Girl Scout? Or Crack Dealer?

So the other day Lane and I were sitting at his place watching football and the President's Cup on tape delay. I glanced out the window, and from about three houses away, I saw a girl walking down the sidewalk, holding a piece of paper with a familiar-looking color combination. Instantly, I popped out of my chair and started flailing around, yelling "Is that girl holding a girl scout cookie form? Is she selling cookies? Is that a girl scout? That's gotta be the cookie form, right?"

I threw on my shoes (I'm not like Dane Cook-- I don't say "fuck shoes" in this situation) and ran out yelling at her to come this way, forgetting that my wallet was in my car, and the keys to my car were back inside on the table, so I had to run back in the house, and then I slammed the door on my hand and had to jump around to shake the pain off, and I riled up Padme (the dog) so she started barking and woke up Finn (the toddler).....and all I would've had to do was wait for the girl to make her way down the block and I would've got cookies either way. I really don't know what happened or why I freaked out so much; I think I blacked out for a couple minutes. All Lane could do was shake his head at me and say "You've got problems, man." I wouldn't say that being able to recognize the girl scout cookie form from 125 yards away is a problem, really....I look at it as something I should start putting on my resume. Different strokes for different folks, I guess.

What can I say, I hadn't bought any girl scout cookies yet this year and I was fiending pretty hard. I'm like the dude in Requiem for a Dream, I would absolutely pawn off my mom's TV and then buy it back every few days, if it meant I could get my Caramel Delites fix. Also, kudos to the rule change that now the girl scouts carry the cookies with them, instead of having to wait an interminable amount of time until they arrive. I'm a weak man when it comes to food.

And on that note, my goal for tomorrow is to eat at least 5 pounds of turkey meat. My single-day record for Thanksgiving weight gain is 7 pounds, set back in 2001, so I think this is an attainable goal-- depending on how many nervous beers I have tonight during the KU/Duke game. Generally I don't like to be hungover on Thanksgiving since I want my stomach to be in prime condition, but we haven't played Duke in eight years, so exceptions might be made.

Happy Thanksgiving and ROCK CHALK JAYHAWK.

Things I Can't Stop Saying And I Hate Myself For It

After somebody says something I enthusiastically agree with:

"Right?!?"

(See also: "I know, right?!?")

Years ago, when it seemed like the only people who said this were ditzy girls, I always cringed when I heard it. Now it seems pretty commonplace, and I've fallen right into the trap. Is this happening to anyone else? Are you feeling as self-loathing about it as I am? I hate myself a little bit more each and every time I say it. I dunno, I've been listening to a lot of Seal lately for some reason. It's a confusing time for me.

Awesome With A Capital 'A'

When my friends' teams are supposed to be really good in an upcoming season, I like to hear their thoughts on the upcoming season. Also it helps me out, because usually I'm jazzed up about college basketball starting and I can fire off a couple thousand words by myself, but right now I'm too lazy because awhile ago I went on a heroic three-day bender consisting of 38 hours of drinking. Since then, I've now been sick for a full week straight. I am sans energy. On a scale of 1-10, I'm completely exhausted.

Up first, representing Kentucky, is Hendo:

‘I’m here because I can recruit the best of the best here’ ‘When that uniform gets put on and it says Kentucky, you become the Biggest game on that teams schedule.’ ‘This is the right place if you are trying to win a National Title.’ All quotes from the press conference in 2009 welcoming John Calipari as the new University of Kentucky Men’s Basketball Coach. There’s one thing missing from that list. A National Title. Why not this year? This year’s team may be the better of the three teams Cal has put together at UK. I see this year’s team more like a team from the Pitino era. Where they can run the floor with the best of them and have 4 or 5 guys who can make the 3pt shot on a consistent basis. Kentucky’s starting lineup may have two of the best 10 players in all of College Basketball; Anthony Davis and Terrance Jones. Then you throw a veteran player like Darius Miller who may be the best defender on the team. Along with the unbelievable recruiting class of Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, Kyle Wiltjer, and Marquis Teague. With two HUGE non-conference matchups with Kansas and North Carolina you’ll see what this team has to offer in a hurry. I don’t know if I want to compare this team to any of the great Kentucky teams, but it sure has potential.

The Kansas matchup doesn’t scare me quick as much as one would think. The only player in concern would be Thomas Robinson and even then I think he will be in quick foul trouble if KU plays anything but a zone defense. Bill Self doesn’t play zone defense! The North Carolina game on the other hand as everyone is referring it to a National Championship preview is going to be extremely tough. I haven’t seen enough of UNC’s team to grasp their playing style, but they returned almost everyone and loaded up backups. Let’s just be glad this isn’t college football where the loser of this game would almost be out of the National Title race. Nobody in the SEC scares me at the point for a conference contender. Expect this team to run-n-gun and hit the century mark more times than not this year. “They had it before you, they had it during you, they’ll have it when you’re gone” – Al McGuire. Go! Big! Blue!

(Editor's note: I hate that Calipari went to coach Kentucky, because I used to respect them and kind of enjoy their teams a little bit. Those teams they had in '96 and '97, with like 8 or 9 pros on it...man they were fun to watch. But now Calipari coaches them and I hate them with every inch of my soul, and I'm almost as fired up for tomorrow's game as I would be for a tournament game.)

(Editor's note: it's fun to write editor's notes when I actually am the editor. Normally I'm just writing editor's notes about my own writing, which is a questionable joke at best.)


Up next is Fundy, for UNC:

TAR!!!!! HEELS!!!!!! The 2011-2012 season will be bringing a lot of joy and happiness to the Fundy household. The TAR!!!!! HEELS!!!! will be locked, LOADED, and ready for anything getting in their path on the way to a National Championship! With two lottery picks and a first round draft pick coming back The TAR!!! HEELS!!! are the favorites to be cutting the nets down in New Orleans! Anything less WILL be a disappointment. The starting five with Tyler Zeller and John Henson in the front court, Dexter Strickland and first team All American two straight years HARRISON BARNES on the wing, and the man controlling the point, Kendall Marshall the Heels will be a tough team to beat. Along with the strong starting five, the Heels bring in James McAdoo, who would be a starting big man on any other roster, and P.J. Hairston who will be a good outside shooter and a future first round pick. Along with two top freshmen coming in you have Reggie Bullock and Justin Watts bringing a strong bench to a great starting five. Should be a great 2011-2012 season for the Heels!! Lets make it National Championship #7 boys!! Duke Sucks!

(Editor's note: right before the UNC/Michigan St. game on the aircraft carrier last Friday, I texted Fundy and told him that I hoped Japan tried to torpedo the ship and the whole team died. His response: "that's the only way anyone stops them this year." So I'd say he likes Carolina's chances.)


Horp, also for UNC:

This season will be both exciting and nerve wracking at the same time. Having a tall white guy, a guy who needs as many cheeseburgers as Dunph needs to lose, and a solid sophomore leading the team should be interesting. Being the unanimous number one isn't the best for a young team. Might go to their head. But with a point guard that can push it, they will be fun to watch. I cannot wait to get the season underway. As long as Fundy doesn't get caught with a ten-year-old in the shower, this season will be a success.

(Editor's note: Penn St. jokes already, Horp? Too soon alert!)


Noles, on behalf of Duke:

I am excited for the upcoming year. We have some great shooters in Curry, Dawkins, and Rivers. To make a good run in the tourney Duke will need to rely more heavily on their big men. I am looking for big play out of the Plumlee brothers and Ryan Kelly. I hope you notice how I kept Kelly off the good shooters list. Keep your shots inside the 3 point line or you are going to see the end of the bench Kelly. I'm excited to see Duke's other freshman in action with guard Quinn Cook, forward Michael Gbinijie, and forward Alex Murphy. I can tell you right now I will need a nickname for Gbinijie because I am not pronouncing that name all season. I would also like to congratulate Coach K who soon pass Bob Knight on the all-time wins list.

(Editor's note: I would like to congratulate Coach K on considering himself "not just a basketball coach, but a leader of men." Man I hate Coach K. With all these scandals rocking college sports, is it too much to ask for Coach K to get caught with a kid in the shower? OK, Horp, you were right, Penn St. jokes are allowed.)

***************

As for me, I'm a bit sad and concerned about this year for KU. Sad because last year's team really snuck up on me and they quietly became my 5th favorite KU team of all-time (after 2002, 2003, 2008, and 2007, and yes I keep track of these things.) I'm just gonna miss the attitude and chemistry of last year's team, and losing to VCU in the Elite 8 and ending the year like that just sucked. Side note: I'm a pretty pessimistic fan; some might even say overly pessimistic. My glass isn't half-empty-- my glass is just seconds away from being knocked over and shattered onto the floor into a million pieces. But twice in my life, and ONLY twice, I've been cocky about KU's chances: once in 2003, after they beat Marquette by like 70 points in the Final Four and I thought they'd kill Carmelo and Syracuse in the championship....and before last year's VCU game. We brought bottles of champagne and snuck them into the bar with us, in anticipation of the rowdy celebration sure to ensue after KU won. Instead, the game ended with me sneaking out the back door of the bar with 30 seconds left so I could go sit in the parking lot and drink out of the bottle by myself. So needless to say, I will NEVER be cocky about KU again.

I'm concerned because 80% of the scoring from last year's team is gone. I'd be mashing the panic button already if Coach Self hadn't already proved in 2009 that he could coach a team the year after everybody leaves (everybody from the regular rotation besides Sherron Collins was gone that year, and Self took them to a Big 12 title and the Sweet 16.) But just like that year I thought that KU was horribly underrated by only getting the #25 preseason ranking, I don't think that this year's team is anywhere close to being the #13 team as of right now. I think this year's ranking is more a reflection on how many times Self has brought his teams further than they deserve to go, rather than a reflection on their actual talent. The Kentucky game on Tuesday should be interesting. I could see KU sneaking out a win (Self owns Calipari) and I could see KU losing by 30 (Kentucky is really fucking stacked.)

Also, a year after losing THREE Wall-of-Fame members (Brady Morningstar and the Morris twins) I felt like I was going to be lost without a go-to guy. But it only took about 13 minutes of the first exhibition game for me to start calling Naadir Tharpe 'my boy.' And with always-exciting Elijah Johnson finally about to get his chance to play real minutes (and busting out an undershirt for the season opener-- we all know my feelings about undershirts in college basketball!!!) I think I've got two pretty solid candidates for my favorite player. After a ridiculous stretch of KU being a #1 seed four of the last five years, and winning 15 more games than anyone else in the country over that time frame, I suppose we're due for a down year. Even though they're ranked #13, any time you find yourself saying the words "Oh my goodness, we need to get Tyshawn Taylor back in this game to settle things down RIGHT NOW".....well, that counts as a down year in my book.

Rock Chalk.

Jobby Jobby Jobby

Just a heads up, it might be slim pickins' on posts for a little while. 90% of my blogging time comes on my lunch break and the 5-10 minutes at the beginning and end of the day. I'm envisioning my lunch breaks being filled up with extra training and meetings and catching up on emails because I'll be missing out on The Boards all morning long. So just so you know, I might be blogging, I might not. Entertain yourselves accordingly.

In the good news department, with this new job, I can now look out my window and see Phog Allen Fieldhouse, just a couple hundred yards away. On my list of most important work-related benefits, this ranks just above retirement plan and just below health insurance. I mean, I could get seriously injured, so having health insurance is pretty important, I guess. Otherwise being within eyshot of the Phog would be a clear #1.

Also, for my 6th grade friends, don't worry, Tobias & Felipe are still going strong as my pencil holders. Keepin it fresh since 1993, suckas.



OK that's all for now; I'm gonna pop over and see what Coach Self is up to. See if he maybe wants to grab a little Chipotle. Top it off with some Orange Leaf for dessert....only if there's time though. I know he's pretty busy.

Now And Then: The Spice Girls

We're coming up on the 15-year anniversary of the Spice Girls bursting onto the scene (yeeeee-ikes) and it has me in a reflective mood. Being 13 years old at the time, I couldn't have been in a better position to enjoy them for what they were: five smokeshows who made delightful(ly crappy) pop music. And they're British!

I remember one rainy day while visiting relatives in Baltimore, I was forced to share the remote control with my 7-year-old cousin. I got it for two hours (hello Orioles game) and then it was her turn. I was pissed until she told me she was choosing the movie Spiceworld...then I just pretended to be pissed, until I eventually said something like "Wow, this game is borrrrrrring, we might as well just cut my remote time short and put in Spiceworld...no, Melissa, it's cool, just don't ever say I've never done anything for you. We'll count this as your Christmas present from me, if it makes you feel better. OK NOW HURRY UP AND PUT THE MOVIE IN!" To say I was kinda obsessed with the Spice Girls is to say that Wile E. Coyote was kinda obsessed with killing the Roadrunner.

And I was constantly ranking them. New hairdo? Update the rankings. Awesome cleavage shirt on Saturday Night Live? Upppppdate. So I thought I'd take a look, 15 years later.....


Scary Spice
1996 ranking: 1
2011 ranking: 3




She was one of my biggest middle-school crushes ever. Goofy personality, wild hair, great body, sometimes she wore glasses, she was black....hello wheelhouse. Nice to meet you, my name's Jum. But now she's had a bunch of plastic surgery so she doesn't even look like the same person, she's proven herself to be batshit crazy (not in the good way, like I imagined her before), she had the whole baby-daddy drama with Eddie Murphy....blah. Just a whole bunch of turn-offs. But she's still got a ridiculous body and she's still black, so I can't drop her below #3.

Posh Spice
1996 ranking: 2
2011 ranking: 5




Things were a lot better back when I didn't know anything about Victoria Beckham. Back then she was just Posh Spice, the saucy little vixen in the short black dresses who sang about slamming your body down and winding it all around and what she wants what she really really wants and zig a zig ahhhhhh and things like that. Now she's Victoria Beckham, the 78-pound woman with a bleach-blonde Sonic the Hedgehog haircut, hanging out with scientologists and wearing sunglasses that are worth more than my life. You know how some old Native American tribes believed that when you have your picture taken, you lose a little piece of your soul? That's how I feel every time I look into Posh's eyes nowadays. 5 spot.

Baby Spice
1996 ranking: 3
2011 ranking: 2




I had lots of friends who back in the day would've had Baby comin' for that #1 spot (rappers swearin' they on top, nuh uh, nuh uh!) and would probably take offense to this ranking (nobody puts Baby in the corner/3 spot!) But clearly I was more attracted to crazy back before I had ever had a REAL girlfriend (don't worry, Middle School Jum, the crazy ones are coming) so she fell down the rankings a bit. She has aged very well though, and moves up to 2nd in 2011. My little Baby's all growns up and she's all growns up and she's all growns up! A Ludacris, Dirty Dancing, and Swingers reference, all in one paragraph....in a post about the Spice Girls. That's why you guys read this blog. Assuming you're still reading....which I admit is a rather large assumption at this point.

Ginger Spice
1996 ranking: 4
2011 ranking: 4




I never had much of an opinion on ol' Ginger, and I don't have much of one now either. Ipso facto, she stays put at #4. I do think she missed the boat for having a great porn career, though. She just looks like a porn star, and you could play up the red hair in the titles of the movies. There's one in particular I'm thinking of, relating to The Hunt For Red October, but I refuse to get more graphic than that. You connect the dots.

Sporty Spice
1996 ranking: 5
2011 ranking: 1





Now here's the horse coming on strong as they come around turn 3! I used to think Sporty was kinda gross-- not because she was athletic and tomboyish, I've always thought athleticism is attractive-- but because I was pretty sure she could kick my ass (and let's be honest here: I'm sure she still can. The point is that she no longer looks like she WANTS to.) But now I'm starting to think that was all the managers and producers and behind the scenesters' fault, because when left to her own devices....Sporty got hot! Get yourself some, girl! With your bangs and all that.

***************

The important thing for the Spice Girls is that if you wanna be their lover, you gotta get with their friends. Make it last forever, friendship never ends, yada yada yada. If all their friends look like this.....I don't think I'll have a problem gettin' with any of them. Hey-oooo!

Things I Think About During Songs. Volume 3.

Ray LaMontagne is pretty sweet. I enjoy a lot of his songs. I don't quite celebrate his entire catalogue (like the Bobs and Michael Bolton) but he's decently represented on my ipod.

However, when he sings, he sounds like a guy who is trying to get his friend's attention from across the room in a public library. Kind of a restrained yell/whisper. Lately, it's all I can think about when I hear him. "Dude.....duuuuuuuuuuude! I found that Harry Potter book you were looking for! I told you it would be in the young adult section. Hahaha, in the young adult. Totally nailed that one. What? Oh, OK, I'll just come over there...."





There, now you can't unhear that opinion. I hope that like me (and now Christine, for whom I've slightly ruined LaMontagne's songs) you now think of that the next time, and every time, you fire up some Ray. Hopefully it's before, during, or after a love-making session with your significant other-- or that broad in the slutty cat costume you inevitably meet at your Halloween party tonight.

Happy Halloween, from Ray and me.

Like Ma Bell, I Got The ill Communication

For the first time in my life, I'm in love with my cell phone. I'm in iLove.

I resisted cell phones for quite awhile; I was probably in the last 20% of my friends to get one (I have no idea how to phrase that properly. I was in the 20th percentile, assuming that the first person to get one is in the 99th percentile? Let's just say that if I have 100 friends, then I was about the 80th to get a cell phone. Dammit that still sounds stupid.) Then when texting became popular, I resisted that as long as possible too, even adding a rule to the Culligan Manor Charter that said a lap must be done around the apartment for every combination of six texties.

Granted, I did like certain things about cell phones. Having 25 different ringtones for 25 different people: AWESOME. Changing my outgoing voicemail message to the chorus of "U Can't Touch This" except I dubbed my own voice in to yell "Leave a Message!": Also awesome-- anyone who tried to leave me a voicemail in 2003 or 2004 will tell you that. But for the most part, I've hated the actual cellular device. All my phones have disappointed me in some way. As we get older and phones (theoretically) get more badass, I've been even more disenchanted with them. I've thought about just going back to an old school flip phone and rolling sans internet and email, but I couldn't quite pull the trigger.

Everything hit bottom for me during my 18-month ownership of a BlackBerry. I hated almost every day with that thing. When I finally traded it in, and they asked me if I wanted to recycle my BlackBerry for $20, I told them hell no, then took the 'Berry out back and gave it the Office Space treatment. Back up in yo' ass with the resurrection!





OK, you got me. That's a lie. I took the $20. That's almost three burritos and an order of chips & guac from Chipotle.

But now, friends, I have an iPhone, and it's baller as shit. I no longer hate cell phones and think of them exclusively as a necessary evil. This phone actually brings happiness into my life. Sometimes I look at it sitting on the table and just sigh in pleasure.

The one and only thing I don't like about my phone is that it's tough to text with my fat fingers. It sucks because I'm usually a stickler for text message grammar. I hate it when I fire off a texty and realize after the fact that there is a misspelling or grammar mistake. I know I don't always use semicolons; in the right place, but overall I'm pretty good. So right now that's an uphill battle for me, constantly going back and retyping once I found out I hit the wrong button. Once I get that figured out, it's gonna be awesome (I really don't know why 22 years of playing video games doesn't translate into being able to text quickly and efficiently, but them's the breaks.)

So it may have taken over a decade, and I needed to get an iphone and actually have reception in my house for it to happen....but finally the war between cell phones and I is over. There were no winners.

We Live By The Gun, So We Die By The Gun

I finally became a more accepted member of the Hammonds household last weekend while up in Grand Forks. I've got a brother who has been shooting guns and hunting since 2nd grade, and now lives out in the country so he can spend his days shooting targets, water bottles, coyotes, and would-be trespassers without worrying about bothering his neighbors. I've got a mom who attends shooting classes across the country, and is now proficient with multiple types of weaponry. I've got a dad who, at best, could be classified as a gun enthusiast....at worst, he's a man in possession of both an attitude and a weapons cache that makes him capable of a David Koresh-type last stand against the government, God forbid it ever came to that (and with the Democrats currently running the country, I'm certainly not ruling it out. My parents make Bill O'Reilly look like a liberal arts student at the University of Colorado.)


This may be a picture of the Branch Davidian compound in 1993....but it may as well be a future picture of my parents' house on West Fallcreek Court if Obama gets re-elected next fall.


Then you have me, who not only had never fired a gun before, but didn't even like being around them, and for many years refused to play Big Buck Hunter in the bars because what did those poor animals ever do to you? I actually had wanted to try shooting for the last few years, but various excuses kept getting in the way. I'm too hungover; there's a Laguna Beach marathon on TV; I'm re-tying all my shoelaces that night (Boom! Stacey Carosi reference there. That was her excuse for getting out of a date with McSteamy about 15 years before Grey's Anatomy. Oh, you didn't know that was him, did you? Did you know that Pinsky from Salute Your Shorts went on to be the lead guitarist for Rilo Kiley? Cover your head, I'm dropping early 90's Where Are They Now? trivia in here!)

So finally last weekend my family, along with Christine, Bergman, and Bergman's girlfriend LZE, went out to Brother's place, set up the targets, and made me into a grown-ass North Dakota man. It went well; it was quite a bit easier than I thought. I shot a 9mm and a .45 (whatever the hell those numbers mean) and though we weren't exactly shooting from a long distance, I was still able to pretty much hit where I was aiming most the time. I figured I'd barely be able to hit the board, much less the bullseye area, and maybe I would accidentally shoot someone in the foot, and that there would definitely be crying involved. My confidence grew exponentially after my first few shots, and it was all I could do to keep from throwing on a red bandana, sagging my pants, turning the gun sideways, and screaming "Break yo' self fool!" while bustin' caps on that snitch-ass target.

So while I've still got a ways to go in my gun career-- it's troubling to have the knowledge that, if I was to have an Aaron Burr-Alexander Hamilton-style duel with my own mother, she would be able to kill me three times before I even got the gun out of its holster-- but at least I've taken the first baby steps. Anyone want to go shoot some wild animals this weekend? A gorilla? Or a rhinocerous? Or a fucking human being? That'll get ya jacked up. You know, like a worthy adversary. Not a human being that's armed....but a clever, clever human being who knows the jungle.

Captain Tying Knots

I was going to omit a blog on JonJon and Amanda's wedding, similar to how they omitted Horp and I from the shout-out paragraphs in their wedding program (when even the friggin' READER got her own paragraph, what a slap in the face)....but I decided I'm a bigger man than that.

Random thoughts from the weekend:

- I'm gonna say something that may sound blasphemous, especially coming from me, the same guy who wrote this post once upon a time. We're gonna get it out of the way, right at the beginning.....I think I kinda liked not having a wedding dance. (Gasp!) At this point, we've done the wedding dance thing. Every sub-friend group within my entire friend group, we've done the damn thing. Multiple times. We've all seen each other do the Apache, the Macarena, the Electric Slide, the Chicken Dance, etc. etc. Plus, wedding dances go by too fast. They're like huge keggers in college; the next morning you wake up, and you know that you talked to 67 different people....but it still feels like you didn't talk to anybody. Convos at wedding dances just miss that intimacy, you know? Probably because I'm either a) screaming at the other person, to be heard over Kool & the Gang being played a couple notches too loud; or b) leaving conversations right in the middle because I heard the opening few notes of SexyBack and there's no way I'm gonna miss that song to hear about how tough grad school is right now, bro.

When dinner was winding down, our table had our doubts. What would we do for the next couple hours? Should I go try and plug in my ipod? What if I just stood up and started yelling "Sliiiiide to the left! Sliiiiide to the right! Two stomps this time! Two stomps this time!" Would a wedding dance just break out? (Both Aimee and Lisa said yes, and really wanted me to try it.) But lo and behold, the next couple hours of open bar and open conversations were fantastic-- I didn't miss dancing at all. Clutch move with the open bar, newlyweds. Clutch move. Also, the over/under for times somebody said "Open bar, dudes!" like Farva in Super Troopers was set at 5.5, and we hit the over within 15 minutes.


OK, so there was a liiiiiittle bit of dancing....it's not like it was banned like the town in Footloose or anything. Plus Horp and I figured since we weren't mentioned in the program, we should get a special Usher Dance or something. Remember the old Kid 'n' Play dance? One of my all-time faves.


And although it was more fulfilling catching up with people without a dance getting in the way, I still don't remember much, because....

- I might be the worst person in the world at remembering non-numerical details about people and their lives. We'll sit there and chitchat, and they'll tell me what's happening in their life, and the next day my mom or somebody will be like "Oh, you ran into ____, what is she up to?" And I'll blank for a second and stammer out "I'm pretty sure she's studying gerontology or optometry or clinical pyschology...I dunno, she's gonna be a doctor in a few years I think." However, if that person would've told me she was playing in the WNBA and averaging 13.3 points, 6.4 rebounds, and 4.2 assists in 27 minutes per game, I would be able to recite that verbatim the next day. It's just the way my brain works. I need numbers.

- In a weekend full of running jokes** here was my favorite: there was a girl in attendance, Jamie (I'm not worried about using a fake name here because even though I usually write everything under the assumption that the person in question is reading, there's like a 4% chance she sees this. Also, I'm not concerned if she does-- it's a funny story.) We got along really well in 8th grade Life Skills class. I made jokes and kept her laughing; she fixed pretty much all of my projects so I didn't fail the class. Those of you who know how worthless I am at day-to-day tasks are nodding in agreement right now. Can you imagine getting held back in middle school because you continually mixed lights with darks while doing laundry, or burning the shit out of your casserole? That could've easily happened to me.

I also thought she was cute, and was preparing to "ask her out", whatever that entailed in 8th grade....and then the flood hit and instantly ended our school year. Then we went to separate high schools, didn't see each other for a few years, she got super-hot, and all of a sudden she became the only girl in my life I was ever unable to talk to. Bing bang boom. Just totally intimidated. I saw her around town every once in a while, and we've probably said 10 words to each other since 1997. So it became this running joke, that she was the middle school version of The One Who Got Away-- especially after we found out that she was friends with JonJon's then-girlfriend-now-wife Amanda. He found out that at one point she was living in Boston, and loved to give me shit that if the Flood of '97 never happened, I'd probably be living across the street from Fenway and have season tickets to my beloved Red Sox right now. The fact that she is now married with a kid hasn't slowed down our jokes at all.

So after an entire weekend of making jokes like "Katie, wanna do me a favor? Go up to Jamie, point at me, and say something like 'Damn, that Jum Hammonds really grew up, didn't he?" or "Horp, if she walks in and I'm not by the door to usher her in, I'm gonna make a bird call, and you have to stop and tie your shoe or something so I can get back in time to do it" or "Christine, on a scale of 1-10, how mad would you be if we broke up this weekend so I can follow my destiny? I mean, you'd be able to find a ride back to Kansas, right?" Saturday night was winding down. Jamie went to say goodbye to JonJon, and as she's walking away, JonJon, with more than a few in him, yells across the bar "OH BY THE WAY JAMIE, JUM HAMMONDS SAYS GOODYBE TOO!" Just totally puts me on blast. All I can do is sheepishly wave at Jamie, while giving JonJon my best "What the fuck, dude" face. It was pretty hilarious. A much better usher present than the tie he gave me. So thanks for that, big guy.

**Other running jokes: Horp and his dry hands-- the joke that keeps on giving; callling MyShawn 'Cat Stevens', another one that will never get old; Noles getting caught chewing in bed by Jenna; Schneweis' dad being a badass; calling Christine 'Waldo' because she's tall and skinny, and last time she was in GF she wore a red-and-white-striped shirt; a couple others that I can't type here because they're not suitable for the World Wide Web (remember, assume that everybody in the world reads this) and probably a few others that the ol' booze brain can't remember.

- Great wedding, great people, great weekend. Congrats to Mr. and Mrs. JonJon. FYI, I chose this picture because it's taken after the wedding, yet the big guy still has the deer-in-the-headlights look. It's over now, dude. It's done. No take-backsies.

Northbound

I'm heading up north tonight for JonJon's wedding weekend. Hello Red Pepper, Popolino's, Ray Richards golf course, charitable gaming, and last but not least, hello old Grand Forks friends (but probably closer to least than to first-- Red Pepper white sauce definitely ranks above a lot of my shitbag friends.) I'll see you all soon.

Also hello Dumb & Dumber tuxedos, Horp and I are expected to dress ourselves as ushers for this wedding-- always a dangerous move-- and this is what we settled on:


Naturally Horp is wearing Carolina blue, while I will sport orange.

Just kidding Amanda, we'd never actually do that. Or would we.....?

It's A Trap!

The golf course I have my side job at began being managed by Billy Casper Golf in about April of this year. The first time I saw their logo, I was confused. First of all, I couldn't tell what it was supposed to be for quite a while. A flower? A frog? A burn victim? (Nope, a buffalo.) And secondly, it looked familiar to me as something else, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it. Then I finally realized it was a dead ringer for Admiral Ackbar from Star Wars. And I absolutely cannot get that image out of my head now.

So for the last few months, I've been dying to make a million "It's a trap!" jokes, or maybe even drop a little "Our cruisers can't repel firepower of that magnitude!", but nobody else at the course is a Star Wars nerd like me, so it's mostly wasted. The only guy who even knows who Admiral Ackbar is by name is the teaching pro, who is in his late-40's, greets everyone with an almost Bill Lumbergh-sounding "What's happening, my young brother?" and gives off a generally creepy vibe, despite being a nice guy. So since I have nobody to really enjoy this with, I foist it upon all of you.

(Editor's note: as I was finishing up this post, listening to my ipod on shuffle, the Star Wars theme came on. So between writing about Admiral Ackbar, and that song randomly coming on, if you don't think there's a 100% chance I'm popping in Episode IV right about....now, then you don't know me very well.)

Begrudgingly

Growing up, I disliked Joseph Gordon-Levitt as much as a random kid from North Dakota could dislike a famous teenage actor. Some of it was because of his work-- I never liked the show 3rd Rock From the Sun, and I always hated Angels in the Outfield.

(Side story: my friend Podge and I always did a DVD exchange for Christmas, where we would tell the other exactly which movie to buy for ourselves, but we'd still go through the rigamarole of wrapping it up and presenting it to the other, you know, in the spirit of Christmas. One year, she requested Angels in the Outfield, and I flat-out refused to buy it for her, breaking the gentleman's agreement we had with our DVD exchange. It sparked an argument that is unresolved to this day...and I guarantee if you mention the movie to her, the first thing she'll say is that she had to buy it for herself because I was being a dick. So that's how much I hated Angels in the Outfield.)

But really, if I'm being honest with myself, there was one big reason why I hated him: he was dating Larisa Oleynik, a.k.a Alex Mack, a.k.a. one of my all-time biggest celebrity crushes, Girl Next Door Category (she's probably one step below pre-jersey chaser-era Hilary Duff, and one step above Connie Moreau from the Mighty Ducks.) The fact that he was with MY girl blinded me to everything else. Having to watch them hook up in 10 Things I Hate About You drove me crazy. Not quite crazy enough to change the channel during one of the 87 times I've watched the movie on TV over the years....but crazy enough that I was simmering every time he was onscreen.

But then JG-L was in Inception, and that movie quickly jumped into my top 5 or 10 favorite movies of all time, and his character was awesome. And I just watched 50/50 last weekend, and that movie was superb, and he should probably win some sort of award for his performance. (Just in case anybody happened to see me in the theater during the 7:50 showing on Friday night...my allergies have been AWFUL lately. I swear.) Plus he's going to be in the next Batman movie, and we all know that movie will be Baller with a capital B, so I'm going to go ahead and give him a checkmark for that one too.

So now here's where I'm at with JG-L: I'm like Wes Mantooth at the end of Anchorman, where I'm holding Ron Burgundy's ladder over the bear pit and threatening to let go. I hate you, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, I HATE you. But dammit.....I respect you.

(Seriously, my allergies....I mean, the pollen count is CRAZY this year, am I right? That shit is everywhere.)

Your Collapse Has Finished Downloading. Would You Like To Run The Program Or Save It To Your Computer?

I've never had a reaction to a bad sporting event like I did last night. I honestly don't think I have an ounce of sadness or depression in my body right now. I was pretty much just straight pissed, then over it. Last night, I watched the endings of both the Sox and Rays game, endured the flood of texties that either tried to console me, rubbed my nose in the collapse a little bit, or cautioned me not to jump. Then I shut my phone down, went to bed, and was asleep in less time than it took for Papelbon to go from 2 outs, 2 strikes, to losing the game.

It's kinda weird. If this had happened in 2003 (besides the fact that Fundy and I would've each been at least 18 beers deep by the end of the game, instead of me being sober on the couch with Christine like last night) I would've been out on the Culligan roof until 4 am, throwing beer bottles at passers-by and setting an American flag on fire or something. If this had happened in 2008, this post probably would've been a bunch of pictures of Red Sox players, juxtaposed against the the lyrics to 'Total Eclipse of the Heart' or something. But in 2011, I'm just worn out and done with the whole season (just like Boston's bullpen!) I know you're worried about me, but don't be! I've got explanations for why I'm not as sad as I should be:

-- The Sox have two championships in the last eight years. Success changes you a little bit as a sports fan. I didn't think it would happen to me, but it did. I thought I would always be a psycho (and truthfully, I still kinda am with KU basketball, I doubt that will ever change) but once you celebrate the first title, it's not quite life or death anymore. I can't bitch and moan for days about missing the playoffs, when plenty of fans have no championships to fall back on-- and when I've got a few buddies in the same boat as me, as Braves fans. How was last night for you, Bergman, Dunph and Zach?

-- It was a month-long collapse, so I had plenty of time to go through the stages of grief. If the Sox and Rays had been neck-and-neck all year, and it came down to last night, that would've been one of the toughest five-minute stretches of sports fandom EVER. But honestly, the Sox didn't deserve to make the playoffs. I've never seen a pitching staff fall apart like that before (although the Cubs in 1993 must have been pretty bad, if they were willing to sign Henry Rowengartner off the street like they did.) I'm sure this stat didn't hold, but at one point around 10 days ago, the Sox were the highest-scoring team in baseball during September. And their record was still like 4-15, because the pitchers were giving up 43 runs a game. What were the Sox gonna do if they made the playoffs, besides getting swept in the first round? Also, fuck you John Lackey.

-- The Rays were just a team of destiny. I admit I felt good last night when the Yanks were up 7-0, but as soon as Tampa pulled within a run, I knew it was done. The whole night was so crazy it became predictable. I looked at Christine and said "Well, the Rays are winning that one. It's either one-game playoff tomorrow, or Papelbon is gonna get to within a strike of the win, then blow it." Scout's honor, I said that. So after Paps implodes, we switch over to Tampa, and Teens, bless her heart, offers up the possibility that the Yankees could still win. My response: "No, Longoria is gonna end it this at-bat." Next pitch, wham, bam, thank you ma'am. If only I could've paused time, logged on to my gambling account, and emptied it on Longoria going yard right there. I'd be typing this from my new yacht I just purchased in Italy. Actually, that's a lie. I would still be typing this on my lunch break, at work. I don't have enough money in my gambling account that one big win would allow me to quit my job, buy a boat (I don't even like water that much) and move to Italy (I don't even like Italians that much.) To insinuate otherwise is just misleading. Borderline dishonest.

And you know what? Whatever. I can't begrudge Tampa being this year's team of destiny. The Sox have been a team of destiny before; it was fun. After Boston came back from 0-3 down in the 2004 ALCS, St. Louis could've rolled out Mr. Burns' softball team of ringers for the World Series, and the Sox still would've swept them. It happens.

I mean the softball team at full strength, obviously. Before the hypnotism, nerve tonic overdose, radiation poisoning, alternate dimension portal, etc. etc.

So here we are. The greatest regular season collapse in baseball history happened to my team, and I'm dealing with it. I think Teddy KGB said it best when he said "It's a fahhking joke anyvay."

How To Get Out Of A Cell Phone Contract

I've been with Sprint for over four years now, ever since I moved down to Kansas. The first few years were great; I had no problems. The last year or so has been a nightmare, pretty much ever since I moved into this house on the far, far west side of town (my friends and I joke that I actually live in East Topeka...a joke that is much funnier if you know how much Topeka sucks.) Internet is brutal, email rarely comes in, text messages are sometimes delayed by hours, and forget about making or receiving phone calls. Also, my AWESOME Sports Alert app that is supposed to give me Red Sox, Thunder, and Titans' scores as they happen never works-- but that's OK, I can just read about the Sox collapsing again in the morning. My house is a bomb shelter.

So I finally gave up and went in to Sprint, wanting out of my contract. Something I should've done long ago, really. Of course the guy in the store can't do anything for me except dial the number for customer service. So after 55 minutes, five different service representatives, and about 30 different times I almost just hung up the phone and accepted that I would have to pay the full cancellation fee of $180, I'm finally talking to somebody who can make decisions about my contract. He tells me they would be willing to waive half the fee, "only because you've been a paying customer for four years." He basically comes out and tells me that they don't believe me when I say my phone doesn't work in my house, since on their stupid little computer, it says that all of Lawrence receives perfect coverage, and there are no current outages in their towers.

At this point, I'm done with the whole thing. I'm willing to pay half, even though I'm not happy about it; I know how phone companies don't like to let people out of their contract. By this time I've left Sprint and driven home, but I've been pacing the driveway. I'm not walking inside and risking losing this phone call, then starting the process all over. However, now I have to go inside, to grab a pen and paper to write down my cancellation confirmation number. I sprint (Ha! No pun intended) into the kitchen and start shuffling through drawers, while the Sprint guy tries to make small talk. And it goes a little something like this:

Sprint guy: So, Lawrence, huh? You must be a pretty big KU fan!

Me: Yeah, it's pretty much why I moved down here...

Sprint guy: I'm sorry, what was that?

Me: Yeah, I've been a big fan since I was like 7, so that's-

Sprint guy: Sir?

Me: Yeah, I'm here.

Sprint guy: You're cutting out, sir, I'm having trouble hearing you...

Me, running back out to the garage: YEAH. I DON'T DOUBT THAT YOU'RE HAVING TROUBLE. I JUST WALKED INTO MY EFFING HOUSE.


It was at this point that the Sprint guy busted out laughing, waived the entire cancellation fee, and told me I could continue to use my phone until the end of the next billing cycle (October 14th) for no charge.

Booyeah.

Well....Shit.

I don't make a lot of friends on the basketball court. Back in my younger days, I was a bit of a punk. I never started any shit, but my problem is I can't keep my mouth shut when someone else is being a dick. Whether or not I'm involved in the play is irrelevant- if I see something I don't agree with, I have huge problems keeping quiet about it. Maybe the Stephen Jackson to someone else's Ron Artest? That's about the best comparison I can make. I'm not starting the brawl, but I'm gonna get involved, and it's not gonna be as the role of peacemaker.

(Side note: it's kinda bizarre that I'm like this on the basketball court. In real life, I'm a huuuuge peacemaker. With some of my friends having bigger mouths than I do, and knowing my personal inability to take a punch without crying, I've talked us out of more fights than I can count. I've broken up more fights than the Jersey Shore camera crew. So the fact that I'm such a dick on the court eludes me.)

Over the last few years, I've mellowed considerably. Just to be clear, we're talking player-player interactions here, not player-ref. Though I have improved, these city league refs drive me to the occasional technical foul...although anybody on my team will tell you I get a raw deal, compared to what other, bigger, scarier players do that goes unpunished...I'm getting off-topic here.

Partly because I'm getting older and, one would hope, more mature; and partly because I'm nowhere near my old skill level, and thus can't back up my talk with my play as well anymore, I'm pretty quiet on the court. Nowadays, a player on another team has got to be a pretty big dickhead for me to say anything to him.

So last Sunday night, I'm playing pickup ball in a church near my house (maybe another reason I've mellowed a bit, all our pickup ball in Lawrence takes place in various Houses of the Lord) and right away, me and this guy are having issues. We start out the night on the same team, and he's the typical 45-year-old guy trying to play point guard, directing traffic, and playing coach on the floor. He threw a pass five feet over my head, then gave me a look for not catching it. I hit my first five shots, scored over half our team's points, got us to within game point, then missed a game-winning three-pointer and he admonished me for not "keeping the ball moving."

Later in the night, we found ourselves guarding each other, and soon we were banging down in the low post and getting after each other pretty hard (NO HOMO.) Things got a little chippy, he's chirping a little bit, and I kept quiet as long as possible. Finally one play, I'm posting him up, he goes right through me to deflect a pass, I call a foul, he starts telling me I made a bad call, and I give him a big eye roll and a "Yeah, whatever you say, dude. That was awesome defense, you totally know what you're talking about." Just treating him like any other middle-aged man off the street, playing YMCA ball with the other hackers.

And it went on from there. Really not a big deal in the grand scheme of things; it's not like we were throwing punches, or even raising our voices or anything. Two reasons why it was noteworthy:

First, towards the end of the night, he tried to make amends. As a new game was about to start, and we found ourselves guarding each other again, he gave me a little friend punch on the shoulder and jokingly said, "Ahhh man, I have to guard this guy again? This is terrible, he's been torching me all night." Now. 95% of the time, if a guy and me have been having issues during pickup ball, a line like this is all it takes to squash the beef. I don't want to make enemies, I can leave it on the court. One joke is enough for me to know we're cool. For whatever reason, that night I made the conscious decision in my head to say "Nah, fuck this guy, I'm not buying this shit." I stared straight ahead, didn't acknowledge the dap, and completely ignored the comment. Really weird behavior on my part, and I still don't know why I did it.

Second, I got an email this morning from another guy who was playing ball that night, just telling me it was good to see me since I hadn't played in a few months, and at the end of it he casually mentioned "You know who that guy was that you were bumping with, right?"

Um, no, not really. Should I?

Kevin Pritchard. As in, former starting guard for the 1988 National Champion Kansas Jayhawks Kevin Pritchard. As in, former 2nd round NBA draft pick, six-year NBA veteran Kevin Pritchard. As in, former Portland Trail Blazers General Manager Kevin Pritchard. As in, GUY WHOSE ASS I SHOULD HAVE BEEN KISSING THE ENTIRE TIME I'M GUARDING HIM BECAUSE WHO KNOWS WHAT KIND OF CONNECTIONS I COULD BE MAKING OR WHAT KIND OF TICKETS I COULD BE GETTING IF, INSTEAD OF BEING A LITTLE BITCH, I JUST TALK BASKETBALL AND WOW HIM WITH MY PERSONALITY AND BASKETBALL I.Q. KEVIN PRITCHARD.

Kevin Pritchard.

FML.




And then, the little shithead goes, "That was awesome defense. You totally know what you're talking about." Are you kidding me? Like I don't know what good defense is? Like I didn't help revolutionize advanced defensive metrics? Like I haven't been watching game tape since he was pooping in his diapers? For shit's sake, I'm watching NBA players scrimmage right now. Who the hell does this kid with the headband think he's talking to?"

Cocking Off, As Related To Beanbags And Duke Basketball

Ok so before I write a post based partly upon how I don't usually like to brag too much, allow me to brag for a minute here, purely for background information: I'm really good at beanbags. Gangel and I held the boards at the College World Series for hours, before I finally gave up my spot to Addy since I just wanted to sit down for awhile. I once held court at a KU football tailgate for about 25 games in a row, and my partner was a 21-year-old Asian chick who had never even seen the game before (that was one of my all-time favorite "sports" accomplishments, since there were around 100 people watching that tournament, and our competition was fierce.) We have bags tourneys at almost all our tailgates and/or BBQ parties here in Lawrence, and I've NEVER lost a tourney, no matter who my partner is (I've lost three individual games, but never a double-elim tournament, so my record is probably somewhere around 125-3.)

For the most part, I was pretty quiet when I played. It's a gentleman's game, and besides a few comments here and there (and almost always in response to someone else's verbal jab) I mostly just make my shots and concentrate on complimenting my partner/coming up with elaborate handshakes with said partner. Team chemistry goes a long way in bags.

At our tailgates/BBQs, we always set up what we call "Heckler's Row", which is basically a line of 15ish lawn chairs right next to the bags game, so we can all properly talk shit to whomever is throwing in the current game. And because my streak of tourney wins has lasted over three years now, my games always attract a large crowd, full of nonstop heckling, pretty much all directed my way, simply for the fact that I win all the time (I was partners with Tara a few weeks ago, a girl who is relatively new to the group, and my friends actually pulled her aside to make sure she knew that her team was going to get booed a lot, but none of it was directed at her, so not to get bent out of shape about it. Naturally, even though she had never played bags before, we rolled through the tourney.)

So I started calling myself the Duke basketball of beanbags, since I'm hated simply for being good at what I do. This understandably infuriated my friends (in a funny way, I don't want to give the impression that we're having fights or anything here) and now they mockingly call me Coach K and cheer against me even harder. I read something from Simmons back when JJ Redick was the best shooter/biggest cockbag in college basketball, and it said something like "if JJ Redick was named James Redick and played for Indiana and not Duke, he'd be the most popular player in the country." This theory was proven correct this last year, when Jimmer Fridette, from BYU, became the most popular player of the last few years for doing the same things Redick did five years earlier. Granted, Jimmer was about 1/10th as cocky as Redick, but I also believe that if people wouldn't have hated Redick from the beginning (for going to Duke and being an amazing shooter) then he wouldn't have turned into such a dick.




I say this because it's currently happening to me. I started out polite and deferential. Amongst my friends, I've incorporated the hats-off, 18th-hole handshake that pro golfers do into beanbags, Golden Tee, and everything else where there's competition, in order to promote good sportsmanship. But I got mercilessly heckled for being good at bags. So now, I've embraced being the bad guy (something the Miami Heat should've done from the start last year.) And now I'm not just beating everyone, I'm letting them know I'm doing it before, during, and after the beating. And it's awesome.

***************

This is unrelated, but I guess sort of relevant, if we're talking about cocking off. My buddies enjoy watching sporting events with me when I've gambled on them, because I get, shall we say, animated, during big plays-- both good and bad. So there was plenty of laughter at my expense last week, after there was a stretch of about 15 minutes when all the games were going my way, capped off by the Seahawks scoring a touchdown to get within the spread, and me leaping off the couch and exclaiming "Everything's coming up Hammen!" Almost immediately, the 49ers took the ensuing kickoff back for a touchdown and I eventually lost the bet. The Gambling Gods HATE bragging, apparently even if it's in the form of a Simpsons reference.

Things That Used To Be Awesome. Volume 2.

Donruss Diamond Kings. The coolest baseball cards ever. For my money, it doesn't get better than the 1989 Chris Sabo. And now that I think about it, I'm not just restricting that sentence to baseball cards. There are few things, in all walks of life, that are/were cooler than Sabes in '89.

Brother loves to make fun of me for the hundreds (thousands?) of baseball, football, basketball, and even some hockey cards stacked in my old bedroom at my parents' house, saying it was a gigantic waste of money (between cards, Starting Lineups, and video games, I'm positive I didn't spend a dollar of my own money on anything else until I was 23.)

But I disagree. That's my childhood there. Cleaning the entire Bergman house top to bottom, splitting 7 dollars three ways, then walking over to Gold & Silver to haggle with Mr. Nelson over the Kenny Lofton rookie card on the top shelf of his rotisserie case. Getting dropped off at Sports Emporium in South Forks Plaza so we could shuffle through every "4 for a dollar" rack in the place, buy as many as possible, then hide the rest in the walls of the store so nobody else could get them before we returned with more allowance. Haggling over trades for days, until either a fight breaks out, or finally one side caves in and accepts the conditions. I loved it.

And the old Donruss Diamond Kings were the coolest. When I was scrolling through the google images, I was getting hit with pangs of nostalgia everywhere. Like if someone tipped over a beehive in my office, and I was covered in honey, and maybe the beehive was shaken up before it was tipped over, so the bees were super pissed...but they were nostalgia bees, so instead of a painful stinger, I got little nostalgia bites all over my body. But I'm not allergic to the nostalgia bees or anything, so my body didn't puff up all weird and I didn't have to go to the hospital. You get it.

Here were some of my favorites:



Rickey Henderson- looking about as cocky/retarded as you would expect him to be.



Jesse Orosco- almost definitely a serial killer. Registered sex offender, minimum.



Tim Raines- they never should have got rid of those old Expos unis. So baller.



Bobby Bonilla- when I was a kid, inexplicably one of my favorite players. By all accounts, he was a prick. He was probably the most overpaid player in the sport. I kinda hated the Pirates and Mets. But yet, I loved him. The moral: never underestimate the weight a sweet nickname carries with an 8 year old. Bobby Bo!

Dan Gladden- if I was a Twins fan, he'd be my all-time favorite for sure. Champion mullet-stache combo.

Darryl Strawberry- You don't have to worry about putting a good curve in your brim when you're high all the time. GANGSTA, son.



OK I seriously have to stop. The collection of illustrated 'staches, rapist beards, jheri curls and old-school unis are almost too much for me. Don't go google imaging Donruss Diamond Kings unless you have at least 35 minutes to spare. Fo' reals.

9/11, Football Football Football, Chicago Jim

Ten years since 9/11 already....damn.

I always feel a little guilty about 9/11, because of my initial ignorance of the situation. I was a freshman in college, living in the dorms, and routinely slept until the last possible minute until class started. Occasionally I would wake up earlier, roll over to Paul's side of the bed and ask him if he wanted to get any breakfast at Wilkerson, but mostly I just went straight to class.

And so it was that morning. I went directly to class without even 5 minutes of SportsCenter, and our lecture hall was buzzing as I took my seat. The professor showed up looking disheveled, said something quickly to the effect of "Well, I suppose by now you've heard. Obviously, class is cancelled. I suggest you all get back and turn on the news." And that was it. No details. So immediately I was excited-- I never imagined it was anything serious. I practically skipped back to Walsh Hall. My day was now wide-open, and full of options. When I crack my first beer this morning, do I put in Office Space or Big Lebowski? Do I go back to bed, and wait until lunch to start drinking? Is the slushee machine up and running this early in the morning? I could go for a Slodka. How quickly could we organize an early-afternoon game of beer pong?

It wasn't until I got back to my room and actually turned on the TV that I found out what was up (and I probably would've been a couple more hours behind if I hadn't turned on ESPN before putting in a DVD.) What was worse was that Paul's dad, Rod the Bod, was scheduled to be at the Pentagon that day. Everything turned out OK (for Rod) but it was a crazy, awful day for New Yorkers and our country. So every time I think of 9/11, I have that quick little twinge of guilt, thinking of the 15-minute span where all I cared about was having a day off of classes, not even giving a second thought to the possibility that there was a very serious reason why we received the day off.

***************

Because you care so much, I'm pretty happy with my fantasy team. I wasn't going to play this year because all I do is bitch about my bad luck every year and never enjoy wins, but I got talked into it and so here we are. I got Jamaal Charles and LeGarrette Blount at RB; Megatron, Steve Johnson, and Manningham at WR; Big Ben fell into my lap; and I've got some good trade bait on the bench (Stafford, Julio Jones, and once Arian Foster gets hurt for good, I'm gonna hold Bergman over the barrel to get Ben Tate from me .) So yayyyy Fantasy Football!

But what I really care about is the gambling. After the Packers made me look awesome last year, covered a game for me in preseason, and again covered on Thursday night, they are now officially in "shoot 'til you miss" mode for me. My over/under bets for wins this year look like this:

Steelers over 10.5- I'm hoping to cover this by week 14 with their easy schedule.

Eagles over 10.5- one of those that might not be a good money bet, but I don't care. They have too much talent for this not to happen. If they don't get to 11 wins in that division, I'll just tip my hat to the Gambling Gods.

Dolphins under 7.5- I also hope to cover this by week 14.

Buccaneers under 8.5- I feel worse about this bet every day. If I had the option to cancel this bet I think I would take it. I got hung up on their tougher schedule and tougher division this year, but failed to take into account a bunch of young guys all getting one year better.

Giants under 9.5- probably my lock of the year.

Rams over 7.5- I've always hated the Rams since they beat my Titans in the Super Bowl, but I'm all in on them this year. My Sam Bradford Fathead is currently being shipped.

Side note: back when Bradford played at Oklahoma, Lane once described him as "a slightly retarded-looking version of Bergman." I laughed for about 20 minutes at that, and ever since, have struggled to take him seriously (Bradford, not Lane. I've never taken Lane seriously.) Little scary to be financially invested in a guy who looks like Bergman after about 18 beers and two concussions.

And for those of you who know Bergman, the comparison is pretty true.

***************

A couple months ago we went to a Cubs/Royals game, and while tailgating we discovered a stranger we quickly dubbed "Chicago Jim." Nelle and Meg were the first ones to spot him, and when they pointed him out to me, I literally did a triple take. It was creepy. So we made a bunch of jokes about it, blah blah blah, then when we saw him again after the game, and were drunk enough to approach him, I had to take a picture with him. I finally saw the picture for the first time last week, and I have to admit I'm a little disappointed. I think you have to see him from the side or something, to really capture the full Chicago Jim effect, with our bent Chris Dudley noses and all (plus this picture will be smaller because of blogger, it looks better on Facebook when it's blown-up.) And it's not just the booze talking, we saw him right when we were setting up the tailgate, so we were sober. Without further ado, Chicago Jim and I:



***************

Now I'm going to watch football for the next ten hours. Does it get any better than NFL opening Sunday?

End Of An Era

Monday, September 5, 2011. Approximately 1:35 Central time. That's when my world as presently constructed fell apart. That was when I pulled into a parking slot at Sonic and casually ordered a mayo cheeseburger with no tomatoes, and two frito chili cheese wraps, like I have countless times before. Then I heard the nine words that ruined my day and will no doubt change my life going forward:

"Frito chili cheese wraps? We don't carry those anymore."

What? WHAT?!?!

I didn't even try to hide my dismay; I slumped forward against the steering wheel and let out an anguished moan into the loudspeaker. After a few seconds, I gathered myself and started trying to figure out how I could still get my chili cheese wrap fix. The bargaining stage of grief, I guess you could say. Were there any fritos left in the back that you would be willing to bust out for me? No. Not any? I swear I don't care how old they are. No. Could you take your chili cheese tots and wrap them in a burrito for me? No. Would you just make it a chili cheese wrap, without fritos or tots or anything else in it? No. I told them thanks anyway, put my car in reverse, and sadly backed out and drove off, likely never to return again.

And so ends the torrid love affair between Sonic and I. It began the very first day I moved to Lawrence, when we gorged ourselves immediately after moving in all our stuff in 110 degree heat. It was my first ever Sonic experience (we don't have them in North Dakota) and needless to say, it was a good one. I was like a confused 17-year-old who innocently enough tries cocaine at a party one time, and by the next morning is a full-on junkie. There was a Sonic next door to my apartment complex, and across the street from my job, and as a result, for the first two years I lived in Lawrence, the longest I went without having Sonic was 11 days. It has tapered off somewhat in the last couple years, but you could still definitely classify the amount of Sonic that I eat as "unhealthy."

But without the frito chili cheese wraps, it all stops for me. That was my go-to. While the burgers are pretty awesome, and 44 oz. Strawberry Limeades are the bees' knees, very little else on the menu is enjoyable for me. The frito chili cheese wraps were like the Big Lebowski's rug-- they tied the meal together for me.

And I know that some menu items aren't meant to be caged...their taste is just too delicious. And when they're removed from the menu, the part that knows it was a sin to lock them up does rejoice. But still, your stomach is that much more drab and empty when they're gone. I guess I just miss my friend.

You're Too Stupid To Have A Good Time

In case you hadn't heard (and you probably hadn't, unless you're somebody I've talked to personally in the past ten days, or a member of the Morningstar family) my boy Brady Morningstar signed with a team in Greece, and now will be getting paid actual money to play professional basketball. I don't have much to add here, just that it's pretty awesome. Definitely not something that many people thought possible as recently as seven months ago.


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Book recommendation: 'In Broad Daylight' by Harry MacLean. It's the true story of Ken McElroy, who was like the real-life version of Wesley, the bad guy from Roadhouse. He terrorizes the small town of Skidmore, Missouri for years, until finally a bunch of guys gun him down in the street, with dozens of witnesses, and the whole town collectively shrugs its shoulders and says "Meh, I didn't see nothin."

(It's badass, but still not quite as badass as Roadhouse, where Swayze gets in a fight with Wesley's right-hand man, rips his throat out with one hand, screams "Wesleyyyyyyyyyyy!" in the direction of his mansion, then returns the next day, beats Wesley up but decides not to rip his throat out, and then some townspeople show up, shoot him, shrug their shoulders, and say "Meh, we didn't see nothin.")

ANYWAY (I need to stop now or else I'll write 1,500 words on Roadhouse before I even know what's happened) 'In Broad Daylight' is a great read, as long as you're prepared to be awake at almost 3 in the morning, unable to put the book down or sleep, because you're almost shaking in rage at the shenanigans that McElroy pulled on this town before they finally gave him the Wesley treatment.

....But seriously, he TEARS HIS THROAT OUT! It's like Swayze is a Mortal Kombat character and he has a sweet finishing move. Is this the best fight scene of all time? Most likely. You know how Grantland has been doing those columns where they write either a sentence or a few paragraphs on their favorite youtube videos? I could write a thesis paper on this one.


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Wanna hear one of the best stories I've heard in 2011? Of course you do. My friend Amber's little brother Josh, who from some of the things I've heard over the years, is pretty much a hero amongst men, was out on a date with a lady. Sometime during dinner, he said "Smalls, you forgot to round second base!" That comment went over her head. Later on, he referenced Wendy Peffercorn, which again failed to draw a reaction. He then asked, "Have you ever even seen The Sandlot?" When she replied that she hadn't, he calmly stood up, put some money on the table, politely said "Thank you for a lovely evening" and walked out the door.

Seriously, hero amongst men.


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Have a good holiday weekend.