the hot dog season in a nutshell...

i was there last saturday night to see relish clench the championship. in all honesty: i went to something like a dozen royals games this year, and relish won EVERY SINGLE TIME I WENT. the reverend tim ciccone owes me copious amounts of cash due to repeated $5 bets against the green machine. so silly.

so here they are...final 2009 hot dog race standings:

ketchup: 26
mustard: 27
relish: 28

2009 hot dog race champion: relish.

don't act like i never told ya. go relish. always and forever.

-ap.

pga championship.

it's friday - that means i have the day off. typically i would catch up on sleep until 930 or 10 and then wake up and slowly get on with my day. today, however, i woke up at 7 and made a trip to the doc to get a tetanus shot. i'm off of my parents' insurance forever soon, so i'm taking advantage of it and getting as many medical trips out of the way as i can before i go back to school.

but since i woke up early for my appointment, i've got free time that i'm not really used to. fortunately for me, golf is on tv.

i'm not sure what it is about golf that makes it so mesmerizing. maybe it's the melodious voice of jim nantz matched with the occasional thrilling moment. perhaps it's sergio garcia and aaron baddeley's get-up. or the occasional lexus virtual caddy fly-by - beautiful holes. or maybe it's the commentators vocab usage - ubiquitous. i'll be impressed once they use nebulous.

the only thing that would make this even more exciting is if i had some money on it. i'm rooting for sergio though, and his sweet light blue polo vest and white slacks. although baddeley's plaid pants are so legit.

but i've been sitting here for quite some time now thinking about doing other things, but never getting much passed that thought. just about the time i plan to hop up and make a sandwich somebody hits a one-hopper off the pin or drops a 45 foot putt. i also really want to get up and go play 18 holes myself, but i don't think i'd be physically capable after my shot. it's rendered my left arm borderline useless. it's only a quarter-sized bruise on my tricep, but i can feel it all through my arm.

i'll probably end up playing vitual golf later tonight. golden tee. part of me wishes i had some sort of print out listing the cash i've spent on golden tee this summer, but another part of me is perfectly fine being kept in the dark. you get to create your own character, save your information and stats by using your credit card as your i.d., and you get to compete for cash prizes against everyone else nationally.

it's either golden tee or the royals game. the royals open up a three game series against the freaking twins. i'm so tired of watching the twins beat the royals, so i'm not letting it happen tonight. i'll either be sitting behind the plate or at buffalo wild wings jeering as much as possible against those shades from minneapolis. oh, and go relish:



-ap.

the best royals game ever.

let's review the two things i love most about the royals:

1. john buck.
2. relish.

now that we're all on the same page, i'll begin my tale which i have appropriately titled "the best royals game ever."

it was "go the the royals game if you're a hillcrest highschooler" night at "the K". after collecting money from every student and paying for parking we went to purchase fifty-eight $7 tickets. amazing moment number 1: we went to the ticket window and our total was $406. we counted the cash we'd collected...$408. so we gave Kathy a $2 tip for smiling and handing us the large wad of tickets. they look more like chuck e. cheese tickets in bulk like that.

we got to our seats (secion 323 rows K-N) and were delighted to see that the royals were already up 2-0 in the second inning. i hadn't been sitting in my seat for more than 10 minutes and i suddenly received a multitude of text messages. you see, i had chosen to wear my relish hat to the game. it is essentially a giant hot dog with green condimentation* along the top. amazing moment number 2: apparently i had been on FSN KC and former royals' pitcher Paul Splittorff said something to the effect of, "you can always tell when it's college night at the K cause people show up with hotdogs on their head."

the game progressed quickly to the bottom of the 4th inning when amazing moment number three happened: mr. incredible himself dropped a homer over jermaine dye's head in right center to make the game 6-2. john buck goes yard for the second time in two starts. and the crowd goes wild.

this game was already thrilling. at this point i was fully confident that nothing could go wrong. anything and everything was going to go my way tonight. so when the Heinz Hot Dog Derby began - i was extremely confident that Relish would pull it out for me. amazing moment number 4: in come-from-behind fashion, Relish takes win number 17 on the year, and is currently dominating the standings where ketchup and mustard have 13 and 12 wins respectively. they quickly went straight to me celebrating in section 323 after the race. i pointed at the condimentation on my hat to notify the masses of my loyalty. and the $5 i had riding on relish quickly turned into $15. pleasure doing business with you gents.

the game slowly went south, however, my morale was as high as ever. the chicago white sox clawed back into it, and actually took the lead on a balk. as we entered the 9th inning, we were down 1 run, but all eyes went to the Mass-o-tron** to watch the royals' highlights from the night. amazing moment number 5: clip 3. immediately proceeding the plethora of royals hits and put outs to come...there i was. I WAS IN THE HIGHLIGHT REEL. i was laughing and talking with the individuals around me in my Relish hat and white shades. i couldn't believe it. i was one of the game's highlights. what an honor.

anyway. that's a quick synopsis of the most fun i've ever had at the K. hopefully i can add pictures to this post soon. i'm counting on others for that though.
oh. but the royals ended up losing. details.

-ap.

* - condimentation: the act or process of adding an item to an entree in order to enhance it's original flavor. ex: ketchup, mustard, Relish.
** - i named the new video board tonight. the old one was the Jumbo-tron. this one is clearly more majestic and larger than that one. i like Mass-o-tron.

a 6 minute blog cause i have the time.

i've been drinking a lot of gatorade lately.
i had a moment while i was on the way to colorado when i got super tired and worn out.
and then i had some gatorade tiger and suddenly felt like i could control the universe.
so i've been chasing that feeling.

i sat in a church service on sunday afternoon with no agenda apart from myself.
that's something that doesn't happen very often in full time ministry i've discovered.
i'm always taking notes for another discussion or trying to gain knowledge so i can answer questions from certain middle schoolers that may or may not change the world someday.
7th graders who ask things like "if God loves us so much how come he lets some of us go to hell?"
or "do you think Christ's pain and suffering was derived from the sins of mankind or his separation from the Father?"
but it was nice to just sit there and take in a sermon with no agenda. it was peaceful i guess.

yesterday was john buck day.
he turned 28 years old and celebrated by hitting a 3-run shot off the foul pole in the 10th.
eat your heart out jason larue.
i'll be at the K a few times this week.
i've got 5 bucks on Relish in wednesday's HDD.

-ap.

ps. watch the video below this post. hilarious.

go relish.

i rest my case.

-ap.