Veins of Ink, Calves of Steel

"Holly, this is Harry Kalas with the Phillies."

2009-04-13T17:57:00.000-07:00

I stared dumbly at the Motorola, crackling on speaker mode. She had just come home Monday evening, dialed her voice mailbox and handed me the phone.

I had been home only a few minutes longer but I was already in pajamas. Putting on pajamas usually signifies, "I've had enough of this particular day." And so it was on Monday, overwhelmingly so.

***

It was 1:14 p.m. Monday when I visited philly.com at my work computer. A small breaking-news item posted at 1:09 said, "Kalas found passed out in booth, taken to hospital." I alerted my bosses, went out for lunch and soon got a text from a friend: "harry died :("

Harry Kalas and I never met or spoke on the phone. Hell, I never even got a voice-mail message from him. And he was 73 -- not terribly old these days, but with a history of drinking and smoking that perhaps took a little extra tread off the tires.

No rational reason I should feel so sad, even nauseous, at his death. But he described Phillies baseball games to me all my life, and I'm not the only sports fan who has blithely abandoned rational thought.

I craved listening to Harry and Richie Ashburn, his best friend and broadcast partner. I saw every game in 1993, the year the Phillies beat the Braves for the league pennant. I was shellshocked in '97 when Ashburn died and I remember reading an Inquirer interview of a numb Kalas the next day: "I've lost my best friend."

His home run calls, his strikeout calls, his impeccable sense of how and when to interject drama still remained after his partner died, but it was hard not to think Kalas had forever gotten a little sadder, less mischievous and fun-loving. His public criticism of Ashburn's successor, Chris Wheeler, was especially disappointing in a man I considered the epitome of class. In recent years, his eyesight and memory dulled, too, though not so much or so frequently that the Phillies had to consider ushering him off the stage.

What remained intact after Ashburn's death was Kalas's ardent love of the team and the game, and in the past half-dozen years, as the Phillies built a championship-caliber club, he was clearly thirsty for them to return to the October stage.

***

After near misses in 2002, 2003, 2005 and 2006, the Phillies had the lead in the final inning on the final day of 2007, an out away from ending a 14-year postseason drought.

"Fans are on their feet ... I'M going to be on my feet ... this is truly exciting!" Kalas hollered, seconds before Brett Myers flung a perfect knee-bender at Wily Mo Pena and the park erupted.

In 2008, I saw my first walk-off home run in person. Duc and I were at the park in early May. Phils were down one in the ninth with a man on base. Two outs, full count to Pat Burrell, and the poor Giants reliever poured a fastball down the middle. Minutes later, even as I jogged, grinning, to my car, I distinctly remember wondering how Harry had called it. I found out via DVD months later.

Harry had to be quick, because Burrell hit a laser-beam line drive over the wall: "Long drive ... it is OUTTA HERE! ... Pat Burrell! PAT BURRELL! Phillies win!"

I can say without exaggerating that one day this winter I watched that clip seven consecutive times. That's how invigorating Harry Kalas's voice was.

I was taking the Atlantic City Expressway to the shore during the penultimate regular-season game, and Harry and Larry Andersen were with me on the radio, since Fox was doing the TV broadcast. A win would make it back-to-back division titles, but heretofore-perfect Brad Lidge was dicking around in the ninth inning, loading bases and so forth. Harry and Larry were concerned, and then Ryan Zimmerman connected with a one-out pitch.

Harry: "Ground ball up the MID-dle, J-Roll DIVES, to Utley, ONE, relay--"

Larry: "YEAH! YEAH! YEAH!"

Harry: "--DOUBLE PLAY!!! The Phillies are the National League Eastern Division champions, on a specTACular DOUBLLLE PLAYYY, turned J-Roll, to Utley, to Howard! WHAT a play by J-ROLL!"

Larry: "Ohhh my word..."

I didn't hear much of Harry through most of the playoffs. I watched almost all the games on TV, with the national feed, and Harry was on the radio. But near the end of World Series Game 5, my best friends desperately tried to sync up a clock radio to a muted television, and I desperately tried not to go berserk as both transmissions cut in and out.

It worked eventually, though, and when Lidge struck out Eric Hinske to win the World Series, I dove face-first into the carpet and heard this:

"SWING and a MISS! STRUCK HIM OUT! The Philadelphia Phillies are 2008--"

--and he clearly savored these next words, each one like a fine drink--

"--WORLD, CHAMPIONS, of BASEBALL!"

And again, as with Burrell's walk-off, even as I was processing what the moment meant, I thought about the man who told us about it.

"That was an awesome call, an awesome turn of phrase," I thought. Then I laughed at my own surplus of emotion, and I went to the fridge for a beer.

***

It was the dead of winter when Holly wrote to Harry, hoping he could record wedding-party introductions for her and her fiance's reception in May. He called back, and my hair stood up as I listened to his long-saved message.

"I got your letter, and I would be happy to introduce your wedding party when you're going to get married in May," Harry Kalas told my future wife. "The way to go about that would be to contact a Mr. Rob Brooks--"

Rob Brooks the head of broadcasting Rob Brooks, the Rob Brooks who found Harry unconscious in the booth in Washington. I pictured the blood draining from Rob Brooks' face Monday, as Harry told Holly the phone number, etc.

"--you can fax or e-mail a script, and then we'd be able to get it done before the nuptials." Harry says, peaking cheerfully on that last word. "I'd be happy to do it, and my very best wishes to you and yours. Thanks."

She sent the script, but we'll probably never know whether he'd gotten to it. Doesn't matter. She thought of it, and he agreed to it. Both those things mean an enormous amount to me.

***

I wasn't really looking forward to Opening Day this year. I was still trying to savor the championship season, and then when the Phillies came out flat I was frustrated that they seemed to be doing the same thing. I tuned into the first couple of games here and there, but with less than the usual mania. "After all," I reasoned, "I can get fired up later. It's a long season."

Boy, will it be a long season.

Another one bites the dust

2009-02-09T19:47:00.000-08:00

Alright, everyone, let's start grooving pitches to Albert Pujols. Only 444 home runs until he passes Bonds ... sigh.

O frabjous day!

2009-01-22T06:51:00.000-08:00

My second niece was born about 4:30 this morning.

She weighs eight pounds, including her mullet, reports my relatively tired sister, who went into labor at 7:30 p.m. but still managed to watch all three hours of Lost!

Jeez, I was exhausted just from THAT myself!

So welcome to the family, the great state of Virginia and the world, Susanna Campbell Johns. Can't wait to see you next weekend!

Birds, baby!

2009-01-11T18:02:00.000-08:00

The Eagles beat the Giants in a divisional playoff game that was offensively ugly (in both sense of the word) but was a defensive masterpiece.

It's not hyperbole: this is the best Eagles defense I've seen in my three decades. Rejuvenated veterans, frisky youngsters.

It was certainly hyperbole when Andy Reid called Donovan McNabb the best quarterback in football ... he was good today, certainly not great, and mostly just better than the dreadful Eli Manning. But he made some tough plays when he had to, and I give him credit for that.

I can't get accustomed to the idea that, this year, the NFC has been winnowed down to the Cardinals and the Eagles. I love the Eagles' chances, though. Now if I can just get someone to switch shifts with me, for the third Sunday in a row...

Here goes nothin'

2009-01-02T18:53:00.000-08:00

Quite a busy year ahead.

First, Paige and Brian have their second baby due on inauguration day.

Then Holly and I find out in mid-March where she'll be working for the next four years.

Then we'll house-hunt, and depending on where it is, I might also job-hunt or school-hunt.

There's also the possibility that other friends and family could be moving in that period.

Hopefully, we'll move into our new home before we get married in Louisville May 24.

After we get married, it's off to California wine country for a week of honeymoon revelry.

Then we move everything out of our Louisville apartment, which we're keeping through June.

Then Holly starts her residency around the beginning of July, and I do whatever I'm doing.

Whooof.

Merry Christmas

2008-12-24T20:36:00.000-08:00

My Christian faith is at a low ebb. Has been for years. I'm not even sure I'd identify myself as a Christian anymore, and I don't know why I turned away from it, but I'm most reminded of this when Christmas comes around and occasionally I think, "Am I being a hypocrite?"

Maybe, though putting up nice decorations and exchanging presents with friends and family probably doesn't hurt anybody, regardless of what the reason is.

I guess I don't really know what to think of Christmas anymore. It's certainly a much more complicated holiday in adulthood than in childhood. It's been a long time since I was able to see everyone I want to at Christmas, and I don't imagine it will ever happen again.

Didn't mean to pee in anyone's eggnog, and I really am fantastically lucky -- lots of healthy loved ones, reliably constant food and shelter, regular intellectual stimulation -- so don't pay any attention to me. Really, Merry Christmas.

Drink motor oil, Chris Johnson

2008-12-21T12:06:00.000-08:00

Stupid dipshit football players celebrating touchdowns before they reach the end zone (especially when they are almost tackled as a result) makes the little hairs on my neck stand up.

Disco mayhem

2008-12-20T11:43:00.001-08:00

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Really? REALLY really?

2008-12-19T22:20:00.000-08:00

Prop 8 supporters, having prohibited gay weddings in California, are trying to nullify existing gay marriages.

Are we still serious about this preservation-of-marriage nonsense? People are having historic difficulty feeding their families and keeping their homes, but sure, we should totally focus our energy on STOPPING COUPLES FROM MARRYING.

I have friends and family from all political ideologies, and sometimes I really enjoy discussing the things on which we disagree. This can't be one of those things.

If you think gay people shouldn't be allowed to marry, fine. But if you try to tell me it makes sense, especially right now, to devote any resources to stopping them, see ya.

Done!

2008-12-19T16:32:00.000-08:00

Got all the gifts I needed, and my groceries, and I'm drinking orange-strawberry-banana juice. I think you'll agree, this is the life. Oh, and now I hear one of my cats flinging litter around, possibly out of its customary box! The cherry on top!

Also:

Is it legal to set a holiday-comedy film trailer to any song other than "Russian Dance" from the Nutcracker?
All I want for Christmas is for Rod Blagojevich to be impeached and removed from the Illinois governor's office as speedily as the law allows, a.k.a. well before Jan. 20.
As someone who loves Camden Yards and sympathizes with fans who've seen their team starved to death by idiot owner Peter Angelos, I hope the Orioles get Mark Teixeira.

Dreams will never, ever, make sense to me

2008-12-19T09:17:00.000-08:00

In my dream last night, the Detroit Lions finally won a game, and people everywhere were so relieved.

What is wrong with me? I couldn't care less about the Lions, although I don't wish 0-16 on anyone. Why would my subconscious care about them?

"Weekend"

2008-12-18T22:46:00.000-08:00

My weekends are ALWAYS "weekends," since I work Sunday through Thursday. Usually, my Sunday shift is at night, giving me basically a 2.5-day "weekend."

This weekend, though, I swapped days with a friend, in exchange for a future swap.

Boring details really quickly: I usually work Sun-Thu and she Mon-Fri, but once every five weeks she works Mon-Sat, then Mon-Thu the next week to compensate, see? However, this week she has Christmakkah on Saturday, so I'm working Saturday for her and she's working Sunday for me, see? So I'm on Thursday, off Friday, on Saturday, off Sunday, on Monday. M'yah, see?

Of course now, she's pregnant and quitting and compensating me by buying me lunch, instead of swapping. She better have a very merry and hybriddy Christmakkah.

Meanwhile, Friday is going to be all shopping: hours of gift-buying, and hopefully a surgical strike at the grocery store. We'll also see an all-out assault on my stubborn belly fat, in the form of a long run through Absecon.

And, yeah, it's been two days of me and the cats, and I cannot stop talking to them. Just babbling mindlessly, things I'd otherwise just let run through my head. Disturbing.

I'll let Will Leitch say exactly how I feel about this Bush-shoe thing...

2008-12-16T19:42:00.001-08:00

"You'd be hard-pressed to find someone more critical of the policies and actions of President Bush over the last six-and-a-half years than me, though I'm sure there are some people out there. I think he has caused this nation perhaps more harm than we'll ever be able to overcome. I think the only person who wants him out of office more right now than me is ... well, George W. Bush. But I find it appalling that anyone could see the leader of our country, the President, avert an assault in a foreign land and somehow find it funny, or see the guy who tossed the shoe as some sort of "hero." I mean, that's the President, guys. Sure. It was a shoe. But god, really? We're supposed to chuckle? I watched that video with horror; not just that it has come to this, but that people here could actually celebrate it. I hate that video. It makes me ill. It makes me scared."

His full, mostly unrelated post

They called me Mr. Kitty Daddy

2008-12-13T22:38:00.000-08:00

Yup, I've got custody of my two cats for a while, here at the new apartment.

They've stayed with Kitty Mommy for most of the year since I came east for the new job, but interviews for HER new job will cover another month, and blah blah, other factors, I have them now.

For those who forget or never knew, they are Mojo (black) and Moxie (tabby), a brother and sister. They were part of a litter of six born approximately Jan. 30, 2006, in an animal shelter in Jeffersonville, Ind., across the Ohio River from our home in Louisville. We got them that March, and the above photo is from the first week, when they were babies and Holly took a trillion pictures of them. (Another one shows them skittering around in a wok I'm holding.)

Believe it or not, Mojo has grown into his looks a little bit. He still looks pretty owlish from a few angles. Moxie is cheerfully dumb, always wearing an expression that suggests she's looking for her car keys.

Because I project my feelings on my cats -- like all pet parents, whether they admit it or not -- I think things like, "It'll be great when we all move back in together in the spring, when we get our new place, because then they'll have some stability for a while and won't have to get acclimated to new apartments and stuff."

Yes, that will be nice for the cats, and I wouldn't mind not constantly being on Craigslist's apartment pages, either.

Oh, Cole

2008-12-11T18:19:00.000-08:00

I don't get this. Why are the Phillies needling the Mets?

You've already proved yourselves on the field. You're champions. This just strikes me as unnecessary.

Maybe Cole's cranky from missing a chiropractor appointment.

Nutso weather

2008-12-09T19:56:00.000-08:00

Frigid one day, balmy the next, and neither of those adjectives is an exaggeration. Oh well, good to open the windows for an evening.

MNF

2008-12-08T17:22:00.000-08:00

Man, it is frigid in Absecon tonight. I'm prepping for interviews tomorrow (on-the-job interviews, not job interviews) and shopping online, but most importantly, I'm rooting against Steve Smith, Jon Beason, DeAngelo Williams, Matt Bryant, Chris Gamble and Ronde Barber.

This is my eighth year in the Diamondbackfield, a fantasy-football league including alumni of the University of Maryland's INDEPENDENT student newspaper. And I have never made the playoffs. But depending on what happens tonight, in the final game of the fantasy regular season, I could make it this year.

The six guys listed above play for the Carolina Panthers or Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who square off in Monday Night Football tonight. In fantasy football, teams pair off in head-to-head matchups each week, where good real-life performances from your chosen guys are rewarded with points -- most total points wins the matchup. Some of those Panthers and Bucs play for my opponent, and some play for the guy I'm trying to beat out for the final playoff spot.

My guys ("Just Ate A Grape ...") have all played already, as have the guys for Other Playoff Contender's Opponent. And both of us have leads going into this game. It's just a question of whether the six guys listed above will do poorly enough to allow me to win and OPC to lose, because I need both things to happen.

The Yahoo! projections put me at even money. Whooooooooo even money!

(Update after first quarter: Things are going well! Matt Bryant's field-goal attempt clanked off the upright, and Steve Smith hasn't caught a pass. DeAngelo Williams has rushed a couple times for a couple yards. I haven't heard the three defenders' names yet, and that's good, too.)

(Update in third quarter: Long TD catch for Smith, and I think I'm toast.)

Eli sez: Leave me and my invisible shopping cart alone!

2008-12-07T21:31:00.000-08:00

Brian Westbrook spent his afternoon making Antonio Pierce look sillier than a guy who covers for a guy whose gun discharges in his sweatpants, to use a theoretical example. Now suddenly the Eagles control their playoff admittance, provided the Falcons don't win out. How can this possibly be the same team that sleepwalked around Cincinnati's field three weeks ago?

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I have seven groomsmen in my wedding Memorial Eve. Brian, Chris, Duc, Joel, Jon, Sean, Shea.

Prior to today, I had only seen ONE of them with an appreciable amount of facial hair: Shea, who grows it unsettlingly fast. Now that number is TWO, after the discovery of a Facebook photo of Chris with a full beard, and a neatly manicured one at that!

Question, to those who are familiar with any of the other five: Assuming they'd agree, how many groomsmen, and which, should I persuade to grow full beards for the wedding?

From the vault...

2008-12-07T19:53:00.001-08:00

I wrote the following Phillies post Oct. 3, 2005, on my previous blog, Bluegrass Beginnings:

Man. That was close. You guys were so close to a playoff-playoff, one game away from one game away from glory. If Jose Macias hits his linedrive 10 mph sharper, it gets into center and the Cubs tie the game against Lidge for sure, and maybe win in extra innings. But that's life.

I may be an optimistic sap, but I'm looking forward to the 2006 season -- umpteen times more than I looked forward to 2005. Things to look forward to:

-Brett Myers putting it all together under a pitching coach he knows and trusts.
-Chase Utley and Ryan Howard doing exactly what they're already doing: becoming superstars.
-Jimmy Rollins gaining confidence from his hit streak and learning not to press -- and MAYBE learning to take more pitches to wear out opposing pitchers? Maybe?
-Shane Victorino getting a shot as the leadoff hitter and starting centerfielder.
-David "Nice Guy, But..." Bell playing somewhere else.-Discovering if Gavin Floyd has what it takes or not.
-Crossing my fingers that Cole Hamels and Jason Michaels can behave themselves in bars all year. Pssh.

I don't think they can keep Billy Wagner or Ugueth Urbina, and I'm terrified that they'll trade Ryan Howard instead of cutting bait with an oft-injured Jim Thome. But hey! Hope springs eternal, and I figure maximizing my enjoyment and minimizing my disappointment is the way to go.

Running

2008-12-06T16:13:00.000-08:00

I'm in a new apartment until May, in Absecon. That's across a few miles of back bay from Brigantine and northern Atlantic City.

It's a nice secluded neighborhood, and I found a good running route out to the docks and marshes. Did two miles today after I wrote the Phillies poem.

Mojo and Moxie come next weekend to stay with me for a couple of months. Cat party!

A poem, for your hot-stove recollection and enjoyment

2008-12-05T19:45:00.000-08:00

2008: ONE MORE

by Eric Scott Campbell

If nothing else this season,

I'd hoped the Phillies might

win one game in the playoffs.

(Progress, however slight.)

Indeed, they took the first one,

a sloppy error-fest,

then faced C.C. Sabathia,

the ace, Milwaukee's best.

He somehow walked Brett Myers

to set up Shane to slam,

then stalked into the locker room

and swallowed whole a ham.

A droopy loss preceded

Game 4's home-run barrage.

The pounded Brew now yielded to

a team from out of Dodge.

Lowe's sinkers squashed the Phillies

until the pitch to Chase.

The sequel to Pat Burrell

would only sink Lowe's face.

Game 2, again, saw Myers

a stalwart at the plate!

It's all the crowd could talk about

as we poured from the gate.

That pitch behind Ramirez

brought payback in L.A.

A would-be brawl, a blowout,

and not much else to say.

A deficit the next night

required an attempt

to come back off their bullpen,

which rarely gets verklempt.

Down two, our Big Man singled.

A dumb mound move was made.

The Phils once more could ruin

a gentleman named Wade.

A slashing swing from Victorino

made it neck and neck,

then Chooch squeezed off a single

as the hero stood on deck.

Replacement hurler Broxton

sacrificed his aim for might.

Matt Stairs had trained his cannon

on the cheap seats, center-right.

(The outcome taught Joe Torre

when to nibble, not to bite.)

The clincher was a cakewalk

as Cole went seven strong.

Poor Raffy made three errors,

then penned a children's song.

Six off-days made reporters

inquire about our rust.

The Rays stayed fresh in Fenway

letting leads collapse to dust.

The league and Fox wept fiercely

as, to the Series fold,

came mediocre legacies.

(Though one's ten times as old.)

Game 1. An Utley dinger

backed Hamels, who was crisp.

Which helped, because the Phillies

refused to hit with RISP.

That theme continued into

a punchless Game 2 loss.

J-Roll and Burrell competed

to be top albatross.

The Series moved to Philly

for domeless cold and rain.

The home team turned to Moyer,

who twirled with Spahn and Sain.

Two rollers made the difference.

The first, a rightful out.

But umps ruled for the speedster

no rally starts without.

The Phils rebounded, loading

the sacks in bottom nine.

The lead man broke when Chooch knocked

his roller down the line.

Longoria corralled it

and made a desperate heave,

but Bruntlett wiped the plate clean

and I started to believe.

The bats awoke for Blanton.

(Not least of all, his own!)

The rout meant one more station

'til paradise unknown.

Game 5. Dear God. A travesty,

as history was made.

No Series game had taken

three evenings to be played.

But thanks to Mother Nature,

the agony was stretched.

We hurriedly paid bar bills,

flagged cabs, dried off, and kvetched.

By Wednesday night, forgotten,

the weather and the wait.

We sat for three more innings

and hoped to celebrate.

Geoff Jenkins knocked a double,

and J-Dub flared him in.

The Rays retied, then Burrell tried

to walk off with a grin.

So close! Another double

for Pat's last Phillies swing.

And Petey RBI'd him,

the sole important thing.

Chase Utley snared a grounder,

and then I rubbed my eyes.

He'd pump-faked Jason Bartlett,

who raced to his demise.

Our perfect closer entered,

went popup, single, steal,

then J-Dub snagged a liner

and I fell to a kneel.

I hazily remembered

my standard of success.

"Just win one more than last year..."

But still, I caved to stress.

One out, one more! I pleaded

as Hinske took his stance.

I had no clue when we'd accrue

another title chance.

Some sliders slide a little.

Some dive, explode, contort.

Brad Lidge's makes the hitters wish

they played a different sport.

So to his bread and butter

our final pitcher went.

He fooled him twice, then took time-out,

his concentration spent.

The runner danced off second.

The closer stared at home.

The batter hoped to foul him off.

The rabid fans spat foam.

A bullet fires. A flailing swing.

A mob scene at the mound.

A city spills into the streets.

An overwhelming sound.

A truly great 2008.

Those memories will keep.

But next time, in the World Series,

I'd like to see us sweep.

...

2008-11-04T20:45:00.000-08:00

There are months and years that go by in a person's life without monumental events. And in the past week, I have seen the Phillies win the World Series and Barack Obama win the White House.

I mean, really? Do I really deserve the week I've just had?

Man. I have no freakin' idea what to write right now. But trust me, something's coming in a day or two.

Phillies win the 2008 NL pennant, will go to the World Series

2008-10-15T21:50:00.000-07:00

I saw Jimmy Rollins lead off the game with a home run, then I had to work out of TV range until after the seventh, then I watched the rest in the office, gave a "Whoop!" and raced out the door to drive home and see my visiting wifetobe and have a Yuengling. I can't process this World Series thing yet, but thank you to Holly and Brian for the text-message updates while I was stuck at work. And holy crap, will I have more to write about these Phillies soon.

Couching, Wawaing, stewing, dancing, shouting, beering

2008-10-13T21:50:00.000-07:00

So I didn't blog about Game 3. Well, there really wasn't much to say, and I really didn't watch much of it because it went so bad so fast, but here's a couple of things:

Shane Victorino was absolutely right to flip out about getting the ball at his head. And guess what? So would have been Manny Ramirez in Game 2, even if you do believe Myers did it by accident. Any time a ball comes near your head (and in Manny's case it was suspicious because there were two outs and nobody on base, which is prime hit-a-slugger-in-the-noggin time), you should be upset. But if Manny didn't make a big deal about it at the time, and if Billingsley didn't retaliate that game, then it should have ended there. But no, the Dodgers waited to retaliate until they were safely back in LA, and then you had Manny Ramirez pretending he was going to fight somebody, when he'd rather shave his head instead. It's just intellectually dishonest to pretend that Victorino was overreacting -- or "wailing and whining," as the cartoonishly partisan LA Times columnists put it. Because HERE'S the point: If having someone throw at your head isn't a big deal, then WHY ARE YOU RETALIATING? What grievance are you trying to avenge? What else had we done to you besides throwing near Ramirez's head, which apparently is something you just shake off? If you're pissed off at Billingsley for ducking his responsibility, it's pathetic and transparently convenient to transfer that anger to the opposing team.
If anyone would react well to being yanked from a scheduled Game 7 playoff start, it's Jamie Moyer. He's a pro, and he'll understand. If the series gets to a Game 7, they simply can't throw him against this lineup. It has to be Blanton. Of course, at this point, if it DOES get that far, I'll have a nervous breakdown.

Anyway, Game 4. I got home from work in time to watch the final inning of the Rays' blowout of the Red Sox (hahahahaha) and then I switched to Fox for 22 minutes of pregame coverage. I had to mute it within 30 seconds. All the discussion was about the Dodgers "manning up" and Victorino and Hiroki Kuroda and the confrontation. Of course, as a news man I realize it's a story, but as a fan I always prefer game analysis to the extracurricular stuff. The first pitch couldn't arrive fast enough.

And woohoo! Three straight hits and a ground out put two on the board for Philly. Then it was 7 1/2 innings of bleeding out at various speeds, excepting Ryan Howard huffing and puffing home on a wild pitch to briefly tie the game. I drove to Wawa in the brutal sixth inning, and I became the first person in history to get the new toasted Cuban sandwich. They started offering it about an hour before. It was delicious, but I was afraid it would be the highlight of my night.

Nope. Shane Victorino slashed a tying home run into the Phillies bullpen, then pinch hitter Matt Stairs, a heavy 40-year-old journeyman lefthanded hitter whose specialty is trying to crush balls off righthanded relievers, crushed a ball off LA's best righthanded reliever. After Brad Lidge's first multi-inning appearance of the year, the Phillies had won. For the final two innings, I paced around the tiny Ocean City living room, swigging a Yuengling bottle with my right hand and holding the phone in my left. The calls and texts kept coming. I hollered a lot, and I'm glad no one else lives on this block anymore. (There are five houses on either side, and they're empty for the offseason. Across the street, one, maybe two are still occupied. Sorry, sparse neighbors.)

So unless the Dodgers win three straight games, and that is far from impossible, the Phillies will go to the World Series and I will lose my shit. I have to work Wednesday night, talking with a panel of newspaper readers after that night's presidential debate. Hopefully, I'll be able to watch the end of the game, for better or worse.

Four games, three towns, 24 hours

2008-10-11T16:16:00.000-07:00

WEST CHESTER, Pa. -- I make it to Dad's place a half-hour before game time Thursday night. I could have, maybe should have, covered a municipal meeting for the paper, but in the latest episode of a seven-month story arc, a Phillies game resulted in me giving a bit less than 100% at work. A couple of times, it's been quite a bit less. In this case, 0%. But since, as far as I know, town hall wasn't besieged by gunmen or atomic bombs or rabid Pine Barrens animals that night, I have no regrets. Fewer than too few to mention. I'm utterly regretless.

Game 1. Phillies open the seven-game National League Championship Series with the Los Angeles Dodgers, competing for the right to face the A(merican)LCS winner for all the marbles. It's the first playoff game I'm watching with someone who gives a rat's ass about the Phillies.

The previous series, Phillies-Brewers, I watched parts of Game 1 from a sports bar near work, ostensibly to interview (other) people who were skipping work to watch the early-afternoon affair. I watched the rest standing beneath a wall-mounted TV in the office, wandering away at brief intervals when I could hear or see one of my five bosses.

I knocked off work early, semi-legitimately, the next day to catch a train to the airport. I'd be flying to Louisville for a weekend with my future wife. I got to the airport three and a half hours ahead of takeoff so I could park myself in the bar for all of Game 2. The good guys won -- as they had the day before, when I cut my elbow in a klutzy spasm of exultation -- and I strolled onto the plane two minutes later.

A Ben Folds concert Saturday in the Ville took me out of viewing range -- happily, as it turned out, because Game 3 was a clunker. Sunday, I deplaned in Philly and took the seat three to the right of where I sat Thursday. In both cases, it was a mostly indifferent crowd of people from somewhere else. I caught the final four innings of the series clincher and ran to the SEPTA stop to catch my train back to the shore. It wasn't a sprint, but it was more than a jog. I got to the train with less than two minutes to spare.

Then, after a few days sans baseball, here I was, again in front of a television rooting for millionaires who live each summer in suburban Philadelphia, hoping they'd manipulate a ball and a piece of wood better than some other millionaires who spend their summers in the wide cultural wasteland of Los Angeles.

As someone who prides himself on practicality, I know that's an entirely practical characterization of sports fandom, but I've never been able to embrace it. Actually, I've never tried. I love sports, especially baseball, especially the Phillies, and I blame/credit my parents for that. Both played several sports in high school, then Dad played collegiate basketball and Mom spent years as a sportswriter. I was a baby when the Phillies won the World Series, a preschooler when the Sixers won 12 of 13 playoff games to steamroll to an NBA title, a junior-high nerd when the Phillies returned to the World Series and lost in excruciating fashion, and a college newspaper editor stuck at work when my Maryland Terrapins won their first men's basketball championship. I was also an editor stuck at work three years later, when the Eagles reached the precipice of football glory but lost the Super Bowl by a single field goal.

The nuances of baseball strategy appealed to me even as a kid, when I saw how braininess could be less of a social liability if it occasionally manifested as game analysis and recall of statistics. Of course, being too into sports is a social liability, too, but that's an anecdote for another day.

So. BACK to live action. Dad and I sit on our hands as the Dodgers scratch out a couple of runs and Derek Lowe throws vicious sinkers that the Phillies bounce harmlessly to the enemy infielders. I reheat a kielbasa and move from the recliner to the table to eat it, and within minutes a Lowe sinker is thrown too Highe, and a slumping Chase Utley unslumps himself by knocking the pitch five rows deep in the rightfield seats. Dad and I hoot and holler, and I temporarily abandon my food to reclaim the recliner and its better view of the TV. Two batters later, Pat Burrell rips a Lowe offering into the leftfield seats, forging a lead and shifting me into the-game-can't-end-soon-enough mode. Soon enough, it ends, with the capable Phillies pitchers allowing little drama. Dad and I feel as though the Phillies have stolen a win, and we definitely feel more like going through with the next morning's 7:30 tee time than we would have otherwise.

I try to go to sleep at midnight, early for me, but I'm too excited about the next day, when Mom and I will see Game 2 in person, tickets courtesy of our little corner of a multi-family season-ticket plan. I drop off around 1:30, and the alarm rouses me at 6:15. I'm unexpectedly alert.

HONEYBROOK, Pa. -- Dad and I head to a golf course I haven't played in 10 years. I'm as relaxed as you'll ever find me on a golf course; there are no crowds, no waiting and the weather is beautiful. Also, I know that unless I shoot a 75 or a 175, the round won't be my signature memory of the day.

I start off very well, but I'm rusty, and it shows within a few holes. Though I enjoy the wedge shot that finds the cup, by far the longest hole-out of my life, my 18-hole performance is otherwise just OK.

We have a great time, though, and we make great time: three hours and 15 minutes, probably the fastest full round I've played. A guy in the parking lot afterward sees Dad's Phillies cap and asks how the team did last night. It seems inconceivable to us that anyone who would care wouldn't already know.

After lunch, I shower and pull on my red Ryan Howard T-shirt at Mom's. She buys the gray Chase Utley equivalent at the Exton Mall, and we zoom off toward the city.

PHILADELPHIA -- It's not the normal regular-season scene outside the ballpark. Booths everywhere, for radio promotions and facepainting and whatnot. A massive archway of red and white balloons over 11th Street, where the band Mister Green Genes plays covers and incites chants of "BEAT L.A.!" The music is way too loud, and my ribcage shudders. None of this is what we came for. We don't need Mister Green Genes to fire us up for this game. We need to grab beers, find our seats and then stand up in front of them, waving rally towels. And this is what we do, after Mom sends my Mets-fan brother-in-law a cellphone picture of the grass-painted NLCS logo and former Phillie Jim Eisenreich sends a ceremonial pitch down the middle.

The Dodgers again strike first by stringing together two hits and a well-placed ground ball, but the Phillies answer earlier than in Game 1. Five straight hits include a healthy line drive from the usually weak-hitting pitcher Brett Myers, and the Phillies lead 4-1 after two innings.

It's a frenzied atmosphere, and my biggest problem is deciding whether to clap or wave my towel. At most games, i.e. regular-season games, they don't hand out rally towels, so you always clap, stand and clap, clap when there are two strikes to urge our pitcher to throw a third one. The other problem with the towel is that when our whirling towels weren't colliding, we were accidentally whipping each other in the head. Rally-towel protocol is tough to master, and the historically inept Phillies have afforded us few opportunities to practice it.

If you hold the thing at the very corner and use a wide swing path, you look like a drunken cattle wrangler who's gotten hold of the bartender's dishtowel. Hold too much of it or swing too discreetly, and you look like the guy at the next stool, signaling for the bartender to bring the check. I try all the methods and see all the methods, and frankly, I don't think anyone else gives a shit what they look like. Sometimes baseball ISN'T a "thinking man's game" ... just wave the towel, asshole.

An inning later, I do, a lot. An improbable Brett Myers single is again the centerpiece of a four-run rally, and the Phillies are on top, 8-2. The Dodgers take the rare step of changing pitchers three times in one inning, and we are brimming with confidence. This would be a blowout, and we could relax and enjoy the atmosphere. How smart we were, to become fans of this team that was so obviously superior to any other! Kudos all around!

Then the most universally infuriating player in baseball makes it 8-5. Home run, Manny Ramirez. Everyone sits down in our section. Everyone is silent. Everyone but the man behind me, one of what seems like a maximum of 7 Dodger fans in the entire 45,000-seat stadium.

"8-5 ballgame! 8-5 ballgame! Yeah baby, woooo! Mann-eeeeeeee!" he hollers, breaking his long sullen silence. I remind myself that there are laws against strangulation, and I picture a comeback win for the Dodgers and wonder whether everyone he encountered between his seat and his car in the parking lot would remember that those laws exist.

Still, we are winning, 8-5, which is generally a good thing. But never have I felt so uncomfortable about a three-run lead. A fatigued Myers (and we later learned he sprained his ankle running the bases) soon departs, leaving the Phillies bullpen, an admitted strength, to retire 12 Dodgers without surrendering three runs. Again, a good position to be in. But you'd never know it from the mid-inning atmosphere.

The crowd becomes less willing to urge the pitchers on, more annoyed at the flailing swing-and-a-misses of the frustrated Ryan Howard. J.C. Romero and Ryan Madson put two runners on base with two outs in the top of the seventh inning. Dodger Boy is crowing again as Casey Blake steps in, knowing a home run would tie the game.

Blake unloads on a Madson pitch. It's a bullet to dead center field, and I stop breathing for four seconds. Then I see what Shane Victorino's doing. He's not just watching it. He's shuffling his feet on a path toward the wall, holding his right arm behind him to feel for it as he raises his glove hand and his gaze straight up.

He gets all the way to the wall, and for an instant I'm disappointed in him. How could you give me false hope, Shane Victorino? Is this ball really going to leave the ballpark, even after you convinced me you might catch it?

Then the short Hawaiian dude becomes my new hero, leaping and snaring the ball. The stadium ... I know it's tacky to say this about a building, but really, the stadium EXPLODES. The effect is enhanced because it is deathly silent in one moment and bedlam in the next. My scream leaves me unable to use the upper register of my voice in singing along with "God Bless America" 30 seconds later. (A quick aside: People often say "God Bless America" is a much more suitable national anthem to "The Star-Spangled Banner" because it's much easier to sing and therefore more likely to have everyone sing along. So here's a tip, lead singers of GBA: The song has a very recognizable cadence, and if you don't use it, if you veer all over the place with crazy stylistic inflection, it's difficult to sing along. Uncool!)

I visit the bathroom for the second time in the eighth inning, as Madson tries to lock down the sixth-to-last, fifth-to-last and fourth-to-last outs. On my way back, I notice the game is on TVs inside, and a strange calm envelops me. I stand under one of them, like I did at work for the first of these excruciating experiences. A security guard standing three feet away is also watching, and he notices me.

"Is everything OK, sir?"

God knows what kind of angsty look is on my face. I reply, "I don't know what it is, man, but for right now, watching the game on TV is less stressful than watching it in there," gesturing to the 45,000 expensive seats.

He laughs and says he understands. Then we see Madson get the second out of the inning and we cheer, and I go back to my seat, because really, what is there to worry about? Plummeting stocks and moronic campaigns for the presidency and questionable career paths are things to worry about. I'm at a baseball game, attending my first Phillies playoff game, and they're winning. As the other people in my section told Dodger Boy: "SIDDOWN!"

I siddown. Despite my attempt to keep things in perspective, I am nervous. So is Mom. Soon, it's the top of the ninth. We're standing with our arms folded, staring holes through the stretch of real estate between Brad Lidge's back and Carlos Ruiz's front. Can't clap, can't wave towels, although by the looks of things we're the only ones. The crowd is cheering wildly for every Lidge slider, and so am I, in my head. (Crash course: A fastball goes generally straight and is fast. A curveball breaks down, sometimes to the side, too, but is generally slow. A slider is their love child, and Brad Lidge indisputably throws the most devastating, unhittable one in Major League Baseball.) Softly, I spit out, "come on brad ... slider down, slider down ... come on buddy ..."

Lidge wisely pitches around Ramirez and James Loney, the two most dangerous hitters in the heart of the L.A. lineup. He works in a clutch strikeout of Ethier, then gets the impetuous Matt Kemp swinging. Then Nomar Garciaparra steps to the plate with two outs and two men on base. An out would, as erstwhile announcer Scott Graham loved to say, "put this one in the win column for the Fightin' Phils!" A home run would tie the game. Anything in between, and I'll have to make a third trip to the bathroom.

Garciaparra shares one thing, and maybe only one thing, with Brett Myers: Both LOVE to swing at first-pitch fastballs. I mentally instruct Lidge not to throw heat to Garciaparra. Even in my fantasy state of mind, I know it's unnecessary, because even more than usual, Lidge has relied on his slider in this series. Indeed, he deals two nasty ones to Garciaparra, who can do nothing with them. So it's an 0-2 count.

Here's how I'd characterize the biggest cheers from this game:

-When each of Brett Myers' first two RBI singles landed safely, the noise was just the noise of thousands of people hollering excitedly, maybe a crowd at a massive wet-T-shirt contest. (The ONE THING they didn't have at the pregame festivities! Although they did have a massive T-shirt, a 15-foot-tall inflatable replica jersey that fans could sign with Sharpies. I did, but the only available marker was purple. WTF?)

-When Victorino caught Casey Blake's moon shot in the seventh, it was a movie moment ... think the raptor poking his head through the wall behind Laura Dern in Jurassic Park, or the alien pilot's body armor bursting open in Independence Day. A sudden burst of earsplitting screams from the patrons, followed by slightly softer sustained screams, followed by a few moments of them holding hands to their chests and panting, "Oh my God ... ohhh, my GOD, did that just scare the shit out of me."

-When Lidge has gotten Garciaparra to 0-2 and is looking into Ruiz for the next sign, the noise itself is startling. The best comparison I can think of is a jet engine. When people shout, "Whooo!", they generally use as high a voice as they comfortably can, and yet the combination of all our efforts produces a low rumble, too. I've attended hundreds of sporting events, many of them crucial to the outcome of a team's season. I've seen a Democratic president speak in the most reliably Democratic county in the United States. I've seen dozen of concerts, stood next to giant speakers in tiny venues. And still, I have never heard a noise to rival The Count Is 0-2 On Nomar Garciaparra.

Lidge doesn't make us make the noise twice. He fires a third slider, Garciaparra waves at it, and that is that. We cheer again, but it's softer than before the strikeout. There's no goal to it, it's a celebratory cheer. The Phillies have won the first two games, and they just need to win two of their next five to reach the World Series. We know this. We're already picturing a sweep, imagining Jamie Moyer frustrating the L.A. youngsters with slowballs in Game 3 and a short-rested Derek Lowe succumbing to a Ryan Howard resurgence in Game 4.

We stay at our posts a few extra moments instead of filing out with the "That was great! Now run like hell to the car so we don't sit in the parking lot for an hour!" crowd. I dance stupidly to "Cellllllllllllllll-uh-brate-good-times-COME-ON!" Then it's time to amble across the street to the Sixers preseason game, where a Phillies ticket stub is good for free admission, an offer we and the ticket-takers immediately see was advertised in Belligerent Drunk Digest. We wait in line while the staff assigns seats.

We're in the upper deck in a corner, and it's near the end of the third quarter, but it's better than sitting in traffic. Plus, my cousin finds us. He and my uncle and their friends were at the Phils game, too, and we relive the big moments as the Knicks and Sixers play fast-paced, relatively sloppy basketball. It's over within a half-hour, a six-point loss for the home team, and we're ready to try our luck on the highway.

There's not much traffic once we squeeze out onto Broad Street, then I-95. A pizza is ordered from the road and devoured at Mom's place (I hadn't had an appetite since lunch), and suddenly I'm acutely aware how long I've been awake and walking/club-swinging/screaming/towel-waving/seat-pounding/driving. Zzzzzzz.

It's 24 hours later now, and I'm sore from the golf. I'm scratchy-throated from cheering; as my niece Lea would complain: "Sand in mouth! Sand in mouth!" But I'm feeling lucky to have watched big Phillies wins with Mom and Dad, happy to have connected with other family and friends by phone during the games. Sports are historically unimportant this fall, compared to everything else, and that's as it should be. But still, if the Phillies win six more games, I wouldn't miss that Broad Street parade for anything. The Bermudan Air Force could fly over here and carpet-bomb Atlantic City, or all the blueberry crops in South Jersey could turn to dust, but if you think I'm going to work to write about it that day, you're crazy.

44 solid moments of Big Lebowski dialogue

2008-08-18T04:55:00.000-07:00

Delivered in chronological order, with, where appropriate, explanations of why I like them ...

1) Stranger: "Now, 'Dude' ... that's a name no one would self-apply where I come from."
Cowboys who hyphenate appropriately and conveniently. I don't know about you, but I take comfort in that.

2) Woo (peeing on the Dude's rug): "Ever thus to deadbeats, Lebowski."
Poetic cynicism from a guy holding his johnson.

3) Other Treehorn Flunky (holding bowling ball): "What the fuck is this?"
Dude: "Obviously, you're not a golfer."
This line fills me to the brim with a weird jealousy, because I would love to respond disdainfully to a dumbass robber who just gave me a swirly. Beyond that, whenever I hold a ball the way OTF holds the ball here, I picture this exchange. It's a sickness.

4) Woo:"He looks like a fuckin' loser."
Dude: "Hey, at least I'm housebroken."

5) Dude: "Walter, the Chinaman who peed on my rug ... I can't go give him a bill! So what the fuck are you talking about?"
Walter: "What the fuck are YOU talking about? The Chinaman is not the issue here, Dude! I'm talking about drawing a line in the sand, Dude. 'Across this line, you do not...' Also, Dude, 'Chinaman' is not the preferred nomenclature. Asian-American, please."
Dude: "Walter, this isn't a guy who built the railroads here."
Obviously the snap-quick change from manufactured fury to patronizing political correctness. And also, the idea that the Dude would somehow be less likely to call a 19th-century railroad builder a "Chinaman" than he would Woo.

6) Walter: "Jeff Lebowski! The other Jeffrey Lebowski! The millionaire!"
Dude: "That's fucking interesting, man, that's fucking interesting."
It's all the pose from the Dude. I can't even describe it.

7) Dude: (indicating photograph of the Little Lebowski Urban Achievers, whose ethnicities vary) "These are, uh..."
Brandt: "Oh, those are Mr. Lebowski's children, so to speak."
Dude: "Different mothers, huh?"
Brandt: "No, they're not..."
Dude: "Racially, he's pretty cool?"
Brandt losing control of the interaction with the Dude.

8) Lebowski: "Do you speak English, sir? Parla usted ingles?"
Parla is Italian, usted ingles is Spanish. Next.

9) Dude: "Wait, let me ex -- let me explain something to you. I am not Mr. Lebowski. You're Mr. Lebowski. I'm the Dude, so that's what you call me. You know, uh, that or 'His Dudeness,' or 'Duder,' or 'El Duderino,' if you're not into the whole brevity thing."
The reference to brevity as some fresh conversational trend. I don't know, maybe it's the phrase "El Duderino" that gets me instead.

10) Lebowski: "I didn't blame anyone for the loss of my legs. Some Chinaman took them from me in Korea."
Chinaman. Korea. NEXT!

11) Lebowski: "Oh, 'fuck it!' Yes, that's your answer! That's your answer to everything! Tattoo it on your forehead!"
Telling someone "That's your answer to everything!" as though you've known them for years, not five minutes. Also, TBL drops the "h" in forehead.

12) Bunny: "Uli doesn't care about anything. He's a nihilist."
Dude: "Oh, that must be exhausting."
Used to be, this was funny because it's simply a funny line, if maybe a bit overreenacted by film fans who've had a few beers (guilty). It's additionally funny because I have a hard time believing Tara Reid is in any way different from her character here.

13) Dude: "You brought a fucking Pomeranian bowling?"
Walter: "What do you mean, 'brought it bowling'? I didn't rent it shoes. I'm not buying it a fucking beer. He's not taking your fucking turn, Dude."

14) Walter: "Smokey, this is not 'Nam, this is bowling. There are rules."
I almost didn't cite this one. I don't love it. But Walter's exasperated voice sells it.

15) Dude: "And you know, he's got emotional problems, man."
Walter: "You mean, beyond pacifism?"
Ditto here for his incredulity.

16) Lebowski: "Are you surprised at my tears, sir?"
Dude (smoking a joint): "Fuckin' A!"
I can't think of a better expression to torpedo the grim atmosphere a man establishes when he summons you to a fireside to report his wife's kidnapping.

17) Dude: "He thinks the carpet pissers did this?"
Brandt: "Well, Dude, we just don't know."
Brandt caves and calls him Dude, the politically expedient thing to do.

18) Dude: "It's all a goddamn fake, man. It's like Lenin said: you look for the person who will benefit, and, uh, you know..."
Donny: "'I am the walrus.'"
Dude: "... you know, you'll, uh ... you know what I'm trying to say..."
Donny: "'I am the walrus.'"
Walter: "That fucking bitch!"
Dude: "Oh yeah!"
Donny: "'I am the walrus.'"
Walter: "That's exa -- Shut the fuck up, Donny! V.I. Lenin! Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov!"
Gold.

19) Quintana: "Are you ready to be fucked, man? I see you roll your way into the semis ... dios mio, man. Liam and me, we're gonna fuck you up."
Dude: "Yeah, well, you know, that's just, like, uh, your opinion, man."
Quintana (to Walter, whose unimpressed gaze never breaks): "Lemme tell YOU somethin', pendejo! You pull any of your crazy shit with us, you flash a piece out on the lanes, I'll take it away from you and stick it up your ass and pull the fuckin' trigger 'til it goes 'click.'"
Dude: "Jesus."
Quintana: "You said it, man. Nobody fucks with the Jesus." (leaves)
Walter (finally turns): "Eight-year-olds, Dude."
You just want so desperately for Walter to say something to Jesus. Two guys who are polar opposites in every way, save for their shared love of violent threats.
And, yeah, Liam. Liam as Jesus's bowling partner. If they got a beer afterward, would they talk bowling? Would they talk about women? Is Liam a pervert, too?

20) Dude (inspecting the unsolicited "ringer"): "What the hell is this?"
Walter: "My dirty undies, Dude. Laundry. The whites!"
Walter's face afterward ... a self-satisfied genius, silently braying like a donkey.

21) Dude: "That's a great plan, Walter. Fuckin' ingenious, if I understand it correctly. That's a Swiss fuckin' watch."

22) Cop: "In the briefcase?"
Dude: "Papers, just papers, you know, my business papers."
Cop: "And what do you do, sir?"
Dude: "I'm unemployed."
Do what you want, but I laugh out loud, every time.

23) Maude: "Do you like sex, Mr. Lebowski?"
Dude: "Excuse me?"
Maude: "Sex, the physical act of love, coitus. Do you like it?"
Dude: "I was talking about my rug."
Maude: "You're not interested in sex?"
Dude: "You mean, coitus?"
Again, the Dude quickly regurgitates someone else's phraseology ("This aggression will not stand, man!") And of course that repeats itself later, "in the parlance of our time"...

24) Maude (turning off the porn movie Logjammin') "You can imagine where it goes from here."
Dude: "He fixes the cable?"
Maude: "Don't be fatuous, Jeffrey."
Julianne Moore's Transatlantic accent breaks me up on "fatuous," a world I can never hear without thinking of fatness. Why can't I get past that?

25) Dom: "So he says, 'My wife's a pain in the ass, she's always busting my friggin' agates. My daughter's married to a jagool loser bastard. I got a rash so bad on my ass I can't even sit down. But you know me, I can't complain.'" (cracks up)
Dude (drinking a White Russian): "Fuckin' A, man. I got a rash, man."
Nothing is purer than the bliss of a drunk utterly missing the point.

26) Dude (being wrestled into a limo): "Careful, man, there's a beverage here!"
"Beverage" always makes me laugh, in this movie and elsewhere, because it's so unnecessary. Drink. Drink drink drink. That didn't seem tough.

27) Dude (as marmot-tamers break in): "Hey, this is a private residence, man!"
Somehow, even the neutral word "residence" seems too classy for his house.

28) Walter: "Fucking Nazis."
Donny: "They were Nazis, Dude?"
Walter: "Oh come on, Donny, they were threatening castration! Are we going to split hairs here?"
As he developed his hurried, flimsy hypothesis, he came up with an equally flimsy defense. He'd be a great press secretary.

29) Walter (flummoxed): "Nihilists. ... Fuck me. I mean, say what you want about the tenets of National Socialism, Dude ... at least it's an ethos."
A Jew so in need for rules and structure that he finds himself more able to understand the Nazis than people who believe in nothing. "OVER THE LINE!"

30) Dude: "I don't need your fucking sympathy, man, I need my fucking johnson."
Donny: "What do you need that for, Dude?"

31) Knox Harrington: "Do you want a drink?"
Dude: "Yeah, sure. White Russian."
Harrington: "The bar's over there. So what do you do, Lebowski?"
Dude: "Who the fuck are you, man?"
Harrington (giggles): "Just a friend of Maudy's."
Dude: "Yeah? A friend with a cleft asshole?"
A mix of absurdity and ball-breaking between two complete strangers.

32) Maude: "Uli? Her co-star in the beaver picture?"
Dude: "Beaver? ... You mean, vagina? ... I mean, you know the guy?"

33) Walter: "He's in north Hollywood, on Radford, near the In-N-Out Burger."
Dude: "No, the In-N-Out Burger's on Camrose."
Walter: "NEAR the In-N-Out Burger."
Donny: "Those are good burgers, Walter."
Walter: "Shut the fuck up, Donny."
Donny tees it up for Senor Sobchak. And all this, of course, with Dude's landlord's modern dance fiasco in the background.

34) Walter: "Fucking Arthur Digby Sellers wrote 156 episodes. Bulk of the series. Not exactly a lightweight."
Every time I watch this movie, I walk away resolving to find a reason to use the phrase "bulk of the series" in casual conversation. So far, nothing.

35) Walter: "And a good day to you, sir!"
Shouting, unprompted, to a man in an iron lung 20 feet away.

36) Jackie Treehorn: "New technology permits us to do very exciting things in interactive erotic software. Wave of the future, Dude. One hundred percent electronic!"
Dude: "Yeah, well, I still jerk off manually."
Jackie (laughs, slaps Dude's knee): "Of course you do."
Who can find nostalgic camaraderie in the topic of if not a senior-citizen porn magnate?

37) Jackie: "Refill?"
Dude: "Yeah, pope shit in the woods?"

38) Dude: "So, if you would just write me a check for my 10 percent of half a million ... five grand ..." (stumbles drunkenly)

39) Stranger: "Darkness worshed over the Dude ... darker than a black steer's tuchus on a moonless prairie night. There was no bottom."
Other than the steer's tuchus.

40) Police chief: "Mr. Treehorn tells us that he had to eject you from his garden party, that you were drunk and abusive."
Dude (muffled, face down on chief's desk): "Mr. Treehorn treats objects like women, man!"
Whether it's the golfer line or the latter half of this exchange, you're talking about a quote that various circles of my friends would forfeit a half-mile of intestines each never to hear escape my lips again.

41) Dude: "How're you gonna keep 'em down on the farm once they've seen Karl Hungus?"
As far as I can tell, the strangest and most overlooked line in the film.

42) Walter: "The man in the black pajamas, Dude ... worthy fuckin' adversary."

43) Quintana: "HEY! What's this day-of-rest shit? What's this bullshit? I don't fuckin' care ... it don't matter to Jesus! But you not foolin' me, man. You might fool the fucks in the league office, but you don't fool Jesus. It's bush-league psych-out stuff. Laughable, man ... ha HAAA! I would've fucked in you in the ass Saturday. I'll fuck you in the ass next Wednesday instead. (thrusts pelvis) WOOO! You've got a date Wednesday, baby!"
Bush-league scenery-chewing stuff, UNTIL ... the pelvic thrust accompanied by the WOOO! And I found something innately funny in the word "Wednesday" here.

44) Stranger: "'The Dude abides.' I don't know about you, but I take comfort in that. It's good knowing he's out there ... the Dude ... takin' 'er easy for all us sinners. Shucks."

Thangs

2008-05-27T20:24:00.000-07:00

-After a third of the season, the Phillies are 30-24, on pace for 90 wins, one more than they got last year when they won the division. However, they're 1.5 games behind Florida at the moment.

-Holly got that nonsense with Super 8 straightened out. Night clerk didn't know from whence she spoke, but day clerk did. Whew.

-Had my co-best men in this weekend. Beach, hoops, putt-putt, beer, cards ... tough row to hoe.

-Hadn't ridden a bike in years, then Friday I rode 19 miles from my apartment to my extended family's beach house in Ocean City. Ow, muscles. And ow, sunburn, because I'm a sunblock-forgetting doofus.

-I played a little poker at the Borgata Monday night, and one player at my table displayed a simply stunning lack of judgment.
The game is $2/$4 limit, and if you don't know what that means, all you need to know in this context is that you can't put in all your money at once, only $2 or $4 at a time. It's unusual to see more than three or four raises in a row, because usually one person thinks, "Hey, maybe my hand isn't the best possible hand," but these guys raised FORTY times in a row. It took 20 minutes. When one of them finally ran out of money, the hands were shown, and while one guy had the best possible hand, the other guy had NOWHERE CLOSE to the best possible hand.
(If you're a poker person: board was three spades and two non-spade 7s. Winner had (duh) four 7s, the best possible hand. Loser apparently didn't see board was paired, because he didn't have any kind of full house. He had a flush. Uh-huh. And he lost $180 on it. In a 2-4 hand. Uh-huh.)

-Two seconds ago, Marv Albert just said on TV: "The Lakers have been invincible at home ... that doesn't mean that they're unbeatable ..."
Um. Doesn't it?

I don't think so

2008-05-26T22:29:00.001-07:00

Super 8's trying to mess with my fiancee, charging her more than she was quoted for her monthlong stay (for rural medicine rotation) and putting her in a smoking room despite her long-ago request otherwise. Bleep all that bleep, Tommy Lasorda would say.

Bad day for quadripeds

2008-05-04T12:38:00.001-07:00

Two hours after Eight Belles was euthanized at Churchill Downs, my car collided with a deer, killing it.

Saturday evening, I was driving south in rural Chester County from one friend's party to another's, 50 mph in a 45 zone, something like that. No twilight left, scarce street lamps, acres and acres of fields and forest on either side of the road.

Holly and I were chatting on the phone when I cut a sentence short with a noise she at first took for a cough. It was actually a blend of a scream and a holler - "AWGH!"

If it were a film, the deer would have appeared for one frame, like those subliminal messages they used to splice into movies, "Drink Pepsi" or whatthehellever. But even in that one frame, I could tell it had sprinted toward my car diagonally from my 10:00 or 10:30. WHOMP.

I pulled the car off the road and hurriedly got off with Holly after assuring her I was OK. Which I was and am ... no soreness or anything.

I didn't really know what to do, having never hit a deer or anticipated doing so. I figured I should check out the damage to the car and the deer, and since I was about a hundred yards from the deer and had no veterinary supplies with me, it seemed OK to give the car a look-see first.

It was inconceivable. The car was 99.44% intact. No scratches, no dents; windows all unbroken and obeying the up and down switches, doors all worked. The only casualty was my sideview mirror, which was simply gone. Three wires were sticking out there, but the mirror itself and the whole casing, whatever you call it, was MIA.

I processed all this (just the lack of dents and the absent mirror; I fiddled with latches and switches later) in a second, then jogged back to where the deer was, but I could see from the car that it was still, lying perfectly parallel to the road on the double yellow center line.

I got closer and felt a little better when I saw that it wasn't twitching or anything. My best guess: it slammed its head on my mirror and died instantly. That's an 80 mph collision, 50 from me and probably 30 from him/her.

I didn't want to look directly at the dead deer, but I'm pretty sure it was a doe because I probably would remember antlers. My car certainly would.

I'm not in the business of touching bleeding wild animals with ungloved hands, and I worried that another car could hit the deer and get in another accident, so I called 911. Once they found out I and the car were OK, they seemed most interested in finding out exactly how many yards south of the cross street I was, because I was near a township boundary. I gave it my best guess and got off the phone, waiting for the police officer they said would come and take a crash report.

I had no idea whether it would be worth it to file a report -- the cost of replacing a sideview mirror probably won't approach my insurance deductible -- but I used the wait time to settle down, too.

Ten minutes later, a truck coming north slowed and pulled to the shoulder when it saw the deer. I figured this was a municipal employee of some sort who'd been enlisted to drag the carcass out of the road; it was about the amount of time I'd expected the response to take. But then as the guy appeared to be hauling the deer into the bed of his truck -- gross -- a southbound police officer stopped his car and told the guy to leave it. I guess it was just some dude who wanted deer jerky for the rest of the summer.

Cop then chatted with me (turned out he knows several people who apparently still work at my former paper in the area) and took a report, and I got out of there. I stopped at the homestead to get swim trunks and switch to the family's utility car, a Jeep, for the short trip to the other (hot tub) party.

This morning, Mom and I drove back to the crash site and found my mirror. It had sailed over the car and landed on the passenger side of the road. Couldn't find the glass, but the casing and the mechanical piece that moves the glass were there. I'll come back next weekend to get some body-work estimates; I'm using the Jeep in the meantime.

I still can't believe my luck. If you can find someone who crashed into a deer and has less to complain about than me, good for you. If the running deer had angled five degrees to its left, or if it had been faster, or if it had had antlers, or if I hadn't worn a seat belt, or if I had been some drunk nitwit straddling the median, it would have been disaster.

You can say I shouldn't have been on the phone in a known deer area, and, OK, I guess. But I had zero chance to see the deer earlier than I did, in the complete dark, and once I saw the deer it was as close to the car as you are to your computer's monitor.

The fact is, on roads like this, there's pretty much nothing you can do. Deer are everywhere. They cross the road all the time. They're hunger-emboldened (or full and stupid) so they scamper right in front of cars all the time. I travel the Garden State Parkway frequently, too, and I have almost never not seen deer milling around in the median or shoulder.

Anyway, I figured if I didn't blog about this, I might as well delete the damned thing. Glad to be back. Be careful out there, folks.

Eggshells everywhere

2008-03-11T22:00:00.000-07:00

Not my preferred terrain for a stroll.

In non-metaphorical news, the A-10 hoops tourney is at Boardwalk Hall in AC this weekend, Holly's in town the next weekend, and my fantasy baseball draft is the weekend after that. And a lot of work in between.

"So I told him ...

2008-03-04T21:20:00.000-08:00

'Don't get your panties in an uproar!'"

Mom and I were eating at a diner a while ago and the two guys at the adjacent booth were talking. Not shouting, not even talking particularly loudly, just loudly enough that we couldn't help overhear what they were saying. And I almost choked on my pancakes when the one guy said that.

For my money, that's a mixed metaphor too good not to use again. I thought of it just now while watching a "Sports Night" episode wherein Dan asks Casey, "Can I spread it out for you in a nutshell?" (Not effectively, no.)

Bloggintine

2008-02-16T08:06:00.000-08:00

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Did I mention how much I hate titling blog posts?

Anyway, here I am! I'm writing from the kitchen table of my new place. It's somewhat more divided than a studio, more suburban than an apartment, more private than an in-law suite and almost certain to have once been a garage.

It's not Shangri-La, it doesn't compare to our home in Louisville, but it is nice. It actually is nice, despite the amalgamated description in the last paragraph.

It's three rooms, all nicely separated. Bathroom, living room, kitchen. By the way, the count is: two TV's, zero bedrooms. There was a 6-inch TV on a corner ledge in the kitchen when I got here.

The place is attached to the side of a top-and-bottom duplex in the far south end of Brigantine, an island reachable by car in only one way: a bridge from the Atlantic City marina district, home to Borgata, Harrah's and (ugh) Trump Marina.

Top floor is my landlady (is it strange that that term sounds even stranger than the equally antiquated "landlord"?) and her kids, bottom floor is another tenant and his kids. The house is about 200 meters from the beach and 100 meters from the bay (a fishing hotbed) between the island and Atlantic City.

Holly has the digital camera, so no pictures for now.

I'm on a three-month lease until May 15 with a mutual option to renew, and I'm pretty certain I'll try to renew unless she bumps up the rent for the summer. I'm also pretty certain I would love to not have to move again anytime soon. I'm entirely certain I would not like to spend another month as untethered as the one that just passed, although my aunt and uncle in Stone Harbor were fantastically hospitable.

I guess that's it for now. I'm going to do some grocery shopping, etc., then go for a run.

Got a place

2008-02-10T14:17:00.001-08:00

In Brigantine.

Whew.

Sigh... so true...

2008-02-10T14:13:00.001-08:00

More xkcd

2008-02-08T21:40:00.001-08:00

I hate titling blog posts

2008-02-08T21:33:00.001-08:00

Three weeks in, and the job's going well, not great. The first week, I barely did anything b/c of orientation and so forth. The second week, I was named the company's writer of the week. The third week, I again couldn't write a thing to save my life. On balance, it'd be better to string together a lot of solid weeks than to go through this haphazard hot-and-cold nonsense.

Still don't have a place to live, but I visited some places Friday and will do so again Saturday. I would pretty much sell my soul for a slightly above average living situation at this point.

Pitchers and catchers report in just a few days...

xkcd.com

2008-01-28T19:21:00.001-08:00

"Tell me where you are, Josh!"

2008-01-27T17:46:00.000-08:00

Bwahaha. Seems like Blair Witch Project was just yesterday.

But no, just yesterday was Cloverfield, which Holly and I saw and which I'm glad we saw several hours before bedtime. Gadzooks. I didn't get motion sick or even close, but I was thoroughly unsettled. I recommend it anyway.

... So I'm living at the shore with my aunt and uncle in Stone Harbor until I theoretically become allowed to move into my room in a Brigantine beach house with two other twentysomethings. It's owned by a guy who has zero role in the rental; that's what he pays a local realtor for. But for some reason, 10 days after I applied to take over a departed tenant's lease, it hasn't yet been accepted because the owner still retains veto power over lease changes and either: A) the realtor hasn't gotten ahold of him to get approval, or B) the realtor HAS gotten ahold of him and he's just not bothering to produce an answer. For that, I say: GFY, landlord man.

That said, I still want to live there. It's a relaxed but adult living situation, it's affordable, it's in an ubersafe area and it's two blocks from a great beach. And it's 15 minutes from work and 5 minutes from an 18-hole links course uptown. So I can swallow my pride and frustration, as long as this thing gets resolved professionally and cordially. Otherwise, I'm back on the market.

... The job is good. More responsibility and money, but more to do, and it was a stressful first week.

... Holly was in for 36 hours this weekend, and it was fantastic to have her here. We saw the movie, toured Brigantine, got some Wawa there and got a nice dinner in Cape May. Also played Guitar Hero at Duc's. It sucked to put her on a train back to civilization (Louisville) but I'll head out there in a month and we'll keep stringing visits together until it's wedding time.

In the meantime, I've got a few weekends to fill, so I'm on the prowl for cheap non-gambling entertainment in the AC-Philly pipeline. If you've got any suggestions, lay 'em on me.

Well, that was a first

2008-01-07T20:58:00.000-08:00

It's 11:15 p.m., I'm driving home from work. I'm on Broadway in Louisville, three blocks from our apartment building. As I cross Sixth Street, a cop car with a siren on goes sailing past in the opposite direction, but I don't really notice. I coast to the red light at Fifth in the left lane, with another car to my right and a car to his right.

Then in a half-second, I see three cop cars pull up behind us and two more cut us off from the front. All with sirens blazing, all squealing to a halt at the same moment. The officers in the two front cruisers, in one motion, jump out of the driver-side doors and point don't-even-think-about-it guns at the car next to me.

"Put your hands where I can see 'em!"

The guy does -- thanks, hoss, very much appreciated by those of us trying to avoid peeing our pants -- then he gets out of the car five seconds later and another officer handcuffs him. I sit there for another minute or two, sporting Sailor Moon saucer eyes, until the one cop moves his car out of my way and waves me the hell out of there.

So I can check that off my to-do list: be pinned in by police cars and shiny guns. Word.

The tightening noose

2008-01-06T22:14:00.000-08:00

I've been telling people that this move to Jersey is bittersweet, and that's true, but this week I'm afraid I'll be consumed by the bitter. I'm stressed about having to sell my car, find a new apartment, finish my projects in Indiana, pack most everything I own and say goodbye to my girl.

Man, I would like to get the tough stuff over with, but I also can't get past a desire to procrastinate and stretch my last week out for the good stuff.

God help us

2008-01-03T18:32:00.000-08:00

Mike Huckabee, the presumptive Republican nominee for president? Please, no. Well chosen, Iowa. Dummies.

Obama won for the Democrats, which I don't know how I feel about. I'm far from picking my horse in that race.

Luckily, two of my nine favorite days in the sports calendar are at hand: NFL wild-card Saturday and Sunday. The other seven are NFL divisional Saturday and Sunday, the first four days of March Madness (48 games) and baseball's Opening Day.

Ill communication

2007-12-18T11:50:00.000-08:00

The better half has left on a jet plane back east, so I'm here solo (with the two furry little monsters) for eight days, until I, too, fly east to join her and my family for four days of belated Christmas.

Solo and sick. I've been coughing for a week and a half, which means I'm a couple days away from investigating whether I actually have a thing, not just another of the umpteen December colds I've had in my life. The only benefit is that sickness forces me to wake up early and go to bed early, habits I have difficulty embracing when there's no one here to so encourage me.

But this'll be good practice for the upcoming long-distance-relationship stint. I'm prowling for apartments ... we'll soon see if anyone at the new job is in the market for a low-impact roommate. I forgot how much more expensive rent is away from Louisville. Ugh.

Remember me?

2007-12-13T17:12:00.000-08:00

Tall, dark, bad at blogging? At your service.

I think that I kept putting off blogging because nothing was really going on. But now something's going on: I got a new job. I'm leaving Horseopolis for South Jersey, to report for the Press of Atlantic City. I start Jan. 20.

No, Holly didn't kick me to the curb. We always figured that the not-really-booming journalism job market meant that once it got reasonably close to the time when she'd begin moving around the country for fourth-year rotations anyway, I should pursue an attractive job in the Philadelphia area, which is where we want to settle. Who knows when the next one would come up?

Well, this job caught my eye, I chatted with the editor, liked what I heard, liked what I saw when I visited, and when they made me an offer today, I took it. I'll try to room with a new colleague or somebody else, or find a cheap studio. And we'll look for a roommate for Holly in Louisville, possibly another med student.

It's an exciting and bittersweet development. Louisville took a few months to grow on me, but I've long since thought of it as home. I enjoy my current job, I have friends and a wonderful home life with my bride-to-be. But I have friends and family back east, I think I'll enjoy my next job immensely, and the long-distance-relationship stint coming up has an end date to it.

So there you go. The blog is back. Discuss.

Oh well

2007-10-07T08:10:00.000-07:00

The Phillies turned in a dispiriting showing against the Rockies in the NLDS. Three games, three losses, zero offense.

But hey. I didn't truly think the Phillies would make the playoffs until the last weekend of the season. Their pitching was a mess. It's hard to believe that they could not only get to the playoffs with that pitching, but also manage to pitch better than they hit once they got there.

I'm proud of the team for a brilliant final two weeks of September and a hard-fought season the whole way. Hopefully, with a few offseason additions and subtractions, they can go a little farther next year.

That's the reality of being a fan. Unless your team wins the World Series, everybody gets around to saying "Wait til next year" at some point in October. I'm glad I got a one-week reprieve this year.

Sinking like a stone

2007-10-06T02:26:00.000-07:00

Ugh. The Phillies are really testing the limits of my willingness to accept merely a playoff berth.

I don't think I'll be watching Game 3 tonight. But if they win Game 3, I will watch the idiotically timed 10 p.m.-Sunday Game 4.

How it happened

2007-09-30T19:15:00.000-07:00

I stalled before the games started Sunday, watching Silence of the Lambs.

Lovely stuff: "His pulse never got above 85, not even when he ate her tongue."

My pulse was closer to 4,000, and I was ready to eat my own tongue. The Phillies and Mets were tied for the division lead with one game to play each.

I commandeered my lovely, understanding fiancee's computer, watching the video feed of the Phillies on my laptop and following the progress of the Mets on the other.

Though I hadn't had breakfast, all I could eat during the games was two bites of fried chicken. It's like it was when I ran track and XC ... too nervous to get anything down.

As both games went in a positive direction, I began to count half-innings ... three at-bats left for the Mets, four for the Nationals. I left the couch maybe twice. And when the last pitch buckled Wily Mo Pena's knees, I bellowed a few ohmygods, high-fived, hugged and kissed my girl, and then, um ...

OK, I cried. Pretty enthusiastically. But only for 15 to 30 seconds.

Then it was time to place a few phone calls and texts to fellow long-suffering Phillies fans. Dad, Mom, Joel and Duc and Stew.

I also got a congratulatory message from a guy who had a lousy day: my brother-in-law, Brian, the classiest Mets fan in the business. And I don't mean that in a damning-with-faint-praise manner. Mets in '06, Phils in '07 ... one of these years, we'll both be there, man.

Now on to baseball-nerd business: the postseason roster. The Phillies can bring 25 players to the Division Series. If they make the LCS, they can tinker with the roster to bring another 25, and same with the World Series. Here's who I'd take:

Starters: Cole Hamels, Jamie Moyer, Kyle Kendrick, Kyle Lohse.
(No surprises here. You only need four starters in the postseason, and Adam Eaton is the obvious odd man out. I wouldn't even want him around as an innings-eater if one of the four starters does an Adam Eaton impression and stinks up the joint.)

Relievers: Brett Myers, Tom Gordon, J.C. Romero, Geoff Geary, Clay Condrey, Jose Mesa, Fabio Castro.
(The first three are obvious. The next two pitched brilliantly in September: Geary 2.65 in 17 IP, Condrey 0.73 in 12 1/3. Mesa was at 3.72 this month, and he's a former closer, whatever you think about him now, so he's in there. Castro's the wild card, a lefty with potential, though his stats have been nothing to write home about. Maybe Antonio Alfonseca or J.D. Durbin takes this spot instead. But I think the other six have to be a lock.)

Catchers: Carlos Ruiz, Chris Coste.
(I haven't heard anything about how badly Ruiz was hurt on the HBP that knocked him out of the game. Rod Barajas only makes this roster if Ruiz absolutely cannot play anymore this year.)

Infielders: Ryan Howard, Chase Utley, Tadahito Iguchi, Jimmy Rollins, Greg Dobbs, Abraham Nunez.
(Enough with Wes Helms. I don't see him making a positive contribution.)

Outfielders: Pat Burrell, Michael Bourn, Aaron Rowand, Shane Victorino, Jayson Werth, Chris Roberson.
(Roberson not Helms? Yeah. This team has enough hitting ... pinch-runners and defensive replacements are more important in the playoffs than in the regular season.)

4 starters
7 relievers
2 catchers
6 infielders
6 outfielders
= 25

Maybe that roster is sort of the one I WANT them to use. I think it'll be hard for them to leave Alfonseca and Helms off the roster in favor of Castro and Roberson, and maybe Barajas squeezes on even if Chucha Ruiz can still go.

I guess we'll see Monday or Tuesday. Can't wait. And can't wait to relax Monday night while our two prospective opponents fight each other.

Best of all, the Padres throw Jake Peavy, the best pitcher in the National League, Monday night, and the Division Series games are Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday, Sunday and Tuesday.

That means if the Padres win, they'd have to throw Peavy on two days' rest at least once to start him in two games. Thursday, then Tuesday? More likely they save him for Saturday on four days' rest, pitching Game 3 in San Diego. But regardless, the fact that the Padres saved Peavy for Monday rather than throwing him today to sew things up was a huge miscalculation.

OK, enough blogging for tonight. Enjoy the playoffs, those of you who are so inclined. As court jester extraordinaire Dane Cook says, "There's only one postseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeason!"

...

2007-09-30T13:58:00.001-07:00

The Phillies are in the playoffs. They did it.

That's all I got, my brains are mush. What a phenomenal feeling.

I can't come up with a post headline to save my life

2007-09-29T09:40:00.000-07:00

The last few days have been dizzying to Phillies fans. With a cruise-control win last night and the Mets' death-by-a-thousand-HBPs loss, the team suddenly controls its destiny.

Regardless of what the Mets do this afternoon, if Adam Eaton can throw five innings of three-run ball or less in the later game, I think the Phillies will win the division. Joel Hanrahan gives the Phillies hitters fits, but they're hitting too well in the clutch right now to choke, I think. I hope.

Last night, I watched both games in a bar with my friend Shea, an Astros fan and mercenary Phillies supporter this week. If this post reads like I'm tired, well, you can thank the Blue Moons and White Russians that were part of my balanced diet last night.

Quite a mix, actually - Blue Moons and White Russians. I call that diet Cerulean Sputnik.

Nothing? Bah. OK, fine, I'll get some more sleep. Go Phillies.

There were two beers left in the fridge.

2007-09-27T19:02:00.000-07:00

At 7:05 p.m., I drink the first one to calm my nerves.

Holly's already asleep, set to wake up around 4 a.m. to start a 27- to 30-hour surgery shift. I'm in the next room, the living room, sitting on the leftmost of the three couch cushions, crouched over looking at my laptop screen.

The computer video feed is flawless, even at full screen. The computer provides the only light in the apartment -- and the only sound, apart from the occasional AC kicking on.

Well, and apart from my occasional strangled cheers and groans, and my punching the air with every strikeout and double play.

The game was quite an experience, and it started as well as a game possibly could.

First pitch: Rollins slaps a single through the box.
Second pitch: Batting left, Victorino drops a gorgeous bunt down the third-base line as Rollins steams into second. Smoltz grabs it bare-handed and fires it wide of Teixeira at first. The ball smacks into the rolled-tarp at an angle and kicks into right field as Rollins chugs home and Victorino streaks to third.

Utley works a late count, then knocks an average grounder to Teixeira as Victorino takes a few tentative jab-steps toward home. Whether Teixeira was truly distracted by Victy (as Philly announcers surmised) or not, I don't know, but he booted the grounder, Shane walked home and Utley made first safely.

And then Howard came up. And I swear to you, I knew what was coming next.

Howard has struck out so much, SO much, this year that I no longer get those occasional pangs of "uh oh, here he comes, I'll bet he hits one a mile" like I did last August and early September. That's no knock against Howard, but ... OK, maybe it is a knock. But regardless, when he came up against a rattled Smoltz in the first tonight, it was the first time in a while that I really thought, "Smoltz doesn't have a chance here."

And he didn't. It looked like somebody had put the ball on a tee, lined up a fire hose, set it on "STUN" and flipped the switch. Kalas could barely get a mouthful of words out before the ball was in the right-field seats.

Four batters. Four runs. No outs. At least one fan having a silent, slack-jawed seizure. (I'm sure it was more than one, but as a reporter, I don't want to speculate.)

Kendrick was a wizard for five innings, scattering three hits and a walk or two. He left two balls over the plate that Chipper and Teixeira hit out for three runs combined, so he couldn't make it into the seventh. Myers left a ball up for Francoeur to pound out in the ninth, too.

The difference ended up being Burrell, who broke through against a guy who has terrorized him. He came in with two hits in two dozen at-bats against Smoltz, and he left with a two-run dinger that eked into the left-field seats.

There were a few tense moments, but I've seen tenser this year. In the end, I treated myself to another seizure, then popped open the other beer.

And oh yeah, the Mets lost. To Joel Pineiro, who did his best impression of a healthy Chris Carpenter.

So now the Mets and Phillies are tied for the lead of the National League East. The Phillies haven't had a meaningful lead (or share of one) for any potential playoff spot since the last week of 2003, when they proceeded to drop seven of their last eight to the Reds, eventual world champion Marlins and the Braves.

And that was it for Veterans Stadium -- simply a brutal way to end the stadium's life. (The NFC title-game loss to Tampa Bay a few months later managed to top that.)

Now, the Phillies are at home, the Mets are at home. The Phillies are 87-72, the Mets are 87-72. The Phillies play a losing team that has terrorized contenders this fall, and the Mets? Yeah, they do that, too.

Phils v. Nats. Mets v. Fish. Three games each.

If there's still a tie when the weekend's done, the Phils and Mets will meet at Citizens Bank Park for one game. The Phillies would throw Kyle Lohse. The Mets? It'd be Philip Humber's turn in the rotation, but I'll go ahead and guess they'd use Pedro, who threw tonight, instead.

Accckkkkkkkkkkk. Stay tuned.

Here we go

2007-09-27T15:44:00.000-07:00

The biggest game of the season is tonight for the Phillies. They face John Smoltz, the Braves' best pitcher, while they throw Kyle Kendrick, their youngest.

The Phillies absolutely, positively need to win this game to still have a realistic chance of making the playoffs. And the game starts in 18 minutes, and I'm nervous.

Will the Phillies' hitters be loose enough? Will they watch Smoltz closely enough to have better luck against him the second time through the order? Will they take enough pitches to make him work? And will Kendrick shut down the Braves' hitters, who will be hacking with impunity knowing that they have nothing to play for and nothing to lose?

Let's find out. And let's feel like we want to vomit. Hooray!

What happened to my perspective?

2007-09-25T22:21:00.000-07:00

Apparently, perspective is for the live-easy fans of the Yankees, and I guess M.C. Escher.

For fans of the Phillies and other less phortunate phranchises, there is only the grainy aftertaste of an Almost smoothie.

Mini-vent

2007-09-25T22:20:00.001-07:00

I hate everything and everyone, everywhere.

Yeah, it's still baseball season. Talk to me in five or six days.

Bleak night

2007-09-25T22:07:00.000-07:00

Phillies lost to the Braves' worst starter, while the Padres won with an excruciating four-run comeback in the ninth because Bruce Bochy has no idea when to pull a pitcher.

Not to be too melodramatic, but tonight was a crushing blow to the Phillies. They pretty much have to win out.

The knot!

2007-09-24T22:02:00.000-07:00

No, this is not a wedding-related post. The Phillies are tied for the wild-card lead, thanks to a plummeting Padres squad.

NL EAST
Mets 87-69
Phils 85-71

WILD CARD
Phils 85-71
Padres 85-71
Rockies 84-72

All four teams have 6 to play:
Mets: Two against Washington, one against St. Louis, three against Florida.
Phils: Three against Atlanta, three against Washington.
Padres: Two at San Francisco, four at Milwaukee.
Rockies: Three at Los Angeles, three against Arizona.

I like the Mets to go 5-1 on the way out, putting the East out of reach. FINAL: 92-70.

Rockies? They'll take two of three in demoralized L.A., and two of three at home against a potentially coasting Diamondbacks team. FINAL: 88-74.

As for the Padres, they throw Brett Tomko against Matt Cain on Tuesday, then Jake Peavy against some random dude on Wednesday. Figure a split there, then a split in Milwaukee against a team that'll either be fighting for a slim chance of a playoff spot or playing pissed-off baseball in front of fans that didn't honestly expect (before the season) that they'd be a factor the whole season. It could go either way, and the Pads could sweep, but they don't look like a team capable of that right now. 3-3 puts them at ... FINAL: 88-74.

So. Phillies. They face Chuck James, Tim Hudson and John Smoltz on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. I like them to beat James and beat either Hudson or Smoltz while getting punished by the other. That'd mean they'd need to win the Nationals series to make the postseason or avoid a D.C. sweep to join a three-team playoff that I simply can't imagine unfolding. With the Phillies' three best starters taking the hill in the last series and an all-hands-on-deck bullpen (Myers for AT LEAST two innings in the finale, if it's relevant), I think they'll squeak by. FINAL: 89-73.

If I believed in jinxes, I'd now be erasing the previous paragraph instead of typing this one. I've seen enough sports-level heartbreak in the past four Septembers (and four recent Januarys with a certain close-but-no-cigar football team) to take as much enjoyment and as little angst as I can. Jinxes, reverse jinxes and body English are crap, no matter what Carlton Fisk tells you.

That's not to say that I'm completely sane about this thing. Trust me, this will be a ridiculously unproductive work week (staying up to watch West Coast games sucks) but at least it's only one more week. And then it's over, for better or for worse.

The Phillies may make the playoffs this year, they may not. They may win five more World Series in my lifetime, they may never make it there again. But it's pretty safe to say they'll always be around to root for the next spring, so let's keep things in perspective.

Getting closer

2007-09-22T22:02:00.000-07:00

The Phillies have seven games left to play, and they're only a half-game behind the Padres for the wild card, a game and a half behind the Mets for the NL East title.

Mets 86-68
Phillies 85-70

Padres 85-69
Phillies 85-70

The Mets still have one in Florida, three at home against Washington, one at home against St. Louis and three at home against Florida. I predict they finish 6-2, losing once each to Washington and Florida, forging a record of 92-70.

The Padres close with one at home against Colorado, then three in San Francisco and four in Milwaukee. I think they'll take the Colorado game and two of three in San Francisco. The question is whether Milwaukee will still be in contention by the time the Padres visit them.
-If Milwaukee still has a shot at the Cubs, I think they split the final series.
-If not, I think the Padres take three of four.
So that would make the Padres either 6-2 or 5-3 to close, making them either 91-71 or 90-72.

What's that mean for the Phillies? Well, if I'm right, the Phillies must finish no worse than 5-2 to tie the Padres. Only by winning out could they catch the Mets.

Can the Phillies win out? Their final seven starters line up this way, unless the off day changes something: Hamels, Moyer, Lohse, Eaton, Kendrick, Hamels, Moyer.

Here's a dramatic idea: Bump Eaton back. There's an off-day Monday, so you can make it Hamels on Sunday, then Moyer, Lohse and Kendrick (with four days' rest) Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. I much prefer sending sinker-baller Kendrick against the Braves' boppers (in the Citizens Bandbox, mind you) than putting Eaton out there for one final stinkfest.

Then you've got Eaton, Hamels and Moyer for the final set against Washington in Philly. Hey, at least you have a chance to sweep the Braves that way. Maybe even bump Eaton back to the final day of the season, if the first game of the last set is a must win.

Or hey -- what about Hamels, Moyer, Myers? I know it's ludicrous, but you've just seen Myers pitch five straight days and say over and over to the press how willing he is to do ANYTHING right now with the season on the line. Is it beyond the realm of possibility that he could pitch at least the first three, maybe four innings of the finale, then give way to whoever can still lift a ball?

I dunno.

But anyway, prediction for the Phillies' final seven, if the rotation stays as is: Win Sunday in Washington, take two of three from Braves and two of three from Nats at home. That's 5-2 for a 90-72 finish.

Would it be enough?

Arrrgh, I don't know. Maybe the week ahead will be as painful as the final week of '05 and of '06. But at least we're still talking about the team.

By the way, can anybody tell me why on earth Wes Helms pinch-ran for Shane Victorino Saturday night?

Forgot two things:

2007-09-17T21:03:00.000-07:00

1) I got passed in the final quarter-mile of the half-marathon by a guy in a pink tutu.
2) My legs were SO sore all day and night Monday. Holly and I are supposed to start a daily regimen of pushups and situps, but it may have to wait a few days.

Really?

2007-09-17T20:56:00.000-07:00

Being a sports fan is supposed to be fun? Mmmmm nawsir.

Scores tonight: Phillies 13, Eagles 12.

The Phillies led 11-0 and 12-3, but won the freakin' game 13-11. What a travesty. Shades of the Atlanta game from two weeks ago. Somehow they pulled out a win, but Charlie Manuel is going to be roasted for lifting Kyle Kendrick after six frames.

It's amazing, the razor-thin margin of emotions in sports. The Phillies game ended with two guys on base and Russell Branyan, who I'm convinced could hit a baseball over the Gateway Arch, at the plate. Full count, ball down the middle of the plate.

If he hits that ball out of the park, I'm turning beet red and rolling my eyes back in my head. As it is, I'm flipping over to Baseball Tonight to continue following a pennant race.

Eagles? I don't really care about the Eagles right now, frankly. That'll change when the Phillies' season is over. Suffice it to say that the Eagles wouldn't be giving me much to care about even if I were so inclined.

Success

2007-09-17T06:51:00.000-07:00

I didn't wake up at 6 a.m. for a week straight or anything, but I got close enough to a good sleep schedule to be awake for the half-marathon Sunday. And it went surprisingly well.

For the week before, I'd had what felt like sciatic pain in my right leg, so I was afraid that'd subconsciously slow me down, even though there wasn't anything structurally injured. It nagged me a bit before the race, but I didn't feel it at all during and I don't feel it anymore now.

I had a marvelous stroke of luck in the minutes before the race. With 15 minutes to go before the gun, I had to use the bathroom, but the lines for the dozens of portable ones in front of the museum were 50 people long. Duc suggested running to a building a quarter mile down Kelly Drive, so we headed that direction but soon saw three portopotties just behind a fence at a construction site behind the museum, with a little crack in the fence that runners had been squeezing through. No line. In and out in a minute, and I still had time to stretch.

The field was enormous, 16,000 runners squeezed onto Ben Franklin Parkway. My goal was to break a 7:30 pace. That was my mile pace in the marathon I ran in April 2006, and considering I'm not in as good a shape now as I was then, it seemed reasonable.

My first mile was a 7:16; it was tough to get any leg room out there. I mentally cackled at the dudes who had to stop after a mile to use portopotties. Second mile a 6:50, definitely too fast, but I still hadn't started breathing hard. The herd mentality, being surrounded by runners on similar paces, made it impossible to go too much faster or slower.

Starting with the third mile through the 11th mile, all my splits were between 7:03 and 7:10. The slight hill of the final two miles found me slowing down a bit and getting passed by at least a hundred people, but I still came through in 1:33:47, a 7:09 pace.

Duc ran significantly faster than his predicted pace, too, and I think two factors were in play:
1) With so many runners in the race, you could pick anyone to pace off of and then switch to somebody else a minute later if that person suddenly seemed to be too fast or slow for your taste.
2) The weather was immaculate. Low 50s and cloudless when the race started at 7:45 a.m., it was maybe the best running conditions I've experienced.

So what's next? Probably a winter 5K or 10K, then deciding whether to try to beat my 2006 time in the 2008 Louisville marathon. For sure, I'm not going to rest on my laurels for a full year like I did last time.

Stuck in the middle

2007-09-03T23:26:00.000-07:00

Weeeeeeell it's 2:29 a.m. and I'm facing a dilemma that should not really be a dilemma and is entirely of my own making.

In 11 days and four and a half hours I'm running a half-marathon. That's at 7 a.m. Despite the fact that I sleep next to a future doctor who has taken to waking at 4 a.m. or earlier to go to surgical shifts, I haven't successfully woken up before 8 a.m. more than a handful of times since the last race I ran, which also was an early-morning affair.

Obviously, I can't sleep. The three-day weekend was a good one, but it screwed up my biorhythms or whatthehellever and now I can't sleep and now it's 2:35. And in 11 days I have to wake up before 6, probably closer to 5, and be lucid and loose enough to run half a marathon at 7.

How best to get on an appropriate sleep schedule?

Stay up all night tonight, plow through the day somehow and crash at 9 p.m.?
Go to sleep when I'm tired, wake up when I'm not, then go to sleep the next night way, way before I'm tired?
Do it in stages? A half-hour earlier each night?

I have no idea. It's frankly bewildering that I'm 27 years old and seemingly incapable of managing my time even in the most basic sense of when I should conveniently sleep.

Also, I have the meat sweats. That is, I ate a lot of meat tonight at a barbecue and it's making me sweat a little bit. And the house is plenty cool. Meat sweats. Yuck.

toothpastefordinner.com

2007-08-27T14:44:00.001-07:00

Good bye, girlfriend

2007-08-11T20:13:00.000-07:00

Hello, fiancee.

Intrigued? six one oh six oh eight eight three five nine

For your reading pleasure

2007-08-07T18:45:00.000-07:00

Detour Into Bypass

Stevie Wonder

2007-07-30T17:59:00.000-07:00

I thought he had better things to do than park cars in my building's lot. But apparently not. How else do you explain the willy-nilly insanity going on down there these days? I'd like to know how somebody can be smart enough to get a job that pays well enough that he or she can afford a really nice car, yet too stupid to figure out the baffling Angled Space.

Seriously, if there's a stronger collection of numbskulls than my neighbors, have them all spayed and neutered.

Ran 7 miles at 7:30 pace tonight, just short of the race pace I'm looking for in September.

I've also witnessed 474 Phillies players injure themselves in tonight's game, including Michael Bourn tripping over the friggin relic of a bullpen mound on Wrigley Field's first-base line.

Suddenly busy

2007-07-26T16:48:00.000-07:00

Out of nowhere, several time-consuming but attractive assignments have landed on my work agenda.

Friday morning, a photographer and I will be in the room while a heart surgery is performed. We'll interview the patient beforehand and the doctor afterhand.
Monday morning, the same photographer and I are scheduled to do something ridiculous: "review" a refurbished highway cutting through Louisville. We'll drive it as soon as it reopens after a monthlong closure and see how smooth it is, etc.
Also next week, we're riding in a B-17 bomber for some reason I haven't determined yet, but there you are.

But uncoolly, Chase Utley broke his hand and will be out for several weeks at least. Wonder if the Phillies can trade for Mark Loretta or something.

WALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLT!

2007-07-26T06:28:00.000-07:00

Whoa.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Book 7 of 7

2007-07-23T20:55:00.000-07:00

As with Lost, I'll put my thoughts in a comment to avoid spoilerizing it for anybody.

I expecto'd a better patronum

2007-07-14T22:05:00.000-07:00

"Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" underwhelmed. Too much dialogue, too many minor things from the book too hurriedly explained, etc. Good but not great, but expectations were higher than that.

Also, I just can't think like a journalist when I consider the approach of the Phillies' 10,000th loss. It's getting so much attention, but it's just a stupid round number. And the fact that they're actually going to do things to commemorate the milestone sends the wrong message, I think. I hope the players aren't paying any attention to it, although Pat Burrell is capable of letting anything affect his psyche.

My dream

2007-07-06T19:39:00.000-07:00

I woke up two minutes ago, so here's last night's dream before I forget:

I was in a car with Dad, Holly and Jamie Gold, the 2006 World Series of Poker main-event champion. Dad was driving, Holly was shotgun and Gold and I were in the back seat. We'd all been out on some day trip and had been apparently been having pleasant conversation, but then Jamie put in some segue about how he always wants to look his best, then:

Jamie Gold: "There's this nice shirt I've never seen you wear, Holly."
Me: [suddenly lunging at him and grabbing his collar with both hands] "Mind your own (flippity-flapping) business! If she doesn't wear it, there's a reason!"
Jamie Gold: [horrified look subsides into a coolly vengeful one when he realizes I've just physically assaulted him and could be held liable]

Dad told me quietly that I'd been "very irresponsible," and I realized that, so I apologized and suggested we all go out for steaks, on me. But Jamie declined and faux-cheerfully asked us to just take him home. Home turned out to be his mom's house -- she came out to greet him, he left the car wordlessly and I pulled the door closed. Then the dream ended.

I think I was upset mostly because he had alluded to always wanting to look his best, then implied that Holly was shirking her responsibilities in that department by not wearing this particular shirt in her regular rotation. I also wondered if he wasn't being a little bit of a pervert by wanting somebody else's girl to wear a specific item of clothing. But clearly grabbing him fiercely by the collar was not the way to respond.

Why was Jamie Gold the one in the dream? The 2007 main event started yesterday and I was frequently checking online for updates. Gold wasn't playing, but the guy he split his $12M payday with last year was playing. Those guys went to court over the agreement, I think, because Gold tried to get out of it. He did several things that were out of line in last year's tournament vis-a-vis poker etiquette, but I wouldn't dare bore you with those. Suffice it to say my impression of him was enough of a jerk that he could play the villain in my dream.

Whew. Writing that down wasn't exactly cathartic, but it makes me realize how absurd my dreams are.

One ring to rule them all...

2007-07-06T06:56:00.000-07:00

One ring to find them
One ring to bring them all
And to the inflatable baby pool bind them.

P.S. I can't look at this picture without thinking, "Brian, your beer is full and surely getting warm! Drink it!"

Dire straits

2007-07-04T11:22:00.001-07:00

I began a half-marathon-training schedule today ... it tells me I should've started two and a half weeks ago, but nothing to do about that now. The race is Sept. 16 in Philly, and Duc's running it too.

It's steaming hot in Louisville for the 4th. Hope the predicted rain comes through.

Here are photos from my long Shore weekend with the fam.

I'm a ruddy prat

2007-06-25T22:08:00.000-07:00

I've been out of touch and not providing Alaska entries, some of which are in draft form. But I've had very little time because, well... I've been reading Harry Potter books around the clock.

Alright, well it started when Holly was reading the sixth one, and me never having read any of them figured I'd read the first. And after reading the first and comparing it with my impressions of the movie, I wanted to move on to the next one for the same reason. I ripped through all 740 pages of the fourth one Sunday and read 400 pages of the fifth one tonight.

Help.

I like Rowling's writing for the most part. It'll never be confused with Tolkien or Hemingway, but it's fun and gripping. What really disturbs me (and this is so stupid of me that it's embarrassing) is the yellow journalism practiced by The Daily Prophet.

I fear that millions of people read Harry Potter books and gain the subconscious impression that newspapers are all biased filth.

This is what I'm worried about. Not being out of shape, not municipal elections, a fake newspaper in a fictional book.

Help.

Before I forget everything...

2007-06-17T19:40:00.001-07:00

...here's my account of Holly's and my trip to Alaska on the Sun Princess.

SUNDAY JUNE 3: We woke up before dawn in a tiny motel room on Maryland's Eastern Shore, trying not to wake up Ducleotide, our buddy with whom we split the room, having attended Smith's and Melbear's nuptials the previous blazing-hot day and boozy night. I drove the empty roads to BWI airport, then we hopped on two painless flights, BWI-Chicago & Chicago-Seattle.

The entire transfer to the boat was similarly unremarkable, but unfortunately (though predictably), so was the "welcome buffet" aboard. Here's where I missed the 24-hour pizza buffet from my family's Caribbean cruise in 2002... reliable all-hours food. The regular restaurants and pizzeria on the Sun were good, though. It's just as well that I lacked incentive to eat round the clock -- I gained enough weight anyway.

The event that shows you precisely what kind of crowd you've got on board is the mandatory safety drill. Everybody's classy when they're strolling from the bar to the hot tub and back again, but when you cram everyone in a room with their life vests for a half-hour and tell them what to do if the ship splits in two in the belly of a fjord, patience is a rarer virtue to see. No safety scares during our week, though; the closest I came to my life vest again was considering bringing it to the hot tub and ordering some drinks.

Still being on Eastern time, we crashed pretty early Sunday night, hoping fervently that the prediction of eight consecutive rainy days wouldn't hold. It had been clear skies in Seattle on Sunday...

MONDAY JUNE 4: ... but on Monday, as we puttered north toward Ketchikan, it was a drizzlefest, and Holly was nauseous to boot. The water was choppy and the bargain of an interior cabin suddenly looked like a disastrous choice. We took a few steps to minimize the effect:
-getting the hell out of the room, carrying a bag with enough stuff for several activities through early evening
-drinking tea on deck loungers
-sitting in the hot tub in the rain! Frankly, this was a brilliant call.

The boat behaved better the rest of the week, thank goodness, and though its motion was certainly perceptible at certain times, I don't think we ever again thought, "We have to get out of here."

The evening was a formal affair: suit for me, dress for her, posing for portraits we didn't intend to buy, eating a four-course dinner. But dinner featured an excellent and spontaneous intermission of informality. Huge whales were spotted leaping out of the water on the starboard side, and well-dressed passengers swarmed to the dining room's windows in unsettling numbers. I was one of them, and I spied an ugly beast breaching/breeching, then wondered if he/she felt any excitement at leaping from the water. Probably not.

After dinner was a stage show, seemingly a 483-song medley of Billy Joel, Elton John and Barry Manilow. My review: Not as good or as bad as anybody might think, if that makes any sense. No? Pssh. Moving on.

TUESDAY JUNE 5: You can picture Alaska, right? Basically a blob with two arms sticking down from it, one to the southwest and one to the southeast, pointing toward the lower 48. All three Alaskan places we visited are on the southeast arm. Ketchikan was closest to Seattle, then we kept going north to Juneau, then to Skagway before turning around. Just wanted to set the scene.

Tuesday was Ketchikan day. A marvelous stroke of luck: No rain! And it's the third rainiest place on Earth, next to Seattle and any place I camped as a kid, I assume. There was some shopping and cruise-ship trivia, but I'll stick to describing the forest-canopy zip line, probably the coolest part of the trip.

First of all, I'm brutal with heights. Not the worst you've ever dealt with, but if I'm in a high, precarious place, any small talk you make with me is going in one ear and out the other, and I'm not responsible for what I say to you because it is most likely remedial gibberish.

Ziplining took place in a forest. One tree was connected to a second one by a cable 100 to 150 feet above the ground. The second connected to a third in the same fashion and so forth for about 10 trees, each of which also had a small ledge to stand on in between zipping. I won't explain the equipment in much detail because I'll screw it up, but suffice it to say you have enough clips and pulleys attached to you that if you somehow fell, one of those things would be bound to snag on a branch before you crashed to the ground.

So your guide attaches your pulley wheels to the cable at one tree, then pushes you toward the next tree. The most significant zip line was about 120 feet above the ground, was 700 feet long and provided for speeds above 30 mph. I know that if you've skydived this is nothing, but I haven't, so imagine lying on your back tucked in a cannonball and sliding through the air between trees. I'm being completely honest when I say that for some reason, I wasn't scared, or even unnerved a little. It was just awesome.

More honesty: what scared me was the ledges on the trees, which is stupid because we were tethered to the trees the whole time in between zips, but I still didn't want to slip off the ledge and dangle from a tree. That would suck.

Check tomorrow for Wednesday, Thursday and Friday...

I'm back

2007-06-12T22:42:00.000-07:00

Got arrested in Alaska for not having a beard, but a caribou bailed me out. More later.

Vacation!

2007-05-31T19:17:00.001-07:00

Flight Friday, friends' wedding Saturday, flight to Seattle and cruise to Juneau Sunday. Back in two Wednesdays. Later!

What a disastrous day, start to finish

2007-05-24T00:20:00.001-07:00

I couldn't get a thing done at work because there's virtually nothing to be done in this no-news period before Memorial Day.

Brett Myers, the Phillies closer and second-best pitcher overall, got hurt throwing a pitch he shouldn't even have had to throw because the game should already have been over except that Rod Barajas is an idiot.

And then, of course, Lost. In case anybody who plans to see the finale has yet to do so, I'll put my thoughts in the first comment on this post. Read the comments when you're ready.

Faux toes

2007-05-15T20:59:00.000-07:00

Here. They're from all over the past three years or so.

Double whammy

2007-05-15T19:13:00.000-07:00

I slept atrociously last night and was draggin' ass all day. However, because it was so nice outside, I also really wanted to be out running or golfing instead of at work. Those two powerful factors made it nearly impossible for me to write today -- let's just say I won't be clipping tomorrow's articles.

Warning: golf post

2007-05-13T20:25:00.000-07:00

After shooting a 106 at the Sand Barrens course at the shore last weekend, today I shot 105 at Iroquois, a few miles south of downtown Louisville. (My personal best is 95, accomplished twice. The first time, in high school, I opened with a 40, for crying out loud, and I was so overwhelmed that I happily shanked all over the back nine, lacking the discipline to take the course by the throat.)

These past two rounds are my first played with my "new old" clubs, inherited from my father, who just upgraded. My new clubs are superior to my old ones in several ways: 1) They are closer to 10 years old than 50; 2) They're the correct length for my height, whereas the old ones were a couple of inches too short; and 3) The grips are much grippier -- not surprising, given the difference in ages.

All my possible golfing partners in Louisville were either studying or out of town today, so I went as a single, played through a group or two until I latched on with a family of three. My pacing was a little hurried all day -- I was either playing through people or playing with people riding in carts, whereas I was walking. It was good exercise, but the poor pacing cost me a few well-struck shots, I think.

As for each specific phase of the game:
-Driving. Except for one gorgeous moon shot -- a slight draw that went 275 yards -- I was horrible with the big stick today, topping more than a few balls and hitting one or two wicked hooks. I was inconsistent in my address, feeling each time as if I was a little closer or further from the ball, and had placed it a little left or right, from what I'd done on the previous tee. It's a new driver with a head nearly twice the size of its predecessor's, so I'm still getting used to teeing the ball higher. It may simply have been a case of subconscious hurrying, the problem behind the majority of my golf screwups. Hopefully, a couple of range buckets should help me find a routine I can stick to.
-Irons. So-so. Again, inconsistent address, which led to comically bad aim on a few shots where I thought I'd taken dead aim. But more so than in the past with my old clubs, I felt lots of clean contact from my irons, even on less than desirable lies.
-Chipping. Surprisingly good. I took a tip from Dad and made it a point to emphasize relaxing my forearms, and except for a frozen-arm stab job on the final hole, my wedge play was my best I can remember.
-Putting. Slightly above average. I holed a 20-footer for par and I read the breaks well. In the last five or six holes, I was getting tired and (I think) becoming lazier with my aim and reading. I took 37 putts on the day, just above an average of two per hole, so that wasn't my undoing.

I really could have benefited from a range session before my round, and since I had no tee time and no real time constraints, I don't know why I didn't do that. As it was, I opened 8-8 on two par 4's, then closed 6-7-6 on a 4, 4 and 3. In between, I was pretty good, though I still killed myself with the driver.

I plan to squeeze in a few more rounds between now and the Alaska trip. Dad shoots consistently in the mid-80s to low-90s, and I'd like to compete with him on a regular basis.

NOOOOOO!

2007-05-09T20:08:00.000-07:00

If you saw Lost tonight, you know what I'm talking about. Otherwise, let's move on to other topics.
-If it weren't for sand traps, I'd have really done well golfing at, um, Sand Barrens last weekend. I inherited Dad's clubs after he purchased a new set, meaning I no longer have to play with irons forged by a blacksmith in the time of cholera.
-In response to Lone Star Pickle, here's another photo of a clearly exuberant -- not traumatized -- baby:

-I gritted my teeth and sank some money into a new clutch and engine mounts for my 1997 Nissan Altima. I'm really in that gray area, whether to go all-out to make the car driveable for several more years or to keep it cheap and sputtering.
-It's in the mid-80s all week here, and the running is really going to start to pay off around my waist soon. I'm not going to be a lunatic and say that I'm fat or anything. It's nothing drastic, I just don't fit in my pants, and I would prefer to do so. Elastic waistbands are not a good look in an office.
-Belated congratulations to Jill and Glenn, proud new parents of Gavin! Good lookin' kid, and now I have another friend (Joel) to join me in uncledom.
-Less belated congratulations to my cousin Glen and his beautiful bride Jessica. And thanks for doing the party boat/golf outing/cheesesteak lunch/beach town weekend combo... tough to beat.

Hollea!

2007-05-08T09:42:00.000-07:00

My widget

2007-04-23T21:20:00.001-07:00

Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™

Who took my attention-deficit ointment?

2007-04-23T20:16:00.000-07:00

Moxie will not stop meowing. She sleeps nearly the entire day and then scampers around meowing for a few fleeting, baffling moments.

It's really humid here, but in a nice way.

I have daydreams where the Phillies recruit me as a pinch-runner, then I'm forced into fielding and hitting in a 20-inning game and I display just enough raw talent to start the next day, then I hit safely in 64 consecutive games and earn an eight-figure contract and hit an inside-the-park home run in the World Series.

A guy at the gym today smelled so bad (he was wearing one of those plastic track suits that make you sweat much more than you otherwise would, for weight loss purposes) that at first I honestly, truly thought someone had peed on the floor.

The streak is at three, and the Phillies are showing signs of offensive life.

I remembered something today when I was talking to the new guy at work: Once when Joel and I blew off work to go to Atlantic City, I called in sick to the wrong office. My friend at my old job answered, and once he figured out it was me, he of course told me he didn't give a crap what excuse I was making up because I didn't work there anymore.

Holly made tree-mendous fajitas tonight.

It's a streak!

2007-04-22T13:36:00.000-07:00

For the first time this season, the Phillies have won back-to-back games. What's more, Chase Utley had two doubles and Ryan Howard hit a mile-high home run to straightaway center field. Cool.

Day of Thunder

2007-04-21T08:29:00.000-07:00

It's the day of Thunder over Louisville, a big citywide party (followed by big-time fireworks) to kick off Derby time. The weather's immaculate, we're barbecuing and playing bocce later, and I figure it's time for an update on something other than a disappointing baseball team.

My job's going well, and on Monday our two months without an education reporter come to an end, so that'll take a bit of the load off. One co-worker is planning a wedding, another's due to give birth around Independence Day and my boss is getting virtually no sleep after adopting a newborn a few weeks ago. As for me, March through June is all about driving and flying around to Abingdon, Exton, Stone Harbor, several points in Maryland, then Seattle to cruise to Juneau and back. Four weddings, a move and a vacation. So I'm leaving town on many weekends, which is a little distracting, but as I pointed out, distraction is pretty much an officewide phenomenon these days.

Holly is essentially done with classes for med school year No. 2 and is studying full-time for a gargantuan test called Step 1 that happens June 1. It's the 800-page elephant in the room at all the med school parties I've been to recently. Holly's also girding to next month be a bridesmaid for one of her best friends. In June, she gets to practice The Smiling Eye-Roll as we take zip lines across the Alaskan tree tops and I scream and curse in terror.

Mojo and Moxie are about 15 months old, still smaller than I'd expect the average cat of that age to be. They still have plenty of energy, channeled through Bungee Door Mouse and the Cubes, but they also of course sleep many, many hours a day. Mojo has 100 percent black long hair; Moxie's a tabby but still has a tail fluffier than a squirrel's.

I went many months without a reasonable amount of running or exercise, but I've corrected that in the last two weeks, running all but two or three days. I'd like to get back into shape enough to run the half or full marathon in Philly Nov. 18.

I'm inheriting the first set of golf clubs that will actually be long enough for me when my dad's new ones arrive in a few weeks. Whether we can make the transaction in time for the golf outing at my cousin's wedding in Stone Harbor May 5 remains to be seen. I've made a few friends in Louisville who either golf or have resolved to start, so I look forward to some weekend outings.

Haven't seen the inside of a casino since the first week in January. I'll probably hop over there about once a month after we get back from Alaska, I just haven't had the time or inclination recently. Another year goes by without me qualifying for the WSOP. Someday...

Finally, my niece Lea is five months old today:

She's getting insanely big, in my opinion, and rolling herself over nonstop, my sister says.

How's that for an update? That oughta hold the little bastards.

Much obliged, Flash

2007-04-21T03:10:00.000-07:00

By throwing a needless meatball to Scott Hatteberg and blowing the game, you've opened the door to making Brett Myers the closer. And let's face it, if you're going to do something drastic like putting your best or 2nd-best starter in the bullpen, it might as well be to make him the closer.

Personally, I think the whole thing is ridiculous. Robbing the rotation to pay the bullpen makes no sense, even to stick Lieber in the rotation to bolster his trade value. Teams aren't going to trade for Baby Huey on the basis of one or two starts, and even by the time the Phillies are able to ship him off, what exactly are they looking for? If it's another reliever, they won't get much of one in return for Lieber.

I didn't see any compelling reason not to run Myers out for a second inning last night. He's about 10 times more confident in his stuff than Gordon is right now. And oh yeah, until recently, HE PITCHED SEVEN OR EIGHT INNINGS AT A TIME. You've got a 1-0 lead and a shaky closer, why does that guy automatically have the privilege to take it over? If today's game turns out to be a save situation, it's in Myers' hands, which is where it should have stayed last night, leaving Gordon available today. Garrrrr. Cole Hamels, no pressure, man!

No theme, no ideas, no problem

2007-04-18T22:47:00.000-07:00

To readers of Bluegrass Beginnings and Chyan Utlard, welcome. This blog is going to be a catch-all. Most likely items include:

Photos, news and ramblings about my baby niece
Louisville-related tidbits you Easterners, etc., might find interesting
Bellyaching about the Phillies
Random citation of things that have made me laugh in 27 years
Progress reports on my attempt to revert to acceptable running shape
Links to more widely read blogs in my circle

Later!