Baseball
It seems a lot of people not only dislike Barry Bonds (no surprises there) but think he is a cheater with respects to steroids and such. I don't know. Look at Jose Canseco, he used steroids, so did Ken Caminiti, and they didn't make it into their late 30s hitting the way Barry is.

Let's get one thing straight, I don't really care for his personality, but at least he's honest. When asked how he does it, he goes, "talent." Gotta love it in this era of excessive humility and "aww shucks" type responses.

But look at the numbers, they don't lie. Barry Bonds is doing things that have absolutely nothing to do with steroids. Look at his OBP (which is truly ludicrous) and the walks, watch him hit. He rarely goes out of the strike zone, and that's the mark of a truly great hitter. It has nothing to do with steroids. As Mark McGuire used to say during the accusations he faced (and the Andro scandal), it's still about hand-eye coordination, and Barry has it.

Random
An interesting excercise from Andrew's blog (Tomorrow is a harsh mistress), and here it is:

- Grab the nearest book.

- Open the book to page 23.

- Find the fifth sentence.

- Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.


This is what I got:

"Now synods supported by the state authorities met and deposed both bishops; noteworthy among them was a synod at Tyre in 335.

More to come...

Baseball
Remember Jeriome Robertson, the pitcher from the Astros that "demanded" a trade after Clemens and Pettite were acquired? Well there is a little article on him here making him out to be the poor guy for having to move so much. They fail to note how he demanded a trade. Punk.

Todd Walker has been doing a phenomenal job as the Cubs leadoff hitter and 2B since Grudzielanek has been on the DL. Baker continues to say that Grudz is the 2B when he comes back, that Walker "knew what he was getting into" as a backup. But come on, this team's big problem is a lack of walks and of OBP. Walker provides just that (.462 OBP). Baker keeps throwing in the .314 or whatever it was that Grudz hit last season. Yes, that's fine, but a .350-ish OBP from your leadoff man? Not good enough, and if you want to throw numbers out how about .283 Average, 13HR 85RBIs and 92 runs scored? Yeah, that's what I thought. So now it's been discussed to throw Grudz to SS and have Gonzalez on the bench more. His defense is impeccable, but his bat is erratic and he strikes out too much. My advice? Play Grudz at 2B once a week, the rest goes to Walker. Then play Grudz at SS 2-3 times a week, giving him plenty of ABs and keeping him fresh since he's coming off his Achilles injury. This way AGon at SS gets to play around 4 times a week, he stays fresh, and Walker becomes the 2B taking a day a week off to strengthen the bench and stay fresh. Of course, when Walker is playing you have to go with him at leadoff, Grudz at 2, and Patterson down in the order. He is not a number two hitter.

Check out Barry Bonds' career numbers, really really ridiculous. Look at his OBPs!!

Yankees and Bush suck
I love to see the Yankees suffer, it just makes me realize what a bad person I am and how much hate I have for them. Jeter does indeed suck.


Bush says he will go after Iran. Read the article and substitute Iran with Iraq, it'll take you back some.

Grad School
So where should I go to get my Master's in Creative Writing? San Francisco State University or DePaul in Chicago? Hmmmm....no estoy seguro

Random
There was this story of a HIgh School principal here in Guatemala that was American and was giving a speech to the whole school. Someone said something flattering about him and he goes, "Estoy muy embarazado." He was trying to say he was embarassed, but embarazado means pregnant, which means he told the school he was very pregnant. Laughter ensued. But today I read a line in a book where embarazado was used in a context having nothing to do with pregnancy. So I looked it up and lo and behold, the first definition in the dictionary is "estorbo", which means something that gets in the way or is bothersome. So the word for pregnancy in spanish also means bothersome or in the way! How very appropriate...that is until they are born and then they are adorable...

Iraq
A very bleak - yet insightful - article about soldiers waiting outside Fallujah.

Various
The porn industry is going through a major crisis as two performers have been diagnosed HIV positive. Most companies have decided to postpone production for 60 days to contain the outbreak, but it seems the virus has already spread. It seems the virus was contracted by one performer in Brazil, where apparently 96% of the prostitutes there are HIV positive.
Read the details here and here.

This is something really scary, this is the adult industry's worst nightmare. Essentially no one can work because that's the whole basis of the industry...having sex.

How scary. And sad too, it seems one of the first performers that has tested positive had been in the business for 3 months and is 18 or 19 years old.

A lot of moralists will laugh at this (and conservatives too) but that's wrong. These people have HIV, something that kills millions of people around the world. This is not a God's punishment for their sins", so I hope O'Reilly and company don't start in on this line of attack.


All this talk of Iraq and Israel and so on and so forth makes me really sad for the people of Afghanistan that were promised to much and now are stuck in misery again. Plus bin Laden is still ticking. Pisses me off too, to be honest. And the phrase "cut and run" has gotten so old so fast.

The number of soldiers staying in the Army is falling just as the demand is increasing in Iraq.

I wish I was back in boston to hear the booing of AROD when the Yankees and Red Sox rivalry gets underway today.

Politics/Jessica Simpson/Maxim/Cellphones/Anger
Another book is due out telling us what Bush was really thinking before the whole Iraq thing hit. According to the book, Bush had plans to go into Iraq less than 2 months after the US went into Afghanistan and didn't tell all everyone on his security team.

I don't know who is the brains behind Jessica Simpson's career decisions (it's obviously not her), and why they let her do this reality show that she's on. Yeah she's getting crazy amounts of exposure, and her first single is kind of catchy. But...I can't stand her, and because of it, I can't listen to any of her music anymore, I just can't, no matter how catchy or good it is. To think that I'm listening to the music of someone so stupid, so useless, so utterly annoying and spoiled just drives me nuts and so she's out of the loop (right next to Britney Spears and Shakira).

And then I find out she's Maxim's Hottest Chick of the year or whatever they call it. Those who know me know I DETEST Maxim and everything it stands for (Cosmo too, I don't discriminate). So add that to my current feelings for her and my hate towards both Maxim and Simpson soar. It's the fault of people like those behind Maxim that super hot chicks get so far in this world despite the various amounts of them who have nothing else to contribute to this world. I'm angry and so I'll stop before I get too nasty.

Have I mentioned how much I hate cellphones? Well I do, and most of the smug fucks that have them (which, invariable, means everyone).

Damn I'm angry today.

Search Engines
Check out this cool article on 3-D web searches. You sketch what it is you're looking for (the shape) and the search engine finds things that are similar to it. Cool.