Too little, and late

This kind of game makes me hate hockey. Wild absolutely dominating for two periods, then suddenly down 3-1. Erghh. Having nervous breakdown.

Not even this can save us now...

Here it's going again

Well, the monkey's off the back. That is, Wild finally scored a first period goal, after having no goals in the first two periods of the last four games. In celebration, I should have an lolmonkey, but monkeys haven't proven to be good luck yet. No sense risking an experiment now.

Going with the familiar.

Overtime

Wild in Overtime again...

This cat picture might do some good.

ACT(W) for April 14, 2008

Friend, I wager either you've forgotten what the ACT(W) is or you've never heard of it. Refer back to the post about a penguin from Hello Kitty. Yes that actually happened, it's not even archived yet!


(It stands for Arbitrarily Chosen Thing of the Week).


And for the second time ever, an ACT(W) will now be unleashed on at least 7 or 8 people:


CHRIS & LARRY'S™ CLODHOPPERS®!!!
















It is not a joke. Looks and sounds like one, but how much effort do you think really goes into this post? It took longer to write these last few sentences than it did to cut that off the official page. Which happens to be clodhoppers.tv, (just skip to http://www.clodhoppers.tv/about.html).

There's nothing to compare this stuff to. Truly. But surely, say you, surely these guys didn't just invent a never before seen junk food. Not after all these years. Everything's old hat, everything's borrowed. Well what if I told you it was Grandma's own specialty? Different story, eh? (the eh ties in, wait for it) Every Grandma has some recipe enitrely her own.

Turns out Grandma Emery's (possibly not her last name, but it's 50/50 I think) featured clusters of graham cracker bits and fudge. And she called them Clodhoppers. And now, year 2008, I bought some while waiting in line at Blockbuster.


Good news/bad news though. Good: Immediate and hopeless addiction was unleashed upon all who tasted from that bag. Bad: These things barely exist outside of Canada (where they're born. another obligatory "eh"). Blockbuster seems to be the only outpost round here.

Fortunately, said website offers online ordering. Guess who's going to order a 24 bag case?

Rising from the ashes of memory

I don't know how long it's been gone. Might have been a million hundred years ago. Just didn't notice. No, impossible. Of course I noticed back then, whenever. Surely you remember it. It looked like this:

Ah-ha! "The Norm"

Quit playing, you do remember this. At least I do. It was a staple of my youth, when the comics were the paper. One of my favorites. Probably started reading it around 4th or 5th grade.

Sure it was funny, but I really gravitated toward the characters themselves. And looking back, my reasons are for-real-creepy. Take Norm. He was awesome, the guy I wanted to be someday. His hair was cool (I guess I thought that), his turtleneck was cool (I dug those, except only mock turtlenecks cause real ones actually made me choke and gag), he did cool stuff (played basketball at least once). Can't elaborate, as the memories are fuzzy, but I honestly remember the feeling.

Weirder - and for-real-creepier - I had a big time crush on Reine, his girlfriend/eventual wife (sorry to spoil it if you planned to go back and read the archives from day one). Who knows why a cartoon character made such an impression on a 5th grader. But everything from hair to face to personality was a mathematical forumula for "perfect" to my mind. And I never even knew how to pronounce "Reine". Anyway, apologies, this part is more disturbing than expected.

Have to mention the best friend too. His name was Ford. Ford was always my favorite car company. ........ Guess that's probably it, that's what did it. He was cool too though.

Well it was there for a long while, just another part of everyday life. I tried to see if it's still kicking, but it looks like maybe just reruns on GoComics. Even so I think it'd be worth reading some again. Just check out that three strip series. Any human who has experienced something remotely resembling a relationship can get that. And I can ask any of them to explain it to me!

BTW (Beholder, some few more Thoughts, please Wait a minute longer. Not what you thought.): This came out of nowhere. I was actually going to mention "The Family Circus," but since I'm looking for stuff to be posted regularly, it'll be part of a series on comics. No kidding.

...Again...

The refs just tied the game, so..........need another one.

Come on, strange luck.

Edit: Due to the ninja cats or not, game's over, Wild win! Sadly, I will now do this for the rest of my life.

Working hard at creating luck

Game is scored 1-1, late in the 3rd period. Wild are pressing big time.

I really think this could do it.

EDIT!!!: I'm halfway between jubilant and totally freaked out. I clicked the post button and the puck was suddenly in the net. Looks like the beginning of an irrational new superstition.

Thinking happy thoughts

Don't talk to me, I'm crabby. The Wild are losing again in the playoffs. I'm using the power of
cute pictures for mental healing.




Sorry you have to share in this.










Edit: It's already working! Tied the game up. If it's still tight late there may be more lol cats. I have to do this.

Sports Roundup - Wednesday, April 9

MEN'S NCAA FINAL FOUR:

Obviously, I did not see this.

You probably saw it. Everyone did. I stopped watching at 2:00 in regulation and continued an in-progress game of NHL 08, since Kansas just wasn't gonna come back. Which meant they would. Thankfully, I did switch back in time to see the Memphis players' faces as OT expired.

OTHER SPORTS NEWS:

NHL 08 (video game): Choosing this over the game was ill-advised, but at least there were some positives here. I won my opening playoff game vs. the Kings. Not a big surprise, since I'm 1st seed in teh West. And defending Stanley Cup champion. I am that good.

REAL NHL PLAYOFFS: ARRRGHGUHHH

CONFOUND IT: I AM ANGRY WE LOST A HARD FOUGHT GAME IN OVERTIME WHEN WE CARRIED MOST OF THE PLAY ALL NIGHT.

I'M TALKING ABOUT THE MINNESOTA WILD: IN CASE YOU WERE WONDERING

WOMEN'S NCAA FINAL FOUR: Apparently it's over now. Somebody won, and they all lost.

Also new: "Arbitrarily Chosen Thing of the Week"

You hate Mondays. I know it. So from now till kingdom come, Mondays are the official home of the "Arbitrarily Chosen Thing of the Week," or ACT(W). What that is? Oh just something so great, you can bask in its glorious glow all Monday and for the rest of the week. It's like therapy or (prescription) drugs. And now...

ACT(W) for April 7, 2008 is...

BADTZ-MARU!

Yeah, him. Easily the most awesome character ever to come from a Japanese cartoon made for preschool-age girls. Born in Oahu, Hawaii on April Fools day, 1993. (??!?) Attitude? That doesn't even come close. Sure he's as cute as they come, but you also get the feeling he breaks thumbs for the mob in his spare time. No other penguin in history could match that icicle-dagger stare. Or that rebellious, kinda vaguely mohawk shaped head. And hyphenated names always net a 2x score multiplier. Badtz-Maru.

See all the crazy things this guy does at http://badtz-maru.com/. Official word is at http://sanrio.com/characters/, not as heavily recommended.








Almost didn't add this, but apparently the name Badtz-Maru is "literally 'XO'." Whatever, Wikipedia.

Sports Roundup - Thursday, April 3

I've been evaluating what manner of crazy new stuff might highlight the revamped blog. No poll here, because that's unscientific. And you people are ripe with the smell of election fraud. So, my choice. One obvious candidate is a daily sports section, so it was unofficially christened yesterday. But not just gloating about my favorite teams, because that's unfair and pretty boring. Instead there is now an official blog baseball team! I present..........the Edmonton Cracker Cats!

Yes, that Edmonton. The Canada one. Why? I mean, come on, the Cracker Cats? What other choice was there? I'd give you the dope on these guys, but that's Wikipedia territory. Suffice it to say, an independent league baseball team.

Season starts May 23rd, so this is an early heads up. Get your gear now. I honestly don't know if they have gear.

OTHER SPORTS NEWS

NHL: Minnesota Wild win Northwest division for first time! Didn't say I wouldn't ever talk about my teams.

BARRY BONDS: His mug is all up on ESPN's front page tonight. Come on guys, honestly...I'd almost rather see a another Belichick story.

Sports Roundup, April 2

MLB:

There are currently no baseball players sporting this look. And for good reason. Aiiyeee.

NCAA BASKETBALL:

Yeah I had a terrible bracket again, but did get three Final Four teams. Bet you can't beat that. Unless you're everyone in the United States, moms and little babies included. I'm a total failure.

Well that's all the sports news for today, back again tomorrow.

Welcome! If you're here because I begged you to come, don't leave now, even though there's nothing new to read yet.

This was spur of the moment/a long time in the making. Things will be here quite soon. A lot.

Spelling error (sp?)

Not an error if you're in the UK, but when writing in American, it should probably have been spelled "remodelling". I could have edited the old post, but it's exciting posting three times in one day all of a sudden.

Remodeling this old house

Changing things around slightly. Go ahead, question my sanity. It's understandable as I've started a running blog status update for the benefit of the no current readers of the blog. What, haven't you ever talked to yourself while working alone?

Couldn't remember the password

You wouldn't believe the hoops I jumped through to get in here. Minimum three of those "type the nonsense word you see into a box" things. But I'm back in here (the Blogosphere; term I always hated). And I think I'm gonna start messin around in here (Blgspre) again. Not that anyone knows, since this is going straight into web ether. But anyway.

Minnferiority Complex

I am a Minnesotan. In a broader sense, I am a Midwesterner. Did you hear anything remarkable in either of those statements? I didn't. I've lived around these parts for my entire life. Somehow it doesn't make me feel particularly special. More like blandly mediocre, actually. But that's not how everyone else in my home state sees it. Don't suggest to them that Minnesota might not quite measure up to some other states. See, there's a phenomenon that occurs accross the Midwest in general. It's a vast case of me-too syndrome. Or in my state in particular, what I've come to think of as a Minnferiority complex. It may not be the most ingenious word ever, but it is what it is. Everyone's constantly looking for affirmation that people really like us. All I have to do is turn on the local TV news every evening to be reminded of just how popular we are. Maybe they're right. After all, it was just last summer that Meryl Streep herself found the greatest pizza she'd ever eaten, right here in St. Paul! You can't tell me that doesn't count for something! In fact, Hollywood in general just loves us. Why else would they decide to shoot one of the all time classic holiday films, "Jingle All The Way", in my own backyard of Minneapolis? But that's not the only evidence of our greatness. What about having the no. 2 ranked small town in America (Owatonna)? Or how about this - the 62nd largest city skyline IN THE WORLD! Like I said, though, it's not just Minnesota. All of us Midwestern people have a desire to really be someone, to be famous. For a couple of years I lived in Wautoma, Wisconsin, which just happens to be the "Christmas Tree Capital of the World" (oh wait, sorry, it's now actually the "Pine Tree Capital of the World". can't imagine what caused that change...). Of course Wisconsin is especially well known for this world capital stuff, but it just makes sense. If you pick something extremely obscure to be good at, you have at least a decent chance of being somewhere near top of the list. Who cares if it's rutabagas, backhoe/loaders, ginseng, farm toys, black squirrels, cranberries, or even magic (yep, Colon, MI), if you're pretty good...you're probably the best. To be honest though, for all my sarcasm, I really do enjoy living here. Life is just fine, and even pretty good in some ways. But just some advice for my fellow Minnesotans: quit living for that 15 minutes when Katie Couric stops by to say "Hi" and tells us all how much she admires us. We don't need celebrities to tell us we're special in order to be happy. After all, this is Minnesota, not Idaho.

SPAM

I love SPAM. How about that for an opening statement? If I had stopped after that first sentence, there probably would have been like a hundred comments...or maybe like 8, since that's basically my total readership. But honestly, what other topic ignites statements of sworn hatred in the way that SPAM does? And no, I don't mean the spam that forced you to close your old Hotmail account, although it kind of goes to show just how unpopular the name is when it's used for the greatest annoyance of the modern age. Maybe some of you don't even know what real SPAM is. Brief history lesson. The Hormel company introduced a canned meat called "Spiced Ham" in 1937, and held a naming contest, resulting in the creative and exciting title of "SPAM." People still recovering from the Depression recognized SPAM as an inexpensive and versatile, not to mention slightly tasty, meat. Of course then came World War II, and SPAM became THE staple meat of the Army, thus causing a vast overexposure to it amongst soldiers. From there, the rest is history. The entire baby boomer generation was born with a deep hatred for SPAM already encoded into their (newly discovered) DNA. So you see, people have no choice. Their nature tells them they hate SPAM, and they believe it. But at the naive age of 7 I was exposed to it, and have been eating it ever since. To me, SPAM is a delicate treat (not TREET, mind you, which is the imitation SPAM...you probably just shuddered at the phrase "imitation SPAM," didn't you?). SPAM is good for sandwiches, sliced on crackers, fried at breakfast...it just goes on and on. And it recently became less stomach turning than ever before, now that Hormel found a way to get rid of the notorious coating of SPAM gel! So anyway, next time someone offers you some SPAM, ignore that pre-programmed warning in your brain and discover the finest processed, canned, ready-to-eat pork and ham meat product the world has ever known!

(Oh, and yes, this is my official return to blogging after a summer long hiatus. I just decided to get on with the actual entries instead of first publishing an entire "welcome back" post. I know, champion of the oppressed, defender of the common man, and all that stuff. Just leave your thanks on the comment page.)

Collegification

I know, I know, I'm posting for the second time this week. Sign of the apocalypse for sure. But provided this doesn't somehow trigger the destruction of the world as we know it, maybe you can help me out. While packing up all my stuff to go home, I was thinking about the indications my collegification. So I made a list. A list of the ten biggest things I can think of that hinted at a transformation from high school kid to college guy (I'm not saying I'm a real college guy quite yet, but I'm still trying). Your part in this is to choose which of these you think was the real starting point of my college life. Go ahead and vote on the comments page. Or if you don't want to do that, just...well, who really cares what you do if you're going to be so lazy. Not really, but anyway.....

1. Arriving on campus the first day. This would be the most logical choice in a way. Technically I guess it's the official starting point of my college life. And after the baptism by fire that is orientation weekend, I think any freshman earns at least one stripe. But only one, and it doesn't really mean much to the veteran students.

2. First real time doing my own laundry. I know, this is like admitting that the only person who had ever cut my hair was my mom, or that my mom still set out my clothes for me every day in high school. But it's true, my mom has just always done my laundry. Nothing says "you are now a man" like sorting out your own socks...and looking for that one fugitive...seriously, where can they possibly go?

3. First time staying up until 4 AM writing a paper. From what I hear, the sign of real college talent is seeing how long you can put off a paper before writing it and still turning it in on time. My first experience with such a challenge found me finishing it at 4 AM, about seven hours before class. Of course, with an empty class period preceding deadlines, I was able to cut that down to about 2-3 minutes in later cases.

4. Getting my hair cut independently of my mom and Great Clips. Okay, I guess this actually is really close to only ever having my mom as my barber, but I had my fair share of quick $10 cuts at the mall. What can I say, I'm just a mama's boy. No big deal, there's always someone in the dorm willing to give it a shot for a few dollars. And Leland dorm happens to feature the master of college haircuts, our buddy Geoffrey. Of course I think he only does it as an excuse to stay out of Armitage for one more hour.

5. Realizing I hadn't eaten breakfast in two months. I'm not going to say all guys are as bad as me at this, but it's not that uncommon for us to skip breakfast for that extra 20 minutes of sleep. One of life's greatest mysteries is how girls can get up before 6:00 AM. I'm pretty sure the next day hasn't even started by that time. If you're going to do that, why go to sleep at all?

6. Getting quarters at whatever cost. Everyone knows that the world's greatest dependency problem is not America's thirst for oil. It's the college student's unending need for quarters. I never understood before this year how someone could never, under any circumstances, have enough quarters. But one time this dilemma caused me to do something that truly horrified me. I was so desperate for laundry money that I went to the student center vending machine and bought three bags of chips and two candy bars just to get enough change back to clean my clothes that night. It was then I realized my primal survival instincts were taking over.

7. Ordering pizza after the forbidden time. There comes a point in the adult life when certain types of food - or any food - right before bed will ruin one's entire night of sleep. Thankfully that usually comes after college. Not only can I eat pizza at midnight, I've been hungry enough for it to break rules to get it. But hey, I have to live it up now, because in a few years people will have to listen to my complaining about how that slice of pizza talked back to me all night.

8. Realizing that midnight had become an early bed time. It wasn't like I had never been able to choose when I went to sleep. It was that I had never so consistently failed to get more than 6 hours of sleep. Know why I always went to sleep shortly after midnight? That's when the internet shuts off. If your dictionary doesn't have this under the definition of "pathetic", you need a new dictionary. (try the Microsoft one)

9. Stealing disposable socks from the Nike shoe store. So about that aforementioned sock problem. Everyone encounters it. The normal person goes to the store to buy more socks. What does the college student with no car and little money do? He loads up on disposable try-on socks at a shoe store. No joke, I'm still using them. Hey I can't be the only one to ever do that, can I? Can I?

10. Finishing a class reading assignment right at the deadline. Sounds like a normal accomplishment, but it was a new thing for me. We had to read a couple of books for one of my classes; an easy, run-of-the-mill assignment. It was all due by the end of our final exam period. Naturally I forgot to do so until...our final exam period. No sweat. After finishing my test, I went over to the library, read a book on education, and sent the info to my teacher just before time expired, all within half an hour. Nothing extraordinary for the experienced master, but it's a starting point for me. By next semester I'm hoping to actually be able to bend time and space in dire circumstances like this. Something to work on anyway.

A man without

...a place to go. I am officially an exile for the time being. It's that time of year...white glove time. Kind of a fun ordeal, in some strange way. I was going to post a picture of what it looked like when I woke up this morning, but then the post would have been rated at least PG-13 for frightening scenes, disturbing images, and some language (well two out of three). Long story short, it's done, and now I have nothing to do, nowhere to go for the next couple of hours. So blogging is a good nothing to do. Not a prize winning essay, just some loose ends. Expect multiple variances (arbitrariances?) within this thing. Ready, go.

Have you ever had that feeling? The feeling when you turn the TV on and flip through all the channels at least 4 times before exclaiming that there's nothing on? I mean has it ever made you feel like if boredom were a crime you'd be an inmate on death row? But think about how boredom has changed. It takes so much more to entertain people today. When I picture boredom I think of Sunday afternoon TV without cable. Public television broadcasting special insomnia therapy programming, a network showing golf (!), the race on lap 3 out of 900, and some unnamed channel broadcasting a movie so lame that no one has ever watched the whole thing...ever. But go back, even just to the beginning of television - my dad holds it as a matter of personal pride that when he was growing up there were three channels (and they were in black and white, and they hardly came in at all, and you had to walk 20 miles uphill in the snow wearing worn out dime-thin-soled shoes just to watch it...). Now think of how bored we can get even when the channels reach into the hundreds. But don't look for any witty, biting social criticism, because this is going all downhill from here. This kind of boredom happened to me on Saturday, albeit with no TV involved. I did have my computer, though, with a billion games to play, not to mention a wealth of information on any topic that ever existed all available on the internet. But there just wasn't anything on. So I spent the rest of my night flying through the last 30 years of periodicals in the library basement. And.....we have now reached the bottom of this hill.

By the way, speaking of 70's era magazines, I was thoroughly amused at the incredible number of cigarette ads. I know there are laws today about cigarette advertising and stuff like that, but come on now. More pages of smoke ads than actual articles? That might have been stretching it. The only reason I can see for it is that it was the 70's, and everyone knows marijuana had a tight hold on the "dangerous habit forming substance" market, so maybe the tobacco guys had to do that to compete. Goodness, the evils of capitalism....

My other thought for the last two days has been this - when did rain become such a terrible thing? I can't tell you how frustrated I get when a cloud comes into view over the horizon, and without fail I hear someone say, "Oh sad, it's going to rain!" Aside from revealing that these people clearly aren't the usual Wisconsin farm kids, I think this is a sign of a skewed thought process. Could you tell me why rain is so bad? Did I miss something? Has the acid content of rain gone critical and started to actually melt people? As far as I know, rain is usually a good thing, at least in moderation. And aside from the obvious benefits, I've always enjoyed a rainy day once in a while. I find something kind of fun about looking out and seeing the darkened sky and listening to the rain. It's a change of pace at the least. I don't want bright sunshine every day any more than I want a bologna and cheese sandwich for every meal. Or any meal...anyway just look on the bright side. And the cloudy, damp side too once in a while.