Somewhat Manly Nerd

- Joe Girardi is proving himself to be a terrible manager this postseason, what between his moronic bullpen usage and having TWO pinch-runners on the roster. Thankfully for him, he has Mariano Rivera to fall back on.

- It only took a week with the iPod Touch to NOT care about the iPhone again. The Touch is already fucking up when it comes to playing my music and videos, so I’ll just assume the problems could only get worse with a device that also needs to make phone calls. I’m just glad I didn’t pay for it. Fuck Apple.

- I’ll admit that for whatever reason, getting a new iPod made me attempt to get into podcasts. I’ve been going mostly with informational ones; what a goddamn nerd I am. I actually found a 15 minute podcast on blinking interesting.

- Mark Sanchez went from hyped draft pick to immediate savior to bum rookie in record time.

- I had the first urge to play a video game in two months just now, but I decided to watch classic Simpsons instead.

Owner: Take this object, but beware it carries a terrible curse!
Homer: [worried] Ooooh, that’s bad.
Owner: But it comes with a free Frogurt!
Homer: [relieved] That’s good.
Owner: The Frogurt is also cursed.
Homer: [worried] That’s bad.
Owner: But you get your choice of topping!
Homer: [relieved] That’s good.
Owner: The toppings contains Potassium Benzoate.
Homer: [stares]
Owner: That’s bad.

I think I made the right choice.

- Wait, the NHL has started? There’s still an NHL?

- Fantasy football (or any sport for that matter) leagues consisting of only 5 teams do not work. And I say this because I am winning my 5-team league — when I wasn’t even present for the draft.

- Did I mention I won my roto fantasy baseball league by 12 points? That’s going to be a pickup line from now on. 12 POINTS!

- Totally fuck awesome movies I saw for the first time in the past month: City of God and 28 Days Later. The former being one of the best gangster (that qualifier might not even be needed) movies ever, and the latter being one of the best zombie movies ever — both shot brilliantly stylized. Nice to see I’m catching up with this decade’s classics just before the decade is over.

- THE BOOK is required reading for any baseball fan with a semblance of nerdiness — and also baseball managers. *cough* Joe Girardi *cough*. (Actually, *cough* pretty much every single manager *cough*.) You’ll never look at the game the same way again.

- Kate Hudson’s magic vagina isn’t enough for A-Rod.

There’s no commentary needed for the following two videos.

The massive Carsten Charles Sabathia pitched a gem last night, putting to rest the thought that going on 3 days’ rest might actually make him somewhat ineffective after a long season. The fact that people were even arguing about the decision in the first place blows my goddamn mind. Sure, it’s a small sample size, but last year’s September with the Brewers was fucking legendary. The disaster that occurred in the playoffs was no doubt a combination of going on three days’ rest for an entire month, and also dealing with a minuscule strike zone — neither of which were a problem tonight. (There were plenty of issues with the umpiring, though. No really, I’ve never seen so many blatantly terrible calls, holy shit.)

C.C.’s final line for the night: 8 IP, 5 H, 1 R, 2 BB, 5 K, 101 pitches

That’s pretty economical — I’m sure C.C. wasn’t even tired by the end of his outing, only hungry. I should probably add those 5 postgame BLTs to his final line. You know it’s a good C.C. game when he has a 1:1 hit-to-BLT ratio.

So it’s looking like a Yankees-Phillies World Series, as LA is on the precipice of annihilation, much to the chagrin of Pat Sajak and this little girl:

The 7th season of Curb Your Enthusiasm started about a month ago and I haven’t even dedicated one post to it. This had to be remedied. So far this season has tackled road head, dating chicks in wheelchairs, fighting over paying restaurant bills, impossible-to-open packaging, breaking up with a cancer patient, and most notably a Seinfeld reunion — quite the variety of topics. I think it’s safe to say that Season 5 was the low point of the series, and the Blacks totally revitalized the show, Leon in particular. Observe:

8-6 Phillies. Bottom of the 8th inning. Two outs. Men on 1st and 3rd. Charlie Manuel leaves in Ryan Madson to face Manny Ramirez, even though he had already let up a run in the inning, and had just given up a single — probably because he knows his closer Brad Lidge wouldn’t fair any better.

The following is what occurred:

Madson didn’t throw a strike the entire at-bat, yet Manny was swinging at almost everything, and eventually grounded out weakly to 3rd base. That first pitch was definitely a result of Manny wanting to jump on a good first pitch, and the ball just ran inside on him, tying him up completely. Manny once again feel victim to being overanxious with pitches 3 and 4, letting the high and inside pitch dilate his pupils. And by the final pitch in the at-bat, Madson knew to stay inside and high — there was no way Manny was going to do any damage with that pitch.

Once Manny made that 3rd out, the game was pretty much over. Not even Brad Lidge was able to blow it. By the way, anyone who says LIDGE IS BACK needs to shut the hell up. He will blow a save this series, 100%.

Anyone who doesn’t love dogs doesn’t have a heart. And that Rottweiler got his dick bit.

I’ve had Google Wave for a while now. Oh, I didn’t tell you? Maybe because I don’t have any invites to give you — or I just don’t know where they’re hiding. Or maybe because it’s not all that useful as a social communication tool, especially when no one you’d want to email has access to it.

There’s not even many impressions for me to relate, as most of my activity in Wave has been similar to a forum in real-time. It’s kinda cool to see someone else replying to you before you’re even done typing, but it’s not really much different than a forum — and right now it’s infinitely wonkier. The little things — like being able to drag-and-drop pictures and watching an embedded YouTube video while replying — are cool, but in terms of functionality, I’m not sure if it saves much time or is worth the effort. People for the most part will stick to plain emails, or IM, or Facebook, or Twitter.

Where Wave will be useful is in collaboration in school and work. I wish it was around when I was in college. Students could post their lecture notes and classmates could edit them or add their own comments. Peer editing on papers could be done in real-time over the internet; you’d watch the person fixing or commenting on certain parts of your essay, and be able to converse and ask why they think your paper sucks. Group projects would no doubt benefit even more, in ways I can’t even think of, due to not actually participating in many of them.

I really thought I could write long blog posts consistently, but I usually run out of gas after three paragraphs. How do I get more writing stamina? What’s the equivalent of masturbation in writing? Joe Posnanski’s blog?

As I type this, the Phillies and Dodgers are getting ready to take the field for Game 1 of the NLCS. Two  days without baseball just shouldn’t happen at any point during the season. I almost watched hockey and preseason Knicks basketball (ok, not really) — but I did find and read too much analysis about the series that were already over and the series to come.  How much can you go over stuff that is basically a crapshoot? We all know the Yankees are a better team than the Angels, but Burnett and/or Sabathia could easily have a bad couple of starts and then BAM they’re out. A-Rod, Teixeira, and Jeter could all go cold. It’s possible! We also know the Phillies bullpen is total shit, but in the past week we saw a bunch of great closers completely meltdown.

The ALCS is supposed to start tomorrow, but somehow I can’t see it getting kicked off, considering it’s been raining all day and the precipitation looks to continue for the next couple of days. So not only will my tennis lesson on Saturday be canceled — shut up — I might not have a game to watch that day, either. Not to mention it’s chilly as fuck for mid-October in New York. What the hell is up with that?

[Insert obligatory anecdotal GLOBAL WARMING IS BULLSHIT comment.]

My other baseball annoyance of the day was arguing with a Phillies fan about the MVP of their team. It hasn’t been anyone but Chase Utley for four years. Sure, Ryan Howard loves his HR and RBIs, but Utley does EVERYTHING — especially getting on base in front of Howard. I need to find out a way to look up how many times Howard hit Utley in. Baseball-Reference, don’t fail me now.

A NeoGAF thread made me think of all the television shows/mini-series I’ve watched in their entirety. I’m talking EVERY SINGLE EPISODE. The following is a list of these shows, with an attempt to rank them by my overall enjoyment — this is how I cop out of any objective judgment of quality.

Band of Brothers
Seinfeld
Arrested Development
The Shield
Curb Your Enthusiasm
The Wire
Breaking Bad
Mad Men
Chappelle’s Show
Peep Show
House
It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia
The Venture Bros.
Dexter
Freaks and Geeks
Battlestar Galactica
Lost
30 Rock
Chuck
Undeclared
The Office (UK)
Firefly
Planet Earth
Eastbound & Down
From the Earth to the Moon

Let the bashing begin.

Caution: The following trailer may cause spontaneous impregnation.

Is there anything I could add after watching that trailer? B-movie action stars, hammy one-liners and enough explosions to make Michael Bay wet the bed — what more could you possibly want? I wonder if anyone has ever had more fun putting together a movie than Sylvester Stallone did coming up with this shit. It’s like we’re back in the 80s — so bad it’s good.