With our powers combined...
There was a neat little gathering of geocachers this morning in Shelburne Falls, MA. I felt like attending it. And thus I did. Go figure. It was a flash mob gathering involving ghost hunting (ha), and when that was over, I kinda hung around for a while talking with people. I saw a few familiar faces from the tournaments they had last year. I also met half of "Rocking the Goat;" they are a legend around here. They are a retired couple with nearly 7,000 finds and 250 FTF's. Those are record setting numbers. Even the most rabid NH cachers are in the 3,000 range.

Anyway, I hit a bunch of nearby caches with a couple other Massachusetts legends:

* Nomad64, who has about 2,800 finds and orchestrated the geocaching tournaments I went to last year. His license plate reads "ICACHE."

* trainlove, who has about 1,700 finds, and whose real name is "Ray Jerome." I sometimes run into other cachers that wonder if trainlove and I are related. Interestingly enough, the opposite is also true.

* WeatherednBoston, who has about 1,600 finds. I don't know much about her, but I have run into her name a few times in various log books. A recently torn medial meniscus in her knee kinda limits what caches she can go after.

It was a fun time. Caching with others makes for a much more enjoyable experience, especially when you do it with people you've heard about over the last couple years. Even cooler is that despite my "low" number of finds, I came up with a find or two first. :)

Eventually, we disbanded and went our seperate ways. I would later run into Nomad64 again, and we did a couple more caches. Rock.

Photos?

Group photo, left to right: trainlove, myself, Nomad64, and WeatherednBoston.

Glacial Potholes at the end of Deerfield Avenue.

Future alternative rock album cover. 400 feet from the land of potholes. 906 down, 94 to go...
I have 242 finds this year to date.

In 2006, my breakout year, I "only" found 238 caches.

In 2007, where I found 388 caches, I had found 161 caches at this point year to date.

Clearly, I could easily trump that rate of tupperware finding.

Whether or not I will is kinda dependent on what gas prices do, and how busy I will be with other people (that's right, I kinda have this "life" thing going on :D). Sure, I'm going to continue to rock out until I hit the 1,000-mark, but all predictions have me reaching that milestone some time in mid or late August. Then what? What's my next geocaching goal? Is 1,500 the next noteworthy number? 2,000? 2,500? I don't know. But with the way I've been going and the amount I now have to travel to find a substantial number of caches, I have no choice but to peter out for a while. Which is fine. It gives me more time to spend with others and/or work on my pool game. :) Maybe I'll take up other hobbies. We'll see.

I do still want to cache in Maine at some point... What good is my laptop's subwoofer if I can't use it?
This whole laptop thing is getting... eh... I don't want to say it's "old," but I do miss my desktop PC. I don't have any music or other forms of media on my laptop. I can listen to the radio online, but sometimes I just want to listen to some Serj Tankian or whatever instead of being at the mercy of the station DJ.

I haven't ordered a replacement motherboard. Compatible ones cannot be found. I'm probably best off just upgrading to the latest chipset and CPU and stuff, all of the new boards only have one IDE/PATA connectors. I don't understand why. IDE hard drives are extremely common, and I didn't even realize they made SATA optical drives until I started looking for replacements for my perfectly working CD and DVD burners. I need to have two PATA connectors. So does everyone else, for Christ's sake.

It's bad enough that they still have a floppy drive connector on these boards. But even worse than that, the makers of these new motherboards have the nerve to keep the parallel and serial ports on the board. When was the last fucking time anyone has used a parallel port? Old piece-of-shit printers use them, but I haven't seen one of those sold in a store in the last five or six years minimum.

So I don't know what to do now. I'm having a lot of trouble figuring how many chipsets back I have to go to get two PATA connectors on a motherboard. And if I'm gonna do that, I might as well just get a replacement socket 939 board and keep the CPU and RAM I have. But they can't be found. And the fact that upgrading to the good stuff means that I also have to get a SATA burner is just so damn ridiculous, I refuse to consider it an option. Sigh.

I really want my music, though. At least I'm still #1 seed.
Pool was kind of a disaster last night. Though myself and Greg went 5-0 each, those blowouts were negated by Antonio and Tom going 0-5 each. Nicole only went 1-4, and thus we lost 11-14.

We should have won. The fact that three of us had to combine for only three wins and we lost is very dissapointing.

I think our intimidation advantage has worn off. We're just a middle of the pack team now with three wins and three losses. Boo. Tuesday Funnies

DICTIONARY FOR WOMEN'S PERSONAL ADS

40-ish = 49
Adventurous = Slept with everyone
Athletic = No tits
Average looking = Ugly
Beautiful = Pathological liar
Contagious Smile = Does a lot of pills
Emotionally secure = On medication
Feminist = Fat
Free spirit = Junkie
Friendship first = Former very *friendly* person
Fun = Annoying
New Age = Body hair in the wrong places
Open-minded = Desperate
Outgoing = Loud and Embarrassing
Passionate = Sloppy drunk
Professional = Bitch
Voluptuous = Very Fat
Large frame = Hugely Fat
Wants Soulmate = Stalker

WOMEN'S ENGLISH:

1. Yes = No
2. No = Yes
3. Maybe = No
4. We need = I want
5. I am sorry = you'll be sorry
6. We need to talk = you're in trouble
7. Sure, go ahead = you better not
8. Do what you want = you will pay for this later
9. I am not upset = Of course I am upset, you moron!
10. You're very attentive tonight = is sex all you ever think about?

MEN'S ENGLISH

1. I am hungry = I am hungry
2. I am sleepy = I am sleepy
3. I am tired = I am tired
4. Nice dress = Nice cleavage!
5. I love you = Let's have sex now
6. I am bored = Do you want to have sex?
7. May I have this dance? = I'd like to have sex with you
8. Can I call you sometime? = I'd like to have sex with you
9. Do you want to go to a movie? = I'd like to have sex with you
10. Can I take you out to dinner? = I'd like to have sex with you
11. Those shoes don't go with that outfit = I'm gay

And finally...

A recent scientific study found that women find different male faces attractive depending on where they are in their menstrual cycle.
For example, when a woman is ovulating she will prefer a man with rugged, masculine features.
However, when she is menstruating, she prefers a man doused in petrol and set on fire, with scissors stuck in his eye and a cricket stump shoved up his backside.

Haha, athletic chicks. Basket #1 is actually a par 3, not 4.
It's been a long time since the Mitchell and I have gone disc golfing. In fact, this morning was the first time this year in which we've gone together. I brought my camera in hopes to create another youtube masterpiece, but I decided to leave the camera in the car. Truly, we wouldn't be able to capture any awesomeness this time around, right?

Wrong.

Man Candy was on fire this morning. He managed to throw a perfect toss 102 feet out right into the 26" basket. It was incredible. My personal best is approximately 50 feet, and we have a lot of trouble draining putts from 15-30 feet out, let alone trying to do anything further out than that. I really wish I got that on camera. It was just sick.

Later on the course he would sink one about 50 feet out, and another one from the top of a pile of rocks about 30 feet out. In fact, he was pretty much sinking everything within reasonable (and unreasonable) putting distance. And he hasn't played since last fall.

Despite all of his crazy throws, he did have some crappy runs, and we were tied after 18 baskets. In "sudden death," he managed to get par on basket #1 -- a basket we never par -- with a foot in the water. It was silly. It also makes him a son of a bitch. Forcing small talk
I somehow averaged 33.1 mpg combined highway and city driving today, and I did nearly 300 miles of unnoteworthy driving around. I think that could be a new record for me since I started tracking this a couple months ago. You know, when gas prices started getting silly. Though 33.1 mpg isn't exactly that impressive, I was driving 10 mph over the limit a lot, windows cracked, and a decent amount of stop-and-go driving. Makes me wonder how that was possible. I typically average 28-31 mpg under better conditions. Whatever. Ow ow it hurts!
In order to know what it was like to be the team we played last week, we got our collective asses raped, 8-17 last night.

Even sadder is because we played 4 vs 3, we were awarded with a 3-2 lead before we even played a game of pool. So, in reality, we got pwned, 5-15.

We played some sort of super team. There was nothing we could do but watch our losses rack up. The team we played will probably win the league. Their best player is now 20-1, and the other two we had the pleasure of playing have many more wins than they have losses. Boo. Their team as a whole is undefeated, and the only team in the league that can say that.

I don't feel I played poorly, though I went 2-3. Most of my games came down to just having the 8-ball on the table, and I couldn't sink it more times than not.

Next week should be better. Only one player on that team was over .500 going into last night. And I'll have to play him now that I'm the #1 seed. Bring it. Laptop-bound for a while.
So I finally took steps to try and resurrect my desktop PC. Buying a new battery didn't change anything, and now I get to find a motherboard online that will work and make a trip to return my ineffective "cheap fix."

It's a damn shame, too, because I don't really want to drop cash to fix it. I'm not completely sold that buying a new board will be the answer, as it is possible that it could be something else, but it is the most likely solution to my problem. Motherboards are also just a pain in the ass in general. My case doesn't have a fancy motherboard tray, so I have to unplug and remove everything before I replace the board. Bah.

I wonder what caused it to fail. We did have a few nights with crazy thunderstorms, but I don't remember if there were any the night before I noticed my PC wouldn't boot up anymore. If there were, then I am not impressed with my UPS. That thing has saved me many times from power outages, but I would have thought a simple surge would have been cake for it to handle. Boo.

I did have some fun fiddling with the inside of my PC, though. I used to do such things all the time, removing everything and cleaning them and finding ways to optimize heat dissipation, air flow, and acoustics. It's been so long since I've cracked open my case that I forgot what components I've been running the last couple years. :p I took some snazzy pictures, though:

* The inside of my case, with a lot of shit unplugged from the power supply. Check out my awesome cable management! There are two optical drives, 550GB over two hard drives (one of them SATA), an oversized (92mm or 120mm?) case fan and plenty of other goodies. Note the lack of a floppy drive. Floppy drives are for queers.

* My Zalman CPU fan is as huge as it is dusty. 92mm of aluminum and copper make up the heat sink. A very quiet and adjustable fan blow the heat out. This thing is heavy enough that it came with its own brace and screw contraption to fasten onto the board.

* My video card in the motherboard: a 6600GT with a cooler I picked up. The stock fan was too loud for my liking.

* My video card outside the case and after I cleaned it up a bit. Yeah, that fan is quite the monster. :) The stock card only took up one slot, but with this fan, I can't use the PCI slot below it. That's ok, though. PCI slots are also for queers.

* A side shot of my video card. I need to clean my monitor. That metal thing way off to the left is Frank Fella's butterfly knife, which I took as collateral when he borrowed my shirt tie like ten years ago. Yeah, I never saw the tie again. :) Tuesday Funnies

THE HORTH WHITHPERER

A guy calls his buddy, the horse rancher, and says he's sending a friend over to look at a horse.

His buddy asks, "How will I recognize him?"

"That's easy; he's a midget with a speech impediment."

So, the midget shows up, and the guy asks him if he's looking for a male or female horse. "A female horth."

So he shows him a prized filly.

"Nith lookin horth. Can I thee her eyeth?"

So the guy picks up the midget and he gives the horse's eyes the once over.

"Nith eyeth, can I thee her earzth?"

So he picks the little fella up again, and shows him the horse's ears.

"Nith earzth, can I see her mouf?"

The rancher is getting pretty ticked off by this point, but he picks him up again and shows him the horse's mouth.

"Nice mouf, can I see her twat?"

Totally mad as fire at this point, the rancher grabs him under his arms and rams the midget's head as far as he can up the horse's fanny, pulls him out and slams him on the ground.

The midget gets up, sputtering and coughing. "Perhapth I should rephrase that. Can I thee her wun awound a widdle bit?"

I could use some lifers.
I had a beloved friend run into a psychic unexpectedly last week. She normally doesn't buy into that melarchy, but she got drawn in after a few things were said about her and her mother and other things from her past that were dead on.

Interestingly enough, I was in her "reading." According to this psychic (and confirmed by this friend), if anything were to happen to me, this person would not lie quietly. I kinda got the impression that she would kill in my name or seek vengeance one way or another. She's not overly protective, but she's not gonna let bad shit happen to me without repercussions. Though it sounds kinda psychotic as written, the way it was said to me over the phone I found to be quite touching.

Also per the reading, I am and will be the truest person ever to be in her life. We'll be in each other's lives one way or another for the rest of our lives. Hmm. I'm curious to see how that will pan out. Unexpected money sinks FTW
Yeah, my PC is shot. I tried to turn it on after work today and it won't. It doesn't even make it to the point a couple seconds after turning it on where you hear that beep sound before running POST.

I figure it's either the power supply or the motherboard. I think it's the motherboard. I really hope I can fix it by simply replacing that little round (CMOS) battery that's on the board, because I can't replace the board itself for less than what I originally paid for it. And I can't find one anywhere, either. There are other compatible boards out there, but most of them are ridiculously priced or used/refurbished. And I don't really want to upgrade to a new mobo/memory/cpu setup and try to sell off my older stuff. At least I have my new laptop, eh? Still, it's such a pain in the ass and I got lots of goodness on my hard drives I'd like access to.

I'd like to blame Windows XP SP3, as there are all sorts of boot problems associated with that (especially for AMD-based systems like mine), but it's hard for me to do that if my computer won't even run to the point where it attempts to start loading Windows. :p

It's funny, too, because I typically go several months without shutting down or restarting my PC. For some reason, I've been doing so the last few days.

Whatever. I'll fix it when I care. Chalk up another win.
We soundly thrased our pool opponents, 17-8. In our #1 matchup, we lost 1-4; but most of the other people on the opposing team aren't really any good, and we won almost every game from player #3 to player #5 (13-2).

I've noticed that we always seem to get our asses kicked by the opposing player #1. Matchup #2 can go either way, but we have enough depth and "skill" in our lower rankings that we always make it up on the back end.

My cue stick performed much better last night. :) Fear-mongering speculation is for queers.
The price of gas is out of control. It's gotten to the point now that it's actually cheaper for me to spend a night at the bar playing pool than it is for me to geocache anywhere. How fucking whacked is that? Travelling an hour away and back will run me about $15-20 in gas. Free pool and $2 well drinks during happy hour at the bar we frequent the most won't run me that much. Hell, I could even buy food there. That should never be the case. It also doesn't help that it's gotten to the point that I almost have to drive that far away to rack up any numbers. There are still some local ones I haven't bothered with, but not enough to get me to 900, let alone 1,000.

Also, I really wanted to whimsically travel to all parts of New England and perhaps New York per my early life crisis, but I've really lost the desire to do such things lately. Maybe it's because gas is over a dollar more per gallon now than when I went to Virginia. Or perhaps my crisis is coming to an end (yay!). Sure, there are things I'm still hoping to accomplish this summer, but I think I can wait for gasoline prices to come back down. Assuming they ever do.

It's now cheaper for me to do my laundry in Keene than it is to go see my mom and bring a couple loads there.

If I still had my second job, about 30% of my take-home pay would have been spent on gas to get there and back.

I came upon the above realizations when I passed the Citgo station, where the 87-octane stuff was $4.199 a gallon. Amusingly enough, Nirvana's "Rape Me" was playing in my car at the time.

And I thought I was somewhat pessimistic with my $3.50 by Memorial Day, $4.00 by New Year's prediction... Ha! How about $5.00 by July 4?

I'm already finding that I can no longer geocache every Saturday and Sunday (well, I could, but it's getting pricey). That's a huge blow for me.

I got my Chase Freedom card in the mail yesterday, though. I could potentially save 3% at the pump. Whee! There's a Discover card that will save you 5% or more, but I have excellent credit and the Chase card had very little "fine print" and it seems like it would benefit me more in the long run (3% off top 3 shopping categories and 1% on everything else). There are a bunch of gas cards worth checking out. I suggest finding one that's right for you.

My last car payment in in July. I should be able to get two or three tanks of gas with the $250 I'll save each month once August hits. Tuesday Funnies

MEN ARE JUST HAPPIER PEOPLE

NICKNAMES

* If Laura, Kate and Sarah go out for lunch, they will call each other Laura, Kate and Sarah.
* If Mike, Dave and John go out, they will affectionately refer to each other as Fat Boy, Godzilla and Four-eyes.

EATING OUT

* When the bill arrives, Mike, Dave and John will each throw in $20, even though it's only for $32.50. None of them will have anything smaller and none will actually admit they want change back.
* When the girls get their bill, out come the pocket calculators.

MONEY

* A man will pay $2 for a $1 item he needs.
* A woman will pay $1 for a $2 item that she doesn't need but it's on sale.

BATHROOMS

* A man has six items in his bathroom: toothbrush and toothpaste, shaving cream, razor, a bar of soap, and a towel.
* The average number of items in the typical woman's bathroom is 337. A man would not be able to identify more than 20 of these items.

ARGUMENTS

* A woman has the last word in any argument.
* Anything a man says after that is the beginning of a new argument.


FUTURE

* A woman worries about the future until she gets a husband.
* A man never worries about the future until he gets a wife.

SUCCESS

* A successful man is one who makes more money than his wife can spend.
* A successful woman is one who can find such a man.

MARRIAGE

* A woman marries a man expecting he will change, but he doesn't.
* A man marries a woman expecting that she won't change, but she does.

DRESSING UP

* A woman will dress up to go shopping, water the plants, empty the trash, answer the phone, read a book, and get the mail.
* A man will dress up for weddings and funerals.

NATURAL

* Men wake up as good-looking as they went to bed.
* Women somehow deteriorate during the night.

OFFSPRING

* Ah, children. A woman knows all about her children. She knows about dentist appointments and romances, best friends, favorite foods, secret fears and hopes and dreams.
* A man is vaguely aware of some short people living in the house.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

A married man should forget his mistakes. There's no use in two people remembering the same thing!

Snappy
I'm having a lot of trouble both having the time to write and the will to write. Or type, as the case may be. I'm actually quite the busy guy as of late. For the last few weeks, my schedule has been going something like this:

Monday: drink and play pool with Brown
Tuesday: run errands
Wednesday: pool league night
Thursday: make up for lack of sleep
Friday: drink and play pool with Brown, maybe get some Rock Band in
Saturday: geocache, maybe drink and play more pool with Brown (we're lushes)
Sunday: geocache, run errands

Repeat.

So yeah. I don't have much down time, and when I do, all I really want to do is sleep. Most of the times when I do type stuff here, it's not actually being posted the day the event(s) happened, but a few days later. I just adjust the date to make it seem like I'm being prompt. But since I doubt anyone is reading this drek on a daily basis, it's not hurting anyone. If it is, I'm sorry.

Quite a few things have happened since I last posted. None of them are worth dedicating entire paragraphs to, but I figure I should let those who care know the following:

* I found a baby snapping turtle in the parking lot at work. I gave it to Brown to take care of (yeah, she's one of those people). After getting a buzz going on Friday night, we eventually went to Wal-Mart and PetCo to find some stuff to give the lil' feller a home to play in 'til he gets big enough to survive on its own. I hope to have pictures and videos soon. It fits in a tablespoon, which makes it wicked cute. Or something.

* Saturday began the first of many hazy, hot, and humid days. I couldn't really do anything in the heat. Sunday, I did even less. I did get my air conditioner from my mom's and slapped it into my window, though.

* I decided to format my computer. I finally ditched Windows 2000 for Windows XP. There hasn't really been a reason for me to make the switch, but I've noticed a lot of the newer video games are requiring XP or Vista to run. Not that I have played any PC games in the last six months. But I had nothing better to do on this hot weekend, so what the hell. Everything went smoothly.

* We got housed in our make-up pool game. Our top 2 players (myself and Greg) went 1-9. We did well in the other three matchups, but we still lost 11-14. That should teach those dirt bags that thought not taking the 25-0 forfeit was the best option. I haven't had any success playing well since getting my fancy new stick. I'd like to blame the equipment, but it could be the fact that we didn't have any practice time before this match started. I couldn't sink shit. I wonder what Greg's excuse was. At least I got the one win. :p We're too intimidating.
So it was pool league last night. Everyone on my team showed up, wearing our fancy new team shirts. Coincidentally, everyone on my team now owns their own two-piece cue stick and a hard case to store it in, and we all came in with them proudly. We couldn't wait to see how well we would play with our new sticks. I'm not expecting perfection, but as I get used to my new investment, I'm sure my game will improve at least a little bit as the weeks go by.

But anyway, everyone on my team was there by 6, though game time wasn't until 7. Eventually, 7 rolled around, and we couldn't find anyone on the opposing team, and they have a six-person team just in case one person couldn't make it. Sadly, five of them never showed the fuck up. One of them did show up, but only stayed for 10-15 minutes and then left. What is that shit? I was so pissed the rest of the night. I felt stood up. I don't take it well if I'm stood up. Not pleasant for those that commit the transgression. I can even give you references.

Also, I couldn't sink anything, so it might have been a good thing the other team didn't show up. I couldn't scrimmage for shit. Balls kept bouncing off the sides of the pockets.

Also, the Penguins lost. No Game 7 for me to watch. :( It made for the perfect trifecta.

I spent most of my morning trying to figure out what happens next when the opposing team doesn't show up. We're entitled to a 25-0 victory but those 25 points go to a "ghost player" instead of giving each of us a 5-0 record for the night. Or we could attempt to reschedule the match. When I threw the decision out there to my teammates, there was a 2-2 split. The fifth guy didn't cast his vote in a timely manner; I got impatient and worked with the other captain to reschedule a game for Monday after work. Turns out that the opposing captain called out and for whatever reason, all of her teammates assumed that meant they could take the day off, too.

They better fucking show up this time. I don't think I'm going to behave in a cordial manner, either. Personally, I wanted to take the forfeit victory, and I'm gonna be even more upset if it turns out they beat us Monday. I love hockey.
I want to congratulate the Pittsburgh Penguins for beating the Detroit Red Wings in triple overtime last night in Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Finals, keeping the dream alive of my 'Guins winning a cup again. Hopefully, they can win Game 6 tomorrow night so I can watch Game 7 somewhere on Saturday.

Mario Lemieux is still the best player to ever play the game. I still gotta find a way to meet him. Tuesday Funnies

Lesson 1:
A man is getting into the shower just as his wife is finishing up her shower, when the doorbell rings. The wife quickly wraps herself in a towel and runs downstairs. When she opens the door, there stands Bob, the next-door neighbor. Before she says a word, Bob says, "I'll give you $800 to drop that towel." After thinking for a moment, the woman drops her towel and stands naked in front of Bob After a few seconds, Bob hands her $800 and leaves. The woman wraps back up in the towel and goes back upstairs.

When she gets to the bathroom, her husband asks, "Who was that?"
"It was Bob the next door neighbor," she replies.
"Great," the husband says, "Did he say anything about the $800 he owes me?"

Moral of the story: If you share critical information pertaining to credit and risk with your shareholders in time, you may be in a position to prevent avoidable exposure.

Lesson 2:
A priest offered a nun a lift. She got in and crossed her legs, forcing her gown to reveal a leg. The priest nearly had an accident. After controlling the car, he stealthily slid his hand up her leg.

The nun said, "Father, remember Psalm 129?" The priest removed his hand. But, changing gears, he let his hand slide up her leg again.
The nun once again said, "Father, remember Psalm 129?"
The priest apologized, "Sorry sister but the flesh is weak."
Arriving at the convent, the nun sighed heavily and went on her way.
On his arrival at the church, the priest rushed to look up Psalm 129.
It said, "Go forth and seek, further up, you will find glory."

Moral of the story: If you are not well informed in your job, you might miss a great opportunity.

Lesson 3:
A sales rep, an administration clerk, and the manager are walking to lunch when they fi nd an antique oil lamp. They rub it and a genie comes out.
The Genie says, "I"ll give each of you just one wish."

"Me first! Me first!" says the admin clerk.
"I want to be in the Bahamas, driving a speedboat, without a care in the world. Puff! She's gone.

"Me next! Me next!" says the sales rep. "I want to be in Hawaii, relaxing on the beach with my personal masseuse, an endless supply of Pina Coladas and the love of my life." Puff! He"s gone.

"OK, you're up," the genie says to the manager. The manager says, "I want those two back in the office after lunch."

Moral of the story: Always let your boss have the first say.

Other management lessons. Summer colds are queer.
I haven't been feeling so hot the last few days. I got buzzed on much less alcohol than I normally need during Friday night happy hour, and I was ready for bed way too soon.

I didn't really notice anything Saturday -- I did take naps, though -- but today (Sunday), I could not stop blowing my nose. Taking hits from a private label (aka "generic") version of DayQuil didn't seem to help at all. It made geocaching interesting; I had to find several large maple or oak leaves to take care of my nose about every quarter-mile.

My mother says it could just be the pollen, since I don't exhibit any cold symptoms outside of the runny nose. But I'm not allergic to anything. Or am I now? I have never had poison ivy until last year. Maybe my immune system is starting to fail me? Good thing I got health insurance (finally).

Anyway...

Yeah. I didn't do squat Saturday. Weather.com had me scared shitless about Keene getting lots of rain and thunder. Chance of rain: 100%. So I didn't plan anything. It turns out that it didn't rain a god damn drop. I heard one rumble of thunder, and that was like at 4 PM. This thunderstorm event was hypothesised to start in the morning and continue throughout the day. I had plans I canceled because of this supposed rain. I wasted a perfect day for geocaching or disc golf or whatever I wanted to do. I only left my apartment once yesterday, and that was just to get the mail. Fucking bullshit.

Today, I went to Mom's and then to Concord to buy me a cue stick. I dropped $60 worth of gift cards and got me this bluish Maximizer stick that looks a lot like this one. I don't think this stick ever retailed for $185 like that link claims, though.

Other important cue stick stats:

* 19 ounces. I usually play with an 18 or 20oz at the bar, but McCues (the home of the league) seems to only stock 19oz sticks. So I might as well comply to the weight that's considered the standard.

* Power-bonded graphite over a wood core shaft. I guess that's good? I really wanted a plain maple stick, but Dick's didn't have any in stock that I liked.

* It has this "veltex grip" stuff covers most of the butt of the stick. A lot of the cue sticks I've fiddled with use a nylon or linen wrap. If that shit frays, I'm fucked. What I got seems durable and feels good, too.

* Free. Well, $60 worth of gift card money. That doesn't really count, does it? I didn't pay for 'em. :p

After miserably caching in Penacook (I did well, but my nose made me retire much earlier than I wanted to), I went to Mom's and eventually to Sears in Keene, where I used another gift card to score a hard case to carry the cue stick in.

Armed with a billiards shirt, my own stick in my own fancy case, captaining what is currently the best team in the league, I'm pretty darn intimidating. :) Let's see how long that lasts.