FoolBlog

The few, the proud

When I work downtown, I pass near the Marine Barracks. If you drive in on 295, the 6th Street exit takes you past the back side of the Barracks, and you can see, among other things, an athletic field.

So what do you think our Marines were doing out there one morning this week? An obstacle course? Bayonet drills?

Nah. Playing kickball.

(Troll repellent: This is by no means meant to belittle the Marines. Everybody deserves to play kickball sometime.)

Linking Fool Friday (Thursday edition)

I may not be able to get to this tomorrow, so here's tomorrow's links today.

Slactivist on how the Left Behind books gloss over anything actually useful in the Bible.

Jim Webb's campaign responds to George Felix Allen Jr. If only Kerry had replied this forcefully to attacks on his service record.

Convenient scoreboard of what does or does not hurt our troops.

Great piece at MaxSpeak on the You're On Your Own school of social policy that's dominated our legislation of late. I've long thought the best reason for universal health care was "Because we can," but it's amazing how hard it is to convince some people of that.

Teh sports: smuggled video of the Italian soccer team's practice.

Finally, Stevie Wonder on Sesame Street. DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMN!

There may be construction delays

Speaking of great buckets of rain, check out the new ballpark construction webcam this morning.

"I love it here."

So sayeth the Little Fool in the bottom of the first. That's my girl. Hard to deny that Camden Yards is about four thousand times nicer than RFK.

Interesting vibe at the Yard this weekend. Both teams cheered almost equally; no booing and very little animosity. A refreshing change, in a way.

We made it to the park in good time, found our seats, got ice cream, and settled in for the first five or so innings without incident. As before, wrangling two little kids who don't really get much out of the game made it difficult to keep close attention, but I did manage to keep score for a while. The usual complaints apply: Why wasn't Ward the DH? Why did LeCroy and Schneider get thrown out on the bases? Why was Frank shown with his cap over his face, was he napping?

Mid-game, Lizzie and I ventured forth to get food, and that's when the rain started. When we tried to get back to the seats (under the overhang in section 61), there were so many people pouring out of the tunnel that we just couldn't get anywhere, and we retreated to the concourse to sit on the steps and eat our hot dogs and sausages. We tried again a few minutes later, but then it was raining so hard that I didn't even want to walk the 30 exposed feet to our section. Eventually we let up and returned to Mrs. Fool and the baby.

We sang "Take Me Out to the Ballgame," then elected to bolt in the middle of the 8th. The O's got guys on base in their half of the inning, and as we were walking out the gate their was a big cheer, so I assumed they had scored. It sprinkled as we walked to the parking garage, and right when we got to the car it really opened up. So we were lucky to get out when we did. We got home and put the kids to bed, and I turned on Comcast's sports show to learn that they had just restarted play--that big cheer I heard was the Nats turning a double play to get out of the inning. With the score still tied, they weren't going to call the game.

A crazy but good day at the Yard. I almost wish it was closer so I could go up there more often. And I'm so glad we had tickets for Saturday and not Sunday--I was stunned to learn they actually played yesterday. Of course, on the news last night I learned that BWI only had about an inch of rain yesterday, as opposed to the 5.5 inches we got at Dulles. The Yard didn't have a friggin' non-stop monsoon yesterday; that was just our house.

Ticket update: Must sell two for the Phils on August 29. Will sell both, or give away one (i.e. you go to the game with me, and buy me a beer and a sausage) for the Marlins on July 6 (mid-week day game) and August 10. FOF (Friends O' the Fool) please e-mail if interested.

What I cooked this weekend

If your bottled marinade turns out to be bland and tasteless, mango chutney mixed with a bit of Jamaican jerk sauce makes a fine dipping sauce for grilled chicken. Ten-minute marinade my ass.

For Sunday I did a much more proper marinade, Greek-style lamb chops that soaked in red wine and garlic for about 18 hours, and were a lovely shade of purple by the time I grilled them. Served with white bean skordalia and a Greek salad. I've never been a big lamb eater, but I always see recipes for it and figured I'd give it a shot. Mrs. Fool made an excellent suggestion: if we're going to try lamb, don't get the stuff on sale at the Giant; go find good meat somewhere. So I splurged for chops at the Wegman's butcher counter, and they turned out fantastically well. Nicely pinkish, picked up the marinade well, reminiscent of a mildly flavored steak. Nothing at all like the horrid "lamb burgers" my mom inflicted upon us back in the day.

Linking Fool Friday

We've got a little bit of everything in today's LFF. We'll get the angry political posts out of the way first: our war on terrorism is bullshit, many of those who support it are boot-licking toadies who should have their own damn kids join the Army, and too many pundits have man-crushes on George Bush. More pleasantly, this Democratic agenda looks pretty good.

I enjoyed Waiter's post on the hideousness of not getting the table in the window. When I worked at a hotel in Albuquerque many years ago, guests I had just checked in returned to tell me their room was completely unacceptable and it was "just a nightmare." The problem? The room was on the second floor rather than the first (not that they'd asked for a first-floor room). I told them, "I'd be happy to move you to the first floor, but if that constitutes a nightmare for you, you've had a pretty easy life."

In the sudden change from mid-70's to mid-90's here in the DC area, Neddie has a good post on the merits of not having air conditioning.

Bill Simmons gets on my nerves anymore, and I scarcely pay attention to the NBA these days, but Simmons has an interesting item on the worst referees working games where the league might want to have the home team win. Those refs are least likely to make calls against the home team late in the game. Purely anecdotal, but he may be on to something--a convenient way to influence the outcome without having the games actually be fixed.

You may remove yourself from my salted snack foods now: Use FritoLay's Snack Finder to determine where specific types of salty goodness are sold near you. All this did for me was to prove that I can't get taco-flavor Doritos without driving at least an hour. If they sell taco-flavor Doritos near you, please send some.

Waste time and destroy your company's bandwidth with 100 Awesome Music Videos from Pitchfork. I'm embarassed to admit I dig Junior Senior's "Move Your Feet," and I am annoyed with Pitchfork for not including the Chemical Brothers' "Let Forever Be."

Finally, here are cats that look like Hitler. GodDAMMIT I love the Internet.

Z-Man the He-Man

When I renewed my 20-gamer, Sunday's game against the Yankees was one of those "marked" games--I would not be selling those tickets, and I would be clearing my schedule for it. Yeah, it was Fathers' Day, but I got clearance from Mrs. Fool to take a friend--I didn't want to expose the children to Yankee fans.

Yeah, I'm glad I did that. After the high-scoring, lousy-bullpen games of Friday and Saturday, and Mike O'Connor taking the mound for the Nats, the last thing I expected was a well-pitched, tight ballgame of the sort I so greatly enjoy. But O'Connor came through with one earned run in 7 innings, and Wang looked even better for the Yankees, with one earned run through 8.

There was a troubling moment in the middle of the sixth, when the JumboTron announced the "Sixth Inning Stretch." The Nat Pack had to gesticulate wildly from atop the dugouts to get people to stand and sing "Ballgame." I assumed this was a stupid idea by the Nats' front office, and it would bring down the wrath of the baseball gods. I expected a late-game blowout. (The 6th inning weirdness turned out to be a baseball-wide prostate cancer awareness stunt, thus things turned out OK.) No blowout ensued, but the Yanks pushed home a run in the 8th, and with Wang cruising and thousands of Yankee fans chanting obnoxiously, things weren't looking good.

But as luck would have it, Torre couldn't use Rivera since he'd pitched three innings in the previous two days. So Wang was out there for the ninth, and got Guillen to ground out before giving up a base hit to Marlon Anderson.

Ryan Zimmerman came up, and you probably know the rest. I didn't think the ball was going out at first--on the video it's clearly gone, but from my seat the ball seemed to hang up there forever; Cabrera had his glove up and seemed to have a bead on it, so I was expecting him to catch it at the track. But out it went, and bedlam followed. If you haven't heard the radio call, do yourself a favor (and as pointed out by Needham, note the guy in the Jeter jersey slinking away at the 24-second mark). I yelled myself hoarse, just like Charlie Slowes. First walk-off home run in the modern Washington baseball era.

My Yankee fan friends will smugly go "Count da Ringzzz!!11!", the lame-ass comeback they always use, or correctly point out that their team will play much later into October than my will. But, whatever: sweeeeeeeeeeeet.

Random bits after the jump.

• It's gotta be weird to be on the Yankees. Baseball has that pastoral quality to it, and it's such a long season that there are inevitably days mid-season when it doesn't seem to matter all that much whether you win or lose any given game. But when the Yankees come to town, it's huge. So the Yanks themselves never get one of those low-key days; everywhere they go, people are freaking out like it's the playoffs.


• Managerial quibble: When the Nats took the field in the 8th, I immediately noticed Schneider behind the plate, and assumed it was a double switch with Robert Fick, who had just made the final out. But no, there was Fick at first base--Daryle Ward had been removed, and the pitcher placed in his spot. Now, it obviously worked out fine, as Anderson hit in that spot, singled and scored the tying run ahead of Zimmerman. But in a game that looked for all the world that it would be decided by one run, and Wang on the mound, why would you pull your lefty power hitter at that point?


• By my estimate, the crowd was one-third Yankee fans. Not terribly obnoxious--they started the "Let's Go Yankees" chant at every opportunity, but otherwise not too bad. Nats fans booed lustily whenever the chant started, which makes them better defenders of home turf than Caps fans have ever been--at hockey games, cheers for the visitng team are usually unopposed.


• Games on the block: Fish, July 6 (mid-week day game) and August 10; Phils, August 29; Snakes, September 3. Want to buy two seats right here at face value? Shoot me an e-mail.

What I cooked this weekend

Friday night I revisited the Caribbean issue of Bon Appetit to make the Trinidadian beach shack treat shark and bake, which is pan-fried catfish in a pita with a variety of condiments (the mango chutney is a must). Mrs. Fool is often wary of fish, but in the end she ate more than I did.

Saturday, it was time for ribs.

They sure look pretty, don't they? They'd better, because I actually smoked these suckers. But in the end, they were a bit disappointing--too much salt and paprika in the rub, and as much as I love bourbon, I didn't like it in the sauce. They also could have used some more time in the smoke, because they didn't have that fall-off-the-bone quality. Oh, they were good, don't get me wrong, but not overwhelmingly so. I still like my usual method for ribs better: coat with this rub right here, wrap in foil, bake at 300 for two hours, then sauce them and finish on the grill (direct heat) for 15 minutes.

The rib recipe, and the accompanying beans recipe (also good but not great), were from barbecue guru Steven Raichlen, who as luck would have it was part of a barbecue discussion on Slate last week. Raichlen mentions his love of gadgets, and someone points out in the comments that he has a whole freakin' line of them (to his credit he doesn't pimp his own wares directly). I was at the grill store last week and saw Raichlen's "grilling rings," small steel rings on which one can rest an apple or onion on the grill. $17 for 3! Mason jar lids would do the job equally well. Supposedly he also has a $20 "wood chip soaker." Most of us call that a bucket.

Linking Fool Friday

Jingoistic ol' NBC will never show it, but the performances of the Canadian National Anthem prior to Oilers' playoff games have been inspiring. Man I wish I was Canadian.

Salon's talk with food crusader Marion Nestle is quite interesting. Particularly grating are the comments: "She's silly, everyone knows what calories are and how to read food lables." Um, no. NEVER underestimate the stupidity of the American public. "There's no shadowy cabal of food producers who want to sell us more food." Right--have you examined the habits of any publicly-owned company in the world lately?

As much as I loathe the New York Mets, I enjoyed Gilliard's message to would-be bandwagon jumpers.

Good item from the CSA I used to belong to, on the hazards of running a CSA, and how people can still try to game a system that's built around trust and cooperation. We bolted the CSA a couple years ago, thinking we could do better for the same money at the farmers' market. But of late that's not working out as well as I'd hoped, and I kind of miss those weekly vegetable pickups. Perhaps we shall return next year.

Lastly, jellied moose nose jellied moose nose jellied moose nose jellied moose nose jellied moose nose jellied moose nose jellied moose nose jellied moose nose jellied moose nose jellied moose nose jellied moose nose jellied moose nose jellied moose nose jellied moose nose.

Music Battledome

A guy could write a whole blog just stealing concepts from Norbiz. His challenge: "find the songs on your playlists that are either covers or just mysteriously share the same name," and have them wage war on each other. I could find more if I actually scanned my CD collection, but just rummaging through my workplace stash of MP3s, here's what I got:

"For Real," Okkervil River vs. Tricky (different songs). Tough one. I dig the music on the Okkervil River track, but the singer's voice wears me down; just a little too mopey. It's a fairly typical Tricky song, but easily the standout of the Juxtapose album, so the smoky one wins. Where's that keyboard riff lifted from?

"Such Great Heights," the Postal Service vs. Iron & Wine (cover). Too obvious, I suppose. Iron & Wine's version is only the prettiest song ever in the history of the universe, and I sang it to my oldest to get her to go to sleep. Sam Beam wins by fatality.

"The Hook," Steven Malkmus vs. Grant Lee Buffalo (different song). Gotta love a song about Turkish pirates, but GLB's song stuck in my head for days after I saw them live.

"Crazy," Patsy Cline vs. Seal vs. Gnarls Barkley (all different songs). It would be complete heresy to suggest anyone is better than Patsy Cline. But have you seen the Gnarls Barkley Star Wars performance? That shit is bad-ass.

News flash: Kids are cute

Interesting piece at Slate by Emily Yoffe, on the crazed response to her suggestion that a heretofore childless woman may want to reconsider.

I do my best to respect people's decision not to have children. I can think of some very specific friends who would make great parents, and would be doing the world a favor by rearing offspring. But it's their choice, and that's cool.

But what gets my hackles up are those who say no one should have children, that it's an awful experience that ruins your life, or whatever. Just as those of us with kids should respect their decision, they should respect ours. And Yoffe is right that the positives of parenting don't get enough play. Last night the Littlest Fool wouldn't go to sleep at her appointed hour. Pain in the ass? Sure. But she was at least happy about it; her gurgly glee when the cat came in the room outweighed the enjoyment I'd get out of any movie playing today by a factor of about eight hundred.

If you don't know what having kids is like firsthand, please withhold your absolutist judgment. Or, as someone said on the Achewood board the other day, "If you were right, I'd agree with you." :o]

I ain't sitting in those damn Crawford Boxes

Major League Ballpark #25 shall be Houston's Juice Box. Labor Day weekend.

w00t!

Virginia Primary

As mentioned previously, today is Virginia's Democratic primary. The only race on my ballot was Miller vs. Webb for the Senate nomination.

It's been an interesting campaign, in that I've received several automated calls from high profile Virginia Dems endorsing Miller, and several direct mailings accusing Webb of being a Republican in Dem clothing. Not a word from Webb's campaign, though I did get an e-mailed endorsement from John Kerry today. I voted for Miller on the basis of Webb's crossing-the-aisle history--hey, I'm all for Republicans who are fed up with the Bush administration trying to do something about it, but I believe Miller more accurately represents my views. I'll vote for either of them in November, though, because George Allen is evil.

Two major disappointments today. One is the lack of a candidate for Congress. Does this mean no one's going to challenege Frank Wolf? All this resentment towards the administration and we can't even get a name on the ballot? Hopefully there's someone on the Dem side who was unopposed in the primary.

And secondly, no bake sale. I didn't eat breakfast in anticipation, but noooooooo. Get with it, Deer Park Elementary.

Picnic at the Park

A few weeks ago, someone wrote to the Nats' e-mail list with news of a post-game event for season ticket holders. Picnic on the field! Giveaways, autographs, Q&A with players! Glory and splendor! "Surely this is for full-season ticket holders only," I thought, but I checked my e-mail anyway, and what do you know, there it was. Not only that, but they offered to send free game tickets to those of us who didn't already have them for the day in question.

I bravely loaded up the Little Fool, for her first game with Daddy only. We headed in a bit late, and I was surprised at how many other people were still filing into RFK over an hour after the start time. During the week, sure, but on a Sunday afternoon? We missed most of the scoring, and I enjoyed a bunch of nobodies on the mound accumulate a shutout for the Nats. Total three-year-old moment: While Fick and Ward were hitting home runs for the Nats in the bottom of the 8th, and I was encouraging Lizzie to stand up and cheer, she DEMANDED to know why there was a chip in the paint on the railing in front of us.

After circumnavigating the upper deck to find a place where a guy could change a diaper, we went back outside to wait.. and wait... and wait to be let back in for the picnic. Hanging back and letting the crowd subside was a mistake, as it then took forever to schlep through the line. When we finally made it, we each received a Nats blanket and hat for our efforts. (Actually, the woman told me "one per person," and when I pointed to Lizzie, she gave me a look before handing over the bag. Hey, if I'd brought my wife instead of my daughter you wouldn't bat an eye. And if she's old enough that I have to buy her game tickets, she's old enough to get a free blanket.)

We didn't last long inside, as it was rather crowded, and the line for food was substantial. But it was cool to sit on the outfield grass, and walk around the bases.

More pictures, albeit crappy ones, at Snapfish (try bugmenot.com if you don't feel like registering).

We did hear a group of Nats take questions--the Marlons, Guillen (who I've instructed my daughter is called "Crazy Jose"), maybe one or two others. When asked who their favorite player was as a kid, one of them enthusiastically answered "Frank Robinson!" For real, or ass-kissing? Hard to tell.

I have an extra for Sunday against the Yanks. Friends of the Big Fool please shoot me an e-mail if interested. Yankees fans need not apply.

What I cooked this weekend

It was a good weekend for beer can chicken.

Half a can of Yuengling lager, a bunch of McCormick chicken-grillin'-spicin' that I got for like a dollar, and one foil packet of smokin' wood pellets. Not to blow my own horn or anything, but this was as good as any rotisserie chicken you've ever had.

If you need more proof that people will politicize anything, read the reviews for Bon Appetit's beer can chicken recipe (keep scrolling, some doofus wrote "Mmmm" with about a hundred M's which ruined the formatting). A couple of posts dismissing beer can chicken as a silly fad result in all kinds of snippitude and accusations of liberal food snobbery.

Linking Fool Friday (Monday Edition)

Got too busy on Friday.

People will politicize anything, including cheesesteaks.

Steven D at Kos on RFK Jr.'s election fraud story, and the greater point that even bringing it up seems taboo.

The Editors on what some of us call Type 4 Republicans--how seemingly rational people can cling to such a lousy administration.

Lastly, behold the food bounty of Blork's trip to Italy.

The bigfool.com Beach Diet

Breakfast: Pancake house.

Lunch: Boardwalk pizza.

Snack: Ice cream, or maybe fudge or salt water taffy that's actually made right there, or perhaps caramel corn, or a water ice if you're in that mood.

Dinner: Seafood, preferably fried.

But Carl, how can one possibly lose weight on this diet?
Who the hell said anything about losing weight? This is all about happiness.