My Dad is visiting tomorrow.

This is stressful.

By the way, sorry I haven't been posting as regularly last week. I was sick as a dog, which I suppose, as a man who is half-wolf wouldn't be THAT sick, but still.

It sucked.

Anyway, I'm feeling much better now, and all I have to deal with next week is turning into a wolf. It's cool with my Dad's visit though, he shows up Monday and will be gone on Wednesday, which is the 23rd. I'll have to make something up about the pigs. He still thinks that the problems that happened on thanksgiving were because I was on heroin. At least I don't have to worry about changing while he's here.

Full moon is the 25th, and if the normal pattern of changing the night before, night of, and night after keeps up, well he'll be back in Massachusetts while I'm feasting on Bob Joyce's bones.

That's one of the pigs, for those of you who aren't Bruins fans.

Joyce, Janney and Neely are the pigs, after one of the greatest lines in the history of Bruins hockey. Jesus, I miss hockey. Today, on ESPN classic, I watched the Detroit Red Wings beat the Carolina Hurricanes for the 2002 Stanley Cup.

God knows, a 3-1 win with an empty netter in a game that Carolina was never really in is a modern classic. I mean, if you wanted to watch Glen Wesley not winning the cup, isn't the '88 Bruins vs. Gretzky's Oilers the better game?

Ah, well- Christ, who am I kidding, it was brutal, but is it wrong to want to watch some Bruins hockey?

Oh, by the way, here's yet another brilliant idea some in the NHL are considering to garner viewers: Blue Ice.

Yep, the minor league team in Buffalo is experimenting with painting the ice surface blue, making the blue lines orange, and the red line, well, darker blue.

So the blue lines are um...orange, the red line is now...blue and the ice is as they describe it "electric powder blue?"

Great. I'm sure that the reason people weren't watching hockey was that the playing surface didn't look enough like Danny Partridge's summer tuxedo.

One problem that is continually brought up by people who aren't used to hockey is that they can't follow the puck. So what's the answer? That's right, make the ice darker.

Christ.

The ice is white.
The puck is black.

Can it be any more clear?

Look- here's the deal with hockey, and yes, this is the way they should market it:

If you can't follow the puck, go watch basketball. We don't need you. Hockey is the best, fastest, toughest, ballsiest, hardest sport to play and exel at. Utility players in hockey are better trained athletes than the starters in any other sport. Hockey players can outdrink you, outhit you, outwit you and cook you a dinner that is not only as delicious as any you would find in any of the world's finest restaurants, but would be laid out upon your plate in such a way as to cause even the most meticulous of culinary designers to gasp at the humble artistry.

OK- maybe I'm getting beyond myself.

But fuck it.

Hockey is great, and if you can't see that, well- fucking go to a game and make your life better.

I equate those who have not yet appreciated Stanley Cup playoff hockey to those who haven't yet read Catch-22.

I am jealous of them.

To be able to have something that pure, that true, that great lying yet undiscovered in your future would be incredible. It would mean that something in the future yet unseen contains beauty, truth, poetry, comedy and wonder beyond that of the ordinary same old- same old.

I mean, I know there are things like that out there for me, but God knows what they are. Playoff hockey and Catch-22 are available.

Well, Catch-22 is.

Fuck.

Can you tell I'm a little stressed over my Dad coming?

Maybe we'll go to a museum.