Radical Left falls over itself volunteering packing help. Soros confirms he will cover all moving expenses. Bill Maher “despondent.” News at 11.
Tag: fun
Jim Geraghty, via Tom:
I’m being warned about the dangers of capitalism from a man who made perhaps more money from merchandising than any other man in history. I’m getting lectured about the dangers of greed from the man who authorized, “C-3POs” breakfast cereal, “The Star Wars Christmas Special” featuring Bea Arthur’s musical number, and not one but two Ewoks made-for-TV movies.
I’m being warned about the dangers of technology, and the glory of primitive cultures like the Ewoks, who are able to defeat the ‘technological terror’ of the Empire, in what is supposedly an allegory of Vietnam. Technology is bad, soulless, dangerous, and dehumanizing. Mmm-hmm. This from a man who replaced a tall man in a hairy suit, a projecting the human-eyed loyalty and sadness of Chewbacca, with the CGI cinematic war crime that is Jar-Jar Binks. A man who tossed aside the Yoda puppet, the spaceship models, the stop-motion animation of the Imperial walkers to go all-computer-animation-and-green-screen, all-the-time.
Having been an ardent Star Wars fan since seeing Episode IV at the age of six, I simply choose to ignore Mr. Lucas’s attempts to inject a little of his political philosophy in to the prequel eye-candy. Sometimes, you’ve just got to enjoy the movie for what it is and not read too much in to it.
John Stossel ran an unscientific, blind taste test of six different brands of coffee, ranging from $12 a pound to $4 a pound. The result was, at least for me, not surprising: the more expensive brands were not necessarily the better tasting coffees.
I am not a coffee drinker. I’ve tasted various coffees scores of times, but it is not something that is regularly brewed in our house. I do love the smell of coffee beans, and of coffee brewing, but don’t care for the beverage.
When my wife and I visited the big island of Hawai’i in 2001, we purchased some Kona coffee from one of the local growers, Country Samurai. While there, we learned that coffee is a lot like scotch. Most of the coffee one finds is a blend of beans, much like the inexpensive scotches one finds are a blend of malts. The best scotch is single malt, and the longer it’s aged, the better. Likewise, the best coffee is from a single batch of beans. Country Samurai sells that kind of coffee, and it was the first I remember really liking. Of course, at $25 a pound, my taste for coffee runs about as expensive as my taste for scotch, which explains why either is a rare find in our home.
Courtesy of Brother Spikey Mace of Loving Kindness, according to the Unitarian Jihad Name Assignment Committee, you may now refer to me as The Gatling Gun of Compassion.
So at this past Sunday’s game, we learned that Faith Lutheran–the team which handed us our only loss–lost their game earlier in the day. A win on our part would put us in a tie with them at the top of the league.
Our game was called after the top of the 5th inning, due to our 11-0 score over the opposition.
I played all five innings, the first two at third, the remaining three behind the plate. I was much more comfortable on defense this game, and got in a good catch and a good throw to first during my two innings at third.
Offensively, I was a wee bit off. Only at the plate twice, and the first time up I struck out looking. The second at-bat was a single, right up the middle, which advanced a runner.
So in the past three games, I am now seven of eight at the plate. I’m really pleased with the way my hitting has picked up, and I’m convinced it’s because I’m choking up on the bat more. I really need to get to the cages for some workout with the new grip. My season average slipped to .667, and lifetime dipped to .583.
All games for this coming Sunday have been rescheduled, due to it being Mother’s Day. This means our second-game showdown with Faith Lutheran will now be the last game of the season. Depending on what happens in two weeks, it could be the game for all the marbles of the spring season.
Apparently, the higher-ups at Honda in the mother country love soybeans. A lot.
Lawson has a blow-by-blow review of CBS’s made-for-television Locusts:
2135: Three commercial breaks already and not one Ortho commercial? Someone at CBS missed a Golden Opportunity™.
The team improved to 6-1 today, as we lost to our friends at Flower Mound UMC, 14-10. Yes, that’s right, we won, but we lost. FM UMC didn’t have enough players to start the game, and had to forfeit. A couple of players from Trietsch UMC, who had just finished the game before ours, volunteered to play for FM UMC, so our two teams could play. This was, however, unbeknown to our entire team, with the exception of our coach. I’m glad we got to play, and equally glad that we technically won by forfeit, because as the game wore on, our play got worse, and we relinquished the lead.
As for myself, I’ll chalk up my poor fielding to the two-week layoff: a Texas Rangers game last Sunday, and out of town the week before that.
I switched off with Dave between third and catcher, and I really didn’t have a good day at either position. It seemed I could never get the ball down quick enough to tag a runner out (I never saw a forced play the entire game), and I made critical throwing errors which oftentimes meant an extra bag for the runner. I just plain sucked.
I did have one great grab in the 3d inning, as I leapt to snag a high line drive that was going to drop in to shallow left center before it met my glove.
One could say that I redeemed myself at the plate, but I didn’t feel it. I like playing a solid, complete game. Offensively, this was my best game of the year. I went three for three, two singles and a triple, with two RBIs. The triple felt soooooo good coming off the bat. If I could have kept it about four feet flatter, it might have made it out of the park. As high as it was, it fooled the outfielder and got behind her, rolling to the fence. If it weren’t for her strong-armed counterpart who got to the ball first, I might have had a chance at an in-the-park home run. A long shot, to be sure, but interesting and fun to think about.
So after seven games, five of which I’ve played in, I’m 11 of 16, for an average of .687, with a walk and three RBIs for the season. Not bad, but still much room for improvement. Even more improvement is required on defense. This may come through more field time, should I start playing for the men’s team on Thursday nights…
Being the incredibly lame Star Wars geek that I am–I was six when Episode IV came out, and have been hooked ever since–I have made it a tradition to see the prequels at the midnight showing on release day. The first episode was a quiet affair, just my spouse and I. For Attack of the Clones, we organized a small gathering of our friends to go with us.
Many things have changed in many of the lives that were with us that night of the last movie, including ours. We have a toddler now, and so my wife will not be making the midnight show of the last Star Wars film ever with me. Jeff has failed to respond to my inquiries. Michael isn’t interested in the series enough to go. FranX doesn’t do midnight shows for any movie. So how about it, Jim? Ricky? Brian?
Dear God, who is the pathetic nerd typing this post?