Thursday, June 28, 2007

Genocide In Darfur: Brought To You By The Yankees?

I'm sure that I have more than one regular reader here who believes that the Yankees are pure evil and that rooting for them is akin to cheering for the Empire in the Star Wars movies (although if Emperor Palpatine were our head of state, I guaran-damn-tee you that the Iraq situation would have long since been resolved by now). But in case you don't read the comments I sometimes receive, here's a link from my Boston-born friend Pat that's a bit of a reach even for him.

I actually wanted to smash the author of the article for jumping to such an absurd conclusion, but I checked out some of the other things he's written, and they're actually not half bad. And he actually makes some conciliatory points in the article itself, rather than ranting and raving like a delusional moonbat with a single, narrow-minded agenda. The author himself concedes that "[t]he Yili Group, to be fair, has a good corporate reputation: by Chinese standards they treat their workers well, and aren't having Sudanese merchants slaughtered to make way for their line of snack crackers." And let's face it, we've got a much better recent history of bringing about civil change through economic partnership than military force. George Steinbrenner (who is becoming ever-more well known for his charitable works and contributions) now has influence with a powerful player....and that can only be a good thing.

Tuesday, June 26, 2007

New photos

"Quarter Mile to Nowhere", an original photo.

Quarter mile to nowhere
I finally retrieved my camera after leaving it in Reading, PA after a Memorial Day fishing weekend in Potter County. I got some great shots of this beautiful area, which you can view, as always, on my Flickr site.

Monday, June 18, 2007

My All-Stars 2007

Here's my picks for this year's MLB all-star game (I definitely have a slight Yankees/Phillies bias):

American League
1B: Kevin Youklis, BOS (write-in)
2B: Placido Polanco, DET
SS: Derek Jeter, NYY
3B: Alex Rodriguez, NYY
C: Jorge Posada, NYY
OF: Torii Hunter, MIN
OF: Maglio Ordonez, DET
OF: Ichiro Suzuki, SEA

National League
1B: Derrek Lee, CHC
2B: Chase Utley, PHI
SS: J.J. Hardy, MIL
3B: Miguel Cabrera, FLA
C: Brian McCann, ATL
OF: Matt Holliday, COL
OF: Shane Victorino, PHI
OF: Eric Byrnes, ARI

Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Whattaya Say, Al?

NBC weatherman Al Roker, writing about Don Imus on his blog, 10 April 2007:

"I, for one, am really tired of the diatribes, the 'humor' at others expense, the cruelty that passes for 'funny'[...]The "I'm a good person who said a bad thing" apology doesn't cut it[...]a two week suspension doesn't cut it. It is, at best a slap on the wrist. A vacation. Nothing."
The same Al Roker, on NBC's Today Show, 7 June 2007:
"Remember that controversial Olympic logo for the 2012 Olympics in London? Some folks have complained that the campaign actually sent them into epileptic seizures. Well, we asked you to weigh in on our Web site in an informal poll; those of you who could get up off the floor after shaking around were able to actually log in . . . "
Seems to me that if Al practiced what he preached, he'd have the stones to resign. Oh, that's right, he didn't follow through; he just issued a mealy-mouthed almost-apology. Pretty hypocritical of you, Al.

I don't want him to resign because of a joke he made--I believe in free speech for everyone. I wish he'd quit because then I could have titled this post with a better Caddyshack quote:
"How would you like to mow my lawn?"

Friday, June 08, 2007

Value-Priced Pearl Jam


With Opie and Anthony finishing out their XM suspension and Ron and Fez gone once more from the public airwaves, I've had a bit more time than usual to check out some new tunes, so maybe that explains why the music entry in my Recent Experiences sidebar has been getting updated a bit more than usual. And this week, my nostalgia trip back to my high school years continued (God only knows why, my life sucked until I was about 21) with Pearl Jam's greatest hits collection Rearviewmirror. (In the interest of full disclosure, I enjoyed their first three albums (Ten, Vs., Vitalogy) very much as they were being released, No Code sucked hard, and the last Pearl Jam album I bought was Yield, which was so-so compared to the aforementioned Big Three.) Also, I have no problem differentiating an artist's work from their political views, so if you're going to post "PERL JAM SUXXX GEORGE BUSHH ROX" in my comments, then skip the rest of this post, go back to threshing the hayfields, and come back next week when I make fun of Hilary or Obama or something.

Rearviewmirror is a 2-CD set with all of their "big" songs, cleverly divided into a disc of hard rock and a disc of mellower stuff. As a "fan dropout", there were quite a few songs on here that were new to me, but nothing on here to change the opinions I'd already formed about their first five albums. I did enjoy a couple of the post-1998 tracks on the hard rock disc, but was reminded of how much I despised their cover of "Last Kiss" and how overplayed "Wishlist" was back in its day. The saving grace of this CD is its low price tag--$11 on Amazon.com for a double CD isn't too bad. It's worth picking up if you've skipped a couple of their albums (it's far cheaper than iTunes on a per-song basis), or if you lack the capability to rip your CDs (or work your way onto the RIAA's "naughty" list) and burn your own compilation album.

Tuesday, June 05, 2007

Lil' Jimmy Norton

I saw a great show in Washington, D.C. on Saturday night--I was fortunate enough to be in the audiences for a taping of comedian and Opie and Anthony Show member Jim Norton's upcoming hour-long HBO comedy special. Jim absolutely killed, with an hour-plus of great material. My only disappointment is that he closed with a story about Ron Jeremy that was his closer last year too. The rest of his material was completely new; my only concern is that some of it may even be too edgy for HBO in a post-Imus world; I'll be very interested to see the final cut. According to the man himself on yesterday's O&A show, the special is currently scheduled to air sometime in October; it gets my highest recommendation (unless you're an easily offended politically correct scumbag).

After the show, we had some great chili dogs and cheese fries next door to the theater at the famous Ben's Chili Bowl restaurant, and we even got a chance to say hi to Opie in between Jimmy's two shows--he actually stopped himself from being hustled inside and came back around a corner to give me a wave and a "hello", which I thought was really cool. He certainly would have been more than justified to have simply disappeared without ever acknowledging my existence.

Friday, June 01, 2007

Lord I Was Born A Ramblin' Man

No updates for my loyal readers this week--there's not much going on in the news (other than a couple of travel snafus--just what I want to hear about as I head over bridges and through tunnels down to Washington, D.C. for the weekend.) Add to that two straight weekends on the road (my aforementioned trip to see Jim Norton's HBO taping this weekend and my annual trip to my family's camp near Ulysses, PA), and the blog has really suffered. But never fear, I'll be back next week spewing off a whole new round of inanities--'till then, enjoy the weekend, and check out the great new pics from my recently relocated pal Faxman's Flickr site chronicling his move to the Houston area.