No, I would rather go back to calling you Mrs. S.C.U.M., Mrs. S.C.U.M.

Happy Halloween, folks!

Go South Side

Check it out: there was an actual mention of the Phillies on the WS broadcast tonight. Granted, it was a mention of how the Astros won on the final day of the season to hold off the Phils and win the wild card. Still, it's refreshing to merely hear them mentioned on national TV, much less during the Series, when it is often easy to forget that they exist.

This has turned out to be a really good series. The Sox look incredible and they really deserve it, should they win it, which they almost certainly will. (I am increasingly of the opinion that conservative management will never win you anything. Phil Garner was dumb not to put in Clemens last night. Come on man, it's the World Series! What, you're saving him for Game 5? There might not even be a Game 5! Try something different for once! These aren't the Pirates you're playing, it's October! As a Phillies fan, I know firsthand the dangers of sticking with traditional ideas and styles at the wrong moments. Fregosi should have left in Mason, or put in Thigpen, but no, it was the 9th inning and he had to put in Williams. Never mind, I'm not supposed to be thinking about that.)

I'm rooting for the Sox this year. I usually pick a team to root for once the playoffs start - the Red Sox last year, the Cubs in '03 (you see where that got me), the Angels in '02, the D-Backs in '01 (purely for Schilling)... it's fun to some extent when the team you're rooting for wins it all. It's sort of a taste (a sneak preview, let's say) of what it might sort of be like to watch a Philly team win one. (Although I suspect that it would be so exponentially greater that it's hardly similar at all.) But ultimately, if you're not actually a fan of the team, and are merely using them as a surrogate because your real team has collapsed and disappointed you once again, it just simply isn't the same. It's sort of like... it's like driving a girl you like over to her boyfriend's house. Sure, it's fun for a few minutes while you get to spend time with her, but ultimately, later on other people will be having more fun, and you're not invited. Also, later you feel sort of used and worthless. (I'd like to mention that I've never actually done this, nor would I agree to do so. But while we're on the subject, I have a few other metaphors comparing sports fandom and sex, none of which I'm in the mood to write out at this time. Perhaps you'll see them someday, if you behave.)

Oh well. Go Sox. They've earned it.

Shout out to Gimpy Prigge!

Check out Matt's various sites (link to your right) for up-to-the-minute updates on his adventures with a dislocated leg and also not smoking. While you're still here, I'll mention my role in this: I was no more than three feet away from Matt when he suddenly collapsed. My first reaction, I am ashamed to say, was to step over him - thinking him to be nothing more than a clumsy idiot - and save the lava lamp he had sent tottering over as he fell. It was only when I turned around to help him up that I saw our friend Corbin examining Matt's leg and shouting things like "GET SOME ICE!" It was then I realized that the man was in genuine pain, and not, as I say, merely a clumsy idiot who falls over. I felt bad about it for most of the rest of the party, until some people pointed out that if I hadn't moved out of the way, Matt might have knocked me over as well, and that if I hadn't saved the lamp it might have shattered and sent inconvenient glass shards flying everywhere. So the lesson is, as always, I need to calm down. Anyway, get better soon, my friend.

With that out of the way let me say a few words about my newest project. I am participating in National Novel Writing Month again this year. I doubt that I will reach the 50K word goal this time, as I will be driving cross country for at least nine days out of November and will therefore lose some valuable writing time. But no matter - Nanowrimo is merely an exercise to get people writing, not an actual contest, the winning or not winning of which won't get anybody published. And, presuming my book goes well, I'll still be writing it well into December, so the artificiality of the "month" concept isn't going to stop me. I can live with the blemish on my lifetime Nanowrimo record of not reaching 50K this time.

My as-yet-theoretical novel is called The Galloping Milk Thrush Show. It's an idea I've been kicking around in my head, and in scattered notebooks, in various forms, for over eight years. I originally conceived it as a television series, but at this point in my life I’m far too lazy and cowardly to try to pursue a career in screenwriting. It would involve moving to that city where they do that, and I’m not doing that. So – since I’m much more interested in writing novels anyway – I’m using the idea to experiment with some ideas I have about novel writing, story telling, and all that good stuff.

The basic premise is that four college guys live in a dorm room across the hall from four girls. It’s their senior year. In the early section of the story, it’s a kind of elaborate parody of melodramatic teen/college soap operas like The OC or Dawson’s Creek or whatever the hell else the kids watch. But then it starts to change: weird crazy sci-fi crap is brought in, slowly. One thing I’ve always wanted to write is a very long, very complex story with multiple plot lines that intertwine, bounce off of each other, grow more and more complicated as it goes on. Am I good enough to pull that off? That’s one challenge. Another thing I’m interested in exploring: I’ve always imagined this story as a combination of Seinfeld and The Young Ones. In other words there would be sort of mundane, very normal (yet funny) dialogue between the main characters, but also it would suddenly spiral off into complete silliness and surrealism out of nowhere for no reason. So: can I capture that sort of anarchic feeling in a non-visual medium? We’ll see.

Anyway, these are just some of the vague and confusing ideas I’ve thrown together to create this story. The world of this book has been building slowly in my mind for a long time – if I can get it to be how in looks in my brain, I think you’re really going to like it. Stay tuned.

I Predict a Walrus!

Right, so the Phils are out. You know that already; it was weeks ago. Was it sadness at the loss that kept me from updating this blog, or laziness? Or boredom? Point being, it was a disappointing end to a season that ended up being better than I would have expected, given how I thought they were horrible back in May. I agree with Todd Pratt: these guys were as good as any team in the playoffs. On the other hand, I'm not sure I agree. It's loser talk. This team has a loser mentality, always has, and is better at making excuses than actually finding ways to really win. On the other other hand, with a stronger bullpen and more consistent hitting, these guys not only would have made the playoffs, they would have taken the division. (Side note: it's poor sportsmanship, I know, but I'm now not only tired of the Braves winning the division every year, I'm offended that they lose in the first round all the time. I mean, it would be one thing if the Braves went on to win the World Series all the time; I'd think, "Wow, now that's a great team. A classy, well-run organization that knows how to win. Look well upon yon Braves, O Phillies." As it stands, it almost seems like the Braves always win the division purely by accident and then have no idea what to do after that because it turns out they're idiots. Give another team a chance for once, Atlanta! What is your freaking problem?) I'm rambling. To sum up: the 2005 Phils were a fun team that lost one (literally, one) too many times. Play better against the Astros and Mets next time, fellas.

Ed Wade gets the chop under Wernham-Hogg's, I mean, the Phillies' redundancy scheme. Ed was either better than people say or exactly as bad, depending on my mood. I think he was a reasonably good off-season GM: He signed Thome, traded for Wagner, traded for Millwood (which did not pan out, but it was still a good trade, I will defend it to my dying day), picked up Lofton and Lieber. All of these were fine moves. He was NOT a good trade-deadline GM: Mike Williams? Kelly Stinnett? Todd Jones? Knock it off, dude. He also has locked up the Phils into a number of crippling long term deals: Thome, Bell, Lieberthal. But my biggest complaint about Ed is not dealing with the Bowa debacle sooner. In retrospect, it's obvious that the 2004 team (a talented group that everyone predicted would win the division handily) became such a screaming disaster because they hated their manager so much. Ed should have either figured out a way to get the players to suck it up and stop bitching about it, or fired Bowa. Period! It's easy for me to say that, because in all honesty I have no specific idea as to what he could have done, really. But I wasn't their GM; he was, and dealing with a volatile managerial situation that ended up wasting an entire season should have been his main priority, not making excuses and trading for Todd @&#^@ Jones.

I'm vaguely afraid that the new GM will have a firesale, but in reality I doubt that will happen. This is a solid team. Ed's replacement needs to deal with the Thome/Howard thing, resign Wagner, pick up another starter and some relievers, and we're good to go. If he can upgrade at C and 3B, that would be awesome, but otherwise the 2006 Phils should be fun to watch. Especially if they can carry their incredible September momentum into the new season and have a good April for once.

As for the playoffs, I'm rooting for the W-Sox (even though I always claim to be an Angels fan). The ChiSox get no respect. Their history is even more tortured than the Phils'. Their fans deserve one. Go Sox!

OTHER STUFF I'M INTO LATELY.
1. Mountain Dew "Pitch Black II" (as addictive as Slurm).
2. iPod 60GB Photo (yeah, I bought it, shut up)
3. China Mieville, Perdido Street Station. I'm only 75% into this book so if you've read it, don't email me to rant about the ending, or I will hurt you. But I'm so impressed by this book I want to hit somebody. It's the most thrillingly, imaginatively bizarre thing I've read in forever. Basically, this human scientist (whose girlfriend, incidentally, has a multi-legged, winged beetle for a head, and creates sculptures out of her regurgitated food) is hired by a member of a nomadic bird-people race to replace his wings, which have been sawed off. Along the way there are frog-like people who can mold water into free-standing structures, a drug-dealing villain composed of various animal appendages, self-building steam-powered artificially intelligent robots, bureaucratic demons, talking cactus people, and just when you think it couldn't get anymore insane, you get to the part about parasitic purple hand-like creatures that grab onto people's necks and give them the power to fly and breathe fire. The rotting, filthy city where it all takes place is described in such loving detail that you can smell the polluted rivers and feel the oppressive stinking heat. The author is an active Trotskyite who ran for British Parliament on a far-left platform. There are two more books in the same universe. The whole thing is so damn cool and I wonder why more people don't know about it. You will read it. Unless the ending sucks, in which case I will report that here.
4. My Halloween costume, if I can pull it off. Stay tuned.