43,000 bitter Houstonians go home happy

Yesterday was a date circled on numerous calendars throughout the city of Houston. No major political events, concerts, or demonstrations occurs. It was merely the return of a man who went from the city's hero to bitter enemy with the strike of a clock. Yes, Carlos Beltran and the New York Mets made their first appearance of the year at the "juice box." From his first introduction, everytime Beltran was even involved in the play, boos echoed through the building loud enough that I couldn't hear the announcers on the television. All the rage against Beltran might have been for nothing without the heroics of Brad Ausmus in the 9th inning against Roberto Hernandez. Thus the Astro fans go home happy.

Beltran watch: 0-4 but the check still cashed.

Gas can catch up:
Wednesday -- Brendan Donnelly of the Orange County Angels wild pitched in the winning run in extra innings.
Thursday -- Mike DeJean of the Colorado Rockies gave up 3 runs in just one inning of work and took the loss in an 8-5 decision to the Phillies

Song Lyric of the Day:
"I'm never ever gonna go back
I'm happy here without you"

Caroline's Spine -- "Happy Without You"

All that waiting for what?

So last week baseball commissioner Bud Selig finally heard Kenny Rogers' appeal of his 20-game cameraman assaulting suspension last week and this afternoon issued a statement that the appeal was denied. First, I applaud Selig's decision. My complaint however is that it should not have taken a month to solidify the decision. If the appeal was weak enough that in could be denied in a sport which reduces 95% of all suspensions even when the grounds crew picks pieces of cork out of the field, it should have been heard an rejected within a week.

Also unless you're Dick Vermeil, There's no crying in football.

Countdowns:
'... Paranoid Times' in 34 days
'Foiled' in 76 days

Catching up on gas cans

I know I'm a class 3 slacker but it's been hard to be coherent with my allergies trying to destroy me. Anyway, I head back to Oklahoma in a few days so I'm just tying up loose ends before I head back.
Catching up on gas cans:
Saturday: Giovanni Cararra of the Dodgers
Sunday: Al Reyes of the Cards (gave up a grand slam in extras to noted slugger Neifi Perez)
Monday: Tyler Walker of the Giants again
Tuesday: Luis Ayala of the Nationals (Threw 7 pitches resulting in a hit by pitch to Marcus Giles and a game-losing bases loaded walk to Andruw Jones)

Seeing as my allergies are still annoying I leave with my standard ailing lyric.

Song Lyric of the Day
'Medicate me so I'll die happy.'
The Exies - "Ugly"

Politics has its place...

The funeral of a fallen Marine is not it though. I was disturbed to read today that the lieutenant governor of the state of Pennsylvania, Catherine Baker-Knoll, decided that a crowd of mourners would be the appropriate location for highlighting her anti-war opinions. I understand there are 2 rules of politics:

1. Politicians are publicity whores.
2. Any crowd of people numbering more than about 6 represents a publicity opportunity.

My issue is not necessarily with the anti-war stance. If that is her belief, then I applaud standing up for your convictions. Showing up uninvited to a funeral for a fallen hero only to rail against the very thing that Staff Sergeant Goodrich was willing to fight and unfortunately die for crosses several lines of human decency.

The governor of Pennsylvania and several other prominent political figures have expressed their outrage at Baker-Knoll's actions and issued apologies to the family. As for the Lt. Governor, a spokesperson stated that the office would release a statement later today. Heartfelt apologies never come in carefully crafted public statements. If suspicious that this may turn into an 'I apologize if anyone was offended' apology rather than a true acknowledgement that there was an offense committed.

That's all for now. My usual more trivial rants will return to form later today.

A day with tremendous upside.

To tie up loose ends again, The Gas Cans of the Day for the last three have been:
Wednesday: Mark Hendrickson of the Devil Rays (6 runs given up with no outs recorded to start the game)
Thursday: Though was competition from the entire Cubs bullpen, I chose to single out Ryan Dempster.
Friday: Though there were a number of candidates there were two that gave up walk off home runs. For giving up a 2-run walk off shot to Chase Utley the can goes to Paul Quantrill of the Padres.

Some of you may notice the upcoming music list now in the sidebar. This is my attempt to keep track of upcoming music releases I or my readers may have an interest in. Always broadening the list, I will gladly take additions to the list from comments.

I must change one of my frequent countdowns as the title of the forthcoming Blue October release has been changed. So here's the standard countdown list:
'Paranoid Times' in 38 days
'Foiled' in 80 days

As a lead in to today's song lyric, I refer you to a post by Mike Mott pointing out the dangers of misplaced comments and their implications.

Song Lyric of the Day
'And we are all accountable
For all the broken, battered
Still we turn and walk away
And keep our dirty hands'
Upside -- "Dirty Hands"

A chance to give a sports agent respect and praise

While listening to the Jim Rome show this morning, I became aware of the first positive sports agent story ever. Drew Rosenhaus should be commended at least for today for his heroic actions of saving a 3 year old from drowning. I'm sure that I will be back to ripping agents later this week, but for today there is a cease fire.

Today's gas can is Julian Tavarez of the St. Louis Cardinals for giving up a 4-3 lead in the 8th inning in a 5-4 loss to the Brewers.

With the Astros sweeping a doubleheader when Ezequiel Astacio and Wandy Rodriguez starting, I am now making preparation for the end of the world as we know it.

/rant

More proof that anyone can run for public office

This will be short but I have to chuckle a little at this story. Former Washington Redskins' 1st round pick and renowned NFL bust Heath Shuler has officially thrown his hat into the ring for the House of Representative race in the state of North Carolina. I know a number of former athletes and coaches have won political races, but most of them had positive name recognition so the voters would recognize them and vote. I'm concerned that Shuler's name recognition may cause voters to laugh more often than vote.

I need to catch up on my awards for Gas Can of the Day.
Thursday 7/14: Curt Schilling of the Red Sox
Friday 7/15: Repeat Winner Chad Harville of the Astros
Saturday 7/16: Tyler Walker of the Giants
Sunday 7/17: Yhency Brazoban of the Dodgers
Monday 7/18: Doug Brocail of the Rangers

42 days until '...Paranoid Times'
84 days until 'Beyond the Sadness'
iSOLA's Loud Alarms coming soon
Ludo's 'Broken Bride' EP this fall

/rant

A proof of the Banditos theorem and a little rejoicing at others' misfortune

As many of you know, I'm from the small town of Broken Arrow, Oklahoma just southeast of Tulsa. I tend from time to time to reflect on some of the local Tulsa politics just to show that major cities don't have the market cornered on corruption. While I've spent most of the comments complaining about the corrupt political scheme (see here), the results of the city council recall elections on Tuesday give me reason for hope.

So why is this a proof of the Banditos theorem you ask? Quite frankly this was one of the most transparent smear campaigns ever, and broke several of the cardinal rules for successful political movements. After I go through this it will be clear that not only is the world 'full of stupid people' but I think Tulsa maybe over its quota. During this process the following tactical blunders occurred:

1. Never attack a politician at a point of his highest popularity with his constituents who you expect to vote him out.
2. Always at least make an attempt to appear credible.
3. If it's a local issue don't hire people from Washington DC or East Lansing Michigan to telephone voters of Tulsa regarding your cause.
4. Never make it blatantly obvious that city councilors from other districts are involved, or if you must, pick four without their own set of recallable offenses.
5. The recall signatures should be collected by people of the affected districts or at least the same town (right Mr. Benjamin).
6. Have legitimate reasons for a recall effort. Requiring that the Chamber of Commerce, a non-government agency, have an oversight committee to spend tax dollars may not work. Living in a district other than the one you represent and doing so even before you were elected, that might be different. Right, Councilor Sullivan?

I'll stop the list at six although it could go on to about fifty. So it is with sincerity that I heartily congratulate Chris Medlock and Jim Mautino on successfully retaining their council seats. As you can see the political powers that be and good old boy networks had a grand design, but their attempts to treat the voters like idiots only showed the own stupidity.

While I should close with the Refreshments song lyrics for a coherent post, Seether provides me with a slightly more appropriate summary.

'Self-made millionaires
Won't take ideas
From all the little Plebeians
Just suffocate with smiles
And force-fed lies
And close your mind to reality'
Seether -- Simplest Mistake

A guest musical rant from when I was exiled from the blogosphere

At the time of it's release I said I would not be able to review Audioslaves Out of Exile; however, Mike Mott(the disturbed mind behind The Blog to End All Blogs) has been kind enough to supply a thorough review of the album. His unedited rant is below.

Much has been said about the supergroup Audioslave, the pairing of the instrumentalists from Rage Against the Machine and Soundgarden vocalist Chris Cornell. The one thing I have noticed is this: after two albums, it's safe to say that four of the greatest innovators of 90s rock music are tired of innovating and just wanna rock.

Not that that's a bad thing. I was never a fan of Rage Against the Machine, and thought Soundgarden was hit or miss, but I was nevertheless intrigued when the quartet released their self-titled debut album. Unfortunately, for me that first album ran too long (radio hit "I Am the Highway", compelling on first listen, just put me to sleep after a while) and it listened like a collection of four or five great songs surrounded by filler.

Out of Exile is an improvement over Audioslave, and while its best songs aren't quite as great as "Set It Off" or "Shadow on the Sun", it is a more condensed, solid and varied effort than its predecessor.

Opener "Your Time Has Come" starts out more earnestly than "Cochise", and the band comes out rocking on the first few songs. First single "Be Yourself" (wisely chosen as it is the best song on the album) leads into the nice, relaxed groove of "Doesn't Remind Me", which features strong Cornell lyrics dripping with irony.

On later songs, the group wears its 70s rock roots on its sleeve. "Dandelion" listens like a late 70s pop-rock song (I'm still not sure whether the "ooh"s are from a female guest vocalist or a very falsetto Cornell). The bass line "Yesterday or Tomorrow" evokes memories of Aerosmith's "Sweet Emotion", but its own lyrical sweet emotions don't prevent it from rocking.

"The Worm" is the strongest track in the latter half of the album, sporting a great stop-start dynamic and some clever lyrics (my personal favorite is the line "I took advice from the wrong shoulder"). Meanwhile, "Man or Animal" and "The Curse" fall flat.

Throughout the album, guitarist Tom Morello again proves himself to be a gifted soloist, with each solo sounding unique to the song and often sneaking up out of nowhere, even though structurally you're expecting it. The rhythm section bolsters the songs by sounding less formulaic and in many cases just as inspired by jazz as by rap-rock.

Yes, the strong structures are all verse-chorus-verse-chorus-solo-verse-chorus. Yes, some of Cornell's lyrics are basic. But as with their first album, the liner notes proudly proclaim "All sounds made by Guitar, Bass, Drums and Vocals". Obviously this group just wants to produce some solid, straightforward rock music, and they succeed. 6.5/10.

Thanks to Mike for his effort. I expect that more collaborations will be needed in the future.

All the countdowns are in the previous post.

Win at all costs?

I think in this post I'll evolve from the worst story out there to the more positive stories at the end. First I introduce the story of Mark Downs, a potential candidate for the express lane to Hell. Mr. Downs is a coach of an 8 year old tee ball team in Pennsylvania. He was arrested the other day for alledgedly paying one of his players $25 to injure a mentally disabled teammate so that the boy could not play. This is by far the most disturbing little league story I've heard in some time. The standard story involves some scuffle over a missed call or coaching decision. This however, was premeditated all in the name of being 'more competitive.' The league rules state that everyone on the team must play at 3 innings of every game, and Mr. Downs felt it was necessary to eliminate a player from his roster to improve his chances. It's a tee ball team for Christ's sake. It's about the kids having fun not coaches living out the delusions of past competitive grandeur vicariously through the kids. Just because you thought you could play back in the day doesn't mean you need to indoctrinate 8 year olds to the win at all costs mentality. Stick to beer league softball and leave the little league coaching to those who can teach the game the right way. I hope they throw the book at this clown because his actions were utterly hideous.

And one small aside to the sports radio callers who have been suggesting (while still admitting that these are heinous actions) that the mentally disabled kid involved should stick to the Special Olympics, please put down the intoxicants and step back from your phone. In these early levels of competitive sports there should be no limits on who can play. Allowing the handicapped to participate gives them the opportunity to make friends and gain acceptance from the unaffected kids who can be merciless to people with disabilities until they understand and get to know them as people. To isolate them to their own league does nothing for the kids and in fact may single them out further.

But that's just my opinion and I'm usually wrong and in cases involving the developmentally challenged a little biased because I used to work with them earlier in my life...

Normal Features
44 days until 'Paranoid Times'
86 days to get 'Beyond the Sadness'

and to facilitate commets from the gallery...
Still awaiting info and 'Loud Alarms' and 'Broken Bride'

The gas cans and song lyrics will return tonight following another nap. Thanks for reading.
/rant

Catching up and killing time

First, as my ever so aware audience has pointed out (Thanks Mike), I forgot to award the pewter gas can yesterday. So to catch up the winner of the Gas Can of the Day for July 7 was Roberto Novoa of the Cubs who managed to take a 4-3 lead to 5-4 deficit in 3 batters faced. He was also charged with Atlanta 6th run as the last batter he faced reach and later scored.

For today's winner, we look to the New York Beltrans (for those who don't know me that would be the Mets) and Mr. Braden Looper. Mr. Looper came into a game with the Pirates with the bases loaded 2 outs in the 9th inning of a 5-1 game and proceed to force extra innings. Then for good measure gave up a game-winning hit with 1 out in the 10th inning. This was an effort worthy of Johnny Storm

'Paranoid Times' countdown: 53 days
'Race to Mediocrity': 1 game
'Beyond the Sadness' in 95 days

Song Lyric of the Day
'Please pay your attention right above the center ring
Up in the rafters, 500 feet above the crowd
My hair is soaked in kerosene
My clothes are wet with gasoline
You only get to see this once
The human torch is going down"

Fastball -- 'Human Torch'

A departure from my normal posts

Given the events of the morning, I would like to send my condolences to those in London who endured the terrorist bombings. I know I don't do this for every news story but I felt this was warranted.

On my normal topics, Congratulations to Kameron Loe of the Rangers winner of today's gas can award.

"Paranoid Times" countdown: 54 days
"Astros Race to Mediocrity": 1 game

(rant)
And one quick baseball note/venting, Jimmy Rollins of the Phillies was selected to replace Cesar Izturis on the NL All-Star team as it appears Tony LaRussa has made it a priority to have three shortstops rather than selecting the most productive available. If the American League doesn't need 3 shortstops on their team you don't either.

Morgan Ensberg deserved that spot much more than Jimmy Rollins!
-- Bitter Astro Fan



Song Lyric of the day
"A new song's like a new religion
Music for the television
Someone do the long division
I can't do the math"
Jason Mraz -- 'Wordplay'
(dedicated to Tony LaRussa for not looking at the numbers when selecting an all-star replacement)

(\rant)

Baseball managing made more interesting

Today's gas can of the day goes to Lance Carter of the Devil Rays not only for his 3 run implosion yesterday, but also for causing Lou Piniella to invent a new managing strategy. In an article in the St. Petersburg Times, Piniella stated that he would, starting tonight, begin games with a reliever to pitch the first inning or two. He would then go to the pitcher who would have normally been the starter in hopes of getting to the 9th and closer Danys Baez.

For forcing an entire change in managerial strategy, Lance Carter is indeed the gas can of the day.

Song Lyric of the Day
"Can you pretend I'm amazing?
I can pretend I'm amazing
Instead of what we both know
I cut to the punch line baby
Can you pretend I'm amazing
Instead of what we both know"

Blue October -- "Amazing"

(Included solely in preparation for Beyond the Sadness)

'Paranoid' Countdown: 55 days
'Race to Mediocrity' counter: 2 games
'Countdown to Sadness': 97 days (thanks Mike)

A number of worthy candidates, but the gas can goes to...

The 3 finalists for today's edition of 'gas can of the day' are:

BJ Ryan of the Orioles: 2/3 IP 5 hits 5 runs 4 earned 3 walks and an HBP allowing the Orioles to go from an 8-7 lead to a 13-8 deficit

Keith Foulke of the Red Sox: 1/3 IP 3 hits 2 runs both earned a walk and an HBP going from a 5-4 lead to a 6-5 loss

Sunny Kim of the Nationals: 2 IP 3 runs all earned in the Nationals 5-2 loss

Today's winner is BJ Ryan although Keith Foulke got some serious support from the advisory committee.

'Paranoid' Counter: 56 days
'Race to Mediocrity' counter: 3 games

A capital 4th, Impactful results and All-Star selection rage

The first story of the day comes from my hometown of Broken Arrow. It seems as though the city is either strapped for cash or just looking for publicity. The city decided to officially permit the use of fireworks; however, the city has required that the citizens purchase a permit for $20 to do so. Admittedly until this year it was illegal to shoot of fireworks in the city limits, but that was the least enforced law in city history. This law change strikes me more as a money grab than an legitimate policy change. We'll have to see whether it works but without any program to justify the increased funding.

Congratulations to NASA for the successful completion of the Deep Impact mission.

So Morgan Ensberg and Roy Oswalt are not as yet All-Stars. At least Roy has a shot with the 'Final Vote' promotion but Ensberg has to be the biggest snub of the All-Star proceedings. A .287 average with the 22 homers and 59 RBI, but no I guess he doesn't deserve it right Mr. LaRussa?

And finally the awarding of the pewter gas can:
Today's 'winner': Tommy Phelps of the Brewers 1/3 of an inning 1 hit, a walk and 2 earned runs to give the Pirates a 9-8 lead which they never relinquished.

'Paranoid' counter 57 days
'Race to Mediocrity' counter 4 games

No song lyric today as I am far too scattered.

Gasoline at the ready

At the suggestion of a couple of friends (most notably Mike) I have decided to publish my newly created baseball award. This award is design to point out the relief pitcher who failed most spectacularly to "put out the fire" of a crucial in game situation. Many of these perform often serve to escalate the disaster and have thus been termed by numerous sports show as 'gas cans.' Thus today I unveil the first winner of the 'Gas Can of the Day' award.

From the Houston Astros, Mr. Chad Harville

What did Harville do to earn the award? With the Astros trailing 7-6 in the 8th inning of game 2 of their doubleheader at Cincinnati, He proceeded to give 4 earned runs on 3 hits and a HBP to eliminate all thoughts of a 9th inning rally. Congratulations. If I actually had one, you'd be receiving a pewter plated gasoline can (Hey I'm a student. Gold or Silver plating is too much for me.)

Anyway for those reading the blog, if your team has a candidate for an upcoming edition of the award, drop a comment and he will be taken into consideration.

Song Lyric of the day

I'll tell you now you can't win this
You're way too slow
I'll tell you I'm gonna take this
Did you come here to watch me burn?
Three Days Grace --'Burn'

An out of this world promotion

Yes, I know this is two posts in a day but given the humor content of this minor league baseball story, I couldn't resist.

It seems the Missoula Osprey of the Pioneer League have decided to give away 30 acres of the moon in an upcoming game. Sadly I'm not making this up.

So the battle begins...

Justice Sandra Day O'Connor has decided to retire from the Supreme Court. I am hopeful that the nomination and conformation process goes smoothly but we all know the way that conformations involving judges have gone so well of late. Just as a simple question I would ask that the appointed replacement for Justice O'Connor has a great respect for the rights of the individual citizens.

Song Lyric of the Day
"As I ask a simple question
Cuts me off with his reply
He's been practicing for decades
And now he thinks I have the time"

8stops7 -- 'Question Everything'