Daisy Girl

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyVn9k6d1og

Supposedly, this ad ran only once, its effect was so dramatic.

It still chills the blood, forty years later.

Five More Things I Can Do Without

6. Men in sandals

7. Women wearing slippers in public.

8. My IPod earbuds slipping out of my ears

9. Fighting in public

10. Journalists who won't ask obvious questions

Ten Things I Can Do Without

(via www.pandagon.net)

1. Manny Ramirez' spirited play for the Dodgers after his dispirited play for the Red Sox at the end of his tenure.

2. John McCain and Sarah Palin

3. Otherwise smart people who attempt to talk themselves into rhetorical pretzels while trying to justify supporting McCain/Palin in November.

4. Lists of ten things

5. Francisco Rodriguez

Remarkable Video

http://vimeo.com/1546186

Remarkable video about a HUGE music collection currently going begging near Pittsburgh.

ALDS Game Two

In a remarkable game, Boston stormed out to a 4-0 lead, but the Angels chipped, chipped, chipped away until a Chone Figgins triple and a Mark Teixeira sacrifice fly tied the game at 5 in the 8th. However, Francisco Rodriguez, who came on to finish the 8th and kill a Red Sox rally, gave up a long double to David Ortiz that nearly got out, and a longer home run to JD Drew that did, for a 7-5 win.

Audacity

I didn't watch the vice presidential debate last night. Listening to the post debate coverage, I was rendered speechless by Governor Palin's assertion that she wasn't going to answer the questions "the way her opponent might like or the way the moderator might like", and then proceeded to not answer the questions at all.

Lady, you are presuming to be the Vice President of the United States of America. When a citizen asks you a question, or when a member of the media, acting as a proxy for the citizens, asks you a question, YOU ANSWER THE FUCKING QUESTION. Not some other question. That's not debate strategy, or cleverness, or rhetorical flourish, that's RUDENESS. Garden variety rudeness. I don't accept that from my twelve year old, and I won't accept that from you.

Game One In The Books

After I fell asleep last night, Boston scored two late runs to seal a 4-1 win, taking a 1-0 series lead over the Angels. Dice K starts Game Two tomorrow.

ALDS LB 2: Angles 1, Carmine Hose 0

Top Four

Our Man Youk starts us off with a clean base hit.

JD pops out, and Bay whiffs. Do I sense a pattern developing?

Mike Lowell, American Hero, whiffs to end it.

Argh.

Bottom Four

Casa De Napoli grounds out.

Sarge Junior grounds out as well.

Aybar also grounds out, ending the inning. Chip Caray notes that Erick's brother is also in the postseason, playing for the Rays. He doesn't add, "he can't hit, either."

Top Five

Farmer Jed flies out.

Tek flies out fairly deep to right.

Jacoby beats out a bunt for a single, then steals second.

DP flies out, relatively hard, but right to Sarge for the third out.

Forebodings of doom.

Bottom Cinco

Back up top for Figgins. Chone (sp?) lines out to short.

Garret Anderson cashes his Social Security check, then comes to the plate, grounding out somewhat lazily to first.

Teixeira poleaxes a single to left.

Guerrero hits an opposite field single. Gulp.

But Hunter taps out to the mound, and Lester is out of another jam.

Top Six

Papi pops out, first pitch swinging.

Our Man Youk draws a walk.

The "ever dangerous" JD Drew now.

He whiffs, dangerously, and now we have The Bay State.

AND JASON BAY, WHO I HAVE LOVED SINCE CHILDHOOD, HOMERS TO LEFT FOR A 2-1 lead. WOW.

Lackey looked unhittable.

Lowell grounds out to end the inning.

Nice.

Bottom Six.

Kendrick. Lackey still dealing-95 mph.

The whiff....

And Napoli also goes down on strikes. Nice.

And Sarge Junior takes CALLED STRIKE THREE, on a gift, to end the inning. Six full in the books, and Boston leads, 2-1.

Red Sox at Angels, Game One: ALDS Liveblogging

The Phillies beat the Brewers, and the Dodgers hammered the Cubs, featuring a Manny Ramirez homer off of his shoetops to put away the Cubs in Wrigley.

Boston has a tough opening, wasting an Ellsbury double in the top of the first, then Jon Lester giving up two singles in the bottom half. Then walking Torii Hunter. Grumble.

But Big Jon escapes, getting a neat as you please little chopper to Mike Lowell to get a force out that ends it. Phew.

They seem to be reaching Lackey pretty well, but every ball is at somebody.

Lackey makes quick work of Boston in the second, and so its on to the bottom of the second.

Prognosticators seem to make much of the "Oh, Anaheim has struggled against Boston" theme. Yeah, they've lost a bunch of postseason games to Boston, but some of those were with Mike Witt on the mound, so that's not really relevant.

Lester retires Mike (Casa de) Napoli and Sarge Mathews easily, then gets Erick Aybar on a groundout. Easy pleasy lemon squeezy.

Leading off the third, Farmer Jed Lowrie takes one for the team, and now its Tek. Tek chops one to the mound, and Lackey is able to spin and get the out at second. Lowrie's slide prevents the double play, though. Then comes Ellsbury, and he also chops one up the middle. Kendrick makes a neat little flip to second to get another force, but again, no DP. Then a walk to our DP brings up the Big Guy, Papi. Papi gets jobbed on a strike call, gets a gift check swing call, and pops up to end the inning.

On to the bottom of the third, and Chone (sp) Figgins. Figgins works a 3-2 count, then whiffs on a hard inside fastball. Garrett Anderson, who is 432 years old, fights off a hard fastball for a nice opposite field single. Teixeira whiffs on a semi questionable check swing call. Now Vlad the Impaler. Vlad hits a catchable ball towards the middle, but Lowrie kicks it.

Shit.

Torii (Die Hard The) Hunter now. He is jammed, hits a sinking liner in front of (Sitting By The Dock of The) Bay, and Anderson slides in with the first run of the game and of the series.

Dang.

Kendrick now. Howie taps out, and that's it, end of three-1-0 Anaheim.

The Internet ate it!

I am SURE I posted baseball picks on here, but I just can't find them. Maybe I imagined them.

I did post them elsewhere, so here they are in their misinformed glory:

March 18, 2008:

AL East: Boston

AL Central: Detroit (Whoops!)

AL West: Anaheim

AL WC: New York

NL East: New York (Whoops!)

NL Central: Chicago

NL West: Los Angeles

NL WC: San Diego (Swing and a miss!)

AL Champ: Boston

NL Champ: New York

WS Champ: Boston


Out of six divisions, and eight playoff spots, I got three right. That's actually not bad. But the misses are doozies.

Post 900

According to Blogger, this is Post Number 900.

Yay, blogging.

The Lottery and the Letter P

Can we stop with the "Kansas City/St. Louis is so bad they couldn't beat USC" talk, please? If you could arrange such a game, which you can't, the pro team would win by three touchdowns. The difference in talent is just that great.

Blog Amnesia

"American League East
March 31, 2008
TAM 1-0
BOS 1-1 0.5gb
NYY 0-0 0.5gb
TOR 0-0 0.5gb
BAL 0-1 1gb
Probably the last time they'll look like this."

AL East
September 30, 2008

Tampa Bay 97-65
Boston 95-67
NY Yankees 89-73
Toronto 86-76
Baltimore 68-93

Interestingly, that was not the last time they'd look like that. In fact, they would finish exactly that way.

Get Your Monkeys Out Of The Pool

I hesitate to check my fantasy football numbers from this weekend. I had a bunch of players on bye, so I filled all my spots, but filled them poorly, so I would not be surprised if I got thumped. That would put me at 1-2, if I recall correctly. Just like last year, I’m having QB issues. I have Donovan McNabb, which certainly beats my performance last year, when I ended up with Jamarcus Russell. But I have not been able to come up with a backup-I guess people are hoarding QBs. I have Marc Bulger, who I knew was benched, so I took a shot with Sage Rosenfels, hoping maybe for an injury. As far as I can tell, I didn’t get one. I should have known better than playing someone with a girl’s name.

(I let the computer pick for me, last year because I was busy and this year because I FORGOT. In the league that I started. And set the draft date.) (Jeez.)

It appears that Arizona WR Anquan Boldin is going to be okay after he collapsed following a scary helmet to helmet hit at the end of their game on Sunday against the Jets. The guy who hit him is going to be fined and suspended for the hit, which, honestly, it didn’t look like he could avoid.

There have been a lot of stretcher hits in the NFL thus far this season-it’s a curious thing. It may be that they are just being more careful, but it brings up an interesting conundrum that doesn’t get talked about enough. Violence is part of the game-no question. Fans of the game enjoy the speed and the implied violence of the game along with the beauty. It’s hard to legislate against it, but it’s also hard to protect the participants while retaining the danger. Kind of like auto racing. I don’t think it’s fair to punish a guy who was really just trying to make a play on the football.

Tech reporter Robert Scoble says he has talked to companies who can’t get loans, so the pain is coming. Well, maybe. But maybe those companies will have to work harder to get their money? Is this really the end of the world? As we know it? And I feel fine?

Someone who works with REM is Twittering their playlists as they tour Europe. That’s fun-I’m glad they do that. I also just learned that Rachel Maddow is on Twitter, too. That’s cool.

The more I think about it, I really clearly remember making baseball previews this year-picking the races. I have got to go find that and reprint it-that’s usually good for a dose of humility.

Adam Curry mentioned on the Daily Source Code that the Southern US gas shortages are really not getting much attention from the national media-probably the first time something you could have read HERE before Adam mentioned it.

There was an interesting piece in Newsweek about the fear, particularly among African Americans, of an Obama loss in November. I have many of the same fears. Perhaps the worst one is the loss of faith-if a large number of people come out and vote for Obama, and then he loses, perhaps with questions of electoral propriety, it is going to destroy a lot of faith in the system.

Then again, is the system really deserving of our faith right now? I would hate for the lesser angels of our nature to get expressed with a McCain win, especially because it would reinforce what so many already believe about America.

Adam also rants, during the DSC, about Dave Winer’s “unamerican” comments about Red States and Blue States on his blog…well, frankly, they started it. Right wing media (which is hugely popular in red states) is filled with hateful invective and bile about liberal elites and godless Democrats, and has been for a generation. And what do they get in return? Redneck jokes. Hardly a fair trade.

Funny picture from a post on dvorak.org/blog, taken on Wall Street Monday- “Jump, You Fuckers.”

The playoffs start tomorrow-Boston at LA, 10pm.

Games 161 and 162- Stayin Alive With Win 95

In Boston yesterday, Boston wound up winning the nightcap, a 10 inning 4-3 win over the Yankees to finish the year with 95 wins and 67 losses.

With that, I have successfully blogged all 162 Red Sox games this year. It's a wierd sort of triumph, but its a triumph.

Apparently the Dow took a major hit today-700 plus points. My first reaction is a Nelson Muntz-like “Ha-ha!” Of course, I am not unmindful of the pain this causes many people, not to mention my own employers. But what did people expect? Why was giving loans to people who can’t pay them back a good idea?

“Blood in the streets, it’s up to your ankles…”
-The Doors

I keep in my mind Dan Carlin’s idea about the short term pressures on firms to boost the stock price, too, and I think, and I think, and I think…God, I am so tired of thinking.

Apparently the failure of the bailout has spooked the markets. While I certainly don’t claim to understand fully what is going on, the logic, as I understand it, is that these mortgage backed securities, and derivatives based on same, are illiquid-nobody wants them. So, huge companies can’t get loans, or give loans, until they figure out what these things are worth. If anything.

Men like Ben Bernanke and Henry Paulson certainly know a lot more about this than I do. They say it is bad, and it is so bad, that we have to act now.

On a gut level, I distrust this “trust me, I know what I’m doing” attitude that permeates the actions of the Bush Administration. Because I don’t trust them-I don’t trust that they know what they’re doing. I don’t trust that this is necessary.

One question I keep asking myself is ok, so the banks fail and the capital markets freeze. Isn’t the beauty of capitalism that it will find a way? Someone will find a way to loan this money and make a profit on it, won’t they? So it won’t be these people. So what? Let these people go broke, burn the forest to cinders, and start over. Maybe we can build a financial system that is built on reason and logic instead of wishes and unicorn dreams.

It’s Playoff Time! The MLB Playoffs begin on Wednesday. Boston has to go out West to take on those pesky Angles, and, obviously, need to take one out there before coming back to Boston for games 3 and 4. I’m hopeful, but not optimistic. I think the Rays will win whomever they get, the Twins or the White Sox, and I think the Phillies and the Cubs will emerge from the National League.

I should look back and see what predictions I made at the beginning of the year.

On second thought, I don't know if I didn't make them, or if I can't find them. But I can't find them. Oh well.

Games 161/162: Wrap It Up

In a day/night doubleheader that means absolutely nothing unless you get a commission on hot dog sales at Fenway, New York beat Boston in the "day" part, 6-2, Mike Mussina stepping onto the 20 win plateau, and Dice K taking the loss.



Another brilliant Dan Carlin show this week-another “common sense” insight that makes me wonder why I didn’t think of it. Ever wonder why executives make huge, risky short term bets on derivatives and cheap ploys to pump up the stock price? Ever wonder why politicians won’t think long term about the greater good, and instead focus on worthless, wasteful, pork barrel spending?

www.dancarlin.com

Think about how we incentivize them.

We reward politicians when they bring home the bacon, and we reward businessmen when the stock price goes up.

We incentivize politicians by reelecting them. We incentivize businessmen by not firing them. We reward them when they give us the cookies, and then we’re surprised when they keep showing up with more cookies. Well, what did we expect them to do?

Dan also talked about the CEO pay restrictions being proposed, and how they will find a way around it, even if they do institute it. Similarly, Dan noted, if MLB instituted such a rule, the MLB players would go overseas, or wherever the largest paycheck would come from. First thing I thought was, I’m not sure if there is a Lebron James in the corporate world, either because the job is impossible, or because the people they select from are all clueless MBA robots who haven’t worked a real job in decades. The next thing I thought was, that process may be beginning in the NBA-as stars like Lebron and Kobe are seriously considering playing overseas because they can be paid more, both in real terms and because of the NBA salary cap, over there.

Now reading Ron Susskind’s “The Way Of The World”, another cheery, fun read. Sigh. In the words of Emo Phillips, some days it’s not even worth chewing through the straps.

More brilliant Carliniana…the problem with US foreign policy is not what we believe, it’s what we do. Apparently, a Saudi government judge has opined that it is acceptable for people to kill employees of television companies which broadcast indecent content. And we wonder why they hate us? We can’t criticize the Saudi government, because they hold the economic health of this country, such as it is, in their hands. And they have wack jobs like this in power? There is no war on terror while we put up with crap like this.

“No Agenda” provides the first post debate analysis I have heard on a podcast-what few things I have been able to read indicate an Obama win, though a narrow one, and that is the way Adam and John see it as well.