A Perfectly Cromulent Blog

"With these idiots we got..."

Even without much assistance from Pujols, the Cards found a way. 10 World Series titles...La Russa joins Sparky Anderson as the 2nd manager to win a title in both leagues...the Cards win it all at home, in spite of coming into the Series with the second worst record of any pennant winner in history...Eckstein is MVP. Goddamn, I wish I was up their with my uncles and cousins celebrating this:

Give it up for our pitchers, who nobody (including the author of this blog) thought could pull it together. Weaver, Carpenter, and Reyes had great starts, and maybe the loss of a 10 blown save closer doesn't hurt so much with the ascension of Adam Wainwright. Yadier Molina was also an unlikely powerhouse.

I already called my dad ("Raybob" to those of you who read my blog regularly), time to have a couple (more) drinks and get ready to order the 2006 Championship DVD. I'm sure many of you thought St. Louis was unworthy of representing the National League, and maybe if your team (*cough* Astros *cough*) had played better your opinion would count for something.

And now that it's over...fuck you Kenny Rogers, you cheating sonofabitch.

Go Cards!

"You know, you don't act like a scientist."
"They're usually pretty stiff."

And none more so than physicists (sorry Greg):

It may be the season for vampires, ghosts and zombies. Just remember, they're not real, warns physicist Costas Efthimiou.

Obviously, you might say.

But Efthimiou, a professor at the University of Central Florida, points to surveys that show American gullibility for the supernatural. Using science and math, Efthimiou explains why it is ghosts can't walk among us while also gliding through walls, like Patrick Swayze in the movie "Ghost." That violates Newton's law of action and reaction. If ghosts walk, their feet apply force to the floor, but if they go through walls they are without substance, the professor says.

"So which is it? Are ghosts material or material-less?" he asks.

The fact that I remember anything about Ghost, multiple viewings of which have been proven to cause suppurative uveitis, sends me into a deeper funk than I ever known, but wasn't Swayze's struggle to learn how to become partially corporeal the whole fucking point of half that movie? If we're going to accept the premise that one's "life force" can somehow survive their physical death, then is it that much of a leap to say they can become intangible at will?

More to the point, does this count toward Efthimiou's publishing total?

Zombies and vampires fare even worse under Efthimiou's skeptical microscope.

Groan

Efthimiou takes out the calculator to prove that if a vampire sucked one person's blood each month -- turning each victim into an equally hungry vampire -- after a couple of years there would be no people left, just vampires. He started his calculations with just one vampire and 537 million humans on January 1, 1600 and shows that the human population would be down to zero by July 1602.

It's good to see that the University of Central Florida's requirements for expounding on folklore don't actually require you to read anything about the subject. Of course you'd run of humans, that's why vampires don't kill everyone they feed upon. Vampire authors from Stoker to…*sigh...Rice have gone through great lengths to explain that "turning" someone is generally a rare occurrence, while even popcorn movies like Underworld and the Blade series describe feeding strategies.

I eagerly await Efthimiou's condescending explanation as to why it isn't possible to graft metal to one's skeleton and how come spiders can't grow to be twenty feet tall.

"We're talking about a large fraction of the public that believes in subjects that scientists believe are out of the question," said Efthimiou. His paper is in an archive awaiting publication either in the journal Physics Education or the magazine Skeptical Inquirer, he said.

University of Maryland physics professor Bob Park, author of the book "Voodoo Science," said scientists have to keep telling the public what seems all-too-obvious.

"There are things that we need to point out that are crap," Park said.

What a fabulous idea. How about shelving the ghosts-and-goblins tirade and clearing up a few other things? Here, I'll start you off:

+ Intelligent design is not science
+ Neither is astrology
+ HIV is not an airborne pathogen
+ Abortions don't cause breast cancer
+ "Abstinence" =/= "sex education"

Get everyone squared away on those and you can bitch about George A. Romero all you want.

I love you, David Eckstein

I'm not saying anything beyond that. For the record, and because it appears to be working, I still maintain the Tigers are going to win in 5.

Shut up.

"Because we're the government. We make the laws, we print the money, and we breed the super-soldiers. So go home, learn to live with it, pay your taxes, and remember: you didn't hear anything about super-soldiers."

I don't have a lot of time for anything gambling-related besides the NFL pick 'em league this year, but I might have to make an exception for this:

To put it simply, create an account, join a league, draft a team of real U.S. Members of Congress and have fun as you compete to score as many points as possible. As the Members of Congress you drafted put real legislation through the lawmaking process they will score points for your team.

Like other sports, Fantasy Congress requires three things: a team, a system of scoring points, and a framework within which players can score. In this game, your team is a group of U.S. National Congress legislators, the legislators score points by pushing bills through the steps to create a law, and the framework within which they play is Congress itself
[…]
At the end of the season, the Citizen with the most points wins. To accrue the highest number of points, use your political savvy to decide which when MCs should be playing and when they should be benched.

This will likely validate my theory that the best way to succeed at fantasy sports is to not have an emotional attachment to it. The most money I've ever made in a fantasy endeavor was an NBA league, because a) I dont like basketball and b) I had no compuction about drafting and/or trading for players with felony assault and attempted murder on their records if they could strengthen my roster.

I have more attachment to the NFL and MLB, and as much as I try to avoid it, I let personal allegiances enter into my decision-making. That's what makes Fantasy Congress so appealing. Considering that the effective members are likely to be the most corrupt and those that have been seated for the longest time, it definitely helps to be able to disassociate yourself from that sensation of utter distaste when adding Don Young or Jim Bunning to your roster.

This also might be one of the few times you miss Tom DeLay.

He'll die for your sins

But not before he makes a bunch of other guys die for theirs.

If these comments make no sense, it's because you obviously haven't seen this teaser trailer for the next season of 24.

"Losing faith?" "Sacrifice yourself?" Honestly, given that this airs on Fox I'm surprised it took six seasons to make the Jack Bauer = Jesus connection.

Mama's gonna buy you a satellite

As a Sirius Radio subscriber, it's apparently my sovereign duty to inform you that Sirius will be free for the listening on the internet tomorrow and Thursday, Oct. 25-26. Simply go to the web site and log in using your e-mail address to take advantage.

I actually thought you could do this at any time to create a temporary account and sample the wares, but never mind that now.

Just as the title of this entry implies, the Hooters are but a taste of the wonders that await you, should you decide to indulge. To give you an idea, here are a few of my own personal presets:

18 - The Spectrum - "Adult contemporary" is such an ugly phrase. I prefer "Testicularly challenged rock."
22 - First Wave - More Smiths than you can shake a celibate bicycle pump at.
23 - Hair Nation - Poison and Ratt and Krokus, oh my!
25 - Underground Garage - This is actually one of my favorite channels, with everyone from the Lords of the New Church to the Mummies.
27 - Hard Attack - The inclusion of old Metallica and Sabbath make up for Cradle of Filth. For now.
30 - The Coffee House - Only included because The Wife rides in the car a lot.
35 - Chill - Hey, mellow off man.
43 - Backspin - Let the rhythm hit 'em, good sir.
63 - Outlaw Country - Waylon, Hanks I and III, Cash, and a variety of others. One of my favorites.
116 - Kids Stuff - You'd be surprised how much you can put up with the Wiggles if it'll keep your darling child from screaming.
134 - NPR Now - Sirius has two NPR channels for all your public radio needs.
141 - BBC World Service - News and football...the European kind.

Obviously the biggies for this promotion are the two Howard Stern channels (100 is fine, skip 101 with Bubba the Love Sponge and all that shit), the NFL, and the Who and Stones channels. All well and good, I just wish they could somehow push this to your car stereos. I can't speak for everyone, but spend 20 minutes driving in Houston without commercials and you'll never go back to terrestrial radio.

Not bad for a Californian

I would be remiss if I did not mention my friend Don Lewis has a short film entered in the Austin Film Festival this weekend.

Actually, I've dropped the ball already by not mentioning it before it actually premiered last night. Sue me.

Don's film is called Stringers. Here's the synopsis from the AFF page:

Using refurbished police cars, scanners, video cameras, and high-tech gadgetry, independent video journalists will stop at nothing to be the first cameramen on the scene of fires, accidents, or violent crimes.

I've seen it, and it's pretty darn good. It's next screening is tomorrow (Sunday), 3 PM, at the Landmark(?) Dobie Theater as part of Shorts Program 9. Don will be attendance, and since I'm heading into Austin tonight to celebrate with him, be sure to yell your questions at him while eating a greasy pork sandwich. He loves that.

In more mundane news, I have some reviews up:

Flags of Our Fathers - **
Marie Antoinette - 1/2*

Is it over?

I may have mentioned it here before, but I'm deeply superstitious when it comes to baseball. Watching it, that is. So convinced am I of my curse factor when it comes to seeing the Cards on TV, I have to tape the game and watch it later, not allowing myself to see or listen to anything about the outcome beforehand.

Think I'm lying? I watched the first inning of Game 6, and I think we know what happened in Jose Reyes' first AB. Turned the game off after that, but it was already too late.

Tonight, I got home from a screening of Marie Antoinette (ugh), clicked the TV on, and discovered to my horror that it was the bottom of the 9th, Cards up 3-1 but the Mets had two men on and no outs. I quickly hit the pause button, but was it too late? I couldn't risk hitting play until I was sure the last out had been recorded. 30 minutes later, I find out St. Louis hung on to win. Suck it, New Yorks sports media, it's a flyover World Series. Again.

Do they belong there? Hell yes, they do. Even with no closer and a dinged up middle of the lineup, they overcame two arguably better teams to make it to the final round. Spare me the bitching about El Duque and Martinez, the Mets didn't hit when it counted, end of story (and way to look that ball in, Beltran). Will they beat the Tigers? Well, superstition (again) demands that I stand by my earlier pessimism and say no. Obviously, I hope I'm wrong, and with Suppan and Weaver stepping up like they have, who knows?

But if you're the betting type, Tigers in 5.

UPDATE: I'm just enjoying rewinding this and watching the Mets fans crying in the stands. Enjoy crying on the subway home, pond scum.

"What is it, Asshole Day?"

So The Wife mentioned an article she'd read yesterday about TV-watching as a possible cause of autism. Disorders on the so-called autistic spectrum are pretty varied, both in severity and in characteristics, so I sort of take any sweeping causation argument with a large block of salt, especially one I haven't bothered to read.

Then, while checking Eric Berger's SciGuy weblog, I see he's also talking about it. Then I read the line that suddenly brought everything into focus:

Gregg Easterbrook of Slate has a rather inflammatory piece on whether TV viewing by young children could cause autism later in life.

Gregg fucking Easterbrook. The same guy who told women that men force them to have sex because their masculinity demands it and who equated Hollywood's love of violence with the filthy Jew's love of filthy lucre is still getting paid to report on things about which he knows fuck all:

Today, Cornell University researchers are reporting what appears to be a statistically significant relationship between autism rates and television watching by children under the age of 3. The researchers studied autism incidence in California, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Washington state. They found that as cable television became common in California and Pennsylvania beginning around 1980, childhood autism rose more in the counties that had cable than in the counties that did not. They further found that in all the Western states, the more time toddlers spent in front of the television, the more likely they were to exhibit symptoms of autism disorders.
[...]
The Cornell study is by Waldman, a professor in the school's Johnson Graduate School of Management, Sean Nicholson, an associate professor in the school's department of policy analysis, and research assistant Nodir Adilov.

Wow, a study appearing on the school's business school website should certainly be given as much credence as an article appearing in a peer-reviewed scientific journal, shouldn't it? I eagerly await the Johnson Graduate School of Management's guidelines on avoiding heart disease and maintaining proper dental hygiene.

But the fact that rising household access to cable television seems to associate with rising autism does not reveal anything about how viewing hours might link to the disorder. The Cornell team searched for some independent measure of increased television viewing. In recent years, leading behavioral economists such as Caroline Hoxby and Steven Levitt* have used weather or geography to test assumptions about behavior. Bureau of Labor Statistics studies have found that when it rains or snows, television viewing by young children rises. So Waldman studied precipitation records for California, Oregon, and Washington state, which, because of climate and geography, experience big swings in precipitation levels both year-by-year and county-by-county. He found what appears to be a dramatic relationship between television viewing and autism onset. In counties or years when rain and snow were unusually high, and hence it is assumed children spent a lot of time watching television, autism rates shot up; in places or years of low precipitation, autism rates were low.

So...rain causes autism? No wait...humidity causes autism. Hold on, I've got it...Doppler radar causes autism. Quick, somebody find a university web page that upholds my assumptions.

Everyone complains about television in a general way. But if it turns out television has specific harmful medical effects—in addition to these new findings about autism, some studies have linked television viewing by children younger than 3 to the onset of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder—parents may urgently need to know to keep toddlers away from the TV. Television networks and manufacturers of televisions may need to reassess how their products are marketed to the young. Legal liability may come into play. And we live in a society in which bright images on screens are becoming ever more ubiquitous: television, video games, DVD video players, computers, cell phones. If screen images cause harm to brain development in the young, the proliferation of these TV-like devices may bode ill for the future. The aggressive marketing of Teletubbies, Baby Einstein videos, and similar products intended to encourage television watching by toddlers may turn out to have been a nightmarish mistake.

I don't think anyone would argue that TV is somehow beneficial to children, but printing up this kind of scare tactic bullshit - bullshit that has no basis in any kind of scientific or medical research, I might add - is typical of Easterhack's irresponsible need to drum up controversy without bothering to devote a scrap of critical thought to his endeavors. ESPN fired him for his Jew comments, and yet people continue to give this douchetastic jagoff money to crap out the occasional column, blog, or rambling football piece stuffed with clumsy puns and creepy cheerleader fetishism.

How the hell do I get that gig?

My Cup Runneth Over, v.17

Quick heads-up: the episode of Cheaters where Joey Greco gets stabbed is airing on G4 right now.

You know you want to.

"Old Dan and I with throats burned dry
And souls that cry for water"

It didn't have a name, but last Monday's deluge (which dropped about eight inches of rain in our neighborhood) was a tropical system. In the words of Dr. Steve Lyons, it was the result of

a surge of tropical moisture on the verge of becoming a tropical depression (if it were not for shear) rushed north into east Texas and Louisiana as it interacted with an approaching upper-level trough and surface frontal boundary and slid east into Mississippi.

He could've added "and dropped an assload of H2O," but that wouldn't be very professional.

It would've been accurate though, as shown in these front yard photos of Casa Vonder Haar. The first shows the neighbor's driveway and the culvert that runs down our street.

Here's the culvert as it runs in front of our house. During Allison, water was up to those trees in the foreground, so most "rain events" like this don't freak me out like they probably would have if we hadn't experienced 18 inches of rain two weeks after moving into our house.

Finally, Chauncey the Lawn Gnome is not amused.

More rain tonight. Sorry Chauncey.

Cards vs. Scum - redux

Game 5 of the NLCS was rained out tonight, meaning they play it tomorrow (if possible), then move immediately to Games 6 and 7 (if necessary) in New York. The World Series is set to start on Saturday, and even if things end on schedule, Detroit will still be coming off six days rest. Good luck, Senior League.

I stand by my earlier sentiment. The Cards have, in the past two seasons, served as the welcome mat for one team to win their first Series in eight zillion years, and another who'd never made it at all. I'd just as soon not see Pujols et. al. moping in the background when the Tigers win their first title in 22 years.

But maybe I'm being pessismistic. Maybe Weaver and Suppan can continue pitching above their heads, maybe Molina and Speizio can keep delivering clutch hits, and maybe Pujols will finally get his World Series MVP trophy. I'd certainly welcome that, but I'm not getting my hopes up.

Yet. Check back here after Game 6.

This entry was prompted by repeated searches for my "the Mets are pond scum" entry.

"That's the one that got me."

Or rather, the one that got The Wife.

She was cleaning the ubiquitous pine needles out of the hedge on the side of our house when she came in to inform me she'd been stung on the arm by a hornet. After securing my faithful can of Spectracide (and, uh, donning a long-sleeved shirt), I poked around in the hedge until I found the offending lair. Not a hornets' nest, but rather the domicile of some paper wasps. One good dousing (and a few minutes to let the bastards die) later, and I snapped a photo.

Texas is home to all manner of biting, stinging, and generally ornery fauna. We regularly deal with fire ants, mud daubers, paper wasps, and yellowjackets, to say nothing of bats, wild dogs, possum (that's Opossum to you), and arboreal rats.

I'm quite proud of the missus for bearing up as well as she did (I don't think the sting bothered her longer than a few minutes), considering the paper wasp ranks a healthy 3.0 on the Schmidt Sting Pain Index.

"Two can be as bad as one."

Or worse, in this case.

Undaunted by the cowardly move by Ghost House and Sony to screen The Grudge 2 at 10 PM on the Thursday before opening, I have sacrificed my sleep and the goodwill of my family to bring you this review.

Yeah, I stayed up until 1 AM for that.

"Not the church! Jesus lives there!"

I'm a horrible person, because I don't check out the blogs in my blogroll every day like I should. Thanks to my shameful neglect, I missed this post from Off the Kuff yesterday:

City of Houston attorneys and lawyers for many of the city's adult businesses both expect a Dec. 4 trial over "distance requirements" for businesses like strip clubs and adult video stores.

In 1997, Houston City Council passed several revisions to city laws governing the adult industry. Several of those controversial issues have since been resolved. But the city law requiring sexually oriented businesses to be at least 1,500 feet away from a school, church, daycare, park or residential area has faced repeated court challenges and has never been enforced.

The U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals sent the issue back to the trial court for a final resolution.

Judge Nancy Atlas' decision could maintain the "status quo" in Houston, if she sides with strip club owners who have argued that the city's 1,500-foot rule is "unconstitutional." The judge could also force dozens of adult businesses in the city to close or change their trade if she sides with the city.

I haven't been to a strip club in, oh, days...but I'd be hard-pressed to think of anyplace in Houston that is more than 1,500 feet from a church. They're the only thing in this town more numerous than Starbucks.

Maybe they could put a Men's Club on top of Chase Tower.

Dane Cook fiddles while Seoul burns

Since we're all destined to perish in Korean-originated nuclear fire, your time is more precious than ever. And to keep all our minds off the ignominy of dying at the hands of something called a Taep'o-dong missile, here are some reviews to inform your moviemaking decisions:

Jackass: Number Two - *****
Feast - ****
All the King's Men - **1/2
The Guardian - **
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning - **1/2
The Departed - ****
Employee of the Month - *

Theyre apocalyptastic.

"Smithers, have the Rolling Stones killed."

I'm not one for begging on my blog, but I might have to reconsider and ask for the roughly $300 I'd need for a round-trip ticket to experience musical nirvana:

DRIVE-BY TRUCKERS DATES:
Wed Oct 25
St. Louis, MO - Mississippi Nights w/The Drams

The Drams, in case you didn't know by now, are the band formed by Brent, Jess, and Tony after the break-up of Slobberbone, AKA my favorite band of all time. To see them with the DBTs - my current favorite band - would be, well, it'd be something.

Any takers? I've got tons of family in St. Louis, and one in particular who's pretty high up at Anheuser-Busch, so maybe we could work out an exchange. At least until these assholes deign to make a stop in Houston (merely the fourth largest city in the freaking country).

Nah, just kidding. I know none of you drink Budweiser.

Yeah, that's what you paid for
With skills much sharper than a Texas chainsaw

Hard copy movie passes are something of a rarity in these days of e-mail and subcutaneous studio tracking chips. Personally, I don't really have much of a preference either way. Printed passes can be of assistance when trying to talk your way past skeptical ticket takers, but an RSVP via e-mail is usually good for a guaranteed reserved seat.

After seeing this one for The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning however, I may have swung my vote permanently over to the e-ticket:

I'm trying to remember an honest-to-Gunnar Hansen marketing tie-in with a horror movie (and not a "horror" movie like Snakes on a Plane or Seed of Chucky) but I'm coming up blank. And Spencer's? Any dwindling hopes I might have had for this movie are in danger of guttering out in the face of this blatant pandering to the goth crowd.[1] "Leatherface gear?" Cripes.

[1] Not that there were many remaining after finding out Michael Bay was one of the producers, it was directed by the guy who helmed Darkness Falls, and written by the guy who gave us last year's Longest Yard remake, that is.

Foley? Foley?

Anyone?

If there were an Academy Award for Hypocrisy, the surefire favorite for 2006 would be the Democratic Party. Just two recent items make the decision a virtual certainty:

The Representative Foley "scandal" is really worthy of a whole book on hypocrisy. On the one hand, we have a poor misguided Republican man who had a romantic thing for young boys. He sent them suggestive e-mail. I agree, that's not great. On the other hand, we have a Democratic party that worships ( not likes, WORSHIPS ) a man named Bill Clinton who did not send suggestive e-mails as far as we know, but who had a barely legal intern give him oral sex kneeling under his desk in the Oval Office while he talked on the phone to a Congressional Committee Chairman, took great pleasure in putting a cigar in her orifice and then smelling it and tasting it, and having her fellate him when in the sacred seat of power of the world's leading Republic. And the Democrats cheer themselves hoarse for him. His wife has a great shot at being our next President.

"Barely legal?" Monica Lewinski was 21 years old, which this third-rate Wink Martindale seems to have forgotten, and it's something more than a stone's throw from "not at all legal," like - say - a 16-year old. And Foley is "misguided?" Misguided implies the dude thought he was not IM'ing with an underage boy, when in fact his multiple references to "stiff wood" and "spirting in a towel" while the kid mentions his mom yelling in the background would appear to give lie to this.

On top of that, references to so-called sacred seats of power would ring less hollow coming from someone who didn't work for the goddamned Nixon administration.

But it's the Democrats who are hypocrites, because one of them had an extramarital affair (something no Republican could ever be accused of) and his wife may end up running for President. There's a relevant comparison.

We have a Republican man in Congress who sent e-mails to teenage boys asking them what they were wearing,

And asking them how long their cocks were. And asking them to describe how they masturbate. And asking where they throw the towel when they're done masturbating.

Just saying.

and an entire party, the Democrats, whose primary constituency, besides the teachers' unions, is homosexual men and lesbian women. I hope it won't come as a surprise to anyone that a big part of male homosexual behavior is interest in young boys. (Take a look at anyone renting Endless Summer next time you are at the video store.)

So it follows that a big part of male heterosexual behavior is interest in young girls? Like, pre-legal girls? I question whether this is a line of thought Stein wants to see all the way to its end.

And thanks Ben, I had no idea my interest in surfing documentaries made my gay. Not that you have a problem with it, because some of your best friends are gay, right?

Don't get me wrong. My very best friend is gay. I have many gay friends and they are great people. But how the Democrats, the party of gays, can be coming down this hard on a MC who's gay is simply beyond belief. One of my top, favorite congressmen, Barney Frank, is openly gay. Might he say a word in defense of his fellow gay MC right about now? Hmm, I thought not.

Frank isn't a pedophile, for fuck's sake. By this reasoning we should be asking Stein why he didn't leap to fellow Jew Roman Polanski's defense when he was convincted of statutory rape.

Second, let's look at George Allen. Now, he's a bad guy because he has a Confederate flag. Let's get it straight. To millions of our fellow citizens, this flag has zero to do with racism. It is entirely about respect for a time of unbelievable horror in our society, The Civil War, and respect for men who fought so brilliantly for a cause that was unquestionably -- by decent standards -- a bad cause. Moreover, the stars and bars are a beautiful design and show nothing whatsoever about a person's views about non-whites. No one has suggested that George Allen did anything racist or anti-black in his work in the Senate or as Governor. For him to be judged by what historical relics he owns is pure thought crime.

Allen isn't a bad guy because he owns a Confederate flag. He's a bad guy because he voted against funding for teen pregnancy education and contraceptives and voted yes on the "partial-birth" ban. He's a bad guy because he voted against same-sex marriage. He's a bad guy because he voted against increasing tax deductions for college tuition. He's a bad guy because he blindly supports the PATRIOT Act. He's a bad guy because he supported harsher drug sentencing, opposed reducing oil usage, and supported limits on medical liability lawsuits.

For owning (and proudly displaying) a Confederate flag, Allen is merely an ignorant asshole.

But Stein is right about one thing, this is hardly a scandal. Compared to the Bush Adminstration's blatant subversion of the Constitution in prosecuting an illegal war and surveilling its citizens while using its ties to the religious right to turn us into a fundamentalist feifdom, sending sexually explicit e-mails and IMs to children seems like stealing pens from the office supply room.

Not that I'd be especially proud of that fact.