Manage This!

Last night, game five of the world series had some stiff competition: PBS was running a very interesting documentary on the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps), and PBS’ commercial free format made it almost impossible to quickly check back in for updates.  As if that wasn’t enough, after that they aired a re-run of the American Experience documentary about Kennedy’s assassination; a topic which isn’t intellectually appealing but is geographically appealing.  (It’s fun to see your city on TV, even if it is for shooting a President)

The snot rockets and spitting took a back seat to Kennedy and Roosevelt.

However, the Phillies won and the Series will continue.  (Arg!)

My boy BennyBoy (who astutely provided us with the video clip yesterday) and I got into a lovely conversation about the state of baseball.  Benny is a die hard sports guy, and is rooting for the Phillies.  Why?  Because NY has won enough.  I’ll let him explain more in that guest post he promised (right? right? give it to me!), but will sum it up by saying – there needs to be a salary cap in baseball, and George Steinbrenner needs to have a personal financial crisis.

That being said, what is up with this guy?

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Joe Girardi is like the LaVell Edwards of baseball: tough, unbreakable exterior.  Do you see the cutaways of him in the dugout, with his eyes hidden under his cap and his evil, angular jawline?  He just looks like a guy you wouldn’t want to mess with, or meet in a back alley somewhere in Jersey.  He might even be related to the devil himself.

Joe Girardi is much more intimidating than Charlie Manuel, who appears to be chewing so intently, you’d think it was basic life support for his mother – or what was keeping the neurons in own brain from taking a permanent break.

Go Managers!!!

Update: World Series Snot Rocket

My wife reminded me last night that I totally forgot to point out the absolute worst part of Saturday’s game.

After A-Rod had gotten on base, they did an EXTREME close up (again, remember that we’re in high definition here) and at the perfect 2 seconds that his big round face was plastered against my 100″ viewing area, he put his finger up to his nose and launched a HUMUNGOUS snot rocket out of the other nostril.

I had to go check the carpet below the screen afterward to make sure there was nothing to clean up!

His mother must be sitting at home just shaking her head.  Didn’t she teach him more manners than that?

(p.s. I tried in vain to find a screen shot of this online.  I wish wish wish I had been recording it…)

Update:

Thanks to BennyBoy, we have this awesome video of it:

Halloween and The World Series

Last night, we enjoyed sitting on the couch, watching game 3 of the world series, and handing out candy to the local children.

Did we decorate our house?  No.

Did we dress up?  No.

Did we have to give away some of the good candy?  Yes. (But I saved most of the Kit Kats)

Did we have any teenagers come and take candy by the handfuls and put it in their pillowcase?  No.

We turned off the light at 9:15, watched the game through the top of the 6th inning, and went to bed.  (Without setting our clocks back, nor informing the sun to not come and wake us up as if it were Standard Time, rather than daylight savings time.  But I won’t complain about that, since the extra hour has allowed to me to catch up on blogs and write this blog.)

I hate baseball.

I know hate is a strong word, but I really don’t like it a lot.  It’s SOOO long and boring.  Moreover, it is NASTY!  Does everyone in Baseball have some kind of mouth problem where they have to spit every five seconds?  Especially when the camera is on them?  I realize this is from a long history of chewing tobacco, but even those who don’t chew anymore still find necessary to spit every few seconds.

Spitting in high def is extra nasty, too.  And so are the nose hairs hanging out of the team manager’s nose that you can also see in high def.  I’m now starting a campaign to revert MLB to standard def coverage.  If you would like to join me on this, please enter your credentials in the comments area.

Leaf Peeping in the Berkshires

When A2 announced that she had to go on a trip to the Northeast in the fall, my mind immediately shot back to the time when I learned the phrase “leaf peeping”.  It was from an episode of The West Wing where President Bartlet is upset because he has to forego a radio address packed with policy and issues for a more tempered one about “leaf peeping” in the Northeast.

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Neither of us have much northeasterly experience, so it proved to be an exciting new experience for both of us. Here is a recount of our exploits and our impressions of our dear Yankee friends:

Continue reading Leaf Peeping in the Berkshires

Windows 7, Another Bag of Hurt

Apple’s newest ad poignantly notes that we’ve been told the same thing over and over again by our friends at Microsoft:

With every launched operating system, they’ve promised that it’s better. They’ve promised improvement… and they’ve delivered baby steps forward with every (other) OS. (Vista & ME… sorry…)

Well, they’re going to have to do better than that. They need a leap forward. They need a grand slam out of the park home-run.

Notwithstanding the anecdotal evidence suggesting that Windows 7 appears to be lighter-weight, faster, and a smidgin‘ better than Windows XP, it is only that. Slightly better. Not great. Not near what it could be. It’s just a bit better.

This is a true disappointment, given that XP was launched in 2001, and launching an operating system 8 years later that is only an incremental improvement is hardly impressive.

The truth is that Windows continues to play catchup to Mac OS X. While Apple is focusing on stuff like hyper-threading and optimizing for multi-core processors (aka making your apps run faster, better, and preparing for the future of processor hardware and 64-bit software), Windows is still trying to figure out startup and standby times.

Pathetic.

Spending

You know it’s gonna be a bad month when you log into Mint and see this graph for your monthly spending:

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That is what a small vacation, a huge car repair, new tires, and a couple trips to wal-mart will do to your monthly cash flow… 🙁

I guess it could be worse…

1. I could be FavUnc and see that bar getting longer and more negative with every pre-wedding month…

2. I could be the Federal Government and not have seen that bar anywhere near the 0 mark for the last 75 years.

I suppose I could always raise my wife’s taxes for being married to me… who says I am “tight”?