Back-checking (double meaning!)

I'm sure you're all terribly concerned about my back pain. Here's the update:

The entire weekend was spent laying down for me. I only got up to smoke and pee, pretty much. Incidentally, it was excruciatingly painful to sit down on the toilet, so my body must have recognized that because I didn't poop once over the weekend, which is a rarity for me.

Sunday, all three Pirates of the Carribean movies were on Starz HD, so that was good.

Yesterday, I went to the doctor. He diagnosed me with a rare medical condition known in the New England Journal of Medicine as "a bad back". He game me muscle relaxers (chlorzoxazone) and pain killers (tramadol/acetominophen). Unfortuately, neither one of these induces a particularly high amount of loopiness, so I wasn't told to take a week off of work. I did get my boss to agree to keep me in the Chicago area for the week, though.

In other news, my Detroit Red Wings will be playing the Pittsburgh Penguins for the Stanley Cup starting on Saturday night. It should be a good series. The Wings haven't seen quite the offense that Pittsburgh offers with Crosby, Hossa, and Malkin, but the Pens haven't seen a defense half as good as Detroit's (with it's own offensive power). And both teams have hot goalies. They say that defense wins championships, and if that's the case then Detroit should be okay. I like Detroit in six, depending on a lot of factors (injuries can always change that). I hope they get Franzen back, because they could use him in front of the net. With McCarty's constant march to the penalty box last night, I think he'd be the one to sit. I also hope that Chelios either gets healthy or gets lost because he looked lousy in game five. I'll take Lilja.

Chicago people: Interest in Blackhawk tickets?

Chicago folks:

Susan and I have been pondering getting two season tickets for the Chicago Blackhawks next season. We wanted to get club-level tickets (200-level, where they have waiters bring you your food), but it looks like they want an extra $1000 membership fee for that privlege, which would bring it to just over $100/ticket per game.

Instead, it might be better to look at the front of the 300-level sections. First seven rows of the upper bowl, center ice section (or, at least, not corner sections). My question is this: Would any of you Chicago folks be interested in buying a few games worth of tickets off of us? It looks like it would be about $90 a game for two tickets. We'd have to figure out a way to split up the games among us. If we can get four or five people to buy a couple games each, it might be worth it to us (I have a ticket-broker friend who would probably buy the rest of them).

Anyone interested?

Three in a day?

Here's some songs I like. What other songs might I like?

Supertramp - Goodbye Stranger
Three Dog Night - Mama Told Me Not to Come
Billy Preston - Nothing from Nothing
BTO - You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet

What I'm really looking for is that 70's groove that's heavy on the Hammond organ (although BTO lacks that hammond). The Supertramp (especially) has that... oomph that I'm looking for. Give me more like that.

I know that most people my age are big on music from the 80's, but I like the non-disco 70's a lot lot more. Whether it's the AM Gold of Chevy Van and Cat's in the Cradle or the more rock-ish Kid Charlemagne or Goodbye Stranger.

Also, I hate drum solos. They always suck. They just disrupt everything. Q says that must be why I hate Rush. I hardly know any Rush, but I'm good with that.

(no subject)

The Nine Most devastating Insults from Around the World (including Bulgaria!)