Xmas Jr.

Christmas Jr. was last weekend. Got some great gifts.
-Harry Smith American Folk collection. Been wanting this for years. It's a 6-CD set of music from the early-middle 20th century, in the folk tradition.
-Some records including Kenny Loggins Live. This goes well with my new record player. It's real nice and I've been using almost constantly since I got it. I listened to a lot of the Boss yesterday. The player also has a USB port so I can export songs from Vinyl on to the computer.
-some other CDs and some books. A Randy Newman piano book, Karlology (which I've been wanting for months but didn't buy because I was fairly certain someone would buy it for me for XmasJr. Confessions of a Yakuza, The Michael Palin Diaries. My brother got me a CD by Vampire Weekend, which I like a lot, and a Dylan Bootleg which has a lot of tunes I've never even heard.
-Greg got me some rubber shoelaces and a giant plastic Hershey's kiss that plays "Kiss is on my list" by Hall & Oates when you open it.
-Manda got me a tiny head lamp that is much better than the one I own. It's has 5 or 6 settings and the beams are extremely bright.
-I also received a chess clock for playing scrabble. I've used that a few times as well.
-And a hula hoop, which I pick up every 10 seconds or so. I've mastered the neck to torso move but I have yet to perform the torso to neck move successfully. I watched a video of a woman doing it on youtube and it doesn't look all that hard.
-And I got a harmonica and neck piece for holding it. The harmonica is in E so I can play along to Blood on the Tracks. I got the very same thing for Ethan for the very same reason.

Julius R.

Had a question about Julius Rosenberg at trivia on Monday night and I actually got it wrong. Actually probably isn't a necessary word as I don't know much about the Rosenbergs in all honesty. The question pertained to their method of execution. I guessed hanging because I knew the criminals in the Holcomb, KS, murder were tried and hanged sometime around the same time. I was wrong, it was death by electric chair.

Soloman Brothers

Couldn't sleep so I watched The Soloman Brothers on Netflix, the watch instantly promotion. Maybe I was overtired but this movie had me laughing out loud. It was written by Bob Odenkirk and it was evident from scene one. I give it 3.5 stars out of 5. The scenes where they trained to become better fathers were probably the best.

Jump tab

This is a tab I arranged for "Jump" by Van Halen. It's not difficult to play. I haven't completed the solo yet, and I may never. I've been working on a harmonica version of the solo, simplified, but it's still beyond my mouth harp skills. So for the time being, I just hum the instrumental break over the chords.

Anticipation

I think Carly Simon said it best in her hit song Anticipation. She said, "anticipation." That's what I'm feeling for the 2009 Red Sox season. I know it's months away and we still have the World Baseball classic and hours of game construction for what was previous titled Big League Manager, but that's for a different blog. This one is about the 2009 Sox.

Acquisitions. Lots of them recently, though not the type of blockbusters you'd expect from the Sox after the las few off seasons (though last season was quiet, it was also directly following a World series sweep). The Yankees, meanwhile, have gone absolute bonkers in their winter dealings. A.J. Burnett, C.C. Sabathia, Mark Texiera, Nick Swisher. The Red Sox in turn have picked up John Smoltz, Brad Penny, Rocco Baldelli, and Takashi Saito. Yes, there are others, and yes that's not all the Yankees have done this winter, but let's keep to the big names for the moment.

1. A.J Burnett vs Brad Penny. Both began there careers in Florida with the Marlins. Both pitchers are around 30, Burnett a year older. ERA and WHIP very similar. Burnett racks up more strikeouts but Penny has a better winning percentage, having three seasons with 14 wins or more, while Burnett has only one. Burnett has a very good season in '08 while Penny had shoulder problems the whole year that grossly inflated his numbers. Burnett signs for 5 years at $83 million while Penny gets a one year deal for $5 million. Theo Epstein would never have signed a 32 year old injury prone pitcher, with only 10 more wins than losses over the course of his career, to a 5 year deal.

2. C.C. Sabathia vs. Smoltz and Saito. Granted, this isn't a fair comparison. We're comparing a Cy Young winning, NL-eating demon of fat with an a likely HOFer in his twilight and a closer with an '08 arm injury. C.C. Sabathia is awesome. There's no dispelling that. He's also gargantuan and has never pitched a whole season in a joint like Yankee stadium. The pressure gets to people. And we've all seen what pressure has done to CC (I forgot that he removed the dots officially last year). I've heard him compared to David Wells, and people point out how well he did in the Bronx. Yeah, well Wells relied on a sand wedge curve ball and had a nice easy fat rolling delivery. Sabathia unravels and his arms explodes across his torso, putting his necklace in orbit and everything else. Basically, he has a weight problem. My CC Sabathia Indians cup places him at 290 lbs. Please. He is a triple-pounder, with cheese, easily. Even so, were I Cashman and company, I would have signed Sabathia in a flash. I wouldn't have signed him for 7 years (!) at 161 million. The only pitcher in the majors I'd sign to a deal of 6 years or more is JohanSantana and it's too late for that. So on to Smoltz. Incredible career. He can close, start, spot start-anything. He's coming off an injury plagued year but the Sox got him for 5.5 mil. This one is iffy, but I hope it works out. Then there's Saito, which in my opinion is the biggest steal of the off season. Saito has a career ERA of 1.95, which was "ballooned" by last seasons 2.49. He can still throw in the mid-90's and he's cool as a cucumber. If Papelbon goes down at all next year, the Sox have a bonafide All-star as a set-up man and part-time closer. Again, a one-year deal for $5 million, and I am going to guess that Saito gets 10 saves next year and has an ERA around 2.

3. Mark Teixiera. I put Mark on his own because he's incomparable. Since he came up in '03 with Texas I have been calling him an infield Mickey Mantle. For fielding and switch-hitting power in one package, he has no equal. The Yankees paid a shit load to get him ($180 million over 8 years) but he will probably be worth it. In my lifetime I can't think of a scarier combination than A-Rod and Teixiera. That being said, it is dangerous to sign a player to a deal of that caliber. You better be damn sure he's the player you think he is. Hopefully, for the sake of the Yanks, he is. I think he is. The Sox did a great job driving up his price tag though. Was anyone actually surprised that he went to the Yanks?

4. Swisher vs. Baldelli. I'm tired and I need to eat breakfast. Swisher will probably be traded before the season starts and who the hell knows what they're getting with Rocco. He's still only 27 and at his last physical, doctors were confident that Rocco can take medication to successfully combat his weird mitochondrial disease. Wouldn't that be a great story if Baldelli became a hometown (grew up 50 miles from Fenway) hero for the Sox?

Rocky!

The Interwebs

Just got the internet today. Had been without it for a little over two months. Here are a few of the things I missed and didn't miss about it:

Missed
-Theme Time Radio on XM
-Checking MLB.com every 5 minutes to get the off season scoop
-Keeping in good "contact" with people via email and facebookb
-Finding the answer to a question with a couple of clicks

Didn't Miss
-Checking MLB.com every 5 minutes to get the off season scoop
-Facebook, and it's siren call
-The amount of time wasted reading stupid articles about things I don't care about
-Online predators

I have loads and loads of shit to blog about so they'll be more coming soon. Right after I check MLB.com...

ISTHMUS

Breanne played the greatest Bingo I've ever seen last night. ISTHMUS. I'd never even heard of it. It's not so much the obscurity of the word as the fact that she spotted it on her tray.

Neil and Wilco

Still don't have the internet, and not because of the recent ice storm. I'm waiting till I get a job.
Did, however, see Neil Young and Wilco in Worcester last night. I didn't know that Wilco was even playing until the car ride down. Mike and Jesse, the two guys I went with, had never heard Wilco. Mike had never even heard of them.
We sat in the high rafters of the DCU center and down and to our left we watched Wilco open. They played the Spiders song, Don't forget the flowers, the Echo song, Jesus etc., I'm the man who loves you, and a few I didn't know. I may have forgotten a song or two. They didn't play for long.
A short break, and Neil rode on stage (not literally on a horse, but you could smell horse as he shuffled). But then he stopped shuffling. He teetered and rocked and jumped (a bit) and played with gusto and lust-o. Hey Hey My My, Cinnamon girl, Cowgirl in the Sand, Rockin' in the Free world, some more. He split these rockers up with acoustics, Old Man, Heart of Gold, Lonesome Me, Needle and the Damage done, and his voice was as strong as ever. No rust at all. He also debuted a bunch of new songs, I think Mike said something about a new album of his. The songs all dealt with gas, energy, cars, the economy- that kind of stuff. Couldn't really get into them, but I have to admit, I wanted him to drop the electric at times and snuggle up to the piano. He didn't do much at the piano.
For an encore, he did "A Day in the Life," and it didn't disappoint. He sang the bridge-"woke up, got out of bed" etc.- with so much enthusiasm, you could tell he loved what he was doing. After the long sustained chord (still the longest in pop music history?) he trudged up to the xylophone, grabbed the sticks and stood behind it like a tyronic alchemist, struck two plates (the wrong note) pretended to look for the right and then found the right one, struck it, looked out at the audience, satisfied, waved, then walked off the stage.

Notice

I'm now back in Maine and living in Old Orchard. I was on the road for two weeks and bouncing between Breanne's and my parents's home. This is the first time I've really used the internet in over three weeks. I haven't listened to Theme Time Radio in almost a month, and I have decided to cease blogging on the subject. I still don't have the internet at home but I will resume regular blogging once I am connected. I'm at the library in Scarborough right now, dehydrated, and trying to figure out how to sign up for the NET's at SMCC.