday afternoon not in Stillwater, Okla., but in nearby Tulsa.  Sure, ESPN.com's Joe Lunardi believes the U. is part of the Penultimate Four Out, but they have won two in a row and four-of-five.

Final non-conference Game this week: Richard Pitino hosts Florida International, the squad he coached for one year before jumping up here, Saturday afternoon.

#-2: Gopher women's basketball (Last Week: -2).  Meanwhile, the Gopher women ballers are firmly ensconced in The Big Dance (according to ESPN.com's Charlie Creme) and are now 10-1 (with a ten-Game winning streak) after routing Lehigh, 77-49, Saturday afternoon at Williams.  But now the nut-cutting starts: Conference play begins, and so the team cannot hide behind a resume that is more on the thin side.  Can this team hang with schools their own size?  We'll see, staring with a road contest versus Penn St. Saturday afternoon.

#-3: Gopher wrestling (Re-Entry!).  Beat South Dakota St. in Brookings, S. D., 22-10 Friday.  Have no idea how impressive this should be but, hey, at least they didn't lose to Rider!

South Beach Duals next week (wanking motion).  They begin B1G play after mid-January.

#-4: Vikings (Last Week: 0).  Yes, the ViQueens lost to the hated Green Bay Packers at home on Monday Night Football, 23-10.  (That it happened the night My Favorite Stripclub [Non-Cover Version] closed forever feels like a gut punch.)  But there are two ways to think of this in order to, uh, alleviate the pain.  On the one hand, they already are in the playoffs because the Rams lost on Saturday.  Sure, they are now "condemned" to the six-seed in the NFC Playoffs with this loss, but if the Rams had won, a playoff birth would still be up in the air, and that would really suck.

Also -- and hear me out -- pessimistic fans of this franchise had their diminished expectations of this group of players affirmed.  Let's be real: You kind of thought the Vikes had a chance of losing at home, didn't you?  Well, it happened.  Look, this team isn't Baltimore or San Francisco or New England.  They probably won't win the Super Bowl this year.  Any hopes you had that they would are just that -- hopes, not predictions based on fact.  So if you know how the Vikings usually roll (or not roll) in situations like this, how can you be shocked?  So let's take bets on how motivated they'll be to host Chicago in the regular-season finale Sunday, then see which club is the NFC #3 Seed.  Then we'll shit our pants, but not before acknowledging that I, for one, thought these guys would finish out of the playoffs at 8-8.  This is by no means a successful season, but we all kind of knew that these guys are a good-to-very-good team, nothing more.

Right?

#-5: Wild (Last Week: -3).  A 2-2 screening week.  But there are a couple factors that force me to put the Mild below the Vikings in the survey.  First off, there are some high numbers in a couple Games, specifically the 8-5 win over The Bastard Winnipeg Jets and a 6-0 home thrashing by The Bastard Atlanta ... uh, Thrashers.  I am fixated on this loss; according to The Athletic (which I signed up for on a deal last month; I've been thinking about that for some time), that humiliation cost the Mild, like, ten percentage points when it comes to their chances of reaching the postseason.  If they miss the playoffs, it would be that home defeat Saturday that contributed to their demise more than any other.  I still can't quite believe that got fuckin' blitzed 6-0.

They're done until Friday, when they visit The Bastard Quebec Nordiques.  They return to the X for a tilt versus the Islanders Sunday.

#-6: Timberwolves (Last Week: -4).  The slide continues: Four more losses (fuck) extend their losing streak to 11 Games.  The screening week began with a slump-busting win for New Orleans Wednesday (which had lost 13 straight) and ended with a capitulation at a Golden State club that is nothing like they were the past half-decade.  Note that none of the four defeats this screening week has been by more than single digits: Eight, nine, seven and nine have been the margins of defeat for these four Games.  They've been competitive (especially since Karl-Anthony Towns hasn't played the past few contests), they just don't have that clutch gene yet.

At Sacramento Boxing Day.  They then come to Target Center for Games vs. Cleveland Saturday and Brooklyn Monday.  I've been offered tickets to both.  My sister and brother-in-law are here until Sunday morning, but I don't think they want to watch a basketball Game and I need to hang out with them, so it looks like I'll go to the Monday match.

#-Infinity: Gopher volleyball (Last Week: Positive Numbers).  Goddamn you, Stanford.  I don't know how much envy and animosity The Farm conjure in Gopher volleyball fans, but the school that crushed their championship dreams in the only NCAA Tournament Finals appearance the U. has ever made continues to torment them, sweeping them in the Final Four in Pittsburgh Thursday, 19-22-22.

With that being said, apparently there are a lot of mitigating circumstances to be OK with the squad's run.  First of all, like Destinee Hooker of Texas, Minnesota ran into a dominating, iconic player on the other side of the net in Kathryn Plummer.  She was named the AVCA Player Of The Year in Pittsburgh last weekend, an honor she won last year in Minneapolis.  And apparently (I didn't hear or see the match) she proved why, at one point being responsible for 12 consecutive Kills for The Cardinal.  Sometimes, it boils down to getting better players.

Which brings me to my next mitigating circumstance: Apparently, Minnesota and Head Coach Hugh McCutcheon has brought in the #1-rated class next year.  (For those Minnesota provincialists: Not one of them is from here.)  That should help reload a team that was trying to regroup from the loss of Samantha Seliger-Swenson, maybe considered The Best Setter In Gopher Volleyball History.  Finally, when you consider the loss of SSS, reaching one step beyond what you should as the overall #7 Seed may mean that they were happy just to reach the third weekend.  That is a loser's mentality, but if you step back and assess, shoot, this was a damn good year.  And it could get better next year.

Will I go to a Game next year?  Nope.  Still mad over their choke job last year.  But I give them credit for reaching the Final Four for the sixth time in program history, and for the third time in the last five years.  That is the resume of a volleyball powerhouse.

RIP, My Favorite Stripclub (Non-Cover Version)

May 30, 2004: As far as I know, that is the first-ever time I went to My Favorite Stripclub (Non-Cover Edition).  I remember seeing the marquee driving home from The Store every Saturday.  Once I knew what "Nude Girls" meant, I really, really wanted to go to there.  And finally, while my parents were away when they went to Las Vegas for holidays (at least I think), I summoned up the courage to go into this seedy dive and see if there were any boobs I could see.

And there were.  Specifically (and IIRC) I saw a cute black-haired, tattooed beauty just as she was leaving the stage.  I didn't know the protocol of this place at the time, but as she was walking to the dressing room I gave her a buck as a stage tip.  And that was it; (IIRC) I went in there right before bar close.  And the ten minutes I was there (IIRC) was the perfect initiation to a place I was curious but unfamiliar with; not too much time whereby I would get so nervous I would freak out and leave and never come back.

I did.  For the next 15 1/2 years I did.  A bevy of beauties came and went, and for the most part they were hot.  Stripmongers and the strip club-curious probably never set foot in the place because they concluding that the ugliness of the outside (and the surrounding area, at least until gentrification started spreading to the area, as I will mention below) had to mean that the roster was just full of heifers.  Not at all.  In fact, most of them were filled with babes who were working downtown and wised up to the lower tipouts and the relatively low stripper bullshit here.  If people didn't figure that out and decided that downtown Minneapolis is where the tits are at, their loss.

But now the loss is ours.  The clock started ticking in earnest when its sister strip bar, 22nd Ave. Station, got shut down by the city several years ago because the owner bought liquor at the store next door when his license forbade that.  That sent the message that clubs of its kind were no longer allowed to stay in business as they were forever.  But the end was in sight with the death of the owner.  It appears as though (even though I never could find confirmation) that the entertainment license allowing strippers to strip at a place on that area in Minneapolis would not be allowed to be handed down from the owner to his son, to whom My Favorite Stripclub (Non-Cover Division) was willed.  Moreover, I hear that the son wasn't too keen on running the place, nor was he the greatest of owners.  Finally, the condo boom that has transformed downtown Minneapolis in the past 15 years has somehow extended beyond its heart.  We're talking close to North Minneapolis here, and yet I see a hip bar a block away and, within the past couple weeks, a new bar (non-strip-) crop up right alongside it, on the other side of the alley.  My Favorite Stripclub (Non-Cover Version) was a ripe target to be sold.  And I have heard that the son sold not the club but the land underneath it.

I have had more ups than downs here.  Sure, the customer service could be a bit surly.  I sure as hell didn't like the inflation of the price of a cup of coffee; when I came it was just a dollar, but somehow now it's $3.25, more than it costs at Starbucks.  There have been ugly strippers and there have been mean strippers, and there have been strippers who demanded five bucks for tips on-stage, to whom I stuck to my principles and refused to tip, just like most of the guys who go there and gawk but don't shell out the money.  But the price of drinks here still are cheaper than what you would be charged for at a classic stripclub.  The dances are, and have always been, $20 and out in the open, so there would be no temptation to do extras and, most important of all, no feeling of being burned when extras weren't provided.  There was no cover -- I could walk in and be greeted by the bouncer and not have to pay for the privilege of taking a seat.

And, finally, I slowly ingratiated by way into the life of My Favorite Stripclub (Non-Cover Division).  I blogged one time here (I don't think I'll look for it) that, when push came to shove, I would be treated like some interloper instead of a regular.  Well, fast forward to Saturday, when the place was packed (went there Tuesday and it wasn't packed; went there Thursday and while it was much more crowded for a typical worknight, it wasn't packed) and I gave two bucks to a girl who I knew would always demand five, and we started talking about missing this place once it's gone.  I asked her if she would be coming around Sunday and Monday (aka yesterday and today), to which she said she would and made me promise I would come ... "Because you're family," she said.  And we hugged.

That meant a lot to me, and what she said has stayed with me.  I didn't make it out last/Sunday night like I thought I would because the stripper girlfriend who I asked to clean my house (who actually danced there many years ago) came late and stayed late.  But despite the lack of parking I plan on being there some time in the late evening tonight and staying until the very, very end.  I kept coming back to My Favorite Stripclub (Non-Cover Edition) because I felt happy and, eventually, safe there.  I belonged there because it provided me with two important things that nourished my soul: Naked women and no judgement.  It truly became my home away from home.

And as of today, Monday, December 23, 2019, I will lose that home.  And I don't know where the hell I'm going to go now.  And the more I think about it, the sadder I get.

Rest In Peace, BJ's.

Dion Lewis For Nyheim Hines -- I Am So Stupid

I am in the consolation championship in both of my leagues -- although, to be fair, I am only in one of those consolation championships because there are eight teams and six qualify for the actual playoffs and we two losers need to play for something and they decided to idle us for two weeks before having us face each other this week.  I finished last in both leagues after the regular year is over, so in the other league, where there was, like, an actual consolation bracket, I actually pulled off two upsets to get to today.  I may just be playing for pride, but I am proud of myself.

But it would suck if I get to this point and lose.  So I wake up this morning, pop on my Twitter, and see all these tweets breaking news that Derrick Henry of The Bastard Houston Oilers is out.  Dion Lewis will replace him as starting Running Back and, because of ... well, I'm not really sure, maybe the New Orleans Saints has a predilection to giving up massing Yards and Points to pass-catching RBs, but I thus see these same tweets, and some other tweets, saying that you have to, and I mean you just have to pick up Lewis and, because this is Championship Week and there ain't no Games after this week, start him.

I'm still freaking out about my OK-but-only-lately lineups.  In one league (the one where I didn't play the last two weeks) I have Saquon Barkley (who is, you know, Saquon Barkley) and Marlon Mack (who was predicted to have a great day against the Carolina Panthers), so I decided not to pick up Lewis in that league.  But for the other, where I can start several more players, a couple of which can be put into flex positions, I decided to take a flyer on Lewis.  And after thinking about it, I decided to not just bench but outright cut Running Back Nyheim Hines of The Bastard Baltimore Colts.

Lewis: 68 Yards rushing, 19 Yards receiving, 0 Touchdowns, 8.7 Fantasy Points for me.

Hines: 6 Yards total from scrimmage, but two Touchdowns on, of all things, Punt Returns, the first time a National Football League player has scored more than one PR TD in the same Game since Darius Reynaud playing for, of all teams, The Bastard Houston Oilers, the team of the hot shit guy I cut Hines for, sort-of ironically enough.  Oh, and 12.6 Fantasy Points.

I'm leading this Game, though barely.  I'm winning the other one in a rout.  But if I lose this Game by, like, four FPs because I dumped Hines for Lewis ... fuck me.

So my stripper girlfriend is coming over tomorrow to clean the house, which is a mess.  My stuff is strewn everywhere ... clutter on the living room floor, my papers out on the kitchen counter, receipts still piled onto my desk.  I wanted to at least start moving those things off of the places that I need cleaned, but I haven't done that yet.

I really didn't have time this past week.  Yesterday/Saturday, for example, I wanted to go see my ATF at My Favorite Stripclub (Non-Cover Edition) after work, then use my December coupon at Hooters, then maybe drop by My Favorite Stripclub (Cover Version) afterward.  With all that, I presumed that I would be too tired to do anything when I came home, which I did at midnight.  But it's 2:30 now, and I obviously am not tired ... and my stuff is still everywhere.  How come?  I have been perusing on my phone for the past 2 1/2 hours.  Sure, I did start moving the receipts onto a chair, and I brushed my teeth for the first time in, like, five days.  But moving my stuff is one big thing I absolutely must do because my stripper girlfriend needs to clean through them, and now I have to wait until she's here and cleaning, like, the master bathroom downstairs for me to move my crap around.

And that doesn't take into account the shoveling I should start doing in the front and back yards.  Dang it, I'm such a lazy procrastinator.

The Winter Solstice Should Not Come Around Christmastime

I still am walking around like a chicken with its head cut off (no offense to chickens), and then I realize (a few days ago but still) that today, Saturday, is the Winter Solstice, aka The Shortest Day Of The Year.  Now, once Daylight Saving Time happened it kind of screwed me up, and there are disadvantages of having such a short time period of daylight.  But I gotta tell ya, I was getting used to having, what, eight hours of daylight per day?  And now those days are going to get longer?

I want to ... well, I think the word is "enjoy" having such long nights.  While it was rough at the start, it's not now, and with anything (I think), once you get used to something that initially appears daunting, you can find your joys and your mojo within it.  But I can't find nor enjoy right now because right now I'm dealing with a bunch of things: Christmas shopping, spending more time with my family than I usually do, Christmastime period, and the closing of My Favorite Stripclub (Non-Cover Version, and more on that later, I think).  I want, like, the month of January where I need do nothing else except further ingratiate myself into the rhythm of waking before and the sun comes out and preparing for my drive home after the sun goes down.  Let me have time to ... "enjoy" that.

But I can't because in rush of the holiday season, daylight's going to make a comeback after tonight.  It'll still be cold and the nights will still be long, but it won't be the same.  This is the nadir, and I have more shopping to do -- well, shopping and seeing my ATF at My Favorite Stripclub (Cover Division) and then going to Hooters.  But still.

Proviso: I may totally change my feelings about wanting to "enjoy" long nights tomorrow, or maybe even tonight.  I'm tired and people come down with the cold and stuff and ...

Still Behind

My sister and brother-in-law are going to be coming home in a week and I have barely begun to do all the things I need to do.  I'm still up getting my sis' sheets cleaned, per her request.  But everything else that should be done -- getting the sheets on her bed, picking my stuff up from everywhere, cleaning both yards of snow -- I haven't even started.

How in the hell did I get so behind?  Was it just work?  Was it the shifting to 9-5:30 the past couple weeks?  Was it the annoying snow we had a couple weeks ago, where it was just a couple inches and I got busy so I thought, "Well, if I can drive on it, why shovel?"  Probably all of it.

I'm still tired and I have to go to work anyway.  And then I can't come home because I'm having my annual night out with my friend to see the British Advertising Awards (aka The Arrows) and then we're driving all the way out to St. Paul for dinner.  And I haven't even shaved or showered.  Will he notice?  Will he care?

I'm rambling.  Need to stop and just blog this.

In Bloom (Was?)

My Father has about ten to a dozen plants.  By the way My Fucking Father has bitched at me about how to water them while they're gone, I think he loves those plants more than me.

There is a big, potted plant whose name escapes me.  My Father loves this one in particular because, once in a while, it pops a stem of flowers that, at its peak, emanates a very fragrant scent.  He might think it brings him luck.  Could be a Chinese thing.

I've seen this bloom once before.  Well, starting about, oh, I want to say the 4th or the 5th, it bloomed again.  You know, just a couple of stems with balls of blooming things on them yay apart.  And it gave out a scent.  Hoo, yes it did.  It at first was fragrant.  Then, maybe because it was past its peak, the scent got foul but not weaker.  I could enter through the front door after work and breathe in, and the scent would be borderline noxious to the point my head would whip back.  I guess that means I'm watering it right, Father.  In fact, I feel as though that if I had the time to water that plant in the morning, I would smell it after coming home from work at night.

Still is fragrant, a little.  A few days ago I saw the spindly petals on the floor.  It's looking more brown than white, the bloom.  It doesn't have a long life cycle, but I don't remember it being long the first time it bloomed.

To everything there is a season.

Wanted to shovel snow and/or do the laundry tonight.

Wound up watching ABC on TV (their live renditions of Good Times and All In The Family), following the impeachment vote on Twitter, and recycling my Coke bottles and shredded credit card applications instead.

And now I'm going to a stripper party where I hope someone will suck my dick.

Good day, bad day ... eh, don't know.

Under Her Thumb, Again

My Fucking Mother has yelled at me before, but for some goddamn reason her yelling at me Monday has gotten under my skin.  It's been a day and I still feel like it's hard to talk about, and I don't know why.

So she called me from Vegas and she wanted to talk about some things she wanted me to bring to my brother and sister-in-law when I drop by for Christmas; they are going to visit my parents out in Las Vegas, and having them bring these things over saves all of us from the onerous amount of postage.  I don't exactly remember when she snapped -- it probably is a defense mechanism -- but I got triggered when I tried to explain ... shit, I don't fuckin' remember, but it might be a situation where she was expecting her and Father's Medicare cards and I told her they haven't come yet.  She then told me to bring some letters too.

In the midst of all this, she wondered how these items haven't come yet.  My Fucking Mother was already wound up I told her that I would go check.  And maybe she finally flew off the handle when I gave her the silent treatment.  I really was just looking for these letters and cards that may have already come.  I'll admit I was kind of being a dick, but she was already being a bitch to me, and when I gave her radio silence while I was shuffling through letter after letter, she turned 100% cunt.  She was yelling at me for ghosting her, and for walking away from the phone when all I did was set aside these insurance cards that did come.

I had to tell her about some violation on a piece of property in town that my folks still own, and when My Fucking Mother accused me of not telling her not just the day but the minute I opened up that letter, that's when I ... well, I started yelling back, but I can't shake the feeling that as I did, I showed that I let her get to me.  "I OPENED UP THIS LETTER JUST NOW, OK?!?!?!" I screamed at her.  (Confession: I opened up this letter Saturday.  Don't care -- again, My Fucking Mother was being a cunt.)  And I basically kept screaming at her, even after she got done with lecturing me about writing down the things I need to bring over to Carver County on Christmas on some fucking list and making a left turn into asking me if I ate yet.  The best comeback my non-agile brain could think of was, and I was screaming still, "I DON'T KNOW.  I HAVE THINGS TO DO, INCLUDING YOUR SHI ... STUFF, MAYBE I WILL EAT, MAYBE I WON'T EAT!  OK?"  And then My Fucking Mother said, "I am done," and in what probably was my clearest and most in-control way to tell her I was pissed at her, I hung up without saying goodbye.

She called back twice later, the first about five minutes after I hung up on her, the second a couple hours later and after I went to a coffeeshop to clear my head.  Man, I wanted to work on some chores at home -- do the laundry or the dishes, or really start cleaning up my stuff that I should put out for recycling.  But I couldn't do it because I had to emotionally process and get over the fucking tongue-lashing My Fucking Mother gave me.  Sure, she was actually sane in the subsequent two calls.  And when I had to talk to her last/Tuesday night about a bunch of mail that came (just between you and me, it came Monday, but I didn't open it when I got bitched out by her), and she was pleasant to talk to, believe it or not, I actually felt a calmness followed by a rise in energy that helped me tackle the pile of dishes in the sink and, after going to My Favorite Stripclub (Non-Cover Edition), clearing the snow from the old car.  But that's what I hate about her, and of myself: I cannot go on with my day because I'm affected by this/her.  And my ability to not only do productive things but also to be happy still is dependent on whether or not My Fucking Mother mistreats me or not.  And she is able to do this while she's in another state.  She just reached out and grabbed me by the throat, and she still hasn't really let go of me.

They say that you should never let other people ruin your day.  Easier said than done.

That fucking woman has permanently damaged my life.  No wonder why I need therapy.

The Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey

Positive Numbers: Gopher volleyball (Last Week: -5).  OK, this does not make up, at all, for their choke job last year.  But as the seventh-overall seed they were supposed to be finished after this past weekend, and no, they are not.  For the sixth time in program history -- and, impressively, the third time in the past five years -- the University of Minnesota volleyball program has reached the Final Four.

That destination was not without its drama, nor its luck.  For the second consecutive Game, the Gophers had to rally from a 2-1 Set deficit.  Friday's Sweet 16 match vs. Florida quickly went lopsided; the Gators won Set 1 at 23, but the U. won the next at 14 and Florida responded by taking the Third at 16.  While it looked real, real bad after Set 3, Minnesota turned on the afterburners, taking the Fourth at 15 and the Fifth at 11.

This Regional was being played in Austin, Tex. because the overall #2 Seed, Texas, won its first two NCAA Tournament Games.  But inexplicably, they got upset in the Sweet 16 to unseeded Louisville, which upset 15th-seeded Western Kentucky in the Second Round.  That frightened me into thinking the Cardinals, of all fucking programs, would reach the Final Four.  But the prevailing wisdom won out on Saturday as the Golden Gophers blitzed Louisville, 21-14-16.

So the club is going to Pittsburgh for Thursday's National Semifinal where they face what is credibly a tournament nemesis, Stanford.  The Cardinal is seeded third overall, so it's very possible (and probably likely) that the journey ends there.  But if they win and make it to Saturday's final, they face two schools I have a problem with.  The fourth-overall seed is Wisconsin, which yuck.  The other entrant is The Proverbial Queens Of The Hill, Baylor.  How in the hell is Baylor, of all colleges, the #1 overall seed in women's volleyball?  And how have they not gotten upset before Pittsburgh?  They have never been this good, ever.  So the 2019 title Game will feature either Bucky Badger or a school I think is cheating.  Eh.

#0: Vikings (Last Week: -3).  I've been debating between the Vikes and the Gopher men ballers.  In the end, a few things stand out with the Vikings' lone Game over the Gopher b-ballers.  Well, a lot stood out in Sunday's 39-10 pounding of the Los Angeles Chargers:

• It was the first time they had at least seven takeaways in 24 Years;
• It was the first time they beat a team on the road by at least 29 Points in 27 Years;
• And, not for nothing, did you see the crowd at Dignity Health Sports Park?  It was all purple.  Had a friend of a Facebook friend (both of whom went to the Game with other friends, all of them Vikings fans living in Los Angeles) say that he believed 80-5% of the crowd were Vikings fans.  Hey, I need to point out that the Chargers started in Los Angeles and were stolen away to San Diego.  But eyes don't lie -- the Chargers never should have left San Diego.

Combine that victory with The Bastard Cleveland-With-St. Louis-Inbetween Rams at the hands of Dallas, and the Vikes have a two-Game lead for the final Wild Card spot in the NFC (with a record of 10-4!).  The Rams would have to run the table and the Vikes would have to, uh, anti-run the table for Minnesota to miss out on the playoffs.  With that being said, it's Packer Week and Green Bay and its Cheeseheads are coming to town for Monday Night Football.  There is a very, very slight chance that if the Vikings run the table and the Pack anti-run the table, the Vikings could win the NFC North.  At any rate, this is not necessarily a slam dunk win.

#-1: Gopher men's basketball (Last Week: -7).  I said last week that if they lost to Ohio St. on Sunday, this would surely be a rebuilding Year.  Well:



On the back of Marcus Carr pouring in 35 Points (a career high), the U. took down the third-ranked Buckeyes (who were going to be ranked first if they got out of The Barn with a win), the first time Minnesota has taken down a squad ranked in the top three of the Associated Press poll since they defeated #1 Indiana seven seasons ago.

A fact that I saw while watching this contest and sleeping in bed at *a***'s place: So far in Big Ten play, the home team is 13-0.  Great for parity, I think.  I'm not sure how much juice this Win gives the U., especially since they so far are 4-4 in non-conference play (albeit with a valiantly tough schedule).  But maybe defeating Oklahoma St. in Tulsa, Okla., Saturday afternoon could be yet another chit they can throw onto the NCAA Tournament pile.

#-2: Gopher women's basketball (Last Week: -1).  A perfect 2-0, though neither opponent was all that daunting.  Tuesday they went to George Washington and throttled the Colonials by 33.  Then on Sunday afternoon at Williams Arena (4 1/2 Hours before the men played, natch), with a pre-Game ceremony where the number of Janel McCarville was retired (or was it?  Does the U. retire numbers, or do they just, like, commemorate players with posters hung from the rafters?), the club outlasted California-Davis, 76-67.

One final non-con Game: Home to Lehigh Saturday afternoon.

#-3: Wild (Last Week: -4).  You know, the Wild didn't have a bad screening week.  They had three Games at the X and got a Point in all three (they lost Tuesday to Anaheim in the Shootout).  Then they became Chicago's slumpbuster by a score of 5-3; the Blackhawks broke a four-Game losing streak on Sunday.

So that makes Points accrued in 14 out of the past 16 Games.  That's good.  Unfortunately, their slow start means they still have a hole to climb out of; the Wild sit three Games out of the final playoff slot in the Western Conference.  And they've got another four-Game screening week (including a third consecutive Tuesday-Thursday-Saturday schedule) coming up: At Vegas and Arizona (featuring the newly-acquired Taylor Hall, then home to Winnipeg and, on Monday, Calgary.

#-4: Timberwolves (Last Week: -8).  There is no doubt as to which local team deserves the cellar.  With an 11-Point loss to The Bastard New Orleans Jazz and a seven-Point loss to The Bastard Buffalo Braves/San Diego Clippers, the Woofie Dogs' current losing streak is seven.  Worse than that, the club's Defensive Rating is on a pace to beat last Year's Cleveland Cavaliers as the team with the worst DR in the history of the National Basketball Association.  This is low.  This is the Minnesota Timberwolves.

This week: Home versus The Bastard Charlotte Hornets, then a four-Game roadtrip, the first three of which are against Denver, Portland, and Golden State.

Bad Driver: AFS 655 (Dark Camry ... Young Woman)

I'll be honest with you: What you did, speeding up to get in front of me so you (well, we) could take the right-turn lane, is something I've done often.  And it's not the most egregious of offenses, especially since you did turn on your signal.  I appreciate that.  In retrospect, I do.

It's just that, when someone cuts in front of me like that, I am absolutely dreading that you are going where I am going.  And goddammit, we were both going to the bank.  And on top of that, you went to the same entrance, and the same side of the building where I usually park.  So that's what I parked next to you.  Well, that and I wanted to show you up.  Passive-aggressively, of course.

Now, did you stay in the car because you were afraid of me?  See, the way you were driving, I was afraid of you.  Maybe that's why neither of us got out of our cars.  But then it dawned on me: If you were seeking a confrontation, or if I got triggered if you stepped out of your car, then what?  What would be the purpose of us going into the bank at the same time after your provocation?  There is no purpose.  So I left to end this awkwardness.  I had to get your license plate in case you want to come for me, of course.  But hopefully you'll never pull that bullshit on me again.

Going To The Lawyer This Morning

Haven't completed the application he sent me.  Some stuff is numbers I don't have.  Other stuff are questions I don't have the answer to.  Who do I want to be my executor, for example?

And I'll dither with my questions and this guy will just demand an answer and/or ignore my ambivalence.  He was so generous to give me 45 minutes of his time, between 10 and 10:45, and I can see us being done in ten minutes.  Fine.  Need to get wine anyway.

I just raked the roof and I need to nap before seeing him.  Doing this instead.  Yish.

Expenses Without Receipts

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And I'm Back Here!!!

Guess where I'm blogging from!  My favorite department!  Yes, yesterday (Friday) my boss told me to come back here today/Saturday.  And I'm here!  All by myself (although I have to worry about people coming in looking for paperwork back here and catching me on the Internet or blogging ... like this)!  And even better, I'll be back here during the week next week!  That makes it three weeks in a row and, including just Saturdays, when I come back here next week, I would be back here at some point for six weeks straight!  (And after a week away from here, I'll pop in here for half a day!)

And I'm done blogging this!  And I don't think I got caught!

I Will Miss It Back There

Today is my last day of filling in at my favorite department over the last three (or was it two?) weeks.  And just like I told a guy I work with yesterday (Thursday), there are many reasons to like it, at least for me:

• I usually work in a hallway, where people walk behind me.  I'm always scared I'll get caught looking on the Internet by one of those people;
• I physically feel safer in this department.  It's at the curled end of a room, and so it's walled off.  There are two people in that area of the room and there are blinders that can let the light in.  But other than that, I feel secluded and not exposed;
• I am largely left to my own devices.  There's no supervisor to tell me what to do or show me an error while typing;
• And I think I know about this department a little more than all the other ones.  I still ask questions, but I'm not as lost in this department as opposed to my default department.

Add the easygoing vibes of the people back there and honestly, if I could be full-time back there, I'd do it.  I just ... like it there.

And pretty soon I'll be spat back out in Data Entry, hoping I'll be back in that department again soon.

Cancelled Again

Did the eggplant emoji to another Facebook friend, and this time I added the sweat drops emoji.  She's a Playmate, so I thought she would understand.  Instead, she says, "Disgusting."  And after I typed out an apology, I get an answer from Facebook saying there was technical error or something.  I tried looking her up; couldn't find her.  She defriended and blocked me.

A part of me is sad and ashamed.  And since such a shaming has happened a second time, maybe this should be a sign that I should stop.  Then again, I had been warned by another woman after I gave her an eggplant emoji, and while she said I was being rude, she didn't block me.  And another babe just gave me a thumbs down.  After I apologized, she gave me a thumbs up.  We're still Facebook friends.  Why couldn't this Playmate do that instead?  I mean, you have to believe that with the sexy photos she keeps putting up, someone was going to be aroused and masturbate to them, right?

So it feels like the other part of me will win, the part of me that never learns, the part of me that will always be horny, the part of me that says -- well, take it away, Chris Cornell:



RIP, sir.

I have family coming, I need to clean the house, I have benefits that I need to use before the year is over, I haven't started my Christmas shopping, it feels as though I was invited to 30 Christmas parties yesterday, and after seeing Queen & Slim I have this urge to fuck my stripper girlfriends.  But after watching said movie I went home and, at 12:30, I went to bed.  I am on an adjusted schedule now, but I woke up when I was supposed to, at 8.

Full night's sleep, yet my to-do list feels double what it was last night.  And I have to go to work instead of doing any of that.  Great.

The Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey

#-1: Gopher women's basketball (Last Week: -3).  This has been kind of a wan screening week.  I give the top spot to the U. of M. female b-ballers who had a 2-0 week against forlorn competition.  Well, I'll say that Notre Dame is a big name -- they lost the NCAA Championship Game last year and won the whole thing two years ago -- but going through a serious retrenching.  But while victories are always good, and they firmly defeated the Fighting Irish Wednesday in South Bend, Ind., by a score of 75-67 (as part of the women's portion of the B1G/ACC Challenge), Notre Dame as of press time sit at 5-6.  The club then trounced American at American Sunday (good to see BcS schools play pure road Games at low majors), 70-53, but that isn't saying much, either.

Nonetheless, after that season-opening defeat at home to Missouri St., the squad has ripped off seven in a row and is, at last nominally, in The Big Dance.  And they will continue to (somewhat) pad their resume with their final non-conference road Game tonight/Tuesday night against George Washington and a Sunday afternoon Game vs. Cal-Davis.

#-2: Gopher women's hockey (Last Week: -4).  Only Game was their annual U. S. Hockey Hall Of Fame Museum Game.  It is played at a local rink around town; this year it was at Prior Lake.  And they defeated foe Minnesota St.-Mankato Saturday afternoon, 4-0.  And the team remains first in the rankings and have only three Ties and one Loss.  Results typical, yet the NCAA title Game bout against Wisconsin looms as the only possible contest in question.

Done for 2019.

#-3: Vikings (Last Week: -7).  Yeah, I'll take a boring win.  You don't need much more than that defeat the woebegone Detroit Lions like the Vikes did Sunday, 20-7.  And it's not as if they weren't in control of the Game; they were.  It's just hard to see how good they are against a team that is still playing hard for its Head Coach but just has too many guys hurt.  Also, the NFC playoff race remains in flux, since the Los Angeles Rams soundly handled Seattle Sunday night.  The Rams remain one Game behind the Vikes, and it's believed that if they wind up tied, the Rams will hold the tiebreaker.  A team that is 9-4 is still not assured of the postseason.

Can they go to Carson, Calif., and defeat another woebegone team, The Los Angeles Chargers?  The Chargers do not have a home-field advantage at all; I expect -- no, I demand that I see a Game with purple in the stands.  And I expect/demand a Win under those conditions, too.

#-4: Wild (Last Week: -1).  I had once buried the Mild.  I still think they haven't bottomed out yet.  But nonetheless they have been playing quite well lately.  They had a five-Game winning streak this past week which included Wins at Florida Tuesday and Tampa Bay.  That Lightning match Thursday featured three Wild Goals in a franchise-tying record 101 Seconds and two Lightning strikes to tie the Game with Minnesota Goals virtually immediately after that first gave the Wild the lead and then the win.  Sure, they got poleaxed Saturday in Raleigh, N.C., by The Bastard Hartford Whalers.  But they not too long ago were worst in the NHL, and now they're ... well, only fifth-worst in the Western Conference and three Points out of the last Wild Card spot.  But we only care about recent form here.

Last week they played Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday on the road.  This week they play Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday at home against, respectively, Anaheim, Edmonton and Philadelphia.

#-5: Gopher volleyball (Last Week: -2).  Yes, a team that went 2-0 for the screening week and is into its Sweet Sixteen of its tournament is ranked in the back half of my survey.  That is because they followed up their sweep of Fairfield on Friday by digging themselves a 2-1 Set hole to Creighton the next night.  Remember, this is at home.  And they got blasted in those two Set losses, at 19 in the Second and fucking 15 in the Third.  They crawled out of it to win the Second Round match, but they hung on for dear life, nipping the Bluejays in the 4th, 26-24, before coasting in the Fifth at 10.

This doesn't make me feel good.  This sorry band of underachievers was about to underwhelm for a second goddamn tournament in a row.  I really don't think they pull off shit like that against Florida on Friday.  And even if they somehow win, the Regional Final opponent will in all likelihood be Texas, playing at home.  The season should've ended last weekend; I think it'll end this weekend.

#-6: Gopher men's hockey (Last Week: -8).  I once believed that the U. was a hockey school.  And so it is sad that this program has slipped into a solid irrelevance.  I don't know how many of you (and I should include myself) knew that these guys were in Columbus for a two-Game series versus Ohio St.  Didn't matter, I guess; both contests went past regulation, where the Goofers lost the Friday Game, 3-2, in Overtime and then won the Saturday tilt, 2-1, in Double OT.  But that means that the weekend officially goes down as a Loss and a Tie, and thus two out of a possible six Points ... if I got that right?  Maybe no one cares.

Off for the next three weeks.

#-7: Gopher men's basketball (Last Week: -5).  The rout over Clemson appears to be a dead cat bounce.  These Golden Goofers started conference play (aside: I thought playing league Games so far before the New Year was just a one-off necessitated that one year when the B1G wanted to play its conference tournament at Madison Square Garden, but because that venue is permanently reserved the week leading up to Selection Sunday by the Big East, the Big Ten decided to hold its tourney the week before, and since that eliminated a week's worth of Games, they decided to put those two in mid-December.  Well, they're not playing in New York City anymore -- right? -- and yet for the past several years they have broken the seal of conference play by playing two league Games around this time of year.  OK, as you were) last/Monday night at Iowa and got blitzed, 72-52.  They have a lot of frontcourt muscle, but it's young, and maybe it's too tall of an ask that they gel this year.

They've got a Sunday date at home vs. Ohio St., but if they lose that one, this clearly becomes a rebuilding year.

#-8: Timberwolves (Last Week: -6).  I kind of don't get this team right now.  Several ESPN writers convened for their weekly Power Rankings, and I assumed that because of their recent shitty form, I'd see the Woofie Dogs near the bottom.  But not only do they have them not in the bottom ... they have them 14th.  Like, the top half of the league.

Are you fucking kidding me?  This survey was done before last/Monday night's 125-109 drubbing in Phoenix, but that now stretches the Woofs' losing streak to five Games.  And yet it was only this past screening week, which include road defeats to Dallas, Oklahoma City and the Lakers (Anthony Davis dropped 50 on them in that one), where the Wolves' record fell below .500.  The Power Rankings show that the Timberwolves' Defensive Rating is only 20th best, yet radio host Danny Cunningham tweeted that they are last in the NBA in Defensive Rating for the month of December.  That figures; this five-Game losing streak encompasses this month.  So the swoon, while familiar to most of us, is seen outside of Minnesota as a conspicuous downturn for the fortunes of this club.

At least the schedule gets lighter -- two Games instead of four.  And they're both at home.  Unfortunately, they're against Utah and the Clippers.

Snow's Fucking Up My Plans Again

Mondays are my day off.  There are a lot of things I could do -- visit this law firm to start up my wills; visit Grandmother's best friend and wish her Merry Christmas; help my stripper friend take her sick pet to the free vet for a diagnosis; or fuck a couple women.

But I can't do that today, because a snowstorm's coming in.  It's not going to be heavy, just two-to-four inches, according to the weather people.  And it is coming on my day off, which in some ways is better; it could be absolute hell getting to or from work, say.  I will have time to shovel (and hopefully not plow).

But that's the thing.  I would much rather spend my free time doing stuff I like, or stuff I need to do, than to bleeping shovel.  Such as it is, I need to center my day around shoveling snow.  I cannot do anything until it's cleared off my driveway, and then I need to gauge whether or not it's safe to drive on it.  Once I've done the former and determined I can do the latter, well, the world's my oyster, I guess, but then how much time do I have to do the things I want?

The thing I guess I could knock out are getting my shoes shined and going downtown to see EPL.  But those are two recurring things I could do, say, next Monday.  Then again, doing these two things now lets me do the above things next Monday ... assuming there's no damn snow to shovel.

Hottest Babe In The Hooters Calendar: November

Not as strong as September or October, but there are a few genuine babes to highlight.

The theme of Hooters girls showing ass continues -- not abated, but you can see blonde Karlie (from Sarasota, Fla.) posing in side profile, left hand on a tree (or "tree"), pointing her caboose towards the camera just so so that you can see her bikini bottom.  And the fabric is shaved just enough to show a little more butt than you're supposed to see.  Add her smile (her face actually looks like my stripper girlfriend *****e*, only thin), and she takes third place for the month.

(Quick Aside: Let me add that honorable consideration/fourth place goes to Tarryn, hailing from the Cincinnati suburb of Florence, Ky.  She is front-facing, she is wearing a red, white and blue two-piece bikini, and I see a hint of ab.)

Aside: A word about the main girl, Kelsey, out of Kennesaw, Ga. -- uh, not great.  I like the blue Leeloo from The Fifth Element bikini top, and she certainly has a body that makes me think she has a Peloton.  But she has a wan smile, and that drags down her face.  Not getting much arousal from her.

Who does arouse me, however, is the woman that finishes in second place, New York City's own Nicole!  She has dark brown hair and deep brown eyes, and she's wearing a red two-piece.  And she's posing front-facing, her right arm off to her side, her left hand presumably clutching her top strap, and thus she is exposing her tight abs.  Shit like that gets me going.  However, her Mona Lisa smile puts me on the knife edge.  Unobtainable women who gives off such an expression kill me.  But then, it makes me think that if we were together, she would judge me to the point where I would hate her and hate myself and scream at her before I take my belongings and leave her apartment for good.  Man, such a deep dive into my damaged psyche, all because of a babe in a swimsuit!

So somewhat based on generating no conflict in my mind, The Hottest Babe For November is Alyssa, from Fort Myers, Fla.  The blonde is sporting a sort-of cowgirl get-up (even though she's posing in front of a tractor) -- cowboy hat, flannel shirt that's knotted up inbetween her tits (thus showing off her red bikini top, her slightly toned stomach, and the side views of her obviously redone breasts), and Daisy Dukes.  And like Emily from October, her shorts are unzipped, showing a hint of her red bikini bottom.  She's a typical babe you would expect to see at Hooters, and I thus fall under her charms.  Congrats, Alyssa!

And I will hopefully find time to beat off to all these girls soon.  Probably tomorrow/Monday, since I will be digging out of the snowstorm then.

Oh, *That* Change Downtown

So I got to work at the stadium later than I should have.  I got out of the house late; that's not unusual, but it's still something I have to get better at.  But it would not have mattered if I had gotten out on time or even early.

Last year, and years prior, whenever I worked a Saturday at the stadium or, before the stadium, the Metrodome, I was able to park, oh, four or five blocks away.  The meter system in the city was such that meters close to the stadia were enforced seven days a week, but once you cross one of those streets (I always remember it as getting past The Armory) the meters are only enforced Monday through Friday.  (Well, once U. S. Bank Stadium went up, there began event hours, so if an event being held there that was big enough, it would revert to being enforced on weekends.)

That changed on Tax Day.  I noticed it at the time, but I couldn't tell how it would affect me -- well, until now.  A lot of parking spaces reverted to seven-days-a-week enforcement, and that includes just about all of downtown Minneapolis.  You would have to go to the lofts north of Washington Ave. in the North Loop to find five-day-a-week meters, which, thank Buddha, still have not changed.  Yet.

So as I was parking at a spot I usually go to when I work set days for Vikings Games, I took a cursory look at the parking stand to make sure nothing changed.  And I saw "Daily," and everything changed.  And then I thought, "When in the hell did the city change the ..." and then I remembered what they did in the spring, and I realized how this would affect me.  This is another example of what I mean when I say I hate myself for not being able to put two and two together.

I could have paid for parking.  But then I would have to feed the meter again -- two hours, I think.  Hell with that.  So I drove all the way to the other side of downtown, found a spot, then paid 50 cents to use the light rail to get to the stadium.  I was late by half an hour, but then I got hung up at the security gate, so I reported to work 45 minutes after I should have.  When I'm that late and another factor conspired to make me late, I'm not going to pin it on just one thing, and I sure won't blame myself for it.

At least I know now, and I don't think I'll get any blowback for being late to work.  But now I'm thinking that this curtails anything I want to do at the stadium from now on.  For example, the University of Minnesota baseball team will be playing there several times in the spring.  I thought I would just drive up to a meter, get a good walk in, and watch baseball to my heart's content.  But now that I might have to pay for parking?  Nah, I really don't want to.  Do I do what I did this morning -- park on the other side of downtown and use the LRT?  Or do I just not go at all?

And, my goodness, what happens if Minneapolis decides to make all meters enforced seven days a week?  I'll be really screwed then.