I've mentioned numerous times how the universe messes with me, right?

Well, it is at it again.

I am going to talk about sports for a minute. Don't stress. It'll be over quickly and it won't hurt a bit. Whoa. Shades of prom night.

And I'll do my best to give you a chuckle.

Again like prom-- Nevermind.

Plus, I'll throw in a little Monkey story at the end. (No skipping ahead!)

Last year I got involved with a pretty serious fantasy basketball league with some dudes. We mostly keep the same players year to year. We have a (VERY COMPLICATED) salary cap. We try to mirror the NBA as much as possible. Trades. Free agency. Everything except the firing of guns outside of Indianapolis strip joints.

And I, for one, refuse to rule that out completely.

These are hardcore basketball fans. And hardcore stats junkies. The group includes, math majors, a basketball journalist, a stats professor (!!!) and... me.

But, that's cool. I figured that my street smarts, sports knowledge, gumption, charm and manly touch would allow me to be competitive.

Fiiiiiiiine. The charm and manly touch might not help (I hope), but I just like to keep putting it out there.

In our initial draft, I picked young guys. Dudes I expected to become stars. I picked some guys that I knew would stay in Europe for a year or two. I picked one fella because saying his name made me feel like a Mexican wrestling commentator. "Juan Carlos Navarrooooooooooo!!"

I had a plan. I saved salary cap space for the future. I had the second overall pick, and despite much scoffing from EVERYONE, took a young point guard named Chris Paul. I took him over Kobe, Dwayne Wade, Kevin Garnett, etc.

And, in our inaugural season... every single one of my players got injured and my team was brutal. The universe also likes to badly injure players that I select in fantasy drafts.

I ended up with the second worst record in the league, but won the first overall pick in the lottery. Yes, we have a draft lottery.

Everyone expected me to draft Greg Oden. "Best center in years..." "Will redefine the position..."

Does Peter listen?

Nope.

Does Peter ever listen to advice?

Uhm... rarely.

Should Peter stop asking and answering his own questions and get on with this post?

Most definitely.

I had worries about Oden's health. He had some weird hip/leg/back thing on the go. And he looked like he was 47 years old. So, I took Kevin Durant.

And now Durant is tearing up the league. And Greg Oden had (a SERIOUS) knee surgery before the season and is out for the year.

And Chris Paul? Dude, seems like a hall of fame lock in his third season.

And my crappy team, that people laughed at last season...

#1 overall, baby!

I was going to write this post the other day.

It was going to be all braggalicious. (Even worse than this one!)

And then the universe, sensing my plans, injured my young starting center, and break-out star, Andrew Bynum.

He's going to be out for two months.

Coincidence? I think not.

I wasn't shocked. At all.

It was my own fault.

Now, I am not writing this post to try to anger the universe. It showed me who is boss.

I just thought I'd do this little post to let the universe know that I am POSITIVE that the Patriots will win today. And that the universe can't stop them.

And also that I would hate it if Randy Moss tore his ACL, MCL and broke a nail today.

**********

Since you were all so patient...

So, The Monkey's Mommy and aunt arranged for a manicure and pedicure lady to come in to the Monkey house to give, well, manicures and pedicures.

There was a bunch of people getting them done.

The Monkey went last.

She told everyone that she wanted a pedicure, and she wanted "polish on my finger nails too."

She said that the next day she had to go visiting people to show off her fingers and toes.

Then she sat in the chair, leaned back, looked at the woman and said...

"Gimme the works."

Labels: Peter is a big dork, sports, the universe

I think that I'm a pretty mellow dude.

I don't get too high or too low.

I don't really have much of a temper. (Usually.)

Though all of this sometimes goes out the window when sports are involved.

To say that I take sports seriously is like saying that Alec Baldwin gets a bit touchy when you don't answer his phone calls.

I once considered breaking up with a girlfriend because she jinxed an important field goal attempt by the Colts in the playoffs.

That all being said, I kind of took an emotional beating, as a sports fan, this weekend.

It began Friday night with my beloved Toronto Raptors losing to the evil New Jersey Nets. To make matters worse, it featured a much improved performance by world-renown sack of shit Vince Carter.

Saturday afternoon featured Major League Soccer's Toronto FC losing their 4th game in a row. In all fairness, they are an expansion team and played MUCH better than they had in previous outings. And the debut of new English striker Danny Dichio was cause for optimism. He played like a menace, and even flattened their goalie a few minutes in. Awesome.

Saturday night was game two of the series between the Ottawa Senators and (also evil) New Jersey Devils. I stayed up until some crazy hour watching this and Ottawa ended up losing in double overtime. Ugh.

Finally, last night was game four between the Raptors and Nets. And the Raptors got absolutely smoked. It wasn't even close. I still can't really talk about it. But, how friggin' hard is it to knock Vince Carter down on a drive to the basket and then "accidentally" step on his shooting hand a little? Have you people not played this sport before? Come on.

The only bright spot of this horrific game was a sideline interview with New Jersey resident Bruce Willis. Within seconds it was obvious that Bruce was drunk off his ass. When the rambling interview was ending, the Canadian reporter mentioned the next Die Hard movie coming out. Bruce said that it was even better than the first one. So, the interviewer said, "Thanks and Yippee Kai Yay." And Bruce said, quite clearly, "Yippee Kai Yay, Motherfucker."

Now, normally this kind of sporting weekend would have me ranting more than this. (No, really!) Or much too bummed to bother blogging.

But, this weekend was different because I was lucky enough to get a visit from the ever delightful ACN. She was a very good girl and we had a tonne of fun. Her favourite part -- other than changing her name to Goobie Goobie -- was playing with the Webkinz that her little cousin bought her.

I didn't know much about the world of Webkinz before this weekend, but now I feel like an expert. You start by buying a teddy bear. There are different kinds. Cats, dogs, frogs, etc.

The ACN got an "Ally Cat." She named it Penelope. (Though she enjoyed it when I'd sometimes refer to the kitty as "Pen-a-lope.")

With your animal, you get a special code which allows you to log into the Webkinz website. And that's when the magic starts...

We "adopted" Penelope Saturday after lunch. And we pretty much played on the site until Sunday evening just before bed time.

On the site you can build a little home for your animal. You buy rooms and then spend money to furnish them. To get the money you have to do jobs, play games, mine for precious gems, and a variety of other interesting things.

I was lucky enough to spend Saturday afternoon apprenticing under The Monkey, or else I would have been completely lost. The Monkey was a very good Big Cousin this weekend. She helped the ACN build a bedroom and a bathroom and to furnish them with all kinds of fun stuff.

I asked many questions and The Monkey answered them all. Though typically while wearing a "Duh, Peter" expression.

On Sunday afternoon it was just me and ACN and Penelope. I quickly found out that the ACN LOVES spending the money on stuff for Penelope, but doesn't enjoy the whole process of actually earning the cash.

They learn early.

Some highlights of Pen-a-lope's house include:

- A treadmill that she actually uses. She says, "Phew, my feet are stinky" when she gets off.
- A cat-shaped TV in her bedroom that works! (You know that I was pushing for that purchase.)
- A bathroom with 7 plants and a toilet... that she actually uses. "When you gotta go, you gotta go," Penelope informed us.
- A skateboard that she actually rides.
- Kitchen chairs with hockey stick legs
- A "Pretty Room" which currently features a pedestal and trophy and a green swamp boat -- which she rides around the house for fun. Every house needs a swamp boat.

So, I ended up spending many hours playing little games to win money for more purchases. The ACN even told me that I should keep playing it when she went home so that next time she wanted to play there'd be lots of money in her account.

Yesterday afternoon I got the bright idea to play a "tournament" game against other online players. I thought that I could score some quick cash schooling some little kids at Connect Four.

So, my first match-up started and I noticed that the total prize earnings available was only $10. I looked at the ACN and said that we weren't going to buy much with that kind of scratch. She shook her head "No." I looked back at the monitor and a puppy named "Som" had beaten me quickly at Connect Four.

Little shit was probably from New Jersey too.

Labels: ACN, running on NO sleep, sports