WTF OMAR?

Lastings Milledge for BRIAN SCHNEIDER AND RYAN CHURCH? This is the best we could do for the guy?

Good luck, Lastings. The evil, masochistic side of me will love watching you hammer Livan Hernandez or whatever other loser we end up picking up to fill out our mediocre rotation when the inevitable failure to land Johan Santana or Dan Haren happens.

By the way, the Nationals traded Schneider to clear room for Jesus Flores, a young catcher who the Mets let get away in the Rule V draft last year so they could protect luminaries like Julio Franco and Jon Adkins. I’m sure he and Milledge will combine with Manny Acta to make my life miserable for a few years. What a kick in the balls.

At least we now have OUR catcher for 2008! Bring on Brian Schneider and his career 82 OPS+! What’s that you say, we already got Johnny Estrada? Get lost, Johnny, because we don’t need you anymore! We were able to trade a young, cheap, talented outfielder for an inferior player! That’s a deal any smart GM would make! Besides, who needs outfielders, we now have the immortal Ryan Church! So what if Milledge is like, years and years younger and probably going to outproduce him with a full season’s worth of at bats? Irrelevant!

This seriously has the potential to be Kazmir II. I still think Milledge is going to be a really good player. Next week the Yankees will be able to trade the completely mediocre Melky Cabrera for Johan Santana and my head will officially explode once and for all.

Let’s goooooo METS! Hey, at least the Rangers finally beat the Islanders, am I right??? I think I hate baseball.

Update: Props to Jayson Stark for trying to rationalize the trade. Let’s see how wrong he is!

“The Mets have been looking for a defensive-minded catcher who could lead a staff, and Brian Schneider does that as well as anyone. And Ryan Church is a better player than you’re giving him credit for. He’s better than a fourth outfielder, even though he might be more a 5-day-a-week kind of player than a 7-day -a-week kind of player. And Milledge, frankly, turned out to be overrated. HIs value had plummeted. For a team trying to win in the short term, like the Mets, I totally understand this trade, Now let’s sit back and see how good Milledge turns out to be.”

Brian Schneider is also a catcher who is really bad at hitting. That’s what “defensive minded” means. He makes Paul Lo Duca look like Johnny Bench. I also like how he says Church is better than a 4th outfielder (admittedly, he’s a decent player), but then says he’s more of a “5 day a week player”, whatever the fuck that means.

As far as Milledge being “overrated”, he put up a 105 OPS+ as a 22 year old. Delmon Young, who just got traded for Matt Garza and has way more off-field issues than Milledge, put up a 91 OPS+ as a 21 year old with the benefit of regular playing time. His team didn’t think a crappy washed up Shawn Green was a better option. I don’t want to hear how the Devil Rays can “take chances” with young players like that, because that’s horseshit – if the Yankees can play Melky Cabrera and Robinson Cano every day, the Mets can kick Shawn Green’s carcass off the roster to give Milledge regular playing time, but they didn’t. They wanted their “veteran” in the outfield last year, and it took him sucking it up for half a year for Lastings to get at-bats.

I think a lot of this has to do with Milledge’s “rapper persona” being overblown, and that’s too bad. Milledge was a character, for sure, but he had an edge and an arrogance the Mets lacked. I love David Wright, but the guy’s personality appears downright robotic sometimes. The fact Milledge admired a couple of home runs and high fived some fans got blown so far out of proportion that I’m tempted to think there were other reasons for the negative reaction from the media, reasons that I’m not going to get into here. Additionally, if that had really hurt his trade value so much, then I would argue that he wouldn’t be worth trading, given his upside.

I wish him luck in Washington, where he will certainly play every day and have a chance to succeed at the major league level once and for all.

I have heard some grumblings that this is a prelude to a trade for Eric Bedard. Bedard is a great pitcher and I would be thrilled if the Mets got him, but i don’t see where Church and Schneider fit into the picture for a Bedard trade at all, unless they value Church more than Milledge (which makes them even stupider than the Mets presently appear to be). Right now this is looking like a terrible trade.

Update #2: This is a hilarious and ridiculous sidebar to this whole trade, and I can’t believe I forgot to mention it, but Church got in trouble a while back for some comments he made. Check it out:

“An article in Sunday’s paper about Baseball Chapel quoted Church as saying that he had turned to Moeller for advice about his former girlfriend, who was Jewish. “I said, like, Jewish people, they don’t believe in Jesus. Does that mean they’re doomed? Jon nodded, like, that’s what it meant. My ex-girlfriend! I was like, man, if they only knew. Other religions don’t know any better. It’s up to us to spread the word,” Church said.”

You hear that, Shawn Green? Ryan Church thinks you’re going to hell! This just gets worse and worse.

Also, Brian Schneider is making over $10 million the next two seasons! And he’s a terrible hitter! Good times!

Sportswriters Gone Wild!

If you’re a baseball fan, a sports fan, or just like seeing arrogant old men implode before your very eyes, you might find this entertaining.

On Thursday, Fire Joe Morgan lampooned a Bill Conlin article from a Philadelphia paper that droned on and on (incorrectly) about how Jimmy Rollins was the right choice for MVP and whatnot. Because of the Mets’ collapse and the Phillies’ winning the division title it was Rollins and not David Wright, the player with the superior season, who won the National League MVP award. I didn’t really talk about this before now because I didn’t feel like rehashing the Mets’ collapse once more, but now I’ve done it – if the Mets had won the division, Wright would’ve been NL MVP, and rightfully so. Regardless of the standings, Rollins’ shouldn’t have won the award, but I digress. It was another questionable decision by a group of people that often make questionable decisions in handing out baseball awards, the BBWAA.

Anyway, back to the story. FJM did, as it usually does, a great job mocking Conlin’s article and taking apart most everything he wrote in it. A Phillies blogger forwarded that post to Conlin, using it as evidence to support his belief that he himself didn’t even think Rollins deserved to win the MVP award. What followed were a series of petulant responses by Conlin in which he accused the blogger of being a Mets fan and asking him “I wonder how it feels to be the Phillies bitch”, rather confusing given the fact that the e-mailer had already identified himself as a diehard Phillies fan and blogger. That wasn’t nearly the end of it  – he then got really crazy, going so far as to drop a Hitler reference (one that will almost certainly land him in some trouble) and comparing bloggers to colonial pamphleteers (So Ken Tremendous from FJM is the modern day Thomas Paine? What?).

Sometime in the middle of all of this the internets caught wind of the entire fiasco and it seems to be picking up steam. You can see a complete rundown of the entire story on Deadspin.

Let me make a commentary here: This is clearly much ado about a crazy old man in Bill Conlin, a man who worked his entire life “in the business” and is now struggling to come to grips with the increasing irrelevancy of himself and fossils like him. While it surprises me somewhat that a man who spent literally most of his entire life being one of the few sources of commentary or information on the Philadelphia Phillies would react this badly when confronted with the idea of bloggers, at the same time I could almost see why he would become so angry: he’s become irrelevant. That is, unless you count being a punchline for sabremetric baseball bloggers as “relevant”.

Additionally, this should serve as another reminder that while the internet is still to a large degree a giant, soul-consuming wasteland, it can often offer bright and insightful commentary that would’ve never seen the light of day in the era of Conlin and the other newspaper dinosaurs. Keep this story in mind you hear anyone mention “press credentials” with something like professional sports, a field that one can comment on fairly intelligently without a whole lot of “inside information”. When someone like Bill Conlin (who was apparently considered some kind of an authority on the subject at one point) comes off like such a complete jackass it should throw the aura of infallibility off of any established sports journalist.

Now that I’m off of my soapbox, I wanted to leave on a lighter note with a totally ridiculous clip of Patrick Stewart flipping out in a 1990’s Showtime original movie. Jean-Luc Picard doesn’t mess around with no rodents, no sir.

TLOS Redux: Smith Haven Mall, Society’s Cesspool

This is Part One of an ongoing series where I recycle old articles I wrote months or even years ago in lieu of any new material. The excitement is literally pouring out of your computer screen and onto your lap!

Originally posted March 22nd, 2007, as requested by

raistlinp

 . Enjoy.

One morning when I was walking around Smith Haven Mall during a break at work, there came to me a startling realization. That realization, very simply, was that the mall environment is basically a microcosm of almost everything that I hate about people and our society as a whole – all the ridiculous, mundane, greedy, pointless and just flat out terrible traits of the average person are exemplified in the mall. First, it was when I thought about New Faces, the “talent scouting agency” that resides there (which, by the way, has been busted for being a scam). Wondering who would actually put faith that their dreams of fame and fortune could come true in a crooked company with teenaged “talent scouts” got me thinking as to just what a ridiculous place the mall really is.

Think about what the mall is for a moment. What do you picture when you think of it? You picture mobs of semi-conscious drones, wandering from store to store, usually for no real reason or purpose, to dispose of their hard-earned income. These drones are being serviced by similar drones, programmed (in theory) by hours of repetitive and boring training to maximize income for themselves and their company. In some cases they have a personal stake in their business, but for the most part, they (like me) are detached robots made to sell goods to people, whether they should be buying them or not. That isn’t for us to decide. I loathe what I do, but I do it because it pays – what a wonderful concept! Directives for employees like me and even the managers above us are handed down by corporate suits very far away, who probably have never set foot in a mall because they’re too busy smoking $100 bills for fun.

For the perfect example of this, I recall one instance during the summer when we had a run where we were required by corporate headquarters to run the Discovery Channel in HIGH DEFINITION on all televisions in our department. I capitalize HIGH DEFINITON because, as an electronics salesman, I am told to stress that HIGH DEFINITION television is the single greatest invention in the history of the universe. Anyway, anyone who’s watched the Discovery Channel for more than five minutes knows it’s all not PG material, but this is irrelevant – we had to show the network. So one day, when an anthropological documentary featuring naked aborigines frolicking around their village was airing on every big screen television in the store, it had to be left on. No ESPN, no CNN – just lots of aboriginal boobies bouncing about…in HIGH DEFINITION! Absurdity at its finest. This happened at a store that once got sued several years ago (no joke) for accidentally airing the Playboy Channel on all of its televisions. Remarkable.

Unfortunately, our store now shows the same 15 minute loop of ads and highlights on every television that’s been showing since November. I don’t even work that much (thankfully), but I can certainly tell you that you should go buy The Devil Wears Prada, on DVD December 12th! By the way, I’m writing this article in late March, and if I’m ever forced to sit through the entirety of The Devil Wears Prada my head may actually explode (unless Anne Hathaway was part of the deal).

Then, there are our valued customers. Some vaguely resemble reasonable human beings when they’re dealing with money and things that are shiny and would impress their friends. A depressingly large number, however, do not. After one customer brought in several ads from anonymous (read: fake) online stores asking me to match prices on TV’s worth thousands of dollars, I refused and explained our store policy on the matter. Not liking my answer (or my desire to not get fired), he decided to go downstairs to my store manager and completely make up a new story to try to get me in trouble anyway. Good going, dipshit. There are dozens of things I do every shift that I could probably get in trouble for – you didn’t need to make up some shitty, implausible story to do the job.

Seriously, what could possibly possess somebody to try to make another man lose his job for a few hundred dollars on a TV? For all he knew I could’ve been supporting my family. Luckily, my job’s only real function is to pay for my World of Warcraft addiction, but still, what the fuck?

Walking around the mall isn’t any less depressing. You’ll see dozens and dozens of glazed-over expressions. Often times I see the same cast of characters in the mall every time I work – apparently it’s the thing to do to pass the time. If I ever get to the point in my life where I need to walk around the mall aimlessly to pass all my time, you have permission to shoot me. And by you, I mean anybody reading this (I was reminded soon after posting this that nobody is going to read any of this, in all likelihood, so I should be pretty safe on this one).

Most prominently featured among the mall’s visitors are the groups of idiot teenagers, dumped off by their disinterested parents, devoid of imagination and required to dress exactly like their friends – whether that means a Goth with his black trenchcoat and chains, guys with girl pants and sweaters, or just assholes that look like they came out of a bad WB teen drama. I know I’m not the first person to say this, but let me say it again: regardless of how you dress or what music you listen to, you’re not actually in Greenwich Village or Transylvania or wherever the fuck you’d rather be – you’re still just a moron from Long Island wasting your life walking around Smith Haven Mall just like everyone else is. On a somewhat related note, my favorite recent addition to the mall is the new Starbucks, because it opened the place up to another favorite demographic of mine – pompous pseudo-intellectuals who like to sit around a table and inflate each other’s egos over a five dollar cup of coffee. Just another social clique to throw into the great melting pot of stupidity! Hooray!

So really, if you’re reading this and you’re one of these people, go find something better to do with your lives. Malls are fine as centers of commerce, but they are not a substitute for a life. Get some fresh air, or better yet, go learn something new about the world. My favorite history professor once asked us rhetorically how many people in Smith Haven Mall could name five world leaders – the implication here was that most people are ignorant, and I can’t say I disagree. As long as people keep dwelling in the inane, like the wonders of an indoor shopping mall in Lake Grove, things will sadly remain that way.

If you don’t want to do that, though, at least do one thing for me – come buy something from me at my job. I need to pay for another month of World of Warcraft, after all. 

What’s happened since this was posted: If you came to the mall recently looking to buy something from me you would have been disappointed, as I quit my job there this past summer. I now have a better gig at Stony Brook Undergraduate Admissions. I’ve also taken an indefinite break from World of Warcraft. What hasn’t changed (despite an expensive facelift and the fact that I don’t work there anymore) is the Smith Haven Mall itself, which I can only presume still sucks.

Ding dong, the witch is dead.

By “witch”, of course, I mean, “Guillermo Mota”. And by “dead” I mean “traded to Milwaukee this past week for Johnny Estrada”. Not only did the Mets avoid the Yorvit Torrealba disaster, but they got a catcher of some utility in exchange for the team’s biggest bullpen parasite. Nice turnaround.

Coming soon: my countdown to the best Final Fantasy 3 character. Here’s a hint – it’s not Relm!

Also I will begin posting old TLOS articles here by request very soon, so let me know if there’s something you want to see again.

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving!

The A-Rod anti-climax.

It appears both sides in the Alex Rodriguez soap opera realized they needed each other and are now working out a deal that will put A-Rod back in Yankee pinstripes for as many as ten more years. It seems to me the case here was simply that A-Rod realized that a market did not exist (outside of the Yankees) that could pay him what he wanted, and the Yankees realized that they could not possibly replace A-Rod’s production in the lineup. 

It’s kind of funny, given the ridiculous timing of A-Rod’s opt-out and the back and forth between his camp and the apparently petulant Hank Steinbrenner, that they now have to awkwardly kiss and make up. It’s even funnier that the Yankee fans that relentlessly slammed Rodriguez upon learning of his initial decision now have to once again accept him as one of their own. The “biggest piece of garbage that has ever donned a Yankee uniform” and his MVP numbers will apparently be back, no doubt to the chagrin of a few delusional Yankee fans who had convinced themselves that they would have been better equipped to win a championship with Mike Lowell or some other inferior player at third base. Something tells me they’ll forget all about how angry they were when he’s leading the Yankees into another playoff push in 2008.

By the way, I get a kick out of picturing Jeff Weaver/Kevin Brown/Raul Mondesi/Carl Pavano/Kyle Farnsworth googling “biggest piece of garbage to ever don a Yankee uniform” and breathing a big sigh of relief when they found out that it was A-Rod and not them that was given said title by a buddy of ours. I can only hope that this has actually happened.

As for the Mets, it’s time to get pumped up and order your Yorvit Torrealba jerseys! It’ll be a good long-term investment because it appears that we’ll get to experience Yorvit and his career 80 OPS+ through 2010. 2010! The best part is that based on what I’m seeing on some forums, some Mets fans are already trying to rationalize a 3 year, $15 million contract to a career backup catcher as a “good move”. Uh, yeah, ok. Paul Lo Duca sucked, but he didn’t suck to the tune of a .618 OPS (!!!) outside of Coors Field last year. On the bright side, it appears that Omar Minaya is doing all he can to make us forget about an atrocious September collapse by putting us through an even-more-atrocious offseason. Whatever, I’m sure it’s all Beltran’s fault somehow. Ya Gotta Believe! 

The rumors: The numbers presently being floated around are 10 years, $280 million for Alex Rodriguez and 3 years, $15 million for Yorvit Torrealba. However, I’ve also seen 2 years $10 million mentioned for Torrealba which would be only somewhat less atrocious a contract. And really, given everything that’s happened, who knows what A-Rod’s final deal is going to look like. I guess we’ll find out for both guys soon enough. They couldn’t really be any more different.

Update, Saturday: Oh GOD yes, the Torrealba deal has apparently broken down!

Here we go again!

According to Metsblog, my favorite baseball team is in serious negotiations with noted superstar catcher Yorvit Torrealba on a three year contract. Shoot me. I’m not going to waste my time with a big rant on this until anything’s official, but this would be a terrible move. I can’t even put in words what an atrocious signing this would be. So yeah. it’s looking like an AMAZIN’ off-season already. Ugh.

Speaking of baseball, someone labeled the fact that big payroll teams win more often in baseball a “misconception” yesterday in class but unfortunately I was too out of it to argue the point at all. That was disappointing on my part.

There’s been a lack of updates and a general lack of literary productivity on my end lately. I’ve also been meaning to make updates to the Dreisini page but haven’t. I’ve been keeping up with some other hobbies but for whatever reason I haven’t had the urge to write much this past week or so. I imagine that the urge will return pretty soon, or whenever I find something ridiculous to mouth off about.

I’ve been keeping up with work and classes, at least, and I suppose that’s the most important thing. I just had two midterms the last two weeks and I have a couple of projects coming up that promise to dominate my life for a short period of time. I have most of next week off so that should be a good chance to be somewhat productive, at least when I’m not eating/watching football/playing football. Methinks this Thanksgiving break is coming at just the right time.

I’ll be back next time with something more entertaining or interesting. I leave you with this video of Moleman’s greatest moments. Good Moleman to you.

Thank God it’s the day before Saturday

There hasn’t been a whole lot to report on this week. The life of a graduate student isn’t exactly one of intrigue and excitement at every turn, but it’s good enough provided I get an occasional karaoke break (more on that later).

There might, however, be a glitch in the matrix. Several electrical devices around the house have stopped working. At First, it was limited to Ryan’s things; his cellphone died, the power cable for his laptop shorted out and finally his lamp blew out and in the process nearly set the house on fire. Now, however, my cellphone has died in a similar manner. I can only hope my laptop and source of lighting make it through the weekend still functional and without any near-catastrophes.

I’m actually proud to say that this was the first cell phone that I did not have a hand in destroying. In fact, it’s a Razr, and I know of a couple of people having similar issues with it (the phone randomly shuts off), so I’m going to go get it exchanged this weekend. It’s important I have a working cell phone, because a go-getter like me needs to be in touch at all times. That last sentence was a complete lie. 

I also had a dream the other night where I was arguing with someone that Ron Paul was unelectable and that if he were (by some miracle) elected President he wouldn’t be able to fulfill most of his platform thanks to opposition from both of the major parties. I’m not sure how accurate my dreamworld argument really is (it was, after all, a dream and I didn’t do much research) but I wanted to point this out to illustrate the fact that even my fantasies are getting lamer. Political debates? What an imagination! Tomorrow night I might just slip into a sexy dream about watching the House Committee on Ways and Means on C-SPAN! H.R. 3996 is coming up for consideration and you know what that means – it’s gametime! Ugh. 

Dressing up like this for last week’s i-BOP Halloween Party is making me strongly consider the idea of going out on the town in a similar outfit, if only as a social experiment. I think I’d fit in pretty well in Port Jefferson. Will I do it? Probably not, but the idea amuses me. If I haven’t done it already on this site I wanted to strongly, strongly endorse i-BOP as a place to get drunk and sing karaoke to your heart’s delight. It gets the seal of approval.

Finally, happy birthday to

adk_theory

 , friend and frequent commenter to this page!

Just as I conclude this writing I have been informed there is a small fire in the cigarette dispenser outside the Administration building. Maybe the world really is falling apart bit by bit? Whatever, at least I got paid today. Armageddon won’t occur while I’m broke, no sir.

Hopefully there’s something more interesting to discuss in the coming days other than electrical implosions and dreams of political debate. Until then, enjoy yourselves!

Remember, remember…

Hope you had a smashing Guy Fawkes Day! I either failed or aced a statistics test, I haven’t really decided which one it is yet.

Tomorrow I do not have class which means I will surely try to catch up on the sleep I lost this past weekend, which by the way was awesome. I have discovered that Jager bombs, while not as disgusting as I feared, still taste pretty terrible.

Finally, the Dreisini website is updated. I should be back with more in the next couple of days.

Enjoy!

Want a good life? Be a rich person’s dog.

Let me preface what I’m going to say here with this: I love dogs. I have a golden retriever and she’s pretty much the sweetest dog ever. I think they should be taken care of and respected, and I think the actions of people like Michael Vick are disgusting. What I’m about to talk about is by no means an animal rights issue so I think no matter what your stance on those issues is you’ll be somewhat disgusted by what you’re about to read.

This gem once again comes from the BBC and it’s an article about the dogs of the Parisian upper class. Let’s look at some choice excerpts:

“The last time I dined with Edward and friends at a pricey pavement cafe, he was presented with a T-bone steak to enjoy while my six-year-old goddaughter was left to go hungry because the waiters refused to adjust the menu to suit her childish dietary requirements.”

Nice. Edward, for those wondering, is the dog in this case.

“In my district alone two new canine outfitters have sprung up, their shop windows offering the urban wolf everything from black tie – presumably for those Tour d’Argent dinners – to Superman costumes.

Earlier this year, the big department store BHV opened a special dog and cat branch packed with luxury items for the dog who has it all.”

For the record, I would like to say that people who dress their dogs up are freaks. Dogs aren’t meant to squeeze into little tiny Superman costumes. It’s not cute, it’s obnoxious. Besides, most dogs already have clothing. It’s called “fur”.

“Instead, like great statesmen or war heroes, enormous marble mausoleums mark their resting place in a landscaped dog cemetery on the city’s outskirts which overlooks the Seine.”

Good to know Fido can enjoy the same kind of furnishings in the afterlife that Charles de Gaulle or Victor Hugo can. With any luck I’ll have enough money to be shot into space when I’m dead so I don’t have to share the same ground as the morons who thought this was an awesome idea.

Now, my take on this article is that it was written with an air of absurdity about it, like “Haha, look at those silly rich French bastards!”. I still couldn’t help but come away feeling disgusted.

There are many, many wealthy people that are philanthropists and never really seek to receive recognition. However, my impression is that there are also way too many others that would fit under the category of the dog owners talked about here: rich, arrogant, obnoxious assholes that would rather buy a t-bone steak for their dog at an expensive restaurant than feed a hungry child that wasn’t theirs. I don’t know for a fact that these particular people don’t put their money into good causes, but what they do is such a grotesque and over-the-top display of affluence that I think it’s fair to assume their social priorities are completely out of order.

Around the world there are hundreds of millions of people with nothing to eat. A million children in France alone live under the poverty line. If you’re lucky enough to be a rich person’s dog, though, you’re treated like royalty. In the United States a whopping 36.5 million people are living in poverty (US Census) and Leona Helmsley’s fucking dog got a $12 million trust fund in her will. What the hell is wrong with this picture? People don’t want to pay taxes for things like health care and aid to the poor but they’ll be damned if they can’t buy their poodle a God-damned $20 bottle of designer shampoo. I can’t fathom having enough money to spend that much money on shampoo for myself let alone for my dog. I know we all have different political leanings, but can we all agree that this is fucking retarded?

In looking for more examples of the sheer fucking idiocy I’m talking about here, I stumbled across a couple of other somewhat depressing articles on the same topic that provide more absurdity for you to digest. If you want to hate your fellow man even more, I’ve posted links to them here so that you can see for yourself:

MSNBC – Wealthy are turning pets into hairy heirs
Washington Post – The Collar Of Money In New York Dog

I can’t believe that human beings are this fucking stupid. We’re all screwed.