#me when i make the lowest effort memes possible: my work here is done

[youreaclownnow]

[touchingmadness]

Nano 2019 Summary

It took until the last day, but I’ve done it! I’m not exactly surprised - I’ve known I was capable from three other years of winning. That’s not to say that the achievement is any less exciting!!! And I have Timeline-B of Cathedral fully drafted now!!! Exciting!!!

Now, on December 1st, it’s time to reflect on what went well, what didn’t, what I’ve learned from my 2019 Nanowrimo experience, and where I’m going from here. (I’ll tell you one thing - no more Nano means more activity on this blog, so look forward to that!)

Stats, analysis, and reflection below the cut. Also tagging my Cathedral peeps so they know what kind of content they can be expecting in the coming weeks.

Day-to-Day Writing

Most Productive Days:

Day 23 - 7,450 words

Day 30 - 6,774 words

Day 8 - 4,858 words

As you can see, I was only on track 11 out of 30 days. That was a new experience for me. Every other Nano, I’ve attempted to write 2k per day, to create at least a slight buffer. That wasn’t quite feasible this year, primarily due to my workload at school. It cost me a lot at first to admit there were days I couldn’t write, because despite preaching the impracticality of that “tip” every other month of the year, during Nano, I’m just as susceptible.

It turned out pretty well though, and I stopped worrying so much, mostly thanks to Day Eight, my third most productive day with 4,858 words written. That “catch-up” day showed me that as long as I took advantage of the days I didn’t have much homework and was in a “writing mindset,” I could easily afford myself some days with no writing whatsoever. I didn’t write anything 6 out of 30 days. And you know what? It turned out fine. I didn’t just finish the 50k goal - I finished the entire timeline. (Granted, it was only about 1k more… But still.)

What I Learned About Writing

Even during Nano, I’m perfectly capable of achieving my goals without writing every single day. All the more reason to give the middle finger to that stress-inducing piece of “advice.”

That being said, on the days when I do write during Nano, I should maintain my personal goal of 2k. I kind of slacked off on that this year and stopped right at the Nano-prescribed goal of 1,667. This made it easier to fall behind and harder to catch up, because that 333 words a day and 10 extra minutes of writing makes a difference.

Word crawls work wonders, especially when there’s a proper variety of activities. Two out of my three most productive days, I have word crawls to thank. Mind you, if there’s not enough variety in activities, they don’t hold my attention, but they are still a tool I plan to continue taking advantage of.

My pacing and dialogue tags need some work. Hell, I already knew that, but this Nano just hammered it home. I can’t tell you how clunky some of this stuff got. Ah, well. That’s a problem for another draft.

I actually can write to lyrical music, assuming it’s on the lowest setting possible. I have the gang over on my writing server to thank for that realization. Social writing is so, so much easier.

What I Learned About My Story

Eve Donnery and Yvonne Germaine are ex-girlfriends, and that’s why they are the way they are around each other. It actually has nothing to do with the war.

A certain character from Timeline-B is related to a certain character from Timeline-A. This is actually turning out to be such a significant plot point that I’m not sure how I didn’t draw this conclusion before.

One of my plotlines is kinda maybe sorta based on one from a Star Trek. Except I’m exploring it far more to its full potential and the mechanics are different. Doesn’t change the fact I’m pretty sure my brain got the idea from Trek. Oops.

I know nothing about Nikolai’s mother and I should probably do something about that. Even if she was just never in the picture, I have no clue why.

There’s a penal colony on Mars!!! (That fills so many plotholes from later in the series, you have no idea.)

Where do I go from here?

With Cathedral’s Timeline-B fully drafted, my next step is to finish planning Timeline-A so I can hopefully hammer that out during the April Camp. Because I’m going to need a couple months to do that - there’s too many details that are up-in-the-air at this point. After that, I can perhaps begin draft two, although Timeline-B is clean-cut enough that it might not require a complete rewrite.

For now, I’m taking a step back from actively working on this project, or working on any project. I need the next three weeks for projects and exams, and my freetime during such busy weeks is better put toward something mindless or spur-of-the-moment. It helps stave off the breakdowns. Once those weeks pass, however, I hope to begin writing and releasing chapters for my gay sci-fi romance Heart, Mind, Soul and to continue doing so throughout winter break.

That being said, I will be releasing Cathedral content in the coming weeks!!! I haven’t decided what, but I’ll probably be doing that first vs. last line thing for at least Nikolai and Matov, maybe a couple memes, some excerpts… Basically, low-effort content that is, nonetheless, content! (If there’s anything you’d like to see, please feel free to make a request.) I want to make up for not posting much the past two months, thanks to Preptober and Nano.

How did everyone else’s Nano go? c:

Get some words written? Make any realizations? Any new friends, new ideas? Feel free to share in the reblogs/replies or drop into my asks or DMs!

Cathedral Taglist (ask to be added/removed) - @inkwellprincess​, @ditzysworld​​, @nattletak​​, @purpleshadows1989​​, @dowings​​, @dentseymour​​, @eagleagle​

[casselafrommanila]

Evening Routine (Quarantine Edition)

Day 24 of lockdown.

My sleeping pattern is still inconsistent. I used to think that that was just because I am a working student, whose job entails an on call schedule, while also caring for my grandmother “on call” but then I am rid of those responsibilities at the moment (at least the part where I need to physically show up for anything) and my sleep is still a mess. Don’t get me wrong. I sleep soundly. And I do like sleeping! It’s just a matter of adjusting my body clock and telling it when.

Because of this dilemma that’s also common to a lot of people, I have devised a “calming” evening routine that can help me feel centered and relaxed for bedtime. I also made this routine similar to what I can still do when the lockdown is over and I am back to my original work and school schedule. (Yes, I am thinking of leaving my on call position.)

I also just wanted to mention that although I almost always get a good sleep, some days I wake up feeling lethargic which leads to that day being unproductive, and so I will also post a Morning Routine (Quarantine Edition) soon after this one. I AM a work in progress, but I do know that writing about my intentions has been my own kind of personal reflection and expression. Here’s to hoping I’ll stick with this! (Or if not, find something that I can stick with.)

Preparation for the evening routine starts earlier than you think

When I was working in restaurants before starting undergrad, I was doing 12-hour shifts or longer at a time. This schedule alone started my caffeine addiction. It didn’t help that the places that I was working at supplied me this addiction for free. Happy hour right after my shifts made this even worse. Now that I no longer have the same work environment, I make sure that my last caffeine consumption is before 3PM and I only consume alcohol socially on a Friday or Saturday.

Home activities that boost calmness

Ideally, I would start my evening routine at around 6:30PM. This is the time when I would normally come home from work or school if there was no lockdown. The first thing I do after changing into clean clothes is wash my face from all the NYC pollution. (I have 2 separate face wash soap for days I’m only in Queens/Nassau and days I’m in Manhattan LOL) I am lucky that my boyfriend loves to cook for two so on most days I don’t need to prepare dinner. We eat together and then we go about our own business for a bit.  I’ve learned from previous experiences that the sweet spot to post a photo on Instagram is at 7PM so I would post something at around that time or just simply browse social media for a few minutes. Who am I kidding? Most days, I’m just looking at memes! Kind of winding down for the evening while also resting my feet and legs from the long commute.

Because I’ve consciously made an effort to eat a light dinner for better digestion (and my boyfriend is on a low-calorie diet), we start our workout before 8PM. Although we’ve read a couple of health and fitness articles about maximizing the effects of a workout when done in the morning or in the afternoon, we still do it in the evening because that is what works for us. To us, it’s better to show up when you can than to not show up at all. Our workouts are not intense cardio or HIIT; we reserve those for the weekends in the park. Overall, most of our workouts still gives a calming effect.

Some days we both get to start our evening routine earlier. It really just depends on what we’ve accomplished on a WFH day. We do make sure though that no matter what we’re working on, we are effectively implementing a lights off policy by 9:30. At the moment, I am typing this on my desktop computer with the blue light filter on the screen. All the light I have is a lampshade on the other side of the small room. I try my best not to do anything on my phone, especially while I’m lying down in bed. The only exception I make is when I am inspired to write a song/poem/idea/thought and the closest writing device to me is my phone. (oh, how the times have changed) If my boyfriend is working/writing extra late for the night, I leave him a light on that is dimmed to the lowest possible setting. He’s like clockwork; he comes to bed a few minutes after I do that.

I stirred off of elaborate skincare routines in the evenings after reading Skin Cleanse by Adina Grigore. Other than washing my face when I get home, I would just apply organic coconut oil on my face, hands, and sometimes feet.

Time to actually go to bed

Before going to bed, I set a tumbler with straw full of water by my nightstand. (I’ll get into more details with that on my Morning Routine post.) I also make sure that my phone and my Apple Watch both have enough battery to last for the night so that I can use them as my alarm clock for the following day. My Kindle Paperwhite is always by my nightstand for me to read to bring myself to sleep. Most nights, I read for around 20 minutes of fictional material before going to bed. Some nights when reading can’t put me to sleep (or I just can’t put the “book” down), I wear a sleeping mask and a pair of ear plugs, both of which have effectively helped me stay asleep for a good amount of time until the next morning.

Good night!

[noddytheornithopod]

5 for the ask meme?

(From here)

5 - Favorite Episode(s)? Hmm, this is interesting. I have a few that come to mind as favourites for various reasons. I love so many of them, but here’s what I consider major standouts.

Alone Together: This is just such a sweet episode, not really much else to say on it. I’m major Connverse trash. :V

Open Book: I really admire this episode because it has a message that is only growing MORE relevant with time. People are defining their relationships too much by what they do and don’t like in regards to specific media (a major feeling I have right now because of Phineas and Ferb and Milo Murphy’s Law and the increasingly mixed reaction of their crossover lol). If your friendship really matters, you will know it’s okay to have different opinions on a book, movie, show, etc. I mean, it even feels like the Steven Universe fandom forgets this so much, I can tell you I’ve made my share of mistakes with this.

Sworn to the Sword: This is the episode that made me realise what the show could truly be capable of. It’s just so dark and sinister, and I really appreciate how the show isn’t afraid to use its own core characters like Pearl as episode antagonists. Of course, as you’ll see in a bit, this episode is now even darker. :V But I mean, in the end it’s about Steven and Connie’s relationship and how close they’ve become, and also really brought to my attention the idea of how self sacrifice can be detrimental. It’s just so good. I see some people take issue with the end and while I can see why, I’m still fine with it personally. It’s also just so well done from a technical standpoint too, like seriously Do it for Her has to be one of my favourite examples of lyrical dissonance I’ve ever seen, and the visual storytelling is brilliant.

Log Date 7 15 2: Look, I NEEDED a Peridot episode on this list, okay? XD I adore her, and this episode is so funny and great. It also helps add to Peridot’s character to the point it made me wish I got to see this before It Could’ve Been Great. XD It’s also cool because it really shows how much Steven can sometimes miss and as a result us because we’re limited to his perspective.

Mr Greg: Nuff said. Okay but seriously, Steven Universe musical episode? Yes please. Steven Universe musical episode that has major development for Greg and Pearl? Even bigger yes please. Honestly, you can really tell they went all out here, and the level of effort and passion really shows. It’s Over, Isn’t It is of course the big standout song, but they’re all enjoyable, and I really like Both of You both as a song and as the episode’s climax.

Mindful Education: Yeah, another really adored one. When I was first watching it, I have to admit I wasn’t quite sure where it was going. Steven Universe’s slower pace than most cartoons does that sometimes. XD But then the final act came, and it all clicked for me. Steven is really starting to struggle now and question who Rose Quartz really is, and it’s getting to him a lot. It’s also another great episode showing just how supportive Steven and Connie are of each other, seriously I adore them. Also, Here Comes a Thought is one of the best songs if not THE best song in the show hands down, it’s such a powerful piece of music and listening to it really is able to help with things like anxiety and stuff (and I mean as someone with OCD and also being an Autistic person prone to intense emotions, it really is something that helps).

Onion Gang: What?????? Some random townie episode??? Boring filler, get out!!!!!! Okay to be serious, this is actually my favourite of the Beach City citizen based episodes. I always was hoping for an episode that really helped to make Onion sympathetic because to me he’s VERY Autistic coded (in a different way to characters like Pearl and Peridot that is) and as a result a lot of the stuff people say about him rubs me the wrong way. This episode was just really touching, we got to see more of Onion than we ever had seen before and it helps make him more sympathetic to those who aren’t a fan of him. Also seriously, the part where he cries at the end because he’s now alone again always hits me hard.

I Am My Mom: Oh gosh, this episode. It might even be THE favourite depending on my mood. The previous episodes built up the threat of Aquamarine and Topaz really well and they really did have quite a scary presence. But this episode, damn. It just really hits so hard. It’s already beginning at a low point, but it just gets even harder. Just as when Steven seemed to think he might begin to heal over his issues, Aquamarine shows up with Topaz and they completely botch everything. Topaz is great as someone intimidating and will ultimately remain loyal to her duty even if we discover she’s secretly really struggling and sympathetic, but I love Aquamarine BECAUSE she’s such a little shit. I mean, I even get the impression she’s not even fully into her job and just wants what comes out of it for her. Steven’s guilt gets to the better of him to the point where he basically just gives up and sacrifices himself, quite possibly the lowest point for him so far. It’s a DEVASTATING scene, especially seeing how everyone is reacting. Connie’s scream at the end completely breaks my heart because now she risks being alone again, it’s so sad. The next two arcs are really great because this episode is such a wham. Speaking of which…

The Wanted arc: It’s probably just because it’s fresher in my memory, but I love it all so much. Not only do we get major character growth for Lars (and he fucking dies… ouch), but we also have it made clear to us the known story about Pink Diamond doesn’t make sense. I am a little let down by Lars’ Head, which while still a good episode I did feel maybe wrapped things up a little too neatly since Steven had such a means to get home. I guess maybe I just feel they needed another revived being to help establish it more so that it felt less of a surprise and less convenient? Still though, the next arc makes it clear it’s not all so easy.

The Season 5 Connie/Steven arc: Another instance where every episode hits so brilliantly. For me the second half of the episodes are definitely the overall stronger ones, but seeing this fallout made sense even if it was still devastating. I guess it’s why I like Aquamarine so much: she was able to fuck so much up compared to previous antagonists. But yeah, not only is the Steven and Connie stuff really emotional and touching in the end, but I also love the Peridot stuff too. I was happy to see that they addressed the issues in her relationship with Lapis (something I think was discussed further on the SU podcast), but you still so bad for her. It also relit my interest in Amedot, Amethyst was just so caring even if she was rough at times. Also I really liked Sadie Killer, purely because it satisfied the anti-capitalist side of me (Working Dead is a pretty cool song too). Also… they even added depth to Kevin. FUCKING KEVIN. It was also amazing to see that Steven actually resorted to working with him to try and patch things up with Connie, but even that didn’t go as planned.

A Single Pale Rose: So not only did we get a creative way to learn more about, Pearl, we also get the biggest twist of the show so far. Like seriously, Rose being Pink Diamond is the best kind of twist. Not only was it heavily foreshadowed in the series and could be picked up by anyone willing to put the pieces together (I was a big fan of the theory myself because I felt it would fit into Rose’s character really well), but it’s also something that completely changes everything, and I mean EVERYTHING. Everything is now so much more darker and complicated, and Rose is now only even more interesting as a character. And the best part is: apparently there’s even more we have to learn about Pink Diamond that will inform why Rose is such a complicated and tragic being.

Made of Honor: It’s fresh in my memory, but even so I still think this episode is worth mentioning. This Garnet arc is great, and Ruby and Sapphire marrrying is so sweet and satisfying and of course I mention this here because the wedding planning is a lot of fun, but I also loved how Bismuth was handled in this episode. Even if she only had one episode before this, she was still such a fully realised character, and I don’t blame people for feeling so passionate about her. Seeing her come to terms with everything was just really interesting to see.

[myvoicenottheoneyougiveme]

Edit Fri 5/9 a week or so later

Chaos. Plain chaos. ...But let me start with some "legalese" disclaimers, cause the person that lives for chaos, will take and make everything work for their advantage. I don’t know where to begin, though, with that fact in mind.

At best I can guess at what’s going on behind the scenes, but so much of what I see happening around me, too often it tells me that most people going to bat for “this” game don’t really know what’s happening. Smoke and mirrors, compartmentalization, the same means that gets anyone involved in the first place is what maintains the confusion and the chaos.

An inordinate amount of effort has been put (over the last several months) into confusing both sides of a table. Both me and then the person(s) dancing to the beat of war drums (yes “war” cause if you really saw the whole picture of what’s happening, there’d be no mistaking it) end up just as confused and frustrated when all is said and done.

As for the disclaimer, this has nothing to do with today or anything that happened today or anything. In fact so much of what I attempt to express about what is happening is falsely attributed to people it has nothing to do with.

...But there have been games, and they have been numerous. But it’s like a thing that once started perpetuates itself. The smoke and mirrors is that once successfully managing to create friction, it’s that much easier to sell it the next time or for the third parties to make assumptions for themselves.

I am doing my best in this moment to address everything on the whole because false attribution, on top of simply putting words in my mouth or making claims about thoughts in my head, has only created more problems. Rather than a simple illumination of the concept with the addition of if you’re doing this don’t, and you know if you are - just understand what this is and be mindful not to take part, it was instead received with more confusion and more overreactions--overreactions that are meant to signal to me that I’m being difficult or oversensitive. All I’ve ever said is, do you really know what’s happening? Do you really see what you’re allowing yourself/selves to take part in?

When investing third parties into “this”, the person running this show from god knows where using means I can only speculate, often does so much to make what’s happening about those third parties and by that token giving them a personal stake in the matter of “handling” me. Not only is whatever the accusation or claim of the day about me mirrored to me by things in my environment everywhere regardless of setting, but the (flying monkies) other persons involved are baited into personally investing in the cause of the one running “this” game from on high. It’s highly situational, but so often the lowest hanging fruit seem to be what goes along with the overarching narrative that I get it in my head that someone is into me and I go getting that up in my head and make life hell for that person. It comes in many forms but basically some guy that can’t manage to respect boundaries and has no regard for people’s personal space, property, or personal sanctity (the sexual bend to “this”). And, and it is a story told regardless of gender (and age as age is irrelevant unless today I’m a pedophile. In that case, hide yo kids, hide yo wives, hide yo grandmas, they rapin everybody up in here. (That’s an old autotune internet meme from like 2012)(It may or may not have also been used as ammunition in the great facebook games of my now lost years)).

Whoever she or he is at any given point in time (cause there have been many over the course of the last few years), they are often baited into the same lie being thrown in my face mirrored to me by any and every means possible. She/he either accepts the narrative that I’m into them with open arms and proceeds to set themselves up for a let down (not to mention resentment and pain) when actual reality comes knocking, or they make sure to beat me to the punch by rejecting preemptively, PREEMTIVELY. Preemptively. What better way to create rifts and division? These are actions as though to say, I know and don't even think about it. These are actions like all actions anyone takes for the person running "this" show that proceed from every oh-so-helpful heads-up that this altruistic and all-seeing, all-knowing benefactor lavishes on her subjects. What would we do without her? What would we do? This guy, I swear.

It’s always playing anyone I have any contact with. The fewer people I allow myself to have regular contact with, the more the ones that are left are leveraged.

Depending on the situation and the person, cause there is no “one size fits all” method here, there is a slight bend to the narrative told. Master manipulator has no problem tailoring the story to the person they’re onboarding into their game. I can’t fully address the means. I can’t address how. I can’t speak for what way the most intimate details and personal uses of time in my personal space manage to find their way into the hands of people reframed in the most extreme and pathological light possible, but people around me are used as leverage, as a means to an end, by the seemingly omnipotent criminal entity running “this” show. People are used to make total, make complete, one person’s need for power over me and everything that goes on in my life. I can’t ever know how and what way and what liberties are being taken with the narrative. I just know that there is only chaos and confusion, and that at the end of the day no one’s, and I mean no one’s, lives are made any better for it. If you can’t abstain because it’s morally right to abstain, if you can’t stop being an arm of abuse on account of “this” being abuse, then stop doing it for the sake of the headache all of “this” has likely been to you personally. If you can’t see that “this” is wrong, that what you’re doing to me is wrong, then do it for personal selfish reasons because you don’t want drama in your life anymore than I do.

[vsenpaiii-writes]

Dear FP,

I hope you’re doing well, and I hope that you’ve been getting enough food and sleep. I just want to let you know that I am doing okay too, and that I took your advice to figure my shit out and get help.

I feel like I have hurt you so much these past 3 months that the happiness in the first 4 months we met have been clouded over. I truly felt genuine joy with you those first 4 months - you made me laugh, you made me feel good about myself, you cared for me and checked in on me often. Especially coming off right after 2 heartbreaks back to back, I felt safe with you and somewhere along that timeline I started to love and care for you. When you texted or called me, I was so happy. I enjoyed the nights where we would talk for hours on absolutely nothing. I had a lot of fun helping you out with your resume. Watching you play DDR was truly an experience. The anime cons where people wanted our picture was weird af tho. You became my FP, and everything I did or said revolved around you. I was actually frightened for you that you became my FP because everyone who ever became my FP has left because it was too much to handle. But you promised me you wouldn’t leave, you wouldn’t give up, and that as long as I worked on getting better, then that’s all that matters. And so I was motivated to become a better person for you and for myself.

Then sometime around the end of July/early August hit where things didn’t feel the same anymore. I think around this time was when you moved away. I knew we wouldn’t be able to talk as much as we used to, I grew to accept that. All I asked was for you to let me know when you were busy bc I tend to worry a lot when I don’t hear from you in awhile. But the way that you talked to me felt so much more different when you did talk to me. It was more distant and it wasn’t as kind as how you used to talk to me. I was scared that you stopped liking me, that I was annoying, that you liked someone else, that you were bored of talking to me, that you finally saw how much I was to handle...and so I panicked and tried to desperately save it however I could. But in the process of me trying to save it, you grew further and further apart. And I felt my world crumbling.

This was also around the same time my first meds started giving me bad side effects and I stopped going to my DBT sessions because of the cost. I knew I was going to quit my job soon and so I had to budget wisely. I should have never stopped going to my sessions though no matter the cost, because I didn’t know how to cope with you becoming distant in a healthy manner. Because there definitely were times in the first 4 months we knew each other that I did feel a slight rift, but my DBT helped with walking through my emotions and I was able to handle it pretty well. I didn’t know how desperately I needed to rely on my sessions in order to maintain something strong and healthy with you, and this is something I deeply regret today.

When I saw you again for the first time earlier this month, you do not know how happy I was. It had been rocky with all of my episodes and me finally figuring out why I was the way that I was toward you during my episodes (fuck those dumb meds), but seeing you again in person...I was overjoyed. I had not felt that happy in so long, even if I was only able to see you for a few hours. Right after that I had to go home to Texas but I made my best effort to see you again. But it didn’t feel like you wanted to see me again, because I remember when I asked you, you said “I’ll let you know.” And you never let me know.

I didn’t find out until later that you were going through some issues of your own because you never really confided in me. At this point I was back in Texas, and so our time zones were off. I started to panic even more when we would go hours or days without talking. Even something small such as “I can’t talk today, I’m busy with family stuff” or “I’ll text/call you tomorrow, I’m going out with my friends today” would have put my at ease. I was always the one that was chasing for answers because not talking to you for a long time without knowing why really stressed me out. And then all the worse possible scenarios started to come to my mind because I was left wondering why you weren’t talking to me. And then I started to overthink. You knew so much about me but you never really shared anything with me. When I wanted to talk to someone if I was going through a bad day (or even a good day), you were one of the first people I would talk to along with my best friends. You knew all of my friends but I knew none of your friends the same way you knew mine. 

I was pushing to prove to you that I was getting better during my first few weeks back home and I really was. I was happy that you were proud of me. I really felt like I was keeping my promise with you. I tried my best to educate myself on the things that you liked, like your games, so that we would have something to talk about. I watched you play some nights so that I could educate myself even further, even if that meant I had to stay up until 7 AM, and tagged you in memes that would make you laugh because I like it when you’re happy. And at some point I realized I was the one making so much effort to talk with you and to know your interests better when I didn’t feel much effort on your end - but I wanted to do whatever I could and so I never brought it up even though it was hurting me a lot.

I think the lack of communication without ever really knowing what was going on with you made me sadder by the day. And when I finally was able to reach you, your responses were so stiff and short that it made me feel like it was a chore to have to talk to me. There were many times where I wanted to ask why but I was so afraid to upset you. That was my biggest fear - that you would grow so upset that you would leave.

And then that one fateful day did come this month, where I made the biggest mistake of my life. There were so many things that led up to that moment (i.e my family, my brother, my best friend...), but in terms of you, since this letter is addressed to you - it was a culmination of so many negative emotions that I felt as a result of all the above. I felt hurt because it didn’t seem like you cared to make the time to talk to me anymore and it didn’t seem like you liked me anymore. I felt jealous of the people who got to see you and talk to you more than me. I felt angry at the fact that I didn’t know how to control my emotions with you and that I didn’t know the right and healthy way to fix things between us. And in that one moment, that one block of time, I did something that I should not have done. I went and sabotaged our relationship because I made the poor decision to take more pills than I should have, hallucinated that everyone loved me again, and annoyed you with my spam of calls and texts. My mind was in survival mode with everyone that I lost - it kept telling me that I needed to get in contact with whoever I could until someone answered my call for help. I woke up the next morning and cried in horror at what I did to everyone, including you. 

It’s sad how a bad decision in a 24 hour span can erase the two and a half weeks of hard work and determination I took to get better. Just like how 4 months of happiness is forgotten because 3 months of struggle is all we can remember. But I’ve come to accept that. There’s nothing I can do about it now because it already happened. The only thing I can do now is to work on getting better and erase the effects of those 24 hours, those 3 months, from everyone completely. I’ve thrown out all my pills so that it doesn’t happen again. The withdrawal is real and painful, but I can’t imagine it was as painful as what you had to go through when you had to deal with that. You watched a human being crumble for 3 months and you had to take so much damage from that. And for that I am so so sorry.

There are so many other things I want to tell you - how I wished you had given me more positive encouragement in my lowest of lows. I wished you had told me “It’s okay, I’m here for you and we will get through this together.” Those sort of words would have propelled me to working much harder at recovering. I thrive in positivity and shut down in negativity. But it’s not your fault that you got angry the way you did. Your frustration frightened me to the point that I was too scared to move, let alone work on getting better. But that’s okay, you didn’t know that. I don’t blame you for being agitated by my behavior. Anyone would be upset by what I said and did. I don’t blame you for anything. These are only “I wished” that will no longer happen.

It hurts me so much to have to let you go. For someone with BPD, it’s painful to see anyone you love go, but it is absolutely heart wrenching and devastating to let your FP go. But like the many times in the past, I have come to accept that the pain an FP goes through is absolutely selfish of me to make them have to endure through any longer. I only want you to hurt once. I have hurt dozens of time already by watching my FP’s suffer because of me, and so I will carry that burden for the both of us because that’s what love for someone with BPD is. I kept pushing you away, I kept telling you to leave even though my brain was screaming please don’t go. I just knew the hurt you would experience one day by being with me so I put my selfishness aside so that you wouldn’t have to hurt any longer by me. This I can do out of my love for you, even though right now I am so, so sad that my favorite person will no longer be there for me. 

All I want is for you to be happy, and I just want to know from the bottom of my heart I will always love you and care about you and wish you nothing but happiness and warmth. I am sorry for the damage I caused you. You are a wonderful, beautiful, kind, and gentle human being and I did not want to destroy that any further. Please always be the same, caring soul that I grew to love so much. 

I will continue to work on myself to the best of my ability. There is never going to be a day where I will be absolutely cured, because that’s not how BPD works. It’s a prison for the rest of my life - I can only tame it using the best methods I can. I know I will still have my low moments, but never again will I go back to the self destructive behaviors I had when I was with you. This is my new promise to you, because our promise to never give up on each other now ceases after we now have both let each other ago.

I love you and always will. One day I will be strong enough, and the moment I reach that, I will let you know. I will tell you, “See? I kept my promise.”

Sincerely, 

V

P.S. - Remember how I told you I wrote you a letter, a collection of all of my feelings for you and promised to give it to you one day once I finalized it? Part of it is in this message, part of it isn’t. One day I will give it to you, when both of our days are happier and we are no longer hurting.

[flauntpage]

DGB Grab Bag: Players' Weekend for the NHL, Salty Blue Jackets, and Buckets

Three Stars of Comedy

The third star: The Columbus Blue Jackets – Somebody's feeling a little salty about going all the way from one game to two on NBC's new schedule. (More on the new schedule in a bit.) It's the eyeroll emoji that really sells it

The second star: I has a bucket – Not sure what was funnier, the original photo or the fact that literally everyone Twitter made the same joke about the bucket getting signed by the Oilers.

The first star: This SHL video about rule changes – I can't stop watching this. It's the fist pump that gets me every time. If Tom Wilson starts working in this move every time he blindsides somebody a half hour after they touched the puck I'll admit he's worth every penny.

Be It Resolved

We're closing in on one of the weirder moments on the MLB calendar, as the annual "Players' Weekend" is almost here. The event debuted last year, and its main highlight is that players get to wear their nicknames on their jerseys.

That's… different. You have to give MLB some credit here, as they're basically offering up an open invitation for players to cut loose and show a little personality. It's fun for the players, and everyone gets to sit back and try to figure out what some of the nicknames even mean.

If you've been reading this column all summer, and god bless you if you have, then you're probably figuring that this is the part where we play our weekly round of "the NHL should steal this cool idea from another sport." That's been kind of a theme all offseason, and this feels like a great time to break it out..

But here's the thing. Ultimately, we try to be realists around here. Sure, we'll propose things like radically changing the way powerplays work, or having a special draft where everyone picks Jaromir Jagr, or letting every champion legally kidnap somebody for their Cup parade. But those are things that could actually happen someday.

NHL players volunteering to put cool nicknames on their own jerseys? Never. Zero chance. There's no point even thinking about it. Every player would just use their regular name, while old-school types swooned about how winners don't have personalities. A few players would probably insist that they didn't have a name back there at all, because the team is the only thing that matters, dammit. It would be awful.

Besides, even if the NHL stole baseball's idea and forced the players to take part, the result would just be depressing. Can you imagine an entire weekend of guys skating around with names like "Smither" and "Jonesy" and "Other Jonesy" on their back? It would be embarrassing.

So here's my proposal: We steal MLB's good idea, but then we improve on it. Be it resolved that once a season, we have a player's weekend where every team gets to force one player from another team to wear a specific nickname on their back.

Which player? That would be up to them. They could take a vote on who the victim would be. And then they'd get to choose the nickname that the player had to wear. If I know hockey players, they'd probably spend more time figuring this out than they do on special teams.

Admittedly, we'd have to iron out a few kinks. For example, we'd need some sort of tie-breaking system for when 30 teams all submitted different insults for Matthew Tkachuk as their first choice. And there would probably be some team every year that would use their pick to say something nice about some veteran opponent because they wanted to be "classy" or whatever. We'd deal with that by immediately relegating that team to the ECHL.

Still, how much fun would it be to see who each team in the league decided to target with an embarrassing nickname? And how quickly would you line up to buy an officially licensed Bruins No. 63 jersey with "Rat Face" or whatever on the back?

Maybe we can't steal most of baseball's good ideas, like "not having a salary cap" or "interesting free agency" or "replay that mostly works" or "actually noticing when defensive strategies are out of control." But we can steal this one. After we're done improving it.

Obscure Former Player of the Week

This week's Obscure Player honors go to Swedish goaltender Tommy Soderstrom, for no other reason than reader Nate wrote in to suggest him. Thanks Nate.

If you're like me, the first thing that comes to mind when someone mentions Soderstrom is the brutal game-winning goal from center ice that sent Belarus to a stunning upset over Sweden in the 2002 Olympics. That's unfair, for a couple of reasons. First, even the best goaltenders gives up the occasional bad goal, and it's wrong to remember any athlete for their lowest moment. But more importantly, that wasn't Soderstrom—that was Tommy Salo. What can I say, Sweden produced too many 1990s goalies named Tommy S.

In addition to not being Tommy Salo, Soderstrom was picked way down in the 11th round of the 1990 draft by the Flyers. He played for Team Sweden at the 1991 Canada Cup, then made his NHL debut in 1992, splitting the Flyers' starting duties with Dominic Roussel. He played reasonably well, but struggled badly as a sophomore, winning just six times in 34 appearances while posting a GAA of 4.01. It didn't help his numbers that his own teammates occasionally scored on him.

Somehow, that made him worthy of being dealt to the Islanders straight up for Ron Hextall in a trade that probably happened mainly because nobody has any recollection of Hextall being an Islander in the first place. Soderstrom would spend two years as the Islanders' starter and wasn't bad, and to this day many fans probably remember his big white Jofa facemask. He once got into a fight with Corey Schwab.

As you can see, he didn't do all that well. But for the record, he didn't get destroyed by Dan Cloutier. That was also Tommy Salo.

Soderstrom would play a single game for the Islanders during the 1996-97 season—according to hockey-reference.com, his appearance lasted all of ten seconds—and that was it for his NHL career. He'd head to the IHL, and then back home to Sweden for several seasons.

According to his Wikipedia page, he apparently appeared on a Swedish reality show in 2014. I don't read Swedish so I don't know what the show is about, but I'm going to just assume it featured him and Tommy Salo living together while doing the Spiderman pointing meme and trying to figure out which one of them it was that Mike Milbury made cry during an arbitration hearing.

Outrage of the Week

The issue: NBC released their 2018-19 schedule. The outrage: Your team isn't on it enough. Is it justified: Kind of, in the sense that fans are fans, and you're supposed to want your team to get as much airtime as possible. Even if it doesn't really affect you—and let's face it, it doesn't, because you still have your local broadcast—it feels like a respect thing. Your team is great, or at least better than everyone thinks, and NBC should love them as much as you do.

Of course, in the real world it can't work that way. There are only so many games to go around. And while it would be nice if the games were handed out based on merit, ratings still matter and some teams do better than others. So sure, the Blackhawks are the most heavily featured team, as always, even though they missed the playoffs last year. And no, you won't see struggling Canadian teams like the Canucks or Senators at all. That's not fair, but life's not fair, and hockey fans know that better than anyone.

Still, the overall schedule is… not bad? I'm going to go with not bad. NBC made some smart moves, including the decision to scrap the Wednesday Night Rivalry that sounded great in theory but never really worked in reality because there hasn't been a good NHL rivalry since 2012. And while they're still giving you the Blackhawks out of a firehose, they've done a better job of spreading the love around. We've even got a game between two Canadian teams on the schedule, as the Leafs and Jets face off in October. That's the sort of matchup the league should want to see promoted, since it features two teams packed with young stars who should be good, and could even end up playing in a Stanley Cup final someday.

We're also getting more of fun teams like the Capitals, Predators, Golden Knights, and Lightning, and less of traditional teams like the Red Wings and Canadiens who figure to be iffy or worse. It doesn't all make sense, and nobody can quite figure out what's going on with the Kings, but it's a decent effort. So yeah, not bad.

Will "not bad" be enough to keep hockey fans from complaining? Of course not, because it's August and the only other things to talk about are Andrej Sekera's achilles tendon and Max Pacioretty's golf tournament. So we squabble about the TV schedule, if only to remind ourselves that meaningful hockey will return some day. That's as it should be. At least until the Senators and Canucks are playing in the Stanley Cup final and NBC can't figure out why the ratings are so low.

Classic YouTube Clip Breakdown

Hey, who wants to close things out with a bizarre short film about hockey, made by a Canadian celebrity, and aired at a late-night talk show hosts film festival? Why not. Let's get weird.

I'll be honest, I don't have a really strong grasp on what exactly this is or why it exists. Let's cover the basics. This is a short film that was produced by Michael J. Fox for David Letterman's 2nd Annual Holiday Film Festival, which aired in 1986. The film is called The Ice Man Hummeth. And yeah, it's going to get strange.

Why yes, David Letterman apparently did have his own film festival, or at least a TV special that was presented that way. He had two, in fact. The first aired in 1985, and this one followed in 1986. You can watch the full thing here.

So on to the film. We start things off with Fox arriving at a rink, looking suitably badass given he's fresh off of Back To The Future and is pretty much one of the biggest movie stars in the world at this point. But that doesn't last long, because once he gets to the door he's suddenly a mild-mannered guy in a suit. But he's in a hockey dressing room. But he's not. We've got some sort of Westworld-style dueling timelines deal going here, with Fox as both a hockey tough guy and a classical musician. He's basically David Schultz with slightly more high-brow tastes.

We cut back and forth between the two scenes, including a shot of Hockey Fox's locker, complete with an autographed Letterman photo. That gets the first laugh from the audience, albeit a confused one, as they're clearly waiting for some of that Alex P. Keaton magic. Where's Uncle Ned and his maraschino cherries when you need him?

The next joke gets a better reaction, as Fox has to return a jock strap for something larger. Because the other didn't fit his oversized junk, you see. Look, it's his movie and Back To The Future made $210 million, he can write himself a big package if he wants to.

We get more juxtaposition, until we finally arrive at game time. That leads to a reasonably clever transition from pucks on ice into musical notes on paper as the orchestra warms up. Then it's back to the rink, where Fox's team has been joined by their opponent, who are very clearly wearing Winnipeg Jets uniforms with just enough strategically applied tape to prevent a lawsuit. Players from both teams are constantly threatening to kill each other in that way that happens in 100 percent of 1980s hockey movies, but only like 80 percent of actual 1980s hockey games. OK, fine, 95 percent if it was the Norris.

Also, a mid-80s goaltender makes a save, which is the least realistic part of this whole film.

One note about all of this that's kind of neat—in the comment section from the video, someone shows up who claims to have done the music for the film and explains that he actually had to compose a song that switched back and forth from classical to heavy metal and time it exactly to the final cut. That's kind of cool, and I'm going to assume it's true because I'm pretty sure it's illegal to lie on YouTube.

The referee, who is like eight inches taller than any of the players, drops the puck to start the game, and we instantly go full Rangers/Devils.

The benches empty because it's 1986, and at one point Fox seems to take a swing at the referee. More importantly, careful viewers will have noticed that we've now got a fully classical soundtrack, meaning the clean separation between timelines is starting to break down.

Sure enough, Hockey Fox looks up and realizes that Violin Fox and the rest of the orchestra is now in the stands. That somehow turns our bench-clearing brawl into an ice-dancing spectacle. There's a joke here about going from mid-80s hockey to the 2018 version, but I'm too mature to make it.

Meanwhile, Violin Fox is getting crowded by a fellow musician, and you can probably guess where that's headed. Soon enough, the orchestra is brawling while the hockey players tut-tut about unnecessary violence. Up is down, left is right, Harold Ballard does something nice, and we're done.

In the full version of the show, Fox gives a little more information about how this was all made. The entire project took four weeks, the shooting lasted just two nights, and it all cost less than $40,000. And best of all, he tells a great story about how the musicians couldn't wait to fight each other. It's well worth a watch.

And there you have it: Quite possibly the best artistic interpretation of the marriage between hockey and music every filmed that didn't involve Neil Sheehy.

Have a question, suggestion, old YouTube clip, or anything else you'd like to see included in this column? Email Sean at nhlgrabbag@gmail.com .

DGB Grab Bag: Players' Weekend for the NHL, Salty Blue Jackets, and Buckets published first on https://footballhighlightseurope.tumblr.com/

[flauntpage]

DGB Grab Bag: Players' Weekend for the NHL, Salty Blue Jackets, and Buckets

Three Stars of Comedy

The third star: The Columbus Blue Jackets – Somebody's feeling a little salty about going all the way from one game to two on NBC's new schedule. (More on the new schedule in a bit.) It's the eyeroll emoji that really sells it

The second star: I has a bucket – Not sure what was funnier, the original photo or the fact that literally everyone Twitter made the same joke about the bucket getting signed by the Oilers.

The first star: This SHL video about rule changes – I can't stop watching this. It's the fist pump that gets me every time. If Tom Wilson starts working in this move every time he blindsides somebody a half hour after they touched the puck I'll admit he's worth every penny.

Be It Resolved

We're closing in on one of the weirder moments on the MLB calendar, as the annual "Players' Weekend" is almost here. The event debuted last year, and its main highlight is that players get to wear their nicknames on their jerseys.

That's… different. You have to give MLB some credit here, as they're basically offering up an open invitation for players to cut loose and show a little personality. It's fun for the players, and everyone gets to sit back and try to figure out what some of the nicknames even mean.

If you've been reading this column all summer, and god bless you if you have, then you're probably figuring that this is the part where we play our weekly round of "the NHL should steal this cool idea from another sport." That's been kind of a theme all offseason, and this feels like a great time to break it out..

But here's the thing. Ultimately, we try to be realists around here. Sure, we'll propose things like radically changing the way powerplays work, or having a special draft where everyone picks Jaromir Jagr, or letting every champion legally kidnap somebody for their Cup parade. But those are things that could actually happen someday.

NHL players volunteering to put cool nicknames on their own jerseys? Never. Zero chance. There's no point even thinking about it. Every player would just use their regular name, while old-school types swooned about how winners don't have personalities. A few players would probably insist that they didn't have a name back there at all, because the team is the only thing that matters, dammit. It would be awful.

Besides, even if the NHL stole baseball's idea and forced the players to take part, the result would just be depressing. Can you imagine an entire weekend of guys skating around with names like "Smither" and "Jonesy" and "Other Jonesy" on their back? It would be embarrassing.

So here's my proposal: We steal MLB's good idea, but then we improve on it. Be it resolved that once a season, we have a player's weekend where every team gets to force one player from another team to wear a specific nickname on their back.

Which player? That would be up to them. They could take a vote on who the victim would be. And then they'd get to choose the nickname that the player had to wear. If I know hockey players, they'd probably spend more time figuring this out than they do on special teams.

Admittedly, we'd have to iron out a few kinks. For example, we'd need some sort of tie-breaking system for when 30 teams all submitted different insults for Matthew Tkachuk as their first choice. And there would probably be some team every year that would use their pick to say something nice about some veteran opponent because they wanted to be "classy" or whatever. We'd deal with that by immediately relegating that team to the ECHL.

Still, how much fun would it be to see who each team in the league decided to target with an embarrassing nickname? And how quickly would you line up to buy an officially licensed Bruins No. 63 jersey with "Rat Face" or whatever on the back?

Maybe we can't steal most of baseball's good ideas, like "not having a salary cap" or "interesting free agency" or "replay that mostly works" or "actually noticing when defensive strategies are out of control." But we can steal this one. After we're done improving it.

Obscure Former Player of the Week

This week's Obscure Player honors go to Swedish goaltender Tommy Soderstrom, for no other reason than reader Nate wrote in to suggest him. Thanks Nate.

If you're like me, the first thing that comes to mind when someone mentions Soderstrom is the brutal game-winning goal from center ice that sent Belarus to a stunning upset over Sweden in the 2002 Olympics. That's unfair, for a couple of reasons. First, even the best goaltenders gives up the occasional bad goal, and it's wrong to remember any athlete for their lowest moment. But more importantly, that wasn't Soderstrom—that was Tommy Salo. What can I say, Sweden produced too many 1990s goalies named Tommy S.

In addition to not being Tommy Salo, Soderstrom was picked way down in the 11th round of the 1990 draft by the Flyers. He played for Team Sweden at the 1991 Canada Cup, then made his NHL debut in 1992, splitting the Flyers' starting duties with Dominic Roussel. He played reasonably well, but struggled badly as a sophomore, winning just six times in 34 appearances while posting a GAA of 4.01. It didn't help his numbers that his own teammates occasionally scored on him.

Somehow, that made him worthy of being dealt to the Islanders straight up for Ron Hextall in a trade that probably happened mainly because nobody has any recollection of Hextall being an Islander in the first place. Soderstrom would spend two years as the Islanders' starter and wasn't bad, and to this day many fans probably remember his big white Jofa facemask. He once got into a fight with Corey Schwab.

As you can see, he didn't do all that well. But for the record, he didn't get destroyed by Dan Cloutier. That was also Tommy Salo.

Soderstrom would play a single game for the Islanders during the 1996-97 season—according to hockey-reference.com, his appearance lasted all of ten seconds—and that was it for his NHL career. He'd head to the IHL, and then back home to Sweden for several seasons.

According to his Wikipedia page, he apparently appeared on a Swedish reality show in 2014. I don't read Swedish so I don't know what the show is about, but I'm going to just assume it featured him and Tommy Salo living together while doing the Spiderman pointing meme and trying to figure out which one of them it was that Mike Milbury made cry during an arbitration hearing.

Outrage of the Week

The issue: NBC released their 2018-19 schedule. The outrage: Your team isn't on it enough. Is it justified: Kind of, in the sense that fans are fans, and you're supposed to want your team to get as much airtime as possible. Even if it doesn't really affect you—and let's face it, it doesn't, because you still have your local broadcast—it feels like a respect thing. Your team is great, or at least better than everyone thinks, and NBC should love them as much as you do.

Of course, in the real world it can't work that way. There are only so many games to go around. And while it would be nice if the games were handed out based on merit, ratings still matter and some teams do better than others. So sure, the Blackhawks are the most heavily featured team, as always, even though they missed the playoffs last year. And no, you won't see struggling Canadian teams like the Canucks or Senators at all. That's not fair, but life's not fair, and hockey fans know that better than anyone.

Still, the overall schedule is… not bad? I'm going to go with not bad. NBC made some smart moves, including the decision to scrap the Wednesday Night Rivalry that sounded great in theory but never really worked in reality because there hasn't been a good NHL rivalry since 2012. And while they're still giving you the Blackhawks out of a firehose, they've done a better job of spreading the love around. We've even got a game between two Canadian teams on the schedule, as the Leafs and Jets face off in October. That's the sort of matchup the league should want to see promoted, since it features two teams packed with young stars who should be good, and could even end up playing in a Stanley Cup final someday.

We're also getting more of fun teams like the Capitals, Predators, Golden Knights, and Lightning, and less of traditional teams like the Red Wings and Canadiens who figure to be iffy or worse. It doesn't all make sense, and nobody can quite figure out what's going on with the Kings, but it's a decent effort. So yeah, not bad.

Will "not bad" be enough to keep hockey fans from complaining? Of course not, because it's August and the only other things to talk about are Andrej Sekera's achilles tendon and Max Pacioretty's golf tournament. So we squabble about the TV schedule, if only to remind ourselves that meaningful hockey will return some day. That's as it should be. At least until the Senators and Canucks are playing in the Stanley Cup final and NBC can't figure out why the ratings are so low.

Classic YouTube Clip Breakdown

Hey, who wants to close things out with a bizarre short film about hockey, made by a Canadian celebrity, and aired at a late-night talk show hosts film festival? Why not. Let's get weird.

I'll be honest, I don't have a really strong grasp on what exactly this is or why it exists. Let's cover the basics. This is a short film that was produced by Michael J. Fox for David Letterman's 2nd Annual Holiday Film Festival, which aired in 1986. The film is called The Ice Man Hummeth. And yeah, it's going to get strange.

Why yes, David Letterman apparently did have his own film festival, or at least a TV special that was presented that way. He had two, in fact. The first aired in 1985, and this one followed in 1986. You can watch the full thing here.

So on to the film. We start things off with Fox arriving at a rink, looking suitably badass given he's fresh off of Back To The Future and is pretty much one of the biggest movie stars in the world at this point. But that doesn't last long, because once he gets to the door he's suddenly a mild-mannered guy in a suit. But he's in a hockey dressing room. But he's not. We've got some sort of Westworld-style dueling timelines deal going here, with Fox as both a hockey tough guy and a classical musician. He's basically David Schultz with slightly more high-brow tastes.

We cut back and forth between the two scenes, including a shot of Hockey Fox's locker, complete with an autographed Letterman photo. That gets the first laugh from the audience, albeit a confused one, as they're clearly waiting for some of that Alex P. Keaton magic. Where's Uncle Ned and his maraschino cherries when you need him?

The next joke gets a better reaction, as Fox has to return a jock strap for something larger. Because the other didn't fit his oversized junk, you see. Look, it's his movie and Back To The Future made $210 million, he can write himself a big package if he wants to.

We get more juxtaposition, until we finally arrive at game time. That leads to a reasonably clever transition from pucks on ice into musical notes on paper as the orchestra warms up. Then it's back to the rink, where Fox's team has been joined by their opponent, who are very clearly wearing Winnipeg Jets uniforms with just enough strategically applied tape to prevent a lawsuit. Players from both teams are constantly threatening to kill each other in that way that happens in 100 percent of 1980s hockey movies, but only like 80 percent of actual 1980s hockey games. OK, fine, 95 percent if it was the Norris.

Also, a mid-80s goaltender makes a save, which is the least realistic part of this whole film.

One note about all of this that's kind of neat—in the comment section from the video, someone shows up who claims to have done the music for the film and explains that he actually had to compose a song that switched back and forth from classical to heavy metal and time it exactly to the final cut. That's kind of cool, and I'm going to assume it's true because I'm pretty sure it's illegal to lie on YouTube.

The referee, who is like eight inches taller than any of the players, drops the puck to start the game, and we instantly go full Rangers/Devils.

The benches empty because it's 1986, and at one point Fox seems to take a swing at the referee. More importantly, careful viewers will have noticed that we've now got a fully classical soundtrack, meaning the clean separation between timelines is starting to break down.

Sure enough, Hockey Fox looks up and realizes that Violin Fox and the rest of the orchestra is now in the stands. That somehow turns our bench-clearing brawl into an ice-dancing spectacle. There's a joke here about going from mid-80s hockey to the 2018 version, but I'm too mature to make it.

Meanwhile, Violin Fox is getting crowded by a fellow musician, and you can probably guess where that's headed. Soon enough, the orchestra is brawling while the hockey players tut-tut about unnecessary violence. Up is down, left is right, Harold Ballard does something nice, and we're done.

In the full version of the show, Fox gives a little more information about how this was all made. The entire project took four weeks, the shooting lasted just two nights, and it all cost less than $40,000. And best of all, he tells a great story about how the musicians couldn't wait to fight each other. It's well worth a watch.

And there you have it: Quite possibly the best artistic interpretation of the marriage between hockey and music every filmed that didn't involve Neil Sheehy.

Have a question, suggestion, old YouTube clip, or anything else you'd like to see included in this column? Email Sean at nhlgrabbag@gmail.com .

DGB Grab Bag: Players' Weekend for the NHL, Salty Blue Jackets, and Buckets published first on https://footballhighlightseurope.tumblr.com/