To say the least, today was AMAZING and totally worth the wait. I took 5 jillion pictures, got sharpie marks all over my arm thanks to some overzealous dude behind me, practically got sweated on by Adalius Thomas and Laurence Maroney, came within one foot of true genius and spent $200 in the Pro Shop.

You’ll have to visit Mike Reiss for a professional analysis of the camp, but I can mention that I saw Eric Alexander do some pretty extraordinary moves while stretching. Kelley Washington was having a blast with the crowd. Every time he raised his hand, people went nuts.

People also went nuts when the players started signing autographs. Grown adults pushing and shoving like children… no, not like children because the children there weren’t doing that crap… I guess it’s the punishment for getting there early and sitting right up front. The moment coaches started yelling, “Field Goal,” which I guess most people assumed meant the end of practice, these grown men started kicking me as I sat trying to get as close as possible. When I stood up, I was shoved against the ropes. Some guy literally used my shoulders as stabilization while he leaned as far forward as he could when Tom Brady walked past. I had stranger arms over both shoulders AND my head! Insanity!

But the best part of today was it got me back into a football state of mind. It’s been hard after you know what to even think about it but I’m ready. I’m really ready. Bring on the Chiefs!

ADDENDUM: I almost forgot to mention that Tedy Bruschi signed almost every autograph he could. I mean, seriously, the guy took forever to make it around the bleachers and to the end zone. And then when a horn sounded, he wanted to sign more but told us he couldn’t, but relented anyway and signed more. I hope he didn’t get in trouble with Belichick.

My car has been jinxed thanks to my abnormally lucky sister who has never had to deal with things such as bad luck. Last week when discussing my car (which was once her car), she just had to continuously stress how great my car is. “180,000 miles and no problems! I mean, wow! Nothing at all! If a Honda as old as yours can still be in such excellent condition, they must make great cars!”

“KRISTINA! YOU’RE JINXING ME! I DON’T HAVE GOOD LUCK LIKE YOU!”

Damage done. The jinx has been set.

It all began with my brakes last week. Out of the blue, they began pulsating and the brake light remains on. If you’re not familiar with car stuff, brakes are kinda important. Then, a rusty crater opened up in my exhaust pipe last night further ghetto-ifying my car. And for the icing on the cake, a truck took off my side mirror yesterday.

But, given my history with automobiles, this is only the beginning. Next will come the alternators, radiators, belts of a timing and fan nature… ultimately leading to a busted transmission and/or seized engine….

So, after a quick trip to a nearby Midas (great place, honest owner, highly recommended), the damage comes to over $800 *dying* (and that’s with free brake pads!) but we’re skimping on the brakes and only doing the more damaged back brakes. BUT, knowing that this kind of stuff is mostly wear and tear, i.e., driving on inadequate, pothole-ridden Massachusetts roads ruins your car, I can’t complain much. Honda is still the best car maker in the world. It’s not Honda’s fault Massachusetts would rather spend money on symphonies than potholes.

Fortunately, everything (minus the front brakes) is getting fixed today because, I’ll be God damned if I don’t get to Patriots Training Camp tomorrow! Take that, Gods that find amusement in making my life as miserable as possible!

I flew through the newspaper-making process yesterday in hopes of getting out early for one specific reason… so I would be able to get up bright and early for Patriots Training Camp, which starts today. Little did I know, Mother Nature would flip me the good old middle finger and decide today is the perfect day to unload the skies and dump a foot of rain on the region.

What’s worse, it’s not just consistent, steady rain. It’s dispersed into ridiculously heavy localized storms, so one minute it’s sunny, and the next you’re designing your Ark.

My dad and I scrapped our excursion to beautiful Foxborough at 6:45 this morning, and good thing too because around 7:30, the Pats decided to move practice indoors thus closing the practice to the public. I’d be beside myself if I had driven through torrential rain during rush hour just to get to Gillette Stadium by 8:45 only to find out camp was closed.

We also kept last year’s debacle in mind as we made our decision.

The new plan goes like this: Sunday in the a.m., leave at 7 a.m. There will be no traffic so we estimate a 30 minute drive. Next, we’ll stop for breakfast and then make our way to Gillette. We want to get there much earlier since it’s a weekend morning and we’re anticipating a larger crowd.

Only three more wake-ups to go!

There are a few things about running a website that annoy me. There’s your trolls, your bandwidth thieves, and comment spam. Ah, comment spam. You spend hours writing your heart out on your blog only to have some spam bot or some failure of an internet marketer load your precious comment section with unsolicited bullshit trying to make a penny or two off your hard work.

Anyway, WAAAAAY back in October of 2006, I wrote about a horror show I experienced while trying to buy a Halloween costume the day before Halloween. Since its first posting, I’ve gotten various comments, most of them genuine. But then, all of a sudden (impending Halloween season maybe?), the post began to receive comments again. A lot of them. Surprisingly, each comment was about some costume shop in Providence, Rhode Island. Last week, I got 12 comments, all seemingly relevant but each one pretty much endorsing this one particular costume shop. I finally deleted them all, closed comments on that post and since I was in a crabby mood (what else is new) I emailed the website to stop spamming my site. Little did I know, a hilarious exchange would ensue.

I was surprised to get a reply, but I did, from someone named Anne Bruno. She wrote: “I have never heard of you and I don’t know what your website is and if I did, I wouldn’t slam anyone.
Is your real name ,Bob Johnson?”

Slightly confused, I replied with a cached version of my post. To be exact:
“For your review:

That’s prior to the eight more that were added in the last week. All have since been deleted.”

I figured, I send off this little reply and she’d react in one of two ways. She’d either be infuriated that I called out her shady practices OR she’d be infuriated that someone she knew was spamming websites in the name of her store.

WRONG! Instead, she decided to act like a complete psycho. This morning, I opened up my inbox to see a load of email from her as if I had replied to each one.

There was this dandy at 11:53 p.m.: “I have reported this as spam and are blocking your emails. You are not the first sick fuck that has nothing better to do but harrass people. You don’t even have a business . You are a little fucking asshole. I don’t tolerate abuse from you or anyone else.. You have been writing very sick insulting things on my reviews. I had them removed and reported this abuse to authorities. You have also been calling both our stores with perverted messages on the answering machines. Were you abused as a child. . I can’t believe the obscene phone calls from you. You are a very sick girl. Get help! I have had enough. This harrassment ends now. I have saved your messages and reported them to the police, and now you are dumb enough to send your email. Do you know that it can be traced, you stupid idoit. Don’t ever call any one of my stores again and don’t harrass my staff. Your email will be blocked. Don’t try to use another email. I’ll know its you.
. You are a lower class piece of shit.”

An empty email was sent to my inbox at 11:57 p.m. Then at 11:59 p.m., I received “There is no one named Anne Bruno that works for my company. Get your facts straight you idiot. “

Finally, at 12:04 a.m., I received :“I have reported this as span and I will block all your email.
You have been making harrassing phone calls at both my stores in Warwick and Providence. You are a perverted asshole. Were you molested as a child. Why else would you send such messages and leave them on my voice mail. You are a lower class piece of shit that needs to get a life. I don’t ever want to hear from you again or I will report your calls and e mails to the authorities. If you feel the need to make obscene phone calls, they call you father. you loser!”

Have a gander:

In the words of Black Rob, “Like, whoa.”

I’ve decided not to further engage in this conversation but, in my humble opinion, I would strongly recommend NOT going to this costume shop (Bruna Costumes, BTW, oh and it’s a “nofollow” link) in Providence (and according to the emails, Warwick), Rhode Island because the management seems to have a few screws loose, if you know what I mean.