Empire Maintenance

Well, I say this little blog war is going swimmingly well. Always crush uprisings and negative news reports with an iron fist. In this case, threatening to post FAT pictures effectively ended the chatter of my fledgling tennis game. That eliminated four rebel bloggers right there on the spot. They were "sleeper cells" waiting to be activated. Yes, I am a cunty bastard for my war tactics. It's part of my charm :)

The precursor to the rebellion was the sudden dip in my tennis game, which was widely reported on three blogs. It started with losing a doubles match on April 19th in the semi-finals of the New Orleans tournament. Then the next day, I lost in three sets in the singles finals. I followed that blemish with a doubles loss in league the following week, and a horrible round robin tournament performance last week. Losing to Whipping Boy 6-4, 7-5 in my latest singles match was the last straw. It was downright embarrassing and a defining moment for me. It is simply unacceptable to lose to your "whipping boy"!

Last night, I took tennis lessons for the first time in over a year. My motivation was to reverse the losing skid. After all, LOSING IS FOR LOSERS! The tennis instructor changed the grip on my backhand to reflect the proper two-handed backhand. I had somehow changed my grip over the last year to whatever felt natural to me. But it hurt my game. On my forehand, the instructor simply changed the height of the point of contact. It worked VERY WELL.

The tennis instructor was very impressed with my ground strokes. He would toss me a ball, and I would either hit it with my backhand or forehand. It was not as easy because soon he began hitting the ball right back at me. So, then I began zinging winners past him. He smiled at the fight in me. Overall, I missed very few tennis balls. We have another lesson next Wednesday at 5pm.

Why the urge to suddenly fix things? Well, I have a tennis tournament in Louisville, KY in three weeks (Memorial Day Weekend). I will probably be the #2 or #3 seed in a bracket filled with very experienced players. It will be the toughest bracket Whipping Boy and I have ever faced. The likelihood of either of us surviving it unscathed is remote!