Sep 082
The "Palin"-drome drops
So who saw Sarah Palin lay down the hammer last night?
I flipped on the convention last night around 9 PM, just in time to see Mitt Romney deliver one of the more underwhelming speeches of our time. Seriously, Mitt Romney talking about the “Eastern elite”? Please. Not even counting that joke, Romney’s entire speech seemed to be made of bad puns and terrible stereotypes.
Then Huckabee came on. It wasn’t his best speech, but it was pretty good, and he hit ‘em where it hurt (“Barack Obama’s Excellent Adventure to Europe” was one of my favorites), but did so without really slamming anyone, in typical Mike Huckabee fashion. I also enjoyed “Sarah Palin got more votes running for mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, than Joe Biden received running for president!”. His speech was infinitely better than Romney’s.
Then Rudy Giuliani came on. Giuliani never really struck me as a great public speaker, but last night, in playing to a conservative crowd, he was on a roll. I liked his description of Obama, which was pretty accurate:
On the other hand, you have a resume from a gifted man with an Ivy League education. He worked as a community organizer, and immersed himself in Chicago machine politics. Then he ran for the state legislature – where nearly 130 times he was unable to make a decision yes or no. He simply voted “present.”As Mayor of New York City, I never got a chance to vote “present.” And you know, when you’re President of theUnited States, you can’t just vote “present.” You must make decisions.
A few years later, he ran for the U.S. Senate. He won and has spent most of his time as a “celebrity senator.” No leadership or major legislation to speak of. His rise is remarkable in its own right – it’s the kind of thing that could happen only in America. But he’s never run a city, never run a state, never run a business.
He’s never had to lead people in crisis.
This is not a personal attack…it’s a statement of fact – Barack Obama has never led anything.
Nothing. Nada.
It’s a bit of a risky ploy, stating that Obama has no experience and then sing Sarah Palin’s praises. But I think most Republicans would take that fight any day. Palin has been a governor, and she’s been a mayor, where Barack Obama has been a senator and a “community organizer”.
After Giuliani (who ran a bit long), Sarah Palin strode onto the stage. As I wrote last night, she looks good, especially for someone who has had 5 kids. She took a little bit to get started, and talked about her family a little bit to kind of introduce us to who she is, and then started ripping Obama completely apart:
I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a “community organizer,” except that you have actual responsibilities. I might add that in small towns, we don’t quite know what to make of a candidate who lavishes praise on working people when they are listening, and then talks about how bitterly they cling to their religion and guns when those people aren’t listening.
BAM! It had never occurred to me until last night to ask “what the heck is a community organizer?” Turns out, and this is a bit of an oversimplification, but I don’t think it’s bad, a community organizer is a mix between a social worker and a 4H camp counselor. We need social workers, and we need 4H camp counselors, but we don’t need them in the White House. Then she goes on to say (and this was echoed by Huckabee and Giuliani):
But listening to him speak, it’s easy to forget that this is a man who has authored two memoirs but not a single major law or reform – not even in the state senate.
Another awesome point. Starts to make you wonder how Obama got this far. It makes the conspiracy theory that’s starting to surface around the conservative blogs and talk shows that Obama is a front-man who is backed by a more powerful and intelligent puppet-handler much more plausible.
Three months ago, I was solidly in favor of Barack Obama leading our country. But now, partially as a result of Sarah Palin and partially as a result of Obama doing everything wrong the last few months, I will be voting for John McCain, and hoping that if McCain doesn’t seek reelection, or he would lose this election, that Sarah Palin would succeed him as President of the United States.
Aug 080
…and a pocketful of dreams
Hello, blogosphere! I’m writing today from the spacious, silent first floor of Kelvin Smith Library on the campus of the beautiful Case Western Reserve University. As far as walks to class go, today was probably about as good as it’s gonna’ get: 70 degrees, sunny and a slight breeze.
I’ve already noticed quite a few improvements around campus:
- The lobby of Nord (and entire first floor) had the floor redone and is now wood. I can’t tell you how good of an idea this was – I think someone puked into the carpet last year and you could smell it all year long.
- There’s an area in front of Yost by the fountain that used to have a couple of picnic tables on top of a cobblestone base. Well, those picnic tables are gone, and that area, with the exception of a small walkway around the fountain, is now grass. Nobody, and I mean nobody, used those tables. (I mean, seriously, hanging out in front of the math building is far less cool than hanging out in the library.) The area looks much more aesthetically pleasing now.
- The oft-maligned Euclid Corridor project is finally starting to show some finish. The crosswalks are complete in both directions at Euclid and Adelbert, and while there are still some cones in front of Severance, it’s clear that the end is in sight. Also, they kept the crossing guard! It was interesting to watch all the students say hi to him again and catch up as they crossed Euclid this morning.
Onto this morning’s links. Incidentally, I’m listening to the mellow stylings of Blind Pilot.
- I seem to remember something happening in Denver this week…and I’m pretty sure it has nothing to do with the Rockies, Broncos or Nuggets…anyone know?
I’m being sarcastic of course, because you could not turn on a TV this weekend without hearing about the Democratic National Convention. I’m going to say something that may shock everyone: I put odds at 1 in 3 that Hillary Clinton walks out of the convention as the nominee. With Barack Obama’s free-fall of late and his, shall we say, “uninspiring” choice as vice president, Clinton might be able to convince those in power to cast delegates to her. It’s a longshot, but we’ll see.
- Has anyone seen these posters around?
To me, they bear a striking resemblance to the posters in a certain movie:
And all you Bush-haters can come back with that Patriot Act mumbo-jumbo, but whether or not Obama wishes to tell you, you can guarantee that our freedoms will only shrink. The difference is that while Bush and McCain would freely share what is being done to protect our freedom, I do not believe Obama would do the same. - On that note, I should say that I’m no longer an Obama supporter. I am officially undecided. Thus, this is the time for both candidates to win me over by sending candy to my apartment.
- Quote of the day:
I was in a hotel the other day, and on the back of the door in the hotel they have the fire map. I’m flattered that they think I have it together enough to stand in a burning hotel room memorizing directions. “Yeah, I’ll go left by the stairs, right by the candy machine…” I’d probably get lost, have to go back to the room, check the map again…and they always tell you, no matter what, whatever you do in a hotel fire – do not panic. Hey, I got four minutes to live, I’ve never panicked in my whole life – it’s my option. Even if they find you, you have a perfect excuse…”Gee, I heard they saved you swingin’ from the shower curtain naked with an ice bucket on your head. What happened there?” “Well, I panicked.” “That’s understandable.”
Jerry Seinfeld
That’s all for now. I’ll try to get back to some Indians stuff soon – hopefully now I’ll have some more time to post and more stuff to post about. Until then, later days!
Jun 081
I used to rule the world…
It’s actually turned into a beautiful Sunday evening in Cleveland – no better time to sit next to an open window, watching a baseball game (not the Indians, who stunk up another one today) and blogging.
- I guess the Indians are a great place to start, actually. Last year, when I turned on the Indians game to watch, I would stay on SportsTime Ohio for the entirety of the game (and more, if it was a good game and I wanted to see highlights). This year, I don’t mind watching the Indians pitch, but if they’re at the plate I have a tendency to change the channel, particularly if Ryan Garko, Jhonny Peralta, or David Dellucci are batting. Last year you always had this feeling that victory was always just around the corner, and the Indians would find it or come very close to finding it. Even if they were down in the ninth, it seemed like they would always figure out a way to get guys on base and make it interesting and occasionally they’d pull it out. This year, we have had one walk-off win (if I recall correctly) and I don’t think we’ve won at all after trailing after 8 innings (except maybe very early in the year).
My point is that when the Indians are playing, the fans aren’t having fun anymore. And I can’t imagine the players are having much fun. For those of you who get on me constantly about writing in this thing, remind me sometime in the coming weeks to write a midseason review of the Indians, once I have some time to gather my thoughts.
- Anyone notice that traffic in Cleveland is especially bad? It seems like you can’t go anywhere without hitting construction (and it’s particularly bad right around where I live, on Euclid Avenue and Mayfield Road). I’m okay with construction, but I wish government projects were run like small business projects. If Lazorpoint were to run a project like these construction projects are being run, the client would have fired us or never done business with us again. I’ve told the guys I work with that if you live on the Ohio-Indiana border or Ohio-Pennsylvania border, you should hear a traffic report that sounds a little like this: “…and if you’re going to Ohio today…just don’t. Go around. Take the route through Kentucky and Virginia, because that whole state is just a mess. Back to you…”.
And when you hit those construction free oases, it’s still very likely you’ll run into a driver that has absolutely no idea what they’re doing. I think if you were to give a driving test to every driver on the road, only 10% would pass.
How do you solve this problem? Remedial drivers tests are an option, but I see both sides of that argument: on one hand, drivers who are adults in most cases absolutely need to drive in order to get to work, be productive and provide for their families; on the other hand, drivers who can’t drive are safety hazards to drivers who can.
The only solution that really has any possibility of working is everyone taking responsibility for their actions.
Hold your laughter please.
- Anyone find it funny that one of Hillary Clinton’s campaign promises was ending our national debt, but now after her campaign is over, she finds herself $22 million in debt?
I’m kind of out of shape on this blogging thing – my endurance is low even though I didn’t write that much. Oh well…
Jun 083
The fiery pulpit
So I went to church this morning, and the weirdest thing happened: Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama weren’t mentioned in the sermon at all. Not even ONCE!
I believe I’ve posted here before about how it seems like most of Obama’s problems aren’t with something Obama has said or done, but rather someone who is associated with Obama. The main perpetrator, until this week, was Reverend Jeremiah Wright. You remember him – he’s the guy who is actually of the opinion that AIDS was invented by the government. Our government can’t even run a legitimate election, and this guy expects us to maniuplate complicated genetic structures. Riiight.
This week, the bar was raised by Reverend Michael Pfleger. It’s really too bad this guy chose preaching as a profession, because it was hysterical to listen to, even though completely inappropriate. (I can totally see a future Chris Rock routine that looks a little like that.) Of course, the media is playing it up again.
In all seriousness, though, what if I wrote here on my blog that I supported Obama, and then wrote something completely insane, offensive or treasonous? Say someone from the New York Times picks it up and whatever I wrote was so offensive that the New York Times runs a story (NYT Editor: “Free controversy? Sign me up!”). All of that would lead to one, very disturbing fact: My blog would be famous! I’d have so many hits I wouldn’t know what to do with myself!
So now, I need something that would be so offensive or scandalous that this blog would make it. And folks, here it is: Barack Obama…wait for it…plays World of Warcraft!
*Collective Gasp* Anti-nerds everywhere: unite and do not let this man into office!
May 080
Here I dreamt I was an architect…
Hello blogosphere! I bet you thought you got rid of me, but never fear, my faithful (or obsessive, in some cases) following. Lots to catch up on, so hopefully my fingers don’t get tired – there’s a lot of stuff to talk about.
- I’ll start with some personal news, involving my ballpark tour thus far. I took a somewhat long-awaited trip to Ohio University this weekend, and thus unexpectedly went to a game at the Great American Ballpark in Cincinatti, OH.
I say the visit was somewhat unexpected, because as you all may recall, Cincinatti was not on my to-visit list when I made the list back in March. However, given its close proximity to Ohio University (at least somewhat) and inexpensive tickets, I could hardly pass up the opportunity.
Getting to Cincinatti was somewhat of an adventure, thanks to our fearless leader (ahem, Frankie) but we got there and the stadium looks very nice and new from the outside:
The view from our seats was also nice:
As nice as the stadium looked, something about it didn’t quite strike the right chord with me. Maybe it was the obnoxious (and dumb) Cincinatti fans, maybe it was the old fashioned organ music playing constantly in what is a very new ballpark, or maybe it was the fact that the Indians simply weren’t playing very well. On a scale of 1 to 10, I’d say the Great American Ballpark gets a solid 6. Nonetheless, a good time was had by all and some more pictures have been posted. - I have a suggestion for the people at Apple, particularly those making iTunes.
One of the coolest features (in my opinion) of iTunes is the ability to generate Smart Playlists, ones which are automatically populated based on rules that you set. For example, one of the preset Smart Playlists is the “Recently Played” playlist, which creates a playlist of all of the items played in the last two weeks.
But say, for example, you wanted to have all items played in the last three weeks. All you would do is right click on the playlist and click “Edit Smart Playlist”. You get this interface:
You can filter by date last played, rating, play count, whatever you want. But what the Smart Playlist feature basically boils down to is the ability to query the iTunes database. For example, the SQL query for the screenshot above (more or less) is:SELECT [songs] -- TOP 25 -- not needed here
FROM TableOfSongs
WHERE (UNIX_TIMESTAMP() - LastPlayedDate <= 2*7*24*3600)
ORDER BY LastPlayedDateBefore really discovering this feature, I made a playlist about once a month featuring my favorite songs at that time. But the last playlist I made was in August 2007, because I created a “Random Favorites” playlist which looks a little bit like this:
Notice the “match any” criterion. What I really wish is that there were more options, because as it stands right now, I can only havePlayCount > 5 OR (UNIX_TIMESTAMP() - DateAdded) < (1 * 7 * 24 * 3600) OR Rating = '*****'. What I'd really like is the ability to havePlayCount > 5 OR ((UNIX_TIMESTAMP() - DateAdded) < (1 * 7 * 24 * 3600) AND Rating = '*****'). You can't do that with the current tools, and while that's a meaningless example, if I were given the tools I may never have to create a real playlist again. - Hillary Clinton is still alive - not only alive, but alive and kicking. The primaries in Kentucky and Oregon are tomorrow, and most experts expect that Clinton will win Kentucky while Obama will win Oregon. And "Operation Chaos" continues.
Clinton should really drop out unless she wins Oregon tomorrow - meaning that she should simply drop out. She's hurting Obama, whether she likes it or not (and secretly, I think she enjoys the fact that she may not win the election but she'll still decide who is elected). But we'll see.
- I saw Iron Man over the weekend, and let me just say this: I was floored. I totally did not expect that movie to be as good as it was, although I did figure it might give me a quote of the day:
Army: Is it true that you went twelve-for-twelve with the Maxim Girls last year?
Tony Stark: That is an excellent question. Yes and no. March and I had a scheduling conflict but fortunately the Christmas cover was twins.
It's still way too cold for the month of May - here's to global warming, everybody!
Update: Fixed the SQL to match.
May 081
There’s a place up ahead and I’m going…
I’m 3/4 done with my college career, and without a doubt the last year was the hardest. The good news is that this time next year, I’ll be planning for life after college and hopefully becoming more of the person I’d like to be.
- After work tonight, a friend and I decided to try to get one of those famous 23 cent pizzas. Actually, the original plan was to get more than one – as many as possible, actually. Unfortunately, we weren’t counting on every single Clevelander having the same idea. The talk radio people like Mike Trivisonno (who is normally fun to listen to, for the record, but has his moments where he’s just an absolute moron) were very annoyed that so many people were taking advantage, and as the previous article states, there were some issues. But tomorrow is another day, and by this time tomorrow, we’ll all remember that Papa Johns doesn’t really make great pizza.
- The Indians took a series in New York (mostly thanks to Cliff Lee and David Dellucci, two oft-maligned southpaws on this blog), but another southpaw, Travis Hafner, is really struggling.
All you can hope for with Travis Hafner is that he’s seen video of his swing from this year (and presumably last year – last year he wasn’t ever bad enough to merit drastic reconstruction on his swing, but it might have been enough for him to develop some bad habits) and compared it to video in 2006. To me, after watching the video, it’s pretty obvious. Of course, it’s far easier said than done – but the season is still young, and Hafner has plenty of time to turn it around.
Ben Francisco is up, and is getting regular playing time, which is nice to see. He’s had some good solid hits already, and his defense in the corner outfield spots doesn’t leave me holding my breath as much as Dellucci.
- And now a message from every mathematician in the world: “To Hillary Clinton: It’s Over”. She doesn’t seem to think so, and I guess when you have as much money as the Clintons do (although that amount is dwindling, because she keeps loaning herself money) you can alter math.
One thing I’ve noticed about John McCain recently – his supporters are far easier to get along with than either of the Democratic candidates. Perhaps the Democrats are a little edgy because they see McCain gaining ground quickly while Obama and Clinton battle it out, but seriously, there is no need for the fawning on the message boards: “OMG PRESIDENT OBAMA I LOVE YOU” or the hatred: “OMG PRESIDENT CLINTON II BARACK OBAMA SUCKS”.
I’m typing this from my work laptop and I’m really not a fan of the keyboard or touchpad (I have a docking station and a mouse at work, but not with me at the moment), so I’m going to adjourn. Once again, I apologize for the lack of updates lately – hopefully I’ll be on a more regular schedule soon.
May 080
It’s the final countdown…
Some therapeutic blogging before tomorrow’s AI exam steals my soul away.
- In politics, the big news is the primaries tomorrow in Indiana and North Carolina; Hillary is up in Indiana, while Obama is up in North Carolina. A couple controversies the last few days and weeks have made this pretty much a deadlocked race.
First, Rush Limbaugh is calling for all Republicans to vote Hillary Clinton, in what he calls “Operation: Chaos”. I agree with Rush Limbaugh a lot of the time (definitely not all the time), but Operation: Chaos seems destined for disaster. Anytime you try and influence your opponent without worrying about yourself is a bad idea – although, Rush may realize that John McCain doesn’t really have much to brag about, so this may be his only move.
Second, the gas tax holiday. Totally agree with Barack Obama on this one – it’s a classic Washington move that’ll save us maybe $5, once. Instead of worrying about a gas tax holiday, let’s figure out how to keep gas prices down. I’d much rather pay $3 for gas all the time than $3.50 most of the time and not have to pay tax once.
- The Indians are struggling, and it looks like they’re finally going to take my advice and call up Ben Francisco. If it were me, I’d try and package Andy Marte and Jason Michaels in a deal for some single-A prospects and call up Francisco and Josh Barfield to take their places. Ben Francisco may not be the ideal situation, but it’s better than having career role players Jason Michaels and David Dellucci handle left field – Michaels is a liability offensively, and Dellucci is a liability defensively.
I hope Travis Hafner watches Baseball Tonight, because for the first time since last year I’ve seen video evidence as to why Travis Hafner is struggling. Steve Phillips (I know, right? Second time he’s said something smart… like, ever) pointed out that Hafner’s stance is incredibly spread out at the plate and that instead of keeping his hands up and driving the ball for line drives, he’s dropping his hands before he swings and thus either hitting fly ball outs or rolling over top and hitting grounders. He needs to get it going, particularly with Victor Martinez’s power outage of late.
Sorry about the lack of updates lately – hopefully after tomorrow (or maybe the next day, got a lot of stuff to move), I’ll be able to update more regularly.
Apr 082
Just another way to survive…
Today I’m blogging from high atop the Nord building on campus, on the fifth floor with a comfy cubic meter of space in one of the hallways. I like sitting here sometimes when I’m bored because it’s quiet, it’s peaceful, and it makes me look like a hobo, which I’m a huge fan of.
- An executive decision from the offices of Jimmy Sawczuk: no more regular game recaps. They didn’t seem to be that popular, they’re kind of a pain to write because I usually have to adhere to that format, and writing those every day kept me away from blogging about other things. Never fear, if there’s a game I want to talk about, I’ll talk about it.
- While on the topic of the game recaps, I’d like to thank aimable for his comment on my last post. Part of his comment, the part before he starts spamming, reads:
Yankees are the best team in the MLB, as far as I m concerned, we have great fans, and really the whole city of New York will say that. In New York if you want to watch the Yankees in style good luck with that, all the Yankees premium seats get sold out and are highly priced.
Why, aimable, would you ever say that? They’re not even the best in their division, much less the rest of the league. I like the Yankees hitters (when they’re hitting anyway) and I like the back end of the bullpen, but most of that team is just old – and as much as it pains me to say this, Boston should wipe the floor with them this year.
aimable did manage to prove my point about Yankees fans and Red Sox Nation however: no matter what the numbers say, no matter what the facts are, their teams, to them, are the absolute best in baseball. Right now, the Oakland Athletics are three games better than the Yankees, and you don’t see them walking around saying, “worship the Oakland A’s!”. I don’t doubt the Yankees will make the playoffs this year (although I think I had them missing the Wild Card to the Tigers), but I can’t imagine them getting out of the Division series.
- I noticed something new on CNN.com today. Next to a few of the headlines, they have a little T-shirt icon:
Being the inquisitive soul that I am, I clicked it, and was directed to this page:
I can’t make this stuff up, folks. Seriously! You can have a T-shirt with the words: “Smuggled workers turned into slaves.” At first, I had to look at my calendar, I was sure it was an April Fool’s joke. But no, this is completely legitimate.Now, I chose a headline that is controversial to show the bad side of this little ploy. But what’s the good side? Are there some Democrats just sitting on CNN.com 24/7 waiting for the headline: “Bush says he’s an idiot”, or maybe some Ron Paul supporters waiting for the headline: “Everyone cheated, Ron Paul wins by default”, or maybe some Mitt Romney supporters: “Romney washes his hair”? I can’t think of one good headline for a T-shirt. And by the way, CNN.com charges $15 per shirt; if you’re really that desperate, make your own shirt and you can write whatever you want! (And put pretty pictures, too, from what I hear…)
- Today is the last day of classes here at Case, meaning that in about one week (my last final is a week from tomorrow), I’ll be exactly 3/4 done with college. It’ll be nice to get out of this place and become a productive member of society again, and with any luck I’ll find a company who picks a name and sticks with it, unlike
CWRUCaseCase Western Reserve UniversityCase Western Reserve. - By the way, someone needs to teach the Democratic party how to do math, because between Obama and Clinton, someone is absolutely wrong when they say they’re winning. I’d say Obama has the edge right now, because of, you know, 5000 years of mathematical knowledge, but maybe when Hillary is president she’ll pass legislation banning advanced math so her win is justified.
In either case, you can’t have two candidates who are both winning. You can have candidate A beating candidate B, meaning candidate A is winning. You can have candidate B beating candidate A, meaning candidate B is winning. You can have a tie, meaning that no one is winning. Or, and I think this is the case lately, you can have candidate A and candidate B slapping each other like two middle schoolers over the stupidest little things, meaning they’re both losing.
Seriously, if you’re the Democratic party, how do you possibly justify not giving the nomination to Obama? He’s ahead. He’s going to stay ahead. Clinton can debate it all she wants, but in the end, under the system of rules agreed upon before the primaries began, Obama will be the winner.
I wonder why the Democratic party has superdelegates anyway. Not to pick sides or throw cheap shots, but superdelegates screams “Republican”. The Democratic party is all about equality in every aspect, almost to a point of socialism… except when it comes to picking a presidential nominee. If you were to read the beliefs of the Democratic party, with things as they are, it should say “The Democrats believe all people are created equal… except not all people.”
- Thank God, the NFL Draft is over. Now ESPN can get back to covering sports.
- Quote of the Day:
It’s one of the oldest laws in security: the strength of the security should only rely on the secrecy of the key, not the algorithm. We’ve known this forever, and yet people still do it. Don’t be one of those people.
David Singer, MATH 408 professor
Indians play the Yankees tonight, going for the series win against the Bronx Bombers – it’ll be Aaron Laffey against Mike Mussina, who’s not the same pitcher these days. Let’s get the win, guys… put aimable in his place.
And by the way, I just realized I used the word “slaves” in this entry. Thus, if Google Ads decides to try and sell you slaves a few days from now, I feel it is my duty to inform you that slavery is in fact illegal and you shouldn’t do it. I wonder what the penalty is for Google if those ads were ever run though? …
Apr 080
Super Tuesday: Part III
So in case you don’t know this (or haven’t deduced it by the amount of posting I’ve done), it’s the final week of classes here at Case (Western Reserve) and things are going absolutely insane. Nonetheless, I do care about you, my faithful readers, so some pre-Super-Tuesday-Part-III tidbits.
- Tomorrow (or today, I suppose) is the primary in Pennsylvania. It’s expected that Hillary Clinton will win it, but anything less than a landslide is really not a win, but simply prolongs the inevitable and keeps “Operation Chaos” going, as Rush Limbaugh calls it.
It’s hard to imagine that the last time these two faced off was on March 11, in the Mississippi primaries. Since then, we’ve had the Jeremiah Wright controversy, the sniper fire controversy, the “bitter” controversy… anyone else ready for this primary season to be over? A lot of what made Barack Obama different has evaporated; instead of being this guy who’s going to run a completely different campaign, be a completely different guy and be a completely different president has changed. His campaign is attacking just like everyone else’s, he’s got problems just like everyone else, and he’s starting to sound like a politician.
- Enough of politics. In baseball, the White Sox, Cubs and Diamondbacks are off to excellent starts. I’m not surprised about the latter two, but the fact that the White Sox are winning speaks to the fact that the Indians, Tigers and Twins are underperforming.
- In the Indians’ case, you get that feeling that they’re starting to come out of it. We lost two games in Minnesota this weekend, but we hit the ball hard a few times and just got a bit unlucky in a couple cases (like that diving play by Carlos Gomez in center, robbing Garko of a go-ahead RBI single). Let’s see what happens in Kansas City this week.
- LeBron James… he’s not bad, is he?
I’ll try to post more later today. Until then, stay well and have a happy Tuesday!
Apr 081
Arrrrr!
According to some sources, it appears that… wait for it… piracy is back! And not software piracy or music piracy, but real, honest-to-goodness pillage-and-plunder piracy that we all have come to know and love.
I hope that the real honest-to-goodness piracy (or HTG piracy as I shall refer to it from now on) is back to stay, because that seems like a career path that might be for me: sail the seven seas (seven seas? I guess “four oceans” is the proper phrase these days), make some money, talk like a pirate, wear cool hats, and above all, carry a weapon. The question is, of course, what kind of weapon? To me it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to carry a sword, as cool as it might make you look, if the cheaters who are trying to stop you are carrying assault rifles and using night-vision goggles. But then again, if you’re wearing the cool pirate hat and have the cool pirate get-up, how’s it going to look if you’re carrying a Beretta (“Freeze right where ya’ are, matey, or it’s ‘tween the eyes I’ll shoot you!”)?
Perhaps a change is required in the pirate’s code (that’s right, it’s not something that those silly writers from Disney made up). I propose that, in an effort to make piracy fun and profitable again, that all pirates be required to carry pirate-y weapons, and in exchange, all law-enforcing officers will do the same. This way, everybody wins! Piracy is back and profitable, but it won’t be back at the expense of losing its old-time charm.
Also, I’d propose that we make hijacking planes off-limits. Leave that to the “new” kind of pirates, the ones who aren’t so jolly and instead of hunting for gold, they’re hunting for some guy named “Allah”. Trying to take over the air at this point would be a little like JimmySawczuk.com trying to take over Google, so for now, let’s stick to the ground.
And finally, in an effort to bring equality to piracy, let’s make it okay to be a pirate no matter what race, gender or religion you are. Hillary Clinton, if you want to be a pirate, then by all means find yourself a crew and take to the seas. Barack Obama and John McCain, the same goes for you. In fact, I think it’d be a pretty great idea to have Barack Obama as captain and Hillary Clinton as first mate (or vice versa; or, if they can’t decide who should be captain, let’s have Al Gore be captain), and instead of an election this fall, we’d simply have an all-out pirate battle between The Flying Donkey (the name of their ship…get it?) and The Black Elephant (John McCain’s maverick ship) in the middle of the ocean somewhere. Whoever doesn’t die gets to be President.
At this point, I’d normally stop my article, say I’m just kidding, and tell you my actual beliefs because the last few paragraphs have been sarcastic. But the more I think about the idea of a Donkey-Elephant naval battle, the more I like it. And if I were any good with video special effects (if anyone is reading this who is, I welcome your attempt to do this), I would create a video of Hillary Clinton shouting this speech to her crew, as quoted from Pirates of the Carribbean: At World’s End:
You will listen to me! LISTEN! The other ships will still be looking to us, to the [Flying Donkey], to lead, and what will they see? Frightened bilgerats aboard a derelict ship? No, no they will see free men and freedom! And what the enemy will see, they will see the flash of our cannons, and they will hear the ringing of our swords, and they will know what we can do! By the sweat of our brow and the strength of our backs and the courage in our hearts! Gentlemen, hoist the colors!
Arr…a better world, that would be. “Drink up, me hearties, yo-ho!”
About Jimmy
Jimmy is a 2009 graduate of Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, OH, and currently works in a Columbia, SC startup. He mostly writes about baseball (particularly the Cleveland Indians), politics, movies and programming. He also enjoys a cup of great coffee and a good book or movie.
More »