The Streets of Baltimore

Everything is Amazing and Nobody is Happy

2011-08-16T11:16:00.002-04:00

A few months ago I wrote a post about how amazingly simple it is these days to find and access any type of media from virtually anywhere on the planet at any time, and how we already take it for granted. Comedian Louis C.K. apparently agrees with me - here he is recently on the Conan O'Brien show:

He, of course, says it much more humorously and eloquently than I do, but the point is the same. Basically, at this point Apple could give us phones that were built-in to the back of our hands that never needed recharging and could monitor your vital signs while playing back YouTube clips, and people would still complain about the orientation of the screen or bitch about the auto-complete feature.

Bryce Harper, Getting Better By the Day

2011-06-23T12:17:00.002-04:00

Feast your eyes on Bryce Harper's truck, courtesy of Deadspin:

Sports Cards for Insane People

2011-06-15T22:13:00.003-04:00

Now that Progressive Boink and the Dugout have moved on to greener (read: money-producing and read by more than 3 people) pastures, Jon Bois and Brandon Stroud's unique sense of humor is finding its way into more and more Internet articles. And to that, I say, huzzah.

Case in point - "Sports Cards for Insane People - The Awesome 1880's Athletes of the World" on SB Nation is the perfect blend of niche, well written, over-the-top, hit-the-nail-on-the-head-of-whatever-it-is-you're-trying-to-describe writing style that makes for what I think is a new genre of comedy writing.

Are there genres of comedy writing?

Anyway, the piece describes a bunch of sports cards from the 1880's hilariously and brilliantly, like this blurb describing "Daniel O'Leary, Heel and Toe Pedestrian":

Daniel O'Leary, champion of the pavement, did walk 200 metres through the streets of London without so much as a speck of goat, sheep, pig, cow, or human feces bespoiling.

His figure, a feat described by the Daily Mail at the time as "the preeminentathletic feat of our century, and more surprising still that O'Leary, and Irishman, did it all in what was a straight line indicating sobriety, and condition previously thought impossible among the people of the Emerald Isle." O'Leary fell into an open sewer at the 201st meter, but his record walk and unique technique lived on for years in the lore of London as "O'Leary's Walk."

I'm not sure how to describe that other than a Victorian-era newspaper clipping. It made me laugh, and it should make you laugh too, damn it.

But really, I think I'm the only one out there who really gets this stuff.

The King is Dead, Long Live the King

2011-06-13T08:56:00.001-04:00

There are so many great media slayings of LeBron James out there today, but I think this one from ESPN takes the cake:

Left threadbare, all James could do was deploy his defense mechanisms.

“All the people that were rooting me on to fail, at the end of the day they have to wake up tomorrow and have the same life they had before,” James said. “They have the same personal problems they had to today. I’m going to continue to live the way I want to live and continue to do the things that I want with me and my family and be happy with that.”

Yes, James could leave in his Bentley or Rolls Royce or Maybach or whatever vehicle he chose to drive. He could, indeed, go home to his mansion where his personal chef might have a five-star meal waiting. Then off to his plush bed with 1,500-thread-count sheets. In a few days, it’ll be off on a private jet for a needed vacation.

The vast majority of those who toasted his defeat will wake up and go to work on Monday morning.

GEORGE BAMBERGER

2011-06-06T12:02:00.004-04:00

Craig Calcaterra over at Hardball Talk had a good idea today which I am going to completely rip off: in doing his weekly baseball power rankings, he decided that instead of explaining their rankings, he would just list his favorite players from each franchise. And that, my friends, is right up my alley.

Without further ado, my favorite players from each franchise:

Cardinals: Ozzie Smith

yankees: Don Mattingly - A tough pick as I despise the yankees, but I've always secretly loved Mattingly.

Phillies: Mike Schmidt - I won't lie; this is primarily because I had a sweet Starting Lineup action figure of him.

Rangers: Nolan Ryan - Probably says a lot about my age, but I remember Ryan as a Ranger.

red sox: Tim Wakefield - Not even remotely close to being anyone else.

Giants: Tim Lincecum/Will Clark - I stole Craig's idea on this one, but it's true: I loved Will Clark growing up because he was kinda a NL version of Cal Ripken (at least I thought so at the time. Probably because he was white and played hard with those flip-up sunglasses). But I have to say Tim the Enchanter may have overtaken him.

Brewers: George Bamberger - I know this makes no sense. I just wanted an excuse to post a picture of one of my most-loved baseball cards from my youth: ---------------------------------------->

Why can I recall that card so vividly when I can't remember what my first girlfriend looked like?

o well

Indians: Jim Thome/Kenny Lofton - I can cheat. This is my blog.

Diamondbacks: Justin Upton - First really tough choice as there aren't many options. Craig Counsell and his extremely nerdy team photos come in second.

Blue Jays: Roberto Alomar

Tigers: Cecil Fielder

Marlins: Charlie Hough - I love how this guy played until he was almost 50 but somehow managed to look even older than that while playing.

Rays: Casey Fossum - I have to respect any man who tries to make the Eephus Pitch work in the Major Leagues. And create a sweet nickname for it, as well. (The aptly-named Fossum Flop)

Mariners: Ichiro - With Jr. Griffey followed extremely close behind.

Reds: Chris Sabo - The RecSpecs say it all.

Angels: Jim Abbott - Because, well, he had one freaking arm and pitched a no-hitter. Let's see you do that.

Pirates: Andy Van Slyke - Most difficult pick yet. I literally have no memories of the Pirates in my youth, which is a same as that was probably the only time in my life that they have been good.

Rockies: Andres Gallaraga - The Big Cat wins it with an awesome nickname.

Mets: Mookie Wilson - My next door neighbor as a kid was an older guy who collected baseball cards. One day he asked me who my favorite player was, and for reasons that are still unclear to me, I said Mookie Wilson. From there forward, every Mookie Wilson double he ever got was given to me. I still have no idea why I said that, because even then I liked Darryl Strawberry and Gary Carter more. But give a Mookie his due.

Dodgers: Orel Herschiser - Incredible for like 3 seasons and blah for the rest. Always looked like a nerd on the hill with those glasses. I loved that.

White Sox: Frank Thomas

Athletics: Dennis Eckersley - Simply because of my penchant for weird pitchers who are successful. Rickey is very, very close behind.

Orioles: Cal Ripken, Jr. - My hero, a gentleman, and a legend.

Nationals/Expos: Tim Raines - But if you're pressing me to come up with a National, Mike Morse because he is seriously helping my fantasy team this year.

Padres: Tony Gwynn

Royals: George Brett

Cubs: Ryne Sandberg - Again, an awesome nickname wins it for Ryhno.

Astros: ? - Can I say Nolan Ryan again?

Twins: Kirby Puckett - And I can damn well guarantee you that 95% of 29 year-old males would say the same thing.

Turns out most of my favorite players were from my youth, and players that I had either a good baseball card or an action figure of. Life was tough before SportsCenter and MLB.TV. Who are your favorite players?

Cats vs. Music - the Eternal Struggle Part II

2011-06-01T09:08:00.003-04:00

Well, unless blogger.com's official blog stats lie, I can declare the Cats vs. Culture war officially over:

Posts

More ▸

Why I Love Richard Thompson

May 17, 2011

33 Pageviews

Cats vs. Music - the Eternal Struggle

May 20, 2011, 1 comment

22 Pageviews

That's right - over the past week my post about Richard Thompson has received 11 more views than my post about cats and their musician owners. Those additional 11 views, inconsequential as they may seem, do unfortunately sound the death knell for feline-related articles on this page for the foreseeable future.

However, this is pretty cute:

That is all.

Cats vs. Music - the Eternal Struggle

2011-05-20T08:01:00.003-04:00

While I have had designs of filling the pages of this blog with an intriguing and hopefully unique collection of my slanted views on life, Baltimore, the Orioles, baseball, and music, displaying for my devoted readership a smattering of interesting and thought-provoking links, and perhaps providing a forum for general community discussion in the interest of furthering the human experience, my wife really thinks that I should write about cats.

Or more specifically, celebrity musicians with their cats.

In case you need a preview, behold one David Bowie, with cat in hand:

Quite a formal picture, really.

So let's see, folks. Which post gets more views, Celebrities and their Cats, or Why I Love Richard Thompson? Stay tuned...

Why I Love Richard Thompson

2011-05-17T19:22:00.005-04:00

I must have been 16 - maybe 15 - when I first followed the lead of every teenager to ever live through the mid-80s to late-90s and signed up for Columbia House. For those poor spoilt kids who did not grow up in an era when every CD you've ever wanted was not at your fingertips, Columbia Music House was a mail-order service wherein you got a catalog full of

music albums (presumably by artists signed to Columbia), picked the few that you were yearning for, spent your hard-earned lawn mowing money, mailed the card back, and waited 4 - 6 weeks for your CD's to arrive.

In retrospect, I find it absolutely incredible that I was able to wait that long for a CD I wanted. I mean, it's not like there weren't music stores around. There was just something about the process that was appealing, I guess.

The thing about Columbia and BMG and all of the other music mail-order clubs, was that they were forever offering us poor teenagers absolutely ridiculous introductory offers to join the club. Basically they were along the lines of, "JOIN TODAY AND GET 25 FREE CDS FOR 1 PENNY! ABSOLUTELY NO COMMITMENT!*"

*Of course there is a commitment, you stupid 15 year old fool

Anyway, of course this ripe temptation proved too much for even my hardened adolescent sense of prudence. I mean, 25 free CDs! I didn't even have 25 CDs in my entire collection! So I signed up. And let me tell you, the sense of profound freedom that you feel once you have crossed the mental Rubicon of submitting to these record company tycoons must be similar to what folks feel when they sell their soul to the devil for a donut or whatever. I'm pretty sure I signed the contract in blood.

But then I was faced with an even greater dilemma: having caught my Eric Clapton catalog up to date, and Hootie's newest album* confidently marked down in #2 pencil on the little form, the choices in what heretofore seemed like an oasis of music kinda...dried up.

*Fairweather Johnson, of course

I mean, I suppose now I could find 25 albums I would like to have for free pretty easily, but when you're 15 in Waynesboro, PA, you don't exactly have the musical depth of John Cusak. Unless it was Foghat, Skynyrd, or Garth Brooks, I couldn't be sure of what I was getting. And believe me, these were important choices; I certainly wasn't going to actually buy any CDs once the promotion was up*. When you don't have any money and someone is giving you something for free, it tends to take on a certain level of import. So I wanted my picks to count, but I was running out of sure things.

**Wrong

Which is when mine eyes did gaze upon a promotional spot for a guy named Richard Thompson and his brand-new album, "Mock Tudor".

"Richard Thompson combines the fiery guitar work of Eric Clapton with the lyrical genius of Bob Dylan"

That's good, said I.

"He's British"

Oh, splendid!, said I.

And I carefully filled in the album number in the mail-in form, eventually found some other stuff I thought I would like, mailed it out, and proceeded to wait 4 - 6 weeks for my CDs to arrive.

I can still remember when the package came vividly - it was huge. Not those puny 2-3 CD boxes my sister got - filled with drivel like Wilson Philips and Whitney Houston - no, this was a massive thing, and filled with a brilliant and extremely methodically thought-out selection of music. This was something to behold, and something that would take some time to wade through.

I'm sure it probably took me at least a night to get through everything.

Everything, that is, except for my diamond in the rough - Mock Tudor. I had taken the gift of a free CD and spent it on a total unknown. It was akin to being given a compensation first-round draft pick and spending it on someone you've never scouted because you like their name and the cut o' their jib. But I was hopeful - he came so highly recommended, whole quarter-page ad and all - I mean, they compared him to Eric Clapton! They (those honest record company advertisers) would certainly never exaggerate such a claim! So with all the faith in the world, I slammed the CD in my stereo and hit play.

To say I was underwhelmed would be...well, I suppose it would be wrong. I just wasn't interested. It didn't grab me at all. I didn't like the guy's voice. His guitar playing sounded nothing like Clapton. The songs sounded really.....gay. And besides, I had Fairweather Johnson! Who needs this crumpet?

And there Mr. Thompson went, underneath a stack of free CDs, to live for quite some time.

It would also be wrong for me to say that I didn't go back to listen to that album every once in a while over the next few years. I did. There was something about that damn ad in that catalog that just intrigued me. They were so confident that he was an absolute musical genius, a unique wizard on the guitar, and someone that guitar players, above all, should absolutely worship. I wanted to like the album, but it just never came together for me. In addition to all this, I kept hearing his name mentioned in passing - never a full album review or a TV special dedicated to him or anything like that - by magazines that I liked and by musicians that I really liked. Everyone basically had the same things to say about him:

"He's like Dylan. If Dylan wrote really really really dark songs about loneliness all the time."

"He was such an incredible influence on me - on all of us, really. No, really!"

"He has the respect of the entire rock and folk music community."

"His guitar tone sounds like running rusty razor blades over Brillo pads."

All of which only served to fuel my interest in this crazy guy. Here was a musician (and an old musician at that) that people like Bono and Michael Stipe and Mark Knopfler and Bonnie Raitt and (yes) Dylan and John Prine were absolutely falling over themselves to compliment and call an absolute genius, who not only never had a #1, Top Ten, Top 100 or probably Top 300 hit in his life, and of whom none - absolutely none - of my friends, musician or otherwise, had ever heard. And not just that, "Oh yeah, I've heard of him - I have to check him out", or "Yeah, I guess I've heard some of his stuff - not for me" business. Nobody had ever heard of him.

And I think - just a theory - that this is when I began to absolutely fall in love with the idea of Richard Thompson.

That's probably also when I first heard the song "1952 Vincent Black Lightning".

I remember downloading it on Napster (lol) in my dorm at the University of Maryland because I had seen his name - again - in a Guitar Player magazine list of the 100 Greatest Solos of All Time. That's right, right next to Prince's Little Red Corvette intro and Slash's Purple Rain outro was his name touting his acoustic finger-style acumen as well as his love for drop-D tuning. So once again I spent exactly $0.00 on Richard Thompson and downloaded the song.

I was stunned.

It is a magnificent song, and a magnificent recording. It is simply a man singing and playing acoustic guitar. Except it sounds like there are two guitars - one playing rhythm and one playing the melody. The two lines interact and overlap and somehow he's able to solo over his own bass line on a simple acoustic guitar. It is a simple vocal melody, but it fits his voice like a glove, and I've never since heard anyone cover it and do it any kind of justice. The story he unfolds is also a simple one:

1. Guy on motorcycle meets girl; is tough

2. Girl seems to take a shine to this fellow

3. Guy warns girl that he is tough

4. Girl says she likes that kind of thing

5. Guy and girl ride around together on motorcycle; have enjoyable experiences

6. Guy tries to rob some place (he's tough); gets shot in the chest with a shotgun

7. Girl finds out - rushes to his side

8. Guy, in one final, heartbreaking, poignant, brilliant verse, reveals that there is nothing in this world/[that] beats a '52 Lightning and a red-headed girl (sob)

9. Guy dies and gives girl keys to his motorcycle with instructions to ride on without him

The lyrics are so beautifully poetic, so perfectly timed, so brilliantly constructed, that it's hard to believe that it isn't a classic English folk song. Save for the motorcycle and shotgun, it probably could be - just substitute them for a chariot and crossbow or whatever Chaucer got around on.

It was a perfect song for Thompson - even I don't think he's ever written better - and probably the song that he's most famous for and associated with today. But he wrote it in 1991 - almost 20 years after he first started his solo career and 25 years after he started playing music with Fairport Convention. And that thought alone gave me pause and gave me hope. This dude toiled - and I do mean toiled - for twenty years of his life as a 'professional' musician, going through three record labels and countless contracts, a divorce, and a religious conversion, before recording what could possibly be known as his 'hit'. Except it wasn't a hit at all, and you've probably never heard of it. But you should.

Go on, take a break and enjoy:

What "1952 VBL" did for me was not only prove all of these things people were saying about him being a brilliant guitarist and songwriter, it also gave me a song to play for other musicians to introduce him to them. And the best part was, they had never heard of him and they were always amazed at both how great the song was and that they had never heard of him. He became for me, the most uncool of music snobs - the Classic Rock Music Snob - the Artist That I Found and Was Into Way Before You. While my roommate was trying to get me into this cool new band the White Stripes before anyone had heard of them, I was trying to get everyone into a 55 year-old obscure ex-electric folk rocker with no hit songs and who wore a stupid Kangol hat everywhere.

Such is life.

At any rate, I've always been up for a challenge and typically, the more obscure the better for me, so I began to really dig into his catalog. I went the whole way back to his Island Music days, with songs like "Hokey Pokey", "The Great Valerio", "I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight", and "Calvary Cross". I really got into his middle period, culminating in the somehow groundbreaking and important and yet unknown album "Shoot Out the Lights", which was kinda sorta maybe written about, but absolutely written during, his divorce from his long-time wife and musical partner, Linda. I started to make headway into some of his newer stuff like "Rumour and Sigh", and "Hand of Kindness". And then I went to see him live.

Oh, to see Richard Thompson live. It is a very, very bizarre experience to be a twenty-something RT fan at one of his shows. First of all, RT fans have all had the exact same experience of being obsessed with a strange musician that nobody else is really into. And they've gotten used to it, since most RT fans are about his age and have been following him for his entire career. So to just be in a crowd of other people who not only know this man and his music but are as into it as they are is a bit of a strange situation to begin with. When you add to the mix a member of the 'younger' generation, someone who looks remarkably what their kids would look like if the spoilt brats liked REAL music gotdammit, and who appears to be there of his own accord, appears to have spent his own money on tickets, and appears to be enjoying himself is almost too much for them to bear.

It usually happens after the show. I'll get a few strange looks and maybe an arched eyebrow or two before and during the performance, but afterwards when they've had one or two wine spritzers they will, without fail, literally line up to tell me how happy they are that someone my age actually likes their hero. "Of course", I say, "what's not to like?" And they will look at me with the eyes of someone who has thought that exact thought their entire lives but has

never found the approval from their peers that they know in their heart of hearts they should have received long ago. Or maybe they're just drunk - hard to say.

Either way, I would have been wise to read into the wisdom of those jaded eyes and simply given up on the guy. I should have never started to try to get my friends to understand the genius of RT. I mean, the proof is in the pudding, right? If he was really that great, he would be famous, right? A musician can't stick around for 25 years doing nothing but music without one popular and recognizable song, right? Even Tom Cochrane had a hit. And RT has never had one, so he can't be good, right?

The problem is, he is. He's incredible. He's smart, funny, guarded, outspoken, brilliant, worldly, an excellent writer*, an incredibly inventive musician, and just an all-around great guy. Genius? Maybe, maybe not. But he's been an incredible source of inspiration and I list him as one of my top five favorite guitarists.

* He has written a 25-part epic fictional story about being hired by Arnold Schwarzenneger and his now ex-wife shortly after being elected the Governator to teach him 'proper' English and do a bit of gardening that can be found on his web site. Really.

His guitar playing is legendary stuff. Basically, his guitar style is the very bizarre love child of Mark Knopfler, Steve Cropper, Marc Ribot, John Fahey, and your college English professor. You can't really understand the brilliance of what he does until you see him live, so look up some videos on YouTube - you'll get it. He plays dual-line acoustic finger-style songs in a style all his own, and then for good measure he straps on an electric guitar and blows your mind in a completely different style, again all his own. His electric solos are what I gravitate to and what I attempt to emulate: a beautiful mix of controlled chaos, dischordant clashing two-string bends, noise, piercing icepick notes waaay up the fretboard, all with a thorough and learned understanding of jazz progressions and modality. He really attacks his solos in a way that speaks to me in a profound way - I hope I kick as much ass at 60 as he does.

So I've found in the last 10 years of attempting to be a Richard Thompson evangelist that people will generally agree with me that he's an interesting guitarist and that he plays some killer solos live and that "1952 Vincent Black Lightning" is a pretty fantastic song. But that's really about it. I have been very unsuccessful in attempting to convert anyone else into the true fanatic that I am. Here are the main criticisms that I hear when trying to get someone into RT:

1. Man, I can't stand his voice

2. His voice doesn't really sound right, does it?

3. What the hell is he talking about when he mentions (insert obscure British literary reference here)

4. That song sounds really gay

5. Soprano sax accompaniment? Seriously? Plus, his sidekick looks like a total nerd/pedophile (John Zorn. True.)

6. Why doesn't he have any hits? Oh.

7. Is his guitar in tune?

8. Man - that voice - it just...I mean...um....it...just...sounds....not - right?

9. Why do all of his songs make me want to kill myself?

Or, my favorite, mentioned unsolicited by my wife (and the inspiration for this blog):

10. Well, why the hell should I like a rock star who loves to sing madrigals and is obsessed with perfect fifths?

I have to give her credit for that one - pretty spot on ======>

And, to be honest, I can't really deny any of the above charges. His voice does take some getting used to. Some of his songs sound really gay.* Some of his instrumentation and album production choices have been a bit questionable. He is a nerd. You really need to have a working history of pre- and post-Industrial English society and literature to get the depth of some of his more obscure lyrics. Okay, a lot of his lyrics. And yes, he can be a bit bleak and most of his songs deal with the darker side of life and humanity.

*Tear-Stained Letter intro, I'm looking in your direction...

But I don't care. He has given me a lifetime of his music - and quite unselfishly, I might add - and two lifetimes worth of musical inspiration. Every time I think that I'm too old or too nerdy or too uncool or have too weird of a singing voice, I think of Richard Thompson and how he has overcome all of those obstacles, and probably didn't even think twice about it. He is completely unapologetic and completely non-pandering. I've mentioned a couple of times that he's never had a hit. It's not because his producers and record companies have never tried; it's that he always fucks up their program by making the song about lunatic rapists or puts an atonal guitar/synth solo in the middle of it.

I wear my RT badge proudly. I no longer really try to make anyone into a fan - that ship has sailed. I've become the jaded ex-folkie RT fans that look confusedly at me at his concerts. Even if no one else in the entire world - and it will sound cliche but I mean this completely - if no one else in the entire world believed in and loved Richard Thompson, I still would. His music, his passion, and his personality mean too much to me. He has, for me, the perfect mix of pride, confidence, and humility, and he is what I strive to emulate as a performer.

He has made a lifetime career out of being his own man and his own musician, and for that he has the respect of a great number of the musical community. For that of course he has my respect, but he also has my eternal gratitude.

O's Notes, 4.4

2011-04-05T09:29:00.002-04:00

4/4/2011

Orioles 5 (4-0), Tigers 1 (1-3)

Oriole Park @ Camden Yards

SP: Jake Arrieta

Sorry for the lack of O's Notes for the first 3 games of the year. Truth is, I was out of town for my bachelor party this weekend and lacked both the sports nerdiness and the sobriety to watch a baseball game in the casinos, so I figured I would be better off to wait until I had seen a full game before running my mouth about it.

Great win on an absolutely gorgeous Opening Day. The middle innings were shaky with some shoddy defense and poor hitting, but B-Rob's three-run homer put us on top to stay. Relief was great and Wieters went 2-3 with a walk. What's not to like?

Notes:

- Markakis looks absolutely locked in and is really driving the ball.

- Vlad is just about the exact opposite of Nick at this point. He looks terrible at the plate, chasing everything and displaying very little patience.

- Arrieta, despite the good result, still needs to work on his control and putting batters away. It seemed like he got in a ton of 0-2 counts that ended up as walks or hits. Starts like this don't often end up like this - the Tigers were hitting it right at our fielders, and hard.

- Adam Jones looks like he's pressing badly - and three fly balls and a strikeout attest to that.

- Derrick Lee looks awesome at first base - very solid.

I know the 4-0 start won't last, but it is really exciting to see so many fans enjoying Orioles baseball. It really does seem like we've turned a corner.

Tim gets the Munchies

2011-03-17T07:48:00.003-04:00

Every time I think Tim Lincecum can't get any more awesome, he somehow goes out there and shows me that, YES HE CAN. According to MLB.com beat writer extraordinaire (I'm sure) John Schlegel, "Giants Ace Tim Lincecum is Chewing up Hitters, Food at a Hefty Pace" (yuk yuk yuk).

The two cool points: apparently Tim has topped out at a bulky 168 lbs., and his typical order from In and Out Burger (his favorite eatery after a Spring Training start) is as follows:

Three double-doubles, two orders of fries and a half-chocolate, half-strawberry shake.

When questioned about the nutritional validity of that diet, Tim responds, "That's probably not the best form of nutrients but I've always kind of just eaten what I've wanted to and worried about it later...Nothing's affected me now, so I'll stick to it."

Which is, of course, exactly the kind of thing that a 26-year old stoner says. Go get 'em, Tim!

The Best Way to Start Your Week: Baseball Rap!

2011-03-14T07:32:00.004-04:00

Sometimes, I just don't know what to say. The long-time reader of my blog will remember when I posted last year about Scott Stapp writing a 'song' about the Florida Marlins. When I showed it to a number of my friends, many of them made the comment that they thought it was a joke or a well-done parody of some kind. I knew better - it was so perfectly Scott Stapp and so perfectly bad that it had to be real.

And then something like this comes along:

What is that? What the fuck is that?

I mean - that has to be a joke, right? No one would rap that poorly about a baseball team with as short a history and as poor a fan base as the Florida (soon to be Miami) Marlins and make a video of it in real life, right? Why would anyone produce this video? Who is this guy? And my biggest question - why do the Florida Marlins have not one, but TWO completely retarded and poorly made, cliche-ridden songs made about them?

My guess is that the Marlins must have some twenty-something ironic hipster Public Relations guy who hires these no-talent assclowns to produce these crappy videos so that he can post them on YouTube under the guise of being a 'promotional video' when in reality he's just laughing his ass off confusing the hell out of guys like me.

(kudos to Kresh on the video find)

It Takes Two

2011-03-11T07:29:00.002-05:00

My boy Ryan 'Heartbreaker' Adams continued his solid Spring Training for the Orioles last night, crushing a two-run homer off Pirates' closer Joel Hanrahan. He did not Go Easy, rather he hit a Firecracker that rung Hanrahan's Answering Bell.

I think it's time to start the Ryan Adams watch - I'll try to keep his stats updated as we go through the season. He'll probably spend most of the year at AAA, so this will be a labor of love. Just remember Love is Hell.

Living in the Future

2011-03-09T15:18:00.002-05:00

Holy crap.

As if the times that we are living in aren't crazy enough technology-wise, the Japanese apparently have developed a technology that will allow holographic representations of sports games to be able to be shown in front of fans live in stadiums. I mean - that is freaking AWesome.

Seriously? We've already arrived at the watching-sports-via-holodeck phase? What's next? Holographic chess games with Wookies?

Steroids - Simple, Right?

2011-03-08T15:04:00.003-05:00

One of the things that I both love and hate about the world is that nothing is ever as simple or as complex as it seems. Nothing is black and white. Personalities, leaders, and politicians love to reduce issues to black and white, as they become much easier to deal with at that level, but simply casting aside facts or ignoring findings in order to reach a conclusion is not a stance that enhances the human condition - it just get things done.

Steroids are a perfect example. Journalists and talking heads love to throw down a hard line about steroids - immediately scapegoating anyone unlucky enough to have been associated with them. But it's stories like this that make it impossible for me to take such a stance.

Basically, the story makes the case that people (including athletes) have been known to test positive for the steroid clanbuterol after eating beef from cows that have been injected with the substance. This is a fairly common practice in places like China, Mexico, and most of South America. So maybe some of the Latin players who have tested positive in the past actually didn't knowingly inject steroids. Really.

Sure, the guy probably actually did take steroids. But it's stories like this that have to at least put the seed of some doubt in any rational head. It wouldn't be fair to punish a player who tested positive if they had a false positive from eating the wrong steak. Would it?

I'm sure some people will say that yes, it is fair. You have to draw the line somewhere, and the person that tested positive is on the wrong side. That's not a line I'm going to be responsible for drawing.

Lulz

2011-03-08T09:05:00.003-05:00

I just have to say - I'm not sure how I got so lucky, but goddamn I'm glad that the Internet has brought together so many baseball-loving twenty-something stat nerds who love the 80's, pop culture, are funny, anti-establishment, and who write well.

I mean, it's all of my favorite things, rolled into one. Thank you, Brandon Stroud (the Dugout). Thank you, FireJoeMorgan.com. Thank you, Craig Calcaterra. Thank you, people of Camden

Chat.

But these days, it's mostly thank you, Carson Cistulli and the brilliant team at NotGraphs.

Especially because of this: the Amazing Adventures of Joe West.

O's Notes, 3.7

2011-03-08T07:30:00.002-05:00

Well. Let me just say, in the immortal words of Mr. Buck O'Neill - baseball.

It was back last night on the TV, the Orioles taking on the Yankees in an evening Spring Training exhibition game. I watched every single pitch, and even though the game was extremely uneventful, a tad anticlimactic and ended in a 0-0 tie, it was glorious. My fiancee and I enjoyed ice-cold 16oz Coors Lights and those crab-flavored crackers. After enduring what seems like one of the most dreadful winters I've ever experienced, to kick back and watch the new O's play some baseball was exactly what I needed.

All of which leads me nicely to what will become the new feature of this blog, at least for this baseball season. I'm a big fan of Craig Calcaterra and his Hardball Talk blog, and one of the best components of his page is his "...And That Happened" daily post, in which he gives a two or three sentence blurb about each game from the previous night. It's a really nice way to catch up on what happened last night in a completely non-SportsCenter type way. I'm not going to do that for all of the games throughout MLB, but I'm going to post my notes and comments from the Orioles game the night before. Or at least I'm going to try. Or try to try. For a while.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

O's Notes: March 7, 2011

Orioles 0, New York Americans 0

Zach Britton works fast - very fast. Jim Palmer and Gary Thorne simply couldn't keep up - especially in the first inning. It was like they had sheets and sheets of notes that they had been working on all off-season that they were so excited to use, but they kept getting cut off by that jerk on the mound who wanted to keep pounding strikes.

Britton: 3 first pitch strikes in the first inning. Second and Third innings? Not so much.

What in god's name is Brian Roberts doing bunting for hits? That's been one of the things I love so much about B-Rob - he has bunt-for-hits speed and smarts, but he's smart enough to use his great contact and power to drive the ball for hits and doubles - he's not Juan Pierre, damn it.

And more importantly, what is B-Rob doing sliding into first? In the first inning???! In a split-squad Spring Training game!!!!!!!!@#$!#@$!#%!@! You're not competing against anyone for a spot, Brian...I think you have it locked up IF YOU CAN JUST NOT GET INJURED BY MAKING BONEHEAD SLIDES INTO FIRST(*#&(#@*&_#(@)*)#!

Luke Scott is now sporting the backwoods goatee....in fact most of the players have some sort of facial hair they didn't have last year...maybe facial hair rules are relaxed during the Spring?

Sergio Mitre is far more intimidating in video game form.

Was Matt Wieters wearing a vintage O's batting helmet while he was catching?

My fiancée loves - loves Luke Scott's forearms. Hmph.

Jeremy Accardo has one of the most violent right hand deliveries I've ever seen - but he was effective.

This O's club will not lead the league in walks. In fact, I'm going to go ahead and say it right now - I bet we lead the league in strikeouts. By a significant margin.

Ryan 'Heartbreaker' Adams struck out - saw it a mile away. So sad - I want him to succeed simply because of his name but I just can't see it right now.

Don't you just love seeing young guys in Spring Training games when they come up to bat in the 8th and 9th innings? They look so small and wiry compared to most major leaguers, and they always make them wear those retarded double-flap batting helmets that make them look like they're in the Little League World Series or something. Love it.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

So there you have it - it will be something like that each morning after an O's game. Or something else. Or nothing at all - you'll just have to wait and see.

Dubble Bubble Ain't S***

2011-02-03T07:29:00.005-05:00

I haven't written a blog post in a good while. The last two posts that I wrote were long-ish diatribes on my feelings toward art, the artistic process, and songwriting. I used phrases like 'Artistic Intuition'. All of which leads me to my next blog post which is on, of course, gum!

As we get caught up in the day-to-day stresses and anxieties of our normal lives, it is easy to lose sight of 'the now'. It's much easier to look back on past eras and say, 'man, wasn't it nice when...' or look to the future and say, 'man, won't it be nice when...'. It's human nature. But every once in a while, we need to step back and recognize the world that we live in for what it is now. And let me tell you, we live in pretty good times.

I've mentioned it in previous posts, but the technological era that we currently live in is really pretty impressive. It may not be the electrical hover-crafts and hologram TV's that Isaac Asimov talked about in that Boy's Life article from 1989, but we do have video chat, portable hand-held computers, and 3d TV. But that's not the half of it. I am convinced that we are currently living in......

THE GOLDEN AGE OF GUM!!!1

When I was a kid (as I recall), there were a few gum options available to you: Juicy Fruit, Big Red, Extra, Big League Chew, Bazooka, etc. The big boys. They typically came in stick format and were nearly always packaged in that rectangular foil wrapper. You had a few flavor options; spearmint, peppermint, fruit, or...that standard 'gum' flavor that Bazooka and Dubble Bubble had. Life was fine. We didn't know any better....but my god, have things changed.

Take a look at Trident gum's product webpage: http://www.tridentgum.com/#/products/. I count 32 individual SKU's. 32 different types of gum! From Trident alone! And not only do you have a bunch of different flavors, you have five different styles:

- Trident Standard

- Trident Splash

- Trident White

- Trident Xtra Care

- Trident Layers

And look at the long-standing gum and candy magnate Wrigley: they offer no less than 11 brands of gum, including:

- Eclipse (which provides "incredibly fresh breath solutions for people whose on-the-go lifestyle demands a breath freshener that delivers.")

- 5 ("Stimulate your Senses")

- Big Red

- Doublemint

- Extra

- Freedent

- Hubba Bubba (its somehow very reassuring that Hubba Bubba is still being produced)

- Juicy Fruit

- Orbit (including regular Orbit, Orbit Mist, and Orbit White)

- Spearmint

- Winterfresh

Really take a look the next time you're in a gas station - the choice of gum in even the worst, cheapest Exxon station is mind-boggling. And that doesn't even touch how cool some of the new packaging is. The aforementioned "5" brand from Wrigley actually uses it's packaging as it's main selling point:

"5 is a groundbreaking sugar-free stick gum product. The mouth-freshening gum delivers long-lasting flavor and a unique experience. The sleek 5 envelope created the next great packaging enhancement for stick gum. Each distinctive envelope has an eye-catching design and holds 15 sticks. Now available in the new Prism flavor.(!)"

The gum that got me thinking about this post, however, is the newest offering from Trident, Trident Vitality. It was just released, and it comes in three styles:

- Vigorate, which is enhanced with Vitamin C

- Rejuve, which contains white tea

- Awaken, with a "dash" of ginseng

Check out this press release for a taste of how crazy the gum market has become. I actually picked up a pack of the 'Awaken' gum yesterday. The box alone had me sold - it is truly a piece of work. It's a full cardboard box with a recloseable lid - none of this wrap-around nonsense that Dentyne and Eclipse have been using - the damn thing is like Fort Knox. In a word, it's awesome. I mean, the gum still tastes like, well, gum, but the packaging - wow!

So the next time you open a cool new package of Dentyne Ice (Now FLAVOR Charged), take a moment to reflect how things once were and where we are today. We are no longer starved for flavor options. If we want a strawberry-orange layered sugarfree stick that whitens our teeth, it is readily available. We are truly living in a golden age.

Artistic Intelligence & the Lack Thereof

2010-12-30T10:49:00.003-05:00

I finally received the Springsteen box set re-release of 'Darkness on the Edge of Town' for Christmas. It is a truly magical thing: 3 CD's, 3 DVD's, a color lyric sheet/photo set, and a reproduction of the notebook that Bruce used throughout the period. Awesome. If you're into Bruce, it is an absolutely essential item - but you probably knew that already. If you don't get Springsteen, don't worry about it - it won't change your mind.

But if you're interested in songwriting at all, it is chock full of cool quotes from one of the best in the business. This one hit me pretty directly:

I go back to most of my writings before 'Greetings (From Asbury Park)', and, you know, it all appears simply terrible to me. You know, you're still writing a lot of...bad words, you know? You're writing a lot of bad verses. So you're trying to learn how to write well, but your artistic instinct is what you're going on - your artistic intelligence hasn't been developed yet. Hopefully, it increases and develops over a long period of time. That gives you an ace to play, down the road, as you get older.

At the time, I was going on artistic instinct...and that's a wide-open game. You know, I'm following all kinds of paths, and all kinds of roads, and all I'm going is, 'That doesn't feel right'. 'That doesn't feel right'. 'That doesn't feel right' - that's how I'm judging.

That pretty succinctly says something that I've felt but have not been able to articulate for some time (something that Bruce does for me all the time). It's refreshing to hear a songwriter as great as him speak of struggling with 'artistic intelligence'. I kinda assumed he always had it. But there is a very real difference between having 'artistic instinct' (having an ear, having style, being able to recognize quality) and having 'artistic intelligence' (knowing when to hold back, what to hold back, being tasteful).

And once again, He Who Can Do No Wrong in My Eyes (well, except for Human Touch - that album suuuuucked) shows that there is still hope for me yet.

Water, Water Everywhere, and all the Music Sucks

2010-12-22T07:59:00.005-05:00

It occurred to me this morning on my drive into work that there are two albums that I have possession of that have been released in the past couple of months by two of my favorite artists: Richard Thompson and Ryan Adams, that I have not yet listened to all of the way through. These are two decent albums that are quite listenable (at least the parts that I've listened to) and that have gotten very good reviews. I really don't have any excuse for not having listened to them.

Truth be told, I've been busy and I haven't been keeping up with either musician - both releases surprised me as I didn't know they were coming out. So it's not like I was itching with anticipation for either one, but still, I'm surprised that I haven't really delved into either album yet.

This never would have happened when I was 16. I can remember waiting, and waiting, and reading, and waiting some more for Eric Clapton to release 'Pilgrim' in or '98, rushing out to Blockbuster of all places to spend $16.99 to get it, and then listening to it all the way through at least 3 or 4 times even though it was an incredibly terrible album (and I knew it then, too). Same thing for the Rolling Stones' 'No Security' (also a terrible album), and Dave Matthews Band's 'Before These Crowded Streets' (not a terrible album). Back then, an album was a tangible thing, something worth waiting for and planning your trip out to Sam Goodie to buy it, bringing it home, reading all the liner notes, and playing it until you're sick of it.

Part of that whole equation was the fact that all of the other albums that were in your collection you were already sick of for the same reason - you had truly consumed them and taken them all in. All of which brings me to my theory on why I haven't listened to my Ryan Adams and Richard Thompson albums all the way through, and why I wasn't even excited to purchase them: Media Overload.

We are completely overwhelmed with media these days. Not only is it possible to listen to your music at home, at work, in your car, on the street, in the shower, wherever you want, it is entirely possible to listen to practically any music on the market at any time, as long as you have an Internet connection. Let me take a moment and list all of the potential sources of music I have at my disposal on a given day:

1. My CD library

2. My vinyl library

3. My iTunes library, which can be played on my computer, my iPhone, my iPod, or my home entertainment system through my PS3

4. Pandora

5. My MOG account, which for $9.99/mon allows me to either stream or download 90% of the music that is available on the market

You could make the argument that anytime I'm within range of a 3G or WiFi signal, I have basically 95% of the music that has been made in the last 60 years at my immediate access.

That's a lot of choices.

That also doesn't take into account other forms of media, like YouTube, RSS feeds, Facebook posts, DVD's, etc. I think the reason I haven't delved into those albums I mentioned is simply because there's so much more out there for me to delve into. It's not all great - in fact, the more I see the more I'm reminded of why I like the artists I do - but there's just such a wealth of stuff out there that it's frankly overwhelming to take it all in.

Should I be complaining? Am I complaining? I'm not sure. I certainly don't think it's a bad idea to have access to whatever you want, whenever you want. But increased supply means decreased demand, and that equals me being a little bit disappointed when I'm not directing all of my listening energy to devouring two new releases by two of my favorite artists. There was a certain responsibility you had to yourself after you spent $17 of your hard-earned lawnmowing money to really make your investment worth it. The two albums that I downloaded only cost me a fraction of the $9.99 that I pay each month for the MOG service, and I'm just not sure that that kind of ease and cheapness create the same type of commitment, if you will, to a piece of work.

I think that the record industry is going to need to come up with a way to recreate that link between the album buyer and the album - I mean, I care deeply about music and the music industry and I feel this way. How much devotion do you think a 16 year old girl downloading an album for free off of BitTorrent feels towards her Taylor Swift album? If the physical or emotional link to an album isn't there, nowadays it just ends up being a mislabeled .mp3 file shoved in the back of an external hard drive. And that is sad.

Going Back Down South, Part 1: Monday

2010-12-06T17:28:00.003-05:00

So, as promised, here is the beginning of the multi-day journal I'm going to be keeping over the next week chronicling my trip to South Carolina to install a new theater system at the Congaree National Forest Visitor Center:

Today started brusquely; the Ravens - Steelers Sunday Night Football matchup from the night before proved to be just interesting enough to keep me up until past 11:30 PM. Typically I'm in bed by 10:30 at the latest to be up at 6 AM - today I had to be out of bed by 3:30 AM. I knew I wasn't going to be the happiest of campers going into the whole ordeal. However, the whole situation was made worse by the fact that the game was a battle down to about the last :30 seconds, when Joe Flacco couldn't complete on 4th and 2 and the game went to the Steelers. I had to go to bed with my heart pounding and my nerves, well, all a-flutter.

Needless to say, with the combination of the game, my nervousness over the impending trip, and our fat cat Layla who insisted on laying in between my legs at the most uncomfortable position possible (as usual), I believe I got about 45 minutes of quality sleep.

Not the best scenario before embarking on a 9-hour drive.

Nonetheless, I got up at the right time, put in my contacts without too much pain or effort, and thanks to my work the previous evening packing and preparing, was able to push off from home base on time and in a decent mental state.

One of the most difficult things I've found when dealing with a long travel day is the timing of your food and drink intake. All of us have standard schedules for eating and drinking when we are at home and operating in 'standard' life mode. However, things tend to get altered a bit when you wake up three and a half hours earlier than usual, expend a ton of effort getting your vehicle loaded, and then proceed to sit on your ass for the next 9 hours. My diet today has been thus:

4:00 AM - a glass of water

4:30 AM - a 'lungo' espresso from the work espresso machine

5:30 AM - a FiberOne chocolate chip bar

8:00 AM - a McDonald's sausage burrito & small orange juice

10:50 AM - a Burger King Whopper value meal, small, with a Diet Coke

11:30 AM - a 20oz bottle of water

1:00 PM - an orange 5-hour energy drink

4:30 PM - a 16oz bottle of water from the hotel

5:30 PM - a Bombay Sapphire martini, dry, with two olives and a batch of homemade chips

Okay, so perhaps not the most healthy travel day of my life, but what are my options? Even if I get rid of the martini and the 5-hour energy, my options for food on the run are not spectacular. Subway, I suppose - but Subway always leaves my stomach gurgling in a 'deli meats shouldn't be quite that cheap' kind of way. Why doesn't America have healthier fast food options?

ANYway...

Today we unloaded all of our gear at the site and locked away the trailer behind the maintenance yard. Tomorrow we'll get started removing all of the theater's old gear and running our new lines throughout the building. I'll take some pictures tomorrow so you can get a feel for it, if you're so inclined.

As far as pictures of the area go......well, let's just say this section of South Carolina isn't exactly coffee table book material. As far as I can tell, this area is primarily churches, fire halls, extremely well-placed cops in Dodge Chargers, flat plains, cotton, and not much else. I'll try to grab the essence tomorrow, but you know how it goes trying to catch lightning in a bottle.....

Strikeoutsh Base Hitsh Double Playsh

2010-05-04T08:23:00.000-04:00

You know, I have to endue a lot of crap thanks to being a lifelong Orioles fan, but I have to say I am forever thankful that I can't count Scott Stapp as one of the Baltimore faithful. I can't imagine how awful it must be to be a Marlins fan, but having the former Creed frontman write an inspirational song for you (that you know they play at Pro Player Stadium every time they take the field) has to be a gigantic kick in the nuts:

My favorite parts: everything, but especially when he just takes random baseball terms, mush-mouths them in his own magnificent way, and then decides, 'yeah, that's a pretty good verse'.

That Poor Man

2010-05-03T21:14:00.003-04:00

I seriously think that in about 25 years there will be a documentary made about Jeremy Guthrie, the hardest-luck of all the fantastically hard-luck Orioles pitchers of the last 4 - 5 years. I suppose he's had some good moments to look back on, but he just strikes me as the kind of guy that in the future will get a 20 minute spot on some news show where they show the cardboard box that he's now living in and him rambling and babbling about how good his FIP was over the years and how much he hated how much of a free-swinger Ty Wigginton was.

As I'm writing this, it's the top of the 8th inning in a 4-1 game against the yankees wherein he has pitched exceptionally well against an extremely strong lineup, only to get one run of support on three hits and four yankee runs thanks to two terrible plays by Mr. Wigglypuff himself. After the last game against the yankees where he hit Jorge Posada he basically broke down and cried about what a terrible pitcher he was and how much he felt sorry for Orioles fans.

I'm thinking that if this continues, the tears and apologies will eventually get replaced with sniper rifles and book depositories, but that's just speculation at this point.

Vintage J-Neb, Part I

2010-04-26T00:23:00.002-04:00

Holy crap I just checked out my Myspace page. When was the last time you were on Myspace? Anyway, I took a second to find some old blog posts that I made there and I thought a couple were particularly interesting...to wit:

The Eternal Optimist in Me
Current mood: optimistic
Ah, late winter/early spring. Hope swells in the heart of the eternal Orioles fan. Why such optimism? Ask any true O's fan - this is the only time of the year that we can actually be optimistic and hopeful that our team will not be playing like a bunch of Jerry's Kids by mid-August.

The crazy part is, I'm actually genuinely hopeful about our chances. Not this year, mind you, I'm talking about 2010, dumbass. True, I was hopeful in 2005, and 2006, and 2007, but it was the the kind of hopeful like a guy with driving a 1987 Ford Escort hopes his car won't break down on the way to work - you know you're being an idiot.

We've finally committed to rebuilding by getting rid of Tejada (just in time) and Bedard (for a big haul). What tells me that I'm really excited about the future here is that I'm ready - nay, can't f*ing wait - for them to deal Brian Roberts. Anyone who knows me knows that Brian Roberts isn't just my favorite Oriole, he's also the center of the majority of my gay-baseball-related fantasies.

whoa tmi

What I'm trying to say is that I, once again, in the face of a terrible organization in the toughest division in baseball and a likely last-place finish, am actually excited about the Orioles' 2008 season.

They've put people away for far less than this.

Yeah, no shit.

My American Life

2010-04-25T23:23:00.002-04:00

Here's a brief run-down of where I'm at right now.

I'm in Lovell, Wyoming, but just for the night. Tomorrow I'll be back in Billings, Montana, ready to get up at 4 AM to catch a flight back to Baltimore. My hotel is pretty trashy, but not altogether bad. The refrigerator is broken, which wouldn't be as big of a deal if I would have been able to eat dinner tonight. The only food in town, a Blimpie and Taco John's smashed into one gorgeous/awful conglomeration, closed at 8, exactly two minutes before I arrived.

I was late because I was at work. My work consists of me trying to get new audiovisual systems to work with outdated and possibly broken old lighting and sound systems that the National Park Service is trying to make live past their prime. In some cases, well past their prime. Many parks still use LaserDiscs as their main form of show playback. LaserDiscs.

Everything went well today. This morning at Yellowtail Dam went great - cleaned up and buttoned up well. The drive to Wyoming wasn't bad. I had a good lunch. Even stuff in Wyoming went well - the audio system now works perfectly, we were able to diagnose and fix a problem with a start button, and all of the equipment was in. Everything went well except for one thing. One small, and yet monstrously big, thing.

Their lighting system won't interface with our audiovisual system.

The idea is that when the movie starts playing, our video player sends a signal to their lighting system to turn the house lights down gradually, and when the movie is over, it tells it to come back up. Easy, right?

Well, it's not...but I won't bore you with the details, because, truth be told, you really shouldn't care. It's my problem. But my point for writing this whole thing is that for the next day, my entire life, reputation, and peace of mind will revolve around trying to make two electrical systems talk to each other - something that 95% of the population would happily shake their heads at and say, 'glad that's not me'.

But I don't have a choice - I'm responsible for the completion of the project and I'm the only one that has a stake in the outcome. I cannot leave Wyoming without the lights in the theater dimming when our movie plays. And yet, I have to leave two days from now because my ticket is non-refundable.

Did I make the right choice in letting such a trivial thing shape my happiness and schedule? Should I care less or more than I do about this? Would anyone else worry enough to write a blog post about it at 10 PM in a lonely hotel room? I have no idea. I do know that I take enough pride in what I do and the work that I do to work my ass off to get the thing to work, but really everything that I can try right now will be a leap of faith and a hope for some luck.

In some ways, I really wouldn't wish this situation on my worst enemies.......and yet, this is my life and I'm proud to live it. I'll let you know how things turn out.

Blogging for the Man

2010-04-16T08:00:00.002-04:00

So I've been told that I'm not blogging enough. That I should get out there and blog. That I should blog it 110%. That my blogging to this point has been underwhelming. Well, I say to you, Mr. McBlogNaySayerSmith, that blogging ain't easy. I mean, I have to sit down, open up my computer, think thoughts with my mind, and type them into the computer. And don't get me started on the whole logging in thing. Sometimes it actually makes me type in my username.

So just to show everyone that I'm still alive and blogging, here's my list of interesting things about today, Friday, April 16, 2010 (AD).

1. I ate two Thin Mints for breakfast today.

2. I also ate a fiber bar later on.

3. I will eat the Chicken Tikka Masala we made last night for lunch.

4. And possibly another Thin Mint.

5. I wanted to ride my scooter to work today, but the Weather Channel said it was going to storm and that a 'serious potential for wildfires' exists in the area today. No scooter for me, thank you.

6. I'm going to play golf tomorrow morning, and will probably have to contend with ground that is soaked from the storms today, and 30-35mph winds. And probably wildfires.

7. In Orioles news, they lost last night to the Oakland Athletics, 6-2. Felix Pie, astonishingly enough our most productive hitter these days, left the game in the 7th inning with a sore shoulder. Also, Nick Markakis' head fell off and Peter Angelos sold the team to the Yankees. Plans to demolish Camden Yards are already underway. And Cal Ripken came out and said he never liked playing for Baltimore anyway. And Sidney Ponson is still alive.

8. I mean seriously, I haven't experienced a start to a baseball season that has ever been quite this depressing. And especially after all the talk this offseason about how good we were going to be - I actually had started drinking some of the Kool-Aid myself. These guys look like they absolutely don't care and don't want to be faced with the arduous task of playing baseball for a living. Right now, in April, they already look the way we are accustomed to seeing them play in August-September. It's going to be a long year.

Alright, that's enough. You know I'm still alive and kicking. I'm heading back out to Montana and Wyoming on Sunday, so you can probably expect some interesting stuff to happen out there that is worth blogging about. Plus, I am writing a travelogue of sorts about our recent trip to England and Scotland, and I suppose I'll put that up here in the coming weeks. Unless I have to remember my username and password.

Fridee...

2010-03-13T01:08:00.002-05:00

No new post for this most beautiful of Fridays, just a picture of my father, John Guise Rossman III at Little Bighorn, more than 25 years before me:

The World as I Know It

2010-03-10T22:32:00.003-05:00

I am a staunch believer in relativity, that is to say, that all things are relative and that there are no absolute truths. You may find my writing style to be offensive or beautiful; I'm not the one to say. I happen to enjoy writing the way I do, and it makes sense to me. Enough people have told me that they like the way I write that I no longer particularly care whether or not I'm following particular standards of style or form.

I'm the same way about music - I care equally deeply for the music of King Crimson and Yanni, of Springsteen and the Dismemberment Plan, of the Rolling Stones and the Baseboard Heaters. If music moves me and makes me feel something, it is good. I simply cannot believe that there is a single, universal truth as to what makes good music or bad music, or what makes good art or bad art. I'm also not confident or selfish enough in my tastes to pretend to espouse that I know what is good or bad - I've been wrong more than enough times in my life to realize that taking such a hard-line stance on any art is a foolish proposition.

Truth be told, I once naively thought that everyone innately knew this fact to be true - no one could be so blind to actually think that there was a right art or a wrong art. But in my second year of college, I played in a band and lived with a person who literally thought exactly that, and told me so. I point-blank asked him if he thought there was such a thing as good music, and such a thing as bad music. And he looked me straight in the eye, and said yes.

Although this happened close to 10 years ago, it has been something that has stuck with me for a long time. How could someone whom I actually regarded as an aware and intelligent individual actually believe that there was no relativity in art - that art was objective, rather than subjective - and above that, that he actually knew what was good and what wasn't? It seemed more than pompous, more than arrogant. It was wrong.

Recently I read a short essay by Chuck Klosterman that put the whole situation into perspective. He, as he is so often wont to do, explained the situation in a way that I had been attempting to do for nearly a decade in a short, concise paragraph that was so precise and perfect it was scary. He was explaining why he hates the term 'Guilty Pleasures' because he feels as though there is no such thing - if something gives you pleasure, you shouldn't necessarily feel guilty about it:

'What the authors of 'The Encyclopedia of Guilty Pleasures' (and everyone else who uses this term) fail to realize is that the only people who believe in some kind of "universal taste" - in other words, a consensual demarcation between what's artistically good and what's artistically bad - are insecure, uncreative elitists who need to use somebody else's art to validate their own limited worldview. It never matters what you like; what matters is why you like it.'

And there you have it. Thanks, Chuck. Your art is hereby deemed 'GOOD'.

Hey, Remember L.O.R.D.? No? Damn.

2010-03-09T22:10:00.004-05:00

I’m sitting in the lobby of a Super 8 in Hardin, Montana. Go ahead, look it up…it’s out there a ways. I’m sitting and I’m writing and I’m finding myself upset that the wireless internet connection here keeps disconnecting me so that I can’t finish watching my Netflix-streamed episode of Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations. I’m really actually quite upset – all week I’ve been fighting this damn connection to, well, stay connected.

But think about the situation for a second – what I’m actually attempting to do:

- Sit in a hotel lobby, with my laptop computer.

- This laptop computer will be connected, wirelessly, to a super-network of computers across the globe.

- This wireless data connection will be high-speed. In fact, when operating properly, it will be capable of transmitting up to 159 Megabytes per second directly to my laptop.

- This wireless data connection will be available for free.

- Once connected, I will go to a website that allows me to watch any of Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations episodes immediately by streaming them, in high-definition, to my laptop for playback on a media player that was included with my laptop.

- In fact, if I find Mr. Bourdain a bit fake and annoying, I can watch nearly ANY episode of ANY show that I have EVER wanted (or not wanted) to see, along with any number of classic and not-so-classic movies at ANY time.

- For less than $10/mon.

- It actually works 95% of the time.

I submit to you that not much more than 10 years ago all of the above-mentioned items would have been absolutely impossible to achieve. 15 years ago, I would submit that all of the above-mentioned items, except for the first, would have been impossible to even imagine.

And yet, 15 years later, I am truly, seriously pissed that I can’t immediately stream, without interruption, the show of my choosing in the middle of nowhere for free.

Think about that for a second and what that actually means…will we ever be truly satisfied with what technology can deliver to us? We have made such monumental, gigantic leaps and bounds with network technology in the past decade, but I don’t really appreciate any of that but in two instances:

- - The first time that it works flawlessly

- - The time that you really want it to work badly and it just won’t

Obviously, I’m experiencing the latter instance right now, but the point remains: if the Super 8’s wireless coverage hadn’t have been so spotty, would I have appreciated how cool what I was trying to do actually was? Would I have written anything about what I was able to do? Of course not – as soon as any new technology works reliably two or three times in a row, we take it to be the new standard and check off that little scientific advancement in our mind. High-definition video and surround audio, delivered anywhere in the world, wirelessly, for free? Check! As long as I can watch ‘The Hangover’ with my girlfriend without the Netflix player buffering more than once, we can consider ourselves firmly in the grasp of the FUTURE!

So where am I going with all of this – no idea. I guess I’m telling myself to occasionally look back and remember how shitty it was to have to wait until my sister was off the phone to dial into the local BBS service to play ASCII role-playing games with two of my friends from down the street and one weird old man. It seems as ancient as vacuum tubes in TV’s – except for the fact that I had a dial-up modem until I went to college in 2000.

I’m just sayin’ – technology won’t always be moving this fast. It took them like 30 years from the invention of the radio to the invention of the TV – and another 30 years after that for color. Enjoy what we have while we have it.

The Band for Veep

2010-03-07T21:18:00.001-05:00

"In general, the powerful and the influential in our society shape the laws and have a great deal of influence upon the legislature and the Congress. And this creates a reluctance to change, because the powerful and the influential have carved out for themselves or have inherited a privileged position in this society…

[One] source of my understanding about what’s right and wrong in this society is from a friend of mine, a poet named Bob Dylan…I grew up a landowner’s son. But I don’t think I ever realized the proper interrelationship between the landowner and those who worked on a farm until I heard Dylan’s record, “Maggie’s Farm”. "

- President Jimmy Carter

bloat

2010-03-07T20:45:00.002-05:00

Another day in another town in another area of the country that you’ve never heard of. Another day spent trying to find a kindred spirit in a town full of lost souls and drunks, of empty heads and washed-out road signs. Another stop in a pit of gas stations, casinos and pizza shops, eached closed on account of Sunday mass or another superficial attempt at injecting piousness righteousness or some sort of gorgeousness on this awful bloat of a community.

Now that there’s no mill and no mine and no factory and no railroad station and no anything anymore to dream of or dream to or become or be, all that I have seen is the hollow shells and remains of people and places and ideals that couldn’t come true. Sure, there’s a school with a mascot and a tennis court and even this gentleman carrying a trombone away from Maggie’s Sunday recital. But where does Maggie goe when she wants to play her trombone? The casinos aren’t interested – they have their own C-E-G melodies that are far more attractive to the residents than Maggie’s Porgie and Bess could ever be.

I’m out here on my own. I don’t understand it or them or anything. I want to. I want to believe that I am part of this fabric and they part as well with me and everyone else. But it is a different tapestry that they belong to. I’m going to stay out of the way.

So Don't Ask Me How I Found This But

2009-10-25T23:08:00.004-04:00

Just in case you ever were really craving a bag of Grandma Utz' potato chips and weren't in the Mid-Atlantic region,

http://www.utzsnacks.com/docs/utzEveryday2009.pdf

I had no idea you could get a NC Tarheels trashcan filled with Sour Cream & Onion chips delivered overnight. Also of note: the Chip of the Month club. For the low price of $50/3 months, you can get nine bags of potato chips right to your doorstep.

yum-o

Reason #28746 Why My Girlfriend is the Greatest

2009-10-14T00:50:00.002-04:00

She got us floor tickets to see the Boss play 1st Mariner Arena! She knows this already, but in the pantheon of cool things that people have done for me, this has got to be top three. Of course, she is responsible for the other two things in the top three as well, so let's just say she's on a roll.

I love you baby!

Not seen in this photo: my girlfriend (must have gone to the bathroom or something)

Weird Facts About Northern Alaska, Part I

2009-10-06T23:32:00.003-04:00

- The sun rose today at 8:45, and will set around 8:15.

- At 10:50, both the sun and the moon were perfectly visible in the sky.

- Gas is currently $7.39/gallon as posted on the one pump in town.

- Every Alaskan gets $1,305 this year as shared oil revenue. (source: my girlfriend)

- All of the buildings in this town are built on stilts just like at the beach. This is done to prevent the permanently frozen ground from thawing and turning to mud due to the heat of the building.

- Sun Chips are available at the local store, on sale for $7.99.

- Curiously, Pringles are also available right next to them for $1.49.

- All of the restaurants and carry-out/delivery places in Kotzebue are run by Chinese and Korean immigrants, even though there is not a sizable Asian population in the town.

- Satellite dishes in this region of the world point either parallel to or towards the ground.

Greetings from the Great White North

2009-10-04T22:50:00.005-04:00

Programming note: Here in the middle of nowhere 1MB pictures take forever to upload, so for a few pictures of the town I'm talking about in this post, you can check out my Flickr page. Please do so at your own peril. I do not take responsibility for any loss of joy or feelings of despair that you may find yourself overcome with.

I like my job a lot. I have a lot of responsibility, it is a lot of fun, and I like to think that I'm pretty good at it. One of the things that has made my job a lot of fun over the past year has been a contract that we put in place with the National Park Service to install audiovisual systems in their park Visitor Centers throughout the United States. This is, truth be told, probably the biggest reason that I haven't posted any meaningful blog posts since June. This summer, I've been sent to New Mexico, Arizona, Minnesota, and Cape Cod, all to the great chagrin of my immensely patient and understanding girlfriend.

But the trip that I have been dreading/looking forward to the most is the one that I am currently working through: a new Visitor Center/museum for the Northwest Arctic Heritage Center in Kotzebue, Alaska. I know what you're thinking - Gee, I think I should know where Kotzebue is - but I am here to tell you that you do not. Quick - make a mental picture of the state of Alaska. Got it? Now imagine the worst possible place to build a town.

That's where I am right now.

Yes, that's right. I'm closer to Russia than I am to Seattle right now. Hell, I'm closer to Russia than I am to Anchorage right now. I am above the Arctic Circle. I am 4 hours behind Baltimore. I am a short plane ride to the got-damn North Pole.

All of that to me is extremely neat, and before I go any further I would like to make sure that everyone knows that I am aware of how rare of an opportunity this is, and how I should treasure every moment, and how I'll never get this chance again blah blah blah.

But this place sucks. Hard.

It is possibly the most depressingly dark and foreboding town that I've ever been to or seen. It is extremely quiet, and almost always overcast and damp. Nobody talks or looks at you, and I swear to god that every building has a boarded-up window in it. And before you say that I don't know what I'm talking about when it comes to dilapidated buildings, remember that I do live in Baltimore City. This place is twenty times more depressing than East Baltimore. I'm not exactly sure why, but it is.

My best guess is that I don't feel as though the residents here know any better. But they have to, right? This is 2009...its not like they don't have the Internet or TV. But it seems as though no one here cares about how their house looks, or how much garbage is piled in their front 'yard', or how many broken-down dog sleds they leave 'round back. I guess they'll get to cleaning it up someday, but I swear that I haven't seen anyone cleaning anything since I've been here.

What I really don't understand, above all else, is what would draw anyone to live out here. And yes, I know, most of the people here didn't move here but were born here. But they can leave at any time. Again, this is 2009. There's an airport within walking distance of everywhere in the town that can take them to Anchorage, and from there anywhere else in the universe. They don't have to stay here, where the number of available jobs probably can be counted on your right hand and where the cost of groceries are so prohibitively expensive your money wouldn't get you anything anyway. Why would you want to try twenty times as hard to find a job that doesn't pay you any more than anywhere else just for the privilege of living in a run-down depressing dirt-bag town where your money is worth less than everywhere else? It just doesn't add up for me.

And as far as I'm concerned, the whole 'this is the only place I know' argument doesn't hold any water any more. Everyone has a marketable skill, and it only makes perfect sense to use that skill to make money where it can buy you things you want. Not only does Kotzebue have a severe shortage on things that people want, like say, clean drinking water, when it is available, it costs more than six times as much as everywhere else on the planet. Don't believe me?

Best $6.19 I ever spent.

For a lot of the remote places that I've been to, I've often found myself thinking, 'I would never want to live here in a million years, but I can understand why these people do, because _____', where _______ is usually beautiful scenery, or cheap land, or being away from the big city, or whatever. I can't find the reason here. Well, unless you're really, really into 4-wheelers and being able to drive them down Main Street. In which case, have I got the place for you.

And if all of that wasn't enough...you can't buy alcohol here. Yes, as Alaska's final kick in the nuts to itself, it took away the one thing that could make this place bearable.

I wanna come home.

Just to Keep it Going

2009-09-21T07:42:00.002-04:00

Hehe...whelp, sorry about the whole 'not-writing-any-blogs-for-a-couple-of-months' thing. Things have been crazy at the ol' mill. I've been sent off to the five corners of the globe, or at least the US - Arizona, New Mexico, Minnesota, Cape Cod, and soon, Alaska. But recently I was reminded that I haven't updated the site in a while, so I figured I would write something and at least make Blogspot.com think this is still an active site.

So,

something.

I'll be back - I promise.

Roger Clemens Writes a Book

2009-06-23T15:18:00.003-04:00

I'm not even going to pretend that I can write anything this funny, but Jon Bois from Progressive Boink can, and I can certainly link to it in a vain attempt to associate myself with it:

Roger Clemens wants to write a book, just like Jose Canseco's. Here's Chapter 5 (unedited, of course):

CHAPTER 5: What Hath God Wraught???

Roger Clemens was a housewholed name. Even 1-day-old babies across the Fruited Plain, rattling they're baby toys and crapping themselfs, knew of the great "Rocketman" (Roger Clemens). He was a man who Lifted the Spirits of the Nation uponst his furrow'd shoulders and bench pressed it into Heaven. When he retires, even the most leather-jacketed of men will weep.

He stood there on the pitcher's mount. He stared up at the stands. Announced attendance: a freaking buttload. Time stood still and it did that Ken Burns thing where some one play's a piano and clumsy-footed children run the bases in slow-mow. "Time to Genuflect," remarked Roger.

He look't at the baseball he held in his artisan, meaty hands. Fact: a baseball is exactly 5 inches in diameter. Fact: a baseball is comprosed of exactly 5,000 stitches. But it was not the maths of the Modern Age that juxtaposed Roger at this particular time. Rather: "how am I going to strike out this Bozo?"

The Bozo in question was Mike Piazza. Mike Piazza was an stupid nerd whom was loathed by all. He stood in the batting circle, one abreast, and turn'd to face the fans. He did that thing where you put you're thumb on you're nose and wiggle around you're other fingers! The fans where Enraged. "Nyah!" he taunted. "Nyahhhhh!" Also, one time he threw rocks at Maya Angelou. Our nation's freaking Poet Larroquette. Only God knows why. What a butt head.

Anyway, but, however, I Digress. Piazza walked up to the batter's box, as though a dumb guy walking up to the batter's box. "Oh crap," thought Roger. "This guy is going to call his shot." Sure enough. Piazza cupp'd his hands and bellow'd to the Heavens, "SHOT!" The towns people trembled, but; Roger didn't tremble. Trembling is for Moral Midgets.

I went through the Signs with my catcher. "Do you think it was unrealistic that the aliens could die if you poured water on them," he said. "Yes," I said. (This part of the story is just a joke [not real]).

Mike Piazza haunch'd over and awaited for the pitch. Roger leveraged his buttocks and through the baseball.

[NOTE: If this book gets made into a movie, make this part go into slow motion and play "Jeremy" by Pearl Jam. Thanks, Rog]

"STRIKE ONE," scuttled the Umpire. To more strikes. That's all Roger needed. He was done clowning around. He threw another fast ball, inside and away. It nailed the middle corner with the beautiful craftsmanship of an agile carpentress. Strike two.

Everyone stood up and cheer'd a heavenly chorus. The crowd was extemporaneous. Mike Piazza expected a fastball; but, Roger threw an even faster fastball. Swing and a Mrs. And it was strike three. The catcher said, "Crap, my freaking hand hurts!" Piazza said, "I'll get you next time, Clemens!" Then a bird pooped on his head. Clemens was carted aboudst the field in a Horse Driven Chariot. He had won the game. He had faced down Mike Piazza and sent him to Kingdom Kong. [NOTE: is it Kingdom Come or Kingdom Kong? Looked it up on AltaVista, results inconclusive.]

Then Brian McNamee came on the field and said a bunch of stupid bull pucky. Then Skylab fell on him.

CHAPTER 6: The Sound and the Furious

Love it.

Where Major League Baseball Pays Attention to Me (finally)

2009-06-09T10:31:00.003-04:00

So I woke up this morning, as I often do, to not only the sound of my cat crying right above my face, but thinking of the Orioles and their prospects for success in the future. As everyone knows, Baltimore plays in the toughest division in baseball, the AL East, where not only the red sox and yankees hold sway, but which now also features a much-improved Toronto team and a Tampa Bay team that went to the World Series last year.

I'll be the first to tell you: tough shit. It is what it is. As much as I hate the fact that we play in a division wherein we could win 90 games and still come in third place, I don't mind the challenge, and at least we can never say we won the division by default, like San Diego did in 2005 (with a .502 winning percentage). Plus, as bad as we might be, we will still pack Camden Yards (and downtown Baltimore) with idiots with disposable incomes every time the red sox and yankees come to town.

Still, it frustrates me that there will likely be no let-up in the determinable future. Unless the NY somehow stops being the most recognizable baseball franchise in the world and the symbol of Americana for many foreigners (not likely), or they for some reason decide to stop spending tons of money on good baseball players (not likely), they will be good forever. Unless Boston somehow stops hiring smart people like Bill James and Theo Epstein and running their franchise like a smart version of the yankees (not likely), they will be good forever.

So the best chance for Baltimore is to do something like Tampa Bay did last year: wait until your prospects that you have been stockpiling for years come to fruition, make a couple of smart trades to fill gaps, get extremely lucky, and hope that Boston and NY have injury problems to have a shot at it for one year. After that, everyone will be gunning for you and you won't have any money left anyway, so good luck to you. That sound is my heart breaking.

Anyway, I woke up this morning thinking about how hopeless it is to be an O's fan and also how cool it could be if there was a divisional re-alignment that went North, Central, and South instead of East, Central, and West. I figure it would work out like this:

AL North:
Boston
Toronto
Detroit
Minnesota
Seattle

AL Central:
New York
Baltimore
Chicago
Cleveland
Oakland

AL South:
Tampa Bay
Kansas City
Texas
LA Angels of wtf

How cool is that? Right now (assuming the current schedule) the standings would look like this:

AL North:

BOS     33  24 .579

TOR     33  27 .550

DET     31  26 .544

SEA     28  29 .491

MIN     28  31 .475

AL Central:

NYA     34  23 .596

CHA     27  31 .466

OAK     26  30 .464

CLE     25  34 .424

BAL     24  33 .421

AL South:

TEX     33  24 .579

LAA     28  27 .509

TB      29  30 .492

KC      24  32 .429

That AL North is shaping up to be a pretty hot race down the stretch.  The AL Central is all but locked up, but the AL South
could still go a bunch of different ways.

Okay, so Baltimore would still have no chance this year, but that's not the point.  I would have to think that these divisions would be more competitive. 

That took longer to do than I thought it would.  I'll do the NL tomorrow.  NIN tonight!!!!

Arrre Youuuuu Readddyyyyyy

2009-06-04T07:53:00.002-04:00

One of the things that I always thought would be the coolest part of being a Major League baseball player when I was a kid was the chance to pick out your very own walk-up theme song. You know, the song that plays over the PA when you come up to bat. (This goes a long way to explain my strange relationship with baseball and other professional sports. Other things I think would be great perks to being a Major Leaguer: picking your own number, seeing yourself in a video game, getting to wear throwback jerseys, etc.)

I didn't realize until I met a friend at work who was into the same stupid aspects of baseball that I was, and we had multiple lengthy discussions about not only what our choices of walk-up music would be, but why certain Major League players picked the songs they did. The failing of our logic, however, is that Major Leaguers, for the most part, are musical idiots and don't put 1/16th of the effort into picking a song out that we would.

Whereas I would pick a song like "The Promised Land" by Springsteen or the cool rocking part of "Thru and Thru" by the Rolling Stones due to cool lyrics and music, it turns out that real ballplayers pick songs for some of the following reasons:

"A friend of mine on the [St. Louis] Cardinals picked it out for me. I like that it doesn't have words."

"I really don't care. As long as it rocks, that's fine."

"It needs a good beat. Something that doesn't put you to sleep."

"Whatever they want to play. It doesn't make a different [sic] to me."

Guys. C'mon! You are professional ball players! Take delight in getting to be involved in the thrilling minutiae that idiots like me would give their right pinkie to think about! At least pick a song you like or pretend to give a shit about. Because whether or not you care, there will always be nerds like my friend and I who will over-analyze why you picked a song called "Going Down".

Mister Anderson...

2009-06-03T08:06:00.002-04:00

Turns out Brady Anderson is still alive~! Who knew, right? Or, as privatedialect puts it:

I find it laughable that Brady Anderson is writing articles that are anything but omissions of immense steroid use and / or accusatory blogs on how the Twilight vampires stole his look.

Actually I am just kidding. That was a pretty well written article for a retired muscle head. He brings up some very, very, valid points. I think that there are three main reasons why Angelos has such a bad rap with Baltimore.

1. People hate losing ... and after years and years of doing so it seems easy to blame the one constant.

2. People are f***ing sheep. One idiot says, " F*** Angelos " and everyone else is ready to follow.

3. He is ugly. I mean not to sound superficial but people are. And man is he ugly. Probably has really , really , bad breath too.

Seriously, though, I think ol' Sideburns makes some very good points. Peter Angelos, while certainly not the best owner in the world, has been demonized, and I believe extremely unjustly so over the last couple of years. Sure, when Mike Flanagan and Jim Duquette and all the rest of the bumbling fools who have been our GMs over the last 10 years were in charge, Angelos may have poked his head in one or two too many trades or free-agent deals.

But since Andy MacPhail has taken over, Angelos has really stepped out of the spotlight and let the people who know baseball run the show. And in the meantime, he has spent the money when he has had to. He locked up fan favorites and building blocks Nick Markakis and Brian Roberts, returned 'Baltimore' to the road jerseys, and has kept ticket prices relatively low and hasn't sold the naming rights to the best stadium in baseball (yet).

So lay off the ugly old toad.

The Man-Child Cometh

2009-05-27T08:44:00.004-04:00

Matt Wieters is coming. Friday. Here to usher in a new realm of peace, prosperity, and bobbleheads to Baltimore. Or, as Shysterball puts it:

The smallest crowd in the history of Camden Yards showed up to watch the Blue Jays fall further into the abyss. The crowds will be larger this weekend, however, as Matt Wieters will be called up to make his Major League debut. Prediction: Mere anarchy will be loosed upon the world, the blood-dimmed tide loosed, and everywhere the ceremony of innocence will be drowned. The best will lack all conviction, while the worst will be full of passionate intensity.

Indeed.

Designated for Assignment, Part III: Harrisburg Senators

2009-05-27T07:44:00.001-04:00

Ah, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Gateway to the...umm...well...it's kinda near Hersheypark, I guess. While Harrisburg has many admirable qualities, proximity to other major metropolitan areas is not necessarily one of them. It's about an hour and a half away from Baltimore, and probably about 3 hours from both Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. Everywhere else is pretty much inaccessible...kinda like being in Little Rock, Arkansas: Well, I'm kinda near Memphis...*sigh*...or I guess I could go to Tulsa...*sigh*...oh, nm.

Anyway, Harrisburg just happened to be the next stop on our tour of minor league ballparks. It became the next stop pretty much by default: I had planned on going to Salisbury, MD, but we figured traffic would be absolutely horrible due to the Memorial Day weekend, and the Harrisburg Senators just happened to be playing the Bowie Baysox (AA affiliate of the Orioles)!

Sweet, I'll get to see one of our top pitching prospects: Jake Arrieta!

Oh, wait. He pitches on Friday. I get to see Bobby Livingston. That's...almost as good...*sigh*.

Turns out he pitched a pretty good game, but enough about that - let's get to what everybody flocks to my blog to read about: what kind of crazy crap the Senators have outside their ballpark!

An old bridge!

Skeeball!

Batting Cages!

Psychedelic Dentists!

An old red shed that is used as a ticket box office!

Batting Cages!

Seriously, I have to hand it to the Senators: they give you some awesome extra-curricular activities to play with. There's a whole arcade area that is outside of the stadium that has a collection of old-school stand-up video games, try-to-get-the-claw-to-grab-the-toy games, skeeball lanes, and all other kinds of token-operated fun. None of these diversions holds a candle to the batting cages, however, which are available to anyone (12 pitches for a buck) and come in baseball and softball versions with speeds from 35 - 90mph. Yours truly stepped in the 55mph cage and promptly made a fool of himself. I blame the fact that I was wearing sandals, my loose and floppy batting helmet, and the fact that I suck at baseball.

The stadium itself is an interesting design - there are assigned seats behind home plate and along the third and first base lines, but all of the rest of the seating is general admission bleacher seating. And there's a lot of it. What is weird is that in front of the bleacher seats, which go all the way to ground level, is the concourse where everyone walks to get food/play on the Senators Slide/get autographs from the poor sonovabitch who got stationed in the autograph booth that day, and then in front of the concourse is another section of assigned seating. It's not unlike a moat of people. We liked sitting in the front area as it kept us well away from the riff-raff and common folk of Central PA.

We were lucky enough to attend during "Superhero Day", which basically consisted of the cheer/energy/lame-o squad dressing up in ridiculous superhero costumes and the scoreboard operators blasting old animated clips of 60's-era superhero cartoons in between innings. And also Diego, from the Nickelodeon show. I think the most bizarre event of the evening occurred when the Senators switched pitchers and the scoreboard operators took that opportunity to play a clip from the Diego show, which consisted of a small leopard singing a cheery song about how much bigger and stronger he was getting every day. The players looked a tad on the bewildered side.

They also are strongly in the running for most bizarre/awesome inter-inning gimmick: a human hamster race!

did i mention they had batting cages

I have to say that I really, really enjoyed Harrisburg's stadium, except for the fact that they currently name the park after a bank, and are planning on changing the name to another bank - Metro Bank Field or some such B.S.. They are in the process of renovating it, and it should be really great after they get done, but so far I have to say that with it's combination of small-park feel, extra-curricular activities, great scoreboards, separated 'elite' seating sections, and the fact that you can get a tall draft of Yuengling, I'm liking Harrisburg the most out of all the stadiums we've been to so far.

Designated for Assignment, Part II: Frederick Keys

2009-05-12T07:35:00.008-04:00

Our journey to all (or most) of the minor league ballparks in the DelMarVa region continued last Saturday to the lovely provincial town of Frederick, MD. The Frederick Keys, the Orioles' single-A affiliate, have been playing at Harry Grove (ha) Stadium for as long as I've been alive, and from the looks of the stadium, for as long as anyone in the organization has been alive. It is the first of the ballparks that we're going to that I have actually been to before, but it was when I was but a wee boy, so I don't remember much of my original trip.

The night didn't get off to a great start - although we found the stadium with no problem and parked in the Keys' spacious (and free) parking lot, as soon as we got out of the car it started raining. I immediately threw a fit as I was sure that things were not going to go my way that night (this happens more than you would think), but luckily the rain stopped by the time we got to the entrance and never came back.

My happiness with that development was quickly tempered when, as we were approaching the entrance, we saw men in their 40s clutching stacks of 5-6 Matt Wieters bobblehead packages. It was Matt Wieters bobblehead night, and while I knew that and was excited about the prospect of picking one up, it seemed a little bit too good to be true. I mean, baseball in Frederick, MD, fireworks night, and a bobblehead? Well, I suppose it was too good to be true, because the 40-year-old comic book guys got there early and snapped up all the bobbleheads, leaving hundreds of little kids in tears right there at the entrance.

Not to be deterred by this minor setback, my girlfriend and I set out to find the official Keys merchandise store which was, conveniently, right next to the entrance. After considerable internal debate and struggle, I got myself a flex-fit fitted batting practice hat, and my girlfriend got a very stylish Keys t-shirt.

Harry Grove stadium, like I said earlier, is old. It's not without it's charm, though - it is extremely utilitarian. Entrance. Merch booth. Bathrooms. Hot dog place. Popcorn. Field. There was a fairly large covered seating area behind the left field seats where anyone could go to eat at picnic tables, which was a very nice touch. I chowed down on my footlong corn dog which I could dip in my choice of BBQ sauce or Ranch dressing. Yeah, I said Ranch dressing.

The field is pretty small with rediculously high walls. In fact, I think the walls were at least as high as the York Revolution's "Arch Nemisis" which claims to be the largest wall in professional baseball. You know, if you can't trust independant league baseball promoters, who can you trust?

As you can see, we sat right behind home plate. They were fantastic seats, and the fact that we are able to get incredible seats for about the same price as any other seat at these games is quickly becoming one of my favorite aspects of this minor league excursion. The seats were so good, in fact, that we were sitting right next to the major league scouts, which were easily identifiable due to their Hawaiian shirts and "too cool to be at this game" shades.

The game was a good one between the Keys and the Wilmington Blue Rocks, a Royals affiliate out of Delaware whose stadium we'll be going to next Saturday. I got to see players that I actually knew and had heard about, like Billy Rowell, the O's prospect who I swear to god swung at every single pitch he saw that night, and Mike Moustakas, who has a funny name.

Both teams' uniforms pretty much sucked aside from the fact that they followed the contemporary minor league convention of wearing their socks pulled up with no stirrups. The socks aren't the older white sanitary socks like players used to wear under their stirrups, but rather a one-color sock that's more like a soccer sock than a baseball sock. Everybody wore those stupid things. Everybody, that is, except for the Blue Rocks' manager:

I mean, c'mon - doesn't he look classier than everyone else out there? Its no contest! It's even as though they're all standing around in awe of his awesome hosiery. Yeah, I said hosiery.

The highlight (or lowlight, depending on your point of view) of the trip came when we broke down and bowed to our craving: Chili Cheese Boardwalk Fries, served in a novelty helmet. Take a look at this beautiful specimen:
Is that American or what? Please note that the chili cheese fries could not be stuffed into a standard small novelty batting helmet - they had to make a larger non-Keys branded helmet to accommodate the full glory of the mixture.

The game came down to the last inning, and the Keys won it on a bases-loaded single up the middle by some guy who won't make it to the bigs, and then there were fireworks. They let the kids run around the bases afterwards, but the line to do it literally looked like the line to get on the Sidewinder rollercoaster at Hershey Park the summer that it opened, so I passed on that opportunity.

Good times in Frederick - next week, Delaware. Hey. We're in Delaware. *yawn*

And now, the Keyote and a chubby kid:

Not Everyone Should Have a Blog

2009-05-08T11:00:00.002-04:00

Here is Shaquille O'neal's reaction to Manny Ramirez' suspension for testing positive to PED's, which he posted on his Twitter account yesterday:

"Dam manny ramirez, come on man Agggggggggh, agggggggh,agggggh." [sic, obviously]

Wow. You know, I certainly appreciate the man's candor and his attempt to put his frustrations down in what is an obviously difficult medium in which to convey emotion, but...did he really have to type, "Agggggggggh" three times?

Stick to being 7'-million and being in commercials with Ben Stine. Leave the blooging to su pofessunals.

Designated for Assignment, Part I: York Revolution

2009-05-04T10:21:00.010-04:00

Sorry for the wait, ladies and gentlemen – I know you have all been sitting on my page hitting refresh for the last weekend waiting for my update. Well, wait no longer.

My girlfriend and I began our journey through the minor and independent league baseball stadiums in the DelMarVa region last Friday with a trip up to lovely York, PA. York is home to the Atlantic League York Revolution, an independent league team that has been around for oh, about two years. I was interested in this game particularly to see the level of play that is in the independent leagues due to the number of ex-major leaguers that choose (or have no choice but) to play in them. Guys like Dewan Brazelton, Hideki Irabu, Oil Can Boyd, Tony Batista, Shawn Chacone, Carl Everett…well, you get the idea. Anyway, it seems like a really interesting mix of guys you have never heard of and will never hear of and crazy flame-outs from the bigs. What more can you ask for to start a baseball road trip?

Well, I can tell you that the whole experience absolutely exceeded my expectations. The stadium was beautiful, the seats were great (and cheap), we got to see Von Hayes, and there was a monkey.

After work on Friday we headed up 83 to York despite a weather report that showed intermittent thunderstorms all night long. There was terrible traffic almost the entire way, but we got into York in plenty of time and set to work following the directions from Google maps. Well, it turns out that those directions were wrong – they led us to a warehouse district downtown whichwas pretty…umm…interesting, but not interesting enough to have a ballpark nearby. So I loaded up the ol’ iPhone and searched for “Sovereign Bank Stadium” and it gave us another address in NW York that was near some parks. Looked good to me, and we were off.

Well, all there was at that location was, well, parks. No ballpark, and nothing that looked like or indicated that there was a ballpark in the immediate vicinity. So Google has now given us two bum locations. How hard is it to point us to a professional league baseball stadium? How many of these things are there in York? So we went straight to the source, which is probably what we should have done in the first place, and checked the Revolution’s website, which told us that the stadium was exactly nowhere near either of the two locations we were told. Weird, but we assumed that they would know where their own ballpark was, so we took their word for it.

Turns out they were right, and we found parking in an abandoned lot across some very forbidding railroad tracks. We missed the first pitch, but it turns out we got to our seats at the right time, because almost as soon as we sat down, the batter hit a foul ball that nearly hit the fat lady that was sitting next to us. I was too disoriented - no, uncoordinated - to catch it myself, but I came damn close.

Sovereign Bank Stadium itself was a very pretty stadium – just built in 2007. There is a huge green wall in left field, which they call the “Arch Nemesis” – which only makes kinda sense because it is near Arch Street…but I still think it’s kinda a lame name. There was this old guy in the stands next to us who led what must have been the Revolution’s version of the Oriole cheer: he would stand up and yell “HIT THE WALL”.

Really, that was it…at first I thought he was saying, “HIT THE BALL”, which was a nice sentiment. You know, nothing too complicated for these independent league players, just HIT THE BALL. But no, he was telling them to HIT THE WALL, which is still a bit baffling but easier to say than HIT IT OVER THE WALL OR IMMEDIATELY TO THE RIGHT OF IT AND IN THE AIR.

The York Revolution themselves were a group of malcontents and thugs, consisting of guys named Brad and Tony who refused to shave off their goatees and bend the brim of their caps more than 2 degrees off straight across. I guarantee that if you were to see these guys in a bar you would immediately hate them, but these are probably the kind of guys who hang out at the Green Turtle to pick up Towson chicks, so you (hopefully) won’t run into them.

What made the team (and trip) worth it was the inimitable leadership of one Chris Hoiles – yes, that Chris Hoiles. As far as unemotional managers go, he was definitely one of the most unemotionalist. Basically he leaned against the rail for a bunch of innings, occasionally consulting with Tippy Martinez (the pitching coach, and yes, THAT Tippy Martinez) and then walking unemotionally out to the mound to switch pitchers. I don’t think that he said one word to any of his players or anyone other than Tippy Martinez the entire game. But like I said, the team was a bunch of losers, so I can’t say I blame him. He did have a nice-looking watch, however.

HIT THE WALL

Of course the highlight of any minor league baseball game is the stuff that goes on between the innings. You know, the non-baseball stuff. The Revolution, I will not hesitate to say, have this facet of the game down pat. They feature, in no particular order:

- A man firing a cannon

- Not one, but two mascots, Reggie and Outfield

- An “Energy” team (yes, that was really their name – basically the interns who thought it would be cool to intern for a baseball team for the summer. Now they’re dancing a hoedown on top of a dugout whilst wearing a policeman hat)

- A man running around in a gigantic, blow-up monkey balloon

- Free Frisbees and t-shirts

- A “knighting” ceremony wherein the PA announcer announces in the worst British accent I have ever heard that one lucky kid gets to be Sir _____ for the night and everyone has to obey him. HAIL SIR _______

- HIT THE WALL

Oh, and I forgot to mention the best part: the fruit race! Here, to the delight of everyone, including me, they trotted out three small kids to run around the bases from first to home. That would probably be comical enough, but then they dressed them up in ridiculously oversized fruit costumes – hilarity ensues. Probably the highlight of the evening.

Plus, add in one comically oversized first base coach, and you have yourself an independent league ballgame.

It was a great time. I bought a York Revolution fitted cap – I think I’ll probably do that for each game I go to – and my girlfriend got herself a Chris Hoiles Revolution t-shirt.

* Note the novelty batting helmet ice cream cup. Classic.

So we’re off to a great start. You stay classy, York PA.

Next Up: ~~HIT THE WALL~~ The Frederick Keys @ Harry Grove Stadium

the Minor League Experiment

2009-04-24T08:13:00.002-04:00

Well, I have a new summer project: I'm going to visit all of the minor league baseball stadiums in a drivable radius around Baltimore. Why minor league stadiums, you ask? Well, they're cheap, and so am I.

It's actually kinda sad how few minor league stadiums that I've been to considering how many are in the state of Maryland alone. I'm pretty sure I've only been to Harry Grove (heh) Stadium in Frederick once and I pretty much spent my childhood at Municipal Stadium in Hagerstown. But that's it - I have to go see Bowie, and Delmarva, and Aberdeen, and Waldorf just to get current on the stadiums in Maryland. Plus there's a few in Southern PA, Delaware, and West Virginny. So it will be a busy summer - I plan on going to one every weekend.

As of this writing, my wonderful girlfriend is acting like she's excited about the whole thing. I'll give her credit for that. Once we have to start driving 5 hours to see a shitty short-season A-ball team in southern WV though...well we'll see where we are.

But who wouldn't be excited about our first game: the York Revolution's home opener next Friday! Fireworks! Cheap seats! Fat men dancing in between innings! York PA! It's going to be great, I guarantee it. And the best part - we're sitting in the third row from the field on the first base side. Price: $10.

So I'll try to update the ol' blog when I get back from these trips with some pictures and info about the stadium and our fun-filled getaways. Something to look forward to. Oh, that and midgets in the batters box.

Where Your Humble Blogger Loses All Dignity

2009-04-22T08:36:00.002-04:00

Well, I did it.

Let me take that back: They made me do it.

I never started out wanting an iPhone.

I never wanted to feed into the massive corporate machine that is Apple.

I never wanted to validate their closed architecture operating systems and regimented control over all third-party apps.

I never wanted to validate this guy:

But, alas, I did. But I maintain that it was everyone else who made me do it. It was LG, and Samsung, and Blackberry, and Palm, and Nokia, and Windows Mobile, and everyone else who just can't seem to make a phone that is even remotely in the same league as the iPhone.

I read plenty of reviews on the iPhone before I exchanged my LG Incite for it, and most of them basically said this:

Cons: Can't copy and paste text, battery life good but not spectacular...ummm...the case isn't aluminum anymore?

Pros: It is a phone that works right the first time and is actually fun to use.

Seriously - go read them for yourselves. I'm not saying the iPhone is perfect; no one is. But the crux of the issue is that the iPhone kicks everyone's ass on the features that actually matter to everyone. I mean, I kinda enjoyed having to edit the registry of my Incite to make it run Internet Explorer a little bit quicker, but in reality I'm much happier playing around in the app store and flicking between my home pages. I mean, I kinda enjoyed trying to figure out why the microphone on my phone would cut out after I loaded Windows Live Search, but in reality I'm much happier watching Shazaam do its crazy magical song-finding shit.

It pains me to write this, it really does. And when it comes to computers, I will always be a PC nerd because I like fucking with all that stuff. But I'm sticking with the iPhone because it works.

ooh plus it has a level and a flashlight~!

Commenta non Grata

2009-04-14T08:16:00.002-04:00

So I learned yesterday that I had the ol' settin's on my settin's page set to have it that only registered users could post comments on my ol' blog-o-spherical page. Well, it has never been my intention to stifle creativity or constructive criticism - every one knows I take criticism extremely well - so rest easy tonight with the knowledge that as of 8:18 this morning anyone can post anything in the comments section.

Seriously, it's not even moderated. For now. Until you start criticizing me too much.

Enjoy.

...And That Happened

2009-04-13T08:29:00.003-04:00

I think that one of the things that makes baseball hard to follow for people that aren't really into it is the fact that so much stuff happens on every single night throughout the 162-game season. A typical weekday night might have as many as 10-12 games going on, and even skimming the headlines at ESPN you'll probably miss a thing or two along the way. And the thing is, absolutely cool stuff happens every single night in the major leagues.

I can't believe no one else out there does anything quite like this, but I'm really glad that Craig Calcaterra does. Every day, he updates his blog with a post called "And That Happened", which provides the final score, a quick comment, and a link to each game that was played the day before. It's simple, funny, and a ridiculously easy way to make people think that you follow baseball religiously. Check it out.

An Update

2009-04-12T11:00:00.001-04:00

Hi, all. So I've heard recently that there are actually people who read this thing, so I figure I'd give everyone an update on the goings-on in my interesting little existence. A State-of-the-Blog, if you will.

- I recently went against my self-imposed edict and bought a nice, new cell phone. I always told myself that I would only buy the cheapest, most utilitarian phones possible, because no one ever calls me, and I don't want to worry about losing something that cost me a pretty penny. Well, I threw all that out of the window and bought a brand f-ing new LG Incite. Its a touchscreen phone - kinda their version of the iPhone. I've since spent the last two weeks trying my hardest to modify it to look and act like an iPhone. Why didn't you just buy an iPhone, you ask? Well, shut up.

Seriously, though. It bugs the hell out of me that no other company on this planet apparently has half of the brains and ingenuity of Apple. I want to believe that other companies can make a comparable product to the iPod and iPhone, but every time I act on that assumption, it comes back to bite me in the ass. My LG phone's screen is touch sensitive, but not reliable or consistent. It's not pretty, at least until I put some skins on it to make it pretty like an iPhone. Its slow. It has actually frozen up on me. I have to fuck around with the settings at least once a day. Now, remember, I love to do these things, but goddman no wonder Apple is selling iPhones like they are liquid sex, you fucking idiots. Your products are pieces of trash!!! All they have to do to beat you is to make a phone that doesn't lock up and actually respond in a coherent way to what people want it to do!!!

Okay, sorry for the rant. Back to work.

- I'm finishing up my very first "solo" album. It will have six songs on it that have all been recorded by my friends and me. I'm fairly proud of it, and I'm happy about the fact that I created a project for myself to work on out of thin air and have followed through on it. Good for me. Gold star.

- The Orioles are 4-1. They beat the defending AL champion Rays last night 6-0. Awesome.

- I went to my friend's bachelor party last night at a strip club downtown. While I did enjoy seeing the naked ladies, I just couldn't get into it the same way I used to when I was 18 and we would drive down to West Virginia and drink beers in the back of our cars in the parking lot and then try to wash off the X's on our hands and get caught trying to buy drinks at the bar. It just seemed to be a pretty big waste of money and time. Hmm. Everyone else seemed to be enjoying themselves immensely, however, so it might just be me. I'm pretty sure it's just me.

- My girlfriend and I just got ourselves new helmets for the upcoming scooter season, so look forward to actual blog posts about scootering, which is, after all, what this whole blog was supposed to be about when I started it a year ago. Now, you all just listen to me bitch about iPhones. Shame on you for letting me stray so far from my vision!

Now to bring it all home, a picture of a duck with George Bush's head on it:

Shame on you all.

A blog from the road

2009-04-08T11:35:00.000-04:00

This entry is being typed from my brand new cell phone. I don't really have too much to say, except for: good for me, and goddamn is it hard to type on this screen. I'll have to reserve this for ultra-important posts only, which none of them are. Oh well. At least I can say I did it. ttyl brb lol rotfl ggpc

Opening Day

2009-04-07T12:50:00.002-04:00

What do you mean nobody else cares?

Yessir, Opening Day was yesterday, and what an Opening Day it was. The Orioles won, 10-5, over an especially ass-hat-ish Yankees lineup that included Mr. and Mrs. Paycheck, C.C. Sabathia and Mark Texiera. The mood was great at the yard, and not even a crappy sound system (not installed by my company) nor a torrental downpour could ruin the day.

.........

Well, I had a whole bunch of cool pictures that I was going to crop and resize and tell you all about, but it appears as though my computer has deleted them. This is exactly why I never do this shit. There was a guy with a Mark McLemore jersey! Mark McLemore! Now no one will ever believe me...damn it.

It has Sprung

2009-04-06T07:52:00.002-04:00

Baseball is back!

Well, kinda. The Braves played the Phillies last night and whooped up on them courtesy of a bunch of homeruns off of poor ol' Brett Myers. Its not completely Brett's fault, though...I mean, look at those eyebrows. That's got to make it pretty difficult to pitch.

Anyway, I'm happy because my wonderful girlfriend got us two tickets to Opening Day today, and despite the fact that the forecast calls for "thunderstorms, strong winds, hail, and a plague of locusts" I'll actually be watching live Orioles baseball today. Hopefully.

I'm bringing my batteries to chuck at Mark Texiera's head, though it would be quite the toss I would have to make to hit him from our seats. But when there's a will, there's a way.

Goh Oh's!

omg two posts today

2009-03-09T09:43:00.004-04:00

Okay, so I'm a little bit bored already at work and while I initially thought that I wasn't going to do one of these things, I've since broken down.

Here are 25 things you may not know about me.

1. I consider learning how to cup my hands and make a birdcall sound at Boy Scout camp one of the major accomplishments of my life.
2. I can juggle, a little bit.
3. I went to my first Major League Baseball game when I was 10, in 1991. It was at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore, and I remember absolutely nothing about it. Seriously. The only recollection I have is a mental picture of a run-down Baltimore neighborhood that my dad had to drive through to get there.
4. I know I definitely went to that game because it was free Memorial Stadium duffel bag night, sponsored by Texaco System3. I had that bag and used it to haul my music accessories around until it was stolen last year. Pretty amazing that a shitty free plastic duffel bag lasted me 17 years when I can't make a pair of jeans get through 8 months.
5. I secretly like chai tea, but never order it because I'm afraid of looking like a fag.
6. The names of the bands that I have been a part of in my life: Steve Never Came, Melting Pott, Ice Age Children, the Parking Meters, the Reliants, the Bagshots, the Safeword Club, Brougham Jack (lol), and Poly/Western.
7. The first band name I ever came up with: Concrete Rain. I thought that was the coolest name in the world. I don't anymore.
8. The city that I would most like to live in: Charlottesville, VA. In my mind, the weather is always perfect there, everyone is nice, and it is the perfect blend of big and small city feel. In reality, its probably not, but don't shit on my dream.
9. I love baseball, baseball statistics, and read about baseball history on a daily basis, but I have never been to the Hall of Fame, I don't know what position Micky Lolich played, and I regularly get bored watching baseball games on TV.
10. I like sushi, but I really just like it because soy sauce is involved. I could do without the raw fish.
11. I regularly avoid small deli's and lunch places because I hate looking like an idiot trying to figure out their individual ordering systems.
12. I abhor the concept of mass capitalism and the mega-corporation but I love Starbucks and Target, and I buy cheap Chinese-made goods all the time.
13. I spent five years studying music and history in college, but I have forgotten nearly everything that I learned there.
14. I enjoy playing ambient, dissonant, and 'experimental' music because its fucking easy and you can't make mistakes.
15. The thought of having a huge house with modern conveniences and a really expensive sports car in the suburbs is appealing to me, as much as I wish it wasn't.
16. The most embarrassing moment of my life occurred when I was probably 7 or 8 and I went to a friend's house to play video games. I had to go to the bathroom (number 2) and I used their bathroom that for some reason you had to go through to get to the basement. While I was in the act, my friend's mom came up the stairs from the basement and opened the door to the bathroom. The details are a bit hazy, but I distinctly remember her yelling at me and telling me that I shouldn't be doing that there. I immediately ran the entire way home and never went back over to his house.
17. I love the smell of a lit and burning cigarette but abhor the smell of musty and old smoke.
18. Every time I smell one of those "New Car Smell" pine tree air fresheners it reminds me of the time this crackhead I used to hang out with took my car and got it washed and detailed for me.
19. I have trouble remembering events from my childhood, as well as the details of recent events, and I am very scared that as an older person I won't be able to tell any good stories like old people should.
20. I used to think that I was a pretty normal and 'cool' kid, but I recently looked at an old photograph album of myself with my girlfriend and I realized for the first time that I was a complete and absolute nerd, from head to toe.
21. I work for an A/V company, studied music and audio recording in school, and understand the physics behind sound reproduction systems, but the fact that a speaker can make all that music sound real when it is just a cone that vibrates back and forth completely baffles me.
22. Strong wind irritates me more than pretty much anything in this world.
23. I love to write, and I've been told I'm a good writer, but many times when I'm writing a blog I find myself getting too bored to finish the whole thing and will just stop short. See the blog entry below this one for a perfect example.
24. I don't understand the concept of 'perfect legs' and/or 'perfect ass' when it comes to women. I have never looked at a woman and said, 'Oh my god, look at her legs/ass'. I don't know what good legs or asses look like. I know what bad asses look like, but thats about it.
25. For the first time in my life, I am pretty satisfied with who I am, what I'm doing, and where I'm going.

Back in the Saddle

2009-03-09T09:10:00.003-04:00

Mileage: 932
Time: No idea

Yeah, that's right - you read that correctly. The scooter is back! Today I optimistically rolled out my scooter and rode it to work for the first time in about four months. I say optimistically because it is supposed to rain today and it was probably about 49 degrees out this morning - not optimal riding conditions, but I was too excited to not take it out today.

And I suppose now is the time to let all of my adoring fans know that I have moved and am no longer taking my old route from downtown Baltimore north to Hampden. I'm now up with the yuppies and college kids in Belvedere/Govans/Rosebank/Towson South/whateveryouwanttocallit Northeast Baltimore. I love the new place and I love the location, but I have to say I am so far extremely disappointed with the commute. Let me give you a point of reference:

View Larger Map

I can hear all of you saying, "Wow, that sure does look like a nice easy commute. You must be so pleased to take such a pleasurable and pleasing route to and from work each day. How pleasant!"

Well, I can tell you that the route above is the result of a damn-near scientific period of trial and error over the last two weeks. And it is perfect. It is the best possible permutation of possible routes from my house through the hoity-toity neighborhoods to work. So yeah, its fairly pleasurable.

But the first few times I went were not. If you look at the map, the simplest and most direct route would be to take Northern Parkway west to Roland Ave., and then shoot South to Hampden. But all is not as it seems...Northern Parkway is a sonovabitch. Especially in the morning. Especially at 7:45 in the morning, which is when I go to work. There are four or five schools in that general vicinity, and they all hold up traffic and have weird special lights and generally make the trip absolute hell. I tried this way first, and it took me a half hour to get to work, which is twice as long as it used to take me to get to work from downtown. I was not a happy camper.

To make a long and boring story short, I tried every other conceiveable way between the two locations and settled on this one...its not perfect, I'm sure, but its close, and it doesn't leave me wanting to rip the heads off of small animals when I'm done. Or maybe I just got lucky today and there wasn't much traffic. I'll let you know.

Chips.

2009-02-27T13:52:00.002-05:00

I like potato chips. A lot. I always have. I like the taste, their portability, their wide availability and low price, and the sensation of eating a crunchy chip. Its a good time all-around. But what I really like about chips the most is.......the seasoning on the chip.

Don't get me wrong, I like the flavor of fried potatos, but it is the crazy crap that they put on top that makes it for me. Sure, I'll eat a couple plain potato chips, but those rare occasions are typically reserved for backyard barbeques, parties, or church functions - anywhere where there's the ubiquitous bowl of chips next to the bowl of pretzels and jug of lemonade. But I would never just buy a bag of plain potato chips at the store to eat at home...I mean - look at all the options out there:

What proper American could look at all of those options and conclude, "You know what, I'm going to go with Lay's original (non-ruffled)"? If, and this is a big if, you were to simultaneously purchase one of those little sour cream and onion or nacho cheese chip dip cans to eat with your plain potato chips, I might let it slide, but those little things are expensive.

And unnecessary in this day and age. Chip manufacturers have realized that people my age buy a lot of chips, and we like the craziest damn flavors you can get. I mean, have you ever been to the Doritos website? How cool is that?

Taco and Ranch dressing?Why the hell not?

Bloody Mary?
No trans fat! Healthy!

I bet they would never make General Tso's flavor chips, he said haughtily.

BAM

These things are great...I've had all three of these chips, and they do not disappoint. Manufacturers seem to be latching on to the whole 'kettle cook'd' theme pioneered (at least in my mind) by Utz under the 'Grandma Utz' label. I happen to think this is a great development as I prefer my chips to be as thick and over-cooked as possible. Make 'em a half-inch thick and halfway burnt with the skin still on it, I say. And make them all like the ones at the bottom of the bag that have way too much seasoning on them. I'm not alone, right?

I do have to warn you about one recent new product now on the market - not really a chip, but the same concept...

The flavored pretzel chip. These guys caught my eye and piqued my interest, as I love the Snyders of Hanover's flavored pretzel pieces, but I would like them in a more manageable form. Don't be lured in by their Siren song. These things are horrible. The pretzel chip part is fine, but the flavoring literally tastes like gym socks or mildew or something else that's rotten. I mean disgusting. And thanks to the excessive amounts of seasoning they put on them, that lovely aftertaste stays with you all night long.

So chip wisely, my friends.

Prom, Part Deux

2009-02-21T17:07:00.003-05:00

So tonight, I'm going back to prom. This will actually make my third trip (but I don't know what comes after Deux, so I had to lie in my title line. Trois? Is that it? Is that French?) to prom in my life. My friend Alex and his fiancee are having a prom-themed birthday tonight and, as such, I now have a chance to relive the glory days of high school all over again.

wait

No, high school pretty much sucked. And come to think of it, so did the two proms that I attended. Well, actually not the second one. I got to go with my girlfriend at the time, wear an ultra-cool white tux, and ride in a classic Rolls-Royce limo. So that was fun. But the first one was not as great. I can't remember where the hell we ate, I went with a girl who was very nice but not a great friend of mine, or even someone I hung out with, and to be honest I don't remember much other than that it was somewhere in Chambersburg.

Anyway, I'll try to make a better go at it this time. Pictures forthcoming. Honestly, I just like the fact that I have an excuse to wear a tux and go out to eat.

High School Coaches are Asses

2009-01-28T11:34:00.002-05:00

In case you haven't seen this, apparently a High School women's basketball coach in Texas has been fired for allowing his team to beat a school of "handicapped" girls 100-0.

I have very mixed feelings about this...first of all, and lets get this out of the way: the school is not for "handicapped" girls, at least not in the physical sense. And really not in the psychological sense, either. It has garnered a reputation for being especially good at helping kids with learning disabilities, such as ADD or dyslexia. So any story that you read that tries to heap on the sympathy for these girls is, in my opinion, a load of shit. It is true that the team is winless this season, and has been for the last four seasons, but you can't blame only being able to take seven shots in an entire game on a reading disorder. Shit, Jim Abbott only had one arm and he pitched a no-hitter.

But all that aside, it is still a pretty fucked up case. My high school in Pennsylvania was just large enough to force us to play in a division that included larger schools from Harrisburg, York, Gettysburg, etc...teams that were much, much, much, much, much, much, much better than us. I think our football team won 3 games the entirety of my high school career. I played soccer, and we would routinely get beat 8 or 9 to 0. But I rarely felt as though the other team was running up the score. Sure, they would get excited that they were playing shitty little Waynesboro Area Senior High and would score a pantload in the first half, but then the coach would settle them down, put in their shitty players, and then they would continue scoring at a much reduced rate. We sucked, but we realized it was our own fault - not theirs for having a bit of fun at our expense.

But 100-0?

How do you play four quarters of basketball and not allow the other team to score one point, while you are scoring a ton (especially for women's basketball), and not realize that you may be putting the pressure on a bit too hard? I mean, when I used to play my little brother when I was in shape and he was still like 10 or something, he would still score a point or two to my 21. You really have to be putting the pressure on to have the other team not be able to put up one point in four quarters.

So, when I read that the fired coach is completely unapologetic, and claims that his girls were playing within the spirit of the game, I have to respectfully disagree. Most high school coaches were players themselves at one point...and a great majority of them were failed players at some point. Otherwise, they probably wouldn't be coaching at a girl's school in the middle of Texas. I understand that most of them take their coaching responsibilities a bit too seriously. But it takes a special kind of ass-hat to not think that putting that hard of a beating on another team is within the "spirit of the game".

I dunno. Women's basketball sucks anyway.

A-Broad

2009-01-28T10:55:00.002-05:00

While the northeast remains locked in an icy kung-fu death grip, this blogger soldiers humbly on, giving you narrow and one-sided opinions about two-day old stories that really no one should care about: Joe Torre basically called A-Rod out on everything everyone pretty much assumed about him anyway.

Which really doesn't make it any less hilarious. You have to love it when something comes to light from a credible source that basically confirms all of your suspicions about someone. So Alex Rodriguez had an uncontrollable obsession with Derek Jeter. So he tried to act like he was the shit to get everyone to like him. So no one liked him because of it. So his teammates and manager thought he was a pretty boy. Should we really hold that against him, or mock him incessantly without being there or truly understanding his point of view?

Absolutely.

/holds it against him
/mocks him incessantly

8-o!

2009-01-22T20:38:00.005-05:00

So I'm obviously pumped about the Orioles locking up our premier player, Nick Markakis, to a six-year contract with a no-trade clause that will keep him off the damn free agent market for three years after he's eligible. And he seems happy about it - he actually made the claim that he can't wait to settle down here and that the "direction of the organization" was a key factor in his decision.

Awesome.

And then I saw the picture of Nicky at the press conference:

How awesome is that? He looks like a smart Jewish guy from a 70's drug movie, or like he could be one of the Greek's men from Season 2 of the Wire. Gotta love having the balls to rock that look for the biggest moment of his career so far.

Gow Ows!

Finally

2009-01-20T07:47:00.002-05:00

Okay, okay, I know its been a long time since I've posted anything. But there hasn't been anything newsworthy to write about, and you know that if there is one thing this blog is about, it is posting only newsworthy, worthwhile items that are interesting to a wide and general audience.

Hence, I thought that today I would share with you the recently-announced rosters for the Chinese-Taipei World Baseball Classic Team:

CHINESE TAIPEI
PITCHERS: Hung-Wen Chen, Chi-Hung Cheng, Kai-Wen Cheng, Chien-Ming Chiang, Chieh Hsiao, Yu-Chi Hsiao, Po-Hsuan Keng, Chen Lee, We-Hua Lee, Yu-Cheng Liao, Ko-Chien Lin, Po-Yu Lin, Yueh-Ping Lin, Cheng-Long Lo, Chia-Jen Lo, Ching Lung Lo, Fu-Te Ni, Chia-Chun Tang, Chin-Hui Tsao, Sung-Wei Tseng.

CATCHERS: Chih-Kang Kao, Yi-Feng Kuo, Kun-Sheng Lin, Cheng-Ta Wu.

INFIELDERS: Chih-Hsien Chiang, Chih-Hsiang Huang, Kuo-Ching Kao, Yen-Wen Kuo, Bing-Yen Lee, Han Lin, Yi-Chuan Lin, Cheng-Ming Peng, Shen-Wei Wang, Chun-Shou Yang.

OUTFIELDERS: Chih-Yao Chan, Chih-Yuan Chen, Szu-Chi Chou, Cheng-Wei Huang, Cheng-Wei Huang, Tai-Chi Kuo, Ying-Chieh Liao, Che-Hsuan Lin, Wei-Chu Lin, Kuo Hui Lo, Wu-Hsiung Pan, Chuan-Chia Wang.

I would have never thought that Bing-Yen Lee would agree to play this spring. What a bitch. Updates to follow.

Scotchy scotch scotch scotch

2008-12-30T09:48:00.002-05:00

I have always enjoyed good single-malt scotch, but I don't get to enjoy it very often. This is mainly due to the facts that: a. scotch is expensive and b. I don't have any money. So when I received a gift certificate to the local nice wine/liquor store, I knew immediately that I was going to turn that into a pretty nice bottle of old, smokey, peaty goodness.

So I got a bottle of 12-year Bowmore Islay single malt (on account of the extra-peatyness) and have been slowly - very slowly - enjoying it. Its the nicest bottle of liquor that I've ever owned, and I intend to enjoy it to its fullest, dammit.

So of course, the next step is to hop on the intro-net and research what makes a good scotch, what to taste for, how to taste it correctly, etc. All of which eventually led me to this page: The Scotch Doc.

I love it. This is a perfect example of what most websites used to be in the heady early days of the web (I'm sure he hasn't updated it in over 7 years). There is the standard menu frame on the left, the standard shitty color scheme, the standard rambling on about onesself, and the standard shitty photos. The guy is an absolute riot because he takes himself wayyyyyyyyyy too seriously, and because he is a self-described "twentieth century Renaissance man", and "redneck Riverbottom Okie".

So you can explore yourself because the page will undoubtedly make you laugh more than I ever could, but there is one page that I do actually enjoy - the "Scotch Doc" method of tasting scotch. He goes into explicit detail on the techniques of drinking scotch, and also offers a commentary on not using scotch to get drunk. While I'm not completely with him on that particular salient point, he makes a lot of sense, and says it pretty poetically:

"An understanding of the Scotch Single Malt Whisky has been proven to enhance, not only the gastronomical experience, but also the self-discipline and respect for the qualities of this unique spirit. The greater the understanding the less the abuse of this mysterious and complex alcoholic beverage. Knowledge begets appreciation, which begets respect, which begets a natural temperance. I know of no true connoisseur of the Scotch Single Malt Whisky that uses it to intoxicate himself. Such an action is considered an abuse by the connoisseur and an insult to this noble spirit. There are certainly more economical alcoholic beverages that can accomplish the objective of becoming intoxicated equally as well."

Okay, okay, I'm with you...

"Finally, our politicians, social scientists and well-intended, but sometimes misguided, organized protestor groups have proven to us, over and over, that human integrity and self-discipline cannot be legislated or forced upon anyone. What, then, IS the answer? Perhaps it lies in the realm of education. Could the true and full understanding of related outcomes of irresponsible behavior be a substantial part of the answer? I think so. If not, what are the other options. I can think of none. Having witnessed the moral and physical destruction of beloved relatives due to the abuse of alcohol, I have undertaken the educational approach to this international problem. My motto, "The intelligent appreciation of the Scotch Single Malt Whisky," could apply to the use of all alcoholic beverages. I profess that the Scotch single malt makes a wonderful companion but a vicious master. I still believe in the validity of the ancient Roman term, "abusus non tollit usum," which translates, "Abuse is no argument against proper use." This is, also, the message of "The Scotch Doc." "

Pretty heady stuff there, but I do love the last quote: "Abuse is no argument against proper use." Man, the Romans kicked ass.

Feeling the Dark Side's Power Flow Through Me

2008-12-26T10:17:00.004-05:00

Well, it happened. I asked for - and received - an iPod for Christmas. This may sound like a pretty lame thing for a twenty-something blogger and tech nerd to be exited about writing about, but it is very nearly a watershed event in my life. Maybe not quite that epic, but I think it says something. Ever since our family got our first Packard-Bell 386 computer (complete with 2x CD-ROM drive and oooh 256-color VGA monitor), I have always been an ardent and vocal supporter of the "IBM" or "PC" style computer, as opposed to Apple stuff, like iMacs and iBooks and whatever else.

I'm a nerd, but I never reached the level of spurning Windows to use Unix or Linux or anything like that. But I certainly enjoyed the fact that I had mastered DOS back in the day - it was something I took pride in and knew that I had at least a basic level of understanding of what went on behind the scenes of all the pretty pictures and graphics in Windows. I think that was where my hatred of all things Apple began...it was not so much that I thought that it was a bad product or that it wasn't useful, it was that I believed it encouraged people to not think about what their computer was doing. It simplified things to the point of rediculousness. ONE mouse button! How the hell do you call up the properties menu? Is there a properties menu? What do you mean you don't know how to access your hard drive? It made me mad that people delighted in the simpicity of everything. They didn't have to know text commands to "cls" or "md FAVORI~1" or adjust COM ports to make your Sound Blaster (or equivalent) sound card work or make a boot disk or pound your keyboard in frustration when Doom said there was an IRQ error or any of the fun stuff!

But of course that was the point. People don't want to have to worry about that stuff. People don't want to have to worry about IRQ addresses. They want to hit a button, have a pretty picture pop up with a status bar to tell you that the computer is working on stuff, and then hit one big mouse button to play solitaire or whatever other crappy games they offered for the Mac. And there's nothing wrong with that. That statement is what took me 15 years to come to terms with. People want things to work right because they have enough other shit in their lives to worry about and enough other tasks taking up their time without having to worry about whether or not they'll get a Blue Screen of Death and have to reboot and rewrite that entire Christmas letter they just spent two hours they'll never get back on.

Now that I'm older and I have a real job and significantly less free time, I understand that. When I was a kid, I happily spent entire summers fucking with COM ports and memory allocation to make Duke Nukem 3d run well without having to listen to MIDI music. I have to admit, nowadays I get frustrated as all hell when my MLB 2005 game has a direct 3d error or locks up, because now I'm wasting my valuable free time fixing my computer, instead of enjoying it.

So, to bring things back to my original point, it is an event for me that I am excited about and thoroughly enjoying my Apple iPod. Just like the literally millions of other people out there with the same damn thing. I am now a statistic - there is absolutely nothing that distinguishes my iPod from any of the others out there. But I don't care. It is fucking awesome. Here's why:

1. It looks awesome.
2. It feels awesome - heavy enough to let you know its built decently well, but not obtrusive or bulky.
3. The interface is awesome. You push the buttons just hard enough and they immediately respond with a click and the thing does what you want it to do. Brilliant.
4. It holds ALL of my songs and still has room for more. All 98G of my songs.
5. It has games on it that don't absolutely blow.
6. It synched with my iTunes, charged, and worked perfectly the first time I used it.
7. It sounds pretty good.
8. I can manually drag and drop songs to and from it from Windows Explorer. Makes me feel like I retain a little bit of control over the damn thing.

So, call me boring or call me a bandwagoner or whatever - I've already called myself all of those things. I don't care. It is the bomb. Kudos, Steve Jobs. You did a hell of a lot better than Dell did when it tried to make an MP3 player.

And on and on and on

2008-12-23T08:37:00.004-05:00

So here we are, a full six days after my last blog post wherein I stated my jubilation that the red sox were out of the bidding for Mark Teixiera. Turns out, they aren't. Turns out, they are still the favorites. That is, if you are willing to believe Buster Olney.

I used to like Buster Olney's writing - a bit dry, but he seemed to have a pretty good grip on things. Plus, he spent two years as a beat writer following the Orioles. But the last two weeks have really made me reconsider my opinion on him; and to be frank, most reporters for the major news outlets.

It has been a kind of perfect storm around here for the last two weeks - things have been slow at work, I am enthralled by the whole Teixiera pursuit, and rumors are flying around everywhere. I have an add-on to my Firefox browser that allows me to see every update to MLB Trade Rumors as it is posted. I am following every link. I am reading every forum. For the first time, I'm putting the pieces together.

And what I've found is that none of these reporters know dick.

And yet, they will all take the same half-second blurb or soundbite or e-mail snippet and spin it in the direction that their sports editor wants them to spin it, and while they're at it, add a paragraph or two that expounds on this statement based on...well, based on horseshit, basically.

The Olney column that I linked to above is a perfect example of this. The Orioles have not made one single statement about their offer to Tex since the beginning of last week, when MacPhail said that their offer was "flexible". That's it. No leaks, no rumors, no statements, nothing. And yet, Bad-boy Buster has been making the absolute clear statement that the Orioles are completely out of the bidding. Based on what, exactly? Similarly, he has been repeating and repeating that the red sox are the 'clear' front-runners. Again, based on what, Buster? If you have inside knowledge that no one else is privy to, I'm sure that your ass would be putting in bold print at the top of your page, "according to an inside source...". But you really haven't made a statement like that.

You're going off of the same bullshit, third-hand, expired information that everyone on the Intro-net has been hashing and re-hashing for the last week. The only difference is that you work for ESPN and you have the balls to report your gut feelings and opinions as fact.

This would typically be the kind of thing to really disappoint me, but I feel as though I'm not alone in feeling this way. Baseball and sports fans in general now have access to exponentially more information than was ever available in the past, and I don't think I'm alone in coming to the realization that some of these reporters are bullshit artists of the highest order.

So anyway, don't take these reporters at their word just because they work for a big newspaper or magazine or gigantoid sports media outlet. They can be just as lazy and full of bullshit opinions as the rest of us - its just now that we can call them out on it.

omgomgomgomgomg

2008-12-19T08:18:00.002-05:00

Dateline: Thursday, Dec. 19.

Boston -

9:58pm: Red Sox owner John Henry said:

"We met with Mr. Teixeira and were very much impressed with him. After hearing about his other offers, however, it seems clear that we are not going to be a factor."

Now obviously, as a massive, undying, through-and-through, dyed-in-the-red Orioles fan, I would love to see us obtain Mark Teixeira. It would not be the end of the world, however, if we did not end up getting him. All reports are pointing to the fact that he will most likely get an 8-year contract valued at about $22mm a year. That is a lot of dough for a long time. He is an amazing player and a perfect fit for the O's, but one player is not the answer, and we really need pitching. I think if the season were to start tomorrow, the O's rotation would be:

1. Jeremy Guthrie

2. Garrett Olsen?

3. The Oriole bird

4. Ernie Tyler

5. The re-assembled corpse of Hoyt Wilhelm

ANYway, the point is that while it would not be the end of the world if Tex didn't end up in Baltimore, it would be the end of the world if he were to end up with the red sox. To have to see that guy play against us day in and day out for the team I most despise would absolutely kill me.

But now, it looks like that won't happen! Happy x-mas to moi!

Except...this is Scott Boras that we're talking about, so who knows whether or not John Henry is bluffing in calling Boras' bluff. In all likelyhood, the sox have already signed him and they are just holding off on announcing it in some sadistic plot to allow the fans of shitbag teams like the O's and the Nationals to believe that there is a glimmer of hope in the massive black hole of despair that is Major League Baseball these days.

But of course, all of this information will change in about 15 minutes from now, so whatever.

2008-12-16T10:19:00.000-05:00

I swear I'm not paranoid. I think I'm not paranoid, anyway. I suppose one of the hallmarks of being paranoid is that you're generally not aware that you're being paranoid - it has to be pointed out to you by some 'rational' colleague. But I'm pretty sure I'm not an overly paranoid kind of guy. But the fact of the matter is, I'm typing this blog entry in Windows Notepad so that I can quickly copy and paste it onto my blog page so as to minimize the chances of being caught not doing work while at work.

The way that my desk is set up is so that there is one person, let's call her 'Nindy', who sits right behind me. She pretty much has a complete view of my computer monitor at all times. There's not really a way that I can position my monitor or my body to block any portion of the screen from her view. It also so happens that she sits at her desk all day long, every day. So I'm left feeling that she is observing every key stroke and mouse click that I make throughout the day.

Now, this does border on paranoid for the following reasons:

1. I do actual work the majority of the time that I am at work.
2. She has never mentioned anything or made any sort of remark that would make me feel as though she is looking at my monitor, much less concerned that I am spending too much time writing this blog or doing whatever.
3. She isn't my boss, and wouldn't tell him, anyway.

So why do I care? I have no idea...I guess I shouldn't. But for the time being, I'm going to work the whole 'Keep Notepad open to jot down blog ideas' angle just in case.

Gotta go - she just sat down again...

Billy Speaks!

2008-12-12T16:02:00.002-05:00

Bill Ripken, in all of his glory, finally answers the great unanswered question of my childhood: who wrote 'Fuck Face' on the end of his bat before his picture was taken for this card:

http://www.cnbc.com/id/28116692

Certifiably Awesome

2008-12-12T09:50:00.002-05:00

Well, its official. I am now officially a Certified Technology Specialist. In other words, I now have documented proof that I am a giant nerd. Basically, it says that I know what the hell I'm talking about in regards to audiovisual equipment and sales. Pretty sweet, huh?

I had to take this 110 question test yesterday, which I passed with flying colors, but I had to take it at a ProMetric testing center. I realize that securely testing people is their job, but these guys are fucking serious. Not only did I have to completely empty all of my pockets and store everything in a locker, I also had to give them my fingerprints. Yeah, not just one - fingerprints from multiple fingers on each hand. They checked them and scanned them electronically on my way into and way out of the actual testing room. You know, in case I had concocted some elaborate scheme to go into the testing room, have someone there waiting for me in the air ducts to actually take the test, and then escaping out of the same air duct while the guy who took the test for me exits, pretending to be me. Or something similar to that, I guess.

Anyway, it was a very nice place, and everyone there was very nice, but it was the closest place to an FBI interrogation room that I've ever been. There were cameras everywhere, your ID was checked everywhere, and in the 'staging' room outside of the testing room, there was a massive mirrored window. Pay no attention to the massively oversized and out of place mirror behind you, sir.

So I guess that this is a ringing endorsement for ProMetric testing facilities - if you have an important test that you need to give people and you feel as though the air of a KGB secured underground bunker is the only way you can prevent people from cheating, I give them my hearty recommendation.

Now, off to go solve the world's audiovisual problems! CTS, away!!!

Moooose

2008-12-06T21:33:00.003-05:00

I love this picture. I also love Mike Mussina. Like most Orioles fans my age, I absolutely loved him, then I hated him, and now I've pretty much grown to love him again.

I feel particularly connected to Mussina in that he was the first ballplayer that I can remember actually tracking as he came through the minors. I saw him pitch at Municipal Stadium when he played for the Hagerstown Suns. I tried to get his autograph, but I missed the chance. I remember very distinctly watching his major league debut on TV. I'm told by Baseball-Reference.com that he won 7-3 in 8 innings of work over Scott Erikson and the Twins. In my mind, he threw a no-hitter against the AL All-Stars, but whatever.

So I felt as though I had a justifyable claim on Mike. He was pitching for me. He was young, cool, he kicked ass, he played for the Orioles, my team, and I felt like I was the only one who knew or cared about him. Which was entirely possible, at least in my general vicinity, as I grew up in a small town in Pennsylvania that really didn't give a crap about the Orioles at all.

I watched Mike pitch along side Gregg Olsen, Fernando Venezuela, Alan Mills, Ben McDonald, Todd Frowirth, Curt Schilling, and play along side Cal, Mike Deveroux, Brady Anderson, Harold Baines, Rafael Palmeiro, and all the rest of the Orioles throughout the heyday of my baseball-watching and playing youth. He was absolutely my favorite pitcher, and probably my second-favorite player in all of baseball.

So when he was picked up by the Yankees, I was obviously disappointed. And saddened. And a little bit hurt. But at that time, I had kinda grown away from baseball anyway. I kept track of the O's by seeing their record in the paper or whatever, but I really had grown pretty disillusioned with the sport, and I didn't really care about it any more. Cal was almost done, Brady had his steroid year and fell off the table, Jose Canseco was playing for Tampa Bay, there was a team in Tampa Bay, the Yankees won everything every year, and now my favorite player, the one guy I still actually gave a shit about, had done the unthinkable - he had become a traitor and forsaken his ties to the good people of Baltimore and gone where the money was. Fucking New York.

I remember officially dismissing baseball as soon as I found out that he had left. That was the final straw. I was going to college, my life was changing, and I didn't need that kind of bullshit anymore. Baseball was kid's stuff, anyway.

So life and baseball went on. Moose kept on pitching in his inimitable silent and crossword puzzle-completing fashion, I ironically moved to Baltimore to go to school, and I didn't think twice about baseball. For a while.

I'm not sure what it was in me that clicked, exactly, but in 2004, all of the sudden I was absolutely unapologetically head-over-heels back in love with baseball. I read every single book I could get my hands on, I played fantasy baseball, I played baseball simulations, I thought about statistics and new analysis techniques that I never knew existed in my younger days, and pretty much just immersed myself back into baseball. It helped that the first half of the summer of 2005, the Orioles had a great start and were actually looking like a real team...that didn't last long, but I was back in the fold. I'm so glad that I did - it gives me something to do when I'm at work, and something to look forward to when spring rolls around.

And so I think that its fitting that as my love for baseball has been renewed, my admiration for Mike Mussina as he is retiring has also been renewed. He is the first baseball player that I can remember fully tracking the entire arc of his career - from minors to retirement. He has been a class-act all of the way, and has held his own in an era that saw both the highest offensive output in the history of baseball and at least 5 for-sure hall-of-fame pitchers (Clemens, Johnson, Maddux, Glavine, Pedro). In another era, he may have been seen as one of the best in baseball. He stood tall amongst giants of ability and ego. He does crossword puzzles. He's a pretty cool guy.

So thanks, Mike, for hanging in there even when I didn't give a shit about baseball. Thanks for not (probably) taking steroids. Thanks for having a cool signature pitch. Thanks for hanging with Baltimore for as long as you could and not complaining, even though Albert Belle was probably a total jackass. Thanks for learning command and control after you had lost your velocity. I'm sorry I hated you for pitching for the Yankees. Secretly, I'm pretty glad you never won a World Series with them.

And good luck with that whole Hall of Fame thing. You've got my vote.

A Meta-Blog

2008-12-05T08:31:00.002-05:00

I've been doing this blog thing for about two months now...I know I don't write every day, but I've been pretty consistent and I think I'm getting better at working within the confines of the blog medium. I tend to get pretty positive comments from the 4 or 5 people who have checked out my site so far, and I happen to be of the opinion that perhaps many more people might have good things to say about my blog.

However, the only way that I can spread the word about my blog is to advertise. I've been doing some guerrilla marketing the last month or so...I have a link to the site at the bottom of all of my personal e-mails, and I try to mention it to people who might give a shit, etc. But if I really try to market it or push it on people I don't know, doesn't that shift my motivation for having this blog? I started it just to do it, write about my awesome scooter, and give myself an excuse to write. I told myself I didn't care if no one reads it.

Except, I do.

I want people to come to my blog from all over the internet and post comments and have me post back and start flame wars and have people accuse me of not knowing what the hell I'm talking about and parlay all of this buzz into a regular paid column at ESPN. Is that too much to ask?

So, who knows? In another month or so, all of my loyal fans may be forsaken for the great unwashed rabble of the general internet population. Such is the way of a crappy personal blog about anything I feel like. Time marches on. Or not. Probably not.

/wantonly self-promotes through other peoples' blogs

I Love my Car. Really.

2008-12-02T10:32:00.002-05:00

Yeah, I know, I know. This blog is supposed to be about my misadventures whilst riding my scooter through the crazy streets of Baltimore, MD. But it is December in the Northeast, and it is cold. And windy. And damp. So I've been driving my car to work. Sue me. Or pay me to write this blog and I'll write about any damn thing you want.

Now that I'm putting some serious miles on the ol' Jetta, its time to actually put some work into the girl. I've had the car for almost 3 years now, and it has not really given me any problems at all, which is pretty incredible, considering I do no maintenance outside of oil changes and occasionally cleaning the windshield. Well, some issues are finally starting to creep up on me. Here's a list of the things I need to have done or do to the car, in order of seriousness/immediacy:

- Replace front brakes
- Replace brake fluid
- Fix driver's side mirror/find the asshole that broke it and beat him/her up
- Get a new spare tire
- Replace spark plugs
- Replace fuel filter
- Check struts & shocks to see what's causing that weird clunking sound when I hit any bump in the street. Baltimore has many bumps in its streets.
- Get rid of annoying mildew smell inside
- Clean it, eventually

So its not the end of the world, but it is a bit of an investment of time and/or money. The problem is that I'm absolutely convinced that I am capable of doing all of these repairs myself. Ergo, I won't take it to the shop. Nevermind the fact that I will curse every minute that I'm fixing my damn car in the street on a cold Saturday when I should be inside curled up in front of a nice warm video game. And I'll probably spend more money trying to fix it and buying incidental tools and parts than I would just taking it to the shop.

Its not my fault - really. Blame my stepdad, who never, I mean ever, took any of my family's cars to the shop unless it was under warranty, and even then he did it with great trepidation. The only problem is that he passed on the DIY attitude to me, but since I don't have his genetic make-up, I don't have the technical ability to do the work myself. Ironic, eh?

Here's to a very dirty, cold, frustrating, and expensive weekend.

lol rotfl ctrl-1

2008-11-26T17:31:00.003-05:00

Oh my god - I really really laughed out loud and caused a disturbance at work today when I read this:

Lenny Dykstra & Curt Schilling, Dugout-style.

I laughed so hard I actually made a comment on the blog. I never comment on other people's blogs. Read now.

Main St. Sterling

2008-11-25T09:39:00.003-05:00

Yesterday I spent the day driving around Northern Virginia making sales calls, which as you can imagine, was just about the most fun I've ever had in my life. Actually, it wasn't all that bad, but the absolute highlight of the day was my stop in Sterling, VA - I had never been there before, but I was taken with it.

I'm sure that there is a 'real' section of Sterling, with a main street and houses that were built before last year, but the part of Sterling that I saw was the brilliant fake city/main street that they had built as sort of a giant outdoor mall. I've seen this type of thing before, but never to this level. The 'town' has its own streets, benches, lampposts, mailboxes, the whole nine yards - but it is all fake, and built around the franchise stores that they were able to get to move in. Plus, for good measure, there were some pre-fab cookie-cutter townhouses and condos around the 'outskirts' where people could live when they aren't getting coffee from Starbucks and shopping at Bed, Bath & Beyond.

Its all very surreal, and I guess I don't really have anything against it, except for the fact that they are trying to re-create a small-town, main street style atmosphere with the very corporations that destroyed the real small-town main streets.

In my hometown of Waynesboro, PA, we actually used to have a Main St. with real shops that people actually went to and purchased goods and services. There was a laundromat, a JC Penny, a McCrory's, a shoe store, a hardware store, a bakery, two banks, a candy store, a couple of kid's clothing stores, a library, town hall, a comic book/baseball card store, the whole nine yards. It has steadily been in decline since I was about 8, thanks to a Wal-Mart, Applebee's, and other corporate stores moving to the surrounding area, and now all that remains is a shitty Chinese restaurant and a pizza place that no one ever goes to.

I guess that's part of life and the ebb and flow of free market economies, but I feel sorry for kids that are growing up in Sterling, VA, whose only experience of a small-town main street is one that is populated by AT&T, Baja Fresh, Lowe's, and Pizzaria Uno.

Ah well. At least I still have 24.

My Vices, Part 5,743

2008-11-21T11:25:00.003-05:00

I love the TV show 24.

I should not love the TV show 24.

But I do. I relish every moment. I make it into a weekly event. I get into the plot lines. I think about it all day Monday. I go to the damn show's website. I want to be Jack Bauer. I want my daughter to be as hot as Elisha Cuthbert:

No, wait. Maybe not. That's weird.

Anyway, what is remarkable about the fact that I worship 24 (which is really not all that remarkable, considering it is one of the most popular shows on TV), is that I really don't like TV all that much. I don't really watch much TV outside of The Office, Dirty Jobs, Nova, Bizarre Foods, and baseball. And even those shows I have to Tivo because I can't stand to sit through the commercials, let alone schedule time to sit down and watch a show on their time.

But I will for 24.

Another interesting facet of this is that I really don't like action shows on TV. Mostly because they suck. I don't really watch CSI or Law & Order or NYPD Blue or Magnum PI or whatever is on these days. I like informational documentaries on everyday things. Its just like my love for non-fiction books. But man, there's nothing I like more than Jack Bauer simultaneously texting the President, defusing a bomb, and assassinating a terrorist all while having a gaping, gushing wound, not having slept for a 24 hours, and driving a huge SUV over a cliff.

It is so rediculous, it's awesome.

I guess that's it...it is so far over the top that I have to love it. Every week is an absolute manufactured cliff-hanger. You know its coming, but you watch anyway. The writers of 24 LOVE to fuck with you - giving you clues that don't mean anything, giving you long, dramatic pauses that don't lead to anything, cutting to commercial right when something awesome is about to happen. Incredible show.

So I'm going to watch it again beginning this Sunday and will give updates on this blog on Mondays.

But really I just wanted to post a picture of Elisha Cuthbert on this blog.

/oggles

The Flame Will Always Burn

2008-11-19T20:10:00.002-05:00

Well, I guess you can't win every battle.

For the very few of you out there who actually read this blog, also read www.firejoemorgan.com, and care, you'll probably already know this, and for the rest of you, you're arriving at the party just a tad too late. My second-favorite website in the world, Fire Joe Morgan, is officially calling it quits.

I have to say that I saw this coming, as their posts had become less and less frequent over the last couple of months, and hey, the writers are real people with real jobs and I guess kids and b.s. like that. It makes me really, really sad, though...this means the end of one of the two websites that could actually get me to laugh out loud. Not just a chuckle, or a smile, or a 'mmmthatsfunny', but a god-honest out-loud laugh.

They got it. They said the things that I wishwishwish I was eloquent enough to say in this blog. They wrote the way I wanted to write. They found the same things stupid that I did, for the same reasons. They cared about punctuation, spelling, and grammar. They talked about baseball, and the things that I really, really like about baseball.

In my mind, I can't write well enough to even be allowed to write about them on my own blog - I feel as though I am discrediting them in some way due to my....ummm....suckiness as writer-guy? So, since I can't say enough or the right things or in the right way about them, do yourself a favor and check out some of my favorite posts.

http://www.firejoemorgan.com/2008/09/holy-cow-does-jon-heyman-hate-vorp.html

http://www.firejoemorgan.com/2008/07/time-magazine-is-not-source-for-correct.html

http://www.firejoemorgan.com/2008/07/turdclump.html

See?? I can't even do that right...there have been so many incredibly incredible posts at that site that I was having trouble remembering specific ones, so I just worked backwards from the last post. Then, I got distracted by some of the posts and I had to read them over again, and laugh, again, and then I got bored and now all that you have are three 'okay' posts that are supposed to represent A WEBSITE THAT MEANS MORE TO ME THAN MY LEFT HAND.

I'm sorry guys, I really am. Go read for yourself.

Mmmm...Capitalism

2008-11-17T07:57:00.003-05:00

I like Starbucks. There. I said it. What? You don't?

I don't particularly relish in the fact that I like Starbucks, but hey, at least I'm not alone. From what I hear, its a fairly popular brand. Yeah, they are a mega-corporation, and an icon of the best and the worst that capitalism offers:

Good: Great-tasting coffee at fairly reasonable prices (even though admittedly they made the American consumer okay with the concept of a $4 cup of coffee).
Bad: Thousands upon thousands of chain stores moving into target markets and running smaller, locally-owned stores out of business. Good: A corporate image that attempts to reflect care for the environment, communities, and its employees.
Bad: Allegedly establishing monopolies in certain communities and artificially raising prices due to lack of competition
Good: Starbucks Doubleshot on Ice
Bad: Pike's Place Roast

Ugh. Pike's Place Roast. Beginning last year, Starbucks started offering this "new, special blend" in an attempt to cater to the Dunkin' Donuts crowd. In other words, they started brewing cheap gas station coffee. Now don't get me wrong, I love me some cheap gas station coffee when I'm in the mood, but I come to Starbucks for a cup of coffee that at least has the pretension of tasting better than that. If I'm going to lower myself to visit a Starbucks, I might as well get a cup of coffee that makes it worth my time.

It wouldn't be so bad except for the fact that they apparently have attempted to make it their brew of choice - if you just walk in and ask for a coffee, they'll give you Pike's Place. All of the pound bags of coffee laying around for sale are Pike's Place. All of the in-store ads are for Pike's Place. This has gone on for about a year now, but I think the seams are starting to wear a bit.

Nearly every time that I've walked into a Starbucks and asked for a "any medium coffee that isn't Pike's Place," I've been met with a knowing smile from the barista. Sometimes, as happened yesterday, they will actually acknowledge that they hate the stuff or that it tastes like crap. And sometimes, like yesterday, they actually say,

"Yeah, I hear its going to be phased out here pretty soon."

yayyy

Oh, Hell Yes

2008-11-12T12:55:00.000-05:00

'nuff said.

Ahh, the Year in Review

2008-11-12T08:18:00.002-05:00

Time: Longer than usual because I had to run back upstairs to get my scooter keys when I went outside this morning and found that it wasn't -50 degrees outside

Miles: 879

I'm a huge fan of FanGraphs.com - its a great site that has a lot of people who are much smarter than me discussing baseball topics that I'm typically really into. I'm also a huge fan of the Baltimore Orioles (NEW UNIFORMS COMING TODAY!!!). So I've been waiting with baited breath for FanGraphs to finally write the Year in Review for the Orioles. And they finally did.

blah.

I don't really know what I was expecting - I mean, they hit all of the nails collectively on their respective heads, but I think the review was a bit more dismal than it needed to be. But I'm used to it by now...somehow in the past 10 years or so, Baltimore has consistently received this kind of treatment, and with good reason. I think it was the worst in the beginning of 2005, when the Orioles looked like legitimate contenders before it was discovered that Miguel Tejada was injecting Jay Gibbons' and Rafael Palmeiro's love child with anthrax, or whatever. There was close to zero coverage of the team, and what coverage there was of "when the wheels were going to fall off" (which they did), "when the yankees would turn it around" (which they did), "red sox because boston", and "yankees yankees red sox Ortiz Jeter Jeter yankees courage red sox gamer gritty Jeter A-rod sux red sox yankees".

But I mean...read the article. The guy's name is Melvin Mora, not Melvin More. The top catching prospect in the game, if not the top prospect in the game's name is spelled Wieters, not Weiters.

I know, its just me being petty and picking on them for telling me that my team sucks. But....dude...I mean....c'mon...dude. And plus, Aubrey Huff is going to repeat his numbers from this year, so we're in good shape, right? Right??

/has faith in Baltimore
/responds to e-mail stating that he won $1,000,000
/falls for other such nonsense

Annoyances, part 523

2008-11-07T10:31:00.003-05:00

Time: 20 minutes
Miles: I keep forgetting to check when I come in...I think 860?

If there is one thing that annoys me, and in fact many, many, many things annoy me, it is people who honk their horns immediately after a light turns green when they are five cars back in a line.

This happened this morning when I was turning onto MLK. There is always a lot of traffic, and typically when the light turns green to cross MLK, there are still some cars in the intersection turning left or just sitting there or whatever. That was the case this morning, and I swear 5 seconds after the light turned green this guy behind me starts to honk. I'm the 5th vehicle in line, so he's the 6th.

What the hell is he thinking, and what the hell is he trying to accomplish? Does he really think that we're all just sitting there in front of him, looking at a green light, and thinking, "Gosh, I know I'm supposed to do something here, but what?" I can understand his frustration, lord knows, but a. I believe you should wait at least 10 seconds before honking, and then you may do so politely, and b. the honker should be the person directly behind the person that isn't moving.

I mean, really...anyone who is on the road at 7:30 in the morning is either on their way to work or on their way back home from work. Either way, it is safe to say that the only thing on everyone's mind is, "God I fucking hate traffic. Even my shitty job is better than this. At least I can play Boggle online at work." So I feel that everyone can rest assured that us morning commuters are ALL IN THIS TOGETHER.

We should not fight or jockey for position, or drive exceedingly slowly or pass people on the right out of frustration.

We should not block intersections after your light turns red.

We should not cut off or ride up on the butt of the sexy man on the scooter in front of you.

And possibly most importantly, we should not honk at a line of cars immediately after a red light turns green.

In the face of economic turmoil and strife rampant throughout the world, we must UNITE, brothers!! Only together can we combat morning road rage! YES, WE CAN!! YES, WE CAN!!

/weeps profusely

Circumnavigating the Mega-corporation Seas

2008-11-05T13:45:00.001-05:00

So I’m trying to sell some of my crappy guitars on eBay, and to do that I had to update my PayPal account. I don’t know if you’ve ever fucked around with PayPal, but they are the most anal-retentive security-laden company in the world. Every time I’ve ever had to update anything on my account, it has involved them sending me a hard copy letter to my parent’s house in PA and then me doing about 12 levels of security verification.

Anyway, I haven’t used eBay or PayPal in a long time, and when I tried to update my account today, it told me that I had to call in. So I did, and waited on hold for 20 minutes and then talked to an account representative, who asked me my first and last name.

“John Rossman”

“Okay, Mr. Rossman, what can I do for you today?”

“I would like to update the phone number associated with my account.”

“I’m sorry sir, but only the owner of the account can update that information.”

“But I am the owner.”

“No, I’m sorry, the name that is listed on the account is different than the name you provided.”

“What do you mean? What is the name on the account?”

“I’m sorry, but I can’t give you that information.”

“Oh, I know, I know…its listed under ‘Jay’ Rossman. Don’t worry – that’s me.”

“I’m sorry, but I can only let the name listed on the account update the profile.”

“But that’s me! I’m Jay Rossman!”

“That’s not the name that you provided me when I asked what your name was.”

“That’s my nickname! I am Jay Rossman! I am John Rossman! We are the same person! It is I!”

“I’m sorry, but I can only let the name listed on the account update the profile.”

“So let me get this straight: you can’t let me update the phone number on my profile because I said initially that my name was John and the name on the profile is Jay?”

“That is correct.”

“Okay, then I will just hang up, call again, and tell the next person that my name is Jay. Which it is.”

“………………………………”

“I’m sorry, but I can only let the name listed on the acco…”

*click*

Needless to say, 20 minutes later I updated Jay Rossman’s information. What fun!

Shameless Self-promotion

2008-11-04T17:29:00.001-05:00

To anyone who hasn't seen it yet:

Good Company

2008-11-03T08:44:00.002-05:00

Time: Didn't feel like it, but 22 minutes
Miles: 847

It was another gorgeous morning today and I was able to break out the scooter for what I feel will be the last couple rides for the season. She roared to life this morning - started right up - and acted like she was mad at me for not using her for the last week. Great ride, no complaints, all was right with the world.

Until I pulled into work.

I got off of my scooter and turned around, and the scooter that I had noticed was coming up behind me on the road was now whipping around the corner and coming right at me. The very large man behind the handlebars stopped quickly and launched into a Bawl'mer accent-laden tirade about how great these scooter things are and where did you get it I bet you went up to Towson yeah I wanted to get mine there but I didn't and how much did you pay for it and make sure you lock that thing up because the little black boys will steal them before you know what happened and see mine is a Yamaha but they're probably the same engine and how long have you had it and make sure you lock that thing up etc.

Now, I realize the guy is just being friendly and was excited to see a fellow enthusiast, but my GOD did this guy go on and on and on. I couldn't get a word in edge-wise, even if I had actually wanted to. I did the whole walk backwards away from him so that he would get the message that I needed to go thing at least three times, to no avail. So finally I just said, "Welp, take it easy," and turned around and walked into work. He drove off.

What's my point? No point. I love my scooter, but sometimes the whole "talking shop" thing gets a bit old. Of course, I am an ass, so its probably just me.

Cheating Just a Bit

2008-10-31T10:51:00.004-04:00

I don't really have anything for you today...it was a late night last night. So here's a picture of my cat:
This blog stuff sure is tough work...

/wipes brow

What We Need In This Series is Another Delay

2008-10-29T08:06:00.002-04:00

A humble apology to all of my loyal fans for the lack of updates recently...Truth be told, I haven't been riding my scooter this week due to rainy/cold/hellish weather and the need for me to travel to far off, distant places like Fairfax, VA. I will also be quite honest with you. Its getting REALLY cold in the mornings. I'll leave it at that for right now.

In case you don't pay attention to, well, anything, Obama will be delaying the start of tonight's pivotal Game 5 by 15 minutes to offer you the fast way to rock-hard abs. Well, maybe not.

I think its funny that McCain criticized the move by saying, "Well, I can tell you one thing, we won't be delaying the start of a baseball game with infomercials when I'm president," because, A) he probably will, and B) Obama fans don't like baseball anyway. They like playing Halo 3, foosball, fantasy football, and writing pointless blogs that no one reads!

/wallows in self-pity

Bradford-1000

2008-10-26T00:10:00.004-04:00

Seeing Chad Bradford warming up during the 6th inning of tonight's game reminds me of the time that my friend Lea (not the biggest baseball fan in the world), upon seeing Bradford when he pitched for the Orioles, asked me,

Lea: "Is that legal?"
Me: /looks up from nerdy baseball scoresheet, pushes glasses up nose
"Is what legal?"
Lea: "That pitcher - is the pitch allowed to hit the ground before it gets to the batter?"
Me: "Um, yeah, but it would be a ball."
Lea: "Right, but that last pitch was a strike."
Me: "Yeah, but it didn't hit the ground."
Lea: "Yes it did - that pitcher bounced his pitch off of the mound and somehow aimed it at the strike zone. I didn't think that was legal."
Me: "yeah baseball is weird..."
/returns to scoring game without explaining that Bradford-1000 is an extreme submarine pitcher whose pitching arm almost scrapes the mound, creating the illusion, to those who have never seen such a thing, that he is bouncing the baseball off of the pitching mound
Lea: ermahgawd i need sum boogs bbq

2008-10-24T08:25:00.003-04:00

Time: 25 minutes, because I got stuck behind this grain elevator/conveyor belt on wheels
Miles: Forgot to check...something like 817?

So I have to say that I am absolutely loving this World Series. I haven't really been able to get a feel from anybody else, though. I feel as though baseball fans should enjoy the matchup, but I also can understand why people who don't give a shit about baseball would continue to not give a shit about this.

But I'm absolutely loving it...a series that's tied up at 1-1 going to Philadelphia, two close games, two fairly evenly matched teams, no blowouts. You can feel it going to 7 games.

However I also know that this will be the World Series that people look back on and say, "Yeah, the red sox won it in '04 and '07...they were still really really good going into '08. Who the hell played in the series that year? I know Tampa Bay won one back around that period...was that it? Who the hell did they play? The Phillies? Are you kidding me? I don't even remember that. What the hell is an Iwamura?"

So I'm lapping it up while I can before next year, when Bud Selig will find some way to have the red sox play the yankees AND the Mets in the World Series, so we can have a glorious return to the Tim McCarver the way we all know him best: shoved lovingly up Derek Jeter's ass.

Nevermind

2008-10-22T20:20:00.000-04:00

The Backstreet Boys (4 out of 5) to sing the National Anthem for Game 1????? Are you shitting me???

Sorry Tampa Bay, this doesn't bode well for you.

And one of the wireless mics keeps cutting out...as if anything could make this performance more annoying.

Wow.

2008-10-22T20:00:00.002-04:00

Well, I'm about to start watching the 2008 World Series. Here are a couple of things that I never, ever, ever, ever thought that I would say:

1. The Tampa Bay Rays are in the World Series.
2. The Tampa Bay Rays have a legitimately good shot at winning it all.
3. Its kinda cool that the World Series is being played in the dome.
4. The Orioles now have to compete with Tampa Bay, along with boston and new york. Toronto is pretty fucking good, too.
5. I'm rooting for TAMPA freaking BAY in the WORLD SERIES

/head explodes

I'm really excited about the series, as I feel most real baseball fans are. Its a great matchup, neither the yankees nor the red sox are involved, and both teams are fairly young (although Jamie Moyer kinda skews the Phillies' average) so this could be a sign of a changing of the guard. In fact, I feel like the entire 2008 season has kinda been a harbinger of things to come.

- For the first time in a while, the yankees looked really old, and were never really a threat
- Homerun totals are down, stolen bases and doubles are up
- The entire year felt like a year for the youngin's: Lincecum, Hanley Ramirez, pedroia, David Price, Volquez, Longoria, Alexi Ramirez, Geovanny Soto...
- The NL is slowly getting better

Anyway, I love this game. And there's always next year for the Orioles, right?

/cries single tear

Truth Conquers All

2008-10-22T07:59:00.004-04:00

Time: 18 minutes
Mileage: 802.3

You know those little Christian fish insignias that people like to put on the back of their cars? Those things are fine by me - whatever you want to put on the back of your car, I suppose. And then they advanced to feature the word "Truth" in the middle of it - also fine. A bit more forceful, but still fine. And then some hippie came out with the little fish with legs on it that said "Darwin". I liked that one. And then some hippie came out with the fish with legs on it that said "Darwin" that was eating the Christian fish that said "Truth". So you know where the logical conclusion for all of this lies:

I saw one of these on a car that was in front of me this morning, and in between cursing at the biting cold and trying not to hit any black ice, it occurred to me that this particular iteration of the fish bumper thingy might not be relaying the correct message for its intended audience.

To wit:

The bumper thingy where the Darwin fish is eating the Truth fish is (I believe) intending to make the joke that not only has the fish evolved and grown legs, but it is fulfilling Darwin's theory that the most well-adapted species will thrive over those not so well-adapted.

So when the Truth fish eats the Darwin fish...aren't the Christians kinda proving the hippies' point? I'm not totally sure how an animal with no eyes, no fins, no visible means of locomotion is better adapted for the rugged environment of being glued to the back of a Saturn, but it appears as though that is one tough fish.

And if that isn't the case, then what are we to assume? That the Truth fish was not truly superior to the Darwin fish, it was just really really hungry and got kinda lucky?

I dunno, but I think any of these would be a preferable alternative:

We Have Been Released

2008-10-20T12:03:00.003-04:00

Note that in the middle of the 8th inning, after David Price struck out JD Drew with the bases loaded, I actually made the promise to myself that if the red sox came back to win the game, I would become a Boston fan.

News update: They didn't!

While I'm at It...

2008-10-17T11:44:00.001-04:00

From Craig Calcaterra at Shysterball, who is pretty much the inspiration for this blog: Why We Blog.

More Joe

2008-10-17T09:56:00.002-04:00

I think I'm just going to turn this blog into a re-direct site to Joe Posnanski's blog.

Brilliant stuff from the man:

Then, I worked for numerous hours on this book I may have mentioned that I’m working on, and then I came home to watch the debate/Dodgers-Phillies game. What I wanted to do was watch them both at more or less the same time, switching back and forth so that one minute I’m watching Shane Victorino strike out swinging, then I watch John McCain talk to Joe the Plumber, then I watch Barack Obama talk to Joe the Plumber then I watch Rafael Furcal ground out to second, then I hear Tim McCarver go through all sorts of verbal contortions to make the point that it was fitting that Shane Victorino ran into the Best Buy sign because he was the Phillies’ best buy in a long time, then more Joe the Plumber talk*.
*Man, seriously, I know it’s hard to get a plumber on short notice these days, but all this talk about Joe the Plumber seemed a bit excessive to me. Of course, once they got going with it, I wish they would have kept going with it.

McCain: “Joe the Plumber, I wanna tell you, I’ll not only help you buy that business you worked your whole life for, I’ll keep your taxes low.”
Schieffer: “Would you like to respond Senator Obama?”
Obama: “I would. I’d like to say a quick word out there to Stan the Cable guy. Stan, my DVR is not working properly. I don’t know, I left the house, and Michelle was messing with it, and well, now it’s not recording anything. I know I will need a new DVR, but — and this is important, now — I have some Bears games on there already, and I’m hoping that I can still salvage those. I have not seen them yet. And I will keep your taxes low because you’re not stinking rich like Joe the Plumber.”
Schieffer: “OK, let’s move on …”
McCain: No, wait, I feel I must have a chance to respond. I would like to say something to Lisa the Maid, you know, I seem to have lost the remote control for the television. I’m not blaming you, I think that I left it in the couch or something after I watched the Cardinals beat the Cowboys the other day …
Obama: I saw that.
McCain: … but anyway, I can’t find it now. And we have that kind of TV that you can’t turn it on or off without the remote control, which I think is stupid, and I know how to fix it, and I will fix it my friends.
Obama: Senator McCain is right, we do need to fix these televisions that require a remote control to turn on and off. But if I may, Bob, I would like to say one thing to Jake and Cindy, who are supposed to mow my lawn this week. Kids, you need to edge. You really do.
Schieffer: Fine. Next question is to you Senator McCain. Why is your Health Care plan better than his?
McCain: One last thing, Joe the Plumber. I keep shaking the little flusher lever, but the toilet keeps on running.

Now you know

2008-10-17T08:26:00.003-04:00

Time: 16 bitter, hatred-filled minutes
Miles: 762

So now, I hope, you all know why I hate the red sox as much as I do. There are so many, many, many things that I absolutely loathe about that team. Almost too many to enumerate, but here's a couple more reasons I hate postseason baseball (and by that I mean I love postseason baseball) with the red sox in it:

1. How Chip Carey (and really the rest of the broadcast crew) is so fucking far up Dustin Pedroia's ass, because he's such a gutty gritty grinder hustle never stops overcomes obstacles lots of fight in him white guy.
2. How Chip Carey (and really the rest of the broadcast crew) is so fucking far up the red sox's ass because of their never-say-die attitude and the "magic" of fenway park and how dirty all of their helmets are.
3. I hate how TBS absolutely loves immediately going to a shot of a dejected Tampa Bay fan as soon as anything goes wrong...it rubs salt in the wound kinda like how my girlfriend makes this "uh-oh..." sound under her breath when anything goes right for the sox. Love you!
4. I hate how Coco Crisp and Kevin Youklis and Pedroia and f*ing Jed Lowrie can foul off a million pitches until they get a pitch to hit.
5. I hate how rattled Dan Wheeler got in the 7th and that it just played into the red sox fans hand.
6. I really hate JD Drew's face.
7. I hate how David Ortiz, who couldn't hit the side of his face to slap himself in the first four games, suddenly shows up and hits the biggest homerun of the series so far.
8. I hate how Pedroia's hit to start the rally had to come with two strikes and two outs, thereby ensuring his "legendary" status in this "legendary" come-from-behind-against-all-odds win.
9. I hate that stupid Dirty Water song.
10. I hate Wally, the Green Monster.
11. I hate how I *knew* the red sox would eventually win this game, somehow, even in the first inning.
12. I hate it when I'm right about that.

In short, I hate the red sox because they are a really, really good team. They do the right things well. They make pitchers work and don't typically give cheap outs. They play good defense. They don't lie down, even down 7-0 in the 7th, facing elimination.

13. I hate that they just made me say that.

All of that being said, however, I still have to defer to Joe Posnanski - great journalist out in KC who has a fantastically awesome blog - to provide the summation of the game...PLEASE check it out.

Go Rays!1

Muzak Rules

2008-10-16T13:30:00.002-04:00

For what its worth, I think that its worth mentioning that I'm sitting in the lounge of a Marriott Hotel typing this while "The Way That You Are" by Smashmouth, the muzak version, is being piped over the background music system.

I'd like to hear how the decision to record a minor Smashmouth hit came down from the bigwigs at Muzak:

Bigwig 1: Well, gentlemen, thank you all for coming. As we all know, Muzak, Inc. continues to be the leading seller of crappy instrumental background music across the globe. However, thanks to this shaky economy and general unease throughout the marketplace, we must firm up our footholds where ever we can.

Bigwig 2: You mean by targeting commercial locations that are likely to attract clientele that prefer our version of lite instrumental pop hits from the 70s and 80s?

BW 1: no dumbass by recording new Smashmouth tunes

BW 2: Oh yes, of course.

BW 1: Smashmouth fans are the new versions of the nebulous consumers of our product that we have always tried to target - they are Carpenters fans transplanted to today's fast-paced world. If they like Smashmouth, it is likely that their fathers and/or mothers were big fans of Jackson Browne back in the day.

BW 2: I see now! I can't wait to brainstorm other similar contemporary artists that also fit the bill...The Goo-Goo Dolls...Sister Hazel...umm...uhh...whos that black chick who looks like hermes from futurama

BW 3: Tracy Chapman. Perfect.

Traitor!

2008-10-15T07:42:00.003-04:00

Time: Like 10 minutes
Miles: 69,097

Okay, okay. Yeah, I took my car to work today, on a beautiful 70-degree October day. Its a little bit irritating that I couldn't take my scooter today, actually - the reason is that I have to go pick up my suit from the cleaners. You wouldn't think that such an insignificant task would have such a significant impact on my travel decisions for the day, but these are the things you have to think about when you take on the mantle of a scooter rider. Heavy is the head who wears the crown.

It also occurred to me how crazy I am: I actually got to work early today to a. update my blog, and b. play freaking Bridge on my computer. Yet again I prove the fact that I am a 75 year old woman in a 20-something man's body.

To my legions of fans: sorry about the lack of updates - I'll get back on it.

Go Rays! Beat Boston's sorry ass one more time in their home court and watch all the Joe bandwagon fans stop rooting for them!

Magic, Magic, Rays Magic!

2008-10-12T10:49:00.003-04:00

There's something happening here...~!

Alright, enough with the corny ripoff of the Orioles Magic song from the 80's. Lets get down to the business of the fact that the Rays are not going to lay down, bite their pillow, and accept wuts cumming to them in this ALCS. I loved last night's game, and I love the fact that the red sox just might get beat by stinkin' Tampa Bay. However, as a devout Orioles fan, I have to accept this with more than just a little trepidation, as the ascendency of the Rays this year means that there is yet another strong team in the AL East. Why couldn't this have been the Nat's year?

But enough about me being selfish. Notes on last night's game:

- I think last night was the kind of game that baseball fans love and that non-baseball fans hate. I was literally on the edge of my seat almost the entire night. And rooting for Tampa Bay. /slaps self

- It is only a matter of time before David Ortiz starts hitting the ball like he can and not like the third grader he looks like right now. I can only hope that when that happens somehow Dustin Pedroia, Kevin Youklis, and Jason Bay have all been swallowed up by some sort of intra-space wormhole that prevents them from ever playing baseball, or existing in this realm again. Or that they stop hitting as well as they are. Whichever.

- Hilarious moment when Chip Carey mentioned that he wanted to see someone hit a home run into the Manta Ray tank out in left field. The camera showed a shot of the tank, and not only was no one anywhere near it, but it also appeared as though all the rays had gone home for the evening.

- I knew it was a bad idea to leave Chad Bradford out for a third inning. I mean, during his tenure as an Oriole, Perlozzo and Trembley would never let him throw more than about two pitches before taking him out for Jamie Walker, lest a left-hander come anywhere near home plate - at which point I had assumed that Bradford-1000 would self-destruct or enter anti-virus protection mode or something. Good to know I was right.

- I wish EA Sports would create and market a game that consisted of you, the batter, trying to do nothing but hit line drives straight at Jonathan Papelbon's arm. I would definitely download that torrent.

Time for a blueberry waffle or two. Go Rays!

/slaps self

The Best of the Best

2008-10-09T08:22:00.005-04:00

Time: 17 minutes
Mileage: 718.something

So I've lived in Baltimore more almost 7 years now, and if there is one thing that Baltimore city drivers (and scooterists) will tell you about driving in the city is that we have most likely the most FUBAR, illogical, under-maintained traffic light system in the country. Now I know that's a bold claim, but you spend 20 minutes getting down MLK Boulevard at 1 AM with no traffic, and you tell me you don't agree.

The problem is not so much with placement as it is with timing. I truly believe that back in olden days when people drove Cadillacs with huge fins on the back and everyone listened to the Beach Boys, some city traffic coordinator set the timing for the lights, most likely while drunk, and then sat back and said, "Whelp, that should do it for the next 70 years or so." I've never seen a badly timed traffic light be changed since I've been here, and I don't think I ever will. It just goes on and on - most Baltimoreans have simply taken it for granted by this point.

Anyway, I thought I'd share with you a couple of my personal faves:

#1 Worst Light Ever in the History of Timing Things Award:
South Caton Ave. @ Joh & Georgetown Roads, SW Baltimore/Arbutus

View Larger Map

This little bundle of joy has been a thorn in my side for as long as I can remember. I practice with my band right down the street from this intersection, and if I want to take I-95 to practice, I have to sit through this light. And when I say sit, I mean sit. I shit you not - the actual cycle time of this light is 2 1/2 minutes from red to green. Here's how it goes:

1. N/S bound traffic on Caton Ave.
2. East-bound traffic from Joh Ave.
3. West-bound traffic from Georgetown Ave.
4. Left-hand turning traffic on Caton Ave.
5. N/S bound traffic on Caton Ave.

Now, you may be saying to yourself that that doesn't look too bad, but here's the kicker: there is never any traffic on Joh or Georgetown Ave. Never. Look at the satellite map - the only thing down Joh Ave. is the emissions inspection station and ITT Tech, and the only thing down Georgetown Ave. is nothing. So you find yourself sitting on Caton Ave. for 2 1/2 minutes while the lights cycle and no one is moving anywhere. If you think I'm being petty, give it a try for yourself. Enjoy!

#2 Worst Light in Baltimore at Least Award:
MLK @ Howard St.

View Larger Map

I know what you're saying to yourself: "How could that absolute cluster-fuck of an intersection provide any problem to anyone at any time?" I hear you. And here's the thing - it doesn't have to be!!!! The first problem is that at this point MLK goes from being a four-lane road to a two-lane road. Problem 2: there are always double-length buses turning left from Eutaw St. onto MLK that block the intersection. Problem 3: there is a light for the crosswalk inbetween Eutaw and Howard Sts. that will stay red for seemingly forever while the light in front of it is green. As soon as the crosswalk light turns green....you guessed it, the light at Howard St. turns red. Yeah, that sounds like the kind of thing you want to have at an already crowded and complicated intersection at the end of the busiest street in Baltimore.

Alright, I'm done now. I'll try to take some pictures of these lovelies the next time I'm stuck in traffic.

Jack Frost is a Douchebag

2008-10-08T08:11:00.003-04:00

Time: 17 minutes

Mileage: 707

So the question I've been asked the most recently is - "Hey, its getting cold. When are you going to stop riding your scooter to work?". And the truth is, I don't really have an answer just yet.

The pride part of me wants to think that I'll be able to ride it all winter long, but I'm sure I'll have to take a couple days off if there is snow on the ground at least. I can say definitively that as of right now, the temperature still has a ways to fall before I put the scooter away for the winter.

I forgot to wear my gloves this morning, however - that was a bit unpleasant.

Mmmmmm

2008-10-07T18:30:00.004-04:00

...I mean, that just kind of speaks for itself, doesn't it?

Reason #5,231 that my girlfriend is the best person in the entire world (tm): She's bringing over Arby's tonight for us to dine on.

Yeah, that's right...a roast beef and cheddar is on its way to my doorstep, delivered by a beautiful woman. Curly fries may come into the picture at some point in the evening.

I'd break out the good china, but I'm afraid the horsey sauce might stick.

Not Exactly What I Need Right Now

2008-10-06T08:21:00.004-04:00

Time: Forgot to keep track, but I got to work before 8

Mileage: 682

Go Angels! Ah? Ah? Anybody? That game was fantastic last night, even though K-Rod's 9th inning...dramatics...drove me absolutely up the wall. I mean, dude completely falls off the mound and crumples to the ground whenever he throws a breaking ball or his Fossum Flop or whatever got people out during the regular season. Thats all well and good when he's striking people out, but when he can't finish the deal on an 0 and 2 count and stupid, stupid Kevin Youklis is battling it out with him, the whole falling down thing just looks dumb.

The most satisfying part of the evening, for me, was watching David Ortiz be pretty much useless all night long. I can't tell you how many times that guy has broken my heart, and to see him whiff with a runner on in the 5th (or whenever) was the undisputed highlight of my Sunday.

Sorry, babe. Love you!

Anyway, onto the subject of the blog, which has to do with the health of my scooter. It has an electric start, but lately when I hit it, instead of the starter catching and the thing roaring to life, I just hear the sound of what I assume to be the starter whirring. And nothing happens. And then I try again, and the same thing happens. So the next part is that I try a whole bunch of variables out, such as rocking the scooter back and forth, holding the brakes tighter, revving the engine while I hit the starter, rocking the scooter back and forth, cursing, stopping, catching my breath, hitting it again, cursing, rocking the scooter back and forth...

And then it will just start. I have no idea what is causing this, but it is irritating the shit out of me. Also of note: it only does it when I try to start it cold. If the engine is warm, it doesn't happen.

Well? Anybody? Suggestions?

I Can't Even Follow My Own Rules

2008-10-04T00:27:00.002-04:00

Well, this certainly didn't take very long - a post not at all related to scooters or Baltimore or streets or anything that I said I'd talk about.

This is all about how frustrating the baseball post-season has been for me for the past couple of years. I'm sitting here watching the red sox lead the Angels 5-3 in the 7th inning in game 2. I know what will happen, though...even if the Angels manage a rally, fucking David Ortiz or that perdroida guy will put the sox back in the lead and then papelfuck will come out and do his little jig and the red sox will win again.

If its not the red sox, its the yankees. And what's more, baseball, the hideous bitch-goddess that it is, has gone so far as to not only torment me by having the red sox and the yankees always win, it sees to it that any team that I have so much as a minute rooting interest in will lose, in spectacular fashion.

The Cubs, this year.
The Angels, this year. (Admittedly, this is because they are pitted against the red sox again in the first round)
The Brewers, this year.
The Diamondbacks, last year.
The Twins, last year.
The Padres, last year.
The Mets, last year.

I will readily admit that the TBRays are an exception this year so far, but keep in mind that this is only the second game of the Divisional Series - they still have plenty of time to lose, eventually, to the red sox.

Oh yeah, and since I'm bitching about the post-season, Frank Caliendo has officially worn out his welcome. That McCain impression is fucking terrible.