I'm back. I haven't been here in a few days because, frankly, I haven't felt like it. I like making money, but I'm not really into this 9-to-5 world. Let's be realistic here: 9-to-5 really takes up about 12 hours of your day, leaving you with very little for recreation before bed. What a dreary lifestyle! Speaking of which, I have to leave for work soon. Happy Halloween, and stuff.

P.S. Following up on my last post, I need to point out that D.C. Everest handed our asses to us 34-6 the other night. Maybe next year we'll get an easier first round opponent. Yeah, right.

The University of Minnesota's football team is 7-1. The Green Bay Packers are 6-1. Both teams have a bye this weekend. Both teams return next week to take on tough opponents (Minnesota plays Ohio State, while Green Bay plays Miami). Think there's any possibility that both will still only have 1 loss after next weekend?

And then there's high school football. Once again this year, Appleton North got paired up with D.C. Everest in the first round of the playoffs. Every fucking year! D.C. Everest! How come North gets stuck with Everest every year while other schools get to take on all these chump teams? I think something needs to be "repaired" in the way the draw is done for match-ups, because right now it seems like the draw is already "fixed."

Another "exciting" Friday night is in the books ladies and gentlemen. I started out the night watching L.A. Confidential with my dad as I waited for Matt and Carrie to call me back. It quickly became apparent that they weren't calling, so I called them. Matt invited me over, but they couldn't think of anything to do. And they were tired. They went to bed at 10 and I left. 10 is way too early to end a Friday evening, so I needed to move on. Figuring Corey and Erik should be out of work soon or already, I first drove by Corey's, but nobody was there. Then I made a voyage across town to Erik's room at the Colonial Inn (a bona fide roach motel if I've ever seen one). He said Corey got done at 11, so we watched the CNN coverage of the Russians storming the theater in Moscow and then drove out to the airport to meet Corey. When he got done we drove to Corey's so he could change clothes and then went to Frank's. We ended up sitting there eating and shooting the shit until 1:30. Then I ran both of them home, drove around town looking if anything else was going down, and then came home. It was nice to finally go out without having to go drinking. It's as much that I mind drinking as that I don't understand why everyone seems to insist that just because we're of age the only recreational activity we can partake in is imbibing alcohol. It just gets old.

Oh to be in the Twin Cities and have money! For one, I just got emails from both the film society and the german listserve telling me that the original 1977 Jakob the Liar is screening this Sunday at the Bell with director Frank Beyer present. And then for two, Icelandair is running a deal right now for $198 round trip tickets to Iceland in November. Of course, that price doesn't include airport user fees, insurance, or post-September 11th security fees, which would add another $100, but it's still a good deal. I'd love to go back there, even in November.

And now how about the shock of the day: Paul Wellstone killed in a plane crash. Wow - I'm speechless here. I don't care what conservatives and Republicans say, he served the people of Minnesota well for 12 years and now, only about 2 weeks before election day, he's gone. It's a sad day not just for all the people of Minnesota, but for the country.

Friday - it's finally here. It felt good not to have to get up and do anything this morning. I like it.

Carrie and I went to The Bar last night. Matt had to work until almost 9 again, but he joined us as soon as he got out. Driving around and heading home afterward my car rolled over 30,000 miles on the odometer. How exciting.

I guess today my brother's birthday. He's 19. Still has a year before he's no longer a teenager. I remember those three years between 18 and 21 - they were the worst. Not like my time until I turn 25 is any better. Insurance sucks.

I made it through the second day of cleaning water-damaged possessions. For a while this morning I didn't think I'd actually finish, but I was bound and determined to finish today so I could have tomorrow off so I put my mind to it and got through. I actually finished about 3:30, cleaned up, and left. I dropped my timecard off right away at the employment agency and the girl there asked if I was interested in going back to IntelliCAM (the sign people) for a month. I figured, what the hell?, it wasn't that bad, so I'm starting back there again on Monday. I requested tomorrow off so I can rest and look for other jobs also.

Thursday is here, but I'm still stuck on Wednesday... as I should be. I went to work on Wednesday at Service Team of Professionals (or STOP, in case you hadn't caught that). Basically, I'm cleaning the dirt and salt residue off some family's belongings that were destroyed when their basement flooded while they were on vacation. I'm not big on cleaning, but it's not hard work - especially when the job only lasts 2 days.

The chica from Cadre called me back today. As I thought they would, Oshkosh Truck had called her and said that they didn't think I'd be the right man for the job. Oh well, I'm not surprised or anything.

I went over to Matt and Carrie's tonight. We three and Ben played a game of Scrabble. I squeeked out a win, but I still don't know how. It's not as if I had a lot of letters worth points. In fact, I had mostly one-pointers. I had more than one opportunity to use all seven letters, but there was just no fit on any of the chances.

I'm not going to dwell too long on the announcing of the MLB Memorable Moments before tonight's game, but Cal Ripken as #1? Come on now! Don't get me wrong - I like Cal Ripken and his is one hell of a streak, but the most memorable moment? Same with McGwire's 62nd - top ten? Hardly. Higher on the list than DiMaggio's 56-gamer or Williams' .406? Yeah, right. And where was Carlton Fisk? Way more memorable than McGwire's 62nd. On the subject, I wonder why Nolan Ryan wasn't in attendance. The other five surviving members of the group were there. And how about the standing-O for Pete Rose? And then there's Kirk Gibson, who looked younger tonight clean-shaven and all than he did 14 years ago when he hit the home run.

While I'm on the World Series, I'm also happy to hear that the Giants won tonight (I missed most of the game). It's not as if I really car which team wins in the end, but I'm a huge fan of series that go to seven games. I love the finality and the tension and the excitement of a winner-takes-all game seven. I hope it gets that far and it's a good game to boot.

With all the money we give to the FBI, can't they afford their own vehicles for transporting evidence? Why do they have to collect evidence into a U-Haul? I see they did it again out in Tacoma. Where is all our money going?

On that, I think I need to head to bed. It's not that I'm tired, but rather that I'm going to be damn tired when I try to drag my ass out of bed in the morning. Ugh....

I just returned not long ago from my interview at Oshkosh Truck. I am now told that the job would actually last into January. It would be working for the service department. Apparently the Marines need their vehicles upgraded and retrofitted for whatever reason, and the bulk of my job would involve doing data entry and spreadsheets to coordinate the right parts getting to the right people so the right work can be done on the right vehicles. I hope that made sense. After finishing the interview, I got kind of a cold vibe. I can't necessarily say that they didn't want me, because I won't know that until they call either myself or the employment agency back, but it just seemed that they were looking for someone with a little more experience. Nevertheless, I hope it went better than I thought it did. I'd have to get up early in the morning to drive to the south side of Oshkosh everyday, but I'm willing to make that sacrifice for the sake of steady and gainful employment.

I spent this morning watching the part of Grand Hotel that I slept through Friday night, and then I watched all of The Great Ziegfeld. After the interview, I stopped at the library, returned the videos, and checked out the next three that they had in on the shelves: Mutiny on the Bounty, The Life of Emile Zola, and Rebecca. I have to work the next two days now, but I'll squeeze them in somewhere. I also have to take the time to do some work on my bedroom again. My mom was getting on my case yesterday because I haven't done any work on cleaning up my bedroom since the first few days after I moved back home.

I just got off the phone with employment agency #1. I have an interview tomorrow afternoon for an administrative assistant job at Oshkosh Truck. It's only a temp job through mid-December (as first mentioned last Wednesday), but it sounds pretty decent nevertheless.

Nine months ago today I had the following to say, and I still stand by it:

Know who kicked ass? The Carpenters - they kicked ass. Don't let me hear you trying to deny it, because we all know it's true, whether you're willing to admit it or not.

On that note, Burt Bacharach and Barry Manilow kick ass as well.

Damn straight.

Following on the heels of my last post, I decided to actually go check out some of the home correspondence schools on the internet. One of my personal favorites is Professional Career Development Institute (PCDI). For $489 I can get my degree in gunsmithing and for $889 I can get my degree in private investigation!

Doesn't it all look so exciting! They'll even "teach [me] the knowledge and techniques used by real-world detectives, private investigators, security guards, and other investigative professionals." They make "learning private investigation easy and fun!" Now how can you beat that?

Last Monday I commented upon the interesting searches that had brought people here. This last weekend brought two more:

• "child abduction expert" + international
• babysitter wanted in appleton wisconsin

While I was at one time a babysitter - albeit not a very good one - I can't say that I have a lot of experience in the field of international child abduction. Of course, once I get my correspondence degrees in private investigation and gunsmithing that all might change.

Employment agency #2 just called a little bit ago and informed me that now the temp job needs me Wednesday and Thursday instead of Tuesday and Wednesday. I'm told they're working on a project and need another day to finish it up.

The temperature outside has begun its daily rise. As a result, the snow has turned to rain. The snow that had collected earlier first turned to slush, but now it's just melting away and making a mess.

Link is sitting on the top bunk of my bed looking down on me all evil-like.

I know he doesn't look totally evil in the picture, but that's because he quit looking so damn evil when he saw me dig out the camera. He's a sneaky little bastard.

I also just ate. Not knowing what else to make, I decided to make a tv dinner. I need to inform the people at Swanson now that pudding in a tv dinner is not a good idea. Brownie = good. Pudding = not good.

I should think my parents found a galleon filled with milk, because our fridge is currently filled with the motherload of milk. There are only 3 of us living here right now, yet we have 4 gallons of milk in the fridge. When are we going to drink all that milk? Is there a run on milk? Is an increase in the cost of dairy products imminent? Is Link going to jump down and attack me or is he going to just shoot evil death rays from his eyes?

Good morning everyone. I awoke this morning, strolled to the picture window in the living room, and and was quite surprised to discover that we were getting a bit of precipitation this morning:

     
Snow!

Hmmm... maybe I should have raked and mowed the lawn yesterday after all. Oh well.

Here it is Monday, part of my pseudo-three-day weekend. I say that because I worked a temp job on Friday and I have another tomorrow, but nothing today. As for today, I'm pretending that I have a lot to do, even though I don't.

I guess I haven't written in a couple of days. Friday night I ended up just going downstairs and falling asleep watching Grand Hotel. My parents left a little before noon on Saturday to go to my grandma's and the wedding. I rather predictably wasted away most of the day watching tv. Matt called Saturday night, so I went over to their place. We played our closest Scrabble game ever (I beat Matt by only 2 points, while Carrie was very close behind). We also watched Shallow Hal, as they had rented it from Family Video. It was... uhhh... awful - to put it lightly. It hadn't expected much from it, and I hate Jack Black, but I think it still managed to underwhelm me. That man needs to just shrink back into obscurity so he can one day be both a trivia question and nostalgic pop culture reference. As for Gwyneth Paltrow, she needs to never be encased in a fat suit again. And Jason Alexander needs to lose the rug. Anyway, I ended up being at their place until 3. Then I came home and plopped down on the couch in the family room to fall asleep before the tv. Oreo scared the shit out of me by wandering through the house yelping just as I was dozing off. She awoke me again at 9 Sunday morning doing the same because she wanted to be fed. Once again Sunday I watched tv all day. I started out watching the Bears-Lions game. Then I started watching the MLS Cup, but got so pissed off at the poor and quite biased officiating - am I the only one who thought Franchino should have had 2 red cards within the first 30 minutes? - that I had put the football game back on. At 3:15 the Packer game came on. It was rather boring, but thankfully the Redskins are god-awful, so it allowed the Packers to improve to 6-1 and now take a 3.5 game lead in the division. I later fell asleep watching the World Series game and stumbled to bed after it got over.

I could go for some food right now. I didn't really eat a real meal yesterday. In fact, I haven't eaten a real meal since lunch on Saturday. I didn't dinner Saturday night and yesterday I picked up some donuts while buying milk in the morning. I had the donuts for breakfast and never ate another meal all day. Mmmm... food.

I picked up a temp job on short notice for yesterday and today. Still a little woozy from my night out Wednesday night, I was awoken Thursday morning by a phone call at 8:30 from employment agency #1. Pierce needed someone to collate materials and stuff envelopes for two days. I was their man. I got there by 9:30 and met up with another temp they had hired for the same purpose. Strangely enough, I would later discover that this other guy is a fellow Minnesota alum, film studies major, and Comstock resident. Hell, I even lived there at the same time as he did (but didn't know him). So at least we had plenty to talk about. Apparently Pierce sends out info to all 1500+ employees in their Appleton plants annually about health care plans and options and we were brought in to collate the stacks of materials, label envelopes, and stuff envelopes. By 4 o'clock today we had probably collated about 1350 packets and stuffed at most 150 envelopes. Either they'll have to bring in temps again on Monday for somehow finish it all themselves.

In between there somewhere I met up with Matt and Carrie and this girl Carrie works with (I think) at The Bar last night. Then we went back to their place, played one round of Clue, and I was introduced to a remix of "Witch Doctor" (which I subsequently had in my head all day today) in one of the versions of DDR. I think I was home and in bed by about midnight. No actual plans yet for tonight. I've called everyone, but nobody's around. I'm not sure if I feel like going out on my own, but on the other hand, I don't really want to sit home either. What a waste of a perfectly good Friday night.

Please don't mind my typing skills as I might be a little more intoxicated at the moment than I thought I was.

I went out tonight. Yes I did. I started out the evening at Matt and Carrie's. We played Scrabble and then watched the "Clerks" cartoons. Then I left there and they went to bed. Next I went to The Bar and drank a beer. After that I went to Dr. Jekyll's. I saw Trixie's car parked out back, so I figured I knew people inside. She was talking with Justin, who I graduated high school with and whose face I sort of remember, but I don't really know him. Squishy was also there, so I sat talking to him until he left at midnight. Then I joined Trixie and Justin. They left at 1, but by then Troy had arrived, so I moved over and joined him. I sat around talking to him for a while. He's apparently working at the BK on Wisconsin now (the one at which my cousin Annie is the manager). Toward the end of the night Eric came over and talked to us. I don't remember Eric's last name, but he's a former neighborhood guy. He apparently had moved out to Vail, but moved back here for about a year to see his family. He told me about how he works nights over at Lawrence. He also told me current stories about Ben (my best friend in elementary school). Boy, talking to him was like reliving old times. We were at Jekyll's until bar time at 2. Now I'm home. I wish I could think of more fascinating things to write, but my mind isn't working that way at the moment. The one thing I wanted to mention is that Troy told me Cock ESP is playing at his house November 22. Sounds pretty sweet to me.

The Post-Crescent is hardly the place for stimulating intellectual journalism. The paper itself is practically the brainchild of Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter, but apparently lacks any sort of copy editing. Of course, the paper just reflects its audience, and admittedly the people around here are rather conservative. In fact, they're not just conservative, but rather they're the ones who give other conservatives a bad name: they're the ignorant bastards who are more worthy of being bombed off the face of the Earth than Saddam Hussein. The letters to the editor section is filled daily with local nuts proclaiming the evils of abortion and gun control and homosexuality and anyone who isn't a Christian. I bring this up because there was of late a debate in the Neenah school district over whether the high school should officially recognize the Gay-Straight Alliance. Of course, all the ignorant bastards have to hop to their keyboards and type up their diatribes denouncing the Satanic evils of homosexuality. To their defense lept one Rev. Tom Hutt from Menasha. Of course, he was instantly demonized by the conservative Christians in the area, so he wrote in again. His letter published in Monday's Post-Crescent is perhaps the most intelligent letter written by a Christian into the paper, and so I feel like I need to share it with you all. It's nothing groundbreaking, but it is true.

Editor, The Post-Crescent:
John Steeves (The P-C, Oct. 3) took exception to my letter of Sept. 10 supporting a Post-Crescent editorial exposing the flawed reasoning of Supt. James Wiswall in his rejection of the Neenah High School Gay-Straight Alliance application for official recognition.

Steeves does not seem to realize that the message of love that Jesus exemplified and preached is the message of God's holy word. His message of love transcends the Old Testament and even the words of St. Paul, which Steeves referenced in his letter.

Jesus says absolutely nothing on the subject of homosexuality.

With the aid of our reason and the guidance of the Holy Spirit, we must discern what is truly God's word in God's Word and not just assume that we are obligated to do everything that is in the whole text. For if we did, we would be burning witches and stoning disobedient children to death.

Mr. Steeves is certainly presumptuous to claim to know the mind of God.

Now why can't all Christians have the brains to look at things like this like Rev. Tom Hutt?

I just got a call from employment agency #1. They might have a job for me. It's only temp, but it pays $10 an hour and would run through mid-December. I hope they want me.

Just like weapons, a day unused is a useless day. So far today has been largely useless. I raked up a pile of leaves and watched Patton, but I don't believe I can account for most of my day. I just got out of the shower and I'm taking advantage of nobody else being home by sitting around nekkid. My mom ought to be home soon though, so I should probably contemplate tossing on some clothes within the next 10 minutes.

The old lady across the street is beginning to freak me out. Ever since we were little she used to sit in her window and watch us. If we even placed one foot on her lawn or sat in her snowbank she would be at the door screaming at us. Since the last time she fell down the stairs she's not as mobile as she used to be. She still finds time though to amble up to her front door with her walker and stare across the street at me. She doesn't call me over anymore, but even if she did I'd probably just ignore her. She also used to pay me quite handsomely to come over, do yard work, and listen to her ramble on and on about being a lonely old woman. Even though it was good money, I had to quit helping her out because it was just getting too creepy. I don't know what's going to happen when she finally kicks the bucket - although I hope she literally "kicks the bucket" like in It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World - but hopefully we get some young and vibrant couple in there instead of some creepy old woman. Sheesh.

The University of Minnesota is right on pace to return once again this bowl season to the Internet.com Bowl. With the requisite 6 wins we should have enough, but to book our spot we need a win in East Lansing this Saturday. That game is of vital importance as we follow it with games at #4 Ohio State, home against #9 Michigan and #16 Iowa, and then finish in Madison against Wisconsin, who was ranked since preseason, but fell out of the national rankings this week after falling in consecutive games to #21 Penn State and Indiana. While Michigan State is hardly a pushover, a win against them would be our best bet to pick up a 7th win and guarantee a winning record. Oh, I can just imagine the football team and throngs of marching band members making the long trip to some exotic locale for the holidays like Boise or Memphis to showcase our team's mediocre talent and get the school free computers again.

After sitting on the computer all afternoon and evening and being fairly bored I decided that I needed to get out. I hopped in my car and started driving around town. I headed west first, then I decided to find this place I'm working at next week. Then I drove back through town toward my house coming from the area of Prospect and 41 and through downtown. While stopped at the intersection of Oneida and Wisconsin I saw this beat-up old BMW drive past on Wisconsin and I thought to myself: hey, that car looks familiar. I turned and followed it and sure enough - it was Trixie. I followed her all the way to her house and pulled into her driveway behind her. She was coming from Jekyll's and was on her way home to get some sleep before having to take a test in her Western Civ class in the morning. We stood out in her driveway for a good 45 minutes, maybe even an hour, freezing our asses off and talking. Then I let her go and I came home. I figure I should get some sleep soon, but still having a fair amount of energy in me I wanted to kill it off before attempting sleep. Hopefully the cats will let me do it in peace.

Since Twins billionaire owner Carl Pohlad refuses to ante up any part of his own vast fortune to cover team expenses and pay salaries, it seems that the Twins are having to raise ticket prices again for next season. Thankfully, they're being raised at a small enough rate that we can still afford the games. The only important ticket prices to note are upper GA, which are going up to $6, and lower GA, which are going up to $14. Student nights will still be $3 for upper GA. I guess I can afford a $1 increase in ticket prices for as few games as I'll be able to go to next summer.

I'm hardly taking my last post to heart here, but what's wrong with you fellow online people. I've been running searches on KaZaA nearly constantly since the middle of this afternoon and not once has anyone posted a copy of Weston's "Clumsy, Shy." At one point or another I've found copies of every other song on the album, but I haven't found anyone with that particular song. I think these people just lack any sort of taste for music.

Instead of going downstairs and watching movies again as I had originally planned, I've sat upstairs on my parents' computer in the kitchen (they have a CD-RW drive and I don't) downloading music and checking out other people's websites. Oh, and if any record labels were looking to prosecute me or search my hard drive, I just thought I should inform you that I have everything that I've downloaded today on lp, but I wanted to download the mp3's so I could burn a cd and listen to them in my car - so there. Anyway, the point that I meant to get to is that I haven't really written anything interesting lately. Of course I knew that, but it hadn't really occured to me until I started reading other people's sites. Lately I've been writing any random crap to fill in the lonely voids left by unemployment and living in such a boring little town. I've replaced quality - assuming I ever had quality - with quantity. I'm not really apologizing, because I have no need to apologize to anyone, but I am a bit disappointed with myself. Now I have myself confused.

Hey hey hey everyone! I'm back with another edition of my daily banter. Time is flying by and Halloween is nearly upon us. You'd think it was already here judging by my house. Over the weekend my mom hung up all the Halloween and Thanksgiving decorations, so now our house is decked in oranges and browns and yellows. Goes well with our Tupperware that dates back to the late 70's.

I'm now one movie short of being half-finished with my goal to see every Best Picture Oscar winner by the end of the year. I've watched 36 of the 74 so far and I intend to make Grand Hotel #37 this evening. I'm currently making my way through them chronologically, which I figured made the most sense since there were so many of the early films which I had never seen. Of the ones I've watched in recent days, the most disappointing was probably Cavalcade. It's just not that great.

I almost forgot to mention that I got hooked up with a job for two days next week. On Tuesday and Wednesday I'm working at some place that cleans up people's possessions which sustained water damage from a fire. Well, at least that's what the chica at the employment agency told me. Hey - it's a paycheck. I tossed my application and resume in at a few other places such as the credit union and the library also, but I'm not especially confident that I'll even hear back from either one of them.

We have an all-California, all-wild card World Series and I must bid you all adieu.

Forget that idea about linking to our sponsors on the trivia site. I just ran several search engine searches and found that only 3 of last year's sponsors have website anyway. As for the 2003 contest, I just looked at the WLFM site and see that they list the official dates as January 24-26, so as I said earlier, there are 102 days until showtime. Hope everyone is getting ready and making travel arrangements if necessary.

It had been a while since I had last checked the tracking of how people found their way to this website. There are some which just baffle me. Among the recent visitors' search engine searches:

• "anthony frederick" email@"
• "Marty Roth" -racing -martian -spam -"bent -wind"
• "marty Roth""university of Minnesota"
• Desi Relaford's music label

There are also extensive hits from people seeking out info on the Twins and on the mini-bobbleheads. I also must say that I'm rather amused with the hits from people seeking out info on Marty Roth (especially the one who didn't want info on racing, martians, or spam). I also get a lot of people in search of blueflower, which mostly surprises me, because I wasn't aware that that was a very popular search topic.

On the other hand, the Too Much Trivia in the Pants website has seen a mysterious drop in visitors in search of strange keywords. While a few have actually been in search of us (no, really!), most have been seeking out our sponsors, which leads me to believe that linking to the websites of our sponsors might be a good idea. We did lose all the free publicity of people seeking out "Too Much Booty in the Pants" though, as I moved discussion of that from the main page. It seems that the search engines these days are all too concerned with crawling through a page's content and none of them read into the keywords listed in the META at the top. Grr... what a waste. Anyway, there are only 102 days now until trivia, so I hope everyone is getting pumped.

I'd be lying if I didn't say I was disappointed that the Twins were eliminated yesterday, but even so I can't deny that it was a hell of a season nevertheless. I never expected the team to do so well and get all the way to the ALCS, so now I can only look forward to next season. It's not as much the fact that they got eliminated yesterday that's so hard to take, but rather the manner in which they were eliminated. When they put up those three runs in the top of the 7th, and with the bullpen they had this season, I figured for sure we were on our way to a game 6. Funny how things change. Imagine if Adam Kennedy's sacrifice bunt hadn't rolled foul... Pierzynski throws him out, Spiezio and Molina each move up a base, and the Twins still lead by two runs with one out and runners on second and third. Even after Kennedy hit his third homer in the game, I mean, c'mon! - we have Hawk and Romero in the pen, right? Anaheim putting 10 runs on the board in the 7th was just unimaginable until it actually happened, and even now I'm still in shock. If the Twins were going to go down though, I'm happy it wasn't without a fight, and I'm happy it was against a team who looks to be a real threat to win the World Series. The Angels played well throughout the series, they have a great pitching staff with some nasty stuff, and they seem to have discovered some bats in the postseason that I think even their biggest fans didn't know they possessed. So anyway, congratulations to Anaheim and their fans and I wish them good luck next week.

And now with the Twins season done I can turn my full attention to the Packers. How 'bout 'dem Packers? 5-1 now after crushing the Super Bowl champs on their own turf yesterday - and as my dad commented several times, what a poorly marked turf it was. Other people can say what they want, but the truth of the matter is that the Packers are playing with only one partially-healthy starting db and patchwork offensive and defensive lines. Even so, they picked off Tom Brady yesterday 3 times (bringing the defense up to 19 takeaways on the year), held the Pats to negligable offensive numbers, sprang Ahman Green for another 100 yard day rushing, and only allowed Brett Favre to be sacked but once. I'd have to say it was a pretty good day. The Packers, my high school (Appleton North), and my university (Minnesota) have a combined 3 losses between them this season (one loss each). Not bad, if I must say so myself.

On a final note, I need to wish Annemarie a belated 23rd birthday. Happy birthday Annemarie!

Unlike yesterday, when I really can't recall what I actually did all day, I've tried to be a little more useful today. I filled out and mailed my application for the library job this morning. I picked up my check from work, deposited it at the bank, and then came home and decided to finally pay bills. Now I just finished writing the letter for Rick. It almost seems like a full day even though it isn't. What I need to do now is find a stay-at-home mom with whom to go out for a daily walk. I see them do it every day - there are getting to be more and more homemakers in this area and they all seem to go out walking in pairs everyday. I'm hardly a homemaker (more like a homewrecker), but still I need to go out for these walks. Don't worry, Mary Kay won't get involved.

Okay, yeah, so I knew they'd probably lose 1 or 2, but I just wanted to pretend it wouldn't be true. One thing that would make a big difference, and I see Molly noticed this too, would be if Jacques Jones would get a hit or two. The problem is - and it seems nobody is taking to him about it - that he wants to kill every pitch. Instead of only swinging at good pitches and instead of taking singles and doubles when the pitchers are giving them away he is hacking at everything. Word is already out among the Angels pitchers: throw three pitches in the dirt and Jacques will swing at all three. When he does finally connect, instead of laying a nice pop into a gap, he hits a high pop fly to one of the outfielders because he's trying to hard to hit homers instead of just taking bases. With the pitches he's been getting this postseason he'd have a BA somewhere around .400 minimum if he'd just take a few singles and doubles. The Twins aren't the Yankees, but Jacques seems to think they are.

Anyway, Friday night we get Milton on the mound - I erred yesterday after reading somewhere else that Radke was going to start on Friday and Milton on Saturday - and hopefully we can turn this sucker around again. At least 1 win this weekend in Anaheim brings the series back to Minnesota next week.

I just finished downloading, uploading, and configuring Movable Type 2.5. So far, I don't see any differences, but maybe there are some "behind the scenes" things I just haven't noticed yet. Hmmm....

Now that I was let go yesterday from the temp job that I had been working I have a little more freetime currently to regain perspective. The first thing I am taking note of is the fact that I'm hungry, for which reason I shall keep my comments today reasonably short. Aiding this is the fact that there is a giant spider somewhere in my room that has kept me from sleeping in my bed the last two nights. I woke up Monday morning, turned on my lamp, and saw the spider crawling on the bedpost near my left foot. I popped up, found the first visable shoe, and went to kill the damn arachnid, but by that point it had already sought shelter and I haven't been able to find it again since. As I believe it is still crawling around somewhere in the vicinity of my bed, I refuse to sleep there until I can locate it and kill it. Ugh - I hate spiders.

On to a slightly less shriek inducing topic, how 'bout 'dem Twins? I have to admit that before the game, I didn't give them a chance in hell of beating Mulder and the A's out in Oakland, but Radke was insane, the righties stepped up (it had to be Hocking's best game of the season by far), and then Pierzynski and Ortiz came alive in the 9th. As much as he's a fan favorite, Guardado gives every Twins fan a minor heart attack when he steps out on the mound. At any rate they won, but since I never expected them to get this far, everything they do now is just gravy. That takes us to game 1 of the ALCS. Even though it was such a close game, with Mays on the mound I never worried until Eddie came in in the 9th. All the newspapers wasted the "A-Mays-ing" headline on the game where he outduelled Pedro, but they should have saved it for last night. If Radke was insane in game 5 in Oakland, I don't think words can suffice for Mays' performance last night. Wow. If Reed can win tonight, and knowing that the Twins have Radke and Milton coming up for games 3 and 4 respectively, I have to tell you that I'd be pretty confident in our chances of sweeping Anaheim and going to the Series. Before I get there though, we do have to get by a pretty tough Angels team that made the Yankees - no matter how much I hate them - look like a AAA team.

I complained during the division series to several people about how the Twins were relegated to ABC Family because Fox didn't want them. After watching last night's game, I am now longing for Joe Morgan and Jon Miller on ABC Family or ESPN. I mean, at least they talk about the game and act like professionals. Those two morons we had last night were apparently taken straight from a frat house out on one of the coasts. Early in the game all they could talk about were the rubes who live in the Midwest. Of course, throughout they had to carry on with the usual banter about playing in Metrodome and the ceiling and the turf. It's not as if the Twins play the regular season at Midway Stadium and move to the Dome just for postseason. 81 games a season get played there in the Metrodome and the ceiling is not as big a factor as they make it out to be. It's also not as if these other AL teams have never played there either. Oakland played 3 games there this year (and even won 2 of them) while Anaheim played 6 games there. They know this stadium. They just make it out to be much worse than it really is. Sure, we'd all rather see the game played outdoors and on real grass, but this is what we have and this is how it's played. Enough already. At any rate, it's reassuring to know that Minnesota and Anaheim are so important that they've been relegated for game 2 to Fox Sports Net in favor of the NLCS.

Hmmm... that brings up another point - namely the Twins being blamed ever so briefly for the small crowd in Oakland for game 5. The announcers said that the Twins aren't that big of a draw, but I should like to turn the tables and point out that 56,000 people have to been attending the games in Minneapolis, while only 35,000 were showing up in Oakland. We support our team, it's the fans in Oakland who must not support their team.

I have to get back to last night's game again briefly and complain once again about Fox. At one point they wanted to advertise a part of their website which featured keys for the series written by Rex Hudler and Bert Blyleven. First, when it flashed on the tv screen, they spelled Bert's name "Byleven" (neglecting an "l"). Now, I look at their website page they were advertising, and the link to it has his name spelled "Burt"!!!! (See below.) The people who work at Fox are a bunch of morons! I do see that after clicking the link, they have his name spelled correctly. For more on Fox's opinion of the series, there was this article in the Strib.

Okay, enough complaining about Fox. I need that food of which I spoke earlier.

While I was quite proud to be able to watch the Twins beat Oakland today 11-2, I was even prouder to watch the Angels knock those cocksucking Yankees out of the playoffs. Much congratulations and thanks to Anaheim's players, coaches, and fans. I wouldn't mind the Yankees so much if baseball were a more level playing field as is the case with leagues such as the NFL, but we all know that Steinbrenner is now going to go and buy half the players from the Angels, A's, and Twins. Well, at least any of them who can hit 30 home runs a year (fielding skills are optional). Anyway, at least a deserving team will be in the World Series and not the Yankees.

In a completely unrelated, why do so many people not want to start their nights until 9-10 o'clock? Now, I can understand if you have to work that late, but if you're just sitting around until then, what do you do in the mean time? Watch tv? Drink? Smoke up? Jerk off? I'm confused. Bored with sitting around, I'm thinking about going out and doing a little light drinking of my own until others are ready to par-tay. Sure.

I've stayed away for the better part of 5 days (not counting that little post yesterday morning) not because nothing has happened, but rather because I just haven't had enough ambition to sign on. Between this job I'm at right now and a roller coaster of events outside of work it's difficult to build up additional ambition when I have a free moment. At any rate, I'm here now, so I might as well write something.

How 'bout 'dem Twins? 1-0! Working until 4:30, I didn't get home until damn near 5, but luckily I only missed the first 4-1/2 innings. I'm not sure if I should be disappointed about missing the opening 2 innings or relieved. I must admit that Eddie had me a little worried in the 9th, but thankfully they pulled through. Most surprising to me is the choice of pitchers for this postseason. While Radke starting today didn't surprise me, Hudson did. Why would you start a righty against the best hitting team against righties in the AL? It especially becomes more confusing when you take into account how poorly the Twins have hit off of lefties this year. As for tomorrow's game, why are the Twins starting Mays instead of Reed? I know Mays is a great pitcher when he has his best stuff, but right now I don't think he does. On the other hand, Reed has been pitching awesome as of late and deserves the start more. I didn't hear who's supposed to go up against Zito on Friday, but I sure hope it's Reed and not Milton.

Okay, away from baseball now. Last weekend I did a lot of drinking. Hell, I started before the weekend. Thursday night Matt, Carrie, and I went to The Bar and I downed a few pints of Leinie's. Friday night Corey and I went to Jim's Place and I downed a few bottles of Rolling Rock. Saturday was Octoberfest here in Appleton, so you can only imagine. I went downtown with Matt and Carrie about 2. First I had a couple of beers and a tiger paw. Then Carrie spoke with the spirits and I had another beer. Then we gorged at Friar Tuck's. Then I lounged on the couch while Carrie dowloaded anime and Matt chased the back-up food supply. Then we went to The Bar, I downed a whole bunch of more beers and an order of wings, and I gave the waitress my phone number so Matt wouldn't punch me. Sunday I stayed home and watched the Packers squeek out a win. Erik called Sunday night, but I was so drained from the previous few nights that I decided to stay home. Yesterday I left work early because I had a cold that was just killing me. I came home, doped up on cold medicine, and watched All the King's Men and Annie Hall. Today I doped up on cold medicine before going to work so I could work a full day. After coming home I watched the remainder of the Twins game before going to GW for dinner with my mom. Now I intend to go downstairs and watch some more movies, but I need to check my email first.

There if anyone was really interested, now you know what I've been upto the last few days. Ta-da!