My Plan Was. ...

 ... to do all the chores I wanted to do between waking up today/Saturday and before the Houston-Los Angeles Chargers Wild Card NFL Playoff Game -- namely send off a piece of mail for Mother, dropping off metal drip pans at a recycling center close by, placing the old eggs my parents left for me in a compost bin at a park in Minneapolis, go grocery shopping, get a haircut, then eat Taco Bell (OK, this is not a chore) -- and have enough time to take a nap before the Game.

Nope, didn't happen.  I didn't leave the house till 11:30, which is about an hour after my ambitious dream time of leaving at 10:30, so that hampered me.  Also didn't help that I chose to stay and wait 45 minutes to get my haircut, but I really wanted to do it today.  Finally, I did stay up till around 5:30 this morning, so when my body got tired shortly after the start of the Game, it shut me down.  I think I woke up some time in the Second Quarter, when the Texans took a lead they never relinquished, but I woke up a bit past 7, missing the entire Game.  I guess I can comfort myself in knowing Houston routed the Chargers (which is a surprise, as was Justin Herbert throwing four Interceptions), so the Game would've been boring to stay up for.  But I wanted to stay up for it, and I didn't.  Hrmph.

I Don't Know If I Trust Him Now

I couldn't get myself to go to bed at a decent time last/Friday night because I was freaking myself out over whether or not getting the timing chain fixed, and fixed at the mechanic I brought my car to, was the right thing to do.

See, I've done my own research online -- yeah, yeah, so take this all with a mound of salt -- and I am seeing so much information that points me away from thinking that the reason my check engine light is on is because the timing chain and its attendant parts are wearing down.  Even more worrying (at least to me): What I have looked at, combined with what the mechanic keeps saying, has made me begin to doubt he knows what is going on with my vehicle.

Two things in particular are questions in my mind.  First, the mechanic is not only going to rip apart my engine to replace the timing chain (or have his employees do so), he told me he was going to give the car yet another oil change, one month after changing it when the indicator lights tripped on the first time.  He noted that the oil was black when he thinks it shouldn't be that soon after an oil change.  But I have read online a few people and sites who say that the oil is supposed to turn black that soon after an oil change because it is synthetic (and when he changed the oil around the holiday he said he put in synthetic oil) and the blackness comes from the oil sopping up all the impurities that are in the engine.  In other words, the oil turning black is a good thing, and an indicator that it is working.  And he wants to change it, an presumably charge me for another oil change.

The second source of doubt is simpler but more, well, shocking: He says he will replace the timing chain, but not the water pump.  I'm no mechanic, but I remember having timing belts changed on my old car twice -- with the amount of money I had to spend, I couldn't forget if I tried -- and I got pissed that they changed the water pumps too.  I now understand why they do that as a matter of routine: As long as the engine is undergoing such major repair, and as long as the mechanics are working in that area, you might as well change the water pump.  But he says he won't do it unless the water pump is leaking.  He says what the chain does and what the pump does are two separate issues.  Bullshit.  I keep researching and no one fucking says that.  They're totally dependent on each other.  That's an intrinsic relationship all combustion engines have.  Besides, switching it out now saves me money because mechanics -- either this one or some other one -- don't have to expend the labor of taking out my engine twice.  And at over 100,000 miles the water pump is going to leak.  I am scared as hell to see a red overheating light on my dashboard, and that is what this mechanic chooses to make me risk by not doing the conventional thing and just fucking replacing the pump.

I really don't like this.  I hate shelling out two grand already, and now this maverick mechanic wants to buck conventional wisdom and not repair things properly.  And, again, I'm not totally sure he knows what's wrong with my car.  But he has my car in his garage, and thus my balls in a sling.  All I've got is my wrath if he and his boys fuck this up, either by misdiagnosing the problem or screwing up the fix.

This shit is making me want to find a full-time job working from home.

I touched on this last blog post, but I'll expound on it further.  Yesterday/Thursday morning was the third day I have woken up before my alarm went off since Sunday, when Daylight Saving Time ended.  I think my body clock is awakened by the sky lightening at around 6:30 a.m.

But here I am blog posted at 2 when I have to adjust my work schedule because I am in The Main Department today/Friday.  I hope I get enough rest on four hours of sleep.  I also wonder if I will magically wake up at 5:30 because my body has a sense of humor.

More Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes At Work (Which Is A Change Back To What It Was)

Weirdest thing at work on Wednesday.  My boss, who I insist is still a good boss because he's a good listener but still has the ability to be brusque when he decides to be, came storming in and going up to me while working (thank goodness he did when he caught me actually working and not looking at the Internet) and said that he is changing the hours in The Fourth Department back an hour starting immediately.  The lab, from which The Fourth Department gets its work, is going through such a chronic state of staffing shortages (not just long-term but also through people calling in sick every day, apparently) that the people who do show up are pulling double duty, and so it appears as if the work that involves me will be set aside till later in the day, thus necessitating (maybe) me shifting my, uh, shift down an hour.

I was blindsided by the suddenness of the move.  I'm glad the move wasn't immediate for me because I was off Thursday and Friday.  But blog posting about this right now actually is one of the reasons why I should be happy that The Fourth Department is going back to its original hours: I can stay up.  I have mentioned many times here (I think) that waking up at 7 rather than 6 makes a world of difference.  So, how about sleeping in yet another hour?  That makes going to bed around my usual time of 2:30 or 3 in the morning that much more palatable.  And besides, more often than not I am staying at work till 5:30 anyway; the "new" hours won't make that much of a difference for me.

However, coming in later will, by necessity, mean that I will leave later.  And since the work appears to be back to its "plus" workload, I will be staying after eight hours most days.  If I keep myself to just spending an extra two hours at work (meaning ten hours total), I will get out of work at 7:30.  That's pretty damn late, and if there is a movie or a United FC Match I want to go to, I either am SOL or I just have to decide to leave work for another day, or for my supervisor to do if I am not working in The Fourth Department the next day.  I may need to be careful what I wish for.

For now, and maybe even for only this week, I will do 9-5:30.  But I might propose something else.  Monday is the busiest day because I am dealing with work that has been backed up since Saturday.  Regardless if I come in at 9 or 8, nearly all of the work will be waiting for me on Mondays.  I don't think I will be wanting for work if I stay at 8-4:30 throughout the week, to be frank, but I can show my boss all the e-mails and forms that piled up on me over the weekend that cause me to stay very late on Mondays.  I may confuse myself if I suggest a schedule of 8-4:30 on Mondays and 9-5:30 the rest of the week, but the workflow from here on out might be conducive to it.

---

So I said that The Fourth Department is going back to its original hours.  I thought I blog posted about this before when I started working in The Fourth Department almost exactly two years ago, but when the person I replaced left, he was working 9-5:30.  And if I didn't write about it then, my boss told me around that time that he was shifting the hours up an hour, to 8-4:30.  And I remember not liking that change, and I think I told my boss that I didn't like that change.  Well, look at me, not liking change again even though it's changing back to 9-5:30!

It's clear that I doth protest too much.  Well, I think at the time the change was decided, and in fact whenever I am told that anything is going to change, I'm going to complain about it.  I'm a creature of habit, and I want my expectations to be reinforced unless it's obvious a change for the better needs to be made.  For The Fourth Department, all I knew two years ago was the hours were 9-5:30, and the shift up appeared to be arbitrary.  I thought it was going to be a drag getting up and going in to work an hour earlier than I had anticipated.  But honestly, I haven't thought about my bitching for the last two years, so it looks as though I adjusted just fine.

And so, just like with that, it appears likely that I will adjust to the new/old hours just fine after an initial eruption of surliness.  I foresee conflicts because the lateness I also anticipate will seriously eat into a good chunk of the evening, and there are many fun things I know I will want to do that start at 7 or 7:30.  (Why that didn't worry me when I thought my hours were going to be 9-5:30 I don't know, even though it's possible I didn't know I would be staying late most days in The Fourth Department when I started working that position.)  Maybe I can ask my boss if I can come in one day an hour early; I've done that before.  And maybe he'll be OK with Mondays 8-4:30.  Anyways, it's another change that I will eventually get used to, to the point where, if the hours change again, I'll go, "Why do we have to change?  I hate change!"

I Wanna Be A Women's World Cup-Watching Warrior!!!

The uniqueness of this Women's World Cup is that because it's being held in Australia and New Zealand, the Matches are being played overnight.  There has been a couple Matches that started at 9 Central time (including the first two Matches the United States played), and Argentina and South Africa kicked off at 7, gloriously.  But most of the Matches so far have kicked off at 2:30 and 5 in the morning, with some midnight and 8 a.m. kickoffs sprinkled in there.

Don't know when exactly I became a whore for soccer, especially for global and continental tournaments, but I am.  And now that the Women's World Cup has gotten to the final Group Stage Matches where teams are either getting into the Knockout Round or not, it's getting real interesting.  And I want to see it, even if they start overnight.

The last Games in Group A have already happened: They kicked off yesterday/Sunday morning at 2:30 a.m.  Two more Groups finish with their Games at 2 (they're playing right as I am typing this up) and 5 this/Monday morning.  Tuesday's Group-enders are at 2 (the U. S. plays Portugal) and 6, Wednesday's are 2 and 5, and Thursday has the last pair of Matches for Group H that kick off at 5.

And I'm thinking: Why don't I go out somewhere and watch them?  I work this week at The Fourth Department, so I have to report at 8.  I could find a bar that it'll be open early enough.  The 6 o'clock Matches aren't too taxing; I wake up at 5, maybe cut out just before the Matches end and get to work on time.  And I can watch all of the 5 o'clock Matches without leaving early.  I'll have to find a bar.  The Black Hart said they wouldn't be open for Group Matches if they are on at odd times and the Match doesn't involve the U.S., but they will be open later this morning for Canada-Australia (and also, presumably, Nigeria-Ireland).  So, if they stay open for other Matches this week, why not?  I mean, YOLO, right?  I did watch all four Men's World Cup Matches at the Black Hart that one day, and I am pretty damn proud of myself.

Well, here are the downsides:

• The Black Hart might not be open;
• While I could get up early for the 5 and 6 o'clock Matches, I am saying up for the 2 o'clock Matches.  I can stay up past 2, no problem.  But can I stay up all night, watch Doubleheaders, then go to work?  Probably not.  And I nor my body are keen on going to bed early;
• I could fall asleep at work.  I have to tell you all that I haven't gotten any "re-education" at work yet for staying late in The Fourth Department.  I was able to get out basically after eight hours Thursday and Friday, so I hope that forestalls any intervention planned by my boss.  But I feel as though I am still in a tenuous position, and if he catches me slumped over my keyboard because I woke up at 4 in the morning to watch some soccer, I'm afraid he'll be all up in my business until I work only 40 hours a week.
• And, finally, there are my parents.  If they weren't here, I would probably do it, at least for one morning.  But I don't want to wake up and sneak out at 4:30 or 5:30 a.m., then have them ask why I am leaving so early for work.

So, although I want to be a Women's World Cup-watching warrior, it probably won't happen.  Oh, well.

My Weekend Feels Busy

Today/Saturday I am pulling a tripleheader of baseball at U. S. Bank Stadium.  I should enjoy it.  But I plan on parking on the other side of downtown and using the light rail.  I haven't used it since I got home from vacation in Hawai'i, so I'm scared that I won't build enough time to use it and get to the Games on time.  Plus, I am kind of paranoid about safety.

And then tomorrow/Sunday not only did I volunteer to fill in for work (starting at 6:30 a.m. -- yuck), but after that -- right after that -- I plan on going to the Big Ten Women's Tournament Championship Game.  I hope I make it on time.  I hope I am able to stay awake during the basketball Game.  Shoot, I hope I can stay awake watching not one, not two, but three baseball Games today.

My weekend is just sports, sports, sports, and yet it feels like a chore.  It shouldn't feel that way -- I love sports -- but I am dedicating lots of time to sports.  I hope I enjoy the Games more when I'm watching them than when I am anticipating going to them, which is what I am doing right now.

Not Crashing

It's frightening to not be tired this time of night when, for the past month or so, I've been dead tired to the point of immediately falling asleep once I decide to hit the hay.  I don't know why I feel this way right now.  I only got about 5 1/2 hours of sleep last night, I don't think I fell asleep for lunch, and I didn't take a nap at all once I got home.  In fact, I just drank a margarita.  I have not built up enough tolerance to withstand one cocktail, so I should be all tuckered out, but I'm not.  And that frightens me because it's going to be cold tomorrow morning when I venture off to work, and who knows how good or bad the roads are going to be.  I need to be as rested as I can, and that can only start if I sleep, and I'm in no mood to go to bed right now.  In fact, I'm energized as all get-out.  I'm quietly freaking out right now.

Dangerous, Delirious Drowsiness

Wednesday night I stayed up way later than I should have for someone who was going to go into work early to take advantage of overtime the next workday.  I could have stayed later Thursday afternoon instead of going in early Thursday morning, but I arranged a tele-health session with my therapist just after work, so yesterday/Thursday I started my day a lot earlier than usual.  I didn't adjust my sleep schedule because I was too busy surfing the Internet.

Nevertheless, I had a vivid nightmare that usually results in me being fully rested and wide awake after I wake up from it.  Don't remember the full story of it, but I remember hearing my late Grandmother bang on my bedroom door telling me to open the door and let her in, but I could not move.  (I get frequent nightmares where I can't move; that must mean something.)  It was so real to me that I swear that I lifted my head and looked at my bedroom door as I woke up.

Shortly thereafter I checked the time on my watch: 3 a.m.  I went to bed around 1:30 in the morning.  I conked back off until my alarm went off at 4, at which point I hit the snooze button for, I think, a whole hour.  But I eventually got out of the house and, after making a pit stop at at gas station for food and drink, I think I got to work a bit before 5:30.

And I was great, really refreshed.  Like I said, a nightmare like that usually means I'm up and at 'em, no matter how many hours I slept.  But, around 9 ... damn, I got tired.  Like, really tired.  I have been hard-to-close-my-eyes drowsy at work many times before, but yesterday it felt ... different, like my body is telling me, "No, man -- you have to go to sleep now."  I usually get real tired after a short period of sleep at around 10, not 9, which kind of freaks me out.  But I powered through and got to lunch, where I slept a very hard sleep for, I want to say, 25 minutes.

Whenever I go unconscious for lunch, I am spry for the rest of the day, and I was.  But my body just crashed, again, after work.  We got out late because we are short-staffed, so I was rushing to get home in time for my 4 o'clock call with my psychotherapist.  Got home late, and then I spent five minutes trying to find my iPhone headphones (and couldn't; that's a blog post there).  I eventually called him and put him on speakerphone, but over the course of the call, I got so, so tired that I had to end the call early, after about 40 minutes, just so I could rest my eyes before I went back out to see the U. soccer Match at 6 and, if I had time, get lottery tickets before getting out to Robbie Stadium.

It was freaky.  During the middle of my phone call, just before I started to crash, I reached for peanuts and grabbed a couple slices of cheese in the fridge.  I remember being hungry, and I remember wanting to eat.  But looking back, eating those peanuts and cheese slices seems like a reflex, like I wasn't totally conscious through that whole process.  I think I was too tired to know 100% what I was doing.  And that scares me.  I may not have been, uh, "present" at all yesterday.  Moreover, after that call, I set my alarm for, I think, eight minutes, and I was able to shut my eyes and immediately conk off, and I snapped to eight minutes later.  I was totally out.  Totally.

But that quick nap helped me (I think) get to the gas station and the Match and then Caffetto, where I stayed for a few hours to catch up on paperwork.  I got home and drank a couple drinks, too, but I finally rested at around 2:30 in the morning.  Set my alarm for 10:30; if I hadn't done that, I'd still be asleep.  But I think I'm OK now.  I don't think I'll be dangerously, deliriously drowsy today.

Addendum To: So Fucking Tired

Got home from the Wild Game (thankfully they won, and handily -- I'll credit my presence), ate a late-night snack, and am washing my cum towel.  I'm still up, and I plan on waking up at 4:30 because overtime's available and I think I'm going to go My Favorite Stripclub (Cover Edition) after work to see my ATF again, if she's working then.

So, why am I still up?  Well, to make sure I blog post this, for one thing.  For another: I have to look up whether I can recycle paper bags.  Because I've eaten a lot of fast food take-out, the house is literally crawling with paper bags.  I assume that I can recycle them because it's, you know, paper.  But my city has a recycling guide that I don't entirely have the grasp of.  They get pretty specific about what you can and cannot recycle, and yet there are whole categories of things that they don't talk about it -- such as paper bags.  There is a search box whereby you can put in an item to see whether or not the city will recycle it, but when I put in "paper bags," it doesn't come up.  And that's weird, because everybody uses paper bags.

Hell with it -- I'm throwing them in the recycling bin tonight.  I'm tired and I need to go to bed.

Nothing like going down a Wikipedia wormhole about serial killers to make the sleep you want so bad right now scary to take.  Again.

I wanted to blog post something longer, but I don't want to stay up -- well, assuming the serial killers I read about don't keep me up.  Also I tried finishing editing my sister's paper.  Hope it goes well when I send it to her tomorrow, like she asked.

And Today Is ... Going To Be Complicated

After the fucking shitty day at work, putting a crap coda on a fairly miserable week at work, I was looking forward to this weekend more than any other before.  (I might have said that last week, too.  But I also mean it this week.)  But plans seem to have been ruined for many, many reasons.

I have known for a while that I need to mow the lawn here.  The weekend was going to be perfect.  But from about a week ago, weather forecasts predicted Saturday would see a huge spike in temperature -- above 90 -- and as the week wore on, meteorologists saw that it was going to be a damn humid one, too.

Still, I was going to mow the lawn -- early in the morning.  That will give me the whole afternoon to, probably against good sense, go out to Maplewood Mall to eat a Flowering Onion (one of the vendors of the Minnesota State Fair that now needs to make money this summer whenever and wherever they can).  On top of that, Thursday night I signed up for a taste test which is very close to me: Ten Minutes away, on the way to the storage unit.  I could mow, go out to Maplewood Mall, drive to the taste test, then come home.

What I learned at dinner changed all that.  First, my parents decided they wanted to eat Pizza Hut.  That meant I had to buy Coke, which means I would have a couple places I would have to go after the taste test.  But then Mother told me my brother, sister-in-law and niece are coming over for the first time in months.  I'm not sure if that's completely safe with the virus going around.  Moreover, when Mother told me, she didn't know when they would be over, just that the visit was going to be short.  Short is good (don't get me wrong -- I love seeing my niece, I just have plans today) but when she would be coming over will dictate whether I can mow the lawn when I want and if I can go to Maplewood Mall and, most importantly, whether I would need to cancel the taste test ... and forego the $30 that goes along with it.

My brother WhatsApped that they would be there around noon.  It drops in at pretty much a crappy time today.  I should be well past finished with the lawn, but I should be on my way to Maplewood Mall around noon, so to be cautious, that Flowering Onion is out for this weekend.  (Luckily they'll be there a couple more weekends.)  The thing that remains up in the air is how long they are going to stay.  I don't have complete confidence that the visit will be "short."  If it goes long enough (say, 2 1/2 Hours), I'll have to go online and cancel.

Too many things up in the air.  Oh, and it's supposed to be hot as fuck.  And double oh -- a storm has started right now, as I am typing this blog post.  The storm is supposed to contain a significant wind event overnight.  I think I might have to stay up to "hear" whether this storm is going to be really bad for the neighborhood.  But staying up means not mowing the lawn in the morning; instead, I either mow in the middle of the heat or, possibly, not even being able to mow if it's late enough where they come over and I'll have to say hi to them.

Ick -- too much to think about, goddammit.

Well, I hope I still have Sunday.  I will be buying salted nut rolls for Mother -- but after I drive down to ****e's place and fuck the shit out of her.

My Long, Deep Naps

For the past couple weeks, probably coinciding with my resumption to full-time work, I have crawled into my bed after dinner and fallen asleep -- deep, hard, and for a time period that has increased from, say, half an hour to, this week, 2 1/2 Hours.  And I topped myself last night when I slept in the evening for 3:15.  I missed my Zoom meeting with my fellow smart people.  Hope they're not mad.

I think these naps mostly are due to not adjusting (at least not yet) to my new/old schedule.  I have been averaging less than four Hours of sleep per night, a result of staying up and surfing the Internet like I got to wake up at 7:30 instead of 6.  I'm just getting back into the groove of taking naps in my car for lunch at work (was able to fall asleep only once this week), so my body is exhausted by the time I get home, and evenings are where, for now, I pay my sleep debt.

That should throw my sleep schedule off balance.  If I sleep too much during the evening, I would stay up well into the night.  (That may very well be the case now, but I chalk it up to just wanting to stay up well into the night.)  And I have not been falling asleep readily as I had during my part-time weeks.  So right now I am in a period of abbreviated sleeps that probably isn't good for me.

I might be able to catch up now, after I blog post this and head into bed.  But I promised a stripper friend I would help her unlock her iPad, and that's about seven Hours away.  I am going to the hardware store for my parents, I think I'll visit the Floyd Memorial again (if only to see another stripper girlfriend who says she's hanging out there), and I need to get gasoline for my car.  If I don't get enough sleep now, I might be dead tired by the time I get back ... which means another long, deep nap in the evening that extends through my other weekend Zoom meeting with my fellow smart people.

Back Down To Day 1 Again

Last night, before I went to bed, I checked on the slot machine at Texas Hold 'Em on my Facebook to keep up with finally getting back to Day 7/400% -- and goddammit, I'm back down to Day 1?!?!?!  I swear -- I SWEAR!!! -- I did it before I went to bed Sunday night.  Fuck, I know I did it after I blog posted about the first part of the family trip to Wyoming six years ago.  I published that thing around a quarter past one, and I know I stayed up, so I had to have been on Facebook to get to Day 7.  But Facebook says I didn't get on at all on Monday.

Fucking Christ.  I'm not mad at myself anymore.  This is becoming a goddamn pain-in-the-ass.

I'm Starting To Get Used To Part-Time

Mondays such as today I work 9-1.  The other four days I work 8:30-12:30.  As I alluded to before, the work usually does not stretch even that long.  Nevertheless, we are told to stay and do ... something until we get to four hours.  And we get to keep our benefits if we "work" 20 hours each week.  Yes, for that I am thankful.  Still, I would like to work full-time.  I don't want to be on the dole, as generous as the benefits are during this economic shutdown.  (Don't appreciate the tax bill that will bite me in the ass next year, but maybe I need to worry about that next year.)  Maybe I should be grateful just to still have this, because it could be and/or get worse.

With that being said, now that we are on our ... third?  Fourth (man, the weeks run together now) week under this ... arrangement, I'm getting used to it.  I don't like losing half my pay each day.  But I love having half a day to do whatever the hell I want.  And I'm enjoying it; I'm eating fast food, I'm taking naps (at least until lately, when it's getting hot), I'm walking around (at least until lately; more on that in a future blog post), etc.  I feel good about looking forward to working only four hours instead of eight (even though I still have my disagreements with it; I'll also try and blog post about those disagreements).  And I don't have to wake up at 6 to report at 7.  The later start times help me get up at a more sane hour ... even though, to be fair, I take advantage of it by staying up later.

What I am saying is that I am inevitably looking at the bright side of this New Normal.  And so, as usual, if we get back to our Old Normal, I will look forward to some things, but I'll be upset that I have to adapt to change yet again and will thus miss some things I'm getting used to now.

So it's Chinese New Year, and because I want to be a faithful Chinese person, last night I stayed up to look up Chinese New Year's traditions so I know what to do.

So, one thing I am doing is wearing red today.  One thing I am not doing is showering tomorrow, Chinese New Year's.  Which sucks, because I planned on exercising on my day off, and now I can't.

Maybe I'll do it today, when is acceptable.  But I plan on going out tonight and staying up (another thing to do for CNY) I don't know if I can do both.  Plus I'll be tired from work, so I don't know if I'll even have the energy to stay up.

So, yeah, being Chinese is effing with my plans right now.

Miss The World News Polka

Realized waking up this morning/just now that last night/this morning would have been the perfect time to stay up and watch ABC's World News Now.  When I didn't have a job and didn't give a damn about staying up, I found out that the three big broadcast networks would devote their overnights to the news.  NBC had Nightwatch, which seemed recorded, and CBS had Up To The Minute, which played on a loop every hour.

But the big one, the good one, the only that's still on in sort of its same form now, is ABC's World News Now.  It played on a loop every 90 minutes, but while they did report the news (and did break in if there was any important news happening in the country or the world overnight), they understood that it was a slow period of the news day.  And so they would fill it in with other news-like segments.  Oftentimes they would be irreverent, sometimes too irreverent.  But it was new, creative, and gave people who were up at the time a reason to watch and to come back.

To signal the end of their news week, on the final segment of their show on Fridays, they would end the show with the "World News Polka," WNN's theme song, so to speak.  Over the years they have added renditions.  There's a string quartet version, one with singing glasses, a garage band, even William Shatner did one.  But I always loved tuning in to watch that when I've been able to watch the show all week.

Well, times change, of course.  I've had to find work, and it was in the day and therefore I was too tired to stay up.  Meanwhile, the budget cuts that made NBC end Nightwatch and revert to reruns and, within the past couple years, CBS decide to strip the guts of Up To The Minute and turn it into the CBS Overnight News, which only involves a reporter introducing canned pieces.

And unfortunately, World News Now has not been immune.  I have seen WNN on nights other than Friday.  Just saw it Monday/Tuesday, after coming home from New Year's Eve festivities.  And it feels less frisky, and a lot less fun.  And I have not seen it on Fridays in a long time, so I don't know if they still have the "World News Polka."  And sadly, this morning was the last time I probably could see it.  Next week I don't have work, but my parents are (or at least should be) home, so I don't know if I can wake up without getting caught.  Then every Friday after that I am back to work.  So it might be months, maybe many months, before I have a chance to stay up overnight and see the "World News Polka."

(sigh)

Of Course Bad Timing, Where I Choose Porn Over Sports

Am up.  The Cleveland-Los Angeles Angels Of Anaheim Angels Of Los Angeles Angels Of Anaheim Angels Of ... game is in extra innings.  Love listening to live sports on satellite radio this late at night.  But I want to catch up on the Reality Kings updates too because I missed them last week because I fell asleep early in the evening.

Some of the pages have short snippets of the whole video whose viewing you can purchase.  The 30-second previews are enough for me to jerk off to.  In fact, I don't watch the whole thing because my modem's too slow for it download before I lose my patience.  So I give it a bit of time before I just play what's completely buffered, then I go to the next day once I see that icon on the video spin.

That's what I was doing when Joe Blanton of the Angels was pitching in the top of the 14th inning in a 1-all tie.  The bar was a ways down, enough to get the set-up of each of these videos -- the meeting of the actress real-life girl, the girl complaining about boyfriend/children/money problems, then the guy with the big dick propositions her.  That's what I was doing for MILF Hunter, in particular this MILF Hunter.  I muted the baseball game to see this hot chick with wild tattoos named "Gianna" sunning in a thong so her ass would be hanging out.  She's from out of town, and her mom is taking care of her son.  It just so happens that "Gianna" hasn't had sex because she was training for this "fitness convention" she's in town for.  The MILF Hunter asks if he could corrupt her.  She says she's willing to let him try.  And ... that's where the buffering ends.

And of course it just so happens that once I surf to another porn page and turn the game's volume back on, Cleveland's Drew Stubbs already hit a home run.  A two-run home run, in fact, and with another run, Cleveland just beat the Angels 4-1.  I should have taken the play-by-play man's constant haranguing of Blanton as a pitcher who once was good but now sucks as a sign that something big was about to happen.  And I just missed the game-winning hit.

Bad luck, I tell ya.  Story of my life.  And all because of pron.  Also story of my life.  Might as well drown my sorrows, in a sense, by finishing going through the Reality Kings updates and then masturbating.  Also, um, story of my life.

Man, I can't wait what My Fucking Father has in store for me this morning.

Yesterday/This morning I woke up around 9, sorta.  Wanted to go back to bed, so I did.  But then My Fucking Father went to my door and banged on it and, worst of all, said, "Are you not up yet?"  Oh, fuck you, not this again.

I open the door and he complains once again, "Why are you not up yet?"  To which I reply with an incredulous face.  To which My Fucking Father replies with that screwed-up face of offense.  Oh, fuck you, Father, fuck you.

He woke me up for the most random of favors: He wanted to know how he could copy contents of one VHS tape -- a VHS tape, remember -- to another.  My old TV works; that's why I still have one with a videotape slot in it.  My Fucking Father, in his infinite need for new-new-new!!! wanted me to throw it away last Christmas.  Glad I didn't buy a new TV now, huh, you fucker.  Oh yeah ... WHAT KIND OF A FUCKING FAVOR TO ASK FIRST THING IN THE MORNING IS THAT?!?!?!

Guess is that since the tape was about knitting, Mother came up with the idea in the morning and My Fucking Father went, "Oh, wait, Unforgivable Wetness still has a TV with a VCR component, and we have a VCR.  Let's go ask him!  And that gives me a reason to wake him up even though I don't have to!!"  What a fucking nag.

It actually worked a little easier than I thought; I don't remember ever doing it, but all it took was hooking up my parents' VCR to the back of my TV and put the tape being recorded onto in mine.  Course I had to endure My Fucking Father cleaning my stuff of dust and telling me, again, to get rid of things.

I know he's just setting me up to wake me at 7 or 8 today.  That's a few hours from now.  I finally had the urge to write for the website, plus I stayed out, so I haven't put myself in a position where I would wake up fully refreshed in the morning.  Just bring it, asshole, let's see how big of a prick you're going to be.

Oh Shit, I'm Starting A Job Tomorrow

Caught up with all the excitement with the beginning of the tournament -- especially with finding an online site that lets me watch for free so I can circumvent CBS/Turner's shitty practice of putting games on pay TV -- it was past 11:30 when I realized that I have to wake up at 7 tomorrow.  Going back to the test reading job.  Hopefully it will be as good as it's ever been.  Too bad I won't have time to stay up or write now.

By the way, Thursday was so-so for me March Madness-wise.  I went a total of 9-7, but only one of my Sweet Sixteen is gone (that would be perennial tease Belmont).  That's better than I usually do.  However, I'm in this huge pool that, starting this year, could pay out, get this, $10,000 to the winner.  And with seven of my Round of 32 picks already incorrect, I know that there probably enough people who have fewer incorrect and thus have already beat me.  But hey, Harvard, huh?!

I knew when I heard footsteps outside my bedroom door at 3 and 4 in the morning that he'd say something about it, but goddamn I didn't expect it tonight till he tried to soften me up with his usual easy entry question, "Are you going to work tomorrow?"  And then he asked me, "When do you go to sleep?"  And then he ordered, the motherfucker ordered me, to wake up at 9.  Fuck you, make me.  I'm so fucking tired of his bullshit.