Hour And A Half, Hour And A Half, Hour And A Half

I'm trying to watch as much World Cup as I can as the Matches dwindle.  (Sure, my liver might not make it; I'll talk about that next blog post, hopefully.)  This workweek, last night's USA lost excepted, all the Games are in the afternoon.  I don't mind dropping by this one Mexican place close by work to catch the tail end of one of these Knockout Round Matches.  I have developed (well, maybe my OCD has developed) a principle whereby I try and go to a place at least twice to watch Games.  I've been to this pretty expensive restaurant only once, and since I have my places for the Semifinals and Final mapped out, this week's Matches have to be it.

Ideally, I would be able to drop in on a day where I'm scheduled to work early on a day where the Game is at late in the afternoon as possible.  That's only 3 o'clock.  Is that happening this week?  Nope, not at all.  There are Matches today/Tuesday and Thursday at 3, but I am scheduled for The Third Department.  Even if I can get out of work after eight hours (and that's probably not going to happen), I'll be done at 4:30.  Ninety Minutes of the Game would already be done, so I would have to hope that a Match reaches Extra Time for it to be worth driving to this place for a tequila and a taco or something.  Friday I am scheduled to work until 3:30, but dammit, the Game that afternoon begins at 2.  Same scenario.  Of course.

And yet I am thinking that, barring some miracle where there is no work and I can leave early today/Tuesday or Thursday, if I really, really want to sate my OCD and go to this Mexican restaurant to watch the World Cup a second time there, I would ask my boss if I can come in and leave early on Friday.  I can at most shift up my shift a half-hour, which means I would leave work an hour into that Match.  I might have, oh, less than 30 Minutes to watch a Game that might be over by the time I leave.  Also, not for nothing, I have a house party to go to that will also supply food and drink.  Don't want to stuff my face twice on Friday, but my OCD is barking at me to do this.  For soccer!

Happy Chinese/Lunar New Year!

It feels as if the older I get, the more I hew to Chinese/Lunar New Year superstitions, as cockamamie they may be.  As I have gathered on the Internet, these are things one is not supposed to do and the time periods in which you cannot do them:

• For the first three days of the Chinese/Lunar New Year: Do not sweep, clean the house, shower or wash your hair
• For the first five days of the Chinese/Lunar New Year: Do not clean the dishes or do the laundry
• For the first 15 days of the Chinese/Lunar New Year: Do not take your car in for maintenance and/or repairs or use sharp objects
• For the first 30 days of the Chinese/Lunar New Year: Do not go to the doctor or dentist

That all seems silly, I know.  But I cleaned out the garbage, did the dishes, showered and trimmed my nails before midnight.  I also avoided meat and instead ate Culver's two-piece walleye dinner, bones and all.  Then again, I just realized that I used a knife to slice open oranges so I could make myself a tequila sunrise that I am drinking right now.  Welp, I guess I just damned myself to a year of bad luck.  Happy Chinese/Lunar New Year!!!

Fuck Fantasy Football

I know there's a Game tonight, but I have fucking crashed out in all three of my fantasy football leagues, and it's fucking demoralizing.

The one most important to me, the one I have money on, I lost last week.  It was the worst combination of my opponent overachieving and my team underachieving, and of fucking course it happens during the playoffs.  And this week my other two teams, including the one I'm commish in, fucking shat the bed.  Both of my opponents had Ashton Jeanty, who fucking went buckwild on my ass, unfortunately.  I have a ghost of a chance on one of them because I have Brock Purdy, but no, there's no hope.

Besides the league I'm commissioner in, I have not won once.  Why do I keep fucking playing?  Why do I keep fucking torturing myself with all this goddamn losing?

Father needed my help with something in his stock account, then once we were done he told me to take a shower and then go to bed.  I thought nah, then I thought I should because, if I shower today/Thursday and I don't trim my nails in time, I'll be cutting them tomorrow/Friday, and that would be bad luck.  But then I kept scrolling in social media and then I got real tired, so nah, I'll shower tomorrow.  I hope I haven't disappointed/pissed off Father.

Slow-Walked (-Cut?) Into Bad Luck

OK, I no longer remember where I saw it, but I read in a book when I was a kid that you shouldn't cut your nails on Wednesday, Fridays or Sundays.  That has stuck with me ever since, and so I don't trim my nails on those days.  I have never tried finding that superstition till just now.  I haven't seen any consensus about this on the Internet (of course), but more than a couple sites have this nursery rhyme about, I think, not cutting nails on Fridays and Sundays, meaning Wednesdays are A-OK.  Then again, there apparently is a Hindu superstition that the only days you should trim your nails are Wednesdays or Fridays.  And then there's the whole concept of time zones.  I mean, like, it's Wednesday somewhere ... right?

Such are the vagaries of and lack of logic behind superstitions, but like I said, I make it a habit of not doing it on Wednesdays, Fridays or Sundays.  I say this, however, because I just cut my nails just now, on a Wednesday.  But I didn't mean it!  I showered, and that obviously softens up my nails, and so I do my normal routine of trimming my fingernails, going into my bedroom to put my glasses on, hoping the bathroom is cool enough not to fog up my glasses, hoisting myself onto the bathroom counter, curling up into a ball, and cutting my toenails.

The problem is that it took a long time.  I actually went to my bedroom before I trimmed my fingers because I wanted to check what time it was.  It was 11:43, so I had time to cut all 20 of my nails -- or so I thought.  I got done with my final nail (actually, come to think of it, I only trim 19 because I still don't cut my right pinkie toe; otherwise it might rub up against the inside of my Doc Martens boot to the point it gets raw, and I think I blog posted about this a long time ago) and finally retreated into my bedroom for good.  I then checked my watch to make sure ... and it was 12:05.  Shit.

I know I probably am not a fast nail trimmer.  But did it really take me 20 minutes to cut all my nails?  Does it usually take that long?  Saying that, I could have avoided this predicament if I just showered for a shorter amount of time.  I think I started a quarter past 11.  I know it doesn't have to take me almost half an hour to shower, but I like the me time while I'm in there.  And beyond that, I could have started my shower earlier, but I was doomscrolling through Twitter/X about Hurricane Milton.  (Aside: One of the hot models with whom I'm "friends" on Facebook noted that potentially one of the most destructive hurricanes of all-time, and this is shaping up to be a horrific monster of a storm, has one of the fucking dorkiest names you can have ... Milton.)

So, if I follow the superstition I have followed all my life based on a book I read as a kid, I just screwed myself.  Maybe I should have set a timer, given myself a two-minute warning whereby I know I would have to hurry to finish my nails on time.  Whatever.  I guess I'll die on the road tomorrow because I was too slow cutting my damn nails.

And This Is What I Feared The Most

OK, first off, the worst case scenario with what's wrong with my car has come true, at least if the mechanic is telling the truth: It's the goddamn motherfucking timing chain.  Well, maybe not that, but the other stuff surrounding the chain, like the actuator and the guides and stuff.  See, I was told that a timing chain is forever.  But apparently, because I was a bit late and lax in keeping up with my oil changes, the shit surrounding the timing chain started to wear out, and that threw the chain out of whack, and that's why the check engine light came on.  And it goes to the point of doing major car repair such as that that if there is one thing wrong down there, they might as well replace everything because it's in such a tough and important spot.  So the chain might be good, or the tensioner, or the belts, or the water pump.  You're just saying fuck it, we're changing it all.  

Well, at least I hope that's what the mechanic is going to do.  If I am going to sink two grand into this -- oh yeah, that's how much he's charging me -- he might as well do it all.  I am in no way happy about forking over that much goddamn money, don't get me wrong.  But I am trying to give him the benefit of the doubt, and so I am thinking that the first time all those lights came on, he was hoping it was the easier, cheaper fix of an oil change to reestablish oil pressure.  That didn't work, so it had to be the Armageddon scenario.  Yeah, the worst case scenario turned out to be the problem (again assuming that the mechanic both knows what he's doing and is being honest with me), but I don't think I would want to come to a dealership with this same problem and be immediately told it'll cost, oh, $2,500 to replace everything when I would suspect that he's ripping me off.

---

Meanwhile, I have been using my parents' minivan since Tuesday.  On Saturday, while driving to the library, the doors unlocked themselves and I saw the door ajar light, which is red (meaning "stop fucking driving and pull the fuck over now") blink on.  I tried locking the doors again, but pretty soon they unlocked again.

I could still drive, however, and while I am getting very, very paranoid that something else is going on with the van, I drove it to and from work with little incident.  On the way home last night, however, as the door ajar light came back on, the door lights you see when the doors are open flickered on and off.  I could still drive, but they were so fucking annoying that, when I got home, I not only opened the passenger door but the heretofore malfunctioning passenger-side slide door to make sure that indicator light didn't come on because they somehow had knocked ajar.

Big, big mistake.  I closed the passenger passenger door just fine.  But the passenger-side slide door kept closing and then automatically opening.  I couldn't get that goddamn thing to shut for five or ten minutes, and with the cold and with how my fucking day was going, it felt like I was trying to shut that door all night.  I was freaking the fuck out.  I cannot leave that door open; not only could someone just go in and try to hotwire the van, the door lights automatically come on when they're open, and if they stay on because the door is open all night, the battery will burn out.

I don't know how it happened, but I finally got the fucking door to close for good.  Maybe it needed warming up, in which case keeping that door closed for good will be a tad easier.  But that slide door has become a more important issue for me than the fact that the doors now do not stay locked.  If the less cold temperatures don't alleviate that problem -- and I'm thinking that the rough ride knocked some wires loose -- then I don't know what the hell to do.  In the meantime, I've been keeping an eye outside on the van to make sure the lights inside stay off.  It would just be my luck right now that a gust of wind or a final relinquishing of a lock pushes that goddamn slide door open.

---

I thought it was more than a luxury for me to be able to use two cars.  I hold the ability to move around town to be sacred, and so I wouldn't miss a step if one car needs to be serviced because I would have the other car.  But the 1-2 punch I suffered yesterday was my nightmare come true: That both of my cars would be broken at the same goddamn time.  One of them will be fixed next week -- when, who knows?  And now the doors of the backup vehicle may just pop open on the highway.

Tonight (meaning Wednesday evening) I reserved a rental car from the place just down the block for two days.  Even though I will be blowing a fucking hole in my checking account, I have been invited to not one but two stripper parties, today and tomorrow, and because my life has been so shitty lately, I am going to go to both and have fun, money be damned.  I wanted to make sure I was able to drive to both parties, and that's why I got the rental.  But I think there's something more important to me than that: With me being in control of two cars that don't work properly, I really, really want the feeling of being in a car that works just fine.  I don't want to look down and have my heart skip a beat because I see an amber indicator light go on.  I don't want to be frightened as hell that the slide door comes open while I'm driving 65 miles per hour (and by the way, that happened while I was driving the minivan either to or from the airport one night many years ago; that goddamn door slipped open, there was a huge buzzing noise as it stayed open, and I was hoping like crazy that I could keep it and myself together until I got home, which I did, thank Buddha).  I want a new car, basically, and I am shelling out $230 for that new car feel for 48 hours.

On Saturday, after I return the rental, I will hopefully be able to use the van to go out to the gym to exercise.  I can live with the doors unlocking themselves on the road; they lock and stay lock (at least I think) once I turn the engine off.  But if any door comes open, I will have no choice but to rent a car again.  Shit, I might have to if I'm not going to get my car back until Wednesday or Thursday.

---

Yesterday/Wednesday was a bad day.  A really bad day.  I am stressed and overwhelmed and tired and scared.  I want this nightmare to end.

I should look at the driveway to see if the minivan door is staying closed.

Not At My Best Yesterday (Actually A Week Ago), Part Two

OK, I'll be honest: I had two other entries under this title, but I forgot one of the ways I was not at my best.  I have occasionally said "I'll blog post this later," and I never get around to talking about it ever again, and I should get better at it, but I think I'll continue to make this promise I can't keep.

But I think I remember the other entry, and it has to do with soccer, whose two big international tournaments (the Copa America and the EURO) just got done.  I have had a ridiculously shitty time either looking at or listening to Goals as they go in.  Now, that always happens, especially if the Match gets boring and I start to thumb through my cellphone.  But it got really ridiculous this Year, especially when I was listening to Games on satellite radio, especially at work.

I think, around the time I was prompted to do this Part One, Part Two thing, it was the afternoon of the France-Switzerland Eighthfinal.  All I did was drop my headphones to go to the bathroom because I was about to leave for the day.  I come back ... and not only did Karim Benzema score for France, but he scored twice for France, two Minutes after the first Goal.  Yeah, I have the ability to rewind and hear the Goals as they happened, but it's nowhere near as good as hearing them live -- well, as live as they can be through the computer; I have noticed that when I hear sports on SiriusXM, the action is between 15 Seconds and 14 Minutes late.  But still.

In that Match, Switzerland actually scored first, but I was on my break at the time.  That I could handle; this, back-to-back scores, in a summer where I missed more than my fair share of Goals, broke me.  I had planned on using my data to listen to the rest of the Game on my way home, but I got so pissed off at my bad luck that I decided not to.  So of course there were three more freakin' Goals before I could turn on my actual satellite radio at home (which is not late in transmitting the Game at all and in fact is sometimes Seconds faster than the broadcast on terrestrial radio) -- the French notching a third, then the Swiss scoring not once but twice to tie.  At least I was able to listen to the bitter end of the Match, with Kylian Mbappe getting his Penalty Kick blocked for the Swiss victory, on my phone as I had just finished up with my dinner.

Again, you can't predict when a team scores in soccer.  It's out of my hands, sure.  I still didn't feel I was at my best then.

Where My Whores At?

So I have a planned day off coming up and I wanted to loop back with ****e to see if we could get around to fucking after that weird anxiety attack that apparently led her to get her friend or john or whatever to take her to the doctor's or something.  I've tried texting her the past couple days but she hasn't replied.  She usually replies.  Either she's on vacation, she's ghosting me, or something's fishy.

There is another babe, *****a, who I could go to.  We also had plans to mess around, long time ago, but she's been caught up with protesting around the area.  I don't mind that; I think that's one of the sexiest things about her.  But I could use a good wank, and she's too busy fighting for justice to please lil' ol' me.  I understand.  I miss her, but I understand.

Oh, and my stripper masseuse, ******a -- I wanted to get a massage from her over the weekend, but she said she has been busy because her car was totaled.  Oh no!  I believe her, but damn, what bad luck for her.  Plus the stretch of the highway I use to get to her has been shut down the past few weekends, so I take that as a sign I shouldn't see her for awhile, at least until she gets her affairs in order.

I cannot reach out to any other stripper because I haven't seen nor spoken to them since the pandemic began.  So right now, I don't know where I can go to get my urges soothed.  Where my whores at?

A Blessing In Disguise, But My Penis Does Not Think So

So ******a texted me earlier this morning.  We had tentatively scheduled a "session" today, but she says she's busy with stuff.  I could come over in the evening, but we're still in the pandemic, so I would have no good reason to tell my parents I am leaving to go out on a Saturday night without doing something that could bring the 'Rona back home.  So, we're "rescheduling."  Actually, after all this, I'm not going to call ******a, at least not for a while.  At one point she wanted me to see her weekly.  Now, after I have been trying to reschedule day after day after day, she doesn't want to see me?  I don't get it.

Maybe I should see the bright side in this.  Maybe I should take this as a sign.  I have been having ... thoughts/fleeting nightmares that my parents will die -- not necessarily due to COVID-19, but I can't think how my thoughts and nightmares aren't triggered by the pandemic.  And it would be just my bad goddamn luck that now that we have vaccines, knowing that shots at least for my old parents are going to be available in the not-too-distant future, now that the light we can see at the end of the tunnel is accompanied by the heat of redemption we can already feel, I would fuck it up by getting the virus because I was getting a massage from a stripper and I gave it to my parents.  I'm not saying ******a is a carrier or is careless, but you never know.  And maybe her rejecting my massage sessions is a sign that I should keep my dick clean for, oh, two more months.

And yet I feel such ... well, it's not blue balls, but a frustration.  I have been trying to set something up with ******a for some time, and I thought we would eventually be able to, and I'm ... well, I guess I'm mad that we're not.  I have this urge for sexual activity, and I've been blighted, and I'm mad because I feel entitled to it.  And, that's why I think I will go and get whacked off by a couple other of my stripper girlfriends to assert my manhood ... even though I might be putting my parents in danger.

Wanna Know How Fuckin' Freaked Out I Am About Work?

I went back to work last night just to check up on something.  Fuckin' stupid of me.

OK, first of all, I didn't spit any attitude toward my supervisor yesterday morning when I went into work.  It's not as if I slept any better, although I think I got, like, four hours of sleep due to reporting for work two hours later than I had to (I was filling in for someone).  I just went up to her and told her I had to leave earlier than I would have (and, BTW, after looking at my timesheet online, I had to leave about 45 minutes earlier than I would have -- long fuckin' meeting).  I just ... well, it didn't behoove me to pick a fight with her.

I didn't realize at the time that not picking a fight was the right thing to do.  I forgot that, as unfair as some of accusations levied against me, there are many parts of the job I was doing that I did not know, and so I had to ask her to help me.  It's a particularly grating part of my workday, needing help for something, not being able to hold my own.  But I need to do my job, and it wouldn't have helped if I popped off to her only to come crawling back to her five minutes later to ask how the fuck do I do this.

And still I found the job/workday, at least on this day, overwhelming.  For my particular shift, the very last thing my supervisor asked me to do was ... well, I'll be vague again ... there are some forms that were held back, in a way, because of ... something, but as soon as we get corrected information, we can send those forms into the lab so its specimens (usually piss samples) can finally get tested.  I am to put these forms into a pile, print out a cover sheet, clip them all together, throw them into this plastic folder, then leave them in a dropbox just outside the lab.  It's supposed to be the very last thing I do on this shift.

But ... well, sometimes I'm not a stickler for checklists.  Also, I was mentally pre-occupied with getting out in time.  In Thursday's meeting, my boss told me to leave because he was told by his bosses that no employee is to have overtime.  I had to leave at a certain point, so I packed up my things, disinfected my area, and said goodbye ... and I threw that folder into that dropbox, like, some time in the chaos at the end of my day.

But, uh ... did I really drop off that folder?  That thought struck my brain like a goddamn thunderbolt as soon as I was on the highway.  And I couldn't shake the feeling that I, like, left it on the file cabinets I was working on, or on my hard drive, or on my chair, or somewhere besides the dropbox.  It would be like me to do something as scatterbrained as that, doing everything except the last, the easiest and yet the most fundamental, step of actually giving the lab people these forms so they could run the tests.  I imagined them bursting into the department, yelling at everybody there, "Where's the book?!  Where in the hell is the damn book?!?!" and the people working second shift there getting all frightened and then getting frightened further because they couldn't find that book of forms either.  Then my supervisor comes in the next morning and sees it in, like, the wastebasket somewhere, and she'll go, "Unforgivable Wetness, he fucked up again!"

Yesterday evening I couldn't shake the possibility I simply flat out forgot that part.  So after dinner I decided that, some time in the evening (after night fell and after listening to the Major League Soccer Quarterfinal on satellite radio) that I would tell my parents that I had to dash back to work because I forgot to do something, get in my car, fucking drive back down there and check that dropbox to see if that damn yellow folder was there with the forms and that cover sheet in it, and if heaven forbid it isn't, I'd march back to my desk to retrieve it.  I actually spent 75 minutes of my Friday evening out and about because of this, but I had to make sure.

For the record, when I came back into the building and peered at the dropbox, I didn't see anything.  So I went to my desk -- and said hi to the filer who was working there -- to make sure I didn't leave it anywhere.  I didn't see it, so if my gifted and talented lizard brain deduces correctly, if it ain't there, and if it ain't at the dropbox, the lab already took the forms and ran the urine samples.  It can't be anywhere else.  Well, there is the shelf above the monitors where I put my desk and hat ... and shit, I could've walked into the bathroom with it and left it there, and if I did I should just do the right thing and resign. ...

But assuming I did the right thing the first time, I wasted a chunk of my night just to make sure I did one simple step.  I wasted gas, and I put more wear-and-tear on my car, and neither thing I had to do, turns out, if I just trusted that I did my job instead of second-guessed myself.  I had to make a mini-night of it, so I decided I would eat Taco Bell before coming back home.  You see, the fast food restaurant is removing some items in a couple weeks, and I'm sentimental, so I'm going to try and eat as many of these soon-to-be-put-down items before they're gone for good.  My preferred TB location, connected to a gas station, was closed early because of, get this, a software upgrade.  Just my fucking luck.  I went to another gas station where gas was cheaper, so I decided to fill up almost all of my tank and get a pop, then went to another Taco Bell to order.  Anyway, I spent 75 minutes last night out-and-about when I really didn't have to, all because I'm so scared I can't do my fucking job at work that I convinced myself that I didn't do one of the simplest tasks of my job.

Maybe I really need to find a new line of work.

Six Months Down, Six Months To Go

So in the fall of last year I was, obviously, renewing my health insurance.  When I got it for 2019 (which I signed up for when I started work there in 2018) I got the Cadillac plan -- high premiums for high deductibles, but more than any of the other plans available I got everything covered.

Why did I get the gold plan?  I don't know.  Maybe I was in a rush.  Or, maybe I knew I was in a rush and wouldn't have time to think this over, and so I got the most expensive plan just to cover everything I didn't have time to mull over.

Nothing extraordinary happened last year.  I had my usually doctor's and dentist's visits, saw my therapist, and got my nasal allergy medicine, but that's what happens every year, and so, even though I had peace of mind, there was no catastrophic accident that would have made me count my blessings that I upgraded my health insurance.  Therefore, back in the fall, I decided I would get the bronze plan, the cheapest available (well, the cheapest available from the health insurance company my psychologist prefers), the one with the highest deductible but the lowest premiums.

But should I have?  I was scared that karma and bad luck would mean that I would get into a car accident, be felled by a heart attack, need to go on medication for a chronic condition that developed this year, or something else crappy.  And then I would rue all the out-of-pocket costs I would have to pay but would not have had to shell out had I stayed on the Cadillac plan.  In the end, though, I figured that I was healthy enough whereby that decline in my health would not happen.  Besides, the money I saved in premiums would more than offset any new medicines or surprise visits to the doctor I would have had to pay out this year.

Well, all of that thinking sure as shit didn't take into account a pandemic for a virus that could kill or at least maim people for many, many years.  Some states, including Minnesota, are bending over backwards to help defray the costs associated with COVID-19, from antigen tests to the hundreds of thousands of dollars for long-term ICU treatment.  But I still have to think that the out-of-pocket costs would, in the long run, save me more money had I stayed on the gold plan and not switched to the bronze plan.

My reticence never really faded away when I decided on getting the cheapest health insurance.  My anxiety was compounded exponentially once the coronavirus hit.  So besides the other reasons to be scared of this virus, I'm afraid that if I get this, it'll wipe me out financially.  And that is why I take so many precautions in order to say away from this evil thing.

In a sense, I am counting down the days.  With June 30 in the rear view mirror, I am halfway through living life on the edge/on a bronze plan.  I just need to make it six more months, and then I'll be a good boy and pay the highest premiums for the best health coverage from now on.  Wish me luck.

Oh, An Update On My Fantasy Teams ...

... they ain't worth shit.

I don't know exactly what happened, but a combination of drafting poorly and not being on the stick when it comes to picking up free agents on the waiver wire (dude, I've been so damn busy during the week) likely is the reason I have two wins for each of my teams and am in last place in both of my leagues.  I don't think I've ever done that before, finishing last in both.  And it's a complete 180 from last year, when I won the league I commish and finished second in the one I don't.

What's been particularly shitty for me is that there have been many instances more than in years past where I have picked a player who did not rack up the points that week while benching the ones that did.  I do listen for advice on the radio and look at the lists online, and from that I have started my studs some weeks and the scrubs who were predicted to have a big game in other weeks.  But it seems that I have been every single damn week.  Kind of a case in point: Because the Texans' Secondary is banged up, I decided to pick up and start Indianapolis' Jacoby Brissett, hoping he'd have a field night.  Well, the Game just wrapped up, and he passed for fewer than 200 Yards and scored only one Touchdown.

It's sort of like this (just concentrate on the part with Ron Livingston's character):



Then again, it hadn't really mattered because the players I have are so bad that I wind up losing no matter who I start, so meh.  Yeah, it's that bad. 

I should endeavor to do better next year.

And, It Went To Shit

So this is what happened:

• I finally checked my voicemail.  It was from the dealership; the guy finally got back to me.  And he said his field rep won't give me a discount.  I thank him in a return voicemail ... and I intend on raising some sort of holy hell over this.
• Got another voicemail shortly after work.  It was from The Mechanic Around The Corner.  They found a starter for a lot less than $600.  I say let's do it, and let's do it for Thursday/today.
• I turn the car on so I can mosey on down to St. Paul and the United Match.  It doesn't turn over.
• Tried it a few more times.  Shit.  I'm fucked.  And of course this would happen the day before I was going to drive it in.
• Downloaded Lyft.  I had sworn to never use ride-sharing, but it was either fight the traffic, wait for a tow, then get yelled at by my parents, or trying like fucking crazy to hide that I'm taking my car into the shop.  But, I need the cover of night to do that, and besides, the Loons could clinch a first-ever Major League Soccer playoff spot with a win.  Why not go?  So I used a Lyft.  The guy was fine, even though I don't feel the win to use a rideshare again.  (Got a friend to take me back to work.  Oh, and MNUFC did win, hooray!)
• Tried my car, hoping that the advent of night would cool the starter.  No dice; it's shot to shit.  I thank my friend and call the tow.
• Truck comes in less than half an hour.  If I did this around 5, it'd take two.  Guy's a Trump supporter, but I like him.  Besides, he was my ride; I know better than to get too in-depth with politics with someone I need.
• Tow truck guy dropped me off three blocks from home.  Walked up because my parents would get suspicious of a loud vehicle coming up and then backing down the driveway.  I don't think they suspect yet, but Father's up.  I think.

My plan is to wake up early tomorrow, hope my folks are still asleep, then quietly slip out of the house, walk down the driveway and get to The Mechanic Around The Corner on foot without them noticing.  If they do -- or if Father is awake when I wake up, which is likely to happen -- I'll tell the truth: My car won't start, and I took it to my auto repair place because fuck you, I want to do this my way, you'll just yell at me if I ask you for help, fuck you.

But damn, if I can just leave with them noticing, and my car needs just today to get it all fixed, and I can come home like nothing weird happened ... well, that's, like, my fantasy.

Goddamn I Hate Motherfucking March Madness

Gonzaga.  Kentucky.  Duke.  I had three teams that I picked that could have gotten to the Final Four if they won their Regional Finals this weekend.  (I had no shot of winning anything in either of my bracket pools.  Unlike what I said on WAF before, I did not realize that I was already eliminated from my frenemy's pool.)  It's been at least three years since I correctly picked a Final Four team.  I can't win any money, so breaking this streak and thus showing I can predict something right is now the only thing I'm living for.

WELL, WHAT DO YOU THINK FUCKING HAPPENED?!  GONZAGA -- DEAD!  KENTUCKY -- DEAD!!  DUKE -- DEAD!!!  I GO 0-FOR-3 -- 0-FOR-3!!!  HOW DOES THAT FUCKING HAPPEN?!?!  WHY DOES THIS BULLSHIT ONLY FUCKING HAPPEN TO ME?!  WHY CAN'T I CHOOSE FINAL FOUR TEAMS ANYMORE?!  AND WHY IN THE FUCK DID I TRICK MYSELF INTO PLAYING THIS STUPID, CRUEL FUCKING GAME AGAIN?!?!?!

And now do I realize that it may have been incredibly stupid of me to bet on this tournament because I am working the Final Four.  I am lying to myself right now, thinking that losing three of my Final Four teams this weekend simply could not have happened.  Because if I truly accept the fact that I swung and missed on not one, not two, but three Elite 8 games and going from having something to look forward to in The Big Dance's final weekend into being done early for the fourth fucking year in a row ... well, I might just fucking throw myself off a bridge.  Seriously, this could cause me to have a real bad fucking attitude, and I don't want to feel that while I'm working a job concerning that bracket.

(Aside: Even though I just had dinner, I spent an hour almost polishing off a whole bag of Doritos.  My rage and depression is seeping out in the form of eating my feelings.  Do you know a whole bag contains 1,500 calories?  And I just ate, like, 1,350 or so?)

I should have just stepped away from gambling for just this one year, so I won't be swayed by any teams that reached the Final Four.  I could have come into this gig with no skin in the game and thus a clean slate on which I could project a positive attitude.  But ... no, I had to think that I could master The Big Dance this time around.

Boy, am I so goddamn wrong.

Goddamn, I hate motherfucking March Madness.

What Are The Fucking Chances? (Scheduled Post)

So I sleep in my car during lunch.  I do so even in extremely cold days like yesterday (Wednesday), when the air temperature barely noses above 0 and the windchill makes it feel like it's teens below 0.  That's OK, because I have a blanket.  I sleep in the passenger-side front seat with a blanket -- after reclining the seat all the way, of course.  I know people walk by and see me supine with my eye mask on.  I bought and use a windshield screen, partly to block the sun from entering the cabin during the summer, but to block potentially prying eyes from watching me sleep during the winter.  And then, even if they do see me through the side window, I don't care, because I can't see them because I have that mask on.

The problem nowadays is that I no longer can leave my blanket on the passenger seat.  Last year, after dinner and taking the garbage to the bin, My Fucking Father noticed that blanket and yelled at me -- "Do you sleep outside during the day?!?!?!"  So, like a bunch of other things, I have to hide my daysleeping by throwing the blanket in the trunk -- if My Fucking Father continues to bitch about the blanket, I'll tell them it's in case I get stuck outside in the cold when the car doesn't work -- then take out the blanket during lunch.  I have come to throw the blanket back in the back just before I leave work in the evening.  Just to make sure My Fucking Father doesn't know, or at least won't be reminded of something he suspects I continue to do ... and I do.

But, as I don't care at all if someone looks at me sleep, I worry whenever someone sees me get into the passenger side of my car.  Worse, I really feel awkward if I catch anyone seeing me grab this blanket from the trunk.  I don't exhibit normal behavior, I know, yet I remain moderately self-conscious if I spy people seeing me exhibiting said behavior.

That shit happened yesterday (Wednesday) afternoon when, as I walked up to my car, I heard the sound of a car running.  Makes sense; I'm not the only one who retreats to his or her car for lunch, and if you don't care about adding age to your car, I guess you can turn the car on in order to turn the heat on.  (I never do because the car's for driving.  Besides, that's what the blanket's for.)

However, I look around and the car that's on is the one parked right behind me.  And there's this dude, in his driver's seat, just ... chillaxing for lunch, I guess.  And shit, I couldn't get to the trunk to take out my blanket then because the dude will see me.  He may not care, but dammit, I do.  And so, even though I did look weird slipping into the passenger seat because then he could deduce what I was going to do, I skipped the blanket and tried to sleep without it.  And, well, I couldn't.  I don't know if it was because I was too cold.  I did get a good night's sleep, and I didn't feel like I was dragging in the afternoon.  But I think that the lack of a blanket threw off my routine.  As I was lying there on the passenger seat, with my eye mask and hat and gloves on and everything, all I could think of was, "I'm trying to sleep without a blanket, and it's really cold."  That and, "How in the fuck do I go to sleep in my car at 1:30 in the afternoon and have some guy in the car parked right behind me?!"

Oh yeah -- that's why I have lunch so late.  I go to my car when most of the lunchgoers are already back from eating.  Hopefully.  See, not yesterday (Wednesday) with that guy, of course, but that's the idea.

Hope this doesn't happen again today (Thursday).

I Can't Buy These Tickets Ever Again

So for the past two years, during the Minnesota State Fair, the University of Minnesota has an entire building.  A part of it is dedicated to the athletic program, where they have promotional videos on a loop and show the championships and trophies the school has won.  (A couple years ago was the year the football team won Floyd of Rosedale and the Little Brown Jug, and I may have been more geeked out to be able to take photos of those rivalry trophies than I should have.)  They also have a ticket office where they advertise tickets that are, seemingly, dirt cheap for events for the sports teams playing in the fall and winter.  Seeing as how they say these tickets won't be this cheap after the Fair, I decided to buy -- one men's basketball ticket (I think, I may have purchased a women's basketball ticket too) in 2015, then two men's b-ball and one men's hockey ticket this year.

Last year, the men's basketball game was on a Monday, and I remember that I had to drive through the first significant snowstorm of the season in order to get to Williams Arena and attend the game (which, by the way, was one of the few games the Gophers won -- they beat Clemson -- at home, and won period).  This year, the first game was on Friday (vs. St. John's), and I had to drive through, you guessed it, the first significant snowstorm of the season in order to get to the game.  I made up a cockamamie lie about needing to videochat on better wi-fi with someone looking at my Stanford application because something was wrong with it.

Tonight is the other game, against Arkansas.  And goddammit, the second significant snowstorm of the year is falling tonight (and now, actually).  I told my folks that I was too late getting to the coffeeshop on Friday and so I missed the videochat then, but the Stanford rep was going to try again tonight, just after work, and so I won't be coming home for dinner tonight.  That should give me cover to watch the game -- assuming, of course, the traffic isn't so bad that I get into a bad accident or something.

I'm getting too unlucky with buying these tickets at the Fair.  Maybe I should not buy them anymore.  Or maybe there's a chance I'll have decent weather for the hockey game close to New Year's.  Or, maybe then there'll be an actually blizzard, in which case I won't even approach the U. building come the Fair.

Poor Bastard: Anderson Varejão

Do you remember when I did a Poor Bastards segment in 2009 for hockey players Marian Hossa and Ty Conklin?  The Detroit Red Wings and Pittsburgh Penguins met in the Stanley Cup Finals in the 2008 and 2009 seasons.  Detroit won in '08, when the two played in Pittsburgh.  Then they signed with the Red Wings for the '09 season ... when the Penguins won the Cup.  Talk about shitty timing.

Well, the same thing could be happening to Anderson Varejão, the Brazilian Center who played 11 seasons for the Cleveland Cavaliers.  He was on the losing end of the last year's NBA Finals to the Golden State Warriors.  The fan favorite was traded to Portland this year, which promptly waived him.  After a mandatory cooling-off/non-tampering period, he signed with ... the Golden State Warriors.  And for the 2016 postseason the Cavs and the Dubs met again.

And, if you watched any part of the historically tense Game 7 last (Sunday) night, you would know that LeBron James helped beleaguered Cleveland feel on top of the world by winning the NBA Finals.  Too bad, though, that Varejão signed with the losing team for the second year in a row.

I say "could be happening" to him because the Cavaliers organization has the right to grant a title ring to any former player who played with the team.  So they could give him a ring anyway, which would mean this blog post is a moot point.  However, if he doesn't get a ring for his tenure with not only the franchise he's been with the longest but the one he faced in the NBA Finals a year after it was the other way around, well, I just have two words to say:

Poor Bastard.

Goddammit, Is It Going To Snow Or Not?

I don't think I've seen as much self-pitying drama from meteorologists about forecasting something as I have in the past 24 hours or so regarding what could be a huge March blizzard.  And it's pissing me off.

There is a storm coming tomorrow.  It's supposed to start mid-morning, intensify through afternoon rush hour, and then taper off after dark.  How much, however, depends on where this storm will track.  And where this storm will track, apparently, still hasn't been quite figured out yet.

That has left the weathermen I've seen on TV and heard on the radio comfuzzled.  There should be more "agreement" on the "models," I guess they're saying.  But it hasn't come through yet.  It should by now, less than a day before it's supposed to hit.  But it's not, and I think they're about to commit suicide over it.

So am I.  Fuck, I don't like blizzards at any point of the year, but I think I speak for all Minnesotans when I say that, even with the relatively mild winter we had, it is past St. Patrick's Day, so I think we're done with this snow shit.  Never mind that we average more than ten inches in March -- we don't need it.  Add to it that, because the guy from Minnesota Public Radio Monday morning pooh-poohed initial pessimistic forecasts of the storm and thought it would miss the Twin Cities to the south completely, I decided to go ahead with my plans to buy the room donuts tomorrow morning.  It looks like all the "models" don't see the storm hitting for morning rush, so I'll be fine driving around the whole metro area regardless.  But it would still be nice to know what we'll be facing tomorrow -- a shovel perhaps?  Maybe trying to get the snowplow to work again?  Or is it just time for the umbrella?  Or nothing at all?

The computer that's acting like Minority Report seems to be the "European" model, the only holdover that consistently is saying that the storm will track to the south.  (All of the models, BTW, are saying that southern Minnesota, particularly the places alongside I-90, are going to take it in the shorts -- again.  The winter for those guys down there has been absolutely fucking awful.)  Many of the others think that the worst of the storm will hit us here instead, meaning that we're facing between half a foot and a whole foot of snow tomorrow.  My pessimistic ass made me believe that the European model would then get new information some time today or even tomorrow morning and it'll basically say, "Whoops!  Yep, you guys are right -- the Twin Cities is fucked."  But it didn't happen today.  In fact, the guy on Channel 9 tonight just said that the European is in fact doubling down on its prediction that we are getting no snow at all.

That would be great -- could you tell the other people to say the same thing?  They're not.  Those meteorologists are saying that the Twin Cities will be on the northern edge of the storm, and that there will be a sharp cutoff right through the heart of the area.  The southern suburbs, they say, will get hit hard, while the northern suburbs might not get any snow at all.  A difference of four, five, even six inches going from north to south.

OK, couple things.  They all give the caveat that this "cutoff line" might wiggle north or south.  Knowing my bad luck, it'll wiggle north and, like that fucking snowstorm we had for Groundhog's Day, it'll be even worse than the late models said it would be.  (By the way, we didn't get six inches then; we got about 9 1/2 because the storm tugged even further north.  I thought this was supposed to be an El Niño winter!!!)  The other thing is, what do they mean by "northern suburbs" and "southern suburbs?"  I live smack dab in the middle, so I usually just average out the forecast that the metro area is supposed to get.  But I work, right now, in the western suburbs, but not past the loop.  Is that, then, really the "western suburbs?"  And when they mean "southern suburbs," do they mean, like, Bloomington, where the Mall of America and the airport are?  Or do they mean Woodbury, or Lakeville, or Hastings, or hell, Albert Lea?  I don't know what south means, because I kind of want to know at what city in this storm do all the weatherpeople believe it's going be bad.  From there I'll just extrapolate and guess how many inches we're going to get here.

Man, I am driving my new car, and I kind of forgot that snow could still fall, heavily at times, in March, thus hastening the rust.  But goddammit, it's going to get irrevocably damaged.

(Late word from Channel 11 that the metro will get accumulating snow and that it won't start until the evening.  Well, will I need to shovel?  Will I be able to shovel before going to bed tomorrow night?)

You Know What Pisses Me Off?

OK, so I'm driving to work this morning.  Even though I see an oncoming car, I take a right turn, apparently onto the same lane as this car.

This thing is coming on faster than I thought.  So it went around me and, of course, as soon as it cleared me, it went back onto my lane.  And this goddamn car did both things without using his (her?) turn signal.

Oh, so sorry I got in front of you.  But you don't even have the fucking decency to use your turn signal?  You think you didn't have to because I did something wrong to you?  Asshole.

Thought I could drive back to him/her, as is often the case.  But she/he beat the light (even though it was about to turn red; he or she should've gotten a ticket), and I was stuck there at the intersection for a full two minutes.  Hit some reds out to the highway, too; that fucking car was way past me.

And the worst thing?  This SUV had that goddamn family decal sticker in the back windshield.  You know, those stick figures of Dad, then Mom, then the kids and then the pets, you know.  Someone driving a car like that should have better manners.  Goddamn I hope to see that car tomorrow.

---

OK, I've said my piece, breathe out, let it go.  The drive wasn't otherwise bad because there was no bumper-to-bumper traffic and I got to work in about 33 minutes.

Poor Bastards Of The Moment: Cleveland Browns Fans

I think Minnesota sports fans have suffered enough, but there are moments like last night's ending to the game that jostles me out of my bubble and reminds me that the Cleveland Browns may have it a hell of a lot worse.

I was hearing the end of The Bastard Cleveland Browns-Cleveland Browns v.2.0. game last night driving home in the not-bad/snow showery weather.  Game was tied.  Baltimore QB Matt Schaub throws an interception to a Browns player in Ravens territory.  Cleveland did not gain a whole lot of yardage, but nevertheless they were in good-enough position to line up for a 51-yard Field Goal with three seconds left.  The Browns Kicker had yet to miss a FG this year.

You can guess what happened next, but probably only the first part.  If you've been a lifelong fan of this damned franchise, you know what happened next.  The kick gets blocked and deflects off to the side, where it's picked up by a Bastard Cleveland Browns player who runs the football back all the way for the game-winning Touchdown at the gun.

Man, to go from surprise good fortune to anticipation of getting only their third win of the year to absolute dejection over pulling defeat from the jaws of victory in what can only be described as the most Cleveland Browns-ian way possible.  And it's got to hurt that the team they lost to in such improbable fashion was the team that was taken from the city 20 years ago.  I am speculating that many Browns fans believe that the franchise, the fanbase, and even the city has been cursed, if not damned, ever since that relocation ... even though the Cleveland Browns v.1.0. had more than their share of notorious, inexplicable losing for half a century.  Simply put, the way that game ended ... sucks.

This tweeted video recorded on a smartphone by a Browns fan at the game encapsulates the range of humiliation and sadness at that moment.  There are three people seen, although you can hear two people (or is it the same person?) curse at their biblical misfortune.  Solemn resignation, complete disbelief, utter disgust ... yep, these are the times you question why you're a sports fan.

How it feels to be a Browns fan #MNF pic.twitter.com/30hBugRYLZ

— Nick Sobevski (@Sobe_homie) December 1, 2015

Poor Bastards.