Addendum To: Another Day Off?! And Other Holiday Musings

I have to be honest: After all the talk I spewed last night about how good it feels to get to Sunday night and know that you have yet another day off, I woke up this morning (after staying up till 4:30 and waking up around 10:30 -- I had nowhere to go today!!!) and got both anxious and pissed because, well, it's like Sunday, and I do have to work the next day.  Sure, it's only four days till the weekend, and really it's 3 1/2 because I am taking off Friday afternoon in order to finally get my shoes shined.  But still, I'm upset now.

I can't be grateful because I think that, at least in my mood right now, anything that is good I want to have forever.  Why wouldn't I want something good forever?  And to hell with moderation: If something good is taken away from me, I get so upset that I feel it's better to never have it at all, because then, you can't have a good thing taken from you.  You know?  That's how I feel right now.

What I really need is a permanent vacation.  I need to win the lottery and have a permanent vacation.  Permanent Vacation is an album by Aerosmith.  I would embed the song "Permanent Vacation" here, but I've never heard of the song before, so it'd be dishonest to embed it.  I just like the notion.

I'm sad.

Where Did Yesterday Afternoon Go?

Yesterday afternoon was, pretty much, My Ideal Day: Overcast with temperatures just above 60.  It could have been a tad grayer, but I really can't complain.  It's Memorial Weekend, The Unofficial Start To Summer.  It should not be mostly cloudy and that lukewarm in late May.  It's basically stealing the kind of weather I love; I shouldn't act like a socialist and nitpick over every single thing that I want and don't get.

But I didn't enjoy yesterday as much as I should have.  Why?  Well, let's break it down by time:

• 9:30-10-ish: I woke up and lolly-gagged it.  This was supposed to be my last time "working" Sundays at work, but when I actually had to go to work, I had to get to work by 10, which usually meant waking up at 9.  I gave myself a half-hour extra because it was Memorial Weekend.  I really should have woken up, and left, earlier.
• 10-ish-11-ish (?): I wish I had a better handle on time.  Anyway, I went to Glam Doll for a donut.  On weekends there is a line, and so I waited for a bit.  I then went to Bogart's, not too far away, to do the donut two-fer, but the skies opened up and it began raining.  It was drizzling off-and-on all morning, and I was hoping that it would relent so I could exercise at Lakewood, but far from it.  I didn't want to eat my Glam Doll in my car then, but I wanted to wait out the rain, hoping it was just a squall, and so I did eat it.  And then I remembered that Bogart's is only accepting cards, and yesterday was a cash day only.  My best laid plans were ruined because of my principles.  So I just drove to Lakewood.
• 11-ish-12:15 (?): My plan was to visit Grandmother, take a walk to the mausoleum where my uncle is, walk back to say goodbye to my Grandmother, then leave.  But I'll be goddamned, right where I was parking, there was the huge old car with its front bumper halfway torn off.  And I don't know about you, but when there's a dumpy-ass car that somehow is at the cemetery, and it's still running, and (turns out) the driver's still there, I don't feel safe just leaving my car parked there while I walk around the grounds.  That driver probably isn't there to visit their late loved ones.  So my plans were blown up; I did not blow up my plans, my plans were blown up.  I started up my car and drove it to the mausoleum where, of course, there was a visitation group mourning the internment of their late loved one.  And they were Asian, too, so now I'm scared that one of them knows my parents and recognized me.  Shit.  I drove back to my Grandmother's plot just in case that dude left, and not only did he not leave, another car drove up behind them, and the people in both cars were standing around.  Well, I have said goodbye to Grandmother many times before, I'll do so again in the near future.  Hopefully.  Cutting short ... er, having my time at Lakewood cut short should have gotten me back on schedule, but I started way too late, especially considering what I still wanted to do:
• 12:15 (?)-1:42: Went to the Mall Of America because I wanted to go to Hooters because I had a coupon I wanted to use.  I was determined to go there, plain and simple.  But there were a lot of people there, the waitress was busy, she seemed a bit uninterested in providing customer service, and I stayed to eat 20 boneless wings for more than an hour.  And I was really bummed because ...
• 1:42-2:13: ... I set up an arrangement where I was going to get a massage from ******a.  But it was for 1:30.  I thought she was cool if I were late, because we often let the times of our sessions slide, and she was this time around.  But it was 45 minutes later than we initially scheduled, and ...
• 2:13-3-ish: ... when I got there, ******a said that she had to cut our session in half because, according to her, she had something else to do around 3.  Great.  It was my fault, though, and so I have to remember not to stack things up so tightly next time.  Or, maybe I can be late for my next session and she'd be totally cool because she wouldn't have anything planned afterward.  Who knows?  And, oh, beyond all that, I haven't been able to enjoy walking underneath the cloudy sky.
• 3-ish-just before 4: I should have been home after ******a's, and being at her place only half as long as anticipated helped getting home "on time" helped a lot.  But dammit, I was going to enjoy the cloudy sky.  So, after getting gasoline for my car, even though it isn't a trail, I went to the park I usually go to to walk and I walked -- from the entrance, past the ball fields, to the gazebo, and back again.  And even though it was short and by no means is it a trail at all, I did my best to stop asking myself, "I've been up for six hours -- how in the hell have I not been able to enjoy this beautiful weather?" to walk, look up, smile, and breathe.

What we got yesterday probably won't happen until September at the earliest.  Next weekend we're expecting temperatures to reach 90, for crissake.  I wish I had more time outside yesterday, but it was raining, some dude probably was going to ram my car while I was out walking, and I had a lot of plans indoors, some of which I was late in getting to.  But at least I had, like 20 minutes, so (shrug)

Another Day Off?! And Other Holiday Musings

That's the great thing about long holidays where Monday is the extra day off.  Usually I am sort-of sad that the weekend is over, and you face the oblivion of the week.  But all day today I knew that as the sun went down on Sunday, I had another day off!  I don't have to face that Debby Downer feeling of, "Ugh, back to the grind" till tomorrow!

You don't really get that feeling of a short week when your holiday falls on a Friday.  Of course it's still a long weekend.  But when Friday's the day off, you still have the slog of going in on Monday and starting the workweek like you start every other workweek.  When you don't have to go in until Tuesday, there's that "staying out late on a school night" feeling, as if you're stealing time.  That's a different feeling, and right now, it feels better than taking Friday off.  Then again, I may be saying that as someone who until recently made up for working Sundays by regularly taking off Friday afternoons, so that feeling, while great, is very familiar.

---

Don't know if I've talked about this before on Wailing And Failing, and I hope I haven't.  When it comes to the holidays, by which I mean the big ones, the heavy lifting is over.  You get New Year's Day off to start off the year, but you get a series of minor ones, most of which you don't get off (Valentine's, President's, St. Patrick's, Easter), until right not, Memorial Weekend.  If you're not lucky enough to have paid time off, that's five straight months off without mandatory holidays.

Here on out, though, the Big Holidays are coming with increased regularity.  It's the summer, which puts many in the holiday mood, plus you've got Independence Day coming in about six weeks.  There are two months after that, but that includes August, The Only Month Without Any Holiday, so time kind of stops existing, plus there's the Minnesota State Fair, which should be back and back to normal this year, thank Buddha.  Then there's Labor Day and, while there is a three-month stretch between that and Thanksgiving, Halloween seems, in my mind, getting bigger and more anticipated through October, so that makes things lighter.  (Football season also makes time pass quickly, too.)  Finally, December, or really the sprint between Thanksgiving and Christmas, is one whole holiday season, and people kind of half-heartedly work throughout that four-week period anyway.  And then there's that weird but OK week between Christmas and New Year's where time really doesn't exist; in fact, anything you do during that week doesn't seem to "count," if that makes sense, and if it doesn't, no matter.

So cheer up!  The longest part of the year is over!  And be happy that we have one more weekend day!

Graphic Design Complaint

Yesterday I visited my storage unit for the first time in weeks.  Mostly I did it because I have my reserve cum towel in there.  I washed it quickly while my parents were out visiting the grave of Father's mother/my biological grandmother, but because it was the only thing in the washer, it stalled out, so it didn't go through the drying cycle, and so I had a damp as fuck towel that I tried hanging it everywhere outside for a few hours in a vain attempt to get all the water wringed out of it before I had to throw it into my unit, and when I did it was still damp as fuck.  It was crusty when I saw it, and it may have raised the humidity level of my unit, but it's OK.  Don't know how my dick will feel when I dragged it across the towel in order to dab away the cum still sitting in my dickhole.

Anyway, I also went to my storage unit to get through all of the papers that are still in there.  My vow of chugging through my stuff isn't going well.  The pile of shit I have in there is taller than I am, and I really, really am running out of room.  Still, I have neither the time nor the inclination to sit there and go through all my stuff to see what I really want to keep and what I can throw away.  And I could alleviate my unit's space (and go through and maybe rearrange what I have in there) if I could bring some of the bags home with me, but I can't do that until my parents leave.

I've tried to start anywhere with my stuff, have any sort of entrée into which I can, in a focused, organized fashion, sift through my things.  My entry point is something I had not realized I had inadvertently collected: Brochures from car companies I get during my annual trip to the Twin Cities Auto Show.  I usually get dozens from all the brands whose vehicles I look at and get in, and I put them in a good, solid, reusable bag (usually it's Toyota), and when I leave a few hours later I vow to sit down and go through them and just fantasize about getting a new car.

I never go back, of course.  What I do is throw them into my closet and say I will look through them another time.  I have brochures going back years.  There are other small gifts that I found alongside the pamphlets, completely forgetting that I really wanted when I saw them on the Auto Show floor.  One time I even got a can of an energy drink branded by one of the car companies.  I threw it in the bag and completely forgot it.  I had moved a few year's worth of Auto Show bags from my closet to my storage unit a few years ago.  When I finally opened up the year and bag with the energy drink can, it had leaked, all of the drink had evaporated, and pretty much all the pamphlets in the same bag were rotted.  Whoops!

---

Oh, wait -- that's not what I want to talk about.  I have, in my very slow way, started to go through the Auto Show bags.  And when you read them -- and I mean look at everything such as the copy and the features and the graphic design and the font -- you kind of notice how weird these brochures get just for the sake of getting you to buy a car.  There are, for example, a lot of voluminous yet empty slogans that are intended to excite you into think their cars are exciting cars, and you'll look so badass driving through a curvy desert road -- and you'll do it driving stick, because automatic is for pussies.  I've taken a few photos of these dumb aphorisms for posterity's sake, then taken those pamphlets home to put them in the recycling bin.

And yet when I went yesterday, something else caught my eye.  I was going through the bag for the 2019 Twin Cities Auto Show.  I apparently went to the Fiat part of the show because I have its small, almost-square brochure.  The cover has the Fiat badge and a series of multi-colored blobs that interconnect on the cover.  Think Tetris, but not all the pieces consist of four squares, and there are a lot of holes inbetween them so that's why they don't disappear.

Then I open it up.  It's a basic, straightforward car pamphlet.  It has an introduction about how the car company has been around for decades, it has an illustrious history, and that history points the way to an exciting, successful future, blah-blah-blah.  They then go through the whole lineup of their cars, each with its own hyped-up introduction, followed by a page of specifications for the trims of each model -- this trim has electronic stability control standard, a back-up camera is only optional in this trim, etc.

My problem: The multi-colored blobs on the cover page, save for three whole red circles and one hollow red half-circle on the third page, are nowhere to be found.  In fact, there are no graphic cues to call back to the mod-looking cover.  You can't put one blob for each of the models you're showcasing on your pamphlet, Fiat?  Then why did you pick that design for your cover?  It seriously looks like the cover from a different car company was stapled onto Fiat's pamphlet.  (I should add a photo of the cover of the 2019 Fiat brochure, but I don't know how to upload it onto Blogger.)

I don't know why this bothers me so much.  But it was so striking the dissonance between the visual expectation the cover art teases you with and the normal, even boring graphic identity of the rest of the pamphlet that I felt compelled to complain about it here.  Plus, in the absence of having much else to say on Memorial Weekend 2021, it was nice to blog post about something I have never blog posted about before.

My List Of All The Times I Spun For The Mega Lucky Bonus In Texas Hold 'Em Poker And Got Less Than $100,000 Or $2 Million Or More

You know what?  After reaching Day 7 and its 400% Mega Lucky Bonus just now and getting yet another jackpot that sailed over $2 million, I feel safe in stopping my list of every spin that falls outside the parameter of six figures and $1,999,999.  It isn't worth keeping a list of noteworthy instances when nearly every spin results in a "noteworthy instance."

But now that I don't feel like updating this list anymore, I might as well release this list of every outlier jackpot on Texas Hold 'Em Poker.  This isn't from the very, very beginning of the Mega Lucky Bonus, but I began compiling this list, with dates and times, more than two years ago, so it's still a sizable list.  I did not write down all the symbols when I started; it only occurred to me later to write them down so I can associate which symbols give me huge numbers and which ones give me paltry ones.  And, because I have OCD, if the tumblers stopped where the symbol is not right in the hypothetical middle, noted by a black line that you see in actual slot machines, I note how "offset" it is from that middle, or if two symbols appear equidistant from that.  I too added that information after I began this list.

I know for a fact that no one on Earth cares enough about the Mega Lucky Bonus in Texas Hold 'Em Poker on Facebook to create such an obsessive, insipid list.  So even though this may reveal a scary and off-putting side of my character, I present this to you as an expression of my uniqueness -- and, unless I change my mind and start another list (I admit that I could, if these jackpots go back to "normal"), this also serves as a representation of an OCD tic of which I have hopefully broken free.  In other words, as I publish this list, I am tossing you my handcuffs.

Enjoy and/or marvel!

2,646,000 12/10/18

3,150,000 12/11/18

2,835,000 1/7/19

2,268,000 1/19/19

30,240 1/24/19

2,835,000 2/7/19

68,040 2/8/19

75,600 2/11/19

4,914,000 3/7/19 (morning; three three-leaf clovers)

75,600 3/9/19 (10:40 a.m.; cherry-cherry-dog)

north of 43,000 3/12/19 (around 4:41 p.m.; slight incline of cherries and 7's ... I fucked up; I left the page before looking at the amount I actually won)

60,480 3/13/19 (6:33 a.m., I think; offset three bar-three bar-one bar)

45,360 3/13/19 (10:53 or 10:54 p.m.; between one bar and two bars-between clover and one bar-one bar)

94,500 3/18/19 (3:55 p.m.; one-bar/heart/one-bar)

88,200 3/20/19 (around 5:10 p.m.; between dog and cherry/cherry/cherry)

50,400 3/21/19 (around 12:20 a.m.; two-bar/clover/two-bar)

4,032,000 3/24/19 (around 9:45 a.m.?; three diamonds)

3,276,000 3/25/19 (4:58 a.m.; three-bar/spade/three-bar)

63,000 3/27/19 (4:31 p.m.; cherry/7/horseshoe)

17,640 3/29/19 (6:32 a.m.; cherry/cherry/cherry)

30,240 4/2/19 (9:39 p.m.; cherry/cherry/heart)

2,835,000 4/4/19 (11:39 p.m.; three-bar/heart/three-bar)

3,780,000 4/6/19 (about 7:40 a.m.; three-bar/spade/three-bar)

37,800 4/10/19 (about 6:34 a.m.; offset cherry/7/Zynga dog; multiplier of only x1?!)

37,800 4/10/19 (4:48 p.m.; cherry/cherry/Zynga dog; multiplier of only x1?!)

81,900 5/2/19 (oh, about 12:10 a.m.; between one-bar and two-bar/offset club/between club and one-bar)

36,750 5/5/19 (oh, about 6:06 p.m.; between cherry and 7/Zynga dog/offset horseshoe)

84,000 5/10/19 (6:37 a.m.; just offset one-bar/just offset diamond/one-bar)

99,750 5/9/19 (12:25 a.m.; three-bar/heart/slightly offset three-bar)

2,295,000 5/18/19 (1:11 a.m.; offset two-bar/slightly offset diamond/slightly offset two-bar)

3,060,000 5/18/19 (7:11 a.m.; offset three-bar/offset spade/three-bar)

3,315,000 5/20/19 (5:49 a.m.?; slightly offset two-bar/between heart and horseshoe/offset two-bar)

2,103,750 5/22/19 (6:34 a.m.; offset two-bar/club/two-bar)

3,034,500 5/24/19 (8:05 a.m.; between spade and Zynga dog/offset spade/spade)

7,140,000 5/26/19 (3:05 p.m.; diamond/diamond/diamond)

10,200,000 5/27/19 (1:36 a.m.; between horseshoe and spade/between heart and horseshoe/horseshoe)

2,142,000 5/30/19 (5:31 a.m.; two-bar/spade/two-bar)

10,200,000 5/31/19 (7:04 p.m.; slightly offset horseshoe/horseshoe/slightly offset horseshoe)

2,677,500 6/14/19 (6:34 a.m.; two-bar/slightly offset spade/two-bar)

2,167,500 6/26/19 (10:26 p.m.; three-bar/club/three-bar)

2,040,000 6/27/19 (1:20 a.m.; heart/between heart and horseshoe/between diamond and heart)

2,295,000 6/30/19 (1:08 p.m.; double-bar/diamond/double-bar)

3,034,500 7/2/19 (1:58 a.m.; spade/spade/slightly offset spade)

3,315,000 7/2/19 (6:30 p.m.; two-bar/heart/two-bar)

2,091,000 7/10/19 (6:33 a.m.; one-bar/between heart and horseshoe/one-bar)

2,040,000 7/11/19 (11:54 a.m.; offset two-bar/offset two-bar/slightly offset two-bar)

30,600,000 (!!!) 7/12/19 (12:35 a.m.; offset 7/slightly-offset 7/slightly-offset 7)

2,320,500 7/16/19 (6:34 a.m.; club/slightly offset club/club)

2,907,000 7/23/19 (12:32 a.m.; three-bar/heart/three-bar)

94,350 7/23/19 (5:21 p.m.; cherry/cherry/cherry)

3,251,250 7/24/19 (4:17 p.m.; three-bar/spade/three-bar)

2,142,000 7/24/19 (9:46 p.m., although it could have been 9:47 p.m.; two-bar/spade/two-bar)

2,448,000 7/26/19 (12:53 p.m.; two-bar/slightly offset two-bar/two-bar)

3,251,250 7/28/19 (6:45 a.m.; three-bar/club/three-bar)

4,845,000 7/31/19 (12:47 a.m.; slightly offset diamond/slightly offset heart/slightly offset three-bar)

3,825,000 7/31/19 (8:47 p.m.; three-bar/spade/three-bar)

6,502,500 8/1/19 (1:13 a.m.; spade/slightly offset spade/spade)

2,040,000 8/2/19 (6:38 a.m.; two-bar/two-bar/two-bar)

96,900 8/3/19 (5:35 p.m.; one-bar/slightly offset two-bar/offset three-bar)

2,142,000 8/5/19 (12:12 a.m.; slightly offset two-bar/spade/two-bar)

2,486,250 8/6/19 (1:08 a.m.; two-bar/heart/two-bar)

2,856,000 8/7/19 (5:15 p.m.; heart/slightly offset heart/heart)

4,335,000 8/8/19 (6:36 a.m.; three-bar/club/slightly offset three-bar)

2,295,000 8/8/19 (4:16 p.m.; three-bar/diamond/three-bar)

2,677,500 8/9/19 (12:41 a.m.; two-bar/between horseshoe and spade/two-bar)

2,486,250 8/10/19 (10:22 p.m; two-bar/heart/two-bar)

2,601,000 8/16/19 (6:34 a.m.; three-bar/spade/three-bar)

2,103,750 8/27/19 (11:28 p.m.; between two-bar and three-bar/club/slightly offset two-bar)

3,633,750 8/28/19 (6:17 p.m.; three-bar/slightly offset heart/slightly offset three-bar)

2,142,000 8/30/19 (5:28 p.m.; two-bar/spade/slightly offset two-bar)

2,601,000 9/6/19 (9:59 a.m.; three-bar/club/three-bar)

6,502,500 9/10/19 (10:51 p.m.; spade/slightly offset spade/spade)

2,550,000 9/22/19 (7:58 a.m.; three-bar/slightly offset spade/three-bar)

12,240,000 (!!!) 9/26/19 (12:11 a.m.; horseshoe/horseshoe/slightly-offset horseshoe)

2,635,000 10/11/19 (5:37 p.m.; three-bar/club/slightly offset three-bar -- and only at Day 5/200%)

2,091,000 10/13/19 (9:21 a.m.; offset one-bar/offset heart/one-bar)

2,499,000 10/20/19 (12:56 a.m.; offset diamond/diamond/diamond)

2,550,000 10/24/19 (6:05 a.m.; offset three-bar/offset spade/slightly offset three-bar)

2,550,000 10/24/19 (5:59 p.m.; offset three-bar/offset spade/offset three-bar)

91,800 11/1/19 (6:27 a.m.; offset cherry/cherry/7)

2,677,500 11/3/19 (5:29 p.m.; slightly offset two-bar/slightly offset spade/two-bar)

2,295,000 11/7/19 (8:11 p.m.; offset three-bar/offset diamond/three-bar)

2,601,000 11/13/19 (12:30 a.m.; slightly-offset spade/spade/slightly-offset spade)

2,550,000 11/16/19 (2:37 p.m.; between three-bar and diamond/offset spade/diamond)

4,080,000 11/21/19 (8:14 a.m.; offset horseshoe/offset horseshoe/horseshoe)

4,896,000 11/21/19 (9:32 p.m.; heart/heart/slightly offset heart)

4,972,000 11/28/19 (6:22 a.m.; club/slightly-offset club/offset club)

4,845,000 12/1/19 (8:18 p.m.; three-bar/heart/three-bar)

6,630,000 12/4/19 (9:00 p.m.; slightly-offset club/offset club/club)

94,350 12/9/19 (10:27 p.m.; cherry/slightly-offset cherry/cherry)

2,295,000 12/11/19 (8:36 a.m.; two-bar/diamond/two-bar)

oh, shit, I fucked up and moved on to another page before typing this in ... it was more than 2.4 million ... I'm so fucking stupid 12/15/19 (9:04 a.m.; yeah, I totally forgot the combination)

2,040,000 12/15/19 (10:18 p.m.; three-bar/offset one-bar/offset one-bar)

2,142,000 12/16/19 (8:41 a.m.; two-bar/spade/two-bar)

2,142,000 12/22/19 (2:26 a.m.; two-bar/spade/offset two-bar)

2,499,000 12/23/19 (3:17 a.m.; diamond/offset diamond/slightly-offset diamond)

2,550,000 12/28/19 (12:07 a.m.; man, I left the page without remembering the combination ... sorry, it's just that my alma mater go their asses kicked and I have to work tomorrow and the old car is vibrating really bad and ...)

2,295,000 1/7/20 (9:14 p.m.; between two-bar and three-bar/offset diamond/slightly offset two-bar)

4,590,000 1/11/20 (9:32 p.m.; three-bar/diamond/offset three-bar)

15,300,000 1/24/20 (6:27 a.m.; horseshoe/horseshoe/offset horseshoe)

5,355,000 1/25/20 (9:01 a.m.; slightly-offset diamond/diamond/diamond)

2,907,000 1/26/20 (9:26 a.m.; three-bar/heart/slightly-offset three-bar)

2,677,500 2/2/20 (1:45 a.m.; two-bar/between spade and Zynga dog/slightly offset two-bar)

2,907,000 2/7/20 (1:38 a.m.; three-bar/heart/offset three-bar)

5,100,000 2/9/20 (11:03 p.m.; offset three-bar/spade/three-bar)

2,167,500 2/19/20 (6:15 p.m.; three-bar/offset club/offset three-bar)

2,142,000 2/19/20 (10:30 p.m.; two-bar/between spade and Zynga dog/between one-bar and two-bar)

88,800 2/27/20 (11:38 p.m.; cherry/7/offset 7 ... this is with the Day 2 bonus only, which is 50% ... that happened two days after I lost my complete 400% Day 7 streak bonus because Facebook was fucking up)

2,320,500 3/4/20 (7:58 p.m.; slightly-offset club/between 7 and club/offset 7)

2,295,000 3/10/20 (12:44 a.m.; two-bar/diamond/between two-bar and three-bar)

2,142,000 3/17/20 (12:45 a.m.; one-bar/spade/one-bar)

oh, it was between 60,000 and 70,000 3/27/20 (didn't note the time nor what I got because I clicked onto the next new notification I had ... hey, I was on my phone all afternoon and evening following the coronavirus, so I let this lapse for Thursday, and once I remembered I needed to spin the wheel, I was all the way back down to Day 1 and 10%, so that's why this is so low ... shit, I just ... kind of stopped caring because the world's about to end ... oh, well, onto building this back up, I guess)

96,000 3/28/00 (3:34 p.m.; offset one-bar/diamond/offset one-bar ... Day 2, so I only get a 50% bonus)

73,500 4/5/20 (12:02 p.m.; two-bar/spade/offset two-bar)

2,091,000 4/20/20 (5:07 p.m.; one-bar/heart/one-bar)

24,480,000 (!!!) 4/21/20 (12:53 a.m.; 7/slightly-offset 7/7)

3,315,000 4/24/20 (9:51 p.m.; slightly-offset two-bar/heart (I think; the slot machine just disappeared on me while I was entering this; offset two-bar)

2,754,000 5/6/20 (3:54 p.m.; three-bar/slightly-offset diamond/offset three-bar)

43,200 5/19/20 (1:46 a.m.; cherry/cherry/slightly-offset heart ... back to Day 1 bullshit)

51,000 5/27/20 (8:27 a.m.; three-bar/club/slightly-offset three-bar ... back to Day 1 bullshit -- again)

57,000 5/27/20 (9:23 a.m.; three-bar/heart/three-bar ... more Day 1 bullshit)

2,550,000 6/5/20 (9:22 a.m.; slightly-offset one-bar/one-bar/slightly-offset one-bar)

91,800 6/6/20 (1:42 a.m., although it could have been 1:41 a.m. ... it was right on the line ... I think ... OK, I don't know because I am on Day 7/400% -- how the fuck am I below 100,000 on Day 7/400%?!?!?!; cherry/cherry/offset 7)

4,972,500 6/12/20 (2:06 a.m.; club/slightly-offset [high side] club/slightly-offset [low side] club)

2,677,500 6/12/20 (11:25 p.m.; two-bar/spade/two-bar)

5,100,000 6/13/20 (11:54 a.m.; offset [low side] three-bar/spade/three-bar)

3,825,000 6/15/20 (1:16 a.m.; slightly-offset [high] three-bar/spade/three-bar)

3,034,500 6/21/20 (9:28 p.m.; spade/spade/spade)

2,550,000 6/28/20 (10:01 p.m.; offset [low] one-bar/slightly-offset [high] one-bar/one-bar)

2,142,000 6/29/20 (8:24 p.m.; two-bar/spade/slightly-offset [high] two-bar)

2,499,000 7/2/20 (10:57 p.m.; diamond/diamond/offset [low] diamond)

72,000 7/4/20 (9:18 a.m.; one-bar/diamond/one-bar -- swore I played yesterday, but I don't care, because I got to sleep for 12 hours)

77,700 7/6/20 (1:15 a.m.; slighty-offset [high] cherry/cherry/cherry)

2,470,000 7/7/20 (4:27 p.m.; between two-bar and three-bar/between heart and horseshoe/between three-bar and diamond -- and this is on Day 4/150%!)

2,907,000 7/10/20 (10:45 a.m.; three-bar/heart/offset [high] heart)

3,672,000 7/15/20 (1:17 a.m.; three-bar/slightly-offset [high] three-bar/offset [high] three-bar)

3,442,500 7/18/20 (12:00 a.m.; slightly-offset [high] three-bar/diamond/three-bar)

3,633,750 7/18/20 (8:52 p.m.; slightly-offset [low] three-bar/heart/three-bar)

2,422,500 7/19/20 (6:23 p.m.; three-bar/heart/slightly-offset [high] three-bar)

3,442,500 7/29/20 (10:45 p.m.; three-bar/diamond/three-bar)

2,601,000 7/31/20 (8:45 p.m.; offset [high] three-bar/club/slightly-offset [low] three-bar)

11,475,000 (!!!) 8/3/20 (10:07 p.m.; slightly-offset [low] spade/spade/spade)

11,475,000 (!!!) 8/4/20 (6:51 p.m.; offset [low] Zynga dog/offset [high] horseshoe/offset [high] horseshoe)

3,149,250 8/12/20 (11:05 a.m.; diamond/horseshoe/offset [high] three-bar)

2,244,000 8/13/20 (11:35 p.m.; two-bar/club/slightly-offset [high] two-bar)

2,040,000 8/16/20 (11:30 a.m.; three-bar/spade/offset [high] three-bar)

5,049,000 8/17/20 (4:25 p.m.; offset [high] three-bar/diamond/offset [high] three-bar)

2,652,000 8/25/20 (10:29 p.m.; club/club/offset [high] club)

2,040,000 8/28/20 (8:50 p.m.; slightly-offset [high] three-bar/slightly-offset [high] spade/three-bar)

2,524,500 8/29/20 (9:34 p.m.; offset [high] three-bar/diamond/offset [high] three-bar)

91,800 8/30/20 (1:46 a.m.; cherry/cherry/slightly-offset [high] heart ... and by the way, this is when I am full up -- Day 7/400%!)

4,768,500 9/4/20 (1:51 a.m.; three-bar/club/three-bar)

2,244,000 9/11/20 (11:34 p.m.; two-bar/offset [high] club/between one-bar and two-bar)

4,080,000 9/18/20 (11:54 p.m.; 7/7/7)

2,524,500 9/28/20 (1:39 a.m.; three-bar/diamond/slightly-offset [high] three-bar)

2,856,000 10/1/20 (12:40 a.m.; offset [high] two-bar/slightly-offset [low] spade/two-bar)

4,080,000 10/6/20 (1:48 a.m.; three-bar/slightly-offset [high] spade/between three-bar and diamond)

2,154,750 10/6/20 (6:08 p.m.; offset [low] two-bar/heart/two-bar)

3,149,250 10/8/20 (2:03 a.m.; three-bar/heart/three-bar)

2,320,500 10/12/20 (6:32 p.m.; two-bar/offset [high] spade/offset [high] one-bar)

3,034,500 10/14/20 (3:49 p.m. [I think, I forgot to look at it at the burst]; slightly-offset [low] spade/spade/slightly-offset [high] spade)

2,244,000 10/15/20 (2:01 a.m.; two-bar/club/two-bar)

2,154,750 10/22/20 (12:38 a.m.; two-bar/slightly-offset [high] heart/slightly-offset [high] two-bar)

3,876,000 10/22/20 (6:26 p.m.; slightly-offset [high] three-bar/slightly-offset [low] heart/three-bar)

2,189,000 10/24/20 (I think -- the webpage switched from the slot machine by itself; 8:28 p.m.; didn't catch the symbols because, well, the webpage switched from the slot machine by itself.  Oh, and I forgot to type in the date this happened, so on 10/27/20 I looked at the "Published on" date and decided it had to be that)

2,142,000 10/27/20 (oh, shit, I forgot the time; diamond/diamond/offset [high] diamond)

89,250 11/1/20 (5:58 p.m.; cherry/7/Zynga dog -- how in the fuck do I get less than $100,000 on a Day 7/400%???)

2,448,000 11/5/20 (5:26 p.m.; slightly-offset [high] three-bar/offset [high] three-bar/three-bar)

5,304,000 11/14/20 (10:13 p.m.; club/club/slightly-offset [high] club)

2,244,000 11/16/20 (6:09 p.m.; two-bar/offset [high] club/offset [high] two-bar)

3,876,000 11/17/20 (6:08 p.m.; slightly-offset [low] three-bar/heart/slightly-offset [high] three-bar)

2,983,500 11/30/20 (11:55 p.m.; offset [high] two-bar/diamond/slightly-offset [low] three-bar)

3,672,000 12/8/20 (12:13 a.m.; slightly-offset [low] three-bar/diamond/three-bar)

4,768,500 12/10/20 (1:41 a.m.; spade/spade/slightly-offset [high] spade)

2,524,500 12/12/20 (7:37 p.m.; offset [low] three-bar/diamond/three-bar)

12,240,000 (!!!) 12/14/20 (2:07 a.m.; offset [low] 7/7/7)

2,805,000 12/18/20 (6:41 p.m.; slightly-offset [low] one-bar/one-bar/offset [high] one-bar)

88,000 1/2/21 (2:29 a.m.; slightly-offset [low] two-bar/club/two-bar -- Day 2/50%)

2,154,750 1/8/21 (5:07 p.m.; two-bar/heart/offset [low] two-bar)

2,805,000 1/20/21 (2:25 a.m.; between three-bar and diamond/spade/three-bar)

2,817,750 2/3/21 (6:20 a.m.; between three-bar and diamond/offset [low] club/offset [low] three-bar)

2,805,000 2/14/21 (2:27 a.m.; three-bar/spade/slightly-offset [high] three-bar)

3,085,500 2/14/21 (5:39 p.m.; two-bar/club/slightly-offset [high] two-bar)

24,000 2/20/21 (1:22 a.m.; slightly-offset [low] one-bar/diamond/offset [high] one-bar; back down to Day 1/10%; thought I spun the machine yesterday ... apparently I did not, so fuck y'all)

2,652,000 2/26/21 (2:18 a.m.; offset [low] two-bar/heart/two-bar)

2,601,000 3/2/21 (1:10 a.m.; slightly-offset [low] spade/offset [low] spade/spade)

96,000 3/6/21 (9:46 a.m.; slightly-offset [low] two-bar/diamond/two-bar)

2,046,000 3/9/21 (5:29 p.m.; offset [high] two-bar/diamond/two-bar; Day 5/200%)

2,265,250 3/10/21 (3:12 a.m.; three-bar/club/slightly-offset [high] three-bar; Day 6/300%)

3,366,000 3/16/21 (4:30 p.m.; slightly-offset [high] three-bar/three-bar/slightly-offset [low] three-bar)

6,120,000 3/17/21 (10:46 p.m.; horseshoe/offset [low] horseshoe/offset [high] horseshoe)

79,800 3/22/21 (1:04 a.m.; three-bar/one-bar/three-bar)

91,000 3/23/21 (6:04 or 6:05 p.m.; cherry/7/7; Day 4/150%)

2,439,500 3/25/21 (11:26 p.m.; spade/spade/spade; Day 6/300%)

4,080,000 3/26/21 (7:35 p.m.; slightly-offset [low] horseshoe/horseshoe/horseshoe)

8,160,000 4/3/21 (3:28 a.m.; slightly-offset [high] horseshoe/horseshoe/slightly-offset [low] horseshoe)

3,672,000 4/4/21 (2:25 a.m.; three-bar/slightly-offset [high] diamond/three-bar)

2,983,500 4/8/21 (2:26 a.m.; slightly-offset [high] three-bar/diamond/slightly-offset [low] three-bar)

2,154,750 4/11/21 (6:16 p.m.; two-bar/slightly-offset [low] heart/offset [low] two-bar)

2,320,500 4/23/21 (6:34 p.m.; two-bar/offset [high] spade/offset [low] two-bar)

2,524,500 4/28/21 (12:52 a.m.; three-bar/slightly-offset [high] diamond/slightly-offset [low] three-bar)

2,244,000 4/29/21 (7:32 p.m.; slightly-offset [high] two-bar/two-bar/offset [low] two-bar)

3,672,000 4/30/21 (11:51 p.m.; offset [high] three-bar/offset [high] diamond/three-bar)

3,149,250 5/2/21 (2:37 a.m.; three-bar/slightly-offset [high] heart/slightly-offset [high] three-bar)

89,250 5/3/21 (7:40 p.m.; offset [high] cherry/slightly-offset [low] horseshoe/slightly-offset [high] 7 -- and this was on Day 7/400%!!!)

2,448,000 5/4/21 (12:11 a.m.; slightly-offset [high] two-bar/slightly-offset [high] diamond/two-bar)

3,916,290 5/11/21 (6:04 p.m.; three-bar/slightly-offset [high] spade/three-bar)

6,657,693 5/12/21 (5:41 p.m.; two-bar/slightly-offset [low] spade/slightly-offset [high] two-bar)

2,769,377 5/12/21 (8:50 p.m.; two-bar/club/two-bar -- and this happened less than four hours after my last spin, which is above ... weird ...)

5,796,109 5/12/21 (11:31 p.m.; cherry/cherry/slightly-offset [low] cherry -- and I was able to spin this wheel less than three hours after my last spin, which also is above ... extra weird!)

2,928,003 5/18/21 (11:55 p.m.; one-bar/slightly-offset [high] heart/offset [high] one-bar)

3,188,979 5/20/21 (12:36 a.m.; offset [high] three-bar/slightly-offset [low] heart/slightly-offset [low] three-bar)

3,524,661 5/20/21 (5:49 p.m..; offset [high] two-bar/offset [high] horseshoe/offset [high] one-bar)

3,328,847 5/20/21 (11:17 p.m.; cherry/Zynga dog/horseshoe)

14,098,644 5/21/21 (6:07 p.m.; three-bar/slightly-offset [diamond]/three-bar)

2,139,040 5/27/21 (11:55 p.m.; cherry/slightly-offset [low] cherry/offset [high] cherry)

3,494,713 5/28/21 (9:36 p.m.; slightly-offset [low] cherry/cherry/slightly-offset [high] cherry)

3,188,979 5/29/21 (1:36 a.m.; offset [high] three-bar/slightly-offset [high] heart/three-bar)

The Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey

#-1: Wild (Last Week: -3).  OK, so the worm has turned in this series!

Do I owe the Wild an apology?  Uh, partially.  I did bury these guys after Game 4, and with contempt.  What I said in last week's WMNSS about them was very harsh.  In my defense, they looked absolutely awful, lost and fated to defeat this time last Week.  They were shut out in their last five Periods of play, and they got swept, at home, to give the Las Vegas Golden Knights a 3-1 series lead.  They showed no fight, and it seemed a fait accompli that they would be gone by the weekend.

Well, look at them now, look at them now.  This was the fight I and many of the club's fans wanted to see from them.  Many of us doubted they had it in them, so in that sense, these guys proved us wrong.  That doesn't logically mean we owe them an apology, but proving us wrong should be more than enough for the Wild.

How did the fortunes turn?  Who knows.  It's hockey.  In Game 5 they erupted for three Goals and the defense and Goaltender Cam Talbot preserved the lead.  In Game 6 the Wild broke open the up-till-then scoreless contest in the Third, the Game-winner sparked by Zach Parise, who has either rehabilitated his reputation or has proven everyone wrong (depending on your loyalty toward him), chipping the puck out of the Minnesota Defensive Zone off the boards and onto Kevin Fiala's stick, which he then slid in the Offensive Zone to Ryan Hartman, who deposited it past the now-vulnerable Marc-Andre Fleury.  The hit on Wild nemesis Alex Tuch by the high-risk/high-reward Matt Dumba was also a pleasing move by the fans.  But the Knight's challenge on a Goal that was waved off upon referee review, then upheld as a no-Goal upon official review from Toronto, gave the Wild a pivotal Power Play.  And Fiala scored from deep to get that insurance Goal.  The often-criticized Nick Bjugstad backhanded one past Fleury with more than four Minutes left to give Minnesota a 3-0 win and tie the series at three apiece.

I am heartened that, well, the squad has finally shown some heart.  Will I be OK if they lose Game 7 in Vegas tomorrow/Friday night?  Probably not.  But once cooler heads prevail, I hope to be, well, OK with the team's effort.  But let's not get ahead of ourselves -- the Wild's got momentum!  And the Golden Knights must be on their heels not knowing what the hell has happened!  The Bastard Quebec Nordiques await for Game 1, which will be Sunday night.  Maybe the Wild packed two changes of clothes and set up plans to zip right from Sin City to the Mile High City!!!

#-2: Twins (Last Week: -5).  A 5-1 screening Week.  Does this mean the Twinks are back?  No, absolutely not.  But they have to start winning Games, period.  And even if the opposition aren't world-beaters -- Cleveland is bobbing around .500, The Bastard St. Louis Browns are the worst team in the majors -- any chance for this ballclub to mount a comeback into a postseason spot has to come from knocking off teams that, at least on paper before the season began, are decisively worse than the Twins.  They still have a long way to go, but notching back-to-back series Wins is a start.

Want to recognize two players on the squad.  Similarly to the Wild, I buried Miguel Sano and thought that he needed to be traded.  But even on the team's relative upswing lately, their offense has yet to awaken as a whole, but specifically, Sano has been a fuckin' beast.  Goddamn, finally he's back to where he once was.  In fact, he still largely is taking the team's offense on his back.  Meanwhile, I heard this statistic on The Common Man Progrum yesterday/Thursday: Of all the Starting Pitchers in franchise history (minimum "n" number of Games), as of press time, the SP with the best winning percentage is ... Michael Pineda, who overcame an early Home Run to get the Win in Wednesday's 3-2 victory (those three Runs came on a three-Run Home Run by ... Miguel Sano).  Not many of his Wins feel like the dominating type; by contrast, the Pitcher who currently sits second is Johan Santana, and he is The Last Great Twins Pitcher.  But numbers don't lie.

They are home versus the Royals for the weekend, go out to Baltimore to begin a three-Game set beginning Memorial Day, then travel to Kansas City for a four-Game series starting on Thursday.

#-3: Gopher baseball (Last Week: -7).  Speaking of stats, here's one that the U. athletic department site gave in its notes for the last weekend of the regular season for the Golden Gophers, a pod setup where they will play Penn St. Friday and Saturday afternoon, then the host Purdue Boilermakers Saturday evening and Sunday: Besides three who left and six who joined, the players who were on the club last Year are on the squad this Year.  Last Year's (interrupted) season wasn't great; they finished 8-10.  But that is miles better than the 5-29 this season's edition is currently sporting.  After taking a cursory scroll through the team's Wikipedia page, it looks to be The Worst Season In Golden Gopher Baseball History.

They lost three-of-four at Siebert vs. the Boilers over the weekend.  They got the shit kicked out of them Friday, 12-5, and Saturday, 17-4.  And yet, somehow, they were able to snap a 16-Game losing streak in Sunday's series finale by plating three in the Bottom of the Ninth Inning to beat Purdue, 9-8.  Do not tell me the Boilermakers tried this Game.  A Boilers Pitcher named Landon Weins took the Loss, and a fellow Right-Handed Pitcher named Ricky Castro gave up the Game-Winning Hit, and these two are not scrubs nor Freshmen; this squad relied on both Pitchers.  They can control batters as bad as Minnesota is.  No, they allowed the Goofers to win because it was Minnesota's final Game at home and was thus Senior Day.  You cannot convince me otherwise.

Post-mortem to come next Week.

#-Infinity: Gopher softball (Last Week: -1).  Well, it's over for the U. softballers, and while it's disappointing they were eliminated in the Regionals, I can't feel like it was a failure or anything.

I said in last Week's survey that the team had to beat Fresno St. in their first Regional Game last Friday to have a chance.  Welp, that didn't happen; they got shut out by the Bulldogs, 3-0.  (That hurt doubly because the Gophers were the home team, meaning they were ostensibly the "second seed" in this Los Angeles Regional.)  But turns out I was wrong.  Saturday evening they pushed Long Beach St. to the end of their season, drubbing the Zots, 11-0.  That night they exacted revenge by bumping off Fresno St., 6-3.  And so the biggest mountain to climb lay ahead of them: Take two from the hosts, UCLA, who were also the overall #2 Seed in the NCAA Tournament.  And they lost that Game and thus had their season end Sunday evening to the Bruins.  But it was close: 2-1, with First Baseman Megan Dray getting Minnesota on the board first in the Bottom of the Second Inning (the U. was the home team in this Game as well) on a Homer to Left-Center.  One hit did Minnesota in; in the top of the Fourth, UCLA's Kinsley Washington singled home the tying and winning Runs.  Rachel Garcia came in in the Second and hurled shutout ball for the victory for UCLA, running her record to 16-0.  Amber Fiser ... did not pitch this Game.  At all.  Instead, in this Elimination Game, Autumn Pease went the distance, striking out seven but taking the loss; her record finishes at 12-3.

This team may be in some transition for next Year.  Ace Fiser (who lost the first FSU Game, beat the Beach, and got the Save in the second FSU Game) is a Senior; so is super-slugging Infielder Makenna Partain.  Pease, a Junior, probably steps into Fiser's role next Year as the team warhorse; fellow Junior Natalie DenHartog (she's One Of Us; Hopkins) will have to lead the Offense.  Who will step up in a roster that currently seems 50/50 between under- and upperclassmen?

How Can A Day Off Turn Into A Bad Day?

Well, here's how:

---

I go to ****e's place yesterday to get a well-deserved fuck.  Something is amiss when I walk from where I park my car to her place and I see a guy put out her dogs on the deck.  Ah, shit, man -- she said she had no clients that day, and now she does?  Shiiiiiiiiiiiiit.

Well, maybe she did him early and he's leaving.  I ring the doorbell a few times.  Eventually, the guy answers.  He says ****e is in the spa and she'll need a half-hour.  OK, so I go back in my car, open up my data on my phone and listen to Stephanie Miller, then march right back up to her place at 11.  Ring the doorbell a couple more times: No answer.  I try the door and, unlike at 10:30, it's open.  I see the man again, but no ****e.  I don't know that to do, so I close the door, try the doorbell a couple more times, the guy doesn't come down to get it, so I just fucking open the door and let myself in.

I am greeted by a couple of ****e's dogs who walk down to the bottom of the stairs, but no ****e.  The guy, though, he sees me, and tells me I need to go.  Now, I can take the guy; he's old and he's stammering his speech and he has trouble walking, so maybe I could bow up and bully him into telling me where the hell is she because I was supposed to fuck her.  But I didn't see her, so I decided to just leave and text her later.

But just as I was about to leave, I hear ****e's voice: "Who's there?"  It's coming from her bathroom.  Fortunately, I have direct eyesight up to the bathroom from her entryway.  "Oh, I have to go to the doctor's," she said.  The doctor's?  I thought you were free?  Whatever.  I texted her last night and she said she had an anxiety attack.  I told her I'd catch her next time.  She said, "Sure."  No apology?  I'd be so upset that I'd lay off her for a while, but I have no one else in my life who I sink balls deep into, so shit, I'll be seeing her soon.

---

So instead of that, I went to the Megamall, texted up a couple other stripper friends who could be free for either a rubdown or a handjob.  While I was waiting I decided to cool my heels at Hooters and eat 30 wings, and I described how that destroyed my colon in my last blog post.  Also, I sharted, so I have had to replace my underwear four days early.  Oh, and neither girlfriend could help me in my afternoon of need.

And then, while walking out of the mall to get my Doc Martens shined in downtown Minneapolis, I had an epiphany that hit me over the head like a hammer.  I couldn't see my shoe-shiner.  Because I wasn't wearing my Doc's.  I had decided to wear my slip-on shoes that day, because (and I remember thinking this yesterday morning) it was my day off, I wanted to wear something light, and I usually don't wear my clunky Doc's when I see ****e.  And it amazes me, and makes me feel stupid, that I once again did not marry two facts that do have something to do with each other.  What I mean is, I made a point of bringing my shoe polish in the morning ... and then I thought to myself, on my way out the front door, "Yeah, I'm going to ****e's, so I will wear my slip-ons."  At no point did I think, "Hmmm, if I am going to see my shoe-shiner to get my Doc's polished, I should wear my Doc's today, shouldn't I?"

Now, I will say that my overriding urge yesterday was to get fucked.  And I don't think I have ever worn my Doc Martens to her place.  But still.  And also, it was yet another big thing I planned to do that did not happen, and this time around, this was my fault.

---

It's at this low point in my life that I am mentally climbing the walls in order to have some good come from this day.  And so, after I went back home (after getting a couple Pepsis and taking a quick walk around the park to work off those boneless wings) with shoulders slouched, I stayed in my car and I finally made a dentist appointment to get my teeth checked for this first time since the pandemic began.  And that felt good, to be productive at all ... until I realized that I should have made my appointment for a week later.  And I don't know when I'll have the time to change it.

Fuck my life.  I have to go into work now.  Maybe that will mean that my day won't wind up so shitty.  Or, it might be just as bad.

Yeah, I can't really eat 30 boneless wings and then eat dinner two hours later as if I were a teenager.  I really slowed down around the 20-wing mark, and then it took me a half-hour to down two pork chops which I swear were dry but I probably thought so because my body told me to stop eating.  But no, I had rice and some tofu soup to consume after that.  And I did, and I took a shit, and my stomach is as big as I think it ever has been, and I feel like I've crossed the 180-pound mark for the first time in my life.

I need to exercise for the first time since the pandemic.  But I have to fucking control my goddamn eating, too.  Shit, man, I should drink more water, hell. ...

I Think I Can Break Free Of Facebook's Texas HoldEm Poker Now

From the death of Mafia Wars, game developer Zynga gave me instead Texas HoldEm Poker, and to entice me not to just drop it, I was given "money" to "play."  I bought in, but I miss Mafia Wars.

I don't know when it started, but a further incentive was a slot machine that you get to spin that will give you money if you come back and play every day.  Furthermore, to guarantee repeat playing, the game has percentage multipliers that escalate the jackpot you can get if you spin the slot machine if you come back on consecutive days, up to 400% after you reach seven days in a row and every day thereafter unless and until you miss a day.  I try to visit the game as much as possible to make sure I reach Day 7 and stay at Day 7 so I can spin the machine for as big of a jackpot as I can ... even though I don't usually play poker.  I haven't played in a while because I've been so busy.

This Pavlovian incentive has made me such a sucker that I get downright depressed whenever I miss a day.  That means I go back down to Day 1, where you get a bonus off of what you get on the slot machine, but it's only 10%.  It seriously ruins my night.  It's pathetic.  This incentive has also triggered my OCD.  In particular, I have noticed that there is a bell curve of payouts that you get, even after you reach Day 7.  It sticks out to me whenever I get a total jackpot of $2 million or more because it doesn't happen that often.  On the other monetary end (especially when I am down to Day 1), it is rare that a jackpot doesn't reach $100,000.  I have come to note whenever my jackpot exceeds and doesn't reach those thresholds, and whenever it does, I have become obsessed the symbols on the line when that happens.  I'm trying to figure out what the symbols mean and which ones are rich and which ones are not.  Information for Las Vegas.

Well, I have noticed lately that Texas HoldEm Poker has changed things.  First of all, the time limit to which you can go back to the game and spin the slot machine (just so you can't leave the game and come back and spin and make all this money, immediately leave and come back and do it all over again) was shortened from four hours to two hours.  Also, it seems (or at least seemed) as though the jackpots became consistently astronomical, like the game was giving away tens of millions of dollars every single time I spin.

Because of that, I feel as though I can finally stop, at the very least, noting every time I get a jackpot that is really small or really big.  I mean, why write down every time the jackpot reaches two mill if it reaches two mill every time?  And that might encourage me to, well, stop going on Texas HoldEm Poker.  It is kind of an OCD crutch to me now.  We'll see; the jackpots have gone back down to sane, but I am only on Day 4.

Oh, God, She Must Really Be Fucking Sick Of Me By Now

Goddammit, man, I don't fucking know how and why I just lose all sense when I'm around her.  I don't!

I was scanning a folder today.  She was scanning another folder.  One of the forms I was scanning got stuck in the scanner.  That happens from time to time, and it sucks, and if there are days when it seems to be happening frequently, I get pissed off.  Sometimes but not always, once I get the scanner unjammed, a ... I have no idea what to call it, but the software we use to record the images onto the system kicks into a, for lack of a better word, error message.  Usually that means I need to delete all the images that are already in there, then scan the whole damn folder again.  Upon further later reflection, there was a way I could have possibly "saved" the whole folder, but ever since I started this job, when I got that message, I was trained to just erase it and do it over.

Anyway, once I saw this error message, I immediately took all the forms that were in the feeder and pulled it out, I stopped the scanning process, and I deleted the whole thing.  It was around this time that she got done scanning her folder.  Then she was waiting, and then she was looking at me.  I realized why she was waiting for and looking at me: These particular folders would eventually wind up at her desk, so after I got done scanning my folder, I would just give her the folder because she's right there, and she would walk back to her desk with both folders.  Makes sense, right?  So she said, "You done?"

"No," I said, "I had to ... um ... delete the ... uh, thing ... because ... um ... I had ... (fingers gesturing at nothing) you know ... that black ... rectangle thing on the screen!"  That is basically what I said to her, with about the same number and length of pregnant pauses and blathering stammers.  And it is not the first time I have had trouble finding the words to describe simple things that we routinely do at work to her.  And I don't have no goddamn clue why I am tongue-tied around her, because not only do I not have a crush on her, I don't even like her.  Yeah, it's her.  That supervisor.

So she goes, "You don't have to delete those folders."  Don't want to get into it, but there are two types of forms we do in The Main Department.  The more important ones are the ones I can save from this error message/black rectangle with this process -- a process, by the way, she showed me -- but I guess these forms are, like, immune to this error, which I did not know, or at least don't remember I was told.  "Uh, I already deleted it," I replied, and I think I got the right words out in the right order and said them all without pausing.  And she either said, "OK," or "Great," and she picked up the folder she was scanning and went back to her desk without the folder I should have easily scanned and gave to her.  And a part of me wants to react to her barely-lidded contempt by saying, "Oh, fuck you!" but I really don't have a goddamn leg to stand on because I just shit my mouth when she spoke to me, AND I DON'T KNOW WHY THE FUCK I KEEP DOING THAT AROUND HER!!!

She's fucking sick of me by now.  I know it.  Guess I have to be sick of her in kind.  War of attrition!

First That Guy and now That Supervisor.  Man, I need a fucking long vacation.

Addendum To: Personality Goes A Long Way

Now that I think about it, I think That Guy is going to use my sort-of blow-up at work yesterday on me.  Which will result in two outcomes.

The more outlandish, yet serious, outcome: That Guy is a gun nut with a hair trigger.  He fits the lone wolf type, totally.  If I am somehow able to turn around what he could rat on me to our boss and have that boomerang on his ass ... well, I can see that as a trigger that convinces him to come to work with a gun and mow me down.  He is not well-liked at work, especially among his co-workers, so if he ultimately decides to kill me, he'll take the opportunity to take out all the other people he doesn't like, too.

The more likely, and possibly anodyne, outcome: He'll act all scared and play the victim and tell on me to our boss, at which point he will call me in to his office and lecture me about how to get along with people at work.  To which I will reply that he stopped me from doing what I was told I needed to do, that it seems as if he stopped me because he is only concerned with making his job easier, and that he is a micro-aggressive douchebag who needs to learn that he's not going to get his way all the time.  Which, come to think of it, could be the thing that boomerangs on his ass and is the trigger that convinces him to come to work with a gun and mow me down.

Why am I pondering the consequences of my actions?  I should own them, and have That Guy ponder the consequences of his actions.  Jackass.

Personality Goes A Long Way

The problem with co-workers doing the bare minimum -- not just work-wise, but from a soft-skill, part-of-the-work-environment point-of-view -- is that they in fact are taking from other people, namely energy and morale.

The problem with This Guy isn't that he's quiet.  He is, but that is not the defining trait of This Guy.  There is more to him, and more accurate ways to describe him.  He is not just quiet, but he's also insular, incurious, inflexible, and inert.  Again, those aren't things that impact a work environment to the point where it violates policy.  But while it's not yelling or manipulation or backstabbing, it is a level of toxicity that infects the workplace.  And, yes, it's his fault.

I'm not going to get into details because if I get found out, I'll have to defend myself, and I prefer it happen when I just go off on him.  But the incidents that happened with This Guy today are passive-aggressive, non-verbal cues that accumulate my distrust of him.  The common theme among all these things is that he wants things done his way.  Again, there's nothing I know of that is forbidden in my company to do things your way, so long as the work gets done.  But it's inevitable when you're working in the same department that you either physically cross each other, or your work crosses each other's work, and I have noticed that he does something in reaction to something I have done, and he does it precisely because he didn't like the way I did it, and so he's going to correct it.  Most other people, including the others in this room, would let it go and let it flow.  Not him.  Because even though it really isn't any skin off his ass, he would much, uh, prefer his workspace (which inevitably overlaps with my workspace) just so.

Such persnickety behavior kind of led me to kind of blow up today -- not directly over what he said, and I hope that is how he took it, but maybe he took like I was blowing up on him, and maybe I shouldn't care.  Anyway, upon further reflection it would make sense not to do what I was going to do.  But first of all, he nor anyone else never told me not to do this.  Second of all, what I was about to do was something I was, in fact, trained to do, and I am at work to work.  And finally, even if it makes sense not to do this, This Guy clearly stopped me just because he wanted shit his way.  Most of his micro-aggressions stem from him wanting things his way, and believing that his way is the right way.  And honestly, I would be OK with that ... if he were not insular, incurious, inflexible, and inert.  Like Jules Winnfield said in Pulp Fiction when asked by Vincent Vega if dogs are as filthy as pigs, personality goes a long way.  This Guy?  He's got none.  It would help my cause, and his cause, a lot if he were to engage in small talk, or even a cordial conversation about his day.  But he won't.  I get nothing from him except, "No, this is how it should be done."  It's frustrating.  And he's insufferable.

And it is taking all my willpower not to troll him by continuing to do things to which he needs to correct.  As pissed as I get when I witness his micro-aggressions after what I do, he is doing these things only because he cannot let it go and let it flow, that he can't stand it when things aren't done the way he likes them.  Should I continue to piss him off, just so I can shatter his perfect world where everything's all about him?  I think I will. ...

Need to note that this is the second consecutive weekend I ate Cold Stone Creamery, and it's the second straight weekend where I was shittin' my brains out.  Sure, there were other things I ate that probably contributed to that; yesterday I ate a Heggie's pizza while watching the EPL before having Cold Stone in the afternoon.  But I think my lactose intolerance made an outsized contribution, too.

Thought about pooping from last weekend before I got ice cream yesterday.  Still did it.  Cold Stone Creamery goes down the mouth so well.  It's just that is also goes out, you know, down there not so well.

When I'm Watching Soccer, I Shouldn't Be On My Phone So Damn Much

OK, so it was Decision Day in the English Premier League.  I thought I could see the Match I wanted to see, Leicester City-Tottenham Hotspur at Brit's Pub because they are big enough and have enough television sets to show all ten Matches.  But pandemic or no, they did not do that.  I thought about staying anyway, but then I thought that I couldn't stay and settle.  I knew the Black Hart of St. Paul would be showing Games on demand, so even though I missed the first half of the First Half, I drove across the river.

Soccer is a boring Game.  It just is.  I continually get piqued after initially getting interested because of Minnesota United and the EPL a decade ago, but it is so damn hard to keep watching a Match if nothing happens that I invariably scroll through my cellphone.  And that, invariably, means that I will miss a Goal once it finally happens.  It seems to have happened more often this season, but that's probably because I've been on my phone more and more.

And it cost me today.  Boy, did it fucking cost me.  I was looking at my phone for the pivotal Goal of the Foxes-Spurs Game, an Own Goal that tied it up at 2.  Then, I wanted to wait around to see Manchester City officially hold up the EPL trophy as champions for the Year, and while the endless parade of players were walking out and grabbing their medals, I looked down to get directions to the Mall Of America (to buy the cable for my iPhone XR), then further directions to the garage sale for one of the members of local band Babes In Toyland (which I decided not to go to, partly because would-be pickers would be given numbers and brought in in groups of eight, and that makes me feel like I'm being watched, and partly because I couldn't find the place [though I just looked at the coordinates for the garage sale and it turns out I was too south of it]).  And I look up, and those Cityzens have already lifted the goddamn trophy.

Now, it would have helped if I could have heard either the Goal or the trophy presentation.  But the audio for the Liverpool-Crystal Palace Game was on during the former, and the Black Hart was playing music during the latter.  An audio cue to cue me that the Corner Kick, which led to the Leicester Own Goal, was coming would have made me look up.  I think.  But (sigh) I guess I should have just put my phone away and kept looking at the Game, even if it would have made me fall asleep.

What's left (and I don't care about the Champions League Final) are the Play-"Up" Games down the English Football Pyramid next weekend.  There is just one Match Saturday, Sunday and Monday.  If I got bored in the middle of ten Matches (actually five; the other five Games weren't on, and I don't think they have ten TVs), I won't make it through just one without being inattentive.  And I'll probably miss the Goal that promotes a team because I'm going through fucking Twitter or something.

Analyzing The 2020 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue

I will not say the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue is in a death spiral.  Well, at least not due to the reason everybody else is saying the magazine's in a death spiral.  I mean ... I understand the drive toward inclusivity and acceptance.  But ... ah, shit, I'll just say it: I want my swimsuit models thin, and I don't want to see models who aren't.  It is part of a larger drive from SI to get away from the fetishization of the female body and to include female perspectives in an effort to get more female eyeballs interested in the issue.  If you go on the SISI homepage, for example, you won't see all photos and videos of models in bikinis.  Instead, you'll see tips on how to exercise, how to eat a healthy diet, how models deal with trolls on social media -- and many of them have the models as subjects for these articles.  Again, I get it.  I know it's a good thing.  I just want my Swimsuit Issue to be smutty.

However, the first thing I noticed about the 2020 edition is how, well, skinny it is.  And then I noticed that this is a double issue.  Are you kidding me?  And then I remember that Sports Illustrated is being published by Maven Media, a publishing house that is a Trojan horse for a hedge fund.  They are bleeding the famed magazine's legacy assets dry, then will dump the carcass for pennies on the dollar.  That is what hedge funds do.  The literal thinning of the SI SI is more evidence of that.  And that is what worries me about the fate of this legendary annual rite of passage moreso than having bigger women in its pages.

With that out of the way, let's analyze the photos.  And, well, to be honest, I am not blown away by a single shot.  Sure, there's a lot of ass, and I am always grateful for seeing that in Sports Illustrated because that is as close to porn as it'll get.  But most of the photos are humdrum.  So, I will take a boring approach to analyzing this issue, only going by section, i.e. where each particular spread was shot:

• Wyoming: Vita Sidorkina blew me up past years by showing off her nice ass.  But she doesn't do that in this spread.  But I am a sucker for assless chaps, and Myla Dalbesio is sporting one on Page 25.  It may be my favorite photo in the issue.  Also, Emily DiDonato is looking great in a black two-piece swimsuit, just standing there, on p. 23.
• Dominican Republic: Another Victoria's Secret model crosses over to Sports Illustrated; this time it's Josephine Skriver, and she's got a bomb-ass dumper which she flashes on Pages 37 (she's on as a two-pager with p. 36) and 45.  I also like Anne de Paul's shot on p. 47 because I can see her right nipple rising through her top, and Camille Kostek but probably because she's blonde.
• Riding The Wave: The "celebrity" swimsuit models for 2020 are three surfing professionals.  Talk about your downsizing.  Anyway, shout-out to Courtney Conlogue.  She doesn't have much on top, but she's got killer abs, the kind semen would bounce off of.
• Bali: Probably the best is stalwart Kate Bock on Page 68, where her right arm is pretty much covering her right breast, buuuuuuuuuuut maybe not?  Rookie Brooks Nader stretches out her body real good on p. 77.  But I have to bring this up: Olivia Culpo (hot babe, but she doesn't stand out here) is sporting this one-piece with full arm coverings on Page 73.  Now, if you've noticed Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issues in the past, you'll see that the designer and seller of the bikini and accessories the model is wearing will be listed in the caption.  I have never seen this before: For Culpo's swimsuit, the caption reads: "Editor's own swimsuit."  Is the magazine editor moonlighting as a swimsuit designer?  Or are the samples from vendors so meager nowadays that people on the photography side have to come up with their own offerings just to clothe the models?  Again, talk about downsizing.
• Turks & Caicos: The "model search" pictorial.  None of the six hopefuls get me hard.  But two of them catch my eye, only because of their, uh, offbeat beauty: Christie Valdiserri, who's bald but has a great and powerful ass; and Kathy Jacobs, who's over 50 but has a great body and inspires me to wait around to see if I can fuck any of the strippers from My Favorite Stripclub (Non-Cover Version) once they cross 50.
• Scrub Island: The most underwhelming set.  Probably the best shot is on p. 101, with Samantha Hoopes, another vet, givin' us some ass.

And ... that's it.  I think I'll buy this year's edition, whenever the heck it's coming out.  But it's getting, uh, harder to, uh, get up for it.

Sleep Debt: Paid

Maybe I'll touch on it further later ... well, maybe not ... but I'm really, really struggling doing two jobs right now.  I can say that the test scoring job has just not been enlightening with my struggle to read handwriting, but I really think it's because I just don't sleep enough during the week.  The evening, as bad as it is for my circadian rhythms, is the time when I can catch up on sleep I don't get overnight.  I have not been able to do that since I picked up this job, and no, I have not gone to sleep early and immediately after the test scoring job.  And as (I think) science proves, the lack of sleep adds up.  I try to catch up during weekends, but two days over five?  I have to think you're carrying over sleep over weeks.

Not to say that I've paid it in full, but last night that lack of sleep caught up with me.  I've been seeing my energy flag and eyes droop late during my shift that past couple of nights.  And when I got done last night, even though I had plans on finishing up the coffee I got at work in the morning and the, uh, pastry Mother made, and then taking a shower, I jumped onto my bed, listened to the Bastard Vancouver-Bastard Philadelphia play-in NBA Game on Sirius XM, and slowly fell asleep.  I woke up once after the Grizzlies upset the Warriors in Overtime, and I must've gotten up and turned off my radio.  But besides that, I conked off until about 5:30 in the morning.  And then my body liked it so much that I fell back asleep around ... uh, 7:30?  And it was those "second sleeps," that type where I rest for less time but for deeper.  I dreamt I saw my friend seated several rows ahead of me at some sports betting event but I never was able to speak to him.

Anyway, I'm up, and I'm rested.  Well, not really.  I feel really tired now.  More sleep debt, possibly.

The Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey

#-1: Gopher softball (Last Week: -5).  They finished their regular season taking three-of-four at bottom-dweller Penn St.  But I was afraid that loss, a 4-1 defeat Sunday afternoon in their series and season finale, would cost Minnesota a spot in the NCAA Tournament.  No worries; when the field was announced that evening, the Gophers were in.

But don't get your hopes up; they had a good season considering the pandemic, and their two on-field studs, Natalie DenHartog (unusual camelcase; is that a Dutch name?) and MaKenna (there you go with the camecase again) Partain, were named on Wednesday to the All-Big Ten First Team.  But they were drawn into the Regional with the #2 seed in the tourney, blue blood program UCLA.  It'll take a miracle to survive Westwood and the weekend.  Just sayin'.

They open up tomorrow/Friday night versus Fresno St.  Win that and the Gophers give themselves a chance.

#-2: United FC (Last Week: -3).  Not saying the four straight defeats to begin the season is out of my mind.  And history insists that such a losing streak to begin a Year most likely means that Year is over.  But I feel ... ah, quite better now that they've won two in a row.

The lone Goal in Saturday's 1-0 home win over FC Dallas was scored by Robin Lod off a rebound off a Corner Kick.  I was listening on the radio, and the Loons were just hammering the Burn/Hoops, especially near the end of the Match.  It felt as though Dallas was going to eventually yield a score, and they did:

Lod has had the most remarkable career revision in recent Twin Cities sports history.  Remember when the Finn came over and started playing for the XI?  He was an inert mess, and people were using his hire as another reason Head Coach Adrian Heath should be out ... well, whenever they weren't wondering how the hell you pronounce his last name.  I still don't quite know how to pronounce it.  But ever since he opened his stateside account with MNUFC's lone tally in that U. S. Open Cup Final loss at Atlanta, he has become dependable, and in the last season-plus, he has been indispensable, especially late in 2020 when he frequently flummoxed Backlines as a False 9.  He might be the Loons' most important player after Bebelo Reynoso.

The league is playing this week.  But there are 27 teams in MLS this year, so whenever there are full schedules, one team has to take a bye.  This week is Minnesota's bye week.  They are back in action on the 29th at Real Salt Lake before an International Break.

#-3: Wild (Last Week: -1).  Well, that was fun while it lasted ... which didn't last long.  The entire team turned in a sterling performance just so Joel Eriksson Ek can squeeze a deflected shot past Marc-Andre Fleury to take Game 1 of their playoff series against Las Vegas and steal home-ice.  Maybe things can be different with this franchise!  Maybe we can actually surprise some people this Year!

Nope.  Another tight Game 2 turned on a dumb turnover by Marcus Johansson that led to the Game-tying Goal, and then the Game-winning one by The Guy We Gave Up In The Expansion Draft, Alex Tuch.  And then comes the killer last/Thursday night; the Wild were up in Game 3 2-0 after one Period, and then the Golden Knights buried them with five straight Goals to take back home-ice and put the Mild in siege mode.  There are perks to being a franchise born at Third Base because you can trick yourself into thinking you hit a Triple.  Similarly, the Mild are being who they naturally are -- plucky, somewhat overlooked, capable of getting a surprise first punch in, but after that, they'll cave like motherfuckers.  Mild motherfuckers at that.

Game 4 is Saturday night and will be shown on NBC around America.  Maybe the Mild will show how fucking meek and emasculated this franchise is for the whole country to see.  And then I can stick these emasculated fucks at the bottom of next Week's WMNSS.

#-4: Gopher soccer (Re-Entry!).  Not following the U. "footballers" that closely during the off-season, so this comes as news straight out of nowhere: Stephanie Golan is leaving her post as Head Coach for the Golden Gophers to take the same job at Missouri.  It was announced yesterday/Thursday.  This move makes more sense when you're told that Golan is from the St. Louis suburb of St. Charles, Mo.

You know, Golan didn't do a bad job running this program.  As listed here, she finished her nine-Year tenure with a record of 92-24-64.  She helmed two of probably the three greatest teams in program history.  There was the 2016 edition, who went 16-4-3, completed the double (Big Ten regular season and tournament champions), and finished the season ranked eighth in the nation.  That team was the one that got upset at home in the First Round of the NCAA Tournament by N. C. St. on Penalty Kicks, but let's just throw that down the memory hole.  The 2018 team wasn't better, but it may have accomplished more, believe it or not.  They finished seventh in the conference (if I'm not mistaken), then ripped off three straight upsets (without allowing a single Goal in the run of play during the B1G tourney) to claim a miraculous NCAA birth.  The Gophers then followed that up with their first pure road tournament victory in their history, a 2-0 upset at Auburn.

Listing all of her accomplishments, you know, Golan did not do a bad job.  Sure, it could have been better.  Sure, they could have established themselves as an upper-echelon team along the likes of Penn St. and Rutgers.  But can you say that Golan should be run out on a rail for that track record?  If so, who would you get that would be better?  That question may be redundant, if not rhetorical, for U. Athletic Director Mark Coyle will now have to find Golan's replacement.

#-5: Twins (Last Week: -4).  If you're not a subscriber to The Athletic, you should be.  I have heard faint rumblings that the Internet enterprise is in serious financial trouble, but I hope that's not the case, because the descendant of The National should serve a great, aching need for serious sports journalism.  I rely on it for news and analysis on a daily basis, and even though their reporters cape to advertising (it reminds me of hearing reporters on Minnesota and National Public Radio try to hawk free mugs if you donate five bucks a month during pledge drives; I feel sorry for them, and then I change the station) and are now sidling up to online gambling houses, there is a lot of good stuff there -- for my teams, the leagues I follow, and even sports in general.

I wonder if Aaron Gleeman, one of the Athletic writers on the Twins beat, is an asshole in real life.  He is so entranced by sabermetrics that if he ever has sons, one of them will grow up to be a serial killer.  (That makes sense in my head.)  But as cold and creepily dispassionate he is about the souls that play and enjoy baseball, his breakdown of the Twins -- especially when they're, uh, broken down, like this year -- his hard work uncovers profound insights.  In particular, he had a story this week whereby he notes that the ballclub went through pretty massive turnover: They said goodbye to almost a dozen players and signed almost a dozen.  Gleeman has tracked all the new people who have come in and those who were bade farewell.  Of the departed, only one player -- it's the Mets set-up man ... Taylor Rogers? -- is having a good Year.  But of all the newcomers, one only player -- Andrelton Simmons, and I don't count him because he has already spent significant time on the Injured List -- is having a good Year.  Every other new Twin has been shit.

And that's why they have the worst record in the American League and the second-worst in all of pro baseball (as of press time, only Colorado is worse).  And as dreadful as this past screening Week was, going 3-5 is actually an improvement.  It feels as though Miguel Sano, who was drowning below the Mendoza Line, is the only reason they've won any Games this past Week.  He has erupted for five Home Runs starting with the Game-winning one Saturday against the Athletics.  Otherwise, all other aspects to this ballclub have continued to fail.  It is getting very late very early for the Twinks, and I don't know how having a long season will help turn things around if the players, to a man, continue to perform worse than Replacement Level.

They're going to be everywhere.  They had this lackluster Week at Target Field, then had to fly out to Orange County for yesterday's/Thursday's Doubleheader to make up for Games delayed because the Twinks had to deal with the coronavirus, and now they travel to Cleveland for the weekend before flying back to Minneapolis to host the Orioles for a trio.

#-6: Lynx (Re-Entry!).  And now our heretofore solid pro women's basketball team have gone to shit, too.  Sure, the WNBA is back ... and the Minnesota Jynx have started a season 0-3 for the first time in The Cheryl Reeve Era.  My God, Reeve has not coached Minnesota to an 0-2 start ever, either.  But a late Diana Taurasi jumper, a Sabrina Ionescu Triple-Double (the youngest player in WNBA to pull that off) and a 37-Point Seattle Storm Fourth Quarter has put this squad in a hole that might be too deep to get out of.  And yes, they're only three Games into the season.

Many people thought that Minnesota was going to improve on their Semifinal appearance from the "Wubble" last Year.  Many writers and experts also cautioned us Jynx fans that things may be slow going to start; Napheesa Collier and Kayla McBride, two key pieces to the success of this club, weren't around to start the season because they're still with their overseas teams.  That may handicap Minnesota moreso than other teams.  But they still have talent that is here (Sylvia Fowles, Crystal Dangerfield, Natalie Achonwa), and they're still winless in the league.  At the end of the day, you are what your record says you are.  And the Jynx's record says that they're in fact one of the worst teams in the WNBA, even if it is early.  Haven't said that about this squad in a long, long time.

This is weird; they have a whole Week off.

#-7: Gopher baseball (Re-Entry!).  They have been off the past two Weeks.  Officially, the series at home against Ohio St. and the multi-tournament in Happy Valley where they scheduled to tussle with Penn St. and Rutgers have been postponed, but there's no fucking way the U. is going to make up these Games.  It also stretches credulity that this program has been dealing with a rash of coronavirus protocols the past two Weeks.  That's the reason the ballclub has given for this pause.  But I find it hard to believe that players have been so careless with following distancing guidelines that they've been out of commission for two Weeks, especially when they are more than a Year into this pandemic.  Meanwhile, I remind you that this club has won only four Games so far this season.  I'll leave it at that.

The team has been cleared to play again.  This weekend they were supposed to host Purdue for a three-Game set.  But I guess to make up for Games lost, the Boilermakers came in early (I guess) to play a fourth Game.  The series started last/Thursday night ... and they got tripled up, 9-3.  Yup-yup.  Maybe they should've been "in protocol" for another Week.

#-Infinity: Timberwolves (Last Week: -2).  The Common Man said something noteworthy as to the final two Games of the Wolves' season, a backer-to-backer at home where they lost to Boston Saturday afternoon by 16 and then beat Dallas Sunday night by 15.  The gamers for both stories were as night-and-day as the Woofs' efforts for both contests: They were listless, etc., vs. the Celtics and came out with pride, etc., versus the Mavericks.  You are talking about the same team playing on consecutive nights; does it make sense to you that that club's effort was non-existent one tilt but in vivid color the next?  Wouldn't a more accurate rationalization for these two Games (and journalism requires some big-picture perspective offered by contrasting Minnesota in both Games put together) be that the Celtics decided to gear up for the playoffs by caring about their Game, and that the Mavs didn't?  That's a much better explanation than insisting that the Two Elves shut 'er down on Saturday and turned it up to 11 on Sunday.

Anyway, the Timberwolves finished the abbreviated (72 Games as opposed to 82) 2020-1 schedule with a 23-49 record.  That is typically execrable for this franchise, but it is only the sixth-worst in the NBA.  And I'll go out on a limb and say that in terms of the Draft, the Wolves are in a good spot.  Like I analyzed in last Week's survey, if they stay put or get passed up by luckier teams that have better regular season records, they'll toss that pick to the Golden State Warriors, but they'll be drafting an (at best) rotation guy.  If the Wolves leap up to the top three, they'll get to keep the pick and are ensured of selecting a stud.  Only if they get the fourth pick will they be screwed; two of the five players considered the best this Year will still be available, but the Dubs will be the ones taking them.

Meanwhile -- and I'm sure I've felt this way before -- as shitty as this season has been, this feels like a bottoming out.  Karl-Anthony Towns has faced down COVID-19 and appears to be back.  D'Angelo Russell was able to shake his injuries enough to team up with KAT to build some sample size.  Proving me wrong, Anthony Edwards has started to find his game and has the potential to replace, if not eclipse, KAT as the franchise cornerstone.  And in Games where all three played significant minutes, the Timberwolves actually had a better than .500 record.  You take that as progress.

Sure, these guys were still shit-ass on the defensive side of the court, so they really need more 3-and-D Wings more than a scoring machine.  And they need to do so while dancing below the salary cap; it's almost criminal that a club this woeful is somehow capped out.  But as we've described the Minnesota Timberwolves many times before, there is talent there, and the worst is now behind them.  Next year, let's demonstrate some competence!!!

Addendum To: The Squatting Bird

OK, so an update on the bird that made a nest behind our porch light. ...

A couple weeks ago (I think), I came back from work and saw some ... crap splattered on the porch directly below the nest, a little farther up on the vinyl siding, and then right behind the nest.  From the greenish, uh, leavings on the porch, I figured that the bird or birds pooped.  But how do you poop on vinyl siding?  Did a bird, like, shart or something?  Or did something blow up, like ... a bird?

Oh yeah ... so the occurrence of a bird flying away as soon as I opened the door stopped happening after a while.  However, I was curious and I looked up at the nest.  What I saw a few times was something heaving up and down, like it was breathing.  Was that the bird that flew away, and now wasn't?  Did she give birth to new baby chicks?  Was it an elderly bird?

Well, those are all guesses, because at some point after that, there was no activity in the nest -- no heaving mass, no escaping bird, nothing.  Or at least I hope so, because early this week I looked up at the light and I saw no nest.  This was such a thorough clean-up job that Father must've demolished it, as well as cleaned up the poop/bird carcass all over that area.  I hope to Buddha the bird(s) abandoned the nest by the time My Old Man went through it.  And I really, really hope that he didn't trash the nest with any young chicks in it.

If neither worst-case scenario didn't happen, well then ... bye-bye, bird(s).  I hope it was nice living with us, even with all the loud noises we made whenever we opened the door.