I really hate soccer but this is funny.

This poor guy reminded my of myself back in my Little League Baseball days.

I was always in the lineup because I was fast and I hit a lot of home runs. Unfortunately I couldn't catch a ball with a net.

My coaches would invent positions for me to stand in (like deep left corner) and hope for the best. I'd always manage to screw up the first ball hit in my direction and I'd get moved somewhere else.

My crowning achievement was the day I was playing short right foul line and I managed to catch a grounder. This was quite a feat for me and in my excitement I (for some reason that I cannot fathom) did a complete 360 and threw the ball about 20 feet over the first baseman's head and into the stands.

That was my last game.

Still awake, still bored. I took another test.

You are green. Perhaps one of the most balanced of all the colors. By balanced, I mean balanced in both bad and good parts. Let me elaborate: You're a natural, and somewhat superficial person. You're extremely generous, but, to add to the confusion, you're frugal and stingy. You're a forgiving, but jealous person. You're imaginative, but still logical. At sometimes, you're a complete neat-freak, and other times, you're a total slob. You're very stable, but undependable. But onto the other traits that are associated with this color... You're a stubborn person, simply put. Do you believe in Feng Shui? Green is closely related to the thought of having a balanced environment, you know. When in a bad situation, you're painfully pessimistic, and when you're in a good situation, you're extremely optimistic. A fairly outgoing and amused person, you enjoy talking to people, and hearing their thoughts on different things. As a plus, when people hang around you, it seems like time passes by all the more quickly.

What color are you? (Amazingly detailed & accurate--with pics!)
brought to you by Quizilla

So workers in which profession are more likely to end their own lives?

Dentist is the one I've always heard, though I'd also believe police officer and psyhiatrist.

Were a study to be done, however, I'd bet that the profession with the absolute highest rate of suicide is:

Commercial jingle writer.

For some unknown reason, the people at work have started playing the jingle for the old "My Buddy" doll constantly.

My buddy! My buddy! Everywhere I go, he goes! My buddy! My buddy! My buddy and me! (repeat infinitely)

This is driving everyone, including those playing the awful thing, completely bonkers.

We can't get it out of our heads.

Can you imagine writing these things for a living, and ending up with perhaps dozens or even hundreds of them repeating over and over and over and over in your head minute after minute after hour after day after month after year?

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

It'd have to be enough to make you put a gun in your mouth.

And then wouldn't it be funny if they played all of your jingles at your funeral?

If I'm bored enough I like to take these personality quizzes. Here are the results of my latest one:

Between Friday's distractions, Saturday's mental ramblings, and Sunday's guilty conscience I've managed to get seven hours of sleep since I got up Friday morning. That's a whopping five percent for those of you scoring at home.

I don't particularly expect things to get better tonight.

After all, nothing has really changed. The things racing through my head for the last two nights will still be there tonight. Plus she'll be back from her trip tomorrow and I have no idea what will happen after that.

The thing that pisses me off is that right now, at noon on Monday, I could probably fall asleep for ten hours. Unfortunately they frown upon that kind of thing here at work, and by the time I get home this evening I expect this fatigue to be replaced by something else.

Something that will no doubt keep me awake for yet another night.

Ten seconds.

Not much in the grand scheme of things obviously, but give me those ten seconds back and I could really change things.

Two seconds in June. I wouldn't hesitate again. I'd push forward. Find out for sure. Be unafraid.

A couple seconds in July. I'd keep my mouth shut and walk away.

Another second in August. What an opportunity wasted that was.

In September I'd need four seconds back. Four seconds to think clearly. To remember that which I'd known all along, and also that which I'd forgotten from long ago.

Now it's October and I'd like to hold that tenth second in reserve.

I'm sure I'll need it before too long.

One of the more surreal things about having a website is the feedback you get from complete strangers.

Start publishing an online journal and people really start crawling out of the woodwork.

Place forms on your site to allow anonymous messages and your inbox can fill up pretty quickly.

Here are some statistics on the messages sent to me over the past week:

66% were simply positive comments about the site. Of these, 60% were about the pool section, 20% about the main 'blog, and 20% about the cats' section.

Of the remaining 34%, an overwhelming 95% of the messages contained advice of various forms regarding my love life or the lack thereof.

Sixteen messages asked for advice or instruction on playing pool. Three people want to arrange gambling sessions with me.

Three messages asked me if I wanted to adopt a cat. I don't.

There was one offer for a date the next time I'm in Seattle. I think I know who that one was from.

Six messages could be dismissed as simple trolling.

There were three SPAM messages.

And finally, fourteen people asked me what happened to the Pronto section of my site.

I must admit I wasn't expecting to get anywhere near this number of messages. I need to decide what to do about the ones that need a reply. I'd thought at first the I'd just use the appropriate 'blog, but the volume may be too high.

I suppose for now these messages will for the most part go unanswered.

But not unread.

If anyone out there needs a response just use e-mail instead of the web forms. Or put a reply address in your message.

Once I got home last night I ended up lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, or out the window, or at my alarm clock - it all depended on which position my head faced of course - for the entire night.

Finally, I think at about 8:00 AM I got to sleep. Then at 10:00 my body's own circadian rhythm forced me back awake and here I sit having given up on sleep until tonight.

I've always been a very light sleeper, but usually I'm able to fall asleep (or back to sleep, whatever the case may be) fairly quickly. It's just that it doesn't take much to jerk me out of my slumber.

Crickets. Cars on the road. Cats scratching at the litterbox at the other end of the house. It doesn't take much. I'll usually just turn over. On some nights I'll get up and walk into the other bedroom or into the living room and sleep there until the next time I'm awakened by some minor noise. This can happen many times a night. My cats all follow me from room to room. My last girlfriend got used to this as well and would often beat me to the next room to be sure she got her favorite side of the bed.

But this entry is supposed to be about insomnia, and last night's bout in particular.

I had so much going though my head last night. Such a mix of uncertainty and wonder and worry and surprise that I was actually wondering if my mind would ever stop racing.

I wondered about the explanations I owe, and I played out those discussions a million times, never getting them quite right.

I thought about the fox, chewing off its own leg to escape the trap it's caught in. Is the fox showing bravery or cowardice? Or is it just instinct?

I thought about the potential displayed by the weekend I'd just experienced. Is it real, or am I just desperately reaching out at anything that might take my mind off my failure to control my emotions last weekend?

Through all this there ran a single theme. A theme about which I will not write even though the urge to do so is nearly overpowering at times. Times like right now. Some things need to be said privately before they're broadcast to the world.

And some things are better left unsaid.

I've completed a long-overdue revamp of my 'blog search engine.

It now supports quoted phrases and boolean logic.

Yay.

This morning I was witness to a three-car pile-up.

Okay, to be fair, it wasn't really a pileup. It was more like a three-car fender bender.

The driver of the car directly in front of me at the light in Edwardsville, upon seeing the light turn green, decided to immediately jump on the gas and speed through the intersection.

There was only one problem with this plan: The car in front of her was stuck behind a long line of cars waiting for the next light. It was only about fifteen feet ahead of the woman driver in front of me.

She smacked the car in front of her without even hitting her brakes. This collision knocked car number two into the back of car number three.

After a couple of minutes while everyone stood around making sure nobody was hurt, I gave a business card to each driver in case they needed a witness, and went to work.