What I’ve Been Up To

2011 February 28

I know I have fans who have been wondering where the updates have been in 2011. It’s two full months into a new year and I haven’t written about my favorite stuff from 2010, or New Years’, or spring training, or Carmelo, or the Islanders game I went to, or video games, or music. Don’t worry, my WordPress installation did not have a Y2K11 breakdown — I’ve just been busy with Roto Hardball, fretting over the opposite sex, analyzing my internet anonymity, and watching too much stuff on my still-awesome HDTV.

The last time I posted, Cliff Lee had just become a Phillie. Maybe it’s just taken me this long to recover from that blow. Luckily, the Mets are pretty much in a reassessing mode, so over this year of Phillies dominance they can work on building towards 2012, especially with all the money coming off the books. I just look forward to seeing a healthy lineup of Reyes, Pagan, Wright, Beltran, Bay, and Ike for 2011. But enough about the Mets, as I can save that for another post.

While I’ve spent plenty of time putting together link posts for Roto Hardball, it’s not that blog’s fault that I haven’t written a blog post here in a while. Whenever I’ve felt like writing about something else other than fantasy baseball, it’s been a fairly personal topic that I thought was better suited to my hipster-worthy Moleskine notebook. I tried to work out problems and issues on the page, writing them out with a pen instead of typing them out with a keyboard — as if that would make a difference. Maybe I’m just preparing for the inevitable appointment with a shrink; instead of talking, I’ll be able to just give the doc my journal.

It’s funny when you worry about things blowing up in one way, and then having them blow up in a way you never thought would happen. On a related note, part of growing up is being able to deal with something not turning out the way you hoped. It’s also important to know when to stop giving, even if you think it’ll make you feel better. In the end, it only adds to a massive feeling of resentment. This reminds me of Blue Valentine — which you should watch as soon as it hits Netflix Instant. The independent movies are always on there much quicker than the big guns.

I’d go into Oscars discussion now, but, 1) I didn’t watch the ceremony, and, 2) I haven’t seen 7 out of 10 Best Picture nominees. I have no idea how to punctuate that sentence. I am listening to the winner of Best Original Score as I write this, though. I thought the Inception soundtrack was fantastically bombastic, but the work Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross did for The Social Network is just so damn cool and much more conducive to writing. I’d listen to the Inception soundtrack while skydiving.

But yeah, the past two months. I’ve been meaning to look for a new job for the past month and a half or so. That hasn’t happened. The nearest equivalent would be applying to the MLB Dream Job of sitting in a room for seven months and watching every single baseball game of the 2011 season, while blogging and making videos about my experience. But one of the application questions asked if I was of legal drinking age, so I hope it involves imbibing alcohol as well.

By far the coolest thing that’s happened to me recently was attending a bloodbath between the Islanders and Penguins. A friend called me up the day of, and I said I’d be down for going to my first Islanders game this century. Like most of America, I no longer follow hockey, but I knew that the last game between the two teams had resulted in a broken face for Islander goalie Rick DiPietro. So I was expecting for fights. But I didn’t think the Islanders would a 4-0 lead into the first intermission, while also participating in a couple of one-on-one fights which only served as precursors to a full-out brawl. By the end of the game, the Islanders had scored 9 times.

While I complained earlier in this post about when things don’t work out as planned, this Islanders game was perfect. Each team only had a handful of players left on their benches by the end of the game due to the insane amount of game misconducts. In the final minutes, fights were breaking out after every face-off and chants of “We want ten!” were reverberating throughout the stadium. And I got to witness a mother yell out, “THIS IS WHAT WE’RE RAISING!” after she heard some vulgar taunting in the parking lot. It was a wonderful night, topped off by watching the highlights at the Hooters nearby; it was not until seeing the fighting condensed into a few minutes that my friend and I truly appreciated what we had just experienced.

If I felt more comfortable sharing my life details on here (a.k.a. GIRLS), I assure you this post would be longer and much more entertaining. I try to make up the difference with GIFs.

No related posts.

  • Cornballer

    Welcome back! :)

    • http://somewhatmanlynerd.com/blog CajoleJuice

      Thanks, dude! Hopefully this means I’m really back.

  • lordoftherink

    What Cornballer said, it’s great to see a new post on the blog. I actually went back and read some older posts since there weren’t any new ones for a while, and ended up getting Neon Bible and Brothers because of your recommendations. Both are incredible, so thanks for that.

    You not watching the Oscars ceremony was the right choice, I really don’t know why I still watch it. I saw 8/10 of the BP nominees, which was good I guess since I wasn’t spoiled like some people ended up being due to the clips, but my time would’ve been better served actually watching a movie. Speaking of which, would love to hear your thoughts on some of the movies you watched leading up to the end of the voting period for the moty thread. Dogtooth and Enter the Void are ones I’m both interested in and would like to maybe hear more about.

    Blue Valentine is one I really wanted to see, but it didn’t make it to my town. Unless I’m wrong, Netflix doesn’t usually get movies before their home video release, which is May 10. I’ll definitely watch it then. Although, I’d given up hope on Rabbit Hole opening near me, and it actually did this past Friday. (Saw it and was *very* impressed.) The two movies have the same distributor in Canada, so I’m hoping it maybe gets a late release for one week or something up here.

    And yeah, hockey is awesome. FWIW, the Islanders are definately a team that is on the rise; they have a decent shot at the playoffs next year if their young players continue to develop like they have this year, but I guess baseball kinda commands your full attention. Good to hear you had a good time at the game.

    Oh, and did you get a chance to watch The Red Riding Trilogy? I really do think it’s worth a watch; it seems like something you might like based off what you’ve said you liked in the past.

    • http://somewhatmanlynerd.com/blog CajoleJuice

      Ah, lordoftherink, my most thoughtful commenter. Glad to hear that about those albums. I’ve been on a Black Mountain binge the past couple of days, if you haven’t already checked them out.

      I was planning on writing a bit on each of the foreign films I watched last week (Dogtooth, Enter the Void, Animal Kingdom, The Secret in Their Eyes). It makes for a nice little theme.

      I hadn’t even heard of Rabbit Hole until a few days ago when it was mentioned on GAF. I’ll try to watch it at some point. There are just so many movies out there, you know?

      I’d love to get into hockey again, but you’re right that baseball owns me. With the season starting up, I have no less than four fantasy teams to keep track of (the total seems to go up by one each year), and I’m busy writing for Roto Hardball. It’d be nice if I could follow the Knicks more, too, but there’s just no time.

      No, I have not. I’ll probably start watching it sometime this week, but I opened up an online poker account which I should probably just close right now before I go deep down THAT rabbit hole.

      • lordoftherink

        Wilderness Heart is definitely one of my favorite albums from last year, I haven’t stopped listening to it since it came out.

        Definitely know what you’re saying re:movies. I think I said this a year or so ago, but I still have so many essential movies to see. I could do nothing but watch movies for a year and still be missing out on hundreds that are considered great. I keep up on recent releases better than I used to, saw thirty or so 2010 releases, but even then I haven’t seen everything I’d like to. I just picked up Let Me In and Agora today after them being recommended repeatedly, it never ends.

        And I don’t even want to think about having to manage that many fantasy teams. My one fantasy hockey team gives me enough trouble.