There is no joy in Mudville

Never before have I looked at February as such a long month. Twenty eight days? Spare me. While it may be the shortest month of the year, for people like me, it feels like the longest. It started with Sunday. As the Superbowl ended and New Orleans exploded in a fit of ecstasy, I came to a startling realization.

I have nothing but basketball until that glorious day when the Mets will, for the 7,645th time in history, fail to throw a no hitter. The fifth of April.

I'll be honest with you, Xanga, I'm not an average baseball fan. I'm the sort to line up early just for batting practice. I'll stand for hours on end rather than go to my seat simply because of the proximity of the home run porch to center field. I am the fan with the signs pleading for belief in the team, no matter how shallow the bullpen is or how weak the starting rotation is. I will put my players on a pedestal and tear them down when they abandon us for greener pastures. I won't lie; I threw coins at Carlos Beltran.

Robert S. Weider was right when he said that fans like me are junkies who need statistics for a fix. I don't want April to come faster. I NEED it to. Don't try and console me with promises of Spring Training starting in less than two weeks. They're hundreds of miles away in games that have no meaning. On opening day, all of the statistics are erased.

No, I'm stuck with another month of Winter before the best time of the year begins.

I honestly look at Baseball as the purest sport in the nation, juicers be damned. It doesn't matter if your team has a lead of two or twenty, they are required to throw the ball past the opponent and give them their fair chance. They get twenty seven outs no matter how futile the attempt is. You can't hold on to the ball and let the clock tick down. You can't take a knee and watch their spirit break. Penalty kicks? Penalty shots? Not in this park. We will play all week if we have to. There will always be a clear cut winner.

Baseball has marked the times for generations upon generations. Countless fans mark their memories not by dates or years, but by proximity to the impossible acts committed by their heroes. Whether the memories were made by the good guys and heroes or the hateable players and the goats, each memory lives on through the ages. The Bambino. Jackie breaking into the MLB. California baseball. The Goat. The Curse. Every moment holds a significant place in the collective consciousness of the country. Whether it's played in the sunshine or under a roof, on grass or turf, the crack of the bat will never change.

You walk through the turnstile and
wait to have your ticket torn.
Shuffling past the vendors
and fellow fans, you
wind around the maze of sight and sound,
slowly making your way to
that seat overlooking your heros
do the impossible.
The wind blows through your hair
and there it is--
the bluest sky
and greenest grass
you've ever seen,
and you realize that a hot dog at the ballgame
beats roast beef at the Ritz.

They've Woken a Sleeping Giant *updated*

Yesterday, February 1, 2010 - a date which will live in hall lore - room 273 of my residence hall was suddenly and deliberately attacked by ground forces of the pranksters on the dirty third.

The roomates of 273 were at peace with the third floor and, at their solicitation, were still in talks with them looking forward to maintaining peace in the dormitory. Indeed, one hour after the water cupping commenced, we recieved word from the third that it seemed useless to continue seeking peace, though it lacked a threat or hint of prank war.

Yesterday, the third also penneyed 281

Yesterday, the third plastic wrapped community toilets on the second floor

Yesterday, the third released crickets into the hall and various rooms

Yesterday, the third butcher papered and confettied 278

Yesterday, a mass of forces from the third rearranged room 270

The third floor has, therefore, undertaken a surprise offensive extending throughout the hallway area. The facts of yesterday speak for themselves. The people of the second floor hallway have already formed their opinions and well understand the implications to the very peace and quiet of our living space.

Always will we remember the character of the onslaught against us. No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the second floor, in their righteous might, will win through to absolute victory. I believe I interpret the will of the hall and of the people when I assert that we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost but will make very certain that this form of treachery shall never annoy us again. Hostilities exist. There is no blinking at the fact that our people, our territory, and our interests are in grave danger. With confidence in our pranksters - with the unbounded determination of our people - we will gain the inevitable triumph - so help us God.

Guest message from the first floor hallway directly below mine

If we can stand up to the third, all the dorm may be free and the life of its students may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole dorm, including the second floor, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more annoying, and perhaps more protracted, by the strobe lights of late night jokers. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the pranks at the university and its dormitories last for a thousand years, students will still say, "This was their finest semester."

We shall go on to the end. We shall fight on the fourth floor, we shall fight in the halls and in the lobby, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing armories of water balloons, we shall defend our hallway, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the elevators, we shall fight on the stairs, we shall fight in the bathrooms and in the showers, we shall fight in the study rooms; we shall never surrender!

Dear Internet

It's over. The shortest run in the history of one of the most respected franchises in television history is finished. The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien had it's last night on Friday, and I don't know exactly what to say. I've held off on posting about this for the same reason I held off on posting about Haiti and just about every other big news story that ever comes out; there are too many people writing about it, many better than I ever could. After watching Conan's last show though, I have to say something.

As long as I've been able to stay up to midnight, Conan has been there on NBC. You see, in the central time zone, Late Night aired at 11:35. Ever since I was 11, I would watch Conan when I could. I snuck out of bed until high school, at which point I think my mom either stopped caring or just realized that Conan meant something more to me than a good night's sleep. Everything else on tv that I watched had come and gone, but until Friday, Conan was a sort of constant force that I could always count on to be there.

Conan O'Brien helped shape my sense of humor. I learned to embrace absurdity and fly in the face of convention. After watching his show, I couldn't help but notice how cheesy and lame Jay Leno was; even at 12 his jokes were too obvious for me. I acknowledged, however, that he had two semi-funny bits that could raise a chuckle out of me: Jaywalking and Headlines. I realized right away that those were his only non-scripted bits, but I wondered why he couldn't muster anything up in a monologue until I realized that he had taken those bits from Howard Stern and David Letterman respectively. So, at the ripe old age of 14, I realized that Jay was a tired old joke thief who went for the lowest common denominator as far as comedy goes. After spending time in the Cone Zone, I couldn't stand anything bland in my talk show.

Conan has always been one of the smartest, most comedy savvy guys on tv. His bits made me laugh when I was too young for them to be appropriate, and they make me laugh even more on review. From the big characters like Triumph, Pimpbot, and Masturbating Bear to the small and obscure one or two shots like Cloppy, FedEx Pope, and World's Fastest Menorah, Conan somehow took the low brow and ridiculous and elevated it to legendary status. Even though he had to tame himself to meet the desires of NBC, he still managed to find bigger and better things to do.

Conan's won't be allowed to host a show before September, but it doesn't really matter to me or any of his other fans. There's still a reason to live, even if NBC robs him of his characters and sketches; there's no need to get the kayak. Conan's strength was always his mind for comedy, and nothing can keep him from bouncing back. Despite the lack of clarity on what exactly the future holds for Coco, he will find something great that fits him. One thing is certain though: the past two weeks have been some of the most fun in Tonight Show history.

This chapter of tv is finished. Long may you run Conan.

 "All I ask of you is one thing: please don't be cynical. I hate cynicism -- it's my least favorite quality and it doesn't lead anywhere. Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you're kind, amazing things will happen."

- Conan O'Brien

It's A Wonderful Blog

It's Christmas 2009, and a low profile Xangan is down on his luck. He's considering shutting down his old blog and walking away from Xanga for the first time since he started in 2003. After a seeming mixup regarding which post to feature and receiving a paltry number of comments for an entry on the front page, the majority of which didn't understand the joke being made, CJ began to wonder if anybody would miss him if he left. You'd be hard pressed to tell the difference between Xanga now and a Xanga that CJ had never signed up for, he thought to himself.

A blogging angel is sent CJ to show him he's wrong, that there are Xangans out there who have a vested interest in what he does. Of course, he isn't a true blogging angel. Not in this alternate world, at least. He's a BAS 2: blogging angel second class. You see, as an angel, he hasn't gotten his true badge yet. With his smooth talking and his lawerly skills, he just might earn it by convincing CJ not to shut down his blog. For the purposes of this post, the angel's name is Matt.

Matt uses his Midwestern likeability and smoothness to show CJ what he and Xanga would be like if he had never blogged. Of course, Xanga was technically not different than it was with him there, but the impact on individual was evident. The EXK was missing its muscle. DrugInducedDuck was all alone for the Xanga LAN party over at the Left 4 Dead demo and didn't have a tag team partner for the fight against BBDD. Ayliana was missing one of her most consistent readers. TheoDan's life was less blessed having not met CJ at a Xanga meet up. Andrew at the44thHour wouldn't have found his site for the same reason. VaneDave wouldn't have somebody to point out just how bad his tastes in sports teams are. BlackSpidey...well, BlackSpidey wouldn't be missing much at all, really, other than snark. AuthenticBlackDragon wouldn't have anybody to have conversations with consisting of nothing but sentences built around titles of Foreigner songs. Seedsower never would have gotten to hug him.

Worst of all, CJ himself was different IRL than before. He was more quiet and reserved. Instead of voicing his sometime's partially thought out observations and jokes, he kept them to himself. He was completely devoid of feedback! No footprints can get to those protected posts. He forgets his thoughts after they come to him and he can never go back to them! The horror!

Matt, perhaps in a trick he learned in some class down at Angel school in Dayton, allowed CJ onto Xanga during this vision, only to let him find that nobody recognized him or his commenting style. Eventually, one of his good natured jabs at the Mets over on VaneDave's site devolved into a flame war, because apparently that's what happens when some stranger alerts you to your team being an embarassment to the city. CJ pulls away into obscurity, yelling for it all to end

CJ - Matt! Matt! Help me, Matt! Get me back! Get me back, I don't care what happens to me! Get me back to my friends and subscribers! Help me Matt, please! Please! I wanna blog again. I wanna blog again. Please, John, let me blog again!

Dave - Hey, CJ! CJ, you all right? Hey, what's the matter?

CJ - Get outa here Dave, or I'll flame you again!

Dave - What the hell you yellin for CJ?

CJ - You?...You know me Dave?

Dave - Know you? I've been wonderin where the hell you've been! I saw you were still making fun of the Knicks, but I noticed you haven't been posting much. Shiiiit, you're lucky I even stopped by today. Hey, you've only got two comments on your last post....only one of them is an original poster!

CJ - What...hahaha! I've only got two comments Dave! I've only got two comments! The recs from Andrew...Andrew! There they are, what d'ya know about that? Merry Christmas Dave! Good luck with your LeBron pipe dream, as if he'd ever waste his time in the Garden!

YAAAY! YAAAAAY!

Hello Xanga! Merry Chrstmas! Merry Christmas, Top Blogs! Merry Christmas, blogrings! Merry Christmas, you wonderful old sign in page and featured section!

My only response to featured comments

"The telling of jokes is an art of its own, and it always rises from some emotional threat. The best jokes are dangerous, and dangerous because they are in some way truthful."

-Kurt Vonnegut

I'll have a real entry tomorrow.