Whoa, sorry

I didn't realize it'd been so long since I'd posted. The school term is over, but I came home from my last final and turned on my current addiction, the computer game Civilization IV. The game uses so much of my computer's memory that it takes like an hour to shut the game down and get back on the internet. Besides that, it's so enveloping and consuming that I can play for, literally, hours and hours before pausing to eat or go to the bathroom, returning shortly to play for more hours.

Otherwise, things are boring here. My roommate has had his hours cut - but they won't fire him, so he can't collect unemployment, either - so he's been milling around the house, grumpy. There aren't jobs to be found anywhere, even the trusty UPS which seems to always be in need of at least part-time employees. I'm trying to decide what to do when (if) I graduate in March. There's a temporary Federal job I could apply for, but I'm not sure on the dates; there's also a couple field schools, stateside and abroad that would be good for me in the archaeological field. Mostly, though, I'm sitting around thinking about what to get people for Christmas.

Relief

My hangover isn't nearly as terrible as I thought it was going to be. In fact, after some burritos for breakfast, Champions League on the tv, and a ton of coffee, it's hardly even noticeable.

Originally, OB - one third of the upstair's residents - and I planned to go to a bar and drink until someone was picked a winner, but those plans were scuttled in favor of heading to a friend's place. But I figure if I'm going to hang out with a bunch of married people I may as well not leave home to do so, especially when there are friends coming and going and leaving booze on the counter.

By four pm I was on my third drink, embroiled in a text message conversation with my dad about my sister's playoff match which had gone to a penalty shootout, the couch was filled with people, the boys were fighting over a Pokemon game, two tvs were on, and I was hitting refresh on all the pollsters pages. Thankfully, the boys were banished to watching cartoons in the basement (after a dramatic falling out over the Pokemon game, highlighted by the younger one declaring "You're not my brother anymore!!!!"), and the crowd left to their other party.

That left three of us to munch the steaks my wonderful roommate had thrown on the grill and sip the bourbon someone had left us. When Obama was announced the winner at 8, even my quiet neighborhood erupted in cheers. Fireworks were lit off at at least three different places, children were chanting "O-BAM-A!", someone screamed, "THANK YOU AMERICA!" and every bicyclist who rode past whooped a congratulations. I tried sending a text to my family, but the network was down, something that has only happened on New Year's Eve.

What a change from election night four years ago. Not only was I still in the army back then and under the impression that I would be held nearly two years beyond my contract for a deployment to Iraq, but that particular night my unit was in the field. It was an elaborate 7-day live fire exercise, something rare for a noncombat unit and we were generally thrilled that we got to sleep indoors. But as I unfolded my cot, I realized that unfolding his next to mine, was Rob the archconservative and the antithesis of everything I stand for. (Well, except for music. We oddly agreed on most of that. We made a pact that no matter who won, there would be no gloating. It turned out not to matter; though we spent most of the night huddled around our humvee using elaborate military intelligence technology to eavesdrop on NPR, the election wasn't decided for a few days, thanks to stupid Ohio. What a difference four years makes!

Back to last night. We brought the boys upstairs for Obama's acceptance speech and they watched quietly. I wonder how much of this they'll remember when they're older. Likely, the youngest won't remember a thing, but the seven-year-old might. I was younger than him back when the first Bush was elected back in '88 and I vaguely remember the unhappiness and disappointment that filled the house afterwards. Of course, unhappiness and disappointment filled the house anytime the news came on the tv back then. Let's not do the Reagan years again, kids.

Later in the evening the rest of the house returned from the party and we cracked open a bottle of champagne that the original occupants of the house had been saving for an occasion at which they were all present. Last night was that night! After the bourbon, the champagne tasted like bubbly ice cream it was so sweet. Almost as sweet as victory!

Game Day Setlist

This election, more so than any other I can remember, is like a big soccer game. There are winners, losers, sending offs (sendings off?), and me toe tapping nervously and guzzling beer. Oh, and hollering expletives. And, like before Timbers games, it requires a soundtrack. Here is today's:

"The Idiots are Taking Over" - NOFX
"Dirty Harry for President" - MDC
"Help Save the Youth of America" - Billy Bragg
"Reagan Youth" - Reagan Youth
"Got the Numbers" - Anti-Flag
"Hope" - Descendents
"Against All Odds" - Resistance 77
"American Jesus" - Bad Religion
"What Will the Revolution Change" - Youth Brigade
"No Difference Anyway" - Youth Brigade
"Where are They Now?" - Cock Sparrer
"Watch you Back" - Cock Sparrer
"Campaign of Hate" - Libertines
"(I Think) My Baby is a Communist" - Briefs
"No More Presidents" - Briefs
"Kill the Poor" - Dead Kennedys
"Kill the Poor" - Matthew Grimms and the Red Smear
"Leaders of the Free World" - Elbow
"From Her Lips to God's Ears" - Against Me!
"Red White and Brainwashed" - Anti-Flag
"'Merican" - Descendents

I'll Take a Big Mac and a President, Please

The library, which ordinarily would serve as the site for ballot drop boxes doesn't have a parking lot, so instead the boxes are at a nearby McDonald's drive-thru. It even has an official construction sign! Oh, America...

To Do vs. Did

To Do:

- Go to class.
- Come home, eat lunch and study.
- Finish two papers that were due on Monday.
- Study a bit for test on Thursday, maybe go out for a drink in the late evening.

Did:

- Went to class.
- Came home, watched half of Newcastle v West Brom game.
- Went to coffee shop with roommate and his youngest boy.
- Helped friend move couch upstairs.
- Tried to recruit players for our indoor soccer team.
- Helped roommate cut some insulation for the basement walls.
- Showered to get fiberglass off my arms, ankles.
- Helped (kind of) friend change all of our locks (long story).
- Walked to store to copy keys.
- Currently watching Blazers game and typing a blog.

Will I ever write these stupid papers? I can't wait to have a job that doesn't involve homework.

Moonset

This pic is not from my cell phone, but a fancy-shmancy digital SLR camera. The problem is that it was early in the morning and therefore still kind of dark, and yet we were traveling 70+mph, so slow shutter made it blurry.

Anyway, this is Salt Lake City on a beautiful morning in March during a spring break roadtrip to Texas.

cell phone pic of the day

I have recently realized that I have a large collection of pictures on my phone, most of which I don't remember even taking. Some of them are kind of cool for having been shot with a crappy cell camera, so I thought I'd post a few every now and then.

Here's the first of the series: Downtown Portland, overlooking the Willamette River from the Broadway Bridge. Date: Unknown.

Aggghh

I was warned that getting through the paperwork connection with graduation at PSU is an arduous and maddening process, but I really thought it wasn't going to be a big deal. I applied for graduation for fall term back at the deadline in, like, July or something - quite awhile ago. I didn't hear anything other than receiving a degree application charge on my account until today. And it says, 'thanks for applying for a Bachelor of Science degree!' Or something like that. But I didn't apply for a Bachelor of Science, I applied for a Bachelor of Arts. Christ above, I don't even pretend to have the credits for a science degree. Of course the email gives no direction of who to talk to and even if it's too late to do anything about it. Uggggggg! I hate bureaucracy!

Meanwhile, I'm taking 20 credits this term - a ridiculous amount at one time - to try and finish this degree I apparently didn't apply for. This doesn't help my motivation to study any.

The good news pertaining to all of this is that even after this term I will still have about 12 months of GI Bill leftover. As it pays quite a bit more than my tuition costs, it's sort of like a job. And if I go traveling, that means when I come back I can sign up for a postbac at PSU or the community college and have an instant job. Bah, and if this stupid Bachelor of Science crap persists, then I guess I won't even have to bother with the postbac thing, it could just be a regular undergrad degree schedule.

Rainwater

Apparently the downside to ecobuildings is that you can no longer drink out of the toilet bowl. Damn environmentalists!


Found in a toilet stall on PSU's campus.

Worlds Collide!!!!

An old army friend ran into me today on campus. I was stunned. I couldn't think of his name, where I knew him from, other than generally 'the army' (though I could, strangely, tell you his hometown), or if he was married/who he was married to. What's odd is that I thought I saw him in a class a few days ago, and I thought, "man, that guy looks familiar. Who does he remind me of? What was that guy's name?" What's even more odd is that that guy from my class wasn't him.

Anyway, with some facebook/myspace sleuthing, I took a guess at his name and eventually put it all together. Only a few times have my army friends met and hung out with my civilian friends, and even then it was a planned event. This unexpected collision of worlds that were never meant to intersect leaves me feeling woozy. I like to have a general sense of order in the world and in that order certain people do not belong in certain places. It's sort of like a character from a book I've read long ago appearing in a new and completely different story. Weird, weird, weird.

Well, crap

For those of you who were unaware, for the past couple years I'd been planning on taking up a working holiday visa with Ireland (4 months) and the UK (6 months, and repeatable once) when I graduated university. With a little bit of effort I should graduate in December and would therefore be looking at late January or early February for departing on ten months of work abroad. I even had a sort of job offer in the UK. But when I clicked on the programs website a few days ago in order to get the application started, I read, "As a result of changes in UK immigration rules, the present Blue Card program ends on December 31st, 2008. However, the deadline for the issuance of 2008 Blue Cards has now passed and we regret that no further cards can be issued. ...It is hoped that an agreement will be reached in the near future and that the BUNAC Work in Britain program will be available to US participants for 2009."

After then reading up on these changes on the official British government site on immigration and work permits, I have very little hope in that last sentence. It is a masterfully tangled web of bureaucracy they've created over there and it seems to be a work in progress, with only increased levels of convoluted direction in the future.

So now I just don't know what to do. I'm stuck back in the old problem I've avoided since high school: what the fuck am I gonna do with my life? Working abroad was sort of a delay tactic to avoid joining the real world (as was the army, college, etc) and now the real world will be here in January.

I suppose though that I still have a bunch of money saved up from my army days and that I could still go over to Europe and bum around for a few months. Instead of coming home with a small dent in my savings under the work program, I'll come home truly in need of a job. But hell, what am I gonna spend that money on anyway? Food, rent, gas, car insurance? That sounds awful. If my military-bound self heard my whining university self say that she'd be bitterly disappointed. I didn't work that hard and save up so that I could continue the same later. Nah, I wanted a vacation and an adventure! I'm looking for optimism here, as you can see.

It's been a good couple days

Earlier this week I was considering taking the train up to Canada for a few days, since I was getting so bored sitting around in the basement, downloading music and generally being a lazy slob. And because my natural state is a lazy slob it's quite a feat that I reached a limit. But I stuck around here because it was the Timbers last home game on Thursday and I promised my indoor soccer team I'd actually show up this weekend (forgot last week. oooops.), making any trip to Vancouver rather short and expensive. As it turned out, I'm pleased I didn't run away to Canada.

The Timbers put us and themselves out of our collective misery on Thursday by eliminating any chance of making the playoffs, losing 2-1. It was both a heartbreaking game and typical of how this season has played out. We scored first and continued to dominate the game. Then one of our central defenders was given a red card in the first half. I've only seen players get red cards in the first half maybe a handful of times, ever, but it's happened to the Timbers four or five times this season. Though a man down, we continued to possess the ball and outplay Charleston, and yet Charleston got hold of the ball and scored two, the winner coming in the 89th minute. Despite the loss, it was a fun night. The team tried, there wasn't a lot of negativity in the stands and I was just happy to be surrounded by a group of people that love to yell and sing and support a team through thick and thin. There were a few smoke bombs, a lot of pogoing and of course gallons of cheap beer. And it's always nice to see 13,000+ people come out on a school night to cheer on their local club, even if a lot of them are only their for the $2 beers.

Friday, the hangover caused me to hangout in the cool, dark basement and read the news most of the day. The roommate came home and dragged me out to our mutual friend's band's show, and I left from there to head downtown and watch one of my all-time favorite bands, Bad Religion, for the first time. Well ok, I saw them at the Warp tour in Texas a few years ago, but that hardly counts, right? They put on a pretty decent show, and aside from the dumbass that dove off the fifteen-foot tall amplifier stack and crushed a bunch of oblivious people on the dance floor, the crowd was decent, too. There were a few kids there, which is always heartening in these days where it seems punkrock is only followed by a bunch of old-timers.

Today was one of those days that makes me glad to live in Portland. Warm and crisp, downtown shone in the backdrop of a clear blue sky, and my indoor soccer team drank beer in an open-walled bar after our game, soaking in both the sun and the breeze. I had a delicious beer and a cider I'd never tried before, and when I came home from that there was a stack of new CDs that mailman had delivered.

There's another show tonight with my roommates' band, but I was content to stay at home and write you this very boring blog. You're welcome. :D

a few pics

Click for a larger view.

Mt. Hood. Dunno how many times I've posted a pic of this thing, but it's so close to Portland that it's usually the first area I head to when I want to camp. At the time of this picture I was trying to find an alternate route to a remote campsite and wasn't quite sure where I was.

Now this is how logging should be done, leaving lots of big trees scattered about. Often logggers will leave the required number of trees only along the edges and clear out the middle Difficult to tell if it was just a fire, logged, or logged and burned. Fireweed (the purple flowers) makes it all the better.


Summit Lake, the campground I eventually ended up at. No one was there the entire three days I camped. Fish were jumping, ducks playing with each other woke me up at dawn, and the campsite was right up against the water.

fingers-in-my-ears time

Now that the presidential candidates have made their picks, it's time for me to stop paying attention. I didn't even have to wait this long, really; I knew who I was voting for since Obama got the nomination. Everything from here on out is pointless, and anyone who has a couple of brain cells to rub together and reads the news more than twice a year knows how the candidates stand on the issues already and have made up their minds. I firmly believe that those wavering on voting for Obama because of "inexperience", or "is he the right kind of candidate" are covering for their racism, possibly racism they don't even know (and certainly won't admit) they have.

But I let myself get angry this morning while innocently turning on the television to watch a soccer game. McCain's pick for VP just infuriates me. The utter contempt McCain and the rest of these people show for women is unbelievable. He really thinks that if he puts a woman on the ticket that he'll get women to vote for him. He thinks we're that dumb! I'm not going to vote for someone simply because we share the same anatomy, and to think that I'm going to overlook the fact that we have nothing in common in our background (other than hunting and living on the west coast) and certainly nothing in common for our vision of the future, and vote simply for some sort of solidarity with my gender is insulting to say the least.

Having said all that, I have a terrible feeling that Obama is not going to win. This joke of a pairing McCain/Palin are going to run our lives for the next four years. Can you imagine what depths they'll pull us to? I was devestated and mind-blown that Kerry lost four years ago. I simply could not believe the majority of Americans could vote for that bastard again. But I won't be surprised this time - disappointed, yes, but not surprised.

Hurl! (and then whine in pain later)

Just when I think I'm sort of in shape... I go and start a new activity. A few weeks ago, that activity was sawing logs and chopping wood while camping. I know how to chop and saw, it's just been a really long time since I'd done so. This week my roommate has suddenly become infatuated with the Irish game of hurling, which if you're unfamiliar with it, is similar to field hockey or lacrosse. It's played with a big stick, called a 'hurley', and a ball that's slightly smaller than a baseball.

The hurleys got here two days ago and I've ended both nights with a large dose of Ibuprofen and about half a bottle of Arnica (rub-on hippie medicine). My hamstrings are sore, my groin is tight, my obliques and lower back hurt and the muscles in my forearm are so tender that I can hardly make a fist. The outside of my forearm is so covered in bruises from the hurley handle and last week's soccer game that, as my roommate put it, it looks like I have a disease.

But it's a fun game involving some familiar movements like positioning on the field and using one's body to shield the ball from opponents, and completely unfamiliar motions like picking the ball off the ground using only a stick, and swinging the hurley with one's hands in the opposite grip as in baseball. Those new movements have totally tweaked a few muscles who seem to rather have been left alone.

planes, dreams

I've had a reoccurring dream for years, every few months or so, about planes falling out of the sky. Sometimes they come for me and I try to run to one side or another, but there's just no dodging a huge jetliner bombing towards your head. Other times, like last night, a plane on the horizon just dips and falls into a fiery mess and I try and pick people out of the wreckage. I'm sure it's a metaphor for something and I could probably look it up somewhere. I just wish I was smart enough to undo the riddles my own brain has created for me.

Anyway, this might have had something to do with my urge to go to the airport today. I do that every now and then. I get some coffee from Coffee People, find a seat near the window and watch the planes take off while reading or writing in my journal. I had a book to finish (American Gods, if you're wondering. It was fabulous, too.) and I kind of wanted to rid myself of the lingering disturbing thoughts of last night's dream by watching planes go up, up and away, exactly as they're supposed to.

Like most of my time this summer, today's events did not have a point and neither does this blog post. I'm struggling to find a conclusion here, but really, nothing happened other than some nice thoughts and a few overheard conversations, and certainly nothing reaching the revelation(s) with which I'd like to justify this post. But that's what I wanted this summer. Timeless, pointless, rambling, wandering...

A camping pic

Ah, eastern Oregon. Home of desert, cattle ranchers, 9,000 ft peaks surrounded by ponderosa forests, rushing rivers full of trout, and of course... a few people. Who like guns with their ice.

More pics to come...

Summers rule, too

I've been camping and stuff. Will post some pictures when I get a more reliable connection and before I head back out again. Summer breaks are the best. They ought to be mandatory in the employment world.

Birthdays rule

The oldest little boy that lives in my house, Pete, had a birthday yesterday. This provided his dad, my housemate, the opportunity to get a gift for him a month ago that would enrich everyone's lives: a Wii. Don't you hate those gifts, those that were given because the giver wanted them more than the receiver? Pete didn't care. And today he had a party. By the time I got up this morning both his parents had combined to clean the kitchen, the bathroom, even the intimidating dining room table. There wasn't an ant in sight! He invited a bunch of classmates, all of whom were cute as pie, and we played soccer, and ate hot dogs and watermelon, and they had a massive water balloon fight. His mom tried in vain to establish order and rules in a game format involving the balloons, but there was a whined "awwwwww!" of disgust that could be heard clear over in the next neighborhood and the game quickly became established as a free-for-all. Then Vegan Rob showed up, the vegan weighlifter that was featured in one of the premier weekly newspapers in Portland this week. He's a longtime friend of the family, so he dropped by to say hello to the kids and the their parents. He quickly became a target of every kid's waterballoon, and was forced to take his shirt off and run around the yard, dripping wet.

To reiterate (that phrase will forever remind me of an evil 1sg of mine, so I apologize for using it, in case it brings up unpleasantries in your life, too.), the house was cleaned spotless and a weightlifter ran around my yard without a shirt. I've instructed Pete to have a birthday at least every other month from now on.

Discharge!

My dad informs me that something that appears to be discharge papers arrived on my parents' front door step yesterday. hoots and hollers I couldn't tell ya how many times I've changed my address with those people8 and yet they continue to mail their important things - and my important things! - to my parents. Good thing they haven't moved during these past eight years!

Going on a camping trip tomorrow! I ransacked my room to re-find my fishing license, put line on the reel, bought a cooler and a pup tent (so as to not have to squeeze into my one-person backpacking tent), and now I just have to find some yummy treats. We're heading over to the Wallowas, a mountain range in northeastern Oregon. It's a mountainous desert, lots of Ponderosa pines, rushing fish-filled rivers and hiking galore. Man, I'm excited.

*In case you've just tuned in, "these people" mean the U.S. Army.

It's a bit warm

I feel like kind of a wimp complaining about the heat considering I've been bitchin' about the cold and damp for so long and considering 102 is on the mild side in some parts of the world. But goddamn have I been useless these past few days. The peak day for the heat I woke up unusually sick and hungover from the not-so-heavy drinking the night before. I tried to stave off further ill effects by guzzling water, only to get sick about a half hour after crawling out of bed, so I ended up in the hole as far as hydration was concerned. In the evening we had an indoor soccer game at the facility with no air conditioning and even though it had cooled to about 90 outdoors, inside it was probably still 120. And we had no girl subs, so I had to play the whole game. As soon as the other team scored I felt spent and looked at the clock... a whole minute and a half had ticked away. By the time the game ended - we lost, of course - I was entirely useless, having spent the previous fifty minutes or so lumbering in front of our own goal hoping that if the opposition shot the ball, it might deflect off me and away. All that seemed to accomplish was to cover me in bruises.

The cat isn't enjoying it either. He keeps sprawling on the kitchen floor, making himself about four feet long, and shooting me disgusted looks and hollering whenever I'm within earshot as if I've done something to make it so miserably hot. I continue to assure him that it's not my fault, but being a cat, he's got to blame someone. He did seem momentarily cheered up earlier today though, when I caught site of him gleefully flinging some poor dead sparrow up in the air, feathers swirling all about, then pouncing on it again, tearing chunks of fluff and generally acting like some tough lion who's caught hisself a zebra.

My roommate got a Wii, ostensibly for his little boy, but we've played it more than the kid has even seen the thing. I have to admit, the boxing game actually made me sore. I mean, my muscles actually hurt, lame as that is. It's the same part of my back where I was shocked to discover recently that I could feel my ribs. It's not that I've ever been fat or anything, it's that I used to have muscle there. Enough of it and for so long that I wasn't aware that one could ever feel ribs in one's back. What a spindly sack of wimpitude I've become.

Friday

Why did I agree to babysit on a Friday night? Ok ok, I know the answer to that: the kids' mother is a long time friend of mine and she just got a new job and couldn't find anyone else available. Even with only a promise of pay sometime in the future, I still can't turn down a friend like that.

Normally, I hate Friday nights on the town. Clubbers, once-a-week drinkers from the suburbs, drunk drivers and all other obnoxious types flood the streets and I just really don't like those people. On the other hand, I could use a cute drunk boy to stagger my way, if ya know what I mean. He doesn't need to be a *cool* cute drunk boy - he could even be from the suburbs - as I'll take what I can get at this point. Guess I'll have to wait for Saturday. Sigh. There'd better be shows galore.

Summer tiiiiiiiiime

School's out, the sun's finally out, and I'm not doing a whole lot other than watching Euro 2008 in the mornings, reading a bit and walking around in the sun. I'm taking the summer off from school to have a real summer vacation for once. Should be fun! I plan on fishing, camping with the family, traveling (within N. America), going to lots of Timbers games, and actually playing a few shows with my band.

Yeah, I'm in a band. It's embarrassingly nerdy. It's an Oi! band with songs inspired by our local soccer team, the Portland Timbers. That's right, it's a Timbers Oi! theme band. Told you it was embarrassing. I'm the drummer and terrible.

I applied for graduation today. I'm not necessarily done with school after that. I still have a few months of benefits left on the GI Bill (possibly a whole year's worth), and I do eventually want to use that up. The thing is, I'm bored. And when I get bored I start to do poorly at whatever it is I'm working on at the time and right now my grades suck. I need a break until I get bored doing something else and school starts to sound like fun again, but I want a degree in my hands before venturing out to the work world, in case something great comes up and I don't ever get around to more schooling.

So that's me. Haven't felt like blogging much either, but perhaps that will change as the summer progresses.

Dear Timbers,

Are you not aware that my emotional wellbeing is dependent on your results? Please stop losing. Please score some goals.

Thank you,

Fighting 106th Regular

ok fine! a tag

List 5 things in my bag:
Which bag? I picked the first one on the floor in my room. This is the travel bag, the part that detaches from the top of the backpack that I keep with essentials.
1 first aid kit
2 deodorant
3 Emergency-C packet, orange flavored
4 D-ring, "not for climbing", green
5 roll of toilet paper

List 5 favorite things in my room:
1 window - big, easily openable, weatherized window. totally out of place in the non-insulated, poorly wired bedroom, but I'll take the view out to the yard/garden nonetheless.
2 desk - it's one of those Ikea things, meant as a dining table that folds down against the wall when it isn't being used. That's a nice option, but it's never uncluttered enough to fold it down. It's listed as a favorite because of all the labor that went into make sure it was straight, getting the right damn screws (Ikea and it's European measurements and shitty screws!) and working with the weak battery-powered drill.
3 London Calling poster - probably the third iteration of this particular poster, due to plumbing leaks and hurried moves, etc.
4 my plant, lily thing - my last housemate wouldn't let me have pets and now I'm not sure if I'm going to travel and stuff, so I don't want to own a dog. Hence the plant. I put a lot of effort into rehabing this thing after I left it in my room with the heat off over Thanksgiving weekend last year. When I came home, it was nearly black and droopy. Then when I brought it with me over Christmas my sister's kitten ate all the outer leaves. It's lookin' pretty good these days.
5 the book "shelf" - a system of milk crates and particle board. It kind of forms and "L" shape and I can sit on it. Real shelves are expensive and I don't have the patience or equipment for carpentry.

List 5 things I've always wanted to do:
1 time travel
2 go to Alaska
3 tour with a band
4 win the lottery
5 see North Korea other than at the border.

List 5 things I am currently into:
1 being a lazy piece of shit
2 not blogging
3 playing Civ IV
4 Timbers!
5 relearning the drums and trying to not bring down the rest of the band.

Good God

...but is the news depressing! It's a wonder there's anyone still left alive in Asia, what with floods, earthquakes and bombs bombs bombs. There are also tornadoes somewhere in America, a drought in Spain, and Clinton won W. Virginia.

The amusing story of the day for me though is the "Terror Law Used to Spy on Fishermen". It's amazing how irate people get when they realize that the laws they so fervently clamored for actually apply to them. "What? You mean you're not just using this law to spy on brown people as they come back from the mosque? You're wasting my tax dollars and abusing your authority!" Wahwahwah...

Seattle was a Riot

The last time the Timbers Army invaded Qwest was an enjoyable experience, and a lot less nervy than the previous two trips I've made there. On the other trips, all of the security in the entire building surrounded the Portland fans, taunted us, and randomly threw out people for "swearing." The Timbers management warned the Sounders FO about our treatment up there and this time they backed off a bit. Overall, I'd give them a C. It'd have been higher save for the incident at the end of the game when they let all the fans out at once, instead of escorting the away fans after everyone had left like they do abroad and like we did when Seattle fans came down a few weeks ago. Instead, the concourses were packed with drunk rowdy boys and girls of both teams, families from Seattle and hordes of preteen soccer teams. The Timbers contingent had at least three different chants going, teenager Seattlites ran up to me and screamed in my face, and a few wannabe hooligans from Seattle ran through the crowd, shoulder charging people and knocking over kids of their own fans. The Army gathered outside in a sort of formation, scarves held over head and sang "We'll be coming down the road" for about ten straight minutes. Even the Seattle families were impressed, smiling, shaking hands and taking pictures. The same few assholes who charged through the concourses then tried to start a fight in the middle of this formation, but were outnumbered about 100 to 4, and it ended like a tame mosh pit with nothing but some shoving.

In all, about 400 Portland fans made the trip north, sang, danced and drank to witness an otherwise inglorious 0-0 draw. Portland may never get an MLS team due to market size and economics and blah blah blah, but soccer means something to people here, and I feel like I was a part of that history Saturday night.

Ok, enough sappiness. After the game my army buddy Owen and his girl took Tim and I out to a rugby bar where his sister's team had just finished a lube wrestling contest. The tap selection was superb, but I couldn't turn up the Strongbow, so I sipped a few of those while drooling over a hot guy across the room. Back at Owen's apartment we tried to watch the film Military Intelligence, but Owen and I, perhaps because we once were military intelligence, were the only ones to find it the least bit amusing and both Tim and Laura were passed out about five minutes in.

For whatever reason I couldn't sleep at all, and gave up at about six, surfed the net and waited for the Premiership final games to start. What I wanted to happen from these games was for ManUtd to win, Chelsea to spontaneously combust, and Fulham to miraculously beat Portsmouth to avoid relegation (I've got a soft spot for Fulham due to all the Americans on their team). All of that happened except for Chelsea combusting (but it was apparently really hot there), but honestly the most exciting part of the ManUtd game was watching the bizarre weather unfold - heat! deluge! ponds! rain! monsoon!

The drive home was uneventful. We stopped at a Denny's for breakfast and were served by a sweet old woman, which made me really sad. No one that age should have to work in a shitty place like Denny's anyway, but especially not an old lady on Mother's Day! Please, if there is a god, do not let me be serving at Denny's on a Mother's Day when I'm that age. I hope someone takes me to the tar pits before it comes to that.

quick update

My birthday yesterday began with cleaning someone else's vomit out of my sink. That would ordinarily imply that it was a good night, but really it was just ok. Timbers game and a trip to the Bullpen afterward sealed the fate for my sick friend. His wife wanted him home two hours prior to when he staggered into our house and then he had to be at work the next day at 7am. Poor guy.

The rest of my birthday was spent doing as little as possible, mostly playing that awful addictive game, Civilization 4. I found a People's Republic of Cork mod online and thought it was so funny that that's all I've been playing with. Keano, of course, is the leader and its special unit is Rampaging Hurlers.

Today! Shittle away! Love it! heh, last time the Timbers play in Seattle, possibly ever, as the evil bastards to the north are getting an MLS club and the USL one is then disbanding. No one goes to their games anyway, I guess it's just as well. So this is our last chance to get hassled by security, taunted, spit at, and called foul names in provocation. Woopee! An added incentive is that I get to see an old army buddy. Though raised in Seattle he is wisely a Timbers supporter.

OK, off to change clothes, get coffee and head to Vancouver (WA) to meet the housemate so as to carpool to Seattle.

PS. sorry bout the moody last few months. God I hate winter in the NW.

whatever

Since no one reads my blog anymore anyway, I'm just going to post here and be moody in privacy.

Nihilist, Pessimist, Optimist...

Sure, sure, the song actually says "YOU" don't exist, but I originally heard it as "they" and it made sense to me at the time, as it does now. So, who are your 'they'?