I had my hockey virginity taken from me last night. Ok, so I gave it up without a fight. That’s right, I'm easy.

Carl and I attended the Avalanche game in Denver, my first hockey experience in person. The game was pretty awesome, with Nashville spotting the Avs three goal before coming back to win 5-4. It was good to see hockey again, even if I'm not as down with the higher scoring this year as everyone else might be.

Two observations:

1. The food was way better at the Pepsi Center than at Coors. For one, since they are the Pepsi Center, they had Pepsi products, giving a high upgrade over Coke, Diet Coke, Sprite, or beer. Second, they had actual restaurants instead of normal concessions. There was Quiznos, Old Chicago, and Arby's, to name a few. Unfortunately, the Arby's man was a rookie, and forgot that I asked for no red sauce on my beef and cheddar, resulting in me having to buy pizza from Old Chicago. (Carl bought the Arby's from me, so it turned out to not have a monetary effect on me).

2. The souvenir stores sucked! What a homer store! There was literally nothing in any of the stores around the Pepsi Center that contained any merchandise not Avalanche or Denver Nuggets. None. I could expect somewhere from 60-90 percent of merchandise being for the home team(s), but there should at least be stuff from other teams, too, especially conference rivals. Now how am I supposed to find a Sharks something before we go see them on the eighth of next month?

Overall, it was a great experience. The only thing missing was that there weren't any fights. I guess you can't win them all. Luckily, this won't be the last hockey game, either. There are at least three more times we're going (next week against LA, and then both Sharks games). I can't wait!

There was a time when I could taste it, that sweetness so unlike any other. It was at the tip of my tongue for what seemed like ages, with each mouthwatering drop sliding inches closer to falling from the source. It was a sweetness I had never tasted before, sweetness that I had consumed myself in searching for all these long years. Now was the time of triumph, for I had struck gold (Eureka!) in this final hour. But time slipped, slid uneasily unto tomorrow, as that which I had just tasted was ripped from my mouth. Oh, but only to taste again! In my eagerness to partake as soon as possible, I forgot that I needed to hold my candy to devour it, and thus it devoured me.

I wrote that not twenty minutes after the Giants lost the 2002 World Series. It was easily one of the top five worst moments of my life. I spent most of the playoffs that year watching the Giants games in the lounge of my dorm, but I spent Game Seven in my room, alone. Going into the game, I knew it wasn't going to happen how I wanted it to. I knew that the moment Dusty Baker took Russ Ortiz out of the Game Six and gave him the ball, as if to say, "You won the game for us, here's the game ball."

There are few things I'm superstitious about, except when it comes to sports. Many sports fans (or players) will attest to the same feeling; if you do something that correlates to a win with the team, you do that until you lose. If you do something that correlates with the team sucking, you stop doing that. Period. So Game Six is winding down and Dusty give Russ the game ball, and it was that moment I knew something bad was going to happen. Sure enough, five outs from winning the series, the wheels came off, and there was no way we were winning the next night following a loss like that.

I was a wreck that night, and for a while afterwards. Suddenly, I found myself hating the Angels. In my list of teams to hate, first comes the Dodgers, then the Yankees, and now the Angels. Angels in the Outfield became my all-time most hated movie, and I now despised Danny Glover (well, his crappy speech at Doane later that year helped, too).

So who am I supposed to root for when the Yankees and Angels face each other in the playoffs? I settled on the Angels by a slim margin, figuring i could go back to rooting against them in the next series. Sure enough, they won on Monday to advance, and played Chicago last night in Game One of the NLCS.

So I root for the White Sox, right?

I found myself cheering the good things the Angels were doing. I almost yelped when Garret Andersen gave the Angels a 1-0 lead with a home run. Was I so geared towards hating the Yankees that I found a rooting interest in the Angels, and now i can't rid myself of it?

The Angels aren't a bunch of bad guys. It's almost like you can't help but root for them. They're a scrappy team, often considered the underdog, but they get it done. Plus their first baseman is a former Nebraska football player, so I have only good wishes for Darin Erstad.

But I can't shake that feeling in the pit of my stomach when Dusty gave the ball to Russ, and I can't forget watching the Angels celebrate a win that should've been ours.

I couldn't help but cry that night, and I supposed it was a good thing, since my poem ended up getting published in Xanadu that year. As the game wore on last night, I found myself slowing turning against the Angels as I remembered all those nights of October in 2002 that brought me so much joy and so much pain. Maybe someday the Giants will win the World Series while I'm around. Maybe it'll be next year (if everyone stays healthy). I don't know that, but I do know that i can root against the Angels, and hope it comes to the White Sox (having not won a World Series since 1917) and the Astros (having never been to the World Series).

If only to give me hope that if they can do it, we can do it to.

(51 years and counting...)

Step One: Attend church camp growing up and get to know a really really big guy.

Step Two: Watch as the really really big guy plays college football at Arizona State and gets drafted.

Step Three: Rejoice when the really really big guy moves in at starting center for the Texans.

Go Drew!

Congratulations to The Melane for becoming the first of my good friends from college to become pregnant. Just make sure Mr. Mel doesn't turn him/her into a Yankees fan.

(And if it's a boy, you should name him Slartibartfast!)

At the risk of offending Howie's music sensibility, I bought the new Hootie and the Blowfish album, Looking for Lucky the other day. I wasn't sure what to expect, since I was somewhat let down over the past few albums. But it was new Hootie, so I just had to get it. It turns out that if you have low expectations for an album, it's not hard to beat them.

After a few listens, I thought this album was pretty good. If i had to place it somewhere along their career path without knowing when it was released, I think I'd put it somewhere between their second and third albums. It's got some style from the first two albums, but without the pop to it. It wasn't leaning country as much as their third album was. It wasn't anywhere close to the level of what I thought Fairweather Johnson was, but it wasn't bad.

And, just because, I bought other music, too. I got the Hoobastank album from last year, The Reason. I had already listened to it many a time, but it was only about $9, so I couldn't pass up actually owning it.

Then I got the Incubus DVD, Alive at Red Rocks. Oh man, this was so good. I didn't get to catch it all, but what I saw/heard lit me up like a Christmas tree. If only I could’ve seen their show at Red Rocks. But at least I can still catch it on DVD, and watch the ripping drum solo over and over again.

Joy!

He caught the ball.

All he had to do was fall over. Then they could run out the clock, winners over the highest scoring offense in the country 31-27.

But he needed glory. Or maybe it was just instinct. But he lost the ball, and now Nebraska is 4-1 instead of 5-0.

But, hey, for all the folks who said we'd get destroyed by Texas Tech, we had the lead with 12 seconds to go. A close game, an honorable loss.

If only he could've held on to the ball.

There was a sign at the Safeway today that told me if my cashier didn't ask if I wanted to donate a dollar to breast cancer something-or-other, I'd get a free two liter of my choice of Safeway Select soda. He didn't ask, and if Select soda didn't suck so much, I would've made mention of it.

Instead, my beverage of choice today harkened back to a time when men were men, women were women, and Mountain Dew was purple (also known as last year).

I was so confused when I saw a purple Mountain Dew, known as Pitch Black ( a moniker highly unfitting for the color of the soda...). I was quite high on Code Red, since we more or less invented it at Doane the spring before Pepsi released it as an actual product. When I drank Live Wire, I could only stand about 2/3 of a bottle before I had to throw it away. I ended up feeling mostly indifferent to Pitch Black: it wasn't the quality of regular Dew or Code Red, but not as bad as Live Wire, or the instantly infamous Pepsi Blue.

(Sidebar: I knew a guy once by the name of Eric Westra. He was the Residence Director for my dorm during my junior year of college, and he was quite a strange fellow. He told me perhaps my favorite joke of all-time during finals week that spring, but he also just did things that lit me up. One day he took a bottle of Windex emptied it of its contents, gave it a thorough cleaning, and filled it with Pepsi Blue. Of course, he hated it just like the rest of us, but he decided to have some fun instead of just throwing it away. He proceeded to walk around the rest of the day squirting this blue substance into his mouth as onlookers stared with horrified looks on their faces. While you might have had to have been there, it was one of the funniest things I've ever seen anyone do.)

Pitch Black disappeared at some point, and I didn't notice. But then it was suddenly back. A while ago (A few weeks? A month? Two months? I don't know...), I saw it back in the store, but this time it was different. It was now Pitch Black II. I was confused, wondering why they needed to reintroduce a product by changing the name. Everything else looked the same. Or so it seemed.

On a closer inspection this week, I saw that it was, in fact, "a blast of grape flavor with a sour bite..." Since I'm a guy who likes sour things (I liked to take a shot of lemon juice before heading off every morning of high school. That'll put a kick in you.), I figured I'd give it a whirl.

If I had to try to describe to someone how liquid purple Sweet Tarts might taste, I'd just hand them a Pitch Black II. It's such a similarity; you can feel your teeth rotting as you drink it.

There's no question that the next time I'm out buying a twelve pack of soda, I'm getting Pitch Black II.

It's October, which means it's time for the baseball playoffs. I'm quite happy that my schedule this year allows for more watching than last year. While I've fallen asleep as some games continued, I've watched at least part of every game played so far. Despite some outcomes I've disliked, it's altogether been happy times watching baseball.

However, I am distraught by a certain development. Someone decided it would be a good idea to bring back the Thunder Stix, easily the worst thing ever to happen to baseball.

I shall now choke on my own vomit.

Apparently, the town I live in is a cesspool of demonic hellions waiting to unleash the end of times upon our poor Earth. Or some would have you believe

Fooled me quite well, this hamlet did. Far better for me to "Pray for Greeley" then perhaps hurricane victims or soldiers in Iraq.

So, where do I go with this one?

Kelse wanted me to call her on my lunch today. She had the day off, and her best friend (Chris) came into town with his parents, so they were going to make a day of things. There was talk of going to Estes Park, but she didn't want to do that because that would mean I couldn't get involved.

So I called on my lunch in response to a text message she sent me to see what the plan was. Here's about how the start of the conversation went:



Me: "Hey, how's it going?"

Kelse: "Hey, my mom and I were talking, and she thought that it's probably wouldn't be a good idea for you to hang out with us today because she thinks Chris likes me more than "just friends" and it would just be awkward..."

Silence...

Me: "OK"

Silence...



How am I supposed to respond to that? What am I supposed to do? Don't I have the right to object and be upset about it? I mean, yeah, it sucks if you like a girl when she's dating another guy, and you have to hang out with both of them. I've been through that too many times.

Some might wonder if I'd have sympathy on the opposite end of that one, and in many cases I do, but not this one. Angry, livid, and incensed aren't words to describe how I felt, but more the direction I was heading. One thing I've learned over the years is that life isn't fair, you don't get what you want often, and you certainly can't always get the girl you want. Life can be a harsh mistress sometimes, but you learn to deal and move on.

She ended up meeting me (with him) after work anyway, but that wasn't the point anymore. I guess we're going to a movie later tonight, but I guess that's not really the point either. I'm not really sure what the point is, but I am sure of what it isn't.

The phone call threw me into an unhappy funk for the rest of the day, which was not helped by situations at work. I got a blueberry milkshake after work, and perhaps it'll help to listen to some good music and play some video games.