Today, I will make a list of mindless observations. I shouldn't complain about the fact that Tony and the wife leave me little time to sit down and blog, but I just did.
- My Holiday is going this way: I had three days off. I then worked a day. Now I have a day off and most of the next day off till tomorrow evening or maybe the afternoon.
- So many things to note about my son Tony's development. Tony, I should mention, is 13 months old. Or that is the official answer the wife and I give when asked about his age. Tony is interacting in so many new ways. He is giving things to, fighting with, and pointing at others. Looking at him walk, it is hard to believe that only a month ago, he could barely walk at all. Now he is climbing stairs and he can stand himself up without benefit of props.
- It rained heavily last evening. I would have taken the bus home but I needed the bike to get to a dinner party which was on the way home but not on a bus route. Wearing my helmet for the first time when riding, I had to choose whether to put the visor down (I did) or answer my wife calling me on my mobile phone (I didn't till I got under the cover of an overpass and could pull my phone out of a pocket which was under my rain jacket). I went to the new apartment of a German Expat that my friend knows. The apartment was big but because it was built in China, it has issues to be dealt with. With the heavy rain, I heard the stories of how drainage here is poorly dealt with.
- In 1951, Bobby Thompson hit what was arguably the greatest home run in Major League Baseball History. It ended one of the greatest pennant races ever as the New York Giants came back from over 10 games behind the Brooklyn Dodgers. The Giants subsequently lost to the Yankees in the World Series but it is an afterthought to mention it. The accumulation of results over 154 games that lead to a moment that a short seven game series could never replicate. I never fail to get a tingle up or down my leg when I hear the recording of the play-by-play announcer screaming "The Giants win the Pennant! The Giants win the Pennant!". I can't think of any great play-by-play calls where the announcers yell "The Brewers clinch the Wild Card" or the "Padres win the National League West!".
- Someone pointed out to me that the '78 Red Sox were victims because they did after all have a record better than the winner of the American League West that year. But the '78 Sox came in second in their own division. They had 163 chances to prove they were the best and they didn't do it. My argument has always been that pennant races like '51 and '78 would not have happened if teams in second place had been allowed to get playoff spots. Sure you may have more "races" in this day and age. But the increased supply of races MLB has given us has only cheapened the concept of pennant race by allowing also-rans like for example this year's Twins and White Sox to participate in one.
- Baseball is a game built on the a long accumulation of results. The extra round of playoffs runs so counter to the baseball tradition that I have to question whether people who support it like the sport.
- There are lots of roads leading to nowhere in particular here in Wuxi, China. There is one stretch of such road on my way to and from work. Recently, my friend Andy and I happened to drive up and down this road. We saw that workers had been recently employed to trim the bushes neatly along the road and on its meridian. Tiled sidewalks on either side of the road are fifteen feet wide. This road is three lanes either way. It comes to an abrupt end at a field and vehicles, proceeding toward this dead end, have no where to turn around other than a pot holed dirt path fit only for jeeps.
- Tony cut his lip yesterday and bled a lot so that my wife and her friends were wondering if they should take him to the hospital. But, the bleeding stopped and Tony continued to play like nothing had happened. Thankfully, the accident didn't happen on my watch, but my wife's, so I didn't get blamed for it. Did I get mad? No. I ironically noted how Tony only bleeds when my wife is tending him. Knock on wood.
- It is easy to win a debate if you lie or speak half-truths so effectively like Joe Biden did in the debate with Sarah Palin. In the format of the debate, I would have defied anyone to try to parse the mumbo-jumbo Biden was speaking and trying to make a coherent response to it in the short time provided. But, Biden is a veteran at it. And Palin being the outsider and so not up on Washington sophistry, looked like she was evading questions.
- I am spending much of today as a persona not grata in the apartment. I did something wrong and so earned my wife's unforgiving wrath. These occurrences are like a storm that has to be waited out. I just have to make sure the strain does not cause me to respond to my wife's barbed comments in kind.
- The German Expat I know looked at my 30 rmb bike helmet and told me that bike helmets in Germany would cost 100 euros or so. He proudly told me that the motorcycle helmet he had was so expensive because of government regulation. The helmet I bought probably wouldn't have meet German Safety standards and that was why it was such a bargain. My opinion on the role of government in motorcycle safety is this: government's role should be restricted to scrapping the corpses and brains of motorcyclists off the road, and of course enforcing rules of the road. People who ride motorcycles take on risks and I don't see why the government should devote resources to ensuring their safety: let the motorcyclists do it themselves if they care to.
- The highlight of yesterday was Tony greeting me as I arrived at the dinner party yesterday. Jenny and Tony were already there when I arrived. Opening the door, Tony saw me and ran into my arms. A sweet moment that I will of course become jaded by said some unsentimental, cooler-than-thou person I know. Life is an accumulation of trouble punctuated by the occasional nice moment that you should enjoy while you can because it can become in the past and unreattainable very quickly.
- Is being cool and cynical the only value that matters in this age? For example, I have had people tell me that it doesn't matter if Obama wins the election. He will just be a middle of roader when all is said and done. When you try to point out the shady connections in Obama's past, these people just don't care. Why worry about politics?, they tell you, It is a big shell game.
- Speaking of committing the sin of being uncool, I watched another Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers movie a few evenings ago. Tony caught a scene where Astaire was dancing away and tried to imitate it. I like those movies and I will return to the place in Nanchang market and hopefully find some more.
I'm tired of you insulting my father, who went to his first Red Sox game in 1951. You first insinuate that he isn't a rational person, and now you insinuate that he doesn't even like baseball.
ReplyDeleteYou should be ashamed of yourself. You try to argue with facts, but the facts aren't really there, so instead you insult people who disagree with you. You should take a long look at yourself in the mirror. Is that what kind of person you want Tony to grow up into?
P.S., You seem to be reversing your argument left and right. First you post "How can any rational person like the wildcard." Then you post in a comment, "Call me irrational."
ReplyDeleteFirst you write, "Because of the wild card, the chances of a White Sox - Cubs World Series has actually been lessened. In the pre-wildcard format, the Cubs and White Sox both would have won their divisions. (As would have the Rays and the Red Sox would have been eliminated already.)" Now you call the White Sox also-rans. I'm not sure how anybody can disagree with you, because it looks like you don't even know what you think!
I didn't know your father was a baseball fan and I am sorry to hear he likes the wildcard.
ReplyDeleteI despise the wildcard. To me it was one of the most unnecessary things the mlb ever did. Having second place teams make the playoffs violated a long-standing tradition. The concept was never broke, why should it have tinkered with?
I have to be a stick-in-the-mud about it. The wildcard looks so fait accompli that all I can do is scream to the hills about it. I will do whatever it takes to raise a lather about it. There seems no other way. Other then just giving up on major league baseball altogether.
The week's extra round of playoffs offers only ephemeral excitement that becomes cheaper as time goes by.
Disagreement unfortunately leads to insult or to people taking offence. It happens to me all the time being the only conservative here in Wuxi. It is mostly my habit to hold my punches as it were but no one is perfect. I would like to know if there is one person who hasn't insulted anyone who disagreed with them. I know I haven't meet any. The great William F Buckley lost with Gore Vidal once. The only other person I could think of would be the current U.S. president. Bush has turned the other cheek so often, I have a secret desire he would lash out once. Be that as it may, I apologize if you took offence.
I forgot about the Angels because they had sewn up a playoff spot. Thank you for correcting me on that. But because of that, I have to conclude now that the White Sox and Twins race was between also rans. In the old AL West, the Sox and Twins would have finished over ten games behind the Angels.
The "call me irrational" was what I would call a modesty tag and an acknowledgement that what I had just said was over the top.
One more thing, now that it looks like the Rays and Red will meet in the ALCS, I must say that their pennant race was a non-pennant race. As long as they had playoff spots sewn up, the do-or-die aspect of their AL East race wasn't there which to me, was a shame. Again, races like '78 can't happen. Instead the only races are for teams trying to sew up the fourth playoff spot.
One more one more thing, I would take a long look in the mirror but I'm ugly. Thankfully, Tony looks a lot more handsome than his father, but I would have to attribute that to his mother.