"...me playing a billed solo show has heretofore been a Sign of the Apocalypse."

The world is safe for a while longer.

My Boston trip is completely off. It was looking awfully definite until my friend's band lost their guitarist. They're about to embark on a European tour, and their guitarist decided that he couldn't afford to go, so he bailed. (It's more complicated than that, but that's the abbreviated version.) I discussed the possibility of my trip at length, and Reuben was afraid that they'd be having extensive practices for the duration of my trip (in order to teach a new guitarist all of their songs), which would seriously restrict the amount of hang-out time I'd have while there.

I'd still like to visit, though. Maybe this summer.

Now, I tried looking on the bright side. Not going to Boston that weekend means that I'm now able to go to Music Midtown to catch the Foo Fighters. Problem: I don't want to pay $40 to see the Foo Fighters alone, granted that I still remember how messy their set was at the 1998 Music Midtown. (They weren't messy; it was the audience that made it a mess.)

I look at the roster, and notice that the "new" Doors are playing as well. Sweet! I've been curious to see them, only if I'm just modestly a Doors fan.

Then, the schedule is released. The Foo Fighters and the Doors are playing at THE SAME FARKING TIME. What idiot put this together? Is there no cognizance that the two bands might share some fans? And that they're THE TWO BIGGEST BANDS OF THE WHOLE WEEKEND?!?!?

Needless to say, I've decided not to go to Music Midtown.

Here's a non-existent segue.

I played in an Ultimate Hat tournament this past Saturday, and had an amazing time. The concept of a hat tournament works like this: everyone signs up, and the teams are broken up at random. (Well, "random" with some guidance, in order to make sure that all of the high-ranked players don't end up on the same team.) My team ended up just being a really fun group of people. And we were solid. In our second and third games, we were down by two and three points (respectively) towards the end of each game and were able to come back to win.

That meant that we made it to the finals, only to bump up against another solid team. Because of our previous comebacks, we weren't swayed by being down 7-1. But that was just too big a gap to recover. Even still, losing 13-11 was respectable. And, honestly, it didn't matter granted that it was still fun.

I've had some great games lately. A couple of weeks ago at competitive league, we won two games against teams that seemed to have far more talent on their sidelines than we did. Winning games when you're the clear underdog is just so amazing.

The strangest part for me is that, suddenly, I find myself throwing the long-distance throws to score points. I've never been known for that, and generally have never done it. But I can't tell you how many ridiculous hucks I put up that night that somehow ended up being caught and eventually resulted in scores. (I think the reason it worked is that my team has several players that are simply amazing receivers.) Naturally, the danger in that is that I'm starting to huck at inappropriate moments. I've got to rein it in a little or I'm going to look like a fool. But it feels so great when it works.

This week, though, was more frustrating. I'm starting to feel like I have to be a "leader" on this team, which means that I'm pushing myself to try more throws than I'm generally capable of completing. At the beginning of the night, I did okay. But during the second game, up 9-6, I fell apart. There were two points in particular where all I had to do was complete a relatively easy throw, and, both times, the throws fell about three feet short. Then I started making really bad decisions. I think it pulled the team down. We ended up losing 13-11.

I think I was just exhausted. I've started helping out with a job on Wednesdays that puts me on my feet all afternoon, and I think it might have been a factor that night. Some of the players were going to dinner after the games, and I just came home and crashed. I think I slept ten or eleven hours that night.

But, in general, I'm feeling a lot better about my game. Of course, that'll last until tomorrow where I'll start to feel worse about my game again.

And, in the last bit of toenail news, they're both gone. The right one came off last night. New nails are coming in, and, hopefully, I won't destroy them any time soon.

I've gotten stalled on working on music again. I'm really, really eager to get some of the new stuff finished, though. The Boston trip was going to be part of my motivation, but, now, I'm stuck trying to find motivation from somewhere else. I'm telling you - I love how some of the acoustic stuff sounds, especially with the modestly unusual percussion that I'm using.

Other than that, I'm still busy (which is good).

Though I am starting to ask myself why I put my cartoons online, granted that I've done absolutely nothing with them.