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All right; enough with the manufactured media controversy (it's been a slow news week - unless, of course, you have the mental fortitude and steely determination required to look beyond the circus sideshow that passes for presidential campaign coverage in this country: N. Korean nukes, major Supreme Court rulings, unrest in Zimbabwe ... no I want to hear more about Michelle Obama on The View) and the rating-boost ploys of an evangelical "leader" with swiftly fading prominence (his people did, after all, announce to CNN what he would say on his program before it ever aired - you'd think if it was actually newsworthy he would have gone on and said it and let the networks cover it, right?). Seriously folks, if the average age of a Limbaugh listener is a vibrant 65, the average Dobson listener must be, like, an energetic 96.
It's time for a post about softball injuries. Check this one out:
I guess you can call me Schilling, since this came in toward the end of a heroic pitching effort last night. I mean, check out my bloody sock and then check out his bloody sock. Yeah. I've notified Cooperstown that they can have it for a display if they want it. Still waiting to hear back. I just hope they let me know before laundry day. My line in the glorious (15-6) victory: 7 IP, 5 ER, 6 BB, 1K. My ERA currently stands at a league leading 5.00. I helped my own cause a bit with an RBI double and a couple of runs scored. Quick shoutouts to Andrew who helped us out in a pinch and played solid D in the outfield and Darcy and Heather who cheered us on to victory. Nice work, everyone.
On second thought, nobody call me Schilling. Seriously.
"I think he's deliberately distorting the traditional understanding of the Bible to fit his own worldview, his own confused theology ... dragging biblical understanding through the gutter."-James Dobson, responding to, and frankly mischaracterizing, an address delivered by Barack Obama at a Christian conference on 6/28/2006.
Well played, Dobson, well played. Not only are you two years late, but you feel free to criticize on a matter (biblical interpretation) far outside your area of "expertise" (which is - allegedly - child and adolescent psychology).
Hmm ... distorting the bible to support one's pre-existing worldview ... that sounds awfully familiar ... wait ...
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that's not something that American Empire-worshiping, neglect-the-poor, homophobic, closed-minded, science-denying, militant, xenophobic, corporate tax-cutting, race-baiting, hypocritical, patriarchal, anti-environmentalist, protect-the-fetuses-but-ignore-the-children, free-market-glorifying, go-ahead-and-disregard-the-words-of-Jesus-if-you-find-them-inconvenient, vindictive, rapture-obsessed, self-righteous, conservative evangelical christians would do, is it? I sure hope not. Because that wouldn't help to prove Dobson's point very much.
In no particular order:
-The Celtics are up on the Lakers 2-0. Take that, fickle LA fans. I can't wait for Kobe to demand to be traded in the offseason again, sending up another big unequivocal "screw-you" to a city and franchise that have coddled him for his entire career. Jackass.
-Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles. Better than one would think. Much better.
-Gevalia Mocca Java whole bean coffee. So good: strong but not overpowering and low acidity.
-We're getting new phones this week (the Samsung Blast).
-It's almost the end of the quarter for Darcy - one paper to go, so keep up the good work! (When she's less stressed life is better for both of us.)
-FireJoeMorgan.com, for insightful sports commentary and so much more.-After a Bataan Deathmarch of a primary season, the Democrats finally have a nominee. And it's Obama.
-We got our new passports today. Can't wait for September (week in Cabo = Woo!).
-My beloved Indians are coming to town for a weekend series June 20-22. It will be the second series they've ever played against the Dodgers and I've got tickets for all three games. This way either my favorite team or my adopted team is guaranteed to win each game.
-I just discovered Shiner Bohemian Black Lager at Ralph's.
Life is good.
Many thanks to Andrew yesterday for reminding me of an anniversary that otherwise would have slipped by me.
June 4, 1974: The Ten Cent Beer Night Riot at Cleveland Municipal Stadium. For those of you who aren't baseball fans reared in Northeast Ohio, here's how it went down: Texas Rangers at Cleveland Indians. Cleveland was suffering through the latest in a long series of mediocre seasons and needed something to draw fans to the park, having been averaging a mere 8,000 per game up to that point. Some bright mind proposed a 10 cent beer promotion and 25,000 fans heeded the call, consuming an estimated 60,000 beers. One thing led to another (there was some bad blood between the two teams stemming from a slight brawl a week earlier) and things started to get rowdy. Then they got out of control. Then that guy in the picture and bunch of guys just like him got down on the field and bled all over the umpires and they had to call the game (it was tied 5-5 in the 9th, but for some reason they awarded Cleveland the loss - go figure).
I wouldn't even be born for another 7 years, but I heard stories. Oh, how I heard stories. Makes me proud to be an American, and even more proud to be a Midwesterner.
I was busy figuring out the area of office, lobby, and hallway space for Fuller's Office of Development and Alumni/ae and Church Relations this morning based on 1/96 scale plans (1 inch = 8 ft) for the purpose of estimating the expense of carpet replacement - which, incidentally, made me feel bad for all the horrible things I used to say about high school geometry, but that's something for another post - when I started thinking about Nine Inch Nails.
"Odd," one might think, and one would not be far from the truth. At any given moment in my mind multiple thoughts are engaged in an all-out, free-for-all, no-holds-barred struggle, battling and wrestling for the dominance necessary to earn the right to rise to the top and gain admittance into the realm of my consciousness. So anyway, I was thinking about NIN which just released an album on the new Radiohead model: independent from any label, internet exclusive, and free. And that got me thinking about heavier music and I realized it kind of sucks now.
When I was in high school and one wanted to rebel against authority of various kinds there was a whole slew of musical options: Marilyn Manson, Nine Inch Nails, Tool, Limp Bizkit, Korn, Rage Against the Machine, Pantera, The Deftones, even Metallica was coming out with new stuff, and that's not even counting all the imitators out there (I'm looking at you, Nickelback). Now those bands are broken up, on hiatus, or repackaging stale retreads of their once revolutionary sound to cash in one last time before obscurity descends and envelops them in a dark suffocating blanket of mediocrity. Even the once unassailable punk band has been co-opted by the man and transformed into some faux pop-punk crap.
What do the kids do these days when they need some good old fashioned angry music? I suppose they could turn to rap to piss of the parents, but even that genre has been tired and predictable for the better part of a decade. If anyone out there has a finger on the pulse of America's youth please clue me in so I don't feel quite so old and out of touch. Thanks a bunch.
So Los Pistoleros (my new team - translation anyone?) had its first softball game last night down at the Rose Bowl fields. We lost (25 to 18) but we had fun and displayed good sportsmanship and that's what's really important, right? Right? Ok, I'll level with you: losing sucks, but it was our first game together and I'm optimistic about our future. On a personal note I was a little disappointed with myself at the plate (I scored a couple of runs, but I popped out to short with runners at 2nd and 3rd on a pitch I should have taken down the line to prolong a small rally), but my defense at SS was solid, which usually takes a couple of games to come around - at least for me. I'm looking forward to a good season.
So we (Andrew, Justin, Matt and I) caught the Dodgers-Mets game on Monday night. All in all a very enjoyable experience - Dodgers won 5-1 starting with a lead off home run from Furcal. Blake DeWitt hit his first career home run (good for him), and then one of my favorite kids, Matt Kemp got in on the HR action too (that's Home Run, not Human Resources). And young Billingsley turned in a quality start for his second W of the year.
However, despite the baseball-related fun going on all around us, the topic of conversation kept returning to the Dodgers' inexplicable new practice of putting close-up pictures of players' eyes on screens mounted on the outfield fences. Here, check it out:
Tell me that's not more than a little creepy. That's Moises Alou in the foreground, who just got back following hernia surgery in the off-season. What if he were to get the odd sensation that someone was watching him from behind and turns around? He gets the sweet bejezus scared out of him and probably re-aggrevates his hernia, that's what.
Come to think of it, that may actually be what the Dodgers have in mind. A little psychological leverage for the home team - an attempt to get into the opponents' heads, if you will.
Let me tell you, the Dodgers are definitely inside my head right now. I've had nightmares the last two nights where angry giants are watching me try to do my job. Occasionally I'll wake up screaming "No! Don't hurt me, I'm so tiny!" It's really had a negative impact on the quality of my rest, leaving me somewhere in the borderlands between paranoid and delirious. I'm a little afraid that my own personal train to Insanityville just left Psychosis Station with scheduled stops in Delusionburg and Overextended-Metaphor-Junction. If I happen to go on a rampage of some sort and have to be taken out, I would like my widow to sue the Dodgers for sending me over the edge and use the money acquired to buy the naming rights to Dodger Stadium and rename it Adam Miller Is Awesome Park. Then I will have my revenge, even in death.
I guess you can call me Schilling, since this came in toward the end of a heroic pitching effort last night. I mean, check out my bloody sock and then check out his bloody sock. Yeah. I've notified Cooperstown that they can have it for a display if they want it. Still waiting to hear back. I just hope they let me know before laundry day. My line in the glorious (15-6) victory: 7 IP, 5 ER, 6 BB, 1K. My ERA currently stands at a league leading 5.00. I helped my own cause a bit with an RBI double and a couple of runs scored. Quick shoutouts to Andrew who helped us out in a pinch and played solid D in the outfield and Darcy and Heather who cheered us on to victory. Nice work, everyone.
