I'm a Cof-fiend and Why I Must Work For NHL.com

Hey! Monday post, yeah!  I'm one for one.

I've done almost absolutely nothing for the last nine days.  This is the direct result of having a lot of time, little money and no work.  Golden week just happened, and I didn't go anywhere.  I was in Nagoya.

As a result, I decided to utilize my time between sleeping and drinking to get some things that I needed.  In order of acquisition, I got a new desk, some new sunglasses, and a coffee maker.  In order of importance, I got a coffee maker and who cares what else.

I've been experimenting with my new device, and have since learned how to make a sludgy concoction as dark as the night.  I call it my home brew, and it won't  put hair on your chest, but instead sizzle it off in a dramatic display of weird science.  In a way I am a little sad that I can drink coffee at home now, as I hadn't realized what a big part of my day going to the coffee shop had become.  It was a great place to creepily people watch from behind my book.

So with all my free time at home now, I have returned my attention to the business of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.  My mourning period for the beleaguered underdogs of Ottawa has passed, and I have regrouped my wits to reassert my zealous fandom towards Washington and their struggle to defeat the very team that killed my precious Sens.

I'm not sure when it happened, but the NHL's website has officially been promoted to the status of 'out of hand'.  I've been frequenting that website for the past four years, and the steps towards ridiculousness must have been so gradual that no one could have noticed until it was too late.  And in that moment of realization, of true and utter hopelessness, I realized my true calling.  As if from trumpets on high, I knew that it is inevitable: I  must become a writer for NHL.com.

I'm talking about the puns of course.  Every single NHL article written now hides behind a title laced with bad taste.  They all follow a very simple formula too: name, hyphen and word fragment.  For example, my blogs can only be deemed Sean-sational!  Get the picture?

Now you see why I must work for them.  I've been doing bad puns since I could talk.  In university, my roommate and I sat in our kitchen and riddled off bad fish puns for a half hour on a snowy evening.  It was a halib-good time, even though I got the feeling he was pickerel-ing on me.  I even slipped one in the title

So that's it, I'm immediately going to focus all future efforts towards becoming a template writer for NHL.com.  From what I've seen, you don't even need to be good, or know stats, or have any idea who players are.  It also helps to talk about the mid-second period in the first paragraph, then transition into the late game to finally conclude with a recount of goal that had no bearing on anything during the mid-first.  Unless the title writing position is its own gig, then I'll just do that and have a coffee.

I decided to try my hand at a title pun for a front page tab.  Just imagine it is Christmas or something.  I'll also add in some annotations.

Also thanks to those that read my last post, and send me some good ideas on what to do.  You can view those challenges by click on the tab to the right of the screen.  If you have yet to give me any good ideas, then do so now.

Thanks for reading,

Much Love,

Sean
        

Let's Have Some Fun

This isn't working like I had wanted it to.  I wanted to post a lot, and I didn't want it to be simple, mindless recounts of events, though I probably haven't even done enough of that.  Let's change things up a little bit.  On this, my 50th post, I will make a decree for change!

Let's make post size smaller, but periodicity much more frequent.  Let's have more input from the people reading this, tell me what you would like me to do - send me on a task to get a certain photo, visit a certain place or meet with certain people.  I am inviting any and all suggestions, serious or otherwise.  Make a request.

Either post a comment or send me an email to my full name @gmail.com.  I will create a page of challenges, and then I will go about trying to make them happen.  Give me a little bit of purpose in my free time.  I feel like I have a lot of the latter, and too little of the former.

On my part, I'm going to try and post something every day, or as close to that as I possibly can.  Probably not full posts, although from time to time those will still occur.  Sometimes it will be really simple thoughts or maybe pieces of fiction and often just ideas.  I would like to expand the utility of my writing, and in that way perhaps make it something I can use with more versatility in the future.  Help me out and feed my addiction.  Ridiculous requests are ok, IF the goal is attainable without me breaking any major laws, or find me in a situation in which I morally will be unable to recover for many years.  No murder or prostitutes.    

Starting this Monday, the 7th of May, I will start posting frequently.  Please help me out.

Recap:

1. Give me ideas, requests and challenges for things to do.

2. I will use my blog more frequently, and if there is a single dedicated reader out there (Hello Mom and Dad!), you will find yourself with a content overload!

Peace in the East,

Much Love,

Sean



Examples:

Dear Sean, Whom I adore,  I think you should ________________.

- go here

- do this

- learn this

- meet someone like

- etcetera, etcetera, etcetera!

Positive Feedback

Today I think I broke my record for the sleepiest I've ever been for consecutive hours. Know the burning feeling you get behind your eyes when you are stupidly tired? You know that 7am-on-a-Saturday and you forgot to turn the alarm off -drowsy. Where you curse yourself for being so dumb as to not turn off the alarm and spend the next four hours tossing and turning until finally dragging your ass out of bed.

I feel like I've been spending a lot of my awake time with that feeling recently. Today's tired fesitivities were the culmination of both a) 11 pm hockey last night and b) somehow getting myself out of bed this morning and getting dressed to find out I had another hour until my alarm was supposed to buzz. Which, in truth, is a very mixed blessing. You're so very happy for the windfall of the extra hour before truly having to activate, but know very clearly that no sleep over that next hour will be meaningful in any way shape or form.

I think more than anything though, this permanent hazy mental state I find myself in recently is because I've just been awake a lot more. And, I think, for an incredibly good reason. From shortly after I wake up during the work week my day basically belongs to my employer until five. Now although this is pretty standard, it can be an eternity when you're not overly enthused about the prospect of straddling the chair in your office for the next eight and half hours. Great company, great employer - but I'm not an office worker. Therefore, the closest I can equivilate my mental state to when I walk out those office doors at five is a jail break at a prison. Get out, and maximize all the time you can before they find you and bring you back.

So I find myself monday through friday staying up until one or two in the am and as a consequence wake up sleepy everyday. And, after I muddle through the work day on a cocktail of rice crispies and coffee, by the time days end rolls around I'm just finding some energy! So then you stay awake later again, wake up sleepy, rinse and repeat. To give it the biochemical terminology, it's a pretty heavy positive feedback cycle.

So why not rest on the weekends to get some energy back? Hell no, I'm not devoting my time on my two free days to gain energy for my prison term. Hilarious idea, though.

I just wonder how many people live the same as me in the regard? Stay up late to avoid work, go to work tired and under preform. Hate work because you're under preforming and tired, and then stay up late again because you don't want to go back to work in the morning.

I feel like if I don't get out of my cycle now I might never do it. A lot like kinetic and static friction... I feel like getting started in the right direction is the hardest part, but once I get moving it'll be easier to maintain.

Think about it, let me know. It has to be more common than just me, anyone else live like this? I know there are enough people who hate thier job that I can't be the only one.

As an aside, someone brought it up to me yesterday that 'we' (people my age) are often reminded that youth is wasted on the young. However, I'm not sure we are trying to waste it... I just wonder if we're not aware of all the options available to us.

Now, I need a vacation so I can quit coffee, again, for the fifth time.

Peace in the east,

Much love,

Sean