It's Monday Night And I Need A Drink

I’m not going to be able to sleep tonight. I’m watching the Florida State/Miami game and my heart is in my throat. I keep trying to tell myself that the game doesn’t mean anything, but it’s useless. I get caught up in it no matter what I do. I’m writing during the commercial breaks and I know that there are going to be a bunch of them. I had lost track of time and MJ came in and turned the game on. I had completely forgotten about it, and when MJ turned it on the Seminoles immediately blew a coverage and gave up a long touchdown. Then the rage started to bubble up. They’ve had eight full months to prepare for this game and it took them less than three minutes to make a giant mistake. Fortunately, they followed it up with the best offensive series they’ve had in almost ten years. This is going to be a running commentary until I get frustrated or just can’t take it anymore. The Seminoles stand tall on defense. They need to watch the fake punt in this part of the field. Miami didn’t snap the ball in time so they’re backed up five yards. I’m kind of torn. I need to end this post so I can turn my full attention to the game, but I don’t want to jinx the Seminoles by changing what I’m doing. They just ran a dumb QB option. This is 2009. Getting your QB hit isn’t a good idea. There are a bunch of RB’s on the team that are there to do nothing but run the football. The Seminoles falter and have to punt. They haven’t made any huge mistakes on offense so far. Christian Ponder looks like he has a clue about what’s going on. I may have to reevaluate my black and bitter hatred of Jimbo Fisher. I’m turned around like an owl looking backwards at the television while I try to write this thing and my neck is starting to hurt. I’m done writing this thing at 8:46 p.m. and the score is tied 7-7. We’ll see how the football gods handle this.

Bitten By The Bug.

Today wasn’t the best Sunday ever. I think were all coming down with H1N1. It’s all my fault because I was talking trash about the swine flu. It’s nothing special. The symptoms are exactly the same as the common flu, but instead of attacking really old people and really young people it seems to be attacking people in the middle. The common flu actually kills a lot more people than the swine flu. It’s superior in every way, as far as plagues are concerned, but the American news media panders to our cravenly natures e.g. swine flu is da debbil, Bobby Bouchet. Anyway, my taunting of the swine flu seems to have come back to bite me. I don’t really think I have the swine flu, but whatever. I’ve got a stuffy nose and post nasal drip, and I’m not happy. I hate getting sick. If it is the swine flu, bring it on bitch. My immune system is up for it. I’ve had the flu before and I’ll have it again. If Ron Weasly can beat this bug, I sure as hell can. And if I can’t then I never deserved to call myself a heterosexual American male. We all have to die some time. I just hope mine involves fire, twisted metal, dental records, and a 21xx date. Yes, I plan on living until I’m at least 130 and only then dying a violent death. LMJ will be 94. My parents will be 159. We’ll have a huge funeral on the moon if we can. If we can’t, it will be in the Caribbean. Rum will be served no matter where the funeral takes place – lots of rum. Unless MJ has her way, and has me reanimated so she can tell me how stupid I was for racing hover bikes – there will be hover bikes or I’m going to be pissed – at more than 130 years old. I don’t know if I will die like this, but I do know a cotton candy ass virus named after bacon will not be what shuffles me loose this mortal coil.

Saturdays in The Autumn

I love the first Saturday of college football. I mowed the lawn to get the smell in the air – it needed it anyway. I had some beers. I watched the pre-game shows, and then four games back to back, almost interrupted. LMJ threw a little bit of a tantrum because she wanted to watch the Backyardigans. Not today sweetie. The first Saturday of college football makes me feel young. It’s all about hope and renewal, which is strange since it signals the beginning of fall. We’ll get ‘em this year is the attitude that is shared by every fan, from the 98 year old alumnus who hasn’t missed a game since he came back from the war to the 18 year old freshman who just finished his first week on campus. There are also the cheerleaders. There is little better on this earth than big school college cheerleaders. Even though I’ve had nothing positive to say about the Seminoles in almost a decade and I still don’t. I can’t help feeling positive about the game with the Hurricanes this Monday night. I’m like a little girl hoping against hope that this year is going to be different, that the Noles are somehow going to be well coached and disciplined, that they’re going to pound the Canes and cruise through the ACC like it was 1999, walk into Ben Hill Griffin Stadium while I enjoy leftover turkey sandwiches on the Saturday after Thanksgiving and drain the Swamp. The two sides of my brain are fighting a bloody battle. My right brain is giving me visions of the sugarplums I just mentioned, while my left brain is telling me “Fool me once shame on you; fool me annually for a decade shame on me”. I know that Florida State has had fantastic talent but hasn’t been able to figure out a way to translate that talent into quality football, but this year is different. It has to be. It’s the law of large numbers if nothing else. That should be the motto this year.

Snake Bit

Well that was fun. Thanks for coming. See you next year. Maurice Jones-Drew, the only Jacksonville Jaguar who seems to understand that scoring touchdowns is a good thing in football, got banged up in the last pre-season game. His lower leg was bruised on a play he shouldn’t have gotten the ball, in a game he shouldn’t have been in. They’re saying it isn’t a major injury, and I hope they’re right/telling the truth, but this is the Jags’ M.O. As soon as it looks like they have a true breakout star in the making he gets hurt. The Jags rolled the dice on MJD and let Fred Taylor go. So they don’t have a safety net any more, which is fine, but damn! the season hasn’t even started and the one thing that had more than a snowball’s chance in hell of keeping the Jags out of last place is banged up. I understand that they made some really stupid horrible ridiculous short sighted unfortunate moves last year that have pushed them into rebuilding mode, and I understand that since we’re in the second smallest media market with the lowest median income in the NFL rebuilding isn’t going to be as easy as it would be for a large market team, but give me something. Tory Holt is three years past his prime. The Jags have decided to start two rookie offensive tackles, and if they can’t run the ball, which they won’t be able to if MJD isn’t 100%, David Garrard is going to die a slow, brutal, excruciating death. Even if MJD is good to go, the Jags are going to be lucky to be .500 at the end of the year. If he’s not, they’ll be lucky to win three games. It looks like there’s a very good chance all eight home games are going to be blacked out, which might start a domino effect of lost interest and revenue, and lead the Jaguars out of Jacksonville and to some place like Oklahoma City. That’s going to suck.

I'm Tired

Something is going to have to give. I’m exercising more and sleeping less. The main problem is the baby girl. No one is allowed to sleep if she’s awake, and she’s trying to kick her sleep addiction cold turkey. It’s not that she doesn’t go to bed. It’s that she won’t stay there. I’ve been getting to bed after eleven and getting up at half past five. Then I try to kill myself at the gym. Everything is fine as long as I’m moving. I’m like a shark. But when I stop for just a second I’m overwhelmed with fatigue. MJ thinks everything will be fine once we’ve settled into our routine – when the clocks go back to standard time at the latest. I hope I can make it that far. Today was leg day and a JU pitcher was doing the same tortuous leg exercises I was doing. He was also having the same reaction. This made me feel good. He was a kid. He wasn’t even twenty and he was having the same reaction I was. He told me how his strength coach told him to do the exercise, which also made me happy. If strength coaches are recommending it to their players then maybe I’m on the right track. I’m also encouraged because my legs didn’t stay numb as long as they did last time. I was able to walk like a normal person by the time I got home. I’m in groove right now and hopefully I can stay in it. I probably just jinxed it. I am feeling the fatigue of the weights and the cardio and the day in general now though. I’m writing this at about twenty till nine, and LMJ is reading quietly in bed. With any luck she’ll be asleep by nine and I can be asleep by nine thirty, but I’m not holding my breath. Tomorrow is my day with her and I’m already looking forward to our nap.

Rawk Out With Yer Cawk Out

I guess Sarah McLachlan wanted too much money and Tori Amos was too X-TREEEEEMEEE. It doesn’t really matter though because Dave Matthews Band is going to be ROCKIN’ IT as the official band of ESPN’s College Gameday.
This is the worst idea since McDonald’s suggested fornicating with its hamburgers. I wouldn’t be surprised if the same people were in charge of both decisions. I’m the most open minded person I know when it comes to music. I have everything on my iPod from Anthrax to Yo-Yo Ma. I’ve got bluegrass, outlaw country, gangsta rap, 70’s soul, and four hours of Disney’s Greatest Hits. I don’t have any DMB because I’m not a 35 year old white chick who lost her virginity to Crash as a freshman co-ed in the mid '90's. I’m also not a guy pretending to like DMB so I can score with said chick. I respect Dave Matthews as a musician. He’s truly original. He’s been incredibly popular with little to no radio play. He’s never compromised his music to sell more records. He’s followed the same path to success as the Grateful Dead and Iron Maiden, but we’re still left with a question. How does Dave Matthews Band fit with college football? I thought football was a fast and aggressive sport. DMB is the exact opposite of fast and aggressive. College football is the most confrontational sport there is. The players hate each other. The coaches hate each other. The fans hate each other. DMB is all about convincing a chick that being [bleep] buddies is a good idea, but that’s for after the game. I can’t think of a band that makes less sense for College Gameday. There’s no way Dave Matthews came cheap. People at the Gameday sight don’t care about the bumper music. They only care about getting on television. I can’t imagine that a bunch of people at home are big DMB fans, and his music is slow, methodical and doesn’t have “hooks.” There’s a simple formula for this. Get any pop country act or non-offensive hip-hop group and have them play their hit (see the NFL’s Kenny Chesney and the Black Eyed Peas kickoff concert). Why is this so difficult? I’d be excited if this had the chance to go horribly wrong and end in fire but it doesn’t. We’re just going to be left with the sense of “this sucks” before and after every commercial break, unless DMB has a version of Sweet Home Alabama.

Peace Sells But Who's Buying

The year is flying by. It’s been eight months since I started this ridiculous writing every day project. I really didn’t think I would actually do it. Usually life gets in the way at some point. One of us could have wound up in the hospital or jail. Actually, I figured I’d just say screw it at some point and be done with it, but that day never came, and now that I’m two thirds of the way into it there’s no way in hell I’m not finishing. Even if I get hit by a dump truck, I’m going to crawl out of my grave and continue to post every day. Sorry St. Tampa, just give me the code to the Pearly Gates and I’ll let myself in once I’m done writing. I wonder if he’d get the “St. Tampa” joke. Anyway, I’ve really enjoyed myself this year. Writing everyday is a discipline I didn’t think I had, and I’m proud of myself. I don’t know if it’s made me a better writer because these are just first draft mind vomitings. I edit for profanity and in some cases intensity but other than that the only checking I do is of the spell nature. I think that’s why it’s been so much fun. I think a possibly negative side effect has been that writing every day has made me a much more critical reader. Now instead of “this is boring” being my default critique, it’s become “This is boring and poorly written. How did this get published?” Some of my favorite writers have lost some of their esteem because I’m noticing hackery much easier. I won’t name them though. A few others have moved up the list. I will name them. I don’t understand how Shakespeare wrote the way he did, whoever he was. Martin Luther King was a great writer, much more than the Southern Baptist preacher I thought he was. I’m also noticing the artistry of J.K. Rowling’s two hundred word sentences that are somehow simple and clear. I haven’t’ decided yet if I’m going to do something special on New Year’s Eve or if I’m going to take my birthday off, but that’s four months and 120 posts away.