'Tis The Season...

AUGUST IS OVAH!
And not a minute too soon, folks!  That can only mean one thing—finally some football games to watch on TV that actually count.  Granted, I've been a devotee of the National Football League since the Nixon Administration, but there are few things on this earth that are more pointless than NFL preseason games—they're every bit as worthless as a Zamboni on Guam—so after a month of this on-going banality, it's great to at least see the colleges hit the ground running this weekend on the ol' gridiron.  There's already been a fair amount of excitement too, as some school called Appalachian State (who?) went in to "The Big House" in Ann Arbor and upset the mighty Michigan Wolverines today 34-32—the college football equivalent of a triple-A minor league baseball team beating the St. Louis Cardinals at Busch Stadium.  My Mizzou Tigers won a rather wacky game 40-34 over Illinoise at the Ram Dome in St. Louie, and there was a feel-good scene in Blacksburg, VA today as Va. Tech hosted its first football game since the tragedy there in April—the Hokies won 17-7.  Rather cool to see smiling faces on that campus again...

And this day achieved A.G.D. status in my book (Automatic Good Day), as the Notre Dame Fighting Irish lost to the Wramblin' Wreck from Georgia Tech.  For the unitiated out there, I happen to despise Notre Dame's football team more that anything else on this earth, with the possible exception of TV evangelists, diarrhea, Bill O'Reilly (same thing), TicketMaster, Fox News Channel, liver, canker sores, Geraldo Rivera, "reality" TV shows, the Dubya Administration and John Mellencamp, thus it's an Automatic Good Day in my life when Notre Dame loses.  I could be maimed in a car accident and lose a limb or two, but if the Irish loses that day, it's still a good one!  There are precious few things my old man and I see eye-to-eye on, but this is one of them—we both hate Notre Dame with a passion! Today was especially sweet because not only did Notre Dame lose, they got their asses whooped—in their own house, no less!  Happy Happy Joy Joy...

The pros get it cranked up for real next weekend, and I will post my annual fearless NFL prognostications before Thursday night's opener.  I have all the accuracy of your average TV meteorologist, but one of these days I'll get it right...

THE "BIG DIG" IS UNDERWAY...
I got started last night on the excavation of my front yard for to fix my collapsed sewer drain.  I lasted about an hour before running out of gas, and resumed work early this morning while it was still cool out, and I'm about a third of the way done so far.  The dirt's not so bad, but those damn tree roots are a bitch to work through!  I was planning to resume work again this evening, but my sinuses are freaking thanks to that annual Labor Day weekend ritual known as Ragweed Season, so I've suspended operations for the time-being...

DAMN NEAR PERFECT
I watched an outstanding performance last night by Minnesota Twins pitcher Scott Baker, as he took a perfect game into the 9th inning against the Royals, only to walk the leadoff hitter, then lose his no-hitter to the next batter.  I love a good no-no (even if it's by the opposing pitcher), so I was just as disappointed as young master Baker was when he lost it.  The closest I ever came to seeing Major League no-hitter in person was circa. 1985-86 when the Royals' Danny Jackson took a no-hitter into the 9th before losing it.  Talk about nerve-wracking...

What drives me nuts is when the play-by-play announcers during no-hitters actually mention that the pitcher has a no-hitter going.  I have two major superstitions in life, one being that I will only wear odd-numbered sports jerseys, and the other being not to point out there's a no-hitter in progress!  Instead of saying "So-and-so's got a no-hitter going...", I prefer to do like Billy Paul in "Me And Mrs. Jones" and say "He's got a thing going on..."  In fact, the Boston Red Sox' pitcher's "got a thing going on" even as I type this...

POETIC JUSTICE
Regular readers here might recall me mentioning my rather unsavory 30-year-old female co-worker/human train wreck with poor feminine hygiene habits who has three out-of-control kids (by three different fathers, none of whom she's ever married), the oldest of whom is 14 (do the math) who spends an inordinate amount of time yapping on her cell phone who was trying to mooch off the government by seeking to obtain Section 8 federal housing after her recent soap opera-esque break-up with her boyfriend?  Surely, you remember her!  Well, now that she's been with our company for over a year, she's learned how to milk/abuse the system quite well, as she's chronically late to work and even though she's used up all her sick time, she still frequently calls in sick anyway, saying she "has things to do."

As you might imagine, the collective gruntlement of the rest of the staff (including me) ain't doing too well these days, as management continues to turn a blind eye to all this.  I personally took it upon myself Thursday to exact a little vigilante justice on her.  In addition to all her other transgressions, she has the unmitigated gall to regularly park her car in one of our designated handicapped parking spaces.  Oh sure, she has a handicapped parking tag hanging from her mirror (that I'm sure doesn't belong to her), but there ain't a damn thing wrong with her physically (apart from vaginal odors), and one of my biggest pet peeves in this world is able-bodied people who park in handicapped spots.  As luck would have it, she arrived for work Thursday (on time, for once) at the same time I did, and left her lights on.  I noticed this as I walked by, but do you think I bothered to inform her of it?  Fuck, no!  I'm normally not that mean, but in this case, I believe the term "what goes around, comes around" more than applies.  When she had her car jump-started at the end of the day, I laughed...hard.