Have no computer, will get into work too early

I'm in the office before 8 because I need to do all my writing HERE since my computer is gone. Blech. This is more frustrating than trying to open a new CD or DVD. What the hell did I do before my ibook came into the picture? I tried to handwriting stories last night and I was getting no where fast. Half because the cat kept pouncing on my pen. Half because I couldn't read my own handwriting. Sometimes when I'm watching movies and I see people locked in closets, or running late to meet the love of their lives who's about to board a plane, the first thing I think of is, "Why don't those asshats just use their cell phone?" It was a simpler time. 4 more days til opening day. I still don't know what the hell to do with the other ticket. Maybe put it in a chocolate bar and sit back and watch people clamoring to buy chocolate and then just smile wickedly. Like LardAss did in Stand by Me during the Pie Eating Contest.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

YESSS BIRTHDAY CITY!!! Except it started out mediocre, but things are looking up, for sure. My ex-boyfriend left peanut butter sandwiches at my door last night, so at least I have a nice lunch to look forward to. Yep, it doesnt take much to make me happy.

BACK HOME!

I'm back in the city. And it's like having a giant cheese pizza in front of me while I'm laced up in a Hannibal Lector straight jacket. Meaning, I finally can post all my Spring Training adventures, but the Catch 22 is that MY LAPTOP'S BATTERY IS DEAD. No, I can't just charge it because the charger is broken. And I'm scared to take it down the Apple Store in Soho because I have a feeling that since it is in "trendy Soho" that I will have to pay a cover charge to get in, and I might not even be allowed in at all because I'm wearing sneakers or something. Blech. So right now I'm at work even though I finished real work hours ago, because I am without internet connection/word processor at home. But suffice to say that once I have the means, spring training memories will be immortalized on here.

That pizza reference made me hungry, I'm leaving. Stories to come soon. You know what else is soon? MY BIRTHDAY WHICH IS TOMORROW. BIG 24. That's right, thats what I said.

Who am I even talking to here? I'm just going to leave myself with the illusion that I have an audience...

Here's what I got on spring training so far:

"Nothing will ever be as much fun as baseball."--Mickey Mantle

Truer words were never spoken. When faced with having to use up 5 vacation days before the end of March, it was pretty clear what I needed to do. I could either go to Rio with my girlfriends or Tampa alone. (Or stay home and watch daytime television and capitalize on the fact you can have McDonald's delivered in NYC.) I received more than a few weird looks when I told everyone at work I was taking off for Spring Training by myself. Or as my boss said, "The Yankees are going to sic a restraining order on you soon."

Why did I venture to Legends Field solo? Because no one else I know would want to arrive at the stadium 4 hours before it started just to watch Yogi Berra drive around in a golf cart. Or would want to sit in the stadium long after the game was over just listening to "New York, New York" play on a loop. Or would recognize that the beauty of Spring Training is not the games themselves, but what they represent. They're not just a pre-party for the impending best months of the year. I wasn't just taking a vacation from TPS reports. I was taking a vacation from steroids, exhausted media-coverage of certain rivalries, running tallies of payrolls, and watching once-awe-inspiring players become shells of their former selves.

I'm not jaded. In the words of San Francisco OF, "I'm just tired." But last week I took a hiatus from all those controversial tumors that compromise the game. Spring Training is the game at its purest form. No mind-numbing congressional hearings, no arguments with my friends over fantasy trades. And even more amazing--no hostile fans (not many, anyway) taunting their rival fans.

The fact of the matter is, I could be fighting a bad case of shingles, be soaking wet from a relentless monsoon, and be sitting next to the token drunk guy with sweaty chest hair puffing out of his wife beater, and I'd still be wearing that dumb-founded, sh*t-eating, Manny Ramirez-esque grin. And spring training? Good God, it's like throwing a dirty-stayout into a Viagra convention. (Insert your own "things are looking up" pun here.) Basically, spring training takes the game, extrapolates everything sublimely perfect about it, magnifies this by a million, and then makes it all accessible to me.

It's easy to forget why baseball has been dubbed the Great American Pasttime, but an exhibition game is baseball in a vacuum. The sport stripped of its political complications and peppered with endearing B-side stories. Spring Training is The Breakfast Club: all these different walks of life ignore that everything will go back to "normal" come opening day, and they just seem to enjoy themselves. And like The Breakfast Club, it makes for great viewing pleasure that doesn't require too much thinking.

In broader terms, it simply defies conventional odds. And I can't figure out why this is. It's like how tourists come to New York City and witness cupcake shops being held up by armed men wearing lampshades and diapers. Which prompts the ever-popular, ultimately hackneyed expression: "Only in New York, only in New York."  

Likewise, Spring Training is the Big Apple of Major League Baseball. Only in Spring Training will you see the most intimidating pitcher in the game throw a fastball that's interrupted by a bird on an obvious suicide mission. When else are you going to see a game called on the basis of a "Bee Delay"? Apparently one of the player's "Coconut Oil Conditioner" attracted a swarm of bees to the field. Imagine living that one down in the locker room.

Even the subtler spring training windfalls are worth appreciating. Like the 12-2 homerun-ridden game I saw on Thursday when the Yanks used Atlanta for batting practice. Or just seeing future Hall-of-Famers enjoying a nice steak dinner out. (This may not seem monumental, but I swear, it's like seeing your teacher out on a date or something. You just don't expect them to exist outside the capacity of how you know them.)

Only in Spring Training, only in Spring Training.

Other highlights of my personal Utopia In Which Normal Social Boundaries Dissolve:

Most Damning Proof Red Sox and Yankees Fans Can Make Nice: I arrived at my hotel at 10am. When I learned the room wouldn't be ready for 3 hours, I asked the receptionist to point me to the bar. I ordered a vodka tonic, and without batting an eye, the bartender asks, "One shot or two?" I realize this is good people right here, and after talking for a little, I discover it's a Boston fan making my drinks strong enough to kill a brontosaurus. (Maybe that was his intention...?) Over "Sizzling Chicken Fajitas" and a potpourri of mixed drinks, much pleasant conversation is exchanged ("I can't believe we actually won!" "I gotta hand it to you, unbelievable 8-0 sweep...). The bill? About $20 less than it should have been. Boston Bartender says, "Those last few drinks were for Game 7 this year."

Closest I Got To the Upper End of the Baseball Caste System: Mr. Steinbrenner himself was sitting about 4 rows behind me in his outdoor luxury suite. After the game, I walked up to the wall separating the bourgeoisie from the commoners and handed him my baseball to sign. Then I handed him a blown up picture of my bathroom (a mural of Yankee Stadium) on which I had written: "When can I paint over the 26 with a 27?" Well, I handed it to his bodyguard-type person anyway. Apparently, you couldn't hand anything to the Boss directly. (What is this, a blackjack table?)

Most Admirable Move By A Different Generation: I was enjoying a delightful chocolate chip ice cream cone outside the International Plaza while reading my Fantasy 2005 Reports Magazine. (Who has it better than me?) Then a braces-toting boy who couldn't have been any older than 17 approached me and said, `Would you like to join me and my friends for dinner? We saw you sitting alone and thought you might want to eat with us." I was floored. So I celebrated the "Anything Goes" Spring Training Philosophy and had a drink with three boys who can't get into R-rated movies. And by "drink," I mean ice tea.

Overall Best Highlight: Fans clamored around the fences when Mariano Rivera walked by, and I knew there was no way I could compete with little kids playing their Cute Toddler Card. So I yelled, "Mariano, I named my cat after you!" And alas, he looked up, smiled, walked over, and signed my ball. He's such a good guy. And he has this perfect signature that looks like it should only be made with feather pens, and on old leather books from the 1800's.

Good times. So now I'm back in New York, trying to still my beating heart in anticipation of opening day. I'm back in the land where Mets fans stop me in bars to inform me the Yankees suck, where Carl Pavano's $3 million new apartment in midtown is big news, and where "How do you think Pedro will do this year?" is heard more than "I had the WORST cab ride over here..."

Home sweet home. While I loved every second of my time basking in warm weather and Baseball Purity, it's good to be back. I'm a subway ride away from the stadium and mere days away from opening day.

Let's the games begin.

Spring Training!!!

So I'm leaving for Tampa in a few hours. My order of favorite things: Baseball, Yankees, Food, Drinking during the day, the beach. And tampa basically has all of them.Except I have a feeling I won't be able to capitalize on some of them since it's supposed to rain for the first two days that I'm there. It's going to be enough of a challenge finding things to do to entertain myself when it's nice out, it's going to be balancing-chemical-equations challenging to find things to do when it's crappy out. Luckily, I find myself very amusing, and things like rollerblading or spinning a basketball on my finger can provide endless entertainment for me.

I have a few agendas while I'm there that go beyond baseball games. One is meeting a Yankee up close and personal. The other is slipping Steinbrenner a photo of my bathroom when I see him at IHOP. Yeah, I'm going to just stake out the breakfast bar until he shows up, and then I'm going to have his waitress deliver a picture of my bathroom. See, this is the type of networking I can excel at. But as soon as I have to "talk shop" and drop email addresses and client names--I'm as lost and confused as I am in a meatpacking district club.

So I'll be gone, for those of you (if any) that actually read this. But given the weather forecast, I feel like I will be writing up a storm (HAHAHAHAHA!! Look at me amusing myself already!) in my cozy hotel room. (The name of which will not be disclosed, since I don't want the paparazzi stalking me AGAIN.)

So I'll be getting my first fill of baseball after a long winter of hibernation and starvation. Scorpions can live a whole year without food. But I doubt that they, or any other living thing, can survive that long without baseball. It's all a warm up for opening day. And that's another thing on my agenda--screen applicants for the job of going with me to opening day. I NEVEER go to games with other people, very infrequently anyway, because apparently I get a little too emotionally involved. One time this manifested itself in skipping up and down the aisles of Yankee Stadium with a roll of duct tape, threatening to tape Boston fans' mouths. I didn't though. I wasn't really going to, either. But I had to act like there was a roll of duct tape in my purse for a reason, or else I would be a girl who carries duct tape in her bag, and who wants that?

No one wants to be around someone who gets beligerantly drunk when the yanks are up, and who gets violently depressed when they're down. So I get to live in my own little bubble of fanatic lunacy. Good times.

More MO

More MO
Posted by: scoutcheckmate.

Don't the Knicks play here or something? I can't remember. I haven't been to a Knicks game all year.

The many faces of Mariano Rivera

The many faces of Mariano Rivera
Posted by: scoutcheckmate.

My cat is home for the week (my parents' place). I miss him already. I hope the cats at my parents' house (tubbo.com I and tubbo.com II) don't kill him. It makes sense. No one pays attention to Tubbo.com I and II, they can't run very fast anymore because they're 9 years old, and they're just overall not as interesting. MO, on the other hand, is not even a year old. So everyone loves him, and he's cute, and fun to watch. Especially fun to watch when he's beating up the Fat Cats.

This is just a microcosm of how people view the Yankees. I gave my parents explicit instructions on to watch him. He likes the songs Enter Sandman (seriously) and the theme song from Top Gun. But I have a feeling my parents are just going to try to keep MO alive for 4 days. They're all about tough love. I wish I could take him to spring training with me. MO got all sorts of pissed when I told him he wasn't coming. I think he was getting into bathing suit shape, because I noticed he wasn't eating a lot, and he was also running around and getting more exercise than usual. So I had to sit him down and tell him it wasn't happening and that I was flying down solo.

It was very awkward.

Field of Dreams

Field of Dreams
Posted by: scoutcheckmate.

This is my bathroom. After the Yankees beat the Twins to win the AL East, I painted it. It was one of those night when it was perfect outside and I was so happy I was almost frustrated that my body was working as a physical constraint. Like I was practically glowing, and nothing I could do did justice to how I was feeling. It wasn't like they won the World Series or anything, but it was like hearing the proverbial "perfect song"--the right song randomly comes on at the right moment and everything for a second is still and flawless. That's how I felt when New York, New York came on that night and everything was right at Yankee Stadium.

Plus it's like I always say, there's nothing better than stepping out of the shower in the morning and being able to say, "I'm clean, naked, and standing outside Yankee Stadium." Such a great way to start the morning off on the right foot. And since my alarm clock is set to play the Yankee at bat songs, I get to wake up to Enter Sandman. It's like I'm being called from the bullpen that is my bed.
Who has it better than me?

A hop, skip, and jump over Jaws

"Originally posted here..."

I honestly thought that movie "Closer" was going to be about Gagne. And after 10 years of watching Bev 9er, what I remember most is that Dylan McKay's dad used "Eddie Waitkus" as his witness protection program alias. Along the same lines, the most recent episode of Arrested Development also thematically translated into a sports-related concern.

This latest synaptic misfire stemmed from the scene when Henry Winkler literally jumped over a shark, taking one small hop for mankind, one giant leap for entertainment parody. My first thought? That riding Winkler piggyback during the allegorical shark jumping is the 2004 sports season.

And I don't mean that the level of athletic talent has hit a brick wall. That's only one of the two ways sports can jump the shark, e.g.:

1.)    Steve Carlton Style: to peak, do something ridiculous, and then tailspin into Bolivia. Word Origin: From 1965-1986, Carlton won over 300 games, with six 20-win seasons. And then he did a tour de clubhouses, playing on 4 different teams in the span of a little over a year, finishing with an 11-12 record.

And the other...

2.)    O.C. Style: 1. of or relating to a short period of time saturated with an overwhelming blitz of Page 6-worthy idiocy and/or outlandish feats, 2. a Murderer's Row of "You'll Always Remember Where You Were When You Saw..." antics, 3. the 2004 Year in Review

The way I see it, 2004 was a watershed year for spelling out exactly how much the face of professional sports has changed over history. Change the MLB Fox theme song to "California" and throw Mischa Barton in a Pacers jersey, and we're watching Thursday night must-see T.V. So where does that leave the baffled fan? Is it possible for Modern Sports and Idealistic Sports to coexist? Or has the game as we know it, in fact, jumped the shark?

I'd be lying if I said I was a fan of the "jump the shark" expression. For the laymen, "jump the shark" is a phrase coined to describe the sharp decline of the show Happy Days that followed an episode where Fonzie flew over a shark tank in water skis. Ok, so Happy Days' peak was when a character flew over a pool of fish? Compared to what "jump the shark" means now, it appears Happy Days got cheated. The expression's meaning has inflated more than Sprewell's market value. If you want to jump the shark now, you're going to have to do a lot better than water ski stunts. Unless you cram death, homosexuality, pregnancy, rape, mental instability, and drug addiction into one season, then you haven't even cleared the fin. But 2004? Perfect landing on other side of shark tank. Gave new meaning to the phrase "spectator sports." And an investigation into the possibility that 2004 Sports corked its water skis is currently underway.  

See, the changes are more than just rising hot dog prices at Wrigley and computer-generated first down lines. We live in an era where homeruns are pegged with asteriks, and women strip down on broadcasted NFL games. A headline reading "The Shot Heard Round the World" doesn't mean a pennant-winning homerun anymore. It means someone interrupted Artest's mid-brawl nap. Before I start sounding like an 83-year-old with a trick knee, reminiscing about the days when baseball was played with rocks and sticks, realize nothing can shake my love of the game. But it's like having a birthday that falls on Christmas: even though you can enjoy both sides of the same day, the simple pleasures of a birthday are eclipsed by the glitz and glamour of Christmas.  

On the one hand, I'm in the middle of a sports writer's wet dream--between the steroids uproar, March Madness, and impending baseball season, I have the mosquito-at-a-nudist-beach syndrome: so much great stuff to sink my teeth into, but I just don't know where to begin. And how do I divide my time between everything? You know it's a good day when the biggest problem you face is whether to read about Spring Training or Final Four predictions.

On the other hand, I'm afraid sports just surpassed Carl Lewis's long jump record. Where do we go from here? Just to take you back, consider the absurdities that occurred in the last year:

NFL: Janet Jackson sets the stage for the "Twilight Zone meets SportsCenter" marathon, (and ironically, the NFL may have been overall the most tame); Desperate Housewife meets Desperate TV Ratings; Ricky Williams retires to live in a tent for $7 a day

NHL: It died.

NBA: Sprewell's brush with poverty; Kobe renounces role as Poster Boy for Wholesome Athletes; plastic cup becomes world's most expensive game souvenir, one buck shy of a cool billion on ebay; the Christies reconcile sports with MTV reality shows (coming soon...)

MLB: Canseco assumes role of Steroids Nation Spokesman; "Juiced" proves ghostwriters are without shame and grossly underpaid; Bonds continues to be a caricature of a superhuman beast; Red Sox fans realize it was something else that was missing from their lives all this time; and most recently--Mariano Rivera allegedly joins the NHL status. (Seriously, how does a rumor like that get started? I'm imagining these tired, sunburned reporters grabbing a beer at Spring Training:)

"Giambi admit to steroids yet?"

"Nah."

"Jeter nail Jessica Simpson yet?"

"Nope."

"What about A-Rod? There's got to be something there. Wait, what time did he wake up today?"

"Nada. But I heard Mo's elbow is sore."

"And by sore elbow...you mean dead?"

Every new nugget of sports info trumps the one before it. At this point, I wouldn't be surprised if the Chargers signed Avril Lavigne as their new starting defensive end. What kind of future is the world of sports looking at? Half the reason I love sports is because it's supposed to be free of all this drama that recent college grads like myself are already flypaper for.

But the upside is that if sports have indeed jumped the shark, maybe we can look forward to some degree of normalcy in subsequent years. How can anything possibly outdo 2004?  There's really just nowhere else to go. For the next 10 years anyway. According to Back to the Future II, the Cubs sweep Miami in the 2015 World Series.

Yeah, so Miami's a non-existent team. At the way things are going, I still really wouldn't be surprised.

One more thing: according to my brackets, I have Utah cutting down the nets in St. Louis. This would seem strange/moronic to me if I hadn't just watched West Virginia score 111 points to beat Wake in double OT.

A Case For the Yankees

Originally posted here..."

I may or may not be the same person who fiercely argued that Bill Simmons and the Intern were the same person. And I may have also adamantly contended that the Ken Jennings fiasco was a scam ABC pulled to get their ratings up. And lastly, there’s a possibility I wrote a college paper asserting that Lord of the Flies was really about materialism and society’s preoccupation with real estate and property. (Why else would they be always fighting over that damn conch shell?)

So I have admittedly made a few bad calls. And with that kind of track record, some could think it impossible for me to craft a convincing case for not hating the Yankees, especially since I am usually not slowed by logic. But the way I see it, I’m a pharmaceutical copywriter. I make a living writing letters to doctors convincing them to prescribe brand name drugs. If I can persuade people with years of med school under their belts, I can sure as hell sway the imbeciles who haven’t caught on that it’s perennially maddening to root against a team that wins more than they lose.

The Yankees are essentially The Godfather of baseball, while the Red Sox are like syndicated Sex and the City: an entourage of idiots with a shell of greatness and raw skill, but without the classic, timeless substance that positions the Yankees at the core of baseball’s spirit. I love the Yankees not just because I’m from New York, but because to me, they embody The Game. That said, realize that during the 2004 World Series, I didn’t root for the Cardinals, nor did I root against the Red Sox, despite having the latter team render me immobile and jaded for 3 weeks.

Put simply, if you love sports, you don’t support another team’s downfall.

Yes, if you love the Red Sox, you hope the Yankees contract polio and scabies, and in the words of the late Pedro, ”f---ing disappear.” This, right here, is why Yankee-haters can never claim to truly love sports. Because if they did, they’d celebrate talent and heart and baseball at its finest, whether that game is played by Boston, the Yankees, or any other team.

Consider the following:

• Exhbit A: The Godfather Theory- Michael has Fredo killed. Because there is only one thing more important to him than his family, and that is the bigger Family. There’s only one thing I love more than the Yankees, and that’s baseball. So a decision to hate the Yankees is effectively a betrayal of the bigger Game. Good luck ever making it in the Mafia. Fellow Fan, you’re my older brother and I love you, but don’t ever take sides with anyone against the family again…ever.

• Exhbit B: The 90210 Theory- This is for Mets fans who automatically loathe their nemesis just because they (the fans) were born in Long Island. Suppose Brenda represents the Mets, Kelly the Yankees, Dylan the World Series, and Bev 9er (the cultural phenomenon series!) symbolizes baseball as a whole. I personally always liked the Brenda-Dylan dynamic; there was something about Kelly that was too perfect. And it rubbed me the wrong way how she used her hotness and money to always get her way. So you can imagine my disappointment and moral quandary when Brenda left the show! But in reality, the decision was a simple one. There was about as much chance of me cutting 90210 out of my life as there was of Gabrielle Carteris making a staggering comeback. This is how it is: I hated Kelly, but once Brenda was out of the picture, I had no choice but to root for the more attractive option that I knew in my heart of hearts was going to end up with Dylan in the long run anyway. Bev 9er is to some chicks as baseball is to real people, but think about how chicks view baseball and real people view 90210: sheer entertainment that should never be examined through the discerning lens of principles. In other words, whether you’re a Mets or Yankees fan, you’re both biting out of the same Apple. One of the things I loved about my ex-boyfriend was that he was a born and bred Mets fan who complained about the Yankees until he was watching them play in the playoffs: “I’m not going root for a team I don’t even like if I can root for a New York team.”

• Exhibit C: The Airtight Logic of the Immortal Seinfeld- Falling back on the age-old adage, Seinfeld argues we are merely “rooting for laundry.” Which begs the question, what is it that you really hate about the Yankees? Certainly not the players. Barring that dirtbag who wakes up before the sun comes up, you’d be hard-pressed to identify a Yankee who’s unequivocally worse than any garden-variety pain-in-the-ass on any other club. With Seinfeld’s pearl of wisdom in mind, how would Yankee-haters feel if your favorite player went to the dark side? What if players like Jim Thome or Sean Casey wore pinstripes? What kind of psychic crippling occurred when Tony Clark subway-ed it over to the Bronx? Or what if Bernie or Hideki or Mariano were traded to your team? Seriously, who exactly do Yankee-haters hate?

From what I can see, there are 3 main reasons for this asinine hatred, all of which can be dissolved faster and more seamlessly than Chicago fans’ pipe dreams come September:

1.) Steinbrenner: Ok, I’ll give you that he’s out of hand, gluttonous, childish, wildly obtuse, and his power has been abused so much it’s beginning to look like it should’ve been cast as an extra for Saving Private Ryan. So let’s hate the whole franchise! Let’s never support a talented, successful team! Band together and boycott The Apprentice! Oh…wait…we weren’t talking about Trump? Let he who is not addicted to this vanity show cast the first stone.
2.) “They buy their team.” I apologize to the fans of teams whose players have been donated; you can skip over this. So if a talented team is a function of payroll, explain the 2003 World Series champion with the 6th lowest payroll. Or the Mets who lounge in the High Rollers suite and didn’t even finish above .500 last year. Such a weak case. I look at people who still run around barking this nonsense the same way I look at people who wear Uggs. Not only can I not believe these things were ever accepted in the first place, I’m just in shock that there are still people who continue to endorse them as if their merit holds an ounce of verity. The Evil Emperor’s New Clothes theory, I guess.
3.) THE FANS: My personal favorite flawed excuse. Yankees fans are arrogant and obnoxious because we’re spoiled. See, I’m not sure exactly how other fans want us to react to our hometown dynasty. “Aw, shucks. I guess they won again, but who’s keeping score? The important thing is to have fun.” It’s hard to be humble when your team is the undisputed most successful franchise in sports history. We’re not talking about winning a Miss Universe pageant here. Demure modesty has no place in sports. Just ask Red Sox fans right now. And all the Boston talk about how they “always believed”? Read your ringleader’s column after Game 3 of the ALCS: “This was officially the point where I started to give up on the 2004 Red Sox season.” Or watch the faithful fan at Game 4 (before Ortiz’s big hit) with the banner, “I can’t believe we fell for it again.” Well, if that’s not unparalleled conviction, then I don’t know what is. At least Yankee fans trust in their boys.

You hate the New York Yankees for the same reason chicks get enraged with their boyfriends during fights. As you continue to become more rattled and frustrated, the Bombers remain confident and unwavering, even after losing. While every other fan either anticipates disappointment or prays for a win, Yankee fans have 26 reasons to expect superiority. You hate the Yankees because you envy our ability to subscribe to such great expectations.

Here’s an idea: why don’t you just hate your own team who loses? They’re the ones that disappointed you.

It’s amazing how many fans are more emotionally involved in hating the Yankees than they are in supporting their own team. Misery loves company, as they say. If I haven’t convinced you to check your blind wrath at the door and embrace the sport instead, maybe George Bernard Shaw’s words will:

“Hatred is the coward’s revenge for being intimidated.”

Don’t hate the playa. Love the game.

And now that I think about it, I still think Simmons and the Intern are the same person.

Intern Obsessed

I'm obsessed with this ESPN intern contest. I think because I'm still baffled that I didn't get picked as a finalist! It's kind of like how in that movie Spellbound when all the home-schooled weirdos that lost were shaking their fists at the cruel gods of fate, like, "I can't believe I lost on apotropaic!! I KNEW all the words after that, too! It should've been me! ME, I TELL YOU!" Only I don't smell my hands before I apply for jobs. The application that never made it, but clearly should have:

Remember in Primal Fear when Ed Norton (Aaron) originally claims “someone else was in that room!” only for Richard Gere to later theorize that the “other person” was a manifestation (“Roy”) of Norton’s seeming multiple personality disorder? I’ve been collecting evidence towards a similar hypothesis of mine, and the intern contest just handed me the trump card in this case.

You better get yourself a lawyer.

On the afternoon of January 7, the Intern published his "Emails of the Week" One particular email questioned the Intern’s faceless anonymity: “How come you don’t get a headshot like everyone else?” Now, exactly one month to the day, a pursuit of a new intern CONVENIENTLY ensues. Clearly, the investigation into the true identity of The Intern made someone sweat. Maybe that’s why “Jamie Agin” is Simmons’s “Lois Einhorn.”

I knew I had you when I read, “Please don’t try to write like me.” First of all, slow your roll, T. Wolfe. Secondly, are we to believe you and the intern didn’t share a similar (at the very least) writing style?

Sidebar: I feel like you’re that chick in college who is “in love” with every hot guy, and when her sorority sister tries to make out with one of them, the chick says, “I HAD DIBS ON HIM FIRST!” Point being, the Unintentional Comedy Scale piece alone “placed dibs” on every topic in existence. It was like the fraternity house of columns. Listen, you don’t have a have a monopoly on lotion/basket jokes. Speaking of, where does “Please don’t try to write like me” fall on the Unintentional Comedy Scale?

Your anagrams are showing, Dr. Lector. “Jamie Agin”? I played around with it as soon as you threw out this name. The first thought, obviously, was “Game Ninja.” And it would be perfect if there were another “n” and one less “i.” Like the old saying goes, “There my not be an ‘I’ in TEAM, but there’s an extra N and a shortage of I’s in INTERN.”

Finkle. Einhorn. Finkle. Einhorn. I had the proverbial dog-sitting-on-my-newspaper-cracks-case-of–identities-moment when it came to me. “I JAM IN AGE,” aka “I’ve invented a persona to fulfill my youthful, impish self-indulgences.”

There never was an Aaron, (ie Intern), was there? “Intent to deceive” is illegal in California.

I’m willing to settle out of court.

Quite the life I've carved out for myself

So basically I don't know what I'm doing in the next 15 minutes, but I have beirut tournaments lined up every weekend for the next month. I spend waaaaaayyy too much thinking of team names, too. Last time I was "it puts the lotion in the basket," and coming up I got "Troy's bucket (it's all over the second you ride up it)," "Because I Like to Drill Holes" (holla blog!), and coming up, "Lefty Gomez & Red Ruffing." I think subconsciously I come up with these names as a way of weeding out the cool people. Anyone who hears one of those names who recognizes it, I'm hooked. See, my friends think I do this as a way of like avoiding contact with people: "You know no one's ever going to pick up on them. Maybe the silence of the lambs one, but do you really want to meet the guy who's into cannibalism?"

In other news, I'm watching America's Next Top Model right now, and I would LOVE to meet the person who decided ugly people are beautiful! They pick these busted chicks who look like the tail end of a bulldog, and all of sudden, they're "different" and "unique." Just because your eyes are set on opposite sides of your face does not make you pretty. it makes you look like a dinosaur. But I admit, I'm watching it anyway because nothing's better than watching girls stare each other up and down and act way more "bubbly" then they really are. Actually the white chicks act all "What! This is how I ALWAYS am! I'm always upbeat, I'm just, like, a happy person!" and all the black chicks have like 3 kids and weird hair and they cry all the time about how tough their life has been, but Tyra Banks has been an inspiration to them. (Shut up I'm not racist. You watch the show and try to tell me any of those chicks are even remotely cute. And I'm not making that stuff up about them having children and criminal records. Seriously.)

Sports Illustrated has this column, "You know it's the apocalypse when..." I think some chick magazine should have the same column and leading it off, "Tyra Banks has been an inspiration to quit drugs."

I kinda feel like a real life spectator of America's Next Top Model whenever I go out. And I walk into a bar and every single chick there is looking each other up and down and up and down. And they all hate each other until they're hammered in a bathroom and then all of a sudden, everyone's lip glass/eyeliner/shoes would look SO GOOD on them!

But actually going to bars is so much better than television America's Next Top Model because in real life, fat is fat. Pretty is pretty. There's no "normal sized" and "naturally pretty." When you're at a crowded bar, the fat girls are fat, not "normal sized." And if natalie portman or rachel leigh cook walked into a bar, before they were dubbed "naturally pretty," they would be the pasty girls in the corner talking about the their boyfriends they met on friendster.com.

ANTM update: all the black people are crying again. I have no idea why.

The great American pasttime

Men look at staple guns and think of sex. I look at staple guns and think of baseball. Most women frame their lives by what they wore. Pivotal moments can be summoned in seconds if you just jog their memory with something like, "Yellow cashmere, donna karan skirt, chanel perfume." Or sometimes even the song that was playing on the radio can do it.

I remember who the Yankees were playing.

I liken my jeans to the starting pitching rotation. This was a rebuilding year, definitely. I used to have 2 go-to pairs and 3 crappy pairs. But now I have 2 ace starters (for general power nights), my Tanyon Sturtze long-relief jeans (a solid choice for any occasion), and my Mariano jeans (for must-win date scenarios.)

I hate sports metaphors and yet I'm like a walking cliche. Except for the fact that I get inexplicably enraged when people use the expression "come on! step up to the plate!" Because people say it to mean "take the initiative, be brave, etc etc." BUT WHEN A BATTER STEPS UP TO THE PLATE IT'S BECAUSE IT'S HIS TURN! HE DOESN'T HAVE A CHOICE. Ok, I guess you could argue he has somewhat of a choice. He could just crack open a beer and say to hell with this, and then turn his batting helmet into one of those frat boy beer hats with the tubes. But seriously. When was the last time you heard Tim McCarver say, "Delgado's on deck. God, you gotta admit, this guy just is FEARLESS. Look at him! I mean, he's already taking practice swings, and I tell you, this is a guy who truly knows what it means to step up to the plate." Actually I could see someone saying that about Jeter: "HOLY SHIT IT'S A GRAND SLAM BY A ROOKIE FOR CHRISSAKE! HIS FIRST AT BAT! BUT LOOK OVER AT THE BATTING BOX AND IT'S NO SUPRISE HERE WHO THE REAL HERO OF THE NIGHT IS! DEREK JETER, LADIES AND GENTLEMAN, IS ALREADY GETTING READY TO TAKE HIS AT BAT. THIS IS A HALL OF FAMER RIGHT HERE, FOLKS." I may have heard that scenario I think because as I was typing it, I realized it didn't sound that far-fetched.

31 days til opening day. I may or may not implode just thinking about it. I get chills even. But I've been getting chills a lot lately. I was listening to this bizarro techno mix thing that used all these clips from the 2000 subway series, and I was getting chills. Then that song from the end of Teen Wolf came on (Wiiiiiiiin in the endddd, I'm gonna win in the end!) and I got chills again. Basically I can get chills from anything from The O.C. to hearing We Are the Champions to watching reruns of old opening days on espn classic (I could understand playoff classics, opening days is pushing it). So now I think maybe I'm just always really cold? I wonder if when baseball starts I'll warm up. Sounds like a good movie premise to me. The story of one girl who spent all winter being cold and emotionless and then her icy exterior melted when baseball season started again. And she meets a guy during baseball season and they start dating but the big conflict is what happens in November when the season's over? Will their love be strong enough to survive "THE OFFSEASON: The Winter of Her Discontent"?? That has lifetime movie of the week written all over it.

My cat Mariano Rivera is sleeping, and he's clearly having a nightmare. (ooohh, he can be my sidekick in the movie, like a barometer of my emotions!). He keeps twitching and stuff. I wonder if that's what real Mo does in the bullpen when he's sleeping during the game.

Up next: margaritas and mint chocolate chip ice cream

So I finally bit the bullet and decided to jump on the bandwagon of this whole blogging thing. My only problems with the concept of blogging:
1.) people who are like insanely intense and share all this stuff about themselves. Weird. I feel very bizarre reading about how jenny sometimes want to kill herself and matthew thinks that he may be in love with someone but that he might love cocaine more.
2.) EVERYONE has a blog these days. I can't decide which route I want to go to. I can either make this awesome and like one of those blogs that everyone wants to read. If I go this route, I'm going to make it so charismatic and biting and brilliant that Bill Simmons is going to get a run for his money. I'm SO TIRED of everyone falling over themselves to write like the Sports Guy. Newsflash: every. single. guy. writes. and thinks. like the sports guy. All of 'em. More on that later. On the other hand, I'm thinking I just started this whole blogging thing because my hands get tired from handwriting furiously in my journal every night.
Back to my rant. So. Sports guy. Hilarious dude. No question. Insanely good writer. But transparent, nonetheless. And the Sports Gal may or may not have sprinted to the top of the list of the Catholic Church's Top 10 People Who Get Dibs on Immediate Canonization. It's kind of like how Mariano Rivera is going to the Hall of Fame roughly 2 minutes after he retires. If only you could bet on things like the over/under on the combined time between the two...
One can only dream.