2005-04-26 - 1:30 p.m.

Holy crap work is boring. Poised on the edge of my chair, I've been counting the seconds left until my haircut this afternoon. That's how boring things are around here. Don't get me wrong, Work has been beating my face in for the past few weeks, and like a prize-fighter, I went down swingin. This week is offering me a brief respite from the overload of brochures, ads, cd-roms, etc... thanks to the overtime I put in last week to get it all done.

So it's the little things, like guitar shoppin on Ebay, short sleeve dress shirt shopping on the Gap and the previously mentioned haircut that are keeping my mind occupied.

Oh, Ebay. First off, I'm going to patent a breathalyzer not unlike the one attatched to the cars of multiple DUI offenders that connects to your keyboard and must be utilized before any bid on Ebay is confirmed. During the day, I'm a casual browser. I throw keywords in like "Jazzmaster, Jaguar, Fender Deville Amp, Tascam Multi-Track recorder, etc..." and sift through the results looking for "deals." I save these deals to my MyEbay folder for future viewing and that's about it.

Unfortunately, on the one night a week I tend to go out, I end up coming home, flipping open the lappy, and placing bids on all the items in MyEbay folder. When drunk, I justify all this bidding as "Things I want to buy for myself, but am too cautious and selflsess to buy when sober." So I place the bids, pass out, and wake up to find I have a couple thousand dollars worth of equipment that I'm in the running for.

To date, I've never won (thank you jeebus!) any of the items. But I'm sure it's only a matter of time till I bankrupt my poor bank account with some rediculous purchase of a $10,000+ vintage guitar.

Last night I took part in a co-ed indoor soccer game. For the last few months I've been playing in the men's premier league which is as competitive as soccer gets in Como. The teams in the premier league are made up of 18-24 year olds who either play for the Mizzou club team or any of the surrounding colleges. So you can imagine these guys are pretty damn good and the competition is extremely fierce. It's not uncommon to leave a match with a handful of bruises, a black eye, or a bloody nose.

So I get this call from Shawna asking if I can come to the co-ed game on Monday night. Of course I jump at the chance to play against girls on the soccer field and I show up a good half hour early to scope out the competition.

I was prepared for athletic, or at the very least, coordinated ex-soccer players. What I was privy to instead, was a bunch of special olympics jackasses who spent most of the game trying not to run into each other.

As I stretched out, I looked my teammates over, trying to discern who I could trust to pass the ball to. One of the ugys was a current soccer player and pretty darn good, so we quickly bonded and talked strategy and whatnot. The rest of the team (including a "coach" who drank franzia from a water bottle and cracked really old, really lame R.Kelly jokes {i.e. You guys are sweating more then R.Kelly at a Chuckie Cheese!}) idly milled about looking helpless/retarded. As we practiced taking shots on goal, I drilled an absolutely mediocre line drive into the middle of the net from about 20 yards out.

"Whoa! Awesome!" Was the reply from my teammates. A shot that normally would have been classified as "Dickin around" or "Pussy shit" from my premier league teammates, was heralded as "Awesome!" by my current Jerry's Kids teammates.

Perhaps this wouldn't be so bad after all. I could be a God on this field, dazzling the morons with absolutely medicore skills and plain common sports sense...

The buzzer sounded and the game was underway. I opted to play a defensive mid-fielder for a couple of reasons, 1) The retards playing up front used excuses like "I don't know how to play defense," and "I'm only good at scoring goals!" (Side note: Playing defense is a lot easier for the average player to play than offense. Often times, simply shadowing and running alongside someone with the ball is good enough defense to cause them to make a mistake. Handling the ball with speed and dexterity on offense on the other hand, is well above the skill level these shit-for-brains could manage.) Tony, the other guy on the team with skills also hung back towards the defensive end, recognizing that we might be the only players capable of stopping the other team's offense.

I took the first pass, and seeing nothing happening up front, passed it across to one of the other guys. With plenty of time to dribble, look for someone to pass to, or even write a fucking diary entry, he instead fumbled with the ball with a retarded look on his face and allowed a player from the other team to basically walk up, slide the ball away from him, and drill it into the back of the net. They had their first goal, in 8 seconds.

This was just the beginning. Whenever Tony or I didn't have the ball, the other team was able to score effortlessly...which they did, alot. Our team looked on like (I'm running out of retarded metaphors here) like... like... a bunch of RETARDS as the ball repeatedly graced that back of our goal.

By the second half, we were down 12-6. Tony had 3 goals, and I had 2. The other one of our goals had been scored (get this) when one of Tony's shots was a little too high, had hit the panelling above the goal, bounced back, and struck one of our players in the back of the head (inadvertedly) and went into the goal. She celebrated like she'd just made the greates goal of her career (which was probably debatable).

Anywho, so with about 10 minutes left, feeling unbearable levels of frustration mounting, I looked at Tony and gave him the "Fuck this, don't pass the ball to anyone but you and me, we're gonna try and salvage our diginity" look.

So over the next 10 minutes, Tony scored 2 goals, and I managed to score 3, bringing us within 1 goal of a tie. My goals were ferocious, I sliced through the other team, tackling hard and showing little or no mercy. In fact (and I'm somehwat ashamed and at the same time giddy to admit this) I "accidently" wiped out one of the girls playing on the other team. I was going for a header, and running full speed, I leapt into the air to make contact. As I jumped, I saw the girl from the other team, looking at the ball, but paying no attention to the 180 pounds diving through the air towards the ball. She stepped right into my path as I took off from the ground, and there was nothing I could do to stop the impending collision. As I headed the ball successfully, her eyes finally made contact with mine and the sheer terror struck me as both pitiful and hillarious. Before I had time to shout "look out!" I was upon her. The impact knocked her backwards, litterally head over heels. I ran to help her up, but her pride wouldn't let me. I extended a hand and an apology, but she refused both saying "I can get up on my own thanks!" I nodded my head, recognizing her embarassment and we continued play.

With 20 seconds left, our team lost the ball once again. With a head full of steam, I charged after the kid with the ball, stripped it and took off down the field trying to make some Hollywood last second goal. But it was too late. Time expired before I could get a shot off and we resigned to a 12-11 loss.

Almost seeting with animosity towards my team, I quickly gathered my gear and headed towards the parking lot. Before I could get there though, my teammates were slapping my back and telling me how much they wanted me to play the rest of the season with them. I stomached a half smile and told them I'd be there next time...

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