Laptop Busted
Apparently my computer won't boot up, so posting may be light around here for awhile. Just a heads up.

On the bright side, looks like I'll get to see how this post works out.

I needed to be alone for awhile
So I went to school on Friday afternoon. No, but in all seriousness, it took every fiber of my being, but I had to go study. I went up to the campus around 330, and it's amazing how quickly UNCC obtains ghost town status on the weekends. I mean everybody splits as soon as possible, for home or work or whatever, and the campus just gets lonely and depressing. After a week of classes, I don't want to be there either, but this pattern of nobody around continues throughout the weekend, and I think as a whole all the students are worse off for it.

Contrast this with the sudden groundswell of support for 49ers basketball. Now, I'm as glad as the next guy to see games sell out, but you have to wonder where these people were when the team was unranked. And today, in another experiment of school spirit, the school is letting students try tailgating in some of the parking decks. As my friend Jack said, in this case tailgating is basically synonymous with drinking, so hopefully there won't be any problems. But I guess that we'll find out.

Squared Sevens Floor Hockey R.I.P. 2003-2005
I make no exaggeration when I say that being the captain of Squared Sevens floor hockey team was the greatest moment of my sophomore year. Not like there was much competition, but that's beside the point. Me, Tim, Jason, Ryan, Sammy, and crew tore it up pretty good. We even won a playoff game, 4-3, in a virtuoso display of teamwork and grit. In addition to being a lot of fun it was also enjoyable to me on a personal level- I got to be Captain, coordinating and directing to squad. It was excellent.

When I was able to go to Japan, I knew floor hockey was gonna have to wait til senior year. We were really going to kick ass this time, I just knew it. Leaner, meaner, better skilled and organized. Watch out world. I even figured, hey, I'll ref a couple games, get some extra bucks. I began the season with high expectations. When the season ended for us, today, they couldn't be much lower. Total games played? One. Total games reffed? A big fat zero. After waiting two years to get back into this thing, it quite frankly didn't amount to shit at the end.

Problem? Where to begin. First and foremost, turnout. Nobody shows up. 4 out of our 5 games were straight up forfeits. I guess people just can't be bothered these days. I realize people have work and school but 80% is just sad. I wonder, would the turnout be better at a different, somewhat more glamorous sport? Basketball, perhaps, everybody's favorite pickup game? I'd probably say so. I remember when I asked this one dude in my class if he wanted to play floor hockey, he looked at me like I was stupid. Floor Hockey? Who plays that? Isn't that the sport with sticks? This would-be Ivan Lendl even bullshitted to my face about it. I'll be sure to ask him to be on my Tennis squad though. For sure.

About the reffing thing, I've got to place blame on the Intramurals office here at school. Why recruit people if they aren't going to play? Why waste both of our time? If over half of your games are going to be forfeits anyway, why bother? If the problem with getting scheduled was in the availability submission forms on the webpage, why not fix it? As a prospective employee, its not my job to go out of my way to waste my time and then never get hired. I did talk to some of the people who run it, and they actually have college degrees in this stuff. Could have surprised me.

So where to go from here? I enjoy this, but apparently that makes me world population of one. I'd love to set up some pickup games, but I can imagine the slightly annoyed look on the faces of the intramurals staff already. Didn't you guys just have your season? The goals are all locked up, you know. We'll have to get them out. And don't break the sticks either. And if you lose a puck, thats five bucks each. We'll be counting. No, I seriously doubt that will work. That leaves one option. I'm going to learn to skate, to play for real, and I'm moving to Manitoba. Peace.

Could They Have Screwed This Up Much Worse?
So, let's get this straight. After canceling this season on Wednesday, the NHL and the players tried to un-cancel it in another meeting today. I guess they can't even cancel a season the right way. Gretzky and Lemiuex were involved in the proceedings this time, which raises the question of where have they been in the process all along. Of course, Goodenow and Bettman weren't invited- I suppose they were planning on getting something accomplished this time.

The result remained exactly the same however, no agreements were reached, which makes you wonder why they even bothered in the first place. Sounds like they were just wasting everyone's time, again. What a bunch of bozos, to put it nicely. They've screwed up so bad, at this rate, they'll all end up being the Canadian Secretary of State before all is said and done. Oh well, at least there is always Arena Football.

Computers- gotta love 'em
I had to take an online test this past weekend at the so-so www.webassign.net. What this involves is typing your answers onto text boxes on the web page, and then it all gets sent to your professor. For my test, there was a one hour time limit.

This was for my European relations class, and seeing how its in my major, I studied pretty seriously all weekend for it, knowing that I'll end up having to take a test against the clock online, in a setting that I've never done before. I was a bit apprehensive about the whole thing, in addition to being nervous over a big test in general.

So Sunday, after all day studying, I decide to go ahead and take the damn thing. I figured the library's computers would probably work better than mine, so I took it there. It starts out fairly well, I'm familiar with all my terms and facts more or less so no problems there. What I did was, I typed it in Word and then copied and pasted to the web page. There's a large essay you have to write to finish the test, and I'm making good progress on it, about to wrap it up and finish the test with a couple of minutes to spare, when- maybe you can guess what happens here.

Yup. The computer completely crashed and reset on me. Apparently, it was caused by a "comminication error" the computer had. Before resetting the power, the computer tried to auto save the file, but no doubt thanks to UNCC's computer's tough security settings, it was denied permission to save. Had I happened to save the essay myself before the computer went down? No, of course not. My essay was lost and I was basically out of time. I was just a little pissed at this later development. My friend Akane tried to tell me just to type it again and email it, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. I logged off and went home to drink a beer.

Fortunately, it seems to have ended well. When I told my professor, he seemed pretty understand and extended the deadline that I could take the test. So I typed it up again, and got everything sent in this time. So hopefully I shouldn't fail thanks to the schools computers, just my own academic incompetence. Wow, that ended up being a lot longer than I thought it would. But the bottom line is this- computers sure can be a pain in the ass sometimes.

Congratulations 49ers
On cracking the AP Top 25 at number 23- I figured this deserves its own post. Keep up the good work.

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?