jack’s musings

Since today is officially opening day for the vast majority of Major League teams, I figure now would be a good a time as any to describe why I like baseball so much as I often find myself having to defend the sport from people declaring it as “boring”.

1) I feel that there is perhaps no other game that is just so unique. I’m sure most folks out there will immediately argue that the NFL has surpassed baseball as being the national obsession and point to the fact that league that has become nation’s most popular professional sports league. While yes, this may certainly be true, I argue that football, like 99% of all team sports across the world, are all based around the same concept of taking a ball or puck and taking it across a field or court or rink into an opponent’s goal, end zone, or basket all within a defined period of time. Baseball however is completely different. There is no clock, there are no goals, and it’s one of only two team sports I can think of in which the defense holds the ball.

2) One might immediately argue that these first characteristics could also easily be applied to cricket, a game which predates baseball by hundreds of years. However here’s where I draw the distinction and come up with my second reason for loving the sport: Baseball has no defined field size. Sure the infield and foul line dimensions are the same everywhere you go, but otherwise the field can be designed however one wants. Outfield walls can be as far, close, near, or tall as one wants, and every major league park has a different variation with its own nuances. It’s the only team sport I can think of that literally has no defined “out of bounds” on a whole side of the field of play.

3) It’s probably one of the more laid back major sports out there in the world. The game has an infinite number of timeouts and no clock. While some may argue that this is a negative, the game can be as long or as short as needed.

4) This brings me to my fourth reason for loving the sport: It’s not only laid back, it also features the same high intensity atmosphere that every other major sport does. To me, the intensity of a tight playoff game is one of the most gripping times in the entirety of sports. The game has a relaxed atmosphere without sacrificing intensity.

5) Stats Stats and More Stats. It’s these little nuances that make the game so interesting to me. With even a rudimentary understanding of the stats and context of any situation, the game becomes even more interesting. While baseball certainly is the home of obscure, useless statistics like “Batting Average on a Tuesday in the Month of May in a Leap Year”, it also uses these same stats to create a deep and chronicled record of the sport that is hallowed in a way that is unmatched in any other sport. (Can you say Barry Bonds?)

With that, I’m off to watch the evening’s games.

Throughout American culture, there has always been a particular way of dress that is associated with a given time period. If a group of 1000 people thought about what Americans looked like in the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, I’m willing to bet that the vast majority will come up with similar stereotypical methods of dress. Say what you will about regrettable trends in the past, but as we head into 2008, what’s going to be the clothing trend that’s going to be identified with this decade when VH1 straps on its nostalgia pants on January 1, 2010 (which is technically still this decade) and starts the “I Love the 00’s” series? I’ve got several suggestions:

Gigantic Sunglasses

Decades past had their Ray-Ban Wayfarers, (which are not surprisingly making a comeback) but we’ve got our own unique flavor of gigantic sunglasses that have been popularized for some reason by generational role models Nicole Richie, Paris Hilton, Britney Spears, and other stars. It would appear that those over-sized sunglasses that those apparent trend-setters used to wear to parties have somehow become accepted as a fashion statement as opposed to novelty party wear. I have a sneaking suspicion our nation’s desire to give the appearance that our eyes are the size of grapefruit is going to go be one of those decade defining fashion cliches. Also, for the record, am I the only one who thinks that wearers of said sunglasses look at lot like these folks?

Pre-Destroyed/Faded Clothing

A quick glance through any department store or Abercrombie & Fitch these days will reveal these lovely jeans whose popularity appear to be slowly on the decline. Nevertheless, these decade-defining articles of clothing truly expressed our nation’s obsession with shortcuts and willingness to pay hundreds of dollars for pre-destroyed clothing. A few years ago during one of my few visits into an Abercrombie & Fitch, which feel more like a cultural exploration than a clothing shopping experience, I was flipping through a rack of these destroyed beauties and noticed that every pair regardless of the size had been destroyed in exactly the same way. The paint splatters were all in the same place, the holes were all in the same place, etc. So being the enginerd that I am, my immediate conclusion was that someone out there has developed an automatic clothes-destroying machine that can uniformly ruin clothing. I paused, sobbed for humanity for a bit at this realization, and sulked out of the store as my ears rang from the throbbing electronic music.

Those Weird Possibly Faded Shirt With All The Stylized Faux-Gothic Stuff

I mentioned these shirts in my Douche Identifier series, but I feel they’ve earned a spot in this little post as well because of how particularly common they are these days. I blame an unhealthy obsession with Dane Cook and UFC for the emergence of this trend among the masses. What’s interesting about this trend however is how rarely you see it among celebrities. It’s the horrible trend of the PEOPLE. I have a standing rule among many friends that basically says that if I’m ever caught wearing something like this, you’re allowed to kick me square in the balls without notice, and I’m willing to let the intertubes in on the pact.

Ironic T-Shirts

Don’t think I’m going to let you hipsters off the hook. These shirts used to be all over the place, and in the past even I’ve been known to wear shirts like this from time to time. I’m betting it all started one day when someone was browsing through their closet and found some D.A.R.E shirt from their youth and decided to sport it again because they thought it was funny, and thus a trend was born. However they appear to be on the decline recently as being ironic is ironically becoming less and less ironic. (Which might very well be the most ironic thing ever in the history of irony.)

Impossibly Hip Glasses

I’m not going to limit my observations to just sunglasses; regular eye wear has become disturbingly trendy today. Even Tampa Bay Rays manager Joe Madden rocks these things. I may still be able to claim 20/20 vision, but as soon as I start driving into street signs I’m probably going to pick up a pair of these things, even though the new hot thing will likely be some sort of bionic eye.

Upon reading previous entries, one may notice I have a tendency to rag on a lot of people, objects, economic movements, etc. However I’m all not totally about ripping things I hate to shreds; I also will give praise where praise is earned. I figure there’s no better way to start that an update to an item that was featured in my “People I Want to Travel Back in Time and Kill” tirades, the electric hand dryer. While in Orlando I was reminded of the existence of the XLerator hand dryer, a Tim Allen-esque upgrade to the electric hand dryer. Use of this beauty is basically the equivalent of putting your hands under the exhaust of a jet engine, and get this, it actually dries hands. The guy who invented this thing is probably still alive so the time travel part might not be necessary, but hey, you’re number one in the series guy.

OK so I’ve been out of down in the tourism hellscape that is Orlando for a conference, but I’m back and it’s time to return to my regular ramblings. (For the record, downtown Orlando is a pretty cool, good looking place, but I digress.) It would appear that like most of the country, I got most of my final four picks correct as they were all number one seeds. I’ve updated the bracket, and I think I’ve caught up on the highlights of the weekend, though admittedly I spent a lot of it drunk.

While sitting in class this afternoon trying to avoid listening, I pulled out my laptop to browse the intertubes. However upon reaching for my charger in my bag, I was stunned to realize that I left it in my apartment. This normally wouldn’t be a problem for a normal length class, but this was a 3 hour abomination against god that required full distraction capabilities. However my battery would surely die after about two hours of use. I turned down my screen brightness, and hoped for the best. Disaster struck however while chatting with the text capabilities of Skype with my brother when my battery finally quit with over an hour left in the class. I just simply pulled out my SmartPhone, signed into Skype Mobile, and continued chatting with the full keyboard on my phone.

Let’s pause here and analyze what just happened with an analogy. If I were a soldier, my main weapon would have just run out of ammunition, and to finish the battle I needed to pull out my sidearm. Now in combat, this would be all well and good. (Except for the fact that this switch would likely be occuring after the shit has hit the proverbial fan.) However when transposed to the context of technology, it truly demonstrates how ridiculously nerdy I really am. Alarming.

I’m starting to get sick and tired of all of this latest Hillary Clinton non-issue regarding whether or not she embellished her story of escape from Bosnia under sniper fire while on a trip to the troubled country as the then first lady. (A non-issue that sounds awfully familiar to the swiftboat non-issue that plagued John Kerry.) I’ve embellished a story or two myself just like everyone else. For example, I often tell a story about how I used my boat to rescue twenty-three orphaned children off the roof of a house in a flood zone. It turns out that’s not entirely true, the children were actually beers, my boat was a barstool, the roof was a bar counter, and the flood was really a flood of sobriety. We’ve all been there, but I digress. At any rate, Hillary has responded by admitting her story wasn’t entirely true when she stated she was just a regular human like everyone else, was exhausted, and “misspoke”.

Now this really doesn’t look good from any way you look at it, and despite that I really feel this is just a non-issue, I’ve got a couple thoughts on it:

- Let’s take here at face value and assume she just misspoke. I can understand being exhausted and misspeaking, but what happens when that red phone at the White House starts ringing at 3:30 in the morning with an alarmed military commander on the other end waiting to tell the president about how China may or may not be arming themselves for a nuclear or non-nuclear attack? Do we really want someone who has a tendency to misspeak to be he holding that red receiver in the White House?

- Or we could take a recent Time article’s stance on the issue that Hillary didn’t in fact misspeak the one time, but she has referenced the same story on several occasions throughout her campaign. Not good.

I’m really hoping that this non-issue doesn’t explode into a gigantic non-issue that plagues her campaign, as it’s really just a bunch of nonsense. At the end of the day, who cares about some stupid faux-adventure this lady went on? For me, it only further cements my long-standing opinion of the senator as a generally disingenuous type. It certainly doesn’t serve as a huge issue that made me instantly withdraw my support for Clinton as I think there has been plenty of evidence of her disingenuousness. (My new word) And it’s really for that reason that I am in fact an Obama supporter, as they’re policies are essentially the same. I’m support Obama even while being well aware of the fact that he’s going to be assassinated in season 5.

XTC was one of those bands that never really found commercial success but developed a strong cult following through their work on the fringes of popular music. The band was all about pop hooks and cramming as many of them as possible into every song. 1979’s Drums and Wires was a major turning point for the band, as this was the first time they took the unbridled energy of their previous albums and focused it into an album stuffed with strong songwriting and catchy tracks. Largely written by guitarist/lead singer Andy Partridge and bassist Colin Moulding, the album genuinely explored the outer realms of the then emerging pop music scene.

Meticulous production was one of the hallmarks of the XTC sound, and Drums and Wires was a great example of their craft. I mentioned earlier that XTC was all about cramming as many pop hooks as possible into their songs, and the fruits of their obession was a very musically complex album. Have a listen to a couple tracks and you’ll notice that just about every musical element in each song is a pop hook of some sort. All of these hooks are in turn layered on painstakingly stacked on top of each other to create a glorious pop overload.

Most of those familiar with XTC or new wave music in general will notice that this is where cult classic “Making Plans for Nigel” first appeared, but this was by no means the only notable track on this album. Highlights of the album include, “Limelight”, “Real by Reel”, “Helicopter”, and “Ten Feet Tall”. While one probably won’t most of the songs on this album on any definitive collection of the band, I’ve always felt that the combination of all the songs on this album produced the strongest offering of the sound that XTC tried to deliver.

The album might sound a bit dated now, but the album was critically important in its time. The pop music scene of the 80s was just emerging, and no one really knew what it would look like. XTC decided to take this new genre and explore it in every direction possible. It was one of the first times that we got a glimpse of the new 80s pop scene before it exploded in decadence and excess. I wouldn’t say they found pop’s limits as I suspect we’ll never find it, but they certainly did their best to look under every rock they could find.

Full disclosure: I don’t drive a hybrid; I drive a gas guzzling Tahoe. (Though I do use ethanol!) I like my monster, and I like being able to go where I want, haul what I want, schlep around whoever I want, and do this all whenever I want. However call me hypocritical, but this hasn’t stopped me from developing a healthy hatred of fellow GM SUV, the Hummer. I’m not really mad at them for their low gas mileage; I’m more mad at that good ‘ole misguided “LOOK AT ME!” mentality that these things just ooze. I mean say what you will about energy usage in today’s society, but I think most non-douches out there can agree that these monstrosities posess that certain “Je ne sais quois” that douches around the world posses. What does this car say to its fellow asphalt cruisers? Why it says, “HEEEEEEEY!! LOOK AT ME!! MY PENIS IS HUMONGOUS AND I’M NOT COMPENSATING FOR ANYTHING!!” in a way that no other non-modified SUV does. I mean, it’s very common to see modified versions of these things that have wheels so large that the vehicle has effectively been neutered of all off-road capability, thus making GM’s main selling point completely useless. It’s one douchey thing to buy a given car solely for show, but these people have modified their vehicle to make it all about show.  That also makes them super-douches.

One of the unique phenomenas that our culture is experiencing compared to past generations is the rapid development of technology. With the advent of computers and vastly improved communication networks, projects that would have taken centuries in the past take only years or months. Take construction for example. If you ever find yourself walking through a Catholic cathedral in Europe, take a good look at the building’s construction. Entire lifetimes of work just went into building half of one column. For me at least, I’ve always found that this perspective helps me appreciate a church on a whole new level as you’re looking at generations of work dedicated to one purpose. However in today’s world, a project that’s similar in scope might take only a year or two to complete. The rapid development of technology has allowed to humanity to advance at a rate never before seen, and this rate of development is only increasing every day. However one of the interesting cultural byproducts of this phenomena are older generations who have completely missed new technological trends, and it is these same understandebly confused individuals who generally hold places of power in our government and business.

It was this Ars Technica article that describes the striking down of bill in Maryland that would criminalize “leeching” WiFi that really caught my eye this time. The bill was first drafted by Maryland State Delegate LeRoy E. Myers, Jr. after he caught a neighbor using his unprotected WiFi connection. Of course, LeRoy immediately thought of the possibility of someone using his WiFi connection to perform some terrorist act or force his bandwidth of some predetermined ISP limit. So instead of just simply securing his network, LeRoy chose to demonstrate his complete misunderstanding of technology and decided to go to the state government and introduce legislation to criminalize such an act. However he’s not alone in his concern, there have been several other incidents of people receiving fines and jail time for doing similar acts, and it is this growing trend of a misunderstanding that disturbs me. Instead of securing their networks which takes approximately 30 seconds, people are heading to the courts to punish those to have willfully violated their property.

WiFi is one thing, but it is only one example in a large sea of confusion. Take Senator Ted Steven’s famously awful analogy of comparing the internet to a “series of tubes“. He proposed that like plumbing, if internet connections get clogged with useless traffic or garbage, the whole system is brought to a crawl. And while his analogy might have actually been fairly apt, his chosen vehicle for this analogy demonstrates a level of comprehension that is hopelessly locked into the past.

Now it’s important for me to disclose at this juncture that I don’t feel that technology is the solution to all problems. I’m certain that if we as a society rely solely on new technologies before we completely understand them ourselves to solve all our problems, we might create larger problems than we had in the first place. However that being said, technology in general can only help propel us into the future, and I’m greatly concerned that the limits of human ingenuity might very well lie in our houses of government and not our own minds.

I was afraid that this year’s NCAA tournament would be a boring one after the fairly mundane and predictable Thursday games. However Friday proved to be one of the more exiting Tournament days in recent memory. At the Tampa, FL site, every lower seed won. This resulted in two 13-4 upsets and two 12-5 upsets. While Vanderbilt might have been on the business end of one of those 12-5 upsets, the day still proved to be absolutely thrilling. The weekend overall was just over the top. I mean who would have predicted Western Kentucky and Davidson would have made it into the Sweet 16?

However as noted in my post title, my bracket is a wasteland of horrors and is probably only fit to line a hamster cage. I’m going to accept my shame, but it appears that all the upsets I called didn’t happen, and all the upsets I didn’t call did happen. This would be the dynamic combination that destroyed my bracket. Just about all of my predictions proved to be completely wrong, and while it did wreck my pool chances; it’s this same unpredictability that reaffirms my love for the tournament. We’ll see what insanity happens next weekend.