PriorBlog

First things first.  I did a little research. That Phillies Giants game happened on May 15, 1989, and it was an inside the park three run homer, not a grand slam. I had to look it up, because I knew that Schmidt retired early in ‘89, so I worried about the possibility that what I had remembered was not true. But it turns out that the Dernier walk off game preceded Schmidt’s retirement by about a week and a half.  I guess Schmidty thought he had seen everything at that point. I also remember my high school Latin teacher, in an effort to determine how up to date his students were on current events, threw in a bonus question on a pop quiz the day after Schmidt retired. “In which stadium did Mike Schmidt play his last game?” This meant I scored a 12 out 100 instead of a 10 out of 100 on the quiz. Thanks again, Michael Jack!

I would provide you a link to the game, but retrosheet.org, one of my favorite websites, for some reason only has one url.  By that I mean, it always says retrosheet.org at the top, no matter what page you are on. This was not always the case, but it is now for some reason, which means that I simply can’t link you to the game, you have to go sifting around their site for it. The site is great for recovering memory though, that much I have to say.  For example, say you want to know what day Star Pimp played Boston.  You remember that you missed the show because Jeff Gagne’s dad scored ticket’s to the Sox Mariners game that night, which turned out to be the night that John Valentin pulled off an unassisted triple play, and then followed it up by leading off the bottom half of the inning with a home run. July 8, 1994.

What good is baseball if not for providing mileposts within the endless summer of the past?

I’ve been staying up really late working on a bunch of “projects.” I definitely think I am stretching myself to thin. At the same time, there is something to be said about pushing one’s limits, even if you are behind the eightball constantly, feeling like a nearly extinct animal ads an edge to an otherwise dull existence.

“You okay, Prior? You look a little… I dunno.”

“Like I have an edge all the sudden?”

“No, more like a passenger pigeon.”

Speaking of people who have problems, if you are on a prescription of any type, I highly recommend starting a little blog like this one here. Each day I get really great offers on products like Phentermine, just for posting here. Although I don’t need the stuff now (my wife would probably disagree), it’s nice knowing that should the need ever arise.

So I’m sitting here in my cubicle listening to the first half of the BC-Texas Tech game when my boss comes up and asks if I’ll go to Costco with him when he gets back from lunch. Yeah, sure whatever, but then I realize, oh shit, that means I’ll miss the last five minutes of the game.  It’s not like I could say no anyways. An hour later, I get into his car, BC has like a three point lead with six minutes to play, and we head out to Costco.  

Once there the first thing you see are the big-ticket items. Lucky for me one of the High Definition teevees had the game on. I got to see Jarius Jackson dribbling the ball for a split second. We were up by five with a little over three to play. I was pretty confident we would win the game going in because Tech doesn’t have a big man, which is like Kryptonite to BC.  When I saw we were up five, I was absolutely certain we were going to win. I also felt that my having left the game affected its outcome.  I don’t know if you can consider this behavior superstitious because the truth of the matter is I have empirical evidence to back it up. 

Case A: October 1986, the day after the Red Sox blew game four of the ALCS to fall behind three games to one, I was all but convinced they were done.  So much so, that unlike every other Sox game of that post season, I didn’t even put a VHS cassette in the VCR.  Not even that, I was so bummed out about the previous night, I decided to go to my friends house that day and not even watch the game.  I remember very clearly the events of that day.  I was playing football with Duke Corbett and Steve Franklin.  At one point Franklin leveled me with a really severe tackle that almost knocked me unconscious.  As I was lying there, trying to see through all the stars, it occurred to me that I was letting the Red Sox down.  1986 was the first year that my family had cable, and one of the channels that came with the package was channel 11 in New York, which had all of the Yankees games, which in turn meant that I got to see all of the Yankee Redsox games.   This combined with the fact that the Sox were good enough that year to be on the game of the week all the time, meant that I got to see a lot of them despite my being in Philadelphia.  I felt I owed it to them, win or lose, to see their final game.  I jumped on my bike, and sped off for home, about a four-mile ride.  Had I not gotten a flat in front of Upper Moreland high school, I would have been there in plenty of time to see Henderson’s homer, but seeing as how this was well before I carried a patch kit, or even knew how to change a tire for that matter, I missed it.

Case B: Sometime circa 1989, my dad takes my little sister and her friend to a Phillies Giants game that goes scoreless into the twelfth.  In the top of the inning Will Clark and Kevin Mitchell hit back-to-back homers to give the Giants a three run lead.  Every body starts towards the exits, including my dad, who’s long outlasted the patience of his two charges.  In the car, on the way home, he hears the Phils load the bases for their speedy leadoff hitter, Bobby Dernier, who hits an inside the park grand slam to win the game 4-3.  Interviewed afterwards, Mike Schmidt said that the fans who left early deserved to never get to see a highlight of Dernier’s home run.  Or at least that’s what my dad said he said.  If Schmidt didn’t really say it, I am sure he thought it.

Case C:   October 1993.  Game 6 of the World Series.  I was at a packed bar near Kenmore Square watching the game.  I wasn’t really a bar person at that point in my life.  No, seriously.  I was just there to watch the game because my roommate had an impromptu gathering of friends and family at the apartment. Anyhow, the Phils took the lead and only had to get the Jays out in the bottom of the inning to send the series to a game seven.  I was really uncomfortable in the bar, it was packed with BU kids, big beefy football player type BU kids (this is before they lost their program), so I headed out the door figuring the only interesting thing that can happen from here on out is bad, so if I miss anything, I’ll miss being immensely disappointed.  Of course, as I was walking down Brookline Ave I noticed that Boston Beerworks had a giant teevee in their window, and so I was able to stand there without being shoved around like a tackling dummy and watch the final at bats of that fateful World Series in the quiet October night air.  Growing up a fan of both the Phillies and the Red Sox, it was strange to turn around from Carter romping around the basepaths and see Fenway Park looming sadly behind me, a ballpark like any other, constructed for the purpose of such delirious spectacles, sitting empty and unfulfilled.  And so I made my way home convinced the Red Sox were as much to blame as Mitch Williams, when in fact it was me, who should have just kept walking past that teevee.

In all three cases, a fan missing out on the game brings the team good fortune.  Which brings us to yesterday, and my realization that I am more concerned that BC wins the game than whether or not I will get to see them play.  A big part of this has to do with the fact that I don’t have cable, and have experienced most of the season through Ted Sarandis’ radio calls of their games.  I’m so used to not getting to see them, that the next remove, not being able to hear them, is not as harsh.  I guess my ultimate joy will be when I am recovered after being stranded on an atoll in the Pacific after thirty years, and I find out that head coach Akida McLain lead BC to its first national championship in 2025.

I did, however, get to see that VCU Duke game, which I have a feeling will be the most exciting game of the tournament when all is said and done.  If you missed it, shame on you.  VCU had a full court press on for the entire game, they just would not let up.  Duke had a 13 point lead in the first half, VCU came back.  Duke had a 11 point lead with like twelve minutes to go, VCU came back.  VCU’s point guard Eric Maynor hit the game winning shot with 1.8 seconds left, which was almost overkill in terms of pure entertainment.  But, if that wasn’t enough, CBS’ focusing in on a miserable Christian Laettner, was priceless.  There would be no full court bomb slash turnaround jump shot for Duke this time.  What a game!    Watching VCU play defense is more fun than watching most teams play offense.  I highly recommend checking out the VCU Pitt game if you are not stuck in Costco with your boss.

I just read Evel Knievel’s wikipedia entry. I printed it out since it was really long. It has been one of those days when I can’t concentrate on anything for more than ten seconds, but the Evel Knievel wiki entry was so riveting that I am thinking of reading all eight pages again in a few minutes, like when I am done typing this.

What got me interested was piece in the Boston Herald about Sheldon Saltman, a guy who wrote a book about Evel Knievel in the seventies that Evel didn’t like so much. To show his displeasure, Knievel showed up at Saltman’s work, Twentieth Century Fox and beat him up with an aluminum bat. According to the Herald’s report, people passing by the scene thought that it was some type of stunt and consequently did nothing to stop it.

Saltman’s book claimed that Knievel was a drug-addict who beat up his wife. He came to this conclusion after 125 hours of interviews with people who knew Knievel. He has just published a memoir and nineteen pages are devoted to the beatdown. In addition, sometime later this year, he is going to be publishing the interviews, not in print form, but in audio!

Let me just repeat that in case your eyes started glossing over a few paragraphs back:

You will soon be able to buy 125 hours of recorded conversations about Evel Knievel doing drugs and beating up his wife!

At least that’s what it said in today’s Herald. You may have noticed that I often link to the Boston Globe’s website but not the Herald’s. This isn’t because I like the Globe better than the Herald, it’s because the Herald gets blocked at work. I read the article at lunch on paper, not a good link, but try this one. I can’t see it, but I think it’s correct.

It might even be 150 hours. I forget exactly and somebody already stole my paper. Whatever, 125, 150, what an amazing thing to have. I’ll see what the price is and then maybe pull the trigger.

You may ask, why would I want such a thing? I don’t really know, but I do know when I heard about it, the excitement I felt was somewhat like the feeling I get when I go into a bookstore. There’s something about seeing all of those books, they represent to me, each and every one, a large investment of potential free time. Say you pull Les Misérables off that shelf. Since it’s the greatest book of all time, you’re not going to read the abridged version, you’re going to pull down the 1400+ page full translation. If you can get through one page for every minute and a half, that means you will spend roughly 35 hours with your nose in that book. I think about that when I see the books on the shelf, the amount of liesure time required to finish them. While I realize that there will never be enough time to read all of the books I’d like to, to see all of that potential time spread out before me, well, I never make the dismal connection that I don’t have it, instead I find myself sauntering around the store in a catharsis of fantasy, intentionally mistaking the potential for actual.

And this is also probably why I would like to have those Evel Knievel tapes. You wouldn’t even need to have as much free time as a book, come to think of it. You could listen to them in the car, or you know how some people watch teevee during dinner, they could listen to the tapes instead. If I ever meet anybody who tells me they’ve listened to the whole thing, I will immediately envy them for having so much free time. Don’t you want to be envied? Don’t you want those tapes?

One more thing. There are a lot of cool things about Evel Knievel’s wikipedia entry, but I think my favorite is finding out that he had a bodyguard named Boots Curtis.

Last week while I was waiting for the bus I saw Carlos Arredondo’s truck drive by. People who live in Roslindale are very familiar with this vehical, as it has become a rolling tribute to his son Alex Arredondo, who died in Iraq a few years back.

Carlos made headlines when he heard the news about his son, locking himself in the van that the military officials who brought the bad news arrived in, and setting it and himself on fire. I remembered the story well because of the father’s reaction and also because Alex was a local kid, living at one point in his life, a few blocks away from me.

The first time I saw the memorial I was blown away. Carlos had parked the truck at the intersection of Washington Street and Cummins Highway in Roslindale, pretty much the center of the town. Hitched to the back of the truck was a flag draped coffin surrounded by a number of photos of Alex, including one in his casket. The casket photo juxtaposed with the casket behind the truck, struck me as very disturbing, almost too disturbing, but the more I thought about it, the more this “disturbing” tribute became a “fitting” tribute.

I was really afraid when I was looking at the pictures and the casket that he would pop out from somewhere. It’s not so much that I didn’t want to meet him, it’s more that I didn’t really want to come in contact with his grief. At the same time, I wanted to see all I could of this strange memorial, so I stood there checking it out, looking over my shoulder as I did so.

Then I started seeing the tribute all over the place, and I more and more wanted to meet Carlos. In the meantime he’s driven the truck across the United States, and parked it in front of the White House.

I finally got to meet him a few months ago. I think I read somewhere that he’s forty-six, but he seems much younger. When I met him the thought went through my head that I am now closer in age to the parents of the troops than the troops themselves now. I have to confess that I thought he would be a little bit mentally disturbed, but that notion was quickly dispelled. He was very affable, like a friendly next-door neighbor. He was also extremely aware of the perception attached to his odd tribute. I tried to put into words what I thought of it, but was failing to find the right word, and then Carlos, looking at it as though it were something completely outside of him, as though he were just another passerby like myself thinking the exact same thing, finished the sentence for me.

“It’s very powerful.”

I know that it might be in poor form to judge a war memorial aesthetically, but I think there is something to be said for the unique way Carlos’ tribute affects people. The interest it generates, as well as the uncanny fear it elicits, give it greater sway over those who see it.

This week Carlos is protesting in Times Square and I was really pleased to see that Reuters had a picture of Alex’s boots (part of the display) as one of its top photos for the day.

I forgot to mention. While we were standing in line to shell out our cash at Ikea the other day I noticed that there was an older guy in the line next to us wearing a baseball cap with a blue and grey yin yang symbol that read “29th Infantry.” On the back of his hat it read “Normandie.” The guy was bent out of shape about his line moving slow, and plus, I’m a little shy, so I figured I would just google the 29th when I got home to see what role they played in the invasion.

There were a bunch of sites with information about how the 116th Infantry Regiment of the 29th Infantry were among the first to hit the beaches. It’s strange to think of the old man in the Ikea possibly among the first troops on shore at Normandy. The things he might have seen. One time when I was selling shoes, I had an old Jewish guy as a customer.  He lifted up his arm to grab a display shoe to show me which style he wanted to try on. As he did so, his sleeve pulled back from his wrist just enough for me to see the first few digits of a tattoo, the telltale sign of an Auschwitz survivor.

People just going along with their normal routine, years and years away from god knows what.

If monumental history seems odd in places as common as retail stores, something in me tells me it is even odder, if you will, trying to fulfill itself with recreation. Among the links I found in reading about the 29th, was one to this website, a group of British men who enjoy doing WWII re-enactments as Americans. I found the “forums” to be a real trip, seeing as how the posts are thoroughly English. There’s a sort of guys getting together on the weekend type of vibe about them. Lots of goofing off humor and loads of emoticons.

I guess it is important not just to remember the past, but remember it in the right way, whatever the hell that means.

Some of the guys involved with the re-enacting group have also launched a website to collect as much data on US Medical information from the period. Among their collection of stuff, I found an interesting soldier’s guide to how not to get vd. Check this intro out:

And you thought there was nothing good on my site! That’s priceless.

Another site, promoting a book about the 29th, which has been critically acclaimed by just about everyone, including:

Comments on Joseph Balkoski’s works:Beyond the Beachhead: The 29th Infantry Division in Normandy:

“If you want to know what it was like, from private to general, from rifle to tank, from beginning to end, this is the book for you…The book is quite amazing.” -Charles M. Schulz, creator of Peanuts

In an effort to impress my friends Scott and Michael last night I mentioned that the rationale behind large department stores letting you return things is that when you come back, you will buy more crap. To dress this statement up I referred to Emile Zola’s Au Bonheur des Dames, in which the evil department store owner comes up with this and various other schemes to trample out all of the nearby mom and pop stores. This kind of ‘beware of the giant corporation’ theme is quite common these days, but Zola’s book being written in the year… I dunno, sometime before he died, stands out as, if not really a great book, at least grandly prescient. Anyhow, needless to say, saying this made me sound like a pompous windbag, but even so, it’s still very true, seeing as how Ali Larinjani and I spent like a $140+ at Ikea today because we had to return some blinds.

As we were drifting through the store, Ali, who it turns out reads this thing (hi), mentioned that I failed to mention in this blog, an incident that happened last week when we were at the store. This is what happened. Ali was walking about ten feet ahead of me, as I was fumbling along behind her with a giant cart full of “goods.” Seeing as how my proximity to my wife was somewhat distanced due to this, the impression given to passersby was one in which I wasn’t her husband. An Ikea employee, wearing one of those hats with earflaps and a buckle strap, walked by my wife, my very own Ali Larinjani, and after giving her the very briefest of lookovers, remarked to his fellow employee “[Dude,] she’s pretty hot.”

Well, I didn’t mention this because I know that Ali fears google stalkers, or at least that’s what she tells me. What she really fears is not so much guys like our warm-eared friend the Ikea stockboy finding out where she lives, but that she is in fact married to me. Although you can’t believe everything you read online. Even though I have changed her name, some people are still coming to the site from googling her name (moreso than mine actually, although the most popular search seems to be for Brett Lofgren, which has led me to consider chronicaling his life story, seeing as how I still have not gotten one searcher looking for “David Prior.”), because it is kind of “stuck” somewhere, and I have been too lazy busy with other things to take it out.

Anyhow, it’s getting late and I finally mentioned it.

Last night I used Dreamweaver to add required fields to a website I am building. Tonight I will be using javascript to create tabbed information fields within a single HTML page. I previously did this with Flash buttons and an iframe. If I was really savvy with xml and action script, the whole thing would be done that way, the information in what was the iframe being now stored in (and appearing via) an xml doc. I can see it, I just can’t make it happen– yet. Anyhow, even if I could do it, the client wants it done in javascript and HTML, a less exciting procedure to be sure.

A few days ago I was reading a review of the new Arcade Fire album and whoever was doing the review compared them to Bruce Springsteen. This got my eyes rolling. Typical reviewer trying to bait the uninformed with less than fitting comparisons to better known acts. Or so I thought. I am listening to the album myself for the first time right now, and it turns out that some of the tracks have a very Boss-like feel. No problem with me. I have always been one of those people who liked Springsteen but never felt the need to buy his albums because he’s always played on the radio. So far I am liking to album on first listen, which bodes well for it, since I usually like music more as I get a little familiar with it.

As Massachusetts hits records for foreclosures month after month due in large part to predatory lending practices, you wonder what the governor is going to do to stop the predatory lenders help the predatory lenders. I was clicking through the boston.com bulletin boards and there are some people still drinking this guy’s Kool-aid. Look, I voted for him too, but I’m not going to defend him when he acts inappropirately.

Not only can you not trust politicians, you shouldn’t like them. You shouldn’t like anybody who thinks they should be the ones to make the rules, unless they are your parents. I realized this when I saw some kid in college constantly running around campus promoting himself for student council. I didn’t know the kid at all, but his enthusiasm for himself turned my stomach. What makes him think he should be ruling us? I began an intense hate affair with that kid.

They’re all a bunch of arrogant power grabbers. In this day in age, is there a compelling reason why we need these people to vote for us? I can vote for NCAA player of the year just by logging on to espn.com, but I can’t vote for whether or not we should bomb Iran. But, you know what they always say, we have to protect the rights of the minority, the minority in my mind being the people who work at the state house.

There was an interesting news segment during the Massachusetts goobernatorial election in which Fox 25 (I think) sent a helicopter over the estates of cadidates Patrick, Mihos, and Healy. Grand palatial palaces, you know the deal, gushing reporter sounding like Robin Leach. The report ended on a “humorous” note, as the dilapidated apartment building in which Green Party candidate Grace Ross lived was shown not from a helicopter, but by the reporter standing next to it, making a few disparaging comments of comparison before signing off.

Of the four candidates, Grace Ross’ home was the most similar to the homes in which the news show was being watched across the state. What was the message then about the participatory nature of our democracy commonwealth thing? That we should laugh at ourselves, or at least laugh at the notion that we could possibly know better what to do with ourselves than a multi-millionaire would?

Pisses me off.

By the way, the kid I mentioned above, he won his little election and has gone on to become wildly successful. I won’t mention him by name, because you should never invoke the power of the powerful against you, however remote the possibility, but I will say that there are many like him, and I don’t doubt that many of my reader[s] chafe under the brutal rule of similar egomaniacs.

Gotta get back to work now, or I won’t be able to pay the mortgage this month.

In the tradition of the American Latvian Humane Society, I present to you another hilarious attempt by an internet scammer to appear like a legitimate business.  Sorry, couldn’t resist throwing in a few of my own comments. 

We want to inform you about the news from the well-known American Welfare Fund “Jet Help”. So well known it doesn’t show up in a google search. Until now that is. At present Jet Help Welfare Fund is searching for employees for the position of donation manager (i.e. unwitting internet scam artist) and is glad to suggest you to familiarize with this offer. (High fallutin language like: “is glad to suggest you to familiarize with this offer,” has me believing this is completely legit!)

This offer is unique for you because you don’t need to a special education or experience in the financial field to obtain this position (Just a bank account and the willingness to let us pilfer it). When we examine the applications we inquire about the credit history and the criminal past of the candidate (criminal past because we want to make sure your not the type of person who gets caught), because we operate with rather large sums. Also the candidate is required:

- A free time available, 1-2 hours during the workday, 2-3 times a week;
- The possibility of routinely checking his e-mail, better for few times a day
- To have a bank account in his country (women need not apply) or a possibility of it’s (one of many sics) establishment. The work consists of the receipt of donations on the account from the sponsors of the fund and subsequent sending it to Jet Help Welfare Fund. Far be it for a legitimate business to have their own bank account.

But above all this work is well paid! The donation managers gets X% of commission for each payment made with his assistance that gives him a possibility to earn about 2500 USD per month! X%!!!  Sign me UP!!
The offer of Jet Help Welfare Fund is your chance to earn money by Internet and to increase essentially your regular profit! I would like to increase my regular profit quintessentially.

If you are interested in this offer you can write directly to Jet Help Welfare Fund to the following address: careers@jet-help.org (Fire away, people (or person, more likely)) and we will send you a detailed description of this vacation (vacation?!?!): the reason of its appearance, how to solicit, the mechanism of work, the fee etc. Even if you have any subsidiary points (Don’t we all.)- write us to this address careers@jet-help.org and we will certainly answer them.

If you want to solicit for this position - write to the address careers@jet-help.org and we will send you an application form. Fill it out and send it back, then we will let you know the result during a few next days.

*We take on only people not younger than 21!
Thank you for your attention. No, thank you!

Jet Help Welfare Fund
http://www.jet-help.org
 

This weekend Ali Larijani and I went to buy a stuff at Ikea.

The thing I like about Ikea is also that which I find suspicious about Ikea, and that is the little rooms, or pseudo-rooms they use to sell their products. They give you as best they can, a glimpse of what your kitchen will look like if you buy this table, or what your bedroom will look like if you buy that bedspread.

I always find it interesting to see what books are placed on the shelves of the little rooms. Whenever I go to somebody’s house that I have never been to before, I always check out their book shelf. Is there any physical thing in a person’s home that reveals more about their inner life than the books they’ve read and the books they aspire to read?

Maybe, but since intensely reflecting on this question would throw me off my train of thought, let’s just answer “no” for now.

Furniture stores often have to flesh out the shelves of their fantasy rooms with books that are officially not for sale. Again, just as in any other room, I am drawn to the bookshelves. What are the imaginary inhabitants of these rooms reading? In the past I have noticed that they read books almost as imaginary as themselves, books that when opened revealed nothing but blank pages. Other times there were books that seemed selected solely because they belonged to no genre in particular other than an impossibly broad title of “fiction.” That is, books you have never heard of with titles so uninviting that you wouldn’t even consider picking them up. A few times I did pick them up, if only to observe in my hands the depths to which the publishing industry could sink, not knowing at the time, that after the birth of my own unpublishable book, I would encounter something apparently far worse. This weekend, I noticed some well-known authors inhabiting the shelves of the rooms. I found Phillip Roth, for example, on a wooden shelf that cost only 49 bucks. Only, this apparent step forward was in fact only half a step since the book was written in what must have been Swedish. The message is: don’t be distratcted, you have shopping to do.

I guess it’s all about compromising in order to produce some kind of fantasy. You are supposed to place yourself in the room, imagine yourself as having these objects surrounding yourself everyday. If the books in the room are all by authors you hate, it will detract from the fantasy and you’ll be less likely to want to situate yourself in it on a daily basis. On the other hand, Ikea can’t win, because not everybody enjoys the same books, so they try to fill the room with books you won’t pay attention to, books that are purely decoration, which, when I think about it, is not exactly unlike home.

The books are about the only nod to a life outside of Ikea’s products. There is no clutter, no crap, just the furniture in its pure utilitarian purpose. You won’t see a jacket slung haphazardly over a chair back, or a dirty napkin on the counter. It definitely has its allure. Yes, things could be so nice and simple, if only I got rid of all my crap. It kind of reminds me of that scene in the gospels, when the rich guy asks Christ how he can be saved, and Jesus says, give up everything that you have and follow me. That’s kind of what Ikea says too. Life could be so plain and simple if I just lived in a room completely devoid of my life as this one. When you think about it though, Ikea is better than Jesus, because instead of getting rid of all your stuff, they have these plastic containers for really cheap that you can squirrel it all away in.

I attempted to rebel against this, to infuse these happy little rooms with an awful truth so as to survey them from a more realistic vantage point. No offense to the feng shui set, but just because every object is so perfect and in place doesn’t mean that your life will be by association. To offset the magic effect of these perfect little places I imagined entering them after having had my arm ripped of by a bear, or other horrible scenarios, which got so bad, that I just decided to suck it up and believe, enjoy the fantasy rather than ruin it. This worked for about fifteen seconds, until I found myself engrossed in a Swedish encyclopedia.
Couple of other things…

A friend of mine suggested that I not link to things like Jews Control (the same joke everyday and yet, miraculously, always funny) and seriously consider how this website could hurt my job prospects. I mulled it over, and have come up with some untenable points that will allow me to continue. One, a blog about what I did today with actionscript would be boring. Two, it would be so boring, that everybody that read it would think I am boring. Three, they would be right. Four, who would want to hire somebody so boring? Five, answer, a boring company.

Boston College basketball. After yesterday I don’t think they’ll be invited to the dance. The next game will probably be against Maryland, who have been playing like a house on fire. We’ve been playing like a burned down house. I just don’t see it happening. If we lost to Maryland, I almost wouldn’t want to see us get in. It’s been painful, very painful.

Last night I took a little sanity break from work around ten and decided to check out the precarious balance of power in the ACC.  I was checking out the result of the Virginia Tech-Virginia game, which I thought for sure that Virginia Tech was going to win, but in fact they got trounced.  I had underestimated Virginia, and now, in order to rectify the situation, I decided to do a little background check on them to see how good they really were.  Looking at their schedule, I noticed that they had recently beaten the Longwood Lancers.  I recalled seeing this team’s name before.  I think maybe UNC beat them the year they went all the way.  I vaguely remembered seeing Longwood’s name, wondering who the hell they were, and finding out that they were something like 3-26 on the season, quite possibly the worst college team on the planet.

Funny to find them again on the schedule of another top twenty team.  Perennial fodder I guessed, but a quick check of their schedule revealed that this year they’ve amassed nine wins, which is not great, but at least they are becoming somewhat respectable.  Looking closer at the schedule I noted that a team called Virginia-Wise had lost to Longwood by about twenty points earlier in the season.  Could it be that since Longwood had made the leap to semi-respectability, a new team, this Virginia-Wise had become the very bottom of the college basketball food chain?

I clicked on to Virginia-Wise’s link to see exactly whom they’ve played.  For some reason there were only two games listed.  Surely they hadn’t bought uniforms just to play two games.  There must have been some more games, but games that were so unimportant, that they didn’t even bear keeping a record of.  The faithful companion of futility, the only one who understands him, is obscurity. 

This obscurity, this under-reporting, makes it impossible to tell who really are the worst teams.  What about the other games that Virginia-Wise played?  Did they win some, and if they did, who was it that they beat?  Assuming they did win some, that would mean that there were teams worse than them, and then there was no reason to suspect that some of those teams may have beaten teams worse than them and so on down the line, until you would have literally hundreds of thousands of teams. 

Could it be, that there exists alongside of us, without our having knowledge of them, any number of absolutely atrocious college basketball teams?  Mysterious groupings of individuals brought together at top secret military installations in the middle of the night to lose basketball games that nobody knows about, and all of this taking place to have a firm and mighty foundation to hold up the UNC’s and UCLA’s of the world.  My answer: very likely.

After leaving this fantasy of the secret basketball leagues I returned to my internet browsing, this time to google my own name in order to see if this blog has made me the most well known David Prior yet.  I am pleased to note that I am now in the top ten!  As excited as I am about this, what really overwhelmed me was that after clicking through some of the lesser David Priors, I came across this!

Needless to say, I was completely shocked.  Talk about a coincidence! 

Since I was now on Virginia-Wise’s website, I decided to see if they had played basketball games that ESPN’s website was hiding from me.  Sure enough, there they were, the secret games!  Just how bad is Virginia-Wise?  Consider some of their games.  They opened the season against a woman named Alice Lloyd… and lost!  That was an away game though, so we’ll let it pass.  They did however lose a home game later in the season to two guys “Emory & Henry.”  Personally I think these games would make interesting television in a vaudevillian sort of way.

Seriously though, here is an example of how incredibly obscure this team is.  Look closely at the schedule. On November 18^th they played either “Berea or Crown.”  In other words, nobody remembers which team they played.