PLAYING CATCH-UP

And now, all the stuff I meant to post during the five days I had off work this past week.

FRIDAY
Best band names playing the Toledo area this week (Aug 7-13):
Rich And Growing Sicker
Lame-O
When Girls Kiss Girls
Identical Strangers
Shortbus Pickup
And the best band name playing the Toledo area this week:
Can't Sing Karaoke

SATURDAY
Watched the Olympic opening ceremonies LIVE on CBC. Those drummers at the beginning were A-MA-ZING. The movable type thing was also good, and that last torch-bearer is one brave sumbitch. I thought there was something not quite right with that way-too-cute little girl singing, and I was right. Turns out the girl doing the actual singing wasn't cute enough to put on display. How do you say Milli Vanilli in Chinese? Mirri Vanirri?

SUNDAY
Quotes Du Jour: From Lewis Black's Root Of All Evil, "Beer vs. Weed"
Paul F. Tompkins, arguing that weed is the Root Of All Evil, on the fact that beer makes some people sentimental: "I would rather have someone tell me that they love me, than tell me that I have to watch 'The Dark Crystal'."
Andrew Daly, arguing that beer is the Root Of All Evil: "Beer ruined the 20th century because nobody loves beer more than Germans, and nobody loved Hitler more than Germans on beer. Beer caused World Wars I and II. All weed ever was caused was 'Caddyshacks' I and II. And only one of those movies was a globally-devasting human catastrophe."

MONDAY
Frisbee golf recap:
Just finished a 3-day regional frisbee golf tour with my karaoke komrade Bryan, with a round Friday at what is now my new favorite frisbee golf course, Victory Park in Albion, MI. Think Ottawa Park with water hazards. Yes, water hazards. And not annoying ones, either. They actually added to the fun. The 10th hole is quite intimidating at first glance, but the water is clean and only a couple of feet deep. Each of us ended up in the drink, but we were able to wade in and play each lie. Plus the course has its own 'monster' hole that is just a tad shorter than the one at Hudson Mills. I strongly recommend this course. And best of all, there's no rough.

I wish I could say the same for a few other courses we tried over the weekend. After we finished in Albion, Bry and I stopped by Hudson Mills for a round on the Original course. When I first played HM about 8 years ago, it was gorgeous. Mown fairways, a bit of rough on some holes, but nothing horrible, and not much underbrush. How times have changed. Now there's a lot more nasty rough and underbrush. A LOT more. And it's as annoying as an Appliance Center commercial.

A few weeks ago I had 6 discs in my collection. I lost my go-to disc, my red all-purpose Cobra, at Vienna Park, I gave away my orange Cobra, and I gave Bryan the purple #1 Flyer that I had bought for the ex-gf, leaving me with my blue Eclipse driver "Bluie", my yellow Cobra "Old Yeller", and "Maggie", my trusty Magnet chain-seeking putter. (I had that red Cobra's hook to the right down pat. It took me a few rounds to adjust my game to the seemingly-schizoid Bluie, but now I'm getting straighter and longer drives. Plus I found ol' "Red" at Ottawa anyway, so easy come, easy go.)

Anyhoo, back to HM, Bry's very first shot on the first tee at HM went off into the underbrush, never to return. Oh well, good riddance, I wasn't that fond of the purple one for obvi reasons anyway. Except that he would have then had to use the yellow Cobra, leaving me with no backup.

But as luck would have it, and as it turns out, make that the luck of the Irish, while looking in vain for the purple disc, we instead found a slightly warped disc with a shamrock pictured on it. No idea what kind of club it is, but we bent it back in shape as best we could, Bry tried it out and liked it, we dubbed it "Shammy", and played on.

Somewhere around Hole 11 or 12, Shammy disappeared into the underbrush from whence it came. We searched for a while and not only managed to recover Shammy, but in the process we found an Innova driver as well. So for the round Bry lost a disc I was happy to be rid of, and found 2 other discs that seem to have actually improved his game since. Sadly, that's the only positive thing I can say about the current HM. That place has really deteriorated.

Saturday, Bry wanted to hit Carter Park in BG to get on the first couple of open-field holes to give his 2 newfound discs a proper workout. They seemed to fly okay, so we skipped the rest of BG and went to Findlay to check out 2 courses down there. First we hit Firestine Park. Only 9 holes, but in a city park with no rough or underbrush so not too bad. I was still adjusting to Bluie, and on the last hole my drive went way off course and into the shallow creek next to the park. I finished the hole with Old Yeller, then we hopped in the car and drove around to the other side of the creek to retrieve Bluie. Then it was off to the Riverbend Disc Golf Trail east of Findlay.

Yeah, that's right. They call it a "Disc Golf Trail". Apparently they expect you to think of it as like just another metropark trail, and enjoy nature while you play. Fuck nature! We're here to play frisbee golf! Nature sucks!

And it especially sucks at that place when you keep losing your discs in it. The rough is downright maddening, even more so than the idiots out there playing who have absolutely no concept of basic, standard golf etiquette. Parents with little kids who spend 10 minutes on a hole just throwing frisbees willy-nilly while you keep shouting "FORE!" to no avail.

I swear to my lack of god we spent more time searching frantically for discs lost in the rough than we did actually shooting. By the time we got to the last 2 holes, with plenty of annoying bugs adding to our shitty mood, we were speed-golfing just to get it over with. Bry actually quit halfway through #18, he was so fed up. He couldn't even stand to finish the last hole. Never again. A map of the whole course at the very start is the ONLY thing that kept it from being as bad as the course at Jackson CC.

Sunday we began a round at Ottawa Park expecting to introduce fellow KJ "151" to the sport, but he cancelled so we decided to check out the course at Heritage Park in Adrian. There was a sign at the entrance with one arrow pointing to 'disc golf', and that was it. We parked, saw one basket way off in the distance next to a sledding hill, and walked out to it. Saw another basket nearby, #4, and another parking lot closer than where we parked. Bry went back to bring the car over while I investigated a few more nearby holes.

Next to this second parking area I found a big wooden sign of the sort on which one would normally expect to find a course map. At the top it said "Heritage Park Disc Golf Course". the rest of the sign: BLANK. I repeat. BLANK!!! The nearby holes we found were nos. 5, 6 and 7. With no hint as to where the first hole was, with plenty of wind and threats of rain, with every indication that there was plenty of rough, and without so much as even a practice throw, we had no choice but to quit this course before we even started! There was only one way to save this 3rd day of our ever-increasingly-annoying frisbee golf odyssey.

We headed back to Albion.

Despite the threat of rain, more fun ensued. We got wet again, not by rain, but by wading back into the water hazards after our frisbees. The water at the 10th hole was a bit deeper than 2 days before. This time it was up to my nuts. The 12th hole, Albion's 'monster', has a large shallow pond next to it, and poor Bryan landed in the middle of it. After about 10 minutes of carefully wading out to his disc, he made a rather half-assed attempt at a safe shot out to the side of the pond. PLUNK. Right back in the drink it went. More wading. This time he tried the longer, more daring shot across the water and out toward the basket. Just barely cleared the water! No guts, no glory!

Final verdict: I'd rather have my disc land in a clean 2-foot-deep pond where I can easily find it and get a little wet, than have to burrow into a shitload of underbrush or wander around in a field of rough wondering if I'll ever see my disc again. From now on I'll stick to parks like Ottawa and Victory, and avoid rough and underbrush like they were religion and the plague.

TUESDAY
Had clear skies for the Perseid meteor shower this year, camped out for 2.5 hours on Bryan's driveway in Monclova, and averaged 24 meteors per hour. It had its share of funny moments, like when the count got to 22 near the end of the first hour. "This Hour Has 22 Meteors", I proclaimed. When the total reached 30, we made the obvious reference to the Jack-In-The-Box stoner commercial: "How many meteors should I get?" "30."

There was one other recurring joke involving the sounds of nearby waterfowl, but rather than try to explain it here, those of you who know me can ask me about it next time you talk to me. Suffice to say said waterfowl were apparently Led Zeppelin fans.

Current Duck Pond temperature:
23.9 C / 75.0 F