Hmmm, Making Fun Of Republicans Or Maybe Getting A Handjob?

So Trump is coming to Minneapolis tomorrow.  I swear that the situation over the city forcing him to pay upfront for security isn't resolved yet, and if it isn't, why in the hell is he still going to Target Center?  Why can't the city just stop him, or at least announce that the city won't provide service for him?

I kind of want to go counter-protest, to taunt and maybe even take a swing at a Republican MAGAt.  But three things stop me.  One, I don't want to make my parents mad.  Two, it'll be raining.  And three, there's a stripper party that same night, and I think I want to rock out with my cock rather than counter-protest.

So maybe I'm not taking this concept of democracy seriously.  I don't think I'll regret the decision.

The Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey

Got home late, was busy, had work and Overtime, and this is a very, very busy time of the year for the WMNSS.  So I'm going to make this as short as possible ... with the exception of that team in the end, of course.

#-1: Gopher women's hockey (Last Week: -1).  Swept at Minnesota-Mankato over the weekend by a combined 13-1.  Women's hockey remains a niche sport; there are still too-few good players that manage to trickle amongst top-flight women's hockey.  But hey, at least the U. is one of the schools on top.  This weekend: At Robert Morris for two, seemingly payback for a home-and-home from last season.

#-2: Gopher volleyball (Last Week: 0).  Won a pair of five-setters in Iowa and at Maturi to Rutgers.  Yeah, but can they get to the final game of a tournament they're hosting?  No?  Then fuck it, let's go to the next ... oh, wait -- they visit Illinois Wednesday and Wisconsin Sunday.  OK, now let's go to the next. ...

#-3: Gopher football (Last Week: -2).  Finally, a laugher of a win.  On Saturday, for Homecoming, they won comfortably for the first time this year, 40-17 over Illinois.  For a team whose four margins of victory are (respectively) 7, 3, 3 and 7, a 23-Point blowout is just what the doctor ordered.  Moreover, Saturday's Match started a streak where the Gophs play four-of-five at home.  That includes Nebraska, who comes to town Saturday night.

#-4: Vikings (Last Week: -4).  The big story this week is the dissatisfaction of Wide Receiver (and main protagonist of The Biggest Play In Recent Vikings History), Stefon Diggs.  It is refreshing to see someone put out feelers suggesting he's going to be traded and then, after reporters asked him about his stealth friending of New England Patriots players on his Instagram, said, "There is truth to all rumors."  That is 100% true.  Doesn't help the Vikings' cause, but it's all true.

I don't know if Diggs's disgruntled-ness comes from the offensive gameplan, which is heavily tilted towards the run, or from Kirk Cousins, who still wilts in the face of pressure on the field and on the scoreboard.  Nothing was resolved in Sunday's road win over the Giants; Diggs caught three Passes for 44 Yards, while WR soulmate Adam Thielen continues to tear it up, amassing over 100 Yards and a Touchdown.  Oh, and Diggs was just fined 200,000 by the Vikes for "conduct detrimental to the team."  Yeah, that'll keep him in purple.

And beyond all of this is the state of the team, which none of us can get a read on still.  Next week will be a tricky one; in a season with more than its share of upsets by the road team, Philadelphia comes to Das Bank v.2.0.  If you think the home team has the advantage just because they're at home, let's test that when Cousins throws three straight incompletions.

#-5: United FC (Last Week: Positive Numbers).  The goal of this season (in my opinion), getting a playoff spot, was reached last week.  The stretch goal, at least for others, was a home game.  They could have gotten two, but a 1-0 season-ending loss at Seattle throws the Loons down to 4th place in the Western Conference -- still a major accomplishment, just not as high as was possible before Sunday.  Moreover, DM (and Sounds legend) Ozzie Alonso was pulled from the Game early after getting hit in the face with the soccer ball.  The playoffs begin on the 20th versus the Los Angeles Galaxy, so let us hope that Alonso's toughness and stealth touch around the net will be fully healed for The First Playoff Match At Allianz Field.

#-6: Gopher soccer (Last Week: -3).  The XI did not score once this screening week -- a scoreless draw at home to Michigan St. followed by a 1-0 loss in Indiana.  What else is there to say other than, This team is not any good?

Only one Match this week: Friday in Wisconsin.

#-7: Wild (Re-Entry!).  And the season began much like last year ended -- with this club sucking.  A blowout loss in Nashville followed by a 4-2 defeat in Colorado (I was going to watch the game, but there were no scalpers -- surprising -- and the cheapest ticket at the box office was $90.  I passed, and I made the right decision) put the Mild in a 0-2 hole already.  The greenshoots that Chuck Fletcher planted have not, uh, shot, and the crazy one-year tenure of bully Paul Fenton has capped this team with players too old, too injured or not good enough to justify their contracts.  I still think that the injuries last season to Mikko Koivu and Matt Dumba hurt this club more than we initially thought, so if they get on track, they could be alright.  Or, the Mild could be the worst of pro sports combinations: Old and bad.

On top of all that, they began the year with six-of-seven on the road.  This week they head to Winnipeg, then get to the X for their only home Game of this stretch, vs. Pittsburgh.  And then they travel to Canada for a three-Game series starting Monday in Ottawa.  No pressure, Bruce Boudreau.

#-Infinity: Twins (Last Week: Positive Numbers).  OK.

OK. ...

With yet another sweep, that is now 15 straight playoff losses, a dozen of which at the hands of the New York Yankees (the Play-In Game doesn't count, don't fucking @ me, fools).  But hey, at least they reached the playoffs, huh?

Bullshit.  BULLSHIT I SAY!  OK, not the playoffs part; they made the "real" playoffs.  But I am fucking done with this team.  Those "BOMBA SZN" homer hankies?  How many Home Runs did they hit?  And the starting pitching that we were all afraid would let us down?  Well ... it did decently.  It was the relief pitching that pissed down their legs, and at the hands of The Fucking Yankees.  It is now true, more than ever, that The Minnesota Twinks are The Yankees' Bitches.  I should go to Wikipedia and change that.

One thing that really grinds my gears about Twins fans is this naive hope that things are on the upswing for this franchise, that these guys are going to be good, and get back to the playoffs, for a long time.  Bullshit.  BULLSHIT I SAY!  Just look at the Boston Red Sox.  They're the defending World Series champions.  They're not in the postseason this year.  So no, this is not the NBA.  No, baseball teams' successes don't go in a straight line.  And no, tomorrow is not assured for any of them.  Now, some players should be gone.  But do you really think that this offense is going to smack homers at the same rate they did this year?  (That the offense that racked up the most HRs results in not even one playoff victory pisses me off; that they didn't bomb the shit out of Yankees pitching makes me absolutely furious because that shows that they took a shit in their pants at the sight of those motherfucking pinstripes.)

There is nothing, absolutely nothing, that proves that these guys are going to be this good next year.  This was lightning in a bottle, and they fucking let it go.  So anybody who says, "We'll get 'em next year" are the perfect suckers that the Twinks hit up for money.  If you want to root for franchises that'll give you a good time without worrying about titles that matter, go watch a St. Paul Saints Game.  Oh, wait ... the Saints won their championship, didn't they?

Like I said, I'm fucking over this pathetic band of cucks.  Go win a fucking Game that matters -- or sign a really good Pitcher -- and I might start rooting for them again.  Until then, y'all can get fucked.

Fucked Over Three Times Over

My God, I can't get the fuck out of Denver soon enough.

First, I went to a strip club where I got short-changed by a dance.  Management even stepped in.  How in the hell do you prove that you got screwed over in a situation like that?  Paid in full and left.

Then, the rental car shuttle driver, who insisted on carrying my suitcase onto the shuttle, did not carry it down to the curb once I got to my gate.  He just sat there.  I even stretched a little to make sure he wasn't having trouble getting up.  I had a tip for him, but I didn't give it to him this time.

Finally, I asked for a pumpkin white mocha with whipped cream at the airport Caribou and I didn't get any whip.  And I just left.  Why the fuck didn't I insist on it?  No, the real question should be, Why in the fuck didn't she get my order right?  I mean, she heard me say whip cream, right?  And I gave those people two bucks for tip.  It was free, but it was still two bucks!

I got fucked out of twenty bucks, and I need a way to get them back, goddammit.  Shit, get me outta here, please. ...

Goddamn, The Streak Is Broken Again

Just logged back into Zynga poker to spin the wheel, and they say I'm back down to Day 1!  I was at 4 and now I'm at 1!  I thought I spun it yesterday, and I guess I didn't!

I want to blame the Internet here.  It's working now, but I didn't think it was working then, and ... oh, I was out and about, and doing stuff, and I guess I forgot.  Shit.

Going home tonight.  Sad.

OK, There Are Two Things I Don't Like About This Hotel:

One, the Internet wi-fi sucks.  And two, as I was taking pictures of my hotel door, the guy across the hall opens up his door and steps out.  And he's totally tattooed up, including the face.  And if I was braver and looked at his face, I would be sure he was a Nazi.

Great.  I'm sleeping across the way from a Nazi.

If I die, you know what happened to me.

Hotel Thingies

Moved out from my first hotel, the one I paid for, to the second, the one that I (mostly) used points for.  I was freaking out over getting hotels because I was reading reviews, and almost to a man, every review claimed something sucked about every single hotel I looked at.  Either there were bedbugs, or the toilet wouldn't flush, or there was mold, or the front office people were rude.  Many times it was a combination.  Suffice it to say, I finally had to hold my nose and select the hotel with the most non-negative reviews.

There were scary things mentioned about this first hotel, the one I just moved out of.  But frankly, other than the hallway sort of being under construction and housekeeping missing that the person or people before me left his/her/their Arby's Coke can in the refrigerator, I had no problems with my hotel.  Everything that should have worked did work.  And on the plus side, they served breakfast, the front office was staffed 24/7, it was located not too far from downtown Denver, it was clean, and I felt safe.  I would recommend that hotel to anyone.

And I would recommend this hotel that I'm staying at right now, too, even though I hope I don't have to eat my words.  While there were fewer negative comments about this hotel as opposed to the first, there were way more than positive ones.  But there are two things that most chic about this place.  First, it is owned by a husband-and-wife team who I met when checking in.  They were adorable, plus they decorated the front lobby for Halloween.  Second, I don't know if this was a different hotel in a different life, but it is so distinctive -- old-fashioned red and brown and sepia tones, and there is a clean carpet all the way down the halls.  The room matches the color scheme, too.

The only drawback I see right now is the wall-mounted AC/heater doesn't work.  Don't really need it now; just that it's chilly outside (Denver's been chilly once the sun goes down) and I could use it being a tad warmer.  Also, it's 11 miles further south of the first hotel on 25, so that makes the trip up north (and to the airport Monday) that much longer.  Oh, well; like with the first hotel, those cons are small in number and importance compared to the pros.

---

One other thing: I like Denver, and I'm very, very sad that it's going to end very soon.

Hiking Is Good For You

Spent 3 1/2 hours walking an easy trail in Boulder, Colo., yesterday.  Started in the afternoon but ended at dusk.  And you know what?  I loved it.  Was afraid my bladder would burst, but I found a community center just before reaching the end.  You know, walking shuts off your brain, or at least redirects the brain's efforts into walking and not thinking about how your family screwed you over.  That's the closest I'll get to clearing my brain.

That's all I've got.  Going to bed; waking up to move hotels in the early afternoon.

Talk About Your Best-Laid Plans Ruined

So I spoke to a stripper when I went out to the strip club Wednesday evening.  (I whipped it out on her.  She wasn't having any of it because it's not allowed in the club.)  She was easy to talk to.  Asked, as a boilerplate thing to start a conversation with, about what I'm doing there, to which I replied that I just got in to town.  We talked about what I was going to do; told her I had no plans, and that it's stressful to have a long list of things you want to do because you just get aggravated over how to do them all.

And that reared its ugly head, sort of, yesterday.  I was dead tired and went to bed at around 12:30, but got in a full night's sleep and woke up, naturally, around 8:30.  And then I was flummoxed over what to do.

Eventually I made a list of things I wanted to do in chronological order:

• Get a shave for the first time in a month, if not longer;
• Did you know that Denver has been the birthplace of many fast casual restaurants?  Last year, when I was here, I went to the original locations of Chipotle and Quizno's.  But both Smashburger and Qdoba were birthed here, as well.  I knocked out Smashburger because it was closer to the recommended place I got my (excellent) shave (oh, by the way, for the record, Noodles & Company was also born in Denver, but they closed down the original store);
• Hike a trail, because if you're in Colorado, you should hike a mountain, you know?;
• Go the Colorado women's soccer Match vs. Oregon.  If there was one thing I planned on doing, I'll be damned if it weren't this one;
• Go to a Hooters, catch the football game (and, come to think of it, the baseball game too), get a calendar girl to sign the calendar I brought from home and, come to think of it, since they started selling the 2020 calendar on October 1, buy one and get the girls to sign that one, too;
• And then I remembered I needed to write a communique to my alumni club.

Those series of things I had to think three hours to decide and put in order.  I needed to figure out if there were other things I should do or shelve till later in my vacation.  And then I needed to find the addresses and figure out how long it'll take me to get everywhere.  I could have just gone out and, you know, done stuff, but I hate that because, if I don't do what I want to do, I'll kick myself for not sitting down, thinking about it, and planning it.  So I got out of my hotel room at 11:30.  Three hours up in the morning?  Doesn't matter if I got eight hours of sleep -- I was ready to go to bed again.

Regardless, I had forgotten that the traffic would ruin my plans.  I've seen a lot of back-ups here, but the strangest and most hellacious one happened just as I was starting.  It took me 20 minutes to get on an on-ramp and take a right.  Why?  A lane just after the on-ramp was closed due to construction (I think), and somehow that squeezed all the traffic coming off the highway as well as that coming through that street.  Moreover -- and I'm not complaining too much about this -- but I was given such a luxurious shave that I was there almost 45 minutes.  I feel great and I look great; shoot, this guy razored down my sideburns and the back of my hair, and I've never had a shaver "clean and tighten me up" like that.  But it pushed back my schedule.

I was done eating at Smashburger at 2.  I thought I was making good time in the less-heavy afternoon traffic on my way up to Boulder.  But once my parents' Garvin said I would get there around 3 -- a half-hour before the soccer Game was to start, and I wanted a bit of time to walk around -- it was obvious I couldn't hike.  And since I have no plans on going back up to Boulder, I'm not going to be able to hike up there.  And that saddens me that my best-laid plans have been ruined due to careful planning, traffic, and too-thorough service.

That's all I got.

Streak Broken WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?!?!?!

Even though I was getting drowsy from a huge meal at this swanky place, last night I checked my computer before bed.  One of things I wanted to do last night -- and, come to think of it, it may have been the only thing I wanted to do last night -- was go online to Facebook to do my daily spin in the Zynga poker game slot machine.  (Yes, it's two different games, whatever.)

The slot machine has a daily streak multiplier.  So you "spin" the slot machine to get an amount of "money" with which you can "bet with" in online poker tables.  To have you coming back every day, Zynga has a "Daily Streak" whereby all the money you win gets multiplied.  These multipliers increase every consecutive day you spin, up to a 400% bonus on the seventh day.  I'm a sucker, so something like that is important to me.  So I've been spinning, at least once a day (once you spin you can't do it again for four hours -- there's a countdown clock), for ... gosh, a year?  How long isn't important; what matters is I've been maintaining.

Until last night.  I was back down to zero.  The fuck?!  Man, I swear I did it in time.  But ... you know, I took overtime Tuesday, I had to pack, and I had to sleep early because I had to wake up at 3:15 in the morning to get to my flight.  I opened up my computer to blog while waiting at the airport -- at least that streak is continuing -- but, shoot, I thought I spun before I went to bed.  And I had no time once I hit the ground in Denver because there were a bunch of things I wanted to do.  And so everything I had built up has turned to dust.

Just spun.  Two days in a row.  Wish me luck!

So I'm At The Airport ...

... and I used the bathroom in case I needed to take a shit.  Didn't need to, but when I got up, I swung my ass around and hit the side of the toilet dispenser.  I hate that.  Not only did I make a huge noise, now I have stranger stank on my left hip.  I'll feel the need to wash that part of my body for the rest of the day.

And now I just heard that one of the lavatories in the plane I'll be on doesn't work.  Fuckin' greeeeeeeeeeeeat.

Going wheels up.