I think I figured out the rotation our volleyball team plays in. This after my second week on the team.

Here is what we do if we serve the ball:

Server moves up to play center-back
Center back moves to center
Center moves to right front
Right front person moves the left
Left front stays in the front
Left back stands right behind left front
Once ball is returned, everyone chase after ball.

This position is, I think, called the wedge and was perfected by the Hungarians during the 80 Olympics. It's strengths are that with three people playing on the left-side front, we're more than covered if the other team hits it in that position. It's not so good if they hit it elsewhere.

And here's what we do if the other team serves the ball:
Server moves front right
Front right moves to center
Center front moves to left front
Left front moves to center
Center back moves to center
Right back moves to front center
And once again, once the ball is hit, everyone chases after it.

This is called the Trapezoidal Position.


That, of course, is how the plays are diagrammed to be. I, apparently, am having problems following because, in typical fashion, I seem to be the only to see the insanity of it all and instead of doing something about it and speaking out, have decided to just stick to position, hit the ball if it comes to me, and maintain my own little world of sanity.

Also, here are some more rules:
If it's hit to you, set the ball except for when somebody is breathing down your back. Then you let them have it. Only set the ball if there's nobody breathing down your back.

If it's one of three players, they get the ball any time they want.

Apparently, if you set the ball and quickly move up to the front of the net, leaving the back open and being right on top of the person who is supposed to play in the front of then net, the person in front of the net is out of posiition.

I should also say that everyone on my team is pretty nice and not very douche-y about it all. I just think it's stupid.

It appears our President's new approval rating is 34%, the lowest approval rating of a President since, well, ever. I think I said this before, but I'll say it again-- in a way, this is the fitting karmic punishment for El Prez. There he is, in his supposed truimphant second term, completely powerless, hated, mocked at, intensely disliked, and where even allies say "what we're we thinking?" I mean, it's completely obvious by now that his V.P ignores him, congress can't jump faster to get off the bandwagon, and even most of the MSM doesn't listen to him anymore.

Look for a terror alert real soon.

Once again, I managed to completely avoid the Olympics. Oops. From what I read about them, it appears that everyone had a smashing good time. Well, except for us. All we hear about is how the stars failed, how we didn't win every medal, how much these sports aren't exciting, how we don't care about them, how bad the ratings are, how the games aren't played at a reasonable time for us. This despite the fact we actually came in 2nd in medals. Or won a bunch of people won who weren't Bode, Michelle, Sasha, or Johnny. In fact, after perusing the channels, all I heard was how much the Olympics suck, how thankful people are that they're over, and what needs to be done to make them better. Because, damnit, if we're not entertained or win every medal or have our stars win or have the sports played at an hour not condusive to our viewing habits, it has to suck.

Which proves once again that we as a nation are a bunch of Jackasses.

This Saturday I was invited to a party, a friend's 40th birthday party. I was kind of excited, kind of not, the main problem being I knew the friend but didn't really know that many other people there, or knew a few but not that well. As much as I love going to parties, especially at this age when they're few and far between, i don't like going to parties by myself where I don't know that many people. I'm just not that socially adept to fend for myself at these things and have realized that I'm much better in small groups than big parties.


So all Saturday afternoon and early evening I tried to figure out whether I wanted to go or not. The way I saw it, is that it would basically come down to whether or not I wanted to beat myself up afterwards for being lame and staying in or beating myself up for going out and not being socially adept to have a good time.

My choice- I went the third way- dawdled for so long about what to do that it was too late for me to go out and rented a DVD instead.

Now why am I bringing this up? Because while flipping through the channels this morning, I saw a story about a young professor who is studying social circles at retirment homes in Florida. As he studied how the old folks lived, he started to see certain social rules and norms established.

The swimming pool was the big hang out place and most of the old folks would spend all their time there, or at least the social ones. And those when went would quickly find their social cliques and hang out with them. The pool was the place to see and be seen. It was also the place where people would try and meet people of the opposite sex (lots of widows after all and probably the occasional divorcee) and there were quickly established hierarchies of who's dateable and who's not. Apparently, if you owned a car and could still drive at night (ha!), you were golden.

The rest of the day was pretty much spent going to early-bird dinners, playing bingo, and dancing. Again, everything was determined by what the group was doing, which group was going where, and what the in places to go were.

Which is great, because this means what we have to look forward to in our golden years at Del Boca Vista is High School. All over again. Or like everything else we deal with, full of social awkwardness, social hierarchies, and social morays. So we have that to look forward to.

And yes, what it will probably mean is that for those still reading Hooray in, like 2026, it'll pretty much be exactly like this right.

PS- once, in my younger days, I started a short story about some Yuppy who gets in an accident and awakes to find himself back in high school. Which he thinks is great, until he finds out that he really died and had to spend eternity reliving high school as a loser, never able to go to parties he hears about, never able to go date the women he wants to, and constantly beat up by the shop kids.

So in an effort to join the 21st century, I bought a router and some do-hooky cable thing that is supposed to allow what's going on in my computer to show up on my TV and stereo. Needless to say, neither one worked, installing the router even completely knocked me off of my network and for some reason, my computer is no longer hooked up to the adaptor and is running on batteries.

I do not know why.


Of course, it could also be I just don't know what I'm doing. Which is why instructions would be so worthy at this point. No problem, right? Here are the instructions I got my iTV link cable, a cable made by a company I used to work for even.

1)Plug your powerbook to sleep
2)Plut iTV into your TV and powerbook
3)Wake up your powerbook
4)Enjoy your computer on your tv.

Thanks for that.

Because I'm not doing the ultra-personal stuff anymore I can't get into the fancy details of it, but let's just say that as all the blues songs would say, somebody just done your humble narrator wrong. So today I found a slip of paper with her number on it and took it into the bathroom with me and took a crap on it.

Made me feel better for a few minutes.

Here are some more reasons why I love my TiVo, besides the usual fact that it records what you want it to do:

-It does not say it's going to record something, and then decide not to record it a day or an hour or to before it's supposed to record because "something came up."

-It does not talk you into possibly recording something, and then when you say 'hey, let's record it!" it actually does and doesn't jus disappear and not be heard from on the subject again.

-When you tell it to record something, it does not say "we'll see" and then hem and haw for a couple of days before deciding whether or not to record it.

-And most importantly, Tivo does not say it loves recording stuff for you and that you have the best "Season Pass" list, but then a day or two before recording something big, tell you that it's really sorry, but it found somebody else's season pass list to record.

I signed up to play in another volleyball league. Last year, I signed up for one and it worked out pretty well. The team was made up of a good combination old and young and everyone pretty much got along and agreed that the while winning is fun, it's better to get along. The season ended with it turning into the usual San Francisco experience where after a season of everyone telling each other how much they love each other and how much we should all hang out and keep playing volleyball with each other, half the team bailed to another team and that was the end of that. Which is kind of what I expected and why I never quite joined in on the "I love you guys" bit (see previous post about neurotic being right).

Anyways, so tonight was the first volleyball game of the season. Unlike my last team, this team was pretty much a bunch of kids. Like fresh out of college kids. Two of the guys on the team were the big, athletic types with varisty t-shirts representing the various varsity college teams they played in. Which is fine, except I've gotten old enough to not really like dealing with young bucks straight out of school. Young, dumb and full of cum, I guess you'd say, which in sports means wanna win, don't care about being dicks about it, not to bright about it.

Not that they were dicks, but because there were two guys who were big jock types, it was quickly agreed before we started playing that our entire strategy would be setting the ball up for them so they could spike the ball, something they were really eager to do because while warming up, intsead of just hitting the ball back and forth, they'd just practice spiking the shit out of the ball. So how this would work is that no matter what your position, you'd make it so that you'd do whatever you could to set them up.

Now, when I was playing earlier, I had problems learning what were the basics of volley ball- guy in the front row center would always get the second ball and set, first person who touches the ball hits it to center so they can set. It wasn't like I didn't learn the rule as much as I didn't see the point in doing it when the team wasn't very good. I'd hit it to the setter, for instance, only to watch them whiff completely. But after playing on that other team, with a bunch of people who were pretty good, I learned what to do. Guy in middle always sets and if they can't get to it, call "need help."

But in this team, none of that mattered. Because it was all about setting it up for the big dudes to spike it. So what was inevitably happening is that as soon as the ball was served, people in the front line would do some sort of whacky rotation to set things up, like the Indianapolis Colts running their high-powered offense complete with Peyton Manning audibles. As a result, all the rules I had learned and all the positioning I had learned, was pretty much thrown out the window.

Let's just say i didn't fare well. I didn't exactly know what I was doing or where I was going. When I went after the second hit to set it, I'd be waved away. When I didn't, I was told I should have. And I spent most of the game wondering whether or not I should do this or do that.

But the main reason why I didn't do so well is because being a little older, i've long since believed that my purpose in life it so set up the big jocks to do their big jock thing. Homey don't play that. And that's the problem with playing on a team full of young kids, they're still young enough to think jocks deserve special things and the jocks haven't been battered down enough to no longer think they're that special. Not to mention, I'm not into stupidity. Stupidity makes me want to not deal with it. And playing a certain style of volleyball in which the first thing you have to do when the ball is served is to spend more time concentrating on not running into somebody while you're moving into some weird position doesn't seem like that smart of a strategy.

You know the problem with being neurotic is that in everything you do, it's a battle to overcome neuroses. Or more like it's a battle to convince yourself that this time, you're just making shit up and that it's not what you think and that it's nothing of the sort and you should just stop thinking those bad thoughts. So you buckle up, try to keep thinking good thoughts, and focus on what is and what is just in your head. Except that inevitably the thing that your neurotic mind tells you is going on turns out to be what is really going on. Isn't there some line about just because you're paranoid don't mean they're not after you.

And then a similar situation happens and you tell yourself, no, this time I'm not going to be neurotic about it and instead you only make yourself that much more neurotic but still keep your chin up, only to discover that once again, your paranoia and your reality is pretty much one in the same.

And so you just kind of decide maybe it's better to sign up for Netflix and give yourself even more of an excuse never to leave the apartment.

So I wrote what I thought was some absolutely brilliant political analysis on SFist about how the whole cartoon fracas is like the Real World. Once again, I was firmly convinced of it's apparent brilliance and was sure it would make people achieve nirvana due to it's astuteness.

Unfortunately, my writing mojo is still in Vegas and not working really well. And nobody seemed to notice, partly because I whimped out and didn't turn it into the big production I originally was going to make it. But since I've got nothing much else better to write tonight and it's late, here t'is for those who didn't read it.

You know what this whole cartoon fracas, the one sweeping through the Middle East, makes us think of? "The Real World." Why? Because in the "Real World", there's always one borderline crazy roommate with a quick trigger and a bag full of resentment. Picture Puck, Karamo, New Orleans David, Stephen, Coral, etc. They're put in a house made up primarily of privileged, self-centered kids who think it's God's will that they be allowed to party, hook up, and get through their daddy issues in front of a camera. As the season goes on, the angry one gives off such an aura of "don't mess with me or I'm going to go medieval on your ass" that the other castmates try and do their best not to piss them off. So they walk around eggshells as it were to avoid conflict, all the while badmouthing that person when they're not there and cameras are around.

Then, finally, after one or two almost blow outs, one of the dumb cast members decides they've had enough and does something that they know will piss the holy hell out of the angry cast member. This is usually done because the castmate decides they need to "keep it real." When it happens, the easily angered cast member decides that they have to "keep it real" too and so goes completely nuts and the "Real World" has another moment that sends message board denizens into fits of glee. Picture Stephen slapping Irene and throwing her stuffed animal into Puget Sound. Picture Original New York Julie and Kevin going at it in the streets of New York or David and Tammy in "Real World LA." And yes, what we are trying so hard and quite belabord-ly to do is say this-- we are Irene and all those rioters are Stephen. Or, for maybe we're Mike and they're Coral. Well, anyways, you get our point. And yes, one point we could make is that all of this is just one, big long example of "When Keeping It Real Goes Wrong."

So what does this all mean? Well, once again, we turn to the "Real World" to find our solution. If the roommate is deemed too crazy and too much of a threat, they'll get thrown out of the house which causes much drama and resentment and plots of revenge years later on a challenge show. Like LA David or to a certain extent, Beth. Or they could still stay on and just make everyone's life that much more miserable until the next, more serious altercation arises. Like with Puck in the San Francisco season. Or maybe nothing will happen except there's no peace in the house and everyone just hates each other by the end of the season, like with Boston. But mainly, what they usually do is have a long talk and discussion in which there's the inevitable hug and things calm down. And at the end of the series, both the angry cast mate and the dumb cast mate give interviews in which they talk about how "they've grown from the experience" and the dumb cast mate goes on to say they've learned another perspective. In other words, we have a choice, here- be Tammy, be Judd, or be the Miz.

Who says you can't learn anything from the "Real World?"

Ever since the weather got crappy, I've been having ant problems. I've bought the traps and got the place sprayed, but they're still here, streaming out from various nooks and crannies of my apartment.

One of the things I've tried to do is taking them on as it were and trying to kill a whole bunch loads of them. Why? I'm sending them a message. Like if they go on this particular shelf, I'm going get them. Because if I fight them there in my kitchen, I won't have to fight them in my bed.

I wonder how well it works. Like if a bunch of them don't make it back as it were, do other ants start wondering what's going on? Do they send out recon messages? Do the ants who survive go back and tell other ants "that Johnny got it." Do they then hold little ant memorial services to memoralize all the ants who didn't come back?

And if I don't do anything to stop them, will they multiply due to my show of weakness?

I hate to say it but the whole Cheney shooting somebody story isn't as fun anymore because now it's become a whole thing. It's like that "Lazy Sunday" video from SNL that was really funny for a day or two and then become so prevelant on the internet that I was sick of it by the end of the week. And it's mainly because the press, yes, did get into full hyperventilation mode and try to turn it into a Very Important Story when in fact, it wasn't. Not even quite up there with the new Abu Graib photos or congress saying the White House totally lollygagged during Hurricane Katrina or how they're trying to arm wrestle congress to not investigate them again. All of which means I kind of have to agree with the RNC spin that the whole thing is overwrought and overdone and I hate it. But I still hate it when people whine about how it's such not that big of a deal and can't see why people care when, hello, the Vice President SHOT SOMEBODY.

It's not like that happens every day.

But there's one thing that hasn't been brought up, and that is what the Daily Show mentioned and how the actual Quail hunting bit was totally rigged-- genetically bred Quail to be dumbed down, held in boxes until released right before the hunter arrives, clipped wings to keep them from flying to far. It's hunting for idiots. But the thing is that Cheney always carries himself with that macho attitude, you know, like he's such a bad ass because he does things like hunt. Yet it turns out that as a hunter, he's a wuss.

Which is yet one more thing about why this whole story is symbolic of something. Because this administration just reeks of people who have everything handed to them on silver platter yet carry themselves as if they're bad asses for doing all the things they accompolished after having it all handed to them. "Look at me, I shoot quailtards!"

And remember too, when John Kerry tried to make it look like he was a macho, mancho man, he went hunting, real hunting, and there were all these shots of him walking around in bright orange outfits. The Republicans couldn't contain themselves calling him all sorts of variations on sissy. Yet who was the dunk who shot somebody? Uh, I mean who shot somebody in a non-war situation.

In other words, whose the pussy?

God, with every fibre of my being, I hate this Administration and think that one day, when this adminstration has long since gone into the ash bin of history as the Worst. Ever, we'll all look back and wonder what sort of insanity gripped our nation to put up with this.

I think I am having a problem lately staring at women. Ogling I think would be the proper, though crude, phrase for it. The reason why I seem to be getting caught a lot and I think it's starting to freak some people out, something I think is true because they're starting to quickly stare back at me as if they know I'm either staring or about to stare at them;

So I'm trying to not be so obvious or not be such a gawker which brings up today's rant- that I hate it when I totally don't try and ogle someone yet get caught anyways. Like today when I'm at work and just look up at something and before I could even figure out just what I was looking at, I got that look right back. I wanted to say something like "hey! I swear, I wasn't looking at you!" Or once I was on MUNI on one of those seats in which the seats look at each other and the woman across from me was kind of attractive and I got caught staring at her several times but the thing was I wasn't staring at her per se as much as I was just looking straight in front of me. Because that's where I was situated. So I had to spend the rest of the bus ride going out of my way not to look straight ahead.

Then there's all those times I was actually trying to look out the window, or down a hall, or not bump into someone when I got the quick eye look that means they think they caught me staring at them. I wasn't looking, I swear. Don't give me that look.

I'm on my way into work at Super Mondo today and coming up to the big doors leading me into the office. There's two doors to get in, one on the left and one on the right, with a little partition between them.

In front of me, about 200 feet away is some lady who goes into the left door and proceeds to hold it open for me. Now while it's always nice to have the door held for you, I was also far enough away that it's not like the door would slam in my face if she didn't hold it open. There was also nobody entering or leaving the door to the right so it's not like she was saving me from something. And when I go in, I go to the right. Which is why I always go to the right door. I do not go left. But because she was holding the door for me and making such a big production out of it by waiting for me, I had to go the left.

Then later I went to the gym. I like using one of those walking machines, not the treadmill one, but the one that kind of recreates a hill and you can hold onto them (the elliptical?). The gym was kind of busy today so there were only two machines open. One of them was broken so I couldn't use that one. The other one was open, but somebody had draped two towels over it and left a half-open magazine on the magazine rack that was attached to the machine (you know, on the panel-- I'm still really, really tired from my trip so my english isn't what it used to be). I asked the people nearby and they said somebody was using it but they ran off for something and were coming back.

Now maybe it's because I come from the ethic that if you leave your chair for any reason, you lose it. Dog-sit-dog world. So is it okay to "hold" gym equipment like that? Is that right? Can you "reserve" gym equipment like that? What was she doing? Going to the bathroom? Shouldn't she have done anything like that before she got on the machine?

If I were a man, I would have just gone on the damn equipment and excercised away. But, of course, I'm a mouse.

I think it goes without saying that the whole Cheney Shot Somebody story just maybe the greatest story like ever. I mean, who else in politics would shoot somebody?

First off, as someone with a humorous bent, the story just has so many possible ways to go that it makes the head hurt. Do you go pop-cultural and make a joke about how the twelve hour delay was only because when they couldn't bury the body and when they opened the trunk, it turned out the guy was still alive? Do you go political and say that Cheney shot the guy there so he didn't have to shoot the guy here?

Which is all too easy because the story is so funny you don't even have to tell jokes. Just the fact that you're reading stories with lines such as "we don't really have a process in place for when the Vice President shoots somebody." I actually watched Scarborough Country today and all four panelists could barely make it through the discussion without cracking up (Pat Buchanan thinks this thing is hilarious).

Just tremendous.

Vegas....Tired....Very...Very...Tired....

Since there's been so much said written about Vegas, a lot by people way more talented than I could ever be, I won't get into a long discussion of what it's like or my impressions of it. I will say this, though: I often wonder what would happen years and years into the future after our civilization has long been gone (which, according to my notes should be happening any time now), some archelogists are going to dig up Vegas and uncover a pyramid, a castle, an eiffel tower, another statue of liberty, and a whole bunch of tall buildings. What would they say? Would they look upon this and wonder what sort of amazing culture could produce all the wonders of the world in one spot? Or maybe they'll think just like the British and the Romans carted off all the great treasures of antiquity to show how cultured they were, will they say that we Americans were so cultured because we carted off all the great things in the world?

Anyways, here's the things I love about Vegas:

-that 10 o'clock at night feels like 7 and that midnight feels like 10 o'clock and three in the morning feels like midnight. And so does 4 o'clock in the morning. As well as five o'clock in the morning.

-that when you walk around the casino in ten in the morning and see bunch of people out and about in their formal wear, you're never sure whether they're just getting an early start in the days activities or haven't finished last nights.

-frail old ladies in wheelchairs and all sorts of medical devices attached sitting at slot machines and pressing button after button after button

-that the MGM grand designated one corner of the casino as a lion's cage and shipped in four female lions in a glass encosure with glass walkways people can walk through for no particular reason other than just because

-that the Belagio is a crazy mix of Italian villa and Chinese empirial palace and yet it makes kind of sense.

-And that the Belagio has this huge lagoon of water that they also use to throw hugewater fountain shows every fifteen minutes because what's the point of just having a huge body of water in the middle of the desert when you can also have it spout off in crazy designs and patters

-That Vegas somehow makes rednecks want to walk around in cowboy boots, gangsta wannabe's sport all their bling, every woman under 35 get in touch with their inner Paris Hilton, and teenagers to think nothing of walking around a casino at 11 in the morning wearing ski caps and police shades.

-That Vegas might just have the most spectacular display of racks (both real and not real) per square capita than any other place in the world. And I didn't even go to a strip joint.

-That going to the Paris Casino made me want to go to both Paris and Disneyland

-And finally, that after just being there for two days, I feel like I haven't slept in a month and have been away for a long, long time. Like it's one of those things you always see in sci-fi or fantasy books about going to some other dimension in which you live for a long, long time only to go back to your real dimension and you've only been gone for a couple of hours.

Some days, my iPod is en fuego, a brilliant mixture of classic rock, alt rock, some pop & hip hop sprinkled in, with the occasional "I donwloaded this?" song thrown in for good measure and every song seems to fit perfectly next to each other. When that happens, it's iPod Heaven, when you think you just might not take the thing off because it's just musical goodness from one minute to the other.

And other times, it makes me wonder what the fuck. Like why four Radiohead songs in a six song sequence? And not just four songs, but two of them usually the same two songs I always hear. Like I always get "Black Star" or "Idiotique" but never "Fake Plastic Trees" or "Knives Out." And there's some songs I've never heard on the damn thing, but a whole bunch of songs I keep on hearing over and over again. I love Rod Stewart's "Every Picture Tells a Story" but not every day. I mean, I still kind of groove to it, but I'm starting to fast forward through it just general principle. And why out of all the songs on Tom Petty's "Wildflowers" disc (a great one, by the way)) do I only hear "Closing Time." It's a great song, but I've heard it more in the past two weeks than I have over the past three years. I want to hear "Wildflowers" or "You Rock Me, Babe."

Damnit.

There are some days when I think it's the greatest invention in the history of mankind. Then there are other days when I wish I listened to the radio instead.

Anyways, here's some random songs I've downloaded recently:

Dire Straits Making Movies disc (great cd, actually)
Rush- Countdown
Prince- Mountains
Husker DU- Makes No Sense at All
Def Leppard- High N' Dry
Arcade Fire- Funeral (yep, I'm officially two years late on this but I'm now fully in love with it)
The Dead- Brokedown Palace
Blue Oyster Cult- Some Enchanted Evening

So I'm sure there's a lot of you out there right now wondering just what Hooray For Anything thinks about this whole mess in the Middle East with the Moslems? And so, here it is:

Fuck 'em if they can't take a joke.

You know how like in every neighborhood where there's one super-crazy neighbor that always complains about everything and yells at the slightest provocation and calls the parents of the children who have been throwing the baseball into their front yard or calling the cops every other day? And you know how all the parents and all the neighbors think that person is totally bat shit crazy yet when ever somebody provocates them, they blame the provocator because they should know better than to get the crazy neighbor crazy?

That's what this whole thing is like. The cartoon is a football thrown into the crazy neighbor's front yard and she just called the cops and the Mayor to complain. And all those people saying "well, you know, the Moslems do have a point in that the cartoon would offend them" are saying that not necessarily because they believe it, but because they know we should all know better than get the crazy people crazy.

You know how they do all these stories about the impact of the Superbowl and how many toilets are flushed or how many buffallo wings are eaten? And you know how they do stories on how many hours of work is lost by people doing the NCAA Tourney pool or talking about the Superbowl? They need to do a study on just how many work hours are lost the day after the Superbowl. Because I don't know about you, but today was a lost day if ever there was. And I know I wasn't the only one.

It's not just the beer. It's not just the pizza and the junk food. Or the five hours or so of TV watching. It's all of them. Combined. I feel like I've been on a week-long bender and I didn't drink that much.

Ugh.

Speaking of junk food, it looks like Dorito's has some new "natural" and "healthy" Doritos now. The chips are natural and not chemical laden and the schmutzy covering that goes on the Doritos that adds the yum are now natural and not chemical laden.

This could possibly be the worst thing to happen. Because now that Doritos are ostensibly "natural" and "healty," they eliminate that one thing keeping some of us from Doritos, which has long been your humble narrarators crack. And yeah, even now it's still not that healthy, but the rationalization is easier than ever.