My Exciting Friday Night
Well, after another long week of school, sure enough the weekend finally arrived. It had been an up and down week, sure I lost at both table tennis and badminton, but I did get to interview my favorite person of all time, Kierstin Arrandt, about working in smoke-filled bars and restaurants. As Friday arrived, I didn't have much planned on the docket. Ok, actually nothing planned. So rather than the same old, useless routine, I decided to really go all out and be as lazy as I possibly could.

I played some Xbox, then went out to get some pizza. Got that, then some more Xbox. I watched Seinfeld reruns, played Playstation, watched the ECW DVD, and laid around on my ass in general. And it felt pretty good. After trying to keep up that big work ethic for school and social life, it was nice just to do nothing for half a day. You should try it- go out of your way to be completely lazy and sloth-like one day. You'll be refreshed and better off for it in the long run.

I guess the pictures say it all
With a "drop-dead" date of this weekend, the final cancellation of the 2004-05 NHL season seems imminent. Of course, hockey fans have been wishing for a drop dead date for Gary Bettman and Bob Goodenow for some time now (just kidding). With the first cancellation of an entire pro sports season in North America looming, the tension's getting pretty high. That is, of course, if anybody cares about it. In fact, you could argue the NHL is toast no matter what the outcome of the lockout.

I guess in Canada though they might feel a bit differently.

Long Days
Just got done with another Tuesday. I never really liked Tuesdays/Thursdays thanks to the class schedule- the classes are an hour and twenty minutes, pretty long at least to me. I usually zone out at about the fifty minute mark, which means that I'm basically not paying attention and/or falling asleep for a third of the class time. Tuesdays/Thursdays are especially long this year because I'm taking an 8 oclock class, like a genius, followed up by a 2 hour Japanese class in the afternoon. I take a nap in the middle, so by waking up and then going to school twice, it effectively feels like two days in one. Did I mention that these are my two least favorite days of the week?

In other, less pleasant, news, my ingrown toenail on the big toe of my left foot is flaring up again- bringing it to over a year now that it has been bothering me on and off. It started when I was in Japan, and I can tell you, trying to get your health insurance to work in Japan is a lot of fun. So, anyways, I'm not too happy about this latest development. Looks like I get to go to the doctor, again.

Boston Must Be Stopped
Well, like it or not, the Patriots are once again Super Bowl Champions. I can't say that I'm too happy about it, myself. I mean, in 2002, when they beat the Rams, it was nice. Throwing a bone to the poor, cursed Boston fan. Oh, they won on a last-second field goal, isn't that special. Then, to really no one's surprise at the time, they missed the playoffs completely the next season. In 2003, after losing to the Bills 31-0 in the opener, the Pats started winning a lot all of a sudden and escaped from Super Bowl XXXVIII with another last second victory over a supposedly overmatched Panthers team.

About this time, I started to dislike the Patriots. Sure, they beat Carolina, my team, I'm sure that had something to do with it. Then everybody started loving the golden boys Brady and Vinatieri, and the "genius" coach who can't dress himself. Then they went out and got Dillon, which gave them the Yankee-like quality of the best team always getting the big free agents.

Speaking of the Yankees, Boston came back and beat them, pretty miraculously. Then they won the World Series too. Hmm, it's kind of getting hard to cheer for the long suffering, self pitying Boston fan all of a sudden. Somewhere around that time, the Pats started getting surly, and developing a huge chip on their shoulder, which didnt endear them too much more to me. And then of course, this latest NFL title, and all the dynasty talk. Folks, enough is enough. Boston, you've had your share. Lovable underdogs no more, they're edging close to Evil Empire status. It is now officially time to root against the Boston teams. For the good of sport, it must be done. Who's with me?

Recent Activites
Been doing some interesting things recently. Last night, I got to check my friend Taylor's band, the Punk Jazz Project at the Visulite theatre in Charlotte. They've got an interesting jazz/rock out mix, which makes them worth a listen by itself. It was a good show, probably the best yet, and the Visulite theater has a cool vibe to it.

Today was the big Charlotte/Cincy game- you know, the one where all the UNCC students decide to show up for a home game? Yeah, that one. ESPN was there, and the Diego Guevara bobblehead giveaway was in full force. Anyway, it ended up being a really good game- back and forth the whole game, full of spectacular plays, and somebody even threw a nerf football at the ref. Charlotte won on the last play, a missed shot by Cincy, and we all got to rush the floor. Very exciting, and even better because it might be the last time Charlotte and Cincinatti play for awhile- so we got the last laugh, at least for now.

Lack of Updates
Sorry about the slow state of blog entries around here. I haven't been feeling so hot one way or another for about a week or so, and I had a pretty rough cold last week. I got rid of that by sleeping for 12 hours straight, so that was good, but since then I've just still been feeling pretty crappy in general with a lot of low level headaches. Man, I'm getting another one right now just thinking about it. So, when you're not feeling too good, blogging kind of takes a low priority. Ergo, no updates for a week.

Anyway, on to THE GREAT ICE STORM OF '05. Deciding that I'd rather not be stuck freezing in my apartment, I drove home on Friday (Happy Birthday Jack) and bunkered down at home, where the food is always better. Indeed, it snowed and got iced over, but mostly melted by Sunday. So, no need to panic too much.

Back at school, I had some mixed results on Ebay. I won a lot of old Tiger LCD games for $12, but got sniped on some old Gamepro mags from the early 90's. Well, that's just how it is, Ebay can be a ruthless place sometimes.

Last night was "Lutzville", the yearly campout for Cincinnati basketball game tickets. After the great "Freezing my ass off" of 2003, I swore never to camp out for tickets again. I did stop by though to hang out and partake in some of the festivities, however. The student activites group on campus did a pretty good job of making it a fun time- there was music, video game tournaments, freebies, and they even kept the Pizza Hut open late. So, good for them. And to Jason and all those who braved the elements, we salute you.

Are you ready for some hot executive branch action tonight?!? It's the State of the Union address, and apparently the hot topic is going to be "Saving Social Security". Sadly, I don't think I can count on the Bush Administration to save much except the bottom lines of their wealthy donor class. Remember folks, in politics as well as business, buyer beware!

I'm on TV!!!
This is probably old news to most of you, but I was interviewed on Channel 9 news the other day. What happened was, Friday afternoon, me and Sammy had just got done with a nice game of ping pong at the SAC game room. Walking back, we saw a Channel 9 TV truck. We figured there was some live remote or something, and joked about bugging the cameraman. Well, he walks up to us and asks if we can say a few words about some campus construction issues- putting in new sidewalks and replacing the old concrete ones with bricks.

As you may know, I lived in Japan for about a year, and learned the great value of being able to walk places whenever I feel like it- it's a fairly serious complaint I have about the UNCC campus. So, I definitely had something to say to the cameraman about the situation (no cute female reporter to hit on this time, sadly). The part that got put on the 10 oclock, 11 oclock, and morning newscasts was how UNCC needs to imporve its looks in order to better compete with other NC University system schools. Which is true, if UNCC wants to step it up as a campus, they've gotta look the part.

Anyways, I did manage to see the last half of the segment on TV that night. Despite the camera's bright lights I suppose I looked good enough for my five seconds of fame. Anyways, it's a very surreal feeling looking at the TV, and seeing yourself staring right back at you. You should try it sometime.

You ever screw anything up with some one
So badly, so just unbelievably badly, that words escape you? I mean, it's beyond your limits of comprehension as to how you could have ----ed up so badly? So bad that's all that's left is an emotion of despair and the taste of bile in your mouth? How could I, a person that I have confidence and believe in, could have acted so such a gutless, unexplainably dumbass kind of way? Yeah, it was like that for me today. All damn day.

On the positive side, I did get my playoff picks right- somebody give me a cookie.

Hut one
Well, I almost forgot to put up my championship round playoff picks. I did fairly well last week, going 3-1 and calling the Pats game when everybody else jumped on the Peyton bandwagon. So after going 2-2 for my wild card picks, that puts me at 5-3 for the playoffs. With the only three games left, they've all got the potential to be epics, or complete blowouts. Most times, it's fun to have an underdog hanging around to make things interesting, but every once in awhile it's nice to see the two clearly best teams from each conference square off to decide the champ. Now, on to the picks:

AFC. New England at Pittsburgh. I've said it before, and as much as I wish that it wasn't true, the Belichek Patriots really are special. I'd sure love to see them lose, but they seem to be able to break all the rules that say in this day and age of parity that teams shouldn't be excellent game-in and game-out. So, yeah, they are going to beat the Steelers in Pittsburgh, potentially quite badly, and probably go on to win the Super Bowl. Again.

NFC. Atlanta at Philly. Break out the Maalox because you know Eagles fans are getting ulcers over the thought of Vick and Co. coming to town to deny them yet another Super Bowl shot. But they need not worry. A tough pick, but this is the year the Iggles get it done. They'll find a way to contain Vick in the snow, making him pass, where we all know he isn't that great. When that happens, the Eagles can punch their tickets to Jacksonville.

Just a thought
I was just thinking, wouldn't college be soo much better without internet or tv, or videogames? Think about it. People would be out and about, talking to each other, and doing something instead of just sitting in their rooms all day chatting on AIM or posting photoshops on somethingawful. A dull campus like UNCC could definitely use a shot in the arm like this. So, whattaya say Charlotte? I think it's a great idea that would make the campus community better as whole.

With that said, I'm off to play some Halo 2 on Xbox Live. Chow!