There is no hard G sound in gli, damnit!

Were I in the position to teach Italian to others, I'd apparently need to spend a minimum of a week on pronouncing the 'gl' sound. It's been over a month and most of the class has yet to grasp this novel concept. Taking summer classes has been absolutely miserable. If only I could hop in the De Lorean and tell my lazy freshman ass to get out of bed more often...

I find that being surrounded by idiots drags me down. I take classes with idiots, hide in the library for a little while and then go to work with idiots. When I get home, my brothers act like idiots. There is entirely too much idiocy in my life right now and my brain is all scattered as a result. I need solace desperately. I also need sleep desperately and I'm not sure which of the two would be more easily attained right now. I can't think or write with any eloquence or concision and that bothers me endlessly. I went to write a paper for my music class and allowed myself to write trite, dumbed-down garbage because I couldn't achieve anything better and knew it wouldn't affect my grade any. One might even say that I have the puzzles, if one knew the origin of the term.

Álex Ríos shows signs of life, movie at eleven. (I can now cross that lame phrase off of my list of lame phrases that I've yet to use)


I'll swallow poison, until I grow immune

Hong-Chih Kuo, new laptop

Brandon Funston, Y!'s second-most capable fantasy baseball writer, made a nice little note in his most recent Skinny about Hong-Chih Kuo, one that I'm taking full advantage of. Kuo is a long/middle reliever but has starting pitcher eligibility. I just lost Jake Peavy to the DL for who knows how long and there's nothing particularly appealing at the SP spot on waivers. Rather than add a scrub who'll give me innings and maybe some Ks, I'm taking Kuo and leaving him in an SP spot on top of my five other relievers. Kuo will help me protect my leads in ERA, WHIP, Ks and K/BB much better than Chad Gaudin or some similar widely-available free agent SP. Leo Nuñez and Taylor Bucholz also both have SP eligibility and are pitching well right now. Neither get the Ks that Kuo does, but they'd be better options in a holds league if you can get away with it.

Here is my new laptop, but tweaked slightly for more memory. It's fun. Contrary to popular belief, Vista is not the worst thing ever. I daresay I even like it. 67.21% (I looked it up) of the complaints about Vista are levied by Mac users with the computer literacy of an eight year-old. When you're drinking from a sippy cup with a swirly straw, don't tell me my goblet sucks because I might spill from it. If you can't secure your computer, you're an idiot. Period. The one thing they have right, though, is that DRM is a massive fail and ought not to exist.

Rome out. (I kid. Jim Rome is a horrible human)

Killer for hire, you know not yourself.

Two-plus years later! People still suck and I like baseball.

There is nothing exciting about that! Yea exclamation points!

I'm bored in the library presently and feel like writing. I re-discovered this unintentionally and was amused by my old writing. I'm funny when I ramble. Or at least I think so (which is what counts).

I like Interpol. Lots. I like Placebo more.

I have ambitions. I like ambiguity.

I'm consistently baffled by people who can't pronounce words properly. I'm in an introductory Italian class chock full of such folk. It's one thing if you look at a word you've not seen before and mess it up. OK. It's another when the teacher says it to you, repeatedly, and you can't parrot it back. Cinque=Cheen-kway. CHEEN-KWAY. Why is this hard? Sin-cue? Are you f-ing serious? I thought it was in high school where summer classes were populated only by the special kids. Wrong!

I'm also taking Music and Society. There's a guy in there who picked Robert Johnson when the professor asked the class to list musicians that best represent American music. I like him. One less special kid.

Were I a thirteen year-old girl, I might say that I (heart) baseball. I'm not, so I won't. I do enjoy it quite a bit though. I love WHIPs, BABIPs and GIDPs. I love that Moises Alou rubs urine on his hands to get a better grip on the bat, and that he's hitting .341 with seven RBIs in eleven games since coming off of the DL. I love that Jayson Werth and Jon Lester will be all over the most added list in fantasy baseball leagues because they had monster games in one out of the 162 games that fill out a season. I love when Dmitri Young and Chris Shelton are all over fantasy rosters because they open the season on pace for 324 homers. I love that Edwin Jackson is relevant. I love Julio Franco because he's probably the greatest man that's ever lived (at least this side of Otto von Bismarck). Julio played major league ball at the sprightly age of forty-nine, his career extended not from HGH, the cream or the clear, but, according to him, from the "Jesus Juice". I love that Bob Wickman and Antonio Alfonseca can combine for two full sets of fingers, but not the conventional way two people might. I loved Operation Shutdown. I love that not only did someone name a blog after Andy Van Slyke, but that there are people out there that care enough to write about the day-to-day goings-on of the Pittsburgh Pirates. Baseball is an ever-flowing font of obscurity for which I am feeling particularly grateful. In hindsight, I ought to have named this thing "Dewon Brazelton, All-Star".

(I'm done)

I'm sick of helping you, so what? I'll build a raft for everyone.

A Happy New Years, and Some Ranting

Let me tell you, nothing beats spending a New Years in Buffalo. Nothing. And by nothing, I mean everything. Last year it was the Worst Party of All-Time, wherein we left a douchebag in charge of procuring the alcohol and, in turn, ended up with something like four bottles of alcohol for about 15 people. Now, I thought that would've been a pretty tough New Years to topple as far as ass-sucking goes, but this year we managed to find a way to beat it. Our first plan? Take a road trip to Indy where one of our friends has a friend who's having a party. Not surprisingly, this one falls through because no one is either willing or able to drive. Plan B - one of our friends is having a beer pong tournament and then a party afterwards, certainly not a bad second option. Except for the part where that doesn't happen either, due to something parent-related (god I love being back home, where no one has a house where we can drink at). Well, the beer pong "tournament" (see: the exact same people we always have playing beer pong) does happen, but we have nowhere to go afterwards. In comes Plan C - using Murdock's brother to get three of us into some club downtown. Murdock says he can't do it, but we, being the geniuses that we are, figure hey, if we show up, he's got to let us in. Except for the part where he's not even there when we get there. Now we're all the way to plan D - showing up at the ECC All-Star (see: Clarence scumbags) party and kicking it with a bunch of people I definitely could have gone the rest of my life without seeing again. I think the party can most justly be described as spectacularly mediocre. And thus concluded the Worst. New Years. Ever. For the record, I think I spent all of four and a half minutes mildly buzzed, thus setting some sort of personal record for New Years sobriety.

In other news, the Texas Longhorns won the Rose Bowl, thus netting me a cool fifteen bones. No complaints there. Not to mention it was the single greatest college football game I have ever seen, thanks to Vince Young's heroics. What a beast. You'd be hard-pressed to find an individual performance in a big game better than what Vince brought on Thursday. As someone who's had a soft spot for the 'Horns since His Holiness Lord Major Applewhite was under center, I was as thrilled as one can possibly be for a team whose school you don't actually attend. And Matt Leinart can go eat a dick, the fucking douchebag. "We're still the better team, they just made plays at the end". In invoking one of the most tired sore loser cliches of all time, Leinart was making a fool of himself. Uhh, hey buddy, the best team makes the damn plays, you fucking tool. 2006 NFL Draft-eligible quarterbacks who will have better careers: Vince Young, Omar Jacobs, Jay Cutler, Brodie Croyle, Jared Zabransky, Paul Pinegar, Brett Basanez, Insert Non-Tool Junior or Senior QB Here (I really liked his performance in the NortheasternIdahoGardenersAssociation.com Tulip Bowl).

Lastly, allow me regale you with the thoroughly interesting goings-on of my night. First, I got suckered into dinner and a movie with an aunt of mine that I see all of twice a year. She's well-intentioned, to be sure, but good intentions do not an enjoyable evening make. Dinner was innocuous enough, with the ensuing generic, already-been-done-about-643-freakin-times-with-every-other-freakin-family-member conversation about school and such. The movie, however, is when the real fun started. We had intended on going to see Munich, which probably would have been tolerable enough. That would have just been too easy though. See, my aunt had looked at last week's movie times, and accordingly, had the wrong time for the movie. So, en lieu of waiting an hour and a half for that movie, we decide to pick another one. I don't see movies, ever, so I really don't give a shit at this point. Aunt says she wants to see Casanova and I go along with it. Baaaaad move. What a piss awful movie. But, as if, having to sit through that awful tripe wasn't enough, I was fortunate enough to endure a lecture on the evils of sexual promiscuity afterwards! That's right, an aunt I almost never see felt this an appropriate and opportune moment to caution me against the base licentiousness of "free love" (her term, not mine). Needless to say, I did not see that one coming, so I sat stunned, nodding along politely. And so ends an extensively entertaining night with the aunt. It's pretty sad when going to a friend's house and watching Golden Girls is the highlight of your Friday night. Oh, how I heart being home in Clarence so.

Down on the boulevard, they take it hard.

Man, what a jinx...

Way to go me, jinxing Ronnie like that. The day after I posted that last message, Francis called it quits. And it sucks. I wish I could have seen him play his last game, thanks so much fucking lockout. Regardless, Ron was one of the classiest guys to ever set foot on the ice. Never did you hear a peep out of him, Ronnie just went about his business as a professional and ended up putting up some all-time great numbers - 2nd in assists, 4th in points, 3rd in games played - and winning a couple of Cups with the Pens along the way. And because he's been so quiet, Francis has to be one of the most - if not the most - underrated hockey players of all time. Just the way he likes it.

It's been a while..

...no, not that shitty Staind song (redundant you say?). Things are busy back at the U - classes, job, schoolwork, drinking and the like. Great way to start the season against FSU, by the way. Never a good day when you have to see a punter goof like that. If only we had big Todd Sauerbrun on our team, shit like that would never happen. Anywho, let me recap all of the significant things I haven't commented on over the last month:

Bush botched national disaster #2, only this time we've got no one to bomb for it. Amazing that this could happen when the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency is a Bush appointee whose closest past experience was as a commissioner for the International Arabian Horses Association, and he was a bad one, at that. Here's a timeline outlining Chimpy's fuckup.

And speaking of Fearless Leader, Bush's approval ratings are plummeting, and oh do I love seeing it. Dare I say we're "turning the corner"?...

My Fins won their opener against the Broncos 34-10 in dominating fashion. Denver dared Miami to throw the ball and Gus Frerotte responded with 275 yards and 2 TD's. The Gus Frerotte for MVP bandwagon starts here (and ends here, too, I'm sure, within a few weeks).

Among the myriad NHL retirements this offseason (Damphousse, Messier, Stevens, MacInnis), the NHL lost a true legend. That man? Trent Klatt. No. I kid. I fucking hate Trent Klatt, mostly out of principle. What that principle is? You got me. Seriously though, much dap to the guys mentioned above for awesome careers. Except Stevens, who was a dirty motherfucker. I'll never forgive him for taking out Ronnie Francis, who I'm hoping doesn't follow suit with the rest of the retirees. If he goes, there will be a lengthy section on here dedicated to the classiest man in hockey.

Oh, and I mention I freakin' love John Conyers? Man...

My All-Star Ballot

AL:
C - Jason Varitek
1B - Mark Teixeira
2B - Brian Roberts
3B - Melvin Mora
SS - Miguel Tejada
OF - Manny Ramirez
OF - Johnny Damon
OF - Torii Hunter
DH - David Ortiz

NL
C - Ramon Hernandez
1B - Derrek Lee
2B - Marcus Giles
3B - Aramis Ramirez
SS - Felipe Lopez
OF - Carlos Lee
OF - Jason Bay
OF - Bobby Abreu



Nothing out of the ordinary, except that I refuse to vote for Alex Rodriguez out of principle. Just can't bring myself to vote for that sack of douche. And besides, does he have sextuplets? No. Melvin Mora does, so therefore he is clearly the better player. Oh and I give the nod to Torii Hunter over Vlad Guerrerro because a.) I refuse to acknowledge the existence of that team that changed its name in Anaheim and b.) Hunter is better defensively, steals more bases and is hitting for some decent pop this year.

Also, I should point out just how much I hate everything to do with the MLB All-Star game. Most fans just don't have a clue when they're voting. This isn't the "Get As Many Yankees In The Starting Lineup As Humanly Possible Game" or the "Well, Sure There's A Younger, Better, Lesser-Known Player With Better Numbers At The Position, But Let's Put In The Over-The-Hill Big Name Player Instead Game". Case in point: Tino fucking Martinez was leading AL first basemen in the voting earlier this week. I think finally fans came to their senses and overrode the asshole Yankee fans and Teixiera took over the lead, thankfully. In the NL, nobody is hitting at the shortstop position except Lopez, but somehow Cesar fucking Izturis is leading the voting. And Carlos Lee is buried down at 14th right now amongst NL outfielders, despite the fact that he's leading the league in RBI's and he's #2 in homers. The only category Carlos Beltran is leading him is amount of money wasted on his salary, yet he's set to be one of the three OF starters.

The other thing I hate is that "this game counts" as MLB proudly touts in their advertisements. It shouldn't. No game in which it is mandatory to have a member of the D-Rays, Royals or Rockies on the team should determine who gets home field advantage in the World Series. If I'm playing for home field advantage, I don't want Emil fucking Brown or Dewon fucking Brazelton to have anything to do with it. Just because Bud Selig got embarrassed by a tie one year does not mean we should make a silly midseason game determine what goes on in September. Give it to the team that has the best record that year, it's the only fair way.