Pat Robertson, God, and W

I'm late on this, but Lawrence O'Donnell (besides being a very well dressed man) gets my vote for best political jab for this comment on the McLaughlin Group.

Well, his biggest problem is that he's unable to understand what God is telling him, because Pat Robertson, who's brave enough to tell us what God tells him when he talks to him, told us that this week. Pat Robertson said, "The Lord told me it was going to be, A, a disaster, and B, messy." That's Iraq.

Now, Pat Robertson has been talking to God a lot longer than George W. Bush has. So Pat gets the accurate information from God, and Pat Robertson and God knew what this was going to be. And George Bush, who's so new at praying and so new at asking God, got it completely wrong.

For What It's Worth

Well, everyone else is doing it. Here's how I filled out my Oregon absentee ballot. No explanations or analysis, though, because that would take too much time and looking things up and, mainly, thinking — which I am abstaining from this weekend. For that, see Dan at the OC.

President/Vice President: Kerry/Edwards
US Senator: Ron Wyden
US Rep, 1st Congressional: Abstaining
Secretary of State: Bill Bradbury
State Treasurer: Randall Edwards
Attorney General: Hardy Meyers

Measure 31: YES
Measure 32: NO
Measure 33: YES
Measure 34: NO
Measure 35: NO
Measure 36: NO
Measure 37: NO
Measure 38: YES

Apology to a Worm

My friend Chu Long met one of the Dalai Lama's photographers at the airport on his way back from California. The photographer shared a story about one picture that he had taken. He had setup his camera to face the Tibetan Master. As the Master walked by with his retinue, a disciple yelled because the Master had stepped on a worm. The Master put his hands together and said, "Uh! I am so sorry!" The photographer snapped the picture as the Master said this. I think that the photo is wonderful and share it with you here.

I Couldn't Agree More

Gramaphone's review of one of the latest opera "collections":

Perhaps, in such collections as this, it is best to forget about the aria’s context and simply take each item as it comes; but that is not always possible, as (for example) “Porgi, amor� cannot suddenly be disassociated from the Countess, and it is a piece of surreal effrontery to have her finish and Blonde from Die Entfuhrung come cavorting in, vivace e presto, with “Welche Wonne, welche Lust�. Then when she skips off, Konstanze arrives – same opera, same voice, different character. It won’t quite do. And then why, one wonders, is the second of Konstanze’s arias, “Ach, ich liebte�, not allowed to follow the first, as Zerlina’s is?

Well put! DG take heed — the order does matter! Actually, to be completely honest, let's get rid of the "greatest opera arias of all time" disks completely, shall we?

Only One Question Remains ...

What will Red Sox fans complain about now? Cubs fans ... let's start planning for next year ...

Three Outs Away

Three outs away from getting rid of the curse. Okay. Either two things will happen.

(1) The Sox get their three outs and finally break the curse. The Cubs will be soon to follow.
(2) They snatch defeat from the jaws of victory and lose the game and go on to lose the next three further strengthening the curse. They will never win a world series. Ever.

What will happen?

Woops. Start worrying. Albert Pujols is on first with nobody out.

We'll Get to the Bottom of This

The Roger Ebert debate has switched over to FLOG™. We will get to the bottom of this. This weekend, Ebert & Roeper are being recorded onto my computer and the resulting file will be posted right here. Phooeyhoo: We post, you decide!

Ebert & Fug

Photoshopping gone mad:

Unless liposuction technology has increased by leaps and bounds — no way is Ebert that thin.

On a related note, through an indirect link on Blog, we bring you Go Fug Yourself — a hilarious site of making fun of celebs. The girls that run this site are even more ruthless than Dave and I.

Some highlights:

Mighty Oaks
Homeless Charlie Chaplin
Big Bird with gangrene
Swimming Cap

And the Answer Is ...

Two days ago I challenged you to identify this picture. Three of you answered the call. So who was correct?

Both FLOG™ and Wilderness correctly identified that the picture came from Michael Spivak's Introduction to Differential Geometry. How could you tell? Because of the yellow pigs which would have alerted you to Spivak's Calculus book which was dedicated to a yellow pig. Duh!

Well, unfortunately, Wilderness is disqualified because he's already seen the picture. For correctly answering the question, FLOG™ gets a prize to be determined later. Congrats! And thanks for playing.

Dual Monitors, Baby!

I'm wasting in my own dual monitor goodness.

This is so Surreal

I don't even care about Boston or New York but this is a surreal moment. Has the curse finally been lifted? Or is it just the Kenny Lofton curse? Wow.

Jesus Crap

10-3 Boston. Top of the 9th. Jesus Crap. If Boston loses this lead ...

Jesus Fuck

Top of the 9th. 9-3. Jesus Fuck.

Jesus Christ

9-3 Boston. Bottom of the 8th. Jesus Christ.

Bored Now ...

What happens when I'm procrastinating on a paper and relearning how to use LaTeX? This! From the same person who just last year brought you a thrilling Statement of Purpose — I now present a thesis on Underwater Basket Weaving!

Quiz Time!

The following picture

comes from ...

(A) a children's book.

(B) a medical school textbook.

(C) a book about bucolic practices.

(D) a differential geometry textbook.

(E) a brochure for an insane asylum.

Take a guess, explain your answer, and await the answer tomorrow!

Crossfire

Here is an audio mp3 of John Stewart putting Crossfire to task. Awesome.

Kobe is a Headache?

Really?!!? You don't say. That being said, I'm interested to know what Phil has to say about the dirt on Kobe and the Lakers.

Superman is Dead

Here. Does this mean John Kerry will stop the annoying references about how he had brunch at so-and-so's house? At the very least, he'd better not mention anymore dinners with Reeve. Or, who knows, maybe he's actually the Lord of the Undead. In an election year filled with more ennui than you can shake a stick at, I think that I speak for all of phooeyhoo.com when I say — that would be pretty cool.

Who Are These Guys?

Where did this Johan Santana guy come from? How come I've never heard of Joe Nathan (the Cubs could have used him instead we got the Hawk!) and his 44 saves? I guess they're right. Those small market teams get no coverage.

A Good Time Was Had By All

Although my idea of a good concert usually involves rotund opera singers bracing themselves against the efficacy of their own voices or something having to do with double exposition form, I made a trip Saturday to the hell known as Detroit to see the LA indie band Rilo Kiley.

Washington Canard first pointed them out to me on one of his posts and I've been in awe of Jenny Lewis's voice ever since. Blog may think that they're just a rip of Alanis Morissette and would probably have derided me for going, but I must say that the show was quite excellent.

They mostly performed songs from More Adventurous but also snuck in A Better Daughter/Son and others that I didn't recognize. (Too bad they didn't play Glendora, but I guess that was too long ago.) Lewis's voice was dead on all night and I wasn't even that annoyed by their secondary singer's solo. (For some reason I was reminded of that guy in Roxette. I don't know his name either. Okay, so this is a bit of a stretch.) I also have a much better opinion of More Adventurous. I looked at it as B-/B material earlier this month, but now it's firmly in B+/A- level. Though, honestly, I don't ask much out of my pop music. Good lead voice, a few nice hooks, don't make me listen to the lyrics too much — good deal.

I'm glad that I went with other people, though. I'm usually used to lowering the average age at concert's I go to by 30 years but since there was no age limit, I was surrounded by a bunch of high school kids. Unfortunately, I didn't bring my pitchfork so I didn't have a chance to yell: "Damn kids — get off my lawn!"

Anyway, if Rilo Kiley is coming to a town near you, do go and check them out. I was impressed. And there are a lot worst uses for $12 bucks.

Final Baseball Notes

I would call this post Diamond Notes but I think Peter Gammons (i.e. the sexiest man alive) has it copyrighted or something. Well, the last week of the baseball season has come and gone and I've been too tremulous to post anything about it. But now that the final nails have been sealed on my two teams, here goes.

• At the beginning of the season I predicted that the Cubs would win 95 games, win the National League Central and go on for their first world series berth. I didn't count on a steady squad lead by Tony LaRussa in Missouri, injuries to Wood and Prior and, as Jimmy pointed out to me, that God is not a Cubs fan. (Plus, come to think of it, any team that I've pulled for has lost except for the 1989 Oakland Athletics — and I'm still convinced that was a fluke because the earthquake that year misaligned the planets or .)

  Well, I should have learned my lesson that the Cubs usually follow up on good seasons with mediocrity. Now, you say. They weren't that mediocre this year. They won 89 games — one more than last year. I would have to disagree. With the lineup that they put on the field, they definitely underachieved. (Although, I suppose it's a good commentary that power doesn't win the day.) But despite the pitching woes, this is a team that on some nights couldn't score runs with an order that included Sosa, Lee, Alou, Ramirez, and Garciaparra.



• The most telling stat about the Cubs season? The one that you would most want to erase? The stat that is the difference between winning 89 games and going home and 95 games and going on. 25 blown saves. Sit back. Let that sink in. Twenty-Five god damn blown saves. No, that is not a misprint. A retired Dennis Eckersley or resurrected Christy Matthewson could have done better. That's right, I'm saying it. An old dotard and corpse could have been better than this bullpen. All joking aside, the closer position is undervalued in baseball. Everybody says that the closer has the easiest job in the world. Pitch one inning every other day or so. But this is a job when every pitch counts. When you don't have the luxury of warming up. Yes, I too, once mocked the importance of a closer but you know what — the Dodgers are in the postseason because of one man: Eric Gagne. The Yankees have been dominate because of Mariano Rivera.

  Let's not even imagine that those 25 shrunk down to 0 and the Cubs won 114 games. Let's just say they didn't blow any saves this past week. They blew three of them — two of them coming down to the last pitch. In the end, the closer job all comes down to nerves. LaTroy Hawkins has the stuff to be a great closer. Why was he lights out in the 8th inning and not the 9th? It's got to be those nerves. Otherwise, we'd be in a one game playoff with Houston right now.



• Oakland. What a ride they put me through every year. Thankfully, I won't have my nerves wrenched out in another fifth game collapse. This will be the last year that they will be in contention for the division until their owner decides to put money back into the team. Remember when they were owned by Haas's way back when? When they weren't afraid to spend money? Argh. Just think if they were still at the helm. We'd have such a kick ass team ... but whatever. What went wrong this year? The studs didn't perform and they had some guy named Octavio Dotel coming out of the bullpen. 12 blown saves right there. I've already ranted about closers. 'Nuff said.


• Bobby Cox should go into the Hall of Fame this year by special exemption.


• Hooray for Ichiro.


• Well, my two teams are out so by the theory of trickle down effect from Oakland, I'll need to cheer on Tony LaRussa. So go Cards! Wait, that means they'll lose according to my previous theory. Go, Yanks!