soapbox

Okay, so yesterday they traded away Michael Barrett, after he got into a bit of between-innings fisticuffs with his pitcher, Carlos Zambrano. Barrett is an above-average hitter (for a catcher) but well below average defensively (no, pretty much he just sucks), but the funny part about the whole thing: they traded him six days before Michael Barrett Jersey Day and 11 days before Michael Barrett Bobblehead Day.

Apparently, Barrett is the third player in the bobblehead era to get traded in midseason before his very special day of bobbleheadedness. The first was reliever Ryan Dempster, who was dealt away by the Marlins in 2002 before they could give away 15,000 of his bobbleheads. Florida decided to reschedule for the next year, when Dempster was finally set to return to Florida with Cincinatti, but he was on the DL at the time. In 2004 the White Sox traded Esteban Loaiza to NYY three weeks before his bobblehead day, but they just went ahead and gave away the bobbleheads anyhow.

Yeah, so this is a really weird way to sell somebody on something:

“Hello my friend!I am ready to kill myself and eat my dog, if medicine prices here (http://catcentury.hk) are bad.Look, the site and call me 1-800 if its wrong..My dog and I are still alive ”

That’s the entire text of the e-mail that Blitz let through. Lovely, that.

I’m going to go delete things now. Hooray me!

Okay, this post has been languishing in the limbo of saved-yet-not-ready-for-publication for weeks now, so I decided to wrap it up and get it out there. It’s just a guided tour of some highlights from xkcd.com, a webcomic that all y’all should be reading, if you’re not already. This is good stuff, and you can tell, since this description appears at the top of the page layout: “A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language.” Anyways, here’s my version of a highlight reel:

Random LOL 1
Jeremy Irons is like Paul Newman or Steve McQueen: each one improves everything he with which he’s associated.
I couldn’t agree more.
For Chris.
Ahh, geek love…
Random LOL 2
Best counterattack. Ever.
For John
Nash vs. Feynman
Right hand rules rule!
Comp sci jokes are so sweet.
This is all too close to being true for me.
Resonance is awesome.
The Difference”, a personal fave.

Glad I could provide you with a few minutes of unproductivity…

the Sub-Pop Sampler actually isn’t bad, or at least has a couple decent tracks.  (Patton Oswalt making fun of KFC?  good times.)

You can try this link, but I think you have to join the Apple Students group first.  Anyway, just reminding y’all.

…Intercourse! Trust me, it’s hilarious. No, seriously.

You know you want to check this out (be sure the sound is up so you can hear everything!), even though you might be trying to convince yourself otherwise. Only NSFW if your boss is a turtle.

Anyways, as amusing as this is, I can’t really take much credit, since I just pilfered this from the blog archives of my friend Zach. Zach’s a fun guy who harvests corneas for transplant from corpses. Sounds gross, but since one of his favorite courses while he was a Rice undergrad was parasitology, I think he may have found a calling.

Freedom for the people!

The 26th Great American Beer Festival  is less than four months away!

You may be new to driving a stick, but at least now you can successfully rob a 7-11? These guys, not so much.

“The kid was just sitting in the car trying to start it but he had no idea what to do. He looked dumbfounded. The only thing he had going was the radio,” said Williamson who witnessed the scene.

I also like the last explanatory paragraph from Rueters: Unlike many parts of the world, the majority of cars in the United States are automatic and many drivers are unused to driving “stick shift” vehicles, in which a clutch pedal must be depressed to change gear. Man makes us sound like a bunch of dweebs, huh?