Renaissance to go baseball

well, it has come to this. i just cannot find time for this right now, with the work, the softball, the movie-editing, and the finding $800 to pay for the jerk that did a hit and run on me. so, for the time being at least, i'll move the focus to baseball. its not that other things won't be discussed, its that i need a muse that i can handle in small, quick doses. if baseball isn't your thing, then just look at it this way: its better than nothing.

super bowl

i hate the patriots. the only good thing about this to me is that my team thumped them this year.

i'm back baby!!!!

you know you missed me.

well, what have been up to? (aside from darts)

-more responsibility at work.
-assistant softball coach at school.
-still tweaking the new computer.
-hung out with my best friend, who was only here a week.
-watching football. (go eagles)
-procrastinating.

so i'm back now.

first things first- congrats to Iraq. they had elections, and there is a new group in charge. i hope this whole democracy thing takes.

-can any news outlet stop the presidential handjobs and think rationally?

-why isn't raising the retirement age a great idea?

-personal note: get a tivo or like device. they rock.

-don't play roulette with bloggers' next blog. it can get pretty ugly.

-to rich. hey. how has it been with you?

where i've been and where i'll be

took up darts. off until feb. peace.

phins and the holidays

wow. what a great way kick off a holiday, phins 29, pats 28. tom brady just gave the game away. my bright spot: the tech connection. thomas, of course, but also morris getting the goalline carries and welker doing a great job in the return game. this win makes this season seem bearable.

on that note, i am off for the holidays. i will be back a the start of the new year, sometime around the third.

peace.

freaks and geeks

i never watched this while it was on, but now that i have watched the series i have to say that it is great. while i found no group for me to truly relate to, one character truly resonated. ken, the asshole. this was a great show that should have lasted.

bonds

i'm glad i'm not the only one seeing this thing this way. while you can chalk up my views to pure idol worship, i know for a fact skip is not the biggest fan of bonds.

isn't this just wishful thinking?

the list of this year's most trustworthy professions has come out with nurses and grade school teachers leading the way. in fact, all the top professions are ones that people must truly depend on. does it really mater if your car salesman lies about the rust proofing? or course not. but you want to believe the nurse that it'll go away in two days.

you can make a whole book out of that?

the book Grand Canyon: A Different View. has been getting a lot press lately. this is due to it being sold at the grand canyon. what is wrong with that? it is a creationist look at how the grand canyon was formed. they say it was noah's flood. no, really, that is how they explain it. well, wouldn't you know that those liberal science bastards would get all huffy about it. when will they just give into conjecture and follow the one true god?

ok, enough sarcasm. at texas tech about 4 years ago i attended a lecture featuring a leading creationist. his goal was to validate that life could only have come about by way of god, and that the earth was about 5000 years old. i was a 20 year old history major, and i saw how faulty the science was. our science professors were not kind, ripping gaping hole in all his points, from cells aligning in particular formations inn nature, to his "hyper-canyon building." the most glaring weakness of his position was the fact that at many points he had to go back to it being god's will. this is the problem with putting a creationist book in a national park. if little timmy picks that book out because of the pretty pictures, he might start getting a really warped view of the way science works. and yet, we haven't removed the book yet.

is this what we want america to be?

charles goes to the movies

right off the bat: i went to both national treasure (reluctantly and closer and will relive the experience here. if i happen to give away plot elements or other such spoilers, i apologize in advance. to get them out of the way, the review grade will precede the needlessly inane story of my night.

national treasure: B-
closer: A

for those of you not in the know about the geography and movie locations of the delightful metropolis that is el paso, texas, here is a quick overview:

el paso is at the western tip of texas, right where the rio grande really starts to snake north. the city has morphed into a sort of backward lowercase y with the southern border the rio grande and the whole in the middle the franklin mountains. I-10 runs the length of the city, connecting all areas much like an artery. from tip to tip el paso is approximately 40 miles wide, with another 15 or so lengthwise. i live on the far east side of town, 5 minutes from the biggest theatre that side of dallas. as of late critically acclaimed movies have failed to open at said theatre. on such movie is the excellent closer. to my surprise, however, the movie was opening in el paso. on the westside. i guess my theatre needed to keep alexander on 3 screens. so i trekked to the west, much like earlier americans looking for a new life. 40 miles later i arrived 20 minutes late for closer. that type of thing happens when traffic literally stops to see a traffic accident on the other side of the freeway. well, i was not about to walk in late to a movie i drove an hour to get to, so i bought a ticket to the best-movie-starting-in-less-than-five-minutes-that-will-be-over-by-the-time-the-movie-i-want-to-see-opens. in this case that was national treasure.
this is not a good movie. its views of history, science, cartography, personal interaction, washington d.c. and also eastern us geography, comedic timing, polar exploration, light, and physics are all depressing and ill-informed. that said, it was fun. not good writing, excellent character fun, but more pretty pictures when i turn my brain off fun. a side story: the opening of the movie is a cold opening of the protagonist as a child. he is looking through the attack for something. the problem? this part looks nothing like the rest of the movie and is edited in a way that makes it seem as if it might be a trailer. so about half the crowd talked through the whole thing, with the other half telling them to shut up. that is not a good sign. but beggars and choosers.
on to the reason for my trek, closer. i made the 10:25 with a half hour to spare. i found myself a great seat and watched the increasingly boring slideshow they put on before the movie starts. with about 10 minutes to the film, about 10 college-aged, frat-looking guys pile in. the same thing occurs with 5 minutes to go. i am now totally surrounded by couples (good), film buffs (like me, so good), and frat guys under the impression they will get to see natalie portman naked (bad). if you don't want to hear about the movie, you may want to stop now. well, the movie is about four sad people that care more about their own happiness than anything else. they invest their happiness in others and are disappointed. it was extremely sad, but in a very moving way. about two-thirds of the audience got that. i'll let you guess what third didn't. they other third watched the movie with a frightening detatchment that reminds me most of ebert's review of i spit on your grave. they cheered each awful thing the characters did to each other, getting especially excited by an act of violence. they even cheered at points. when the scene that could have shown portman naked did not, they booed. at the end most of the audience was left a bit numb by the experience, while a third went out happy, and no doubt looking for a traffic accident to gawk at.

happy holiday bowl

tech catches a pissed off cal team. this could get ugly. i hope the O shows up. my pick: (and remember my extreme bias) tech 42-38.

crowd support redefined

in a bad way. i had the pleasure of watching my texas tech red raiders demolish the utep miners in el paso saturday night. while the win filled me with pride, that was nothing compared to the pride i felt being a good fan. an explanation: if you go to a tech sporting event in lubbock, get ready to stand. you will only be sitting during timeouts and halftime. we love our raiders and show it to the bitter end. if you were to look at the crowd at the end of a game you'd be hard pressed to tell the outcome based on bodies: we won't leave if we are getting killed by kansas (again, and again, and again).

on saturday i stood at the beginning of the game, as did the rest of the crowd. after utep scored first, the crowd went nuts. i thought it might be a long night of hearing it from miner-faithful. then tech scored. everyone sat down and pretty much shut up. even the student section. after a half dominated by tech they took a 12 point lead into the locker room. well, the miners come roaring out of the gate and cut it to 3 points without tech scoring. the place is ridiculously loud and i wonder if this is going to get away from the raiders. well, after one tech basket everyone again sits down and stops cheering. tech jumps out by twenty and cruises in for a 15 point win.

if this is the support the miners always get, then i'm surprised they ever win any games at all. is it too much to ask that fans support their team no matter the score? in el paso i suppose it is.

bonds

before i get to what i have to say, why not go check out what pinto and his commenters said.

first of all, i am sad. i was hoping bonds was innocent, and now i know i was wrong. as for his denial, i think he is splitting hairs. sure, he might not have known they were steroids, but i think he knew he shouldn't have been taking them. think ethan hawke in training day: he knew he shouldn't of smoked the joint, but didn't know it was pcp. either way, he will be held accountable. the question is how do they do that? none of what he did was against the rules in the time he did it. its the same with the giambis. how do they retroactively punish someone?

they part that stinks here is that mlb can know throw barry to the wolves and more easily deny the severity of steroid abuse in baseball. when an estimated 50% of big leaguers might be juiced there is no easy fix, yet punishing bonds will buy them time. this was a witchhunt that caught a witch and might pardon a coven.

that analogy really wasn't very good.

here is a good point.

i'm back, baby

well, well, well. i'll bullet point these, so here are my thoughts on all sorts of things in the the order they occur to me.

-that pacers-pistons fight was crazy, but i won't be happy unless all fans involved are stripped of their right to enter an nba arena. as for the players, all the penalties seem about right, except for big ben, who got off light.

-now that ridge is gone i hope we scrap the color system.

-while i don't like rice taking over for powell, i will give credit to bush in his color blindness when appointing officials. now if only he'd allow dissenting opinion.

-cul at ratboy's anvil is a bit touchy on my commentary that his blog was suffering. well, seeing as it has weathered that storm, i take back the overreaching "death of a good blog" comment. really, i'm glad he took the time to look at my increasingly amateurish blog.

-bill simmons should stick with pop commentary, as his sports commentary is a little stale as of late.

-because i read him, for no other reason a link to the liberal antithesis.

-another link to ratboy, to show there are no ill feelings. you really should go check it out.

-the giants would sign willie mays, but he isn't old enough.

-all the new shows this year suck.

-you know a friend is worth keeping when you pick up after five years like it was five minutes.

-erik was much to kind to post while i was gone.

-the boondocks needs to find some direction fast.

-i really hate people that make every single conversation a political grudge match.

-we need good movie to come out asap.

-i do not get my students' love of ja rule.

-gta:sa is almost too much. i never thought a video game would overload me with options.

-tech had a pretty good year. i hope they destroy whatever team they meet in their bowl.

-willingham was let go too soon.

-the holidays would kick ass if you could cherrypick the relatives you had to see.

-I read the comics so you don't have to is a good blog.

on hiatus

i'm sure that anyone that reads this finds this as no shock, but i haven't osted recently. this is due to several job related craziness. to fight this sudden swell in paperwork i have declaired myself on hiatus until december. now i know it'll be hard to deal, but i'm sure you'll make it. feel free to visit other great sites and come back in december to hear from me. erik may post, but you never know.

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