To Fuss is Human, To Rant, Divine!!

Walken

2010-06-24T00:50:00.009-04:00

This baseball season has already seen some incredible pitching, both in single-game performances and overall numbers to date.

There have been 2.97 perfect games this year, an astounding number considering that there had only been 15 in the modern era of baseball before this year.

There has been Ubaldo Jimenez, who threw a no hitter earlier this year, and whose overall numbers have made some wonder if he could make a run at Bob Gibson's record 1.12 ERA, set in 1968. That quest saw a sizable setback yesterday, as Jimenez gave up 6 earned runs against the Braves, raising his ERA to 1.60.

And of course, there has been Stephen Strasburg, who sets strikeout records every time he takes the mound.

It may be time though, to start watching Cliff Lee, who is flying under the radar this season because he didn't make his first start until the end of April. In fact, one might argue he's been flying under the radar since last post-season: the Phillies may have lost the series, but Lee did throw an absolute gem of a complete game in Game 1 - in fact, using Bill James's Game Score metric, it was the 9th best post-season performance since the mound was lowered in 1969.

And heck, the biggest news regarding Lee these days are probably the trade rumors (Cliff, the Mets welcome you with open arms).

After his complete game tonight against the Cubs, Lee's numbers to date this year might draw comparisons to his Cy Young campaign in 2008. Especially notable is the fact that after 86 and 2/3 innings pitched, Lee has 6 wins to show for it, and has walked 4 batters. People are starting to notice.

For those wondering, and really, it might just be me, pitchers don't often win more games in a season than they walk batters. It has happened once since 1919. The last player to do it was Bret Saberhagen, who won 14 games and walked 13 batters in 1994 for the New York Mets (as an aside, given the tendency these days to coddle young pitchers and limit their innings, it's fascinating to take a glance at Saberhagen's early years at Kansas City and wonder).

And it's not too early to start wondering if Lee can do it, either. In 2005, TWO pitchers on the Twins (Brad Radke and Carlos Silva) at one point in June had more wins than walks. And while Radke ended up losing his pace and walked a whopping 23 batters in his 200 innings pitched, Silva kept up his miserly walk rate the entire season, finishing with 9 walks in 188 innings pitched. Unfortunately for him, the Twins that year were dead last in runs scored in the AL, and Silva only won nine games.

And about as unfortunately for Lee, the Seattle Mariners are currently second to last in the AL in runs scored, ahead of only the Baltimore Orioles, who are looking to set some history by having the worst year ever for their storied franchise. So Lee will not be able to count on much run support. Nevertheless, ground-ball pitchers who don't give up many home runs, who strike out almost a batter an inning, and who give up fewer walks in a month than most pitchers do in a game tend to help their own cause pretty well. It's worth keeping an eye on.

Laziness

2008-10-19T17:09:00.006-04:00

I'm not sure why Roger Ebert would watch exactly 8 minutes and 5 seconds of a movie, decide that it stinks, give it a one-star rating, and then write a full review of the movie as if he's seen the entire movie, only disclosing in the last paragraph of the review that he barely watched it, and that oh, wait, this review only pertains to the first eight minutes of the movie. He even criticizes a cameo appearance, but the only reason he knows that there was a cameo appearance at all was by researching the film on IMDB (he confesses this at the end of the review).

Is this acceptable at all? Even if he uses the fact that he watched 8 minutes of a movie as a device to criticize the movie (he finds a lot of things wrong about the movie from the first 8 minutes, it seems), I think the basic assumption readers have of a critic is that they have experienced that which they criticize. That assumption informs the way the reader reads. And the way Ebert wrote the majority of the review does nothing to discourage this assumption.

In fact, his criticism of "Cameo Appearances" was not validated at all by the 8 minutes he saw, as the cameo appearance apparently takes place later in the film. In other words, he inflates his criticism of the eight minutes of the movie by criticizing a portion of the movie he never sees. This only serves to reinforce the reader's assumption that Ebert actually saw the entire movie.

Ebert posted about his own review on his blog and it has generated over 300 comments. It might be argued that the movie is just some indie film and a critic as well-known as Ebert has other movies to be concerned about. But isn't this about the biggest disservice anyone could give to a small-budget indie film? It's one thing to refuse to review an indie movie. It's another thing entirely to pretend to review it, give it a bad review, and confess that it wasn't worth your time to see more than 8 minutes of the movie.

Even if it's the worst movie ever, can you make that judgment without watching the whole movie? Ebert has sat through many other bad movies. Will he make it a habit not to sit through other ones in the future now that he's done this once?

In the comments to Ebert's blog post about his review (and yes, I understand the inherent silliness of writing a blog post about a blog post about a critical review about a movie. Luckily the movie is not about blogging or writing, as far as I know), some defenders say that a food critic would not have to sit through an entire meal to make an unfavorable review. He would not be expected to eat an unpalatable meal. Another defender argues that a movie, like copy in good marketing, should grab one's attention in the opening. I think both arguments are spurious. I could just as easily argue how horrible it would be for a Rolling Stone critic to give an album a bad review of after listening to one song. I think all those arguments (comparing movies to food, marketing and music) can be picked apart. For example, it's easily argued that my music critic comparison is different because songs on albums are so diverse; just because the first song is bad doesn't mean all the other ones are the same quality. To that argument, I argue "Nickelback."

That one-star rating also bugs me. How many people look at that graphic and don't both with reading the rest of the review? There's some kind of meta argument there, maybe, since it could be said that looking at the rating of a review and not reading the review is like sitting through 8 minutes of a movie, but I'm not going to go down that path, since I find it likely that Ebert truly did find the first 8 minutes of the movie to be horrendous. At the very least, Ebert is a Rotten Tomatoes critic, and I assume the other critics who reviewed it and gave it good or bad reviews saw the entire movie.

And if the first 8 minutes had been the best 8 minutes of film he had ever seen, would it have been excusable to stop watching and then give the movie a four-star review? I think not. While it may be improbable that the movie picked up if the first 8 minutes were that deplorable, it's not impossible. What if a particularly good character had been introduced? What if some actor that was not introduced in the first 8 minutes turned in an Oscar worthy performance? I thought the first 20 minutes of Spider-man were pretty great, but then that movie went south in a hurry. It would have been completely incorrect of me to watch those first twenty minutes and write a review as if the rest of the movie had been just as good.

Don't they teach kids not to do this in school? I was assigned to read Catcher in the Rye in 9th Grade. I despised that book. I still read the whole thing. (I read it again a couple of years later to see if I'd like it better when it wasn't part of a curriculum. Nope). I didn't read 20 pages about phonies and daddy issues and then look the rest of the plot of on the internet, and write a report as if I had read the book, only disclosing to my teacher at the end that I had not. I think that if I did, I would have gotten a failing grade.

Ebert's review isn't cute. It isn't novel. It's not the end of the world either. It's just plain lazy.

A couple of thoughts on Indy 4 spoilers

2008-05-22T15:07:00.004-04:00

Please don't read this if you haven't seen the movie and you don't want any of it spoiled.

1) On Sounds: The traditional John Williams soundtrack was woefully underused. And maybe I'm the only one who thinks this, but the problem wasn't that Harrison Ford looks different after 19 years away from the role; it's that he SOUNDS different. When I first heard him talk, it was like a different actor. I suppose it makes sense because voices change with age, but for me, that rather than appearance was the most jarring aspect of the Indy character in this movie.

2) On Iconography: There are two icons in the Indy movies - the relic Indy is hunting, and Indy himself. Neither is very strong in this movie. Most viewers will understand Western iconography more than . . . well, Asian or South American iconography, and therefore, it will resonate more. It wasn't a coincidence that the first two movies seem more coherent for their use of the well-known Christian icons, the grail chalice and the ark of the covenant (forgive me for that, as the ark isn't actually a Christian archetype, really, is it).

So when the icon in this one is a crystal skull (born of a myth created in 19th century Britain and perpetuated by 20th century new-age ritual, neither of which feature prominently, or at least, with much explanation, in the movie), surrounded by Meso-American/Southern American imagery, it naturally won't go over as well as the Western icons. Additionally with the Western icons, the treasure hunting is more familiar; descending into a church in Venice after reading a code out of stained glass resonates with an audience. Descending into a pyramid in Peru, not as much. Also, any puzzle solving relating to the non-Western icons will need more exposition, which is notably absent.

In addition, Indy himself isn't as strong a presence in this movie. In the two better movies, there's an inner search within Indy himself as well as a search for the treasure; in Raiders, it was his relationship with Marion. In Last Crusade, it was his relationship with his father. In theory, in this movie, it's supposed to be his relationship with Mutt but that's a bit lost in the movie, which is in part due to the lack of exposition, and also in part because of the re-introduction of the Marion character.

As if the lack of solid support around Indy to bolster his character wasn't enough, there was apparently reticence in giving Indy much in the way of action scenes. While he is certain in all the action scenes, Indy is really only at the center of a couple of them. And he uses his whip all of . . . twice? Three times? There's enough camera work on his fedora . . . but barely any on his bullwhip.

3) On Post-Modernism and Deconstruction: The movie is full of bits and pieces of the previous trilogy, as if scenes from those movies were like potsherds and cobbling them together could make this movie a new pot, or something like that. It doesn't really work. What ends up happening is that every once in a while, the viewer is jerked back into the past, by the sight of something from the previous movies, a camera shot reminiscent of Raiders, or the Ark itself, or pictures of Brody and Jones Sr. (a bit heavy-handed, that scene).

The only time it's effective is when Indy restrains Mutt before they explore a tomb, kind of a reference and yet not exactly a copy of when Indy restrained the Alfred Molina-character in the beginning of Raiders. The update was a cute reminder that this was still Indiana Jones on the screen. And a very necessary reminder too, because even though Indy scoffs at the suggestion that he's softened in his old age, there's clearly a "get off my lawn" kind of feeling to many of his lines.

The other times when the movie gets self-referential, it's actually kind of pitiful, which makes me think that when the filmmakers were making it, they wanted it to be purely nostalgic, and for us to understand that there is no going back. When Indy packs his case in this one (contrast with Indy packing in Last Crusade to go to Venice), it's not to go off on an adventure; his shirts are pressed, and he doesn't end the scene by throwing his whip and gun into the case. Indy is quite literally dragged into this adventure, and we're made to understand that unlike the heroes who ride off into the sunset at the end of Last Crusade, the passage of time turns all heroes into dusty relics sooner or later, until all they can do is find what happiness they can and pass the torch onto others who will continue the exploration.

4) On Espionage and Warfare: Spies don't really have any place in the Indy films; there's good and there's evil. So when we turn to the Cold War-era and we introduce a spy, it throws kind of a cog into the wheels of the film.

One of the romantic aspects of the previous Indiana Jones films was the idea that despite modernization (planes, trains and automobiles . . . see the red lines on the map, and the sheik in Last Crusade going ga-ga over the Rolls Royce rather than gold trinkets), there was always a place for Indy to explore, and somehow, something Indy would find there would be dragged from the past to have an impact on the present and future. With the introduction of psychological warfare, spying, and things like Red Scare, the relic that Indy hunts is less related to the present. It serves as an interesting metaphor, to be sure, and it's explained as a potential weapon, but the crystal skull hardly has the gravitas that the smiting power of the Ark and the immortality of the grail held. Indeed, it doesn't even look like the huge hunk of quartz has much heft to it when the characters handle it; shouldn't that thing weigh about 30 lbs?

Signal This: A Journal Completely Unrelated to Law Review, but Completely Necessary

2008-05-14T15:06:00.009-04:00

I start this on the third day of writing my law review mini-note at home; the first day was spent finding my bearings, both in the library and in the law review material, while the second day was a revelation in several ways.

I put a status up on Facebook yesterday that bespoke of one of these revelations (the Facebook status is really a versatile doppleganger).

It occurred to me as I walked into the library the morning of the second day that something was wrong. Breakfast was sitting fine so it wasn't that, although the eggs on a roll would have been more palatable with some cheese, which is true about most food. I went upstairs, let myself into the personal study room, and turned my computer on. Then it hit me. I was in the library. One of the best public libraries in the country, of which I had vowed once to read the entirety (it was fourth grade. And I was used to a public library in Queens, NY which only let you borrow a certain number of books at a time. The first time I asked someone here what the limit was, they responded with a look and said . . . well, in theory, as much as you can carry, or something to that effect.) And here I was, fourteen years later, not walking around with a stack of books that I needed to peer around so as not to take out librarians and little old ladies (sometimes one and the same).

So I fixed that. I locked up my study room, went downstairs to the new fiction and new non-fiction sections, and went to town. I had to renew my library card, since I hadn’t used it in more than three years, having not really lived in this town for longer than that, but I did. And that in and of itself was renewing. For me, as well as for my library card.

I brought 7 books back up to the study room with me, where they sat and tempted me as I worked on trying to make a coherent note out of the law review cases. At lunch, I took one of the books, a free verse novel about werewolves in Los Angeles called "Sharp Teeth," down to the café with me, where I consumed a healthy chunk of it along with a bagel with lox and cream cheese, tomatoes, onions and capers, and washed it all down with a Diet Coke.

When I look around at my neighbors in the study rooms, I wonder if they have similar thoughts. I suspect not, from the lack of any reading that looks remotely pleasurable that they’ve brought with them. Some of them look downright pained as they work through whatever it is they’re slogging through. One person has been here every day that I have, and is evidently very restless. The first day, he was in the room across from me (all the rooms are glass-paned). The next, he was a room down when I got to the library. Today, he’s around the corner in the very back. It feels like he’s the king in a chess game slowly moving around the board trying to avoid checkmate. But he’s cornered himself now; I could probably check him pretty quickly, with a pawn and possibly anything else but anther pawn.

But when I go downstairs for lunch, some of the people reading down there look pained too. Brighten up people. You’re reading for pleasure. You should look like it. There’s no way you can enjoy what you read when you’re grimacing like that. There’s obviously something else on your mind. The first obstacle to reading comprehension and reading with any depth isn’t vocabulary; it’s concentration, and when you look like you’re being tortured, you’re probably not concentrating on the pages. I could have reminded myself of that more than a few times, probably, during the school year. I bet if I were being filmed or if people saw me in the library, I likely didn’t always have a placid look on my face.

I went home last night and read another book before going to bed (a new Weis and Hickman book; I keep reading their books in the hope that they write something good again - no luck so far), and also read the first chapter of a sci-fi book I picked up for its cover (it wasn’t worth it, and that says a lot because most books are worth reading in some way or another, even if it’s dreck so that one can appreciate a good book all the more, so I returned both of those books today). To compensate, I picked another one up this morning, a historical fiction on the Fourth Crusade written by some gypsy (no, really, that’s what the author note says; she was a former gypsy) and 125 pages into it, it’s proving a worthier choice.

Update: it's 10:00 PM and I have to say, it was a pretty good book. Kind of reminiscient of a first-person Edgar Rice Burroughs book I read once, crossed with most contemporary fiction that can't seem to exist without a partially-omnicient narrator.

It’s nice reading again. And I realize that I can do it while still working. I kind of knew this during the school year too, as evidenced when I got my book on cosmology and C.S. Lewis, but I didn’t really understand it.

I haven’t been myself for a while. I haven’t been devouring books at the pace I used to, and as such, I was starving. Law and the occasional pleasure read were somewhat satiating due to the mental stimulus necessary to engage with the material, but it didn’t make me feel quite as alive as I do when I’m reading at my normal pace. And I actually think my interactions with other people suffer for it; I feel like I had become a bit bland and colorless for that lack of stimulation in my life. I honestly believe that if one can’t enjoy some form of art passionately, whether it be literature, film, music, even cooking, one can’t live passionately. Maybe that's the problem in the profession I've chosen, and really, any profession that requires that much investment of one's time. I can imagine being passionate about the law (really, I can), but I think I'll need other habits too. I told someone cynically once that I thought law may be one of those professions where all your habits exist in theory. I was wrong. It doesn't have to be that way.

I've been collecting books the past couple years, as evidenced by my time in DC and my trip to Cape Cod, as I went with a large cooler of groceries and returned with a large cooler of . . . books. I got out to see the rest of the Cape, baseball games and beaches and all that, but I also went book hunting. But that’s not the same when some of those are books I had already read, or books that I bought because they were collectible.

The upshot of it is that I’m reading again. And law review doesn’t seem so bad for it.

Assistant Pig-Keepers and Time Cats

2007-05-18T22:06:00.000-04:00

I saw the sad news today that Lloyd Alexander had died at the age of 83.

It is no exaggeration to say that Mr. Alexander's novels were more beloved and important to me than almost any other authors that I read as a child. More than Tolkien, more than C.S. Lewis, more than Susan Cooper. More than any other author I read voraciously, from Scott O'Dell to Madeline L'engle. John Bellairs is probably the only children's author (maybe any author, for that matter) who comes even close to having the effect that Lloyd Alexander has had on me.

If North Mianus Elementary School still has its hardcover copies of the Prydain Chronicles, you might be able to verify my statement. For two years, I borrowed The High King, the last book of the quintet, constantly, and my name is the only one on the library cards. It got to the point that the librarians would give me strange looks every other week, as if to say "haven't you memorized this book yet?"

Perhaps I had, but re-reading books isn't about finding missed details or becoming somehow more familiar with the characters. It was like reminiscing about past exploits and adventures with an old friend.

And I grew so familiar with Mr. Alexander (dare I say that he was my friend?) recounting to me the Welsh mythology-based adventures of Taran, Gurgi, Eilonwy and Fflewdur Flam that I needed to know where the stories came from. I was instantly enchanted by his stories, which are sometimes more tragic, and thus more human, than you would expect of a children's author. The Prydain Chronicles officially set me on the road to becoming an anglo-phile (although Britophile might be a more accurate term).

In sixth grade, I found a copy of the Mabinogion, the major book of Welsh mythology, in my library. I have to admit, I still can't pronounce half the names in the book, but it got me started in seriously reading about Arthur and his Knights, which of course gave me a nice grounding for Chaucer and Milton (whose first idea for an epic was Arthurian and NOT Adamic).

More importantly, it got me interested in discovering the origins of stories, which has honestly informed every major undertaking I've set out for academically since then, from my undergraduate Milton thesis investigating the origins of Milton's conceptions of image and narcissism to my (unfortunately dormant) dream to document fan accounts of Negro League Baseball to my love of anthropology classes and the literature of Zora Neale Hurston.

I read all his other books too - The Westmark Trilogy, the Vesper Holly books, the Town Cats...

In my desk at work are two hardcover copies of the latter two books from the Westmark Trilogy, which I happily found at a used book sale last Spring. On the stand next to my bed, there's a copy of The Drackenburg Adventure (Vesper Holly), which I found at the same book sale.

I'm not sure if my interest in gender studies stems from Mr. Alexander's strong and unconventional female characters, but it's certainly possible. But it's absolutely a fact that Eilonwy from the Prydain Chronicles was my first crush. Yes, my first crush was on a character in a novel with a fantasy setting. Is that so strange? It's not as if the movie stars or singers idolized by others are any more attainable.

I wouldn't go so far as to say that Lloyd Alexander affected my taste in women, but that's also certainly possible. Another fact is that when I used to tell Jen stories, some of the ones I turned to when I ran out of personal anecdotes and mythological tales were from Lloyd Alexander's writings. I basically have The Town Cats (and Other Tales) memorized, so it was a logical source for stories, as the stories are more or less fairy tales with humorous twists involving cats.

I wonder how many people can say that the literature of Lloyd Alexander played a role in their relationships? Probably not many.

So I mourn the passing of this man, who, despite being six decades my senior, whom I never had the honor of meeting, has had such an amazing and deep influence on my life.

Would I be able to touch a fraction of the lives you reached through your books, Mr. Alexander, I would consider myself an incredibly successful and rich individual.

May your voyage to the Summer Country be a pleasant one, and may you live forever there with your loved ones, the ones you encountered in life and the ones you created to enrich us all.

"And so they lived many happy years, and the promised tasks were accomplished. Yet long afterward, when all had passed away into distant memory, there were many who wondered whether [the] companions had indeed walked the earth, or whether they had been no more than dreams in a tale set down to beguile children. And, in time, only the bards knew the truth of it." -- The High King by Lloyd Alexander

Completely Random

2007-04-25T15:23:00.000-04:00

This thought just popped into my head. It's kind of a trivia question, I guess, and I'd be curious to know the answer.

What is the fewest number of states I would have to visit so that in a list of states including states that I visited and states bordering the ones I visited, I cover all 48 continental US States? (Obviously Hawaii and Alaska represent two states you would be required to visit, so we don't need to count them.)

A little tardy

2007-04-20T10:44:00.000-04:00

I didn't notice this until today, but the Humbug Journal has one of the two best tributes to Jackie Robinson I've seen yet. The other, of course, being the the post over at The Dugout.

A Spenserian sonnet and an acrostic in the poetic tribute to Jackie Robinson? I think it's pure brilliance. It helps that both posts make reference to The Hitchhiker's Guide, of course.

RIP, Brian Bluhm (aka VTTigers)

2007-04-17T18:17:00.000-04:00

I was shocked this morning to open up my baseball blogs to find out that one of the regular contributors to John Sickels' Minorleagueball.com had been killed in yesterday's Virginia Tech shootings.

I know for a fact that VTTigers joined the site not long after John established it in 2005. Back then, I read and commented much more on the site (Sickels is my favorite baseball prospect analyst), and VTTigers was one of the most insightful posters we had. His knowledge of Detroit Tigers prospects was unparalleled - I know I learned a lot about Cameron Maybin from him, and he was an invaluable source of information on prospects. His posts were articulate and smart, and contributed to a great atmosphere for discussing baseball prospects.

His commentary on Sickels' site will be missed. The same will hold true for other baseball sites, as he was an active contributor to several Tigers message boards.

I do have a new favorite baseball player now, Curtis Granderson, the Tigers CF, as he put Brian to the top of his MySpace friends list when he heard the news, and left a message on Brian's page. It's a touching gesture. I know Brian often praised Granderson on Sickels' site, especially for his outfield defense.

My condolences to Brian's friends and family and to everyone else who lost a loved one yesterday.

Addendum: Anyone landing on my site through a search - Brian's comments on John Sickels' site can be found here, and here is John's tribute to him yesterday. I understand that a fund is being set up for the victims families by the Virginia Tech memorial fund.

Rundown

2007-04-04T19:28:00.000-04:00

I look forward to Opening Day every year. This year was no exception; I'm participating in as many fantasy leagues as I normally do, I half-heartedly filled out a couple March Madness brackets to pass the time, and I paid scant attention to much else (which led to me nearly forgetting I had to have a law school deposit in on April 2nd).

There was one difference this year though - for the first time in five years, I was single on Opening Day. It's a bit strange to think about it that way, but considering how much Jen and I both loved baseball, I couldn't help but see it in that light.

Baseball was one of the first things we connected on. I'm a Mets fan; she's a Braves fan. So we immediately began a good-natured rivalry, and of course she never failed to hold all those division titles over my head. It's a strange coincidence that our relationship ended the same year the Braves' streak did. It's a strange coincidence in my melancholy mind at least; I know there's no connection, but I like to romanticize.

Everyone romanticizes the sport of baseball and parallels the sport to their lives. While I don't know that I want to draw parallels, I do know that baseball was a pretty important part of my relationship, and as such, it's impossible not to reflect in the young days of this new season of what was.

I liked to make predictions to her about the game. I predicted way back in 2002 that the AL Central would be the strongest division in baseball within 3 years. I'm proud of that one.

One night in August, 2003, we were watching a Red Sox game on NESN, and we had to run out to print something at the library. Jason Varitek was up to bat, and on a hunch, I said "wait, I need to see Varitek go deep."

On the next pitch, Varitek blasted one over the Green Monster, and we walked over to the library, marveling over my prescience. She actually bragged about it to some camp counselors when she was doing her senior research, but apparently she got her names crossed up and called him Varekai (like the Cirque Du Soleil show) and confused them.

Since TBS broadcasts a lot of Braves game, we got to watch a lot of them.

We were watching on TV one Spring afternoon when one of her former Braves, Kevin Millwood, pitched a no-hitter for the Giants against the Phillies.

We watched early one season when Chipper Jones snagged his foot trying to field a bunt and has been bit by the injury bug since.

We watch Ben Sheets K 18 Braves, and Randy Johnson throw a perfect game the next day.

More recently, we were supposed to go out with her friend, another Braves fan, but we had to keep putting off dinner because the Braves were playing an extra innings playoff game against the Astros.

We groaned when Adam LaRoche was sent around third to get nailed at the plate. We groaned when Bobby Cox had Marcus Giles bunt (he popped it up, I believe). We were astonished when light hitting Chris Burke finally ended the game in the bottom of the 18th inning, sending us to our long delayed meal.

There are other playoff memories too - Jose Cruz dropping an easy fly ball to help doom the Giants . . . Josh Beckett throwing a gem against the Yankees . . . the Red Sox coming back from 3-0 in the 2004 ALCS (which was a great experience in NH - I don't think anything got done on campus that week and a half - incidentally, that series was the subject my worst prediction ever - "the Red Sox need to win one of the first two, or they won't win the series").

There were many days when we'd watch an early afternoon game, and then head out for coffee and lunch afterwards. There were plenty of night games for which we got lazy and ordered EBAs and sat around commenting on the goings on around the league and in the game.

The first time I went down to Atlanta, I think it was Spring 2002, for the Music Midtown concert instead of studying for a chemistry midterm, I slept on a pull-out sofa under a Braves blanket, and prompt got hit by horrible allergies due to the two dogs and cat residing in her house.

I remember walking around her grandfather's medical office, which is decorated with framed newspaper pages of Braves headlines.

For her birthday in 2005, I got her a Braves jersey - of her favorite new player, a hot-shot right fielder who had come up from the minors and tore up the league, both with his torrid hitting and his rifle outfield arm.

During out Spring Training trip to Disney World (we saw three Braves games - against the Nationals, the Phillies and the Indians), she was fortunate to get the jersey signed. I think having Jeff Francoeur sign her jersey was the highlight of her trip.

During our relationship, the Braves went through several right fielders - Gary Sheffield, JD Drew, and finally her favorite, Jeff Francoeur.

We probably went to 8-10 Nationals games over the course of our year and a half here in DC.

We got to see a Braves/Nats game where one of my favorite young MLBers, Ryan Zimmerman, hit a ball off John Smoltz that was about as hard hit a ball as I've ever seen. It was a line drive that went all the way to the right centerfield wall, but it was damn impressive. Francoeur's Franks were obviously present.

This season's very different, obviously. There won't be any games to watch or attend together, or any predictions to impart, or fantasy performances to brag about (yes, I did). But the game goes on, and so will I. I'll be at RFK on April 16th, and hopefully the Nationals will have won another game by then. I'll score the game, and cheer for Zimmerman, and perhaps enjoy the April nighttime air.

Play ball, Go Mets, and don't forget to tip your beerman.

200 Steps

2007-03-18T11:23:00.000-04:00

Do I believe in God? Maybe that's too heady a question to tackle the morning after St. Patrick's Day.

Do I believe in a subconscious drive that manifests itself in my actions and choices in often surprising and apparently mysterious ways? I'm not sure, but let me explain why I'm posing the question.

On the recommendation of a friend about a month ago, I picked up the book "In the Heart of the Sea," by Nathaniel Philbrick. The book is the true story of the sailors on the whaling ship Essex, and Philbrick does an amazing job in not only narrating their harrowing tale of survival, but in delivering a vivid account of Nantucket whaling culture in the early 19th century.

140 pages into the book, as the men of Essex endeavor to survive after the loss of their ship, there is a mention of Pitcairn Island, "an island whose history was inextricably linked with Nantucket. . . [i]n 1808, a sealing captain from Nantucket . . . discovered the answer to a nineteen-year-old mystery: what had happened to Fletcher Christian and the Bounty."

The mention is a fleeting one, an aside which serves to place the location of the sailors not only geographically, but historically as well. One of Philbrick's most well-executed literary maneuvers is his depiction of the sea as a vast historical entity as well as a vast physical entity, such that when ships and men cross historically, it is as notable as when ships encounter each other on the expanses of the Pacific.

This is how I've felt over the past three books I have read. My literary journeys have taken me from Nantucket, to the South Pacific, to Savannah, Georgia, to the Caribbean. And these have not seemed so much stops as they have been fluid portions of the same trip, as somehow, there have been unifying elements and references in each book.

After I read "In the Heart of the Sea," I picked up several books at the Holly Hill Book Repository in Greenwich. The first one I read was "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil," a book which I've always been meaning to read, but which I just got around to now.

And to my surprise, on page 36 of "Midnight," after a brief discussion of a Savannahian poet's love of ships, the following passage floated across my eyes.

"It seemed to me that Savannah was in some respects as remote as Pitcairn Island, that tiny rock in the middle of the Pacific where the descendants of the mutineers of the H.M.S. Bounty had lived in inbred isolation since the eighteenth century."

Immediately, I thought of the lines from "In the Heart of the Sea," and indeed, it seemed to me that the best part of "Midnight" was the first half of the book, in which various characters in Savannah, Georgia enter and depart the narrator's life like ships passing in the water, each ship with its unique quirks and traits.

Next, I picked up "Love in the Time of Cholera," by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, another book I have never gotten around to reading, even though I enjoyed "One Hundred Years of Solitude" and "Chronicle of a Death Foretold."

Almost as soon as I began reading, I reached a passage that reminded me of "Midnight."

In "Midnight," Jim Williams is an antique dealer and Savannah aristocrat. After establishing himself as "nouveau riche" ("it's the riche that counts," he says), Williams begins a Savannah tradition, a meticulously and elaborately planned black-tie Christmas party which "soon became a permanent fixture on Savannah's social calendar."

On page 33 of "Love in the Time of Cholera," Dr. Urbina and his wife Fermina Daza depart tardy for a party hosted by "Aminta Dechamps, Dr. Lacides Olivella's wife, and her seven equally diligent daughters, [who] had arranged every detail so that the silver anniversary luncheon would be the social event of the year."

Perhaps this isn't an exact parallel, but somehow, the placement within the framework of the story makes them curiously resonant.

I almost feel compelled now to read Gabriel Garcia Marquez's first book - "The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor." But I don't think I will. Rather than turn my journey full circle, I think I would rather keep letting my random choices flow together in unpredictable ways. Am I choosing these books for a strange subconscious reason? Or perhaps I am reading less now than before, and I'm seizing on these unifying threads, remote and bizarre as they are, as a way to connect my rather isolated literary selections.

Are my three books like the three lifeboats that the sailors of the Essex find themselves in after their ship sinks, bobbing almost helplessly in the water, struggling to maintain contact and visibility with the others?

I also feel compelled now to take a trip up to Nantucket this June, as several elements seem to be conspiring to drive me there. The aforementioned Philbrick book is one, but aside from that, I need to take a trip before starting law school. I want to go up to Yarmouth Port to see the Edward Gorey House. I want to see some Cape Cod League Baseball games. I want to spend a couple lazy days at a Bed and Breakfast, with nothing planned for the day aside from a walk on the beach or hike down a nature trail in the morning and some browsing of a used book sale in the afternoon.

A Satisfied Mind

2007-03-03T18:17:00.000-05:00

One of these weekends, not next weekend since I'm going back to CT, but perhaps sometime in April, I'm going to drive up to Dartmouth.

I'm going to take Friday off, and leave in the morning, around 6:00, with nothing but the clothes on my back and a book.

I'll drive the nine or so hours up to Dartmouth, and get there before Dirt Cowboy closes. Then I'm going to get myself a large Yirgacheffe, and just walk around campus a few times. At some point, I'll go to Molly's and have dinner. Although I suppose not eating meat means I'll be having one of their salads or pastas. Still good though. And sweet potato fries. I could go for some of those. And their bread. Drool.

In any case, this will be followed with more rambling, a few hours of pool in the Collis basement, if they'll let me, and at some point, I figure I'll follow a student into one of the dorms (since my card won't open doors anymore), plant myself in one of the hall lounges, and read until either I fall asleep or Safety and Security gets suspicious and kicks me out.

The next morning, it's breakfast at Lou's of course (though no meat means no corned beef hash...), and then another coffee from Dirt Cowboy before I start to drive back. Maybe I'll stop home in CT for the day. That's probably more manageable.

Is it strange that food is one of the things I miss most about Dartmouth and Hanover? There isn't even that much of a selection in town. I just need something to take me back, so to speak, and food is what will do the job at this point, considering I don't know any of the students there now, and I'm going to resist stealing books from Baker Library.

Thoughts

2007-02-26T22:15:00.000-05:00

It's tough sometimes. It's tough a lot of the time. I'm keeping myself pretty well occupied these days, between getting myself in shape, learning guitar and reading more, but somehow, it makes the times when I'm not doing anything worse.

Because those are the times, the lulls in activity, when I can't seem to help but let various memories and thoughts and insecurities get to me. Not that I think I can or should outrun my own mind, but for some reason it's the instinct I have right now.

So instead of running from my thoughts, I figure that's what I have this blog for, right?

Either I'm baring my soul to random people who stumble onto my site searching for pictures of American McGee's Alice or Brian McCann (for some reason those are my top hits) or I'm shouting into a void, impotently venting my anger and fears through words which reach no one, doomed to drift meaningless into empty space where they'll disperse among all the other words on the internet until they lose all impetus and energy. Both alternatives seem better to me at the moment than sitting quietly in the dark and driving myself to distraction.

Darkness is at the same time a curse and a blessing. When you're alone, it's a crushing weight, reminding you of your mortality and your insecurity and your fear. Tolkien said it pretty well when he wrote about Eowyn whispering words to herself in the dark, as the walls of her bower closed in around her. It's a time to think and reflect, and at times, it can be horrible. You become intensely aware of what is lacking around you. Light. Heat. Comfort.

But then when you have someone else there, it shifts the opposite way. You have someone to hold in the dark, and it doesn't seem so bad. In fact, it contributes to the moments, the words that pass between you. No longer alone, you feel warmth and comfort, and you feel secure that there's something more tangible than just you in the room. Even something more tangible than the other person. Call it love. Call it the heat you can feel emanating from them, or the sound of someone breathing besides yourself. Call it the knowledge that when you wake up, the sun will be shining and there's going to be someone next to you.

I miss that. A lot. I don't know how much the need for comfort drove Jen and me together freshman year of college, but there was something wonderfully intimate about lying there in the dark in a tiny cramped dorm room, telling each other stories and hopes, filling the void. And it wasn't just that darkness, the one in the dorm room, which we filled. We took a lot of walks at night. Even after freshman year. If I were to wax poetic, I would venture that Jen and I made a habit of filling the darkness of the New Hampshire night with ourselves and our words. Out there in the dark, we were more like a single unit than two separate individuals, as if the darkness pushed us together and brought us closer. (As I write this, I'm thinking about the song from "Hedwig and the Angry Inch" - "The Origin of Love.")

When she lived on Mass Row, and I was in an apartment on the other side of campus, I'd walk out of her dorm at 2:00 AM after talking for hours and/or studying for hours (though usually talking) and make my way back across campus. But even though I walked back alone, cold, in knee-deep snow, my thoughts were with her, and remembering our conversations, and it was a wonderful exercise, walking and contemplating.

We liked to go out, usually into the cold, fresh Hanover air, bundled up, hand in hand, and we'd walk. Sometimes we'd have a set path. Out the dorm near the river, past the business school, and around the Green and through town. It changed from year to year, but the intent was usually similar. Walking through town always meant picking up a hot drink at the Dirt Cowboy Cafe - a cup of Ethiopian Yirgacheffe coffee for me, and a medium soy chai for her.

Sometimes we'd stop at the end of Main Street to pick up a movie, and then loop back around the Green and past the Biology building on the edge of campus, and just walk further out, exploring the darkness together, until houses became further apart and set further back from the road as we hit the back country. I'd complain about it, not knowing where we were going, but there was nowhere else I would rather have been than wherever we were walking.

Once, we had walked for a few miles along the deserted road without a car passing us by for almost half an hour, and we felt comfortable enough to walk down the middle of the road. It started snowing lightly, a dusting that soon stuck to the road, reflecting the moonlight. At one point, I thought I saw what looked to be a two story house, well lit, close to the road, which was strange because most of the properties were large lots with long driveways, houses back almost in the woods. But as we drew closer, we realized that it was a huge doll house in someone's front yard. It was a surreal moment.

We used to walk by a light near the Biology building that would flicker on and off seemingly each time we passed it by. We would joke that manipulating that light was one of Jen's super mutant powers. If we had gotten a movie, we might stop by the 24 hour campus store and pick up a pint of ice cream. More often than not it was Ben and Jerry's Chunky Munkey. I'll write about all the movies we watched together at some time, but the list grew to be pretty prodigious and diverse.

Other times we would walk out past Hanover high school to the Food CoOp, and as long as it wasn't closed, we'd browse. Maybe buy some things for breakfast or one of those fridgepacks of Diet Coke (I'd always carry those back).

Once we picked up some apples for our Sunday Baking Crew (we made various baked goods on Sunday with a couple friends, just as a means of having fun together and socializing), and Jen decided to take a little detour on the way back.

It turned out to be a pretty long detour, as we walked off the road and down a trail that led off into the woods. We walked for a long time, and I was actually getting kind of worried as it was getting dark, and there I was, a brown paper bag of apples in my hands, sneakers slipping periodically in the snow as we walked up and down hills, with no flashlight and little moonlight filtering through the trees. We probably could have taken a wrong turn somewhere and spent the night wandering around.

Instead, we eventually found ourselves sighting the Connecticut River in the distance, and as we looped around, we realized that we had taken a huge loop around campus, around the back of Occam Pond. By the time we finally got to the path circling the pond and back to campus, it was about 10 PM. We'd been out for more than five hours, walking for more than three, probably close to four and when I checked my campus map after breathlessly stumbling back into the warmth of the dorm, we realized that we had walked off the map on the left side and come back onto it somewhere on the right.

I think that without each other, those situations would have been kind of frightening. As it was, it was barely off-putting; we knew that no matter what, even if we were horrendously lost, the worst case scenario was that we would spend the night shivering next to each other and talking and telling stories in the dark. And there was nothing even remotely objectionable about that.

On a "lighter" note

2007-02-21T09:54:00.000-05:00

The Nashua Pride have done what others could not do.

Something lesser men would have shied away from.

Something men who think only with their minds, and not their guts, could never have accomplished (to paraphrase Colbert).

They've brought back El Guapo!

I must, however, dock them a point for having a mascot named "Shag." No offense, guys, but the Shag Cubs Club sounds kind of sketchy. If you know what I'm saying. Wink wink, nudge nudge, say no more.

And I won't either.

Gloomy Sunday: A Review

2007-02-18T21:34:00.000-05:00

There is one camera shot that stands out in "Gloomy Sunday," a movie about the famous "Hungarian Suicide Song," above all the others. It occurs when Andras, the young pianist, is playing his composition “Gloomy Sunday” for the first time in Lazlo’s café in 1930's Budapest, Hungary.

The camera tracks around the room, showing the moment that the music resonates with the individuals in the room. It is as if the camera itself is the strain of melancholy music being lifted around the room, and as the camera’s gaze sets upon each person, so too do the notes of “Gloomy Sunday.” The camera finally ends upon the form of Ilona, Andras’s muse who is in turn ensnared by the song and its composer as well.

The film work in the movie is superb. However, the other shots, as well conceived as they are, have quite a different purpose to them. The movie is billed as the story of a love triangle. Truth be told, there are actually four players, three men revolving around Ilona, one of which enters and departs the film on several occasions. On a cinematic level, we must add another player to the equation - the camera, and the specifically male-gendered gaze that it represents.

Whether it is the camera lingering on Ilona’s dress, or her topless form in a bathtub, or even centering on her face when she is enjoying the company of her two boyfriends, the gaze is obviously male. The viewer is meant to be struck by Ilona just as much as the male characters in the film, and truly, she, and not the song written for her, is the center of the film. In fact, when the camera and the plot strays from the love triangle, for example to the effects of the song, the movie suffers as if its losing direction.

Fortunately for the viewer, the actress playing Ilona is perhaps the most gorgeous woman that mainstream American theater-goers have never seen. Erika Maroszan is ever in the center of the camera shot, in a variety of different dresses and states of dress. The colors in the film are also well choreographed the mostly drab and pastels bringing contrast to the brilliant dresses that Ilona dons. Her capabilities as an actress are substantial, and in addition to her beauty captivating the audience, she does so with her dialogue and acting as well.

Were the scopophilic gaze of the camera to settle on a lesser talented and beautiful actress, the movie would not be nearly as successful. As the film is a romantic one, the gaze serves to draw the viewer to Ilona just as all the other male character in the film are. Her attractiveness is made unquestionable.

However, as the gaze is ever being put on her, objectifying and even deifying her, rarely do Ilona's actions appear to exert any willful control over the direction of the camera, and consequently the plot, and as such, her characterization does suffer.

The film is notably indecisive in conveying the strength of her character, and while it does well in painting her as a sympathetic character, the same action disempowers her.

Never does she act the seductress or siren, luring men to their demise; rather that is the role of the song “Gloomy Sunday” (although this dichotomy does collide later in the film, as the viewer will see). Thus, when she is at the center of the love triangle, it is entirely believable that she truly cares about the two men involved with her, even as she comes to realize that the balance is tenuous at best. The movie in fact seems to indicate that Ilona is aware of the potential ruin her own voice can cause, as she professes to Andras that although trained, she "only sings when she is alone."

The cost her Ilona never being a siren, for it is depicted as a binary, the silent Ilona and the siren Ilona, is that she often appears almost passive, the flame that dances while moths draw towards it. Her agency as a character, her motivation, is sometimes unclear, or at least just left to the idea that she loves both men deeply. This agency is in fact enough to carry the film about two-thirds of the way.

Unfortunately, this falls apart in the last third of the film, which is precisely when Ilona’s character should be most expressive, and due to technological constraints (and possibly a directorial choice as well), we cannot even see Ilona’s face during the last scene of the movie. And during this last scene, the cost of not establishing the true strength of Ilona’s character over the majority of the film is clear, as her last action is quite jarring, although it paints her in a “strong” light.

All told, “Gloomy Sunday” should be considered a cinematic masterpiece; not only does it skillfully navigate concepts of suicide and love, but it does so in the setting of WWII Nazi-occupied Europe without being ham-fisted, and it manages to build a very solid movie around a piece of music, something that other movies (in a related manner, for example, “The Red Violin”) tend to fail at.

It may not be Casablanca (and there are several obvious homages to Casablanca), but it is definitely worth viewing, and I am surprised, from both the quality of the film and the apparent production budget, that it did not receive more attention here in the United States. But the rapid revelations during the last five minutes of the movie, as well as the ambiguity of Ilona’s character in the third act, does detract somewhat from the overall quality of the film.

Amazing

2007-02-14T19:32:00.000-05:00

I swear, that despite the fact that I've seen "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" several times, despite completely forgetting the fact that Valentine's Day, several Valentine's Day's in fact, has such an integral role in the story, I had not intentioned to place it on my Netflix queue so that it would arrive in time for me to view it on Valentine's Day.

I'm not suggesting that I would like to go through a similar procedure to the main character in the movie. It's hardly my wish to forget five years of my life, and contrary to the movie, I can honestly say that there are many, many more positive experiences I can remember than negative (though perhaps, they just showed the negative experiences in the movie first to give some juxtaposition). The simple truth is that were I to erase my memories of Jen, I would be erasing virtually every experience that I had over that time. Kind of like how Jim Carrey's character has to go back to his childhood for a memory without Kate Winslet's character.

I would have nothing, just a jump between senior year of high school and the present, except perhaps some classes here and there. Maybe Japanese prints, and I suppose my thesis on John Milton. African American literary studies and an introduction to field methods in Ecology.

And yet I can't deny that the thought has crossed my mind, to do the same to her as I feel she has done to me. I didn't know it was possible to go through five years with someone, and just forget them the next day; no calls, no emails, no contact at all. Nary an update on her status or a curious word inquiring my general health and well-being.

While perhaps I expected less contact now compared to when we were together, I hardly expected to be cut out entirely. And yet I have. I think that if anything still burns me three months after the fact, makes me seeth and at the same time feel confused and wonder if perhaps someone had erased her memory of me, (and then taken my place by taking our collective memories and using them to curry favor with her) it's the fact that I seem to have gone from being in a relationship that defined me as a person (good or bad, that's the truth) to being in a vacuum.

Our relationship did define me. Maybe it defined her too, and she didn't like that. I was still me, of course, but I expected to be asked about Jen at work, by my friends, and so on and so forth. Pronouns are powerful things. The royal we replacing the I. The us replacing the me. And now, after five years, I suddenly find myself me again. Not knowing what or who 'me' is.

A vacuum isn't as bad as it sounds. Over the past two months I've come to terms with myself. The fact that I hate that I've lost all my musical instincts, the fact that I don't like the way I look. And so being in a vacuum by myself (how wonderfully solipsistic), I've fixed that.

I bought an acoustic guitar off Craigslist. It looks awesome (an old Blueridge), and I can play a few chords. D, G, A minor, C . . ., and I'm doing some right hand exercises all the time. I'm working on a bar chord now, F. It hurts, although I'm building up some great calluses.

I've been exercising. First I went down to the last belt notch on my old belt (I had been on the second to last, I think it was a 34), and then on the iPod belt that Jen got me for Christmas (just about the last time I talked to her), I went from the second to last notch to the last notch. I have abs again! Nice ones too! And my face isn't as fat as it was two months ago. Maybe I don't blame my image entirely for the breakup, but I can't help but think that it took a large part of it.

I was probably up to 185 lbs, even 190 before. I'm probably at 180 now, and dropping.

Perhaps as a test of self-discipline, I've given up meat. Besides fish. I don't think I can give up tuna or sushi. I may eat turkey still (not the processed deli meat kind, the real bird and cranberry sauce kind)

Undoubtedly, I got a little complacent. My waistline was testament to that. Maybe all couples get lazy at some point. It's one of my deepest regrests that for some reason, we couldn't get over that hump. And now that it's over, I'm continuing forward like there's no chance for reconciliation, because I think any thought of that on my part would breed more laziness. The idea that if I sit on my ass, she'll come back. That sentiment's not part of me now, and I'm happy about that.

End Note: Michel Gondry's a genius. And three wine glasses of genshu sake make me spill things out in writing I wouldn't otherwise.

Oh No He Di-int

2007-01-08T22:26:00.000-05:00

A couple of random notes. This is what happens when you Google yourself.
First, I was pleased to find out that my name appears in an old (relatively) McSweeney's Internet Tendancy mailbag. Question and answer below and in the link about halfway down.

Great post on NES characters and fantasy baseball. A question, though: Does Mega Man get to summon Rush when he's playing center?

Will Li

Mega Man has a BFF clause in his contract (like Jack and Craig Wilson), so that if he gets traded, the robo-canine goes with him. But that's as far as his assistance goes. If you start letting one player bring a significant other onto the field, soon you'll have all the players taking advantage.

Jose Lima will put his wife next to him on the mound, frustrating batters with the unexplainable fact that she married him. People will be striking out on purpose so they don't have to converse with Anna Benson, strategically placed near first base. Pedro's Little Friend will be biting everyone. Mike Piazza's leather-clad posse from the Blue Oyster will just stand around, making everyone feel weird.

It'll be total anarchy. And ticket sales will go through the roof!

Second

This is not me. I do not like seeing my name appear on an "Asian Professionals in Washington DC area" dating/networking/whatever the hell it is list. It makes me think I've gone insane and that I have some kind of multiple personality disorder that manifests itself on the internet and tries to make me get out more. I do need to get out more, but not through "Asian Professionals" networking.

Moreover, I was here first, dammit. This happened at Dartmouth too. I was the only William Li there, and then Sophomore year some engineering student named William Li came and made things all pear-shaped for awhile, jumbling our emails and whatnot. One of his friends even called me to try to take me hiking.

Now see here, "William Li in DC," since I have seniority, at least when it comes to residency in the Greater DC area, I demand that you start referring to yourself differently. Maybe change your name to Seamus. There aren't too many Asians named Seamus. A Google search only reveals one person with that name and I think he's in Hong Kong.

If I go to law school, or graduate and go to work for a law firm where there is a William Li (there is one) and find that I will be entering the territory of another William Li, then I will change my name. To Satchmo, since that's been a nickname since High School (only among a select few).

With this resolution, I am proposing a set of unwritten rules for the thousands of William Li's in this world.

1) There may be only one William Li in a workplace. Seniority rules here, even if the new employee is hired to a more senior level position.

2) There may be several William Li's in a city, but if any confusion arises (as per William Li in DC), these individuals must then either

a) fight to the death, preferably utilizing broadswords, beheadings and as many "Highlander" references as can be stomached.
b) change their names. If the senior William Li is sadistic, he may propose an embarrassing name. However, he should be forewarned that what goes around comes around.
c) append a suffix to their names to further clarify their identity (i.e. William Li of Rosslyn). Alternate suffixes will be permitted (for example, William Li Von Ronsenburg), but may result in public derision.

3) It is allowed for William Li's to communicate, as it will not, as some have speculated, result in combustion that results from the meeting of positive and negative energies. However, they are prohibited from using their similar names for ill - including but not exclusive to

a) killing their significant others in a Hitchcock-ian plot
b) forming a gang of thieves or criminal cartel (the utilization of the term "Asian Persuasion" as the name of this group shall be punishable by extreme cruel and unusual punishment.

4) Under no circumstance will any William Li in this world name their male child William Li Jr., lest they perpetuate this annoying cycle of misidentification. While names shall not be as outlandish as "Landocalrissian," unique names are encouraged.

This petition should be implemented posthaste, to prevent further confusion and awkwardness. And fears that I have some form of schizophrenia. I do not. That I know of.

Turning Japanese (Part 2)

2006-11-29T09:57:00.000-05:00

The latest Japanese baseball player to be posted is Kei Igawa, a left-handed 27 year-old pitcher from the Hanshin Tigers.

Perhaps influenced by the bidding on Matsuzaka, the Yankees won the posting with a bid of $26 million, significantly more than the next highest bidder, the Mets, who are rumored to have bid $15 million. While the Mets bid is just a rumor, I find it likely, as early speculation had the posting fee around that level, and the Padres supposedly put out a bid of "more than $10 million."

My guess is that the Yankees took a look at the free agent money being thrown around and the Matsuzaka bid and figured that they should dial their bid up. Let's suppose Igawa gets 4 years, 28 million, which puts the Yankees expenditure at a total of $13 million a year over those 4 years. I don't know if that contract is going to be what Igawa will get, but I find it reasonable.

Obviously, the figure isn't exact, as the posting fee is not counted against payroll figures and is therefore not subject to luxury tax considerations, especially under the new CBA. This could actually save the Yankees some money; if they signed Barry Zito to a contract worth $14 million annually, that entire number would be counted into the payroll. With the luxury tax thresholds rising over the next few years, signing Igawa could be one of the first moves the Yankees will make to actually drop under, or at least minimize, their luxury tax payments.

This is why the posting process actually is a bigger boon and a more lucrative process than we think for teams with high payrolls and deep pocketbooks. In addition to having more money to throw around, the Yankees or the Red Sox (if the Red Sox were over threshold) would much rather pay a posting fee and a salary than an equivalent or slightly higher salary to an American free agent.

Just to give an example - if Yankees are over the luxury tax threshold:

Igawa: 26 million posting fee to Hanshin, plus 4 year deal worth 28 million (just an assumption).

For luxury tax purposes, $7 million a year, plus 40% luxury tax penalty equals 10.8 million.

If the Yankees stay over the threshold each year of the contract, which is unlikely given the new thresholds put into place in the new CBA, the total expenditure on Igawa will be $69.2 million

Suppan: Let's say the Yankees sign a league average Jeff Suppan to a 4 year deal worth $10 million a year. It looks high, but I would direct your attention to the contracts given to out a number of middle relievers (Danys Baez: 3 years, 19 million), and outfielders (Juan Pierre, Gary Matthew Jr.).

Quick Update - Adam Eaton, a pitcher who is barely average, if that, who has never pitched more than 200 innings in a season (close a couple of times), just got 24.5 million dollars over 3 years to go to the Phillies, where his high home run and fly ball rates will be just as manifest as they were in Texas. This convinces me as much as any other signing that someone like Suppan will likely get 10 million a year or more.

In any case, in our example with Jeff Suppan, the Yankees will pay

$10 million a year to Suppan, plus $4 million a year in luxury tax.

Total expenditure in 4 years: $56 million.

The difference, about $13 million, or a touch more than $3 million a year, isn't so much when you consider marketing and sales increases (even if profits are split, the Yankees would still make money on Igawa they wouldn't on Suppan), and the fact that Igawa is 4 years younger. Jeff Suppan might have more major league experience, but I would argue that Igawa has more upside.

Also, if the numbers are accurate, the Yankees might have figured that if they could break even on a posting fee of $13 million, they could afford bidding higher just to ensure they would get Igawa. Of course, money used in posting is money immediately spent (I assume the contract will be signed and that the posting fee isn't paid out over several years), so that should factor into calcuations. For example, the Yankees won't have that $26 million to invest elsewhere, whereas with a domestic free agent signing, they're paying out luxury taxes and salaries from year to year.

That said, the difference in luxury taxes may still make the posting fee worth it.

What kind of player is Igawa though? His Baseballcube.com page contains the best set of statistics I can find on him, and the numbers are a bit shaky.

While his strikeout rates can be excellent, he has also been inconsistent. 2005 in particular is a red flag - 23 HR allowed in 173 IP, along with 199 hits allowed (well over one per inning), and an above desirable walk rate (60 BB in 173 IP) all stand out. A 1.50 WHIP isn't very pretty in any league, and apparently his ERA was the worst among his team's starters.

That said, his 2006 was excellent, as his walk rate dropped and he allowed significantly fewer baserunners. Is this the Kei Igawa the Yankees should expect though?

Sturgeon General has a set of projections up that has Igawa being about league average. And I think that if the Yankees get a league average season out of him, it may be worth it.

Consider that a league average free-agent pitcher (like Jeff Suppan) in today's market is likely going to command anywhere from 7 to 10 million a year, possibly more if I'm underestimating the market this year. And that Barry Zito, who will likely cost 14-16 million a year, and more for the Yankees due to the luxury tax, has posted two straight years of 116 ERA+ (with horrendous walk rates, I might add).

In that case, the posting fee of 26 million and a 4 year deal worth 28 million might not look so bad for the Yankees. They've shown that they need starting pitching, what with Randy Johnson's inconsistency and Carl Pavano's absence. Signing Igawa will start them in 2007 with a rotation of

Mussina, Wang, Johnson, Igawa, Pavano, with Darrell Rasner and Philip Hughes as potential fill-ins.

The Yankees may have been able to save money by using Hughes, since you always save money by using cost-controlled players, but with the shakiness of Johnson and Pavano, it's probably for the best for them to hedge their bets and find more starters, which for the Yankees means dipping into their wallets and diving into the free agent market. And it might even save them money in the long run.

Cover Songs

2006-11-12T04:44:00.000-05:00

Since it's getting close to 5 AM, I guess I'm not getting any sleep tonight. So here's a list of songs that you had absolutely no clue were covers. The vast majority of these have become so famous that most people attribute them as originals to the artists who made them popular.

“Respect” - by Otis Redding, covered by Aretha Franklin

Might as well start the list with a bang. I've gotten into Otis Redding lately, although I do admit that part of my interest is because he managed to be so influential before he died at only 26.

Consider new direction "Sitting by the Dock of the Bay," seemed to indicate, and that he was about to start collaborations with Bob Dylan. What might have happened if he hadn't died so early?

I was stunned to find out that this was a cover, considering the empowering message that Aretha Franklin charged it with really made it seem like her own. It doesn't cheapen her version, but it's surprising nonetheless.

“Hard to Handle” - by Otis Redding, covered by The Black Crowes

This was also surprising, and made me lose a lot of respect for Chris Robinson, because "Hard to Handle" is one of the few truly good Black Crowes songs. Or should I say, it was one of the few good Black Crowes songs.

“Me and Bobby McGee” - by Kris Kristofferson, covered by Janis Joplin (and everyone else in the world, but most famously by Janis Joplin)

This is the same Kris Kristofferson most kids today know as Whistler from the "Blade" movies. I knew he was a singer first, but I didn't know "Me and Bobby McGee" was his until very recently.

“I Fought the Law” - by The Crickets, covered by The Clash

Most know the song best as a Clash anthem. But apparently it was a Crickets song (post Buddy Holly)

“Take Me To The River” - by Al Green, covered by The Talking Heads

I knew it was by Al Green, but the Talking Heads version is so good that I only associate the song with David Byrne's voice.

“Hound Dog” - by Big Mama Thornton (and Johnny Otis?), covered by Elvis Presley

“Blue Suede Shoes” - by Carl Perkins, covered by Elvis Presley

It's quite interesting to see that some of Elvis's greatest hits were covers, although I do enjoy his original stuff ("Can't Help Falling in Love" being a personal favorite - I'm sappy like that, so sue me).

“Mony Mony” - by Tommy James, covered by Billy Idol

“White Wedding” - by The Deathstars, covered by Billy Idol

Two of the three songs that made Idol famous were covers. "Rebel Yell" is still catchy though.

“Hallelujah” - by Leonard Cohen, covered by Rufus Wainwright, also covered by Jeff Buckley

Wainwright's version is famous for being in "Shrek," but I've always been partial to the Jeff Buckley version.

“Istanbul (Constantinople)” - by The Four Lads, covered by They Might Be Giants

This I had no clue about until tonight. This completely changes my perception of They Might Be Giants.

“Last Kiss” by J. Frank Wilson, covered by Pearl Jam

I detest this song.

“Crossroads” by Robert Johnson, covered by Cream

“Red Red Wine” by Neil Diamond, covered by UB40

UB40's most famous songs have been their covers, namely this one and the aforementioned Elvis song "Can't Help Falling in Love."

“Cocaine” by JJ Cale, covered by Eric Clapton

“After Midnight” by JJ Cale, covered by Eric Clapton

I'm not sure if Cale recorded either of these songs before Clapton did. So they may not really qualify to be on this list.

“Tainted Love” by Gloria Jones, covered by Soft Cell

“Turn Turn Turn” by Pete Seeger (from the Bible), covered by The Byrds

Of course, The Byrds also famously covered "Tambourine Man," but this song is associated with The Byrds exclusively now. At least that was my impression.

“Twist and Shout” by The Isley Brothers, covered by The Beatles

“Nothing Compares 2 U” by Prince, covered by Sinead O’Connor

To think that Sinead O'Connor might never have hit it in the international market if Prince hadn't written this song and then challenged her to a one-on-one game of basketball and discussed the song over pancakes afterwards.

“Baker Street” by Gerry Rafferty, covered by The Foo Fighters

“You Really Got Me” by The Kinks, covered by Van Halen

I think the Kinks were already popular when they recorded this, but Van Halen really put it on the map. "Van Halen I" still sits up there with GNR's "Appretite for Destruction" as two albums that were so great that nothing either band could do afterwards could come close.

“All Along the Watchtower” by Bob Dylan, covered by Jimi Hendrix

I think everyone knows this is a Dylan song, but you never hear the Dylan version on the radio.

“Blinded by the Light” by Bruce Springsteen, covered by Manfred Mann

Same with this one, in that I've never heard the Springsteen original on the radio.

I was never sure about the lyrics to this song, at least the Manfred Mann version, whether it was "revved up like a deuce, another runner in the night" or "revved up like a douche, another runner in the night," but neither makes sense to me, so it doesn't really matter. How does one rev up a douche, anyway? And what are the consequences after you rev it up?

Apparently, it's "revved up like a deuce" though. That still sounds vaguely scatological to me.

“There She Goes” by The La’s (Lee Mavers), covered by Sixpence None The Richer

Kind of a lame way to end it, but I was surprised this song was a cover.

In any case, this was for some reason the focus of my energy tonight, and I'm still interested in finding out about other songs that are really covers. Let me know of any I left any off this list.

Turning Japanese

2006-11-04T12:12:00.000-05:00

Bear with me, this post takes a while to develop.

The biggest story in baseball over the next few weeks will be Daisuke Matsuzaka. The 26 year old Seibu Lions ace has been posted by his team, meaning Major League teams get to bid somewhere between 20 and 30 million dollars just to go into exclusive contract negotiations with Matsuzaka and his agent Scott Boras.

What should we expect of Matsuzaka though? People are already projecting what Matsuzaka might do in the majors or at least his major league equivalent stats, and the projections range from stats for a Cy Young caliber pitcher to a solid #2 starter.

Considering the bidding for Oakland ace Barry Zito might reach the salaries that Matsuzaka will expect (counting the posting fees), most major league teams would likely be happy with any of the results in that range.

Let's take a closer look at the projections though.

Over at Matsuzaka Watch, probably the best resource for both Matsuzaka news and information (the videos of his pitching are especially comprehensive), Mike Plugh uses Jim Albright's conversion system to get the following statistical line:

Year GS ERA IP H HR BB SO
2005 28 2.74 215 185 16 63 200
2006 25 2.52 187 156 21 39 181

At Stugeon General's Report, a personal projection guesses

IP K BB HR ERA
200 180 45 25 3.40

At Replacement Level Yankees, a different conversion system gives us this line:

ERA G GS IP H HR BB SO H/9 BB/9 K/9 WHIP
3.67 26 22 186 173 37 49 188 8.4 2.4 9.1 1.1

I'm not particularly wedded to any of these projections. The high home run rate stands out in the Replacement Level Yankees analysis. Mike Plugh's projection shows an excellent BB/IP rate and a stellar ERA.

Since I'm not an expert in Japanese baseball, I can't really pick out which one of these might approximate his future the best. However, I do wonder how much these projections accurately mimic how an actual manager might use Matsuzaka.

As a Seibu Lion this past year, Matsuzaka started 25 games, throwing 13 complete games and logging 186 innings. This works out to 7.44 innings thrown a start. In comparison, Twins workhorse Johan Santana averaged 6.88 innings per start this year, a significantly lower number. The majority of major leaguers don't average over 7.

In fact, the only people that I can think of who have averaged as many innings per start recently are Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling as Diamondbacks, Livan Hernandez and Mark Buerhle (both before this year). The Bill James Handbook for the 2005 season only has 2 starts in which pitchers threw more than 140 pitches, and both were by Livan Hernandez.

The problem I have is not with the projections themselves, persay. Hideo Nomo had a similar workload switch when he came over from Japan. He went from throwing 15 complete games a year to throwing 4 his first year as a major leaguer, and he was great as a rookie.

We all hear about pitchers and routines. Teams use different strategies in working their pitchers on off days and counting pitches during starts. And while 100 pitches is an arbitrary cut off point, many managers and pitching coaches seem to be sensitive about letting their pitchers work beyond that number.

It has been well documented that Matsuzaka works with high pitch counts. Averaging 138 pitches in 2005 and 144 pitches in 2006 places Matsuzaka significantly above the point at which most managers will keep their pitchers in the game. A Cubs fan would be apopletic at that point during a Mark Prior start, to use an extreme example.

NOTE: These numbers are pitches per 9 innings, and NOT pitches per start, as Yahoo! and The Sporting News indicates.

So how should a manager use Matsuzaka? How long should he stay in games? And should the manager keep Matsuzaka longer in the game than he would another pitcher?

My instinct, given his pitch counts, would be to work him longer than an average pitcher. He's not going to be throwing harder here, so keeping him on a longer pitch count (provided he is pitching well enough to go deep into games) might be the best way to maintain his routine.

Matsuzaka should fare better than Hideo Nomo in the long run in my opinion. Nomo was wild even in the Japanese Leagues, where he had Nolan Ryan-like walk rates and strikeout rates. His wildness continued over here. In contrast, Matsuzaka's walk totals have declined in recent years, and reached phenomenally low levels in 2005 and 2006 (around or under 2 BB/9 IP).

Which brings me (FINALLY) to my big question. How is Matsuzaka reaching 140 and 150 pitches per nine when his walk rate is that good? He doesn't allow that many hits per inning either. Matsuzaka's WHIP was 0.925 this past year, meaning on average, he allows 0.925 men on base an inning. 138 pitches each 9 innings works out to 15.33 pitches per inning. But if he's throwing an average of 15.33 pitches in an inning, and he's only facing an average of 3.925 hitters, that means each hitter will see 3.905 pitches per at bat.

To contextualize that, most MLB players are considered patient if they can average 4 pitches seen per plate appearance. The most patient players, ones like Bobby Abreu and Jason Giambi, will average about 4.4 pitches per plate appearance. And those are rare.

The most economical pitchers throw fewer than 3.5 pitches per batter(Greg Maddux is especially good at this).

So if I'm not mistaken, Matsuzaka is throwing many more pitches than conventional wisdom says he should be. I don't know if this is an artifact of the way baseball is played in Japan, or if players are just superbly talented in working at bats to full counts over there.

I don't know how that will translate over here, if in fact it is something unique to Matsuzaka (and not the Japanese game). This means that if his WHIP rises, which it will, he's going to be throwing a lot of pitches and reaching high pitch counts quickly. Which may confuse his manager even more if Matsuzaka is in fact able to pitch well by throwing a lot of pitches. And furthermore, is this something his new pitching coach is going to want to work on?

EDIT: Orginally, I had the calculation using 138 pitches per start, which would be extraordinarily high. This is not the case. 138 pitches per 9 is correct. Still, this is a high number of pitches being thrown to each batter.

EDIT 2: Looking at it, 15 pitches per inning may be high, but considering Matsuzaka was a high strikeout pitcher in Japan, it makes sense. I assume high strikeout pitchers generally have high pitch counts (I think I've read this and it makes sense). But 15 per inning still seems a touch high to me for someone who issues so few walks and faces so few batters.

Today, Matsuzaka threw 108 pitches in 7 innings. Which isn't incredibly efficient. And yet he only gave up 6 hits and a walk, for a 1.00 WHIP. It's barely any sample, but maybe he just works deep into counts?

Music

2006-10-31T22:26:00.000-05:00

Have you ever found out about an author or a musician whose work coincides with your tastes perfectly, and yet you had never heard of them before?

I had something resembling that tonight, as I downloaded and listened to my favorite podcast, Coverville

The song list for the latest podcast looked pretty decent, with (yet another) "Ring of Fire" cover, as well as covers of songs by Tom Waits and Collective Soul. Then I noticed the name next to the Tom Waits cover - Emiliana Torrini.

Now, it's not completely true that I had not heard of Ms. Torrini before; but I only knew her as the singer who sang Gollum's Song for "The Two Towers" and did a collaboration with Thievery Corporation.

Her cover of Tom Waits's "I Hope That I Don't Fall In Love With You" is exquisite. The song itself is a classic, from his Closing Time album that opened with one of my favorite songs ever, Ol' 55.

But Emiliana's voice is surprisingly soulful (she sang the rather ethereal Gollum's Song when Bjork, her fellow Icelander, had to pull out), and while she doesn't capture Tom Waits's gravelly indecisiveness, her interpretation still evokes the images of a smoky, half-empty bar. It also helps that the arrangement of the song is appropriately spartan; Emiliana is accompanied by only a piano and an acoustic guitar.

After some research, which wasn't simple, since the album, Merman (I immediately thought of Zoolander), is one that was only released in Iceland, I discovered that the rest of the album is just as good. Not only does she cover Tom Waits, but Velvet Underground's "Stephanie Says."

The rest of the album is ambitious, with obvious classical and jazz influences, lush orchestration, and quite a bit of experimentation. If I had to compare her album Merman with a popular artist's work, I would say that she reminds me a bit of Norah Jones, but there's more depth to her voice and her lyrics, and the album has a significant more range that Jones's work.

In re-reading that last sentence, perhaps she's not like Norah Jones at all, but it's the most familiar sound I can place with her. Ms. Torrini is often compared to Bjork, apparently, due to their shared nationality and quirky electronica-driven sounds, but the electronica is not present at all in "Merman"

On a sidenote, I have also been deriving way too much pleasure in my contribution to a certain message board discussion. During one of the baseball rain delays recently, a Deadspin commenter decided to start a "Tower of Song" game, a list of ten songs which other commenters would then alter by removing a song and replacing it with their own. The stipulation was that the song and the artist's name could not contain the letter "e."

My entry?

"Filipino Box Spring Hog" by Tom Waits (from his album Mule Variations - the album could contain the letter "e.") I've been trying to think of a better one ("Bombs Over Baghdad" by Outkast is my second best effort), but I can't. One of the other commenters had a song by Alison Krauss and Union Station, which I definitely respect, but I still like mine better.

If you can wow me with a better song, I'll tip my hat to you.

Hits and Misses

2006-10-29T20:38:00.000-05:00

I've been watching a lot of baseball and football in the past few weeks. With the playoffs in the MLB and the NFL getting underway, there have been plenty of sporting events worth the attention. And since I've one of those cavemen who don't have a TIVO or a DV-R, I also watch all the commercials.

It seems that synergy is big this season. For example, we have the Chevrolet campaign featuring the musical stylings of John Cougar Mellencamp. There are several commercials, and Mellencamp appeared at the World Series to tout both the cars and his new album.

There are at least three permutations of the commercial; one with images of cars, assembly lines and blue collar workers, one depicting the American Dream through football, and one depicting images of national importance that define America. It's the last one I find perplexing. And if I weren't so used to commercials that insulted my intelligence, I would probably find it insulting as well.

No one I know who has seen it can explain why Chevy uses the images they did. Ostensibly, the commercial is an attempt to connect the Chevy Silverado with a sense of "American-ness." John Mellencamp sings about "our country," and the images in the commercial are synchronized with the words in the song. But the thing I don't get is how all the images form any kind of zeitgeist.

We begin with the Civil Rights movement - Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr. Fine. I agree that these were iconic "American" images.

Then after several shots of Chevy trucks and hard-working Americans, we go to a bunch of hippies, soldiers in Vietnam and Richard Nixon. A bit of a simplification of the times, perhaps, but these are also pretty stereotypical in terms of what people think of when they think of the late 60's / early 70's.

Then the commercial gets weird. The lyrics in the Mellencamp song invoke the geographical boundaries of the country, in and of itself a poor attempt to tap into some kind of American spirit. But the images used to represent the coasts and highlands and whatnot just make no sense to me. Not only do we get a wildfire (which incidentally, just killed several firefighters just this past week in California - you would think Chevy might pull that image from the ad in respect, but no), but also images of a flooded New Orleans and a shot of the New York skyline, post 9-11, with the twin beacons of light where the Twin Towers used to be.

All of the images in the commercial are powerful. That is undeniable. My problem is that when you put the images together, the images don't build on one another. To use physics terminology, the wave of images do not interfere contructively, but rather destructively. Constructive interference results in increased amplitudes (significance, or meaning, in this metaphor), whereas destructive interference results in the opposite.

By throwing together Rosa Parks and Hurricane Katrina and 9-11, not only do we simplify their importances to "our country," we cheapen their worth as well.

The point of the commercial, perhaps, was that like the Silverado, Americans are tough, capable of dealing with adversity and emerging stronger for the experience. This would not be unlike the competing commercials for Ford, with the tagline "Built Ford Tough", or the ones for the Toyota Tacoma, in which the vehicle in question is subjected to all manner of bizarre apocalypses, including a meteor, the Loch Ness Monster, Truck-zilla, and a vengeful ex-girlfriend.

Thus, we might be able to explain the images of New Orleans under water and the Civil Rights movement. But this isn't what is conveyed. Instead, it seems that we're supposed to get some bizarre sense of patriotism as we watch these icons spliced together, until perhaps we're not sure what being "American" means anymore. And maybe this is the ultimate truth of the commercial; that our overreliance on icons and single defining images leaves us confused, so that without any depth and context, we're left with nothing at all.

Obviously we shouldn't over-analyze advertisements. But nevertheless, I can't help but think that whoever created the campaign scrambled to cobble together as many images they could that would be recognizable, spanning a 40-odd year time period, without paying any heed to any of the meaning behind the image. The problem is that when the commercial is accepted by the public without complaint (as anything bearing an American flag is susceptible to these days, it seems), it doesn't reflect very well on "our country."

On a lighter note, the other commercials that are ubiquitous these days during sporting events are the "Man-Law" commercials made by Miller for Miller Lite. I have some problems with these as well.

I'm not going to complain about the concept of a "man-law." Actually, I think the commercials deserve some applause for the rather satirical concept of a bunch of guys in a room caucusing guidelines for their gender. I think it's only a matter of time before some ad exec lampoons it for their female-targeted product.

What I do have a problem with is the latest one, which asks whether you can put fruit in beer.

First of all, the only acceptable way to drink Monkey-Piss (aka Corona) is with a slice of lime. Not that I would drink Corona, but this is the accepted method of imbibing the not-so-potent potable.

Second, it says right on the bottle of a beer I DO like, Blue Moon, that the beer should be served with a slice of orange on a pilsner glass.

It makes sense too. As Alton Brown of Food Network fame might tell us if he did a beer episode of Good Eats, fruit goes well with beer. There are plenty of beers brewed with blackberries or blueberries or raspberries or peaches or other fruit. Magic Hat's #9 is apricot flavored. Fruit and beer are actually very synergistic.

Where this goes wrong, of course, is with "flavored malt beverages" like Smirnoff Ice or Mike's Hard Lemonade. Now these should be banned. But that's not the point of the commercial.

The point of the commercial is that there is something unmanly about fruit (perhaps I sense the slightest bit of homophobia?) that detracts from beer. Which is completely false, and anyone who knows anything about beer understands this. Personally, I think the ad exec who wrote it needs to do some research into how real beers are crafted. I suppose that no fruit is going to make Miller Lite taste like anything substantive though.

To modify the old joke, why is Miller Lite like having sex in a canoe?

Because it's fucking close to water.

Choices

2006-09-20T21:22:00.000-04:00

I made a choice tonight. Not a very significant choice, I believe, but a choice nonetheless.

Every once in a while, I check my alumni email account. I'm not the most active of alumni - I'll pay my dues and give some money to the telemarketing efforts (if only because I applaud the efforts of the undergraduates calling me), but I haven't attended too many Dartmouth alumni functions in the DC area.

There was a gathering at a Nationals game last year, I believe, but I didn't attend. There are apparently meetings on a semi-regular basis, but I've neglected them. In all honesty, the only reason I RSVP'd to this particular event was because I noticed that it was at the Chophouse Brewery and that there was an open bar for an hour.

Yesterday, I read something that made me re-evaluate my plans for tonight. For some reason, the fact that Peter Gammons was making his return to ESPN was so compelling that I was considering giving up some good free beer (and in particular, Oatmeal Stout . . . ).

All today, I weighed my choices at work. I could watch Gammons's triumphant return from an aneurysm, and rejoice that for the last few weeks of the season, baseball will just feel right again. Baseball Tonight on ESPN is nothing without him. And the sport itself feels a little off without his presence, even though his participation has been reduced in recent years in terms of impact. Gammons, more than anyone else, from Joe Morgan to George Will, is the elder statesman of the game.

Gammons. Or Dartmouth alums? I haven't interacted with more than a couple of alumni my entire time here, even though I'm well aware that there are events in the area, and a sizable alumni population. Part of it is laziness. Part of it is because there aren't enough alumni in the area I actually want to interact with.

In the end, I went to the event. Strange as my college experience was (especially towards the end, what with the burnout and all), I still miss the feeling. And 500 or so miles from Hanover, gathering close to what must have been 150 alumni on the second floor of the Chophouse Brewery is a pretty good approximation.

Add in Oatmeal Stout and Amber Ale and it's even better (romanticized, I might add, considering the Natty Light we could expect in a frat basement).

So I'm home now, after partaking in the open bar for an hour, and tallying an Oatmeal Stout and two Amber Ales in the hour's time, and having some good conversation with my fellow alums. After not having lunch, I'm not entirely sure how I got home, but here I am. Watching the Tigers / White Sox tilt on ESPN, listening to a Johnny Cash album, and waiting for Sportscenter, when I will hopefully see Gammons, back at his usual post, at which point all will be right with the world.

Quick note

2006-08-24T23:11:00.000-04:00

I'm watching Baseball Tonight, and I see that Sean Casey was gunned down at first on a 5-7-3 forceout. Casey hit a sharp liner which went off Joe Crede's glove. Thinking Crede had caught it Casey stopped running, upon which Pablo Ozuna in left came charging in off the ball, which had trickled into left field.

Casey finally realized what had happened and began running to first, but Ozuna made a good throw which Konerko scooped out of the dirt in time to make the out.

Tim Kurkjian said something to the effect of never hearing anything like this before, and I have to admit, I've never heard of a 5-7-3 out either. He seemed to indicate that he had never heard of someone getting thrown out at first by an outfielder, but I have read about an apocryphal story in which a strong but slow footed Negro Leaguer (I need to look up the identity of the player) was sometimes thrown out at first because his line drives were hit so sharply.

Also, in a shift, the second baseman is kind of like a fourth outfielder, but I guess that doesn't really count.

A Pet Peeve

2006-08-24T21:13:00.000-04:00

I've been thinking about this for a while, and I've realized that poledancers really piss me off.

It's simply too irritating when you get on the DC Metro after a day's work and someone is bogarting the pole, straddling the damn thing like they wanted to make love to it, often wrapping their entire bodies around it when the train jerks or stops or starts, making you stand awkwardly in the crowded aisle, praying that the train doesn't come to a lurching halt and force you into unwanted contact with a fellow Metro rider.

I don't know if poledancers are endemic to the DC Metro system, but it's the only place I've noticed them. It's always the same type of person too, working the pole.

It's always some 40-something WASP-y lawyer. They're on the train, with their patent leather briefcase (usually dark brown) between their Italian dress shoes, which are positioned oh-so-neatly to either side of the pole. Both of their hands are wrapped around the pole, and often, they lean against it like their legs are made of jelly. Once, I saw someone leaning against the pole with their torso, deftly working their Blackberry with both arms coming together around the pole. No matter what method they use though, this pretty much prevents anyone else on the train from using the pole for its intended purpose.

There is a solution to this though, and if everyone participates, we may be able to put an end to this odious practice, with minimal cost to the everday taxpayer (albeit some slight personal sacrifice).

The next time you are on the Metro and see one of these individuals, get their attention in a not-so-surreptitious manner. Whoop like you're riding a bucking bronco, and leer at them with a winking eye. When you definitely have their attention, pull out your wallet and attempt to maintain eye-contact as you try to tuck a dollar bill into their belt.

If they don't get the hint, some verbal prompting may be required.

"You know, I know some girls who would kill to be able to work the pole like you do."

Perhaps even some admonishment.

"Sir, the DC Metro is not a Gentleman's Club, as it does not have a valid liquor license. If you want to continue your gyrations, please find an establishment of ill-repute where you can ply your wares."

I hope that one day, we will be able to get on the Metro and not be confronted by poledancers, and we can ride the train in relative peace, with one hand on the pole for support, as our Lord and Maker intended.

Relief

2006-08-13T10:44:00.000-04:00

Why does it seem that no one outside of Minnesota (aside from a blogger or two) is talking about Pat Neshek?

All the righty with the funky sidearm delivery has done is pitch 19 2/3 innings while allowing just two runs. Even more impressive, his strikeouts are through the roof (29 Ks), his control has been impeccable (3 BBs), and he has only allowed 6 hits. 6 hits in 20 innings? That's incredible. Minnesota fans have taken notice, including one of the best bloggers on the internet, Batgirl, but it doesn't seem that anyone else has.

Neshek's delivery makes him extremely effective against right handers, evidenced by 19 Ks against righties. But his nearly equal dominance of left handed hitters is a bit curious, as lefties hit well against him in the minors (at least compared to right handers). Despite the fact that both his runs were solo home runs by left handed hitters, his numbers against lefties have been impressive, to say the least.

It is yet to be seen whether batters will adjust against his delivery, but for now, it's enough to sit back and enjoy the spectacle. Not that I often get to see the Twins on television.

Also of note is Neshek's rather amusing blog, which is surpringly down-to-earth, and often gives a nice inside view of the travel and off-field life of baseball players. There is a good illustration of his delivery as well. Neshek is apparently an avid baseball and hockey card collector, and catalogues his expansive collection on the blog.

Moorcock

2006-08-04T21:55:00.000-04:00

About a year ago, I bought a set of books off Ebay. Michael Moorcock's Elric Saga was a series I had always meant to read, as it had been recommended highly to me, but I had never gotten around to it, or never found the books. And there they were on Ebay, in a nice lot, four books in total, a complete set of Moorcock's Elric Saga. Such is the lure of Ebay sometimes, I suppose.

In any case, Mr. Moorcock's books are quite fascinating. He has a way of writing that takes some getting accustomed to. He's not afraid of being prosy, and taking a significant amount of time in laying a scene out. If the same scenes had been charged to someone less skilled, they would have seemed very much like a soap opera, or a cheap Sci Fi film. Yet Moorcock is engaging enough that the result is vivid but not lurid, not easy considering the fantastical subject matter at hand.

Doing some more research, I stumbled upon Moorcock's essay "Epic Pooh," which attacks writers like J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis for their idolization of a pastoral underclass and their rather shallow takes on moralism. I loved reading the essay, partially because Moorcock's taste in children's fiction runs close to what mine was as a child - he applauds the works of Susan Cooper, Robin McKinley and Lloyd Alexander. But I also find his views on the value of Tolkien, and the message to be found in Tolkien's works, to be thought provoking.

I've written about Tolkien's issues of depicting scenes of battle in the past, namely that he does it horribly, and how he often turns to cliche in lieu of stronger prose, but I was surprised to read the vehement criticism that Moorcock levelled at him.

Moorcock's charges that "moderation . . . ruins Tolkien's fantasy and causes it to fail as a genuine romance, let alone an epic. The little hills and woods of that Surrey of the mind, the Shire, are "safe", but the wild landscapes everywhere beyond the Shire are "dangerous". Experience of life itself is dangerous. The Lord of the Rings is a pernicious confirmation of the values of a declining nation with a morally bankrupt class whose cowardly self-protection is primarily responsible for the problems England answered with the ruthless logic of Thatcherism."

He goes on to point out that Tolkien's rural paradise is not so much lost - Tolkien just doesn't want to go out and find it for himself. If Tolkien were to stray beyond "The Shire," he could find other places just as pastorally pleasant. But the integral trait of his paradise is not the rural idyllism, but the comfort and insularity of home. For the most part I agree with this assessment.

In the denouement of Return of the King, Aragorn gives the Shire to the Hobbits, presumably with the implication that no one will invade them or encroach upon their borders. Thus, isolation is restored. However, one can see how Tolkien extends his xenophobia to his other races. The other races concerned in The Lord of the Rings go back to their isolationist ways after the war - the exception being Rohan and Gondor, but even this is remains a war-like alliance.

But Tolkien's ideal is the Shire, and it is in the Shire where we can observe that the pastoral ideal is more pernicious that even Moorcock suggests. Not only does his Shire express a virulent xenophobia and fear of progress, it also takes on a hypocritical and ultimately destructive view on environmentalism.

The environmentalists who embrace Tolkien as a member of their order can take solace in part of Tolkien's saga - the Ents. The problem is that Tolkien himself never valued the Ents and what they stood for. I think Moorcock's point is valid, still, but it is actually strengthened once one considers how the Ents have no place at all in Tolkien's narrative, even though they are by far his best literary creation.

It is important to differentiate between the halycon existence of the Shire and the encroaching ravages of Industrialism. Just because Industrialism threatens the Shire does not mean that they are the only two entities to be considered in the moral narrative, which is where Tolkien's worst error can be found.

Tolkien makes the point that Industrialism, symbolized by Sauron and Saruman (more Saruman), will invade and destroy the peaceful existence of the Hobbits. But the other threat that Industrialism poses is on nature itself, and of course, those who are familiar with the story know full well the importance that the anger of nature (the Ents) plays in the advancement of the narrative.

What does the Wild and the Ent's tragic search for the Entwives have to do with the Shire though? At the end of The Return of the King, the answer is ultimately nothing; while Treebeard resolves that they may be able to look for the Entwives out by the Shire, nothing ever comes of it.

What would happen if the wood, which made an army of orcs run away in fear, were to come stampeding out in Farmer Maggot's corn fields? This is a possibility that Tolkien cannot address, as the answer is that the order and the Paradise embodied by the Shire cannot exist in the face of the Ents. So while Industrialism (the future) is an enemy of the Shire, so are the Ents, and the wild, untamed forests that they value (the past). And we are thus confronted by a vision of the Shire which is impossible - neither progressing into the modern age nor allowing the past to creep in on its well ordered borders.

Treebeard's quest to find the Entwives is depicted as hopeless, and it is. The Entwives were characterized as more orderly than their male counterparts, enjoying tending to groves of trees. Treebeard mentions that they would have liked the Shire. Maybe they did? Maybe they were subsumed by the colonizers that founded the Shire, reduced to unspeaking symbols and convenient reminders of the bounties of nature, without the threat and danger of the wilderness.

If we see that Treebeard and his Ents symbolize the wilderness, and the Entwives the cultivation of nature, is it too much of a stretch to think that the Shire is thus to Ents what Industrialism would have been to the Shire? In Tolkien's worldview, there is simply no place for the Ents, which he acknowledges.

They are made even more dangerous by their newfound expansionist ways at the end of the saga. Unlike all the other races, the Ents actually grow, from a sedentary forest of trees concerned with protecting themselves (and slowly dying out, going silent, it might also be added), to a wandering race looking for their future.

Unfortunately their future is nowhere to be found. There is no future for those who would wander in search of a home, because all the homes have already been taken. And their occupants are not willing to budge for a group of new colonizers.

The Ents, while being "good," are still dangerous. And the mere existence of that danger is a threat to the pastoral Shire. Above all else, Tolkien emphasizes the control of home, which translates to comfort and a pleasant existence. Outsiders (as groups and not individuals, it should be noted, as exceptions are ok, like Gimli and Legolas, as long as they don't become the norm) need not be considered or tolerated.

So it's been a month

2006-07-24T22:33:00.000-04:00

I haven't posted in a while. I don't have a whole lot on my mind right now (that's is solid enough to blog about), so I'll go with something easy.

Ok, not something easy. It's more like something sweet. And strong. With a high alcohol content (for a beer).

I'm sipping on an Old Rasputin Imperial Stout right now. As can probably be surmised, I got it because it's called Old Rasputin. It's actually from California, but there's a nice big picture of The Mad Monk on the front. I don't like judging books (or beers) by their covers, but this one was too good to pass up.

What do I think?

The first thing you notice about this stout is its incredibly high alcohol content. 9.0% is high for beer, even for stout (Guinness Extra Stout, which I love, has a 7.5% alcohol content).

Next, the pour. I do have a stout glass, and I have to say, this beer pours like a dream. Beautiful, like black silk sliding into the glass, with a tan, cappuccino colored head which builds nicely.

The smell is quite distinct. The nose is surprisingly sweet, not what one might expect. Not knowing better, I would have thought that this was a chocolate stout.

And you do get hints of dark chocolate when you taste it. The stout glides nicely over the tongue, and instantly, fills the mouth with a sweetness reminiscent of chocolate and raisins. There's also a distinct bitterness that is not unlike a good black coffee.

The aftertaste is pleasant, although the alcohol taste really lingers. A minute after a sip, I get distinct roasted coffee tastes in my mouth, as well as more slightly sweet, raisin-y or nutty notes.

It's funny, but this stout drinks more like a port than a beer. I'm not saying it tastes like port, but when drinking port, and from what I've been taught about port, you're looking for the same types of flavors - chocolate, raisin, hazelnut, almonds, dried fruits, figs, raspberry maybe . . .

Last word? I like it, although I'm a fan of stouts. If someone has a tough time drinking Guinness, they'll likely find this one completely unpalatable. Some people who don't like chocolate stouts might also not like this, as the sweetness is definitely present, and becomes almost overpowering as the beer comes closer to room temperature.

If you're drinking it, you might want to let the beer come close to room temperature - this isn't one to be rushed. Indeed, rushing it will just get you buzzed really fast. I've nursed it for a good half hour, and I'm feeling a little buzz nevertheless. At 9%, it's almost twice as strong as your standard lagers, and it is noticable.

If drinking Guinness is like eating a meal, drinking an Old Rasputin Imperial Stout is like have a three course meal followed by chocolate cake for dessert.

Psych

2006-06-19T18:49:00.000-04:00

In a few comments to my post on X-Men III below, someone by the name of Puke7 essentially accuses me of overanalyzing a meaningless movie by attacking my masculinity.

I still don't get the point of that one, but nevertheless, I stand by my right to analyze whatever tripe I want, because after all, the loudest statement of all might be made by a meaningless movie that grosses hundreds of millions of dollars. It's what's missing that's important.

I'd like to continue the trend of overanalyzing, because I've come to realize that there's not enough of it. Not nearly. To generalize, we're so morbidly afraid of analysis that we spout the same repetitive garbage over and over again, telling ourselves that nothing is original anymore, so why bother trying? To a large extent, I'm starting to feel that way about sports and sportswriting, for example.

But regarding cinema, I've been thinking for a while about the movie "Napoleon Dynamite." Why did people quote it so much? Why do they still quote it so much? How did it get to be such a cultural phenomenon that "Vote Pedro" and "Gosh!" among other phrases, have entered our daily lexicon?

For me, the answer is not so simple that the movie was eminently quotable, or that it spoke to the Napoleon in us, or the repressed children of the 80's that so many of us have contained within ourselves, wrapped in fetters of snap bracelets, aviator glasses, legwarmers and shoulder pads.

We are not Napoleon, for all our quoting of him.

We're merely the ones who laugh at him. And I would advance the idea that the sublimation of "Napoleon Dynamite" into our daily conversations, and consciousness, is nothing more than a guilty attempt to redeem ourselves and convince ourselves that far from laughing at him, we are just like him, and that we are laughing with him.

We'd like to believe that we were the underdog in school, the ones being bullied and laughed at. But that wouldn't be the truth. Honestly, I may have been bullied in school, but for every time that someone spoke down to me, there's probably another time that I was speaking down to someone else. There's almost always someone left to bully.

We tell ourselves, perhaps, that we admire his refusal to live by rules thrust upon him. But in the world we live in, there's one word for people who live like him. Outcasts.

And not many of us are willing to embrace that moniker. Therefore, we pretend that we're like Napoleon, that we're outcasts just like him, oh poor us, while we're in fact the ones who are casting others out.

Think about the humor of the movie - why are we laughing?

We laugh at Napoleon for shoving food at Tina the Llama (and getting angry at her, which is in and of itself intriguing, because Napoleon, like us, and like his peers, needs someone or some thing to push around). We laugh at Napoleon for his broken attempts at social interaction with the other characters in the film.

The other characters are all caricatures or stereotypes (of blondes, of girls from the 1980's, of Mexicans, or rednecks, etc.etc.), but nevertheless, what we laugh at is not the stereotype, but Napoleon's inability to deal with them.

But our laughter is never really directed at the caricatures of 80's midwestern life. No, the reactions to characters like Uncle Rico are more painful than anything else. We're meant to be repulsed by characters like Summer.

Nor is our outward laughter directed at the set-up of the jokes, the social commentary - the idea of his family eating nothing but steak, the idea of Keith meeting a woman on the Internets.

Our laughter is directly solely AT Napoleon himself, as he draws horrible pictures of the girl he has a crush on, as he gets pushed around at school, as he reacts impotently to the bullying, etc. etc. In fact, the film (and Jon Heder) does such a good job of making Napoleon the locus of all the ridicule, that I'm convinced that our ritualisitic repetitions are nothing more than attempts to compensate for laughing at him. Every time we say "Gosh!" it makes us feel a little better for laughing at Napoleon being a member of the Happy Hands Club.

We're sorry to be laughing at Napoleon. But we do it anyway, don't we? We'd like to think that we ARE him, or that we constantly deal with people who are like the ones Napoleon encounters, and that in the end, maybe we have an entertaining solo dance routine that will garner us applause from even the most popular (and banal) elements of our society.

My own words don't really sum up my thoughts on the movie as well as the anecdote imparted by a friend. She told me that the first time she saw the movie, she saw it alone, and consequently, did not get it at all. She didn't know whether to laugh, because it would have made her feel guilty, or to just sit and feel sorry for him. But it was easier to laugh the second time, when she saw it with a group of friends.

I think it makes a lot of sense. It take a special kind of person to laugh at the misfortune of others alone. It's a lot easier when we're in a group. "Napoleon Dynamite" is a movie that appeals to groupthink - it appeals to the power of the group to ridicule as a single entity, with a single focus of ridicule. As a fortunate consequence to the moviemakers, most of us then feel so guilty that we must necessarily justify our laughter by deifing the object of the ridicule.

300 Game Winners

2006-06-06T16:49:00.000-04:00

I was meaning to post this a few weeks ago, but I might as well just post it now.

A recent article by Ken Rosenthal presents several barriers that could prevent pitchers in the future from winning 300 games.

The barriers are

1) Five Man Rotations
2) Fewer complete games (and thus, fewer decisions)
2b) Specialized Bullpens
2c) Injury Paranoia
3) Emphasis on power pitchers
4) Late starts to careers

Are any of these factors truly obstacles though?

For the purposes of this article, the 300 game winners I will look at will all be post-WWII pitchers – there really is no point in comparing today’s pitchers to say, Cy Young or Christy Mathewson. The post-WWII group comprises 10 of the 22 individuals to win 300 games.

1) Five Man Rotations

Warren Spahn never started more than 40 games in a season in his career – but he did start 35 or more games a total of 10 times. In comparison, Greg Maddux has also never started 40 games in a season. But he has started 35 games or more 9 times in his career. One thing to remember for Spahn and Early Wynn is that they pitched most of their careers in a 154 game format, which depresses the start total slightly. The overall effect is that a 4 man rotation doesn’t factor in nearly as much as one might think.

In fact, if we take a 300 game winner’s games started and divide by total seasons pitched, we see that there is a very small range of starts in a season. At the low end, Early Wynn averaged 26.6 games started a season en route to 300 wins. This is significantly lower than the next 300 game winner however – the next individual, Nolan Ryan, averaged 28.6 starts a season, a full two more starts per season than Wynn. Don Sutton represents the high end of the spectrum with 32.9 starts a season – and Sutton pitched in numerous 5-man rotations. The small range just shows that more than 4-man rotations, longevity and health have a much larger impact on how many starts someone will get. In addition, Sutton began his career with a full season starting, something few of the other pitchers on the list can claim. It is a fairly intuitive conclusion, but it needs to be stated in order to emphasize how one full season at the beginning of a career or one fewer injury can compensate for the effects of a 5 man rotation.

2) Fewer complete games and more decisions.

While complete games have obviously diminished, this does not mean that future star pitchers will win less. Dominance and good offensive support have a much larger impact on win percentage – the individuals highest on the list in terms of win percentage are Clemens and Maddux.

By adding wins and losses, and subtracting that number from games started, we can get an approximation of how many no decisions a pitcher had (approximate because some pitchers, especially older ones like Perry, appeared in many games they did not start, and recorded wins or losses in those games). We can then calculate a % of No Decisions over a career (henceforth ND%).

We find that while the newest members of the club (Ryan, Clemens, Maddux) all have ND % over 20%, the only 300 game winners with a ND% below 16% were Warren Spahn and Early Wynn.

In addition, ND% has little correlation with complete games pitched for the more recent 300 game winners. For example, Tom Seaver pitched 231 complete games, 123 more than Greg Maddux’s 108. His ND% and Maddux’s ND% are extremely similar (20.25% for Seaver and 20.66 for Maddux).

3) Emphasis on power pitchers

I don't really buy this. Sure, everyone loves the Kazmir and Verlander types, and these guys do rank high on prospect lists. But no one tells crafty lefty control artists with 90 mph fastballs that they should go take a hike. There have always been power pitchers and control artists.

Power pitchers also don't really factor into the argument because it's not a given that a power pitcher or a strikeout based pitcher is more prone to injury.

4) Late Starts to Careers

There is something to this one, although there are exceptions. Most of the 300 game winners did in fact start their careers early. Phil Niekro stands out as the only one to start his career in his mid twenties, and had the most wins after age 40.

None of the above factors make it impossible for a pitcher to reach 300 wins – consider that the effects of a 4 man rotation are outweighed by the longer season and service time, that complete games may also have but a small effect on wins, and that there are still pitchers who are starting their careers early, it strikes me that it is entirely possible, and in fact very likely that we will have another 300 game winner in the next 40 years.

Look at it this way – There were two 300 game winners from the post WWII era – Warren Spahn and Early Wynn. Robin Roberts came close as well with 286 wins, and was actually a slightly better pitcher than Early Winn. Bob Feller was probably better than both Wynn and Roberts, but lost three years to WWII.

Other than those men, there were few other candidates for 300 wins from the era. But starting in the early 60’s numerous pitchers entered the scene that would challenge 300 wins. Perry, Niekro, Carlton, Ryan, Sutton and Seaver all made their debuts in the 60’s. As did stalwarts Juan Marichal, Tommy John, Fergie Jenkins, and Jim Palmer. Jim Kaat made his debut in 1959, as did Bob Gibson. They make up 12 of the top 51 winningest pitchers of all time (Marichal is #51, but I included him just for the sake of completeness).

Periodically, a pitcher enters the scene who has the longevity and luck to have a chance at 300 wins. The 70’s saw the careers of Bert Blyleven, Jack Morris and Dennis Martinez start. The 80’s was another good decade to say the least, as we witnessed the births of the careers of Glavine, Maddux, Clemens and Randy Johnson.

More importantly, the 80’s spoiled us by giving us a decade where 5 pitchers reached 300 wins – Gaylord Perry, Phil Niekro, Don Sutton, Steve Carlton and Tom Seaver. Nolan Ryan reached the mark in 1993.

To have such a large group of pitchers reach a landmark in the same decade was unprecedented. And it is happening again with Clemens, Maddux and possibly Glavine. The clustering of 300 game winners appears to be by chance, but that has simply been the pattern we have seen recently.

The other reason we’re currently debating 300 game winners is because the 90’s were like the 70’s – while we saw great pitchers like Mike Mussina, Kevin Brown, and Pedro Martinez, they are not looking durable enough to reach 300. Neither are we far enough removed to make any conclusions about their greatness. It is distinctly possible that at 34, Pedro has 8 years left in him. If he wins 13 games a year, he will reach 300.

300 Wins is a very difficult task, requiring a long period of active duty as a starter, few injuries, if any, at least decent offensive support, and quite a bit of luck. Size of rotations, complete games, and bullpens actually have a much smaller effect that Rosenthal surmises.

Too Bad About Pujols, But....

2006-06-04T14:34:00.000-04:00

It's very unfortunate that Albert Pujols is now out for up to 6 weeks with a strained oblique, but unlike what the guys on Baseball Tonight were saying, this doesn't exactly mean that there's nothing left to look forward to this season. In fact, there a quite a few stories still worth following, including:

Jim Thome - I said before the season that he would come back to his pre-injury form, but he's setting a pace that would rival, perhaps even eclipse his best years in Cleveland. He's currently batting .295 with a slugging percentage of .661, and a K/BB ratio if 54/43 in 183 ABs. This has translated to 20 HR in 52 games played.

His best season for power production was 2002, when he slugged 52 HR in only 480 ABs. At his pace this year, if he can accrue 550 total ABs, Thome will hit 60 HR. It's not out of the question - the White Sox just passed the 1/3 point, the 54th game. Of course, that also means sustaining his current average, which is over 10 points higher than his career average, but it's certainly within the range of possibilities.

Other surprising sluggers include Alfonso Soriano, who most people (including myself) thought would struggle in a move to RFK, and Ryan Howard (not surprising, perhaps, but still beyond most expectations). Soriano has 20 and Howard has 19, and both have an excellent chance of surpassing 50.

Guys hitting for average

Derek Jeter - Jeter hit for great average in 1999 and 2000, and has been remarkably consistent this year. His defense may be lacking, but this year, his bat has been superb. The only concern in his injured hand, which may have just been reinjured on a HBP.

Alex Rios and Miguel Cabrera - We're not hearing a lot about these guys, especially Cabrera, who is silently having a career year. In fact, if you look at his last three years, his average, OBP and SLG has climbed every year. He is on pace for nearly 70 doubles this year, which would eclipse Earl Webb's 67 in 1931. His pace would easily carry him past Joe Medwick's NL record of 64 in 1936. And Alex Rios has silence doubters by carrying a high average in June with no sign of slowing down.

Ichiro - What do you know? After a bit of a slow start, Ichiro has raised his average about 60 points since May 1, and is now batting .342. 200 hits are within reach (which is never that hard for him since he averages about 700 ABs a season), which would be his sixth straight 200 hit season since coming to the US.

Nomar - I don't want to jinx him, but Nomar finally looks healthy. He is hitting the ball with authority, sporting a .369 average and extremely respectable power numbers. Even more impressive, he has only struck out 5 times in 149 ABs. Along with 15 walks, his 3-1 BB/K ratio is incredible.

Catchers - Joe Mauer, Brian McCann - Before hitting the DL with an ankle sprain, McCann was batting around .350. Mauer is batting .357. We haven't seen a catcher lead the majors in average for a long, long time, and if McCann's injury is not a lingering one, both these players could contend of the batting title (assuming sufficient at bats).

Pitchers

Brandon Webb currently sports a GB/FB ratio of 4.30 - meaning for every 3 fly balls, about 13 are hit on the ground. I believe in a start against Atlanta, he induced 18 grounders and 1 fly. He is riding a 25 innings scoreless streak, and has a perfect 8-0 record.

Meanwhile, Tom Glavine has had one bad outing this year, and has otherwise not allowed more than 3 earned runs in any start. He and Pedro Martinez are performing beyond the Mets' wildest expectations, and could be the 1-2 starting pitching punch that will carry the Mets into the postseason.

Where are you, Larry Walker? Fellow Colorado Rockie and native Canadian Jeff Francis is pitching very effectively, although he isn't getting a whole lot of run support - his 3-5 record includes 2 losses in which he allowed 3 ER or less and 2 no-decisions in which he allowed only 1 ER. His home ERA is .330

So Pujols is out, but there's still plenty of great baseball to watch, and some players who are on pace for career years.

In Response to Tom Verducci

2006-06-01T19:38:00.000-04:00

A couple days ago, Tom Verducci wrote an article about the Detroit Tigers. In it, he mentions that although they have a difficult schedule in the next two weeks (which is absolutely true), he thinks the Tigers are "for real" and can hold on to win about 90 games.

He gives five reasons for this, but in my opinion, he fails to mention the crucial factor which will decide the fate of these Tigers, one which indicates to me at least that it is impossible to predict right now how the AL Central will play out.

First, his reasons the Tigers are "for real" are

1) Pitching (focusing on the bullpen) - this partially is true - Zumaya and Rodney throw hard. They're the best pieces of the pen, and the most likely to be consistent. Jamie Walker is an underrated 35 year old who has served Detroit well for four years now, but he's not going to keep up his 0.63 ERA. Todd Jones just took the loss last night against the Yankees, and even before that, he was giving up a lot of hits. The bottom line is that the bullpen is good, but it's not THIS good.

2) Jim Leyland - the manager is "changing the atmosphere" in the clubhouse and using his relief pitchers and bench players well. I don't really know about that. He has deployed his pitchers well, as far as I know, but his team has also been caught stealing more times than it has been successful. I don't know if Leyland's positive impact is outweighed by the bad baserunning decisions.

3) History - Teams that historically start out well make the playoffs. Well, it makes sense - teams that start the first third of the season well are typically good teams. The Tigers are a good team. This reason doesn't really explain why they're good so much as it indicates that probably won't be sitting at home come October.

4) Defense - The Tigers have a good defense. I don't agree with this at all. They have a good middle infield. But their left fielders (Thames and Monroe) are slow and prone to bad decisions. Chris Shelton is no better than average at first. Inge is probably average to a little above average at third. Pudge is solid. That adds up to an above average defense, although one with a couple of holes in it.

5) Justin Verlander - I'm a huge fan of Verlander. But nevertheless, he's currently having some kind of problem with a blister or a cut on his finger, and furthermore, the Tigers might be tempted to limit his innings. If he has thrown 140 innings and the Tigers are tied with the White Sox in September, will they continue to start him?

Verducci also looks at the strength of schedule by mentioning that six of the Tigers' last nine games are against the Royals. But this is a bit misleading. The Tigers will play the Royals 10 more times. So will the White Sox. Neither team is likely to gain any advantage there, as they're both more than capable of going 8-2 or 7-3 against the hapless Royals.

These reasons don't adequately analyze the Tigers. It's actually very hard to assess the Tigers' chances right now, for one huge reason - they haven't played many games against their biggest division challengers - the White Sox, and their schedule has not been very difficult thus far.

The two teams will meet 16 more times between now and the end of the season. I think it is possible that one of the two teams will pull away during a 4 game series in late August. Head to head matchups are the best way to make up ground against a rival, but they're also the best way to dig yourself in a hole. Both teams will also play several series against teams in the AL East, each team presenting significant obstacles to the Central Division foes.

Let's face it - the season, even though we are about to pass the 1/3 mark, is still young. Both these teams have yet to face their biggest challenges, not to mention each other. There's no telling what this division will look like in August.

Err

2006-05-28T02:01:00.000-04:00

I don't usually post about celebrity news, but at least they didn't name her Antietam

X-Men III

2006-05-27T18:05:00.000-04:00

*Spoilers*

Instead of X-Men III "The Last Stand," a more apt title for the third X-Men movie might have been X Men III "Fear and Loathing (for Female Sexuality)"

Because really, that's what the movie is about once you dig beneath the CGI.

I found the film to be incredibly misogynistic, surprising because I didn't think one could express so much vitriol towards the female body in a film in which no character has more than 40-odd lines.

Jean Grey's character, The Phoenix, is brought back in a deluge of water imagery, imagery which pounds you until the climax of the film. But she's no longer Jean, we find out, not the Jean we saw at the end of the second film, who gave her life for her compatriots and her husband.

The audience is informed that as a student under Professor X, she developed some kind of split personality, the more destructive and carnal of which Professor X had to confine to some region of her subconcious keep her safe (from herself, ostensibly). Upon her rebirth, the Phoenix is released, with pleasure-seeking hedonism and destructive, chaotic tendancies in tow. As is evidenced by her first action after she is reborn, the sexual pleasure and the destruction go hand-in-hand.

In painting her character this way, the filmmakers depict a female body which is to be feared for its appetites and destructive powers. And worst of all, she is not in control of her body - instead, her appetites control her.

Attempts by Professor X and Magneto to either control or use the Phoenix are met with failure. Professor X's "noble" desire to help Jean is "necessary" because she cannot control herself, and is ultimately futile because the Professor's mental powers, and attempts to reason, do not match Jean's telekinetic powers, and her powers in the physical world. Magneto's attempt to recruit Jean, or to use her as a figure of revolution (something very unclear that the film never articulates) is thwarted because she simply will not serve a cause other than herself.

It takes Wolverine, a man whose carnality and impetuous attitude matches hers, to bring about an end to her rampage, which of course involves an act of physical penetration. But even before the climax, he notes to Professor X that one cannot "cage the beast." He knows this from experience, and he sees in the Phoenix a beast to be feared. That beast, of course, is the feminine sexuality, and all the accompanying mystique, fear and destruction.

Part of the reason the misogyny is so blatant is because the filmmakers refused to characterize Jean in any substantial manner. She rarely speaks, which is curious. Even stranger is the fact that she is rarely spoken about, besides in hushed tones regarding location and a vague sense of danger. The name "Phoenix" is merely mentioned once or twice, and its connotations are completely glossed over. Rather than say something about the Phoenix representing the destruction of mankind and the rebirth of humans as mutants, Magneto makes his grandiose speeches with Jean at his side, standing there like a statue, or a queen on a chessboard. The chess imagery is obvious, as it was central to the first film of the series as well.

But this is a queen that stands for nothing - not Magneto's cause, nor the death-rebirth imagery of her name. She is but power embodied in the female form, sexual, silent, and uncontrollable. She never even expresses a purpose for herself, and instead embodies some kind of vagina dentata, a threat of castration which endangers all of mankind.

If I were making this film, and had to work with the same plot (the Phoenix as Jean's uncontrollable alter ego, Wolverine as the one who has to save everything), I would have at the least presented some kind of allegory between the two characters of Jean and Logan.

The characters of Jean and Logan would make an excellent allegeory for the Hindu God and Goddess Shiva (Logan) and Kali (Jean). Kali, like the Phoenix, represents death as well as birth. Shiva is the destroyer of evil, as well as the ideal lover and the husband of Kali. They still represent distinctly male and female entities, but there is at least a significant amount of meaning to be explored there (death and rebirth, energy and substance, and most importantly, one's codependancy on the other), as opposed to this film, which merely presents Jean's uncontrollable form as a sexual, mindless destroyer.

Now, one might point out that the comics, especially the Marvel and DC versions, have never been the greatest medium for progressive women's roles. But for a series that has been recently (and often) hailed for its metaphors that pertain to homosexuality and treatment of minorities, we might want to re-examine the other sexual stereotypes and metaphors presented in the film before we start applauding.

Just when you think

2006-05-17T22:14:00.000-04:00

I like to think that I've seen a lot of things. While I haven't traveled the world over, or ranged too far from a certain comfort zone, I like to think that between CT, work in New York and D.C., travels to China, and college in Hanover, New Hampshire, I've been exposed to a lot of sights and sounds.

But nothing prepared me for what I saw on my way home from work this afternoon.

As I walked towards the Farragut West Metro Station down Connecticut Ave along with my fellow D.C. workers going home after a day of toil, I noticed an ambulance on 17th Street, on the other side of the intersection.

The light had just turned green, and my fellow commuters and I prepared to cross the road. But before we could take a step, the ambulance lights went on, the siren started blast, and the ambulance began to turn right, onto K St. The policewoman directing traffic immediate held up her hands at us to stop.

Everyone held still to wait for the ambulance to make its turn. Except for one person.

A late twentysomething Caucasian man, wearing a Nationals cap, dark-rimmed glasses sitting on a clean shaven face, started riding his bike through the intersection. He must have had headphones on, because that's the only way he could have possibly NOT known that there was an ambulance turning into his path.

Since the ambulance had not sped up yet on its rescue mission, wherever that might be, it was able to come to a stop before it hit him. Only then did the man see the ambulance. As he rode past the drivers side, he turned to look at the driver.

They exchanged glances.

The man on the bike extended his middle finger.

At an ambulance. With its sirens and flashing lights advertising its haste.

With an incredulous look on his face, the man driving the ambulance pulled away. He obviously had more important matters to attend to. The guy on the bike then looked up, noticed that everyone at the intersection was not moving, but was instead staring at him. He muttered "asshole," under his breath at the departing ambulance, and sped off on his way.

The moment broken by his departure, everyone at the intersection started moving again. Several people were clearly shocked by what they had seen. I was one of them.

I don't pretend that an urban setting like D.C. or Manhattan doesn't have its share of rude individuals. In fact, city dwellers often pride themselves on it. I've seen the suits swear at homeless, the homeless swear at the suits, the old ladies swear at the tourists, the mothers with kids in tote curse at protesters, and so on and so forth.

But in all my experiences in a city, I have never, ever seen someone flip off and then curse at an ambulance. An on-duty ambulance with its sirens on, no less.

It was something that shook the people around me too. We are all desensitized to some extent by the city. Rudeness is expected. It's not really that everyone in a city is rude, I think. With so many more people, and with so many varying goals and destinations, there is bound to be a select few who simply can't be bothered to be courteous. I would venture that there are just as many courteous people - the rude ones just tend to be a little louder.

We still take them in stride though. An accidental bump and a subsequent curse is nothing to really dwell on. But today? That was different. Who curses an ambulance? Did he think that whereever he was biking to was more important, more urgent than someone's potentially mortal call for help? Did a typical veneer of bravado, applied before going to work like so much makeup, just slip out, purely out of habit?

I like to think that perhaps it was the latter, that he treated it as he would any car that cut him off as he biked through an intersection without warning. That as he rode on, he wondered about his words and actions and perhaps felt a little guilty, or at least embarrassed.

I like to think that he would have at least that decency and humanity to feel those emotions. Because if he didn't, perhaps the city is more desensitizing than I had ever imagined.

Why the FSM is nothing new, but is thoroughly necessary

2006-04-15T09:00:00.000-04:00

For those unfamiliar with Pastafarianism, the FSM (Flying Spaghetti Monster) is a deity whose noodly appendages skew scientific experiments, and whose wrath has been felt as global warming (and other natural disasters) as the number of pirates (his chosen) in the world have decreased.

Sent to the Kansas Board of Education after they decided to teach "theory" of intelligent design in the science classroom, the FSM has gathered quite the following with his noodly appendages. Of course, the natural reaction from individuals who support intelligent design has been less than favorable. The hate mail which has been posted onto venganza.org's page is pretty virulent, albeit ridiculous in many cases, but obviously this hits a nerve with some people.

Why has it hit a nerve though? Obviously satire and religion has never been received very well, but the FSM shouldn't receive any more hate than any other satire. Not when other people have done it, and in much more popular mediums.

Consider Charles Schultz. A lot of people think that Schultz stuck to "safe" topic, but then again, a lot of people haven't seen the strip where Snoopy accidentally gets a driver's license instead of a dog license, and then accidentally a fishing license, and just when everything is about to be set right again, Snoopy is told that he doesn't need a license to own something else. The last panel shows Snoopy walking away with an assault rifle.

A lot of people haven't considered that the Great Pumpkin, and Linus' obsession with the Great Pumpkin, isn't so much a condemnation of Linus as it is a send-up of Santa Claus, the materialism of Christmas, and the thoroughly silly nature of the entire Christmas holiday.

Much like the FSM brings ridicule to the theory that scientific evidence can be found that a higher deity created and molded life on Earth, the Great Pumpkin does the same for Santa Claus and our celebration of Christmas. The fact that the Great Pumpkin isn't mocking religion so much as our concept of Christmas doesn't hide the fact that it's still parody, and scathing parody at that. It saddens me that we still watch "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" and "A Charlie Brown Christmas," and we go about our materialistic holiday motions as if we had forgotten everything we just watched.

If we can take anything from the Great Pumpkin storyline, besides the anti-materialism part, it is that Linus' beliefs are just as valid as those of the children who go trick or treating, if not more so because the other children are just following some tradition that has been thrown upon them. And that faith, real faith, is much more than the condemnation of those who don't believe as you do.

Faith is not what the other children are following when they ridicule Linus. Faith is what Linus has when he sits in the pumpkin patch, waiting for the FSM, I mean, the Great Pumpkin, and does it year after year despite the fact that he has never seen tangible evidence of the Great Pumpkin. Those who would censor the FSM and foist the "theory" of intelligent design upon science classrooms would do well to read some of those old Peanuts strips, I think.

Yet, because Schultz is such an accepted institution (although he got plenty of hate mail too), and obviously the FSM isn't, people try to get pictures of the FSM removed from classrooms, more because the FSM is an affront to their misguided beliefs than due to any concern about free speech and good fun. Indeed, the willingness to resort to law in this case tells me that those individuals on the Kansas School Board are not ready to have a scientific discussion, and are merely going through the motions they believe are necessitated by their "faith." Good Christians my ass.

Raaaamen, my friends. Ramen.

What I think about the Yankees

2006-04-13T09:15:00.000-04:00

The thing about the Yankees is that you can't ignore them forever, as I was astutely informed this morning.

So this is what I really think about the Yankees.

Just 8 games into the season, we can tell a lot about their offense. It's starting to hit its stride, as the only player who is performing way over expectations is Jorge Posada. Matsui and Jeter have both started the season with good showings, but then again, good performance is expected of them.

I don't know anyone who expects Jorge Posada to hit more than .270 with over an .800 OPS this season. A lot of people would call that a generous estimate. I think he'll cool off eventually and return to his GIDP ways (although he only ground into 8 double plays last year), but if you're a Yankees fan, a good start from Jorge is icing on the cake. The thought of Jorge Posada as icing on a cake is disgusting and vile, so I'm going to change the subject now.

So the offense is the offense. And so far, the pitching has been actually a little better than advertised. Although not by much. Randy Johnson and Mike Mussina have both started well, and considering the fears about the old fogies on the staff stumbling out of the gates, this has to be a good sign as well.

Unfortunately it's the "kids" on the staff who have stuggled - both Chacon and Wang had atrocious starts. The Kansas City Royals managed to put up 10 runs on the two of them in consective days earlier this week. Of course, the Yankees did manage to win both those games, so this might be what we should expect of the team for the entire season.

The one good thing to take away from the Royals series, however, is the bullpen. Aside from two earned runs allowed by son of Worcester Mass, Tanyon Sturtze, the bullpen was excellent those two games, going 5 2/3 scoreless innings, allowing only one hit.

Joe Torre has spread out the work so far, and I think he that aside from Jaret Wright, he actually trusts his bullpen this year. This is integral, since last year, Torre rode Sturtze and Gordon heavily, the two of them nearly logging 80 innings each, with no other reliever (besides Rivera of course) breaking 45 innings.

If I can say one thing about Sturtze however, it is that he can be a very good reliever, as long as Torre doesn't use him against Baltimore - in 11 and 1/3 innings against Baltimore last year, Sturtze allowed 20 hits, 17 earned runs, 3 long balls, and only struck out 6. His ERA against Baltimore was 13.50 and Baltimore hitters hit .370 off him. If you take those 11 innings out of his record, his ERA drops from 4.73 to 3.22.

Small sample size issues must be taken into account, but when a reliever gets lit up this much against one team, it's probably safe to say that they had his number last year. Even more surprising is that Sturtze only lost 1 game against Baltimore, and did record 2 wins (both with scoreless, 1 inning outings).

But if Torre can indeed avoid overusing a couple of relievers, and it appears that he may be trying, the Yankees bullpen might be solid this year. And a solid Yankees bullpen will go a long way to offset a bad starter or three (if Pavano ever comes back).

And in doing the research for this, I just realized how much Baltimore handed the Yankees the AL East crown last year - in an 8 game stretch from September 19 to Septebmer 29, the Yankees went 7-1 against the Orioles.

Something I haven't done in a while

2006-04-12T20:45:00.000-04:00

I'm going to write about a topic on which I've been silent for a long time. Aside from mocking Jeff Passan's overly dramatic articles on Yahoo.com, which I admit is as easy as beating a dead horse if you spot me the dead horse and hand me a stick, I haven't written a lot about baseball lately.

So just to get back into it, I'm going to make some predictions and offer some insights, which may not be very insightful at all. I'll write one thought for a player (or three) at each position.

Catcher

Kenji Johjima is looking to surpass everyone's expectations this year. The man they call JoeMama hit home runs in his first two games, and has looked decent at the plate since. He hasn't walked or struck out excessively, but he's come up with timely hits, and the Mariners seem to like how he calls the game.

First Base

I think Justin Morneau can contend for the AL home run title. I know Papi, Manny, Mark Texeira and A Rod are formidable competition, but when Morneau hits, he hits very very hard. Another homer tonight gives him four on the year, and it still looks like he's in Spring Training mode to me. At least that's what the 8 K's and 0 BB's tells me (as I write this, he finally draws a walk). Morneau will K 100 to 120 times a season, but I do expect him to walk more. Once his contact rates increase, I expect the balls to really start flying out of the park.

Second Base

Marcus Giles is really taking to leading off. His average has dropped in the last couple of games due to a quad injury, but Giles has walked 11 times already. It took him until May 9th last year to draw as many walks. He did great in Spring Training, walking in something like 7 straight plate appearances, and he's apparently brought the same mindset into the regular season.

Shortstop

It looks like Edgar Renteria really needed to get back to the NL. He has hit in all of Atlanta's games, with more walks (3) than strikeouts (1). It is a small sample, but Renteria didn't draw a walk until the 11th game last season. I still don't really like how he looks in the field, but I am convinced that he was overwhelmed by Boston and the AL.

Third Base

Mike Lowell has hit a few wallballs already, and the Red Sox are just playing their second home game tonight. My only prediction for Lowell is that he's going to have an extreme home/road split this year. I don't know if his average will stay up, but I think he'll play much better at home than on the road this year. I can't say I'm positive, but it's a hunch.

Outfield

Oh, Jeff Francoeur. Pitchers have just been abusing him this year. He's striking out once a game, making poor contact, and has in general just been frustrated by his pitch selection. I think he'll come around, but at this point, it might be worth sitting him for two or three days, letting him see some pitches in batting practice, and then letting him get a fresh start. Right now he looks tired and angry, and that's not a very good mindset to take to the plate. Someone made the preseason prediction that Langerhans and Kelly Johnson would have higher batting averages this year than Francoeur, and it's looking like a very prescient statement at this point.

I don't really care that Nomar is hurt. I like Olmaedo Saenz anyway. But if JD Drew stays healthy, I can see the Dodgers winning the NL East. Their offense has been clicking, and I think the pitching will come around. Derek Lowe and Jae Seo won't be dismal the entire year.

The Red Sox could potentially start the worst fielding outfield in the history of baseball. They could theoretically start Manny, Wily Mo, and Trot Nixon all at the same time. I know Mohr will play center, and Wily Mo and Trot should be platooning, but it could happen.

Starting Pitching

It frightens me a little that we haven't heard any more about Zack Greinke. Either the Royals are just done with him, or he has seriously psychological issues. I suppose both could be true.

Greg Maddux will win more than 15 games this year.

Relief Pitching

Matt Wise will be the best middle relief pitcher in the AL this year. He made hitters look idiotic last year, and it looks like the trend won't stop anytime soon.

That's all I got for now.

Oh, and how has Adrian Beltre stolen 3 bases this season? He stole 3 all of last year and 7 the year before. Is no one watching him, or are the opposing catchers just that horrible?

My Idea

2006-03-30T10:45:00.000-05:00

So one of Jen's friends recently got engaged. Yesterday over sushi, Jen and I discussed the couple's intentions to put their names on a wedding registry somewhere.

Where should they register? They're going to be a 23 year old couple, living in a small apartment in New York. Obviously, registering at Home Depot is out, since they don't have a home to fix up. Obviously, registering at a place like Williams-Sonoma or Bed Bath and Beyond might be ok, but then again, the couple might just end up with a lot of cooking utensils and stuff that they don't have any place to store.

Registering at a place like WalMart or Target is just tacky, so that's out. Electronic stores would present similar storage issues to Bed Bath or Williams-Sonoma.

Which is when I had a brilliant idea. An idea which should be capitalized upon and implemented posthaste.

Supposition 1) Young couples will not have a lot of room in their living quarters for material possessions. Sure a TV and some decorations are nice, and basic kitchen equipment, but if the wedding is a large one, they're going to get a lot of stuff they might end up placing on Amazon.com or Ebay.

Supposition 2) People age 18-24 are impossible to buy for. Unless you're their age, but even in that case, it's difficult.

Supposition 3) Since people are difficult to buy for, and giving people money is tacky, an alternative must be found

Supposition 4) A recently popularized alternative to gift giving has been charitable giving in the name of the couple. There was an article mentioning it in Money magazine last year. This is all well and good, but only if the couple has preferred charities.

Supposition 5) Young people, although often economically savvy, might not be the best at investing monetary gifts or savings.

Which brings me to my idea. Wedding Registry Mutual Funds. I've only found one mention of giving mutual funds as a wedding gift in passing, and it doesn't even suggest the idea of a specific mutual fund targeted towards couples wanting to register at one.

Before you think about how unromantic the idea of registering at Charles Schwab (for example) is, consider the benefits.

Such a fund, if created, would be quite popular. Kids these days know that they're supposed to save for retirement. They've been told over and over again that placing money in a mutual fund or retirement account can make their later years much more comfortable, especially if Social Security tanks. Yet, we tend not to do it because we get distracted and spend our money elsewhere.

And adults are always looking at the youth to be fiscally responsible. What better way to prove to the parents of both bride and groom, as well as their relatives, that the couple is responible and mature than by registering with a mutual fund?

It saves the wedding attendees the effort of buying gifts that the couple won't use, the gifts will appreciate over time, and if the wedding is a large one, the appreciation could be substantial.

Furthermore, it's a way for both the couple and the gift giver to emphasize that the marriage will be one that will last, because why else would you want to register at a mutual fund?

A savvy mutual fund company might also tailor the idea of a "Wedding Registry Mutual Fund" to make it more attractive.

Give the gift-givers some options - high-risk funds, low-risk funds, themed portfolios or sectored portfolios, nice ways to present the gift to the bride and groom, and really, the gifts can be just as impressive and surprising as a crystal goblet from Tiffany's. Also, the mutual fund won't break when the dog bumps into the china cabinet.

As Promised

2006-03-28T22:31:00.000-05:00

Day 1 - Of Blustery Days, Thumb-sucking, and Chevy Aveos

So last Tuesday found Jen and I flying into Orlando, where we proceeded to an off-site rental car location to pick up our stylin' Chevy Aveo. On the bright side, it was at least a four door vehicle, and didn't die on us during the trip, although it made funny noises when we pushed it over 75 mph.

We checked into our hotel, a nicer than expected Radisson, but had trouble finding our room, as our parking lot was away around in the back of the hotel. We took a right turn too late and actually found ourselves on the highway, headed towards Magic Kingdom. So we said, "to heck with it," and went.

The only minus was that, as the weather was in the mid to high 80's, we were nervous about Jen's laptop being in the car for a few hours. So naturally I ended up lugging it around The Magic Kingdom and Epcot. It's at least a Mac, and not an 8 lb. Dell.

Despite all that is said about Disney being an evil empire, you can really have quite a lot of fun, especially if you grew up on the movies. People who grew up on movies like The Aristocats are likely out of luck, but there's even still stuff for kiddy Disney fiends like me who grew up with Robin Hood.

For those who don't know this about me, I watched Robin Hood every day for over a year, when I was about four.

Which is why I was ecstatic when I was able to take these pictures.

That was really the highlight of my time in the Magic Kingdom. There are a few new rides, of course, such as Pooh's Adventures on a Blustery Day, but those are more small-child oriented, along with everything else in the Magic Kingdom. However, Philharmagic, a 3-D orchestration of well known Disney songs, is well worth it for spectators of all ages.

However, Pirates of the Carribbean is closed until July, which I suspect is a way for them to build suspense of the sequal coming out this summer, as well as a way to update the ride with characters from the movie.

One note of interest - Pooh's Adventures replaced Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, but they found a way to keep Mr. Toad - if you look to the right as you ride in seated in Honey Pots (no joke), you can see a picture of Owl and Mr. Toad on the left. Kind of a nice touch, in my opinion.

For dinner, since we didn't know of too many places outside the parks, we went to Epcot. Although it was a touch on the expensive side, it was still fun, as we were able to get seats by a window in order to see Illuminations, the nightly fireworks display at Epcot.

Exhausted from walking around two theme parks in the span of an afternoon and evening, we returned to the hotel and finally found our room. The next day would bring more theme parks, but more importantly, baseball.

Day 2 - Longballs and Ryan Howard are like Peanut Butter and Jelly

We woke up bright and early to get out to Epcot again - since the rides were closed by the time we got there yesterday, we were there as soon as the gates opened to get in line for Soarin' and Mission: Space. Fastpass is indeed an amazing thing, since I remember distinctly waiting for an hour and a half for each and every ride when I went to Disney World with my family 8 or 9 years ago.

At noon, we headed out of the park and to the Wide World of Sports Complex, where the Braves have their Spring Training. We arrived a little later than we wanted, so there wasn't any time for autographs.

As for the game itself, we saw some nice slugging - homers from Andruw Jones and Jeff Francoeur for the Braves, and one that dwarfed all the others by Phillies' first baseman Ryan Howard.

As the description under the picture says, on a 3-1 count, Howard was waiting for a fastball, and he got one. And crushed it. A long ways to right. No doubt about that one. Howard and everyone else in the stadium knew that Jorge Sosa was going to throw a fastball on that pitch. Sosa's pitch wasn't good enough, and Howard punished the ball by hitting it well out of the park.

The pitching was uneventful, as Ryan Franklin is one of the most unexciting pitchers in the majors. Kyle Davies was interesting to watch, as he was changing speeds fairly well and generally doing a good job with pitch selection.

One thing I noticed was that Andruw Jones' stance, which was widened last year in Spring Training, is even wider than I remember it. It now looks like he's got his feet too wide, and it seems almost awkward when he swings. Even when he hit his home run in the bottom of the fourth inning, it looked like he was off-balance.

Jeff Francoeur, in addition to homering in the fifth inning, made an excellent play on a Chase Utley line drive in the top of the fourth inning. It's pretty much what his supporters have come to expect of him, and there were plenty of those at the game.

Tom Gordon, the 38 year old closer for the Phillies, looked pretty good for a 38 year old pitcher. His curveball was as excellent as advertised, and he was very good in his one inning of work, getting a swinging strikeout and two ground balls. Of course, he was facing James Jurries, Pete Orr and Todd Pratt, but still, results are results.

After the game ended in a rather anticlimactic strikeout looking, we headed out and went back to the parks. We went to MGM this time, where we rode a re-vamped (and less exciting in my opinion) Tower of Terror, and Star Wars. There's not much to do in MGM. We did have dinner in the Sci Fi Diner, in which diners are relegated with campy sci fi scenes from the 70's. Good stuff. It's a nice reminder that even back there, there were a lot of crappy movies. It's just that now, those same crappy movies have large budgets and advertising campaigns, which makes them seem all the more disappointing. See, quality isn't really the issue here, just expectations.

Day 3: In which Jen gets a cool signature

Instead of hitting up a park in the morning, we went straight to the game. The game started at 1:00, but we got there around 10:00 to watch batting practice and to get autographs.

I managed to get Jarrod Saltalamacchia's signature, as well as Kelly Johnson's and Ryan Langerhans'. Jen, however, ran over down the first base line when she saw that Jeff Francoeur was signing, and got her Francoeur jersey autographed. I think that made her day.

Even though the marquee players, Andruw and Chipper Jones, and Marcus Giles, didn't pay much attention, we were able to get some good picture of them in batting practice. Bobby Cox was there too, looking sagely as usual.

Giles taking batting practice is pretty astounding. The ball jumps off his bat, and at one point, he sprayed four or five balls that all left the park in different directions. Other players were impressive as well, Francoeur and Matt Diaz being memorable, but Giles was especially fun to watch.

The game, Braves vs. Indians, was a nice game featuring decent pitching on both sides - CC Sabathia for the Indians, and John Thomson for the Braves. Sabathia's delivery seemed off, as his lead foot was often planted pointing too much as the first base line, making him look off-balance at times, but he got the job done with a fastball that touched 94 and a good variety of breaking balls.

Edgar Renteria, the new Braves shortstop, did not look very impressive. His bat looked weak as he grounded into a double play and flied out to center, after which he was replaced by Tony Pena Jr., another soft hitting shortstop. Pena, however, had a couple of decent games in the three that I saw. Even though he's getting older for a prospect, maybe Pena still has time to make the majors as a backup. He really needs to cut down on his strikeouts though.

Giles walked in all three of his at bats today, perhaps an indication that he's changing his hitting approach in anticipation of hitting leadoff. If so, I think he could have an excellent year. Even if Renteria is no good, if Chipper and Andruw are healthy, Giles could easily score 120 runs.

Joey Devine, the Braves reliever, and possible closer, continued his torrid spring by striking out two of the three batters he faced. He is a candidate to close this year if Chris Reitsma's injuries keep him out for long.

I'll have the rest of the Day 3 summary (with pictures) and Day 4, as soon as we upload the rest of the pictures.

Baseball is in the air

2006-03-28T16:02:00.000-05:00

I got back from Spring Training in Orlando on Saturday. Pictures and comments on games and players coming soon to a blog near you (this one).

In Parody Of....

2006-03-16T09:59:00.000-05:00

Yahoo!'s new MLB writer Jeff Passan, who has a flair for the dramatic, even when it's not called for.

In his latest article "The ghost of Barry Bonds," Mr. Passan writes

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. – One of these days, Barry Bonds will look in the mirror and see what the rest of us see. Nothing.

None of this matters anymore. He can't undo the lies, the injections, the arrogance, everything that follows him today and tomorrow and beyond. The home runs he hits will be ignored, the records he sets empty. To the baseball world, Bonds is dead. And, much like Bruce Willis' character in The Sixth Sense, he's the only one who doesn't realize it. Yadda yadda, etc. etc. blather blather.

Now, there are good points in this article, like when Passan calls the San Fran Giants Barry's co-conspirators, but there's also a lot of hyperbole, which could get Mr. Passan into trouble. Or at least get him a lot of criticism.

He hasn't read "Game of Shadows," which comes out later this month. He's read an excerpt in Sports Illustrated, which claims that Barry used a ton of steroids, but does NOT provide names of previously unknown sources or direct quotations. The excerpt mentions sealed testimonies and interviews, but as the journalists who wrote the book must know, those don't mean much if those sources are not documented and explicitly named. Otherwise, it's a bunch of he said, he said.

Which makes Passan's statement "An excerpt from the book Game of Shadows itemized the steroids Bonds took. Details filled crevices where any doubt existed. The tangible proof was right there, down to the cubic centimeter, as indicting as a positive test, the final needle mark" extremely disingenuous, because that's not what the excerpt says at all.

Now, I think Barry used steroids, and that it is at least somewhat likely that the book does substantiate its claims with sources and concrete evidence, but Passan can't write this. He can't take a book he hasn't read and use it as incontrovertible proof. Maybe if he has read the book, or if I had read the book, and there were a list of sources, I could accept this melodramatic article. But until then? This is what I think this article should read.

The Ghost of Barry Bonds

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. – One of these days, Barry Bonds will look in the mirror and see what the rest of us see. Nothing.

Because Barry Bonds is a vampire, a Nosferatu. Although he himself does not realize the full extent of his power, steroid and hormone treatments have turned Barry into an undead creature which now can only be defeated by a stake through the heart. According to legend, he can, however, be held in check by immersion under running water and garlic liberally strewn in his path. First basemen, take note.

Bonds is now so strong that he has recently emerged from his coffin, where he slept the entire winter, and now braves the daylight to take batting practice with his human teammates. That the emergence into the sunlight did not destroy him is further evidence of his awesome strengths.

Despite attempts to disguise his malformed, pustulent body, teammates, media and fans recoil from him, no matter what shape he takes.

Bonds' teammates, who once revered his abilities as a player as much as they feared his prowess with a bat, now only feel revulsion at the monster which confronts them, a monster which is still capable of hitting baseballs out of the park, despite Major League Baseball's best efforts to check his infernal powers.

As Bonds takes batting practice, flaunting his super-human strength and vision, possibily aided by a bat-like sonar, Bud Selig plots to put an end to Bonds and those who Bonds would convert to his side. Baseball's greatest fear is that Bonds will place himself at the head of an army of darkness and blanket the world in a cacophony of mayhem and steroid-aided home runs.

It would be too blantant to hire a pitcher to take a piece of a broken bat and run Barry through during a game. The pitcher would likely fail, as Bonds is simply too fast and strong to be defeated by a single pair of mortal hands. Also, the FCC fines would be astronomical, if the Super Bowl debacle is any indicator.

No, Bud Selig, the latest in a long line of bespectacled heroes that includes Professor Van Helsing and Giles from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, must work quickly but carefully. He cannot let Barry Bonds know of the plans against him.

The only future for Major League Baseball as we know it rests on not only the shoulders of Selig, but on Congress and the owners of baseball, and on the sacred and holy contract known as the Collective Bargaining Agreement, a contract which even a creature as demonic as Bonds fears.

For although drug testing has been set to catch the nefarious Nosferatu, and amphetamine testing is underway this year, we must wait with bated breath until everything from drugs tested to methods of testing to lists of MLB sanctioned supplements, not to mention the contentious issue of revenue sharing, are in the renewed CBA. Only then will the balance between the owners and the players association be set anew.

Until this contract can be remade, a dangerous, intricate ritual taking place every four years which requires the most careful planning and execution by the owners of all the major league baseball teams and representatives of the player's union, Bonds and his ilk will still play, only held in check by a heroic army of "pure" baseball players led by Albert Pujols and David Ortiz.

And if the ritual should fail, all baseball could come to a standstill. While it is not in the interests of the owners or teams, it must be pointed out that such a stoppage would stop Bonds, as he would no longer be invited into the opposing teams' ballparks to wreak his havok. Without an invitation, Bonds would be limited to standing at the gates and hissing in impotence, as he could not cross the threshold of the ballpark otherwise.

The fight that is happening at this very moment is surely a difficult struggle, one which will likely claim the soul of more than one hero, the lure of the transformative steroids being strong. But if men will stand against the forces of the night, we may yet see a day when, under a renewed CBA with more revenue sharing, all men can play baseball without the aid of steroids, on an even playing field, only judged by their on-field performance, as well as their looks, quotability, nationality and race.

I ask you this

2006-03-08T00:55:00.000-05:00

So a thought came to me after South Africa came within three outs of beating Canada in the World Baseball Classic tonight.

This might not seem like a huge upset, but considering that Canada can put at least 6 or 7 major leaguers in the lineup at one time, and that South Africa currently does not have anyone on the team with major league experience, it's pretty impressive.

My thought was that so much of Major League Baseball's marketing and interest is focused in developing baseball in China that they're missing an obvious target nearby. It seems to me that China, with very little infrastructure, little to no present interest, and little experience in similar sports, is not the easiest place to promote baseball.

Why not India?

You have nearly as big a population to pull talent from, the majority of them already speak the English, and best of all, they have experience with cricket.

So why not try to get baseball on the map in India? It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me not to, especially when I hear about MLB's efforts in China.

The language barrier isn't a problem in India, so it's not too difficult to convey the nuances of the game. Baseball is at least somewhat similar to cricket (somewhat), so the novelty could bring people to the game, while the familiarity allows the game to be easily accessible. And if the argument for China is that there's 1.3 billion people to find talent from, well India is the next best thing with over 1 billion individuals.

Also, Major League Baseball would not have to compete with basketball in China, which is a battle which for the time being they're going to lose badly. With Yao Ming and the NBA advertisement / marketing / product line in place, basketball is the rising sport, not baseball.

It strikes me that Major League Baseball is clearly buying high on the "untapped resources" stock, and while I think it will succeed eventually given enough time and money, they already have direct competition present with the NBA. I can't help but think that India would be an easier market to penetrate.

Finally, I would definitely go to see a Bollywood remake of "The Natural." I think it would be absolutely hilarious. The rather fantastic premise of the movie lends itself well to Bollywood, and the image of spontaneous song and dance on the baseball diamond tickles me. Once you got some interest in baseball, getting into Bollywood would be an easy and lucrative way to promote the sport.

Tall Drink of Water

2006-03-06T00:51:00.000-05:00

I haven't watched very much basketball this year, NBA or NCAA. But I did notice one thing as I was perusing the box scores that I haven't seen in the papers yet.

And that is that after the All-Star break, Yao Ming has been playing some damn good basketball. There have been several articles already, this year and last, about how Yao doesn't play with enough authority, or about how he doesn't have enough stamina to play a good full court game.

But over the past 7 games (after the break), Yao has averaged 26 points and 14.3 rebounds a game. His efficiency is excellent as well, as he is shooting well over 50% from the field. His free throw shooting has been almost impeccable, at nearly 90%. Those are stats that would be comparable to Shaq two years ago, or even Hakeem in his prime.

Yao has also stayed out of foul trouble, racking up 4 fouls only once during the past 7 games.

While the Rockets’ playoff chances may be in jeopardy, especially with Tracy McGrady’s ailing back, this polish and level of play from Yao is encouraging for the Rockets’ future. If he keeps this up, he might actually live up to all the hype, which would be damn impressive, as I have not ever heard one person say that he wasn't at least somewhat overhyped.

Finally

2006-03-01T09:37:00.000-05:00

At last, there's a movie coming out that I'm exciting about seeing.

I've been waiting for Dave Chappelle's Block Party to come out for about six months now, and it's finally seeing wide release this weekend. From the looks of trailers and reviews, it's a fun piece of film, and who can pass up the musical cast that Chappelle assembled? Jill Scott? The Fugees?

I've seen The Roots and Outkast (Outkast is not in this movie), but I missed out on Lauryn Hill when the Smokin' Grooves tour was at Jones Beach a few years ago. People who were at the Block Party have written on the web that it was quite the live show. I figure seeing the movie is the next best thing.

And as a last note to this short post, I watched part of Robin Hood: Men in Tights this past weekend. And I was stunned when I looked closer and realized that A-Choo was none other than Dave Chappelle. It's his first screencredit on IMDB.com. I think I had known this somewhere in the back of my mind, but it was very strange seeing him and associating with Dave Chappelle as we know him today. For one, he was something like 19 when Men in Tights was made.

Ah-Choo, son of Ah-Sneeze (Isaac Hayes!). Tyrone Biggums son of Chef? Makes sense somehow.

Russian Vampires

2006-02-26T23:46:00.000-05:00

In the rather bland 1994 Alec Bladwin movie "The Shadow," the tagline and trailer kicker was "Who knows what evil lurks within the hearts of men?"

In contrast, one of the more interesting lines in the Russian film "Night Watch" is the concept that "it is easier to kill the Light within oneself, than to defeat the Darkness that surrounds us."

It's unfortunate that the movie itself is rather an incoherent jumble of mythologies and Hollywood special effects, because there would have been a good central premise around which one could build a Vampire Trilogy in there, somewhere.

"Night Watch" starts when a plain, unassuming man, Anton Gorodetsky, visit a witch in order to get his wife back - first by casting a spell to bring her back, and then by killing the illegitimate child she is carrying. Before the witch can finish the spell though, a trio of "Light" Vampires burst onto the scene and stop her. Anton witnesses all of it, and is shocked to discover that he too, is a vampire. For you see, everyone might be a Vampire, or an Other; it just take an act of will or a burst of adrenaline to trigger the change or the revelation. And then you have the choice to choose either the Light or the Dark. That's how the narrative appeared to go, at least.

The story then zooms forward twelve years, when Anton is working for the Light, stopping the Dark Others from preying upon humans. A dark prophecy, a Cursed Virgin, and some fights later, something resembling a civil war between Vampires is started anew.

I don't need to dwell on the story, because the filmmakers didn't really either. The conceit of the film, that Light Vampires protect the world from Dark Vampires, is made confusing by the moral ambivalence of both sides.

This would be a very compelling story if the filmmakers did not deluge the viewer with archetypal "Light" and "Dark" imagery, much of which comes from their Hollywood sources - X-Men, the Matrix, so on and so forth. The very tagline above, for example, locks the absolute "Good" and "Evil" sides into the viewer's mind, when the film's central message is anything but that distinct gradation of Good and Evil, Law and Chaos.

The film delivers the action extremely well, and often uses special effects to its advantage. The usage of subtitles is especially innovative. Just as often, however, the effects and narrative strategies stolen from the aforementioned movies detract from the rather brilliant social criticism that lies underneath the skin of the movie.

Just as Anton at one point sees a boy not as a boy, but as a series of blood vessels calling to him, calling to his desire to feed, there is quite an interesting premise dwelling under the glossy CGI effects of the movie.

Reading between the lines, it is evident that the Light Others, the ones who issue licenses, who spy on individuals, who run almost a police state, is a stand-in for Cold War Communism, or an Orwellian Big Brother. And the Dark Others, who are embodied by a twentysomething man who can come up with anything Anton needs, and a pop-singer, stand for materialism, counterculture, and primal drives.

The message, however, is not that one of the sides is better than the other, or that they are both, in fact, evil. No, the message is one that is buried within the vampire mythology itself, which is re-deployed in the society of post-Communist Russia.

The central image of the vampire feeding on the blood of the victim, in a primal satiation of both hunger and sexual desire, is a rather blatant attempt to locate that same urge in all humans - the id, if you will. At least, that is how our culture has developed the vampire mythology in the past century.

The message of "Nightwatch" is that rather than having a superego that prevents constant expression of the id, or a superego that balances the id, the "Light" or superego, is a subverted way to return to the id.

The Light Others can only feed on blood when they hunt Dark Others, and in all other times, they suppress this urge. This urge is satiated in the hunt, and the preparation for the hunt, and so the Light Others go so far as to provoke Dark Others into breaking the Truce.

The Dark Others, the materialists, the druggies, the pleasure-seekers, are directly tapped into the id, the self-centered desire, and they see it as a primary goal. But the Light Others are no better - after the Truce was forged between Dark and Light Others, they use the law, the social extension of the superego, to satisfy their own desires.

Rather than sublimate the pleasure principle to the reality principle, which in classical Freudian terms is what individuals do in order to function in society, the reality principle, or the Light Other in "Night Watch," is merely a path returning to the pleasure principle.

As a statement, I find it simply exhilirating that this, or a criticism of it, could be at the center of a silly vampire movie, and yet I see no other way of interpreting the movie. This then necessitates a re-reading of the tagline ""it is easier to kill the Light within oneself, than to defeat the Darkness that surrounds us."

What the heck that re-reading is exactly, is eluding me at the moment, but until I figure it out, or at least can whip something up that makes sense to me, here's the coolest video you'll ever see (click on WATCH).

Footnote: It's been about a year since I wrote anything about Freud, and I'm out of practice. Also, it's 1:00 AM and I have work in the morning.

Guest Commentators

2006-02-22T19:06:00.000-05:00

There's some article floating around Yahoo! Sports about what might happen if the American Idol judges were in charge of figure skating.

Please. There's nothing revolutionary or even remotely entertaining in that concept.

I'll tell you how to get people to watch figure skating.

It is very true that the commentators for figure skating are sorely lacking; they don't have anything resembling good pace, opinions and information. They regularly spout inanities about some foreign skater's program and tell the entire life history of each American skater, neither of which is at all what the viewer at home wants to see.

What does the viewer want then? Well, in all seriousness, I like knowing what music they skate to. And whether the judges are allowed to dock a skater for choreographing her program around Madonna. No really. Someone skated to Madonna in her short program.

And after they announce the music selection, it needs at least some explanation. Even though I know why Torvill and Dean made Ravel's Bolero famous, the average viewer of the Olympics probably has no clue. It also has to be noted every hour that no Olympics is complete without at least five couples or individuals skating to Bizet's Carmen.

So a little context would be nice. Context beyond what the skater's parents did and where they are in the stands. Context beyond what jump they hit in the World Championship that they won't do at the Olympics. I haven't once heard a commentator explain the difference between a salchow, a flip, a toe loop and an axel. So what is the viewer going to know when the skater lands a triple-toe loop/double flip combination? Not a heck of a lot.

Last, none of the commentators are at all interesting. They like the American skaters for their moxie and their passion, and they still decry the Russian skaters for being to mechanical and non-artistic. Their opinions seldom have anything to do with the performance in front of the viewer.

My answer to these problems:

1) Don't use 4 commentators. It's too much noise and no one can speak for long enough to say anything significant. All you need are 2 commentators, one to supply background and technical information, and one to provide direct commentary. No major sport uses 4 commentators and there are several good reasons for that, primarily the fact that you have to pay all 4 of them.

2) The person who supplies technical information and background could theoretically be anyone who once skated, so obviously a big name is needed here. And for the regular layperson, the best skater to go with there is Brian Boitano. Kerrigan and Harding jokes aside, no other skater has been as immortalized in South Park as Boitano. I guarantee that ratings would skyrocket if Boitano was a commentator instead of Dick Button, even though Dick Button is an amusing name.

3) The person who supplies direct commentary of the program could also be anyone, but a celebrity would do best here. Someone who is used to giving short sound bytes, has a good, recognizable voice, and can express emotion from "that looked painful" to "is that move legal?" is all that is called for.

And the best person to hire for that job is evident to me.

Snoop Dogg.

He has a very recognizable voice, and he's been doing advertisements and promotions for a while. He knows about music, and he can tell the viewer whether the skater is staying with the music or not, which is not at all evident sometimes in these routines.

For the ice dancing competitions, he can talk about the skaters twizzles, which are required elements to the ice dancing program. As in "That frizzle twizzle fizzled, so their scizzles are going to drizzle."

And like the people who made "Dancing With the Stars" will tell you, the resident rapper will bring in a different demographic of viewers. Master P managed to stay on that show for something like 5 weeks, so it was evident that people were voting for him.

This is a serious post by the way. The figure skating commentary I've seen has almost been as bad as Joe Morgan talking baseball, and that's saying something. Heck, I think Joe Morgan could do better than the current cadre of commentators.

"I love how this pair plays small-ball, Snoop. They may not be as strong as other couples, but they do all the little things right."

So in conclusion, NBC should think seriously about looking into the whereabouts of Brian Boitano, and getting Snoop Dogg to drop whatever advertisements / Girls Gone Wild shoots he is working on, and get them into the figure skating soundbooth. It's what's best for the future of the sport.

Ignorance IS Bliss

2006-02-15T22:12:00.000-05:00

A lot has been made in the past couple of days of "ratings doping" by NBC, in which they make the ratings for the opening ceremony of the Olympics look nice, even if they were fairly mundane.

We've also all heard about Michelle Kwan pulling out, Bode Miller failing to get himself onto the podium, and all manner of touted US athletes underacheiving. Hedrick not being able to win 5 golds, Ohno stumbling, etc. etc. These incidents outnumber the few incidents when the US favorites pulled through (see - Flying Tomato).

What does this all mean? Did out athletes buckle under pressure?

Heck no.

All the marketing and promoting of these athletes, in addition to all the attempts to tout the ratings of the games, is just ruining our experience of the Olympics. More so than any of the sports we follow daily, rather than every four years or so, the athletes in the Olympics are anonymous. The nation loves to rally around heroes who rise from the masses. It's not quite as fun when we're told that these are the heroes of tomorrow before the games even start.

Why are Olympic ratings down? Are they even down? Should we even care about ratings?

Well, partially, I blame NBC for running all these taped broadcast when we know the winners 8 hours in advance of the telecast. But more so, I blame the media hype and the advertising blitz. When advertisments attach brands to athletes and sear their images into our minds, the surprise and spontaneity of watching them diminishes.

If every potential star is going to be advertised to death, what is the point of watching the Olympics? The reason to watch turns from watching anonymous individuals succeed to watching as existing expectations are (or aren't) fulfilled. There's no magic, no stunning surprises.

Some individuals point fingers at the end of the Cold War, since there's no big bad Soviet or East German specter looming over the games. But wasn't it just as important that no one at home had ever heard of the victors?

Take a contemporary example - the 2002 games. I remember these because I was in the hospital, actually the only time I've ever spent a night in a hospital. I had some ugly flu-like bug that that sent my temperature up to 104 and my blood pressure down to 90/50. Dick's House (Dartmouth's College Health Services) had told me the night before when I was feeling sick to take a Tylenol and rest. I dragged myself into Dick's House in the morning when I woke up and vaguely remembered rambling incoherently the night before.

I was in bed that night when I watched some random kid win gold in the women's figure skating program. The winner wasn't the Russian favorite, or the Chinese favorite, or even the U.S. favorite. Sarah Hughes wasn't even the second ranked U.S. skater, as Sasha Cohen (the one that's not Ali G) was.

And if you stop a person on the street, and ask them to remember an image from the 2002 Winter Games, I will bet money that if they can think of one, it will be Sarah Hughes winning the gold. No mention of whoever was on the cover of Time or SI the week before the games (who was it?)

And that's what the Olympics are about. It's about random athletes we've never heard of, competing in sports we've never cared about before, inspiring us and drawing our attention once every four years. Not Nike-promoted stars, or controversy-causing individuals who garner Time magazine covers.

Of course the marketing will happen, and you might get sick of hearing about our new heroes in the weeks after the Olympics. But the advertising is just distracting from the true fun of the Olympic games, which is watching those individuals in the first place.

Spam Spam Bacon Eggs and Spam

2006-02-11T11:32:00.000-05:00

To use an already overused cliche, has Google jumped the shark?

I remember when Google was merely a good search engine, one which you used instead of Yahoo!, Excite!, Metaseek!, Ask Jeeves! et al (ok, they didn't all have exclamation points).

Then you add the Google image search function, which is either a great tool to use for pr0n searches or an instrument of mental destruction if you don't have the safe-search turned on, Google maps, which I admit are cool, Google Groups, Google Chat, Froogle, and Google News, and I start to wonder why it's all necessary.

Google Ads are either interesting, a nice source of minimal income if you have decent web-traffic, or a scam. I've heard reports that there are smaller websites (with albeit decent traffic) getting their accounts suspended for no reason. Attempts to contact Google have been met with what one might expect from Dell or Microsoft Customer Service (Customer Service not guaranteed).

And if you go to your Gmail today, and take a look at the interface, you now have Chats, as well as A News and Ads bar up top. I know that Google, as a publicly traded stock, needs to turn profits, but is that bar really necessary?

For one, I question its use in my Spam Inbox. Now, I find Google's Spam Filter pretty fair. It catches a lot of stuff.

But the ad bar? Well, since it takes the content of emails to determine the ads that appear, either I get pr0n, ED drugs, or SPAM RECIPES. Has no one else noticed this?

For instance, I go to my spam filter now, and see 8 pieces of spam mail and a recipe for Spam Fajitas. That's disgusting. I delete the spam? I still see a recipe for Creamy Spam Broccoli Casserole. I'm not kidding. I can't make this kind of stuff up.

You can even browse the various ads by way of a back-forward button on the toolbar. Clicking right reveals a cornucopia of spam recipes, including Ginger Spam Salad (serves 1, regfrigerate overnight), Spam Primavera (Toss with linguini, serve immediately), and French Fry Spam Casserole (Bake 30-40 minutes).

Clicking on the recipes brings you to recipesource.com, which looks like epicurious with no bells and whistles, or possibly Wikipedia (Recipe Edition).

I understand Google works a lot on the interface for its websites, and a lot of their stuff is good. Very user-friendly, especially with Mozilla plug-ins being more readily available now. But like all things, moderation is key. And I just think sponsored spam ads are a bit much. I would much rather they addressed issues with their ads before they installed an ad-bar in my gmail account (without telling me, I might add).

Yikes

2006-02-03T16:31:00.000-05:00

Three months since my last post? Not good. Someone should have thrown a brick at my head or something.

I'm not going to write anything too substantive; just a couple of thoughts.

Way back when, John used to tease Mike Hunter about the kind of music he would make - something to the effect that his stuff would come out sounding like Greensleeves. After all, Mike did like that song a lot.

I figured for a while that it wasn't that great of a thing to say, because after all, who wants their prog rock to sound like Greensleeves?

I think that when I started listening to Opeth, something made me think of that statement. But now I've found music that really, really makes me think about it.

Blackmore's Night is a band formed by Richie Blackmore of Deep Purple fame. The guy is an amazing guitarist, and since Deep Purple, he's done some pretty interesting stuff. But the best way to describe Blackmore's Night is that it's what might result if Jethro Tull found a time machine and went back to the 17th Century.

A lot of Baroque sounding tunes led by Blackmore's acousitic guitar, what I've heard of their music is both catchy and experimental.

Anyway, that's what's on my mind at the moment. I've been experimenting with Pandora (www.pandora.com), and it has been recommending me some interesting stuff. For those of you that don't know about it, you input music that you like into Pandora, and it sets a kind of radio station up for you.

I'm fairly satisfied with what I have on my only station so far, although every once in a while, it recommends me Hootie and the Blowfish. Not cool. Other than that, I've been getting a lot of Gordon Lightfoot, Johnny Cash, Bonnie Raitt, Emmylou Harris.... definitely music I approve of. Oh, and Blackmore's Night.

Obligations

2005-11-20T20:54:00.000-05:00

Abner Doubleday supposedly invented the game of baseball back in 1839, in Cooperstown, New York. This story was created in 1905 by Abner Graves, and taken for historical fact in 1907 by the Mills Commission, a panel convened to ascertain the origins of the game of American Baseball.

The Hall of Fame itself opened in 1939, built upon that very myth, in Cooperstown. For 32 years, the Hall recognized the acheivements of ballplayers, creating a hallowed ground of artifacts and history. It was not until 1972 though, well after Jackie Robinson debuted with the Dodgers in 1947, and nearly 5 years after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. that the Hall of Fame finally began to recognize the contribution of African-American players to the game.

Over the next 30 years, 18 Negro League players were inducted into the Hall of Fame, 9 between the years of 1971 and 1977 by a special committee, and 9 between 1977 and 2001 by the Veterans Committee.

The 18 individuals who have been recognized do not begin to account for the stories, the legends and the talented individuals who were excluded from playing in Major League Baseball (or its previous incarnations) between 1898 and 1947.

In order to recognize indivduals overlooked so far by the voting process, the Hall of Fame has been gathering game data and taking suggestions for names to be voted upon and inducted into the Hall of Fame in a ceremony in February, 2006. Estimates of the number players who have a decent chance of being inducted by a 12 person committee range from 5 to 20. In addition, this is designed to be a "definitive vote," as the 5 year study by The Hall of Fame is thought to have unearthed all the extant evidence of the African American players and games that is likely to be found. Therefore, this will be the most important ballot regarding the Negro Leagues ever.

While the sentiments and efforts of Major League Baseball are to be applauded, I cannot say I approve of their marketing strategy.

This summer, a Negro League travelling exhibition made its way around the United States, stopping at Major League stadiums. I happened to be at the Nationals game when it stopped in Washington, D.C., but I unfortunately did not get to see it.

As I walked into the stadium, I looked around for the exhibit. I noticed a woman carrying a large check dedicated (I believe) to the Negro League Hall of Fame in Kansas City, and she informed me that not only was the exhibition gone for the day, but that it had been outside the stadium, in a parking lot. Not only were the exhibition times posted wrong online, but there had not been any indication of where the exhibition would be.

Furthermore, in what I deem a more egregious error than failing to adequately promote the February ballot and the history of Negro League Baseball over the summer, I have seen scant mention of the upcoming induction in papers or online or on TV.

Why this is, I do not know, as the public can hardly be expected to appreciate the gravity and importance of inducting more Negro Leaguers (and likely not allowing further inductions of Negro Leaguers) into the Hall of Fame without more notice.

Two days ago, I finally saw two articles published on MLB.com.

I sincerely hope that there will be more in the news about this, as it deserves the attention.

I would have hoped that ESPN would have created some documentaries to profile potential Hall of Fame entrants.

I would have hoped that more sportswriters around the country were paying more attention to this project, and to the ballot in February.

While I know there is a TV movie in the works documenting Buck ONeil and Ted Radcliffe, that is not scheduled for release until late 2006, and I feel that it is vitally important to spread awareness around this upcoming Hall of Fame vote.

Since I have not heard of any plans by ESPN to profile players, and I feel it unlikely that sportswriters will take the initiative to profile players and encourage public knowledge, I would like to issue a call to sportswriters across the country. With the number of readers who may be reached through our newspapers, I think the result could be truly inspiring.

The Task Ahead

As journalists, the obligations of sportswriters do not end at reporting and analyzing the events of the present.

The last Negro League games were played in the 1950's. Although six decades of Negro League baseball were written into history due to the unfair and unsportsmanlike segregation of the sport, Negro League Baseball became an integral part of the game's character. The Annual East-West game, the barnstorming of teams all over the nation, and the performance of players like Satchel Paige, Smokey Joe Williams, Oscar Charleston, and Josh Gibson became defining moments in the lives of adults and children across the country.

In particular, African Americans growing up under the shadow of Jim Crow could not look forward to Major League baseball. They could not idolize individuals like Babe Ruth or Honus Wagner. Instead, they often looked to the Negro Leagues for inspiration.

Those children are now in their declining years. If their stories and their accounts of the game are not recorded now, they will never be heard firsthand. There may still be someone who saw Willie Foster pitch in the late 1930's. There could still be individuals who saw Buck Leonard play with Josh Gibson in the late 1930's, a pair which would rival the Ramirez-Ortiz tandems of today in terms of offense. There might even be individuals who remember the 1931 Homestead Grays.

But in five to ten years, we might never be able to hear those stories firsthand again.

As journalists, sportswriters have an obligation to document and report history, to make their readers aware not only of what is happening, but also of how the events of today relate to the events of yesteryear. I would ask sportswriters, between now and February, to write at least one article that calls attention to the vote that will take place on February 27th, and which profiles one Negro Leaguer who has or had local ties.

At the end of the article, I would ask the writer to append a plea to the readers - to send stories or pictures of their experiences with the Negro Leagues to the papers.

After a suitable amount of time, and hopefully, several responses, a follow-up article could then be penned detailing the answers.

If we get enough articles written in papers across the country, a compendium could be created, of hundreds or thousands of stories of how the Negro Leagues looked and felt firsthand.

It is admirable that Major League Baseball and the Baseball Hall of Fame is currently compiling the game data, and that soon, we will recognize more of the legendary individuals who played the same game as their white peers but were relegated to secondary status, as human beings and baseball players, but played with joy and determination because they loved the game.

But think of how much more we can accomplish by reaching out through our newspapers and our media. In addition to immortalizing these individuals and their contributions through statistics and a plaque in the Hall of Fame, we can spread awareness of the history of the game. We can compile our memories of these players, so that their contributions to all our lives can endure, and continue to inspire and educate.

At this moment, I am still wondering about the feasibility of this plan - how would I get the attention of sportswriters, and is there a "critical mass" after which I could call this a success? do I need to try to get a version of the above column in an op-ed somewhere? should I get sportswriters to sign up? would getting word to college newspapers be a good place to start, perhaps? should I start a new blog dedicated to this, and post suggestsions and player biographies so that sportswriters might have a good starting point? or would that be too presumptuous?

So please, if you are reading this, please leave me feedback or ideas about how to make this proposal better and how to promote it.

At the moment, I am thinking about creating a new site dedicated to this topic, asking visitors to email their local sportswriters directing them to the site, and asking sportswriters to email me so I can put their names and/or their projects on the site. I think if there is interest, getting attention through op-ed columns would be a good way to get more writers to sign on.

If anyone can come up suggestions, please leave a comment or email me at will.li@gmail.com

If anyone feels strongly enough about this subject to write their local sportswriters, please do so and tell them to email me at the above address so I can gauge interest.

And if you happen to be a sportswriter, please email me to tell me how I can help writers with their research, with suggestions for players, and with feedback about the topic. Also, if I do start a website devoted to the topic, I would like to record the names of writers planning on devoting a column to the subject, even if the text of the column itself does not need to be posted to the website.

Thank You

Update

I have started a blog at Remembering and Recording The Negro Leagues

Further updates and interest on this topic will be directed there. I will do my best to update the site in terms of appearance and links, and hopefully, I will soon be able to start getting some feedback. If the project gets big enough, I'll open another site that isn't a blog, but that seems a little cocky at the moment.

Of Mustelids and Unforgivable Curses

2005-11-16T23:49:00.000-05:00

So I went to an advance screening of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire tonight. It was decent I guess.

I'm ok giving some spoilers, and it's a tiny bit of a criticism. In the Goblet of Fire book, there's a judging system for the tournament that resembles the judging for Olympic figure skating, complete with Eastern bloc judges voting for their man (or woman), and a scale from 1-10. It was probably a good idea to stay away from that for the movie, and they do, but the problem is they don't replace it with anything.

Harry Potter is first and foremost, in style, a mystery. There's sleuthing and problem solving and red herrings all over the place in the books. This movie treats it more like a competition or an adventure that goes from A to B. I think it wasn't a great directorial move, especially seeing as how as I said before, their competition has no discernable scoring system. There's some vague references to judges, and first through fourth place, but the movie makes it very confusing about how people got to their respective positions.

But that's all the reviews/spoilers I'll give.

One thing that I've always wondered, and still wonder, after a conversation with Steve Resnick a while back, regards J.K. Rowling's originality. I have several issues with Rowling's style and narrative methods, but by and large, if she can get people to read, who am I to complain?

Wait, I know who I am to complain. And no, I won't say because I'm an English major, or because I consider myself somewhat knowledgable about the fantasy fiction genre. I can criticize and complain because that's one of my jobs as a reader. Sure, I should enjoy myself and immerse myself, but I should also reflect and criticize.

So here goes (and I'm going to complain about more major things than the fact that Voldemort is a lich, because in truth, Rowling often makes decent use of archetypes)

Gripes and Complaints:

Why the heck are all the cool curses, like the ones that give people animal features (like cat's ears), or the ones that make people's feet really slippery, or the ones that make someone throw up slugs, utterly useless outsides of retribution and/or for comic relief?

I know that there are some inventive uses of "curses" during wizarding fights and whatnot, but it seems, especially in the latest books (the fifth is especially poor about it), serious fights between the good guys and the bad guys amount to people throwing energy bolts around. Doesn't it get irritating to constantly shout the same thing?

And as an aside, if any of the kids have any schooling in latin, couldn't they tell what curses do without actually reading about it? Anyway...

The bad guys use the bad curses, as well as energy bolts and disarming stuff or something like that, and the good guys throw around energy bolts and disarm people or something like that. Why doesn't anyone in the wizarding world do anything original or make an inventive use out of a curse? Isn't making someone vomit slugs remotely useful in a tight situation? No?

As someone who grew up with AD&D, perhaps I would expect fireballs and clouds of stinking gas, or summoned imps, or illusions. To a certain extent, that is what I expect. And Rowling seldom delivers. This is really my major issue.

J.K. Rowling is working in a fantasy environment which promises no boundaries except her imagination.

Perhaps it is because the kids can throw around the funny curses in good times, and Rowling feels the need to be more serious in a fight, more serious meaning curses that cause direct physical pain. Of course, in doing so, she loses a lot of originality and potential. Her descriptions of battles, already set in vaguely described locales, descend into bolts of energy flying around and some yelling of the same things over and over again.

She can't see it in her power to a) make the battles in the books interesting and b) inject any decent description about settings when the settings are new to the reader.

She's very good at using animals as metaphors, giving characters animal-like traits, and describing everyday environments with a fantasy twist. But when it comes to describing a scene like the climactic battle in the fifth book (in the Ministry or wherever), she makes no sense whatsoever.

Dumbledore's Army finds itself fighting a bunch of Death Eaters in some vaguely described rooms and hallways, some of which have ridiculously and strategically placed hazards, like a door that leads into oblivion.

The sixth book has a similar scene, the one in which Harry and Dumbledore are looking for one of Voldemort's phylacteries, or whatever Rowling decided to call them. Harry and Dumbledore crawl into a cave. And walk along some cliff or something, and across to the middle of a lake, the size of which Rowling doesn't feel the need to convey.

Now, I know that the reader is supposed to use his or her imagination, but honestly, the author is expected to give the reader something to work with, yes? There is a school of thought that believes an author should be spartan with details because it is up to the reader to call upon their imagination, but I think that's a load of crap.

J.R.R. Tolkien did some things badly. He also was bad at battle scenes, for similar reasons to Rowling. For instance, while I don't have it in front of me, the Battle of Pelennor Fields in The Return of the King was quite vague. You had some fires, and some orcs, and some Grond, and then some knights and some Riders of Rohan from behind, and then some Aragorn and some Rangers in boats. Oh, and some Eowyn/Dernhelm and some Witch King in the middle of it all.

The geography of it all isn't particularly clear. All the reader really knows is front and back, at Minas Tirith and away from Minas Tirith. Which is a bit unfortunate, as some weather and wind, placement of the sun, a little hill here and there, some "A cloud of dust arose from the fallow earth as the steeds of Rohan charged the field, the sun rising behind them. And as they emerged from the golden storm upon the bewildered hordes of Mordor, their swords shone and their songs of war echoed and rang across the fields," might have made it more interesting. But Tolkien had something like that, at least the sun, if I remember correctly (maybe he had more of it), while Rowling has . . .curtained doors to nowhere.

Ok, maybe that Tolkien example wasn't perfect, because he actually does that first part ok, with the Riders of Rohan rushing the field.

If you read The Battle of the Five Armies in The Hobbit, Tolkien thought out the cardinal directions (Southern spur of the mountain, Eastern spur) very carefully. He places Bilbo on the Southern spur because Bilbo couldn't see the Eagles (not Don Henley) coming from the North and West if he had a vantage point on the Eastern spur. But his conception is very clean, almost as if he's looking at a map and describing it all. For instance, late in the battle, the dwarves take a stand around a "low rounded hill." Which came out of nowhere, apparently. There's no mention of grass, or trees, or big stones (although there are cliffs and precipices from which the goblins fall from) in the field, just two spurs of the mountain, and a valley between them.

Raymond Feist, as another example, did some things badly. Pug rescuing Carline from a bunch of trolls as "letters of fire burned in his mind's eye as he cast the spell" (or something like that) was a bit silly. Pug raining destruction above the Colosseum on Tsurannuani was even more hokey. To his credit though, Feist can write a seige or a battle. His descriptions of Armengar or Crydee work effectively. He doesn't focus on individuals too much, even though his main characters are present, he pays attention to both armies, to the time of day, to the "gritty" elements, etc. etc.

I used to read the Tracy Hickman and Margaret Weis books all the time. Dragonlance was great stuff. Chronicles and Legends still is. But I lost a lot of respect for Weis and Hickman when I realized how those first six books were so good, and why they could never recapture all that, well, good stuff. It was because they role-played it all. From the beginning of the quest to the end, they role-played a lot of it. From the beginning of Raistlin's low constitution, to Caramon's smothering love for his brother, that was all produced at a gaming table. It wasn't very hard for them to then take that experience, and translate it to a book. So to a large extent now, when I think back fondly upon the Dragonlance novels, I don't credit Weis and Hickman so much as I credit their entire gaming group.

I suppose I complain because if I want kids reading, I want them reading good stuff, and learning about good ways to write scenes, like C.S. Lewis does in The Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe. I remember reading about the Professor's house, and the smell and feel of the cupboard (camphor and fur coats) and being drawn into the book. Drawing the reader in is not necessarily predicated on making them laugh at inept charaters or making them muse about the motives of other characters. Obviously Rowling gets this, but her departs from her strengths when she tries to write ponderous or serious material.

I guess Rowling is an o.k. starting point. But she could be a heck of a lot more creative. She has such a loyal audience, and so much unlimited space with which to work. I wish she would have used it more.

Choose Your Own Adventure: Be the GM! (Red Sox Edition)

2005-11-01T22:19:00.000-05:00

Theo Epstein stunningly walked away from the Boston Red Sox yesterday, in the 24th hour of negotiations. According to most sources, the contract he didn't take would have guaranteed his occupation for the next three years, and made him about 4.5 million dollars richer.

Why would he do this?

Speculation (and that's all we can really do, since his statement didn't shed a whole lot of light on his thought process) cover a variety of possibilities, ranging from my initial guess, which was that he wanted to prove his mettle away from Larry Lucchino, the Red Sox CEO who had brought Theo into the baseball business first with the Orioles and then with the Padres, to Theo's acrimonious relationship with Larry Lucchino, to indignation over the close ties between the Red Sox and the Boston Globe that was handicapping his ability to work and negotiate, to comments that his father made before Theo got the job with the Sox

But the more I think about it, and I have thought about it a good deal, the more I think that the simplest explanation is best. While the legendary Red Sox team of 2004 famously eschewed the use of Occam's Razor (or any razor for that matter), I'd like to present a quick and simple scenario using the time honored tradition of "Choose Your Own Adventure." Just follow along, please, and humor me as I take my stab at what happened when Theo decided to walk away from his hometown team this past weekend. Forgive me for my presumption, as I have no clue if this is how things went at all.

Page 1

Your hands shake as you open the door to the interview room. Inside the room, three individuals, all men in neatly tailored suits, smile at you. You are young, you love the game of baseball, and you're applying for one of the coolest jobs available, as far as you're concerned. You want to be an intern! The man on the far right stands.

"Hi there," he says, glancing at the sheet on the table in front of him. "Theo, right?"

If you work through the interview, nervous as you are, turn to Page 3.

If you're too afraid, and suddenly feel the urge to run to the bathroom, turn to Page 7

Page 3

You got the job!! What's better, it was a great summer. Mr. Lucchino was a hard boss, but you work your ass off during that summer, and make a good impression. You like the offices, you like the people you work with, and of course, you're now inside. You're part of the baseball machine now, a step above the groundcrew and the ballboys, but not quite on the level of the batboys, yet.

"Even so", you think to yourself as you walk up the steps to your Residential College at Yale, where you will be for the next four years, "even so, I think I've found my calling."

If you decide to be an English or a psychology major, turn to Page 1.

If you decide to change your major, major in American Studies, and go to law school, turn to Page 8

Page 8

Man, life is tough. Tort class, contracts class, and then off to push papers for the San Diego Padres. You're starting to wonder if you'll ever sleep this week. At least all the girls are gorgeous around here. No time for them though, really, when all you're thinking about is contract law and if that Ken Caminiti guy is going to honor the no tackle football clause in his contract. And you thought Mr. Lucchino was tough when you were an intern. Boy were you in for a rude awakening. How are you going to manage 70 hours a week with the Padres and then another 50 in the library and in class? Are there even that many hours a week? The answer? Because you love baseball, that's why.

"Just a couple more years," you think, "just a couple more."

If you want a steady high paying job with an LA law firm, turn to Page 666.

If you want to work for the Padres and Mr. Lucchino, turn to Page 18

Page 18

You love California, but something isn't right. For 5 years now, the Padres and San Diego has been your home. But the organization isn't exactly moving forward. Barry Bonds is murdering balls up in San Francisco, and you start thinking about getting the hell out of Dodge. Bill James is working with the Red Sox, and it sounds like they've heard of your work. Would they think about hiring you?

If you stay in San Diego, and ogle the girls while the organization obtains Woody Williams, turn to Page 28.

If you check out the situation with the Sox, and you want to go home, turn to Page 35.

Page 35

OH MY GOD! They made you their General Manager! You try not to let the news get to your head, but you only manage to spin around and babble incoherently for a couple of minutes, which would be weird except it's fairly common here in Boston. Happily, but knowing that the expectations of one of the country's most rabid fan bases are now resting upon your shoulders, you take the job, move into a nice office, and get ready to talk to the media. Except that Shaughnessy guy. You never really liked him. But now, you're home. You're working for the home team. You wish your father was more proud of you, but wait until you make him eat his words and win the Sox a World Series!!

"Well," you think, "better not get too far ahead of myself."

If you want to sell the farm for free agents and try to win with veteran players, turn to Page 78.

If you want to build through the draft, and build a solid core around what you already have, Nomar, Manny and Pedro, turn to Page 86.

Page 86

You were so CLOSE! If only Aaron Boone hadn't messed everything up, you would have been on your way to a World Series, in only your second year as GM! How amazing would that have been?

"That's that," you sigh, taking a deep breath.

"I wonder if A-Rod is on the market?"

If you do whatever it takes to get A-Rod, turn to Page 31.

If you can't bring yourself to make the money work, and you think A-Rod is a bit of a pussy anyway, turn to Page 5.

Page 5

So the A-Rod thing didn't work out. Who knew that after hitting that homer, Aaron Boone would blow out his knee during the offseason, leaving the Yankees (who Mr. Lucchino recently branded The Evil Empire) with an opening at third base?

It's ok. You didn't like him anyway. He was always kind of a pussy.

You at least have a good closer now, Keith Foulke, after that committee thing didn't really work out.

You pulled a very nice PR move by going over to Curt Schilling's and getting him to come to Boston, and you didn't even mention that his wife's turkey was kind of dry. Curt didn't notice how much cranberry sauce you used, and he seemed genuinely intrigued by your offer. You think that he really just likes to be contrarian, and the idea of sticking it to Jeter makes him feel warm and fuzzy inside. In addition, he's obviously sick of Randy Johnson's redneck jokes.

All in all, 2004 looks like it's shaping up to be one hell of a season, with the rivalry amped up and payroll up near your neck and the entirely of the Boston Red Sox fanbase breathing down your neck after last year.

Crap. You have to go to Bronson Arroyo's "concert." But do you really want to go?

If you stay home and crunch some stats, turn to Page 10.

If you decide to listen to Bronson mangle some Nirvana covers, turn to Page 47 .

Page 47

Man, that concert sucked.

You keep the thought to yourself, but you bet that Bernie Williams is twice the musician Bronson is.

Then again, twice zero is zero, you remind yourself.

At least Peter Gammons was there to get some good quotes from you.

And you realize that Pokey Reese is a damn cool name.

Turn to page 60.

Page 60

Midseason. There are some troubles brewing. Your team isn't clicking, Nomar isn't happy, and your defense is best described as "colandar-like." What to do?

What to do?

What to do?

If you flip Nomar in a huge four team trade that will net you defensive upgrades Orlando Cabrera and Doug Mient-somethingorother, despite the fact that it pains you, not to mention your fanbase, to trade the face of the organization, and you start to wonder if you're liking this whole GM thing after all, turn to Page 18.

If you sit tight, turn to Page 29.

Page 18

There are no words to describe the feeling you have. You just won the series. Pedro is pouring champagne on you and grinning like a madman, which he is. Derek Lowe and Tim Wakefield are off in the corner crying, Keith Foulke is sitting there with a dumb grin on his face, Curt Schilling is saying something that no one is really listening to, and Doug . . . hey, where did Doug go?

In any case, it's over. You did it. Your team came back from an insurmountable deficit against the Yankees, and your moves all turned out right, especially Dave Roberts, and you trounced the much vaunted Cardinals in a World Series, which was otherwise only memorable for a few defensive errors from Manny and a baserunning gaffe by Jason Marquis. All those runs your team scored were cool though.

And sitting there drenched in champagne, you know that this is it. There's no better feeling.

And you also realize that if the team was Peanuts, drawn by Charles Schultz, Mark Bellhorn would be Pig-Pen. The guy is just never clean.

If you hold the team together for the next year, even though it's neither fiscally responsible nor the best way to repeat, turn to Page 90.

If you let Derek Lowe, Orlando Cabrera, Pedro Martinez and a bunch of other guys out the door via free agency, taking draft picks with a heavy heart as you break up what now seems to be a family, knowing that the chemistry won't be the same in the clubhouse next year, turn to Page 68.

Page 68

It's the end of the 2005 season. Things didn't go too well, and you just got swept. Even so, you managed to win 95 games. But now that it's the offseason, you have to think about the contract again. You brought it up in Spring Training, but Larry brushed you off. You tried again near the all-star break, but again, came up empty handed.

All you want to do is work for the Red Sox, because that's where your heart is. But even so, all the trading, all the economics, especially all the bickering that goes on in the organization between Larry and the rest of the staff, really puts a damper on how you view your own team. No longer are they the team you grew up cheering for as a kid.

Even though your investment in them is much larger now, you can't help but wish for a simpler situation in which you could just cheer for the Sox and not wonder if Chuck LaMar is going to approach you about a trade, or if Larry is going to nix a deal, or if those pieces of sod that you sold after last season will ever ship. You don't want to worry about Damon's contract, or Manny, who, although he's a nice guy, is an absolute basketcase, or in Spanish, un basketcase, or marketing, or getting rid of the 406 club. You just want to enjoy baseball and get away for a bit.

"But c'mon," you rationalize.

"This is every kid's dream! Even if the reality is a bit more stark, it's still a great thing to do! It's still the only industry I really know. It's still home."

If you decide to renew your contract, turn to Page 100.

If you decide to keep thinking about it, turn to Page 87.

Page 87

You wake up on a Sunday morning. It's light outside, and your clock reads 8:00 AM. That can't be right, you think. You slept better than usual. Then you realize that you gained an hour due to daylight savings. That's a good way to start out the day.

Getting up, you walk to the front door to get the paper. You open it over coffee, only to spew the contents of your mouth over the front sports page as you read what that curly haired idiot at the Globe wrote about you.

It's insulting, that's what it is. Baseball isn't about infighting, or petty, underhanded arguments carried out through the media. It's not about making a buck if it means selling the heart and soul of your team out. It was bad enough that Jimmy Fallon got onto the baseball field when you won it all. But it's just too much. The trades you had to force yourself to make, the critics you had to face, the reporters that had to have a sound-byte in response to something Larry said.

It's over. You loved the game, and you loved your Red Sox, but you just can't justify working for them anymore. It would slowly poison you, until you were as cold and as unfeeling as Larry Lucchino, a mercenary that saw (sees) baseball only as a business. As Machiavellian as he is, you know that he's wrong.

Baseball is a business, but part of business is taking care of your own. And that's why, even though you know you want to take care of the team, and the players, and the fanbase, you can't do it anymore. You can give your body and mind to the sport and the team, but you can't sell your soul to it. When you lose that perspective, all you can take care of is the bottom-line, which is what people like Lucchino do. You can't turn into that.

You walk away, glad you can be a fan when you still can. You'll attend games next year, not as a businessman or a manager, but a fan. And you'll love the game.

Who knows, maybe in a year or two you'll miss the background and the behind-the-scenes dealings. But you need some time off first. You went out on top, and Boston will always love you no matter what happens after this.

THE END.

Silly

2005-10-22T11:09:00.000-04:00

I just saw the Underworld: Evolution trailer. Why someone would want to make a sequel to "Dracula vs. the Wolfman" I don't know, especially considering it wasn't that huge a hit in the theaters. Did the DVD do really well or something?

In any case, it looks like someone made the cognizant decision to have this "franchise," if it can be called that, mirror the Blade Trilogy. Now, the first Blade movie was actually somewhat entertaining, but the second was a piece of trash. I'm told that the third movie gives trash a bad name, which is why I've stayed away from it.

But the movie is filled with really dark sets and silly lines like "Find the girl, and bring her to me." I thought the priest who spoke the line was Ian Holm, who played the exact same role in The Fifth Element, but IMDB says it's someone else. I guess Ian Holm wasn't available. (As an Ian Holm aside, did he get the crazy Bilbo look from The Fellowship of the Rings from his previous role as the "placid guy who's really a murderer" in From Hell?)

Kate Beckinsale is probably a perfectly capable actress, but I can't think of anyone who has taken worse acting roles recently. At what point during Underworld 2, Underworld 1, Van Helsing, Serendipity, Pearl Harbor and Brokedown Palace should she have realized that she needed a new agent? Isn't it kind of scary that Underworld 1 is probably going to be the best in those films? Granted she was in The Aviator, which is just about the only substantive role she's been in recently (being in tight leather doesn't really count).

Wisdom

2005-10-17T20:41:00.000-04:00

Someone who knows baseball better than I please tell me why Scenario A is more common than B or C:

Scenario A: Speedy Leadoff Man (hereafter known as Player A) gets on first base to start an inning. High Contact Man (hereafter Player B) comes up to the plate. On the first pitch, Player B lays down a sacrifice bunt that moves Player A over to second. Player A is now on second and Player B has made the first out of the inning.

Scenario B: Player A gets on first base to start the inning. High Contact Man comes to the plate. On the first or second pitch to Player B, Player A steals second. If there are not two strikes, Player B lays down a bunt and moves Player A to third. Player A is now on third, with Player B making the first out. A sacrifice fly will score Player A.

Scenario C: Player A gets on first base to start the inning. High Contact Man comes to the plate. He takes/swings away until there is one strike (which could take one pitch on a strike or a foul, or more, depending on the pitcher's location) or he draws a walk. If Player B does not walk, after he gets a strike, Player B bunts, moving Player A to second.

Now, in my mind, both scenario B or C (at least C) are more lucrative than scenario A. Why?

In A, you take an out in exchange for moving a player. You risk popping the bunt up for an unproductive out, or laying a bad bunt that doubles up the man on first (a double play).

In B, you risk a double play, a caught stealing or a groundout/flyout that is unproductive, but there's more gain. One might argue that the risks are higher with B, but consider that your leadoff hitter should be a good basestealer. Shouldn't you play to his strengths?

I see even more advantage in C. Your Number 2 hitter is supposed to be a high contact hitter, so let him swing at least once or take a strike before giving him the bunt signal. You do risk a double play. But there are at least as many good scenarios as bad.

There are five neutral situations (1 - Fielder's choice on ground ball that moves Player A to second, 2 - Flyout that moves Player A to second, 3 - bunt that moves player A to second, 4 - double play ball, 5 - unproductive out) and at least 3 positive situations (1 - Player B gets a hit, 2 - Player B bunts when the third baseman is not expecting a bunt, both Players are safe, 3 - Player B walks, moving Player A to second).

Furthermore, you make the pitcher throw more pitches. Why is it that people advocate small ball, but laud players who bunt on the first pitch. At least take an extra pitch.

I know conventional wisdom says when playing smallball, bunt. But can someone show me the statistical advantage of bunting on the first pitch?

This scenario of course changes if it is not a speedy person on base, or if the person at the plate does not make good contact, but I've seen a leadoff hitter (#1) get on base to open an inning and then the #2 guy just casually lay down a bunt. You could argue that the chances of a double play or an unproductive out are higher when the player is swinging rather than bunting, but then again, I don't know that the positives aren't worth the risk.

Release

2005-10-01T18:02:00.000-04:00

The Fiona Apple album, Extraordinary Machine, has been held up for a long time due to various issues, ranging from charges of unmarketability to obvious problems in editing and quality.

I wrote about it in an earlier post (below my liberal arts rant), in which I hightlight the album's desire to experiment, especially with brass instruments and a Big Band sound, but at a cost of hiding both Fiona's vocals and an overall loss in musicality. Several songs could have been salvaged with a mere tempo change midway through the song or a crescendo at a climactic moment.

Jon Brion, who was supposed to produce the album initially, did not do a very good job bringing Fiona's voice through the music at all, instead choosing to literally accentuate the singer's voice with bells and whistles that distracted the listener from both the lyrics and Ms. Apple's voice. The initial version of the album seemed to stay on one dynamic for the entire CD, and for the first time in any of her albums, I found myself bored by Fiona's voice.

The new release, which is supposed to actually hit the markets in a couple of days (Oct 4), is much more successful. Gone are much of the brass and synthesizer sounds that made the album often sound like something from the movie The Untouchables or the videogame Alice.

The bass lines in most of the songs are much stronger, often with a hip-hop feel (which is not surprising, as the person brought in to re-mix the album has Dr. Dre on his resume). Often, all it took to make the songs sound better were better introductions and solo sections, as is evident in the song Better Version Furthermore, the original version of the album suffered because for all its experimentation, it only experimented with one sound. This made for a rather boring album, as once you got the point of the experiment, which came for me around the third song, the rest of the album kind of lost its way. The new version gets rid of the Big Band Jazz sound in a couple of ballads and encorporates a hip-hop beat in some other songs, making the album more interesting as a whole. If they were worried about coherence before, the album is still plenty coherent, as Ms. Apple's voice is still very strong and unmistakable. Several of the vocal tracks have been re-laid with much success, as someone had the brilliant idea to incorporate some well-timed decrescendos and syncopations to break up the monotony of the songs.

For instance, the song Window was extremely weak on the old version - it didn't inspire very much with Fiona's voice, and it didn't move very much from a lyrical or dynamic standpoint. With the remix, the are several variations on the chorus which create a stronger sense of flow throughtout the song, from the quirky beginning, featuring very interesting synthesizer and percussion work, to the climax of the song, in which Fiona's voice is allowed to break through. Some of the experimentation remains in the burst of strings and brass, but it works much more effectively in the background. The old version really just went straight for the top and didn't come down.

With a song like Tymps, the new version is completely different for the first 20 seconds, as the new mix plays with a xylophone introduction and eases the listener into the song. The song is very bare for the first minute and a half, featuring only Fiona's voice, the continued xylophones and a strong bass beat, until it explodes in a burst of synthesized organ and jazz riffs. The top-hat is used to excellent effect to end the rising phase, and the song settles back down to the chorus. With the more professional orchestration, Fiona's voice works much better as well.

The album does sound more "mainstream" due to the more recognizable beats, but it would take a lot to convince me that there were too many creative sacrifices to re-mix it and even more to convince me that any of the sacrifices were a bad thing. Even though some of the hip-hop staples that help hold the songs together are evident, it's really a huge improvement over the old version.

The song Red Red Red on first mix barely sounded like a song - it was too fast and the lyrics didn't jump at all because the only memorable part of the song was Fiona singing how she sees "Red, Red, Red" louder and louder as she was accompanied by a percussion line that also increased in volume. The new mix takes the out-of-place strings and turns the song into more of a ballad. I actually distinguished and was amused by the color imagery in the first line, as well as the lyrics "Don't understand diamonds and why men buy them. What's so special about diamonds besides the mining?"

My favorite song from the old version, and incidentally also the only one I would actually listen to or put on a mix tape, Oh Well, is more languid, and the piano is allowed to resonate more, which serves to bring out Fiona's vocal anger at about the third minute of the song. Also, you understand why the song is called Oh Well - at the end of the song, after her outburst of anger, she sighs "oh well." This is brought out much more in the newer version, and really makes the song into more of a story and a complete song.

"Extraordinary Machine," one of the tracks that was leaked to radio station way back in March, seems to have been kept pretty much the same. This is a pity, as it still isn't very strong, and now seems out of place on the CD. The fact that it sticks out is worse because it's the title track. But for the most part, this CD is definitely a "Better Version" of the old one.

Binge

2005-09-25T12:08:00.000-04:00

Perhaps you've read about China censoring web content. The Chinese government, despite the Westernization, the fast cars, the fast food, the fast everything, has decided that intellectual freedom of expression is still out of the question. This goes back to my last post, in which I advocate an Internet Education class for children. Instead of teaching that the internet is a broad landscape of opinions, and that while people have the right to publicize and publish said opinions, one does not have to believe it all, China is restricting news, filtering political commentary, quashing dissidents and removing questionable content.

Why do this? Because information is dangerous? Or because their government, like ours, refuses to advance the state of their education system to catch up with technology?

Our government is better, you say? I say it isn't. Recent efforts to crack down on pornography aside (see - efforts to create .xxx, also, Attorney Gen. Gonzales), why is our government even thinking about restricting cloning and stem cell research? It's the same thing. Different mediums, same concept.

Freedom to publish content online is restricted by the basic laws that exist, like the First Amendment. You can't post kiddie porn. You can't say in a chat room that you're going to kill the President. Our current laws need to be updated (or rather, some precedents need to be established) to reflect the trends in technology, but we do not need to further restrict the freedom of the internet.

For the most part, I feel the exact same way about cloning and stem cell research. Why restrict something that doesn't really exist yet? People are afraid that cloning will get out of hand, we'll invent organ harvesting, take stem cells from dead babies, etc. etc. But by throwing a law on the books that bans stem cell research, or just hamstrings its funding, we're basically doing what China is trying to do to the internet.

Should we ban the cloning of a human being? Perhaps. Should we update our laws to control commerce and trade over the internet? Probably. But along those same lines, should we stop stem-cell research that might lead to groundbreaking treatments to Alzheimers, Parkinsons and a host of other diseases? I don't think so. Should we make it illegal for a website to display consensual pornographic content of dubious taste? I don't think that's healthy either.

Instead of educating individuals, our respective governments are trying to halt progress. Instead of encouraging our kids to pursue the sciences, we argue about intelligent design. Wouldn't a section on scientific ethics in a middle school biology class be more productive than a unit on Intelligent Design? Instead of allowing free and healthy discussion on the internet, China is closing web cafes and shutting down web sites that belong to dissidents.

Science, the internet, all technology for that matter, is not inherently evil. For an extreme example, look at Alfred Nobel and dynamite. People will inevitably use these things selfishly and to hurt others, but we can't go in and impose harsh restrictions before we've even gotten started. It would be as if Nobel invented dynamite, and the government immediate stopped his production, confiscated his materials and prohibited him from selling his prototypes. Yes, lives would have been saved. But dynamite's other purposes - mining and construction for example, would be lost to us.

We learn on the first day of basically every science class about the scientific method - make an observation, form a testable hypothesis, test the hypothesis and observe, if hypothesis is refuted, form another hypothesis and test again.

Laws against stem cell research and internet freedom of speech cut off that process. It kills the process by killing dialogue, by killing experimentation. Yes, there are always going to be Nigerian Princes in your inbox, pyramid schemes, and abuse of scientific knowledge. But the blanket laws being established in China, which are in danger of being established here, do more than censure the bad. They throw the baby out with the bathwater.

One last metaphor - let's say you have a seed. You don't know exactly what might grow out of it, but you know that it might grow into a tree that bears fruit which grants longevity and wisdom, or a tree whose fruit is delectable but carries with it a sentence of a slow, lingering death. Or maybe the tree will bear both kinds of fruit.

Do you

a) Plant the seed, cultivate it as best you can, and leave a plaque for your children and their children warning of the potential goods and evils

or

b) Plant the seed in an inhospitable environment and hope that it never flourishes?

"Mark my words," remarked Marky Mark. "That girl in marketing is an easy mark."

2005-09-24T15:01:00.000-04:00

Re: No. 9 in my last post.

There is a "CSI effect," but it has to do with jurors and not crimes.

While it's impossible to quantify, I wonder sometimes what the decline in education quality is doing to our nation's juries. I suppose to think about this requires the assumption that our national education used to be good in the first place, but just bear with me for a second. As we trend more towards teaching trades, away from logic, critical analysis, etc. etc., are we sacrificing the legitimacy of a trial by jury?

Or do I need to think about quality of education at all? Perhaps what's really on my mind is more of a worry about attention spans, about spin doctors, and believing everything you see on TV. This is a different kind of education, one which is just as important as the one you get in school (and related, of course). Call it street smarts, call it what you will, but the education system is only partially responsible for it. Just as we should learn about revisionist history in school, we should also learn not to trust everything we hear on CNN (or worse, Fox News).

It's for this reason that I think Intelligent Design is a horrible idea. Even if you could show me that evolution is not a fairly complete theory, and that we did need to teach an alternate form of creation, I wouldn't teach Intelligent Design. Because it teaches kids to assume. It teaches kids to trust that something which cannot be empirically proven is true. If you can't teach the kids to question, to form hypotheses from empirical observations, then you're not teaching science. You're teaching faith.

This is something that is even more important these days, with the internet proliferating millions of opinions with millions of agendas. In the threads on Fark.com, which I often read, it's amazing how often someone posts a link to a site which helps them prove the point, and the link turns out to be some kind of politicized half-truth or some wildly unrepresentative statistics. At least on Fark, there are intelligent people who question and debunk these sites, but nevertheless, the point still stands.

It's so easy to find whatever you want online. Google something and it's there. Look something up on Wikipedia and it'll be there. But we can't always trust these faceless sources, and we need to teach our children this. Teach them young, and they'll understand when they grow up that it's not just the internet, that it's TV, the newspapers, their Republican co-workers who think "conservative" means being pro-Life, their Democrat co-workers who think "liberal" means turning the other cheek.

Why isn't there a class in 6th grade called "Net Ed?" It would be like Sex Ed but adapted to teach internet etiquette and warn about the dangers of articles without sources and chat rooms. It wouldn't be to make the kid paranoid, but rather, to teach how to question, how to check sources, and so on and so forth. If you don't think it's a potential problem, I'm willing to bet that every year in every school district around the country, there's a 7th grader who comes in their Social Studies report with some insane statistics they found online, possibly fabricated by someone else with an agenda. What's worse, your 10th grader engaging in premarital sex or your 10th grader thinking that Ronald Reagan was the best President the United States ever had? What's worse, your 10th grader not believing God, or your 10th grader believing a random internet article that says they shouldn't wear seat belts? I'm only kind of kidding.

Taking the line of thought about to trials and juries, I don't think jury pools have been diluted to the point where you basically have a bunch of poorly educated housewives, car repairmen and salesmen who watch Fox News, American Idol and Law and Order all day, but I wonder if it's worse than it was 50 years ago. At least then, we didn't have these shows that would make everyone feel like an Assistant District Attorney or a Forensic Scientist. I mean, I don't think Gunsmoke affected how people operated when serving jury duty. Of course, then, people were worried about Communism, spies, and were just as racist as we are today, so maybe my point's not that valid after all.

I still think we need some kind of internet education in our schools though.

Ready or Not

2005-09-22T20:00:00.000-04:00

This is just going to be a few of random observations.

1) What's more productive, Barry Bonds hitting home run number 707, and telling the media that Congress should stop focusing on steroids and should look more at Hurrican relief instead, or Florida Marlins closer Todd Jones going to Houston and handing out T-shirts and toys to those devastated by the hurricane?

Sometimes, you have to wonder what sports agents go through with athletes like Bonds. Sure, negotiating a 22 million dollar a year contract is one thing. But trying to make your prima donna athelete keep himself from making himself odious to the general public? Why do I think that would be the bigger headache?

2) If John Donovan make the point that Ryan Howard is the NL Rookie of the Year, is he taking into account defense like most people are taking it into account when considering AL MVP? In other words, if we must discount David Ortiz's non-play on defense, should we also consider Howard's play at first and Francoeur's defense in right field?

3) Mandy Patinkin has a new TV show. It's about him and his team of criminal investigators. I wonder if he has a long standing grudge which drives him to solve crimes. I wonder if said long standing grudge will eventually lead up to a climactic confrontation with Christopher Guest...

4) Mandy Patinkin has a new TV show.

5) Why did no one complain that Fox premiered a TV show called "The War at Home" on 9/11? This seems at best callous to me. And I've never heard anyone else talk about it.

6) The movie coming out of Matthew McConaughey (sp?) and Al Pacino just looks like a gambling version of The Devil's Advocate, with Al Pacino playing the same role.

7) Why the heck would they cast Zhang Ziyi and Michelle Yeoh in "Memoirs of a Geisha," a movie about a Japanese woman? I believe the third major female is played by a Chinese woman too. Are there no Japanese actresses out there? What kind of accents are they going to have in this movie, considering that Zhang Ziyi speaks English with a heavy Chinese accent? Do they really think that the American theater going public can't tell the difference between a Chinese and a Japanese accent, or a Chinese face from a Japanese face? Ok, don't answer that.

8) Walking to work today, I saw a homeless man whose clothes were in tatters. He was mumbling incoherently as he walked with a black garbage bag over his shoulder. A woman in tight blue pants walked by him. Her pants were tight enough that you could tell that she was wearing a thong. Guess which person more people were staring at?

9) I wonder if the people who produce shows like Law and Order or CSI will ever be sued when someone commits a copycat crime. I can't believe that it hasn't already happened.

10) Mandy Patinkin has a new TV show.

Quick Baseball Post Part Deux

2005-09-19T10:01:00.000-04:00

Just another quick baseball post before I really get down to work this morning.

This needed to happen because of this article at ESPN.com, in which Jeff Merron hails Leo Mazzone as the #1 assistant coach of all time.

I have no problem with the nod to Mazzone (and let it be known that myself and half the writers and wanna be writers who have ever written about Mazzone has used the "Leo Rocks" phrase).

What I do have a problem with is his top ten list. And what better way to critique a list than by listing its problems?

1) Top Ten lists by and large suck, unless they mention Mookie Wilson or they're being read by William Shatner. I still like Letterman's Top Ten lists, honestly, but they're just not as good as they once were. And in any other forum, they're wildly unneccessary.

2) You can't have a "Greatest of All Time" List and not feature anyone who made their biggest impact before 1980. Norm Chow (32 years of experience) and Charlie Lau (hitting coach who worked with George Brett) are the closest Merron comes, but why give a list the superlative "Greatest of All Time" when the majority of "Great Assistants" have done their best work in the past decade?

This list is more of a "Most High Profile Assistant Coaches of All Time".

3) Charlie Weis is on the list at #4, but Romeo Crennel isn't on the list anywhere. The Pats were known (are known, although their defense is much weaker this year) for their defensive prowess, if I understand pro football correctly. Charlie Weis admittedly did a lot for the Pats as their offensive coordinator, but for my money, no one has been a better chess player, to use an analogy I hate, than Romeo Crennel.

4) Mel Stottlemyre at #10. Mel shouldn't be on this list. Mel isn't anywhere close to being on this list. Mel might not make my list of Top Ten Pitching Coaches in the Majors, if only because he does essentially nothing for his pitchers. He's easily eclipsed by Mike Maddux, Rick Peterson, Dave Duncan, and several others. Stottlemyre had a nice career as a Yankee pitcher back in the day, and is one of Joe Torre's trusted crew, but as a pitching coach, who is supposed to fix flawed mechanics, notice tired pitchers and help develop young talent, Mel is anything but a boon to his team.

Look at the Yankees pitcher usage in the past few years. Part of it is Torre's fault for overusing certain relievers (Paul Quantrill, for instance). But Mel didn't do anything with Jeff Weaver. He didn't correct Javier Vazquez' horrible mechanics last year. In fact, articles have been written about how Mel's time with the Yankees is up, since he has never really demonstrated the ability to make pitchers better, and may have in fact hindered development, no matter where he has coached.

This is in the article I link above, but I think it deserves to be quoted here (Quote taken from Jeff Pearlman, author of The Bad Guys Won)

..."Mel had this thing about strikeouts," said Ed Hearn, the Mets' backup catcher in 1986. "He wanted Ron [Darling] to throw more breaking stuff. He did, and he was never quite as good afterward as he was in '86."

..."Mel just wasn't very good with mechanics," said a former Mets reliever who asked not be named. "If you had a problem with your delivery or if you were trying to work things out after being hurt, you were pretty much on your own.

Leo Mazzone is hailed as a guru because it has been shown that when he gets prospects, he can sometimes help them develop into good pitchers. He keeps his pitchers on a different throwing plan than other pitching coaches and their pitchers.

Some people will say "Oh, but Mel won 5 Series Rings." No no, Mel didn't win those rings. Andy Pettitte, Mariano Rivera, Roger Clemen and some of the best offense of the century won the rings with the Yankees. In '86, with the Mets, it was Dwight Gooden, Bobby Ojeda, Ron Darling and crew. Mel has always worked with talent, but he hasn't made the talent better. In fact a lot of people credit Mel with Dwight Gooden's implosion (although to be fair, most of it was drugs and more drugs).

Summon Materia - Knights of the Round

2005-09-17T23:19:00.000-04:00

It's a little bizzare to think about all the influential (or just time consuming) aspects of my adolescence and childhood being transferred onto different mediums. Of course, it's not that surprising, considering that which I found influential was probably also exerted much influence among others, which is why profits will be had all around.

Still, I see all these remakes and reimaginings being brought to life and I can't figure out whether I like it all or not. Would I have been better off not seeing Lord of the Rings and forever associating Frodo with Elijah Wood and Legolas with Orlando Bloom? As much as I did like the Fellowship of the Ring (the other two, I'm more lukewarm about), I'm not sure that I like having the movie embedded into my imagination when I'm re-reading the books. And I do re-read the books.

Rent is becoming a movie. Even though it seems like a straight translation, will I walk out of the theatre with a different image in my head of Mark and Roger's apartment? Do I really want to replace the stage of the Nederlander that exists in my memory when I think of Rent?

The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe is going to become a movie (although I'm not convinced it's going to be better than the campy and straight by the book BBC versions). To a large extent, just because I loved Lewis' books so much, Christian apologist or not, I want my imagination to hold sway when I think about the lone lamppost in the winter woods, or Lucy walking through a wardrobe of fur coats, smelling camphor, until she steps out into the cold forests of Narnia.

Final Fantasy VII became a movie, and has already been fansubbed and is all over the internet. I should know. I seen it, as they say.

But that's not quite the same though. It wasn't my imagination that sent Cloud Strife and Co. on a quest against Sephiroth, Mr. One Winged Angel. It wasn't my imagination that created those memorable cut scenes. So to a certain extent, it's not quite so jarring when I see those characters again.

For anyone who I've never told, FFVII was a huge time commitment for me. Eric Hunter burned me the game, a while after it came out, but only got the first disc right. So I ended up stuck on disc 1 the first time through, and was up to level 70 before I got around to actually buying the game. That's old news for a lot of people.

At least I didn't share Mike's fate, what with getting up at 3 AM to play the game because he couldn't let his parents find out he was playing.

FFVII is certainly high up on my list of great RPGs, although ones like Chrono Trigger and FFVI and Earthbound surpass it pretty easily. Still, it was quite the phenomenon here and in Japan as well, so it wasn't much of a surprise when Square Enix announced they would be making Advent Children, a movie which takes place two years after the end of FFVII.

It certainly is a pleasure to see Cloud and Co. rendered in today's cutting edge graphics, even though Cloud looks a bit more feminine than I remember him. Tifa's still Tifa though, if you know what I mean. And Red XIII, Barrett, Yuffie and Cid are all largely as we left them in the game. Vincent, of course, is Vincent (which is to say, damn cool).

Everyone's equipment and familiar clothes are left intact. Happily enough, Cloud's sword does seem to have a bit of heft to it, although he sometimes waves it around like it doesn't weight anything. It's one thing when he's doing it on your Pentium II. It's another when he's well-rendered and swinging his buster sword around himself with ease. But that's not that much of a complaint.

I would actually encourage people to go back and play the game again before watching Advent Children. I know I had to think hard about the plot of the game, and what exactly was going on in the movie. As good as my memory is, I think I must have forgotten a bit, since the movie turned out to be quite confusing.

Some of the CGI work, while brilliantly rendered and amazingly lush, is cut and edited rather badly, so that sometimes it's not clear what is a purpose cut and what isn't. The new plot has certain holes which might or might not be lost in translation.

But fans of the game, myself included, will most assuredly love the chase scenes and the vast number of homages to the game and its characters.

Square-Enix was obviously aware of these, because to a large extent, the movie for me was a large dose of "remember when." As in "remember when Cloud had to ride his motorcycle through that minigame?" And "remember when Aeris died at the end of Disc 1, and even though I had 99 Phoenix Down in my inventory I couldn't do a thing about it because it's integral to the plot?" It's more a trip down memory lane than a movie.

But oh what a pretty trip.

All the characters (side characters such as Reno, Rude and Rufus included) are by and large back, although alas, no Don Corneo.

Nobuo Uematsu is back on the music, and some familiar themes play throughout the movie (and one in a part of the movie which made me laugh out loud).

Fight scenes are even reminiscent of the game - watch for limit breaks, for instance. Seriously.

If I do have one complaint, besides the fact that it's not really a movie, it's that the graphics look like a buildup for Kingdom Hearts 2 at times. There's a lot of the same looks, a lot of the same angles as what we saw in the preview for KH2.

That's enough of that I suppose. Fans of FFVII will just have to see for themselves.

Breed

2005-09-17T01:25:00.000-04:00

It's been a long time since I saw Rent. Anyone who knows me knows that I was a Rent-head in middle school and (kind of) high school. I managed to see it with much of the original cast still intact, and one of the two CD's that comprised the soundtrack always seemed to be playing in my CD player.

I reacted with a bit of skepticism when I heard that it was being made into a movie, and was being directed by Rob Marshall of Chicago fame (although Chicago was entertaining).

And even though much of the original cast is returning, I still have doubts about the ability of the camera to capture the industrial elements of the original set. I'm not sure how I'll react to the characters running around New York. While it certainly promises some good scenes (Mimi being homeless in Central Park at the end of the movie, Collins and Angel shopping at the bazaar at the end of the first half), the trailer appears to convey a lot more movement through New York than I think is appropriate in the adaptation of a musical (or opera or what have you).

More importantly, the news about the movie adaptation of Rent got me thinking.

I took a lot of things about the dialogue and the songs for granted. I also realized that Jonathan Larson made a few obvious faux pas (faux passes?) and wrote a few elements into the script that were amusing for a 12 year old, don't hold that much weight now.

Just a few examples:

1) I didn't realize for a long time that Tom Collins is an alcoholic drink. That kind of sours the character for me (pun intended if you know what a Tom Collins is), which is a pity, because Jesse Martin was my favorite member of the cast.

2) While I did know that it was based on Puccini's La Boheme, I didn't realize at the time that I saw it what an exact retelling of La Boheme it was.

3) This one is probably Larson's most obvious mistake. Angel, the gay transvestite, is responsible for making Muffy's (Benny's wife) dog commit suicide. But Angel is commissioned by a woman "to make her neighbor's yappy dog disappear." There's also something in the script about it being small and yappy. But "the Akita, Evita" is not a small dog. Why? Because Akita's are friggin humongous. They run between 80 and 130 pounds. Not small at all. They're big things. Jonathan Larson was obviously thinking about a Pomeranian, which is a small, fluffy yappy dog, but you try rhyming Pomeranian in a song. Still, it's a glaring inconsitency for anyone who knows their dog breeds.

4) All gay people get along. This actually a pretty bad stereotype it seems. Collins really gets along with Angel, who gets along with everyone. Maureen and Joanne are a couple, but besides some residual heterosexual tension, it seems that everyone has already worked out the sexuality issues. And for a musical so outspoken about sexuality, this means that homosexuality gets a rather blanket treatment

However, much of the musical should survive the passage of time, all stereotypes, good and bad, intact. The references to AZT are going to be anachronistic, as will be the idea of moving out to Santa Fe, since Arizona is now a hotbed of urban escapees looking for a good nightlife, but the message of the musical is still there.

I sometimes have troubles with the message actually. "No day but today" is well and good, but does anyone ever wonder if Roger ever performs his song for anyone besides himself and Mimi? Does Mark ever screen any of his movies? Maureen is the only character with any ambition and a) she doesn't have AIDS and b) she's labelled a bitch because of it. Mimi sings about the Spanish babies crying in her neighborhood, indicating that she yearns for an escape, but she's bound by a lifestyle of sex and drugs. While Mimi is encouraged to leave that lifestyle behind by anyone who knows what's good for her, there's a kind of black and white to the story that I've come to realize more lately.

Live for today is a message that isn't even appropriate for people with AIDS, because there is a tomorrow. And even if there weren't, the musical is still uncomfortable with "how to measure the days in a year." To me, it doesn't ever adequately answer that question. Mark either stays a starving artist or sells out. There's no option where Mark makes a scathing video about the life on the streets, and brings attention to the horrors of AIDS to an audience at the Tribeca film festival. Roger doesn't get his message out to anyone. In the end, these characters are still living for themselves, and their friends. But is that what the musical advocates? Is there something bigger that these people should be striving for, even in (especially in) their limited time?

Even if you can argue that the above would make for a shitty ending to a musical (and you can), it could have been done better. It is entirely possible that Larson wrote the end of the musical attempting to convey the fact that his characters are still flawed, and have a good amount of living, learning, loving and losing still to come, but is that really emphasized towards the end of Rent?

None of the characters really reach out to their families even. There are the phone calls, which are a nice way of making the characters deeper, separating the songs, and injecting a bit of Jewish/Hispanic/African American humor. But the whole concerned parents bit is left unresolved at the end, because for the purposes of the musical, the friendships are more important than the families. At the end of the Rent, none of the parents are any closer to their kids than when the musical started.

The white (Maureen's performance) and the black (Benny calling the cops) are never really reconciled, even though Benny does kind of come around in the end.

To me now, the most important part of the message is in the critique, which is why even though I'll enjoy lines that talk about Mark not being able to get it up on the high holy days and "so let her be a lesbian, there are other fishies in the sea," I'll understand that there's a lot more that Rent never touches, and never really dares to touch.

A Music Review

2005-09-14T20:36:00.000-04:00

Billy Idol - Devil's Playground

Most people know Billy Idol as the frosted blonde guy who, along with Duran Duran, Michael Jackson and Madonna, gave us the MTV that used to be cool. He parlayed a long career out of being a sex image and having a sneer which reminds me a bit of Hayden Christensen (2 - more whiny picture of Hayden) and a bit of Ben Stiller in Zoolander, which is to say, I think he looks quite silly, but to tell the truth, he has a good voice too. Good for growling and crooning alike, which is what made those early songs (Rebel Yell, Mony Mony, et. al) so popular.

His career fell off a bit in the 90's and he released an album in 2001, the kind of album which spells the demise of all bands not named U2 - a Greatest Hits Album. It says a lot about his career that it was a horribly weak CD, featuring two versions of Rebel Yell and a cover of Don't You Forget About Me. Never mind the fact that Mony Mony is a cover too.

But then something happened to send him back to the studio - maybe he ran out of money or something. In any case, Devil's Playground is his first studio work in over a decade.

All that said, it's not as weak an album as you might think. Whoever was producing this album did a good job making sure it exhibited Idol's surprising versatility.

Several songs do stand out, as laden with pop cliches as they are. "Sherri" is the strongest song on the album. It's a bit of 80's fun and escapism, and it's refreshing that Idol or whoever was advising him on the tracks recognized the need to acknowledge that.

More than a couple of songs are more a look back on his career than anything else, and there's nothing wrong with that. After all, Idol is 50 this year, and what else does he really have to write about besides past glories?

A couple of the later songs have an acoustic guitar touch that actually works rather well with Idol's voice.

But much of the album is rather weak - for some reason, there's a Christmas song. Yes, a Christmas song.

Sure, the song is about a drunken father and is essentially a rebellious adolescent's sardonic reflection upon Christman memories, but it still has bells and lines about Santa for God's sake. Not exactly a good fit for a studio release that's not a holiday album.

And other songs suffer lyrically. Idol was never known for his lyric stylings; they had shock value, but that was about it. Now that the shock value is more dormant (although it's certainly still there, as we will see), the amateur lyricist comes out in Devil's Playground.

The euphemism of "You're on your knees, You are my little queen, You know exactly what I mean, Climb up my lemon tree" is a bit confusing, but unmistakable. He does, after all, sing "suck it." But why lemon tree? Is it an English thing? Either way, this song still has some amusement value for its crassness.

Then take the song "Plastic Jesus"

Rule #1 of songs about plastic Jesus on the dashboard of your car) you should NEVER include the lyrics "I don't care if it rains or freezes as long as I've got my plastic jesus on the dashboard of my car." Those lyrics just don't have an impact, especially when you repeat "dashboard of my car" about 100 times during the song (actually 9, but that's 9 too many). Other aspects of the song convey the dashboard and the car, namely, the lyrics about traffic jams and the road.

I think a good way to convey the effectiveness and even the sound of this album is to compare him with a fellow Englishman, whose most popular days have passed, who also wrote a song recently about Jesus. Not Sting - he writes about Tantric Sex. No, I'm talking about Morrissey. (Ok, Morrissey is technically Irish, but that's besides the point - he grew up in England)

Before you think "Wait, Morrissey and Billy Idol? Completely different sounds! They stand for polar opposite philosophies!!" let me extrapolate.

First of all, let's take a look at Morrissey's song, off his 2004 release "You Are the Quarry," entitled "I Have Forgiven Jesus."

Right off the bat, it makes you smile, because it's a great song title.

And the lyrics convey a wonderful adolescent Catholic angst, without mention of the words religion, Catholic, cross, church or priest.

To obtain full effect, read lyrics with glass of dark red wine

"Why did you give me so much desire
When there is nowhere I can go
To offload this desire?
And why did you give me
So much love in a loveless world
When there is no one I can turn to
To unlock all this love?

And why did you stick me in
Self deprecating bones and skin?
Jesus do you hate me?
Why did you stick me in
Self deprecating bones and skin?

Do you hate me?
Do you hate me?..."

Now, Morrissey is obviously known for his lyrical stylings than Idol. When Billy Idol goes from general adolescent anarchy to snide social commentary, it doesn't work because it still comes off as a child screaming through an adult's vocal cords. Idol's attempts to convey disdain for organized religion through personal experience come off quite lame in comparison. But Morrissey can get around that. His Jesus song is the despair of an adult looking back upon the blind faith of his childhood.

Both Morrissey and Idol grew up in the same era. Morrissey is 46, and grew up in the heavily Sex Pistol's influenced English music scene, just like Idol. The comparison's largely end there, as Idol was always in the limelight as a pop star, which Morrissey has been essentially an icon of indie rock, but it might also be pointed out that they both have very unique vocal abilities. But listening to Idol's latest work, one can't help but think that he's trying to channel some of Morrissey's black humor, and it's really not very successful.

Part of it is because Morrissey's sound with the Smiths was already laced with the irony and humor more evident in his solo work, but most of it is because no one taught Idol how to write a good set of lyrics.

When Idol sticks to singing about girls and how good he is, he can still convey that sex-rebel-your-father-would-be-scared-to-death-of-image. But otherwise, Devil's Playground sounds like a 50 year old's admission that he'd like to mature and write some witty shit, but can't because he's still reliving his adolescent glory days.

Quick Baseball Post

2005-09-06T10:29:00.000-04:00

I think most people who read my blog have already stopped reading after the title.

Oh well. Tough noogies.

Barry Bonds might be back today. He might not be. I could really care less.

What I do care about though, are the reports that he got into a fight with a teammate in June, in which "Bonds punched the player in the jaw, whereupon the player put Bonds in a headlock and retaliated." (Source: ESPN.com)

Why do I care?

Because what kind of mutant monstrosity is capable of placing Barry Bonds in a headlock? I imagine that it would be something like the fight between Cary Elwes and Andre the Giant in "The Princess Bride."

Barry, who's listed as an imposing 6'2'', 228 lbs., would be a tough cookie, even after knee surgery. Think about it. Either his teammate jumped off a bench to get Barry in a headlock, or is really big himself.

In other words, I'm pretty sure it wasn't Omar Vizquel, who is listed generously as 5'9''.

I also wouldn't expect it to be a young player, because I would think he would be rather intimidated by Bonds' hulking presence in the locker room.

No, my money is on LaTroy Hawkins. He's not bulky, but he is 6'5'', so he has a bit of a height advantage on Barry. LaTroy also angers easily and gets irrational, if his days as a closer are any indication.

This is where MLB needs to step in. Not to intervene in fights, but to promote them. Their PR department is scrambling already amidst this whole steroids thing; why not just resign yourself and make a few bucks off it?

UPDATE: It was NOT LaTroy Hawkins. No, it's better. Apparently it was Jason Christiansen, who is no longer pitching for the San Francisco Giants but is still in state with the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. He logs in at 6'5'' as well, but is a burlier 230. That makes sense. He's also 36, so he wouldn't be afraid to take it to the BALCO-nator.

UPDATE II: Jen points out that it is entirely possible that Christiansen didn't really have the strength, but merely crippled Bonds first with either a rabbit punch or a swift blow to the crotch, thereby rendering him prone to a headlock. I suppose this is possible, and it is also certainly possible that the papers were too queasy to report it. But then I think that most major newspapers in this country would be happy to report Barry taking a shot to the shrunked testicles, since they would love to do it themselves.

Jason Christiansen is probably guaranteed a job at some media outlet after his pitching career is over. I'm surprised no article has hailed him as a hero yet. Perhaps after his retirement, he will become Jason Christiansen, a mild-mannered journalist by day (Yahoo! correspondent?), Asshole Crotch-Disabler Extraordinaire (ACE) by night.

Plans of Mice and Men

2005-09-04T23:13:00.000-04:00

Under duress, I take to my blog.

Although I suppose I should be writing more these days. I just haven't really felt particularly like sharing. I think I need a timeout, or a naptime. Snack? I'm partial to Cheez-Its...

Oh well. Here goes.

This is my show and tell

Exhibit: Piece of Mail, I, William W. Li 05, got today.

It is a 4 by 6 greeting card. Very fancy. Expensive card stock, cream color background. At the forefront of the card is an artist's rendition of Dartmouth Hall and the buildings surrounding. The buildings are not all the same colors I remember, and I certainly don't remember that white picket fence job in front of the road. Wentworth is a brick red, and so is Thornton. Both buildings are white in my mind.

Looking closer, there's no paved road at all, only a dirt path, crossing over the green. Even that path isn't in the same pattern as it is today.

On the back of the card, it says "Dartmouth College," about 1840. Attributed to Ann Fraces Ray (Mrs. Gilbert Pillsbury, Dartmouth Class of 1841).

I knew it. This wasn't my Dartmouth. Not the Dartmouth I know. Oh, it's definitely very similar. But this looks like horses and carriages, not gas guzzling SUV's. Men walking around in shirts and slacks, not men and women skimpily dressed on the first sign of Spring.

Ms. Ray didn't even get the color of the sky right. She did the buildings okay though. I could look outside from the second floor of McNutt and get essentially what she drew in 1841.

But I see something different in my mind. My Dartmouth, not hers.

Perhaps the card itself holds something more like the Dartmouth I know?

The card opens to fancy green cursive text. Green is good. Green is like Dartmouth Green, like our supposed mascot.

"The Dartmouth Club of Washington, D.C.
and
The Office of Alumni Relations
cordially invite you to a reception with

President James Wright
and
Susan DeBevoise Wright

Tuesday, September 27th, 2005

National Press Club
529 14th Street, NW.
Washington D.C.

Cocktail Reception 6:00 - 7:00 PM
Formal Program 7:00 - 8:00 PM

Complimentary hors d'oeuvres
Cash Bar"

Not quite.

This isn't my Dartmouth either.

National Press Club? As in, the Club for the people who grill the President? Formal program? That probably means dressing up, doesn't it. I'm not even a big cocktail person.

Hors d'oeuvres?

That's not . . . wait . . . that's free food.

Now THAT'S my Dartmouth.

2005-08-27T20:02:00.000-04:00

As advertised before, here is the picture that proves that if there is any high entity, it is Borg. This is not a photoshop. It can be found on Glebe Road heading towards Lee Highway in Northern Virginia (Rt 120 towards Rt 29).

Maybe when you get to the pearly gates, instead of St. Peter, you just hear a voice that says "Prepare to be assimilated." And then you get greeted by Seven of Nine. As I said, heaven.

Cy Young

2005-08-27T16:46:00.000-04:00

This is a baseball post no one will really care about. But that's ok. It needs to be said.

Baseball sportswriters are incapable of writing about awards. They might as well write a two word column containing the first and last names of the person they want to win the award. For instance, take the article entitled "Arms Race" by Sports Illustrated's Stephen Canella.

He tells us right off in the byline that Clemens is in the lead. That's fine. That's what you expect, because after all, they should tell the reader who they think is currently at the forefront of the race.

But his first two paragraphs are perfect examples of the inane, polarizing drivel that plagues todays sportswriters, even good ones like Stephen Canella.

He writes,

You can tell a lot about a person by his or her preferences in choosing a Cy Young Award winner.

Are you a bottom-line kind of guy? If so, then you probably think victories are the most important criterion in judging a pitcher. The best way for a hurler to help his team is by winning. Who cares if the score is 1-0 or 12-10?

Are you a stylist, someone who enjoys watching an artist work even if the fates ultimately conspire against him? Then W's, which often have little to do with how well a pitcher pitches, is way down on your list of Cy-worthy attributes. You can probably trot out your walk ratios and your slide rule and prove that Jon Lieber deserves a vote.

Even though Canella nominates Clemens in spite of his wins, just look at the language in his second graph. "Trot our your walk ratios and your slide rule"? Right, because anyone who doesn't value wins is a bespectacled nerd sporting a pocket protector? It's a stupid example anyway.

To act the part of the bespectacled nerd, let me be the first to point out that no one in their right mind would give their vote to Jon Leiber, 1) because his ERA is 4.91 and 2) his walk ratio, a touch over 3, isn't close to Clemens or Carpenter. If you're going by walk ratio, Roy Halladay, Pedro Martinez, or Jake Peavy all receive consideration, since their K/BB ratios are well over 5.00.

So why the silly example, Stephen Canella? Is it just a red herring to satisfy the idiots that don't know what K/BB is? The ones that think Moneyball was written by Billy Beane and wins are the end all argument for a pitcher's ability? Even if it is, why do you need to write that? Is it because that's who reads Sports Illustrated these days? In that case, maybe they need to be educated.

Instead, you write this crap, and conclude that Roger Clemens will win if he goes on a hot streak and wins between 16 and 18 games. You don't conclude that if he goes on a great streak and doesn't win any games, that he still deserves to win. That possiblity goes completely unanswered, because if you're Stephen Canella, you don't want to align yourself with the people that don't value wins. Instead, you just present the 5 top pitchers in the NL. What kind of column is that?

How confusing is it that you write that you'd vote for Clemens today, but that you're "assuming Clemens will blaze down the stretch and get to 16 or 17 wins. If he does, he deserves his eighth Cy Young."

You could have done better, Stephen Canella. You could have actually taken a side.

And this is the worst of the sportswriting out there either. In fact, SI's guys, Canella, John Donovan and Tom Verducci, are three of the more decent writers out there. Anything by Hal Bodley, Joe Morgan, or Skip Bayless is pretty much guaranteed to be of the quality of dog poo. And I'm not talking about chihuahua droppings. I'm talking Rhodesian Ridgeback shit here.

Those three are pretty extreme, but even normally reliable writers seem to be going off the deep end these days.

Har har

2005-08-26T23:59:00.000-04:00

From an AP release of Friday's MLB Game notes:

Braves-Brewers

ATLANTA: Dave Hampton is resting for the next few days after receiving an epidural injection for a herniated disc in his back. He has been on the disabled list since August 20 with a strained lower back. It is not known when he will be able to return. ... The Braves had a rookie in their lineup for the 81st straight game. ... Jeff Smoltz (12-6) pitches Saturday against the Brewers for the first time this season. He has a 2.88 ERA with 45 walks and 141 strikeouts.

Something thinks he's funny obviously, because their names are MIKE Hampton and JOHN Smoltz. Tee hee? Yeah, whatever.

Either that or someone is sending these reports in stoned - this is the beginning of the Game recap for the Indians vs. Blue Jays game:

TORONTO (AP) -- Travis Hafner had no idea Grady Sizemore was going to steal home during his at-bat. He just knew not to swing.

Hafner took a two-strike pitch as Sizemore stole home, and Hafner later hit the first of his two homers as Cleveland beat the Toronto Blue Jays 9-3 Friday night for the Indians' eighth win in nine games.

Sizemore got off to a huge lead from third in the first inning and broke for home before Dustin McGowan (1-2) started his windup. Catcher Guillermo Quiroz didn't attempt a tag as Sizemore easily slid in safely for Cleveland's first straight steal of home since Omar Vizquel at Detroit on May 27, 2003.

``I didn't know what he was doing. I thought maybe he had to run to the bathroom or something,'' Hafner joked. ``If I had swung and hit Grady in the face I would have had every woman in America mad at me.''

Sizemore was worried Hafner would kill him.

``I'm sure Hafner was ragging on me after I stole his RBI,'' Sizemore said.

Hafner went for it after noticing the third baseman wasn't even close to third and seeing that he could get a huge lead. He told third base coach Joel Skinner that he could do it the pitch before.

Another name error in the last paragraph, as it was Sizemore who stole home. Go him. Hafner did homer twice in the game though.

Edit - after watching the game replay, Hafner clearly took the pitch, which was about 3 feet outside, for a ball, and not a second strike as the writer of the article says.

Also, to top it all off, Yahoo!'s baseball page wasn't updated for the majority of two days this week.

I noticed that Yahoo! is hiring a new sports editor for their web content. This was a listing on Craigslist. Good thing, because their current sports editor is doing absolutely jack.

Speaking of which, they have Absolut Citron and Absolut Vanilla. Why not Absolut Jack? I suppose that would be kind of nasty. And a trademark infringement.

In any case, I'll have a rather amusing picture up tomorrow or the next day. It validates my notion that if there is any higher being, it's Borg.

Etymology

2005-08-23T12:37:00.000-04:00

The majority of words we use come from two origins - German and Latin. The English lexicon is most similar to German, about a 60% similarity, and somewhat similar to French (27%). From the perspective of word origin, though, it's pretty much even between German (Old Norse, Old English, Middle English), French (Anglo French) and direct Latin.

The Germanic portions of the language were already being spoken when the Angles, Jutes, Normans and Saxons, just to name a few tribes, invaded England, overwhelming those who were already there, the Celts. Their moniker, barbarians, came from the Roman belief that these people were uncouth and stammered and generally struggled to communicate (the word is onomatopoetic in origin as well).

Through other invasions and assimilations of language, from the Vikings and the Normans (French), we got pretty close to where we are today, even though you couldn't really tell it from "Beowulf."

But, there are words of Celtic, or Gaelic origin. Gaelic is by and large considered a dead language now, even though there are some in Ireland trying to teach it in schools and revive it.

We actually don't have too many words of Gaelic origin. Some more popular ones include pet (from the Gaelic peata - is that where the organization got its inspiration?), bog (as in, Milton believed the Irish were an uncivilized people living in a bog), and whiskey (from usige beatha, or water of life - I really like that one).

Those are from Irish Gaelic, and there are words we recognize that obviously have Scots Gaelic origins, like cairn, clan, and of course, plaid.

My favorite word of Gaelic origin that is in common use today, however, has to be smithereen. It's a very silly word if you think about it. It's used in common parlance, often is treated as a cliche (smash to smithereens), and is almost never found in singular form. Can you have just one smithereen? The Gaelic origin comes from smidirin, or something really small. So I guess you could have one smithereen. I think we usually use the word smidgin (also spell smidgen, smidgeon) instead though.

You find it today in music (the lyrics of a song by "Live"), and all over literature and journalism. Yet I would bet money that most of the people who use the word have no clue what its origins might be. Although, it does certainly sound strange enough to be Gaelic, especially with that ending. Another of my favorite words happens to be poteen, or illegally distilled potato (sometimes other grain are used too) liquor.

Twice the Fun

2005-08-13T23:21:00.000-04:00

Imagine if you will, the following commercial -

Man sitting on a couch - lighting is bright, not too harsh. He's attractive, in his mid 30's.

Man A: "You know, I've had problems in the bedroom before. I was embarrassed to do anything about it, to say anything about it, and it was really affecting more than just my love life. Before we knew it, the situation was so bad that we were both having problems. But that was before I found out about Cialis. Cialis is effective for up to 36 hours, so you can choose your moment. Now, the experience is more satisfactory, and longer lasting."

He smiles slightly, and looks off camera. A man (Man B) approaches. Man B (also attractive, similar age to Man A) sits down with his arm around Man A

Man B: "Since we started taking Cialis, the love life has been twice what it was before."

Man A: "Twice? It's been immeasurably better. Thanks to Cialis, we're both more comfortable with ourselves and around each other. "

They smile at each other, and the scene does a slow fade to a black screen with the Cialis logo. Below it, a new slogan.

"Cialis - Ok if you're straight, twice as good if you're gay"

I'm not kidding by the way - why are all these commercials geared towards single men? Do drug companies not think that gay men get erectile dysfunction either? I suppose that men throwing footballs, Mike Ditka, and a pleased looking woman in her early forties appeals to most heterosexual males, while a gay Cialis ad might make them think the drug was for gays?

I think someone needs to rectify this situation. Television needs more gay theme ED advertisements.

One of these things is not like the other

2005-07-26T11:15:00.000-04:00

So there I was, on Saturday, at the Virginia Scottish Games, when this burly Scot came up to me and rumbled "Oy! Have ye ever tried the caber toss?"

"No," I told him, "although I think I've seen people do it."

"Come with me then, and we'll make ye a man" he said, in a voice that did not allow argument, and led me to a large log which would ultimately be the target of my masculine endeavor. (Boy that sounds wrong - please no one quote me out of context)

I then hefted it, straightened it up, and got ready to heave, not noticing the large splinter that stood out from the bottom of the log, near my left middle finger.

The next thing I knew . . .

Ok that's not what happened. What happened was . . .

There I was, in the living room, playing MVP Baseball 2005. I've been getting thrashed by the Yankees, but in the last two innings I've plated 4 runs to get to within 2.

It's now the top of the ninth, and Mariano Rivera is on to close the game. He gets David Eckstein to pop up. The next batter, Larry Walker, manages a bloop single to shallow left. So with a man on, Albert Pujols strides to the plate, already with two home runs on the day.

I run the count to 2-2, and Mariano unleashes a wicked cutter that runs in on my hands. I swing, and shatter my bat. The ball goes flying out to center, but before I can tell if Bernie Williams can make a play, the rumble in the controller tears the controller out of my hand. I'm so startled, I lurch out of my seat and fall down, not seeing the nail that sometime between now and five minutes ago imbedded itself in the floorboards in front of me. . . .

No no . . . , that wasn't it.

I'm sitting in a Japanese restaurant, sipping some sake critically, when all of a sudden this blonde in a yellow motorcycle suit comes striding in, dragging a woman who I've seen in the restaurant before behind her. It's Sofie, who works for the synidicate that runs the area. The blonde has obviously put quite a beating on Sofie, who stumbles beside the woman and falls down to her knees, eyes level with the business end of a large katana the blonde is wielding in her left hand.

Most of the patrons, knowing trouble when they see it, vacate the premises posthaste. The blonde comes to a full stop right next to me, with Sofie between us.

I sit quietly, not moving, waiting to see what is about to go down. The steel in her left hand glints menacingly.

The gang that runs the restaurant out of the back rooms pours out of the sliding paper doors at the top of the staircase, and in a show of strength, gather at the top of the stairs, brandishing an assortment of weapons and yelling wildly.

The obvious leader of the gang, a woman in an elaborate kimono, walks out calmly to the head of the pack and crosses her arms. In response, the tall blonde flicks the blade, and almost instantaneously, Sofie's arm is severed at the shoulder. She falls in a spray of blood, screaming in incoherent agony.

As I stare at the fountain of blood shooting from what remains of Sofie's arm, I notice that I too am bleeding. The lightning-fast move seems to have sliced open my finger. Reflexively, I staunch the bleeding with my napkin, and watch as woman steps forward to deal with her adversaries. . . .

Ok fine.

I was making guacamole, and when I went to pit the avocado, the knife slipped out of the pit and sliced my middle finger open. I managed to spray some blood on two of the kitchen walls, and it wasn't very pretty. Jen had to drive me to the emergency room, where it took five stiches to close it up. It's still not very pretty.

It's rather embarrassing, since I'm usually the one that has to remonstrate her about proper vegetable cutting technique, and I've expressed incredulity in the past regarding how anyone could possibly mess up guacamole.

But now I can tell people that I know what it's like to have cold steel in me. Perhaps it was not Hattori Hanzo steel, but hey, I'll take what I can get. I'm at least lucky I didn't sever any arteries or cut to the bone, or anything like that. No, I just managed to nearly slice the pad of my left middle finger off.

It's damn inconvenient to type, considering the entire left side of the keyboard has all of a sudden become a chore to operate.

Obviously I should have just ordered pizza.

I was at the Virginia Scottish Games on Saturday though. But I didn't do the caber toss.

First things first

2005-07-21T14:09:00.000-04:00

Someone at Fanball.com needs a swift kick in the junk for this headline -

Cardinals: Prince Albert connects on his 26th long ball

And someone at Yahoo! needs a beating for letting that headline through.

Moving right along, I'd like to take a look at my baseball predictions from a while back:

What I said: 1) It would be so cool if the Washington Nationals, after realizing that they were playing in front of real crowds, turned in a stellar season and got into the playoffs. I mean, it would be poetic justice if they beat the Braves, seeing as how the Expos last contended and were in first place during the 1994 strike season. But even if they don't, I hope the Mets keep building (David Wright, MVP, 2006, you heard it here), the Phillies choke, and Josh Beckett erupts in blisters. The Nationals deserve it. I mean, I know they're millionaires all, but it must be depressing to play in front of empty stadiums all the time.

Maybe they'll draw big crowds and then Jose Vidro will sparkle. And Livan Hernandez will be the horse he is and throw 200 innings again. Maybe Brad Wilkerson will drive in 100 runs when he's not hitting all his home runs out of the leadoff spot. Maybe Vinny Castilla and Christian Guzman won't be one of the worst 5-6 men in the MLB. That last one is kind of the deal-breaker, I suppose.

What has happened: Well, the Nats were the talk of the town for a while, but now it looks like Livan is hurting, or just insane, and the team is sputtering. They're still drawing large crowds too. Chistian Guzman has literally turned in one of the worst seasons by a player not named Tony Womack, too.

What I said: I actually want Jason Giambi to hit 40 homers next year. I know, steroids, blah blah, whatever. They help you heal, prolonging your career while turning you into a mongoloid psycho.

What has happened: Giambi, after a piss-poor start, has come around lately and has found his power again. Who knew?

What I said: I wish the Oakland A's would get to the World Series after stomping the Yankees in the ALCS. I want Zito to throw knee-buckling curves all year. I want Rich Harden to pitch like Mark Prior is supposed to pitch. I want Joe Blanton and Dan Meyer to be rookie of the year candidates, and Jason Kendall to be the man that makes it all happen, a la Pudge 2003. I want all those guys that rip Billy Beane for having the Big Three to be shut up once and for all.

What has happened: After being out of the race early, the A's have ridden Rich Harden and Barry Zito to a great June and July, and are now closing in on the Angels for the division lead. Can they make it hold up? Only time will tell.

What I said: It might be argued that Beltran has more upside since he's the better athlete. But then again, Lee is also a young player with his best years ahead of him. Lee doesn't have the basepath instincts or speed that Beltran does, but 30 steals a year is not worth 10 million dollars.

What has happened: I'm very proud of this one - I wrote on Jan 6 (before he was signed by the Mets) that Beltran wasn't worth the money, and compared him to another Carlos, Carlos Lee. This season, Beltran has hit badly at Shea and been slowed by a quad injury, while Carlos Lee has been an RBI machine.

What I said: ALDS -

Yankees over Texas - Alfonso Soriano goes hitless as Texas gets swept. Chan Ho Park takes a no-hitter into the eighth before allowing 3 runs and blowing the game. New York Post's prematurely printed papers with the headline "Chan Ho No-No" become an instant EBay seller. Along similar lines, after Hideo Nomo's bid for a comeback fails, the pitcher returns to Japan and the New York Post runs the headline "No-mo Nomo".

What has happened: I believe Nomo is gone, but Texas's chances for the playoffs don't look too good. I also said that the Yankees would bow out of the playoffs with their pitching in shambles, but I was only partially correct on that, since the Yankees pitching is already in shambles.

I'll stay away from the rest of my playoff predictions, mostly because they concern the Twins. Oops. I'll also stay away from whatever I may have said about Nomar, JD Drew, and a couple of others. Double Oops.

I'm still standing by my wacky prediction for the World Series though - A's over Braves in 7.

Once Upon a Time in China

2005-07-01T12:48:00.000-04:00

My brother is the only one who will probably really get this blog, but here goes anyway.

In "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms," the hero Liu Bei finds his advisor Zhuge Liang in the remote Xiangyang province. Zhuge Liang has made himself a hermit, devoting himself to farming and scholarly activities. Upon Liu Bei's third visit, he decides to join Liu Bei's quest to restore the fallen Han dynasty. Of course, once Liu Bei has Zhuge Liang helping him, the tripodal balance between Wei, Shu and Wu, the Three Kingdoms of the title, starts to solidify.

Everyone in the book and anyone who ever discusses the book always talks about Zhuge Liang's remoteness, his soliditude, and the fact that one can find people of his caliber and potential in the most remote places. A diamond in the rough, to borrow a Western phrase.

But consider that Liu Bei hears from several minor advisors about Zhuge Liang first. He hears stories of the man's greatness, from people who know Zhuge Liang well and those who don't know him as well. He hears rhymes and children's songs about how there is a hidden talent in the Xiangyang province.

If Liu Bei believes he'll find an advisor in Xiangyang, of course he's not going to give up when Zhuge Liang isn't home a couple of times.

To me, it is obvious that while Zhuge Liang's remoteness is a nice and romantic piece of character exposition, the most brilliant thing that Zhuge Liang does in the Three Kingdoms book, more brilliant than Chi Bi, the various fire attacks, the Nanman Campaign, the Zhou Yu thing, and arguing Wang Lang to death, is his marketing strategy.

He markets himself without making it obvious that he is marketing himself. How else can one be a recluse and yet have so many friends, and have such a reputation? Real hermits don't have reputations. Obviously Zhuge Liang had to do something to inspire children's rhymes about his brilliance. Did he teach the kids the rhymes himself?

A good contemporary example of this is J.D. Salinger, whose remoteness and eccentricity has made him a legend in and out of literary circles, even though his contribution to the canon of American literature is debatable (and no, I didn't like Catcher in the Rye. we can argue about that, but I won't entertain arguments that say his other stuff is any good, because it's not).

Someone like Hunter S. Thompson is different, because despite his insanity and reclusive existence, he was still prolific in his own way; beside his books, he was also an excellent journalist.

How do you market yourself like Salinger or Zhuge Liang? How does one market oneself through solitude? Zhuge Liang is well known to everyone, from the local kids to scholars to random advisors to major warlords. He didn't launch an expensive ad campaign, obviously. It wouldn't have been feasible to leaflet all of 100 BC China anyway.

He didn't have his friends walk the streets singing his praises, and yet, that's almost precisely what they do in the book.

To me, this is why the Three Kingdoms is such an immortal piece of literature, despite the misogyny and the biases and the bad translations.

It sets up Cao Cao as a villain, and you can read as much as you want in order to enjoy the battles and stories of families and empires rising and falling, but in the end, there are really no villains or heroes, only Machiavellian power brokers. And the ones that really succeed aren't the ones that win the empire at the end of the book, but the ones that leave the best legacies and reputations.

By the end of the book, the reader doesn't care about the ruling Jing Dynasty. They care about the original characters, especially Zhuge Liang.

The book claims that power is cyclical. Therefore, it is unspoken that with power always changing hands, the only thing that lasts is reputation.

Zhuge Liang is the greatest power broker of them all, going from his reclusive hut to being the Prime Minister of the Shu-Han dynasty, and he does it with the best marketing strategy in history.

The book is aware of this too - it spurns individuals like Yuan Shao and his brother Yuan Shu who build their reputations on their family name. Along similar lines, Zhuge Liang is made more reputable when his sons and grandsons fail to aid their rulers.

The book also rejects individuals like Liu Biao who rules a large province, and is yet ultimately too indecisive to make anything come of it.

The book even casts Liu Bei down, because even though his ability to pick the best advisors sets him up as a hero and ruler of a small kingdom, his personal vendettas ultimately doom his quest to restore the dynasty.

Of Liu Bei's sworn brothers, Zhang Fei is a drunk warrior and Guan Yu is a honorable fighter that doesn't think ahead a whole lot.

Zhou Yu is a hero in his own right, a brilliant schemer who has his ruler's goals in mind, but he doesn't have a marketing plan. He's so concerned with geographical conquest and personal genius that when his schemes don't work out as planned, he ends up looking bad for it. This eventually kills him.

Consider the other great advisors in the book, like Guo Jia and Jia Xu. Both of them are brilliant, but they don't have the entrance that Zhuge Liang does, or the lasting legacy.

Lu Su is a great character because he's the Machiavellian Fox to Zhuge Liang's Machiavellian Lion. Lu Su knows his shortcomings, but is able to take advantage of them, and is ultimately as influential as Zhuge Liang in forming the tripodal balance of states, if not more so.

The book really pinpoints Zhuge Liang's immortality, which is founded in his vast success in a failing enterprise. He balances an unspoken personal ambition with nationalistic ambition to restore the Han.

Very soon after Zhuge Liang joins Liu Bei, someone laments that Zhuge Liang won't succeed. But it is made very clear that Zhuge Liang's reputation is made more immortal and more marketable by the lack of ultimate success - Zhuge Liang is never the one that fails, even though the Shu-Han will.

Consider that on Liu Bei's deathbed, Zhuge Liang refuses to take the Shu-Han throne if Liu Bei's son is an ineffectual ruler, which he is. Now, Zhuge Liang's refusal isn't founded on some unwavering loyalty to a family.

It's because he doesn't want his impeccable reputation to be sullied. Zhuge Liang refuses Liu Bei's command because he would never think of taking the throne anyway.

If he takes over, he ends up being like Sima Yi's family, who usurp the Wei throne after the Cao family gets complacent.

No, Zhuge Liang's reputation is created through his servitude. His position of power as a prime minister is ultimately more influential than if he were the actual ruler, because as good as ruling from the top is, it's cooler to rule from the middle.

Zhuge Liang is a character who knew how to market himself, how to make a grand entrance (both to Liu Bei and to his army's advantage on a battlefield), and how to make a grand exit (which inspires an enemy army's retrat).

Other characters don't have this - someone like Xu You makes a couple of good decisions and a great exit. Yuan Shao's other advisors make good exits.

Even someone like Zhao Yun didn't have the glorious death in battle that he was looking for; which is possibly the only thing that keeps him from being the most marketable character in the book next to Zhuge Liang. He's also too perfect.

On that note, Zhuge Liang isn't perfect either - he makes some bad character judgements (Ma Su), and insists on overseeing everything. But this only makes his caharacter better - he doesn't fail, but other people fail him.

Zhuge Liang does everything, and does it through inaction, at least compared to the martial heroes in the book. He uses his friends, his sources, his empire, and even his enemies in making his marketing strategy succeed and solidifying his immortality.

This is the real message of The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, and it's a damn fun one to follow.

STELLLLAAAAAAAA

2005-06-29T11:59:00.000-04:00

I would just like to point out for the record that Taye Diggs is not gay.

At least I don't think he is. Unlike the real guy in "Stella"'s life, who turned out to be gay and is now in the middle of a nasty divorce case.

Strangely enough, I actually saw that movie (How Stella Got Her Groove Back). Not in the theaters, but I saw it with a couple of friends. Why? I don't really know.

I do know that Taye Diggs is a good actor - besides the movies (cameo in Chicago, Stella . . . ), I've also seen him in Rent and an off-Broadway production called "Dance Party" or something like that which wasn't very memorable.

It's pretty impressive what the original Rent cast has done - Taye Diggs has made a name for himself, a lot of the cast is still on Broadway (especially Idina Menzel, who's now in Wicked), and Jesse Martin is one of the best actors out there.

So yeah. Taye Diggs. Not Gay.

I'm also a little surprised about the tone of the article. It's not an Op-ed, but the writer tosses slang around like no one's business. Journalism is becoming much less formal these days, but the above article has a whole lot of editorializing to go along with the facts.

It actually just turns into an opinion piece after what was a very nice start referencing Their Eyes Were Watching God, even though the romantic relationship wasn't specifically what made it a "classic of black literature."

In fact, I believe that Hurston, and Alice Walker, who made it more famous when she "re-discovered" it, were more interested in the colloquialisms, the regional dialogue, and the more anthropological/sociological aspect of the story.

Howl's

2005-06-22T23:43:00.000-04:00

Sorry for the lack of updates, for anyone who's still reading.

I graduated on June 12. Glee. I haven't really found Dartmouth to be very engaging after I finished my thesis, and neither Tom Brokaw nor our Valedictorian, who decided to paraphrase Derrida as far as I could tell, really did anything to change that.

I will not, however, complain about the graduation gifts. They will help me pay my first month's rent. And moving costs.

I've already started moving. On Monday (the 27th) I'll start my job as an account assistant at Lautman & Company, a small consulting firm which works with non-profit organizations to optimize and target their direct mail campaigns. It sounds a little esoteric, or a little boring, depending on what you know about non-profits and direct mail, but I did a lot of similar database work last summer, and I actually find working with non-profits to be rather rewarding.

I was really more proud of finding a job than graduating. By graduation, I was really just going through the motions, and it really didn't help that the said motions, including sitting in the sun for three hours, left a tan lan on my forehead from my graduation cap. No joke.

But the job? I went down to D.C., interviewed, got called back the next day, and got offered the job the day after that. Now THAT really reaffirmed my faith in myself. That and the fact that I have really good references.

It was also cool that I found a place in my three days in D.C. as well. I can safely say that I'm probably one of the few people that had productive Senior Weeks. This is different from REproductive Senior Weeks, because I'm sure more than one person got knocked up during the six days of booze and more booze before graduation.

So in a mere matter of weeks, I've found myself going from sitting in my single in Wheeler, ordering EBA's because I was out of dining hall money, to moving into an apartment, worrying about paying for my own car insurance, and many other things I'm still not comfortable dealing with on my own.

Lovely.

Then again, it's rather refreshing to have a new challenge. Part of the whole "college burnout" thing is the absolute meaninglessness of grades. By senior spring, who cares if they get a B+ or a B- in a class? I still haven't checked my final grades, and the only reason I would ever do so would be to correct the GPA on my resume.

I'm not entirely sure how long it will be before I have an internet connection down in D.C., probably a couple of days, so there will more than likely be another gap between posts.

Hopefully not three weeks though. I really didn't mean to not write for three weeks. I intend to keep this blog going through; it's probably going to be more important to me than before, if anything.

I Love Journalism

2005-05-30T01:20:00.000-04:00

Sometimes, journalism just takes care of itself so well. Very Darwinian in that regard. Whether it's bad grammar that suggests that Pedro grabbed a fan's crotch, or inane writing that is badly researched, there's often a sublime pleasure in reading bad journalism. Call it schadenfreude, call it sadistic glee. But either way, it's just so damn fun sometimes.

Because I didn't know that you were allowed to print this. Even though it's the New York Post, I feel that the first sentence is a little much.

Perhaps he was going for one image, but the first rule of journalism is of course, there is no journalism.

That's not it.

I mean, the first rule of journalism is "know thy reader."

And if I know the average New York Post reader, they won't get an image of Paul Quantrill, Mike Stanton and Carl Pavano in front of a large bowl of mesclun greens.

Oh no, the image will be far different. . .

Does no one at the New York Post listen to Chris Rock? Or do they just have their heads under rocks?

And one last thing:

(Chris Rock) I prefer syrup! (/Chris Rock)

Two Sides of the Same Coin

2005-05-29T11:41:00.000-04:00

If I were to tell you a sports athlete spent thousands of dollars taking substances that might be illegal, would you consider it cheating?

Forget the fact that the drugs might not be banned yet. Forget the fact that other players could have easily done the same thing. If sports are theoretically supposed to be played on a level ground (talentwise at least), don't you consider what Bill Romanowski did for more than ten years cheating?

And yet John Clayon (one of ESPN's more respectable football analysts) applauds Romo's work ethic, saying "his life story will detail the crisis every NFL player goes through every day. No 245 pound body is prepared for the collisions a linebacker absorbss 60 to 70 times a game. The difference with Romanowski was his willingness to try new things to keep his body in play."

I think that if an ESPN baseball analyst, say, Jerry Crasnick, wrote "Barry Bonds is a fierce competitor who should be applauded for his willingness to try new things," Crasnick would be looking for a new job. Yet there's no problem (none that I've found at least) when Clayton writes this about Romanowski.

It's silly when people argue that there must be fewer steroid abusers in the NFL than in the MLB, just because of the NFL's more stringent testing policy.

But the bottom line is, if you're willing to pay for the drugs that the NFL are unaware of and don't screen for, you can get them.

This article on Romanowski is really laughable though. He was "willing to try new things."

Yeah, new things, like the latest "health supplement" from his BALCO buddies. New things, like numerous, potentially hazardous cheap shots on the field.

Everyone knows that Bill Romanowski was a fierce competitor. No one who's watched him play can deny that. But it's also impossible to deny that once in a while, sometimes more than once in a while, his drive to compete led him to rather questionable actions. Cheap shots, fights, unsportsmanlike conduct . . .

Let's use his on-field action as a metaphor for his training regimen off the field, shall we?

On Field: Blindsides a quaterback, lays him out on the turf. - A good, hard play and legal

Training: Buys a hyperbaric chamber - It's a little extreme, but no problems there

On Field: Grabs a guy's groin while at the bottom of a scrum, and then spits in his face - Not legal - unsportsmanlike conduct and gets fined $7500

Hits Kerry Collins with a cheap shot during an exhibition in 1997 and breaks his jaw - Not legal - and it was a damn exhibition

Training: Takes "supplements" provided to him by trainers from BALCO - Not legal - while not specifically against drug policy, these "vitamins" he was taking were probably banned eventually by the NFL- he just went off them in time. But they were illegally obtained in the first place.

On (Practice) Field: Broke his own teammate's eye socket in a fight, ruining the man's career - Good lord, he should have gone to jail for this. Jail. This was plain out assault for God's sake.

Levels Jerry Rice during a non-contact drill - Roid Rage?

Training: Who knows what he's taken? Consider that he told reporters that he took steroids for nearly his entire career. He tested positive for THG. Steroids could mean supplements, it could mean HGH. Who knows?

Needless to say, I think Romo was always over the line. But his supporters applauded his actions as those of a warrior, a gladiator who sometimes got a little carried away by his emotions. Can they really defend his steroid use?

John Clayton can write what he wants about Romo's training regimen. He can marvel at the man's drive. He can fellate Romo's career and Romo's passion all he wants.

But it's evident to me that Romanowski was always a punk and a cheater. I don't care how well he played. He played the game wrong, on and off the field, and no one should value his accomplishments for that reason. Another article on Romo tells the real story. And I can't think of a better way to end this piece than by copying it.

"It's clear that Romanowski is going to capitalize financially from his bad-boy NFL career.

He's written his autobiography: "Romo: My Jekyll and Hyde Life." In the upcoming remake of "The Longest Yard," Romanowski has a role as a prison guard. Odds are good that he'll land a high-paying job with some television network as an NFL analyst.

Then there's Williams [the teammate who Romo punched, whose career was ruined - he sued and has since settled out of court for 415,000 dollars, my addendum]. No, he wasn't headed for a Hall of Fame career. He was a backup and a special teams player. But the Berkeley High School graduate had played one season with the Raiders -- his dream job -- and had a chance for more seasons in a league that now pays a minimum annual salary of $455,000.

Williams deserves our sympathy and a huge check from Romanowski, who should pay for this mistake."

I Was a Teenage Warmonger

2005-05-29T00:50:00.000-04:00

Well, no, that's not entirely true. But military biographies and documentaries were a big part of what I read, between the ages of 8 and 11. I did read everything from Shakespeare to Bill Watterson, but I had a special place for accounts of war.

I read a lot of fairly childish books about the American Revolution. Most of them were about Valley Forge, or Ben Franklin, or Thomas Jefferson, the Battle of Yorktown, yadda yadda. But my favorite book was a series of biographies about the most well known generals of the Revolution, and some of the less well known.

I'm glad I read it too - I know why Fort Moultrie in South Carolina is called Fort Moultrie, and why palmetto trees make really good fort material. I know who Count Kazmir (?) Pulaski was (he's now more well known as a freeway in New York). Ethan Allen isn't just a furniture store, and I know who the Swamp Fox was (Francis Marion was the Ethan Allen of South Carolina - or Ethan Allen was the Francis Marion of Vermont).

I think the book was so intriguing because it offered such a personalized and in some cases, varied accounts of the war. It was especially interesting to read about the backgrounds of some of the men, especially the foreign ones like Van Steuben and Pulaski that didn't really need to be here. I never thought about it, but those men had no reason to fight besides an ideal. Them and Lord Byron, but that was a different war.

Now, it's less valuable that I know who these people were, but I can at least understand who landmarks are named after and why. More importantly, at least I know what some of them were fighting for.

For some reason, accounts of the Civil War were never quite as attractive to me as a kid. Most likely, it was due to the fact that I couldn't really figure out the good guys from the bad guys. It took me a long time to figure out who was "grey" and who was "blue." I enjoyed reading about Robert E. Lee a whole lot more than I did reading about Grant or Sherman or the other union generals. He just seemed like more of a real person.

Teddy Roosevelt's Rough Riders, General Pershing in World War I, I read about all of them.

The vast majority of the books I read, however, were about World War II.

There was one book about D-Day that I read the cover off of. Then the rest of it started falling apart, until by the time I found it on my shelf again two years ago, only the middle fifty pages or so were left. The book went through each of the allied beaches and gave account of individual Rangers or Marines, so who met their end on those beaches. For a kid's book, it was surprisingly well organized, and not at all fearless about depicting death.

I also read plenty of biographies, about Generals on both sides of the war. I especially liked reading about the British general Montgomery and German general Rommel (although I can't decide of Jeff's Rommel doll is really cool or really creepy). Some of the best stories about World War II came from North Africa, and I'm not just talking about Casablanca.

And of course, in between showings of Mets games, Army of Darkness, and Willow, WPIX (Channel 11) ran Midway a whole lot. It's actually not a great war movie (older, campier ones like the Guns of Navarrone are much better), but I must have watched it at least five times. I didn't even Charleton Heston with Moses until much later.

Also, I had completely forgotten about the love story in Midway. It kind of sucks the life out of the rest of the movie.

I had no clue Toshiro Mifune was in the movie Midway. That was a long time before I knew who Toshiro Mifune was. I suppose his character in the movie is rather wasted.

It was also incredibly amusing that all the street names in my neighborhood were named after World War II generals. At least a bunch of them were - Halsey, Nimitz, Arnold, Eisenhower. Actually, my street was named Eisenhower, that is, until he became President and they renamed my street Northridge.

But then, sometime around 7th or 8th grade, I saw Apocalypse Now. And then Platoon not too much later. I saw Dr. Strangelove a bit later, so it was less influential. Those were very different war movies, indeed. The books I read before had depicted the casualties as martyrs and heroes. I think those movies were the first works that made me begin to understand what Sherman meant when he said "War is Hell."

Recently I started thinking back and wondering how legitimate it was to read those books. After all, they were rather patriotic, usually telling the stories of American soldiers. For instance, in the D-Day book I loved, there might have been one story about a British soldier. And none about Canadians.

There's no reason NOT to read them though. Not then, and really, not now either. There's nothing worse than not reading a book or not watching a movie just because one thinks that it is overly patriotic, or that it does not align with one's political values. Unless it's to keep a few more bucks out of Mel Gibson's back pocket. I mean kilt.

If anything, I regret not reading more about wars that didn't concern America or Britain.

I think that a lot of pro-war conservatives might dismiss the pacifist voices as individuals who don't know anything about war, or don't know anything about the "need" for war. I sometimes wonder if some of them aren't right.

In other words, maybe not enough people have read those books, pacifists or not. I bet a better sense of history would give a lot of people that are anti-war a better sense of WHY they are anti-war. And it might give some people that don't take a stand a better reason to.

And maybe if some of the pro-war voices in the country knew what our country's wars were really about, some of them might not think that way at all.

But I never cease to wonder what people like Newt Gingrich are thinking about the war, and about the insular, xenophobic attitudes that so many people are adopting today. Newt, from what I know, is an avid historian, especially regarding the Civil War. Can you really have a good knowledge of American history and support what the current administration has done?

Everything Your Grandmother Warned You About And More

2005-05-27T23:53:00.000-04:00

It's true you know . . . it will make you go blind.

I know I shouldn't laugh at other people's misfortunes, but this is a whole lot more amusing than some anti-inflammatory drug that causes liver damage.

Next thing you know, doctors will start reporting clients with hairy palms.

Anyway, another news item mentioned an American Idol type show becoming immensely popular in China.

I was there a little more than a year ago, and television was very obviously becoming much more Westernized. While they weren't in our current reality show frenzy, it's a perfectly logical next step.

They still have variety shows, which was rather amusing. But considering that the variety shows featured everything from motivational speakers who quoted Martin Luther King Jr. to lounge singers with sultry voices clad in glimmering gold gowns, no one should be surprised that shows like American Idol or Star Search are popping up in China.

Besides that, they had their twenty four hour news channels, and channels devoted to stocks and economic news. And they had soap operas, some domestic, some dubbed from their original Japanese.

My grandparents watched all of it.

It's not surprising at all that with so many more people investing, with consumer spending on the upswing, that China is a huge television market. It will be more interesting though, to see what happens when people start airing more controversial shows. Right now, from what I could tell, most of the televised material is still "safe." What happens when something like South Park comes out? What will the government do?

It might have happened already, and I just didn't hear about it.

And finally, two cents for anyone who can tell me which of the following terms I just made up:

Death Metal
Doom Metal
Rage Metal
Nu Metal
Thrash Metal
Black Metal

For extra credit, tell me what the difference is between these types of metal.

Thank You

The Lure of the Dark Side

2005-05-24T00:05:00.001-04:00

Well, I'm glad to say that thanks to my Star Wars review, my blog has seen a large readership spike. Apparently, my blog pops up in google searches for "Javva the Hutt", " 'Return of the Sith' Sexy Twilek" and "Episode 3 Padme pregnant still some good in him." I guess that works, although it irks me that I never got this many people reading my blog during my previous (and better) months of posting. Oh well. That's George Lucas for you. Damn you . . .

Some comments would be nice though. Reaffirming or something like that.

Now, I will resist the urge to type the words "Twilek Sex" repeatedly in an attempt to drive readership up even more, because that would not be ethical. Must resist . . .

That's better.

Seeing as how there are more reader on this site, I'm going to proceed to probably drive most of them away. With this blog.

Observe.

I've posted before about my inability to really get work done this term. Now that the term is winding now, I'm feeling the pressure, and such, I'm getting more work done. But I'm still not really working optimally, and I've found one scapegoat.

The first floor bathroom in Wheeler Hall.

See, since I live in the dorms, and I live in a single without even a half-bath, I have the use the communal bathroom on the first floor. Living on the first floor does have its perks, like not having to move your junk up and down multiple flights of stairs, but it does have rather large drawbacks. Especially when it comes to the bathroom.

I've found the men's toilet (the only one, I might add) in rather unusable condition on several occasions. A couple of times due to someone's binge drinking, and a couple of times due to someone's . . . well, let's just say that guys on my floor either eat tons of Mexican or like to hold themselves for three days straight. Or both. Not cool at all.

It's not Trainspotting bad, or Desperado bad, but it's bad enough.

In addition, it's often being used, because on any night, there are more people using the bathroom than there should be; drunks tend not to walk up stairs to use a toilet. So even if it's been cleaned by the janitor (once a week, which is six times too few), there's a good chance someone will walk in, see the door is closed to the toilet, and leave. It's more disturbing when they peer through the slit between the door and the wall to see if there's REALLY anyone inside. That's creepy. Don't do that. Ever.

Then, there's an even bigger problem, one which gnaws at the roots of my soul and tears at what is left of my sanity like a newly awoken Elder God.

The first floor bathroom in Wheeler Hall, because of it's overall uncleanliness and overusage, is utterly unconducive to reading while on the can.

The walls are nasty, the floor is grungy, and the toilet is pretty groady too. Therefore, it would take a concentration greater than mine to focus on any reading material, not to mention philosophical ponderings.

I do not believe this is a "male problem." I would assume that there are girls that also like to read while on the can. I just have not met any of them. If any of them are reading this, please speak up so we can defeat this gender stereotype.

But getting back to reading while on the throne. I do it. A lot. I've been known to get through a copy of Time magazine. When I can, the Op-Ed page of the New York Times is nice too. Except you get all the print on your hands, and while it's only a minor nuisance usually . . . .

I read novels as well, although obviously not all in one sitting. Tolkien, The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, and a few other books are pretty much bathroom staples for me.

It leads to some of my best thinking. I had a few breakthroughs fall and winter term regarding my thesis while I was on the throne. It's entirely possible I would not have finished if I didn't take the time to think while on the can.

There's a certain calmness that lends itself to contemplation. It's a contemplation that is utterly lost when the stall is filthy, and people are walking in periodically to see if the latrine is occupied.

I can honestly say that it bothers me more than people smoking cigarettes outside my window, which also happens, because my room is next to an entrance. That's a little bothersome, but I can crack my door open and deal with it.

I don't really care about sharing a shower; there's a curtain. So there's no problem there.

I also don't really care that the walls are paper thin and my neighbor sometimes brings home a lady friend. I can sleep through that. Besides, considering how loud I snore, I probably shouldn't complain.

But not being able to read or get a little privacy in the men's bathroom?

Seriously, I wonder if the greatest philosophers and writers and thinkers (men or women) just had amazing, pristine, well-kept toilets that they could retreat to. What if this were true? While I'm sure having a nice bathroom doesn't make your average socialite any more intelligent, who knows?

Would Einstein ever have written his paper on the photoelectric effect if the toilet in the patent office in Bern was filthy?

Is it possible that Decartes (that drunken fart), if he did not have a nice place to take a dump, would not have come up with "Cogito, Ergo Sum," and could only think "Voro, Ergo Defaecare" (I eat, therefore I poo)?

Perhaps Janis Joplin would never have written "a song of great social and political import."

And I'm next to positive that Trent Reznor has the most kick-ass, illin', insert-euphemism-for-awesome-here, toilet on the face of the Earth. Although it was probably out of order when he penned his latest album.

You get my drift.

I have to make do with the bathroom on first floor Wheeler though.

Life is so unfair.

Like a Stone

2005-05-21T22:46:00.000-04:00

The new Audioslave definitely builds on the sounds that Chris Cornell + the Rest of Rage were able to develop in their first album.

But Chris Cornell really needs to go away from the ballad sound that comes forth on songs such as "Like a Stone." While they're not exactly ballads, Cornell's voice takes some very repetitive turns in the songs, especially on the sustained notes. There are songs like that on the new album, for instance "Yesterday or Tomorrow," and it doesn't improve my opinion of the band.

Audioslave is at its best on new songs like "Heaven's Dead" which really feature the drumwork that is reminiscent of Rage Against the Machine. Otherwise, the band is basically Chris Cornell crooning about women's private parts and his penis, and that just gets old after awhile.

I was leery about the union of Cornell and Rage from the start, if only because it didn't seem to me that they could either blend their sounds or come up with something original. I was very afraid that it would just end up sounding like Soundgarden-lite. The first album was decent, I thought, although the lyrics were at times horrible ("I am not your rolling stone / I am a highway"?) and the guitar work was often too anonymous. If you're going to make a band with the rest of Rage, make sure people can tell it's Rage.

So what I ultimately concluded about them was that they were going to be a decent band as long as they stayed away from slow, whiny songs that exclusively featured Cornell. The band's writing simply isn't strong enough to sustain interest in the lyrics, even though Cornell does have a unique voice.

Songs on the new album like "Dandelion" are just silly. "Little Dandelion, let your heart keep time" is not what we want to be hearing from Audioslave. It's unfortunate that they went so far away from the political message of Rage that they ended up with stuff as trite as this. That said, Brad Wilk's drums and Morello's guitar come through a lot stronger on this album, and it's a good thing.

Ends and Beginnings

2005-05-19T03:40:00.000-04:00

A large, waxing gibbous moon sinks into the horizon. It is framed by the two bare flagpoles that during the day would fly the Dartmouth Green and the Stars and Stripes. Above it, there is an overhanging bough, buds freshly blossoming to hail the coming of Spring to Hanover. It is 2:30 AM, and I am walking back to my dorm. Along with five hundred odd people, I have just come from the final Star Wars movie.

Warning: Massive Spoilers Ahead. I mean massive. Don't read this until after you see the movie. Otherwise, you'll read it and come hunt me down, because I'm going to tell you everything.

I had fought with myself about whether or not to see this movie at midnight. On one hand, I found Attack of the Clones eminently disappointing, for reasons that I have articulated to most people who know me. For those who do not: Natalie Portman cannot act, George Lucas cannot write. Nuff Said.

But finally, I had to see Revenge of the Sith on opening day. Or opening midnight as it might be. I had to because Star Wars occupied so much of my adolescence, whether it was the head of my Jedi Apprentice getting blown off on the first day of a pen-and-paper RPG campaign, or the feel of the remastered versions in the theaters, or playing Dash Rendar in an N64 video game, or reading the multitude of books. I will never, ever, again have the time or the desire to see a movie at midnight on opening day. No other work of literature, no sequel, no original screenplay, no actor or actress can get me that worked up.

And when the sparkling Lucasfilm logo came up on the screen (after only ONE preview, I might add), I knew again that Lucas, despite his many trespasses which are too many to list, still has an effect on me. The force, if you will.

The spoilers really start here, by the way.

First, my rating: Out of 4 stars, I'll give it a 2.9. I can't in good conscience give it a 3.

The title crawl was a bit disjointed, as I've lampooned before.

And the opening space battle, while exhilirating and impressive on a technical scale, is extremely confusing to any viewer. I actually think a computer programmed to "enjoy" a CGI scene would like it better than most human viewers simply because it could process it faster.

I could also tell from the very beginning one specific problem I would have with this movie.

None of the ordinary human characters draw any empathy from the viewer. I knew this from the instant Red Squadron lined up behind General Obi-Wan and some of them started getting killed. In the first trilogy, there were normal contrasts to the superhuman heroes and archetypes represented by Luke, Leia, Han and Obi Wan. We had Biggs for a scene, Wedge Antilles, even Mon Mothma. Heck we even had Porkins. He was . . the Pork. There are none of those individuals in this movie, and it's a jarring lack. This is exacerbated by the fact that the majority of soldiers are clones or droids.

Moving along, another immediate impulse you will recieve regards the repetitive nature of the film. Whether it is Obi Wan repeating lines from the first trilogy, or the familiar look of a Star Destroyer, Rebel Blockade Runner, X Wing, Tie Fighter or Advance Transport, it's all there. I suppose they wanted to establish some continuity, especially because it seems strange technology would have regressed between Episodes 3 and 4, but it's a bit much.

It seems a bit much especially considering where continuity is broken. For instance, there is no suggestion of how Chewbacca, who owed Han a life debt and was his first mate in the first trilogy, was before a leader on Kashyyk and KNEW Yoda. Yoda's line "Miss you, I will, Chewbacca," is possibly the most confusing line in the entire movie. Other instances of continuity include Leia's memory of her mother, R2-D2's mad l33t skills, and others.

To some extent, the extensive self-referencing does work though. Hardcore Star Wars fans will analyze the color of the lightsabers, the lines that characters repeat, Padme's ear danishes (does she don a skull cap in one scene?), the planets mentioned, the characters mentioned by other characters, etc. etc. etc., ad nauseum. I was actually surprised Ackbar wasn't in this movie, or any other Mon Calamari. Or Bothans for that matter.

Many Bothans died to bring you this review.

I'll preview some of the more random references at the end of the review. But a lot of it really falls flat, especially the dialogue.

Oh, the dialogue. Everyone will say "Oh, Lucas can't write. Empire Strikes Back is the best film because it wasn't written or produced by Lucas." And to a certain extent, it's true. His rehashed lines rarely work, except to elicit knowing laughs, and his original lines often garner laughter when there's not supposed to be laughter.

The dialogue between Anakin and Padme continue to be stilted and leaden, to the extent that the audience was often laughing at their banter. Their most effective scene together actually occurs when they aren't in the same room and neither of them are speaking. This is the extent to which this relationship simply does not work in this film.

As for other writing, Lucas just forgets the whole "show, don't tell" thing, and lets his characters lay it all out on the line. Obi Wan has several lines like "Oh, drat" or "Oh, that was close." Before their final duel begins, Obi Wan and Anakin have this exchange (pardon the paraphrase)

Obi Wan: Palpatine is EVIL!
Anakin: No, to me, the JEDI are EVIL!
Obi Wan: I ain't evil, B
Anakin: You steppin', B? Come get some.

In retrospect, my version sounds better than Lucas'.

And the conversation between Darth (newly anointed in his Dark Armor) and Palaptine is really bad. For one reason.

Palpatine: She died, Anakin. You killed her. (Or something like that)
Anakin: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO (on knees) OOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

At times, Lucas has horrible timing when it comes to comedy. Little droid noises and little droids intrude on the most inopportune moments. Droids falling apart are his version of physical comedy, to replace Jar Jar, and it really doesn't work. At all.

I was also surprised by the shoddy editing in this movie. Some scenes looked like they were added at the last minute. There is a scene between Anakin and Palpatine that just pops onto the screen almost randomly, nearly breaking your cinematic standards, like the 180 degree rule. Other scenes are superfluous, like a ten second shot of Anakin looking angry and snarling on Mustafar, the volcano planetoid thingy.

And the action scenes. They would have been well done if they had stayed away from extreme closeups. The shots tend not to be as close as the beginning of the Anakin/Dooku duel in Ep II, but they're longer and closer than they should be in this movie. It gives a very disorienting strobe-like effect, and I could hear people murmer "what the heck is going on?" during certain scenes.

You might ask yourself - "after all this, why would he give this movie nearly three stars out of four?"

Well, plenty of the movie does work. The CGI shots are pretty, as are the landscapes. I actually think the best landscape is the last shot, which I believe is only partially CGI. And that's more because of the memory it calls up, if anything.

The light/dark imagery also works, despite being heavy handed. Watch the shadows on Anakin especially; Lucas actually does some excellent work lighting this movie the way he wanted to.

And of course, you will find yourself remembering the old trilogy, and loving this movie for it. Sometimes, the images are just too good. The silence as Darth Vader's mask descends on him, and when you hear the familiar rasping breath is simply stunning. As I just mentioned, the last shot, a twin sunset on Tatooine, is without a doubt the best ending/beginning this movie could have asked for.

The dialogue in this movie is somehow better than that of Ep II. Obi-Wan does have some crap lines, and one really silly conversation, but for the most part, Ewan McGregor sells Obi-Wan very well. At one point near the end, Obi-Wan is screaming at Anakin, who he has just defeated and is in the process of sliding down into some lava. And you hear convincing emotion as Obi-Wan yells "You were my brother! I loved you!". Actually, that "I love you" is by far the best one of this trilogy, possibly of all six films. I say that because the whole "I love you", "I know" thing between Han and Leia was cheesier, although not excessively so.

I do have to admit that Padme gets one decent line, and she delivers it well. But it comes after her worst line of the movie, which is a pity.

Worst Line: "Anakin, you're breaking my heart!" - a good example of Lucas telling and not showing.

Best Line: "You're walking down a road and I can't follow you!" - despite being a little cliche, this one works, and is actually poignant. Too bad most of the audience was laughing at the last line to hear this one.

Besides the dialogue and the CGI, the movie does succeed in one other large respect.

Although his reason for turning to the Dark Side was a little silly (he wants to save Padme from dying during childbirth, and he doesn't sense that she's carrying more than one child?), the turning itself is effective. This is partially because Lucas has him butcher all the little kiddy Jedi, which is plain old audience manipulation, but again, it works. You don't look at Anakin the same way after that.

In addition, the execution of the Jedi, the short vignette style of the executions does work. It's emotional, it's tragic, and it works for the film.

To a large extent, this film was easy to butcher and easy to get right at the same time. Lucas managed to do both to some extent.

But the worst thing I see in this film, the reason I cannot give it three stars, or my full endorsement, or even my partial blessing, is because of George's attitude towards women.

I know, I know. It's a movie. It's popcorn. It's sci-fi. But Jesus H. Christ, Lucas went from Leia, who shot people and did things and looked damn fine doing it, to Padme, who didn't really do anything, who can't help Anakin, and still looks pretty doing it. Neither one is the epitome of a feminist ideal, perhaps, but Leia was independant, while Padme is stereotypical.

Near the end of the movie, Padme goes to find Anakin and Obi-Wan sneaks on board. She brings C-3PO, who says in the cockpit "Gee, I'm getting the hang of this flying thing." She can't fly a damn plane and has to leave it up to a protocol droid? My, I like that stereotype. Even in the future, women can't drive.

And worse, she "loses her will to live?" This is the reason the MEDICAL DROID gives for not being able to save her. That's why she dies? Some faux-depressive bout with lost love? She fades and wilts away like a delicate flower? NO WAY. She even says to Obi-Wan with her last breath - "There's some . . . good . . in . . . him." Damn it bitch, you don't give up if your hubby turned to the dark side and he STILL HAS GOOD IN HIM. What's that say about you, huh? Luke doesn't abandon his father, because he senses the good in Vader. But you abandon Anakin despite sensing this? I couldn't take that. It was just too much. The "weakness thy name is woman" works in other ways too.

In Empire Strikes Back, Luke senses his friends in danger. And despite Yoda's warnings that his training is not complete and that it is a trap, he goes off anyway, finds out his parentage, and loses his hand. But all's well that ends well there. It's a rite of passage.

For Anakin in Ep III, he senses his wife in danger, turns to the Dark Side, and slaughters the Jedi. You might say it's because he turns to the Dark Side to try to accomplish this, but there seems to be a large shift there, in terms the legitimacy of loyalty versus the legitimacy of love. That made me very uncomfortable, especially because Lucas made it such an obvious dichotomy.

This is another thing to look out for - A or B. Lucas often presents you with image A and image B. One is good, the other is bad. One is going up, the other down. Etc. Etc. For a movie that professes "Only the Sith deal in Absolutes," Lucas deals in a whole lot of absolutes.

Ok, that's that. Now, some weird, kind of fun stuff to look out for.

Check out the Twilek honey that dressed like J-Lo at the Grammy Awards. Damn Gina.

Who's the woman/androgynous thing with Palpatine? His wife? Because in that case, I understand why he turned to the dark side.

Ok, Nute Gunray and the other Separatists start the movie with weird, dub-sounding American accents. Then they switch back to the Chinese/Taiwanese accent. This was really strange to me.

Apparently, early hyperspace works in similar ways - Cowboy Bebop, meet Episode III. This isn't exact. Just something I noticed.

If I were Boba Fett, I wouldn't have gone bounty hunter because Mace Windu cut off my dad's head. No, I would have done it because all the clone soldiers WERE my dad. I think that would present some serious issues to a kid.

Some reviewers have complained that the movie is too sanitary - by that, they mean no one shits, drinks, eats, etc. etc. Well, Luke did come from a moisture farm, and there is plenty of eating in the first trilogy, but check this out.
I don't know if this is true, but when Obi-Wan slips onto Padme's spacecraft (sounds dirty already), does he hide himself in the fricking bathroom? It honestly looked to me like an airplane bathroom. Maybe he was hoping for some action from Padme - the Parsec Club or something like that. Dude, she was still pregnant. That's kinky.

Check out Padme's funeral - ignore the fact that Padme is reduced to a still symbol, blah blah, misogyny. I already talked about that. Check out the queen. That's whatsherface from the Whale Rider movie - Keisha Castle Hughes.

Near the end, Senator Organa tells a certain Antilles (can't be Wedge, must be his dad) to take the droids, and have 3P0's memory wiped. Now, is this actually an Extended Universe reference? Because I think it is. Can't remember though. Huh.

Check out the credits. Wait for a while. There's a credit to Javva the Hut after the Key Grips and stuff. Even the coffee gophers get slick titles when they work for Lucasfilm.

Another credit - is one of the characters played by one of Lucas' children? Jett Lucas? I seriously think so.

So in conclusion, that's it for me and the Star Wars universe. I can't decide if it's a clean break or if I'll go back and watch this one again. A real clean break would be not watching the old ones again either, and excising references to Star Wars from my daily vocabulary. We'll see.

Elvis or The Beatles

2005-05-08T02:20:00.000-04:00

Actually, this post is about something else.

I finally realized why I'm a dog person.

It's not because dogs are subservient, while cats are independant. No, cats can be plenty affectionate and dogs can be assholes. It's not that.

It's because there so much more diversity in terms of how dogs look. Besides animals with the mange or various other skin diseases, or ones that are morbidly obese, it's not easy to find butt-ugly cats. Most cats are cute to some extent, some more so than others. I've never found myself thinking, "Boy, that cat is butt ugly." With cats, the range of appearance is from "not-so-cute" to "cute"

By the same token, dogs can be downright hideous. A google image search for "ugly dog" immediate returns several unequivocably ugly dogs, whereas the a search for "ugly cat" only returns some peculiar looking specimens and one perfectly normal cat with six toes (the image search for "ugly cat" gets you a couple of photoshops, a costume, one disfigured cat, and couple of cartoons).

It's Alcatraz For You

2005-05-08T00:18:00.000-04:00

Apparently, Barry Bonds is the new Al Capone.

See, since they couldn't convict him for racketeering and breaking the Volstead Act (Prohibition), Eliot Ness and his crew got Capone for tax evasion. Man, I love that movie.

But if tax fraud (giving a girlfriend a house or something like that, if I'm not mistaken) is what baseball is going to try to focus its efforts, and our attention on, we might as well tell Bonds we're reopening Alcatraz for him.

Why bother investigating him for tax fraud? Players on the DL can be tested for substances too, and I'm pretty sure all that stuff he's alleged to have taken stays in your system for over a year. It's not like you can drink some of that stuff that claims to flush your system; HGH, clomid and those supplements should affect hormones for a long time.

Test him, nail him, ban him. How hard is that? Let him be indignant. Let him rail against the media that brought him down. Hell, let him play the race card. It's not like the majority of African Americans in America still consider baseball to be the nation's pasttime. Barry Bonds is nothing compared to LeBron James and Terrell Owens at this point.

Without passing Ruth and Aaron, who's going to care in 20 years? Let him be voted into the Hall of Fame with the greatest numbers ever. Without public opinion, he's just another plaque in Cooperstown.

Bonds knows that he shot himself in the foot (or knee, as it may be). What baseball should do now is cap his other knee while he's down. But investigating his personal expenditures and relationships isn't the way to go.

And Now For Something Completely Different

2005-05-06T00:54:00.000-04:00

The lyrics to this song, in addition to being very hard hitting lyrics, reminds me of my earlier post about Bob Dylan and the Nobel Prize for Literature. Why should an influential white songwriter receive any more attention than an arguably more influential black songwriter?

I suppose if you think songwriting is about telling a story in a span of minutes, there is a certain craft involved. And actually I'm hard-pressed to think of a song that tells a story more succinctly and in a more effective manner than Tupac's "Brenda's Got a Baby."

I've been expanding my musical horizons lately. I found the NIN album a little lacking, and the new Garbage album wasn't anything new. In fact, Shirley Manson is making a wonderful career out of complaining how un-sexy she is, even though she sells her sexuality very well in her music and her music videos.

And lyrics like "The boys want to fight, but the girls just want to dance all night" make me want to curl up in a corner and cry. Then again, there are decent songs on the album.

In any case, I've been listening to an African artist named Salif Keita. It's okay that I'm don't understand any of his lyrics, because his music just SOUNDS so good.

He hasn't done a whole lot of stuff your average American listener would recognize, obviously, but he did provide one of his songs for the soundtrack to the movie "Ali". The song plays at the end of the movie, when Ali is in the process of knocking George Foreman out in the eighth round of "The Rumble in the Jungle."

Curiously, I believe the song is something of a dirge for someone who has passed away, which makes it slightly inappropriate for the context of the movie, but it at least sounds good and climactic for an American audience.

I'm a bit surprised I hadn't heard of him before, since so many of his songs would (and probably have been) translated well into techno.

I had a similar thing for Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan this past fall, and actually, Salif Keita is probably a little more accessible.

Since I started listening to Salif Keita, I've also checked out a few other African artists, but none of them really hit me like his music does. The language barrier thing is probably a problem, but hey, I deal.

I have to say, I find most of this stuff a lot more involving and, for lack of a better word, more musical than most contemporary American music. Even bands and individuals who should be more reliable (Reznor, Shirley Manson) just haven't sounded quite right lately.

If anyone else is looking for other stuff to listen to, besides your Interpol, Franz Ferdinand, Weezer or whatever else is out right now, I urge you to check out underheard.org . There's really something for everyone, which is especially nice up here in Hanover because we have all of two radio stations.

Oh and an addendum to an earlier post - when I said that old Top Ten lists tended to be a lot more political than today's, I also meant to say that old Top Ten lists tended to be a lot more intelligent.

For instance, Jan 13, 1988 had the Top Ten list "Top Ten Rejected Theme For the Ice Capades".

Coming in at number 8 is "Eldrege Cleaver's Soul on Ice on Ice."

Now I don't know if that was an oversight on their part back in 1988, and they just went a little too academic, or if Cleaver was getting out of jail or something, because next to nobody will get that reference today (Cleaver was a Black Panther who was, I believe, jailed for rape, and wrote Soul on Ice sometime in the late 60's (?) as an expression of his anger and an explanation of his actions against women).

Heck, if I hadn't taken an African American Studies class here, there's no way I would have gotten that reference.

Also, that's kind of a disturbing thing to put on a top ten list. It's probably better that no one got it.

Err

2005-05-03T22:12:00.000-04:00

Headline on Yahoo! MLB:

Brown, Yankees Rocked in the Bronx.

Only problem?

They were playing in Tampa.