as a former yankees ticket package holder, i remain on their mailing list. just yesterday i had thought it might be time to sever ties, when i immediately realized that a window into the thinkings of a rival team might provide interesting information. today it provided an email titled "yankees make deadline deal." for some reason, i assumed they had acquired halladay, and i was excited to open the email and find out that it was jerry hairston jr! the peals of laughter in my head began immediately. i still love the fact that toronto absolutely refuses to trade their most valuable chip in order to allegedly compete in 2010 in a division that has the defending al champs and two franchises that seemingly print their own money and have managed to amass their own young talent while outbidding each other for every free agent worth having.
derisive laughter for the day goes to:
the new york yankees
jp ricciardi
my favorite team isn't perfect today either, but i don't think i can derisively laugh at them
Friday, July 31, 2009
Thursday, July 23, 2009
mark, sox, perfect
i received an important tip via telephone today: mark buehrle had completed 8 innings of a perfect game and i could watch the rest online. my laptop wasn't going to work - i tried a dozen or more times to get the stream to load - but a nearby computer did the trick, and i caught the tense first out of the ninth inning as wise saved the perfect game and a home run with a feat of defense in center field. the strikeout for out two was a perfect moment of exhilaration, and the groundout to end the game provided the sigh of relief and final realization that the dream of something amazing had come true. just a few days removed from tom watson's playoff loss at the british open, sports history continues to come at us.
fantasy baseball update: i'm in first place, and if halladay actually did get traded to the national league that would wreck the pitching staff of my chief antagonist. what's with ricciardi basically saying 'i'm asking too much to get a deal done?' please just take the prospects and run; you have no chance next year and halladay's value now is immense; a year and a half of this guy in his prime? wouldn't the yankees be going for this deal if they could? would you trade their young guys for a title? or possibly two? i thought so.
fantasy baseball update: i'm in first place, and if halladay actually did get traded to the national league that would wreck the pitching staff of my chief antagonist. what's with ricciardi basically saying 'i'm asking too much to get a deal done?' please just take the prospects and run; you have no chance next year and halladay's value now is immense; a year and a half of this guy in his prime? wouldn't the yankees be going for this deal if they could? would you trade their young guys for a title? or possibly two? i thought so.
Saturday, May 16, 2009
how my favorite celtic fixed things wtih my parents
Recently, I had a birthday. Although it was a bit anticlimactic, part of that reason is that my parents' generous offer to help pay for a car or bike purchase arrived in what I thought was just a card of some sort. Thus, I knew what the biggest birthday present of my life was before it even arrived. Unfortunately, this gift also led to some disagreement between myself and my mother regarding what sort of automobile I might wish to drive. See, of late, I have developed an abiding interest in doing something about my longstanding interest in forming a boy band. As such, it has come to my attention that the perfect car for me to own is a 2001 Mercedes-Benz SLK with about 60k miles on it. For any of you who didn't know, Mercedes is still a very legitimate name for your daughter and actually earns you no yuppie points, as the car was named for someone's daughter in the first place. If you are disappointed by this news, just remember that in general, last names and place names will earn you plenty of points. The SLK also seems to be a perfect answer to Bill Simmons' question about which modern vehicle is invariably driven by beautiful women and guys you want to beat up. I don't beat anyone up and I want to be in a boyband, so clearly this is the car for me.
I'm sure you may already have intuited that my mother did not agree that the SLK was the car for me. What you may not have known is that even my tactful failure to disclose the actual make and model of the $18k convertible I liked did not prevent a remark about how that was definitely not the sort of money my parents were willing to help provide. This also led to the inevitable comparisons to the 442 my parents owned when they were first married. I know a couple of things about this car: it was a convertible, my mother regrets the fact that it was ever purchased, it didn't last long, and a number of my parents' best 8-track tapes were stolen out of it while they were skiing. Those facts have led me to the following conclusions: convertibles are more versatile than many might guess, considering my parents were able to successfully drive a convertible american muscle car to and from a ski slope in the 70s; a hard top convertible like the SLK is a good idea, being more difficult to burglarize; and the people in this cautionary tale (my parents) were not bankrupted or (certainly in my father's case) permanently scarred by the experience of owning the vehicle in question.
Additional analysis has shown me why purchasing the used German vehicle in question would be not only more harmless than parental warnings have suggested, but could actually be beneficial to my social life. A lifetime of careful research into the history of certain individuals who raised me has shown that, while one of them may be ashamed of the other's having talked her into the purchase of a 442 in the early years of their marriage, she somewhat fondly remembers his ownership of a GTO during their college years. In fact, only with my in-depth historical knowledge of the situation was I able to dredge up this paradox. The same woman who once went out with a campus hero known to possess a GTO, only to find he was driving his mother's station wagon that year, resented this man's purchase of a 442 once they were married. Coupled with the following information - I am not married or in a relationship - this fact leads me to an important conclusion. I should totally buy the SLK, since not only will it further my professional goals, it will make other men jealous and will only lead to positive reminiscences from the woman I (theoretically at least date for a while at some point). Unfortunately, I did not have the time nor resources to come up with these life-altering conclusions during my phone conversation, which meant that my favorite celtic would still have to save my (soy-based) bacon.
I'm sure you may already have intuited that my mother did not agree that the SLK was the car for me. What you may not have known is that even my tactful failure to disclose the actual make and model of the $18k convertible I liked did not prevent a remark about how that was definitely not the sort of money my parents were willing to help provide. This also led to the inevitable comparisons to the 442 my parents owned when they were first married. I know a couple of things about this car: it was a convertible, my mother regrets the fact that it was ever purchased, it didn't last long, and a number of my parents' best 8-track tapes were stolen out of it while they were skiing. Those facts have led me to the following conclusions: convertibles are more versatile than many might guess, considering my parents were able to successfully drive a convertible american muscle car to and from a ski slope in the 70s; a hard top convertible like the SLK is a good idea, being more difficult to burglarize; and the people in this cautionary tale (my parents) were not bankrupted or (certainly in my father's case) permanently scarred by the experience of owning the vehicle in question.
Additional analysis has shown me why purchasing the used German vehicle in question would be not only more harmless than parental warnings have suggested, but could actually be beneficial to my social life. A lifetime of careful research into the history of certain individuals who raised me has shown that, while one of them may be ashamed of the other's having talked her into the purchase of a 442 in the early years of their marriage, she somewhat fondly remembers his ownership of a GTO during their college years. In fact, only with my in-depth historical knowledge of the situation was I able to dredge up this paradox. The same woman who once went out with a campus hero known to possess a GTO, only to find he was driving his mother's station wagon that year, resented this man's purchase of a 442 once they were married. Coupled with the following information - I am not married or in a relationship - this fact leads me to an important conclusion. I should totally buy the SLK, since not only will it further my professional goals, it will make other men jealous and will only lead to positive reminiscences from the woman I (theoretically at least date for a while at some point). Unfortunately, I did not have the time nor resources to come up with these life-altering conclusions during my phone conversation, which meant that my favorite celtic would still have to save my (soy-based) bacon.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
correlation not causation
mjd signs a big contract. that doesn't have to mean he'll start declining rapidly does it? i guess i definitely don't want to draft him 2 years from now, but then i haven't wanted to draft him since...his rookie year when i got him off waivers. i sat him a couple times in favor of colston, and quickly learned to get them both in the lineup weekly. yeah, i won that league.
Saturday, April 4, 2009
yes, once you (re?)pay for stuff you get it wirelessly
now that several media outlets have discussed the kindle 2, i have to take a moment to jot down my initial thoughts. at first i thought 'horrible price for something that makes me look like a nerd and really is only good for reading books...which cost extra.' then i thought 'isn't this what people would have said about the ipod?' i was so wrong to doubt myself like that.
the original ipod was a monumental achievement. the kindle is a rio - a trailblazer, not a masterpiece. when i first heard about mp3 players, i thought the idea seemed cool, but i didn't feel any need to buy one. i'd used macamp already and thought mp3 technology was cool, but the rio couldn't hold any more music than my cd player. the ipod changed that, and not just the capacity angle. i wasn't dying to get my hands on a nomad either. when the mp3 category really arrived, it was clear; i wanted an ipod from the moment it was announced.
a secondary issue is simply the cost of the media. it's easy to say 'an ipod can hold all these songs but they'd cost me a ton of money at the itunes store,' but the ipod allowed you to get all your music off your cds and into your pocket. if the kindle, at its current price point, allowed you to somehow just have all the books you already owned transferred to kindle format, it becomes a far more compelling product. let's say even just the books you'd purchased in the past 20 years. or 15 years even, the point is, i've seen one person use a kindle in public and i was snickering in my head about it. an expensive product that requires further expenditure to use is basically half baked if that's the reaction it provokes in others. the kindle's distribution model is nice, but it's a media company's dream, not a consumer's. it's a fancy new toy that will encourage some people to pay up again for content they already own in the old format.
the original ipod was a monumental achievement. the kindle is a rio - a trailblazer, not a masterpiece. when i first heard about mp3 players, i thought the idea seemed cool, but i didn't feel any need to buy one. i'd used macamp already and thought mp3 technology was cool, but the rio couldn't hold any more music than my cd player. the ipod changed that, and not just the capacity angle. i wasn't dying to get my hands on a nomad either. when the mp3 category really arrived, it was clear; i wanted an ipod from the moment it was announced.
a secondary issue is simply the cost of the media. it's easy to say 'an ipod can hold all these songs but they'd cost me a ton of money at the itunes store,' but the ipod allowed you to get all your music off your cds and into your pocket. if the kindle, at its current price point, allowed you to somehow just have all the books you already owned transferred to kindle format, it becomes a far more compelling product. let's say even just the books you'd purchased in the past 20 years. or 15 years even, the point is, i've seen one person use a kindle in public and i was snickering in my head about it. an expensive product that requires further expenditure to use is basically half baked if that's the reaction it provokes in others. the kindle's distribution model is nice, but it's a media company's dream, not a consumer's. it's a fancy new toy that will encourage some people to pay up again for content they already own in the old format.
Sunday, March 15, 2009
just wondering
i'm tired, i'm still wearing a tie, and i just finished some cake. i really like cake.
march mfa challenge
new game this year. in order to qualify, you must:
be a college of some type
have a team in the men's and/or women's ncaa tournament
have either:
a. accepted me to your mfa program
b. failed to reject me thus far
elimination comes when either:
1. your men's and women's teams are both eliminated (or were never in the tourney)
2. i receive notification that you rejected me
current participants:
maryland
virginia commonwealth
ohio state
tennessee
(list is preliminary, and may include erroneous entries)
any questions?
be a college of some type
have a team in the men's and/or women's ncaa tournament
have either:
a. accepted me to your mfa program
b. failed to reject me thus far
elimination comes when either:
1. your men's and women's teams are both eliminated (or were never in the tourney)
2. i receive notification that you rejected me
current participants:
maryland
virginia commonwealth
ohio state
tennessee
(list is preliminary, and may include erroneous entries)
any questions?
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