Goodbye Nomah, we'll miss you!

So I just found out that Nomar has gone to the Cubs. How do I feel about this? I think it sucks! Sure he was pissed about almost getting traded earlier this year. Sure he's been playing this season with a chip on his shoulder... but do you know what would have gotten rid of that chip? A nice big fat contract extenstion.

So now we've got Cabrera and Mientkiewicz. Yes, our defense will improve, but our offense will suffer. Mark my words, Nomar will start putting up some MVP numbers for Chicago because now he wants to teach Epstein a lesson. He's going to carry the Cubs to Wild Card spot and cruize though the playoffs en route to the World Series.

Am I biased because I personally met Nomar the year before he started for the Sox? Yes, of course I am. He was my hitting instructor at Mo Vaughn's hitting camp. He gave me some pointers on my swing. Nomar is my boy and always will be. Guess who my new second favorite team is now. I'll give you one guess.

Go Cubbies!

I need my ice-cream sandwich

I told myself that I wouldn't post more than twice in one day, but I think I'll make an exception for today. Since I didn't post yesterday, and one of today's was a quote, I'm deeming this post acceptable.

So I'm standing in front of the ice-cream vending machine at work and I'm trying to decide between the Toll House ice-cream sandwich and the ever-so-popular Chipwich. Obviously I go with the $2 Toll House (goodbye coffee money) because of it's superior quality. Easiest decision I've made all day.

As the package falls, I am terror-struck as it gets jammed between the glass and the shelf. I tried shaking the machine like an idiot, but it's bolted to the floor. It also has those "arm-reach proof" doors that you can't reach in. There is nothing I can do, so I stare at it. I just stand there and stare at it for like 5 minutes. As if I can use my mind to will it to fall. As I'm staring, I'm thinking... what is going on in the world? How can we create robots, and computers, and cell phones that can record and send movies wirelessly... but we cannot improve on vending machine design? This has been a problem for vending machines ever since they were invented. How long has this been and why are we not fixing this problem? Nothing pisses people off more then putting money in a vending machine and not getting anything in return.

So there I am, in the middle of the office, on my hands and knees praying to vending machine God and slamming my hand against the inside of the machine hoping for a miracle.... and finally it came down.

Maybe it took me $2, 15 minutes, and a couple of bloody knuckles to get it down, but I got it. There's nothing like a quick 600 calorie snack to shorten up the work day. This was probably the most work I've done at the office in the last month. What am I talking about, it was the hardest I've worked all year. Could you tell that I work for the Government?

(yes, I realize this post was boring as hell... but hey, I didn't force you to read it)

Quote of the Week

I’m going to try to make this a weekly thing. This week’s quote comes from Bill Simmons (who will probably be the source of most of my quotes) who recounts the bench clearing brawl from last weekend’s series with the Yanks.

"Arroyo just plunked A-Job with a 75-mph changeup, prompting A-Job to pull the Arnold Horshack Memorial "I'm going to kick his butt ... somebody hold me back!" routine. Varitek tells him to shut his $252 million trap and go to first base. A-Job waits for the umpire to step between them, then tells Varitek to have sex with himself. One thing leads to another. Finally, Varitek gives him a two-handed shove to the face, followed by an attempted body slam as A-Job flails in the air like a marlin."

A-Job wines again

(Yes, I stole the name "A-Job" from Bill Simmons, but is it really stealing if I acknowledge him?)

I used to have a lot of respect for Alex Rodriguez. I was one of the people who thought he was the best player in baseball. But now that he's with the Yankees, I get to keep a much closer eye on him, since I live in NJ. A-Fraud recently said that he "hates" the Red Sox. That's pretty harsh considering earlier this year he had his bags packed and was ready to move to Boston. Since he went to NY instead, apparently hating the Red Sox was in his contract. It's just a stupid ploy to get New Yorkers to like him. I hope they can see through his BS.

Anyway, the suspensions for last weekend's brawl came out yesterday and A-Sob is quick to start crying his heart out. He thinks it's unfair that he get's punished the same as Tek. He thinks Veritek was the one who started the fight, but let me think about this for a second...

Who got hit by a curve ball (obviously unintentional, I mean who throws a curveball at someone, honestly?) then stares down the pitcher like he's ready to charge the mound? Oh yeah, that was A-Job. Tek was just protecting Arroyo and doing what any good catcher would do. Rodriguez could have just kept walking to first, but instead he decided to stay and yell at Veritek for sticking up for his pitcher. So who started the fight? It was definitely the pretty boy A-Knob.

So since I've seen how much of a cry-baby this guy is, I'm so glad we... and by "we" I mean the Red Sox (yes, I consider myself part of the team)... didn't pick him up this year. Yes, he is a great player, but how can you root for a guy like that. It's like rooting for Barry Bonds, it just shouldn't be done. I'll take Manny over A-Bob anyday.

Oh, and Happy Birtday D-Bone! Thanks for taking your good luck to the Yankees game last night. It's always nice to watch them lose by 8 runs.

Politics, Smolitics

I don’t understand politics. I mean, look at our 2 presidential candidates. One is clearly more qualified for the job (Kerry for those of you slow ones out there). Yes, I said CLEARLY because there is no argument. I mean, Bush seems like a fun sort of guy, but how do we have a guy who got mediocre grades in school and spent half his life boozing and partying, running the country??? This absolutely blows my mind. I need somebody to explain to me why this happens. Is it because Kerry is a Democrat that people don’t want to vote for him? I would like to think that if we had a Democrat President as bad as Bush has been, that I would vote against him (Yes, I'm a Democrat). We really should pick the best man for the job, forget about all the left wing right wing crap.

I actually had somebody say to me (I’ll leave out names, but you know who you are) that if he was going to vote for Kerry, then he wouldn’t any more because he found out Kerry was a Red Sox fan. Is that the stupidest thing you’ve ever heard? Picking the leader of our country based on which baseball team he roots for? I’m hoping this friend of mine was joking, but I really think there was some truth to it.

Oh, and one thing that really scares me about Bush is that he says that he’s on a mission from God. This is just plain scary. Saying you are on a mission from God means that you have an excuse to do anything you want. This is what crazy people say after they gun down about 20 people at the Post Office. If you’ve read “Under the Banner of Heaven” by Jon Krakauer, then you know missions from God can often result in irrational behavior.

Maybe I’m the one who’s stupid since I can’t figure this stuff out. Maybe I’m wrong about Bush. But I want someone to show me some reason, because I see none. The only people I can understand voting for Bush are gun-loving Texans who never finished high school. If that describes you, then I expect you to vote Bush, everyone else has no excuse.

Youkilis the Fortune Teller

Did anybody else hear Kevin Youkilis call Johnny Damon's homerun in Sunday's Sox game against the Yankees? Wasn't that amazing? Not only did he call which pitch Damon was going to hit, but he also said that it was going to hit Pesky's poll. Sure enough, the next pitch Damon crushed down the line and off the foul poll. I was speachless. It had to be one of the greatest calls in recent history.

I've got a fever...

...and the only cure is more cowbell!

Sorry, I couldn’t help it. That quote always makes me laugh. Not to mention the fact that the song “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper” has become synonymous with Will Ferrell in my mind. He’s got to be the funniest person alive. If you haven’t seen Old School yet, then rent it today. Wait no, don’t rent it, buy it. I’m not kidding, go outside right now, get in your car and go buy it. If Walmart is your closest DVD dealer, then suck it up and brave the hordes of weirdoes who shop there. It’s definitely worth it, trust me. The movie must be watched a minimum of 3 times (that is the bare minimum). If you are under the age of 30 and you do not watch this movie, I will not consider you a normal human being. This is true, one of my friends recently admitted to me and my buddy Dyl that he had never seen Old School. We looked at him like he had an arm growing out of his head. Our only response was "I don't even know who you are, you are dead to me."

Sorry if I offended anyone with an arm growing out of their head. I didn't mean to put you in the same catagory as this kid.

I'm no Genious

So recently I switched operating systems from Windows XP to Linux Red Hat Fedora. I was getting fed up with Windows because I was constant freezing my computer and getting shut down. I figured that since I majored in computer engineering, I should be able to handle Linux. However, I found out that you need an IQ of 180 to be able to run this program successfully. Oh you want to listen to music on Linux? Well, set aside 6 hours of your time to read tutorials and FAQ's, and expect 53 unsuccessful attempts to download and install a media player. Want DVD player software? Well, you only need this one file and 12 years of hardcore programming experience to run it.

Ok, maybe I'm exaggerating a little. But I've caved and cowardly gone running back to XP. Hopefully I'll give it another shot in the future when Linux is a little more user friendly, because Microsoft is evil. I guess I feel a little better since I got my copy of XP and Office 03 for $7.50 from Bangkok. Yes, that's 7 dollars and 50 cents. Got to love bootlegging.

(and yes, I know I spelt Genius wrong in my title. I hope the joke didn't go over your head)

I Still Love Baseball

Last night reminded me why I love baseball...

The Sox down 2 in the bottom of the ninth... the best closer in baseball coming in to shut them down... the game was all but over.  As I watched this, I was thinking "nothing would make me happier than to see Rivera blow this game." 

Well, my wish came true.  There's nothing like watching your team come back from an almost impossible deficit to win the game with a walk-off homerun.  It was definitely the highlight of my week.  Thank you Bill Mueller.



Also, I need to mention that Kevin Millar has been amazing against the Yanks.  I just glanced over to my TV to see him crush his 4th HR in 12 at bats in this series, and his batting average has been over 800.  When someone is that hot, you can't give him a strike, you just can't.  Someone needs to tell this to Contreras.  Earlier in this game, Millar launched 2 monsterous foul balls off Jose before getting nailed in the back by a curve ball.  Next at bat, Millar made him pay.  Thank you Kevin Millar.

Thank you Red Sox.

In the beginning...

I've been toying with the idea of starting a blog for some time now. I tend to lose interest in these types of things fairly quickly so I'm making my prediction now. I'm giving myself 1 month before I stop posting. If I make it past that, I'll be impressed with myself.

So I guess I should start by explaining my blog's name. It comes from Kurt Vonnegut's "Cat's Cradle" (one of my top 2 books of all time). Here's a short extract from the book:

"'No wonder kids grow up crazy. A cat's cradle is nothing but a bunch of X's between somebody's hands, and little kids look and look and look at all those X's...'
'And'
'No damn cat, and no damn cradle.'"

So I think the title fits this blog well. What I'm trying to say is don't try to look for something that isn't there. Whatever I say, I'm sure it won't have any real meaning to it.

I just realized that as I write this, I'm expecting someone will read it. So silly of me.