The Games; a foot!?!

What do semicolons do, really? (That being said, it seems a real missed opportunity in modern American prose {modern poets use semicolons constantly - I assume, I haven't read a "new" book of poetry since around 2004, but I'd guess it's rife with them - because it's a way of "splitscreening" a sentence and can be liberating for poets because you can avoid a bit further fully saying what you're saying with a half a contradictory sentence} what with all this postmodernity going around...

Anyway...

Sports!  or; more properly; Sport!

That's why I was coming here today - to celebrate the official start of the 2023 SeegerOlympics with our Event Selection "show" on February 1st.

So far, only two events are "live" and they're the two (new!) Musical events: 1) a Music League event with 5 Rounds to work themselves out over the next 10 months and 2) a Christmas Song-Writing Competition, where pairs of Seegers (Reese/Claire, Davin/Jen, Brooke/Andy, Joel/Tim) will compete by composing and recording a Christmas song to be judged by a panel (to include Shane {sorry/thanks Shane} and others to hopefully be determined soon!) of judges who've earned the respect of (at least most of) the competitors in Christmas Song Appreciation...

This year's Competition will include an Exhibition Event - "Clinton Scotland Yard" (CSY), where one team is Mr. X and goes and parks a car somewhere in Clinton and walk from there and has to text their location every so often to all the other players and stay "hidden" for a certain amount of time.  CSY is one of seven (7!: CSY, "Trivial Pursuit Glory", Basketball One-Shot Challenge, Farkle, 8-Person War, Croquet, & Casino Night!) total synchronous events being declared, where all 8 competitors have to be together to play, whereas there was only one last year, which was the final event to be played on the penultimate day of the year, so we will randomly determine the order of those events, and see how many we can get in.

Familiar (but slightly changed) events from last year include a Strategy Board Game Tournament, an Arcade Console Tournament, a FIFA Women's World Cup Pick-'Em and a Sorry! Tournament with the competition being rounded out by Throwing Cheeseballs and Catching Them in Your Mouth, Mini-Golf, Tennis TieBreakers & Competitive Wordle!

It promises to be quite a year, with up to 16 points available!

hard to remember the last time...

It's NFL early Christmas today, with the floundering Green Bay Packers coming to Soldier Field to take on the FIRST-PLACE Chicago Bears.

Source: sportsmockery.com

It's a marquee, albeit noon, game - it's a rematch of Week 1, where the Bears owned the first half and then collapsed under an epic Aaron Rodgers comeback.  During the final few minutes of that game, shane and i were texting that the Bears were only going to get better, and this week nearer the end of the season would be a damn tough game for the Packers.  Now, Shane is a full-throated Packer fan who was in part being kind to a friend during an embarrassing defeat, but i think he had a glimmer of what might be in front of him as a Packer fan.

3+ months later and the landscape has changed quite a lot.  The Bears enter 6-point favorites, and even with that, the strangest thing about this game is that Bears fans, myself included, feel fairly confident that we are the much better team playing this game today.  It doesn't mean we can't lose, but it does mean we will probably win, and should all things being equal win convincingly.

The question then arises, how best to watch such an epic match-up.  There are a plethora of mostly Packer-slanted events across Milwaukee.  You could go to:

• The Cactus Club and see the cover band Green Day Packers
• You can happily watch the game at every bar in Milwaukee, to be sure, but here are some of the best spots...
• The exception might be the local best soccer bar, which on Sundays becomes the High-Bear-y Pub

But no, for me, and a game this big, i need to be in my home, on my couch - i may text the outside world on occasion, but the emotion of this game day is my own and my highs or lows that may be to come over the next few hours need to be my own.  I don't want to gloat (or be gloated upon).  Although i appreciate the collective fandom experience, and think it's an important part of modern life that we mostly miss out on and it makes us all the worse (so says one of my favorite books!).

Enjoy the game everyone... for once, i feel pretty good about it and i'll see you all in late January for discussion of any snark and commentary!

Fantasy Life

My Fantasy Football League draft is underway (after coming in 2nd last year in both my Yahoo Baseball and Football leagues, I feel poised to make a big splash this year).  With the 2nd to last position in a snake draft, I was able to nab Aaron Rodgers, then 2 picks later, Brandon Marshall.

I'm also hovering around 2nd place in my Baseball league. 


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December 2017
I don't recall, and won't bother to look up, how I actually finished up these seasons, but I know that I didn't win either league, because I don't think that i ever have (at least in the last many years). 

I do recall that this post was going to be a reflection on gaming - fantasy sports and fantasy rpgs.  I think there may have also been some attention paid to my childhood and my present moment, as i have begun to re-engage in both fantasy lives.  (Although, i think 2013/14 was my peak moment for fantasy sports, I have since returned to a perpetual basement dweller in both leagues*.  My 2013 baseball was half a point away from victory, and on the eve of the last day of play, i neglected to pick up a few extra starting pitchers, which had been my practice the last few weeks, and didn't move up in any of the pitcher categories).

* Shane still hasn't convinced me to join fantasy basketball.   

C'mon you Party People

In support of the overall sentiment of today's Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear and with the looming Mid-Term Selections, I've decided that now was the time to come out of my self-imposed Cone of Silence and/or Ambivalence.

Plus, Halloween is upon us again.  As some friends and I make our way around Milwaukee in T. Party garb (T-een Wolf, the Plain White Tees, Aarti Paarti, _____________), we will be working toward some of the same goals as Team Stewart-Colbert.


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May 2019

Ah, 2010 - back when the conservative political insanity was fun...

I stand by this 2010 Halloween pub crawl theme, though our compatriots were less political in their costume and messaging than Brooke and me (although if you look closely at Grant's sign, it's a Christine "I'm not a Witch" O'Donnell reference!). 

Rex was a bit confused and just dressed up as a pumpkin... maybe he's a pumpkin spice tea?

I do recall in seeing this picture that Bethany was going as "Sal-T-Hit Girl" (the Morton's Salt Girl crossed with Hit Girl from Kick Ass).  I have no recollection of what Grant's costume is.

Does this make me a 'commish'?

Tonight, as i was watching Harry Potter & The Goblet of Fire in an effort to prepare my wife & me for seeing 'the new one', i was switching back and forth between the movie & the Brewers game (Mike Cameron is my hero... today)... After we got through with the movie, i looked about the baseball world & found that i could actually EXPERIENCE the baseball world...

Just now, i'm watching Delmon Young battle Dallas Braden (?) with Joe Crede at 2nd. I actually get to watch the Twins set up a come back against the A's (which they had something of the exact opposite of yesterday)...precisely the opposite, actually...

I'm not exactly sure what I want to suggest here, but today, i found, i am allowed to watch just about any Major League Baseball game i want to...

Other than the fact that Shane will likely be at my house from now on to the end of the summer, i'm confused as to how the DirectTV world works. I've certainly never subscribed to MLB's network, but by randomly switching networks in order to not have to pay extra for Brewer's games, i've somehow come into extensive coverage of all sorts of baseball (as well as complete - 6-matches-at-a-6-time Wimbledon coverage)...

I guess what i'm suggesting is that i have suddenly become a much bigger baseball fan than i would have been and i'm not sure i'm ok with that. My only fear is that i won't see how much worse the Brewers are than i've thought them to be... As far as i understand, the Brewers are the best team in the NL Central by far... but they're just 'underachieving'...

It's an odd place to be in... I'm wondering (idly, obviously, or i'd look into it) if this is a mid-summer situation so that i might get suckered into buying this package or if it's just mine... for nothing (in which case i will plan to become a crazy-ass baseball guy)...

Getting to watch the bottom of the 7th of the A's - Twins matchup is really something... to me, at least... What it means is that i can really try to understand more of how baseball really works... I can watch another team i would like to support try to battle their way back into a pennant run and it's really, quite, exciting... don't you think so, shane?

beis-buru

Last night, i went to a really spectacular baseball game. The trip started, boringly enough, in Clinton, and felt a little like a middle school flash-back with our carload being just myself, Shane & my parents (shane even spiked his hair up & wore his Rude Dog t-shirt), but instead of shane & me in the back seat, being all punk-kid-y, we tossed my parents back there and cruised up (a good 3-hours before game time) to Milwaukee. I am slowly acclimating myself to the fact that things happen a whole lot slower, but with a great deal more production, nowadays when they involve my parents than they used to. So, our early arrival was fortuitous, not only since we got to see a little BP, but also because a food/beer run became quite the ordeal, changing levels, fretting over bobble-heads & convincing my parents that indeed there are condiment stations on the next level up... But, i think i've come to the point where i can relax & enjoy what a big show seemingly small events become when involving my parents...

The game itself was fantastic. Though the Brewers lost, it came down to the last batter & about 3" (the distance by which Corey Koskie missed a game-tying double). The 8th inning, when the Brewers were down by 4 runs, featured back to back home runs by Koskie & (i wanna say) Damian Miller, tying the game & leading to a lot of strangers slapping hi-fives, me jumping up & down and screaming. And the Brewers aren't even my team... We were way up in the upper deck, with the plebs, and the crowd was riled up something fierce. In the 9th, though, Turnbow (the Brewer's superb closer), who was also the guy who's bobble-head was being given away, gave up a home run to the first batter & the Brewers lost by 1. Heartbreaking, but a damn good game. Even though i love baseball, so often, you go to a game and you know who's going to win by like the 3rd inning, and you stick around, sort of getting your money's worth & hoping it gets interesting, but the game stays as you expect & you walk away unsatisfied... Here, though the game did end on a called strike three, it was all up in the air until the very last pitch. Good stuff.