vivalaultra

Gee, those aren't the same arguements made by thousands of intellectuals that haven't read any Stephen King books themselves. Oh well, my opinions are my opinions. Can't change them. And it is my opinion that Stephen King is better than Hunter Thompson, old or new Thomas Pynchon, Joan Didion, and Tim Robbins. Apparently you don't think so, but that's fine. I'm not looking to change minds. It's...whatever, man. The Gestapo around here has their opinions and I have mine, and nary the twain shall meet. I'll read my Stephen King and be happy and you read your Pynchon and be happy. Everybody wins. The intellectual snobbery around here just...reminds me of everything I dislike about everything. Have fun, guys.

I guess this belongs in here since it's a movie...

Bah...curses and superstitions in baseball? Yeah right...

I dunno...Chris Sampson DID look rather impressive for the 39 or so innings he pitched this year. Oswalt was a better pitcher for the Astros than Clemens was. For one, he pitched the whole season. For two Oswalt pitched a helluva lot more innings than Clemens in their respective starts. Clemens threw alot of pitches and usually only went 6 innings. Oswalt is one of the most efficient pitchers in baseball. He throws strikes. Lots of strikes. Oswalt coulda had 5 or so CGs this year, I'd say, but, by nature of the Astros' terrible offense, he usually had to come out after 7 for a pinch-hitter. Oswalt's best pitching performance of the season came against the Mets, too, I think...the one where the Astros won 1-0 depsite being one-hit by El Duque.

I think Oswalt's an extremely strong candidate himself. He led the league in starter's ERA. He won 16 games with a horrible, horrible offense. He had the best K/BB rate of starters. He gave up less homeruns, had less wild pitches, and less HBP than Chris Carpenter...and he doesn't have squnity eyes. Not that squinty eyes have anything to do with pitching, but still... I guess I might have to resign myself to the fact that if Roy didn't get the Cy in '04 or '05 when he won 20 games, he might never get it, but Adam Everett should be a no-brainer.

But I so love to rant, especially when it's uncalled for. Therefore, I stand behind my somewhat uncalled for rant.

If Roy Oswalt and Adam Everett don't win the Cy Young and the GG for SS, I'll vomit out of anger.

Eggheads, the lot of you! It's a personal preference thing. All of my favorite authors, Garcia Marquez, Tim O'Brien, Stephen King, etc. write from the heart. I can see real people in their characters. I can see myself in Col. Aureliano Buendia and Florentino Ariza and Roland of Gilead and a young Tim O'Brien sent off to Vietnam to witness horror and human suffering. That's the kind of stuff I can relate to, the kind of stuff I look for in what I consider 'great literature'. Sure, I can read Thomas Pynchon and Barth and Bartheleme and parts of Finnegan's Wake and feel smart for 'getting most (some) of the references', but...geez, man, where's the love? Where's the emotion? Where's the human condition? That's what makes me love literature-the insights into human relations and conditions that books hold, not being able weave my way through some complex series of archaic word games to discern some postmodern point of view. I do enjoy, on occasion, reading Pynchon, Barth, Bartheleme, and the rest of the postmodernists, but I can't sink myself into their stuff, really. It just all seems so robotic and calculated. I like reading authors who write like their balls are on fire. I'm not a very good English major. And clearly I meant half-century in regards to Stephen King. Otherwise my argument holds little to no value. However, his last five years have been stellar. Out of the three books he's put out, two have been brilliant and the third was about zombies.

I just bought Lisey's Story, the new book by Stephen King. I've been a Stephen King fan as long as I've been reading 'adult books', my first 'adult book' being Stephen King's The Stand, which I read the summer of my 5th grade year. I have a massive King collection with every one of his books in both paperback and hardcover. I've got a copy of The Dark Tower: Book IV, Wizard and Glass that's worth about $400, but, yeah, I think that Stephen King is the greatest American writer of the last half-decade at least. I'll leave Thomas Pynchon to the eggheads*, I'm reading Stephen King. *-I don't mean eggheads in any derogatory way whatsoever nor do I have anything against Thomas Pynchon.

The college of coaches was, literally, a bunch of different guys working together to act as manager. I believe there were four or five guys playing the part, with the FO going by the phrase "Four heads are better than one." However, the equally cliched phrase "Too man cheifs and not enough Indians" was more accurate, as all the players were confused as to which coach was in charge during which given game and who was running what. In 1961, the Cubs finished 64-90 under the COC, which was an improvement over the previous season, but the next year, they finished 59-103. The next year, Bob Kennedy, one of the coaches in the college became the manager and lead the Cubbies to an 82-80 finish, their first winning season since 1946, I believe. However, they soon sank back to the bottom of the league and have been hovering thereabouts ever since. That's what I know of the college of coaches. I leave it to Alan Q. or a more well-versed Cubs' fan to round out the details and include some funny anecdotes.

Just one last interesting thing about the late Joe Niekro I found out reading an article on the Astros' homepage: Joe Niekro hit his only career homerun against his brother, Phil, May 29th, 1976. The Astros won that game 4-3 with Joe the winning pitcher and Phil the losing pitcher. Yeah, so...how 'bout that Matsuzake guy? $30 million dollars just to negotiate with him? I know he's supposedly ridiculously good, and he looked good in the WBC, but...still...somebody (IE: Yankees) is going to end up paying him $20 million a year and who knows if he'll be as good as advertised? I wish I could pitch..or hit...or catch balls...or walk without bumping into things.

Finally, Aaron Miles has a WS ring. Truly, this is evidence of God. I bet this WS win means that Jeff Weaver, Jeff Suppan, and Jim Edmonds get contracts next year. At least two of those contracts will be a mistake.

Joe Niekro actually had a 0.00 ERA for the postseason. Granted, he only pitched in three postseason games, but he did pitch 20 innings. I've never seen the whole 80 postseason game against the Phils, but I've seen highlights and that was a pretty amazing pitching performance, indeed.

I just read a story in the Houston Chronicle that made me sadder than this sorry ass World Series. Joe Niekro died today of a brain aneurysm in Florida at age 61. I didn't get to see him pitch much for the 'Stros in the 80s, but...he was a Hall of Famer...wait...no, he was the Brother of a Hall of Famer. In addition to pitching for my 'Stros, he also pitched for the Cubs, Padres, Tigers, Braves, Yankees, and Twins. He was 221-204 with a career 3.59 ERA and is the father of sometimes-Giant 1st baseman Lance Niekro.

If Kinky turns out to be as good a statesman as I hear Coke Stevenson was, I'll be satisfied. And when I heard Kinky and Jesse Ventura speak at my university, Jesse said that if the state of Texas voted Kinky into office, then he'd run for President in 2008, so I'm all for that. I'd vote Jesse Ventura over Hillary Clinton any day.

After early voting today, I was disappointed to realize that I'm going to be labeled a Republican for this coming term due me voting predominantly for the GOP, except for a couple races where I voted Independent, including a vote for Kinky Friedman. I've been listening to too much talk radio, and it's turned me evil.

Well, obviously I made that statement presuming that he meant the Cubs. The Sox did win the 05 WS and they won 90 some odd games last year, but I doubt he was talking about them, considering they, of course, have a pretty good 2nd baseman in Iguchi. And also, it seems like a prerequisite to playing for the Cubs is that you have to play 2nd base.

Just like the Italian Chicken Sandwich at Burger King, Scooter is back. Now I know what a sweeping curveball is. Thanks, Scooter! Edit: Wait...nobody else is in here. Am I early or does nobody else care about the WS anymore? I'm so bad at these things.

I love Craig Biggio, but from what I hear (which is probably just speculatory and drafted out of nothing because it's such a dead period in terms of actual news), he's being a dick. The stories going around say that he's demanding that he make at least $5 million next year with the Astros and that he's not willing to take anything less. I read a statement from his agent today saying that if the Astros offer less than five mill, Biggio would be interested in getting his 3,000 hit with a different "winning team", specifically naming Chicago and New York (not sure if he meant the Yanks or the Mets). I don't see how either the Yankees or the Mets would have any use for a 40-year old, slightly below league-average offensive, quite below league-average defensive 2nd baseman and Chicago's not a winning team, so I don't get that part of the statement. Certainly, I'd love to see Biggio back in naught-seven and I'd love to be at MMP when he gets 3,000, but the Astros have a better option at 2nd base already in Chris Burke, and he's 4.5 million dollars cheaper. Anyway, I fully expect Biggio to be back with the 'Stros next year for 5 million dollars with Chris Burke hangin' out on the bench until Biggio hits the landmark. Then, hopefully, Biggio will reduce his role. Or he might get pissy and go play for the Royals or some other 62-100 team that has no 2nd baseman. And I heard the Astros mentioned in the Sheff rumors. A part of me would die if Sheffield came to Houston, but with the Crawford boxes and Sheffield's waggle, he'd go absolutely nuts, I'm sure.

I appreciate their sense of ambition, but dislike their sense of mascara.

In news that everyone cares about, Joe Girardi has taken his name out of consideration for the managerial job of the Washington Nationals. Astros' bench coach Cecil Cooper is also out of the running for the job. I wonder if DC has a large stock of toothpicks...

I just saw that dude that started this thread just registered today...and he has 18 posts today. Who does he think he is? The Queen of Siam or somebody?

The Cubs' Opening Day starter...Angel Guzman...or Zambrano...unless he gets traded for A-Rod. That would be funny. Maybe the Cubs' would take a package of Morgan Ensberg and one of Phil Garner's moustache combs for Zambrano. I'm eating Starbursts.

I likes Tom Wait.

'Vivablasting'...I like that. And I don't think I'd much care for "Wash the Day Away" on its own, but in the context of the other songs around it and the album in general, I enjoy it. I think the TVOTR album might be hard to get into if you just pick random songs to listen to, meaning that like Edwin was pointing out, I think that the album's sequencing is spot on and some of the songs might not work as well in a standalone way, for example "Wash the Day Away". I think the songs build off of each other and become even better in context and relation to the other songs on the CD. And the 'sad elephant' part on "I Was a Lover" rulez, yo...and the part in "Dirty Whirl"...the "All I ever wanted to be...etc." part. Yeah.