Saturday, November 28, 2009

Nerd Alert

Holy shit! Ross Ohlendorf got a 1520 on his SATs!

I wonder if any other former Yanks can beat that... does this make Ross Ohlendorf the smartest Yankee of all time?

Thursday, November 26, 2009

The Alaska Diaries, week 7

Pukers Die!!! The Alaska Diaries [names have been changed to protect the guilty and innocent]
WEEK SEVEN: Visiting the family, stoned agin...


Monday (day 43)
Blew off work. Slept until fucking 5:00.

Played at Nightwatch. The club is under new ownership.

Notable songs:
After Midnight
The Ocean
There She Goes Again
Foxey Lady

Way too fucking stoned... I wore a trash bag as my stage get-up. Sang "Lay Down Sally" upside-down standing on my head.

Deguello
rules!

Tuesday (day 44)
Wednesday (day 45)
Thursday (day 46)
Ridiculously stoned every night this week. Played bridge and cribbage and that's about it.

Friday (day 47)
Finally worked this morning. We drove to Kenai-- got kicked out of "The Place."

Me, ______, and ______ drove to my Uncle Howard's place right there in Kenai. Me and ______ ate stew with his family for dinner while ______ was passed out in the back of the van. Howard was cool to us... he looks like my grandfather.

We left and bought a case of beer and a bottle of Bacardi 151. Flaming shots all night (almost burned my beard)! ______ puked. Crazy night.

Saturday (day 48)
Worked a lot-- packing freezer truck.

Sunday (day 49)
Worked full day and played our Nightwatch gig.
The gigs are getting weirder/worse.

Notable songs:
You May Be Right
Stone Free
(w/wah-wah)

Suzie Q. (upside-down vocals again)
_______'s new song
I Can See Clearly Now
________ is completely wasted. ______ makes out with some chick.


week eight: tequila marathons, hitchhiking

 

Sunday, November 22, 2009

Knicks 98, Nets 91

I was all fired up to watch and make fun of write about the epic battle between the Knicks and Nets yesterday afternoon. Too bad I had to work, although it doesn't look like I missed much.

1. Apparently we're passing on Iverson. I was rooting for this one, but I always go for the "bad idea" trades (Albert Belle, Manny, etc.). I like sports to be fun, and bad ideas are usually more fun.
I imagine the Knicks are giving the "we like where we're at right now" excuse, which is ridiculous. Reminds me of the guy that turns down the ride home from the bar at the end of the night, saying, "Nah, I'll just walk. It's nice out, anyway."

2. Nate Robinson intentionally shot (and scored!) at the wrong basket. It's bad enough when he shoots on the right basket after the buzzer, which he does all the time. Kinda like Johnny Damon almost chucking the ball into the bleachers with two outs last season, except Johnny didn't actually do it.

3. Who the #%$@ are these guys? I originally came up with what I thought was a good trivia question after the game: Name five of the six Knicks scoring in double-figures in today's 98-91 victory over the Nets. I immediately created a far more difficult challenge: Name anybody who played for the Nets today. Go ahead!

4. Are these guys really moving to Brooklyn?


 

Saturday, November 21, 2009

Top Five Cthulhu Bad-Asses

I've been flip-flopping between two lists for the past week or so: "Top Five Reasons Yankee Fans Shouldn't Feel Bad About SHIT!" or "Top Five Creatures of the Cthulhu Mythos." Let's go with the fun stuff first.

TOP FIVE BAD-ASSES OF THE CTHULHU MYTHOS

1. Cthulhu
STR: 25 INT:20 WIS: 23 DEX: 20 CON: 25 CHR: -7
HIT POINTS: 400 ALIGNMENT: Chaotic Evil

This motherfucker is a 100-foot tall scaled octopoid head that lives in an underwater city of non-Euclidean design. He teleports himself at will, and is immune to the effects of most major elements. Oh yeah, if he ever makes an appearance within 100 miles of your area you're going completely batshit for a number of months equivalent to your intelligence. Any questions?
Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wagh'nagl fhtagn. Or, "In his house in R'lyeh dead Cthulhu waits dreaming." Y'heard?

2. Azathoth (the center of the universe)
STR: 25 INT:-- WIS: -- DEX: 20 CON: 25 CHR: -7
HIT POINTS: 400 ALIGNMENT: Chaotic Neutral

Well, he may not be the smartest guy on the Cthulhu block, but who needs clever when you're a "blind, mindless, amorphous mass the size of a star"??? He's surrounded by horrifying amoeba-minstrels that "provide an eerie music, like the sound of idiot flute players." Basically, you're trapped inside a black hole that only plays Brian Jones's Joujouka album for all of eternity.


3. Yog-Sothoth (the key and guardian of the gate)STR: 25 INT:25 WIS: 23 DEX: 20 CON: 25 CHR: -7
HIT POINTS: 400 ALIGNMENT: Chaotic Evil

At 25-25-23-20 he's kinda the Albert Pujols of Cthulhu, to say the least. Yog- Sothoth exists on the astral plane, which means he's not subject to conventional laws of space and time and can exist in two separate points of the universe at the same time. Wow, imagine if Pujols could play first base for five different teams in each league in the same night?


4. Hastur the Unspeakable (He Who Must Not Be Named) "Master of the Air"
STR: 25 INT:22 WIS: 23 DEX: 21 CON: 23 CHR: -4
HIT POINTS: 400 ALIGNMENT: Chaotic Evil

This guy's about twice the height of Godzilla and doesn't waste his time sloshing around Japan kicking tanks. In fact, if anyone in your campaign even mentions his name, there's a 25% chance he'll send a few of his servants (the "Byakhee") to get all non-Euclidean on your sorry ass. And if that doesn't work, Hastur himself might pay a personal visit and crush the life out of you. Not a popular topic around the water cooler at work.


5. Shub-Niggurath (black goat of the woods with a thousand young)
STR: 24 INT:25 WIS: 20 DEX: 19 CON: 25 CHR: -4HIT POINTS: 400 ALIGNMENT: Chaotic Evil

Also known as the "Fountain of Uncleanliness," Shub-Nig is a 100-foot pool of filth inside the caverns of Mount Voormithadreth. Imagine the men's room trough at Fenway Park, but much worse. Creatures, limbs, pseudopods, and god knows what else spurt forth from the pool every few seconds or so... imagine the bleachers at Fenway Park but not quite as bad.

Friday, November 13, 2009

The Alaska Diaries, week 6

Pukers Die!!! The Alaska Diaries
[names have been changed to protect the guilty and innocent]


WEEK SIX: Wiffleball and cribbage

Monday (day 36)
Worked! Welded...

We play at the dock in front of Trans-Aqua:
Wild Thing
Crazy Train


Then we played that night at the Nightwatch:
After Midnight (beer commercial version)
Old Man
Long Haired Country Boy
Piano Man
Light My Fire
Horse...
(no idea what this is)
For What It's Worth
U2
(?)
Crazy Love
Higher Ground

The bartender sings a song with us. The "Into the Music" chick hangs out with us. _________ is totally wasted and pukes. I get drunk and call _______.

Tuesday (day 37)
Short day of work.
______ and I go to a local bar that has cribbage night (contest). Totally out of our league. They play without even looking at their cards at all.

Wednesday (day 38)
Medium day of work.

Thursday (day 39)
Really long day of work. Played wiffleball outside the huts.

Friday (day 40)
More welding. Made some sort of fish chute.
Keg of beer! Lots of cribbage.

Saturday (day 41)
Short work in the morning. Went to do laundry out by Kenai. Stood around in my one pair of underwear.

Gig at The Place? Cancelled.

1st night of packing frozen fish! Totally great. Went to Pizza Hut afterwards. Nobody tipped so I had to go back in and leave money.

Sunday (day 42)
Full day of work.

We head down to Nightwatch. Car is shaky.
Sabrina gets kicked out of the club. Angela told on her! (no idea)

Notable songs:
Pale Blue Eyes
songs with full backing vocals (we took their mics)
Drivin' South/Magic Johnson
Can't Get What You Want...
(Joe Jackson)
Billy Joel (?) just _____
Crazy Love also just _____

I drank Robitussin again and smoked pot this time too. TOTALLY fucked up all night. I blabbed on and on to ________ all night.

week seven: visiting my great uncle, getting too stoned too often

The Knicks are now 1-9.

It's been a while since I talked about the Knicks.

I've barely watched 'em at all this season, in fact. I got so used to not having cable that watching basketball just isn't a thought. Plus, the Isiah era's over, so there's not much to write about anyway, right?

I watched some of the Atlanta game the other night, and boy do they suck. Possibly the worst 10 minutes of Knick basketball I've ever seen, and that's saying something. They missed open layups on back-to-back possessions, played defense like they'd been given double-dose lethal injections, and seemed to have absolutely no idea what the hell they were doing.

Seriously, they must be seen to be believed. HOW COULD THEY BE WORSE THAN THEY JUST WERE?! I used to make the same drunk bet every September with somebody that the Knicks would have a winning record after their first ten games. Then it became 5-5, and pretty soon I was just going for 3 or 4 wins. The Knicks are now 1-9, which I never even considered possible for my 10-game bets.

The Isiah Knicks were usually funny-bad, or at least tragic-bad; watching them brought you through an emotional journey of one kind or another. Now they're just weird-bad, which is the worst kind of bad there is. Almost supernaturally bad. I was putting away Jr's bath toys last night, and I missed his bath crate with a rubber duckie four times in a row from about 15 inches away. I was clearly channeling the spirit of Chris Duhon in my very own bathroom. As I watched Danilo Gallinari stagger down the court, I made some stupid joke to myself (aloud) about Darko Milicic showing up, and he did!!! He did because he actually plays for the Knicks (which I'd completely forgotten), but that doesn't make the whole thing any less eerie! The team is fucking haunted.

I wanted to "live blog" tonight's game, but I was so into taking drugs and reading Dr. Seuss to my son (in that order) that I completely missed the game. I'm making a point of covering one of their next games. I'd love to do the Nets next Saturday, but it's at friggin 1pm! I'll keep looking...

Sunday, November 8, 2009

The Alaska Diaries, week 5

Pukers Die!!! The Alaska Diaries
[names have been changed to protect the guilty and innocent]


WEEK FIVE: Working for a living

Monday (day 29)
First real day of work. I loaded bags of salt.

We went shopping for food. Hung out in the huts after "dinner"... talked about smoking mugwort and taking belladonna with a weird guy.

Tuesday (day 30)
Second day of work. Loaded more salt and cleaned some walls.

We played in one of the trailers tonight:

Wild Night
I Wish
Mary Had a Little Lamb
Firefly
Roadhouse Blues
A-Jam
Brown Eyed Girl
L.A. Woman
Proud Mary
Pale Blue Eyes
Needle and the Damage Done
Higher Ground
Foxey Lady
Voodoo Chile
Lemon Song
Can You See Me?
Paranoid
There She Goes Again
Stormy Monday
Further On Up the Road
Sunshine of Your Love
Manic Depression

Some guy played acoustic too. "Jimbo" & ______ squared off. I broke the ride cymbal. ________ is a sick bass player.

Wednesday (day 31)
We painted. ___________ got a complaint on the job.

Our Land's End gig is cancelled.

Thursday (day 32)
Celebrated Summer Solstice at a cool place called "The Crotch." Rasta camp? ________ crashes.

Friday (day 33)
Regular day of work. We go to a bar called "The Place" afterwards. Good jukebox and bar shuffleboard. Free tacos!

Saturday (day 34)
We go back to "The Place" again. Free BBQ! Undefeated in shuffleboard! I piss off people when I play "Venus in Furs" on the jukebox.

Sunday (day 35)
I'm promoted to "Assistant Welder" for $12 an hour.

We play at Nightwatch -- great show. _______ gets totally wasted.

Notable songs:
Stone Free
Bad Case of Loving You
Blues
(with new guy)

The new guy Ryan is a great singer and guitar player. I'm exhausted.


week six: wiffleball and cribbage

Monday, November 2, 2009

I don't like Mondays

[just got to the TV at 8:20 after a non-stop day of logarithms, meetings, Jr's music class, veggie soup dinner & "The Hall-o-weiner." Game is joined in progress.]

8:21 - Looks like the ballgame's been pretty busy too. Burnett's such a damn wack-job!

8:23 - Joe Buck: "Teixeira just literally took a hit away from Ibanez." How else could he take it away?

8:25 - A.J. Burnett must've stepped in dog shit... someone just ran out to the mound with what looks like a gardening spade so he can scrape the shit off his shoe.

8:32 - Cliff Lee looks kinda like an indie rocker... maybe a one-off member of the Unsane or something.

8:41 - JB awkwardly mumbles something about ALS to the effect of "if you've ever experienced the disease, or know anyone who's experienced it..." I sincerely doubt that someone that actually has ALS will feel their spirits lifted by this effort, Joe.

8:52 - Damon works the walk!

8:55 - Can you imagine if Kate Hudson sat in the bleachers (I guess they have bleachers??) at Citizens Bank Park tonight? You could make an entire film just on that.

8:59 - I can't get over Utley without his hat on... total greaseball. He looks just like Gaear Grimsrud!

9:10 - That's it for Burnett. Might be it for Lee, too. What time is the replay of Mad Men tonight?

9:15 - David Robertson should just walk around with a bomb strapped to his chest...

9:18 - Hmmm... how can I make it through this game? Spider solitaire? The nine beers left over from our party on Saturday? The quarter bottle of Delsym in the med cabinet? Hang out with-- shit, she fell asleep. Maybe I'll scrub the kitchen floor. On Ambien.

9:21 - I know!! I'll add some more crap to our FreshDirect order!

9:32 - That was kind of a bust. All I added were some pineapple chunks; I was unable to order the Chipotle-lime chicken w/rice for tomorrow's delivery.

9:33 - Hilarious dugout interview with Joe Girardi: (on Burnett) "Yeah, he didn't have the command he had last game... his fastball and breaking ball weren't working..." He sucked.

9:37 - What a snooze-fest! No, really. My wife's snoring, and I can sorta hear Jr. rumbling away in his room. That Delsym's sounding mighty smart right now.

9:42 - Hmmm... what's in the fridge?

9:48 - OK, I've decided on a tab of Ambien, a shot of Jager, an old Saturday puzzle and a bag of Goldfish crackers. I'll call it The Missouri Compromise.

9:52 - Nice foul-up by JB: "In comes Alfredo Aceves, who hasn't pitched since game 2 of the ALCS on October 17th. Except, of course, when he appeared in game 3 on October 19th and was charged with the loss..."

9:54 - Youchhh! Gardner just slammed into the wall. Swisher came over and checked on him, like "You OK man? Not that we have anyone to bring in for you if you're not, but... you sure you're OK?"

9:59 - They should run a crawl at the bottom of every game with a computer-generated stream of stat-based factoids. Stuff like "no team has ever blown a 5-run lead at home in game 5 while trying to repeat as World Series champs in an odd non-leap year against a team employing a 3-man rotation containing two lefties..."

10:04 - I'm watching baseball at 10pm in goddamn November!!! What the hell has happened to this country??!!!

10:06 - Speaking of civic outrage, I'm officially boycotting tomorrow's election. This shit that Bloomberg pulled is outrageous. The guy he's running against seems even worse, so I'm refusing to vote. I ALWAYS vote (I even voted twice in a single election once... as both a male AND female!).

10:27 - Just wandered around for about 20 minutes. Did a few dishes, had a few laughs. I also ate a giant handful of candy corn out of a bowl in the foyer-- not recommended.

10:30 - God, I hope I don't stay up until 11:30 just to watch us lose by 4 runs. That's just not something I can afford to do anymore.

10:33 - So Utley's gonna hit like 20 home runs in this Series.

10:36 - Cool! Phil "Spruce Goose" Hughes is warming up.

10:37 - Once you have a 3-1 lead in a series, your best bet really is to talk as much shit as humanly possible. In the unlikely event that you actually blow the series, you'll be so utterly devastated that people thinking you're an idiot is the very least of your worries. I learned this lesson in 2004... I skulked around for a week, terrified, when I could been insulting dimwits in varying conditions of vulnerability and having a great time.


10:49 - Whoa... starting to fade a little bit here. I just woulda swore that Mark Teixeira was Ralph Macchio.

10:51 - Some more A-Rod magic! We're only down by 4!

10:54 - My battery's about to go. If you lose me unexpectedly, it could be due to many things, probably all at once. I'm going to get a popsicle.

11:04 - Wow, this Ambien/Jager combo's awesome. I'm calling it The Roadmeister.