Today was the first day of Spring Training games!


Tim Lincecum gets his pitch on.

And even though it means nothing in the grand scheme of things, the Giants won their Spring opener. A sign of good things to come? Maybe.

Pilfered from hastings1066, it's all about books!

( Click for details. )

Every Baseball postseason, I simultaneously look forward to the drama of the playoffs while dreading the encroachment of mediocre Network broadcasters into the television play-by-play game calling.

( If you don't want to read a big complainypants rant about MLB broadcasters, now would be the time to not click )
I ramble about all this because while there are some broadcasting teams worse than Tim McCarver and Joe Buck, they are precious few. Having watched significant portions of the first two games of the world series, their bias toward the National League team is once again painfully obvious. Buck's father was a career-long broadcaster for the Cardinals, as was Buck himself prior to 2008. McCarver was a long-time catcher for both the Cardinals AND the Phillies. It is impossible for McCarver to be unbiased. He may not even be aware of his own prejudice, but it is obvious in the bent of every piece of commentary that he and Buck favor the NL team. Dismissing the Rays based on prior track record alone would be forgivable - if uncharitable, given that they are the best team in the American League - but it is aggravating to listen to a constant stream of adulation for Charlie Manuel and the Phillies, and how the new sports complex in Philadelphia is one of the greatest in the nation.

Additionally, Buck and McCarver are bad game analysts. Their assumptions about a player's actions are often not borne out, and they are constantly backing and filling throughout the call of a game. They always sounds stilted and amateurish to me. Watching a Giants broadcast is so rewarding because Mike Krukow has encyclopedic knowledge of the game and how (and WHY) it's played, and on numerous occasions I have seen him predict exactly what will occur on an upcoming play. McCarver seems to have no such acumen as a color man; his anecdotes are as colorless as Buck's narration is bland.

Overall, Fox does a poor job of representing baseball. They appear to be trying to force it into the mold of their football coverage with such gimmicks as micing players in the dugout, and playing "in-game" interviews with coaching and/or management personnel (actual interviews occur between innings). These interviews often step on actual real-time game action, forcing McCarver and Buck to (badly) catch the viewer up on what has occurred during the usually vapid "sideline interview."

The solution, in my mind, is to take baseball away from Fox and give it back to ABC, which would then pave the way for Jon Miller and Joe Morgan to call the Postseason. Now, I find Joe Morgan to be McCarver-esque in his ineptitude, but Jon Miller is there to offset Morgan, and being on TV does not make Miller lazy or prone to omission. Miller and Morgan do the radio call for ESPN, and it is far more enjoyable than Fox's coverage. If not for the delay between TV and radio, I would mute the TV and put the radio on.

My ideal scenario, however, would be for the network that owns MLB postseason rights to contract with each team to have the home team's broadcasters take over the play-by-play for national TV when the series is at their team's park. That way, viewers get exposed to the talents of multiple broadcasters (who knows, besides XM subscribers and residents of Tampa/St. Pete, that the Rays have quite a good team of announcers?), and they get a little of the hometown flavor for each team. I'm sure it'll never happen.

Fox owns the rights to the MLB postseason through 2013, and seems determined to relegate the MLB postseason to crushing mediocrity. The MLB Network, scheduled to launch in 2009, does not appear poised to alleviate this. I guess I can dream that, come 2013, some knight in shining armor will rescue the MLB postseason from Fox and raise their coverage above its current suckitude.

Sorry, no detail on this one. I just need to clean the wound.

"you came to take us
all things go, all things go
to recreate us
all things grow, all things grow
we had our mindset
(I made a lot of mistakes)
all things know, all things know
(I made a lot of mistakes)
you had to find it
(I made a lot of mistakes)
all things go, all things go
(I made a lot of mistakes)"
--Sufjan Stevens, "Chicago"

Just when I thought it was not possible to hate that fuckhead George W. Bush and his administration of fuckheads any more, I see this little gem on Yahoo news, which actually made my vision turn red for a moment:

"WASHINGTON - Parts of the Endangered Species Act may soon be extinct. The Bush administration wants federal agencies to decide for themselves whether highways, dams, mines and other construction projects might harm endangered animals and plants.

New regulations, which don't require the approval of Congress, would reduce the mandatory, independent reviews government scientists have been performing for 35 years, according to a draft first obtained by The Associated Press."
--Click for full article

Another salvo in the Bush Administration's Global War On Science.

I think Oliver Stone should have waited to make his movie about Bush until a few years down the road, when the dust has settled, a few damning documents have been declassified, a few dents to America's reputation have hopefully been repaired, and hindsight has cemented his legacy as the worst leader this nation has ever had.

Thanks a lot, Supreme Court, for handing this dipshit corporate mouthpiece our country on a platter in 2001. Thanks again to everyone who voted in the 2004 election for sticking with the abominable but familiar.

The post's title comes from a bumper sticker I've seen in a few places. I like it.

Still-President Bush indeed, Daily Show.

Feh.

Humans are nothing if not primates, and primates do a lot of things instinctively: eat, shit, fuck, fight, etc.

Primates also imitate, and after reading the excellent re-write of the poem aduvanchek originally wrote for our wedding ceremony, I had a desire to examine my own diction & syntax. Last night, while falling asleep next to my wife, the first seven lines of this poem popped into my head. I'm probably not done with it, but I'm pretty happy with it. I tried to take Strunk & White to heart and omit needless words.

What do you think? I'm particularly interested in the opinions of my two resident academics (aduvanchek and sweeney_o).

( Click For Poem )

Good afternoon. I'm taking 10 minutes out of my lunch hour to express frustration on a topic I know many of you also feel frustration with: shitheads.

This rant comes from an experience I had this morning. I drive from Irvine to San Diego 4 days a week for work, and 99% of the time, it is a relatively breezy 1:15 in driving time. Occasionally, the works will get gummed up by a spectacular traffic collision. Today was a 1% day:

"OCEANSIDE – A Vons big rig crashed into a disabled vehicle on southbound Interstate 5 near Las Pulgas Road, flipped over and burst into flames early Thursday morning, leaving all but one lane of southbound I-5 blocked for hours."
-- This Article. You can click for the details.

I got stuck in the backup for 3 hours and 20 minutes or so. It was frustrating, boring, and had me contemplating self-immolation. That being said, my true frustration came when I started being passed on the left by people going by in the breakdown lane.

Maybe I'm not as cynical as I think I am, because this really surprised and angered me. I'm fine being passed by emergency vehicles, tow trucks, and other vehicles that provide resources for such a large-scale cleanup. But what in the hell makes Joe Mercedes and Sally Corolla feel they are entitled to spend less time in line than me? Guess what, people; the accident and subsequent traffic backup applies to everyone on the freeway. It's not like the rest of us were too stupid to figure out that the breakdown lane is just wide enough to fit our vehicles, we merely understand that human consideration and a sense of fairness dictate that we all stay in line.
( Many Angry Words Below The Cut: Click for more Fun )

...this is why:



A car collides into cyclists participating in a race in Mexico's northern border city of Matamoros, Sunday, June 1, 2008. At least one person was killed and 14 injured when a driver slammed into a bicycle race.

I'm shocked that only one person died in this horrific crash. The circumstances of this just look odd - the car's on the wrong side of the road - and I'd like to find out exactly what happened, but I sure hope the driver of that car gets thrown down a hole in the rock of the Yucatan Peninsula and drowns when it fills up with rain water.

What kind of a braindead, pig-ignorant, babbling drooler of a brain-damaged moron do you have to be to accuse Rachel "As Controversial As Apple Juice" Ray of supporting terrorists by wearing a scarf in an ad that vaguely resembles a kaffiyeh?

The image in question:


From the article that the photo accompanies:
"Critics, including conservative commentator Michelle Malkin, complained that the scarf wrapped around her looked like a kaffiyeh... The kaffiyeh, Malkin wrote in a column posted online last Friday, 'has come to symbolize murderous Palestinian jihad. Popularized by Yasser Arafat and a regular adornment of Muslim terrorists appearing in beheading and hostage-taking videos, the apparel has been mainstreamed by both ignorant (and not-so-ignorant) fashion designers, celebrities, and left-wing icons.'"

*EXPLETIVE WARNING*
Well, that stands to reason, because Michelle Malkin is a dumb cunt. She is a third-rate Ann Coulter-wannabe, which is kind of like aspiring to be Warren Jeffs, or Charles Manson. Like all arch-conservative bloviating harpies - male and female - Malkin demonstrates analysis skills that are startling in their shallowness and single-mindedness. Only a person striving to fulfil an ignorant, inflammatory, fearmongering agenda could look at that picture and come up with the patently absurd (I am looking on dictionary.com for words that mean "absurd, only more so," and the best I could come up with was the definition from Roget's New Thesaurus: So senseless as to be laughable) notion that Dunkin' Donuts somehow deliberately intends to support Radical Islamic Terrorist groups. The idea is so dumb that typing the above sentence made me laugh out loud.

Sorry for the profanity, but Michelle Malkin: fuck you.

Mike Doughty commands, and I am his obedient servant. I give you: the video for Fort Hood.



It's simple and effective... and affecting.

In case you were wondering what Fort Hood is about, Doughty tells you. In no uncertain terms.

I recently erm, obtained the complete studio works of Pink Floyd, and have been listening to a lot of their early albums - songs that I had never heard. Part of the inspiration for this was the just-okay VH1 series, "The Seven Ages Of Rock," which taught me more about Syd Barrett - the original founder of Pink Floyd - than I'd previously known.

I then jumped onto Allmusic to check out album and track reviews. I discovered a few things that I find interesting. Firstly, it is amazing how many music reviewers absolutely love Syd Barrett's work. The VH1 special focused on his final track for a Pink Floyd album, "Jugband Blues," describing it as "the sound of Syd Barrett losing his mind." In point of fact, this is overly dramatic. The song is not even remotely out of par with most of their debut album, "The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn," and even "Corporal Clegg" has a kazoo solo that is wildly out of place.

The difference between "Jugband Blues" and "Corporal Clegg" is that Syd Barrett wrote the former, and Waters/Gilmour/Mason wrote the latter. I guess people like to amplify the drama of Barrett's breakdown, but really the lyrics in "Jugband Blues" come off as a man taking digs at his bandmates for abandoning him. Allmusic notes this as well. However, they go further, attempting to debunk the notion that "Bike" (the closer of "The Piper...") is a warning sign that Barrett was going off his rocker. And again, I have to agree. The more the popular mythology is that these songs are illustrations of Barrett's madness, the more that view appears strident and alarmist. Yes, Barrett did break down, and yes, he was not able to function in the band (as a frontman or otherwise), but it is again very overdramatic to state that these songs are unintented views into his innermost thoughts. Barrett was very smart, and very clever with his lyrical imagery - more than anything, "Jugband Blues" and all of "The Piper..." are embodiments of that.

It's interesting to note that Pink Floyd's first album sounds kind of tame and silly at first listen. However, it's important to remember what this must have sounded like in 1967, when bubblegum fluff was just beginning to give way to the phenomenon of The Beatles, the rebellious strut of The Rolling Stones, and the angsty Mod sounds of The Who. While some of Barrett's work seems childish and nursery-rhyme-ish despite its obvious psychedelia, that sound was quite innovative and cutting-edge at the time. I think that's why so many people hold Barrett up as a geinus. That he was unable to function as a band member may also be downplayed in favor of perceiving that he was somehow shoved aside for David Gilmour, which probably contributes to the romanticization of Barrett.

I think that Roger Waters eventually came into his own as a songwriter (particularly on Wish You Were Here, Dark Side Of The Moon, and Animals), though his own ego became top-heavy toward the end of Pink Floyd's second era. The tragedy of post-Waters Floyd is that Dave Gilmour is neither Waters' nor Barrett's equal as a lyricist, and while I like some of the songs on "The Division Bell" and "A Momentary Lapse of Reason," they don't measure up to earlier Floyd in power and sophistication.

So anyway. That's my lunch hour. Aren't you glad I took some time to share my thoughts?

OBTW, 'Obscured By Clouds' is the WORST Floyd album ever - in any era. It should never have been made.

So I'm on the train down to San Diego today, which is abnormal. I usually work Fridays from home, but I've got two testing sessions that I need to be present for, and I have a ton of work to catch up on. See, we're mandated to conduct 3 4-hour sessions a week with the client where we run our test scripts on the application and they freak out and get upset at how everything works (well, that's mostly just my user group, truthfully). So that's 12 hours during the week that are down the drain.

Anyway, some people out there have had a worse Friday already; I'm talking specifically about the San Diego Padres and the Colorado Rockies:

"It was the longest game since Aug. 31, 1993, when Minnesota beat Cleveland 5-4 in 22 innings. It was also the longest game in Rockies history and in the 5-year history of Petco Park. It was the longest by innings for the Padres, and one minute short of matching the longest by time for San Diego."
--http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/recap;_ylt=ArN0J2FORE9CalxfmTjrWB4RvLYF?gid=280417125&prov=ap

Twenty-Two innings is almost two and a half complete baseball games. That's brutal. Happy to be on the train!

"You should be getting stoned with a prom dress girl
You should still believe in an endless world
You should blast Young Jeezy with your friends in a parking lot..."
--Mike Doughty, "Fort Hood"

I woke up early on Thursday morning to take the train to work. After a late night drive home while perilously in the grips of everyone's friend, post-beer dehydration (don't call it a hangover! I never hung!), I was in no mood to turn around six hours later and make that drive again.

Waking up at 5:30 was rough, especially after the ballgame and beers. It was fun to hang out with my co-workers, though. Almost my whole team came out, which was really my first time hanging with them all. We had a very good time, except for the utter implosion of Trevor Hoffman at the end of the game.

So I always bitch about how Irvine is utterly sterile - which it is. Today, however, I just had one of those experiences that can make you fall in love with a place a little. The sun had not yet risen, but was on the cusp, as I drove out of my complex. I cruised past a rabbit, who was startled, but not shocked, at the silence of the hybrid in EV mode. Rabbits dotted the athletic field of the school as I passed it, and there were ravens bouncing around in the street as well. It rained a lot last night, and the ground was slick and fresh with it.


I got to the train station at the exact right time. I had printed my tickets, withdrawn cash, and purchased coffee and a baggle*, and as I made my way onto the platform, the sun began to come up:
( Pics behind the cut, pretty nice for a RAZR camera )

Snails are cavorting - after a fashion - on the platform. The air is crisp and temperate. I have Zeppelin, Bedouin Soundclash, and Mike Doughty in the headphones. At times like this, I could almost love Irvine. Something about every place eventually gets you, I guess.

*"baggle" is what you call a bagel if you're from Minnesota, apparently.

So I've been Sqrrling this song, "Thrash Unreal" by Against Me! Yes, the exclamation point is part of the band name, which is a little pretentious, but the song is amazing, and I can't get it out of my head:

"No mother ever dreams that her daughter's going to grow up to be a junkie
No mother ever dreams that her daughter's going to grow up to sleep alone..."

And

"When people see the track marks on her arms she knows what they’re thinking;
She keeps on working for that minimum,
as if a high school education gave you any other options.
They don’t know nothing about redemption,
They don’t know nothing about recovery..."

just blow me away every time I hear the song.

For the first time, a blog post will go with the my default icon.

So this past Wednesday, Sce and I (And a couple friends from work) went to see Clutch play at the house of blues. I was totally stoked, as most of you know that I am a fiend for Clutch. I had never seen them live, so this was a highly anticipated show for me.

The show was really good, except for a couple things. First the good:

They rocked hard. Clutch throws down a FAT groove, and they played a bunch of songs that were so new, they had no lyrics or vocals - just big, chunky jams. They played a bunch of my favorite songs, including "Dragonfly," "Burning Beard" (the icon on this post comes from the video for that song), and two all-time favorites, "Profits of Doom" and "The Mob Goes Wild." I sang myself hoarse on both of those tracks, which they played back-to-back, just like on the album.

The crowd was great, too. A pit got going when they started into 'You can't stop progress,' but people were mostly cool, and only one guy was really blitzed out of his mind and not being considerate. All the people in the pit looked out for each other, and most did their best not to smash into people at the front of the stage.

Set List (sort of) with Album titles:

3 or 4 new jams
3 or 4 songs from one of the few albums of theirs that I don't own - Jam Room.
Dragonfly - The Elephant Riders
The Yeti - The Elephant Riders
Burning Beard - Robot Hive/Exodus
Profits of Doom - Blast Tyrant
The Mob Goes Wild - Blast Tyrant
The House that Peterbilt - Clutch
Texan book of the dead - Clutch
Pure Rock Fury - Pure Rock Fury
You Can't Stop Progress/Power Player - From Beale St. To Oblivion
Child of the City - From Beale St. To Oblivion

the negatives for the show were that I would have preferred some different songs. I was almost shocked that they didn't play 'Electric Worry' off the new album, and I would dearly have loved to hear 'The Incomparable Mr. Flannery,' and 'Subtle Hustle.' That's a small peeve.

They ended at 10:55, and went offstage with the lights going down. The crowd naturally began chanting, "Clutch! Clutch! Clutch!" to pump up for the encore.

Then, the lights came up. Some guy with a fishing hat and a white T-shirt came out, did the "cut it" gesture with his hand at his throat (I think he was telling the soundboard guy to shut down), and the curtains closed. I and a lot of people were left wondering, "WTF just happened?"

I'm conflicted. I just learned last night that they did play an encore in L.A. the following night, and apparently there is some discussion on a message board that people felt the San Diego crowd sucked. That is 100% bullshit - everybody there was rocking out, singing along, and professing their fandom to the band. If the band really thinks that crowd was bad, then I find myself disappointed in the band. They have a cult following, they're a niche artist who (so I'm told) have built their following based on touring and rewarding the fans with excellent shows. How we got screwed, I cannot figure out. And the show was really great, it just ended really abruptly - and by the way, The Yeti is not what I would call an ideal show-closer, being one of the downtempo, odd-time-signatured selections from The Elephant Riders.

So they ended on a down note, gave no indication that they were tired and didn't have the energy for an encore, and then bailed. As much as I like the band, right now, I kinda feel like it was a weak way to treat the fans. And by the way, they don't make it out to the West Coast all that much, so they run the risk of alienating fans with shows like this. I really want to be overjoyed about the show, but the sudden stop kinda made that impossible. It left a bad taste, and that is disappointing.

Yes, I am a nerd about Clutch. Deal.

Ooh, forgot one plus, I got some good photos:

Gettin' ready!
Neil Fallon sermonizes from the Book of Fender.
Jean-Paul Gaster solos. The man is metronomic.
Tim Sult was on it all night.
Neil Fallon prepares to bring more of the awesome science.

I'm probably going to annoy the living shit out of all my friends for the next couple weeks while I'm on Cloverfield overload, so I might as well get it out of my system now: Cloverfield, Cloverfield, Cloverfield, Cloverfield, Cloverfield, Cloverfield, Cloverfield, Cloverfield, Cloverfield, Cloverfield, Cloverfield, Cloverfield, Cloverfield, Cloverfield, Cloverfield, Cloverfield, Cloverfield, Cloverfield, Cloverfield, Cloverfield, Cloverfield. Cloverfield.

Loved it. Don't care if you hated it. Don't care if it was derivative, don't care if Blair Witch did the handheld thing first - Cloverfield did it better. It's the first movie I've seen in years - literally - where I wanted to turn around and sneak into the next showing so that I could see it again.

In closing, let me just say:

CLOVERFIELD.

I'm saddened to learn tonight that Seoul's Namdaemun gate burned last night. Here's the picture I took of it when we were there in 2006:


From the AP article:

"An overnight fire destroyed a 610-year-old landmark that was considered the top national treasure, officials said Monday. Police said the cause of the blaze was unclear but officials said arson was suspected.

The fire broke out Sunday night and burned down the wooden structure at the top of the Namdaemun gate that once formed part of a wall that encircled the South Korean capital."

This image is heartbreaking; it's the gate in flames while firefighters try to save it:


I vividly remember seeing the gate on our 2006 trip because we had been walking for a couple of hours in the Namdaemun market, and we reached the gate just as true darkness was falling. The lights that illuminate the gate came on as we watched. I was amused that the gate looked much smaller than its numerous guidebook photos, but It was also exciting to see something that was such an iconic image of Seoul. I know they will be able to rebuild, but it's terribly sad to lose such a piece of history, especially to a piece of human garbage as reprehensible as an arsonist.

Let me be the first to congratulate the New York Giants for pulling off maybe the greatest upset in the history of the NFL. And also to George R. R. Martin (grrm), for whom this will hopefully be motivation to complete A Dance With Dragons even quicker than he already is.

This meme (nicked from pewtey) is so good, I actually took 15 minutes of precious lunch hour to make it in Visio. Simpler is better, I say.

To figure out your fictional rock band's album cover, do the following:

1. Take your band name from the first hit on Wikipedia's random entry page.
2. Take your album name from the end of the last quote on this page.
3. Take your album artwork from the 4th picture on Flickr's interesting photos page.

YOU WILL NEED:
Design Talent
An application that lets you put text on images
10 minutes or so.

Here's mine:


I think it actually worked pretty dang well.