RIP, Smarter Than Staci

This happened about a month ago, and I feel bad I haven't blog posted about it till now.  It keeps slipping my mind, but I haven't given this enough respect, because it truly was an important part of my workday.

So when I started working back there, and I began to stay till 4:30, one of my former co-workers turned me on to KS95's "Smarter Than Staci," a long-time trivia segment of Staci & Hutch, which was the afternoon drivetime show on that radio station.  My ex-co-worker and a few of the others also working in the back always dropped what they were doing to play.  It consisted of two rounds of five questions usually read by Hutch.  The first round was played by a caller; the second usually by Staci or, if she wasn't available, another KS95 personality.  In the segment before, the answer to the first question is given.  Up until the end, the caller was able to ask for a replacement question if they didn't know the answer to one of the questions; Staci and/or the KS95 personality playing in the second round didn't get those privileges.  And even with those twin advantages, a lot of the times Staci won/the caller lost.

Not to toot my own horn, but I got enough of the trivia questions right that I cultivated a reputation for being, um, smart.  (Booksmart, yes, but when the question was about, like, reality show TV, I was completely useless.)  Whenever we got a question right, we would bump fists.  A good day was when we got all the questions right; I called it "running the table."  (Well, I guess everyone who knows the phrase would call it "running the table.")  And when we did not do well -- honestly, I was the one answering most of the questions, right or wrong -- the others picked me up and encouraged me.

It was a fun way to end the day, or, if I was working late, a late afternoon break that was fun.  I always looked forward to it and, frankly, to see if I could flex my intellectual superiority.  And it was a chance to at least talk for a bit with my co-workers, something I don't always do, especially when I'm busy.  "Smarter Than Staci" became a focal point, that thing you always do at work.

Unfortunately, Staci & Hutch was cancelled, and Staci and Hutch were fired from KS95, a month ago.  (I think the radio station has developed a reputation for just outright cutting personalities from their airwaves without warning -- that's not good for KS95.)  I don't know what replaced it -- honestly, I didn't listen to the afternoon drive show beyond trivia -- but I doubt whoever replaced them was going to continue doing trivia at 4:30.  And so, once we learned that that brief respite in the day was done and gone, I haven't listened to the radio we all used to listen to the questions since.  And with that, a little rosy piece of my workday went away.

Oh, well.  At least I don't feel compelled to drop everything and listen to the radio now.  I don't even feel compelled to stick around past 4:30 if I get my work done by then.  Nah, that's just coping; I still feel sad about "Smarter Than Staci" not being a thing anymore.

Time Discrepancies For World Cup Matches On Television And Satellite Radio

Just want to note that of Fox TV, Telemundo and Sirius XM, it appears as though Fox TV is the "closest to live."  Telemundo appears to be between 25-9 seconds behind Fox TV, and Sirius XM is about 59 seconds (no, not a minute, but 59 seconds -- I timed it on my phone!) behind Fox TV ... so, to be a completist, Sirius XM is 30-4 seconds slower than Telemundo.  Watching Games (of any sport) live is something I have a thing for, and if there is more than one way to watch and/or hear a Game, I will listen to the radio or watch the TV network that's "first."

Addendum To: Addendum To: Planning World Cup Viewing Where

And now the un-synching on Telemundo is back.  The video is about a second behind the audio.  And it's not just during the Game; it's happening during the commercials, too.  Is Telemundo aware of this?

It's annoying to hear the thump of a player kicking the ball before you see that ball being kicked.  It's so annoying that, since I'm seeing this for a second broadcast, I have to believe this is something Telemundo cannot fix and therefore I have to hold this against the network.  And if watching Telemundo for World Cup Matches is no longer a priority for me, that creates the possibility that I could, or should, just listen to Games while going through my storage unit.  Another consideration that might alter what I do this week.

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.

I'm A Desperate, Horny, Forgetful Goddamn Lush

So I'm starting this blog post at a quarter to 4 in the morning.  I'm doing what I want to do over an extended holiday -- staying up, surfing the Internet, listening to music (this time terrestrial radio on my boombox).  But my cellphone is plugged into my power bank.  The fuckin' thing is pissing away energy.  I juiced it up to 80% last nigh, then unplugged it like you're supposed to, but then within, oh, half an hour of active doomscrolling, it couldn't even hold its charge for that long.  When it dipped to 76%, I plugged it in again, hoping I would unplug it once it reached 80% again.  But I knew there was a chance I'd be distracted by looking at my laptop, and of course I did.  It soared well past 80%, which I hear is bad for my phone (even though it's already in not-great shape).  At this point, if it's already past 80%, I might as well charge it all the way so I can delay when I need to charge it up again.

That's the forgetfulness I hate about me that reared its ugly head over the past 24 hours.  This past evening I made myself a cocktail, a margarita featuring juice from a lime that I bought over a week ago that may or may not have spoiled.  I drink too much already, so I'm trying to hew to the "1-2-3" rule Dr. Vivek Murthy recommended in his last days as President Biden's Surgeon General.  The problem, I realized while drinking the margarita, is that that was my fourth drink of the day.  I started off with a bloody mary in the morning while watching the English Championship Play-Up Match (won by Hull over Middlesbrough in a 95the Minute Goal), then had a cider at the United FC Match, then had a beer with a Farina Rossa pizza after the Match at a craft brewery.  And this is on the heels of drinking three drinks Friday ... and two drinks Thursday ... and two (or was it three?) drinks Wednesday.  All I can say is, I drink a lot.

Oh, MNUFC has a program where you can drop off pop tops at their waste receptacles.  I have a pile of them, and I was going to bring them with to drop them off, but I forgot to put them into my cargo pants.  I didn't leave them in my cargo pants because, unlike my denim jeans, my cargo pants don't have that fifth "watch pocket," and I didn't like the feeling of those pop tops jangling around inside a big pocket on my cargos and potentially falling out if I'm sleeping in my car and put my legs parallel to the ground.  But all day yesterday I reminded myself to put those pop tops in my pants.  But I didn't.  Oh, and then I took out the pop top on my Wild State cider intending to deposit it ... and I fucking forget to do that, too.  I meant to be rid of these pop tops, and I wound up collecting more.  And even though there will be a MNUFC2 Match at Allianz Field in one Month, the Loons are off because of the World Cup for two Months.  Fuckin' great.

And all the while I've been trying to see if I can arrange a fuck session with ****e.  Earlier last week I texted her; no answer.  I texted her again, saying I am free either today or tomorrow; she just said, "ok."  She gets this way sometimes, minimally responsive and vague.  I asked for clarity while eating pizza and eating beer last night, but she has yet to respond.  I'm horny enough that I want to make booty texts to all of my stripper girlfriends (even though a lot of them are out of town this Memorial Weekend, dammit) so I can get some lovin' this long, lonely weekend.  But ... fuckin' A, ****e is the only one who'll let me inside her, so I gotta give her every chance to get back to me.  But what if she's on one of her episodes where she ghosts me?

This weekend is supposed to be fun.  In many ways, it is.  And I am seeking every which way to find the negative in all of this.  Maybe that's a sign that I should fix myself instead of just rationalizing my decadence and inattention as part of enjoying the long holiday.  Or, maybe I should just say fuck it all.

Songs Playing The Minute Of My Birth

• The Current: Tame Impala, "Dracula"
• Cities 97.1, Evanescence, "Bring Me To Life"
• 104.1 Jack FM: Guns 'N' Roses, "Paradise City"
• 104.7 KCLD: Lewis Capaldi, "Someone You Loved"

NO, NOT HOOTERS!!!

Heard it on Common while working yesterday/Thursday afternoon: Hooters and The Mall Of America is closing for good.  Last day's next Sunday, the 22nd.  Goddammit.

First things first: I have kind of an obsession with stores that have been at the Megamall from the start.  (The store can't move from its original footprint.  Also, it can be renovated, but it might not count in my eyes if it, say, closed down in order to make those renovations.  Length of time is important in this case.)  Hooters was one of them.  With it being gone, what's left?  Macy's?  Nordstrom?  Cinnabon on the 1st floor?  That alpaca place that somehow stays in business?

But I am sad about what I think of as an institution closing down.  That breastaurant made me a man.  I'm joking.  Well, only half-joking.  Well, that half-joking part is perverted as hell, because going there was the first time in my life I felt good about being proud of looking at gorgeous women dressed daringly (or at least how I thought daring was at the time).  I think the first time I went to Hooters I went with my high school buddies.  My friend noticed that our (hot) waitress was stuffing a pack of cigarettes in her fanny pack, and I thought that was the hottest goddamn thing ever.

Hooters MOA overcame a flurry of sexual harassment lawsuits early in its tenure to just be the place teenage boys go to begin to get in touch with their heterosexual desires, and for parents to bring their boys to prevent them from becoming gay.  I went from time to time to ogle, of course, but there are a few servers there that I'm familiar with.  No way are we friends or anything, but I think that we are acquainted enough that whenever we see each other, we smile, and that's great.  My "relationship" with Hooters was cemented over the past several years once I decided to buy the Hooters calendar every year and, if possible, get it autographed.  It was nice to have the sexiest Hooters girls sign.  I even took the calendar to other parts of the country if I were vacationing so I could have other Hooters girls in other branches sign it.  And, of course, I came back ... well, not because of the food per se, but for the coupons that came with the calendar.  If I spend $15 when I visit this month, I get a free dessert.

I planned on going Thursday to get that free dessert, and to watch the actual start of March Madness, but now I must go.  And I probably will go that Sunday too, its final day.  Thirty-three years, man, a third of a century, and they said it wasn't making enough money.  I will miss the fuck out of that place.

You know, come to think of it ... I know the perfect place to replace Hooters -- Twin Peaks.  Same concept, they're growing (the company, not my dick), and even though the closest stores are in Fargo and Omaha, it might be time to bring one to the Twin Cities.  And who knows, maybe those Twin Peaks girls will do things beyond my wildest dreams.  No, probably not.  But a lonely hetero perv can dream, and Hooters allowed me to do that.  RIP, Hooters Megamall.

Fucking Hate Driving In The Snow

It may be recency bias, or it might be me getting old.  But I swear, driving yesterday/Monday morning was the most treacherous drive I've ever had.  I don't exactly know how it works since temperatures all day were below freezing, but the snow that fell on Sunday (and by the way, I don't think we got more than four inches; the problem was the wind was swirling it all around) melted and then froze, so what we got was more akin to ice than snow.

That meant we had to be really, really careful when driving, and there were a couple occasions (taking a right turn, stopped at an intersection) that I couldn't get going.  Worse off is the feeling when I was driving at, oh, 40 or 55 miles an hour that I didn't have complete control of the car.  It takes me back to when I was driving to a Wild Game in the middle of a snowstorm in my old car for work with the radio station; I tried to merge and actually spun a couple times and, thank God, rested right in the left shoulder, facing in the correct direction, without hitting anything.  But that loss of control always stayed with me, and I felt it a few times when driving to and from work yesterday/Monday.

Will the roads get better?  I want to say that road crews getting another day of it will finally make driving better.  But the problem is there are clippers coming in both this/Tuesday and tomorrow/Wednesday morning.  It shouldn't drop more than an inch in either case, but could it be enough to make driving bad again?  I don't need that shit.  I fucking hate driving in the snow.

Wowee.  I was feeling sluggish all day at work yesterday/Thursday, even though (or maybe because) I took a two-hour nap Wednesday evening (and I woke up just before the start of The Amazing Race, thank goodness).  Maybe my body was telling me something I should have heard.

I was, um, having some fun after work, so I didn't come home till about 8:30 last/Thursday night.  I promptly changed clothes, watched some Law & Order: Organized Crime, napped, woke up to hear the radio post-Game of Bengals-Steelers, got up to turn off the radio, crept back under my sheets ... then woke up to my alarm just now at 10 this morning.  It's possible, maybe probable, that I slept for 11, maybe 11 1/2 hours last night.  I guess my body really, really needed a lot of uninterrupted sleep.  And if not for my alarm, I think I could have slept even more.  I'm still feeling sort of groggy, to be honest.

Well, time to work the Game.  It's going to be a long one; shouldn't come back until 2 in the morning.  Groggy though I may be, this was the perfect day to get a lot of sleep.

Oh, It's On TV.

So there was that epic, 15-Inning, winner-take-all Game 5 American League Division Series Friday night, where Seattle finally outlasted Detroit.  I got home from the escape room (successfully, I want to add) and eating late with my sister, and I was scrolling through when I saw that the Game, which began around 7, was still going on.  I think this was around 11 p.m, and there's nothing like extra innings in playoff baseball, so I hurriedly turned on my satellite radio to hear the rest of the Game.

Hell of a Game.  Great ending.  I think I caught the last three Innings (so, since the 12th?), and both teams had ample chances to break through and score, but the Pitching and Defense came through.  And I don't mind listening to sports on the radio, don't get me wrong.  But after the Game was over and I was scrolling through social media again (aside: I have strayed from my vow to get off social media ... and frankly, I don't know if I have the willpower to stay away), I saw a tweet or a skeet that Fox signed off at around 12:48 a.m.  Fox has TV rights for the American League side of the playoffs ... and that's when I remembered that Fox/Channel 9 was showing the Game.  I could have just turned on the TV instead of my satellite radio.

How did I get used to thinking a sports Game I want to keep up with won't be on broadcast television?  Actually, now that I think about it, most Games aren't on broadcast TV.  Oh, well.

I Should Try Getting Off Of Social Media

Well, ever since the Jynx lost in Game 2 on Tuesday I was dreading the worst.  And I knew that if I came across bad news, I would do so while scrolling through Twitter or Bluesky.  So I did my best to stay off of them.  I think I've blog posted before that the urge to look was strong, so strong that I think I'm addicted to it.  But, I did.

And you know what?  I didn't feel bad.  The feeling that I was missing out on something was still there, believe me.  But that subsided since I started my self-ban.  Moreover, I was able to concentrate more on watching TV.  I have complained about missing key plays (such as Goals in soccer) because I would always take even a short lull in play to pick up my phone and start looking.  Yesterday/Sunday, knowing I wanted to say away from all things Jynx, I just curled up in my bed and watched the NFL ... well, when I wasn't passed out and taking naps.  Those are good ways to note doomscroll, too.  But all day I went without checking social media, and I felt alright.

Alas, since I do The Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey, at some point I had to learn about what happened.  I was going to wait till today/Monday to hear any montage from The Common Man Progrum to tell me.  When I reached for my phone to see how charged it was, a notification from The Athletic app told me what I had feared, indeed the worst-case scenario: Minnesota indeed lost Games 3 and 4 and were summarily eliminated from the WNBA Playoffs.  My full autopsy on this abortion of a season will go up on Tuesday, but suffice it to say, this is one of the all-time chokejobs in Minnesota sports history.

With that seal broken, I declared the self-ban broken, and I went back on Twitter and Bluesky again.  This time I knew full well that not only did I want to see a reason as to how the Jynx fucked up this championship run, I wanted to see tweets and skeets reflecting my hate of this failure of a team -- "Yeah, anonymous person whom I don't even know could be a Russian bot -- insult all of those worthless players!  You dumb motherfuckers fucking SUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!!!"  And then I saw the litany of tweets and skeets about what Trump did and said, and all the ICE raids happening in the country, and all the rude and mean things Republicans said and did over the weekend ... and then I remember that whenever I go on social media, I get very upset and angry.  In fact, social media is engineered to get you upset and angry.  And then I remembered how I felt since Tuesday, when I just didn't go on social media.  Sure, the urge to see what I was missing out was there.  But I was a hell of a lot less upset and angry.  And now, come to think of it, being clued into what I'm missing out on isn't worth the rage that boils inside me whenever I scroll.

I liked how I felt when I wasn't constantly going through social media.  And maybe this will cost me being a more attuned sports fan and American citizen, but I don't know if I want to do it anymore.  Maybe these past few days of being clueless is actually beneficial to my soul ... and maybe I should stay off of it, permanently, for my health and mental well-being.

Have I Said Already I'm Addicted To My Phone?

So right now I am avoiding social media like the plague.  I'm doing that because I don't want to hear the score of the Lynx Game from yesterday/Sunday afternoon.  I have this bad, bad feeling that they lost at home to Phoenix, and I don't want to hear bad news right now, especially since both the Vikings and the Twins won yesterday/Sunday afternoon.

I have not watched the sports portion of the news (haven't in a while, actually), but that's easily avoidable.  What is hard to avoid is picking up my phone.  That's how I get my news and my sports scores -- Yahoo! Sports, Apple News, Bluesky and Twitter.  I may have said this before, but it is now instinctive for me to just pick up my phone, at all times of the day and night and for any situation, and look.  I've become an addict, and I probably am one of hundreds of millions.

The only way for me to not do that is if I assiduously want to avoid inadvertently looking at something ... such as a sports score.  Damn, that is hard to do.  I was watching the Chiefs-Giants SNF Game, and I know that when there are stoppages in play, I would just pick up my phone and start scrolling.  I was able to resist, but the pull was undeniable, even if I knew that that was the most surefire way I would avoid knowing if the Lynx lost.  One upside to that is that I paid attention to the football Game, and I want to go back to doing that instead of mindlessly looking through my cellphone.  As hard as it is to break away, knowing there is a boogeyman if I fall into temptation is a hell of a way to stay away from my cell.

Now, at some point I have to learn about the Lynx Game, if only because I have The Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey to do tomorrow/Tuesday night.  But I think it's best for me to learn about it during The Common Man Progrum during work.  That way, if I found out they lost, I'll be distracted by work.  (Have I said the same thing on here before when it came to Timberwolves playoff Games?)  And hey, if I learn that the Lynx won, the day at work is that much brighter!

But I'll wait till then.  And I will hope to Buddha I avoid learning the news through my phone before then.

Don't Send A Man To Do A Woman's Job

Got home from last night's U. S. Open Cup Semifinal, where the Loons gave up the goddamn motherfucking Game-winning Goal to Austin in the goddamn motherfucking final Minute in Extra Time.  They had home-pitch advantage through the Final two Weeks from now, but like every goddamn motherfucking Minnesota sports team, they snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.  Oh, and the Twinks got beat by the Yankees.  Again.

This was about to be a horrific local sports night, compounded when I heard on the radio on my way home that the Lynx were trailing after three Quarters by 14 Points at Golden State.  But imagine my surprise when, before I hit the shower, I checked my phone again and saw that the Lynx beat the Valkyries, 75-74!!!  I was about get real down on them, but shit, those women don't get rattled a lot!  Maybe they will win it all after all.  They're the only team to have swept their First Round series; every other series is going the maximum three Games, being played either tonight or tomorrow night.  The rest the Lynx get, and that their upcoming opponent won't get, should play a big factor in the Semifinal.

And once again, the Lynx act like queens while the male sports teams in town act like a bunch of fuckin' chumps.  Never, ever send a man to do a woman's job.

Can't Face It, Too Painful

From time to time, I am sent into the laboratory to cut open packages and reach into specimens that have leaked urine.  I have spoken from time to time of how those instances of trauma have shaped me to being the cynical, defeated creature I am.  (Seriously, it's not normal to reach into anything and touch piss.)  But there is one saving grace, however indirect it may be, it's that it spares me from listening to The Stephanie Miller Show on SiriusXM.

Don't get me wrong -- if I'm at my desk, I listen to it.  I find it entertaining and, of course, informative.  OK, to be fair, it's informative in the sense that the news is filtered and slanted in a way that I like, and is therefore digestible.  However, since Trump and the Republicans once again cheated to win last year's elections (don't fucking argue with me, they cheated and you MAGAts know it), the news, despite going to media that conveys that news in a way where I don't scream in horror, has been universally infuriating and depressing.  So much so that, in keeping with advice in the wake of evil cheating to win back in November, I have practiced self-care.  And that means that I no longer exclusively tune in three hours every morning to listen to Stephanie Miller.  My blood pressure explodes whenever I hear the next illegal, immoral thing this administration does.  I know I need to keep up with what's going on, but if I do so I will go insane, and my health and sanity will suffer.

So, from time to time, I don't listen to political radio.  I admit that, when I fire up SiriusXM on my work computer, I look to see if there's a song playing on another radio station that I like, and if I do I will listen to that before I eventually mosey on over to SiriusXM Progress.  And, on days where I am cutting, I take some solace in not having the opportunity to listen to Miller and potentially get real pissed off over what I hear over the course of the show.  It may be sad that I have to disengage in order to keep peace in my life.  It kind of feels like the bad guys are winning when I do that.  But I have to.  And besides, there are usually four other mornings during the workweek where I am informed about what deplorable BS Republicans are pulling that day.  I still keep up.

The Dreaded Noontime Energy Dip

Took a lengthy nap in the evening, again.  Am awake as fuck overnight, again.  Which means one thing, again: Around noon or so I will be so, so tired that I am afraid I will fall asleep at my desk.  This has become a huge problem the last couple weeks or so, and I don't know what exactly happened that has started this.  But I haven't been this (for lack of a better word) dangerously drowsy for any part of my workday in a long time, ever since I was a temp for Radisson and fell asleep at my desk during the afternoon.

I can feel it coming, and frankly, it scares me.  I get so tired I can barely function.  I forget how to do things.  I feel this mania build up in my body that I can't shake.  Yesterday at work, I got up and stood for a few minutes to get my mind away from work in an attempt to wake up.  That tore me away from listening to the England-Netherlands Women's EUROS Match, and I didn't want to tear myself away from listening to a second of that tournament, but I absolutely had to.  I didn't think I was going to fall asleep; I felt like I was about to die.

And, seeing how wide-awake I am right now, this is going to happen again today, dammit.

Doing The Triple? Uh, Nah

It's never a good thing to be woken up by someone mowing the lawn just past 9 on a Sunday morning.  It really sucks when, after considering how close the sound of the mower is, you realize that it's your own Father who woke you up.  He is on his own timeline.  That gives me an excuse to be on my own timeline.

Had a plan of doing a soccer triple today/Sunday: The Women's EUROS Doubleheader, Norway-Finland followed by Switzerland-Iceland, then the Gold Cup Final between the U. S. and Mexico.  The first Women's EUROS Match began at 11; the second Women's EUROS Match begins at 2, and the Gold Cup tonight is at 6.  The problem, and I did not anticipate this, is that none of the soccer pubs I go to were going to be open before 11.  There were some that opened right at 11, but my OCD brain decided that wasn't good enough because that would mean that they wouldn't be obligated to open until 11, so I would theoretically wait until they opened their doors right at that time, so by the time I sit down, I would've missed the kickoff which, because these are Europeans, would start right at the top of the hour, if not close to it.  Beyond that, the pub I go to may not have turned on the TVs yet, or turned to the right channel, or turned up the sound yet.  I could be at my seat before kickoff and still miss it because the pub wasn't ready.

Add to all this that this tripleheader is kind of onerous.  There's a manageable gap of an hour between the EUROS Games, which is fine, but then the gap between the end of the second Game and the Gold Cup Final is two hours.  I would probably go out and eat somewhere, but my initial plan was to watch one Women's EUROS Match at one pub in downtown Minneapolis, walk down to another pub to watch the second Match, possibly go to a coffeeshop or Culver's inbetween, then have a beer at a third place in Midway for U. S.-Mexico.  Not only is that a long time with a car trip between the cities, but that would be a lot of food I'm eating.  It was going to be a laborious soccer-loving Day as is, and I don't know if I wanted to go through all that if (and again, I have OCD) I am going to miss the first very start of the first Match.  It's all ruined if I miss the very first kickoff.

So, I decided to punt.  I'm staying in to listen to Norway-Finland on SiriusXM (without eating at home to save my stomach; I'm telling my parents I am hanging out with a friend all day and evening), then I will leave straight for St. Paul for Switzerland-Iceland.  Hopefully I will have enough in my stomach to go somewhere to eat/drink something, then I'll have a beer or a cider and hopefully see the States come out victorious tonight.

Hopefully, I can stay up for all this since I was woken up by My Father mowing the lawn this morning.

In Another Example Of How Soccer Rules My Life ...

There are many special soccer competitions happening over the summer.  You may have heard of the Gold Cup, the biannual competition between countries in North and Central America.  (The Semifinals were held last/Wednesday night; the United States and Mexico will, once again, meet for continental supremacy Sunday.)  You may have also heard of the Club World Cup, where teams in domestic leagues meet up in a global tournament (being held in the U. S., like the Gold Cup) to see which club team in the world is the best.  (That's not really the case since there are only 32 teams and many of them were invited, so how can you determine which one is the best?)

But for my money, the summertime soccer competition I am most keen on is the Women's European Championship, colloquially known as the Women's EUROS.  That tourney began yesterday/Wednesday afternoon and will last throughout July.  I think it has better teams than the Gold Cup and is more important than the Club World Cup, which isn't as old as the Women's EUROS.  European women's soccer is getting really good these days, and there are several countries that could win this tournament.  I loved watching three Years ago and four Years before that, so I'm looking forward to watching Women's EUROS 2025 slavishly.

Thus, my waking days will be spent, yes, on soccer.  There will be group stage Matches for the Women's EUROS for the next dozen Days that began yesterday/Wednesday.  Then there will be Games as the tournament reaches the knockout stage, culminating in the Final Sunday, July 27.  I will try and listen to as many Matches on satellite radio while I'm at work.  If I'm at home and the Match is on over-the-air TV, I will turn on Channel 9/Fox.  And for a few Games, including the Final, I will go out to a soccer pub to watch.

Now, add that to the Gold Cup Final on Sunday, possibly the Club World Cup Final (I hear that the gameday venues have been atrocious due to low attendance and dangerous weather, but the Games themselves have been great), and MNUFC playing (including on back-to-back Days Monday and Tuesday), and my month of July will be held hostage by soccer.  I will enjoy that, for the most part.  But I cannot guarantee I won't collapse in exhaustion at some point.  Heck, I wanted to watch the Mexico-Honduras Gold Cup Semi last/Wednesday night on Univision.  I turned the TV on, but I was so tired I slept from just before kickoff till about the last 20 Minutes of the Match.  There might be more of that where that came from if I'm not careful.

The House Is Falling Apart

My world and the world is ending (although they caught the assassin, thank the gods above), and now, the house is falling apart.  I heard things before, literally, but just now I finally paid close attention and isolated just what is going on.

I finally realized that the floorboards of the hallway just between my bedroom and kitchen is making a lot, and I mean a lot, of noise.  I kind of thought those creaks were beats coming from my satellite radio, which I cast on to the big TV in the dining room.  But I realized that I heard them when I was walking from my bedroom to my kitchen.  I then started pressing down on those floorboards, and they were creaking like mad.  Now that I actually "hear" them, it's kind of scary what is going on now: I walk, just normal, over those floorboards, they make a slight by audible "creak" -- and after that I hear one or two loud ... well, let's just say knocks, and they are pretty loud.  I don't exactly know what's going on, but I suspect something there is giving way.

It's a hell of a thing to tell my parents when they come back, but I think I have to tell them.  Maybe it's been this bad for a long time and we just didn't realize it, but now that I have focused on it, it's something I have to raise with my folks.

My Procrastination Got Me Into Bad Luck (Again) ...

... and it has to do with trimming my nails.  I was going to do it around 10:20, after the weather report, but I stuck around listening to Overtime of Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final on satellite radio, that got over around 11, I went to the bathroom to take a shower but scrolled through my phone.

I take long showers, but sometimes I'm amazed at how long they are.  I don't feel as though they are long because at some point it just becomes boring, you know?  And yet I went out to the bedroom to check the time: It was 11:26, just before Garbage was going to be on Kimmel, and I wanted to see that.  I'm glad I caught the band's performance, but I didn't think I was doomscrolling and in the shower that long ... and then I remembered that I say that to myself a lot.

And then I still have to trim my nails.  I need to do that all before midnight because you should be cutting them on Wednesdays because it's bad luck.  But I was sticking around to see the monologue on After Midnight.  I thought I still had time to cut my nails, but like with showering, I consistently underestimate the time I take to do them.  I thought I had time to do my nails, hands and feet, before midnight.  But I don't know.  See, I got done with my toenails, went to the bedroom and started filing while looking at the commercials.  I then realized I should take a look at my phone to see if I made it before the midnight deadline, and it said 12:02.  Shit.  I regret that I didn't immediately look at my phone once I made it to my bedroom.  Actually, I should've brought my cellphone with me to the bathroom to check the time as I was trimming my nails.  Now, I'm trying to backdate how much ad time I saw once I got into the bathroom, then thinking how many seconds I took in the bathroom between finishing my nail cutting and getting to my bedroom, and even though I don't really know, I think I crossed midnight and I was still cutting them, goddammit.

Now, I'll be damned with bad luck, and all because I couldn't get my ass going in time.  Hate myself right now.

Sorry To Miss You Again, Mr. Cave

Several years ago I signed up for The Red Hand Files, a Q&A mailing list from musician Nick Cave.  The deal is you can ask him anything and, if he wants to answer, he will e-mail everyone on the list his response.  I don't know how I got wind of it and how I decided to sign up, but I'm glad I did.  It is one of the few e-mails I actually read.  His answers have always been profound and sometimes humorous.

I cannot say I'm a huge fan of his music.  When I worked at the radio station, I picked up a free copy of The Boatman's Call, his 1997 album with his longtime band, The Bad Seeds, laying on a table in the break room.  I heard of the guy, but never his work, but I like the album a lot.  I also ushered his show in downtown Minneapolis; his closing song at his concert, "Saint Huck," is a banger.

My appeal for his work hasn't really grown beyond that.  So, I guess I'm more of a fan of his advice column, so to speak, than his music.  But, because of that, I've wanted to go to his concerts, but I continue to miss him.  His previous tour, I want to say, was just after the pandemic, and either I got the heebie-jeebies or I just forgot his was coming over, I missed his show then.  He's back now.  I mean, like, tonight.  But tonight is also the last night my parents are here, and I don't think it's, well, right that I just go out the last night before I leave.

I have one exception, possibly.  We're eating dinner at senior's time, so like, 4.  I am going to check prices on scalper sites.  I checked last night, and there were a couple that was well below face value.  If they are still around by the time I check after I eat ... maybe I'll go.  But it's a late show, and it's a Sunday, and hey, my parents are home, plus I've been able to stay inside all day even though it's a glorious day outside, and I spent $100 to eat at the speakeasy on Friday, so maybe I won't go anyway.  But maybe I will.  Shit, I don't know myself.  Sorry, Mr. Cave.