Russia photos: part 3 of ?

http://picasaweb.google.com/davidjstira

Weekend trip to the Altay Mountains. Contains some of my favorite pictures of all.

Feels like a steaming pile of shit

It has been cold here lately. Not just like man, when's spring coming? It's more like making sure both your nuts are still descended after walking outside for 20 minutes. It's more like taking showers at night so your hair doesn't freeze when you're walking to school at sunrise. I can deal with this, at least I tell myself I can because I'm going to have to when/if I am ever living in Russia. What I can't deal with are these bullshit weather magicians.

Meteorology? Fuck that. There's no more ology to that than there is to astrology or Scientology. Case in point? The FEELS LIKE temperature. By the ghost of Pere Noel, it's not only 14 degrees outside, but it FEELS LIKE 2! Sound the klaxons! Wrap your kids in extra layers of astronaut blanket before you send them out! Start wearing a scarf even though it makes you look like a complete Craftsman. BATTON DOWN THE HATCHES FOLKS IT FEELS LIKE FUCKIN TWO DEGREES!!!

14 degrees but feels like 2? No. Bullshit. Bullshit on that. It feels like 14, except the wind is howling and the sun may or may not have shown itself for two days. Just like any other type of "news" or news-equivalent (more of the latter these days on TV) weather has become completely alarmist. Hooooollly fuckin Moses, it's below freezing but don't be fooled!! It's way more below freezing than you thought it was! Look how cold we are telling you you will feel if you go outside! YOU WILL FEEL LIKE TWO DEGREES!! ONLY TWO!!#!

No dipshits. It's cold. It's windy. If you see the temperature is 14, and that there are 25 mile per hour winds, you know you'd better wear your fuckin Ugg boots and Under Armour bank robbery headgear. Even if they said wind chill I might accept this whole FEELS LIKE ridiculousness. Wind chill at least implies some kind of scientific equation and use of empirical data. But noooooo, it's FEELS LIKE 12. What is this? Numbers and feelings do not mix god damnit! I don't feel 11 sad right now, or 0.5 horny, or 6/7 hungry. My body is a healthy 98.6 degrees, even though it FEELS LIKE 82 because the seal around my window is as porous as John McCain's bones (Vote McCain '08 -- I don't care if he's old). The point is, where do they get any kind of number for FEELS LIKE? Did they get a bunch of test subjects, put them outside in their skivvies during a blizzard, stick a USB cord into their recti and download a big steaming DATA SET??!

People don't say in the summer time that "Sweet baby James, it's 92 degrees out but it feels like only 82 because there's a steady breeze! Enjoy the wind chill! While you're at it, it's raining! So really it only FEELS LIKE 71! So pack your umbrella and maybe even a long sleeve shirt!!" No, even not-so-bullshit wind chill is used for alarmism -- only when it's cold as Hillary outside do people start talking about wind chill. Just like heat index. Fuck heat index. If it were 210 degrees outside but the FEELS LIKE said that it was 213, water wouldn't boil. Water doesn't give a shit.

Weathermen. I am scared of enough things, all right? HILLARY CLINTON IS STILL A SERIOUS CANDIDATE. I do not need to be any more scared than that please. No more bullshit. No more FEELS LIKE. Stick to your cumulonimbi and orographic lift, you scientist halflings.

Things I miss and things I don't miss from the Metro East

1) I miss... the Colonial Section.

Sectionals was never much of a joke to our team. Granted some of the games were, in fact, funny, but beating up on the "God-is-on-our-side"-cheering Catholic team was never as fun as it sounds. Of course, when we did get a little too full our ourselves, we got fucked pretty hard for it. I am speaking of course of Sectionals 07, the beginning of the craziest emotional rollercoaster I have ever experienced.

We had a good sectional coordinator in Farrell. I have no idea who our current sectional coordinator is, even though I am the team contact person for tournaments. Farrell always kept us apprised of every little development when it came to Sectionals, and we certainly don't get that out here at IU.

2) I miss... knowing people on other teams.

We had a lot of interaction between teams. From what I can tell here at IU, the official line on other teams is "Fuck those guys!" Honestly, I don't even know people's names on other teams, or who their main guys are. This is in great contrast to when I was at GW and knew all sorts of other people (even when I was a freshman):

-Danimal from Maryland and his pep talks
-Bulb from Delaware and his daring leap into the banquet hall pool at Nationals
-Pretty much any player from Del and their [insert weird thing here].
-Kiefer from Rutgers and his relentlessness in being Kiefer.
-Sean from Pitt because I wanted to be as good as he was (still working on that...)
-Rabbit from Maryland and when he was driving the bus that picked us up from the Metro
-Miyagi from Salisbury because I thought he would never graduate.
-Wes from Pitt because a) he booted me in the head at Easterns and b) because he introduced (I suspect) Pitt's entire f-ing team to my blog.
-TallE from Pitt for his good throws, cutting remarks, and presence on the internet.

2) I miss... things being close-by.

I remember that we would groan about having to drive 8 hours to Easterns. I realize that being stuck on the goddamned Jersey turnpike pretty much every time we traveled northward was no fun, but at least the drives were shorter. Now, I find myself selecting tournaments, and for the spring no tournament is closer than 9.5 hours away. This includes, of course, a 17-hour drive down to Louisiana for Mardi Gras, 13 hours to Easterns (probably) and finally, a 16-hour drive to...

4) I don't miss... fucking piece of shit Salisbury, MD

And yet I'm going back there in the spring (probably). I vowed I would never return, especially after the debacle that occurred there at least year's sectionals. All in all, I think I went to Salisbury at least 7 times, each time despising it more and more. Why? Sandy soil, ridiculous townspeople, route-fucking-50 and the Bay Bridge, Bob Evans, the abandoned mall, complete lack of grass, the Wicomico County police -- I mean, the list goes on. And I'm sure that people out there can contribute to the list. Please do. I hate that place. A million times... I DESPISE SALISBURY. Yet, Huck of the Irish 2008: here we come! What a fetid pit of monstrous horrors...

I guess this is kind of losing steam since I can't really think of more things. I guess I also don't miss playing Pittsburgh, since I had some of my best games (with one exception) against them, and yet g-dub never beat Pitt. Other important people always had terrible games or tried to play outside their ability, resulting in some of my angriest moments. Then again, I also did enjoy playing Pitt because they were our rival. Not much of a rivalry, though, when one team always won...

I also don't miss being the worst region in the country. Except now the Metro East isn't the worst region in the country, thanks in large part to the class of players that came through the various schools while I was there. I do not claim to be part of their elites, but the players who have just graduated in the past couple of years were the ones who brought the Metro East out of obscurity, I think. And now I'm in the Great Lakes. So now my former teammates can say to me "at least you're in the Great Lakes region..." Bah. The hell with this.