I miss watching the Seattle Mariners lose.

Obviously, I am not like most baseball fans. The crack of the bat brings back horrible memories of playing third base and letting grounders through my legs. Powerful home runs lead me to immediately factor in how much steroids were involved. And I believe there is no such thing as a riveting pitchers’ duel.

Still, I look forward to baseball season because I get an odd amount of joy out of watching the Mariners struggle.

Many of my Seattle friends would hate me for saying so, but watching the Mariners blow late-inning leads is one of my favorite sporting events. I can’t get enough of it. A few years ago, the M’s had one of the worst bullpens in Major League Baseball, and I had one of the best years of my life. Coincidence? Probably not.

Growing up in Nampa, Idaho, I had ample opportunity to become a Mariners fan. The team was all over the newspapers and television since they were the closest major league team to the area. But instead of falling for them, I started despising them. I liked the team when it had Griffey and Randy Johnson and A-Rod, but once they started selling off those players, my distaste for the franchise grew by leaps and bounds.

Going to school in Seattle made things worse. People in Seattle only liked the Mariners when they were doing well, and their fair-weather attitude really ate at me. Sure, there were the die-hards who would support the team no matter what, but there were more who simply did not care unless something historical was happening.

All of these factors have made Mariner losses strangely rewarding for me. I try to catch their games on FOX Sports Northwest to see what new way they have discovered to go down in flames. I follow their futile attempts at contending with a smug grin on my face. I really eat this stuff up.

So welcome back, baseball. Your fans have missed you dearly. And I hope you have some new Mariner lows to delight us with this season.

But all that changed this week.

The day after the season finale aired, the results were hard to ignore. The winner was splashed all over news sites, and columnists were quick to quip on how it all went down. I guess that the importance of the story showed how far the show has come in the past couple seasons. You don’t see the winner of Project Pussycat Dolls on the front page of Fox News. So in a sense, we are happy to see one of our favorite shows get the recognition it deserves.

On the other hand, we are kind of annoyed. Now there is little reason to watch the final episode other than to see Michael Kors shrivel his face at an outfit and hear Heidi Klum butcher some English phrases. With Chris March gone, there will be no human hair corsets to make us dry heave as they creep down the runway. The allure of a Christian/Jillian/Rami showdown is next to none unless one of them happened to design a wardrobe based on my 1989 NFL team pillowcase cover.

That said, we’ll still watch. We have a wager going on how many times Christian says “fierce.”

When I started the task of teaching myself Photoshop, I expected things to be difficult; I just didn’t expect that three weeks into it I would still struggle with finding orange on the color palette. My goal was to create some cool designs for the Boise State football website that I run, but all I have now are strange pictures of cropped Bronco gear. And did I mention that they are all in “sepia”?

The truth of the matter is that I am getting better. The reality is that I was not very good to begin with. Yet after on-again, off-again practicing, I now have a grasp of layers, selection tools, and my personal favorite, the eraser. My work is beginning to resemble what I have in my mind, and once I figure out proper scaling or hire a professional to do so, I think the designs will look great.

I’ll post some of my work one of these days…provided I can figure out how to do so.

A five-dollar Christian concert doesn’t elicit high expectations, but I was nevertheless semi-excited to see bands that probably would not sound very good in person. The Rocks and Reeds Tour featuring Ever Stays Red and Rottingdam November was either going to be a great value for Friday night entertainment or a mistake of Christian-moshing proportions. Fortunately, it was the latter.

Both bands are played fairly regularly on Effect Radio, one of my favorite radio stations. I like Ever Stays Red enough not to change the station when they’re on, but not quite enough to actually own one of their CDs. Rottingdam November meant nothing to me except that they are from the Boise area, meaning I feel obligated to support them since they are operating under a very low glass ceiling.

The number one rule of Christian concert-attending is to not go hungry. I had made that mistake before a Carman concert once, and four hours later, my stomach had started looking at my colon rather insidiously. Friday night’s menu called for Carl’s Jr., which is exactly what it would do every Friday night if I were single.

However, things were not as good as usual. My typical order is the Famous Star value meal (minus cheese), but this time, I had a coupon, frugally affected my decision-making. By purchasing a large coke, I was entitled to a free Western bacon cheeseburger. I did not know that I would be paying for it later in ways my intestines only knew how.

The amalgamation of patty, bacon, onion ring, cheese and barbecue sauce was difficult to look at, so I ate the whole thing mostly without looking in its direction.

With full stomachs (and sick stomachs), we drove out to the concert. The venue was a new church in West Boise called Pursuit, and it turned out to be a large office building with carpeted floors. There were no pews and only a handful of chairs, which practically begged the 12-18 age demographic to start moshing into each other.

After a boring opening act by the church’s worship team, the concert got underway.
Rottingdam November played an entertaining set made possible by their proliferation of guitarists. We counted five, but there could have been a sixth hiding behind an amp. It was awesome in its unnecessity. At various times, the lead singer, the lead guitarist, the bass guitarist, the piano player, and some guy who was way too happy to be there were all strumming along to the beat of emo-rock. Some songs featured all five, which is either a show of cutting edge musicianship or an acute inability to say no.

Apart from their guitar troupe, the music wasn’t half bad. Hard rock songs led into a slower ballad, and they pulled each type off rather well.

Of course, what would a Christian concert be without poorly staged audience involvement. Rottingdam’s happened when the piano player/guitarist #3 ran out in the crowd to play some chords with the fans. Sadly, no one noticed him, probably because they were too busy focusing on the other four guitars. During another song, guitarist #2 went all falsetto on us, resulting in giggling from my friends. I guess you had to be there.

Ever Stays Red played next, and they were very professional in their set. You could obviously tell the difference between Rottingdam (just happy to be there) and Ever Stays Red (music professionals who want nothing more than to never work a nine-to-five job) from everything to stage presence to visuals and music.

By this point in the concert, we had moved dangerously close to an amp the size of my brother, meaning that hearing loss was a very real possibility. Every Stays Red is not a particularly hard band (we later classified them in the car as indie rock, alternative, folk), but they were loud nonetheless.

Wanting to get my five bucks’ worth, I had done research on the band beforehand so that I would know what songs they sing, and I am happy to say that it paid off. I recognized every song they did, which always makes the concert experience better. The lead singer was a genuine guy, although his Nazarene-like oratory over sappy piano music was a tad on the long side. The guy playing lead guitar was awesome. He was tall and lanky, and he jumped around the stage like a gangly, hyper child. If he had been in Rotterdam, he probably would have knocked down or seriously injured two or three guitarists.

After ESR had played their last song and after one of the Rotterdam guys in the audience had started the encore chant that made them play one more, we headed for the exits. Our ears hurt and our clothes smelled like tween B.O., but we were glad we went. The music was good, the people were entertaining, and the whole thing only cost five bucks. Not including a night’s worth of acid reflux.

The strains and demands of today’s society are antithetical to waiting and patience. That is why Go-gurt was invented. Living among the busy and hectic would make an anxious person out of anyone, much less a person so prone to peer pressure and conformity as I am.

However, if I have learned one thing from my Christian walk (I have actually learned several, manifested in daily lessons that remind me I indeed do not deserve grace), it is to be in the world and not of it. Living by that tenet would be the only way to heed the advice of Isaiah.

Wait for him: but I have to go to Sonic for half-price drinks from 2:00 to 5:00!
In quietness and trust is your strength: but I have so many loud and irresponsible things to do
In rest is your salvation: but I didn’t sleep last night because I was making lists of how to watch sports on TV more efficiently

It is easy for me to get lost in this cycle of busy-ness. However, it is also necessary that I find a way out of the world’s busy schedule. “The Lord longs to be gracious” to me, but I’ll never have a chance to receive his grace if I can’t take my nose out from the grindstone long enough to accept it. He has promised us blessings, and all we have to do is wait.

Instead of fitting God into my life’s schedule, I should fit my life into God’s schedule. Besides, he is much better at time management than I will ever be.

Confused?  I still am.  To get into the particulars of what went bad would be to relive a one hour conversation that I’ve already had multiple times in my head and I don’t want to ever hear again. The only way to ease the haunting discrepancies in the movie was to awash myself in HGTV programming.  At least there, everything makes sense.

I am rather proud of myself for persevering through the end (with the help from my faithful, understanding wife), and though it doesn’t quite constitute placement on my resume, beating Super Mario Galaxy still gives me much pride and joy.

Here is a video of the final boss battle with the indomitable Bowser.  It looks a lot like how I beat it except when you see smart, strategic maneuvering, replace that with frantic scurrying and unfortunate jump timing.

Before beating Bowser, I faced robots with cannons, wizards with fireballs, grasshoppers with anger management problems, and zombie fish with underwater exploding missiles.  Mario’s come a long way since jumping on Koopa Troopas.

Next up: Super Monkey Ball for the Gamecube.  As long as they keep putting the word Super in things, I have no choice but to try to beat them.