Category: Uncategorized

Rogers Clemens Becomes A Yankee Again

I think to be fair, it will be good to see him pitch again – even if Clemens is a Yankee [Ed.: pittuie!] – but there are a number of aspects to this move to sign the great elder statesman, an athlete who is…my age.

  • 1. He is a Mercenary. Clemens is not a teammate in this situation. Between starts he is not on the bench, he isn’t even in New York. The deal is he stays at home in Texas when he feels like it.
  • 2. Clemens’s return is not the Second Coming. The Yankees are as poor as they have ever been in my recollection. Beyond the injuries, some players just have not panned out as promised and the bullpen is simply weak. Clemens shuttling in every fix or six days will not change that.
  • 3. We don’t need no Roger Clemens. Even though the Red Sox probably offered him about ten million less, where would Roger fit in? He is not as good now as the Sox #2 pitcher, Beckett who is 6-0 with a 2.72 ERA on May 7th. Realistically, what with the Dice-K deal, Clemens would be a #4. And even if the fifth starter Tavarez (who I have underestimated before) falters, Okajima could be the fifth starter for the Sox by the fall.
  • 4. Greater Disruptions may be ahead. Forget last year’s soap opera between Jeter and A-Rod. The Yankees are the team of many fragile egos from the interventionist owner to the young pitchers being pushed too early. A number of missteps have placed them in this position. Clemens may serve as a negative, a disruption due to the attention, and soon if the team does not somehow become what it has not been to date so far in 2007.

Sure, I will be excited when he likely makes his debut against the Red Sox in early June and if he wins he wins. It’ll be fun. He may even single handedly add three to five wins that the Yankees would not otherwise have. But they are already five and a half back. Will Rivera regain his form as civilization’s greatest closer? And will he make Damon bat over .240 or Mientkiewicz hit .200? Doubt it. Maybe.

Garden Tasks


Hah! Denied! I defy ratty desire!

While I am lazy as the next guy, I do plan from time to do something. Yesterday I made the compost big mouse proof. We are a heavily composting neighbourhood and an exceptionally well mammaled one as well. We have mice, squirrels, chipmunks, rabbits and the odd big mouse. I say big mouse because to say otherwise is to make an admission as to the reality of this situation. I though we had it in hand as there was a gap in action after the application of the 50% cake mix 50% plaster of Paris solution. But cleaning out the shed yesterday told another tale – so we have moved to chicken wire. Nothing as manly as turning 24 inches times 25 feet of chicken wire into rat-proofing. Not that the neighbourhood has them. It is simply now more proofed from them.

Today, then, I turn to the important task of contemplating planting basil, flat parsley and chives. And double digging. Got to double dig.

Bulletpoints For The First of May

The shift from snow to having a lawn to mow is startling. I may already be behind.

  • Update: Scots election chaos.
  • Please note two key differences between me and Mike.
  • I decided this May Day would be the day we should thank a great unheralded socialist of the past. The socialist dream we all benefit from in our day to day life is entirely due to the dreams and efforts of Victor L. Berger, US Congressman from Wisconsin – that is when he wasn’t barred from taking his seat for being against WWI. Looking back, is there any of us who is not against WWI? Thanks Vic.
  • Speaking of obscurities of the past, I came across this chart of blow-hards and their opinions in relation to the Great Depression. My favorite is “Gentleman, you have come sixty days too late. The depression is over” by Herbert Hoover, 1930.
  • I set up an account on Twitter to see what all the fun is. In the past, I set up an anonymous blogger blog and did nothing with it as I soon realized such things are sad. I also have a MySpace out there somewhere but it is in German so I don’t understand it. As Rob points out, Ontario has now banned Facebook in the public workspace which is fine as these sorts of things are really private hobby activities anyway. But play with the Twitter thing to see if it does anything. Herbert Hoover I am sure would approve as there are great days ahead. If you need to set up a new email account to play with it, I have about 200 of them to give away.
  • Good news out of Afghanistan and as positive a flip-flop as the Harper government might flop-flip:

    Afghanistan, in what amounts to a tacit admission that its security forces may be compromised by torture, has accepted that Canadian monitors be allowed to interview transferred detainees privately. In effect, the secret police colonel — who may terrify a hapless captive — can be turfed out of the cell by Canadian monitors. That provision alone is a measure of just how far Afghanistan was willing to go to accommodate Canada’s newfound need for a landmark pact.

    So there was something wrong, there was likely the need to monitor and control movement of people who had come into Canadian detention and now it is up to our leaders to make sure they are handled properly by those into whose trust they are passed. Sounds all grown up and planned.

  • Fabulous news out of baseball with the 13th one man triple play in the history of the game’s top level:

    To put it in perspective with the game’s other great rarity, there have been 17 perfect games pitched, including Don Larsen’s in the 1956 World Series. Even the “natural cycle,” hitting a single, double, triple and home run in order in one game is more common, having occurred 14 times in the big leagues.

    If I had had it on the TV, my head would have been in the fridge at the time.

And on a personal note, I will not as it turns out be going to my undergrad reunion after all. Instead, I will enjoy the enhanced cost of my new roof shingles later this summer. The purveyors of ales and seafood of Halifax and the Maritimes will have to live another year without me. But fear not as instead of six or seven nights of hotels we are investing in Sea Dogs tickies and Boston Chocolates instead as I’ll will be reporting from Maine later in the month. I understand there will be parades on Memorial Day. Parades are excellent. As are Boston Chocolates.

Canadianism

Jay poached the photo so I don’t have to. Aside from his sad lapse into phoney baloney snide conclusion, it really points out a very interesting fact – Canadians like the Stanley Cup more than canoes, more than a Tim Hortons outlet located in a Canadian Tire – more than even the NHL who only hold it in trust, more than hockey or the flag.

Update: Not only does he acknowledge the Cup as a national icon, he also confirms that honesty is a great trait of a great man. Good for General Hillier.

Border News Update

Now that I know I am a hour or so away from the best ribs I have ever had, I am ever so much more sensitive to issues relating to crossing the border. Sad the news, then, comes that Canada and the US have arrived at an impasse as it relates to the rights of humans at the gates. There is the opinion of The Buffalo News:

The United States wanted to take fingerprints from some travelers who acted a little suspicious, specifically those who approached the border but, for whatever reason, decided not to cross. But Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms — which apparently does not treat changing one’s mind as evidence of terrorist intent — is held to forbid taking fingerprints from any person not charged with a crime.

Such presumption of innocence is apparently another thing that the U.S. administration considers “quaint.” And that’s really too bad, not only for those who respect the rule of law but also for those who make a living going back and forth across what used to be called the world’s longest unmilitarized border.

Nice to see that we are thought the Trus North Strong and Free to someone else but it begs the question – what if I want to give up some identification to get more security. I cross on average once every six weeks. Last week the NEXUS program expanded to all border waterways. NEXUS is a handy-dandy little card that both governments recognize and costs a little less than a full passport. But it is not fully rolled out and does not apply yet to land crossings in my part of the St. Lawrence Valley. Those Weslakians are keeping it all to themselves. Dastards.

The Bloq Of New Liberaltarian Progressive Democratic Conservatives

How to get one party rule? Don’t fight the power! Share a big hug over a nothing issue. Make it all bland and, like, righteous so that everyone wants the same thing because its all about what is right and it is never right to say bad things…especially when it’s based on made-up stuff.

In Russia, Mr. Doan again denied making a cultural slur Tuesday, saying he takes pride in being a role model and would never have made the comments attributed to him. He previously launched a lawsuit against Denis Coderre, a Liberal MP who criticized him. Coderre has counter-sued.

Sue them all, Doan. Sue them for being stuffed, bloated pompoustatrons.

Tra-la, It’s May!

Comments in the morning. I just had this flashback to four years ago and my newbie blogging reactions over how nice I thought it was getting up in the morning to a bunch of stuff to read. Even though the stats are still sort of collapsing (everyone seemingly migrating to the beer blog ever so slowly), the comments are far more important at Gen X at 40 as I now and for some time have had no real expectations for this organ of mine other than being a place of pleasant if vigorous and unexpected.

You see things have changed. Last month I got about 105,000 visits from 57,207 unique visitors. While that latter number is the highest ever, I think the visits peaked in August 2005 at 338,790 but I only had 30516 uniques in that month. So I think we can see that I have gone from a 1/11 to less than 1/2. I used to kid myself that you were coming back 11 times a day. Can you say “spam filters”? It is indicative of it all, of course. Where once we thought these blogs were going to be newspapers, we are just pen pals. And that is more than good enough.

I have to give particular thanks for one particular reader this morning. Chris Taylor was good enough to share baseball tickets he could not use. I had it in my head they were for Toronto and Detroit and they enter the weekend’s mid-table letter pile. And, as it is for a Thursday, I think 5 hours driving for a 3 hour event will be a pass and I ask if I can pass them on again to someone who is going to use them and the ever kind Chris says sure. So I give the tickets away, come home to find them, end up having to dig through the recycling box to find the envelope and there it is – and it is not for the Jays against the Tigers…it’s for the Thursday night game next week against the Sox! I am so there. Six rows back of the visitor’s dugout screaming my love for Manny. I think I will go early to get some photos. My daugther is already planning the poster referencing Gerry Remy and portland.

What is the superlative of “woot”? “Most wooty”?

The Horror Of Twitter

The BBC’s technology page runs (over there at the middle right) short quotes grabbed from blogs as part, one supposes, of an effort to be hip through enhanced vacuity. While I am sure the entire sum of this person’s work and thoughts deserves far better, the Beeb’s choice of quote this morning hil-air:

I was honestly woken up last week by the fear that I would stop blogging because Twitter is so much more compelling.

Somewhere over the weekend I heard of the new generation gap – between those with online habits and those without. But it is worse. It’s between those with a concern for content and those without. Twitter seems to be MetaFilter for people with even shorter attention spans. Fabulous. As MySpace devolves to Facebook and Facebook to Twitter, there ought to be a VC rush to back services that strip even more and more away. Maybe I ought to create a site with only punctuation marks available for discussion. Here’s a suggestion: “?”, “!”, “;-)”. Boffo.

I love how an object appearing to be “bhammersley” just typed “omg” like a fourteen year old Valley Girl…though I think it is spelled “omG!”

Ummm…Melamine

I have not put my mind to the question of whether the passing of my cat is related to the pet food poisoning matter. The one ate from the same dish and the late Frobie had symptoms for years. Yet, now learning more as we are about what has been going on, it would not be hard to wonder:

As American food safety regulators head to China to investigate how a chemical made from coal found its way into pet food that killed dogs and cats in the United States, workers in this heavily polluted northern city openly admit that the substance is routinely added to animal feed as a fake protein.

“…a cheap additive that looks like protein in tests…” “…not believed to be particularly toxic…” Just another reason to say thank you China.