The Holtonian

AL Spankin the NL

OK time for some baseball dork talk.

I'm an NL guy, I just think the AL is inferior baseball, in theory. Let me hold onto that in theory as the "in theory part is my escape pod." In theory because I think making the pitcher bat is the way the game is supposed to be played, if you disagree look it up in history and see how it was played. The strategy is more, more is required of pitchers, they have to help the team out on both sides of the plate. But anyway, let me just reiterate, in theory the NL style of play is superior.

Now in actuality the NL is a joke. Do you know what the only two teams with winning records against the AL in interleague are this year? Before tonight it was the Rockies and Marlins... the two worst teams or so in the NL... what is up with that???

Every team has a losing record against the AL except those two and the Brewers who are 6 and 6.

The games aren't even close in the cards case. But i mean the type of baseball the AL is playing right now is so far superior talent wise that its sick. And I used to think that it was because the AL had gobbled up a lot of the talent in baseball, and its true a lot of good NL pitchers have defected: Shilling, Beckett, Johnson, Clement, Millwood, Haren... but these aren't even the best pitchers in baseball so that argument doesn't hold much weight. Factor in clemens and pettite coming to the NL as well as Hudson and Mulder and the argument is pretty much null and void.

I do think the AL has a lot of the better players, and in essence better teams but my thing is its probably come from having a more competive division. The White Sox this past year came out of a tight race for the division with the Indians. The Red Sox and Yanks are always in essence challenging each other to be the best. And the Angels and A's have a good healthy rivarly keeping them going.

Take the NL central... Cards and... cubs can't ever get out of the gate, the Astros are a wild card team that usually finishes 10 games back of the Cards. NL East has been the braves by a long shot for a while. And the NL West was a joke last year and in years before hasn't been that impressive.

So the power is in the AL right now, I think we got a good picture of one of the two possible WS pictures this past week, Mets vs Red Sox, red sox swept them like the NL inferiors they are. It will in my opinion be a Sox team again in the WS sweeping the Mets. Whether its White Sox or Red depends I think a lot on Ozzie Guillen not screwing up things too badly in Chi town. And frankly the Red Sox have the talent to where there is no reason they can't take the Whites down.

Detroit... this year's baltimore. They're playing above themselves right now and doing it in rare fashion. But they'll come back down to earth a bit post all star break. Unless they land a huge trade (Smoltz rumors are flying around Detroit), but I think they might be a year away. The AL Central has become the AL east of yester year. The Yanks just have too much injury to contend with. I think it would be smart to ditch some of their rediculously overpaid players if they can to a team that's making a desperate run for the series.

We'll see. I'm not saying the cards don't have a shot. But the one thing they've always lacked is the heart. Larussa is a business man's type of coach which the only time they've had a lot of heart is when Daryl Kile died, they really came out and played above themselves that year. And when Eckersly was on the team he added the flair and excitement that the team needed. Pujols doesn't really illicit excitement. Eckstein's exciting but not a heart guy. They need a guy that just bonds the team and makes them want to win at all costs. Like Rudy.

Random Googling

So while I was doing some online searching tonight some how on a google search a site unrelated to what I was searching for popped up.

I started reading the whole essay and it was pretty interesting, especially since I've never cared to dive too deep into Tolkien on account I just never had the time. I mean I've read it, am a fan, but I'm one of those people who has read the simiarilion 8 times over like Roe.

In other news, at work I'm getting a bigger cube. This for those who don't know is a very big thing in corporate world. Its a symbol of status much like a laptop or a starbucks coffee mug. So they're sticking me in a bigger cube, i think its an effort to isolate me from my goofing off budies at work, if I have a huge cube by myself instead of a small cube farm then I won't be as distracting or distracted.

Aviator Thoughts

SO we watched the Aviator today after church. It was an ok movie, considering i dropped 5 bucks on it at blockbuster to buy it. It was really long, which everyone had told me about, but I felt like it didn't really go in depth into who Howard Hughes was. I kept expecting it to flush out more about why he was the way he was but instead I felt Scorcese just sort of hints that it ties back to his mom.

It was a weird movie, because in some ways they seem to want to portray him as a hero for taking on Pan AM and the pushing the aviation envelop but in other ways its painting him as a lunatic, i mean i guess thats what scorcese likes to do, his heros aren't heros.

Cate Blancet as Katheryn Hepurn was annoying, i mean if thats the way Hepurn talked how was she ever successful as an actress because man it got annoying. I thought Dicaprio was actually really good in the movie, though he struggles as always because he looks so stinking young. It was also interesting that even the smallest parts were given to popular actors/actresses. Willam Dafoe is in the movie for two seconds.

Overall the movie was ok, not bad for 5 bucks. Scorcese works too much to get these dramatic moments in there, then drags them out to the point of it being annoying. I'm sorry but if he said, "way of the future" one more time I was going to see how far the DVD could be thrown out my front door. And I'm wishing I knew more about Hughes because I feel the movie was a very Scorcese/Decaprio interpretation that should be taken with a grain of salt and a history text book. Also i was surprised how suddenly the movie just ended, you kind of expect it to go on into his older years and it just sort of stops. Also I've read the Hercules flight was very small and was not viewed as positively as it was in the movie. I read in some of my history text books that it sort of confirmed the stupidty of the plane because it only flew for a few football fields before having to come down. Though I must admit the idea of a mobile transport that could land in water is still a pretty cool idea. Also makes me wonder why a jet hydro plane has never seen much light. Granted a jet taking off on water would probably fall apart if it hit one wave.

In house hunting news not much. Some stupendous houses were found that were always missing one key element. I want to stone the builders of these brand new houses that have kitchens the size of the inside of a sentra and have master beds/bath on the first floor but no half bath on the 1st floor. Thats the problem we have with our current house... our bathroom is the guest bathroom. So if you come over I have to make sure my bathroom is clean because its where you'll make water. Thus the desire for a half bath so people can use that.

The kitchens really baffled me, you can tell that men design these houses because they all had awful kitchens. So all the houses had no kitchen, no half bath on the first floor, or were locked. Most of them were locked but from window peeping nothing really spiked our interest.

House Hunting

So Ultimate Spiderman wasn't too ultimate. A game that was so huge and had endless possibilities ended up being really short. I beat it last night to little fan fare. The end was lame, and due to the fact that my wife is currently dissing me for blogging about it I'll cut it short....

As the baseball season progresses i think my prediction of the Mets and White sox in the WS gets stronger. Granted Ozzie Guien might not be with the WS if he keeps his mouth open.

Its shaping up to be a nice day and since there's been zero rain except a short deluge yesterday the yard needs little work. SO we might go touring around the town, sort of a drive around, maybe check out some houses or something. The desire to move has hit me as I would really like to have more storage in a house. But nothing major, going to take that slowly and not rush into anything... granted we rushed into this house and its been awesome for the most part.

The real kicker will be when we do move will we be able to get what we want out of this house. Which I think we will our neighbor's house is going for 160,000 and is a 3 bed 1 bath (and the third bed is kind of questionable, in other words I would call it more a 2 bed 1 bath with an office). But obviously I'd love for him to get 160,000 cause it makes our 4 bed 2 bath all the more attractive. Especially with all new hard wood and carpet in the downstairs as well as new crownmolding, baseboards, and a few other here and there fixes I've done.

So if you're interested in mountain living and want a 4 bed 2 bath with lots of character, nice front porch and back deck, i'm your man to talk to. I mean this place has a front porch swing, you can sit and watch the freshmen covenant college students drive up to the college about to shell out 100 grand on an education.

Car thoughts update

I read some more reviews over small cars. The fit one over the new Nissan by just a bit. It was on CNN money's site. The Yaris seems to be the worst small car ever made since the Nova. Every review I've read of it has said, too slow, can't go over 70 and no room. The fit's stow and go seems to be winning people over like it did me months ago. Though I have read some personal reviews, some people have gotten the few bad apples that come when you buy a car, innevitably there's always one that somehow missed that quality inspection because Hideki Kasimo was on his lunch break bragging about his high score in Taka Kanaka the new Dance Dance Revolution game to hit the arcadiums.

Some have said the fits engine lacks the umph... granted anyone who buys a car with a 104 hp should realize HP sold seperately. I'm looking more at the matrix now than the Fit, mainly b/c toyota seems to be more flexible with their price. Nissan are jerks when it comes to negotiations, Honda is just, this is the price take it or leave it. While Toyota will give deals on interest rates and cash incentives and what not. Like now its a 4.9% interest rate on a 60monther and a 750 cash towards down payment. Granted I don't have that kind of cash flow to pay for a new car but if a windfall were to show up I'd probably go the matrix route right about now. Mainly b/c of the engine. Though a civic would be nice and stylish.

In other news, our baby is growing like a mug. She's getting so big and more animated by the day.

Mavericks fans are busy ordering hot dogs...Red Sox fans are posers... yankees fans are yuppies.... and braves fans don't exist

I officially don't want the Mavericks to win the championship. I was pretty on the fence because there are aspects of both teams I like. But after watching tonight, and I've watched almost every game in its entirerity, I was so disgusted that rows 1-10 had tons, tons of empty seats. THIS IS THE FINALS!!! Your team has never been there, your owner dies for this team, and you can't either, A. bother to show, B. are too busy getting a hotdog to watch one of the better finals match ups in sometime C. fell in the toilet.

It erks me because as a general sports fan if I had access or money to buy tickets to my hometowns championship I would be there in a heart beat and if for some emergency reason I couldnt' I'd make sure someone was sitting in my seat wearing my home teams colors/jersey. It makes me sick.

The only thing that bugs me more is freaking Boston Red Sox. I hate the redsox, the fans are posers, and before 2003 you wouldn't have seen one walking down the street, but then all of a sudden everyone is a redsox fan and wearing that stupid hat. If you werent' born in Boston or live in boston, or at one time lived in boston then you have no right being a boston fan, same applies for Yankees fans... aka Root. Sorry Rob I'm sticking by my point that you just need to focus on the Panthers and Hurricanes, or maybe the gamecocks. The reason I bring this all up is for two reasons.

The first is I'm tired of ESPN aka the Yankees and Redsox network. Do you ever see games that don't involve these two teams?

Secondly I was watching the braves horrible series this past weekend on the YanksSox Network aka ESPN. There were more stinkin red sox fans than braves fans. Why can't the braves have good fans!! And why can't the red sox fans stick to living in caves like they should. I feel so bad for the Braves, I love them, they're a great team and great organziation, but I feel so bad that they can't get decent fanage at the games and can't get their city to rally behind them. When the Braves are spiralling out of control instead of people sticking by them and encouraging them they're saying, "well i guess the season's over, no more division titles...." Ok for starters you still have a good team and secondly the year's not halfway over.

OK enough rambling.

ultimate spiderman

So I finally got a game that works Ultimate Spiderman, and I've played it some and its pretty fun... but quess what, another problem. Now the game won't save or load properly. I made it far into the game on what little free time i have, saved it, quit came back a little bit later, all gone.

I've tried figuring out whats wrong... all i can think of is its the game. I sent a complaint to activision the game's maker/developer but who knows what they'll do. I would have exchanged it at Target for another game actually last time however they would only let me get the same game. So for those paying attention don't buy Ultimate SPiderman for Gamecube.

I mean its a cool, fun game that is real comic bookish and has lots of cool little stuff. I mean web slinging down a cartoon version of NY is fun, going across the Brooklyn bridge, hangin out in Queens, going to Times square.. all great. But if the games small things can't work right then the whole thing doesn't work.

IMPORTANT NEWS ABOUT MY VIDEO GAME LIFE...

Wow that's an oxymoronic statement if there ever was one. Basically I've determined after some tests that the game is defective not my gamecube. I put the game in one more time and it crashed a few minutes in as always. I put in another game and it worked just fine and dandy. So my thinking is its the game. So i'll go to target tomorrow and exchange it. IF they give me grief about not having a recipt (i lost it) then I'll say, "Look dude, I talked to Will yesterday from Target and he said it wouldn't be a problem! So stop goose steppin and oppresin me and get me my game punk!" Or something like that. That or I'll send wifey to go exchange it for me.

It was kind of funny the errors all seem to point to the game. My guess is its kind of like when you burn a cd and you burn it and then the cd is bad and what you burned on their isn't there a few days later... I've had that happen with all of our pictures on a cd before... that was nice. I cursed the inventor of the CD-R, then I realized I can't curse people so I said, "Darnit Mr. CD-R person!" So I hope to have the game soon. THough I still have zero hours to play it.

Lamecube DOA??

So i finally get a new game for the cube and I finally get two seconds where the baby isn't crying (she took a nap hooray!). So i busted the new game out, Ultimate Spiderman. I play for maybe two seconds when the screen goes black and a this shows up"An Error has occured Turn off power and check Nintendo gamecube booklet for further instructions." I was like, "Aw crap!" So i check the booklet, "See nintendo.com for trouble shooting tips. So I check the site and it could be a number of things. My memory card could be dead or at least not functional with this game for some reason (its a generic brand), the game is jacked up and faulty (possible since I played the other day my car game and it worked fine), or my cube just died.

You can have it repaired for 65 bucks but whats the point. I'll fiddle around with it but who knows. Maybe a Wii is in my future. Man if this breaks then I'm up a creek with only a gameboy SP to do me. My computer is on the fritz as far as games go. Civ 3 runs and games from the mid 90s run but nothing made with modern technology or a Pentium P3 chip or greater.

I've thought about cashing in all my games and systems and going to the PSP but the games on it are sparse at least the ones that are good. Field Commander being a new one that looks good but other than that not much. Oh well. I had a good run of video gaming. Oh the memories

Updates

This weekend has been good. My parents are in visiting the little AK 47... anna-kate's code name on the blog. My dad helped dash up the fence yesterday with a top coat of paint with his sprayer. I'm not a fan of the sprayer as its seems to be more hassle than I care to deal with. I'm a brush guy, and a roller guy if the occasion calls for it. I feel I don't have as much control with a spray gun as I do with my good old brush. Plus i find the brush to be therapeutic, i really started to enjoy painting the fence everyday, and not just for the added benefit to my Karate skills. (BTW read Karate as KA... RA... TAE).

I worked on another special project though. We have a path way that goes from our front porch down the front yard to the fence and is supposed to lead to the mail box. The problem is the concrete just stops after the fence. At one point one would think steps existed down the slight slope to the driveway but with time or someones car they disappeared. So I took it upon myself to sort of create steps. I took some cinder blocks and buried them under some dirt. THen put flat stones on top of the buried cinderblocks to give it a more natural look. Then put other big rocks around the steps to give it a natural rock walkway feel. Its a little rough right now but with some grass and some more dirt I think I'll have the desired effect. The trick will be to keep the dirt from washing away, that's what the other rocks are for. I put a lot of rocks into the ground to sort of anchor the dirt. We'll see. So far all my stone pathways that I've created around the house have worked out well, they just take time to sort of settle into their place.

My parents grilled two beer can chickens today for lunch and i must admit they were quite tasty and very moisty. I was a little disappointed because I was hoping for a more beer flavor but i guess its more the moisture that makes the chicken good. Mom also put a lot of good seasoning on the bird that made them nice to the taste buds. I wonder if you stuck a coke up the bird if that would work? Wonder what the taste would be?

We're starting to implement the baby wise regiment to our child. Its hard but in the end it will hopefully make for a better behaved child that is on a schedule. So far her bed time schedule is down pat, her nap schedule needs some work, a lot actually. She's just a little over stimulated right now i think with the visitors and what not. But hopefully this week we'll get her down and into the groove.

Concerned's coming up next weekend which will be cool. He's leaving the coast of GA for the dry desert land out west. I'm a little disappointed but the career move is going to be great for him. It will be hard to not see him as much, granted we haven't seen him as much as we should, GA is just a bigger state than you realize. And he was in Iraq and we were pregnant.. so our travels were both hampered.

Oh and it was our anniversary this past week. Three big old years together. I didn't forget about it, just forgot to blog about it. It was kind of a funny anniversary. We didn't really feel comfortable just yet leaving AK 47 with anyone and our friend Leslie was in town for the week visiting. She offered, generously, to watch her while we go have a night on our own but Wifey's still not ready, which I understand and hear it takes a month or two for the mom to be apart from the child. So the four of us went to Lupis and got it to go (Lupis downtown is sooooo smokey, can't wait for the TN no smoking law in restauarants), and we took it down to miller plaza and ate at the picnic tables. It was nice, except they didn't give us forks, knives, or napkis... and they were calzones. But the man peeing on the Miller Plaza stage was a nice treat as well. So definately not the greatest anniversary but makes for a funny story.

I got the wife a gift card to buy some new clothes and a cd. The wife got me an ipod shuffle speaker system and a picture frame with the pic i posted from a few days ago. The ipod thing didn't work as well as I would have liked so i returned it got a video game. I convinced her to let me since the game was cheaper. The game was Ultimate Spiderman which I'll have a review when I have two seconds to play it... probably in 20 years.

But the greatest gift we have is our little girl. She's doing well and is the cutest baby ever in the history of cute babies.

Message to Al-Zarqawi

YOU GOT SERVED!

Family Portrait

The Fam

New Car and Stud

Two items to note.... I found a new car I like....

Its the ultimate family vehicle.

My own Wittenburg door

For those covenantals out there you'll recall the wittenburg door. In its first iteration it was a big old door outside the presidents office where articles and topics could be "nailed" on the door for discussion. The door during my tenure was turned into an electronic sort of email board where issues from predestination to hall nudity could be discussed and yelled about.

Well I posted an article on Benny Hin some time ago on this blog basically stating that I thought Benny Hin amounted to a hill of beans, pinto not black... black are good, pinto are only good in their refried state. Nevertheless some people found that post and turned it into a little debate board much like our Wittenburg door of old at ye old school on da hill.

Long ago I set up my blog to email me new posts so I could see what people were saying without having to go the blog itself. (Originally I didn't have internet at work and this kept me entertained). Well I came in this morning to work to have 67 emails, thats a lot for over the weekend and for me. 65 of those 67 were posts/comments from that blog.

It has taken a life of its own much like crabb's Ford vs Chevy post that reds fighting tooth and nail over chevy vs ford, though i told crabb that I thought it was merely mesh and roe having some fun on his blog.

Anyway the posts on the benny hin are kind of non-sensical or at least I haven't read them in about 6 months so i've sort of lost touch with the arguments. It just sort of takes me back to the days of covenant and the yelling matches that were had by many... mostly by Brightbill and Rye Dawg.

Kids...

Child rearing is not all fun and games. In fact, its pretty tough. I can't complain though because the wife has the hard job. It makes working for a souless company almost easy. The girl just is real finicky about when she'll sleep, and the tireder she gets the crankier she gets. Last night I got her to bed by having her fall asleep on my chest. Some nights its been in the car seat... i mean whatever you can do to get them to fall asleep I guess.

I better get back to the child, and aid the wife.

My theory on Roger Clemens

OK, so being a cards fan I've watched Clemens come into my division and try to derail the Cards winning ways. Luckily he hasn't had much luck against the birds, really Oswalt last year and the year before has been the bird killer, as he has the best fast ball in the NL central at least, and possibly the entire NL... that's debatable.

So here's my theory of the whole Clemens thing, as most of my baseball thoughts its out there but has a fraction of sensibility.

Clemens approaches the rockets and says, "Look if I play for anyone else I upset my fans here in TX, which I don't want to do. Plus I like you guys, my son's coming up in your organization, maybe I can get a job in the org when I retire, so I don't want to do you guys wrong. We got pretty much the same team as we had last year to make a run at it this year."

He goes on, "What we'll do is I'll sign on for my usual 22 million, prorated. I'll hang around till the trade deadline and do my best to make us contenders and take down those nasty red birds. However, if trade deadline approaches and we're floundering due to injuries or just lack of fire power and its looking like a playoff run is improbable or at least a WS is improbable then you'll trade me to the Sox or the Yanks and reap all that you can from them bettering your team for next year and beyond. And I get a chance at one more ring."

So that's my theory, because lets face it the Astros didn't get better over the post season. They needed severe offense upgrade to compete not only in the NL but especially in the WS. The only player the Astros got was Preston Wilson a .264 lifetime batting outfielder who won't make that big of an impact.

Oddly enough both the cards and the astros best shot for the WS as of late was 2003 when the Cards went full steam into the post season with everything but one key player... Carpenter. The lack of the number one pitcher hurt them as they ran out of pitching by the time the WS showed up... also ran out of offense as well. The Astros that year had Beltran who that year was on fire, they too were missing one key player, Pettite. Since then both teams have gone down a bit through losses of key players and injuries.

So thats' my thoughts on Clemens. I think if that was the plan, and not something I just made up, then it would be a genius plan. Especially since it could rob some good players away from the Sox or Yanks... granted the Sox have more to give than the Yanks who are running low.

I think it will be a Red Sox White Sox AL Series...and a Mets Cards NL series. My prediction would be (if the cards add no offense before the trade deadline) Mets vs White Sox in the WS, white sox in 6. Injuries to Cards or Mets players could obviously hurt that prediction, especially to the Mets who have a good string of bad luck. Cards right now are doing well, but a couple of the guys are battling through some pain and they need some offensive help to protect pujols.

Small Car Talk

Couple random things to talk about...

One of the greatest feelings in the world is when you look at your bank account with a bit of dread and fear wondering how you'll pay the bills this month. (OK that parts bad) But then the next day you check your account and its rebounded.

Basically I thought pay day was next week and was like, "Eh... uh oh..." and was pleasantly surprised that it was today. Direct Deposit, its like a little lottery pay out each week.

We got a little egg plant parmesian tonight, man i love it. Plus some Neidlovs bread, garlic, cheese, other stuff, its awesome, those Nieders can make lovin bread good time. That make sense?

Baby is good, healthy kind of cranky sometimes, takes after her old man.

So some of you know I sort of drool over cars and go through phases of car desires. Sidenote: I dream of owning a new car but the reality of that is a pipe dream but my blog allows me to communicate the dream of replacing the nissan sentra that time has taken a toll on. Anyway, the Fit, Honda's hatchback cheapo car, is sort of my latest desire. The Element was it for a while as it was part SUV part car, but frankly its gas mileage is still too bad. The fit is a 30/38 gas mileage and has some flexibility with the seating, kind of a stow and go seat. It runs nicely equipped for about 15,000 brand new.
THE FIT

Now everyone seems to be going this small car route what with the gas prices and all. Even Dodge has a small sort of magnum type car.
DODGE

Car & Driver ranked all the small cars from Hyundai, the dodge, the Fit, Nissan had one on there, to the Yaris, Aveo and what not. Fit scored number one, shock its a honda. One car that I thought was oddly absent was the XA by Scion.
XA

The XA is pretty much the FIt looks wise, engine wise, but is about 13,000. My thing is I just don't know much about Scion. I realize its the cheaper Toyota brand, basically elevating Toyota and giving them a three tier structure, Scion, Toyota, and Lexus. Scion though only has three cars, one is that goofy box thing. The sporty little car is pretty cool looking but runs aobut 16,000 which is a lot for that small of a car.

Eventually I'll make it to Atlanta to visit my grandparents in law and my "Papa" subscribes to Consumer Reports and I'll check out the Scion and see how it stacks up to the Honda. I'm just a fan of the small cars. The car I wanted in Highschool was the Acura Integra, basically the RSX of the 90s. Small cars are just so much more fun to drive than big SUVs or even sedans. The drive like a car should, if they're good, and handle well, and frankly use less gas. Though I've heard that the Yaris, and basically everything on the small car list besides the Fit and the Nissan one (not out yet) are not worth much. The Yaris apparently gets terrible handling at high speeds, aka highway, which is when you want stability and handling.