I need some Nyquil just to level off...

As most people know I gave up caffeine about a decade ago. Just went from being a six cups of coffee, four sodas a day guy to zero overnight. Doctors using words like “heart” and “explode” tend to result in such actions. That first month or so sucked, pretty much as close to withdrawal as I ever want to get to, but for the most part I survived. Even went through business school without caffeine, which explains why I was always well prepared and never pulled all nighters. I literally couldn’t stay up all night even if I tried.

Well today my coffee shop was out of decaf and I decided that I needed coffee more than grabbing a Gatorade and had a large, regular strength coffee. I’m trying to think about how to describe downing 20 ounces of coffee after having your body spend ten years getting it out of your system. Here is my best attempt. Remember the Beavis and Butthead episode where Beavis went around screaming “I am the Great Cornholio!” I felt like doing that all day in the office. I believe at one point I looked at my monitors were shaking and it took me a while to realize that I was literally bouncing back and forth. For a moment it was cool but then I remembered that this is exactly why I gave it up years ago.

(Though the possibility of having someone in my office go “Donde esta hall pass” would totally have made it worth it.)

Switching gears I received my Notre Dame football ticket form for this season. For those of you who don’t know the system ND sends its eligible alumni (meaning those who have donated money) a lottery form in which you pay up front for the games you want and are told three months later whether you get to go to them or not. In essence, you give them an interest free loan for the possibility of tickets. It’s a pretty masterful system when you think of it.

It looks to be an interesting season in South Bend. You start with the traditional Big Ten rivals in Purdue and Michigan. Fun games, classic rivalry and South Bend in early September is warm and sunny. Then you get the rivalry games that are slightly less interesting in Pitt and Stanford. Sure, they are technically rivals but it isn’t as important and the weather has gotten cold. Still, a fair first four home games.

Here are your last three home games from mid October to mid November: Western Michigan, Tulsa and Utah. I am not kidding. I don’t know about you but I have always dreamed of seeing Notre Dame – Tulsa under the watchful eye of Touchdown Jesus. Or that legendary Fighting Irish – Utes rivalry rekindled. Now I know why we have these games scheduled: it was decided that our schedule was too difficult and we lightened the challenge to better reach bowl games. But this seems to just be a mockery of a schedule. I can accept playing Army and Navy in the same season. Adding these games into the list just seems really weak sauce.

Wednesday Night Music Club: I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: over the past fifteen years I have probably not gone more than two weeks without listening to some music by Jay Farrar. Whether in Uncle Tupelo, Son Volt or his solo work I’m always replaying one of his songs as part of my standard rotation. The guy never gets the praise for his genius that he deserves. If you ever wonder what is playing underneath my headphones this is it.

Real Men of Genius

Item 287 on my list of pet peeves at the office: People who decide to use the decaf pot to make ultra-strong coffee. Typically this is just an issue because I’m the only person in the office who drinks decaf, due to a memorable conversation with a doctor in which the words “heart” and “explode” were used in the same sentence. Today marked what might be a new high or low in the coffee wars as I know that I went to brew decaf coffee in the decaf pot. When I got there someone remarked that it certainly looked strong. I thought maybe it just looks off, though decaf typically doesn’t resemble motor oil. I mean, I put the pot with the orange lid in the machine fifteen minutes earlier with decaf coffee in the holder so obviously this pot would be decaf. Right?

Well, if my tremors, headaches and overall feelings of crapiness are any indication that was really strong coffee. Seriously, who the hell changes out coffee pots while the machine is brewing? This annoys me to no end. I’m sorry that people get upset that I use the coffee machine for decaf just because I really, really shouldn’t have any caffeine. I kicked that habit seven years ago and my body just won’t let me down the stuff anymore. So please, let me just have one pot of decaf. Otherwise I have to go to a coffee shop and pay a couple of bucks for warm, bitter water and if I’m going to be forced to pay for something warm and bitter I’ll start drinking Guinness again.

(And I gave up Guinness because I, uh, had one really long night at the bar and went past my limit for the night and consumed my quota for the next four years. Getting a break up email will do that to you. It wasn’t even an original email, she just replied to one I had sent her a few weeks earlier. I apparently was even worth the effort to hit “write mail”. That bugs me more than the breakup ever did.)

Switching topics, I agree with the comment on the last post. I so need to make a t-shirt folding machine. I should run out and by foamcore right now. As someone whose wardrobe consists almost entirely of t-shirts, some retro as a fashion statement and others retro as in I first wore them during the first Bush presidency, I could definitely use a device to quickly fold my t-shirts neatly. Of course, they’d just get wrinkled when I took the third shirt from the bottom out in the drawer and not even both to lift the others up. I figure a pulley system should be sufficient to solve that problem though.

Actually, that’s an even better idea. How about I line my bedroom (and probably my dining room as well due to the scale of the problem) with a clothesline and then I’ll hang all of my t-shirts from them. This way I won’t have to deal with the pesky “drawer” problem. All of the items will be easily within reach at all times and given enough binder clips I bet I wouldn’t get wrinkles either. Hell, wouldn’t even have to pay for decorations, just have my clothes lining the walls. This might be my best idea since building a generator out of those drinking birds from physics class.

(That’s not a joke, I’ve drawn blueprints. A device that creates mechanical energy without pollution can easily be converted into a power source. I just need a lot of drinking birds to light up my apartment. I figure that I can save money if I don’t put hats on all of them.)

See, this is what happens when I have caffeine…