Monthly Archives: February 2008

League E-Mails

Troggnation…ASSEMBLE!

Leave a comment

NOTE: This is the text from the email sent to the league on 2/18/2008

Hear ye, hear ye!
You miserable, cringing wretches,
You unfortunates, tongues swollen with a thirst that cannot be slaked,
You sad, you desperate,
You few, you happy few, you band of brothers–

There is a thing, a happening, a confluence, if you will, a deal that must be discussed. But before we actually get to the deal, we need to talk about something a little more personal. It’s our little friend Addiction.

(NOTE: If you want to skip my meandering prose, go down to the “IMPORTANT STUFF” header below)

The Throne of Lies defined “addiction” as “a recurring compulsion by an individual to engage in some specific activity, despite harmful consequences to the individual’s health, mental state or social life.” Moments later it described it as “An irrational need to perform some action, often despite negative consequences.” And moments after that it defined it as “New World monkeys of the genus Callithrix, which contains 18 species.” For the purposes of this discussion we’ll stick with the first one.

Let’s break it down:

  • “A recurring compulsion”: Every year, without fail, since 2003. Check.
  • “By an individual”: One player per team. Check.
  • “To engage in some specific activity”: There’s only one Trogdor League. Check.
  • “Despite harmful consequences”: I did threaten J’s life last season. Numerous times. Check.
  • “To the individual’s health, mental state, or social life.”: Check, Check and…um…this kind of is my social life, so I suppose, uncheck.

Basically, what I’m trying to say is that this deal isn’t something to be entered into lightly; it is a deal with the very Devil himself. With most addictions, your drugs, your alcohols, your shoppings, you get the long-term downsides: blood diseases from swapping dirty needles; a liver that’s been replaced with a bag of lesions and a sign saying “going out of business, everything must go”; a cupboard full of “kittens of the world”-themed thimbles. But for every one of those, there is still the bait on the hook–the initial high from the drug of your choosing. Be it the courage-in-a-bottle feeling you get from downing a shotglass of grain alcohol and vanilla extract (what we in the business like to refer to as “A Monday-Morning Upper”) or the endorphin high of turning on the TV and seeing a set of porcelain cupid soup ladles (WITH ONLY MINUTES LEFT!!!), drugs have a hook that brings you back, dragging you through the depths of self-loathing and empty promises, only to deposit you again at their door, desperate for just one more hit. And yes, I’d like to order the second set for 20% off.

With this, there’s nothing of the kind. All we have to offer are torment and tragedy, and a long, inorexable deathmarch to the inevitable 3rd-place finish.

There are no highs. Only varying degrees of low.

Magnificent!Having said that, all is not total gloom and depression. For those few, those coveted, those who have had their names immortalized on the face of That Grail, The Eddie Gaedel Memorial Cup, happiness, indeed euphoria, is a fleeting companion. Even in a room full of naked, greased dwarves, someone has to be the tallest, and the tallest dwarf in this room in the year 2007 was Jay, who, through guile, determination, and some incredibly bad timing by me, was able to steal victory from my grasp. Jay, we salute you. Some with more fingers than others.

But back to the deal. We do this deal, this thing, this “Big Show.”

That is to say, your 2008 edition of…
…
…
…

Trogdor VI-String: Dead or Alive

…
…
…

I’ll let that soak in a bit before going on.
On to actual league-related information:

IMPORTANT STUFF:
If you’re on this list, you’re in. I need to get a head count of folks that will be joining us, because I know of at least one new guy from work that we’ll probably have this year, and I’d like to know if we’ll be hitting up against the 20-team hard limit that Yahoo(!) has on their leagues. If you’re in, even if it’s a foregone conclusion, reply to this email. I’m the least-organized person in the world, and I need all the help I can get.

DRAFT:
Draft Date: Either 3/17 or 3/22.
Place:The draft will be held at J and Scott’s place in Chico, colloquially known as “The ‘Metto”. Past that, we need to settle on an actual date. I’m inclined toward the 22nd, but Nick has said that that might not work for him. The 17th seems too early for my tastes, but if that’s all we’ve got, then that’s what we’ll do. This will be decided by Wednesday, February 22. Get your votes and/or arguments in by replying to this email.

LINKS:
There are some links that you should really reacquaint yourself with:

PAYMENT:
Payment Deadline: TBA
Last season was the first time we went with a paid league, and we’re doing so again this year. As with last year’s league, we will offer scholarships to any new entrants to the league, as well as the teams that finished in the bottom 25% of the league the previous season. This year’s recipients of a “Bottom 25% Scholarship” will be the Dirty Pirates, Eh! Steve!, and the Mantastics. Congratulations on being bottoms, guys.

KEEPERS:
Keeper Deadline: TBA, but will generally be a week before the draft.
As with last year, we’ll be doing a keeper system again this season. All teams from last season’s league will be able to keep two (2) (dos) players from their rosters. Players need to get their keeper picks to me ASAP for logging on the league page. I won’t go into detail on the mechanics here, but if you read the league rules you’ll see that we have a mechanism for trading keepers, and if such a thing interests you, you would do well to verse yourself in its intricacies.

ETC:
That’s all I got for now. Let’s nail down the date for the draft, and then we can get on with the business of arguing over what stats to track…..

–The Commish