I'm back, baby!

Last Friday my computer got viciously attacked by a slew of hideous spyware that slowed me down and caused something like 20 pop up ads to appear simultaneously at any given time. I've updated my system, done any number of virus scans, liberally ran Ad-Aware and Spybot, and best of all I've switched to Firefox which I'm here to tell you is awesome. It runs fast and there's no pop ups, not a single one. I should've done this like two years ago.

In the spirit of Matt's rag here's my Top Five of the Moment. (Ugh, I feel so dirty.)

A. The World Series. I was rooting for the Sawx and it's always nice when the team you're rooting for comes through. They're lovable (resembling the '93 Phils, if you squint), they haven't won in bloody forever (my grandmother lived her entire life (1919-2002) almost exactly between Sox championships, which is insane when you think about it), and best of all they're just damn good. The fact that they beat (no, annihilated) the Cardinals, a team I've loathed since I was a child, is the delicious icing. Check out SoSH for some hardcore RSN goodness. These guys are intense. Look for the "Win It For" thread for a list of people that fans are dedicating the win to... fathers, grandfathers, et al. Touching and heartbreaking. I'm so jealous. 1980 doesn't seem so bad when you realize these guys have been waiting since 1918... but then again I'm not switching sides.

(My hatred of the Cardinals aside, I have to acknowledge one brilliant Cards moment from last week... the suicide squeeze they ran against the Astros in Game 7. Nobody does the suicide squeeze anymore, but La Russa gambled and it worked... textbook, my friends. If you're not a baseball fan I'm not sure how to explain this but imagine that you're, say, a film geek, and you see a really beautiful incredible shot and you start salivating. Or you're an avid reader who's just read a brilliant passage. That's what I felt like watching them lay down this squeeze. My jaw dropped. It was gorgeous. [Go here and scroll down to Oct. 21: Tony Womack scores on squeeze play.])

B. Pavement, Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain Deluxe Edition and Blur, Starshaped DVD. It's blasphemy, I know, but CRCR is my least favorite Pavement album. It lacks the fierce, sloppy brilliance of Slanted, the gleeful, experimental brilliance of Wowee Zowee, the quiet, subtle, laidback brilliance of Terror Twilight, and the unspeakable utter brilliant perfection of Brighten the Corners. (Okay, I'm starting to sound like NME, I'll calm down.) But CRCR is still brilliant, which probably means Pavement are the greatest band ever, unless I'm wrong. Anyway, in honor of its 10th anniversary CRCR is now out in deluxe double disc thing, in a really beautiful lavish package which might now be the nicest thing I own. The album is as great as always; the b-sides are typically bizarre but oddly powerful in that nonsensical Pavement way; the demos are... well, they sound like what they undoubtedly precisely are: a quite baked Malkmus making up odd lyrics while Westy randomly drums. And still, close to 80 minutes of that never gets tiresome, because the energy they put into sounding like they don't care about being good, the nonchalance they have about their own effortless greatness, is infectious, and it totally sells you on Pavement all over again, like it always does. Meanwhile, I also picked up the DVD reissue of Blur's tour film from roughly the same time, and it's fun to see the British version of that era of music; but whereas Pavement were cranking out a weird album to follow up their previous weird album, to be heard only by the weird music geeks who bothered to pick up Slanted, the stringy-haired pretty boys of '93 Blur find themselves playing giant festivals to crowds of teenage girls. The brief bits of the film that I've watched so far aren't terribly impressive: there's no actual live footage, just montages of Blur on their tour bus and cavorting backstage, set to album tracks. There's also some bonus stuff which is much more worthwhile, and leads me to realize that early Blur makes more sense now that I've seen 24 Hour Party People, because Leisure-era Blur are basically the Happy Mondays except (a) they're much better and (b) they don't have lots of annoying flashing lights. Actually I guess they're quite different. Still, it's fun to see them play all the stuff from Leisure live, enough to make you forgive the fact that it's all basically the same song.

C. Sondre Lerche @ the TLA, 10/25/04. Sondre is from Norway but he reminds me of Jackie Chan: a likeable, affable outsider, just arrived in America, eager to succeed and entertain us, his English still not quite right ("My head cold is wearing thin, and I am now in an orderly fashion", he said, I think, at one point). He's completely endearing and won over the crowd almost immediately - his songs being very good helped, too. "We're surrounded by groupies," I declared to Jon early in the show, as I realized with some alarm that we were indeed surrounded by about ten or twelve extremely hot girls, only to be even further alarmed when it occurred to me that they were all about 16. "You're as hot as your guitar!" one of them screamed at Sondre; they all gazed up at him with utter adoration throughout the proceedings. (He is indeed a handsome young man. Good for him!) Weirdest moment of the show: when one of the girls ran up and grabbed his water bottle after the show, took a swig from it, then passed it around to her teenybopper companions. I don't know what to make of that at all. I'll have to ask my mom if that's what it was like with her and the Monkees.

(You know, say what you will about my unnatural obsession with the ladies of Sleater-Kinney, but at least I don't want to drink their water. That's a promise.)

D. Birds. They're beaten, they're bruised, they nearly gave me a heart attack against the Browns; but they live to clench their talons around a hapless Raven this week, and emit a mighty squawk from their proud and fearsome beak! (My metaphor might be a bit strained, admittedly.)

E. The Phils' managerial search. Oh, please, let it be Jim Leyland. Please say that Ed Wade only arranged interviews with those other seven guys because he wasn't sure if Jim Leyland was interested, but now that he is, the rest of the interviews are just a formality, and the job is really just Leyland's if he wants it. Please tell me this. Please?

An announcement

I've decided to enter the National Novel Writing Month project, which means that this blog will probably be infrequently updated during the month of November, because I'd like to devote all of my free time (well, free time not spent reading, watching basketball, watching South Park, going to movies, or playing Cities & Knights of Catan) toward the novel. Although I might put up some selections from the novel, if they go well.

I'm pretty excited about the idea. I heard about it last year when it was too late (near the end of November, or possibly after) and I'd completely forgotten this year as well, until my friend Daniel brought it up. So he's entering it and so am I. I'm excited for three reasons. One, you may be aware that I've been working on a novel entitled Analog for a while now (over three years). Now, that book is actually going rather well, albeit painfully slowly. I think [and bear in mind that these predictions are never true, so this one won't be either, so just know as you read the next bit that it's, at best, inaccurate, and at worst, a vicious lie] that I could have it done by January or February, although with NNWM it might not be until March, let's say. [See, what did I tell you; that's just absurd.] However, it's going-well-ness aside, I often take it just a little too seriously, and tend to be very hard on myself when days pass where I don't work on it. I don't know why I get that way; I think that I probably have this idea, deep down, that if I don't write it soon, I never will, and if I don't do it I'll be a failure. Which of course is nonsense; I'm still young and I've got plenty of time to still do it. I don't need to have it finished, like, tomorrow to be a success. In short, I've got to calm down. Also, that attitude makes the whole thing not very much fun, and I'd hate for writing (the greatest thing in the world) to stop being fun for me; I'm only doing it for myself, it's not like anyone's paying me to finish it. Anyway, I'm rambling a bit but my point is that I could probably do with a month-long break, and this project seems like a perfect opportunity to take that break while still writing and having fun doing it.

Two, it appears to be an ideal way to meet other writers in the Philadelphia area... I've been browsing around the NNWM forums on the website and the people doing this thing seem to all be goofy, neurotic, crazy, funny, and maybe a little annoying... basically, my kind of people. And I've been looking for ways to meet other writers; as much as I love WOSEP, I've been itching to branch out, so this looks like a way to meet other frustrated procrastinating people. It couldn't hurt to get me out in the city meeting new people anyway, since this thing that I very charitably call a "social life" is getting a little stagnant.

Strangely, I can't remember the third reason I had. Probably to meet girls, but that doesn't sound right.

Oh wait, right. The third reason is that I have this idea called Research & Development so I think I'm going to try writing that. It really excites me, in that thrilling way only a new idea can.

I would encourage everyone reading this to check out the website (www.nanowrimo.org) and join me in this ridiculous project. I take the very fact that I'm this excited about it as a sign that I have to do it. It might turn out to be horrible, and if so you can blame me forever. But let's find out together, shall we?

Okay. HUGE congratulations to the Sub Phillies 2 (aka the Red Sox) for slaying their Demons last night. Go here for a fine explanation of why we shouldn't be afraid of the 2005 Yankees. ("But Jeremy," you say. "Surely they will sign Carlos Beltran and be great again as always." "Don't worry about Beltran," I reply. "Read the article. They have no left-handed pitching. They suck. Our long national nightmare is over; the Yanks are dead.") Okay, maybe not. In all likelihood the Yankees will still be good next year (I mean they and the Sox will still finish 1-2; who's going to supplant them? The Jays? Don't be crazy), but they're no longer scary and unbeatable. Baseball looks fun and cool again.

(And I still contend the 2005 Phillies will be fine, and I don't think it even matters which one of the seven managerial candidates they choose. Pick a guy with a pulse who can fill out a lineup card; that's pretty much good enough. Oh and do you want to hear my cutthroat idea? If the Yankees fire Brian Cashman, I would offer him the Phils GM job immediately, and if he took it, I'd fire Ed Wade without blinking an eye.)

Okay, I told Brianna I couldn't go to her Strange Running Thing tonight because I was going to watch the Astros/Cards game (GO ASTROS!!!), which is very geeky, so I'd better go do it. Later...

(I'm listening to the first Run DMC album right now, in case you're interested.)

Just because baseball season is over doesn't mean you're free of my endless ranting about sports

Oh good lord, no.

Not content with poisoning the Phillies with our bad voodoo, Andrew and I have turned our attention to destroying the Sixers. That's right, we have joined the ranks of Sixers season ticket holders, grabbing ourselves a ten game plan (actually eleven 'cause they bribe us with a free game), sitting way, way up in the cheap seats in the nether regions of the Wachovia Center. I'm excited! Our first game is the home opener on November 5, which is pretty cool, and I may have to do that instead of going to see The Advantage & Deerhoof at the FU Church with Shepard that night as I had vaguely talked myself into doing. We'll see.

I'm kinda excited about basketball season. With no hockey I get to double the amount of energy I usually expend on the Sixers so I foresee myself watching lots of games this year, presuming, of course, that they're actually good, which is a bit up in the air at the moment. I'm guessing they'll sneak into the playoffs as the #7 or #8 seed, but then again, with the NBA's realignment they're in a weak division, with only the Celtics and the Knicks as their only legitimate competition that I can see (the Nets and Raptors don't scare me), and neither of them are actually any good either, so the Sixers might take the division title purely by accident. Anyway, it'll be fun to watch and I'll have full updates throughout the season.

Oh yeah, and then there's the Birds, who are kinda actually literally the best team in the league right now. It's funny; I keep forgetting how good they are because I was so distracted by the Phillies' painful season that I've not given our non-painful football squad the attention they deserve. I'd like to publicly apologize to the Eagles, and promise that I will be with them on Sunday for all the Panther-slaughtering fun. Fly Eagles Fly!!!

What do you love?

Taking a break from working on my strange book to jot down some half-formed thoughts.

Just had an interesting conversation with Andrew wherein we agreed that certain words get thrown around too much, specifically "evil". I think the word gets cheapened by how much we use it. I mean, saying things like "the Yankees are evil", as sports fans such as ourselves tend to say, is often fun, occasionally rather satisfying, and ultimately harmless. But the Yankees aren't really evil. Hitler was evil. Killing innocent people in terrorist attacks is evil. Steinbrenner isn't evil, he's just an old rich dude who acts like an asshole sometimes. That's not evil. Evil is a serious thing, a very serious thing, and we humans should ideally be better equipped to identify it when it comes along; we can't really do that if we're downgrading the definition of true "evil" by attaching it to any mildly annoying or stupid thing. I don't even think G. W. Bush is evil, as some lefty types may think. I don't care for the guy, but he's not evil. Misguided, sure. Ignorant, perhaps. Idiotically, dangerously stubborn, yup. But evil? I don't think so. (I'm not saying that people who call the Yankees evil are morons and should stop. It's fine. When we say things like that, we say them with the unspoken understanding that the Yankees are just a baseball team and the whole thing is, in the end, completely meaningless, and "evil" doesn't mean in this context what it really actually means the rest of the time. I am not some sort of linguistic snob looking down on people. It's okay, really. I'm just saying.)

Conversely we agreed that "love" gets used in the wrong way. When we say "I love the Phillies", does it mean the same thing as when we say "I love you" to that special someone? I would argue that in a vague way it does. If I devote enormous amounts of my time and energy and money to the Phillies, and they bring me happiness, and my life is really better because of it, and my life would be appreciably worse if they weren't around, then I think I can legitimately say that I "love" the Phillies. But it's not the same thing as when you say "I love you" to someone and you really mean it and they say "I love you" back (something that I hope everyone gets to experience in their lives, because I'm here to tell you, brother, that it's pretty sweet), because that's a level of happiness that a baseball team can't help you reach (or am I only saying that because I've never seen my team win a championship?). That is love. Which is why we probably need a different word for the other thing besides "love". Maybe that's what that heart symbol means? "I [Heart] the Phillies". Yes, that sounds about right.

Andrew mentioned the final episode of Cheers were Norm says that everyone needs one thing that they love; Norm loves his stool. Sam concludes that he loves the bar. I'm not sure how this is relevant, but it's a really nice, touching thought, isn't it? I think it ties in with my feeling that the point of life is to do something, anything worthwhile, something that will bring joy to others, something that you will be remembered by. It stands to reason that whatever it is that you eventually find might be that thing that you love. So in a sense, the meaning of life is to find true love...? Maybe. Oh god, I'm getting really corny, I'll stop now. Feel free to comment on how much of a big romantic loser I am.

And on that note, gotta go watch South Park. Peace out!

Post-Debate Thoughts

Oh god, I don't have any. This election is killing me, man; it's been going on for like forty months. I don't have anything specific to say other than I LOVE CATE EDWARDS. Kerry needs to win solely so Cate Edwards will be in the public eye for the next 4-8 years. That's what will save America, people.

You know I'm right.

WILD!

Just a quick word: today is the 11th anniversary of The Greatest Baseball Game Ever Played.

Game 6

October 13, 1993 at Veterans Stadium (Philadelphia Phillies)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 R H E
- - - - - - - - - - - -
Atlanta Braves 0 0 0 0 1 0 2 0 0 3 5 3
Philadelphia Phillies 0 0 2 0 2 2 0 0 X 6 7 1

PITCHERS: ATL - Maddux, Mercker (6), McMichael (7), Wohlers (7)
PHI - Greene, West (8), Williams (9)

WP - Greene
LP - Maddux
SAVE - Williams

HOME RUNS: ATL - Blauser
PHI - Hollins

ATTENDANCE: 62,502


Now, off to watch that USA/Panama match. USA! USA! USA!

They're diamond sharp today

A brief hello to my friend Sarah, who I've just learned actually does read this blog, much to my utter astonishment. *wave* What's up, Sarah? Everyone say hi to Sarah.

(While I'm on the subject of ladies I know... are you there, Carly? Did you get my last few emails? Did you disappear? Say "present" if you're out there.)

Oh, all right, in the interests of equal time, shout outs to ZC, MB, AE, and any other female humans who might be reading this thing. Girl power!

And now on to something a little more masculine. You may not be aware that the Baseball Team, the Birds, Les Flyers, and the Can't Think Of A Cute Stupid Nickname For The 76ers are not my only favorite teams. No sir, I have a fifth favorite team: the U.S. Men's National Soccer Team! I've been sort of half-following their qualifying process for the 2006 World Cup. The last few games haven't been on TV, or at least on channels I actually get, so I can only go by the reports online (forget the paper, the Inquirer won't touch soccer with a ten-foot-long soccer-touching implement). But anyway, they have a game this week on actual sensible TV, on Wednesday night against Panama (the country, not the Van Halen song). Apparently, if they win, they clinch a spot in the final qualifying round to be held next spring. This is very cool, so I plan to check it out... I'd love to see a match in person sometime. Which brings me to my Nefarious Scheme. Basically, they have held a few soccer matches at the Linc since its opening (European teams like Man Utd, Barcelona, et al., plus the US Women's team has an exhibition game there next month). All of the European team matches were very crowded and the stadium got high praise as a soccer venue, leading nerds like myself to conclude that the Linc would be an ideal place for an MLS expansion team. Thus, the Nefarious Scheme: they should have one of the World Cup qualifiers at the Linc next year! I'd get to see them in person, plus if it (and the Women's match) does well, perhaps it would convince the US Soccer Powers That Be to try slightly harder to put a team here than they have been.

Of course, the problem with the Nefarious Scheme is that (a) it's not especially nefarious, so I have no idea why I keep saying that, and (b) there's literally nothing I can do to make it happen. If I wrote US Soccer a letter, would that be the most impossibly geeky thing you've ever heard of?

The Best Album In The World This Moment: Either Steven Malmus' Pig Lib (2003) or Wire's A Bell Is A Cup Until It Is Struck (1988). You decide!

Why I am doing this to myself?

I was browsing around some baseball blogs (all of which are better than this one) and stumbled upon some guys' predictions from back in March.

Read it.

Then try not to eat poison. You have so much to live for!

[Anyway. Coming soon: ART!]

Oh, we'll be fine.

Phillies fans, I'm here to tell you that the firing of Bowa is a good thing and they're going to be just fine. It shocks me that all the fans they talked to at CBP over the weekend were angry about the firing, but then again I guess I'm not surprised. Bowa is popular, and the fans like his "fiery" attitude, and he reminds them of 1980, which they can't, and never will, get over. Well, I'm here to tell you, dear friends, that the fans are wrong. They think that we should drop all our underachieving players and get players who fit in with Bowa's style. Well, no. For better or worse we are living in the era of the player; therefore we need a manager who fits the players' style. This "fiery" thing was cute at first (I remember the first weeks of 2001 when we were all trying to guess when Bowa would get ejected for the first time) but it hasn't worked, and it's stupid to think that Bowa can just yell at players and get all in their faces and make them play better. Baseball just doesn't work like that. I mean, dude, relax; Burrell knows how to hit a ball, get off his back.

That's not to say I think Ed Wade shouldn't be fired. He's also a major source of this season's horrific disappointment. Off-Season Ed Wade has done just fine (except for not trying harder to get Schilling, which Andrew would be happy to rant at you about, just email him), but his evil alter ego Mid-Season Ed Wade has been awful. You're telling me TODD JONES is the best you can do? Get out of here, man, I don't need to take that crap from you people.

So now the pressure is on the players, and Wade, to perform in 2005. Another disappointing season would be a disaster; they need to contend, seriously, wire to wire... a WS win would be nice but at this point I'd be happy just to get into the postseason. If they underachieve again, I'd expect a housecleaning of both the roster and the front office before 2006. But let's not worry about that. I'm here to tell you, kind reader, that we will see a more relaxed, happy, fun-loving Phillies team in 2005... but, between you and me, I could do without baseball for a little while. Yeah, I'm done.


My year in review

Actually, I'll just mention two things I've been meaning to write about in this space, and if I think of any more I'll add them later:

9/29: In the final, dying innings of the Phils' doubleheader sweep of the Pirates, Andrew and I moved over to the corner of the lower level seats next to right field; we both had our cameras and wanted to get closer to the outfield scoreboard to get a better shot of the final score of the final game in Montreal (Marlins 9, Expos 1). We were also close to Bobby Abreu, and it was cool to see him up close. Anyway, near the very end -- and remember that there's like, I don't know, a couple hundred people left in the House of Lies at this point -- some dudes behind Abreu start up the wave... which is ridiculous because there's only like a couple dozen people left in each section. But it worked, man. They got a wave going with like nobody left. It was awesome; even I took part in it, and I, like all sensible, decent people, think the wave is an evil, terrible thing that must be eradicated from the planet. But I did it anyway; I was that impressed.

8/6: Dodgers fans, it turns out, really do leave early; they also have this distracting tradition where they bounce beach balls around the upper deck, and if you let it fall off into the lower deck, they boo and throw popcorn at you. BUT, they really are more passionate than you'd imagine. The Phillies were never really in this game, and only in the ninth inning, when there was hardly anybody left, did they start to hit some home runs and make it slightly more interesting, but they only pulled to like 6-3 or something. But like a loyal fan (or possibly just a deluded idiot) I was there, with Marta and Tommy patiently (or perhaps not) waiting for me, cheering at the Phils' home runs. They hit two, I seem to recall; after the first one I got some popcorn tossed at me, but after the second, as I sat there and cheered, an empty plastic beer bottle sailed over my head and clattered into the row in front of us. That's right, folks; enemy fans threw a beer bottle at me. That's just another badge of honor I can wear as a Phillies fan: I drove to Clearwater to see them; I flew 3,000 miles to see them; I sat through (almost) an entire doubleheader to see them; and now, I can say that I got a bottle thrown at me for no specific reason other than the fact that I like the Phillies. Is this what my parents had in mind as they were raising me?

I will say that a large group of dudes were sitting behind us the entire game, chanting "Phillies Suck" and "Fuck the Phillies" or some damn thing, but not at me (they never seemed to acknowledge I was there); when they were leaving (early, of course) one of them slapped me on the back and said something like "Hey, you're a good sport, man... they'll start another winning streak when they get home". So that was cool... I felt good about that. Or maybe they find the Phils too worthless to bother beating up their pathetic fans. Either way, I lived to tell you about it today.