My night playing poker can be summed up in one word:miserable. Lots of second-bests and useless chasing tend to have that effect. That quickly changed when my incoming email message indicator ring-ronged, letting me know that I had new mail. Nothing extraordinary, really, and I expected it to be another one from Travelocity, or Orbitz telling me that there's some incredible deal to a place I'd never want to go. As I read the From: line, my heart jumped a little. As I read the meat of the message, my whole body ached, not in anticipation, but in sheer terror. My liver and kidneys abandoned ship.

Al says:"I can't believe it just occurred to me that your a Minnesota boy to.If you're ANYWHERE near Eden Prairie on Sunday, you NEED to come hang out with me and Halverson. Shoot me and email when you get a chance and I'll send you the details.

Later".

I now know exactly how the first troops that stormed Normandy felt. There's a sense of anticipation, and though everybody keeps telling me that things will be bad, there's no amount of preparing for just how bad things will get.

This could get ugly.

Get?

No, Chad, it's already far past ugly.

Tomorrow, I will be thoroughly preparing myself for HurricaneCantHang by punching my liver repeatedly in an attempt to toughen it up a little. Hopefully I don't hit my kidneys because I need these underwear for Sunday. These are my lucky underwear.

Now, I'm a drinker. I drink, but I'm already resigning myself as not being able to hang as well as Al. This is like taking a good high school basketball player and pitting him one on one against an NBA'er. Hell, I'm good on my playground, but I get the feeling that Al will swat me like he's Kurt Rambis, and I'm, well, not Kurt Rambis.

Hey, I just realized something. I have a friend that lives right around the corner from where they're watching the game. Why does this make things worse rather than better?