The Dapper Lad

I don’t watch very much baseball, but I know this—if I watch one inning of baseball (the seventh in this case) and you commit an error, you probably commit about nine errors a game.

Jose Lopez, that’s not going to cut it. Also, way to get caught stealing, jerk.

 Why would a professional baseball team play a second baseperson who commits nine errors a game? Come on Mariners.

 Why not pick up this Jose Lopez? He was president of Mexico.

Change Your Life Forever, a coming-of-age drama comedy centered around Pete Rickey, an all-American football benchwarmer and straight-B student who discovers that life is difficult for a high school teenager, until he gets bit by a vampire and drops all his other endeavors in pursuit of the sweet, sweet blood. Rated G.

Fire and Ice in Your Pants, a cop buddy-film about detectives Mike Fire and Alfonso Ice in the dingy, crime-ridden town of Your Pants, Alaska. Stuffed with cute musical numbers and a side-plot about saving the earth from a rogue asteroid, see Alaska the way the Bible describes it. Rated NC-17 for references to Alaska.

Don’t Make the Wife Wait, a period drama set in the year 5,901 when all humankind has been extinct for a couple of milleniums and Sarah Billintransitoriumczshffg has finally awoken from cryogenic sleep only to realize her lovable Billintransitoriumczshffg family is gone. Rated F8 for utter confusion and dish towels.

Illustrious Names in the Watch Industry, a documentary about the Swiss watch industry in the 1920s and the infamous story of how the timepieces were all plagued by a mysterious component called the Illustrious Names virus, which turned them all into documentaries about the Swiss watch industry in the 1920s and the infamous story of how the timepieces were all plagued by a mysterious component called the Illustrious Names virus, which turned them all into documentaries about the Swiss watch industry in the 1920s and the infamous story of how the timepieces were all plagued by a mysterious component called the Illustrious Names virus, which turned them all into documentaries about the Swiss watch industry in the 1920s and the infamous story of how the timepieces were all plagued by a mysterious component called the Illustrious Names virus, which turned them all into vampires. Rated with invisible ink, so we dunno.

Get Freaky at the Motel, a new family cartoon from those lovably insane inmates at the Highland Asylum for the Arts about two dust particles that don’t do anything for 40 hours. Rated R for inexplicable violence but, upon order from the warden to remove the sharp points, Rated O.

Rise and Shine to a Longer Beginning, marketed as a another coming-of-age drama, this film is actually blank. Rated XXX for hilarity involving bowler hats.

I Wanted to Increase My Emotional Bond By Having Sex, another installment of the Mike Fire and Alfonso Ice cop franchise, Detectives Fire and Ice are now on the case of a smashed mango with a secret. Rated 8.5 on the high jump but 4.3 in the swimsuit competition.

81% Discount. Coupon #HP2u, a restoration comedy with a taste for ingenuous dissatisfaction for prolonged, interstitially condensed Lopadtemakhoselakhogameokranioleipsanodrimypotrimmatosilphiokarabomelit- okatakekhymenokikhlepikossyphophattoperisterphobiaticlerialektryonoptokephallio-kigklopeleiolagoiosiraiobaphetraganopterygon (that’s right, look it up, jerks). Rated “Best Cafe” by the King of Your Pants.

I Felt Jealous, a film about how I felt about you, Claudia. Rated with tears.

Do not miss a %SPAMIT_CHANE1 to obtain must have medical goods for cheap, a film which, upon closer examination, is actually just Fire and Ice in Your Pants with Spanish subtitles. Rated $%_1ENLARGEMENT.

Kansas just held off Davidson to become the fourth #1 seed in the 2008 Final Four. This means exactly one thing:

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UNC 68, WSU 47

Louisville 79, Tennessee 60

UNC 83, Louisville 73

Kansas 72, Villanova 57

Davidson 73, Wisconsin 56

Kansas 59, Davidson 57

Memphis 92, Michigan State 74

Texas 82, Stanford 62

Memphis 79, Texas 65

UCLA 88, Western Kentucky 78

Xavier 79, West Virginia 75 (OT)

UCLA 76, Xavier 57
The point of listing all these scores is to show that of the twelve (12) Sweet Sixteen (16) and Elite Eight ( games that have been played there have been two (2) that were n close.  Even the major upset (Davidson over Wisconsin) was sort of a blow out.

When the tourney started, I was explaining to an Australian friend of mine that it is basically the best sporting event that the USA has (with the possible exception of the baseball playoffs) because everyone has a bracket and thus some investment in the thing and because all kinds of crazy things happen. That just hasn’t happened. The Final Four (4) had better be cataclysmic or else. . .

I’m an A’s diehard, but I’m sanguine about their chances. They aren’t going to be great this year, but I’ve figured out a good way to deal with it. I took the over on the over-and-under on the number of wins for the A’s for the season: 72.5

This has the potential to keep the entire season interesting, even as the A’s slip dozens of games behind the rest of the division each win will bring them ever closer to winning me money. After the split in Tokyo, I only need 72 more wins and I’ll be in the money.  And unlike normal baseball seasons where everyone is rooting for something amorphous like “the playoffs,” I have a fixed goal:  being eight games or fewer under .500

Go A’s.

There’s a building at the top of the hill that I live on in San Francisco called “The Summit.” It is a tall building on the top of a tall hill and I suspect from the top there are pretty incredible views. The building itself is blot on the landscape, but that’s neither here nor there. The guy who lives in the Penthouse is George P. Shultz was Nixon’s Secretary of the Treasury and Reagan’s Secretary of State. I was driving around the neighborhood looking for a parking spot and there are all kinds of cops at the intersection in front of The Summit. This isn’t a neighborhood were there is typically a lot of police activity. I realize that there is a limo parked there with like 15 guys in dark suits and sunglasses and I realized that they all had to be Secret Service, because everyone in San Francisco wears business casual. Some republican warlord must have been visiting Shultz and the Secret Service was hanging with the limo. The point is that the Secret Service dresses in real life just like they do in the movies. They should hire a fashion consultant.

Margaret is a Kansas Jayhawk fan and David is a college basketball fan. They will debate whether Davidson deserves to be America’s lovable underdog when they play Kansas for a trip to the Final Four:

David: Davidson is the feel good story of the NCAA Tournament, probably of the sports year. Everyone outside of Lawrence will be rooting for the Wildcats this afternoon.

Margaret: The Jayhawks have been through a rough couple of rebuilding years. Davidson may be the feel-good story, but the Jayhawks are, ironically, self-less. Their teamwork makes them one of the most talked-about teams of the year.

David: Yes, I agree that Kansas fans have suffered without a championship in recent years, however, the Tournament is all about rooting for the underdog. Right now Kansas is a corporation, hey are the Yankees, and Davidson represents the little guy. Kansas will be back the next year, the next year, and the year after that– Davidson is the team right now.

Margaret: Are you drunk? Oh no, wait, that’s me! Long live KU!!!! ROCK. The Jayhawks are not the Yankees. That is a completely different sport. I reject your analogy. Thpbpbppp.

David: In conclusion a Davidson victory will make this year’s tournament a truly memorable event, a Kansas victory will make it just another in a long line of cookie cutter, yet wonderful,  Final Fours.

Margaret: In conclusion, Rock Fucking Chalk! KU rules, Davidson drools! Whee!

Chinese Official: The world’s media is here, and they are going to be looking around. I need you to make sure that these Tibetan monks are locked up and don’t disrupt anything.

Guard: Make sure that these locked up Tibetan monks disrupt everything

Official: No, don’t disrupt anything.

Guard: Okay, don’t disrupt anything

Official: The monks

Guard: The monks.

Official: Correct. [starts to leave]

Guard: Sorry, just to recap, lock everyone up with no disruption…or wait, I’m sorry, I’m lost.

Official: Lock them up, and make sure there are no disruptions…Got it.

Guard: Ummmm….

Official: GOT IT!?!

Guard: Uh, yeah, sorry, no that’s what I thought you said.

LATER THAT SAME DAY: (NYT) — Weeping and yelling, “Tibet is not free,” a group of red-robed monks on Thursday disrupted a carefully scripted tour for foreign journalists in Lhasa, Tibet’s capital, as Chinese officials tried to portray the recent Tibetan riots as the work of thugs and separatists.

It’s been three days since the glorious eighty hours that make up the first and second round of the NCAA Tournament. That’s just enough time to try and salvage relationships and lose the ten pounds gained by eating a steady diet of bar food (“More dippin’ poppers please”).

Tonight it starts again with the Sweet Sixteen. So reschedule any relationship counseling and/or “runs.”

Somehow I’m entering the second weekend on top of all the pools I’ve entered, which means with the stakes raised I can only fall harder.

Tonight:
4:10 p.m. (Pacific Time) West Virginia vs. Xavier
4:27 p.m. Washington State vs. North Carolina
6:40 p.m. Western Kentucky vs. UCLA
6:57 p.m. Louisville vs. Tennessee (See links for the differing coaching styles.)

All Games on CBS.

I live in Washington State, so I’ll be at Seattle’s number one Wazzu bar– The Magnolia Village Pub.

It’s amazing how good of a father I was before I had kids. I specifically remember an instance on an airplane with a father staring blankly at the person’s head in front of him while his child kicked the seat in front him, “Stop it,” the father repeated, gaze never breaking, “stop it, stop it, just  stop it, I’ll give you [insert] if you stop, I’ll take away [insert] if you don’t stop.”       

At the time I wasn’t a father and I thought to myself that the man should really take an interest in the child and look him in the eye and talk to him - like an adult. Then I had children. Reality hit. There are a lot of things no one tells you: There is lack of sleep - not college lack of sleep - Guantanamo lack of sleep, the idea of luxury changes from a three day weekend out of town to an uninterrupted bowel movement.  

Then small  concessions: a little bit of T.V. then lot bit of T.V., candy bribes, chips for lunch, yelling, pointing, counting BUT ONLY TO THREE! - All the things I said I would never do as a parent began to surface until recently I gave this ultimatum while bathing my two boys: “Stop licking your little brother’s butt cheek or I’ll dump this cup of water in your face!”    

Now I just sit and stare at the back of things and repeat: “Stop it, stop it, just stop it, I’ll give you [insert] if you stop, I’ll take away [insert] if you don’t stop.”