Lucy the Dog Who Looks Like an Ewok Teddybear

This past weekend, SHR and I had the pleasure of dogsitting Lucy. It has been two full days since I've seen her and I miss her.



In a moment of weakness over the weekend, SHR has convinced me that if and when we take Hamachi back to Brooklyn with us, that we should also take her friend Jake too. Otherwise Hamachi will be lonely.

Red Sox Fans Can Not Want to Be Mickey Mantle. End of Subject.

I've never had the patience to watch Meet the Press regularly. But thanks to Mitch's advice, I've recently been listening to the podcast of it. Bill Richardson did not come off too well this past Sunday. Tim Russert used Richardson's book against him on a very crucial matter.

MR. RUSSERT: You spent a lot of time in, in Massachusetts. Are you a Red Sox fan?

GOV. RICHARDSON: I’m a Red Sox fan, but I got into trouble in New Hampshire. You know why? Because I said...

MR. RUSSERT: Luis Tiant, the fund-raiser. But, now, governor, this is very serious. In your book on page 18 it says...

GOV. RICHARDSON: No, about Mickey Mantle?

MR. RUSSERT: You said you’re a Yankee fan!

GOV. RICHARDSON: No, no, no. I said—no, no, no.

MR. RUSSERT: I mean, you can, you can...

GOV. RICHARDSON: No, no, no, no.

MR. RUSSERT: ...you can have different views on immigration, assault weapons...

GOV. RICHARDSON: I, no no no no. No, what I said...

MR. RUSSERT: But when it comes to Red Sox, Yankees.

GOV. RICHARDSON: What I said, the Associated Press asked me, “If you weren’t running for president, if you weren’t running for president, what would you rather be?” I’ve always been a Red Sox fan, but I said if I weren’t running for president I would like to be number seven, Mickey Mantle, playing center field for the New York Yankees.

MR. RUSSERT: “Because of Mickey Mantle, I became a Yankee fan.”

GOV. RICHARDSON: I, my favorite team has always been the Red Sox.

MR. RUSSERT: You’re a Red Sox fan.

GOV. RICHARDSON: I’m a Red Sox fan.

MR. RUSSERT: End of subject.

GOV. RICHARDSON: End of subject.

MR. RUSSERT: You better get rid of this book.

GOV. RICHARDSON: Oh, no! I’m also a Yankee fan. I also like...

MR. RUSSERT: Oh, now, wait a minute!

GOV. RICHARDSON: You can—Tim...

MR. RUSSERT: I guarantee...

GOV. RICHARDSON: No, I know, I got in trouble...

MR. RUSSERT: ...if you go—if you go to Yankee Stadium or Fenway, you cannot be both.

GOV. RICHARDSON: But I like—Mickey Mantle was my hero. If I weren’t running for president, and the Associated Press asked me, I’d play center field for the New York—I wanted to be number seven. And—but I still love the Red Sox as a team. I mean, this is the thing about me, Tim. I can bring people together. I can unify people.

MR. RUSSERT: Yankee fans and Red Sox fans?

GOV. RICHARDSON: Yes.

MR. RUSSERT: Not a chance.

GOV. RICHARDSON: Well, I bet you I can.

Bets involving the Red Sox and Yankees can only lead to ugliness.

5 Television Questions To Ponder

1. How the hell is The Sopranos going to end? Tony in jail? Dead? Neither? Regardless, could this show be any more depressingly good? Yes, some things sort of come out of nowhere like Tony's gambling problems but whatever, the show is still pretty amazing.

2. How lame was last night's episode of Heroes? I'm still excited for next season but I was pretty disappointed by last night's finale. Granted, the last 15 minutes was pretty good but it all seemed too much to put into one episode and it felt a little rushed. I did like the questions that it leads to next season and I loved the Evil Dead 2-like ending with Hiro in 17th century Japan but overall I thought the last episode would leave me super excited. Instead, it just made wanting next season to start right now.

3. How amazing will tomorrow's Lost be? This show might not be perfect but it has been building up to a nice finale. I love that the show can really go anywhere at this point. My prediction - next season will take place in 2008, not in 2004 that it now takes place.

4. How much will I miss Gilmore Girls? Eh, not much. Has this show really been all that good since like Season 2?

5. On Meet the Press, Newt Gingrich kept referring to Al Qaeda as Al Kai EE DA. Is that the way you actually say it or is Gingrich just even more of an asshole than I thought he was? I need answers. My favorite part of his rambling bullshit was when he kept saying that today's Congress would have wanted to stop fighting Japan during World War II because the fight was too hard. And he also kept referring to the American Revolution in a "Would George Washington have cut and run?" kind of way. In Gingrich's view we are what the French were to us in our fight for independence.

To which Christopher Dodd responded, "The distinction, you know—the survey done, I think, by NBC and The Wall Street Journal, over 50 percent of Iraqis thinks it’s all right to kill Americans serving there. I don’t—if we go back to the American Revolution I doubt you would have had 51 percent of the Americans saying it’s all right to kill the French coming here." Zing!

I Wish My Dreams Were This Amazing

I received an e-mail from my old friend Richard Judy the other day. It read:

I was stranded outside some mall overnight and you were there and offered me a ride home. Only instead of actually giving me a ride home, you drafted a fantasy baseball team at what was apparently a Fantasy Baseball Kiosk.

Can't recall who was on the team. Sorry.

I can't quite picture what a fantasy baseball kiosk would look like and google images didn't help much. But I'd love to know what one would look like and what sort of magic powers it might possibly hold.

Glad All Over

When I was in high school, I got into a debate with my dad at the dinner table. It went a little like this:

Me: In the book Shoeless Joe there is a character based on J.D. Salinger. Why do you think that the new movie Field of Dreams changed the character of J.D. Salinger to a fictional character played by James Earl Jones? Do you think it is because the producers were afraid of getting sued by Salinger?

Stone Groove: No, I think it because nobody knows who Salinger is these days.

Me: Yeah, but no one knows who Shoeless Joe is either.

Strone Groove: That is true. But I still think that no one knows who Salinger is.

Me: You're crazy. Everyone reads it in high school. Most people would know who he is.

I'm not sure who came up with the idea but somehow I ended up dialing random phone numbers in the Montgomery County phonebook to ask them if they knew who J.D. Salinger was. I said that 7 out of 10 people that I called would know who he was.

I gave up after 9 calls when only 1 person could correctly identify any book that he had written. One other person guessed, "He's a writer?" The rest had no idea. Score one for Stone Groove.

So it is well established that my dad and I have stupid arguments like this one. The last time I was home we drove my grandmother crazy while arguing in a Chinese restaurant over the homerun call of former Orioles announcer Michael Reghi. I said that the call was something along the lines of "Albert Belle touched off a bomb." Stone Groove insisted that it was a simple call of "SEE ... YOU ... LATER!"

I even left the restaurant to call Jamie, Dave, Bill, and Mitch for some backup help. I got some conflicting testimony from them. By the time I got home, Jamie had sent me the Wikipedia link which states that Reghi's calls were "A high fly ball hit to deep left. Took it to the track...to the wall... See...you...later!"; "Oh, did he tag that one! It's a BOMB! Going track ...wall ... SEE ...YOU...LATER!" Looks like Stone Groove was mostly right on this one too. Shit!

It was a banner dinner for Listmaker - Stone Groove discourse. Also during the course of the meal, the Dave Clark Five came up. I don't remember how it came up but I think it had something to do with SHR knowing who they were and Stone Groove being impressed, "No one your age knows who the Dave Clark Five are!" I immediately disagreed and said that at least 75 percent of my friends would know who they were. The goal was set - I needed to ask a bunch of my friends. Stone Groove's only rule was that the person had to know that the band was a British band from the mid 60's meaning that they had to put them in the context of the British Invasion era.

So I started asking people when I saw them. And then those friends starting asking their friends and reporting back to me. And I'm proud to say that of the 30 or so people that were asked, the very unscientific percentage of my friends who knew who the Dave Clark Five were is right about 75%.

Some knew some of their hits, Glad All Over, being the most famous, some simply knew that it was a British band from the mid 60's. But less than 25% had no clue. I was very pleased with the showing.

So I guess the bottom line is that I know what my friends know better than I know what random people in Maryland know.

Did you know that the Dave Clark Five were on the Ed Sullivan Show 18 times? Or that Dave Clark was the drummer and not the lead singer? Or that according to one website I found, "In 1961, when members of the Tottenham Hotspurs soccer team needed to raise funds to travel to Holland to play a match, they formed The Dave Clark Five."

Did You Know That (As of Spring 2002) The Largest Outback Steakhouse in the Country Is In PNC Park in Pittsburgh?

If I had a Blast Off Country Style 7 inch for every time I had a discussion in college about bands selling out, I would be a rich man. Back then the debate was about bands signing to major labels. Back then I was of the opinion that a band should do what was best for itself and who gives a shit what label they recorded for?

A few years ago, Jeremy and I had an argument about the Apples in Stereo selling one of their songs for a commercial. He was so upset about them selling a song for an ad. Even after the interview with them where they talked about how they had spent the money they received for a crib for their newborn, Jeremy could not be swayed.

Now with commercials serving the function of what radio used to do, it is quite a coup for bands to sell their music to corporations, gain exposure, and pocket up to six figures worth of cash. The Shins got more flak for being gushed over by Natalie Portman in that insipid movie by that Scrubs hack then they did for selling a song to McDonald's.

Since I rarely watch commercials, I'm not terribly afraid of getting sick of songs from overexposure through ads. However I do think it is somewhat lame to sell a song that you wrote for other purposes to push fries or Hummers. I like that Jack White wrote a brand new song for Coke instead of letting them use "Hotel Yorba" or some other song from their catalog to help Coke push their product. But it never really has bothered me that indie bands are selling their songs to corporations. Who cares?

Recently a band has taken selling out to a new level. Of Montreal let one of their songs be re-recorded by an Of Montreal sounding band and change the lyrics from "Let's pretend we don't exist/Let's pretend we're in Antarctica" to "Let's go outback tonight/Life will still be there tomorrow." Plus there's even a new Mother's Day version that goes "Let's go outback tonight/Everyday is Mother's Day." What? I hope they got paid a lot of Bloomin Onion for this nonsense.

Still I don't really care. But SHR thinks that is completely stupid that a band would let their song be rewritten in such ridiculous fashion. For the record, Jeremy is okay with it as long as a crib was bought with some of the money because now that he's a dad of two kids, he's fine with selling out in the name of baby stuff. I might have made that last part up.

Let's Go Outback Tonight
Of Montreal - Wraith Pinned to the Mist

Dr. Abby Got Married Last Month!

While I'm catching up on a lost month of blogging, how about some wedding pics from Abby and Dan's wedding?

The reception was at an old mill. Good stuff.
SHR the superstar.
The bridge right behind the mill.
Abby and her dad during speeches.
The first dance.
His and Hers Wedding Chucks

Vermont Youngsters (And Their Parents) Visited Us Last Month

It rained a lot. We went to the Brooklyn Children's Museum. I took a few pictures.

Sebastian
Dorian
And then they went home and started a blog.

A Few Things Learned, A Few Things Discovered, A Few Observations

1. Despite moving neighborhoods, our NY Times delivery remains interesting. Despite letting them know many times that I have moved to a new address, I still am receiving my newspaper with a sticker on it labeled with the name of the previous tenant. Only four people even receive the Times in my building out of over 100 apartments.

The other three apartments that receive the paper have their apartment number listed on the paper. Mine is the only one with a name on it. And it isn't even MY name. My theory is that the delivery guy has a sheet of 100 stickers with the previous tenant's name already on it and ain't changing for nothing. But I still don't have a theory as to why my paper is the only one without an apartment number on it. I mean, how else is Apt. 12G ever going to know to bring up my paper for me considering I've been bringing their paper up for them if it's there?

2. Speaking of the new apartment, we've found out that the odd howls and the like are being made by a teenage boy with some sort of disability. With this knowledge, I can definitely live with the noises. The trying out for American Idol renditions of I Heard it Through the Grapevine by his mother aren't any less annoying though. Today, she was blasting a speech by Malcolm X for over an hour starting at around 9 am.

3. Don't base Kentucky Derby picks on the advice of a Mets catcher.

4. Planet Earth in HD looks damn good, don't it?

5. Everything else in HD has been disappointing me though - that is except for that Wallace and Gromit movie. What's the deal? Is it my set? What's up with the snowy nature of so many shows? And baseball on the Extra Innings package is the worst thing I've ever seen. Still, I kind of dig it. It reminds me of trying to listen to out of town radio broadcasts as a kid. Remember those days? You'd be tuning into some late game on the radio and be able to hear the occasional clear broadcast and you'd get all excited. That's the way I feel when a game doesn't look like I'm trying to watch Baltimore's Channel 45 through rabbit ears back in 1983. Come on, you Silver Springers out there, you know what I'm talking about!

6. Sometimes building the longest train in Ticket to Ride: Europe is actually worth doing. And sometimes building a train simply to screw a competitor pays off as well. And sometimes doing neither ends up in an unsatisfying second place finish on a Friday night.

Better Than the Batmobile

When I was in Maryland about six weeks ago, I came across this amazing vehicle.

I should have hotwired this thing and driven it down to Memphis for Hot Tub Eric to cruise around the Dirty South in.

I'll Be a Regular Blogger Again Soon

Two posts in April? Downright pathetic.

I'm slowly getting used to the new apartment and neighborhood. Apparently, my new neighborhood is the most blogged about neighborhood in the entire country!

I'm getting used to riding the bus to work. Yesterday, I made friends with my bus driver. That is always a good thing to do.

I'll be posting a lot of movie reviews in the next few days. I also will be gearing up to begin my baseball blog anew. And there's always the bocce blog which will have three new posts in the next week or so.

Until then, why not take a moment and enjoy the craziness that was the George Tenet interview on 60 Minutes?