vivalaultra

Eh, Roy's scuffling a bit in the 7th. That broken bat single was a killer. Good to see Roy O's so pissed at Drayton and Purpura that he wanted out of town ASAP after the trading deadline fiasco. Mediots suck. Yeah, Roy lost focus a bit. If it's not Roy O signing an extension or trading for David Wells, I bet Purpura comes out, walks up to the microphone, spreads his arms out and yells, "I'M FUUUUUUUULLLLLLL!!!!!!" Toma Ohka looks ridiculous batting left-handed.

The 'Stros are up 3-0 on Los Cervezadores. Roy O's pitching a gem, giving up 1 hit so far through 6 innings. After the game, the Astros are holding a "major press conference". There's been reports all week that the Astros have been negotiating with Oswalt for a contract, so I assume that's what it is. It'll be the first 5 yr. contract the 'Stros have given a pitcher since Doug Drabek. It's either that or we've traded for David Wells.

Fall-Out Boy...if only because it's not a Simpson's reference Chumbawamba. Yeah...

Yeah...Memories of my Melancholy Whores. Really good book, and quite short. I've been motivated to learn Spanish so I can read Garcia Marquez in the original language, although I've heard the translations of his works are very well done and faithful to the original Spanish.

I was checking out my Fantasy baseball lineup for today, and I see they have a thing on Ortiz's page saying that he's going to be out "infdefinently" until he gets a clean bill of health. I feel bad for him. If you don't like David Ortiz, something's wrong with you...and with Liriano out of lineup, if Ortiz isn't in there, I'm screwed even worse than I am now.

Wait...are you being sarcastic? You must be... Anyway, I'd like to take this opportunity to once again endorse Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Everyone should read something by him...preferably One Hundred Years of Solitude or Love in the Time of Cholera, which is the single greatest book about love and unrequited love ever written.

I adore that song. It was my ringtone for a while.

That's the one right there. The other week, my girlfriend's little brother, who's 7 or 8...one of those, was in the backseat of my car and spontaeously busted out singing about his "lovely lady lumps". It was highly disturbing.

Chicken in the breadpan pickin' out dough? I liked "Steal My Sunshine"...but don't tell anybody. I don't wanna lose my cred.

The Astros are officially deep in the hunt for the NL Central title and the Wildcard. They've called up Eric "Play Bruntlett to Win" Bruntlett and my favorite backup catcher for the Astros over the last 5 years not named Raul Chavez-Humberto Quintero. Happy days are here again. Dave Campbell still believes. I believe. The Astros have 7 games left against the struggling Cards and a 3-game home series with the Reds. I'm making the bold prediction that the Astros will win the NL Central and the Wildcard winner will be either the Padres or the Phillies and the WC winner will finish the season with more wins than the NL Central winner.

I was totally gonna say "Summer Girls" by LFO. Now, I'd like to say "Liquid Dreams" by fifth tier boyband, O-Town.

He reps Tha Dirrrty Third, yo. Whatchu know about candy cars and sippin' syrup, playboy? ...Yeah, he's from Houston. Like...the really bad part of Houston, where you can go to the barber shop and get new rims for your car or like...a plasma TV.

This doesn't scream "scathing satire/parody" the way that "I Lost on Jeopardy!" or "Fat" once did. I do wonder, however, if Chamillionaire will have beef with Weird Al, ala Coolio back in the day. Cha looks rough, yo.

...but you still think I'm cool, right? Yeah...I'm cool. The National League does blow. I keep getting alternately excited and depressed as the Astros half ass their way in and out of the WC race, but everybody's gotta believe that whichever NL team goes to the WS is gonna get their collective ass handed to them by the AL team that goes.

They coulda had Lidge, Everett, and Ensberg for Tejada... Damn you Peter Angelos!

The Astros rolled over the Bucs, winning 13-1. Jason Hirsh looked...somewhat stellar going 7 innings and giving up one run. He worked out of bases loaded trouble in the 4th and 5th inning. Willy Taveras extended his hit streak to 30 games. He's leading baseball in hits in August with, I think, 40. He's had multi-hit games just about every game on the road trip. He's getting singles, line drives, bunt hits...today and yesterday he hit two balls to the left field gap of PNC that ended up as ground-rule doubles, but probably would've been inside the park homeruns if they hadn't bounced outta play. The Astros are 4 back in the WC, so they've actually gained a game over the past 11 days, but lost alot of time with which to faniggle with. And no one can convince me that Shawn Chacon isn't the worst starting pitcher in baseball. He's absolutely horrible. Absolutely.

So, I've decided to acquaint myself with newer Bob Dylan. I d/led "Time Outta Mind", which I hadn't heard in about 3 years, and I really enjoyed it. I also got the new one, which I really dug. Right now I'm downloading "Love and Theft". Of those two new Dylan records that I've heard today, I still like new Tom Waits more, but I'm glad to be listening to new Dylan, as it's quite good give or take.

Ya know what band I haven't heard from in a while? ...Clinic. Anybody remember Clinic?

The new CD could be Phil Selway farting on a snare drum and Thom Yorke doing some fey, quivering moaning over it and Pitchfork would give it a 9.7. Either way, I'll buy it and listen to it at least several times. Hopefully it's better than HTTT.

Which is why, presumably, the Astros are planning on getting some offensive players to help the lineup. Do you just see the word "Astros" and automatically start saying dumb things or do you just not know how to read? Is that your PS132 education? Your irrational hate of the Astros and Texas is just ridiculous. If I didn't think you were really 12-years old, I would almost be moved to slight perturbance.

Hey, it worked with Clemens and Pettitte... And now they have a successful line of commercials for H.E.B. grocery stores.

Yeah, I heard all that about Moose. I wasn't saying that the Astros would have a shot at getting him or are even interested in him, I was just thinking of FA pitchers besides Ztio or Schmidt that aren't Woody Williams or Tomo Ohka. Either way, if I could get one FA pitcher for the Astros in 2007, it would be MUssina...over Zito and Schmidt. He's cerebral~!

I downloaded Paris 1919 about a year ago and enjoyed it. It's literary. I haven't heard much of his other solo stuff, however, so I have nothing more to offer anyone but that passing opinion.

Wow. I just heard about Ken Rosenthal, one of the only talking heads I slightly trust, say something about how Carlos Lee WANTS to be an Astro. Supposedly, on of the only reasons he didn't hire Scott Boras to represent him was because the Astros and Boras don't have a very good relationship (although Willy Taveras's agent is Scott Boras. That could get complicated in a few years if Willy keeps developing into a very good leadoff guy). Also, Carlos owns a very, very big ranch right outside of Houston. Of the three "big bats" that the Astros are supposedly looking in to-Soriano, Lee, and Vernon Wells-Lee would be my second choice behind Soriano, but hey...ya can't go wrong with Carlos Lee. Add him and a FA pitcher, probably not Zito, maybe Schmidt, Hell, even Mike Mussina (who I think would dominate the NL) and that's an Astros team that would win the division right there. Boy howdy. Also, I was happy to see Willy T's hit streak get some attention on BBTN last night, even if it was only Tino Martinez talking about how fast he is and Jeff Brantley laughing at him. Halfway to Dimaggio! Although, with the coverage Willy's probably jinxed.

Yeah, I've read some Allende stuff. Both last semester and this semester, I'm doing The House of the Spirits. I liked it pretty well. I got a copy of Zorro by her, which I'm curious to read. I'm also interested as to what books are in that Sports Lit. class. I was considering taking a class like that-either Health Literature or something else like that. I'm just curious as to how the literature is presented in that type of class, whether you just read books about sports, etc. and discuss the literary merits of them or read books about sports, etc. and discuss the way that the authors use those conventions to make some type of statement about society or whatnot.