It's been a while, no?

Not much happening, I confess. Other than Saturday's sports-filled day, I've mainly lounged around the house watching TV and doing little organizational things that would interest only me. Still, I suppose I'll tell you about them.

Matt came up from DC Friday night and on Saturday we grabbed Nate in Hoboken and went to the Devils-Capitals game at the Meadowlands. On the short drive over, Nate discussed how he wasn't sure which team to cheer for: He grew up in Virginia a Capitals fan, but he's lived in Hoboken for five years now and his former roommate used to have season tickets, so he got used to rooting for the Devils. I told him to either back one team for each of the first two periods, then go with the upper hand for the third; or to see which way felt right once the game started.

So the Capitals went up 1-0 while Matt and I were getting burgers and beer five minutes into the game. Actually, I was in the bathroom and Matt saw it on the monitors in the concourse. I'd decided to make a food run early in the game because the lines before the puck dropped were insane. I guess that's what you get for a 1 p.m. Saturday game: Lots of families who have to shut their kids up.

The Devils tied it early in the second period, and it remained 1-1 through regulation. New Jersey started its backup goalie in place of the best netminder in the NHL, Martin Brodeur, who got a rare game off. At one point in the second period, the backup, Corey Schwab, performed superbly during a two-minute 5-on-3 Capitals power play (which was the result of Schwab himself punching a player who had slid into the crease in the back of the head while he was down, then another Devil coming over to shove the player out of the way when he stood up to Schwab).

When the Devils won it at the 2:43 mark of overtime on Patrik Elias' second goal, Nate jumped up and cheered with me, so I guess he decided which way the momentum took him.

Afterwards, we went back to our place, drank beer and ordered pizza and settled in for the Notre Dame-Syracuse basketball game, which blew after the first half. Then we drove carless Nate home.

Sunday, as you may be aware, we got blasted with 7 more inches of snow after being told to expect 3-4 before it turned to rain. Instead, it rained after an inch or two, creating a nice icy crust, then went back to snow into the evening. We ignored it and shoveled the cars out Monday morning but our sidewalk is now slick, packed snow. We've done enough; it's time for the neighbors to take some responsibility. I intend to inform the landlord of our continued helpfulness on Friday, if I'm left to handle the trash for the fifth straight time when it's supposed to be split between us and the first floor tennants.

My now unexplainable organizational surge continues. Every clipping from when I was at the newspaper is now filed in one of those accordian file folders, divided into years. It's opened up some room in the file cabinet, which will lead to further organization and paring of the papers and documents I have. And though it would've been much more useful when I worked nights, I went and printed out about two dozen baseball schedules for teams in the Northeast, from DC to Boston and a few beyond. For those within a reasonable distance, I marked their home games on a calendar so that, in one simple glance, I can see what options I have on a given night or weekend for a live ballgame. It will come in useful for those trips this summer too. Again, something that interests only me, but that's what you get in my journal.

I've also decided that I'm going to put any extra money I can scrounge up toward my car payments. As it is now, I'm due to have the car paid off by July or August 2005. But if I can move up that final payment, I'll have more money each month to put toward clearing myself of my student loans, which will take longer to pay off. So here's hoping for a good tax refund.

Work's also gotten interesting and fun. More reporting, more tracking down information and contacts and things. I'm slowly getting past the annoyance and hesitation of calling celebrities' reps to ask about who they're dating or whether they're pregnant and I'm currently thisclose to hopefully getting an interview with the new star of the next installment of a certain reality show.

Here's hoping that the next several days produce news and events I'm moved to write about so that I don't bore you and lose you all.

Let me also say that I'm so glad they recovered the beer.

And for whoever came hear after Googling "how many burgs in PA," please do let me know the final tally when you get it. (Also note how Google asked "Did you mean how many bugs in PA?" That's a question for which no one wants to know the answer.)