11/15/09

♫ It's another November evening
As you remember your way home
You mete out your aggressive tendencies
On what's left of your blackened soul
You've come to this conclusion
As you're dragged from another bloody fight
You've reached the edge where you decided
That you've lived out your whole life

Another busted knuckle
Taken down by a kick to the balls
You've wasted time wasting time
As life's shadows grow so tall

It's another busted knuckle
It's a fight you'll never win
And now you bow your head in shame
For a sin no one forgives ♫

I don't know, man. Nothing particular stood out about today but sometimes you have to wonder when you'll cross the line. As I ride in a car, drinking beer on a Sunday afternoon, returning home from another pathetic loss by a team that really has nothing to do with me, one might conclude that the boundary is being tested. I don't know. All things considered, my life is pretty good. We'll have to leave it there for now.

Probably not going back to work tomorrow, but you never know. My vision is blurry enough right now that I fully expect to sleep late tomorrow. Once I wake and drink a bunch of water, we'll take stock of the situation and proceed from there.

11/14/09

With the usual caveats about sour grapes and being a sore loser and so on, it must be said that, before tonight, I had never seen such openly corrupt officiating in person. I had seen it on TV when the SEC was trying to protect Florida's and Alabama's paths to the BCS. I had seen it on TV when the Big Ten was trying to protect Iowa's path to the BCS. Now the Big East has a chance to clear an extra $4.5 million if Pitt and Cincinnati both qualify. I saw the Big East's corruption on TV when West Virginia got hosed out of a fumble recovery and Cincinnati scored a touchdown. And now I've seen it in person. The Pitt fans surrounding us were visibly embarrassed by the time the game was over.

There is a built-in financial incentive for conferences to protect their own teams under the current system. Yet, Notre Dame continues to sign contracts that provide for the opponents' conferences to provide the officials. After firing the coach, which it seems they'll have to do pretty soon, the next step is to get the officiating contracts fixed. If I'm a whiner then so be it, but I spent a lot of money on this weekend and I was robbed of the opportunity to see how the game would turn out.

The fight for which I volunteered did almost materialize though. A fella was running his mouth on the way out of the stadium. Once it was too much for us to take, my brothers and I angled over in his direction. The fella suddenly found that he didn't have as many friends as he thought he had. So he scurried into an intersection with some cops around and we continued out to my car. A fitting non-conclusion to the day.

11/13/09

Time is running out for Pitt fans to volunteer to fight me. By this time tomorrow night, I'll be winding down from a long day of drinking and my martial availability will have expired. Sign up now, if that's your thing. I'm a little older and weaker than I once was, but I'll sure as hell try to kick your ass.

I got my truck back from Ohio today. Some might be tempted to call the afternoon drive a mere appetizer for tonight's main course. For me though, it carried the significance of adding another 57 miles to my week and earning enough money to pay my insurance premiums. Alas, I just checked the company's web portal. The dispatcher who told me that he would "take care of it" was full of shit. My (official) current pay period consists of only 57 miles. That's a one-way trip from Taylor to Perrysburg. My truck is therefore still (officially) in Perrysburg and my (official) pay for the week is $21.66. Peckerhead. I'll have another $21.66 coming whenever I go back to work, since the truck has to get to Taylor somehow, but today's dispatching failure screws up my pay schedule.

The disappointment should have ended there. It didn't. After a nice and easy drive down to Pittsburgh this evening, my brothers and I chugged a few beers at the hotel and then walked over to a local bar. The place was nice. The food was good. The crowd was pitiful. Nary a hot broad in sight. Hardly any dudes either, for that matter. We ate well and drank a few rounds, then headed back to the hotel (where a full cooler was waiting). My two (much younger 'second marriage') brothers are sleeping like a couple of little bitches. I'm watching ESPN and typing a blog post. This is not how the Friday before a big game is supposed to conclude. And I still haven't found anyone to fight me.

11/12/09

Not every day has an easily identifiable highlight but some days certainly do. Today had a very distinct highlight. It came when I was lucky enough to end up between my parents at dinner. When they haven't been on speaking terms for the last day or two, the fella who draws the 'buffer' seat should always consider himself lucky. It wasn't as bad as I expected though. The food was superb and nobody said anything awkward. Good enough.

There was no sound on the TVs at the bar where we had dinner, but I still could see that the discussion on various ESPN and Fox Sports shows involved a certain Indiana university whose football players wear shiny gold helmets. Plenty of pundits laughing at the lads and their coach this week, it would appear. To quote our nation's esteemed leader and undisputed savior of the free world - Fired up! Ready to go! Saturday can't get here fast enough. As of the time that this post is being made, nobody has yet volunteered to fight me. The offer stands.

The six cases of beer in the trunk of my car should be enough to get us through tomorrow night and all of Saturday, I hope. My last leisure trip to Pittsburgh came in 2005. Following a dazzling 42-21 victory for the Irish on that Saturday night, my fruitless pursuit of a late-night beer store left an indelible mark on my soul. The place is still run by Quakers or something and, beginning promptly at 1am, I was shit out of luck. Never again, I vowed. Never again. If I were ever to visit for another Pitt game, I would make sure to arrive with more beer than I could possibly hope to drink.

My Swedish buddy Sjoe managed to offload his smuggled cigarettes from Kentucky tonight and I'll get paid for my brothers' football tickets tomorrow, so the financial end of the weekend appears to be pretty well situated. All that is left is for Our Lady's fearless defenders of righteousness to redeem their soiled name. We'll see.