Friday Videos 5.23.08

In honor of Yankee skipper Joey G. getting the boot during last night's win over the O's, here's the best manager tirade ever:



And here's Meet the Press host Tim Russert on MSNBC. He loses his train of thought right after he says "No one has appeared on that program..." at about 14 seconds in. See if you can hear why:

Teddy and McCain

Ted Kennedy has a malignant brain tumor. John McCain is releasing his medical records. With timing like that, it can't be coincidence. I won't be at all surprised to see whichever candidate the Democrats end up nominating try to make some political hay out of this--after all, McCain is only a few years younger than Uncle Teddy, and is himself a cancer survivor (albeit "only" melanoma--a skin cancer). The Dems, especially Obama, love to portray themselves as young and hip and paint conservatives as old fuddy-duddies. It worked pretty well against Bob Dull Dole, but wasn't quite so hot against Reagan in the '80s. Hopefully McCain's medical history won't have any red flags, because while I'm not his biggest supporter, I respect his service record and find him far less abhorrent than Obama/Clinton and will be voting for him in November.

Fists of Fury

Goose Gossage is crying "fowl" over Joba Chamberlain's fist-pumps after inning-ending strikeouts. He does bear a striking resemblance to Howard Dean in 2004, but Joba's just an emotional guy who really loves the game and reacts just as visibly to a bad outing as a good one. Papelbon up there in Boston has been known to do almost the same thing after he closes out a game, but he almost always gets a free pass. (He did catch a little bit of heat for dancing around in his underwear, but hey, the Sox had just won the Series, so even I'll give him a pass for that one.) And how many home runs has Man-Ram stood there and watched? Joba's not trying to show guys up--he's just showing a little heart and emotion. That is acting like a Yankee, no matter what Goose says. And it's nothing but good for the game.

Man Movies I Missed

I was watching TV earlier and saw the commercial for the new Indiana Jones flick. I know there's a lot of buzz about it, but I'm just not catching the fever and couldn't understand why, until it hit me that I've never actually seen any of the first three all the way through. Sure, I've flipped past the boulder scene, or Mola Ram tearing out the dude's heart, but I've never sat down with a glass of scotch or a Chicory Stout and watched Raiders of the Lost Ark, or Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. That got me to thinking....there are a lot of classic "guy staples" that I've never taken the time to watch. Maybe it's something I should work on the next time I get a rainy Saturday. Here's a list of what I consider the top 10 that I've never seen (at least not all the way through):

10. War Games
9. Platoon
8. Dirty Rotten Scoundrels
7. Heat
6. Scarface
5. Any of the existing Indiana Jones trilogy
4. The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
3. Rocky I or II (though I've seen III and IV so many times I can probably recite them from memory
2. Casino
1. Raging Bull

And that's just a small sampling. I ought to be ashamed of myself.

New Blogroll: Bill and Iris

As seen on NewsBusters: this is the blog of my buddy Nuts McCracken over at the August Knights Forums. Lots of good politics content over there.

Fun With My Front Page

I just found something fun to do--go down a few entries and start playing the Lee Elia video, then go to the Hartford Whalers theme vid in the previous post and start playing it. If you do it right, the horns should kick in just as Lee starts ranting, and it makes a pretty good remix. Kind of like a very, very, very poor man's Dark Side of the Moon/Wizard of Oz.

Speaking of poor men, check out FreeRice--a vocabulary tester that donates food to poor children with flies in their eyes for every word you get right. (For instance, did you know that "petcock" means "valve"?) If you really want to help, have a dictionary site open in another tab and look each word up--there are no time penalties. After all, "if you ain't cheatin', you ain't tryin'." Hat tip to my gal for the link. And for just putting up with me.

Sportsmanship or Stupidity?

Watch this ESPN video (hat tip to Nuts McCracken over at the August Knights message boards for the clip):



Now, beyond the obvious Eight Belles jokes, this goes past the r ealm of good sportsmanship and into outright stupidity. Good sportsmanship means rendering aid to a fallen opponent. It means calling out the trainer and not kicking the downed player in the back of her injured leg. It doesn't mean you give them free runs and knock yourself out of the tournament (even if, had the rule been interpreted correctly, the pinch runner would have been allowed to complete the home run anyhow). Injuries happen in sports--they suck, but they happen. Good sportsmanship means not taking unfair advantage--not giving up fair advantage.

Superbad

OK, this is a new feature that I came up with late at night, but if it takes 3 Twitter posts to say something, it goes in a blog post instead. So I just finished watching Superbad, and why does it seem like half the population feels the need to say "Dude! I'm McLovin'!" when McLovin is the douchiest, most cringe-inducing character in a movie that (while freakin' funny) is full of douchy, cringe-inducing characters? I also kind of wish they'd resolved the plotline of who robbed the liquor store, but that's neither here nor there.

25th Anniversary: Lee Elia

OK, I'm actually a couple of days late on this, but 25 years-and-two-days ago today,
the Cubs were off to one of the worst starts in baseball history. Night baseball was still years away, and the few fans that were attending were more interested in heckling the team than rooting for them. All that led to this live, over-the-air press conference by then-manager (and future ex-Phillies manager) Lee Elia (contains lots of naughty language, so it's not for the lily-livered or for watching at work):



Hat tip to UmpBump for the reminder and link to the vid.

Brass Bonanza

My buddy Pat got this song stuck in my head while we sat around looking for hilarious YouTube clips, drinking coffee, watching pre-NFL Draft coverage, and scratching ourselves, and now I'm going to punish all of you lucky Beastards with it, because that's just the kind of guy I am. Enjoy!

Duh

Gasoline thefts rise with pump prices - MSN Money

Surprise, surprise. When even smaller cars start costing $30 or more per tank, the less honest element is going to start looking for ways around it. If you let them just hit the cash button and start filling up without prepaying, you deserve what you get. "But I want to preserve the trust relationship with my customers!" Great--how about you let them trust you for a while until prices come down? They can trust you because you're not going anywhere, and if you don't hold up your end of the transaction, they can come back inside and kick your ass. Who pays cash for gas, anyway, in this day and age? Yeah, I want to stand in line behind someone who's manually picking out their $100 of Powerball numbers when I can just swipe my card through the scanner on the pump. This was probably the most useless fluff article posing as "financial news" I've ever read.

The Beast's Cookbook: Garden Pasta with White Wine Sauce

I'll upload a picture later.

This is a simple, relatively healthy meal, but you can cut back a bit on the butter if you're concerned about that sort of thing. It goes great with whole wheat pasta of any sort, not just spaghetti. The idea for the sauce started from a spinach recipe from my brother (a professional chef).

1 lb. spaghetti
9 to 12 oz. spinach, stems removed
4 medium tomatoes, chopped
4 tbsp. butter
1/4 cup white wine
1 tbsp. garlic
1 tsp. oregano
1 tsp. basil
Parsley, for garnish

In a large skillet, melt the butter and add the spinach until just wilted. Add the tomatoes, oregano, and basil; leave on the heat, stirring, for about 3-4 minutes. Add the wine and simmer for about 5 minutes. Meanwhile, prepare the spaghetti according to package directions. Toss the spaghetti with the veggies and sauce. Garnish with parsley and top with parmesan cheese.