jay ratkowski

This is something I wrote maybe 6 months ago.

An open letter to retail customers,

Hello, good morning, good afternoon, how do you do? Are you familiar with any of these phrases? It sure seems as though they are foreign to you. I hope it does not come as too much of a shock, but I checked in to it and “I need” is not an acceptable greeting in any part of the world. So before you bombard me with demands, take a deep breath and please acknowledge the fact that you are talking to a person, not a machine or giant clown with a speaker in its nose. I don’t expect you to care about my day, as I surely don’t care about yours. I merely request the simple courtesy of a “hello” before any further yelling commences. read more

I can’t believe Seattle let the G-Men score all those points in garbage time… they should’ve kept crushing them like a college team.  Break Eli’s arm or something while he’s trying to save face.  I guess that’s why I’m not a coach.

I saw some stat somewhere before the Denver game that 85% of people on Yahoo pick the Pats to win.  What have the Pats done to show they have a good team this year?  Trade their best receiver?  Almost lose to the Jets?  Did Belichick have a brand new pair of sweatpants for this game?  I don’t get it.  The Broncos are the real deal.  Forget all that Jake Plummer nonsense, because it doesn’t matter if you have him or Cutler in there, you’re still going to win with that team. read more

Seriously… is this story THAT big of news?  CNN.com has had the story in the headlines since it broke.  Not only that, but they have 3 different streaming videos where you can hear the latest discoveries in the case.  One news source I saw (along with probably dozens more) has a timeline of the events.  Time.com is already predicting the next great spinach scare.  I’ve yet to see somebody try to link this to terrorism (check that, I’ve yet to see a remotely credible news source link this to terrorism, but the stories are out there), but you know somebody at Reuters is just waiting to drop that bomb.  Watch out everybody, those crazies in the Middle East are going to unleash their next master plot… to give 170 or so people a bad case of indigestion!  The horror! read more

So Friday is the big day. I get to have my nose broken and scraped/hollowed out. I get to be drugged until I pass out. I’m sure all sorts of crazy painkillers will be prescribed. Most importantly, I get a 4 day weekend out of it. Too bad there’s not much of anything to do around the house other than homework. Maybe I’ll rebuild my computer or try to learn a new song on guitar. Or I’ll just lay on the couch and watch a bunch of old movies and act cranky from boredom.

The goal of all this, is that I will hopefully be able to breathe through my nose. I really haven’t been able to… since I can remember. Definitely not since I broke my nose back in 6th grade. The idea is, if I can breathe through my nose again, I should hopefully be able to get a good night sleep again. That hasn’t happened in probably 8-10 years. Imagine going 10 years on what feels like 3-4 hours of sleep a night (or less). It’s a real peach. If I can wake up feeling rested again, and not get 1-2 migraines a week, every week, I’ll probably die of hapiness. read more

Went back to work for the first time today. It was a mistake I think. It was so dead that it really didn’t matter. I just did boring busy work and left a little early.

Anyway, Thursday should hopefully be a good day. I get to go into the nose doc and get the splint taken out of my nose. I think it is poking into my brain. I tried and tried to look for it in my nose (without hurting myself or sticking a finger up there) but couldn’t see anything. So it’s got to be in my brain, just like that crayon that Homer lost. I’m thinking that this will be a very painful visit. Or at least, if they numb my nose somehow, the hour or so afterward will be very painful. The nose is still ultra tender to the touch. At any rate, this should allow me to start breathing more normally. Also, I might be able to blow my nose after the splint it out. In the past few days I would’ve sold my soul to be able to blow my nose. read more

Went back out in the world tonight. School seemed like an easy way to get back into being a normal person after a 5 day leave. Well, it was tough. My nose is still stuffy and runny at the same time, so I was making all sorts of noise trying to suck in my boogers/blood/whatever. Also, despite the fact that I’ve been resting a lot, I have no energy. Walking any kind of long distance (like across the parking lot) was surprisingly trying. Now I have to get zero sleep (since I can’t get any air in my nose yet and hate sleeping on my back) and try a full day of work. Not sure if I’ll make it the full day, but I hear it’s very slow there so it should be easygoing if anything. read more

<p>So the Packers lost again. Not that I really thought they would win. The offense looked halfway decent this time around. Everybody keeps talking about the game that Drew Brees had against us… but nobody mentions that Favre had a few less yards and one more TD. I guess all that gets lost in a loss. One thing that really stood out to me was the play of newly signed drunk Koren Robinson. Looked like he was starting a fight with somebody on every kick return. I didn’t see much else in the way of overly-agressive play (other than a few things here and there). However, it looked like every time Robinson was in there was nearly a fight. Glad we signed that guy. He really seems to be the “good kid” Thompson made him out to be. Seriously, he cannot get suspended by the league quickly enough.</p>
<p>Other than that, fantasy foosball was a good turnaround for me this week. I played what I thought was the next best team out there. Of course, the first two weeks haven’t gone as planned. Reggie Wayne had a really good week with catches and yardage, but no TDs. Carson Palmer went nuts and got me gobs of points. That’s why I picked him. Larry Johnson had a better week with 167 all-purpose yards. I was hoping with Trent Green out that KC would go a lot heavier on the run, but that young guy has come out pretty confident so far. Hopefully after the bye week they will start acting more sensible and run like crazy.</p>
<p>Here’s how the week looks for me so far – <a href=”http://jayratkowski.com/pics/week2.JPG”>click!</a></p>
<p>In other fantasy news… I picked up Lawrence Maroney and the Charger D. Dropped Indy defense and Nate Burleson. Hopefully San Diego will stay tough so I don’t have to play the matchups as much with my defense.</p> read more

I’m watching Napoleon Dynamite for the 2nd time in a 12 hour span. Not because I like it so much, but because I was too lazy to put a different DVD in. It was either this or stare at the cat’s ass for a few hours.

I tried venturing outside for some food. There is a Quizno’s close by and that french dip type sub sounded really delicious. Went at like 6PM, they close at 8 or 9PM. They were closed. No explanation why. I really wanted that damn sub.

Life is boring. I don’t want to go to a store to buy the new Madden game… so I’m playing last years again. I think I am on like my 9th season with the Packers. The mighty interception king, Favre, is long gone. The numbskull Mike McCarthy was never hired as coach. Shermanator was let go immediately. Life is so much better when choices are made using common sense. Oh well. read more

I had surgery this morning.  Septoplasty and corbolation (spelling?) of turbinates.  What it means is they chopped up and straightened out my septum and cut down the size of the turbinates on either size.  Vicodin is kicking in, but I think I’ll take the full dose next time.  Still feeling some of the pain.  Was really miserable earlier.  I was at the surgery center for about 4 hours, but was only knocked out for about 1 hour or so and the surgery took just over 30 minutes.  There’s a good amount of bleeding still, but not gushing.  Just steady that clots and goes away for a bit but comes back whenever I swallow too hard or move too much.  Got a nice chunk of gause taped on the underside of my nose that I’ve had to change about every 30 minutes so far. read more

Time to go to sleep.  Can’t stay awake much longer.  Pumped about waking up at 5:30AM to go get my nose chopped and broken and have a tube stuffed down my throat and whatever else is in store for me.  I wish the doctor gave me some Valium or something.  I’m excited and nervous.
My iPod froze up on me for the first time on the way home from class tonight.  I forgot how to reset it and almost killed many other drivers as I mashed buttons trying to make it stop.  Well, not really… but I had to come up with something dramatic to say. read more