Fart on the duck

I could watch this all day.

Shaughnessy

I thought that nothing could damper my morning so allowed myself to read Dan Shaughnessy's article . I was wrong and was reminded of the potency of the jinx gods. Shaughnessy has not got this message of course (he refers to the Red Sox as "Kings of New England" and Schilling as "master") --hopefully his writing is too unbearable for the jinx gods to read. The theme of the article seems to be that true Red Sox fans should feel that our victory is inevitable. I fear Shaughnessy more than Gagne.

How sweet it is...

He's thinking, bring it!

General Strike

Don't go to work, don't buy stuff, still vote on 11/6. I'd do it.

Let's Go Myanmar: The BFC Travel Guide

I was talking to the housemate last night about where he might go on a youthful, traveling venture he is planning. I suggested Americans are most welcome in trashier countries worldwide and especially the trashy countries in Europe. He pointed out there are plenty of slobs in France and Italy, two countries where Americans are certainly not well liked, and I had to concede the point.

I came up with a new theory. People who are nice individually are often are dicks collectively, and vice-versa, dick countries on a global stage tend to have very friendly individuals. Take our own country, the USA. We're a wonderful people, but thanks to the Bush family, our good name has been smeared irretrievably, or at least for this decade. Now take the French: horrible one on one, but clear thinking and even benevolent internationally. The Canadians: often annoying individually, but pleasant as a country. Then consider the Yugoslav nations. We just had another delightful housemate from Bulgaria return home. We were all sad to see him go. These people are both friendly and surprisingly cool and hot, but lets face it, their leaders like to fight. The Brits, in the middle, and in the middle as always.

The mechanism for this relationship between nice people/jerk country is still forthcoming, but we at BFC believe it has something to do with nice people being too nice to prevent the jerk minority from taking over. A desire for power is certainly a key component of the asshole character, whereas nice people are better at working collectively. However, in asshole countries, people rightly assume their countrymen are also assholes, and they are able to cancel out the asshole majority, giving the nice minority a chance to run things. As a tourist, you experience a country as a collection of individuals rather than a group. Therefore, following this logic through, the housemate should go to Myanmar. Bon voyage!

Note about previous post

By 'Delia's Video Is Gone' I mean exactly the opposite. Delia's Video is right here.

Delia's Video Is Gone

A lot of people know the Johnny Cash Hurt video, but I've found some people aren't aware of the Delia video. Check it out.

Halloween

The Smoked Salmon has decided on her Halloween costume: Sexy Hamster.

The Dude

My housemate was watching Dr. Strangelove the other day. I pointed out some of the characters were based on historical figures. As house old man, I fogie out like this often. I feel it's my job. Never one for subtly, the housemate took this to mean the movie itself was a non fictional, historical reenactment. At the end of the film, when there is a nuclear holocaust, he asked me if that happened as well. I explained that the Cold War blessedly never went hot, and the human race avoid annihilation from the entire period from the end of WWII to 1989. He nodded, taking note of the information.

Bad Dog

I just saw a commercial where a stoner High School girl enters her kitchen and her dog, speaking in English, asks her to stop smoking pot. The dog whines and whines asking the girl where his best friend went, why does she have to smoke pot, why can't she stop, bla, bla, bla... The girl looks ashamed and sulks into the adjoining room.

This exact thing happened to me in High School too. When my dog asked me to stop smoking pot, I just said I'll stop smoking pot when you stop eating poop. That shut him up for a few years.

Panic

Lead of 1.5 games. Can one New Englander adhere to convention and round up? The Sox brass seems to be employing the Rocky Balboa strategy--disinterested in the division race, assuming at least a wild card, and resting key players while the league tires from pummeling us. The thing is we have no control and Sox management does. We are passengers on a Jet Blue flight and the pilot has let lose and circled the Hamptons*, upside down, while in line to land at JFK. We're freaking out! We must resort to time honored superstition to regain a false, but therapeutic sense of power over our own destiny. In said tradition, I recant the reference to "teaching a class" in the last post and admit that I am only a Teaching Assistant with a lab section. I was assisting the teaching of a class.


*Hallowed birthplace of Yaz--worthless sandy suburb and totally inferior to the Maine coast in all ways

House Senior (Official)

I thought that while the Smoked Salmon is off in glamorous NYC, I'd squander the remains of my youth and good looks down here. However what remains to be squander has recently been called into question. My early 20s German girl housemate announced the other day that she was going to "make party," and suggested it might be best for me to be working late during party. I protested, and she explained she'd love it if I attended party, but she was scared I'd think her and her guests were just "silly little girls." Naturally, I was the first to arrive at the party. Her friends were mainly Brazilian community college students. When they think of partying they think of drinking three shots of tequila and dancing. And when they think of dancing... Well how do I explain this? When I think of throwing a baseball I think of an arm based action. When they think of dancing they think of a butt based action. So the Brazilians arrived, dancing commenced, and Timberlake blasted into the wee hours. I had a class to teach in the morning and was in bed by 11; but word of the party has spread to the boys in New York, and the next time we make party we may include a recently divorced contingent to the usual mix.

Red Sox Senior Epidemiologist (Unofficial)

Tito chose to sit Mike Lowell to keep his intestinal bug from sweeping through the clubhouse. We here at BFC couldn't agree more. Quarantine can be the best form of medicine.

Could it be that Baltimore is entering a neoclassical phase? Well, a repressed but lovably quirky Pakistani-American friend of mine was awoken the other night by the sounds of a woman crying out in pain, she thought. What did it turn out to be? You guessed it. She peeked out the window and saw an interracial homosexual couple doing it by the light of the street lamp. I asked the woman if she woke up her husband, and she said, "No, we're in a fight."

Remember boys, this aint 21BC anymore. Be safe.

Buchholz (Bonzai in German, archaic)

Check out this scatter plot of Buchholz's pitches in his no-no. It may say more about the Red Sox fans who made it, than our pitcher but nonetheless it's cool. Note to Schilling: never shake off Varitek. Thanks to ws and ar.

BFC as Wine Sommelier

BFC: I converse with the wine through taste and smell. [BFC takes a healthy sip from his wine glass, shifts the wine between his cheeks like a tennis ball bounding between courts. Then he swallows deeply, darkly, deeply. BFC emerges from a trance like state and speaks again.]

BFC: I also listen to the wine.

BFC: [BFC turns his head and presses his ear to the wine glass. He then lowers the glass and faces you again.] The wine says the beauty of this evening is matched only by your own beauty.

BFC: [He presses his ear to the wine glasses again, and again he looks up.] The wine says one of your breasts is larger than the other, but I find them both stunning, especially the larger one.

BFC: [Again he listens to the wine and looks up.] The wine says you have an illegitimated half brother from an affair of your father's 32 years ago. Don't worry, your father extricated himself from the relationship, and the young mother never tracked him down. Your half brother is a carny, not a performer, but the guy who puts up the tents. He is quite respected in his field.

Things are looking up

Julian Tavarez has given up only 3 runs in his last 12 innings of starting pitching. The Red Sox are 7 1/2 games up, and most importantly the Mariners are 2 games up on the Yankees in the wild card race. I've never had a second favorite team in baseball, but I'm warming up to this Seattle team. Seattle is a fishing town and it's not their fault they are on the inferior ocean. This years playoffs may cause me to search back for this post and destroy it, but as of now things are good. I'm also on my honeymoon.

Pro Bonds

It's simply a historical fact that Barry Bonds hit more home runs as a professional baseball player than anyone, and that's the beauty of records: they are simply historical facts. It undermines the game to allow juicers to take records, but to debate legitimacy of records undermines the elegance of the sports record to far greater peril. Records are nice because they're totally non subjective, and once you introduce subjectivity you open up a whole field of futile debate over who played against whom on what, when etc. Babe Ruth never faced a black or Latino pitcher; can you adjust for that? Ted Williams spent his prime fighting in WWII; can we add homers he would have hit had the Japanese not bombed Pearl Harbor and Hitler not tried to take over Europe to Williams' career total? Can I adjust my resume for being lazy?

T4

I just picked up my phone and it was a voice mail calling me. I believe cell phone voice mail has become self-aware and taken on a snotty attitude.

Awesome baseball graphic

Check out this graphic on nytmes.com while it's up. It's awesome.

Julian Tavarez Reaches Zen-like State

Julian Tavarez, the Red Sox's sometimes starter, sometimes long man, has gone from infamous headhunter, nut bag to serene gentleman. He started last night for the Red Sox after not starting for two weeks, and put in what the Worcester T&G called a "gutsy" performance. After the game, Tavarez thanked Francona for the opportunity and said he’ll be ready to start again on 30 minutes’ notice. “Just rub on some FlexAll or Bengay, drink a little coffee, and I’ll be ready to pitch,” he said. “A lot of guys would say, ‘Oh, I haven’t pitched in two, three weeks. I can’t do it.’ I don’t put those thoughts in my head.”

I am now in my spot at work drinking coffee while covered in Bengay in honor of the outing.

The Controversial Closer

Many baseball fans who consider themselves among the Billy Bean, Bill James crew--the thinking fans have pointed to the over emphasis on the closer in today's game. To large extent they are right of course. They note that runs scored in any middle inning are equal to runs scored in the 8th and 9th, and therefore there is no reason to save one of your best pitchers for the end of the game. I'm not so sure that's entirely true. Due to the large luck component in baseball many games will be blow outs for one team or another. No matter who you have pitching your going to lose by 4 to 5 runs due to bad luck alone and there is no point in having your best guys in during a bad luck game. From the pitcher's point of view, the luck component is even larger because it encompasses how his fielders preform and who the team hits. However, as a manager by the 8th and 9th you have a pretty good idea if you're having a bad luck game or not. Saving a good pitcher for close games may allow you to keep from wearing him down in un-winable games.

T&G

I've been campaigning for a while to get all my Sox fan friends to switch to Worcester's T&G over the Boston Globe as their source for Sox news. If any more evidence is needed I submit this article. It's insightful, fact filled, and there's even a public health metaphor.

Lickers

I feel as though if the envelope were invented today we wouldn't lick it to seal it shut. I enjoy the taste of envelope glue and am thankful that the envelope came of age at a time when licking things was perfectly normal. In those days people were going around licking everything: light posts, door knobs, the handles on urinals. It was the non-lickers who were the odd ones. Yep, if you didn't lend a tongue in licking the city clean you were considered a hygiene risk.

Sports Fact

Lou Piniella and Dave Magadan are cousins. They are Spanish (i.e. from Spain) Americans.

Bumper Stickers

I’ve recently relocated from the Northeast to the mid Atlantic and I notice bumpers stickers are far more popular here. I think most of them are lame, but I recently heard about a good one. It reads: Prolife? Prochoice? Pro Football.

Rendering

I recently found out about rendering, the process whereby livestock parts leftover from the slaughterhouse and dead pets are made into cosmetics. Weird stuff.

The Departed

I just saw The Departed and it was as good as people say. It has particular resonance for me having known a guy growing up who was exactly like Matt Damon's character. Generally, I don't like movies with more than three well known male actors because they don't look actually like actors but just a bunch of dudes hanging out. That's fine for an Oceans 11 type movie where that's the point, but not for real movie. The Departed doesn't have this problem.

On the other hand, I don't like Jack Nicholson. I just don't think he's a good actor anymore.

Johnny Cash's birthday

It's Johnny Cash day

Scuba Diving Cat

Dude, check this out. It's a cat that scuba dives.

The Faith Dog

Ohh, man. When I saw this at the gym I ran, not walked to blog about it.

Robert Reich's controversial opposition to slavery

I know, I know, worrying about international trade is totally 90s, but so is Robert Reich, and for that matter so is this blogger. Thus I will say this: Reich suggested on his blog that 1) slavery should be abolished, and 2) an international minimum wage should attempt to be established and that minimum wage should be set around 1/2 a countries median income. Conservatives are so fanatical about the free market that they jumped on all over part 2) bypassing part 1) entirely. Can't we discuss part 1) before advancing to part 2)? Isn't that at the very core of why one might lay out a proposition in two parts. If so, do conservative really believe that we should be trading with countries that allow slavery? What a bunch of a-holes.

It should also be noted that Robert Reich blogs on blogger. It's really time to move on.

Pre Season Gossip

If Roger Clemens claims to be retired until July and then pops up on a team in playoff contention does that allow him to avoid steroid testing? If so, he'll totally get away with it and that's totally lame, unless Clemens resurfaces with the Red Sox--in which case it's shrewed.

Did you hear Jeter and A-Rod hate each other? I mean they won't admit to a life long brothership, therefore they hate each other. As I've always said: no pledge of life long brothership by Jeter and A-Rod = hate each other.

This Blog Is Your Blog

In the afore-blog regarding my recent creation of a Bruce mix, I should note I include Bruce's versions of the Woody Guthrie classic "this land is your land." The first interesting thing about this song is that according to Guthrie historians, WG made this song as an answer to Irvin Berlin's "God Bless America" which Guthrie found to be elitist and annoying, especially Kate Smith's version. This Kate Smith version is of course the version they play at baseball games post 9/11 along with "Take Me Out to the Ball Game". If you are tired of "God Bless America" in the seventh, then you are in good company, or at least you would be if Guthrie was still alive. As of now you just hate America.

The other interesting thing about the song and my mix is that there are multiple versions of "This Land Is Your Land". One is the cleaned up version sung by grade schoolers, while the others include lyrics deemed too commie for Flag day celebrants. Bruce did a version of the school kid one, and then discovered the alternative lyrics version, and of course immediately went to work on the alternative version. Unfortunately, Bruce tried to mix in Guthrie in on the track along with other living celebs. He botched the mixing terribly. Nonetheless and more for historical reasons both versions are included on my Bruce mix.

Springsteen

I recently sent my brother some Bruce Springsteen songs via MP3. I am a life long Springsteen fan and a friend of mine listened to so much Springsteen in High School, I've actually committed his entire catalogue to memory. In fact, I don't even play his music anymore. When I want to hear it I just play it in my head. I believe if aliens discovered me, they'd wonder why a popular recording artist chose my brain to store his music.

The Poopisode

It's pushed out of the pipes and ready for public. We pushed it out: the Poopisode.

Google this!

It's been clear to me for several months that Google now runs Blogger. Typically, I force from my mind any tech industry news I catch on NPR (we don't inflict insider information about our jobs on the entire country); however, it's become clear Googles running the show around here. I notice that I now have to sign into my gmail account before blogging and that blogger spell check works which in my mind points to Google. Initially I accepted this. Like an Italian in the early 1930s, I said, well at least the trains are running on time, fuck it.

But could Google be overrated? Yes, they have integrated my email with my blog I suppose, but let's look at some of their "target advertising". In the right margin of my email I notice a site that intends to teach me how to dance salsa. Over the last 7 or 8 years my feelings about salsa have grown from vague interest, to frustration and disappointment around my attempts at the most basic moves, to a full grown, mature hatred. I literally just encouraged my fiance to go salsa dancing with our downstairs neighbor who openly hits on her just to allow some outlet for her salsa instinct that doesn't involve me. But fair enough that Google doesn't know that. I'm probably in the demographic of the salsa student so I'll let it pass.

On to the next bit of advertising: a site that promises to teach me the secrets of training Karelian bear hunting dogs. I own neither a dog nor have much use for bear hunting partners of any species. Enough said on that one...

Thus I am brought to my favorite bit of advertising, targeted with the precision of a laser guided stealth missile fired by a crazed and drunken Central Asian dictator who thinks he is playing Mario Cart: it's the professional website of a one, Dr. Edmund Kwan. Dr. Kwan offers Thermage, the only none invasive plastic surgery technology that promises to preserve my youthful appearance and my Asian heritage. I of course am white, but maybe I'll give Dr. Kwan a shot. Dr. Kwan's approach is subtle and sensitive. Dr. Kwan knows "preserving ethnicity is the biggest concern of Asians having plastic surgery". Does that mean Asians can age into white people? Will I age into hottie Brazilian chick? Who knows? In a section of the website called ethnic identity, aka classic Kwan, Kwan writes that Asian cosmetic surgery was often done in beauty parlors, then he sights some financial statistics about Asian American buying power (for no particular reason), then he deftly and delicately notes that some Asian Americans want to look more white and some don't thus appealing to the entire spectrum of what he views as his potential clientele. He then emphasizes the subtlety of his work again. I had just wanted to send an email about meeting up for beers later, but now that Goolge has presented me with this, I'm hooked.

Before I go for the full tummy tuck, I better shift the homebase of Blue Fish Canoe to Kyle's job. Stay tunned for the new url.

A quick review

Things that are terrible: movies about relationships. Oooo, we're soo sophisticated. And what's going on with this guy? And what's going on with his hair?

Things that are great: a Worcester boy and Jesse Berkett little league alum, Andy Ross, winning a grammy.

She-male fish

We have some more bad news for Baltimore this morning. It turns out pollutants leaking into the Chesapeake are making she-male fish according to Science the blog. One of these sex changing chemicals is Thalate, which Science the blog defines as "new car smell". Of course this is only bad news for more conservative Chesapeake dwellers, while some fish are into the she-male scene. We at Bluefish Canoe support their alternative life choice.

Island broken for main

A professor I have has the unfortunate luck to have lost much of his hair in the usual fashion of male pattern baldness, except he's kept his bangs. It's an island of hair broken off from the mainland like Florida after the icecaps melt. I can't think of a less dignified way for the hair to go. I can also see how it might be difficult to shave any hair once one starts to lose hair. You don't want to give the wrong impression to hair you want to keep. It's a tough situation.

Got to go..

I was about to write a blog today that makes novel, witty and insightful observations about our world (or maybe even a satirical look at a modern life so bleak (I hadn't decided)) but I'm called to mentor the youth of this nation

Pats faulter, oddly Globe comes through

First the Pats choke against Peyton Manning and the Colts, and then someone from the Boston Globe staff, Eric Wilbur, writes an almost Bill Simmons-esque blog entry that doesn't piss me off almost as much as the Pats loss. Weird stuff. Is this the dawn of a new day? No, not to worry, in an article titled "Fighting the good fight" that starts "They died with their boots on and one too few defensive backs on the field," the Globe returns to the frat boy, English major style they inflict on us after major New England sporting events(1).


1. See articles around any Fenway home opener.

peekvid

Has anyone else seen this peekvid.com. You seem to be able to watch movies and TV shows over the Internet. You stream them, and don't download. I assume that makes it legal.

WTMD

Johnny Marr is playing on the new Modest Mouse album. The Rapture is coming to Charm City, and Superchuck superstar Mac McCaughan is putting out a new album with his new band Portastatic… In an obviously related note, I’ve been driving around a lot recently listening to WTMD, Baltimore’s college radio station.

The Minnow

I brought “Name that Thing” to the Minnow today. I’m training the Minnow, an 8 year old student in a local inner city school, to play Boogle, dominos, and to make paper airplanes (that is the Jedi arts more generally). He took to it like a bird to flight. Next week: blogging.

Dix

I am very rarely moved by art. I like Impressionism; I enjoy pictures of naked women, landscapes, seascapes, and can almost pretend to like Jackson Pollock. But I saw an exhibit of the work of Otto Dix and I must admit it was really cool. His is anti-war and stresses the great need for better looking prostitutes in Weimer Germany.

Another Mysterious Smell Takes NYC

I arose this morning in my friend’s apartment and was greeted by a gaseous funk. It was natural gas, but not the usual kind found around me, but the kind that lights your stove. I thought the stove was on, but a quick examination revealed it was not. I assumed my nose had become unaccustomed to NYC and it was nothing to worry about.

However, it turns out it was a big to-do. The entire city smelled like gas and the masses were in an uproar. One New Yorker, an accountant named Michael Williams, reportedly postponed a cigarette break for fear of blowing up the entire city! Naturally, NYC officials blamed New Jersey, a thoroughly rank State, for letting this one go. New Jersey denied it, ergo supplied it, and the case is now closed.

However, the whole episode brings back fond memories of the mysterious and still unidentified maple syrup smell in Washington Heights of October 05.

Little Super Star

You might want to check this out. It's a little weird, a little funny. It's good.

Starbucks Review

I’ve been staying at the Smoked Salmon’s mom’s apt and working out of the local Starbucks. I’m not a coffee drinking and the tea at Starbucks is undrinkable, thus I am forced to review the Starbucks megacorp in the only way I interact with it: as a public bathroom with internet access. As a public bathroom with internet, I must say often the lines for the shitter are long, the condition of the space like a back alley in the Mumbai Red Light District, and the internet overpriced ($10/hr!). On the other hand, Starbucks is the only widely accessible public john with internet, and the couch at this Starbucks is surprisingly comfortable. All in all, I give it a B-.