Minor amusements/Major hatreds

First off, I'd like to announce that our long national nightmare is over, and I have been granted a postponement in my jury duty.  This now frees me from the potential horror of missing the Final Five and reduces the likelihood I'll be escorted from the Dakota County government center in handcuffs by 500%.

Beware the Ides of February, they're just as tricky as the Ides of March and no quite ripe yet.  Good chance they'll end up tasting like crap, like a rock-hard avocado, despite the presence of a sticker proclaiming it's ready to eat.  But what has typically been the worst time of year to find yourself in Minnesota is decidedly mellower this year.  Creeping despair is at a minimum, and the worst month of the year is strangely tolerable.

As I sit here, following a string of 50-degree days, the Twins pitchers and catchers have reported to spring training, we're exactly one month away from my personal favorite tournament in all of sports and last night our season ticket group gathered to draft Twins games for the upcoming season.  In short, there's a lot to be pleased about.  But there's also a lot about which to be perturbed, which is of course my specialty, so ti seems like a natural time for a bit of Love/Hate.

Love - Having the dates for my Twins tickets locked in.
I can now begin to truly look forward to the games and mentally plan out the accompanying events.  First afternoon playing hooky from work to catch a matinee.  4th of July weekend, Saturday in the seats and Monday on the Budweiser roof deck.  Couple of big White Sox tilts toward the end of the season.  Nice to have those images to carry you through the doldrums, thank you Target Field.  Long way to go, but can't wait for baseball season.  Football is like a lion, kind of awe-inspiring, but if you're not careful it can turn on a dime and devour you.  Baseball is more like a dog, faithful day-to-day companion that might occasionally s**t on the carpet, but won't maul you beyond recognition.  I miss my dog. 

Hate - All the Packer flags suddenly popping up on cars
Hey, you want to support your team, I'm fine with that, but in typical front-runner fashion, I'm starting to see those damn car window flags popping all over the place since the Super Bowl victory.  And yes Packer fans, I know it happens with every team, but the fact so many people lacked the cojones to show their Packer Pride before they won it all is f**king weak.  You crow about how great the team is, why were you afraid to publicly represent until now?  Were you scared of getting your car keyed, but now that they've got a title, it's suddenly an acceptable risk?  Part of living in enemy territory is taking your lumps, so I say if you want to put a lame flag on your car, it should be there permanently.  Same deal with those flags people fly out front of their house.  After all, how are the neighborhood kids going to know which house to egg if you don't give them a clue?  And yes, if you're a Packer fan, I do support your house getting egged.  If only because the punishment fits the crime so perfectly.  I mean isn't an annual egging just what the doctor ordered for fans in enemy territory?  Minor annoyance, a bit of cleanup, just the right amount of payback, only way it would be more appropriate is if they threw cheese.  Keying your car does not have the support of this blog though, that would be way over the line.  Nothing more chickens**t than f**king with a man's automobile.

Love - Making up nonsensical s**t
We all know that a full denim outfit is referred to as a Canadian tuxedo, right?  Well the other day I got to thinking and began coining a few other tuxedo types:

Italian tuxedo - Full leather
Alaskan tuxedo - Head-to-toe fur
Minnesotan tuxedo - Gray sweatshirt/sweatpants

And yes, this came about because I was wearing the sweats at the time, it's actually a pretty stylish look.

Hate - How I Met Your Mother
Well maybe hate is too strong a word, but after 6+ years of watching this show, things are starting to wear a little thin.  The writing is still clever enough, cast will always be funny, and the recent episodes have been pretty steady, but how many times can you put the lead character five feet from his future wife without having him meet the friggin broad?  To date they've walked in the same St. Patrick's Day parade, he's dated her roommate, they've been in the same classroom together, the incidents are piling up, yet still no intro.  Memo to the writers, it's a funny show, you're doing fine, stop straining credulity with all of these near-misses.  It doesn't add anything and I'm becoming annoyed, to the point I find myself trying to guess the ages of the future kids the narrator is always talking to and work backwards from 2030 to determine when the show will finally wrap up.  Current guess is 2014 or 2015, depending on how ratings hold up.  As it is, I will keep watching, because I've invested too much time to not see how it all ends.  Unfortunately, after all this buildup, you just know whatever resolution that's offered is going to fall short.  Just don't wuss out Inception/Sopranos style and leave things open-ended, we're on to that crap.  You try to tell people you're stimulating debate and imagination among viewers, but in reality, you couldn't come up with a good resolution.  That's not only BS, it's weak storytelling, Hemingway would've kick your ass if you tried pulling that nonsense.

Love/Hate - NHL Western Conference parity
On one hand, it's cool to have so many teams in the mix for playoff spots, on the other, your driving me nuts with all the points being handed out.  Either stop giving away a point for losing in OT, or go to the Olympic system of 3/2/1 for regulation win/OT-SO win/OT-SO loss.  At the moment a team on a 4-game win streak is picking up maybe two points in the standings, because apparently just showing up gets you something in this league.  A 5-way tie from the #3 to #8 seed is not an indication of a competitive league, it's an indication of a ridiculous way of determining standings.  And yes, some of my bitterness is coming from the fact the Wild won something like 13 or 17 and barely budged.  I don't understand what's going on here.

Hate - Scott Baker
Here we go, day one and your arm is already sore.  Teams set their rotation for the postseason, Scott Baker sets his list of excuses for the regular one.  I can already picture it now, Twins spring training 2012, and I'm reading the sentence "Baker attributed his struggles last season to a nagging elbow injury that bothered him all season, but he insists he's healthy now and expecting a bounce-back year."  Let's just move on before I get angry.

Love - Countdown to the WCHA playoffs
Three weeks left to go and a few interesting battles are going on.  At the top of the conference, you've got North Dakota, Denver, Duluth and Omaha all within two points of each other, fighting it out for a crucial top-2 spot that keeps them out of the quarterfinals at the league tourney.  Further down the standings, Wisconsin, Colorado College and Minnesota are battling for the last two home-ice spots in the first round of the playoffs.  Should be a fun final three weeks, starting off tonight in Madison with the Gophers and Badgers squaring off, hopefully MN brings their 'A' game, rather than the 'C+' version we've seen so many times this year.  Interesting little tool here where you can predict the final standings:  http://siouxsports.com/hockey/whatif/

For the record, here's my attempt.

Team GP Pts
UND 28 41
Denver 28 40
UMD 28 37
Nebraska-Omaha 28 37
UW 28 30
UMN 28 29
CC 28 27
SCSU 28 24
AA 28 23
Bemidji State 28 22
Mankato 28 22
MTech 28 4

Hate - NFL Labor negotiations/Vikings stadium talk
Call me when you've got a resolution, otherwise I don't want to hear it.  Every day more news emerges that tells us absolutely nothing about either situation.  All I know is, I'm tired of hearing it.  For the record, I think that NFL (and frankly all pro sports) owners are full of s**t about the money their losing.  Any enterprise that claims to be taking it in the shorts financially, but won't let anyone take a look at it's books, gets my BS alarm humming big time.  So with that backdrop, give the players a bigger cut of the dough and for f**ks sake Wilf, pony up some cash to cover a roof.  I'm not under the illusion that keeping the Vikings around is some great boon to quality of life in this state, but I do know if they leave, we will be giddy at the prospect of spending twice as much to get a replacement team 5 years from now.  That's how this stuff always plays out, and if you disagree, I'll just say "Minnesota Wild" and end the argument.  To the anti-stadium crowd, I know it stinks to feel like a billionaire is basically treating you like the fat guy in Deliverance, but it is what it is.  Millions of people care passionately about the Vikings, and they're going to get what they want.  You don't have to like it, but try not to take it so personally.