Baseball Trade Deadline Statements

Why do baseball teams/fans/media feel that a team needs to make a “statement” at the trade deadline that a team is “in it to win it” by going out and making a trade just to prove they are doing all they can to win now? The Yankees seem to continue to have this mentality despite years of (at best) useless and (at worst) farm system depleting trades. Sure, they got David Cone and David Justice in those types of deals in years past, but more often than not the players they got at the trade deadline turned out to be a Denny Neagle or an Esteban Loaiza. And this year the Yankees deal for the sole purpose of making a deal involved acquiring Wilson Betemit, who is batting all of .231 this year. It seems as if Brian Cashman simply tries to prove to George Steinbrenner that he made a deal in an attempt to somehow “save the season” or at least prove he is trying. I say, if you can’t make a good deal, then don’t make any deal. Don’t worry about making a statement.

July 31, 2007 9:15 pm. Sports. 1 Comment.

Comic book review: Eternals by Neil Gaiman

A seven issue limited series published in 2006 and 2007 by Marvel, the Eternals were originally created by Jack Kirby in the 1970s. I picked up this latest incarnation of Eternals for one reason: Neil Gaiman. His Sandman series is one of the best ever. But I am growing slightly skeptical of vanity projects such as Eternals, where someone has “always wanted to write/draw (fill in the blank obscure character that no one has ever heard of).” These types of projects scratch an itch for the writer or artist, but usually leave the readers less than satisfied.

Eternals doesn’t do anything to change that perception. There is nothing particularly wrong or bad about the work itself, but there is also nothing new, interesting, or fresh about these characters and situations to warrant this revival, other than to make Mr. Gaiman happy. I found myself enjoying the appearances of Iron Man and the minor tie-in to Marvel’s Civil War event more than the story of the Eternals themselves.

Rating: 4 out of 10.

July 28, 2007 9:02 am. Book Reviews. 1 Comment.

Lala.com

I first began using the music swapping service at lala.com about a year ago after it received a good amount of press. The concept is that you trade away CDs you no longer want in order to receive CDs that you do want for a small fee, and a percentage of that fee goes to the artists themselves. The power of the idea comes from the fact that you do not make direct trades with a single person, but rather the CDs you receive come from the entire pool of users of lala.com. I knew I had some CDs that I no longer felt the need to keep in my collection so I decided to give lala.com a try.

I knew the system was based on supply and demand, so I was under no illusions that I was going to get rid of some free CD I got as a giveaway at Best Buy and receive any new releases in return. At first, I had success sending out CDs I no longer wanted and received some Replacements or Frank Zappa CDs in return for the fee of only $1.75 (one dollar to lala and 75 cents for the shipping). Then I expanded my trading to include my classical collection and had success with that as well.

But the problem with the concept is this: if I had 50 CDs that I was originally willing to part with, over the course of several months about 30 have been requested by other lala members and therefore been shipped out. But of the remaining 20 CDs, either no one wants or everyone else wants to get rid of (or both). And since you can’t receive a CD unless you ship one (or more) out, you get stuck at some point. At that point I realized that in order to continue trading CDs with lala, I needed to be willing to part with some CDs beyond the original list of those I no longer wanted. It comes down to asking myself if it is worth getting rid of a particular CD in order to try something new that I might not be willing to buy at full price. And for the most part, I am still at a point where the answer to that question is yes, which is why I am still enjoying success using lala.com.

Some examples of CDs that I have sent and received:

Sent:
- Now Here Is Nowhere by Secret Machines
- Mutations by Beck
- Cat Scratch Fever by Ted Nugent
- Rant In E-Minor by Bill Hicks
- Satyagraha by Philip Glass
- Symphony No. 4 by Charles Ives
- Greatest Hits by The Cars

Received:
- Pleased To Meet Me by The Replacements
- Just Another Band From L.A. by Frank Zappa
- Them Or Us by Frank Zappa
- Guero by Beck
- Strauss: Four Last Songs by Schwarzkopf/Szell
- Grieg: Songs by Anne Sofie von Otter
- Fear Of A Black Planet by Public Enemy
- Libera
- Fear Of The Dark by Iron Maiden

July 24, 2007 6:27 pm. Music. 1 Comment.

PTI Withdrawal

I can’t believe that the next episode of Pardon The Interruption is not until July 30!

July 21, 2007 1:30 pm. Sports. No Comments.

Guitar

Here it is, my “new” 1988 Steinberger guitar in all it’s graphite glory:

OK, so only the neck is actually made of graphite:

The body is actually made of maple:

Here’s my current pedal setup:

And my rockin’ amp!

Yes, those really are just a pair of speakers that are intended to be plugged in to a Sony Walkman cassette tape player. But hey, they get the job done for me.

July 18, 2007 9:46 pm. Pictures. No Comments.

Comic book review: 52 from DC Comics

Let me first give kudos to DC Comics for pulling off the herculean task of producing a weekly comic book without missing a single week. I know how hard it is to keep a monthly book on schedule, never mind the effort needed from an entire group of writers, artists, and editorial staff to produce a title every week. The last time any comic book company tried to produce a weekly book was in 1989 and Action Comics Weekly could not even last a year on a weekly schedule.

Having said that, the story told in 52 was a disappointment. And DC Comics Executive Editor Dan DiDio explains why in issue 50: “our goal was to explain the multiple changes in the characters and story that occurred throughout our line with the One Year Later jumps.” This is how 52 was marketed. All DC comics jumped forward one year in their timelines after the events of Infinite Crisis and 52 would fill in the stories of the DC Universe characters during that one year gap. But as Dan explains: “a funny thing happened on the way to One Year Later: The four talented writers of 52 took hold of our guide characters and began to realize the untold potential in all of them.”

And unfortunately that “untold potential” never reached its potential. Sure, I love some of the lesser known characters of the DC Universe that were explored in 52, such as Animal Man, Lobo, and most notably The Question, but ultimately the story in 52 featured too many pieces of stories that I didn’t need to know and not enough of what it was expected to be. While the four issue series titled “World War III” was supposed to fill in what 52 was originally supposed to be, WWIII felt rushed and uneventful, with only glances of events shown that had already been revealed in One Year Later storylines rather than the full story that I had expected.

Even though there were some good moments and enjoyable issues in the series (mainly centering around Lobo and The Question, though not together), I can’t help but think that expectations played a role in my lack of enjoyment of it, especially towards the end. And I can’t help thinking of what 52 might have been if it was written as originally planned.

Rating: 3.5 out of 10.

July 16, 2007 7:41 pm. Book Reviews. No Comments.

The ESPY Awards

There have been a couple of times since I started blogging that after I put my thoughts on paper (so to speak), I realized a point I was trying to make was inconsistent with other opinions I have. Most recently, I wrote this regarding the ESPY Awards:

“Each year, ESPN hosts and hypes the Excellence in Sports Performance Yearly Awards, also known as the ESPYs. To me the concept of a sports award show represents the exact opposite of what makes sports great. In sports (with the possible exception of college football), winners and losers are determined on the field. No one picks who the winners are. No one decides who the best are. The winners emerge throughout the course of the events set forth by the games themselves. No consensus needs to be made to determine who wins the championships.”

The inconsistency is that I have no problem with other established sports awards, such as the Cy Young award or any MVP awards. In fact, I enjoy the debates and analysis devoted to such end of season sports league awards. So why do the ESPY’s turn me off? I can’t quite put my finger on it. Maybe it has to do with the pageantry of the ceremony. Yet the Heisman trophy presentation usually contains more ceremony than any real drama. Maybe I feel that the existing sports awards are enough. Maybe the categories seem too phony or unnecessary. I am not entirely sure. What I am sure of is that I won’t be watching the ESPY Award show.

July 13, 2007 8:23 pm. Sports, TV Reviews. 2 Comments.

Comments on PTI from July 10, 2007

Sometimes Pardon The Interruption fuels more food for thought than other times, and Tuesday night was one of those times. Here are some random thoughts:

What difference will it make if baseball commissioner Bud Selig is in attendance when Barry Bonds breaks Hank Aaron’s career home run record? The attention this subject receives is by people who are reading way too much into this being some kind of statement Selig may or may not be making regarding steroids. But this event is not about Selig, it’s about Bonds. Does anyone remember if the commissioner of baseball (whoever it was at the time) attended the game that Hank Aaron broke Babe Ruth’s record? Does anyone care? Nor will I care whether Selig shows up for this one.
What exactly is the NBA summer league? I have no idea what this is. But apparently, it is held in Las Vegas and you get 10 fouls before you foul out. Hit your opponent on the court (up to 10 times) then hit the casinos. Sounds like fun to me.
It was great to see tennis get 5 good minutes on PTI and especially good to see my favorite current player James Blake.
Sorry Wilbon, but there is a zero percent chance that Alex Rodriques will be traded this year. Zero. He could very well opt out of his contract and leave the Yankees at the end of the year, but there is no way the Yankees are going to trade him.
The toss up question of which is harder to win: the World Series of Poker or the Tour de France is actually an interesting question. The answer really depends on who it is more difficult to win for. It is more difficult for a professional player to win the WSOP because the reality is that just about anyone can win (amateur players have been runners-up). If you are the best poker player in the world, there is still a good chance you would not win the WSOP. If you are the best cyclist in the world, the chances are much better that you will win the Tour de France. But it is impossible for amateurs to win the Tour de France.

July 10, 2007 8:53 pm. Sports. 2 Comments.

Music review: Freak Out! by Frank Zappa

Don’t get caught up in the fact that this is Frank Zappa’s “first album!” It supposedly influenced Paul McCartney during the recording of “Sgt. Pepper’s!” Overall it is not Zappa’s best work. Looking back 40 years later, you shouldn’t expect it to be. Zappa was just starting to hone his skills as a songwriter/producer on this first effort.

For me, some of the rather simplistic and juvenile songs work really well, such as “Any Way the Wind Blows” and “You Didn’t Try To Call Me,” but others don’t work as well, such as “Wowie Zowie” and “Help I’m a Rock.” There is a lot of doo wop influence on the album, such as on “I Ain’t Got No Heart,” which while doo wop is still present on future Zappa albums (especially Cruisin With Ruben and the Jets), gets downplayed in favor of rock, jazz, and experimentation on future albums. “Trouble Every Day” gets the most recognition of any song on the album because of the political statement Zappa makes regarding race relations in this country in the 1960s as influenced by the Watts riots of 1965. And the free-form, experimental pieces at the end of the album (”It Can’t Happen Here” and “The Return of the Son of Monster Magnet”) don’t work as well as future efforts such as Lumpy Gravy.

While not one of my top 10 favorite Zappa albums, overall Freak Out! is distinctly Frank Zappa and still an album worth listening to.

Rating: 6.5 out of 10.

July 8, 2007 8:43 pm. Music. No Comments.

Kwik-E-Mart

The 7-11 store on 42nd Street in Manhattan has been remade as a Kwik-E-Mart as part of a promotion for the upcoming Simpsons movie, and I simply had to check it out. The big signs on the outside of the store do not say 7-11:

Shot of the exterior:

But Apu lets you in on the joke in case you don’t know what is going on:

When you enter the store you are greeted by life-size standees of our favorite family and other Springfield residents:

My favorite part of the entire promotion was the sarcastic signage on display throughout the store:

KrustyO’s Cereal was made just for the promotion:

Reporter: I have a question for Apu de Beaumarchais. Isn’t it true that you’re really an Indian?
Apu: By the many arms of Vishnu, I swear it is a lie!