Rams/49ers – Thurs, Sept. 10, 2026
So, the L.A. Rams are supposed to be untouchable… and maybe they were a bit arrogant at the end of the first half against the 49ers? With 20 seconds left and all three timeouts, the Rams decided to take a knee instead of trying to get into field-goal range down 7-3. The Rams never scored again.
Down 27-7 with three minutes to go, again the Rams just gave up. They sent in their backup QB to run a few plays, and although they got into the red zone with under a minute left, they just gave up. They never tried to score a touchdown — as many other teams have done in the last few years in this situation — and, of course, critics on social media were screaming “rigged!” etc.
Certainly not as exciting as the Patriots-Seahawks opening-night game from the night before.
A busy weekend, part 2
Regarding this post, oh yeah, the 26th was my birthday. Also, there were some things that could have changed the schedule which I didn’t mention originally.
- I received a text on Thursday the 23rd from a school that I did on-call teaching for — to see if I could fill in as a substitute on that Friday. I saw my existing schedule and declined.
- I received a text on early Friday morning after my Thursday overnight shift to see if I could do 3pm-11pm or 6pm-2am instead of the overnight shift (which would have worked out better). I didn’t see the text in time and that request was no longer necessary by the time I saw the message.
Then, the following weekend, Oct. 31 to Nov. 2, it was supposed to be this schedule:
- Friday, 31st: online class from 12-2pm (after my Thursday 11pm-7am in-studio commentator job), then in-person tutoring from 3-5pm, then an on-call in-studio commentator shift from 11pm-7am
- Saturday, 1st: hockey doubleheader (be at the rink by 1:30pm), followed by a regular in-studio commentator shift from 11pm-7am
- Sunday, 2nd: hockey doubleheader (be at the rink by 8am).
A few days before the 1st, I received notification that the hockey doubleheader will be a single game both days of the weekend. One of the teams (the one that lost 12-0 and 19-0 the weekend before) was having its games postponed, lessening my workload. (A few days later, the team announced it was folding for the season. I checked the remaining schedule for the season; with this team folding, there won’t be any more scheduled weekend doubleheaders for the rest of 2025-26.)
Also, I was notified early Friday morning that the on-call Friday night Halloween shift became a regular shift.
So, it became Thursday overnight, sleep a few hours, online class on Friday starting at noon, commute to an in-person class, rest a few hours, commute to the Friday overnight, sleep a few hours at home, commute to the hockey rink on Saturday by 1:30pm, finish hockey by 5pm-ish, return home for some rest for a couple of hours, do the Saturday overnight shift, then Uber home to get ready for hockey at 8am on Sunday morning.
I did all of the shifts without missing a beat. Sure, I was tired, but things went all right.
Oh yeah, the Saturday overnight shift was an hour longer — because the clocks moved backwards that weekend on Sunday morning at 1am/2am. So, it was nine hours for the overnight shift. Fortunately, there was a two-hour break due to scheduled monthly maintenance work on the equipment that we use in the studio.
A busy weekend (Oct. 24-26, 2025)
It was a busy weekend from Oct. 24 to 26, 2025.
These days, I have teaching/tutoring as well as hockey commentary, and I also recently began work as an in-studio/on-camera games commentator in the gaming industry. (There were 11 of us being trained at the same time; on the first day we were asked to say why we wanted to work there, and my answer was succinct: “I would like to be on camera.”)
My in-studio work is all overnight shifts, eight hours daily ending at 7am.
So, the weekend of Oct. 24 to 26 presented an interesting schedule.
I had a 3-5pm in-person tutoring session on Friday the 24th. Then I returned home to sleep for a few hours before commuting to my overnight in-studio/on-camera commentating work. That finished at 7am, and I returned home to sleep for a few more hours before heading to the hockey rink at 1:30pm. It was a doubleheader slate but I stayed only for the first game and left after that contest (around 5pm) due to some family emergency. Then I returned to the in-studio overnight job and again that finished at 7am.
Next, I returned home and then commuted to the hockey rink at 8am for another doubleheader. I stayed for both games this time. The second game ended around 2pm, and then it was returning home again for some much-needed rest. (Note: It wasn’t easy; it was talking non-stop for the in-studio commentator job, and then the Saturday hockey game that I did play-by-play for, the opposition won 12-0. On Sunday, the early game ended 19-0 for the opposition. So, none of that was easy.)
The weekend of Oct. 31-Nov. 2 will present a similar challenge. I’ll be back to post about it!
Life lesson #314 – I’ll continue in spite of…
Well, I’m going to say this again, and yes, I’ve said it before several times.
I’m a pleasant person. I’m normally cheerful. I’m nice.
But in the city that I live in, maybe people just look down on others. As an Asian person, I can say for sure that multiple times I received poor service in restaurants, even before the pandemic. In other situations, people just seem to have no time for me. It could be a group setting and I’m literally ignored by others. When I do try to speak up, I get talked over by others and they appear oblivious to what I’ve said. I could say, “Well, my arm is sore today because…” and I get cut off like I didn’t say anything.
Or it would be something like, “Oh, what you’re saying doesn’t affect me, so I’m not going to listen to this story.” Or something like, “Who cares?”
I had a former boss named Ian who did that. This was about 15 years after I’d last worked for him — we had still kept in touch all these years after I’d left his school. He asked me something. I explained it. And his next comment was “So what?” in a patronizing tone. It was a question about why I wrote my 1988 Dodgers book. I said Fred Claire suggested it because it was the 30th anniversary of that season (back in 2018), and Ian’s response was “So what?”
I was offended and didn’t return his texts for a day. After that, he disowned me.
More recently, I had another boss (who kept insisting she wasn’t a “boss” but her business card said “….Manager” — so that counts. But she was helping me move to my new place sometime ago, and I invited my sibling to live there because my sibling didn’t have a home — and of course my sibling was supposed to pay rent. Yet my boss — jokingly — said that if I was “mean,” then my sibling did not need to pay. I found that to be offensive and not amusing whatsoever.
I had a parent who also said that my sibling could pay well below market value for rent. Well, that’s cute but why am I expected to support my (older) sibling who gets angry if I said I didn’t want to pay for the rides that my sibling sometimes provided me. I’d rather take Uber if I had to. I’m basically losing money every month because of the below-market-value rent that my sibling gives — and a few times the cheques were postdated — and so that boss thinks it’s funny that if I, as a positive and cheerful/upbeat person was “mean,” the sibling didn’t need to pay.
There are people out there who will not and do not respond to polite messages that I send. I suppose I am viewed as an annoyance or below their level, and so I do not even warrant any sort of response. It’s as though I’m a non-human in those specific people’s eyes.
I’m surrounded by people who just don’t want to listen to what I say, likely think I’m some sort of dirt below their shoes, etc. Through their actions, it’s as though they don’t think of me as a human being — which really means they don’t want me to succeed. By that logic, they don’t care enough about me and/or want me to fail. As Hathaway’s character said in The Intern (2015), her mom was a “terrorist.” By that logic, I would not be out of line to say those people around me are terrorists, too. Not everyone, obviously, but quite a lot.
In spite of all that, I’m someone who’ll continue to try my best in my daily life. And I’ll continue to be upbeat and cheerful.
k. p. wee 