FoolBlog

gotta vent

Jesus CHRIST I hate the NFL draft. Just stop it. Stop the coverage. Quit acting like all your verbal diarrhea matters. No one can say if a team drafted well or not until at least a year out, usually longer. I do not care who you think the Browns will draft in the 6th round, nor do I care who is the 12th-rated cornerback. I will read who the Eagles, Ravens and Redskins picked up in the paper the next day, and aside from maybe the first-round pick for each, I'll go "Huh. Well, hope they work out." If you're not actively involved in draft decisions for an NFL team, your opinions mean NOTHING. Mel Kiper Jr. should not be famous.

So quit wasting everyone's freakin' time and show me some hockey fights or something.

Linking Fool Friday

Blah blah blah gas prices. Who's the party of big oil? Easy. But really they both suck, as legislators drive one freakin' block to complain about gas prices.

But then, why does everyone get so worked up over gas prices when health care is so sucky? And if they try telling you national health care, like in Canada, doesn't work, don't believe them.

Via Slacktivist, check out this great Consumer Reports article on the ups and downs of deregulation. I'm seriously debating switching to satellite TV and VOIP telephone--as much as I like the services we have now, it's going to take these kinds of disruptions before the existing providers realize they can't jack up prices forever.

What other bummers can I provide you with this morning? Howabout Digby on the awful folly of the world's only superpower conducting foreign policy by "acting crazy," and The Sideshow breaking down the Republican MO for screwing up a government program only to call it useless and kill it.

Teh sports. Rick Reilly uses his blowhard pulpit to do something nice: fight malaria. Here's some things that sorry-ass Nationals GM Jim Bowden might say.

Finally: Lincoln kicks ass!

We're havin' a primary!

I got an automated call from Harris Miller's campaign the other night, which I welcomed, because it had escaped my attention that there's a primary in Virginia on June 13. I don't remember a whole lot of specifics, but I know he was unequivocally anti-Iraq war. His site offers the Where's George Allen? blog, detailing the activities of our sitting senator who needs his ass kicked in November.

Miller's primary opponent is Jim Webb, an ex-Marine who also says that the war in Iraq was a bad idea. Webb showed up on Colbert's show, which is a point in his favor.

Who do I like thus far? On the issues alone, probably Miller, but Webb's military background probably makes him a better bet to knock off Allen. But it's early days yet.

Egregious Cheesecake Photo

That would be the strawberry-coconut cheesecake I made and served for our annual Easter Sunday potluck brunch.

What I cooked this weekend

The May issue is one of the few reasons I still get Bon Appetit. Every year, they pick a destination and go over it in detail. Some years it's more of a restaurant scene issue--London, Paris--and those aren't so good. But most years it's more cuisine-based, and thoroughly enjoyable; in recent years they've done Mexico and islands of the Mediterranean. The 1997 issue on the Italian countryside is possibly my favorite single issue in the 10 years I've been getting the magazine.

This year's issue is on the Carribean, and as such I prepared an island feast Sunday night. Jerked pork tenderloin with a pineapple-star fruit relish, coconut rice, sauteed baby bok choy, and fried plantains (no recipes on Epicurious yet; try searching in a month or so). Pulled out the blender and whipped up some tasty piña coladas, too.

The pork was fantastic. I loves me some Jamaican jerk-style meats, and it was nicely complemented by the fruit. Jerk always requires about 15 or so ingredients, but incredibly I had everything in-house already except for one item, the critical habañero pepper. The rice was just OK; the coconut didn't really come through, and I might as well have just made basmati rice. The bok choy was pretty much bok choy, which was fine because bok choy is good.

Alas, the plantains were a colossal disappointment. They looked pretty, but they were dry and bland. I think they weren't ripe enough.

Linking Fool Friday

Michael Tomasky's article on the Democratic party appealing to the common good as a theme has been getting a lot of attention, and deservedly so. Seems simple enough: I've long thought the best argument for universal healthcare was "Because we can." Blah blah blah loss of choice whatever, you can't deny that providing health care to all our citizens is a Good Thing. Of course, as Digby points out, getting folks to agree on what is the common good would then become the hard part--this administration would likely argue that giving immense sums of money to Halliburton somehow constitutes the common good.

D at DCenters, a DC United blog, has a great post on why he hasn't pursued a media credential. Much of the blogosphere could ask themselves a similar question: Do you want to be taken seriously as a media outlet because you're actually going to do some reporting? Or do you just want everyone to so how cooooooooooool you are?

Finally, when they come back on-line from their bandwidth outage, dig this page of famous synthesizer sounds and breakbeats. One of my friends tried telling me the beat in the Roots' "Thought @ Work" was done by C + C Music Factory. I can believe they used it too, but they sure as hell didn't make it, no friggin' way. That would be the Incredible Bongo Band's "Apache."

Prep work by our corporate masters?

The lead story on the DC NBC affililate's late news last night was Maryland Woman Breaks Free From Iranian Prison. An American citizen of Iranian origin traveled back to Iran to visit family. Her ex-husband caught word of it, and had her arrested for bigamy, which can be punishable by death. She spent three weeks in jail having a shitty time, then got bail and managed to escape the country.

That's highly unfortunate, and I'm glad she got away. In a way, I suppose this isn't all that different from the variety of crime stories that generally lead off The Fear Show at 11 most nights. But still... why do you suppose they chose this story to lead off with? To get it in our heads that Iran is evil and terrible?

Let the proving commence

Every time there's a high profile criminal case where a significant number of people dearly want the accused to get off (Kobe Bryant, Michael Jackson, et. al.), those supporters will run around shouting "Innocent until proven guilty!" as if that proves their hero is in fact innocent. Here you have this slogan magic-markered onto T-shirts at Duke University, apparently from supporters of the lacrosse team. IUPG (I just made that up, like it?) is an important principle of our legal system, yes. But what this expression boils down to in this context is "Stop expressing opinions I don't like."

Do I think the accused lacrosse players are guilty? Yes, based on what I know about the case. But that right there is my opinion. I would not want them to be sentenced to jail on the basis of my opinion, because I acknowledge my grasp of the facts of the case is severely limited. The only people whose opinions will matter are the twelve people on the jury, who will hear, presumably, the whole story. But still, I think I'm entitled to my opinon that they're guilty as hell, just as others are entitled to the opinion that they're innocent. I shouldn't have to issue a "But it'll go to trial and it'll get sorted out there" disclaimer, because I'd like to think people have a basic understanding of how our legal system works. If you're concerned the players will be unfairly locked up based on the opinion of some dude with a web site, you need to retake high school civics.

Miss Moriarity's article suffers from the old appeal to motive, claiming that the DA is prosecuting this case just to promote his career. That could be true, but it some sort of evidence that they, you know, didn't do anything wrong would be useful. But all we get is "It seems that every morning we are met with another piece of evidence that questions the story of the alleged victim." No enumeration of such evidence. Anyone who's ever followed a rape case should know that trying to exploit holes in the girl's story is standard MO.

If we're going to talk about motives, what's the motive of the stripper to make up a false accusation? Does anyone think all this chaos and abuse is worth some civil suit payout down the road?

Damn you, Easter Bunny

I don't care how festive your frickin' holiday is: do NOT give your kid Peeps and other candy first thing in the morning.

Ye GODS. She's lucky we don't believe in corporal punishment (i.e. a good old-fashioned WHOOPIN').

Linking Fool Friday

I will attempt to atone for last week.

The biggest, scariest story of the week is the rumblings about nuking Iran. FoolBlog regular Andrew F sent two links on the proposed Iranian oil bourse, which may have enough to do with these war overtures as anything. I know we all groused half-assedly about moving to Canada after the 2004 election, but if we use nukes it Iran, might it really be time to move? This country will be such an international pariah, and I for once really will be frightened of terrorist reprisals on American soil

The next biggest story of the week: immigration. The GOP sure kicked a sleeping giant on this one. The right wing is scared of all them brown people, and whatever the hell it is that they want. And this particular smackdown was enjoyable.

Via Waiter Rant, something I've always suspected: top corporate types think how you treat the wait staff says a lot about your character.

Teh sports: High player salaries don't dictate higher ticket prices. Duh. And in the "Too much free time" department, 1986 World Series Game 6 ending in video game form. I just finished The Bad Guys Won, which confirmed how much I hated the '86 Mets, so this is especially timely.

Finally, enjoy more of my Strip Generator handiwork. All my strips are based at least in part on actual events or conversations.

A bad day at the ballpark beats a good day at the office

The bad omens for my first trip to RFK this season abounded: Last night's non-beaning of Pedro and Guillen's miserable GIDP. This Little Fool, intermittently while getting dressed this morning, said she'd rather go to the beach than the baseball game. Then she declared she didn't like her Nationals t-shirt, but she was OK wearing her little Orioles jersey. Last but not least, the $2 increase for parking.

The omens did not disappoint. But if there's anything good about Livan getting smacked for four home runs in the first three innings, maybe the Nats will stop complaining about the fences being too far out. Other teams don't have much trouble hitting home runs here, now do they? Somehow I don't think that will stop the griping from the likes of Guillen and Vidro. (Or, what Rocket says).

Not many observations about this one, as we took the kids, and thus my time was spent holding a baby rather than keeping score. The Little Fools are still very small and anything could happen, but my gut feeling is that Lizzie (almost 3) is going to enjoy going to the ballpark, eating ballpark snacks, and taking in the scenes, but will never pay that much attention to the game (much like her mom). Catie (8 months), on the other hand, I expect to be a full-fledged baseball junkie like her dad. She was wide-eyed the whole time, except for when she took a little snooze on my lap. We left after the Seventh Inning Stretch, and thus missed the Nick Johnson homer.

Gonna be a long season. I've got tickets for the Marlins the first week of May, so I'm just going to pretend that's my real first game.

Afterthoughts:
Livan got housed because he was throwing 84 MPH cheese up there. He's never been a fireballer, but last season he changed speeds well and could dial it up into the low 90s on occasion, when absolutely necessary. Yesterday, no such heat. Not sure if he's dogging it, hurt, or just not in shape.

And the PA is still TOO FREAKIN' LOUD.

Oh, I WISH.

This morning I got a call from the client site that stuff was messed up, so I told the boss I was going downtown. Drove down, grabbed lunch, screwed with computers for a few hours. When I got back to the office around 4:30, no fewer than four people asked--nay, ACCUSED me of going to the Nats' home opener at RFK.

And that's really not an unreasonable accusation. I am well-known as the biggest baseball fan in the office, and for me to duck in the boss's office around 10:45 and go "Gotta run downtown, boss, see ya!", when there's a 1:05 game... I can see how people would speculate.

Sadly, however, this speculation was wrong. 20-game Plan B didn't include Opening Day; we have Thursday's game, so I skipped today's in favor of Thursday. Asked for the day off weeks ago.

I'm sort of glad I missed today's 7-1 beatdown. The game that could be truly entertaining is tomorrow night, when Pedro Martinez hopefully gets drilled in the ass with a fastball, and a huge brawl ensues.

Instant web comic

Behold, Strip Generator. It's quite addictive.

UPDATE: Now it's all not workin'. Apparently they were overwhelmed by morons who created strips consisting solely of one chacter brandishing a weapon at another. That's too bad, there were some good ones out there.

place is Closed... can't you... SEE

No LFF this week. Too busy to read 90 blogs. Seriously, I got nothin'.

From an undisclosed location to RFK

Word is that Vice President Cheney will throw out the first pitch at the Nats' home opener Tuesday.

Hopefully he doesn't hit an old man in the face with the pitch.

What the HELL people

Maryland National Championship = Riot.

What is it with UMd kids? Did you see this destruction when Mason made the Final Four, or lost the national semifinal game? Of course not. People in Maryland are weird.