2006-It Can't Be Worse Than 2005

Welcome back to one of the most infrequently updated blogs on the internet. I really was in no mood to write anything about anything in 2005 due to the fact that everything in 2005 sucked. I am coming back to this blog because I figure that there's enough going on right now that might turn out ok that won't be too depressing to write about. There's nothing I hate worse than a negative internet screed. So as much as I dislike certain things I'm going to try in this new year to stay away from scathing statements-at least without saying just as many nice things about something else. Of course, we all know how well New Year's resolutions work out.


Neil Steinberg Is Hilariously Mean

Speaking of mean journalism, Neil Steinberg of the Chicago Sun-Times is the most aggresively shit-talkinest columnist I've ever seen in a major newspaper. Some of his stuff reminds me of Hunter S. Thompson. Here are just a few excerpts of his article from Monday, January 2nd:

"Chicago is the Thebes of corruption, with City Hall sitting like the Great Pyramid of Cheops, with who knows how many hidden chambers of scandal concealed within its vast necropolis."

"This space will not disparage Indiana. Our great rectangular neighbor to the east does not deserve to be mocked. First, it's too easy a target, from the I've-fallen-and-I-can't-get-up dysfunction of Gary, to the wheat field imbecility that spawned and nurtured the likes of Dan Quayle. It would be a waste of sarcasm to ridicule Indiana, the way one does not use fine surgical instruments to slice cheese."

"State legislatures are notorious backwaters of bowl-haircut fundamentalist fervor."

"It was common wisdom that if you spent more than two or three years at City News, there was something wrong with you."

That's just one article-on a blah news day at that. I'm not quite sure I like Neil Steinberg, but the guy can sure talk some shit. I'm glad that a major metropolitan newspaper will put this guy on their staff and let him run his mouth. It's probably because the bosses aren't paying attention, but I think this is the kind of subversive behavior the mainstream media needs more of.

Debate & Switch

The second presidential debate is tonight, and after the first debate in which John Kerry came off better than George W. Bush, Bush's goose might be cooked if he doesn't show up tonight and outdo Kerry. There are very slim odds that's going to happen. Debates don't normally decide presidential elections, but John Kerry is such a better speaker than George W. Bush that once you get them both in the same room and following the same rules and formats speaking about the same things, it becomes clear to even the most ardent republican supporters (well maybe not the hawks) that Bush is seriously lacking as a commander in chief.

I don't think Bush is stupid at all, in fact I would call him cunning, but he's not thorough. Jonathan Altar's article in the latest issue of Newsweek talks about something that is intuitively obvious, but something I've never been able to articulate. He mentions how George W. Bush makes choices from his gut and sticks with them regardless of consequences, and how that is not neccessarily a bad thing, unless it's the only way you operate. That might help you while you are playing poker, but I believe more finesse is needed for a chief executive, when not every decision needs toughness, but a more steady compassionate hand, and certainly some decisions need to be rethought because of emerging information or global attitudes. John Kerry, in the end, will make less costly mistakes as president, though he certainly would not be a mistake free president. Of course, there's yet to be one in 228 years, so perfection is obviously not a qualification for the job.

To me, the most important part of a president's term happens before he's even sworn in. In choosing cabinet appointments, a president is forming his nation's policy for the next four years. It's in this case that I think that George W. Bush made his biggest mistakes as president. It's not so much that I think that the U.S . can't handle another 4 years of George W. Bush, but that it can't handle another 4 years of John Ashcroft, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and the like. John Kerry has a large group of qualified democrats to choose from, and maybe he'll even tap John McCain for a cabinet post. I'd feel alot safer if the Attorney General of the United States wasn't a guy who bathed himself in Crisco in some bizzare quasi-religious ceremony. That's beyond screwed up, bordering on madness. If madmen are making and enforcing the laws, the sane become outlaws. That's a dubious proposition, and one that I hope will be remedied by another mediocre Bush performance in Missouri tonight.

Wait 'till Next Year...AGAIN!

There are two games left in the Cubs season, but barring a miracle, it's already over. The Cubs have lost six of their last seven games and now are two games behind both the Giants and the Astros with two games remaining. That's too bad, but quite frankly this team doesn't deserve to make the playoffs. Fundamentally, they are a horrible baseball team. They can't advance runners or drive in runs with sac flies or bunts. They can't run the bases well. They can't hit the cutoff man with regularity. They are poor at taking walks and working the count. They choose to blame just about everybody else but themselves when things go wrong. The trainers, coaches, and managers don't know how to keep banged up guys in the lineup. They strike out in key situations and ground into double plays at the worst possible time. The manager mishandles the pitching staff immensely, sticking with guys who are struggling and ignoring younger, more effective options. The third base coach is incompetent. They have a terrible record in one run games. I could go on and on, but the point is that this team should have ended the season in the playoffs, and it doesn't look like that's possible anymore. They're going to wind up in third place.

There are guys on the team that deserve better, but there are guys on the team that don't even deserve third place. The fiasco that has developed between the announcers and the players and manager is the most outrageous turn of events besides the Steve Bartman incident that I've experienced as a Cubs fan. The buck passing that is intrinsic to this spat is intolerable to a clear-thinking fan. The bottom line is that Steve Stone is better at his job than any Cubs player with the possible exception of Carlos Zambrano is at his-at least in 2004. Dusty Baker has never been as good a manager as Stone is a broadcaster. The fact that I even have to write about this is pathetic. The announcers don't win or lose games. Period. The Cubs just lost 5 of 7 to the NY Mets and Cincinnati Reds. Steve Stone has every right to call them out on to the carpet for that. In fact, considering how awful this stretch run has turned out to be, he could've said alot worse and it would've been justified.

The Cubs have had to play four weeks in a row without a day off, and a few double headers to boot. That is a huge reason why this team isn't going to be in the playoffs. That would be a worthwhile excuse, except for the fact that Dusty has bragged since he took the job of Cubs manager that he was extremely capable of keeping his players fresh for the stretch run. He's talked about needing 2 distinct teams to trot out because of all the day games that the Cubs play, and that his choices to rest multiple starters in important games was justified because he knew what he was doing as far as knowing when to rest a guy. So what happens? The whole offense runs out of gas in the last week of the season because they're tired. Derrek Lee never gets a day off, and he's made the last out in 2 of the last 3 losses. Corey Patterson has obviously been struggling lately, but until today when he's not in the pregame lineup he's started just about every game in September.

LaTroy Hawkins is the main reason why the Cubs have lost 5 of 6. He was one strike away from closing out two games, only to blow the lead twice. Dusty kept giving him the ball even though it's obvious that he can't handle the job. Nomar was an excellent pickup, but if it meant that the Cubs couldn't also trade for a closer, then it probably cost them a playoff spot, since LaTroy Hawkins is definitely not a closer.

All in all, this is the most disappointing end to a regular season that I can remember. The team isn't young either. Their pitching is still relatively young, but Sosa, Alou, Remlinger, Mercker, Maddux, Grudzielanek, and Garciaparra are all in the decline phase of their careers. A few of those guys won't be back next year, but the Cubs don't exactly have a whole bunch of faith in the ability of their minor leaguers to step in and play key roles. Personally, I'd like to see rookie outfielder Jason DuBois and minor league second baseman Richard Lewis get 500 ABs apiece next year. I'd also like to see better quality human beings in a Cubs uniform in 2005, since the 2004 group seems to be a bunch of crybabies who'd rather berate the announcers and umpires than accept accountability for their losses.

Another year, another disappointment. Gotta love being a Cubs fan.

Well, At Least They Didn't Die In A Hurricane

The Cubs had the weekend off because they were supposed to play the Florida Marlins in Miami, but the whole series got washed out by Hurricane Frances. They returned to action Monday by pummeling Montreal 9-1, but last night they lost in 12 innings to the Expos 7-6. Corey Patterson was 4-6 with two homers and a double, but they just couldn't pull it out. Matt Clement made an early exit after complaining of a stiff neck. That's the second start in a row that he's left early I think because of the stiff neck. Somebody get this guy a new pillow!

The Cubs are still in front in the NL Wildcard race, but barely. Houston has won 11 in a row. The Cubs could have buried the Astros in their final matchup the last weekend in August, but they totally laid down and the Astros parlayed their dominance of the Cubs into an 11 game winning streak. Yuck.

Joe Borowski isn't coming back any time soon and neither is Todd Hollandsworth. Kyle Farnsworth pulled a Mike Harkey and hyperextended his knee kicking a fan (the oscillating kind, not the ticketbuying, beer drinking variety) in the clubhouse after one of the Houston losses, and now Sammy Sosa has missed two straight games with bursitis. Bursitis? First he sneezes and goes on the DL and now he has bursitis? He might as well go ahead and slip in the shower and break a hip and complete the senior citizen injury triple crown. Plus, the guy they got from Milwaukee to spell Sosa and Moises Alou down the stretch-Ben Grieve-played about 4 innings before crashing into the ivy and hurting his shoulder and cutting his eye. Sweet. So last night we were stuck watching the horrifying Jose Macias(take a look at him in the previous post) hacking away. Well, like the headline says, at least they're not dead.

I still have hope that the Cubs will squeek into the playoffs and do some damage once they're in. They've got their work cut out for them however, since they have to make up the three games with the Marlins on the only off days that they have. They are getting to play one of the games in Wrigley Field, so maybe that helps. Early in the season people were saying how easy the Cubs schedule was in September, and like last year they could draft the other teams like Jeff Gordon until September and then blow past the competition who is battling it out against eachother while the Cubs play the bottom feeders of the National League. Unfortunately, the Cubs play Atlanta six times and Florida six times, and both teams are exceeding expectations, so it's not as easy as it once looked. Florida currently has an 8 game winning streak, and they're the defending world champs, so that right there is a tough team. Houston finally snapped their 11 game winning streak last night, but they're on fire too. Not to mention San Francisco and San Diego, who are both tough teams too.

Patterson, Nomar Garciaparra, Derrek Lee, Michael Barrett, Aramis Ramirez, Greg Maddux and Carlos Zambrano have all played great recently. Those guys plus Alou might just be enough to carry them into the playoffs, even without Mark Prior and Sosa and the bullpen playing well, as long as Kerry Wood stops alternating good starts and bad starts and just has good starts the rest of the way, and Matt Clement isn't too seriously injured. Anyway, they better win tonight. They can't afford to lose a series to the Expos at this stage in the season.

Jose Macias is ugly, but Corey Patterson is good at playing baseball. 

Corey Patterson Has Arrived

It's taken longer than most of the Cubs brass thought it would, but Corey Patterson has become one of the premeire centerfielders in Major League Baseball.

The small but powerful Patterson made my day yesterday and saved Cubs closer LaTroy Hawkins a whole world full of grief by hitting a walkoff home run in the bottom of the ninth inning to beat the Milwaukee Brewers 4-2 Wednesday afternoon. Patterson has been on a tear since the Cubs acquired Nomar Garciaparra and moved CPat to the leadoff spot in the batting order. It's great to see, since earlier in the season he was struggling mightily and the Wrigley Field faithful were booing him everytime he made an out. That wasn't fair considering that the guy is still only 13 months removed from having his ACL surgically repaired. But after moving to the leadoff spot at the start of August, he's been one of the best players in the National League.

The Cubs have really needed a good leadoff hitter all season and they finally found one in their own dugout. Hawkins on the other hand needs to get his act together. He's entered the game late with the Cubs tied or leading by one run 8 times this year, and he's given up a run 7 of the 8 times. That just shows me that the guy can't handle the closer's role. I want to give him the benefit of the doubt, but at this point, if the Cubs started using Ryan Dempster to close games, I think I'd be relieved.

There's no help in sight in the form of Joe Borowski either, who got lit up at Iowa earlier in the week and still isn't throwing a fastball better than 87 MPH. I hate to speculate, but Joe Borowski...I don't want to libel the man and I don't have any solid evidence, but all the talk about who in baseball is on steroids, and a guy like Joe Borowski's name never comes up. However, here's a guy that could never stick in the major leagues and was pitching in the Mexican League as recently as 2000. The Cubs take a flyer on him in 2001, he has a pretty mediocre season in 2001 in Iowa, getting hammered in his one big league start. The Cubs make him a non-roster invitee to spring training in 2002, and all of a sudden the guy is their best reliever. Then in '03 when Antonio Alfonseca went on the DL in spring training for being fat or whatever it was(hamstring I think) the Cubs make Borowski the closer and he's lights out great all season long. Then this year, the first year of mandatory steroid testing in MLB, Joe comes to spring training having lost quite a bit of velocity, not to mention effectiveness. The season starts and he pttches like crap, has an ERA over 8, then goes on the DL. Now he's trying to work his way back and he's still throwing slow and getting hammered. Not to mention that the guy is one of the most muscular pitchers in baseball. I'm not saying, I'm just saying, y'know? Anyway I hope I'm wrong.

So the Cubs are now a season-high 14 games above .500 at 70-56 and in front in the NL Wildcard race. Things are looking up for the Cubbies, and they've got the easiest month of their schedule in September. It's probably still too early to start printing playoff tickets, but that day won't be too far off if they continue to play to their potential.

I Love Bees

So there's this website Ilovebees.com that has a whole bunch of weird stuff going on. It looks like it's been hacked or something. Turns out that it's part of a promotional campaign for the release of Halo 2 for XBox November 9th-sort of an online detective game(the unofficial term for this type of thing is Alternate Reality Game for those in the know) to promote another game. So anyway, there are clues littered throughout the site, and if you can unlock the secret messages embedded in picture files for example, they lead you to other pieces of the puzzle of why the website is messed up and what it all has to do with Halo 2.

One of the puzzles when deciphered gave a series of numbers that turned out to be GPS coordinates. 220 GPS coordinates to be exact, as well as times. There was also a countdown on Ilovebees.com that hit zero at 6:07 am on Tuesday morning. So lots of people went to the GPS coordinates on Tuesday to see what the deal was, and sure enough, at the times specified the people who are running the game(called Puppetmasters by those same in the know folks) called payphones located at the coordinates. If you answered the questions right and enough other people answered their questions right, then it would unlock sound files on Ilovebees.com and move the game forward.

You're probably wondering why I know so much about this. Well, I...ahem...I went to one of the sites and took part in the answering of the phone part. It's probably one of the nerdiest things that I've ever done, but what can I say? I wasn't alone either. There were 14 other people at the same site that I was at(A vast majority of whom were guys in their twenties. I Think they hit their target demographic pretty good with this little excercise). Good thing too, because there was a payphone inside a banquet hall, and a payphone at a gas station across the street. But hey, we had it covered and answered the questions correctly, and unlocked the sound file, which of course makes absolutely no sense and is only decipherable when played with some of the other sound files. So more waiting ensues. Well, I'm game. It's not something I'll tell my grandkids about(not even something that I told my girlfriend about for that matter) but it was fun.

I'm off to a friend's wedding in Peoria this weekend, so I'll post some time next week with some more stuff.

The Return Of Dan

Well, my first attempt at starting a blog wasn't very successful, since I posted about once a month. Still, I've decided to try again, and this time post much more frequently. Now is as good a time as any to start this blog up again, what with the Olympics, the race for the Presidency, and the race for the NL Wildcard all in full swing.

Five Ring Circus

The US men's basketball team caught it's comeuppance against Lithuania on Saturday to drop their record in pool play to 2-2. They still backed into the quarterfinals when Angola lost to Greece, but c'mon! It's not something you can really blame on anyone. I know if I was an NBA player, I would have a hard time putting a $60 million dollar contract in jeopardy to go win some Olympic bling when I probably would already have half of Ft. Knox around my neck anyway. Ben Wallace's rims probably cost more than an Olympic gold medal, and they keep spinning while he's stopped at a red light. Does a gold medal do that? I don't think so. Only Scott Hamilton's gold medal can do that, 'cause he had it tricked out.

Otherwise, I've enjoyed the rest of the Olympics. Team handball is up there with motocross freestyle jumping as the 2nd best sport on Earth(baseball being first, of course), and world-class badminton is a joy to watch as well. It's good to see NBC decide to televise as much of the Olympics as they have. It's an insomniac's dream come true.

One more thing about the Olympics. In swimming, you can win a gold medal swimming forward or backward, but in track you can only win a medal running forward. It is my belief that running backward should be an Olympic event, if for no other reason than it would be fun to watch.

Some Kind Of Hilarity

I went to see Some Kind Of Monster, the Metallica documentary recently, and boy is that movie a lock for the Best Unintentional Comedy Oscar. It's too bad that award doesn't exist.

For two hours I laughed-many times out loud- at all of the crap that these guys wade through to make a record. The best part is lead guitarist Kirk Hammett explaining to the camera about how he has made the conscious choice over the years to be the pushover of the band, complete with awkward silence. You also get to check out drummer Lars Ulrich's dad Gandalf, who apparently sent Frodo to the cleaners with his cloak and pointy hat, since he's without it whilst on screen.

Nomar Drama

So the Cubs traded for former Boston Red Sox shortstop Nomar Garciaparra, who's played fantastically since becoming a Cub, and it still apparently isn't enough? What's going on here? The Cubs did look better this weekend, coming a 9th inning collapse away from sweeping the underachieving division-rival Houston Astros in Houston this past weekend, but it seems there's always a 9th inning collapse when they play a division foe. The Cubs currently trail the what-are-they-still-doing-here San Francisco Giants by a half game in the NL wildcard standings. The Giants are Barry Bonds, Jason Schmidt, and the Kansas City Royals basically. Why on Earth can the Cubs just not lock up a playoff spot and be done with it?

Then there is the odd behavior of the players. Kerry Wood just got finished serving a 5-game suspension for arguing with an umpire, so what does he do Sunday? he hits 3 guys and gets thrown out of the game. Another suspension might be looming for him. Is that really neccessary when you're trying to get into the playoffs? LaTroy Hawkins and Carlos Zambrano have also served suspensions in the past month.

Now I'll agree that the Cubs have seen some poor umpiring this season. But they're compounding their prior misfortunes of injury and poor umpiring with a teamwide Peter Finch impersonation, and it might end up costing them a playoff berth. Just because Tim Tschida and Bruce Froemming are jags, or Michael Barrett got hit in the back, is not reason enough to spoil your playoff chances. Worry about the late-inning collapses that aren't affected by the umps or Steve Bartman, and then just hope for the best.

Anyway, it's getting late, but hopefully I will return to post again before 2006.

BTW-Happy Birthday Mom!

My grandfather Edward was found dead at 4:00 PM Sunday. Rest In Peace Grandpa. I Love You.