Party Town!

The volleyball season is just around the corner. You can practically smell it. Like a big old plate of Alpo just down the street a bit -- take a right, yeah. Right there, around the corner. See it? Well, now take a good whiff. It’s almost volleyball season!

And I’ll leave it at that. I was going to break down all 300+ Division I teams for you today, and maybe bring up what I believe will be THE trend for the 2008 season (stripy socks!), but that’s a hell of a lot of work and the sun’s out and I’ve been dead for way too long to spend a day like today indoors pecking at a keyboard and gnawing on (R)uffda!’s slippers. So I won’t.

As for (R)uffda!, he found “Party Town” last night out in Forest Lake, so you know where he’s at. Won’t you take him to? Party Town?

Please.

Time for another blog

I know a few of you have been a little bit impatient for my second blog about Time. All I can tell you is that I’ve been a busy dog these last few days, what with American Idol, meals, and the squirrels in my yard. But I have not forgotten the task at hand, as you will see.

First of all, there was my contention that volleyball is not, as some delusional fools have claimed, time-independent. Yes, there is no clock measuring the intervals between distinct events, or providing a framework inside which those events can be contained; but a mechanical timepiece is not required for Time to be involved in a sport. People! Are you simpletons?

Oh, who the hell cares? Do you really expect me, a dead dog, to blog about Time? I’d much rather weigh in on the whole Jessica Yanz controversy, which follows the Sarah Pavan controversy, which followed the Rachel Holloway controversy, which followed the Sidney Anderson controversy, which followed the Maggie Griffin controversy, which followed the Dani Busboom controversy. You know what I think? I think there’s too many controversies coming from one school.

It’s enough to make a dog think it’s time to find a new sport.

More Missing Cosmic Matter Found

Apparently, scientists have found more of the missing cosmic matter, this time “in the spaces between galaxies”. I won’t bore you with the details, but it still doesn’t explain the size of (R)uffda!’s butt.

Time

I’ve been thinking a lot about Time lately, when I haven’t been thinking about poetry, or chasing sticks, or what’s for dinner. Or volleyball, of course. This is, after all, (R)uffda!’s volleyball blog, even if he never blogs here anymore, let alone blogs about volleyball.

Anyhow, I’ve been thinking a lot about Time lately. Did I mention that? You might think a dog has no business thinking about Time. You might even think a dog has no business thinking. Let me just say that I find that a disturbingly anthropocentric mindset, and an insult to dogs everywhere. Except for Chihuahuas, that is. They couldn’t think their way out of a paper sack. Morons.

Some people claim volleyball is time-independent just because there is no clock. Those people are as clueless as a sackful of Chihuahuas. Let me explain.

Let’s say we have the most precise clocks available, synchronized to read the same time. Did you know that if we give (R)uffda! one of these clocks and launch him into space -- what fun! -- by the time he passes Jupiter his clock will read approximately 32 seconds earlier than the one we kept on Earth? It’s true! Except for the exact amount of time. I made that part up. I’m a dog. I don’t do the math.

What does this tell us about Time? About (R)uffda!’s aeronautical skills? About volleyball? Good questions, all.

Here’s some more good questions:

1) Does Time flow?
2) Does it flow in only one direction?
3) Is only the Present real?
4) Is there a “Universal” time?
5) Who does Sean Rooney look like?
6) Has Rally-Score messed up the Space/Time Continuum?
7) Is Time a fourth dimension?

That’s enough for now. I’m a little short on time -- someone just tossed a stick.

Poetry schmoetry

So I tried to bring just a little smidgen of beauty into this drab, dreary and decidedly unpretty blog. Might as well have been giving a pedicure to the pitbull. That bastard (R)uffda! says I can only write about volleyball! The philistine.

Don’t get me wrong. I like volleyball just as much as the next dog. Maybe more. But there is more to Life than volleyball. There’s meals, for instance. And chasing sticks. And HBO. There’s also poetry.

The pesky squirrel in my tree
pesters
chatters
flings his nuts

While the hitter from USC
giggles
whispers
calls for huts

So what’s new in the world of volleyball this week? Beerman and Acosta are toast and the U.S. Men won the Four Nations Tournament in Leipzig, Germany. Did you know the name Leipzig is derived from a Slavic word, lipsk, which means “settlement where the linden trees stand”? Bach used to hang out there, and Wagner was born there. I’m not saying that any of this played any sort of role in Team USA’s triumph, but it does give one pause to think, especially since Beijing is also derived from a Slavic word, and Bach and Wagner were each fond of Chinese takeout.

I leave you with one further thought: Sean Rooney reminds me of someone.

Poetry with Good Old Luke

Welcome!

As everyone who has bothered to visit this site is well aware, (R)uffda! has had little to say for some time now, and what he has had to say has been of no interest to any sentient being. There may be some fruit flies out there who are curious about the faint odor around here of bananas gone bad, but I’m not betting on that either.

So, once again, Good Old Luke is here to rescue (R)uffda! from himself and liven up The Blog. Today’s topic? Poetry. What is it, how can you make yourself some, and how do you know if what you make is any good?

What about volleyball?, you might ask. Well, what about it? is my reply. Check out Murina’s formulas for proving that a 5’9” outside hitter is not working as hard as the 6’4” outside hitter if you want volleyball. I’m busy.

Piece of Missing Cosmic Matter Found

This is a headline. This is not poetry. That is, it is not a poem. Could the missing cosmic matter be poetry, however? Here’s what these scientists found: “a type of extremely hot, dense matter that is all but invisible to us.” Here’s what poetry is: “the most compressed form of literature.” I think we are safe in concluding that they found some really sizzling poetry and that perhaps it was hidden in the bushes. Like an Easter egg. A super-hot Easter egg.

Furthermore, poetry is carefully chosen words expressing great depth of meaning. It uses specific devices such as connotation, sound, and rhythm to express the appropriate combination of meaning and emotion. Don’t take my word for it. I ripped this off from the folks at Gallaudet.

Let me give you an example or two. Tell me which one is the stuff of poetry:

Outside hitter, flying high,
nothing like Captain Bligh

or

Volleyball round and white
Like the moon, a satellite

Well, obviously, the answer is neither. Both are simply crap. Like crap hidden in the bushes by some malevolent rabbit out to ruin Easter for unsuspecting, and slow-witted, children.

I hope that clears that up. Next time: How to Analyze Poetry.


Puppy dog, sitting there,
Like a pillow on my chair.
Stop your chewing, my pretty boy
Or say goodbye to your squeaky toy.


More crap. Just fooling with you.

Norm!

I was hanging out at the local watering hole the other day and the conversation, as usual, turned to volleyball. OK, it was just me and the bartender and I was doing the talking, but that’s besides the point. It was I and the bartender, I mean.

Where was I?

Oh, yeah. Volleyball. He, the bartender, wanted to know what the worst accident was I had ever seen on a volleyball court. I don’t know why it came up. Maybe we were watching “The Wacky World of Sports Injuries” on ESPN2. I forget. I was drinking. I had to think about it for a second or two and by the time I came up with one the guy had slipped out back for a smoke. So I fixed myself up another Mojito and hit on the waitress for a while.

Later, after the waitress steered me back to the booth where my wife was waiting patiently for me, I remembered the bartender’s question. But I promptly forgot it when the wife tossed my Mojito in my face and stomped out of the bar.

Good times.

But now that’s all Mojito under the puente and I’m back home and blogging here, searching my memories for that worst accident. There was that Badger middle blocker who snagged her nose in the net back in the 90s and ripped the thing right off her face. That was not pretty. But the worst? I don’t think so.

It was a stupid question, now that I think about it. What an idiot. I need to find myself a new bar.

The Cheese Man and the Big Dig

According to the Boston Globe, "[r]eputed New England Mafia underboss Carmen "Cheese Man" DiNunzio was arrested this morning on charges stemming from a 2006 sting operation in which he allegedly gave an undercover FBI agent a $10,000 bribe to secure a $6 million contract for the Big Dig, according to a federal indictment unsealed today.

...

According to an FBI affidavit also filed in court today, DiNunzio met on Oct. 9, 2006, with an undercover FBI agent that he believed was a corrupt Massachusetts Highway Department employee. DiNunzio was unaware that he was secretly being recorded as they discussed concerns about whether Marino, DiNunzio's associate, was going to back out of the loam deal.

According to the affidavit, the undercover agent said he needed "a guarantee that somebody's got their foot on Marino's neck.''

DiNunzio said, "Listen to me. Right here you got the guarantee from here."

The undercover agent said, "I don't know you."

DiNunzio, the allegedly reclusive Mafia underboss, said, "Look it, I don't even come out, I come out cause of this guy. I'm the Cheeseman.''

"You're the cheeseman?" the agent said.

"You ask anybody about me,'' DiNunzio said. "We straighten out a lot of beefs, a lot of things.''

DiNunzio said his friends would go through with the loam deal or they'd face problems.

"They better leave town,'' he said. "Cause it ain't gonna be safe nowhere for them.'' "

***

So here's my question: How does one go about changing one's mob moniker? Cuz if I'm The Cheese Man, I'm thinking I'm not getting a lot of respect. Maybe The Pillow Man or The Garden Guy are intimidated, but that's about it.