And here we are at the one-year anniversary of my mother's death. On the one hand, it doesn't feel like it's been a year already, and yet on the other it feels like it's been so much longer. I've been dreading the day, but it wasn't as bad as I was expecting.

My younger sister called this morning. She's been dealing with trying to get our mother's estate all taken care of, and of course there have been plenty of things making that go less than smoothly. One of those things was the main reason for the call, but we chatted for about an hour catching up on all sorts of things. We haven't spoken for a while. Not for any reason, I'm just not a phone person.

Otherwise, my mother's absence is still felt, although it's getting easier to accept, I guess. But it is still sometimes hard to wrap my brain around the idea that she just isn't around anymore. I dunno, the grieving process is weird.

Tuesday, we had another Crew game to go to. It was the second leg of the round of 16 in the CONCACAF Champions Cup tournament, and for some dumbass reason they scheduled kick off for 8:30 pm. We headed down shortly after we both got home from work and hung out at the tailgate for a good little while. We managed to get food there, and avoid the high-priced stuff in the stadium, which was good as I've been pretty low on funds this week. The match went pretty well, with the Crew winning. Alas, since they lost the week before in the first leg, they ended up losing on aggregate score, so LAFC advanced and the Crew are out of the tournament. Kind of disappointing, but it does mean our schedule will be less congested over the next few months.

I signed up for my volunteer shifts in the Board Game Library for Origins the other day. I managed my usual: two shifts on Wednesday, then one as early as possible (2:30 pm in this case) on Friday. It's still three months away, but I'm looking forward to it.

My TV watching has stalled this week. We had the game on Tuesday, and didn't get home until after 11. Yesterday, I had a bit of an impromptu nap for a few hours, and then just wasn't feeling in a TV watching mood. Tonight, I was in more of a listen to music mood, so I threw together a playlist and just listened to that for most of the evening. The NWSL's season starts tomorrow, so I'll try to catch a game. So, it'll most likely be Saturday before I get back to my regular watching.

According to Wiccy, our toilet exploded this morning. Not that I don't believe her, I just wasn't here for it, thankfully. She was asleep, and it woke her up. Water, and apparently just water thank goodness(!), was everywhere. Not really sure what caused it, but it happened to our building and one of the ones next to us as well. Hopefully it is a one-off type of thing!

And I think that's all I've got to get out of my brain right now.

According to the book of faces, it is Mario Day (Mar 10, and all that) so I guess that's as good a reason to post as any. It's also the 28th anniversary of the premiere of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which is just plain rude. 28 years? How?

Anyway, not much going on. We were at Lower.com Field on Saturday for another Crew match. It was chilly, but not too bad. It was a mid-afternoon kickoff, which is pretty rare. We got there early to hang banners, then grabbed breakfast at Sunny Street Cafe. We managed to swing by the tailgate for a bit, then made our way to our usual spot once the gates opened. It ended up as a 0-0 draw, which is causing a vocal bit of the fans to assume the sky is falling, despite the fact that the team's record is 2-0-1 after three games. I dunno, I just can't stand fair weather fans. We'll be back there tomorrow for the second leg of the current round of the CONCACAF Champions Cup tournament against LAFC. The Crew lost last week in LA 3-0, so they have a fair bit of ground to make up if they want to move on.

In other areas, I have one episode left of the third season of Superman & Lois. I'm taking a quick break to watch the first two episodes of Buffy for the anniversary since I was feeling in the mood. Then it will be on to the fourth and final season. Once that is done, I'm not sure what I'll move on to.

Oh, and this past weekend was the switch to Daylight Savings Time. I so hate that. Making the weekend is even shorter is not a good thing to me. They're already too short as it is. Ah well, I guess that's all I've got to say for now.

We headed over to the McEinhorns to watch the show, though Wiccy spent most of the night in the other room working on one of her craft projects. It was an okay show, fairly entertaining and breezy, but overall, nothing truly memorable. My guessing was a bit above 50%, not as good as last year but not my worst. So, for the record, I went 13 for 23 this year.

And for future reference, here's how I've done over the years.

2006: 16/24
2007: 14/24
2008: 12/24
2009: 15/24
2010: 16/24
2011: 18/24
2012: 14/24
2013: 17/24
2014: 18/24
2015: 17/24
2016: 14/24
2017: 12/24
2018: 14/24
2019: 14/24
2020: 16/24
2021: 14/23
2022: 14/23
2023: 13/23
2024: 14/23
2025: 13/23

Tonight is the Academy Awards, so as tradition dictates, here are my picks:

( Random Guesses and SpeculationCollapse )

As always, these are just guesses. I haven't seen any of the nominated films this year, though I keep meaning to watch Conclave, since it's on Peacock. I may try to watch a few of the others at some point, but I don't have that much interest in most of them. Oh well, we'll see how I did tomorrow, eh?

For years, I've been hoping that Columbus would get an outdoor game. I knew it wouldn't be a Winter Classic, but a Stadium Series game seemed a given. Yet year after year, no dice. Los Angeles and Dallas got to host games, and Las Vegas (a much younger franchise) has played in two games! But finally, it was announced that there would be a game at Ohio Stadium between the Blue Jackets and the Detroit Red Wings.

As soon as I was able to, I bought tickets because I was not going to let the chance to see an outdoor game go by. And it has been over a dozen years since I've last seen any hockey game live. And so tonight (well, technically last night since I'm writing this just after midnight), we went to the game.

It was cold. So very, very cold. But it was a great time. We ended up way up in the upper bowl, but it was a pretty nice view of the rink. The Jackets scored first, but the Red Wings tied it up. Then the Jackets went up by two goals and headed into the final period with a 3-1 lead. But the Red Wings again managed to tie it up, and it looked like we may have been heading to overtime. But the Jackets scored with just a couple of minutes left, and then after a couple of attempts managed an empty net goal to put the game away. So, a 5-3 win for the home team. It was worth the cold to experience this event.

It did mean that I had to miss N-Day over at NationStates, but that's a very small price to pay.

And I did manage to finish Stargirl last night. Such a great show, I really wish it had run at least a few more seasons. I did like the way they ended it, though.

We have come to the end of February, at last. For such a short month, it sure felt like it took a long time to pass. This week has been rather warmish in the afternoons, still around freezing in the mornings though. But in the mid-50s most of the week for the drive home has been nice. Of course, tomorrow the high is only supposed to be at freezing. But we'll be back to the warmer temperatures by midweek next week.

It is probably no surprise that I have a bit of a cold, mostly just a cough. Nothing as bad as what I had back in January, more of an annoyance than anything. But it has been contributing to me not sleeping well this week. My body has been compensating by falling asleep in my chair in the late afternoons/early evenings, which has played absolute havoc with my plans to watch things. I am two episodes behind on Paradise, and I still have four episodes to go with Stargirl. I'm going to try to at least watch a couple tonight after I finish this entry, because the weekend will be busy, and I would like to move on to the next thing soon. I feel like I've done nothing all week.

Otherwise, things just are, ya know? It has been a month, is what I'm saying. I hope March is better, because these first two months have not been great.

It was a very merry Crewsmas indeed!

We started the very chilly day with the Sunrise Toast. It was a nice way to kick things off, and at least this year it didn't snow. They didn't let us in the hang banners until nine, so we had some time to kill after the toast. We tried to find somewhere nearby that was open to warm up, but there weren't very many options. We ended up in the Convention Center and had a little snack from Chicken 'n Eggs.

We headed back to the stadium to hang banners. We started with trying to help get the tifo situated. Then we were off to the upper deck to hang the banners there. It was, as usual, a really fun time. Then it was on to brunch at Sunny Street Cafe. It was delicious, as always. We were recognized by a couple of the staff from last season, and had some out-of-towners ask us about the Crew.

Then it was back to the Convention Center to spend some time playing games. Alas, there was a Cheer and Dance competition going on, and we got there at lunch time. The place was swarming with sparkling teens, tweens, and their parents. SO. MUCH. SPARKLE! We couldn't find a clear spot, so just hung out and stayed warm. I did provide directions for quite a few lost groups. We were about to give up and head off to find somewhere else when a table cleared up. So, we managed to get some gaming in. We started with Starry Night Sky, which Wiccy won. Then we followed that with Pollen, Guillotine, and Gnoming-A-Round, all of which I won.

We headed back to the stadium then. We had talked about going to the tailgate and hanging out with some of our friends. But Wiccy decided she wanted to go to the Crew Shop before the gates opened to look at the new kit. So, we went into the Plaza and then the Shop. Wiccy did end up buying one of the new kits, which she intends to get Nagbe's name and number put on soon. Once the gates opened and we got our free beanies, we were off to the Nordecke to stake out our spots.

It was so good to be back. It had been 111 days since we were last there for a match, which feels like several eternities. The pregame festivities were fun, tying in to the new kit. And then the match began.

The Crew started off okay but then had a defensive break down which led to Chicago scoring the first goal. Jacen Russell-Rowe tied the game a little while later. But then there was another defensive break down, and Chicago took back the lead. Chicago scored again, but thankfully it was on themselves to tie the game up again. Rossi scored just into first half stoppage time to take the lead for the first time, and they would not give it back.

Rossi scored his second of the match in the second half. AZ almost got a goal of his own, but it was overruled by VAR for off-sides. The Crew played well the rest of the game and held off the few chances that the Fire had, and ended up with a 4-2 victory to start off the season.

Looking forward to the rest of this season, hopefully we'll see a lot more wins. Next week the Crew are on the road, and we'll be at the 'Shoe for the Blue Jackets' outdoor game. So, it will be two weeks until our next time back at LDS for an early clash with Houston.

Last Friday, I finally took my car in to see to the constantly threatening to overheat that I've been dealing with for the last quite a while. Had to get the radiator replaced. They called me to let me know the car could be picked up about 10 minutes before they closed for the weekend. Alas, I live a fair bit away, and it's about an hour bus ride to get there. We managed to work it out where I paid them online and was able to get the key from a lockbox on Saturday.

On the way home, I stopped at McDonald's for lunch pretty much just as an excuse to get a Shamrock Shake. Thankfully, the shake machine wasn't broken, so I was able to satisfy that craving. Picked Wiccy up from work later in the afternoon and we did our food shopping. First time in a few weeks we'd done it in person, as we've been ordering them online and having them delivered. It rained most of the day. And then the temperature dropped overnight, and it snowed all Sunday.

Which meant that when I went to go drive to work on Monday morning, my door locks were frozen, and I couldn't get in. So, the bus it was. Alas, I missed the first bus, so ended up being about an hour late for work. I got a ride home from a coworker, which was much appreciated as we had plans. And even though it was still quite cold all day, the sun was out, and I was able to get into the car that afternoon.

So, Wiccy and I headed up to Lower.com Field for the Nordecke Season Ticket Member Event. This is our third time going, as we are heading into our third season as STMs. This year was a little different. They held it in a different club section, and instead providing basically a meal we only got some snack type food. But the GM, Issa Tall, and Head Coach, Wilfried Nancy, were there for a Q&A. It went a lot better than I was fearing, as there are still some upset fans that we sent Cucho to La Liga and haven't signed anyone to replace him yet. But I guess those folks didn't show up. It was nice to see a bunch of the folks we've met over the last couple of years, and who have become friends. We did make it to help out with the tifo one day last week, so saw a couple of folks then. We helped with the tracing of the design, which is the only part of the process we hadn't done last year. But with the weather, we didn't get over there on the weekend, and they apparently made a huge amount of progress, only needing to put it on the netting, so we haven't had a chance to go back. Next tifo, we'll make more of an effort to get over there.

Anyhow, I had noticed that I was low on gas on the way to the event and tried to stop to fill up. But the little door over my gas cap had also frozen, and I couldn't get it open. By the time we got home, I was very close to empty and didn't want to risk it the next morning. And so, once more I took the bus. And this time, the first bus didn't even show up, so I got to stand out at the stop for almost an hour in 10-degree weather! (Brrr!) After getting home, I still couldn't get the door open, so I took the bus in this morning. Although I was able to get the first bus, so was only 15 minutes late today. Another coworker gave me a ride home today, and I was finally able to get the door open, so immediately drove up the street to fill up.

And of course, tonight we're supposed to get more snow. Hopefully it won't be too bad, and I can actually drive to work tomorrow. I'm really not happy with how much PTO I've had to burn through this early in the year. Oh well, two more days this week and then it's Crewsmas! At least I have that to look forward to.

On the TV front, I finally finished The Flash over the weekend. Overall, I enjoyed it. The early seasons were better, but that's usually the case with shows that last nearly a decade. I then watched the two episodes of Paradise that I needed to catch up on (and now I have this week's to watch) and then moved on to Stargirl. Even though we watched most of the third and final season, I can't quite remember where we left off, and it's been a couple of years already, so I just started from the start of that season. I'm about halfway through. I haven't watched anything the last two days as I've just been so tired I've ended up taking some unplanned naps both days. I probably won't get back to it until Friday, as the USWNT is playing their first game of this year's SheBelieves Cup tournament tomorrow and I will try to watch that. Should be a good game, and interesting to see how they do, as they are still without several key players due to injury.

And I think that's all I have to say right now.

The Philadelphia Eagles just won Super Bowl LIX, soundly defeating the Kansas City Chiefs 40-22. I was nervous leading up to and well into the game, though the team gave me no reason to be. It's just being a life-long fan of Philly sports teams has given me a (probably) unhealthy level of expectation of disappointment.

Wiccy had to work today but got home a couple of hours before kick-off. She immediately started trash talking, being a Chiefs fan. I did not trash talk back, considering it bad luck to do so and I didn't want to jinx anything. I am a little stitious, as a not-at-all-wise TV character once said. She didn't watch the game, choosing to take a bath and read for most of the game. She gave some thought to coming out at half time, apparently, but looked at the score and chose to stay away.

I will say, I was overall disappointed with the commercials this year. There were a few amusing ones, but by the end of the game I had trouble remembering most of them. But at least the game was watchable, from my perspective. And the half time show was not for me. It wasn't terrible, but just not my type of music.

So that's a nice way to wrap up another far too short weekend. Now we can turn our attention from American football to that other football, just a little while away.