The Vig

The Boss does it in style. (QuickTime required)

Personally I think I’d be a little creeped out if I awoke to find Silvio Dante standing above my casket.  But that’s just me.

Aaron Hockley points out the obvious.  I wonder the same thing every time I see windmill parts being offloaded at the Port of Vancouver for shipment to Eastern Oregon.

Goodbye Keith Olbermann.  It’s been nice knowing you.  I could break down and get the Comcast DVR, but I ain’t giving up my Tivo for nothing.  So I guess I’ll just have to get my news from Stewart and Colbert like everyone else.

Secretly I knew something was wrong.  Trips to the gas station were becoming a little too frequent for a 2001 Honda.  I chalked it up to it needing just routine maintenance.  The car had 180,000 miles on it.  With proper care and feeding, it should go another 180,000 EASY.  Turns out the whine I heard first thing in the morning was the dead give-away.  I was toast.  The pump in the transmission was starved for fluid and yesterday it had finally had enough.

The car performed like a champ through it’s final moments though.  It got all the way back across the bridge (through the rush hour!) and into my garage while in some emergency “limp home” mode.  When I went to take it back to “my guy” this morning, it wouldn’t go.

I had it towed a few blocks down to a transmission place around the corner that was recommended by both my housemate and the tow truck driver.  He called back a few hours later to give me the news.  The transmission needed to be rebuilt.  I was crushed.  I called back down to my guy who referred me to his guy who quoted me 25% less than guy #1.  I’ve only got a few payments left on the dang thing and there’s no way I want another five years of payments.  So it’s really a no-brainer.

It was just a matter of financing it.  Having missed out on both the stock market and the housing boom, I’m WAY behind most of my peers financially.  Thanks to relatives who are way kinder than they should be, the check was quickly written and the car is now down in Oregon City awaiting its new transmission.

A fascinating sidenote, by the way.  It cost $65 to have the car towed from my house to shop #1, which is literally 10 blocks.  The transmission guy in Oregon City had me call his tow truck guy who quoted me $70 from Vancouver to the OC.  You could have knocked me over with a feather.  I’m not telling you anything new when I say a good mechanic is worth his weight in gold.  My guy saved me close to $750 today.  That ain’t chicken scratch.  Now you know why I drive from The ‘Couv to The OC to have my car worked on.

So now I’m car-less and jobless for the next five days.  I haven’t been shut-in like this since the ice storm in January 2004.  I’ve definitely taken my mobility for granted.  I’ve no idea what to do with myself.  Well, actually I do.  I’m updating the resume and sending them out.  It’s fun and all to be a starving artist, but I’ve figured out I have no more time to dedicate to my craft now than I did six weeks ago.  The difference now is I’m gonna make sure I get paid.  I’ve settled for way less than I’m worth for a while now.  That ends now.

Does it mean I give up on being a writer?  Absolutely not.  That’s still out there.  And when the right opportunity comes I will jump.  But in the meantime, it’s time to play catch-up with my peers.

So that’s what I’ll be doing with my week, plotting world domination.  Wish me luck.

The Columbian says they’re out of business.  At least for now.  Huh.

I asked John G. last night whether he believed Frazer McLaren would still be a Winter Hawk on Christmas Day.  He surmised, correctly imho, that McLaren would probably welcome such a move, especially if it meant going to a contender.  I think it would also be a boost for his career down the line to get a little taste of winning.  Going to Medicine Hat did a ton for Michael Sauer last season.  After watching two periods of tonight’s game, I wonder if Christmas Day is being too generous.  Perhaps Veteran’s Day would be a better over-under.

Don’t get me wrong.  I love McLaren and would love to have him around.  But let’s get serious.  This team as presently constructed is going nowhere.  I held out hope for the last few weeks, but now?  Where is it?  Who is going to lead this team into the playoffs and beyond?  Sceviour?  Betker?  Francis?  Please.  How about fellow 18-year-olds Alexiuk, Valchar, Panchyson, and McGill?  Add Gabriel and Swystun, and there are your 19s and 20s for 2008-09.  How is that squad going to be any better than the one we saw on the ice tonight?  So frustrating.

So what to do now?  The Central swing couldn’t have come at a better time for this team.  It’s a chance to clear the decks and open every position up for competition.  I don’t believe anyone should be safe.  Hopefully we see a much different team, either in personnel or attitude, on November 16th than the one we saw tonight.

I missed the memo that Matt Drudge had ditched his radio gig.  I used to enjoy listening to his show.  He very sloppily walked the line between old man shaking his fist at the sea and new media sage.  He simultaneously champions the new media and begs the powers-that-be to leave the Internet alone while at the same time he relishes scaring bluehairs with words like MySpace and porn.  It was an interesting show.

His replacement is a guy out of Cincinnati named Bill Cunningham.  As you can tell, Bill isn’t exactly down with the Internet.  Nor is he down with liberals.  Not like Drudge was.  Drudge, for all his faults, loves Hillary because she makes him money.  She also makes Rush and Hannity money too.  None of those three wants her to go away.  And I don’t think Cunningham wants her to either.  That said, Cunningham’s show is much more ideological than Drudge’s ever was.

Case in point, tonight he had Dinesh D’Souza on for a little intellectual stimulation.  Together they bemoaned the withering of Christianity in Europe.  D’Souza declared the reason for Christianity’s demise in Europe was because religion had become too close to the Crown.  It was a fascinating assessment, I thought.  Especially since our current administration is completely intertwined with religion and that has caused an electoral backlash against both.  Of course D’Souza didn’t see it that way.  He completely ignored his thesis and went on to declare America would be lucky to have a man of the cloth such as Huckabee as president.  He continued that bringing more religion into government would restore the greatness of both.  Right.  Good luck with that.

Sitting in a quiet corner before the Winter Hawks game last night, I watched two of the Rose Quarter’s finest relieve a grade schooler of his toy Star Wars gun.  It was costume night at the Coliseum and the kid was dressed as a Storm Trooper.

His dad protested mightily.  Mascot Night was just a week ago and they had adults dressed as Storm Troopers walking around with all manner of armament.  Not once were they hassled.  A week later, it’s an 8-year-old who poses a threat.

I shared the story with a couple of folks near me.  We all laughed and shrugged it off.  That was until Winter Hawk mascot Tom-A-Hawk came out about halfway through the first period dressed as a cowboy villain.  As he worked his way around the crowd, he came upon the Storm Trooper kid and…wait for it…pulled a toy revolver on him!  My neighbors and I were shocked to say the least.  Apparently the rules didn’t apply to the team mascot.

This isn’t a Winter Hawks issue.  It’s a facilities management issue.  Shame on them for not allowing an 8-year-old to be a kid for a night.  I wonder how the issue would have been resolved had it been a Blazer game and not a second-rate tenant.