Dino Baskovic Can’t Lose

Image courtesy of J.DoyonPhotography's photostream on Flickr

As I lamented on Facebook earlier this week about my pathetic foraging for rabbit food (fennel to be exact), an old high school chum chimed in with her shared disdain of my sissy snack habits.  We scoffed at people that drink organic beer, because really, organic beer?  C'mon.  Carefully stuck into our cursory exchange of witty banter was a simple question:

"And what is with the blog?"

My reply:

"The blog is my soap box: half personal, half professional. I get paid to play with social media for a living. And I smell good."

Smell good.  Soap box.  Get it?  Ahem...

Lately, my blog feels like a soap box.  Which is fine, 'cuz I have been paid to stand on one for the better part of my career.  Still, I can't help but feel like I need to shake things up a bit.  Admittedly, I'm losing interest in half of what I write.  If I write one more diatribe about social media I am going to gouge my own eyes out.  More than enough maharishis rant about why the web is this or that, and this is one swami sick of the same elixir.

I need new material.  Not that I will shelve the social stuff altogether.  After all, it pays the bills.  But this happened once before, long ago, in a magical land where there were no blogs or citizen journalists.  Just brazen geeks with a text editor in one hand and a Dortmunder in the other.  I had a pretty lil' web site with a respectable readership, I got bored with it and let it whither on the vine.  Why?  Many reasons, but namely I got bored with it.  Why?  Because after a while, I felt like I had nothing interesting to say.

Blogging means being compelling, engaging, intriguing.  You know, interesting.  Enough people tell me I am interesting.  I choose to believe them.  My writing at times reads like I am trying to sound interesting.  That's dangerous.  Then I am blogging just to blog.  That serves no purpose.  Like people that tweet every itch they scratch.  That sucks.  Less filler, more barley.  That doesn't suck.

Time to get off my soap box.  Time to make things interesting.  This will be fun.

Sure my home teams lost this weekend.  Vikes over Browns, Trojans over Bucks.  My alma mater, I won't even go there...

It's mid-September.  I shouldn't worry so early.  And I don't.  You see, I am from Cleveland, Ohio.  I eat heartbreak with stadium mustard and onions.  And when it suits me, sweet relish.

I got my Columbus fix in 2002.  The Browns?  Well, it's only been 45 years.  What's one more?

This is football, dammit.  My kind of football.  I have high def and I'm not afraid to use it.  Now pass me some hot wings and keep the beer cold.

Yeah, the blue cheese, too.

With rare time to kill, I made my annual shopping run for threads today before all the big NCAA matchups.  I was near an outlet mall, so hey.

I sorely need a new soccer ball.  Nike is the official ball for MSL, Premiere League, Lega Calcio and other major soccer leagues around the world.  Within the plaza, a Nike Factory Outlet.  Alas, they only carried vinyl training balls.  Meaning, crap.  My search continues...

So, on a whim I bought a football.  That's right, red-blooded American pigskin.  Haven't owned one in forever.  Even broke it in with the brother-in-law later on between U-M/ND and OSU/USC.  Felt good to toss some grain.  Early autumn and cheap beer to boot.  And while I still can't throw a spiral worth shit, all was right with the world.