Pervsion Strikes Out

My parents will be gone two weeks.  That means I have the whole house to myself.  That means I feel emboldened to invite one of the strippers I know over for some private sucking and fucking (on her part, of course).  But I have contacted five of those women so far and none of them want to come to my lair to cum.  I am very disappointed.  I mean, do I look that dangerous?  I don't bite -- unless you want me to, and you're hot!  And I'm just a schlub who wants to whip it out whenever I'm the only guy in the middle of a bevy of hot women, that's all.  It's not like none of the women I've propositioned haven't seen my pee-pee before.  In fact, for a couple of them I've been to their houses and fooled around there.  Why can't they reciprocate?  Man, this is a frustrating waste of having the house all to myself.

In the meantime I have agreed to go to three house parties in the next week.  Maybe one of these five girls will change their mind and come to their senses before next week.  Plus, there is one other girl, *a***, who I haven't called yet.  She's never cum to my house, but she's the dirtiest and nastiest girl I know, so she might be down.  Wish me luck!

Yeah, Bitch, You Damn Right I'm Ruffling My Papers!!!

So yesterday (Monday) morning work we delayed by about 20 minutes because of a bug in the software.  Probably had to do with Daylight Saving Time.  While we were waiting, I thought this was a good time to start going through my receipts -- unfolding them and putting them in chronological order.

Right in the middle of this the room supervisor came in and said that the bug has been cleared up and we could start work.  But I wasn't done going through my receipts.  So I could have just stopped.  But I didn't.  So what I did was unfold each receipt, slowly, as I was reading an essay.  I did that until I had unfolded and stacked (but not put in order) all the receipts.

As I got done with one of the last few receipts, one person in the row in front of me quickly turned her head in my direction before snapping it back.  Immediately after that, she got up and went to the director sitting at the head of the room.  An hour later, of course the supervisor talked to us about "noise," and the very first example she used as the type of noise that could be distracting to our fellow test scorers was, goddammit, "ruffling papers."

Yeah, that fucking bitch in the row ahead of me ratted me out.  I wasn't going to do that shit all day, alright?  I was in the middle of something and I decided to finish it all.  I've been a good boy while in the room; just give me this one fucking thing.  Shit, she's never bitched to that old guy coughing up his lungs five times every hour the past week, has she?  Fucking Christ.

I have to passive-aggressively get back at her, but I don't know how.

Addendum To: Yeah, I Think It's Time To Change My Wi-Fi Service

My wi-fi has been extremely spotty since the last time I complained about it, since I came back from Hong Kong.  When I came back, Mother bitched bitterly about how slow it was.  But this time around, instead of blowing it off as her overreacting again, she is totally right.  Once I have brought down the Comodo on my laptop in order to connect to the wi-fi, it's been painfully slothful, and sometimes I still don't connect.  And just when you think the bugginess is just because of my old computer, I have had a heck of a lot of trouble using my wi-fi on my smartphone as well.

The only -- only -- excuse I can give besides the crappy wi-fi is that it's been cold the past several days.  None worse than usual for winter, but this is March, so I would at least expect the weather to be warmer and less snowy than it is.  The cold does bad things to our Internet, so I would be surprised.  Then again, I wouldn't be surprised if it's acting worse.  And besides, none of us are happy about how it's working when it's working optimally anymore.

I told Mother that we might have to wait until July.  She didn't react well.  And right now, I'm not so hot on waiting, either.

Bracketology 2017

I don't know about you, but because of the flabbiness and self-indulgence of the broadcast of the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament once CBS split airing duties with Turner Sports, Selection Sunday has meant little to me.  Minnesota United's first-ever home game as part of Major League Soccer will be played right in the middle of the announcement, and I have absolutely no qualms missing it.  Whatever, I'll print out the bracket Tuesday.

Anyway, credit to The Bracket Matrix once again for what still is an intriguing part to March Madness, the Bubble Watch:

• REAL Last Four Teams In: Vanderbilt, Xavier, Michigan St., Providence
• Play-In Games: Wake Forest, USC, Kansas St., Rhode Island
• LAST Four Teams Out: Syracuse, Illinois St., Georgia, Illinois
• (I used to put in a Penultimate Four Teams Out, but the hive mind is such that there is so much agreement now that there are too few teams to fill out that category, so I am going to drop it.)

The Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey

#-1: Gopher men's hockey (Last Week: -1).  A very difficult, tough-to-discern week since every team here lost at least once.  That's why I can't give any team anything above negative numbers this week.  I thus relied heavily, then, on how they look in relation to postseason play.

It was still tough to figure it out, but I'm going with the Golden Gophers men's hockey team.  Technically they won and drew against Michigan St. this weekend at Mariucci in the regular season title.  In my opinion, since they lost that draw in a shootout with the Spartans, they split the series.  Regardless, when they beat Sparty on Friday, 4-0, they clinched at least a share of their sixth straight regular season conference championship (which is the four Big Ten titles and the last two years they were in the Western Collegiate Hockey Association).  I believe, though don't quote me, that Minnesota is the first college hockey program to ever do that, making them the Kansas men's basketball team of men's hockey, if that makes sense.

I just looked at the PairWise, and I'm not sure if I should be assured that they will get a #1 seed or not.  Right now they have the fifth-best PairWise.  Assuming they win the Big Ten Tournament (and they have a bye; they'll play either Penn St. or Michigan in Friday's semifinal), they won't fall lower than that.  Harvard is a team that is ahead of them, and if they win the ECAC Tournament, the Crimson will stay ahead of the Gophs.  But the other three teams are all in the same conference; Denver, Minnesota-Duluth and Western Michigan all reside in the NCHC.  There can be only one tournament winner.  One of those teams must fail to make the tournament final.  I have to believe that that is enough to push that team below the U. in the PairWise.  Now I could be wrong.  Also, I haven't computed the odds of the teams behind the Gophers in the PairWise, such as Boston College, Union and Massachusetts-Lowell.  But I have to think that this club will, through inertia, rise back into the 1-band.  Which is a good thing, partially brought about by the results of this weekend.  We shall see; the 19th is Selection Sunday for men's hockey.

#-2: Gopher men's basketball (Last Week: 0).  I really don't give a shit about conference tournaments.  I don't think teams such as Minnesota really give a shit, either.  No teams should, at least not teams in major conferences.  Once these guys upset Maryland in College Park, they were making the NCAA Tournament.  (As of press time Joe Lunardi has them as a 7-seed, albeit slipping -- for what, playing to their 4-seed in the B1G Tournament?)  So why go full out for this money-making TV contrivance?  A higher seed?  The risk of injury isn't worth that.  (I feel differently for one-bid conferences because the tournament is the only way they determine a conference's only Big Dance rep.  By that cold fact, mid- and low-major conference tournaments are very important.  Now, that brings up the counter-argument that you those conference shouldn't decide its rep through three or four games at the end of the season because that invalidates all the games before that.  Fair point, but it's not germane here.)  So sure, they followed up a win over Michigan St. with a loss to Michigan in yesterday's (Saturday's) B1G tourney semifinal.  So what?

#-3: Timberwolves (Last Week: -3).  Don't look now, but this team is finally playing some good basketball, re-sparking dreams in fans' heads that these guys could be the next Golden State Warriors.  They have won six out of their last nine games, including going 2-1 this screening week.  That may not seem impressive, and yes, their seven-point loss in lowly Milwaukee last (Saturday) night looks bad.  But look at who they beat: The Clippers and ... the Warriors.  In the latter win, Andrew Wiggins sank two free throws late to nose the Wolves ahead, and for good.

They remain on the outside, chasing a playoff spot.  But this recent good form is a sign that things are looking up.  In fact, things may be so good that their time may be this postseason, not a future one.  This week: Home to Washington, then at Boston and Miami.

#-4: Gopher baseball (Last Week: -5).  I finally took in a baseball game at U.S. Bank Stadium, Friday night, their series opener vs. Missouri St.  It's as weird as you would think a baseball configuration would be in a football-first stadium, and the setup is in fact weirder than it was back in the Metrodome.

As mandated when the state became a paying underwriter for Das Bank v.2.0., the stadium had to be able to turn into a baseball dome for all the small school teams that wanted to play games there in the winter months of February, March and April.  So, once I got in (there were only a few doors open, and stupidly, they were not the doors that led to the only sections of the stadium where we could sit; we literally had to walk halfway around the concourse in order to get to the open sections, which basically went from the end of the First Base line around to halfway down the Third Base line), I saw that seats on the visitor's side of what would be the football field were pushed back; those are the seats which, once retracted, would turn it into a viable baseball configuration.  However, there was a setup what seems to be a tall-enough cushion that rang from foul pole to foul pole, right in the middle of where the football field would be.  And they put a huge purple curtain over the retracted seats, which ran from Right to Center Field.  Most conspicuous of all are the dugouts.  There are none, since this is a football-first stadium.  Instead, what appear to be shipping containers with one side torn down to erect chain link fence were recessed from both base lines.  That is where both teams stayed in during the game.

I understand this is a way for the Gophers and other local teams can play at "home" when it's just too cold to play outside.  But this is weird.  This feels as though someone had to go out of their way, to the point of inconvenience, in order to make this look like a baseball diamond.  I appreciate the novelty, but the look of the field of play is awful.  Hell, there are no dirt basepaths; it's all grass.  And I think the pitching mounds are just rock-hard brown hills, too.

Oh, the Gophers won that game, 5-2.  It was tied at 2 in the bottom of the eighth when, with the bases loaded, Right Fielder Matt Stemper, who was 0-for-3 up to that point, hit a first-pitch liner into left for a three-run double.  That extended their winning streak to four, with victories midweek over South Dakota St. and Wisconsin-Milwaukee.  The Bears, however, would end the winning streak yesterday (Saturday) afternoon with a 7-2 win.  They play their final game of the series, and end their 13-game homestand, today (Sunday), they had to Northern California for a one-off vs. Cal and a weekend series against Sacramento St.

#-5: Gopher softball (Last Week: Positive Numbers).  Welp, it finally ended -- their undefeated streak to start the season ended at 19 games after Friday evening's 3-2 loss to host and eighth-ranked Washington in the Washington Tournament.  That's not the worst thing in the world, but since these guys have been on top for such a long time, I think it is really sad to suffer your first loss of the year, and so I put them down here.

They did sandwich a pair of wins against Seattle University around playing the Huskies, however.  And they'll have a second crack at U-Dub again this (Sunday) afternoon, right after they play South Dakota.  And then they'll hopscotch in the West Coast this week, with one-offs vs. Oregon St. and Cal before playing a doubleheader against Pacific in Stockton, Calif.

#-6: Wild (Last Week: -2).  OK, so Head Coach Bruce Boudreau was concerned after the club's first regulation-style losing streak this week, defeats to St. Louis (at home) and Tampa Bay (away).  That got rectified with a 7-4 thrashing at Florida one day after the Lightning loss.  I don't really like their spotty recent form, especially after making that blockbuster trade with The Bastard Winnipeg Jets for Martin Hanzal and Ryan White.  Plus, since there haven't been many opportunities to put these guys at the bottom in an WMNSS, the two defeats were just the excuse to level the playing field, so to speak.

However, when it comes to gearing up for the Stanley Cup Finals, I don't know if the Wild going Mild is necessarily a bad thing.  For one thing, this would be a good time, with a playoff berth virtually sewn up, to rest players.  (That has been done recently, but only because players had to sit out because of a mumps outbreak.)  And second, history has shown that the Stanley Cup Playoffs oftentimes have never panned out the way you predicted they would.  In particular, teams with gaudy regular season records have not won the Stanley Cup in many instances.  So if the Wild slip up even further and become, oh, the second- or third-best team in the conference, does that really portend doom for a team that once had the second-best record in the National Hockey League?

So I will try not to panic as I note that this squad will be playing exclusively Sundays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays for the rest of the month of March.  This week picks up in the middle of the Wild's five-game road trip; they go to Chicago again before a pretty big game at Washington (the likely Presidents' Cup trophy winner), then visit Carolina before hosting the Rangers.

Well That Was Frustrating ... And Sad

So as I've said many times before, the main reason I went to Hong Kong was to see Grandmother.  I needed to say how well she was doing ... or wasn't doing.  Speaking for 15 seconds long-distance over the phone wasn't going to cut it anymore, especially if ... well, if things are winding down with her.

I was able to see her four times.  Only the first time did I know for sure she knew who I was.  There were two days where she carried on conversations with a tone that made me thing she knew who I was, but I wasn't sure.  One day she looked at me blankly.  There were times where she looked haggard and disconsolate; then she barely spoke to me and even looked like she was barely there.  However, in the times she seemed alert she seemed extremely anxious.  That is when she went back to how she was late in her time at home and at the nursing home -- asking the same questions, over and over, about information she should already know, like where in the United States she used to live, or what my name was.

Just called her now.  I didn't have to fight off those questions while I was on the phone before I saw her.  But in the first call I've had with her since returning as well as the longest call I have had with her, she did not just answer my regular question of, "Are you OK?"  She asked me who I was.  Then she asked me who she was, which is an extremely sad change.  And then she asked those questions over and over and over.  Grandmother didn't know who either of us was.  Is that a symptom of Alzheimer's?

Even though I felt assured that she seemed to be in good physical health, it was frustrating and sad that her mind is going.  The anxiety is one thing, the forgetfulness another.  But with Grandmother (and maybe with other old people hobbled like this, I don't know) consistently losing the basic information I told her minutes before, and then her feeling the need to ask me those questions again, was a blindside of aggravation and despondency for me.  I don't know how to react to someone who is slowly slipping away from me.  I can't have polite and easy conversations with her anymore.

But I have a sneaking suspicion about myself ... that a "normal" person would be much ... uh, sadder than I am now.  While I was trying to speak to her just now I kept thinking that another person in my position would be crying.  I am not.  Why is that?  Is it me?  Possibly.  Is it that I think she's in good hands with the nanny, who is a paragon of patience?  A lot of it is that.  Is it because her son and daughter-in-law are "taking care of it?"  That counts for a lot, too.

But I have to confess something: Ever since she started going backshit crazy on the family her last few months at home, continually asking me where did I take her money and shit like that, I kind of knew she was a goner.  With my fatalistic personality, a part of me thought Grandmother was already dead.  So, in a sense, I have sort of been saying goodbye to her the past several years.  This fucking goddamn phone call was just affirmation of my long farewell to her as she fades into the shadows of her dementia.

I feel obligated to try calling her again, but if all that's going to happen is shit like this, honestly, I don't even know if I should bother.  That might make me an asshole.  But I would be wasting my time with a human being who isn't Grandmother.  I truly believe that.

Should Be Less Busy Than This

I find it kind of ironic that ever since my parents went to Las Vegas, I've felt busier than I would have if they were still here.  In fact, I am blogging now because I'm afraid I won't be able to blog before the end of day today, even though my previous blog post was a scant seven hours ago and I like to space out my blog posts so that the latest blog post has maximum exposure on the top of Wailing And Failing.  I've been cutting it close, or at least too close for my comfort, the past few days, and since I'm up and not really dead tired, I figured it would be best to post now, even if I am being all meta and blog posting about, well, blog posts.

(I know that lately my blog posts haven't been substantial.  It's another consequence of being busy.  Sorry.)

I have a lot of things on my plate, however.  Have work.  After work today (Friday) I am stopping by home before going to the Golden Gopher baseball game at U.S. Bank Stadium.  Tomorrow there's the alumni club event in the afternoon and the Class AA Boys' State High School Hockey Championship Game in the evening.  Sunday I'll be free until the afternoon, when I'll be spending the rest of the day before and after The First-Ever Minnesota United FC Match at TCF Bank Stadium.  Then there's work, sprinkled with both going to the library to print out The Bracket and studying The Bracket over one evening early next week.  Then March Madness begins and I'll head out to watch the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament games before next weekend, where I will have to attend the National Collegiate Hockey Conference Championship Game Saturday, a Mensa event Sunday, and the Twin Cities Auto Show some time that weekend.

I have a massage the following Monday, a movie I can see on discount Tuesday (as well as the Tuesday before, which is Tuesday -- got that?), and then my parents come home the following Wednesday.  Man, this is a precious waste of my parents being away!

No Fucking Tonight

So I got one of the strippers who get down with me, *e***, a knockoff Michael Kors purse from the Temple Street Night Market in Hong Kong because she asked me.

I was going to drop by her place to give her the purse, but since my parents are away I felt frisky and parlayed that to an evening visit where I would get a little sumpin'-sumpin' from her.

That was supposed to be this evening, but when I approached the door, all I heard were voices by a girl and a man.  I left the front door with the quickness and texted (and eventually called) *e*** to see what was going on.  She was there, and she was home, but she totally forgot to clear her house so she could suck and we could fuck.

So, no sexual activity.  Hey, no loss.  If we can rearrange something for later, I will try and extract a couple extra favors from her, like digging her out without a condom, or making sure I cum in her mouth.  If not, hey, the knockoff Kors was only $20 -- no loss.  And *e*** said and texted that she loves it.  That makes me feel good, too.

Our Silent Treatment

My family has never done goodbyes well, or at least as well as normal families.  We don't really bid farewell to each other with gratitude and warm feelings, because, well, we don't have any.  In fact, I think that my parents and I (with some sprinkling in from my brother and sister) use the occasion to get one final shot at each other, via insult or passive-aggressive slight.  It's the best time to do it because the other side can't do anything because we're on vacation, ha-ha!

Such was the case yesterday (Tuesday) evening, when I was taking my parents to the airport.  We were pretty convivial with each other, although the rush to get through the metro area in evening rush kind of put any petty grievances we had with each other aside because we could miss the flight.  However, My Fucking Father, who did go through and invade my privacy by cleaning my bedroom, gave me his usual edict before leaving.  I didn't listen, per usual, but the last one got my dander up: "... and clean up your room, and throw away your bottles!"

I have saved a couple bottles which I have placed on top of my desk.  One of them is a big bottle of Surly Darkness which I waited in line to get.  It was full, but once I drank it, I liked the artwork so much (which I believe was done by a friend) that I kept it.  Another was a bottle from the famed New Glarus Beer Co., a Wisconsin-only craft beer outfit whose fable has become legendary on this side of the border.  I kept the bottle, given to me by my cousin who personally made the trek to New Glarus, Wisc., in order to enjoy the beer, because of that.  And I have a bottle from the Whistler Soda Co., now being made by Blue Sun, a pop soda shop that is not ten minutes away from me.  I like their pop, but I kept the bottles because I am going to go back and there and deposit the bottle in order to get a discount on the next bottle of Whistler.

So when I heard what My Fucking Father said, I couldn't believe it.  The invasion of privacy is one thing; that still hurts, but I knew when I went to Hong Kong that there was a possibility he would be all up in my business.  But I felt so foolish, so stupid, for not even realizing that he took away the bottles.  I keep my stuff around, but if I don't notice them, how can I say that they're important enough to me to keep them around?  The rearranging of the plastic sports cups onto the top of my desk (some of them were on my dresser) was one of the first things I noticed when I got back from HK.  But the bottles?  Nope, didn't notice.  And he caught me on it.

And so I was pissed from that point on through the rest of the drive to the airport.  Some bitch insisted that she cut in front of me as we went from 35WS to Crosstown East, even though I kept the gap between me and the car in front of me narrow and the space behind me was open wide.  If my parents weren't in the car, I would've sideswiped that woman to prevent her from getting in front of me.  That's how upset I was.

When we finally got to the airport and I stopped, they said thank you.  To which I said ... nothing.  Nothing.  I didn't even look their way.  I just hit the hazard lights, made sure the heat was going, and stared out the side window as Mother got up off the passenger seat and My Fucking Father gave her both of their bags through the passenger-side rear door.  And as soon as My Fucking Father was clear of the car, I took off.

I didn't intentionally do that.  I really didn't.  But I had to convey the anger and embarrassment I felt.  And the Silent Treatment, which leaves people wondering, "Are they in deep thought or are they mad at me?" is the only way I could get back at him.  My comeback to that is that whenever I go to the airport, I offer up hearty well wishes and am met with indifference, if not contempt.  Hell, I could say that I learned the Silent Treatment from them.  And I could also say that they were getting out of the car too fast for me to say anything meaningful.  Or, I could say that I thought they were mad at me, so why say anything?  But that's reasoning I use to not say anything around the house.

Whatever the case, my unplanned micro-aggression may very well have had its intended, instinctual effect: My folks, in particular My Fucking Father, may very well have muttered, "I knew he was mad after we cleaned his room."  Good.

Except ... after going to Buffalo Wild Wings and to My Favorite Stripclub (Non-Cover Edition), I frantically went home to, once he told me about the bottles, to find the bottles.  I looked in the recycling bin, although Recycling Day was last Thursday (they come every other week) and so it was very likely that if he cleaned up my room, it was before Thursday.  It wasn't there.  So I checked back into my bedroom, just in case ... and, well, there my bottles were, at the top of my desk, moved to the corner, but still there.  So, My Fucking Father didn't dispose of those bottles after all.

He left a small bottle of water in the backseat of my car.  Probably drank it on the ride to the airport.  I was so mad at him for doing that on top of taking my bottles from me (or so I thought) that, before I went back up to my bedroom, I put that goddamn bottle of water underneath his side of the bed in the master bedroom, just to piss him off.

Just in case he gets back at me for getting back at him for something I only thought he did while they're out of town, I'm leaving the empty bottle there, just in case.  Don't fucking litter.

Don't you hate it when you're typing something online, and the website you're typing on says that it auto-saves, and then your damn screwy wi-fi freezes and to unfreeze you refresh with F5, but then inexplicably the past two gorgeously-written paragraphs you wrote were in fact not auto-saved even though you slaved over them for half an hour so they had to have been auto-saved?

Well, that just happened to me when I was arranging my alumni club communique.  Man, I lost such good prose.  Hate that.  Spent another half-hour making it up again.  Crap.