Carnival of Madness

Once again, Major League Baseball has decided to not do anything about the relatively crazy black out rules after they promised to fix them earlier this year. They make pretty much no sense at all. Probably two of the worst parts of the country to be in and be a baseball fan is Iowa and Las Vegas, NV. In both parts, six teams claim that it’s their territory and thus, are subject to blackout rules. It’s crazy because if you live in Vegas and move to Eastern California, you suddenly go from six teams being blacked out to two and if you move east to Arizona, you go from six to one. Likewise, if I moved to Platteville before the season starts, I’ll go from six teams blacked out to three and if a person moved from Council Bluffs to Omaha, he’d go from six to one.Then there’s the states of Washington, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, North Dakota, South Dakota and Minnesota. All eight states combined have a total of four teams blacked out: the Colorado Rockies, Minnesota Twins, Milwaukee Brewers and Seattle Mariners. Meanwhile, the NFL has a rather justifiable rule for black outs, live within 75 miles of a team that doesn’t sell out the game and you’re blacked out. Live two blocks away from a sold out stadium, you can watch.

I’m not really sure how to fix this, but there has to be a better way. The best example for what is exactly wrong with all this is that if the Cardinals and Pirates are playing a game in Pittsburgh and it’s being broadcast by FSN PIttsburgh but not by FSN Midwest and I have MLB Extra Innings, I still can’t watch the game, even though going to a game there is by no means a short drive away. Meanwhile, someone in Akron, OH with Extra Innings, which is much closer to Pittsburgh can watch the game. And if a person lives in Sioux Falls, SD they can also watch the game, even though they’re further away. I can move to Platteville, WI and see the game on MLB Extra Innings. The problem is that these teams have divided the country in to their own little kingdoms and have gone out of their way to keep fans from seeing games that they paid for.

In other news, I got the new copy of SI today and reading the letters to the editor, Joe Gloski of Massachusetts had a great idea for spicing up the World Series. Dump the boring network announcers and make the announcing team of one guy from each team. Of course it’d be terrible if the White Sox go and we have to listen to Hawk Harrelson or if the Cubs go and we have to listen to Len Kasper or Bob Brenely or if the Cardinals go and that announcing team is on the air. But it’d be great if the Dodgers go and there’s Vin Scully on the air or if the D-Backs go and there’s Mark Grace or if the Pirates go and there’s Lanny Frattare…..oops, wait he retired, which means instead that Greg Brown…ah crap. Of course it’d be fucking awesome if John Wehner was on the announcing team.

This year’s political turkeys according to a CNN article. Ok, they’re probably busy right now with those terrorist attacks in India. And math is probably not exactly what they’re good at.I’m looking at #5. Ok, those AIG guys go to congress and get $85 billion. CNN is bitching about a $440,000 retreat to a spa for the execs. Ok, besides the fact that they’re being assholes in stealing tax payer money and then buying something frivolous, why is this so bad? I mean look at it this way: Bailout: $85,000,000,000. Spa: $440,000. Umm…not even 1/4 of 1% of 1%. I could understand if they spent a couple billion on a retirement plan for their execs, but the amount of money spent on this spa is so small as to be mathematically insignificant.

And those jets. Again, the auto industry is asking for billion dollar bailouts and jets generally cost anywhere from under a million to several million. Of course it could be less than that if they are part of a fractional jet ownership thing where others also own the jets part time. Of course, I would like to see by a show of hands how many congress people ride the Metro Bus to work everyday. Oh, most of them drive private cars! How dare they ask us for our tax dollars when they can afford to buy privately owned cars! Assholes! Of course there’s probably lots of congress people who own their own jets or get the government to pay for their flying around. They have some nerve complaining about auto execs flying around in privately owned jets when they make all of us pay for their flying around…

Groundhog Day should be April 1st. Every year since 1993, Pirates fans have waken up around April 1st for opening day and every year, the Pirates have been terrible. It’s pretty much the same thing every year.

1. Wake up.
2. Turn on first Pirates game of the year, if your normal wake up time is 6:00 in the evening.
3. Greg Brown is still employed….
4. Watch Pirates team that’s supposed to pull the Pirates above .500 for the first time since 1992.
5. Note that like in the movie Major League, “they’re still shitty.”
6. Still think they’re gonna do it this year.
7. Wait four months.
8. You thought what about this team?

In other Pirates related news, they picked up a couple of realty show contest winners from India yesterday. Basically the TV show was a contest to see which guy has the best arm in India. There were two of them, I guess. Anyways they have a very interesting blog. There’s a lot of entries about them being fascinated about the most mundane things like having pizza delivered to a house or eating at the Great American breakfast eatery known as Denny’s or learning slang from the guys on the USC baseball team and watching the Scorpion King. Of course the line from the Pirates is that they’re expanding scouting to India in the sense that these well known guys in India are now Pirates and thus, people in India might know the Pirates now, instead of the Yankees or Red Sox or Cubs….

So tonight while watching Sunday Night Football, there was a preview for the new “The Day the Earth Stood Still”. Keanu Reeves is an alien in the movie. That’s not much of a stretch for him…Then there was a preview for the movie Valkyrie about the July 20th plot to kill Hitler. So, Tom Cruise plays a Nazi. Again, is that really a stretch for a member of the Cult of Scientology? Now if only he could turn on them and try to get rid of them, that’d be pretty cool. Otherwise it looks really good.

Oh yeah, there’s the new Star Trek movie preview. Um, why does it look like a Battlestar Galactica rip off? At the start, Kirk is driving around in 20th century car, he for some reason sends it over the edge of a cliff and jumps out of the car. Did he just trash an antique car? And where the hell in Iowa is that? I’ve never seen cliffs like that in this state. And he’s supposed to be from Iowa. The rest of it is just lots of actions scenes and explosions and special effects quickly edited in to about a minute.

They should make some movies about skunks, that’d be really cool. But nobody listens to me about what they should make.

I’m watching the Bears-Rams game this afternoon. The Rams are sorta bad these days. A big difference from the early part of this decade where they basically owned the rest of the NFL. Watching them this afternoon, I realized what it was…or at least part of it. They have these terrible uniforms. Basically they’re a lot like those awful looking uniforms the Pirates wore in the 70′s. Anyways, they’re really mix and match. They can be all white, all blue or or a mix of blue pants, white shirt or white pants, blue shirt. Also there’s dark gold pants than they can wear with white or blue shirts. But yeah, they’re all around ugly uniforms.So the solution would be to fix this with just going back to the uniforms they had back before 2000. Bright blue and yellow, it won’t make the team good again, but at least they’ll look good again.

Of course it could be a while. The Pirates got rid of their sleeveless uniforms when they moved from Forbes Field to Three Rivers Stadium in 1970. For thirty years at Three Rivers stadium, the Pirates uniforms ranged from hideous to bland to really white. Finally in 2001 they put the uniforms back where they belonged. True, the teams since then have been all pretty awful, but at least they have good looking uniforms….

The more things change, the more things stay the same. Interesting fact of the day, during the Clinton administration the US military dropped bombs on Iraq, on average, every three days. What’s the big difference between these two political parties?In other news, there is no other news.

Whoo! My teeth are the same as last time. My eyes are the same as last time. She said that the sun glasses probably help in keeping my eyes the same as usual. Probably go in again in November 2010 after my dentist appointment that year.I went along and ordered a new pair of regular glasses because the old ones are getting a bit run down. For example, the right lens is chipped and both arms have started to fall apart. This is just a case of needing to get new glasses. The rest of my glasses can stay the same.

Other than that, I got a hair cut and I’m all ready for the Thanksgiving thing coming up next week. Also got mom a few birthday things a few days early. Just a cake and a gift certificate. The thing that sucks is that the prices are going up everywhere. The dentist went up $5 from last time to an even $100 and the eye exam and glasses were $221 and the hair cut was $16. I mean, that’s an expensive day…

This is good. With a downturn in the economy, people are spending less on junk and living within their means. This is a good thing for the economy because it means people are buying discount items and in the long run will probably buy more discount items. If you buy discount, it means that you’re spending less than you would on premium items and you have more money to save, spend or whatever. It’s good to see a lot of americans “get it” more than the politicians do.

The cold virus is on full retreat right now. The immunities have stepped up and gotten rid of that stupid virus for the most part. Today, it was just dying off and going away. Probably when I wake up tomorrow morning, it’ll be all gone for good.In other news, Ian is out of jail. He was out yesterday night in time for the radio show. So apparently the whole story is that a local government employee complained after Ian called up a local public issues that she was on and asked her some tough questions. It just sounded so petty. Anyways, he worked out a deal today and if he gets in trouble again, he’ll be back in jail for the rest of the 90 days.

Anyways, it was just nice to turn on iTunes tonight and here his voice again after two episodes of him not being around.

From the same group of idiots who brought us “Why Mommy is a Democrat” and “Why Daddy is a Democrat” is a new kids book called“Mama Voted for Obama”. I love the fact that it took two people to make a simple kids book, it’s hard to believe that the guy who made those illustrations couldn’t have been bothered to write those simplistic childish rhymes. On the first page, Obama’s reading to a classroom of kids sitting on the floor (like what Bush did the morning of 9/11). Apparently those kids can handle a 192 page book about the campaign, but the kids who get this book can only handle stupid rhymes and simplistic illustrations. Also reading a 192 page book out loud would take a long time, which means that he’ll be too distracted to stop terrorist attacks.Then the book over the next couple of pages goes on to list a bunch of animals that “mama” didn’t vote for including gorillas, sharks, llamas and cats. I’d like to know what state the author is in that animals are allowed to be listed on the ballot as presidential candidates. I mean, isn’t that violating some ballot laws or something? I would personally vote for a gorilla, then every Tuesday will be Monkey Tuesday.

Then the last sample page says that some mamas voted for a man named John and some voted for a Mastodon. So not only are animals on the ballot, but animals that have been extinct for 10,000 years are on the ballot as well. Hmm. Also John McCain is holding a banner that says “No We Can’t.” I didn’t realize that was his boring repetitive chant, I didn’t think McCain had one. I have a bad feeling that in 2012, it will be all about the boring, mind numbing repetitive chant. People love them, I mean why else go to church on Sunday? “Let’s Go Bucs!” is a popular one at Pirates games, also “Boooo” is another popular one as well.