Things I learned or re-learned this weekend

(Sorry for the delay, technical issues)
1. My grandmother is a badass. Seriously. She just had her chest cracked open and sewn shut with wires, she had a tube down her throat, she was getting zero pain medication, and she was smiling at me. Damn.
2. My dad's conservatism trumps his intelligence. "I'm not convinced CO2 emissions are causing global warming." Okay...anything else I should take off the discussion menu: evolution, round Earth, the fact that rain is when Zeus beats off to Redtube clips of Ceres while Hera's in the shower and his seed spills down on us?
3. My mom has issues. She treated her eldest sister like a child. She treated her other sister's husband like a child. She treated her husband like a stranger. She refuses to acknowledge that her lifelong adequacy issues with regard to her older sister color their relationship to this day. She refuses to see that my dad is getting the short end of the stick in their relationship now. In her mind nothing has changed in their relationship since 1983, when in reality things have gone 180.
4. In 10 years I'll be my parents' only child with hair.
5. UT-Houston is not the flood-ravaged mess I visited on med school interviews.
6. Houston is not the dirty confusing mess I've always thought of it as since my initial foray as a driver at age 18.
7. Opera mini is a better web browser for my cell phone than the default browser, but still not the greatest.
8. Google maps cell phone app is far superior to the default map application provided by Sprint, but still far inferior to the true Google maps.
9. I might be on board with the iPad after all, though the name still sucks.
10. I like to have 10 items instead of 9 in a list.

Reasons I don't have a list for this week's post

1. I suck.

Qualities my phone has in common with Michael Jackson

For the record, I know that Michael Jackson jokes are older than Greg Oden's knees. I just don't care.
1. Excellent voice quality (when not dead)
2. Fondled by little boys*
3. Arrived at my apartment in a box, cold and lifeless**
4. Black fades over time



*Only one boy for the phone.
**On further review that was an alien sex doll I ordered off the Internet, and NOT, in fact, Michael Jackson's corpse. Totally unrelated, but I need like a dozen AA batteries. Thanks.

NCAA Conference Realignment

Given the recent spate of coverage across the intertubes regarding the potential for Big 10 expansion and Big 12 dissolution, I offer my remedy:
1. Big 10 takes Mizzou or Pitt to form the Big 12 2.0.
2. If #1 = Pitt, then Big East takes Mizzou or Nebraska (best either can do).
3. Pac 10 scans the carnage and smiles.
4. Texas + TAMU + OU + CU + BYU + filler school to be named later to the new Pac 16. I'm thinking Mizzou is a possibility if still available.
5. KU, KSU, OkSU, TT, and whoever's left of Mizzou/Nebraska plus TCU, Utah, and Wyoming form new Midmajor 8. If Mizzou and Nebraska already out of play consider Houston, with Baylor then joining CUSA.
6. WAC absorbs reamining 5 MWC schools to form 16 team conf.
7. In 10 years Midmajor 8 and Big East merge forming mega basketball conference that dominates the NCAA tournament for decades.

Also, the "Texas to independent" movement may get legs if Texas can come up with a distribution model that pulls in big internet bucks, since it won't be able to get a sweetheart TV deal.

Things I wish I had done for the last time, but probably haven't*

1. Gone to work early in the morning with a King Kong hangover.
2. Laughed at a racist joke.
3. Two chicks at once.
4. Lost my shit in front of my kids.
5. Failed to see how badass my life is.





* It is entirely possible that I have not only never done one of these things in the past, but that the chance of my doing it in the future is somewhere between zero percent and no fuckin' way.

Things I have done (probably) for the last time without realizing it was for the last time*

1. Peed in an oven.
2. Played Scrabble with my grandfather.
3. Two chicks at once.
4. Killed 10,000 June bugs by shooting hoops in the driveway for two hours.
5. Rocked my daughter to sleep.
6. Followed a class of football players from their junior year of high school to their rookie year in the NFL.
7. Made frozen orange juice concentrate with extra sugar.
8. Waltzed.
9. Thought I could do anything I wanted with my life.
10. Thought I could fly.



*It's possible that I may not have EVER done one of these things.

Descriptions of my back spasms

1. As if a great harpy eagle, mistaking me for it's more usual mid-sized prey, had swooped down and dug its claws into my back. Finding itself unable to lift off with its prize as expected the eagle is nonetheless unwilling to relinquish me. Instead, every step I take is interpreted not as a means of going about my daily necessities, bur rather as an attempt at escape, causing the enraged raptor to dig its talons ever deeper.

2. Mealworms. Electric mealworms. Electric mealworms with hooked fangs. Electric mealworms with hooked fangs burrowing into my paraspinal muscles, discharging 90 volts with every undulation.

3. He looks ahead, a wide plain spreading out to the purple horizon. From behind he feels the lash of a dark wind. With the wind comes a black rain that falls, not around him, but on him, and him alone. A rain cold to the point of burning. A million scalding daggers have torn his flesh in minutes.
Behind the rain he can almost see ... something. Something the color of an evil man's soul, with bleeding eyes. Something that is not a Horseman, for this is not the Apocalypse.
No, this that marches with the dark wind and calls forth the black rain is the First Footman of the Mundane. He is Pain. And he comes with dogged determination.

4. My eyes were torn open and I was made to see the Lord. And the Lord spake thus unto me: Anguish! Anguish! for you are a stiff-necked being. Anguish! for you are the barren earth upon which no good thing may grow, no matter the labor. Anguish such as you have caused those whom I love. Anguish, and it shall be better than you deserve.
At this seven times seventy demons all lit upon my back, red in tooth and claw. Seven times seventy teeth did each have and seven times seventy talons. And yay though I suffered the righteous punishment of the Lord did I realize, verily, this sucked.

5. Like a certain relative--constantly annoying and causing discomfort, but stopping just short of setting off a murderous rampage.