Bold Baseball Predictions: Chicago White Sox

• Bartolo Colon is the number 4 in the White Sox rotation. His record over the last 3 seasons is  11-15 and is ERA over that span was 5.13. The last time he was good was when the Angels were still the Anaheim Angels. Still, Colon will go 11-17 as a starter this season.

 

• Jermaine Dye will hit 47 home runs.

 

• Carlos Quentin will hit 43 home runs and constantly be in consideration for MVP.

 

• Jim Thome will attempt to hit 59 home runs to get to 600 for his career. Unfortunately he will fall 33 short.

 

• The White Sox will generally overpower most teams and with a solid bullpen and steady closer, manage to easily win the AL Central.

 

• At some point this season A.J. Pierzynski will take exception to something someone on some team does to him.

 

• Chris Getz will campaign hard for rookie of the year honors by sending out informational pamphlets to voters with his statistics, cookies his mother baked and the closing line “just remember, what Chris wants, Chris Getz!”.

 

• Alexei Ramirez will continue to defy natural rhyme schemes and remain relatively un-sexy.

 

• Ozzie Guillen will punch Jay Mariotti in the face. Hopefully.

 

• The White Sox will win the ALCS, narrowly defeating the Oakland A’s.

Bold Baseball Predictions: Washington Nationals

• Fans all over the country will forget the Washington Nationals are the other team in the NL East.

 

• 57 references to Elijah Dukes “Sluggling Percentage” will be made on Deadspin (none of which have to do with baseball).

 

• Lastings Milledge will be happy that people have stopped confusing him with Willy Mo Pena, the other shitty outfielder the Nationals got from a better team.

 

• Nick Johnson will have a great comeback year by batting .274 with 16 home runs. He will secretly despise Adam Dunn for stealing the spotlight of what would otherwise be the best season by a member of the team.

 

• Ryan Zimmerman will continue galavanting with Jason Campbell.

 

• Adam Dunn will hit 40 home runs again. Unfortunately he will also bat .235 and have 223 strikeouts.

 

• At some point in late June, the Nationals will be 3 games under .500 and doing better than the Orioles and news outlets everywhere will talk about the Nationals’ playoff chances. As a result several residents of Maryland will remember there is baseball in the state.

 

• Saul Rivera will have the distinct honor of being the best pitcher on the team in spite of being a set up man with a 3.87 ERA.

 

• Sensing the team needs publicity to get people to talk about them, someone on the team will bite the bullet and start a dogfighting ring in his basement. After weeks of unsuccessfully trying to get sports reporters to cover the story, they will eventually give up and donate the dogs to terminally ill children and an effort to ’stop their suffering’.

 

• The Nationals will win 42 games and be the worst team in baseball.

Bold Baseball Predictions: Baltimore Orioles

• George Sherrill will at some point scream at the top of his lungs “WHY ME!?!?!?!? WHY ME!?!?!?!?!”

 

• Peter Angelos will be called everything from a “horse’s ass” to “the Hitler of Baltimore”.

 

• The Orioles will finish in 5th place…in the AL East and have the 4th worst record in baseball.

 

• A  drunk fan crying deliriously will yell “You were good once.” during a Melvin Mora at bat and be ushered out of the stadium assuring security that Melvin Mora was good once.

 

• Adam Jones will have this look on his face for the duration of the season:
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•  Greg Zaun will continue to be the guy that ends up on fantasy rosters all over the World for a day or two before team managers decide they’d rather not play a catcher.

 

• Nick Markakis will have an Advent calendar filled with syringes counting down the days until he signs with the Yankees.

 

• Joe Flacco will tear his rotator cuff throwing out the first pitch before a game in July.

 

• Ty Wiggington and Ryan Freel with both be starting by mid-way through the season.

 

• Brian Roberts will steal 54 bases and hit .310. The Orioles will win 57 games.

Bold Baseball Predictions: San Francisco Giants

•  Thousands of people will play MLB 2k9 and be vastly disappointed in how hard it is to throw a simple pitch.

 

• Tim Lincecum will miss one scheduled start because of a Bright Eyes concert at the Bottom Of The Hill and be quoted as saying “I’m like my generation’s Sandy Koufax man. I don’t pitch when Conor is spreading the word.”

 

• Pablo Sandoval will emerge as an outstanding third baseman and sports media types will mention how great he is for only being 22 while misremembering that 22 in Venezula years is at least 26 in American years.

 

• Edgar Renteria will hit .280 or so with 8 home runs, 145 hits and 64 RBI. In spite of above average numbers he will be on a different team next season. Did you know he has nearly 2100 career hits? Can you even imagine Edgar fucking Renteria getting 3000 career hits and getting into the Hall Of Fame?

 

• Matt Cain will have a 3.50 ERA and a 16-9 record. People will call it a “breakout” season when in reality he has been about the same (ability-wise) his entire career.

 

• Randy Johnson will win 7 games before ending up on the DL around late July.

 

• Barry Ztio will decide he wants to get back on steroids and contact Barry Bonds to discuss his options. Bonds will think Zito is a narc and refuse to give him any information. Zito will be embarrassed and drop his phone in a toilet.

 

• Brian Wilson will become a successful closer to the point that his name starts appearing in too many papers and Charles Manson begins reaching out to him for help with distributing his demo.

 

• The Giants will come in second in the NL West.

Bold Baseball Predictions: Oakland Athletics.

• The 2009 AL West Divison champions? Oakland A’s.

 

• Jason Giambi will hit 35 home runs. Especially if he has the porn stache.

 

• Matt Holiday will not regret being on the A’s.

 

• At some point the A’s are going to wish they hadn’t traded most of the good pitchers they had. But then magically they’ll have more good pitchers to trade.

 

• Nomar Garciaparra will play in a surprising number of games as a utility infielder with a heart of gold.

 

• Joey Devine will start the season completing 19 of 20 saves and the Oakland Tribune will have a banner headline that says “SIMPLY DEVINE”.

 

• Justin Duchscherer will win 13 games…if he can throw

 

• Billy Beane will be struck by lightning.

 

• This will be their last season in Oakland.

Kissing The Beehive.

Before “At Mount Zoomer” was called “At Mount Zoomer” it was tentatively being called “Kissing The Beehive” everywhere.

Not sure if Wolf Parade had initially titled it that or if it was just a “hey why not let’s pick a song title for record name guys ahem?” type thing.

“At Mount Zoomer” came out over a year ago now (I believe)…maybe even longer ago.

And when it came out I listened to it once or twice and was a little confused. A bunch of people who loved “Apologies To The Queen Mary” told me it wasn’t so good…etc.

To preface, “Apologies To The Queen Mary” was so good that it inspired me to listen to everything from Johnny and the Moon to Frog Eyes (decisions I regret) as the members of Wolf Parade are notorious band-whores and involved in about 15 projects each at any given time.

Some of these side projects are decent (Handsome Furs) some of them are kind of…ummm…not fun to listen to at all (Sunset Rubdown).

Regardless, “Apologies To The Queen Mary” was a debut album that would have to be ranked alongside the Arcade Fire’s “Funeral” for instant amazement.

Was it any surprise that things were changed up a bit on their sophomore albums (for either band)? Not really.

What I think is the ultimate qualm people have with “At Mount Zoomer” is that it isn’t really poppy. It’s songs aren’t as instantly catchy or memorable. The keyboards are heavier and less melodic. The songs don’t always have up front discernible choruses.

But after listening to it about 35 times over the last year, I have decided that I really love “At Mount Zoomer”.

It sounds almost like a rock opera in some ways. Particularly the 10+ minute closer “Kissing The Beehive”.

It would not come as a surprise to me to hear that the song was inspired by Meat Loaf. Maybe Meat Loaf in girl’s jeans with cloves. But Meat Loaf nonetheless.

It is a completely different record in tone and style than “Apologies To The Queen Mary” but is still a really fun record to listen to.

For that I commend them.

I would also iMeem a link to the record if iMeem wasn’t all of the sudden blocked at this office…

Living. Cabs. Walking.

Ever since I went on vacation I haven’t felt like I’ve been back.

I’m here. But getting back into any sort of pattern has been strange.

Surely this is due in part to living in a new place. A beautiful new apartment. I’ve gotten fairly comfortable there.

When we lived in Wintrhop it felt like I got used to it really quickly. Even though it was an imposing space full of trash and int he middle of nowhere.

Maybe that’s partly why. We aren’t in the middle of nowhere anymore. Now I’m somewhere. It’s not where I’d ideally want to be, but it is somewhere at least.

There are things to do in Providence. There are a lot of nice restaurants (at least). All of the cool record stores are gone it seems.

And our apartment is incredible. It’s just a giant colonial mansion on top of an enormous hill.

It is a beautiful place to live.

I wish it were in Brookline…

I met with a friend last Friday in Brookline. We went to the newly opened Rod Dee. They have the same sofas there that we have in our apartment. I tried Lychee juice in a can. It was fragrant and interesting. We also tried Young Coconut Juice with pulp in a can. It was…strange.

But I miss being in that area. It’s strange to be back there and think that I lived there less than a year ago and have lived two places since then.

And lately I’ve been moving around and doing so much that I’m concerned that things ar enever just going to calm down.

I took the 9:30 train back to Providence on Friday. South Station is always full of interesting characters. On Friday nights it is a complete horrorshow. There was a gentleman standing in a corner telling a loud story about random shit. There was a woman wrapping her things in tinfoil.

On the way there I asked my cab driver about the Boston cab laws. I had heard before that the greater Boston area is strangely and ridiculously territorial about taxis. He explained that the way it works is, he’s a Brookline cabbie and he can pick up anyone in Brookline and bring them anywhere but when he goes outside of Brookline he isn’t allowed to pick anyone up. If he does and gets caught it is a $500 fine. He also said that cops will occasionally just try to hail cabs that are out of territory to write tickets. He said one of his coworkers got 2 $500 tickets the weekend before.

Walking home from the train station in Providence is absolutely brutal. There really should just be stairs. It was a cool night on Friday and I was completely drenched with sweat by the time I got home. It’s only a fifteen minute walk.

That doesn’t even begin to capture how steep and how long the uphill walk is.

I will need to bring a change of clothes in the Summer.

I wish it wasn’t so shitty out today. At least it isn’t snowing.

Where The Wild Things Are

When I’m not assaulting senior citizens I’m asleep.

As a result, this “Where The Wild Things Are” adaptation looks awesome.

I would link to a trailer but I can’t get to one from here. So just google “Where The Wild Things Are Trailer (nipples)”.

I usually throw in a parenthetical nipples after all of my google searches just for good luck.

WTWTA looks like it will be incredible. Unfortunately we have to wait until early October to see it. Spike Jonze spent about 63 years working on it so I’m sure it’ll be great and the trailer features “Wake Up” by the Arcade Fire which is a fucking incredible song.

Jonze didn’t want to make all the Wild Things CGI bullshit and insisted they go with robotic puppetry. The results, from the trailer, look stunning.

I know that it wasn’t all that long ago that Jim Henson and others were using puppets and robots in movies to great result, but it seems like such an iconoclastic thing to do when a much easier technology exists.

But these are the Wild Things. They aren’t supposed to look like walking waterfalls. And the cinematography from the 2 minute trailer looks outstanding and blends beautifully with the Wild Things.

I know I haven’t seen it yet, but I really wouldn’t have it any other way.

Let Me Clear My Throat…

I take the 6:33 a.m. train from Providence to Boston. It’s early as fuck. I have to wake up at 5:30 every morning. I’m usually tired. I usually just sleep an extra hour on the train.

So I’m on the commuter rail yesterday morning.  For some reason an old guy decided to sit next to me. Even though there were plenty of open seats. I was sort of in and out of sleep at this point anyway.

I’m trying to sleep and this old motherfucker keeps clearing his throat LOUDLY. Like “UGGGHHHHHHRRRRRRRMMM”.

Now, being that I am of the sneezy as all fuck varitey, I typically don’t take issue with people making loud natural noises. So i closed my eyes again and let it go.

About two minutes later he does it again. “URRRGHHHHMMMMMMM”. And I can see out of the corner of my eye that he’s staring at me.

I start to wonder why he would care that I was trying to sleep. But I’m so tired I forget about it and fall asleep again.

It couldn’t have been more than 2 minutes later he makes the same goddamn noise again even louder than before. “AHHHEEMMMUUURRRGGGGGHHHHHHMMMM”.

So I open my eyes and look out the window. I pretend to stretch my arms a little bit. And I decide that it’s time to fight fire with a fucking brick to the face.

Moments after he has finished his loud noise, I let out the loudest and most sustained “AHHHHEEEEEMMMMMMURRRRGGGHHHHHHHEEMMMMMAHHHHRRGGGHHHHRMMAHHRMM” I could possibly muster. Then I turn and look at him.

Needless to say that old motherfucker shut the fuck up for the rest of the train ride.

How to Steal.

I wonder if I’ll ever make millions od dollars by scamming people out of money…

Probably not.

The other night as I was putting together a Crate & Barrel bookcase I watched several informercials in a row.

One was for an airbrush makeup gun. One was for ways to make MILLIONS OF DOLLARS A YEAR ON THE INTERNET.

Sometimes I feel like I should get into the Self-help racket. Those people are just as giant scam artists as anyone else.

The joys of easy money have been kept from me for far too long now…