30-Second Spot

Dammit if advertisers have finally found a way to get me to watch a commercial after all these years.

I rarely watch live television.  All of our TV show watching is done through the DVR, so we can eagerly fast-forward through the ads. Just about the only live television I watch is baseball. And when I watch baseball, I'm usually doing something else at the same time like working or surfing the internet. So when the inning is over, I bury my head in my laptop until the game comes back on. Easy, peasy.

Commercials, for a long time now, have had zero effect on my life.

Except for those on the Internet. You know the ones I'm talking about.  You see an interesting link that contains an embedded video of something or other and you hurry over to watch it. Except your entertaining video doesn't start for 5 or 10 or even 15 seconds because an ad has to play first. I fucking hate that.

Sure, ads on videos on the Internet have been going on for a long time now. But many (I would say most) of them gave the viewer of opting out of watching it with a little "x" in the upper right hand corner or a link that offered "Proceed directly to video".  Something like that. Then they began appearing with a little countdown clock. "Skip advertisement in 10, 9, 8...". More annoying, but at least I could appease my anger god by watching that little countdown clock reach zero.

Now it seems that most of the advertisements don't even offer the viewer the chance to skip it.  Immediately or with a countdown clock. AND it seems like the ads are getting longer and longer.  The other day I went to a video on MLB.com to see a replay of something that happened in a game. The replay was 22 seconds of digital video. I had to sit through a 30-second advertisement before I could watch that 22-second clip.

I. Wanted. To. Kill. Someone.

I know, I know...I could have just skipped the video altogether and not watched the stupid commercial. But the instantaneous nature of the Internet allows us to go see something exactly when we want to see it. Our brains, my brain at least, isn't prepared for a 30-second advertisement beforehand. I just don't know how to process it. It's a short enough time-span that I'm really not going to get up and do something else. I don't have time to take a piss or grab an ice-cold one from the fridge. I'm not going to jump to another site quickly to check something out in the meantime. I went to that first site at that moment because I wanted the Internet to entertain me IN THAT MOMENT!

So I sit there, blood boiling, and I watch the damned commercial. After all this time, they finally figured me out. I fucking hate that I'm such an easy mark.

Oh, here's something fun. New Era Caps and Major League Baseball are doing this wonderful commercial series with Craig Robinson from The Office and Nick Offerman from Parks and Recreation. It's a North Side/South Side Chicago rivalry thing between the Cubs and White Sox. Great commercials (dammit!).  I hadn't seen the newest one yet, but it hit the Web today. So I went over to Funny or Die to watch it.  Yup...to watch a commercial.

And I had to sit through a 17-second advertisement before I could watch it.

Welcome to my Hell.

Chicago vs. Chicago: Round 3 from Nick Offerman

You're a handsome devil. What's your name?

Went searching for a old blog post of mine yesterday, and I realized I used to write sooo much more back in the day than I do now. Not just the frequency of my postings, but the actual content within each post. I had this whole process back then. I would keep a list of blog ideas on a virtual sticky note on my laptop. Anytime I saw something or heard something or thought of something during the day while I was working, I would jot down a note. The list was extensive at times. Then I would sit down about an hour before heading to bed and peruse the list for a blog post for that night. And I would just write. Without even really thinking about it.

My current process is a little different, to say the least. My sticky note of blog ideas is pretty much empty because I stopped updating it a year or so ago. I think about posting something and I realize that I don't have much on my mind. Then I throw up a Youtube video or something else quick just because I'm feeling guilty about letting this old blog die a quiet death.

I've read other bloggers complain about similar dry spells in the past. Sometimes they will even go so far as to proclaim a quantum shift in the blogging paradigm. Twitter and Facebook have made blogs obsolete, blah, blah, blah... I'm not sure I'm buying it. I think we, bloggers, tend to take our own personal attitude toward blogging and make some sort of  "it's not me, it's us" proclamation. As if it's the very idea of blogging that has changed rather than the individual blogger itself.

It might all be true, but I really have no way of knowing that. I'm just a lone blogger who rarely ventures outside of my own blogging circle. I have NO IDEA what is really happening in the greater blogosphere because my community is so small. I haven't updated my feed reader with any new blogs in this side of forever. Well, I'm constantly updating it with baseball stuff. But that's not what I meant. Personal blogs.

And yes...some people are blogging far less than they used to. Myself included. Shit happens. Then there are others who keep on keeping on.  Much respect and love to those cats.

I think I'm somewhere in the middle. I still enjoy the time I spend jotting down what's going on in my brain onto this here blog. And I am in a bit of a rut, but I don't think it's permanent. Gonna try to kick-start the inner daily blogger in me and see if I can get it going again. We shall see. I'm making no promises here.

But I'll be here. Hopefully bringing the suck a little bit more often. Hehehe.

Home

There's a dude out there named Alex Ebert. And things weren't going so well for old Alex. He broke up with his girlfriend, moved out of his house that he shared with his best friend and entered one of those 12-step programs to deal with addiction. Not sure what kind of addiction it was, but he wasn't in a good place.

Then he started to write a novel about a messiah figure named Edward Sharpe. Sharpe was brought to earth to heal and save, but he wound up being tempted by earthly pleasures...women. As they do. It was all so distracting.

But that was Edward, and this was Alex we were talking about. Or maybe they are one and the same. Edward/Alex met a singer named Jade Castrinos in Los Angeles, and then they and a bunch of musicians started touring around the country in a big old bus as Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros.

It's all quite the trip.

You get the feeling that Chuck Manson might dig this Edward Sharpe character. Or vice versa. Manson wanted to be a musician first before he became a crazy person. Or maybe when he was already a crazy person. It's hard to put a timeline on these kind of things. Sanity...ya know.

Let's just hope history doesn't repeat itself.

Bullets Over Tuesday

Just because. Just for scuzz. If you follow me on Twitter, some of these items may be repeats. Sue me.

• Went out of my comfort zone and made something that I had never heard of much less made before on Monday night. Gia had a hankerin'* for steak, and a hankerin' for steak in a beurre rouge sauce in particular. I've got high school level French going on, so I knew that beurre = butter and rouge = red, but that's about all I knew, besides the hunk o' meat that is. Turns out it's a steak in a red wine/shallot reduction with butter. A LOT of butter. This is not something for the faint of heart. But it is oh-so-fucking-delicious. It ain't going on the regular weekly rotation, but maybe once a month or so... We shall see. 

The sauce was a creamy, dark pink and the meat was slightly above medium. Delish!

•  I saw today that Katy Perry has a concert video coming out. My first reaction was that I couldn't care any less. Then I saw that it was in 3-D and I suddenly became more interested. I'm still not gonna see it, but I'm definitely...interested.

click for the jiggle

•  We just finished this season of Mad Men. That show is freakin' amazing and I don't care if you agree or disagree with me. I just love it. Now we have a month or so until the final season of Breaking Bad begins. Or ends. Sniff. I don't think I could enjoy TV as much as the dramas that AMC and FX are producing. Amazing stuff.

• Speaking of well-made television, I finally saw Season One of Game of Thrones a few weeks ago. Watched it over one weekend. I had just finished the first book in the series, so I immediately wanted to see what HBO did with it. It didn't disappoint. I'm reading Book Two right now, and I understand the second season has just ended. Excellent. I can't wait to watch it. More amazing stuff.

• Speaking of unknown television, I recorded the first couple of episodes of the new A&E drama Longwire. It's about a lawman out of Wyoming. Other than that...I have no idea. But I dig shows about tough guy lawmen in cowboy hats (see Justified), so I'm willing to give it a go. Anyone watching?

• My pee is gonna smell like asparagus tomorrow. I just know it. Too much information? Tough shit.

That's all I got. See ya!

*When you are in the mood for steak, you have to use the word "hanker". It's the law. 

Time to Ramble

Sure, it's not OFFICIALLY summer yet, but that doesn't mean that we aren't in the full swing of things here at the the Verdant Dude Ranch. I know it's summertime because Will Smith and DJ Jazzy Jeff are rapping about it (again). If that doesn't make it official, then I don't know what does.

My calendar turns to summer officially when we have our first ramble* of the season. I've mentioned it before here, but a ramble involves good food, good friends, good booze and good music. In no particular order. We had a mini-ramble, just my baby and me, on Thursday evening. Just to test the waters, you see. Cranked up our favorite Pandora station, mixed some cocktails and hung out in the backyard overlooking the harbor in the hour or so before sunset. Good times.

Our first official ramble took place on Saturday evening. Some great friends came over and we grilled up some big horkin' chili burgers, drank bourbon, wine and delicious beers, listened to a great playlist that Gia put together on iTunes and had a whole bunch of laughs.  The first ramble of many in the coming months.

Photo by Keb5777...a fellow rambler

So, do you ramble? What do you call it? What does it entail?

*Name inspired by Levon Helm's Midnight Ramble. An event that is still going on even after his death a few months ago. I can't believe that we never made it up there while he was still kickin'. Shame on us...

Trubba Man

Got a comment today from a post from 3 years ago that made me really happy for some reason.

Here is the post and feel free to comment again.

_______________________________________________________

A million years ago (or back in the 80's), I used to read National Lampoon every once in a while. And back then they had a feature that may or may not have been a regular column called "Dear Trubba Man"

It was a fake advice column that they ran with a picture of Joe Frazier, I believe, as Trubba Man.  A picture kind of like that one on the right.  Maybe it was Ken Norton, I dunno.  But I think it was a boxer at the very least.  It wasn't the smartest feature published, and in retrospect it was probably pretty offensive to African-Americans.  But for some reason, I have never forgotten it.

A typical letter would read as follows:

Dear Trubba Man,
My girlfriend recently broke up with me and she threw all of my clothes out on the front lawn. What should I do?

To which Trubba Man would most likely reply,

If it were me, I'd kill da bitch! But seeing as how you seems like a wussy kind of guy, here's whatcha gonna want to do.  Blah blah blah.

And then he would go on about exacting his revenge in some funny/demeaning/stereotypical way.  It was mostly funny because of the picture of Joe (or Ken or whomever). 

Does anyone out there remember this feature from National Lampoon? Am I the only one?  I think Trubba Man would have had a field day with the Michael Jackson funeral.  Seeing as he was a wussy kind of guy and all.

And in totally un-related meanness, which slack-eyed monster is more awful to look at:

Forrest Whitaker or Paris Hilton?  I'm choosing Paris. I'm a hetero white guy, but I would totally stick it to Forrest given the choice of the two.

Because she makes me ill.

Get Prepared

Went onto Yahoo! earlier tonight and found that "Zombie Apocalypse" was the #1 trending topic today.

Makes sense.

In a week in which we've seen a California man bite the nose off of his cousin, a naked Florida man eating the face off his victim and a New Jersey man stabbing himself and throwing bits of flesh and entrails at police officers...well, it makes sense.

This probably isn't the inevitable Zombie Apocalypse. But is shouldn't stop you from making preparations. I'm planning on a little shopping trip to survive the undead horde that is surely coming.  Here's what I'm getting:

• An Axe-handle baseball bat. It just fits your hand really well.
• A Ginsu set of knives. Late-night television tells me that they are the best for zombie killing.
• Bourbon, and lots of it.
• A haircut. Dude like me with a ponytail? That's just one more way for a fucking zombie to catch you. I'd feel silly dying because a zombie dragged me down by my luxurious mane. 
• A slow, fat, dim-witted friend. You know why.
• A middle finger lighter. Because it's bad-ass! And zombies burn real good.
• Some catnip for my cats. They are coming with me on my journey against the undead. I'm not a fucking savage.
• Did I mention bourbon?

What would you make sure you had with you when the shambling dead come calling?

I.L.B.T.'s

This post is inspired by blogger, writer* and all around good egg Erin O'Brien. A few days ago, she posted a video from the band April Wine that was a moderate hit back in 1982. The song in question was called "If You See Kay", and if you say that out loud...well, go read Erin's blog post.

Got me thinking about some of the terrible, raunchy music from the early 80's. And if you read that post, you will see that I commented about a song called "I.L.B.T.'s" (link NSFW-ish) by Joe Walsh from 1983.  An acronym that stands for "I like big tits", which appealed to me when it first came out because I was 16-ish. Still appeals to me now as an older feller. What can I say? I like 'em big. Not making any excuses here.

Anywho...that song came from an album called "You Bought It, You Name It" and there were several songs that got significant airplay from it back in the day, including that one. And yes...a song that proudly stated how much the performer loved big tits had significant airplay on FM radio back in 1983. Believe it or not.

The other two songs from that album were "Space Age Whiz Kids" and "I Can Play That Rock and Roll".  Well, lemme...ugh...oh God! Just watch the videos below and prepare to have soul crushed if you remember 1983 fondly at all.

Okay...a few of things to note.

1. I haven't heard either of these songs in about 25 years. And yet, somehow, when I first found them again on Youtube the other night, I knew them by heart. I mean every lyric and chord of both damned songs. How the fuck is that possible?
2. Both songs are basically about the same thing. A man lamenting an older time when things were simpler and/or better. I'm guessing Joe was feeling a little out of time in 1983.
3. How did Joe Walsh get away with "I Can Play That Rock and Roll" when Bob Seger basically wrote the same exact song 5 years earlier with "Old Time Rock and Roll"? Sure, they sound different, but the message is the same in each. Maybe they were buds, I dunno...

*Read her writing about her brother John O'Brien, author of "Leaving Las Vegas", and his writing here. It's...heartbreaking and awesome.

Orange Whip

"Who wants an Orange Whip? Orange Whip? Orange Whip? Three Orange Whips."

That's a clip from the film The Blues Brothers. And these things are hard to figure out exactly, but it's probably the movie quote that I've used more than any other in my lifetime. From the time that I started frequenting bars, especially if I was there with two friends, this quote reared its fabulous head.  And you definitely have to include the little whirly hand action that John Candy does so well up there.

Which brings us to a question.  What the fuck is an Orange Whip?

I found out with a quick Wiki search that Candy wasn't actually ordering an alcoholic drink in that clip. There was a bottled non-alcoholic drink called an Orange Whip back then.  In fact, the line was ad-libbed by Candy because someone working in costumes on the flick was the daughter of the Vice President of the Orange Whip Corporation who had been providing refreshments to the cast during production. She approached John Landis about dropping the product name into the film and he agreed to let Candy ad-lib a line. Pretty cool if you ask me.

But I knew that there was an alcoholic (hehe) drink that went by that name as well. And without further ado...here's the recipe via Drink Mixer:

Orange Whip

• 4 oz orange juice
• 1 oz vodka
• 1 oz rum
• 1 package cream

Pour ingredients over ice and stir.

That's right. A whole package of cream. What the fuck is a package of cream?  I honestly have no idea. But I saw this exact recipe on several sites. Wikipedia says to just use heavy cream and blend the fucker up like a milkshake. But I'm left wondering about that package of cream. What the fuck?

Anyone have any clues?

Personal De Niro

I was watching one of my personal favorite Robert De Niro films recently, and I was thinking about how he hasn't made a quintessential Robert De Niro film in a really long movie. A film that is highly entertaining featuring Robert De Niro dominating the screen in just about every scene. Seems as if he has been mailing it in for well over a decade now. That's a shame, because he still shows flashes of brilliance every once in a while, but nothing that can sustain an entire film.

So I started thinking about my favorite De Niro films. Not films that he was in, necessarily. I love The Godfather: Part II, and De Niro is awesome in it. But it's not a De Niro film, if you know what I mean. Same with a film like The Untouchables. He was great as Capone and the film was a ton of fun, but it's not a De Niro film.

So here, without further ado, are my personal favorite Top 5 De Niro films in chronological order:

1. Raging Bull (1980)
2. Midnight Run (1988)
3. Goodfellas (1990)
4. Mad Dog and Glory (1993)
5. Ronin (1998)

I know, I know.  Lots of controversial choices there. No Taxi Driver or The Deer Hunter or The King of Comedy or Cape Fear or The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle. Sacrilege, right? Those are all great films, well...most of them. It's just that I could watch any of those five listed above at any time and enjoy it as much as the first time I saw them. Taxi Driver is always a film I've had a tough time with. It's a classic and quintessential De Niro, maybe THE quintessential De Niro film. But I've never loved it as much as the rest of the world.  Same with The King of Comedy. The Deer Hunter I recall just as much for the performances of John Savage and Christopher Walken.

Raging Bull was the first De Niro film I ever saw that just floored me. He disappeared into that role like I've never seen him do before or since. Just a brutal portrayal of a damaged man and maybe the best boxing film ever made, and that's saying something.

Midnight Run wouldn't work without the comic pairing with Charles Grodin, but that doesn't make it any less of a classic De Niro film in my book. He was flat-out awesome in it as bounty hunter Jack Walsh.  It's hard to tell, but I hope he had as much fun making that film as I have watching it. Which I have several dozen times now. One of my favorite films of all-time.

Goodfellas might seem like an odd choice at first. It's more of a vehicle for Ray Liotta, who is awesome in it in his own right. Or Joe Pesci for that matter. But having re-watched it a few weeks ago, I was amazed at how much of a De Niro film it is. Much of the drama and action in the film comes as a result of his character's actions and/or behind-the-scenes dealings. Often quiet or composed, he lets his facial expressions do most of the acting. And he dominates doing so. Why not the similarly themed Casino? Eh...it's good, but it feels like a pale comparison to Goodfellas.

Mad Dog and Glory is probably the one that has most of you scratching your heads. I just loved how he played against type. Normally that wouldn't result in a De Niro film, but I think it worked to near perfection in this one thanks to some inspired casting like Uma Thurman, David Caruso and Bill Murray. I think it's one of the more underrated films in his catalog.

Ronin is the film that got me thinking about all this. I love that film, and I watch it nearly ever time it's on. Just watched most of it again on Wednesday night. Another film that De Niro is out front of with a fantastic supporting cast like Sean Bean, Stellan Skarsgaard and Jean Reno. Not only does it feel like a quintessential De Niro film, but it also feels like a quintessential John Frankenheimer film as well. I used to love it for the breath-taking car chase scenes through crowded French streets, but now I watch it for De Niro and the rest of the actors.

Do you have any personal favorite De Niro films that I may have missed?

Alabama Shakes

The answer is no. I'm not planning on making this a music/video blog permanently. It's just where my head is at right now, and that ain't a bad thing.

Next up is a band called Alabama Shakes that a family member introduced us to this past weekend. A real roots rock kinda band. I hear a bunch of stuff that I grew up with in the 1970's in this group of kids who are barely old enough to buy liquor. The key performer, for me at least, is lead singer Brittany Howard. She has some fucking pipes, yo! Fierce!  One might initially dismiss her as trying to hard to be Adele-like, but if you keep listening you realize that isn't true at all. Unique in her own right.

Love the first comment on the embedded clip below. "If you don't like this, then you don't like music." Couldn't have said it better myself.  It's a long clip with an extended performance recorded at a radio station, but it's worth listening to the whole thing. Or find some of their shorter clips from the Conan Show on Youtube. Either way, you are in for a treat.

Dead Sound

I'm loving this song by The Raveonettes lately. A little Blondie meets surf guitar or something not at all like that. But whatever it is...I dig.

Favorite Song of the 1980's

This is mine. What is yours?

PS - I pretty much hate everyone in the band now, especially Ian Astbury. He look like a fool. So almost all of them. Except Billy Duffy on lead guitar. He's fucking harsh!

This close

A crazy person approached me on the sidewalk. I could tell he was crazy because he was gesticulating wildly and yelling/barking at people both real and imaginary.

Made a quick assessment of the situation, and I realized there was no avoiding him. He was coming right at me, fast, and there was no easy way out.

So I decided to keep on moving toward him and make eye contact. He saw this, locked in on me and shouted "YOU...I'M TALKING AT YOU!!!"

Not good. But I remained calm, and I kept eye contact. "Hey. What's going on, man?" I asked.

This seemed to momentarily quell the crazy as confusion took over. "Um, nothing. What's going on with you?" he asked back.

By now our momentums (can I pluralize that?) were taking us past each other.  He with a wake of hardcore crazy streaming behind him. Me with more of a sputtering, bubbly wake of a slight beer buzz.

I looked back over my shoulder at him, smiled and said "Not much. Have a good one, buddy. Okay?"

He, still confused, nodded his head and replied "You too!" And we each made our ways away from each other in opposite directions.

That could have gone a different way. I wonder if he thought at all about the guy on the sidewalk who gave him the barest minimum of the time of day after our brief encounter. I know I'm still thinking about him.

Suggestion

Do yourself a favor.

Sign up for a 2-week free trial of EPIX online and then watch Warrior either on your computer or one of your streaming devices.

I just saw it and I think I need some time to process how much I loved it. I'll be back Monday with my review after I watch it again.

Until then...take my advice above. I don't believe you will regret it.

Pandora Redux

I keep talking about Pandora. That's because it's pretty much my favorite thing ever in the streaming music world. I listen to it all day streaming to my Roku box while I work. I listen to it using an the app on my phone when I'm out and about. I'd listen to it in the car, but we have XM/Sirius there.  I just dig it.

Because it's the only thing out there that introduces me to new artists/music or reunites me with some artists that I haven't heard in a very long time for one reason or another.

Like Gill Landry, an artist who I had never really heard of before. But I was listening to a Tom Waits station that I had set up, and "Mexico" by Mr. Landry has popped up several times over the past few month.  I dig.

Then there is Alice Donut, a band who I LOVED back in the early 1990's. I don't think I've heard anything by them since, well, the last time I mentioned them here on the Dude. But man...I still love some of their stuff. "Magdalene" is such a great song. If you were a fan of Jane's Addiction or Sonic Youth back in the day, then you may enjoy it as well.  Dig times two.

Don't You Just Know It

Watched Snatch again last night. It never gets fucking old. Maybe one of the best soundtracks ever. "Golden Brown" by The Stranglers, "Ghost Town" by The Specials, "Dreadlock Holiday" by 10CC, "Fuckin' in the Bushes" by Oasis...and, of course, "Don't You Just Know It" by Huey "Piano" Smith.

Dig.

Jumpin' Jack Flash*

Every once in a while, scientists figure something out that is not only a break-through, but hilarious at the same time.

Case in point: It's a gas: dinosaur flatulence may have warmed Earth.

Now, I have no idea if dinosaur farts really warmed the Earth in the Mesozoic era, but that headline sure warmed my sick, little heart. There's lots of real science in that article. They calculated the effect of methane production from current numbers of cows, sheeps and pigs. Then they calculated the numbers and average size of dinosaurs living in the Mesozoic. From there they were able to calculate the amount of methane produced and the effect on the environment.

But I don't care about any of that. Because dinosaur farts are funny. And probably really awful. Imagine hanging with your dicky dinosaur friends. Just taking a drive to the movies of something.  Suddenly the dino-driver rolls up all the windows and locks them. You all wait for a second, and then it hits you! Deadly dino-gas! The driver, of course, thinks it the funniest thing in the world. Because not only did they produce prodigious amounts of gas (probably), they also had tiny, tiny brains.

And we all know that creatures with tiny brains find a lot of humor in flatulence.

Wait...what?

*It's a gas, gas, gas. Get it? Derp...

3D Sucks

Here's a tip for movie studios:

If you are aren't planning on 3D effects for the entire film, or if you are thinking about adding 3D post-production, just say no.

It becomes distracting to the viewers if the film switches back and forth from 3D to normal projection because some scenes are just too difficult or expensive to transfer to 3D.

Case in point: I loved The Avengers. There is literally nothing I could say about the film that hasn't already been said thousands of times already by people a helluva lot smarter than me (they wish). My one quibble with it was the post-production 3D*. It made no sense. For example, there was a car chase near the beginning of the film. The chase itself was not in 3D, but every time the perspective switched to inside one of the vehicles the 3D kicked in.

What the fucking fuck is that all about? It was inconsistent at best and distracting at worst.

Just say no.  Seriously.

By the way, Dave2 had a great point (spoiler alert) about another minor quibble with the film. I found it even more minor than he did, and I actually had a different issue with the same point. But, like I said, it was minor. The Avengers was a nearly flawless movie-going experience. Notice I didn't say that it was a nearly flawless film. Hard to judge that yet, but as a movie-going experience it ranks up there with Terminator 2: Judgement Day, LotR: The Fellowship of the Ring and Avatar.  Three movies that made me shake my head and mouth "holy crap!" over and over and over again while watching them in the theater. Doesn't mean they were all incredible films, although I think the first two are. Avatar, besides the incredible effects, was largely forgettable for me. But that didn't distract from how awesome it was to see it in the theater.  

The Avengers was like that. Probably the best super-hero movie I've ever seen. We'll reserve judgement on that until it has had some time to sink in. Just go see it!

*I was warned the night before by several folks to skip the 3D version of the film, but I had already purchased my tix for the next day through Fandango. You live, you learn.

Levon

I'm a few weeks late with this. Sometimes it takes some time to process the events of the day or of the world.

Levon Helm passing away was an event of the world.

I didn't grow up with the music of Levon Helm or The Band. I was late to the the game. I think I started listening to them in my late 20's. Close to 20 years after they, um, disbanded. But once I did, I was done with trying to find the voice of America. It was Levon Helm. Singing about characters like Crazy Chester, Miss Anny and ole Virgil Caine.

There have been more fitting tributes to Mr. Helm in the past week or so than I could ever imagine writing myself. I'm not going to even try.

So do yourself a favor. Go and read Rob Delaney's words here. Then listen to the man himself here.

As Elton John sang, he shall be Levon.

House of Lies

I just finished watching the first season of Showtime's House of Lies starring Don Cheadle and Kristen Bell. Well, amongst others. Great supporting work from Ben Schwartz (Jean-Ralphio!!!), Josh Lawson, Greg Germann, Griffin Dunne and Richard Schiff as well. And Donis Leanord Jr. as Cheadle's cross-dressing son is amazing.

I'm not sure I've ever despised and loved a show this much before.

I love the acting and the storylines and the sheer fucking hotness that is Kristen Bell. I despise the characters and everything they stand for. There is a special place in hell reserved for corporate management consultants. And that's what this show is all about.  Having had some, ahem, experience with these mother-fuckers, I can guarantee that is true.

Which makes loving the show that much more difficult. I initially tried watching the show with Gia, but she got turned off after the very first episode. Because these people and their jobs are awful. I get that. Yet somehow I had to keep watching.  I try to tell myself that it's because of the acting chops of Cheadle and Bell, but I wonder if there is some latent jealousy going on here. The travel, the money, the blatant disregard for the average man/woman on the street.

You see, I dropped out of the corporate life almost 10 years ago. I wasn't a fast-track guy. I put my time and my work in, but I became something of riser in my field because of it. Director, Associate Vice President, Vice President, etc... 80 hours work weeks weren't the exception. They were the norm. And there were perks to go along with it. I almost never went out during the week unless the tab was picked up by the company. And excellent tickets to all the ballgames I wanted to attend. The money was pretty good too, and getting better all the time.

Then 9/11 happened. I know, I know...everyone has their 9/11 story. Mine isn't all that special. I knew some people in the Towers, including my best friend. All of whom survived the attack, by the way. That's not really the point. And, to be honest, my feelings about corporate life had changed before September of 2001. But I just kept on keeping on, like a good zombie. And where my life would lead didn't happen right afterward either. I stuck around, sucking on the corporate teat for another couple of years. But when I looked myself in the soul after 9/11, I knew something had to change.

So here I am now. Wondering where my life would have taken me had I decided to stick with it. I'm certainly happier now than I ever was back then. That's entirely to do with Gia. But the money or the job security in the private sector aren't really something to write home about. So there's that.

Anyway...it's one of those shows that make you think. Or, at least, it's one of those shows that made me think. About what was, about what is, about what could have been.

And I'm not sure how I feel about any of it.

Testing, testing...

Hey kids, I got a favor.

If you haven't visited my site in the past day or so, please pop in and let me know if you are having any issues with the page loading. There one person, who shall remain Slyde, who can't access my blog either at home or at work. But I haven't heard any problems from anyone else. Could be that he is just stupid.

Yeah, that's probably it.

If not, please let me know.

PS - Obviously you won't be able to leave a comment if you can't access the site. So email me at babyburke at aol dot com if you can't get in. Thanks!

Meh, whatever...

OK, I didn't really try to change the layout of this thing all that hard. Spent maybe 5 minutes on it. It's better than it was, but it's still not inspiring me to pretty up the joint with clever words and the like.  Maybe I'm just going through one of those phases. Oy vell.

Let's fuck some shit up with some bullets, shall we?

• The baseball season is closing in on being a month-old now, and it's been a whole heap of fun. My Yankees have only been a mild disappointment. Mild in that they aren't unbeaten at this point, but I'll take it. The cross-town Mets have been a pleasant surprise in that they don't suck as much as I thought they would. They just swept the Miami Marlins, and that was a real nice series for them. But I think I'm most surprised by the dominant starting pitching of the Washington Nationals. They might be my new favorite team to watch who don't wear pinstripes.  Very cool.
• This season of Survivor is easily the worst that they have produced thus far. I'm still enjoying it, but it's almost as if they select people specifically with the criteria that they either must have a low IQ or that they must have no concept of how the show works.  Because that's what we were given this year. The stupidest players in the stupidest season so far. I'm still a fan, but I can't wait until this one is over.
• Tried Jim Beam/Red Stag Honey Tea bourbon last night for the first time. It was delicious! Very similar to the Honey Jack from Jack Daniels. A little too sweet for me to drink straight, but it goes very well with mixers. Actually, mixing it with sweet tea would be a good idea. A big kick at 80 proof, it doesn't taste nearly that strong. I definitely recommend it. The Red Stag flag is an interesting concept. So far I like the Honey Tea and hate the Black Cherry.  But I'm willing to give the Spiced Cinnamon whiskey a try.
• I don't care that some people thing Jim Beam is white trash liqour. Fuck those people! I like Jim Beam and I'm gonna drink Jim Beam until it fucking kills me. Not literally. That would be sad.
• I've been ignoring this blog recently, but I've REALLY been ignoring my/our food blog. From the looks of it, so are the rest of the contributors. I plan on remedying that soon. Watch for it.
• Speaking of food and recipes, I joined Pinterest recently. I don't really get it. I wanted to use it as an online repository for recipes that I like or wanna try, but it's just not organized very well from what I've experienced. Maybe I'm just using it wrong. Probably I'm just using it wrong. We'll see if it sticks.
• I've also been using Instagram since it became available for Android and I'm really enjoying it. A really easy way to post pictures from my phone online and onto Twitter, if I so choose.  Do you Instagram? I have no idea how it's worth a billion dollars to Facebook, but that's another story.
• By the way, how is Facebook worth so much? I recently watched The Social Network (good movie, by the way), and I don't get it. I mean, I'm not ON Facebook, but I know a bunch of people who are. Just how are they making all that money? I don't get the Internet sometimes.
• Speaking of Facebook, I always that Sean Parker and Shaun Fanning were the same person. I'm stupid. Both were involved with Napster, but only one was involved with Facebook, right? I'm stupid.
• We have this one mis-matched fork in our cutlery drawer. It doesn't match any of our other cutlery, but it's the only one that I like to use. It's sturdy, and the tines aren't too long. I have no idea where it came from. I'd like to find a matching set, but there is no insignia. If we ever lose that fork, I'm going to be very sad.

That's all I got. I think I finished on a high note. Talking about a fork.Well done, Earl.

See you next time!

Hate it

Was messing around with my blog layout last week, and this is the result.

I hate it.

So I plan on a total re-do of the old Verdant Dude this week at some point. New masthead, new background, new layout. Something that will make me want to visit the old gentleman a bit more often.

Suggestions and/or criticisms welcome.

Except from Slyde.

Food Cart Heaven

Had a great experience with some food cart, um, food last week.  A place called Garbo's Grill in Key West.  I had done a little web reconnaissance before heading there, and I was surprised to see that this little food cart was the highest rated "restaurant" in town on Trip Advisor.

I wasn't surprised for long.

I got down there a few hours ahead of some friends on Tuesday, so I decided to check it out on my own. Figured if it was good, I could be a hero to my buddies by introducing it to them. If it sucked, well...only I would be worse for the wear.

Turned out to be a huge mother-fucking win! Of epic proportions. I was there for 5 days and ate lunch at this food cart 4 of those days. Wish I had eaten lunch there the other day too. Plus some snacks here and there. All of the rest of the crew ate there at least once as well, most of them multiple times. Everyone loved it. Check out this menu:

click for mouth-watering goodness

Very simple, but with the freshest ingredients possible. Everything was stored in coolers that served double-duty as seating for the crowd waiting for the delicious goodies.  I had the Cayo fish tacos twice, the Yum Yum shrimp tacos (Cayo-style again) once and the Mango Brie quesadilla with Jerk Chicken the last time there. All were awesome.  I also tried some of the Kogi Korean BBQ tacos that another friend ordered. Incredible!  And the couple that own the cart are some of the nicest folks you will ever meet. On my second day there, I already felt like a regular with them yelling out my name when they saw me every time afterward. Good stuff.

I think I love a good food cart. Especially when it's run by a couple of foodies like this one here. And there are a TON of supposedly great food carts in NYC, but I really don't frequent them. I really think I should, based on this experience. At the very least, I'm going to do some research into the ones that are getting some good press.

But Long Island is a barren wasteland for delicious food cart, um, food. I've just never seen nor heard of any really good food carts out here.

I think I'm going to make it my new obsession. Find a great food cart here on the island, or find someone willing to open one. Because this kind of food? It's my kind of food. And I don't think I can ever go back to a world that doesn't have this kind of food in it anymore.

How about you? Any good food carts near you that you love?

Been busy

Life hits ya like that sometimes. Nothing gruesome, just busy.

Back to regular posting shortly, but in the meantime...here's some music.

NCIB - Week 1 Recap

Note: Every Monday, I'll be posting some notes about the new fantasy baseball league called No Crying in Baseball that I'm hosting. Feel free to read and comment, but it's mostly for the members of that league. And this goes against the Golden Rule of fantasy sports which states "No One Cares About Your Fantasy Team", but I don't give a crap. So read on, or don't...I'm jake either way.

__________________________________________________________________ 

A long time ago in a fantasy league far, far away, I used to do a weekly write-up of the league happenings. A list of goats (not Sea Goats), heroes and the Hester Award for the manager who left the biggest fantasy stud on his bench the prior week. Named after a member of that league who was known for that. He would struggle with his decisions so much each week, but would be guaranteed to pick the wrong guy. Besides the award, the process itself is referred to as "hestering" in a very small circle. Now you get to join in on that fun.  So here we go.  Let's have some fun with this.

Standings

Let's face it. After just 3 games, the standings don't mean a hell of a lot right now. So I'm going to ignore them this week, except for a hearty congratulations to The Gotlanders for being in 1st place. There was much rejoicing....yay! Obviously, no one is out of it yet. Keep on grinding, kids.


Heroes

1. Chad Billingsley (Otis Day & the Knights) - 8.1 IP, 1 BB, 11 K for a total of 53.17 points.
2. Jered Weaver (The Miracles) - 8 IP, 10 K for a total of 52.80 points.
3. Nick Markakis (Kill Moose&Squirrel) - 5/9, 1 3B, 2 HR, 3BB for a total of 49.00 points.


Goats
Would have sworn that Josh Beckett and his 5 HR train-wreck of a start would have taken the top spot here, but Yovani Gallardo managed to out-doo him. Wow. Those are two very good pitchers with two very bad games there. Oh yeah, nice way to start the season Alex Gordon. Dude is anchoring my outfield in BOTH of my leagues. Thanks a lot!

1. Yovani Gallardo (The Miracles) - 3.2 IP, 4 HR, 5 BB, 3 K for a whopping -45.97 points.

2. Josh Beckett (Shagging Flies) - 4.2 IP, 5 HR, 1 BB, 3K totaling -42.87 points.
3. Alex Gordon (Chisolm Moonbeams) - 0-13, 1 BB for -10.00 points. Yup.


Hester Award
The first Hester goes to Shagging Flies for having Ryan Dempster and his 10-strikeout game on his bench. Dempster had a total line of 7.2 IP, 3BB and the aforementioned 10 K for a total of 42.43 points, the 5th best total for a pitcher in this truncated week. Except that they didn't count because he was on the bench. Bravo, Shagging Flies! You win the first Hester of the year!

New Coat of Paint

A little Tom Waits. Just because it's Friday. Just because...

New Coat of Paint 

Tom Waits

Let's put a new coat of paint on this lonesome old town
Set 'em up, we'll be knockin' em down.
You wear a dress, baby, and I'll wear a tie.
We'll laugh at that old bloodshot moon in that burgundy sky

All your scribbled lovedreams, are lost or thrown away,
Here amidst the shuffle of an overflowing day
Our love needs a transfusion so let's shoot it full of wine
Fishin' for a good time starts with throwin' in your line.

Hobo Beach

So what's the plural form of hobo? Hobos or hoboes?  Eh, for the purposes of this story I'm gonna go with hobos.

So we are out visiting my family yesterday. Some paperwork for my mother, a little Sunday dinner...you know the drill. I'm in the dining room doing her taxes while the rest of the family is in the living room chatting about whatever. I'm doing my best to block it all out and finish up so we can have dinner.

That's when I hear my mother say that the public beach down the street from her house has become dangerous because of "hobos living there at night." Hobos. She used the word hobos. Probably to refer to the maybe one homeless person who has actually spent a night or two down there.  The cops are by all the time, so I doubt they can take up permanent residence there.

I was just jazzed at the thought of hobos living on the beach, though. Railroad-riding, eating beans out of a can, red bandana tied to the end of a stick to carry their valuables, grilling hot dogs over a fire, real-live hobos!

I'm sure I'll refer to that little beach as Hobo Beach in the foreseeable future.

image credit

No Crying in Baseball: Draft Re-cap

Note: Every Monday, I'll be posting some notes about the new fantasy baseball league called No Crying in Baseball that I'm hosting. Feel free to read and comment, but it's mostly for the members of that league. And this goes against the Golden Rule of fantasy sports which states "No One Cares About Your Fantasy Team", but I don't give a crap. So read on, or don't...I'm jake either way.

________________________________________________________________

The NCIB fantasy league had our first draft this past weekend, and it was hella fun.  25 rounds of action in just a little over an hour. It almost went too fast for my liking. I barely had time to think about my next picks.  In my other league, a head-to-head fantasy point auction league, our auction took over 4 hours.  And a bunch of players on each team were protected from previous years.  Something comfortably in between would be ideal. 

All I know is that the plan I had going into the draft went out the window by the 3rd round.  I blame that squarely on the manager of The Gotlanders, who was loading up on starting pitching at an alarming rate. I had planned to wait until the 10th round or so before picking up any starting pitching.  This is a FIP-based league, after all.  And a lot of value can be found in the later rounds for pitchers who might be elite with some better luck or defense behind them. But I panicked and grabbed Zack Greinke in the 3rd round.  Then went with more pitching in the 7th-11th rounds. So yeah...that plan didn't pan out.  The Gotlanders, by the way, have the sickest starting pitching in the league.  And an offense that could be among the the best in the league if several of his picks work out the way he thinks they will.

The manager of Otis Day & The Knights did stick to that plan though. To the extreme. Drafted all offense and relief pitchers until the 22nd round. Not knowing that you need 6 starting pitchers on your squad probably had a lot to do with that, however.  He still wound up with some really good starting pitching and picked up a few more after the draft via free agency.  That's the idea with this plan.  Load up on offense and scavenge for pitching. It can really work if you stay diligent. And a team built around an offense with Troy Tulowitzki and Justin Upton is pretty daunting.

Two managers, Sea Goats and Shagging Flys, didn't even make it to the draft. And, frankly, they wound up with really good teams each.  Maybe that was the way to go. Kinda disconcerting, seeing two teams that are probably better than my own that were picked by a computer.  That's the way it goes sometimes. The Sea Goats wound up with the incredible Albert Pujols and an outfield of Curtis Granderson, Carlos Gonzalez and Nelson Cruz.  All players I coveted. Same with Shagging Flys and Miggy Cabrera, although his outfield is littered with the often-injured Josh Hamilton, Carl Crawford and BJ Upton. A starting rotation of Dan Haren and Cole Hamels helps offet that extremely well.

There were two fantasy newbies who participated in the draft as well. The managers of Phoo Phighters and The Blue Labels. Both did very well, in my opinion.  Barring a couple of admitted mistakes from the manager of the Phoo. Hehehehe.  She had some fun drafting a bunch of palyers from her hometown Cincinnati Reds, and it worked out well for her. Having the likes of Joey Votto, Jay Bruce and Brandon Phillips on your team is never a bad thing. The Blue Labels went strong with offense and some terrific FIP-inspired picks in pitching.  And maybe the best bench, therefore the most flexible team, in the league.  Well done to the two noobs.

The two teams at each turn in the draft, Mudville 9 at the #1 spot and Kill Moose&Squirrel at #11, put together some fearsomely awesome teams with their draft strategies.  The Mudville 9 made the suprising choice, to some, of selecting Dustin Pedroia with the 1st overall pick. Wasn't surprising to me. I was planning on taking him in the first round as well. Second base, after the first couple of guys, was the shallowest position in the draft. Had he waited, he would have missed out on the big 3 of Pedroia, Cano and Kinsler. Kill Moose&Squirrel really did his homework. Constantly screwing myself and others out of some excellent choices that I thought would have lasted longer. Damn you, Boris Badenov!!!

The Miracles and Je Je Je Jeetah rounded out the 11-team league, both doing very, very well. The Miracles went with wOBA All-Stars like Ryan Braun and Mike Napoli on offense, a strong relief corp and underrated and strong starting pitchers like Jered Weaver and Yovani Gallardo. Je Je Je Jeetah picked just enough Yankees for the huge Yankees fan that he is. While building a formidable team around Jose Bautista on offense and Justin Verlander and Tim Lincecum for pitching.

Living in the Past

See what I did there?

No...ugh, I guess a blog title joke referencing my entry from two days ago will get me that kind of reaction.  Believe me, it was fucking hilarious!

A family member has been in New Orleans all week, taunting me with texts of pictures of delicious food. It's my own fault. I was the one who suggested all the spots to go eat. Still made me wish I was back in New Orleans. And I haven't been back since before Katrina wrecked the joint. I really need to go back to see what they've done with the place. I can imagine liking it anymore than my last visit.

Key West is another place that I haven't been back to in a long while. Gonna remedy that soon, but Dave's trip there last week really made me want to be there NOW!  Like I said...gonna remedy that soon.

In the meantime, let's go living in the past with a link to an old post from Slyde's blog back before I had a blog of my own.


Beware, it's...TALES OF THE BLACK SOCK!!!

(Go check that shit out, okay?)

Living in the Future

"I'll tell you how I know. I read it in the papers...15 years ago. We're all driving rocket ships, and talking with our minds. And wearing turquoise jewelery, and standing in soup lines. We are standing in soup lines." - John Prine

I was gonna embed a video here. Of old John Prine singing his folksy tune about living in the future. But there ain't no video nowheres that I can find of him and that tune. A bunch of covers by a bunch of wannabes, but no originals anywhere. Gahbless ya, internets.

Even though Prine's words are dripping with sarcasm and social commentary, it's still a thought that dances through my reptilian brain every so often. We are living in the future, and everything sucks.  Just like Louis CK said, in a much funnier way on the Conan show once.

Our local, hated cable company has been recently expanding their WiFi network by adding to the number of hotspots they offer throughout the territory. I've only noticed it because I recently upgraded to an android phone.  And I keep it enabled for WiFi since I mostly work from home, and we have fast WiFi here. I was somewhere or another a few weeks ago, and I saw that there was WiFi available through one of their hotspots.  Cool. I registered, meaning that it would automatically switch to one of these hotspots in the future automatically if one was available. Excellent.

Except their WiFi network kinda sucks right now.  Yeah, the coverage is expanding all the time. But it's kinda slow. Maybe faster than surfing the web on 3G, but still slower than I'm used to.

So yeah, I sit there and complain while I'm trying to read about a Spring Training baseball game because the page takes an extra second or three to load.

And then I look around, and see everyone around me with their heads down.  Peering into their tablet or smartphone or what-not.  No one is talking. No one is making eye contact or looking at the scenery. And I've become one of them.

We are living in the future. Yeah...

It's coming

Are you ready?

They are.

The old standby

Cat pictures!

The King, Wolowitz...sleeping on his throne.

His sister Gogo...she's only still when she sleeps.

Bootsy sleeping on my work desk.  He's large...

Bennington doing what he do.  All cute and shit.

We are thinking that the last one needs to be on the front of a greeting card or something. 

Question: How can we make money off of these fuckers?

Food porn!

Nothing to see here, but head over to Simmer, Sip, Share for some titillating food porn as I review a local restaurant called Mara's Homemade that serves New Orleans-style grub and Arkansas BBQ. 

The food made my pants tight.  For several reasons.

Click on the picture for the review

Express Stress

I've got a silly little pet peeve that struck a nerve a couple of times in the past few days. So allow me to go off on a rant.

I do most of the food shopping in the house.  Mostly because I do most of the cooking, and I shop for what I need.  I'm not good at planning ahead, so I wind up hitting the supermarket 3-4 times in a given week. Sometimes only to pick up 6 or 7 items.  It's not time or cost effective, but it's just the way that I'm built.  Not much I can do about it.  Besides, sometimes I get in the mood for a certain meal on a whim. Hard to plan around whims.

So this particular pet peeve has to do with the Express Checkout lane at the market. We have automated checkout lanes and regular lanes with human checkout clerks. Both have Express Checkout lanes. You know, the type with a big sign that says "12 Items or Less" hovering someplace in plain fucking sight.  And I have an awful habit of counting how many items the person in front of me has.  7 items?  You're good! 15 items?  Wait a minute, pal...get in the correct lane!

But, generally, as long as the person in front of me is quick and gets through their checkout without any problems I'm fine. 

It's the 99.99% of the time when the person is an absolute fucking idiot that I lose my fucking mind!

Take my last two trips to the market as examples. The first trip I was picking up a few items to make some baked potato soup with green onions, cheddar and bacon.  Mostly I needed the green onions, cheddar and bacon. I was set on everything else. Hehehe.  So I grabbed my items and headed to the automated checkout counter.  The dude in front of me looked like a good dude. Interesting facial hair, NY Yankee baseball cap...he seemed alright. Until I wound up hating him.

He was purchasing some stuff for a party. Greeting cards, wrapping paper, gift bags, flowers, a balloon...those kind of things.  I immediately noticed he had around 16 items, so some mild warning bells starting ringing in my brain.  Then he proceeded to demonstrate no knowledge of ever having used an automated checkout counter before.  EVER!  He needed management assistance for no fewer than 5 items in his cart.  Including the balloon, which threatened to escape to the ceiling.  Also, he had no idea how to proceed after scanning the balloon because he couldn't place it on the conveyor belt for the sensor to recognize it.

It. Was. A. Nightmare!!!  And it took forever.

Yet, I found myself at the same market at the same automated "Express" lane the very next day.  This time I was pleased to find a guy with only 7-8 items in his basket.  This made me optimistic. But then that optimism turned to despair in mere moments. He also had never used one of these machines before, apparently.  And all the items in his bag were of the fresh produce variety.  So he had to look each one up individually.  At an average of 2-3 minutes an item.  This was worse than the previous experience. But not by very much. Both sucked.

See...it's not that I really mind the extra items or the occasional need for assistance from a manager.  I've been there, had an extra item and needed that assistance.  Not to this level, however. And it goes against the very nature of what this lane is all about. EXPRESS SERVICE!!! The lanes exist to facilitate a quick checkout, get it? And there are no apologies ever.  It's like this is their world and I'm just living in it. 

That's actually the basis of the pet peeve. People with no regard for anyone else.  Whether they fail to signal when driving or slow an express lane to an absolute halt.  I just hate those people. 

Because you know they would be the first one to complain if, God forbid, THEY were ever inconvenienced.

/rant

The Walking Dead - SPOILERS

This post has some pretty serious spoilers for the current season of The Walking Dead.  I'm gonna get all up in that shit, so if you haven't watched it yet you may want to skip the rest of this post.  You have been warned.

Darryl, the redneck ninja. Photo credit

Read more after the jump...

OK, are we alone now? I love you. Wait..what?  Sorry about that. Lost my mind for a second there.

So yeah...The Walking Dead. We've been absolutely loving this half-season.  While the first half of the season was one long drawn-out search for a dead girl, the action has ratcheted up a notch as we zombie shuffle toward this Sunday's season finale.  We've got shootouts and zombies and in-fighting and more zombies and the breakup of a formerly grand bro-mance. It's been a whole shambling heap of zombie fun.

And the creators of the show haven't been shy about killing off some of the main characters this year.  I would suggest that they have killed off the wrong main characters, but at least they are recognizing that the show takes place in a zombie apocalypse.  People die in a zombie apocalypse. That's one of the rules. Next to head-shots, it's pretty much the top rule.

Like I said, we've been really enjoying the show.

That's not to say that there have been some problems with it.  Take Carl, for instance.  I couldn't have been the only one out there, but I literally yelled out "WHAT THE FUCK IS HE DOING OUT THERE?" during the last five minutes of the past show.  I felt like Brodie yelling at that kid on the escalator in Mallrats. If you saw it, you know what I mean. It's night-time in Zombieland, there's a missing prisoner, shots have been fired...and he is fucking wandering around? In in a fucking field!  What the hell is up with that?  Remember when I said the wrong people have been dying?  Yup...he's one of the ones who should have bit it by now. Him and his stupid fucking hat!

I'm not the only one to feel that way about Carl.  The Internets are buzzing with the same thoughts. Best portrayed here by graphic artist Peter Chiykowski on his Rock, Paper, Cynic site:

There are other problems with other characters, for sure.  T-Dog has literally had two lines of dialogue in the past 6 weeks. And those were in this past episode. I'm pretty sure one of them was "Welcome ta Earf!"* Andrea should just sit back and kick ass and stop judging people. Her judgy-face is making me long for the day when a zombie finally bites it off! And Lori...ugh, don't get me started on Lori. If I had my druthers, and I really miss my druthers, her head would be on the chopping block in the season finale. And my druthers are blood-thirsty, so I would want it to be a gruesome death.  Maybe she could choke on that ham sandwich that she is seriously in need of.  Fucking skinny bitch!  And she's supposed to be pregnant? Iggy Pop is curvier. Ugh.

I just can't wait for them to get off of this farm and out into the big, scary zombie world. Hopefully that's what happens after this zombie herd runs rough-shod over the farm next week.  And maybe Carl will leave the house one time too many.

::fingers crossed::

*That's racism, man! I love to racism, bro!

Infinitely Cool

Saw this on The Interrobang yesterday.

It's an interactive Scale of the Universe.  That is all

Ready to feel...smaller?

This isn't the interactive scale. Just a "picture" of the Universe. Is all.

No Crying in Baseball

Note: This is gonna be about fantasy baseball. If you aren't a baseball geek or a math geek or a stats geek, then you will probably want to move right along. You have been forewarned.

___________________________________________________________

A few weeks ago, I floated the idea of a fantasy baseball league here on The Verdant Dude.  I didn't get much positive feedback from the blog-gang, so I then had the bright idea to to re-float the league on our weekly radio show.  And an inspiration was born.

Instead of doing your basic 5X5 Roto league or using the standard fantasy point system, I thought we should come up with something that reflects our current interest in advanced baseball statistics.  Sabermetrics, if you prefer. The idea behind the league is to come as close as possible to replicating the results of two of my favorite advanced statistics, wOBA and FIP.  Why wOBA and FIP? Because they are the two main components used for WAR (Wins Above Replacement), which is a value-driven stat on sites like Fangraphs or Baseball-Reference.  What are they?  Well...

wOBA

wOBA stands for Weighted On-Base Average. It was originally invented by uber-sabermetician Tom Tango*, and it attempts to measure a hitter's overall value by placing weights on each specific offensive event.  Basically, the idea behind it is that doubles are worth more than singles, triples are worth more than doubles and home runs are worth more than triples. Seems obvious, but it's something that is totally missing in both Batting Average and regular old On-Base Percentage.  The weights change each year slightly based upon league averages, but for 2011 the formula for wOBA that FanGraphs uses is:

wOBA = (0.69×uBB + 0.72×HBP + 0.89×1B + 1.26×2B + 1.60×3B +
2.08×HR + 0.25×SB -0.50×CS) / PA

So a single is worth slightly more than an unintentional walk or a hit-by-pitch, and then you see the weights for doubles, triples, home runs and stolen bases.  Everything is then divided by plate appearances and you get an average that has a relation to the old OBP.  A player with a .400 wOBA is a top-tier guy.  .370 is great, .340 is above-average, .320 is average, .300 is poor, etc...

The challenge became translating that formula into a point structure.  I think I've accomplished that by assigning positive point values to BB, HBP, H, 2B, 3B, HR and SB.  Then negative point values are assigned for AB (to represent outs created) and CS.  The results pretty closely mirror the wOBA leader-board from last year.  I'm still in the process of tweaking it, and I have a friend helping out.  But I think it's pretty close.

FIP

FIP stands for Fielding Independent Pitching.  It measures what a pitcher's ERA should look like over a given period of time assuming performance on balls in play and timing were league average.  The idea is that balls in play (calculated as Batting Average on Balls in Play, or BABIP) can swing wildly from one season to another for a given pitcher, and it might not be the fault of the pitcher at all.  Luck and the fielders playing behind him are big reasons for the fluctuations.  So we should try to measure a pitcher's effectiveness by measuring what they can control.  And those things are walks, strikeouts and home runs.  Mostly.  Here's the 2011 formula for FIP on Fangraphs:

FIP = ((13*HR)+(3*(BB+HBP-IBB))-(2*K))/IP + constant

So pitchers are penalized, heavily, by the home runs they give up and walks (netted of intentional walks) and how often they hit batters. Then they are given credit for strikeouts and the innings that they pitch (or the outs they get).  The constant at the end changes yearly, and it's for bringing the formula into a more recognizable ERA form.  This one was a little more difficult to translate into a point structure for a league, but I think I came close.  You'll notice that there are no points awarded for Wins, Losses or Earned Runs.  Those are "team" statistics that are often over-valued in the traditional world of baseball statistics.  So we are going to ignore them in this league. I am going to throw a bone to closers by awarding points for Saves, but I'm not happy about it. Saves, as a statistic, suck.  But a concession must be made, so...

So it's going to be a bit more complex, and hopefully rewarding, than your traditional fantasy baseball league.  If the three of you (RW, Paticus and Sybil Law) who were initially interested in joining the league are still interested, I will follow up with you via email.  If this scared you off, well...I understand.  There are going to be a handful of stat geeks in the league, if the folks who download our radio show is any indication.  So it should be competitive. I still want it to be a free league, with maybe a prize of some apple pie moonshine for the winner, but we will discuss that as well.

So exciting!!!  More to follow...

*Tom Tango is actually a pseudonym for either a single man or several baseball analysts.  Not really sure about that.  His site is really interesting, though.  You should check it out.

Humanoids from the Deep (1980)

Netflix has been adding some interesting titles to their stable of Instant choices. Well, interesting to me. More importantly, interesting to the inner-child that still lives within me. An inner-child that is constantly feeding on me, like a conjoined parasitic twin. Eww.

What does all this have to do with Humanoids from the Deep?  Well, because Humanoids from the Deep was basically a perfect movie for a young 13 year-old Earl.  It was loaded with the three things that I valued over everything else at that age.

1. Monsters.
2. Bad acting/special effects/makeup/etc...
3. Female full frontal nudity.

That last one was particularly important. Ahem.

And as an added bonus, it made good use of the word "humanoid". A word that I'm particularly fond of. A humanoid is "something that has an appearance resembling a human being", according to the Wiki Gods. And it's a term that has fallen out of favor with the scientific community in the 21st century. Fuck those guys! I say we should bring back humanoid in a big way.  Maybe "Talk Like a Humanoid Day" or something.  I'm still working on my plan.  Where was I?

Oh yeah, Humanoids from the Deep. So there is this sleepy little drinking village with a fishing problem named Noyo in Northern California.  Seems that most of the population of the town make their money off of the salmon industry.  They pronounce it 'SAL-mon', although I don't know anyone who really says it that way. Then again, I don't live anywhere near the Pacific Northwest. They also seem to have some issue with the local Native American population who also depend on the SAL-mon runs for their livelihood.  But the Native Americans, of course, also care about the environment.  Something that a local cannery company, brilliantly called CanCo, could give two hoots about.  They want production and they want it fast. By any nefarious means possible.

But something is going on in the waters off of Noyo. Something...dum dum duh....sinister! People are dying or going missing.  Dogs are being ripped apart. Seaweed is being filmed by underwater cameras. OK, that last one isn't very sinister.  Except that there are creepy claws moving the seaweed aside. A claw that may or may not belong to a humanoid of some sort.  Most excellent.

A local scientist has arrived in town from CanCo to investigate what is happening in the water. She seems helpful and concerned, but she also seems to know a lot more about what is going on than she is offering up.  But as the attacks begin to ramp up, she if finally forced to fess up about the humanoids.

Seems that CanCo had been experimenting with genetically modifying the local SAL-mon population by using the ominous-sounding DNA-5 treatment.  DNA-5 is a super growth hormone, apparently. It doesn't really make the SAL-mon any bigger, but it accelerates the aging process. So baby SAL-mon become adult SAL-mon in a matter of days or weeks instead of however long it usually takes. Then a batch of the SAL-mon escape the hatchery into the wild. No big deal, right? Wrong. Seems an existing prehistoric fish called the coelacanth is also living in those waters. And they love to eat them some SAL-mon.  And adding the genetically-enhanced fish to the diet has mutated them. Forcing them through several evolutionary changes all in a short period of time. Into...humanoids!

That, my friends, is the kind of science that you CANNOT argue with.

Oh, and one more thing about these humanoids.  They are horny as fuck.  Seems that they need, I mean NEED, to procreate with human females to further advance their evolutionary agenda.  They decide the best way to do that is to get all rape-y with the town's lovely young ladies.  And I do mean lovely.  This brings about the full frontal nudity I mentioned earlier.  The film caught some slack for the graphic, violent and sexual nature of some of the scenes. Women's groups were especially upset with the film's director. A woman who they thought should have known better. Not really fair of them because most of those scenes were added after she had been fired by B-movie legend Roger Corman. To all that, my 13-year old inner-child says "whatever, dudes!" But that kid is a dick, so take it with a grain of salt. I will say that it's only a movie and a pretty poor one to boot. Exploitation flicks need lovin' too. Ahem.

All of this leads to one of the most ridiculous climaxes in motion picture history when the humanoids invade the town in force during the annual SAL-mon festival. They kill and rape with stunning aplomb. Especially considering the slow-moving, shambling wrecks that they are.  Let's just say that being named Miss SAL-mon does not end up well for one young lady.

So is it a good film? C'mon. But is it a good bad film? Absolutely.  If you go into it with the right attitude, it can even be a great bad film.

Next up: War of the Gargantuas (1968) - A film actually mentioned by Brad Pitt during the last Oscars telecast. How weird was that?

Brain derp dump

Just a few things that have been on my mind lately.  Hopefully if I put the words down here, then I can concentrate on more important things. Like recipes to post on our food blog. Yeah.

• I generally don't wish harm on anyone, but can Pat Robertson just die already?  Preferably in a natural disaster of some sort.  That's how I enjoy my irony.
• Speaking of public figures that should just die already....maybe the best way to stop Rush Limbaugh is to ignore him.  I really don't think it will work, but it's worth a shot!
• Do yourself a favor, do a Google search for Big Ang (short for Angela) and watch a video or two of her if you can stomach it.  She's a "character" on the show Mob Wives on one of the cable channels. I should say she's a "cartoon character", because that's exactly what she reminds me of. I hate those reality shows with a passion, but the sheer ridiculousness of Big Ang makes me smile.
• This Sarah Palin bio-pic coming to HBO looks...interesting.  I pause because I don't really think it's going to reveal anything that we don't already know. OK, she's not very intelligent or she was totally unprepared for national office. I get it. Julianne Moore sure looks the part though. Wow!
• So some people think Kirk Cameron is still relevant?  Hmm...I'd worry about those people. More than what that dude has on his mind anyway. Now you want to see real crazy? Go check out what Victoria Jackson has been doing lately.
• We watched the first 3 episodes of Homeland last night. Holy fucking fucking hell!  Great show, tense as all what-not.  Highest recommendation if you haven't already seen it.  Warning...it ain't for the faint of heart.  Or for the fart of taint. Huh?
• Sybil Law is running for President. Finally, some political news that makes sense!

Du-di-du-da-du-di....that's all folks!

It's Educational!!!

Had something I really wanted to post about tonight, but I got wrapped up in a conversation on Twitter with Sybil and Marty about the Pixies. Then I forgot what I wanted to post about.

Shit happens.  So there's this:

UMass

The Pixies

In the sleepy west of the woody east
is a valley full, full o' pioneer
we're not just kids, to say the least
we got ideas to us that's dear
like capitalist, like communist
like lots of things you've heard about
and redneckers they get us pissed
and stupid stuff it makes us shout
oh dance with me oh don't be shy
oh kiss me cunt and kiss me cock
oh kiss the world oh kiss the sky
oh kiss my ass oh let it rock
of the april birds and the may-bee
oh baby
it's educational
it's educational
it's educational
it's educational
it's educational
it's educational
it's educational
it's educational
university
of massachusetts, please
and here's the last five
it's educational
it's educational
it's educational
it's educational
it's educational.

Browser ABC's

When it comes to computers, I'm still very much a keyboard/shortcut guy than a point and click guy.  I've been a high-level MS Excel user since it was invented, and I still start many of my tricks by hitting the old "/" menu key.  It's just habit. Ingrained by thousands and thousands of hours of use.

It comes across in my Internet use as well. Sure, I have lots of sites bookmarked.  But I find that I tend to just jump to the address bar in Firefox and start typing where I want to go and let my browser history find the site I want more than anything else. 

For example, I have this here blog bookmarked.  But when I want to go to it quickly, I jump to the address bar in my browser and type "B" and this is the first site that pops up. Easy peasy.  And quicker, for me, than finding it in my bookmarks.

So with that in mind, I've come up with a silly meme where you type in a letter in the address box of your browser and mark down the first site that pops up in your browser history.  Could be dangerous, could be boring...let's find out!

A - Amazon
B - The Verdant Dude (because the url is beearl.blogspot.com)
C - Citibank
D - Deadspin (a sports/humor blog)
E - Erin O'Brien's blog
F - Filmdrunk (a film/humor blog)
G - Google Reader
H - Huffington Post
I - IMDB
J - Just Talking to the Cornfield
K - Kongregate (a flash game site)
L - The LoHud Yankees Blog
M - Mike Silva's New York Baseball Digest
N - Netflix
O - Overstock (haven't shopped there in years!)
P - Pandora
Q - The Interrobang (there's a Q in the subtitle someplace)
R - RW's new website. 
S - Slyde...ugh.
T - Twitter
U - Uni-Watch (an interesting site devoted entirely to sports uniforms)
V - Version53 - RW rears his head once again
W - The Weather Channel...how boring.
X - Nothing. Nothing pops up for X. How weird is that? (Actually it was XM Radio...hehehe)
Y - Yahoo!
Z - This time really nothing. Just a bunch of urls that have random a random "z" in them.

OK, so that was pointless and boring. Tells us what we already know. I like baseball and movies.

Anyone got a good Z website I should start visiting?

Hi.