TAILSKID - T = me

I was whining to sr_orangepants Friday about how I had to spend a Saturday afternoon watching 0-7 Ball State play 0-6 Eastern Michigan (attendance was listed at about 1,500). I considered live blogging it to help me cope with the dumbass-ity of all, but he said that it might end up being an exciting game. (There were some moments it would've been cool to live-blog, but most of it would've centered around the inane prattle of one guy from the student newspaper ... who was sitting next to me and might've looked over, wondering what I was doing, so I'm kind of glad I didn't.)

And, as he pointed out after I got back, it was historic. How many football games have you seen where one guy rushes for 300 yards and another guy on the same team rushes for 200? (I think it's a first in NCAA history.) Where a team wins despite the quarterback going 2-for-10 for one yard and an interception? I also saw Eastern give up a first down on a third-and-28 (on a running play, no less) and a blocked punt go through the uprights ... both firsts.

The only reason it was even remotely relevant on a national scale was for the "Stan Parrish Futility Watch," as Pat Forde termed it. In his past 35 games as a head coach before Saturday, Parrish was 0-34-1, the "1" being a 10-10 tie against Kansas in the Toilet Bowl "Sunflower Showdown" of 1987. (Only Eastern can lose this type of game...)

I was hoping there would be fewer Ball State writers there ... greater chance of me asking the question to get the quote that Pat Forde or Stewart Mandel used. Had a couple bites at the apple, but got beaten to the punch by one of the Ball State guys, who got interrupted when Parrish saw where the question was going.

(Note: I later learned the guy who asked the question was not a Ball State guy, but Greg Couch, who, like Jay Mariotti, quit the Chicago Sun-Times to write for AOL Fanhouse. Two similarities to Mari-snotti is two too many for me ... I thought his column had a few low blows, a few inanities. Decent, but I wouldn't call it good.

Anyhow, I thought his response was interesting. Maybe I'm the only one, but I think it's worth a look. (Or maybe I just want you to watch the (critically praised) follow-up I asked.) :) 14:00-16:00 on the video below.



Jason

First, it cracks me up how the media (Oh God, now I've become one of those people) made such a big deal about Obama pledging to end "Don't Ask Don't Tell". He promised this during the campaign! Almost a year later and still nothing but talk! Write a story when he does something! I'm starting to fall in the spherulitic "I'm done with him ... what's the point of all this 'Yes We Can' talk if no, we can't?"

Interviewed Eastern's homecoming king (and queen) for the November issue. While talking to the king (a fellow 'mo ... yay, EMU), I commented that I graduated in 2006. "Me, too!" he said. I paused, wondering how long he's been an undergraduate, then I realized. "No, graduated from *here* in '06." I feel almost as old as ftangredi...

Jason

Quite a good one.

Spent Friday with the family, mostly good except for watching the Twins/Yanks tragedy. Also spent the night learning/solidifying Collins threes. Finally feel like I know them all, although I will definitely have to review some more.

Saturday afternoon I went to volunteer at the Discilanti Open, a disc golf tournament at my apt. complex sponsored by my magazine. Kind of underscored one of the minor frustrations I'm having ... I figured it would be bad form to not show up, so I asked my "boss" (who helped organize it) if he wanted me to volunteer. Said he needed X volunteers, had Y (X>Y in this equation), so yeah, of course. I show up at the appointed time Saturday. I'm told to sit tight while he finds a place for me. 15 (awkward) minutes later, he comes back and says that he job he was going to have me do doesn't need to be done. (My boss isn't the most organized person in the world.) If I'd known I wasn't needed, I might've played the South Lyon tourney (won by my "daughter", Carolyn Easter, with a 5-3 record). Perhaps a lost opportunity. Ah well.

So, I just went to my apartment, did (very) little cleaning, had a good Collins session on ISC (except for a blown endgame and nearly losing by forgetting WEXE#) and went to Jeff Fiszbein's house for after-tourney poker. Took third of eight, profit of $10. Stayed so late it was past midnight by the time I got to waiting4beckett's birthday party at Sidetrack. Lots of fun there, then a quick turnaround as I had to get up early in the morning, drive east from Ypsi to meet the family again, as we were going to Steelers/Lions.

The fan split at Ford Field was about 50-50, which reflected our group. Mom, sister and I rooted for Pittsburgh; Dad and sister's boyfriend wanted Detroit to win. Good stuff.

Jason

Wow, I've nearly let all of September go by without posting here. Damn Twitter. Damn Facebook.

There has been some stuff I wanted to post about here (like that I decided not to get a new car and replace the engine in the old one; or the bidding strategy in Ken Jennings' loss, which I finally got to see when J! replayed it the week before the new season started), but I've been too lazy/unmotivated.

Saturday was cool; had breakfast with the parents (Mom cooked French toast), then to South Lyon for a good session at Jeff Fiszbein's (two games each against him, ipecac_icecap and hector31). Then to mooinabox's for a birthday fiesta, where I saw bcw for the first time in almost a year; great to catch up with him, watch people dance (some drunkenly) and play Rock Band/Beatles Rock Band.

Sunday was my first time dealing with an NFL Sunday without a TV. Well, I have a TV, but I'm thinking about saving money/cutting out one time waster by just not subscribing to cable and not getting a converter box. I can always watch "House" or "Hell's Kitchen" on-demand on fox.com or "Law & Order" on-demand on nbc.com. Plus, I'll be able to watch all Lions homes games online since they'll all be blacked out. :) I ended up watching updates on my laptop and getting little done. Wah.

Finally, from somebody's finger notes on ISC:

"fat people use the word 'metabolism' to justify their girth & your lack thereof. they never use the word 'gluttony'."

I made some semi-controversial comments about weight fairly recently that maybe weren't the smartest thing to say. I would regret it immensely if anybody thought that my ideas aligned with this psycho f*cktard.

Jason

Ah, Twitter. Whereas earlier my car troubles would've merited an angst-y LJ post, now it's condensed into a 160-character message. I'm learning conciseness yet! But there are some things I wanted to post about in a longer form.

( Car )

( Grandma )

( Work )

Jason

Probably should be locking this, but here goes...

( A confession of sorts )

Jason

P.S. I changed my Twitter name to JasonIdalski. Should be the last change.

Today was my first day at emYOU, but it didn't feel like it. In part because I'll be in Lansing until at least the end of the month, I'll be working a lot from home, etc., etc.

I did take my Twitter crash course, though ... some idiot already took tailskid, so I took tailskid_t (as in tailskid - t"). I'm still disappointed. The only two LJers whose Twitter names I could remember were spherulitic and millcake16. So, like, friend/"follow" me. And stuff. I won't use it often, except that I'll just post my facebook status from TweetDeck. And my mid-tourney meal break texts to sr_orangepants, ipecac_icecap et al. may become Tweets. Only problem is that my phone doesn't have Web access, so I'd have to upgrade my phone run to my laptop. Would be nice to do for Can-Am and beyond, though.

(Speaking of, why did my life have to become complicated now? Can-Am was going to be hard enough even if I had all the preparation time that I wanted; now I'm setting myself up for an RPD-in-'07, Goatcher-in-'05 1-13 or Sherman-in-'02 2-10.)

I've not as happy about life as I should be; I've had this general malaise that I can't shake. Not post-Nationals depression (although it always happens) so much as the fact that was Dayton was, to coin stmonday, "the crappy gift that keeps on giving." Especially the sh*tstorm I managed to insert myself in the middle of.

Watching WWTBAM and thinking that this could've been my episode (especially since the person who won the first fastest finger (which I would've got) is a magazine editor who was recently laid off ... not only that, but I know who sang "not 'Hold Me Closer, Tony Danza'" and what McCain-Feingold is; and the second FF was fairly simple too).

Soon (tomorrow?), I'll make a long introspective (perhaps FO) post that may surprise some of you.

Jason

( I can haz job! )

( So many positives... )

( One big negative )

( Of course, I have to relate this to my Scrabble obsession )

So yeah, life in a nutshell now: I go to Dayton to get away from it all for a few days (I'd hoped this would be finalized before the tourney, but there was a snag involving the apartment complex). I was supposed to start in September, but then I get called Monday night asking to start ASAP. Mom and Dad call to tell me my insurance certificate expired Aug. 1 and I need the new one. Two people e-mail me about potential job leads. Other personal crap going on. It's a wonder I was able to keep my mind focused on Scrabble (for the most part)...

Jason

"Millionaire" did not call today. Pfui. Now now. Whatever. Furthermore, I locked myself in my apartment (on a beautiful day out), paranoid that I'd miss the call if I went anywhere. Then instead of doing productive stuff, I instead hit the refresh button on the WWTBAM Bored about once every five minutes and looked at the British Open leaderboard so much I could practically recite it verbatim. Then I had to listen to some punk born in the '90s who's already been on two game shows tell me to relax, that I had little shot of getting on anyway. Not exactly what I wanted to hear, to be perfectly honest.

Furthermore, instead of pretending I wasn't home when I heard a knock at the door, I opened it and let myself get talked into buying a $79 three-year magazine subscription (because I'm a spineless people-pleaser like that), which I will cancel for a full refund tomorrow, screwing the guy out of his reward points (because I'm passive-aggressive like that).

The main reason is that I can't justify spending $79 on a magazine (no, not even for $1/issue). I wanted to book my Singapore tickets shortly after getting paid last week in part because I knew I could pay for them in full and still have enough left over ... until I remembered MvO expenses (entry fee plus hotel for one night) and Dayton expenses (because I'm not flying, I just totally forgot how much entry fee, hotel, etc. would cost). No biggie, just have to withdraw from savings, which I knew I had to do at some point anyway. But it's just a reminder that my (relatively) care-free spending days from out of college are over.

Despite the b*tchiness of the above, life is actually pretty good. Tomorrow we're celebrating Dad's birthday (it was Tuesday) with dinner at BD's and watching "Harry Potter 6" (in some order). Saturday morning, they leave for New York and my nephew's baptism while I head off to Findlay for the long-anticipated Michigan vs. Ohio Scrabble tournament/grudge match, which should be awesome (even though I wish I could go to N.Y.). Really can't complain.

Jason

Just met with a friend from college who's doing OK, but not good or great. Near the end of our conversation, he said something really insightful: "Everybody I've talked to hates their job or is out of a job and looking for a job. Man, when we graduated, we thought we'd be living life by now." True. Not that we underestimated the complexity of post-college life (although maybe we did), but three-plus years after graduation (for me, anyway) we probably figured we'd be set. Now so few of us are, myself included.

In that vein, I saw an ad for a copy editor (sports, too, I think) at the Asbury Park (N.J.) Press. Did some research on it, saw it was Gannett. Went to the Gannett Blog and saw more layoffs are coming this week. Hoping my friend Kathryn and all my Lansing (and Battle Creek, for that matter) comrades survive, as unlikely as that may be.

On the bright side, I got a good job lead out of it ... just not the one I was expecting (which was working for his company).

My "accomplishment" of passing the WWTBAM phone game looks more like it was borne out of luck/an easier set of questions than skill. I realized, though, that a lot of my life's luck recently has been used up playing Scrabble and I haven't exactly gotten a lot of luck in other areas (of course, I haven't exactly been making my own breaks either).

Watching "Trivial Pursuit: America Plays" and the following sequence:
Question: "Who holds the record for most consecutive starts by an NFL quarterback?"
Contestant in control: "Peyton Manning?" (No.)
Contestant who buzzes in: "Bob Dylan?" (I laughed. "Timed out" buzzer sounds as third contestant declines to answer.)
Host: "Joan Baez."

No, I am not taking acid. That's some pretty crappy editing, me thinks. The most dumbass thing I've seen on this show since the contestant a couple days ago who was asked to name three of the 13 colonies, named two, paused and said: "Philadelphia?" *headdesk*

Jason

A day after depositing it, my Canadian money order/check cleared, zero problems. Thanks for the advice, dallaswj!

Did better than I thought on the USPC: 36th and top 10 percentile in the U.S.! Apparently picked most of the low-lying fruit and one or two higher ones wasn't so bad after all. One or two more right would've given me a "modest prize" which went to all U.S. participants in the top 25.

Took the WWTBAM phone test tonight, with no expectations. Passed! Woot! Selected July 30 as a tape date (to not interfere with Dayton), so my "lottery date" is July 16. If I'm walking on the ceiling at Michigan vs. Ohio, you'll know why. :) Anyway, here are the questions/answers:

( I still got it... )

I kind of wish it had been more difficult. May be a lot of people in the pool at the end of the ten nights. Still good to get it out of the way and not go into next Monday 0-for-7 and facing pressure.

Jason

-The phone game for "Millionaire" is back! Let's hope I don't go 0-for-10 and can put myself in the contestant pool.

-Wii-ing. My mom's birthday/Father's Day was on the same day this year, so they split the cost of a Wii as a gift to each other, along with the balance board and Wii Fit. Been doing pretty well at three Wii sports: Tennis (getting the hang of it playing the computer after my sister beat me last night), Golf (+5 for nine holes today, including a triple- and quadruple-bogey ... a goal is to play nine holes in E or better), Bowling (two games in the 190s ... 200 and the family record should follow soon). :)

-Scrabble, as always. While that stupid Helfgott game at Arden seems to have zapped my mojo (I'm still looking for it after a mediocre session Friday), I did have some cool stories to tell. Chuck Armstrong beat me 503-477 in a game which would've been 489-489 if I'd played the correct endgame (however, if Chuck had played the correct endgame from the point where I emptied the bag, the best I could've done would've been the 503-477 loss). Jeff Fiszbein and I had a game in which he played nine vowels; I played 32 (and had an I when he made his out play). His only E was used to play FENNY on his opening rack. I played two with three in the bag; pulled II and left R. If I'd left an I, he wins.

-Federer winning grand slam title No. 15. (Never thought I'd say this, but I feel badly for Roddick). Such a lazy weekend allowed me to take the next set of 1,000 bingo racks in probability study and go from 50% correct at first pass to 95+% now. Studied during Venus/Serena and Tigers/Twins yesterday and today from the second set through about 6-6 in the fifth set, where my focus shifted. :)

-The hope of freelancing the World Series of Bowling for the Free Press. As you can tell from the schedule, though, it conflicts with Dayton and Can-Am. I may have to miss Dayton for the opportunity, but if Can-Am conflicts, I'll just stay on unemployment. No way I'm missing Can-Am. Of course, it all may be a moot point. We'll see.

Jason

( Can I afford it? )

( Canadian money orders and the people who get them )

Jason

I've almost posted here like three times this week ... in the end, nothing too interesting to say, though.

One of the like five obstacles that prevented me from HO-ing this year was that today is not only Father's Day, but my Mom's birthday, too. This morning the four of us went to church, a rarity for me as a "lapsed"/"C and E" Catholic. Two of the hymns ("How Can I Keep From Singing?" and the more contemporary "All The Ends of the Earth") were two of my favorites, even if the new music director did a lousy job on them (IMHO). The guest priest's feminist-ic sermon was interesting considering 1) it was Father's Day and 2) had little to do with the readings, which were about God/Jesus calming storms.

Took Mom out to dinner last night. So, like jigsawn, disappointed I'm not in Hartford but glad I'm here. Happy Father's Day to all the Dads out there, notably baxwest.

Pretty sure I did a lousy job on the 2009 U.S. Puzzle Championship (ftangredi, I should've warned you not to call between 1-3:30 p.m.). I was hoping for a decent showing to have something to come back at sr_orangepants with after his "look at me, I was in the top 10 percent in the World Quizzing Championships"-ness.

I've done it five out of the past six years (I missed 2008 because it was on the same day as the "24 hours of awesomeness", a.k.a. mooinabox's wedding ... happy anniversary, you two!). The only year I did anything noteworthy was 2005, where I finished behind 27 of 434 Americans and 45 of 642 people overall. That's looking like a fluke where the puzzles just happened to be up my alley.

Think that's it for now. Peace out.

Jason

Out came the razor today. Gone is the playoff beard. I hate not being able to last one more day, but I felt like I had to.

At least I lasted longer than sneakyofverb... :)

Jason

Well, except for a canoeing mishap with stmonday. Between that and the flat-tire-at-the-Cleveland-Classic thing, I don't think we can do anything together by ourselves anymore. :) River in Ohio whose name I don't know, I'll get my revenge next year, mark my words!

Anyway, the mishap left me with:
-Very wet clothes (eh, they'll dry)
-A slightly deformed leather wallet (eh, now it has "character") :)
-A scrape on the knee (eh, didn't break the skin, no blood)
-A bruised ego (eh, it's used to it by now)
-Missing Crocs

The last one is kind of irksome ... them and my oar went whipping downstream as I got my bearings. The oar got recovered later, at least. Eh, the Crocs were an impulse buy, I hardly wore them, they didn't fit right anyway. (Why did I buy them in size 9 when I wear a size 10 shoe? Seriously, I can't remember why.) Sour grapes, yes, but I'm debating whether I want to treat myself to another pair.

And oddly enough, the canoe trip was one of my highlights of the weekend ... some of my favorite stories came from it.

Sucked to miss mooinabox's Rockband party. Lauren, I thought of you! Saturday night we watched like four hours' worth of "Don't Forget The Lyrics!" re-runs ... not as good an imitation, but kept my singing voice warm for the next one. :)

Scrabble content!

Yes, tiles were thrown down. I've pieced together that my record was 6-5 (7-5 counting a Racklash win, 8-6 counting that and a Woadwage split), pretty meh. No offense to any of my companions, but this wasn't exactly a re-enactment of my Arden Cup schedule. But, I did make one cool play, seen below. Hate to brag, but since I only make a cool play once every three years (wink, wink), I wanted to share. Check it:

Jason: Turn 10
   A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O      Opponent                 xxxxxxx   212 
   ------------------------------  -> Jason                    AEILNRT   276 
 1|=     '       =       '     =| --Tracking-----------------------------------
 2|  -       "       "       -  | EOREUSAGIMSDIYDNOOUAELOOREIMNTTZ  32
 3|    -       '   '       -    |
 4|'     -       '       -     '|
 5|    D O C           -        |
 6|  "     O "       "       "  |
 7|    '   X   P H T       '    |
 8|=     C A V I E       ' H A J|
 9|  G U L L   ' R A V I N E s  |
10|  "   U   Q       "       "  |
11|    Y E T I         -        |
12|' D O - E     P R I N T e R S|
13|  A W   F   B E '       -   W|
14|  K     F " E     "       - A|
15|=   E A S I N G       '     B|
   ------------------------------

Well, our project's deadline was Wednesday, and after working 9 hours last Thursday, 9 hours Friday, 8 hours Saturday, 9 hours Monday, 9.5 hours Tuesday, 9.5 hours Wednesday and 8 hours today ... finally finished! Yay for a big paycheck filled with OT pay! Boo for not having any days to myself since a week before Arden ... behind on life again. But yay for having a week-plus off to catch up! Yay for being rid of loo-loo and ree-ree co-workers! Yay for the Pittsburgh tournament and Tigers/Pirates games next weekend!

And yay for hanging out with ipecac_icecap, squeegman, et al. this weekend! (Boo for having to miss mooinabox's RockBand party, though.) Yay for nature and going tech-less! (Although I hope to get text updates of Wings/Pens game 5 and French Open finals!) :)

Jason, always happy to have more yays in his life than boos

Oh yeah, the 1,001 list I started August 24, 2006 ... the 101 days ended May 22. Yay for not paying attention. Bolded commentary for some of the unfinished items.

( The list )

Jason

Robin Soderling?! ROBIN SODERLING?!?!?! *That's* who ends Nadal's reign of terror at the French? Robin Soderling?!?!?!?!?! Heck, I picked Ferrer to beat him last round in my suicide pool.

No Nadal, no Djokovic. It's now or never, Fed!

Good to see the Wings take game 1, but I predict a Penguins win tonight. Comes with the TMQ guarantee: All predictions wrong or your money back.

Interesting fact I read in the Free Press a couple weeks ago: Of the four conference finalists (Detroit, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Carolina), Detroit's Mike Babcock is the coach with the longest seniority. He's the only one who was coaching his team at the start of the season.

Yay for Brian!

Jason, who can't wait for the playoffs to be over so he can shave off the "scraggly" (as dugy1001's mom put it) beard

Really tempted to call in sick to work on Friday; instead I spent the vast majority of my shift wishing I was elsewhere. Hopefully I banked good karma, at least. :) Then I treated myself to a sit-down dinner/24 oz. margarita while reading facebook wall posts (I say this every year, but I really need to do a better job of reciprocating with birthday wishes ... it's really not hard to type out 15 characters) and had a few drinks at the Track with mooinabox and waiting4beckett.

This weekend, I went to the 60th birthday party of my good friend/copy editing mentor, and in the process saw a bunch of people I worked on the college newspaper with who I haven't seen in years. That was cool. Also went to dinner at bd's with my parents, which included me being forced to wear a large tin foil hat. Still fun, though. Also found out how much I don't know about redessence (Jesse, teach me how to curl!) and otherwise wasted time on the intarwebs, as per every weekend I'm not at a tourney.

Public congrats to spherulitic on the new peak rating! :)

Jason, who was about to settle in and watch a "House" re-run that was probably new to him until he saw it's the "24" season finale. Phooey. Perhaps I'll do something productive.