vivalaultra

Yeah, I'm excited to see Damian Marley. I can only imagine how down he shall get. I saw Wolf Parade not too long ago and, although I really like their CD, I can't say I was that impressed with their live show, but they'll probably be better with 30,000 screaming Austinians.

Damn. Now I'm gonna have to take the "freakin'" out, but I still get to see Willie Nelson. I saw him at the Houston Livestock Rodeo a couple years ago (cuz that's how we rednecks get down), and he was pretty awesomely good.

If he does "Domino", "Brown-Eyed Girl", and "Gloria" complete with audience participation, he deserves the " Freakin' ".

Yeah, so I just bought tickets for the 2006 Austin City Limits festival taking place Sept. 15-17 in Austin. I went last year by unforseen hurricane circumstances and the lineup was friggin' stacked. It was easily the best musical experience of my life. A brief summary of performers I can recall off the top of my head include: The Arcade Fire (I actually saw them twice that weekend, once at ACL and once at Stubb's BBQ in Austin), The Black Keys (Saw them twice, too.), The Black Crowes, The Allman Brothers, Oasis, Wilco, Coldplay, Bloc Party, Franz Ferdinand, The Decemberists, Blues Traveler, John Prine, Robert Earl Keen, Steve Earle, Drive-By Truckers, Built to Spill, The Walkmen, M83, The Fiery Furnaces, Tortoise, Bob Mould and more. It was wonderful, with cheaply priced for festivals merchandise and refreshments and a good cross-section of people. A few performers couldn't make it due to the hurricanes, but nobody I cared to see. Last year, I didn't get tickets until like..the day before the festival and had to pay $150 each for two tickets. This year, I got two tickets for $115 each, which, as the ACL website tells me translates to 88 cents a band. This year's festival looks to be ridiculously good as well. The lineup includes (but is not limited to): Tom Petty Willie freakin' Nelson Van Morrison Massive Attack The Flaming Lips The Shins Gnarls Barkley Cat Power Damian Marley Iron & Wine Calexico The New Pornographers Son Volt Deadboy and the Elephantmen Stars Wolf Parade Sparklehorse Nada Surf The Raconteurs The Secret Machines Aimee Mann Explosions in the Sky and a buncha local bands and probably more to be added later. I have no particular discussion to bring about with this topic, I just like to share. Edit: Took the freakin' outta Van Morrison cuz he doesn't like "Brown-Eyed Girl" and added it to Willie Nelson, cuz he's Willie Nelson.

I like the Astros play-by-play guys, both on TV (Jim DeShaies and Bill Brown) and on the radio ("Crazy" Milo Hamilton and two new guys whose names escape for the moment). Bob Uecker is good. Vin Scully is good. I like Jon Miller and Harold Reynolds when he does the College World Series and the LLWS. After watching several Cubs' games on TV, I must say that Len Kaspar and Bob Brenly have a nice chemistry. And, forgive me for saying it, but I enjoyed Dennis Miller on Monday Night Football.

Yeah, I don't get how Roger was supposed to turn the Astros around when they can't score a run. I guess they plan on making a run at some bats at the trade deadline. I doubt we make a trade for a bat and I don't think the need for a bat is as great as analysts would like to lead people to believe. We do have the ML leader in RBIs and our offense has actually been worlds better this year than last year (which helps because our pitching hasn't been nearly as good this year). We've got some really good hitters in Chris Burke, Mike Lamb, Preston Wilson (streaky though he may be), Lance Berkman, and Morgan Ensberg (presuming he comes out of his slump). As far as getting shutout, this is only the 5th time this season we've been blanked, compared to about 15 at this time last year, so the offense isn't as bad as some people seem to think. I think we need bullpen help more than we need another bat. And I wouldn't take the last two series as indicative of how the team performs offensively, as the AL Central has been giving the NL Central Hell this whole interleague part of the schedule. St. Louis went 0-6 against the Sox and the Tigers. At least we went 1-5.

Too bad he's not Latino. Then he could be on the Mets. Yeah, I got nothing... Uh...we're just saving up our runs for our stretch run after the All-Star break. That's how we roll.

I think I had an orgasm watching those teasers, and it had nothing to do with Sly Stallone's chiseled 60 year old abs. I think I might be one of the few people that thought that Rocky V was good. Rocky's just such a great character. I don't think Stallone's made any good non-Rocky movies, but he always brings the goods when it comes to Rocky movies. And Paulie and his snowcones. Good Lord, I haven't been this excited for a movie in years.

Clemens got jobbed tonite. He went 6 1/3 innings giving up 3 hits. He threw 83 pitches. He only got taken out because CB fuckin' Bucknor blew a pitch right down the freakin' middle to Carlos Guillen and instead called it Ball 4 making Ausmus throwing out Ordonez running to second meaningless. Clemens was about two seconds away from murdering CB so Phil took him out and put in Wheeler and we proceeded to blow the game, giving up the two Clemens' runs and a third run on one hit and two errors. The bad news is that in Clemens' second start back, the team was back to 2005 form, getting shut out for only the 4th time this season. The good news is that Clemens looked brilliant tonite, so hopefully we can sort out the hitting in his starts. And one more observation: Joel Zumaya throws really, really, really fast.

I'm having flashbacks to last year. Yeesh.

Clemens is looking really good in his second start. The free-swingin' Tigers have helped him to only throw 34 pitches through 4 innings. He's allowed one hit. The 'Stros, however, have made a couple dumb baserunning mistakes and have not been able to score, however.

More like Frank Robinson's heart blows up. Guy's starting to look like Fred Sanford. "Ya big dummy!"

I'm waiting for Frank Robinson's blow up. I know it's gonna be a good one.

Phil Garner must've watched that minor league ump blow up on Sportscenter. After C.B. Bucknor, the worst ump in baseball, quick trigged and threw Berkman outta the game for spiking his helmet, he got all up in Phil's face and after Phil tossed his cap, Bucknor threw Phil out to which Phil responded by going apeshit and throwing a chair onto the field. I wish he would've dumped some water on homeplate and kicked some dirt before leaving, but Munson responded by hitting a homer to make it a 2 run game.

I would suggest they just bring up the kids and let them play, but there's this mindset you can't rebuild in Chicago and thus, there's this vicious cycle of filling in holes with aged vets and journeymen who may have had something to offer in the 1990s. A total rebuild isn't really necessary to achieve success. Both the Red Sox and White Sox retooled their teams a bit to fit a certain approach to the game and it worked. I'd like to see the Cubs doing something along those lines, but I guess they're sorta committed to their blueprint of useless utility players, veteran presence and aggressive hitting and baserunning. The organization's problems start with their ownership. They're just not committed to fielding a winning team. They're making money now without spending a bunch of money to be competitive. They're like the LA Clippers of baseball.

I think the Cubs realizing that they're probability of winning this season is very low so they've decided to do some weird type of avant-garde theatre deal where they test the limits of the fan's patience and see how terribly they can do and still maintain a fanbase, either that or they're trying to give Bob Brenly a heart attack.

In retrospect, we should've tried harder to capitalize in the first inning.

Good thing "Magic" Wandy Rodriguez is mowing 'em down. The 'Stros always seem to have a problem capitalizing on opposing pitcher's wildness.

Meh, last year, I thought Ensberg deserved to be an All-Star without only having to take the place of Rolen. I thought Aramis Ramirez and David Wright both deserved it more than Rolen did last year. This year, Ensberg's having a shitty season so far, so I have no quams with him not being in the All-Star picture.

I plan on writing a piece about this in the near future. I think the fans are just as good a group as any other. The problem isn't the fans, it's the process. Yeah but fans of the bigger clubs in particular don't have an issue selecting a dude batting like .220 or someone who only played in 15 games. I'm surprised Yankee fans didn't go all out with getting someone like Bernie Williams into the game just for shits and giggles. Papelbon just blew a save to Chase Utley. Boo. Hiss. The All-Star thing with the fans selecting players is a damn joke. Look at last year when Scott Rolen was the leading vote getter at 3rd base despite missing an assload of games. I agree there's a good number of Yankees, Red Sox, Mets, and Cardinals that deserve to be in the All-Star game, but there's alot of other guys that aren't getting the popular vote despite their worthiness. And another thing, why's David Ortiz on the ballot but Jim Thome isn't? What's up with that? So, is Papelbon's ERA above .40 yet?

I have a feeling the All-Star game's gonna blow. When will they learn that casual fans are no good at evaluating talent. I, on the other hand, can spot talent a mile away, which is why all of my All-Star votes went to Astros...and Ryan Zimmerman.

After the series with the Sox, I fear what's going to happen in the Tigers series. I mean, they swept the Cardinals. I hope Wandy has a good game tonite...

Both of Kanye West's CDs are quite topheavy. They really fizzle out by the end-The College Dropout moreso. Uh...and cuz I'm listening to it now, Devendra Banhart's new CD, Cripple Crow really runs out of steam going into the latter part of it. I don't know if that's just because of Devendra's scattershot songwriting, though.

Just seems if they had all this available money, they should've gone out and built a bullpen that won't crap away a seven-run lead in the span of two innings. They didn't really have "all this available money". Owner Drayton McClane exceeded the payroll for a special case, that case being Clemens. It's a total rent-a-player move. However, I think that it's evident that we need to do something with our bullpen. And besides, before the season I doubt they thought the bullpen would be this shoddy. It's basically the same pen we had last season that was so good. Who could've predicted the downfall of Qualls, Wheeler, and Lidge...well, Lidge not so much, but I am surprised that Qualls and Wheeler are going through such streakiness.

Good Lord. This game felt like in the first Mortal Kombat where you have to beat that dude with like...fifteen arms and then after he kicked your ass and you barely eeked out a victory over him you still had to fight like another guy and then Shang Tsung, but a win is a win...even if this was the most emasculating Astros win I've seen in a very, very long time. I hear Leo Mazzonne likes fixing broken pitchers. Maybe that Lidge, Everett, Lane for Tejada trade could still go down...but probably not. I've been drinking Vault Soda and smoking Marlboro Reds for several hours. If I to into a sugar coma or get lung cancer, I'm suing the Houston Astros.