Somewhat Manly Nerd

Just yesterday, both John Kruk and Nomar Garciaparra said they’d take C.C. Sabathia over any other ace in a Game Five of a division series. At the start of the season, Halladay was only 6th on MLB Network’s Prime 9 list of pitchers of the 00′s decade. Last year, Tim Lincecum won a poll on my blog in a landslide (I voted for Lincecum). And a few years ago, barely anyone but the hardest-core of baseball fans knew about the masterful workhorse north of the border.

It’s amazing what one season out of the AL East ghetto can do for a pitcher’s reputation. In 2010, Halladay pitched like he has for years now, only in the weaker NL and for the winningest team in baseball. His nine complete games and four shutouts equaled his output in 2009, and his ERA was just a bit lower, to go along with the best K/BB ratio of his career. He’s going to win the second Cy Young of his career, becoming the fifth player to win the award in both leagues. And of course, he threw the 18th perfect game in modern baseball history.

But all that was only a precursor. I knew the Phillies were going to make it back to the postseason and I wondered how Halladay could possibly outdo Cliff Lee’s performance for the Phillies last postseason. Halladay responded by throwing a no-hitter in his first postseason game, managing to completely overshadow a 10 K, 0 BB performance by Lee earlier in the day. He effortlessly disposed of a juggernaut Reds offense, with Jay Bruce being the only player to reach base on a walk. There were maybe two hard hit balls. Halladay was seemingly able to throw all four of his pitches in any count in any location. Much like his perfect game earlier this year, he made the improbable look routine and inevitable.

Halladay is the first pitcher since Nolan Ryan in 1973 to throw two no-hitters in the same season. He’s only the second pitcher to throw a postseason no-hitter — joining Don Larsen, who threw a perfect game in the 1956 World Series. The only way Halladay could top that is to throw one in the seventh game of the World Series against Lee.

So is there any doubt in anyone’s mind that Halladay is going to dominate the rest of the postseason? It’s not rational, but I don’t think I can envision a team scoring more than two runs off of him. Sure, it’s amazing what one season can do, but it’s even more incredible what one game can do.

Why does he have to pitch for the Phillies? Goddamn it.

The National League playoff race came down to the final day of the season today. Baseball fans were abuzz with the possibility of a three-team tie, forcing a two-game playoff. There was a 50% chance of at least one extra game. And there was a 75% chance of me being satisfied. Of course, life went with the other 25%.

The Braves were facing off against the Phillies B-team while the Padres and Giants were fighting over the NL West. If you didn’t have a horse in the race, you were most likely rooting for the Braves and Padres, because then the magical three-way tie would be accomplished, leading to Game 163 for the NL West between the Padres and Giants and then to a Game 164 (well, 163 for the Braves) between the loser of that game and the Braves for the Wild Card. It would be insanity.

But I didn’t trust the Padres. They had been free-falling in the month of September, and even though they were throwing out Mat Latos, he had obviously run out of gas a few weeks earlier after putting together an incredible barely-classified-as-sophomore season. I was rooting for the Braves to lose. I didn’t want to take any chances; I needed to make sure the Braves had to at least play one extra game to reach the playoffs.

Shockingly, the Phillies weren’t able to win a game where they used Danys Baez. The Braves came tantalizingly close to blowing an 8-2 lead, but unfortunately Billy Wagner was able to come in and shut the door. The Padres would have to win if we were to get extra baseball.

It was not to be. The Padres couldn’t even manage one measly run, losing 3-0, completing a devastating collapse. And yes it was a collapse. Everyone’s idea of a collapse has just been totally skewed by the once-in-a-generation collapse of the 2007 Mets. The Padres blew a 6.5 game lead in a little over a month — that’s pretty damn hard to do.

So one of the best stories in baseball this year has disappeared for good, while the Braves are back in the playoffs. FUCK THIS. Someone wake me up when the Braves are about to be eliminated by the Giants. Or if the Reds actually have a chance of beating the Phillies.

I haven’t mentioned Bioshock Infinite on here yet because I just haven’t been posting about videogames not called Starcraft II much (in other news, Civilization 5 came out today, but I won’t be getting it anytime soon due to not wanting it to own my life – SC2 is enough). Shit, I haven’t been posting much about anything. I have quite a few posts I want to write, but I just haven’t brought myself to type them up, seeing as I should probably be focusing on the classes I’m taking. But hey, writing a couple of paragraphs to go along with an incredible 10-minute video is no big deal.

Bioshock Infinite is Bioshock in the sky, only it seems this city is on the other side of the political and social spectrum. Instead of social libertarianism and amoral scientific progress got awry, this successor revolves around nativism and I assume religious conservatism. This is the game we all wanted after the original Bioshock. I wasn’t even interested in its sequel (I’m still not), but I can’t wait to get my hands on this game.

Remember when you first saw that trailer for BioShock where the Big Daddy drilled a hole through that guy’s hand and you were convinced it couldn’t have been rendered in real-time? Well, the following gameplay video isn’t quite that impressive relative to its time, but it’s probably the most exciting early-game footage I’ve seen since then.

I can’t believe it’s not coming out until 2012. What a fucking tease.

Arcade Fire – Ready to Start

I’ve been tempted to post another Sleigh Bells song, but I have finally gotten around to checking out The Suburbs a bit over the past week or two. This YouTube video has been around for three months, so I’m definitely way behind. Anyone reading this has probably already listened to this song. Oh well. At least I’m documenting my listening habits with these posts.

The Suburbs is a grower, but even after a few listens, I still prefer a bunch of other albums this year — including the one from the aforementioned Sleigh Bells. Fuck, that album is just too fun. I also still prefer Neon Bible, if only because there’s a few songs on that album that are just phenomenal, and better than anything on The Suburbs for me. But we’ll see if it grows on me anymore in the coming months.

As you might have noticed, I said I was giving away a couple of Mets books. I wasn’t sure how to go about picking or announcing a winner — I even thought about making a YouTube video of the process. A bunch of people commented on the post without emailing me, but it’s not like that many people commented in the first place. In the end, I just tore up a piece of computer paper into sixteen pieces of the exact same size, wrote the names on eleven of them, tossed them into my Mets hat, and picked out the winner.

Before I announce the winner here, I’m going to be totally honest. The first time around, I only put in the six people who had emailed me (only six people followed directions correctly!). I picked out @DonCheech. But I felt bad about this for two reasons: 1) His comment was by far the shortest, while many other people pleaded their case, and 2) I didn’t put in the other half of people that didn’t send me an email — I felt like maybe I should be lenient. So I picked again with all eleven commenters. And I picked out @DonCheech again. So there you go, the Mets gods wanted him to win.

Congrats!

I bought Europe: A History about a year ago due to prodding from someone obviously more well-read than I am. Even though I started reading it immediately, I only finished it yesterday. Yes, I read other books in the past year — shut up. 1100+ pages of text — and dozens more of maps and charts and lists — later, and I feel like I have a nice foundation to delve further into European history. But a foundation is all it is — it’s tough to go in-depth when you’re attempting to write about the entirety of human history across a whole continent.

This is the type of book teenagers be should reading, and I wish I read it a lot sooner myself. It covers everything from the spread of agriculture thousands of years ago to ancient European civilizations — and not just Ancient Greece or Rome — to the Enlightenment to the Partitions of Poland to the end of the Cold War (I just restated the subtitle of the book in a longer statement). And since it’s such an immense and comprehensive tome, it opens up the entire history of Europe to the reader, allowing them to discover which events or periods they find most interesting. In that way, it acts as a catalyst for more focused reading.

At least that’s the effect it’s had on me. I have already started on a Dostoevsky binge, kicking off with a quick re-read of Notes From Underground. I’ll then move on to the big guns: Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov. Maybe I’ll read The Idiot in between those two, to maintain chronological order to appease the OCD aspect of my brain. I also have quite a bit more motivation to read through The Battle: A New History of Waterloo and the Memoirs of Napoleon’s Egyptian Expedition, 1798-1801, two gifts I received from a history buff. Most of all, I want to get through yet another massive tome, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, which was another gift; I’m just not ready to read another 1000+ page book any time soon.

Getting back to Norman Davies’s impressive achievement, I would just like to share these awesome two paragraphs (WARNING: SPOILERS!!):

The collapse of the Soviet Empire is certainly ‘the greatest, and perhaps the most awful event’ of recent times. The speed of its collapse has exceeded all the other great landslides of European history — the dismemberment of the Spanish dominions, the partitions of Poland, the retreat of the Ottomans, the disintegration of Austria-Hungary. Yet it is hardly an event which calls for the historian to sit on the ruins of the Kremlin, like Gibbon in the Colosseum, or to write a requiem. For the Soviet Union was not a civilization that was once great. It was uniquely mean and mendacious even in its brief hour of triumph. It brought death and misery to more human beings than any other on record. It brought no good life either to its dominant Russian nationality or even to its ruling elite. It was massively destructive, not least of Russian culture. As many thoughtful Russians now admit, it was folly that should never have built in the first place. The sovereign nations of the ex-Soviet Union are picking up the pieces where they left off in 1918-22, when their initial flicker of independence was snuffed out by Lenin’s Red Army. Almost everyone agrees: ‘Russia, yes. But what sort of Russia?’

The most obvious factor the Soviet collapse is that it happened through natural causes. The Soviet Union was not, like ancient Rome, invaded by barbarians or, like the Polish Commonwealth, partitioned by rapacious neighbors, or, like the Habsburg Empire, overwhelmed by the strains of a great war. It was not, like the Nazi Reich, defeated in a fight to the death. It died because it had to, because the grotesque organs of its internal structure were incapable of providing the essentials of life. In a nuclear age, it could not, like its tsarist predecessor, solve its internal problems by expansion. Nor could it suck more benefit from the nations whom it had captured. It could not tolerate the partnership with China which once promised a global future for communism; it could not stand the oxygen of reform; so it imploded. It was struck down by the political equivalent of a coronary, more massive than anything that history affords.

Now that’s some beautiful writing, Jeff Pearlman.

Russian Circles – Enter

I have to give @310toJoba credit for posting a Russian Circles song on his sadly now-inactive blog. He posted “Geneva”, a song I was close to posting myself, but I forced myself to mix it up. I also have to give credit to @DrewGROF for making me go back to the band after only listening to their newest album a couple of times. Now I’ve been listening to all three of their instrumental albums. I think I made a nice selection. The song builds up wonderfully — like some charging, galloping force — then explodes in a ridiculous wall of sound, pulls back a bit, and then finally goes totally apeshit. It’s awesome.

If watching a team that was supposed to be a new dynasty piss away the admittedly disappointing primes of a couple of homegrown players isn’t enough, you can now read about another ultimately disappointing era in Mets history, and also a personal history of the franchise told by a man with a terrifying memory.

The Bad Guys Won! is exactly what that ridiculously long subtitle says. It consists of Jeff Pearlman utilizing his mediocre writing ability to describe the exploits of a Mets team that was actually great. It’s a fun enough read, but after reading an excerpt or two of Pearlman’s 1990′s Dallas Cowboys book, the 1986 Mets seem pretty tame in comparison. And to avoid getting stressed, make sure to order some cannabis products from sites like https://d8superstore.com. Read these CBD oil reviews to find high-quality cannabis products you can order online. 카지노 먹튀 offers a wide selection of casino games that may also help you de-stress.

Faith and Fear in Flushing is the book form of the blog named (surprise!) Faith and Fear in Flushing. Greg Prince really likes to write, and it shows in both his blog and book. He’s definitely also a huge dork, but hey, the guy knows his Mets. If you want an emotional and personal rundown of the Mets from their inception — well, a few years into their existence — to their frustrating present, it’s certainly a lot better than Wikipedia.

I want to give away these books to someone who might actually read and enjoy them. If you think you satisfy those two conditions, comment below and shoot me an email at cajolejuice@gmail.com. I’m not sure how long I’ll keep this raffle open, so just comment when you see this — no procrastination!

UPDATE: Well, it seems that both Amazin’ Avenue and Faith and Fear in Flushing have linked to this post. Thanks, guys! I didn’t even mean for people to prove that they deserved the books, but these comments are great. The downside is that I’m going to feel bad about randomly picking only one winner. And I think I’ll announce that one winner on Labor Day.

UPDATE 2: WINNER - Don Cheech!

I’ve been thinking about e-readers a lot lately. This may have something to do with Amazon greeting me with the above picture of its new Kindle every time I visit its site. And I’m not the only one influenced by Amazon–the new Kindle is the fastest-selling version of the e-reader. But doesn’t it seem as if the newest version of any product is always the one bought up the quickest?

Regardless, the $139 price tag is a big deal; just a year ago the Kindle was almost twice as expensive. I believe that this price drop has not been caused by competing e-readers, but by the iPad. Why would consumers buy a device that can only read books when they can get one of those fancy iPads that does everything (except support Flash) for only a couple of hundred dollars more? Yeah sure, consumers can be told that reading a novel on an LCD screen is not the same as browsing the internet or messing around with Excel spreadsheets at work, but many neither notice nor care although reading real books can be better for taking care of the eyes and you can learn more about this with eye care leadership services here. In response, ALL the e-reader manufacturers have had to compete with the Apple juggernaut. Who other than technophiles are going to be interested in the Kindle? And that same group of technophiles — at least the ones with money to burn — are definitely going to squeal over the iPad.

Perhaps Amazon is lowering the price of the Kindle because it’s following a razor and blades business model, selling its e-readers at a low price to generate a market for the Kindle Store. Whatever the reasons, e-readers are certainly reaching a mass-market price sooner than I expected. I’m just not sure they’ll ever reach mass consumption — until maybe flexible e-ink is widely available or some other unforeseen development, like people actually reading books more than their Facebook feed. A thin, flexible e-ink screen would be amazing. You could read the digital version of the New York Times, delivered to your flexible e-ink screen each morning; or flip over to your subscription of Wired or The Economist; or download the latest New York Post for a laugh. When you’re done, you can fold it up like a regular newspaper.

But if the technology were that advanced, wouldn’t it have a touch screen and enough processing power for the internet and streaming video and whatnot? It’d turn into an iPad-type device. Instead of reading novels or magazines above a 5th-grade level, they’d play Farmville 2024 and manage their fantasy teams. It boils down to how much people want to read, and I’m not sure that the average person wants to read at the expense of other entertainment.

I’m not above considering this trade-off, as I tried to allude to with my fantasy sports joke. I play video games, browse internet forums, IM people, and generally do a ton of shit other than read. An iPad device does appeal to me — just not at its current price point or level of functionality. At the moment, the Kindle is still much more enticing because it’s almost quarter of the price of Steve Jobs’ God tablet.

And, as I’ve said on here and on Twitter, I’m starting to hate all the crap I’m gathering. Books have been eating up my shelf space this year much quicker than Blu-rays, DVDs, and video games combined. I’ve really cut back on that latter group, but I’ve compensated with $25 or above mini shopping sprees on Amazon. An e-reader would eliminate a lot of future clutter, but I wouldn’t be able to lend my books to friends and, more importantly, I wouldn’t be able to exhibit them on a shelf in a vain attempt to make myself look intellectual, an impression unlikely to last if anyone looks down at my Judge Dredd or Family Guy DVDs.

For now, I think I can resist purchasing a Kindle. But once they’re selling for $99 and I’ve finished reading all of my physical books, I might just take the plunge. It’s the price point that got me to finally buy a PS2, and I remember feeling like an idiot for waiting so long.

Watching this video was the first noteworthy thing I did this month of September. Can I just fast-forward to October now? This month isn’t going to get any better. Unless the Braves collapse and don’t make the playoffs somehow.