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Weekend Stuff.

Monday, February 8th, 2010

On Friday I drove to St. Louis to hang out with Jennie and John for the weekend. We went out and had crab at a Crabshack place. It was good, but I wouldn’t have it more than once a year or so. We then watched The Hangover, which was funny, but not for everyone. The Mike Tyson cameo was the best part.

On Saturday night we went to the Blues game against the Blackhawks. The Blues got totally screwed by a stupid ref who couldn’t see the puck and that cost the Blues a goal. So instead of regulation ending with a tie, the Blackhawks went home with a 2-1 win. We also went to the Hardrock Cafe, which is tasty.

On Sunday we had the Super Bowl party. It was hard to care too much about the game since I honestly didn’t care much about who won. I’m glad the Saints won since they never won it all before and all that. But I would have been glad if the Colts and Peyton Manning had won it too. He’s a very cool guy. During the party a 3 or 4 year old boy got really interested in World of Warcraft. So he asked what you could be. So I put my guy away and went along and showed him the “Create a new character” page and I showed him what he could be. I teased him a little saying he looked like a Gnome. His older brother told me to make a Tauren hunter. So I did. And they thought it was really cool he had a gun. But he kept pushing me to be a zombie (The Forsaken in the game). So I made up an Undead Warrior for him, he couldn’t be a Warlock or anything like that because those guys are wearing dresses and he said they couldn’t have hair because that’s girly too. So I started doing quests with the bald warrior when he said he wanted a guy with two daggers. So I quit on that guy and made an Undead Rogue for him and did a few quests. At that point, my laptop ran out of power and the football game was hitting the middle of the fourth quarter and I wanted to see what happened so I told him that’s it for today and he got up and did other stuff ’till his grandma wanted to leave. After everyone left, Jennie and John put on Family Guy and I fell asleep during it.

This morning I woke up and started reading through teh blogz and I looked outside and noticed it was snowing out. I thought I better get going. So I quickly packed up and left at about 6:45. It’s amazing how much worse the roads were in Missouri compared to Iowa. Missouri, the roads were about 1/2 covered in snow. In Iowa, crossed the border and the roads were all clear. Also in Southern Iowa, I noticed a giant billboard that had a green background and in white had the name Jesus. That Jesus guy sure is narcissistic for putting his name up on a billboard like that. Got back to Dubuque around 1:00 and had everything unpacked and put away by 2:00.

Now back to my regularly scheduled programming.

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Hell’s Angels.

Thursday, October 22nd, 2009

Holy crap. That game was epic tonight. After everythign that happened, I’m surprised that there’ll be a Game 6. I thought the Yankees would win it and set up the Yanks-Phills World Series. For most of it was just a pitcher’s duel that started with a four run first for the Angels. Then the 7th started. The Yankees got 6 to take a 6-4 lead. Then the bottom of the 7th the Angels got 3 to take a 7-6 lead. In the 8th, Weaver shut down the Yanks. In the bottom half, the Angels almost padded the score, but Mariano stopped that. In the 9th, Fuentes got two outs, loaded the bases and after about 50 foul balls, got Swisher to pop out.

Then there’s this article about the 1988 Atlanta Braves. They lost 106 games. They were bad. The interesting thing is reading what is being said about the Braves of the decade before that. Mostly that they made short term decisions that hurt the team long term. They ignored the draft. They made idiotic trades, some at the insistence of the ownership. It sounds very familiar to this article about the Pirates from ESPN the Magazine in May. Ultimately the message in both articles was that there are no quick fixes, build through the draft, sign international talent, trade veterans for prospects and stock up on pitching. It worked for the Braves, the big question is if it will work for the Pirates. That’ll be up to Neal Huntington, his front office people, his scouts and some luck.

Also I heard it’s raining out.

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A snowy game day.

Friday, October 9th, 2009

Everyone should go to a baseball game once in their life with Bill James. This is my favorite part of the article:

And yet … that’s what the Royals (and other small market teams) do. They play the game conventionally. They fall back on old ideas. They hire old school managers and preach old school baseball values and scout players on the same 20-80 scale that players have been scouted for 50 years. Bill pulls out his spiral notebook — he always brings a spiral notebook to games — and on a page he draws two ladders, one on top of the other. The higher ladder is the “professional” ladder. The lower ladder he calls the “amateur” ladder. He then draws a picture of someone dangling from the bottom rung of the professional ladder. That, he says, is the Kansas City Royals.

“It’s so important for them to be considered professional,” he says, “that they are unwilling to try anything that might make people think they’re amateurish.”

And that’s the big problem with baseball these days. The fact is that there are small market teams like the Pirates, Royals, Reds and Orioles that for most of the last decade think they could compete with the Yankees, Angels, Mets and Cubs by doing it the same way that they do. Essentially for the entire decade, all those teams have been failures.

Meanwhile, other small market teams like the Marlins, A’s and Twins have figured out a long time ago that trying to put their teams together the same way as the big guys in the game wouldn’t get them anywhere. So that while the Pirates, Reds, Orioles and Royals have been shut out of the playoffs this decade, the Twins, A’s and Marlins have combined for 11 playoff appearances and a World Series title (03 Marlins).

The Twins for example, traded away Chuck Knoblauch and Johan Santana and let Torii Hunter leave through free agency. But that really didn’t hurt them long term because while the Twins are back in the playoffs, Santana is probably at home. The Twins are probably the best run team in baseball. No matter how bad it gets, no matter how many players are traded away or leave through free agency, they always have more talent ready to go in the minor leagues or they make trades that will get them the talent they need. The hard part for the Twins, however, will be keeping Joe Mauer in Minnesota instead of letting him leave and become another Bronx Bomber…

But speaking of the Twins….

Fuck. Up 3-1 in the 9th, A-Rod  hits a run homer. Fuck.

Twins get the bases loaded with no outs in the 11th and couldn’t get even one run home. Fuck.

Then Teixeira hits a hr in the bottom of that inning to end it. Fucking Yankees.

But, I did find this article hilarious. The guy goes 0 for 4 two nights ago and suddenly that’s the story the next day? Not “A-Rod produces” or “CC Produces”. It’s “Tex doesn’t produce”. Teixeira clearly wasn’t going to let some idiot sports writer get away with that again, what with getting the walk off home run tonight. Reading that article almost made me happy for Teixeira. Almost.

I still think 1991 was the greatest year in baseball history. The Yankees finished last. The Twins won the World Series. The Pirates finished in 1st place, 14 games ahead of the 2nd place Cardinals. The Pirates were so dominating that year, they won the division title on September 22nd and the regular season didn’t end until October 6th. Even in that 12 game span between wrapping up the division title and the last game of the season, the Pirates went 7-5 and had the best record in the East. I like 1991 so much, I bought the page for it.

Finally, I heard it’s gonna snow tonight. I wonder what the shortest amount of time between snow melting in the spring and the next snowfall in the fall is for here in Iowa. Even if it snows a bunch, it’s not gonna stick around, it’s supposed to be 50 something out tomorrow and then in the 40′s the four days after that. Welcome Mr. Snow, Enjoy the Heat!

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Ass Booting.

Monday, August 10th, 2009

It flooded here yesterday. A lot, I mean it rained a ton. Basically, the house is fine, but it did flood around the barn and it was just an amazing amount of rain. Also it was so windy that it knocked a huge tree over and a few other branches fell off other trees. And the wind and rain was so bad that we were standing at the window and couldn’t see the barn from the house.

I bought new boots today. I went to the store and there were three kinds of boots there. A generic kind that didn’t have any sort of brand name on them. There was Northern boots and Servus boots. The Northern were more expensive and the Servus boots were cheaper. But, the Northern had no steal toe. The Servus ones did. The odd thing was that Northern wanted $24. Servus were $16. Why spend more on something that doesn’t have a steal toe and usually wears out after a year. Of course, I don’t know how long Servus boots last.

So I was reading the monthly Q&A with Frank Coonelly. They clearly screen the questions because if they didn’t, most of them would be “When are you going to stop destroying the Pirates?” or “Fuck you, asshole?” But ya know, they were already caught stuffing the ballot box in the 2006 All-Star Game and now the front office is submitting softball questions for the Pirates.com Q&A session:

First I would like to say I think you and Neal and everyone else did a fantastic job this year acquiring talent and fully understand your plan…

Wow. Really? I mean, if it’s not submitted by the front office, I just wonder they also believe everything everyone else has told them?

Oh well. I mean, I don’t think they’re doing a terrible job, I think they’re doing ok. But it’s going to take 3 or 4 seasons to find out how these trades are going to work out for the Pirates and how the draft picks work out. They’ve certainly done more to build up the minor leagues and put players in place to help them win in the years to come than the previous three GMs did.

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No room for your stuff!

Thursday, June 25th, 2009

I spent several hours cleaning the garage this afternoon. It was a hot and sweaty job, but the garage looks a little better. The garage has sort of become an extension of the house. As soon as you fill up the house with your stuff, you have to put some of your stuff in the garage and then some more stuff in the garden shed. Overall, there’s way too much stuff around here.

In other news, Ian Snell asked to be sent to AAA Indianapolis. He’s gone from being one of the best young pitchers in baseball to a walking caricature. He’s essentially trying to get traded away from Pittsburgh, but at this point, the Pirates will be lucky to get anything for him.

The weather was weird today, there was this big storm north of us and it broke up and went around us and then when it was south of us, the storm got back together. It was very odd that the storm seemed to avoid hitting us at all.

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Chapter 28.

Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009

The major problem-one of the major problems, for there are several-one of the many major problems with General Managing the Pittsburgh Pirates is that of whom you get to do it; or rather of who manages to get the Pirates fan to let them do it to them.

To summarize: it is a well known fact that those people who must want to General Manage the Pittsburgh Pirates are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it. To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made General Manager should on no account be allowed to do the job. To summarize the summary of the summary: people are a problem.

And so this is the situation we find: a succession of Pittsburgh Pirates General Managers who so much enjoyed the fun and palaver of being in power that they very rarely notice that they’re not.

And somewhere in the shadows behind them-who?

Who can possibly General Manage if no one who wants to do it can be allowed to?

This entry brought to you by the excessive Iowa heat and me trying to avoid having to go outside right now…

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Whoo! First televised game of the year.

Monday, March 16th, 2009

Wow, so nice. MLB Network is playing the Pirates-Rays game tonight at Bradenton. Of course this game doesn’t matter in the long run, but it’s nice to see most of the guys again. Also, a new face…or a new voice really, with Lanny Frattare gone, new play-by-play guy Tim Neverrett has done a great job so far. He has a Bob Uecker-esque voice. He hasn’t said anything too annoying yet.

Then there was Paul Maholm. Holy crap, he just owned the Rays hitters tonight. I’m so glad they signed him to that long term contract this off season. Otherwise, they’ve got some likely minor leaguers pitchers out there throwing the game away. The offense isn’t that impressive, but these are the Pirates.

Oh, nice day out today too. I think today was the first day I did chores without my coverall on since November, I think. It was awesome being outside without having to wear that big heavy thing. A few days ago, I was back to my regular socks with my boots. It used to be I’d have my big heavy socks and regular socks on when it was cold. Then when it warmed up a bit I switched to just big heavy socks.

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Weather check.

Wednesday, January 28th, 2009

So I’m looking at the weather channel’s 10 day forecast and it says that my birthday will be sunny and 30-something with no chance of snow. Awesome. Now let’s see if they keep it that way for the next ten days. I’m skeptical that it will stay that way. I learned recently that the restaurant that had free birthday meals has ended that practice. So I guess I won’t stop there for lunch before I drive to St. Louis. Oh well, no big deal. I’ll just stop by Starbucks before I leave and pay too much for coffee.

In other news, I have decided to add a Favorite Posts section off to the right there. It was just another link category I added. I wanted to have a section I could go to and find my favorite entries through the years. So far I’ve thought of two. I’d have to look through and find some more.

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I Got Wood.

Thursday, January 22nd, 2009

No Steelers and No Obama in this one.

Oh, I got my new Sports Illustrated today and they had the Steelers on the cover for the second week in a row! I got three Sports Illustrated with the Steelers on the cover. Pretty cool. Ok, no more Steelers as of now.

Wood cutting is cool, but it sucks. I get in at night and I’m more sore and more tired than usual. But it’s way less painful than paying several hundred a month to the man for heat. Uncle Cliff’s cow pasture is getting cleaned up. Today we took care of a tree that was already down. Lucky it didn’t kill a cow, I’d say. Lotsa dead trees in that place.

I had a nasty headache yesterday. I could barely think straight. And of course spraying the cows with cydectin didn’t help any. That stuff is just plain awful.

In other news, I’ve made enough money as of several days ago to pay off my car. Now just nothing bad needs to happen. Since I got the hotel covered for when I go to see Jennie, all I need now is to save up some money for other stuff when I go see Jennie, like gas and of course gotta pay for Valentine’s Day. That’s always important.

Yeah, the big cool trip to St. Louis is a long 15 days away. I’m going on my birthday. There’s something going on February 6th at Reagan’s birth place museum thing. The big museum is out in California, but Reagan’s birth place is just 2 hours away. It’s usually closed this time of year, but on that day it’s open because they know it’s my birthday and that I wanna stop by. Actually it might be because it’s his.

Oh yeah, I was in the house tonight when the news was on and there was some college professor saying that you shouldn’t just take the first job that comes along and that you should hold out for the right job. I suppose if he were unemployed he’d turn down jobs because they aren’t what he wants and who cares if he doesn’t have money? Of course, listening to Free Talk Live from Friday and they’re saying that if you don’t have a job, one will come along. Gotta do what you gotta do to survive financially, take the job and continue looking for a good one. Even though they don’t have lots of training or education, the FTL guys are sure smarter than the college professor. I was also amazed when he said kids don’t know how to shake hands, make eye contact or speak clearly. I did all that in my job interviews. I should have gotten every job I applied for.

Valentines Day, I might have a date for it. Actually I’m fairly certain I will. It’s hard to tell sometimes with her, but single moms are like that, I guess. Basically it’s been going on since the day before Christmas Eve. I guess I just haven’t thought of posting anything here about it. I’m pretty excited about it, I’m just trying to avoid getting overly excited about it like I was about that girl from 2005, what’s her name? Anyways, for Valentines Day, we’re gonna go to the Dubuque Star Brewery place for supper. I got her a heart shaped box of kisses and I’m gonna buy nice clothes for it too. Like good clothes.

I love this story. It seems like they’re worried that the last two years and the absolutely coldest, most brutal, snowiest winters here in the midwest might be making people doubtful about how bad global warming is. Gotta keep people afraid. Can’t let them rethink things. Time to rally the troops so people don’t start to ignore them. I keep thinking back to 2006 during that really hot summer and how everyone was saying that the hot weather was proof that global warming is real. So does abnormally cold weather prove that Global Warming isn’t real? By the way, what’s the deal with carbon hatred? Aren’t we made of carbon? I love the guys talking about carbon foot prints, are we all polluters since the air leaving our mouths is CO2? I love carbon, especially when the carbon is in the shape of a hot girl.

Free Talk Live is the coolest talk show in the history of the world. I love the fact that one of their sponsors is a sex toy website. Yeah, this isn’t the fucking Rush Limbaugh show here. Oh yeah, looking at some of the toys and I wonder “What the hell does that even do?” My mind isn’t dirty enough.

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Posted in Crappy Weather, Dating and sex, Life, the Universe and Everything, Political Mind Dump, Steelers | 1 Comment »

Stupid weather….

Thursday, January 8th, 2009

I make plans for tomorrow night and now it looks like it’s gonna snow half a foot or something. It only snows when I make plans anymore and this after it’s not really snowed around here for a couple weeks. Stupid weather.

Anyways: I think this is funny. So let’s see here, Reagan hated government so much that he became the leader of the American government and never cut the budget for it in any real way during his entire 8 years as president. His claim that ”In this present crisis Government is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem.” was just a bunch of empty rhetoric. As true as it was then and is still today, he never really believed that. He just said such things in order to get elected. If he really believed that, he would have vetoed a lot more, he would have worked harder to cut spending any way he could and not sent the national debt skyrocketing.

But the liberals running that site respond back with a bunch of asinine load of bullshit about all the good things government does. Of course they go to Hurricane Katrina. So I suppose that the government getting in the way of all the relief supplies and workers and then stealing guns was just small government staying out of New Orleans. Of course the city of New Orleans was built under sea level and the levees were built by a government. Of course it’s really insensitive to suggest New Orleans should have been built above sea level and the levees were just a junky government construction project.

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