opening day

I really could care less about the games in Japan, or the game last night (MLB couldn't schedule a better Sunday night opener than Braves-Nationals?)...today is opening day. The beginning, for Cardinals fans, of a long hard fight to return to relevance. A fight that we don't expect to finish this season, but hopefully we can play some entertaining baseball in the meantime.

With the understanding that of the few people who read this, probably only one is actually a baseball fan, I'll be trying to offer an accessible view of the sport for the uninitiated. Sometimes, at least.

The starting line-up for your 2008 St Louis Cardinals...

1. Skip Schumaker, Left Field
2. Ryan Ludwick, Right Field
3. Albert Pujols, First Base
4. Troy Glaus, Third Base
5. Rick Ankiel, Center Field
6. Yadier Molina, Catcher
7. Cesar Izturis, Shortstop
8. Adam Wainwright, Pitcher
9. Aaron Miles, Second Base

Personally, here's what I'm excited to watch this season:

• Prince Albert's pursuit of yet another 30HR, 100RBI season...continuing his record streak
• Rick Ankiel's stunning transformation from stud pitching prospect to stud power hitting center fielder
• LaRussa's batting the pitcher 8th
• Can Izturis play his way off the team (please?)
• Same for Aaron Miles
• Will Wainwright be able to crack the top tier of NL pitchers?
• Will we see a healthy Carpenter or (more interestingly) Mulder?
• Most importantly, can we keep the Cubs from winning the division again? (I'm looking at you Milwaukee)

Any number of unforeseen storylines will develop over the course of the season. That's one of the beautiful things about baseball. Today is just the beginning.

one down, 2,429 to go...

Baseball season got started in the wee hours in Japan this morning. Joe Blanton and Huston Street didn't do my fantasy team any favors, with the former lasting only 5+ innings and the latter getting tagged for 2 runs in 1.2 IP for a lovely 16.20 ERA. Thanks, guys. One more game tonight and then we wait a week for everyone else to start playing.


If you've never discovered the joy of Threadless, you should head over and check them out. They have a very broad range of stuff, so its hit at miss for me but sometimes they have t-shirts that are just gold. This one here is entitled, "I love the (eighteen) eighties" and I just think its so clever that I had to share.

musical monday

Yeah, I took a few (ten) days off from blogging. As Dick Cheney would say, "So?"

I like music. I have a lot of it. I wish I had more time to listen to it. In my long absence from posting I've acquired several albums. Some are new, some are just new to me. So here, in no particular or coherent order, are some thoughts about the music I'm listening to:

Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward got together and formed themselves a little band, called She and Him. I've always had a soft spot for her (she was brilliantly cast in the sadly disappointing film adaptation of A Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy) and while her singing voice isn't going to blow anybody away, its produced well enough to create an engaging alt-country-50's sound that I'm really enjoying. It helps that they cover one of my favorite early Beatles tunes, "I Should Have Known Better."

If you're into the whole Lily Allen/Amy Winehouse superfad of British female rock/soul vocalists, then you'll no doubt soon be hearing (if you haven't already) music by Duffy (whose single "Mercy" could, sadly, reach "Rehab" levels of overexposure) and Adele, who's a little more mellow than some of her contemporaries. She doesn't impress me all that much, except that during a live set for KCRW last week she ended with an awesome cover of Sam Cooke's "I'm Movin On". You can check out her set here (skip to the end). For me, its up there with KT Tunstall's hoarse but rockin' cover of the Jackson 5's "I Want You Back".

I checked out a couple of artists whose songs have been used in commercials and then get stuck in my head lots. First is Earlimart, whose "Happy Alone" has been featured in the ad campaign for the new season of The Riches on FX. The song has a really strong Aimee Mann vibe, and I'm down with that. The album (Mentor Tormentor) is kind of all over the map sound wise, with "Happy Alone" being a bit of an outlier. I've only been through the album once. The jury is still out.

Next is the ubiquitous "New Soul" from those MacBook Air commercials. It comes from the French/Israeli singer Yael Naim's self titled debut album, which has so far held my interest. A fair number of the songs are in Hebrew, which is not something you hear very much. There's a cover of Britney Spears' "Toxic", which seems to be a popular thing these days. Its made a good first impression as a solid entry to the acoustic female pop genre, but nothing out of this world.

I'm also working my way through albums by James Combs and Cassettes Won't Listen, which were both KCRW recommendations. Haven't heard either in their entirety, but both seem like they might stick around in my library for a while at least.

the once and future joke

Last Saturday, in honor of my birthday, the radio program A Prairie Home Companion put on its (mostly) annual Joke Show. APHC is an American Institution, and an integral part of my own childhood and, for better or worse, sense of humor. Saturdays were (maybe not as often as Mom would have liked) house cleaning days when I was growing up and we'd have the public radio trifecta of APHC, along with Whad'Ya Know? and Car Talk as the background. This is undoubtedly why I have the sense of humor of a 60 year old.

One of the hallmarks of the APHC Joke Show is the "best" non-joke possibly ever told:

Two penguins are sitting on an iceberg. One penguin turns to the other and says, "You look like you're wearing a tuxedo." The other responds, "What makes you think I'm not?"

And thats it. Its not really a joke, when you think about it. Yet it makes frequent cameos on Keillor's shows masquerading as one. I've really got a soft spot for it, and was pleased when it showed up in Robert Altman's movie, A Prairie Home Companion. This movie, while flawed like much of Altman's work, is a really fine meditation on death. Its an appropriate finale to Altman's long, varied, and distinguished career. But I digress.

Does this qualify as a joke? I would posit that it does, in the same way as the penguin joke. There's not really a punchline, but maybe the absence of a punchline is, itself, a punchline. Either way, I love that website.

Its Friday. Its supposed to rain this weekend, and life is good.

a forgotten bit of history

I wanted to share a video that has apparently been around since 2004, and launched a TV writing career. Doug showed me this a couple weeks ago, and its just plain funny. Enjoy!

living in a fantasy

James really stole the best title for this post, just like he stole Ryan Braun. Sunday was the draft for my fantasy baseball league. My team, El Birdos, drew the 7th spot out of 8 teams, although the order reversed every other round. I'm rather pleased with how things went. My starting lineup is:

1. Prince Fielder, 1B, Brewers
2. Jimmy Rollins, SS, Phillies
3. Carlos Lee, OF, Houston
4. Adam Dunn, OF, Reds
5. Dan Uggla, 2B, Marlins
6. Chris Young, OF, D'backs
7. Edwin Encarnacion, 3B, Reds
8. Geovany Soto, C, Cubs
9. Rick Ankiel, OF, Cards

Ankiel is slotted as my "Utility" player. On my bench:

1. Chris Duncan, OF, Cards
2. Mike Lowell, 3B, Red Sox
3. J.R. Towles, C, Houston

Heavy on the NL Central, it seems, although that wasn't a goal. A quick lineup analysis of those players using their PECOTA projections shows that they would be worth almost 6 runs per game. Of course, they're not functioning as a single line-up. Carlos Lee was probably an overdraft, but if Adam Dunn stays healthy he could be a steal. I took a flyer on Soto, a green catcher on the Cubs but all reports are that he will be the starter, and PECOTA pegs him at a .921 OPS. Ankiel was a sentimental pick. I can't help but root for him, now I have another reason to.

My pitching staff:

1. Josh Beckett, SP, Red Sox
2. Joe Nathan, RP, Twins
3. Dan Haren, SP, D'Backs
4. Aaron Harang, SP, Reds
5. Huston Street, RP, A's
6. Francisco Liriano, SP, Twins
7. Jason Isringhausen, RP, Cards
8. Ian Snell, SP, Pirates
9. Adam Wainwright, SP, Cards

For pitching depth:

1. Joe Blanton, SP, A's
2. Gil Meche, SP, Royals

I think Blanton could end up being a steal for as late as I got him. Beckett's been having back stiffness, and I may have to sit him on weeks where they play 4+ games against the Yanks. Liriano won't do me any favors for my IP count, but for the 13th round could be a big boost for K's, WHIP, and ERA. PECOTA puts my pitching staff at a 1.28 WHIP and 3.72 ERA, collectively. We'll see how that plays out.

One of my favorite things about fantasy sports is getting to know players to whom I would otherwise pay little or no attention. It helps you develop a broader understanding of the league and the talent pool available. So in the coming weeks before the season opener, I'll be posting individual player profiles from my fantasy team. I feel good about how I drafted, and I think I'm in a position to do well. All I need now is a little bit of luck.

games people play

I decided to take some time off after the disappointing events of last Tuesday. Obama couldn't quite close the gap in the TX primary, and so the race continues. Sigh. In other news...

I spent the weekend turning 27, and celebrating this with lots of good friends playing games. There was Apples to Apples, Scattergories, Fluxx, Loaded Questions, and even Sorry, as well as some Wii fun. If you haven't played one or more of those, I highly recommend them all. Sorry is definitely more fun as a family game with kids, but it can be fun as a quick diversion. Loaded Questions is best played with a group you know pretty well, and can be made more fun if you write your own questions. Fluxx is best with people who aren't too rigid about rules and structure, because the rules are constantly changing. Scattergories and Apples to Apples are just great party games for large groups.

Thanks to a couple of good friends, I now have my own copy of Illuminati, which is a great card game in which you play as a secret society trying to control the world. I'm looking forward to getting some games of that together. I like that it only takes about 2-3 hours to play, which is considerably shorter than some of the more intricate strategy games my friends and I enjoy, such as Advanced Civ or Empire Builder. Also, it has a lighthearted tone and fairly straightforward rule set that makes it friendlier to those who aren't quite as "hardcore" as fans of Advanced Civ.

Sunday was also the draft for my fantasy baseball league. That went well and was a fun way to pass the time while I was recovering from the effects of the night before. I'll have a separate post on that later, so those of you non-baseball people (aka communists) can ignore it.

Its an absolutely beautiful day in SoCal. If only it could be a day other than Monday....

end it now

I'm a bit of a political junkie. Not to an unhealthy degree, but I enjoy reading political blogs, keeping up with the latest headlines, etc. So a drawn out primary season has been pretty interesting this year, especially with two pretty strong candidates seeking to make history. While I've been an unabashed Obama supporter since "The Speech" in 2004 its really only since Super Tuesday that I've started to lose all patience with the Clinton campaign. Between telling us which states don't count, telling us states that in fact don't count should, otherwise whining about wanting to change the rules in the middle of the game, being angry and self-righteous, or fear-mongering, she has done nothing in the past month to convince me that she cares about anything other than getting herself elected President. I look forward to the day we have a woman President. I think its long overdue, and would provide a welcome change in perspective at the top. I think that Sen. Clinton would be a more than capable President. However the conduct of her campaign has been underhanded, cynical, and critically shortsighted. I've no doubt, in fact, that the blame for much of this lies with her advisors, but in the end the candidate must be responsible for those they choose to advise them, and she has clearly chosen poorly.

It is time (in my opinion past time) for this nominating season to end, and for the party to unite behind Sen. Barack Obama as the Democratic nominee for President. Sen. Clinton has a large number of ardent supporters who will be understandably devasted by her defeat. It will be an emotional blow and it will take some time before they are able to be enthusiastic about Obama. Given the choice, however, between George W. McCain and Obama, I hope that nearly all of Clinton's supporters will be able to once again join the difficult fight for the advancement of Progressive causes under a new standard-bearer.

Now, today there are four critical contests taking place in Texas, Ohio, Rhode Island and Vermont. Clinton and Obama have both been playing the expectations game but there is a stark mathematical reality to the nominating process.

I was bored the other day and started to crunch some numbers, but CNN outdid me with an interactive delegate counter game. Its pretty neat. If you go play around with the results, the endgame of this nominating process seems surprisingly clear.

Essentially, there's almost no way Clinton can win the nomination without either scoring landslide victories today that totally demoralize the Obama camp and raise questions about his ability to "close it out", or subverting the will of the voters.

John McCain will be a tough opponent, for either Clinton or Obama. The longer the two most popular Democratic politicians keep fighting each other, the more time McCain gets to solidify his base and campaign for the presidency. We can ill afford to allow the infighting to continue and take a fractured party base deep into what should be general election season.

As I said before, it is time for this to end. Barring a surprise pair of wide victory margins by Senator Clinton, I hope she has the perspective and grace to concede the contest and continue her advocacy on behalf of progressive causes and the people of New York in the US Senate.

Apologies for the long post. I'm anxious to watch the returns, and see what happens after the votes are counted. So this is, hopefully, my last word on the primaries (although I doubt it).

who do ya trust?

Its looking increasingly likely that Hillary Clinton will win Ohio. But will it be enough to change the course of the campaign? More on that tomorrow.

If she does win, perhaps some will claim this video put her over the top:


A couple of observations, if you will:

First, this opens with a line from the Joker asking "Who do ya trust?". You know what he says after that in the movie? "Now comes the part where I relieve you, the little people, of the burden of your failed and useless lives." Huh.

Second, near the end of the video Col. Jessup says "There is nothing on this earth sexier, believe me, gentlemen, than a woman you have to salute in the morning." Now, there have been accusations of sexism on behalf of supporters of both candidates in this race. Some of those claims have merit, some are exaggerated. But I'd like to know how pleased Clinton's supporters are with this line being used in promoting their candidate. It gets better, though. The rest of the line in the movie is, "Promote 'em all, I say, 'cause this is true: if you haven't gotten a blowjob from a superior officer, well, you're just letting the best in life pass you by."

So Jack wants us to vote for Clinton because she'll kill us all and/or give us the best head we've ever gotten. If any Clinton supporters care to reject and/or denounce that message, lets hear it. Oh what's that? Her campaign will say almost anything as long as it gets her elected? Huh.

If that one's got you annoyed, here's some funny to make it better (although I'm sure You Tube will take this down anytime now):