Bang For My Buck

Bang For My Buck

For those of you who care, I went home (PA) and played with Good Joe for the first time since January sometime. Well, it's sort of become a tradition that every time we see each other, we play tennis sometime that week. I had left my racket here (MD), so I needed to go buy one, which I had been meaning to do anyway. I shelled out the $40 to get this new lightweight super top spin reach racket that I probably wouldn't be able to use to its advertised capacity. We went to play, and apparently Joe had gotten better. The day before we went to play, when it looked like we weren't going to get a chance to do so, I had lied and told him that I had gotten better also. Anyway, we warmed up a little bit, and he looked really good. I was hoping it was just luck and he'd choke like normal when we met in a game. Well, he took the first two games easily. My new $40 racket sucked ass. I missed a volley at the net to embarrass the last point of those two games out of me. In anger, I hit the top of the net with my racket. I've done this 8,000 times with all my other rackets, other people's rackets, and a clenched fist once or twice too. But this racket was apparently made out of tin or some equivalent alloy. It didn't bend. It dented. It looked like this:
__
-/ \
----/
\___/

You get the point. At any rate, it was no longer usable. So in effect, I paid over $20 a game to lose and play like shit. I haven't consulted Tony, but I imagine that's not a great financial decision. I was pissed, and since the damn thing wasn't worth anything to me anymore, I did what any normal intelligent man would have done. I bashed it to hell. Now it looks more like this:

/ _
--/ \
__
/ /
-\/

Close enough. So anyway, Joe kicked my ass, and I was mighty pissed. When I simmered down enough after getting some Italian water ice, I mustered up the humility to tell him that he had a really nice first two games...

Quote of the Day 7/15/99

"Yeah. Things kinda fell apart after that."

-Beats Me While I'm Down Joe



Now Joe has no racket.

More proof that love stinks,

Coach.


Still Standing Right Here...

Professional Car School Advice

You know, I've finally figured out the secret to my car. It makes a lot of unnatural noises when you try to do certain things in it. Like accelerate. Well, the key to a smooth ride in my car, is to block out those sounds. I've found that turning the music up really loud helps a lot. And I've noticed that if you don't look at the driver's side mirror ever, you can hardly notice that it's falling off. I'm trying to apply this skill to other areas in my life as well. I once read an article that said that taking an aspirin daily with a shot of bourbon reduces a person's awareness of heart attacks. I wonder if this principle also works with dirty laundry. And student loans.

Well, thankfully, one of my best friends happens to be a Car major at GMI Institute (which in its written out form, is General Motor's Institute Institute). So I tell him all the problems I'm having with the car and he says some words I don't understand and I nod my head and go "ooooh, ok," and then we play tennis. Well, he was in the car and asked me if that light was always on. Apparently, there's this light on the car that says "Check Engine" that is just always on (I hope). I told him that it was always on, because I think it might be true, but mostly just because I didn't want him to panic. I asked him if he knew what that meant or how to fix it...


Quote Of the Day 6/18/98

Joe: Oh, yeah. You want to know what would fix that?
Me: Yeah, what?
Joe: A piece of electric tape (as in to cover the little light).


He goes away to Car School to tell me that. His mother must be proud.


Testing the boundaries of child abuse,
Mr. Whistlehead.


Still Standing Right Here...