strong as a can

things i'm seeing waaay too much in the sports media lately:
-replays of t.o.'s injury. on monday's 6pm sportscenter, they showed it 8 times by 6:02. i counted because it was just that unbelievable. then yesterday, there was an interview with t.o. to discuss his comeback. this was accompanied by 6 more injury replays and michael irvin. good old michael irvin. the same guy who was caught doing coke with strippers back in his dallas days. great receiver, not much of a public talker. i'm not a talker. and i don't want to see any more of this. actually, i give irvin the great light to interview ray lewis and stephen hawking at the same time.

-kobe. this fucking guy is everywhere. he wants to fight karl malone. he wants to apologize to shaq. he's doing interviews with fireplaces in the background. really, it's rather pathetic to see a current superstar have to work so hard to stay in the limelight.

things i'm not seeing enough of in the sports media lately:
-little people talking shit about pedro. stick that little guy into the fireside chat, and let's hear him spill the beans on martinez. get johnny knoxville and steve-o involved too, just because i caught an old jackass episode the other nite and remembered how funny it was.

-shaq. sure, he's all over the place. but i can't get enough. i want more "i'm george bush." i need more "i'm a brick wall." i'd pay top dollar to hear him just come out and say "kobe's a cocksucker. i'm gonna hammer kick him." this x-mas day game is going to be riveting. i hope the mailman comes in flying off the top rope during kobe's halftime interview.

in other news, we're getting anywhere from 10-16" of snow rite now. i can't really express how happy i am about this. our boards are waxed, edged, and ready to go. i'm foaming at the mouth too, but just slightly.

let me throw some numbers out there for you.

player 1, 30 years old
career OBP: .316
career OPS: .725
last year OPS: .689
number of times in career with OPS over .750: 2
career range factor: 4.39
career zone rating: .838

player 2, 29 years old
career OBP: .347
career OPS: .700
last year OPS: .671
number of times in career with OPS over .750: 1
career range factor: 4.22
career zone rating: in 4 seasons as a starter*, range from .851 to .896

*not totalled by espn for some reason

player 1 made $6 mil in 2004, while player 2 made $2.15 mil.

player 1 (orlando cabrera) just signed a 4 year deal with $8 mil/season, while player 2 (david ecstein) just got cut.

this is just a dumb signing. i don't care that renteria just got $10 mil/year (which was also horrible). look at what you have and what you can expect to get. while i like him, i'm not saying eckstein is even very good. i am saying that you are now paying a guy almost 4x as much as eckstein for marginally better production. and since neither are sluggers, eck gives you a better OBP and (in my opinion) a better glove (only 6 errors). moreno just paid top dollar for flash, hype, and postseason fame. you know eck will get picked up quickly as a utility guy for like $1 mil a year. too bad the yanks already signed womack (i'd much rather have eck than enrique wilson).

continuing on the baseball front, everyone is raving about the hudson/mulder trades (which i think were great for all parties). but i'm also very impressed with oakland signing keith ginter. the a's have basically being playing stop-gap guys at second, and while i'm not saying ginter is a permanent solution, he brings a better bat than menechino or scutaro did for oakland (although frankie m fucking raked in toronto last year - over .900 OPS in his stint there). plus, with that catcher they got in the mulder deal, they now have 3 (!!!) blue chip catching prospects. so smart.

for the last baseball note, what's with the stros not offering wade miller a contract? sure he was hurt last year, but guys are coming back very well from arm trouble these days. plus it's not like most of his numbers are dropping (OPS against & K's/9 have stayed constant for 4 years), although his k/bb ratio has slipped of late. but that can't be enough to not offer a contract, can it? what with pettite a huge question mark and clemens still "deciding"? houston must know something about miller's shoulder that no one else does (just like the yanks and pettite's elbow).

switching gears to hoops, i caught the second hald of princeton-temple last nite and was (per usual) treated to my favorite type of basketball: ball movement, patience, good shooting, teamwork (kudos to espn for showing lots of northwestern and princeton games thus far). temple was outjumping, outrunning, out rebounding the 5 smaller, less athletic tigers, yet the owls were all moving around with this "no, no...I'M spinner!" look on their faces. and cheney looked to be on the verge of an ed rooney-like meltdown (minus the part where baby kicks him in the nuts). princeton was down 10 with like 8 minutes to go, which is lot when you only score ~40 points a game. but sure enough, they forced temple to take stupid shots and take lots of (missed) free throws (even though there were a few questionable non-charges called in favor of the owls), leading to princeton's miniscule point guard (with terrible/excellent ivy-league hair, by the way) dripping consecutive 3's to bring them within 2.

and then the bullshit happened. not like "the lions missed the XP!!!" bullshit (for the record, a very catchable snap), more along the lines of leo mazzone refusing to use those "crazy numbers" to gauge a pitcher's ability. the tigers had it with roughly 8 seconds for one final possession, needing just a 2 to send it to OT. so their one athletic player takes it to the rack, lays it off the backboard, and...it's blocked. no goal tending call. in college once a shot hits the backboard it can't be touched. but the refs ran off the court, leaving the princeton coach screaming, cheney looking like rooney would've if he caught ferris, and the announcers yapping about temple's home court advantage.

but here's the thing. this is not the 1950's. this game wasn't held at hickory high. we have this new fangled technology: instant replay. why the fuck not use it to make the correct call? i'm not saying use replay for judging a foul or something that is up to the ref's discretion. this was a clear cut right-wrong decision, and the fact that the ncaa is okay with not making the right call is terrible.

so in conclusion: the angels and the ncaa are dumb, the wade miller thing is sketchy, and the a's, princeton style basketball, and orange fanta are great. the fanta jingle/girls are pretty cool too. though people sweat way too much in those mershes...

i'm surprised pedro waited this long to blast the sox. hats off to him for not burning a sox jersey in effigy during his press conference. i'm hoping he just starts popping off about all the guys he didn't like there. i can't wait to hear (his version of) the behind the scenes stuff.

this is just classic. so much for being remembered as a lifelong red sock. assuming he makes it, does this mean he will go in the HoF as an expo??

aahhh, albuquerque. i'd never been there before, and if the past week was any indication, i think we will really dig it out there. we stayed with our friends dan and dee, who we became close friends with living in florida (dan is now stationed out in alby-q). d & d are two of the most laid back, up for anything folks you could ever meet. they rule, and we are pretty stoked to be living near them again.

but let me get on to our week out there. while i could just list some stuff we did and talk about house shopping (which i probably will somewhere below anyway), i'll first relate our experience through a bunch of quotes from our time in new mexico (send in more (new) mexicans!*):

"look mommy, i can play the drums!"
-the 2 year old sitting behind nina on the flight out there. by drums he meant the tray table. and his mom wasn't the type to stop her little wonder from doing horrible things, like running up and down the aisle wiping snot on everyone in an aisle seat. so the drum roll was actually like a full version of "when the levee breaks." oh yeah, and nina was trying to type her thesis. i think astronauts experience the same kind of shaking in their seat during takeoff.

"this gum is NASTY! [throws gum on floor] mommy make her give me another piece! MAKE HER GIVE ME ANOTHER PIECE!!!"
-the same little tyrant after nina gave him a piece of gum to help his ears popping during the descent. what 2 year old says the word nasty?! needless to say, we gave him another piece in fear of hearing his second set on percussion. though this tyke seemed like a bad omen for the trip, it wound up being the only bump in the road for the whole kit and kaboodle.

"holy shit! look at those mountains!"
-me. and no i was not oogling some new mexican broad. it's just that after living 26 years on/near the east coast, it's hard to get used to seeing really fucking big mountains every time you look around. i probably said this 20 times over the course of the week.

"these people are drunk!"
-ann, our quirky 70 year old realor, commenting on the people who wrote the directions to one of the houses we looked at. ann wore her hair up in a bun, had a great wardrobe for a senior citizen, and was generally awesome.

"people should be able to do what ever they want. as long as it doesn't bother me."
-ann, commenting on our goth waiter at friday's. great line, but she had no idea why nina and i were snickering about it.

"you know you can cut and paste that."
-me, watching ann type out the same 4 line header on all 15+ pages needed to be signed for our offer to be accepted. ann acknowledged that while she was sure it was possible, she would rather type it. ann: a kick ass old lady? yes. technologically saavy or a safe driver? not exactly.

"are you sure you don't want to cut and past that?"
-nina, watching ann fill out some spread sheet data on the forms. for each of like 100 cells, a " had to be typed. you know, indicating "same as above". but ann just kept hitting the space bar 7 times, then a ". it was painful to watch this. if we weren't so pleased with finding and buying a house in less than 48 hours, nina would've definitely had a seizure watching this (or thrown ann's frail little body to the ground and finished typing it herself).

"god help us."
-dan, after getting a call from dee telling him that we were done buying a house (it was only friday) and ready to party. let it be know that dan is 38 years old and can party like he's 17. i once saw him dive through an open window onto a concrete slab because he wanted to see if he could land on the beer pong table on the porch. he didn't make the table (which was actually a ripped off closet door on two garbage cans), but remained unscathed nonetheless. and i have the (action) pictures to prove it.

"one bourbon, then will go back to beer."
-dan, after we all went out to a microbrewery on friday and returned to their house. he's really into maker's mark, and while i used to prefer crown, i'm sold on this stuff. anyway, 10 hours later at 4am, we were still driking the maker's mark.

"oh, good. now you just have to get a job out there."
-my mom, upon hearing the sellers accepted our offer on the house. my mom is grand, but that statement was a bit of a buzzkill (fortuntely, it was a few bourbons in so that wasn't possible). i told her comments like that just mean i tack another year on to our "no kids until 20xx" policy. nothing scares a potential grandma more than birthcontrol threats.

"um, i guess i'll go walk the dogs."
-dan, when nina and i started dancing to "into the mystic". he didn't actually say that, but he sure got the hell out of there in a hurry. in our defense, we had just bought a house for the first time in our lives and what better way to celebrate than a half-jumping around/half-slow dance to a van morrison classic? on a side note, since dan and dee are a bit older than us, they have the most amazing classic rock selection known to man. i think the cd/record (yes record)/radio was on for roughly 40 hours during our time their and we didn't even go through a quarter of their collection.

"let's make love."
-me, matter of factly (read: giggling. i mean sexy. sexy!), at 4am on the Night of the Bourbon. nina had crashed at around midnite, and here i am 4 hours (a full REM cycle!) later stumlbing around the guest room trying to (a) get my clothes off, and (b) get lucky. i should replace "engineer" with "the Great Seducer" on my friendster account.

"thank you, no."
-along with a hug as i got into bed, nina's response to the aforementioned offer. or maybe it was some mumbling and a swift kick to the genitals. my memory is slightly clouded, so i'd wager it was some combination of the two. we found out in the morning that dan had also made an attempt (albeit a more subtle one) to get some action upon getting into bed (dee had hit the sack at 2), but had as much success as me. what gives, ladies??

"oooo...well...i guess i'll call and give you some of my money."
-dee, just about every other hand during the 10+ hours of poker we played over the week. the thing is, dee never gave up her stack and was constantly forcing us (or maybe just me) to re-buy. by day three there wasn't even any chips left to re-buy because she had the entire case.

"cut that meat! cut that meat!"
-nina, as we walked into the mongolian barbeque restaurant on our last nite in town. the servers were not amused. to make sure all the employees were glaring at us, i told the girl seating us that she was my favorite hostess and was on my fantasy restaurnt team. we got seated in the corner.

"uh oh, here come the meat sweats."
-nina, after round 8 of 15 at said restaurant. seriously, that placed rocked (15 rounds of steak, beef, bacon-wrapped pork, and seafood). if you've never been to a place like that, go. my advice is to not eat much all day and go very light on the salad so you have room for all the glory.

so yeah, the week was awesome. we also played a ton of uecker, some tribond, went to the casino (where i went from $50 to $180 in 20 minutes of blackjack), saw fireworks and glowing hot air balloons at this local x-mas event, and somewhere in there purchased a 4-bed 2200 square foot joint 5 minutes from dan and dee's place.

yup, we're ready to take the southwest by storm.

so i go away for a week and come home to 3 straight hours of blog reading. jeez, you guys really outdid yourselves. tons of good material. though there were no tales of office parties, what i got was much better. if the airing of the grievances took place rite now, i would have nary a one.

i'm in a great mood from our trip (post to come later) and this morning's intense blog-reading session when i stumble upon espn's report of renteria's $40 mil/4 year deal. oh man, the hits just keep on coming. first the sox lose pedro to the horrific mets in a terrible deal, then boston decides to pay $10 mil a year to a guy with a career OPS of .746. he had 1 very good year in 2003 (juicey juice, anyone?), but other than that he's no different than orlando cabrera (who made $6 mil last year and shouldn't get a penny more). renteria doesn't walk or hit for power. this is a strange (and wonderful for yanks fans) signing by theo. throw in the wells & halama signings (though i don't think the wells signing is as bad as people think) while the yanks finally go younger with pavano (who's probably overpaid, but got the rite money given the benson/lieber signings) and i'm a happy camper.

i like all the action at the winter meetings (especially the kent and finley moves), though i find some of the moves a bit curious. like how do the chisox get rid of carlos lee when they don't plan on keeping mags? i know rowand was "cream"ing the ball and "clear"ly had a breakout season, but are those numbers going to stand up for that little johnny pump? and i don't think those young OF's like borchard are ready to put up .300-30-100 quite yet, so are they just conceding the playoffs next year?

and what about arizona signing glaus and ortiz? instead of following the lead of moneyball, these guys are copycating the mets. how can a team like that really think they are 1 or 2 moves away from becoming a contender? oh, and they signed royce clayton AND craig counsell. how nice for them.

or seattle signing sexson and then claiming they're going after delgado and/or beltre? i think sexson is awesome and like that move. in fact, had the yanks voided giambi's contract i was hoping they would chase sexson. but don't teams learn anything from the late 90's-early 00's rangers, or last year's orioles? you can't just spend all of your money on mashers and hope a guy like gil meche/chan ho park/sidney ponson finally reaches his potential.

at first glance, i thought the money the giants paid for matheny was too much, but now i think that's probably a great signing ($3.5 mil/year for 3 years). matheny is (supposedly) making strides at the plate as a hitter, and is a great defensive backstop. he's also the complete opposite of pierzynskiin the clubhouse (who was making $3.5 mil and apparently asking for much more), though i'm surprised the giants couldn't trade Ass Juice (he was waived today) for a couple of low-level minor leaguers. i guess his agent is asking waay to much for a guy with a crappy attitude and an OBP of .316 last year.

i mentioned liking the kent and finley moves above, since they're only for 2 years and neither of those guys are showing big drop offs (finley may even be improving). i also like the jays signing koskie. not too much money for one the better third basemen, one who is going to be consistent if not better (as he enters his early 30's) than he has been for the past 6 years (OPS between .815 and .855 during that span). plus he's a canadian, so maybe that can be a draw for fans (this may be a stretch). i just hope for their sake that they have a 1b waiting in the wings, because i've all but given up hope that hinske will ever put up good enough numbers for a corner infielder.

the beltran market has been eerily quiet though, eh?

tis the season for work christmas parties. since, as my boss puts it, i can be construed as "anti-establishment", i won't be attending mine. this could be the result of the fact that the average age at this "establishment" is roughly 55, that you only get one free drink ticket, and/or that we'll be out of town (i'll get to this in a minute). regardless, i am soliticing/reminding all of you bloggers who do in fact attend an office holiday party: please write about it. i enjoy hearing about these shindigs as much as i like eggnog with frangelico (or brandy or whiskey or grain alcohol - which is to say, A LOT). be sure to take notes as the awkward guy on your floor kicks off the dancing, slips someone a mickey, or gives a recovering alcoholic a drink. i'm counting on you guys.

about all i can offer in return is what happened at our holiday pot luck lunch today. actually, i have no idea what happened since nina picked me up and we ate pizza. but what i CAN tell you is that there is some leftover concoction of brie, walnuts, and moldy bananas sitting in the break room next to a sign that says "it's not as bad as it looks!!" (two exclamation points, so i know it must be true!!) while it may not in fact taste like shite, i'm not bold enough to eat anything that looks like what comes out of our cat's nose when he sneezes. i would not be good on fear factor.

so i won't be posting for a week, as we are heading out to albuquerque to look at houses. to buy. although im sure some actual looking will be involved. other than buying a car, this is far and away the most "grown up" thing nina and i have ever done. probably, i should be terrified. probably, i should have read 3 to 5 books on the subject. but more likely, i'll be rating the houses based on proximity to drive thru beer stores and be more concerned with where i can hang a dart board than whether the windows leak.

either way, we're staying with some friends who we were stationed with in florida. so even if the only houses we can afford are in gang territory, lack a roof, or neighbor a nuclear reactor i'm sure we will have a good time. i'm assuming for every akward conversation we have with a realtor, we will play one hour of cards, make a bet on a sporting events, or some combination of the two (indian reservations, baby!).

in conclusion, here's your assignments for the following week:
(1) attend a work x-mas party. if it's boring, show some intiative and make it rule. (ex. give some ecstasy to your boss.)

(2) write about it. if you were short on e or it was boring anyway, make some shit up. in exchange, i will inform you of all the houses in greater albuquerque that are best suited for beer pong and which bowling alleys there serve the strongest drinks.

a while back i promised a baseball post and since i'm a man of my word (or a man of small words, one or the other), im producing today.

with all the (met)roid hoopla, a lot of transactions are getting pushed to the background. how about the yanks getting rid of lofton and one felix (heredia) for stanton and another felix (rodriguez)? two deals, both good in my mind (plus it made me think of "hey felix, (fix your bra doris), do you have a roll of quarters? 10, 9, car, 7, 6, quarters...")

granted this won't be the same mike stanton as we saw in the early 00's, but at this point bringing jim abbot out of retirement would've scared me less than facing another year with heredia trotting out of the bullpen. rodriguez has some upside (how's that for a generic statement meaning "blah"), but more importantly lofton had to go. you can get a left-handed bat off the bench for much less than $3-4 mil.

in older news, detroit signed troy percival. so good or no good? on one hand, you have management showing the veterans that they are "serious about winning", whatever the fuck that means. on the other, you have a team with a relatively reliable, cheaper closer who's younger and has less arm trouble. i pretty much think this was a dumb signing. i would've saved that money to go after troy glaus (or another 3b), since the eric munson experiment is turning the way of chet in weird science (way to go, kelly lebrock!). i mean, you have some solid hitters (pudge, d-meat hook, guillen, pena (slowly)), some young starters coming into their own, you can't afford a top shelf starter (due to the booby higginson contract, which is finally winding down), why spend the money on an aging, oft-injured closer who can't go more than 1 inning at a time?

the second to latest baseball america gave updates on the 2004 draftees for every team, and since i doubt many of you have a subscription to this i'll throw out the things that caught my eye:
-on roughly 1/3 of the teams, a catcher was the best defensive player of their draft. i was pretty surprised at this (higher than i thought), but pleasantly so. maybe this is common (in which case i learned something new), but if not maybe we are in for some serious backstops in the coming years. there also seemed to be a lot of good hitting catchers in the draft, which means (hopefully) teams and fantasy owners everywhere won't have to start the likes of chad kreuter in the near future.

-oakland had a sick draft. again. how the fuck do they keep doing this? they got the two best catchers in the draft (landon powell and kurt suzuki, both starred in the college world series) AND huston street, who will be in the bigs by late 05/early 06. most teams would probably take one catcher, then pass on the other thinking they were set. but oakland will use one to replace kendall (great trade to get him, by the way) and leverage the other later on down the road for pitching or whatever they need (this assumes that both powell and suzuki's values will increase, but all points indicate that direction). oh yeah, and they got stanford's danny putnam, an eric chavez type hitter to roam the OF with swisher in a few years.

-the cards are making a transition to a moneyball-esque front office. they drafted less high school players than anyone else.

-the yanks did okay in an attempt to replenish their organization, using most of their early round picks on pitching.

-BA ranked these teams as having the top 5 drafts: twins, dodgers, royals, a's, rockies. the twins continue to cultivate all their own talent (i bet they have the highest rate of homegrown players in the majors - although kubel is out for all of 05 for those of you who didn't hear), some crappy teams will hopefully improve (hey that's the point of the draft, no?), and the a's continue to dominate by using this new-fangled "math" stuff (i bet triangles were prominantly involved!).

and then there's all the baseball criminals in the news. and im not talking about the juicers (how is that a crime again?). denny neagle had his contract voided after getting a $40 hummer from some streetwalker, craig monroe got arrested for stealing a $30 belt (wha???), and ken williams isn't trying to re-sign magglio (well, that's not officially a crime, but...).

so that's all i've got. that's my baseball update. i'm out of syrup like ramathorn.

it’s funny to me that i carry a bag to work. it’s even funnier to me that i call this my “work bag” because when i leave for the office in the morning here's what goes in it:

-a can of soup, some pretzels, some form of chocolate, and a yogurt
-a book. sometimes two. they aren’t always fiction, but they sure as hell have nothing to do with engineering.
-4 or 5 cds

and in case you’re giving me the benefit of the doubt and thinking “well, maybe he just doesn’t take the work stuff out at nite” here’s what is permanently in it:

-cough drops
-a spoon i forgot to take out and put in the dishwasher
-14 old paystubs (and counting)
-pretzel crumbs
-2 nickels and 1 dime
-a credit card i intended to cancel roughly 3 months ago
-4 or 5 other cds
-a stench from the aforementioned spoon (i had broccoli-cheese soup that day)

i think once last year they gave me a paper to take home and read, but that got stuffed in the exhaust of some car with a vanity plate on my way out. so pretty much my “work bag” is nothing more than an “over the shoulder lunch box/cd case”. and not a very clean one at that.

dear society,

i have a bone to pick with you. i've been overlooking it for a while, but i've reached a breaking point. i just can't take it anymore.

why have i become synonymous with bad things? with tragedy? first it was "bermuda triangle", now it's "triangle of death." "triangle trade" certainly didn't win me any friends over in africa. even when you pair me with something good, it has shady implications. that's right, i don't appreciate "love triangle" either.

what did i do to deserve these terrible connotations? im just three points, man! how much evil can i do? plus, i'd like to point out that my cousin mr. right forms the basis of trigonometry. so these negative phrases are also indirect digs at my buddies sine and cosine. and cos is one moody bastard, so you're treading on thin ice here.

i don't think my complaints are unwarranted. without me and my family, you wouldn't be able to determine forces in the x and y directions, play the first round of beer pong, or slice pizza into pieces of equal size. so you see? i'm actually rather valuable.

i admit, a lot of this resentment comes from how you praise the circle. granted, the circle is cool as shit, what with that whole pi thing, and tangents and stuff. he's a very useful shape, not unlike me. yet he gets used in phrases like "cirle of life", "circle of friends", and "on deck circle". good, good, and good. what gives?

i hereby request that you pick on someone else. like the heptagon. what the fuck good has the heptagon ever done? none, i tells ya. so pass the buck over to that seven sided freak and let me be. or else i'm going on strike, leaving you without the ability to play chinese checkers.

sincerely,
the triangle

a lot of weird shit going on rite now, eh?

Exhibit A
ND fires ty after the regular season but before the bowl game?! something fishy just has to be going on here. i guess ND wants to make the situation as hard as possible on its players, who seemed to like playing for willingham. i can't really see an explanation for firing a coach who (a) hasn't lost that much, and (b) actually holds his players to academic standards (something i though ND valued itself on, much like duke).

but hey, im all for an owner/institution hiring and firing as they please (that's their rite, no?). i think it is a poor decision, but it's still their decision to make. and i keep hearing the race card here, something like the old white booster guys don't like ty. but if that was the case, and the alums/boosters have so much authority, why was he hired in the first place? also, if that's how ND makes their decisions they deserve to lose. the fact that there are so few black coaches out there is just stupid (it's simply not smart to ignore roughly 50% of potential candidates for any job in any field). im sure this will begin to gradually change, not because society says so but because schools will finally realize they have more options when hiring. college hoops has had strong black coaches for years (cheney, thompson, jarvis, etc) and the number is growing in that sport too.

my guess is that ty did not get fired for being black, but had some behind close doors conflicts with the university unrelated to race. at least this is what im hoping.

Exhibit B
giambi admits to taking steroids. that's not the shocker. it's that he admitted it last december, than spent the entire year denying it. also, why is our government spending congressional time/money on enhancement drug issues in a professional sports league?

another question is what will come of giambi. will there be any repercussions? there's no way in hell he will face any criminal charges, but will mlb suspend him? fine him? ignore him? my guess is that all of those guys (bonds, etc) will receive no penalty. at least from buddy selig. they will of course, have a tarnished image, a loss of endorsements, a smaller penis, and a shorter lifespan.

Exhibit C
the resurgence of the shooter. the other nite, redick and ewing hit 10-16 from deep, last nite stephon marbury was hitting jumpers from just inside of midcourt, and ray allen has decreased the space he needs to shoot a 30 footer from 2" to 1" (quiet all you bitter bucks fans, maybe van horn will heat up). but don't get too high on marbury, im going to make fun of him later.

Exhibit D
wake forest gets torched by illinois last nite. not really a huge upset (#3 beating #1), but the margin is a bit surprising. that's the threat of the illini - when they get hot you have no prayer. even so, i thought WF would be able to keep the game close for longer than 8 minutes. by the way, chris paul has all the makings of the next stephon marbury (i.e. he will bulk up, get some tattoos, maybe a wrist band or two, but never get far in the postseason, and basically be overrated). on a different note, northwestern reinforced that they are my favorite college hoops team last nite. three cheers for pete carroll and the princeton offense. it really is a thing of beauty.

Xzibit E
the rapper has a deodorant commercial. i know this isn't new, but it's strange(brew) nonetheless.

ahhh, those lovable ny metropolitans. guaranteeing pedro $38 mil and 3 years. that’s, how you say, interesting. who fucking runs that team? is it an 8th grade science project? “what is the effect of atrocious decision making on the success of a major league franchise?” by fred wilpon.

honestly, how many years are they going to spend, and spend, and spend to make a run at the playoffs only to realize their team is absolutely terrible?

assuming pedro takes this, which i have to believe he will, let’s look at the bulk of the rotation: pedro, glavine, benson, zambrano. the first two will be long retired by the time the mets ever see 2nd place again. and let’s not even think about how many starts pedro will puss out of once he’s playing for a team that’s under .500 (didn’t they just go thru the whole signing an injury prone aging veteran thing with mo vaughn aka suge knight, who has no doubt ballooned to 400+ lbs and taken to wearing velvet kangol sweat suits everyday). so basically they are building their staff around benson. im fairly sure pittsburgh has been trying that for years now, and they have clearly had massive success. good luck there. also, your entire bullpen will be indicted in a jon franco-mafia case by june.

then we have the offensive “stars”: piazza (entering a serious decline), cameron (offers nothing more than d), baby matsui (don’t expect a godzilla-like improvement in year 2), reyes (the only “19” year old in the history of the world to pull his hamstring 8 times in a year, reminds me of wilson betemit), and cliffy "sir grumps-a-lot" floyd. im guessing the todds (zeile and pratt) will be signed and penciled in the lineup by december.

saving grace: david wright. this guy just rakes. but don’t get your hopes up met fans, i hear they are shopping him for dustin hermanson and some sushi.

i hate the mets, and this even has me sympathizing with their fans. what a terrible organization. the decline in the last 4 years is mind boggling. they have to (a) start playing/going after younger players, and (b) repaint shea. that purple is not helping anyone.

and since im talking about things that are awful, let’s throw out “letting your dog shit anywhere it wants and not picking up the shit”. fuck putting people in jail for not returning library books, im making a motion for imprisoning dog owners like this. i say jail, or bathing them in dog shit, or letting me crap on their car floor mats everyday for a year. and no, im not bitter for recently stepping in some poop (at least 3 to 4 distinct piles while walking in our back yard/common area the other nite).

on a better note, here’s hardee’s new commercial. not as good as the one described as "bordering on clothed porn" we discussed on ace’s site a while back, but pretty good nonetheless. as to the "clothed porn" line: what the hell is "clothed porn"? isn’t that like saying you had “smooth tequila” or “a great day at work”?

also, here’s two recommendations (if you’re into these things): the new cake cd, pressure chief (only downside is that the entire album is barely over 35 minutes), and yoplait’s custard style yogurt (go for the key lime pie or strawberries and cream).

don't ask me how, but this year nina and i weaseled our way out of traveling for thanksgiving. this is no small feat given the guilt-mongers that inhabit both of our families. so, happily, instead of having to fit my extra-long frame into some cramped airplane seat, i got to sit on our couch with my brother-in-law kurt (aka krut) boozing all day. in my pajamas (actually i don't wear pajamas, but they sure do sound comfortable).

the meal was different than usual for me, and not because we ate anything out of the ordinary. it's just that at around noon i started drinking champy & eating this plate of cheese, sausage, and crackers. while nina, her mom, and her grandma spent the day in the kitchen, krut and i played x-box for roughly 6 hours, taking breaks to refill our glasses/plates and simultaneously hear the phrase "there's too many cooks in the kitchen!!" i swear we were going through asti and colby-jack faster than billy could get to the mailbox on nudey magazine day, and by 4pm i was ready to spew like farva after 6 shlitzzzees. sure, i put down 2 plates of the goods at dinner, but i had no room for pie. in fact, i didn't eat one piece of pie the entire weekend. i warned you, it was unusual.

on the fam’s last night here, we took krut out for a nite in dayton. one of the bars we stopped at is this really trendy place (we still like it because it has so many couches), and something extraordinary happened. so i'm standing at the bar waiting for our drink order and...i got hit on! it was so flattering! shit like that just doesn't happen when you're wearing tattered jeans and a red puma shirt (read: ever), especially when you're in a place where the average outfit costs more than my car. oh yeah, and it was by a man.

the funny thing was that seeing my wedding ring didn't deter him much (or at all), and i guess he didn't approve of nina wearing a hoodie in a joint like this because he started to inquire about how my marriage was going (weird thing to ask a stranger, no?). i assured him things were fine, but the bartender was apparently growing the tomatoes for nina's bloody mary with a hydroponics kit under the bar, so the conversation turned to work. and here's where i really disappointed myself. when he asked what i did, i just said "um, engineering."

engineering? are you fucking kidding me? someone is trying to flirt with me and i say im an engineer? this was my chance to throw out " professional bantam weight boxer", or "full time high school student", or "cobbler". i fucking blew it. at least i got to spend the rest of the nite seeing who else the dude tried to score with, thinking "oh, im better looking than THAT guy."

some other unusual things from the weekend included kurt doing 6 shots of ten high (don’t be fooled, that’s plastic bottle shit. and yes, we keep it on our wine rack) in roughly 20 minutes while on the phone with his ex-girlfriend and my mother-in-law telling us she wants krut to live with us for the next 2 years. but that's neither here nor there, and overall it was a great long weekend. we set up our fake x-mas tree, saw sideways (good, but no garden state), gorged, heard funny stories of when nina's grandma was in the swedish mafia, it snowed a little, and the cowboys won. scroll buttons, rock on.