We’re here with Jay and Carolyn, and the Cubs are up 5-0 in the top of the 2nd. We’re hoping the predicted thunderstorms don’t arrive. Thanks TJ for the tickets!
Update: The Cubs won, 7-0, and the rain started coming down hard only after the game was over. Thank you weather gods, for allowing the ‘W’ flag to fly at Nationals Park for the first time.
Jennifer and I have joined my office mates for our first visit to Washington’s new ballpark, Nationals Park. This is the kickoff for what will be a big week of baseball, as we’ll be coming back twice this weekend to see two of the three games when our Cubs come to town. But tonight, we’ll ‘root, root, root’ for the home team Nats.
Update: The home team lost, but the park is beautiful, and getting in and out via Metro was a breeze.Update 2: Thanks to ESPN mobile, we were able to watch the Cubs earn their 10,000th win in an exciting extra inning finish. They are only the second franchise in Major League Baseball to reach this milestone. We can’t wait to watch them get wins # 10,002 – 10,004 this weekend in DC (sorry Nats).
So I’ve found that here in my blog, on entries that are in this category of ‘Bush’s Last Day’, you are likely to see a nice graphic Google Ad for John McCain’s campaign. Please click on it and consider how a McCain presidency would essentially be a third term for George Bush. And if a third-term for George Bush appeals to you. Well, please, bite me.
Two different stories from the front page of today’s Washington Post caught my eye for their common theme, Americans teaching others how to do things our way, as commandos, or a cheerleaders. Personally, I can imagine a combo which takes these American exports to a new level. That’s right, I’m talking about commando cheerleaders!
But the commandos still have much to learn — sometimes frustrating their U.S. advisers. “We yell at them for . . . drinking too much [water], constantly eating, using their under-gun lights to walk to the bathroom,” one U.S. adviser said, adding that the Afghans lacked effective methods for distributing and conserving resources. “They’ll have 20 bottles of water, five guys and four days to go — they’ll just drink it and look at you and say, ‘I need more water,’ ” the sergeant major said. The logistics problems, he said, are “across the board.”
Redskins Cheerleaders Shake Up Cricket In Modest India
The Redskins cheer choreographer, Donald Wells, said the Indian cheerleaders he’s working with are already adept at shaking their hips and staying on the beat. He noticed that Indian cheerleaders were very expressive with their hands — Indian classical dance has countless hand motions — and joked that they probably wouldn’t need pompoms.
No need for pompoms, but maybe a few more water bottles.
both from the front page, The Washington Post, 4/19/08
A Friday night in April, hot dog, peanuts, beer, ladies night… it’s baseball time in the Carolina League, and we’re watching the Potomac Nationals beating the Kinston Indians here at Pfitzner Stadium in Prince William County, Virgina.
I love lists, especially subjective ones such at ‘the best this’ or ‘the worst that’. They provide swell fodder for discussion and debate. Here’s a good one from The Politico…
The 50 Greatest Political Moments of the Last 50 Years
The Politico, 4/8/08
When thinking ‘Casey’ and ‘Baseball’, it would not be unexpected for most people to think of the slugger for Mudville from the famous poem, Casey at the Bat. But there is another Casey in baseball, whose words are better known and are sung at most games, but whose identity has been lost in the unknown verses. She shares my daughter’s name, Katie Casey. Here’s how it goes:
Katie Casey was baseball mad, Had the fever and had it bad; Just to root for the home town crew, ev’ry sou, Katie blew
On a Saturday, her young beau
Called to see if she’d like to go,
To see a show but Miss Katie said, “No,
I’ll tell you what you can do”:CHORUS:
Take me out to the ball game,
Take me out with the crowd
Buy me some peanuts and Crackerjack,
I don’t care if I never get back,Let me root, root, root for the home team,
If they don’t win it’s a shame
For it’s one, two, three strikes you’re out,
At the old ball game.Katie Casey saw all the games,
Knew the players by their first names;
Told the umpire he was wrong,
all along, good and strongWhen the score was just two to two,
Katie Casey knew just what to do,
Just to cheer up the boys she knew,
She made the gang sing this song:
Listen to the oldest known recording of ‘Take Me Out to the Ballgame’ recorded by Edward Meeker in 1908.
The song, Take Me Out to the Ball Game, was written and first became a hit in 1908, which happens to be the last time that the Cubs won the World Series. In 2008, we’re bringing Katie Casey back, and the Casey’s will help see the Cubs bring their own poetic ending to their 100-year championship drought. And though they lost a heartbreaker 4-3 in today’s opener with the Brewers, we don’t fret. This will be our year.
I am currently re-living the 1908 baseball season, and the Cubs last World Championship, with the help of the book, Crazy ’08 which I am enjoying greatly and highly recommend.
So here we are, just three days from baseball season (good god, what has become of me), and I’m watching my new DVD “I Am Legend” for the second time. As a teen I worked in movie theaters, and in college I worked as a movie theater projectionist, and so I got in the habit of seeing movies that I like multiple times. I guess that may explain why I enjoy collecting DVD, particularly for the special features they offer, as well as for the minor details that are easily missed in the first viewing of any movie.
So tonight I’m watching “I Am Legend” for the second time, and it begins with the sound of a sports radio program where the hosts are discussing the coming baseball season, and they predict a Chicago Cubs vs. New York Yankees World Series. And of course, I’m not spoiling anything to let you know that shortly after every person on the planet either dies or turns into a vampire that preys on the few remaining survivors. They don’t say how many Chicago Cubs survive, or if the Vampires continue to play baseball (only night games?), but it rather looks like a prediction of a Cubs World Series win is in fact a portent of the end of the world.
So the season starts on Monday. And it’s been 100 years since the Cubs last win, which provides a very poetic opportunity to end the drought, don’t you think? Let’s just hope the end of the world Vampire virus doesn’t strike until AFTER the Cubs end their century long series drought.
I’m soooo doomed. Yesterday’s Washington Post reported that men in their 40s who carry their extra weight on their abdomen are more prone to suffer dementia in their later years. Apparently, fat is nastier when it surrounds your other organs than when it’s just hanging from your legs and arms. Now I don’t consider myself particularly ‘fat’, but I was told by my doctor last week at my regular physical that I had 20 pounds to lose, and one look at me would make it obvious to anyone where I can find them. Right there on my belly. I still have skinny arms and legs, but my belly sticks out like I’m a pregnant man.
So what might motivate me to action, besides the threat of dementia? A bet of course! My neighbor and good friend, TJ, is in the same boat as me. He’s younger, and so got fat faster than me (jk tj!), but is essentially the same weight as me with the same target of slimming down to 180. We agreed to have our own mini Biggest Loser challenge, and the winner will enjoy a 90-minute massage purchased courtesy of the loser. I don’t know how I will do, but I predict a second place finish.
Stay tuned for news of progress, or failure. Who knows, the dementia may set in early and I’ll just type some gibberish, but that’s already my norm. At least I’m in good company.
Study Links Middle-Age Belly Fat to Dementia
The Washington Post, 3/27/08
Why am I watching this nitwit on TV trying to say everything’s great in Iraq and asking for patience … five years into a war of choice, 4,000 lives lost, many thousands more injured (and that’s all just OUR side, forgetting the injury and loss of life among Iraqis), and $12 Billion a month. Go George… just go.
299 days…
