fuck fuck fuck fuck we lost 5-3
really wanted to win tonight well i want the yanks to win every night
no margin for error here (and the yanks made 2 tonight) gotta win the next 2
fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck
Great quote by Terry Francona, manager of the Red Sox:
On Tuesday, when the Red Sox and Yankees finished the day tied, Damon was asked about the season-ending three-game series with the Yankees and said, "We'd be kidding ourselves if this weekend wasn't going to be the culmination of the season. It's the master plan, you know. God's way: Yankees-Red Sox."
Sox manager Terry Francona's response to that yesterday: "I wouldn't have thought that was God's master plan. I thought it was Fox's. My master plan would have had this weekend mean nothing and have us up.
"I have no doubt that would have been the Yankees' plan, too."
Baseball is a funny funny game. On Mon. the Yanks clobbered the O's 11-3. Yesterday was the O's turn to beat up the Yanks 17-9. So after a total of 40 or so runs being scored in 2 nights, tonight the Yanks beat the O's 2-1 in a pitchers duel.
It's so funny 'cause over the weekend when the NYY were playing Toronto I was obviously rooting for the home team. Now Toronto is playing the Red Sox and I'm rooting like hell for the Blue Jays.
The season is winding down and my heart rate is going up. 4 more games. It's all gonna come down to this weekend at Fenway. Keeping my fingers crossed.
Published on Thursday, September 15, 2005 by the Wiscasset Newspaper (Maine):
Sugar for Sugar, Salt For Salt
Go Down In The Flood Gonna Be Your Own Fault
by Christopher Cooper
This won't take long. And it won't be much fun. But duty and decency demand that we do it.
Sometimes you buy a cantaloupe because it looks good and you have enjoyed some fine ripe cantaloupes in your time, even though a buck and a half for a little melon that went three for a dollar within living memory seems pretty pricey. And you leave it on the kitchen counter for a few days, because it's a little green, but it softens and gets a better color so you slice it open, but it's mushy and rotten and smells like feet and tastes like vomit and you remember other, similar, corporate grocery chain cantaloupe experiences and vow as you heave the mess into the compost not to get fooled again.
Maybe you've bought a car. Reasonable mileage, no rust, convincing salesman who chatted you up about your hobbies, agreed with your prejudices, and made you feel you were a pretty clever guy for choosing this vehicle from his selection. But you couldn't keep it aligned, it ate tires, the brakes, exhaust system and radiator didn't survive the life of the payment book, and when you tried to sell it three years later every seventeen-year-old who looked at it was astute enough to reference the oil blown past the rear main seals as his reason for declining your "Best Offer Over $500 Dollars" prayer.
Some of you lady readers married men whose virtues are now no more apparent to you than they were pre-nuptually to your mothers, friends or even relatives of the groom himself. True, he was a successful inseminator but, sadly, the children look disturbingly like him. Of you, people say, "She could have done so much better." What were you thinking? What can you do?
Or let's say a whole country was riding a foaming crest of good times, new cars, low interest rates, affordable gas, electronic gadgets and a We're Number One world view that was maybe weak on history, geography and empathy, but sure did by God show the big stick to the heathen foreigners. Such a people might toss a coin in a contest between a dorky, dull Democrat and an insipid dry drunk Texas fratboy Republican whose every and many failures had been rendered moot by family money and connections. They might not be paying much attention.
Then, let's say, some really nasty guys from a country larded up with ugly, corrupt fat cats blew a great big hole in a part of that country. Suppose the new president "rose to the occasion" by starting a war with another country in the same part of the world as the one where the bad guys came from, but which, for political and personal reasons and reasons having very much indeed to do with very valuable mineral resources and very profitable corporations and some other complicated considerations having to do with weapons sales, it was not convenient to invade because those particular rich foreigners were personal friends and business partners of that new chief executive.
And further (stay with me; I know it's a weird trip), imagine that just as it was made startlingly clear that pretty much everything this president had advanced as a reason for that war was a fabrication, a misdirection, a deliberate under- or over-statement (well, hell, yes, I guess just a pile of tremendous lies, really, if we need to use such an ugly word), imagine that he got re-elected despite his manifest incompetence and venality and smugness because the same Democrats who had advanced the very dull, unappealing candidate four years previously selected this time a cipher who ran against his own finest, most decent history and tried to seem more and more like the dull incumbent until, finally, some voters stuck with the dummy they knew, and some voted against the sad-sack they'd come to not respect, and the rigged Republican voting machines in two critical states made up the shortfall.
Now what if the best-studied, most carefully-observed, best-tracked, most predictable-coursed hurricane ever seen, and one of the biggest, wiped out a major coastal city that, had the president in question not been so intent upon "drowning government in a bathtub" and reducing the unwelcome sting of taxation upon the richest people and corporations he knew (outside of his friends in Saudi Arabia, I mean), might have received enough money to fortify its dikes and seawalls in the true spirit of "Homeland Security", and maybe every old lady trying to board an airplane could have been spared the burden of taking off her shoes. (OK, I know it doesn't cost much to humiliate old ladies, and I know the money saved wouldn't have been diverted to New Orleans, but great craziness must be recognized and ridiculed and, when it is public policy, repudiated, and that's what they pay me to do here.)
You've seen the pictures. Twenty per cent of the residents of New Orleans lacked the resources, the vehicles, the health, the money to evacuate ahead of the storm. Too old, too sick, too poor to save themselves, and mostly, given America's great secret still, all these years after we thought we'd equalized these things, even after the token Scalia wannabe on the Supreme Court and the sad yes-man who abandoned the Secretary of State job after the lies he told finally began to curdle on his lips, mostly black. Poor blacks. Indeed.
You've seen the Superdome, the convention center footage. You've heard the first-person accounts of scores of hurting, hungry homeless (poor, black) persons trying to cross a bridge to dry ground but ordered back by white officials with guns. You've seen the misery, the neglect, the abuse. So has the rest of the world. We're Number One! Say it loud.
Is it time yet? Can we all just admit we made a stupid mistake? We weren't paying attention? We heard what we wanted to hear? We succumbed to slick advertising? The fruit was rotten; the car was a lemon; that bum was just piss-poor husband and father material and your momma was right. Stay the course? What course? Our country, its citizens, its principles have been reduced, abused, worked-over, bled-out, violated and humiliated. Not by terrorists or foreign enemies or tsunamis or tornadoes or an angry god. We have rotted from within.
Blame the Republicans? Nah, they're just "protecting their base." Like helping like. It is the party of wealth and privilege. Blame the Democrats? Sure, if you can distinguish 'em from the Republicans. It sure ain't the party of FDR any more. Or even Jack Kennedy or Lyndon Johnson or Jimmy Carter. I'll see your Tom DeLay and your Bill Frist and raise you a Joe Biden and a Joe Lieberman. Blame the press for avoiding or killing any story that wasn't a press release from the Pentagon, the White House or the American Association of Yellow Ribbon Manufacturers. Blame our stars. Blame ourselves; we weren't paying attention; we didn't do the work democracy demands.
Do I exaggerate our desperate straits? The man at the top in his own words and by his own actions. Add the smirk and swagger yourself; you've seen it often enough.
First response? Fly over on Air Force One; go play golf. Condi Rice shopped shoe boutiques. Dick Cheney bought a three million dollar vacation home.
While you and I watched the Superdome and convention center fiascoes? Lunch with Al Greenspan. "Hurricane Katrina will represent a temporary setback for the U.S. Economy and the energy sector."
As WalMart water trucks, Red Cross workers, TV reporters and Canadian Mounted Police forces tended the stricken city while FEMA and the National Guard waited for orders that didn't come? "Brownie, you're doing a heckuva job."
Days after we'd all heard testimony from the engineers and planners who'd repeatedly sounded the alarm about Category Five storms and Cat. Three levees: "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees."
With hundred of thousands homeless, uncounted dead, the poorest among us hit the hardest: "Out of the rubbles of Trent Lott's house -- the guy lost his entire house -- there's going to be fantastic house. I look forward to sitting on the porch." [Yes, rubbles, plural. I know it sounds stupid, but I got it right off the White House website. He's proud of it, for Christ's sake!]
There's more. You've seen it, heard it, been repulsed by it. But did you get this from his mom, the husband of one bad president, the mother of the worst one yet, a woman who you'll remember said she couldn't find the time to trouble her "beautiful mind" about Iraqi civilians we'd bombed to death by the tens of thousands? Of those who'd lost all they owned, including, in many cases, loved ones, to the flood and were now enjoying the hospitality of Texas shelters: "And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this--this [chuckle] is working very well for them."
Oh, those lucky, lucky homeless, sick people! What happy niggras we have here on our grand plantation. It makes a person feel dirty and disgusted and sick to his stomach. Don't you suppose a couple billion other people all over the world heard that chortle, you bloated, ignorant, overprivileged mother of a moron?
Hey, folks, things have gotten so bad that even the press is beginning to pay attention. Presidential Press Secretary Scott McClellan said at least fourteen times during two press briefings last week that now is not the time to "play the blame game." I say it's an excellent time, while the dead are still floating on the polluted tides and we are not yet distracted by the World's Series or the run-up to Christmas or another newly-discovered "Axis Of Terror" triumvirate.
Now, for pure, wholesome, refreshing local idiocy we have the Maine Republicans' brilliant plan to make us forget the screwing we're getting from Exxon by canceling the state gasoline tax for a few months and (this is really too perfect for me to have made up) forgiving the sales tax on home heating oil (struggling, low wage, two-job homeowners get ready for this!) for business use.
OK. I'm done. Gotta go wax the yacht and wind my Rolex. Jesus, I wish I could be homeless and eat some donated food in Texas while my wife rots in a drainage canal and my dogs starve to death on the balcony of our ruined home
Chris Cooper writes an editorial page column, Fixtures And Forces And Friends for the Wiscasset [Maine] Newspaper. Contact him at ckc2@prexar.com.
I love you Jim Kaat. Thank you for another year of great baseball analysis. Thank you for speaking your mind, and always keeping your mind on the game. Thank you for not being a YES man. Thank you for being a voice of reason and honesty, for pointing out the unusual or un-noticed, the unworthy and the under-appreciated. Thank you for your class and respect of the game. Thank you for making my Yankee viewing a much more enjoyable experience.
Can't wait to hear you next season.
I was a bratty little sister. Whenever my sister, who's 4 years old than me, would bring friends over, I would be totally obnoxious, never leaving them alone. Especially if there were guys there. Oh how I would prance around and try to get their attention. Despite that, my sister was very cool with me. So when she got the invite to a reunion of the old crowd, she totally let me tag along. Just like the old days.
There were some people I had known only by reputation. And there were some people I wouldn't have recognized in a million years. But there were many familiar faces it was great to see, and hang out with again. This time though, I tried to keep my prancing to a minimum. It was kinda a kick for me, many of these people hadn't seen me in years and years and well, I'm all grown up now.
Out of all the people there, there was one person whom I was really glad to see. It was the brother of Frank, one of my 4 loves. I hadn't seen Joe since Frankie's wake nine years ago. It was good to see him and see that he's doing well.
A few observations:
Many of these people are married to their junior high & high school sweethearts. Which blows my mind to think that they've been with the same person since they were teenagers. On so many different levels, I have a hard time grasping that concept. I've gone through so many changes in my life, re-invented myself on some many occaisions, I wonder how do these couples manage to change, grow and stay together? I'm not the same person I was at 18, how could I be with the same person?
Quite a few of the couples were high school sweethearts, went their separate ways, and now have gotten back together. That I could deal with. OK, so I'm a sucker for a happy ending.
So the new tv season has begun and I'm still tivo-less due the ass-backwards nature of the co. that is responsible for the direct tv in my building. But my tivo-less-ness is not really the problem. My dilema is that I'm a huge Yankee/baseball fan who's team is heavily involved in a pennant race where every game is do or die. And then there's the postseason (whether my team is in or not). It's pretty much basebal, baseball and more baseball on the tube for me right now. So when am I supposed to watch all these shows? I guess I could tape them but still the question remains when am I supposed to watch them? November perhaps? I did manage to tear myself away from the Yankees to watch "How I Met Your Mother" which was OK. I really can't stand it when a show has a laugh track. But it did seem to have a bit of originality, which in today's vapid wasteland of network tv is always welcome. I can't watch the new season of Lost because netflix fucked with me and I still haven't seen season 1 yet. Which is what happens when you're busy watching baseball when the new tv season starts.
Just a quick post before the day's daily dose of insanity begins:
Last night I dreamt I went to visit Heather, Jon & Leta in Dooceland. I showed up without warning and they were lovely, gracious people, welcoming me into their home after I told I them I was a daily Dooce reader and just had to meet them.
How frigging weird is that? Not that they were lovely, gracious people but that I'm dreaming about someone who's blog I read? It makes me think.... I feel like I know so much about these people and who they are and yet I've never met them, had a conversation or even an email exchange.
Back to work and the ensuing craziness.
In addition to hating my job and colleagues I also hate David Caruso. With a passion. He is one of the ugliest, no-talented, stupid assed actors to ever, ever, EVER be on the screen. Yes, it's safe to assume I won't be watching CSI Miami any time soon. Just thinking about David Caruso makes me want to puke.
BIG BIG SHOUT OUT to #18 Bubba Crosby. GW, WO HR!!
That's all I want to say to my co-worker's today. Especially YOU the one that calls in sick only on Mondays. I mean, jeez, how fucking obvious is that? What are the chances that in the 2 1/2 years you've worked here you have not gotten sick on a Tues or Wed?
So listen Mr. DJ, let those records play, 'cause I'm having such a good time, dancing with my baby....
I grew up listening to the radio. In my younger days it was the AM stations and as I got older, and more diversified in my musical tastes, I switched over to FM. Specifically PLJ and then NEW-FM. 102.7 where rock lives. loved the station, the music it played and the on-air talent. Pete Fornatele, Vin Scelsa, Pat. St. John, Tony Pigg, Carol Miller... just to name a few.
Well those glory days are gone and now commercial radio in NYC sucks. One of my salvations is WFUV, the station of Fordham University. Especially on Saturudays when FUV has Pete Fornatele & Vin Scelsa. And this Sat. afternoon Pete is welcoming Dave Herman, who was the long-time host of the NEW morning show. So don't call me between 6-7pm 'cause I'll have my ears glued to the radio. C'MON DAVE HERMAN, PLAY US SOME ROCK & ROLL.
This is one of those email quizzes; do guys get them too or is it just us chicks?
1. First name: Lisa
2. Were you named after anyone? Great-grandmother Leah
3. Are you satisfied with your life where it is now? Some aspects yes, others no
4. When did you last cry? Last week
5. Do you like your handwriting? Yes
6. What is your favorite lunch meat? Smoked turkey
7. Do you have a close friend? Yes
8. What is your favorite movie? Almost Famous
9. If you were another person would you be friends with you? No. I am so mean
10. Do you have a journal? I have a blog
11. Do you use sarcasm a lot? Excessively
12. Would you bungee jump? Hell! No!
13. What is your favorite cereal? Frosted Flakes
14. Do you untie your shoes when you take them off? No
15. Do you think that you are strong? Physically – no. Mentally – yes.
16. What is your favorite ice cream flavor? If I ate ice cream, it would definitely be chubby hubby or some such Ben & Jerry flavor
17. Shoe Size? 8.5
18. Red or Pink? Love the pink.
19. What is your least favorite thing about yourself? Too many too list here
20 Who do you miss most? Liz & my parents
21. Do you want everyone you send this to, to send it back? Of course
22. What color pants and shoes are you wearing? olive green pants/black sandals
23. Last thing you ate? Turkey bacon
24. What are you listening to right now? My not-an-ipod
25. If you were a crayon, what color would you be? Magenta
26. Favorite Smells: Honeysuckle
27. Last person you talked to on the phone? Some obnoxious client
28. The first thing you notice about the opposite sex? Eyes & smile
29. Do you like the person who sent this to you? Very much.
30. Favorite Drink? Mojito
31. Favorite Sport? Baseball
32. Hair Color? Dark brown (need to change that soon)
33. Eye Color? Brown
34. Do you wear contacts? Glasses
35. Favorite Food? Mexican
36. Scary Movies Or Happy Endings? I’m a sucker for a happy endings
37. Last Movie You Watched? The Astriocrats
38. Favorite Day Of The Year? Opening Day
39. Summer or winter? Summer
40. Hugs or Kisses? Both
41. Favorite Dessert? Not that into dessert right now
42. What books are you reading? Too tired to read right now
43. What's On Your Mouse Pad? Grand Central Terminal
44. What Did You Watch Last night on TV? Yankee game
45. Favorite Sounds? Surf pounding on the beach
46. Rolling Stones or Beatles? Beatles
47. What's the furthest you've been from home? Hawaii
48. Do you have a special talent? Yes, but I’m not saying what it is!
but I'm too caught up in the Yankee game right now: Yanks up 7-5 over the DRays in the 8th. What amazes me is the Devil Rays actually have fans. There are actual people inside the stadium screaming let's go rays. The only place the Rays are going is home when the season ends in a couple of weeks. Hopefully the Yanks will not be joining them.
A few years ago a friend and I came up with the run bank. You know when your team scores a bazillion runs in one game (i.e. today for the Yanks) -- and you think too bad we can't put some of the those runs away for another game? Well, that's what the run bank is all about. Of course there would have to be some rules -- keep in mind this is still a work in progress -- one rule could be if you put 5 runs in the run bank but then the other team comes back -- you wouldn't be able to take those runs out in that game. And there has to be a limit on how many you could take out at one time (and you could only take runs out once in a game). And when you could put them in and take them out. You see where I'm going with this internet.
It's a revolutionary idea whose time has come!! Bud Selig are you paying attention?
I LIVE FOR THIS!
I had the most yummy muffin yesterday from my local muffin place. I'm not normally a muffin gal but yesterday seemed like a muffin kinda day. I was quite pleased with my choice: vanilla chocolate chip. Umm, Ummm, Muffin Goodness! To the highest degree.
In other news, an exciting weekend of baseball with the Yanks taking 2 of 3 from the Red Sucks, oops, I mean Red Sox. Yesterdays game was a dandy, a real fine pitchers duel, with the Yanks coming out on top 1-0. Every pitch meant something. Now we have to go and WIN every game for the rest of the season. Starting with a sweep of Tampa Bay Devil Dogs. They've given us a hard time all season (who the hell could figure that) and these games are a must for us. Especially with Cleveland playing as well as they have been, and Oakland right on our heels. Plus Cleveland & Oakland are playing each other this week, so one of them is definitely going to gain some ground.
Gonna be an interesting 3 weeks.
My world changed the minute she walked into the room.
Physically she was everything I was not: tall, skinny, long beautiful hair, an amazing beauty with a smile that lit up the planet. She was from California, which made her exotic in my Bronx born and bred world. Her name was Elizabeth Ann Pyles.
We became instant friends in only the way 13 year olds can. And we remained best friends despite the miles between us, husbands, lovers, kids and cancer. And when she died at age 24 on Sept. 10th, 1987 my world changed again.
All these years later I still miss her so much. She is never far from my thoughts and always in my heart.
Only 3 weeks left to the 2005 baseball season and not having much fun right now. If the frigging Yanks do not make it into the postseason it will be because they fucking couldn't beat the suck-ass lowly Devil Rays this year.
I'm totally mired in 7th place (out of 8) in my fantasy baseball league. I really don't give a crap about it anymore but still... I had higher expectations for myself. As always, I was decimated by injuries at times(Alou, Lopez, Hafner, A. Ramirez just to name a few) and a couple of really bad draft picks (Hello Mauer, Guzman et al). But I have a KICK ASS pitching staff (Hudson, C. Zambrano, Lee, Willis & up until the cameraman incident Kenny Rogers). It just goes to show you in fantasy baseball good hitting will beat good pitching.
HUGE series this weekend, Yanks v. Red Sox. Yanks are 4 games out of 1st, .5 game behind in the wild card. So close, yet so far away.
Seen on a t-shirt today: Birth, School, Work, Death
I think laundry should be added to that.
I had every intention of heading for the pool to enjoy this beautiful Sept. day but alas, I cannnot find my key to get into the pool. While I was searching for key I discovered amazing amounts of dust and other crap have accumulated so I wound up cleaning my apt. Then I decided to do some of the huge amounts of work I brought home with me and then I just had to watch some Six Feet Under... so now it's 5:16 pm and I barely left the house, much less enjoyed the sunshine. And I still didn't find the key....
Went to the Ives Center in Danbury, CT to see Todd and also, Hall & Oates. Went with my sister, who although knew I was there to see Todd, wanted to chat during his entire performance. Um, HELLO! Todd is on. Also realized this is silver anniversary with Todd, I saw my first Todd show in 1980, in Central Park. Anyway, we stayed for most of the Hall & Oates show but headed out before the show ended.
Celebrated my BF's husband 40th birthday yesterday (that's best friend, not boyfriend, for those of you not paying attention). This wasnt his real party, she's throwing his a surpise party next week, this party was just a FAUX birthday party so he wouldn't get suspicious why we weren't celebrating his birthday. Well, real or not we had a real good time, enjoying the deliciousness of Jay's bbq-ing abilites and his vodka laced watermelon.
Now I must go find that damn key...
Give till it hurts people!
• American Red Cross, 800-HELP NOW (435-7669) English, 800-257-7575 Spanish.
• Operation Blessing, 800-436-6348.
• America's Second Harvest, 800-344-8070.
• Adventist Community Services, 800-381-7171.
• Catholic Charities, USA, 703-549-1390.
• Christian Disaster Response, 941-956-5183 or 941-551-9554.
• Christian Reformed World Relief Committee, 800-848-5818.
• Church World Service, 800-297-1516.
• Convoy of Hope, 417-823-8998.
• Lutheran Disaster Response, 800-638-3522.
• Mennonite Disaster Service, 717-859-2210.
• Nazarene Disaster Response, 888-256-5886.
• Presbyterian Disaster Assistance, 800-872-3283.
• Salvation Army, 800-SAL-ARMY (725-2769).
• Southern Baptist Convention — Disaster Relief, 800-462-8657, ext. 6440.
• United Methodist Committee on Relief. 800-554-8583.
