What Happens In Henderson

Layoff notice

2009-08-20T00:17:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm back in Vegas. We left Minnesota on Monday a.m. and pulled into town Wednesday at 10 p.m., with stops in Kansas City and Frisco, Colo., along the way. I knew we were getting close to "home" when I saw a billboard featuring an AK-47, pimping a local establishment where you can go and fire said weapon. As we neared the Strip, the billboards flying past my face became even more symbolic of this den of iniquity -- beer, adult superstores, personal injury lawyers. Add it all up, and nothing says Vegas quite like deadly weapons, alcohol, sex, and frivolous lawsuits.

Which leads me to my next point. This blog might be in for a name change, because our future in Henderson is currently in doubt. Kris returned to Vegas in early August, two weeks ahead of the rest of the family, to get back to work. The next day, she was laid off.

I can't remember who I've told about this, either in person, over the phone, via e-mail or Facebook, etc., so I'm just putting it down in this blog post and asking you all to keep us in your thoughts. We've got a few months to work with thanks to severance and unused PTO, but in this job market, you never know how quickly things will move.

Actually, I'm far less concerned with my wife finding suitable employment than I am with selling our house in this foreclosure-saturated market. Talented people don't stay unemployed for long, and Kris is the most talented person I know, so I'm fully confident she'll find something even better soon enough.

But her job was the reason we came to Vegas, and even after four years, it's pretty much the only thing tying us here. Sure, we've made some good (great!) friends, gotten involved in our church, found a wonderful school for our kids, and enjoyed the mild winters. But when we look at what we truly value, it's pretty clear that we're ready for a return to Minnesota.

We're not in the position to be terribly picky right now, of course, so we're exploring opportunities in all major metropolitan areas (major-league sports is a must this time around, so I can jump-start my sports reporting career). Still, the Twin Cities offer all of the tangible benefits we're looking for (proximity to family and friends, pro and college sports, good schools, summers that don't reach 115 degrees for three months, lakes, biking trails, a vibrant arts/music scene) and the one intangible that Vegas never seemed to represent to us: Minnesota is home. It just is.

We're never going to regret moving here. It's been a wonderful four years in so many ways. Kris learned a lot and gained invaluable experience in her career. We've learned a lot about ourselves, our values, and what family means to us (both extended and nuclear). I wrote my first book here. I started my first blog here. Our beloved cat, Twilight, lived out the last of his 16 years in the warm, dry air here, prowling our fenced-in back yard with a freedom he'd never experienced before. I completed my first triathlon here. Fiona became a soccer star here. Nora lost her first tooth here. Kris started running half-marathons and also completed her first triathlon here.

No regrets. It's been a great run. But change is in the air. We'll keep you all posted.

Almost perfect

2009-07-29T11:47:00.001-07:00

From ESPN's Buster Olney:

"There are still weeks to go in the pennant race, there are pennant races and World Series games to come, but there will not be a better moment this year thanks to Mark Buehrle and the good folks in the Metrodome on Tuesday night."

Tip of the hat to Buehrle, and to Twins fans who, like the rest of their Minnesota brethren, can often be a provincial bunch. Last night, they showed that they get it and can be classy when they want to be. Kudos all around.

TBBBC Book 4 review

2009-07-27T14:36:00.000-07:00

We're four months into the baseball season, and I'm four books into my summer-long one-man book club. July's book of the month was The Soul of Baseball: A Road Trip Through Buck O'Neil's America by Joe Posnanski.

Most baseball fans know the story of O'Neil, a former Negro Leagues player and manager who was the first black man to coach in the Major Leagues. Of course, he could have played in the bigs if not for the rampant racism that stained the game through the late 1940s when Jackie Robinson broke the color barier, and he could have managed in the bigs if not for the still problematic racism that stained the game through the mid-1970s when Frank Robinson shattered that glass ceiling.

But O'Neil carried on and became one of baseball's greatest ambassadors and the most notable historian of the Negro Leagues. He came to national prominence when his commentary was featured heavily in Ken Burns' baseball documentary that aired on PBS in 1994.

Posnanski, a Kansas City Star columnist, got to know O'Neil over the years and always thought there was a book waiting to be written about O'Neil and the Negro Leagues, but he never could figure out just how to approach it. Finally, he came to the realization that spending a year traveling the country with the great story-teller would be the best way to capture the essence of the man.

And I'd have to say, he was right. There are so many lessons to learn from Buck O'Neil. I've always been amazed that he wasn't bitter, because he had so many reasons to be. He was kept from doing the one thing that he most loved to do because of "my beautiful tan," as he liked to put it. But O'Neil lived his life 180 degrees from bitter. I think this book gets to the heart of that question.

I won't spoil it for those who want to read the book, but basically, O'Neil wasn't bitter because he got to play baseball, travel the countryside and befriend literally thousands of people whom he wouldn't have met if not for the Negro Leagues. He didn't view the league as sub-standard or a lower level of the game. It was different, yes, and the accommodations weren't as nice, but he also was given the opportunity to experience joys he wouldn't have likely seen in the bigs. For example, he tells the story of the time he and Duke Ellington entered a jazz club on 18th and Vine in Kansas City (now the home of the Negro Leagues museum, his great passion in his post-retirement life) and stumbled upon a kid playing the saxophone like he'd never heard it played before. Turns out the kid was Charlie "Bird" Parker, one of the greatest musicians of the 20th century.

"People feel sorry for me," he said. "Man, I heard Charlie Parker!"

O'Neil's life is an object lesson in appreciating what you have, which is different than just blind optimism. O'Neil was no pollyanna. He saw the dark side of life and understood it for what it was -- hatred. That's a word that comes up a lot in this book. O'Neil often said racism comes directly from hatred, and bitterness comes from the same source.

"Where does bitterness take you?" he said when asked about how he can avoid being bitter. "To a broken heart? To an early grave? When I die, I want to die from natural causes, not from hate eating me up from the inside."

O'Neil approached the changes in the game the same way. Throughout their journey, he and Posnanski ran into many people who said they were disillusioned by the big salaries and ticket prices, the steroids, the superstar attitudes that they say have changed the game. But his response was always the same: "It hasn't changed," he told an older fan who said he hadn't been to a game in years. "We've changed. We got older. You ought to go see a game. You're a baseball fan, man. Do your heart good. Help you get young."

The point being, there's always an upside, and the game is bigger than all the petty problems that crop up in every era. The game survives. The human race survives. And life is good.

One of the blurbs in the book compares it to Mitch Albom's Tuesdays With Morrie, and I'll admit that when I read that blurb I shuddered a bit. But then I remembered my initial reaction to Tuesdays. I loved it. I blubbered like a baby. It changed my attitude about life, for a while at least. It stayed with me. I think the backlash came only after Albom's succeeding books proved him to be something of a one-trick pony. You couldn't hlep but wonder how much he gilded the lily in his story of Morrie, given that the rest of his books were couched in so much overwrought schlock.

So I guess if Posnanski follows The Soul of Baseball with a string of books about one-eyed Olympic archers who run three marathons a month to raise money for Costa Rican orphans, maybe I'll re-think this review. But The Soul of Baseball hit me hard, right where I needed it. It'll stay with me. And the lesson of Buck O'Neil will help me the next time I'm feeling sorry for myself.

TBBBC rating: 5 fungoes (out of 5)

Now batting: The Dixie Association (Voice of the South) by David Hays

On deck: October 1964 by David Halberstam

See also:

TBBBC Book 3 review, Crazy 'o8
TBBBC Book 2 review, The Entitled
TBBBC Book 1 review, The Last Real Season

Day 3: Boogie wonderland

2009-07-09T21:59:00.000-07:00

We're here. The cross-country trek, or at least the first half of it, is over. Will I have the energy to blog the return trip in late August? Hard to say, but this has been a pretty fun way of capturing some memories.

Today we awoke in Council Bluffs, packed up and headed out for some brunch. Naturally, my Midwestern instincts kicked in and brought us to the nearest Perkins, where we feasted on omelets, pancakes, french toast, fresh fruit and so-so coffee. Needing a stronger caffeine kick for the final leg of our relay, we began a search for a coffee shop.

Well, here in the heartland, or at least in Iowa, you won't find a Starbucks on every street corner like you might in a major metropolitan area. In fact, Fiona related the hard lesson she'd learned as we cruised along the highway near the river: "They've got all these casinos here but no Starbucks?"

Eventually I spotted a sign for Western Iowa Community College, and we quickly did the math: college students = need for caffeine. We still didn't find a Starbucks, but we did come across a quaint mom-and-pop-and-dog joint called the Coffee Stop that had everything we wanted: coffee and wi-fi. Plus Nora got to play with the dog while Fiona and I checked e-mail, so everybody won.

Later on the road, Nora notified me that a pit stop for bathroom-related reasons was relatively urgent, so we pulled off at the next exit in search of a gas station. Five minutes later, as we were nearing the lavatorial oasis, came the Backseat Exchange of the Day:

Nora: "Dad, I really have to go. I'm dancing back here!"
Dad: "I know, I know. We're almost there."
Nora: "Well, can I at least have some music to go with my dancing?"

Stifling my laughter, I turned off the audiobook I was enjoying and cranked up a CD for my dancing daughter.

North of Des Moines, Fiona surveyed the landscape and let loose a contented sigh. "I know we're not in Minnesota yet, but this just looks like home to me."

Amen, sister. And here we are.

Day 2: A logical progression

2009-07-09T10:43:00.000-07:00

Sorry today's update is late -- the hotel in Council Bluffs last night had a crappy wifi setup -- pay $6.95 for 24 hours of access and the web site granting said access didn't work. So here we are.

Also, I misplaced the cord that connects the camera to the computer, so I can't upload today's photos. Some pretty good shots of Nora in there -- she put on an Austin Powers-type show with a series of wacky facial expressions on camera. Not funny faces, mind you -- these were complex, well-planned visages on her part.

We covered the second half of Colorado (Vail to the border) and all of Nebraska today, hitting Council Bluffs at 11 p.m. local time. I have to say, Colorado is a big state. Once you get past Denver you think you're through with it, and then you're driving for about another week. Everything east of Denver should just be named Coloraska, because it's virtually indistinguishable from the Great Plains. I can only imagine what the first Anglo settlers in the region must have thought once they saw the Rockies for the first time. "They told me the earth wasn't flat but I was starting to doubt it until now."

That stretch of the drive did produce the Day 2 Backseat Exchange of the Day:

Fiona: "Ugh, what stinks? It smells like poop!"
Dad: "Well, we are in farm country now ..."
Nora: "I tooted."
Dad: "... or there's that."

We got more than our share of foul farmland odors on the drive through Nebraska, but I'm not complaining -- it's just good to be back in the Midwest.

Also, I saw quite possibly the stupidest sign ever on the side of the road in eastern Colorado: "Gov. Ritter Welcomes You to TAXORADO"

This is an epic FAIL for a couple of reasons. One, it was in eastern Colorado, but faced an eastbound road, meaning everybody who could read it was actually leaving Colorado, not being "welcomed" into it. Turn your sign around, genius.

And two, you can't just throw "TAX" into any word and make the pun work. "Taxachusetts" works because "tax" and "mass" sort of rhyme, and of course Massachusetts has a long tradition of liberal politics, which naturally means "big tax bill" in the minds of most conservatives, whether it's true or not.

I'm not up to speed on the tax policies of the Colorado governor or how much impact he's had on the bottom line of Joe Colorado, but after living in the West for the last four years, I've got a pretty good idea of who the sign guy is: He calls himself a Libertarian, wants the damn gummint to get out of his life and let him keep everything that's his, but is the first guy to bitch when any government service doesn't work efficiently enough to suit his needs -- i.e., there's a pothole in front of his house so the DOT is corrupt, his kid's school didn't fare well in national testing so they're incompetent, not underfunded, etc.

I know our country has a rich history of tax protest, but if you bother to read your U.S. history, the colonists were protesting taxation without representation. These newfangled "tea parties" are filled with right-wing miscreants who have plenty of say in how their tax money is spent, via their elected officials. But go ahead and think you're a 21st Century Paul Revere when you call into Rush's show and call the President a monkey.

Wow, not sure how we got from here to there, but I promise to lighten things up the rest of the trip. Day 3 takes us through Iowa and into God's Country, so a trio of happy campers will report back tomorrow!

Day 1: A sight for sore butts

2009-07-08T00:38:00.000-07:00

Well, Day 1 of our journey back to Minnesota is in the books, but before I lay me down to sleep here in Avon, Colo., let's quickly review our big day.

We got off to a rousing start when I had to lock up my brakes no more than 10 minutes into the trip as some guy in front of me decided to nearly stop in the left lane of I-15 near the Strip. At least I know the brakes work fine.

We actually made it three blocks from home before Nora fired up the DVD player. She is a big fan of the Johnny Depp/Willie Wonka remake, so on Monday I picked up a copy of the original version for her, and she couldn't wait to watch it. She spent two hours calling out differences between the two movies ("This Violet Beauregard isn't as big as the other one!" -- which led to a discussion of CGI vs. old-fashioned special effects), and she enjoyed it so much that when she got the DVD player back two hours later, she watched Gene Wilder and the orange-faced Oompa-Loompas again.

Fiona watched a Harry Potter movie during her turn with the DVD player and mostly read or texted with one of her friends the rest of the way. She was also such a big help, volunteering to take Nora to the restroom at lunch and patiently helping her get set up with coloring or adjusting the blanket just so in the back seat. I was very proud of her positive, can-do attitude.

The highlight of the trip was this backseat exchange, about four hours into our drive.

Fiona: "Ugh, my butt hurts!"
Nora: "Everybody's butt hurts. Lift your butt up!"

I also enjoyed paying $2.84 a gallon at the Sinclair station in Salina, Utah. That's 20 cents more than I paid in Vegas before we left, mostly due to the fact that Salina is literally the last place you can buy gas for the next 111 miles. Luckily I drove the extra 300 feet to the Sinclair, rather than paying an extra nickel per gallon at the Shell station, which is literally the first thing you see after you get off the freeway exit. You won't catch me complaining too much though -- last year on the same trip we paid $4.59 a gallon at the same station. (Yes, I'm one of those nerds who jots down that kind of thing in a notebook that I keep in the glove box. So sue me.)

As evening fell, the full moon was our constant companion in the southern sky, and the temperature dipped a bit, too. When we left Vegas, the car's thermometer read 100. When we parked for the night here in Avon, it was 55. Crazy, but blissful as well.

See you tomorrow with more Tales of the Road from lovely Council Bluffs!

Words of wisdom

2009-07-06T23:19:00.001-07:00

I've had the occasion to meet Matt Birk a number of times. I wrote a couple of lengthy profiles on him for Viking Update and interviewed him for countless smaller stories, and I always walked away impressed with his compassion. He's smart, yes -- a Harvard grad and all -- and obviously a great athlete, or at least he gets paid to play a game and he plays it very well.

But Birk has always stood out for his desire to help other people. Some guys come across as phonies (hi, A-Rod!), while others talk a good game but if you do a little digging, there's no there there. Not Birk. Whether it's his HIKE Scholars program or his dedication to the Boys and Girls Club, Birk is the real deal. He walks the walk.

This week, Birk pinch-hit for Peter King on SI's Monday Morning Quarterback column, and it's nice to know that football fans around the country now know what I've known for the past seven or eight years, that Matt Birk is, once again, the real deal. He writes at length about the need for current players to stick up for retired NFL veterans who are struggling to make ends meet due to the catastrophic physical toll their bodies absorb during a life of football.

He also shows his sharp wit, common sense and even some family values that only a fellow father of young daughters can fully appreciate: "I am blessed to have three daughters. However, the older they get the less thrilled I am about cheerleaders at football games."

Check out the rest of the column, and check out the Baltimore Ravens' games this fall when Birk is showing the Vikings what a mistake they made by letting him go. And even if his body falls apart and Birk's best days are a distant memory, he's still got a lot to offer the game. I don't think he's particularly a political sort, but if he can stomach the in-fighting and back-stabbing, he'd make a great NFLPA president.

Review: Wilco (The Album)

2009-07-02T10:07:00.000-07:00

"Since Wilco unceremoniously dumped Jay Bennett after the recording of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, frontman Jeff Tweedy has continued in his attempt to carve out a unique identity for the band."

Click here to read the rest of my review of Wilco (The Album) in the latest issue of Las Vegas Weekly.

TBBBC Book 3 review

2009-07-01T22:59:00.000-07:00

Here comes your long-awaited TBBBC Book 3 review. In June, I read Crazy '08 -- How a Cast of Cranks, Rogues, Boneheads and Magnates Created the Greatest Year in Baseball History by Cait Murphy. I don't know too much about Murphy -- her bio in the book indicates that she's a big baseball fan, a trait passed down by her father, and she's an editor at a financial magazine. She's also obviously a history buff and she's created one of the finest odes to baseball that I've ever read.

Those rare baseball fans who are aware of the 1908 season most likely know of it because of the famed "Bonehead Merkle game," in which the New York Giants were denied a crucial late-season victory over the Chicago Cubs when rookie Fred Merkle failed to touch second base after what appeared to be a game-winning hit.

But as Murphy points out, 1908 was about so, so much more than that one game. As the subtitle indicates, she introduces us to quite the cast of characters along the way, and in doing so she brings to life old ballplayers who were to me little more than a list of names in the record book. Among the central figures of the 1908 season were John McGraw, Christy Matthewson, Joe Tinker, Johnny Evers, Frank Chance, Mordecai "Three-Finger" Brown, Honus Wagner, Ty Cobb, Addie Joss, Napoleon Lajoie, and even Cy Young himself.

The best part of this book was how she illustrated the story of the season with the backstories of these players' lives, their significance not only to 1908 but their entire careers. I also loved how she examined how baseball fit into the fabric of society at the time, why it captured the imagination of the post-industrial revolution country that was still coming to grips with the emergence of city life as the norm.

Murphy spins yarns about baseball, of course, but she also manages to educate the reader about the nascent labor movement, corrupt Chicago politics, race relations, anarchists, and why it's ludicrous to believe that Abner Doubleday invented baseball. And though she writes from the position of the studious academic -- the book includes a 21-page bibliography and 38 pages of citations and endnotes -- Murphy's voice is clear, lively and anything but stuffy. Anybody who wonders how baseball became the game we're watching in 2009 should give Crazy '08 a read.

TBBBC rating: 5 fungoes (out of 5)

Now batting: The Soul of Baseball by Joe Posnanski

On deck: The Dixie Association (Voice of the South) by David Hays

See also:

TBBBC Book 2 review, The Entitled
TBBBC Book 1 review, The Last Real Season

It's here

2009-07-01T22:56:00.001-07:00

My validation has arrived, in the form of a CBS Late Show mousepad.

He likes me! Dave really likes me!

2009-06-17T00:21:00.000-07:00

It's been a rough week for David Letterman. Oh yeah, he had that little kerfuffle with Alaska's Governess, but the media missed his biggest blunder ... he thinks I'm funny.

Well, maybe not Dave himself, but somebody on his staff -- probably an unpaid intern, or a junior associate assistant writer or maybe Alan Kalter. You see, the Late Show runs a weekly Top 10 contest in which it throws out a topic and lets its viewers suggest possible jokes for inclusion in a web-only Top 10. I've been doing this off and on for a couple years, sending in my lead balloons and imagining them falling flat in NYC.

But this week, the magic happened. I finally got noticed.

From the Top Ten Complaints of Jon and Kate's Kids

6. Cameras make potty training a bit awkward
Patrick D, Las Vegas, NV

Number 6! Not bad! Number 6 is one of the key mid-list jokes -- it has to have enough jazz to regain the attention of viewers who thought, "Hey, this might be kind of funny," but have grown bored after the first few jokes. And it has to be sharp enough to convince viewers they should stick with the bit the rest of the way.

Now that I've been discovered, I can only imagine the bounty that awaits -- book deals, standup gigs, my own HBO show? Or perhaps I'll just settle for a Late Show mousepad. Either way, it's good to be discovered.

Same song, second verse

2009-06-16T22:08:00.000-07:00

In 1998, Ensign was the first member of Nevada’s congressional delegation to call for President Bill Clinton’s resignation over his affair with Monica Lewinsky.

Speaking on the Senate floor in 2004, Ensign called for a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, saying, “Marriage is the cornerstone on which our society was founded.”

In 2007, Ensign was among the most prominent Republicans calling on Idaho Sen. Larry Craig to resign, calling Craig a “disgrace” for his arrest in an airport men’s restroom on disorderly conduct charges.

On Tuesday, Ensign indicated he would not step down, saying, “I am committed to my service in the United States Senate and my work on behalf of the people of Nevada.
Read on: Ensign admits affair with ex-campaign staffer

So here in Nevada, we've got a Republican governor and U.S. Senator who can't keep it in their pants when their wives aren't around, yet they are happy to tell you who you can and cannot have sex with or marry. God bless whoever invented hypocrisy ...

TBBBC Book 2 review

2009-06-01T22:30:00.000-07:00

Time for TBBBC Book 2 review. The May entry was Frank Deford's The Entitled, a Tale of Modern Baseball. It's a bit of a lofty title, but then again, Deford is a bit of a lofty writer. One of the true living legends of the sportswriting biz, Deford has dabbled in the fiction world before, most notably with Everybody's All-American, a tale of a college football hero's rough transition into the real world. And much as that book was about characters who happened to play football, The Entitled is another character study that just happens to be set in the world of Major League Baseball.

The two central figures in this book couldn't be more different. The protagonist is baseball lifer Howie Traveler, a guy who parlayed a minor-league baseball career into a comfortable life as a major league coach before finally landing his first managerial gig as the skipper of the Cleveland Indians. His star player is five-tool outfielder Jay Alcazar, a cosmopolitan celebrity athlete who seemingly has the world by the tail at every turn.

The drama centers on an incident that takes place in the first 20 pages -- as Traveler wearily returns to his hotel room, his job hanging by a thread after another string of listless play by his Indians, the door to Alcazar's room flies open. A woman appears to be struggling to leave, but the star player roughly yanks her back into the room and slams the door. Will Howie go to the police? Will he cover for his star player and use the situation to his advantage to save his job?

The rest of the book plays out in a series of flashbacks the tell the backstories of Howie and Jay, how they reached the point where their futures are indelibly intertwined, and a deeper examination reveals that each man is not quite what he seems to be on the surface.

Because Deford deals with real-life athletes in his A job, and because he uses actual MLB teams in the story, it's tempting to draw comparisons to the figures you see on ESPN and in the sports pages on a daily basis. Alcazar has a lot of A-Rod in him -- multi-talented on the field, an enigma off it, a man obsessed with his image and endorsements who doesn't really know who he is when you strip away the uniform and sportscars and mansions and designer sunglasses. The incident at the hotel has overtones of the Kobe/Colorado case, although sadly, it's probably even more common than we know.

Traveler reminds me of a cross between Tom Kelly and Joe Madden -- TK in that he had a cup of coffee in the majors before making it back to the bigs as a coach and manager, and Madden in that he didn't get his first shot a running a club until he was well into his 50s, so he swore to do it his way no matter how unconventional his methods appeared.

I found it to be a quick read -- lively prose, an engrossing story -- and Deford's characters are far from the one-dimensional stereotypes that we imagine professional athletes to be. If you're looking for a good beach novel this summer, The Entitled should work for you.

TBBBC rating: Four fungoes (out of five)

Now batting: Crazy '08 by Cait Murphy

On deck: The Soul of Baseball by Joe Posnanski

See also: TBBBC Book 1 review, The Last Real Season

Month of Mauer trumped by Tex?

2009-06-01T14:03:00.000-07:00

It's pretty much a given that Joe Mauer will get the AL Player of the Month award, right? I mean, he came back on May 1, so his season stats are his May stats -- .411 BA, .500 OBP, .838 SLG, 11 HR, 32 RBI, 1.338 OPS.

Not so fast my friend. The Yankees' Mark Teixiera had himself a good May -- .330 BA, .391 OBP, .748 SLG, 13 HR, 34 RBI, 1.138 OPS. Now, to most of us there's still no comparison -- yes, Tex had two more HR and two more RBI. But you know he has a chance, not just because of the East Coast bias but because of the Yankee bias.

MLB is desperate to get fans into those expensive seats at the new Stadium, and I believe they'll do anything to drum up positive publicity for the pinstripers. And given Teixiera's crummy April, there might be a few fans who assumed he was another free-agent bust and turned their attention elsewhere.

The Yankees are already playing a ton better -- No. 2 in the Yahoo! Power Rankings, a half-game up on the Red Sox in the East -- but giving Tex the AL Player of the Month would be something they could use in their marketing and ad campaigns as they try to sell tickets. So, if it happens, remember you heard it here first. Or, if you are in the greater NYC area, you probably heard it here first.

You just gotta love the self-absorption of the insulated Yankee media and fan base. Not even a mention of Mauer, or even Morneau, whose month rivaled Teixiera's. Then again, they probably know something we don't -- namely, that the Yankees always get their way. We'll see soon enough ...

Original conservative thought, and other myths

2009-05-30T21:19:00.001-07:00

You know those lame e-mails that miscreants send around about your favorite politicians? Those screeds filled with "facts" -- most of which are easily debunked -- that clog your inbox during election season? Of course you do. You probably got more than your share of them about Obama or McCain or Palin last fall. I even wrote about the phenomenon, and did a little research that indicated that Obama was the target of about six times as many false attacks as McCain in the accountability-free world of e-mail land.

I recently got another one of those screeds from one of my most reliable right-wing trolls, purporting to compare the "gaffes" of Obama's first 120 days with the record of one George W. Bush. You might have received this e-mail too. It's been posted repeatedly on right-wing websites and in online discussion forums the past week or two.

Well, apparently the editors of the Las Vegas Review-Journal don't get out much, or they don't have any right-wing friends, or they don't read right-wing political sites, because they just printed the very same comparison as a letter to the editor on Friday. Some local genius named Warren Willis Sr. did the old cut-and-paste thing and sent it almost verbatim to the R-J, and the paragons of journalistic virtue ran it as the top letter in Friday's editorial page.

I'm not even here to debate the content of the letter -- it points out some of Obama's inevitable and regrettable missteps, blows a few others out of proportion, but seems to endorse the idea that Bush's record of incompetence, corporate cronyism, fiscal malfeasance and utter disregard for the truth compares favorably to four months of Barack Obama in the White House.

My point is that either the R-J can't differentiate between a recycled e-mail rant and legitimate, original political criticism, or they didn't have anything better to run in its place. Either way, it's a sad statement on the journalistic ethics or competence of the R-J's editorial board and opinion page staff. Nice going, Sherm.

30 years

2009-05-24T15:46:00.000-07:00

Note: I posted this to all my cousins on Facebook today. I'm the second-oldest of 18 cousins on my dad's side, and I was 10 when my grandfather died on May 24, 1979. As such, most of my cousins didn't really get to know him all that well, if at all. So I felt compelled to write this and share it with them today. RIP, Grandpa.

My cousins -- today is the 30th anniversary of the death of our grandfather, Thomas Patrick Donnelly Sr. If you get a chance, give your parents a quick call because he will probably be on their minds today.

I know most of you don't remember him much if at all, but I was lucky enough to have had him around for the first 10 years of my life, and I kinda feel like I owe it to you all to let you get to know him a little bit better.

From my little-kid perspective, he was a HUGE man -- he might have been only like 6-foot-2 (not sure, ask your parents!) but his personality was massive. He had a deep, booming voice and a loud, roaring laugh, and with that thick shock of white hair and a perpetual twinkle in his eyes, he was the center of attention in any room he entered.

From what I remember, he loved kids and cats and crossword puzzles, not to mention trains and painting and of course Grandma. He had countless friends and seemed to make new ones every day. And when my dad got MS, Grandpa was the one who kept him from sinking too low, from completely giving up. It was Grandpa who told my dad he had to keep fighting, no matter how hard or painful it got, because he had a wife and two young sons who needed him. It was Grandpa who basically said, "You WILL recover, dammit, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise." If you ever wonder where you got your stubborn streak, it was from Grandpa.

It certainly was a shock to lose him so young, just three weeks before his 64th birthday. I know he would have enjoyed spending time with you all -- buying you comic books, sneaking a cookie from the jar with you, pretending to pick you up by your ears just to get a rise out of Grandma, all the things he loved to do with my brother and me. And I know I would've loved to have gotten to know him as an adult too.

I never knew my other grandpa, and thus have always felt at most somewhat ambivalent toward him or his memory, so for those of you who didn't know TPD Sr., I wanted to share my memories today so that maybe you can feel a bit closer in some way to your grandfather. He was a great man and I still miss him, and today's the perfect time to ask your parents -- his children -- about him if you can.

Happy Memorial Day,

PD

On the head

2009-05-21T00:11:00.000-07:00

Great piece by E.J. Dionne of the Washington Post this week, commenting on the Obama speech at Notre Dame's commencement ceremonies. You really should read the whole thing if you're interested in how the left and right can find common ground on cultural issues, but if you've only got time for the highlights, here's one:

Obama was as explicit in talking about his faith as George W. Bush ever was about his own but with distinctly different inflections and conclusions.
The former president often emphasized the comfort and certainty he drew from his religious beliefs. Obama said that "the ultimate irony of faith is that it necessarily admits doubt."

"This doubt should not push away our faith," Obama preached. "But it should humble us. It should temper our passions, cause us to be wary of too much self-righteousness." It was a quietly pointed response to his critics.

To me, that perfectly summarizes what has always bugged me about the born-again crowd -- to them, religion = certainty. But if you are certain of something, is it really a matter of faith?

In his letter to the Romans, Paul said, "For in hope we were saved. Now hope that sees for itself is not hope. For who hopes for what one sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait with endurance." And that's what faith is about to me -- it's about hope, the promise of salvation, not a smug sense of certainty that I'm right and the rest of you are going to Hell if you don't believe what I do.

I know I don't have all the answers, but I have faith that I'm on the right path. It's a long road to where we're going -- let's hope we all get there together.

"However, I AM in line to the throne ..."

2009-05-10T21:35:00.000-07:00

Overheard this evening as Kris was trying to get Nora to bed:

"No, I'm NOT the Queen of Dawdling!"

I'll let you figure out which one said it.

Happy Mother's Day, everyone!

Me likey the McHale

2009-05-05T09:14:00.001-07:00

Joel, that is . Here's a trailer for his new comedy series, coming to NBC this fall. Even Chevy looks funny in this! I also love me some John Oliver.

Video Recaps | Full Episodes | Webisodes

TBBBC: Book 1 review

2009-04-24T10:13:00.000-07:00

The end of April is upon us, and I've finished The Last Real Season, Mike Shropshire's account of the 1975 MLB season, gathered from his notes and stories he collected on the Texas Rangers beat for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

The book offers up an extremely jaded view of MLB, which doesn't surprise me given that baseball writers are an extremely jaded bunch, as far as journalists go. Anybody who has to spend seven months with the same group of people, day in and day out, is going to find more than his share of warts and foibles and idiosyncrasies to write about. And there are plenty here, from Billy Martin's various psychoses to Willie Davis' "dude from another planet" act to the writer's own press box debauchery.

The problem is, we've pretty much heard all of this before. If the book had been released on the heels of the 1975 season -- after Ball Four, but before The Bronx Zoo -- it would have been a revelation. At the time, Jim Bouton was basically the only insider who had pulled back the curtain and revealed the seedier side of professional sports. Prior to the mid-70s, sportswriters were to athletes as the White House press corps were to the Bush administration. Their relationship was cozy, their secrets were safe, and all the power was on one side of the table.

But once Bouton -- and later Lyle -- exposed the American public to the travails of their heroes, nothing was taboo. Now, you can't swing a broken fungo at Barnes and Noble without smacking into a tell-all tome from the likes of players (Jose Canseco), managers (Joe Torre), umpires (Ron Luciano), sportswriters (Jeff Pearlman), minor leaguers (Matt McCarthy) and even baseball groupies (Alyssa Milano).

Thus, Shropshire isn't telling us anything we don't already know. There's little shock value here, even though it kind of feels like that's what he's going for. The most enlightening aspect of the book is its discussion of how the baseball world differed pre-free agency. The season is question fell on the cusp of a sea change in MLB -- Charlie Finley had begun to dismantle his Oakland A's dynasty, Catfish Hunter had signed a five-year, $3.5 million contract with the New York Yankees, and in a few months the whole financial structure of the game would be forever changed by wholesale free agency.

I'd have preferred to read a more detailed look at the roots of the free agency movement and how it changed the game, rather than more anecdotes about how many beers or how much tequila Shropshire swilled in the press box while banging out stories about the Rangers. For instance, he pointed out that after the A's failed to reach their fourth straight World Series, pitcher Paul Lindblad said he'd have to work on a Christmas tree lot that winter to make up for the $25,000 World Series bonus that he was counting on as part of his salary. These days, the postseason bonus is mere pocket change to most players, and certainly doesn't have a make-or-break impact on their financial bottom line.

If you're looking for a book filled with fun, surprising, even shocking stories from behind the scenes of a baseball season, check out Shropshire's first go-round, Seasons in Hell. If you've already read that, then I guess The Last Real Season might be the way to go. But don't expect much beyond a fluffy beach book that you'll forget the minute you set it down.

TBBBC rating: Two fungoes (out of five)

Now batting: The Entitled: A Tale of Modern Baseball by Frank Deford

On deck: Crazy '08 by Cait Murphy

Strange bedfellows

2009-04-21T14:43:00.000-07:00

I find myself feeling oddly sympathetic toward Miss California in the latest Miss USA kerfuffle. Not because I agree with her stand on same-sex marriage -- I don't -- but because I have no idea what that issue has to do with one's qualifications to serve as Miss USA.

Perez Hilton is gay. And he wants to see people like him have the same civil rights as the rest of the planet. I get that. But there comes a point where you have to pick your battles. And the Miss USA contest is not the place for this battle to play out. I understand that it's important to get this issue on the front burner, but this kind of attitude is just going to alienate people who have yet to form a concrete opinion on the issue.

Beauty contests attract a pretty traditional audience, so I guess Hilton figured he'd be reaching a group of people who hadn't thought much about same-sex marriage. But to basically admit that he wouldn't vote for Miss California because of her answer to his question about the issue sends the wrong message. Hilton comes off as just as intolerant as the Yes on 8 crowd in California.

Now, Hilton has given the right-wing bloggers, radio hosts and pundits all kinds of fodder for their fake-outrage cannons. Nicely done, you old queen.

Where Pulitzer happens

2009-04-20T12:42:00.000-07:00

Huge kudos to the Las Vegas Sun for winning a Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of unsafe working conditions at Strip construction projects. Man, a friggin' Pulitzer! That's huge, people. Only one other Nevada newspaper has ever won a Pulitzer, and that was in Reno back in 1977.

Isn't it ironic? No, it just sucks

2009-04-13T15:14:00.000-07:00

By my conservative estimate, there are perhaps four nights a year when a band I want to see actually comes to play a show here in the greater Las Vegas area. I've been here three and a half years, and here's who I've seen so far:

The Decemberists at the House of Blues
The Hold Steady at the Beauty Bar
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club at Jillian's
Beck at Vegoose I
Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twins at Vegoose II
The Drams at some cool theater downtown that's now closed

I also missed a Rilo Kiley show at the HoB because I was out of town, and skipped a couple of shows that I might have enjoyed -- Morrissey, Reverend Horton Heat, and a few arena tours by bands like U2 and the Dixie Chicks.

But that's it. Six shows and maybe six more missed opportunities in three and a half years. So naturally, when the Hold Steady makes its triumphant return to Vegas tonight to play again at the Beauty Bar, I've got an ocean of mucus flowing from my cranial orifices.

Alannis Morissette might call it ironic. I just think it sucks.

Ah, the Grand Canyon!

2009-04-12T10:28:00.000-07:00

What a ... grand ... ... canyon ...

I've always loved these WPA-era signs. They remind me that there once was a time in this country when people cared about something bigger than their own self-interest. How quaint.

Nice view from the South Rim.

Afternoon shadows.

Mesas and plateaus as far as the eye can see -- a geography teacher's dream.

The happy family pauses for their moment in the sun.

Kris and her parents.

Mom and Nora, hand-in-hand.

Dinner in Williams at a cool, Route 66-themed brewpub.

The day ended with ice cream, as usual.

The Baseball Bunch Book Club

2009-04-06T23:54:00.001-07:00

Do you remember The Baseball Bunch? It was a syndicated show that ran (in our market) on Saturday mornings during the summer, often as the lead-in to This Week in Baseball, followed by the NBC Game of the Week. Johnny Bench and a weekly special guest star offered instructional tips to apple-cheeked Little Leaguers, highlights and bloopers got their share of airtime, and Bench tried to hone his acting chops in some amazingly awkward skits with the San Diego Chicken.

Ah ... memory lane. Anyway, I thought I'd spend the summer of 2009 resurrecting the spirit of The Baseball Bunch right here on WHIH. Of course, now that I'm an adult, the idea of laying about on a Saturday morning watching aging Hall of Fame catchers and grown men in mascot suits doesn't really appeal to me. But reading baseball books does. So I'm starting The Baseball Bunch Book Club.

I've picked out six titles for the inaugural TBBBC, and I welcome anybody to join me in this pursuit. I'll read one book per month and discuss it here on WHIH. Or on your web site. Or on Facebook. Or in a bar. Or on a train. Or in a plane. Or on a boat, with a goat. Just not on Twitter -- we're going to get a little deeper than 140 characters will allow.

Here's what's on tap for TBBBC this summer:

April -- The Last Real Season by Mike Shropshire -- I absolutely loved his book Seasons in Hell, which chronicled his time covering the Texas Rangers in the early 70s, back when Ted Williams and Billy Martin made for more interesting copy off the field than Mike Hargrove and Toby Harrah made on the field. The Last Real Season is a look at the 1975 baseball season, so dubbed because it was the final year before free agency blew up the entire economic structure of the game. I started it today and the intro, by Earl Weaver, is a great read. I hope the rest of the book follows suit.

May -- The Entitled: A Tale of Modern Baseball by Frank Deford -- Hard to go wrong with Deford, and I wanted to mix a little fiction into the syllabus. The Entitled is the story of a Tom Kelly-like manager (minor league lifer who gets his shot at managing in the bigs, although much later in life than TK) who has to handle a superstar who sounds like a mix of A-Rod, Barry Bonds and Albert Belle. Don't know much about it, but it's gotten good reviews.

June -- Crazy '08: How a Cast of Cranks, Rogues, Boneheads and Magnates Created the Greatest Year in Baseball History by Cait Murphy -- This book got crazy-good reviews when it came out a year ago, and I suppose I should have read it last summer as it was the 100th anniversary of this seminal season in baseball lore. From the World Series champion Chicago Cubs (!) of Tinkers-to-Evers-to-Chance fame to the New York (!) Giants of Christy Mathewson and John McGraw and beyond, this is a book every baseball historian should enjoy sinking his or her teeth into.

July -- The Soul of Baseball: A Road Trip Through Buck O'Neil's America by Joe Posnanski -- Again, if Posnanski's name is attached, you know it's going to be a good read. And Buck O'Neil has always fascinated me, because if anybody had a right to be a bitter, angry, sour old man, it was O'Neil, who missed out on fame and fortune because of the color of his skin. But he was always the classiest, most gracious ambassador the game has ever had, so when he and Posnanski spent the summer of 2005 traveling the country together, exploring and ruminating on baseball, it had to produce a compelling narrative.

August -- The Dixie Association (Voice of the South) by David Hays -- I don't know much about this one either. I was looking for another novel and since I've read most of the big ones (I did my senior thesis on baseball fiction back in my salad days at the U of M), I'm taking a flier on this, based on Amazon's description: "Meet the Arkansas Reds, the oddest, craziest, wildest bunch of sluggers ever to step out of a dugout. An ex-con first baseman named Hog chronicles a season with the Reds as they travel from one seedy southern ballpark to another--always one step ahead of the small-town sheriffs and right-wing evangelists who think the Reds are an insult to 'America's game.'" Sign me up!

September -- October 1964 by David Halberstam -- A true literary lion, Halberstam looks at the dying days of the Yankees dynasty as the Bombers battle the upstart St. Louis Cardinals, the first team with led predominantly by African-American stars. I love books that look at sports within the context of society, and nobody was more up to the task than Halberstam, a Pulitzer Prize winner who got elbow-deep in every major news story from Vietnam through Iraq. I think I'm saving the best for last, plus it will be a good teaser for the World Series.

So there you have it: the inaugural TBBBC syllabus. Please let me know if you're interested in reading and discussing any or all of these books with me. If you're not, too bad -- you're going to get my unexpurgated thoughts and opinions whether you like it or not. Or you won't, if you ignore my posts. But that's not what WHIH is all about, right?

Dance like no one's watching

2009-04-04T19:57:00.000-07:00

That's Nora's philosophy. Actually, she does crave an audience, but has absolutely no qualms about breaking and popping, shucking and jiving, and shaking her booty anywhere, any time, in front of anyone. Some of our fondest memories are of sneaking up to Nora's doorway and peeking into her room while she's dancing, entirely oblivious to our presence. The pure joy in her face and in her movements is one of the highlights of parenting.

So, with that said, check out these videos of Nora's first school dance performance. They've met once a week for two months and came up with these two routines -- High School Musical and some hip-hop number. It was a gas. (She's the kid in the UNLV jersey, for those who haven't met her.)

#1 High School Musical

#2 Some hip-hop thing

Go Iowa!

2009-04-03T09:08:00.000-07:00

Never thought I'd say that. Then again, I never thought I'd see such clear, uncompromising support for civil rights in the heartland. Here's hoping this is a movement that spreads.

Drew Carey and March Madness

2009-03-30T12:55:00.000-07:00

In my most recent Weekly article, I took a look at March Madness from the fan's-eye view at local sports books. It was a lot of fun and a great excuse to watch hoops with some friends ("I'm working! Swear to God!"). And I got to witness the sublime become the ridiculous, when Drew Carey interfered with the festivities.

Check out the article.

Nevada in a nutshell

2009-03-27T11:14:00.000-07:00

This just struck me as the perfect example of how Nevada is different from the rest of the country. I saw this on a blog called The Hazean. It's a recap of a recent ESPN.com poll regarding the length of the NFL season. There's a push to expand the regular season from 16 to 18 games by eliminating two preseason contests and starting the regular season in late August. ESPN did one of its patented state-by-state polls and here are the results:

You might have to click on it to enlarge the text, but basically, Nevada is the only state whose citizens (that is, those who voted in this poll) approve of the expansion in the NFL regular season. Why? Of course, because it gives us two more meaningful NFL weekends in which to gamble. And two more weeks in which I can hit my patented five-team parlay.

Hey, in these tough economic times, you can't blame us, can you?

BCS strikes again

2009-03-15T23:54:00.000-07:00

In case you were wondering why I posted such angst about Saint Mary's on my Facebook page, I've made no secret of my affinity for the West Coast Conference. I write the annual previews for each of the eight member schools for the Blue Ribbon College Basketball Yearbook (download the 2009 tournament update here!). I covered the recent conference tournament here in Las Vegas. I even contemplated writing a book about the conference this season, but I couldn't find a publisher for it.

So I'm probably biased toward Saint Mary's. And I'm OK with that. They're an exciting team with an all-world point guard in Patrick Mills, a bunch of talented role players, the two-time all-WCC Defensive Player of the Year in Diamon Simpson, and a likable, quotable coach in Randy Bennett. So when the Gaels got stiffed by the NCAA Tournament selection committee on Sunday, I'll admit it, I was ticked.

But it's not so much what the committee did to Saint Mary's as what it's done and likely will continue to do to midmajor schools -- also known as schools from non-BCS conferences. This year, out of 34 at-large bids available in the 65-team pool, the committee only alloted four of those to non-BCS schools: Brigham Young, Dayton, Butler and Xavier.

Meanwhile, Saint Mary's (26 wins), Creighton (26 wins), Davidson (26 wins), Niagara (26 wins) and San Diego State (23 wins) all had strong cases for NCAA bids, but were all relegated to the NIT. Some of them were knocked off the bubble when teams such as Mississippi State and Southern Cal won their conference tournaments, but even if those automatic bids had gone to NCAA-worthy teams, somebody would be grumbling about an NIT berth today.

Saint Mary's had the strongest case of all the castaways, I believe -- they were 18-1 and leading Gonzaga by 6 late in the first half at Spokane when Mills broke his right wrist. The Gaels went on to lose that game and three of the next four before rallying to win their last five, including a victory over WAC champ Utah State. Mills returned for the WCC tourney and while he wasn't sharp, he was healthy, meaning the Gaels were much closer to the 18-1 version of their team than the Mills-free lineup.

CBS dutifully trotted out some pasty-faced old member of the selection committee to explain why the small schools continue to get the shaft, and his argument was less than convincing. He kept talking about the schools' "body of work" -- i.e., how they performed throughout the entirety of their schedule.

But of course, therein lies the problem. Most midmajor schools can't get the big boys to play them in their home arenas, so they have to settle for neutral-site games or playing on the road if they want to beef up their schedules. That's because the big boys have nothing to gain by beating a midmajor and everything to lose by losing to them. Sure, Gonzaga plays an extremely challenging schedule, but after numerous strong showings in the NCAA Tournament, the Zags now can get on anybody's schedule because a loss to the Zags doesn't hurt the big boys. But in order to build up that kind of a reputation, those midmajor schools have to get to the NCAA Tourney, a Catch-22 if I ever heard of one.

Meanwhile, we get stuck with BCS conference schools like Arizona, Wisconsin and yes, even my beloved Golden Gophers, all decidedly mediocre teams in the second tier of their mediocre conferences. My problem with these schools making the tourney is that we know what we're going to get from them. They've had all year to show that they're good enough to play with the top teams in their leagues (who are now the top seeds in their brackets) and they proved that they don't measure up. And if one of those teams should happen to get hot and reach the Final Four or win the whole thing, then what do we say? That the NCAA field is so watered down that a mediocre team like Arizona, Wisconsin or Minnesota can go on a run like that.

Some of our fondest memories of past NCAA Tournaments come from exciting, Cinderella-type teams that pull off big upsets. Nobody cares if Arizona, Wisconsin or Minnesota beats Duke, North Carolina or UConn. But if Davidson, Santa Clara or Valparaiso pulls off the stunner? That's memorable basketball. And that's what makes good midmajor schools such an attractive alternative to the mediocre middle-class BCS teams. We don't know what we've got in them. In a sense, their weaker schedules actually should work in their favor, because they haven't had a chance to prove themselves against the big boys. That's what the NCAA Tournament should provide -- a chance. Not another game or two for the seventh-place teams in the Big Ten, Big 12 or Pac-10.

My wife pointed out another flaw in the selection committee's logic. So, they have enough respect for Gonzaga to give the Zags a No. 4 seed, but nobody else in the WCC is worthy of a bid? Maybe all they were looking at was the Zags' nonconference schedule, but again, if nobody wants to play you, doesn't that say enough about how much respect your school has in the basketball world?

Of course, it all boils down to money. Arizona, Wisconsin and Minnesota have far more alumni who will travel to the games. They play in much bigger media markets, meaning bigger ad rates for the local CBS affiliates who broadcast their games. The committee can blather on and on about just looking at teams and stats and bodies of work, but we all know what's driving this. It's been done this way since the beginning of time, and it's not about to change.

Sure, I'll still watch the tourney. I might even wager on a game or two. But I refuse to accept that it's a better event with Arizona, Wisconsin and Minnesota in the bracket while Saint Mary's, Creighton and Davidson are stuck in the NIT.

I have the cat from 'Memento'

2009-03-12T23:03:00.000-07:00

Actually, I don't know if there even was a cat in 'Memento' -- probably not, because the Guy Pearce character would have forgotten to feed it, so it eventually would have run away. But if they're looking to make a sequel -- 'Memento 2: Feline Boogaloo' -- I've got the runaway leader for the starring role living under my roof.

In January, we adopted two black cats, a brother and sister who we named Nokomis and Minnehaha (obviously a nod to our Minnesota roots). Minnie is a pretty sane cat -- laid-back, a bit reserved, but when she decides to cuddle with you, she'll make your lap her home for the night.

Nokomis, on the other hand, has issues. He spent the first week at our house under our bed. You'd think maybe he was scared of little kids, because the friends we got them from have two kids, age 6 and 3. But Nokomis loved Nora from the start and will allow her to pick him up and lug him around from room to room like a duffel bag. He's a little less giving with the lovey-dovey where I'm concerned. Once he emerged from under the bed, Nokomis employed a strategy of staying at least two rooms away from me at all times. Whenever I'd enter a room, I'd hear a little jingle from the bell on his collar (his is green, Minnie's is pink, the only way we can quickly tell them apart) and see a black tail exiting the other side of the room.

He's warmed up to me a bit, but that's where the 'Memento' connection comes in. It's like Nokomis has no short term memory. He'll hop up on my lap, nuzzle his head against my leg or beg me for food, and everything's kosher between us. But the next morning, the first time he sees me, his eyes get huge and he sprints out of the room. The next time I see him, he'll be a bit calmer but he'll look at me like, "Who are you again?" Eventually, he's letting me pet him, I'm scratching his back, he's purring, and we're buddies.

And the next morning, he sprints out of the room and the whole process starts over again.

It might be time for me to get a Polaroid camera. Come to think of it, that could be a black cat in the photo, couldn't it?

A 'Wonderful' night

2009-03-06T23:33:00.000-08:00

Just got back from Fiona's school performance of "Wonderful" -- a retelling of the whole Dorothy/Wizard/witches story using the music of "The Wizard of Oz," "The Wiz" and "Wicked." Fiona -- age 11 -- played Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West, and speaking as the most biased observer in the audience, she was magnificent.

For an elementary school play, she had an extremely challenging role, donning green makeup and singing "Defying Gravity," a song that honestly most high school kids would have trouble pulling off. She and her friend Skyler (who played Glinda) practiced together for hours on end over the last month, and it paid off in spades. Here are a couple of clips from their performance:

Part 1:

Part 2:

As a parent, it's incredibly rewarding to see your child succeed at something she loves doing and worked hard to perfect. And it's a bit humbling to see an 11-year-old surpass your own limited theatrical accomplishments, which of course happened at age 18, not 11. Suffice it to say, I couldn't be prouder of her.

Here's a few more photos from the evening.

Fiona and Skyler (Elphaba and Glinda)

Elphaba and Glinda candid

Fiona and Nora (honorary munchkin)

Positively wicked ... a preview

2009-03-06T12:35:00.001-08:00

Fiona is making her off-off-off-off-off-Broadway debut tonight, playing the role of the Wicked Witch in her school's version of the Wizard of Oz, a pretty cool play that mixes the music and story lines of the original movie, "The Wiz" and "Wicked."

I'll give it the full Rex Reed treatment after the show, but here's how she looked when she left for school today.

Scary witch.

Happy witch. It looks cooler with the hat, trust me. You'll see what I mean in my next post.

As promised ...

2009-03-05T23:42:00.001-08:00

... the long-awaited (by me, anyway) review of Middle Cyclone, the latest release by the Divine Ms. Neko Case. I wanted to give it five stars, but I recognize that 31 minutes of frogs and crickets might not be everybody's aural cup of tea.

Still, I love it.

Spending time with Neko, not Bono

2009-03-04T17:26:00.000-08:00

It's pretty ironic -- no, wait, that's what Alanis Morrisette would say, so let's go with coincidental -- that Neko Case and U2 both released new albums on March 3. U2 was my favorite band from about 1984 through the late 90s, only to be usurped atop my personal CD mountain by the divine Ms. Case, who's currently the reigning champeeen for a decade running.

My buddy Tim asked me over on my Facebook site if I was spending more time with Neko or U2 on Tuesday night. The answer is quite simple -- Neko, all the way. But the circumstances dictated that more than my tastes. I got an advance copy of Middle Cyclone last week because I'm reviewing it for the Weekly (embarrassing fanboy gushing to be posted on Thursday), so I listened to it pretty much nonstop for about five days in order to decide whether it was a great album or the greatest album ever.

I also am a firm believer in paying for my favorite music, doubly so with artists who literally might go broke if not for fans ponying up for the right to enjoy their tunes. So I planned all along to purchase a copy of Middle Cyclone once it became available. I also have a slew of Amazon.com gift certificates thanks to a reward program through one of my credit cards (better to get books and music than frequent flier miles for airlines that are going under faster than banks these days), so naturally I pre-ordered Neko's album from Amazon.

I needed to get my purchase up to $25 to get the free shipping, so I added U2's No Line on the Horizon to my order, hoping that Amazon would get pre-ordered content to its customers close to the actual release date. And it came today, one day after I could have purchased it online or in a record store.

So now it's time to dive into Bono and the boys' latest effort. Looking forward to it, but I can confidently say nothing's gonna knock Neko off the mountaintop any time soon.

Never too early to start your Christmas shopping

2009-02-20T12:20:00.000-08:00

Just found out that my book is available for pre-order on Amazon.

Feeling kinda weird right now ... I mean, I knew this day was coming, but to see it out there after all the work we did is very, very rewarding. It certainly adds a new dimension to my egosurfing.

Two new Weekly stories for yours truly

2009-02-19T13:43:00.001-08:00

This week, readers of the Las Vegas Weekly are treated to not one, but TWO articles by noted freelance writer P. Donnelly. One was right up my musical alley -- a review of the new disc by Mark Olson and Gary Louris, the dudes who founded one of my all-time favorite bands, The Jayhawks. The other article was a fun sports piece about two guys who got pulled out of the crowd at a UNLV basketball game to show off their shooting skills during a timeout. Both were really nice guys and as you'll read, they both cleared the bar they'd set for themselves.

Read more Mark Olson and Gary Louris: Ready for the Flood ...

Read more Shooting Stars ...

One step from the nursing home

2009-02-13T23:25:00.000-08:00

Friday delivered a double-barrel reminder that I'm old and getting older (although it beats the alternative, no doubt about it). My eldest daughter, who recently turned 11, attended her first school dance.

And it was an 80's dance.

I mean, it's not bad enough that I have to begin pricing out shotguns, lest any of her prepubescent classmates start getting funny ideas. But to denigrate the very decade in which I began sowing my wild oats ... the irony was thicker than Oscar Goodman's liver.

The girls (her best friend flew in from Minnesota for the weekend, with her mother, the godmother of Kid No. 2) had a great time getting ready for the dance. My own mother sent a package of 80s skinny ties that I actually used to wear, and she chose my favorite one to accent her getup. The moms helped with the hair, the kid sister looked on in amazement, and here's what they came up with:

The front view

Reverse angle

We found an 80s stream on Pandora before dinner, so we prepared for the bash with a steady diet of Madonna, the Cutting Crew, Journey and Belinda Carlisle. Oh, girls just wanna have fun! And they sure did.

Why yes, our mayor is a delusional, self-promoting windbag!

2009-02-12T21:39:00.000-08:00

No, not Henderson Mayor Jim Gibson. He seems like a decent, well-mannered, professional person. You know, an adult.

Of course, the headline refers to Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman, who proves the old axiom: the bigger the village, the bigger the idiot. This week, hizzonorless has demanded an apology from none other than President Barack Obama (man, it's still fun typing that!) because according to the gin-soaked former mob lawyer, the Prez overstepped his boundaries when he suggested that companies that have received taxpayer bailout money should refrain from using that money to send senior executives on lavish junkets to Las Vegas.

President Obama's direct quote, from a town hall meeting in Elkart, Ind., reads as follows: "You can't go take a trip to Las Vegas or go down to the Super Bowl on the taxpayer's dime." Goodman, whose Bombay-addled brain distills every message down to a single question ("How does this affect meeeeeeeeeeeee?"), took the Obama quote as an attack on Las Vegas tourism in general.

He must have missed that whole "on the taxpayer's dime" thing, or else he's intentionally ignoring it because he knows that any publicity for the city is good publicity as long as they spell the name right. That's "Goodman" with two o's and no dignity.

And believe me, I know from undignified politicans. I come from a state that elected a former professional wrestler as governor. But Oscar Goodman makes Jesse Ventura look like Pierce Brosnan in the suave department. This is a guy, remember, who famously told an elementary school audience that his one indispensable, desert-island accoutrement would be a bottle of his beloved Bombay gin (stay classy, Oscar!).

His delusion was on grand display last summer when he proposed that the city build an 80,000-seat football stadium so Las Vegas could play host to the Super Bowl and be the permanent site of Monday Night Football. Putting aside the obvious gambling hurdle, why would an NFL owner agree to give up a Monday night home date and the financial windfall that accompanies a prime-time game, not to mention 1/8 of its home schedule?

Because it would be good for Las Vegas. I kid you not -- that's what he said. "Believe me, they need us more than we need them," Goodman said of the NFL.

That's right, Oscar. You and the showgirls keep on telling each other that the world needs Las Vegas more than Las Vegas needs the rest of the world. And watch the world keep on passing us by.

A simpler time

2009-02-07T22:14:00.000-08:00

My youngest is a devotee of all things Scooby. I swear, if I could find a "What Would Scooby-Doo?" lunch box, she'd bring it to school every day. She went trick-or-treating dressed as Velma two years ago, and is planning on being Daphne this year. She's used "jinkees" in casual conversation. She's into it.

So on any given day you'll find about 35% of our DVR space taken up with Scooby-Doo episodes and movies. Not that I mind all that much. I loved the Mystery, Inc., gang when I was a kid too, so watching the old "Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?" reruns with her is kind of a kick for me. It's fun to relive some of the thrills and chills of my childhood, not to mention having a shared experience with Kid No. 2.

Sometimes, I even get a glimpse of a simpler time and realize how far we've come -- for good or ill -- as a society since the late 60s-early 70s. Today, for example, we were watching an episode described in the DirecTV guide as follows:

"The Harem-Scarum Sanitarium: The gang investigates a haunted mental asylum."

Ah yes ... because as we all know, mental illness is comedic gold, baby! I kept waiting for an appearance by McMurphy, Nurse Ratched, or The Chief, but all we got was this guy:

SI cover line FAIL

2009-02-06T13:35:00.000-08:00

I'm a reasonably creative and sports-minded individual. I get puns, frequently use metaphors, and can crank out a simile like Bill Simmons cranks out podcasts. (See what I did there?)

But even for me, this SI cover line is an epic fail. If I have to take a full 60 seconds to figure out what "That's Six for the Sixth" means, I'm guessing the meaning sailed way over the heads of the average reader.

If you still haven't figured it out, "Six" refers to the touchdown, which is also known as "six" because it's worth six points. And that "six" gave the Steelers their sixth Super Bowl title.

Come on, SI. Don't make us work too hard. You're already about to get a flood of "cancel my subscription" mail with your upcoming swimsuit issue. Don't piss off a nation's worth of composition teachers too.

Aaron Francisco keeps Kurt Warner ouf of Canton

2009-02-02T13:46:00.000-08:00

I've said it before, and I'll probably say it again every year -- the endless debates over who is worthy of induction to various sporting Halls of Fame drives me loco. Because the qualifications are 100 percent subjective, it makes for perfect talk-radio fodder, but all that noise and wasted breath is as meaningful as a breeze in the forest.

So last week, a theme developed among NFL talking heads -- some believed Kurt Warner was a lock for the Hall of Fame thanks to his three Super Bowl berths, two NFL MVP awards, one Super Bowl ring (with another one possible) and the fact that he took the Arizona Freakin' Cardinals to the big game.

Meanwhile, the anti- side of the debate said that Warner still had more to prove, and that he needed to beat the Steelers on Sunday to get into the Hall of Fame.

Fast-forward to Sunday, and Warner throws his third touchdown pass of the game to put the Cardinals on top 23-20 with just over two minutes remaining in the game. And as Warner watched from the sidelines, the Steelers launched a thrilling, captivating drive that culminated in Santonio Holmes' TD catch in the corner of the end zone, one step in front of Cardinals safety Aaron Francisco.

As you know, Warner's last-ditch attempt at rallying the Cardinals fell short, mainly because he had a mere 30 seconds to work with. So, Warner didn't win the game, meaning all those anti-Warner guys must still believe he's not worthy of the Hall of Fame. But if Francisco had been able to push Holmes out of bounds, or if Ben Roethlisberger had thrown an interception, or Heath Miller had fumbled, or a sinkhole had opened up at midfield and swallowed the Steelers whole, I guess Warner would be HOF-worthy? Even though he did nothing to affect the last drive?

This points out the silliness over these debates. You especially can't look at wins (for a quarterback or a pitcher in baseball) because those guys can only be judged on what they did to put their team in position to win. If your bats fall silent, or if your defense gives up a game-losing touchdown, you can't blame the quarterback or the pitcher.

But if Kurt Warner is never enshrined into the NFL Hall of Fame, I guess he can FedEx a box of dog doo to Aaron Francisco.

Back in the saddle

2009-01-31T01:33:00.000-08:00

This week I took a big step. I successfully convinced the editors of the Las Vegas Weekly to accept the idea of a semi-regular sports column, penned by yours truly. This reminds me of the heyday of Channel 4000, when I wrote a weekly column -- unpaid -- for a full year before the parent company finally decided to bring me on-board full-time.

I won't have as much leeway with this column -- my topics will have to have some sort of local hook, which could entail just about anything since Las Vegas is such a national-interest city, so I'm not complaining, I'm just saying. Anyway, here's the debut:

"Las Vegas has a long and complicated history with the National Football League. In the realm of mutually beneficial yet often dysfunctional relationships of the last half-century, you have Bill and Hillary Clinton, John Lennon and Paul McCartney, Batman and the Joker, Terrell Owens and his ego and Las Vegas and the NFL."

Read more of "The NFL's Secret Lover" ...

Top Ten of 2008

2009-01-27T13:40:00.000-08:00

So many music pundits offer up their annual Top Ten lists in early December, but to me, that's cheating the process. Do Oscar nominations come out before Christmas? Hell no! The Academy waits until its members have had a chance to fully digest all releases from a given year.

Here at WHIH, the same concept holds true with our annual Top Ten list of my favorite music. I need most of January to pore over late releases and records that I received as holiday gifts. So, without further delay, here are the fruits of my labor and the soundtrack of my life, circa 2008.

10. Duffy – Rockferry. More blue-eyed soul from across the pond from a blonde Amy Winehouse minus the tattoos and drug problems. Download it: Mercy, Warwick Avenue

9. Kings of Leon – Only by the Night. Former hillbilly rockers move into soaring arena-rock anthems that echo former tourmates U2 and The Strokes. Download it: Sex on Fire, Use Somebody

8. Jenny Lewis – Acid Tongue. Rilo Kiley lead singer's second solo effort is edgier, more challenging, but ultimately more rewarding. Download it: Carpetbaggers, The Next Messiah

7. Tift Merritt – Another Country. Diminutive chanteuse finds her voice with a stirring, soulful, emotionally raw effort. Download it: Broken, Something to Me

6. REM – Accelerate. I loved the return to angry, bouncy, show-oriented rock after too much studio doodling for my taste. Download it: Horse to Water, Man-Sized Wreath

5. Old 97's – Blame it on Gravity. Another return to form, as twang-and-bang formula rises again after too many years in the pop wilderness. Download it: The Easy Way, The One

4. Marah – Angels of Destruction! Dylanesque vocals (in a good way) coupled with bluesy, bar-band boogie. Download it: Wilderness, title cut

3. The Baseball Project – Vol. 1: Frozen Ropes and Dying Quails. You don't have to be a baseball nerd to love these 13 songs about the great American pastime – warts and all – from Peter Buck and three alt-rockers. Download it: Past Time, Ted F***ing Williams

2. Drive-By Truckers – Brighter than Creation's Dark. Wide-ranging country-rock album from two of the greatest songwriters working today. Download it: The Righteous Path, Self-Destructive Zones

1. The Hold Steady – Stay Positive. Fewer Twin Cities references, even more fun-loving, head-bobbing, fist-pumping singalong songs. Download it: Sequestered in Memphis, title cut

Honorable Mention
Calexico – Carried to Dust, The Decemberists – Always the Bridesmaid (singles), Murry Hammond – I Don't Know Where I'm Going But I'm on My Way, Bon Iver -- For Emma, Forever Ago

New Review -- Andrew Bird

2009-01-22T18:14:00.000-08:00

Andrew Bird -- Noble Beast

Genre: Quirk-rock

For fans of: Violins, loops, gentleman farmers, whistling, guys in vests, thought-provoking lyrics, complicated arrangements, Martin Dosh.

Download it: Effigy, Fitz and the Dizzyspells

It could, indeed, happen to you

2009-01-20T00:32:00.001-08:00

To: The Arizona Cardinals

From: Fans of the Detroit Lions, Pittsburgh Pirates, Kansas City Royals, Minnesota Timberwolves, Los Angeles Clippers, and the University of Minnesota Golden Gopher football team

Re: Your upcoming Super Bowl appearance

Thank you! That's change we can believe in. You're selling hope, and we're buying! Because if you can get to the championship game of your sport, there might be hope for our teams after all. And you didn't even need to rely on Nic Cage's hairpiece to get you to the promised land.

The end of ignorance?

2009-01-13T18:44:00.000-08:00

With one week remaining in the Bush presidency, the time has come for a look back at the administration's many failings. But lost amid all the talk of 9-11, the response to Katrina, the economy, Iraq, Afghanistan, our crumbling infrastructure, etc., is the faux cowboy's greatest achievement -- the triumph of anti-intellectualism. Or, to put it in terms he'd probably prefer, the dumb guys won.

Simply put, in the Bush years, being smart was no longer a good thing. If you went to a good college -- or any college -- you were branded "elitist." God help you if you were a patron of the arts ... you elitist creep. If you believed in global warming or evolution or if you drove one of those sissified hybrid ve-hicles ... that's right ... elitist!

So it thrills me to no end to see the walking, talking embodiment of this attitude ambling his way out of the White House. But of course, this doesn't mean the end of the line for the Know-Nothing crowd, so it never hurts to remain vigilant.

Which brings me to Population 485 by Michael Perry. He's a pretty intriguing guy who straddles both worlds -- a writer who also owns a rusty pickup and fights fires as a hobby. Yesterday, I reached a passage in the book that just floored me, the best summary of the brain wars I've read to this date. He'd just attended a lecture by noted feminist philosopher Martha Nussbaum and he was contemplating the intellectual divide on the drive back to his small-town oasis of New Auburn, Wisc. He writes:

Part of the blame lies with intellectuals who are unable or unwilling to convey their ideas in terms that will play down to the cafe. But anyone who sits in that cafe and dismisses complexity by reveling in their own simplicity is no less pretentious. Civilization itself depends on complication. As a dyed-in-the-slop farm boy, I find I have an almost atavistic urge to poor-mouth anyting more theoretical than a bag of feed. I have come to realize this is not always attractive.

For the last eight years, this country has been run by the kind of people who booed the principal at every school assembly. Now, under President Obama, this country has a chance to bounce back. Let's declare a War on Ignorance. Actually, let's not -- you can't eliminate ignorance, just as you can't eliminate terror, although if we'd had a president who was less ignorant, most of the country would have figured that out by now.

Confounding conference clashes coming

2009-01-12T22:38:00.000-08:00

Now that I've 86ed the notion of continued football coverage (see previous post), I have to at least mention the upcoming conference championship games. I am completely flummoxed by the two games for similar and differing reasons.

In the NFC, I've clearly overlooked the Cardinals, but they wouldn't have won (as easily, at least) on Saturday had the Carolina Panthers not handed them the game in a flurry of interceptions, fumbles and unforced errors that might or might not have included quarterback Jake Delhomme soiling himself at midfield (I turned the game off early).

Meanwhile, the Eagles slipped into the playoffs on the last day of the season (with help from the Houston Texans and Oakland Raiders, of all teams), then drew the ideal first-round matchup against scatterarmed quarterback Tarvaris Jackson, scatterbrained head coach Brad Childress and the rest of the starcrossed Minnesota Vikings. A rematch with the Super Bowl champion Giants turned into a snoozefest on Sunday as Eli Manning threw more knuckleballs than a Niekro brother, leaving the Eagles as three-point road favorites this weekend in the desert.

Over in the AFC, the Ravens were "the team nobody wants to play" until the Titans exposed their vaunted defense on Saturday -- fast, shifty runners like Chris Johnson (or Willie Parker) can exploit aging veterans like Dancin' Ray Lewis, who hasn't made a play since the first Cheney Administration. But for three red-zone turnovers and an ankle injury that knocked Johnson out of the game in the second half, the Ravens would be crabbing on the Chesapeake this weekend, instead of preparing for the AFC Championship Game.

Their opponents are the Steelers, a five-point favorite on the strength of their being the only home team to win last week, not to mention a two-game sweep of the Ravens in the regular season. The Steelers have been underwhelming, especially on offense, much of the year, but they exploded for five touchdowns against an improved Chargers defense on Sunday. Their quarterback (lovingly called "Ben" by today's telejournalists) suffered a concussion in Week 17, and chances are the Ravens might find a way to make contact with his gourd once or twice this weekend. But Fast Willie Parker seems to be back at full speed, and as anybody who wasted a high fantasy draft pick on Parker this season could tell you, his legs should be plenty fresh. Their defense is still pretty wicked, and you have to think they'll make Joe Flacco look like the rookie quarterback that he is.

Guh. I have no idea where to go with these two games. Maybe I'd better give Smooth Jimmy Apollo a call.

A few changes

2009-01-12T22:16:00.000-08:00

Careful observers will note that we've made a few changes here at WHIH. The most obvious is the new template. Not sure if I like it or not, but I'll keep it around for awhile and see if it grows on me.

I've also dispensed with the triathlon talk for now. It was fun, and I am still training -- quite possibly for another one here in Vegas this spring -- but I think the obsession has run its course (no pun intended). I'll still write about the whole process from time to time, but don't look for much flogging of the trials of training any time soon.

And now that the football season is nearly over, the gambling updates will cease until next fall. One bit of housekeeping -- I didn't post a Week 17 parlay because I was in Minnesota, but I picked out a five-teamer anyway and went 3-2. So my season ended with one victorious five-teamer and an aggregate record of 42-41-2 in those games.

Back from my NBC ban

2009-01-11T00:42:00.000-08:00

I didn't want to point any fingers or make any excuses for my prolonged absence from the blogorama, but it's somebody's fault, so I'll just come out and say it: Screw you, NBC.

Taking a cue from the inimitable Ann Coulter, I too am outraged by the Peacock Network's decision to ban me from its numerous media platforms. I mean, that's the only conclusion I can draw from my continued absence from NBC's various shows. It must be a conspiracy to keep The Man (i.e. me) down. Because remember, I'm a man. That reality is no longer in doubt.

What other reason could the brain wizards at NBC, MSNBC, CNBC, NBC Sports, and Bravo have for ignoring my accomplishments and freezing me out of their programming? When I completed my triathlon, did I get an invite to the Today Show? When I hit my five-team NFL parlay, was I interviewed on Football Night in America (aka "Sunday")?

The answer to both questions, sadly, is a big, fat, resounding "no." So I've decided that I will no longer remain silent in the face of this obvious discrimination against Minnesota ex-pats in Las Vegas. Sure, maybe I'm just trying to grease the wheels for an appearance on the couch with Leno, Lauer or Conan when my first book comes out in June, but let's not automatically assume my motives are that cynical.

After all, it worked so well for Coulter. All she had to do was whisper into Matt Drudge's ear when her "Today" appearance was postponed, and 24 hours later, there was her enormous Adam's apple bobbing to and fro on the morning show.

So, I will continue to protest NBC's decision to deny me my rightful publicity by refraining from blogging until such time as they see fit to invite me to 30 Rock for a sit-down with Ann Curry, let me host "SNL" or cast me in the next season of "The Biggest Loser."

OK, maybe I'm exaggerating a little. I'll probably start posting here again on a regular basis very soon. But it still sucks.

Week 16: The penultimate parlay

2008-12-20T00:51:00.000-08:00

This actually might be my last five-teamer of the year because I'm going to be in Minnesota for the next 10 days. So unless one of my local boys steps up and offers to put down my five-teamer in Week 17, this is it. Happy holidays.

Saints-Lions over 50.5 -- Drew Brees is going for an NFL passing record (most yardage in a season), so don't expect him to suddenly get gun-shy against the worst defense in the league.
Saints -6.5 at Detroit -- See above.
Patriots -7.5 vs. Arizona -- Cards still have nothing to play for, Pats are fighting for their playoff lives.
Bucs -3.5 vs. San Diego -- Chargers remain a desperate team, but in all the wrong ways. Bucs get Garcia back in a must-win game.
Falcons-Vikings over 43.5 -- No Fat Pat Williams means the Atlanta run game should be a bit more successful, and the Vikings are hitting their stride on offense.

Last week: 2-3
Season: 37-36-2

Finally, I can post this

2008-12-17T10:58:00.000-08:00

To satisfy your morbid curiosity

2008-12-16T16:15:00.000-08:00

Here's a link to the final results of the triathlon on Sunday. As I said, my only goal was to finish, so the time is irrelevant to me. You can see by the results that there were a few people behind me, and many, many people ahead of me.

I finished behind 12-year-olds, physically challenged athletes and the elderly. Those finishing behind me included people my age running with their children, people my age running with their parents, and one shirtless Hawaiian dude with a long, gray ponytail who must have gotten a late start.

But I finished, and that's what counts.

I wasn't kidding

2008-12-16T15:58:00.000-08:00

Snow in the Vegas valley. This is the view from Kris' office window. Not the best quality image, but it was taken by a Blackberry so what do you want?

Anyway, I completed a triathlon, it snowed here in Vegas ... what's next, the Vikings winning the NFC North?

The Official Triathlon Post

2008-12-15T17:33:00.000-08:00

As an English major, words matter to me. And whenever I think about a triathlon, even though the etymology of the word is clear, the concept of the word still kinda cracks me up.

I picture some well-meaning but misinformed Stuart Smalley type, trying to motivate a friend by saying, "You're not a 'try-athlete' -- you're a 'do-athlete.'" I'm also reminded of something my old college roomie Sean used to say about former Seattle Seahawks quarterback Dave Kreig: "He's a triple threat -- trip, stumble, fumble."

Meaning, even though I'm doing three things in one day, it doesn't mean I'm doing them well. Still, when you decide to run, bike and swim, all on the same day, you have to call it something (besides frackin' insane), so I guess triathlon is as good as the next word. Here's a little photo essay of my day:

Still at the hotel, not exactly sure what I'm getting myself into. Double-checking to make sure defibrillator is packed.

The tools of the trade: the bike, the shoes, the running/swimming shorts, the blind optimism.

I'm in there somewhere. Probably way in the back. I heard that drafting works great in the bike portion of the race, so I figured I'd try it out in the 5K as well.

This is my first foray into the world of Blogger video -- look closely and you'll notice that flash of sinewy athletic brilliance is actually me finishing the bike portion of the event, with Fiona clapping for me at the very end.

It's a good thing the swim was in a pool -- had we been in an ocean, my presence in the water might have elicited some sea monster warnings. And yes, I am doing a modified version of the backstroke. I didn't care about my time. I just wanted to finish. And my arms felt like 50-lb barbells, so I just kinda basked my way around the pool. Whatever works, right?

Back in the transition area, mission accomplished, ready for the next challenge -- walking back to the car.

On the way home, Kris asked me what I wanted for dinner. My reply was, "Anything that goes well with Guinness." That was my frothy reward, and I enjoyed it. Now it's time to find the next challenge, which likely will be another tri, this time with Kris or perhaps with old roomie Sean (see comments in Sunday's post).

Final thought: Patrick Donnelly completed a sprint triathlon. The next day, it snowed in Las Vegas. Coincidence? I'll let you decide.

Success!

2008-12-14T20:14:00.000-08:00

See that t-shirt? See that medal? See that look of satisfaction/exhaustion/exhiliration?

It's all over but the celebrating. I'll post more details and photos on Monday, but this is the smiling mug of one happy triathlete.

This is it

2008-12-12T16:58:00.000-08:00

Yep, we're at T-minus 40 hours and counting. Hard to believe that three months of training have come to this. I've kinda stopped writing about the process lately, not because I'm not as enthused about it but because it's sort of become second nature to me -- exercise, eating better, just focusing on healthy living.

I'm excited about the triathlon as it draws ever near. A little bit scared, I guess, but as a good friend once said, "Pain is just fear leaving your body." OK, it wasn't a good friend, it was Jillian, the trainer from "The Biggest Loser," but I still thought it was interesting. I've had plenty of pain over the last three months -- sore muscles, mostly -- but there's still some fear, so I guess I haven't gone through enough pain.

I'll be sure to post my results on Monday ... either that, or I'll have my wife post the details of my funeral. But I'm hoping for the former -- as The Hold Steady says, "You gotta stay positive!"

Week 14: The grim parlay

2008-12-07T00:59:00.000-08:00

Wrestling is such a humorless sport. I understand why -- those guys work too hard to take it lightly. Plus, defeat is so personal -- mano-a-mano, nobody to blame but yourself -- and even if you win, the potential for defeat lurks in your next match.

I covered a big collegiate wrestling tournament this weekend at the Las Vegas Convention Center, and I bet I saw maybe three wrestlers crack a smile for a grand total of 6.7 seconds over the course of two nights. The medal presentations would have been funny if they weren't so crushingly grim -- the top eight finishers in each weight class on the podium, holding plaques and staring straight ahead with the stony expression of your average pallbearer.

But like I said -- I get it. In the minds of most of those wrestlers, seven of them were losers. And the eighth guy, the one with the biggest plaque? He's already looking ahead to his next match, his next tourney, the next time he'll be called upon to stave off the icy clutches of defeat.

You can read my recaps of the tourney here and here. I hope I'm happier on Sunday night when I'm holding the ticket that features this five-game NFL parlay:

Colts -13.5 vs. Cincinnati -- Let's hope last week's brutal offensive showing in Cleveland was a weather-induced mulligan.
Titans -13.5 vs. Cleveland -- With Ken Dorsey under center, the Browns will be lucky to score again this year. At all.
Patriots -4.5 at Seattle -- Once again, I'm going with the "Belichick teams don't lose two straight" theory, aided by the "Holmgren teams suck in 2008" theory.
Cowboys/Steelers over 39.5 -- I know, Barber is out, but that will mean the Cowboys will be more inclined to throw the ball, which lengthens the game and creates multiple scoring opportunities.
Ravens -5.5 vs. Washington -- Just look at the numbers Baltimore's offense has been putting up lately. It's not quite up to Oklahoma's standards, but for the NFL that's pretty lofty territory.

Last week: 1-4
Season: 32-31-2

The curious case of Sean Avery

2008-12-03T12:29:00.000-08:00

So, I'm having a hard time getting my head around this whole Sean Avery commotion. If you haven't heard, the NHL has suspended the notorious bad-boy -- now playing for the Dallas Stars, a team that should never have existed in the first place, not that I'm still bitter or anything -- because he made a somewhat crass reference to an opponent's girlfriend.

Seriously, that's how I would refer to it -- "somewhat crass." Not "libelous" or "hateful" or even "a disgustingly typical example of the decline of today's standards of decorum as demonstrated on a daily basis by young men between the ages of 21 and 30." Because I've heard worse. In fact, I hear worse every day.

Here's what Avery had to say to the assembled press corps at a pregame skate in Calgary on Monday:

"I'm really happy to be back in Calgary. I love Canada. I just want to comment on how it's become like a common thing in the NHL for guys to fall in love with my sloppy-seconds. I don't know what that's about, but enjoy the game tonight."

Umm ... OK ... Sure, Avery has dated a couple of starlet/model types who have gone on to date other NHL players. And sure, Avery is known as pretty much one of the bigger jerks in the game right now (just ask Martin Brodeur).

But seriously, people -- have we reached the point where we suspend players and crank up the outrage level to code-red when a professional athlete says something tacky or classless? His comments weren't racist. You could argue that they're borderline sexist, although I view them as primarily directed at the players in question, not at his exes.

The only way this approaches the level to which NHL commissioner Gary Bettman has taken it is if you know the "textbook" definition of sloppy seconds, as offered by Urban Dictionary (possibly NSFW, definitely NSF anybody who's easily offended). But the term has pretty much slipped into common usage to the degree that it has lost most of its original meaning and 99.4 percent of its shock value.

Bottom line: you just can't legislate classiness. Send him to the principal's office, give him a stern talking-to, lecture him on decorum all you want. But an indefinite suspension? That's like clearing out some cobwebs with a blowtorch.

Week 13: The 'now what?' NFL parlay

2008-11-29T23:50:00.000-08:00

Before I get to this week's five-pack, I have to share with you, gentle readers, a quote I just read in a recap of Oregon's trouncing of Oregon State tonight. The Ducks rained on OSU's parade, essentially knocking the Beavers out of the Rose Bowl (unless USC somehow finds a way to lose to UCLA, which I think we both know they won't).

After the game, the Associated Press writer found the money quote from Oregon receiver Jaison Williams, who said, "To go out and ruin somebody's dreams like that, it feels real good."

Yeah, that's the spirit, buddy. That's what competition boils down to -- ruining other people's dreams. Sportsmanship is for dummies.

Hey, there's no I in team, but there is one in Jaison.

On to the parlay, which this week left me with the feeling of a dog who finally caught up to the car -- now what? Well, you can never have too much of the house's money, so here's my plan to bring home more of it. (Oh, and it's worth noting that my victory of a week ago was no coincidence -- the books got hammered because the over was 11-5 on the highest scoring weekend in NFL history, and favorites were 10-5-1. I had three favorites and an over among my five-pack, and the one game I had to sweat out was the Broncos-Raiders under.)

Bills -6.5 vs. San Francisco -- West coast teams playing the early game in the Eastern time zone are really up against it, and when you factor in the Niners' general suckiness and Buffalo's apparent resurgence, this one seems like a lock.
Packers -3.5 vs. Carolina -- Which Packers will show up? At Lambeau, I'm banking on the good Packers.
Giants -3.5 at Washington -- I know it's a division game and all, but the Giants are the best team in football and I'm going to ride them.
Colts -4.5 at Cleveland -- Two teams going in opposite directions.
Patriots -0.5 vs. Pittsburgh -- Should be a great game. In the end, I think the Pats win, because now that Cassell is playing well, they've got that old hop in their step again.

Last week: 5-0
Season: 31-27-2

Greed is NOT good

2008-11-28T12:04:00.000-08:00

Well, the Christmas season got off to a rousing start -- and Black Friday took on an all-too literal meaning -- with the news that a 34-year-old maintenance worker at a Long Island Wal-Mart was trampled to death under the crush of 200 shoppers scrambling for "door-buster" bargains at 5:00 a.m. Friday.

I know every retailer is trying to do whatever it can to lure customers into its stores in this spiraling economy, and it's become such a cute little tradition to open early on the day after Thanksgiving to extend the hours of the biggest shopping day of the year. But it isn't cute anymore. When people's lives are in danger because shoppers are so desperate to get a bargain that they'll break down doors to get their hands on the last Xbox or flat-screen TV or Bratz All-Ages Club Skank (now with lower-back tattoo!), it's time to re-evaluate the whole process.

Of course, greed is the root cause of this whole mess -- the greed of the consumers, who want to BUYBUYBUY! for the lowest price possible, regardless of the cost to their dignity or the safety of their fellow shoppers and store employees; and the greed of the corporations, who need to maximize profits and keep shareholders or company executives happy, often at the expense of their own employees, who are torn away from their families at ridiculous hours (I mused about this last year in my "National Shopping Day" post -- what time do you suppose you'd have to go to bed on Thanksgiving Day so that you could be up and ready for work in time for a 5:00 a.m. store opening?).

Many, many moons ago, when the Vegas Gopher was just a Golden Gopher back in the motherland, I worked part-time at a Gap store. It was a decent job -- not exactly back-breaking work, nice people, good discount on the product -- but one thing really sucked. I had to be available to work on the day after Thanksgiving and the day after Christmas. Non-negotiable. You WILL be scheduled for those days, and you WILL show up for your shift, or you WILL be fired.

Which meant no leisurely holiday weekends for me. No lingering over the turkey leftovers or singing carols 'round the old Tannenbaum on Christmas night for me. I had to be safely tucked away in my own bed (two hours from my parents' house or four hours from my in-laws) on those blessed nights, because two even more blessed holidays -- National Shopping Day and National Returns Day -- required my presence.

At least I lived to tell about it.

House money!

2008-11-24T11:36:00.000-08:00

Your favorite degenerate NFL gambler finally has something to celebrate -- my first successful five-team parlay of the year! As you might know, I play a five-team NFL parlay every week, sort of my own little one-man office pool. If I hit it once, it puts me in the black for the entire season (23-to-1 payoff).

I hit it once each in 2005 and 2006. I got blanked last year, and was 0-for-11 this year heading into yesterday. But I was coming off a 3-for-5 week, and had a 4-for-5 performancea week earlier, so I was feeling pretty good about my great NFL mind.

The early games didn't give me much to sweat out -- the Lions-Bucs game was well on its way to going over at halftime (21-17), and the Ravens and Pats both pulled away late, but both teams were pretty competitive through the first three quarters. Maybe I would have fretted about the Pats-Dolphins game a little more if it had been one of the late games, but by the time I realized I was staring at a 3-for-3 start, they were taking it to the Phish.

On to the late games, where I had the Falcons -1.5 and the Raiders-Broncos game under 42.5. Just before halftime, I was practically counting the money in my head, as the Falcons led 17-0 and the game in Denver was tied 3-3. Even Carolina's field goal didn't make me sweat much, but then the Raiders housed an 89-yard punt return with 1:06 to play in the half. Even after Matt Prater missed his second field goal of the half, I couldn't help but be a bit miffed that the Raiders took a 10-3 lead into the locker room, rather than a 3-3 tie.

In the second half, Carolina stormed down the field for a quick TD and suddenly it was a ballgame again in Atlanta. Meanwhile, Denver tied the game at 10 less than six minutes into the second half, and the Raiders responded with a TD four minutes later. Suddenly we were sitting on 27 points with 20 minutes to play, meaning I had a 15-point cushion. I could survive two more TDs, or a TD and two field goals, but anything more and I would be screwed.

Back to Atlanta, where the Falcons were reeling. Another John Kasay field goal cut their lead to 17-13 and the offense was struggling. The announcers (Thom Brenneman and a very impressive Brian Billick, who might have found his true calling) were saying things like, "This is a young Falcons team and a veteran Panthers lineup -- this is where it could start to slip away for Atlanta." Not good times.

But suddenly the Falcons responded. A 12-play, 80-yard drive led to a Michael Turner TD on the first play of the fourth quarter and seemed to buck up their confidence a bit. Even after the Panthers marched right back down for another TD to cut the lead to 3, the Falcons drove it right back down Carolina's throats with a 74-yard TD drive. Then the defense got rolling again, forced a punt deep in Carolina's territory, and when my new hero Harry Douglas returned it 61 yards to paydirt for a 17-point lead with 4:47 to play, the game was as good as over.

Back to Denver, where the Raiders scored another touchdown (by former Bronco Ashley Lelie -- how do you like me now, Broncos?) in the first minute of the fourth quarter, then picked off Jay Cutler and drove 43 yards for another TD, making the score 31-10 with 9:42 to play. It wasn't looking good for your favorite degenerate NFL gambler at that point -- just a simple field goal would do me in.

But because the Broncos were down by three TDs, they eschewed a long field goal attempt on fourth-and-11 at the Raiders 38 and turned it over on downs with 6:47 to play. Then Justin Fargas and Darren McFadden started tearing off yardage in chunks and the Raiders started grinding down the clock. God bless Mike Shanahan, who didn't use any of his three timeouts because it was clear that his team was done and just needed to get off the field. And God bless Tom Cable, who didn't need to boost his ego by taking a shot at the end zone. The Raiders ran the ball eight straight times, had it down to the Broncos 23 at the 2-minute warning, and when I saw them line up in the Victory formation I knew I was golden. Two Jamarcus Russell kneel-downs later and I could finally celebrate.

So, I'm playing with house money for the rest of the year, and after doing the math I realized that even with my 0-for-2007 disaster, hitting it three times in four years actually puts me in the black overall, even if I come up empty the rest of the way (17 weeks x 4 seasons = 68 weeks; 3 winning weeks x 23-to-1 odds = 69 units of profit; 69>68). And I didn't get out here to Vegas until about Week 4 of the 2005 NFL season, so that's a few more bucks in my pocket regardless.

But if I do hit it again this season, it'll be a banner friggin' Christmas at the Donnelly household this year!

Week 12: Thanks for nothing parlay

2008-11-22T23:18:00.000-08:00

Six weeks to go and time's a-wastin'; daylight's fading, there's frost on the pumpkins, and moths flying out of my bankroll. It's time to get serious, or time to get lucky. At this point, I'd take either.

Patriots +1.5 at Miami -- I can't see Coach Hoodie getting swept by the Dolphins, regardless of Brady's injury status.
Bucs-Lions over 41.5 -- Smooth Jimmy Apollo makes this his Shoe-In of the Week. And that's a mighty big shoe.
Ravens -1.5 vs. Philadelphia -- This line is the head-scratcher of the year. Did everybody see the Eagles tying the Bengals last week? How are the Ravens only laying a point and a half?
Falcons -1.5 vs. Carolina -- This is my least confident pick. But I guess I believe in the Falcons. How's that for a ringing endorsement?
Raiders-Broncos under 42.5 -- This says more about the Raiders offense than the Broncos defense. And I'm hoping for snow in the Rockies.

Last week: 3-2
Season: 26-27-2

Week 11: Back to the homeland parlay

2008-11-14T00:54:00.001-08:00

Maybe a change in venue will change my luck. I'm heading back to the homeland this weekend to visit friends and take in the concert of a lifetime for me -- The Hold Steady and Drive-By Truckers, on tour together, stopping at First Avenue. I mean, these are two of my all-time favorite bands in my all-time favorite venue. What could go wrong?

And with that kind of a positive attitude, here are five winners you can take to the bank:

Raiders-Dolphins under 38.5 -- I don't like Oakland's offense, and I do like Oakland's defense. Oh, there are two teams playing in this game?
Titans -2.5 at Jacksonville -- Like last week, it won't be a blowout, but the Jags have gagged enough this year that a three-point win to keep Tennessee undefeated seems like a decent bet.
Chiefs +5.5 vs. New Orleans -- Tyler Thigpen. I'm wagering on Tyler Thigpen. Well smack my ass and call me Columbus, I'm wagering on Tyler Thigpen -- and I feel good about it!
Steelers-Chargers over 42.5 -- The Chargers can't stop anybody on the road, and the Steelers are banged-up enough on defense that even Norv Turner should figure out a way to put some points on the board.
Browns-Bills over 42.5 -- Did you see the Browns attempt to play defense at home last week against Denver? Did you? Then you know why I'm going with the over.

Last week: 4-1 (sigh)
Season: 23-25-2

Ahhhh ....

2008-11-10T22:17:00.000-08:00

.... damn it all to hell, anyway! Stupid Cardinals. I knew I was in trouble when they gave up a 104-yard kickoff return for a TD on the first play of the game. They never really recovered from that -- they didn't tie the game or take the lead until the last five minutes of the game.

Other developments that killed me:

The Niners were 9-for-18 on 3rd down, including that scramble by Shaun Hill on 3rd-and-11 where he lost his helmet and still managed to dive past the sticks. A stop there would have forced a punt from around the SF 20 and given the Cards the ball back near midfield, down 14-13 with three minutes to play in the first half, a great chance to steal back the momentum and take a lead into the locker room. Instead, the Niners continued the drive, chewed up the rest of the half and scored a TD for good measure. A steel-toed kick to the crotch, that was.
The Cards rushed for only 46 yards on 19 carries. They couldn't run, period. And yet, their coaching staff still kept sending in running plays inside the red zone, where they constantly bogged down and led to this miserable stat ...
Arizona came away with points on each of its six trips inside the red zone, but three of those times they had to settle for field goals (and one of those TDs came on fourth down after another third-down failure). Convert just one of those field goals into a TD and they don't have to go for two (and fail) on their last TD, and I win my bet.

Oh well, if ifs and buts were candy and nuts ... I blame Obama. Change? Looks like the same old crap to me.

p.s. Both times I've started 4-for-4 on the parlay this year, the Niners have screwed me over on the final leg -- once when they collapsed against the Eagles, and once when they refused to collapse against the Cardinals. There's a lesson in there somewhere -- don't bet on or against the Niners when they're playing a team with a bird mascot? Something like that.

Do one thing for me

2008-11-10T14:32:00.000-08:00

If you're watching TV tonight (or even if you're not), sometime between 5:30 and 9:00 p.m. Pacific time, please close your eyes real tight, clap your hands and say, "I DO believe in Kurt Warner! I DO! I DO! I DO! I DO believe in Tim Hightower and Larry Fitzgerald and Anquan Boldin! I DO I DO I DO!!!!"

See the previous entry if you're wondering why.

NFL Week 10: The-sky-is-blue parlay

2008-11-08T22:40:00.000-08:00

Best line of the week comes from some wisecracker named Christian Finnegan, who comes on "Countdown" to make snarky comments once in a while. Olbermann tossed him some softball to start their conversation about life post-election, and Finnegan deadpanned, "Sorry Keith, could you repeat the question? I couldn't hear you over the heavenly choir of angels that have been singing in my head since Tuesday night."

Maybe the heavenly choirs can lead my five-game parlay to victory this week.

Titans -2.5 at Chicago -- Rex Grossman against the Titans D? I'm not saying it'll be a blowout, but a Titans win by at least a field goal seems likely.
Falcons -0.5 vs. New Orleans -- Matt Ryan, first half MVP? Best rookie QB since Marino? Biggest surprise since Britney's comeback? I'll count on him to win a game this weekend.
Vikings-Packers over 45.5 -- No Jared Allen (probably), a resurgent Vikings offense, and a pathetic Packers run defense trying to stop Adrian Peterson = points.
Chiefs +14.5 at San Diego -- I don't expect Kansas City to win, but they've done a good job of keeping games close, while the Chargers also have done a good job of keeping games close, just not in the way you'd want if you were a Chargers fan.
Cardinals -9.5 vs. San Francisco -- The Cards are rolling. The Niners stink. Mike Singletary's pants will be ankle-bound before halftime.

Last week: 2-3
Season: 19-24-2

She's a rising star

2008-11-06T19:17:00.000-08:00

The most compelling subtext to come out of this campaign is the rising-star status of a woman who used the past two months to burst onto the national scene, a smart, charming, affable woman who's a great communicator and has flashed the potential to become a cornerstone of the political scene for the foreseeable future.

I refer to, of course ... MSNBC's Rachel Maddow.

What, you thought I was talking about Sarah Palin? The woman who reportedly thought Africa was a country, not a continent? Or who didn't know that NAFTA was a treaty signed by Canada, Mexico and the U.S.? Or whose much-reported $150K shopping spree apparently was much, much, much more expensive?

No, I'm not talking about her. I'm talking about the new voice of the center-left. A lesbian liberal that even Pat Buchanan can love.

If you haven't caught her show (which follows flame-thrower Keith Olbermann on a nightly basis), Ms. Maddow brings a decidedly leftist bent to her overview of the day's news, but she does it with a sprinkle of wit and a fairness and balance that Fox News could only dream of.

Maybe it's because she's a Rhodes Scholar, so she understands that you have to show all sides of an argument to give your audience enough evidence to show that you're right. Or maybe it's because she always idenfities who her guests are supporting (i.e. "Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar is a Barack Obama supporter") when she introduces them.

Or maybe it's because she just flat-out rocks. Whatever, it's clear that she's kicking ass and taking names. Her ratings have blown away those of her predecessor in that time slot, and are causing the talk giants at Fox to look over their shoulders in fear.

If you're tired of the "my party, right or wrong" type of commentary that's taken over cable news at the expense of careful thought and nuance, give Rachel Maddow a shot. I'm confident that you won't be disappointed.

Amen.

2008-11-05T09:16:00.000-08:00

Don't let this happen to you!

2008-11-04T13:47:00.001-08:00

NFL Week 9: The hotter-than-Hades parlay

2008-10-30T23:30:00.000-07:00

I've come to expect the heat. That's what you get when you move to the desert. So even though it's Halloween and there's frost on the pumpkins back in the homeland, the AC still kicks in here from time to time, I jumped into the unheated pool last week and didn't seize up and sink to the bottom like a stone, and pants are definitely for the overdressed.

We've had a couple weeks of above-normal temps -- a good 10 degrees above normal, in fact. And just when bliss is scheduled to arrive, in the form of high temps in the low 70s and cool nights requiring an extra blanket, we're headed to Phoenix for a wedding this weekend. High temps there will be in the mid-90s -- pushing record highs, of course.

Maybe I'll stay cool watching my football picks come through for me this week.

Cardinals-Rams over 48.5 -- Neither team plays a lick of defense, the Rams are finding themselves under Jim Haslett and Kurt Warner returns to the scene of his greatest professional success since he faced a shelf of Campbell's tomato soup cans in 23.4 seconds, a Hy-Vee record that stands to this day.
Giants -8.5 vs. Dallas -- When your QB choices are Brad Johnson and Brooks Bollinger, and you're not Brad Childress circa 2006 (or even if you are), you're screwed.
Eagles -6.5 at Seattle -- Philly killed me a few weeks back with a late cover at San Francisco. They'd better do it again. Cover, that is. Not kill me. That would suck.
Colts -5.5 vs. New England -- This means more to the Colts than the Pats. Even if they're not rubbing Tom Brady's pretty mug into the turf, the Colts will enjoy running up the score on the Hoodie.
Redskins -1.5 vs. Pittsburgh -- Lotta chalk this week. I just think the Skins are good enough at home to pull this out by at least two.

Last week: 1-3-1
Season: 17-21-2

Joe Buck is a tool, reason No. 7,487

2008-10-27T21:13:00.000-07:00

Monday night's World Series game provided yet another shining example of what a tool Joe Buck is. With the wind blowing and the rain falling, the Phillies held a 2-1 lead through 4-and-one-half innings.

Now, in a normal situation, like in a regular-season game in June, if the home team is leading after the visitors have batted at least five times, the game can be considered "official" and if the weather doesn't permit further play, the umpires can call the game and the home team would be credited with a victory.

But this is the World Series -- specifically, a potential clincher for the Phillies. If you really think the brain wizards at MLB, Inc., are going to let a Series-deciding game be called due to weather, with the World Championship essentially handed to the Phillies after anything less than nine innings, you're crazy.

Or you're Joe Buck. Because once the Rays were retired in the top of the 5th, Buck couldn't stop blurting out, "It's an official game! Remember, it's official!" Meaning, "The umpires could call this thing at any minute and the Phillies would be World Champions!"

Of course, you probably know by now that the Rays scratched out a run in the top of the sixth and the game was suspended until Tuesday night, when it will be picked up with the score tied 2-2 in the bottom of the sixth. But instead of letting it lie, Buck had to delve back into his own personal fantasy world and say something to the effect of, "The Rays are lucky they tied the game before the umpires had called it, or this thing would be over and the Phillies would be World Champs. And what a black eye it would be for Major League Baseball to have to award its championship in such a manner."

About a half-hour later, Commissioner Bud Selig confirmed in a press conference that if the Rays hadn't scored in the 6th, the game would have been in a "rain delay" that would have lasted as long as necessary. He said there's no way MLB would allow a World Series game to end before nine innings had been played.

So, back to Joe Buck. My biggest issue with him is the smug, know-it-all attitude that oozes through the TV screen every time he's on the air. In this instance, he didn't offer any contingencies, he didn't say he was speculating, he didn't say that in the regular season, this is how a game could be called early, and wouldn't it be interesting to see what MLB would do with that rule in the post-season ... nope, he just blundered ahead like the know-it-all that he is, likely giving Rays fans chest pains for a full inning before their heroes tied the game in the sixth.

I'll be interested to see if anybody else on the sports blogs makes a big deal out of this on Tuesday. It seems like it might be one of those wonky things that only baseball nerds like yours truly would care about. Then again, the Deadspins and Awful Announcings of the world did get kinda bent out of shape this summer when Buck admitted he rarely watches sports anymore and doesn't care much for baseball. Tonight's performance in the booth in Philadelphia pretty much confirmed that for me.

Week 8: The "Ho-leeeee Crap" Parlay

2008-10-27T14:46:00.000-07:00

Sorry I didn't post this week's parlay earlier -- see the previous entry if you're wondering why. But once I regained my bearings I found five games that I thought I liked -- here's how they turned out:

KC-NYJ under 39 -- I figured a gimpy Breffarve and a wet-behind-the-ears Tyler Thigpen would keep this total down. Turns out I figured wrong.
Bills-Dolphins under 42 -- Two good defenses, two run-oriented offenses. I got that one right -- by a point.
Panthers -4 vs. Arizona -- That one was a push, although I probably deserved to lose it, given that the Cards missed an extra point.
Falcons +8.5 at Philadelphia -- I felt good about the Falcons keeping that one close, and they did, but a late TD run by Westbrook blew their cover.
Giants-Steelers over 42 -- This one came up a touchdown short.

Last week: 2-3
This week: 1-3-1
Season: 17-21-2

A real jaw-dropper

2008-10-27T14:19:00.000-07:00

If you see me walking around town with a bandage on my jaw this week, it's because I scraped it on the driveway after the shock of Friday afternoon.

I mean, imagine that you're expecting two dear friends to be flying in for a weekend visit, and you're cleaning the house and getting ready to pick them up at the airport in two hours. Then imagine that your wife calls to say she's coming home from work early. Then imagine that a bus pulls up in front of your house and 10 of your best friends pile out to help you celebrate your 40th birthday (which is still seven weeks away).

After I picked my jaw off the pavement, we had an incredible weekend filled with fun, drinks, gambling, good food and great times. Fortunately I had enough beer in the fridge on Friday to nourish the thirsty crowd as we sat poolside and had a good laugh at my cluelessness for a couple of hours. Then it was dinner and blackjack at Green Valley Ranch before we got a good night's sleep.

On Saturday, we had a poolside grillout and watched some great college football games, then met up at Planet Hollywood for some cake, World Series action, and more blackjack. After a Sunday brunch, most of the crew took off, but those who stuck around for Sunday spent the day watching NFL and World Series games, playing more black jack, and dining on lowbrow (In-n-Out) and highbrow (Settebello pizza) food.

And with all apologies to Lou Gehrig, today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth!

A bed of bunk

2008-10-22T14:05:00.000-07:00

The recent controversy surrounding U.S. Representative Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) and her comments regarding anti-American views in Congress has been fascinating to watch. Within three days of her appearance on MSNBC's "Hardball" show, where she made the incendiary comments in response to a question from interviewer Chris Matthews, Bachmann's opponent in the upcoming election, Democrat Elwyn Tinklenberg, raised more than $800,000 in campaign contributions, the money reportedly flowing in via the Internet from around the country.

Anybody who's followed the career of the gay-bashing, Bible-thumping, global-warming-denying Bachmann is not surprised by her viewpoints. The longer she stays in office, the more she starts to resemble Joe McCarthy in pumps -- or J. Edgar Hoover on casual Friday.

But the story did bring to light another interesting phenomenon from this campaign. On Tuesday, Bachmann tried to clarify her comments (falling back on the old "blame the media" canard, shockingly), and the StarTribune story reporting her backtracking included the following passage:

"I'm a staunch Republican supporter of hers, but I think it's going to be a factor," said Don Watkins, 72, a retired business owner. "When you look at the money the Democrats are pumping in, it's going to have an impact, no doubt about it. Whether it will cost her the race or not, I won't venture."

As for the merits of Bachmann's earlier concern that Obama may be anti-American, Watkins said, "I get a lot of e-mails on the subject, a lot of it's pretty negative regarding Obama. There's ways to check out information, but I don't have time to do it."

This highlights a point that I've been pondering for awhile now -- the misinformation out there about Barack Obama and the public's willingness to believe it. Snopes.com is a fantastic website that was founded as a collection of urban legends that we've always heard about and started to spread like wildfire once the Internet and e-mail became ubiquitous.

In election years, it's not uncommon that more and more of these urban legends concern political figures running for office. Snopes relies on regular citizens ("Joe the Plumber," if you will) to send in the e-mails they've received regarding these figures, and the good people at Snopes will research the "facts" and anecdotes to determine their veracity.

As of today, Snopes lists 42 different entries about Barack Obama -- most of them along the lines of, "Barack Obama was born in Kenya" or "Barack Obama is a Muslim," or (my personal favorite) "Barack Obama is the Anti-Christ."

Meanwhile, the McCain page includes 11 such entries, including a couple that were intended to make McCain look good but proved false. Really, only four of the 11 entries debunked myths intended to attack McCain, compared with 24 Obama myths debunked and another nine that were proven at least partially false.

So, of the 42 Snopes entries examining e-mails flying around the country about Obama, 33 of them were found to be partially or wholly inaccurate. And yet, these e-mails keep flooding the in-boxes of potential voters around the country.

Why is that? Could it be that Republicans are looking for a reason to believe that Obama is a horrible person, some "fact" (no matter how demonstrably false) they can fall back on when people ask them why they support McCain over Obama? That seems more likely than the possibility that conservatives are just more gullible than liberals -- there's a willful ignorance on display here that is not accidental.

And if a 72-year-old retired business owner doesn't have time to check out these claims, what hope do we have for the rest of the voting public?

Fear and loathing in ... Maplewood?

2008-10-20T15:15:00.000-07:00

Believe me, I'm hoping that this will turn out OK and either it'll amount to nothing, or it'll end up with a good guy getting the help that he needs, but no matter how this ends, I have to say, I want a t-shirt with this on the front:

Week 7: The WWJTPD? parlay

2008-10-18T00:58:00.001-07:00

This week, we're turning to a new American icon to find out how the common man, the average man, the hard-working, blue-collar hero struggling to provide for his family, sees the NFL. That's right, it's time to find out: What would Joe the Plummer do?

Titans -7.5 at Kansas City -- "Lendale White should wear a belt with his football pants. In my line of work, I've learned that nobody wants to see your butt crack."
Dolphins -2.5 vs. Baltimore -- "I've been looking at Florida a lot more closely, lately. No state taxes there."
Bills +0.5 vs. San Diego -- "Norv Turner has bilked more NFL teams for more money than any plumber could ever dream of doing. He's my hero."
Texans -9.5 vs. Detroit -- "I'm an expert at identifying things circling toilets, and the Lions look pretty familiar to me."
Bucs -10.5 vs. Seattle -- "Seattle? Buncha latte-sipping liberals."

Last week: 4-1
Season: 14-15-1

The bad beat, or why J.T. O'Sullivan is dead to me

2008-10-13T23:08:00.000-07:00

Every gambler has a "bad beat" story -- a tale of woe about the one that got away, the poker player who lost when an opponent drew an inside straight or the guy whose 30-to-1 longshot was leading by 10 lengths before pulling up lame with a furlong to go.

If those tales bore you, read no further. The rest of you, stick around to hear how I lost my five-team parlay to the utter incompetence of J.T. O'Sullivan.

Those of you who follow WHIH regularly know that I play one five-team parlay every week, my own office pool if you will. It pays 23-to-1, so if I hit it once, I'm playing with house money all year. I hit it once each in 2005 and 2006, but came up empty last year. And going into last weekend I was 0-for-5 thus far this year.

But I really felt good about last week's card. I won the two early games pretty handily -- the Vikings-Lions under 45.5 was the no-brainer of the season thus far for me, while the Jets laid only 6.5 against the Palmer-less Bengals and won by 12.

So I was 2-for-2 heading into the late games. Things started to turn a bit sour for me when the Cowboys and Cardinals couldn't seem to score any points. I needed them to top 50.5, but late in the first half it was 7-0 Arizona. I was doing better with my other two bets -- the Niners (+5) were staying with the Eagles, and the Seattle-Green Bay (under 46.5) game was dragging along to a 10-10 halftime score.

But with the Cards and Cowboys firing blanks in the desert, I resigned myself to another shutout weekend and headed out to pick up some groceries. It was about 4:00 p.m. when I got back into my car, and the first thing I heard on the radio was a scoreboard update. The Cowboys had just scored to cut their deficit to 24-21 with just over 2 minutes to play -- I knew if Arizona scored an insurance TD or if Dallas got the ball back and drove for a field goal, I'd win that one (24-24 going into OT, the only thing that beats me is a safety or a tie).

Then I heard that Seattle was down 27-17 with the ball deep in their own end and 3 minutes to play. Keep that game scoreless the rest of the way and suddenly I'm 4-for-4. The last I'd heard, the Niners were not only keeping it close, but they were leading 26-17 going into the fourth quarter. Well, the Eagles had come back to take a 30-26 lead, but the Niners had the ball deep in their own end with about 4 minutes to play. Since I was getting five points, all I needed was for San Francisco to mount a drive and burn some clock, or even punt the ball and let the Eagles run out the clock.

I suddenly had a hop in my step, and when I got home I raced into my office to watch the three games play out. You probably already know that Seattle did nothing with the ball and lost 27-17 (3-for-3!) and the Cowboys did force OT, whereupon the Cardinals blocked a punt and scored a TD (4-for-4!) -- though if that blocked punt had skittered through the end zone, instead of dying at the 2, I'd have been saddled with a safety and a 50-point game (i.e. a half-point loss).

That's where J.T. O'Sullivan comes into play. The journeyman quarterback whom the Niners installed as their starter this year just had to not screw up for me to win. Naturally, he screwed up. O'Sullivan was sacked and fumbled the ball inside his 20. Because the Niners had three time-outs left, the Eagles couldn't just kneel on the ball and run out the clock.

However, if Philly could run three times, burn the Niners' time-outs and get a first down, they'd surely kneel on it from there on out. Sure enough, they ran twice and the Niners stopped the clock twice, leaving the Eagles with a 3rd-and-2 from the 12. Correll Buckhalter was stopped about three millimeters short of the sticks, leaving the Eagles with 4th-and-the width of a dime for a first down. But Andy Reid played it safe, kicked the field goal, and the Eagles now led by 7.

But J.T. O'Sullivan was not done torturing me yet. The Niners got the ball back with one more shot -- a long-shot at best, but still, J.T. had the ball at his own 25 with 54 seconds to play. If he could drive the Niners to the tying touchdown and force overtime, I'd like my chances to win my bet with a field goal for either team.

On first down, J.T. got my hopes up with a 25-yard completion to midfield. But two plays later, he threw another interception -- his second of the game and third turnover in the fourth quarter -- and Juqua Parker returned it 55 yards for a touchdown to end it. San Francisco got outscored 23-0 in the fourth quarter, costing me the fifth leg of my elusive five-team parlay.

And the hunt for the great white whale continues.

Week 6: The negative attack parlay

2008-10-12T09:57:00.000-07:00

My friends, the Las Vegas oddsmakers aren't bad people. Many of them are even citizens of Henderson. They're just people with whom I have fundamental disagreements over the following five games, and that's what this parlay is all about.

Jets -6.5 vs. Bengals -- this line moved up to 8.5 by Friday with the news that Carson Palmer wouldn't play, but it was still 6.5 on the card so I jumped on it.
49ers +5.5 vs. Eagles -- Niners lost at home last week to Pats and I don't expect two in a row against a Westbrook-less Eagles team.
Lions-Vikings under 45.5 -- Have you watched either of these offenses? Unless we see four special teams/defense touchdowns, this thing's going way under.
Cowboys-Cardinals over 50.5 -- I liked the over even before I heard that Dallas might be without its two starting cornerbacks.
Packers-Seahawks under 46.5 -- No Hasselbeck, no receivers, no Seattle offense. But the vaunted 12th man at Qwest Field will give the Packers fits, keeping the total down.

Last week: 3-2
Season: 10-14-1

That flapping you hear ...

2008-10-10T18:49:00.001-07:00

... is the sound of chickens coming home to roost. After a full week of tossing bloody chum into the waters, John McCain is shocked -- shocked! -- to find out that supporters at his rallies think Obama is a terrorist, an Arab, a Marxist, or merely somebody who should strike fear in the hearts of God-lovin' 'Murkins.

Here's the money quote:

"I don't trust Obama," a woman said. "I have read about him. He's an Arab."

McCain shook his head in disagreement, and said:

"No, ma'am. He's a decent, family man, a citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with (him) on fundamental issues and that's what this campaign is all about."

He had drawn boos with his comment: "I have to tell you, he is a decent person and a person that you do not have to be scared of as president of the United States."

So there remains a kernel of integrity somewhere deep down inside John McCain, a sense of decency and honor. Too bad it took this long to reveal itself. True, he may lose the election by tamping down his personal attacks on Obama (actually, he may lose it either way), but at least this way, "Country First" doesn't ring entirely hollow.

(Smirk. Snort! Titter!!)

2008-10-09T19:56:00.000-07:00

I've got quite a bit of bile stored up about the ugly tone of the recent McCain-Palin campaign rallies, but I'll save that for a later post. I just had to get this on the record -- here's the caption for the following photo, courtesy of the arch-conservative Las Vegas Review-Journal (and if you've lost the R-J, you've lost right-wing America):

The caption: "Republican presidential nominee John McCain kisses a boy Wednesday during a rally in Bethlehem, Pa."

Not "kisses a baby" or "kisses a child" but "kisses a boy." Nice one, R-J copy editor. If Sherm Frederick hasn't ordered you to clean out your desk by now, I'd be stunned.

As for McCain ... well, if Larry Craig and Mark Foley can keep getting elected ...

Sick like dog

2008-10-09T13:11:00.000-07:00

I've been battling a bug for much of this week so the training has been on hold a bit. I thought it was just a little food poisoning but I had the bad body aches and atypical exhaustion, so I don't know what it was. I felt good enough yesterday to put in 40 minutes on the elliptical and I did a half-hour treadmill routine today (walking at varying inclines -- 12 percent doesn't sound like much, but you do it for two minutes and let me know how you feel when you're done) so I think I'm back to normal.

Valerie gave me a new training regimen to follow -- we're going to cut down to two days a week with me filling in the cardio four other days on my own. We're going to train on Mondays and Thursdays with me running a mile before each session (or a half-mile before and a half-mile after). On Tuesdays, I'll bike for 30 minutes and add in other cardio options as I see fit. Wednesdays will be my "light day" with walking, swimming or maybe even some yoga if I find a class I like. Never tried it before but I'm willing to do anything once.

On Fridays I'm back on the bike and will mix in some stairmaster or treadmill work, and on Saturday I'll start running up to 2 miles for now, pushing that to 3 miles by mid-November and eventually 4 miles as my max for now. And on Sundays, I rest.

Anybody with advice or anecdotes they've gleaned from their own training regimens are encouraged to post.

Oh, and as for the baseball playoffs, I like the Dodgers in six and the Red Sox in seven. I know, that means both teams will have to clinch on the road -- not a problem for the Dodgers, very dicey for the Sox in the Tampadome, but it could happen. They'll either win it in five or seven games, and I can see Tampa winning at least one at Fenway, so let's go with seven. Should be a fun series either way.

Week 5: A debatable NFL parlay

2008-10-04T01:43:00.000-07:00

If you're upset that I didn't post last week's five-teamer, consider yourself lucky that you didn't have a chance to follow my sage advice. I was too caught up in baseball fever to post my picks or, apparently, think them through, because I went 2-3.

This week, we've got a fresh batch of small-town, mavericky, straight-talkin' NFL picks that I'm sending out straight to the American people, without the filter of the elite, East Coast football media.

Texans +3.5 vs. Indy -- the long, strange trip ends for Houston, which returns to the Lone Star State (the lone star apparently being Steve Slaton) to face a banged-up Colts team that has struggled with the upstart expansioneers
Titans -2.5 at Baltimore -- Last week made me a believer in Tennessee -- any team that can so thoroughly befuddle the great Gus Frerotte should have no problem with Joe Flacco
Panthers -9.5 vs. KC -- the Chiefs got their win last week; they won't get No. 2 in Charlotte
Bucs-Broncos over 47.5 -- Brian Griese returns to Denver to face the Broncos' horrible pass defense, while Jay Cutler gets to show the home fans that last week's debacle in KC was due to tainted barbecue
Bills-Cards over 44.5 -- giving up 14 points to the Rams, as the Bills did last week, equates to roughly 35 points allowed against an NFL offense, while the Cardinals' feat of allowing Breffarve to throw six TD passes last week was the most breath-taking act of subservience to a senior citizen since Denny's started serving the early-bird dinner special at 3 p.m.

Last week: 2-3
Season: 7-12-1

A team of mavericks

2008-10-04T01:09:00.001-07:00

OK, first of all, I have to say that I thought Sarah Palin did a fine job in Thursday's VP debate. She stuck to her talking points, didn't answer any questions, and certainly connected with the "values voters" who comprise the Republican base. Also, she didn't vomit, faint, or start praying at the podium.

And I honestly thought the post-debate mingling between the families was rather touching. There seemed to be some genuine respect and goodwill on display, and it gave me some hope for possible national unity come next January 20, regardless of which ticket wins.

BUT ...

Seriously, folks. She kept referring to the Republican ticket as "a team of mavericks." Now, I know we can't all be English majors (jealous much?), so it's no surprise that the language is abused on a fairly regular basis during political campaigns. But this is a pretty basic contradiction of terms.

team: a number of persons forming one of the sides in a game or contest; a number of persons associated in some joint action

maverick: a lone dissenter, as an intellectual, an artist, or a politician, who takes an independent stand apart from his or her associates

It stands to reason, then, that true mavericks are incapable of associating in some joint action. Oh sure, at first they can act in concert to achieve a specific goal -- say, getting elected. But once in office, can't you just seem them spinning off in 100 different directions, entirely incapable of getting anything done or staying on point? Take a look at McCain's erratic performance in the campaign so far if you want to see what a team of mavericks is capable of.

So ... a team of mavericks:

Very few people here in Henderson have positive stories about betting on Mavericks.

Playoff previews

2008-10-02T11:27:00.000-07:00

Sorry I didn't get to this before the playoffs started -- I've been sequestered in a bunker in Sedona, Ariz., the past few days, engaging in some top-secret planning sessions in an attempt to make WHIH the best darn blog on the Internets. I just got back to lovely Henderson, so here's what I would have posted, had I been able to get to my computer yesterday. Swear to God.

-------------------------------------------

The month was January 2001. A young Ashton Kutcher was teaching the country to laugh with 'Dude, Where's My Car?' Americans were giddy with the anticipation of eight years of peace, prosperity and national unity following the inauguration of George W. Bush. And the Minnesota Vikings were preparing to play the New York Giants in the NFC Championship Game.

The Vikings, behind dynamic young quarterback Daunte Culpepper, flashy All-Pro receiver Randy Moss and a defense spearheaded by Wasswa Serwanga, were a rare road favorite against the untested Giants. Surely the experience of losing the 1998 NFC Championship Game to Atlanta would serve the Vikings well two years later and help vault them into their first Super Bowl in a quarter century.

Privately, Vikings coaches were telling anybody who'd listen that they were confident of a double-digit victory for the Purple-Helmeted Warriors.

Meanwhile, at the little website that could, a crew of talented sportswriters were compiling their weekly NFL predictions. When it came time to turn in my picks, I was roundly derided for selecting the Giants over the hometown favorites. When asked for my rationale, all I could fall back on was, "Until I see a Dennis Green-coached team actually play in the Super Bowl, I can't predict it happening."

The final score: Giants 41, Vikings 0.

Why am I rehashing this tale? Because of its obvious relevance to this year's MLB postseason.

Until I see the Los Angeles Orange County Anaheim Disneyland John Wayne International Angels actually beat the Boston Red Sox in the postseason, I can't predict it happening. Red Sox in 4.

Until I see the Chicago Cubs suppress the gag reflex and play up to their potential in the postseason, I can't predict it happening. Dodgers in 4.

As for the other two series, I'm on record as saying that by losing to the White Sox, the Twins avoided a sweep in Tampa, so Rays in 3. And I really like this Cole Hamels kid -- I think he'll pitch a gem in Game 1 and get some momentum going for Philadelphia. But CC will come up huge in Game 2 and the Brew Crew will take care of business back home, so Brewers in 4.

Tiebreaker recap

2008-10-01T00:22:00.000-07:00

Hey Sox fans -- the Man in Black has two words for you.

Meanwhile, the future is bright for the Twins. Five young starting pitchers -- age 24 to 26 this season -- with a year of experience under their belts. Mauer, Morneau and Nathan locked up long-term. Great years from the "kids" -- Gomez, Span and Casilla. The potential emergence of Mijares as an eighth-inning guy, with Neshek coming back next year as well. And only one more year in the Dome.

Pitchers and catchers report in 132 days ...

100 and sultry

2008-09-28T01:26:00.000-07:00

As Mama from "Throw Mama From The Train" famously said, "It's too damn sultry out here!" It's been going through my mind all week, especially today when we had a high of 100 degrees ... on September Freakin' 27th!

Throw in some undesert-like humidity -- 22 percent right now, had to be higher earlier today -- and it's about as uncomfortable as I've been all summer. And it's fall!

The girls had back-to-back soccer games spanning the noon hour today, so I was camped out in the sun and humidity from about 11:00 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. And naturally, both teams drew the sideline facing the sun, so it was beating down on my face that whole time. I had grand plans to get to the club and pound out some cardio later in the afternoon, but once I got back to the car, I swore I wouldn't set foot outside the house the rest of the day.

Fortunately there was some decent college football on the tube, and we got to see the White Sox gag away another game and give the Twins yet another reprieve before we settled in to watch a couple episodes of the great HBO miniseries "John Adams" on our DVR. We've got one episode to go -- can't wait to see how it turns out! I hope he doesn't die in the end.

New review: Kings of Leon

2008-09-26T17:35:00.000-07:00

Kings of Leon -- Only By the Night

Genre: Whiskey-drenched arena rock

For fans of: loud guitars, Pentecostal revivals, My Morning Jacket, skinny jeans, burgoo, The Strokes on hillbilly heroin, facial hair

Download it: "Sex on Fire," "Crawl"

Twins-Sox series recap

2008-09-26T00:48:00.000-07:00

Progress

2008-09-24T16:09:00.000-07:00

Mad props to my trainer Valerie today. We did the second round of body measurements and while I'm still at 238, my body fat has dropped by more than 2 percent and I've lost a couple of inches in some problem areas.

If you watch The Biggest Loser, you know that the dreaded Week 2 Plateau is the bane of the dieters' existence. This is the middle of Week 3 for me, so I'm not surprised that I haven't lost weight this week. First of all, muscle is more dense than fat, and I'm adding muscle while losing fat, so the only numbers that really count are measurements right now. And with Nora at home the last couple of days, I wasn't able to pound out any cardio during the day, which limited my caloric deficit.

Anyway, we celebrated my success today by pounding the crap out of my body again. Actually, it wasn't anything excessively brutal -- just a good, solid workout, three times through a circuit that included 3 minutes of running, then some squats and some shoulder work. I got on the bike afterwards for a quick 12-minute workout and am feeling great.

Twins 9, White Sox 3

2008-09-24T10:11:00.000-07:00

Great Twins game last night. That was exactly how they wanted the series to start -- not just with a win, but with a decisive win that could send a message to the Sox that will carry over throughout the series.

Baker was just massive last night -- and in winning his 10th game, he became the 5th Twins starter to win 10 this year (including the departed Livan) -- first time in team history that's happened. Other positives:

Gotta pat Gardy on the back for playing the hunch on Kubel. Let's see what Cuddy does tonight against Buehrle.
Nice to see nine runs with Span and Casilla going 0-for-10.
The crowd was really into it. Standing on every two-strike count, curtain calls, and just generally maintaining a buzz throughout.
It was fun to see small-ball driving the Sox crazy with bunts and stolen bases and getting the runner over and taking the extra base.
It was also fun to see three HRs.
Delmon's bomb was a blast.

Delmon still did that crazy thing at the end of his double, where he refuses to slide and then almost falls off the base while hopping to stop his momentum. I know he's got a sore ankle, but sometimes he looks like a guy playing softball at the church picnic who doesn't want to get grass stains on his good pants.

But that's a minor complaint after watching a nearly perfect victory. One down, two to go.

Too good to be true?

2008-09-24T09:45:00.000-07:00

Here's the key passage from this very promising article:

As recently as two weekends ago, the entire mid-’90s lineup of the band (Louris, Olson, bassist Marc Perlman, keyboardist Karen Grotberg and drummer Tim O’Reagan) reunited for a full concert at the Azkena Rock Festival in Vitoria, Spain.

“It was great,” Olson said of the performance. “We rehearsed two days, although we all worked on the songs prior to that. We did basically everything from the ‘Hollywood Town Hall’ and ‘Tomorrow the Green Grass’ albums,” the 1992 and 1995 recordings that solidified much of The Jayhawks’ international fan base.

Man. Just ... man. Too giddy to form complete sentences. Hope it happens. Can't believe after all these years ...

Monday musings

2008-09-22T11:12:00.000-07:00

No theme to today's post ... just random observations from a weekend in the desert.

Pink-Eye Sucks. I'm at home with Nora today, because she woke up with one eye nearly swollen shut and the other eye starting to get gunked up too. The doctor's office can't see her until 4 p.m. but I made the executive decision to keep her home and not jeopardize the rest of her classmates.

But this really throws off the old workout plan. I was supposed to get beaten down by Valerie at 9 a.m., but that's off the table now. And since Kris is leading a bible study group at church tonight, she won't be home until 9-ish, making a visit to the club seem rather unlikely today. All I can do is eat right, get some sleep, and do some crunches, pushups and the like. Oh, maybe I'll swim some laps too -- in our pool, one lap is about 10 meters, so if I go back and forth 15 times, it's almost like a workout.

Old Man Yells at Cloud. Sherman Fredrick is the publisher of the Las Vegas Review-Journal. He's a reliable water-carrier for right-wing politicians and causes, but even for Sherm, yesterday's op-ed piece was beyond the pale.

He slimes the Obama campaign by saying that its emphasis on the importance of technology is "asinine" and that Obama likes to "poke fun at a hero's war injuries." Because, you know, McCain was a POW, and the physical damage he suffered while in the hands of his captors now prevents him from using a computer.

It's a typically dishonest political screed from Frederick -- we're supposed to accept that McCain's not physically capable of using a computer, but he's healthy enough to run the country, so don't you worry about his neophyte VP choice ever having to assume the Presidency. Note that McCain has never used his war injuries as an excuse for his technophobia -- he never says, "Gee, I wish I could e-mail more, but I can't sit at a computer for any length of time." Nor has he, apparently, explored voice recognition technology or other methods to overcome his very real and very permanent injuries.

Of course, that's not really the point of Sherm's smarmy rant -- he just wants to throw a little blood in the water before he gets to his main point, that just because technology has passed you by, that doesn't mean the world has done the same. And that's true ... to a point. Nobody is suggesting that people who don't use e-mail or cell phones or the Google are worthless to society. And yes, it's often helpful to "get off the grid" for a time, to shut off the BlackBerry and take time to smell the roses.

But at the same time, the leader of the world's only remaining superpower needs to be at least conversant in the basics of 21st-century technology. He (or she) cannot be defiantly proud of his (or her) technological ignorance. It really does matter. And we can't afford to spend four or eight more years with a President who will surround himself with people who will tend to those minor little details while he focuses on the big picture.

Meanwhile, Sherm, I hope those kids get off your lawn.

Rebel Nation. Heady times for the UNLV football program, which stands at 3-1 after a thrilling 34-31 overtime victory against Iowa State on Saturday. The Rebels were coming off an upset win at then-No. 15 Arizona State (over-rated!), and stormed out to a 21-0 halftime lead against the hapless Cyclones. But ISU stormed back in an entertaining second half, eventually tying the game on a 28-yard touchdown pass with 3 seconds to play.

Now, I've been down this road many times before with the Gophers, and in every such game, the Golden Rodents would curl up in the fetal position and let the opponent run away with an easy win. So you can imagine how disorienting it was to see the Rebels catch their breath, then reassert control over the game.

Iowa State opened the OT session with the ball, and three plays later kicked a field goal after an impressive defensive stand by the Rebels. Then, on its first offensive play of OT, UNLV went for the jugular and got it, with quarterback Omar Clayton throwing a beautiful fade to the corner of the end zone, where freshman wide receiver Phillip Payne used every bit of his 6-foot-3 frame to stretch for the ball and haul in the winning touchdown.

Now, with the Rebels 3-1 and my Golden Gophers 4-0, is it any wonder I find myself checking the rear-view mirror frequently, looking for four horsemen on my tail?

30 years and still gut-wrenching. Today's must-read article is from noted journalist Jeff Pearlman (yeah, the guy who exposed John Rocker and recently published a bawdy account of the early-90s Dallas Cowboys) of ESPN.com, who examines the death of Lyman Bostock 30 years ago this week. I think this one will merit an entry of its own, but do yourself a favor and read this article if you are at all interested in baseball, crime, or humanity.

Week 3: Hope-I'm-Wrong NFL Parlay

2008-09-19T20:54:00.000-07:00

I don't like to include the Vikings in my parlay, because if I bet against them I'm rooting against my team, and if I bet on them and they lose, I'm doubly crushed. But sometimes the numbers and the circumstances make it impossible to pass up.

So with that in mind, here's the 5-team parlay for Week 3:

Redskins -3.5 vs. Arizona -- Team Zorn righted itself last week against New Orleans, and the Cards haven't started 3-0 since the first month of the Ford Administration.
Redskins-Cardinals over 42.5 -- Three of their last four have gone over, all of them in D.C.
Panthers +3.5 at Minnesota -- I can't see the Vikings stopping Steve Smith. Maybe Gus can keep it close. Ideally, the Vikings will win by a field goal.
Eagles-Steelers over 44.5 -- Two great offenses will be on display in the Keystone State.
Jets +9.5 at San Diego -- The Chargers are hurting. No Merriman, gimpy Tomlinson, Norv Turner still the head coach. Favre will find a way to keep the Jets in the game if not win it outright.

Last week: 1-3-1
Season: 4-5-1

Celebrity skinny

2008-09-18T22:39:00.000-07:00

So, I'm at the club on Thursday, warming up on the bike before getting my butt royally kicked by my trainer (Thanks, Valerie!) when I see the following "news" scroll across the bottom of the TV monitor above me:

Trump Endorses McCain on Larry King

And I thought, "Jeez, when will these celebrities ever get it through their thick heads that we just don't care what they think? Somebody had better tell the McCain campaign to get these celebrities to shut the hell up, because they're doing him more harm than good!"

Well, not really. But that's exactly what I hear from my friends on the right whenever another actor, musician or professional athlete speaks up in support of Barack Obama. Cuz, you know, just because they're celebrities doesn't mean they know what they're talking about.

However ... just because they're celebrities doesn't mean they don't know what they're talking about, either. Many of these people have devoted significant amounts of time, energy and money in educating themselves about the issues of the day, and many are legitimate activists for their pet causes. To remain silent when they have a platform to speak out (don't blame them because our society is infatuated with celebrities) would be to turn their backs on those causes.

So when Don Cheadle endorses Obama because he thinks an Obama administration would do more to end the oppression and genocide in Darfur, the knee-jerk Republican reaction to be dismissive reveals a lot more about them than they'd care to admit.

As anybody who watched the Republican National Convention coverage can attest, the righties hate the celebrities. Hate 'em. Think they're anti-American. Use 'em to rile up the base and get the money flowing to the campaign coffers. Heck, they even make clever campaign commercials comparing Obama to such celebrities as Paris Hilton (whose parents are major McCain donors) and Britney Spears (who famously backed George W. Bush in his re-election campaign).

However, if the celebrities are on their side, then they're welcomed with open arms. Oddly, they don't seem to mind if actors, musicians or athletes speak their mind and offer their opinions, as long as they're opining in favor of Republican candidates and causes.

So the next time you hear a right-winger complain about celebrities offering their uninformed political opinions, just nod your head and say, "Yeah, I hate that Chuck Norris guy, too."

New review: Calexico

2008-09-18T16:12:00.000-07:00

Calexico -- Carried to Dust

Genre: Tex-Mex alt-psychadelia

For fans of: Iron & Wine, jalapeno poppers & tequila, Herb Alpert, snakeskin boots, peyote, Sergio Leone movies, the Arizona Diamondbacks.

Download it: "Victor Jara's Hands," "Slowness"

Last nail?

2008-09-17T12:32:00.000-07:00

After watching the Twins' gut-wrenching, come-from-behind, come-from-ahead loss to Cleveland last night, which might have been the final nail in their coffin this season, my thoughts drifted to 1984.

Where were you in summer of 1984? That was a big year for me -- I was deep in the throes of puberty, listening to a lot of Van Halen, riding my moped around town to my first real jobs (umpiring little league baseball games and working at a drive-in restaurant), and parting my hair on the side again after an ill-fated, follow-the-crowd experiment with the center-part-feathered look. Ugh.

Anyway, in the summer of 1984, the Minnesota Twins made their first serious run at a division title in my 10 years of following the team. Powered by a dynamic young lineup that featured emerging stars Kent Hrbek, Gary Gaetti, Tom Brunansky and a rookie center fielder named Kirby Puckett, the Twins entered the last week of the season 81-75 and tied for first place with the Kansas City Royals.

Even after dropping a pair at Chicago, the Twins still trailed the Royals by only two games with one series remaining -- a four-gamer at Cleveland, a team they had just swept at the Metrodome a week earlier and that was 16 games below .500 entering the final weekend.

Now, I had just entered 10th grade that month, making the big leap from junior high to high school, so I was rather caught up with ... uh ... my studies, as well as trying to impress the ladies with said moped (verdict: unsuccessful), so I can't recall the details of that series chapter and verse. Thankfully, a wonderful site called Baseball Almanac is out there on the Internets, a great resource for baseball dorks like me.

On Thursday night, Mike Smithson took a 3-0 lead into the 8th, gave up a couple of runs and yielded to Ron Davis, who gave up tying run before getting out of the 8th. Then, with two outs in the 9th, the great Jamie Quirk took RD deep and the Twins lost 4-3.

But the Royals lost to the Angels, leaving the door open for the Twins -- two games out with three to play. On Friday night, the Twins took a 10-0 lead after two and a half innings. Staff ace Frank Viola gave back two in the third, then blew up in the sixth as the Tribe scored seven more times to cut the lead to 10-9. (Meanwhile, the Twins were getting blanked by the Indians' bullpen duo of future Twin LeRoy Purdy Smith and the immortal Tom Waddell.)

Once again, RD was the scapegoat for the loss -- the Tribe tied it off him in the 8th, and he put the winning run on in the 9th before the immortal Ed Hodge gave up two hits and allowed the winning run to score. I wish I knew who had the hits but that's not part of the box score.

Meanwhile, the Royals won in Oakland and that did it for the 1984 Minnesota Twins. One aside -- at least they didn't completely roll over. On that Saturday, they took a 3-0 lead in the first inning off Neal Heaton, but John Butcher couldn't hold it and they lost 6-4. And on Sunday, they scored twice in the top of the first off (wait for it ...) Bert Blyleven, but they didn't get another run until the 8th, by which time the Indians had tuned up Ken Schrom en route to a 7-4 win.

Of course, the AL West title that year was pretty much a consolation prize because the Royals were steamrolled by the juggernaut that was the World Champion Detroit Tigers. But still, it was a nice, unexpected run for the Twins, and it set the stage for their 1987 World Series season, with many of those young stars from '84 providing the backbone of the '87 team.

Anyway, this is a round-about way of saying it was a good run this summer, and maybe the Sox will still fall flat on their faces, but it doesn't look like it. If they play .500 ball the rest of the way, the Twins will have to go 9-2. I don't see them getting out of Tampa with fewer than two losses this weekend, and that doesn't even account for their game against 22-2 Cliff Lee tonight.

I just hope somewhere in Minnesota there's a 15-year-old kid stinking of Clearasil and Old Spice, driving a moped around town and clinging to the last dying hope of a flickering Twins season. Dare to dream, kid.

2 down, ____ to go

2008-09-16T01:12:00.000-07:00

A week in and I've lost two pounds. It's a start -- in fact, it's right on pace. My target weight for the triathlon is 215, which means I need to lose a total of 25 pounds in 14 weeks. So two pounds a week would get me there.

Today's training session included crunches, leg lifts, shoulder presses and lunges -- lots and lots of lunges. They're not fun -- but they do the job.

Oh, and I ran yesterday for the first time since the Reagan administration (I kid ... but not much). It was on the treadmill, and I was pretty much just dipping my toe into the water by running for one minute (5.7 mph), then walking for two minutes, and repeating the cycle for 30 minutes. It went well enough that next time I'm going to try one-minute intervals for both walking and running. Then I'll just extend the running periods while continuing to walk for a minute on each "break" until I'm feeling good enough to run 3.1 miles.

Or that's the plan. Anybody have tips for a beginning runner? Fire away.

Tipping their hand

2008-09-15T00:30:00.001-07:00

Looking back on the Vikings' 18-15 loss to the Colts on Sunday, one play spotlighted the ongoing folly of the coaching staff's high opinion of quarterback Tarvaris Jackson. Leading 15-7 midway through the fourth quarter, the Vikings faced a 3rd-and-5 from the Indianapolis 31.

Now, on 3rd-and-5, most teams are going to pass, because it's tough to get five yards on a running play when the defense is pretty much stacked between the line of scrimmage and about seven yards downfield. However, the Vikings figured all they needed was three more points -- to stretch their lead to 11 -- so they ran Chester Taylor into the line, figuring he'd at least keep them in field goal position.

Taylor gained a yard, and Ryan Longwell trotted onto the field to attempt a 47-yard field goal. The fact that he missed it didn't make the 3rd down play a bad call -- it was a bad call regardless of what happened on that play or on the field goal attempt. Because by running Taylor into the line instead of giving T-Jax a chance to make a play to keep the drive alive, chew up some more clock and maybe actually put six points on the board instead of three, the Vikings coaches were saying, "We don't trust our quarterback to be able to convert a 3rd-and-5 midway through the fourth quarter as we're protecting an 8-point lead."

And that's just sad. If they don't trust Jackson enough to give him a chance to throw (or scramble) for a first down in that situation, then he has no business being on the field right now.

It's too early to jump off the Vikings bandwagon -- yeah, they're 0-2, but they've played arguably their two toughest games of the year, at Green Bay and home against the Colts, and look at the other teams who are 0-2 today (San Diego, Jacksonville, and Cleveland all had major playoff aspirations going into the season). But the quarterback and coaching staff have done little to ease the concerns of Viking Nation with their performance through two weeks.

Here comes the parlay

2008-09-13T01:30:00.001-07:00

Week 2 of the NFL is just about upon us, so it's long past time to re-introduce the 5-team parlay to the blog. For those whose souls haven't been irreversibly corrupted by gambling, a parlay is a bet that pays out better than a straight (i.e. single-team) bet because you have to win all legs of the parlay to collect.

In this case, a 5-team parlay involves five picks each week, and all five have to win. But if that magic happens, I get paid back 23-to-1. It's my own little office pool, and I only have to hit it once a year to make money -- which is exactly what I did in 2005 and 2006. But I was shutout last year -- I went 4-for-5 in three different weeks, including the first and the last weeks of the regular season (not sure what that means). So while the goal is still to hit it once this year, I'd happily take two ... or more.

Last week, I went 3-for-5, hitting with the Bills, Broncos and the Panthers-Chargers over, and missing on the Lions (I know, fool me once ...) and the Cowboys-Browns over. So we're off to an inconspicuous start. Time to get conspicuous.

Week 2 NFL 5-team parlay:

Chiefs -3.5 vs. Raiders -- This is more a pick against the Raiders than for the Chiefs, although I do think the boys from KC were plucky against the Brady-less Pats last Sunday. But the Raiders just stink out loud.
Packers-Lions over 45 -- One thing Detroit will do this year is score. Another thing they'll do is let the opposing team score. Watch their totals climb every week until they reach the realm of last year's Patriots, although that phenomenon was due to the respect for New England's offense; with the Lions, it's all about their defense.
Colts-Vikings over 43.5 -- This should be a shootout. The Colts will pass early and often, aiming for the Vikings' weakness. And I like how Minnesota's offense played in the second half last week, once T-Jax shook off some of the rust he gathered while sitting out the last 2.5 games of the preseason.
Pats-Jets over 37 -- Breffarve's first home game for Gang Green -- you think he's going to be content to hand off to Thomas Jones and manage the game? He'll throw at least two TDs to the Jets' receivers and maybe one to the Pats' secondary. And the Pats will move the ball fine under Cassell.
Texans -4.5 vs. Ravens -- Houston was everybody's sneaky preseason pick but the Texans laid an egg against Pittsburgh last week. Now they get to open their home schedule against a rookie quarterback making his first road start. Hurricane or no hurricane, I've got one word for that scenario: Giddy-up!

Last week: 3-2
Season: 3-2