Category Archives: Culture Jammin’

Things I entirely missed

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Here are three things I have entirely missed:

1) Harry Potter: This one I’m a bit embarrassed about, because I suspect if I read the Harry Potter books or watched the movies I’d enjoy them. But to date, I have not read a word in any of the books or seen a minute of any of the movies. I have entirely missed Harry Potter. I recognize some of the names and words associated with the series — Dumbledore, Muggles, Hermione — but I have no idea what they mean.

Thing is, the first Harry Potter book blew up when I was a senior in high school. At that time, I thought I was super awesome because I read books for leisure and not many people I knew my age did. When people started blabbing on and on about how great Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone was, I assumed it was a book for people who don’t normally read books — whatever that meant — so I avoided it.

I stopped thinking like that sometime in college, but by then it seemed too late to just take up the series from the beginning. Now the last movie is the hottest ticket at the box office and I’m still out in the dark. Maybe at some point in like ten years I can start reading them, when it seems nostalgic and cool or something.

2) The Casey Anthony trial: So I went on vacation for a week, then came back to find my co-workers huddled around the TV awaiting a verdict in the Casey Anthony trial like she’s O.J. Simpson or something. Who is this lady? Is she famous? Who is Nancy Grace?

I’m not aiming to make light of the trial or the verdict. I just missed the whole buildup, so the subsequent outrage seemed really bizarre.

I will add that I learned afterward that they used Anthony’s Google searches as evidence in the trial, which is rather terrifying. I had no idea that was admissible. I hope I’m never framed for anything; I Google some messed-up stuff just out of morbid curiosity and following what auto-complete suggests.

3) Bill Simmons: Amid all the hoopla surrounding the launch of Grantland.com, I realized I had never read anything Bill Simmons had written. It was not a conscious decision. It so happens that I never worked in front of a computer in the years Simmons was first making his name on the Internet, I’m not a huge NBA guy and I have very little patience for Boston sports fans. Plus I’ve always read more in print than online and more fiction than sportswriting.

But now that I’ve come this far without having read any of his work, it seems like a neat trick to keep it up. So many of my friends and colleagues seem to, for whatever reason, have such unreasonably strong opinions about Grantland.com that my innate contrarian finds it best to maintain no opinion whatsoever.

 

What are we Netflixing?

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Slacktory scours the “Local Favorites” feature on Netflix to create a nationwide map of movie tastes. Do they really like The Mist in Oklahoma, or are there few enough Netflix subscribers in Oklahoma that like two families renting The Mist make it count as a local favorite? Either way, it’s good on Oklahoma; that movie was badass.

Twitter Q&A-type thing

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Obviously it depends on who you’re getting back — no need to trade a guy who can help the team win games this year for Single-A roster filler. But yeah, I’d say if the Mets could get anybody that might contribute to a future club, they should be willing to deal Jason Isringhausen or Tim Byrdak — even given the current state of their bullpen.

Right now they’re still an extreme longshot to make the playoffs, even as good as they’ve looked lately. If they can get something of value in return for a reliever in his late 30s (who hasn’t even been exceptional), they might as well. If the Mets were sitting in the Wild Card spot and Isringhausen were dominating opponents every night, I might be less certain.

But as it is, they’re still 6.5 games out with a ton of other teams in the mix, and neither pitcher has been irreplaceable. Justin Hampson has dominated lefties in Triple-A and could probably effectively fill Byrdak’s role. Isringhausen would be tougher to replace, but he can’t pitch every day and presents a perpetual injury risk.

I’m not willing to assume that, for a variety of reasons. More on “buyers” and “sellers” here.

I think it would be incredibly foolish for the Mets to mortgage any part of their future in an attempt to make a run in 2011. They’re too far from contention. If they want to hold onto their cards and keep playing for the Wild Card hoping that David Wright and maybe Ike Davis or Johan Santana come back and make an impact, or make a couple of deals that better the club in the short- and long-term, that’s one thing. But if you’re talking about going all in on behalf of this season, trading prospects to try to make a run — no way.

As for the question: I’d still say the Mets need starting pitching most of all. The guys in the rotation have done a fine job, but one more strong arm could push a starter into the bullpen, strengthening the whole staff. But any of the rumored-available starting pitchers better than the ones they have are going to cost a lot, and the last thing the Mets need to do right now is gut the farm system.

I’d like to have my own TV show. I haven’t really figured out the format, but probably a variety show of sorts. I know you might not think it’d be that awesome based on the goofy web videos we do here, but trust me, it would be. Just waiting for the right sucker to hand me the reins. Speaking of: If you’re a big-time TV studio exec, email me. We can make this happen.

Oh, and if that doesn’t sound like “realistically speaking,” consider that I currently have a job that pays me a living wage to — among other things — cover the baseball team I grew up loving, troll newspaper columnists, review sandwiches and weigh in on just about any topic I want. Hard to imagine anything much better than this.

Twitter Q&A-type thing

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That’s a really good question, and one I obviously can’t answer definitively. For tomorrow’s Baseball Show, I talked with Peter Gammons about the Mets’ approach to the trading deadline and he made several interesting points. I don’t want to scoop that here, but I’ll say this: He noted that no team last year took on as much money as Beltran stands to make after the deadline this year.

That obviously doesn’t mean Beltran is immovable, especially given the season he’s having. But how many teams in contention that need an extra bat in the outfield (or at DH) have the financial flexibility to take on Beltran’s contract? Plus remember that Beltran’s contract includes both a no-trade clause and a clause saying he can’t be offered arbitration after the season, meaning it could be harder to work out a deal and any acquiring team doesn’t stand to get draft picks when he leaves.

This could be wishful thinking on my part, imagining a scenario wherein the Mets determine they’re best off keeping Beltran around for the asses he’ll help put in seats for the remainder of the season. Or they could take on some of his contract and try to get a better return. But that doesn’t really answer the question.

Last year the Yankees gave up Mark Melancon and Minor Leaguer Jimmy Paredes for Lance Berkman. It’s not a perfect comp for a variety of reasons: Beltran is more valuable in the field but comes with greater injury risk and Berkman was in the midst of a down year by his standards. But maybe that’s a reasonable expectation: A potentially useful young arm and a marginal-at-best prospect? Or am I being too pessimistic? I’ll admit I suck at this.

As for Rodriguez: Gammons sounded pretty optimistic about the Mets’ ability to trade him, even despite all the money he’s owed. I’ll leave the haul part of it to him. You’ll have to tune in tomorrow for that. CLIFFHANGER!

So we’re looking for a surprisingly good sandwich that’s still not great, with a couple of exceptional elements but a couple that are holding it back. OK… off the top of my head:

The Mets are a ham and cheese sandwich on white bread with spicy mustard, with a single slice of incredibly flavorful imported prosciutto on there. Obviously the prosciutto here is Jose Reyes. Oh, and the cheese is really good too — a fine Havarti, we’ll call that Beltran.

The ham is a fine, thin-sliced Boar’s Head deli ham. That’s the rest of the lineup. It’s getting the job done but it’s not overwhelmingly awesome. The white bread is the pitching staff, and it’s doing the best it can with what it has and no offense to white bread but man, this sandwich would be better if it were on something other than plain old white bread.

The spicy mustard is Terry Collins. That strikes me as appropriate for some reason. Like all sandwiches, this would be better with bacon, or David Wright.

In truth, probably Madden. But that’s a boring answer, especially since I still play Madden today (BTW, the lockout did not seem to impact the undefeated 2011-12 Jets in my franchise mode).

I always played more sports games than anything else, so I’m going to give some love to Micro-League Baseball on the Commodore 64 — the nerdiest game ever invented. It was basically Moneyball before Moneyball; you didn’t even play the games yourself, you just put a bunch of stats into the computer and then let the computer play them out for you. But I created teams of me and my friends and pitted them against the 1927 Yankees and such. Ah yes, “my friends.” I swear.

How many people go on a roast dais? None of these people know me so they wouldn’t have anything funny to say about me, but if I’m picking I guess I should just pick the people I think are funniest since I’m going to be sitting there anyway so I might as well enjoy some good standup: Dave Chappelle, Louis CK, Jake Johannsen, Mike Birbiglia, David Cross, Norm MacDonald and Stephen Colbert.

 

Songs that rhyme “girl” with “world”

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In no particular order, but I’m starting with “Cumbersome” because it came on XM last night and got me thinking about how many songs rhyme “girl” with “world.” Also because that song’s particular instance of rhyming “girl” with “world” is, well, cumbersome.

This is by no means an exhaustive list, but I’m looking to make it one. So if you know of others, comment or email me and I’ll add them. A bunch of these came courtesy of the gentlemen of Das Brodeo, three of whom are currently driving from Florida to DC and apparently have little else to do besides sit around thinking about songs that rhyme “girl” with “world.” Also, after I already started compiling, I did a Google search and found a few I hadn’t thought of here and here, and got more from the good people of Twitter.

Seven Mary Three — Cumbersome
No Doubt — Just a Girl
Cat Stevens — Wild World
Aqua — Barbie Girl
Madonna — Material Girl
Brooks and Dunn — Rock my World (Little Country Girl)
Nine Days — Story of a Girl
Prince — The Most Beautiful Girl in the World
Jamiroquai — Cosmic Girl
Journey — Don’t Stop Believin’
Martha and the Vandellas — Dancing in the Streets
Queen — Fat Bottom Girls
The Beach Boys — California Girls
Billy Idol — Dancing With Myself
Cyndi Lauper — Girls Just Wanna Have Fun
Billy Joel — Uptown Girl
Chromeo — Needy Girl
Notorious B.I.G. – Nasty Girl
Bruno Mars — Beautiful Girls
Pet Shop Boys — West End Girls
Violent Femmes — Please Do Not Go
Beatles — I Feel Fine
Led Zeppelin — Ramble On
Weezer — Cold Dark World
The Rolling Stones — Stupid Girl
2Pac — White Man’s World
Elliott Smith — Say Yes
Bob Dylan — Brownsville Girl
AM Radio — End of the World
U2 — Grace
Jay-Z — All Around the World
Mariah Carey — Your Girl
Ben Folds — Rent-A-Cop
Red Hot Chili Peppers — Californication
Green Day — Extraordinary Girl
Boyz-II-Men — Around the World
Black Keys — Psychotic Girl
Tom Petty — Century City
Elvis Costello — Party Girl
White Stripes — Fell in Love With a Girl
Dion — The Wanderer
Busta Rhymes — World Go Around
Black Sabbath — Sabbra Cadabra
Elton John — Island Girl
AC/DC — Girls Got Rhythm
Celine Dion — The Power of the Dream
Prodigy — Girls
Dead Milkmen — Punk Rock Girls
Snoop Dogg — Ain’t No Fun
Steve Miller Band — Quicksilver Girl
Gwen Stefani — Rich Girl

Four errant stones dispatched the alpha to first base

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Our ancestors had to learn to trust their neighbors, and the seeds of our mutuality can be seen in our simplest gestures, like the willingness to point out a hidden object to another, as even toddlers will do. Early humans also needed ways to control would-be bullies, and our exceptional pitching skills — which researchers speculate originally arose to help us ward off predators — probably helped. “We can throw much better than any other primate,” Dr. Wilson said, “and once we could throw things at a distance, all of a sudden the alpha male is vulnerable to being dispatched with stones. Stoning might have been one of our first adaptations.”

– Natalie Angier, N.Y. Times.

Interesting. Back in college when I used to engage people in stupid pseudo-philosophical debates just for the sake of it, I often contended that baseball was the most civilized major sport because it was the one that least resembled a battle. I don’t really remember the particulars now — it was stupid, like I said.

But it turns out maybe baseball is some weird extension of a primal urge to cast off the alpha male from society by throwing stones at him, and the alpha male’s attempts to fend off those stones with a stick. Or something.

Good news is it doesn’t really matter how we came to baseball, only that we did. The rest of the Times article is pretty interesting too.