Category: Generic

Practice Tonight

We were pretty sloppy and ratty at band practice tonight.  Not unusual for the last practice before a gig to be the worst one ever.  Kinda cliche, eh?

I think I had the guitar sounds down for good.  Or at least for the next week.

DAMNIT

I said in my last post that I was hoping my step son would perform late in his recital’s program.  Nope.  I was seated at 4:20.  It started at 4:00.  The kid who followed him on the program was finishing up when I arrived.

I missed my step son’s performance.

Damn it damn it I missed it.

I hope the hall enjoyed it.

Crock Pot

There’s a first for everything.  I just followed a recipe my beloved wife planned out for a chicken dinner in a crock pot.  I can’t remember if I’ve ever cooked anything in a crock pot before.  I know I’ve helped Jen out as she prepared things in one before, but I’ve never done it all by my lonesome.

I feel like I’m on the cusp of a whole new world, eh?

So today I’ve gone food shopping with my step daughter, done three loads of laundry, started dinner on it’s way, unclogged the drain in the bathroom sink, and filled up the CRV’s gas tank.  Woah!  Next up is a three hour band practice, my step son’s guitar recital (pleasepleaseplease let him be one of the last kids to play because I’m going to be late), then some more laundry, finish dinner, maybe take the kids out to get some gelato (that’s still far from decided upon), and then watch the season finale of Game of Thrones.

Woah.

Hey, HBO.  Think you might move up the air time for Game of Thrones by a couple of hours so that I can watch it early and then go to sleep?  Huh?  Sound good?  Thanks!

Photo a Day Fail

I was doing one of those goofy photo-a-day-for-365-days challenges that all the cool kids on Flickr do. 136 days. I made it for 136 days and then yesterday just forgot to take a picture. Just… forgot. Sonofabitch!

Failure due to absent mindedness.

Hockey Wrap Up… Finally

Given that our civilization is dishonoring the sacrifices made by the millions of people who died fighting fascism in the 1930’s and 40’s by smiling pretty as fascism makes a comeback, it seems pretty stupid to talk about hockey. I’m really pissed off though, so I need something to vent on that isn’t going to get me lined up in front of a firing squad when our new fascist overlord, the donald, is elected in November. So hockey it is.

The 2016 playoffs had 15 series. I picked 10 correctly, and got five wrong. That’s a 2/3, or 67% success rate. I picked the Sharks over the Penguins in the finals and picked wrong. Damn it, Sharks. You always end up screwing me over. I hate the Penguins, and now we have to sit through a whole year of Doc Emmerick and Pierre MacGuire talking about how Crosby and co are the reigning champs. Yippee skippee. I hate the effin’ Penguins.

So what’s next? The draft is tonight. That sounds fun, right? It should at least. Does it still sound fun when you find out that Don Sweeney is still in negotiations with Loui Freakin’ Eriksson? Do you feel optimistic about the future when you hear that our Harvard educated, NHL veteran, General Manager is trying to keep J.D. Friggin’ Drew in the fold for another six years at 20 billion dollars?

Over the next two days we will have seven picks:
Round 1:
14
29 (traded from San Jose)
Round 2:
49 (traded from the Islanders)
Round 5:
135
136 (traded from Minnesota)
Round 6:
165
Round 7:
195

It is safe to say that our rocket scientist GM, who thinks we have a good team in place despite missing the playoffs two years in a row (in spectacular choking fashion), will spend these draft picks on players who will have excellent but short careers as minor leaguers who barely if ever even get a sniff at the NHL.

The excitement is so thick you can cut it with a knife!

Three years in a row out of the playoffs, with a bullet!

Brexit

I’m stunned.

I’m actually stunned by two things. First, by the results of the UK’s referendum on leaving the European Union, and then again by the fact that the value of the British Pound hasn’t dropped to zero yet, although the last report I heard had it at a 31 year low.

The global economy exists. Hiding your head in the sand like a xenophobic asshole does not make it go away. If you try to walk away from the global economy, the global economy will walk all over you. The UK has to renegotiate every trade deal made since the mid-70’s. BY CHOICE! Of course there probably won’t be much of a UK left after this as Scotland and N. Ireland are already talking about wanting out.

It’s all very abstract to me, not being from Europe, but I can’t help but see a similarity between the vote to leave the EU and Donald Trump. Let this be a wake up call to all of the left leaning voters in the US. If you write in Bernie Sanders, or go to a third party, then the shit storm happening in the UK today will happen in the US (probably worse) when you hand the election to Donald Trump. I voted for Bernie Sanders in the Massachusetts primary. Today though, I feel an overwhelming compulsion to donate money to the Clinton campaign. I’m not much of a Hilary Clinton supporter these days, but she is a gift from the gods compared to Donald Trump.

Last night I stayed up insanely late as I was watching twitter and reading the early news stories about the Brexit results and watching the value of the Pound take it’s unprecedented nose dive to oblivion. I finally couldn’t keep my eyes open at a little after 1:00am and as I gave up the fight and fell asleep I couldn’t help but feel as though our world had taken a big step backward toward fascism. Maybe not a Donald Trump sized step, but a big step none the less.