In which I can't separate baseball and politics

Yesterday I was reading rumors about "WH Counsel Craig" and saw "WH Craig Counsell" and couldn't figure out what the W stands for.

Today I'm wondering how much Corey Hart's appendectomy cost relative to the "surtax" his salary would be subjected to by Obamacare...and if he would have gotten the surgery early enough--or if he (or his employer) would have had to pay for treatment in Bermuda--under the plan the Democrats are going to institute in September regardless of the will of the people. And probably without even knowing what the fuck the actual plan SAYS.

(I'm guessing normal people don't have these concerns. They just post on Facebook about how they're bored of hearing people talk about Obama/Congress. I'm starting to look forward to the gulag, just to get away from people who couldn't care less about living in a fascist dictatorship as long as there's something on TV and cute dresses at the mall.)

Random stuff.

Had a good time in Cooperstown, once we got there. Apparently I do not posess the ability to drive around scarps and drumlins in a hailstorm. The Hall of Fame was excellent (I enjoyed the Racing Sausages, the Hank Aaron exhibit, and the asterisk ball), and Monday morning the town had a Veteran's Day parade (which included some Canadians, although I don't know why because their float was in French) and a ceremony outside the VFW (which meets in an awesome 18th-century brick building) with a 21-gun salute.

In a fit of multiculturalism, we hit a Belgian craft brewery, and the beer was good. Was amused by an Obama tapper in the sample room. I suppose the brewery may not completely go out of business from Obama's business taxes, the cost of his increased business regulations, or even his special federal tax designed to diminish sales of their product, since they're wholly owned by a foreign company (were purchased by Duvel in 2002), but I found it ironic all the same.

Was a sunny cool day, so we took a long way back, and somewhere on I-81 between Birmingham and Syracuse we saw a big-ass painted plywood DRILL HERE DRILL NOW sign in a pasture. I really do feel right at home outside of the metro areas--except for driving where it's not flat--much like in OH and WI; it's really too bad Albany and NYC (and SYR, and BUF...) are taking the whole state down the shitter.

Unrelated...I've been reading a lot of software development blogs, so I may have something to say about that at some point. It's such a meritocratic field, and yet it's populated by so many Marxists...I don't understand, but I want to blame Linux.

Juxtaposition

Hrm.

No good news in
economic numbers

Brewers on brink of single-day sales record

Maybe someone can explain this to me, 'cause I got nothin'.

Oooh.

Wherever I end up, I'm coming back July 26 for the Bratwurst Bobblehead. *twitch*

Sigh.

It is impossible to listen to baseball and watch football simultaneously.

Good news, though. Sage Rosenfels starts today for Houston.

UPDATE:
Dear Sage,
The game lasts 60 minutes.*
Love,
Radish

Dear Gary and Reggie,
Thank you for taking some of the sting out of an otherwise shitty day.
Love,
Radish

* (The ball is oblong. The rest is theory.)

Heh.

Dear Corey,

Please stop swinging indiscriminately with RISP.

Love,
Radish

(The radio at work worked fairly well, except for the feedback from the EM field of the workstation on the other side of my cube and people bothering me every ten minutes for the score.)

WTF!

Brewers play 2 p.m. Wednesday. I have to work ('cause I'm all brainwashed by consumerism--remember, no woman actually works to put a roof over her own head! *mutter*). And the IT dept blocked the play-by-play feed in August.

Thursday looks better; Brewers at 5 and VP debate at 8.



Is it just me, or does it look like Wash U scheduled Bob Uecker's stunt double to fill in for Joe Biden?

Election season...

This would bother me if Pennsylvania wasn't up for grabs.

*

The AP seems confused

(What else is new?)

New York Mets' Oiliver Perez throws against the Milwaukee Brewers in the first inning of a baseball game at Shea Stadium on Sunday, Sept. 28, 2008


Milwaukee Brewers' Scott Olsen throws against the New York Mets in the first inning of baseball play at Shea Stadium on Sunday, Sept. 28, 2008

The second one is especially entertaining, as Scott Olsen's shirt very clearly says "Marlins."

Hell yeah.

I can bore all my nephews and all their children for the next forty years with the story of being there for Ryan Braun's first major league grand slam. WOO-HOO! "I was right behind home plate*, and seven innings after I was almost killed by a foul ball that left a dent in the wall by the press box..."**

I wonder if I could get a poster of that photo. Or this one.

*On the second level, but who puts that sort of detail in a story for children about the olden times?
**It hit a couple of feet over my head as I was coming back with a snack. Maybe God's trying to tell me to lay off the bratwurst...

I spent 8 innings mentally planning a snarky "what recession?" post bitching about the two couples next to me who spent 9 innings talking about their children and their remodeling and not only not paying a whit of attention to the game--who drops $100/couple to have a conversation you could have at any Starbucks for under $10? Is this one of those "married people things" I'm not allowed to understand??--but being audibly annoyed at people clapping, cheering, and going for beer (also, ladies, if you don't want to get beer on your toes, don't wear flip-flops to the baseball game). But this is a lot better.

Alright.

I'm going to go watch Yovani Gallardo (wow!) pitch tonight, before the Götterdämmerung kicks off this weekend. Nice of 'em to schedule it for the Colts' bye week. *mutter*

Good grief.

When you get ejected from an NCAA game, you're not allowed to play in the next week's game.

Which saves Gene Chizek the trouble of suspending the moron/asshole who tackled the UNLV running back who scored the first touchdown tonight AFTER he had handed the ball back to the officials. *boggle* Yo, Nebraska is thataway. And it's not like ISU needs hundreds of penalty yards to get humiliated. Our new punter seems good though. *sigh*

Maybe he heard there were New England Patriots scouts in attendance.

(Unrelated, the Brewers sent me e-mail telling me I did not win a chance to purchase post-season tickets. I feel strangely unaffected by this news.)

Aaaargh.

May the fleas of a thousand camels infest Derrek Lee's jockstrap.

And all the rest of 'em.

Corey Hart

And thank God for Gabe Kapler, because if the Brewers had ended the day with no hits I would have had to burn the new shirt I wore to the game.

Bah!

The Brewers have finally passed whatever threshhold was necessary for someone to pay the licensing fee to MLB to print Brewers fabric for the "home sewer." But only the ag-history-referencing, completely unintuitive wheat logo. Cubs fans have three different styles of polyester fleece to choose from.

And MLB still won't license cotton fabric.

This can't be good.

Whatever they're shootin' Fielder up with to counteract the soy estrogens, maybe they should cut back some.

*srednop*

UPDATE: Fielder apologizes.

Thoughts on the Milwaukee Massacre

The Iowa State Cyclones Football page at Wikipedia contains no information at all about 1979-1994. For good reason (representative sample...I tried to find a reference to the 1991 Sports Illustrated cover that named ISU the "worst football team in NCAA history" but Google sucks).

When I lived in Indianapolis, I would joke that Iowa State was a good preparation for watching the Colts. I wasn't really joking, but since no one this side of the M'sippi had ever heard of Iowa State (thank you, Larry Eustachy *spit*), they just laughed.

So...yeah. I should have known not to expect too much from perennial lovable losers when I move to town. Not sure what happened the past few weeks.

The usual coping mechanism is to wait for the next season to start--chanting "Sweet 16" at the Hawkeyes, that sort of thing. Jim Sorgi's big day is Sunday already!

It's Friday, I'm in love

I haven't had my coffee, and I'm already twitching close to my resonant frequency. Stand clear, this could get messy...

Training camp starts today!! Football!! FOOTBALL!!!!! (I think the only guy in the "arriving to camp" photos that I recognize without his helmet on is Vinatieri.)

Mulder and Scully are back today!! Die Wahrheit ist da draußen! I've got seven geeks from the office going with me tonight to scoop me up after the movie and make sure I get home. Heh.

ZOMG, the Brewers. I know I'm technically a bandwagon fan since I didn't start following them until they were good (which just happened to coincide with the first complete season I lived here, does that remove the stigma?), but except for a few dark weeks in May, they've been amazing to watch. Er, listen to on the radio.

The only metaphoric pebble in my shoe? A temporary crown from yesterday's root canal prevents me from eating Milk Duds at the movie tonight. Otherwise I'd be squealing like my niece when she opened the box containing a Sparkly Cotton-Candy Dora the Explorer doll.

Biting sarcasm will return Monday.