Tanzanian Adventures

Among the many strange and wondrous surprises I came across in Tanzania was the legend of a Peace Corps. volunteer who had tattooed a picture of a mustache to the inside of her left index finger. Then when she wanted to impersonate someone with a mustache all she had to do was raise her left index finger to her upper lip. Why didn't I think of that?

He's a witch!

Among the many, many memorable experiences I had in Tanzania over the last few weeks was meeting a witch doctor. I was collecting GPS coordinates in a village with a sizable band of translators, supervisors, and village staffers. We approached a home on the outskirts of the village. An old man came out and told our crew he was a witch. A westerner translator who was with us later explained to me that he used a word that actually meant "witch doctor" and was not to be confused with another Swahili word that translates more closely to "traditional/herbal healer." The man was friendly and invited us into his hut for lunch. The staff politely declined the offer explaining that we were too busy, and we left. I noticed the witch dr. had a tortoise in a large cage. I have long believed that tortoises and turtles might have magical properties and I consider this suspicion confirmed.

Hudson River plane

I heard they raised that plane out of the Hudson with the force.

Hayes Carll Show Part II

I met Hayes briefly at the bar between sets one and two. I told him that my uncle almost came down from Maine to see the show. He replied, "ya, that's being in a band," making clear he didn't quite hear me. It was awesome. He also asked me for the time.

Hayes Carll Show

The Hayes Carll Show last night was sublime. I didn't even mind that he repeated songs from the first set in the second set, botch a song because of the arses trying to mosh in front of me, and that Union Hall in a characteristically dickish move made me and the two other super fans who attended both sets buy separate tickets for each set (by nights end I managed to purchase 4 tickets to one show--all for a good cause). From his witty between song banter to his mocking a drunk guy dancing ("its takes years for some people to get to that level... I can't dance either, well, no need to elaborate on that"), to his live show intensity and perfect rendering of his songs both new and old, that is, first album, second and third, Hayes was awesome!

Bush Pardons

What crazy people do you think Bush will pardon now that he's in full bailout of the White House mode? Maybe Plaxico?

According to this article (and I don't vouch for it's validity, but will link to it), Bush has already pardoned a bunch of hunters including one who poisoned a bald eagle in a turkey saving, coyote killing zany mix up with strychnine .

Raccoons invade Germany

The Germans brought the first raccoons to Europe in the 1930s. They called them Waschbaeren, or "wash bears," because they wash so frequently (by European standards). During an allied bombing raid, a German raccoon farm was damaged and the raccoons escaped, or rather, were liberated. Over the next 80 years they have been multiplying and maundering over the continental countryside. Recently, they've been moving into German towns, and the Germans have found themselves unable to defend against the 20 lbs. furry menaces. A German family reported trying to expel raccoons from their chimney by smoking them out, then playing loud music, and finally in step far surpassing their previous efforts in imagination and sophistication, the German family electrified their gutters. The raccoons were undeterred.

Price of Lobsters

The price of Maine lobsters has dropped precipitously. According to Big Steve, when the Icelandic banks failed, the lobster processing plants in Canada got in trouble, and somehow the price of lobsters went through the floor. Thus lobster is cheap, and we should buy them because it will help the lobster market, and because they taste good and are... cheap.

Will this economic crisis show no mercy? When will it abate?

Big Steve is weathering the crisis well. Indeed, he killed a deer with his 308 in his backyard yesterday and is ecstatically happy.

Swordfish

Sharks have a lot of street cred for all their seal and surfer eating, but I believe the swordfish to be the biggest badass of the seas. The shark is a thug, while the swordfish has style. The shark is Chris Penn as Nice Guy Eddie, while if fish had wallets, the swordfish's would say 'Bad Mother Fucker' on it. And if any more proof is needed, then I'd submit that the swordfish is faster than the mako shark. Moreover, in the event a mako can catch a swordfish, then the smaller swordfish can kill the mako with, what else but its sword!

The swordfish fits into this section on exceptions to nature's rules because it's warm blooded. It can heat up its eyes and brain and go into a fish turbo mode. Note: it heats its brain, rather than its fins or sword, because the brain is the greatest weapon of the underwater badass.

I guess this says it all

link 1 link 2

Cat reproduction

Keeping on the animal weird sex theme established in the last posting, we have a weird one from a species both near and beloved: the house cat. It's one dirty bitch. Once a female cat and a males cat ehhem... do it, and the female gets prego, the female cat can keep looking for new males and get double pregnant by a different dude. With most non-cat species, once an egg gets fertilized the whole system goes into to baby mode and stops producing fertilize-able eggs. However there's no particular reason to shut down normal reproductive stuff at conception especially if a species has multiple babies per litter and the first round of babies/kittens is only a few days post consception. After ehhem... conception round 1 female cats go out and actually try super hard to get pregnant again and so kittens of the same litter can be half sibs.

Weird Animals

Here at BFC we're rule breakers and we like it when animals do the same. For instance, there have been 2 documented cases of female sharks reproducing by parthenogenesis. My understanding of the virgin births is that two haploid eggs merged to form a diploid baby shark.

Political Mucrucking at Its Finest

This appears to be what we're up against.

Obama & Springsteen

I have been a Springsteen fan for as long as I can remember. I loved 'Born in the USA' but I also hung with him through 'Lucky Town' and other woeful attempts to play rock and roll without the E Street Band. I even was cool when Bruce himself started shutting down beer sales at his Meadowlands show at 7:30 PM. However, I would hope he expresses himself at Obama rallies through popular songs, and not with controversial songs, and definitely not through stream of consciousness monologue.

Coming Attraction

After the election, I'm planning an exceptions to biological rules series. For instance, warm blooded fish and asexual reproduction in unlikely animals. It'll be good.

I'm watching the Obama 1/2 hour ad now. Also good.

This feels like...

To put this election into words I can understand, this feels like 2004 after we beat the Yankees and took the first game against the Cardinals. I have the sense that victory should be ours, but it is likely that what should happen may not, and in its place something I don't want to think about.

Ice sculpture meltdown

Some kids made an ice sculpture in lower Manhattan that, given the temperature of around 40 degrees, is expected to melt in about a day. Good one guys.

Politifact

This site, though not particularly well named, is good for election fact checking. It's also fairly objective. Turns out the 'Palin makes women pay for rape kits' story is not really black and white.

Of course, it also turns out McCain/Palin get the pants on fire rating all the time, and even more so recently.

Debate III

Just watched debate 3. Ohh ya!

Where am I from digitally?

I often find myself startled, nay terrified, by my phone vibrating on a table in an otherwise quiet room. Does that make me a digital immigrant? I'm probably not a digital native (born 1978), but I've always liked to think of myself as a digital Dutchman. Could I at least be from digital El Paso?

"God Bless America"

There is no point fighting it. Like skidding on black ice, reacting too strongly only makes it worse. I've taken to singing along whenever possible, and at least for my favorite part, the climatic, crescendo of schmultz, the "oceans white with FOAM!"

Google, how dare you

Despite rumblings over corporations and their computer's supposedly impending omniscience, I marvel at Google's failure to directly advertise to me. Google clearly needs a Steve Goodman lecture on the problems of applying modern statistics in general and population based means in particular to individuals. A recent ad was just insulting. It was for a cricket website -- reasonable enough -- but the link read, "Real Men Play Cricket: Baseball Is for Boys." During the playoffs no less...

Okkervil River

This is one wicked good band. http://www.okkervilriver.com/

Contest

There have been several palindromic dates recently (like 10/02/2001), but there were none in our grandparents generation. The first person to post the most recent palindromic date that occurred before our lifetimes to the comments section will receive a bag of my favorite all around candy, Mike & Ikes Berry Blast (figure 1)--it's like real fruit but better. I will send the candy to you on my dime via United States Post. Note: over my dead body will Mike & Ikes be mailed to anyone who tries to post a date in day/month/year. Only good only American month/day/year dates will be considered.

Figure 1:

The Bunk

When I was in my twenties, young, brash sapling that I was, I secretly snubbed cat owners. Girls I knew would go on and on about cats rejecting their medicine, and how their cat was the craziest cat in the world. Deep down I worried that it was an admission of the reality of the 'biological clock'. Moreover, how could all their cats be the world's craziest? (Being a largely female contingent they lacked the imperative to find who really was number 1.)

Now that I am a cat owner and a ripened 30 years of age, I've come realize, hypocritically, that I have the craziest cat (Fig 1) in the world. If not the craziest, he is at least the greatest slob of the feline species. May I suggest this litany provides some evidence of my claim:

1. He sleeps on his back hind legs splayed; it's obscene (Fig 2).
2. He ate a controlling interest in a plastic bag.
3. He eats pasta.
4. He drinks from the toilet.
5. He once drank part of an espresso.
6. He pushed over a pint glass.
7. He pushed over a pile of magazines.
8. He pushed over a couch.
9. To get into my bedroom to sleep on my pillow, he broke down a French door.

Figure 1: The Bunk Sitting

Figure 2: The Bunk Sleeping

Mainetoberfest link

I declare this the official link of Mainetoberfest.

Sarah Palin: Folk Hero

I can't take it! Democrats are letting this, Palin, become a folk hero. Everyone knows she lies, everyone knows that she supported the Bridge to Nowhere, everyone knows she overstated the progress on her pipeline. But when the Democrats rely on the media to fact check these insane claims the story appears on the back pages. Look at this story on and ad claiming Obama "supporting sex ed for kindergartners" (as it turns out Obama supported education on teaching children to avoid sexual predators and other age appropriate education). If democrates come out and say "Palin is a liar", then that's a huge story, reported everywhere, and Palin must address it directly. But the actually candidates need to speak the words, not the media, to make it an issue. It's just 4 words. Someone please, say it: Palin is a liar.

Your Obama Tax Cut

Some kid genius in my Hopkins Students for Obama group made this. It calculates your tax savings under Obama's tax plan compared to McCain's. I might not trust it to do my taxes but I like it nonetheless.

Super Buds for Super Bugs

Weed kills MRSA! Some coolass Italians got onto this one. Well done boys.

Cat BMI follow up

I've combed the Internet and spoken to several vets and evidently there is no universally accepted way to calculate cat BMI. The closest is a method involving back leg circumference and back leg length. It's totally stupid because cats store fat around their stomach. It's also surprisingly hard to figure out where a cat's leg starts. The hind appendages merge quite smoothly with the cat butt. The feeding direction on cans of cat food suggest 1 oz of food per pound of cat. My cat weighs 20 lbs and a can of cat food only holds 5.5 oz so my cat would need to eat 3 1/2 cans of food a day. Clearly that's too much cat food for me and I think too much for my cat. Humm...

Jüctencriedden

A friend of mine, the Monstrous Falafel, used a great German word the other day: jüctencriedden. How could a man who speaks no German use a word that was understood by a group of people who also speak no German, you ask? How did we even know it was a German word? Allow me to define the word and its authenticity will be self-eveident.

jüctencriedden \YUK-tin-CRI-den\, gender neuter, noun:
1. The scenario whereby one is hanging out with his wife and one of his wife's female friends who has brought along her new boyfriend. One feels pressure to hang out with the new boyfriend due to ones shared gender. The new boyfriend turns out to be a bit of a douche bag, and this goes unrecognized by your wife because of the convenience of putting the dudes together while she socializes with her friend. Inevitably, the douche bag new boyfriend does not like sports and becomes aggressive at any mention of professional baseball.

Sea Urchin

Since the early 1980s lobstermen in Maine have supplemented their income by diving for sea urchin which they sell to Japanese restaurants. Locally, sea urchin are known as "whore's eggs." Last week on a visit to Maine, I asked lobstermen M.H. why they gave that nickname to the seemingly already derisively named sea urchin. M.H. replied, "because that's what they look like."

McCain's foreign policy

In this very short article written in May, Fareed Zakaria outlines how foreign policies under Obama and McCain might differ using actual policy statements made by the candidates. The article foreshadows the strong words McCain used against Russia this week, and explains how the logical extensions of those words might play out. For instance, McCain supports thowing Russia out of the G8 and isolating China. FZ explains real differences so simply. If you think engaging your enemies diplomatically can prevent war, vote for Obama. If you'd like to undo presidents Nixon and Reagan's greatest foreign policy achievments, and live in a more polarized, paranoid world, then you should vote for McCain.

Strange Maps

May I divert your attention to a far superior blog.

Gold: It's not just for teeth anymore

If there is someone keeping track of this (and I'm sure there is), Baltimore may produce athletes with unprecedented numbers of medals this year. Michael Phelps is from Rogers Forge which is basically part of Baltimore. This website lists other B-more Olympians but somehow misses Carmelo Anthony. Carmelo Anthony has a special place in the heart of the city thanks to his many marijuana related scandals and his community outreach on behalf of the stop snitching movement.

By Popular Demand: The D-Man in Action

Here he is. My old prof turn internationally renown loon, the vertical farmer himself.

Mayor of Detroit

The sitting mayor of Detroit, Kwame Kilpatrick, was recently jailed for violating his parole by going to Canada. He intends to continue running the city from jail pledging "the government will function as usual." As a sometime resident of Baltimore, it pains me to hear news of another city taking on greater shame than B-more. And what about Worcester, how have we never thought of this?

Prez Poll

For something nicely uplifting, check out the USA Today interactive, and click on northern Red States. Can we elect members to the Electoral College based on the derivative of polling curves? It looks like S. Carolina may even be slightly blue.

Zink

It's time for Charlie Zink. I love Clay Buchholz, but Wake and Zink would be awesome together. As if this was a real blog, I will call them Wink.

Worst Acronym Ever

The aids linked to injection drug experience (ALIVE) is a study bent on annoying every junkie in Baltimore. It's also the most awkward and cruelly ironic acronym ever. However, for the participants for whom the title will not apply in the very near future and who are very much aware of that possibility, the acronym maybe forgivable. The men have already been asked if they're men and the women already asked if they are in fact women so we know the participants to have senses of humor at least.

Cat BMI

Does anyone how to calculate a cat BMI? I'm concerned my cat is fat, but then again, I don't really know what he should weigh.

The Critical Mass Dude

I'm not a big fan of Critical Mass.  As a cyclist, I think they do more harm than good for cycling in NYC.  But this guy nearly got killed.  He's ok, and headed for a big pay out.  Make of it what you like via BL... 

Doe Bay

The Smoked Salmon and I observed many differences between east coasters and our countrymen in the west.  Most notably they live much further west than we do.  We had a great time in Seattle.  We went sailing which inspired me to begin planning the construction of a transatlantic wooden sailing vessel.  I will paint her black with red sails and name her the Black Platypus.  

From Seattle we went to Doe Bay in the San Juan Islands.  We stayed at a little hippie resort in a yurt with clothing optional mineral baths.  Blessedly the dominant mineral was Chlorine.  I observed a steady dynamic equilibrium of 1 hot young hippie chick to 10 old hairy hippie dudes.  If 1 hot hippie chick was in the pool and an eleventh old hippie dude arrived, then one of the old hippie dudes, unable to bare the hideosity of the aged hippie male form, would leave the pool.  If a second hot young hippie chick arrived, ten more hippie dudes followed.

Otherwise, the place was charming.      

A Pacific Northwest Kind of Glee

The Smoked Salmon and I have ventured further north and west than we had even anticipated. From Seattle we moved to the San Juan Islands and from there, Vancouver and Whistler. We're tan and so high on skinny dipping in mountain lakes followed by hiking to snowy mountain peaks and butt sledding that we can barely stand it.

I didn't realize how happy I could be (and conversely how unhappy I was in my normal life in New York). I was so unhappy. Deeply darkly morose and unhappy. Bambi after his mother died unhappy. I was simultaneously manic and depressive, both passive and aggressive--depraved, perverted, retarded/totally-tarded...

Vacation

Smoked Salmon and I are heading off to Seattle to visit a friend and hang out. Bunk the Cat (up to 23.4 lbs.) is staying with a friend under the premise that he will hunt the mice that have infested his home. I once saw Bunk run from a cockroach. Happy hunting.

World Wide Telescope

Check out World Wide Telescope: http://www.worldwidetelescope.org/. It's like Google Earth, but for everything besides the Earth.

Cat

My cat is down from 25 lbs. to a handsome 22.8!

The Sixties

The 1960s, I believe, to be the most overrated decade in our history. I once saw a documentary where an old hippie announced that the 1968s Democratic National Convention "was the closest we've ever come to a civil war in this country."

Fishy Fish

I'm on a kick to eat fishier fish. They're more healthy, cheaper, and better for the environment. Eating greasy fishy little fish limits fishing boat travel time because little fish live close to shore, and it reduces incidental dolphin killing--one's net cannot mistake a poggie for a dolphin. Moreover the little SOBs are so numerous they're nearly impossible to over-fish. To this end, I had a bagel with pickled herring this morning. It tasted so terrible I couldn't finish it. That's the downside, fishy fish don't taste good.

However eating fishy fish does have one advantage laking in so many things that are good but taste bad. In my own debatably warped view of the universe, eating fishy fish is more badass than eating non-fishy fish. Thus I will plod on in this endeavor.

Geek-Fake

I believe "geek-chic" to be an oxymoron. Being smug does not equal being socially maladjusted. Oh, I hear people claiming to be music geeks and sports geeks and I'm able to stomach it, but I heard someone claim to be a yoga geek the other day and it drove me out of a blogging slumber. Geeks are among other things authentic, and people should not trade on the geek name to lend some credibility to their affectations. I spent a semester of undergrad at a small engineering college, and I can say that true geek status is nothing to self-apply.

"Geekiness" can be defined as a sad inability on the part of some people to relate to other people, and a worrying apathy towards the prospects of doing so. Pastimes of the geek are secondary to social problems; however it follows from the very definition of the geek that those pastimes must be consistent with social isolation. Music, sports, and yoga are typically collaborative at least in practice and therefore off the itinerary of the proper geek. The geek social state is exacerbated by gender differences so inter-gender relationships are particularly difficult for true geeks. In turn, Internet porn, and Internet games where people never meet, but instead virtually kill each other while checking out attractive digital women are real geek pastimes. But God bless geeks. Where would we be with out them?

In a sort of unrelated note, I think there are many more male geeks than female geeks, but true female geeks have it worse.

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-.

Yuletide Post

So I haven’t posted for a while. Sorry.

There have been two major developments of this Yuletide: Name That Thing and the farting preacher. Name That Thing requires some explanation. It’s a bar game invented by the unassuming, unpredictable, and always brilliant D-Moore. One boozer thinks of a thing and the other boozers get one shot to name that thing—no hints, no hot/cold, no pantomime, nothing. Then the boozer who initially thought of the thing awards the victory to the boozer who came closest to naming the original thing. Typically, this call is made by a free association criteria specific to the original namer of the thing. Say I name a thing, for instance: Carl Yastrzemski. Friend one says Deep Blue, friend two says pot holes, and friend three says the city of Manchester, NH. Obviously, I would award victory to the boozer who said city of Manchester because I once new a girl from there whose name was … and three of my friends slept with her over a period of several years. They awarded her the “Triple Crown” for her bedroom feat and started to call her Yaz. Yaz is the last baseball player to win a Triple Crown. The boozer who said Manchester thinks of the next thing and the entire process starts over.

Also I’ve taken the Farting Preacher to Worcester. The farting preacher is a preacher who farts. My mom said it was the funniest thing she’d seen in years.