Post One Hundred Twenty Seven: A foul mood

I am in a ridiculously foul mood this morning, and I'm trying to figure out why. Could be because my week is absolutely slammed: to Houston this afternoon, got a deposition in Dallas tomorrow a.m., a hearing on Wednesday morning, followed by a meeting with an expert, followed by a flight to California Wednesday night for a deposition, and back on Thursday.

Or it could be the Mavericks: they just lost Dirk to a leg injury yesterday (ankle and/or knee), and since no one else on the team plays like they fucking care, the Mavs are dead in the water.

Or it could be that I didn't work out yesterday, and I'm getting antsy/wound up.

Shoot me now.

Post One Hundred Twenty Six: Follow-up on the ESPN thing

ESPN called this morning and let me know that I would be receiving a Stars replica jersey AND a $100 gift certificate at the Stars shop at the AA Arena (or as I like to refer to it, the "Hangar").

Really, that is quite decent of the promotions staff at ESPN and I truly appreciate their efforts to make it right.

/what an embarrassing typo

Post One Hundred Twenty Five: Savage Love

I read Dan Savage's column, Savage Love, via The Onion's AV Club. Mainly, I do this for the freakshow effect, but it's kind of interesting to me how much I, as a pretty conservative guy, agree with him. While I can't really support his chosen political candidates given their fiscal policies (i.e., taxing me to death), we both seem to share a hatred of the Religious Right that has inflitrated and poisoned the Republican party, leading to a total abandonment of the principles of fiscal conservatism and respect for individuals rights and privacy in exchange for a salacious embrace of spending every damn dime (and THEN some) brought in via ridiculously high tax rates rendered even more onerous by an unnecessarily complex and punishing bureaucracy in order to satisfy pork quotas in the districts of our duly-elected representatives who all the while hypocritically bray about "family values" while trying to get in Senate pages' pants behind their family members' backs or cutting back room deals to line their own pockets with lobbyist cash (and don't even try to read this as any kind of limited bitch at Republicans; this goes for Democrats, too) so that even fucking more increases in the budget can be made the next year so this country can go even more in debt, weakening the dollar even further that allows countries around the world to start calendaring the United States' purported downfall while we do or are asked to do every GODDAMN THING TO FUCKING BAIL THEM OUT OF EVERY GODDAMN JAM EVERY MOTHERFUCKING COUNTRY GETS THEMSELVES INTO WITHOUT EVEN A FUCKING WORD OF APPRECIATION JESUS CHRIST I HATE THE SCUMBAGS IN CONGRESS WHO JUST DON'T FUCKING GET IT!

. . .

But I digress a bit.

In any event, this recent column of Savage's struck me. I've probably got friends and family members who view homosexuality as a burn-in-hell sin. But how would they feel if their closest friends or even children were gay?

Me? I don't really care what anyone's sexual orientation is. It's the way you're born, as near as I can tell. I mean, why would anyone choose to put themselves through the levels of shit that gays have to go through, particularly in their teenage years? As for my kids, as long as they're happy, healthy, smart, and moral, I'll be thanking God.

Regardless, read the column and figure out what kind of parent/friend you would want to be.

Post One Hundred Twenty Four: Dave Pirner

I traveled to Biloxi, Mississippi yesterday for some mediations going on this week, and arrived at Love Field in Dallas to wait for my flight. I was in the lobby, having just finished my Chili's quesadillas, when a little boy pulling a suitcase and his mom came walking up and sat down across from me. Shortly after they sat down, up walked Dave Pirner from Soul Asylum. I recognized him right off: the dude's still got the same distinctive hair. But still, there was some twinge of doubt, so I looked up a few photos of him on Flicker via my phone to confirm my suspicions. The pictures confirmed it, but then the boy's suitcase flipped over, revealing the boy's last name: Pirner. Proof positive.

I thought it was kind of cool that I recognized him when no one else did, but I wasn't going to be "that guy" and browbeat him while he's there with his wife and kid. In fact, I can't remember any instance of my being that enamored of celebrity to seek out a photo or autograph. So I went about my business, and just boarded the plane.

Well, on the flight I got to thinking about a couple of Soul Asylum's songs ("April Fool" and "99%") and how much I liked them, and decided I wanted to say something to him. So after the flight, I waited until he and his family broke away from the crowd and then quietly approached him to thank him for his contributions to my music collection. He laughed, said "thanks," we shook hands and I left him to his family. He seemed very down to earth and pretty normal (for a lead singer, I suppose), and I was glad I said something. How often do you get to personally thank these people for creating the music you love?

Post One Hundred Twenty Three: This sort of thing doesn't happen with the Ticket

So a friend and I are at the Dallas Stars game Sunday night (and I suffered for it with a monster hangover on Monday) against Peter Forsberg and the Colorado Avalanche (more on that in just a bit). During the first period, they announce one of those "Text and Win" contests, this one for some kind of autographed jersey. I don't know whose autograph or what kind of jersey, but somehow it involved Michael Irvin. Whatever. Regardless, I go ahead and text in, and within two minutes I get the following message:

"ESPN: Congrats - You Win the Jersey! Go2 the ESPN Promo table behind section 120 to claim - show this message. Thx from 103.3 FM ESPN!"

How about that? Just about two weeks earlier I won a Blackberry Pearl from KTCK 1310 (the best sports radio station in DFW, or anywhere else for that matter) via text message, so I've got to admit I'm a pretty big fan of these sorts of contests.

So this day was just getting better and better. My friend is a Swede and a Peter Forsberg fan, and is there decked out in his bright yellow Sweden national team Forsberg jersey. At a STARS game. Not only that, he had been talking smack all week about how Forsberg was going to kill the Stars. And on top of that, Forsberg was credited with two assists against Dallas the night before in Colorado. So I'm feeling pretty sick of all that. But than my friend and I both notice that Forsberg isn't on the ice during warmups and start wondering where he is. Turns out Forsberg is announced as a pre-game scratch due to a groin injury. Needless to say, I'm very happy with this turn of events, particularly since my friend is sitting there in his Forsberg jersey just devastated. Bwha-hahahahaha!!!!!!!!!!

But back to the story. My friend and I proceed downstairs to find the table and collect my prize, but what do we find there but about 50 other people standing around waiting. Seems there was some kind of "glitch" with the text messaging system that resulted in ESPN sending out too many winner notices (144 too many, to be exact).

Dammit.

Well, I find it amusing, and I'm not all that put out. Hell, I had a couple beers in me at that time, had eaten a good meal, Forsberg was out, and Colorado only had one shot on goal through the first period. But I do go ahead and send a text to ESPN about how I will be FORCED to sue under Texas' Deceptive Trade Practices Act if I don't end up with the jersey in the make-up contest they asked everyone to sign up for. Really, the message was a joke. I have no time for filing that kind of lawsuit.

But hey, if it works, it works.

Well, this morning I got a call from someone at ESPN apologizing for the eff up, and saying they were working with the text company and the Stars to figure out some way to make it up to everyone. I doubt it's going to be an autographed jersey, but apparently their goal is to have it cleared up within 48 hours.

That's really pretty decent of them.

Post One Hundred Twenty Two: RIP

--Thanks to Penny Arcade for the image