Wednesday, May 30, 2007

My Favorite New Song

"Mistaken for Strangers" by The National.

(I'm not crazy about the video, but I love the song.)


Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Damn Yankees

Are tied with Tampa for last place:

The Yankees fell 13 1/2 games back of AL East-leading Boston, their biggest deficit since August 1995, and have lost four straight and eight of 11. They dropped a season-high seven games under .500 and are tied with Tampa Bay for last in the AL East at 21-28.
I love it.

Friday, May 25, 2007

I Don't Think This Is a Good Sign

Today, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates defended the Congress and the free press in his address to Naval Academy graduates:

Defense Secretary Robert Gates encouraged the graduating U.S. Naval Academy class of 2007 Friday to "remember the importance of two pillars of our freedom under the Constitution: the Congress and the press."

"Both surely try our patience from time to time, but they are the surest guarantees of the liberty of the American people," Gates told the 1,028 graduates...

Gates said the Founding Fathers wisely understood that the Congress, a free press and a nonpolitical military are needed in a free country.

"The press is not the enemy and to treat it as such is self-defeating," he said.
I'm glad he said this, but I don't think it's a good sign that, on the 220th anniversary of the convening of the Consitutional Convention, that the Secretary of Defense has to remind us that "the press is not the enemy."

Thursday, May 24, 2007

Birthday Bob


Bob Dylan is 66 today.

Happy Birthday, Bob!

Very Weighty Thing

I read this short essay about religion and liked it.


Wednesday, May 23, 2007

The Strangest No-Hitter Ever

The Hardball Times recently featured a story about "flawed no-hitters" which included the no-hit loss that the Yankees' Andy Hawkins suffered July 1, 1990.

I was at this game, which was also the 80th birthday of Comiskey Park:

Pitching for the Yankees during their dire early '90s period Andy Hawkins took the mound in Chicago for a game against the White Sox on July 1.

Through eight innings Hawkins had yet to allow a hit, but his hapless teammates had failed to muster any offense of their own. After getting Ron Karkovice and Scott Fletcher on pop-ups to second baseman Steve Sax, Hawkins had to face a young Sammy Sosa. Sosa reached based after an error by third baseman Mike Blowers. Perhaps rattled by this, Hawkins issued back-to-back walks to Ozzie Guillen and Lance "One Dog" Johnson.

With the bases now loaded, but two outs, Hawkins bore down and got a fly ball to left field out of Robin Ventura. The best laid plans were awry, as Jim Leyritz-—inexplicably stationed in left field by Yankees skipper Stump Merrill-—committed an error of his own, clearing the bases and leaving Ventura standing on second.

Despite this, Hawkins managed to settle down and Ivan Calderonhit a flyball in the direction of right fielder Jesse Barfield. Hawkins must have been feeling better, as Barfield was a real, actual outfielder. In fact, he wasn’t just any real, actual outfielder; he was a two-time Gold Glove winning outfielder. Those Gold Gloves didn’t do him, or Hawkins, any good. Barfield also made an error, allowing the inning’s fourth run to score.

After Hawkins finally recorded the last out, the Yankees couldn’t manage any runs in the ninth, so Hawkins had pitched a no-hitter, allowed four unearned runs and had only a loss to show for his troubles.
I remember the crowd cheering when the scorer gave Blowers an error on Sosa's grounder to third. It was an in-between hop, and Sosa was fast in those days. It could have gone either way, but nobody wanted to see the no-hitter end on a weak two-hopper to third.

Things really got cooking when the bases were loaded. Everyone realized that, hey, the no-hitter is still intact and the White Sox might actually score!

We were sitting down the left-field line and when Ventura hit his routine fly ball, I looked out at Leyritz and immediately realized that he didn't have a bead on it at all. I think he lost it in the sun. He staggered around trying to find it and never really made a competitive play on it.

After that point, the place was rocking. The no-no was still intact, the White Sox had a three-run lead, and Bobby Thigpen was ready to go in the 9th.

So at that point, it was like everybody in the ballpark switched allegiances. Everybody wanted to see the no-hitter.

So when Barfield made his error, the place erupted in groans and boos. And when Hawkins finally - mercifully - escaped with the final out, the place went nuts.

I kept a scorecard of the game, and I took a couple of grainy pictures of Comiskey's scoreboard. It's the strangest line score I've ever seen:

Yankees: 0 4 4
White Sox: 4 0 0


Two Coyotes

I saw two coyotes this morning on the way to work.

One was dead in the middle of the road. The other ran across the road at Funks Grove.

Monday, May 21, 2007

Book Promotion Site

Good stuff: A promotional site for "No One Belongs Here More than You" by Miranda July.

Friday, May 18, 2007

A Sign of the Apocalypse

The Beerbelly:

The Beerbelly, the stealth beverage system that makes it easy to sneak a drink where ever you want!
  • It holds 80oz, that’s more than a six pack of your favorite beverage
  • Your drink is held in place in an insulated very comfortable sling under your clothes looking just like a real home grown beer belly.
Yes, ballpark beers are expensive, but this is truly pathetic.

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Falwell Oddity

Jerry Falwell died today, and the only thing I found interesting was this:

Falwell's father and his grandfather were militant atheists, he wrote in his autobiography.
I guess he was a rebellious kid, to head off in the other direction like that. Though I wonder what distinguishes a militant athiest from a non-militant one.

Pea Brains!

Humans used to have pea brains.

Some still do.

Monday, May 14, 2007

Cool Story on Female Astronauts

Back in the days of the Mercury program, 13 female astronauts prepared alongside Alan Shepard, John Glenn, Neil Armstrong, et al.

That's quite a story.

Thursday, May 10, 2007

Some Days You Just Don't Have Anything to Say

But you write something on your blog anyway.

At least I'm not the only one.

And in fact, there are a lot of us.

Millions of monkeys, y'know.

Type, type, type.

Tuesday, May 08, 2007

Life on Mars?

With the news that a new rover is going to look for the ingredients of life on Mars, I ask one simple question:

What if it were to find life on Mars?

Would this change the way we view life in the universe? Would it change anything at all?

Something tells me that it would eventually change our perception, but not immediately. People hold on to old ideas too steadfastly.

Monday, May 07, 2007

Does Whatever A Spider Can

The new Spider Man movie is out, and the associated advertising and promotional stuff is everywhere.

Tonight Quinn was playing with the Spider Man that came with her kids meal from Burger King.

She called him "The Itsy-Bitsy Spider Man."

Friday, May 04, 2007

Why I Like David Ortiz

Even though he's a Red Sock and killed the Redbirds in 2004, I really like David Ortiz.

Along with being one of the best hitters in the game, he plays with a kind of rare joy that I wish more ballplayers had.

Last night, while running the bases, he got utterly run down between first and second. He was a dead man, a sure out if ever there was one. But instead of meekly letting himself be tagged out by
Mariners' shortstop Yuniesky Betancourt, he took a couple of steps forward and gave Betancourt a big bear hug.

You've got to love a guy like that.

The Famous Narragansett Beer

One thing I like about traveling is the food and drink you can try in places far from home.

Last night I bought a 6-pack of "The Famous Narragansett Beer." Really, it says that on the label. The brewery is one of those old local brands that died in the dark days of beer, but was resurrected in 2005. Wikipedia has the details.

It's a really nice American Lager. If it were sold in central Illinois, I'd buy it.

It's very smooth, with plenty of nice warm malt flavor. Not dry, not hoppy - which makes it sort of odd that I'd like it. My sense is there's a lot of corn in here.

It reminds me a bit of Berghoff or Pabst Blue Ribbon. Good stuff.



Quinn and Sushi

Mari-Rose got take-out sushi for our anniversary dinner a few nights ago - that's because my anniversary gift was a set of sushi dishes (pottery and bronze being the gifts for the 8-year anniversary).

Quinn called the sushi "swooshy."

Thursday, May 03, 2007

A Day in Rhode Island

I am on the road. Yesterday evening I kissed the girls and Mari-Rose, stopped off to get a haircut, and hit the road to Indianapolis, from which I was flying this morning.

Last night I called Shane for his birthday and hit the sack at midnight, for a short night - I woke up at 5:00 to fly from Indy to Detroit to Providence.

Providence is not what I expected. I thought it would be this gentile old city, smallish but elegant - like Portland, Maine.

Instead it's rough around the edges. I drove through the city tonight, and most of what I saw was quite run-down. It's a city that has been rode hard. It looks a lot like Decatur.

It appears to be a completely different situation in the downtown area, though. There, and in the area of Brown University, it's upscale. Construction cranes criss-cross the skyline, setting up new skyscrapers.

In short, it's a city of two tales.

A few other observations on the city:

Drivers here are more willing to give up the right-of-way than anywhere I've ever seen. One time I was trying to make a left onto a busy street, and a car on the street stopped for me and let me out. That driver clearly had the right-of-way, but she gave it up to let me out.

A couple of other times, as a pedestrian, I was waiting for traffic to clear when people in their cars stopped and waved me across.

It wasn't like these people were going to stop for any other reason; they just stopped right in the middle of the road, just for me.

I found a beautiful park: Roger Williams Park. So many cities seem to have a park like this. Big, sprawling, with ponds and old trees and wandering walking trails. In Bloomington it's Miller Park. Here it's Roger Williams Park.

Roger Williams said, famously, in 1631 that there should be separation of church and state - which was heresy at the time. So I like him a lot.

In the park there was the biggest sycamore tree I have ever seen. This thing was about 6 feet in diameter at the trunk, with great rambling branches. Seeing that tree made me nervous about the sycamore in our front yard; though I guess I shouldn't worry because it will be about 150 years before our sycamore is as big as the one in the front yard of Betsy Williams' cottage.

There were families out in the park, a whole lot of them fishing. As I walked through the park, I recall thinking, "It's odd that there are no seagulls here," - and then I saw some seagulls.

I'd forgotten how terse, and almost confrontational, the language of New Englanders can be. When I checked in, the hotel clerk was on the phone with the maintenance guy. A guest had reported some kind of problem in her room, and the hotel clerk was telling the maintenance guy.

"What's the specific problem?" he asked.
"The guest didn't say," she replied.
"That's unacceptable. I have to know what the problem is."
"She didn't say."
"That's unacceptable ... I'll call her and ask her what the problem is. What's the room number?"

I love the way the guy went through two rounds of "that's unacceptable" before just calling the guest to inquire about the problem.

In a restaurant later in the afternoon, where I had a broiled haddock sandwich the likes of which we never see in Illinois, a young man and woman entered the restaurant.

"Where do you want to sit?" she asked.
"Where do you want to sit?" he shot back.

The thing was, this wasn't petty or acrimonious. This was just a terse way of saying, as we would in the Midwest, "It doesn't matter to me."

The young couple enjoyed their lunch and seemed very happy with one another.

Tuesday, May 01, 2007

Dr. Strangerider?

From the Writer's Almanac, I learned that the same guy co-wrote Dr. Strangelove and Easy Rider. I would never have guessed that.

It's the birthday of novelist and screenwriter Terry Southern, born in Alvarado, Texas (1924). He co-wrote the screenplays for the films Dr. Strangelove (1964) and Easy Rider (1969).

Terry Southern said, "The important thing in writing is the capacity to astonish. Not shock—shock is a worn-out word—but astonish."
I really like that quote about writing to astonish.