Wednesday, June 06, 2007

"We're always here for you!insults in a conviction, valium veteran"

Those snippets of text that are trying to defeat spam filters make for a kind of absurdist poetry.
Fascinating Radio Lab this week about sleep.

(www.wnyc.org)

I have never had any trouble sleeping, other than times when I mistakenly overconsume caffeine. Mostly, just going around in a half-asleep stupor all the time, does it for me. I'm constantly tired, so when sleep presents itself, I'm there.

One part of the show details a mother's frustration with getting her child to sleep. I remember those feelings of inadequacy very, very well.

I still feel inadequate, but for different reasons.

Currently reading: Benjamin Franklin by Walter Isaacson. I have his Einstein, too, but the Bugliosi book about the JFK assassination will probably arrive before I get to that, so I bet that will command my attention for a while.

Excellent SModcast this week, too.

(www.quickstopentertainment.com/smodcast)

Malcolm, a Canadian, didn't remember the name of the Canadian prime minister. (He's Canadian.) Kevin correctly pointed out that nearly every American knows the name of the president, although it reminded me of a brief encounter during the 2000 Florida recount/election theft debacle. Walking through my workplace, I overheard two nice, but dim, female coworkers talking about it. One asked, "So then, who's the president now?"

Admittedly, if you're not a geek like me, the constant back and forth about the battle for the presidency might raise a question, if one does not remember that the current President serves through the time of election until the next January.

Had to explain to my 11 year old son that sex is different from kissing. He had used the word sex when he meant kissing. Had to make it clear that this would confuse a listener and possibly get him into trouble. Now, we've had the talk, but it doesn't seem to register with him, because we have to keep having it.

Another example of my failure as a parent.

It's good weather for driving down the road with the windows down. Listened to IPod on shuffle last night, but it played "Silver and Gold" and "Helter Skelter" back to back. I can't understand how, with 1800+ tracks to choose from, it can choose two tracks not only from the same group, but also from the same record, right in a row. I know, statistically, it's not that unlikely, but it seems unlikely. It's like the cycle being less common than the no hitter, but the no hitter gets a lot more love.
Another loss, 2-0 to Oakland. Shut out by Lenny (LEN!) DiNardo and a parade of ne'er do wells. Yankees win, so the gap is 11 1/2 games. As I said, this could quickly get out of control.

Maybe, as the Yankees partisans claim, we're just not this good, and they're just not that bad.

Sigh.

The Avandia furor seems to be dying down. There are countervailing studies, as I knew there would be, and, naturally, the national media is trumpeting the new results exactly as loudly as they did the old ones.

Yeah, right.

Tuesday, June 05, 2007

Fascinating Studio 360 this week...mathematics and symmetry
RIP, Clete Boyer. Great fielder.
Plus, Mark Ellis of the A's hit for the cycle. Cycles, IIRC, are less common than no hitters, yet they never get the love that the no no gets. Much love for the cycle, just do it against somebody else, willya?
Another day, another loss, this time on a walk off by Eric Chavez. We've dropped 4 of 5, and this can easily get out of control if Dice Man doesn't right the ship. Fortunately, I guess, the Yankees don't gain any ground, since they lost to Chicago (my kind of town, Chicago is).

Is it silly to worry about the team that's not, technically speaking, behind us? Well, they're the Yankees. Plus I don't really believe Toronto, Baltimore, or Tampa is really going to make a run. This Yankee offense is going to get hot at some point and carry them for two weeks, and we better be ready to keep up with them when they do.

At least the losses have been close ones. We haven't been outclassed in a while-one of those silly, 14-2 losses like we had against Atlanta.

Monday, June 04, 2007

Nearly 3500 American dead.

In the name of all that is good and decent, stop the fucking war. Today.
Well, I'm glad that's over. Three days of Red Sox-Yankees, and I feel like I've been run over by a truck.

Dropped two out of three, again. The Yankees are still buried, but when they get a good (or even mediocre) pitching performance, their hitters can still beat you. Now its off to the West, Oakland and Arizona, before coming home to face the Rox and the Barry Bonds Traveling Freak Show, the only team currently eligible, en masse, to join AARP.

The Yankees are coming, the Yankees are coming. Forgive me a frisson of paranoia. We have to keep them down. Keep winning series, and they'll never catch us. But that's the trick, aint it?