HAPPY POWER-TOOLS-ARE-FOR-ME! shout-out to: my health insurance plan! as of 1 december, 2006, i will (again) be insured for basic health and dental coverage! now where was that fork and outlet i was going to play with?
happy go-for-the-gold! shout-out to the triple-t of jersey city! he knows... he knows... and to think his dominance began with street fighter II...
happy thanks-for-wasting-my-thursday! shoutout to the sublime stacy h. of washington, dc! in case you haven't seen it yet, do a search for the "new 7 wonders of the world" and get your vote in. of course, though i had a grand time deciding between the eiffel tower (had to be one of your seven, stacy!) and the great wall, i was wondering why not do a "modern 7 wonders" and a "pre-1800 7 wonders!" so that you can get technological marvels like the eiffel towers and feats of human ingenuity for stuff like the alhambra in spain. of course, why monumental works like the great wall or the pyramids that were basically done on the backs of slaves should be included is beyound me. first nomination for a modern wonder: versailles.
--goose
Friday, October 20, 2006
why the mets lost, and other interesting tidbits
dearest all-
this is a quickie blog hit. BOOM! RIGHT THERE!
anyhoo, an appeal to all my journalism homeys out there making a dollar, don't turn into the following: tim mccarver, mike lupica, or any of the other blowhards who, despite watching the same game i saw (through a double-nap thursday night! Say YES! to sleep!), write up the most ridiculous things or (in mccarver's case, a career of dumbness in the spoken word category) say drivel. drivel i say. drivel.
here are the facts: wagner inspired about as much confidence as bush's iraq plans. heilman was a logical 9th inning call as such he 1) was not wagner's hanging curveball or dead-plane flat fastball, and 2) facing the bottom of the order, including one of the flying molina brothers (yadier in this case), whose father, despite teaching them all great defensive catching skills (there are like 3? 4? brothers catching in the mlb), apparently never showed them the way to hit. so yadier got a home run, of course, and the mets lose and the dopes say it's so-and-so's fault, knowing you can't prove them wrong b/c had it ended differently, everyone would be high-fiving willie randolph for the foresight to not bring out this post-season's mitch williams. but why did yadier get a home run? nobody is saying this, so i must: heillman threw 8 first-pitch changeups. 8! the easiest pitch to hit when you know it's coming, and perhaps the hardest to recover from/for when not. every batter in the 8th got the dead fish for strike 1. as did every batter in the 9th. so go figure, a catch with an eye for pitches (hence, the catcher position) and in tune with the game, sits on the pitch and muscled it out.
and nobody is saying this. lupica blames heilman / randolph for not bringing in wagner. some bozo at ny post called heilman's pitch a fastball.
so my appeal to everyone in the industry is this: don't spin the game. the home run (and the mets' season effectively) was the result of a pitcher going to the well 1 time too many to get ahead of the count with a first-pitch strike. and if a flying molina has a greenlight on the 0-0, so should beltran, who saw a slider that had less break than mine coast over the heart of the plate with the bases loaded and 2 outs in the bottom frame.
dopes.
with that said, i couldn't be more excited for this world series (in instances excluding the cubs). the tigers, with personal managerial fave jim leyland (whom my grandfather just loved) and his club of mis-fits, has-beens, and never-will-be's (to misquote major league) against one of the classiest franchises in baseball. from soup (the starting nine) to nuts (their fans), the cardinals are classy. and since both teams are in the midwest, i can't wait to see tim mccarver moon over the tigers every night while joe buck (a cardinals' week-day broadcaster) tries to conceal his enthusiasm for the cards. not that i hate joe buck.
ok, that's a lie. he's garbage too.
but in the grand scheme of things, baseball fans win here. with no ny teams, we can get by the inevitable post-mortem every night. just play the game, fellas!
on a side note: is it just me or are there other people out there who think that we should have a broadcaster playoffs too? i don't know about you, but i'm about sick and tired of being forced to listen to mccarver/buck for every world series when, in reality, they are perhaps the 10th and 14th best guys doing the national scene. can't we get jon miller in there somehow? mike breen? gary thorne and bill clement? why not vin scully? the ghost of chick hearn and harry caray? of course, i will probably watch the games on mute or listen to espn radio and then forget about the utter garbage that are these broadcast teams until i'm forced upon the idiocy that is billy packer during march madness.
--goose
this is a quickie blog hit. BOOM! RIGHT THERE!
anyhoo, an appeal to all my journalism homeys out there making a dollar, don't turn into the following: tim mccarver, mike lupica, or any of the other blowhards who, despite watching the same game i saw (through a double-nap thursday night! Say YES! to sleep!), write up the most ridiculous things or (in mccarver's case, a career of dumbness in the spoken word category) say drivel. drivel i say. drivel.
here are the facts: wagner inspired about as much confidence as bush's iraq plans. heilman was a logical 9th inning call as such he 1) was not wagner's hanging curveball or dead-plane flat fastball, and 2) facing the bottom of the order, including one of the flying molina brothers (yadier in this case), whose father, despite teaching them all great defensive catching skills (there are like 3? 4? brothers catching in the mlb), apparently never showed them the way to hit. so yadier got a home run, of course, and the mets lose and the dopes say it's so-and-so's fault, knowing you can't prove them wrong b/c had it ended differently, everyone would be high-fiving willie randolph for the foresight to not bring out this post-season's mitch williams. but why did yadier get a home run? nobody is saying this, so i must: heillman threw 8 first-pitch changeups. 8! the easiest pitch to hit when you know it's coming, and perhaps the hardest to recover from/for when not. every batter in the 8th got the dead fish for strike 1. as did every batter in the 9th. so go figure, a catch with an eye for pitches (hence, the catcher position) and in tune with the game, sits on the pitch and muscled it out.
and nobody is saying this. lupica blames heilman / randolph for not bringing in wagner. some bozo at ny post called heilman's pitch a fastball.
so my appeal to everyone in the industry is this: don't spin the game. the home run (and the mets' season effectively) was the result of a pitcher going to the well 1 time too many to get ahead of the count with a first-pitch strike. and if a flying molina has a greenlight on the 0-0, so should beltran, who saw a slider that had less break than mine coast over the heart of the plate with the bases loaded and 2 outs in the bottom frame.
dopes.
with that said, i couldn't be more excited for this world series (in instances excluding the cubs). the tigers, with personal managerial fave jim leyland (whom my grandfather just loved) and his club of mis-fits, has-beens, and never-will-be's (to misquote major league) against one of the classiest franchises in baseball. from soup (the starting nine) to nuts (their fans), the cardinals are classy. and since both teams are in the midwest, i can't wait to see tim mccarver moon over the tigers every night while joe buck (a cardinals' week-day broadcaster) tries to conceal his enthusiasm for the cards. not that i hate joe buck.
ok, that's a lie. he's garbage too.
but in the grand scheme of things, baseball fans win here. with no ny teams, we can get by the inevitable post-mortem every night. just play the game, fellas!
on a side note: is it just me or are there other people out there who think that we should have a broadcaster playoffs too? i don't know about you, but i'm about sick and tired of being forced to listen to mccarver/buck for every world series when, in reality, they are perhaps the 10th and 14th best guys doing the national scene. can't we get jon miller in there somehow? mike breen? gary thorne and bill clement? why not vin scully? the ghost of chick hearn and harry caray? of course, i will probably watch the games on mute or listen to espn radio and then forget about the utter garbage that are these broadcast teams until i'm forced upon the idiocy that is billy packer during march madness.
--goose
Monday, October 16, 2006
an open letter and critique of big-12 football
dearest all-
such was the excitement this weekend when fellow monk euge scored two free (FREE!) tickets to the big texas a&m / mizzou game at venerable kyle field. having never attended a big-12 contest before, i was fairly excited by the prospect, if only because being at a football game precludes one from studying or paper writing or GIS mapping. but to say i was pumped for it would be a bit overwrought. indeed, though it was a exciting contest and fairly well-played, i couldn't help but notice the differences between my usc memories and the aggies experience. and mind you, these teams (late-90s usc and mid-00s aggies) are very similar. so it's not like i'm comparing the recent usc lovefest.
issue 1) saying "fighting aggie". they are aggies. everyone knows that. notre dame is the fighting irish, sometimes abbreviated to "the irish". but a&m students call themselves "aggies" and not "the aggies" or "the fighting aggies". domers don't call themselves "irish". a&m needs to resolve this issue. i thought aggies was sufficient, but a fighting aggie sounds much more impressive. they need to pick one and use it. perhaps that's why they haven't won a big-12 title since like 1993.
issue 2) fight songs. a&m, i must admit, has this great thing where everyone, while singing the B-section of a song i want to say is titled "eyes of texas", join arms and sway back and forth in unison. the sight is pretty darn cool. 90,000 people doing a oktoberfest sway is a positive. the negative? that song is about 4 verses too long and far too intricate to understand. usc keeps it simple, much to our delight and our opponents annoyance. and it sounds fervent. "eyes of texas" is practically a serenade made worse when the alumni mumble through the 2nd half of every verse. recommendation: shorten it and yell out "Beat Texas!" at the end of every song.
issue 3) get your arch-rival straight. you'd think it was u.texas. but sometimes you hear TCU, who i don't even think is even in the big-12. not that either care. a&m is almost guaranteed to lose to both based on how everyone talks. recommendation: improve upon issue 5b to get more blue-chippers to want to come here.
issue 4) the band. now the a&m fighting aggie-proud band is a sight to behold. smallish in size, but formidable in routine. they do this superb half-time show where they march back and forth, making crazy little patterns as each row walks inside/outside/between/away/towards other rows. it looks a bit like, when they are all bunched up together, something pulsing. but guess what they do that to? eyes of texas! or yellow rose of texas! which we've already heard a few times. so usc plays "sing, sing, sing" at every half time. at least they keep it for the show. recommendation: anything from outkast or kanye west. or the killers.
issue 4b) the band. usc's band plays like ALL GAME! not so at a&m. they have malt shop boys who lead chants.
issue 5) the maltshop boys. actually, they're a lot like the yell-boys/fish whatever you want to call them, if you dressed up the yellfish in a costume from back to the future. all white shirt and pants, the 1950s crewcut and LOTS OF SPIRIT! now you're supposed to go to "yell practice" the night before to get all the hand signals, but, sitting in basically an alumni section, they seem to be fairly well-known already. but what does "form! form! form! shoot!" mean? i don't get it. making a pistol with your hands? get it. trying to do an alligator but forgetting the top part of the mouth i do not. plus, their antics don't match what's going on the field. it's almost as if they say, "biff! i want to do the form form form! cheer now!" "no, macfly. we're doing the form shoot! sway!" cheer. what they forget is that it's 4th down and a&m is punting from their own 21... speaking of punts though, i'm proud to say i saw a 79-yd punt!!! the mizzou guy kicked the crap out of that ball. there is something majestic that is unique about such a boot. before it even was halfway out of the stadium, euge and i looked at each other and said something along the lines of, "my goodness didn't he ever kick that squarely!" too bad that might have been mizzou's 2nd half highlight. or have i not mentioned that a&m won yet? WHo-OP! fighting aggies!
issue 5b) the maltshop boys. specifically: they are THE ONLY CHEERING PEOPLE ON THE FIELD! i.e. NO CHEERLEADERS! less michael j. fox, more vivica (or samantha even!)
issue 6) the whole standing thing. fine tradition, this 12th man thing. very cool. plus your team jersey never goes out of style (ask euge and his "brad otton" #10, which is finally back in vogue with john david booty...) and like the idea of the "the students stand as if ready to enter" thing. but guess what: they ALL SIT during the commercial timeouts. i've never seen a stadium more tuned in to the commercial guy who wears the funky shirt and stands on the field when the game is on commercial break. okay, this isn't exactly true. most sit. the remainder do this sad little "rest on your knees with your ass stuck in the face of the guy behind you" move. don't be proud. sit down and save some energy for those big 3rd down defensive stands. or at least, don't look like a ninny who refuses to sit down but is so worn out they do the ass-kick-out straight up into row 30 seat 11.
issue 7) every school has their own 1st-down cheer. usc's is the whole "move the chains, move the chains, move.the.chains!" and "First down, trojans!" and whatever other dumb thing we came up with in those dark days. a&m's? a quick whoop! the announcer says "1st down fighting aggies!" and everyone goes, "Who-OP!" hardly inspiring.
issue 8) the making out. so a&m scores. couples start making out. which may or may not be fun to watch. but here's the flaw: they are not equal-opportunity. no one tapped me or euge on the shoulder for a peck. it seems exclusionary. though they do have a cannon. usc needs a cannon. and me and euge need our dates. or lip gloss and a silent pact.
issue 9) no song that mocks arch-rival. sure, they say something about u.texas looking bad or something in the 3rd verse of "eyes of texas", but ask any trojan how much they patiently (or not so much) wait for "tusk" just to start swearing at fucla. back in the day, when the game got out of hand, you'd hear fans going, "TUSKKKKKKKKKK!" like they were at a skynrd concert and hadn't heard freebird yet. if a&m wants to climb back up to the pantheon of big-12 giant, they need a tusk.
issue 10) a dry campus + a dry stadium + southern baptist fundamentals = boring fan base. now i'm not prescribing drunken debauchery, but when you're near that one funny drunk guy who keeps making up things to say to the refs or the teams, it keeps you in the game. as always, beer makes things better. sadly, a&m is without. and that's why they are going to be an 7-8 win team for the forseeable future.
on a positive note, me and euge are 1-0, thanks to some great defense in the early-going (a stripped ball on a sure touchdown that prevented mizzou from taking a 7-0 lead 20 seconds into the game) and a large running back (about 255 lbs.) we're expecting even better free tickets if they want to challenge for a good bowl game. and though euge doesn't like the "Sway dance", i think it's great. if i can't have my beer, i still want to see everything swaying and moving. and that's a start.
of course, we were much more excited at the end of the big 24-19 win (i think that's what it was) to know we hadn't missed the usc/asu kick-off. brats, beer, good fans and great seats made for a great night watching usc squeak another one out. at this rate, i'll be a nervous wreck walking into the coliseum for usc/cal in november. it's like the carr bros. curse is gearing up for my return. but, loyal trojan readers, it's not too late. my swiss bank account is open and awaiting your nigerian lotto winnings. email me for deposit information.
--goose
double-pump quick shout-out: any fellow trojans who have noticed usc's abilities this year are eerily similar to the 2002 ohio state buckeyes, who played like 10 consecutive 1-point victories prior to their big game against nebraska. one can hope. one can hope.
tom selleck as magnum, p.i. shout out to the detroit tigers. if the red sox followed by the white sox aren't enough to tell me that 1) the cubs can win a world series, then if the tigers continue this magical fall of 2006 to a title, then i know 2) god is cruel and obviously a fan of the DH. of course, it will be easy to cheer for los tigres if the hated mets make the world series. if the cardinals win, however, i might be a little confused. SIKE!
gnarly-1980s-lingo-reference shoutout to the clayter b/c every time i misspell gnarly. DOUBLE SIKE!
DOUBLE SIKE SHOUT-OUT TO excellent cousins beth and tom l. of pittsburghish, pa. with 2 adorable tykes running around with a combined age of something like 3.2 yrs., they are happy to report that there are twins who will be joining the bedlam sometime next march or april! 4 under 4!!! having done the stressful waiting game with the skylar and arianna, i wish beth a nice, happy, flawless, perfect pregnancy. because it'll definitely be the end of your peace and quiet once the dubloons arrive.
promised promo shoutout to the mayor mccheese, if only b/c i think i'm 2 months away from seeing his silliness back on the st.croix. now if there was only something that would keep me busy until then...
such was the excitement this weekend when fellow monk euge scored two free (FREE!) tickets to the big texas a&m / mizzou game at venerable kyle field. having never attended a big-12 contest before, i was fairly excited by the prospect, if only because being at a football game precludes one from studying or paper writing or GIS mapping. but to say i was pumped for it would be a bit overwrought. indeed, though it was a exciting contest and fairly well-played, i couldn't help but notice the differences between my usc memories and the aggies experience. and mind you, these teams (late-90s usc and mid-00s aggies) are very similar. so it's not like i'm comparing the recent usc lovefest.
issue 1) saying "fighting aggie". they are aggies. everyone knows that. notre dame is the fighting irish, sometimes abbreviated to "the irish". but a&m students call themselves "aggies" and not "the aggies" or "the fighting aggies". domers don't call themselves "irish". a&m needs to resolve this issue. i thought aggies was sufficient, but a fighting aggie sounds much more impressive. they need to pick one and use it. perhaps that's why they haven't won a big-12 title since like 1993.
issue 2) fight songs. a&m, i must admit, has this great thing where everyone, while singing the B-section of a song i want to say is titled "eyes of texas", join arms and sway back and forth in unison. the sight is pretty darn cool. 90,000 people doing a oktoberfest sway is a positive. the negative? that song is about 4 verses too long and far too intricate to understand. usc keeps it simple, much to our delight and our opponents annoyance. and it sounds fervent. "eyes of texas" is practically a serenade made worse when the alumni mumble through the 2nd half of every verse. recommendation: shorten it and yell out "Beat Texas!" at the end of every song.
issue 3) get your arch-rival straight. you'd think it was u.texas. but sometimes you hear TCU, who i don't even think is even in the big-12. not that either care. a&m is almost guaranteed to lose to both based on how everyone talks. recommendation: improve upon issue 5b to get more blue-chippers to want to come here.
issue 4) the band. now the a&m fighting aggie-proud band is a sight to behold. smallish in size, but formidable in routine. they do this superb half-time show where they march back and forth, making crazy little patterns as each row walks inside/outside/between/away/towards other rows. it looks a bit like, when they are all bunched up together, something pulsing. but guess what they do that to? eyes of texas! or yellow rose of texas! which we've already heard a few times. so usc plays "sing, sing, sing" at every half time. at least they keep it for the show. recommendation: anything from outkast or kanye west. or the killers.
issue 4b) the band. usc's band plays like ALL GAME! not so at a&m. they have malt shop boys who lead chants.
issue 5) the maltshop boys. actually, they're a lot like the yell-boys/fish whatever you want to call them, if you dressed up the yellfish in a costume from back to the future. all white shirt and pants, the 1950s crewcut and LOTS OF SPIRIT! now you're supposed to go to "yell practice" the night before to get all the hand signals, but, sitting in basically an alumni section, they seem to be fairly well-known already. but what does "form! form! form! shoot!" mean? i don't get it. making a pistol with your hands? get it. trying to do an alligator but forgetting the top part of the mouth i do not. plus, their antics don't match what's going on the field. it's almost as if they say, "biff! i want to do the form form form! cheer now!" "no, macfly. we're doing the form shoot! sway!" cheer. what they forget is that it's 4th down and a&m is punting from their own 21... speaking of punts though, i'm proud to say i saw a 79-yd punt!!! the mizzou guy kicked the crap out of that ball. there is something majestic that is unique about such a boot. before it even was halfway out of the stadium, euge and i looked at each other and said something along the lines of, "my goodness didn't he ever kick that squarely!" too bad that might have been mizzou's 2nd half highlight. or have i not mentioned that a&m won yet? WHo-OP! fighting aggies!
issue 5b) the maltshop boys. specifically: they are THE ONLY CHEERING PEOPLE ON THE FIELD! i.e. NO CHEERLEADERS! less michael j. fox, more vivica (or samantha even!)
issue 6) the whole standing thing. fine tradition, this 12th man thing. very cool. plus your team jersey never goes out of style (ask euge and his "brad otton" #10, which is finally back in vogue with john david booty...) and like the idea of the "the students stand as if ready to enter" thing. but guess what: they ALL SIT during the commercial timeouts. i've never seen a stadium more tuned in to the commercial guy who wears the funky shirt and stands on the field when the game is on commercial break. okay, this isn't exactly true. most sit. the remainder do this sad little "rest on your knees with your ass stuck in the face of the guy behind you" move. don't be proud. sit down and save some energy for those big 3rd down defensive stands. or at least, don't look like a ninny who refuses to sit down but is so worn out they do the ass-kick-out straight up into row 30 seat 11.
issue 7) every school has their own 1st-down cheer. usc's is the whole "move the chains, move the chains, move.the.chains!" and "First down, trojans!" and whatever other dumb thing we came up with in those dark days. a&m's? a quick whoop! the announcer says "1st down fighting aggies!" and everyone goes, "Who-OP!" hardly inspiring.
issue 8) the making out. so a&m scores. couples start making out. which may or may not be fun to watch. but here's the flaw: they are not equal-opportunity. no one tapped me or euge on the shoulder for a peck. it seems exclusionary. though they do have a cannon. usc needs a cannon. and me and euge need our dates. or lip gloss and a silent pact.
issue 9) no song that mocks arch-rival. sure, they say something about u.texas looking bad or something in the 3rd verse of "eyes of texas", but ask any trojan how much they patiently (or not so much) wait for "tusk" just to start swearing at fucla. back in the day, when the game got out of hand, you'd hear fans going, "TUSKKKKKKKKKK!" like they were at a skynrd concert and hadn't heard freebird yet. if a&m wants to climb back up to the pantheon of big-12 giant, they need a tusk.
issue 10) a dry campus + a dry stadium + southern baptist fundamentals = boring fan base. now i'm not prescribing drunken debauchery, but when you're near that one funny drunk guy who keeps making up things to say to the refs or the teams, it keeps you in the game. as always, beer makes things better. sadly, a&m is without. and that's why they are going to be an 7-8 win team for the forseeable future.
on a positive note, me and euge are 1-0, thanks to some great defense in the early-going (a stripped ball on a sure touchdown that prevented mizzou from taking a 7-0 lead 20 seconds into the game) and a large running back (about 255 lbs.) we're expecting even better free tickets if they want to challenge for a good bowl game. and though euge doesn't like the "Sway dance", i think it's great. if i can't have my beer, i still want to see everything swaying and moving. and that's a start.
of course, we were much more excited at the end of the big 24-19 win (i think that's what it was) to know we hadn't missed the usc/asu kick-off. brats, beer, good fans and great seats made for a great night watching usc squeak another one out. at this rate, i'll be a nervous wreck walking into the coliseum for usc/cal in november. it's like the carr bros. curse is gearing up for my return. but, loyal trojan readers, it's not too late. my swiss bank account is open and awaiting your nigerian lotto winnings. email me for deposit information.
--goose
double-pump quick shout-out: any fellow trojans who have noticed usc's abilities this year are eerily similar to the 2002 ohio state buckeyes, who played like 10 consecutive 1-point victories prior to their big game against nebraska. one can hope. one can hope.
tom selleck as magnum, p.i. shout out to the detroit tigers. if the red sox followed by the white sox aren't enough to tell me that 1) the cubs can win a world series, then if the tigers continue this magical fall of 2006 to a title, then i know 2) god is cruel and obviously a fan of the DH. of course, it will be easy to cheer for los tigres if the hated mets make the world series. if the cardinals win, however, i might be a little confused. SIKE!
gnarly-1980s-lingo-reference shoutout to the clayter b/c every time i misspell gnarly. DOUBLE SIKE!
DOUBLE SIKE SHOUT-OUT TO excellent cousins beth and tom l. of pittsburghish, pa. with 2 adorable tykes running around with a combined age of something like 3.2 yrs., they are happy to report that there are twins who will be joining the bedlam sometime next march or april! 4 under 4!!! having done the stressful waiting game with the skylar and arianna, i wish beth a nice, happy, flawless, perfect pregnancy. because it'll definitely be the end of your peace and quiet once the dubloons arrive.
promised promo shoutout to the mayor mccheese, if only b/c i think i'm 2 months away from seeing his silliness back on the st.croix. now if there was only something that would keep me busy until then...
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