Stretch Run

Wow, what a crazy baseball season. As I write this at noon on the next to last day of the regular season ,only the Mets, Yankees, and A's have clinched their divisions. As of this moment, no one knows who they're playing on Tuesday. That's good baseball.

I remember when the wild card was first introduced in '95 and baseball purists hated it. Hands down, it's the best thing to ever happen to the sport. It allows fans to keep hoping up until the last 10 days or so of the season. Since its inception a wild card team has won the World Series four times (Marlins twice, Angels, Red Sox), so the only problem I have with it is that there should be an actual handicap associated with it. The wild card teams should start each round on the road and have no homefield advantage throughout the post season.

There's some talk about adding two wild cards. That might take it a bit too far. One of the things a hate about basketball and football is that clearly inferior teams make the playoffs. Making the playoffs should be an accomplishment. In baseball, all eight teams that make the playoffs can make it to the World Series without anyone really saying that a shitty team snuck in.

There's still an outside possibility that the Phillies and the Astros could pull off amazing comebacks. I would love that. Last Wednesday the Astros were 8-1/2 games out, then they reeled off a nine game winning streak while the Cards went into a tailspin. If not for Albert Pujols winning two games this week with his bat, the Astros would be in first in the NL Central today. There's a crazy scenario in which the Astros win the next two, the Cards lose the next two, and the Cards face the Giants in a makeup game on Monday and a one-game playoff with Houston on Tuesday (I think I got that right). That would be awesome, but I don't see it happening.

As for the Phillies, they're two games out of the wild card with two left to play. If only they could've beat the Nationals! The Nats played them hard, even though they had nothing to play for. Contrast that with the Giants who're probably going to roll over like dogs and hand the NL West to the Dodgers (their ancestral enemies) this weekend.

That was a long post! I was going to talk about the pitching woes of the two New York teams (Pedro out for the year, Johnson useless with a herniated disk in his back), but maybe tomorrow.

Moron of the day award

The moron of the day award for yesterday surely had to go to Terrell Owens’s “publicist,” Kim Etheredge, who, as a means of refuting the allegations that T.O. tried to kill himself grinned and said, “Terrell has $25 million reasons to live.”

Evidently $25 mil isn’t enough to hire a publicist with intelligence. Was that supposed to endear him to the public? This guy needs all of the image handling he can get!

In case you didn't know, Part II

From CNN.com:

U.S. report says Iraq war has fueled terror threat

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- A classified intelligence report concludes that the Iraq war has worsened the terrorist threat to the United States, U.S. officials told CNN Sunday.

Some intelligence officials have said as much in the past, but the newly revealed document is the first formal report on global trends in terrorism by the National Intelligence Estimate, which is put out by the National Intelligence Council.

Intelligence officials told CNN the report, completed five months ago, said the war and the insurgency are the main recruiting vehicles for new Islamic extremists.

Duh.

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TMX Elmo on Good Morning America

Fleece Me Elmo!

I knew that the new "TMX Elmo," the 10th anniversary edition of the famous giggling Muppet toy would sell out instantly. And I knew they'd have it on eBay. I also knew it would be pricy.

But $300,000?? INSANE! There's a guy selling a lot of three for this price. Check it out here.

$300,000 for toys that list at $39.99. But this is the special Spanish edition. LOL!

New Tolkien Novel!

From ABC News Online:

An unfinished book by the late author J R R Tolkien has been completed by his son Christopher and will be published early next year, he says.

Tolkien began working on The Children Of Hurin in 1918 but failed to complete it.

His son has spent about three decades completing the story from the many drafts produced by his father.

Some extracts from the book, which again features the elves and dwarves in Tolkien's three-volume Lord of the Rings masterpiece, have been previously published, but the whole story will now be pulled together in one book.

"It has seemed to me for a long time that there was a good case for presenting my father's long version of the legend of The Children Of Hurin as an independent work, between its own covers," he said in a statement.

I'll be all over this when it's published.

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New York Wins, Part II

Actually they didn't win, but the Red Sox lost and the Yankees clinched their 9th consecutive division title. I wish they'd done it at home against the Red Sox, but the Yanks are in and they're out, so it's all good.

The White Sox are out, so now it's a question of whether the Yanks play the Twins or the Tigers in the first round. I'd prefer the Tigers, since the Twins have become a good offensive team lately.

Congratulations!

Kudos to my man Willie Randolph, whose Mets clinched their first divisional title since 1988 last night. I hope those execs in Pittsburgh and Philly who only interviewed you for show and didn’t want to give you a managerial job feel stupid now about their shortsightedness. Oh, and the northern rednecks that were calling WFAN all winter and openly bitching about the influx of Latin players brought in by Omar Minaya, don’t you feel like asses now? Would you still prefer a team with over-the-hill Al Leiter and John Franco?

Willie, I hope to see your team meet my team on the field of battle on October 21st.

But I don’t want you to win. :D

In case you didn't know

From Wikinews:

US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence finds no link between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda

September 18, 2006

The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence has found no link between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda. The 148-page report that was 3-years in the making states that Saddam Hussein was distrustful of al-Qaeda and regarded Islamic extremism as a threat to his regime.

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Survivor: Cook Islands, Week 1

I finally got around to watching the first episode of the new race-based Survivor: Cook Islands. It’s hard to tell in the initial episode of a reality show how it’s going to go and who the “characters” will be, but I can already spot a few things.

I thought it was interesting, but not surprising, that the members of Hispanic team (Aitu) and the African-American team (Hiki) when interviewed both were really happy about the teams being separated along ethnic lines and they felt this made their team “the strongest.” They both felt they had to “represent” and show the other teams (and presumably America) how well they could compete. The white team felt no such pressure, and it fact, it would’ve sounded bizarre if they’d expressed the same sentiment.

Only one member of the Asian team (Puka) felt that they as Asians had something to prove. I can already see a schism on that team. The member expressing that sentiment, Cao Boi (“Cowboy”), is a self-proclaimed “boat person” from Viet Nam, and he’s one of the older contestants. The other members of the Puka tribe seem to be mildly embarrassed by him. They are younger, better educated, and he views them as “Americanized.” In an interesting segment, Cao Boi “cured” Brad of a headache by removing a “bad wind” from his head in a way the show played up to look mystical. Brad and the others were politely amazed that it worked, but they came off as weirded out by Cao Boi, which blows away the Asian stereotype of respect for elders.

There wasn’t much focus on the white or Hispanic team in this episode, save for a tiff over losing some chickens in the former tribe and a tiff over the correct way to build a shelter in the latter. The African-American team had the spotlight on them because they managed to blow the first challenge of the game and had to go to tribal council and vote off a member. Sekou emerged as the leader of the Hiki tribe on day one, and if you watch the show you know that leaders are often taken out early before they can become too powerful. The Hiki tribe conformed to at least one stereotype – they split along gender lines. When Jeff Probst, the show’s host, gave the losing tribe the right to name a member of another tribe to be sent to “Exile Island” as a penalty, Sekou and Nate unilaterally decided to punish Jonathan on the white tribe and didn’t ask their three female teammates for their opinion. When Jeff pointed this out to the women (which embarrassed them), it was guaranteed that one of the men was going to get booted. Though Sekou said the women would be stupid to get rid of them (I agree), Nate cautioned that the women “don’t think they need a man, they think they can do it on their own.” They knew one of them was going, and it was Sekou.

The choice of Jonathan as the one to be sent to Exile Island bears noting. Before the challenge, Yul from the Asian team pointed out that Jonathan had absconded with one of the chickens Yul had secured from the boat that brought the contestants to the game site. Nate and Sekou, rather than choosing a physically strong member of another tribe to send away, took on the role of enforcers and made it clear that they were penalizing Jonathan for his behavior. Needless to say, Jonathan was pissed. We’ll see how that plays out. It may be a moot point, since if the Hiki tribe loses again, the women will likely boot Nate.

Technorati tags: Survivor | Diversity | Race | Reality Shows

Zune, The iPod Killer?

The "Zune" (shitty name) is Microsoft's upcoming digital audio player, but is it an iPod killer? To eat into Apple's market share this device needs to 1) have an associated music store that has all the current releases, 2) it needs to read the AAC format so people don't have to forfeit music they've already bought, and 3) it needs to cost less than a similarly configured iPod.

The screen looks nice, I'll give them that.

"Dog" collared for jumping bail

From CNN:

(CNN) -- Duane "Dog" Chapman, the self-proclaimed world's most-famous bounty hunter who achieved notoriety nabbing thousands of bail jumpers was arrested Thursday for allegedly jumping bail in Mexico.

U.S. marshals arrested the star of the A&E reality show "Dog the Bounty Hunter" at his home in Hawaii at the request of the Mexican government.

Chapman was wanted in connection with his highly publicized 2003 capture of Max Factor cosmetics heir Andrew Luster, who fled to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, after skipping out on a $1 million bail.

Luster was later convicted in-absentia on 86 charges involving drugging three women with the date-rape drug, GHB, and raping them. Luster is serving a 124-year sentence. (Full story)

Chapman's son, Leland, also was arrested Thursday, as was colleague Tim Chapman, who is unrelated but considered a "blood brother" by Dog, according to the reality show's Web site.

Poor Dog! But he of all people should know you don't jump bail.

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Greek Ninja

From Reuters:

ATHENS (Reuters) - A Greek bank robber armed with ninja throwing stars finally ran out of moves Tuesday when police arrested him after an Athens bank robbery.

Petros Onen, 49, had held up 11 small suburban bank branches making away with 50,000 euros ($63,590) in recent months, threatening to throw his razor-sharp, palm-size stars -- made famous by the Japanese ninja warriors -- at cashiers, police said.

His luck ran out when undercover policemen at the last bank he robbed followed him home and arrested him with his loot, his throwing stars, a fake gun and a list of other bank branches.

Borat sparks summit

From Showbiz News:

LIFE STYLE EXTRA (UK) - Sacha Baron Cohen has prompted US President George Bush to host a White House summit, after angering the Kazakhstan government with his comic creation Borat.

The British star has infuriated Kazakhstan leaders with his latest movie, 'Borat: Cultural Learning of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan'.

Borat is portrayed as a backward, racist and sexist man who, in one of Cohen's previous comedy sketches, once sung "kill the Jews".

The first scene of Cohen's latest movie, which premiered at the Toronto Film Festival last week, shows Borat kissing his sister inappropriately before riding off in a horse-drawn car to explore the US.

Kazakhstan's President Nazarbayev now plans to fly to America to meet with President Bush to discuss his country's image.

Eh? Shouldn't Nazarbayev fly to the UK to bitch about this? Cohen isn't American. But more importantly, DOESN'T BUSH HAVE MORE IMPORTANT THINGS TO WORRY ABOUT??

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The Day After

The day after...

Actually, this picture was taken about three days after 9/11. I was already back at work. Look at the wonderful paper mask I was given to filter out the toxins in the air. Like that was gonna work.

The EPA has now admitted that the air in lower Manhattan was not safe in the aftermath of 9/11. No shit? The place smelled like one huge electrical fire for over a month after the event. Everyone knew what was up.

Fox Video Working & How Do They Do That?

I found a new version of the video where the Fox reporter gets beat up. See post below.

BTW, how are people capturing these videos from local newscasts? They're obviously not standing in front of the TV with a camcorder -- the quality is too good. Are they using video capture cards on their computers? I'd like to try this too.

What's Your Personality Cluster?

Your Personality Cluster is Introverted Intuition

You are: Multilayered and complex Inspired and driven to achieve your goals A visionary with a complete life plan Intuitive enough to understand difficult problems, ideas, and people

What's Your Personality Cluster?

Youth Football Coach Takes Out Kid

Fox Reporter in San Diego gets Beat Up

Coach facing felony charges in football brawl

If I’m ever tempted to leap out of the stands at a game and eff up some kid who’s messing with my kid, I’ll try to remember what happened to this guy.

STOCKTON - An assistant youth football coach from Riverbank turned himself in to Stockton police late Saturday and was arrested on suspicion of attacking a 13-year-old opposing player at the end of a game that finished with hundreds of parents and players brawling in the middle of the field, police said.Cory Petero, 36, surrendered to police around 10 p.m. Saturday after he heard officers wanted to speak to him, said Lt. Kevin Hatano of the Stockton Police Department. Hatano would not comment on what Petero told police. Petero was charged with felony child abuse; if convicted, Petero could face up to a year in the County Jail or two to six years in prison.

Oops!

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UPDATE: Video is available above.

Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin Killed

From Reuters:

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Steve Irwin, the quirky Australian naturalist who won worldwide acclaim, has died in a marine accident off Australia's northeast coast, local media reported on Monday.

Queensland state government sources quoted by Australian Associated Press (AAP) said Irwin, 44, whose television show "The Crocodile Hunter" won international acclaim and popularized the phrase "Crikey," was believed to have been killed by a stingray barb that pierced his chest.

Dang.

He was an entertaining guy, but not very bright. Remember when he carelessly fed a croc while carrying his infant in the other hand on one of his shows? He was destined to go out violently.

BTW, this story only broke on Reuters about an hour ago and they've already had to lock down his Wikipedia entry because of vandalism!

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Pathetic

From AP:

SAITAMA, Japan (AP) -- As they warmed up before Friday's semifinal against Greece, the U.S. players put on a jam session for the fans.

Dwight Howard dunked emphatically. Dwyane Wade bounced the ball off the backboard, caught it and stuffed. Elton Brand jammed an alley-oop pass. Finally, LeBron James flew down the lane for a tomahawk.

As the crowd roared, the Greeks lined up at the other end and shot free throws. The moment foretold Greece's 101-95 victory in the semifinals of the world championships.

Bleah.

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