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Friday, May 18th, 2012
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3:13 pm - Improved trolley problem
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1. You are lying naked on a trolley headed towards a fork in the track. This trolley is a Fuckin' Trolley which won't stop until people are having sex on board. You can either allow the trolley to continue on its current path, whereupon the trolley will use its Trolley Magnetism to pick up three people who will have sex with you, or you can throw the switch to change tracks and only have sex with one person.
(A note about the Trolley Magnetism: it only picks up consensual participants, so rest assured that all of the people you could encounter are totally game. If that still bothers you then you can change the name to "Chess Trolley" and pretend you're not going to bang after all.)
2. As before, you are lying naked on a trolley. However, this time the people who will be pulled in by the Magnetism have different physical attributes. You can allow the trolley to continue and have sex with three skinny people, or you can throw the switch and have sex with one chubby person.
3. Same as before. If you let the trolley continue, you'll have sex with three people, but none of them will be particularly good at it. If you throw the switch then you'll have sex with just one person but they'll be total dynamite in the sack.
4. The same as the original scenario, three if you don't and one if you do, but this time the one is your personal significant other.
I think these are way better than the old trolley problems, with all the death and murder and stuff.
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| Sunday, May 13th, 2012
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9:58 am - MEVO 2012: Who Tends The Goaltenders
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As usual, it's all about the backstops again this year. Brodeur versus Lundqvist. Smith versus Quick. Semi-reliable career no. 2 Jason LaBarbera versus trustworthy but aging Martin Biron. Okay, maybe not so much that last one. But a man can dream.
New York takes Jersey in seven. I'll tell ya one thing: it almost seems like New York had their game 7s planned out before the season even started. As with Ottawa in the first round, Washington got an uninterrupted two-minute shift entirely in the Rangers' zone during five-on-five, but they couldn't make it pay. I think this series goes the distance again, and I think the Rangers win it at home again.
Phoenix over Los Angeles in five. I'm really looking forward to seeing how LA responds if they lose the first game (if not both) on the road. The key to their success so far has been jumping out to take control in enemy territory, but that's dead easy when you're playing the wet-sandwich Canucks or the magical rotating goalie carousel of St. Louis. (But hey, don't say I didn't warn anyone about Brian Elliott.) The 'Yotes can win this series if they actually care enough to put on a good show in front of their whiteout crowd -- and also if they keep their sticks to themselves and don't take any stupid penalties.
Currently five for twelve on picks, -2 in game estimation.
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| Thursday, May 10th, 2012
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7:24 pm - posting to livejournal so that it doesn't get jealous of all the stuff I post on tumblr
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What's up livejournal? How are things? Still got that goat on the main page, I see. Listen, I'm kinda busy tonight, but I'll see you on the weekend to post my next round of hockey picks as soon as the NY/Washington series is done.
*goes back to refreshing tumblr*
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| Wednesday, May 9th, 2012
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2:38 am - The Luxurious Art of Decapitation
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After they cut off his head, the body rose up from the sacrificial slab, pointing in the direction of the temple to the god they would worship for the following season. But the arm led through the gap between Loleswdor (of the Cloven Eyes) and Ktripp (whose True Fingernails would someday rend the wounds of winter forest). One of the cultists pulled out his GPS and calculated the route out of the clearing. The first building to intersect the dead reckoning was the Civic Hospital.
And that's why, this afternoon, when Arkady took that weird fall and banged up his elbow something fierce, a bunch of weirdos in bright red pantsuits showed up, applied a salve, and bandaged his arm. Next season the gods may not be so kind, so keep your Veinèd Blades handy, friend.
Posted via m.livejournal.com.
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| Thursday, May 3rd, 2012
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3:23 am - healing over
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There's a sort of funny-looking scab on the back of my neck. It's all that's left of a mole that I used to have. Once it heals completely, it should be impossible to tell I ever had it in the first place.
How many things really work like that? How many people look at me and think, "oh yeah, that guy used to have a drinking problem"? Can you tell by a particular physical indication?
We stopped in at the drugstore to get more allergy meds for my mom and wound up testing our blood pressure. Dad's was in the "good" range. I did one better by reaching "optimum." I might go back tomorrow to doublecheck. It's a little hard to believe that I'm theoretically healthy. I feel like that means I was sick for a very long time before.
I'd like to pretend this is groundbreaking or profound, but it isn't. Nobody's interviewing me. I'm not on television. The world has thus far failed to beat even the lightest trampling of my lawn into what might pass for a trail to my door. There must be hundreds of thousands of us, all tapping away quietly into the night. I wonder what will happen to us.
Give me a second, I'm falling asleep. Things should get nicely unreadable here. Things are alfresco alright, y,know? Things aren't saaa as bas hg bad as theh they seem. Even if O.g I.m green. open up your diojhbdszxfgnnuhh door, I'm comingi, min, coming inside. Elastic bands rwrw werw wrapped around the newspapers. please place the item in th3 plate wgeeb where it will be analyzed and then discarded alobgn along with all the little bits of your brain theat you lreft begindin the morning. Watch yes for the eye of racing, a saucer like a knife. Didn't you know a dinner plate was rhe best way to kill them? Three hits abd thry explode in s fantastic 5000-point .ijhght light showl.......
amr ut jykm grhregko jthsft wad good., get a losd of this sonf by tom petty where he smolkes a bay leaf to krrp the rlaches lat bsy.m read a:l abourtu it benway, young gpt ab 4esk engineer on ypue hsnds. the cut up techniwur ix morhing to ny fibbeerish techbolohy. Akl the best ideas eill howl out of ,me. wpirod fajous. an offive eith a closing door anmd my nsmr on thrbcompany a fnddwedringh ,jigndgzbkhtrghngttytttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt
Posted via m.livejournal.com.
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| Sunday, April 29th, 2012
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3:55 pm - The pictures are the only thing that's real
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I didn't wake up until after noon today. I kept having dreams where I was choosing my clothes for the day. Sometimes I actually got out of bed and looked through the drawers and closet, sometimes I was just lying there and the drawer would materialize on my chest and I'd have to pick a shirt before it would go away. But every time the dream would fizzle out and I'd realize I was still in bed.
Right now I'm supposedly awake.
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| Friday, April 27th, 2012
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12:56 pm - MEVO 2012: I cannot believe we're right back into it
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Don't I even get twenty-four hours to eulogize my Senators, the world's greatest rebuilding team? We only took the top team in the east and showed everyone that they were vulnerable, perhaps even human. Ah, well. I guess I prefer losing game 7 and barely having time to come to grips over getting swept out and going over our bewildering losses in my mind again and again while the rest of the league catches up. Or not even making the playoffs and having to come up with hackneyed excuses for THE MEDIA for that matter. Yknow, maybe the Sens should make every year a rebuilding season. This is the happiest we've been about a first round exit in a long time.
Anyway here's some predos.
New York (1) def. Washington (7) in four, a carry-up call. Having actually witnessed the Caps' timely destruction of last years' champs as well as the Rangers' struggles against a skilled-with-a-bit-of-thump team, I'm kind of concerned about the game estimation -- probably should've gone with five or six, instead of calling the sweep. But I think this Lundqvist really has what it takes. He's gonna be big someday, trust me.
Philadelphia (5) def. New Jersey (6) in six. From the NHL's perspective, yesterday could not have gone better. An Ottawa-Florida series? RATINGS DISASTER. Or maybe not; they've been trotting out numbers all week suggesting that more people than ever are watching teams like St. Louis and Nashville. I think it's just population growth though. The trick is to see which stats they bring up: if they post the share, then it's legit, but if they only say "UMPTEEN BOJILLION VIEWERS!" it just means there are more illegal immigrants with anchor babies driving up the numbers.
St. Louis (2) def. Los Angeles in five; Phoenix (3) def. Nashville (4) in four. See, I managed to get my entire first round wrong in the west (although in my defense, I didn't really wanna call San Jose) so I figure I must have the entire conference backwards. My gut impulse says that LA will take care of the Blues in six thanks to higher goalie dependency, and Niemi will keep the Preds alive to break the 'Yotes hearts in seven, so naturally it'll all go backwards with the higher seeds knocking off their opponents in swift, brutal fashion. (See, what I did here is make a sort of double prediction, so that even if the official one is wrong I can still say "hey well I was that close to being right!" That's how you do it in the big leagues, kids. ESPN CONTRACT PLEASE.)
Currently three for eight on picks, dead even in game estimation.
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| Sunday, April 22nd, 2012
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4:28 am - Random Access Memory
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The trick was to pretend someone was always watching over our shoulders. The trick was to act like we were on television all the time, because we deserved to be. The trick was to lower the brightness and turn on power-save mode, dimming the screen as much as possible. The trick was to remember all the things we never did that we promised. There was no trick. The trick was to ignore the advice of those who had made the trip before by recognizing that we had different goals, and therefore could take different routes.
At this time of night, I like to pretend she's right there, telling me not to worry. She's right there, she's right. I do worry too much. It comes with the territory when so much of your mind is spent up with recollection techniques and tiered information. I should really listen to her. The sooner I shut down, the better a sleep I'll get, and the more refreshed I'll feel in the morning. This would be true whether I had a lot or nothing to do; indeed, part of her effect on me is to help me forget which is the case.
But of course I am just pretending. She's been dead for a while.
I guess I could maybe change who it was? A celebrity. Somebody famous, telling me exactly the same things. I can't really remember faces anyway. I've passed it off as "it's been a long day" but I really do find a lot of people look exactly the same to me, blending through my mind like sheets. Nobody's ever mistaken me for anyone else, though. I must be distinctive. This has not helped my sense of paranoia. But that's aside. It could really be anyone. I could see my life as an equipment menu. Select weapon, armor, accessories. Mostly cosmetic, some attribute bonuses, ultimately no real differences. Maybe I'm doing one of those no-equip challenge runs. You never meet anyone who says their last suit of chainmail got broken, so they've sworn off protection entirely. It's just something you wear. It has no feelings.
She finds all this quite interesting. She's never heard music like this before, either. It's the Rolling Stones. Now I know I must've fallen asleep, because who hasn't heard of them. She just laughs and says they don't have them where she's from. Maybe this is a dream from when we first met, then. I roll onto my side and hold her close to me, whispering answers to all of her questions for me in the darkness.
Posted via m.livejournal.com.
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| Wednesday, April 18th, 2012
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7:13 pm - rutabaga cat
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He's a cat... who's also a rutabaga.
alright well this isn't the dumbest thing I've ever posted to lj but it's close
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| Tuesday, April 10th, 2012
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9:02 pm - MEVO 2012 PLAYOFF PICK-THEM ROUND ONE FIGHT
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First: I am not going to use this space to make fun of Brian Burke again. What's the point? The Leafs sucked, they will continue to suck, and all that's left is to see if he can at least steer the plane into some sort of habitable island when it crashes. I say this as an armchair commentator who honestly thought Burke was turning the team around just a few seasons ago. The catharsis is gone and it's just saddening now. Let's look at the playoffs.
The Also-Rans
Buffalo Sabres (called 4th, finished 9th)
The Sabres' up-and-down season was actually kind of what I'd expected from the Sens back in October. Some wins, some losses, lots of streaky play, and a sudden wake-up push for the postseason in March only to fall short. The difference was that we didn't have Ryan Miller getting concussed by Milan Lucic. There's something about losing your goalie to a chicken-cutting mishap that fails to inspire anguish -- and sloppy play.
Tampa Bay Lightning (called 6th, finished 10th)
Said it at the break, sayin' it again: Tampa didn't get any worse, everyone else around them got better. Stamkos finished with sixty goals. There's no reason such a damn exciting player shouldn't be in the playoffs, and yet here we are. Maybe they'll trade for a new goalie next season and suddenly go on a big tear. Hell, maybe they just won't take as many penalties now that they've shed the albatross named Steve Downie from their collective necks.
Carolina Hurricanes (called 8th, finished 12th)
Well, I just made this call because I couldn't see any Canadian teams making it in the east, much less Philadelphia. Can't really be disappointed about missing a default call on the bubble, right? Way to go, Panthers.
Calgary Flames (called 8th, finished 9th)
We were watching a Flames-Canucks game one night and my brother in law was complaining about Kiprusoff when Iginla suddenly potted a top shelf beauty out of fucking nowhere. Jay Feaster has also apologized to his fanbase, but unlike the other team that's getting all the coverage for sucking ass, I actually believe him when he says they'll do better next year. They had 16 points from overtime losses, as many as anyone but Florida. Imagine if just a few of those go the other way. All they need is a little more defense (okay, a fuckton of defense.)
( Picks after the cut! )
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| Monday, April 9th, 2012
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7:45 am - Whole 'nother year
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It's a whole another year until the next PAX East? But it was so great :( Guess I'd better go to Prime this year, too.
Memories later!!
Posted via m.livejournal.com.
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| Monday, April 2nd, 2012
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2:09 am - The ongoing self-destructive march into the summer
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I accidentally started writing a movie for Script Frenzy today. That'd be a p.good april fools joke, but it's not. The movie isn't really about anything. So far it's a conversation I had in my head about another movie I saw once. I'm thinking if I can write thirty days worth of three point five page conversational sequences, then I can get thirty different filmmakers to create the scenes, slap it together in the editing room with some black and white intertitles, and screen it out of competition at TIFF. It will get the lowest score ever seen on Metacritic, a 7% "Rotten" rating at the tomato site, and yet somehow the dvd bootlegs will circulate endlessly and it'll become a cult classic. I'll leverage my fame into a celebrity endorsement and live out the rest of my days as "that guy on the toaster oven package."
This was originally gonna be a post about how I was slowly losing my grip on reality and had no idea what I was going to do for the next six months, but as it turns out, I've totally got a handle on it. No problem! Life is hilarious.
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| Friday, March 30th, 2012
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10:56 am - Today on Problems: I got problems
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you're losing it coyote you care more about fake people than real ones at least when you used to pound the whiskey you were looking out for number one now you're just another headcase with ideas and everybody's got those cmon you know what's gonna happen and that's nothing you're never gonna move out, you're never gonna sell anything you're gonna take the first job that somebody else happens to line up for you and go back to "well at least I have money" and hating it and then you'll lose that job and toy around with weird ideas like going back to school or whatever but that'll lose its appeal because you can never finish an entire class as excited for the end of it as you were at the start year in year out same old cycle as everything around you gets old and dies yeah this is SO much better than being drunk being sober and still not going to sleep, being sober and not having any way to hide from your uselessness I'm a useless fucking piece of shit and it's only a matter of time until everyone figures that out and then I'm gonna be ditched "oh him he used to work here until we realized he didn't actually do anything" "I mean I guess he did SOME things but nothing any of us couldn't handle in the long run" a monkey, is basically what I'm describing yknow how you see somebody pushing buttons at the cash register and you say "a trained monkey could do that job" well that's me I can do anything you show me how to do as long as it's not too difficult or work-intensive! but god forbid I should ever have to WORK a day in my life ha ha I'm useless AND self-flaggelating what a great combination ha ha I'm an attention whore ha ha I know all sorts of FACTS and THINGS and I can carry on a conversation in POLITE COMPANY and nobody PAYS you for that kind of thing I got paid to DELETE FILES FROM COMPUTERS and once to sell tickets on carnival rides which I STILL managed to screw up somehow you're gonna die, coyote, you're the first one they'll drag out of the room and execute "let's kill a hostage to show 'em we need business, pick somebody who obviously has a pulse but isn't much use otherwise" pick the one who whines the most just to shut him up SHUT UP SIMONBOB SHUT UP COYOTE YOU TALK TOO MUCH NOBODY CARES truth is I've gotten so good at lying I can't even remember what's true any more. it was february the last time I broke down drunk around here and I really didn't get wasted while my parents were in florida I was sick on monday and I missed the midterm all of those things are definitely true so why does it feel like I'm lying when I say them anyway every time something comes out of my mouth I immediately doubt its veracity maybe it wasn't february maybe it was january, or march, maybe I did get drunk, how would I remember maybe I wasn't really sick and I just stayed home because I wanted to there's two sides to every story yknow you shouldn't wear fur except then what happens to the fur trapping industry everybody's got an opinion and I consider myself fair enough to hear both sides so when nobody speaks the other side I have to envision the argument myself wafffffffffffffffffff (I don't HAVE to I guess, but I always do anyway, is what I mean) are these scratches from a cat or do I dig into myself with my fingernails I don't remember anything any more I hope tomorrow I wake up and my computer is broken and I can't remember any of my account passwords because then I could forget about the last twenty-seven and a half years and just start entirely fresh or I hope a terrorist sets off a dirty bomb downtown and I die in the explosion that feels like it would be okay. I would be fine with that right now. tomorrow I'll feel different tomorrow is the worst because you get there and you think "well, back to normal" I don't know how everyone else gets excited for tomorrow when more often than not it looks the same as today but hey no use complaining, coyote, that's just life
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| Friday, March 23rd, 2012
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5:00 am - Finishing
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When I used to get drunk, it was an event. Something to look forward to at the end of the day, something to plan around. My parents come back from Florida this weekend. In the past this would've been an easy excuse: they're out the driveway and an hour later I'm at the liquor store, they're coming home so I'd better pack in one last hurrah the night before. But this time I went three weeks without getting trashed. We had one wednesday night out where we couldn't put in the way we did in college, and one Irish saturday morning brunch where I waited until the clock struck noon to add half a shot of Bailey's to my coffee, and that was it for notable moments. I'm doing great, right? I'm doing so great. I'm picking the earwax out of my audio canals and staying up all night watching action-suspense-thriller movies. Doing so great. I'm feeding my cat and refreshing my social media feeds waiting for someone to entertain me and ignoring most of my obligations. So great.
Don't get me wrong, I don't miss most of it. The headaches, the falling asleep on the couch, the sneaking around. But man, the idea that my life finally had a purpose, even if it was just "make enough money to buy a fuckton of alcohol", that was pretty fantastic. Even though the actual working was drudgery. I even had a couple of days where I was too sick to go in from drinking the night before. But that was okay because they just didn't pay me for those, same as any vacation. I made what I made and I was obliterating my mind and my bank balance was still going up so it was fine, right?
The most important thing in life is to have money. That's what we believe in this family. Not necessarily make money, you don't have to be a millionaire or invest in stocks or anything, but you should have enough to live okay and take care of emergencies when they crop up. I have no idea how much "enough" is, but I guess I must've had it the last few years.
I seem to be missing the critical part of my brain that tells me I should keep on working. I can't envision the "long term." I get partway through and then apathy settles in. Why work on that assignment? Why go to class? Why not just pick up the shot glass, or stay in bed a little longer, maybe all afternoon too. Why not give up on everything I've ever started. Break every promise I've made. Why not be unreliable. I used to get drunk and now I'm eevn giving that up. I'd slit my wrists (lol empty suicide threat now it's a real lj post) but I'd probably throw the knife away after breaking the skin. Back when they taught us the five-paragraph method for essays, I could never manage to write more than four and a half. All these half-complete and mostly-done and almost-but-not-quite novels lying around in my computer and on my memory sticks and in the book with the notes of changes that I've read but never edited in. Even video games, the first love and joy of my life, are starting to feel empty. I start a file, put in some names, play for a few minutes, and then shut it off without saving. I'm not even sure how to finish this post.
I did make a march madness bracket. I guess that's something. Three whole weeks of "freedom" from my parents who I still live with and I have a bunch of arbitrary college basketball picks. And some passable midterm marks (93 and 60.) That's it, that's what I've got to show for myself, that and some fleeting memories of things I probably did. Do you know what is just as good as marijuana? Not sleeping. (Lies, of course. Weed is great. It's all the relaxing and fun properties of drinking with none of the anger or brutal side-effects. I wish I had some. I tried taking a whole bunch of sleeping pills at once one time but it just wasn't the same. Diphenhydramine just makes all your limbs feel really heavy, which is neat for like an hour and then really fucking annoying for the next five. Plus it takes a long time before it finally kicks in, which makes it really difficult to plan whatever semblance of a trip you get out of it, and also aggravates the hell out of me -- if I'm going to take a drug I'd like to know it's working inside of an hour, tops. So because it was a spur-of-the-moment type decision, it didn't get on top of me until like nine PM or something, and all the good hockey games were over and I knew I wasn't gonna be any good at video games. I think I watched a movie that night too. I can't remember. I bought the pills because I thought maybe I'd try to kill myself with them but then changed my mind and just got high with them instead. It coincided with an attempt to watch the first season of Denis Leary's "Rescue Me" which I had to give up on because it was incredibly depressing. There was a specific image of a sobbing widow pouring a bottle of pills into a glass of champagne because her husband, who died in the south tower on 9/11, had been named in a 'gay exposé' by another firefighter. That got me to think, hey, maybe just driftin' off into a coma would be p.good. I deleted all of the files two days later.)
I fucking hate this. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it, I hate it. I don't give a shit about anything any more and I don't know how to kick it, and everything's peachy during the day until suddenly it's night and I realize I didn't do any of the things I said I'd do that day. I don't know it's over until it's too late, and then it's too far gone to ever finish.
The worst part is, I was actually planning to stay sober while my folks were gone anyway. The reason I was drunk that night in february was because I wanted to have one last party-of-one before they left and I got back on the wagon. Well, it worked, didn't it? It worked altogether too well. Have another drink for me, boys. One more week until April and then I'll have run the course of a full calendar month.
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| Monday, March 19th, 2012
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5:13 pm - crave file
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I'm reading an old file called "gregorypeck.txt" that I started a while ago, about the summer of 2006 I'd say. It's more or less a collection of ramblings, all drunk and high and angry. Whining about life and badly transliterated song lyrics. About eighteen thousand words of it over almost forty pages in openoffice, but of course I wrote it all in notepad.
I'm thinking of putting it on the internet. It's not particularly good, much less coherent in some places. But it is very much raw and uncensored -- the kind of thing you write when you've honestly given up on the concept of an audience, and are simply collecting on the page because you've run out of room in your head.
I'm also thinking I should give it one last entry to put it over 20K and 40 pages proper but that would involve either writing it sober (which would be incredibly self-conscious, exactly the opposite effect of what I'd really want) or throwing away all the progress I've made since last year and especially last month.
This is a hell of a craving, folks. I wasn't even jonesing this bad on st. patty's over the weekend. I look at these psychotic things I wrote and forgot about writing, and I can't remember exactly when I would've done it, but I remember the feeling. It felt good. So damn good to be stoned off my legs on reefer and vodka, comparing how different liquors went down, mixing anything and everything into one glass, meeting old friends or hallucinating new ones. I was out of my goddamn mind and I loved it.
I have to talk to my parents and find out if they still have the intelligence testing reports from when I was in high school. I'm gonna take them into the school medical office and see if I can get myself onto something safe and constructive, like adderall maybe. I'm trying not to lose it again. But it is oh so damn fucking hard.
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| Saturday, March 17th, 2012
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3:23 pm - I'm a wolf today
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Bark bark bark. Bark bark bark bark bark bark bark. Bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark.
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| Friday, March 16th, 2012
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1:46 am - It's easier to fall back asleep and hope you land back in the dream you were having than to get up
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We were at the history museum (my reward for solving the puzzle my dad left me in the trunk of the car, the solution was to put the note together with the picture of the rabbit to create an Answer Item) and it turns out the whole place is run by werewolves. The original kind which switch between normal people and normal wolves, not the kind where you go from person to GIANT WOLF or anthropomorphic wolf or whatever.
Right before I woke up I realized I was waking up, as happens sometimes. And I said to the werewolves, you assholes! You could've bitten me so I'd be a werewolf too!
I've spent the rest of the day moping around wishing I was a werewolf. It's like being a teenager again, this wanting of the impossible. I used to contemplate suicide in high school because I thought maybe I could get reincarnated as a wolf. I really, really wanted to be a wolf! Good thing I know better now. I'd get eaten alive if I was a wolf. I would literally be held down and devoured by the rest of my pack because of how bad a wolf I would be. I don't know if wolves actually do that in real life, but I bet they'd make an exception for me, even if wikipedia said they weren't supposed to.
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| Friday, March 2nd, 2012
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1:12 pm - this was a tumblr reblog and now it isn't
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I had a dream last night where I was driving down a street and there's this house-reno truck in the way, so I decide to help paint the fence so they can get out of my way faster. I have to go down the block to get more whitewash. On the way back this guy threatens me with a gun and then goes and hijacks a bus. I go into the Tim Hortons to tell them to call 911 and they're like "we can't use the phone while we're working" and I'm like what the fuck? So I grab the phone myself and call and the cops are like WE DON'T BELIEVE YOU SINCE YOU ARE CLEARLY DRUNK and I'm all no I'm not but I wake up before I can convince them otherwise.
Even though I'm awake I'm still dealing with the nagging concern that somewhere in the back of my head there's a crazy person holding a gun to a bus driver, and I can't get the other parts of my head to cooperate because subconsciously I'm still worried about having a relapse of my drinking problem. I have been seeing a counselor and that's been helping, but we haven't figured out yet whether the drinking is its own independent problem or if it's symptomatic of something deeper. Mind, I don't present for depression but that doesn't necessarily mean it's not there, or it could be something else. He might set me up with an appointment for the in-house psychiatrist.
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| Friday, February 3rd, 2012
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5:32 pm - The Patriots are winning the Super Bowl
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I'd been there. The precise combination of music and imagery had hit me once before, leaving me with the illogical yet immutable sense of the future. It wasn't deja vu so much as a simple moment of clarity, the overwhelming knowingness of existing in the same moment as a pure, unbreakable truth. In that second, I knew that I was adjacent to a very important answer. It wasn't on the screen, though, and I didn't dare change tabs for fear of losing it. I simply asked out loud.
"Who's going to win the Super Bowl?"
"I don't know," my father answers. I didn't actually mean to ask him but truth works in funny ways. "Who's playing?"
"New England, and..."
"And New York, right." This in itself is unusual, my dad remembering the details of a sporting event, but we're onto bigger things here. "Who won last time they were in the Super Bowl?"
"New York." I consider telling him that the Giants also beat the Patriots earlier in the regular season, but I'm still fearful of meddling with my newfound universal connectivity.
"Then New England wins this time."
And that's it. He goes upstairs.
If I really did just tap into a grand cosmic force of wisdom just then, the New England Patriots are your Superb Owl XLVI champions. Frankly, I've been waiting for this all week -- every time I look at the lineups, it looks like a highly competitive, even-handed matchup. Every hole is getting stopped up. Every weakness is underscored with a new advantage. There's no clash of styles, no ideological difference, just two teams playing really good football, regardless of the different paths they took to get here.
I doublechecked with the Magic 9-Ball. It told me that, deep down, I already knew. Works for me. Give 'em the two and a half, too.
Also, Leila the cat wishes to remind you that pats are abhorrent to a kitty-kitty and she is therefore taking the Giants. We're both 2-8 this postseason, so the big game will determine which of us is the slightly less terrible predictor.
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| Monday, January 30th, 2012
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5:01 pm - MEVO 2012: ALL STAR CHECK'EM'UP
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I have never been as fully mesmerized by an All-Star Weekend as I have by this one. It's different when it's in your own city: it's on all the morning shows, signs go up at every street corner, each sports website has its own version of the "horizon with Peace Tower" screencap. We owned this weekend and made it ours, voting four of our players into the lineup. We turned the game itself into a love-in for Daniel Alfredsson.
But now, the stars are gone, their planes whisking them back to their individual teams. And the haze begins to lift as we see how we were seen from the outside looking in. And I guess the big star of the weekend, by the metric of media coverage, was Patrick Kane.
Pictured: the only thing the US hockey media remembers about last weekend.
See, any idiot can make the local papers by adopting the only city he's ever played for as his second hometown, being well-liked and keeping an excellent reputation. But if you wanna go national you gotta pull out all the stops by comparing yourself to a famous cartoon icon (who was created by a Canadian, incidentally.) And it helps to be a good homegrown American kid instead of a European interloper. Can't trust 'em. "Sweden" sounds like a made-up place.
So, I'm feeling a little misunderstood today, but in retrospect I've probably done this to every other city that's hosted the All-Star in the last five years. My apologies, Montreal, for always conflating you with the time Alex Ovechkin wore a straw hat with little Canadian flags stuck in it. I promise to actually learn whatever there is to know about Columbus before this time next year.
( Let's check 'em on up! )
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