The OTHER Involuntary Nap

My last post was called “The Involuntary Nap”, regarding the Boise state player who was taunting LeGarette Blount, only to find himself waking up from a short, less-than-refreshing nap a few seconds later.

The rarely photographed upright Kronschnabel

My college roommate Charlie Kronschnabel saw the title and text me “damn, I thought I was gonna get some ink”.

Well you are now, Kronsch.

Charlie suffers from nap-attacks.  Although “suffers” is probably the exact opposite of the word I should have used.

I’m still not sure if I pity or envy his special breed – you know, that unique group of people out there that struggle to make it through a two hour DVD?  As much as the nap attack seems like a crappy affliction to be stuck with, it has to have some upsides to have so many supporters, right?

Making entire flights disappear must be nice.  And if you have six hours of sleep before your alarm, you manage to get six hours of sleep.  I guess there’s a few things I envy.  But for every hour you’re out, you’re missing an hour of… just… stuff, aren’t you?  Is life that intolerable? 

The nappers are almost like wine connoisseurs to me.  I enjoy wine.  I can tell which ones I like.  But they really seem to get something more of the same liquid, something special that I’m not.  It’s the same with art collectors, or that girl on “e” at a concert who seems to be feeling the music on an entirely different level than I am.

But what I really don’t get, is the involuntary nap.  The “oh, shit, did I just fall asleep?” moments.

It takes me forever to fall asleep, and these nap fiends do it unwillingly? 

That’s almost just rubbing it in my face, like, I’m up at 2:30 a.m. tossing and turning and they’re like, “what, can’t fall asleep?  God, it’s so easy it’s sometimes I do it by acci-zzzzz”.

Don’t you feel yourself drifting?  What’s going on in your head that you’re thinking so few thoughts at any given time that the machine can just power off without closing all the programs?

I used to have a theory that um… less intelligent people… tended to fall asleep quicker, on an “ignorance-is-bliss” level.  There isn’t much processing going on, very little worrying, etc, but that theory is about as solid as an alibi from OJ.  There are plenty of geniuses who can turn it off like a light switch.

The financee fiance is a hell of a napper in her own right, but back in college, Charlie used to fall asleep mid conversation.  And as much as I’d never say it to his face, the guy is usually pretty damn sharp.

So I’m opening it up to the readers for input. 

Love it or hate it?  What’s the norm when it comes to the time it takes to fall asleep?  Do you know any involuntary nappers (or are you one)?

The Involuntary Nap

Hmm, apparently I vastly underestimated the amount of people who wanted to play fantasy hockey.

I apologize to those of you who actually have jobs and weren’t able to get on my blog until too late.  You were unnecessarily punished for being a productive member of society.  I let the league sign-up happen on a first come/first serve basis, but it won’t be that way next year.  Two changes I’ll make for next year’s league:

One:  Qualifying to get in -- whether that be answers to ungoogleable trivia (yeah, I said ungoogleable), or simply awarding spots to the best comments of the year.  Maybe we’ll vote on them at some point.

Two:  Make it a “for money” league.  Because I like to gamble, and you should too.  Whoever is playing me each week this year is dealing with some form of a side bet, so be prepared.

All further Fantasy Hockey information will be emailed to the 20 people that contacted me first.  I contemplated running a second league (as suggested in a couple emails), but when I ran it by Brianna, it was a short conversation.

“What do you do for a living, again?”

“I… um… you… shut.. up..”

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So, the college football season kicked off yesterday. 

After years of trying to wrap my head around the conferneces, leagues, divisions, teams, rankings, BCS and everything else that goes with it, I’ve made very little progress.

But, having lived in Boise last year, I got to attend a couple games.  And by attend, I mean drink beer in the parking lot and actually watch less than one quarter live (dollar cans of Miller Lite at Suds across from the field?  With flat screens?  Here’s a five).

At Boise’s season opener, a standard event happened:  Some guy on the winning team tapped an opponent on the shoulder to taunt him, then started turning away all smug and happy-like.

As the guy on the losing team, that move sucks, because there’s nothing you can do about it.  What’re you supposed to do, punch the guy in the face?  The game has already ended.  In the end, the taunt is just bad sportsmanship.  And that’s why this is funny.

(note: this is a replacement video, and doesn’t catch the initial taunt - the others keep getting taken down.)

‘

Pow!  Right in the kisser.  These be smile-removing knuckles, son.

Do you think as they were dragging him off the field he was shouting “I’m Jose Canseco!  I’m Joseee Cannseeeeccooooo!”

(I couldn’t find that clip, but come on… what a classic)

‘

Ahhhh, still funny.  “Magoo!”

The Bourne’s Blog Fantasy Hockey League

 *Crappy news people – the BBFHL is already full-up at 20.  Next year, we’re gonna have to some sort of contest to be a part of the league.  Top three this year will definitely earn their spot back!

Okay, the Bourne’s Blog Fantasy Hockey League is going down, I just looked into it.

A couple questions, for those of you who said you’d sign up:

Do we want a “Head-to-Head” league, “Points” league, or a ”Rotisserie” league?

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The differences:

Head to Head: versus one team “manager” in particular, with a point awarded for each statistical category won that week versus your opponent (goals, assists, plus/minus, etc.)

Points: a season-long system that awards three points for a goal, two for an assist, one for plus/minus, 0.4 for a shot etc.

Rotisserie: teams are ranked in every category (goals, assists, etc.), with points being awarded based on where you sit in the league in that particular category.  This is done for all seven categories, and an overall leader emerges from that.

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They all sound good to me, but I think Head-to-Head makes for better verbal abuse potential (when playing for no-money, the only real motivator).  Also, I think the Rotisserie thing sounds neat; in reality, it’s probably the most fair way to figure out who’s doing the overall best, but it may not be as fun.  I could see myself losing interest in the “Points” system by about November when six of my 15 guys are hurt and four are Islanders.

It’s gonna be the BBHL – Bourne’s Blog Hockey League.  There’s really only two other things to decide, and then I’ll create the league (I started to this morning, but needed some consensus opinions). 

One:  What day is the best day for a live, online draft for everyone?  It can take, according to Yahoo!, “several hours”, but you do have the option to set the thing to “autopick” if you can’t be a part of it.  I personally would rather do it during a day sometime next week, like maybe Wednesday/Thursday, but I realize some of you have “jobs” that “pay money”.  A Saturday would be fine too, and probably easier for everyone too.  Sundays, however, are for nothing-doing.

Two: Think up a good team name.  That’s half the battle here, people.

Oh, and one other thing.  We definitely have to play for something, even if it’s not money. 

Like, the loser has to comment under the name “I finished last in the Bourne’s Blog Fantasy Hockey League because I know nothing about hockey and I suck and life and therefore my comment is void”.

Actually, the running loser may have to go under some variation of that name as soon as the first month of the season.

And if I lose, maybe I have to do something like a monthly post on how bad I suck at Fantasy Hockey, or put an asterisk at the bottom of all hockey articles:

*Justin Bourne doesn’t actually know what-the-f**k he’s talking about, as verified by the BBHL standings.

Thoughts on what we play for?

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We’re able to change a lot of the league settings, so we could have up to 20 teams.

Those of you who want in, send me the email address you want used to jtbourne@gmail.com, and I’ll communicate with you about the league that way so it doesn’t have to be on the blog for other readers to become annoyed with.

From comment responses yesterday, we’re up to about 10 teams already, so get at me fairly soon so we can figure out the when, what and who’s of our league.

So yeah!  That’s all for today folks.  Should be a fun addition to the season of blogging.

Brand New, Brand New, Brand New

Before I launch into stuff – how about me buying a new car?

Brand New – Rhymefest featuring Kanye West

It's 115 damn degrees here somedays, black them windows out, please...

As of a week ago, I was looking at these unforseen expenses: A crown for my front tooth ($1,100), two new (after market) tires w/ alignment ($700+), and registering my car in Arizona ($200+).  Turns out minor league hockey insurance isn’t as bad as the rumours make it out to be, cause they stepped up on the tooth, and the new car not only lowered my monthly payments, has lower interest,  and put me in an ’09, but it also took care of my tires and registration.  Sweet.

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So, I love that Bourne’s Blog readers are passionate about their beer.  At some point, we’ll have to steal a page from Botta’s blog and have a meet and greet (where we only drink good beer, right guys?).  And by meet and greet, I mean schedule it like a year in advance, in Vegas, at the Sportsbook in Caesars or something (maybe to watch the Islanders in the first round of playoffs this year?).  I’m just spitballin’ here.

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I made my debut visit to www.dontevenreply.com yesterday, and most definitely will be back.  Much like textsfromlastnight.com (parental advisory, once again), it’s basically a way to pass time by reading about people doing/saying hilariously inappropriate things.

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The Jets are talking about picking up Brandon Marshall from the Broncos, gotta love that.  My first Fantasy Football draft is on the 11th, and I’m at the peak of my football knowledge game right now (yet I keep insisting the Blackhawks will win the Presidents Trophy in the NHL, apparently damaging my credibility in that sport).  After a meeting with Jay Dieffenbach, the Pro Sports Editor of the Arizona Republic, it’s becoming increasingly clear that my sports writing future doesn’t have to hinge on the whims of Gary Bettman and the Coyotes.  Go Jets.

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Should we start looking into a Bourne’s Blog fantasy hockey league?  Admittedly, I know nothing about setting one up or how to run one, but I’m fairly certain that as a college educated human I could figure it out.  Just a feeler really.  You in?

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Bri signed the lease on our new apartment yesterday in the Chandler/Tempe area.  To put the awesomeness of our gated community in perspective, the pool has beach sand leading into the shallow end.  But here’s my question to salespeople: Do we really have to do the whole “oh, this special just came out today”, “oh, I just got approval from my manager…” thing to get a fair price?  After four days of that BS, we haggled 10 free weeks rent, a $300 credit and another discount on a year lease (taking our monthly payments down over $230 bucks a month in the process).  Take that, desperate Arizona real estate.

So – apartment, car, engagement ring…  Did I just get domesticated?  …Wait… married guys still get to go party and crush beers after hockey games right…?  … I just… um… wait… where am I…

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Random thought a million people have had:  Why isn’t there a centrist party in the US?  I have to believe the biggest population of the people aren’t strictly left or right; not many folks are that cut and dried.  Would it be so absurd to represent moderate views?

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My new article is up today for The Hockey News.  I’d definitely recommend this one, it’s a neat players-only insight that sheds some light on how we raise money for the end of the year party, aside from fines.  Hope you like it!  The Hockey News: Put in on the Boaaaard, Yes!

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