Eau du SeanQ

Brief update from the Rat Factory

2009-01-17T01:28:00.003-05:00

There was quite a bit of excitement around the house this week, as we welcomed eleven new members into the family, in the form of a litter of hamster pups. My oldest daughter's hamster, Katie, whom we've had for close to eight months, is the mama, while my other daughter's new pet hamster Freddie is the indifferent father. Freddie was a surprise addition to the family just after Christmas, when the local pet store made my wife an offer she couldn't refuse ("Here, take it, we don't want it.")

Freddie came home in his own terrarium, which we placed side-by-side with Katie's so the two of them could see each other. A couple of days later my wife (whom I now refer to as "Heidi Meiss, the Rat Madam of Stratford") decided to dispense with formal introductions and see if the two animals would interact... and well, they got along just famously. I wasn't home to witness the conception, but I'm told it was immediate, inevitable, and obviously quite effective. Sixteen days later, all of the neighborhood kids who saw the show are now eligible for a souvenir.

If you know anything about me (or used to read this space in its former incarnation), you know how I feel about rodents, so you can imagine just how thrilled I am about this latest development. I'd been fastidiously avoiding looking at the brood, until finally earlier this evening Katie briefly left her nest and my wife and daughters prevailed on me to take a look at the litter. In all honesty, I was horrified. The pups looked like a cross between a pulsing brain and an Hieronymous Bosch painting.

The very bestest part of it all is that, in order to protect the group from feeling threatened by our two cats, the terrarium has been temporarily relocated to my bedroom. Which in turn means I have been temporarily relocated to the couch, since in my irrationality I refuse to sleep in the same room with them.

They will be ready to adopt out in about six weeks, so if you're local and just can't live without a little critter of your very own we will have one available, in stock, in your choice of color. Drop me an email or comment below and we'll add you to the list of recipients.

crackle taptaptap This Thing Still On?

2009-01-08T23:27:00.003-05:00

Shockingly, it appears it is.

I know better than to make promises, but thanks to Facebook I'm slowly getting into the mindset of wanting to tell a bunch of people what I've been doing. Add to that the pleasant observation that I have some interesting stuff happening in my life, things which said bunch of people might actually find interesting to read about, and some other stuff where I could use some dispassionate feedback. So I'm going to give this whole blogging thing another crack.

Subjects to be discussed may include my charmingly chaotic family life, my old musical adventures, my new musical adventure, my descent into a blob-like physical existence, my feeble attempts at reversing said descent, traffic, the Mets, fantasy baseball, lame attempts at humor and pathos, general observations, rants, raves, regrets, reminisces, recipes, pregnant rats and their pimps, winter storm warnings and the occasional limerick.

So it shouldn't be boring.

Varmints

2006-10-31T00:34:00.000-05:00

For you to truly appreciate the story I'm about to tell, you'll need a little context, which means I have to start off with an admission.

I hate mice. I hate looking at them, being around them, hearing them, smelling them, even the thought of them. I don't even care if it's the little fluffy white one you got from the pet store because your girlfriend couldn't stand the thought of someone feeding it to his snake or spraying pomade in its eyes, and now you keep it in an aquarium next to your bed and she makes you say goodnight to Snowflake every night before she'll even think of blowing you. If you bring it within twenty-five feet of me, I'm getting a goddamn restraining order. CANNOT. FUCKING. STAND. MICE.

I know exactly where this phobia is rooted, too. During my grade school years, my family lived in a house built on the side of a large granite outcropping (on, appropriately enough, Cliff St). In one corner of the house, the home's builders decided to use the granite hill as part of the foundation, in a room which became my bedroom. Not only was the house resting on the hill, but part of the rock actually came into the room itself. The builders decided that would make a fine place to put a built-in nightstand. So for years whenever a hard rain fell I would hear the water running down the hill into the crawlspace under the house. And for years, every night I would hear dozens of mice scurrying from the woods behind our house into the basement, inches below my head as I tried to sleep.

At least, I always thought they were mice. You see, we lived in a coastal New England town, not far from several marshes and the mouth of the Farm River. So these were no ordinary mice coming to visit, they were swamp rats. A few months before we finally moved away, I saw one of my scurrying pals in the basement window. Unmistakably a rodent, it was roughly the size of a dachshund. Our cat walked up to it hissing, and swiped at the window with her paw, and I swear I heard the thing laugh. I know I never slept soundly in that house again, the wonder is that I ever fell asleep again.

Fast-forward to my current home. Every year as summer turns to fall, we deal with an attempted invasion of field mice - this though there isn't a goddamn field within half a mile of the place. Two winters ago a couple made it into the basement through a crawlspace under our porch, and I would hear them scampering across the heating ducts during the night. After securely sealing up the window casing where I suspected they'd entered, I set about half a dozen traps around the place, looking over my shoulder as I did. Even the knowledge that we were dealing with simple field mice, and nothing even approaching the John Carpenter nightmare creations of my youth, could not settle my rattled nerves.

Eventually, we caught the two trespassers. I made my wife empty the traps. Were it not for a sympathetic jurist on the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, I would have lost all rights to my penis.

Which all dovetails nicely with my story. This fall, to my great delight, I've found I have another ally in the Mouse Wars... our new cat Pinkie.

In addition to being button-cute, sweet to the kids, and a warm companion to our older cat, it turns out Pinkie is a ruthless and coldly efficient killing machine. A few Sundays ago, as we returned from church, we pulled in the driveway to see Pinkie playfully leaping about our back yard. My wife was quick to share that Pinkie loved to chase leaves as they blew in the afternoon wind. I was quick to notice that it wasn't a leaf Pinkie was currently toying with. As I walked toward the cat, she picked up her prey like a sacred offering, and delivered it about five feet to my right.

It was only when I bent to confirm that she had slain the first mouse that I saw the carcass of a second in the exact same spot. Judging by the state of decomposition, she must have killed the other mouse a couple of days earlier. Beaming like a proud father, I grabbed a shovel, scooped up the two cadavers and, holding them several feet away from my body, tossed them over the fence behind my neighbor's garage and into their compost pile, making a mental note not to accept any tomatoes from next year's harvest.

About a week later, my kids happened to see Pinkie in action once again. I only found out when one of them raced breathlessly into the house and told me "There's a rat in our driveway." I tentatively followed her out to the spot where Pinkie had abandoned her latest victim, except this time the killing machine had not completed the job. Apparently they had interrupted her mid-kill, and now several neighborhood children were gathered around admiring her handiwork. Pinkie must have severed its spine, as only the front paws were moving, and it was panting and gasping for air. Obviously unable to defend itself, the terrified rodent's eyes darted from face to face as the kids pressed in.

Finally, I knew what had to be done. As I attempted to disperse the crowd, both of my daughters pleaded with me... "Is it hurt? Will it be okay, Daddy? Did Pinkie hurt it? Can we get a box and bring it inside?" "don't' worry," I said reassuringly, "I know a place to bring it where it will be just fine...."

And I grabbed the shovel.

"Go on inside with Mommy, I'm going to take care of the mouse." I herded them toward the back door, throwing quick gas-faces at the other kids again approaching the victim. As my wife opened the door, I said in a stage-whisper, "Don't let them watch."

"Oh, what are you going to do?"

"The only humane thing to do, I have to put it out of its misery."

She pointed to the shovel. "With that?"

"Well I guess I could run it over in your car."

She turned around quickly and called, "Okay girls, time to get ready for the bath," as the door shut behind her.

The rest of the crowd finally dispersed, I leaned over the wounded animal and told it, "Sorry, dude, it's for the best." I brought the shovel up about head high, and brought it down with gruesome authority.

**** CLLAAAANNNNNGG!****

I lifted the head of the shovel and peered under. I guess the mouse didn't agree with my plan, because now all four limbs were violently and rhythmically twitching, head jerking back, eyes dancing in its head. My reaction was, of course, abject horror. Fight and flight battled to a preliminary draw, with fight finally winning in overtime.

GAHHHHH JESUS FUCKING ZOMBIE MOUSE WHAT THE FUCK GAHHHH
****CLANG!CLANG!CLANG!CLANG!****

Ten seconds later, the mouse was reduced to a fine paste. I scooped up what I could, deposited it behind the garage, and hosed the rest off the driveway. Rattled, I walked into the house. My oldest daughter called from her bath, "Daddy, is the mouse gonna be okay?" And as I reached for the Jack Daniels, I gave an honest reply, "He won't suffer any more, honey, I promise." And I promised myself, next time that damn cat doesn't finish the job, I'm running it over and driving to the car wash.

Or sending out my wife.

None of this makes me want to buy ethanol

2006-10-25T11:10:00.000-04:00

I should read my spam more often.... These guys were trying to get me to buy energy stocks with this sales pitch:

The scooby snack teaches the tornado. Any lover can share a shower with the cloud formation inside the tomato, but it takes a real recliner to bury the moldy globule. A tape recorder seeks a sandwich. When you see the ski lodge, it means that the tattered customer goes to sleep. The underhandedly fractured mortician secretly plans an escape from a nearest industrial complex a fire hydrant, and the plaintiff from the cashier makes love to a carelessly nuclear tape recorder.

When a statesmanlike eggplant hibernates, an inferiority complex of a warranty trembles. The hairy crank case dances with an alleged sheriff. Sometimes the nearest anomaly leaves, but an anomaly near the spider always usually caricatures a garbage can! Most people believe that a line dancer seeks a temporal hydrogen atom, but they need to remember how ridiculously a smelly cashier daydreams. When a cosmopolitan grain of sand prays, a chestnut living with an industrial complex hides. A turkey daydreams, or the parking lot hesitantly tries to seduce another tornado living with the ocean. Another completely outer movie theater learns a hard lesson from a polar bear. A rattlesnake defined by a freight train recognizes the cab driver inside the avocado pit.
If a freight train caricatures some paycheck about another light bulb, then a freight train defined by the submarine procrastinates. When you see some hypnotic reactor, it means that a grizzly bear living with the cargo bay hibernates. When a hypnotic football team rejoices, a briar patch starts reminiscing about lost glory. A fruit cake beyond a bartender competes with the unstable polar bear.
When a cosmopolitan grain of sand prays, a chestnut living with an industrial complex hides. A turkey daydreams, or the parking lot hesitantly tries to seduce another tornado living with the ocean. Another completely outer movie theater learns a hard lesson from a polar bear. A rattlesnake defined by a freight train recognizes the cab driver inside the avocado pit.

MC Squared in the hizzzzzouse!

2006-10-18T10:01:00.000-04:00

My Halloween-themed guest strip is running over at Scribs today. I think I covered just about every possible pun on Einstein and relativity, but feel free tom add a comment if I missed any.

Joe Must Go

2006-08-08T11:41:00.000-04:00

Two years ago during the build-up to the Presidential elections, I remember having several conversations with my friends, wishing that we could move to Ohio or Florida or some other hotly contested state so our votes would have more of an impact on the election. Connecticut (and Massachusetts) were going to go to the Democratic candidate whether I voted for John Kerry or Ralph Nader or Krusty the Clown.

Fast-forward to This year, and Connecticut residents finally have a chance to cast a vote with meaningful national consequences. Presidential apologist and DINOsaur Joe Lieberman, the junior Senator from our fair state, faced a strong challenge in the Democratic pirmary from millionaire and political neophyte Ned Lamont. Not wanting to miss the opportunity, last week I formally changed my party declaration from unaffiliated to Democratic, and this morning I cast my vote in the Democratic primary for Lamont.

Coincidentally, the day I sent in the forms to officially join the Democratic party, the Connecticut Post ran a front-page article about the thousands of other state voters who had done the same thing. By the time the deadline for such changes came at noon on Monday, more than 10,000 citizens had either registered to vote as or changed their party affiliation to the Democrats. How many of them joined just to vote for Lamont is unknown, as voters will also be deciding a hotly contested gubernatorial race between the mayors of New Haven and Stamford.

Anyway, it's probably fair to say that my vote today wasn't so much for Lamont as it was against Lieberman. The interviews I've read paint Lamont as a thoughtful individual, more of a traditional Democrat. I also thought he held his own on the Colbert Report, and his campaign commercials mke him seem somewhat self-deprecating, and I appreciate a sense of humor in anyone, especially a politician.

But Lamont's personality and politics aren't what made me register and vote today. As the biggest Democratic shill for the POTUS and his war, Joe Lieberman has abandoned all pretense of princilpes and integrity. He abandoned his Democratic base back home to ingratiate himself with the Republican hawks, and joins them in painting all opposition to the POTUS as unAmerican and soft on security. AMERICAblog has Lieberman nailed in this post, how he can even call himself a democrat at this point is laughable.

I have a theory that might explain Lieberman's antics. Back in 2000, when Lieberman was tabbed as Al Gore's vice Presidental running mate, Gore's advisors told him his place on the ticket was contingent on one thing and one thign only: that once the election was over, he was never to publicly disagree with the policies of the President. Except those advisors forgot to say that only held if Gore actually won the election, and Lieberman being a man of his word, felt it was his obligation to hold up his end of the bargain anyway.

Lieberman himself seems to understand this, as Lieberman had already scaled back plans for a big get-out-the vote push, and grassroots reports from the polls claim his campaign is a nonpresence. None of this should come as a surprise to anyone who has followed this race, as Lieberman already said a month ago that if he lost the primary, he'd run as an independent candidate. That stance should also not come as a surprise to anyone who has followed Lieberman's political career. Back in 2000 when he was tabbed as Al Gore's Vice Presidential running mate, Lieberman still insited on running for re-election for his Senate seat at the same time. Assured that Gore would carry this heavily Democratic state, Lieberman knew that even if Gore lost the national election, he could essentially ride his own coattails back into the Senate. Had Gore won, then-Republican governor John Rowland would have been tasked to name a successor to the seat. In a Senate that would up deadlocked 50-50 between the two parties, that choice could have lost the Senate entirely for the Dems. Lieberman put his own shameless self-interests above the Democratic party's in 2000, and he'll do it again if he loses the primary in 2006.

As a Democrat for all of five days, I say, 'Good riddance.' And I look forward to the chance to vote against you again on November 7.

Scribs

2006-07-26T09:45:00.000-04:00

One of my favorite web comics, Scribs, went on an emergency, unscheduled hiatus last week. Hoping to fill the aching void left by the lack of new comics, I went ahead and created an unauthorized guest strip. Spinn was nice enough to both make a suggestion to make my initial version funnier, and then post the funny version on the Scribs site. So if you wandered here from the link he placed there... uhm....

Hi?

"I now pronounce you, orangutan and wife."

2006-07-15T00:21:00.000-04:00

Gay marriage has been grabbing headlines again recently, since courts in Georgia and New York issued a couple of rulings last week. Georgia upheld its DOMA, which defines marriage as being between a man and a woman, while the New York ruled that the state Constitution does not grant same sex couples the right to wed.

Not long after those decisions, someone (probably my brother in law) sent me a link to an editorial (which now, of course, I can't find) on the subject. The article led off with several quotes from politicians and religious leaders, about the horrible things that would befall the institution of marriage and civilization in general if these couples were allowed to wed. The twist, revealed later in the piece, was that the quotes dated back to the 1960s and referred not to gay marriage but interracial marriage, which was still illegal in several southern states until the Supreme Court struck down their laws in the late 1960s.

The obvious point the author was trying to make was that gay couples wedding would no more erode the concept of marriage than allowing interracial couples did. By drawing parallels to the hateful speech being used today by those who would defend and define marriage as between a man and a woman, the author expressed his hope that someday such rhetoric would sound just as ridiculous when applied to gay marriage as it does about interracial couples.

It only occurred to me later that in a way, articles like that editorial make a compelling case for the opposite argument as well. How easy would it be for someone who spoke out in 1966 about the harmful precedent the legalization of interracial marriage would set, to look at the gay marriage debate in 2006 and say 'I told you so.' "See, if'n you let a woman marry a nigra, pretty soon she'll wanna marry a nigra woman, and then she'll start eyein' the nigra woman's dog..." Of course, you'll never see any mainstream religious organization take credit for their prescience, so maybe it's time for proponents of gay marriage to remind everyone on their behalf. It's one thing to point out that the same things are being said today, but it's another thing entirely to point out that it's the same people saying them.

Talkin' Fantasy Baseball

2006-05-13T00:53:00.000-04:00

Now that the season is almost seven weeks old, I guess I'll finally get around to posting some information about my team. I'll run through the players in the order I drafted them, though about half of these guys aren't even on the current roster.

To give you a quick overview of how the league works, there are 13 teams consisting of 30 players: 15 active hitters (two each at catcher, first base, second base, shortstop, third base, and five outfielders), 10 active pitchers (any combination of starters and relievers), and five reserves. The teams compete in eleven categories, five pitching (Wins, Saves, Earned Run Average, Strikeouts, and WHIP [essentially baserunners per inning]) and six offensive (Batting Average, Homeruns, Runs Batted In, Runs Scored, Stolen Bases, and a unique category called Base Count [more on that later]). Each day the stats your team earns are added to cumulative totals for the season. Points are awarded in each category, with 13 points going to the league leader and one point to the last place team. The teams are then ranked by the total number of points accumulated in all categories.

Base count took me some time to get used to, it is a stat created for this league designed to give value to guys who get on base and have decent power, without overvaluing homeruns or batting average. It is computed as follows: BC = Walks + (2 x Doubles) + (3 x triples). The closest parallel mainstream stat to BC I can think of is OPS (On Base Pctg + Slugging Pctg), which also measures and rewards walks and power. Essentially Base Count is OPS with the homeruns and singles removed, and made more palatable for fantasy use by expressing it as a counting stat rather than a rate stat. A player with a good BC will average about one BC per game played; for a full season a 160 BC is roughly the same level of accomplishment as a .300 batting average. Last year I owned Brian Giles, who led the league with a 219 BC (38 doubles, 8 triples, and 119 walks). The all-time best BC belongs to Barry Bonds, who once walked 232 times in a single season.

The draft order is determined randomly, and reverses every round, so (for example) the person with the first pick in the draft didn't pick again until the last pick of the second round. I had the 9th overall pick, and with 13 teams in the league my second round pick was #18 overall. With that all in mind, here's the team I drafted this year. Again, many of the players below aren't on my team any more, but I'll save the details of the deals I've made for another post.

#1 David Wright, 3B, Mets

I was shocked to get Wright, as I'd been told the guy in the fifth slot wanted him, but apparently he'd traded down in the first round to the 11th spot. The first eight picks to me came: A-Rod, Albert Pujols, Vlad Guerrero, Mark Teixiera, Carl Crawford, Derreck Lee, Johan Santana, and Manny Ramirez. I'd drafted Wright in the middle rounds last year and he was terrific, and he's strong in all six offensive categories, so I was very happy to land him.

#2 Miquel Cabrera, 3B/OF, Marlins

Assuming Wright would be gone, I'd been looking at three names with the 9th pick: Crawford, Bobby Abreu, and Jason Bay. For the 18th pick I'd targeted Michael Young, Chone Figgins, Chase Utley, and David Ortiz. I'd planned to draft offense in scarce positions like 2B and SS in the earlier rounds, since the drop-off between the elite middle infielders and the league-average guys is pretty steep. That made Young and Utley my strongest choices. Unfortunately, in the eight picks before my turn came around again at 18, all six of them were chosen, leaving me scrambling for a pick.

Cabrera was by far the best player left on the board, so I had to take him. Coincidentally, he was my second round pick the year before as well. The problem is, he's also a third baseman. Worse than that, he's playing for the Marlins, who are essentially fielding a Triple-A team this year, having traded or lost to free agency about 80% of the previous year's roster. As it played out, he was only on the team for about a week before I traded him. Drafting two third baseman in the first wo rounds was definitely not part of my strategy coming in, so frustrated, I crumpled up my cheat sheet for third sackers and waited for the next round to begin.

#3 Felix Hernandez, SP, Mariners

Starting pitchers were beginning to fall off the board, so I went ahead and took my third-rated starter with my third pick. "King" Felix, rookie phenom, the heir apparent to Dwight Gooden, hasn't come close to living up to the advance hype, but I'm hoping he'll come around (even after he gave up 10 runs to the A's earlier this week... ugh).

#4 Derek Jeter, SS, Yankees

A few months ago I went into the fridge at work and took out a cup of Stonyfield Farms yogurt. I didn't realize when I opened it that the foil seal had been broken, and the yogurt had gone terribly sour. I scooped the first bite into my mouth and immediately every taste bud in my mouth went into DEFCON-5 High Alert. It was so bitter it was sharp, almost electric, as if I'd pressed a scoop of live 9V batteries against my tongue. I'd never felt such an urgent, awful sensation in my life....

... until I drafted Derek Jeter.

In retrospect, I never should have drafted him. I simply hate the Yankees, and last year I had a hard and fast rule, no Yankees were allowed anywhere near my team. I made a lone exception for about two weeks worth of a lousy Bernie Williams toward the end of the year, but otherwise I was able to avoid any pinstripes all season. As much as I hate the whole team, I absolutely despise Jeter - about the only thing I loathe more is hearing John Sterling call a Jeter homerun on WCBS (Iiiiiit is high! Iiiiiit is far! Iiiiiiiiit is GAAAWWWWWWWN!). As much as you can have a cry of surprise in a text chat format, one arose after I made the pick, as anyone who knew me from last year was in utter disbelief.

Anyway, I was blindly trying to get back to my plan of drafting scarce positions early, and 2B and SS were the two spots I most wanted at least one early-round stud. I'd drawn a line on my shortstop rankings demarking the really good players, noting a very sharp drop-off in talent below it, and Jeter was the last available player above the line. I tried for days after the draft to convince myself to get over my personal bias for the good of my team. I also rationalized that if I really couldn't stand having him on the team, I could trade him. I tried, I really did, but I could not watch a game and hope for the man to succeed... I wanted him to blow out his Achilles turning a double play. He lasted exactly one day on my team, until I essentially gave him away.

#5 Rickie Weeks, 2B, Brewers

This was probably a round or two too early for him, but I was still targeting middle IF players and I had him ranked very high at the position. I didn't draft any 50-SB burners, but a lot of guys like Weeks, players who will steal around 15 bags while not killing my offense in the other five categories.

#6 Joe Mauer, C, Twins

Just the second catcher drafted, after Victor Martinez. I sensed a run on backstops coming and decided to get my guy before it started. Also, catchers are as a whole a pretty anemic hitting crew, so landing even one decent sitck was a high draft priority of mine as well.

#7 Jhonny Peralta, SS, Indians

First off, that's not a typo, that's really how he spells his name. He had a strong second half last year as a rookie, and this year even if he regressed toward a league-average shortstop he'd still be valuable playing for a high-powred offense like the Indians'.

#8 Doug Davis, SP, Brewers

I really wanted Brandon Webb of the Diamondbacks with this pick, but the guy right before me grabbed him (a theme that would repeat itself throughout the draft). Davis was the next guy on my list, and he was fourth in the NL in strikeouts in 2005 though almost no one noticed. So far this year, Webb is off to a 6-0 start while Davis has really struggled with his control, walking more batters than he's struck out.

#9 Brad Wilkerson, OF/1B, Rangers

Again, I had someone different lined up with this pick, Coco Crisp of the Red Sox. Wilkerson was a big sleeper of mine, I think he is going to have a huge year playing in Texas. Even if I had grabbed Crisp with the 9th pick, Wilkerson would have been picked with the 10th. Many people drafted outfielders in the early rounds as they tend to be better offensive players, but this was the first OF I'd chosen. My strategy held that the OF talent pool was much deeper, and the difference between the 5th best and 15th best OF is much smaller than the difference between the 5th best and 15th best shortstop, or second-baseman, or catcher.... Also, decent OF are generally available in the waiver pool, so far this season I've grabbed two guys from the pool who are playing key roles on my team.

#10 Danny Haren, SP, Oakland

Another young started I liked a lot, and who I owned briefly last year. He started the year a bit unlucky,with a great K/BB ratio but high ratios caused by a very high BABIP (batting average on balls in paly... just go with me on this if you don't understand). He's turned his season around inhis last two starts (on someone else's team, as I traded him, too).

#11 Francisco Liriano, RP, Twins
#12 Brian Fuentes, RP, Rockies

Forgetting Jeter for the moment, this was my one big mistake in the draft. The day before we picked, Liriano had been dropped from the Twins starting rotation. I easily could have picked him ten rounds later than this with no competition. As it has worked out, he's given me great value as a reliever (32/4 K/BB and low ratios), and now that half of the Twins' starting pitchers have imploded he's in the rotation anyway.

Where this pick wound up hurting me is that I realized this round that closers were quickly being snapped up. I purposely didn't go after any of the big names inthe early rounds, as I had three names who I thought I could grab in rounds 8-12 and give me decent numbers. After I made my 11th round pick, six closers went off the board in the next eight picks, including two of the three guys I'd targeted (Jose Valverde of the D'backs and Mike Gonzalez of the Pirates). That left me one good closer with the 12th pick, the Rockies' Fuentes. Most of the other owners avoided Rockie pitchers completely, but Fuentes was very good last year with excellent ratios, especially considering he plays half his games at altitude. Fuentes would wind up being the only closer I'd draft, as all of the full-time closers with stable jobs were gone by the time the draft snaked back to me.

#13 Cliff Floyd, OF, Mets
#14 Michael Barrett, C, Cubs
#15 Nick Johnson, 1B, Nationals

Several sleepers of mine went off the board around this time, most of them outfielders. I picked Floyd at 13 because Yahoo liked him as the best guy left, and I desperately needed some power from the power lineup spots. So far this year, he's been awful. Barrett came off at 14 just after Josh Willingham of the Marlins was picked, he was the last catcher I liked at all and he's been pretty solid to date.

Most of the other league owners had their first base spots filled already, as many of the elite power-hitting guys went off in the first six rounds. Since I'd focused on position scarcity, I hadn't drafted any 1B at all. Well, none that I knew about, I didn't realize at the time that Wilkerson had 1B eligibility. Johnson was another sleeper, and he finally looks like he's fulfilling his potential, leading the Nats in just about every offensive category.

#16 Carlos Silva, SP, Twins
#17 Corey Patterson, OF, Orioles
#18 Jay Gibbons, OF/1B, Orioles

None of these guys are still on my team, for various reasons. I owned Silva last year when he broke a league record for lowest BB/9 that had stood since the dead ball era of the late 1800s. This year he's been getting just tattooed all over the place, with an ERA over 8. I absorbed four or five brutal beatings from him before giving up and waiving him. Patterson was supposed to be the Orioles' starting CF, with the change of locations breathing new life into his flagging career. But he started the year in a platoon/rotation with a few guys, and though his stats were solid when he played, I eventually moved him in a trade. Gibbons I liked as a break-out candidate, but I ended up throwing him into the get-Jeter-away-from-me deal just to add some nice insult to my injuries.

#19 Ian Kinsler, 2B, Rangers
#20 Rocco Baldelli, OF, Devil Rays

I loved Kinsler this late in the draft, he was talked up in a few places as a Rookie of the Year candidate. Unfortunately he hurt his hand two weeks into the season and isn't due to come back for another week or so. Baldelli was supposed to start the season on the 15-day DL then begin playing in mid-April, but he's still there on the DL, just starting a rehab assignment next week. Both are currently stashed on my reserves roster until they're healthy.

#21 Jeff Weaver, SP, Angels
#22 Justin Verlander, SP, Tigers
#23 Jason Vargas, SP, Marlins

Filling out my rotation with one veteran innings eater in Weaver and two kids with high upsides in Verlander and Vargas. Verlander was more than adequate if uninspiring and I finally dealt him earlier today. Vargas was a nightmare, I threw him back into the waiver pool when he couldn't get out of the fifth inning for a win after his team spotted him a 10-2 lead. Weaver was dealt early in the season, and it's a good thing because he's been just terrible too.

#24 Xavier Nady, OF, Mets
#25 Matt Murton, OF, Cubs

Nady got off to a red hot start, and I somewhat hastily threw him out on waivers when Kinsler got hurt and I needed a replacement second baseman. Murton has been steady though he hasn't shown much power, his numbers will suffer while the Cubs are without Derreck Lee.

#26 Oscar Villareal, RP, Braves
#27 Sean Burroughs, 3B, Devil Rays
#28 Pedro Astacio, SP, Nationals
#29 Doug Mirabelli, C, Padres
#30 Anderson Hernandez, 2B, Mets

Not much to speak of here, and most of these guys were gone after the first waiver draft. Villareal is noteworthy only because he got four vulture wins in the first two weeks of the season, saving my pitching staff from complete ruin. I went back and forth between Astacio and Steve Traschel, finally settling on the Nat in part because their home park is so extreme, and in part because last year I grabbed a terrific Nat pitcher, John Patterson, with the last pick of the draft. Lightning failed to strike twice as Astacio went on the DL right before the season.

As I keep alluding, at least half ofthis roster has turned over inthe first seven weeks of the season, I'll post some of the trades and free-agent pick-ups I've made next time around.

It's a Small World, After All

2006-05-10T14:22:00.000-04:00

I don't know how many of you tuned in to watch David Blaine's latest public suicide attempt, when after a week of living inside a spherical fishbowl, he attempted to break the record for underwater breath-holding. (By the way, I assume that Guinness has broken this particular record into "voluntarily" and "involuntarily" categories, as I've heard many tales of accident victims revived after being submerged for as long as half an hour, while Blaine was gunning to hold his breath for "only" nine minutes.) In case you missed it, here are a couple of pictures of Blaine in his custom water tank:

This ridiculousness was televised live Monday evening on ABC, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Disney Corporation. I mention this because my family and I spent a week at the end of April at the DisneyWorld theme parks in Florida. Now I work in a fashion-based industry (stop laughing), so I know all about marketing and the need to cross-promote your brands, but I think Disney might have gone one step ove the line with the new theme for their Magic Kingdom Character Parade....

I mean, when the Dwarves had to pull Pinnochio out of the tank and Doc started administering CPR... it was a little harrowing for my four year old. They need to save that shit for the MGM Studios park.

ESPN - Too Much of a Good Thing?

2006-04-18T00:56:00.001-04:00

ESPN began as a local Connecticut cable network back in the early 1980s. I remember we used to get it when I lived in the New Haven area in 1980 or 1981, back when your cable box was roughly the size of your toaster, and sat on top of the TV with a bunch of push-buttons for each channel. Most of the time during the day the channel was dark, and other than SportsCenter the programming they did have was pretty esoteric - rodeos, tracter pulls, Australian Rules Football.

Well now ESPN has either outgrown its capabilities to entertain, or it's getting back to its roots. My cable company carries four different ESPN networks - the original, ESPN2, ESPN News, and ESPN Classic, and their programming choices are getting pretty thin. On IRC today, Samwise reported viewing a curling match on ESPN Sunday - that's the national sport of Canada, played with barrels, brooms, and (one would assume) copious amounts of beer. Earlier that same day I caught a glimpe of a bowling skills competition, essentially a trick-shot exhibition put on by PBA professional bowlers. I guess these shows became necessary once the network wore out the tapes of the final table of the Pot Limit Omaha tournament at this year's WSOP.

Then tonight, ESPN outdid itself. ESPN is owned by Disney Corp, which also owns ABC, so there is a long-standing policy of putting absolute dreck on ESPN networks when a major sporting event is being televised on ABC. If you ever tuned in during a Monday Night Football game, you'd know excatly what I mean (ice dancing? women's volleyball?! fucking CHEERLEADING?!?!). Well tonight ESPN was televising Major League Baseball nationally, so ESPN2 got the unique honor of airing the National Paintball Championships. Picture a 40-yard course littered with oversized Little Gym climbing equipment, and populated by a bunch of Gen-Xers in full body armor barking out positions and strategies, playing 'capture the flag' while firing hundred of rounds of paint at each other. It was absolutely ridiculous.... and for about twenty minutes I couldn't look away. I never thought I'd see a sporting event that would make me miss the World's Strongest Man competition, but this did.

One other TV note - I happened to surf past 'Cradle 2 the Grave' on TBS tonight, and I was extremely amused to see that actor playing the villian was also chariman's nephew on 'Iron Chef America'. I always knew that role was typecast.

On Strike

2006-04-06T00:28:00.000-04:00

Another month gone. I really don't know how people find the time to update these things several times a day, unless they've given up sleeping.

My baseball fantasy draft was last week, I'm still hoping to write it up in some detail, for now I'll just say that unlike last year I didn't make any grievous mistakes.

Monday night I was being bored into a coma by the NCAA Championship game, so I did some channel surfing and found ESPN Classic airing, of all things, a bowling tournament - specifically, the TV finals of the 1993 Wichita Open. Having once been a pretty serious league bowler, and knowing something unusual or interesting must happen for ESPN to be showing it 13 years after the fact, I continued to watch. Sure enough, the championship match between righthander Dave Ozio and lefty Mike Aulby was fit for a time capsule. Both men came out with the first seven strikes, until Ozio left a soft 7-pin in the 8th frame. With Aulby perfect through nine frames, Ozio struck out for a 279, forcing Alby to throw the first strike in the tenth frame to win. Aulby stepped up and did that two better, striking off the page for a perfect 300 and the title. Thirteen years later, that remains the highest aggregate score ever in a televised match. (Technically, that record is shared by Johnny Petraglia and Bob Learn Jr, tied the afternoon the entire field was unconscious at Erie in 1996).

I haven't bowled in a league for six or seven years, mainly because the competition wasn't particularly fun any more. Watching the tournament from 1993 reminded me of what I used to love about the sport. Both bowlers were throwing consistent, quality shots with pinpoint precision, making subtle adjustments as the lane conditions evolved. It was a little tough to tell what Ozio was using, but I'm almost positive Aulby was still throwing a urethane ball. By today's high technology, ultra-high scoring standards, it was almost quaint.

Much like golf, the equipment used in the sport of bowling has undergone an explosive technological revoltion. It used to take a modicum of skill to hit a long, straight drive off the tee; now you can hand the latest and greatest golfball and driver to an 83 year old double amputee and he'll hit it 280 yards down the middle of the fairway. The same sitation has come to pass in bowling, as pressure on both equipment manufacturers and lane proprietors to increase scoring has effectively removed much of the skill factor from the game. Today's bowling balls are made of highly reactive resin or composite materials, with core weights designed to maximize RPMs and torque no matter how poorly the shot is released.

In September 1993, the year Aulby needed to be perfect to defeat Ozio for his title, I also bowled a sanctioned 300 game. Though reactive resin balls were becoming commonplace in local leagues around that time, like Aulby, my perfect game was achieved using a urethane ball. That year, across every league in my home bowling center from September to May, there were just three 300 games bowled. My dad has bowled in a very competitive "beer league" for nearly 30 years, earlier this year there were four 300 games bowled all in one night, just in his league! The entity that sanctions all league and professional bowling events has actually recognized seven different 900 series - that's three consecutive 300 games, or 36 strikes in a row - and all bowled since 1997.

The last year I bowled in a competitive league, I had three guys throw a 300 against my team. The first was by a pretty good local bowler whose technique consisted of throwing the ball as hard as he could, as far to the right as he could, with as many revolutions as possible. The second was thrown by a guy so drunk he fell over the scorers' table after carrying his last strike. He would also spin the ball as much as he could, with little regard for which direction it was headed as it spun. The night he threw his 300 he had about 15 boards to work with, meaning if his shot went out on the lane anywhere between the first arrow fromthe right and the third arrow he'd end up hitting the 1-3 pocket. The final 300 was achieved by a retired postman in his mid 60s who had carried a 160-ish average forever, and about a month earlier had purchased a brand new state-of-the-art reactive resin ball. His shots would leave his hand and make two or three lazy, random revolutions until the ball was about halfway down the lane, at which point the weighted core would take over and the ball would "flip,"or suddenly rotate axially and settle into a faster and more steady revolution down the lane. Once the rotations picked up, the reactive resin shell would heat up slightly, increasing the friction between the ball and the lane, causing the ball to drive through the pins with almost no deflection.

It was at that point that I knew I was done. Bowling had ceased to be a game requiring any skill, it had been reduced to a game of chance, seeing who would leave the most 9- and 10-pins that night. The professional tour saw the problems coming and radically changed the way they treat the lanes, resulting in a far more challenging shot. There hasn't been a perfect game bowled in a TV final in seven years, after eight of them being rolled between 1993 and 1999. I probably enjoy it more now going out with other couples and bowling for fun, and if I do well it's a nice bonus. And I'll always have the ring the American Bowling Congress awarded me for that one perfect night 13 years ago, back before they dumbed down the game for the masses.

The Throng Remains TEH L4M3

2006-03-07T21:49:00.000-05:00

The Canadian music network FUSE is airing the Led Zeppelin concert movie "The Song Remains the Same" tonight, as part of a show they call "Project This Bitch!". The twist... as the movie is playing, viewers are text messaging a special number, and their comments scroll TRL-like across the bottom of the screen.

The constant stream of text adds a surreally entertaining twist to the film. Typical messages range from the self-serving (roughly every third message is a myspace link) to the deeply personal ("any hot chicks out ther like arkansas boys?" / "amanda ur hot but i hate ur roomate") to the incomprehensible ("i luv bubles")

My favorites so far have been the ones that actually relate to the film. Shortly after a long, loving shot of Robert Plant's denim jeans, came across the comment "someone has been stuffing his pockets tsk tsk." For a while, too, there was a heated intellectual debate ("zepplin sux hawthorne heights rulez!") over where Zeppelin ranked in the pantheon of rock heroes ("what is this crap?") versus today's ("dude its the 00's not the 50's") more progressive rock bands ("if u like greenday txt tha wrd HOLLA!"). Luckily cooler heads prevailed ("if you listen to green day, slipnot, or hawthorne heights you deserve to DIE!!!!"), and some folks with a better grasp on rock history ("this was the 70s u loser") helped set the masses straight ("this is the HISTORY OF ROCK AND ROLL ur watching so sit down, shut up, and WATCH ZEPPLIN u dorks").

As far as the film itself, this must be the first time I've watched it in at least 15 years, and probably the first time ever I'm seeing it sober. The video footage has aged terribly, especially the canned dream sequences produced for each band member - hell, I think Robert Plant's cliche-laden medieval quest vignette was dated before the film was even removed from the camera. But the music holds up extremely well, at least to me, an avowed Zeppelin whore who spent most of high school listening to every Zeppelin bootleg I could get my hands on. A few years back I bought the boxed set reissue of Zeppelin's studio catalog, and I still listen to the earlier records on occasion (I'm personally partial to I and III), but I'd somehow forgotten how incredibly dynamic the band was live. So while I know there is a long line of bluesmen armed with pitchforks and shovels, waiting at the crossroads for Plant and Page to come by for their beating, but I still love hearing them rip through 'Dazed and Confused' and 'Since I've Been Loving You'. And as much as I adore the original albums, the live version of 'No Quarter' in the movie is even better than the studio version.

I do think the next time I watch this, though, I'll do it without the peanut gallery.

Edited to add: This morning I went to the FUSE site to aadd the links above, and it turns out they're giving "This is Spinal Tap!" the AOL Chatroom treatment tonight at 10PM. Another film I haven't seen since forever, it should be quite interesting to hear what kids who weren't born when the film was released think of it.

Ever have one of those days...

2006-02-23T00:15:00.000-05:00

... where life just corners you in the hallway, knocks your books out of your hands, steals your lunch money, shoves you in a locker, snaps your ass with a wet towel in gym class, writes your number on the bathroom wall, follows you home, busts your mailbox, kicks your dog, shaves your cat, shoots your parents with a crossbow, fucks your sister, exhumes and anally rapes your grandmother, puts a bag over your head, sticks you in a trunk, puts out lit cigarettes in your pubic hair, then leaves you naked on the side of the interstate covered in spermicide and hot dog relish?

Me neither... but Tuesday came damn fucking close.

Overheard

2006-02-06T10:02:00.000-05:00

...at an adjoining table at the Huntington Street Cafe Saturday night:

Woman A: "My car is so totally full of pie right now."
Woman B: "You mean... literally?"

"No, silly, my *wink* CAR is full of *airquotes* PIE right now *nudge*."
"Ooooooohhhhh..."

"Intelligent" Design

2006-02-03T16:41:00.000-05:00

(mad props to Leth for the link)

South Carolina Governor chimes in on Intelligent Design

"I think that it's just ... that there are real chinks in the armor of evolution being the only way we came about," (South Carolina Gov. Mark) Sanford said.

Intelligent design posits life on earth is too complex to be explained by evolutionary theory alone.

"The idea of there being a, you know, a little mud hole and two mosquitoes get together and the next thing you know you have a human being is completely at odds with, you know, one of the laws of thermodynamics."

Sorry, Governor, thermodynamics may explain why your dick feels warmer in an intern's mouth than it does hanging out of your pants at a schoolboard meeting, but it can't explain life on earth.

Even without bringing science into the discussion, I think the Bible itself does a pretty good job of refuting Intellignet Design. I'd just read the passage about "man being made in God's own image," then point to the governor. Case dismissed.

Joke Bomb

2006-02-02T23:33:00.000-05:00

My post last night reminded me of another of the more rewarding parts of being a parent - fucking with young, impressonable minds.

Anyone who has spoken to me for longer than 30 seconds knows that I love to drop little humorous asides into everyday conversation - in a way I'm sort of a retarded homeless man's Dennis Miller. I can't just turn off that part of me when I'm talking to my kids. So from time to time, I'll be standing over my two daughters making a Dad Speech, and something I'll say will meet their blank, uncomprehending faces, ricochet off their foreheads, and finally land at the feet of my laugh-stifling, eye-rolling wife.

For example... a couple of weeks ago the two girls were sharing a bath, shouting and splashing and making a generally soggy mess of the bathroom. Hearing the commotion building from the kitchen, I called out to them gruffly, "Girls, what is the first ruleof bath time?" They replied almost in unison, "No splashing, Daddy." At which point I found myself shouting back to them, "No, the first rule of bath time is you don't talk about bath time. The second rule of bath time is no splashing." That one they met with the grade school equivalent of stunned silence, while I, having thoroughly amused myself, smugly went back to the dishes.

I hope that one night twenty years from now Iget a phone call, and it's one of my kids saying, "Hey Pop. We just watched this movie called 'Fight Club'... is that where you got that shit about the rules of bathtime?" My fear is that karma exists, and the first time I learn they got the joke is when one of them scolds me with "Dad, you know the first rule of adult diapers..."

G4m3 0n

2006-02-02T01:25:00.000-05:00

As much as I hang out in several places on the Internet, I never really bought into some of the gamer / 1337 sp33k slang that permeates the web. Under normal circumstances the only time you'll find me using that jargon is when I'm making either a joke or a point. But tonight I finally found an occasion to let one slip, without any hint of irony.

My wife and I were trying to talk to my six year old daughter, with little success (by the way, what is it with kids tuning out their parents? This is a phase they outgrow in their early teens, right?). In frustration I finally proclaimed that I was wasting my time even trying to communicate, and that from now on I should just come home and just sit on the couch like a lump. My six year old, bless her little heart, finally responded wth the following question:

"You mean like Mommy?"

PWN3D.

Updates (or the lack there-of)

2006-01-26T23:36:00.000-05:00

Well obviously I'm not much for maintaining any sort of update schedule here. It has never been my intention to fill this with the excruciating details of my everyday life (11:45AM Heading to Blimpies, what should I eat for lunch? Here's a poll! / 12:35PM OMG I had the turkey club it was AWESOME!!@!!@!@...). I just wanted a place other than the occasional bboard or IRC log to post some random thoughts or observations, a little place I could call my own. Since I already had the domain, seemed like it was just a matter of setting up Blogger and pointing it at the right folder (go ahead and snicker, but that simple step alone took me three days).

So now that this blog, you know, exists, I figured the updating part should be a breeze. After all, I have a few good friends who somehow manage to crap out entire websites with such alarming frequency, on average they're launching a new domain about as often as I bathe. I can't hope to compete with that, but how hard could one or two updates a week be? Two months of silence later, I guess I have my answer.

What sucks is, it's not that I lack things to say, I just never seem to forge the time to say them. I have taken the antiquated tack of keeping a notebook in which to jot down (fragments of) ideas for later inclusion here. I also expect this to pick up during fantasy baseball season, I can't count how many times I was jonesing for a place to rehash trades or moves last season. As long as none of the other guys in my league find this, plan on that content beginning as I start preparing for the draft next month.

"Food Around the World"

2005-12-01T18:20:00.001-05:00

If you're reading this, then you probably hang out in the s00p3r s3kr1t spinnwebe IRC channel with me, and you already know about Jay Pinkerton. He's the funny bastard who recaptioned several Spiderman comics and gave the world words like "Fappo!" and "Poopants!". If you still don't recall, just cancel all of your remaining plans for the day and hit the link above to his site.

The stuff he does is deceptively simple yet uproariously funny. Pretty much all of us on IRC looked at his stuff and thought, "Hey, I could do stuff like that too...". I was at least honest enough to follow that thought with "... only maybe half as well on my best day ever." None of which has stopped me from trying. My daughter came home from first grade yesterday with a book called "Food Around the World" for her reading assignment. One look at the cover and I knew I had to give it the pattented Pinkerton treatment.

I did a few of the inside pages, too...

You can go back and see how these measure up to some children's books done up by the master himself. Both girls have lots of books, too, so I'm hoping inspiration will strike again.

SeanQ

Songs With Lyrics About Bruce's Rheumatism

2005-12-01T00:34:00.000-05:00

PBS this evening aired a concert featuring the recently reformed Cream, filmed back in May at London's Royal Albert Hall. I watched the first hour or so, and while it was nice to hear some great songs performed live again by the original artists, one overriding thought colored the whole experience...

Why?!?

I mean, I know why, someone offered them a shitpile of money. But looking at the three of them up there, doddering through time changes and harmonies, was just painful. When Eric Clapton is the best looking and most lucid guy in your band, you know you're in deep, deep trouble. I swear Clapton has had some work done, he has that frozen upper lip and nose that you see on middle-aged actresses and desperate housewives. Jack Bruce looked mentally and physically spent, like some lunatic tenured psych professor just back from lobbying the Dean to form a Phrenology department.

Finally, Ginger Baker.... Holy shit. If Rolling Stone reported that Clapton found him sitting in a Wembley bus terminal with a note pinned to his chest reading "Please care for me gramps, he's a decent bloke, just a bit hard in the arteries," I wouldn't be at all surprised. He was stiff armed, wooden, and awkward - he made Charlie Watts look spry. The few times he showed any signs of life, like the break near the end of 'Badge', I was waiting for his teeth to come flying out of his mouth.

The worst part came right at the end of the first song. They had a brief shot from behind his kit, I think they were trying to show Clapton through the drums while in the foreground you could see the bottom of his legs working the kick pedals. I couldn't tell if he was wearing shorts or high-waters, because all you saw were his bare calves... and black socks half-way up his shins. Ginger Baker, the driving engine behind the first supergroup and the band that 'power trio' was coined to describe, up on stage at Royal Fucking Albert Hall dressed like your crazy Uncle Merle a Labor Day picnic.

Unngggg-gg-ggh *shudder* *spit*

Well I hope they all earn enough money to assuage the complete loss of their dignity. Maybe Clapton will be sport enough to pin a fresh note to Ginger's vintage concert T-shirt when the tour is over and he drops him back off at Wembley... "Pleaes care for me drummer, he's a decent bloke but a bit slow on the downbeat..."

SeanQ

Placeholder

2005-11-15T13:15:00.000-05:00

This post exists so some 9yr old neoconservative Quaker can't post his inane babblings using my second-preferred username. This is for my inane babblings.