Planning World Cup Viewing Where

I have gotten obsessed with arranging my free time around the World Cup the five weeks it's going on.  I shouldn't, considering that this World Cup is being (mainly) hosted by a fascist country.  Also, it's become even more obvious that FIFA is a corrupt organization that continues to get away with suckering communities into giving them money in exchange for the right to host the biggest sporting event on the planet this side of the Olympics.  No wonder, then, that the president of FIFA, Gianni Infantino, gave Trump a made-up-on-the-spot "peace prize" just to kiss his ass, one grifter publicly proclaiming his love to another grifter.  The business side of this soccer festival should make one's stomach turn.  However, since I am plotting how I will watch as much of it as I can proves I have overlooked this evil sausage-making and, in turn, makes me complicit.

Well, my complicit ass is still going to watch, and figure out the best way to watch while balancing things such as my checkbook, the health of my car, going to my storage unit to go through my stuff (which is really chapping my ass right now the more I think about it), and just going home and relaxing.  A part of me truly relishes how to put the pieces together, but a part of me knows this can easily overwhelm me, and another part of me knows I'm capable of just saying "fuck it" and I'll completely forget all of this.

Regardless, right now I'm planning ... but only for next week.  I am trying to do the following:

• Have one day where I go work, then directly go home.  I will watch all the Games from home and eat in, and thus I will not spend any money;
• I will go out and watch at least one soccer Match at a bar or establishment boasting about televising the World Cup;
• I will go out and watch at least one soccer Match at a Mexican or Latin American restaurant that has a TV and may or may not be televising the World Cup;
• I will go from work to my storage unit, where I will spend at least the majority of one soccer Game listening to it on Sirius XM while going through my stuff.  I will not spend any money and instead go straight home after the Match is over;
• Oh, and I promised ******a that I would see her at the strip club one night.

My original guiding principle on which weekdays I'd do each of the above depended on whether I could watch the Match on FOX/Channel 9.  If it wasn't on there, I figured that wasn't a day I should just go home; either I would watch at a pub or restaurant that had Fox Sports 1, or listen to it on satellite radio at my storage unit.  But then I remembered that Telemundo is over the air and is airing every single Match on free TV, albeit in Spanish.  Soccer is universal, so watching any Game from home was back on the table.

But then I saw last/Friday night's South Korea-Czechia Match, and for some dumb reason the audio and video were out of synch.  I'm hoping it's a one-time glitch, because if it's not, I won't watch Telemundo anymore ... which might actually make planning easier because it removes the possibility that I could watch any Game at home.  Fix this, Telemundo.

Another consideration I, um, considered is the quality of the sides playing.  I want to see competitive Matches, and once the final roundelay of Games comes around, the stakes are going to influence which ones I watch and thus where.  But the field for the World Cup has expanded from 36 to 48.  That means a lot of new teams -- and a bunch of teams that are not good and should get easily dispatched in the Games they play.  Also, there is a fifth round of Knockout Stage Matches now, which means 32 teams will advance out of the Group Stage.  Allowing 2/3 of the field into the "playoffs" makes the "regular season" Group Stage Games somewhat less important, even if the final Group Stage Games will determine who comes in last in each Group and thus is automatically eliminated.

The more I think about it, the more I've decided that I want to dedicate my attention to matchups that feature good XI's or countries that appear to be evenly matched.  If there's a Game that doesn't satisfy either condition, I am beginning to think it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world to only tune in to it in the middle of the Match, or even, for example, bail on the Game and leave an establishment early.  It is hard to eat out at a restaurant for two hours so you can watch a whole Game.  And speaking of whole Games ... I realized that when I get out of work each day will dictate whether I go home, my unit, or out to watch.  Do I want to go out to catch the back end of a lopsided Match between two nations that have no chance of winning the World Cup?  Maybe, actually, and I'll save the days I go directly home for when I am able to watch a good Game on paper in its entirety.

You can see how I am weighing a lot of things, right?  Yeah, maybe I'm overthinking this.  But I don't want to spend money I can't afford, I want to start eating the food at home that I've bought, I don't want to tax my car, and I do want to start cleaning up my stuff.  So, considering all of that ... I still don't know.  Guess the only really important thing to me is I just want to watch some soccer.

My God, I am so tired.  And I have been tired around this time of night (which is after midnight) for the past week or so.  What's causing this?  Spring forward got implemented a month ago, and sometimes I react negatively with changes at work, so I don't think my recent inability to stay up has anything to do with that.  But what is it?  I don't know.  All I know is I am too tired to blog post anything more than what you are seeing right now.

RIP, Taco Bell Near Me

So two weeks ago, after seeing my alma mater fall to South Carolina in the NCAA Women's Basketball Tournament, I drove home.  Sometimes I take a path home that takes me past the closest gas station to my home.  Can't complain about the gas station.  It has a Taco Bell there that I go to all the time.

Well, had.  I think it was the weekend where I actually went to this gas station because I wanted to get some Taco Bell.  And it shocked the shit out of me when I saw one of those industrial-sized dumpsters.  I then noticed that all the Taco Bell signage is gone, completely.

This was coming.  The gas station was a Holiday, but several years ago (I don't know exactly how many), it was sold to Casey's Retail Company, so the Holiday became a Casey's.  They are well known for making and selling their own food under their own Casey's brand.  But even after the changeover and makeover, the Taco Bell was still operating in the left half of the building housing the now Casey's.

I heard the story of how this happened shortly after the changeover when I grabbed some Taco Bell by eavesdropping on a conversation between a Taco Bell worker and a customer who may have been his or her friend.  Taco Bell had a lease for this location.  When Holiday Stationstores or Couche-Tard, the company that acquired Holiday Stationstores, sold this particular gas station to Casey's, they did so on the condition that Taco Bell would be able to stay through the life of its lease.  The Taco Bell employee did not know how long that lease lasted, however.  Well, I guess that lease ran out two weeks ago.

This closing seemed fast.  I got home late that Monday, and Taco Bell drive-thrus are usually open late every night.  So I want to think that late Monday night (technically Tuesday morning) was the very last day they were open.  Casey's then shut everything down and cleaned out the entire Taco Bell (including appliances and tables -- seriously, I went into the gas station yesterday/Sunday and there's absolutely nothing there).  I absolutely marvel at how fast they emptied the place of any and all Taco Bell life.  But they can also completely replace that space with Casey's restaurant just as fast, at least I am convinced they could, and it's been completely empty for two weeks.

Is there something wrong?  I would think that Casey's was biding its time before the lease ended so they could then sweep in, clean house, and put up their own signage and equipment.  So, where are the tables and chairs -- and breakfast pizza Casey's is known for?  In the meantime, I am going to miss this Taco Bell.  It is the closest fast food place to me, so I relied on it for dinner and lunch many, many times over the years.  And now it's gone, just like many other places I believed would continue to exist.

Rest In Peace, TB.

Bracketology 2026

Man, I used to really love watching the Selection Show.  But then they crammed the fucking Play-In Games down our throats, and then Turner got their shit-ass hands on half the tournament, and then Chuck Barkley and Jet Smith started commentating on it even though they haven't done fuck-all about talking college hoops up till then, and then half of the tournament Games were put on cable, and then they spread out tipoff times so that there's only Game coming down to the wire at a time and if that Game is boring there's no reason to watch, and then CBS stopped whipping around to the best Game happening at that time (and this is the worst decision that was made, and it is fucking unforgivable) ... and now I don't care.  I might just plow the rest of the driveway then.  Or, I might just sleep through the show.  I don't care.

Anyway, as of press time, Bracket Matrix has aggregated the following teams into the following categories.  Teams are listed in order:

The REAL Last Teams In: UCF, Texas A&M, N. C. St., Santa Clara

Play-In Games: Missouri, Miami (OH), SMU, Texas

Actually, They're The LAST Teams Out: San Diego St., Auburn, Oklahoma, Indiana

This Grocery Store Is Pissing Me Off, Man. ...

So there's a grocery store close by me that my family has gone to ever since I can remember.  For people who will never pass up a bargain, I don't know why they frequent this mom-and-pop, boutique grocery store.  Don't get me wrong -- their stuff is great, and there are some things I can get there that we would have to travel a ways to buy elsewhere.  But knowing my parents, they would not go to this grocery store.  But make no mistake; they still do.

And I do.  It's convenient.  It also makes this great chili that I see more and more as dinner.  If I want to make a steak, or if I need onions and peppers to spruce up my spaghetti sauce, I go there instead of the bigger chains around town.  Like I said, their stuff is great.  Finally, I noticed that these guys compare favorable with Aldi for cheapest prices for plastic bottles of pop, which I need almost as much as water.  I would have to pay 30, 40, even 50 cents more than I do at this place.

OK, so this is how they pissed me off yesterday/Sunday.  I wanted chili, and I wanted to buy a plastic bottle of pop.  I also wanted to see if they were still running their $1 deal for Mr. Pibb, which is a decent soda, but I really wanted one just because their bottles are a buck apiece.  So I went there for the first time in, I think, over a month.

Well, first of all, that promotional deal for Mr. Pibb is over.  Beyond that, their big change, which I saw my last visit there, was that they installed a new rewards system.  Before, I was given this paper card with our number.  We either showed the cashier our card or gave him or her our number.  After we accrued enough points, we would get five bucks off automatically.  But on my last visit, I saw these brand-spankin' new cash registers, and I was told that the old rewards program was killed off, utterly.  In its place is this system whereby, instead of issuing cards with numbers, we registered with our phone number; they track points and after a certain number, we get a discount.  It might be five bucks, I don't remember.  But the first stupid thing is that the points we accrued up till then are gone.  It's a brand new system, fuck your points.

To make up for it, I guess, we were automatically given three bucks off our next purchase after our initial visit upon which we registered.  That next purchase was yesterday/Sunday.  So once I was ready to pay, I asked the cashier where the discount was.  That's when she explained to me that no discount is automatically rung up at the cash register, like the old program did.  Instead, we were e-mailed a Quick Response (QR) code.  I guess we had to go into our phone, look for that e-mail, and scan it, or something.

I tried looking for it since there was no one behind me.  But (and maybe I should blog post about this sometime) using search functions on your email applications on your phone sucks.  They don't find shit.  And I couldn't find it, so I had to just pay full price for my chili and bottle of Pepsi and go.

I didn't think at the time I even got a QR code.  But I did.  Once I got home, I realized that as part of signing up for this new rewards program, you give them permission to e-mail you.  I did find the e-mail where the code was.  Also, and unfortunately, the cashier said that this $3 dollar new program discount lasted only for a month after registration.  And in that e-mail, conveniently, I saw the expiration date of ... four days prior.  I couldn't use that discount even if I were able to find it when I was there.

That really pisses me off, it really does.  I was used to these guys doing everything, but now more of the work, especially the part where I am responsible for keeping up on my discounts, falls on me, and I don't like that change.  So maybe I'll drive down to Cub to get my chili from now on, and maybe I'll then stop by Aldi for my pop.  Because I don't like getting screwed like this, and I did get screwed.

So ****e cancelled on me today.  Said she has a bad cold.  I believe her.  This is the first time she texted me in advance to say that she can't do it.  There was that weird day where I came over and a man was there telling me she couldn't have company.  And there was another time where I let myself in, stayed for half an hour, thought she wasn't there, left, and then got a call from her, while she was home, saying she just had overslept.  (I had plans that day, so I figured I would just start them early instead of going back to her place.)

What can I do?  She's sweet, I like her, and she is the only person I know who will, uh, let me love her like I want to.  I just don't know the next time I'll be able to see her.  Hopefully soon.

In the meantime, I'm still, unfortunately, horny.  I have thought about asking one of my stripper girlfriends to come over.  But nah; instead, I'll eat or do laundry, and then I will exercise in the evening.  I'll keep it holstered for another time.

Two Changes Of Plans

So I was plotting out which days I would eat out and which I would stay in and eat leftovers.  Specifically, because I wanted to finally pay for limes and lemons for the cocktails I am going to make this weekend, and since they're discounted on Tuesdays, I would eat out today/Tuesday and, to make up for it, eat in tomorrow/Wednesday.

But those plans blew up.  While at work, I got this text from ****e saying that she and ***i* are having a party tomorrow/Wednesday.  Then, she texted ominously, "Last chance."  Last chance for what?  Will I not be invited anymore if I don't come?  Are they hanging up the wanking lifestyle?  Is one of the two women going to die soon?  I don't know what she meant by that, but it has been a long, long time since I got serviced by either babe, so I decided I am going to this house party on tomorrow/Wednesday.  And since I'm spending money then, I might as well eat out then, too.

Then, I got another text, this time from my aunt.  She wanted to know when I was going to be home because she made food for me.  Then I remembered that around the Chinese/Lunar New Year, she has always come over to give me food she made for the holiday.  Very sweet of her, and it allows me to eat in several days over the next week.  And it would make sense, then, that one of those days would be today/Tuesday.  It's a lot of food, and I should get on it in an effort to eat it all before it goes bad.  And yes, this blows up my idea of getting citrus for my cocktails, but hey, I can make cocktails without lemon or lime juice, and besides, there's a good chance I will be out both days this weekend.

So, to sum up, I went from eating out tonight/Tuesday night to staying in, and I went from staying in tomorrow/Wednesday night to eating out.  And for once, these changes aren't frustrating to me.  It just necessitates a change of plans -- two changes of plans, in fact.

First really bad day in The Fourth Department in a long, long while.  I don't quite know what happened.  We may or may not be backed up at work, but I thought that because Wednesday was bad, yesterday/Thursday would be better.  It was not; it was way worse.  I had double the forms I had to deal with, and I was beset as soon as the day started.

I spent eleven hours at work, and I still didn't complete all the work I wanted to.  But I had to call it quits at some point, plus I planned on picking up Jimmy John's on my way home to watch NFL Honors, and I already set up a pick-up time.  I'm just glad I got home to watch the whole awards show which, to be honest, was kind of shambolic.

You know, I had arranged a wank sesh with *****y last/Thursday night.  Work would have prevented me from getting back home in time to see her.  But like she has done on occasion, she asked for a delay.  She seems to have somewhat outlandish reasons to postpone, and this time around she said her son got rear-ended in his car.  Sure, whatever.  But I'm actually glad we didn't have any sexytime because then I could stay and work.  If I didn't stay late, I'd have to do it all in the morning, and who knows what other work would come today/Friday for which I too would have to stay late for.

This Work Is MINE!!!

I will admit that I'm not completely sorry I did what I did at work yesterday.  But did I make a fool of myself?  Definitely.

This story starts back on Friday.  I was supposed to be in The Fourth Department, but my bosses told me that I should do data entry instead.  So once I keyed as long as I was expected to key, I went back to The Fourth Department.  However, I didn't finish the work.  I stayed till 6:30, but I wanted to see college basketball on the TV, and I thought ten hours was more than enough.  In particular, there were forms that came in on Friday that I didn't get to.  I was told during the workday that that stuff could wait till the next day (Saturday).  So I thought I could come in the next day, yesterday, and finish up that work and, hopefully, get started on the work that came in that day for The Fourth Department.  I was anticipating a lot of stuff was coming in, and I didn't want all that stuff to sit till tomorrow, especially if I was assigned to that position tomorrow.  Besides, the department needed help catching up on work, and while I liked having surprise days off, it was eating into the time off I had built up; working yesterday means I get to take some of that paid time off back.

I thought the mid-South was up and running, seeing as we got monster shipments Thursday and Friday.  However, when I woke up yesterday morning, I was told that morning's shipment was late, so we should come in an hour later than scheduled.  (Also, I have a Facebook friend who said that, beyond, like, half a day, her neighborhood in East Nashville has been without power for eight days.  Maybe they don't have everything back up and running like I thought.)  Two of my co-workers, however, appeared to have either not gotten that text or ignored it, because they were at their desks by the time I got in.  Moreover, one of them was doing the work I left over.

This is not an excuse, but how I felt was: Why are you taking my work from me?!  I know that I have done this in the past, and I know that I'm not strong enough not to feel that way in the future.  This red mist of control descended on me, like it has so many times before, and so I asked her, "What are you doing?"

"I am just finding work.  Do you want this back?" she said.

"Yes, please," I answered.  (These might not be the exact words she and I said, and any tone you might take from these two quotes may not be as sinister, or as courteous, as it actually was.)

I regretted my words as soon as I sat down on my desk.  And any doubt as to how she reacted to my "taking back what's mine" temper tantrum probably was dispelled when she said, "Here's the cart," and shoved the cart into which we put the work in my direction with a force I have never, never seen her give.  She is a steady rock.  And frankly, since my supervisor left for a work-from-home position in the summer, she is the one I have relied on whenever I'm fuzzy about what to do next.  In other words, I don't want to get on her bad side.  And I think I did with that move, and it's probably going to cause a rift in our relationship that will never be repaired.

And the upshot of the hissy fit I threw is that it really didn't matter.  I got Friday's work done, but then my boss and my boss' boss told me to go scan documents all day instead.  We got done before eight hours, so I was able to do (or availed myself with) some Fourth Department stuff to make up the rest of the time.  But yesterday was clearly an all-hands-on-deck day, and while I knew that, honestly, I really didn't want to do that.

I shouldn't have reacted how I did.  But it felt like she was taking my work from me.  Moreover, she was ruining my plans.  "I got this under control, don't mess this up for me," -- that's what I was thinking.  And no, like I said, that's not an excuse.  But shit, what's done is done.  I should get off my butt and start updating my resume.  Because I acted like an ass!

The Main Reason I Think I Hate MLS' "Flip"

Back in mid-November, Major League Soccer announced that they are going to change the schedule of the league.  Ever since its inception in 1996, they started play some time in the spring (in '96 it was April; now it begins late February or early March) and ends some time in early December.  But this Year, the 30th Year of MLS, will be the last under this calendar year format.  After playing a four-month "spring season" in the spring of 2027, MLS will align its year with pretty much every soccer league in every country on Earth, where they start late summer and end around Memorial Weekend.

Not too long ago, I heard the Commissioner for MLS say that he didn't think that would be a good idea, and I think his main reason was that so many northern cities (such as Minnesota United) would be affected by figuring out how to deal with a part of the summer-to-spring season that makes outdoor Matches well nigh impossible to stage in the winter.  Guess he changed his mind, and I guess that not sticking out like an outlier, especially when it comes to trying to bring in players through Transfer Windows that are, right now, a bit awkward, was enough of a reason to do this wholesale change.

At first blush, I hate this as a season-ticket holder.  The idea that players didn't want to join a club in MLS during the middle of our season or the middle of the season of the league they're coming from is still too abstract for me to care about.  But another plus the Commissioner claimed would make the new calendar better is that Major League Soccer would get away from having its postseason run right into the National Football League and college football.  True -- and I still don't think it's a good enough reason to do, as some people are calling it, "The Flip."  Yes, football (mostly professional but college matters too) is the most popular sport in the country.  But it's their regular season; MLS has conducted its postseason late in the fall.  I will go to lengths to see a postseason Loons Match in person (I have skipped out on Game-watching events in the past) because they are the most important Matches on the schedule, and I think diehard fans of other MLS squads have done and would do the same.

Conversely, the commish also says that putting MLS' playoffs in May is a lot less crowded.  No, it isn't.  The NBA Playoffs and The NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs are also played in May.  Basketball and hockey are not the behemoth that American football is.  But you cannot convince me that soccer has a chance to stick out and rise above the din at a time those two leagues also have their postseasons.  When the Games matter most, MLS will take a backseat to both the NBA and NHL, every Year.  (And hell, to be honest with you, the NHL takes a backseat to the NBA every May, too.)  Major League Soccer is not running from a crowded part of the year; it's running to a crowded part of the year.  And I don't think it's going to work.  So on second blush, I still hate this.

Another point I considered: I thought that there would be Matches played through the winter, and we would thus have to have a few or even several of them played during the holidays.  Then MLS announced that there will be an annual two-Month Winter Break from mid-December to mid-February, and then on top of that there will be special considerations to limit the number of Games played here in December and February to one or two.

But I decided to think further.  What about this Winter Break?  It's good for the safety of players and fans, no doubt.  But what sports league do you know builds in a two-Month break in its season?  Wouldn't that feel like two separate seasons?  And what happens if, for example, MNUFC just sucks for the first part of the Year?  Would anyone want to come back and see the final part of the season if the Loons blow?  (Major League Soccer anticipates that 2/3 of the season is completed before Winter Break and the final third is completed once play resumes and into the end of April, which is supposed to be when the regular season will end.)  This has the potential to be a momentum killer.

Another point of concern comes in the fall.  I am very busy during American football season.  I work Vikings and Golden Gophers Games, and I organize Game-watching parties for my alma mater.  These conflicts have been in place since Minnesota United started MLS play in 2017, so it's nothing new.  Still, it's a pain in the ass to, for example, wait for when my alma mater announces the time of their Game in two Weeks and figure out whether I could travel from downtown Minneapolis to Midway to see my Loons, or if it's worth it to catch only the Second Half of the MNUFC Match, or if I need to sell my ticket.  Usually, one to three of my season tickets are casualties to these circumstances each year.

The announcement didn't say, but I wonder, assuming there will be at least as many Matches in a regular season as there currently are now, if there will be more Matches played in the fall.  So I have looked at the upcoming season, looked through my Franklin Quests for the past few years, and jotted down how many autumn Matches there have been from 2022 to this season, which would be ones subject to either work or play conflicts due to American football.

2026 home Games in the fall I have to worry about skipping: 5

2025: 3

2024: 3

2023: 4

2022: 1

There are tons of caveats here.  Major League Soccer has frequently shifted their seasons, and put in breaks during the middle of them, if there have been other worldwide soccer conflicts, such as the World Cup and continental tournaments, so there will be years more Matches had to be piled into the autumn.  Also, I wanted to go back all the way to 2017, but I realized that 2021 and 2020 were severely impacted by the pandemic -- I couldn't go at all in 2020, and I think I started going to Games late in the summer of 2021 -- and so it didn't make sense to go back even further.  Finally, we don't have the 2027-8 schedule out yet, of course, so we don't know if there will be a concentration of Matches in the fall.  Still, while I have no evidence this will get worse under the new calendar, I will go with my gut and believe it will be.

But I realized something further. It may not be the fall that impacts my season-ticket status the most, but the summer.  Major League Soccer says it'll conduct its postseason in May, and the league will begin its new season in mid-July.  Assuming MNUFC won't host Games for the playoffs or even make the playoffs (and I would contend that the league is rapidly creating a Haves/Have-nots hierarchy not unlike The English Premier League, and undoubtedly my Loons ain't gonna be a Have), there won't be Matches for me to go to between May and mid-July.

How many Matches have taken place in that time period?  I went back through my FQs and checked:

2026 home Games between May (the scheduled month for postseason, which the Loons obviously are not guaranteed to play, let alone play any home Matches) and mid-July (the approximate start of the new season format): 3

2025: 6

2024: 6

2023: 6

2022: 5

More caveats here.  The three Matches this season is because MLS needs to take a break for the World Cup.  Also, Minnesota United FC salespeople have been trying to emphasize they are going to fill this hole with pre-season Matches and Friendlies against clubs from other countries, which should be easier once MLS' preseason aligns with so many other leagues' preseasons.  But you can tell that it's not the same.  I actually love going to Loons Games during the late spring and early summer.  There's not much to do, the weather is heating up, and I have enjoyed many Matches with other Loons fans this time of Year.

And then I realized that this is the part of the season that I will miss, and that this is the reason why this new calendar sucks.  And there is little to no chance that there will be any attempt that will be adequate to fill this hole.  So now what?  Well, first of all, because I care about the integrity of the season, I would like to suggest a split-season not unlike what Mexico's Liga MX does.  Every Year they have, basically, two Years: An "Apertura" (opening) season that goes from July to just before the holidays, and a "Clausura" (closing) season that goes from early January to Memorial Weekend.  OK, so you have two champions a Year.  Big deal; that means there is no yawning two-Month gap in a season you're determined to say lasts ten Months.  For this to happen, Major League Soccer would have to have only a one-Month break, and Minnesota United would probably have to play a few Matches in January and February.  Would I watch them in person?  Maybe, maybe not.  But at least the season would make a whole lot more sense.

Beyond that, I don't know what to think.  Well, I said a long time ago that unless I die, move, lose my job, or determine the organization has done something that so offends my moral code, I won't be dropping my season ticket.  I didn't add some sort of force majeure clause when I declared that, but I sure as hell didn't think they'd do The Flip, either.  So I think I'll give it a year, to see how many more Matches I might have to miss in the fall, and how many times from May to mid-July I'll be bored out of my skull because there's no important MNUFC Game to go to.  If it doesn't make sense to spend money on a season ticket -- and that price keeps going up every Year -- maybe I'll be forced to downgrade my season ticket package ... or say goodbye.

The TV Just Up And Helped Me

So the television set in my bedroom, the one that I got for free from my friend's friends, the one that My Father put in my bedroom when My Fucking Parents decided to redo my whole goddamn room ... well, it's been a challenge.  My Father replaced my TV set (and put the one I had, the one I bought, in the den that he would use once in a blue moon) probably because this one I got was bigger than the one I bought.  It has become clear since I started using it, however, that the I bought, even though it's much smaller, is more technologically advanced.  Beyond its old age, there are very small, first-world issues that make me not like this TV as much as the one I got for myself.  It takes more than ten seconds for it to come on, for example.  Also, sometimes the remote control doesn't work and I have to tap it on the back a few times; these guys really took this television through its paces over the years.  Finally, it doesn't have a "recall" or "back" button in the traditional sense.

What it does have instead is a feature whereby you can see up to the last six channels you were on (or fewer; it stores in memory the channels you were watching since you turned on the television).  You hit this TV's version of a "recall" or "back" button and six squares pop up on the bottom of the television screen.  They're all blank, and for a while there it pissed me off that I couldn't toggle between two channels.  But then I hit the remote's down arrow and voila, that's where up to the last six channels appeared in those boxes.  (You hit the down arrow again and the, I guess, "third" row are all the channels you have programmed onto the TV, and you can use the left and right arrows to scroll through them.)  So I finally understood how I could flip back and forth through channels; it's certainly not as fast as just hitting one button, but if I wanted to go through three or more, I can't really think of a faster way to do that.  So, it's a compromise.

Another thing so bothersome about this TV's interface comes from those six squares.  They always appear on the bottom.  If I'm watching a game on TV, the scorebug (the graphic that shows all the pertinent information on the game you're watching, such as score, which quarter/half/period is it, how much time is left, etc.) usually is on the bottom third of the screen.  So when a channel pops up and I want to just quickly see were in the game that game is before I go back to the other game, I can't see the score; instead, I see those stupid six boxes.  Yes, I guess I could wait the five-to-ten seconds to check the scorebug, but like I said, doing that is not in my nature.

Another graphic that popped up at the bottom of the television screen is the channel graphic.  You know, whenever you flip to a channel, you will see graphics that state what it is, like "41-2," or something.  So, if I want to use the "recall" or "back" button to toggle between channels, what happens is you select that channel from one of the on-screen boxes, the channel comes on with these six blank boxes obscuring your screen for four seconds or so, then the channel graphic obscures your screen for another four seconds or so.  Highly annoying, and not very user-friendly.

But then, maybe a few weeks ago, the damndest thing happened.  The channel box, the graphic that first appears when you get onto a channel, jumped from the bottom of the TV screen to the top.  Now, the graphics don't block my view of the score for as long as it did.  I have no idea how it happened.  I played with the settings, but I'm sure I didn't select anything unless I knew I wanted it.  It looks as though this TV, even though I'm sure it predates artificial intelligence, understood intuitively how upset I was that this graphic was blocking the scorebug, so it knew to place it on the top of the screen.  Now, why it couldn't do the same thing with the three rows of six squares, I don't know.

Still, I'll take it.  I'm glad the TV "got" me.  But is it good that it has a mind of its own, like HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey?  Honestly, with the way the country is right now, being spat out into space to die because AI was afraid it was going to be killed isn't the worst way to go.

End Of 2025 Thoughts

My now ex-boss ... yeah, he was a guy.  Not only did he announce he was leaving through e-mail the minimum two weeks before he actually leaving, today, his last day, he didn't stay the whole day.  And he just e-mailed everybody peace before he left for his car five minutes later.  We all made a goodbye and thanks card for him, but my co-worker had to run it out to him as he was about to leave.  I think I said this before: I would rather have him than a micro-manager.  But geez, this is the guy who hired me for my first full-time job.  He helped me turn into a responsible adult.  I would have liked to express my gratitude in a less shallow way.

---

My co-worker to whom I leaned up for much of my job left at the end of 2024, so in that sense, 2025 has gone full circle.  It has been a challenge to see my job, and thus me, change, mostly because people above me were leaving.  (I forgot that my supervisor left in the late summer; I still haven't recovered from that.)  We'll get by, only because we have to.  But I have no idea what this change will bring, and I don't like change as a principle.

I think the main thing that happened in my life, though, is Mother's knee surgery.  I am able to live much of my life independently, and for the most part I love living alone.  I haven't been able to do that for the past seven or eight months because of what Mother has to go through.  I always adapt, and I am glad that she got her knee fixed (even though she complains that it is not as good as she wants it to be), but some days it hasn't been fun having them around here ... and yet, I want to cherish the times I have with my folks when they're good, like when Father helped me clear the driveway of snow, or every night I get to eat a great dinner my parents made.

My neighbor's death a few weeks ago still weighs on me.  She is the person in my life I have lost this year, so in that sense, I have been quite lucky.  That's why I want to enjoy my time with my parents when they should be halfway around the world.  One year I will look back on the year with great, intense sadness.  I know it'll happen, and I don't want it to.

---

I'm driving down to my friends' place after I get finished with this blog post.  Hope I survive the drive down and back.  It's a tradition I intend on continuing for as long as possible, as a signpost that, despite all the setbacks and wrongs and pain I might have incurred through the year, I made it.

Happy New Year, everyone.  Let's make it a good one.

Where The Hell Did Our Tree Go?

I came home, Kentucky Fried Chicken in hand, on Tuesday to see something missing in our front yard.  We had two trees, and the one closer to the street is gone, with only its scarred stump and shards of wood shavings left in its place.  I asked my folks, who presumably were at home all day and thus noticed this chopping down of our tree, about it.  They didn't call for it to be removed, nor did they stop it, and they didn't even open the front door to ask what was going on.  They just observed this tree, which has been there my whole life, being cut down and hauled away.

No idea they were doing this.  Now, I have read the city newsletter, published four times a year, where some trees in town had to be either treated for, um, whatever disease is going through the neighborhood or, failing that, chopped down.  When I was mowing the lawn this year, I noticed a small medallion hanging from a nail nailed into the bark of this tree with some numbers on it.  I thought that meant that this tree had been treated.  Maybe that meant that the tree was slated for removal, even though I wonder, if that is what that is, why it took till Christmastime to do take the tree away.

Just in case, I should call the city to make sure they're the ones who did it.  Then again, my folks weren't told they had to pay for the tree, so it's probably legit, though strange in how the city went about doing it.

My Quest To Find A New Pair Of Glasses Comes To A Surprising End

OK, so I am getting new glasses today/Sunday.  I have an updated prescription for lenses that I haven't changed in, like, four years.  Plus, I think my HSA through my employer is going to change next year.  I could be wrong.  In fact, there's a good chance I'm wrong.  But I don't have time to understand it, so I'm just going to pay for new glasses before the year's out.

The problem, for me, became formal.  Do I want new glasses?  As resistant to change that I am, and as much as my current frames fit my face and personality, I decided I could use a shake-up.  But, I ran a poll where I sent for five pairs of glasses from Warby Parker, and I have decided that I am going to go for the one that finished second in the poll.  (Two of them were far and away the most popular amongst my real and Facebook friends, and I went with the more popular, which had just a few more votes.)

The problem is that I could not find the name of the frame that finished second.  I swore up and down that I made a spreadsheet for it, but I couldn't find it.  So for the past few days I have been looking at the Warby Parker website to compare their frames with the one I wore in my picture which I posted for my friends to look at.  I was looking at every detail to see if what I was looking for was actually the one I was looking for.  I was looking at the what the bridge looked like, how thick the sides of the glasses were, etc.  I was getting a bit obsessed, to be honest.

Finally, I found that Excel spreadsheet.  I did write down the names of the frames that were the most popular on the spreadsheet.  And, it turns out, the two frames are no longer sold by Warby Parker.  That's why the one I was looking for I couldn't quite find on their website; they no longer make them.  Either of them, actually; I was wrong in thinking that the frame that won my Facebook poll is the one that I'm currently wearing.  It isn't.  Should have realized that when I was frantically looking at these photos I posted, I was asking my friends to pick out my glasses ten years ago.  I changed frames since then, maybe twice.

So never mind all that.  There are a couple of frames that I could go for, but I really just wanted to go back to selected that old frame, and since I can't, I'll just get a new pair with the same design that I'm wearing now.  If it ain't broke, don't fix it ... even though I thought about fixing it.

On my way out the door at work yesterday/Wednesday my co-worker stopped me.  I had logged off of my computer, and thus didn't see my e-mail.  But my co-worker was staying a bit longer and had me look at her e-mail.

My boss sent a letter, just as many of us were leaving.  He's leaving the company at the end of the year.

Look, I don't want to get too mushy, but I'm not taking this well.  So yes, I have complained about him in the past about overtime.  First of all, that's largely subsided in the past year or so, partly because most of the year has been filled with learning to do the work other people had been doing, partly because the workload has actually been tame enough that we've been leaving after eight hours ever since, oh, Halloween or so.  And even so, beyond one time where I started putting out feelers for other jobs (and by the way, I think he's leaving to pursue a passion of his), nothing too serious came about his, for lack of a better word, threats over it.  I didn't like what he said, but he didn't go beyond that to action that affected my workday or pay.

Beyond that, I actually like him as a boss.  He's overall easygoing, he for the most part provided answers whenever I had questions, and yet at the same time he sure isn't a micromanager.  I could go to him if I had issues.  Finally, I respected him as a boss.  He was dedicated to and serious about doing the work, even if he didn't take himself seriously, which is the best combination.  He wasn't a dick, and he didn't play games as a person in authority.

Now that he's gone ... well, it's not to say that I'm sure that I'll get the opposite, but we're heading into the unknown as to who we'll answer to and what he or she will expect from us.  And sure, I didn't know what I would get from him as a boss.  But he was the one who interviewed and hired me for my first (and so far only) actual job; I was going to have to deal with whatever he was going to give me and whoever he decided to be.  And I can say, for a fact, I could do a lot worse than him.  But he is gone, and frankly, on top of my neighbor dying, and the massacres at Brown University and Bondi Beach in Sydney, plus Rob Reiner and his wife being murdered by their son, and this corrupt and stupid piece of shit that cheated to win the presidency a second time getting away with it every day, this is more change I didn't want to have to deal with at the same time.  It's a blindside, and right now, it feels sad.

Addendum To: How Long Can My Computer Hold On?

So that weird thing where I start up my computer and can't login in to open it up, so I have to restart it so I can login a second time?  Some time yesterday/Saturday it stopped doing that.  I opened it up and I was able to punch in my password to get into my computer immediately, like it's supposed to.  I don't know what I could have done to "fix" my laptop.

It was getting to the point where I would have been so fed up that I would have bought a new lap before the fall, which is when the extension on security for this laptop (it runs on Windows 10 and I cannot upgrade this to Windows 11 because it doesn't have the space for it) that I opted into runs out.  I am getting really frustrated at how much battery life my cellphone is going through, too, so I have thought about replacing that as well.  I was getting scared that both my laptop and cell would lose support in the fall, meaning I would have to replace both in the fall, which would be two big-ticket items I would need to pay for at the same time, and I don't look forward to that.  That made me think that maybe I should take advantage of the deals that might be floating around for a laptop, move up my timeline, and buy a new lap now.  But now, with this thing working "normally" ... yeah, I'll wait.

He's Really Pushing Me To Change My Mind, Huh?

So we have been going to the same place to watch my alma mater's Games for upwards of a decade now.  I'm happy with it because of the familiarity we have built up with the place.  The owner and two of the managers, for example, I think I know and have dealt with since the beginning.  That's a lot of equity, and even though the setup is not ideal -- we could use sound, for instance -- we could do a hell of a lot worse, and so, every season, we come back here ... well, for the most part; there was one time this season we went to another place around the corner because another fan group had its team's Game playing the same time as ours, and their group is way, way larger, so we figured we would go somewhere else.

That might be part of the reason I have felt, for some time, that many of the regulars there are, um, restive about this being our go-to place.  In fact, I remember one time this season that, when we got there, it was busy with no place to watch our Game, and immediately one of the regulars thought we could go to another bar.  That place was packed even more than ours, thank Buddha, and so the insurrection put itself down.  And I mean to use that term; frankly, I don't like the fact that I continue to hear pulses of dissatisfaction with this place.  I remember the four or five places we went to before this bar.  All those places had their drawbacks, and I wouldn't've minded staying in one of them if not for the fact they closed down.  But these guys insist that the grass is greener on the other side, and it's just not.  And frankly, I don't have the energy to try something new, let alone say we're going somewhere else.

That hasn't stopped people, still.  One of my former regulars, who I think no longer goes because he's scared of downtown Minneapolis (he has to stop watching the news), e-mailed me about going to a different sports bar, also in downtown Minneapolis.  I have heard about this place before.  It is bigger, and it also has a program by which proceeds of food and drink can be donated to a scholarship fund for your alma mater.  My ex-regular may have touted this place before.  I have never stepped foot in it, so I can't say for sure it'll be bad, but yes, I am reluctant.  I would be giving up a hell of a lot to go to what is a chain restaurant.  Not only am I, dare I say it, loyal to this bar we've been going to for years, I don't like the idea of taking my business from a mom-and-pop and giving it to a corporation.  Also, I know for a fact that a big alumni group already goes there.  Will there be enough room for us?  Will we get sound?  And what happens if we get harrassed, which might happen because this is college football we're talking about?

To many of them think that we could do much better, and I don't agree at all.  But just to placate him, I'm going to be a bit open and tell him to go there and see how it goes.  I always need a backup plan in case this mom-and-pop bar goes under for some reason.  But I don't think this place is Valhalla.  I'm sure that, if I make the foolhardy decision that we'll watch all our Games here instead, we'll have the same damn problems we face in the place we're at now, and then some.  Then where are we?

You Know, I Don't Think My Parents Are Sleeping Together Anymore

By that I mean literally sleeping together, not, um, figuratively (barf)

Like I've said, Mother isn't perfect, but she can walk good now.  I haven't seen her negotiate the stairs all that much, but while she takes it slow, she seems to not have an issue with walking up or down.  The exercises she needs to concentrate on now have to do with adjusting the body while isolating her new knee and putting stresses on her joints (not just her new knee) -- standing up from a chair, high kicks on stairs, stuff like that.

I say this to say that she shouldn't have too much trouble now going up and down the stairs, and down the stairs is where the master bedroom and bathroom are.  That's also where Father ends up after we have dinner.  We all split up: Him to his bedroom, me to my bedroom, and Mother to her bedroom ... which is not the same bedroom as Father's.  Anticipating that she would be incapacitated after knee surgery, they decided that they would turn my former bedroom back into a bedroom where Mother would sleep in as she recuperates.  It's upstairs (we have a split-level) because that's where the kitchen and her sewing machine is.  As long as she was confined to walking on one level, it had to be the one where she can eat and spend her hours at her hobbies.

So that was a few weeks ago.  I assumed it would be temporary, that once she was able to walk up and down stairs without too much pain, she would rightfully move back in with Father in the master bedroom.  No, that hasn't happened yet.  The few times I checked up on her, she is in her bed (it's my bed frame; while this may have been the reason she took my bed, her knee surgery was used by My Fucking Parents as an excuse to toss all the stuff that was important to me, and now I'm getting all pissed the fuck off again, so I'll move on), her pillows arranged how she wants, watching her videos on her streaming box.  She's happy as a clam in her own room.  Moreover, my sister, when she was here, asked if she wanted to move back downstairs once my sister thought Mother could walk down the stairs without too much difficulty.  Mother said no, at least for the time being, because she felt that she would make too much noise and wake Father up if and when she needed to get out of bed in the middle of the night and shuffle to the master bathroom to pee.  Two things about that.  Would that worry change now that she can walk instead of shuffle?  And since she can walk, why wouldn't she move back downstairs and bug Father like usual when she does get up to pee?  It's how they've been living all this time anyway, right?

So it's that second point I want to hone in on.  I'm starting to get the feeling that Mother actually likes her own bedroom.  Why wouldn't she?  She has the whole room to herself so she can do whatever she wants.  And I believe Father snores, and she likes that she doesn't have to hear him snoring.  If she does enjoy sleeping alone, that probably means Father likes sleeping alone as well.  He isn't getting woken up by Mother when she needs to pee, of course.  The only worry Mother has is that Father, who is getting up there in age, won't have someone around him if he falls, Buddha forbid.

I would like Mother to move back down, not gonna lie.  That way I can have the bathroom all to myself.  I don't have to move around the bathmat in case she trips over it.  I can also arrange my shampoo and toothbrush to where I want it.  Finally, I want the upper part of the house to myself in case I don't want to put any clothes on if I need to get up from my bed and shuffle into the bathroom to pee.  However, if this separate bedrooms thing is permanent, and if both parental units are going to be here for a while, this is a New Normal I really, really won't like.

I Miss My Stripper Girlfriend

I don't know if you remember *****a, but she was one of the girls from My Favorite Stripclub (Non-Cover Version) with whom I had grown into a deeper relationship ... well, as deep as one can get between a john and a sex worker.  She's whip-smart, curious, and is more aligned with me politically than most of the other stripper girlfriends I've had.  If you have following WAF in the past, she's the one who once asked me, at a house party she was working, to stay because, and I quote, "I haven't seen it yet!"  And when I finally did, thank Buddha, she touched it, and me.

I have been putty in her hands since.  It was difficult to go to her place for HJs because she had this penchant for moving from place to place.  But she stood out from all my other stripper girlfriends because she was unapologetic over what she did.  She didn't air out any of her, or my, business, but she didn't shy away from her profession.  That's why I respect her.  Dammit, I will say that I love her, too.

But it's been a long time since I've been intimate with her, and she has done several things that are very uncharacteristic of her.  First of all, she has gotten quite political.  She began five years ago with George Floyd, and I thought that was really cool because I agreed with her views.  *****a has gotten quite politically active with sex work as well.  Parallel to that, she finally found a boyfriend.  I'll be honest; I wasn't too keen on it because if she is dedicating her life to someone, I cannot believe she would continue to wank me or any other guy on the side.  But I'm happy for her, if this is what she wants.

And then she ... disappeared.  I followed her on Facebook, but she apparently took that down.  I've texted her, but she hasn't replied to anything I've sent since the spring.  And I have no other way to reach her; unlike the other strippers from My Favorite Stripclub (Non-Cover Edition), she was not close to any of the others, so I can't reach out to a mutual and ask how she's doing.

I had the feeling *****a was, shall we say, peripatetic, but I never got the feeling that she would ghost anyone.  She was restless when it came to where she lived, obviously, and her political activism made me feel like she could be passionate to the point of being impetuous, as many political fanatics become.  But she always seemed to have a good head on her shoulders, and I never thought she would just disappear as she has.

So maybe this has something to do with family.  I fear it has something bad to do with her boyfriend.  But dammit, I miss *****a.  I miss her touch.  I miss talking to her about her sex work advocacy.  I miss admiring someone who also gives me HJs, I really do.  I hope she's OK.  And if her being OK means not seeing me again ... that'll break my heart, but that's OK, too.

Liquid Glass? More Like Liquid Ass!

So I updated the operating system on my iPhone to iOS 26, the really advanced one I think people are calling "Liquid Glass."  I see some changes, but after the update the change I have seen the most is that it is draining the life out of my iPhone battery at an alarming rate.  When I got this phone Easter 2024, I noticed that the battery was so bad (and I think it's a 13) that I have had to charge it almost daily.  Upon the advent of iOS 26, just now I charged my iPhone for the second time today.  And I think it's the second time I've done it since the update.

It can't be the battery.  It went to crap right at the exact same time I updated to the new OS?  I don't think so.  It has to be the operating system.  When I, for example, take my morning break at work in the bathroom, I am scrolling and doomscrolling (even though I am vowing not to do the latter).  Before the update I saw the count decrease on the battery icon too fast for my liking.  Now, that number is in freefall, and all I'm doing is the same thing I've always done.  I checked the maximum battery life on my 13.  It slipped from 90% to 89%.  That can't be causing my battery's current meltdown.

It's not as if I'm going to restore the old OS.  I wouldn't know how if I wanted to.  So now I have to be super conscious of charging my cellphone, or not use it as often.  And now I also have to worry about the two powerbanks I use to charge my phone.  They're getting a vicious workout that might wear them out.