The Reverend

"I can motivate just as easy as I can bring someone down."

The Boston Globe had Speck, with his array of strange quotes I'll always remember. "Where's the wellington, hi-ho?" being the No. 1 most memorable, and oft-repeated, line.

My current job has someone even more quotable. So quotable, in fact, that one of my co-workers keeps a wall of his cubicle covered in post-it notes chronicling the best lines this man mutters.

For the purposes of this blog, we'll call him The Reverend. That's his nickname. And this man knows how to give out nicknames. I am "Willy Lee," an ironic redneck name for someone who is far from a man of the South. Other nicknames include "Shandoor," "Yo-gee," "The Professor," "The Director," "Jitter Bob," "Remo," "Mr. Pink," "Spaniard," and my all-time favorite, "Fritzy," for a guy with Sideshow Bob style hair.

As The Reverend would say: "I don't give nicknames to individuals I don't like."

This man came to America in 1984 from Communist Romania. He's a New York sports fan who happens to be very good at ping pong. He's a no-nonsense individual with a manner of speaking and plethora of phrases I will use in my every day life. Here's a few.

Pork

Used to describe anyone who is disheveled, unseemly, messy, and usually, obese.

Fui

Sounds like fu...wayyy. Used anytime someone burps, farts or says something disgusting. It's used often.

Papa-gallo

Used to describe a clown deserving of no respect.

Criminal element

Used when talking about shady characters like Michael Vick, Plaxico Burress, etc.

Those are just a few of his original phrases. But I'm here today to give you some of his best quotes. Enjoy.

On a man who likes to eat.

"He'll always be a pork. Food is too important to that individual."

On my frequent trips to Boston Market.

"Willy, that is a terrible establishment."

On an injured player.

"Is he broken? He's broken. Cadaver on the field. Career over."

On something that doesn't concern him or matter to him.

"That don't bother me no none."

On a particular co-worker making personal calls to you for a favor

"Any time he calls you, he has filthy reasons."

Here are a couple on his ping pong exploits. He does not lack for confidence.

"Whenever I am down, I rise to the occasion to show I am the superior athlete."

"Wanna lose with your ball or my ball? Your choice."

"When I serve it, I serve it nasty."

"Put any punk in front of me, and I'll beat him like a mutt."

"I made him bleed."

"His name is Alex. I'll take the English out of him. Call him Alejandro."

On someone having a cushy day or afternoon schedule.

"Those are banker's hours."

On someone calling me "Lord Willy" in honor of the Bruins winning the Stanley Cup.

"There ain't no Lord. There's only me, the baddest motherfucker on the planet."

That's all I can recall off the top of my head. There are more.

This guy is endlessly entertaining.

It's about time

The last time I opened the dusty drawers of this blog, there was a functioning American economy.

With hard-working citizens forced to barter human skulls for rat meat, I figure it's time to write something here. Usually I have nothing going on. Spouting off with inane comments on pop culture loses its luster after a while. So it's funny that over the past two months "stuff" has been going on and yet I wrote nothing.

I have failed you all.

Work has been nuts. I'm now somewhat of a supervisor. My dreams of middle-management have been achieved! While my compatriots wander off on their summer vacations, I've held down the fort at the Eye's sports website. Countless columns on the NFL lockouts ceded to countless columns on the craziest Free Agency news orgy I have ever experienced in journalism. I was so drained that I bought beer at 7/11 at 2:30 on a Friday morning and guzzled it out of a brown paper bag. My eyeballs pulsated with a dull pain and my senses were fried and beer provided the only remedy.

You can guess why I've been too lazy/almost suicidal to blog.

Throw on top the always enjoyable process of moving. I haven't packed a single thing yet and I'm almost exhausted. Hiring movers, buying all new furniture, purchasing mandatory renter's insurance, setting up bills ... this new place better be worth it. I move in the day before my first vacation of the year starts, so I will not be able to enjoy my new South Beach penthouse until early September.

I plan on making this an actual 'home.' Not in the sense of a huddled family around the fireplace, but an apartment that isn't just a collection of furniture in front of a television set. With this in mind, I purchased matching sofas and sleek glass-top tables. I might even get a plant or some artwork.

Also, during the last month or so I reconnected with this girl I mentioned in a previous entry. To her dismay, I had not struck big as an Internet entrepreneur nor had I turned into an Alcide-type hunk. The reconnection was mercilessly strangled in its infancy. The one lasting effect from this tired story was a lack of eating.

There were days when a persistent anxiousness dominated my waking hours to such an extent I lost much of my appetite for a period of about four weeks. Yes, I know I have major issues.

Warning: This part will most likely piss you off ...

Backtracking, I weighed roughly 170 pounds in college. I feasted on an almost daily buffet of coffee coolattas, muffins, pizza and pop tarts. I was still a stick figure, but I did not quite resemble a famine victim. Perhaps a malnourished peasant, but not famine. My weight remained consistent through the Florida years until I contracted food poisoning. The morning after that terrible day, the scale was below 150.

I figured I'd gain it back eventually. While some of it returned, a hefty amount of stranded pounds disappeared. The stress of the past few months curtailed my eating further. At this moment, I'm at 153. When I traveled up north for a short period of time in May, many Sears denizens commented on my noticeable thinness. My mom commanded me to eat more.

You know me: I do what mommy says. While I watch what I eat a little bit more than I used to, I no longer care if I drink too many frappuchinos in one week. I enjoy dessert with abandon. I still don't eat lunch, but I consume large dinners. And while I do my fair share of exercising, the intense heat of the Florida summer, combined with constant rain and work-related exhaustion have curtailed physical activity to some extent.

Yet my weight stays the same. I might reach 154 or 155, but that's about the limit. Could I eat nothing but KFC double-downs and watch every episode of the People's Court for a good month and not gain a pound? I'm starting to wonder.

Last week I went to the doctor's office with an ear issue. (The Schaibles might remember my 2006 stay in San Diego which involved a doomed job interview and nothing but Family Guy DVDs for several days ... that malaise occurred in large part to the same ear problem for which I visited the doctor most recently.)

One of the nurses could not even read my blood pressure because my arm was too thin for the flap. She had to get a smaller one. And after the doctor fixed the ears, she asked me how everything else is going. I told her that I cannot gain weight.

She only laughed. "Most people would cut a limb off to lose weight. As you get older, your metabolism will slow down."

She's right of course. But people told me my metabolism would start to slow in the late 20's, yet it is stronger than ever. While God/nature gave me graying hair, the social skills of a wooden chair, gorilla legs and a pipsqueak of a stomach, they also bestowed upon me a world-class metabolism (and a wicked split-finger pitch.)

Odds are my skeletal frame could gradually shrink until I'm nothing but a poor imitation of Benjamin Button. Before that happens, I must fatten myself up. Stay away from stress and hunching over my laptop and blogging more frequently would be a decent start.

Back to the Tercel

My days as a semi-normal human being are over ... for now.

A few weeks ago my bosses told me they were switching me back to the night shift. My time as the early, early morning guy ended today a little past 2 p.m. So goodbye, weekends. Goodbye, 4 a.m. alarm. Goodbye, delicious company breakfasts. Goodbye, sunlight.

While getting up at 4 a.m. and going to bed at around 10 p.m. befits a man of 80, it was still as close to normal as I have ever been since college. I felt like I had the whole day to experience. On days off I woke up at 7 or 8 a..m., a full day to waste. And waste them I did.

Now I head back to sleeping until mid-afternoon, the sun almost ready to set by the time I'm ready to go outside. I head back to Vampire Hours.

It's not all bad. I will be able to watch the mediocre Red Sox now. I will be able to watch live sporting events without fighting to stay awake. Staying up for all the Bruins and Celtics game the past month and a half took a heavy toll. Two days ago I returned to my apartment right after work, plopped into bed and decided to nap 'for a few minutes.' When I woke up, three hours had passed.

This move fills me with no joy, but I guess if I wanted a 9-to-5 job I should have chosen a different profession. Don't you worry about Steve Sears. I will carry on. I will still drink coffee, only this time the caffeine will keep me alert at midnight, not 5 a.m. And I will always appreciate my eight-month respite as a normal human being. It reminds me of the time my craptacular 1988 Toyota Tercel needed repairs and I drove a rental car to high school. I forget the make and model, but it was sweet.

Really sweet.

It's white paint glimmered with that new car shine. Unlike my Tercel, it had a working radio and did not spew a mysterious and probably fatal green gas into the atmosphere. (I am the biggest cause of Global Warming.) The seats weren't torn. It reached 50 mph without shaking violently. Basically, I drove a limo to Cranston East for a few days. It was so sweet I should have been allowed to park in the spots reserved for City Hall employees.

The first morning a girl I liked noticed that I wasn't driving a shitmobile that Tom Joad would refuse to be caught dead in. "Is that your car, Steve?" she asked. Did I say, "Yeah, babe. Jump in the back seat and I give you a tour." No, Jean-Ralphio would say that. I stupidly admitted it was a rental. But my high school failing aren't on trial here.

I only had that car a few days, but it was a marvelous few days. I always knew I'd end up back in that 1988 Tercel back in 2000-2001. Ten years later, same old Tercel.

The cure

I actually did stuff this past weekend, hosting MMA impresario Dave Doyel on a trek to Fort Myers for Red Sox spring training.

Here are the bullet points.

• I did not get lost from the airport.
• I did miss the exit to 75 North, which crosses Florida east to west. Just a small diversion.
• I still did not get lost from the airport.
• I had my first memorable Jacuzzi experience. Where I hung out in Rhode Island and Boston, Jacuzzis were rather rare. Those things are relaxing! Either that, or it sapped all my youthful vigor and turned me into a static prune.
• We sat in the Jacuzzi with a farming couple form Minnesota. The salt of the earth cavorting with evil librul commu-fascists. They were none the wiser.
• I challenged Mr. Doyal to a swim race, assuming a victory. Instead, I was routed. I'm used to some jabroni challenging me on the basketball court, his head filled with hubris, and then quickly and coldly dispatching that hubris. To be on the opposite end is not as enjoyable. I am not a creature of the water.
• We drove around our first night in sprawling, octogenarian Fort Myers looking for a cool place to eat. We ended up at P.K. Sam's aka P.F. Chang's. After more than four years down here, I should know that you don't find cultured eating in this state.
• Game 1 on Friday afternoon. Great seats several rows up near home plate at the spring home of the Minnesota Twins, Hammond Stadium. Carl Crawford didn't make solid contact once and Jonathan Papelbon could not find the strike zone. Recipe for a Red Sox defeat.
• I did get revenge for my loss in the swimming pool with a thrilling win at Smuggler's Cove mini-golf course. I started out hot, went into a slump, but then turned on my Ironwill O'Houlihan motor to pull out a one-shot victory.
• We met up with some of Dave Doyil's Harvard buddies, one who used to work as a hawk back in the pre-Sears days. Dark, dark times. I heard of a scoring scandal and a hilarious story involving Sport Joe. For more details, you'll have to ask nicely.
• One of the guys thought about being a journalist but instead went into consulting. He asked if he made the right choice. After laughing uproariously, I asked him, "Do you like money?" He nodded. I asked, "Do you like living like a normal human being?" He said yes. So I told him he made the right decision.
• This group of Boston-educated Red Sox fans ended up at the Fire Pit, one of those cookie cutter restaurants that tried its hardest to appear trendy and appealing. Mediocre food. While we left, they were setting up the place into a nightclub. During the day, I hear it's a library and a BINGO hall. (I've been watching too much Larry Sanders.)
• The next day was a trip to City of Palms Park, the site of the Boston Red Sox. We packed into the right field bleachers and baked in the sun while we (mostly me) tried to find as many non-Caucasians attending a Red Sox game as possible. And I found a few.
• I was there for Adrian Gonzalez's first at-bat in a Red Sox uniform, a solid single. The game went very well, even John Lackey pitched like a professional.
• The one player who stood out in both games was by far Jacoby Ellsbury. He smashed the ball all over the field in the two games we saw, including a home run against the Marlins.
• After the game, NESN reporter Heidi Watney walked right by us. Just thought I'd mention that.

In summation, you can't beat a few days of spring training baseball in wonderful Florida weather with likable people. And while Fort Myers has its faults, Dave said, "I could see myself loving to live here when I'm 70."

Indeed.

After last week's unfortunate events, this little excursion was the perfect elixir. Now it's time to enter the chaos that is mid-March at my job. It begins Thursday.

My search for steroids

Four o'clock in the morning is a desolate time of darkness and disrepute.

The streets are empty. The world is still in slumber. And I would be joining the world if it weren't for the pesky fact I need a job to pay for all my addictions.

Sometimes I'm so damn tired it hurts. I'll be sitting at my desk banging my head against any hard surface I'll find. I'll slap myself awake, rub my eyes like I'm scrubbing a bathtub. This isn't every morning, but it happens enough.

The cure for this? Well, caffeine, right? It's the steroids, the performance enhancing drug for the working stiff. If caffeine disappeared, our whole society would collapse. Besides soda, I don't tend to drink caffeine-enriched beverages. And drinking soda that early is not an option for me. Another complication: I just don't like coffee.

So where do I get my steroids?

My first experiment was Red Bull. It doesn't taste great, but I can deal with it. It worked those first few days, but then my body began to reject that stuff like Dikembe Mutombo. More than a few times a feeling of pretty intense chest-tightness attacks bombarded me hours after imbibing the liquid crack. I felt like my heart was about to shoot out of my chest. It was scary.

So I stopped my Red Bull affair.

For the next two weeks or so I just willed myself awake when those moments of tempting slumber beckoned me. My world famous Sears will, just the power of my mind. That's all I had.

Then ol' pal Z.C. Hossem came to town. While he has many talents, the one thing he strikes out on is recommending drinks for me. From the pure piss that was Speckled Hen to the rum-and-coke and the Bloddy Mary, he's been like that buddy in the romantic comedy who gives terrible girl advice to the moping male hero and laughs at the disaster sure to come.

He vowed to take me to Starbucks and introduce me to a coffee that could add some zip in the mornings. He ordered a venti hazelnut something and added a bunch of other stuff to it. It wasn't too bad, to tell you the truth.

My quest for caffeine was over.

Then after I dropped him off at the airport that day, I had another ... incident while driving back home. The closest thing I could describe it as is a panic attack, which I've had. Chest tightness, my heart acting wild and a kind of caged energy that turned my limbs tingly and a little numb. If not for the traffic on US-1 I would have had to pull over. It lasted almost a half-hour and lingered the rest of the night.

Thankfully, Zach's attempt on my life failed.

This was the final straw. I had to see the doctor about this. I figured it had something to do with what I was drinking, but I needed to be sure.

My hypothesis was correct. The doctors ran tests, even an EKG, and everything was normal. It was the caffeine. Had to be. The day I went to the doctor, I tried a small Dunkin' Donuts iced coffee and I was shaking like a kid on a sugar high.

"You need to drink decaf," the doctor told me.

Yes, I guess I do.

What she didn't tell me but what I know to be the truth now?

"You should've stayed with coffee milk."

How the other half lives

I am on the 80-year-old man schedule.


At 4 a.m., with the sun yet to rise, I awake to prepare for the hustle and bustle of another day in the rat fast-walk. With the help of some Red Bull and intestinal fortitude (for which I am famous) I manage to keep my eyes open long enough to last until 2 p.m.


Then I get home and feel like napping the rest of the day. Perhaps, if the will arises, I will watch the beginnings of a sporting event on TV until I decide to call it a night anywhere between 9:30 and 11 p.m.

I have the same routine as my dad. He's 78.

This new life - the life of a regular, sunlight-enjoying worker bee - has been eye opening. I'm like Ryan Atwood staying in the guest house of the well-to-do Cohens. I have no idea how I got here, but I'm thankful for the opportunity. And I'm brooding about my inner-pain.

Look at all the things my release from the night prison has allowed me to do.

First, I was able to attend a Goo Goo Dolls concert. Yes, the Goo Goo Dolls are still rocking the adult alternative charts. Switchfoot even opened for them. There was a guy with a t-shirt that said, "Boobies make me smile." The crowd groaned audibly whenever one of the Goos said the following words: "Here's a new song ..." All those people enjoying themselves on a sweltering Miami evening ... and little ol' me accompanied them. On a Saturday no less!

Then on Sunday, I saw a matinee showing of Inception. I enjoyed all the thought that must have went into that film. And I saw where the ending was going to go in general terms. It was a Sunday afternoon and I was not buried in an avalanche of baseball recaps. Instead, I sat next to a large man with a keg of popcorn. The real life.

I wake up on the weekends and feel the mid-morning sun and realize I have a whole day to waste, instead of just half of one.

And then I relaxed in the sauna that is the 6 p.m. Florida heat and finished the Lisbeth Salander trilogy. I admit I was sad to say goodbye to those quirky, kinky, coffee-swilling Swedes. I felt like they were true friends and when I read the last words I teared up a little, as if I were giving a goodbye hug at an airport.

So there you have it. A honest weekend in South Florida, my first since November of 2006, before Barack Obama ruined the earth with his Islamic socialism and Asante Samuel ruined my dreams with his dropped interception. A full week of semi-normalcy.

Granted, as a result of my early early EARLY bird hours, I am currently drooling all over my Toshiba and my eyelids weigh more than Albert Haynesworth (hey-o!), but it's a price I'm willing to pay.

As long as I have my Red Bull.

The surrender

I'm a Twitter-er. Sigh.

My overlords at CBS strongly suggested we all join Twitter. It's the future, you know? I need to know the latest BS rumors about baseball trades and I need to see athletes murder the English language day after day, minute after minute. So I gave in after years of Twitter-phobia and joined.

You can find me at Evenflow226.

I've only been on for a few hours and already Twitter is annoying me. Every time I click on something, I get the "Secure Connection" warning, on both my home and work computers. And I'm following MLB so does that mean I have to see every single person's re-tweet or whatever it's called?

Ah, whatever. It's late. I'll look into it more tomorrow after I fall asleep drenched in my tears of shame.

Morning guy

Remember how I said I was frazzled beyond repair just a few days ago?

How things can change.

Thanks to some recent upheaval at my place of employment, I, Stephen R. Sears, will be taking over the morning shift.

After years of coming in at 5 p.m. or 7 p.m. and leaving at 2 or 4 in the morning, my new shift calls for me to come in at 5 a.m. Which means I won't be able to sleep until 11 or noon anymore, nor will I get to stay up until 3 a.m. to see a seven-inning Yankees-Red Sox game.

Not to be trite, but my whole life is about to flipped upside down. Our work hours dictate how we live, when we go to bed, when we wake up, when we eat. From working at the Globe to CBS, I've grown accustomed to my late hours, my vampire existence. I'm used to missing most of the day, missing out weeknight activities and generally walking around in a no-man's land surrounded by smug 9-to-5'ers.

I won't exactly be a 9-to-5 person either, but it's the closest I'm going to be in a while.

Of course this will take some time to get used to. I won't be able to stay up and watch Monday Night Football, the Daily Show or World Series games. If I do, I will certainly pay for it the next day. My nightly co-workers, of whom I've grown fond over the past four years or so, could disappear from my life. I'll go from joking around with them every day to nearly never running into them.

But ... I will have weekends off. I will be able to watch most Patriots games in peace. I will leave work and still have hours of sunlight ahead of me. I might be able to do stuff. Going to bed at the grandfatherly time of 10 p.m. will suck at first, but the benefits are enormous.

My colleagues have been congratulating me on my new life. I can tell some of them, even my boss, were wondering why I didn't seem ecstatic. Little do they know I rarely get ecstatic over anything besides sports. When I'm not watching a game, I tend to be very stoic and guarded. People always wonder why I don't seem happy when they give me good news. I am, but my mind just immediately reverts to an assessment phase. (Also, I'm incapable of human emotion.)

I wondered: What does this mean? How am I going to handle this? How can I make sure I don't screw this up?

That's what happened on Friday when I heard the news. This will be such a monumental change, a complete 180 of the last seven or so years of my life, that I'm not jumping up and down. It has yet to sink in. I'm content and very satisfied I will be able to live like a normal human being for however long I have this shift. I know that much.

It's not permanent, but it's a great break. Time to see how the other side operates.

And time to start liking coffee.

Frazzled

This year I've been trying the no-vacation thing. I don't recommend it.

In an effort to pay down my credit card, and because I didn't have any grand plans, I have not traveled at all this year. I hate wasting vacation days here on stay-cations so I haven't taken any since early January.

My boss will throw me a day off here and there, but I haven't had a true vacation in 2010. Mostly by choice. I was able to pay off my credit cards, which was a very proud moment for me. That New Zealand trip, among other things, put me in a hole that I wanted to climb out of. Those zeros in my credit card bills lasted two weeks until my car needed nearly a thousand dollars in repairs.

It wasn't meant to be.

Now with July counting down, the toll is demanding to be paid. Work has been insane, for many reasons which I can't elaborate. Lots of people coming, lots of people going, resulting in radical change and the confusion it creates.

Why don't I just take a week off for myself? Good question. I just can't do it. Wasting valuable vacation days I could use later is an anathema to me. It robs me of the opportunity to complain, and that's not what I'm doing. In a roundabout way, I'm just letting you know what's going on in the world of Steve and why this space is looking like the Rhode Island Mall lately.

(Yeah I love that joke.)

I just feel like a zombie. You would be too if you had to watch Hideki Okajima and Manny DelCarmen everyday.

A mini-vacation does await in early October for my sister's wedding. I look forward to it. In the meantime, I have no idea what I'm gonna write about here since I'm so exhausted when I come home from work. Be warned if updates are scarce from here on out.

King Pong

Brookline, 2005-2006. Parkway Road. Known to house the law firm of Sears, Schaible, Hosseini & Briston. Infamous for its $100 dollar parking spot or the crazy cat lady landlord who tried to have us thrown out or the bat in the kitchen that sent me screaming to my room or the “Lost Winter” of the Sopranos or the fact I spent a good week cleaning up the apartment for the security deposit only to have the cat lady give me the money without even checking the work I had done.

(Whew, talk about a run-on sentence.)

It actually was a fine little place, even though a public toilet in Fallujah would have been the Ritz Carlton compared to that rat-infested basement we occupied in Jamaica Plain.

But this little apartment is best known for its ping pong table. Purchased on a whim by the Hossschaib duo and painted with delicate care by Schaibleangelo in a grandiose Celtics pattern, the ping pong table stood in what was supposed to be a dining room. It housed many a grand ping pong battle. You can guess who lost most of the matches. That damn Hosseini spin still gives me nightmares.

Like a band in a Behind the Music feature, the glorious early rise led to days of drug abuse and sexual diseases. Actually, the table just got covered with mail we were too lazy to open. It was followed by a bitter custody battle straight out of Kramer vs. Kramer and is now rumored to reside in Gansettshire in Rhode Island, burned out on crack but still hoping to relive the glory days.

That was my first real taste of the ping pong bug. I thought it came and went. But then CBSSports.com moved into a new office equipped with a game room. The game room has a ping pong table. Now we play on a daily basis.

You can guess who loses most of his matches. (Do I ever win at anything you might ask? Yes, English awards, Oscar pools and Royal Rumble 1994 tickets.)

One of my co-workers is crazy, Forrest-Gump good at ping pong. A few others just consistently beat me. I do have a usual playing partner, a guy named Neil who is very much like Grimey. (Another story.) Anyway, when we first started playing I beat him consistently with my strategic style. Others tend to describe me as the Jamie Moyer of ping pong.

Let’s just say my game is not known for its speed. Then something bad happened. This Neil guy got very good and now he has turned the tables. Many of our matches are instant classics, but I still end up on the losing end more often than not. He has a wicked backhand winner to go with his lefty style.

My big problem is returning fast serves. I always hit them long. Another problem is my inability to hit the ball hard and accurately. It’s not my spaghetti arms or pre-teen girlish strength. No, any time I try to hit a sharp winner, I hit the ceiling, the net or my opponent’s groin.

Lately, I’ve improved on that, but not enough to put myself in the win column consistently.
All this losing grates on me. I know it’s just a silly little game played with paddles and a small ball, but I want to win. I’m not insanely competitive, but I don’t like losing. I take it well on the outside, but on the inside I’m flailing my arms and screaming, “Not like this!”

During games with better opponents, I’ll hit several good returns and volleys only to have my moves halted. I’ll end up hitting the net or hitting it out of bounds sooner or later. This is when I get outwardly frustrated. I collapse like Eric Gange. If I were a reliever, I’d start balking guys and giving up grand slams. If I’m playing great but someone hits the bare edge of the table, I go into a big funk. I just can’t help it. I’m not cut out for such rigorous athletic competition.

I only hope I can improve to a point where I win every now and then against the big boys. And there are some big boys here. The company is even having a bracket-style ping pong tournament. I wasn’t good enough to make it, so I’m thinking of starting the CBSSports ping pong NIT. Maybe I can be the best of those who suck.

I will get better. I vow to get better, to work on my game, to train like Rocky or Rich Garces. I will become King Pong, if only to honor the Mona Lisa of ping pong tables that decorated our memorable Brookline confines. I’ll never forget you, buddy.

Hell week

You need a status update. That's why I'm here.

How have I been lately? Not great actually. For those not in the sports journalism industry, the first two days of the NCAA tournament are beyond insane. Black Friday times two. We all dread this time of year. You have fun with your brackets and non-stop games. It's a hell of a lot of work for us. Game after game piled on each other with columns coming out of every corner of the nation. By Friday night I was exhausted. By Saturday night, I was catatonic. For proof, I went to bed at 1 in the morning, which is like a person who usually goes to bed at 11 going to bed at 7. And then I slept the next 10 or so hours and never felt like getting out of bed.

Now, the day before that, I actually celebrated St. Patrick's Day. You know I'm not a big drinker so the day has never meant much to me, but some friends love it so I hung out with them. St. Paddy's Day in Florida is quite different than it is in say, West Warwick. Some of the outfits I saw the women of Fort Lauderdale wearing that night were crazy. I can't begin to describe it without getting an NC-17 rating.

To cap the night off, we saw Badfish, the Sublime cover band. Never been huge on Sublime, but the show was good. The crowd was really into it and there might have been some of the marijuana floating around that building. I came away from that night thinking that Fort Lauderdale sure love its Irish holiday, more so than I thought it would. And that Sumblime fans love the grass. Who knew?

Anyway, after two long days of non-stop basketball, a cold/sore throat made its way around the office. I caught it about Saturday night and it got really bad on Monday and Tuesday. As I write this, I'm just getting over it. Another two off days down the drain, but I did get a lot of good TV watching in my jam-packed schedule.

(I never caught on to the Ricky Gervais podcasts for whatever reason. Now I realize how stupid I was. The show on HBO that replays them with animation has me in tears, literally. Some may think the animation is stupid, but it cracks me up as well.)

So the past seven days have been tiring, but the passage of the Socialist grandparent killing health care bill definitely lifted my spirits. The Dems actually got something done! I'm amazed. This is the first major piece of social legislation since the 1960s. And now the Republicans, knowing they're on the wrong side of history yet again, are losing their damn minds. While it's scary for the country, I am taking a bit of satisfaction in all this. Maybe November won't be such a disaster after all ... The Republicans need another electoral ass kicking so they can realize how low they have sunk.

In closing, a week where the Democrats lift my spirits (along with a very good episode of Lost that actually told us something) is definitely a weird week, isn't it?

Something to add

Oops. I meant to include some photos of the old office so you could compare and contrast. Since I don't feel like going back into my previous post, I'll just add them here.

See the improvement?

Movin' on up

Last week, CBS Interactive moved to its brand new, state-of-the-art office. Knowing that you are dying for pictorial evidence and since I'm such a helpful person, I decided to take a few snapshots.

Right away, this is a huge improvement. Our old office had "Pizza Fusion" emblazoned above its front entrance, something that bristled everyone at CBS. Now we have a sign. It's a start.

The Octotron. The heart of the new office, this behemoth boasts of eight flat-screen televisions poised over a conference table we in the newsroom use for our weekday budget meetings. It's very possible this thing is a Decepticon and will kill us all. I just gave Michael Bay the idea for Transformers 3.

I took these on a Saturday night, so the office is mostly empty, except for us copy desk folk. These are a few of my workmates who are pretending to be very busy for the camera.





My desk. Some random things on my desk: Family Guy birthday cards, a Patriots pennant, a penguin, a Jack Bauer card, a mini rugby ball and an autograph from Patriots legend Roosevelt Colvin.









Most of the other desks look like this. Many others come equipped with their own HD television sets. Good for them.




The cafeteria, a huge improvement over the old one because it's a cafeteria. A place to eat. We only had a small room with two tables and some vending machines in the former office. Look at the pretty colors!


The Game Room. This is sweet. A pool table. A Nintendo Wii. Foozeball. And a ping-pong table. Is it the Mono Lisa of ping-pong tables? No, that honor rests with the Schaible-Hosseini masterpiece (or the Hosseini-Schaible project, pending litigation). It'll be tough to find time to come here all that often during working hours, but this is still the best part of the new building.

So there you go. The new place is a big improvement. The carpet is fresh. The office has that new office smell. There's light. There's openness. There are TVs bigger than thumbnails. Some small issues include not being able to get into the building without calling someone to let you in. Small hiccup. Our cards don't work on the outside door. The new phones are not working perfectly yet, either. Neither are some computers.

For the most part, the move went smoothly and some people worked around the clock (like Harrison Ford) to meet the target date. All in all, we're happy with our new digs. Aren't you jealous?

Yeah baby!

I have finally found my true love.

And her name is Samsung.

See that beauty? She's a sensual, tender being. And I've been spending a lot of time with her. Too much time, actually. You could say I'm whipped.

I've wanted one of these for years, and with a little Christmas help, I finally went out and bought one. She's a 42-inch plasma. And to keep her company, I purchased a Blu-Ray DVD player. My first Blu-Ray movie? L.A. Confidential. It looked amazing.

For the past few nights, I've played 24 on my new toy. I'm used to watching my favorite show on a small TV screen, so to see it in large HD format is a delight.

It's been a busy week for me, and I'm not used to busy weeks. First, I bought this TV and the TV stand upon which she rests. Then I put it all together. Then I waited in line for almost an hour to retrieve the HD cable box. Meanwhile, CBSSports.com is moving out of its old office this week. We move Wednesday. We took semi-mandatory classes on how to use the new phones. I've done my self and peer evaluations. The temperature in Florida has hit the 30s and the state is in panic mode.

I even watched the first half of that abomination in Foxborough. My first HD football event. The images looked great. The Patriots ... that's another story.

It's safe to say I won't be leaving the apartment for the next few months other than to eat, work and yell at kids for playing on my lawn. What reason do I have to venture out into the dangerous sun light?

I've found The One.

Closing time

My biological sports clock is telling me something.


After eight months of watching baseball, reading about baseball and editing countless numbers of baseball stories and columns, I am ready for the season to end. More than ready.


It's not the bitter Red Sox fan in me saying this. But Thanksgiving is coming up. I just booked my trip back home for Christmas. The clocks are ready to fall back.


And yet, on October 28th, the World Series is starting.


My instinct tells me the season should be almost over. The World Series should be at Game 5 or 6. The season awards should be coming up and I can finally get a break from five-page baseball columns every single day. But no, the World Series hasn't even begun.


Major league baseball is not a well-oiled machine. We all know this. There should be a salary cap, but there won't. Games should start earlier, but they don't. Games should not go 3 1/2 hours on average, but they do. There should not be off-days in a playoff series when neither team travels, but there are. So who can be surprised that this World Series will go into November?


Back when I was living in the Northeast, I would always start expecting winter to end in mid-March. By then I was always ready not to freeze my ass off just on my walk to the car. By late August I was ready for school. Not excited, but ready. Now in Florida, I'm ready for the 1,000 degree days we get every summer to end by the time we hit late October. (Not much luck in that department this year.)


So the fact that the World Series is only starting today just does not make natural sense. In a few hours, I will head into work knowing I will probably be there for 12 hours without a break, hoping my legs don't calcify from the lack of movement while waiting for our last column to come in at 3 a.m.


I love baseball and I appreciate the fact that something so great is part of my job. But I'm more than ready for the season to end. It's October 28th for crying out loud.