Glad Last/Sunday Night Is Over

So after lunch and learning that I'm helping Father stick an EKG monitor on his bare chest, I hear Mother screaming at Father, over something.  I have never known what they've ever argued over, but I haven't heard Mother yell like that in a long, long time.

We eat a very early dinner (four hours after lunch, which is insane).  I was the one who attached this EKG on Father; Mother was in her office doing her own thing.  I go up to my bedroom and eventually take an early-evening nap before going out to exercise.  Mother bangs on my door to wake me up.  I'll expound on this hopefully in a different blog post, but never wake me up from sleep.  I hate that.

She gets me out to the dinner table.  She needs help booking their flight, although she actually said, "You promised to help me with my frequent flier miles," which is something I don't ever remember her saying.  It was obvious she was in the kind of mood she has often been in after yelling at Father -- wounded, feeling like a victim and lashing out because she felt entitled.  And this type of thing My Fucking Mother ropes me in to doing for her is the type of thing she usually ropes me in to do for her, which is something that has to do with not understanding English words and some elements of the task I believe she knows how to do, but doesn't want to do them because she wants to act helpless.  Besides all that, I feel like I've been dropped in unfamiliar territory, and so I'm figuring what the hell I need to do, but, and this is also typical of her, whenever I run into a roadblock or something I don't understand, she goes, "Well, what are we going to do?"  And I've gotten a little better at pointing to her, "Um, we are not doing anything.  You brought me into this because you don't want to do this.  I'm trying to figure out what I'm going to do."  (She also has this tick where I say something to her and she goes, "I know."  She clearly isn't using that phrase when she's supposed to, but I still get triggered because I take her literally at her word, and I want to say to her, "No, you don't know!"  But that's another blog post.)

I can't book a flight online.  Mother asks me to call for her, fuckin' A.  The call wait time is 2 1/2 hours.  They invite me to text instead, so I tell My Mother I'm going to leave for the gym and just text the airline about this.  So as I'm putting on my shoes, my sister calls My Mother.  There is another matter my sister wants to talk to her about.  "Has Unforgivable Wetness talked to you about it yet?" my sis says.  "No," Mother replied, "He doesn't want to talk to me about it."  And I had to shout from the bottom, "That's not true!" and I went back up to the dining room to get my face on Mother's phone to tell my sister Mother's lying, and then to tell Mother that if she wants to talk about this other matter, she should talk to me, otherwise I'm assuming she's handling it herself.  Goddamn.  I've always thought I've gotten my self-pity from Father.  But I might be wrong.

Anyway, I got the gym but had to delay exercising because I was busy texting with the airline rep, or the bot, who knows?  There are no flights available.  So I come home, see Mother at the other side of the front door ... and she's all calm and stuff.  If she weren't calm, she wouldn't even look at me.  So maybe she's gotten over what she needed to get over.

At any rate, this was a Sunday that was a little too eventful.  Glad it's over.

Earlier this afternoon, my parents told me that Father has been given this portable EKG monitor to track his heart.  For many years my old man has been worried, possibly to the point of hypochondria, of his heart.  But it appears as though his doctor sent him this, and of course I have to help them figure out what to do and, looks like prepare.

Yes, this EKG monitor needs to be stuck over My Father's heart.  So, according to the instructions, the area on which the monitor needs to be stuck to has to be washed, shaved, exfoliated, and wiped down so the monitor can be affixed.  I'm guessing I'm doing all of that.  Great.  I'm repulsed seeing my old man shirtless, but I have to do all the crap, too?  Well, he's scared of his heart, so (shrug)

Too Much Time Off

Maybe the best perk I have at work is the number of paid days off I get.  I have so many per year that I calculated that I would have to spend a bit more than two days off per month in order to use and not lose all of those days.  I know this might sound weird, but that's a lot.  And add to it the edict that only one person from our group of 15 can (or is supposed to be) be out on a planned absence every day, and that brings on the added complication that there may already be a dwindling number of days I can't get off between now and the end of the year.

So at this point I not only have to take time off willy-nilly (instead of planning them for vacations), I need to just find dates to take off and lay claim them as soon as possible.  I am doing that Tuesday and Wednesday.  Why those two days?  Really, no reason besides the fact that 1) there are usually enough people scheduled on those two days to cover me and 2) they were free.  I will need to find, like, 16 more days like these to be all set.  In the meantime, I am trying to plan things to do Tuesday and Wednesday -- see a movie, eat out for lunch and exercise are things I've come up with so far.

My Boombox Is Breaking Down

OK, it's more like a radio.  A nice, neat, decent, modest radio that I think my family bought for me back in high school.  I schlepped it to college; once I graduated, I remember my family insisting they stuff that radio back in their luggage to bring it back to Minnesota.

It has been sitting right beside me, at my bedside table, ever since I came back home.  I don't use it often, but I use it sometimes, and I think in recent years I have used it more often -- late at night, when there's nothing on TV and I want something to listen to while I'm surfing the Internet, usually jazz, sometimes sports, sometimes The Current.  I use the CD player around Christmastime to listen to A Charlie Brown Christmas or whenever I get around to buying a CD.

I haven't used the tape player function.  Man, this radio is so old it has a tape player!  But that shows how well it still works after, what, just about three decades of use.  But unfortunately, it is showing signs of aging.  The radio part works fine.  But maybe a couple years ago (maybe a few), while I was listening to the radio, the compact disc cradle popped open all its own.  I pushed the button to retract it, and it did retract, but I could still hear the whirring sound, and the cradle popped back out.  I hit the button a second time, and this time it stuck, but on occasion it would pop back out, and it would take two and sometimes three tries before it would close.  Also around this time, the CD stopped working.  I would put in, say, my U2 CD and push play, but it wouldn't play.  Finally, on a couple occasions last week, hitting the button didn't work.  I had to physically shove the cradle back in, and even then it would pop back out a couple times before me shoving it in stuck.

The last time it got so bad that I've refrained from turning on the radio at all.  If I do, the CD cradle could pop out, and I would have to go through all that crap again.  Maybe it's not the worst thing in the world, since I just use the radio function now.  But that is a sign that it's breaking down, and I'm not sure how long I want to deal with it anymore.

The Trash Bag Gets Smaller For Father

Think I noticed this last year, or the year before, or maybe the year before that, I don't know.  For a trash can, we use a pail -- you know, one of those white pails that street drummers use to drum.  We put a plastic bag in that trash can, and the pail we have fits the plastic bag almost perfectly, so you can tell how big the pail is.

Anyway, I can go weeks by myself and not fill it up.  But when my parents are here and cooking, they are chucking a bag nightly.  But I noticed something in recent years when I threw something into the trash can and the thing I throw away lands with a light "bonk" and doesn't sink to the bottom of the bag like I thought it would.  When I peer into the trash can to investigate, I saw that I could see the bottom of the bag a lot closer to the top of the pail than I would expect.

I then lift the bag that's inside the pail.  And what's there is some plastic container -- think a bowl of instant ramen, or something tofu comes in (OK, these are shitty images that might not resonate with you, bear with me) at the bottom of the pail.  My parents have put this thing underneath the bag to push up the bag's bottom.  Why?  No damn clue.  Well, I have two theories, both stemming from My Father's old age: Either it's very hard for him to bend down and grab the whole bag, or the bag fully filled would be too heavy for him to lift.  But as old as he is, he still has the ability to move his joints, and the bag would weigh a maximum of five pounds.  Those are the only guesses as to why my folks would put an object inside the trash can, but they are pretty bad guesses.

So, I don't know why.  I just think that's weird.  And I hope that, if I ever get around to asking them, and the reason does have to do with my old man's old age, I won't break down and cry over how enfeebled he has become.

Have I Told You Guys Yet That I Fucking Hate The Morning Sun Angle?

Because I hate the fucking morning sun angle.  Goddamn Sun's shining in my eyes just as I hit 694 going east precisely when I have to get to work.  I think it's been this way for a month, and I'll be honest with you, I don't remember it being this dangerous driving this way for this long at this time of the year before.  I'm serious!  I swear that this time last year or in previous years, the Sun would be high enough that I won't have to worry that the glare is going to prevent me from seeing on the road.  But I've been dealing with this shit for a fucking month now, and I fucking hate it.

I shouldn't be this upset after getting seven hours of sleep, but I have to blog post about something quick, and this is what I've got.

The Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey

#-1: Gopher baseball (Last Week: -7).  In total, this screening Week was a very, very shitty one for local teams.  (At first blush this might not be a good time for the Twins to start their season, but looking at how awful most local teams were the past seven Days, it actually might be a great time.)  It was particularly execrable on campus ... except for the Gopher Nine, who were able to feast on low-major talent, knocking off St. Thomas on Wednesday, 8-2, then then taking two-of-three over the weekend versus High Point, all four Games of which at Das Bank 2.0.  Compared with the crappy performances the other Twin Cities clubs turned in, this looks downright dynastic.

They now leave the Vikings' stadium and go to their home, Siebert Field, for the first time this season as they have a three-Game series against Iowa.

#-2: United FC (Last Week: -6).  I am trying to maintain hope for Eric Ramsay, but honestly, after the past two Matches, I don't think the Loons are a good team at all.  One Week after blowing a three-Goal lead and ending up tied at Kansas City, they hosted The Los Angeles Galaxy -- who, like Sporting Kansas City, had accrued only one Point going into their contest with MNUFC -- and blew not one lead but two.  The Galaxy, defending MLS Cup Champions and the squad that eliminated United FC in last Year's playoffs, hardly look like they did last Year.  But they do have Christian Ramirez, who started and leveled the Match at 1 with a header from a very acute angle.  (Why in the fuck did Adrian Heath and Manny Lagos trade Christian Ramirez I don't fucking know, but he still would fit in as the perfect Striker for the Loons, and I mean it.)  Kelvin Yeboah slotted home his second of the tilt via Penalty Kick, but three Minutes later, in the 90th Minute, traffic in front of fill-in Goalkeeper Alec Smir allowed the Galaxy's Carlos Emiro Garces to kick a slow ball into the corner, and the Match ended 2-2.  I'm sorry, but if you can't put away awful teams, you cannot be a good one.  And now the Loons, sixth in the West but falling slowly, host Real Salt Lake Saturday.  And RSL has six Points, not one, so they are going to be a tougher opponent to draw with.

#-3: Wild (Last Week: -2).  The slow-motion collapse continues.  They started off the Week crushing both Seattle and Buffalo at home, but versus real good teams, they folded: 3-0 at The Team That Was Stolen From Us v.2.0. Monday, 5-1 at home to (Las) Vegas last/Tuesday night.  Meanwhile, St. Louis is now only two Points behind the Mild.  And only four Points behind the Blues is Calgary.  The Flames are in ninth place ... and that's where Minnesota might be if they can't haul this quivering, malfunctioning carcass of a team across the regular season finish line.

They finish their three-Game homestand against Alex Ovechkin and Washington and The Bastard Colorado Rockies, which is the start of a home-and-home; the two teams play in New Jersey Monday.

#-4: Timberwolves (Last Week: -1).  The more the season plays out showing how the Timberwolves aren't gelling, the more infuriating it gets.  They had a two-Game series versus The Bastard Charlotte Hornets at Target Center.  They walloped New Orleans by 41 on Friday -- but that was after they lost to this shitty team by four on Wednesday.  They then lost by 16 at Indiana Monday, and the doubts surrounding Julius Randle, Rudy Gobert, and even Anthony Edwards are popping up again, with only nine Games left in the season.  And they are technically eighth in the West, a place where the Woofie Dogs have stubbornly been nearly all Year.  Maybe these guys aren't that good.

This Week they host Phoenix and Detroit before traveling to face Denver.

#-5: Gopher softball (Last Week: -4).  Oof, I'm getting the feeling this program is going nowhere.  The club got swept in Lincoln by Nebraska, who managed to score eight Runs in all three of their victories.  They are now 2-5 in the Big Ten and have lost four in a row, and open up play at Cowles Stadium vs. Nebraska Northwestern over the weekend.

#-Infinity (tie): Gopher women's hockey (Last Week: -3) and Gopher wrestling (Last Week, respectively: -3 and -5).  Have I pointed out that the Gopher women's hockey and wrestling teams usually cease at the same time?  I may have not noticed much in recent Years, but this Year both teams ended with a conspicuous and extremely disappointing thud, albeit for their own distinct reasons.

For the U. women's hockey team, the way this season ended was more disastrous than others because they were hosting the Frozen Four.  It's great that the U. and Ridder Arena appear to be on a regular rotation for this great and burgeoning event.  (I just took a quick look at the history of the event; I think I've been to four of the past five Frozen Fours that took place at Ridder.  I'm kind of proud of myself.)  It would be even better if the U. won the NCAA championship.  But they haven't done that since 2016, and they haven't even been in the title Game since 2019.  In fact, the past three championship match-ups in top-flight women's college hockey have been Wisconsin vs. Ohio St.  That was assured when the Buckeyes doubled up Cornell and the Badgers ripped through the Goofers on Friday, 6-2.

So, like I said in my previous blog post, when I took my seat in Ridder Sunday for the title Game, I was in a row and a section and, frankly, a rink filled with Wisconsin fans.  There was one section and scattered small groups rooting for The Ohio State University.  Otherwise, it was LaBahn West.  And, like I said, the Badgers were rewarded with a thrilling, come-from-behind victory in Overtime.  Also, like I said, that the Goofers' home venue was filled with the two schools that have thoroughly lapped the U. in prestige and success should be a source of embarrassment for Minnesota Athletic Director Mark Coyle.  But there has been no talk (at least as far as I have heard) about replacing longtime Head Coach Brad Frost.  It looks like Coyle operates the athletic department laissez-faire; he will only make a change when there is significant pressure from the fanbase (and in particular the moneyed folk) to do so.  That might have happened when he relieved Ben Johnson of duties with the men's basketball team.  I would not disapprove of the same thing happening with Frost.  But it looks like it ain't happening.  So we will get another season of a team going through the motions with no possibility of breaking through.

As for the wrestlers, there is no reasonable path to thinking they're going to win a championship for a generation, or at least as long as Cael Sanderson is the Head Coach at Penn St.  Yes, those goddamn Nittany Lions won another overall title -- their fourth straight and twelfth in the last 15 NCAAs.  Turns out the Gophers finished in a tie for fifth, the best-ever finish under Brandon Eggum and the school's best since they finished second in 2014.  Sure, the U. only managed 51.5 Points when Penn St. got 177, but still.

That isn't the storyline coming out of the NCAAs, however and very, very unfortunately.  The only reason to follow this team is Gable Steveson, returning to lord over the heavyweight division once again.  He did it all season ... and then he fell in the final to the 2-seed, Oklahoma St.'s Wyatt Hendrickson.  Steveson was about to motor to his fifth overall title, but with two Seconds left, Hendrickson took him down and won, 5-4.  It was the first time Steveson ever lost as a collegian, and it apparently will be the last Match he will ever as a Gopher.  Many in the know call it The Greatest Upset In College Wrestling History.  (To make matters worse, Hendrickson shook the hand of That Fucking Guy, who was there getting his ego stroked.  Of course a Minnesotan has to lose to a fucking dumb MAGAt.)  Look, the fifth-place overall finish is nice, but the only thing we Gopher fans had to look forward to was Steveson being King Of The Mat again.  And it didn't happen.  And that is a very, very bitter pill to swallow.

Second Snow-Out Date: IDK

I forgot to note when the real/second snow-out occurred.  I thought it was late February, but then we had that snowstorm the first week in March, so I needed to note when all that snow melted away.  I couldn't note it, however, because I got busy with my parents and work and all the other stuff I had to do.  It might have happened last week, but I honestly don't know if that's, and I certainly can't pinpoint a particular day.

Then again, we might get some snow this weekend, in which case there would be a third snow-out date.  Maybe I'll remember to note when that will be.

Toast-Yays! I Salute You!

Fantastic Frozen Four Final (for the women) yesterday/Sunday afternoon at Ridder.  Ohio St. was up on Wisconsin, 3-2, when, with 18.9 Seconds left, play was whistled dead on a huge scramble in front of the Buckeyes' net.  The Badgers challenged the stoppage; they said an Ohio St. player covered up the puck while it was in the crease.  After review, the officials determined that was the case.  The remedy for that: A Penalty Shot, which Kirsten Simms, a Junior Forward from Plymouth, Mich., deked home for the tie:

Just more than two Minutes into Overtime, Simms put away a rebound for the OT Winner, and Wisconsin (and by the way, Ridder Arena was jam-packed with about 85% Badger fans; the atmosphere was excellent, but seeing Ridder become Madison West has to be fucking disconcerting for the U., and if Mark Coyle doesn't feel ashamed, he should) won its eighth title overall and fourth in the past six seasons.  Great Game -- and I paid only $13, the face value of the ticket, to watch it!

Anyway, as I was leaving, I saw, of all people, a Girl Scout and her mom selling cookies.  Don't know if I would've thought to do that, but what do I know?  Anyway, I am obsessed with the fact that the Toast-Yays! are going to be discontinued after the season.  I've had them before, and I liked them so, to, well, commemorate their "retirement," I had already bought a box.  And you know what?  They're even better than I thought!  The icing is great, but the cookie part is sensational as well.  There's something dusted on top of it, and that really makes each Toast-Yay! pop.

This is an underrated cookie.  If the Girl Scouts stop making Toast-Yays! because they're not selling, well, the people have no taste in good cookies.  So I bought another box, right outside of Ridder.  I'm just about done with the first one, so I'll probably quickly eat my way through the second.

RIP, Toast-Yay!  You have been done dirty.

Addendum To: I Played Myself

As paying ten more bucks than I needed to wasn't bad enough, I saw something at the X I didn't think I would see.  There was a merchandise stand there, selling several items related to the conference (the NCHC) and the event (the Frozen Faceoff), but not as many items as I would expect for an event of that size.  Two of the items, a shirt and a pint glass, commemorate the fact that this is the last time (or so they say) the conference will have its tournament in St. Paul (and for the first few year of the NCHC, it was at Target Center in Minneapolis)/neutral ice; starting next year and for the foreseeable future, the conference tournament will be played on campus sites.

The tag line for the event was "Last Call In St. Paul," and that slogan was on a shirt and a pint glass.  I saw the shirt (but not the pint glass) while I was walking the concourse inbetween the Semifinals on Friday and thought, "Hey, that's kind of cool."  And then I saw there were a few people at the stand, so I figured that I would continue to get my steps in, buy food (a pizza slice because it was the shortest line) and, once I got done with that, go back to the stand to purchase something.  Swear to God it was maybe 25 minutes at the most.  But once I went back to the merch table, the "Last Call In St. Paul" shirt was gone.  I never thought that, what, 5,000 people would buy enough shirts to sell out, but it sounds from the merch people that they didn't have much to sell.

What did catch my eye was a scarf.  It had the NCHC logo, the year of its birth ("Est. 2014"), and the 2025 Frozen Faceoff logo.  It makes no mention of the fact that this is the last neutral site Frozen Faceoff, but shit, this is as close to marking this "end of an era" as I'll get, especially if they don't make this scarf anymore, which, in hindsight, I doubt.  But I bought it, for $30.

I went back there last/Saturday night for the Frozen Faceoff Final.  (By the way, Western Michigan came back from a 3-0 Second Period deficit to win it in Double Overtime, 4-3.  Some kid from Prior Lake potted the Game-winner, his second of the night.  I didn't see it in person; I left early because I had to catch the last light rail, at a quarter after 11 [which got pushed back to 11:25 or so -- damn, Metro Transit has to be more accurate with that stuff], to get back to where I parked my car at Midway)  No new shirts or pint glasses.  But they still had scarves.  And now they were selling them for $25 apiece.  I looked at the sign with the price; someone printed out "25," cut it into a square, and taped it right in front of the "30."  I have no fucking clue why someone suddenly discounted the scarves by five bucks, but I feel cheated, and I feel so goddamn impotent because I want to complain to someone about it, but I don't want to come off as a whiner.  But why in the hell did they knock off five bucks on the scarf?!

So now, not only did I overpay for the ticket to that Game by $10-3, it looks as though I paid five bucks too much for that goddamn scarf.  So that's $15-8 I feel like I need to make up by not spending on something I would spend money on, like coffee and breakfast before work.  Man, that shit just pisses me off.

I Played Myself

I knew I shouldn't've checked prices this morning.  But I got spooked once I got home and saw that prices for the NCHC Frozen Four Final were not dropping as immediately as I thought they would, so I bought one before I went to bed.  It was ten bucks below face ... but if I had waited until the morning, it would have been $20.  And I realized I have overpaid because I was scared the prices were going to go up.

I can say that I bought the ticket before I went to bed because I thought I would be too busy to buy the ticket in the morning.  Well, I tortured myself all night thinking I might have screwed myself, so I was going to be up in the morning anyway, so that's no excuse.  This is not the mindset I need going into my volunteer event, but I this was I get -- both for panicking, and for going out of my way to see if I panicked.  Cram the self-hate down, UW. ...

Today Might Be My Busiest Day This Year, And Maybe In Many A Year

And I'm not even working.  Instead, I am going to this volunteer event I've set up, then I had to arrange this ad hoc Game-watching event right after the volunteer shift at a bar I've never been to, and then I have to leave that watch party early because I have to go to the United FC Match, and then after that I am supposed to go by light rail to the NCHC Frozen Faceoff Final at the X.  These events are supposed to be a lot of fun.  But as I look at it, I'll be doing a lot of running around, and I will be desperately hoping to take a nap, even though there is no good time to do that.

About the ice hockey Game: I say "supposed to go" because I just bit the bullet and bought a ticket through Stubhub.  It says I need to wait till I get an e-mail saying the ticket has been "released" to me.  I think that e-mail is sent right after the confirmation of purchase e-mail is, but I haven't gotten that second one yet.  I'm hoping that's because the seller is asleep and doesn't know I bought his/her ticket.  But I remember Stubhub kind of giving me the run-around when I needed to buy a second Rolling Stones ticket because the first one never showed up in my inbox.  This might be that nightmare all over again.  Come to think of it, I've had several instances where for some reason I was not satisfied with the ticket I bought.  That ain't good.

(This Is The Blog Post I Meant To Publish Yesterday/Thursday)

This has been the toughest bracket I've wrestled with for a long time, if not ever.  On the one hand, people in the know say that this field is replete with upsets.  On the other hand, people are pointing out the advanced metrics that say Auburn, Duke, Houston and Florida are historically good, so upsets taking them out are highly improbable.

With those contrasting possibilities dancing in my head at the same time, it took me a lot of hours thinking while I went to not one but two bars to think on Wednesday.  Finally, well, I split the difference between the teams I really wanted to pick and teams I think could win, but I'm lukewarm about.  I don't know how much of my thinking will matter because some weird upset will blow one part of the bracket to hell, like it annually does to mine.  But we climb aboard this rollercoaster and see where it takes us ... even though I always crash in the end.

Oh, Shit, Did I Miss A Day?

Goddammit, I missed a day!  I didn't blog post yesterday/Wednesday.  First time in years I've done that.

I have an excuse -- I think.  See, I didn't sleep at all before going to work Wednesday.  I managed to get a quick cat nap in around 6:30 p.m. Tuesday evening, but I only managed to do that because 1) I was scheduled out in My Main Department that day and 2) I had no plans in the evening, like working out (which I did Monday) or working on my bracket while drinking (which I did Wednesday).  So even though I had a power nap in my car Wednesday afternoon, and I felt good going to two bars to work on my bracket and then coming home to fill it up on every website I wanted to play on, I eventually crashed, and hard.  When I blog post and review what I wrote and I can't understand what the hell I wrote, that's when I know to pack it in.  So I published my blog post and went to bed around 12:15 a.m.

But I didn't.  I guess I didn't hit the "publish" button, because I just now saw that I what I intended to blog post for yesterday/Thursday (and honestly, I still don't understand the last sentence I wrote) was still in Draft Mode.  I swore I did; otherwise I would have checked before yesterday/Thursday turned into today/Friday.  But it looks as though I was so damn tired I didn't even know to publish my daily blog post.

I would be mad at myself for breaking my streak of daily blog posting if not for the fact that I know I have to listen to my body when it says to go sleep, and when I'm as tired as I was just about 25 1/4 hours ago, I will sacrifice everything to go unconscious.  And I can't change anything now, so (shrug).  I think my next blog post (which will be in the afternoon since I am taking today/Friday off) will be the blog post I wanted to publish for yesterday/Thursday.  Well, I'll fix that last stupid sentence, and then I will blog post it.  Just to make up for my miss.

The Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey

#-1: Timberwolves (Last Week: -1).  It was kind of difficult for me to figure out who to place first.  Eventually it came down to the Timberwolves and the Wild (one team had a perfect screening Week, but I didn't consider them for the top spot; I'll explain for their entry).  Both teams individually have circumstances that kind of cancel each other out, but those circumstances appear to be mirror images of each other if you compare the two squads, if that makes any sense.

In the end, I went with who had the better Week, and that was, far and away, the Wolves, who managed to extend their winning streak to a season-best eight Games with victories at Denver and at home over Orlando and Utah.  Unfortunately, that streak ended Monday with a 132-130 Overtime Loss at home to Indiana on a desperation Three-Point make by Obi Toppin with 3.2 Seconds left.  Their previous defeat was on February 28, 117-116 in Salt Lake City (to a Bastard New Orleans Jazz club whom Minnesota blasted on Sunday, 128-102).  The Wolves have had a propensity of playing up to their level of competition, as witnessed by that extremely impressive 115-95 successful home invasion of the Nuggets Wednesday, and playing down to their level of competition as well.  I guess you can say that issue will solve itself if and when the T-Wolves reach the postseason proper because all that will be left then are good teams, huh?

The schedule from here on out is favorable to the Wolves.  The have the opportunity to make hay against teams just playing out the string, but unfortunately, they remain stuck in seventh in the West.  They have a two-Game home set tonight/Wednesday night and Friday versus The Bastard Charlotte Hornets, then travel to Indiana Monday in a relatively light Week.

#-2: Wild (Last Week: -3).  Meanwhile, the cash-strapped and injury-riddled Wild are wheezing down the playoff stretch.  In the heart of their seven-Game homestand, they lose to the Rangers in OT Thursday, got booed out of the X as they got their asses kicked by St. Louis 5-1 Saturday, then beat on Monday a Los Angeles outfit that cannot win on the road, 3-1.  Despite mediocre form as of late, they're still in playoff position ... albeit as Western Conference Wild Card 1, despite the margin between them and two teams coming for the Mild, the Blues and Vancouver, sliced down to six Points.  That seems comfortable, but it was obviously bigger even a Week ago.  Twins fans are quite familiar with seeing the home team collapse.  And there are still 16 contests left for the pro hockey team to do just that.

This screening Week they finish their homestand against Seattle and Buffalo.  They then go play at The Bastard North Stars on Monday, then fly back up here to host (Las) Vegas the next night, oy.

#-3: Gopher women's hockey (Last Week: -6).  So yeah, this is the team that had a perfect screening Week.  Sure, it was only one Game, but it was a tournament Game, and on Saturday at Ridder Arena, the fourth-seeded Gophers advanced to the Frozen Four, which will also be held at Ridder, by beating fifth-seeded Colgate, 3-2.  Unfortunately, they had to hold them off; they built a 3-0 lead after two Periods and somehow managed to hang on.

Meanwhile, the two true powers in the sport, Wisconsin and Ohio St., romped in their first Games in the tourney.  While the second-seeded Buckeyes draw third-seeded Cornell, the top-seeded Badgers await for another meeting 13 Days after the Goofs lost to Wisky on a last-Minute Goal for the B1G tournament title.  If they can score the upset Friday night -- and they won't; that's why I'm going to St. Paul to see the NCHC Frozen Faceoff Semifinals instead -- the NCAA championship Game (for which I do have a ticket) will be Sunday afternoon.  Home-ice advantage is the only thing Minnesota has going for them; will they be able to harness that for anything at all this weekend?

#-4: Gopher softball (Last Week: -5).  So the softballers started conference play in, of all places, Devon Park in Oklahoma City, Okla., splitting a pair of two-Game sets with both Michigan St. and Penn St.  The club will get to play in a city within the conference footprint this weekend as they are in Nebraska for three.

#-5: Gopher wrestling (Re-Entry!).  The Big Ten Wrestling Tournament was actually a Week ago; I just neglected to do a write-up about it.  The U. finished the conference championships fourth, behind Penn St. frisky Nebraska, and Iowa.  Still, that's the best finish for the Gopher grapplers in the B1G champs in The Brandon Eggum Era.  And yes, Gable Steveson won at Heavyweight, the fourth time he's done it.  Unfortunately, two other Gophs lost in the title Match: Vance VomBaur at 141 Pounds, and Max McEnelly at 184.  It was the first time he lost in college.  Shit.

NCAAs are in Philadelphia this weekend.  Steveson is the only thing to look forward to.

#-6: United FC (Last Week: -2).  Just because I wanted to get out of the house, I went to the Black Hart to see the Loons visit winless Sporting Kansas City.  I'm always wary to go out of my way to see a MNUFC watch party because I'm afraid they'll lose, but I was feeling really good when Tani Oluwaseyi's second Goal of the Match a Minute into the Second Half gave United FC a 3-0 lead.  I really didn't think they would relinquish it -- but goddammit, they did.  SKC scored three Goals over the course of a dozen Minutes (the middle of which was a Morris Duggan Own-Goal).  The Match ended in a 3-3 tie, but make no fucking mistake about it, this was a fucking Loss.  They could have put themselves in second place in the Western Conference, but they're fifth instead.  And they host The Los Angeles Galaxy, who have only one Draw to their name, Saturday afternoon; is another choke job in store for us fans, who might be able to witness it in person this time?

#-7: Gopher baseball (Last Week: -4).  Oh, God, did you hear what happened?  Last Wednesday afternoon at U. S. Bank Stadium, the Gopher baseball squad got the shit beat out of them, by Kansas, by a score of, get this, 29-1.  It was so bad that the Mercy Rule was invoked, and the Game was called after seven Innings.  In the top of the Third Inning, the Jayhawks hit Home Runs in not one, not two, not three, not four, but in five fucking consecutive At-Bats.  For the record, Caden Capomaccio tossed the first two Homers, Adam Urban the last three meatballs.  And this isn't a David vs. Goliath thing; the Golden Gophers beat Kansas the night before!

The Nine then went out to Eugene and lost two-of-three to Oregon.  They won the getaway Game, 9-1, which ended after eight Innings; the Game was delayed five Hours because of rain (First Pitch was at 5:20 local time) and was called off because the Gophers had a plane to catch.  But hey, did you see what happened last Wednesday afternoon?

They begin a twelve-Game homestand ... er, more like two homestands tonight/Wednesday night, when host St. Thomas at U. S. Bank Stadium.  They then finish up the Vikings stadium portion of their schedule over the weekend with a three-Game series versus High Point.

#-Infinity: Gopher men's basketball (Last Week: -8).  Welp, these Goofers were one-and-done at the B1G, losing last Wednesday to Northwestern in the First Round, 72-64.  And maybe this was inevitable, but after four Years in charge, Ben Johnson was relieved of his duties as Head Coach.  (Athletic Director Mark Coyle was part of the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament Selection Committee; he had to sneak away from the hotel the committee was staying in in Carmel, Ind., and fly back to Dinkytown where, after the team came back from Indianapolis overnight, he canned Johnson.  The U. posted the announced the firing on social media just after 1 a.m. early Thursday morning.  Man, this couldn't wait until the morning?)  Maybe I'm grading on a curve knowing that the University of Minnesota has not been as ambitious (or organized) when it comes to NIL, but I thought that there were enough surprising Wins in Johnson's resume to give him yet another season.  But maybe Coyle thought he was going to get yet another middling Year and cut the cord, which is understandable.  However, note that Coyle tried going the "One Of Us" route in filling the HC spots for both Gopher b-ball teams, and it became clear that both Lindsay Whalen and Johnson frequently looked like they were in over their heads.

Such as it is, the current favorite to be the new Head Coach is Niko Medved, current HC of Colorado St., who is in the NCAA Tournament.  Yes, he is One Of Us; he was born and raised in Minneapolis and went to the U.  Let's hope Medved is convinced that there is enough tangible financial backing to make it worth him to leave Fort Collins, Colo., to come back home.

The Songs Playing The Minute Of My Birthday

You know, I wonder if doing this every year allows someone to track my identity.  But I need to blog post something quick because I have to work on my bracket and I have to go to bed early because I need to wake up early.

• Cities 97: Hozier, "Too Sweet"
• KQ92: Led Zeppelin, "Stairway To Heaven"
• 104.1 Jack FM: Queen, "We Are The Champions"
• 101.3 KDWB: Post Malone featuring Morgan Wallen, "I Had Some Help"

Addendum To: Next Weekend Will Be Hella Busy

Welp, my thinking that ABC will highlight my alma mater for one of their four weekend afternoon slots came true.  They're playing Saturday afternoon ... just as my volunteer shift is ending.  I wished it had been a couple hours earlier because then the whole Game would happen right as we are volunteering.  Instead, there is a possibility we could watch it.  We would just have to find a place really close to our volunteer site in order to catch tip-off.  And then, on top of all that, there's the Loons Match I really, really want to go to, and in order to get there before first kick, I probably need to leave late in the First Half.

Ugh, Christ.  I am asking the group for its opinion, and I'll most likely go with what the people say.  But things would be so much easier if I didn't have a choice, to be honest.

Actual Results Of Bracketology 2025

OK, so according to their seed list, here are the final teams selected and not selected:

• Team 64, also known as The Team That Would Be The Last Team In In A Just World: Utah St.
• Teams 65-8 (in order): Texas, Xavier, San Diego St., North Carolina
• Team 69, who should be known as The Last Team Out: West Virginia

I don't analyze how the aggregated bracket in The Bracket Matrix did with the real bracket, though maybe I should.  According to a tweet from Matt Schick of ESPN, only 27 of the 111 brackets that make up The Bracket Matrix has the Tar Heels in.  Indiana, which is Team 70/the penultimate team out, is in 80.  And the Mountaineers are in all 111.  Huh.

Bracketology 2025

I don't know why I feel less and less enthused about this with every passing Year.  I think fattening up the field to 68 (a horrible decision, and I don't care who doesn't want to know it) removed teams that would have been on "the bubble" and, frankly, didn't do enough during the regular season to warrant inclusion in the NCAA Tournament.  I also think are now so many bracketologists that a groupthink has set in and solidified.  I don't know how much variance is now left year after year because it feels as though all these self-appointed "experts" have, or at least think they have, understood the process of selecting teams and now all see that process the same way.

With that said, I need to publish The Bracket Matrix's aggregated tourney field now, even though I don't think it has synthesized VCU's Win over George Mason in the Atlantic-10 Championship Game that finished just now.  I know The Bracket Matrix will update after the Big Ten and American Athletic Conferences complete their tournaments, but I won't wait.

As of press time, these are the teams on the bubble, in order of inclusion:

• Actual Last Teams In: Utah St., Oklahoma, Arkansas, West Virginia
• Play-In Games: Vanderbilt, San Diego St., Indiana, Texas
• Actually, They Should Be Called The LAST Teams Out: Boise St., Xavier, North Carolina, Ohio St., Cal-Irvine

Next Weekend Will Be Hella Busy

I am so distracted with what is going to happen next weekend that I probably will forget something I should be doing this weekend.  Things are always crazy for me around this time for me, and it usually has to deal with sports, mainly events I want to see.  But my alma mater's women's basketball team will start NCAA Tournament play next weekend, and that pretty much upends everything I have in place next weekend.  I have to organize game-watching events for that team, I just have to.  But that pushes aside pretty much anything I want to do if there is a time conflict.  Is there a conflict?  That's the problem.  I won't know until game dates and game times are determined, and they won't be determined (by ESPN) until, probably, some time Monday.

That's bad enough, but even if my alma mater's women's basketball team weren't in The Big Dance, next weekend would be plenty busy.  To wit:

• Friday: I have designs on attending the National Collegiate Hockey Conference Frozen Faceoff -- basically the conference men's college hockey conference tournament -- both Days, with the Semifinals beginning late in the afternoon.  This is important to me because this will be the last NCHC Frozen Faceoff at The Xcel Energy Center ever, or at least for a while; starting next season, the conference is switching to campus sites only.  For nostalgia reasons, I want to be here ... but since it's the Semis only, I can skip it if my alma mater is playing in the late afternoon or evening.  It would help matters a lot if they played in the early afternoon; I checked tipoff times for the First Round of the NCAA Women's Basketball Tournament last Year, and the first one started at 10:30 Central Time.  I doubt that I would get that break, however; my alma mater is out west, so I really doubt that they'll have my team play at 8:30 a.m. Pacific Time.  (Moreover, even though I asked for this day off, my boss scheduled me to work all day on this day.  I think it's a mistake, seeing that he authorized the day off about six weeks ago.  However, it is a type of special day where everyone who can work is supposed to work.  There is a non-zero chance that my request not to work on this day is taken back for this reason.  I'll know when I come into work and check my e-mail ... some time today, since my boss has authorized overtime for a Sunday, which is quite uncommon.)
• Saturday: The most important day.  There is a big volunteer event at noon that I am spearheading, and I cannot move it and I sure as heck can't cancel it.  If there is any one event that supersedes watching the Game, it's this one.  Beyond this volunteering event, which will end around 2, MNUFC plays at 3:30.  I want to go to the Match, partly because I (duh) have a season ticket for it, but also because it neatly fits into my day, even with the huge driving distance, and my OCD likes the order this brings into my schedule.  Saying that, I have skipped at least a couple Matches every season, so if the Game happens after I volunteer, that's fine.  Beyond that is the NCHC Frozen Faceoff Final in St. Paul at 7:30.  It would suck that the Game could be scheduled then.  But since it's a time when people watch sports on TV, I can also totally see the Game scheduled exactly then, so that would bum me out.  The only, and I mean only, thing I would consider about not holding a game-watching event is the fact that it's the First Round.  My alma mater is going to have a #1 Seed, so they almost certainly will beat the crap out of the poor #16 Seed it draws.  Seeing that it'll be a curb-stomping, do I really, really need to hold an event at our place in downtown Minneapolis?  Probably I do, but maybe I'll be selfish and say no, I want to go to the hockey Game in St. Paul instead.
• Sunday: There is probably the second-biggest thing going on that day: The Women's Frozen Four Final.  The NCAA women's college hockey national Semifinals and Final are being held in town at Ridder Arena.  (The Semifinals are on Friday; they're happening around the same time as the NCHC Frozen Faceoff Semis, and so I decided that if I had the time, I would go to the X instead of to Ridder.  The Women's Frozen Four will probably come back here in 5-7 Years' time, whereas this is the last time the NCHC will be at St. Paul, or at least that's what they say.)  I already bought a ticket to the championship Game.  Monetarily it's not a loss; as an aside, paying only about $15 for a top-flight collegiate title Game in any sport is a pretty good deal.  But it's at 3, a really bad time if, including getting to and fro, my alma mater's Game begins any time from the mid-afternoon to the early evening.  Another wrinkle to all this: Sunday and Monday are the Days for the tourney's Second Round Games.  If my alma mater plays on Friday, I won't know when they play on Sunday until after the last women's tournament Game Friday night finishes.

My team is not only one of the best teams that'll be in the field but also one of the glamour teams.  Most of the Games will be on ESPN, but ABC, the over-the-air network that will get a bigger audience, will probably showcase a pair of Games Saturday and Sunday afternoon.  I don't know for certain, but chances are my alma mater will play then.  And if I am thinking along those lines, I really am hoping my team plays Saturday at around high noon so I have an excuse not to have a Game-watching event.  I then can go about my day of volunteering, then going to the Loons Match, then going to the NCHC Frozen Faceoff Final.  Then the Second Round Game is on Monday night, when I have no conflicts.

So you see my predicament?  The verdict comes in about, oh, 36 hours from now.

It might be so late as to be irrelevant to note now that my parents are home, but I finished all of the food they left for me, the last being an apple turnover I ate at work, about 2 1/2 weeks before they got home.  It would have been slightly humiliating to still have food when they came home, so I dodged a bullet there.

Ate Too Much (Again)

Ever eat so much that you feel like throwing up?  That even smelling more food made you nauseous?  That is how I felt after eating at this steakhouse/supper club after work last/Friday night.  They are very generous with their birthday coupon -- $25 off!!!  So I had to use it for their most expensive sirloin ... and the hashbrowns, bread, and watermelon in a cup (?) that went along with the dinner.  Thank God I had an Old Fashioned, a Coke and a water to wash it down or else it wouldn't have been good.

But for all the times I complain and hate myself for eating a gigantic meal, believe me, what I did last night was insane (well, that or I am getting old).  I didn't think I was going to be able to walk out of there.  I felt like the guy who died via "gluttony" in Seven, only this was self-inflicted.  I had to walk around Hy-Vee to feel like I got any sort of exercise to work out the food, even though I had a lot of meat sweats that set in after I got done eating (although I then realized I needed to buy travel-sized Kleenex).  And then I fell asleep, which helped my body deal with it all.

As I write this I'm still full, but not as stomach-bursting like several hours ago.  And yet I brought home the second helping of bread that I was so generously given.  I think I can keep these until lunch today.

Still happy my folks are home.  But I just remembered that one of the big drawbacks to them being home is that I have to be very, very careful and very, very quiet when I decide to masturbate, like I just did now.  I want to think they're asleep by now.  But I get my weird sleep times from my parents, so for all I know, they're both tossing and turning in bed, and all of a sudden they'll hear this fapping from upstairs, and I'm busted.

There are other, less weird things I'm worried I'll get busted over.  I might blog post about those soon.

Tonight, I Am Glad My Parents Are Home

So I just picked up my parents last night.  So far they haven't commented on all the new scouring pads and steel wool I will say I bought for them but didn't.

My car has been driving a little funny.  And then, on our way back from the airport, the low tire pressure light from my car came on.  Goddammit!  Shit like this always happens when I'm driving to do something important!  I was freaking out; the light went on as I was driving north on 35WN.  But my parents told me we could take the car all the way home.  I didn't think it was a good idea, but frankly, I reverted to child mode, and I trusted that I was going to be OK.  And, now that I think about it here, I was going to be OK.  Because I was with them when this bad thing happened.  It beats being alone when your tire pops in the middle of the highway.

So while I was panicking as all get-out, I drove my car, rarely going above 60 mph, all the way to the nearest gas station closest to home.  We parked at the air pump in case the tires were still good enough to get us all the way home with pumped-in air.  And Father said that, if worse comes to worst, I can take the minivan to work while they, who are retired, get the tire fixed.  But the darndest thing, all the tires looked upon initial inspection to be just fine.  And I broke out my tire pressure gauge to see if any of the tires was extremely low.  None of them were.  In fact, all of them were well above the recommended pressure.  I actually need to let air out.

I need to wake up early and look at the tires one more time in the morning, just in case the tires were lying to me.  But if they're good, the tire pressure warning light lit up in error ... which it has done on occasion, though not any time recently.  A sigh of relief if it is only a bad sensor instead of a flat tire.  And a gigantic smile for me that I didn't have to go through that episode alone.  I had my parents with me, and I am grateful, at least on this one night.

The Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey

#-1: Timberwolves (Last Week: -6).  This team has now won five in a row after running the table this Week with victories over Charlotte, Miami (although that one was really close, 106-104), and San Antonio.  Goddamn that they still are in the Play-In scrum, a half-Game behind The Bastard Philadelphia Warriors for sixth.  But I want to say that there have been many Days where more than one local team has played, and this may be the second or third time in 2025 that the Timberwolves were the only ones that won their Game that Day.  The Wolves have been the only reason there haven't been more #MinnesotaIsLoservilleUSA tags this calendar Year.  And I and Twin Cities sports fans are grateful.

They travel to take on Denver tonight/Wednesday night, then start a five-Game homestand playing Orlando, The Bastard New Orleans Jazz, and Indiana.

#-2: United FC (Last Week: -1).  The Loons, having a hot start?  There are only two Sides that are a perfect 3-0 (-0), Philadelphia and Vancouver.  And MNUFC isn't too far behind the Union and the Whitecaps as they went to San Jose (and legendary Head Coach Bruce Arena) and beat the Earthquakes, 1-0, on a sidefoot Goal by Striker Kelvin Yeboah.  I don't know if you can chart a team's fortunes based only on three Games, but at two Wins and one Loss, a lot of people are being impressed by United FC right now.  Hope it lasts into their Match at Sporting Kansas City Saturday night.

#-3: Wild (Last Week: -5).  Dropped consecutive 3-1 results in Vancouver and at home to Pittsburgh, then defeated The Bastard Quebec Nordiques in a Shootout last/Tuesday night at the X.  But Colorado had slid past them in the standings and they still are.  The Mild, once the best team in the NHL, now has a Wild Card spot only.  Now, they are eight Points ahead of Calgary, who has the other one.  But this team is still missing Kirill Kaprizov and Joel Eriksson Ek, and they spend the NHL Trade Deadline trading for two Forwards, Justin Brazeau and Gustav Nyquist (who played for Minnesota before), that might make the whole team slower.  That might help come playoff time, where the rules against interference and close play are loosened up, but it doesn't help in the regular season, where skill is rewarded and penalties are called quite easily.  It's like politics: You want to appeal to your extreme base in the primary, but once you win your party's nomination, you want to tack back to the middle to pick up independent voters.  But there are more disgruntled Wild fans that don't think General Manager Bill Guerin can be so deft.

With the Boys' State High School Hockey Tournaments now done, they have begun a seven-Game homestand, which continues this screening Week with Games against the Rangers, St. Louis and Los Angeles.

#-4: Gopher baseball (Last Week: -2).  Dropped two-of-three in their conference-opening series against Purdue at U. S. Bank Stadium over the weekend, then started a two-Game mid-week set with a 10-6 Win at Ooooos-Banhk over Kansas.  Golly, a BcS school coming up here to play the Golden Gophers in baseball -- I would love to go see opponents like the Jayhawks in Tuesday's matchup.  Anyway, they finish up with Kansas this/Wednesday afternoon, then travel to Oregon to play a weekend trio against the Ducks.

#-5: Gopher softball (Last Week: -3).  In the LSU Round Robin over the weekend, they balanced out a pair of one-Run victories over South Alabama with a pair of ass-kickings at the hands of LSU that were so bad, they got mercy ruled at five Innings in both Games.  And they traveled to Beaumont, Tex., and got shut out by McNeese St., 2-0.  Oof.

OK, so this is weird.  The Gophers begin conference play this weekend.  But they are doing so by playing four Games but two B1G foes -- two against Michigan St., then two against Penn St.  Moreover, they will be playing these league Games at a neutral site nowhere near the Big Ten footprint: Devon Park in Oklahoma City, Okla.  

#-6: Gopher women's hockey (Last Week: -8).  This has been a really crappy past Week in Dinkytown.  Considering that of the four winter sports winding to its conclusion the Gopher women's hockey club fared the best is a reflection of how horrendous the performances were from the big school.

Maybe I'm being a bit too harsh on this team.  In their WCHA Final Faceoff Semifinal Friday afternoon in Duluth, the third-seeded Gophs took it to second-seeded Ohio St., tripling them, 6-2.  Then again, if you're cynical enough to believe that the Buckeyes didn't try because they sewed up the playoff position and situation they wanted to sew up, you might not be cynical enough.  Minnesota still had something to play for, however, in the title Game vs. 1-Seed Wisconsin, and they played like it: They tied the Game at 1 (Allie Franco scored 20 Seconds after the Badgers' Casey O'Brien kicked off the scoring), went ahead with three Minutes to go in the First Period on a Goal by Josefin Bouveng, and then tied it up again at 3 late in the Second Period on a Power Play Goal by Natalie Mlynkova.  Unfortunately, with 25 Seconds left in the Third Period, a perfect centering pass was fired in by Wisconsin's Sarah Wozniewicz, and the Badgers denied the Gophers a conference tournament championship they haven't won in a long time.

Now, would winning Saturday afternoon moved the Gophers up past the #4 Seed for the NCAAs?  Possibly.  But Cornell has that, and so, despite getting to play Saturday afternoon's Quarterfinal at Ridder, they play 5-Seed Colgate.  I have a bad feeling about this.  And by the way, once again The NCAA Women's Hockey Tournament has 11 teams.  Eleven!  Why?  How did they come up with the crooked number of 11?  And as I'm on this topic, why in the hell does every basketball conference tournament this season only 15 teams big?  What an odd number to settle on, 15.  That means there are only three tilts in The First Round of a 15-squad tourney.  But that means that there are four First Round and four Quarterfinal contests the two following Days.  Those quadrupleheaders are all played on the same Day.  So why isn't the First Round four Games big?  Why in the hell aren't the conference tournament fields 16 teams big?

#-7: Gopher men's hockey (Last Week: -7).  What happened last weekend was fucking shocking and humiliating.  In the B1G Quarterfinal series they were hosting at Mariucci, these Goofers lost a three-Game series to Notre Dame and have been eliminated from the conference tourney.  Friday's 3-2 defeat should have been a wake-up call, and they responded the next night with a 4-2 Win.  And yet the message didn't stick because the Fighting Irish -- the last-place Fighting Irish -- blasted the Goofers Sunday, 4-1.  How the fuck??

That upset pushes the U. down the PairWise (Pairwise?) down from third to fourth, being passed up by Maine.  Thank goodness that, at least according to College Hockey News' Pairwise Probability Matrix, it is unlikely that the Goofs will split to fifth and thus lose one of the four 1-Seeds for the NCAA Tournament.  But that possibility was highly unlikely before getting ganked by Notre Dame.  Meanwhile, CHN's Adam Wodon still believes one of Minnesota, Michigan St. and Boston College is coming away with the title.  His belief in the local team has not wavered; for I and I think for many who witnessed that atrocity over the weekend, that faith has been heavily shaken.

The Selection Show is on the 23rd.  The team will have a hell of a long time to reflect on what they allowed to happen.

#-8: Gopher men's basketball (Last Week: -4).  Finished the regular season with two more Losses, home to Wisconsin last Wednesday night and at Rutgers in Overtime Sunday.  (Aside: Rutgers has two players, Dylan Harper and Ace Bailey, both of whom many prognosticators believe will be top 5 picks in the NBA Draft in the summer.  A few are saying that those two will go #2 and #3, with Duke's Cooper Flagg being picked first.  You don't need The Fab Five to win a championship in top-flight college basketball; two potential pro superstars may be more than enough.  That the Scarlet Knights will not get into The Big Dance without winning the conference tournament is one of the most head-scratchingest puzzles in college sports in a long, long time.)  Dawson Garcia is the only bright spot with this squad; the loyal returnee was named B1G Second Team by both The Media and coaches.

So a season that had many signs of encouragement -- again (all those Quad 1 Wins, all going to waste) -- will end up with yet another First Round appearance in the B1G tourney.  At least this one isn't going to be in front of a home crowd; the tournament is being played in Indianapolis.  And like their female counterparts, they will be in the kickoff Game, versus Northwestern, this/Wednesday afternoon.  Will they go meekly like their counterparts, the ...

#-Infinity: Gopher women's basketball (Last Week: -9).  The collapse of the U. Goofers women's b-ball team in its second Year under Dawn Plitzuweit is now complete after going out like bitches in the First Round of the B1G Women's Basketball Tournament last Wednesday, a completely uncompetitive 79-65 Loss to a below-mediocre Washington squad to whom they lost by ten, at home, the Wednesday prior.  They lost eight of their last ten Games.  And what was to be a breakthrough season under a Head Coach known to turn around programs -- Charlie Creme once had the U. pegged as a 10-Seed -- likely ends with another fucking appearance in the WNIT.

The arc of the season is concerning.  That this club, and this program, hasn't improved under Plitzuweit, should be even more concerning.  You cannot say Minnesota doesn't have talent -- or can you?  Everything should be on the table.  It is downright miraculous that there wasn't an exodus the two previous off-seasons, but that can't happen three off-seasons in a row, can it?  I guess the more important question is, Shouldn't it?  I don't know how the state of the program is viewed at the office of Athletic Director Mark Coyle, but there appears to be less panic than there should be.  This wasn't a good season, y'all, especially how it ended, and there needs to be changes, full stop.

The Price(s) Of Going To A Concert

As I may have mentioned earlier or in the past on WAF, I have wanted to see Helmet for some time.  I am familiar with only one song, but it's the song -- "Unsung," featuring the most kick-ass long outro this side of "Layla."  It probably is one of my 15-most favorite songs of all-time, and it could be top ten.

And because of that, and despite me not really being a Helmet fan just because I know the one song everybody else does, I decided to pay money to go to a concert to see the band just for that song.  It may not be efficient, but if I love the song enough, I have decided it's worth spending the money to buy an overpriced beer, stand behind people blocking the view of the stage, and wading through song after unknown song just to hear the one that you've been rocking out to since your twenties.  I didn't buy a ticket to the Dakota when Cowboy Junkies were in town.  "Sweet Jane" may be, IMHO, The Second-Best Cover Of All-Time, but the ticket was just too expensive when I might know only one other song that I have heard of from them.

But Helmet?  The ticket price was more manageable -- at least I thought.  I was going to go, but I really did not want to pay full-price for it.  So, once I remembered that the Helmet concert was last/Monday night at the Varsity -- I've been busy with work -- I waited and checked (when I could, or when I remembered) on scalper sites SeatGeek and Stubhub.  For some reason Stubhub was more expensive than face value and some tickets on SeatGeek were below.  But I also checked the firsthand website selling tickets to the concert and there were still tickets available.  I figured that so long as it's not sold out, people selling secondhand have to offer them for cheaper than full price, and that is where I really want to strike.

I was going to set a drop-dead date for Sunday.  If I didn't find a below-face ticket by then, I will just go to the firsthand website and buy there.  But then I got busy thinking about packing up the house for when my parents come home.  I decided that if I was going to spend any money on Sunday, it would be cash only.  So when decided that Sunday was a no-credit card day, I totally forgot about Helmet.  And so by the time I paid for Chipotle that afternoon and a carrot cake and tea at Caffetto that night, I had committed myself to only purchasing through paper currency, and that meant not using my credit card to buy a ticket to the show online once I remembered the concert.

But, dammit, I couldn't help myself.  If I waited until the next day, one where I would permit myself to go back to using credit cards, the place might be sold out.  So just before I went to bed, I checked Ticketmaster to see if the price of the ticket I saw when I was checking the same site a few hours before at Caffetto.  But the damn page just stalled out, and it gave me an error code.  Oh, shit.  Did they just sell out the show?  Or are they pulling all unsold tickets?

Well, as peeved as I was at myself with hesitating and losing, I decided then that if the ticket was above the price I last saw it as, which was a bit more than $41, I will skip seeing the band.  I tried again the next morning.  This time there were tickets available, but it was for $48.  And I saw the phrase "Day of Show" -- ohhhhhhhhhhhhh, so that's (probably) why I got that error code when I checked for tickets overnight.  They just needed to adjust its price higher.

And yet that made me dig my heels in more over not paying more for a ticket than I saw it as.  Never mind that I kind of screwed up.  Maybe people were still selling tickets they can't use.  So I waited through yesterday/Monday at work ... well, it was easy to wait because I got so wrapped up in all the crap that came at me at work that I totally forgot.  And when I got home, determined I was going to go to the concert, I was equally determined to eat Jimmy John's first.  So I got Jimmy John's, went home, ate, relieved myself, then got back in the car ... all the while forgetting to check SeatGeek or Stubhub.

I remembered I hadn't done so while I was driving.  Shit.  I had to go to a gas station and park while I got out my phone and looked at the scalper sites.  I saw one on SeatGeek going for $21.  Ah, so thinking there would be a dirt cheap last-minute ticket from someone whose friend cancelled did work after all!  And I tried to buy it, but as I progressed through the pages, I kept getting an error message, so when I went back, the ticket was gone.  Goddammit.  I might have had time to buy the ticket if I looked through SeatGeek while eating my sandwich, but I didn't, fuck me.

But I was still on the road, and I wanted to end a bad day at work with Helmet, dammit.  My only thought, then, was to go there and see if there were tickets still available.  Thank goodness the Varsity is not one of those places that has a fake box office, where the person behind the window tells you go to the app instead (that was the case, or at least I think, at the soccer park for St. Louis City).  Indeed, Helmet tickets were available -- and for $37.50.  That $48 I saw that morning included a convenience fee of $13.  So, all in all, buying the ticket the old-fashioned way was cheaper than buying online, at least in this case.  And I still remember the hell of not getting that Frozen Four ticket last year, so maybe I wouldn't've gotten that $21 ticket after all.

And you know what?  I liked the Helmet concert, even the other songs I've never heard.

Have I ever posted a video of "Unsung?"  Well, even if I have, here it is, the second version of the video with the remastered, "known" version of the song remastered once they signed a major-label deal:

Finally Cleaning All The Clothes (Maybe)

I think that the clothes in the dryer right now, as I type this, is the sixth load of laundry I have done in the last three days.  I try to be a stickler when it comes to following the washing and drying instructions.  Not only do you need to separate whites and darks (hey, don't give President Elon any ideas!!), you then have to separate them from whether it's supposed to be washed in warm water or cold.  Then you need to know whether it can be dried at a low setting or a medium one.  And then you have to worry about those "gentle cycle" pieces of clothing; they're living in a parallel universe.  Where a quick wash in warm water would be no big deal for, say, socks, no, these tops and thermal underwear need to be handled with care.  And handle it with care, dammit, or I'll slug you!

Confession: This sixth and final (maybe not -- I just have to freshen up the towels around here) load is just pieces of clothing that has something wrong with them.  They can be donated; in fact, the place I think I should go is right across the street from where my prom date was buried.  But maybe it's overkill to wash and fold clothes that you know you are going to give away.  But, maybe you want to give those clothes you're giving away, as well as the people taking care of them after I give the clothes to him/her/them, a sense of dignity, an acknowledgement that those clothing pieces did their job, kept me warm and (maybe) stylish, and for that, I am forever thankful.  It might be a pain-in-the-ass to think this way, but it's working.

Yeah, things continue not to be where I want them to be.  I was able to take half of the things I want back in storage back in to storage yesterday/Sunday afternoon, but I wanted to keep the other half just in case.  That "just in case" is working through my papers, one last time, just in case I have the wherewithal to recycle some of the stuff.  But that would require having time, and I just spent my time reconciling my monthly expense list, washing the rest of my clothes and sending out a pretty important e-mail.  I might be able to do it tomorrow/Monday, but I think I am going to the Helmet concert then.  I might have time Tuesday.  Or, I might decide to just pack up the other half on Tuesday.  Sigh.

Hottest Babe In The Hooters Calendar: February 2025

This will be the last month I can fully see its women on my wall.  From here on out, at least for the next half-year, I'll have to hide what makes me happy.  Hrmph.

After thorough visual osmosis, I would say the month overall is below average, but of the dozen servers for the month, I think I will recognize five of them.  And by the way, befitting the month, nearly all of the waitresses are wearing red or bikinis -- except for my top pick.  So as a break from repeating the color every hottie is wearing, please assume she is wearing red unless I describe otherwise.  Let us begin:

In fifth place is Cassidy, of Denham Springs, La.  Voluminous and dark hair whose ends hang below her breasts.  She's tugging the string between the two pieces of fabric covering up her boobs.  Nice touch.

In fourth place is Orlando's Ashlyn.  She's got really long, dark hair that is level with her belly button, and she is wearing a hot pink two-piece.  The pose is the thing: She's climbing up pool stairs, and so we can see her really hot body directly full frontal.  Well, actually she's climbing down one or two of the steps.  See, she's not wet at all -- she's posing as if she's emerging from the pool, which would be hotter.  Still, she's hot.

In third place is The Main Girl, Alexis out of Rock Hill, S. C.  Dark hair long enough to reach the bottom of her tits, and she is sporting a light pink two-piece bikini.  She is turned almost fully away from the camera, so we see the front of her body at an angle, but she is posing next to a showerhead, and she puts her hands underneath the running shower.  Better yet, unlike Ashlyn, Alexis is completely wet.  Her hair is wet, and if you look closely, her ass has droplets of water on it too.  It's not as if she has taken a shower when her photograph was taken, of course, but at least she and the photographer went through with the illusion that she has.  I really appreciate that.

In second place is Paris, hailing from Savannah, Ga.  Dark hair that is so long (yeah, I guess a sense a theme here) it reaches her hips.  I don't mind her left arm resting on top of her head.  I really like that she's posing directly at the cam.  The lighting I like as well; it seems to emanate from her right (so the left side of the picture) , so her tight stomach is given a lot of definition, in particular the vertical line cutting through her dark skin.  Lovely.

Finally, in first place is Daniela, of Port Charlotte, Fla.  Dark hair that only gets level below her titties.  Also, she's the only one of the dozen babes this month wearing a white two-piece.  Lovely, toothy smile, but she has a perfect bod that, to be fair, is posed slightly off-direct but is still impressively cut.

I have just realized I selected five Hooters women that all have long, dark hair.  They're all slightly wavy, too.  No blondes have I chosen, which might very well be an all-time first.  In fact, there are only three servers in February 2025 that do not have dark hair.

Congratulations to Daniela and to the other four waitresses.  To make sure I did it before my parents came home, I have already masturbated to them.  Prost!

Know What I'll Miss The Most?

Doing what I want, when I want.  Yeah, I still have panic attacks when I'm lying in my bed and realize that I have the whole house to myself, so that if someone somehow has gotten into the house and kills me, it might be days before I'm discovered.

But there are upsides, too.  Once I got home from watching MNUFC beat San Jose, I started washing the remaining dishes.  This was at midnight.  No way I would be able to do that with my parents home because one of them would be complaining about me making so much noise.  One night ago I was walking up and down the stairs trying to organize my stuff.  I was turning on all the lights and listening to music on YouTube really, really loudly.  This was 4 in the morning, after I had conked before 11:30 p.m. and found myself awake at 2:30.  Of course I couldn't make a racket like that at that time of night if my folks were around.

It is the freedom I will miss the most.

Cleaning update: I am making headway, but not enough.  I no longer am going to go through my things and see what I can dispose.  I am in the mode of gathering everything up and seeing what I have to put back in storage.  That is not done, however.  I wish I could start picking up in my bedroom, but I am pushing that back another day.

I am pushing back a lot of things another day.  I decided I am going to go out to watch the MNUFC Match.  If I have the energy to come back home and continue to gather, I will, although I should get around to cleaning clothes, too.  The final step is putting everything back in storage.  I want to do that tomorrow/Sunday just so that I have three days of having ****e* cum and clean and, if need be, pick up any last-minute items that I can't leave here.  That's why, even though I am operating under some lassitude, I am trying to set an "end" date of cleaning everything up as tomorrow/Sunday.

So I went to My Favorite Stripclub (Cover Version) (because it's weird to visit a stripclub these days with my parents in town) last/Friday night.  And I've been on a high since -- not just because it was great to see my ATF, but also because there may, may, be a chance for her to give me a massage at her place.  We just talked about it a little more, and I hope I have earned her trust to try it.

Yeah, I dreamed that there would be more than that.  It was a nice three-hour nap I just had.

The Place Where Pop Bottles Are Still Cheap (Well, Not Anymore, At Least Not Quite)

As I've gotten older, I have gotten more attuned to how much things cost.  I guess I could have been more aware of that earlier, but maybe that ignorance is a sign of how blessed/privileged I am.  Still, inflation is a thing (though it shouldn't've been enough to throw Joe Biden out of the race), and even I am beginning to grouse about the price of things.

To wit: Pop.  It increased the past several years to the point where I reconsidered that a second reason (the first being that it's bad for you) to cut back on drinking it as much as I have.  Emphasis on the past tense: I might be a caffeine addict or have a sugar tooth, but after cutting back, the withdrawal was too much for me to take, and I have been back on my pop tip since.  But still, I notice.  And I have tried to counteract that by keeping a mental list of how much a bottle of pop is at the grocery stores and gas stations I buy them from, so that maybe I will patronize places that sell it regularly for cheaper.

There was one place that consistently sold it for cheaper: The mom-and-pop grocer not too far from here.  While a bottle was going for $2.79 and up, this place was selling them for, get this, $2.19.  Whoa!  Now I fully understood the concept of comparison shopping.  Why in the hell would I buy the same bottle of pop for sixty cents more -- sixty?!  The problem is that I did not patronize buying bottles of pop here as much as I should have.  I usually succumbed to convenience -- for example, since I was already at the gas station to get gas, I might as well buy the pop there, even if it is $2.79.

And now I feel regret about not exploiting that financial disparity.  For one thing, I went to a gas station to get gas for my car late last/Thursday night, and I noticed that they are, ugh, $2.99 there (although you can buy two for $4.50 or something, I think).  More unfortunate, however, is that the mom-and-pop grocer recently, and finally, raised the price of pop bottles they sell -- to $2.49.  Yes, it's still a pretty sizable bargain compared to what you'd get at other places around town.  But I swear a bottle was selling for $2.49 everywhere not too long ago.  And the reason I didn't hoard bottles there at $2.19 is that my parents would yell at me for indulging in such a sugary drink, and they're coming back soon, so I can't hoard at $2.49, either.

At this point, the grocery store will ratchet it up to $2.79 soon enough, and then I'd have to question how much of a difference it would be to buy there instead of anywhere else.  But for the longest time, a bottle of pop there (and it was both Coke and Pepsi products) was just $2.19.  Those were the days, man, those were the days. ...

So we got socked with a lot of snow overnight and through yesterday/Wednesday morning.  I had no time to get the measuring stick out -- turned out I was an hour late getting to work -- but reports I saw from spotters around where I live pegged the amount as between seven and eight inches.  Yowza.  Glad the snowblower got through, oh, three-quarters of my driveway before it conked out for the second time.  Have to get that carburetor cleaned.

Unfortunately, I have only so much energy.  I got to work late, and considering all the work that has come in, I thought I had to pull another ten-hour day, so I would get home in the heart of the evening.  But I didn't; with some help from another co-worker, I got out there after working only an extra half-hour.  That was great because I used that extra time getting home early to clear up almost the entire driveway (a driveway, by the way, that lost a lot of the snow and ice that was on the ground; man, the Sun's rays this time of year can attack the deepest of snowdrifts, including the one made yesterday/Wednesday morning).  But I had no energy to do anything after that, and this was the day I was going to stay home and start cleaning up my stuff.  But the damn snow was the priority.  I'll have to put my stuff off yet another day.

---

My supervisor is going to shadow me at work today/Thursday.  I think she's cool, and this is only because she's trying to streamline the work we all do so, well, we won't have to pull ten-hour days on the regular.  So why am I so nervous?

The Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey

#-1: United FC (Last Week: -7).  I really thought the Loons were going to drop their home opener to FC Montreal Saturday night.  We have had a good stretch of weather where the temperature was well above freezing ... except for Saturday.  It was warm before then and it was warm after, but a pustule of cold air went over the Twin Cities that day.  No matter; Tani Oluwaseyi's attempt on goal found the bottom of the right (?) boot of Kelvin Yeboah and he stuck it home to give MNUFC the 1-0 Win.  Not bad -- and good enough to take the top spot in this Week's WMNSS.

At San Jose Saturday.

#-2: Gopher baseball (Last Week: -5).  I don't know how good Arizona St. is supposed to be this Year, but they are a traditional blueblood in college baseball.  So I think it's a remarkable achievement that these guys took two-of-three from the Sun Devils -- and at Tempe, Ariz.  They followed that up with a 16-4 quadrupling of Wisconsin-Milwaukee last/Tuesday night.  That's the way to fly into conference play, namely a three-Game set at Das Bank v.2.0 against Purdue this weekend.

#-3: Gopher softball (Last Week: -3).  They hosted their own tournament this weekend: The Gopher Indoor Classic at U. S. Bank Stadium.  And they went 4-1 over the weekend, their only Loss being ... to St. Thomas?  Yeah, the Tommies beat them Sunday afternoon, 8-6 in eight Innings.  That is not good, especially when seeing that the squads the U. beat are North Dakota St. (twice), Wagner and Miami (OH).

This is their final non-con screening Week.  They participate in the LSU Round Robin this weekend down in Baton Rouge, La., where they play host LSU and South Alabama two tilts apiece.  Then they mosey on over to Beaumont, Tex., where they play apparently a neutral-site contest vs. McNeese St.

#-4: Gopher men's basketball (Last Week: -8).  Defeated the Cornhuskers in Lincoln, Neb., Saturday afternoon, 67-65, on a Three-Pointer by Brennan Rigsby with 4.1 Seconds to go.  This is a stunning fact: Five of the Gophers' seven conference victories are Quad 1 ones.  That should be interpreted as a sign that Ben Johnson, despite his still evolving tenure as Head Coach, gets his players motivated to play a big opponent.  That stat's kind of mind-blowing.

This is the final Week of the regular season for men's college basketball.  They host Wisconsin tonight/Wednesday night, they finish off 2024-5 at Rutgers Sunday afternoon.

#-5: Wild (Last Week: -6).  Started the screening Week with getting their asses beat twice (at Utah Thursday, 6-1, and at Colorado Friday, 5-2).  Ended it with a pair of one-Goal victories (1-0 Sunday at home to Boston, 4-3 last/Tuesday night in Seattle).  Joel Eriksson Ek's return to playing seems more implausible by the day, and the continued blackout as to how (or even if) Kirill Kaprizov is healing from his injury is a puzzling but major concern.  Still, even though this team is treading water, they're still in playoff position -- and still might make one more move before the NHL Trade Deadline.

This Week: At Vancouver Friday, then home to Pittsburgh and The Bastard Quebec Nordiques.

#-6: Timberwolves (Last Week: -4).  Like the Wild, the Timberwolves also had a 2-2 Week where they also lost their first two matchups (at The Bastard Minneapolis Lakers and The Bastard New Orleans Jazz) and then also won their last two matchups (at Phoenix, home to Philadelphia).  But they remain stubbornly in Play-In position -- seventh place in the Western Conference, now a half-Game behind The Bastard Philadelphia Warriors for sixth.  That's why they slide below the local professional hockey club for this Week's Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey.

This Week: At Charlotte and Miami, then home to San Antonio.

#-7: Gopher men's hockey (Last Week: 0).  Finished the regular season losing in Overtime and then defeating the Nittany Lions at Penn St. over the weekend.  Then, The Big Ten Conference says that the Gophers and Michigan St. both won a share of the regular season conference title.  If the conference tournament has the Spartans listed as the 1-Seed and the only team granted a bye, and if Minnesota is listed as the 2-Seed and needing to play a best-of-three Quarterfinal series at home versus Notre Dame this weekend, then there is no sharing.  The Gophers fucking lost the regular season title.  Come on, the time for yellow participation ribbons is fucking over.

#-8: Gopher women's hockey (Last Week: -2).  They advance to the WCHA Final Faceoff again (this season it's in Duluth after winning their First Round series over Minnesota State - Mankato.  But they had to do it in three Games because, my God, in yet another example of how this program is far from the indomitable power they were in their championship days, they lost Game 2 to the Mavericks in Double OT.  I want to say that's the first time MSU-Mankato has beaten the U. at Ridder.  They're playing Ohio St. Friday afternoon and they're a lock to reach the NCAAs, but if they can't sweep the Mavs at home, how in the fuck are they going to win it all, which is the only point?

#-9: Gopher women's basketball (Last Week: -1).  It's been a roller coaster ride at the end of the season for the female Goofs b-ball team, and right now they are on the low side -- the very low side.  They lost yet another Game to a team equal in talent to them -- Wednesday to Washington by ten and (and this part really hurts them) at home.  And then they finished losing by 15 at ranked Michigan St.

They now fall into the First Round of the B1G Tournament and play the Huskies again this/Wednesday afternoon.  And I think they need to make a run to ensure they're in.  ESPN's Charlie Creme has the U. falling into play-in territory -- ick -- but note that there are two huge factors that don't favor the Goofs: They have no Quad 1 Wins, and they have an awful strength of schedule rating, especially when you count only non-conference SOS.  Those are two gigantic red flags that might be too hard to overcome.  I'm really afraid they won't get in if they don't win two, maybe even three times.

Oh, I Might Be Losing A Tooth!

Tonight, as I was eating a Son Of Baconator from Wendy's (haven't had Wendy's in the longest time) and then potato chips dipped in hummus, I was working the upper-right back teeth and yep, they still continue to hurt.

You know, I have thought for a long, long time they hurt because I grind my teeth while I sleep, and that has contributed to this, shall we say, "carryover" pain whenever I bite down back there.  But tonight, as I was eating, it occurred to me that I might be feeling pain just because my tooth or teeth back there are rotting and the plaque is starting to hit the nerves.  And that sounds like a much more plausible cause.

I should go to sleep.  A fucking winter storm is coming, plus there's a big meeting at work in the morning.

Snow? Still?

The last goddamn thing I need is to deal with a snowstorm.  Haven't been paying attention to the weather report, so hearing last/Sunday night that there is going to be a potentially nasty snowstorm that will start tomorrow/Tuesday morning as rain and switch at some point over to snow by the time it wraps up some time Wednesday was a rude blindside.  And it doesn't help that the initial range of snow forecast is between two and six inches of snow.  I can handle two inches; I might not even shovel.  Half a foot?  Well, shit, I have to break out the snowblower again, and I haven't even tried to clean the carburetor, which prevented the plow from working at its peak.

I have to devote as much time as possible to gathering my things and taking them to storage.  The last fucking thing I need is to take that time to shovel and or plow snow.  Fuckin' A, man.

Calling Ice Out As February 28

I don't know whether there was any snow in my front yard either yesterday/Saturday or Friday, the latter because I was rushing home to see the start of Fox's College Hoops Friday.  (And I did, I was not late, even though I stayed at work over ten hours.)  But considering how warm Friday was, and considering that I don't see any snow now, I will say that the snow completely disappeared Friday, which is February 28.  This is just a note for me to, uh, note.

Time To No Time

I have, or had, the luxury of knowing I had some time to pack everything up and clean the house (or, really, get the house cleaned) before my parents come home.  Right now, I am in the middle of a penultimate weekend.  I have the whole week, then another weekend and then, if need be, two more days before it's all over.  Even considering my procrastination, I knew I had those two days to just throw everything into boxes and make several hurried trips to my storage locker if need be.

Well, I don't know if I have any free time now.  The killer blow, so to speak, is finding out that alternative band Helmet is playing here Monday the 10th.  Now, I only know one song of theirs/his, but it's "Unsung," one of The Ten Best Songs From The Grunge Era.  (Note that it has a long, wordless outro.  It's the "Layla" of the '90s.)  And even though I might not know or even like any of their/his other songs, I am making a point of going to a concert to see a band or an artist even if I am going for that one song of his/hers/theirs.  I in the past have decided not to do so for other acts, but on how I keep crushing on "Unsung," I'll do it for Helmet.

But I had plans on staying home that night, presumably to pack everything up.  Now, I checked online and the ticket is a bit pricey, so maybe I won't go.  But if I do, that's a very important date where I won't be getting the house ready.  And once I envisioned that, it started to feel as though I had no days where I could stay in and move out my stuff.  For example, on Monday I think I am going to that stripper awards ceremony.  On Tuesday I will probably be wiped out from work, but then I'm going to see Captain America: Brave New World just as Putin's Orange Bitch starts speaking in the U. S. House chamber.  Wednesday or Thursday I am eating out at my speakeasy one final time before my folks return, and on Friday I am going to see my ATF at My Favorite Stripclub (Cover Division).  Plus, I can totally see my weekends being just like the one I had yesterday/Saturday: Wake up late, fix me a drink, find something to eat, be so tired from drinking and eating that I take a nap, wake up from said nap, and watch TV all night.  And so I would waste all this time -- again -- when I needed to clean the house.

Maybe I need to stay in instead of exercise, like I plan on doing tonight.  But I just have no motivation to clean my house when I don't want to.  But every day closer to the return of the 'Rents will force me to question that motivation to be lazy more and more, till I ... well, do it or give up.

Just Realized I Bought Too Much Food

I don't know why I still do this, especially as my parents are coming home.  I feel the need to stop spending money ... and I do this by buying too many groceries for me to eat before they come home.

What I did this afternoon is a prime example of this.  The first thing is I went to Dream Creamery -- or, as I like to call it, Dreamery -- to eat a hamburger ... even though I have so much food I have already bought that is sitting in the fridge.  I just wanted to eat a hamburger at Dreamery (by the way, review: This is the second time I've eaten it, and it's good mainly because it's not messy, and I also really like the seasoning, but the patty is really thin).  I then wanted to eat chili at a local grocer because I have so much pop that still needs to be drank, and while I was there, I wanted to buy a lime because, well, I have a lot of liquor that still needs to be drank.  But the grocer's limes were gross.  I mean, they were sickly.  And I was willing to buy a lime for $1.29, but not for limes that bad.

I remember that there is a discount grocer within walking distance.  I'll talk about this discount grocer some other time, but I know their limes were cheap, and I got one from there about last week and it was good.  It couldn't be any worse than what I saw at this grocer, so I walked over there to buy limes ... and they were better, but they were small.  I guess the limes being made right now aren't good or something?  But hey, it's a discount grocer, so they are three for a buck.  I bought three hoping that that would give me enough to make at least one drink.

So right now I have deli meats, deli cheese, several cans and one bottle of pop, a bottle of juice, a bottle of Arizona Arnold Palmer, a bottle of tonic water I haven't even opened yet, three limes and a tub of ice cream I haven't opened yet.  I bought the ice cream because I have a jar of cherries I haven't finished.  Oh, and while at the first grocer's a Girl Scout troop was selling cookies, and I needed to buy the kind that they're discontinuing after this season.  And oh -- before that I went to the panaderia across the street to buy a cookie and a ... malva?

You see, I had this grand plan of finishing all the food I had, but in order to eat them all I needed to buy food to go along with it, and now I just have more food.Man, I am not bright.  And I'm not going to eat any of that food in the refrigerator because I am going to the MNUFC Match tonight.  And I am eating out with a friend for lunch in St. Paul tomorrow.  Oy.