drat fink

Saturday, November 25, 2000

smoke out

Maryland Village Endorses a Ban on Outdoor Smoking

cuba libre

elians revenge: whats going on in dade county?

star bar

Globalization Puts a Starbucks Into the Forbidden City in Beijing

Thursday, November 23, 2000

dig it

Jamestown's Lost Twin (washingtonpost.com)

Tuesday, November 21, 2000

sanity

nice. unanimous...

sock it to me?

lost todays playoff game 10 - 5. a better goalie might have kept our team in the game but for the most part we were outplayed. i didnt make any really bad plays but i could have played better. alot of the goals they scored were those same sharp angles that handcuffed me in the prior game. maybe im overly concerned with shutting down the short angle shot which gives them the opening to go far corner or maybe my reaction time is off. fortunately with 2 minutes to play one of our players accidently tripped someone and for some reason the guy gets up swinging. it was totally uncalled for. it was a foul but it wasnt particularly hard. their player wasnt on a breakaway, he was facing his own goalie. didnt make any sense. one of their players came over later and apologized for his team which seemed to me the right thing to do. but at least it took our minds off how collectively average we played. oh well. most of the team was composed of foreigners on contract work for some internet concerns and will be leaving the country in the next few weeks so it will all soon be forgotten as they set off for trinidad, england, ireland and australia. hopefully the rump from this team and my other team can put together a squad for the winter or possibly the spring.

talking baseball

senate judiciary sub committee hearing on the disparities in payrolls for baseball teams and the effects on competition. i dont know if it will be archived but its presently on the main page at c-span. speakers include bud selig, bob costas and george will.

run for your lives

on abcnews, peter jennings at the end of a piece on the honda humanoid robot noted that honda planned to use its robot for good and not evil.

Monday, November 20, 2000

gone zoo

if this were anyone but hs thompson, id say they were trying to sound like hs thompson. is he just a shadow of his former self or has he just never changed his tune?

beaver cleaver

beaver college updates its name by looking to the past. my favorite rationale for the change, internet childproof filters were screening the college out because of its sexual conotations.

puff dotty

"Were all those journalists looking to prove George W. Bush once had a thing for cocaine barking up the wrong orifice? Former Major League pitcher Bill "Spaceman" Lee would certainly have you think so. Just a few days before the election, Lee, a lefty who pitched for the Montreal Expos and the Boston Red Sox, told the Montreal Gazette he supported Bush because he was his kind of party man. "Back in '73, we rolled a couple of doobies and smoked them together," Lee told the paper. "And I can tell you, he definitely inhaled." It's that kind of rebel spirit Lee, who once claimed he liked to sprinkle pot on his breakfast cereal, believes we need in the White House. "The way things are now," he told the paper, "people just want to party. George W. is the kind of guy you can party with." True? Who knows? But it's certainly nothing to sniff at."

Sunday, November 19, 2000

off with their heads

im sure you all saw the shot of queen elizabeth on a hunt snapping a pheasants neck? it was the only humane thing to do, other than not shooting it.

smack dab

well, lost todays soccer game. on this team i play in goal. 10 - 8 was the final score. cant say it was my fault that we lost but i feel like oi could have played better. i had one egregious error. as the seconds were ticking down in the first half, one of their players was given a clean shot from a few steps inside of half field. to be fair to me noone picked him up and one of our defenders tipped the ball with his foot as it whizzed by. somehow it slithered through my arms and then my legs into the goal behind me. one of my teammates contend that the ball didnt go in until after the buzzer and as i slackened up when i saw three seconds on the clock i tend to believe him. but in any case, despite of the tip, i still should have kept it in front of me. otherwise, i let a few by on very sharp angles but that i could have had a play on. on a few occasions my foot would get caught on the turf as i would try for a kicksave. that was discouraging. i think not eating left me a little lethargic. also, i was late to the fieldhouse. i decide to cab it because it was cold and i was feeling lazy. but i left late and could find a cab for 15 minutes. then the traffic wasnt helping, i got to the field literally seconds before the game started. so it took me about 5 minutes to orient myself to the game. plus its still strange to get into the goalie state of mind. and to be fair to me, our defense wasnt especially good today. their goalie was probably better than me but i bet i had more chances. i also had two fouls called on me, one for a hand ball outside the box and also for a slide tackle outside the box. on both occassions i figured a penalty beats an easy goal and i was right. also a player on their team was called for a yellow card for running into me and i had at least two other hard collisions. so, all in all, i came out standing upright, and i kept my team in the game but i certainly didnt win it. i even stayed to play half a forfeited game for another team who was short players. but i finally ran out of energy and limped out to 9th ave to catch a cab home. playoffs start tuesday. single elimination. so expect me to be grousing or elated around then.