Friday, June 30, 2006

This explains a lot about Kerry Wood....

This explains a lot about Kerry Wood...

Via Steve Silver, we find medical evidence of what a lot of Cubs fans have long suspected....

Thursday, June 29, 2006

I can relate....

I can relate....

No Ketchup Up the Nostrils

I kinda like my job. Don't want a new one. But dammit, I've been spending too much time there, lately. Too much worky makes Tommy crazy.

More than that, it makes me a dull boy.

And seriously, I wasn't that interesting to start with.

Picture via 10,000 Monkeys and a Camera

Wednesday, June 28, 2006

Well shit...

Well shit...

Go read this post at Bad News Hughes. It has all the things I enjoy in a post: Pro Wrestling, lengthy diatribes on semantic issues and cussing.

Also, it's long enough that I can justify to myself the fact that I now don't have time to mow the yard because it took me such a long time to read it.

Plus, it's so funny I cried:

I’m not saying a guy with Down Syndrome can’t be a retard, just that in my little world the two things aren’t necessarily tied together as cause and effect. Shit, it’d be almost disrespectful to say they can’t — people with Down Syndrome can be just as retarded as anyone else. They can also be just as boring, petty, sheeplike or surly as you or me, and nobody can take that away from them.

Tuesday, June 27, 2006

Cubs Funnies

Cubs Funnies

Ain't written much about the Cubs here lately. Mostly because I've been working like a botard and haven't had time to figure if I'm coming or going.

But also I haven't because I can't do so without swearing every third word.

It's a particularly frustrating year to be a Cub fan. Whether it's D-Lee's broken wrist, or a couple of fragile pitchers named Kerry Wood and Mark Prior, Neifi Perez still showing up in the box score at all, the fact that Corey Patterson was finally convinced to shorten his swing and utilize his speed over in Baltimore, or any number of other factors that have lead the Cubbies to be a handful of games better only than KC and Pittsburgh....

I think the last thing I wrote Cub-related was right after Michael Barrett decked A.J. Pierzynski, and one person in particular took issue enough to e-mail, thinking that I was trying to defend Barrett, when nothing could have been further from the truth. Afterward, I figured it wasn't worth the effort to try writing anything about the Cubs.

Anyway. Here's a Cubs post. And a link. Some of the jokes over on the Cub Reporter were corny, but some made me smile. In the interest of full disclosure, it was usually the corny ones that made me smile...

I liked:

Q: How is Corey Patterson like Pope John Paul II

A: They're both in a better place now....


and:

Q: What’s the difference between a doughnut shop and Michael Barrett’s defense?

A: There are more holes in Barrett’s defense.


And I re-worded this one:

Q: How many Dusty Bakers does it take to screw in a light bulb?

A: None. The light bulbs can stay in the minors, and go screw themselves...

Monday, June 26, 2006

One With Nature

One With Nature

Photobucket - Video and Image HostingDad and his digital camera. Pfah.

Still, it's probably the best picture of me that's been taken in the past decade.

It's on a shirt. If'n you want one.

Mostly, I'm putting the link up at the request of the folks, who bought the shirts as gag gifts for a couple aunts and uncles, who now want to pass them along..

But if you want to buy a One With Nature shirt, just click over here...

Friday, June 23, 2006

Batman

Batman

You want to know what I'll always associate with June 23? It's the only date I can remember specifically when a movie opened. In 1989, the Batman movie directed by Tim Burton, with Michael Keaton, Kim Basinger and Jack Nicholson, opened. We were going to go opening night, at the Plaza Twin, but both the 7 and 9 o'clock shows sold out. The first and only times I ever was turned away from the Plaza Twin.

I saw that movie the next day. I'd go on to see it 5 more times that summer.

17 years ago, though. Dang.

(This is kinda like the other day, when I realized the Marlins and Rockies had been playing in their 14th season this year...and I said "How the hell did these assholes get 14 years by me?" This is a lot like that, only three years more pissed off...)

A few truths this Friday Night

A few truths this Friday Night...

Tommy needum sleep.

Been feeling rough all day. Not bad, like I'm sick. Not good, though. I mean, I still feel like a badass...just not like the baddest ass.

I may not be drinking enough water. Is it normal to pee once every three days?

And when I do, it's as black as tar.

It's about the same consistency.

Truth be told, it smells a bit like licorice. In wartime, I think you could successfully cut it with coffee, to extend your supply of the latter, without a drastic dip in the quality of your morning beverage. It wouldn't be something you'd want to pay 1.65 for, but say it's wartime, and you need a cup a joe to keep fighting the Yanks (or the Rebs, whichever your persuasion in the War of the Northern aggression).

I wouldn't drink it though. Even in wartime.

I mean, something that hurts that badly shooting out your peehole probably isn't that good for you. Seriously. It's like forcing pudding through a drinking straw.

Plus, I'm kinda off the coffee. I used to drink it fairly regularly. I mean, I wasn't a coffee fiend, per se, murdering and maiming if I didn't get my morning cup of joe. But I drank my share of the coffee. A couple cups a day.

Don't know why I quit. I think my addiction to over-the-counter truckstop caffeine pills kind of made coffee redundant.

Going back a second, I don't think the news media uses the word "fiend" enough. I don't think anybody uses it enough--it may be the first time I've used the word on this blog, some 3 years, 7 months into the venture. But I think the news media (print, interweb and broadcast) should work on shoehorning the word "fiend" into their lexicon. It would please me muchly to hear of an axe murderer killed by police reported as "fiend felled by constables."

Not that we have an over abundance of axe murderers. Which is the shame of the handgun, I think. It takes work to kill somebody with an axe. It takes conditioning, smarts and precision. I'm all about your right to own a gun, but it doesn't take any work to pop a cap in somebody.

See:

1. It takes conditioning to chase the victim down if you're an axe murderer. I mean, unless you're Paul Bunyan, you gotta get within a few feet of your victim to be able to strike a blow with the axe. Here's an exercise: I want you to pick up an axe, raise it over your head, and run at full speed while screaming at the top of your lungs...I'll bet you smokers won't get far....

2. It takes smarts to know that you don't start chopping with the sharp edge unless you can do it in a precise manner--your best bet is to hit upside the head with a blunt side, stunning the victim, so that you can chop them up.

3. It takes precision. Unless you're some maniac (and who's to say you're not?), you can't go chopping with reckless abandon, especially if you're winded from chasing a victim down while carrying an axe.

So, it comes back to conditioning....

That's why I'd be impressed to hear on the news about an axe fiend.

See, I could shoot somebody with a gun. And I'm as out of shape as a candle left out in the hot summertime sun. It's like bowling and the Olympics. Bowling's not an Olympic sport because I can bowl, and bowl well. If I could shoot somebody, then it's not really that special a thing to do. Yet they spend all the time on the news talking about all the gun murders we have.

But chasing somebody down with an axe and chopping them up? That takes dedication. That's a fiend worth my teevee time.

Not to change the subject too much, but it kinda depressed me when Ashlee Simpson got her nose job. See, I don't know a lick about her music, because all music made after the year 1997 sounds the same to me. I couldn't pick one song of hers out of ten played, because it sounds all sounds like the same inane overproduced doggeral to me. But I do know that she had a face I could pick out of a lineup. She wasn't ugly with her old nose. I mean, she looked like any other bleached out, airbrushed, overproduced teenybopper that's come down the pike, but she had something distinctive about her that I could pick out. It was almost like she wasn't going out of her way to look like every other person that glamour machine shits out. And then she got the nose job, going out of her way to and all that jazz....

Two notes from that paragraph:

Teenybopper. Where the hell am I from? The 1940s?

and

I don't think I used or spelled the word doggeral absolutely correctly, but I think in the context of the sentence, it works.

Gunny will probably check for me.

I'll close with a couple links. I got distracted by a flurry of offense by the Astros against the White Sox, and then got depressed because I've never once mustered a flurry of offense. Ever. I tend to sleet offense. And that thought pretty much blew my train of thought clear off the track.

Rex Camino's post "Ways in Which I would Not Like To Die..."

Steve Silver had the link to a page for Nikolai Volkoff's campaign for a seat on the Baltimore County House of Delegates. All the famous wrestlers from my neck of the woods, namely Terry Gordy and Pez Whatley, have the unfortunate habit of dying before they can get elected to office. Though it should be noted that Kane his own self, Glen Jacobs, used to keep a home up in Jefferson County...he may still, though there are pesky statutes that deny my entry into the proper of the county anymore.

A Karate Kid Re-Run

A Karate Kid Re-Run

Because I'm a lazy ass. I flipped by Karate Kid on Turner Classics, and it was right at my favorite scene, where Daniel-san catches the fly in the chopsticks....

From November 2004, or so:

You remember that part of Karate Kid, right after Daniel-san has done "paint house" (side-side)? Daniel-san's gotten pissed off because Mr. Miyagi went fishing, and he's been doing his chores (wash cars, sand floor), and Mr. Miyagi wants to give Daniel-san the epiphany of finding out that he's already been learning karate?

Mr. Miyagi wants him to show him Sand Floor.

Daniel-san says "I can't even move muh ahm."

And Mr. Miyagi uses his special mystical handclapping Okinawan healing powers to fix Daniel's shoulder? We learn later in the movie it also works on hurt legs. I wonder if it could be used to cure broken hips, or maybe backs. Or broken necks....Mr. Miyagi could cure Superman!

I could use some of that Miyagi-do type magic today. My shoulder's killing me. I managed to sleep on it twisted up underneath me, and it hurts to raise my arm above the shoulder.

Mr. Miyagi could fix that shit in a minute, if he wanted. But I'd probably have to just go and fight the Kobra Kai when he fixed it.

I wonder if Mr. Miyagi could teach me karate. Probably. He's a smart dude. But I don't have any bullies who dress up like skeletons chasing me around, and keeping me from Elizabeth Shue (there's a judge in California who's got something to say about that, however).

But I've done a lot of chores. I wonder if any of them can be used to retroactively teach me karate. Kind of like Advanced Placement credits from high school to college.

Some chores I've done:

1. Carry Firewood
2. Lift Furniture
3. Fold the Laundry
4. Wash the Dishes
5. Take the Trash to the Dumpster
6. Clean the Dust off the TV Screen
7. Cook Lunch
8. Look in couch cushions for coke machine change
9. Read a book
10. Fight Pirates
11. Mousercize
12. Crush Aluminum Cans by Stepping on Them

Surely some of those could be used to teach me some karate.

Maybe it's because I'm a child of the 80's, but it seemed like every kid in my class back in the day, especially after Karate Kid came out, was taking karate classes. I was like the only kid not taking karate lessons. We had Hobby Day, where everybody got to bring in something associated with their hobby, and something like half the class wore their karate outfits to school. I brought in my baseball cards, and talked about them. (What, did ya think i was was going to bring in the scab collection? That's for specials).

So. Only kid not taking karate. I was also the only kid in my grade school class who could not roller skate. Coincidence? I think not. It sucked a little, because in fifth grade, frigging EVERYBODY had a roller skating birthday party. I just stayed in the arcade and played video games (Q-Bert, the Legend of Kage, and Galaga).

I'm rambling. What I meant to talk about was this:

Remember that part when Daniel comes into Mr. Miyagi's workshop, sees Mr. Miyagi trying catch the fly with chopsticks, and then Daniel tries, and he actually succeeds in catching the fly with the chopsticks? ON HIS FIRST TRY!?!?!??!?!?!

This is how I know Karate Kid is fiction. Because in real life, when Daniel-san catches the fly and lapses into his elated "Hey! Mistuh Miyagi! Look! I did it!", Mr. Miyagi would have unleashed a vicious crescent kick that would have put Daniel into a coma for the rest of the movie. At the very least, he'd have broken the kid's jaw.

Either way, Daniel would have come away with an important lesson about respecting your elders, and not sassin'. But Hollywood likes sass. So they left the part where Mr. Miyage kills the big stupid American on the cutting room floor.

Last thing? The guy who gives Mr. Miyagi shit at the beach (Must Learn Balance!) about being Oriental (calls him Mr. Moto) and puts beer bottles on Mr. Miyagi's truck, before Mr. Miyagi karate chops them all to hell? That's Larry Drake, L.A. Law's Benny. I did not know that until last night.


I have now known that Larry Drake thing for a long time.

Wednesday, June 21, 2006

An Addendum

An Addendum

I said yesterday that I have met only two people who were over 100 years old. That number has fallen into dispute, ranging as high as five.

I will admit to one mistake, and it's one that left me shaking my head at how I forgot.

You have to keep in mind that I was reared right on the buckle of the Bible Belt, where it was not only alright but expected that you have a Bible class in school. It wasn't an issue with non religious kids. In fact, it never occurred to me until the fifth grade that somebody might not share the religion (Fifth grade was when we had Ushma, who was Hindi). Turns out that we had a couple of Jewish kids, as well, and a few Jehovah's Witnesses, and one girl whose family just didn't want her getting "bible training."

That last one, who transferred in from Missouri, had to endure "devil worshipper" rumors that whole year. Most of the year. They stopped when she invoked the power of Satan to destroy my friend Nick. She turned into a winged demon, flew away, and we got to go home early from school that day.

I had two Bible teachers in my elementary school career: Mrs. Johnson and Mrs. Galloway. Both perhaps deserve stories here, but the one I'll talk about today is Mrs. Galloway.

I'll mention Mrs. Johnson for the sake of a timeline. She was the first Bible teacher we had. She came once a week all through my elementary school career. Then, she retired to her palatial home, and we went a year without learning Bible stuff. Don't worry. That year was not a vacuum. You learn a lot by osmosis around here. I'm as heathen as they come, and I could probably go verse for verse in a showdown with Jerry Falwell.

After that year, a former educator at the school took up the Bible-teaching reins. Her name was Mrs. Galloway. Really. Her parents named her Mrs. Actually, her name was something along the lines of Lois, or Doris, or Delores, but my memory's for crap here lately.

Anyway, the centenarian thing applies here, because Mrs. Galloway was 101. I'd forgotten that. Mrs. Galloway was a former teacher and principal at our school. She'd retired several years previously. And by several, I mean three decades before. Now, this was 1990 and 1991, so she'd last been a fixture in the school in the 1950's.

Now, like I said, we had Bible classes. One a week. And for them, Mrs. Galloway passed out pamphlets with bible stories that we read, and then wrote short reports (like, half a page), and then turned in. We weren't graded for the reports, or for any part of the Bible Class--I now think the Bible Class was equal part desire for us monsters to get some bible in our blood, and desire for a thirty minute break for the teachers....

Anyway, I think Mrs. Galloway just liked reading what we had to say. I found out after the fact that one kid named Tim would curse in his, just to see if she was reading. We never got our papers back, so I never knew how she responded.

These pamphlets that we were given were usually four to six pages, stapled together. They consisted of a couple of chapters of a Bible story, direct from the bible, a summation, and a real-world application. For instance, the story of the Good Samaritan, a summation, for those of us who either could not understand or were too lazy to read, and a real world application, where Buck didn't like Sam, but helped Sam when Sam's bicycle tire was flat, because it was the right thing to do....

Thing is, with these pamphlets, that they were printed in the 40's and 50's. Mrs. Galloway had used them for years in teaching her Sunday School classes. Being that old meant that they were very brittle, their stories contained no black people, and they were somewhat precious to Mrs. Galloway, and she wanted them back.

Now, you can argue the wisdom of lending these pamphlets out to eighth graders. First, do you want to argue with a 100 year old woman? Plus, she got most, if not all of them, back.

In fact, I think there were a few that took a trek to her home, like I had to.

As you can probably guess by reading this blog, I'm a bit absent-minded, at times. I get the tunnel-vision, and I'm pretty bad about missing not just the forest, but most of the other trees because I'm focussing on one or two trees.

Well, I'm not sure about that metaphor, but I will say that I took a pamphlet home to do my report, and then left it at home. Because I'm a dope. Well, Mrs. Galloway was pretty forgiving on that front; she told me to just bring the pamphlet next week. Well, I forgot, and I forgot again. I blame Nintendo.

Anyway, Mrs. Galloway told me that if I had an afternoon free, I could bring the pamphlet to her home.

Well, that afternoon, Mom and I drove to Mrs. Galloway's house, which wasn't terribly far from our own, we learned. We were invited in, given iced tea to drink. We returned the pamphlet, and visited for nearly three hours.

That 100 year mark fascinated me then (and now.) I was in eighth grade in 1990 and 1991. Mrs. Galloway went through her timeline for us: She was born in 1890, and started teaching in 1908. She taught and was principal for more than 50 years, and retired from it in 1960. She substituted for several years, but had been working mostly with the church for the previous twenty.

That kinda galled me. Still does. I mean, she started teaching when the Cubs last won the world series...nearly 100 years ago now. She was in her mid 20's with World War I. She was damn near middle age when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. She was 80, which is up there in years, in 1970....

We visited with Mrs. Galloway for quite some time. She took us around her home, which started as a two-room cabin, and had been expanded upon. She invited us to look around her farm.

My mom is and was an antique nut, so she was mesmerized by a lot of Mrs. Galloway's decorations...which weren't antiques so much to Mrs. Galloway...they were probably just "her stuff."

All told, we probably spent three hours there that afternoon. And she and Mom spoke several times after that.

She passed away about a year after that.

How I forgot, I haven't a clue. But then, I forgot those pamphlets, over and over...

Tuesday, June 20, 2006

100 Year Olds

100 Year Olds

How many 100 year olds got pissed off when Al Roker took over Willard Scott's every day role on The Today Show?

How many get doubly pissed when Willard Scott shows up to do a day of the whether, because Al's off, but that day is 2 days before their 100th birthday?

In my life, I've met 2 people that were 100 years old.

Before I name them off, though, I want to give honorable mention to an old guy named Obed, who worked as a greeter at the Goodwill in Murfreesboro. Funny guy. Any time anybody asked him how he was, he'd say "Kickin' high but slow." He went to his first Major League Baseball game in 1999, at the age of 98. He died in 2000, a couple weeks shy of birthday number 100. I don't think the baseball game had much to do with it.

One century-mark reacher was 101. She was still fairly active and mobile, although she wasn't allowed to drive by her children, much to her chagrine. It struck me as funny one day to realize that I didn't think her children, the oldest of which was 82, should have been driving, either. She was a regular customer at the Goodwill store in Murfreesboro. I had a feeling she could give most people in that store a run for their money in a fair fight.

The other was 106, and he lived in a nursing home that, as a Cub Scout, we went to sing Christmas Carols to every year. Technically, he was 104 the first time we met him. And he wasn't very mobile. The nurses would show him off like some kind of museum exhibit. "Jesse McFadden is 106 years old!" they would say. They'd tell us all to say hello to him, and we would. To me, for all the reaction we got, it felt a lot like greeting a piece of furniture. I'd have kept thinking that, except that one Christmas, he blinked while we sang "Away in a Manger," and I don't know many pieces of furniture that blink.

Upon further thought, I've decided that singing to that guy was like singing to a fish in a fishbowl. People came by to look at him, feed him now and then, and he just went on about his business (which seemed to consist muchly of breathing in a labored sort of way, and staring at the ceiling). He was much like a fish.

So today, in order to reenact the BSTommy experience, I want you to find a fish in a bowl or a tank (you can go to a pet store or a Wal Mart if you need to), and I want you to sing a Christmas Carol to that fish. And pretend that fish is a 100 year old human.

It's just about the same thing.

And I don't think that guy would have been pissed if Willard Scott didn't say Hello on the Today show. Unless you count his probable inability to control his bladder, and then who can say it was Willard Scott that caused it?

Sunday, June 18, 2006

Notes from a Ballgame

Notes from a Ballgame

Just a few notes from yesterday's Red Sox/Braves game.

The crowd was divided fairly evenly, from where I sat, between the Braves and Sox faithful. A good crowd. A sellout crowd, though Turner Field suffers occasionally from ticket brokers who can't sell all of what they buy. There were still large empty sections in the upper bowl.

I liked the Sox crowd. Papi, Jason Veritek and Kevin Youkilis got the biggest pops. I enjoyed the "Youk!" chant from the crowd.

Lots of Sox fans up where we were. Had a father with three boys sitting to my right. They ranged in age from 4-8, and all three boys could follow what was going on, although the younger boys soon became more intent upon the water-spraying fans their father bought them. At times, I was collateral damage to the spray of the fans, but as hot as it was, I wasn't complaining.

(Had to laugh quietly to myself when the middle boy took his spray bottle and sprayed it on his younger brother's crotch, and announced proudly "you peed your pants!" Guys never get tired of that joke....)

It reminded me very much of some of the better games when the Cubs have come to town...and I found myself thinking a lot of the Playoff game between the Cubs and Braves a couple years back, when the crowd was split pretty evenly...though this crowd was a little more civil toward the end of the game...I think the sun may have sucked the animosity out of a lot of the more ill-tempered members of the crowd....

Steven and I sat in left-center field on the tickets I bought off Ebay a little while back. Good seats, and it even put me where I usually like to sit: in the middle of an aisle. Don't like having to get up and sit back down after every body on the aisle decides to get up.

However, it was right around 93 degrees yesterday, and there were NO VENDORS around when you needed one. In the sixth inning, just after I'd suffered my heat stroke, I caught the eye of one vendor. I just wanted water. No beer. Water. And she was selling Dasani for right around an arm and a leg. At that point, dehydrated and delirious, I'd have thrown in both arms, both legs and my asshole for a bottle of water.

But it was to no avail. By the time I caught the vendor's eye, she'd sold out of what water she carried....

The game itself was fairly enjoyable. Kevin Youkilis' first inning shot landed the next section over from us. Good energy from the Sox.

The Braves suck this year. Keep in mind that I don't harbor any animosity for the Braves. They're as local as it gets around here, and for a long time, the Braves on the radio were the only baseball I got, outside of box scores or the occasional Saturday afternoon national telecast. And at the very least, I've always appreciated the quality baseball they've played. Whether it's the veterans or the young guys they're bringing up from the minors, they all seemed to play that same brand of winning baseball.

But they suck this year. Lots of miscues out in the field, lots of muddy thinking. And one fly ball in the third had Andruw Jones and Matt Diaz both kind of loafing after it...don't know if each thought the other had it, but it led to a couple extra bases than it needed to....

So, that's unfortunate.

Good crowd participation. Gotta credit that to the Sox fans, but not that they carried the thing. I noticed the same thing at the Cub playoff game...the Braves fans, who don't bother when they aren't challenged (and a lot of whom just come to a Braves game to say that they've been at the Braves game), step up when the other fans challenge them. My favorite chant, one that caught up both the Sox and Braves fans was the "Yankees Suck!" chant that began when the Yankees and Nationals score was posted on the scoreboard...

The best part? There were a couple attempts at starting "the wave," but it never came to be. The crowd actually came to "watch the game." Gotta love a crowd that'll deny the alluring call of "the wave."

Also? Very little sunburn. A little on my elbows, the tops of my ears. But my lily-white ass didn't burn in the face of 93 degrees and blisteringly sunny, so I got that going for me....

Going tonight with the brother-in-law and sister. Schilling vs. Smoltz. Might be fun...

Friday, June 16, 2006

Word to the Wise

Word to the Wise

That Sunday Red Sox/Braves game?

That's an ESPN night game.

Boy, it's a good thing I found that out a couple days beforehand.

Otherwise, I'da gone Jonathan Winters in the Gas Station on that city.

Friday Morning

Friday Morning

You ever wake up with your mind already swinging into action about how you're gonna go about the day, and you get two or three steps in when you realize "It's my day off?"

You know how good that feels? It's one of life's little moments. You wake up, gear yourself up to give your time away to somebody just for money, and then realize that the day is all yours

Well, I had the opposite of that about fifteen minutes ago.

I don't remember the dream I had, but I think because of it I woke up completely convinced that it was my day off.

Luckily (or unluckily, depending on where you stand on such things) I realized "Nope...gotta work today." I guess this way was better than my District Manager calling at 7:20, waking me back up and asking where the hell I am....

Wednesday, June 14, 2006

Wednesday, and whatnot

Wednesday, and whatnot

Just a few random thoughts:

Didn't see the opening ECW show. Had to work, and I'm notoriously bad about remembering to set the VCR. I need TiVo. Anybody want to buy me TiVo? I think such an act would be well remembered in the chronicles of the adventures of Big Stupid Tommy.

Judging by the views here and here, I don't think I missed much. I can't say I'm surprised. Maybe ECW under the WWE banner will hit its stride down the road, but if it's being taped in front of the same crowd as a WWE show, and it's being used to prop up stiffs like John Cena, then I don't think it'll be worth me time.

Line of the day, heard off a guy who has seven children: "Can't imagine why I go through so much Goody's Headache Powder."

Can't watch the Cubs tonight. They seem to lose when I watch.

Heading down this weekend for the Red Sox in Atlanta. I'll see Saturday's game with Steven, and Sunday's game with my sister and brother-in-law. I don't have much use for interleague play. But then, I've never seen an American League team play in person, in all my years of baseball fandom....

Monday, June 12, 2006

That ECW Pay Per View....

That ECW Pay Per View....

Watched the ECW Pay Per View with the Brother in Law and the Dirty Hippy yesterday.

I enjoyed the show--still better than anything the WWE has put out since last year's ECW Pay Per View--but after watching, I somehow felt let down.

The Good?

The crowd was easily the best part of last night's show. Good energy. They came to play...crowd participation being a big part of those old ECW shows. And they were funny. The "Boo/Yay" tradeoff when Cena and Van Dam traded punches was great. I think this crowd is indicative of why ECW, at least for the first few months of its promotion, needs to tape in the Northeast. Consolidate in the old territory. See if we can recapture a little bit of that regional magic, before spreading south. Smart people in the crowd. They knew what to expect, and they wouldn't accept much less (Won't keep me from going to see them when they're over in McMinnville in August...)

Oh, that bit where they threw Cena's shirt and cap back? That was terrific....

My favorite match was the F.B.I vs. Super Crazy/Tajiri. Nice, solid, quick action from everybody involved. Tajiri's always been a favorite, and I hope the crowd reaction last night might convince him to stick on this side of the Pacific, or at least visit enough to be a presence in the new ECW from time to time.

I even enjoyed Big Show's appearance. I'm still a little dubious at having Kurt Angle and Big Show play such big rolls in this mess, as much as I like them both. But there was something enjoyable about having Big Show break out a couple unique moves, trashing everybody in the ring.

I also enjoyed the Rey Misterio/Sabu title match. Really nasty stuff. Misterio is much more suited to Sabu's style than some of the other WWE guys (John Cena)...they meshed well. Had a good pace going (even if there was a miscommunication or two). I found myself a victim of my fantasy booking. One of the problems I end up having when I watch ECW is that I see all these nasty bumps, and I see guys get up and keep going...it's hard to distinguish the injury-causing bumps from the less injury-prone. Yeah, the DDT through the table looked nasty, but I figured somebody'd get up. The doctor coming out and crying loudly "There's no way I can let this match continue" only lent credit to my thinking....I was going by the logic that "if they let you see it, then it's part of the show...."

Still, that table DDT was, for my money, the "Holy Shit" moment of the show. I'm not the type who screams and yells at the TV, but I yelled like a TV car salesman when Sabu and Rey went through the table. If you can get that kind of rise out of me (or Jeff or Bill, who were also saying "Holy Shit"), then you've done something.

Maybe it was part of the show, and that's how they copped out of neither Rey or Sabu having to lose. If that's the case, then it's a little more chintzy than I'd have liked.

You know, I like that Jerry Lawler didn't tap to the tazmission. From a storyline standpoint, it lets Lawler be beaten without being a puss, necessarily. We wondered why this match opened the show, and we joked that Taz had to do commentary tonight. We turned out to be right...

I've been hoping somebody would cane the shit out of Eugene.

The bad:

I like Balls Mahoney, and I like Masato Tanaka, but that match just seemed thrown together. Mostly I'm pissed at not getting to see Tanaka muscle out of a couple chair shots.

Boy, they robbed Sandman of half his character last night. Maybe more. I hate to say that a song is that important to a character, but for Sandman, that entrance with "Enter Sandman," where he wanders through the crowd, is at least as important as anything he does in the ring. Dammit, you're the WWE, you're a billion dollar company. You can spring for the rights to "Enter Sandman."

I didn't like Angle/Orton, though I may turn the page on that one. I'm still thinking on it. Mostly I hated it because of Orton. The crowd hated him, but not in that "He's fun to hate" kind of way. It was more in the "you're a poser and a prick" kind of way. If we can put him in ECW for a while, and let him get booed out of the building for a few months because he is a poser, maybe we can finally get him out of wrestling....

How do you let Bradshaw cut a 10 minute promo, and not have some manner of ECW retaliation? Wouldn't it have been perfect for the Blue World Order show up as he finishes his rant, and punk him out? At the very least, have Al Snow punk him out with Head, or let Justin Credible cane him. But he went on and on, basically saying only that he's taking Taz's place in the commentary booth on the wrestling show that became "third most important" with ECW's return. That's bullshit.

The Ugly:

Damn. That Edge/Foley/Lita vs. Funk/Dreamer/Beulah match was scary. And I don't mean to say it's bad, because I enjoyed it. I just don't like anything that ends up involving barbed wire. As a quasi-country kid, I've ended up caught in barbed wire more than a couple times in my life...Don't like seeing folks fall into on purpose.

I've decided that I didn't like the Cena/Van Dam match. It made Van Dam look like a chump. And I understand that Cena's been built up into a superman in his title reign, and I can understand it if we want aid for Van Dam. But why not do it in the form of an ECW guy, like Tommy Dreamer, who wants to see the WWE title in a ECW camp.

I understand wanting to further the Edge/Cena storyline, but that's a WWE story.

Add to that the fact that there's a Rob Van Dam celebration after winning the title, and it's all feel good and that jazz.

But why not do something to start an ECW story? See, all three of us, when we saw Bill Alphonso and Big Show hurrying to the ring, thought maybe Big Show was going to take this opportunity to start some shit, maybe chokeslamming Van Dam, saying he's the first challenger to his ECW title.

I suppose that's part of why I've ended up feeling let down by the pay-per-view. You're restarting a promotion. Why not start a couple of stories? It bugged me that with the exception of the FBI tag match and Mahoney/Tanaka, none of the matches were pure ECW matches. They were all WWE vs. ECW matches. Generally, closure will come to this stories at this show. Why not leave something a little more open. One or two things, to lead into the show, starting Tuesday?

My other thing? Yeah, it's small venue, and a different kind of crowd. But this felt like a WWE show. It made me wonder how much creative input Heyman actually had. Because with the exception of a couple of the promos, everything felt very cut and dry with how the matches were supposed to end. With the exceptions of the F.B.I. tag match and possibly the Foley/Edge/Dreamer/Funk craziness.

Not much on the show felt spontaneous. The performers seemed less willing (or able) to ride the tide of the crowds' emotions.

And there wasn't a big curveball. That's what's made me question how much control Paul Heyman had. Usually, there's an attempt at a curveball. But everything went down fairly predictably. And the surprises that were there (Edge spearing Cena) don't lead to much good in ECW.

Think how apeshit the crowd would have gone if somehow Raven had gotten out of his TNA contract, and had shown up under the helmet.

Not that I think that would have happened. But I'm looking for something along those lines, something that'll have a bit more impact in ECW.

Anyway.

I'm still interested to see where this whole new ECW things goes.

I'm a little dubious--Vince McMahon can't let anything he didn't create outdo something of his own.

But I'm still interested....

Saturday, June 10, 2006

Congrats

Congrats

Been caught up in the bullcrap of real life, and I missed the fact that Danielle, who's blogged here, at Missives Anonymous, for a good while, got married a few days back.

I would be remiss if I did not offer my most sincere congratulations....

Friday, June 09, 2006

One of these friggin things...

One of these friggin' things...







"What Stephen King Character Are You?" (Now Open)




John Coffey. Like the drink, only not spelled the same.(From The Green Mile.)
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Well, I'm somewhat disappointed, as I was hoping for something really, really cool like Randall Flagg or Jack Torrance. Still, I do have the power to cure bladder infections in the really, really famous, so I suppose it's all good...

Llamas, Big Birds and the Amish

Llamas, Big Birds and the Amish

There are four things that I see while romaing my neck of Southeast Tennessee that I didn't see on a day-to-day basis when I was a kid:

1.) Llamas
2.) Ostriches
3.) Emus
4.) the Amish

The llamas, I remember coming in during high school. Nasty, awful creatures. I tend to think they have llamas instead of horses in hell.

The Ostriches and Emus people started raising for their meat, when that got to be the trendy thing to do. In the subdivision where I grew up, in a fenced area where goats used to be kept, there are now emus. I'd seen ostriches in the area, but I noticed one in a pen on a farm near my home yesterday.

It was either an ostrich or a very ugly, very deformed man.

The Amish moved in a few years back. Cheaper land brought a whole crew of them down. They raise the very best vegetables. They have God on their side, so that makes sense. I'm as heathen as they come, but I love a good old God Blessed Tomato or Cantaloupe as much as the next guy.

I will say that it's a new feeling to top a rise in my pickup doing 55 and have to brake or swerve to keep from running over an Amish dude in his black cart with the orange triangle.

I nearly ran down the Amish dude just after seeing the Ostrich. We could have combined all aspects of this post if the Amish dude had been hauling an emu in his cart, while it was being pulled by a llama or two....

Monday, June 05, 2006

Birthday Wishes

Birthday Wishes

Just wanted to pass along birthday wishes to my buddy Bill, who blogs occasionally here.

He'll try to tell you some shit about how his birthday's on the sixth, and he even has a birth certificate to back him up.

But we all know the truth.

Sunday, June 04, 2006

Note to Self

Note to Self

Self, I know you're busy, what with all that sitting on the couch watching television you've got to do, but I just need you to listen to me for a moment....

Yes. Egg Rolls are tasty.

But on a day where you'll be doing a lot of stooping, bending and squatting...I can think of better things to eat for lunch than deep fried egg and cabbage.

Just sayin', is all. The cows put out enough methane.

Friday, June 02, 2006

A thought from the Ass End of the Night

A Thought From the Ass End of the Night

Despite what my friend Jill says she read in a "magazine," this is the time when Katie Couric used to wake up. I mean, honestly, who's more trustworthy? Me, or the rest of the print media world?

I ask you this: Who has the most to gain by printing the truth?

Yours, truly.

5 AM? To be on the 7 AM Today show? That's ludicrous. Who does she think she is? Me? Do you think Katie Couric had it timed down to the minute the absolute latest time she could sleep till, and still have time to shower, get dressed and still have time to drive to work?

Here's a little bit of trivia I'll spring on ya:

To be completely prepared to do The Today Show, you have to wake up at 2:15 in the afternoon before the show to get all the information and makeup that you'd need.

Me? know that if I have to be there at seven in the morning, I can sleep until 6:10, 6:15ish, get a four minute shower, get dressed, shove toast down my gullet and goof off until 6:43...doing whatever...just so long as I'm out the door by 6:43.

And that 6:43 is a school-year time. There's a school bus that I run risk of getting behind if I leave later. Now that school's out in my neck of the woods, I might could stretch that time to 6:47.

Four more minutes of sleep! Ye Gods.

Of course, here I sit at 4:26 in the morning, having been woken up by my sixth or seventh elevator dream in the past week and a half.

Seriously. Been dreaming about elevators. Not bad dreams. Mostly, they're pretty cool. In one of them, I was able to fly by running in place. In another, I got to talk to my grandfather, who passed away last year.

Had another one tonight. Nothing to really speak of. I'm staying in a hotel, and the elevator takes a long time to get from the lobby to the floor my room is on (which is either the fifth floor, or one several miles in the sky, depending on whom you believe from my dream, the desk clerk or the Decepticon Shockwave).

Woke up a bit before 3 to take a piss, and here I am some hour and a half later, talking jive on some blog that sevens of people read everyday.

But I do it because it's fulfilling.

Unless my job fulfills me. What with its five minute telephone conversations I have over the matter of 3 cents. Nonfood and food have different tax rates here in the wonderful state of Taxsylvania Tennessee, and a customer was confused about why one item on her bill, at $2.99, was costing her 27 cents in tax, or there abouts....when if it had been food, it would have cost her 24 cents....

We managed to turn it into a lovely bitchfest about the gubmint. Still, I don't know where she was calling from...she was local more than likely...but if she'd been calling from across a county line, it might have been considered long distance, and likely, her phone call would have eaten up whatever three cents she was bitching about within the first 15 seconds....

Yeah. Job satisfaction. It's highly overrated.

Well, it's now 4:39, and Katie Couric is asleep somewhere. Do you think she'll wake up out of force of habit for several weeks, before the asscrack of dawn, and then smile herself back to sleep, content in the knowledge that those saps Matt Lauer and the Who Wants to Be a Millionaire lady are crawling out of bed to talk about Sugarless Pie recipes and to interview the still drunk Hugh Grant about his latest movie in which he is an awkward shy guy?

Or do you think she's an android, with no need of sleep?

That thought just crossed my mind, but I now consider it a distinct possibility.