The Department of Useless and Ill-Informed Opinions

Be back soon...

I know, I said I'd have some stuff to say within a couple of days of being back from Germany.

And now it's been two weeks and I haven't said anything.

I do have lots to say. I've been amassing a list of shit I want to talk about.

But, things are a little nuts at the moment. October is typically a very busy month for me, socially speaking. And with my team in the running, well, it's that much more.

I'm trying my damnedest to remain rational, as I watch this fantastic season I've just seen fly by begin to crack at its foundations right in front of my eyes. I've never been (and I don't want to become) one of those Fever Pitch-esque types who live and die by their teams' every moment; those people who obsess over each nuance of each game. And I think that while I've been watching intently, either by TV or in person at Shea Stadium, I've been good and have decidedly not been That Guy.

However, it is affecting somewhat my ability to concentrate on extracurricular activities, such as writing. If I had to guess (or at least hope), my money says it's more from the consecutive late nights out than it is from my mind spinning with permutations of postseason outcomes. But whatever the root cause it's fucking my shit up, to put it succinctly.

Tuesday night, the first off-day for the Mets in almost a full week (though they're talking about the possibility of another rainout on Monday night), is a good target for me to say a little something more. I'm exhausted by the NLCS. I can't even imagine how the players must be feeling.

All I have to say is...

"We've got the teamwork,
To make the dream work."

How The Fuck Does a 30 Year Old Man End Up Playing Spin The Bottle?

I suppose at least it wasn't with teenagers, but with fellow "adults"...

I've honestly been debating for the past two days whether or not I even wanted to talk about this. It's sort of embarrassing. Fuck it.

Thursday night is my regular dodgeball night. Seriously, dodgeball. It's not so much a chance to get some fun-filled exercise as it is an excuse to meet new people and go drinking. I used to play on Wednesdays, and we drank less then. The crowd was a little different and we played in a different neighborhood, and I guess that's why it was a little more sedate. That, and it was a Wednesday night. But Thursday night seems to be a wilder and rowdier night, I guess since nobody gives a shit about work on Fridays. It's the best coasting day there is.

So we drink... And lately, it's grown from just drinking. Used to be we had a handful of beers each, hung out, listened to some music, chatted folks up, and went home. Now we're all buying pitchers. Last season, my team started playing Quarters at whatever table we were sitting at. Innocent enough. I can handle some low-key drinking games. During last season's playoff night (which I missed, because I was in Lisbon on vacation), it was reported back to me that the pool table was covered with a sheet of wood and a Flip Cup tournament was begun. By the time this new season had begun, after a 7 week break, the pool table at the bar was covered for us before we even got there (thereby pissing off the regulars of the bar mightily). Flip Cup I can handle, too. It's fun and gets everyone in a good mood.

But somehow, people got bored during Flip Cup this week. I took a quick bathroom break in between games, and when I came out there was now an empty beer bottle being spun at the center of the table, and a bunch of the regular FC'ers had backed off (though plenty also stayed), replaced with other people from the league. Yes, kids, they were playing Spin The Bottle. Spin The Fucking Bottle. Jesus, we'd reverted to our pre-teen and teen years.

I only have one distinct memory of playing Spin The Bottle as a kid, at a party at someone's house, after the parents had left us alone, and I'm pretty sure the bottle never actually landed on me. And the funny thing is that from time to time, when I think about the things that teenagers do, I realize that somehow I missed out on a decent amount of it. And more often than not, Spin The Bottle is on that list.

So what did I do, this supposedly mature 30 year old adult? Well, let's combine my latent regret about the things I neglected to participate in as a kid with the amount of beer I'd drunk at this point (a couple of pints with friends after work, a couple of nasty tall-boy cans in between dodgeball matches, and I-have-no-idea-how-many cups of beer at the bar) with the fact that I am, as per the norm, single. What would you have done? Damned fucking right I played.

A few friends played with me, but it was mostly new people for me, so I guess I made some new friends. I'm certainly intimate, or more intimate than before anyway, with a handful of new people.

But here's the funny thing for me... When you're 13 and play STB, it was an act of discovery (since you're just recognizing that the opposite sex isn't quite as cootie-licious as you previously thought) and an act of rebellion (since our parents would have been happy if we continued to think as we'd once thought, and we knew it). But when you're 30 and play, the discovery is long gone. Nobody there experienced any new sensations or performed any acts they never had before, even if it was new people. But it was still an act of rebellion, only now against The Man. Here's a bunch of mostly-corporate people sitting in a bar on a weeknight and playing games once reserved for the young and naive. It was a big middle finger to convention, the one that says we're supposed to be mature and adult. It was a beer-filled step up from Flip Cup and Quarters, a bar packed with grown-ups playing like we were kids once again, even if for an hour or two.

I don't know, maybe I'm putting too much thought into this from a sociological standpoint. You can bet everyone else that night went home and never had a second thought about it. But you can also bet that they didn't say a word to friends or co-workers on Friday morning when they got to work, too ashamed to admit the transgression, if you could actually call it that. I suspect it's going to continue as a late-night element of dodgeball nights, once the FC games die down. I'm going to be curious to see how things continue to escalate though... We went from just drinking to Quarters to Flip Cup to Spin The Bottle. I'm not dumb enough to think that this bar is going to let people go too, too far, but I'm going to be on the lookout for the first person who says "Hey everyone, let's continue this shit at my place."

Here's the better, more directly personal question though: If it happens again next Thursday, as I think it will, am I going to participate again? Cold, sober logic on a Saturday afternoon says no. But let's see how my thinking turns after I start smuggling a bunch of Bud Light in my belly.

1918 vs. 1940

Yesterday, there was much conversation about what Yankees fans would do next season.

Not what the Yankees would do, because we know the answer to that: Build the first ever $250 million payroll.

But what will the fans do, without their faithful "1918!" chant to fall back on.

I can actually shed some light on this. You see, growing up we had a sport called hockey, and a league called the National Hockey League, or NHL for short. I know, shocking, since we don't have hockey today. But I was an Islanders fan, and we had our faithful chant of "1940!" that we pulled out and smacked those pussy Rangers fans with. Until 1994. In 1994, if you'll remember, the Rangers 54 year Stanley Cup drought ended, and we didn't know what to do with ourselves as Islanders fans.

So what will Yankees fans resort to? Unfortunately, I suspect that even though the Yankees and Red Sox will still have a rivalry, most of the Yankee fan rage will be directed in the form of this chant: "1986!"

Yes, I think that what will be a 19 year World Series lull for the Mets by April 2005 will become Yankee fodder, because "1986" sounds better than "2004" (especially when the retort from Sox fans can be "2000").

I don't have any facts to back this up, it's just a suspicion. I think we've ridden with a low profile (finishing with a sub-.500 record for 3 years in a row will do that) for a while now, and we're going to become the target of choice in 2005. Simply because we'll be an easy one.

Useless Thoughts on Being a Red Sox Fan in New York

As I write this, on the eve of what may just be a Boston Red Sox sweep in the World Series, I'm thinking about the concepts of being an outsider in my own city.

Right at this moment, Derek Lowe is preparing to pitch the game of his life, a chance to save his immortal soul from the hell that is a 31 year old with a contract in Tampa Bay.

Right at this moment, Nomar Garciaparra is packing up his stuff from his rental studio in Chicago, waiting to see where he has to move it to.

Right at this moment, Tony LaRussa is wondering if all of these seasons of being told "do something or be fired" included being swept in the World Series.

Right at this moment, Derek Jeter and Yank-Rod are preparing to snuggle up in front of the TV to watch a good baseball game.

And right at this moment, I'm preparing to don my "Kevin Millah" t-shirt and Red Sox hat and venture out to a bar to watch Game 4 of the 2004 World Series.

I don't wear hats very often these days. I work in an office where I have to either wear a suit or go business casual (depending on my schedule for the day). Usually, I'll just toss one on if it's the weekend and I'm running out in the morning to grab a bagel. I used to wear an Arsenal hat a lot, but the past few months I've mixed it up with my Sox hat. Occasionally someone would stop me to ask the score of the previous day's game, but that was about it.

A few weeks ago, on Saturday, October 9th (the morning after the Sox finished their sweep of the Angels) I tossed "Millah" on to get breakfast. Walking up 1st Avenue, I was literally booed by a guy in a satin Yankees jacket. See, the Sox had already advanced to the ALCS, but the Yankees were only at 2-1 against the Twins. The beginnings of jealousy?

I didn't wear the t-shirt again until ALCS Game 7, when I put it and the hat on to go to my neighborhood pub to watch the game, only 2 blocks away. I got a few dirty looks on the street before, but the entire walk home I felt as if I was going to be pelted with eggs.

Last Saturday "Millah" was busted out once more, for Game 1 of the World Series. But this time, I wore it to Riviera Café, which to my understanding is the only Sox bar in NYC. We waited on line for an hour or so before the bar opened, along with a hundred or so others, so we all got disapproving lines of Yankee fans who strolled by, as though Fenway Park had setup a branch office in Greenwich Village.

Either way, I've had the hat on a few other times over the past couple of weeks, and I'm finding that I get these death stares almost everywhere I go. New York is a city that prides itself on its residents ability to ignore each other. But now, I find people glaring at me whenever I have the hat on. Either that, or I get random high-fives from complete strangers. The funniest was the guy last Saturday night who saw me trying to get a cab after Game 1 and said to me, in dejected tones, "Good beat tonight, man." Wanna bet he's a Yankees fan? The weirdest was the 60-ish woman last night who saw me walking with my hat on around 7:45pm and squinted her eyes at me angrily. I seriously thought for a second that she was going to kick me in the nuts. Or squaw in the nuts, as Cartman would say.

Wearing Red Sox stuff around New York City during the playoffs has proven to be an interesting little sociological experiment. Frighteningly interesting, but interesting nonetheless. I almost feel like I'm wearing a red bandana and walking through Crip territory.

I Hate The Yankees, Part II

Today I posted the following as a rant on craigslist, about how much I hate the Yankees. I know that my last post, 2 weeks ago, was about the same thing. But watching the entire ALCS brought some new issues to light, some of which are more permanent than the 3 things I talked about last time. I know it's redundant, but I think what I wrote today is pretty fucking funny and posts from craigslist drop off after 10 days, so here it is:

I hate the Yankees.

I hate the players (most of them anyway). I hate the ownership. I hate the bandwagon-esque Yankee fans. I also recognize that I'm about the 8,000th person to say these things in the past 3 days, but I'm ok with that.

I liked the Yankees when I was a little kid, because I didn't know better. But at 5 years old, when they let my favorite player (Reggie Jackson) drift away into free agency, I smartly learned to despise them. I went to the Mets and stayed there, and my father couldn't have been more proud when that happened. But I digress. My point here is to talk about *why* I hate the Yankees, and all that they stand for.

1. Yank-Rod: I used to have some respect for you. You were greedy, but shit, if someone offered me $957 million a year to play in Arlington, I would've jumped too. Above all, you were immensely talented, the best ballplayer I'd ever seen in my life. But then you approved a trade to the Yankees, where you'd forever be immortalized alongside great pinstripe mercenaries of the past. Now you sealed the deal with your sissy-slap of Bronson (or Brandon, if you're Tim McCarver) Arroyo. You're wholesome image may not be dead, the slew of endorsement deals will help keep you looking lily-white, but we all know the truth now. Hack.

2. Derek Jeter: I hate to admit it, but I have respect for you. How could I not? You play 100%, balls-out baseball every single day, and there's not many players who do that these days. You also have undying loyalty to your team, which is commendable as well. But that's where it ends. Your skills have diminished, plain and simple. You're still good, but you're no longer among that AL shortstop triumverate that once was (Jeter, A-Rod, Nomar). Come to think of it, the entire triumverate is dead, since you don't deserve it, Nomar's in the NL, and you *selfishly wouldn't let the better player keep the position!* Douchebag.

3. George Steinbrenner: This one's just too easy. Next...

4. Fairweather Yankee Fans: I have some friends who are die-hard Yankee fans. These are the guys who were genuinely nervous when the ALCS began, and then again once the Sox took 2 games (and had the rebuilt $6 Million Dollar Pitcher coming up the next night). You folks are alright. But it's the fully-blinded-by-4-World-Series-wins-in-5-years fans who can suck it. You folks weren't around during the Mattingly years; you were hanging out with my Dad & I at Shea, since we were the winners then. You're the people who yesterday were sulking around NYC saying things like "good job for the Sox, they broke The Curse." Now, let's skip the logic that reminds us all that there is no Curse. Saying that there truly was one, the CURSE HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH GETTING BEATEN BY THE YANKS! Fucking morons. The "Curse" will be lifted whenever they win a World Series. Technically speaking, The Curse is still in effect. Apparently stupid really is as stupid does.

5. Giambi: Worst... Image... Makeover... Ever. Nice free agent move, sport. You went from straight-talking hero to the average Joe into robotic automaton. You now have all the personality of a newly-paved highway.

6. Ex-Yankees: I hate the concept of "Yankee For Life". I can get into the idea for the occasional player who meant something to his teammates and to the fans. Like Tom Seaver didn't spend his entire career as a Met, but he truly is a Met For Life. But every single guy who had 3 AB's (and struck out in each of them) in 1972 and then went on to have a huge career on some other teams is claimed by the Yankees and their fans as being one of their own, forever. What the shit? Am I forever owned by my 5th grade Little League team? Am I one of the purple uniform guys for life, even though I also spent some time in yellow uniforms and green uniforms? Someone stop Deion Sanders before he's hired as the next third base coach!

7. Competition, or The Lack Thereof: You could argue that they haven't won it all since 2000, but I'd argue this point right back. By running around with more money hanging out of their pockets than Patrick Ewing at the Gold Club, the Yankees buy their way to division championship after division championship. "Oh, we already have 5 all-star quality outfielders? Well, let's sign Beltran for $15 mil a year anyway." Can Congress enforce anti-monopoly laws on these guys already? Fuck.

I think that about does it for now. This was quite cathartic. Feels good to get this off my chest. Here's to the 2004 Red Sox. Kick some Cardinal ass, and then you guys can break "The Curse," again.

I Hate The Yankees

I'm a shitty New Yorker, at least according to probably 80% of my fellow New Yorkers.

I hate the New York Yankees.

It's one thing to dislike the Yankees during the regular season. There are plenty of other New Yorkers who do as well, like Mets fans or ex-pat's from other cities. But when it comes down to playoff time, most New Yorkers believe that if your team (i.e. the Mets) isn't there, you should root for the hometown. After 9/11, people went so far as to insist that rooting against the Yankees, particularly New Yorkers rooting against the Yankees, was tantamount to treason.

This is bullshit. If you hate the Yanks during the regular season, you should be contractually obligated to hate them in the middle of the Quest For Number Twenty-Seven. You should hate them more, because with every division title and World Championship that the Yankees win, it underscores how crappy your team really is year after year.

Post-9/11, I did my usual baseball playoff routine: I went to bars and watched games, while drinking more than I should on weeknights. I was at the same bar for both Games 1 and 6 of the World Series, which the Arizona Diamondbacks both won by huge margins, and which were both on Saturday nights. My friend and I sat at a table in front of the projection screen and cheered loudly for the DBacks. Mostly because we hated the Yankees, and refused to bow down to the masses. On one of the nights (I don't remember which for sure, but I think it was Game 1) the table in front of us was kind enough to remind us that we were assholes and asked repeatedly "what the fuck was wrong with" us. Nice guys.

In any case, I could give a list of 100 reasons why I hate the Yankees, but here are the three most fervent right now:

1. Most Yankee fans (read: fairweather fans) barely notice that the Yanks are in the playoffs until it's either late into the ALCS or until they run into trouble in the ALDS or early on in the ALCS (with the exception of a Red Sox/Yanks ALCS, in which case everyone goes 12 different levels of apeshit). A Yankees playoff appearance is so common these days, so taken for granted, that everyone figures they'll tune in when it gets more real and they can ignore the ALDS. This isn't to suggest that playoff tickets don't sell, because they do. Between the corporate buyers and the real fans (and there are plenty of both), the tickets disappear immediately. It's not like Atlanta, where you can (or at least used to be able to )buy Braves playoff tickets day-of-game if you wanted and there were frequently empty seats. But compare the apathy of the Yankee fan to the sheer joy of the Angels fans during their ALDS series with the Red Sox, and you'll see how sports fans should act in October. It's the fucking playoffs people, let's show some spunk. I didn't see Yankee fans get nuts until it looked like Game 2 last night was going to end with the Yankees heading into Minnesota ready to be swept. Someone finally found the power switch last night in the 12th inning.

2. The Yankees sell playoff tickets for two series at a time. What does this mean? As soon as they clinch their playoff spot and home field advantage is determined the Yankees put tickets for their home allotment of both ALDS and ALCS tickets on sale at the same time, before the ALDS even begins. This may sound like nothing, but most (if not all) other teams sell for their LDS first, and once they win 2 games rush out their LCS tickets. To be fair, it does make sense to do it all in advance, rather than have a rushed sale of LCS tickets. But, the Yankees sell both series every single year, simply out of the ego-driven fact that they feel certain that they'll make it. It just bugs me.

3. They win. So they haven't won a World Series since 2000 when they beat the Mets 4-1. Games like last night's are the point here. The Twins looked to have it wrapped up as Corey Koskie's ball went screaming down the left field line in the top of the 8th, only to have it bounce over the wall as a ground rule double, holding Luis Rivas up at 3rd, then again in the 12th when Torii Hunter hit a homer. But the Yanks came back to win, like they did 62 times during the regular season. Don't let anyone else, including me, tell you that the number one reason we hate this team is anything besides the fact that they're winners. The other shit bothers me very legitimately, but the fact that they win time and time again will always be at the top of that list. It's jealousy, plain and simple. And the jealousy leads to self-loathing, which makes me hate this team even more. It's a sick, sick cycle.

Playoff Time

Ahh, October.

It's one of my favorite months of the year.

October is baseball playoff time, which usually translates to me going out on too many weeknights and drinking too much, because it's always more fun to watch a playoff game with a few friends than by yourself at home.

This year, as in so many others, my beloved Mets are nowhere to be found. While Mike Piazza and Al Leiter are dusting off their golf clubs, Vlad Guerrero and Johan Santana are hard at work. But that's alright. For one thing, I'm used to this. I've lived through 29 baseball seasons, and I've only seen 4 playoff appearances and 1 World Series by the Mets (compare that to 14 playoff appearances and 6 World Championships by the Yankees or 2 appearances and 0 World Series wins by the Brewers). For another thing, I have a surrogate team.

A few years ago I began to develop "feelings" for the Boston Red Sox. My friend Mike is a big Sox fan, and like me a huge baseball fan in general. As time went by, we both developed admirations for each other's teams, with the Mets becoming his NL team to root for and the Red Sox becoming my AL team.

So now the Red Sox have what's their best chance at a World Series since 1986, and I'm loving it. Today's game was another in the long line of slugfests that anyone who's watched the Sox for the past few years has grown accustomed to.

At the same time, I have money riding on the Anaheim Angels to win it all. Back in February, when I was in Vegas for a long weekend, I placed a $10 bet on the Angels at 8-to-1 odds to win the Series (I also placed a $10 30-to-1 bet on the Mets, but we'll just let that one go for the time being).

So right now, it's not just Sox vs. Angels, it's Heart vs. Wallet. And this brings me to my point for tonight...

If there were two teams playing each other in the playoffs, and you supported one but had a preseason bet placed on the other, which one would you root for harder? There are all sorts of permutations on this (how strongly do you support that first team, how much money are we talking about, is this a divisional series or the World Series, and so on), so I'll lay it out more or less the way it is for me:
Teams - The team you like isn't your favorite team, but we'll call them your "backup" team, which in my case means a team I root for quite a bit and own some merchandise for, but if it was a Sox/Mets game I'd burn my Kevin Millar t-shirt in a heartbeat.
Money - Let's say there's $300 to be won if the other team goes all the way. I know that $80 is too little to buy my allegiance.
Series - We can call it either a divisional (ALDS/NLCS) or league (ALCS/NLCS) series.

I'm sticking with the Sox. Again, $80 is too little to buy me, but apart from that I'd like to think that even if there was $300 riding on it, I'd still go with the Sox. Not that I won't cash this sucker in if the Angels win the whole thing, but I want to see them go down.

Here's my point: I'd estimate that your average Democrat/liberal would agree with me, pick from the heart, and root for the Sox. On the flip, I'd say that the typical Republican/conservative would work the wallet angle, and pray for Johnny Damon's hair to fall out along with a Red Sox collapse.

I'd like to take a poll. How does that sound? I don't know how many people will answer this, but it's worth a shot. Send an e-mail to poll[at]inactualsize[dot]com with your answers. We'll need your pick of Red Sox or Angels (or if you're a liberal Yankee fan and can't bring yourself to choose the Sox, just say the heart team or the money team), and your generalized political leanings (liberal or conservative will do). If you have any witty remarks, toss those in too.

O Capitalism, Where Art Thou?

It turns out that Al Qaeda doesn’t need airplanes to bring New York to its knees: some water will do just fine.

New York, the city that doesn’t stop for anything, was ground to a halt today by rain. It was a lot of rain, but it was fucking rain. My commute from the Upper East Side to the Financial District took 2 hours, and it normally takes about 30 minutes. Other co-workers of mine took 2 or more hours as well. The subways were all flooded by the rain. But what didn’t help is that MTA employees were re-directing people onto other subway lines (which were also shut down) or onto buses (which just didn’t show up). Seriously, if Osama Bin Laden just gets his hands on some of those car wash buckets and spills the water onto the subway lines, I think they might actually drive New York City into submission without hurting a single citizen.

In another blow to capitalism, I visited my local Gap store after work today, and as I walked in I was met by one of the clerks there asking me if I was looking for the men’s section, which had previously been on their lower level. When I answered affirmatively he told me that their location had stopped selling men’s clothes a month or so earlier, and recommended that I go 7 blocks down or 9 blocks up to alternate Gap locations where they had the full line. Now, this is a pretty big Gap store (66th & 3rd, if anyone cares), and now they’ve just decided that men’s clothing isn’t worth stocking on the racks? Does this seem weird to anyone else? One of the benefits to shopping at a chain clothing retailer like the Gap is that you know that you’ll find the same stuff on the shelves at a store in Manhattan as you will at a store in Arizona. But now I guess if I want to pick up a ringer T or whatever I first have to call ahead to see if they’re a real Gap store.

Going back to terrorism, since that Gap digression was fun and all, Dick Cheney gave a rousing speech on Monday, where he intimated that a vote for Kerry-Edwards is a vote for Osama Bin Laden. He said that "it's absolutely essential that eight weeks from today, on November 2nd, we make the right choice. Because if we make the wrong choice, then the danger is that we'll get hit again."

With all due respect to the Vice President, what the fuck is wrong with him? Does he truly believe in his heart that Al Qaeda is more likely to strike against us if John Kerry is President? That if George Bush is re-elected that Osama will give pause to think twice before attacking us, presumably out of fear of attracting Bush's ire, but that it's open season if John Kerry gets the job?

Now of course this is all just rhetoric, and he's doing his job for campaign season in playing along with it. Dick Cheney is a bright enough guy to know that the name of the man in the Oval Office isn't going to make Al Qaeda more or less likely to want to attack us. But my concern is exactly what John Edwards said in his brief retort: the Republicans are playing off of mine and your fears as Americans to try and win our votes. Fear is possibly one of the worst reasons to vote for someone. Don't vote for George Bush because you're afraid of Osama Bin Laden; vote for him because you think he'll do the job the right way.

At the risk of sounding all Oliver Stone, I'm going to divulge something here. I've been saying to my friends for some months now, and I'll finally put it down here in print (so if this really does happen I'll have some proof that I'd said it) that sometime in the immediate period before November 2nd that Osama Bin Laden will be pulled out of his cave. The election is eight weeks away now, so I'll say that it happens sometime in the next two to six weeks. I think that we know where Osama is and have a wide net cast over him, and with just enough time for Bush's poll numbers to skyrocket so he can coast to an electoral landslide you'll see a flashlight being poked around Osama's mouth. I'm fully aware that this is a shitty thing to say, and believe me it's a shittier thing to think about. I'd rather not believe that our President would do something quite so devious, but I think he would. Unfortunately, even if they genuinely catch Osama without any prior knowledge in the next few weeks, I'll always believe otherwise.

We all know by now that the 1,000th American soldier was killed in Iraq yesterday, and this leads me to ask a rhetorical question: Which is scarier, the fact that 1,000 American troops have died or the fact that it could very easily be 1,000 more before this is done? For me, the former is the tragedy but the latter is the part to be concerned about.

To go totally in a different direction again for the end here, I just want to say that for yet another year the New York Mets have been my own personal Fredo: They've broken my heart. The Mets are riding a 10 game losing streak going into tonight’s game, losing 15 of their last 16. They've only managed to score 6 runs and get 13 hits in their last four games. As of today the Mets record is 60-77, which puts them on pace to end the season at 71-91, which is frighteningly close to last year's miserable 66-95 ending. The trades for Kris Benson and Victor Zambrano, while still new, don't look so good right now. Zambrano had injuries that he hadn't disclosed to the Devil Rays or to the Mets, and Benson is now hurt as well and is complaining of a general feeling of being "flat." Yeah, that's exactly how you want your players describing themselves.

At least the Mets retail stores sell men’s clothing for me. I’m just embarrassed to wear the stuff lately.

So confused...

Well in reality, I'm always fairly confused.

But these days I seem to be more confused than ever.

Why? Because nothing stays static enough to lately for me to write anything for here. I come up with an idea of something to write about, but then the story changes before I have a chance to put anything together.

I was going to write about the mating of Republicans, and that led to the idea of talking about George Prescott Bush campaigning for his uncle in Mexico to try and court American voters living there (they say there are 1 million U.S. voters living in Mexico). It's a little dated by now and new things have certainly popped up, but I still want to talk about this, and most of the newer shit has been discussed ad nauseum.

What struck me about this campaigning was the fact that along with the concept of being in Mexico for campaign reasons was also to show his mother's homeland to his new wife. Now, it turns out that GPB's maternal grandfather lives in the one of the Mexican states (Guanajuato) that GPB and his bride would be visiting. If I were travelling in the country that my mother was from with my new wife, whether for business or personal reasons (or allegedly both, as they claim this is), and my grandfather lived nearby I'd probably drop in and at least have a cup of coffee with the guy.

This reminded me a lot of the announcement that George and Laura Bush made shortly before their daughters graduated from college earlier this year, that they wouldn't be attending either graduation so as not to cause undue issues for other families. Very noble and all that, but this is your child graduating from college, one from Yale of all places, notable both because it's freakin' Yale but also because it's W's alma mater. I remember joking to some friends (and perhaps on this blog as well; I'm not totally sure) that this was proof that these people sure as hell weren't Jewish, a statement which my other Jewish friends agreed with. No Jewish mother (or father for that matter) would dare miss their child's college graduation.

But now we also have a nephew bailing out on his grandfather, and it makes me wonder what kind of stock this family truly comes from. I can comprehend that there's a time for business and a time for personal things. I don't take every call from family at my office at length if I'm busy. But what's a half hour chat with your grandfather in the scheme of a 96 hour campaign junket, I mean Mexican tour for your new wife? I mean, we're all way too busy to stop off to see our grandfather's who live in different countries and whom we probably don't get to see very often while we're on a supposed half-and-half business/personal trip.

Isn't this the clan campaigning partially on "family values"? (Incidentally, I hate the word clan, but using the word 'family' twice in the same sentence looked stupid...) Aren't they talking about the sanctity of the family unit and how it needs to be held sacred. Sure, they're talking about it in relation to making it illegal to even think about being gay, but could anyone really argue that the sanctity of marriage and honor thy father and mother (and hence grandfather too) isn't related?

You may say that it's a stretch linking the gay marriage ban to a general sense of family values, and maybe it is. But the simple statement is that I just don't trust a family who can so quickly drop each other at moments of convenience/inconvenience.

Can you?

Damn, I like that for an ending, but there's one more thing I wanted to include here because I found it funny. Two Sundays ago I went to Fenway Park for the first time ever, the official Temple of Baseball, and I had awesome seats: the coveted Green Monster seats. So sweet... I got some great pics from up there. I also got one other picture, which I want to share with you. The slightly blurry man encircled in red below is Timo Perez, who was playing right field for the visiting Chicago White Sox that day. Whenever White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen would change pitchers, Timo decided that it took too much energy to stand, so he'd slink into the visitor's bullpen, conveniently located in right field, and grab a seat. He did this two or three times, and I got this picture of it. Why is Timo's laziness such an issue for me? Because during Game 1 of the 2000 World Series, when Timo was playing for my beloved Mets, he dogged it while running the bases and missed scoring a run on a Todd Zeile double that went to the wall. He didn't just dog it, he was virtually walking from first to second, when it was clear that the ball was a hit. That missed run turned out to be the difference between the Mets winning and losing Game 1 to the F'ing Yankees. I had a few friends over my apartment that night to watch the game, since it was the first Mets World Series in 14 years, and I exploded into a rant (frightening the girl I was dating at the time just a little bit I think). I've held a grudge against the man ever since that day, just ask my friends I was at Fenway with. Everytime Timo came up, I'd turn to them and ask "Did I ever tell you guys about how Timo blew Game 1 of the 2000 World Series?" This picture is proof that he's just a lazy, lazy man, and he doesn't deserve the MLB contract that he has.