Gonzai Gallery

My string of minor successes last week (finished watching Charlie Cox's entire filmography, trivia team won both the final game of the session and the entire session, had two promising possible jobs on Friday) has come to a crashing halt, it would seem. I tried to play trivia last night, an all Game of Thrones night for extra seeding points, but the restaurant had cancelled all Sunday games for the rest of the year (football). However, the trivia company never took it down from their web site, never told the hosts the theme nights were off, and when I called the restaurant to confirm, the woman who answered said yes, they're having trivia tonight. So I skipped part of the Ravens game and drove an hour plus tolls, only to discover nope, no trivia. And got to watch the Ravens implode. Yay.

Then there was the temp-to-hire job I was to start today. It lasted less than 4 hours. I went home for lunch and while there got a call from the temp agency that they didn't want me to come back. Work-wise, it seemed okay, I hit it off with my trainer (who turned out to be a neighbor) and it was something I certainly could do, but I'd already realized I could not, in good conscience, work there. And while I hadn't said so, they must have figured that out. The main business of the law firm was finding legal loopholes for their clients to get around firearms background checks, CCW regulations, and generally selling weapons. Their one client this morning was crowing about the new silencer they'd helped him buy. Sorry, but no. Guns may be legal, but that doesn't mean I have to help people get them.

I will be calling the other job in a few minutes to see if, hopefully, that one works out better.

I hope Jack & Jackie Harbaugh have good blood pressure medications!

I thought my team would make it competitive. I didn't think they'd trot off with it in the second half. Heck, I was so convinced the Ravens wouldn't win, it's not sinking in on me yet. Wowsers.

Watching the Puppy Bowl AND the SuperBowl this year!

Ya know, I might say that was the best football game I've ever seen. Might not say so if the Ravens hadn't pulled a rabbit out of the hat, but dang that was a game. One of the longest in NFL history, never uncompetitive, balanced scoring, great plays, dumb plays, you name it. After some discussion at gaming today, I'm ready to give Corey Graham game MVP. Corey who? Seriously. But two of the best timed interceptions that could ever be made, he made them both in the same game. Thank you, dude!

Now, for a replay of last season's conference championships...yikes.

...and then there are fans...

Who would have thought the best thing Person of Interest could add was a dog? And not just because I'm an animal person, Bear is the perfect addition to the show.

Quote of the week, from Bob Costas on Sunday Night Football, after noting the Steelers would be wearing 1933 throwback uniforms: "As if the Depression wasn't bad enough."

Grimm had the world's best cliffhanger ending, ever, last week. (Not a spoiler) Fade to black, "to be continued", and then... "Sorry." Awesome.

Last Resort was cancelled. However, ABC is going to let them wrap up the show's storyline. Why can't all networks do that?

Haven. Lucas Bryant is damn fine. If he gained 10 pounds I'd have to...never mind. Meanwhile,




Boardwalk Empire.



Treme.

Things didn't improve after Friday. Turns out Hectic Red played their 25th anniversary gig Saturday. I didn't find out until that day...and I was too worn out and too broke to go. CJ did well in training Saturday, but I can't take her to either of the following classes, and she did more damage to her crate Sunday - in fact, there is a piece of crate she broke off and I can't even figure out where it came from. Went to Alphabet Soup with Dave on Sunday, but we arrived to find our fellow gamers on the sidewalk listening to the security alarm squawk. No idea how long it had been going off, but well before any of us got there. The person with the key was late and unreachable, but finally showed up. Missed part of the Ravens game as a result, and then my fave Raves both went down for the season. (I was also 2-11 at fantasy football.) My back and neck are killing me, I haven't been able to eat and I'm pretty sure I have both an ulcer and an infection. And then there was Mom. She flatly refused to go back to the day center and my brother and his wife backed her on it. She lost her wallet; she threw out a lot of the paperwork I had for her. I still have to take her to the doctor and the lawyer this week, and babysit the nephews. I don't see this week being any better than the weekend.

Congress of Gamers, that is. I finally gave up and bought an advance, full weekend pass to it...then decided I couldn't afford to stay over until Sunday, and I'm so tired and hurting that frankly I don't know that going tomorrow is a good idea. But I paid for the whole thing. And I haven't gamed in a few weeks. I guess I'll have to see how I feel tomorrow morning. Definitely not staying until Sunday, though. Need the sleep and the football.

Oh, and the efforts on CJ's crate. She has figured out how to access things from the sides of the crate and went after my clothes :P so for the second time in as many months, I had Home Depot employees working with me on how to keep her in the damn crate. I've now spent almost as much reinforcing the crate as I did on the crate in the first place. (I did try to find contact info for the crate manufacturer, so I could tell them, oh, by the way, my dog got out of your escape-proof crate, but apparently they don't exist, at least not on the web.) Upon completion of this post, I'm going to try to reinforce at least one side of the crate tonight, so she doesn't do too much damage tomorrow if I'm gone, and I'll reinforce the other side and clean up the mess she's made inside of it on Sunday.

This dog is aging me, I swear.

At the moment the Ravens are soaring...people are cheering for the refs (take a good look, it'll never happen again)...The spread is 12 points, so I'm probably going nowhere fantasy-wise...I wish I could watch the game from my bedroom, but I don't have cable up there and the TV isn't HD-ready...might lose the electric soon anyway, with the storms coming through. Ah well.

ETA no sooner do I post this, than the crowd starts booing the refs on an iffy call. Welcome back guys.

At least, off from the internet, for the most part. I had today off of work (Happy Rosh Hashanah, as applicable) so I took Mom to a Senior Day Center to see what she thought. We were greeted by a dog named Buttercup. I consider that a good sign. Mom thinks it's too expensive, but my brother doesn't, so I'll let him convince her she can afford it. Then lunch at a new sandwich shop, Potbelly's. I think it's a chain. Decent sandwich though, and Mom was happy with hers.

Rest of the day was TV and computer games, as I caught up with nearly everything on the DVR and finally watched last year's 'Whitechapel'. I put that off because series 2 did nothing for me; turns out series 3 was much, much better. I'm taking '2001: A Space Odyssey' a chunk at a time, because I've tried and failed to watch it a few times already. I liked the 'trio' episode of Leverage much more than the rest of this season, and Mom actually liked it, first time in years she's liked the show. Maybe we have our new direction - just let Elliott, Hardison and Parker be the show. Fine with me. I enjoyed Doctor Who, esp. the conversations with the horse. Big surprise, right? We also watched Bill Maher, who I think properly summed up recent events thusly: "Some crazy Christians pretending to be crazy Jews riled up a bunch of crazy Muslims, so Mitt Romney could prove Mormons are even crazier."

Sunday, I was a party host. Can't remember the last time I tried that. But 4 of my gaming friends came over for the 'game', that being Ravens/Eagles, of course. We had an Eagles fan. I seated him near the door and we took turns reminding him we could easily toss him out of it. But he had the last laugh, dammit. But we had a grand time other than the final score, and a couple people stayed after and we played board games until late. I had to let CJ out eventually, but she was nice to the strangers! Total relief, that. The whole thing must have gone well, because the last folks out said we should do this again. My back isn't so sure about that, I'm a hurting pup today (presumably from moving around the furniture) but otherwise, yeah, gamers at the game, why not?

Almost, I decided to pass on making it three straight days of gaming. But I went Friday and Saturday, played a bunch of games, learned two new ones and ate a ton. That being the case, and also today being absolutely beautiful, I took Mom to look at a couple of houses (the one I was interested in was meh, the ones I picked for logistical reasons were fab), we ate frozen yogurt on a patio, and then home to watch football. Except I just couldn't get into the football, so I watched 'Full Metal Jacket' instead. Not entirely the same thing.