so many things, so many things...

never give blood without having a long-sleeved shirt on or a jacket with you. i did this today, and wound up walking through two record stores and a grocery store with my silly-looking purple (go cats) wrap around my right forearm - you have to wait four hours to take off the wrap, they say. just looks silly, like i'm bragging about doing a good deed or something. (that bragging was unintentional, this is not.)

got my first extended chance to listen to pat and ron today. observations:

- did they really change the broadcast-opening song!?..."chicago, chicago, chicago cubs. chicago, chicago, chicago cubs." i believe it went something like "everyone loves the cubs! everyone loves the cubs!" i had heard this song on saturday with the boy, and it appears that the change has been made. a sad day. sadder than the inevitable day that "riddlin', diddlin', and country fiddlin' " gets removed from the bernstein and boers open.

- ronny, who's apparently lost eight straight attendance games, said "before the game, david kaplan...david kaplan?---" pat: "yes, david kaplan"---ron: "said that we have a lot of fun with that attendance game. well. i can tell you that i'm having no fun with this game." pat: "and i'm having no fun watching your pain..."

- approximately 812, pat and ron had the inevitable wiki gonzalez conversation. (i believe i heard it last year as well.) ron: "where did he get that name?" pat: "maybe he worked in a candle factory." ... flash forward 38 minutes, as damian miller slides around a tag at the plate... ron, referring to wiki (pronounced wick-y) gonzalez: "that's a catcher against a catcher, and i think damian got the best of kiki (pronounced key-key)." hey, we don't love 'im because he's a genius, we love 'im because he loves his team.

i never understood the book when i read it, but i believe i had what could be called a the sound and the fury experience today, courtesy of my good friend flax, who includes his good friend jan on flax's recently-created "friends" page.

point is, out of boredom, i visited jan's page earlier this evening, revealing an incredible retelling of a previously-told story. this previously told story is about the 1800 club's weekly trivia contest...

i have first read about this contest on my good friend nemo's website (see april 17 entry). here, nemo writes such pearls such as "We answered 26 of 42 questions correctly, finishing second behind a team featuring quiz bowl ace and geek extraordinaire Jan Zasowski. We learned that Arkansas is the Land of Opportunity and that there were two Opium Wars."

here, it sounds as if nemo is simply a bitter loser, reverting to closet insults of the victor.

however...a different perspective, courtesy of jan, shown here (see 2003.04.16 [ed: geeky indeed!] entry): "It was remarkably easy, as we never trailed and ended up winning by 3 points (even with a few boneheaded second-guesses). By the end, people at the other tables were yelling "Quiz Bowl" at us." [ed: bold added].

sounds to me like the bitterness was public, and perhaps ugly.

[by the way, jan adds this: "Also, let me just say that I did not spend several years being fucked in the ass by burly men in order NOT to win money at trivia contests." i find this statement notable, although i shall not comment on it.]

anyway, i just find it interesting to hear a two-sided perspective of such riveting things such as college town trivia contests.

finally, i often download music that i think i should hear, but that i don't think i'll want to buy. music that i wouldn't normally buy, but i'd like to experience. some of this is techno (dj shadow, etc.), some of this rap (cannibal ox, for instance), and some of this is just other stuff that i've heard about (the shaggs, ed harcourt, numerous others...). usually these records go un-listened-to (robbie fulks' country love songs, for instance) or eventually get deleted (ben folds' rockin' the suburbs, an enjoyable listen, fits this category). in some instances, i've downloaded the not-yet-released album that i knew i would buy, probably on release date (guided by voices' universal truths and cycles, the strokes' is this it?).

anyway, the streets' original pirate material was one of the early categories, the should hear but won't buy category. today, it became the first to make the breakthrough. yes, i purchased, because i simply had to have it. just hear it. just do it. it's so good.