The Tim Howard Effect

Today marked the official start of the English Premier League season. With MLS in full swing and the World Cup over the anticipation of the new year from abroad was high. My team, Everton, made a very bold and expensive move in signing a genuine permanent striker in Romalu Lukaku, who had been with Chelsea, but who played with Everton last season. Expectation are high for the Toffees, can they break into the lauded top four of the league?

When I walked into Fourth Street Bar and Grill this morning to watch the match with a crowd of people, I had no idea what to expect. There were already fans of Manchester United in barstools as they watched their team lose their match to Swansea. Their fans exited quickly after the final whistle and fans of the other matches began to show up.

There were a few dozen people in the bar at 10AM on a Saturday morning. Truth be known, mostly white men, but we were all trying to be awake, and were quite civil with each other.

In my six years of being a soccer fan, I have never seen a supporter of Sunderland in the flesh. Somehow, there were half a dozen Sunderland fans in Columbus. It was unreal. Also representing were Leicester, Aston Villa, West Ham, and Tottenham (along with the Columbus Crew). Quite a broad number of jerseys that were not the big four of English soccer. People were paying attention to all of the matches, even Hull vs. QPR.

As for the Everton support. At first it was myself and another guy. Which is not surprising. I've only met three people in town who are fans - a guy named Corey and a gal named Rebekah. It's usually Corey who is the only person showing support for Everton in a bar full of people. But then another person showed up, then two more, and another. All told there were eleven people who were there to see Everton, enough to field a team!

So we introduced ourselves, talked about the Ohio Toffees Twitter account, the availability of Kone and Orviedo, the injury to Barkley, which got a horrible update later in the day, and getting older Everton shirts.

The result was not what we wanted, a 2-2 draw with newly promoted Leicester, but we're hopeful for the season. It's only one match, and there are thirty seven more.

Cleaned out organ, clean bill of health

The worst part of getting a colonoscopy is the preparation. The items you have to ingest to clear the system, and in a competitive eating time frame, is rather vile. Plus having to ingest the last half of said items six hours before the procedure, which in my case was at three in the morning - is a rather taxing process. You can't eat anything solid either, and chicken bouillon cubes suck.

This, combined with my son waking up at two in the morning and not going back to sleep, made it all a very cranky time. The liquid melotonin works as erratically as my son's sleep patterns.

The people and staff at the OSU Medical Center were all very cool. From the volunteer who walked us to where we needed to be to the doctor who did the procedure, all professional.

I remember nothing about the procedure. I was on some seriously good drugs, if it was propofol, damn, I get why someone could get addicted to that. In the room I saw the screen, the wire they used wrapped up in sealed bags on the wall. Last thing I remember was them asking to take my glasses off and I said to not lose them. One of the nurses talked about my frames being cool, I told her to not look through them. She said she did not need glasses anymore. I asked if she had lasik surgery and that was it.

Not sure when I woke up in recovery, but my lovely wife was there. I was a bit woozy but do not think I said or did anything overly odd. I did ask several times if everything was alright. The doctor came in, said everything was ok and told me to come back in ten years. The nurse asked if I wanted to go and I said to give me about ten minutes, this is rare for me. I usually want out of a hospital room as soon as possible. She came back, and then I was ready to head out.

By this time I was quite hungry and bought a Hershey bar at the gift shop. Our ride came and we stopped at Rally's on the way home. Yes. Rally's. Did I say how hungry I was?

Got home and napped the rest of the afternoon, then found out about Robin Williams and here we are.

A less funny world tonight

Robin Williams died today of an apparent suicide at the age of 63. He could be a good actor in the right part, and he chose a lot of parts on both ends of the scale. He was always working, to pay the bills, maybe to keep the sadness from taking over.

As a comedian he was a direct descendant of the great Jonathan Winters. His skills at improvisation were unmatched. Sure, he went toward the easy dick joke too many times, but he was great at riffing a good dick joke.

Years ago, I met his brother Todd, who ran a winery. He died of heart disease a couple of years ago.

His onstage energy was amazing. His comic mind brilliant. It's a sad night as his passing is mourned.

This episode of The Actor's Studio had to be cut from a five hour taping. There are some moments of comic magic there. Magic that will no longer be created by Williams, but thankfully has been left for us.

Sucky next 38 hours

After too many nights of interrupted sleep caused by my son not sleeping through the night we've decided to try something new. When he was much younger and had the same problem we tried melotonin and it had a reverse effect. This was at least eight or nine years ago. Tonight we slipped some liquid melotonin in with his pudding. Not sure what the results will be but he was not interested in drinking the milk we put it in last night - where he went to bed around 10PM and woke up about six, which for him is a good night.

So he's lying on the couch right now, which is normal for him. When he falls asleep and whether or not he sleeps through the night is now the question.

This was also one of those days I'm not sure if he understands what is happening. I drove him up to his new school and explained to him that he is going to be going here soon, that it is his new school and that it's going to be like his old one but different too. His response was to put his hands over his ears, which is a newer thing of his to do. We have a soon to be twelve year old surly teenager.

Not sure if my blood pressure is dropping the way my doctor would like. I'm on two medications for it now. Monday I'm undergoing a medical procedure which means I can't eat any solid food tomorrow and have to purge the system, as it were.

When my two older brothers hit fifty and develop cancer means I have to be vigilant, hence the procedure. Who knows when my genetic switch will activate?

In the time I took to write this, his eyes are closing, and he's out. Not sure if it's the melotonin or not.

Now if the idiots in my neighborhood would stop shooting off fireworks it can be even quieter around here.

Boyhood reaction

"I wanted there to be more," Patricia Arquette's character says near the end of Boyhood. And after nearly three hours, to be honest, I would not have minded seeing more of this family's life. Richard Linklater filmed his characters over a period of twelve years to tell a rather ordinary story in a magnificent way, leaving the explosions and high drama out but keeping in the build up and wind downs of life's tensions. For the first, and possibly only time I will say that I wanted to see more of Ethan Hawke onscreen. Very good acting all around, and Arquette has some of her best onscreen work in her final scenes. You find yourself hoping the kids end up alright and wanting the parents to get something right and not screw up themselves or their kids. For the most part they do, but you see a lot of life's failures as well. "We're just winging it here," is Hawke's advice to his high school graduate son - and that one he gets right.

May I be matched with you again, uh no

One of my favorites from All the Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes record made back in the day. Great band with Pete, including the rhythm section of Big Country, on the album. This Deep End Live band is also exceptional, there's a guy named Dave on guitar. Some of this song he gets right, some not, but it's not my song.

Overall it's a great record, with one or two clunkers but the album starts with the above song and ends with this one.

And this song really hits home, despite him messing up the lyrics. 

What happens when you move away from your things

In a random thought the other day, I was Facebook posting and thinking about my old pachinko machine. I received it as a gift sometime in the mid to late 1970's from either my parents or grandparents. They were inexpensive, due to the Japanese flooding the market with them at the time.

It was cool to have, trouble was it was very loud and then it broke so you had to reach around the back of the machine to advance the balls.

Looked up how much it would cost to replace a machine today and was rather shocked by how much they had increased in value. Then a friend piggybacked my post about things you owned in your childhood that was lost, and I may be able to find the book she was looking for. And I then made a comment to her about letting me know if she had a pachinko machine.

To my surprise and shock she and her husband own one. It's in their rec room, but does not work.

Then my wife found out her co-worker has a storage shed full of them, and may be willing to part with one at a reasonable price.

I am not sure how my son would react to having one of those in the house. Again, it is very loud, and the stimulation may flip him out. He's had some odd reactions to the skill crane in the grocery store so I may not be willing to put something loud and over stimulating around.

But it's a small world, you mention something you think is obscure and it pops up in the most unexpected places. I doubt my old machine is still in my step-father's attic, but I'm going to call him and find out if he knows what happened to it.

There's also a Rolling Stones concert shirt I owned which I last saw in the attic thirty odd years ago. Anyone have one of those lying around?