Mangosteen: Gross

Finally got my hands on a pair of mangosteen. According to wikipedia, it's supposed to be one of those "super fruits", with tons of anti-oxidants and other kinds of goodness.

One thing they forgot to leave out was how gross they taste. For $6.49/lb, I would recommend sticking with blueberries.

RB with a new QB

Someone asked me whether or not I thought Green Bay Packers running back Ryan Grant could repeat his amazing rookie breakout performances this season without Brett Favre. That's big question because without Favre they're going with Aaron Rodgers, who has never started in his career. Being thrusted in this type of role will be a huge responsibility. I don't know about Rodgers but personally I'm not too worried about Grant. I have him in one of my keeper leagues as my #3 RB behind Steven Jackson and Maurice Jones-Drew although I'd argue Grant could be my 2nd best guy.

I'm sure many other fantasy owners are wondering whether opponents will just stack the line and stop Grant, forcing Rodgers to win games with his arm and hope he makes tons of rookie mistakes. I won't disagree that Rodgers has to be half-decent for Grant to have a great year, but I don't think it's reason to downgrade Grant.

Grant became the main ball carrier for Green Bay starting week 8, and amassed 1048 yards (929 rushing) and 8 touchdowns in that span. He did that in 10 games. This means he averaged 104.8 yards (93 rushing) and 0.8 touchdowns per game as a starter.

Over a 16 game span, Grant would have had 1677 total yards and 13 touchdowns. That's pretty good for a rookie.

In the past there have been several RBs who not only performed well despite a rookie quarterback taking over, they did exceptionally well -- some of them turned in career bests. Marshall Faulk was huge in Peyton Manning's first year. (I'm not comparing Aaron Rodgers to Peyton Manning, so take a chill pill.). Hold your breath, there's more -- Antowain Smith had his best season playing for the Pats in Tom Brady's first season. In Phillip Rivers' first season as starting quarterback, LaDainian Tomlinson had his best career as a professional football player. Frank Gore had his best season in Alex Smith's first full season as a starter -- in fact if you count Smith's starts in 2005, Gore career pretty much took off the same time as Smith's did. I don't know if you remember this far back but Duce Staley had a pretty nice year til he got hurt, and Jerome Bettis was so good in relief he made it to the Pro Bowl, his first time in 3 years. That was in Ben Roethlisberger's first season. In Tony Romo's first season 2006, that was the year Marion Barber broke out for 14 TDs. Heck, even when Kyle Boller took over as starter in Baltimore in 2003, Jamal Lewis had his best year ever as pro.

I've included average QBs such as Kyle Boller, Alex Smith, Tom Brady (just kidding!) to prove that Aaron Rodgers doesn't need to be a superstar quarterback for Grant to succeed.

The only guys I can think of where a young quarterback took over for a team and the RB sucked was Jay Cutler (no notable breakout for any RB in Denver), Matt Schaub (TJ Duckett and Warrick Dunn, neither had a huge breakout season).

As long as Aaron Rodgers doesn't turn out as bad as Cutler or Schaub (two guys who aren't necessarily bad QBs as they just didn't have good runningbacks), I think Grant is going to be just fine. And you can only assume that Rodgers will get better or they'll get a better QB. Packers fans simply won't stand for years of mediocrity at QB (see Baltimore, Miami for details,).

Demanding excellence

We are now a couple of years removed from the Raptors initial "break-out" season when we won 47 games. Sam Mitchell won coach of the year, Bryan Colangelo won Executive of the Year. We had a 20 win turnaround. A couple of years ago, if you had told me we would win 41 games, I would have been stoked but now I think it's only fair to say that I have higher expectations of this team. No longer is "making the playoffs" a hope, but rather an expectation. I want to see this team win a series or two. I want the team to be built to win championships.

After watching a handful of high-caliber playoff games between teams that were built to win championships, it's clear to me that our team is severely lacking in several areas. This isn't just about adding an athletic wing, or bringing in a good defensive rebounding big man.

Our team can shoot but we can't defend, and maybe it worked for the Phoenix Suns, but I think it's more of a case that they are the anomaly. Many teams have tried to build their teams like the Suns, and all have failed. In fact, the Suns themselves abandoned their approach because it was clearly not working.

Starting from the shortest and working our way up, here's a realistic look at the Toronto Raptors and just how we match up with other playoff teams and championship teams:

PG

It is looking more and more like the Raptors are planning to commit to Jose Calderon as their future starting point guard. At times Jose has looked like one of the most efficient point guards in the league. He rarely turns over the ball, and makes great passes to open teammates. He has great court vision, and is becoming and expert in pick-and-roll situations. He can hit open shots, although he still need to work on hitting those do-or-die big shots.

The question is, where does Jose stand amongst some of his perennially successful peers? Where does he stand amongst his fellow point guards, those who are playoff contenders? Would Jose Calderon start ahead of: Chauncey Billups, Derek Fisher, Tony Parker, Rajon Rondo? Probably not. Fisher is far more composed and takes big shots when his team needs them. Rondo is a far better defender than Calderon, and is quicker and longer. He's also almost as good at taking care of the ball as Jose.

What about those eliminated earlier: Chris Paul, Deron Williams, Steve Nash, Gilbert Arenas, Jason Kidd, Mike Bibby, Andre Miller, Jameer Nelson, Rafer Alston, Allen Iverson, Damon Jones. Okay, you can make a case for Calderon over a few of these guys -- Jones, Kidd (at his spry 523 years of age), Nelson (although he outplayed Calderon in this years' playoffs). But the point is, as a defensive liability, Jose is not amongst the top guys, and would be lucky to crack even the top 10.

SG

Couple years ago I thought Anthony Parker was a great addition to the team. I still do, but do I think he's the answer? Having watched Mo Pete all these years, he was a big upgrade due to his consistent shooting, and solid defense. He's easily our best one-on-one defender. Fast forward to present day, yes, he's still a solid player, but if you compare him to other shooting guards, how good is he? He's reached his peak and is on his way down. He's a bit of a glue guy, like a poor man's Shane Battier but older (turning 33 in a week), smaller, weaker, and slower. How does he compare to the guards in contending teams?

Would he start ahead of Kobe Bryant, Ray Allen, Richard Hamilton, Manu Ginobili? What about Tracy McGrady, Ronnie Brewer, Keith Bogans, Joe Johnson, Raja Bell, Jason Terry, DeShawn Stevenson, Willie Green, Delonte West, J.R. Smith, Morris Peterson? I would put him somewhere in the middle of the latter group, which puts him in similar territory as Calderon. If you include non-playoff SGs, he falls out of the top 10.

So far our starting backcourt ranks around 10th in the league.

SF

Our starting small forward is long, athletic and but raw. He can defend at times, but is better as a help than the first guy one-on-one defender. Great leaping ability gives him the ability to block shots, but most of the time he fails in this because he doesn't have the smarts to be in the right position at the right time. Settles for jump shots despite athleticism that enables him to drive and hit higher percentage shots. We often find him missing his man, and has been criticizing for not taking the game seriously enough. Sounds familiar, huh?

Jamario Moon is a rookie, but he's also 27 years old so that eliminates the upside. He's our starting small forward and I'd venture to say that he likely doesn't start on 95% of the teams in the league.

Comparing him to the top small forwards in the league, you see right away where Toronto needs the most help in. Tayshaun Prince, Paul Pierce, Lamar Odom, Bruce Bowen. No comparison. What about Rashard Lewis, Josh Childress, Caron Butler, Andre Iguodala, Lebron James, Carmelo Anthony, Josh Howard, Peja Stojakovic, Kyle Korver, Boris Diaw, Shane Battier. Where does Moon rank? #16 and only because we made the playoffs. I can think of a few other guys better than him who didn't make the playoffs -- Gerald Wallace, Rudy Gay, Ron Artest, Vince Carter, Luol Deng just to name a few. The reality is that he is one of the worst starting SFs in the entire league.

PF

Chris Bosh is our only feature player. Some teams have 2-3 star players. We have 1. The power forward position is likely the only position where I can honestly say we have one of the top guys available. While every other position is questionable, at PF I am happy.

Amongst the best teams - Vladimir Radmanovic (Pau Gasol if Bynum were healthy), Rasheed Wallace, Tim Duncan, Kevin Garnett. Some argument can be made that Bosh deserves to be mentioned amongst these guys. David West, Dirk Nowitzki, Kenyon Martin, Reggie Evans, Joe Smith, Amare Stoudamire, Carlos Boozer, Luis Scola, Josh Smith, Antawn Jamison, Hedo Turkoglu. Bosh is definitely amongst these guys. Some of them are better rebounders but they can't score like Bosh can. He has an uncanny ability to take it to the rack and draw the foul, something I believe he needs to do a whole lot more rather than settle for jump shots. There aren't many big men with his free throw shooting ability.

At PF we're right around 7th or 8th overall.

C

Despite approximately $20M invested in big men to play the center position, we do not have a single guy who is the #1 clear-cut starter and this very unfortunate. Bargnani has gotten considerable time here because he needs the time to learn to play the position. Rasho performed great for us down the stretch in the regular season, but as he's done throughout his career, he completely disappeared in the playoffs.

However, all is not lost. If history has proven anything, you don't need a big time center to win championships unless his name is Shaquille O'Neal (and he's not 150 years old).

Looking at the top teams' big man position, Antonio McDyess, Kendrick Perkins, Pau Gasol (or Andrew Bynum), Fabricio Oberto all shed some light on just how badly a great C is needed. Al Horford, Dwight Howard, Samuel Dalembert, Brendan Haywood, Shaquille O'Neal, Zydrunas Ilgauskas, Tyson Chandler, Dikembe Mutombo (Yao Ming), Erick Dampier, Marcus Camby, Mehmet Okur. All these guys are hands down better than any of ours. But if there's something we can take from this listing is that none of these guys are required to be the highest scoring player on their respective teams, and that the worst rebounder was Erick Dampier at 4.2 rebounds per game.

Our highest rebounding C in the playoffs was Rasho Nesterovic at 2.6.

Amongst the centers in the league, the Raptors are amongst the worst, and dead last amongst their playoff counterparts.

You can forget about bench. Starters play approximately 80% of the minutes, so even with a great bench, you're only winning 20% of the time. Certainly a bench helps, but this should not be a concern until after you've establish your championship calibre starting squad.

The Raptors have a long, long way to go.

New blog

Ina and I have started a new blog to document our life together. We're co-authors of it, so from time to time we'll post there. As we feel that God united us to be a couple to live out the rest of our lives, we've aptly named it "United to Live".

I will likely continue this blog, but if history and experience has anything to say about this, the likelihood of maintaining two blogs is not high.

To join us on our new journey:

http://united2live.blogspot.com

3 days remain

Many of you are probably wondering, "How the heck does he have time to blog with 3 days remaining?". Well, I took only a half day off today, it's my last day at work.. well, last morning and I've got absolutely nothing to do. I've already set up my email and phone so I won't even attempt to do any more work today. I'm just sitting here checking my email (personal) and looking up on MEC some of the neato things I could buy when I go there in a bit.

I'm pretty excited. There are still some daunting things, like speeches and not screwing up on the vows, but otherwise we are down to the home stretch. Ina and I are so ready to get married that we wish it were already finished. There's still a lot to do but there's no more looking back. Pastor Vic gave us some good advice: If you get 80% of what you wanted that day, you were lucky.

Something that dawned on me a few days ago, was how will I keep up with my newsreader? When I get back from the honeymoon, that'll be nearly 3 weeks after the last time I read news.. there's gonna be over 2000+ items for me to catch up on! Yikes!!

Timbits

I heard in the news that a single mother of four was fired from her job at Tim Horton's for giving away a 16-cent Timbit to a small child. At first you hear this story and you think her boss is an idiot. I mean, the Timbit (which is a donut hole, by the way) is only worth 16 cents, and secondly she gave it to a cute little kid. So you're reading this story and thinking this boss person is a ruthless tyrant. Then you hear that upper management of Tim Horton's gives this lady her job back. Yay, you think. Stick it to the man!

But upon reviewing it further, were they right to fire her in the first place? There are several factors involved here.

First off, is it company policy to fire an employee for giving away their merchandise? If you went into a shoe store and an employee gave you a shoe for free, wouldn't that employee get fired? The 16 cent Timbit might not be the issue -- maybe Tim Hortons has a policy of firing their employees when they give things away for free.

Secondly, do we know the entire story? Maybe this lady was a bad employee to begin with. Maybe she shows up to work late every day, and this little Timbit escapade finally broke the straw on the camel's back. Maybe she ticked off her boss for several other things that led to the firing. Maybe this wasn't first time she'd given something away.

Third, the entire store is a little too.. sensational. Tim Horton's would never have had to re-hire this lady if the story hadn't gotten so much publicity. What if this story had been about a high school dropout working at the store, or some older dude, like a child-molester who had just been granted parole? Would it have gotten as much attention? What if instead of a Timbit, it had been a bottle of pop, or a dozen donuts? Would such a story have the legs to go national the way the original story went? I bet it wouldn't have even made the local news.

9 days remain

Barf alert!

On Tuesday, Ina and I went to our last "marriage counselling" class. Technically it was really just to go iron out the final details of the marriage procession. Anyway, on the way there we had dinner at Ajisen, one of Ina's favorite Ramen places. After which we were both craving dessert so we walked over to T&T and bought some popsicles.

Then we walked back to our cars (we came seperately) while eating these totally awesome 50 cent lichee popsicles. As we drove to the church, I followed her of course otherwise I'd get lost. At every red light Ina would blow kisses at me through her rear-view mirror, and show me how much popsicle she had left. And then I'd blow her a kiss and she'd act like she was catching them. It was totally awesome.

It was at this time that it dawned on me, one of the many purposes God had for me, this was one of them. To be a loving husband. It was just at one of these red lights that I realized how much I love Ina and how great our lives are going to be together as a married couple. It's like I was born for this.

Hey, it's not like I didn't warn you about the barfing..

Losing Chuck Swirsky

When the Toronto Raptors lost in the first round of the NBA Playoffs, that I could swallow. The Orlando Magic are a better team, so it was expected that we'd lose. Besides it wasn't a total loss -- we gained more playoff experience, Sam Mitchell discovered Jason Kapono was actually good -- a lesson I hope he remembers when next season begins.

What I do find hard to swallow is the loss of Chuck Swirsky, the Raptors' color commentator. This is a devastating loss to the Toronto Raptors, the organization, the city and the fans. It is one thing to have a person who comments on the games, it is another to have the type of class-act that Chuck Swirsky is, as a man, as an ambassador to the game, as a fan. Chuck was often criticized for being a homer, someone who said things about the Raptors that a professional like himself should never say. He voted Andrea Bargnani as rookie of the year, even though every single voter voted for Brandon Roy. He was the only man to vote for Bargnani.

But say what you will, broadcasts without Chuck Swirsky will never be the same again. To have that kind of chemistry is difficult enough, but to find a man who loves our city and our team as much as Chuck does, that will be irreplaceable.

His shoes will be tough to fill.

11 days remain

About a week ago, I started noticing a droning sound around my office. Like a constant humming reminiscent of the sound you hear when you're on an airplane. I thought this had something to do with the air conditioning, but I noticed I could still hear it in the hallway, in the foyer, and even in the elevators. This spread into my daily walk home, on the subway, in my building elevators, in my home. Dinner time is weird when people are talking to you and you are trying to make out what they're saying over the sound of a 747 turbine engine going off in the background.

It also feels like I'm underwater sometimes, where everything is just muted. It's been off and on. There are times my hearing is absolutely completely normal.

I also found that when I wake up initially from bed, everything is fine. It doesn't happen until I'm at work and then for the rest of the day pretty much. I wonder if I cleaned my ear too much and now it's sensitive to sounds, or changes in air pressure.

Right now there is no feelings at all, just normal. And I'm at work.

12 days remain

Thanks to those of you who read my annoying wedding related questions blog and came up to me and asked me those very questions -- very funny.

Well, we're really coming up on it now, just 12 days to go. Ina and I are just about ready to take the plunge, my mom and dad are both in town now and I've been getting tons of "expert" advice. Work is starting to wind down just enough to give me a little space so things are generally good. There are still some little things left that I know I need to do but also that I continue to put off.

When I was young, I would try to imagine what life would be like if I were married, or had kids. But I just couldn't picture it. I have quite an imagination, and can think up some pretty crazy things, and when I was little I used to imagine myself as a rock star, or war hero or spy. I could run around the living room with an entire battlefield drawn out and imagine myself running around shooting and dodging bullets. But one thing I couldn't imagine was what my future would hold. I couldn't imagine what it would be like to one day get married, or to raise my own family. It always felt so far away and I couldn't grasp that thought in my mind. There were probably times in my life that I thought it would never even happen, let alone trying to imagine it all.

Now, less than two weeks away I can finally see it.

18 days remain

On a more serious note, I think I have been losing sleep over this so I'll blog about it. After booking all my vacation days for various things such as days leading up to the wedding, the honeymoon itself and Christmas holidays, I found that I only had 3 days of vacation days remaining.

This is something that Ina and I have been praying about, which is what to do with these remaining days. As most of you know, for the last 3 years I've been going up north to Longlac, to spend a week or two with a native reserve to help out and work with the children there. It's something that is important to me. I know that there have been people who would skip a year because of something big (like a wedding), but I also know people have gone out of there way to go even if it was a big problem (like last year Daniel going 2 weeks before Maki was due).

Something that I always wanted to make sure was that I didn't allow my personal life to get in the way of my ministries, these two things should either work hand-in-hand, or that Christ should take precedence. But lately I've also been thinking maybe I just want to be selfish and take some time for me, for a change. I'd like to think I earned these vacation days, and I keep spending them on others... when is it my turn? And is it wrong to think this way? Don't I deserve to have some fun too?

An added kink to all of this is that Ina will actually be out of town for the month of July on various business trips, so even if I stayed home she wouldn't be there. Although I would rather take a Friday off here and there and then fly out to see her for the weekend.

Lately I've just been feeling like my heart isn't in it. Like I just don't want to take on anything right now, just want a break. Longlac just seems like something a long way off. At Ishskwaday, although it was a good time and all, I felt a little alienated like an outsider looking in even though I was one of the organizers.

Anyhow, the deadline to sign up is tomorrow.

19 days remain

As our wedding day approaches, one of the things I've really gotten tired is the questions people ask us. It's the same questions over and over again. As the wedding nears, they come more and more frequent. Another I noticed was that work has really eased up.. I guess they know it's a stressful time. Anyway, here the list of questions we keep getting:

"How's the wedding planning coming along?"
"When is it again?"
"Wow, only __ more weeks. Are you excited?"
"Are you ready?"
"Where will you be living?"
"Your parents must be really excited?"
"Who am I sitting with?"

Rinse and repeat, these questions are coming at a rapid pace and I'm totally sick of it. It's almost like you know the question is coming when you run into pretty much anyone. And, after talking to some friends in other stages of life, the sad reality is that after the wedding, there will probably be a whole different set of questions..

22 days remain

Maybe it's just me being a pack rat, but something I've learned is that women don't keep things like men do. While moving and packing my clothes, I noticed a whole lot of pants and shirts that I hadn't worn in about a year. But they're still good clothes. There's no sense in throwing away good clothes right? I mean they still fit. Fashion is cyclical anyway.. within a few years most of these will be back "in-style" again, right?

Anyway, I've been packing suitcases of clothes to move over to Ina's place every couple of days, and it seems like every time I pull out one of these lesser worn shirts or pants, she's all like "Do you even wear that? When was the last time you wore that? I've never seen you wear that.". And then she neatly folds them and puts them in a separate pile from the rest of my clothes.

Which is cool because one thing I'm okay with losing is the freedom to choose what clothes I wear. I've never been a good dresser and I'm happy to admit it. I've noticed a few of my friends dressing noticeably better since getting married and I'm not only okay with it, I'm looking forward to it. As long as I feel comfortable in my clothes, that's fine. And if I look good and don't have to be the one who worries about it, that's perfect.

--

The Raptors finally won one last night. We got it done when it mattered, but the truth is games 1 and 2 mattered but they couldn't pull it off. I'll be at the game on Saturday.. I hope they can win.

23 days remain

Today is April 24, 2008. I'm getting married in 23 days... gasp! For the next little while, I'll blog a bit about my general thoughts as this day approaches, amongst other stuff.

Although there are some who have told me marriage is the best, the vast majority of people tell me it's not as great as you think it's gonna be. I've heard a lot of people say you have to really work hard at it. Maybe I'm crazy but I'm really looking forward to that hard work.

My general impression of wedding planning is that it's a bit too over-the-top. I think most brides would emphasize that it's a once-in-a-lifetime thing, and the biggest day of their life. Whereas some guys, myself included, would say that it's just one day. Why are we spending this much on ONE day?

That was me about 4-5 months ago.

I think weddings are a magical time for the bride so they are generally more involved in the planning process because they care more. The groom is kind of just there, making sure they don't spend too much, but also his role is pretty much to keep a hands-off approach but close enough to ensure his bride's happiness throughout this process. And providing reassurance that it isn't too much.

For me, I've been pretty much hands off for most of it. I've seen the wedding more as a formality, just something we need to get done for the sake of family, friends, God, and that whole official-ness of it. Many times we've actually both considered just eloping because of all the pain it would avoid. But in the end we're definitely both looking forward to this big day.

That's not to say I don't plan on indulging on this day, soaking in the moment and making the most of this once-in-a-life-time experience.

American politics

Can't seem to avoid this stuff, as it's brought up every day at lunch time in our lunchroom. If you're eating lunch with my co-workers, you pretty much have no choice to talk politics at some point, which kind of annoys me because it's not even OUR politics.

Anyhow, I came across this video that I'm sure many of you have already seen. It's called "Yes We Can" by Barrack Obama.. I thought it was pretty cool:



Hahaha... oops.. my bad. I am so sorry for that. Here's the real one.

Asparagus Mystery

There's something strange I noticed a few years ago while eating asparagus. It was around the time when I had dusted off the Hamilton Beach Grill I had. Someone had brought asparagus to a barbecue I attended and all they did was put olive oil and salt on it to season it.

It tasted amazing so I went home and did it myself.

The strange thing was, for the rest of the evening my pee smelled really gross. Kind of like rotten cabbage. I didn't think much of it until about a few months later, I was over at Pastor Vic's place for a BBQ, and we were all eating kabob's, and I offered Mike some asparagus, and he said "No thanks, I don't want my pee to smell funny afterwards."

Since then I've always noted the smell of pee after asparagus. It's quite a phenomenon. I even told my mom about it but she didn't believe me because it never happened to them.

As it turns out, asparagus has amino acids, whereupon if they can be broken down by your stomach enzymes, one component called "methyl mercaptan" really really smells. And only 40% of the world's population experience this.

Apparently scientists are split when it comes the actual cause of the smell (why some people smell it and some don't). Some believe that more than half the world's population lacks the genetic enzyme required to break down the amino acids to methyl mercaptan, while scientists believe that everyone can do this but only 40% of the world's population have the genes to be able to smell it in the urine.

This is pretty fascinating to me. This means that some scientists believe that two people could be standing side-by-side in a bathroom and one would smell the awful pungent smell of asparagus pee, while the other wouldn't smell a thing..

Does your pee smell especially worse when you eat asparagus?

Blog killer

Can a blog be killed? I think so.

How can you kill a blog? Take the blogger, give him someone better to talk to than a computer. Give him a friendship that lasts forever, someone to hold hands with, someone to love and who loves him back. Someone else to shares his deepest secrets with, his burdens and also his joys. When you can do this to the blogger, the blog dies.

This blog is nearing its end.

Tribute to Brett Favre

Blue Jays Drunkfest

I think they serve too much alcohol at these games.

On Friday we went to the Blue Jays' home opener at the Rogers Centre (it's not the Skydome anymore!) with the small group. Organized by one of the SG members who happens to be a big baseball fan.

The last time I went to a baseball game, it was with Euhan of all people. He had gotten free tickets at work and we went because he'd never been to Skydome before. We left around the 7th inning because it was so boring.

Friday's game wasn't all the different, except we were in the 500 level and apparently, it's all one huge drinkfest up there. Game, what game right? It's so far away from the field you can't really see anything.

They decided to honor Roberto Alomar before the game, which was nice because I don't think I've been a fan since those days. I couldn't help but feel a bit emotional as they played clips from the glory days. Robbie came out in his usual swagger/walk and thanked the fans. It was pretty nice. But then it just turned south after that. In a surprise move Paul Godfrey decided to also honor Paul Beeston. I have utter respect for the guy, but after you just did Alomar was this the right move? It took a little thunder away from Alomar in my opinion.

Before long the game was underway, and after about 3 hours, we were into the 2nd inning and Ina turned to me and asked "Can we go home now?".

Baseball is by no means a spectator sport. In my opinion, they should play the game with no crowd and record the whole thing, and then show it on television, edited to remove the boring parts. Then they could pretty much play it as a commercial because there's probably only about 45 seconds worth of good footage. I wouldn't mind if they played this commercial several times over the day to get plenty of coverage. But to have it on television, for people to have to pay money to go see this snooze-fest..

You find yourself looking at the scoreboarding every 4 seconds to confirm whether the last pitch was a ball or strike. They've got this board letting you know how fast the pitch was, and whether it was a slider, cutter, curveball, changeup, fastball, knuckleball. This was all they could come up with hoping to entertain you. You could have drinking games to the tune of what pitch was thrown. My monies on a curveball next. No I think it'll be a change up. Drink up, losers -- it was a SLIDER What the hell is a slider anyway? Look, it's Jerry O'Connell falling from the sky!

My biggest question about the evening was why they didn't have replay. It's bad enough that something exciting happens every 15 or 16 hours, but to have no replay means that you have to wait that much longer for something interesting to happen. If you missed it because you were asleep, or too busy reading the little tidbits of bio information of the player at bat, you're going to have to wait until essentially next week to see the next great play. Kinda makes you feel like the guy on Polka Dot Door, missing the Polkaroo for the umpteenth time. "The Polkaroo was here???!? AND I MISSED HIM AGAIN!??!?!?!"

I can't count the number of times we were trying to guess how fast the next pitch was going to be, and we heard the crack of the bat hitting the ball, some cheering, and you look down and realize you just missed the most exciting moment in the past 13 hours. In fact from where we were sitting, even if we WERE paying attention you can't see what is happening. The angle was off and the ball disappeared just below the front row of our section. Our reaction was pretty much based on looking around at the rest of the crowd to see how they reacted. They're cheering, therefore we must cheer! YA!! GO BLUE JAYS!!

Every hit looked like a potential home run from our angle. Every pitch looked exactly the same as the last. We just had to trust the scoreboard to be correct that it was a ball or strike.

Around the 6th inning or so, everyone stood up in our section and a few sections over to the left. Something was happening, only it wasn't on the field. A few sections over to the left, some shirtless dude was pounding away on a guy in a suit. FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT! Meanwhile the game is still going on. Some sucker at bat is probably thinking we're all cheering for him -- as if anyone actually cares about the product on the field.

We started seeing rows of people chanting something at the ushers and cops as people were arrested. Then it all died down, and we resumed watching this incredibly boring sport.

About 15 minutes (or what felt more like 30 hours) later, all of sudden everyone was standing again and looking at this same section again. This time, there was a blond with a pink blue jays t-shirt on, standing up, with her hands by her sides getting ready to pull up her shirt. And she did. Boobies. Cheers from the crowd, drunk teenagers all whooped it up, and she pulled her shirt back down and then raised her arms in victory.

Ushers came running again trying to stop it and kick her out, but this time about 2-3 sections were protesting "LET HER STAY! LET HER STAY!". Memories of Growing Pains when Mike Seaver locked himself in his highschool with "Heck no, we won't go!" chants flooded into my head.

Eventually these poor ushers relented, unable to wrestle this girl, who was now hiding behind about 20 of her friends. Then the cops came finally and arrest her, along with several of her accomplices.

From all corners of the dome, people start throwing their "Rally Towels" onto the field. These towels with the old Blue Jays logo and the new logo on it. They gave them out prior to the game and now they had become ammunition for people to throw and protest how boring baseball was. Even the lower bowl got into it, throwing their freebies to the field. You would see an usher go and retrieve one, and just as he turned around to head back to the dugout area, someone else would throw another. This went on for approximately 45 hours.

Then we notice there were 3 ushers in our section, looking around for the unhappy towel throwers, we guessed. We didn't have a bad section with flashers and fighters, but we did have some raucous fans booing anyone who walked up the aisle wearing Red Sox clothing. We also had a lot of "BOSTON SUCKS" and "F___ you Ortize" chants. I even threw in a few of my own "VC Sucks" chants but not loud enough for people to hear, because I'm not a big guy.

Then all of a sudden an usher ran up to a bunch of 13 or 14 year old kids a few rows ahead of us. All through the game we saw them passing this large carton of Tropicana. Being the innocent people we were, we thought "hey look, those kids snuck in a carton of juice to the game, that's smart since the drinks are so expensive here". Turns out it was alcohol. The usher grabbed the carton opened it up and took a big whiff. You could see from his expression it was not freshly squeezed florida oranges in there.

At this point the raining towels were coming down in big droplets of 1 in every 5 seconds. It was really getting crazy.

Then, after another 30 hours of baseball fun, another roar from the crowd. I looked over to the troubled section but everyone was looking down. There were another 2 more morons who had jumped the wall and were running on the field with no shirts. A woman with a bra and a man. These guys are so drunk, they aren't even streaking the right away. The girl got stopped pretty quick but the guy ran out and deked out the guards pretty good. He may have potential as a future CFL runningback. Finally he was tackled by an usher. The crowd was loving it. More towels, bottles and cups go flying.

We put on our jackets and got the hell out of there.

One hurdle at a time

I find that I can't handle more than one big hurdle at a time. There are major things in life that I feel I need to get out of the way before I can do another big thing. Like for instance, a job opportunity came up about half a month ago. I've been just about "okay" with my job and I've been looking for changes. But with the wedding coming up, I feel it's too 'big' of a hurdle for me to jump over while looking for work at the same time. It's a fairly large undertaking to look for a job, apply, get the resume in order and all that.

Another one is planning for Longlac. I've been tasked or asked to lead at least a week of Longlac short term missions for the church this year. I haven't even thought about it for more than maybe 3 hours total in the past 3 months. I just don't have time for it and I don't feel like I can think about it until the wedding is done with.

So for now I'm stuck behind this wedding thing.

There are also different levels of hurdles. Little things would be like if I had to take care of an errand that might only take me an hour to do, but it was something I didn't really like doing, I might put it off until I have taken care of something else that is slightly more stressful. Like if I had to make a presentation at work, I might put off doing the dishes for a week. That kind of thing.

I feel like I need a clean slate before I can perform certain tasks, even if they are simple tasks.

I also feel like I often save tasks to the end, not to procrastinate but rather so that I can do things all together. I find that Ina is the same way when it comes to this. Like for instance I got one of my buddies address so I could send him an invitation, but rather than sending it I'm still holding out for another address. Instead of just mailling it, I want to do them all together. Which is probably a mistake because by waiting this long it will probably be too short notice for the both of them and then neither of them will come.