my intent of this was to have a place to get the stuff out of me that i tend to lock away... i dont know why i stopped when i did but i do know that i have been bottling and bottling...
well i have more to say, but that will come later today
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Friday, June 4, 2010
Imperfection Perfected
On Wednesday night a bad call was made in a baseball game... there are hundreds of bad (and good) calls made daily in my favorite sport, but this one cost a young man a chance to kiss the sky. As usual in this democratic country of going off half-cocked, armchair experts threw hands up in disbelief and called for heads to roll over something they hadn't cared about before.
Although I the initial call was completely egregious, for Selig to go back and use the "power of the commissioner's office" and change the call would have been a precedent setting mistake. Come late September what call does he make in a game where a controversial play decides a game between two teams in the playoff race?.. How do you tell a team that won a game on Tuesday to go up in the standings, that the "bang-bang" play of a runner stealing 3rd, or a runner was "out of the base path" ... it is all a nasty can of worms.
I pray this will open the eyes of other "baseball purist" (as myself) that there is a need for some form of limited instant replay (remember it took the Yankees get screwed on a homer to really get the ball rolling on the now instituted home-run replay rule)...
(it is funny to me that on the same evening this happens, my beloved Chicago Blackhawks were involved in a Stanley Cup final's game which saw two replays, one of which went back 2 minutes in game play to award a goal. 11 years ago the Stanley Cup was incorrectly decided on a goal scored that using replay today would have been disallowed... but that mistake allowed for today's rules)
Joyce's very sincere mea culpa and Galarraga's outward smile go a long way in making this okay for me, but I hope a ball from the game is signed by both and a plaque is put in Cooperstown explaining the moment that helps to digitalize America's Pastime.
I pray this will open the eyes of other "baseball purist" (as myself) that there is a need for some form of limited instant replay (remember it took the Yankees get screwed on a homer to really get the ball rolling on the now instituted home-run replay rule)...
(it is funny to me that on the same evening this happens, my beloved Chicago Blackhawks were involved in a Stanley Cup final's game which saw two replays, one of which went back 2 minutes in game play to award a goal. 11 years ago the Stanley Cup was incorrectly decided on a goal scored that using replay today would have been disallowed... but that mistake allowed for today's rules)
Joyce's very sincere mea culpa and Galarraga's outward smile go a long way in making this okay for me, but I hope a ball from the game is signed by both and a plaque is put in Cooperstown explaining the moment that helps to digitalize America's Pastime.
Monday, February 15, 2010
the big rejection
a viral video from this past weekend going around that makes me cringe and laugh at the same time, but it does not make me feel bad for those involved for one single second.
the video is of a couple at a new york rangers hockey game. a couple is featured on the jumbo-tron with text asking if she will be his "blueshirt bride" (for those not in the know, the new york hockey rangers are often referred to as the blue shirts, and even more so the woman featured is even wearing a blue rangers jersey.) in response, the woman shakes her head and leaves seemingly without giving a definite answer. a scenario i have seen several times at sporting events, usually with a better reception. but i still think it is rather foolhardy to put your relationship in this perilous situation.
it was in the guys favor that she was there with him to support the team, even going as far as to both be wearing a jersey... for all i know she might have been more of a fan than he. but you have to to some major legwork to make sure that in your grab for "15 minutes" that the whole thing doesn't just make you both the butt of talk show jokes and also newly single.
he shoulda talked to some of her friends and gotten a covert answer to her thoughts on massive public proposals. this is all assuming that they had already been together for quite a while and discussed the thought of life together for the rest of their live, getting a good friend to bring up the subject of people proposing in public places or in front of crowds really could have saved some egg on the face. just because you think you know your mate, doesn't mean they haven't had special plans for what they have been dreaming of since childhood and not made a big deal of it.
i once had a guy approach me at the jewbilly and letting me know that he planned on proposing to his girlfriend that night. i asked why in my bar on a busy night and he told me that it was where they had first met and had their first date. i asked he was going to do this quietly in a corner or wanted the whole bar involved, he said whole bar (they were both theater nerds.) so come last call i gave a special call for quiet and gave the floor to the soon-to-be's. in my opinion since he had done his homework it all went off without a hitch and special drinks were handy for all of the friends to share the moment (i later offered the services of the bar for their wedding reception at cost if they wanted.)
i'm just sayin': if you are planning a moment that you want to last forever, make sure you set the deck as much as you can so when you look back it is not with tears of regret...
the video is of a couple at a new york rangers hockey game. a couple is featured on the jumbo-tron with text asking if she will be his "blueshirt bride" (for those not in the know, the new york hockey rangers are often referred to as the blue shirts, and even more so the woman featured is even wearing a blue rangers jersey.) in response, the woman shakes her head and leaves seemingly without giving a definite answer. a scenario i have seen several times at sporting events, usually with a better reception. but i still think it is rather foolhardy to put your relationship in this perilous situation.
it was in the guys favor that she was there with him to support the team, even going as far as to both be wearing a jersey... for all i know she might have been more of a fan than he. but you have to to some major legwork to make sure that in your grab for "15 minutes" that the whole thing doesn't just make you both the butt of talk show jokes and also newly single.
he shoulda talked to some of her friends and gotten a covert answer to her thoughts on massive public proposals. this is all assuming that they had already been together for quite a while and discussed the thought of life together for the rest of their live, getting a good friend to bring up the subject of people proposing in public places or in front of crowds really could have saved some egg on the face. just because you think you know your mate, doesn't mean they haven't had special plans for what they have been dreaming of since childhood and not made a big deal of it.
i once had a guy approach me at the jewbilly and letting me know that he planned on proposing to his girlfriend that night. i asked why in my bar on a busy night and he told me that it was where they had first met and had their first date. i asked he was going to do this quietly in a corner or wanted the whole bar involved, he said whole bar (they were both theater nerds.) so come last call i gave a special call for quiet and gave the floor to the soon-to-be's. in my opinion since he had done his homework it all went off without a hitch and special drinks were handy for all of the friends to share the moment (i later offered the services of the bar for their wedding reception at cost if they wanted.)
i'm just sayin': if you are planning a moment that you want to last forever, make sure you set the deck as much as you can so when you look back it is not with tears of regret...
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
i killed the dream she dreamed
Susan Boyle is a fraud and not all that talented. I know I am in the minority as I am not at all impressed with "the never been kissed" singer's performance. And honestly calling it a performance is a bit of a stretch. I didn't mind it at first as I just thought it was one of those 15 minutes of fame that would pass, but several people at work who don't know much about musicals in general have come to me as the expert and been amazed at my differing opinion.
I was not expecting to see a Patti LuPone type rendition, the original as it was presented to me, but for this is a very special song and it needs to be sung as opposed to belted as ms Boyle did. I thought a much better song for her to do, if the insistence was to do a torch song from a well known musical, would have been "Don't cry for me Argentina" (also made famous by the superb talents of LuPone.) "Argentina", though a good song, does not carry the emotional range in its vocal part and inflection but more in the lyrics and to that end would have suited her.
I shouldn't complain about the typical sappiness of the production for a reality show, but this to me was a bit over the top. "never been kissed", the shoes, the drab dress, the standing ovations and peanut gallery commentary... and honestly why have the "virgin" sing a song about a whore who is dying...
Another problem I had with this was the way the audience embraced this French tale sung by a Scotswoman. Where is there sense of national pride. The kids in London should have booed her off stage.
oh well...
I was not expecting to see a Patti LuPone type rendition, the original as it was presented to me, but for this is a very special song and it needs to be sung as opposed to belted as ms Boyle did. I thought a much better song for her to do, if the insistence was to do a torch song from a well known musical, would have been "Don't cry for me Argentina" (also made famous by the superb talents of LuPone.) "Argentina", though a good song, does not carry the emotional range in its vocal part and inflection but more in the lyrics and to that end would have suited her.
I shouldn't complain about the typical sappiness of the production for a reality show, but this to me was a bit over the top. "never been kissed", the shoes, the drab dress, the standing ovations and peanut gallery commentary... and honestly why have the "virgin" sing a song about a whore who is dying...
Another problem I had with this was the way the audience embraced this French tale sung by a Scotswoman. Where is there sense of national pride. The kids in London should have booed her off stage.
oh well...
Saturday, April 11, 2009
maybe Dr Emmit Brown was right
i have noticed the last few times as i was driving to work that no matter how early i think i am leaving, it seems the hands of the clock in my car move at their own rate independent of real time. and yes, my car is old enough to have an analog clock.
i have tried leaving as early as an hour before hand and as risky as 10 minutes til, but every time i seem to get rushing with less than 5 minutes to spare. i realize i am not the only person who has had to deal with traffic, but as a guy who has had a long affair with walking to work the whole concept of driving side streets to avoid rush hour is foreign to me.
oh crap gotta go gonna be barely on time...
i have tried leaving as early as an hour before hand and as risky as 10 minutes til, but every time i seem to get rushing with less than 5 minutes to spare. i realize i am not the only person who has had to deal with traffic, but as a guy who has had a long affair with walking to work the whole concept of driving side streets to avoid rush hour is foreign to me.
oh crap gotta go gonna be barely on time...
Friday, March 20, 2009
I gonna take my ball and go home
I used to list this time of year as my favorite in all of the sports calender. There is so much fun stuff going on in every sport. In the NHL and NBA players start growing their playoff beards, in baseball players are through with their spring training hold-outs and sign multi-million dollar extensions to play a child's game, and best of all the commercials for "a tradition unlike any other" appear during CBS' coverage of march madness. March Madness that beautiful free-for-65 run of basketball coverage that realizes so many hopes and dashes so many dreams. As the game clock goes into slow motion and a desperation shot is hoisted, sports bars around the country draw silent for 8/10ths of a second before erupting with cheers of joy (and a round of shots) or the sobs of "alumni" garishly decked out in their schools colors (a round of shots to drown the sorrows). But wait the next game starts in 20 minutes...
Lately my joy has been tampered by the over abundance of free brackets and "your shot at march madness". I didn't mind when the bracket thing was a simply $5 pool that people did in their office or a the bar, you would see people with a crumpled piece of paper marking down results as the game ended and the next began laughing with friends "What was I thinking, everyone knows Syracuse chokes in odd years". Now it has become a multi-billion dollar industry, another American get rich quick scam. Every website offers cash and prizes for a your bracket and hell, you can join multiple times on most of them. The casual fan who can't tell you what state Gonzaga is in, how many teams are nicknamed Rebels, how to correctly spell Kryzewski these days will have a couple of brackets going and when the inevitable question goes up at a bar "Did you have that 5-12 upset?" it is now met with "Well in one of my brackets I did, but that is the one where I have UCLA in the Final Four"...
I am not saying I am better than these people. Being the fantasy sports gambling addict that I am, I have in the past had as many as 13 brackets going with more than $50 paid into the kitty. I have completed brackets on Disney's website before. I am a junkie. I used to fill out brackets on the women's tournament as well as the NIT. I can say that two years ago my bracket was #1 in the world going into the Final Four, I finished #1000+ which got me nothing.
I am the type of guy who does watch college basketball anyways, but I also "scout" college basketball for tourney time. But what good does my immense knowledge of teams, players, coaches and game trivia when betty over there made her picks based on team mascots and who would win in a fight? Com'on if a catamount got in a fight with a tarheel, Vermont better beat Carolina... and don't get me started about the jaspers vs the governors.
as usual I am not offering solutions here, the Mellow Mushroom offered a bracket to dining customer this year with a $10,000 grand prize and also local prizes... what is this world coming to... I was hoping that this economic down turn might curb corporate dollars for something as unpredictable and pure as the college athletics, but maybe I'll have to wait til next year for that one.
oh yeah Gonzaga is in Spokane, Washington. There are two Rebels (UNLV's Running Rebels, and my Ole Miss rebels.) And Krzyzewski is spelled with two 'z's a 'y' and a silent 'j'
Lately my joy has been tampered by the over abundance of free brackets and "your shot at march madness". I didn't mind when the bracket thing was a simply $5 pool that people did in their office or a the bar, you would see people with a crumpled piece of paper marking down results as the game ended and the next began laughing with friends "What was I thinking, everyone knows Syracuse chokes in odd years". Now it has become a multi-billion dollar industry, another American get rich quick scam. Every website offers cash and prizes for a your bracket and hell, you can join multiple times on most of them. The casual fan who can't tell you what state Gonzaga is in, how many teams are nicknamed Rebels, how to correctly spell Kryzewski these days will have a couple of brackets going and when the inevitable question goes up at a bar "Did you have that 5-12 upset?" it is now met with "Well in one of my brackets I did, but that is the one where I have UCLA in the Final Four"...
I am not saying I am better than these people. Being the fantasy sports gambling addict that I am, I have in the past had as many as 13 brackets going with more than $50 paid into the kitty. I have completed brackets on Disney's website before. I am a junkie. I used to fill out brackets on the women's tournament as well as the NIT. I can say that two years ago my bracket was #1 in the world going into the Final Four, I finished #1000+ which got me nothing.
I am the type of guy who does watch college basketball anyways, but I also "scout" college basketball for tourney time. But what good does my immense knowledge of teams, players, coaches and game trivia when betty over there made her picks based on team mascots and who would win in a fight? Com'on if a catamount got in a fight with a tarheel, Vermont better beat Carolina... and don't get me started about the jaspers vs the governors.
as usual I am not offering solutions here, the Mellow Mushroom offered a bracket to dining customer this year with a $10,000 grand prize and also local prizes... what is this world coming to... I was hoping that this economic down turn might curb corporate dollars for something as unpredictable and pure as the college athletics, but maybe I'll have to wait til next year for that one.
oh yeah Gonzaga is in Spokane, Washington. There are two Rebels (UNLV's Running Rebels, and my Ole Miss rebels.) And Krzyzewski is spelled with two 'z's a 'y' and a silent 'j'
Friday, March 6, 2009
cars hate me
i have borrowed my sister's extra car so i can try to be slightly more mobile in nashville... just my luck, as driving from cincy to nashville i experienced a problem with the idle screw causing the car to accelorate almost uncontrollably...
stopped in louisville to fix this. which turns out was really easy to do once the problem was explained to me. but there in creates the problem, if something is easy for me to fix it is conversely going to happen with great ease again. and it did just as i got to nashville...
then as i was leaving a job interview in murfreesboro, the car refused to maintain idle so i assumed that i had loosened the screw too much... nope i was just out of gas... oh yeah another quirk of this car is the gas needle jumps around at random (when i filled the tank up the needle read half full. shortly there after it went to the refill line and then to 3/4 full)... so i bought a gas can and put one gallon of gas in it, this cost $13!! man they had me over a barrel there (when i put the one gallon of gas in the car the needle red 1/2full)
well that seems to be the only problems i have with this car... oh yeah it cant go more than 65 mph on any hill and the radio cuts in and out with a loud buzzing no matter the volume level...
the price i pay to travel
stopped in louisville to fix this. which turns out was really easy to do once the problem was explained to me. but there in creates the problem, if something is easy for me to fix it is conversely going to happen with great ease again. and it did just as i got to nashville...
then as i was leaving a job interview in murfreesboro, the car refused to maintain idle so i assumed that i had loosened the screw too much... nope i was just out of gas... oh yeah another quirk of this car is the gas needle jumps around at random (when i filled the tank up the needle read half full. shortly there after it went to the refill line and then to 3/4 full)... so i bought a gas can and put one gallon of gas in it, this cost $13!! man they had me over a barrel there (when i put the one gallon of gas in the car the needle red 1/2full)
well that seems to be the only problems i have with this car... oh yeah it cant go more than 65 mph on any hill and the radio cuts in and out with a loud buzzing no matter the volume level...
the price i pay to travel
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
