Tiktaalik lick my ...

For those of you in the Freaky Fish scene you’ve probably heard enough Tiktaalik roseae by now. (Tiktaalic is a newly discovered fishapod that represents an evolutionary bridge between land tetrapods and fish for those of you living in caves.) Neil Shubin and Ted Daeschler discovered Tiktaalik in northern Canada and reported their finding in the April 6, 2006 issue of Nature. The NY Times did a story on Tiktaalik shortly after, I saw the NY Times, and then I did a story on Tiktaalik for Bluefishcanoe (only narrowly missing scooping the Times). However, blogger failed to publish the story and it was lost to Internet oblivion.

First I assumed the loss of my Tiktaalik story resulted from the usual technological fowl ups that occur when you don’t really know how to make a website. Then I took a closer look at Tiktaalik. Here she is:

Tiktaalik looks exactly like a papier-mâché alligator Mike Murphy and I made (my mom made) in a third grade science fair (papier-mâché alligator not shown). We won third place. But it doesn’t stop there. Maybe the Establishment in the Tiktaalik discovery and reporting scene didn’t want our team consisting for 1986 versions of myself, Mike Murphy and my mom to get the credit we deserve. Using a combination of intuition, luck, and brilliance we predicted the Tiktaalik find without even knowing it, and now They are trying to keep us down. Isn’t it obvious?

Bluefish Canoe rejoins the masses

I took a Greyhound bus ride from NYC to Worcester last week. While I waited in line to board the bus a long metal pole fell through a hole in the ceiling and landed about 8 feet in front of me. I later learned this pole was called a “strut”. The crash, which nearly killed about ten people, rattled the crazies in the line to the bus to Worcester out of their peaceful mumbling to their shoes. Crazy people love action like this, and they started buzzing around recounting the incident, each time placing themselves closer to falling strut. I began imagining things that could fall from the ceiling and takeout an organ or limb of high enough importance for a healthy cash payout, but low enough to not hinder sexual prowess or cause loss of life. (Note to self: make list of such organs for another blog. Preliminary list: appendix, left little finger, brain.)

The bus to Hartford was uneventful with the usual Greyhound stock characters including: college student male, college student female, maternally built Latina on cell phone for 3 hours, Asian senior citizen female able to sleep for the entire ride despite Latina on phone, obese Americans (many and of any/unknown gender).

Things naturally got worse as we got on the bus from Hartford to Worcester declining steadily as Worcester neared. A self-described Old Hippie guy in full rubber raingear sat next to a young African American man. At first glance it seemed they may have little in common, but they proved false another stereotype as they were united in the common bond of being fall down drunk at noon. Two overlapping monologues in ensued. Old Hippie eventually out talked young African American waxing at great length about how Old Hippie shut down Seabrook nuclear power plant and how his mother’s boyfriend was trying to kill him. It wasn’t annoying as much as it was powerfully depressing. I’ll leave you on that note.

Bluefish Canoe Goes Cannibal

The Smoked Salmon and I went to Nobu to celebrate the anniversary of her hatching. Nobu, one of NYC’s fanciest restaurants, requires one make a reservation weeks in advance; then the day before the potential diner is required to call confirming his/her reservation. I didn’t confirm my reservation in time, and Nobu authorities called me. They asked me my name (having already known it: they called me). They then acted as if I had no reservation and was some lunatic scamming my way into Nobu (again after having called me to confirm the reservation). I guess they figure their customers couldn’t bare with losing that moment at a fancy restaurant where the hostess can’t find your reservation and acts like you botched the plans. We eventually got there and the food was really good.

Brand new pair of Sox

I’ve done an about-face on the new Red Sox after they took 2 of 3 games from the Yankees at “The Stadium” and won the first Sox -Yankees game at Fenway. We've been rained out for a few days, but we'll still be hot. Against the Yankees, Lowell and Loretta were awesome Willy Mo was fine and Papelbon is reaching “I wouldn’t be mad at my girlfriend for sleeping with him” status at a meteoric rate.

RNC in NYC 04

At the Republican National Convention in NYC two years ago, there was this long controversy because protestors wanted to rally at Central Park, but the city wouldn't let them. Mayor Bloomberg made two arguments against using the park that were so inane, they were demeaning. Argument 1) protests will hurt the grass. Argument 2) terrorists will be able to get to protestors more easily in the Park than on the city streets where the mayor intended to confine all demonstrations. It always hurts when the mayor puts fancy horticulture above 1st amendment rights, but I found the second "we're doing this for your own good" reason particularly vile. At the time, there were rumors that Bush did not want protestors to amass at Central Park because it would make clear how large their numbers were. It’s possible Bloomberg kept protestors out of Central Park partially as a favor to Bush, and partially because he spent a lot of his personal millions to restore grass at the Park (the security issue was a joke).

The protests in the streets happened. It’s no secret that police dislike protestors. Some protestors may deserve this sentiment; for example Critical Mass is stupid. From what I can tell it’s a protest that protests the last Critical Mass protest. Even outside Critical Mass, if you’re a punk kid and you want to yell at the cops, throw stuff at them, set off smoke bombs, and generally ask to get arrested at demonstrations, then the NYC Police Department will happily accommodate your wishes. I imagine, you will be an easy arrest. That type of punk kid was not who was protesting during the Republican National Convention. It was moms and dads, grandparents, a few vets, and students of all colors from every demographic in NYC and beyond. And the cops treated everyone like punk kids. I was there and I didn’t see one person break a law or disrespect a cop. Still 240 people were arrested. As part of this, newspapers are now reporting on incidents where people were arrested at Fulton Street and Herald Square possibly without getting intelligible instructions on how to avoid arrest. Cops didn’t use bullhorns, but yelled at the crowds. Protestors may not have heard them, responded in a manner unsatisfying to police, and got arrested. All the police commissioner Raymond Kelly had to say was that cops don’t need to warn protestors before arresting them. This may be a violation of the First Amendment. Let’s look at the entire amendment:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

What’s that next to freedom of the press (I see nothing about permits)? Does Ray Kelly mean to argue that failure to respond quickly to possibly inaudible directions from a cop constitutes a non-peaceable assembly? All you have to be is peaceful at a protest. Slow or confused responses to an officer’s orders which some may not have clearly heard is in my mind peaceful.

If by some chance you’re still reading and you’re interested in writing a polite email to Bloomberg expressing your thoughts on this or any other issue you can do so through this link.

Sex in the City Is My Least Favorite TV Show Ever

I watched Memoirs of a Geisha the other day and as with all Hollywood movies pretending to be something other than the end product of a cliché blender, all cultural themes in the film were hammered on the audience’s heads sometimes by a mad narrator carpenter. In Memoirs of a Geisha the narrator/carpenter continually reminded us that the best hope a Geisha had of happiness and success was to attach herself to a wealthy powerful married man and live as his personal concubine. The audience oos and awes over how terribly unfair 20^th century gender dynamics in Japan were and then knowingly concludes things aren’t so different here—are they?

To answer that question, I submit Sex in the City. It’s the same show narrator and all. In both shows women need men. Women spend all day talking about men and bitching each other in attempts to acquire men—almost entrap them if needed. And all my sophisticated female friends love the show. Does a smugly self aware red headed character somehow make reinforcing a male dominated world okay? What I hate most about Sex in the City has little to do with it’s anti-feminism I must admit. What I really hate is the contrived cuteness of it all. They’re glamorous and they know it, but everything is expressed with little diminutives, “on a tiny little island we call Manhattan I met my little friends for brunchie,” or “in the tiny cutesy Soho club scene bla, bla, bla…” You are cool, just admit it. Anything else is a modesty so false I may puke.

Round 1

It's the first Sox v. Yankees game tonight, and here at Blue Fish Canoe we typically advocate for peace and prosperity. However tonight, we have the exception that proves the rule. If this game is lopsided by 3 runs or more, I say we send in Julian Tavares to hit Yankee batters (first Damon, the Jeter) until an old fashion bench clearer breaks out. And Willie Mo Pena better lead the charge or I'm going to have trouble accepting this years Sox team as anything but candy-ass pretenders. After losing a series to the D-rays, I just can't warm up to these new Sox.

Blue Fish Canoe has traumatic experience with the general public

About once a year I become overwhelmed with a sense of patriotic duty and I eat fast food. (Go ahead. Gasp. And depending on your socio-economic-o-cultural leanings you may gasp at either the high frequency or low frequency of my fast food dining. Have your gasp and read on…)

This year I spontaneously chose Church’s Chicken, which is a nondenominational Brooklyn ghetto version of KFC and surprisingly the owners of the url, www.churchs.com. I wanted to exchange my money for a piece of chicken and a drink and be on my way. Of course this proved to be impossible. I could only order from a matrix of Value Meals with muffins, potato wedges, French Fries, chicken bits, and drinks from medium to bathtub sized. All meals cost in total over $5 and ended in weird non-whole number sums (eg. $5.72, $6.36 + tax), which was more than I wanted to spend—I could get real food for those sums. I brought my dilemma to the Church’s employee who, judging from his accent and look, may have been a recent immigrant from Africa. He told me of a secret value meal that allowed me to get a piece of chicken and a muffin for $3.21 if I agreed not to get a drink. I accepted. Just before he rang up the $3.21 he asked me if I wanted to Juraso-size the drink that I did not order. Then, despite the whole premise of this exchange resulted from not wanting a drink, a white woman’s voice came from nowhere and asked me the same question, if I wanted to Juraso-size the drink. The voice interrupted me as I was talking to the employee and totally freaked me out. It took me a second to get my bearings, but when I did I realized the voice was in fact not a white woman, but the cash register itself interrupting me. I declined the offer from the cash register.

I got my food and began to eat. I soon discovered the non-drink value meal was not a value meal at all, but a challenge-meal. Church’s chicken and muffins are 50% salt and nearly impossible to eat without a drink. I can only attempt to describe how dehydrating this experience was, but imagine having only a pile of extra salty pretzels to eat after a night of beer drinking after say, crossing the Sahara. For some reason I was determine to win the challenge-meal and I persevered. I finished learning a valuable lesson about turning down offers from cash registers. Looking back on it, I can say the chicken left me slightly nauseous and with a nagging taste in my mouth similar to what one might experience after licking a high school chemistry class beaker. The chemistry beaker flavor is now in its third day of persistence, but I must admit, at first the chicken tasted really good.

New Bar

About a month ago, my neighbor pointed out a new bar was opening up near us. Our neighborhood is in dire need of a new watering hole. All our spots either lack pool tables, or play terrible live bands, or have gone Eurotrash with bizarre purple lighting, metal chairs, and a constant stream of trance (when will trace die?) Now, horrifyingly, construction on the new bar has stopped. I’m willing to donate free time to get the place up and running in a Jimmy Carter, Spring Break over summer kind of way. I just spoke to my neighbor at the super market and he’s in. If anyone else wants pick up the old hammer and nail, contact me. (Some prior experience with these tools is not needed, and as of yet, undiscovered within our group.)

New Swing

I’ve revamped my swing in the off season. I was having trouble getting the bat head around last year and I found myself sending a lot of balls into the opposite field without much power. My new approach is to shorten my swing and imagine myself chopping down on the ball (thanks to hitting coach Corn Chips and Pie). Hopefully, I’ll be able to pull some more pitches in the odd picnic softball game or backyard waffle ball game I may play in this summer.

Toussaint jailed, Bluefish Canoe confined to carpet

I had my most recent argument over the justifiability of the transit strike last night. It was with a girl who I yelled at as she was leaving an otherwise very pleasant dinner party. She felt transit workers shouldn’t be making as much money as her with her education and important position at the Department of Health. I pointed out her problem should be with her boss, as opposed to supporting others getting screwed to somehow improve the relative worth of her own salary. I also brought up my standard under-reported point that the TWU has every reason to oppose changes to its pension plan because the city openly spends workers pension money (or “monies”—the term favored by moron city officials) on whatever the city feels like assuming they can pay it back later, and now, of course, they may not be able to repay future workers. Subsequently, I got drunk and stoned and passed out on my friend’s floor after the contents of my stomach had demanded immediate exit—I may not be the best spokesperson for the cause though it’s valid nonetheless. In a short time Roger Toussaint will be going to jail for 10 days for leading the strike. Here’s what Toussaint had to say about the sentence. As always he carried himself like a gentleman.

The Jammys

It's time. This Thursday is the sixth annual Jammy awards, an award show for Jam Bands. All the jammers will be there, including remaining members of the Dead, members of Phish, the String Cheese Incident, Moe, and some drummers from Africa displayed like museum exhibits. Remember, if you are at the show and anyone questions your dankness pause and then announce "the system is so fucked up, man... People are just going to revolt... Man… When the war breaks out I’ll be living in a cave in Colorado, strumming a homemade string instrument, and politely asking a bear poop if I can eat it [then bob your head knowingly agreeing with your own comment]."

In the tradition of this genre, the Jammies have been known to go from 8:00 to early in the morning. I would gladly dine on said bear poop rather than attend.

Politico Graphs

For those fellow political graph lovers I recommend this site (sometimes I don't know which word to attach the hyper link to--is it obvious?)

Prof. Tom's

The baseball season is on and turned up to 11. A friend of mine, Mike Murphy, predicts the Brewers will surprise everyone and win their division. I predict nothing outside the usual tears, conflicts with befuddled significant others, and all around unholy waste of time.

Rumor has it that a new ex-pat Sox bar called Professor Tom's has displaced the Riviera as a home-away-from-home for Sox fans in NYC. I hear it’s owned by a former Riviera bartender who walked out of his job in the West Village after the Yankee fan owner of the Riviera torn down a pro Red Sox banner. If this is true, it is a tremendous story--a coup d'etat of the first order. If it’s BS concocted by the owner of Professor Tom’s to drum up business or just fuck with people, then I respect it even more.

Sox

A lot people have been approaching me and offering their congratulations recently and I must say I appreciate it. I assume they’re referring to the Red Sox early lead in the AL East (although some say they’re talking about the engagement or grad school etc…) Again thank you. Red Sox = 5 and 1 and first place. Yankees = 2 and 4 AKA last place. David Ortiz just signed a 4 year contract extension, and Bluefishcanoe doesn’t fear fame either (thinly veiled snotty comment directed towards CornChipsandPie).

Questionpro

I don’t totally comprehend what this means, but the podcast now has a corporate sponsor, questionpro. Questionpro is software that helps one create online questionnaires, and is in fact the only software I would ever dream of using for such a task.

Cheney Resignation Pool Rises Again

I can't tell if it's the new format or if this is just riotous news cycle, but the nytimes.com has been on fire today. The Tiktaalic (your welcome), bird flu in Scottish foul, new parts of the Bible discovered (Judas was cool?), and now Scooter Libby, Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff and right hand hack, testifies that Bush via Cheney okayed the leaking of classified information. Evidence directly linking Bush to the leak after all Bush’s pledges to sniff out the real leaker—what a day!

Bush has a way out though. Scooter testified that Cheney suggested to him that Bush gave a green light on leaking classified information; not that Bush contacted Scooter directly. Cheney and Bush can say that Cheney had misinformed Libby regarding permission from Bush. Thus Cheney takes some responsibility for the disgrace, Cheney steps down and joins Ollie North as hero of right wing psychopaths, and Greg K. wins the Cheney Resignation Pool. It’s not over yet but this is undoubtedly the perfectly cooked, medium rare, steak from Peter Luger with sides of creamed spinach and German potatoes of Cheney Resignation Pool tips.

Oil Can Update

The Can will be pitching for the Nashua, NH, Pride this season after avoiding jail time on assault charges. The manager for the Pride, former Red Sox manager, Butch Hobson, personally worked to bring the Can aboard. We can contrast Boyd with Doc Gooden who faces jail time for using coke (yes of course Gooden still has 86).

All indications seem to suggest Oil Can will continue to refer to himself in the third person during interviews. For example:

I am the Can, and I'm going to come right at you with my best [stuff]. If you can hit, I want to see how far Bo Jackson can hit the Oil Can.

- Oil Can Boyd after giving up a 500 ft homerun to Bo Jackson

Kyle's Job

The podcast is now fully operational: http://kylesjob.net/.

Basic Instinct II: Not Popular at the NY Times

The NY Times movie reviewer, Manohla Dargis, despised the new Basic Instinct movie so much there are now two links to the drubbing, one in the movies section and one on the sidebar. Dargis must really hate this movie.

Tavarez Round 1

Julian Tavarez got in the first totally unnecessary brawl of the season in a spring training game today against the Devil Rays. When he was covering home on a play at the plate, he stepped on Joey Gathright arm as Gathright slid into homeplate. Gathright hit Tavarez with his left forearm and while Gathright was still on the ground Tavarez cracked him in the jaw. Players congregated. Combatants got booted. Sox eventually beat the D-Rays 12-11.

Sit versus Squat : A False Dichotomy?

When it comes to crapping, I am now a squatter with his sitting past cast into the crap heap of cultural bias right next to country music is for hicks (country is for all--download five Jason Boland tunes and I defy you to disagree). That's right folks. I'm changing sides.

Let me explain. In Asia toilets don't look like chairs with holes. They're small holes in the floor with foot rest such that a man can squat, like a baseball catcher, while getting down to business. The advantages: less paper work, less red tape and something about it being more natural on the muscles of the nether regions leaves one with the sense that every dump was the biggest of their life.

But how can this traditional way exist in a world increasing dominated by western style crappers? I'll tell you folks: the perch. Oh ya, I strip down and hop on the edge of the bowel for a good old squat crap.

The Dogg

Nate the Dogg Sanderson will be interviewed on the podcast. Hold on to your hats.

Nature's Freaks Part V: The Frogfish

The Oscellated Frogfish (Antennarius ocellatus) is a fish that through eons of selective pressures has evolved to look like a frog. Thus the frogfish is perfectly camouflaged when it’s surrounded by deformed frogs. You see, the predators are color blind so it all works out…

The frogfish uses its long thin dorsal fin like a fishing pole to tempt smaller fish which the frogfish catches.

Another Schachterle Please

As many of you may know the Smoked Salmon and I have recently gotten engaged. As part of this life changing venture I've been thinking more seriously about my future and legacy. I've become very concerned that I may not have a male heir to carry on the family name, Schachterle. To hedge my bets against this chilling possibility I've been trying to coin a drink called The Schachterle. It's a gin and tonic with grapefruit juice. I've gotten a few friends to order it and local bartenders to serve it. If the moment strikes you, or you are in fact searching for a way to extend a piece of immortality to me, I say order up a Schachterle.

asdfas v

Smoking pot = no decent blog today.

dzUSA

Oh, my God. There’s been a DraculazombieUSA blog around all this time and I didn’t know about it. I really should have assumed it, but in my defense I’m new to the Internet. How do I double click? Where is the Internet anyway?

To atone for the oversight I’ve added the word “DraculazombieUSA” to my Microsoft Word Dictionary. I’ve never even added a peculiar consonant heavy constellation of letters known as “Schachterle” to that.

Bluefish Canoe Midterm Election Guide ‘06

I plan to vote for candidates whose accents most closely resemble my own. Just to give you some idea of this profile: my mother was a Berber and my Papa a Cossack, but I was raised amongst the Saami reindeer herders of artic Finland (your people might call my people “Lapps” but that term causes us great offense after centuries of persecution by the barbaric Swedes who used that word). So typically it’s quite obvious who will get my vote. In the event two candidates have accents equally similar to my own, I just vote for the tallest male. I encourage you to do the same.

Tee Shirt

When I first started the blog I toyed with the idea of not telling any friends. I wanted to thwart the temptation to try impress friends and girls with my razor sharp satire and earth-shattering observations. Biasing blog content by their plebeian tastes would be totally uncool.

The other day I saw the Smoked Salmon trying to buy a tee shirt on-line that said “I don’t care about your blog.” I submit that's a success for the blog on some level.

The Coming of the Podcast

The Podcast: Episode I is almost up. We're working on business cards.

Bill Wasik and the Flash Mob

The inventor of the Flash Mob, Bill Wasik, recently revealed his identity. Wasik is a senior editor at Harpers Magazine. The flash mobs were gatherings of hip, strangers via high tech means (text message, email, etc.) to do something pointless, but quirky and cute like hold a tissue in the air and drop it or gather around an expensive rug at Macy’s. They started off in Manhattan in the summer of 2003 and spread all around the world according to their entry in wikipedia. When Wasik claimed credit for starting the micro-craze, he announced that his intention was to mock the youth hipster culture as nothing more than a race to the next trend. He purportedly intended to draw attention to the hipster’s blind faith in anything with a whiff of irony, despite the stench of confusion, creative want, and conformity.

Unfortunately for Wasik, smug mockery, especially mockery followed by denial of ones own hip-itude, is the cornerstone of all things hip, and by mocking the mockers Wasik may have made himself into the biggest hipster of all. Did Wasik not simply apply the hipster formula of irony and cuteness above reason, and then take that formula to its logical conclusion? Could the meta-mocker be the smuggest and most nauseating of all hipsters?

The answer is obvious: probably, but who cares? I care because like making mocumentaries about mocumentaries or adding razor blades to disposable razor heads, this could easily spiral out of control. What if someone tries to mock Wasik for mocking hipsters and then someone mocks the guy who mocked Wasik for mocking hipsters and someone mocks that final guy too and then on and on… I could meet the meta-meta-meta-meta-mocker at a party and feel socially pressured to laugh like a Senator forced to applaud at the State of the Union. Oh, I can say I won’t fake laugh now, but if it gets me out of the conversation I’m sure I’ll fake laugh, escape for more drink, and then be left feeling like a washed up, broke whore. What will be left of me then?

Oscars

I have no time for a real blogging today because I've been busy with the podcast and work. (A pod cast is coming soon.) However I would like to open up a question to the readership: why is the Oscars statue a depiction of a nude warrior knight? I guess the gold part kind of makes sense.

Funk-a-delic

Looking for a funk infusion but too young and white to know where to start? Check out the recent posting on Corn Chips and Pie for what can only be described as a Rosseta stone of funk.

You Have to Believe in Something

There’s been a lot happening in my personal life so I haven’t managed to write about one recent surprise. I visited Burlington, Vermont two weeks ago and I spent the evening playing pool in a bar called the Three Needs with some friends. We were playing doubles and this annoying hippie dude came up to challenge us for a game. He wasn’t the crunchy gutter punk type—more a clean shiny Phish kid. My partner, a girl I know, and I went down early with this hippie having a little streak after my crappy break. After a few shots by both teams I realized the hippie didn’t have a partner and was trying to play two on one. That’s totally against the rules of course. We had just won the previous game; hence it’s our call to play doubles. I pointed out his mistake. He refused to take a partner and insisted he should be able to play alone. Thus a typical endless pool table dispute broke out with my lady partner in no mood to take this shit from the hippie asshole. I believe in doubles pool because it gets more people involved and reduces a certain annoying, ESPN, pool hall mindset that doesn’t belong at a bar (you have to believe in something). The hippie evidentially felt otherwise. After a long debate, I grabbed one of his friends, declared the friend the hippie’s new partner and made him play. The new partner sucked, I sunk the eight ball, and the hippie undoubtedly blamed my choice of his partner for their poor showing. So the hippie threw down his stick, and turned to this girl announcing that “we lost, but he [me] is a dick!” I got in his face and the hippie challenged me to “take it outside”.

He walked out to smoke a cigarette and ostensibly wait for my now called-out person. My friends had gotten word of what had happened and were crowding around to prevent fisticuffs. I kept quite until things returned to normal and snuck outside while no one was looking so my crew couldn’t prevent the whooping that need to come down.

I found the hippie right near the bar smoking and blabbing Phish kid dribble to some girl. I pushed him and the rumble ensued. A few body blows were thrown, a bit of wrestling, but all and all it was a very wimpy showing on both sides. Then the bouncer from the bar came out and broke it up. The hippie went off in another direction and I tried to go back in the bar assuming the bouncer wouldn’t let me after my mighty bout, but he did. Apparently the fight was so incredibly lame that it didn’t even register in the bouncers mind as a fight. Alternatively, after seeing my best attempt to mess someone up, the bouncer may have concluded that I was harmless and can safely be granted re-admittance.

Later that night I noticed the hippie had returned. I avoided eye contact with him due to embarrassment still surrounding the failure of our fight. I also avoided the bouncer after it occurred to me he may have mistaken the battle for a make out session.

Tavarez

I just had lunch with a friend at a favorite dinner and briefly discussed the recent free agent signings in Major League Baseball. I pointed out my beloved Red Sox had acquired the pugnacious loon Julian Tavarez. This friend of mine is a San Francisco sports fan where Tavarez is something less than beloved after spending three years on the Giants where he 1) sucked and 2) was an asshole. I defended Tavarez by quoting what may be one of the most insane monologues ever by a professional athlete who was not Oil Can Boyd. In 2003 while playing with the Pirates, umpires caught Tavarez clearly scuffing a ball with pine tar hidden on the brim of his hat. Tavarez responded:

I used to let things like that bother me. That's why they used to call me Yo-Yo Head earlier in my career. Now, I don't care what people say or write in the newspapers. I'm not putting anything on the ball. I could see if I had 20 wins that people might say something. I have two wins. Would I only have two wins if I were cheating?[my italics].

Tavarez then out does himself:

Everyone has their own preferences. Some people like skinny women, I like fat women. Some people like young women, I like old women. Some people like poor women, I like rich women. Some people like clean caps, I like dirty caps.

Housewives of Newton, Nahant, and Newbury Street with no particular inclination for the gym, you are in luck.

Baseball in March: What's the Deal?

To follow up the last posting with an opinion piece: I’m not so sure about baseball in March. I mean, I’ll watch team USA. I’ll even get drunk watching team USA—I’m not a some sicko terrorist or anything. But there is something unnatural about going right from the Winter Olympics to baseball. This may seem odd coming from a man who lives in a country where it’s perfectly normal to eat a strawberry in February. However baseball in March to me is like those 40 year old dudes who wear down jackets with fake fur hoods, or dudes in yellow sneakers who are neither gay nor German—it’s just a little weird.

I heard an interesting idea on the ESPN podcast the other day. Someone suggested eliminating the All Star game, which no one would miss, and breaking in the middle of summer for the international tournament. My total ignorance of anything non-American prohibits me from guessing how that might affect non-American leagues, but I like the idea. Other leagues may be willing to rearrange their schedules around America if it means promptly kicking Team USA’s ass. And personally, I picture myself spitting on Derek Jeter in his Yankee uniform on one day and the next cheering for him in his Team USA uniform. I could get into that.

On an unrelated note, check out my friends remix of a Strokes song.

Baseball in March?

Yes, something is coming and it's called the World Baseball Classic. It's modeled after the soccer World Cup where professional players from various leagues get together and play for their country. It's going to be a short tournament in March of baseball playing countries. People are going wild about it in the Dominican Republic and Central America, and Americans may get into it once it starts. The Classic is run mainly by Bud Selig, the commissioner of Major League Baseball, and the American baseball players union.

Not surprisingly the usual jerks arose to push their weight around and cause problems with something that should be fun. The NY Yankees lead by their owner George Steinbrenner objected to their player's involvement for fear they'd get injured. They can't officially block their players from participating, but have informally discouraged Yankees from playing. Then the Bush administration worked to prohibit the Cuban national team from entry into the tournament. The Puerto Rican professional league threatened to pull out in protest to another stupid call by Bush and friends. Losing the Puerto Rican league and Cuban team would cripple and in fact invalidate the tournament. Fidel Castro offered to donate all proceeds from the games to victims of Hurricane Katrina, and the Bush Administration gave in. Cuba will be in the games.

As suggested above, Puerto Rico, although not an independent country, has a team in these games. That’s just a cool move and of course well earned by Puerto Rican baseball players.

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Old School Freak

Nytimes.com managed to outdo Bluefish Canoe by reporting on a recently discovered Jurassic era freak animal called Castorocauda lutrasimilis. Castorocauda lutrasimilis is Latin for "beaver tail and similar to the otter". The nytimes article provides no explanation of how beaver tail and similar to the otter is expressed in only two words in Latin. Nor is there any account of why the scientists didn't name the newly found species the Latin equivalent of similar to the platypus. I have no explanation either, but the nytimes does concede Castorocauda lutrasimilis is pretty much like a platypus (but not a relation according to the article).

Anyway, if you didn't go to the link this is what it looks like:

A Guy with Two 1,000 Gallon Fish Tanks

Fred Hamilton of Cincinnati, Ohio has two 1,000 gallon fish tanks for a total of 2,000 gallons of indoor aquatic habitat. Naturally, he has also published on the Internet. I don't mean to disparage Mr. Hamilton or his colossal effort. I, in fact, have the utmost respect for a guy who just really likes big fish tanks. Check out the web site. It’s pretty cool.

I can't believe I forgot Downhill Battle

I didn't have a link to downhill battle on the blog till now. I should have, but it just slipped my mind. It's a cool site and the dudes who make are super cool Worcester people.

Cheney Resignation Pool

I believe you all know the tune to this one:

Na na naa na
Na na naa na
Say hey, hey
Goodbye

May that ditty be the anthem to the Dick Cheney Resignation Pool. Here the rules: you guess a date for Dick Cheney’s resignation, leave it on the comments section (you do not need a username or password although you can make one, but you must copy the squiggly letters). The contestant who guesses the date closest to Dick Cheney’s actual resignation wins a mix CD made by me. You can guess a date past the inevitable resignation—it’s purely closest date wins.

Dick Cheney’s years of arrogance, secrecy, insolence, and incompetence followed by a high profile shooting accident dumb and sad enough for the media to jump on—oh yes it’s on. He’s a liability, and it’s time for him to go!

My guess = March 15th.

Plame Was Spying on Iran when Cheney "Outed" Her

For the first time, and possibly the only time, we may actually have breaking news at Blue Fish Canoe. According to Larisa Alexandrovna of a blog called the Raw Story, Valerie Plame Wilson was investigating an underground network of terrorists who smuggled nuclear bomb making materials to Iran when she was “outed” by Cheney & co. This story is corroborated by Stephen Clemens, the Executive Vice President of the centrist think tank, the New America Foundation. Mr. Clemens appeared today on the Brian Lehrer Show where he mentioned the connection, and if Stephen Clemens is good enough for the great NYC radioman, Brian Lehrer, then he’s is good enough for me.

The underground network of nuclear smugglers that Plame infiltrated included known Pakistani granddaddy of proliferators, A.Q. Khan. The report is vague on what exactly Plames role was as a spy, but said her outing did “severe” damage to America’s ability to monitor the Iranian nuclear weapons program.

If this turns out to be true, will we finally have enough evidence to show Bush and friends have done far more to harm American security than to bolster it? During the elections two years ago only one candidate, Dean, clearly said Bush makes us vulnerable, but now it seems pretty obvious. The Iraq war has emboldened Iran to pursue nuclear weapons seeing we’re too weak to stop them. The only chance we have to slow Iran appears to be Russian diplomacy (imagine being dependent on Russia six years ago). The North Koreans have been forgotten and left to build who knows what—and again thanks to the war in Iraq we’re powerless to stop them. And now, our own efforts to keep tabs on a volatile nation, a nation run by people who openly hate us, were undermined by our own VPs office.

What's Wrong with Park Slope: Exhibit A

I’d like to draw your attention to the link to the right called the Muk Report. This dude, Muk, said he made these joke tee-shirts making fun of Park Slope and people from “the Slope” freaked out. I should say Park Slope is a neighborhood in Brooklyn, NY known for being a bit on the yuppyish side in a sanctimonious, young parent kind of way (it's as bad as it sounds). Check out the blog and the subsequent comment section for nauseating dose of self-righteousness from PS breeders.

Nature's Freak Part IV: The Platypus

This species I believe to be the king of nature’s freaks as well as my favorite animal. In English we call him the duckbilled platypus. When the English first discovered the platypus, they sent a stuffed one back to the British Museum in London and officials in the museum thought it was joke. They assumed the explorers had sewed a beak onto a baby beaver. The platypus lives in limbo between mammal and marsupial. It’s toothless, venomous, egg-laying; it has boobs, and it poops, pees, and gives birth through the one hole, the cloaca. It also has the ability to hunt by sensing electrical charges. The platypus paddles through the water with two webbed and clawed hands that are hyperactive and completely out of sync with each other—like a guy in a rowboat who rows with one arm and then the other. It's a tremendous animal and I salute all platypus.

Nature's Freak Part III: The Viperfish

This is the viperfish, Chauliodus sloani. There’s not a whole lot to say about this fish besides it’s one ugly mother. However, I will share some marginally notable trivia. 1) The viperfish is found in deep water all around the world from Maine to Australia. 2) It’s got bioluminescent fins, meaning its fins light up the color of glow-in-the-dark stickers. 3) It's usually about a foot long. And 4) it'll mess you up.

Nature's Freaks Part II: The Chimaera

This hideous sad looking freak is a shark relative known as the chimaera.

The name comes to us from ancient Greek mythology. The Geeks were creative in ways that may never again be matched; however in dreaming up mythological animals they were largely lame and lazy preferring to just combine traits of existing animals into one freak animal rather than make up new animals. That, animals in a blender approach, was the route they took with the chimaera claiming it was fire-breathing part lion, serpent, and goat.

Even lamer by wide margins are those who name newly found animal species. I'm not sure which part of this fish resembles a lion, serpent, or goat, but nonetheless it's a chimaera.

How Long Should I Microwave Things?

I can't figure out microwaves. Everything I try to microwave comes out either lukewarm with patches of cold or several degrees chiller than the sun. Does anyone have any advice on this? What about one potato? How long should I microwave a potato?

On the other hand, I am good at estimating volumes of liquid in practical situations such as number of glasses left in a partially drunk bottle of wine or shots in a bottle of whiskey. Can I trade volume estimates for microwave times?

Help me.

Another Good One from the Bush Administration

Christie Whitman, the Bush appointed head of the EPA in 2001, mislead New Yorkers by telling them that the air around Ground Zero was safe according to Deborah A. Batts, a Federal Judge. Whitman knew that 2,000 tons of asbestos went into World Trade Center construction, but somehow she announced time and time again that Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn were safe.

May I extend a sarcastic thank you to the Bush administration?

Possibly my favorite Iraq war corruption story yet

Uber dirt bag, Robert J. Stein Jr., served as comptroller for the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq in 2003 and 2004. During his tenure he used his position and tax payer money intended for Iraqi reconstruction to acquire first class plane tickets, cigars, alcohol, watches, jewelry, and 2 million dollars in cash including 1 million in outright bribes. He also kept women in his villa who dispensed sexual favors to spice up the already delightful deal. Mr. Stein had been convicted of felony fraud before taking the job in Iraqi, although this charge was somehow overlooked by the administration that hired him. Check out the story for yourself.

Nature's Freaks Part I: The Sea Butterfly

A recent underwater documentary I received from my brother as a Christmas present has sparked my interest in natures most bizarre species. The discovery coincided with figuring out how to upload pictures to the blog (I click on a picture of a picture--who knew?). This serendipitous conflation can only lead to a reoccurring blog theme: nature’s freaks.

The freak depicted here is the sea butterfly. It's a snail relative that floats around in the ocean fishing for plankton using a "mucous net".