strong as a can

some mlb thoughts:

-what is with the yanks and sox swapping the other squads dropped players? mendoza, olerud, embree, bellhorn - i'm waiting for the bombers to go after mike "hightop" greenwell so the sox can sign dave lapoint.

-while we're on the sox, what is with the misuse of kevin youkiliss this year? 66 ab's for your future third baseman while you kept giving ab's to bellhorn (could've just moved mueller to second) and millar (only 1 more homer on the year than giambi has in the last 40 hours). not good.

-you're ken griffey. you're having a friggin sick year for a worthless team going no where while you're still of playing age. and you don't want to get traded to the white sox and play in the postseason? it's not like chicago is that far from cincinnatti if family is a concern. is this not retarded? i mean, i'm glad and all, since junior would make the chisox waaaay scarier, but cmon.

-can i stop hearing that wily taveras should be the NL ROY? yes he's fast. yes he's hitting .300. but really those 60+ infield hits? those don't impress me. at all. neither does that dismal OBP.

-can i start hearing that johnny gomes should be the AL ROY? for fuck's sake, this guy just mashes. he's this year's jason bay - not a full year, but putting up ridiculous numbers (18 taters in less than 300 ab's) and offering aubrey huff some protection in the lineup.

-kudos to aaron boone. he clearly wasn't ready to start the season, and for the first two months hit just .123 with a .499 OPS which is downright womackian. but he hit .272, .311, and .312 in june, july, and august (with an OPS around .820 for that span) to get his average up to almost .250 and OPS up to almost .700. it's obviously not quite giambi's spring-to-summer turnaround, but he definitely deserves some credit for cleveland's great run.

-wondering how the a's are competing for anything but third place in the west? i can't blame you, since the top two hitters in their lineup (kotsay and kendall) have OBP's of .324 and .337, and kendall hasn't went yard since july. of 2004. the answer? jay payton. this fucking guy whined his way out of beantown to slug .561 since his arrival in oaktown. with 12 homers, he's going deep almost once every 10 ab's. as soon as he cools off (and i just don't see that bullpen lasting another 2 months), the a's could be history (only until 2006, when they will be nasty again).

-chase utley and david wright are the brock landers and chest rockwell of the NL. david bell is the scotty j.

in case you fockers thought the show couldn't get any better, none other than the gorgeous charlize theron will be joining the cast of arrested development. i got no words. except "dragon - to the nuts!!"

if you like logic puzzles, then you'll like sudoku. here's a tough one.

the 27 year old virgin
last night i became a man. no, not like that you perv. i meant that i changed a tire for the first time. but now that you mention it, we might as well be talking about one and the same.

getting jack out of the trunk
the jack in my trunk is in this compartment. instead of just calmly figuring out how it's attached, i'm trying to rip this fucking jack out. much like trying to rip my pants off the first time i knew i was about to gain some carnal knowledge, only my jeans wouldn't fucking come off. frustration grows.

finding where the jack goes
i had to read a manual, and still didn't know exactly know where to put the fucking thing. and then once i was down there the undercarriage luckily had an arrow to the exact place to put the jack. and i still effed it up and had to try twice. add two giant fucking heaps of embarrassment.

loosening the screws
much like taking off a bra is (was. i mean was.), getting those damn lugnuts off was a lot of damn work. but worth it. soooo worth it.

the stamina issue
i just couldn't do it in the accepted amount of time. i know i know, you're supposed to think about something else, blah blah. all i could think about was getting that damn tire off and i couldn't do it right.

and then it was all over. exhausted and satisfied, still not knowing if i did it right, i went to sonic's for some mozzarella sticks and a grape slush. and trust me. this is much less uncomfortable then going out to dinner with your parents afterward.

rime of the ancient, um, eggers
if you buy tickets to ozzfest, you have to be expecting old rockers who are past their primes, right? apparently not.

i don't know what's worse about this - that aging rock fans threw eggs at one of the most awesome heavy metal bands of the early 80's, or that sharron osbourne went on stage to call my beloved iron maiden band members pricks. be wary, ye who throws the first egg, or you may see a flash of the blade before i send you back to your village. keep it up and you'll become my (power) slave.

oh well, maybe bruce dickinson deserves it for that awful solo career. besides it's two minutes to midnight and i have to see if my ace(s) high will win this poker hand.

a couple of hits for you news junkies:

the professors at youngstown state went on strike. i don't really want to slander them with the label union - instead of organized labor, let's call them organized logic. professors are in short supply and high demand so they can group together to get what they want, or else go teach somewhere else. seems reasonable to me.

there's some new fuel regulation out there, probably in response to all of america complaining about higher gas prices. but hey, if you bought a 34 foot long pick up that requires six back tires and a ladder to get in, pony up the $75/tank and quit crying. maybe you don't need a car that has the same engine as an M-1 Abrams tank after all.

apparently the newest fear to hit america is, um, venezuela. clearly i must be missing something, because i thought venezuela's biggest impact on the US was in exporting it's baseball players. anyone actually know why the guy who looks like pat summerall is calling for a professional hit on their president?

right back where we started
here's a fascinating article by SI about what mlb teams would look like if they retained everyone they've ever drafted. SI points to the a's and nats as the best, but check out the stros. they would be the best hands down.

yesterday was a day of firsts for me

iTunes
holy crap, i have finally moved into the 20th century. my buddy at work has this enormous music collection that he shared with me so i spent the day listening to rush, zeppelin, stevie ray vaughn, etc. it's fun to be a music whore. i can't even explain how much this improves the quality of my time at the office.

carl's jr.
in a city with a bunch of burger joints i've never experienced (whataburger, blake's lottaburger, etc), i gave carl's a shot. and let me tell you, they make a great friggin burger. non-soggy bun, fresh lettuce/tomato, one of those wrappers around it so everything doesn't fall all over, and of course a thick slab of meat. i don't think it's overcome sonic's chili cheese dog and grape slush combo, but i'll definitely be eating there again.

crapping at work
it's a little nerve-wracking taking your first dump at work, but it worked out well. the TP was certainly not the worst i've ever seen, and i even got to use one of those handicapped stalls with the tall toilet. score. and don't tell me that those stalls are only for people in wheelchairs - he only had to wait like 10 minutes.

mowing the lawn
sure it wasn't the first time i've ever done this, but it was the first time since may or june. i was pretty worried that i was going to run over a snake or small dog since the grass was shin high, but the only things i tore up were rotten apples from our apple tree. ahren's coming in town this weekend and i thought about mowing an ALW into grass like they could do at big league ballparks, but that would've taken too much effort and, well, been a little weird. plus i was too busy trying to shoot the apples over the fence into our neighbor's yard. don't judge me for keeping stats on it either.

allow myself to introduce...myself
yesterday one of the higher ups at my company stopped by my office to see how things were going. i've seen him only a few times since my interview. luckily, he came in during my one 5 minute stretch of productivity - i had a 455 page document on my lap and was leafing through it, so all appeared to be fine. fine, that is, until he asked about my new computer and took a gander at the monitor to see:

"erc byrnes grounds into double play, david newhan scores."

he didn't say anything, but as i tried to steer the conversation away from the computer, he kept looking from me to the monitor and back again. and it's pretty hard to miss the huge green baseball field with dots on the bases. knowing myself, my face probably turned 14 shades of red, and i just kept talking like gamecast wasn't the primary focus of my afternoon. i'm so good at first impressions.

as to gamecast, i must say it's about as reliable as scott proctor and the rest of the yanks middle relief corp. i've officially made the switch to following games on si.com.

the information - it's IN the computer
in many starving countries of africa, they riot over food handouts. in the middle east, they riot over religious matters. in america, they riot over, um, cheap laptops.

the best part:

"I took my chair here and I threw it over my shoulder and I went, 'Bam,"' the 20-year-old said nonchalantly, his eyes glued to the screen of his new iBook, as he tapped away on the keyboard at a testing station.

the guy hit someone with a folding chair?! was he trying to win a steel cage match or a fucking on-sale computer?

i'm usually not a spiteful fellow and rarely hold grudges (except to the people of espn, who opened sportscenter this morning with 15 minutes of preseason football highlights). but after the way curt schilling handling himself post-world series last year and into the postseason, i lost a lot of respect for a guy i used to think was pretty cool. so i'd be lying if i said i wasn't enjoying his struggles as a closer, especially since it's helping the yanks close the gap. and after last night's collapse, i have to pick on schilling again:

"You can't cost your team games trying to learn a job," Schilling said. "You can't do that. There's no excuse for what happened."

um, that first sentence IS an excuse. so either get back in the rotation, go back on the DL, or shut your pie hole. i remember when smoltz first moved to the pen a few years ago, and in one of his first appearances he gave up 8 runs to the mets. 8 friggin runs. but you didn't hear a peep out of him to the press, he just went out and improved. people often compare schilling to clemens. but really, the rocket would never be pulling this shit.

also, if it's not too late, go pick up 19 year old rookie phenom felix hernandez of the mariners. 0.86 era, 0.67 whip, and in his last 16 innings he's k'd 17 and only allowed 9 baserunners. keep the comparisons to doc coming.

some more good t-shirts.

nl central notes

st. louis: jason marquis is now being used as a lefty bat off the bench. i've seen him pinch hit twice in the past 2 weeks, and with a .344 avg and .890 OPS in 60+ ab's he should be. minor league note: before his call up, john rodriguez had hit 17 homers in 34 games in AAA.

houston: the best 1-2-3 rotation in the bigs (clemens, oswalt, pettite) have among them a high era of .262 and high whip of 1.11. talk about nasty - they could potentially use andy pettite as a middle reliever or to face lefties in the division series.

milwaukee: victor santos has started 22 games and thrown 10 quality starts - and has 3 wins to show for it. teammate gary glover has as many wins with only 4 quality starts. minor league note: prince fielder has 25 jacks for AAA nashville despite being in the majors for 2-3 weeks this summer.

chicago: the cubs have used 11 outfielders this year, with only 1 (burnitz) having enough ab's to qualify for the batting title.

cincinnati: adam dunn has a 1.26 hit to walk ratio this season. the difference between his avg (.259) and OBP (.394) is .135, and the only guy i can find who's even close to this differential is jim edmonds at .123.

pittsburgh: and the national league tony womack award goes to - jack wilson (.280 OBP, .624 OPS), who plays waaaay more than womack these days. it is unbelievable that teams are still throwing the ball anywhere within 10 feet of the plate to jason bay (OPS: .957), given the next "best" hitter with over 100 ab's in that lineup is posting an OPS of .759 (rob mackowiak).

this is the end of my 4th week of work. it's been quite a month. i've read, heard, and said the word 'boolean' at least 192 times. i'm fairly sure at one point in week three i uttered the phrase "in the math game of life, laplace is the fucking rake." and everyone laughed. how do you spell dork? e-t-h-a-n.

as you'd expect in a math-related environment, my co-workers are pretty wacky. the overwhelming comminality is nosehair. that shit runs rampant here. one of the tech guys has a full foo-man-chu going with his. another guy is working the rollie fingers look. it's hot. i'm sure the coeds at the U are lining up to attend the company bbq's.

there are a few things so far that are very different than other jobs i've had. for example, i share an office. this cuts into slack time a bit, but more than that it makes it awkward when i talk to nina on the phone and say things like "let's get loaded tonite", "yeah, so and so's a real douche", or "so how'd your woman exams go this morning?". aside from the whole office-mate thing, i have yet to take a shit at work. i won't go into this further. it's weird.

but thru all these differences, there's one thing i can always count on: a negative leave balance. in 20 days of work, i've taken 3 off. i rule.

last weekend nina and i went to new york. the big event was a wedding of a high school friend of mine, who incidentally is a teacher at our old high school on long island. here's what i learned, or in some cases re-learned:

long island is trashy
i've never been to a wedding ceremony where so many people wore jeans. there were even some 20-something girls wearing crop-top shirts (to go with their jeans of course). i'm by no means a religious fellow, but i don't think a house of god is someplace to show off your new belly ring. unless you're famke jansen (i.e. hot), or king kong bundy (because that shit would be hilarious). unfortunately, most LI girls think they're super hot when in reality all that tanning has them looking like a piece of bacon. moving on.

catholic ceremonies don't have to be so terrible
pretty much every catholic wedding i've ever been to takes the focus off the couple and also works in the motif that marriage is work, and all that work is for the good of the church. this one had none of that. and for the two downsides to the ceremony, there were nullifying upsides:
(1) it was so hot that the phrase now goes "sweating like an ethan in church", but the ceremony took roughly 30 minutes and had no sermon (groundbreaking as far as catholics go, right?), and
(2) the little kids in front of us were total hell with the parents (in jeans) doing nothing, but retribution was served when the little boy opened the kneeling thingamajig and it slammed the non-attentive dad square in the shins. high comedy.

one of your high school friends is guaranteed to look shockingly different
my friend craig weighed like 135 pounds in high school. during college he put on some weight, but nothing out of the ordinary for all the beer and weed he consumed. last i saw him, around 2000, he was probably a husky 190. but when he walked into the church i didn't even recognize him - he must be pushing 275, and most of that is in his cheeks. he's the guy in the barbershop quartet who's orca fat. but at least he was a good sport about it, and when i asked him what he was up to he said "nothing, cuz i'm fat." so that was funny.

long island weddings are expensive
this was the largest wedding we've ever been to, probably 300 strong. the reception was out on eastern long island, a few towns west of the hamptons. to give you an idea of prices out there, nina and i stayed in the shadiest motel we've ever been in (and believe me, we've had some winners in daytona beach and miami) and it was $100 a night. the open bar alone was probably $20k. the cocktail hour included top sirloin - no cheese and crackers here. the party favors? a bottle of wine from a local vineyard (although we didn't get ours because the people at our table we didn't know took ALL the bottles). regardless, it was an awesome reception. i feel like i should be sending the couple a thank you note, not the other way around. considering the both the bride and groom AND both of the families work for the public school system, i don't know how they foot the bill.

while very fun, it is not a good idea to try to drink all the whiskey in riverhead
as all good weddings are, this was a total drink-fest. we pre-gamed at the hotel with beer and a few rounds of asshole (some things never change), but once we got to the reception i stuck with whiskey all night. it is pretty awesome to drink whiskey for 7 straight hours, but you pay for it the next day. there's a pile of puke somewhere along the side of the LIE that can attest to that.

i heard a classic mid-90's long island high school song on the radio this morning and it made me think of these 5 diddies that used to rock on q104.3 (before it turned to whatever it is now - classic rock?):

1. silverchair - tomorrow
this song had that cool riff and awesome chorus, plus the singer was like 17 so just about every day you could count on seeing 34 girls sporting those frog t-shirts.

2. 7 mary 3 - cumbersome
this was one of my favorite songs in high school. it was easy to learn on the guitar, and it had the guy with the scruffy voice belting that catchy chorus. plus it had those angsty, confusing teenage lyrics that no one really understands. cmon - two worlds, one with an arrow and a cross? what's that all about? 7 mary 3 followed this up with another good one, water's edge, but were never heard from again.

3. toadies - possum kingdom
you know, the "jesus" song. this is the one i heard that prompted this list.

4. presidents of the USA - lump
i'm fairly sure every high school in america had a girl tabbed with the moniker "lump" after this one came out. actually, PotUSA had a lot of cool songs (peaches and the one with all the "meow"s come to mind), but the band fell apart because the lead singer hated touring. i liken them a little to cake, one of my favorite bands, so i was sad to see them go.

5. helmet - unsung
if you don't like this song, there is something wrong with you. honestly.

and then farva says...
i am always on the lookout for classy t-shirts and it seems i have stumbled upon a great one. here's some funny drawings too about work, drinking, and office pranks.