Rally The Troops

O CAPTAIN! my Captain! our fearful trip is done;
The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won;
-Walt Whitman


It's been a rough year for my hockey team, the Ale House Wings. The CDHA had an influx of excellent, young players, well below the "Over 30" delimiter and all seemed to have played at the pro or semi-pro level. The Wings are all over 30, and we barely went to college, let alone played hockey on the school team.

Despite facing fresh talent we did better than I predicted last fall when I told my buddy Deron we were looking at 3 wins for the season. Three was a safe number, because there is usually that many forfeits in a season. But as it turned out, we exceeding expectations (well my expectations) winning 10 out of 25 with one game left before playoffs. The glass was almost half full!

Losing isn't fun, but the team is fun, which makes bearing the weight of a bad season easier. Every man is a different character and the locker room resembles a rowdy clubhouse more than a serious sports team most of the time, and nobody rants or throws blame like you see on other bottom-feeder teams. Poise and character under fire, as it were.

Our captain is a large part of our fun attitude. He is a unique guy, a natural leader and can crack up the room even after the worst beatings. The highlight of the week is the pre-game email that he sends. They start on a fiery, positive note then drift into a more rambling, convoluted and disjointed missive about keeping our heads up and sticking it to the other teams. Where he lacks brevity, he makes up in entertainment and motivation. I've enclosed the one for tonight's game for you to get a taste. See if you can tell he's just had an extra large coffee.

Wings,
Here we are, last regular season game. Blue. They’re not too good. We can get to them. We need a return to fun. The other night was no fun. Getting spanked is never (well almost) fun. We are in a transition from being an over 30 league to open age league, and none of us are getting younger. Life continues to throw its curves. Work, family and, age pull at us from all directions. We have no choice but to try to be smarter. Oh boy are we in trouble. But seriously, for us to compete in the new CDHA we have to rely on smarts. No specifics here we all know what the keys are to keeping a game close and even kicking some butt we just need to do it. Friday night was a brutal loss. The last time it happened to us was Blue at the b.i.g., and we went on a season saving run. Enough Stewart’s coffee rah rah rah from me, but let’s make tonight’s game a return to having fun. We are in this together and no single piece of this team can do it alone against the new CDHA. Ale House Wing hockey is a group thing. Anyway one tonight and then the play off tourney if we do it right we run the table and mess with all the talented little under 30 mfers. Let’s regroup seek some laughs, start down low in our end and finish like our life depends on it. Ooops, I could help myself I had to throw some basic puck talk in there.


Did you follow all that? No, neither did I. But it still fires me up inside and makes me want to kick some serious Blue ass tonight. Go Wings!!!

Lies My Dentist Tells Me

My dentist lies to me, and that's why I love him.

Not in a Brokeback Mountain kind of way, but I appreciate that he lies about exactly what is he is doing with those tools of his while he’s rooting around in my mouth. Many of the tools are sharp, and if wielded by a careless person could cause a large amount of pain. It’s not about trust, it’s about having seen too many movies, so the natural instinct is to be tense. My dentist realizes I tense up, or at least he did after noticing my hands grabbing his smock.

These are some of the lies he told me:

After the dentist had numbed my gums with some kind of swab, he said:
"OK, now you will feel me tugging at your cheek for a few seconds."

What he was really doing:
He had numbed my gums on the left side, and was preparing to use a giant needle to inject the Novocain into my jaw prior to doing the filling. I'm not a fan of needles, but being a blood donor I see lots of them. I'm used to getting them in the arm, but there are a few places where a needle just isn't welcome. My mouth is one place, my penis is the other. I have no idea if I will ever need to have a needle in that most sensitive of regions, but you can be damn sure they will have to gas me unconscious if they ever do. No effin way am I going to be awake for that.

Back in the reclined dental chair, I felt the tugging he was talking about, knowing that the whole point is to distract me from the needle gliding into my gums. I didn't feel it, but I could sense the needle in there, the fluid slowly being injected and then the needle being extracted after about a minute. Creepy, but in no way painful. Thanks man.


So now we’re ready to begin. The dentist says:
"OK, now I'm just going to clean the area up a bit before beginning..."

What he was really doing:
‘Before beginning’ my ass. If drilling away at my tooth isn’t starting the process, I don’t know what is. I could feel the grinding in my numbed jaw, and my body was tensed like a stunt driver about to hit a wall at 60 mph. Tensing is probably the worst thing you can do, both before hitting a wall and while somebody is drilling your teeth, your body just elevates the tension and sends adrenaline through the body as a defense mechanism.

The dentist talks in soothing and calm tones, as if talking to a child. “Just raise your left hand if you feel any pain, ok?”

I’ll raise my left hand, alright. My right one too.


I tried to think about something comforting, something calm. Summer vacation, sitting by the lake with my feet in the water while sipping a beer watching the kids playing in the sand SHITTTTTTTTTT I felt that! I didn’t raise my hand, though. For one thing, the pain was dull, like he had hit a spot not fully numbed by the drugs. Plus I didn’t want to be a big baby (too late). So I told myself I’ll let him get me with 3 searing pain jabs before I raise my hand in surrender.

He only got to 2 ½.

When the dentist was all done, he said:
"The left side of you face will be numb for a few more hours. You mouth may be a bit sensitive to hot and cold for a few days, but there shouldn’t be any noticeable pain.”

What he was really saying:
“You’ll be drooling uncontrollably for a few more hours, then your mouth is going to throb as the pain receptors come back online. Drink lots of beer.”

Well you heard the Doctor. Beer me!

Drunk Dialing Part 2

One memorable drunk-dial I received was from my brother Tim. He was hanging out with Sparks and Stinky, in an apartment on Marine Drive in White Rock on a Saturday night. During the week, White Rock was a fairly sleepy place. On the weekend, Marine Drive filled with muscle cars, motorcycles, beer and people looking to party on the beach or in the bars along the strip. The cars cruised back and forth while people drank and started fights. It was a fun place. (Don’t try going down there now. They have put the kibosh on cruising several years ago and all the good bars have been closed. It‘s all tourists now.)

The apartment was a prime spot right near the beach, and Saturday night was in full swing. Apparently, Sparks and Stinky had just departed to cruise Marine Drive on their motorcycles. Tim told me they had been having a few beers and from his speech I figured maybe more than a few.

Tim called late, it being 3 hours ater than where he was, and I could hear in his voice the Labatts had been flowing freely. While we were talking, I could hear smashing glass in the background. “What the hell is that noise?” I asked him. “That’s me.” he said. “I’m going to tell Sparks and Stinky that while they were gone some people showed up and trashed his apartment!”

Drunk people love even the most bizarre ideas.

Performance Anxiety

Our Governor is in the hospital, having had his appendix taken out. He's on the mend, and on Saturday they said he can go home as soon as he takes a healthy bowel movement. The duty would confirm all the internal parts were working up to spec.

On Sunday, The Governor released a staged photo, showing him looking seriously at a laptop pc. Working hard, despite the fact he's wearing a backless gown.

Monday came and went, no movements in the bowel region. Clear as a church parking lot on Saturday night.

It's Tuesday, and still no traffic on the colon causeway. That's 5 days without producing any excrement. Yikes.

It's bad enough when you drop by the washroom and you can't dute because of shyness issues. Imagine how tight your sphincter would close knowing that the whole state is watching the news waiting to hear that you've had a healthy BM.

What he needs is a good, greasy burger and a cup of hospital coffee. That'll get the process kick-started and he'll be home by noon.

President's Day is more than a day to stay home and lay on the couch

Not really. Laying on the couch is great.
This is a quick quiz of real Presidential facts. See how you do!
(C'mon, even you Canadians can play along)

1. Which President was viciously attacked by a bunny?

2. Who was the first U.S. president to appear on television?

3. Who was the only president to wear a Nazi uniform?

4. What type of shoe did Warren Harding wear when the joint resolution officially ending our involvement in W.W.I was signed?

5. Which President was too drunk to be inaugurated?


A1. Carter was out fishing and a swimming rabbit "attacked" his boat. Carter turned the rabbit away with his paddle and no injuries resulted.

A2. FDR appeared on TV in 1939 at the NY Worlds Fair where TV was being demonstrated. Truman was the first to appear on a national broadcast from the White House.

A3. In the movie Desperate Journey (1942), future president Ronald Reagan plays one of five Americans on an RAF mission who survive being shot down over Nazi territory in W.W.II. Making their escape, they steal uniforms and masquerade as German officers.

A4. He was wearing white golf shoes. An aide brought the papers to New Jersey where the president was playing golf.

A5. Trick question! No president has ever been too drunk to be inaugurated, although (future president) Andrew Johnson was drunk at his inauguration as vice president. He was sworn in, but his inauguration speech was embarrassing to everyone present. Johnson was in poor health on inauguration day and had three shots of whiskey, apparently trying to medicate himself. In his weakened condition, the alcohol affected him more than usual.

Alternates

This picture of the lugers still cracks me up, especially with some suggested alternate captions (and a few of my own).




"I told you before, that's not the brake lever your hand is on!"

"I sure hope we get to keep these jumpsuits. They're clingy."

"You seen that there Brokeback Mountain movie? I hear that Ayng Lee really captured the spirit, beauty and solitude of the cowboy lifestyle HEY TURN TURN TURN!!!"

"Hey, after this, let's go make fun of the male figure skaters! Poofters."

"I told you to skip the Huevos Rancheros this morning, dammit!"


Thanks for the ideas, sickos.

Luge Problem

The Olympics are here, Winter-favored.

I'm cool with many of the events. Hockey (duh), speed skating (short track), one man luge, the skeleton, downhill skiing - hell even stuff like curling is mildly interesting. For 2 minutes.

Two man luge is another issue. What's up with guys in spandex spooning on a sled-made-for-one?


Is it so much more sporting / exciting with two guys on the same sled? I'm thinking no.

If you have to use two guys, maybe put them side by side and have them race down on seperate sleds. That would introduce passing, blocking and "trading paint", just like in NASCAR.

That, I would be cool with. You're welcome OAC.

Roses Are Red

.


Roses are red,
cost 5X more than any other time- it's true.
Valentines Day is a fraud,
I'd rather catch the Avian Bird Flu.



.

Drunk Dialing, Part 1

Who hasn’t made sappy, pathetic, loser phone calls to an ex or someone otherwise unaware of our affections? This topic came up at Happy Hour on Friday, and it was funny to hear that the impulse is widespread and common. Or at least it is with the people I work with.

It’s bad enough when you have a few cocktails too many and end up in a “I love you, man” moment with a Dot Net programmer from Systems after one too many 2 for 1 specials. It certainly makes for an awkward moment at the coffee urn on Monday, but it's soon forgotten. When the call is left on someone’s voice mail or answering machine, it’s a potential live grenade that can be lobbed right back at you at some future date.

Today we have wonderful modern tools to prevent us from making such calls, but i the old days (80's and 90's) it was a more dangerous time.

I had a friend who was the King of Drunk Dialing. We’d be out at a bar and noticed him missing from the group, so we’d look for the closest bank of payphones to find him huddled there, against the wall, speaking earnestly into the hand piece. He would be either arguing with a girlfriend’s father (he always seemed to have adversarial relationships with the parents) or pouring out his heart to the object of his affections. If it was the parents, we would try and extricate him from the conversation before he said yet another thing he was going to regret. I’ll blog a few of his dating stories, which include starting a 40 person rumble in Surrey over a girl and enlisting me to help him steal his motorcycle back from the garage of his ex-girlfriends house. Good times.

My own experiences with drunk dialing are damn embarrassing, having done it and done it badly. Perhaps the worst incident was in college. I came home from a house party where I had met a girl who was a spitting image of an ex from high school. I still kept in touch with her (barely) but I grabbed my address book and decided to call her at 3am. In my defense, that was 12am where she was on the West Coast, so although late, not so unreasonable for a Saturday night.

I remember dialing the phone, but have no idea what I said, or to whom. I woke up the next day on the couch, still dressed from the night before with a massive hangover. I saw the address book next to the phone and said “Oh shit.” I tried to recall what the conversation was, but had no idea. I’m a jovial drunk, so I’m sure I wasn’t mean or angry, but I couldn’t be sure. I fought the urge to call her back and apologize, maybe find out how bad it had been.

After having it on my mind all day, I said, “Fuck it! I’ll call her and we’ll have a good laugh about it.” When she answered, I said, “Hey, It’s Shamus! I think I called you last night when I was drunk and I have NO idea what I said but just in case, I wanted to apologize...” CLICK. She had hung up on me.

Which left me wondering what the HELL I had said.



Part 2 will be Drunk Dialing calls I’ve gotten...

Running Against The Wind

I've held off doing any kind of review on my Sirius radio I got back in December, mainly because I wanted to have some time with it to find out what was good, and what sucked about the service.

For those of you who recently awoke from a coma, Sirius Radio is satellite radio. You buy a "subscription" and a "receiver", and in return you get signals beamed from outer space, called "lasers". Well, not really lasers but it sounds cool. My receiver is small, about as big as a flattened can of Coke, but the edges are less sharp. I can use it in the house, car and at work, and the signal strength is decent. I don't even have to have the antennae outside my car, but it can just sit on my dash.

Good:
Music, music, music. I can go from Alternative to Hair Nation, to Electronic to Iceburg (Canadian) - and it's all rock and all commercial free.
The Talk - Stern is part of it, but there are a ton of other guys, like Jay Thomas, who are hilarious. The speech is unrestricted and real. There are also two channels of just comedy albums from a spectrum of people from Bill Cosby to Monty Python to (name any comedian here). I secretly listen to a show called "Chick Chat" hoping to learn secrets of chicks. So far, all I've learned about something called a "loofa". Apparently they like them, and use them in the shower or bath.

I also like being able to see the artist name and song title at any time, and being able to set the memory so it warns me 10 seconds before a favorite song is coming on another channel, so I can click over and hear it.

Bad:
I listen to it too much, it's like an addiction. You can even get to the content over the Internet, so even if you don't have your receiver, you can hear it as long as you can connect to the internet. I find myself scanning weird music channels, or listening to crazy talk stations or even NHL games on radio. But it's a case where the negative is really a positive, like finding out there are 3 different kinds of cheesecake for desert. Bummer!

The other bad thing, is that when I find myself in the car without my Sirius, and I have to listen to old fashioned radio, I get really frustrated. In the Albany area, all the rock stations have gone to the same format, classic rock. Apparently, some study told them it that was the "low hanging fruit" in the terrestrial radio realm. So now you can hear Bob Seager's "Against the Wind" on 4 different stations at any given time.

"I'm older now, but still running against the wind."

CLICK!

(FYI)

Shaving the beard apparently worked, scored two goals as the Ale House Red Wings skated to victory this evening. Glad the razor burn was worth it.

No Contest

The best Superbowl ad never even made it on the air!

But you can see it here.

You're welcome.

Super Bowl Spoilers

Tomorrow is the Superbowl. It's an entertainment extravaganza, starting at noon and ending... whenever it ends. That's right, a 5 and a half hour pre-game show. Boy I love to plop my ass in front of the tube for a full day of ex-jocks yammering on with each other wearing flashy Brooks-Brothers suits, breaking down a football game for 8 hours when it will take half that to play. And also, they will rehash every story told over the last 2 weeks. You try filling 5 1/2 hours when you've got pretty much nothing to say.

So what will this Superbowl be like? Here's an exact list of what you'll see tomorrow. CAUTION - SPOILERS!

• Predictions of the plays both teams will run, re-inacted by the ex-jocks on a mini-field in the studio. Cool.
  
• Three hours of talk around Jerome Bettis. You see, he's from Detroit! WOW - can you imagine the fuckin story possibilities?
• The coin toss will be elongated to a 15 minute cerimony. Heads will be chosen. The announcer will give the stats as far as how many times heads has been chosen, and how often that has been flipped, and how often the winner of the coin toss goes on to win the game. Yawwwwwwwwn.
• The commercials! In actuality, people tune in to the Superbowl JUST to see these gems, the creme de la creme of marketing talent and creativity. Most of them will suck.
• The halftime show won't have any boobs in it. At least not bare, female boobs.
  
• Actual playing time of the game will be 60 minutes. The pace will be so spread out and slow that the trainers will be provided with bottle of sweat to spray on the players so it looked like they had a workout (it just looks better on tv).

Me? I'll turn it on at 6:20, with the sound off. I'll have Sirius radio on the stereo (channel 21 - Alternative Nation) and won't be watching the halftime show - the Lingerie Bowl will be on. Now there's a game.

Big Mack Attack

I was in a meeting today, one of many the last few days. Everybody seems to need face time with me to admire my mug without a beard. Yes, I shaved it off down south, so we’ll see if this effects my hockey game.

The meeting in the afternoon was fiery, with people raising their voices and at one point three separate conversations were going on in the same small room. At the pinnacle of the debate, the network guy next to me rose to his feet, leaning over the table while driving home a point of undeniable logic.

His red cheeks were trembling as he drove the point home over, and over. His face was flushed and his chest was rising and falling with obvious effort. About this time I thought, “Holy crap, he’s going to have a grabber right here in the conference room talking about mail routing!”

Then I thought, “If he drops, he’s going to land on me!”

But he dropped back in his seat, ticker still ticking away, no paramedics needed. Then I thought, “Time to make the switch to decaf, big guy.”