April 2008 Archives

I love Target just like almost everybody else out there. They have good prices on brand names, but I am always on the lookout for generic substitutes for the things that I purchase a lot (Zone Bars, Vitamin Water, yogurt smoothies, cereal, paper towels, etc). In particular, the Market Pantry food brand has released alternatives for a number of items I am particularly addicted to, so naturally, I consider myself a perfect candidate to review these products. First up: Vitamin Water.

I had to report to jury duty for the County of Los Angeles on Wednesday. I didn't get called into duty, so I had a chance to read a lot of The Intellectual Devotional, part of which was edited by a friend of mine. On my way back from the taco wagon for my lunch break, I looked across the street from the courthouse and saw this huge chair. When the hell did Los Angeles get this huge chair, and why was it never on the Amazing Race?

I googled "Los Angeles Big Chair" and came up with this site. According to the website:

Artist Giancarlo Neri directed us to info on a chair created by the company Promosedia in Manzano, Italy -- 60 ft. tall. A slightly smaller version provided by Promosedia, touting the "Chair District" of Friuli, Italy, stands at the entrance of the LA Merchandise Mart, 1933 S. Broadway, Los Angeles, California. America has lost its giant chair edge!

The Replacement Level Yankees Weblog is one of my favorite baseball blogs. SG has done an amazing amount of work on baseball projections and has come up with his CAIRO system (it helps to know about below average utility infielders to get the joke). The people who comment there love the Yankees, know their baseball, and are still looking to perfect the Gritty+ and eqHustle stats to satisfy the likes of Murray Chass.

In a recent thread about the Yankees/Devil Rays game one of the commenters took some quotes from one of my all-time favorite movies, The Big Lebowski, and rewrote them to feature Indians closer Joe Borowski as the Dude. You have to love both baseball and the movie to get any humor at all, but it inspired me to whip up the movie poster above. Continue on for the full comments, and don't forget to visit RLYW if you like the Yankees.

I am not sure how often I am going to blog about baseball, but after my boy Chien Ming Wang dismantled the Red Sox yesterday, I had to say something. Besides, whenever Wang pitches a good game, it makes for an irresistible headline (my second choice was "Boston Bats Choke as Wang Comes Up Huge" ). Luckily, Wang has been straight dealing for most of the season. His only really bad inning was the fifth, when he gave up a home run to J.D. Drew for his first hit, and even that ball was very catchable. The only other hit came with a bunt in the 9th inning. It took him only 93 pitches to get threw the whole game. Cy Wang here we come!

Today's game comes against Josh Beckett while we are throwing Mike Mussina, he of the 85 MPH fastball, on the mound. Hopefully Moose has his good stuff and Beckett is still a little off coming back from his back/hip injury. Honestly, I'm more concerned about the Yankee bats, but I think they'll come around.

Google is constantly upgrading its Street View maps, and look who made the cut! I wish I could be the guy across the street from me that can afford to park his Jaguar on the street (maybe it's his beater), but at least I'll have a nice random conversation starter. I am sure you have all seen some of the more interesting things to happen on Google Street View, but my favorites are the potential crimes, the partially clad co-eds (#5) and the person taking a leak on the side of the road.

For most of my life, I have never really liked running. It was kind of a necessary evil that I would have to do if I wanted to play basketball or soccer. Even when I was on the track team, I didn't like to run. As odd as it sounds, it worked out because I was in it only for the high jump and long jump.

Even as I started to work out more recently, I hated going to the gym and running on the treadmill, or taking off down my neighborhood streets. Something changed in the last few months though, and I really like to run. Before, it was sort of a necessity. Now, I really like it. My favorite time to run is on the streets in the evening. The weather is cool and there is not as much traffic.

Running has become like that girl that you never appreciate until you get older, but then you can't let go. I never thought about running as a "relationship" until I saw those New Balance commercials on the web. My favorite is the one you see above, where the narrator describes what happens when you and running are about to break up (like your knees or shins hurt), or your relationship is just not as good as it was (like when you are hungover and can barely eek out 2 miles). But you and running will always be together, and there is nothing better than a "hot sweaty make-up run" to spice up the relationship.

March Madness (and April Madness I guess) is now over. The Kansas Jayhawks win over the Memphis Tigers was absolutely amazing. After the games on Saturday, I wasn't sure how close it would be. Memphis looked dominant against UCLA, and Kansas almost blew a 28 point lead against North Carolina. In the end, almost blowing that lead might have helped Kansas, as they were tough down the stretch, coming back from 9 points in regulation to win in overtime. Memphis flinched just enough, and Mario Chalmers hit an amazing shot to save the Jayhawks season.

I remember meeting two girls from Kansas who flew out to watch the Jayhawks play USC in Los Angeles in early December. That kind of fan commitment is rare, although escaping the midwest for Southern California can't really be called a sacrifice. Anyway, I think I was rooting a little bit more for Kansas in this game. John Calipari is a good coach, and I hope he wins the title someday, but Bill Self is also a good coach and he deserved the win. Kansas has always had great fans, and I know it was heart-breaking for them to lose to Syracuse one year, then watch their coach depart and win a championship a few years later. Now they can get on with their lives (we hope).

Overall, it was a good tournament. There was no Syracuse, which sucked, but there was another first-time winner in Coach Self. Over the last ten years, there have been seven new coaches to add their names to the list of champions. In the last 15 years, only three teams have one more than once (UConn, Kentucky, Florida), which says a lot about how great the sport is. Can't wait to do this all again in eight months.

Please tell me this guy has been on American's Got Talent or something. If there is a no dunking rule in effect, is there any way anybody beats this guy at H-O-R-S-E in his own gym?

Although I was slightly late to the game, I became a huge fan of Veronica Mars. I hated that the show was taken away from us, but I always felt like I would get to see our favorites move on to bigger and better things. Kristen Bell is hot and talented, so you know she is going to be around, but what about the little people? Well, we don't have to worry about them either. I caught Percy Daggs, who played Veronica's sidekick Wallace, in a new role...