COMING SOON!

...likely to be unveiled at some point in the next 48 hours, The Great Cave Offensive's NBA Enrichment Catalog. All the news and views to satisfy any devoted reader who'd have Charles Barkley's back in a fight.

Popular demand.

It's rare that anybody comments on these things, so when I found that somebody had requested that I be a bit more prolific with the blogging, I figured it'd be downright callous not to oblige.

The sad truth is that there isn't much in my life that I have a huge amount of verve to talk about, and my observations on the world are running a little dry, at about the same rate as my finances. Despite my disdain for money, I can't argue that it can rule my world, at least psychologically. If I had a Scrooge McDuck style money vault, I suspect I'd be a healthier person mentally. The amount of time I dedicate to thinking about the years of destitution I have ahead of me is pretty impressive.

I was somewhat distressed to learn that the system for getting a Medical interview (low income health insurance) is a bit thrown together. The scheduling is on a first come/first serve basis, and since I've been unable to sleep lately, I've never had the energy to drag myself out there and wait around an hour to beat the crowd. I'll have to go Monday, mainly because my body can't really absorb the alternative; more on that later.

There's no relief to be had in basketball. The last few years I was able to escape periodically into the scattershot, exhilarating world of Golden State basketball, as for nearly a calendar year the Warriors fielded a team and a style that very nearly entered the pantheon of cult favorite hoops squads, if such a pantheon exists. One short offseason later, and Baron Davis is gone, Monta Ellis is injured, Stephen Jackson is playing like a Doberman with a psychological weakness, newcomer Corey Maggette is making me tear my hair out, and Don Nelson is affirming the age old danger of giving guaranteed money to alcoholic old men. Andris Biedrins is a real delight, simply because with each great game he's vindicating all the insisting I did to people that he could be a top ten center. Brandan Wright should be starting, but you never can tell if that'll happen with a lunatic like Nelson at the helm. It took a year or two, but I finally understand why this guy leaves teams with such a bitter feeling. And with his contract extension, the bitterness is going to get worse before it gets better.

I had an incredible physical breakdown a week or so ago. My arm began to ache and I lost all feeling in one side of my face, as if I was having a stroke. I went to the emergency room, where a balding doctor, a chubby male nurse, and a masculine but still reasonably sexable female nurse informed me that my blood pressure was fine, my EKG was fine, and that I either had a pinched nerve, or was simply breaking down due to stress. The female nurse seemed to favor the stress explanation. As time has dragged on, though, it's become increasingly clear that there is something tangibly wrong with me; the back of my neck periodically gets stiff and wooden, and aches with a dull pain. The second I have the money, I'll be seeing an acupuncturist recommended to me by a friend who's quite familiar with back pain. Until then, though, I'm in the unpleasant purgatory of drifting about injured and lame, trying somewhat desperately to find a nice, interesting woman who wants to go on a date with a guy who possibly has the spinal cord of a sixty year old.

It's worth noting that despite the morbid tone, I'm not particularly morose about most of this. The Warriors anger me more than anything, and the pain scares me. The money depresses me in a societal sense, but I don't hitch my own worth to cash, so I'm not feeling that down. I need to get into shape terribly, though, as I've gone quite soft from inaction, but my array of aches has made my normal fitness routine next to impossible. Maybe I should take up shark wrestling.