This Sabres west coast road trip is making me think of the days when I was a bum. Back then in '98-01 I had NHL Center ice and was up at this hour regularly. Catching the L.A. Kings games was something I got sucked into for some strange reason.

Although looking back I can say it may have been the ease of living off of my parents grief. Although being a semi nihilist that experience didn't bring too much joy in and of its self at the time. The one aspect I loved was the more laid back announcers on Fox Sports West and the different commercials. Just watching a Carl's Jr. ad brought some strange joy to me. Just worrying about what game I was betting on and other weird stuff was all I worried about. The scary part is that back then I totally gave up on women. I had 0, zilch, nada or at least prospects for getting any.

Looking back I would just shake my self if I had a time machine. Especially now that I'm so much older and can actually find someone to at least hang and maybe more with ease. Oh, how things change.

The sad part is now the way scheduling is done Northeastern teams may not get out to the west coast for another 6 years. So unless a game is on Versus, which just isn't the same I will have to wait a while for some mid week late night hockey. That is unless I feel ike throwing away a few hundred bucks for the NHL Center Ice package.

Why watching the Sabres play the Ducks and Kings the last couple days brought all of this back to me? I don't know...

Holy F'n S**t!

Is all I can say after getting out of Lewiston Town Court tonight.

Got pulled over by a trooper in December on the way to work. He seemed like a smug new cop but didn't think much of it. Then as I go tonight for "trial" he offers me a "deal" that would only give me 2 points! Yea, well at this point I'm almost about to ask for counsel but I decide to take my chances with the judge. As he was asking me about what I was going to plead to a faliure to use 4 way flashers I played the "not understanding the consequences of the plea deal thing." Then the judge looks up that section and realized that it is now how they do business in the town. Body language tilts back and then he gives a, "let me see if I can do this for you..." thing. I then get offered the usual parking ticket & school deal like everyone else got throught the night. SOLD! or more like "Guilty, Your Honor"

Standing up to a Trooper in court was a Freaking scary experience as I was pretty much shaking though out the whole thing. The guy looked like he wanted to kick my ass for sort of making him look like a overzealous storm trooper. If I was going to pay up the nose for insurance I would have been better off going with a lawyer at that point. But I got the typical Lewiston deal which is all I wanted and for once I actually came though in a "Balls Check."

The funny thing is that there was this older teenager behind me with her Mom. She was just like take it and pay without putting up a stink. Yea, I just love this town where people just build McMansions and pay whatever bill comes in the mail without ever scrutinizing it.

In the end I was just reminded of my true self always being extremely skeptical of authority. Plus I have realized from my new job that just because someone has a position of authority doesn't necessarily guarantee they know what the F they are doing. I guess he learned how things work in regards to traffic violations in the town of Lewiston anyway; Since I guess he was following some crazy State guideline/procedure to raise more $ for them and not for the Town.

Moral of the story: Don't get pulled over by a State Trooper on a State Road. There are some guys that want to throw the book @ you to get all that money you are going to pay directed to Albany instead of your local municipality .

(e:carolinian) and I went out on Saturday to the Sabres game. Obviously we have to give him credit for showing up @ HSBC in his Red & Black.



Sitting in the 200 level does open you up to many things that the regular folk do not experience. The magic of cable television.



Instead of waiting in traffic we decided to check out what Artvoice has been screaming about at the Buffalo Creek Casino.



It is scary that I could breath better given the smoking situation in the Old Pink than I could in that place. All I can say is that everything that they said about the place is true and I'll leave it at that for now.

Afterwards before I droped him off we stopped by Essex St and I basically ran into a Lewiston reunion. Low and behold I ran into an old friend of mine that is now bar tending there on Saturday nights J*. Running into that guy is like uncovering an old journal that you kept hidden or "friends only" for LJ people. It didn't hurt that 2 other people from L-ton.

Driving home was actually an interesting experience. There is nothing like feeling as if you are traveling through some inter dimensional warp. Not noticing where you are because of the blinding snow and having time vertigo due to not being where you should be given the amount of time you have been traveling in the car. It was just fortunate that the back roads were empty since the name of the game is avoiding the bad winter drivers.

If anyone is bored I'll be @ Broadway Joe's catching The Karma Police. It's been almost a year since I have caught one of their shows and supposedly they learned some new material off of the "free" album they just released.

Narrator: "On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero." Yea the 90's are an ancient memory, what's next Jennifer Aniston going Grey like Anderson Cooper?
I almost want to cry.

This article made me laugh my ass off. :-D Yes you can get really "Fucked Up" in Niagara Falls Ontario Canada. You need to have some sense of equilibrium. Then I guess these kids that go to UB never had to anything to prepare them from wherever they grew up. Then again we didn't have Eastern Euros selling themselves when I was a teenager. Although I never have participated in such an exchange of commerce, knowing the going market rate they are getting a bargain compared to Las Vegas.

This article made me think of this quote.




It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail.
Gore Vidal
US author & dramatist (1925 - )

It just reminds me of how some people make a ton of money at the racetrack by betting long shots. They collect when the masses go down in flames. Or the guys that have been hoarding gold or cash for the last 5 years that are going to buy up all of the foreclosed homes stemming from the credit crunch.

We all can't prosper together. Ok, maybe we all can under some kind of socialism but still we aren't happy if we are all bunched in between 1 standard deviation. We are truly programed to keep score in this zero sum game called the world.

Seriously I am watching Missouri and Kansas play each other on Prime time for the possibility of playing for the National Championship or whatever they call Division 1 these days

On another note I saw Perry Ferrel & 50 Cent do the pre-game intro song.

If you told me in 1997 that Perry Ferrel would be doing a song with a rapper for a college football game with Kansas & Missouri competing for the national title in late November I would told you that you got some really freaky drugs in your system.

Also as someone who roots for the underdog I don't know who to root for, since both teams have sucked for the past 100 years LITERALLY!

In coming back from my little Thanksgiving excursion over to Canada the bridge was pretty busy for a Thursday night. Then I realized, they are coming over for the Black Friday Event over at the Fashion Outlets in Niagara Falls. Yes in a half hour they are going to open the doors to the madness.

The ironic part is from the info that a friend of mine's sister who is a manger @ Pac Sun in that mall they did this at the request of the CANADIANS!!! Since they always complained that once they got over the bridge all the good bargains were gone. Yes I'm Canadian but I find it wrong they they come over request an earlier start time and make the poor people in retail take a quick nap after dinner and go into work right NOW.

The reason why my small family went over there today for dinner was just for the fact that I didn't want to feel guilty in exploiting someone's labor to serve me a meal on a Holiday. To them it's just another day, for us it's a pretty sacred holiday & the Midnight madness just reinforces to me why X-mas is just nothing but an economic indicator on the economy. "What was Wal-Mart's Same Store Sales Projection?" "A cold holiday season will result in a bigger bottom line as people snap up winter coats & accessories"

I'm just glad I'm pretty much Christmas to my family is very much a quiet event. To be out there in a few hours smacking people around to save a few bucks to show how generous, aka how much you love someone is just not me.

On to the post that I have had bottled up for a while. On Friday night I went out with my friend D* and early on it was a blast as I ran into an (e:strip)per @ SoHo and seeing them is always a pleasurable time.

Then after a while we moved to Diablo and that's when things got really bad. Out there I ran into another (e:strip)per and then things just blew up. Apparently I can't speak to this person. Yea there is some really F'd up shit between the two going back many years ago but all I was doing was attempting to get a bottled water @ the bar. The place happened to be crowded beyond belief and I was already waiting 15 minutes for a drink. What was I to do move to the other end and wait 30 minutes? All I can say is I am glad that we never got married as my life would be totally miserable. One day she will learn that only she can make herself happy. I can only go so far as a friend and that seems to be in short supply to her as it is triggering so many negative emotions in her life.

Saturday I hit up (e:carolinian) @ Grandma Mora's to celebrate his b-day. It became a nice "couple's" evening as I brought my Ex with me and it turned out wonderfully. One one level it made me feel mature to be hanging with a couple of couples, although my Ex and I are not together. It made me sad that the relationship just was not compatible on a few levels but in the end I do realize that honestly it is in out best interests that we are not together. There is the old saying of someone, "being in love with love." I just see the upside of being in a relationship with someone socially and professionally, even though the other working parts are not compatable. What is that called? A marriage of Convenience? Yes I do wish I had a wife that was the total package. For the last 2 serious relationships I had there was only 1/2 of the picture and I went from one end of the spectrum to the other. My was was "hot" but had a shitty personality and sucked in bed. My Ex GF is not as physically attractive as her but had a great personality and rocked in bed. Of course there were other intangibles that I won't get into but, yea...

Today I ended up stopping by a co-worker of a long time friend and his wife. She's pretty interesting in the sense that she's in related to very high level politicians in this country but only through marriage. Really we don't talk about much intellectually as she is in some ways a "Falls Chick" but at the same time she is pretty hot in other ways. Also in hanging with her is it kind of a favor to my friend as his wife as they are trying to get to that ideal "couples hanging out" situation as described above. They just don't have that as an option given where they live/work. So in their wisdom they set us up attempting to get us to that point. To be honest I'm just having fun and deep down all parties involved know that but I do see myself just having to push her away eventually. She's fun, but really there isn't the mental stimulation or at least I don't see it yet.

So with my Dad off today I decided to attempt to do something. First off I originally went to Casino Niagara to mess around a bit. Well that attempt just fell flat on its face. The place was DEAD, the only people in the joint were really old and obviously on some bus tour. When I saw that the poker room only had 3 tables going i basically said F-This.

My next stop was the Bratford OLG Casino outside of Hamilton. It was the first time ever being there and I must say it was pretty descent. Really it was just nice but not elegant and the staff & other players were a bit laid back as opposed to Niagara Falls Ontario casino's where they are extremely anal with everything they do. I ended up losing some cash waitiing for a seat to open on on Poker and then played a pretty solid game of 2-5 Limit. A game that is pretty much extinct in Niagara Falls as most young bucks want to wear expensive designer sunglasses and warm up suits & play No Limit. I just don't feel like betting 300 a hand, I can last all day and lose it slowly thank you very much.

So I ended stopping back in Hamilton to grab a slice of peppeoni & munch on other stuff inside a Pizza Pizza on Upper James. It was a slice, drink, chips & aero bar combo for $5. Then it dawned on my, Aero bars are not for sale in the USA.


Next I decided to be a bit nostalgic and drive by my late Grandparents house. It's in the neighborhood of the original Tim Hortons. So as a public serivce to all that are addicts of their coffee I bring you thing. The Canadian version of Springfield Illinois, if you are looking at it from an iconic food & beverage standpoint a la McDonald's