Month: March 2007

Crackerjacks (my daughter is allergic to peanuts)

My ritual for preparing for the baseball season usually involves purchasing Street& Smith’s Baseball Annual. It helps to remind me who was traded or retired during the off season. I’m sure it’s a fantasy league player’s dream, but that’s never interested me.

What DID interest me is the career totals in the several categories. I was fascinated to find that the leading active player in hits (tied all-time with Rogers Horsby) and doubles (ahead of Hank Aaron and Cal Ripkin Jr.), AND second to Barry Bonds in runs (beating out, among others, Jimmie Foxx and Honus Wagner), and third to Bonds and Griffey Jr. in total bases is Craig Biggio. Barring some revelation, he should be a lock for the Hall of Fame when he retires.

So, who is the batter with the fourth all-time greatest slugging percentage after Babe Ruth, Ted Williams, and Lou Gehrig? It isn’t Bonds, who is sixth, after Foxx. It’s Albert Pujols, who’s top 4 among active players in on-base percentage.

Of course, over the past few years, the issue of steroids has muddied the waters in terms of not only baseball but other sports achievements. For reasons that I’m not entirely sure I understand, it is the Albany (NY) County district attorney that is leading the charge in a major steroid bust in Florida.

At some level, I think I, and many others are fervently hoping that today’s stars, such as Pujols and Ryan Howard, will stay clean, for the sake of the game.
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Paraphrased from The Very Worst In Sports

In 1895, Mike Grady played professional baseball for the Phillies. Grady, normally a catcher, was playing third base in a particularly memorable – and painful — game for him. As the story goes, he bobbled an easy grounder allowing the batter to reach first base (first error). His throw to first was wild (second error), allowing the runner to advance. The runner tried to stretch it to third. The first baseman’s throw to Grady at third was in time, but he dropped it (third error). Finally, the runner was racing home and Grady’s throw sailed over
the catcher’s head into the grandstand (fourth error) – ALL in one single play!

ROG

Should I Stay or Should I Go?

I’ve been in conversation with this guy from the local newspaper about putting my little bloggy on the Times Union newspaper blog site. The paper would not exercise any editorial control over my work, and they could move the nearly two years of my back stuff onto the site.

The upside:
Potentially more readers, as the TU would support my/their blog

The downside
No bloglinks (though I could, I suppose, keep a blog with links)
These transfer things always seem to be more complicated than they’re sold on being
I’d get grief from someone about selling out to the evil Hearst corporation

But I’m thinking about it.I imagine those oof you who have strong opinions will share them.

Meanwhile, friend Judy sent me a link to “Web 2.0 … The Machine is Us/ing Us”:

From an unsolicited e-mail:

Dr. Benjamin Wiker has summarized the background of the popular phrase:

“The story begins with Mr. George Hull, a student of archeology and paleontology who contrived a famous hoax to make money. Hull had a ‘giant’ carved out of stone, and buried on his cousin’s farm in Cardiff , New York . Why? Because evangelists of the time were preaching about lost giants that roamed the earth, and Hull knew he could make a mint if the buried giant was ‘suddenly’ unearthed and put on display. And he did. Things went so well that he was able to sell two-thirds interest in the giant for $30,000 to a group of men, one of them being banker David Hannum (who believed the giant real). P.T. Barnum tried to buy the giant, but Hull and Hannum wouldn’t sell. So, ol’ P.T. had one carved of his own, and claimed Hull and Hannum’s was a fake! Seeing the streams of visitors flowing in to see P.T.’s ‘giant’, Hannum, still believing his own giant to be real, declared: ‘There’s a sucker born every minute.’ROG

ROG

Look alikes


Not having come across a meme that struck me, I went with this art de computer, via some FOL (Friend of Lefty). Frankly, don’t think any of them REALLY look like me. Do you? (The fifth is Paul Tibbetts.)
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UAlbany plays Virginia in Columbus this week in men’s basketball’s March Madness. I’ll probably do some pool. Any insights on upsets, such as what #12 is going to beat the #5 seed they’re playing?
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Today would have been my parents’ 57th wedding anniversary. On their 50th, in 2000, my sisters and I were trying to plan a surprise party for them. However, my father was ALSO trying to plan a surprise party for his wife, and the people my sisters and I called were confused by the fact that TWO parties were planned for the same day at the same place – their church – so, we ended up joining forces in surprising mom. Dad died five months later, so that last party holds a special place in our hearts.

ROG

ROG

Flick Tunes


But first, a sports note: UAlbany 60, U Vermont 59 in Burlington yesterday, where the Great Danes had never won in seven previous tries since 1999, when they went to Division I. I watched on ESPN2 as VT had the ball, down one with 30 seconds to go, but thanks to great defense by Albany never even got off a shot. Albany, my grad school alma mater, wins the America East men’s basketball title and gets to get seeded something-teen in the NCAA bracket tonight.
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I made this mixed CD for Lefty and his comrades, and I was so happy that the process worked that I made an extra five copies for whoever wants one.

I started with the God/afterlife songs:
Morning Hymn and Alleluia-Nuns Chorus-The Sound of Music
I’m a Soldier in the Army of the Lord-Lyle Lovett-The Apostle
In Your Mind-Johnny Cash-Dead Man Walking
The Great Beyond-R.E.M.-Man in the Moon
I’m Going Home-Sacred Harp Singers at Liberty Church-Cold Mountain
Then the revolution songs:
Beware Verwoerd-Miriam Makeba-Amandla!
[Title]-Bono and Gavin Friday-In the Name of the Father
Revolution-Grandaddy-I Am Sam
Segue is from a revolutionary movie
Overture to the Sun-A Clockwork Orange
Transportation songs; the protagonists in the latter two movies have a none too positive fate:
Ridin’ the Rails-k.d. lang and Take 6-Dick Tracy
Lonely Avenue-Ian Gillian and Roger Glover-Rain Man
Tennessee Plates-Charlie Sexton-Thelma & Louise
Ballad of Easy Rider-Roger McGuinn-Easy Rider
Easy Rider hits New Orleans, so I’ll go there
Ma ‘Tit Fille-Buckwheat Zydeco-The Big Easy
Another celebration
The Funeral (September 25, 1987)- George Fenton and Jonas Gwangwa-Cry Freedom: the bulk of this track is the very noble Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika (God Bless Africa). So I need some leavening.
Gump-Weird Al Yankovic
Upbeat, positive ending
Ac-cent-tchu-ate the Positive-Clint Eastwood-Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
You’ve Got a Friend in Me-Robert Goulet-Toy Story 2

ROG

ROG

Time, TV and Train QUESTIONS

1. Our techie guy wrote: “The U.S. Energy Policy Act of 2005, passed by the U.S. Congress July, 2005, extended Daylight Saving Time (DST) in the U.S. by approximately four weeks. As a result, beginning in 2007, DST will start three weeks earlier on March 11, 2007, and end one week later on November 4, 2007, resulting in a new DST period that is four weeks longer than previously observed. These four weeks are referred to in this article as the “extended DST period”.

We have prepared a plan to correct the Time Zone entries on both your computer and our servers… We will be updating your Exchange Mailboxes on Saturday March 10th, beginning at Noon… As a result, any meeting invitation for the ‘extended DST period’ that was previously sent will be re-sent to each invitee because it will be read as a ‘new time.’ All meeting requests will need to be reaccepted or re-declined in order to update your calendars properly.”

So, the first set of questions: Has the change in Daylight Saving Time been more of a hassle for you at work? At home? I think the DVR will reset on its own, but that the VCR (purchased in 1997 and Y2K compliant!) will not. Other than kids going trick or treating when it’s lighter, do you see any net benefit to the change, which will cost companies an estimated $2 billion to deal with? I don’t, and places that are in the northwest segments of a time zone (Lansing, MI in the east, Bismarck, ND in the central, and Helena, MT in the mountains, it’ll be dark at 8 a.m. on March 12, when kids are going to school. Where’s the energy savings?

2. As you may have heard, there are plans afoot to move the Addison character on Grey’s Anatomy to a spinoff show. There are lots of Kate Walsh fans out there, as she’s the first person I’ve seen on both Tom the Dog’s Object of My Affection list AND Jaquandor’s Realizations Of Womanly Radiance list.

The Ad Age Water Cooler column of February 26 suggests other possibilities for spinoff potential:
Hurley (Jorge Garcia)-Lost
Justin (Mark Indelicato)-Ugly Betty
Dwight Schrute (Rainn Wilson)-The Office
Kevin Walker (Matthew Rhys)-Brothers & Sisters

Can’t speak for the former two, but I just don’t see it in the latter two, especially Dwight, who is a wonderful character relating to both Angela and Michael. Then again, I didn’t see the potential of seeing spinning off Rhoda from the Mary Tyler Moore Show, though spinning off Maude from All in the Family or even Frasier Crane from Cheers made more sense to me.

So, what do you think of spinning off any of these characters from their shows? Any other ideas?

3. This is actually a work-related request: I need a list of recorded songs about trains. I found a couple lists here and here, but I can’t help but to think they’re missing some obvious tunes that I’m just not thinking of.
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Are NY Giants QB Eli Manning and “24” President Wayne Palmer the Same Guy? [Thanks to MMcG.]
ROG

ROG
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