I lead a life of wonder and discovery! Or not.

Things I have learned in the past 24 hours:

- Doritos X-13D chips are…cheeseburger flavored. Sorry to spoil it for everyone. I like them, for what it’s worth.
- A priapism is an erection lasting more than four hours. Priaprisms are named after Priapus, a minor Greek God of fertility who is “purely phallic in character”. Thanks, Cialis commercial and Wikipedia!
- After a fantastic play by David Wright in the 9th inning of today’s Phillies-Mets game, barehanded scoop-and-throw plays are now “routine” for third basemen by decree of nationally renowned idiot Tim McCarver. Unless, that is, Alex Rodriguez is the third baseman in question.
- The Philadelphia Phillies are not a very good baseball team.

What else will I learn? Stay tuned as I share my quest for knowledge with you, the reader!

Trying to stay occupied…

Yesterday I was remarkably busy, at least by my own standards. In the afternoon I went over to my neighbor’s house and volunteered to do some tech support on their computer for free (they ended up giving me $20 and a couple of slices of pizza). Long story short, it was loaded with spyware, malware, and viruses, it took two and a half hours to remove, and I want to kick anyone who writes that crap squarely in the nuts. The computer was basically inoperable before I cleaned all the junk out.

Oh, and you can add my neighbors to the list of employers that pay better than Sears does. I even got free pizza! What do I get from Sears? A carbon copy of the same letter I got last week, threatening to fire me. I thought I had that taken care of, but apparently not. Ha HA!

As far as future jobs go, I’ve come to the conclusion that short of being General Manager of the New York Mets I’m not sure there’s really anything I could do and love every day for the rest of my life. That said, I want to do something I believe in, and by that I don’t mean “Well we have to meet these quarterly sales projections so the CEO can finish paying off that loan on his helicopter”. No. Fuck that shit. It’s reprehensible that human beings are inexorably tied to the wealth they accumulate, and even more so that this is often viewed as a measure of success above that person’s own happiness. I want to have a good time. Will I? That’s to be determined, but I’ll be damned if I don’t try. I’m not going to drop dead doing something I detest just because it pays. What good is money if you’re miserable and have no time for the important things in your life?

Perhaps I’m trying to justify to myself why I’m not going to make a lot of money because, let’s face it, it’s not like history and public policy are the areas where the big money is. And perhaps it’s arrogant of me to presume that my thoughts make more sense than others, or that I think too many people are just shallow, greedy, and superficial. I mean really, watch those rich morons on “My Super Sweet 16″ and try to tell me they have a soul. Anyway, whatever the case really is, this is simply how I’m choosing to view things right now. It makes sense to me.

I really couldn’t tell you what brought on this stream of thought but it’s not something new to me. I found working retail completely phony and pointless and I decided that I cannot and will not do anything like it ever again. I hated it on pretty much every level.

I also took 80 or so swings at the batting cages yesterday. This is something I would like to do every day but cannot.  If I ever do become wealthy somehow, I’m putting a pitching machine in my backyard and hitting every day until my hands become giant blisters. In the meantime, here are some of my plans for my limitless free time as a temporarily unemployed bum:
- More reading.
- Finish watching Scrubs, start watching The Office.
- Beat as many video games as I can.
- Go out on the town with this shirt.

I kind of ran out of ideas after that. Anyone else have suggestions? Fuck it, I’m going to go watch the Mets game.

Yippie-Kay-Yay!

Live Free or Die Hard was incredibly entertaining. In fact, I can safely say it’s one of the most ridiculous action movies I’ve ever seen, and when it comes to action movies, ridiculous equals awesome. Well done, Bruce Willis! I’d write a complete review, but I only review movies that are at least several years old. Plus, I’m lazy.

I also tried a Double Quarter Pounder tonight. The question occurred to me: why don’t they call it the Half Pounder? I’m sure they have focus groups for these things, but I haven’t heard a really good reason for it yet. I guess the point I’m trying to make is that I need to eat less fast food and be more like Bruce Willis.

Scotty doesn’t know…how to get righties out?

Scott Schoeneweis…crusher of hopes, destroyer of dreams, losing pitcher of last night’s Mets game – a debacle I was on hand to see.

Now, before I begin my dissection of the disaster that has been the Scott Schoeneweis Era, let me preface what I’m going to write by saying that he is certainly not the sole reason the Mets lost Tuesday night’s game against the Cardinals 5-3 in 11 innings. In fact, the game probably never should have been in his hands in the 11th inning. The Mets offense, once again, was missing in action against an inferior starting pitcher. The usually steady Jose Valentin made two critical errors leading to two runs. And finally, Willie Randolph managed his bullpen poorly, leaving Aaron Heilman in the game to begin the 7th despite this being his 4th appearance in 5 days, and choosing to use Schoeneweis when he did in the 11th. It’s with that last point in mind that I’m going to pick up my analysis of Schoeneweis, the most hated man in Flushing – the way in which decisions by others have affected his performance and the perception of him most fans have. Is it all really his fault?

Scott Schoeneweis was signed to a 3-year, 10.5 million dollar contract in the offseason. He has put up a sub-4 ERA in only two seasons since his debut in 1999, and posted an unspectacular 4.88 last season with the Blue Jays and Reds. It’s apparent the first mistake was Omar Minaya’s for overpaying and overextending to give what on the surface is a mediocre relief pitcher a ridiculous amount of money for a ridiculous length of time.

Despite his mediocre overall numbers, Schoeneweis does have a track record of having some redeeming qualities as a major league pitcher – namely, his ability to get left-handed hitters out. From 2004 to 2006, lefties hit only .220 against Scott with a .563 OPS, while righties tore him apart to a .295/.846 tune. Clearly, if he’s to be effective, it’s to be as a left-handed specialist. Let’s look at his splits this season:

vs. LHB: 44 AB, 10 H, 0 HR, .222 AVG, .616 OPS
vs. RHB: 54 AB, 18 H, 4 HR, .333 AVG, 1.128 OPS

Note, first off, the staggering difference, which is in line with his career norms. However, also note that he’s faced more right-handed batters than left-handed batters this season, despite having a track record of being an effective pitcher only against left-handed hitters. This is a failure in managing, and this falls strictly on Willie Randolph. Ignoring his career trends, he has used him all year in situations where he historically has not succeeded, his latest appearance being no different. The first batter he faced tonight, Brendan Ryan, is a right handed batter and hit the tie-breaking home run (the first of his career) in the 11th inning. There’s no denying Scott Schoeneweis has been especially terrible this season against righties and has cost the Mets a number of games. However, there’s also no denying that he was overpaid to begin with and continues to be misused by Willie Randolph. Unfortunately, it was reached a point where he may not be redeemable in the eyes of Mets fans, but remember – Scott Schoeneweis didn’t give himself millions of dollars to sign here, and he’s not the one putting himself into games in situations where he is likely to fail.

One more interesting tidbit: Schoeneweis now has a 9.53 ERA at Shea and a 0.00 ERA on the road. Last night’s game was probably the first time I have ever been in Shea when everyone in the stadium (outside of Willie Randolph) knew the Mets were going to lose when a pitcher entered the game. I can only describe the feeling in the park as a bizarre, frightened silence. He’s probably reached a point of no return as far as pitching at Shea is concerned and he’s signed for two and a half more years, making his trade value negligible at this point. The only thing that is certain is that as long as he continues to be misused, things can’t possibly get any better, and Scott Schoeneweis will continue to be the most hated relief pitcher in Flushing since Mel Rojas toed the rubber almost a decade ago.

Thanks to the crew at Mets Rant for inspiring me to write this evaluation of Metsdom’s least-favorite lefty for everyone out there.

Other observations from Tuesday night:
- I was happy David Wright was hitting fourth. Carlos Delgado continues to follow in the footsteps of Robbie Alomar as a Met, looking unbelievably lost.
- The Yankee Stadium-style chanting of player’s names needs to stop…as of two years ago.
- We got a laugh on the way out of the parking lot when we spotted a coach bus run by “Kum Gang Tours Inc”. Kum Gang Tours! There isn’t even a joke needed. This pretty much made my night, outside of the Mets’ failure.

It was only the third game I’ve been to all year, after going to 16 in 2005 and 11 last year. Spending a night at Shea is pretty much one of my favorite things to do, so hopefully I can get out there more often as the summer goes on. There are other factors making that difficult, though, like the whole not-really-having-a-job thing. I’m going to work on that…

I also promise this isn’t going to turn into a baseball-only blog. I just couldn’t resist the last couple of nights.

Who’s afraid of Mike Maroth? The New York Mets!

SNY has generally avoided being too blatant about being a Mets propaganda network for its first year and a half, and their in-game broadcast team of Gary Cohen, Ron Darling, and Keith Hernandez is fantastic. Sometimes, however, I can’t help but wonder what goes on with the rest of the network. SNY’s postgame show tonight starred Steve Overmyer and Lee Mazzilli, and this was heard during Overmyer’s analysis of Mike Maroth’s performance against the Mets:

“Mike Maroth is a guy the Mets wouldn’t like facing, but is he a guy any team would like facing?”

Really, Steve Overmyer? I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that yes, teams do like facing Mike Maroth. Before tonight’s game, this is what Mike Maroth had done this season:

5.06 ERA, 1.66 WHIP, 28/33 K/BB, .319 (!) BA against.

These are the numbers of a pitcher who shouldn’t intimidate anyone, much less a team that supposedly has one of the best offenses in the sport. Normally teams don’t “like” facing a pitcher with a 4.81 career ERA, they LOVE IT. That is, unless your team goes up to bat trying to imitate what hitting with blindfolds on would be like. That team is the New York Mets and they made Mike Maroth, a bad pitcher, look like Tom Glavine circa 1995. Don’t tell that to Overmyer though because, gosh darn it, he says the Mets just wouldn’t like facing him!

The Mets had three hits against the Cardinals’ pitching staff tonight (Maroth was followed by fellow superstars Ryan Franklin and Russ Springer) and were lucky to win in extra innings, but I’ll take it. It looked frighteningly similar to the Suppan/Weaver debacle of ‘06 with the difference that they eventually managed to overcome their own offensive ineptitude. Many thanks to Carlos Gomez and Shawn Green for bothering to show up. I’ll be at the game tomorrow and probably post a report on what I see.

TLOS Update!

I posted a brand new article to the Land of Spite and trimmed the site down a bit. In case you missed the huge “Tino’s Land of Spite” link at the top of the page, you can take a look by clicking here. It’s a review of the movie Equilibrium.

Have something to say about the article or the site? Feel free to leave a comment here! It’ll probably be the most exciting thing to happen to me today!

Saturday Happenings

Saturday morning I represented Dreisini at the D League Island Softball All-Star Game as a manager. Tim and Andrew were our player reps and both played in the game, Tim driving in two runs in his one at-bat. Yes, he only hit once, and no, I don’t know how to justify that. Tomorrow we have a doubleheader in Islip so at least nobody got tired out.

I then slept all afternoon after not getting any sleep last night and went out to Patchogue for my Saturday night, figuring things would be happening and there’d be people to see. WRONG. Apparently Main Steet in Patchogue is completely lame and dead on Saturday nights. Port Jefferson is evidently the apex of the Long Island nightlife I’ve seen so far this summer which is saying something. What is it saying? Long Island sucks. Does anyone know any new places I could try? I’d appreciate any tips.

AND IN THE WORLD OF SPORTS: The Mets once again have a three game lead in the NL East after winning tonight (last night? It’s 4 AM, I’m not sure what the rule on that is) despite just finishing a stretch where they went 3-13. It’s good to be in the National League.

Good news!

After months of waiting, literally, I got an e-mail today saying I’ve been officially accepted into the Stony Brook Masters in Public Policy Program! Yes! I had kind of resigned myself to the idea that I was going to get screwed over and not get in – after all, they told me I was in back in the beginning of May, then did a 180 and kept me waiting for weeks on end for a final decision. However, I’m relieved that I did get in. It’s a program I was interested in and it means I get to experience college for one more year, even if it’s 15 credits a semester of beat-you-over-the-head grad school courses. On top of that, I don’t have to look for a Plan B now. I’ve tried to get myself to worry less about things I can’t control, so admittedly this was eating at me less than it was during last semester, but at least I don’t have to spend a few months thinking about what exactly is next for me.

I didn’t even mention the best part – one more year with Dreisini at Stony Brook!

As a ridiculous sidebar, I got a letter from Sears while I was out yesterday threatening me with termination if I did not call them to explain my “absences” this past weekend within 48 hours. Of course, this past weekend I was in Los Angeles and obviously could not work. Additionally for a variety of reasons I have not been available to work on weekends since the end of last summer, a fact I thought was very clear with my employers. Apparently not. I was stupid enough to think they wouldn’t schedule me for Saturday AND Sunday and not the five days a week I am actually available to work…although that $30 paycheck I just got yesterday makes it tough to say no. I’m going to call them and explain all of this, not that it matters. I’m hoping the library gets back to me soon for the job I applied for there as an administrative clerk. It’ll pay more and I can’t possibly see how it could be more irritating, as I’ll be upstairs on a computer instead of dealing with brain-dead customers. My fingers are crossed.

New York City yesterday was, as usual, awesome. I took the train out of Stony Brook with Gennady and when we got to the city there was a sun shower, which I’ve never seen in Manhattan. It looked pretty cool. We went to a bar, I drank sangria, and then I made a couple of passes at the bartender (who was pretty cute and took it well). I’m now owed a six-pack of beer for using one particular pick-up line. Then I went and had pommes frites with Jane at St. Mark’s, which is the greatest food discovery I have made since the vegan hot wings at Foodswings. I had the poutine, a French-Canadian variation on fries that pretty much tries to be as unhealthy as possible. I don’t really care to look up the nutritional information on the fries/cheese/gravy combination, but it can’t be pretty.

I’ve now been in NYC and LA in the past five days, a fact that excites me a lot more than it probably should if only because it provides me the illusion that I’m some kind of young, adventurous jet-setter and not somebody that sits in his room for hours a day listening to music and playing video games. I want to go to Montreal this summer. Anyone want to come? My Expos hat is ready to go.

Oh God, I’ve Gone And Done It

Yes, I finally caved in and created a Live Journal. “Why?”, you ask? Well, you probably didn’t ask, because you either don’t care or know me well enough to know there isn’t much rhyme or reason to a lot of what I do, but I’m going to tell you anyway:

1. I can update it quickly with interesting thoughts I have. Note that these are thoughts I think are interesting myself, because I’m well aware most people aren’t interested in my interesting thoughts.

2. To follow on the “interesting thought” train, I can rant about the Mets or any of the terrible sports franchises I root for – in real time!

3. I can write blurbs without feeling guilty that I did a shitty job writing an article, like I would if I posted this stuff on my website. By the way, the Land of Spite is DOA at the moment, but it’s coming back soon with a bitchin’ movie review of Equilibrium and some crap about the Mets I wrote the other night that’s too important to go on here.

As for the title, no, the Condor really doesn’t sleep at night, as is evidenced by this post. I promise that’s the last time I will refer to myself in the third person, and certainly as the “Condor”. That, for those not “in the know”, is my softball nickname – I may post Dreisini updates here as well, if you’re especially fortunate.

Anyway, I’ll feel moved to make a real post tomorrow about a couple of issues, I think. I’m also almost guaranteed to screw with the look of this page another 8453495 times. Until next time, have fun doing whatever it is you do, all two of you reading this.