Commentary
Posts where you might imagine me standing upon a soapbox being pelted by fruit. Like before there were internets.
Manny being manipulated
That’s the title of a Bill Simmons e-ticket on espn.com. It is a long read and well worth it if you are Manny fan, but especially if you are no longer because of his exit behavior. I found I was shaking my head in agreement a lot as I read this today. A lot.
You might remember that I posted about missing Manny not too long ago, but this reinforced my thinking about it after it was shaken a bit by Schilling’s comments. I should have known better than to let that (now) useless blowhard shake by belief with the idea he might have brought new information to the table. I resisted posting when he inserted himself into the news for a few days a few weeks ago, less we forget he exists. After reading this new piece, I can’t help but comment about that too. Fact is, 38pitches and others... Continue reading »
Remember remember
Appropriate title for something I intended to do yesterday, but did not. I wanted to post a short aside pointing you at what I, and others, wrote last year on nine-eleven. That we should remember what happened that day seven years ago. I know we all do, it just seems like every year it becomes more and more like a regular September day again and that shouldn’t be so, yet like most things, it happens like that. Things fade with time. This shouldn’t.
Anyway, by the time I got home from work, I didn’t remember to do it, but a visit to my feeds led me to The Ed Zone which reminded me again. So, I encourage you to read my post — and the comments on it — along with the repost, or really date-posted move, by Ed for his post. Of course, by doing so he broke the link I had back to it from the comments. So, I fixed that, but you can also just click this one here.
Missing Manny
Yeah, I said it. I miss Manny.
I don’t undertand why Manny had to be traded. I really don’t. I know that most of the Nation is glad he is gone, but I must ask… why?
Why would you want to give up one of the greatest righthanded hitters of all time? A first ballot Hall of Famer? The ultimate protection for Big Papi? Pay seven million dollars to the Dodgers just to take him and two prospects to Pittsburgh to get Jason Bay in return?
Okay, Craig Hansen you can have — for now, unless he works out his command — but by all accounts, Brandon Moss was a good, young outfield prospect. Was he going to be next year’s starting left fielder? No, but he’s a quality fourth outfielder. The seven million? Well, ain’t... Continue reading »
RRoD
+2
Another one bites the dust.
At first, I thought The Simpsons Game was just glitching when Lisa blew a Saxophone attack and Marge was coming back to health. Then, it froze again on another big, loud event a minute after I started playing again. That was an exploding car. The third time happened about 10 seconds after I fired it up. The fourth power on was greeted with the Red Ring of Death.
Apparently this animal is not in danger of extinction.
Now, the current system was *manufactured* on 2007-08-23, therefore it has the older 90nm Zephyr chipset. It was the replacement for my first Red-ringed 360 last Fall. I have no idea what will be sent back this time, so tomorrow, I am going out to buy a Xbox 360 Arcade system. No, I am not playing GTA IV, I am playing The Simpsons Game (the one that revolves around Marge’s quest against an Itchy and Scratchy game of the same genre 😉 ) and Army of Two (with Ed) at the moment, but I am not waiting 3-4 weeks for a replacement... Continue reading »
Triple priced
So, the MBTA Transit Police charged Sheila $15 for taking up two parking spaces today.
Lemme do the math here… if it costs $5 for a spot for the day, and two are taken, that’s $10 and not $20, right?
I was over the lines in my spot because the truck next to me was over his lines, go figure. I’m sure they saw that. Not. I hope that guy got a ticket too. He was gone before I got back tonight. Anyway, this markup is sorta crap. At worst, I cost the MBTA five dollars in lost revenue today. It’s not like I was in a metered, handicap or fire lane spot, I was over the lines. I know, I’m complaining, really, over ten bucks. I don’t actually care, but I’m in a ranting mood, so what the heck.
Oh, who’s Sheila you ask? Well, obviously that’s the name of my truck. Yeah, I named her Sheila, despite the slightly disturbing thought that it puts in my head about a pizza delivery ape… he of the gold-digging-ex-wife-named-Sheila fame. The only woman who’d ever think a pizza delivery ape — honestly, a term of... Continue reading »
Blu-ray wins
So, did everyone that doesn’t own a HD DVD or Blu-ray player yawn like I did?
Toshiba blinked and conceded defeat in the HD optical disc format war today. This wasn’t that big a surprise I guess, although, it still shows that Sony has some weight left to throw around. That said, Sony just ended up on the winning side this time. After all, they lost on Betamax, DAT and MiniDisc. Wow, that’s three failed formats before producing another winner.
Okay, okay… they partnered with Phillips to produce the CD in there somewhere, but those same partners did lose out to Toshiba and others on the DVD front. I guess they turned the tables this time, but failed to avoid the format war that DVD did.
Yeah, shocking… I actually did a little wikipedia research for this one. I thought they were also the Laserdisc losers, but no, they didn’t invent that one either. Glad I checked my facts. I don’t want to be an interwebs fool.
Too late! 
Continue reading »
Creativity on strike
As you no doubt know by now, the folks responsible for the somewhat fine writing on television and film went on strike yesterday. Now we can wait for an inundation of reality TV to fill in throughout the strike once the nets no longer have any first run shows left and need a non-rerun ratings grab.
To me, there’s a positive and a negative here. The positive is I am hoping that the flood of reality shows kills the genre. I am hoping that once America is supersaturated with this crap, they will turn their backs on it. Yeah, I’m probably hoping for too much…
The negative is this may adversely impact the few shows I still watch. (I’ll have a post about this soon.) The biggest being my favorite show Scrubs. As noted in an E! Online News story about the strike, this already shortened season show (and still not filmed in HD!!!) is eight episodes short in completion. Should the strike drag on too this series may not get the ... Continue reading »
Feeling unpatriotic
Now that I am done feeling patriotic, it is time to express my unpatriotic feelings.
Oh, don’t worry, this is directed towards the New England Patriots. In fact, my patriotic feelings were originally a tangent within this post, but I busted them out on their own, where they belong. Also, I got down this path both because of the news, but also because Jason posted about both the Pats and 9/11 today, so read them.
Even without all this prompting, I already wanted to comment on the Rodney Harrison/HGH thing, but had been delaying it to see how things went this past Sunday. Yesterday we thought they just creamed the J-E-T-S, but today the NFL thinks it was less game plan and... Continue reading »
Feeling patriotic
I feel like I am an everyday patriot, but I am not sure what that really means.
I am mindful of our democracy and all that brings us. I am sorry for those everyday folks and heroes that lost their lives six years ago. I am sorry for the families left behind.
I appreciate our troops for serving our country and putting themselves in harm’s way. I am sorry that I don’t agree with the cause that is costing some of them their lives. I am sorry that I will not go into detail on why I don’t agree.
I am not a political person and I don’t want to play one on these interwebs. In fact, I started rambling on about it not being worth saving a buck on gasoline and why does W feel the need to make up for his daddy’s mistake? Yeah, I started down that path and I just deleted it out of here.
It doesn’t matter.
What does matter is that I remember what happened six years ago.
I remember almost everything about that day and how I felt. The initial shock of hearing what happened just as I got into work in Boston after getting... Continue reading »
Posts ::
Sun :: 02 :: Nov :: 2008 :: 07.29 pm
Categorized:
Commentary
Tagged:
Alex Ross
Commented:
4 times
Barack the vote
I am not a political person in the least and I make it a habit not to comment about it too much here because it is so polarizing sometimes and yeah, I don’t have the energy for debate. That said, I have to say something now. I think this election is probably the most important since I have been of age to vote and I’d like to see that everyone gets their say.
My choice has nothing to do with your say either. As I said, I just want you to vote. If you are registered, you owe it to everyone in this country to vote in this election. I will even allow you to waste it on Nader or someone not named McCain or Obama. Just vote.
At the local level, let’s make sure we save the pups and don’t legalize it. That said, if McCain wins, can we vote again and legalize it? If he wins, I think I might prefer being in a haze. Either that or I... Continue reading »