Sunday, August 31, 2003
Saturday, August 30, 2003
Random bits.
This is just further proof that shoplifting at Ray's Music Exchange is a bad idea.
This is just a bonus I could never write:
Name these backup and emergency catchers arrested in Pittsburgh's Strip District.
(Baseballprimer beats me to it (item 5).)
Evolution takes place in strange ways. The lesson drawn from this article: There are pirahnas are eating healthier than you. Either that or pirahnas are coming up with fusion cuisine. Human ceviche, anyone?
This just ticked me off, for several reasons. First it's a bad idea for a cover version. Second, the article just can't decide exactly who is narrating this. Finally, there's a fundamental problem with remaking this under these premises. I assume that if they've only done a new ending as this article says, a major point of this story becomes "Wolves will eat your friends (e.g. the duck, aka 'prey'), but because we're nice, we'll let him go so he can do natural predator things, like eat your other friends." Good luck getting your kids to sleep after they figure out that line of reasoning.
Okay, now that Craig has placed a couple teasers of the draft, I probably should explain. (For those of you who don't understand fantasy football's appeal, I would note this article. Especially item 4, which is surprisingly adaptable to quiz bowl.)
Round 1. Clinton Portis
I had the third pick, and I figured I was going to have the choice of one of four guys, Tomlinson, Ricky Williams, Priest Holmes or Portis. Of those I figured I'd have to choose between Holmes or Portis. Brian took Tomlinson, and JQ grabbed Priest, I hadn't figured on having the option of Williams, but I kinda liked Portis better anyway.
Round 2. Eddie George
Round 3. Plaxico Burress
Upon reflection, I botched these two picks. I had one goal for myself coming into the early rounds. I wanted to pick up Hines Ward. I picked him up in the 8th round last year, and between him and Marvin Harrison, they propelled me to the final game. So at the 26th pick, I thought about taking him. But I figured that he wasn't quite the fourth wideout available. I should have thought that, after all, I valued Hines and Plex about equal. The only real difference this, statwise, should be that Hines is going to pick up about 100 yards passing, and probably 2 or 3 two-point conversions (these count in our league). I thought I valued him higher than anyone else would. So I grabbed the next best running back available, figuring I'd get Hines at the 31st pick. Bad idea. If I had picked up Hines, George would have probably been available at 31. A small loss for me, but it ground on me for a couple rounds. Either way, I was sort of happy to get George, just so I could do the David Byrne huge suit jokes. (A staple of Sunday afternoon commentary. After getting his bell rung in a collision, Eddie George sits on the bench wearing a Titans jacket that ends up looking ridiculously huge on him. Joe begins "You may find yourself sitting in a shotgun formation. You may find yourself sitting on the bench, and you may find yourself in a large stadium, with a beautiful field, and a beautiful sky, and you may ask yourself 'How did I get here?'" Eddie's been marked for life by that. The fact that any Eddie George fumble can be followed with "and you may say to yourself 'my God, what have I done?'" doesn't hurt.)
Round 4. Keyshawn Johnson
Round 5. Jerry Porter
There was a hard, hard, run on wideouts at this point by the time it came back to me, and the good tight end options were also gone. Since there were still a lot of good QB's available (more good ones than people who hadn't drafted, I figured I could take the risk. I wasn't caring about the lesser positions (TE, K, D). I needed to nail down good performance at at least two of the big 3 positions, I had RB, and I thought I needed a better #3 WR than anyone else to nail that down. I was still pressing.
Round 6. Steve McNair
Round 7. Matt Hasselbeck
Good bet, Mr. Kidder. I was not expecting those two to be sitting there. I almost think that the Titans and Seahawks are like the Brewers in the late 80's, so inconspicuous you forget the teams are there. There were three available QB's that I didn't feel bad about having at that point. McNair I figured was the best of the three, and I figured I'd have a good shot at having my backup be Tommy Maddox. When Brian once again took a Steeler out from under me, I felt angry for a second, then realized, "Wait a sec, you had both McNair and Hasselbeck in your top 10, and you're angry? Schmuck."
At this point, I think I was half in the bag (of Reese's Pieces), I was not drafting according to my plan. Now that I had my starting positions in the big slots, I starting playing stupid, figuring I could pick and still get the ones I wanted.
Round 8. Todd Pinkston
Good value, I guess, but I was compensating for what I thought were weak wideout choices earlier. I should have gone tight end here.
Round 9. Mikhael Ricks
Best available TE on my board (10th), in those previous picks I think I lost the 9th, if I had waited I would have gotten the 17th or 18th.
Round 10. Moe Williams
Round 11. Garrison Hearst
I was sort of sitting there wondering if I had made a major coup or major mistake in both these cases, Since it looks like both will start initially, I guess it's a coup for now. Incidentally, to answer a question for those who read Craig's account, what keeps the Zweibels away? Hearst of San Francisco, of course.
Round 12. Jeff Wilkins
I needed a kicker.
Round 13. Drew Bennett
I'm just lousy thick with Titans this year. I suspect he will be the first cut on my team, especially if he ends up the 3rd reciever. And he is the long lost Jane Austen character. As I quoted for Craig: "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a large vertical must be in want of a end zone." This was also about the point where we dispelled the notion from my previous post that Strong Bad might be a Steelers fan. Think about it: Evil, wears a mask. If he doesn't have season tickets for the Raiders, I don't know who else could. (Like I said, I was half in the bag of Reese's at that point.)
Round 14. NYG Defense.
When I typed this at first I wrote it as "NYG D", this became quite quickly "NYGD", then "NYGD Blue" If this hasn't been used by other people before, I think I need to set up some licensing agreements.
Round 15. Jay Riemersma
I needed another Steeler. I needed another TE. I needed a TE that didn't have that ominous NA superscript above their name in Yahoo.
So my lineup looks like this:
QB: McNair
RB: Portis, George
WR: Burress, Keyshawn, Porter
TE: Ricks
K : Wilkins
D : NYG
I like my theory of two big positions. I've got what I wanted on QB and RB, and I like my WR's though I think I've basically got a #1 and three very good #3s. I just get a bad vibe about Keyshawn. Is it good enough to win? I don't know. I think there are at least three teams that are better on paper in the league, but then again, last year I thought there were 5 better on paper.
This is just further proof that shoplifting at Ray's Music Exchange is a bad idea.
This is just a bonus I could never write:
Name these backup and emergency catchers arrested in Pittsburgh's Strip District.
(Baseballprimer beats me to it (item 5).)
Evolution takes place in strange ways. The lesson drawn from this article: There are pirahnas are eating healthier than you. Either that or pirahnas are coming up with fusion cuisine. Human ceviche, anyone?
This just ticked me off, for several reasons. First it's a bad idea for a cover version. Second, the article just can't decide exactly who is narrating this. Finally, there's a fundamental problem with remaking this under these premises. I assume that if they've only done a new ending as this article says, a major point of this story becomes "Wolves will eat your friends (e.g. the duck, aka 'prey'), but because we're nice, we'll let him go so he can do natural predator things, like eat your other friends." Good luck getting your kids to sleep after they figure out that line of reasoning.
Okay, now that Craig has placed a couple teasers of the draft, I probably should explain. (For those of you who don't understand fantasy football's appeal, I would note this article. Especially item 4, which is surprisingly adaptable to quiz bowl.)
Round 1. Clinton Portis
I had the third pick, and I figured I was going to have the choice of one of four guys, Tomlinson, Ricky Williams, Priest Holmes or Portis. Of those I figured I'd have to choose between Holmes or Portis. Brian took Tomlinson, and JQ grabbed Priest, I hadn't figured on having the option of Williams, but I kinda liked Portis better anyway.
Round 2. Eddie George
Round 3. Plaxico Burress
Upon reflection, I botched these two picks. I had one goal for myself coming into the early rounds. I wanted to pick up Hines Ward. I picked him up in the 8th round last year, and between him and Marvin Harrison, they propelled me to the final game. So at the 26th pick, I thought about taking him. But I figured that he wasn't quite the fourth wideout available. I should have thought that, after all, I valued Hines and Plex about equal. The only real difference this, statwise, should be that Hines is going to pick up about 100 yards passing, and probably 2 or 3 two-point conversions (these count in our league). I thought I valued him higher than anyone else would. So I grabbed the next best running back available, figuring I'd get Hines at the 31st pick. Bad idea. If I had picked up Hines, George would have probably been available at 31. A small loss for me, but it ground on me for a couple rounds. Either way, I was sort of happy to get George, just so I could do the David Byrne huge suit jokes. (A staple of Sunday afternoon commentary. After getting his bell rung in a collision, Eddie George sits on the bench wearing a Titans jacket that ends up looking ridiculously huge on him. Joe begins "You may find yourself sitting in a shotgun formation. You may find yourself sitting on the bench, and you may find yourself in a large stadium, with a beautiful field, and a beautiful sky, and you may ask yourself 'How did I get here?'" Eddie's been marked for life by that. The fact that any Eddie George fumble can be followed with "and you may say to yourself 'my God, what have I done?'" doesn't hurt.)
Round 4. Keyshawn Johnson
Round 5. Jerry Porter
There was a hard, hard, run on wideouts at this point by the time it came back to me, and the good tight end options were also gone. Since there were still a lot of good QB's available (more good ones than people who hadn't drafted, I figured I could take the risk. I wasn't caring about the lesser positions (TE, K, D). I needed to nail down good performance at at least two of the big 3 positions, I had RB, and I thought I needed a better #3 WR than anyone else to nail that down. I was still pressing.
Round 6. Steve McNair
Round 7. Matt Hasselbeck
Good bet, Mr. Kidder. I was not expecting those two to be sitting there. I almost think that the Titans and Seahawks are like the Brewers in the late 80's, so inconspicuous you forget the teams are there. There were three available QB's that I didn't feel bad about having at that point. McNair I figured was the best of the three, and I figured I'd have a good shot at having my backup be Tommy Maddox. When Brian once again took a Steeler out from under me, I felt angry for a second, then realized, "Wait a sec, you had both McNair and Hasselbeck in your top 10, and you're angry? Schmuck."
At this point, I think I was half in the bag (of Reese's Pieces), I was not drafting according to my plan. Now that I had my starting positions in the big slots, I starting playing stupid, figuring I could pick and still get the ones I wanted.
Round 8. Todd Pinkston
Good value, I guess, but I was compensating for what I thought were weak wideout choices earlier. I should have gone tight end here.
Round 9. Mikhael Ricks
Best available TE on my board (10th), in those previous picks I think I lost the 9th, if I had waited I would have gotten the 17th or 18th.
Round 10. Moe Williams
Round 11. Garrison Hearst
I was sort of sitting there wondering if I had made a major coup or major mistake in both these cases, Since it looks like both will start initially, I guess it's a coup for now. Incidentally, to answer a question for those who read Craig's account, what keeps the Zweibels away? Hearst of San Francisco, of course.
Round 12. Jeff Wilkins
I needed a kicker.
Round 13. Drew Bennett
I'm just lousy thick with Titans this year. I suspect he will be the first cut on my team, especially if he ends up the 3rd reciever. And he is the long lost Jane Austen character. As I quoted for Craig: "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a large vertical must be in want of a end zone." This was also about the point where we dispelled the notion from my previous post that Strong Bad might be a Steelers fan. Think about it: Evil, wears a mask. If he doesn't have season tickets for the Raiders, I don't know who else could. (Like I said, I was half in the bag of Reese's at that point.)
Round 14. NYG Defense.
When I typed this at first I wrote it as "NYG D", this became quite quickly "NYGD", then "NYGD Blue" If this hasn't been used by other people before, I think I need to set up some licensing agreements.
Round 15. Jay Riemersma
I needed another Steeler. I needed another TE. I needed a TE that didn't have that ominous NA superscript above their name in Yahoo.
So my lineup looks like this:
QB: McNair
RB: Portis, George
WR: Burress, Keyshawn, Porter
TE: Ricks
K : Wilkins
D : NYG
I like my theory of two big positions. I've got what I wanted on QB and RB, and I like my WR's though I think I've basically got a #1 and three very good #3s. I just get a bad vibe about Keyshawn. Is it good enough to win? I don't know. I think there are at least three teams that are better on paper in the league, but then again, last year I thought there were 5 better on paper.
Tuesday, August 26, 2003
I was all set to give you my fantasy football draftm and corresponding thoughts on the upcoming season, but this afternoon, the Pirates traded away the team. I don't mean it literally, but removing Brian Giles from the equation of the team pretty much changes everything about the team. For years the experts have said how good Giles would be with a supporting cast. Well, San Diego will now find out, and Pittsburgh will find out how it doesn't even have a supporting cast.
As much as people like to say that Giles has been the most underrated player in baseball, I don't think they quite grasp the level of truth in that. If we take what people claim as the most useful stat (OPS), and take Giles career numbers, he ranks 11th all-time. Look at who he's above in that list, that's frightening. (Thanks, Joe, for pointing that out years ago.) More importantly for me, he's probably the best Pirate in the past 20 years. (I easily grant that Bonds has been a far superior player, but the majority of his career years were as a Giant.)
Do I think it was a good trade? It's hard to tell, because basically, there's no way to compensate a team adequately. Perez and Bay look like enough to make it a promising trade for 2004. The PTBNL will tell a great deal. The majority are projecting Corey Stewart, some are projecting Xavier Nady or Josh Barfield, which I'd prefer, but doubt. Nady could sit in at third, and we'd really have something. Right now I'm guessing the 2004 Bucs will look like this on the field.
C: Kendall, Humberto Cota
1B: Craig Wilson(finally given a regular position)
2B: Freddy Sanchez or Bobby Hill
SS: Sanchez or Jack Wilson
3B: No clue, hopefully Nady, possibly Hill
OF: Bay, Redman, Tony Alvarez, J. J. Davis, Matt Stairs (He's basically volunteered to be the veteran presence on the team for next year. The only other choice being Sanders, who is going to be a free agent, if not traded.)
I gotta admit it's a major rewrite of the lineup, and oddly, it sounds more promising than the opening lineup of several years past. However, they are going to a major learning curve, and it's going to hurt bad. The pitching will be less worrisome, we've got that coming through the pipeline in spades right now, and 2004 is supposed to be when the first batch of pitchers reaches the majors. So it's rebuilding again. We're used to it.
As much as people like to say that Giles has been the most underrated player in baseball, I don't think they quite grasp the level of truth in that. If we take what people claim as the most useful stat (OPS), and take Giles career numbers, he ranks 11th all-time. Look at who he's above in that list, that's frightening. (Thanks, Joe, for pointing that out years ago.) More importantly for me, he's probably the best Pirate in the past 20 years. (I easily grant that Bonds has been a far superior player, but the majority of his career years were as a Giant.)
Do I think it was a good trade? It's hard to tell, because basically, there's no way to compensate a team adequately. Perez and Bay look like enough to make it a promising trade for 2004. The PTBNL will tell a great deal. The majority are projecting Corey Stewart, some are projecting Xavier Nady or Josh Barfield, which I'd prefer, but doubt. Nady could sit in at third, and we'd really have something. Right now I'm guessing the 2004 Bucs will look like this on the field.
C: Kendall, Humberto Cota
1B: Craig Wilson(finally given a regular position)
2B: Freddy Sanchez or Bobby Hill
SS: Sanchez or Jack Wilson
3B: No clue, hopefully Nady, possibly Hill
OF: Bay, Redman, Tony Alvarez, J. J. Davis, Matt Stairs (He's basically volunteered to be the veteran presence on the team for next year. The only other choice being Sanders, who is going to be a free agent, if not traded.)
I gotta admit it's a major rewrite of the lineup, and oddly, it sounds more promising than the opening lineup of several years past. However, they are going to a major learning curve, and it's going to hurt bad. The pitching will be less worrisome, we've got that coming through the pipeline in spades right now, and 2004 is supposed to be when the first batch of pitchers reaches the majors. So it's rebuilding again. We're used to it.
Monday, August 25, 2003
Two notes on football.
1. People have asked me: "Hey, dipstick! My non-local sports team sucks! Could I become a Steeler fan?" After I contemplate answering them using the voice of Strong Bad, I say "You know, while we encourage Steeler fandom, we realize it won't be for everybody. And so, many tests and challenges will be placed before you." And when they ask what is their first test, I will point them to this website. You must listen to the holy voice of Myron, for it is the voice of the Steelers. (Okay, even we don't believe he did a version of Copacabana. And yet, here it is.)
2. I hate jumping off the Maurice Clarett fraught call, but it's pretty much run its course, and I'll quit while I'm ahead there. However, a new choice must be made. And between Duce Staley's impending trade and James Thrash's injury, I really have a bad feeling about this. So a two part question to you all:
Am I Fraught or Not: The 2003 Philadelphia Eagles?
and alternatively, since both were on the roster of my fantasy team last year, but it wasn't a keeper league.
Am I Fraught or Not: The 2003 Bridgeville Trolls?
1. People have asked me: "Hey, dipstick! My non-local sports team sucks! Could I become a Steeler fan?" After I contemplate answering them using the voice of Strong Bad, I say "You know, while we encourage Steeler fandom, we realize it won't be for everybody. And so, many tests and challenges will be placed before you." And when they ask what is their first test, I will point them to this website. You must listen to the holy voice of Myron, for it is the voice of the Steelers. (Okay, even we don't believe he did a version of Copacabana. And yet, here it is.)
2. I hate jumping off the Maurice Clarett fraught call, but it's pretty much run its course, and I'll quit while I'm ahead there. However, a new choice must be made. And between Duce Staley's impending trade and James Thrash's injury, I really have a bad feeling about this. So a two part question to you all:
Am I Fraught or Not: The 2003 Philadelphia Eagles?
and alternatively, since both were on the roster of my fantasy team last year, but it wasn't a keeper league.
Am I Fraught or Not: The 2003 Bridgeville Trolls?
Sunday, August 24, 2003
I was at the second of two weddings in three weeks today. I left wondering a couple things.
1. Since I hadn't been to a wedding in a couple years, when did we move from playing music from the Wedding Singer ironically, to doing it unironically? We need to mark that point for later musical stratigraphers. It can't be done ironically any more, after the first wedding this month used the Vice City soundtrack, displacing Mr. Sandler on the irony scale.
2. I'd like to assume there's something extraordinary about the Pittsburgh area, in that we can have the segue from The Steelers Polka to Kool and the Gang, and no one even blinks.
3. Sometime when I wasn't looking, the phenomenon of the music by which the new couple enters the reception, began to morph into the couple's own wrestling-style entrance music. (It's not quite there yet, but the two I've heard lately, The theme from Rocky, and Rock and Roll Part 2, clearly are on the path to that.) I'm just noting this, I'm not opposed to the idea of wrestling elements osmoting into other fields (witness my repeated support for incorporating the idea of the heel turn into other sports.)
4. If any of you who had a betting line at home: (See the Bill Simmons article.)
The cake won, the cake always wins, taking the toast is like taking the wind. Bouquet failed, the attractive cousin parlay failed, we passed 8:45, no crying groom, no puking, no Clapton, oh yeah fat guys, and no nasty couple fight.
1. Since I hadn't been to a wedding in a couple years, when did we move from playing music from the Wedding Singer ironically, to doing it unironically? We need to mark that point for later musical stratigraphers. It can't be done ironically any more, after the first wedding this month used the Vice City soundtrack, displacing Mr. Sandler on the irony scale.
2. I'd like to assume there's something extraordinary about the Pittsburgh area, in that we can have the segue from The Steelers Polka to Kool and the Gang, and no one even blinks.
3. Sometime when I wasn't looking, the phenomenon of the music by which the new couple enters the reception, began to morph into the couple's own wrestling-style entrance music. (It's not quite there yet, but the two I've heard lately, The theme from Rocky, and Rock and Roll Part 2, clearly are on the path to that.) I'm just noting this, I'm not opposed to the idea of wrestling elements osmoting into other fields (witness my repeated support for incorporating the idea of the heel turn into other sports.)
4. If any of you who had a betting line at home: (See the Bill Simmons article.)
The cake won, the cake always wins, taking the toast is like taking the wind. Bouquet failed, the attractive cousin parlay failed, we passed 8:45, no crying groom, no puking, no Clapton, oh yeah fat guys, and no nasty couple fight.
Thursday, August 21, 2003
Candy Not Everybody Wants
Two interesting bits on the theme of "Don't you marketing people realize you don't screw with a good notion?"
1. The folks at Life Savers have decided they don't need my money any more. They've decided to trample on history and kick out three of the Five Flavors, not coincidentally the three flavors I really like out of a roll. (The loss of lime is especially bad, because it's the best artificial lime flavor out there, I get a metallic taste from a lot of other ones, but lime Life Savers had it.) I guess I'm down to scouring the crappier vending machines for the Beech-Nut knockoffs. What galls me about this especially is the fact that the replacement flavors, Raspberry, Blackberry and Watermelon, effectively change this from Five Flavors to the old Fancy Fruit assortment. I think they got rid of Fancy Fruits because it wasn't hip enough, and now, it's back. And finally, did we really need both Blackberry and Raspberry, since between them and Cherry, the Watermelon appears to have been forced out of its natural red-pink position and into serving as the green flavor? Just ain't right, people.
2. Hollywood has decided that it's time to remake Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. On the surface, this would be incredibly bad. The second layer of this everlasting gobstopper is a little better, once you contemplate Tim Burton directing Johnny Depp doing this, that at least has a certain perverse charm to it. But ultimately the article takes a very bitter turn. They were actually contemplating Christopher Walken as Wonka... Now that would have been the stroke of mad genius this film needs. Yes, it's stunt casting of the highest order, but just contemplate putting your favorite Walken character tics into that movie. It works, doesn't it? The movie could have been utter crap, but you know Christopher Walken would have utterly riveting to watch doing that role. Someone in Hollywood actually had a touch of genius, and they mess it up. So close, and so far.
Two interesting bits on the theme of "Don't you marketing people realize you don't screw with a good notion?"
1. The folks at Life Savers have decided they don't need my money any more. They've decided to trample on history and kick out three of the Five Flavors, not coincidentally the three flavors I really like out of a roll. (The loss of lime is especially bad, because it's the best artificial lime flavor out there, I get a metallic taste from a lot of other ones, but lime Life Savers had it.) I guess I'm down to scouring the crappier vending machines for the Beech-Nut knockoffs. What galls me about this especially is the fact that the replacement flavors, Raspberry, Blackberry and Watermelon, effectively change this from Five Flavors to the old Fancy Fruit assortment. I think they got rid of Fancy Fruits because it wasn't hip enough, and now, it's back. And finally, did we really need both Blackberry and Raspberry, since between them and Cherry, the Watermelon appears to have been forced out of its natural red-pink position and into serving as the green flavor? Just ain't right, people.
2. Hollywood has decided that it's time to remake Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. On the surface, this would be incredibly bad. The second layer of this everlasting gobstopper is a little better, once you contemplate Tim Burton directing Johnny Depp doing this, that at least has a certain perverse charm to it. But ultimately the article takes a very bitter turn. They were actually contemplating Christopher Walken as Wonka... Now that would have been the stroke of mad genius this film needs. Yes, it's stunt casting of the highest order, but just contemplate putting your favorite Walken character tics into that movie. It works, doesn't it? The movie could have been utter crap, but you know Christopher Walken would have utterly riveting to watch doing that role. Someone in Hollywood actually had a touch of genius, and they mess it up. So close, and so far.
Wednesday, August 20, 2003
Sunday, August 17, 2003
It's late in the season, and we're out of the running.
I'm listening to the Pirate game, and Lanny Frattare (Pirate announcer) is speaking on how moving it is to have the pirate ship animation on Jumbotron (the one I mocked for the phrase "there be squirrels ahead") backed by the music of Carmina Burana. Never noticed that before. Then Lanny says "let's listen."
This is what happens when your method for getting a solid crowd is to bring the Milwaukee sausages come over to race the pierogies for Friday night, then the next day, trade sausage batterer Randall "Corndog with a stick" Simon.
I'm listening to the Pirate game, and Lanny Frattare (Pirate announcer) is speaking on how moving it is to have the pirate ship animation on Jumbotron (the one I mocked for the phrase "there be squirrels ahead") backed by the music of Carmina Burana. Never noticed that before. Then Lanny says "let's listen."
This is what happens when your method for getting a solid crowd is to bring the Milwaukee sausages come over to race the pierogies for Friday night, then the next day, trade sausage batterer Randall "Corndog with a stick" Simon.
Wednesday, August 13, 2003
Last night, I took a look at a book in the bookstore: Schott's Original Miscellany. It's small book that's gotten, to my mind, a surprising amount of publicity. (NPR and Entertainment Weekly both covered it in the past week, which is how I heard about it.) Apparently it did brisk business in Britain and then has done a decent deal here (It's in amazon's top 10). It's not bad, it's certainly got interesting material. Though I cringe when I see an entry that's labeled "Some..." or just one flag being described (the feeling of "why that or those, but not these?"), I did pick up a few things I hadn't known before, which really is the whole point of the book.
I think the interesting thing about it is that, when I was finished leafing through it, I immediately had the thought: "You know, if I were to list all the things that people have ever drummed out of quiz bowl, on the grounds that 'that's not quiz bowl', I'd basically have that book written." I'm not sure whether that's a credit to the book (in that it's covering things that are interesting, without being part of stuff we cover) or an indictment of what we do. The sales figures would indicate that there's an interested body of people, who enjoy this sort of thing. That tells me that those who bought this could just as easily be interested in quiz bowl, and integrated into the circuit in some fashion.
I see two approaches that could be taken. The first would be the obvious, take this as something to include in packets. While I think that would be fine when dealing outside of the currently established circuit(say building up bar trivia or the like in the quiz bowl format,) the moment you tried to bring that to the established circuit, it would set you up for flak. The second tack would be the notion that we could just as easily construct a similar book, based on what is the established "known in quiz bowl circles". There's plenty of material that would be interesting to a wider audience, and could be just as eclectic as Schott's work is lauded for. Now, if that's too much work, it could be done in a smaller size... Hey, don't we compile interesting information into convenient packet size?
It's up to us to make the opportunities we are presented with count. This book's popularity is an opportunity, it is highlighting a group of people who could enjoy this game. We may not quite know how to reach them yet, but it's important to know they are out there.
I think the interesting thing about it is that, when I was finished leafing through it, I immediately had the thought: "You know, if I were to list all the things that people have ever drummed out of quiz bowl, on the grounds that 'that's not quiz bowl', I'd basically have that book written." I'm not sure whether that's a credit to the book (in that it's covering things that are interesting, without being part of stuff we cover) or an indictment of what we do. The sales figures would indicate that there's an interested body of people, who enjoy this sort of thing. That tells me that those who bought this could just as easily be interested in quiz bowl, and integrated into the circuit in some fashion.
I see two approaches that could be taken. The first would be the obvious, take this as something to include in packets. While I think that would be fine when dealing outside of the currently established circuit(say building up bar trivia or the like in the quiz bowl format,) the moment you tried to bring that to the established circuit, it would set you up for flak. The second tack would be the notion that we could just as easily construct a similar book, based on what is the established "known in quiz bowl circles". There's plenty of material that would be interesting to a wider audience, and could be just as eclectic as Schott's work is lauded for. Now, if that's too much work, it could be done in a smaller size... Hey, don't we compile interesting information into convenient packet size?
It's up to us to make the opportunities we are presented with count. This book's popularity is an opportunity, it is highlighting a group of people who could enjoy this game. We may not quite know how to reach them yet, but it's important to know they are out there.
Monday, August 11, 2003
I'm going to thieve from Craig's page with this, but since it managed to combine so many things so perfectly. I am actually shocked, shocked I tell you, to find gambling going on in this establishment. Not that it really surprises me, when I think about it. It's pretty much the only restaurant in that area of Washington (ironically, next to the county courthouse), and it is the kind of thing that bars in the area do, since the state went hard after video poker in the 80s and 90s, and after the numbers rackets in the 60's and 70's. Obviously, given those trends, that means that sports betting will be available from the state around 2015. (After the numbers were shut down, state releases Daily Number, after the video poker crackdown, we're getting racetrack slots.)
Speaking of racetrack slots, I did my part to corrupt the youth of Ath..er..Washington. We did the Adios again this year. (My uncle's dealership does a promotional car giveaway for it, and dinner's free for us as a result.) As part of the festivities, we got three generations of the family on Fox Sports Pittsburgh, as cousin Austin made his TV debut (I was not on air, so don't mine your TiVo.) Austin also made his mark by drooling on my copy of the program. Lacking a better method, I took his advice and we dropped $2 on the horse upon whose entry he dripped. Given this was the only hit of the day for me (and it was a 38-1 hit) we'll take it.
Just go read Carey's bit on Arnold. I simply lost it on the second list.
Pop Culture Junk Mail points out that it's really easy to get a mondegreen out of Blitzkrieg Bop. I've attempted, on occasion to prove the opposite, that basically any lyric you want can be fit into the structure of Blitzkrieg Bop without compromising the song at all. It doesn't even have to make logical sense, just make sure the lines rhyme and jam the words in.
The example I always use for this is:
"Vaccinate a yeti,
Staple-ing a kitty,
PETA doesn't like me,
Blitzkrieg Bop."
(Open line again, fit the most random junk possible into Blitzkrieg Bop.)
This seemed like a good lead for what was a mother of all mondegreens for me. I had picked up a used CD of Dire Straits Brothers in Arms a week ago, and finally heard "Your Latest Trick" done outside of the live version. Suffice it to say, I really didn't have the lyrics down at all. Admittedly it's not the most coherent song, but somehow, what I thought was being said makes even less sense, but only upon reflection. To wit:
Not the Lyrics to Your Latest Trick
All the late night bottles have been struck
Between the Sitting Bulls and their beds
Prehistoric garbage trucks
have the city to themelves
They're calling out all dinosaurs
They're all doing the monster mash
Taxis down the hall
Are only taking calls for cash.
[Chorus is clear enough I know what's going on.]
Now my door is standing open
Security has laid back at last
It was only my heart you got open
must have had a passkey made out of glass
and there were rubbery insoles
and I played the blues (12 bars) down the Lover's lane
Never had the intelligence to use
twelve keys hanging off of my chain
Now it's past last call for alcohol
Last streetcar's been here and gone.
Landlord finally paid us off
Sitting jazz makin' anything at all
And we're standing outside of this one bar
Abusing a brick
Seems I finally come to understand,
Bottle's empty, man, there's nothing left.
I'm pretty sure some interesting psychological profiling can come out of this. Like how the heck I thought "rubbery insoles" actually fit in a song. And as for "abusing a brick"... I really don't know, and I really don't want to know.
Speaking of racetrack slots, I did my part to corrupt the youth of Ath..er..Washington. We did the Adios again this year. (My uncle's dealership does a promotional car giveaway for it, and dinner's free for us as a result.) As part of the festivities, we got three generations of the family on Fox Sports Pittsburgh, as cousin Austin made his TV debut (I was not on air, so don't mine your TiVo.) Austin also made his mark by drooling on my copy of the program. Lacking a better method, I took his advice and we dropped $2 on the horse upon whose entry he dripped. Given this was the only hit of the day for me (and it was a 38-1 hit) we'll take it.
Just go read Carey's bit on Arnold. I simply lost it on the second list.
Pop Culture Junk Mail points out that it's really easy to get a mondegreen out of Blitzkrieg Bop. I've attempted, on occasion to prove the opposite, that basically any lyric you want can be fit into the structure of Blitzkrieg Bop without compromising the song at all. It doesn't even have to make logical sense, just make sure the lines rhyme and jam the words in.
The example I always use for this is:
"Vaccinate a yeti,
Staple-ing a kitty,
PETA doesn't like me,
Blitzkrieg Bop."
(Open line again, fit the most random junk possible into Blitzkrieg Bop.)
This seemed like a good lead for what was a mother of all mondegreens for me. I had picked up a used CD of Dire Straits Brothers in Arms a week ago, and finally heard "Your Latest Trick" done outside of the live version. Suffice it to say, I really didn't have the lyrics down at all. Admittedly it's not the most coherent song, but somehow, what I thought was being said makes even less sense, but only upon reflection. To wit:
Not the Lyrics to Your Latest Trick
All the late night bottles have been struck
Between the Sitting Bulls and their beds
Prehistoric garbage trucks
have the city to themelves
They're calling out all dinosaurs
They're all doing the monster mash
Taxis down the hall
Are only taking calls for cash.
[Chorus is clear enough I know what's going on.]
Now my door is standing open
Security has laid back at last
It was only my heart you got open
must have had a passkey made out of glass
and there were rubbery insoles
and I played the blues (12 bars) down the Lover's lane
Never had the intelligence to use
twelve keys hanging off of my chain
Now it's past last call for alcohol
Last streetcar's been here and gone.
Landlord finally paid us off
Sitting jazz makin' anything at all
And we're standing outside of this one bar
Abusing a brick
Seems I finally come to understand,
Bottle's empty, man, there's nothing left.
I'm pretty sure some interesting psychological profiling can come out of this. Like how the heck I thought "rubbery insoles" actually fit in a song. And as for "abusing a brick"... I really don't know, and I really don't want to know.
Friday, August 08, 2003
Mike took the notion from yesterday and ran with it. Nice to know I have my own forum goons.
Beverage alert: According to the folks at Money, Vanilla Pepsi is slated to debut tomorrow. I am very much amused by the next to last paragraph of this article:
DeCesso isn't saying whether the company will hire a new pop star as spokesperson for the brand, but it's a possibility. "I can't comment on that. You'll just have to wait." he said.
Watch this. This ought to be amusing. Knowing how carefully managed any sort of product release or advertising campaign is, the celebrity who takes this ad will be special. It means that they had to be told (perhaps in not such uncertain terms) that when the Pepsi target demographic thinks "vanilla," they were exactly what came to mind. (Okay folks, open line time, what celebrity would be the choice of a vanilla generation?)
Beverage alert: According to the folks at Money, Vanilla Pepsi is slated to debut tomorrow. I am very much amused by the next to last paragraph of this article:
DeCesso isn't saying whether the company will hire a new pop star as spokesperson for the brand, but it's a possibility. "I can't comment on that. You'll just have to wait." he said.
Watch this. This ought to be amusing. Knowing how carefully managed any sort of product release or advertising campaign is, the celebrity who takes this ad will be special. It means that they had to be told (perhaps in not such uncertain terms) that when the Pepsi target demographic thinks "vanilla," they were exactly what came to mind. (Okay folks, open line time, what celebrity would be the choice of a vanilla generation?)
Thursday, August 07, 2003
X gets the state
Okay, read this. The whole thing. I'll wait.
I hope I wasn't the only one to notice this but: If you lay out Arnold, Darrell Issa, Larry Flynt, Arianna Huffington, Peter Ueberroth, Gary Coleman, D. L. Hughley, Angelyne, and Gallagher, doesn't this less resemble a political race than a really bad week on Hollywood Squares?
I'm half inclined to think that, with the number of candidates fighting for recognition, this would be the most effective method of processing them all: nine at a time. Everybody can do their little shtick for the voters: "Whatcha' talkin about, Willis", "Protected by VIPER", smashing a melon painted to look like the State House Rotunda... They then get their question and the voting public gets to agree or disagree.
At this point, I think we've officially reached the point where a candidate from the Official Monster Raving Loony Party would be seen reasonable.
Meanwhile, the budget crisis in Pennsylvania just got more tragicomic. If you remember me mentioning Mike Fisher's campaign suggestion that he'd lock the legislators in to force them to pass a budget (if not, here's me mentioning it.) Well, yesterday, Ed Rendell took a page from Fisher's playbook and suggested this as a method he'd like to try. Ah, bipartisanship.
[Update: Okay, Issa's out, so I don't get to use the Protected by viper joke.]
Okay, read this. The whole thing. I'll wait.
I hope I wasn't the only one to notice this but: If you lay out Arnold, Darrell Issa, Larry Flynt, Arianna Huffington, Peter Ueberroth, Gary Coleman, D. L. Hughley, Angelyne, and Gallagher, doesn't this less resemble a political race than a really bad week on Hollywood Squares?
I'm half inclined to think that, with the number of candidates fighting for recognition, this would be the most effective method of processing them all: nine at a time. Everybody can do their little shtick for the voters: "Whatcha' talkin about, Willis", "Protected by VIPER", smashing a melon painted to look like the State House Rotunda... They then get their question and the voting public gets to agree or disagree.
At this point, I think we've officially reached the point where a candidate from the Official Monster Raving Loony Party would be seen reasonable.
Meanwhile, the budget crisis in Pennsylvania just got more tragicomic. If you remember me mentioning Mike Fisher's campaign suggestion that he'd lock the legislators in to force them to pass a budget (if not, here's me mentioning it.) Well, yesterday, Ed Rendell took a page from Fisher's playbook and suggested this as a method he'd like to try. Ah, bipartisanship.
[Update: Okay, Issa's out, so I don't get to use the Protected by viper joke.]
Tuesday, August 05, 2003
I have been quiet, haven't I?
It has been by choice, but not really by design. Rather, I've had a lot of things happen since I got back that have been a drag on my urge to do anything. If I had taken them by themselves I think I would have been able to give them back as good as I could, but combine them in one continuous blast, and well, it laid me out. So, yeah, I've been down. Not depressed, and not any worse off, just lacking the will to document where the toes were stubbed.
Short form:
Too much work in the day job coming back from vacation, to make deadlines, which were immediately followed by firings (not me, but people adjacent). The night job just sucked up the remaining free time. The Pirates then made a series of very depressing trades, and then I had to attend a wedding.
I may go through parts of it in detail later, but not right now.
Two happy bits:
1. A completely unexpected arrival has come to my neighborhood. While leaving for work this morning I saw a family of wild turkeys walking along the edge of the woods next to my apartment. I had not expected that at all. I've become fond of the gang of turkeys at the parents' homestead, and knowing there are young (whatever young turkeys are called... turklings?) means I'll probably have a little flock to watch for the next year.
2. A got an early 30th birthday present. I can now remove Logan's Run from my Amazon wish list.
More later, this entry is really just a placeholder to let you all know I'm still working at it.
It has been by choice, but not really by design. Rather, I've had a lot of things happen since I got back that have been a drag on my urge to do anything. If I had taken them by themselves I think I would have been able to give them back as good as I could, but combine them in one continuous blast, and well, it laid me out. So, yeah, I've been down. Not depressed, and not any worse off, just lacking the will to document where the toes were stubbed.
Short form:
Too much work in the day job coming back from vacation, to make deadlines, which were immediately followed by firings (not me, but people adjacent). The night job just sucked up the remaining free time. The Pirates then made a series of very depressing trades, and then I had to attend a wedding.
I may go through parts of it in detail later, but not right now.
Two happy bits:
1. A completely unexpected arrival has come to my neighborhood. While leaving for work this morning I saw a family of wild turkeys walking along the edge of the woods next to my apartment. I had not expected that at all. I've become fond of the gang of turkeys at the parents' homestead, and knowing there are young (whatever young turkeys are called... turklings?) means I'll probably have a little flock to watch for the next year.
2. A got an early 30th birthday present. I can now remove Logan's Run from my Amazon wish list.
More later, this entry is really just a placeholder to let you all know I'm still working at it.
Monday, July 21, 2003
More notes from the trip (Days 4 and on) Again, please examine other articles on it before proceeding:
Something I forgot from Miller Park: Leaving the stadium, there was a band playing in the Biergarten as we passed, playing some pseudo-jazzy rock instrumental. At the same time, Ned Yost's postgame press conference came through a speaker. The result sounded almost exactly a track off of a Cake album.
Okay, Day 4.
Sioux City Stadium: I give great credit to the folks at the stadium for putting up with us. We asked if we could pick up some souvenirs. I went after another hat, this time with the letter "X" on it. I had the thought, that as an ultimate pranking of the world some day, in the tradition of human chess and giant scale Monopoly, I should try to arrange human Scrabble. (100 baseball caps, each with appropriate letters). The budgetary constraints, of course, kill the notion for me.
Corn Palace 1: Okay, Craig brought up the picture but I have to point out how much it bothered me. If you're going to what purports to be the Corn Palace, you would expect it to have, thematically, corn everywhere. The fact that the vending machine contents are predominantly potato-based, is incredibly disillusioning to me. Even if you grant them corn syrup (which I will), they don't even get to 50% corn content there. Yes, it's crazy, but it bothers me.
Corn Palace 2: They have a special exhibit dedicated to the farmer who has supplied them with different color corn for decades. This was the impressive bit for me. He has collected various strains from around the world and bred them to get them beyond yellow, and black, to shades of red, blue, and in development, orange. The whole design of the Corn Palace reminds me of my Christmas time job of sugaring cookies (where I end up striving for as much realism as the pointillism of crystal sugar will allow.) That this guy gives them the ability to shade their presentations with additional color means he gets my approval.
Driving across South Dakota: If it weren't for billboards, South Dakota would be amazingly bleak. With the billboards, however, it becomes incredibly amusing. I kept getting upset at the ads for "Reptile" Gardens. The first billboard I saw had a spider on it. The second, a rainforest frog. In fact, we saw something like 10 billboards for this, and it wasn't until we got within 20 miles of it that they even hinted, via pictures on ads, that they actually had reptiles.
Wall Drug: Much like the Disney oblasts and as we later discovered, Vegas, the Wall Drug staff have name tags that indicate where they are from. Very strange. I fulfilled another childhood necessity here, I collected patches for all the states I hadn't been in before for the trip. (Save New Mexico, which I forgot about.) As a small child, I collected these obsessively for a denim vest I had. Now I've got more patches than space for a vest.
The Badlands: Wow. I got involved in fluid mechanics in college because of how cool the patterns were, and because if I had tea in a glass mug I could watch the dynamics. The Badlands are another cool example. You can see where the air took away the rock, you can see where the water took away the rock. Very cool, but I still wouldn't want to live there.
Day 5:
Mount Rushmore: Giant stone heads are works of art that engineers can appreciate. Neoclassicism meets high explosives, I like it. Also it's very cool to see the slope of rocks that were blown off, and note exactly how large the trees that have grown in the waste have become, and how tenacious those trees must be.
Crazy Horse: I almost like this one much more, because it's still in progress. There's something very cool about the notion that I can come back in about 50 years, and point out to future progeny: "Yeah, it's still not quite a horse yet.
Somewhere in Colorado: We have perhaps the bleakest Mexican meal ever. I can't be sure, but I think the entire town was in the restaurant with us, and there were only four people there.
Nebraska: It's South Dakota, minus the amusing billboards. Carhenge WAS the high point.
Sonic in Fort Collins: Why couldn't this have been the southern chain to move into Washington County? (I don't really know if it's southern or not. All I know is in previous travels it's had the same ecological niche as Waffle House.) Green chiles on cheeseburger, strong. Coconut slush, strong, blue does not mean raspberry there.
Day 6:
The Guns Guns Guns Shop: What utterly made this was other sign that I missed photographing. A sign that said "Safe's Homeland Defense." It was almost like I was home.
Mascots at altitude: Man, we were whacked out. I can only blame lack of oxygen.
Boulder's Mall: The previous gold standard I saw for bad mall collapse was either Parkway Center Mall in Pittsburgh (lost all its anchor stores simultaneously), or Village Square Mall in South Hills (lost its anchors, and finally decided to close the interior of the mall, and only have exterior stores. It's doing okay now, but it was touch and go.) This was an amazing collapse. Not only was it larger than the other two I had seen, but this looked like it had taken out the center of town in the process.
Pearl Street: Certain things will irritate me and push me further to the ideological right. If you want an example, consider the sign I saw in Boulder at the pedestrian mall.
"BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH
BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH
BLAH MONEY BLAH BLAH
BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH"
I may have missed the count on "blahs" but I think I have the gist right. The last thing you should ever be when panhandling is be smug. Clever is nice, cutting through the bull of the transaction is nice, but I'm not giving you money.
Coors Field: I've now eaten sushi in two ballparks, in locations where I should know better. I can't argue against $1 seats. (even though it was due to us spending $50 at a Rockies store hours before, especially when it gave me a chance to add the letter V to my possible Scrabble game.) I can argue against the Santa hat giveaway. I called a quality seasonal pimp hat, sight unseen, because I realized how fraught and limited in usage the concept of velour finish purple cloth can be.
Leaving Denver: The 11:20 SportsCenter radio comes on. "Pittsburgh Pirate Randall Simon has been arrested..." Once again, a Pirate screws up, and does so in the most ridiculous, deranged, embarrassing, and yes, funny method possible. It's the reverse of Red Sox fans. They expect these things to happen, and can't rationally explain why they happen. Pirate fans don't expect these things to happen (who could predict this), but we certainly, immediately can trace why this happened.
Day 7:
Silverthorne 1: Good grief, Randall's on CNN.
Silverthorne 2: Combustion is harder than you would expect at high altitudes. But that doesn't make it impossible. An attempt to prove this generates my best line of the trip, mostly due to my delivery in the style of Travolta in Broken Arrow: "Can you please not light a fire next to the gas station...thanks." Very low-key, and with that, I just piled in the van.
Moab 1: We were all set to eat at a restaurant (not the one offering the finest sushi of the Utah desert), when we find they are not open for lunch. This despite them having a very clearly lit neon sign marked Open. Are neon signs not binding contracts in Utah? We never found out the answer.
Moab 2: Why are snow cones so good? I don't know. There is a fundamental simplicity in ice+syrup, but there's so much more to it. All I know is that I had my third and fourth snow cones of the trip in Moab, and with the temperatures in the low 100's I needed every bit I could have.
Moab 3: We spent most of the way to Moab arguing which route to take down to Four Corners and then to Las Vegas. Eventually we decide to ask the locals. The overwhelming response is, on the return trip, come back through Moab and go back to 70. It wasn't so much that the road was better, it was that if the car broke down, your bodies might be found. Nice.
Four Corners 1: The original plan for Four Corners was for US to play Twister there. 100 degrees basically killed that idea, if we had brought a Twister mat rather than the dots, we would have needed tools to scrape the mat off.
Superstition Mountains: I just want to note that it was midnight, the elevation was high, and it was still 100 degrees outside the car.
Four Corners 2: It occurs to me that the overwhelming message of the Las Vegas "What goes on here, stays here" ads is that Vegas apparently doesn't obey extradition treaties.
Las Vegas: The first thing we encounter in the lobby of the hotel is two people definitely acting out a financial transaction, complete with purchase of room, and an order of 7 and 7. Going up to our room, my only thought was "You ain't in Nebraska any more, Mr. Kidder, you ain't in Nebraska any more."
Day 8:
The Strip: The original plan for some point of the trip was a long walk up and down the strip. The first steps out of the hotel stopped that idea. It was 105 in the shade. Instead we drove up to a buffet for lunch. In spite of my efforts at our training buffets at Mitchell and at Moab, I felt I was woefully unprepared for this. Technically speaking, any buffet offers the best payoff odds in the casino. Still, I only went through 3 trips. The bit that amazed me was that I didn't eat a meal again until the next morning. The only thing I can assume is: they do pump oxygen in those things.
UNLV: The interesting bit about UNLV is that it looks like it isn't there. I mean, you can see the arena, but until you're actually on the campus, you don't actually see the campus. For that reason, I kept thinking of the old SNL sketch about Winston University, a school that doesn't really exist, just splits 50-50 with you the tuition money your parents give them.
Day 9:
The conference/tournament 1: I'm not sure what to make of the attendance. While it was probably below what the organizers thought it would be, I thought it was more than well balanced by the quality of attendees. Even better, I think it's a positive step in growing quiz bowl, beyond the what is now the circuit. Before we can reasonably expect people to flock to quiz bowl, we have to make sure they know we exist. Between TRASH's work in setting this up, Kevin's appearance, and Mike's Game Show Round, they know we exist, and they know we are people they want to come together with. Even better, the teams that had never played quiz bowl before did well, once they adjusted to format.
The conference/tournament 2: It's a weird thing, playing in hotel rooms. I always have the feeling the room is too crowded (air conditioning is not designed to support nine people at once), and I'm way too used to playing sitting in desks to get my positioning right. A slightly bad thing, I guess, but I can work through it. The other bit of that that was weird was realizing people were playing games in your room while you played somewhere else. That creeped me out a little, on either end. I didn't know whether I should use the rest room (I didn't) or if someone was looking through my stuff in my room (I'm sure they weren't, but it was one of those nagging paranoias that preys at the edges of your consciousness.)
Day 10:
The conference/tournament: Hey, we won this thing! Cool.
CBS: We spent an hour serving as a test audience for pilots and pilot ads for the fall season. I don't think my opinions will be well recieved by the CBS suits (in fact I probably voided all opinions from Pennsylvania for quite a while), but you might enjoy them.
On "Joan of Arcadia": "By putting Joe Mantegna in this show you are taking away time he could be spending working with David Mamet. Please stop."
On "Rock me Baby": "Oooh, baby pee joke, edgy. Do you slackjaws not understand the white-hot passion that Americans reserve for the loathing of Dan Cortese?"
On "Two and a Half Men": "Please take the gag writers from this, and give them an original concept to work with. This is just The Odd Couple with a kid, right down to the poker game." The other guys liked it a bit more than I did, because the gags were sharp, but I just loathed the concept. It felt pre-fab as all get out. The one really good character, psycho girlfriend, simply can't last long term.
Running around before our flight: There is no truth to the rumor I was carving obscene cartouches in the Luxor bathroom. That's a dirty lie. No that's not MY book on hieroglyphics.
Day 11:
Leaving Detroit Airport: Okay, we now have billboard ads styled like Calvin Klein ads, featuring Snuggle the fabric softener bear. That's some quality cognitive dissonance. I guess the ugly rumors about his sexuality finally got to him.
Overall, I enjoyed the trip, going across the country was something I needed to do once in my life. That said, I don't think I'd do it again for a long time. As for Vegas, I'll go back if they hold it there again, but I remain convinced that it's some sort of parallel universe out there.
Something I forgot from Miller Park: Leaving the stadium, there was a band playing in the Biergarten as we passed, playing some pseudo-jazzy rock instrumental. At the same time, Ned Yost's postgame press conference came through a speaker. The result sounded almost exactly a track off of a Cake album.
Okay, Day 4.
Sioux City Stadium: I give great credit to the folks at the stadium for putting up with us. We asked if we could pick up some souvenirs. I went after another hat, this time with the letter "X" on it. I had the thought, that as an ultimate pranking of the world some day, in the tradition of human chess and giant scale Monopoly, I should try to arrange human Scrabble. (100 baseball caps, each with appropriate letters). The budgetary constraints, of course, kill the notion for me.
Corn Palace 1: Okay, Craig brought up the picture but I have to point out how much it bothered me. If you're going to what purports to be the Corn Palace, you would expect it to have, thematically, corn everywhere. The fact that the vending machine contents are predominantly potato-based, is incredibly disillusioning to me. Even if you grant them corn syrup (which I will), they don't even get to 50% corn content there. Yes, it's crazy, but it bothers me.
Corn Palace 2: They have a special exhibit dedicated to the farmer who has supplied them with different color corn for decades. This was the impressive bit for me. He has collected various strains from around the world and bred them to get them beyond yellow, and black, to shades of red, blue, and in development, orange. The whole design of the Corn Palace reminds me of my Christmas time job of sugaring cookies (where I end up striving for as much realism as the pointillism of crystal sugar will allow.) That this guy gives them the ability to shade their presentations with additional color means he gets my approval.
Driving across South Dakota: If it weren't for billboards, South Dakota would be amazingly bleak. With the billboards, however, it becomes incredibly amusing. I kept getting upset at the ads for "Reptile" Gardens. The first billboard I saw had a spider on it. The second, a rainforest frog. In fact, we saw something like 10 billboards for this, and it wasn't until we got within 20 miles of it that they even hinted, via pictures on ads, that they actually had reptiles.
Wall Drug: Much like the Disney oblasts and as we later discovered, Vegas, the Wall Drug staff have name tags that indicate where they are from. Very strange. I fulfilled another childhood necessity here, I collected patches for all the states I hadn't been in before for the trip. (Save New Mexico, which I forgot about.) As a small child, I collected these obsessively for a denim vest I had. Now I've got more patches than space for a vest.
The Badlands: Wow. I got involved in fluid mechanics in college because of how cool the patterns were, and because if I had tea in a glass mug I could watch the dynamics. The Badlands are another cool example. You can see where the air took away the rock, you can see where the water took away the rock. Very cool, but I still wouldn't want to live there.
Day 5:
Mount Rushmore: Giant stone heads are works of art that engineers can appreciate. Neoclassicism meets high explosives, I like it. Also it's very cool to see the slope of rocks that were blown off, and note exactly how large the trees that have grown in the waste have become, and how tenacious those trees must be.
Crazy Horse: I almost like this one much more, because it's still in progress. There's something very cool about the notion that I can come back in about 50 years, and point out to future progeny: "Yeah, it's still not quite a horse yet.
Somewhere in Colorado: We have perhaps the bleakest Mexican meal ever. I can't be sure, but I think the entire town was in the restaurant with us, and there were only four people there.
Nebraska: It's South Dakota, minus the amusing billboards. Carhenge WAS the high point.
Sonic in Fort Collins: Why couldn't this have been the southern chain to move into Washington County? (I don't really know if it's southern or not. All I know is in previous travels it's had the same ecological niche as Waffle House.) Green chiles on cheeseburger, strong. Coconut slush, strong, blue does not mean raspberry there.
Day 6:
The Guns Guns Guns Shop: What utterly made this was other sign that I missed photographing. A sign that said "Safe's Homeland Defense." It was almost like I was home.
Mascots at altitude: Man, we were whacked out. I can only blame lack of oxygen.
Boulder's Mall: The previous gold standard I saw for bad mall collapse was either Parkway Center Mall in Pittsburgh (lost all its anchor stores simultaneously), or Village Square Mall in South Hills (lost its anchors, and finally decided to close the interior of the mall, and only have exterior stores. It's doing okay now, but it was touch and go.) This was an amazing collapse. Not only was it larger than the other two I had seen, but this looked like it had taken out the center of town in the process.
Pearl Street: Certain things will irritate me and push me further to the ideological right. If you want an example, consider the sign I saw in Boulder at the pedestrian mall.
"BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH
BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH
BLAH MONEY BLAH BLAH
BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH"
I may have missed the count on "blahs" but I think I have the gist right. The last thing you should ever be when panhandling is be smug. Clever is nice, cutting through the bull of the transaction is nice, but I'm not giving you money.
Coors Field: I've now eaten sushi in two ballparks, in locations where I should know better. I can't argue against $1 seats. (even though it was due to us spending $50 at a Rockies store hours before, especially when it gave me a chance to add the letter V to my possible Scrabble game.) I can argue against the Santa hat giveaway. I called a quality seasonal pimp hat, sight unseen, because I realized how fraught and limited in usage the concept of velour finish purple cloth can be.
Leaving Denver: The 11:20 SportsCenter radio comes on. "Pittsburgh Pirate Randall Simon has been arrested..." Once again, a Pirate screws up, and does so in the most ridiculous, deranged, embarrassing, and yes, funny method possible. It's the reverse of Red Sox fans. They expect these things to happen, and can't rationally explain why they happen. Pirate fans don't expect these things to happen (who could predict this), but we certainly, immediately can trace why this happened.
Day 7:
Silverthorne 1: Good grief, Randall's on CNN.
Silverthorne 2: Combustion is harder than you would expect at high altitudes. But that doesn't make it impossible. An attempt to prove this generates my best line of the trip, mostly due to my delivery in the style of Travolta in Broken Arrow: "Can you please not light a fire next to the gas station...thanks." Very low-key, and with that, I just piled in the van.
Moab 1: We were all set to eat at a restaurant (not the one offering the finest sushi of the Utah desert), when we find they are not open for lunch. This despite them having a very clearly lit neon sign marked Open. Are neon signs not binding contracts in Utah? We never found out the answer.
Moab 2: Why are snow cones so good? I don't know. There is a fundamental simplicity in ice+syrup, but there's so much more to it. All I know is that I had my third and fourth snow cones of the trip in Moab, and with the temperatures in the low 100's I needed every bit I could have.
Moab 3: We spent most of the way to Moab arguing which route to take down to Four Corners and then to Las Vegas. Eventually we decide to ask the locals. The overwhelming response is, on the return trip, come back through Moab and go back to 70. It wasn't so much that the road was better, it was that if the car broke down, your bodies might be found. Nice.
Four Corners 1: The original plan for Four Corners was for US to play Twister there. 100 degrees basically killed that idea, if we had brought a Twister mat rather than the dots, we would have needed tools to scrape the mat off.
Superstition Mountains: I just want to note that it was midnight, the elevation was high, and it was still 100 degrees outside the car.
Four Corners 2: It occurs to me that the overwhelming message of the Las Vegas "What goes on here, stays here" ads is that Vegas apparently doesn't obey extradition treaties.
Las Vegas: The first thing we encounter in the lobby of the hotel is two people definitely acting out a financial transaction, complete with purchase of room, and an order of 7 and 7. Going up to our room, my only thought was "You ain't in Nebraska any more, Mr. Kidder, you ain't in Nebraska any more."
Day 8:
The Strip: The original plan for some point of the trip was a long walk up and down the strip. The first steps out of the hotel stopped that idea. It was 105 in the shade. Instead we drove up to a buffet for lunch. In spite of my efforts at our training buffets at Mitchell and at Moab, I felt I was woefully unprepared for this. Technically speaking, any buffet offers the best payoff odds in the casino. Still, I only went through 3 trips. The bit that amazed me was that I didn't eat a meal again until the next morning. The only thing I can assume is: they do pump oxygen in those things.
UNLV: The interesting bit about UNLV is that it looks like it isn't there. I mean, you can see the arena, but until you're actually on the campus, you don't actually see the campus. For that reason, I kept thinking of the old SNL sketch about Winston University, a school that doesn't really exist, just splits 50-50 with you the tuition money your parents give them.
Day 9:
The conference/tournament 1: I'm not sure what to make of the attendance. While it was probably below what the organizers thought it would be, I thought it was more than well balanced by the quality of attendees. Even better, I think it's a positive step in growing quiz bowl, beyond the what is now the circuit. Before we can reasonably expect people to flock to quiz bowl, we have to make sure they know we exist. Between TRASH's work in setting this up, Kevin's appearance, and Mike's Game Show Round, they know we exist, and they know we are people they want to come together with. Even better, the teams that had never played quiz bowl before did well, once they adjusted to format.
The conference/tournament 2: It's a weird thing, playing in hotel rooms. I always have the feeling the room is too crowded (air conditioning is not designed to support nine people at once), and I'm way too used to playing sitting in desks to get my positioning right. A slightly bad thing, I guess, but I can work through it. The other bit of that that was weird was realizing people were playing games in your room while you played somewhere else. That creeped me out a little, on either end. I didn't know whether I should use the rest room (I didn't) or if someone was looking through my stuff in my room (I'm sure they weren't, but it was one of those nagging paranoias that preys at the edges of your consciousness.)
Day 10:
The conference/tournament: Hey, we won this thing! Cool.
CBS: We spent an hour serving as a test audience for pilots and pilot ads for the fall season. I don't think my opinions will be well recieved by the CBS suits (in fact I probably voided all opinions from Pennsylvania for quite a while), but you might enjoy them.
On "Joan of Arcadia": "By putting Joe Mantegna in this show you are taking away time he could be spending working with David Mamet. Please stop."
On "Rock me Baby": "Oooh, baby pee joke, edgy. Do you slackjaws not understand the white-hot passion that Americans reserve for the loathing of Dan Cortese?"
On "Two and a Half Men": "Please take the gag writers from this, and give them an original concept to work with. This is just The Odd Couple with a kid, right down to the poker game." The other guys liked it a bit more than I did, because the gags were sharp, but I just loathed the concept. It felt pre-fab as all get out. The one really good character, psycho girlfriend, simply can't last long term.
Running around before our flight: There is no truth to the rumor I was carving obscene cartouches in the Luxor bathroom. That's a dirty lie. No that's not MY book on hieroglyphics.
Day 11:
Leaving Detroit Airport: Okay, we now have billboard ads styled like Calvin Klein ads, featuring Snuggle the fabric softener bear. That's some quality cognitive dissonance. I guess the ugly rumors about his sexuality finally got to him.
Overall, I enjoyed the trip, going across the country was something I needed to do once in my life. That said, I don't think I'd do it again for a long time. As for Vegas, I'll go back if they hold it there again, but I remain convinced that it's some sort of parallel universe out there.
Friday, July 18, 2003
Okay, Craig's given a good overview of the trip (Parts one and two), and Mike is about to unleash his version, so rather than give you 50% more Rashomon, I'll just add some footnotes. Please start off reading their versions, up to day 3 and come back here when you're done.
I'll wait.....
Okay, done? Good.
Day 1:
Before we leave the Ann Arbor-Livonia metroplex: The cooler (a former Honeybaked Ham container) begins to squeak loudly from rubbing on the back seat. I immediately respond with "What's that boy... Timmy's trapped in a walk-in refrigerator?!" This immediately starts the "name the cooler" competition. Winning entry: Caleb the Cooler.
Indiana toll road: What exactly is wrong with this picture? (update: Curse you, geocities!)
Gino's East: You can tell you're deep in sausage country when the options on your deep dish pizza are to have the sausage in patties or broken up. (For the record, patties is recommended, and it makes sense given breaking it up could release more grease.)
Miller Park: We need to remember to send this one to Page 2. Separated at birth: Wes Helms and John C. Reilly.
Driving through fireworks in the night: Dave had a video camera with nightshot. It will be interesting to see how similar the scenes shot in Wisconsin with nightshot resemble embedded reporter feed.
Black River Falls, WI, Super 8: The hunting lodge theme at the Super 8 was very cool. (One of my utterly botched shots was one of the bear towering over the lobby.) However, the really cool bit was the fact that they kept their pool running until 2am (a positively unheardof time). This allowed me two things I thought I'd miss out on for the Fourth of July: swimming and fireworks.
Day 2:
Breakfast: McDonald's. Sausage biscuit. This is the fourth meal I've had involving sausage. Must cut down.
Mall of America, The cereal snack store: Realizing I need to start eating healthier, I go with a snack with a Wheaties base. While this was my best option, the notion of Wheaties in a brownie form, marshmallow fluff binding, and a layer of chocolate icing isn't a long term winner.
Mall of America, Legoland: The amazing bit of the whole thing for me was not so much the giant statues, or the ingenuity of some of the designs, no, for me the two big things for me were the fact that you had benches made out of Lego. Structurally sound, but worn through in places from sitting.
Lunch: Arby's. The sausage streak is broken, but since I had the Chicken Bacon and Swiss, the pork product chain continues. In future we'll call this Hams across America.
Sioux Falls 1: The most amazing thing to me about the Sioux Falls Storm game has to be that the game was played on the same night that there was a Sioux Falls Canaries game in town. (The Canaries are Northern League baseball.) I didn't expect the two to be willing to conflict. I certainly didn't expect them to be willing to share the same parking lot. Yes, the arena and the stadium are adjacent. It appears that neither game suffered. Go figure.
Sioux Falls 2: They kept asking the fans at the Storm game to make some noise with their thunder sticks. Problem was, aside from the 5 or 6 sets dropped from a blimp in the arena, the only thunder sticks in the stadium were being beaten by a Bismarck fan.
Sioux Falls 3: Dinner, barbeque sandwich. Pork trend continues. Dessert: Snow cone. Sioux Falls breaks out real quality snowcones, I got Margarita flavor. Only problem is under fluorescent lighting, I'm eatin' the yellow snow. (Zappa will return later in the trip.)
Day 3:
Breakfast: Omlette, with ham. Streak continues. I totally befuddle a waitress in Sioux City by asking for hot tea. I'm not exactly sure what was so frightening to her about this, but for the rest of the meal our party is eyed strangely by the diner denizens.
Driving through Sioux City: At a stop light, we find a tire store which has made a statue entirely out of tire parts. Later, while stopping for gas, we find that they have made concrete barriers more weatherproof by wrapping them in strips of cut up tires. Conclusion: much as the ancient Sioux of the Plains used every part of the buffalo, the modern Sioux of the City use every part of the tire.
Rosenblatt Stadium 1: I understand it was 100 degrees, but if the crowd we saw was typical (three digits of attendance), they're in a lot of trouble.
Rosenblatt Stadium 2: By far the most disturbing mascot we encountered in our trip had to be the Coca-Cola polar bear. The reason for this was its method of interacting with the kids. First it would greet the child, then deflate its own head. Yes, the polar bear was an inflated suit surrounding its operator. So children would be greeted by this bear creature that would wiggle its ears by deflating slightly, then once it had the poor kid's attention, it would deflate it head completely. Once the kid is scarred for life by this behavior, pop it up to full size and move on. Creepy.
Rosenblatt Stadium 3: I bought a new hat, an simple Omaha Royals "O". My reasons: I could play games with people and my other hat on the trip, the Quebec Capitales "Q" hat, and swap them when people weren't looking. I also enjoyed the notion of odd letters on hats. I passed on some of the more interesting souvenirs: the angry O symbol on some hats, the Royals tarp crew shirt with the slogan "Shut up and Pull" (thanks, Craig) with the angry O dragging what looked like a distended colon, and a Warren Buffett bobblehead. Yes, I did say a Warren Buffett bobblehead, why do you ask?
Rosenblatt Stadium 4: Extra nice touch of the Omaha scoreboard: When the opposing team huddled at the mound, the scoreboard went to a view of a stopwatch and a digital count up of elapsed time. Excellent way to speed up the game.
Rosenblatt Stadium 5: Around the sixth inning, Craig went questing for a foul ball that had ended up in the right field stands. He attempted to get past the security people, and he did convince them to let him into the empty stands. However the ball had fallen down into a gap between the outfield expansion and the regular seats. He was able to see the ball, three drunk guys fighting over it, and a book someone had left behind. Ironically, it was part of the Left Behind series. It became increasingly obvious. Low attendance, surrounded by mascots behaving bizarrely, and abandoned books....obviously the Rapture hit Omaha. It was time to move on.
Lincoln: I break the trend up with Chili Cheese Fries. After Craig had fought the mascot (Homer the Saltdog), and I recorded the event, I went to get the fries and a Coke. After returning to my seat, I am surprised by Homer who demands to see the pictures, and sits down beside us. He reviews the film, including the fun with Omaha mascots, and leaves, apparently enjoying it. Five minutes later, I realize Homer has had his revenge; in sitting down, Homer passive-agressively knocked over my Coke while he had us distracted. Curse you, Homer! Vengeance will be mine!
I'll wait.....
Okay, done? Good.
Day 1:
Before we leave the Ann Arbor-Livonia metroplex: The cooler (a former Honeybaked Ham container) begins to squeak loudly from rubbing on the back seat. I immediately respond with "What's that boy... Timmy's trapped in a walk-in refrigerator?!" This immediately starts the "name the cooler" competition. Winning entry: Caleb the Cooler.
Indiana toll road: What exactly is wrong with this picture? (update: Curse you, geocities!)
Gino's East: You can tell you're deep in sausage country when the options on your deep dish pizza are to have the sausage in patties or broken up. (For the record, patties is recommended, and it makes sense given breaking it up could release more grease.)
Miller Park: We need to remember to send this one to Page 2. Separated at birth: Wes Helms and John C. Reilly.
Driving through fireworks in the night: Dave had a video camera with nightshot. It will be interesting to see how similar the scenes shot in Wisconsin with nightshot resemble embedded reporter feed.
Black River Falls, WI, Super 8: The hunting lodge theme at the Super 8 was very cool. (One of my utterly botched shots was one of the bear towering over the lobby.) However, the really cool bit was the fact that they kept their pool running until 2am (a positively unheardof time). This allowed me two things I thought I'd miss out on for the Fourth of July: swimming and fireworks.
Day 2:
Breakfast: McDonald's. Sausage biscuit. This is the fourth meal I've had involving sausage. Must cut down.
Mall of America, The cereal snack store: Realizing I need to start eating healthier, I go with a snack with a Wheaties base. While this was my best option, the notion of Wheaties in a brownie form, marshmallow fluff binding, and a layer of chocolate icing isn't a long term winner.
Mall of America, Legoland: The amazing bit of the whole thing for me was not so much the giant statues, or the ingenuity of some of the designs, no, for me the two big things for me were the fact that you had benches made out of Lego. Structurally sound, but worn through in places from sitting.
Lunch: Arby's. The sausage streak is broken, but since I had the Chicken Bacon and Swiss, the pork product chain continues. In future we'll call this Hams across America.
Sioux Falls 1: The most amazing thing to me about the Sioux Falls Storm game has to be that the game was played on the same night that there was a Sioux Falls Canaries game in town. (The Canaries are Northern League baseball.) I didn't expect the two to be willing to conflict. I certainly didn't expect them to be willing to share the same parking lot. Yes, the arena and the stadium are adjacent. It appears that neither game suffered. Go figure.
Sioux Falls 2: They kept asking the fans at the Storm game to make some noise with their thunder sticks. Problem was, aside from the 5 or 6 sets dropped from a blimp in the arena, the only thunder sticks in the stadium were being beaten by a Bismarck fan.
Sioux Falls 3: Dinner, barbeque sandwich. Pork trend continues. Dessert: Snow cone. Sioux Falls breaks out real quality snowcones, I got Margarita flavor. Only problem is under fluorescent lighting, I'm eatin' the yellow snow. (Zappa will return later in the trip.)
Day 3:
Breakfast: Omlette, with ham. Streak continues. I totally befuddle a waitress in Sioux City by asking for hot tea. I'm not exactly sure what was so frightening to her about this, but for the rest of the meal our party is eyed strangely by the diner denizens.
Driving through Sioux City: At a stop light, we find a tire store which has made a statue entirely out of tire parts. Later, while stopping for gas, we find that they have made concrete barriers more weatherproof by wrapping them in strips of cut up tires. Conclusion: much as the ancient Sioux of the Plains used every part of the buffalo, the modern Sioux of the City use every part of the tire.
Rosenblatt Stadium 1: I understand it was 100 degrees, but if the crowd we saw was typical (three digits of attendance), they're in a lot of trouble.
Rosenblatt Stadium 2: By far the most disturbing mascot we encountered in our trip had to be the Coca-Cola polar bear. The reason for this was its method of interacting with the kids. First it would greet the child, then deflate its own head. Yes, the polar bear was an inflated suit surrounding its operator. So children would be greeted by this bear creature that would wiggle its ears by deflating slightly, then once it had the poor kid's attention, it would deflate it head completely. Once the kid is scarred for life by this behavior, pop it up to full size and move on. Creepy.
Rosenblatt Stadium 3: I bought a new hat, an simple Omaha Royals "O". My reasons: I could play games with people and my other hat on the trip, the Quebec Capitales "Q" hat, and swap them when people weren't looking. I also enjoyed the notion of odd letters on hats. I passed on some of the more interesting souvenirs: the angry O symbol on some hats, the Royals tarp crew shirt with the slogan "Shut up and Pull" (thanks, Craig) with the angry O dragging what looked like a distended colon, and a Warren Buffett bobblehead. Yes, I did say a Warren Buffett bobblehead, why do you ask?
Rosenblatt Stadium 4: Extra nice touch of the Omaha scoreboard: When the opposing team huddled at the mound, the scoreboard went to a view of a stopwatch and a digital count up of elapsed time. Excellent way to speed up the game.
Rosenblatt Stadium 5: Around the sixth inning, Craig went questing for a foul ball that had ended up in the right field stands. He attempted to get past the security people, and he did convince them to let him into the empty stands. However the ball had fallen down into a gap between the outfield expansion and the regular seats. He was able to see the ball, three drunk guys fighting over it, and a book someone had left behind. Ironically, it was part of the Left Behind series. It became increasingly obvious. Low attendance, surrounded by mascots behaving bizarrely, and abandoned books....obviously the Rapture hit Omaha. It was time to move on.
Lincoln: I break the trend up with Chili Cheese Fries. After Craig had fought the mascot (Homer the Saltdog), and I recorded the event, I went to get the fries and a Coke. After returning to my seat, I am surprised by Homer who demands to see the pictures, and sits down beside us. He reviews the film, including the fun with Omaha mascots, and leaves, apparently enjoying it. Five minutes later, I realize Homer has had his revenge; in sitting down, Homer passive-agressively knocked over my Coke while he had us distracted. Curse you, Homer! Vengeance will be mine!
Wednesday, July 16, 2003
I'll recap the trip when my job stops dropping on me, (figure that to be Thursday, they set a deadline of 5pm dev freeze.) Until then, I'll just make the joke I've been making since this news hit. If someone else has come up with it before I got it to you, I apologize.
Randall, that's not how you make a corn dog. Yes, I know the recipe said "batter the sausage"....
Randall, that's not how you make a corn dog. Yes, I know the recipe said "batter the sausage"....
Thursday, July 03, 2003
Tuesday, July 01, 2003
Even money says this article won't net you two questions next year, but I find the names fascinating.
I had a magnificent ride going on my suck league team in the past month (basically rolling from middle of the pack to being within one pitcher inferno out of first), but in the past couple days it's all come crashing down. To wit, I've seen 20% of my active roster get sent to the minors. Jimmy Anderson, Ruben Quevedo, Brian Meadows, and the two that really kill me, Josh Bard, and Omar Infante. The last two really hurt as they were the majority of my offense of late (or lack there of), and most catchers and shortstops (being the two most valuable positions) have been snatched up by now. I've got backups, but I really need to solidify them before I go on the trip.
Joe mentioned the Ohio Valley Greyhounds game, but I do have to mention what I thought were a couple great punchlines for something. The first was an absolutely obvious offsides by Myrtle Beach, which prompted the response as the accused returned to the huddle: "Hey guys, the count was on two-and-a-half, right... right?" The second was when Blitz, the Greyhound mascot basically realized he had way more cookies to give out than people in our section. After he went nuts throwing cookies into the stands. We noted. "Everybody Gets Nutter Butters Night... sponsored by Oreo."
If you sum up my easily amusing faults, number one on the list (for me, at least) is that I am cheap, extremely so when it comes to myself. I absolutely hate to spend money on anything out of the ordinary, whether it's new furniture (still don't have the coffee table), books (Half Price Books is my friend), food, whatever. My key problem is I've got to be one of the few people who has buyer's remorse before even buying something. I become physically ill at the thought of spending. I don't know if it's the product of nature or nurture (both my folks have the same cheap tendencies, but I'm much worse), but it's almost to the point where it's annoying me. It doesn't matter the scale of things, I've gotten worked up about stuff costing $10. I can fight through it if I feel I'm getting a discount, but full price and I'm nauseous. This was what I had to fight through on Sunday. I got a digital camera for the trip to Vegas, but it took me a good hour just to work up the stomach to even consider the price. I drove around to five different locations, considered prices, wanted to puke, and finally got something. Not top of the line, just functional. So expect some interesting bits from the trip, maybe from the road, we'll see how it goes.
News from Vanadium Stadium: Element 110 is going to be called Darmstadtium, which incidentally will be where the Bridgeville Trolls NFL Europe affiliate will play next year.
Actual Quiz Bowl Content
1 Biography of Empress Carlotta
2 Definitions of how you derive curves from a base curve (part of the Famous Curves Index)
3 Plot summary of Cosi Fan Tutte (among others)
I had a magnificent ride going on my suck league team in the past month (basically rolling from middle of the pack to being within one pitcher inferno out of first), but in the past couple days it's all come crashing down. To wit, I've seen 20% of my active roster get sent to the minors. Jimmy Anderson, Ruben Quevedo, Brian Meadows, and the two that really kill me, Josh Bard, and Omar Infante. The last two really hurt as they were the majority of my offense of late (or lack there of), and most catchers and shortstops (being the two most valuable positions) have been snatched up by now. I've got backups, but I really need to solidify them before I go on the trip.
Joe mentioned the Ohio Valley Greyhounds game, but I do have to mention what I thought were a couple great punchlines for something. The first was an absolutely obvious offsides by Myrtle Beach, which prompted the response as the accused returned to the huddle: "Hey guys, the count was on two-and-a-half, right... right?" The second was when Blitz, the Greyhound mascot basically realized he had way more cookies to give out than people in our section. After he went nuts throwing cookies into the stands. We noted. "Everybody Gets Nutter Butters Night... sponsored by Oreo."
If you sum up my easily amusing faults, number one on the list (for me, at least) is that I am cheap, extremely so when it comes to myself. I absolutely hate to spend money on anything out of the ordinary, whether it's new furniture (still don't have the coffee table), books (Half Price Books is my friend), food, whatever. My key problem is I've got to be one of the few people who has buyer's remorse before even buying something. I become physically ill at the thought of spending. I don't know if it's the product of nature or nurture (both my folks have the same cheap tendencies, but I'm much worse), but it's almost to the point where it's annoying me. It doesn't matter the scale of things, I've gotten worked up about stuff costing $10. I can fight through it if I feel I'm getting a discount, but full price and I'm nauseous. This was what I had to fight through on Sunday. I got a digital camera for the trip to Vegas, but it took me a good hour just to work up the stomach to even consider the price. I drove around to five different locations, considered prices, wanted to puke, and finally got something. Not top of the line, just functional. So expect some interesting bits from the trip, maybe from the road, we'll see how it goes.
News from Vanadium Stadium: Element 110 is going to be called Darmstadtium, which incidentally will be where the Bridgeville Trolls NFL Europe affiliate will play next year.
Actual Quiz Bowl Content
1 Biography of Empress Carlotta
2 Definitions of how you derive curves from a base curve (part of the Famous Curves Index)
3 Plot summary of Cosi Fan Tutte (among others)
Wednesday, June 25, 2003
Even money says this story nets you two questions this year.
It's an interesting write-up of this, but I'm more disturbed by the possibility that going from state to state running petitions is a viable trade. I realize it's no different than political consultants going where the money takes them, but this just feels off, like it's the personal equivalent of letter to the editor astroturf.
And now a new occasional feature: Am I fraught or not?
The article (Yeah, I saw the Houma, and the Cloverleafs)
First subject: The American Basketball Association.
Second subject: Arena Football League.
Third subject: The National Basketball Development League.
Read the article, and tell me: Are these three leagues fraught or not?
My view:
ABA, Fraught: Two Mexico, and a Trenton, and the last time I thought about Trenton, I thought of the guy who was arrested for fraud, for embezzling from AmEx to pay for his indoor football teams in Trenton and Boise (yes, Boise.)
AFL, Not: This looks like a push really, and the adjustment to reality that balances out their good fortune in getting on NBC.
NBDL, Fraught: Bad mojo to lose your champions, bad mojo that despite being the preferred minor league that the NBA is supposed to draw from, the teams aren't looking at NBDL players first, and 25% of your league dropping is very bad.
Actual Quiz Bowl Content
1 Timeline of NATO
2 History of the city of Tokyo
3 The Battle of Shiloh
It's an interesting write-up of this, but I'm more disturbed by the possibility that going from state to state running petitions is a viable trade. I realize it's no different than political consultants going where the money takes them, but this just feels off, like it's the personal equivalent of letter to the editor astroturf.
And now a new occasional feature: Am I fraught or not?
The article (Yeah, I saw the Houma, and the Cloverleafs)
First subject: The American Basketball Association.
Second subject: Arena Football League.
Third subject: The National Basketball Development League.
Read the article, and tell me: Are these three leagues fraught or not?
My view:
ABA, Fraught: Two Mexico, and a Trenton, and the last time I thought about Trenton, I thought of the guy who was arrested for fraud, for embezzling from AmEx to pay for his indoor football teams in Trenton and Boise (yes, Boise.)
AFL, Not: This looks like a push really, and the adjustment to reality that balances out their good fortune in getting on NBC.
NBDL, Fraught: Bad mojo to lose your champions, bad mojo that despite being the preferred minor league that the NBA is supposed to draw from, the teams aren't looking at NBDL players first, and 25% of your league dropping is very bad.
Actual Quiz Bowl Content
1 Timeline of NATO
2 History of the city of Tokyo
3 The Battle of Shiloh
Tuesday, June 24, 2003
Fine meat products cloud my mind this day.
The thing is, one of my running gags, any time I go to a baseball game is the question of "how does the hot dog giveaway reach the fans?" Or "What kind of meat gun technology does this city have?" (The original joke was when a large group of Korean businessmen were introduced at the same time the classic air-powered hot dog launcher was employed, leading to the quote "The North Koreans are here to steal our meat gun technology!" I don't understand what it means either, as past information has told us they simply don't have the ammo.)
Think of this as Jane's Defence Weekly's Guide to Meat Gun Technology.
First, the elastic launcher. This was the method employed in Erie as part of the "Smith's Provisions Wiener Catch" (Incidentally, we need more firms to enter the dying "provisions" industry. I leave the double entendres to you the consumer) Classic, effective, but it requires three crew to man it, and it's range is rather limited.
Second, the air gun. They tried using this for Erie's T-shirts, but ran into the problem that it jams easily. Again, limited range, two man crew required.
Third, the Canadian Mobile Meat Delivery Vehicle. MMDV appears to be an adapted dune buggy or jeep, or possibly a bullpen cart, with a turret mounted on the passenger side, giving added stability to its air gun, allowing for increased muzzle speed, and target range. (Its resemblance to one of the vehicles in Halo may or may not be intentional.) The MMDV was first observed in Olympic Stadium in Montreal, and was also employed in Columbus.
Finally, we have reports of a gigantic tube which apparently can be raised and lowered for targeting purposes, located in the right field foul area of Columbus Cooper Stadium. This may be the first long range meat gun, possibly the first Intercontinental Ballistic Meatgun (or ICBM). More research is obviously required.
Much less effective on the meat gun technology scale was another promotion tried at Erie, and I'm just going to take it straight out of the program.
PENNSYLVANIA BEEF COUNCIL COOKOUT CONTEST
Two teams of two will be selected to compete against each other every game at the bottom of the second inning. One teammate will stand on the dugout while the other stands on the field. The teammate on the dugout will flip steaks using a spatula over their heasds while their teammate tried to catch it wearing over-sized pants. At the end of 30 seconds, the team with the most patties will recieve a prize.
Yes, folks, you have to catch the meat products in your oversized pants. Yes, they are not actually meat products, but plastic dog toys that look like meat products. Yes, that substitution in no way dimishes from the absolute mother lode of subtext this generates as you watch. Yes, this is apparently Pennsylvania's answer to Beef Quiz Bowl.
Finally, there's only one comment to this story. "I could have also accepted 'snacktacular'."
Actual Quiz Bowl Content
1 Timeline of modern Turkey
2 A history of Canadian Confederation
3 Biography of Andrei Sakharov
The thing is, one of my running gags, any time I go to a baseball game is the question of "how does the hot dog giveaway reach the fans?" Or "What kind of meat gun technology does this city have?" (The original joke was when a large group of Korean businessmen were introduced at the same time the classic air-powered hot dog launcher was employed, leading to the quote "The North Koreans are here to steal our meat gun technology!" I don't understand what it means either, as past information has told us they simply don't have the ammo.)
Think of this as Jane's Defence Weekly's Guide to Meat Gun Technology.
First, the elastic launcher. This was the method employed in Erie as part of the "Smith's Provisions Wiener Catch" (Incidentally, we need more firms to enter the dying "provisions" industry. I leave the double entendres to you the consumer) Classic, effective, but it requires three crew to man it, and it's range is rather limited.
Second, the air gun. They tried using this for Erie's T-shirts, but ran into the problem that it jams easily. Again, limited range, two man crew required.
Third, the Canadian Mobile Meat Delivery Vehicle. MMDV appears to be an adapted dune buggy or jeep, or possibly a bullpen cart, with a turret mounted on the passenger side, giving added stability to its air gun, allowing for increased muzzle speed, and target range. (Its resemblance to one of the vehicles in Halo may or may not be intentional.) The MMDV was first observed in Olympic Stadium in Montreal, and was also employed in Columbus.
Finally, we have reports of a gigantic tube which apparently can be raised and lowered for targeting purposes, located in the right field foul area of Columbus Cooper Stadium. This may be the first long range meat gun, possibly the first Intercontinental Ballistic Meatgun (or ICBM). More research is obviously required.
Much less effective on the meat gun technology scale was another promotion tried at Erie, and I'm just going to take it straight out of the program.
PENNSYLVANIA BEEF COUNCIL COOKOUT CONTEST
Two teams of two will be selected to compete against each other every game at the bottom of the second inning. One teammate will stand on the dugout while the other stands on the field. The teammate on the dugout will flip steaks using a spatula over their heasds while their teammate tried to catch it wearing over-sized pants. At the end of 30 seconds, the team with the most patties will recieve a prize.
Yes, folks, you have to catch the meat products in your oversized pants. Yes, they are not actually meat products, but plastic dog toys that look like meat products. Yes, that substitution in no way dimishes from the absolute mother lode of subtext this generates as you watch. Yes, this is apparently Pennsylvania's answer to Beef Quiz Bowl.
Finally, there's only one comment to this story. "I could have also accepted 'snacktacular'."
Actual Quiz Bowl Content
1 Timeline of modern Turkey
2 A history of Canadian Confederation
3 Biography of Andrei Sakharov
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