This post is gonna be shorter than I wanted it to be, simply because I couldn’t get into the computer lab until shortly after 2:00 and my class is at 3:00 (some class was taking an exam in here, apparently). And believe it or not, it takes me a LONG time to type these up (although they probably won’t take quite as long now that the Total Amateur Analysis is over for the year).

As you can see, the Phantom is back, just in time for Halloween. There were a couple of people in my Japanese class dressed up, one of which because she’s actually a high school student doing post-secondary, and she didn’t have time to change (like my old high school, her school allows the students to wear costumes to school on Halloween, which makes for a refreshing change of pace from the everyday dress code). And yes, she was dressed as an anime character, though it was not one I’m familiar with. Anyone know of a character with short pink hair, an orange sweatshirt, and a stuffed bunny? At any rate, I considered wearing my Tigers jersey today (reason being, it’s really the only article of clothing I have that could be considered “out of the ordinary” without being over the top, plus this is probably the only Halloween I have where it would bear any sort of relevance, if you catch my drift), but I ended up deciding against it, for reasons I explained in an earlier post (I’m afraid of tearing it and/or getting it dirty, which’d be really easy since it’s very, very white, plus very few girls can actually pull off the look outside of the ballpark, and I’m not one of them). I might still wear it tonight (I briefly considered trying to actually make a baseball player costume out of it, but I don’t have any white pants and I’d probably be too self-conscious anyways), if indeed I’m the one who passes out candy to kids at my house. I was hoping to be somewhere besides my house (that has something to do with Halloween), but it doesn’t look like that’s gonna happen, which is unfortunate. See, every Halloween, my mom either doesn’t do a whole lot, or she goes completely overboard. This year seems to be one of the “overboard” years, and I’m totally desperate to stay out of the way. Supposedly she dressed as a witch at school today. I’m not sure what all that entailed (besides my old Morgana costume and fake eyelashes that don’t stick), and seriously, I don’t want to know. The other thing is that when she’s in her “overboard” mode, she gets rather pissed off if you want to participate but you’re not as enthusiastic as she is. Now, I love Halloween, and I like dressing up and getting into the spirit of things, but not around my parents, so I am very often first in the line of fire (This is actually one of the things I’m looking forward to when I can finally afford living on my own; I can be as into it as I want to be without feeling conspicuous about it). I know I can bypass this altogether by staying up in my room all night, but I like handing out candy, so I don’t know what to do. At any rate, I hope y’all have fun tonight, and don’t worry about me. I’ll figure something out.

So, yeah, this trend of nothing ever going my way continues. In case you’re wondering, I watched most of the game, but I didn’t see the end, and no, it wasn’t a case of “I just can’t watch.” I fell asleep at some point during the bottom of the eighth (I think they were still babbling on about the Yankees’ fall from grace), which isn’t surprising cuz I’d been really sleepy all day. I have no idea why. I spent most of the day watching reruns of I Love the ‘70s Volume 2 on VH1 Classic, much to my mom’s chagrin. At any rate, now that baseball is well and truly over for 2007, expect this site to go back to the Phantom motif soon, likely tomorrow.

UPDATE: Of course the Tigers make their big announcement AFTER I've posted for the day. In case you haven't heard, the Tigers have acquired Edgar Renteria in exchange for Jair Jurrjens and Gorkys Hernandez. I'm actually not surprised about getting Renteria. If you had the patience to sift through all the A-Rod babble, that was another name that got mentioned a couple of times, and I thought it might be a good fit, cuz Renteria's a good shortstop. I'm kind of sad to see Jair Jurrjens go, cuz he pitched well, for the most part. I don't know a lot about Gorkys Hernandez, other than the fact that he was a top-prospect centerfielder. The thing is, the Tigers have already got a top-prospect centerfielder, Cameron Maybin. And Curtis Granderson ain't too shabby himself. So I guess it's probably best that Gorkys Hernandez go to a team where he doesn't have so many people in front of him (I'm not sure what the Braves intend to do with him, but they ARE parting ways with Andruw Jones, so that's something to think about). Well, that'll do it for the open shortstop position. Now all that's left is to wait for news on Kenny Rogers, Todd Jones, and who's gonna play left field...

I got a flu shot yesterday while I was at work, and now my left arm is kinda sore and oddly weak. I’m not sure if there’s a connection or not, but it is a little weird. My head hurts as well. There’s nothing weird about that, but it is annoying.

The other day our Anatomy professor (not the same one I posted the quotes of last time) tried telling us that RU-486 was the morning after pill. RU-486 is NOT the morning after pill. It’s the “abortion pill.” Big difference. The morning after pill won’t do anything if you’re already pregnant. When I asked Allison (one of our interns at work) about him yesterday, she just told me that he was an idiot.

So it’s become pretty obvious that Boston is gonna win the World Series. Oh well, it’s not the end of the world if Boston wins tonight. It could be worse. Since the Red Sox defeated Cleveland, that means that the Tigers’ll only have to play the World Series champs seven times and not nineteen. But you know, it’d be nice if Colorado could at least get themselves one win. Even the Tigers managed that last year. Still, I was curious to see Dice-K bat (and apparently, he doesn’t get to very often, cuz they had the DH in the league he played in in Japan), although I wasn’t particularly happy about the RBI single. See, that’s the result of following a team in the American League. The concept of having no DH is so foreign to me that watching one of my pitchers bat is kind of amusing. Well, it’s amusing for about six or seven games and then it gets a little old after that, so it’s good that the Tigers only play nine games in National League parks during the regular season. And I will say this about the Rockies: They do have some rather elaborate landscaping in their bullpens.

Meh, it hasn’t been that eventful a week, but I figured I ought to post today, since I’m probably not gonna be at a computer at school again until Monday (for some reason, I’ve just gotten out of the habit of posting at home). Spanish has been kinda weird this week. Our professor’s husband called her cell phone in the middle of class on Tuesday to tell her that her father-in-law died. She was really upset about it, and she won’t be here today or tomorrow, so another professor is teaching our class. I have no idea what her name is, though.

I’ve been listening to a lot of Latin music recently, especially salsa (Yeah, I’m still on that mini-Puerto Rico kick; it’s kind of weird to have an interest in a country that I have very little desire and/or intention to visit). I went to the library yesterday and got out a bunch of CDs. The problem is that obviously the salsa beat makes me want to dance, and I’m just not real good at that (although I can fake it a little better with Latin music than I could for rap or techno). Speaking of which, I’ve been watching Dancing with the Stars a little bit, but I’m not real enthusiastic about any of the competitors (unlike last season, when I was really pulling for Apolo Anton Ohno).

I thought it’d be amusing to share some of the moments that have gone on in my Anatomy class so far:

(Dr. Williams is trying to set up a Power Point and a window keeps popping up that says “Wireless Connection Found”)

DR WILLIAMS: “Yeah, well, the wireless connection can go to Hell.”

(This time Dr. Williams is showing us a website, and that little “Help make Office better” message keeps appearing at the bottom of the screen)

DR. WILLIAMS: “I don’t want to make Office better. I want Office to go away.”

(While discussing movement disorders)

DR. WILLIAMS: “What’s that new thing as far as doctor shows?”

STUDENT: “House.”

DR. WILLIAMS: “Yeah, he’s got a strange-ass thing every single day.”

I did watch the World Series last night. You know, as bad as the Tigers’ pitching was in the World Series last year, it was never THAT bad. Yeesh. The weird thing is that for some reason, I didn’t feel quite as unsettled during the Boston offensive barrage as I had during the ALCS whenever Cleveland had a big inning. I still want Colorado to win the series, though if Boston wins, it’s not like I’m gonna go into one of those vicious cycles of frustration like I did last month (Y’all remember that, right?). Perhaps it’s because I’m still relieved that it’s Boston representing the AL and not Cleveland. Plus, as I said before, the “bullpen band” is kind of endearing, and I can’t really bring myself to strongly dislike Josh Beckett (That could be due to the fact that his former batterymate plays for MY team, etc). Then again (and I suppose I’ll find out through the course of the World Series), it could indeed be that Boston and Cleveland have switched roles in my mind. It used to be that I disliked Boston and was largely indifferent about Cleveland. Could it be that, since I’m now forced to dislike Cleveland, that I’ve become largely indifferent about Boston? Probably not, but it really is moot, cuz I’m still rooting for the Rockies. Besides, this is an excellent time to do a little scouting on Colorado, cuz the Tigers’ll be facing them in Interleague play next year. They seem to be really sound defensively, at least. Tulowitski (sp?) has got one of the strongest throwing arms for an infielder that I’ve ever seen. It might be stronger than Brandon Inge’s, and Brandon’s got a gun. They seem to have a decent catcher as well (Yorvit Torrealba, and when they first said his name, I needed the namekey to tell me where his first name ended and his last name started), at least when it comes to blocking balls in the dirt. He made one VERY nice block during the game. I couldn’t tell you about his throwing arm, cuz with the lopsided score, there wasn’t any base-stealing to be had, but maybe we’ll find out tonight.

As you can tell, this post’s gonna be quite the smorgasbord. Anyways, I got to work on Saturday to learn that Dave (one of the pharmacists) was fired the day before for something that happened last Saturday. I suppose I shouldn’t be too surprised, cuz he's always been rather confrontational with the customers. However, it now means that we’re once again short a pharmacist. We’re supposed to be a three-pharmacist pharmacy. When I first started (May 2006), there were two: Rachel and Dave, and it had been that way for a while, apparently. Rachel missed a lot of time in the summer and fall of that year because she was receiving treatments for breast cancer, so at times it seemed like we only had one pharmacist (and floater pharmacists can be a pain anyways). We FINALLY got back up to three pharmacists a couple months ago when they hired Ross, and now we’re back down to two (Rachel and Ross). It doesn’t really matter to me right now, though it may kinda suck come next April when I want to track Tigers games while I’m at work (as I’ve said before, Ross is a Tigers fan and oftentimes would bring up the scores without me asking and Dave would let me bring them up, but Rachel doesn’t seem to like doing that sort of thing, so now on any given night I’ll only have a 50/50 shot at being able to track the game instead of a 2-out-of-3 chance). Oh, well. At least Dave returned my Revenge of the Sith DVD to me last week, so I lucked out there.

Yesterday, they were having a 50^th anniversary celebration at my old elementary school, so my mom and I went over there for a while. I have been in the building since elementary school (cuz that’s where I go to vote), but they have moved some stuff around, and the classrooms seemed smaller. Of all the teachers I had while I was there, only my fourth grade teacher and my second grade teacher are still there (along with one fourth grade teacher that was there when I was, but was not my teacher). I didn’t see Mrs. Shafer (4^th grade), but Mrs. Clere (2^nd grade) was in her classroom, and apparently she remembers me. They had a re-dedication of Ms. Smock’s garden, which they tore out while they were doing renovations and now they’ve redone (Ms. Smock was the principal while I was there. She died when I was in sixth grade). They also christened the library after Mrs. Roth, the longtime librarian who died just a few weeks ago (I remember her, but barely). There were old pictures lining the hall, and I actually found a picture of me from the second grade (I was holding up a dinosaur diorama that I totally do not remember making. I DO remember learning about dinosaurs in the second grade, though. Half of us became budding paleontologists during that unit. We would spend recess trying to “dig up dinosaur bones” on the playground. For seven-year-olds, we DID manage quite a decent hole). I found a couple pictures of Chris and Sam as well.

Strange signs abound on campus this week. There’s some on the doors outside this building advertising a Halloween party for pharmacy students. It’s nothing noteworthy, except for the description of the location: the American Legion “across the street from Déjà Vu” strip club. There’s another sign all over campus that reads “Have you ever thought about becoming an anthropologist?” There’s a picture of Indiana Jones and then an advertisement for a seminar that the Department of Anthropology is sponsoring called “Real People, Real Careers.” Now, there are two problems with this. First of all, Indiana Jones is NOT a real person, so that kinda defeats the whole “real people” theme. Second, Indiana Jones is an archaeologist, not an anthropologist.

Before going over to my elementary school yesterday, I stopped by Kroger’s and was reminded of the dumb purchase I made last week. I ended up succumbing to defensive mechanism #527: attempt to offset my feeling of conspicuousness by buying a similar item (and hey, they’ve been marked down again so this time I only paid five bucks). I also bought a bottle of pineapple rum, which is the type of alcohol that I use the most often when making drinks (which isn’t very often). I’m really picky when it comes to drinking cuz I don’t like the taste of alcohol, so I’ve made a habit of inventing my own drinks that largely consist of pineapple rum and other “sweet” ingredients that probably sound gross to any normal person (but it was what I had on hand at the time). Also, once I’ve “invented” a drink, I tend to name it after something that was capturing a lot of my interest at the time. So far, I’ve got three, and it’s not hard to figure out what was on my mind in each case: Music of the Night (pineapple rum and Fruit2O with splashes of sour mix and grenadine), The Grand Illusion (pineapple rum, Mountain Dew, and grenadine), and Number 7 (pineapple rum, California Style Sunny D, and orange Kool-Aid). Hey, if nothing else, the names certainly demonstrate how eclectic I can get at times. Even if my choice of alcohol doesn’t seem to be.

I found a glossary of baseball terms in Spanish over the weekend. It’s something I’ve been kinda curious about, since I’m taking Spanish. I only knew a couple of basic terms (baseball game, bat, ball, home run, and “to strike out”), and my Spanish dictionary didn’t have any listings (and it’s a Larousse, too). You’ve probably realized this by now, as any time I’ve tried to provide any statement in Spanish during the Total Amateur Analysis, it ended up being a really basic one (“Me gustan los Tigres Latinos” and “No me gusta nada” come to mind). Anyways, there were terms in this glossary that I never thought of before, like “arthroscopic surgery.” And of course, to make my life difficult, every position had multiple terms in Spanish. There were, like, nine different words for “shortstop.” I ended up going to the article on baseball on the Spanish Wikipedia site in order to figure out which words were the most commonly used (in the case of shortstop, it seems to be “campocorto”). Then there were words that were obviously taken from English. Like in the case of pitcher. “Lanzador” seems to be the most common term, but apparently you can also use “picher.” Some terms made me laugh. For instance, “jardinero” is the most common term for an outfielder (“jardinero central,” “jardinero izquierdo,” and “jardinero derecho”). “Jardinero” actually means “gardener” in English. My favorite in terms of amusement came from one of the words for catcher: “jugador de la máscara.” The literal translation for that is “player of the mask,” which sounds like it came from, like, Zorro or Phantom of the Opera or something. In addition, there were two terms directly from the English (“cácher” and “quécher”), and the most commonly used term, which is “receptor.”

Yes, I did watch Game 7 of the ALCS last night. It was kind of bittersweet, because I got my wish (Cleveland finally got beat), but at the same time, once that final out was made, it meant that the Tigers’ reign as American League champions was officially over. Still, I went to school today with my Tigers t-shirt and I saw lots of other Tigers fans as well (including a girl at Starbucks whose shirt was identical to mine except hers didn’t say “World Series” on the sleeve, which mine does). And so far, I have seen one Cleveland hat. One. There’s a guy in my Japanese class who is a big Boston fan (especially of Dice-K), so you can imagine he had his t-shirt and hat proudly displayed (which meant that both “Matsusaka” and “Rodriguez” were being paraded around the room). Half the people in my Spanish class are Indians fans, and they just all seemed kind of hung over. And about 150 miles east of here, there’s a third base coach suffering the wrath of a city. I don’t get that play, but I don’t care, cuz things worked out well, though I still wish it would’ve come from the Yankees instead of the Red Sox. In a way, though, there’s something sort of interesting about it being Boston. Early on in the postseason, I kind of had a battle cry of “I’ve got a catcher to avenge.” That turned out not to be true in the strictest sense, but it was still in the back of my mind, and ironically, the charge from Boston was lead by Josh Beckett, former teammate of Pudge Rodriguez from that 2003 World Series Florida Marlins team. Once the game ended, Victor Martinez was practically sobbing, which was kind of bizarre to watch (Hey, I may think of Victor Martinez as a pain in the ass who played a large part in keeping the Tigers OUT of the playoffs, but he has said in the past that Pudge is his favorite catcher, so I can at least respect him for that). On the other hand, it was sadistically refreshing to see Rafael Betancourt get absolutely pummeled by somebody for once (That “somebody” turned out to be Dustin Pedroia. Who knew?). And in spite of myself, I found the Red Sox “bullpen band” to be kinda cute, actually. However, my support for Boston ends right now. I shall be rooting for Colorado in the World Series, cuz I still don’t like Boston (and it’s exceptionally rare for me to root for the National League team). It’s been an awful long time since I’ve been excited by the results of a World Series. I think 2000 was the last time I truly enjoyed the outcome (cuz the Yankees are probably my second-favorite team). The Yankees lost in 2001. I picked the Angels as my team to root for in 2002, and they did win, but there were some piano games that knocked me out of my rhythm (because piano games are just not conducive to baseball; I’ve found that one puts me out of the mood for the other), so I didn’t watch a whole lot. I missed a significant portion of the 2003 World Series, but I still saw my second-favorite team lose to a team that I didn’t particularly care about (remember, at the time I had no clue who Pudge Rodriguez was). I rooted for the Cardinals in 2004 (I don’t like Boston, and I was especially less inclined at the time because of what they had just done to the Yankees), and they kinda got steamrolled. I did root for the White Sox in 2005, but like 2002, I got knocked out of it by piano games, and their victory was kind of in the background as far as I was concerned. And we all remember what happened last year. What’s interesting is that all these sports experts are saying that the week off for the Rockies either will help them or, at the very least, shouldn’t be an issue. Um, that’s what they said last year about the Tigers. Have they learned nothing? At any rate, I hope this time they are right.

Okay, so it’s been a while. Actually, I’ve gone a lot longer without posting in the past, but the Total Amateur Analysis had me posting pretty much every day for the last several months, so it’s still kinda weird. We just finished up Fall Break at UT. It’s weird having Fall Break again. We had one my freshman year at Denison, but they got rid of it after that and gave everyone the entire week of Thanksgiving off instead cuz the international students complained that they couldn’t go anywhere under the Fall Break arrangement. At any rate, I was sick for all of Fall Break this year, so it’s probably just as well (and luckily, I don’t work until Saturday). Right now I’m sitting in the computer lab and there’s about five people gathered around one computer in the row in front of me and they will NOT shut up. They’re doing something on Microsoft Excel, and they can’t get the font to do whatever it is they want to do, and for some reason, they think this is extremely hilarious. The person sitting next to me just told them they were on crack. This still beats using the Student Union computer lab, which I absolutely loathe, so I’ll deal with it.

I have been tuning in to the ALCS a bit, though I suppose it doesn’t really matter which team wins, cuz I don’t like Cleveland OR Boston and I’ll be rooting for Colorado in the World Series regardless (marking one of the rare instances where I root for the National League team). Still (and I never thought I’d be saying this), I’d rather Boston advance than Cleveland (and yes, with Boston being down 3-1, this is highly unlikely). I know the term “Evil Empire” is often given to the Yankees by people who don’t like the Yankees. Since I actually like the Yankees, I don’t often use that term for them. Ten years ago or so, I would’ve used it to the describe the Atlanta Braves (a team that I absolutely hated). In recent years I’ve used it to refer to the Boston Red Sox, but this year I’ve found myself labeling Cleveland as the “Evil Empire” (which I suppose would make the 2008 Tigers the “Rebel Alliance” and you know things are going down a strange path indeed when I start assigning Star Wars terms to baseball teams; I will NOT draw character parallels, however). If nothing else, the Indians have somehow destroyed every pitcher on the Red Sox staff with the exception of Josh Beckett (though that is probably a premature statement; he may well be destroyed tonight). Then again, I get the feeling that you could send in a starting rotation of Nolan Ryan, Randy Johnson, Sandy Koufax, and Mickey Lolitch all in their prime and the Indians would STILL manage to hang a 7-spot on each and every one of them. Another thing that contributes to the “Evil Empire” vibe is the fans, who are driving me absolutely nuts. They haven’t quite reached the level of overenthusiastic Green Bay Packers fans (which is the main reason why I hate the Packers), but they’re getting close. First of all, they’ve all got signs that say “It’s Tribe Time Now.” Um, the Indians were last in the World Series about ten years ago, which isn’t that long a time span (unless you’re the Yankees, but they’re kind of the exception to a lot of things). It’s not like you’re the Chicago Cubs or something like that. Second, I’ve seen several people in the stands who have painted their entire body red and are wearing headdresses and feathers and the like. Now, I don’t mind the feathers, but the red paint…I don’t know. You could make the argument either way, but it reminds me just a little bit too much of blackface or something like that. For the record, I usually don’t get into the whole “Is it racist” thing too much. I don’t think using the name “Indians” is racist in and of itself. The logo may or may not be racist, but more than anything, it’s stupid-looking. And as for that f*%& drum that they play at Jacobs Field, that’s just annoying. And if it’ll lend me more credibility on the subject, I AM part Ottawa (well, I’m part Ottawa regardless of credibility, but I think you get the point). Not enough for me to qualify for any sort of minority financial aid (and that gets kind of dumb anyways, because even if I DID have enough, I’d have to prove tribal affiliation, which I definitely don’t have), but it’s still there. At any rate, I’m not out-and-out offended by the red paint, but I’m not exactly 100% comfortable with it either. I guess Tigers fans have it easier that way. Odds are you’re not gonna offend anyone by painting tiger stripes on your face or wearing cat ears. I still would never do that in a million years, but that’s just me. Hell, I’m not even about to wear a chef hat anytime soon. I would not be averse to holding up a sign, however, if I could come up with something creative enough and if I were with the right people.

Last night I kind of got myself back into watching old episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000. I hadn’t watched it in a really long time and there were a bunch of episodes that I had acquired but hadn’t watched yet. It kinda got me in the mood for watching Godzilla movies, though (and, as a measure of how much of a dork I am, yes, I own two Godzilla movies and I have a third somewhere that I taped off TV, and by the way, a lot of the early-to-mid ‘90s Godzilla movies are just as silly as the old ones from the ‘70s). I have not acted upon that yet, however. The only drawback is that most of the files that I have of MST3K episodes have something wrong with the sound. It’s really, really low, even if I turn the volume on my computer all the way up (which is not a good idea anyways). If I use headphones, I’m fine, but that’s really cumbersome. Oh well. On an unrelated note, it’s almost time for me to dig out Garfield’s Halloween Adventure again (it’s a very cute cartoon, but don’t try to figure out any sort of history or geography in it or your head will explode).

Would you believe I made another really dumb purchase last night? This one wasn’t “dumb” in the sense of “I’m not going to wear/use it” because it’s not really something you “use.” It wasn’t even something I particularly wanted. It was there and I bought it before I realized what I was doing (luckily it was only about ten bucks so it’s not like it was expensive). It’s currently in the trunk of my car because I haven’t figured out where in the house I can put it without feeling conspicuous. Still, I suppose that means I’ve now cashed in on the promise to myself to sacrifice my dignity.

And now for those stories about bathrooms that I promised yesterday. There is a men’s bathroom in the hallway where my Japanese class is. For most of last month, there was a handwritten sign taped over the door that said, “Out of Order. There is a sewer problem coming up through one of the urinals.” Yeah, it’s gross, but as a member of the female sex, I found it slightly amusing. A couple weeks ago, this sign was replaced by a typed sign that said “Out of Order. Possibly long-term due to sewer causing foul odor.” That sign is now gone, so I have no idea if the sewer problem was ever resolved. I know that the area between the back of the student union and the front of the library has a persistent rotten egg smell. I don’t know if the two are connected (the men’s bathroom in question is in University Hall, which is a fair distance from the library). Okay, now for the second story, which is more of a complaint than a story. The women’s bathroom on the third floor of Wolfe Hall (which is where the College of Pharmacy is, and is the closest bathroom to the computer lab that I frequent) has no trashcan in it. Now, I suppose the reason for that is that this bathroom has those automatic dryers instead of paper towels, but what happens if you need to blow your nose or something? Also, there is no trashcan anywhere near the bathroom (though there IS a recycle bin).

You’ve probably already guessed it from yesterday’s post, but man, I feel good right now (and, contrary to popular belief, it’s rare for me to directly address famous people like I did yesterday, but I couldn’t help myself). And to think that I very nearly resigned myself to buying a Justin Verlander t-shirt at JCPenney yesterday, and I probably would have if not for the fact that they didn’t have any. I would’ve worn my Pudge shirt today if not for the fact that I work tonight. The t-shirt, mind you, not the jersey. I probably would not wear the jersey anywhere other than a game for two reasons: 1) It’s white, it was expensive, and I’m afraid of tearing it or getting it dirty. 2) Outside of the ballpark, girls just can’t get away with that look. I don’t know why. We just can’t.

I went on a little mini-shopping spree at the mall yesterday, which isn’t really my style either. While I was at Border’s, I discovered that they had the Detroit Tigers Monopoly game that I found online a while back, and I just had to get it. Mind you, I will likely never play it. I’ve played enough of those “specialty” Monopoly games to know how dumb the Community Chest/Chance cards can get, and I don’t especially want to know what this one has. Besides, I would probably suck at the game, cuz it’d be all to easy for me to choose “properties” based on player preference and not on any sort of strategy whatsoever. Still, I couldn’t resist it. I haven’t opened it, but I did look at the picture of the board on the back of the box, and I found it somewhat amusing that they had Neifi Perez (remember, this is the 2006 World Series team, NOT the 2007 team) as one of the light blue squares and not one of the purple squares (i.e. the cheapest properties). They had Wilfredo Ledezma and Ramon Santiago there. In case you’re wondering, Pudge is one of the red squares (where Indiana Avenue/Illinois Avenue/I-can’t-remember-the-third-one Avenue would be). I was a little disappointed that they put him so far down on the “value” scale but hey, Carlos Guillen is also a red square so maybe it ain’t too shabby after all (for the record, Maggs, Polanco, and Granderson are the yellow squares, Verlander, Robertson, and Bonderman are the green squares, and the Boardwalk/Park Place spots are occupied by Jim Leyland and Kenny Rogers; fair enough, I suppose). I did have to laugh at what they renamed the Income Tax square: “Bases-Loaded Walk.” The railroads are now bases, which was kinda cute, and the utilities are now “Baseball” and “Glove,” which doesn’t sound all that creative. I was kinda disappointed that they didn’t rename the Jail spot at all. Can’t they make it, like, “Suspension” or “Rainout” or something? Then again, I also have Star Wars Monopoly, and they didn’t rename the Jail square in that, either, so maybe I shouldn’t be surprised. By the way, I did find the Yankees UNO, but not Tigers UNO, so I’m gonna keep looking for that one. It’d be interesting to see how they designate cards for each player in that one. I mean, you can match Pudge and Guillen up with their own numbers, but that’s about it. Hopefully I can find out.

I had an oral quiz in Japanese today, and I wasn’t sure I was gonna make in on time, cuz as I was driving to school, the van in front of me broadsided a car that unwisely tried to turn left in front of him/her. Luckily, it seems no one was seriously hurt so I was able to get to school on time. I don’t know about the oral quiz, but I totally aced my mid-term that I took yesterday, so that added to my good mood.

I was gonna go completely down the road of bad taste and write about a couple issues with bathrooms on campus, but that’ll have to wait for another time, cuz I gotta get to Anatomy now.

Yeah, it's been only one day since I posted explaining my decision about not looking for the final decision. Trust me, I could've gone a really, REALLY long time without finding out. However, it turns out my dad knew nothing of my decision, and he just knocked on my door to tell me the news.

And it was very good news indeed.

Suddenly 2008 is lookin' a whole lot sweeter.

Glad to see you'll be wearing the Olde English "D" at least one more year, Pudge.

In case you’re wondering, no, I don’t know anything about the final decision regarding the Pudge option. The last thing I read about it was that Dave Dombrowski was going to meet with Mike Ilitch, and I haven’t been back to the front page of the Tigers website since. And I have made the decision not to go looking for the final word. It in no way affects my life as far as what I’m doing here and now, and it’s not worth getting depressed over it prematurely. I know I’ll find out in due course, but for now I’d like to remain in blissful ignorance. You may call it avoiding reality (I certainly do), but it is what it is. At the same time, though, I am trying to operate under the premise that the worst has happened, and in that respect, my chosen postseason team (that would be the Yankees, although had I chosen Anaheim and had they not gotten swept by the Red Sox, it would’ve made for some really bad puns) FINALLY showed some ability to win last night (unlike Anaheim, Philly, and Chicago, who were all swept, which means that officially everyone who started the 2007 season as a Tiger is now out of the playoff picture). C’mon Yankees…I’ve got a catcher to avenge and I don’t want to have to root for Boston. I saw so much Indians getup around campus last week I thought I was gonna throw up, but there were also plenty of Tigers shirts and hats in the mix as well, including a Pudge fan. He was even wearing the jersey, bless his soul. Speaking of Pudge, I finally was able to swallow my pride and go online to watch that thing he did for AT&T earlier this year (if you’ve been watching Tigers baseball on TV, you’ll know what I’m talking about, cuz they showed the commercial about 50 million times). You know, Pudge is good at many, many things. Acting is not one of them. Especially when it comes to ad-libbing. The video is about three minutes long (four if you include the “bonus footage”) and is part hokey skit (though not as dumb as it could’ve been, I suppose, though I refused to turn the volume on at the very beginning of the video, wherein Deion Sanders is having an argument with a security guard and calls Pudge to resolve it), part AT&T commercial (duh), and part actual interview. Obviously I didn’t care for the first two parts, but the interview segments were fairly interesting, especially since I was able to find out the story behind his nickname (notice I did NOT say I found out the reason for it; as far as that goes, there seems to be some sort of disconnect or “lost in translation” thing going on). And to my surprise, I was able to understand most of what he said. Also, he has, like, five couches in his living room. Random, I know, but I wanted to say that anyways.

On a mostly unrelated note, the emergency rooms around town were certainly hopping Saturday night, cuz Rachel and I were overwhelmed with a TON of emergency room scripts for the last hour and a half that we were open. The best one was a guy who tried to sneak out of the store without paying for his Percocet (Interestingly enough, the prescription was written by a “Dr. I. Rodriguez.” Yeah, it’s dumb, but it made me laugh anyways). This being the somewhat small town that it is, of course they needed, like, four cops to escort him out of the store in handcuffs. The dumb thing is that this was the generic Percocet, which isn’t expensive at all, and since Percocet is a class II narcotic, the guy’s gonna get charged with a felony. I don’t think we’ll be seeing him again anytime soon.

Other random things: 1) We were learning about the imperfect tense in Spanish today, and one of the activities in our book was a series of drawings, and we had to write down a sentence about what the person in the drawing was doing, using the imperfect tense. One drawing was of a girl playing baseball, but the part I found amusing was that the catcher’s mask looked more like a fencing helmet. 2) I’m currently sitting in the Bowman-Oddy computer lab, and on the white board at the front of the room there is a message saying “Sewage Lab due 10/22.” I’m glad I’m not in that class. 3) For some reason, the computer I'm at has the Microsoft Word default font at "Shuruti," which I've never heard of, but which looks exactly like Arial. Hence, I don't notice it until I try to copy stuff over to Xanga. Then Xanga just has a fit.