vivalaultra

About the Neyer book-My binding never fell off. About Dontrelle Willis-Yeesh... About the Cubs-Ha! About Chris Carpenter-Good. He was supposed to pitch against the 'Stros on Monday. Are they gonna call up that Flores whats-his-face or go with a bullpen game again? About the 'Stros-Go WAAAAANDY!!!!!!

Well, the 'Stros dropped their 4th in a row. Luckily Jim Tracy was not seen crying during the post-game interview. The Astros always play terribly during May, so not too worried yet. If they don't take the next two games, it might be time to worry. I kinda wish that if they were gonna lose, they'd be more like the Cubbies and do it with style. At any rate, Brad Lidge looked Lights Out pitching in the 7th, so maybe he's just a 7th inning kinda guy now. And I was joking about the Cubs thing. In no way, shape, or form do I ever hope that the Astros look anything like the Cubs, but I'd totally do a Jason Lane and Brad Lidge for D. Lee and Carlos Zambrano trade. Straight up.

I'm with you, but only because Daft Punk is playing at my house...my house.

They pulled him during the seventh inning. Uh...John Rauch was in and he walked Ensberg, who stole second. LeCroy tried to make a throw but threw it into centerfield for the second time in the game, so right after that, the pitching coach comes out to talk to Rauch to stall for time so Robert Fick can get his gear on and then Frank Robinson came over and pulled LeCroy from the crouch and took him out. It was really embarrassing.

Holy shit. He cried???!?!?!? Good Lord, Frank Robinson is not a heartless old man. Seriously, I love my Astros and wanted to see em win, but I really did feel sorry for Matt LeCroy. And then when he left, the whole damn stadium stood up and gave him that "mock" applause. I hate when crowds do that, especially when you're the home team.

The difference with Elvis and The Beatles was that after they became popular and well-known, there were countless other acts that came out doing alot of the same stuff that they had already been doing. If you weren't in to The Beatles, you were in to The Monkees or The Dave Clarke Five or Herman's Hermits or whomever. It's not that "everybody liked The Beatles". It's that everybody liked a band that drew alot of influence from The Beatles. I'm aware that The Beatles didn't invent the style of music that they played, but they certainly popularized it and made people aware of it. Bar none-The Beatles were the most influential artists of their time period. They were liked by nearly everyone, probably at least 95% of the population. If you can say that as mean people today like Radiohead or Eminem as liked The Beatles or that Radiohead or Eminem influenced as many artists today as The Beatles influenced during their day, then you could say that one of the two is the defining artist of this generation, but I honestly don't think that could be said. In fact, I think that more people from this generation like The Beatles than like Eminem or Radiohead and more artists from today have been influenced by The Beatles than by Radiohead or Eminem. Therefore...the defining artist of this generation-The Beatles.

I think all the back and forth in this thread prove that there's no single artist that "Defines" this generation. I think that in this thread there's been a pretty varied sampling of society, and very few people have agreed on one artist. Once again, I think that goes back to deciding what it means to be a "Defining artist". Does it mean that the artist is universaly liked? If so, you can cross off pretty much any artist discussed so far, as for every person that likes Eminem there's another person that couldn't care less for him. Same thing with Radiohead-for every mocha drinking hipster that's into them, there's two people that think they're boring and pretentious. I certainly won't agree that a "pop star" like Kelly Clarkson defines me or my personal outlook on life, but I can't say that her music doesn't define the 14 year old girl down the street from me that voted for her on American Idol every single nite. The fact is that this generation is just too varied. There's too much variety and too much accesibility to that variety. There's just so much music out there that it's possible for a person to listen to Kelly Clarkson, Radiohead, and Eminem with the same vigor for each but not feel "defined" by any of them any more than they feel defined by someone else. There's just too much out there to have one singular artist that defines and speaks for every member of this generation. Radiohead doesn't speak for the disenfranchised inner city youths or the Kelly Clarkson idolizing girls that sing in to hairbrushes. No single artist encapsulates every form of expression or identification found in this generation.

Vault is quite possibly the greatest soda to come along in many years. It is, essentially, Surge V.2, which is great. All they need now is a commercial with a bunch of kids walking around and one guy in the middle yelling out "VAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUULLLLLLLLLLLTTTTTTTTTTT!!!!!!!!". God, how I missed Surge. When I was in 7th grade, when it was first coming out, they had a whole presentation where they gave away free samples of Surge. A whole gymnasium full of 13 year olds hopped up on sugar...those were the days. As far as other energy drinks, the only one I really enjoy is Monster. And Coke Blaq.

Shit, they way the 'Stros have been looking, I might be saying that "Hey! Don't worry! We're gonna be like the Cubs!!" Seriously, though, I'll never say that.

Yeah, I was just waiting for somebody to make the Ozzie=Mushmouth joke. I bet if we tried, we could get all the Junkyard Gang managing teams. Frank really had to use LeCroy as a catcher. Schneider's on the DL till tomorrow and his only other option, Wiki Gonzales, besides being terrible, just got put on the DL yesterday. I guess they could've used that Robert Fick guy, but neither are really any good, I guess. I think that the Nats PR department should work up something ala the WWE and The Big Show and start saying on air that you can't really appreciate the size of John Rauch until you come out to the ballpark and see him in person.

Frank Robinson reminds me of an old, bitter Bill Cosby, who finally went insane because his damn kids kept moving back into the house. Dusty Baker reminds me of Fat Albert, clueless and just wants everybody to like him.

My favorite Angry Frank Robinson moment is last year when he had that about 3 minute staredown with...I think Rick Reed. That was money, baby.

This is gettin' ridiculous. 7 steals in 3+ innings. Twice LeCroy threw the ball into centerfield and the runner went to third. I'm sure there can be numerous "There hasn't been this much stealing in Washington D.C. since..." jokes made. Man alive, Frank Robinson just pulled his catcher in the 7th inning due to his inability to throw out any baserunners. I can only imagine the ass-chewing he's gonna get.

Six steals in three innings...mostly due to the badness of LeCroy's arm. I think he's like...0 for 20 in throwing runners out. The two times he did try to throw, he missed the target terribly. And Ryan Zimmerman is awesome. Edit: I think this aggressiveness from Phil Garner is directly related to the suckiness of the Astros hitters recently. I like the approach. If we're only gonna score two runs in two games, try to at least go down with a fight.

The 'Stros were gettin' pummeled by the Nats 7-1, but have made it a two run game in the 6th, mainly due to the horrible throwing arm of Matthe LeCroy. The 'Stros have been running liberally, stealing 5 bases on him in the last three innings. Andy Pettitte is still struggling, however.

But he's a pretty sharp dresser...

So, I hear Tony Womack's gonna be the starting 2nd baseman for the Cubs this weekend...probably. In other news, Brad Lidge is still broken. In still other news, Al Leiter has mediocre taste in women.

I remember there was something going around...kinda like this deal with the Chili Peppers and Tom Petty that had a cross up of "How You Remind Me" and...I think "Photograph" playing at the same time, and it showed that it is, in fact, the exact same song. But then again, all those bands sound alot alike.

As far as artists ripping off other artists, I find this less interesting than John Fogerty ripping himself off about 15 years ago. However, I find it more interesting than Nickelback ripping themselves off over and over and over.

...ya think? Oy vey...

I'd turn to page 58 to take a left at the fork in the road, and head into the Forbidden Woods.

I see somebody has his "Rude Hat" on tonite...

So, wait...what generation are we in? Uh...was Kurt Cobain in Generation X or Generation Y? Is this the iGeneration or whatever? I wanna be a baby boomer.

Yeah, it landed in the upper deck about 500 feet back, almost as far as Lance Berkman's went last nite. Seriously, Ward's got power.

Pish-posh, Russ Springer didn't get lit up. He gave up two homeruns...one to Daryl Ward, who's really, really strong and one to Alfonso Soriano. It's not like he gave up 5 runs in a third of an inning or anything. Russ Springer still rules.