Cleveland's Corner

New Domain Name

2008-12-27T15:12:00.002-05:00

So as of today I am the proud new owner of natecleveland.com. Currently there is nothing of value there, and I am not totally sure what I am going to do with it but I own it. I'll probably use it as a portal for messing around with various website templates, coding etc and maybe I'll eventually port this blog over there - who knows. It just seems cool to own my own name in cyberspace.

Health Care

2008-12-19T12:46:00.002-05:00

I recently read this article in Newsweek about health care providers being able to opt out of providing medicine/advice/treatments if they ethically object to the course of action being taken. This of course is entirely focused on the ever raging battle in America around abortion.

While my own views here don't really matter I think the most shocking thing about this story was the slippery slope precedent it establishes in the medical world. If medical professionals can opt not to provide assistance to patients for"religious or moral reasons" where does this end?
If I am a doctor and a patient of mine refuses treatment for cancer, can I object to their wishes because it goes against my religious beliefs and force treatment upon them? Can I refuse to perform experimental treatment because it goes against my moral code?

Doctors are supposed to provide the options to their patients and then respect their informed decisions. If people want birth control, experimental drugs, risky treatments or none of the above as long as the facts were presented as a doctor you need to do your job.

Hodge Podge

2008-12-10T17:35:00.003-05:00

So, for those of you who don't know - I've had a huge crush on Britney Spears since before her debut album "...Baby One More Time" dropped in 1998. I got a poster of her in her now infamous school girl outfit from my brother for my birthday. I got her album for Christmas - I think it's still at my parents house. Needless to say, it was hard to watch her crumble from a gorgeous young starlet to an overweight, mentally unstable divorcee with substance abuse problems. They were trying times for all of us.

While the new documentary style piece about her on MTV, Britney: For the Recrd clearly shows that everything is not entirely normal in her life (her dad essentially micro-manages it for her) she is turning it around and getting back on track. It evokes a lot of empathy for her and the high-pressure roller coaster he life has been through the years. Her new album, Circus is out in stores and the video for her single Womanizer clearly shows that her body has never been better - seriously check it out. Now I just need to see if I can find that poster again. Then again, maybe it's time to get a new one and support the "comeback" effort.

Changing gears a bit, I think Somerville has a disturbingly large population of slugs and worms. While the cold weather has sent them hiding now, the first 2-3 months of the school year while I would walk to work I would see easily a dozen or more slugs and worms all over the sidewalks. Why? It hadn't been raining often, so that's no explanation for the worms. I can't fathom why the Somerville sidewalks are so appealing to slugs either. Essentially the concrete sidewalks just morph into a walkway of death for these little guys and I have to dodge them on a daily basis. Anyone with any information as to what they are doing out there and why Somerville has such a high concentration of them would be greatly appreciated.

I'd also like to quickly plug the work of some friends. Neil has a nice little website I use to kill time at work and also keep up to date on what other people's opinions on various etiquette situations are so I can work to limit my social awkwardness. Check out www.definingetiquette.com if you want to see what it's all about or kill part of your workday.

Also, congrats to Bloom for avoiding a round of layoffs and remaining gainfully employed. If you want to see the high quality stories he is reporting on start here and it should be clear why he's still working hard out west.

As always, any and all commentary is appreciated and the tip for today is: Don't drive into downtown Boston with the idea that you'll be parking for free, that isn't happening.

Signs I'm Getting Older

2008-12-03T22:07:00.005-05:00

About time for an update. I would love to update this more often, but it's blocked at work and by the time I get back home every night I'm usually too tired or have forgotten about making posts here.

I wake up sore much more often than I used to.
I complain about high school kids and am no longer referring to my peer group.
They are doing the exact same things as I used to, but now it bothers me.
I fall asleep near 10pm on most Friday nights.
I watch a lot of Jeopardy.
I wear a bathrobe and slippers all over the place.
I'm getting paranoid about my hair falling out.

Just some things I was thinking about earlier this evening. For those of you reading (Ciaran) who want a more steady dose of my writing feel free to check out http://www.207prospectus.com for sports related content. If you'd like to keep up to date with what i'm doing on a day-to-day basis keep an eye on my Twitter updates, or visit twitter.com, sign up and follow me.
If any of you are looking for Red Sox merchandise feel free to check out a site I own where you can find Sox gear on Amazon/eBay and other sites for sale all in one spot: http://www.redsoxshop.net. Makes for great holiday gifts!

I'll try and be more regular, both in my posting and other important areas of my life, but I make no promises.

Bob Newmeyer is an Asshole

2008-08-20T22:12:00.002-04:00

Over the course of the Olympics there has been a lot of interesting commentary being bandied about in all the venues - some good, some awful. The most egregious so far has to be sideline reporter Bob Newmeyer at the Bird's Nest - home of track & field. On multiple occasions he has been totally heartless when interviewing athletes right after their Olympic dreams have been crushed. (see: Gay, Tyson; Spearmon, Wallace and Jones, Lolo)

Sure, I know we are all wondering what these people are thinking and feeling and it is the job of the media these days to get these scoops. However, I seriously object to the way that he poses the questions and the tone he takes with the athletes. For instance, after Tyson Gay failed to qualify for the 100m final, Newmeyer asked him if his hamstring was alright. A fair question, given his seemingly horrific fall in the 200m finals at the US trials 6 weeks prior.

Then he crosses the line, accusatorily asking him if he was sure. Really Bob, a gut who was to be part of the ultimate 3 man 100m showdown prior to the games who just failed to make that final is unsure how he feels. He said he was 100%, he said the leg wasn't an issue and that he gave it his all. Who are you to question him? He then went on to ask him how dissappointed he was with that performance, as if the crushing realiztion that his Olympic dreams were over without even the chance to run for a medal was going to be anything other than a huge dissappointment.

Later in the games, after Lolo Jones clipped a hurdle (the 9th) and lost all her momentum and faded from sure gold to 7th place Newmeyer struck again. He asked her what she must have been feeling after losing what looked like a sure gold medal. Clearly crestfallen, especially since that was very likely her one shot to do so. He also asks her what exactly happened, and how that occured. Come on, Bob. There's a way to ask these athletes these questions without seemingly like a completely soulless media android. Have some compassion, say something comforting to preface a question - these are young people (21-28 generally) who just saw 4 years of hard work, sacrifice and preparation result in heartache in seconds (or less).

Lastly, after Wallace Spearmon celebrated his apparent bronze medal in the 200m, only to discover he had been disqualified for stepping out of his lane Newmeyer immediately got him for an interview. The man just realized that he was going to lose an Olympic medal and Newmeyer chimes in with the ever brilliant: "What are your emotions like right now?" like he could even possibly answer that. Next question was asking him when he found out (just now) and how he felt about his race. Spearmon did a good job not punching him, I thought, and kept reiterating that he would be filing a protest.

Newmeyer has no compassion, not a lot of class and is lucky that all these athletes are being such good sports professionally answering his rudely toned interrogations. I wouldn't be upset if people stopped talking to him. If I were there, I would certainly avoid him like the plague.

The ongoing Brett Favre Saga

2008-08-12T23:56:00.002-04:00

I know I am not the only one out there - the people who are so sick of hearing about every little machination of his life. I thought that this would die down somewhat after the trade was finalized and passed, since you know, the whole situation was over and done with.

Not so much, it seems.

Literally, every day for weeks we got constant coverage of the Favre saga on all 3 ESPN networks, simultaneously! I mean, even the normal news networks had this shit on it. And it was even the most minute details.

Favre has a private plane! Offered $20 Million to stay retired! Might consider possibly talking to Jets or Bucs about the possibility of a trade! Had steak for dinner! What about the cover of Madden 2009?

It was incessant. There was constant analysis, most of it over the most inane details. They interrupted Brett Favre news with breaking Favre news. It was totally absurd and out of control. The only thing even remotely close to this much media saturation that mattered so little was the Barbaro injury/recovery/setback etc. debacle of a few summer's ago. By the end how many people even cared?

I mean, this sucks for Aaron Rodgers, since I am sure he just wants to play QB and have a shot but now, since he is replacing Favre we get tons of analysis on him too. Honestly, we really care about his 4 series at QB vs. Cincy in a preseason game this much? And I know that Green Bay is a big football city and all with a ton of tradition, but their media share can't be so large that we need nonstop coverage of the Brett Favre reinstatement/trade saga and then endless analysis on every sports station and show nationally for weeks, right? Am I wrong here. There are other sports stories in sports that are currently in season. Can't we overanalyze the Tampa Bay Rays, or the chase for the Single season saves record, or NASCAR races or something? How about the Olympics? Michael Phelps probably needs more media love for dominating the world. Can we pur Brett, Aaron and Green Bay to rest for awhile guys? Please?

I feel like any more overexposure on this and I am going to want to kill the power to ESPN headquarters or take out Brett Favre to put an end to all this madness.

The Meaning of Optional

2008-07-01T23:05:00.002-04:00

As defined in the Webster Dictionary:

left to one's choice; not required or mandatory: Formal dress is optional.

Given this definition, one would think that things deemed optional would be totally up to one's discretion and they could attend optional functions as they saw fit and follow the clothing optional rule at establishments governed by that rule.

This seems never to be the case in all of my experiences with "optional" things in my life so far though. As a member of numerous sports teams, I have attended all kinds of practices that were billed as optional, although they were certainly not optional by any means. Of course, I was fine with this as I enjoyed running, working out, competing and being with my friends - but still, not optional.

I have also been invited to innumerable workshops, trainings and events that have been billed as both "optional" and "completely optional" and then caught flack when I opted not to attend. If you are planning an event or a function of some kind and seek to bill it as optional, don't get all pissy and hostile when people choose not to attend. If you want people there, say so.

I have no problem showing up when my presence is required but frankly, I have plenty of stuff to do with my time and if it's a choice between an optional weekend work function and, say, a weekend spent with friends and family I don't see a whole lot of reason to go to work.

I'm tired of all this optionally-mandatory crap and passive agressiveness. Either accept that people will decline optional things or make them mandatory - just don't make thinly veiled sarcastic comments when people exercise their right to opt out.

The Next Frontier in Sport

2008-05-30T13:21:00.003-04:00

Right now on ESPN they are televising the National Spelling Bee. I can't really describe how awesome this is in words. Watching a stage full of 12-15 year olds spelling words I have usually never heard of, asking for alternate definitions, pronunciations and sentences involving these words is fantastic. Every kid has some nervous tick, like hair twirling, rocking back and forth etc.

It's pretty straightforward right now, with just a couple of commentators commenting on how excellently little Joey gathered the two roots of the word based on their language of origin and a panel of judges providing additional info and monitoring the spelling timer. The phase of the competition we are in now is down to the top 21, eliminating down to 12 for tonights live finals at 8pm EST on ABC. I'm stoked.

What we need to do is get a sideline reporter to get reactions from contestants after elimination, some backstage gossip and interviews with the parents. How great would that be?
"Hey Jenny, really tough break there on hyssop (a type of European mint often used to treat bruises, by the way). What was going through your mind when you were up there?"

"Well, Ryan, I was really nervous the whole time, since I am 13 and not used to TV crews filming me spell obscure words so I had to focus on relaxing. Then, uh, I tried to get it through the root of origin, but since it got passed around Europe faster than Paris Hilton I couldn't really garner anything helpful from that. Then the scary timer lady yelled at me and I got really flustered and just guessed. Who knew it was an "o" and not a "u" at the end? Also, um, I, uh....thinkyou'rereallycute, bye."

High comedy right there. You all ought to be tuning it, if not now then tonight at 8pm for the LIVE SPELLING BEE FINALE!

Edit: Apparently, they already have this sideline reporter thing taken care of with Erin Andrews. Sorry, Ryan Seacrest, I thought I had something there for you. Tough break. In other excellent news, she is cute and will keep me watching for awhile longer.

Book Review: Rant

2008-05-27T13:41:00.003-04:00

Book Review: Rant by Chuck Palahniuk

One of Palahniuk’s more recent works, Rantis a story told in the form of an oral history. This stylistic approach requires the interviewing of witnesses who knew, knew of or wanted to talk about the subject and compiling them into the history of the given individual. As he states in the author’s note at the front of the book, anytime you interview multiple people about a given topic, their views are bound to contradict each other in places. It is from this contradictory and fragmented viewpoint that the genius of Rant is revealed.

I found the method of story-telling to be not only refreshing, but a great way to explore the title character and broach many of the subjects that Palahniuk touches on in the novel, including: religion, genocide, segregation, time travel and alternate realities. As you take the journey into the life and death of Buster “Rant” Casey you get exposed to small threads of a larger, more complex web that Palahniuk is spinning in this story. While some people have said that this from of delivering the story is disjointed and detracts from the overall value of the novel, I found it to be thought provoking and delightful.

While the novel will make you think and recall past events mentioned, I find nothing wrong with the author forcing the readers to engage the material and piece the events together ourselves, reaching our own conclusions. In fact, this very facet of the book lends it to a certain sustainability, as this is the type of book that you can read over and over again an pick up on details overlooked in a first reading or reach a fresh conclusion you hadn’t considered the first time around.

While the formatting of the book is a break from the usual mold by being an oral history, the writing is classic Palahniuk - vivid imagery, dark humor, a capacity for the macabre that is unparalleled and an outside the box approach. I thoroughly enjoyed the book and read through it very quickly. Once I got to the heart of the story, I had to plow through to the end without putting it down (in my eyes, the mark of a great book). If you liked his earlier works, you’ll enjoy this one as well and if you are new to Palahniuk or only recognize him as “the guy who wrote Fight Club” then you should give this book a look

Also of note, he has a new novel, Snuffthat hit shelves May 20th. I got my copy this weekend and will have a review up once I get around to reading it.

Four and Half out of Five Stars

False Advertising

2008-05-23T11:59:00.002-04:00

I watch a decent amount of television, mostly sports, and anyone who watches their fair share of TV knows that the same commercials appear all the time. I obviously understand the point of advertising from both ends, and don't really have a huge issue with it. Successful advertising will make consumers want the advertised products, be it cars, food, legal advice whatever. What DOES bother me though is when I am constantly bombarded by ads for food chains that do no exist within any sort of geographical range of my house. What good is it advertising these products to people who couldn't possibly buy them?

Our biggest offenders here in the Northeast are: Sonic, Red Lobster and to a lesser degree Red Robin.

These restaurants constantly advertise on my TV stations (including local channels!) peddling their food to me. The closest Sonic is 215 miles away. The closest Red Lobster is 68 miles away and the closest Red Robin is 49 miles away (although they have one "Coming Soon" a mere 27 miles away). Why then, if it is incredibly unreasonable for me to head into town or take a short drive of 10-15 minutes and get to your restaurant, that I must see your incessantly stupid advertising all the time?

Red Robin, I somewhat understand the advertising blitz in preparation for moving some new locations into the area and wanting to create buzz. Red Lobster has been doing nothing but retreating out of New England for years though, so I don't really need a reminder that the locations up here weren't good enough to keep open. We'll get our seafood fresh somewhere else anyway, jerks. And Sonic - my God. I mean, 215 miles with no influx to the area in sight and terrible advertising to boot. It's a wonder I haven't firebombed one of these places yet.

I CANNOT BUY YOUR PRODUCTS! YOUR ADS SUCK! PLEASE LEAVE MY TV ALONE!
Isn't there some prescription drug some company ought to be convincing me I need instead?

Catch-22

2008-05-20T14:09:00.002-04:00

This afternoon I was told I wasn't qualified enough for the undergraduate admissions position I had applied for next year and thus, they would not be considering my application. Now I understand that they have minimum requirements and that I didn't technically have one year of experience in undergraduate admissions. However, as I outlined in my cover letter, I have been working in a very related field doing college advising and worked in partnership with a collegiate admissions office all year. They had me sit in on their meetings, I sat in our their candidate interviews and participated in making the decisions on a couple of applicants by using their admissions formula so I felt that this experience was relevant and would make me at least a worthwhile candidate for an interview.

I was hoping to get an interview so that I could further explain all the work I had been doing this year, how it was related to admissions work and how I thought this gave me a unique perspective on the process and made me an ideal candidate for the position. Obviously, I was hoping to get the job, but I would have been happy just getting an interview and putting my credentials out there in person. Naturally, they saw it otherwise and decided to maintain their rigid qualification standards and hence, we get the catch 22.

This is the most entry level position in admissions, the general admissions counselor, and yet it requires one year of experience. How is it that one gets any experience if the lowest rung on the ladder requires experience to get in? I don't understand where all these other people are getting experience in the first place as I always assumed that related experience like my work in college advising and admissions would be helpful. Apparently not. I don't know exactly how this problem can be rectified, but I think it's a systemic problem in many workplaces and in my opinion they are screening out a lot of potentially qualified applicants by having such a seemingly backwards system of experiential requirements.

I'm not saying I would be the most qualified person for the job, or that I even should get the job, seeing as they had 100's of applicants. I just feel that the way they are operating is a little antiquated and needs addressing.

It was the best of times, It was the worst of times

2008-05-15T14:55:00.002-04:00

Yesterday seemed like it was going to be the perfect day. I didn't have a full day at work, which is always nice, since I was attending a luncheon at Smith College and was going to head out after it was over. This is significant since not only does that mean I got to leave work early but the Red Sox were playing an afternoon game at 3pm so I would be able to cruise in from an easy day at the office, make myself a drink and watch the game. To make things even better the weather was absolutely gorgeous so it was great to be outside touring a college campus and not stuck inside the office. One would think that this would be a near perfect day, as I mistakenly did.

Everything was going according to plan as I met my co-worker Tristan at the office and hopped into his car for the drive up to Smith. As we always do, we had a great conversation about sports on the way up there and arrived a few minutes early. This event was sponsored by Smith to serve as a networking function to promote the college to area high school staff in an effort to increase local enrollment, especially among minority students. Tristan and I were in it more for the tour and the food.

The tour was great as we had a very knowledgeable tour guide who showed us all the relevant parts of campus and constantly highlighted the things that made Smith unique (other than being a women's college that is). Their campus is beautiful and were I a female high school student I would seriously consider going there, even given the single-gender nature of the University.

The luncheon was alright, but much more formal then I had anticipated. The school's President was there, as were numerous other staff members and students who were going to speak about the school during lunch. At this point I strongly regretted not showering that morning. The food also left something to be desired, as I was expecting more dining hall/buffet fare which is much more in line with my tastes then what we were given. The meal started off with some strange salad concoction containing perhaps 5-6 spinach leaves, mandarin oranges and potentially some radish bits covered in a very sweet dressing. Not being a fan of oranges, this was not a very appetizing option. I washed this down with a full glass of water and a dinner roll.

The main course was grilled chicken topped with onions and chives, sweet potatoes and asparagus. I dislike sweet potatoes strongly, and so I avoided eating those. I scraped the offending vegetable-like paste off my chicken and ate that quickly (chased with some sparkling pomegranate juice) and then sucked it up and choked down the asparagus so as not to be rude or look like the vegetable-phobic fast food whore that I am. I should not that both the director of admissions and the President sat at my table. So unlucky.

After some mildly interesting Smith propaganda speeches by those in attendance, we were out of there and things were looking up. The lunch wasn't amazing, but I would last until I got home and could make a sandwhich. If that was the worst part of my day, no big deal.

Ah, but the ride home. After getting back to the parking lot and jumping into my car, I sped off towards I-90 to make my hour long journey home. After traveling a brief 7-8 miles, traffic came to a dead halt. I had no idea what was going on, but I was hoping it was a near accident ahead as incoming highway traffic merged with us and that we would be moving again shortly. 15 minutes and all of 6 inches of progress later I knew this was not the case and I was faced with a decision. Stick it out and wait for this mess of indeterminate length to clear out or force my way two lanes to the right and exit the highway a mere 100 meters ahead. Already sweating more than an overweight convict in an interrogation room, I opted to invent a new way home.

I knew going into this mission that there wasn't another good East-West route anywhere near where I got off and this could end in potential disaster, but it was a risk I was willing to take over sitting in a highway parking lot for several hours. I headed North on some random country road, map pressed to the steering wheel and hoping for the best. After 15 minutes of aimless driving without locating the road or town I was in anywhere on the map I threw it in the floor in disgust and realized what needed to be done. If I was going to get home to see any of this game at all I was going to have to treat this problem like a final exam and going in guns blazing.

For those of you who don't know me, you may think this means that I am well prepared and have a though out plan of attack and have researched my subject. This couldn't be more untrue. I started making random turns and used bizarre rationalizations like "there is no way A-OK gas can be open with prices of 3.17 a gallon. Therefore, if they have a lack a business and had to close, nobody drives that way. Nobody goes to Western Mass. so I better got the opposite way." Also I made several right turns because I am right-handed and awesome, so right has to be correct; I also loosely correlated moving right as heading East.

Finally I stumbled blindly upon Rt. 9 East, which runs right past my house, so I knew I was all set. As I drove through podunk town after ramshackle shithole, I was feeling better about seeing the last 6 innings of the game. I had only gone 35 minutes out of the way, burned a bunch of extra gas and sweat all the way through both my shirts and the entire driver's seat. No big deal, I needed to lose 5 pounds anyway. This day could be salvaged from the brink, I thought to myself.

No sooner had I turned from marginally suicidal, sweaty kid to hopefully optimistic, sweaty kid when I passed an elderly gentleman biking the other direction. He was in the bike lane and I was squarely in the road where I belonged. I made eye contact with him and waved as my mood has drastically improved. Obviously this geriatric ass-wipe was nearing death, hates anything and everyone spawned after 1975 or mistook me for a drowned rat driving a motor vehicle because he decided that I was dangerously encroaching on his biking space. Granted, the bike lane was a good 6 feet wide and could have easily fit a small motor vehicle, but that isn't the point. He stared me down, flipped me off and then loogied on my windshield. That's right, the old bastard spat his disease ridden phlegm on my windshield. That was pretty much the unraveling point of my journey. I was furious with this random guy on a bike and wanted to run him off the road. He had AT LEAST 8 feet of clearance from my car, I wasn't going to hit him. What the hell was his problem!

From that point forward, I hit every traffic light, got behind every person who felt the need to drive 10 mph under the limit and lost my radio signal of the game. I was completely and utterly owned by the old biking man and his snot (which took a long time to wipe off the windshield I might add). To cap it off, my transmission started acting up as I neared home and I was out of gas. I made a stiff drink and watched the rest of the Red Sox game coming in right after the amazing grab/high-five combo by Manny and right before the Craig Hansen suckfest in the 7th inning. Naturally.

I hope there was a giant sinkhole that opened up on I-90 East yesterday and made the highway impassable for 6 hours and backed up traffic to Albany otherwise I am just going to be bitter about the whole thing. Amazing how some old dude and his deteriorating vision and social skills could totally ruin what started out as such a great day.

The Delicious Express

2008-05-02T13:10:00.002-04:00

Seeing as I am rather lazy and rarely bring myself enough to eat for lunch, I found myself need some additional nourishment after lunch yesterday. Since my co-workers were going to pick up some Taco Bell I decided to tag along and maybe get a taco or some cinnamon twists to quell my hunger until dinnertime.

As we pull up I remember the awesome Taco Bell commercial I saw recently on TV for the Bacon Club Chalupa and instantly decide that I must try it. I wasn't sure how the bacon would fit in with the mexican theme of the food, but I am pretty sure bacon is good with anything. I pick one up, get about 40 napkins and packets of hot sauce to take back to the office and my taste buds are ready for some excitement.

The first bite gives me mixed reviews: I can't quite pick up the bacon flavor, the hot sauce is dripping everywhere and there wasn't enough meat in my first bite. I was disappointed and worried that the delectable concoction of awesome I had been salivating over for a solid 20 minutes was going to be a bust. Boy, was I wrong.

As I mowed through the rest of the chalupa, there was ample bacon with great flavor and much more meat to go along with it. The sauce they put on there mixed beautifully with the rest of the flavor explosion going on inside that soft shell and after I finished I was craving more. My conclusions are as follows: The Bacon Club Chalupa is delicious and bacon goes with anything. You must eat this. Your life will be altered.

If you'll excuse me, I am now going to get some Taco Bell for lunch.

Hollywood is full of Whores

2008-04-28T14:18:00.002-04:00

Flipping through the channels the other day, I happened upon some random reality show "A Very Brady Baby" (i think it was called) which features Christopher Knight and his wife Adrienne Curry and their decision to have a baby. It should be noted that this is the third season of this show, and these two met on the set of another reality show, "The Surreal Life."

Christopher Knight is 50 years old and is best known for playing Peter Brady in "The Brady Bunch" back in the day. Adrienne Curry is 25 and was the winner of the first season of "America's Next Top Model" and has had numerous modeling gigs, including Playboy, since then.

HOW IS IT THAT THESE TWO PEOPLE ARE MARRIED?! What does she see in a middle aged former child star? And how the hell is he landing model ass at age 50?

The answer, of course, is that nearly everyone in Hollywood is irrevocably fucked up and operate in a completely parallel universe from the rest of us where attention and money take the place of common sense. Just check their Wiki pages for further info.

She won a modeling TV show, made money modeling and got the adoration of millions by doing multiple Playboy shoots and appearing in Maxim's top 100 hottest women. As the modeling hype surrounding her dimmed, she went on The Surreal Life to get more exposure and met Chris, who was clearly trying to worm his way back into the spotlight through that appearance.

Once they started dating on/after the show, they parlayed that into a "Newlyweds"-esque show about the two of them dating, where at the end of season 1 he proposes. Not only is that a great season finale, but hey! - that means we can do a season 2 about the wedding planning! Naturally season 3 is focused around them figuring out if they want to start a family and her getting breast implants.
Watching just 10 minutes of one episode was proof enough how damaged they both were, as there were two huge fights and multiple crying fits by both parties. I think they even have couples therapy sessions, in addition to individual therapists. Good lord.

I stopped watching when he got upset about her taking sexy pictures of her, and a girl friend as well, for his birthday. He flew off the handle and worried about her fidelity, while she got all upset that a relatively unattractive 50 year old wasn't turned on by her or something. Unreal.

The upcoming Ashton Kutcher/Cameron Diaz drunken Vegas wedding movie seems to be an accurate portrayal of the lengths people will go for money, fame or both. Although people could do worse then Cameron Diaz and Adrienne Curry....

The Makings of a Solid Afternoon

2008-04-22T16:27:00.005-04:00

As I was out and about this afternoon doing some errands, I stopped at CVS to buy some much needed deodorant and get passport picture taken. While I patiently waited for the pictures to be processed and cut for me, I browsed around the snack aisle looking for something small to tide me over until dinner. This delectable item leaped off the shelf at me:

Needless to say, having devoured half a bag of these one drunken night a few months ago, it was the perfect snack. Of course, remembering the last time I had these made me start thinking about beer, since I was less-than-sober last time the delectable collision of Zest Taco and Chipotle Ranch graced my lips, and lo and behold CVS sells beer now.

Side note: I used to work at this particular CVS in high school and the person taking my passport photos was none other than one of my old managers whom I had always thought was really attractive. I was 16, scrawny and awkward around women when I worked there and she was about 24 or 25 and had an decently attractive and menacing looking boyfriend so needless to say I didn't have a whole lot of success there. She still works there, and still attractive, and now I am 23, significantly less scrawny and slightly less awkward around women. This still led nowhere, although I did make her laugh with some inane banter, which is a step....right?

Anyways, so I peruse the beer cooler looking for some good prices on tallboys, because why not have a tallboy and some delicious chips while I wait for my laundry to dry? I was going to go with the standard Bud Light, but as I was walking away out of the corner of my eye I saw that distinctively lame looking can of Natural Light. For $1.15.
That's right, 24 ounces of scrumptious smooth pilsner for $1.15.

Needless to say, things are looking up for the afternoon and that was easily the best $2.25 I'll spend all day. Now if only my parents had cable TV and a more comfortable couch....

(images courtesy of taquitos.net and naturallight.com)

Fenway Opening Day 2008!

2008-04-16T15:38:00.002-04:00

I posted this in it's entirety on my other, sports related blog - www.207prospectus.wordpress.com - which you should also be reading, but felt like I should repost it here as well just because. In the next day or two, I'll be uploading some pictures to the post over there, so you can check those out as well.

Every sports fan has their favorite team, the one they are a little too invested in, spend a little too much time rooting for and do borderline crazy things in support of. It should be quite evident that my favorite team is the Boston Red Sox and even though this is obvious homer-ism, I find Fenway Park to be one of the most magical and enchanting ballparks in the majors. So it should come as no surprise that every time I get to catch a game there in person I still am in awe of the park and all of it’s loveable (and sometimes irritating) quirks.

I was lucky enough to attend several playoff games this fall by camping out on Lansdowne St. underneath the Green Monster with scores of other diehard fans. It was an awesome experience and something that I was excited to have the opportunity to do again. Naturally, opening day 2008 with the presentation of the 2007 World Series rings was a perfect opportunity. Unfortunately, there was a bit of a fiasco involving the camped out fans, Fenway staff and the Boston Police, which resulted in a termination of our camping trip. Luckily, I was privileged enough to have been offered a ticket to the game from my former roommate, Scott, and so I was able to attend despite that snafu on the streets. I won’t get into detail about it here, but needless to say, I wasn’t impressed with that.

The rest of the experience and the game were unbelievable. It was a warm, sunny afternoon with a light breeze and a frenzied crowd; perfect weather for springtime baseball at beloved Fenway. The pre-game ceremony was pretty impressive, with people lining the outfield holding flags representing all the countries in Red Sox Nation. The Boston Pops provided musical accompaniment to the proceedings and past Boston sports heroes from the Bruins, Celtics, Patriots and 2004 Red Sox were called onto the field each sporting their respective sport’s championship trophies. Greats like Billy Russell and Bobby Orr strode in from left field in their jerseys and then took their place on the third baseline to watch the ring presentations. It was a really cool scene and a great way to demonstrate the rich history and tradition of Boston sports that these Red Sox and vaulting their way into.

After this, they draped the Championship flags from each of the Red Sox’s previous World Championships over the Green Monster with increasingly loud cheers from the crowd. I have a great picture of the 2007 World Series Champions banner billowing out over the 2004 banner, at last moment in the spotlight for that momentum changing and agony ending title. Then they called out the players and staff from the 2007 team, with each person, be they assistant strength coach to fan favorite and All-Star receiving a good cheer. It was great to see Doug Mirabelli again, and he was enormously well received by the crowd when he went to get his ring. After the presentation of rings, Red Sox legend Johnny Pesky and David Ortiz, surrounded by the team raised the 2007 Champions flag on the center field flagpole. It was a really picturesque moment pairing legends old and new and the stadium was shaking with joy, the very walls vibrating with our collective good fortune.

I was naïve enough to think that after the jets did a fly-by of the stadium that it couldn’t get any better and there were no more surprises to be had. Obviously, I was wrong. Throwing out the ceremonial first pitch was none other than former scapegoat Bill Buckner, back at Fenway to be recognized as a valued member of our team, a pariah no more. Clearly the 2004 and 2007 World Series wins went a long way in easing the pain of Buckner’s miscue in 1986 and a lot of healing has happened since then. I thought it was great to finally welcome him back to the park and hopefully the monkey is off his back for good now. As a great omen for the game (and hopefully the season) Buckner tossed a strong strike to his former teammate Dwight Evans. If you thought the cheers for the banner unveiling, or Manny, Ortiz or Papelbon were loud - Buckner’s ovation was a deafening roar of several minutes equal to the noise the jets produced overhead.

The rest of the day was a really picturesque baseball orgasm filled with peanuts and beer, Dice-K dissecting the surprisingly anemic Tigers offense and the Sox grinding out runs all afternoon. I couldn’t think of a better way to spend a day off from work or a better way to open the season. I also got my picture taken wearing a 2007 World Series ring that they are raffling 9 of off to the public.

The season is long and will have plenty of downs (see getting swept in Toronto) and ups (see winning 2 of 3 from the Yankees and battering Phil Hughes) but this was the perfect start to another great season of baseball at Fenway. Here’s hoping 2008 is as great as 2007 was and that I can bask in the glory of another championship on a warm afternoon in April 2009.

End of an Era

2008-04-11T13:47:00.003-04:00

The other day my favorite pair of jeans suffered the inevitable death blow. Already having numerous holes and weak spots, I completely blew out the left knee making the already existing hole large enough to fit my head through. This renders them as not acceptable attire for going out most places and they will no be relegated to wear around the house or for doing work in.

It is a sad day, as they were my most comfortable pair of jeans and will be near impossible to replace. Me being the type of guy that I am though, I will be holding onto these jeans for a while even though they have essentially fulfilled their usefulness to me.

A Graphic Description of Food Poisoning

2008-04-04T18:09:00.000-04:00

A few weeks ago I had the unfortunate experience known as food poisoning. For whatever reason, I seem to get afflicted by this more often than most people. I don’t know exactly why, but I surmise it has something to do with my penchant for late night eating and fast food. Here’s how things transpired.

After going to bed at my normal time of about 11pm and feeling fine, I awoke around 2:30AM to some mild stomach discomfort. Since it was preventing me from sleeping comfortably I opted to get out of bed, head to the kitchen and get a glass of water or something to quell the rumblings. I figured it was just a cramp or something and so I had some water, walked around the apartment for a few minutes and everything seemed to be settling down. Thinking I was out of the woods I got back into bed and tried to get back to sleep. Maybe 15 or 20 minutes later, I realized something was horribly wrong. Maybe the water had taken my fragile stomach above critical mass, or maybe I had been a ticking time bomb all along, who knows. What occurred next can only be described as the worst 18 hours of my life in recent memory.

I sprung from my bed and sprinted the 8 feet to my bathroom to unleash what can only be described as a torrent of vomit. The puke spilled forth from my body so violently that my back and abs ached and my throat felt like someone had scrubbed it raw with a hairbrush. We are talking a 3 to 4 flush affair here – the volume of vomit was impressive. After this massive outburst of vomit, my body strained and abused, I passed out on the living room floor for a brief while which allowed me to recover enough energy to crawl back into bed for several hours sleep.

Upon waking back up at 7:30AM, I actually felt pretty good and almost considered going to work. However, as I got dressed I felt that sharp, terrifying pain in my stomach again and new I was going to be in for a long day. I raced back into the bathroom and dispelled even more chunky, vile-smelling waste into my poor toilet. Hoping this would be the end of it but knowing in my heart that the worst is yet to come, my body kicked the expulsion into high gear.

In between rasping heaves, I realized this evacuation procedure was rapidly about to go full body and prepared for the worst. Moments later, a full-on colon eruption occurred the likes of which mortal man should ever have to experience. My ass felt like a fire hydrant that had been broken open and was spewing water into the street on a hot summer’s day. Only problem being that this wasn’t a summer’s day, and nothing resembling water was pouring out of me. Of course, for those of you wondering, I was also simultaneously throwing up while this occurred into my nearby sink. As you can imagine the aftermath on both the bathroom and myself was unholy. I briefly considered setting it ablaze in lieu of cleaning up, but decided against it at the last minute.

The rest of the day was spent interchangeably lying on the living room floor resembling a corpse, shit-splattering my toilet bowl, or heaving up bile. At one point my cat came over and pawed lightly at my face, presumably to check for signs of life. I have no idea how after both my late night bombing of the plumbing, or my early morning blast session, my body had anything left to expel besides some internal organs but it managed throughout the rest of the afternoon. I was able to think about eating a cracker or two at 6pm, and managed to hold down some soup by 8pm that night.

I retired to bed that evening feeling as if a hammer had bludgeoned my midsection, my throat had been seared in battery acid and my ass had been scrubbed raw. I was a broken and defeated man with my only glimmers of hope being that the soup I managed to slurp down an hour before hadn’t made a reappearance and that I had lost about 7 pounds in less than a day. The moral of the story here is, don’t get food poisoning. I only wish I knew what I got mine from.

This is my life

2008-03-31T12:34:00.002-04:00

So one of my students just now came into the office yelling about how the freakiest thing happened to him last night and that we need to protect him. Here's essentially what he said in his weirdo-rant:

"So last night I was having a peaceful dream about Care Bears and stuff when I felt a cool breeze over my body. The windows weren't open or anything and my fan wasn't on. The door was closed so there was no breeze or nothing and my cat was sleeping on me so I should have been extra warm. Then all of a sudden I got really cold and the Devil popped into my dream, totally at random. I felt a sharp pain in my heart because the Devil had just pierced my soul and possessed me. It was really freaky and I almost peed in my pants. Then he took me into his lair in Hell and started beating the crap out of me and I felt all of his pain and saw all the things he could see and he said I was next and that he was going to kill me today. My grandfather has been convinced I have had a possessed soul since I was 3 and he has been trying to get me ever since and do an exorcism or something on me but my grandmother wouldn't let him because her good soul is protecting me from evil like him, but she couldn't stop the Devil.
Now I'm watching my back and seeing 6's everywhere, the sign of Satan you know, and I don't know when or how but I am going to die today. What do I do?"

Unreal. Like, how the hell am I supposed to even react to this?

Other gems included this: "Everyone knows that if you go to a cemetery at midnight and do a grave dance you can raise the souls of the dead." This was in response to our claims that this was just a nightmare and that it wasn't really going to happen.
He also was shouting the whole time, despite the fact that the office is inside the school library and getting very exasperated when no one would believe him.

Clearly he watched/read Harry Potter recently and saw The Number 23, which would explain the "feeling/seeing what the devil does/sees" bit and all the 6's he is seeing all over the place.

Totally bizarre. This is pretty close to a typical day too, which is the crazy part.

The Greatest Parking Spot Ever

2008-03-19T14:16:00.002-04:00

Last Saturday night I was heading to a bar in Harvard Square. I was driving there. I wasn't too happy about it, but driving there and fighting for parking in the cluster-fuck that is parking in Harvard Sq. on a Saturday night outweighed paying for a cab. For whatever reason, I really dislike paying to get driven around when I could just as well do it myself.

So as I have mentally prepared myself for the arduous task of hunting for parking, I round the corner where the bar, Red Line, is located and pull off to the side of the road opposite the bar to let out my passengers as I embark on my parking mission. As I sit there, waiting for them to get out, I happen to glance to the other side of the street. In my head I know there isn't going to be parking spots right in front of the bar I want to go to at 10pm on Saturday, by habit forces me to look.

What do I see as I glance over, but a wide open, uncontested parking spot feet from the door. My brain stumbled over this visual information as I tried to instruct them to close the doors and hang on, as the red light stopping traffic and potential spot-stealers won't last forever. I hastily cut back into the lanes of traffic, back up 20 feet down a city street and parallel park my car in the miracle spot, first try.

Easily the best parking spot I have ever gotten at a busy place relative to the distance traveled to the doorway. I will most likely never have as good a parking spot as this ever again, unless of course I get handicapped plates and personally, I'd rather spend 20 minutes looking for a spot and walk 5 blocks. As I got out of the car I declared that we couldn't leave until the bar closed on principle because our spot was so awesome.

Work Sucks - Or Why I'm A Bitch

2008-03-13T10:10:00.003-04:00

So it's March. I've been a full-time employee for about 6 months now and I am already starting to get frustrated with showing up to work. This has been a common problem for me in the past, where after awhile I just get tired of some facet of the job I am doing and it makes it very difficult for me to find the requisite motivation to go to work.
I am currently trying to identify why it is that I don't feel like going to work at my current job, because as far as I can tell it's a pretty sweet deal.

Let's review:
I have virtually no direct supervision, so I am free to take the job in whatever direction I want really and I never get my balls busted for being a few minutes late in the morning.
I am working with high-school kids who are for the most part very cool.
I am working on getting kids into college, which is something I am relatively knowledgeable about and find both interesting and rewarding.
I get all school vacations [Thanksgiving, Christmas, February, April].
I almost never have to "bring any work home" with this job. Once I am out of the office, I am done with work.

Where is the downside in all of this you might ask? Here are a few issues:
I work with high-school kids and they ca be very frustrating.
I work on a salary and it is not very high.
I have an hour commute to work - each way.
School starts at 7:45AM. I operate better on a 10/11AM-1/2AM schedule then a 6AM-10/11PM one.

Basically, I am complaining because I have a long commute to work, don't make as much money as I want to and can't sack up and adjust my lifestyle to fit my life.

I AM NOT IN COLLEGE ANYMORE. NORMAL PEOPLE WORK. EDUCATION RELATED JOBS DON'T MEET NIGHTS.

I knew what the commute was going to be like, I knew what the salary was going to be and I knew what the time requirements were when I signed up and now I am using all of these things as a complaint and an excuse to gripe about my job. I have a pretty sweet deal and I just can't help but get away from the slippery slope that is "the grass is always greener" argument. Sure I could be making more money. I could also be working a ton more hours, be doing something I abhor or worse yet, be unemployed.
Sure, maybe this isn't something I want to do for the rest of my life but until then I need to grow up an accept the fact that I have a pretty sweet deal. Meanwhile I'll be looking out for a job that let's me work from home on my own time and still pays the bills.

Subway and Children

2008-03-03T14:21:00.002-05:00

The other night I went to Subway to pick up some dinner since I had a buy one, get one free coupon and I love Subway. The store is about 600m from my house, so I figured I would be in and out in no time. Naturally, I was wrong but in the process of being at this Subway for 30 minutes I learned some things.

First of all, the scene in there upon my arrival was frightening and I almost bailed immediately. There were 5 people in line in front of me and several of these people had young-ish kids with them. There was only one person working which just compounded the wait and everyone in front of me kept making all these really complex orders. Throw in the fact that as I approached the front of the line the bread supply was down to about 4 pieces and things started getting pretty edgy in line. It was like some scene out of the third world where people were fighting over the scraps from the aid trucks. People were bartering for line position behind me and the poor guy working had to inform everyone coming in that they were essentially out of bread. Not only did this excruciating wait watching the bread dwindle in front of me and people stumble over their orders teach me a lesson in patience it made me acutely aware I am nowhere near ready to have children.

Having kids changes your entire life. I have no idea exactly what this feels like, since I have no kids, but I can imagine it is something you can't really wrap your head around until your right in the middle of it. You can't do anything quickly with kids I learned. They are small, and slow and their brains don't operate as fast as they will once they grow up. Ordering food with kids is like pulling teeth because they are too shy to talk to the person behind the counter, so they have to relay the order through their parent. Don't even think about ordering for them either, as that is a huge insult likely to result in a tantrum. They also like really weird combinations of food items that only kids would like; pepperoni, bacon, turkey, tomatoes, oil and vinegar and mayo? what the hell?

They are also small and in the way and find a reason to be underfoot at all times. Kids are constantly banging into things, other people, each other; it's a 24/7 cluster fuck with them.

Given my current lifestyle of inhabiting other people's domiciles on the weekends, liking to take off on a whim and always looking for a way to shirk responsibility having kids would essentially ruin that. I mean, I had to take care of the cat for a week on my own and that derailed lots of small travel plans. I couldn't take it with me, but I couldn't abandon it for a week and hope for the best either. Nor could I afford to pay someone else to care for it, let alone the fact that I don't like strangers being in my apartment. And this is all with a cat, human children are easily 1000x as needy as a cat.

Needless to say, I haven't reconsidered my overall life plan of fathering children and being a stay at home dad someday, but I think that day needs to be a little further down the line given this experience. I just kept thinking that if I had kids right now, they would probably starve to death or drive me to commit a violent crime on some stranger out of sheer frustration.

Soda

2008-02-19T20:29:00.003-05:00

I've been trying to not drink soda as much, in addition to not really drinking alcohol, because it is pretty terrible for you. It's bad for your teeth and it's essentially liquid fat. It's got caffiene in it, which is a rough drug in and of itself. It costs money, which when you are downing as much soda as I am, it becomes a substantial amount of cash.

Why is it that I continue to drink soda even though I really don't want to? For one, it tastes much better than water, so it's hard to choose the bland water when the soda is right there. Secondly, it's like a vice. The combination of the caffiene and sugar shoots straight to the brain like an express train and the flavorful goodness coats the taste buds like a warm blanket. I know I shouldn't drink it is much as I do, especially since I'm not exercising nearly as much as I used to.

I think that's the point though; everyone has vices and everyone does shit they know they shouldn't. I've got plenty more than just a massive soda indulgence, believe me, and everyone you and I know has similar imperfections. People cheat, gamble, steal, lie, cut corners, cut classes, drink, do drugs - you name it. As humans, we all are built to have imperfections. It is what defines us as people, makes us unique and defines who we are oftentimes.

Having a problem controlling one's soda intake is really minor in comparison to some of the other issues and vices people carry around. Hell, it's hardly in the top 10 of my own. We just have to learn to accept and embrace some of the deficencies people have and work with them on those that are larger problems.

People are coded to take risks and make bad choices. It makes me wonder what other kind of vices people have that they don't even know about? What else is wrong with you? With me?

The Manning Escape

2008-02-05T22:18:00.000-05:00

The Manning Escape. The Miracle Grab of David Tyree. Immaculate Reception II. Whatever you want to call it.

Everyone in New England will certainly remember what they were doing, where they were and who they were with for The Manning Escape. I can easily see this being akin to Buckner’s Error and The Shot Heard Round the World and various other sporting moments that get names of their own and come to define games and legacies.

The Manning Escape was one of several defining moments in Super Bowl 42, one of several opportunities the New England Patriots had to seal the game or change the outcome to ensure their perfect 19-0 season and establish a Patriots dynasty for this decade with their 4th Super Bowl win.

This was not to be though. After the Pats went ahead 14-10 with less than 3 minutes to play on a TD pass from Brady to Moss, New England was much more relaxed than it previously had been. While far from over, the game had taken on a new life now that we had the lead late in the game and it was up to Eli Manning to lead a drive and beat us on the biggest stage of them all.

After a second down play that saw a game sealing interception graze of the outside of Asante Samuel’s knuckles (he was a split second too quick in trying to catch the ball) we had the giants at 3rd and 5 from near midfield with a minute to play. Eli dropped back to pass, and for one of the few times in the game it seemed we had a strong pass rush. Two of our guys got to Eli and had him wrapped up, or so it seemed. Somehow, someway the little bastard managed to spin away from two would be tacklers, who had a grasp on his jersey and get into open space. While actively running for his life he finds David Tyree somewhat open across the middle and heaves a pass towards him.
What happened next can only be described as other-worldly.

Everything was going in slow motion and the pass felt as if it had been in the air for 30 seconds, at least. Rodney Harrison was in coverage against Tyree and the pass was high. Both men jumped, going up for the ball in perfect harmony, slowly reaching out for it arms fully extended. Tyree and Harrison both have a hand on it, and the pair begins their descent to Earth as gravity takes effect. As they fall to the ground the ball is pinned against Tyree’s helmet, held there by both his and Harrison’s hand and each man trying with all their strength to take sole possession of it. Somehow Tyree manages to get his other hand up and cradles the ball tightly, bringing it down towards his chest ever so slightly as Harrison forces him into an awkward back bend as the two men crash into the turf.

With their collision to the ground the world comes back to full speed in an instant and I am screaming unintelligibly at the top of my lungs. “Harrison’s got it! Fumble! Offensive pass interference! OffsidesHOLDING! SHITASSFUCKNOWAY DOES HE HAVE IT!”
Turns out I had been screaming the whole play and hadn’t realized it. With that catch the Giants converted the 3rd down and kept the drive alive and were now in the redzone. Several plays later they went on to score the go ahead TD with 35 seconds left. That two play sequence was unequivocally the dumbest, most random and absurd sequence of professional football I have ever witnessed – especially given the implications.

Where was I you might ask? In a cramped living room surrounded largely by people I didn’t know who were predominantly Giants fans (dumb ones at that). The lesson here is, when your team is in the big game do not break routine. I should have been with people I knew, eating pizza like I had for all the past Super Bowls not branching out in hostile territory.

Excuse me while I go bash my head through a plate glass window.

I rule

2008-01-30T20:53:00.000-05:00

So today I finally have internalized the old grade school addage involving spelling and the placement of i and e next to each other.

For reference: "i before e except after c and sometimes in words like neighbor and weigh"

For whatever reason, it took me about 15 years to really grab a hold of this and actually implement it in my spelling actively. This results in my being cognizant of the fact that I had been spelling numerous words incorrectly for quite some time and now no longer need spell check to clean up my verbal diarrhea as often.
I have no idea why it took this long for me to get this, or why I randomly started humming that little ditty in my head, but for whatever reason the 10,000th time I did it in my life it made sense.

Also today, while on my lunch break, I planned on getting gas. I drove by the gas station on my way to grab some food (not in according with my NY Resolution btw - shame) and decided that despite the cheap price (2.96/gal compared to 2.99-3.01 near home) that I would get it on the way back.

Lo and behold, as I pulled in on the way back past the station, the attendant was in the process of LOWERING the price of gas to 2.92/gallon! I WIN! total awesomeness.

That shit totally made my day. In other news, I need a life if that is the type of crap that makes my day.

A Shopping Calamity

2008-01-25T09:10:00.001-05:00

The other night I made a late run to Shaw's to do some grocery shopping. It was a pretty standard and enjoyable trip, since the store is real empty after 10pm and I was able to breeze through he aisles with little difficulty. As I browsed the soda aisle though, my happy shopping trip ground to a halt and my world was turned on it's axis.

Shaw's brand soda was on sale, and even though I am trying to cut out soda from my diet, it wasn't all going to be for me and the nostalgia for the Shaw's brand sodas is quite high for me. Back in my high school days all my friends and I would always go to my friend Chris' house after school and we were thee so often we were limited to one soda and two snacks per day. The soda selection was always a medley of Shaws' finest offerings (or name brand soda on special occasions). I was particularly fond of the Dr. Pepper knock-off and so once I saw the sale I was stoked to grab a case or two.

No such luck. They were out of it. In fact they didn't even have an empty space on the shelf indicating that at one point there was some, but it has subsequently all been bought up due to it's delicious taste and tantalizingly low price.

I was devastated and had to settle for a case of "Mountain Maze" instead. Because of this travesty alone I will most likely not be shopping there again anytime soon.
I may hit up Wal-Mart for the also delicious Dr. Thunder and Mountain Lightning offerings they have.

Until the world realizes the deliciousness of Dr. Pepper and it's lower priced, generically named knockoffs I will not rest.

My Problem with Facebook

2008-01-22T10:56:00.001-05:00

I have recently discovered that I have a problem with Facebook. I check it far too religiously for updates on the lives of my "friends" and take any updates way to seriously. I pour through tons of photos when people update them, most of them including people I don't know that well just for the sake of seeing what's in them. I get way too wrapped up in people's personal information and I find it creepy when I notice subtle changes to page layout or musical interests. People change their relationship status and I am always wondering what happened. The worst part is when there aren't enough updates to fill my time, I look up people's profiles and browse through their photos or look at the wall-to-wall conversations my friends are having with each other.

The question I find myself asking recently though is: Why the fuck do I care?

Am I going to quiz these people about their musical interests or use it as a conversation point? Not likely.
Am I going to pounce on people the second they get out of relationships with a barrage of questions about what happened or date offers (if applicable)? Also a no.
Are the majority of the pictures I look at interesting/artistic/otherwise worthwhile? Hardly.

The realization that I have made here is that I need to find some sort of other outlets for my free time. Cruising Facebook is fine for a little while and all, but I think I am spending an inordinate amount of time on the site being creepy. I'll be working to limit that moving forward, if for nothing else than my own sanity.

I have other, more global concerns with the site as well or at least how it and its content is perceived by the media. The whole notion of employers looking at your Facebook photos and making a judgment based on those is ludicrous to me. What business is it of their how I spent my weekends/free time in college? If I went out drinking on the weekend what effect does that have on my performance in the workplace?

None, I say.

I can understand that they want to utilize all resources available to them to make the most informed decision they can about a prospective employee, and that people have control over the pictures of them on sites like Facebook or MySpace. However, how many times have we heard stories about company outings or holiday parties where they foot the bar tab and everyone gets wasted on their dime? How is getting drunk with your coworkers/bosses on the company dime acceptable, but going out drinking with your friends on a weekend something to be suspiciously reviewed? Doesn't make sense to me.

I would hope that any potential future employers of mine make their determination for hiring me based on my educational merits, skill set, references and personality based on my interview and not what they might have seen on the Internet. I don't plan on altering my pictures for their benefit and I can only hope that they are capable of seeing what I bring to the table based on the standard employment criteria and aren't swayed by pictures of me having a beer.

Observation

2008-01-17T09:00:00.000-05:00

After watching the American Idol auditions show last night (flipping to it during commercials of the Celtics game) I came to the following conclusion: There is a preponderance of hot girls in Texas. I need to go there and reap the benefits of the apparent carpet-bombing of good genes. It can't hurt that their isn't a harsh winter there and thus no "frumpy sweaters and sweatpants" season either. Don't get me wrong, girls in sweatpants can still be very attractive, it's just nice not to be subjected to months of that outfit on every girl. If anyone feels like joining me to a trip down south or wants to donate to my efforts, leave a comment and let me know.

New Years Resolutions

2008-01-16T09:31:00.000-05:00

Now that we are two weeks into 2008, the glorious year of the rat, I feel it is appropriate to give an initial status report on how my New Year's Resolutions are going. I made these resolutions before the New Year and was very committed to making them happen in '08. It should be noted that I rarely make any resolutions for a number of reasons, one of which being I think NYE is the single most overrated holiday in the calendar year, but also because I generally am of the opinion that I am awesome and need no improvement.
This was not the case this year, as the wheels started to come off in 2007, and so I made several resolutions of things to improve on for 2008.

1. Be debt free by the end of the year.

This does not include my student loans, as it is unrealistic given the balance of that debt and my meager salary that I could pay off those as well this year. This is strictly geared towards my credit card and personal debts. I owe a moderate amount of money to my parents and on my credit card and plan on paying off both debts this year. Luckily, the interest rate on that loan from my parents is zero and the monthly payments are whatever I can afford, so I am essentially free to pay off my card first, which is great. Game plan for the year is to pay off the credit card debt I have now by the end of next month and transfer the remaining balance to another card with a lower interest rate after that. I then have multiple cards issues in my name that I will be cancelling, consolidating to one card. Then I will pay off my parents and after that, my student loans (goal of end of 2009 paid off).

How's it going so far?

Well, my Christmas shopping this year hurt the cause a bit and probably set me back from paying it all off in the next 6 or so weeks. However, not buying Patriots playoff tickets helped, and not using my credit card for any purchases at all really has been a big help. If I can just stop wasting money on going out to eat so often I should continue to be in good shape.

Resolution Status: Very Promising

2. Begin working out regularly and get back into some semblance of shape.

After I graduated and stopped racing competitively, I also essentially stopped exercising. Coupled with an massive increase in unhealthy food intake and alcohol intake, I gained nearly 20 pounds as was in horrendous physical condition. I wanted to get back into a routine of running/cardio type stuff 3 days a week while also sticking to a strict regimen of doing abs/pushups/dips 5 times a week. This would keep my body toned, get me back into relatively athletic shape and prove Peyton Manning wrong (23 year olds who don't play pro football can have rock hard abs, asswipe). I also wanted to accomplish this without joining a gym to save money (see #1).

So far so good?

Not really. I have been doing the abs/pushups/dips thing semi-regularly, but not nearly 5 times a week. I have run one time, which was an embarassing 600m race in an alumni vs. athletes track meet and done nothing else. I also sprained my ankle pretty badly this past weekend making me walk with a strong limp and hindering any progress on the cardio front for the time being. While it is still early in the year, my inability to self-motivate is clearly going to be a continuing issue and I need to be extra vigilant if I have any hope of meeting my goal. Lunch from Wendy's yesterday wasn't helping.

Resolution Status: Bleak, but not hopeless.

3. Reduce consumption of both alcohol and soda.

This was really a complex decision made because of issues on numerous fronts. In summation, it is expensive and unhealthy to drink these beverages as often as I was (see #'s 1 & 2.) Also, I was using drinking as an escape mechanism for dealing with other issues in my life and this was unacceptable to me. Until I can sort that shit out and get some direction and order in my life, these had to go.

This is kind of a mixed review really, since I haven't had a drink the entirety of the year so far and haven't been seriously tempted to do so yet. The problem lies in the fact that without alcohol I turned to soda as a fill-in and have struggled mightily to reduce my consumption in this area. I no longer buy any when I go grocery shopping and if I can successfully reduce my fast food consumption in accordance with resolutions 1 & 2 then I will be in great shape. We'll see how this goes from here on out.

Resolution Status: Strong, getting stronger.

4. Be Happy

I haven't quite figured out the exact formula for this one, so I won't be able to quantify any progress towards it, but I think it is an important goal that shouldn't necessarily be a resolution but something that everyone is doing all the time. If you aren't actively working towards things that make you happy and surrounding yourself with people who support you then you are setting yourself up for a downward spiral.

I guess under this one I'll put the following:
Buy an Xbox360 with Halo 3, a nice flat panel LCD TV and a piece of leather furniture (recliner or sofa, unsure which). While I likely won't have the money for these things this year, and material objects aren't going to drive my happiness or fix my issues, they are cool things to think about having and make me happy right now.
Ultimately, I want to have those things. I also want tons of other things too that will take me long beyond 2008 to obtain so instead of constantly updating the various wants and desires I have, I'll leave those three things up there.

Resolution Status: ??

American Gladiators Review

2008-01-07T10:19:00.000-05:00

Thanks to the good people at NBC, American Gladiators is back on the air after a decade of syndication on ESPN classic. I watched the two hour premier last night and plan on watching the regularly slotted hour show tonight as well. This is not to say that I like the new American Gladiators, because I don't at all, I just want one more night of indulgence in the nostalgia of the events before I give up on the show.

The new version is pretty bad in a lot of ways. The production is awful and they broke too far away from the old script of the show. Now we are doing interviews with the contenders before and after each event with lots of lame, scripted smack talk and way too much face time for the completely unfunny and uningaging Hulk Hogan. This drives me insane, as one of the best parts about the original was that you had nothing but a couple of brief interviews with the contenders during the competition - usually the halfway mark and right before/after the eliminator. This puts the focus on the competition and not the mullet sporting announcers, which was fantastic. Now we have way too much scripted Hulk and Laila Ali for me to handle.

On the plus side, they kept essentially all the same events as before, just adding what I find to be generally positive additions to them. The joust now takes place above a pool, which I think is cool and the earthquake event is the same as the conquer portion of "Breakthrough & Conquer" but with a new twist. Now the wrestling ring is suspended above a mat and tilts all over the place as you wrestle the gladiator. They also took out the portion of the eliminator where contenders raced across the balance beam while being attacked with swinging medicine balls and made that it's own event - "Hit & Run". I thought this was a cool twist and makes for a pretty cool event, especially considering the bridge they race across is suspended over a pool as well. To replace this segment on the eliminator they added in a barell roll section, which I am pretty ambivalent towards. It isn't particularly cool to watch, but I am sure it makes it harder for the contenders after getting spun around a few times. Also added to the eliminator is a section where the contenders jump off a wall into a pool and then must wim to the other side underneath several pipes of flames. This was an awesome addition to the final challenge and through one night has cuased lots of problems for the contenders, including one bloody forehead.

The female gladiators also are less mannish looking on the whole, and Crush and Fury are actually pretty good looking I think (Fury even more so if she didn't wear her hair in the awful ponytail). This is a welcome improvement I feel like, and I am sure female viewers are happy with the general attractiveness of the male gladiators as well.

On the whole though, I can't stand the commentary and interviews with Hulk and Laila all the time, the dramatic music they overlay on the events and lead into commercial with and the constant advertiser references, like the fueled by Subway replays. All of this added glitz, glamor and star power have really detracted from the original version which reminded me of adult Guts in a way; little to no commentary from the hosts with a focus on the action of contender vs. gladiator. I can't really see this round of American Gladiators sticking around too long as many more people will eventually get fed up with the terrible production quality and realize that the simplicity of, and the nostalgia from, the original aren't enough to keep them watching. The events are still cool to watch, but everything in between makes me want to gouge my eyes out with a spoon.

2 out of 5 stars.

Winter Break Recap

2008-01-03T13:23:00.000-05:00

After a much needed break from work and other things, like maintaining a blog, I am back with some updates.

This year's winter break saw me return home to Maine to hang out with my family and my friends from back home. Lots of highlights from the break, some amusing, others not so, took place and I'm going to get right into the recap.

After attending numerous holiday parties, family gatherings and scrambling to get my last minute shopping done, I was ready for a break from my break. Thus the day after Christmas we got together at CP's house and started drinking aggressively, listening to Dragonforce and watching episodes of Captain Planet on youtube. After a solid two hours of this most of us were wasted and when sober re-enforcements arrived we headed over to the Goose as we do far too often for the 5$ PBR pitchers. Standard Goose night ensued, with numerous pitchers consumed, bizarre people encountered and lots of weird hardcore/metal music playing on the jukebox. Since everyone in town shares a similar level of degeneracy and limited funds, lots more friends showed up and eventually we went to several other places which are hazy in my memory at best as my concept of time was severely disturbed.

Unbeknownst to me at the time, my car keys fell out of my pocket as we were leaving the Goose and so the next morning I had to wake up at 9am to drive my mother to work and borrow her car to hunt for my keys. I went back to CP's and hunted around in the street near my car. I drove slowly the route we took to the Goose looking on the roadside for my keys. I went into the bar at 11AM and not only were there people already there drinking but they didn't have my keys. Since I had no idea where else we went that night, I left my number and told them to call me if I found them and went home to come up with a plan B. As I was formulating some inane plot to create a new car key for myself, I get the following phone call:
"Hi, this is the Blue Goose. We have your car keys. You can pick them up anytime."

Sign number one I am a degenerate, right there. Bars are calling me, at noon, on a Thursday.

Friday night we went to a concert in Portland, which was a really phenomenal show. Several of us got really drunk, myself included, and after the show is when the shitshow began. Our driver had checked his coat, and when he went to retrieve it, he was met with a massive line that seemed not to move. This was puzzling, seeing as everyone had a numbered ticket associated with their coat. The problem was, that instead of putting the coats on the hangers associated with the ticket, they just threw them in a heap on the floor. Also, the guys who took the coats, didn't give them back out and so any hope of face-coat recognition is out the window. They were making people describe their coats to get them back, which is not a good system at all since every other person has a black North Face.

While this 45 minutes process was going on, the rest of us were outside and prevented from going back in, left to wait in the cold. As I am standing the sidewalk area outside the club, I decide to head across the street to stand in the cold with my friends. With a look both ways up and down the street, I started to cross the street and looked back to the club to check on the coat progress. As I was doing this, a car screams up the street and clips me with it's mirror and continues driving up the road.

Now, I realize I was not sober at this point, but I am also not retarded and this car was not coming when I made my way into the road. Also, who feels the need to drive down a side street at 30mph when there are clearly lots of people milling around in and around the roadway? Being pissed off that I was hit by this jerk-off's car, I start walking down the street after him cursing and flipping him off. The stream of profanity that came out of my mouth would have made a sailor blush, and eventually the guy stops at the end of the road. Thinking I am about to get into a fight and win, I am excited. Some of my friends, having seen my adversary, and very concerned and begin to pull me back and tell me to shut up. Since CP had emerged with his coat at this time, and I can't actually fight, I relented. Good decision on my part seeing as account on this guys size have him at 2 to 3 times my own.

The fun was just beginning though, as the 5 of us now reunited after securing the driver's coat were going to get some pizza at the local late night hotspot, Bill's Pizza. However, AD decides that since he left the concert during the second opening act to get food (slim jim's and something else at 7-11) he doesn't want to come along and asks for the car keys to go sit in the heat. Since the pizza joint is around the corner essentially and will only take 15 minutes, this request is denied and we all start walking. Or so we thought. Turns out AD isn't happy about this plan, turns off his phone and heads the other way on foot. We proceed to get a pizza to go and being the hunt for him. It takes us about 25 minutes to get him on the phone, get some sort of location for him and get our bearings and heading in his direction. We eventually find him down by the greyhound station near Hadlock Field, which is a solid 2-3 mile trek from where we were. Classic move.

Saturday was the big Pats regular season finale and so we had a tailgate party at CP's house, complete with Brats, Burgers, tons of snack foods and a cooler full of beer. After some grilling, eating and football in the dark we settle in for the game. It was a great game that went back and forth and we were all drinking heavily throughout. Shirts wee removed for good luck belly slaps, wikipedia was whored out for the records being chased and random stats, we drank every time Randy Moss caught a pass and finished our drinks whenever he caught a TD. The chant of the night was "RAAAANNNNDDDDYYY MOSS!", which was yelled out approximately 1000 times over the course of the evening. The real fun began though, after the victory was secured when we started roaming the neighborhood for parties. We hit up one with a bunch of our other friends and more heavy drinking ensued. During the games of beer ball, several fights broke out among the bystanders, including brother on brother action and a shouting match of TOM BRADY - RANDY MOSS, which inevitably lead to us being asked to leave. On the way home we saw 4 people going down the street towards us. Thinking it was more of our friends we charged them with the intent to tackle, realizing at the last minute that these were our younger brother's friends father's. Luckily, they were wasted too and we played pass and kicked FG's with the empty mini-keg they had.

After this awkward but supremely awesome encounter we headed back to our base of operations to order pizza. On the way, nothing was safe nor sacred, as a child's snowman was speared into oblivion. We called Papa John's, and since none of us had any decent command over the English language, CP asked for specials and said "Give me that one" to the first special. We ended up getting a Large Chicken Parm and a large Pepperoni, which CW did not think was good. For his dissident views, he was doused in water from a Nalgene. Once the Pizza arrived (which no one remembers paying for) we inhaled them both in about five minutes flat. Short term this was awesome, but the smearing of our food with the garlic butter sauce cause numerous digestive related problems the next day.

All in all, pretty standard trip back home, including the 7 foot inflatable Grinch riding a Harley in the neighbors yard and the texts I got on Christmas Eve and Christmas asking if I was going out that night.

Interesting Weekend

2007-12-18T11:01:00.000-05:00

After spending the weekend in rural NY catching up with friends, I figured it would be appropriate to run out some highlights of the trip.

-Incredibly limited cell phone reception, which was both annoying and hilarious when you watched the weird places and positions people would get in trying to hold onto reception.
-Drinking in the car in the parking lot of the train station while waiting for our last comrade to arrive. Subsequently handing him a beer as soon as he got in the car was also cool.
-Beiruit being played, 1 vs. 2, in my friends Chem classroom.
-Drunken foray into the bio class, which is filled with creepy skeletons, dead bottled animals and weird smells. We were lucky not to break anything.
-Blackboard graffiti.
-Directions to the bathroom were "right at the bear, left at the goat." Yeah, the huge taxidermy exhibit were our landmarks.
-One of us doing the Safety Dance with a classroom stool while the other two sing Third Eye Blind and Journey at intolerable volumes.
-Me stealing spaghetti from Matt mid-bite without asking, then taking the fork too as he bewilderingly looks on.
-The puke on the floor of the bedroom. GG beef and Broccoli. At this point, Matt stole the blanket off his bed. Classy move.
-The zoo there was awesome. I love poison dart frogs.
-The three of us going out to dinner at a nice French restaurant because we had a gift certificate and basically being assumed homosexuals.
-Beiruit in the lab round two, followed by drunken chem experiments. Spilling the hydrochloric acid was probably not for the best though.
-Making a beeramid with all the empties and posing for absurd pictures with it.
-Matt and I pound an entire bag of Doritos. I puke these up later, but not on the floor.

All in all, good times were had by all and it's a lucky thing there were no students around as we decimated the campus with our presence.

Shocking Realizations

2007-12-13T08:44:00.000-05:00

As I was driving back to school from my lunch break yesterday, I unknowingly witnessed a drug deal. There was a kid sitting on a stone wall near the Dunkin Donuts, just hanging out, when a group of three other kids walked up to him. At this point, the guy on the wall and one of the kids on the group each awkwardly reach into their pockets, then slap each other five/ghetto hug. Then the group walks away and each kid puts something back into their respective pockets. If that wasn't a drug deal, I don't know what is. This suspicions of mine was also confirmed when the kid on the wall saw me sitting in my car at the traffic light watching him and proceeded to flip me off and scream something to the effect of: "what the fuck you looking you stupid fucking honky." Needless to say, when the light turned green I didn't linger around to find out if he had guns in his backpack or just more drugs and I hope never to see him again. Granted that may be difficult seeing as the DD in question is directly adjacent to school.

In other equally important and shocking news, I was informed by one of my students that Hannah Montana is none other than the daughter of Billy Ray Cyrus, of "Achy Breaky Heart" fame. NO WONDER this girl gets so much attention and is launching a music career based off of some dumb TV show! Her father is a famous musician!
Here I was convinced that some random ass girl named Hannah Montana was making it big on her massive reservoir of natural musical talent and was driving the whole world crazy. Not so much in fact. She's the over-privileged daughter of a former musician using an assumed name and the popularity of a terrible Disney TV series to jump to super stardom. What a farce.

And no, I am not at all jealous.

ALCS Game Notes

2007-12-07T12:35:00.000-05:00

Here at the game notes I took from the Red Sox Championship Series games, raw and unedited as well.

ALCS Game One: Beckett vs. Sabbathia

Despite the fact that Beckett is the most dominating pitcher in the league right now (trust me) I am terrified of this Indians team. They have a deceptively good offense where the scrubs always seem to come through and CC and Fausto are both great pitchers.

1st: Beckett K’s the first two, then Hafner unloads on one into the RF stands…
Martinez stikes out weakly, 1-0 Tribe.
Youk singles to lead it off, Pedroia grounds out and Ortiz singles as well! CC isn’t at his sharpest yet, we need to capitalize. Manny comes up and they show his absurd career numbers against Sabbathia, whose pitch count is up for the 1st.
“Manny listens to his own music…was born to hit.” Gotta love commentators. The AB is taking so long thy show another graphic about Manny, this being his career numbers from 1993-2000, and 2000-2007. They are virtually identical in terms of avg. HR, RBI and games played. Unreal, this guy is a hitting savant. Makes me sound good by lacing and RBI single! 1-1 game. Lowell comes up with an opportunity to take it CC early, but grounds into a DP.

2nd: First pitch groundouts for Garko and fantasy killer 2k6 Jhonny Peralta. Lofton quickly flies out to Manny who makes it more interesting than need be in the OF with a leaping catch.
Dane Cook needs to be stopped with all these damn commercials.
Mr. Kielty, wo supposed hits CC well strikes out in ugly fashion, followed by Tek and Crisp. 12 pitches and 3 K’s, just what I was afraid of.

3rd: Guittierez K’s after being praised by the announcers. Great pick by Lowell to get Blake and then Beckett strikes out “5 tool” Sizemore. Beckett looks fired up and it could be a quit night for the ‘pen.
Lugo doubles as we are told by the booth that is “Inside the Park” territory at Fenway, which is true if you get a lucky bounce and not hit it right at the fielder. Pedroia with a textbook sac bunt to advance Lugo. We never used to do this by the way. Youk walks on 4 pithes and Fox gives us a homoerotic montage of Ortiz with Perry Cuomo playing in the background. “No Cuomo hits from 2004…” What?? Papi gets HBP inside, although it looked ike mostly his jersey and we loaded em up for Manny. He works and 0-2 count into a walk and we take a 2-1 lead! CC looks officially awful tonight. Sick of the drivel from the booth I secretly wish for Scooter and the Diamond cam to make a comeback. Lowell punishes a two run double to right, ground rule double at that. Kielty gets an intentional free pass. Run scoring groundout for Tek to make it 5-1! Crisp grounds out to end the inning.

4th: Cabrera flies out. Hafner works a long AB ended when Tek chases down a check swing strike 3 in the dirt and throws him out. The booth alerts us that Beckett is 48-2 when getting 5+ runs of support and that Eric Wedge owns a batting cage in Boston called Strike One.
Sox go down in order.

5th: Garko gets HBP, but then they ground into a DP. Lofton doubles and as he runs the bases I surmise that he may or may not be 50 years old. Pan to Steven King reading a book in the stands…wtf? Guiterrez frozen by Beckett curveball to K and end inning.
Ortiz walks after an 0-2 count, Manny blasts one up the middle, Lowell walks to load the bases and CC looks like he ate a bad bucket of KFC. Kielty doubles in 2 runs and its 7-1. Sabbathia hitting the showers! Tek doubles in Lowell before Lugo flies out to end inning.

6th: Casey Blake, the Indians mountain man doubles down the line on a hanging curve, followed by a groundout and a scrubby run scoring single up the middle from Cabrera. Hafner flies out, but a passed ball advances the runner. No further damage as they groundout to end inning.
Pedroia singles in what looks to be one of his only decent AB’s in a week. Youk singles sending Dusty to 3rd and Ortiz walks. Second bases loaded situation for Manny this game! He walks again after being down 0-2 making it 9-2 Sox and remains 2 behind Gehrig all time for Grand Slams. Lowell sac fly to center to make it 10-2. JD “the corpse” Drew flies out to CF as a PH for Carrot Top Kielty and Tek K’s to end it.

7th: Timlin takes over for Beckett, who although dominating doesn’t need to keep pitching in this blowout. Garko gets a wind aided bloop hit, followed by a flyout, strikeout groundout inning over combo. I’m loving this shit.
Crisp doubles and shows some signs of life at the plate. Lugo flies out, Pedroia with and ugly K, Youk fly out to end inning.

8th: Javier Lopez on the hill now for Timlin. Blake doubles to lead it off. JD Drew makes an amzing catch to save a HR near the pole, sending Blake to 3rd on the tag up. Guess Drew has some value. Cabrera hits a sac fly to Manny who makes a great snowcone, shoestring grab making it 10-3 Sox. Hafner walks, because Lopez is awful and can’t get any lefties out. Cut to Steven King interview in the stands. He is a weird dude and it’s no wonder that he A. writes creepy horror novels and B. is from Maine. At least he has been a fan since the 50’s, but man I don’t like this famous people are the face of the team BS. Lopez gets out of trouble without further ado.
Borowski in and Ortiz blasts his first pitch off the CF wall for a double. Manny walks AGAIN! And Ellsbury in to run for him. Lowell flies out, Drew grounds out advancing the runners and Tek flies out to move us to the 9th.

9th: Gagne in to pitch the ninth…oh boy, here we go For some reason, I am not nearly as nauseaus as usual. Guess a 7 run leads helps that. Gomez PH for Garko and strikes out. See! Gagne CAN pitch! Of course he then gives up back to back hits to make it 1 out runners on 2nd and 3rd. Crowd begins light booing. Schilling wears 38, Gagne’s old number and so he wears 83 – no wonder we have the bizzaro Gagne on the mound al the time. Guitierrez K’s and gets ready to head back to AAA ball and Blake works a walk to load them. My god Eric, just end this game. He strikes out Sizemore to end the threat and the game, but Gagne still looks like shit and that he is fighting himself. Ibet he’s hurt and isn’t telling anyone. Dick. Series is still 1-0 Sox though!

ALCS Game Two: Schilling vs. Carmona

I went to watch his game at Jillians down in Boston with a group of friends. We were offered box seats for the game by a scalper for 200$ each, but declined since we all wouldn’t be able to go to the game. Plus I am a retard and didn’t bring a coat or sweatshirt and would have froze to death in the late innings.
This game was excruciating, very close back and forth. Nothing like being a bar surrounded by tons of random Red Sox fans celebrating each exhilarating moment and being miserable and neurotic when things take a turn for the worse. We lose in extra innings in a big way.

ALCS Game Three: Dice-K vs. Westbrook

I spend the first several innings driving around getting a wrench set and a new car battery since mine shat the bed 6 weeks after the warranty expired. This is typical of my automotive experience so far and hopefully not a bad sign.

1st: Sox go 1-2-3 on a DP by Ortiz. Pedroia still can’t get on base, he needs to start busting out. Indians go 1-2-3 as well.

2nd: Sox get bases loaded on walk, single, error and then fail to get a run as Tek flies out to shallow left and crisp hits into another DP. This needs to stop, we are not going to make Jake Westbrook look good tonight. Meanwhile, Dice-K continues to work deep counts and Kenny Lofton hits a 2 run shot to right and is now the new spokesman for AARP. 2-0 Tribe.

3rd: Sox look feeble again, and Pedroia is officially worrying me now with all these groundouts. Tribe get 2 on for Martinez and Dice strikes him out on a full count with a well located fastball inside. We need 6 or 7 strong from him tonight.

4th: Big guns coming up, need to get something here. Ortiz leadoff double. Manny hitting .600 with an 0-2 count and an absurd 5 walks this postseason. I love it. After 2 very, very close pitches Manny grounds to shortstop and it hits Ortiz, who had no business moving on that ball. Red Sox baseball, just like the old days. After being informed that Lowell graduated from High School with a 4.0 average he dominates one just foul down the LF line. Fox is always good for a gimmicky graphic or totally unrelated factoid. Lowell grounds out while Manny advances. JD Drew can send the fans a refund anytime after that ground out. [Why do we always play the teams whose homecrowd is waving towels or thunderstix or something dumb. What ever happened to good old cheering and heckling?] Tribe go quietly, thankfully, and Dice looks in control.

5th: Of course, Westbrook can do no wrong as we ground out in order. Jesus fuck. Eric Wedge is really grizzled, holy crap. Blake a long single, advancing on a ball in the dirt. McCarver claims Dice-k just threw a gyro –ball but I don’t buy that. Sizemore than walks and Francona looks depressed and in need of some chew. Asdrubal (fun name btw) singles up the middle to score Blake, 3-0 Tribe and Dice-K has thrown like 100 pitches or so. Fuck. Pedroia almost turns a sick DP by himself on a ball deep in the hole, and Tito out to argue. Looked safe to me though, making it 4-0. Hafner pokes one into left and Dice is done after 4 and 2/3 AGAIN. Glad we paid $176 Million for him and Drew. Scott Boras go kill yourself. Timln in to stop the bleeding. Gets Garko swinging and we need some runs. Vintage Timlin though, showing signs of the man I loved so much in 03 and 04.

6th: Pedroia continues to struggle, but Youk singles and Ortiz walks. Umpiring note, lots of close pitches being called balls and several pitches well out of the zone have been called strikes. With a two strike count the fans are all cheering, I wonder if Manny thinks they are cheering for him? Wouldn’t put it past him. The hiting savant then procedes to kill the rally with a DP and I get an angry stomp from the upstairs apartment for my vulgarity. Timlin keeps turning back the clock making quick work in the 6th.

7th: The Corpse gets a hit, and we are now relying on the bottom of the order to fuel the comeback. Tek HOMER!!! O’ Captain my Captain! Straightaway center field too. Finally a blemish on Westbrook and a non-groundball. Crisp strikes out, but Lupe Fiasco gets on only to have Pedrioa foul off like 6 pitches from reliever Jensen Lewis before striking out swinging at ball 3. I throw things at the wall. Okajima in to relieve Timlin. Groundout, LONG flyout for Sizemore. Flyout Cabrera.

8th: Youk, Ortiz, Ramirez due up. We need to get some runs here to have any kind of shot. Youk works a 10 pitch AB like only Youk can…and then K’s. Ortiz line the first pitch right to the Right fielder. Manny pops out. Borowski is our only hope. Oki still pitching and gets a groundout. 4 pitch walk and he’s done. MDC comes in and gets two K’s, glad we held onto this kid and hopefully Hansen can regroup from his 06 shellacking and come back to the bigs next year.

9th: Last ups, hopefully we face Borowski and not more Betancourt. Borowski and his 5 ERA need to help us out. Lowell pop out…Drew flyout…..Tek working a VERY long at bat here. If I keep saying stay alive and get on base, it will happen right? No…inflied fly.
FUCK ME. WHO DOESN’T SCORE WITH THE BASES LOADED AND NO OUTS AGAINST JAKE WESTBROOK? OMG.

Game Four: Wakefield vs. Byrd.

Huge game for the Sox tonight, not a “must-win” per se, but essentially that’s the case. Wake hasn’t pitched in 16 days, so he could go either way, and Byrd doesn’t generally stink up the joint.

Before the game Fox throws out this gem: “Four years ago today was the 2003 ALCS game 7 where Wake served up that gopher ball to Aaron Fucking Boone while pitching in relief.” God I hate Fox. They are secretly upset their Babe Ruth graphics are useless, I can tell.

1st: Pedroia ground out to third on the first pitch and attempts an A-Rod-esque slide/slap combo. Simply terrible. Down in order. I already hate Byrd’s windup.
Sizemore walks but Cabrera looks baffled by Wake and strikes out. Sizemore steals, Hafner and Martinez do nothing and inning over.

2nd: Manny hits a rocket to left for a single. Lowell groundout to advance Manny. JD Drew looks so pretty strikeout out swinging, asshole. Crisp srikes out on a ball that looked low. Inning over. Wake is dealing and makes quick work of the Tribe with 2 Ks.

3rd: Mirabeeli doesn’t look terrible at the plate despite having 10 ABs since mid August, but flies out. Lugo taps back to Byrd. Pedroia actually gets a hit, finding space between 1st and 2nd. Amazing. Youk singles to left and we need to plate a man here. Ortiz grounds out to second, son of a bitch. He really needs that knee surgery. Guittierez gets on, Shopach K’s (5 for Wake), Sizemore ground out, advancing runner who was going.
[ESPN cuurently is wondering why wakefield started this game. Essentailly, because he is Mr. Red Sox, we want to keep out pitchers on normal rest and he is capable of doing exactly what he has done so far, shut down good hitting teams by keeping them off balance. The only reason this is a debate is because Beckett won the 03 WS for the Marlins on short rest. Irritating.] Meanwhile, Cabrera still looks lost against Wake and flies out.

4th: Manny and Lowell fly out, JD Drew displays he perfect swing and miss a couple more times before getting a line drive single to center. Also, what the heck is with that double pump Byrd has? The Corpse almost gets picked off first [replay looks like he did] becomes a moot point when Crisp flies out to end inning.
Hafner K’s (6 for Wake!) and the knuckler is dancing tonight. 2 pitches later Martinez flies out. Peralta doubles to left then Old Man River grounds out to end inning. That
double broke up Wake’s no hitter bid by the way, that’s how good he is tonight.

5th: Mirabelli chases ball four to strike out. Lofton almost gets decapitated by a Lugo line out. Surprisingly enough, Pedroia grounds out to short.
Casey Blake the mountain man unloads one into the left fields stands. 1-0 Tribe. God I hate these towels. Gutierrez singles to left. Wake needs to regroup fast, since our offense is shitting the bed it seems. Shoppach gets hit, 2 o no outs. Bullpen gets a call and Tek runs down to the bullpen with his gear to get loose. Sweet Jesus, hold it together. Sizemore ground out to force at second. FUCK! Youk drops a foul ball for a would be out. In a rare twist, Fox tells me something I don’t know and the drop saved a run since he bobbled it and the runner can go on first contact. Cool. Wakefield knocks down a liner, no plays anywhere and a run scores. Potential DP ball we lost there. 2-0 Tribe. Hafner K’s for the third time, huge for us. Marinez singles to left and Sizemore scores from second making it 3-0 and Wake looks done, just like that. MDC comes in a serves up a 3 run bomb to right for Jhonny “Fantasy Killer 2k6” Peralta. Holy fucking shit 6-0. Lofton singles. Sweet jesus, what the fuck is happening? This is why it is a bad thing when your game 2-4 starters only go 4 and 2/3 each. Lofton steals second. I am catatonic at this stage, sitting on the floor motionless. Casey Blake flares one to center, which a diving Crisp can’t get scoring the geriatric. 7-0. Sizemore reaches, MDC looks shell-shocked and wild. Issues another walk. Now Lester is warming up, mother of fuck we need a miracle. Mercy K from MDC. Kill me.

6th: Youk hits a bomb to left!! There is hope. Ride the wave. Papi goes Yard! Back to back Baby! Suck it, Byrd, he leaves the game. Ortiz’s home run ball sold in the stands to a sox fan – awesome. Jensen Lewis is a rookie, we need to capitalize on this momentum and wait for our pitches. MANNY GOES YARD DEEP CENTER HOLY FUCKING SHIT! First time in LCS history back-back-back shots. This is insanity! Shades of the Chase Wright, set up the Tee game. Lowell grounds out. Drew continues to suck, taking neither pitches or getting on base. I am I the only one looking for Kielty or Ellsbury. Crisp continue to be terrible as he flies out. Good start to the rally. Bullpen needs to hold.
Lester in to pitch, Tek doing the catching. McCarver and Buck are on Team Lester because of his cancer comeback, which s good, seeing as they have a penchant for idiocy.
Walk to Sizemore, not good. [FOX says Beckett’s postseason ERA is 1.20, the rest of the starters 5.96. FAAAANNNTASTIC.] Cabrera K’s, so does Hafner. Throw to first gets away and Sizemore advances. Martinez flies out inning over. 7-3 Indians.

7th:Tek puts one through the gap by short. Lugo hits into a double play – please go commit a murder suicide with Eric Gagne now. Cabrera makes a great leaping catch to rob Pedroia. 8th inning needs to be our inning.
Lester still pitching. Peralta flies out to Youk. And Lofton K’s looking and has words for the home plate ump. Groundout, inning over.

8th: warning track power for Youk, 1 down. We need baserunners. Both Youk and Ortiz were taking home run cuts. As was Manny. Inning over, mother fucker.
Lester still on the hill and K’s guitierrez. Shoppach gets a nubber to rol down te 3rd base line for a hit. Sziemore flies out as FOX states that not only did the Aaron Boone game happen on this day in 03, but the 19-8 game three drubbing happened the next year. Awesome. Ground out, inning over.

9th: Lowell, Drew, Crisp. In theory they could start a good rally. Betancourt still on the hill, Lowell fouls out. Uh oh…Well, at least Drew took some pitches before flying out…Crisp lines out to first and we are officially in a bad place right now.

ALCS Game 5: Beckett vs. Sabbathia

My epic quest to purchase PumpkinHead before the game as a token of good luck failed miserably due to the terrible lawmaking in this area of Mass. Nearly drove me to a homicidal rage. Not pretty. I felt like such a second class citizen.

Kielty reads the Sox lineup tonight and the comedy scale was absolutely off the charts. He kept glancing at the teleprompter offscreen as if he didn’t know his own teammates, sheepishly grinned when he announced himself and just generally looked like a goon. I’m taking this as good sign that the boys are loose (or drinking again). Crisp is starting still, which may or may not be a horrible decision.

1st:Pedroia ground out to short for the 17th time this series. YoOOOOUUUUKK! Goes yard though, 1-0 Sox. Great sign here. Ortiz out on a close check swing call before the hitting savant doubles past Old Man River in left tying Pete Rose with a 15 game LCS hitting streak. Dad (Lowell) flares one to shallow right and they send Manny, who is thrown out handily at home with no slide. Inning over. Shades of Dale Sveum there for sure. This better not haunt me later. Time for a beer.
Sizemore bloops one into left on the line and none of the three Sox get to it, double. Oddly, not nervous. Ass-dribble lines one past the pulled in Youk, 1st and 3rd. Drinking heavier. DP for Pronk to tie the game. Martinez singles to left. Beckett strikes out Garko to end the inning, something his predecessors had trouble doing.

2nd: Kielty strikes out looking after a decent AB, maybe he needs another shot. “McCarver: When they throw it across the plate it’s a strike:”
Tek get HBP. Crisp strikes out looking and getting hits in the state of Ohio may be against is religion or something – Ellsbury please? Lugo flies out to end inning.
Peralta strikes out on a great curve, AARP steps into the box and grounds back to Beckett. Guiterriez walks. Mountain Man Blake strikes out.

3rd: FOX goes into a debate about Pedroia sucking in the postseason trying to say he was getting unlucky. With the exception of the Cabrera grab last game and maybe one hard grounder elsewhere I disagree. Of course he makes me look dumb by working a 7 pitch AB and singling to right field. [Sidenote: I just read on a message board that the singer of the National Anthem and God Bless America for game 5 is Beckett’s ex-gf. Wow. The towels were just the beginning it seems.] Youk ground into a DP [9th of the series], Ortiz walks. Manny hits one to right that appears to go out of the yard. Ortiz scores and Tito is out to argue it was a HR – getting incensed now after they rule it a hit. After 8 replays, its almost too close to tell. I think it misses by about ½ inch. No way any ump can make that call. Lowell strikes out. 2-1 Sox. That homer looked a lot like the one hit over JD Drew the other day as I think about it.
Sizemore strikes out and has done nothing since game 2, which is fine by me. Pedroia may not be hitting, but his defense is still top notch as he robs Ass-dribble of a hit. Hafner strikes out and Beckett is in great from right now.

[AIG commercials inform me that laughing a lot can extend your life by 8 years, and singing can extend it by 15. If I start laughing more at myself when I do stupid shit and having more 3EB sing-a-longs will I live to be 50 then?]

4th: Kielty base hit. Tek fires one through the gap by short, 2 on. Dear Coco, get a hit. Love, New England. He fouls off two bunt attempts, then strikes out horrendously on a pitch low and away. WE WANT JACOBY!. Lugo grounds into an inning double play and I’m off to pound a beer and see if I can telepathically get Francona to shake up the lineup. Cora, Ellsbury, Anyone?
Martinez grounds out. Garko grounds out to Beckett. Another ground out. Postseason Beckett at work.

5th: Another Pedroia groundout on a decent play by Peralta. Youk grounds out on the first pitch to third. Ortiz grounds a single to left. Manny walks! Lowell just misses a double down the line. Sabbathia hits Dad. Then Ginger boy flies out w/ bases loaded, inning over
Old man river flies out and Beckett yells at Lofton, who jaws back the whole way to first and comes at the mound – bullpens and benches clear. Guitierrez K’s. Blake singles, then Beckett tips a grounder up the middle that Lugo gets in the way of Pedroia of, 1st and 3rd. BECKETT! Sick K of Asdrubal.

6th: Tek and Crisp groundout, surprise surprise. Lugo k on 3 pitches. Alex Cora anyone?

Hafner K, Martinez groundout, Garko K. Loving the Beckett. Can he pitch every game?

7th: Pedroia not only gets a hit, but doubles! Youk then gets a triple on a Sizemore hesitation on a fly to right center, Dusty scores 3-0 Sox! C.C. is done! Betancourt is in….ugh. [ 32 yr old former SS in the Sox organization? Bizzaro]. Ortiz hits a lon sac fly to the Lofton who basket catches it. 4-1sox. 1 out. Manny Ks on a great pitch on the corner away. Lowell hits one right to Sizemore.
Lowell good play at third to retire Jhonny P. Lofton sneaks one past Beckett and Lugo has no play, single. Guittierez flies out to Coco and JD Drew is making a cameo in right it appears. BECKETT K”S THE MOUNTAIN MAN! TO THE 8TH!.

8th: Perez in to replace Betancourt. The Corpse walks! Crisp hits a DP ball but Perez fucks up the throw to 2nd and everyone is safe! What luck. [3rd shot of Papelbon warming up in the pen. Love it]. Lugo bunts on to load the bases with one out for Dusty!! Perez is done, Mastny coming in and he may be somewhere between 18-31 years old by his baby faced look. PASSED BALL! The corpse makes its way home. Pedroia walks to load them up for Youk who walks a run in! 6-1 SOX!. Ortiz sac fly to make it 7-1! Manny K’s looking on a good pitch outside corner.
Beckett still on the hill, Ellsbury in left field. Sizemore files out to Jacoby, glad he’s getting some type of action at least. [Oki and Pap getting loose, me getting hard].
Strikes out Asdrubal on a 96mph fastball for K 11!!! Hafner grounds out, inning over.

9th: Lowell flies out, and JD gets a double in a relatively meaningless situation. Typical. Tek grounds out. Crisp ground back to pitcher. I cry a bit to myself.
Paps in to get some work in. Even with a 6 run lead he looks like he is going to kill someone. I love this kid. Strikeout of Garko, money. [Awesome video of Pap dancing riverdance style after Sox clichéd the division. I love this team]. Garko doubles to deep center. Peralta grounds out to Lugo, advancing Garko. [Nice shot of awkward Ortiz/Beckett high five/hug]. Walk to AARP. Guitierrez flies out, see you fuckers in Boston!!

ALCS Games 6 & 7 (Schilling vs. Carmona and Dice-K vs. Westbrook).

I slept on the street for tickets and went to both games. Refer to earlier blog post for highlights.

ALDS Game Notes

2007-12-04T18:15:00.000-05:00

Here are the game notes that I took during the Red Sox games from the 2007 Division Series, raw and unedited.

ALDS Game One: Beckett vs. Lackey
Good feeling about this game since Lackey has a career ERA in Fenway Park of 8, similar to the number of cheeseburgers Bartolo Colon eats during his pregame warm-ups.

1st inning:Youkilis blasts one onto the Monster – wrist what? Beckett looks solid in a quick inning. 1-0 Sox.

2nd inning: Lugo tagged out on a steal attempt on an apparent ghost tag, typical crap that happens to the Sox it seems. Becket looks very strong, hitting 97-98mph on the gun.

3rd inning: Ortiz turns on one and hooks it around the pole for a two run HR. Manny gets on and has an atypicaly good baserunning play advancing to 2nd on a passed ball which leads to an RBI single by Iron Mike. 4-0 Sox, Lackey can’t find the strike zone. JD grounds into a DP but makes it close at first for the second time tonight. I’m just reaching for reasons to commend him at this point. Beckett has “it” tonight and is making the Angels look silly.

4th: Heart of the Angels order looks like a bunch of little leaguers as Beckett continues to hit 98 on the radar gun. Lackey actually gets a 1-2-3 inning (granted it is to our 7-8-9 guys).

5th: TBS brings up Beckett’s blister history, fuck. Retires the side in order, 15 straight. Sox go quietly in bottom half.

6th: Beckett is destroying the Angels, 18 straight retired. I go to a bar and get a Pumpkin head on draft – gotta love playoff baseball. Lackey manages to stop the bleeding and find control of his breaking ball finally.

7th: Beckett gets to 19 straight retired before a bloop single, continues to look overpowering. Ervin Santana comes in from the ‘pen and doen’t suck, who knew? Announcing crew compares hamate bone removal to being as en vougue as Tommy John. I’ll buy this when they name it after a player or it enables mediocre people to resurrect their careers. Wily Mo may be the test case here.

8th: Beckett still crusing and ends with an emphatic K (98mph still!) 101 pitches. Sox look meek in the 8th against Santana, which is odd seeing as he was demoted this summer to AAA.

9th: Okajima and Pap sit down in the ‘pen in a slightly odd move. I would have rested Beckett here, but that’s why I am not an MLB manager. Vlad singles and Beckett mow down the rest in a 4 hit shut-out of the Angels. Great tone set with this game and in retrospect, resting the bullpen was a great move given how Beckett was dealing.

ALDS Game Two: Dice-K vs. Escobar
Gotta keep the momentum going after a dominating game one performance. Wacthing the game on the big screen at casa de Duff in Ithaca, NY. Our pregame analysis – Dice-K is a total wildcard here. He could pitch a shut-out or not make it out of the 2nd. Who knows.

1st: Duffman and I are 3 beers deep by first pitch and we dub this a good sign since we are drinking “good luck beers”. This game is “MLB on TBS on TNT” ok…
Walk to O-Cab on a borderline strike. His batting helmet may or may not have survived a house fire as well.
“Garret Anderson looks like he took a load in the eye” Duff follows this up with a 5 minute diatribe comparing hamate bone removal to Marilyn Manson-esque rib removal – amazing. Emphatic punchout to end 1st after 31 pitches, ugh.
Escobar hitting 98 on the gun!? Youk works a key walk, Ortiz gets on , Manny has a good long AB before flying out and Lowell walks to load them up for “The Corpse”. 2 run single!!! WOW. Escobar throws a lot of pitches as well, good news.

2nd: Pedroia comes up gimpy after diving stop, decidedly not good – stays in game though. Angels have 1st + 3rd with 0 outs. Mathis grounds out to score a run. Manny misplays a ball to allow another one and Cabrera RBI double. The apparent Dice-K blowup inning. In the bottom half, Lugo stares bewilderedly at 3 straight strikes and Pedroia grounds out weakly again. Fantastic.

3rd: Leadoff bloop double, fuck. Then Pink Eye gets himself forced out at 3rd. No runs in!
Youk strikes out looking, unlucky break there. Escobar still hitting 97-98 on the gun despite scouting report touting his fastball topping out at 95mph. I hate baseball.

4th: We are now drunk and have ordered wings. Angels do nothing of consequence. Crisp bunts his way on and steals second! Sox can play small ball in 2007, unlike 2004. Lugo up with 2 outs, shit. Strikes out looking to strand Crisp, standard.

5th: Things gets dicey (haha), we survive threat still 3-2 Angels. 1st and 3rd for Manny, who works a walk to load them for Lowell, who comes through with a sac fly. Tie Game! Drew grounds out end inning after 10 pitch AB (at least he still can take pitches)

6th: Delcarmen in for Lopez after Dice mediocre for 4 and 2/3 innings. Bullpen could be in trouble with 2 guys already in by the 6th. We need runs. Delcarmen with a sick K to end inning. Shields comes in for Halos, who also happens to suck at Fenway and the second half of the season. This good, as we still need runs. I’m drunk, and my handwriting takes a turn for the worse here. Scoiscia looks bewildered in the dugout. Coco fucks up running the bases and doesn’t touch second on way back to first, inning over. Classic Sox here.

7th: MDC hits Vlad (awaken sleeping giant?) Okajima comes in, oh boy. We better not see Gagne tonight. “Why would you ump a mike?” – Duff. Yeah….
Bouchard arrives! OK K’s one of the 7 izturis’s in MLB to end inning. We work two walks before Lowell flies out to end inning. Still tied.
8th: OK back on the hill, since we basically only have Pap and Timlin left for functional relievers and this one looks headed for extras. Pap comes in with 2 outs. OMG Tito, you make me nervous. Youk makes an error for the first time in approx. 2 years (swell timing ass). Some souche walks and its first and third. Chone K’s looking on 100mph heat. Papelboner! [I can barely read any of these notes now]
JD Drew is officially terrible, but so is Spier so we have hope. Varitek grounds out.
“Get out of the shit park fuck ass cunt-mobile, dammit” Duff gem.
To the 9th:

9th: Pap gets O-Cab to fly out, but then walks the partially blind cum-eye Anderson. No damage done though, since Pap owns. Why is Spier still pitching? Pedroia advances Lugo and K-Rod is in with 1 out. Youk looks awful striking out. MANNY 3 RUN BOMB OFF K-ROD! I’M HAMMERED! WOOOOOOOO! [last three lines we slanted, smudged and hardly legible, by the way. I immediately pass out on the couch after this].

ALDS game three. Weaver vs. Schilling
1st inning: Groundout, Strikeout, strikeout. We swung at a bunch of shit.
Schiling weighs 235, that’s pretty fat. Chode flies out, I dislike him strongly. O-cab singles and will probably steal. Vlad golfs one to Lowell, Anderson flies out and that’s that. Sweet deal.

2nd inning: Manny walk, Lowell doubles and Manny almost overslides the bag, typical many. The corpse swings at the first pitch and dribbles one to weaver. What an asshole. Then tek K’s, also typical. Pitch in the dirt hits the ump, otherwise could have scored Manny and then Crisp K’s. Fucking hell. Reggie Miller getting interviewed by Jose “broken English” Mota and he’s an Angels fan? Commentators talk about how schilling needs his stuff to be better, then gets a DP. Disconcerting either way.

3rd inning” Garret “load in the eye” Anderson replaced in left by willits. Second awful at-bat for Pedroia, he’s sucked the last month or so. Sox go quietly. Angels get bases loaded but Schilling gets Willits to foul out to Tek.

4th inning: Ortiz unloads one into the bleachers, this guy is phenomenal. Loved the uber close-up of Weaver after the homer as well, thanks TBS. Like I waned to see his cold sore. Manny then BLASTS one into deep center field for back to back jacks. This ball was dominated, much like the Angels team has looked all series. Schilling gets 3 groundouts and looks deent. Maybe his stuff is getting better…

5th inning: Lugo gets on, Pedroia walks, weaver looks rattled and then Youk grounds into a DP before Papi and Manny would have made him shit his pants. Napoli singles, and chone gets his name made fun of while working a 10 itch AB.

6th inning: Ortiz walks and Angels go to the bullpen. Shields get a fly out after a long Manny AB (incidentally he has a .313 career average). Lowell hits into another Sox DP.
Schilling hitting his spots and getting guys looking, Angels continue to suck.

7th inning: Surprise! JD Drew strikes out looking. As does Tek and crisp. Way to mke Shields look like Cy Young out there guys and drive up his pitch count. Cracked open second of the good luck beers to help close them out. Diving play for Coco in center he just misses, shit. Groundout advances the runner to 3rd, 1 out. Schilling could use a K. gets a popout instead and morales shatters his bat in disgust – pretty badass. Great closeup of Tek’s junk so we can “watch the signs”. This has to be the most awkward oart of catching, having TV close-ups of your groin. Schilling huge K to end threat! Nice.

8th inning: Shields still out there and dealing. Lugo walks and Shields is done, weird since before that he had been owning us. Spier comes in and Pedroia doubles Lugo home, then Youk hits a sac fly and its 4-0 Sox! Ortiz singles Manny walks and Spier looks putrid on the mound. Ellsbury in to run for Manny. Iron Mike doubles home Ortiz, Spier should just hit the showers and set up a tee. Oliver comes in and Drew grounds to first who throws home and naturally the cather can’t handle the throw 6-0 Sox. Varitek doubles in another run, the Angels should just give up. Crisp two run single on the next pitch, I feel bad for the Angels at this point. Lugo pops out for the second out of the inning 20 minutes later. Pedroia grounds out to end the inning and now the Angels have to send 3 corpses to the mound. Okajima pitches the 8th for us – why are we pitching him two days after a 1.1inning effort in game two with a 9 run lead? Shouldn’t Timlin or corey or something be pitching now? Leadoff double for figgins, long AB for Cabrera leads to a fly out to Ellsbury who almost overruns it and makes a leaping catch. “no team looks worse than a team who can’t score” Thanks TBS announcers. Guerrero flies out and has looked bad all series long, like most everyone else on that team in fact. Willits walks. Then fly out to end inning and essentially their season.

9th inning: Youk singles, Hinske hits for Ortiz and strikes out then ellsbury hits into DP. 3 more worthless outs to go. Gagne in to pitch, let’s hope for a clean inning here. Ground rule double for Izturis, then a wild pitch. Great. Sac Fly for Kendrick, JD DREW displays his cannon arm, I guess he wasn’t sleeping out in right. Gagne K’ some PH scrub and gets another one to pop out to end it, mercifully.

Lazy Sunday

2007-12-02T17:27:00.000-05:00

It is clear to me that there is nothing better than sitting on the couch, in your bathrobe, eating wings and watching football. This is one of the redeeming qualities of not having homework or needing to prepare things for my job outside of the office. I can sit around watching TV, browsing fantasy sports websites and making absurd prop bets online. Granted, this strategy does not in anyway help to me getting back in shape or living past the age of 32, but sometimes it just feels good to destroy yourself and throw caution to the wind.

In other news, my alcohol tolerance has greatly increased since I finished college and no longer have athletics to keep me focused and not drinking. Last night I took my first "train ride" since 2005 when I set the then record. This disgusting bum wine tastes like a mixture of Robitussin, motor oil and kool-aid and probably has some sort of dangerous chemical like formaldehyde in it or something. 2 years ago I drank a bottle of it in under 5 minutes; this year I took the full hour and was not even drunk after finishing it. I'm not sure how I feel about that, frankly, but I think I am ok with the implications for now.

Let's hope that my bets pan out and I can continue to make absurd parlay bets in the weeks to come.

So I'm a Scrooge

2007-11-29T14:09:00.000-05:00

In the wake of yet another Thanksgiving holiday I find myself in a completely familiar scenario. Not only am I attempting to unclog my arteries from excessive gravy abuse, but I am also left cursing every time I flip on the radio or enter a major department store for the simple reason that I am bombarded by Christmas music. I personally see no reason why the Friday after Thanksgiving is the official kickoff point for the Christmas holiday.

Who dictated that we must flood the airwaves we the same tired old carols and fill every store with holiday themed merchandise ASAP after Thanksgiving? Why can't we just relax and let fond memories and expanded bellies from Thanksgiving carry us into December - and THEN crank into Christmas mode?

The other main thing that bothers me about this whole period is the people who go and get a Christmas immediately following Thanksgiving and are usually the biggest offenders in putting gaudy decorations on their home far too early. Have these people ever had a real tree before? Do they realize how brittle and dead looking that tree is going to look a month from now? It makes no sense to me. I like to wait until about a week before Christmas, get a nice fresh tree, get it up and decorated and then leave it up through the New Year. I'm not saying everyone should follow my lead here, but can we set some sort of guidelines on these things like no Christmas or holiday stuff of any kind before Dec. 1? Isn't a month straight of caroling, baking, shopping, wrapping, giving, sharing and happiness enough? Must we start at the end of November?

Either I am not buying into the "Christmas Spirit" and I am clearly missing the point of the holiday season or I am one of the few remaining holdouts that realizes the every growing corporatization of our sacred holidays (Hallmark, I'm looking your way here too).

Back on the Highway

2007-11-27T12:39:00.000-05:00

After 3 solid months of mooching wireless off the neighbors in my apartment complex too dumb to password protect themselves, they began to wisen up. Slowly, the plethora of available networks for me to pirate wireless connections off of dwindled precariously. Soon it was down to just one that was so slow it made 56k look like the savior of the information superhighway. Clearly this was not going to fly, because even though I could still check my email and do vital Internet activities (get directions, email, check movie listings, get take out menus & numbers) I just couldn't deal with such slow and spotty Internet service, even if it was free. I mean, have you ever tried to download porn at less than 1kb/s?

So today was the fateful day when my savior arrived from the cable company to install my Internet service (he looked very similar to my uncle, which was weird). As soon as he left I removed the shitty 3 foot ethernet cable they gave me for free and whipped out my solid 20 footer. Until I get a wireless router, this is going to have to do and needless to say with a relatively centrally located modem I can do a lot of things with my laptop and still have an Internet connection. For instance, I can make it to the fridge and back to my chair in the living room. I can actually go to any place in my living room/kitchen with the exception of the dishwasher/sink/cabinets area. So I can get things out of the fridge and possibly even cook on the stove, but I can't put away/wash any dishes or get clean ones to put said food on. I can open the door from my chair without even moving and as I am discovering now I can get to the toilet in the bathroom without coming unhooked. Granted I can't close the door due to the ethernet cord, but you have to make some sacrifices in this world for comfort, and if shitting with the door open is one of them then sign me up.

A Growing Problem

2007-11-26T08:39:00.000-05:00

I came to the realization last night that I despise working. It isn't that I just hate my job in particular, although the hour commute each way does suck, I hate the concept of working. The idea of waking up, going to work and coming home 5-7 days every week for the rest of my life sounds horrendous. I have no desire to work and end up hating almost every job I have within months based on principle alone.

This would almost be a defensible position if the job experience I have had was even remotely challenging. However, to date almost all of my work experience has been either in shitty retail jobs where I was offered a managerial position within 2-4 months due to my obvious over-qualification or some sort of office style job or internship with no supervision. In short, they've all been cake jobs and I still hate them. I think it's clear that I either need to take on a job with serious responsibilities that will keep me occupied and at least interested, or I need to find some sort of job that allows me to work my own hours and/or from home.

Another, easier solution would be for me to live out my ultimate dream of trophy husband-dom. This pipe dream is one of the few reasons I attempt to maintain some semblance of physical fitness.

Getting Back in Shape...

2007-11-23T19:51:00.000-05:00

...kind of. Since my weight peak of 165 lbs. in late September I had slimmed down to about 153-154 as of the start of a few days of Thanksgiving relaxation. I had begun to incorporate a mix of push-ups, dips, various ab exercises and stretching to my workout regime and coupled with eating at Subway 3 or so times a week instead of Burger King I was able to slim down and tone up a bit. While the physical changes have been pleasing to my ever-needy ego, I think the real benefit has been in the decreased frequency of the chest pains that I was having. Also, considerably less diarrhea. Both big positives. I even lifted and ran 3 miles this past Monday as part of my snail's crawl towards fitness.

Of course, 2-3 days of sitting around watching football, drinking beer and eating Thanksgiving food isn't going to help my bottom line at all but sacrifices have to be made sometimes in the name of family. I wouldn't want to be the only one to not get seconds at Thanksgiving dinner or to turn down a dessert; that would just be rude. Hopefully I'll be back on track starting Monday.

Another Day in the Jungle

2007-11-15T12:31:00.000-05:00

It's just past noontime and we have already had 2 fights, 3 arrests and one of my favorite students just got jumped in the hallway for the second straight day. The lack of supervision and discipline here is astounding. Three girls got escorted out in handcuffs, a five kid posse jumped and beat another student into the tiles and the police had to break that up. Oh, and yesterday two of the bathrooms were set on fire.

What a fucking zoo.

This doesn't even begin to mention the fact that the fire alarms were turned off for the fire because we have had 10-12 pulled alarms in the previous two weeks. And we had a gun in the school and a bomb threat that were swept under the rug. What a joke. Safety and order are obviously not priorities here.

The Spreading Taint

2007-11-14T09:51:00.001-05:00

The current state of sport, in America especially, has hit a very critical point in my eyes. Almost every major sport, and even some of the minor ones, are being hit with various scandals involving illegal or performance enhancing drugs. As baseball fans eagerly await the mysterious Mitchell Report to see who will be named or implicated as cheaters, numerous others violations surface across all of sports.

Marion Jones, America's darling at the 2000 Sydney Olympics where she won 5 medals, admitted recently that she was using steroids during that time period. IOC officials are deliberating at this time (I believe) on whether or not to strip her of all her medals, including the the ones of her relay teammates. All records broken by her, awards won and money earned during a period of several years dating back to late 1999 will effectively be erased at Track & Field tries to recover some dignity in the wake of yet another doping scandal. Numerous other athletes in the sport have been linked to steroids and other performance enhancers from way back to the days of Ben Johnson. Marion Jones herself always seemed to be linked up with shady characters from her ex-husband to her former coach and former boyfriend. We always gave her the benefit of the doubt though because we wanted to believe that her marvelous accomplishments were legitimate and that her child-like smile was genuine every time she took the podium. Star athletes have that power over us, to confuse us with catch phrases like "false positive" and excuses such as: "it was my asthma/baldness/ADD etc. medication" that triggered the test. For so long we have wanted to believe that our sports heroes were telling the truth and were the victim of lab error or a horrible conspiracy by someone else. Sadly, this is rarely, if ever the case.

Athletes need to be responsible for what goes into their bodies, who they are working with and what types of treatments they are undergoing. Testing is real, there are many banned substances that show up in everyday products that they must be mindful of. Sports is getting to the point where you wonder every time something amazing happens - is this for real? Each towering home run, lowered world record, grueling and gritty mountain climb you celebrate or watch in awe as it is happening, but after it is over you begin to question what just happened. The spreading of steroids, HGH, testosterone, EPO and other forms of cheating into sports has put a mental asterisk next to each new great achievement and that's a shame.

Even sports like tennis, which most people don't really care about anyway has been hit by plenty of scandal. Take for instance the Martina Hingis cocaine debacle which led to her denying using it and then retiring. Even tennis can't shake this crap. The Tour de France was marred by scandal each of the last few years with this year having a ludicrous amount of individuals and TEAMS withdrawing from the race amid allegations of wrongdoing. XC skiing has also long been haunted by blood doping and other shady accusations. Rodney Harrison of the New England Patriots was suspended the first 4 games of the season for HGH use, and there wasn't even much in the way of public outcry. That's how prevalent this whole spreading taint has become; the media saturation has made the public apathetic about cheaters and rule breakers to the point where many people just shrug their shoulders and move on.

It's a sad state of affairs that is threatening the very core of sports the world over and someone needs to step up and enforce the rules, including mandate more stringent testing for athletes. We need to clean up the image of sports so that every time I see an amazing performance and triumph of human will and preparation I don't automatically assume: "what's this guy on?"

Pure Perfection

2007-11-04T21:38:00.000-05:00

"Game Over, Series Over, and the Red Sox and World Champs again!"

Yeah, twice in four years. It's real. It happened. I was a part of it.

After a long and grueling ALCS against a good Cleveland team, the apparent mismatch against a much more suspect Colorado team became a reality as the Sox swept the World Series for the second straight time. The Rockies were only marginally in the series at any point, with the Sox either leading or in control the majority of the games. Our pitchers were dominant, our hitting was timely and frequent, we played small ball, we slugged it out - whatever the situation called for we were able to adapt and perform as needed. I was supremely confident the entire series with the exception of a brief stretch in game 3 when it looked like the Rockies were going to swing the momentum their way. Naturally, our bullpen rallied to shut them down when it mattered most and the offense was able to do just enough to get the win. A great postseason capped off with a dominant series.

It was incredibly special to be there for game 7 of the ALCS and watch the team celebrate on the field after a strong showing to shut the door on Cleveland. Even after a weekend long ordeal of sleeping on the street for multiple nights, eating far too much McDonalds and sleeping far too little (and drinking far too much as well) it was all worth it. Couple that with being a part of the electric atmosphere of Game 1 of the World Series, it was a special moment.
John Williams leading the Boston Pops in the national anthem, the '67 Red Sox coming out from under a giant American flag hanging on the Monster with Yaz throwing out the first pitch and the fly-by to cap it all off was really incredible. The number of flashbulbs popping for John Williams was almost as many as those for the first pitch by Beckett. A true once in a lifetime experience for me that I can't really quantify in words accurately.

In other perfection related news in the sports world, the Pats ground out a hard fought win in Indy today in the battle of the unbeatens despite having a gun pressed to their foot all game it seemed. We had the most penalty yards in franchise history, we couldn't do anything to stop Joe Addai and missed innumerable tackles (see: 73 yard check-down turned touchdown by Addai before the half), didn't get enough pressure on Manning and gave up an unprecedented number of sacks to Brady. Of course, we put everything together in the final 10 minutes getting several big plays, pressure and a key strip on Manning and shutting down the Colts offense when it counted. Needless to say, while I wasn't impressed I think we all learned a lot about the Pats as a team in this game and I feel very confident looking ahead. Much deserved "bye" next week as well.

For anyone wondering, I have my ALDS and ALCS game notes typed up now and will post them in the rambling entirety here soon. I didn't bother with the World Series since I was at game 1 and then I just didn't feel like doing it for the last three. Just assume they went similar to this script: Our starter goes 5-6 innings, theirs goes 2-4; We get lots of clutch hits and string a bunch of hits together, they strike out with men on and struggle to get any kind of groove on offense; our bullpen shuts them down (with some notable exceptions), theirs struggles to stop the bleeding.

To close things out, random quote of the day here:
"we should patent '3 hour abs'.
It comes with a toilet and a fifth of tequila"

Lambs to the Slaughter

2007-10-28T18:43:00.000-04:00

After watching the Patriots go for it on 4th and 1 on the Washington 7 yard line already sporting a perfect record and a 38 point lead (38-0 for that matter) it became crystal clear that Bill Belichick feel slighted. He is clearly upset about the heat he took for camera-gate earlier this year, especially when it became clear that while maybe not industry standard, the Patriots were turned into the scapegoat for a wider problem. His method of destruction, nothing but the well-oiled machine of his football team that is in the process of going 8-0 and making the Redskins look like a bunch of little girls. They have multiple F-U TD's today (the aforementioned one and the one right before the half to make it 24-0), they have a defensive touchdown and multiple turnovers forced and Mike Vrabel caught yet another TD pass. They can do no wrong and they play with such intensity that Brady cussed out a linemen for a false start penalty and has was also shown telling the ref that he blew a call, even though he's out of the game with a 45 point lead.
It is safe to say this is essentially a fantasy team at this point and that I m curious as to who is capable of keeping up with them at this point, especially with one of the best head coaches ever out with an axe to grind. Bring on the Colts!

P.S. Backup QB Matt Cassell just ran for like a 20 yard TD. Unreal.

Living on Landsdowne

2007-10-23T13:29:00.000-04:00

I had a big entry I was going to do about performance enhancing drugs and how they are the spreading plague of pro sports, but I decided on a whim to be homeless and sleep outside Fenway for tickets and so that will have to wait for another day. I also have game notes I took from the ALDS and ALCS that I will be posting soon, and plan to take game notes for the World Series as well. You know, since plane tickets to Colorado were too pricey.

As of Friday afternoon at 3pm, my brother and his friends from school had set up shop outside the park in line for tickets and they were 15th in line. He calls to tell me this as I am leaving work. As I am getting ready to head out to nice dinner, he calls to tell me that he is having a ton of fun and has already been interviewed by 3 different news organizations. I become slightly jealous and the seed of a crazy idea is planted in my head.

Between 5:30pm and 9:00pm I get several more calls/messages stating things like “I just got interviewed by NBC”, “Some news dude totally interviewed me about JD Drew and since everyone else was shitting on him I told the reporter that he was the man and was going to be awesome” [Eerily enough, the corpse hit a first inning grand slam and won back half of the Fenway Faithful]. The clincher was as I was coming in my door from dinner at 9pm: “Dude, holy shit, Pedroia and Lowell just came by and shook our hands and gave us food! This is so awesome!” My cerebellum fuses.

In the next 15 minutes I toss some shit in a bag, call my brother and tell him to save me a spot and tear off towards Boston. The plan is to head to Arak’s house, park, pick him up and head on in to get in line. As a favor to those holding my spot in line I stop at the liquor store to get a fifth of vodka to go with the 24 beers we are bringing. Since my life is a rolling train wreck, I lock my keys in my car and have to call AAA. I wait for them inside the liquor store since it is raining and I don’t want to look like a vagrant street bum living off a brown-bagged bottle of booze, at least not yet. As the liquor store is closing, Arak arrives and AAA says they will be there in the next 10 minutes. Minor inconvenience, and will be back on track soon.
Not a chance.

Long story short, they send the first guy to the wrong place and instead of making him take the 15 minute trip to the right location, send him back to the garage and call another company. In theory, they would alert me of this and be choosing someone in a closer range, right? Well common sense doesn’t seem to apply to those working in the dispatch office and so they have someone come from a garage 45 minutes away who gets lost on the way. Meanwhile, Arak and I sit in his car in the parking lot of a closed liquor store avoiding the drizzle and watching random drug deals, possible prostitution and at least one meth addict pass on through, oblivious to the absurdity of what has transpired. After over 2 hours of waiting, we get my car open in all of 30 seconds and head out.

Once we get there we take up residence at he front of the line around 1am and break out the beers. By 6am we had finished all the beer among the 5 of us drinking and had spent a lot of time taking random photos, rubix cubing and eating chips and salsa. At this stage most everyone went to sleep for a bit, while Arak and I joined a random poker game down the street, which won me 20$. After pissing in the same alley for approximately the 17th time that night and playing footsie with a rat, I don’t really know what I did, but it wasn’t sleep.

After my mysterious two hour adventure in Kenmore Sq. I slept for a few hours and by 1:30 we were drinking screwdrivers on the side of the street and making lots of friends in line. Random highlights of the next few hours include getting 50$ and free food for letting a hot girl in line behind us, spending all that money on more booze, peeing in a bottle and solo cup against the wall of the Green Monster, Arak using this as a convo starter with the people behind us in line and it actually turning into something positive when they held space for us the next night in line and being so drunk that I confused my receipt with my ticket.

We got a sweet “Beckett Killed Kenny” poster from the guy we watched BP with, the JD Drew homerun was about 10 feet from us and FanFoto got a picture of us celebrating it and numerous drunk dials were made. The game was an unreal experience and that was with a bunch of kids and soft-core fans in our section. We sprinted out of the stadium afterwards and got back in line with those people who found my public display that afternoon amusing and after buying 18$ worth of soda and Gatorade we went to recruit my brother and his friends to join us. They only lasted until about 3AM before they bailed due to cold/fatigue/illness.

Sunday I spent the entirety of the day sleeping, drinking Gatorade or trying not to vomit. I came around about 4pm when vouchers came out and started socializing with the people I had slept with the night before. Made friends with a homeless guy staying in line with us who also happened to be from Maine and vigorously booed several Cleveland Indians fans, including a toothless woman who looked like she was probably married to homeless guy. Our entire group of about 15 people all got tickets in the same section for this game, which was awesome. Section 35 was also much more rowdy and typical of your average fan, evidenced by the 6 middle-aged men whom we befriended and traded barbs with all game. I almost got two home-run balls during batting practice and Scott and I waved to each other from our seats, air high-fiving over left field. The Dropkick Murphys played to start the game off with both "Tessie" and "Shipping off to Boston" getting the crowd into a frenzy.

I can’t even do this whole experience justice with words, but it was fucking surreal to watch the Sox blow it wide open in the 8th inning (cameo for our section during the inning on the national telecast) and celebrating every little thing with total strangers. Once Coco made the final catch deep in the triangle everyone went ballistic hugging, exchanging high-fives and spraying beer, water, soda and liquor everywhere. I ended up with gin down my pants and peanuts in my hood but it didn’t matter. The Sox had won the ALCS at home after being down 3-1 and I was there to see it. Best of all I didn’t max out my credit card or have to sell any organs to get in. I just had to subject myself to sub-human conditions living on the street and binge drinking myself into oblivion, but it was worth every second. If we games 6 & 7 of the World Series are necessary, I’ll do it again – work be damned.

I miss video games

2007-10-03T08:47:00.000-04:00

http://www.news.com/Gamers-gather-for-7th-World-Cyber-Games/2100-1043_3-6211364.html?part=rss&tag=2547-1_3-0-5&subj=news

Saw this link on my news feed this morning and was instantly reminded of the countless hours I spent in 8th grade & High School playing Starcraft and Counterstrike, among other games. Apparently I should have stuck with it and been more disciplined and I could be competing for over 500,000 in prizes and the World Cyber Games, the Olympics of gaming. Dammit.

Sometimes I wish I could set up a huge LAN like we used to do back in the day and just have 6-8 of us sitting around gunning each other down or leveling up in Diablo or something. Those were fun times for sure and I thoroughly enjoyed them. I don't think however, that they did a whole lot to help any of our general hygiene levels or our social skills with particular regard to women. I have moved on from video gaming as a hardcore obsession and now will only occasionally dabble in them just to kill some time or reminisce - which is probably for the best. Additionally, shit like this makes me think of The BP and just what he is up to these days in the gaming world, since he was the Pied Piper of our gaming addictions. I feel like we need to get him sponsored and really buckling down on playing in the 2008 WCG. Just a thought.

Musings

2007-10-01T21:03:00.000-04:00

Now that the regualr season is over and the Sox not only clinched the AL East for the first time since 1995, but also best record in baseball, I wanted to revist my earlier post about the fragile state of th team. Over the course of the past week or so, JD "the corpse" Drew is hitting .500 with 7 RBI, a home run and a steal, as well as several runs scored. He also has looked a little lively in the outfield. Here's hoping that he and our drunken canuck in the pen can keep up the good work into the playoffs. Speaking of Gagne, he has posted 3 scoreless innings as has Okajima who happens to have a save as well. Daisuke had a strong start to close the season and Youkilis has been servicable coming off the wrist contusion. As long as he can gut it out for the playoffs, the slackers keep coming around and Lugo, Crisp and Varitek can find the bats we are looking good for the playoffs. I like our matchup with the Angels, as Lackey has trouble at Fenway and Kelvim Escobar has been ailing recently. K-rod, Vlad and the rejuvenated Garret Anderson are formidable, but I like our chances especially with Manny back in the lineup.

It also occurred to me, through a series of interesting events today, that there is no hope for humanity and the future of Earth. One such event was when a large woman wandered out into traffic, held up two lanes of cars as shelumbered across the road and then paused over the sewer to empty her pockets of trash instead of ambling an extra five feet to the trash can. I'll reiterate: She emptied all her random recipts, pocket lint, gum wrappers etc into the sewer instead of throwing them in the trash. I give up.

Secondly, I saw a late 80's model Jeep Wrangler raised up to absurd heights complete with missing sideview mirror and rusted out wheel wells covered in paint promoting a Megadeth album. Seriously?! Megadeth? Aren't we working on nearly 15 years at least since they were that popular? And who in general paints their car to promote a band's album release? What the hell is wrong with these people. Best part, after doing some web searching the car was promoting their 2004 release "The System Has Failed", not their most recent 2007 release. Stunning really.

Another condemning factor for humanity is the complete societal breakdown that occurs at gas stations. For some reason people cannot get down the concept of entering in the entrance, exiting in the exit and pulling up on the proper side of the pump relevant to one's gas tank. People are just zooming in and out from all sides of the station, driving up over the curbs, backing into the pumps trying to fill up illegal containers you name it. I have seen people pull the pump handle from the opposite side around to fuel their car and even someone amazingly taking up three pumps at once. This doesn't even begin to mention the people who fill up and then spend 15 minutes shopping in the attached gas station mini-mart for cigarettes, scratch tickets and honey buns. It' like a bunch of vutures pulling in for the kill on a wounded animal in the desert, every man for himself type of mentality. No common courtesy, no sense of order and certainly no common sense.
Of course the shining example of this gas station disaster scenario is myself, who while at the pump today spaced out while I was filling up. It had been a long day and a shiny car probably drove by or something, so I pulled a Jeff Daniels from Dumb and Dumber and just started pouring gas out of my now full tank onto the ground, my shoes, my rear tire etc. It took me a good 3 dollars worth of gas all over the place before I even realized what was happening. I didn't blow up the gas station or anything, but I certainly felt like a tool the whole way home from work.

The lesson here, folks, is that not only am I an idiot but society is doomed to crush itself under the oppressive weight of our own stupidity. Oh, and GO SOX!.

Implosion

2007-09-21T11:37:00.000-04:00

The state of the Red Sox Nation is grim today. We have lost 5 of our last 6, two of those to the damned Yankees and have seen our division lead shrink to a paltry 1.5 games with just over a week to play. This is the division we have been leading almost the entire season and once lead by 14 games. Shades of 1978 here, and to be honest I am getting ready to panic just a little bit here. It's not like we don't have a history of suckage and collapse and I can't really get behind our offense or our pitching staff right now. When our offense is fielding a bunch of AAA kids, waiver claims, a corpse and bench players with our best RBI production coming from a guy that looks like he just left a PTA meeting I can't really feel that comfortable. We are seriously paying 75$ million dollars for J.D. Drew and we have four more years of listless, bored looking corpse man in right field and the ever-pleasurable experience of watching him strike-out looking to end a rally 3 times a week. Manny hasn't played in a month and who knows when he'll decide to come back,Youk looked like he got his arm broken last weekend and that is going to linger for awhile and keep Eric Hinkse manning first base with his even worse facial hair and stellar .220 BA. Crisp is banged up, Lugo sucks 90% of the time, Pedroia is slumping a bit and Ortiz has been hurt all season and it looks like he needs a few days off but since we suck so bad right now and so many other guys are hurt he is stuck taking one for the team - again.

This is just the offense. The once invincible bullpen is in tatters. Okijima has quadrupled his ERA in the last couple of weeks, Gagne looks like a drunken Canadian every time he hits the mound and the suckage has infected Papelbon it seems. We need to just give them all the rest of the week off and let Tavarez, Snyder, Timlin and Coery take all the bullpen innings and hope for the best. Seriously, tired arms, sore shoulders and lack of control; it's like the bullpen all got together at a bad strip joint and took hints on pitching from the coked-out whores giving handjobs. We couldn't be more sloppy right now.

Granted, while I feel a little bit like Chicken Little right now, it's not totally unwarranted given the Red Sox sordid history. That being said,I would not be at all surprised if Manny and Youk came back in time for the playoffs and coupled with JD sparked the offense again and took some pressure of of Lowell and Papi and the bullpen all took the sand out of their vagina's and started pitching like they are capable of. The Red Sox are going to catch fire again soon, just like my fantasy baseball teams and ride stellar starting pitching and massive offense outputs to victory. I just wanted to get that off of my chest so I can enjoy the weekend and start sleeping through the night again. Everything is going to be fine, we will start winning again and have a healthy roster. Beckett will win the Cy Young, Pedroia will win ROY and the Sox will win the World Series.

Sweet Life

2007-09-20T09:47:00.000-04:00

I just wanted to mention a couple of notable things that occurred over the course of yesterday. First of all, when I arrived at school and was coming up the stairs a group of students was clustered at the top, blocking the hallway and preventing me from getting by. It wasn’t a huge deal to me since I was just going to excuse myself through them and go about my business, but it was a big deal to the teacher monitoring that hallway. Since the bell had already rung and these kids were late to class so the monitor comes over and starts yelling at these kids to get out of the way because a teacher was trying to get through. Nothing like getting a little respect from your colleagues to clear the stairs for you. Of note is the fact that I am the only person in the building still that doesn’t have a school ID hanging around their neck, and yet I still get treated with respect and courtesy like any other teacher or staff member. Probably stems from the fact that there aren’t too many white students with button-down shirts and messenger bags cruising the hallways.

While I was working in my office the other day advising a student, one of my colleagues in the career center was talking about Wesleyan University’s library and how impressive it was to another student. The only problem was that instead of pronouncing it “li-brar-y” like the rest of the world, she repeatedly called it the “li-berry”. This infuriates me to no end: DO NOT GHETTOIZE WORDS! Especially when you are trying to advise and educate kids. How is he going to look when he shows up to class one day and starts asking professors where the “li-berry” is at? Jesus H.

While I was simultaneously taking advantage of the McDonald’s buy one-get one McNugget special and destroying my arteries, a lady comes into the restaurant and orders an iced coffee like she just rolled into Starbucks on her morning commute to work. She orders a medium iced coffee, half regular and half decaf with skim milk and caramel with whip cream and two half & half creamers on the side. The poor girl behind the counter looks at this woman (who looks closer to homeless than decaf latte connoisseur) as if she had just sucker-punched her and tries to explain to the customer that she speaks primarily Spanish. The cook has to come out from the back and make this lady’s coffee while explaining to her that they do not have decaf at the moment and they never have whipped cream. The poor homeless meth-addict was really upset at this news and tried to somehow get them to find her some decaf to mix in their, but when told it would be 15 minutes muttered disgustedly that she had “important shit to get done”and that they should just “fill that bastard up with sugar and creamers instead.”
Wow. Didn’t realize McDonald’s was running lunchtime theater these days.

Good Advertising

2007-09-17T09:36:00.000-04:00

I was watching some car commercial the other day and it really made me want to go buy a new car and just drive until my gas tank was empty. Pretty effective advertising right there. Of course, I can't actually afford a new car or the time it would take to drive until I emptied a gas tank but, thenotion of just taking off and driving, seeing the world pass as I drove along was really enticing. There is just something soothing to me about getting behind the wheel of a car, wind blowing in your face as the sun shines down on you, sun warming your skin. Having no destination, just cruising along in my own car is one of the best images I can conjure up. Maybe it was the commercial (featuring lots of hot women) or the fact that the air definitely turned to fall this weekend (my favorite season) or maybe I just really
wish I could afford a road trip but I really wanted to get into the car and drive after I saw that.

Speaking of advertising, can we all agree that Peyton Manning should not be allowed to make anymore TV commercials? How awful are these, especially after they get played 10 times per game? Someone needs to stop this man before he gets into one of thoseCialis commercials or something.

Continuing on a football note, the New England Patriots are the best team in the NFL,
all espionage talk aside. Tom Brady is easily a top 3 NFL QB (Manning,Peyton and Palmer, Carson being the other two), Randy Moss is running clean, crisp routes and seems to have lost none of his trademark speed and agility (taking two years off in Oakland to regroup probably helped a lot) and the offensive line is working in tandem like I have never seen. Honestly, these guys are going to get almost no credit all year with Brady, Moss,Belicheck and the taping scandal getting all the press but they put a veritable fort around Brady every passing play, allowing him to find Moss and co. downfield and have opened up great seams and holes for Maroney, Morris and Evans to bomb through all day long. As long as we avoid the injury bug (a huge issue in years past, esp. in the secondary) we are only going to get better as the team gells together and we get Harrison and Seymour back. The rest of the NFL better be worried. To address the cheating thing, yeah, that was low and seemed reallyunnecessary given the roster and attention to detail of the coaching staff and I feel the penalty is just. That being said,I am sure many other teams were and are doing similar if not the same thing and it's just a matter of time until they either stop from fear of sanctions or get caught as well. Sure, the Pats broke the rules and they will pay the price, but everyonevilifying New England should just be mindful that their team could very well have been in our place.

In other news, I added a new blog to the favorites list; A blog about beer! This is where I stumbled across the interesting tidbit about Sam Adams Utopia (25%ABV !) and it is a pretty interesting read as far as news, info and general factual nuggets about beer go. Since we all love beer, I figured some of you might want to check it out. Also linking to a coaches blog for all you runners out there who want to see what a college coach's thoughts are.

Addendum

2007-09-13T11:34:00.000-04:00

I just wanted throw out the fact that incidents like that of the other day at the school probably aren't prevented at all by the HUGE Smith & Wesson factory that is less than 2 miles from the school, and less than 3 miles from about 5 area schools. Great community presence if you ask me, good work Springfield.

Apple is the slowest company ever. I still don't have my replacement computer yet even though I shipped mine back on Friday night. Awful. I feel so crippled without a computer. Also still don't have any cable TV yet so I essentially have nothing to do from about 6 or 7pm every night during the week. Hopefully by this weekend all these issues will be taken care of or else I may go insane.

Rain, Rain Go Away

2007-09-11T12:24:00.000-04:00

Rainy days are the worst. I hate getting wet more than most anything in the world and everything seems to coincidentally go to shit when it rains. For instance, everyone becomes an even worse driver the minute it starts to rain, making any type of roadway travel even more dangerous than it already is. This becomes especially prevalent when you have an hour long commute to work. However, if that was the only thing wrong with this particular rainy day I would consider it a banner success given the shit that has gone down already.

Consider that on the way to work today, not only was it rainy and miserable but my car started to smell like it was burning oil or transmission fluid, which is decidedly bad. Not sure which one it is yet, but either way it’s going to piss me off. I get to work and this incredibly grumpy lady who I have never seen before is in my office (which I share with other people) complaining that I stole her chair and she can’t believe I have a desk when it took her a month to get a desk. Then she demanded to see ID and wanted to know who I was working for and what I was doing in “her” office. I finally shut her up and attempted to do work, but alas, not such luck as some kid decided that he needed to bring a gun to school today and so Joe Cool and his unloaded .22 get the cops swarming all over the building searching lockers and sending everyone into an understandable level of discomfort. To top this all off, the day started with a veritable invasion force of ants in my kitchen swarming like locusts in the cat’s food dish. Where they came from is a mystery, but that needs to be dealt with once I get home since we can’t keep the cat locked in the bedroom forever. I feel bad for it since odds are 100% that it is going to be bored to tears, but I can’t have him eating the ants or the cleaning fluid I hosed their asses down with before leaving for work.

I fucking hate the rain and all the terrible crap it brings with it.

The infallibility of Mac's and the uselessness of Tech Support.

2007-09-06T11:01:00.000-04:00

I recently got a new MacBook laptop as a graduation gift and I was excited at the prospect of using an apple product, since all the apple users I have ever talked to are in love with their machines and think they are the greatest things since the onset of free Internet porno. Being a lifelong PC user and having dealt with such issues as the blue screen of death, random freeze-up, viruses and the like I (naively) assumed that Mac’s were infallible since I had never heard of these things happening to them before. Thus, much to my surprise, as I began using my laptop for the first time and setting up my preferences I was shocked to see a little black screen appear and inform me that I needed to restart my machine. I shrugged it off as no big deal, because all computers need to restart from time to time and I thought maybe I had just automatically downloaded some updates and those needed to take effect immediately.

Boy was I wrong. After this same Black Screen of Despair appeared at least 3 or 4 more times I figured something was wrong with my computer and called Tech Support. This seemed like an awesome idea at the time since I had the uber protection, super-dee-duper high-class 3 year warrantee that I was certainly covered on whatever could be wrong with my several day old computer.

My first experience on the phone with tech support was pleasant. I waited 2-3 minutes to speak to someone, explained my issue, we did some troubleshooting and she told me to call back anytime if this, or any other problem, were to arise. No less than 4 hours later as I am browsing the web does everyone’s favorite black screen appear again. Well shit, something must really be wrong here if the erase and install of my OS didn’t fix this shit. I call tech support again, and after giving them my previous case number, explaining my issue (again) to a different tech support person he informed me that it was in fact a serious hardware defect and that I would need to make an appointment with a Mac Genius at an apple store and either troubleshoot some more, or if it was bad enough of a problem (which he said was highly likely) they would just replace my laptop with a new one no questions asked.

I was really frustrated after this call, since it took me 15 minutes to talk to someone and he kept having to repeatedly put me on hold to check things over with a supervisor and the hold music was getting old on Tech Support round 2. However, I was optimistic that I would either have my problems solved or taken away from me in 2 short days at the apple store. I show up there, laptop in hand and am immediately assisted by a pleasant young guy with a lion’s mane of hair who diagnoses the problem as serious hardware defect of an ambiguous nature and heads out back to get me a new computer. Wow, could it be that easy I thought to myself.

No, absolutely not. That’s what you get for getting your hopes up and making assumptions though. He returns to inform me that since my laptop is custom made (news to me) they have no replacements for it in store since they don’t sell it and thus he cannot take mine in return for a new one. I need to talk to tech support and get them to arrange for it to be shipped back to them and replaced. Now it isn’t this guy’s fault he can’t help me, tech support never should have sent me there in the first place knowing the exact serial number of the machine and it’s makeup (which I had given to them twice already now on the phone) and I am not excited to deal with them again. On my third call to tech support in less than a week I get a brain dead imbecile who probably has to clear blowing his nose with a supervisor before he does it who informs me (after a 30 minute wait of checking with a supervisor and looking into my issue) that the customer relations dept. is not open this late and I will need to all back on Monday. Of course, since I posses more than 5 brain cells I ask if they will in fact be open on Monday, a holiday. Naturally he has no idea and proceeds to ask someone else the answer to which I find out they are not in fact open. I ask if they are open normal business hours (9-5) or if they are open later since I have to work and this is relevant info. Of course, he doesn’t know this either and after another several minute wait Jackass informs me they are open 9-9.
Great, now I have a weekend to wait to get this shit fixed and I have to deal with tech support again to get them to tell me how I get them to pay to ship this POS back to them.

As you may have guessed by now, I talk to an even more useless idiot on Tuesday. I spend 2.5 hours on the phone getting transferred from dept. to dept. since this jackass has no idea where to send my issue. I get hung up on twice and when I finally talk to someone who knows what the fuck is going on they tell me they need tech support to declare the machine DOA in order to do an exchange. I plead my case to this guy and he coerces some female tech staffer to put the requisite marks on my file and he gets my contact info and says Apple will be in touch in 24 hours or less with shipping info and labels.
This was such a fucking nightmare that if I didn’t need a computer so badly to function in life and do my job I would just ask for a refund and never buy another one again. Of course, I am addicted to the Internet and couldn’t possibly do that, but I sure as hell will think twice about buying another Apple product I’ll tell you what.

Life as we know it.

2007-09-04T12:37:00.001-04:00

A lot has changed since the end of July, so updates are in order once again.
I have a job now, and it is the college counselor position I interviewed for in July. Obviously I got the only job I applied for, making me 6 for 6 in job interviews lifetime. I am the ultimate in interpersonal skills.

Due to said job, I now have an apartment and I am living in Shrewsbury, Mass. a mere 5 miles from the Tufts Vet School and Grafton home course. I also have a cat now, which is pretty sick since he is a crazy little bastard who does more than sleep all day like most cats.

The commute to work sucks, and I am going to go broke paying for gas and tolls, which blows, but I am already trying to figure out ways to work from home or just not go to work as often as possible. I get paid a salary, so it’s all the same each week no matter the hours I work. Saving gas, and the environment, is always good.

The end of the summer saw lots of staying up late, hanging out, drinking – standard unemployment activities. Spent some time at Tufts bumming around, ran a little bit winning myself 50$ in the process. Fantasy baseball started heating up and I made the playoffs in two of my three head-to-head leagues, missing on tie-breaks in my money league of course (so unlucky). Either way I am confident that my teams will come out on top due to superior talent, managing skill and sheer luck. My roto league team is dominating, displaying the raw talent of my fantasy sports abilities. I have a 12 point league in a 16 team league with a month to play. Things look promising. Drafted two fantasy football teams the other day, and the jury is still out on them. I have a feeling some trades and waiver-gold will be needed in order to ensure dominance.

Superbad was hilarious and it is still easy to get into Fresh Pond free. Alumni run was a partial success, as I did not get girled, however I didn’t run particularly fast either clocking a 20:30 or so. Silver escaped my grasp as did Carberry, but next year I will be ready to rock and roll. Also, I will be doing more training for has-beens mile in an effort to try and break 5 minutes (odds overwhelmingly against me at this point.

More updates to come as time goes on.

General Update

2007-07-25T00:55:00.000-04:00

Figured a general life update was in order here. After half-heartedly looking for jobs for a couple of weeks, I applied to 4 positions, only one of which I was qualified for. The one I was qualified for, college counselor to low income/high achievement high school students, was the one I happened to get an interview for. I most likely will be getting this job, as the interviewer said it went really well and was very impressed with what I brought to the table. They were just waiting on the background check from Tufts Human Resources to come back clear and it's all systems go. Odds are I'll be employed by the weekend, which is excellent since I have no other conceivable prospects or leads. This means I will be moving to Massachusetts and living in the greater Springfield area.

Been working around my house here in Maine to earn some cash towards paying off my bills. Painted the back hallway and kitchen trim, done lots of laundry and wood stacking, as well as various other chores. It's been pretty sweet though, since I get to sleep as late as I want and work as much or as little as needed to demonstrate significant progress. In my (massive amounts of) free time I have been either hanging out here in Maine, which consists of getting together with my friends and either playing Guitar Hero and/or watching the Red Sox or going to bars. The latter of these has certainly not helped lower my credit card balance. I also have visited friends in the New England area, spending a very fun week at Tufts and going out to Samantha's camp in Augusta to hang out with her and Arielle. Both excursions were very enjoyable and I hope that I can get a possible Maine cliff jumping excursion together, although weekend time is running short as summer draw into the latter stages.

Anna and I have a 50$ bet on who will beat who in the upcoming Beach to Beacon 10k. I am confident that even though the race is in 1.5 weeks and I have only run 5-6 times in the past 10ish weeks that I will be victorious. I ran 3 miles today, which admittedly was rather taxing, and plan to cross train tomorrow with a mix of wood stacking and swimming. My friend Aaron (aka Duff) also has this bet going with Anna, the plan being to deprive her of 100$ and ridicule her endlessly of course.

I re-read the Harry Potter books this past week in preparation for the release of the 7th book, which I have yet to finish at this time. My conclusion on the Harry Potter books generally is that while not terrible difficult to read at all, they are highly entertaining and imaginatively depict a world I would be fascinated to experience, be it possible. I am highly anticipating the conclusion of this wonderful series, which I should have done by tomorrow. At this point full discussion will be welcomed on Deathly Hollows or the series as a whole.

Other than that, Bloom returns to Boston this weekend and Rock the Bells is on Saturday. Things are shaping up for a rocking weekend. I'll post details of upcoming events as warranted.

Observations

2007-07-02T13:04:00.000-04:00

It occurred to me recently that it is impossible for a guy to walk into Victoria's Secret and not instantly be labelled a creep by all the women shopping there. It doesn't even matter if you are married, engaged, dating someone or single - if you walk in by yourself you are automatically a creep. There are only two ways in which to avoid this: 1. Immediately ask one of the employees for help in looking for something to buy for a girl you like. You get instant credibility for working with a Victoria's Secret employee in purchasing a gift of any kind. 2. Walk in with, and remain by the side of, another female. Even if it is just a friend of yours, you aren't creepy since a girl (that everyone will presume to be your girlfriend) brought you into the store.
It's also important to remember that in the event you went with route two and this person needs to use the fitting rooms, stand against a wall and try to look at the floor or something. It is no appropriate at this time to start checking out 18 year olds, or trying to picture what the relatively unattractive women would look like in lingerie. Following these rules is for everyone's benefit.

I've also determined that New York City, while very fast-paced and intriguing to some, is by my estimates a very seedy and disgusting place. This is clearly based on the fact that I have no capacity for acceptance of new things or places and am a total farmboy at heart or something. I was recently in New York and nothing overtly gross or seedy happened to me and I didn't witness anything I hadn't seen before in Boston (i.e prostitution and drug dealing), yet I still felt uncomfortable and on edge most of the time. I won't be going back anytime soon if I can help it.

In more painful news, I ran a few times last week for the first time in over 6 weeks.
On Monday I ran 6 miles and was sore for 24 hours after running, although aerobically I was still fine after the initial 15 minutes of shock wore off. Tuesday I played basketball for an hour or so, which was much more fun than running but gave me some solid blisters. Wednesday I sacked up and raced the mile, 800 and 200 at an all-comers meet at Lewiston High School. I won the mile and the half and got third in the 200. It was especially pleasing to break 5 minutes (4:54) in the mile and shame the hot Somalian prospects of LHS in the process. The 800 was myself and two middle aged men, so after opening in a pedestrian 65 and stretching out a 100m lead I cruised home in 75 instead of thrashing my already achy body attempting to go 2:10 or better. I feel that if I had competitors nearby I could have hammered out another 65 or so, but it wasn't worth it at the time. After finishing this race I jogged across the track to the 200 start and ran a 24.4. Pretty sick.
Overall thoughts are that I still have some semblance of endurance (quickly fading) and good top end speed (holding strong) but me speed endurance is all but evaporated. I was gassed 500m into that 800. Pretty standard given my lack of physical activity since graduation. Oh, and winning feels just as awesome as it always did.

I think I'll close this out with an awesome link and grab some lunch.
Why Wade Boggs is such a champ.

Why Maine Rules

2007-06-03T18:48:00.001-04:00

I was walking home with my brother today from his graduation party and as we are talking he informs me that our neighbor asked if we wanted him to build us a garage at a good price because he was "looking into mass producing some garages." I'm not sure exactly what that meant, and I know my dad didn't either, and he politely declines.
My neighbor then goes on to offer a trade staight up to my dad - his house for the home of my now deceased grandmother which he owns across town.
That's right, he wanted to trade houses straight up with us, giving us the two adjoining properties at the end of our dead end street.

First of all, who the fuck offers something like that? Secondly, my bro thought it would be awesome because he and I and a couple of friends could move in there and have way more space and I wouldn't have to worry about finding a place to live or anything.

I told him the property we already own is probably worth a considerable amount more than this one, mom and dad would likely not go for this and would he really want to live RIGHT next to an elementary school instead of one house over? He still maintains this is the solution to our problems and I seriously considered trying to lobby my parents on this issue. Get the deal to include cash considerations, a professional cleaning and some general repairs and a paint job and we could be in business.

It's good to be home.

Senior Week Part 2 and the Interim

2007-05-30T15:18:00.000-04:00

Friday, May 18th:
I went to the Last Chance meet at MIT all day in the rain. I ran, despite both the abuse I had inflicted upon myself and my lack of desire to do so. Predictably, it went poorly. On the bright side, Arak, Bradley and Sorensen all did very well and so that was nice to see.

At night I ended up at The Brom and we drank a lot. Big surprise there. It was a really good time with beiruit, funneling, girls actually in attendance and drinking, baking and lovely heart to heart chats. It was a good night for the most part and was fitting closure to senior week for me.

Saturday, May 19th:
The day of our awesome graduation party after the baccalaurate ceremony (which was pretty boring IMO). Everyone's families were in attendance and we really impressed people with our catered, well stocked, tent party. It went very well. I'd love to say that everyone's family left and we cleaned up outside a bit and then relaxed inside watching a movie or something before the big day. But no, I wouldn't be a good degenerate if I didn't spearhead turning our backyard into a huge shitshow with everyone we know stopping by, having a few drinks and generally having a good time.
We started to play beiruit on the buffet tables and around 12-1am or so the cops showed up and told us to shut the hell up and go inside, which we did politely. I continued to drink unhealthy amount of beer which would end up putting me in a very bad state when the tenderloin/chicken sushi/alcohol mix became deadly. My toilet will probably never be the same. All in all a great time, despite very poor decision making on my part.

Sunday, May 20th: Graduation

I wake up totally hung over. I feel awful. I expected every second of it.
I shower and get dressed quickly and chug some water and gatorade in an effort to regain functionality and not smell like beer and vomit. I head to my marching area where I meet up with Tyler and JPH and we have our pictures taken and march into the ceremnoy through a literal sea of humanity. I have never seen so many people in one place outside of a sports arena. It was total madness. After we take a seat I sleep through the honorary degree presentations and wake up to hear the commencement address and be recognized as a graduating liberal artist with about 1,100 other kids.
We march out, I find my family and we go to Anna's so I can get some lunch and clear my hangover. After lunch I sit through a downpour of epic proportion huddling under and umbrella and a poncho and get my degree. After a nap I head out to dinner and then relax the rest of the night playing board games with my housemates.

Since then I have basically just been lounging around my apartment sleeping, drinking or generally doing nothing. The Burren has happened and will probably happen again this week. Guitar Hero was dominated by Mac and Churry and I (using the controller and not the guitar because WE ROCK!) and generally just being a bum. It's been really nice and a great break from school, work or any responsibility whatsoever. Obviously this will come to an end sometime, but while it lasts I'm going to ride this wave as long as possible because who knows when it will come crashing to an end. Odds are I won't be in this situation ever again and so I might as well make the best of it while I can.

That being said, we are playing backyard beiruit today so I am going to go have a bottle of water and a quick nap so I can be on my A-game later today.

Until next time, I'll just be here living the dream.

Senior Week Recap

2007-05-25T15:30:00.000-04:00

Ok, So it's been awhile since I last posted. I apologize. I was busy taking finals and drinking heavily. I also managed to PR in the 800 in my last college race, so that was huge as well. I'm going to give a brief recap of the senior week events as best I can remember at this point to give all the undergrads something to look forward to and just to fill everyone in to my physical state at the moment.

Day 1: Saturday, May 12th.
I started drinking Tuesday of the preceding week after finishing finals. I took Friday night off for the race. Great decision.

We race at Dartmouth on Saturday. I run 1:54.90. This is an outdoor PR and second best ever time for me so I am very pleased. I run in the 4x400 as well and enjoy that, running a pretty standard 50.2 split. I drive home with Jesse and Arak, and really just loved the whole ride back. Lots of nice scenery in the North.

We return to campus, I shower and eat. Drinking ensues. I am not attending the booze cruise with the other seniors for several reasons. 30$ was pretty expensive, I don;t like boats all that much and I generally get seasick if I am on a boat for more than 2 hours. Add in binge drinking and you don't have a good equation. I opt for the Brom and beiruit with such all-star guests as Mac and Neil. We play lots of the aforementioned game and my liver is working overtime. The booze cruise posse returns around 1:30AM and we kick it up a notch. AK is there after all, and drinking with alums is cool. After drinking all the beer we head out onto campus and start causing trouble. Trash cans are overturned and the Metcalf roof is accessed. Great view up there, very cool. We end up at Conwell where Dominoe's is drunkenly ordered and mac & cheese is prepared by Betsy. My living room is trashed and Team Mayhem gets to work messing with my roommates shit. Arak crashes at Conwell and after a brief regroup the next morning we had to the Broken Yolk for breakfast. Good times so far.

Day 2: Sunday, May 13th.

After Broken Yolk naps are taken. I then play wiffle ball and soccer down at the track for awhile while my housemates do the scavenger hunt. I then take another nap. Life is good sometimes. I scavenge some sort of dinner up and shower. I am informed that it is time to drink again after showering and so I get dressed and the pre-game for the first pub night of senior week begins.

My liver is not impressed, but I managed to subdue with a well-timed barrage of Southern Comfort and move forward boldly into the abyss. The underclassmen come over and join in the festivities and of course, boy bands and 90's pop play a prominent role in our preparations. We depart for the bar and I instruct all my friends to follow me upon arrival as I'm buying a round of shots. This great idea brought to you by alcohol, everyone's inspiration for poor choices.

We see Dust, Dave and Nate there whom I am apparently very excited to see and deafen the trio with my hearty salutations. We drink more. We dance. We leave. I don't remember most/any of this. I get separated from my friends loading the buses and upon returning to Tufts begin to wander the grounds. I also make numerous drunk dials. I climb onto Bush Hall and am unsuccessful in getting to the roof and so I make my exit from the structure via the fall. I make my way home at this point and head to Luke's room for one of the truly epic discussion that can only be had in the early morning hours after a late night of drinking and wandering. I pass out around 5am.

Day 3: Monday, May 14th.

I awake with a 5 alarm hangover and check my email. Coach wants me to race this weekend. Whatever, I say, why not. This would prove to be a poor choice. I laze around and go run 3 miles. Running was not what my body needed at all right now. I pound a Vitamin Water and Gatorade and nap. Around 4pm I shower and get ready for the Red Sox game, another amazing senior week event. The game is to be followed directly by another pub night. My liver is already shutting down in advance. The game is awesome, as the Sox win and so many Tufts people, especially my friends, are there. I have peanuts,chicken fingers and a coke and my body appears to have returned to a sense of normalcy. We head directly from Fenway to a bar a couple blocks away and start drinking. After a couple drinks at this faux-Mexican place in downtown Boston we head to the T to get to Pub Night. As we exit the T at the Boston Common to shadowy figures from under a tree on the common start yelling at me and calling my name. The looks like either wino's or crack addicts and I am advised not to go near them. Naturally, I don't listen and head straight over there.

Our would-be-vagrants are none other than Dave and Brit, drinking in the park from paper bags. Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to senior week! We head into the bar where I alternate watching the mechanical bull and sitting on the couch. I can't really afford to drink monetarily or physically and so after hanging out for awhile we all take the first bus home. The strategy here was to get to bed early and sober so as to be prepared for another round of heavy drinking tomorrow before Gala. This only occurred in part, as I decided it would be a good idea to be up with Tyler on Facebook until 3:30am. Another great night in the books.

Day 3: Tuesday, May 15th.

Gala is tonight, and everyone is excited. I spend the afternoon shopping for and cleaning appropriate attire to wear later and napping. I also go do some starts and stretching at the track. This is my "workout" for the week. Sweet.

After practice I come home and Kendra is here. We go inside and hang out for a bit and relax before we have to start getting ready. Scott and I have to share the bathroom while I shower and he shaves do to poor Conwell planning. I exit the shower and their are already 4 people in formal attire in my living room. After everyone is all dressed and has eaten lots of our yummy snack foods we take about a gillion and a half pictures. A very sizable group has amassed at this point and we start drinking in earnest. After a couple down nights I'm ready to go again and we all head for the buses with good buzzes going. After we get to the Park Plaza we have to show like 3 forms of ID and get about 6 wristbands that say we have tickets, can drink and aren't carrying any infectious diseases or something. There is a hassle over Luke's dates ID not scanning properly and so Scott and Luke hassle with the cops for a good 10 minutes before Scott threatens to call the Governor to verify her age. In the face of this overwhelming political pressure they back off and we take a zillion more pictures and drink more.

The hotel is amazing and we have two dance floors: hip-hop with a DJ and Jazz/Swing with a live band. The rest of the night is spent raping the buffet and dancing until our feet blistered. It was an incredible night and everyone had a ton of fun. So much so that the bus ride home was either people hooking up or passed out (this was a theme for most of the bus rides over the course of the week come to think of it).

I got to bed around 3am again. My body is going to crash later this week I predict.

Day 4: Wednesday, May 16th

Tonight we have the Jake Ivory's Pub Night which everyone is super-stoked for. I sleep until noon, eat some shitty lunch at CMike, run a few miles and nap. Tyler and I have Buff Chicks for dinner and wacth 24. Then we try and kill the last of the beer ball and head to his house so he can change and we can do shots. These missions are accomplished quickly and efficiently and we head off to meet everyone else at Sophia with some mouthwash-esque vodka in hand. Classic rock greets us at the door and we finish off the Listerine with alcohol and start having some beers. Finally we leave and get to the bar, but not after another epic bus ride in which Mickey and myself serenade the bus with our melodic singing voices. The piano bar is incredible for numerous reasons. First of all they have buckets of 5 beers for sale at a discount so I buy two of those over the course of the night. This would prove to be disastrous. Luke and I get our song played and go ballistic and the quality of the company and the music is incredible. One of the better nights of the week for sure. Upon returning to Conwell, Tyler and I stay up until almost 4am again. He heads home and I pass out.

Day 5: Thursday, May 17th.

10AM: My alarm goes off. I curse and glare at it through my bloodshot eyes.
10:15AM: I drink two Gatorade's and feebly attempt to dress myself.
10:25AM: The house rolls out to the Champagne Brunch at Dewick. I am in rough shape and reek of booze.
10:35AM: We arrive at Dewick and I am comforted by the overwhelming number of people there who also look and smell like death warmed over. I get eggs and bacon and about 8 glasses of water.
11AM: Some jackass decides to actually go get their champagne and collector glass. I silently curse at them and unsteadily follow along.
11:05AM: I give away my alcohol and curl up on the floor of Dewick in physical distress
11:15AM: I am roused and we go watch a slide show of senior week. It was alright. Other people are still drinking, I want to die.
11:40AM: We go home and I promptly enter napping position on the couch (read: shirtless).
12:15PM: Woken up by Luke and the party planner for Saturday. Make failed attempt at acting like a human. Go to bed in my room.
3:30PM: Go to the track and stretch
4:30PM: Return to the living room, remove shirt, vegetate
7PM: Wonder where everyone else is.
7:30PM: Ciaran, Gary and Sully come into the living room and start watching a movie. I pass out.
9PM: The three of us head to Anna's while Ciaran meets his dad somewhere. I feel normal again.
9:25PM: We hit up Dunkin' Donuts to supplement Anna's. We then get hot dogs at Spike's.
11PM: Play pool and hang out/watch another movie.
1AM: Sleep, again.

Finally, no beers, or booze of any kind for a whole day.

Fun Fact

2007-05-06T18:39:00.000-04:00

Just thought it was important for everyone to know that as Saturday turned into Sunday, at 2:03 AM and 4 seconds the time and date was 02:03:04 05/06/07.

I hope that everyone realizes how awesome this is and how rare of an occurence it is, happening only every 1000 years. There are other such dates that would work with this cool trick like 09:10:11 12/13/14. I hope that everyone observed such an awesome second in history in an appropriate manner last night and did not simply overlook it as just another second.

Also, links are everyone's best friend so here is an interesting one that goes well with the theme of the week: finals!

And, just for shits: RPS!

An Unreal Experience

2007-05-02T18:48:00.000-04:00

It's been almost four days now, and so I feel that I am composed enough to try and describe the events of this Saturday. Winning the NESCAC championship (techincally a tie, but we still have the trophy) was something that I had been striving for when I arrived at school. I wanted to beat Williams so badly in track, since that was my season, and our XC dominance of them was immediate and often repeated. We came close a number of times, and lost one of our closest challenges on our home track, which is always devastating. This win was almost totally unexpected and came in true team fashion, with only a couple of event wins and lots of scrapping for points.

The excitement was building throughout the day, and with each passing event we seemed to increase or maintain our lead. By the time we got to the 5000m we were still winning the meet and that was factoring in their 1-2-3 finish in the 200m. That's when it hit people that we had a legit shot at taking this meet. Obviously I was a total emotional wreck for the next hour plus, trying to cheer on all my teammates and also getting ready for my own race (the last of the meet).

Going into my race, the DMR, winning by four points after the flase start debacle was a really good feeling. We were within reah and the meet was coming down to us four remaining relay men. The whole league was behind us, and numerous athletes from other teams came up to me before the DMR went off and wished me luck. The entirety of the race all the other teams were screaming for our runners, cheering us on as if we were their own teammates. For that one race, with Williams on the brink of defeat everyone was united behind us. It was an incredible feeling, having every single person pulling for you. This of course culminated in the anchor leg when we needed to move up two places to tie with only two teams within reach of our rookie miler.
With 400m to go he moved past one of our opponents. With 300m to go he passed the other. The crowd was going ballistic. I was about to shit my pants for the fourth time in the last 20 minutes. I went to the top of the home stretch and got ready to scream, feeling that if only I could yell loud enough I could propel Jesse to victory. The crowd had lined the track down the homestretch and was just outside lane 2. With 150m to go, the last barrier between us and victory, the Middlebury anchor leg made a huge surge and moved out to pass. The crowd down the final 100m backed up ever so slighty while jacking the decibel level of the outdoor track to an absurd amount. Jesse responded and they came around the corner neck and neck. I screamed. I cheered. I made as much unintelligible noise as I possibly could. They were stride for stride. He HAD to hold this guy off. There was no way that we could be this close and then lose in the final 50m to the host team, right? That just couldn't happen.

It didn't. He held him off. We hadn't lost. Victory was ours, at long last.

Despite having just run a 400m mere minutes ago, I took off running as hard as I could down the infield to mob Jesse and embrace the rest of the team. I don't even remember the next 10 minutes very well. We chanted his name and lifted him up, there were tears and hugs and screaming and disbelief and general bedlam. We took infinite photos and got congratulations from everyone it seemed.

To work for something for so long and to come close so many times and fail, to finally achieve that goal is one of the most rewarding things I think you can be a part of as a person. And to do it in the fashion that we did it, with the guys that we had out there means so much to me, especially since it was my last shot. Looking at the pictures and staring at the trophy just reminds me that all the hard work, the long hours, the sacrifices that each and every guy put into this team all year were worth it. That my leadership may have made some sort of a difference. It was truly an inspiring performance and one that I will not soon forget. I can only hope that any of the underclassmen that were there fighting it out with us seniors recognize the gravity of that win for us, for the team, and for themselves. I honeestly feel like this was a turning point for the program, especially with all the young talent we have, and that this could be the start of a long series of wins.

Even if it isn't, no one can dispute the fact that we will forever be 2007 NESCAC
Champions!

Spring Blooms Eternal

2007-04-25T23:23:00.000-04:00

As of this past weekend, Spring has officially arrived. It was about time to dammit, since the solid week of rain, clouds, cold, wind and work were really starting to destroy my life. It just so happens that the sun and warm temperatures coincided directly with the April Open House for accepted students. Literally, the first day of this Open House was the first sun in over a week and a very balmy 65 degrees. The campus was buzzing with Frisbee, wiffle ball, sunbathing and general merriment making Tufts seem like the idyllic college campus. Perfect for the administration. Naturally the weather only got better for Friday, day two of the Open House, which also happened to be 4/20. So in addition to an even higher presence of activity on campus and sunbathing girls in bikinis, it was a Friday afternoon and everyone was getting stoned on the library roof. The University was practically selling itself. Days earlier we were entering day 7 of consecutive terrible weather, Open House rolls around, and the dorms spill out onto the Quad and President's Lawn.
I am convinced, of course, that the administration has made some sort of deal with the devil that the weather must be miserable and highly variant from November to early April and then for April Open House it has to be unseasonably warm and sunny for 5 straight days. It happens every year just like this and there can't be any other explanation for it. I'm trying to figure out what Tufts had to sacrifice in this deal with the devil and so far I've come up with two scenarios:
1. In exchange for the promise of good weather, Tufts will slowly eliminate the social scene from the University by systematically eliminating fraternities and sororities in addition to an increased emphasis on policing house parties.
2. In exchange for the good weather, Tufts will admit a disproportionately low number of attractive people in general, especially females.

Either way, something other-worldly occurs for one weekend every April and this year I couldn't have been happier to see that day come. Not only does April Open House beckon in the nice weather for the year, it also ushers into effect the aptly titled "T & A week", in which campus females dump their frumpy sweaters and ill-fitting sweat pants in favor of skirts and tank tops for the spring season. Tanning on the lawns increases dramatically and a severe spike of people actually working out at the gym occurs.

On a related note, good news for campus males everywhere as the soft-serve machine is entering week two of it's inoperative status. Here's hoping people aren't filling in their twice daily ice cream fix with increased pizza and cookie intake. We could all stand to be better looking and it starts with less soft-serve people. I can only hope that my diabolical plan to install a scale in front of the ice dream machine that announces your weight to the entire dining hall is being enacted, and thus explains the downtime in the machine itself.

As the end of the academic year approaches and everyone is getting into that finals push here are some great links with which to occupy your time and give you a ray of hope for the near future.

A nice video montage of collegiate life circa senior week: http://www.22curtis.com/movie.html

A truly disturbing blog link akin to something Skye would send us: http://mollymcgorvey.blogspot.com/
(I was unaware people of this nature were real humans not being paid to act in porn)

And a nice collection of awesome game winning shots from MJ: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alijpYhHtyk

Exactly What We Needed

2007-04-16T13:05:00.000-04:00

Saw this advertised and immediately saw Skye becoming a campus wide superstar:

Do you blog? A group of students is creating a website featuring students' blogs. If you blog and are interested in being featured on such a website, please email xxxxxxxxxx@xxx.com

How Sweet is that? Seems like exactly what The Brom blog needs to rocket to stardom if you ask me.
I say we all try and convince them to do it. What student wouldn't want to read about such degeneracy?

Graduation

2007-04-12T14:27:00.000-04:00

And you walk across the stage, take a bow, hear the applause,
and as the curtain falls, just know you did it all
the best that you knew how and you can hear them cheering now.
So let a smile out and show your teeth cause you know you lived it well.
-Saves the Day

Assuming the best case scenario for the next 3+ weeks, I will be graduating from college at the end of May. This is terrifying. I would like to say that I really milked the college experience for all it was worth and got my money's worth, but I have a hard to buying into that. The other night as I was walking home from Eaton at a particularly ungodly hour I stopped on the library roof and looked out over the city. It was a really beautiful view and for whatever reason triggered me to start thinking about my time here at school and what exactly I have accomplished. Here's what I came up with:

Academically: This is by far the least impressive of the areas. Not only did I rarely exhibit my full effort in any class or study area, but I rarely put forth 85% effort on many tasks. On the surface, one could look at my transcript and argue that I did pretty well here and that my grade decrease from High School to College can be chalked up to adjustment to collegiate life (initially) and commitments to the team (later on) as well as the academic standard here being infinitely more challenging than my high school. While that's very intriguing and valid on some levels, I know that it's total bullshit and that I just didn't try as hard as I could/should have and I rarely, if ever, took a class that would challenge me or expand my horizons because I was scared of failing.

NEWS FLASH: That's the point of college. Try shit out, fail, fuck up six ways from Sunday and take some risks. That way, when you leave and go to get a job and start a life you are prepared for a wide variety of life's inevitable curveballs and you know what success and failure is like and what you are capable of. Me, all I learned here was that I can still cut corners with the best of them, the path of least resistance and I are still well acquainted and I can drink a lot of beer. Certainly not what my parents expected of me when they sent me off here and footed the bill, nor what I expected of myself coming in.

Athletically: I experienced a lot of success early on in this area and went from no name walk on to bona fide ace prospect. Of course, I then let the aforementioned penchant for beer and other poor decisions hamper my next two years or so of competition and was wildly erratic both on and off the track. Fortunately for me, I was able to get back on course this year and realize some of that potential and actually put an honest effort into something over the long term and it paid off. Hopefully this will translate into a willingness to work hard at a job in the future and not look for the shortcut. I was pleased that I was able to achieve my initial goals almost across the board here, and while I sometimes wonder where I might have gotten had I not sabotaged those middle two years, I feel like that was an important part of the journey too.

Socially: I feel like I made a lot of great friends here and that I met a lot of cool people during my four years and I only wish I had more time to spend with them. It seems that only now am I realizing the value of great friends and cultivating lasting relationships instead of looking for training partners or drinking buddies. Better late than never, I suppose. One of my only regrets here is that I didn't branch out more outside of my "comfort zone" for friends and that some of the friends I did make have moved on to other places and I have failed to keep in touch. I always told myself that I wouldn't become one of those "out of sight, out of mind" friends, but I fear that that is exactly what I am becoming.

Having made these realizations now means I have about another month+ to work on the aforementioned shortcomings. Hopefully I'll be able to make some progress, especially with the schoolwork left in my push towards a diploma. I didn't necessarily post this up here for anyone other than myself, but if it can serve as a lesson or a guideline for anyone that happens to read it than so be it.

Alcohol + Sporting Events.

2007-04-01T22:06:00.000-04:00

As I was walking back from Sunday run today I saw a bunch of people lining the streets near my house drinking beers and watching the cycling race going on around campus. These were not just degenerate college students who felt that any excuse to drink at 11AM was a good one, but also townies and other adults who live in the area and felt the need to booze early on a Sunday. I got to thinking about drinking as a spectator event, and it occurred to me that there are a bunch of events that people get loaded as they watch, the Boston Marathon being the biggest one (since it also happens to be a holiday here).

My question here is, do these people really care about the sports they are watching, or are they just getting drunk to pass the time until something crazy happens, like a crash or some dude shitting his pants on the way by?
I'm voting for the latter, since I know for a fact that almost no one in the US cares about cycling, especially non-Tour/non-Armstrong cycling and yet there were a slew of people with their coolers full of ice and their sidewalk space filled with empties. Additionally, people always seem to give me dirty looks or try and run me off the road while I am out running and so it stands to reason that they just want something to stare at while they get drunk on Marathon Monday.

I'd like to shame these people for being bad sportsfans, but honestly, I'm looking forward to when I can start being one of them. Sign me up for a 6 pack for the '08 Marathon as I watch many of my former teammates run on by.

Observations

2007-03-28T23:13:00.000-04:00

A phenomenon that I think most people around here a familiar with is the PDP, or Post Dewick Poop. It's a pretty standard fact that a short while after enjoying a hearty meal at Dewick you head to the can and take a shit. Plenty of people experience this on a daily (or multiple times per day) basis. It was after this last spring break that I realized how comforting it is to have the PDP sometimes. At home, my meals don't instantly galvanize my bowels into action to clear them of my most recent gorging of fried food and yucky vegetables and my shitting schedule is wildly unpredictable. Here, it's like clockwork and unless I am ill or start eating at really weird times there is no deviation from it. To me, its a comforting schedule to keep and also solid evidence in the "Food at school has laxatives" camp.

I was also sent this gem of a link earlier: 80's child stars turn Hot.
Okay then. Steph Tanner, how you doin'? Some of the other were kind of obvious, but overall a good list you should really check out.

Oh Look! Pretty Pictures! - The Weeks(end) in Review Part 2

2007-03-25T23:33:00.000-04:00

Basketball Game recap: The Mid-D faithful went against the coaches for a rousing game of 4 v 4 basketball the Thursday before break. We lose, we shave our heads. They lose, they run a 4x400 in women's uniforms. Seemed like a great bet at the time. As we began warming up for the game I noticed a few things that made that bet seem rather poor.
1. I was the tallest member of our team
2. EB can dunk
3. I hadn't played bball since middle school and couldn't shoot (literally, i was one handing the ball all game. Still put down a solid 12-16 points.)
4. The quickness and endurance advantages we planned on exploiting were not to be had. None of us on that court were in basketball shape.
5. Our offense was pass the ball around the perimeter and jack three's, hope for a put back.

All in all not a great strategy considering we were at a serious height disadvantage at all positions and not markedly faster than the other team to convert any fast break opportunities. Needless to say we were down 14 early, rallied to tie at the half, got down huge early in the second half and then made it close by actually hitting some of the three's we jacked up and employing the "misdemeanor assault" defensive strategy. I think they got one clean shot the entire second half.

So I needed to shave my head. I decided to do it in style of course, and opted for a mohawk straight out of the gates.
Here are some before and after pics.

Before:

Don't I look excited.

And after the mohawk process was completed:

Personally, I thought it looked pretty badass.
However, there were some issues.
First off, it was really awkward to have gelled hair sticking off your head in all directions. Sitting in chairs and sleeping were a bit weird.
Secondly, I don't care that much for my appearance on an average day to actually gel my hair. The mohawk hair without gelling it up is really ugly.
Third, the girlfriend did not approve.

Thus the mohawk needed to go. So the next day my brother reluctantly agreed to buzz that off for me and so ended the 24 hour mohawk era.

The St. Patrick's Day parade in Southie was awesome, albeit cold. There were a lot of random people in the parade that didn't make a lot of sense to me as being associated with the holiday (i.e. city councilman, senators etc who ere clearly not of Irish heritage) but the highlights more than made up for that. Highlight one was the people dressed in all Star Wars gear coming down the street. The trail car was Luke and Vader dueling and they were proceeded by about 60 stormtroopers and the some other semi-major characters (Han, Obi-Wan etc.). The most Irish looking of all the Star Wars flock, Yoda, was nowhere to be seen. Drunk, he must have been.

Highlight Two was the people in the building behind us who kept yelling choice remarks all parade such as "Show us your shamrocks!" to the car containing Ms. South Boston (what a joke that is by the way) and "Win one for the Gipper!" as this guy drives by:

His importance in Southie, or the Irish community must be pretty substantial since he had his own personal car in the parade. Either way it was funny hearing these guys behind us hanging out the windows drunk at 2pm heckling this old dude. Naturally, right after this photo was taken and they shouted at him, he turned and waved as the equally geriatric driver feverishly honked the horn.

Our house buddies also demanded that beads and candy be tossed from the street into their second story window. It was fun to watch people heave junk at their house and have them come nowhere close, leaving the handfuls of lollipops to smash into the downstairs neighbors windows. I bet they loved that. To top off the afternoon, the drunken house partiers tossed a beer to one of the guys in the military who walked by. He caught it and proceeded down the parade route drinking a frosty Budweiser. God Bless America.

Spring Break was not that exciting, which was much needed. Saw 300, slept a lot, read a book for fun, did some running and a fantasy draft. There was lots of big talk about "doing something crazy" over break between a couple of my buddies from home and I, such as travelling to Middlebury or Virginia Tech. Naturally we settled on the titillating third option and went to the Salvation Army. Man, do we live on the edge.

The Week(end) in Review - Part 1

2007-03-19T12:35:00.000-04:00

Ultimately this post will contain pictures that will make many of the commentary much more humorous but I left my camera cord back at school and so the photos will remain on my camera until then. I always forget something when I come home for breaks it seems. At least I brought boxers this time....

Spring Break kicked off officially Friday afternoon when I handed in a rough draft of a paper to my writing fellow at 4pm. It should be noted that in very ominous karmic form I had to turn this paper in on the other side of campus during a welcome to break, suckers! driving snowstorm and almost fell down the stairs in Olin thanks to the floor being wetter than your mom's... nevermind. Not a great start to the break, but thankfully that is not where I decided to start my break.

Thursday night was the official kickoff to break that started with my drinking beer in my room while watching poker and writing journal entries for a research project I was being paid to participate in. A few beers and several entries later we headed off to the Burren for 80's night, always a good time. Before venturing into the Burren however, we went to nearby Sligo's to see if Carberry was there. He in fact was, and in his joy at seeing a bunch of his athletes come find him at a bar, bought us all a round. After we pounded that down and talked tourney bball we abducted him from the people he was hanging out with beforehand and hit up the Burren. Normally I have really bad luck in getting them to play my requests that I shout up at the stage, but apparently the Fates were with me tonight as Arak, Carberry and I went 3/3 in shouted requests. Freebird was of course one of them. Someone should tell Bloom that next time he wants a song requested he should stick to shouting like the rest of us, and not approach the keyboard player from side stage mid-song. Seems to work better.

Friday was not a great day, as previously mentioned with the paper writing and the falling down and such. However, Friday night was a grand ol' time as the old Conwell crew (Tyler, Orth) came bombing upstairs to get current Conwell for some sledding on the President's lawn. Being a senior these days, one would think that I would have joined in the revelry and tradition that is sledding on the lawn by now, but apparently I am traditionally deprived. Now that I have that checked off my list I am taking open suggestions for traditional things that every student should have done before graduation to make sure I get them completed. Leave a comment with any suggestions below.

The sledding was excellent and featured numerous jumps, races and startling wipe-outs highlighted by the backwards ride of Gary Ying. He "decided to kick it up a notch" and got slingshotted down the hill backwards. All was well and good until he plowed head first into a concrete barrier since when he said backwards he apparently meant for better or worse. After discovering that he did not in fact have a concussion and was not bleeding out we did what any sane people in our situation would do - slingshotted more people down the hill at the large ramp, backwards. Safety first, as they say. Brendan had brought his snowboard and we watched him jump a bike rack and the library stairs which was a good show, especially when he ate it on the pavement. After an impromptu snowball fight with some unknown wine-drinking Asian kids it was off to the Brom for me. There was a party going on there but it was in the ending stages (aka the sober-ish people were leaving and the drunkest ones remained). I played a couple of quick games of beiruit with Churry and then headed to the kitchen where we proceeded to concoct some pretty awesome eggs. One batch had some Sizzlin' Hot Spice on it, which were quite good, but nothing compared to the second batch which really upped the ante. We dumped some rum into the eggs and then cooked them up and spiced them. They were great and a really interesting way to ingest alcohol. After watching Ted break glass on his head, eating way too much frosting and zoning out to The Tube for about 20 minutes I headed home with Churry.
We both agreed that Ted pushes it to the limit far too often and that the glass breaking over the head was really anti-climatic.

Of note, the Bromfield guys are generally still employing the "Bloom will take care of it when he gets home" approach to mess prevention/clean-up which is especially funny given he won't be back until the Fall.

I'll have a St. Patrick's Day/Basketball game update later in the week when I have some before/after photos (hint: that means we lost).

Grab Bag

2007-03-14T18:43:00.000-04:00

Lot of really random shit to cover here, so I think I'll just dive right in.

The Big Game: Tomorrow myself, Rony, Jason and Billy will be taking on Rod, EB, Carbs and Kevin in 4v4 basketball - losing team shaves their heads. Should be interesting since we are significantly disadvantaged size wise and I am a huge offensive liability. Also, I haven't played in 8 years since I started in middle school. Should be good. Update tomorrow.

New Men's Dress Shirts: Since I am pretty scrubby more often than not and have very little occasion for dressing nicely I rarely but new dress shirts. The 2-3 I have had/permanently borrowed from my father in high school have served me well. For my birthday this past year, I was given a nice shirt, pair of pants and a tie that matched nicely as an outfit "to wear to a job interview." No event that required looking presentable occurred until last night, when it was time to go to Senior Dinner at the Bacow's house. Perfect opportunity to bust out the new clothes. Of course, I had class until 4:15, then a workout and the dinner at 6 so I was rushing around like a madman trying to get dressed. I was not impressed with the 35 sharp pointy pins that were really impeding my efforts to unfold and wear this shirt. Frankly I am amazed that I didn't impale myself or tear a hole in the shirt. WHY ARE THESE NECESSARY? Wouldn't maybe two get the job done and hold the shirt together in the store? Whoever thought these pins were a good idea is an idiot and probably is the dumbass who fathered Anna Nicole's baby.

Life Goals: Ever since I was 10 years old I have always wanted to be a "regular" somewhere. My strategy was to go to the same diner a bunch of times for breakfast with my father before school when I was 11 (and the Chicago Bulls had the best record in NBA history. Good breakfast conversations) and eventually since he was a big shot state politician and I was a cute kid we would become regulars. This was going wonderfully until that place decided to close down. Apparently, the 99 cents toast and coffee deal wasn't exactly paying the bills. I tried several more times to become a regular at various establishments over the next few years but had little success. The Bagel Place (closed), The Italian Sub Shop (high employee turnover), The Dairy Joy (damn seasonal businesses), A card store (changed locations; I grew up -sort of) and the local convenience store (closed). I was beginning to think I was cursing these places by attempting to be a regular there. Perhaps my business was dooming their financial well being. This all changed yesterday when a newer employee at Hillsides Liquors asked to see my ID and Anne comes out from the back of the store and tells him, "he's all set, he's in here all the time. How are you doing?"
VICTORY! Not only was I now recognized as a regular customer somewhere but it comes with the perk of not needing to fish out ID when I want to purchase booze. One of the myriad of reasons why Hillsides is the best liquor store in the area (See also: Low Prices, Good Selection, Great Staff, Red Bull w/sugar not that sugarfree crap) Pretty much made my day.
Now all I need is a good breakfast place where I can achieve regular status and get "the usual" everyday before work. Ideally it will be near Hillside's so I can go there after work and be a double regular. Exciting times.

Celtics Jinx?: Reading the Sports Guy's blog today, the Sports Gal made her NCAA tourney picks. I was not impressed with the following section:

"The bigger problem is that Bill says we're moving back East if the Celtics pick Durant in the lottery. I wanted to move back East for two years and he wouldn't move back. ... Now I actually like living in California and we'd have to move back only if the Celtics get a specific basketball player? Isn't this grounds for divorce? At first, I thought Bill was joking, but he keeps saying, "I can't live 3,000 miles away if this guy is playing for the Celtics. I can't live 3,000 miles away if this guy is playing for the Celtics." Now I hope the Celtics lose the lottery. Sorry."

I don't think we need these kind of forces working against the Celts. We suck enough as it is. We need to win the lottery. How can Danny Ainge screw up the team by blowing the #1 pick if we don't get it? I'm nervous.

Springtime: I love the spring. Absolutely love it. It's warm, but not too hot. No-to-low humidity, cool breezes, the trails are clear of snow and ice for running. Just a generally nice time of year. That's why my run today was amazing. Great weather, clear trails, the breeze in my hair. Reminded me that I actually enjoy running sometimes and it's actually worth destroying my body on a bi/tri-weekly basis for. Perfect time for a rejuvenating run like this too, right before the break and the start of the outdoor season. I wish I had a picture to demonstrate what I am talking about. You'll just have to picture it. I'm looking forward to May when it'll be warm enough for the swimming hole run.

Financial Genius

2007-03-07T20:53:00.000-05:00

I read an article in the Daily the other day about the proposed renovations to the Hodgdon take-out place on campus and was initially horrified to learn that it would not open until the end of August. The end of August!? That's after I graduate, how the hell am I supposed to get a beer there if it doesn't even open until after I leave? It was supposed to open in 2 weeks! What shitty contractors.

Of course after getting all worked up I realize the article is about Hodgdon, not Hotung the newly renovated eatery at the campus center that will now be serving alcohol. I read so good. While it's nice that Hodgdon will be getting renovated I don't care since the whole project takes place after I leave and has no bearing on my life. To say I am excited however, for the opening of the new and improved Hotung is an understatement. The ability to buy beer on points has me more excited than I have been in a long time.

Let me explain. Points are not real money. They are this magical entity that allows you to purchase food items on campus and from participating merchants with only a nine digit number. End of transaction. It is so simple that you totally disregard the price you are being charged for these items and consume to your heart's content. This goes double when you are drunk, since the inevitable beer munchies creep up on you and everything becomes such a good idea when you're inebriated. The amount of drunken 555 deals from Domino's I have consumed on points is absurd.
Thus, the mere thought of being able to purchase beer on points has me ecstatic. They could charge 10$ a pint and I would still buy them. Points just aren't money. In real dollar terms, 12$ for a buffalo chicken calzone is highway robbery. On points, I put down 2-3 a week for a semester (not one of my healthier spans of life, coincidentally).

This leads into my point. I am certainly not alone in my sentiments about the magical nature of points. Many other people feel the same about them, and about booze. Beer on points = free booze. Here is where we increase the university's endowment. The number of 21+ students with leftover points every year that go unused is probably very high. This would not be the case with beer on points. Charge 5$ a pint for the shit, and kids will still buy it at an alarming rate. The rich ones will even put more points on their account either from "change" the pick up from their Mercedes convertibles or by having daddy wire them some more. The coffers will overflow with revenue with which to provide such needed campus commodities as wireless and two-ply toilet paper.

Formatting changes and random distractions

2007-02-28T21:08:00.000-05:00

As you may have noticed, do to some negative commentary on the color scheme and layout of the blog, I have redone it to be a bit cheerier looking for one and easier on my eyes as I look at it. Hopefully this satisfies those of you thinking this is a huge negativity zone. I'll go negative when I feel like it, but I don't want that to be people's thoughts as soon as the page opens. I also added Kantos' blog and a links section for easier navigation away from my blog (not that you should ever want to leave). As for future changes, I'll be looking to add some pictures when appropriate and as far as content goes let's just say you won't want to miss the daily diary of my 100/100 week.

After I finished my dinner tonight I was having a package of those new(ish) Chips Ahoy! 100 calorie thin crisps cookie packs. They taste like a normal cookie would, but are wafer thin and much smaller than a regular cookie. They kind of reminded me of what a normal cookie might look like after being transported across the room like Mike TV in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Hell, for all I know Wonka cooked these bad boys up special for the Oompa-Loompa's years ago and they are just hitting the market recently. As tasty as I found the pack of cookies, I feel strongly that these are a bad product for the average obese, snack loving American. Just because they are 100 calories only per pack won't stop people from eating multiple packs (they weren't exactly filling). There resemblance to potato chips is also disturbing as everyone knows that once you start digging into a bag of chips it is near impossible to stop eating them. So while I applaud the makers of these Chips Ahoy! bizzaro thin cookies and their 100 calorie bags for trying to look out for the fat people while still turning a massive profit I just can't help but think that this will do more harm than good. I can just hear people tearing into pack after pack of these minuscule cookie delights and rationalizing it by telling themselves "it's only 100 calories." Sure, but 100 calories a pack times 5 packs isn't exactly going to help you out any. I can't wait to see how many companies will try to make smaller, "calorie conscious" packages of their products.

After my highly entertaining foray into cookie eating and theorizing I attempted to do some homework and started reading a book for my Healthcare in America class. As I was reading about the development of the very fragmented system of healthcare in the US I came across a very interesting tidbit that totally derailed my reading for about 30 minutes. Apparently in 1929 you could choose to pay 50 cents per month as a premium that would cover up to 21 days of hospitalization per year. I wondered to myself how much money that was in 2007 dollars, since at the time $6 a year for up to 3 weeks of hospitalization seemed like a fair deal. So naturally I hopped onto Google and started looking up conversion factors and found one for converting dollar of any year from 1825 to 1999 into year 2000 dollars. After doing the conversion factor and having people better than I at math look it over, it appears that the "mere" 50 cents per month for hospitalization insurance in 1929 would work out to nearly $5,000 a month in the year 2000. Not such a sweet deal anymore at all. You can reverse the conversion factor too, and I spent a good 20 minutes converting various products and salaries from 2000 dollars into dollars from years gone by.

Very fascinating, especially since that constituted "doing work" for the night. What a life...

A Question of Etiquette

2007-02-21T21:38:00.000-05:00

The other day I was thinking about all those talk shows like Maury Povich and Jerry Springer where they bring couples in and do paternity tests on the children because there is doubt as to who the father is. First of all, great ground for a show right there. Bring in a young mother, her husband/boyfriend and a potential baby-daddy and things are bound to get interesting.
Inevitably, they do the paternity test and a good portion of the time Maury makes things all dramatic, they have a drum roll or something and he drops this gem on a stunned couple:
YOU ARE NOT THE FATHER! [crowd gasps collectively in shock and disgust!]
Generally the mother becomes overcome with emotion and breaks down in tears, sometimes tearing offstage so she doesn't have to face the crowd and their chants of Slut! or Whore! or something. The guy always looks horrified at first since he has been raising a kid that wasn't his own for two or three years, but here is where my query comes in: what's the etiquette in this situation for this guy?
He just discovered his wife/girlfriend cheated on him and that his child isn't actually his. Usually this doesn't come as a huge shocker to the guy so is he obligated to go console the distraught hooker he was dating/married to or is he good to move on? Could he start hitting on the cute chick in the third row? Does he assault the baby-daddy who ruined his relationship? Does he start swearing and wandering around the stage looking both furious and destroyed (similar to one watching the early stages of the 2006-2007 Celtics)?
What is the etiquette here? I've always been curious. I feel like he is well within his rights to swear and pace the stage and then sneak assault the home wrecker sharing the stage with him. This can be followed by either storming off the set and cussing out the woman you came with on the way out, or making your way into the crowd and searching for a new love interest. Granted I think my opinion is based solely or making for more interesting TV, but I am still curious as to how these situations should play out and what the "right" move is.

Another scenario I encountered that made me incredibly angry at the world and convinced that we are doomed as a civilization: teenage girl talking on a brand new Razor phone, text messaging on a Sidekick all while carrying on a whiny conversation with her mother about how she HAS to have the iPhone when it comes out. Is she for real?
Who could possibly, at 16ish years old need a top of the line cell phone, a phone/camera/computer thing and still feel that her communications needs aren't being met?
Let's not even mention the nose job she'll probably ask for as a high school graduation present once someone has the balls to tell her she desperately needs one and the numerous money that her mother has spent on her own personal plastic surgery.
My conclusion here is that money spoils people and makes them even shittier humans than they already are. Thus as the commercialization of the world raises exponentially with the pollution of it, we should have effectively melted everybody's brain and irreparably destroyed the planet sometime around the year 2100 or so. Naturally this just reinforced my desire to avoid working and live off the bare minimum. To avoid the melting of my brain I would be best off living off of Ramen noodles, water and other people's leftovers. Granted I'll still be a shitty person, but it won't be because of money spoiling me, oh no. I've earned my shitiness.

Records and Music

2007-02-07T18:51:00.000-05:00

All the going to bed early, attempting to eat semi-healthily, not drinking for the most part and training hard appears to have paid off. I ended my 3 year quest to re-take the school record in the 600m on Saturday after throwing down a very inspired 1:21.85, hitting exactly the splits I had planned out ahead of time. Sometimes life just works out like that. Of course, the only thing I noticed the whole time I was running was my teammates just lining the inside of the track and cheering themselves hoarse for me every time I motored by. It was unreal - I felt like the world has stopped rotating and everyone was focused on that race. Couldn't have done it without them. What a day.

On a completely different note, my history of Rock N'Roll class is actually getting pretty interesting. We get to listen to selected music tracks during the class to "illustrate a point", but really they just break up the tangents of the professor. Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry and Elvis had some really cool songs that I hadn't heard before (aside from their huge hits). I also find it interesting to note that Fats Domino had his named mimicked by the later artist Chubby Checker. I had heard of both of them before but never put it together that one had mimicked the other. So cool. If any of you ever want to take a chill class on Monday and Wednesday mornings I recommend this one. Very relaxed in class atmosphere (I read a novel all last class and did the crossword, jumble and sudoku today and am not behind) and relatively interesting readings make for a winner of a class. Throw in a few movie days and flexible papers dates and you can't go wrong. We even got instructions for where to sit if we came to class drunk (as mentioned in an earlier post). Taking this class really makes me wish I had a shred of musical ability, since being a musician seems like the perfect profession for me.
Think about it: I don't have to pay any particular detail to hygiene and since I would be on the road a lot it would be fast food and calzones all the time! I've always wanted to travel around the US and see all kinds of cool new places I never had the time/money to check out so doing so on a huge luxury tour bus would be awesome. Especially a decked out one with video games and a mini-fridge full of soda. Basically your job consists of wandering around the US with your band mates playing video games and eating junk food until you have to go out and play music for a huge stadium crowd. How awful....
Let's not even get into the groupie factor, since we can all just assume it's totally sweet. Sadly for me, I'm essentially tone deaf and not musically inclined whatsoever so I'll have to find another career path it seems.

Early Semester Thoughts and Random Irritants

2007-01-31T19:02:00.000-05:00

So, updates are sparse so far but that is what you get with me. I'm all over the map - deal with it.

First, I just wanted to make some comments regarding the semester to date (about two weeks old). On the first day of one of my classes the professor commented during one of his various tangents that if he were to come to class drunk he would sit in the front since the seats in the back are elevated steeply movie-theater style. He then recommended if we were to ever think about coming to class intoxicated that might be good advice to follow.
We also listen to a lot of music and watch videos during this class, and after over two weeks the professor and all three TA's have been incapable of reliably figuring out the inner workings of how to project video and play audio. It's mystifying. They know they need to play this stuff for the class, how come they haven't come down to the auditorium during some downtime and spent a good hour learning how everything works? Would this be that hard? I don't think so, but then again I don't get paid the big bucks to teach...

I did all my homework for the first week and a half. Readings, write-ups, participation the whole nine yards. This has since been pared down to reading everything for two classes, nothing for two more and skimming for the fifth. I also have limited desire to think ahead and plan out my work in advance, which will become problematic very soon. I still think I deserve some kudos though, I made it 10 days longer than any other semester in staying on top of my work. As things plummet over time, I'll keep you all abreast of the downfall.

Now that Bloom of Bromfield fame has left the country the Daily has gone utterly to shit. Not that is was at any point a bastion of quality journalism or anything, but it was at least readable. There were editorials, columns, less spelling errors/typos and they certainly lived up to their name and came out EVERY DAY!
Now there are no columns, way more errors than before, less editorials, advertising all over the place and they do 2-3 issues a week. This is terrible. Frankly I think they should just print an 8.5X11 sheet of paper every day with the crossword and some comics on one side, and the sudoku on the other. Then do like a once a week issue with sports recaps and campus-wide news from the week before and any relevant national news. They would save money, improve quality (hopefully), save stress to a degree on those who write for the paper and still provide the daily content that the majority of campus gives a shit about. Just a thought.

Speaking of campus publications, what the hell is the Observer anyway? They have no real political perspective like the Daily or the Source and the main draw is the police blotter and shiny cover. Why do they get a shiny cover anyway? No one else does, what makes them so special? A lot of the columns are really irritating too. Why would I want to read a three page article about the Boston Common? I know what it is essentially and what goes on around there, as should most people who have been in the area for a few months. Shit like this kills me.
We really ought to just roll all the campus publications into one huge thing. It would save a ton of money and paper for one. Secondly, everyone would go home happy. The daily could be in charge of daily crosswords and sudokus and then the bi-weekly jumbo publication would include articles copied from the AP with spelling errors (Daily's contribution), some notable and quotable phrases as well as some articles on what conservatives are feeling (Source), a police blotter, inflammatory Snyder column and a flashy cover (Observer), some jokes and satirist articles (Zamboni), random reader contributions/editorials etc (Public Journal), and fashion advice (Melisima or whatever the hell that thing is). Some of the sections could ever be monthly instead of bi-weekly. This is a good idea on so many levels: we save money, save trees, save irritation on the part of the lunch ladies cleaning up all those papers every day, the general public feels better because we aren't bombarded with crap all the time and won't need to carry around 15 publications to occupy our in-class time and we will never have to hear "cut their funding because we don't like that they printed X" ever again. Think about it people.

Why is there no snow? I hate cold weather when there is no snow. This is why winter sucks balls these days. Thank you global warming or El Nino or whatever. Ass.

Anyway, I'll try and keep the content flowing. If you get bored hit up The Brom or Bloom's blogs.

http://www.bloominspain.blogspot.com/
http://www.bromdotcom.blogspot.com/

-Detroit out.

Why New Year's Eve Sucks

2007-01-16T17:45:00.000-05:00

Since we have just entered into the year 2007, I figured I would kick this blog off with a relevent topic like this one. Of course, the intent was to start the blog for the new year and open it up on Jan. 2nd with this post, but let's be serious, I'm pretty lazy.

New Years Eve is one of the most over-hyped, over-rated and underwhelming holidays in the entire calendar year. Every year people get all bent out of shape about plans for NYE and some brave souls step up to the plate and host parties, leaving the rest of us to often choose between competing parties hosted by a couple of our friends. First and foremost, that sucks right there. Choosing between your friends is never easy, or a desireable thing to do, since oftentimes the point of hosting a party is to get all your friends together. This can cause tension or not be a big deal depending on the makeup of your social group.

Another issue of mine with this holiday is the anti-climactic nature of it. It gets hyped up for at least a solid month, lots of buzz surrounding it and all the action takes place in about 10 minutes from 11:55pm [insert year here] to 12:05 AM [insert year +1 here]. You watch the ball drop, you throw confetti, blow noisemakers, maybe kiss someone and this year watch poor Dick Clark struggle to form sentences to summate his feelings on the occaison. That's it, right there. That's the holiday. Sure it spans two years and you might kiss someone, but I never see anything particularly magical about the immediate shift from one year to the next.

What it boils down to is NYE is just an excuse to get drunk, and stay out really late. You almost always spend way too much money (especially if you venture to Times Square), drink too much and make an ass of yourself. All of these things are well and good from time to time, but I don't see the need to have a holiday based around that. Why must every year begin with a hangover?

Another thing that kills me about NYE is the constant Best of the Year lists for everything, published by everyone imaginable. You have the obligatory top however many songs from every radio station on the planet, top news stories, best pictures, best movies, best gadgets, best websites, best people, best porn-related items etc etc etc. It gets so old, especially when it is followed hotly by shitty New Year's Resolutions. To me, this is one of the more pointless acts of the whole New Year's phenomenon that I dislike so strongly. People use the holiday and the start of the new year to make all these goals and resolutions for themselves to be better people in some regard.

Goal setting is great, and something I am a big supporter of. I just don't think it needs a special occasion to set a goal. What was wrong with striving to lose weight, workout more and spend more time with the kids in July? or October? Why does the thought of everyone else doing it compel so many folks to jump on the bandwagon and make resolutions that are far too lofty and will never be followed through on past Jan. 21st at best? Set goals whenever you want to, and set goals that are something to work for, but also something reasonable. For instance, quitting smoking, drinking, eating fast food and losing 100 pounds all while working out 4 times a week is not a reality. One hurdle at a time there champ.

It seems to me the big beneficiary of the New Year's Resolution is your local gym, where the 6 month membership you just bought won't ever get used and the health food aisle at the grocery store, which is pillaged harder than a coastal town in Viking lore every Jan. 2nd.

Basically, I fail to see why December 31st is such a great night for a big party, with kissing and celebrating and resolutions, with months of hype and Best Of lists leading up to it. Why can't any of these things happen some other night? The more I think about it, the build-up to NYE and the subsequent let down are very reminiscent of the BCS title game for college football. Such a letdown every time.

That's why this NYE I went to a small party, didn't drink, celebrated for about 15 minutes and generally relaxed the whole time. I didn't even have an official plan until the day before. I spent essentially no money, didn't stress out, and had a great time.

Who knows, next year I may just sleep through the New Year festivities altogether.