Relay for Life

Saturday night I trekked it on down to Relay for Life. I'd like to say it was because of my commitment to cancer research, but it was more an attempt to relieve boredom than anything else.

TNJ, a natural at questioning authority, came up with the ingenious plan to reverse the walking direction at midnight. People had been walking counterclockwise around the track since 9 that morning. At midnight mista NJ came out and said, "All right! We're supposed to change direction at midnight!" He convinced the walkers that it was true, and many even walked their first backward lap while wagging their finger in the air in circles to indicate the switch.

Convinced of his i'm-da-shitness, TNJ spent the next 10 minutes musing about how most people blindly follow the crowd through life and don't think for themselves. It seemed a little melodramatic, especially since most people probably don't give a flying fudge which way they walk at Relay for Life. And for some reason the people we played poker with insisted on playing counterclockwise. Here, mista NJ protested, but played on anyway upon finding out that nobody else cared. A contradiction, eh?

This passes for interesting on a Saturday night here.

I'd like to congratulate Bear Pascoe and Tom Bran...stateAAh!, on getting drafted Sunday. Maybe once outside of the valley our boy Tom will blossom. He's a three-year starter, stands 6-5, weighs 230 pounds, and throws the ball on a rope when he wants to. He's a good metaphor for Fresno itself, cuz it really shouldn't suck that bad here! Anyway, if he can get over his mental tendency to completely freak at the first sign of trouble he ought to be good.

More importantly, I'm going to miss getting drunk and yelling his name like that.

Lastly, this swine flu thing is a little creepy. It just came out of nowhere! This time yesterday I'd never heard of it and now I've read four articles about the "pandemic" and it's all over Facebook and everything else. Bird flu, mad cow and SARS ended up being nothing, but I've read The Stand, and I'm still scared.

So, if you are one of the lucky survivors who made it through the swine flu pandemic that killed 99% of the population and you happen to be reading this... look man, don't rebuild Fresno.

(J/K, of course!)