sweet victory

i'm beginning to feel slightly spoiled... two world series titles? in four years? not to mention three (going on four) super bowl victories for the patriots in this century. it's a good time to be a new england sports fan

i stayed up until the final pitch last night; i didn't get to see their clinching victory in 2004, and i wasn't about to miss the chance to see them wrap it up this year. you never know, it might be another 86 years until their next one, and i'd hate to think i missed the chance to see them clinch the title

now perhaps life can return to normal... my evening activities won't be dictated by whether the red sox are playing or not, and i can start paying off some of the sleep debt i've accumulated. it's all worth it, though... isn't it? or is it? after all, it's just a game; is a game worth losing sleep for? is it worth wearing your lucky red socks for several games without washing them? should i start listening to a band other than the dropkick murphys? or, more importantly, have i been a good steward of my time?



ah, screw it. i'll leave the deep questions for sometime else. right now i'm euphoric, exhausted, and slightly hungry. perhaps a glass of egg nog and a nap are in order....



mmhmm, yes they are


in conclusion, a token manny ramirez quote from before game four: "You can't eat your cake before it's your birthday." um... yes. i concur.

it's been a busy month.

musical mysticism

i’ve always been fascinated by horoscopes. i don’t mean that they fascinate me in the sense that i find myself believing in them, trusting them, or putting much stock in their claims whatsoever. what fascinates me is that they invariably use some sort of ranking system (in addition to their brief daily life forecast) to predict how good a day you will have. the local paper uses stars, of all things (how appropriate). but in all the years that i’ve been checking the paper, i’ve never seen someone’s day get assigned as few as two stars. definitely never just one. how can that be? surely there’s a chance that every now and then (sometimes more often than not), we’re going to have an absolute crap day. they can’t predict that? maybe it’s just me... but i find that fairly amusing. it’d be like predicting sunny skies with a light ocean breeze and temperatures in the 80’s... every single day of the year

anyways, i decided to borrow and slightly manipulate a different formula for both predicting the future, interpreting the past and understanding the present. i call it...

“the all-wise ipod”

simply devise a list of questions for your favorite media player, and then set it to play on random. carefully record the song titles as they come up, in order, and write them below the corresponding questions. you can use pre-existing questions, make up your own, or do some combination of the two. you may be surprised at how well your music knows you, and how accurate (or disturbing) some of it’s answers may be. two ground rules: no cheating with the answers (you have to listen to what your ipod tells you, even if it doesn’t make any sense), and you can’t make any important life decisions based on what your ipod tells you. i mean, really... would you trust a cheap piece of electronics to tell you what to do with your life, or an eternally optimistic newspaper horoscope? exactly.

so without further ado, here are all of my life’s questions answered for me...

1. how am i feeling today?
Hope Falls

2. will i get far in life?
Beautiful America

3. how do my friends see me?
Television

4. will i ever get married, and if so to whom?
Mr. Crowley (hands down winner for "most disturbing answer")

5. will I have a meaningful career?
Superstar

6. what is the story of my life?
Keep Movin’

7. if i had to describe my college life in one phrase, what would it be?
The Gladiator Waltz

8. how can i succeed in life?
Twilight and Shadows

9. what is the best thing about me?
In the End

10. how is today going to be?
Stars

11. what is in store for this weekend?
Faking Life

12. what song describes my family?
Learning to Breathe

13. if i had a dish at a restaurant named after me, what would it be?
This Is Your Life

14. how is my life going?
Citylights

15. what will be my last words before i die?
Hate (I Really Don’t Like You)

16. what song will they play at my funeral?
Light at my Feet

17. how does the world see me?
Green and Gray

18. what do my friends really think of me?
Someone to Die For

19. do people secretly lust after me?
Poparazzi

20. how can i make myself happy?
Railway

21. what should i do with my life?
Lie

22. where should i live?
Breakfast at Timpani’s

23. what is some good advice for me?:
Pootermobile

24. what's that smell?
Giant Squid!

25. what should be my signature karate move?
You Take My Heart Away

26. how do i feel after i eat fast food?
Two Hornpipes

27. should i consider a career as a pirate?
Don’t Underestimate

28. if i were to change my name to something exotic, what would it be?
About a Burning Fire

29. what is the meaning of life?
The Meaning of it all

30. should i ever try and juggle live grenades?
God help the outcast

i'm too amazed to respond to most of those answers... i bow before the supreme wisdom of technology

malaprop mom

my mom is an amazing source of wisdom. however, much of her knowledge tends to be imparted in a very nontraditional way. she has perfected the art of the "unintentionally wise mis-quote," wherein she rearranges, mashes, slices and dices well-known sayings into new, unusual, and yet surprisingly insightful quotes. for instance, the following are but a few of her many gems from over the years...

"the kids are eating like weeds these days"
"he's a chip off the old shoulder"
"no skin off my bones"

...and so on. but today, she came up with perhaps her best work yet. on the way home from the beach, the topic of conversation happened to land on a certain individual (anonymous and unimportant), about whom my mother made the following observation:

"he's a swell of a nice guy"


misspoken? perhaps. but nonetheless, it's yet another entry into the"mom-isms" book of lore

five-alarm.... spaghetti?

i almost burnt the house down this afternoon.

all i was trying to do was make some supper. i chopped up some onions and a christmas-colored array of peppers, and was preparing to sauté them for inclusion in a spaghetti sauce, when all hell broke loose...

please correct me if i made any egregious errors, committed some safety faux pas, or violated a cooking taboo in the following steps:

1. place pan on stovetop
2. cover bottom of pan in oil
3. turn burner on
4. let pan heat up for two minutes prior to adding onions and peppers

did i do something wrong? i don't think so. but when i came back into the kitchen after only a couple minutes away (i was on a bathroom break, ok? i'm sure even emeril takes one every now and then), there was smoke billowing out of the pot

big, black clouds of smoke


(even i know that's not good)

so i went over to the stove, started to reach over the pot to turn off the burner, when all of a sudden GIANT FLAMES leaped up at me. yikes. so i did what any rational person would have done in that situation...


i jumped about five feet in the air and screamed like a girl


then i grabbed some potholders, latched onto the flaming pot of death, and was getting ready to make a dash for the door, when one of the potholders caught on fire and immediately started to singe my thumb. so i went to plan C (plan B is always "hide," but i decided that it didn't really fit in this particular scenario), and threw the pot into the sink and turned the water on full blast

i knew in the back of my head that water isn't supposed to be used to put out a grease fire, but i wasn't thinking with my head. i was thinking with my thumb; a thumb which was being severely singed. so on went the water, which of course caused burning lava hot fiery oil to spatter everywhere, but mostly on the already afflicted thumb. not only that, but even bigger clouds of billowing black smoke started to fill the room, and all the fire alarms in the apartment simultaneously started to sound

at this point i started to get a little nervous... because, after all, if water won't put a fire out, what on earth will? fortunately the flames died down within a few more seconds, then went out altogether, and i was left with

• one crispy potholder
• second-degree burns on my thumb
• three shrieking fire alarms
  
• four rooms completely filled with acrid smoke

eventually the smoke went away (not on its own; it required much vigorous coercing to leave the premises), the alarms stopped their assault on my inner ear, and i resumed my attempt to cook supper. the slight delay only served to deepen my hunger, and thus i enjoyed my meal all the more so, knowing that i braved fire, smoke, and boiling lava hot burning oil to make myself a meal


there's probably a lesson in there somewhere... i like to ask myself after a difficult scenario "what can i learn from this?" in this case, i'm not sure what the lesson should be; i honestly don't think i did anything wrong. i guess i can chalk it up to a freak occurrence of nature; either that or gremlins, but definitely one of the two

maybe the lesson is to prepare myself for the unexpected; as much as i like to think that i'm ready for anything life should throw at me, i think i'm starting to realize that's not necessarily the case. i should hope for the best, but prepare for the worst. the easier times in life should be enjoyed, but also utilized as a means of preparing for darker days ahead, both physically and spiritually. we would label a man who didn't save any money aside for later in life when he may not be able to work as "foolish," but what do we call the christian who isn't taking advantage of the time given them to prepare for battles that may lay right over the horizon?

hmm


maybe that's a bit of a stretch, but there it is. that's what i learned today... that, and beware of pots containing hot oil




(gosh, anybody in the middle ages could have told me that)