Sigh.

The Master’s team is heading off to Montreal this weekend to play in the Montreal Jazz Tournament. It’s our one real opportunity to play a tournament at an elite level (i.e., get our asses handed to us) before Nationals. The tournament does not actually have a Masters division, which means we are playing in the same division as all the young guys (see “asses handed to us”).

But — shocker! — My Lovely Wife decided on Friday that she wanted to come up with me! She NEVER comes to tournaments with me, so this is a big deal. It did mean dipping a little further into debt to buy her a plane ticket and getting us a separate hotel room. (Previously, I was just planning on sharing a hotel room with a passel of sweaty guys. Heavy emphasis on “sweaty”. Hell, the emphasis on “sweaty” is so heavy that bolding and italicising the word just won’t cut it. Imagine the word is on fire. That might give you the proper feeling of emphasis. And now back to our tale.) But debt is a constant — us taking a vacation is a rare, rare occasion, especially a vacation that doesn’t entail going to visit family.

To add to the excitement, we finagled our dear friends Otto and Jen to come up for the weekend too! I managed to get a spot for the Otto on the team for the weekend, and Jen was coming to hang out with Beth (i.e., NOT hang out at the fields with us).

So, everything’s coming up freaking cookies and teddy bears, right?

Ha.

Last night, this notice appears on the tournament website:

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT - Monday, June 26th, 2006

Dear MJT teams,

There is a possibility that this year’s tournament will be cancelled due to inclement weather, as the forecast is calling for rain all week in Montreal. So far, the city has seen a very wet spring and early summer, and some of the Douglas fields will not be in useable condition if the rain continues this week as forecasted. Unfortunately, there are no alternative sites within the city that can host the number of teams scheduled to attend the tourney, nor are multiple sites available during that weekend.

We will continue to assess the situation and will keep you informed. A final decision about whether the tournament will be cancelled will be made late Wednesday/early Thursday morning. The news will be posted on the website as well as emailed out to all captains.

Crap on a stick.

So right now, the Karma Gods are hovering on high, karma sticks lightly held in their multitudinous hands, just waiting… waiting…

I will be spending the next several days making burnt offerings of Gummi Bears and salt & vinegar chips, praying that they appease the great and terrible Karma Gods.

All I ask of you, my pine-fresh readers, is that you send your voices on high on our behalf.

Pray to the Karma Gods.

Pray.

I haven’t mentioned this before — basically because we’re pretty bummed over the whole situation — but The Golden Child (accompanied by The Brother-And-Sister-In-Laws and the Large Ball of Fluff) moved back to Newfoundland this past weekend. The Brother-In-Law was recently promoted to a new position just around the corner from the end of the freaking world, and thus, they moved.

So. No more family dinners. No more baby-sitting. No more meat-crazed BBQs. No more easy access to somebody that actually knows how to fix things around the house. No more utilisation of my vast comedy skills.

It’s sad.

Saturday morning, we went for one more breakfast at the Steak & Stein before they hit the road. They were wiped out from the week of packing and cleaning and the little guy was probably the most tired of all. For a little while, he was his usual self. His favourite thing to do when out at breakfast is to accept a steady stream of little creamers of milk and shoot them like they were tiny glasses of the finest tequila and he was on the world’s hardest bender. He then tosses the empty creamer over his shoulder and looks for the next one. He started out good, shooting back about 5 creamers and littering the floor behind us, but then he sort of lost interest. He was getting tired.

Then breakfast came and everyone started to dig in. His meal consisted of little bits from everyone else — a spattering of scrambled eggs, jam packets, pancake hunks, some playdough (I could be mistaken about that), toast, and, of course, a whole mess of little chunks of sausage. The little trooper he was, he was working his way through it all, fighting off the yawns.

However, we finally realised he had moved into a mystical realm of hyper-exhaustion when we looked over at him, yawning mightily, and rubbing his eyes… with a sausage.

He then looked at us with incomprehension, his bleary eyes positively glistening with grease, as we laughed at him.

And then he rubbed them again.

With a sausage. Again.

I’m gonna miss that little guy.

(Oh. Right. The others too. Can’t forget them. Yup. Whole lot ‘o’ missing going on.)

I pinched a nerve in my neck a couple of days ago. It’s getting better, but I’m chomping back the ibus (ALL BOW DOWN BEFORE THE ALTAR OF IBUPROFEN, WEAK-MINDED MORTALS!) and icing my neck whenever I get a chance.

So I get to work this morning, drop off my backpack under my desk, plop my bagged lunch on my desk, and head right off to a meeting. A mind-numbing hour later, the meeting ends and I figure it might be a good idea to ice my neck this morning (since I do have Masters practice this evening and I would really like to have more neck mobility than a Mr. Potatohead doll). So, off I head in search of ice.

After many trials and travails (OGRES! TROLLS! ADMIN STAFF!), I finally arrive back at my desk with a bag of ice. I sit down, take a breath, and balance the large bag on my shoulder up against my neck aaaaand… Aaaaaaaaaaah. Cooooold.

Things continue apace for about… oh, two minutes, when a co-worker comes to me with a minor crisis. I take the ice off my neck, put it on my desk, and step away for a few minutes.

Crisis averted, I return to my desk, sit down, and place the bag against my neck.

However, after a few minutes, I realise that it feels much less effective than before.

Likely due to the fact that I have placed a bag containing a banana, an orange, and a granola bar against my neck.

• Polymathematics: “No, I’m Sorry, It Does.” (via digg)

This rules. I haven’t read a more fun (”funner”? “more wicked”? “wickeder”?!) argument online in a long time. (The comments over on digg are friggin’ awesome.)

And it’s about freaking math.

Basically…

0.99999… = 1

Or not.

Depending on which argument you accept. Or ignore. Or beat off with a flaming sword.

This could be the geekiest thing I’ve done in a long time, but I’m having a stupendous time following the math war.

[Snort snort snort!]

UPDATE: Oh, look. There’s a Wikipedia article on it too.