Out of Our Hands

Yes... I'm actually posting. Don't get too excited... this will probably be pretty lame. In fact, it's a response to a chain message...

Here we go.

Instructions:

1. Put your music on shuffle
2. For each question, press the next button to get your answer.
3. You must write that song name down no matter how silly it sounds.

1. If someone says "Is this okay" you say?

Pride (by U2)

2. What would best describes your personality?

Burning Down the House (Bonnie Raitt - cover of the Talking Heads song) (apparently I'm a pyromaniac).

3. What do you like in a guy/girl?

Foxy Lady (Jimi Hendrix) (damn right!)

4. How do you feel today?

The District Sleeps Alone (Postal Service)

5. What is your life's purpose?

Veronica (Elvis Costello) (This one might disappoint Debby)

6. What is your motto?

Aurora (Foo Fighters)

7. What do your friends think of you?

Thinking About You (Norah Jones)

8. What do you think about very often?

I Had a King (Herbie Hancock)

9. What is 2 + 2?

Sweet Home Chicago (Eric Clapton)

10. What do you think of your best friend?

Theme From Rawhide (Blues Brothers)

11. What do you think of the person you like?

Baltimore (Lyle Lovett)

12. What is your "life story"?

The Thick Skin of Defiance (Dropkick Murphys) (That would actually be an awesome name for an autobiography).

13. What do you want to be when you grow up?

The Old Landmark (James Brown)

14. What do you think when you see the person you like?

Just What I Needed (The Cars) (Awww... how sweet)

15. What do your parents think of you?

OK Alone (Gabriel Mann)

16. What will you dance to at your wedding?

Well, I'm already married, but lets see if this gets it right.... MAIN TITLE THEME FROM STAR WARS! Completely wrong, but that would have been so awesome...

17. What will they play at your funeral?

Learn to Fly (Foo Fighters)

18. What is your hobby/interest?

Korean Parents (Randy Newman) (Boy, would that be an odd hobby).

19. What is your biggest secret?

Have it All (Foo Fighters) (Not a secret, everyone knows I have it all).

20. What do you think of your friends?

Let Your Loss Be Your Lesson (Robert Plant and Alison Krauss)

21. What's the worst thing that could happen?

Californication (Red Hot Chili Peppers) (I could think of much worse things)

22. How will you die?

Money, Money, Money (Abba) (Interesting...)

23. What is the one thing you regret?

Champagne Supernova (Oasis)

24. What makes you laugh?

Colorado (Chevy Chase)

25. What makes you cry?

Streets of Philadelphia (Bruce Springsteen) (I might have cried there after the Phillies won the World Series)

26. Will you ever get married?

Again, I'm already married, but lets see... The Sky is Crying (Stevie Ray Vaughan)

27. What scares you the most?

Doctor My Eyes (Jackson Browne)

28. Does anyone like you?

Dance To The Music (Sly and the Family Stone)

29. If you could go back in time what would you change?

Laugh and Be Happy (Randy Newman)

30. What hurts right now?

Send Her My Love (Journey)

31. This wasn't on before, but my wife wants me to add it... What turns you on?

Running on Empty (Jackson Browne)

32. What will you post this as?

Out of Our Hands (Sheryl Crow)

Quick Thoughts on Fifteen Baseball Stadiums

So I went to Shea Stadium yesterday, and saw my beloved Cardinals lose 9 to 1. But in watching this horrific game, I did accomplish a sort-of milestone... I have now been to fifteen major league baseball stadiums. Here are quick thoughts, in chronological order of when I went to each stadium.

Busch Stadium (the old one) in St. Louis - Well, obviously this is my favorite stadium of all time. I am no means objective... this is the stadium I grew up with, and the one where I saw what ESPN says is the 16th greatest home run in major league baseball history. And yes, the best fans in baseball. But beyond that, I really do think it was a great stadium, the best of the hybrid baseball-football stadiums. Not that that's saying much.

Wrigley Field in Chicago - Another stadium that I can't judge on pure objective grounds... I mean, it's Wrigley Field. Yes, I'm required by as a Cards fan to law to laugh and make fun of Cubs fans. But going to Wrigley is really to feel like a part of history. The ivy on the wall... back in the day, Harry Carey singing Take Me Out to the Ballgame. And it's integrated in the neighborhood where it sits like no other stadium, anywhere. On objective levels, once you get inside, the stadium has piss poor sightlines and isn't very fan friendly. It's sort of never lived up to expectations. Sort of like some baseball team that plays there.

Comiskey Park (the new one) in Chicago (and yes, I still call it Comiskey) - I don't think this one is as bad as people say it is... sure it missed the boat on the newer stadium philosophy, but it actually does have a little bit of style. As the best postgame fireworks show I've seen. Just wish I would have made it to the old Comiskey.

Milwaukee County Stadium - Wow. This stadium was just what you'd expect from Milwaukee. A big, ugly, metal circle with a baseball field in the middle. Seriously, it looked like the bottom third of a giant beer can, probably Pabst. Worst stadium I've ever been to. But somehow, very representative of Milwaukee. Unlike...

Miller Park in Milwaukee - This was one of the first post-Camden Yards stadium, and they tried to do the same thing but put their own twist on it. Unfortunately, it didn't quite work, and this is probably the worst of the Camden-inspired stadiums. And I don't get retractable domes.

Camden Yards in Baltimore - A great model that has been relentlessly copied... Unfortunately, that means it's not that distinct anymore. But boy, I bet it was great in the beginning. They should get a major league team to play there. The stadium deserves more than a Triple-A team.

PNC Park in Pittsburgh - The BEST of the Camden inspired parks. If I were able to be objective, I'd maybe say this is my favorite stadium, period. Also home to a Triple-A team.

Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia - I went to this stadium specifically to see the hideous Phillies fans boo Scott Rolen after the trade to the Cardinals. It was like an anthropological journey to see Phillies fans in their natural habitat. God, I hate Phillies fans. I don't even really remember the stadium itself.

Yankee Stadium in New York - Fucking Yankees. I saw Roger Clemens get his 300th win against my beloved Cardinals. Fucking hooray. The stadium is pretty good, actually, and of course a big part of history. But if I heard the phrase "26 time world champion New York Yankees" one more time while I was there, I probably would have killed someone.

Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia - Not very interesting for a new stadium. And still full of Phillies fans. I was at two Cubs games, and they were berating CUBS FANS while I was there, and I STILL found them annoying. God, I still hate Phillies fans.

RFK Stadium in Washington DC - Oddly enough, the stadium I've actually been to the most times. Well, I guess it's not that odd seeing as Washington is the only city I've actually lived in with a team. And you know what? RFK wasn't that bad. I have lots of good memories in the place.

Angel Stadium in Los Angeles of Anaheim of Orange County of California of United States of America on North America of the Americas of the Western Hemisphere of Earth - I went on a whim when driving from LA to San Diego. Nice stadium, if a little too Disney/Rally Monkey inspired.

Busch Stadium (the new one) in St. Louis - Not bad... I miss the old Busch though, and this is probably the closest ripoff of all the Camden clones I've been to. I've only been once so far... and Pujols hit 3 home runs that day. I hope he repeats next time I go.

Nationals Park in Washington DC - I really think this is the first new stadium to kind of break the Camden mold... and I like it quite a bit. Lots of good times will be had there.

Shea Stadium in New York - Shithole. As boring as stadiums get. Will not be missed, probably even by most Mets fans. But hey, at least I get to check it off the list.

About that New Yorker cover....

So this is the cover of the latest New Yorker....






















And as you may have heard by now, it has the Obama campaign and alot of their faithful up in a tizzy. Sure. Maybe YOU understand that it's satire. But you're not some redneck in Podunk, Missouri, who's bound to look at this and say... "What? I was going to vote for Obama, but now that I see he's a Bin Laden loving Muslim terrorist who burns the flag and has a Black Panther for a wife, NO WAY!" And that will DOOM the Obama campaign! Doom it, I tell ya! There's no way Obama can survive this cartoon!

Here's what Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton has to say....

"The New Yorker may think, as one of their staff explained to us, that their cover is a satirical lampoon of the caricature Senator Obama's right-wing critics have tried to create... But most readers will see it as tasteless and offensive. And we agree."

Now, you may have seen that quote if you've been reading the newspapers or blogs or whatever for the last couple days... But here comes a Nose Knows Exclusive! I have further quotes from Burton about a variety of other satirical works!

On The Colbert Report...

"Colbert has repeatedly shown images of Barack in a turbin, questioned his patriotism, and made countless other accusations... now I know the show is satire, but will Joe-Nascar-Six-Pack know the difference?"

On The Onion....

"The Onion has recently reported 'Obama, Clinton, McCain Join Forces To Form Nightmare Ticket.' This is untrue. Don't believe it! Some hick in Alabama just decided not to vote for Obama because they're all running together now. See what you did, Onion?"

On South Park...

"Well, after a tough primary campaign, I feel the need to defend Hillary from the evil accusations of South Park. Last year, they implied that Hillary had a nuclear weapon hidden in her vagina. I know this to be untrue, and I demand an apology."

On Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal"....

"In his satirical book, Swift proposes that poor people sell their babies so that rich people can eat them. Now look. I know it's a joke. But just yesterday, a poor soul from Pennsylvania came up to me with his two year old saying he'd make an excellent hamburger. What hath Swift wrought?"

Let's all pray for the end of satire.

Rock-afire Explosion Documentary

Do you remember Rock-afire Explosion? The animatronic band from Showbiz Pizza/Chuck-E-Cheese?

Well, they've made a documentary about the band...



And the guy who managed to get the band and program it to play an Usher song.



I have to admit this documentary looks awesome.

Married!

For those who were wondering, since I haven't posted in over a month, if I successfully got married and got back and forth to Italy and all that... I did! And the first month of marriage has been great!

That's all for now. Just wanted to check in. And for a little entertainment, here's my favorite clip of the late, great, George Carlin.

Off to California on Thursday....

To get married, and then take off to Italy for my honeymoon. So it'll be a few weeks before I post again. In the meantime, enjoy this very revealing video of John McCain.

Image of Virgin Mary in a....

For no specific reason, I thought it would be interesting to google the phrase "image of Virgin Mary in a." I was surprised that I only got five exact hits for that phrase, two linking to the same place. Here you go.

Image of Virgin Mary in a....

lemon

natural rock

puff of smoke

golden nugget

If I google just "Virgin Mary in a," I get lots of links to this grilled cheese sandwich that sold for $28,000 on Ebay and this tree stump. Among other finds, a chimney, a watermelon, a palm tree branch, and a grease stain.

Over a month!

Wow, when I announced my blog semi-retirement, I apparently meant it. This is my first post in over a month.

So, um, I guess I should blog. For the sake of posting something, here are the opening credits of various Marvel Comics cartoons from the sixties. Spider-Man is obviously the most classic, but Iron Man (great movie, by the way) is probably the funniest. Here they are.

Spider-Man



Iron Man



Hulk



Captain America



Mighty Thor

The Nose Knows Blog Index

Recently, Time Magazine Created its "first annual blog index." They're picking their top 25 blogs, and promise to repeat it annually.

So I thought I'd create my own "blog index." A few rules...

There will be only ten, not twenty five. And they will be ranked one through ten, based on how I feel today.

Mine isn't an annual list. I can change it next week, or in five years. Who knows?

If you know me and you have a blog, don't feel offended. I'm ruling out blogs of people I know. This will be a list of more popular, more widely known blogs.

Also, I'm ruling out "catch-all" blogs that have a million links a day about nothing specific. Thus, no Fark, no Metafilter, no Boing Boing, no Slashdot.

And no Cardinals blogs, because those don't interest anyone except a narrow group of people.

So... Here we go.

1. Freakonomics

I've blogged about the book recently, and since I read it and started following the blog, it has become my very favorite blog. Almost every entry is thought provoking, and there are very few "filler" posts. And I promise this is the only economics blog on my list.

2. Daily Kos

What can I say? This is probably the first blog I ever read regularly, and I still read several posts there almost every day. It's my one stop shop for all my left wing propaganda.

3. Huffington Post

I was a late adapter to Huffington Post. It wasn't until recently that I came to the opinion that this is the second best left wing blog out there. The entries are of mixed quality, but the good stuff is good enough that it's worth searching out.

4. Fire Joe Morgan

Don't worry, this blog is much more than just a plea to fire one ESPN announcer. It's an all out assault on bad, lazy, and flat out idiotic sports journalism and analysis. As you can imagine, there's no shortage of material to make fun of, and it's all done by a writer for The Office who once played Dwight's brother.

5. Garfield Minus Garfield

As I've written before, Garfield sucks. But it turns out that if you take Garfield out of the comic strip, it's hilarious. Just a lonely guy with serious mental issues.

6. Indexed

Great observations about life, illustrated through charts and diagrams on index cards. Nothing more, nothing less.

7. Stuff White People Like

Honestly, this blog is a depressing look at people like me. But I find it hilarious. It's losing a little of its original luster, but it's on my list for now.

8. Regret the Error

A collection of actual corrections that ran in newspapers, magazines, etc.
It's amazing what these supposedly great publications get wrong.

9. Raising Kaine

Another left wing political blog, this one a local one from my former home of Virginia. It's the model all local political blogs should follow. I wish Maryland had one this good (of course it would help if Maryland had Democratic elected officials as dynamic as the ones Virginia has).

10. Slog

Another local blog... this one from Seattle, where I've never been. I only found this blog because one of its contributors is Dan Savage. Again, lots of my left wing propaganda (detecting a theme here?), but plenty of other interesting posts, and very little of it is Seattle specific.

Your Brain On Cubs

Quick plug for a book I haven't read yet. My old roommate and the Best Man in my wedding, Dan Gordon, edited a book called "Your Brain On Cubs."

The book was written by several neuroscientists and covers a variety of topics related to the brain and baseball, including what happens in the brain of Cubs fans that causes them to root for their team through so much agony.

I like to think I partially inspired this book. You see, I'm a diehard Cardinals fan and he's a diehard Cubs fan. Our teams, of course, are bitter rivals. I was his roommate in 2003, and I was with him during the Steve Bartman incident and the subsequent collapse of the team as they were moments away from their first World Series in almost 60 years. I was also his roommate in 2006, when the Cardinals won the World Series with a team that went barely .500 in the regular season. He needed to examine his own misery in comparison with my joy. I haven't read the book yet, but it's a book I'd certainly be interested in even if I didn't know Dan. It's a great premise for a book and I'm sure a good read.

Annual Preseason Baseball Picks

Welcome to The Nose Knows Baseball: 2008 Preview (disclaimer: these predictions are completely inaccurate)

I've done this for three years now. I predicted the Cards to win in 2006. It worked. I predicted them again in 2007. Not so much.

I will not be predicting the Cardinals to win it all this year. At some point, being a homer just gets ridiculous. It was ridiculous of me to predict them either year (even if it worked in one of them). But now they seem to be an even worse team. Baseball Prospectus, which makes much more scientific projections than I do, predicts a 72-90 record this year. They were right about the White Sox demise that caught so many by surprise last year and made people like this look foolish.

So onto my predictions.

AL East: Red Sox. This is the year they officially become more hated than the Yankees.
AL Central: Tigers. They should rebound this year, especially with Miguel Cabrera at the plate.
AL West: Angels. Nothing more to say.
AL Wild Card: Indians. So yes.....

That leaves the Yankees out.

AL Champs: Tigers. I think their offseason moves put them over the edge.
AL Cy Young: C.C. Sabathia.
AL MVP: Alex Rodriguez. And Yankees fans will STILL hate him.

NL East: Mets. They just got the best pitcher in the game in Johan Santana, and should bounce back from last year.
NL Central: Cubs. As hard as it is for a Cards fan to make this prediction, they're clearly the best team in the division.
NL West: Diamondbacks. Dan Haren was another nice offseason pickup.
NL Wild Card: Brewers. I've predicted them to win the Wild Card 3 years straight. Is this finally the year?

NL Champs: Mets.
NL Cy Young: Johan Santana.
NL MVP: David Wright. A Mets hat trick. Will it be enough for the World Series?

Nope.

Your 2008 World Champion Detroit Tigers.

Gang Leader For A Day

Following up on my last post,I mentioned that Sudhir Venkatesh, the sociologist who lived among gang members at the Robert Taylor homes in Chicago and was written about in Freakonomics, has his own book, Gang Leader For A Day.

I havent read the book yet. I plan on reading it soon. Now comes word that the book has been optioned for a movie, which will be directed by Hustle and Flow's Craig Brewer. That seems like a great fit for me. This is a story that could be told with the energy Brewer brought to Hustle and Flow and made into a fantastic film.

So who to play Venkatesh? Not that many huge Indian actors in Hollywood, which makes Kal Penn and obvious choice. While he's best none for being Kumar, I think he has potential to be a pretty good actor. But I think an even better choice might be Lost's Naveen Andrews (I had to check Wikipedia on this one... yes, his parents are from India. He's not Iraqi like his character on Lost). A third option is Sendhil Ramamurthy from Heroes. He could be ok but I'd prefer Penn or Andrews. And of course I'm sure there are many more Indian actors to choose from... Those are just the only 3 mainstream Indian actors I can think of.

Things I've Seen/Heard/Read/Done Lately

This is kind of a catch-up post on things I've seen, heard said, or done lately.

Thing I've Seen - Gone Baby Gone -

Not bad at all. Very solid first directorial effort by Ben Affleck. He should stay behind the camera, where apparently his best skills might be.

Thing I've Heard - Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me -

Ok, I'm really late to the game on this one. But I just started listening to the weekly NPR show on podcast, and it's one of the funniest things around. Good guests who end up being surprisingly entertaining. Plus regulars like Mo Rocca, Paula Poundstone, and Tom Bodett, who apparently, in addition to being the guy who will "leave the light on for you" at Motel 6, is one seriously funny dude.

Thing I've Read - Freakonomics -

I've been wanting to read this book ever since it came out. I finally did, and thought it was a great read. Like the authors of the book, I am keenly interested in economic incentives, but I don't really care about financial markets, etc. The Freakonomics guys also have a great blog. Perhaps my favorite chapter of the book was about a guy who lives among gang members in Chicago and does one of the most thorough economic studies of a gang ever, and finds out their corporate structure is basically the same as McDonalds. The guy, Sudhir Venkatesh, has his own book now, which I'm looking forward to reading. He was also on the Colbert Report last week.

Thing I've Done - dance lessons for my wedding -

Yep, that's right. I'm learning to fox trot for the big day. Going well, and gives me some quality time with my fiancee. I need to learn new steps, practice alot, etc. So far, so good!

That's it for now. If I don't have something specific to write next time I want to blog, Seen/Heard/Read/Done seems like a good recurring post.

Obama plays chess, Clinton boxes....

A while back I ran across this article comparing Obama's campaign strategy to chess and Clinton's to boxing.

I don't care so much about the content of the article. I just want to use it as an excuse to post a video of the ultimate combination of brains and muscle....

Chessboxing.

The Fucking Continues

You saw "I'm Fucking Matt Damon." You saw "I'm Fucking Ben Affleck." You thought the Fucking was over. You were afraid of endless copycat celebrity Fucking videos. But Kevin Smith managed to actually put another relatively funny one together. Without further delay, "I'm Fucking Seth Rogen."