Somewhat Manly Nerd

I know I asked the general question, and I still would take Lincecum over him, but I figure Zack Greinke deserved a post. He’s been the best pitcher in baseball this season, and he SHOULD win the AL Cy Young in a landslide, but somehow the sportswriters will figure out a way to be total retards and vote for C.C. Sabathia or Justin Verlander. WINS!!!

I can throw out some stats with Baseball-Reference’s new embedding feature!

Only 13 wins?!?! He obviously doesn’t elevate the team around him! Not good enough! He doesn’t pitch to the score! He’s not deserving of the Cy Young, even though he leads the league in ERA, shutouts, and WHIP. And also FIP, but let’s not bring “made-up” statistics into this. But really, his ERA+ is 200. Holy fuck.

I was about to make this into a Cy Young argument post, complete with stats of other candidates, but I think such work can be left until the season is actually over. I just wanted to give Greinke some props. I don’t think the results on my poll are necessarily wrong, because Lincecum has been the best pitcher in the NL for two straight years (and I picked him too), and Halladay has been so consistently great for years in the toughest division in baseball — but Greinke seems to be somewhat forgotten.

Or maybe people just figure he’ll lose his mind again next year.

This is the face of the man who effectively ended the Mets’ 2009 season. No heartbreak on the last day of the season this year! Eliminated on September 13th! Man, the Mets are so going to blow by 90 losses.

Tonight, Pedro Martinez threw 8 scoreless innings on 130 pitches. Did he ever throw 130 pitches on the Mets? (Baseball-Reference says he only threw 120 pitches once, in 2005) I can’t believe this shit. I definitely thought he was asking too much at the beginning of the season, but at this point, it looks like he may be worth that $5 million he was asking over only 1/4 of the season. His 2.87 ERA is now better than Johan Santana’s. I want to die.

At least the Mets didn’t get swept, I guess. And David Wright actually had a two-homer game yesterday. I wasn’t sure if that would happen ever again. Josh Thole also went 4-4 in the first game of the doubleheader today. Those are about the only positive things I can think of right now. Oh, and Carlos Beltran is still able to stand after playing a bunch of games. That’s cool.

Fuck this season.

22 straight Grand Slam semis and now 17 out of the past 18 Grand Slam finals, with the one he missed being undoubtedly due to mono. I tried to downplay the effect mono must have had on Federer’s reign last year, but with the way he’s bounced back this year it’s obvious that the illness had a lingering effect. It’s amazing — since the Australian Open — how much of a better year Federer has had compared to Rafael Nadal. Nadal destroyed his body to beat Federer, outplaying him by pushing his body to the absolute limit, and it seems as if now he’s caught in a downward spiral of injuries. I have no doubt that Fed will go on to win the U.S. Open tomorrow, which will make for another 3 for 4 year. Pretty much the typical Federer year. 2008 was the anomaly.

But I don’t make this post to talk about this crap, I make this post to embed this YouTube video, which includes a shot that will be played a million times over the course of human civilization.

Federer made that shot on the next-to-last point of the game. It would have been too perfect for him to end a straight-set victory with such an insane shot. We’ve all seen the between-the-legs shot made before, but not with the ball 6 inches off the ground, with the ball making it 6 inches over the net, and the shot landing 6 inches from the corner. Holy fuck.

Hey, notice how I ignored Nadal getting totally dismantled the other day? Yeah. That sucked.

Muse – MK Ultra

Maybe that’s a little harsh, as I do like “Unnatural Selection”, and “United States of Eurasia” is the right level of ridiculous. But I guess hearing those before the rest of the album deadens their impact. And “Unnatural Selection” definitely sounds better live anyhow. Either way, this is the one song that stands out for me. Sigh, Muse will never reach their Origin of Symmetry/Absolution level of awesomeness again.

Edit: Yeah, this album just really annoys me. I’m now listening to “Citizen Erased” and I’m amazed at how much better it is than anything on The Resistance. Goddamn it.

I guess I’ll either update this post with my thoughts on the album or just make a separate post to get my blog hits up. Muse is certainly a frequently searched topic at the moment. Anyway, this is what you came for. By the time you click on this post, the link will probably be dead, though.

I remember before Black Holes and Revelations came out I was a bit worried, especially after “Supermassive Black Hole” was the first single. Fast forward ahead three years to the imminent release of The Resistance, to the leak/release of “Uprising” — I wasn’t exactly blown away by that either. In fact, I was disappointed, considering it came after hearing the ridiculousness of “United States of Eurasia”. But just like I was wowed by a live version of “Map of the Problematique” before BH&R came out, this live version of “Unnatural Selection” has me looking forward to The Resistance again.

You love the all caps title. You may also be able to gather from the title that this post will be London-related. I figure a week spent there necessitates at least one post.

- I never thought the government of a Western country could be so hung up on pointless, retarded tradition. The Queen has a dress the length of my house and can’t leave the House of Lords, some guy walks up and knocks on the door of the House of Commons twice to signify a bullshit event, no commoner is allowed to sit down in either of the Houses, you’re not allowed to have all your teeth, etc.

- On the flip side, one of the security guards at Parliament was a pre-op tranny. I don’t think that’s very traditional.

- It’s all about pissing in a massive urinal that takes up the entire wall. Not even a urinal. It’s basically just the wall with water running down.

- Why did no one tell me that London Bridge is just some totally nondescript bridge now? I wasn’t expecting there to be any heads on display anymore, but what the hell? Apparently, Tower Bridge is the fancy one now. Rubbish.

- They have McDonald’s and Burger King, but not Wendy’s. What a barbaric country.

- Did you know people actually care about cricket over there? Cricket! I wanted to check out some cricket bats while I was in London’s premier department store, Harrods, but I couldn’t find any. Possibly the disappointment of the trip.

- Cider is actually on tap in pubs over there. Hard cider. And it’s not bad at all.

- Every food portion is smaller there. I had 6 oz and 8 oz burgers in London with small sides of “chips”, and within a couple of days being home, I had a 10 oz burger with a massive supply of fries. No wonder I barely saw any fatasses there.

- Speaking of Harrods, there were fossils on sale there. Motherfucking fossils. $440,000 fossils. I thought artifacts like that were sold exclusively at closed auctions that only allow admittance with a monocle or beautiful trophy wife. The store also had some awesome first print posters that I admit caught my eye. $2500 for a massive original Taxi Driver poster? I’m game.

- Not exclusive to London, but a girl with iPhone GPS is no less hopeless when it comes to arriving at her destination.

- I stayed in a single dorm room that had its own ensuite bathroom. Apparently, this isn’t a big deal in England. The dorm room allegedly “wasn’t even that nice.” No wonder I wanted to kill myself at MIT.

- Not having to tip every time you eat out or every time you order a drink is a nice change of pace.

- If you go to an Indian restaurant with a mostly Muslim clientele, expect the waiter to not even acknowledge that the woman is there.

- Public transportation there is better than in NYC in every conceivable way. The tube is cleaner and comfier than the subway, and there are a shitload of clean and comfy buses. Basically, envision the sea of yellow taxis in NYC replaced with a wall of red buses. And then, on top of this, there are little electronic signs that display how much time until the next few trains/buses and where they’re going. It’s fucking impressive.

My Bloody Valentine – Sometimes

I originally wrote up this post weeks ago, right after watching Lost in Translation for the first time. That’s usually how these posts go. I watch something for either the first time, or just for the first time in a long time, and I decide to post an awesome song either from it or related to it. So here we are. I thought of maybe writing up a mini-review of the film, but instead I will simply say that I’ve never seen Scarlett Johansson look better, and I doubt she ever will. That counts as a mini-review, right?

In related news, this made me finally check out the album Loveless — I’ll stick to this particular song, thanks.

Why make another post dedicated to one GIF? Because I’m trying to make up for lost posts! And everyone loves The Simpsons, right? Well, at least 20th century Simpsons. I’ve been making my way through my DVD sets of seasons 1-6 for a couple of years now (yeah, I’m taking my time), and I’m really getting into the good stuff now with season 4. When I saw this scene, I figured a GIF needed to be made.

By the way, if anyone wants the aforementioned DVD season sets, they’re up for grabs at $10 a pop.

It apparently takes a lot for me to finally get into football mode, since I didn’t even bother to write up a post calling Brett Favre a total douchebag. Witnessing the following play made me cross the threshold. Michael Vick, I’m glad you’re out of jail.

I thought sacks like that only happened in Madden.