insomnia, hockey, and scrabble

I've always been somewhat of an insomniac. I'm also an early riser. This means that even when I do get sleep, my body screams for me to wake the hell up at or around 7:00 in the morning. Weekends, vacations..... it doesn't matter. These days, I consider myself lucky to get 4 consecutive hours of sleep. Most nights I get about 3 hours total.

Part of the problem is that I just don't get sleepy. Forcing myself to sleep doesn't work so I have to occupy the time somehow until that glorious moment arrives. I spend a lot of time playing Scrabble online (www.isc.ro) but it's difficult to find a decent match when it's 3 in the morning. Sometimes I read, sometimes I watch movies, sometimes I play video games. The only games I play are sports games.

I should say that I'm a big fan of NHL hockey. I have season tickets to the Carolina Hurricanes. This season isn't happening because of a labor dispute, which naturally makes me sad. One can only watch the movie Slapshot so many times, so I've been gettng my hockey fill by playing NHL 2005. It has some really good things about it, and the likenesses of the players and arenas is pretty incredible. Actually, it's really creepy because my seat is clearly visible in the game (although the folks at EA mixed up the end at which the 'Canes shoot twice), and the person in that seat looks like me! Perhaps I hyperbolize a bit here, but the guy is white and has short brown hair and wears the home red sweater. As far as I'm concerned that guy looks as much like me as the EA Rod Brind'Amour looks like the real Rod Brind'Amour. My only real beef with the game is that you cannot look at league-wide stats. You have to search team by team. No league leaders in statistacal categories. Only team leaders. I don't remember this being the case in years past, but I do recall this being the same case for NCAA football 2005. Odd.

Part of what keeps me up at night is that I obsessively think about Scrabble. Racks, boards, endgames, etc. Maybe I should try not playing for a while, but I don't really see that happening.