mr. shaw, i presume you've met mr. shank

damn, it's been a whiley while.

sometimes when you don't post anything for a long time you start questioning the merits of having a b-log in the first place. like, the world seems to be doing fine in the two months since i last posted, maybe i should just say fuckitall and leave this behind so i can concentrate on other more important crap.

but this time wasn't really one of those times -- this time i always felt like the next post was right around the corner and i was excited to make it. unfortunately work kept pounding me with body shots against the ropes and i haven't been able to wrestle myself free for an instant.

even now, time is short. starting tomorrow i have two weeks of concentrated hell at work. it's the final two weeks of the season and it's gonna take a hail mary or two just to get through it. fuck. and no hiatus after that, either. straight from hell into an extended shawshank -- something between 2 and 6 weeks at the old job. i am actually looking forward to it.

in the middle of all of this i have to decide what to do about next year. should i continue to allow myself to be victimized by 15 hour workdays and constant work-related anxiety? probably i should, right?

no, i don't think so.

i have my year-end review on thursday and some things need to be said. demands, complaints, sighs. it's going to be a shockingly uncomfortable 25 minutes. the good news is that as far as i am concerned, there can only be two outcomes. i get a much better deal for next year or i am done. no hard feelings towards anyone in particular, just that if a job can take as much out of a person as this one's taken out of me, there has to be some kind of reward.

i am ready for either of those two outcomes.

here are some things i've done, thought about, or encountered in the last month or two:

did you guys see this colbert-o'reilly thing last week?



that is pretty awesome -- I am really impressed that they can crank out stuff that joke-packed and good on a daily basis.

on the other end of the spectrum is this:


I just don't get olbermann. i thought he was lame and annoying on sportscenter, and now he's still lame but he's also taking himself too seriously. he's trying so hard to be provocative yet somehow he still manages to be boring. he talks like one of those guys who's real smart but too nerdy to be appealing on television, but when you listen closely he's just stating lowest common denominator obvious shit that's been said before. he's not smart, he's not interesting. he's just not good. he gets all worked up and then he never delivers any good blows. how can you tell the president to shut the hell up and still seem like a megadork? ask olbermann. i hate him the way i hate klosterman.

we had our wrap party at work. it was pretty fun, i got a few drinks in me and narrowly avoided stupid behavior. man it's easy to do stupid things when you are drunk. luckily this time i wasn't that guy. one nice thing was that a lot of drunk people came up to me and said incredibly nice things like, you've made this year bearable, you're one of my favorite dudes, etc. i couldn't help but agree with them.

one guy started talking about my dad being in heaven watching us. i know he meant well but it was pretty weird talk for an office party.

the yankees suck. i had meant to say that at the beginning of the year: "the yankees are gonna suck." i would have been right. i am not a girardi lover but i don't blame him for the slow start. you got stinky old dudes getting stinkier each year, and who do you bring in to make it better? nobody. they didn't bring in anybody at all. name one guy on this year's team who wasn't there last year and can be reasonably expected to make them better. you can't. now name a guy who they already had who you'd expect to be better than last year. maybe a couple of those young pitchers, but that's far from a sure thing. how did they expect this to work? time to get out the gold card and start buying some new dudes.

i read another book, it was good: play it as it lays. took about three hours. i am in an early 1970s state of mind. maybe i need to grow my stache back.

i got in a cab one night after a horrible day at work and sat down. i absentmindedly asked the driver how he was doing, just out of politeness.

"terrible," he said. "i got prostate cancer and i'm pissing in this bag (turns around in seat and shows me bag), i got 39 electrodes in my ass and i gotta sit all day. i can't get a fare this time of night, it almost doesn't even pay to stay out and work. i don't know what i'm gonna do. i was in the garment business but it went to shit. maybe i'll write. i have like three unpublished novels at home. steinbeck wrote a bunch of duds before he made it, too."

at least they don't bang interns

So the Yankee season is over. Disappointing, yes, but not surprising. It was a tough year and to be honest I take great satisfaction that they even made it to the postseason. The team's second half surge provided my pop with a lot of happiness in what has been a pretty sour year for him, and for that I am grateful. If you want to call it a rebuilding year, it would have to be considered one of the best. And certainly the most expensive.

As for the Cleveland series, well, they just beat our asses in. They made all the important plays; we fessed at every opportunity. Their dudes did what they were supposed to do; our guys crawled around like a bunch of scared little twerps and failed to produce at the important moments. It was easy for me to accept defeat as a fan because I never for a second felt like we deserved to win. I think Cleveland is a better team and proved it pretty conclusively over the four games.

The season is over and now it's time for a little post-mortem. In twenty minutes, here we go:

1. Torre -- although I disagree with a lot of what he does, I like having him as manager. He got a lot out of this screwy team. That said, it's time for him to go. He's pushing 70, he doesn't need to listen to any more shit from the press or Steinbrenner or Kenny Lofton (who, like most of us, is far more irritating without a moustache). He should retire with dignity and let somebody else clean up the mess.

2. Jeter -- he kind of crapped his pants in the postseason after a typically solid Jeter year. He's starting to show some wear and tear, he hasn't reached a ball more than five feet in either direction of where he's standing in about six years, and he may have given Jessica Alba herpes. I'm kind of over him.

3. Bernie -- oh shit what happened to Bernie?

4. Giambi -- rarely hits the ball. Cannot catch the ball. Don't even think about asking him to throw the ball. Not worth the trouble. Wait, is he still under contract next year?

5. Kevin Brown -- should stay out of town if he knows what's good for him.

6. Posada -- he must have taken some -- ahem -- contract-year steps to improve his performance in his mid-30s, and they paid off. Huge year at the plate but his defense continues to decline. He is a catcher in name only -- he can't block pitches in the dirt, he doesn't relate well to pitchers, he doesn't position himself correctly on plays at the plate. He throws OK once in a while but he really should be DHing somewhere next year. I'd be happy with him as our DH but not at the price he'll want.

7. Melky -- fell apart at the end of the year but I think he's going to be very good. It's nice having a CF who can throw for the first time since...I was a fan?

8. Cano -- still a little cocky but he can hit. I predict a .330 season next year. Needs to get his body in front of hard hit grounders instead of trying to stab them with his glove.

9. A-Rod -- if he goes, we'll need to sign like three guys to replace him, and that might actually be a worthwhile financial decision if that's how we go. Still, he was incredible this season. He was 80% of why we made the postseason. I don't love him but I like 54 HR's. And we share a fondness for female bodybuilders.

10. Matsui -- pretty good. Not great. Kind of goofy. Likes porn.

11. Damon -- came alive after a crappy, injury-filled year. He's getting older but I like him a lot, especially in LF. He seems like he'd be fun to play with. Needs to hit .300 next year, preferably with a Munsonesque Moustache.

12. Farnsworth -- more like Farnsworthless. Ha!

13. Mariano -- definitely not what he was a few years ago but Cleveland still wasn't able to hurt him in the postseason. Another tough decision -- worth bringing back but not for the amount of money he'll probably get. He gets my vote for greatest Yankee since 1970.

14. Wang -- he's pretty good but that postseason was inexcusably atrocious. He'd be a fine number 2 starter. In fact, he pitched like number 2 tonight.

15. Moose -- cut the Moose loose. I like him but it's really hard to watch him pitch. He'd be a good addition the booth.

16. Joba -- as far as the starter/reliever debate goes, I fall on the side of whatever will make a devastating arm injury less likely. Probably closer. The kid is so perfect that I can't help but think something really bad is gonna happen to him -- he has arm and weight problems in his past, too. I think he will be shut down next August.

17. Hughes -- a solid start to his career. I think he'll be our #3 next year and win around 15 games.

18. Pettitte -- a good signing and I think he's got a couple years left. But not a #1 unless he juices.

19. Clemens -- how stoopid does Suzyn Waldman feel now?

20. Abreu -- I am torn between appreciating his patience, defense and speed and wondering why the hell he only hits .280 with 16 HR's. He's a very nice player stuck in a franchise player's body.

21. Cashman -- although he kind of left us without a reliable pitching staff this year, I am happy he didn't get rid of the young dudes to get a big name. Clemens was a huge whiff, but I guess it's just money.

Overall I'm looking forward to next year but I'm feeling sad to see this year's team go so quietly. And the thought of a Boston championship makes me want to lay in bed with the covers over my head.

the crack of the bat, the crispness of autumn's first breeze, and the throb of a $9 beer headache

So I went to the Yankee game on Saturday with Chris H. Fine gentleman, he is. He has a ticket package which gets him his two seats for every Saturday home game all year except like one or two. The seats were pretty sweet, towards the front of the upper deck between home and first base. Here is what we were looking at:

It was a great place to watch the game, and numerous foul balls were hit right near us. One came off Jeter's bat and landed in the hand of the guy two seats over from me, the closest I've ever come to getting a ball. I even reached out for it and was probably only a foot short. They let us hold it -- check out the paint/pine tar from Jeter's bat:

After touching the ball I began to wonder if I had contracted herpes from it.*

Unfortunately my dad had a crappy weekend with his health. I am hoping he feels better on Monday. In the meantime, I will post this picture -- I took it after I snuck down to the lower deck for the 9th inning. The story goes that my pop was in L.A. working on a show in the summer/fall of 1980, and he became homesick for NYC almost immediately. The man doesn't even drive. Anyway, he was sitting in his hotel room watching the Royals and Yankees in the 1980 ALCS, and as they go to commercial, the director takes a shot through the right field stands of the 4 train going past the stadium on the elevated track. It was at that moment that he knew he needed to come home. I wish the pic was better, but it goes out to my pop and the city he adores:

Fucking George Brett.

It was great to hang with Chris H. -- I learned a lot of things about him that I never knew:

1) He has an identical twin.
2) He is/was a really good basketball player. Apparently he and his bro were a deadly backcourt combo in high school. He said his strength was beating his man off the dribble, and I can see that. He's still a quick mother. Oddly, he stopped playing in recent years, sort of because he feels like he is a shadow of his old self and that ruins the experience for him. Same thing happened to our friend Jonah -- he was once awesome, and then when he was no longer awesome, he quit playing. I guess no longer being awesome at something could be depressing. Luckily I've never been awesome so the 50% decline in my skill level doesn't really bother me that much. My goal is to get Chris H. onto the court at some point this fall. We got Pete out there, now it's Chris's turn.
3) He grew up near Syracuse but was not present when Derrick Coleman walked into a bar, proffered a fistful of condoms to the crowd, and said, "Who wants to get fucked tonight?"
4) He and his wife have a swanky pad in Jersey City with a rooftop deck thing. And two strippers just moved in down the hall from them.
5) His favorite expression is "Game reckanize game."

Pete B. asks about my throry that postseason baseball is really just a lottery for the good teams. All I mean is that 162 games is a far greater measure of how good a team is than 3, 5, or 7 games. In football and basketball, I think that the best team will win a playoff game/series like 90% of the time. You can physically overpower your opponent. If you are superior, it will become apparent. Baseball is a different game. It's the type of game where the Devil Rays could easily take 2 out of 3 or even 3 straight from the Red Sox or Yankees, based on a couple of timely pitching performances, a few clutch hits, maybe a blown call or a bad bounce. And the same thing can happen in the playoffs. Look at St. Louis last year. They won only 83 games and then won the WS. And does anyone really think they were a great team? They outscored their opponents by 19 runs over 161 games. They were dead average and got into the postseason by virtue of playing in a shit division. Then they got hot at the right moment and went 11-5 in October. That was an extreme example but the point is that baseball is just a really unpredictable game and the best team does not always win. It doesn't mean we should get as excited for division titles and 100 win seasons as we do for WS wins, just that we should be aware of the fact that anything can happen in a short series. And we should respect the great teams that don't go all the way.

Like a lovesick dork who keeps getting shot down by the hottest girl in school and coming back for more, I am oddly excited about the approaching NBA season.

* This bad, sorry, lame, Peter Vecsey-level joke assumes the reader's familiarity with this horrid, unfounded, and vicious rumor.

just like keith hernandez

We are coming out of the tunnel at work. I can feel it. The nights are slowly getting shorter. There is hope. There is laughter. There are awkward fist-bumps and calm coffee runs.

And, lucky me, I love the people I work with. Strong citizens of the world. Team players. Sarcastic, angry, prone to swearing, but righteous in their hearts and committed to the job at hand.

Plus, I have discovered one antidote to the long hours and the completely unexciting pay: I have begun openly drinking beer at work.

Here's how it goes: once the higher-ups filter out, around six or seven, I have decided it is officially OK to drink beer. Not a lot, just a couple. Maybe just one, depending on how precise my work has to be on that given night.

Even the higher-ups drink wine on certain occasions. My beer drinking is practically sanctioned. I might shotgun one at my desk tomorrow.

It makes things more better. Although it isn't helping me get skinny, and I have a big red gin blossom on the bridge of my nose.

Whatever, I am drinking beer at work. I got no worries. Are you drinking beer at work? You should be.

Although the other day I was in the middle of a beer and I left it somewhere in the office and was unable to find it. I don't think that's very smart. It's not Nancy's house party on the corner of Bassett and West Mifflin, it's a place of business and some people there don't even drink on the job. Keep track of your beer, son.

I think it is now just about safe to say that the Yankees will make the playoffs (I might regret that, but I doubt it) and if so, it has been the most enjoyable season in years. Well played, Yankees. Joe Torre, go win us a WS and step aside with dignity and grace. Mike Mussina, keep sprinkling the HGH on your wheaties for another month and then disappear. I still think it's a flawed team with only one and a half reliable pitchers, but the bats are scary and if they get hot they could do a little damage. As anyone with half a brain can tell you, the playoffs do not necessarily measure anything more than luck, timing and luck. Sad as it is, the best team does not always win. The regular season, 6 months long, full of twists and turns and injuries and slumps and underage girls from the hotel lobby and angry wives and bad food and long flights and 81 performances of "Cottoneye Joe" and repeated offenses of ignorance and malice by the sports media who read way more into every loss and win than they need to and clubhouse music arguments and facing every team a whole bunch of times, while less romantic and exciting than the postseason, is a better indicator of who is good and who is not. Consider the playoffs a fun little lottery that the best teams get to play in as a reward for being good for half a year.

Do you ever hear about something and you know you'll like it because it's right in the middle of your wheelhouse, and you get embarrassed at how predictable you are, so you don't check it out? That's how I was with The Hold Steady. Everything I heard about them excited me and reminded me of my own lameness. From Brooklyn via Minneapolis. Replacements fans. Springsteen comparisons. Nerdy emphasis on lyrics. I was ashamed of them and of myself. And then I broke down and I iTuned all their records. And I like 'em a lot. Dammit. The singer's speaky style gets super-annoying sometimes but overall I'm digging that shit.

This goal is 10 feet, bitches:

Photo by PBdotC

stripperless saturday

My old friend BNew is getting married in a few weeks, so we celebrated on Saturday with an all-day bachelor affair that covered 3.1 boroughs. Stop 1 was the Yankee game. It was hot as hell outside, but luckily Deion had us covered with some shade-heavy loge seats.

In the first inning, A-Rod hit his 500th homer. I got a (very blurry) picture but later I drunkenly deleted it. Here is the celebration right afterwards. The dudes on the team seem to genuinely like the guy, although Jeter was reportedly spotted on the bench doing sudoku while all this was going on. Rookie stud Phil Hughes got the start, and he was blowing 'em away for the first couple of innings. Stupid Chant Grandmaster Deion and I agreed that it's been a long time since the Yanks had a player with two such rhymable names as "Phil Hughes." It's exciting. We had "Come on Phil, you're the king of the hill," "Come on Hughes, make 'em sing the blues," "Come on Phil, toss that pill" and a bunch of others that showed promise.

The only problem was that Hughes ran out of steam early, and despite being staked to a big lead, let the Royals all the way back to 6-6. This led to a more somber chant:

Luckily, the Yankee bats kept pounding, and we walked away with a 16-8 win. After a stop at Deion's where we refueled our brains and bellies with liquor, it was off on an hourlong drive through the Bronx and Brooklyn. We may have even dipped our toes in Queens for a minute or two. Bachelor BNew was taking it easy on the booze and was nice enough to drive. We cranked up the stereo, opened up that hybrid engine and tore through the pseudo-highways and backstreets of America's finest town. I was pleased with myself for calling shotgun on such a long ride.

After we stopped at the Puma's house so Bnew and Puma could pants up for our fancy Brighton Beach dinner, we got back in the car. I nailed the shotgun call again after a spirited sprint with Deion, but he made a sexy face so I let him have it for our ride to Stop #2: Coney Island.

We met up with DLee outside the Cyclone at around 8:15. Coney Island was gorgeous: a bright, bustling scene full of people from every race, class and hairstyle. I couldn't get enough of it.

I pursued some of my own fun before we even hit the rides. Shit like this used to be easier, but now it's got an element of possible disaster that makes it more exciting.

The Puma muscled up to make sure the locals knew to stay back.

I was drunk. I was talking bullshit at a mile a minute and soaking in the greatness of Coney Island, NYC, USA.
We only had about 20 minutes to kill, which proved to be enough time for one thrilling ride on the Cyclone. That shit is intense, especially with about 8 beers inside ya. Ask Pete and Lara.

We had to hustle to get to Brighton Beach for our 9pm reservation at Tatiana's. Maybe we should have just eaten Nathan's instead.

We got to Tatiana's and there was some confusion about our reservation. Apparently they couldn't find it in the book. Probably my fault, but we didn't let it get us down. We sat outside and ate like kings for $45 a head. Deion put on a courageous display of vodkanian machismo and got a little sleepy as a result.

DLee ordered up some awesome food for all of us, and kept the booze flowing.

There are certain rules you should always follow in life. Never buy weed from a guy with less than two Pierres in his name, and stay the hell away from vodka with bears fucking on the label.
As someone who has stepped in and ruined many other people's photos through the years, I salute this guy.

We headed down to the beach after dinner, but it was cordoned off. No matter -- DLee is as spry as a 25 year-old.
My trip down ended with a grotesque Kerry Strug landing, but I was no worse for the wear, other than some sand in my pants and in the ridges of my cell phone. We coaxed a sleepy Deion down to the beach.
We briefly considered going in the water. That would have been dumb. I'm usually in favor of dumb.
Instead, we went back to Coney Island. It was less crowded but the regulars were still doing their thing.



Reason #1328 that Coney Island is better than your amusement park: they don't close the place down until all the customers have had enough. I asked 'em how late they were open, and the guy was like, "We'll see." We got back there around midnight and it was still kicking. We went for like 5 more cyclone rides and abused the hell out of each other on the bumper car circuit. We only got turned away from one ride due to intoxication, and it looked like it had a high probability of barf-inducement, so it was just as well. We were getting pretty ugly at this point.

Me and DLee went on Topspin. It was pretty fierce, although I was such a babbling lout at this point that I was acting like only a hero could conquer it. "Let's do this, people," I shouted down the line to a bunch of unimpressed teenagers.

On the way out, we rode the cyclone like four more times. Tickets cost $6 a person, unless there's no line, in which case you can ride again for $4 cash.

Happy Bachelor Party BNew, and here's to your future!

Thanks for putting up with everything with a smile on your face.

***

Excellent iPhone captions last week. 25 points to the winner, Isired, with his caption of "Yeeeaaahhh!! I got my 2008 paperweight today! Who's next?"

I liked 'em all, and inxe's simple "My life is complete" summed it up perfectly and gets 19 GP's.

how old am i?

Still tallying up the votes for iPhonedorkdat, and you can still send in any new captions you come up with.

I was just thinking: in every idiotic baseball announcer's mind, it is clear as day that a pitcher wants to avoid walks. They quote the old "leadoff walk scores xx.y% of the time" stat to illustrate this. Never mind that leadoff singles probably score the exact same % of the time and leadoff doubles even more, triples more than that and home runs close to 100% of the time. The basic argument "walks=bad" is a sound one. Walks = baserunners. Walks = not outs. Avoid walks, pitchers!

So if even the most narrow-minded, conventional baseball bullshit announcers/managers/GM's can grasp this, why are they often unable to apply the opposite rule for hitters? Hitters who walk a lot are more valuable than those who walk less. I mean, I guess everybody gets this by now, but announcers still talk about guys who never walk and end up with .326 OBP's as valuable commodities just because they hit .280 (see Juan Pierre). This is wrong. The walk is where it's at. I knew it when I was 13.

I had a million dollar idea today, although it probably already exists:

howoldami.com

It's similar to amihotornot.com. You would post a picture of yourself (or soomebody else) and site visitors would vote on how old they thought you were. Once they voted, they could see your actual age and the average guess.

For instance, howoldami (only guess if you don't have any idea)?

This would be fun shit, yes? I could start this thing, sell some smut ads in the sidebar, and retire in like 8 months.

Although I'm sure it already exists. Dammit.

Edit: Curiosity got the better of me and I checked the url. It exists, and it's almost exactly what I thought it would be. Just like the Bears.

jack don't know jack

I should have known better.

After all the horseshit that's come out of my mouth in bars over the years, I should have known not to trust that old drunk Jack in the bar the other night.

His trivia question: who was playing RF for the Yankees when George Brett hit the infamous pine tar homer?

My answer: Don Mattingly (a guess)

Jack shook my hand and said nice job, nobody ever got that one before. I beamed. And I stupidly posted his question as a challenge for you fine people.

Only problem is, Jack was full of shit. Mattingly didn't play RF in that game, according to the box score. He pinch hit, played first base, and, in a sarcastic gesture from Billy Martin, played second base in the second part of the game that the Yankees were forced to play a month later when the AL upheld the Royals' protest. He did play RF in the game just prior to this one.

So who was playing RF? Well, both Piniella and Kemp played RF that day -- Kemp started in left but moved to right at some point. As to who was there when the ball went out, well let's just do a quick youtube search and we'll dig this up...uh, hold on...what's that? you say the video has been removed from youtube after a judge cited it in his ruling and the attention this brought got the video taken down...? Shit. Internet masters, we need you to dig this up. Genius points are at stake.

(Edit: A closer look at that box score indicates that the Yankees brought in Jerry Mumphrey as a defensive replacement to start the top of the 9th, with Winfield moving to left and Kemp moving to right. So 12 genius points go to B. New, he was the first to guess Kemp. Strange that the real answer turns out to be my favorite player at the time, and I didn't guess him. Also, note that Mumphrey was due to bat in the second half of the game but he'd already been traded to the Cubs...why didn't they fly him in?)

I should have known Jack was full of crap -- he also said he was at the second part of the game. I said, wow, that was crazy, only a couple thousand people showed up, it only lasted a few minutes, right? Jack said, no, it was game 1 of a doubleheader so we all stayed.

I knew that was wrong. I knew there was no other game scheduled that day because Graig Nettles talked about in his book. That was the Yankees' only scheduled day off for like a month, and when the league told the team they'd have to play the final 4 outs on that day, the players took a vote and (unanimously) decided not to play. They would rather have forfeited the game, in the middle of a pennant race, than show up and try to scratch across a run. Somebody (Steinbrenner?) stepped in and said, Get your asses to that stadium, so they ended up playing. Although Martin made a farce of it, God Bless him.

Here is some more cool shit about that game.

***

I took my pop in for a couple of doctor's visits in Manhattan the other day. He's in a wheelchair now so we booked a car service to take us from his Brooklyn apartment into the city. On the way back, we decided to take a cab to save time. We were standing there hailing away, me on foot, him in the chair, 85 degrees outside, for like 15 minutes. In that time, THREE open cabs just drove right past us, pretending not to see us. They clearly didn't want to deal with the wheelchair, which is actually a snap to fold up and put in the trunk.

To those cab drivers, I say:

I know your job sucks. Low pay, danger, bad hours, unhealthy working conditions, stress, aggravation, etc. I am sorry for this. I salute you for working so hard and so thanklessly, all so that your kids may have a better life than you did. I thank you for not becoming muggers or drug dealers instead.

But...when you refuse to pick up an 80 year-old man in a wheelchair on a hot summer day, well, that entitles me to say go fuck yourself. That entitles me to say, here's to you being treated like shit when you are one day old and sick yourselves. May cabs drive by and spray gutter sludge in your faces. And at that moment, may you remember what douchebags you were when you were young.

We finally got home to his apartment and I was taking a leak when I noticed a big ol' fly buzzing around the bathroom. I was thinking, "You know, I should really get rid of that shit-eating, germ-carrying fly. But I am so tired I don't have the energy to chase it around."

Plus, the pussified vegetarian in me does have a problem (only a slight one) killing insects. I do it all the time, but I admit I somehow feel cosmically accountable for it. After all, the fly is just minding his business, sharing the earth with me and you and our friends.

I just kept pissing and pondering what to do, when suddenly the fly flew directly into my urine stream and was sprayed right down into the toilet. Poor little bastard was probably in deep shock. He started trying to swim his way out, the little fighter, but I quickly flushed his ass out to sea.

What does this mean (25 points)?

In other news, my monthstache seems to be growing on me.

jack grows old in a bar

Do you ever find yourself playing out entire conversations in your head before they even take place? It usually happens with one of those talks you don't want to have. You'll think, "OK, so I'm gonna tell the boss I need one more day to finish the Hanrahan report, and of course he'll be like, 'I already gave you an extra day,' so I'll say, 'yeah, but the time frame you gave in the first place was unrealistic, and a lot of other stuff came up,' and he's such a dick he'll inevitably say something like, 'stuff comes up all the time for all of us, that's no excuse,' and I'll be like, 'well it's not done, what are you gonna do, fire me?' and he'll be like, 'you're goddamn right I'm gonna fire you,' and I'll get fired. Shit."

Then you'll go into the boss's office and be like, "Um, is it possible I could have one more day to tweak a few things on the Hanrahan report?" and he'll be like, "Sure, take your time, turn it in when you're ready."

And you'll wonder why you wasted so much time thinking about stupid stuff.

It happened to me the other day. I was having a tough day, and to be honest every day has been tough lately. And I started thinking about how good to me Ma Bungle's been. And I decided, you know what? Ma Bungle could use some flowers. So I stopped and got her a nice little bouquet and I started walking home.

There is a little concierge service that handles packages and dry cleaning and stuff for Stuy Town and Peter Cooper and the surrounding neighborhood. It's a crappy little place but it's useful and all the guys in there are pretty nice. I had to stop by there to pick up a package after I had bought the flowers, and I was already dreading the inevitable small talk. I'd walk in with the flowers, and of course some comedian would say:

"So, what'd ya do?" (referencing the generally accurate belief that the only time a man gets his woman flowers is when he has fucked up badly)

I came up with what I thought was a good response line and walked in. To my disappointment, nobody cared about my flowers and nobody said anything. I got my package and headed home.

As I was entering my apartment building there were two guys who live on my floor (one about 50, one about 75) outside having a conversation. I nodded hello and walked past them.

One of them muttered something so I pulled off my headphones and asked him to say it again.

"So what'd ya do?" said the 75 year-old, eying my flowers.

"It's not what I did, it's what I'm GOING to do," I said, possibly winking although probably not. They both laughed knowingly at my vaguely suggestive joke. I was proud.

That thing I ended up doing was going to the terrible bar right outside Stuy Town and slurping down a few delicious Buds with Joe née Monkeyweb. It was cold beer, depressing clientele, and lots of baseball talk. Our conversation ended up spilling over into the rest of the bar, which up to that point had been engaged, apparently, in their own baseball talk.

There was an old Yankee fan there named Jack. Jack was probably 60, full of stories and trivia, and he seemed fairly certain that he was The Fuckin' Man. He was one of those guys who preferred that everybody gave him their devoted attention whenever he spoke, and if you did that, maybe you could throw in a few words of your own if time allowed.

He and a couple of other dudes were having a friendly debate about who was the most 'money' pitcher of all-time (loosely defined as the guy you'd want pitching if you had to win one game -- one guy said, 'you know, the guy you'd want to start game 7 of the world series,' to which joe replied, 'wouldn't game 6 be more important if you were down 3 games to 2?' which made everyone scratch their heads). They had the whole discussion sort of confused, though. Some guys were naming a pitcher and a year -- Hershiser '88, for example -- while other guys were talking about a pitcher's entire body of work.

Here were some names thrown around:

-Hershiser '88
-Guidry '78, my suggestion, and I quoted this rather amazing fact about that season for the 19th time: in the span of four starts in September of '78, with every game a must-win (literally, remember they ended up in a tie with Boston), Guidry pitched three 2-hit shutouts, including 2 against Boston.
-Bob Gibson
-Sandy Koufax
-I drunkenly threw in Babe Ruth
-Walter Johnson (I said something sarcastic when his name came up, like 'come on, he probably only threw 75 mph')
-Somebody said Gooden which seemed stupid
-Somebody said Clemens which also seemed kind of stupid
-I threw in Mike Scott '86

And there were a few others. The discussion slowly dissolved and talk turned to the 2007 Yankees. Jack had looked at the upcoming schedule and decided the Yanks needed to go 16-4 in the next 20 games to have a shot at the postseason. I drunkenly nodded. I made a mental note to get more into baseball for the rest of the year, with the Yanks hopefully making a push for the playoffs (or not).

Jack asked me his stumper trivia question, which I answered correctly on a guess, earning his lifelong respect, I believe. The question: when George Brett hit the pine tar home run, what Yankee right fielder watched the ball sail over his head into the seats? 12 GP's for a correct answer, one guess per person.

New softball recap is alive and kicking like Jim Kerr.

O'Malley's Rule: Never Bet with Your Heart

From last Monday through this Sunday, my life was a 168-hour suckfest of the 19th order.

One week, countless humiliations, failures, aggravations, irritations, and anxieties. And I am completely spent now. I look and feel like a zombie with a tequila hangover.

Working a week at my old job was far far more unpleasant than I'd anticipated, and I'd anticipated it being quite unpleasant. It was good to see certain people but others acted like fuckweeds. I'll spare you the details.

I also repeatedly tripped on a stupid bunched-up rubber safety mat that had been improperly installed. This happened like 38 times. Once I actually fell forward and jammed both hands hard on the counter. When you're already in the middle of a crappy day, stuff like that really turns you into a raging maniac. Which for me meant that I muttered a few swear words, phoned in a complaint to the facilities department, and continued my business. But in another universe I stormed out of the room without saying goodbye to anyone, after kicking those who desperately needed it right in the balls.

In the middle of the shittiness of the work situation, I was further tested when Ma Bungle got stuck in Toronto for three days due to bad weather, leaving me to take care of Baby Bungle on my own. Thank God that she's such a good kid. She didn't give me any problems at all. Only a couple times did she even say "Mommy?" as in "Where the fuck is Mommy?" When she did, I would say, "Mommy's at work," and she'd nod and say, "work," like, "wow, mommy works hard for the good of this family and I for one appreciate it." What a kid.

The nanny helped cover some of the extra baby shifts, so on Saturday I rushed out of work to relieve her after what was probably the lamest day in my mediocre career. Not the hardest day but one of the most stressful and unsuccessful. A series of small calamities, some of which were unresolved when I bolted out of there. I hate leaving stuff in the air.

Ma Bungle finally got home at like 2am. Then this morning we had to do some stuff, which we did, and then I wanted to go home and watch some of the Wisconsin game on TV. Of course, a) it wasn't televised here and b) they shit the bed anyway. Serves me right for picking them. On the way home from our errands I stopped for a six-pack of Rolling Rock at the corner deli and the lady behind the counter had to look up the price on the wall (bad sign).

"$13.00," she said.

"$13.00?!?" I said. "I think there's some kind of mistake."

"No, no mistake," she said.

I shook my head and returned the sixer to the shelf. I've been buying Rolling Rock beer in New York City for over 20 years, and I am fairly certain that it is never $13 for a six-pack. The reason I buy it is because it is never $13 for a six pack. For more than five years it was $5.50 at the deli across from my shitbox apartment on East 9th street, although that six-pack was actually a 12-pack that the guy sawed in half to maximize his profits (and give us a good deal at the same time). Generally I don't think it should be more than $7 for a sixer, even at a deli. Although maybe I'm a couple years behind on that. Whatever the case, I went to Gristede's right next door to the deli and picked up a sixer for $7.58, which suddenly seemed like a bargain.

Ma Bungle did bring me back a nice gift from her trip, a pair of swanky headphones (pictured above). I am liking them much better than my previous pair, which occasionally sent mammoth electric shocks through my skull.

I am ready for some spring weather and some Yankee baseball.

The tournament thus far has seemed way suckier than usual. I haven't seen that much but it just seems dull. And somehow CBS only booked college basketball's best play by play man Gus Johnson for the first weekend, replacing him with snooze-inducer James Brown at the Sweet 16. Senseless. And that curmudgeonly prick Billy Packer and his terrifyingly bland partner Jim Nantz will get the big assignments as always. I just don't fucking get it. Sigh. I guess my memo of two years ago fell on deaf ears.

2 points for each thing you suggest that probably annoys Billy Packer, up to ten suggestions per person.