As Good Once As I Ever Was?

I was a decent basketball player in high school. I stood 6'3" and weighed about 170 pounds (though for some strange reason my coach insisted on listing me at 6'5" and 200 pounds... it was kind of awkward when we were lining up for free throws during games and the opposing players would ask me where the 6'5" guy was). I played center, because when you go to a small and crappy high school 6'3" makes you one of the tallest players on the team. We had a couple of guys who were 6'8" a few years behind me, but they hadn't discovered their coordination yet so they were pretty useless and they spent most of my senior year on the junior varsity team. I blocked a lot of shots (more due to "quick" ups than to "mad" ups), and was a league all-star in my senior year. I suspect part of the reason I was named an all-star was so I could drive our point guard, who was a legitimate all-star, to the practices which were held about 90 miles away from our town. I could also dunk a basketball. The first time I dunked was after the season, at an all-star practice while finishing a three-man weave. I was 17 years old. Prior to that, people watching would tell me I was up high enough to dunk but I never actually had. I blamed my inability to palm the ball but the issue was probably more mental than anything else. It seems the higher level of competition pushed me a little further and I finally got over the mental hurdle. I wasn't doing any lifting with my legs at the time, figuring that since we were required to run with the cross-country team to be on the basketball team, that was enough of a leg workout. We did have a requirement of squatting 275 pounds to be on the team, and so my high school squatting career consisted of one rep at 275 pounds.
The last time I remember dunking was in college, on the backyard hoop of our frat house. I was probably 22 at the time, still 6'3" and up to about 205 pounds. I was doing a lot of lifting back then, but as all college dudes tend to do, I was focusing on flat bench and to a lesser extent curls, and pretty much neglecting everything else. Hey, the flamingo look (or "prison legs" if you prefer) was in vogue. I believe the frat house rim was an inch or two above 10 feet, and I was able to throw down pretty hard on that rim. Several years before, during my pledge semester, I unsuccessfully attempted a dunk in a very aerodynamic outfit, but that is a story for another time.

I'm 36 years old now. It's probably been 7 years since I've been on a basketball court in any sort of competitive setting. And I'm going to dunk a regulation basketball on a regulation rim by the end of calendar year 2008.

I have not done any dry runs of any kind. I have no idea if I can even touch the rim right now. I think I'm still 6'3", and I know I'm still right around 205 pounds. I've proven I can dunk at these dimensions. If anything, I'm probably carrying the weight better than I did in college - people who haven't seen me since then often comment that I've gotten bigger. Keep in mind this is with pants on. I'm not sure those p3nis enlargement pills actually did anything.

I've also never been stronger, at least not as far as my legs are concerned. I certainly don't bench what I used to (though it is hard to tell what your max is when you're only doing dumbbell presses on a fitness ball). But I do leg presses on a consistent basis and at a significant weight. We're talking plates here. One on EACH side. So I'm the real deal. Ditto on the calves. They're in fine shape.

The diet's also pretty good, mostly high-protein and low-carb with the occasional $10 Taco Bell run mixed in on hangover days. When I'm really into it, I'll go so far as to drink only vodka rocks when I'm out, in order to further reduce sugar intake (note that this is vodka with ice, not stones made out of vodka). It's that sort of staunch determination that's going to see me through on this quest. I'm also willing to shave my legs to pick up any sort of aerodynamic advantage that might offer. Hell, a chick in my 9th grade science class is convinced I was shaving them back then, and she said it loud enough to convince the rest of the class.

With all these factors in my favor, I don't see how I can fail. Except for the 14-year hiatus between dunks, that is. How much fast-twitch muscle have I lost? Well, if my friends are to be believed, pretty much all of it. When I brought up this notion to them, the response was fairly uniform. I wouldn't exactly call it overwhelming support, and if I had to try and put it into words, I'd say they couldn't reach for their wallets fast enough to bet against me, and some even asked if they could run to the ATM first.

According to the CBS Dunk-O-Meter, last year Eddie Jones dunked three times for the Dallas Mavericks at age 36. At 6'6", Jones has me by three inches, and probably more like six counting arm length. He also has the insignificant advantage of being a world-class athlete. 32 year-old Andre Miller dunked once last year at 6'2" and 200 pounds. 26 year-old Kyle Korver, the first white guy on this list, is 6'7" and he dunked only once last year. But then again, his game is more about lurking near the three-point line and looking like Ashton Kutcher. Sam Cassell on the Boston Celtics might be the best physical comparison at 6'3", 193 pounds and 38 years old. He doesn't show up on the Dunk-O-Meter, but you'd think he could still dunk unopposed in practice. In any event, it's a bad, bad thing when Sam Cassell is your best physical comparison. Because that means that E.T. is your next-best physical comparison.
Cal Ripken Jr. is 6'4", and he participated in a celebrity dunk contest at age 34. He managed to successfully dunk, but also stated that "I'm at that age, in basketball, where the legs are taking you down instead of up." I submit to you that this statement doesn't apply to me; you see, Cal Ripken Jr. was a baseball player, whereas I am an athlete. Ed Norton is 6'1" and he dunked in 1998 at age 29. Woody Harrelson is 5'10" and he dunked in 1992 at age 31. I've got a height advantage on both of these guys, and they're pansy actors and not high school all-stars.

Even chicks dunk: "Georganne Wells of West Virginia was the first woman to dunk in an NCAA game in December 1984. Candace Parker [6'4"] in 2006 became the first woman to dunk in a women's NCAA tournament game. Lisa Leslie [6'5"] was the first woman to dunk in a WNBA game in 2002. In 2008, Candace Parker became the second woman to dunk in a WNBA game on June 22. Other well-known female dunkers include Cheryl Miller [6'2"], Charlotte Smith [6'0"] and Michelle Snow [6'5"] (who did this in the 2006 WNBA All-Star Game). Many of the women in the WNBA dunk during warm-ups and practices." I used to see Lisa Leslie working out all the time at the USC rec center. She can't leg press for squat. I am way stronger than she is. Plus I'm a dude, with a Y chromosome and everything. We're just better than they are at physical stuff. If you don't believe me, ask my black belt ex-girlfriend what happened when she tried to fight me. Didn't hit her or anything, black belt or no, but she was pretty darned ineffective all the same.

I'm going to do this. I'm not going to jump on boxes at the gym, or buy any strength shoes or anything like that, and I'm still going to do it. Agree? Disagree? Strenuously disagree? There's a poll on the right.

The rug is not always cleaner on the other side

Like my blogger in crime, you may not have a wife and kids like I do. And with these wives and kids you do not have, you likely also do not have the dogs, minivans, plastic toys, and mortgages, that seem to accompany you when in this stage of life. So let me give you a quick look at what you are likely missing out on. Don't get me wrong, marriage and all that comes with it is the best.

My lovely 1-year-old Yellow Lab, Barkley (shown at the right as a 2-month old puppy, damn cute I must say), started making these horrible "OH $#%&, I'm about to boot" heaving sounds at 4am last night. About a nanosecond later I BOLTED out of deep sleep and bed trying to corral her outside. Son of a bitch. It was those damn meat bones Uncle DB gave the dog last night when we were visiting his house. I KNEW this was going to happen. My adrenalin rush had slowed time down enough for me to think through these details as I sprinted down the hall, a similar phenomena to what fighter jet pilots talk about when engaged in melees over the pacific. My lovely wife then helpfully yells at me from bed "USE THE FRONT DOOR!", but alas, I had already committed to the sliding door off the family room, which leads to the back yard.

Even in my heightened state, the door lock mechanism slowed me, and during the excruciatingly long 3 seconds it took to open the back door, Barkley hurled all over the family room rug. AH CRAP. Nothing like the sound and smell of someone throwing up right next to you, dog or human, it's both disgusting and slightly bonding. Time-speed then returned back to normal for me, and I let the dog out into the back yard where she vomits a little more, and I made a half ass attempt at cleaning up the stomach contents left from my dog on our family room rug. I thought I had done an admiral job of at least attempting to address the situation.

Of course when I return to bed the whole fiasco was looked at as my fault, as detailed by my wife at 4am, for not using the front door as she had suggested.

YOU SEE? It's the best. Without a wife, how would I be able to learn from such mistakes in life and improve my behavior? I probably would have gone right back to attempting to let imminently vomiting animals out the back door. And where would that leave me? Right. More dog vomit on the rug. Man, thank god for marriage.

Yar's Revenge

You may remember my friend Yar the compulsive Facebook status updater. Well, it seems Yar is at it again. Remember, these are actual Facebook status updates from an actual person, but Yar's name has been changed to protect the innocent. Gosh, I hope he's innocent.

It has been a rough few days for Yar. Things started off normally enough. Another typical day at the office for Yar...

Yar is at work. 4:33am

Yar has customised his Bowling Buddies character. 5:26am

Working hard or hardly working once again, I see. But things quickly took a turn for the worse...

Yar just learned his grandmother passed away, looking for flights back home... 8:40am

Yar, ever the dutiful grandson, arrived home the next day...

Yar is HAPPY AND SAD to be home. 2:41pm

And made the best of things...

Yar had a great day with family! 6:46pm

Yar is thankful for the friends and family he has... Thank you! 9:05pm

Although grateful for the time spent with family, the situation was far from ideal...

Yar misses his 8Mb pipe.... dialup sux. 9:20pm

And grandpa was having a tough go of it...

Yar spent all night in the hospital...grandpa wasn't feeling good.... I pray he will be ok. 6:43am

The second grandparent often dies soon after the first, as each is often the other's reason to keep on living. Yar's sadness began to mount...

Yar will miss Grandma.... RIP Grandma!!!! 8:03am

But Yar stayed strong for his family, even as he was coming to grips with his own mortality...

Yar turns 36 today...feel like 26. 8:20am

Yar won't let anything happen to grandpa on his watch!! 9:28pm

And Yar found inspiration in his grandpa's plight and his deep sadness...

Yar just wote a poem...check it out on my wall. 11:48pm

But the next day Yar just got sick of the old bastard.

Yar is hanging Grandpa... 10:52am

Lies, Damn Lies, & Statistics

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(Information current as of 10/22/08. All rights reserved. This blog entry may not be reproduced or rebroadcast without the express written consent of Oscar De La Jolla, Wood Dog, Kark Hungus and Richard I. Box. This has been a Clog N' Blog Production.)

Reasons Why I'm Single: #397

I'm a dork. I know it, you know it, every chick I've ever dated knows it, and a few of the animals in the more accessible cages at the San Diego Zoo know it. Those animals also know I'm a sexual deviant, but it is up to the government to make that case so I won't go into it here. As a testament to my dorkiness (and because people don't really like me, but computer games can't ignore me), I've usually got a computer game of some sort going. However, my computer is a laptop and it's getting a little long in the tooth so it can't really handle a lot of the games being made today. Also, many of today's computer games are these online "massively multiplayer" games which require interaction and cooperation with other people, which sort of defeats the purpose of me playing a computer game. So lately, I haven't had anything going and I got a little desperate. I own an Xbox 360, and I ventured on down to Fry's Electronics to see what games they had there on deep discount. After digging through the bargain bin, I came home with a little title called Blue Dragon.

Now, Blue Dragon is a role-playing game but it is a Japanese role-playing game, which seems to be its own subcategory of these games. The game is in English and all, but I guess it has what you might call a Japanese "sensibility" to it. Which is another way of saying I don't know what the fuck is going on in the game. Apparently the Nippon are really into this sort of shit, and I might need to start hanging out with them so I can begin to understand this game. Here's what I know so far:

There are these three kids (two boys, Shu and Jiro, and one girl, Kluke). They have gigantic heads (like Josh Brolin) and eyes and they look like they're about 11 years old but the manual says they are 16 or 17. As you can see from the picture, Shu has kick-ass Japanese videogame hair. These kids live in a village in the desert. By village, I mean a small area with about 4 buildings. The three kids, their families, and maybe 2 other people seem to live in this village, for a total of about 10 people. So the village they live in is a lot like Blythe. There is no discernible economy in this village, very much like the U.S. right now in that regard. Every year for the past 10 years, purple clouds form and a "land shark" swims through the sand under the village and destroys the village with its metal fin, which sticks up above the surface of the sand. When this happens, the people of the village climb up onto a platform they've built above the desert floor. When the land shark is finished, they go back down and rebuild the village. It hasn't occured to anyone to move the village, or to rebuild the village on the platform.

Before the latest land shark attack, the three kids were exploring the Ancient Ruins near the village and they constructed a large metal net from metals they found in the Ruins and use that net to capture the land shark by snaring its metal fin. However, the land shark broke the net and the three kids fell with the land shark down a hole into the Ancient Ruins. There they meet a purple dude on a hovering chair who has a little sidekick who repeats everything the purple dude says. He reminds me a lot of the little creature who was Jabba the Hutt's sidekick in Return of the Jedi. The purple dude threatens to kill the children, and they run away into the Ruins chased by robots. Then they find a drilling machine, but none of them knows how to drive the drilling machine so they can't escape. A voice tells them to swallow the globes of light that just sort of appear out of nowhere and they can use the magic of the globes to drive the drilling machine. So THAT'S how you get kids to swallow your "globes of light" - Lord knows promises of Jolly Rancher candies isn't working any more. Anyway, the kids swallow the globes, and this gives the kids blue shadows which fight for them and cast spells and stuff. Then the kids run into a whiny half-cat child called Marumaro who is always screaming about nothing in particular but who also has swallowed a globe of light and whose shadow kicks the most ass of any of them in combat. Turns out the cat's village has been made sick and so it has been looking for the cure in the Ancient Ruins. The four of them find the cure and go back to the cat's village in the drilling machine (which they can now drive since they swallowed the globes of light) but the cure doesn't work. Turns out it is a false cure, but one of the children's parents is a doctor and she remembers her parent curing a similar illness with a particular flower, which can only be found in the Forest of the Dead. So they go there, fighting poo snakes along the way. In case you were wondering, poo snakes are snakes made out of pink feces. After the cure is obtained and the cat's village is cured, the cat people all get together and do a dance of appreciation, and then the three kids and the one cat set off for the Valley of the Mural Monsters. But they can only enter the Valley if the cat people do another dance in front of the stones at the Valley's entrance.

So, so far so good. But I've got a few questions:

1. What am I supposed to do with Mystery Part Alpha?

2. Does that fucking cat EVER stop talking? If I hear "Woweee!!! Shu, those Robots are kicking your ass!!!" or some other such crap one more time I'm putting my hand through my TV.

3. What am I supposed to do with Ancient Phonograph? Use it to "spin" house music at the cat village town hall? I still haven't found any Ancient LP's...

4. I've also got Broken Part of Eternal Engine. Who's going to pay to fix it? Was Eternal Engine under warranty? How did an Eternal Engine break in the first place? I mean, isn't it eternal? IT SAYS SO RIGHT IN THE NAME!!
5. Is the Pirate Queen (see above) a 9 or a 10? (The manual says she's 20 years old so this is a totally legit question.)

Saturday Noggin' Live

After a trip to the Bay Area this past weekend, I was doing a little catching up on my Tivo'ed items. Entourage still sucks. Got about halfway through Good Night and Good Luck which is decent so far but I'd say it got noticed by the Oscar committee for its leftist "taking on the government"-ness as much as for its quality. The Mad Men episodes are still piling up and though I have heard they are good, I haven't gotten into watching them yet. Same thing happened to me with Flight of the Conchords.

In addition to Entourage, I usually watch SNL on a weekly basis. This is mostly because recording it in HD takes up a significant portion of my Tivo storage space, so I need to clear that space or I risk missing a recording of Robot Chicken.

This week's host was Josh Brolin, who stars in Oliver Stone's recently released film W. Brolin managed a decent line in his monologue (paraphrasing: "I recently starred in a movie about politics in the United States. It was called No Country For Old Men and it was about John McCain.") but was otherwise pretty forgettable. Except for one thing, that is. The size of his noodle. MY GOOD GOLLY. We are talking pumpkin on a toothpick here. That's no moon, that's a space station. I mean, the man's head on his body looks like an oversized Taylor Made driver head on a graphite shaft, and trust me it was absolutely terrifying in HD:

Granted, the dude's married to Diane Lane:

And before that (and maybe during) he's probably laid more pipe than Joe the Plumber, but if you ask me, I'd rather be anonymous and have a head without its own gravitational pull.

Sunday Quick Hits

The purpose of this blog entry is to record some thoughts that have been creeping and crawling around in my head. Or maybe its just because we're woefully behind pace on our October blog entries.

PAC-MAN FEVER. Dallas cornerback Adam "Pacman" Jones was involved in another altercation earlier this week. Not terribly surprising, considering the Pacman's history of getting into dust-ups at "scrip clubs" and just general lawlessness. This one was a little unusual, however, since the altercation was with one of the bodyguards hired by the Dallas Cowboys FOR THE PURPOSE OF MAKING SURE THE PACMAN DOESN'T GET INTO ANY ALTERCATIONS. The Pacman apologized to his teammates for bringing on unintended controversy and vowed it would not happen again.
I'm not sure I believed him when he apologized after the Las Vegas scrip club shooting by taking out a full page ad in the Nashville Tennessean, promising "he'll win back trust" of his teammates and fans." "To my family, teammates, coaches and fans, I recognize that I have lost the right to ask for your patience and understanding," Jones wrote. "However, I will do everything in my power to regain your trust and respect."

And I didn't really believe him when he sent his letter to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell asking for reinstatement to the NFL. "Over the past year and a half, I recognize that I have made mistakes and have not lived up to the standards expected of a professional athlete. However, with the help of the NFL and the Dallas Cowboys, I feel that I have turned a corner. I assure you that I will not repeat any of my mistakes."

A-ha! This time he didn't repeat his mistakes. Getting into a fight with a team employee assigned to keep him out of fights is a completely new mistake. And I'm betting it will be the last mistake. I'm pretty sure the Pacman has cleaned up his act for good. And I'm also pretty sure Charlize Theron is going to come to my door wearing only lingerie in 5 seconds. And 4... 3... 2...

DUNGEONS AND DRAG-QUEENS. There's a "game" on Facebook called Dungeons & Dragons: Tiny Adventures. You create a hero and choose its class (fighter, wizard, etc.), choose its equipment, and send it on adventures. There's little to no interactivity (like many Facebook games) so its not that fun - its a lot like watching a random number generator that only rolls every 10 minutes. However, I did get a good laugh out of the game when my hero, the aptly named Jerkface Buttsucker, found a powerful new weapon - a Flaming Rapier. Buttsucker and his Flaming Rapier; I don't know if gets any gayer-sounding than that. That is, unless Buttsucker happens to find a Teabag of Holding...

OBLIGATORY HOT CHICK PICTURE AFTER A GAY REFERENCE:

Whatever happened to Brandy from Joe Dirt?

OWN IT TODAY. Matrix Revolutions and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull are bad movies. I know this for two reasons. First, I saw the movies. Second, advertisements for the DVD versions of these movies focus on "owning the trilogy" or "completing the collection." Selling the forest instead of the tree? That's a bad sign...

I MAY BE LEGEND, BUT I AM NOT SMOOTH WITH THE LADIES. Watched I Am Legend the other day. Basically, a cancer-curing virus has mutated and pretty much wiped out the Earth's population. There are a few remaining "normal" people, and the rest of the survivors are super-strong zombie types who are killed by ultraviolet light. Will Smith is a normal survivor living alone on Manhattan and trying to find a cure for the virus. Decent movie, full of logic holes (there's no way that dog survives for three years without being on a leash) but reasonably entertaining nonetheless. So, about 3/4 of the way through the film, a woman and a boy find Will Smith. The woman is a latina from Sao Paolo, so she complies with the Immutable Law of Interracial Movie Relationships. This Law came about because the flyover states are offended by certain interracial relationships, and this in turn could hurt the box office. Basically, black guy and latina woman = OK (see Will Smith and Eva Mendes in Hitch); white guy and black woman = OK (Kevin Costner and Whitney Houston in The Bodyguard); black guy and white woman = not OK (with some exceptions, but not in blockbuster-type films). Seeing as how Will Smith is whiter than I am, I don't know why this law still applies to him, but it seems to nonetheless.
Anyway, the chick has been traveling around with this boy, and although she thinks she's heading to a colony in Vermont to link up with additional human survivors, it is pretty clear she hasn't seen or interacted with anyone but the boy in quite some time. The boy isn't old enough to have gone through puberty, so she hasn't seen a man in three years. I imagine she's raring to go. Will Smith hasn't seen a woman in three years, and I'm going to go ahead and give him the benefit of the doubt and say he hasn't been having sex with his dog so he's got to be raring to go as well. They get to talking, and the chick is saying things like "It was God's will that I found you." Perfect opportunity for Fresh Prince say a few things about fate bringing them together, how they might be the last two people left on the face of the Earth and do you want to go out with a bang, stuff like that. Personally, I'd have told her that she's probably not as hot as the chicks in the Vermont colony - shots at the old self-esteem always work like a charm, and I gotta think that even the last woman on Earth is a little insecure. No matter what he says though, its a freaking layup. I mean this chick made him bacon and eggs after saving his life and stitching up a nasty knife wound in his leg. I think its safe to say she's into him. There's probably only one way for him to screw this up, and that is to pick a fight with her, and maybe get into a religious discussion. So what does Will Smith say? THAT SHE'S WRONG, THERE ARE NO SURVIVORS AND THERE IS NO GOD. Will Smith completes the self-grenading by getting pissed at her for cooking the bacon because he was "saving it." Well he sure ain't gonna be makin' any bacon with that kind of game.

Adventures in Facebooking

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, there was a website called Facebook. You may have heard of it. If not, go check it out for a second. We'll be right here when you get back.

In a nutshell, Facebook is a site oriented toward adults, for keeping in touch with people. Because emailing them or speaking with them on the phone is too difficult. Myspace could be used for the same purpose, and I've even dated someone who maintains a Myspace page and she was totally normal and age-appropriate (and darned attractive I might add). However, that site is generally thought of as being younger, more immature, more ghetto, and more pedophile-friendly. I've actually got a Myspace page, and my three nephews, aged 5, 10 and 12, are my Myspace friends. I figured I'd stay in touch with them that way, since they are on that site all the time. However, considering my Myspace name is "Creepy Uncle" and my nephews are my only Myspace friends, I think I can see where the Myspace pedophile concerns come from.

Here are a few things that have happened to me during my short stay on Facebook:

EPISODE I: THE PHANTOM FRIENDSHIP

As you may know, I am a member of a popular online dating site. Note that it is the site that is popular, and not my profile on the site. Actually, that isn't true. I get all sorts of emails and comments about my profile, and some of them aren't from the website administrators, the FBI or libel attorneys. I have noted, however, that a lot of the emails I get are from persons who don't meet my "requirements". For instance, I received an email yesterday from a rather attractive blonde woman. When I checked out her profile, it showed that she has two children living with her at home. I don't have a long list of initial deal-breakers (though am a master of finding things wrong with people once I am dating them), but preexisting children are on that list. In fact, preexisting children ARE that list. I don't know if I want kids, but I do know that I don't want someone else's kids.

Anyhow, I emailed a chick on the online dating site who lives in San Francisco. It was very late (very early actually), and I had maybe had a few cocktails earlier and was in a mood. I've pretty much conquered my drunk dialing problem (though I still have a problem with drunk booty texting from time to time), but I decided it was a good idea to go ahead and send some dating emails out. Because if you're going to piss someone off with drunken emails, why not have it be a total stranger who definitely won't want to date you once they see what you're really like on the weekends. I am going to make a fortune selling breathalyzer locks for people's cell phones and computers, I shit you not.

So a couple of these chicks did respond, but one of them did not. However, I did get a Facebook friend request from her a few days later. What's that about? Is this how we let people down easy nowadays? I don't like you in that way, I just want to be friends, not actual friends but Facebook friends, which means I will have no further interaction with you after I click the "Send Friend Request" button. I wasn't all that interested at first, but rejecting me? That's hot. Now I'm pretty sure she's my soul mate. She's not heard the last of me.

EPISODE II: ATTACK OF THE STATUS UPDATES

I've become Facebook friends with a dude I knew in high school. I recognized his name but I don't remember much about him. Except that we dated for 3 years and he dumped me right before Senior Prom. Kidding. We didn't break up until the end of the summer after senior year, because we both headed off to different colleges. Kidding again. I had Driver's Training with the dude, meaning he, I and one other person all shared the same "Student Driver" car with our instructor. We never dated, but I did get rear-ended by him a few times. Kidding again. It was a Hummer. Not the student driver car, but the act. But that doesn't mean I'm gay, because *he* was blowing *me*. Right, Pedro? TOTALLY KIDDING, by the way.

I'm not here to name any names, so let's just call this dude "Yar". You know, like in Yars Revenge. Except a whole lot more like the dude's first name spelled backwards. I haven't kept up with Yar over the years, but through the magic of Facebook status updates, I now know exactly what Yar is up to at any given moment. So here are a couple of days in the life of Yar, though if you are my Facebook friend you probably already get this crap published to your Wall or News Feed or something:

Yar is working... 5:15am

Yar traveled to Valley of the Dead in Elven Blood. 5:19am

Yar had to travel to the Valley of the Dead for work? Holy shit! Yar's job sounds pretty dangerous!

Yar is listening to a pointless conference call. 6:36am

You know what they say: "Dead men tell pointless tales."

Yar needs to go into a different line of work. 7:24am

I told you the Valley of the Dead sounded dangerous.

Yar is having a Birthday Party on the 17th.....who's in? 9:03am

Yar is heading home.... 12:58pm

Almost four hours and no responses to the birthday invite... sucks, man. I'd go home, too. Find a pillow and cry it out.

Yar is going home.. 3:55pm

Dude, you were leaving three hours ago! We really need to work on your organizational skills.

Yar is playing Elven Blood.....not doing well LOL. 7:01pm

And on to the next day in the life of Yar...

Yar can help with any IT related issues you may have :). 12:56pm

But if you have Elven Blood related issues forget it. Yar totally sucks at that game.

Yar is going to dinner with friends. 3:16pm

Unlikely, based on the Birthday Party response.

Yar is looking for a 4th for golf saturday. 3:24pm

Incidentally, he's also looking for a 2nd and a 3rd for golf Saturday if you're available...

Yar is working hard or hardly working.... 4:58am

I see from Facebook that Yar is married. My question is, why? With lines like this Yar should be out there killing it! A new chick every night of the week! Poor, shortsighted bastard.

I hope Yar doesn't read this blog. There's a Yars Revenge joke here but I can't make it funny so we'll just move on.

EPISODE III: REVENGE OF THE RANDOM HOOKUP

On Facebook, one of the first things you do when you "friend" someone is to check out their friends. That way, you see if there are other people out there you should be "friending", or if they know any hot chicks. In fact, the chick from Episode I found me through a mutual friend.

So, as I was cannibalizing a friend's friend list, I saw that she is friends with a girl I used to know. And used to like, actually. We hooked up a few times, beginning during the Drive for Five, but there was always something a little weird about it. If I had to guess I'd say she had a boyfriend and was hooking up with me on the side, or it could have been our age difference (I think the spread was six years, 30 - 24, at the time). Another strong possibility is that I was acting like I liked her and that weirded her out. In any event, I tend to meet about one chick a year that I think I could be interested in, and this chick was one of those chicks. Hasn't changed her last name, and her profile picture is of her with another chick... interesting. And stalkerish of me. But I wouldn't mind finding myself in the same room with this chick again, to see what happens. The smart money would be on her pretending she didn't remember me. And the really smart money would be on her genuinely not remembering me. But she'd be thirty now, and everyone knows Chick + Thirty + Single = Desperate. It's the new math. It's right up there next to the quadratic equation and Area = Pi R Squared. And that was also back before I was the chiseled block of tooth-bleached unstoppability that you now see before you. Hang out with our mutual friend a little more, engineer a chance meeting with tequila present, and let nature run its course. Money in the bank.

Pro Shopping

We Americans love us some NFL jerseys.

I went with my brother to Pittsburgh a few years back for a regular season game against the visiting New England Patriots. Now Pittsburgh is a fine town, albeit with some unusual rules about drinking. My brother and I spent Saturday day and night on Carson Street, which is across the river from Hines Field, PNC Park, and our hotel. Carson Street's claim to fame is that it has something like 100 bars on a 1-mile stretch of the street, so my brother and I went to investigate this claim. We believe this claim to be true.

As in California, Pittsburgh has a 2am last call. However, they run it a little differently in the 'Burgh. First of all, they don't set their clocks ahead 20 minutes and start pressuring you to move toward the door and finish your drinks at 1:35 so you'll be out of the bar and on your way home well before two. Rather, you have until 2am in real time to order your last drink, and you can stay until 3am to finish it. You also aren't limited to buying one drink at 1:59; you can buy a six-pack if you want and sit there for an hour and drink it. If you don't finish, you are allowed to take the unopened beers with you. In fact, there didn't seem to be any liquor stores per se (or if there were any then they closed much earlier in the evening) - so if you wanted to keep drinking after the bars closed you had to buy beer from the bar. If I recall, your limit was a six-pack per person. My brother and I bought a twelver for the walk over the bridge back to the hotel, and this made for a much more interesting trip. When it comes to last call, I like Pittsburgh's style.

I've always been a little reluctant to wear sports jerseys. Of course, I wore them in high school when I was actually on a team (with a t-shirt underneath my basketball jersey since my guns weren't quite as developed then as they are now):
But seeing as how I'm not actually on any pro teams at the moment it doesn't usually make much sense to me to wear a team's jersey. Don't get me wrong, I can see why people would buy certain jerseys, like this one, this guy's jersey or this guy's jersey. But I'd rather go for something in the team's colors with an understated logo. At my age, I am too old to be wearing jerseys, and this way it is much easier to hide if your team loses - you don't need to get into fights all night with drunken fans of the other team, or have to go home and change. In San Diego, I've even seen a dude try to fight a chick wearing a Minnesota hockey jersey after Maine or Michigan or Boston College or some other insignificant college beat Minnesota in the Frozen Four, which is apparently a March hockey tournament. "Hockey" is apparently a sport that involves ice skates, a large stone and a broom.

On the morning of the game in Pittsburgh, I was getting dressed and was all prepared to wear jeans and a button-down to the game, it being a crisp fall day and all. However, my brother had a dilemma - he had brought 5 or 6 jerseys and couldn't decide which one to wear. The Pats being on the road, they were going to wear their white jerseys, so this narrowed the choice down to three. In the end, he chose his authentic game jersey. I was a little concerned for his safety, as I had heard Pittsburgh fans are pretty fanatical, so I went ahead and put on one of his spare jerseys, a Tom Brady replica model. I left the hotel feeling a bit foolish, but I was going to stay with my wingman - it is harder to kick the crap out of two fools than it is one.

On the way out of the room and down the hall to the elevator, a member of the housekeeping staff (hey, it was three hours earlier for us and we had been out late) told us to be careful dressed like we were. And we soon found out why - before we left the hotel we saw about 20 people wearing various Steelers jerseys. These people had already had a few cocktails, and they began hurling various insults, the most common being "Hey Marsha Brady!" I no longer felt foolish; I maybe even felt a little threatened, except that my brother and I are two of the tallest people in Pittsburgh, and we're both pretty big dudes. Sure, there were plenty of big fat guys out there that could give us some trouble, but by the time they caught one of us they'd be too tired to fight anyway.

So, I'd say on an NFL game day, in the immediate Heinz Field area the population of Pittsburgh consists of about 60% jersey wearers. That was the most common accessory, with the second-most common being the porn moustache, running at about 40%. The 'staches were probably split about 85/15 between guys and chicks. So, in flyover states such as Pennsylvania, where there isn't all that much else to do, wearing jerseys is widely accepted.
Despite a few minor altercations (Steelers fans throwing cans at us in the parking lot, starting a "Here we go Patriots" chant in a bar during the early games and getting shouted down by the entire bar, me returning to the wrong seat in the stadium after a beer and bathroom break, trying to kick a Steelers fan out of my seat, and having beer, popcorn and pretzels thrown at me as a result), we were treated to one heck of a ballgame. After the Steelers scored the tying touchdown late in the fourth quarter, I was surprised by the reaction of Steelers fans. There was 1:21 left in the game, and the prevailing attitude was "Crap. We left Brady with too much time. We're going to lose." Can't blame them though - they were right, as Tom Brady drove the Patriots to a game-winning field goal as time expired, which in turn drove the Pats fans to a night of celebration in Pittsburgh. Man, I hate it when the other team comes to my city, beats my team, and parties it up in my city afterwards. As a fan of the Cal Bears, this used to be a common occurrence, especially when it came to USC and UCLA fans. Those beautiful, arrogant f*cks.

But back to the jerseys. Seeing as how I hooked up (in the SoCal/young female definition of the word) with a Steelers fan after the football game, I'd say jerseys might even be the preferred attire - one of the reasons I hooked up with her was that "I looked so cute in my Tom Brady jersey." For the record, she looked just fine in her Hines Ward jersey mid-hookup, as Tom Brady ended up screwing the Steelers a second time that day.

When Doug Christie played in the NBA, I guess he made a lot of hand signals and the like during games that were special little "I love yous" to his wife Jackie. He got a lot of crap for this from teammates, and a reality show was made of the couple's relationship. That show has the distinct honor of being the only reality show in history to fail, even though dude was pretty well whipped which should have made for good TV. Formerly talented ESPN columnist Bill Simmons used to write (and probably still does, since he hasn't had any new material since the first Gulf War) about buying a Doug Christie jersey for your friends who are whipped by their girlfriends, as kind of a funny insult. Such a jersey was in fact purchased for a friend of mine (let's call him "Squishy") at one point. I wasn't around the couple very much, but I understand he was pretty whipped. I do recall a time that she logged into his account during our fantasy draft and they were typing back and forth to each other in the draft chat room, so I'm willing to take others' word for it.

In a similar vein, I am a Pats fan and some friends decided to purchase a jersey for me they deemed appropriate. At the time, there was a cornerback on the Patriots who wore #21. He was named Randall Gay. These pranksters decided that a "GAY 21" jersey would be perfect for me. The reason that it would be perfect for me is that I am gay. I'm really not, but that was the running joke for about 36 years and counting now. This was just after a woman accused Michael Vick of giving her herpes, and he apparently had sought herpes treatment under the alias "Ron Mexico." The Atlanta Falcons jersey "MEXICO 7" became a very popular item, and the NFL cracked down on the customization of its jerseys. So my friends couldn't order me a "GAY 21" jersey since this was not permitted by the NFL, even though there was an actual "GAY 21" player. I understand the NFL eventually started selling that jersey, though by that time my friends had moved on to other endeavors - they have the attention spans of hummingbirds on crack.

I checked out the NFL.com website to see what can be done with customized jerseys. I tried to create an Atlanta Falcons "MEXICO 7" jersey. Turns out you still can't create that jersey, or any jersey with "MEXICO" on the back, regardless of the team or the jersey number - you come up with an error that says "Your current entry cannot be processed. Language deemed inappropriate, derogatory, or profane will not be accepted. Please create a new entry."

So I decided to test how sophisticated the NFL's Inappropriate, Derogatory and Profane Detector really is. Facebook supposedly has a sophisticated BS Name Detector, though my friends Dee Monk and Pats Flamer might disagree. I discovered the following jerseys can be ordered without the NFL so much as batting an eyelash (no Photoshopping here - these images comes from the NFL Shop website, having been deemed a "Great Choice! To purchase your customized jersey, click on "ADD TO CART"):
Nope, nothing inappropriate, derogatory or profane there. But thank God you can't order a MEXICO jersey. The NFL - it's a family league!