The End of Life as I Knew

First and Ten!

1) Happy Halloween. May we all enjoy a night of revelry and good times, and not accidentally hook up with a dude who dressed up like a woman as his costume like last year.

2) Yes, I know, I have been very tardy and slow with my posting over the last several weeks. Unfortunately, I have spent the last two and a half weeks living in a library studying the crap out of economics for my midterms. Fortunately, with the conclusion of my Econometrics exam tonight, I will be done with all testing until finals. As a form of penance and self-punishment for abandoning all my loyal readers in the barren wasteland know as the internet for so long, I've decided to assault my liver with a truly heroic intake of alcohol upon the conclusion of the exam, and I likely will spend most of Tuesday morning (and probably Tuesday night as well) cursing yeast and various other microscopic beings that decided their poop would be a truly spectacular liquid that makes us feel fantastic for a few hours yet also screws with our Kreb cycles and leaves us hungover and in trouble with The Resident Female.

3) Speaking of The Resident Female, congratulations on officially completing her 23rd voyage around the sun. Though the tradition is usually to celebrate the first day of the new voyage (that is, the birthday itself), this year we decided to celebrate the last day that her age was the double deuce instead of the first as an ascending pair. A good time was had by all, and this allowed me to schedule an entire day to not study Metrics and goof off, instead of being anxious about not being able to study.

4) I have begun to realize that there is a severe possibility that my students posses less intelligence than a group of beavers: neither group understands anything about economics, but only one group can actually construct a functional dam.

5) Roger Clemens is still smoking pole, and will continue to smoke pole until he is smoking the big pole in the sky. Which is never, of course, because he is going to hell.

6) It is very strange to watch the Patriots. The defense, with the exception of the San Diego game, has come out horrible in every game this season until they have totally crushed my will, then suddenly stiffen in the second half. Also, the amount of injuries they have sustained is beyond staggering. Remember the scene in the Simpsons when Mr. Burns wants to fill the softball team with ringers, and Mr. Smithers pointed out that the right-fielder has been dead for over 100 years? Well, I think that guy was starting at safety for the Pats last night. I mean, that Visa commercial with Brady and all his lineman, two of those guys are on injured reserve, one is in a coma, another has ebola and was just read his last rights, and the commercial's director is penciled in to start at left tackle against the Colts. What the hell?

7) The Sox had a good run, but I am wondering what is happening with the position players. Essentially, the farm system has a bunch of pitchers who might have some place in the next year or so, and Pedroia has a good chance of at least backing up 2nd base/SS by the end of the year, but what are the Sox going to do about 1B, 2B starter, CF, RF righty platoon, and possibly left field if Manny gets traded? Should be interesting.

8) The Bruins suck. I waited nearly 2 years to see them, and quite frankly, I'm a little angry. 'Nuf said.

9) I've started watching The Sopranos with the Resident Female, and I think I am hooked. However, I still gotta say I prefer 24. South Park is still the best show on television.

10) Congratulations to Brother McGuffin and The Contraction on their engagement. My bro and his special lady will be being betrothed on June 10, and I have to say they will make a great unit. Though I do apologize to the accountants of America, as I believe they are planning on filing jointly, so that is one less customer for all y'all.

Clemens smokes pole

1) Roger "the best small-game pitcher in history" Clemens blew another world series game, and there is no truth to the rumor that he was seen sitting in his the lockerroom, weepingly saying "Why do bad things keep happening to me?"

2) I'm in a weird position, as I have to choose to root for the team that has the biggest ass ever on it or the team that knocked my team out of the playoffs. Actually, screw Roger. Go Sox.

3) Anyhow, I am off to continue the corruption of young college minds. Just wanted to remind everyone that a) they should root against Roger Clemens and b) Roger Clemens is a huge douche bag. More later in the week.

Wondering why "Full-Contact Solitaire" never caught on...

Some Random thoughts for a tuesday:

That's right, Random is inexplicably Capitalized. What are you going to do about it, bitch?

My new favorite thing to say to the Resident Female, when she calls me out for not listening to her: "Sorry, but my mom told me it was impolite to point at people, so I was thinking about baseball."

I think no fewer than 4 of my 93 students are addicted to coke. And I think there is a good chance that I am underselling that number.

There are times that I wish I wrote for Family Guy, so I could actually comment on this without feeling like a huge turd. Though I do wonder if she volunteered the information because of a "I'll look like a totally douche if I say it, so mommy, could you do it?" or if this is the MLB version of "the pissed off mother calling up the parents of kids who beat up little Alex on the playground and bitching them out" kind of things.

I still don't like country music. It's like listening to blues sung by pubscent boys hoping their voice will stop cracking and are dressed like they are waiting for little Jimmy and Tommy from down the street to show up in their "Indians" outfits. I don't get it.

Or Nascar, for that matter. And am I the only one that has noticed that the surge in popularity for the sport has pretty much coincided with the steady rise of gas prices to $3 a gallon? I mean, I don't want to lay all the blame on rednecks who enjoy watching car crashes, but then again I could probably sell that; I am an econ grad student. That could be my thesis.

Thanks to a recurring calf injury (once again caused because my new podiatrist sucks huge donkey balls), my body has once again morphed from the beautifully sculpted image of purely manliness into a figure that only alcohol could love. So, basically, now that I have shelled out close to $600 to this douchebag for two sets of new orthotics (which were needed, as the old pair was worn down to the nub), one of which caused a stress fracture in my foot and the other seems to have torn my calf muscle and aggravated my achilles tendon, I think it is about time to go see my old podiatrist in Little Rhody before both my ankles snap and my calf goes all House on me. Chronic pain, especially at 24 years old, really blows ocelot.

You will never win a game when your coach looks like a cross between Christopher Guest, Chad Pennington, and the protagonist from An American Tale.

Mysogonistic google search of the day: !

And one for the ladies: !

And one for the Sox fans: !

Okay, a real one for the sox fans: !

To one of the few people who actually post real comments on my board, istead of spam: Agreed, nutsack is entirely under-utilized. As is calling someone a donkey, making light of back-hair, models whose spine doesn't show through their stomach, witty humor, and the word fungible.

The reason my post frequency has been chopped like a puppy's nutsack:

Drinking and Macroeconomics: it's a winning formula. Personally, I find that the marginal utility of an additional Miller Lite far outweighs the negative externalities intrinisic in the horror that is the Overlapping-generations model with a Cobb-Douglas production function and a utility corner solution in a world with government, taxes, bonds, and banking. Fuck all, where's the bourbon?

Q: What can you buy with an extra $70 million?

A: Two more games than the Red Sox played. Yanks eliminated in five.

Oh well

1) Alas, for the first time since the early months of 2004, I have had to watch one of my teams fall out of the playoffs. Though, unlike the Bruins disappointing collapse to the hated Habs, I was kind of expecting this one. Oh, don't get me wrong, I still reserved hope for the Sox right up until the moment I saw Edgar's ugly swing leave the best hitting tandem in baseball on deck as the season ended, but I had pretty much resigned myself that the Sox didn't have the pitching (or the defense, for that matter) to make this team win 11 games. Of course, I was just hoping for 1 win at that point.

Although it is sad that the best offense in baseball never scored more than 4 runs in a game. You know what? Screw it. I am pissed.

2) Thanks to a hellacious week at grad school (I'm averaging 12 hours a day on campus, and unfortunately I'm not exagerating) I hadn't seen Brady's blowup at Schottenheimer's pity until this morning. I don't know why, but seeing that makes me feel a little more confident for some reason.

3) Maybe it's because I have to go back to campus today for about 6-8 hours, and I'm emotionally drained from the last couple weeks (and I haven't even hit exam period yet...), but I'm still pretty happy with the Boston sports scene, even if the flagship franchise was just bounced from the playoffs. It still is a great time to be a Boston sports fan. Unless the powers that be somehow decide to make another movie about the city staring Jimmy Fallon, then all bets are off.

4) I shouldn't even have suggested that last one, as the hollywood types are probably already writing something about how Adam Sandler and Jimmy Fallon somehow end up in a series of compromising positions because they both like watching the Pats at their favorite bar, but one of their lucky barstools break and they need to reshuffle the weekly seating chart and this somehow leads to them competing over a girl for a while, which tests their friendship, until they finally find out that she has a twin sister so everything ends up being cool and they can go back to making annoying voices and idiotic jokes.

It will be more fun this way...

What fun is just straight domination? Not much. People watch sports because it is dramatic by nature, emotionally and spiritually jarring in so many ways, yet so sweet when all is said and done. Well, Boston fans, we've got drama:

The Red Sox are down 2-0 and looking elimination in the face once again. After dropping an ugly game 1 in the first inning, then our big game pitcher blowing a 4-run lead after a Graffy error, it's time for the fun to begin. We have pitcher emeritus Tim Wakefield on the mound, the best offense in baseball in the home dugout, and the shattered dreams of Clevland, Oakland, and New York remembering what it is like to have pushed Boston to the brink smiling at our team. Get it done.

The Bruins dropped the opener to their hated rivals from the north in the spectacular fashion that you hate to see, with the winning margin dribbling past the line with a few ticks left on the clock, having outshot the opponent the entire game. We'll reverse this to the Habs in game seven next spring, breaking the hearts of the pea-soup drinkers for once.

The Pats have struggled mightily this past weekend, going their last three quarters without a defensive stop with Tedy Bruschi and Rodney Harrison watching from the sideline. Though they are missing several key players, I think back to the last time the team stood at .500, identically 2-2, having lost to a Redskins team as the injury woes continued to pile up and the future looked bleak, possibly even bleaker than today. I also remember their next loss, 22 games, a calendar year, and a superbowl trophy later.

Have faith Boston fans. Things may look down at the moment, but that will pass. Let's enjoy the ride.