And so Summer gave Fall amiss and changed back into Winter.

It was snowing as I went to work today, and raining as I walked home. Winter in New England brings only bad weather and Super Bowl championships, and for the first time in a while I'm not confident in the latter. I'm not greedy, though. A World Series last year, three Super Bowls in the past 4 years; these are good times to be a sports fan in Boston. Had you told me four years ago that soon the Celtics would be the Boston team gone longest without a championship I would have called the white vans on you. (I am not counting the Bruins because the NHL is not a professional sports league but rather a bunch of mindless punks who, while not necessarily first against the wall, will be up against the wall in due time when the revolution comes)

I got a bit sidetracked there. Actually I forget what the bloody fuck I was talking about. And I tend to talk too gorram much about sports here.

Well, I'll just wing it.

There is, as I have discovered, a website where one can play Rock, Paper, Scissors online. It is here. I've become rather addicted.

Rock, Paper, Scissors is often missrepresented as a game of chance. It is not. It is a game of strategy and of psychology. It is about reading people. About figuring out, for example, if someone is likely to throw a rock after losing with paper, or what someone is likely to lead with. Also crucial is deciding whether or not repeating after a draw is a good idea, and what to do if your opponent repeats as well. Of course, doing this is harder when you aren't face to face with your opponent, but it can be done.

Why on earth would I bother to think that much about Rock, Paper, Scissors? There is a reason. It began in high school, when one of my friends invented a new means of civilized violence: Ultimate Rock Paper Scissors, which abode by the standard rules of the game but with one errata: after each throw, the victor slaps his opponent. The contest is decided when one of the combatants gives up. The game was a test of three things: The force with which one could slap (because while at the beginning it usually isn't as hard, eventually everyone gets to a point when they go all out), the amount of slappage one is capable of withstanding, and the skills mentioned in the previous paragraph.

I was, and I believe still am, damned good at it. In fact, I have only been defeated once. And the guy who did so was a freak. We went back and forth for what was I believe the better part of two hours, and neither of us would back down. This guy had fucking braces. His mouth was bleeding and in fact being cut further with each slap and still he continued. As I was strategizing, slapping, and getting slapped, I realized that the only way that this would end was if I knocked him out or backed down. Otherwise, it would likely end with me slapping the sharp wire from his by then unwound braces that protruded from his cheek. I figured it best to walk away. To my knowledge, no one has challenged him since. I've been challenged twice since then, but both challenges were quickly withdrawn when my face gave away just how delighted I was at the prospect of a match. To be fair, I wasn't trying to hide it, and in fact one of the times I used it as a tactic to avoid getting my face repeatedly slapped after having hit my cheekbone on a waterski on an attempt to get up on one ski the weekend before. Intimidation is fun, and I have it going for me in two ways: One, I'm huge, and the other, I give a mean crazy-eye.

So I thought I was going to have news to give, but due in a large to my laziness, the something that was going to be revealed is not complete. To avoid undue suspense I will reveal that I have already told some of you about it.

I guess that's all for now. Hopefully there will be something to report later.

Mahalo