"Loneliness, that's the bottom line. I was never happy as a child. Christmas Ted, what does that mean to you? It was living hell. Do you know what it's like to fall in the mud and get kicked, in the head, by an iron boot? Of course you don't--no one does--that never happens. Sorry Ted, that's a dumb question. Skip that."

Get me Rex Kramer!

It's a sad day, folks...

Head injury update.

Basically, I'm fine. I didn't die in my sleep, and I woke up with no headache. However, I think I have a small bruise on the back of my head where it came in contact with the floor, and the left side of my neck and my left jaw are sore. I guess those got the brunt of it. So, no real concussion, I guess. That's good.

Aha! Remembered! So, in honor of Alejandra's occasional mad libs, my site is going to attempt to be interactive.

I was going to give the background, but it's too long and convoluted. Hell, the question may be convoluted too.

If you could fixate yourself at a specific point on Earth, stay there and observe what has happened every day around that point since the beginning of time, where would you choose to be and why?

I had a fantastic idea for an interactive blog today on the way to hockey. I was all set to put it up here and see what everyone had to say.

Unfortunately, I think I forgot to pick up the idea off the floor when I was run over by an opponent and possibly suffered an extremely, extremely minor concussion. I remember turning to run up the court to chase the puck, and now I very vaguely remember seeing a body running at me out of the corner of my eye. I couldn't remember that earlier though. Maybe that's why it's not so bad, because maybe I reacted without even knowing it and got my shoulder part way up or something. I don't know. But the next thing I knew I was looking up lying on my back, wondering what the hell happened. I will say I knew it wasn't malicious because my buddy who I'd expect to be leveling someone if it was malicious was standing right over me trying to help me up. :) Apparently, they were in the middle of a line change as I was running nearby their bench. A guy came off the bench and started running up the floor with his head turned back toward the puck, and we ran smack into each other. The guy said afterward that the top of his head got me right under the chin because he was crouched over. I didn't even know who ran into me until the guy apologized postgame. I told him not to worry about it...I knew it wasn't malicious and that the team we played was a bunch of good folks. Not jerks like some of the others. I guess he floored me pretty well though, because our goalie said he saw my head bounce right off the ground.

Fortunately, I haven't thrown up and the minor headache has just turned into floatiness. Not light-headedness, but just like I'm not all there. My eyes are a tad (and I stress a tad) funky too...barely noticeable. I'll know for real tomorrow morning if I have a headache. I'm planning on having Gerard check on me at least once or so during the light, because going to sleep is supposed to be the worst thing post-concussion. I think I'll be just fine, but it doesn't hurt to be on the safe side. I ate something and I'm keeping it down without a problem, but you never know.

That came after we won the first game. I don't remember the score of either game...I know I had a goal in the first one though. We lost the second game, the one I was concussed in. :)

If I think of the fantastic interactive blog post I had, I'll put it up. I was really excited too, so damn.

Since I'm frequently complaining about my job, let me share a "little things mean a lot" moment about my job. I cover the AFC East, which, as far as I'm concerned, is the best division as far as having their shit straight.

We have to get up-to-date rosters, including Joe Scrub rookie free agents, by tomorrow. While other guys are calling and having the things faxed, emailed, etc. and running into all sorts of hassles, my AFC East teams are on the ball, with rosters updated and ready to go on their Web sites. It's great. Even the Jets, who typically are somewhat standoff-ish in the media relations area, are on the ball. I love it. Really, only the Patriots have a glitch in their online rosters in that the NFL experience column hasn't been updated. But I call them and get the roster immediately. And I mean immediately. It's nice when teams cooperate and make my life easier.

now, I'm off to hockey.

My latest column is online now. "24" fans and Jewish-quarterback lovers will appreciate it.

Prediction: Someone in the Forums box will accuse me (and don't you guys do it...I want to see if it really happens) of copying Tony Kornheiser, who talks about "24" on his show every Wednesday morning, from what I hear. I don't listen to talk radio of any sort. It pisses me off. Now, I should go eat lunch.

This was an email passed on by a coworker of mine, under the subject, "Bet you didn't know..." It's fun to be a journalist.

"That the word retromingent, an adjective or noun, means urinating backwards or, as a noun, an animal that passes urine backwards, e.g. a raccoon.

You learn something every day."

Indeed, you do.

This week I've learned of three more fans of "24," the show Laz and I die for each week. I'm surprised at how many "closet fans" there seem to be of this show. I mean, the show is awesome, but you don't always hear people talking about it. It's a very quiet network I guess.

My second flirtation in three months with going to Las Vegas has ended, yet again, in disappointment. This time, I was set to go and meet Laz and a handful of other former NU folks there next weekend. I even had a plan for how I could sacrafice and get the money so I wouldn't have to sit around while everyone else gambled their pretty little heads off. Part of why I was going to go was Southwest had $79 one way tickets...so $150 round trip would have been pretty sweet and doable. However, of course, the damned flights are sold out, pushing the cost above $200, which I promised myself when the coworkers went a couple months ago that I wouldn't surpass in order to basically go lose more money in Sin City.

So, Laz, sorry. You'll have a good time anyway. :)

Softball today sucked as usual. We got slaughtered again. I didn't even get to pitch. I like to pitch in 12-inch softball, but I'm a team player, especially since I know how much of a pain in the ass it is to run our work team and keep folks happy and somehow figure out how to win a game. It's maddening. So I did OK at the plate, more or less. But as a whole, our team just isn't doing well. I can't figure it out other than we have trouble creating baserunners and we aren't very lucky. The team we played had at least three falling-down, lucky-ass catches in the outfield today. Meanwhile, we played defense relatively well and still gave up copious runs. Ah well...I don't know. At least my 16-inch team is pretty solid and at least competitive.

Hockey tomorrow! Playoff hockey, that is! :)

For those of you who care about the anatomy of the knee and surgeries to repair the ligaments, this is a pretty damned good article that I just recently found...it's really interesting, because it puts the stuff in layman's terms.

I don't know whether to be mildly excited about this or prepare to laugh when the foam pieces of crap blow off people's antennas on the highway. D'oh! indeed. Oh yeah, and the blog below I typed out yesterday, but it disappeared when my CPU crashed. Now, suddenly, it has reappeared this morning, waiting to be published...so you get two blogs for the price of one. What value!

Hello.

Today has been a pretty fast-paced day at work. I got here completely and totally on time for once because traffic was a breeze...I'll make sure to thank Trafficon, the god of the commute, by sacraficing a live chicken, or some KFC, tonight. I've been pretty busy editing almost all day long though. But that's OK, because it's kept me busy. Of course, a 1-hour, 15-minute lunch will always help speed the day along...but that's only 15 minutes longer than normal.

Tonight, hopefully, there are 10-cent wings at Hawkeye's in my future. I wish I could get dinner for that cheap every night. Of course, I could start going to McGee's on Tuesday nights with my cousin Willie for the same thing...hmmm. Well, that would have to be post-softball though, and Willie may have left by then...still, hmm.

I didn't miss much sleep last night, which was nice. That means that any other storms that might've come through weren't loud enough to wake me up in the bomb-shelter-like basement. :) I'm gonna, in a way, miss the comfort/fire-death trap that I live in right now whenever I move out.

Went with the parents and the brothers to a family-restaurant type place for mom's day today. Stopped at the garden center on the way and bought her a potted plant for the yard, since she's looking for stuff to put out and make the plot of land look nice for my little brother's high-school graduation party in July. We had a good time at the restaurant...way too much food was sent my way and I couldn't finish it all--even a majority of it.

Otherwise, it was a windy-as-all-hell, but uneventful day today. Back to work tomorrow. I feel quite unmotivated right now, and actually a touch sleepy, so maybe I'll hit the sack early. After some online ping-pong, of course... thanks Laz. :)

Nothing like the natural high I get off severe storms, especially ones like tonight. The worst we got here (and I guess everywhere else, really) was sheets of strong-wind-driven rain. That's all. So all is well once again. At least for now...I'm amped and there's no way I can go to bed right now. So I'm going to play on my CPU for a while.