Cringeworthy – Page 9 – A Series of Very Bad Decisions

Here We Go Again

Well, it’s already happened. Even though I said I was going to try and CALM DOWN about sports, the part diva, part monster in me has once again emerged and turned me into a raving lunatic.

The White Sox have been on a recent tear, and this past weekend concluded their last home stand before the All-Star Break. Earlier in the week, they swept the Rangers and had taken the first two games against the Blue Jays. Yesterday, game three, was a gorgeous day to sit outside to watch baseball, and so we did.

The game did not get off to a good start as Dylan Axelrod gave up two, two-run home runs. In the first inning. I think it went something like walk – HR – walk – HR, so we were in a 4-run deficit pretty quickly. No bueno.

Alex Rios managed a 3-run HR in the bottom of the first, but Toronto just kept hitting, and every time we threatened to tie, something would go wrong. And we came SO CLOSE – final score 11-9. I was dreaming of the Youkilis game-winner that I experienced on the 4th of July, but, alas…

There were several issues at hand here. One being that Robin Ventura started Tyler Flowers, presumably to give A.J. a break, but Flowers cannot hit his way out of a paper bag and, I mean, I know you can’t blame the catcher for bad pitches (or CAN you???) but there were definitely defensive plays he didn’t make that A.J. could have – I think at one point Toronto stole two bases IN A ROW.

I was screaming for them, at the very least, to have A.J. pinch-hit for Flowers, which they eventually did (I was like one of those crazy fans that probably calls the White Sox switch board to say things like, “You tell Jerry and Kenny to get rid of Ozzie!” or “Tell Jerry to claim Player XYZ off waivers!” or “Tell Jerry I’m delusional enough to think you’ll tell him whatever I say!”).

Another issue was the home plate umpire – Ballsy McBiased. The difference in his version of a strike zone for when we pitched vs. when they pitched was mind-boggling. I mean, he may as well have just ruled every ball a home run. Ventura finally had enough and read him the riot act in the ninth inning – I am dying to know what he said because I imagine it was even meaner than what I was thinking.

(Something along the lines of “You stupid !$%@W&*@)_!*)#!O_!)(#! Go $^@(*^$ yourself!”)

Ventura was ejected from the game and left the field to a standing ovation.

Look, I know crazy people like to blame the umps for everything, and certainly the way we pitched did not help us at all, but some of the calls he made were completely atrocious – calling a strike on Adam Dunn and then the next inning giving a ball to Toronto for the exact same pitch (or something, I think – see link below)

South Side Sox has a much more eloquent and smart sounding recap of the game if you’re interested.

True to form, I have now decided one loss is the end of the world (false) and there’s no way they can make the playoffs (also false).

In fact, I think this team has great potential. Ventura has been a wonderful manager thus far. You can really tell how much he cares about the team. Ozzie didn’t give a shit last year – and apparently doesn’t this year either because his new team is struggling just as much as his old team did – and he’s taking Buehrle down with him, which is pissing me off! (8-8 with a 3.25 ERA – not horrendous but not great). Zambrano is 4-7 with a 4.20 ERA, once again proving he cannot back up his mouth with any type of performance.

Wait, what was I talking about?

Here’s to a great second half of baseball!

Back When MySpace Was #1 – A Guide to Surviving Without Your Cell Phone

The first time I started a blog was during my senior year of college when I was procrastinating on writing some paper or another. I’ve been blogging (very sporadically) ever since across multiple different Blogger and Word Press sites, but without any sort of consistency.

One day, when I apparently had WAY too much free time, I basically went through all of them, deleted them, and put my favorite posts into yet ANOTHER blog, which I was going through earlier to find things to use for the book.

So, I am re-posting one of my favorites, with permission from myself.

How to survive without a cell phone for ONE WEEK (originally posted Dec. 30, 2006)

Before I even got to the San Diego airport on Dec. 22, I realized I had left my cell phone at home and would have to survive a whole week without it. I hope none of you ever suffer the same ordeal, but if you do, I have come up with a little guide on how to survive, should you ever find yourself in such a horrifying position.

1) Upon arriving at destination without cell phone, get to nearest computer. Immediately post My Space bulletin (ed note: Facebook status) and/or send mass e-mail alerting all friends of predicament. Be sure to use whichever method will hit the most people, specifically the people you want to see the most.

2) When one specific person who you are hoping to see but are trying to play it cool with does not respond to bulletin and/or e-mail, send My Space message (ed note: Facebook message) with any and all numbers where they can reach you.

3) Spend holiday/quality time with family and hope person calls/My Spaces/E-mails (ed note: Facebooks) you.

4) Go out with mutual acquaintance in hope of running in to aforementioned person. Get extremely drunk to dull the pain of getting blown off (again again again).

5) Spend entire next day hungover, miserable, traveling to Boston/Providence with your mom’s cell phone that you have taken for the week, receiving few to no phone calls, nothing from aforementioned person.

6) Check My Space (ed note: FACEBOOK, MY GOD, FACEBOOK NOT MY SPACE). Oh wait, this was back in 2006 when MySpace was still relevant. Carry on.), e-mail incessantly. Continue to not hear from person “x,” refuse to accept reality of situation by drinking lots of wine.

7) Sign on to AIM and talk to a different mutual friend — mention you have not heard from aforementioned person. Wait for friend to suggest plans. Continue to wait until you realize, “boy I need to get a life.”

8) Resign yourself to the fact that you will not see this person. Go out to the same bar your last night in town, run in to the same people, keep looking at the door, realize you are a loser.

9) On return flight, run into yet another mutual acquaintance who saw person you wanted to see but didn’t see. This confirms they are alive and able to make/keep plans with other people besides you. Remind yourself you need to re-read, “He’s Just Not That Into You.”

10) Spend three plane rides and two layovers reading/sulking. Call best friend with prepaid phone card to bitch.

11) As you are writing this list, person IM’s you to ask if you are still in town and makes up lie about looking for you in bar. Want to throw yourself off bridge.

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Ahh, memories. The person I was trying to meet up with, we’ll call him Michael Myers, was a friend from high school, who is now engaged to a person from high school that is not me.

Michael Myers was a pro at feeding me bullshit – he even had the audacity to come to Chicago a few years ago and NOT CALL ME but CLAIM he had call me. Um, WTF, dude. Just don’t even bother telling me you’re here so that I rearrange my entire schedule for three days only to end up sitting by myself on my couch watching the Golden Girls (okay maybe I’d be doing that anyway…but still).

He definitely mastered the I-am-dying-to-see-you-I’m-scheduling-a-trip-to-see-you-when-you’re-home-I’m-spending-all-my-time-with-you act. And for the record, I have not seen him since…2000. Maybe 2001. And that was when I ran into him at the grocery store when he was with his then-girlfriend’s mother (if ever I had an arch-nemesis, that hoe bag was it…the girlfriend, not the mom).

As Katy Perry says so nicely, “shut up and put your money where your mouth is.”

Really? No, REALLY?

So, I asked my mom to send me some stuff that was still lying around in my childhood bedroom. Mostly, I was hoping she would find and send me old emails I had printed out from college, because this was before the days of GMAIL and archiving and I basically saved NOTHING from college so those four years will wind up being one paragraph in my book because I can’t remember that many random stories. (Also, I promise I will try to stay away from too many run on sentences like that one).

Digressing for a minute – this lovely picture you see to the left was taken in December 1996 or January 1997 when my dad took us to the British Virgin Islands.

I was 15, Miriam was 18 and Josh was 10. Can we talk about my eyebrows? This was before I discovered waxing.

Anyway – so bless my mom’s heart, I came home from my CA baseball trip a couple of weeks ago and had a box waiting for me. Unfortunately, it was mostly old papers from college. However – there was a hidden gem among all the crap. When I turned 18, my best friend Lisa printed out one of those old surveys everyone used to take about themselves back in the day when AOL was still king and they’d forward on to mass amounts of people who would then fill it out and forward and really no one gave a crap.

Lisa printed out a survey that she and I both took in 1998. I turned 18 in 1999. She wrote on my survey: “oh my, how things change.” In a year? Really? I mean, I took the survey when I was still 16, but reading through it I can tell you that I am fairly certain NOTHING changed between February 1998 and May 1999.

Let’s have a looksie, shall we? (I chose my favorites not wanting to bore you by regurgitating the entire survey)

Coolest experience in life: In 1998, I wrote: Doing plays at Concord High School. Right, because that was during my acting phase and I apparently thought being in the chorus without a speaking part in Fiddler on the Roof was cooler than both my trips to Europe and the aforementioned trip to the BVI. Can we say moron? I can’t imagine what I would have changed that to in 1999. And I don’t even know what I’d say now, because I have a lot of life left in me, and that answer is always going to change.

Little Known Talent You Possess: So I put being stubborn and sarcastic – that was not “little known” nor is it an actual talent. Perhaps I needed some help with reading comprehension back then. I should have written stalking. No, really. I feel so bad for BDHO because I figured out his class schedule and would just happen to be at the nearest water fountain when he was getting out of class. And I cannot tell you how many times I skipped Spanish to hang out with him in the student center. Oops – perhaps this is why no hablo espanol.

Songs that couldn’t be improved upon: I wrote: Ecstasy, Nothing Else Matters, A lot by Metallica. Okay, FIRST of all, I had to GOOGLE “ecstasy song” (because I didn’t want to get taken to a porn site) because I have no idea what the hell I was talking about. It was the Rusted Root song, because all the cool kids in my high school liked them (no really) and I had a crush on at least three different guys who were obsessed with Metallica. It’s nice to know I had a mind of my own. The obvious answer to this question is “I Wanna Dance With Somebody (who loves me)” by Whitney Houston.

Future Goals: Win an Academy Award or help people (also marrying Leo would be nice too). I want to go back to 1998 and punch myself in the face, because that is how painful this answer is. And that answer did not change a year later because I wrote the Academy Award nonsense in my senior yearbook blurb.

I listed all my favorite books as Mary Higgins Clark (garbage). I listed my favorite subject as Psychology, which is ironic because I almost failed AP Psych because I didn’t give two shits about it – and then listed my future job as Psychologist. My favorite movie was Titanic, my favorite TV show was South Park – how well-rounded I was!!

Things you collect: Pictures of hot celebs. OH MY GOD, WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU 16-YEAR OLD REVA? I have literally given myself a headache reading this survey.

Ah, my high school self was so shallow and idiotic. As much as I’ve been having issues choking out that I’m 31 now, I’m glad I’m no longer that stupid.