christmas spirit

Before getting to Christmas, I'd like to say 'whoa'. I went a little bit apeshit over the swimmers not being gay a while ago, and if my words made you break down in tears as you read them I sincerely apologize, oops. I guess that's why there's the 24 hour rule, but I came home from practice with a Mt. McKinley sized pile of homework, 3rd world hunger pains, and a 87 year old achy body, I was a bit frustrated.
On a lighter note, Christmas is approaching. Yes,that magical night that baby Jesus was born of the virgin Mary and Joesph in the little town of Bethlehem. So I ask you this, why do people decorate their houses in 'christmas lights'? If anything is a Christmas light its that star that led all the wise men to the manger, not those annoying as hell to hang stringy lights. So why do we do it? Christmas spirit, the same thing that actually powers all of whoville. We pick one freezing, often raining/sleeting/snowing afternoon to put those lights all over our house and trees, often catching a disease that could make this Christmas our last, but if you're gonna die, I suppose decorating for Christmas would be an acceptable way to go. Anyways, it sort of bugs me when I see houses that have obviously had their lights done professionally. You can easily tell, the lights are in most cases perfect. Big and colorful and generally placed along the roofline that gives the appearance of four helicopters being able to land there simultaneously. But doesn't that defeat the purpose of Chrismas lights? I mean hanging those lights and wrapping all that garland is like a giant detox from the rest of the year. Get all that stressful shit out of you, its time for the holidays. So what happens to people that have some crew do their lights? They literally explode from built up stress.
Another thing. Snowmen. I'll be the first to admit that I was more into snowforts than snowmen, generally because I wasn't strong enough to push the giant snowballs that my ego required for a successful snowman, but that's beside the point. I can definately appreciate a good snowman, and besides candy canes, they are the number 1 symbol of December for me. So it drove me crazy to see this giant blow up snowman in this persons front yard the other day. The house is right by my brother's, and I remeber him saying multiple times that he would love to shoot an arrow through that bastard. This thing is huge, probably about 10 feet tall and extra fat with this stupid smiling face with a pipe or something. But the fact that it's smiling while undulating in the frosty december wind while being inflated by some noisy fan just doesn't do it for me. Give me a real snowman any day.

Ohh, and in case you were wondering what to get me for Christmas, here's a list. I'm registered at Cabelas, Bestbuy, and Bed, Bath, and Beyond:

1. Cabela's Big Game Hunter (xbox360)
2. An ant far, preferably the meanest ants you can find
3. Black Hawk attack helicopter for showing terrorism what's up
4. Mini-fridge for my room
5. Survival knife to show bears and terrorism what's up

Remeber kids, go Griswold or go home this year. Word.

swimming update number 1

For this inaugural swimming update, I decided to write a poem expressing my feelings towards my sport:

Swimming

Ballz to the wallz

Warmup kicks my ass

Chest burns, legs numb, shoulders ache, dizzy

Swimming

I took some poetic licence on this one, and hence spilled milk on myself while eating my 4th "snack" since getting back from practice. I don't know what's up, but I constantly feel like I have been hit by one of those Chinese bullet trains. I mean come on. Today my calf cramped up so badly that I couldn't just swim it off, and I could tell that Rich was pissed at me. Today's was by far the hardest practice of the year which is stupid since this was the fourth practice in 2 days. Your body cannot physically adjust to swimming an extra 4,000 yards a day in 12 hours or however often we have practice. I don't give a shit, I'm at home now.

And I would officially like to call all the people out there that say swimmers are gay "assholes". I shouldn't waste my precious breath addressing this, but that assumption is not at all true. It's like saying black people can't swim, or white people can't dance, or asian people are good at math, it's funny the first time, but then its dumb. In fact annoying as shit. We work just as hard if not HARDER than any other team at this school, as shown in our record. Undefeated in 4 years. What other team can say that? None. And you know what? We work so hard that we actually get in shape in a good way, not baseball shape. Just because we have enormous shoulders and tight abs doesn't make us gay. As for showering, that's not gay either. Chlorine smells bad, worse then when you take a dump without the fan on. Doesn't it make sense that we should shower? And we wear speedos at practice, so is it gay that we don't change into a more 'non banana hammock' wardrobe just to shower? If you are an actual friend of mine you know I'm not gay, and my friends on the swim team are the most straight of any teammates I have ever been lucky enough to compete with. So if you still think we're gay, I don't give a shit. I really don't. We're too busy kicking the shit out of our competition. Word.

italian food

As I climbed out of the way back seat of my brother's Explorer, I could have sworn I had been to this restaraunt before. But then we all walked inside, and it was totally new to me. 'Cafe Cortina' ehhh? I'll give it a shot. The atmosphere was quite nice, lots of candles and other dim lights with leather chairs, 'This might not be too bad' I thought to myself. Someone grabbed my coat and led us to our table. Waiting at our table were two waitors, 'hmmm, must be a slow night or something'. As I circled around the table to my seat one of the waitors pulled my chair out for me 'that was nice of him'. I sat down and said thank you, and he replied with a "gratzi senore" or something like that. 'Shit, these guys speak Italian. Shit, this is gonna be embarassing'. Then the other waitor grabbed my napkin that was folded in front of me and laid it across my nap. 'whoah, back off bro, its a napkin, I got it'. And then a third waitor came up to our table and said, "Senore, senora, may I offer you either purified water, spring water, or common house water?" 'Ohh my god, are you serious? Three kinds of water, you're kidding me.' Mom said she'd take the regular water and I just nodded my head. Im almost positive they only had regular water and just guessed that nobody would ask for the other two kinds, but whatever.

As I looked over the menu which was in all Italian, I tried to find the meal that was not only cheap, but was easy to pronounce. But as I did that, I couldn't help but wonder where the back room was where all the mafia guys are. You know, the no windows one door in one door out room with the big oak desk against the back wall with a portrait of an old fat guy behind the desk. I saw one definately Italian looking guy go through a back hallway and didn't see him come back. I'll let you decide. Besides the back room, I was thinking of all the Italian people I knew that might come through that door. Of course James Gandolfini, and also the painter Titorelli and the mafia from The Simpsons. That's weird, two of three are related to the mafia, and the other was character from a book. Ahh, the mafia. Anyways, it was time to order our entree. I decided not to order and carni, since it was expensive as balls, I went with some pasta. All the pasta sounded the same to me, I mean it all had noodles. But I ordered the Tortelli, because it's easier to say.

Then the dinner came out. I must say that after my salad and 6 pieces of bread, I wasn't as hungry as before, but I was game for some tortelli. It came out and it look pretty good. For all you Italian food nubes tortelli is like a pocket of pasta with something in there, in this case ground lamb meet. I took impaled the little pocket thing with my fork and made sure to get a bunch of that creamy white sauce. As I bit into it I regretted watching the Man vs. Wild episode where Bear is treated to a delicacy of goat testicles by one of the indigenous tribes. Well as I bit into the soft, meaty, white pasta pocket with lots of white sauce on it, I almost couldn't bring myself to swallow it.

We had dessert and what not and then left the restraunt to get in the car, where I froze my ass off until the heat got to the way back. Overall a good night. Word.

turkey day

As in past thanksgivings, the Stover clan came from all over the world to assemble at the farm; the official family meeting grounds. I've come to expect a routine over the past few years. Fry multiple turkeys, watch the Lions loose, shoot some guns, etc.; the same things every family does on the last thursday of November. But this year it really sank in. Possibly because I took some time to really look at the finer things in the farm, such as training grenades, large wooden bull heads, Grover Cleveland presidential election posters, and sunflower seeds containers.

But I obviously didn't spend my whole day talking to relatives and observing the intricacies of the farm, no, I was turkeying. Assisting Mike, I helped supervise the turkey fryer. As the thermometer climbed in the hot peanut oil to over 300 degrees, I couldn't help but feel a bit nervous on the slushy, snowy grass. One small slip while focusing on the 8 inch t.v. showing the lion's game could prove fatal. What a bad way to go, burning to death in hot oil, but I digress. 1:00, 325 degrees, lets fry these bitches. As soon as the turkeys were lowered to their second, more delicious death, the oil grew angry. It bubbled and spilled onto the grass, making the dangerometer go up 300% and beep annoyingly. So I stood freezing my ass of watching the turkey frier bubble and Kitna do nothing worth talking about. The night was quite calm until we began cleaning up after dinner. As you may or may not know, the farm doesn't get too much use, nobody lives there. And its surrounded by woods near the Shiawasse River. I was expecting to see some kind of animal, just not in the kitchen. But then a mouse sprinted across the living room and jumped into the oven. How it wedged itself under the oven, I don't know, but I came prepared. I brought my fishing gear just in case, but I grabbed the net for another reason, and I also grabbed one of the many fire pokers around the house. Cautiously I pried the drawer from the oven off, half suspecting a hundred mouse counter-attack. Inside the space was not only the mouse in the corner, but her five baby mice in a nest of insulation. I must say I was initially disappointed; I wanted to catch this mouse and do something with it, but I wouldn't rip a mother away from it's family. But then something cool happened, the mouse took all it's future pests to a new nest in some other part of the oven. Yes, I suppose I am responsible for the future mice crawling across the floor, but it's thanksgiving, I was feeling generous. Word.

Cryptozoology 101

As many of you may or many not know, Mrs. Locklin drives me crazy to the point of doing a bellysmacker off the platform (10m) into a pool of Marilyn Manson, O.J., and teletubies. So needless to say I was pretty excited to see that we had a sub. Mr. Dobronovich or something like that was pretty cool, making a few cracks at how pointless and often hopeless substitute teaching is, but that was beside the point. I had a research paper to own.

That's right, a full length semi-decent research paper for sociology, a class I really don't care about, which makes this assignment extra spicy. Unless she works for the KGB, I'm quite sure Locklin doesn't know I've taken all honors english classes/have a 112 member fan club on facebook dedicated to Mr. Uberti's and my own 'online artwork'. So I will address the prompt 'Native Americans: Progress and Problems', but it will be so full of metaphors and so hot that the paper actually bursts into the flames of native american ancestor worship. Enough said.

So as Mr. D. led us into the computer lab a whopping 8 steps from the classroom, I felt quite confident that I could research and write my paper in about 40-42 minutes and I still had another 2 weeks before the due date. This left a massive chunk of free time for my next hour and a half, a chunk I intended to fill with Line Rider. As I created jumps, loops, and deathly drops, I couldn't help but feel that something was missing from my day, my cryptozoology fix.

Griffin chose to research crypto. for his paper, and he found one solid source. A chatroom/homesite for the whole crypto. community out there. Needless to say I was quite intrigued, and immediately abandoned Line Rider to sit in awe of the illustrations of these creatures yet unknown to science. Nessie, Sasquatch, Chupacabra, and other 'monsters' were honored and debated all over the place. The best part was the 'members online now' feature, where I saw that 'cryptidcatcher123', 'lissalue', ''C' Man', and 'Grant' were online; my favorite amature crypto.s. Among the pictures on this post: "mysterious red shark in MA" "bizzare rabbit-like creature in Southwestn Oregon" and "Wendingo". You honestly have to see it to believe it. These were all listed under the 'sightings' portion of Cryptozoology.com. Good hunting. I'm quite sure Jelso didn't draw these either, which means there are people just as crazy, if not more so, as him out there. Sleep Tight.

shit's goin down

I'm not sure how far Northville Township news stretches its enticing arms across this great nation, but if this following story is new to you, which if you live in northville/metro detroit/michigan it should not be, let me tell you the story.

On Monday afternoon or sometime this last week a body was found in a new development of Ridge Road. Well that in itself isn't too surprising, bodies are found off Ridge all the time. But this time was different: the body had no head, and it was burned, badly. Strangely enough the residents of the surrounding houses noticed a fire in that deserted field, but I guess they didn't have the common sense to think it was a body on fire, apparently they've never seen CSI/Law and Order. So anyway the NPD was quite pissed about this latest homicide, and launched a medium sized investigation. Within four days that arrested two teenagers in relation to the kidnapping/homicide. Now I've seen Nancy Grace one time, and I happened to notice that she's a bitch, but she taught me that all crimes must have a motive. This was no exception...or was it? No, the perps weren't after crack, chronic, heroin, LSD, angel's dust, perscription drugs, or oral sex; they wanted a high of a different kind, a thrill. That's right, two teenagers killed a twenty-something for no reason. But did they really do it? I'm not so sure...

In other news, a story has shaken this great country to its core. What is America's core made of? Baseball, and more specifically home runs. Yes, America is actually powered by home runs, and after years of hiding their most productive 'plant' from the judicial system's ever vigilant eyes, federal investigators brought charges of pergury and obstruction of justice against Barry Bonds. This whole case dates back to a steroid hearing four years ago in which Bitchy Barry said something to the likes of, "I never knowingly used performance enhancing drugs". Well that's pergury, bitch. So let me ask you, if a case is going nowhere for years, and then the prosecution steps up to the plate, they must have gotten some more evidence. Evidence like a charred, decapitated body. It makes perfect sense, Barry just had a roid rage, flew to Detroit, drove to Northville, and broke a man's head off from an over aggressive noogie and then breathed fire on him. Baseball has been shaken, but not as shaken as the psyches of Northville residents. After living in fear for the last few days, I can now sleep easily knowing that Barry Bonds is officially under investigation.

While writing this I really feel like a Chinese journalist, so I hope I don't get tortured, but I'll be at swim practice during all my free time anyway, and there's no way a potential killer is getting through Rich. Watch your backs Northville, A-Rod is still on the loose (but he'll be staying in N.Y.). Word.

F.Y.I, Carlos Zambrano has been under investigation for years also, but he just has a really good lawyer.

meet me at the pool; its goin down

Yes, its that time of year again. The leaves are falling leaving the trees barren, the days get shorter as night holds increasingly more prevalence, and the wind is consistently picking up to leave you quite uncomfortable. Yes, it's turning into late fall, and that brings early winter, which brings the flu and that dreary, slushy black snow that gets in the streets and causes all sorts of accidents. And what does this all mean? That this year I may feel thoroughly depressed as I catch the flu and collide with another car on the way to swim practice.

Its less than a week away now, and so I have begun praying to God asking for forgiveness for the sins that I made, or will make in hopes that He doesn't use Rich to punish me for them. But besides praying, I have done other things to get ready for the season. The first idea I had, after hearing much bitching about baseball conditioning from Mullen and Maise, was to actually gain weight for swimming. Much like a hibernation for bears, I am about to embark on a journey that will drain all my energy until my immune system is so low that even with bottles of vitamin C I am unable to fight off a lingering cold. So as I came home from school and ate two giant slices, the equivilent to 8 normal slices, of chocolate cake and 10 bagel dogs, it hit me that I could actually gain energy by eating during the season. So since I'm unlike a bear in one way, I must become a bear in another.

As I marched down the stairs into the basement and headed into the back room, I decided which of the muslce groups I wanted to work first. I'm not sure if you've tried before, but unless you actually enjoy weightlifting (smile, smile, Ciric), absolutely no progress is made because if nobodys watching I don't have to prove my strength to anyone, especially not myself. I ended up cranking out some situps and powering through some pushups. That lasted maybe 20 minutes; a solid workout.

But then it hit me: it's only swimming, don't be such a little bitch. So from now on I will not let my panties bunch up, and I will look to the positive side of swimming.

First, predictable but still shocking hair changes through the season, progressing as such: beautiful-frizzy-lacklustre-bleached-pull out able-looking like a diseased dog's hair-no hair. In the middle picture I am in my 'I just got back from practice and swimming under those incandescent lights made me look like a stoned ghost' phase. Second, the showers. This sounds homoerotic, but showering is the best part of practice. Probably because after the hardest workouts of my life nothing feels better than a hot, steamy shower with lots of 'poo and condit'; there just happen to be 30 other guys in there with me. Ohh, and what most people don't know is when you practice you wear a speedo and a drag suit over the speedo, which forms a perfect pocket for holding bottles of poo and condit, that's ingenuity.

Third, the ladies. Haha, just kidding. We're the swim team, the most toned athletes in school, not the football team. We can't compete with the football team.

But anyways, it's hard to flip the optimism switch on something that you have dreaded for so long, but this season definitely has some hidden perks, many of which cannot be discussed outside of the team, but one I can disclose is that I very well may get my own shower, and if I'm lucky, another 'bitch' to take under my wing and show the ropes of the swim team to. In no way hazing, really its just an honorable term granted to some freshman who are cool, and contradictorily, not bitchy. But anyways, the first day will be fun, but after that I will probably forget what fun is, and that would not be fun. But what will be fun is when we kick the shit out of every other team in our conference. That will be fun. Word.

my heritage? I have heritage?

So upon reading Mr. Uberti's epic in regard to the Italian side of his familiy and their friends, and after much long thought and debate, I figured I might as well disclose my heritage. Why did I have to debate? Because I have pretty much no idea what I am. Ohh wait, WASP, that's right. By stereotypical definition I'm a stuck-up, preppie douchebag with madrass and parted hair. But we all know that that's not me, so let us dig a little deeper into the mystery that is the Stover/Malloure family.

This is what I've always been told I am:

50% Irish

25% English

25% French

This is what I told girls I was starting in 7th grade:

25% Irish

75% Awesome

So using this first fomula I shoud have turned out as a drunk, bad smelling, jerk with bad teeth, but once again deodorant and braces have fixed those problems. So what is it that makes my family so unique? Lots of things.

1) We are the only 'Malloure's in the country. That means there are zero (0) other familes with that last name.

2) Possibly, but probably not related to Samuel Clemens, the legendary author of classics such as The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (not that I have read it)

3) 'Malloures' at one time from France, sometime ended up in Missouri, known to all 19th century settlers as 'the party territory'

4) Maybe related to Indians

No not the subcontinent of Asia, I have pasty "cheap Irish skin", but rather Native Americans. That's right, there's the reason I'm so good at tracking deer through miles of rocky highlands, and the reason I'm attracted to torquise, and the reason I loved wearing those pasta noodles and stuff like that in kindergarden around my neck/in my hair. But I know what you're thinking, "How can you maybe be Native American?". Well that all relates to my cheap Irish skin which any of you that have attended a swim meet have definately noticed. So why did my Grandma used to get a dark tan whenever she would spend time gardening and such during the summer? "Because of my Indian blood" my mom told me she heard from Grandma. Is that racist? no, no its not; if anything it's envy. But that's beside the point. Can my aging but much loved grandmother be trusted as a reliable source in regard to ancestory she was probably told about when she was a girl by her mother? Probably not, but I'd like to think so. Finally something I can relate to. Why would I want to be French? They've pretty much lost every war they've been in and wear those hats with the little stubby thing on top. And the English, definately more respectable, but if you don't talk like/look like Jude Law its basically pointless. And then Irish...I know nothing about Ireland, other than there was a potato famine that was kinda a big deal. But Native American is all me. That's probably the reason I love 'Man vs. Wild' and 'Survivor Man' among others. Maybe that's the reason I've always wanted an indian nickname, much like Kevin Kostner became 'Dances with Wolves'.

In the words of John Winger in 'Stripes':

"We're soldiers; but we're American soldiers. We've been kickin' ass for 200 years. We're 10 and 1."

"We're all very different people. We're not Watusi, we're not Spartans, we're Americans. With a capital "A", huh? And you know what that means? Do you? That means that our forefathers were kicked out of every decent country in the world. We are the wretched refuse. We're the underdog. We're mutts."

But above all else I'm American, bitch. Yeah, I watch Fox, but not Fox news. I love baseball and apple pie. Yeah, I watch 'Survivor', a show based on the life of real people in third world countries, true reality t.v. And yes, our family has three cars, and we drive them all. Maybe it's because I'm not a purebred anything, a mudbood of the wizarding world, but you know what? I think I'm doing just fine. So what is my heritage? Only God knows, but if you ask me, I'm American in every sense of the word. Word.

top: Sitting Bull, possibly my great great great (+/- a few greats) grandfather

spring break '09

On my lazy friday, after playing Halo with Eric for a while, we went over to Kowalski's for some more...Halo. But Eric was too busy playing Guitar Hero, and Chris was doing something else so we ended up watching this snowboarding documentary. I was pretty tired and didn't really care what we watched, just so long as I got to sit on one of the recliners. I was planning on just falling asleep in the chair, but I couldn't; the movie was too good.

I love snowboarding, I really do. Most of my friends probably don't think so because I have honestly only been about 7 or 8 times in 5 years, and a big old 0 times in the last 2 years thanks to swimming (#9 reason I hate my sport). But that's beside the point, I mean how many people say they love God, and have they ever met Him? I don't think so, at least not the way my ass consistently meets ice everytime I go snowboarding. So obviously how many times you've done something has no effect on if you love it or not. Some of my favorite memories are from snowboarding; especially the trip up north. I clearly remeber the day Eric, Chris, Nick, and myself spent the whole day at Nubs Nob. I was feeling pretty confident and was doing an okay job at keeping up with Eric and Chris, so after we did some black diamonds or whatever they're called (I'm above labeling nature in regard to number/color of diamond) we went for some 'backcountry' action. You know, the time where all four of us hit a tree and laid moaning within 100 feet of each other. Or how about at Boyne when we decided to do the moguls and I ended up being left by myself falling repeatedly while being laughed at by those above me on the ski lift. I know, some great memories. But when you think about it, if I can enjoy a painful, embarassing day of snowboading than I must really, really like it.

So as I sat in Kowalski's basement watching Farmer and Shaun White and that annoying dumbass Hannah Teeter carve down 70 degree slopes after being dropped via helicopter on top of an Alaskan mountain in the middle of nowhere, it got me thinking about our spring break trip. No, not to Alaska, but somewhere that still has snow. It's not that I don't want to go to Cozumel and get totally plaster for consecutive nights and make some really bad decisions, its that I want to go out west more. So our first thing we have to hammer out is where we're actually going to go, since 'the west' is quite large. Utah, Colorado, Montana, and Oregon are all possibilities. Personally I wouldn't mind hitting up Bridger Bowl/Big Sky and staying in Montana's very own Bozeman Best Westen, a hotel/city I know well. The second thing we have to figure out is what else we're going to do besides snowboard, but that's really not important. What is necessary is finding some companions to go with us. Here is my list of people I want to come on spring break with me:

1) Wes Anderson to document our entire trip.

2) Bear Grylls in case we.... in case... listen, there's wolves and bears and shit out West

3) Alex Rodriguez, so we can leave him in the backcountry to fend for himself. If he survives I will have new respect for him, if not we won't have to listen to trade talks/contract negotiations every day of the calander year.

4) Bill Murray because he seems like he'd be a 'fun drunk'

5) Snowboarder Danny Kass, because Eric loves him and a happy Eric is a happy trip

Well, that's my top 5, but its up for debate. Somehow I would also like to include a Mariachi band, but that might not be too practical. Anyways, that is how I will be spending my spring break of 2009. Word

yes, he is drinking turtle blood

#51, a tribute

So I totally didn't recognize that the last post was the 50th of this blog. I know, "God, has it really been that long?" well yes, yes it has. As I walk the halls of northville high school, I am often asked, "Clay, you're writing is like the Mike Tyson of the blogosphere" (wtf?) "Good, but crazy". I usually disregard these slanted compliments for ones from generally women, but a few guys, "Clay, when I read your blog my heart melts, will you and your literary mind marry me?". Short anwser, "No". But I feel it is my duty to share with the rest of you where I learned my magic, and to give honor to what was, and will continue to be one of my favorite things to read on a computer.

The retired Tigers Blog

I'm sure as you read you will appreciate, as much as I look forward to reading all those of my friends who started a blog like me (posers), but then spun it to be uniquely theirs (not poser). For instance, if I give a brief description, you will know which I'm talking about.

1. Crazy things in society, specifically those of Northville that need to be told

2. Bitching about Cross Country in a creative, meaninful way

3. A post about pufferfish from the friend that has crazy dreams.

I hope I have made my point, but I don't really care. I'm the captain of this ship; I choose who gets on the lifeboats. Congrats to all you writers out there, and God speed. Word.

Actually I just noticed that this was the 46th, not the 51st. I don't know why I thought that, but I don't care. Once again, this is my ship.

baseball: my pastime

As I looked out the window at the rain coming down outside, I put down down The Trial and started to reminisce about baseball; my history, my sport. It started before I could remember, playing tee ball at Maybury. All I remember from that season I aforementioned I couldn't remember was that I think my coaches were lesbian and I was really bad. But that all changed as I got older. I learned to hit, field, and pitch just as well as anyone else we played. For once I was really gifted in a sport, I could hit any pitch and field any ground ball (not fly balls though).

That all changed at high school. Going into tryouts I felt pretty confident I could make the team. I strategically counted all the kids that played travel and subtracted that from the number of spots on the team. I arrived 20 minutes early to make a good impression, and then sulked around for another ten searching desperately for someone I knew. I finally decided to man up and stepped through the gym door. I looked to my left and there they were, all the kids I didn't know that were way better than me. I knew they sensed my intimidation, so I sat on the other side of the bleachers. To put it kindly, I was overwhelmed the first day. All the other players had their own bats, were friends with the players on varsity, and were 'cocky'. I went from the shit to plain shitty. I'm pretty sure the only reason I made the team was because our dear EMaise was pitching me batting practice. I was lucky: Uberti was throwing heat and the curve. But then came fielding, my specialty. If my batting was the mystery meat from the lunchroom, my fielding was the prime rib. In addition to wanting to impress Bill, it was a true life or death struggle, catch the ball or catch the ball in you teeth, I'm seriously surprised nobody got hurt. I've never seen Putman with such as terrified look on his face as he did that day. As Bill stood roughly 30 feet away on the other side of the auxiliary gym, he belted regulation baseballs at us with his fungo. Taking insane hops off the freshly waxed wood floor, the balls whistled by like bullets, making the less experienced players look like, well, look like we were playing dodgeball. As they dodged, dipped, ducked, dove, and dodged around, pants were torn, knees bled, and spirits were shattered.

Then we moved to turning double plays; myself thoroughly mediocre. We formed two lines behind 2nd base and short stop, and did what we were told. Gentle tosses and then hard throws to first. As I stood feeling pity for myself and awaiting my missed ground ball, Schafer kept on bragging about shit nobody cares about. We all noticed, and I was relieved to have a few glorious seconds of 'alone' time without him. Needless to say I, like the rest of us, were hoping to see someone get hit with a ball. But Putman took it into his own hands. In a brilliant display of "hey, f*** you buddy!", Nick fielded his ground ball cleanly, planted his feet, reached back, and released the ball as hard as he could at Mr. Schafer, no more than 7 feet away. The ball's short path ended with Ryan writhing on the floor, and the rest of us laughing. Now that was funny.

Our first practice I was a little nervous. I was obviously the worst player on the team, so I knew I had to make friends in order to avoid being the permanent team goat. So what did I do? I tore the shit out of Uberti, a seemingly idiotic move. I don't even know what I said, but Dave told me about it a while ago and just laughed. Apparently he made a joke about me, and I went apeshit on him, going into one of my crazy rants that only the really lucky have witnessed. I guess it's alot like making someone your bitch your first day in jail. But Dave was by no means my bitch. No, I was still the team bitch, which is pretty much what I stayed on for. Limited playing time, chasing foul balls/home run balls, and cleaning up after the game wasn't what I lived for, but rather what I tolerated. But I grew to like my new position; there's more to sitting on the bench than you think. For instance, I took it as my job to mock the other team and their obese coaches, especially those from Canton. Also, I deemed it necessary to put as many sunflower seeds as possible in Mullen's bag and then blame it on Tomsa. Finally, my more famous duty was to scope out any hotties at the game, especially the doubleheader in Ann Arbor; we all know how that one ended.

But let me tell you the story of how I saved the game/essentially won the Clarkston tournament. During our third game on the second day of the tournament I was sitting on the bench as usual, when coach Bill said in his pseudo-sympathetic voice, "Next inning you're going in for Hirka". Now coach knows I can't throw around the infield for shit, so when he told me I would be playing second base in a 1 run game in the final inning I was a little apprehensive. But nonetheless I trusted his faith in the baseball gods and tried to act excited.

Runner on second base, 1 out. I remember thinking:

"Shit, the ball's coming at me, shit, what do I do. Grab it you dumbass, shit shit shit, throw it to berti, shit I can't throw it, I'll miss him. 'Aim small miss small'. That only worked in The Patriot, shit! Just throw it you pussy." As soon as I let the ball go, I cringed a little. I saw the ball rise to the right, out of Dave's reach. He jumped off the base to catch it, and the runner was safe. "shit, now I've done it".

Fast forward through seeminly forever, runners on second and third, two outs.

"Do not screw this up, avoid the ball at all costs, let Liening catch the fly, and just smother the ground ball." The pitch went by the batter, strike one. "Thank God, only two more, do not screw this up, don't be the one to knock you're team out of this". Bang! It all happened in slow motion, the weak line drive started to tail towards second, Liening couldn't get there. "Shit, run...faster, get there". The rest just happened; unexplainable and instinctive. I saw second base and found the ball curving behind it. I slid, just like I was stealing, and as I went down I reached my arm across my body and flipped over my glove. Just above the red dirt of the infield I snatched the ball, and held it up high. "Out". "yes bitch, this game is over" I thought to myself. As I lay there thinking to myself about how much of a lucky son of a bitch I am, everybody ran over and jumped on me. "Shit, Mullen's coming". As Mullen jumped on me I couldn't help but feel relieved, they weren't here to kill me, but rather to congratulate me on not sucking. That first error was forgotten, and all was right.

That's about the time I stopped playing baseball. Sure, that was only halfway through our season, but I sucked anyways. I was the team leader in walks/hit by pitch, and was the only player with a four times higher on base percentage than batting average. Yes, If I can find a way to "succeed" anyone can. Baseball has been good to me, and I'd like to think I returned the favor. Word.

(I just realized there is spellcheck on blogger.com, so fear no more you grammar mongols. I don't know why it highlighted 'apeshit', that's a word)

the room

Because of last weekend and the day off school tomorrow, I've found myself pretty much doing nothing all day, just the way it should be. This has given me some serious time to improve and pimpify my room.

On some pretty short notice Sunday I was called in to do some babysitting at Mike and Julie's. Usually its not too bad since Katie sleeps the whole time, there's always food in the fridge, and they just got a new t.v. But this time I was getting something better, something I could take home with me; the most comfortable chair I have ever graced my ass with. I couldn't figure out why they didn't want it anymore, I mean excluding the people in the house, that chair is number 1. As I heard the garage door go signaling the return of the parentals, I put my shoes on and got ready to load up the chair in Mom's volvo, you know the white SUV, aka 'the yeti'. Mike let me lift the heavy stuff and watched me try to fit it in the back. As I twisted it and flipped the chair around I kept hearing "what are you doing?" and "you could just leave the back up". Well that wasn't gonna fly. Now Mike's an engineer, so when he gave up on fitting that plaid perfection in the back, it was more incentive to keep going. I pretty much had to twist the chair like a light bulb into the socket, and with the ottoman and the chair in the back, it was just as tight a fit. Good thing he's not a packaging engineer.

So after I dented the walls and scratched the paint hauling my catch into my room, I finally got to enjoy it. Coincidence that I beat the hard part of Halo while sitting in the new chair, something that had been impossible before, I think not. As I contemplated how to improve the cave, Mom came upstairs and informed me that the walls were being painted tomorrow. "Well, shit happens", I thought, "oh well". But then she said I had to move all my stuff from my room to the other bedroom. Yes, this meant moving trophies, books, books I've never seen, books I've never read, and a ton of 'Tropical Fish Hobbyist'. But what I found made me take a step back and remeber the fun times:

I wish I was joking, but those may well have been some of the very last books on shelves that have been read. But can you blame me, after all, Bill Peet is a master writer. Besides the bedtime stories of the caboose, wumps, and Kermit, I had to move a buttload of trophies. Normally this wouldn't be a bad thing, and this time was no exception. Every one I picked up reminded me of the season and team they were from. The soccer trophies from age 8-13 with Mr. Cauzillo, the baseball trophies representing the domination of the Mr. Greenman led Giants from the late '90s to early '00s. And of course the second place relay trophy that was only red instead of blue because of the 1/100 of a second that I lost to the state champ in the 50 free by. I felt good after that race too, until I looked at the scoreboard. I had the lead and lost by 1/100 of a second. You can't even time that much, only a computer can. That's like a blower on the bottom of the pool pushing water into your lane. Oh, and that would have been a league record by over a second if we won it. Shit. But guess what, I'll win it next year, again. Just like I did the year before this previous letdown. But anyways, the wall color is still undecided and Halo has been set up in the basement, so not all is lost. Also, in case you were wondering, that paint smell is really getting to me. My head hurts, I think that is bad. Word.

MSU

While all my friends were at a 'dance party' on Friday night, I was watching the MSU/UofM game, at the game. Ohhh snapppp. That's right, we left at 10:30, and after trying to find a parking spot for half an hour, we tailgaited it up. Never before have I seen all the adults around me drinking before noon; it was awesome. Almost as awesome as the 'find a parking spot turned into campus tour' for the aforementioned half an hour. We drove all over the place, and this is what I saw:

Hookah bars and frat parties, I wonder what else goes on at college. While the ride in was cool, the game was pretty awesome too.

Let me paint you a picture. Row 26, 33 yard line, 50 degrees, light wind, Spartan pride at kickoff: 14.7%, UofM obnoxiousness: 100%. In front of me a few rows were some of the womens basketball team. How could I tell? The four of them were probably a combined 42 feet tall with green sweats. Beyond me further were some recruits. How could I tell? They were huge, angry looking, and were being shown around by people who appeared to be total tools for the AD, plus they had "RCT" tags around any of their various bulging muscles. Anyway, to my left were 4 drunk college girls with some tight pants. Yeah, it was pretty much a dream come true. Sitting with them was this old lady, and a fat couple who just reaked of "I went to Michigan but did nothing with my valuable education so now I come to watch my team beat the shit out of you MSU trash" and a little bit of hard vodka. In front of me was another middle aged woman with an MSU jacket with a bunch of pins on it, you know that crazy woman that's been coming to the games for way too long and thinks if she yells loud enough Dantonio might make a change.

As the drunk girls to my left started rambling the UofM fight song, that crazy bitch in front of me turned around and yelled things like "Do you know where you are?" and "Can you believe these people?". But after a while that cooled down, until that play where Jehuuu ran the ball like 80 yards on a broken play and almost got the TD. The old man called, "That's a block in the back ref, what's wrong with you?". Just to see who said it I turned around half way and kinda looked out of the corner of eye at the dude. As soon as I turned around that bitch yelled, "He's right buddy, that was a penalty". This is what I wanted to say:

"Shut up you dumb bitch, do you know where you are? Do you know what stadium this is? I'm suprised you could fit in a stadium not called the big house you asshole. I didn't even say anything. If its a penalty the refs will call it, that's their job you dumb shit."

This is what I said:

"........" I just stared and shook my head.

Anyway, all those douchebags got real quiet in the second half, and I stayed modest. Some how, as UofM came back the obnoxiousness scale went from: .6 to 6,000% in a matter of the last 7:00 minutes of that god forsaken game. I found it ironic that as MSU came closer and closer to losing the wind picked up and it turned really cold, characteristics that in literature are often associated with death. You can decide. Word.

swimming

I hate swimming. As I got dressed this morning it hit me: practice starts in 16 days. I almost went numb, and I had quite a bit of trouble getting my other leg into my pants. As I picked out a shirt, all I could think was, "It doesn't matter, swimming is coming for me". At least that's what it feels like. Sure, I could just not do swimming this year, that would be a whole lot easier. I would have free time with my friends, go on Christmas vacation, go snowboarding, play soccer, not have to balance all my homework around the normal 2 1/2 hours max. of free time at home that are common during swim season, but that's not me. Let me put the swim season into some other analogies to clear up the cloudy haze that must be floating through your mind.

1) Swimming is like being Jan Ulrich. Not only is his first name Jan, but he lost to Lance Armstrong in the Tour de France every time Lance raced in it. As soon as Lance retired, Jan was the unanimous favorite, but he tested positive for steroids and was never thought of again.

2) Swimming is like being a '90s to early '00s tigers' fan. Yes, while Robert Fick, Devi Cruz, Mike Maroth, and legends like Dean Palmer put on a show every night for 162 nights, they really only played for the 20 or so. But regardless, we still watched, and they still lost.

3) But perhaps the truest analogy is this: Swimming is like being a wounded gazelle in Africa. Imagine, every time you take a step you're sore somewhere, plus you know you're going to be eaten. Since death is imminent, you choose the way you would like to go. Give in, or run and run and hope you pass out before the lion brings you down. Then you see it, the lion, and she looks pissed.

You can finsih the rest, but as I wrote that it could relate every part to a day during swim season. You're sore all the time, and if you're not you aren't working hard enough. You go all day through school knowing practice is coming. You contemplate what the workout will be. Then you see Rich, and he eats you.

So why do I do it, because that's just what I do. Ask anyone else on the team and that's what they'll say. Frodo could have quit, causing his friends to be enslaved, his family killed, and life as he knew it endend, but he didn't. I could quit, but then again I'm not a pussyassedbitch. Word.