Upon inquiry, I recently re-discovered my baseball roots. It was a book I got way back in 1998, when it came out, and it shaped my becoming of age, alas my real brain awakening (thus the point where I was fully removed from the cesspool that was high school & I was truly born). My eager and young teenage brain was ready for baseball molding. Sure I had followed the sport for 11 years at this point, but it was all sound bytes and forgotten newspaper columns and graphic-challenged baseball video games.

I wasn't going to grow reading Steve Rosenbloom's asinine M-W-F columns on the front page of the Chicago Tribune sports section, and I saw I sure as hell wasn't going to allow getting hogwashed by Ken "Hawk" Harrelson in his hillbilly-redneck rootin'-tootin' banter.

I came across George F. Will's "Bunts: Curt Flood Camden Yards Pete Rose and Other Reflections on Baseball " book, and read it cover to cover. Having not read this since 1998, it's pretty shocking to see how much of a huge influence Will had in my baseball perspective. It's also neat to see how this book was a snapshot in time of remembering what baseball was like at the conclusion of the 1997 season: The Marlins had just won the World Series & horrifyingly dismantled their bastard turd team that they spent $86 million on to buy a Championship, Barry Bonds was making $11 million, a million more than the entire Pittsburgh Pirates team combined, The Diamondback & Devil Rays hadn't made their stink entrance to the game & deluding Major League pitching even more so, Mark McGwire had just hit 58 homeruns and there was speculation that somebody would break that & that it would be broken again shortly, ballpark initiatives were rejected in Minnesota & Pittsburgh, baseball was still reeling from the '94-'95 strike, Roberto Alomar spitting in umpire John Hirschbeck's face, complete lack of revenue sharing, the problem of the difference between the A.L. umpires vs the N.L. umpires, there was talk of radical geographical realignment that would have put the White Sox, Cubs, Brewers, Twins, Cardinals, Astros, Rangers and Royals all in one big division. And managers Dusty Baker (SF) & Don Baylor (COL) were before their Cubs stops where they ruined their careers managing the Cubs.

George F. Will of course is a Conservative (completely acceptable) and a Cubs fan (completely unforgivable) and has a deep knowledge of the game. George F. Will praises that you to respect game, honor those who are honest and hard workers, respect tradition and keep steroid using cheaters & jerks like Pete Rose out of the Hall of Fame. Why should baseball lower itself to be like the other blurred Big 3? It shouldn't. It used to be better for it. Would you want a used car salesman as the head of your sport? I sure as hell wouldn't.

I think it sucks that you can't use the word "sucks" in titles. But I will tell you what sucks: The King of Queens. It sucks! I think Doug Heffernan is the epiphany of everything that is wrong with the 'lazy stupid fat American male'. It's not funny, he's an ass, and it sucks. Sorry (tho not really) but I find fat people pathetic and weak for the situation of health risks they put themselves through. It's time we take responsibility for our actions, suck it up, and go on a diet.



Anyways, The King of Queens is a terrible show. It's terribly written, and from what I've read, the finale blows. I watched this show in hour blocks in syndication for a few years & caught up on them, and suffice to say, I never really laughed once. Sure it had amusing bits once in a while, Carrie gettin' drunk, Holly's idiocy, and Crazy Old Man Screaming Arthur, but nothing gave more than a single "ha", and that was a rarity. Personally I found all of the supporting cast awkward and annoying. And the show came off as 'pretty dumb', as to it was catering to a specific audience. I don't find Stupid Humor funny. The show is just crap. It sucks. Blah. And according to the finale, it seems it was more of a drama and there were no good jokes. Of course, the few dozen or so people who actually watch the show liked the finale. You can find people that will like any ol' piece of crap. There's a turd for every turd. Of course that doesn't apply to Love. Sorry porker's and fugly's.

Anyways, The King of Queens is what we call "hack sitcom". It never earned any respect, it never won anything, nothing was ever gained and nothing was ever memorable. It's basically the Tofu of television. We ask questions like, "is our lives better because of this show?" "Has this show enriched our being?" No and no. And the writers turded out by bringing not one but TWO brats, including one being an adopted one from China. And apparently Arthur divorced his new heifer, so that's that. So Spence and Danny (I find James' real brother Steve Valentine one of the biggest annoying turds to have ever disgraced television) hooked up in their homosexual Love Shack once again. Oh ya, one of the worst things about The King Of Queens, is how sloppy the writing got, and later episodes completely ignored past episodes (I swear they had like 5 different 'When Doug met Carrie' episodes). So…it's finally been put to rest and we can remember life before The King of Queens came on the air. And P.S. .... this show should have never made this long, let alone actually make it to a finale. It should have left alone to rot and unceremoniously end years ago.



Thanks for nothing, Ray Romano.

 

Let's see...

On Friday I had (possibly my first ever) an angus burger from a restaurant.  Didn't notice any real difference at all from the $4 burger with the $9 burger.  Plus I've concluded that regular cheddar just isn't as good as super sharp cheddar.  Regular cheddar tastes like eating a shoe sole.   So I guess from now on, I'm gonna skip the cheddar and go with American or Swiss instead.

Also went to the driving range on Friday, to practice teeing off.  Suffice to say, I wasn't too disappointed with my first ever golfing experience.  Tho I did tend slice the living hell out of most of my drives, they did have some excellent distance (no markers, tho) but I'd say I hit it at least 220 yards, if not 240 to 250.  Hit a bucket of balls with about 60 of them for $7, not bad.   I hooked about 7 and hit about 8 straight.  Also tended to clear the tallest fence on the far right side of me (which technically was there to prevent such things so some houses behind the range there got a little showering of golf balls courtesy of me). Tho i was so god damn sore on Saturday i could barely move; my back and especially legs were killing me.  Sunday was a little better and today I feel pretty good.  I will be driving more this summer and eventually get on the greens.  There's gonna be a group of 2, 3, 4 of us doing this so it should be fun. And like in baseball, i swing right-handed for whatever reason.  Everyone thought I should be a lefty swinger since I throw that way, but this is not the case.  I get all of my power from my right side.

And I have to say, I was never a fan of Molly Shannon.  She's too… aggressive.  She's like all "look at me! Look at me!  Look at what I can do!" like that hyperactive kid you see in the supermarket that you just want to smack it & its mother to the ground.  Tho I'm generally completely sick of every SNLer from the mid to late 90s.  Tho SNL has done a terrible job of scouting the past 13 years, hence why only Will Ferrell has had any kind of post-SNL success. 

And finally, sometimes I just feel like eating junk.  No matter how fattening, greasy or disgusting, I want it.  Senses be damned.  And the choice of my current junk?  The KFC .99 cent Buffalo Snacker.  Spicy breaded chicken, what's not to love about that?  Tho that pepper mayo ain't nothin' to sneeze at, either.  So usually I get one of each.  Tho I wish they'd use better bread for those things.  It's kind of stale and gross.  It's like a thick version of Burger King's crappy-ass ghost-white dry-as-ass buns. 

This list wasn't too hard to dig up.

 

1. The Bus Driver - Get On The Bus & Pay The Fare
2. Turdwad Paul - Forgot My Passport (The Fool On The Hill)
3. The Beatles - Parlophone (Blah Blah Blah)
4. Geroge Harrison - Lost In L.A. Fog (My Friends Forgot About Me)
5. The Beatles - Your Mother Should Know What You've Been Snorting
6. The Beatles - O Untimely Death (Bury Me)
7. The Beatles - Brian Epstein Is Dead
8. The Beatles - Cranberry Sauce (No One Gets Me)
9. The Beatles - Fornicating Fireman and Finger Pie
10. The Beatles - Baby You're A Rich Phag Jew (Brian Epstein Tribute Song)
11. The Beatles - All You Need Is Dope
    

This entry took way, way WAY too long to make. Another inexplicable entry about the Beatle's White album, with info, facts, appropriate reworded, original and relevant titles.

Disc 1

1. The Big 3 (We Hate Ringo) - Back in the USSR, Ripping Off Beach Boys Songs
2. The Beatles - Dear Prudence: Stop Meditating So God Damn Much!
3. The Beatles - The Confusion Song (Glass Onion)
   
4. Paul The Catch-Phrase Thief - Hey Mon! Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da, Mon!
5. Jerk Paul - Wild Honey Pie (What The Hell Were We On???)
6. The Yokeatles - All The Children Sing 'who did you kill?'
7. The Beatles & Clapton (we need hacks) - While My Guitar Gently Weeps At Western Culture
8. The Beatles - Happiness Is A Warm Gun / Mother Superior Jumped The Gun / Happiness Is Still A Warm Gun
9. A-hole Paul w/The Beatles - Martha My Dog
10. John - I'm So Tired Of This S*** of India Meditating / Paul Is Dead (Miss Him)
11. Ego Paul - Crow (The Black Bird Song)
12. George Harrison - Piggies: The Charles Manson Revolution Song
13. Paul McCartney Controls The Universe - Rocky Sassoon (The Gin Song)
14. Ringo Starr - Me First Song: 'Some Kind Of Friendly' (Don't Pass Me By)
15. Drunk & Horny Paul - Why Don't We Do It In The Road
16. Ego Paul - I Will (...Follow The Sun, ver. 2)
17. Solo John - Mummy Julia

Disc 2

 

1. The Beatles - Patti (Clapton) Harrison's Birthday
2. John w/ The Beatles - Yer fock you, Paul) Blues
3. Hippie Paul - Mother Nature's Son
4. The Beatles - Come On, Come On (Everybody's Got Something To Hide Except For Me And My Monkey)
5. The Beatles - Sexy Maharishi (You Duped Us All)
6. The Drunk Beatles - Ringo's Got Blisters (Helter Skelter)
7. George Harrison - Long Long Long Bottle of Blue Nun Wine
8. The Hippies - Revolution 1, The Slow Version Nobody Likes / We Hate Vietnam Wars
9. Focker Paul - Honey Pie Focks A Hard One
10. The Beatles - Savory Truffle Put Holes In Clapton's Teeth
11. The Beatles / Big Ego Paul - Cry Baby Cry / Can You Take Me Back Where I Came From
12. John & Yoko - One Bad Acid Trip (a.k.a Somebody Didn't Lock The Studio That Night / The 9 Worst Minutes Ever / 9 Unlistenable Minutes)
13. Ringo Sings - Good Night Julian Lennon

White Album fact: "Every time I listen to this, I remember eating nachos and drinking fruit punch soda the first few times I listened to it in 1996."

 

 

More deliciously juicy incriminating evidence on steroids in MLB. Article on Rick Morrissey's column today: Chicagosports.com_Rick Morrissey_column


And I quote:

"his name [Radomski] is striking fear in a large number of current and former major-league players. Radomski, a former Mets clubhouse attendant, has admitted to supplying dozens of players with steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs from 1995 to 2005."

And I quote:

"I [Radomski] distributed anabolic steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs, including human growth hormone and Clenbuterol, as well as amphetamines. I deposited the payments for those anabolic steroids into my personal bank account, and then I used the proceeds to finance my residence, which was the base of the operation, warehouse and communications center for my anabolic steroid-dealing business."

And I quote:

"But federal prosecutors say the raid on Radomski's home uncovered hard evidence, including financial records and players' cell phone numbers. Again: uh-oh."

It comes to no surprise to me that players have been juicing in the past two decades. We were all duped. And we'll get to hear even more names linked with 'roids. I find this topic fascinating, even when I was a young athlete. There comes a time in a boy's life whether he decides to be good, or to be bad. I chose to be "good", bulking up the old fashioned way through exercise, throwing, weight lifting & eating steroid-pumped meat & dairy products. Of course, being nick-named "Stretch" has it that all of this didn't allow me to add any bulk, but to be lean and mean. Of course I never took it to the next level with the aid of 'roids, supplements and substances (which will prove that I'll still have a pair of nads in old age). There is an ungodly amount of cheating going on in baseball, and even as a pitcher I never scuffed or gelled up the ball, tho I did cork a bat purely for the novelty of it (hand drilled a 1" hole about 7" deep and stuffed that sucker with cork from the parent's leftover wine corks & sealed it with a cut out piece of cork). Yes corking a bat makes a world of difference: faster swing with a big bat, the ball jumps off the bat quicker tho I never used it in competitive play. The Pro's seal up the cork hole with a piece of wood & scuff up the end to hide it.

I have no longer taken the MLB record book with any kind of regard, (might as well burn it) and will shout "STEROIDS! CHEATER!" when Barroids Bonds breaks Hank Aaron's most cherished sports record. At least Hammerin' Hank did it cleanly, tho while in the two (at the time) tiniest ballparks there were. The only people celebrating the new record will be Barroids and retarded Giants fans, who will put down their margaritas and thick crab sandwich on buttery griddled Boudin sourdough http://www.examiner.com/a-682761~Ballpark_food_hits_home_run.html

So when 755 is broken, at least my rose-colored glasses will remain on the shelf and there won't be any needles breaking in my arm & whatnots.

Let's start with the Overrated.

Overrated:
The 1960s & especially 1967. I think we've heard enough about the stupid 1960s and all that hippie peace love crap. Soon when it hits 2010, the 1960 will be 50 years old. I'm tired of hearing about it & especially the music. At least we'll have the joy of watching the last authentic hippie actually die and finally be freed of the Earth.

Wrigley Field
Tear the dump down. The Cubs have never won anything at Wrigley, and they never will. Fans are getting restless when their ticket prices keep skyrocketing for the same cramped seat in the same tiny dirty ballpark where people piss in a filthy trough. The ballpark is a whole design flaw in itself. It faces straight North, when a ballpark should face Southeast or Southwest. The seats are cramped, there's no room for concessions, hours are spent waiting in line to piss & get food, and I'm pretty sure all the offices & dugouts are outdated, no matter how much renovation they've gone under. And there's something seriously wrong with your ballpark if the weather that MUCH of an X factor. Besides, you know they'll have to tear it down one day. The plan will be to tear down the offices & building & upper deck, while leaving the field, ivy and bricks alone, and play home games in Milwaukee for 2-3 years. The White Sox have already rejected the Cubs to play in the Cell. Heheheh. And besides, it's a new age in sports, and the era of the old & c.lassic ballpark is dead. Ballparks are just mere playing fields anymore and they're designed solely to maximize profits and cater to convenience. Romance is dead. Deal with it.

What I declared:

Get RID of commercials during baseball games! I'm tired of seeing the same god damned commercial 17 times a game! No I won't test drive your crappy car, no I won't drink your cheap pisswater beer and no I won't fly Southwestern Airlines! I'd gladly settle for either a blank screen or pan the stadium or just listen to the announcers talk for 45 to 75 seconds. Imagine uninterrupted baseball games. That'd be sweet.

After much careful consideration, and after have eaten hundreds, if not thousands of burgers, I have finally picked the perfect burger. After considering many, many different ingredients and combinations, I've finally decided. The pattie would be grilled with charcoal and wood chips, that's a given. No thicker than a half inch. The ingredients would be deli-style American cheese & sweet onion. No lettuce, no tomato, no bacon, no mushrooms, no barbeque sauce, no Frisco sauce, no pickles, no Swiss or Cheddar cheese and especially absolutely no mustard or ketchup. For me, nothing ruins food like ketchup. It just takes over the flavor of everything, and the other ingredients are nice but not essential. White bun, fresh and untoasted with no butter or mayo or Miracle whip spread on, pattie with melted American cheese & sliced or diced sweet onion. Simple? Yes. Plain? Yes. Plus a good cheese to meat ratio as well. Some places dress up their bland and tasteless bulky meat with numerous ingredients in an attempt to serve a "quality flavorful burger". But they are wrong.  And remember, use REAL cheese.  None of this Kraft singles / individually wrapped stuff.  Kraft makes horrible products and their cheese is Kraft Krap.

I hope they lose. Cubs suck. Cubs fans are total idiots, too. That said...

 

May 11th the Padres will be having a 1973 Turn Back The Clock game, according to the Uni Watch blog. While I love that color scheme in general, why pick the all-yellow uni???

 

Hmm...more options for blogging now. Hmmm

 

CUBS SUCK!

Hmmm... guess I do have more to say. As well as being a baseball buff, I'm also a Sports Business junkie and a sports uniform buff & designer. Trust me, I like every site that has to do with these things, especially ballpark news and aesthetics discussion and all. But while i love to converse with them and waste time hanging out & dwelling, it seems like my peers largely consum of mostly East Coasters / against all public funding for stadiums / against Native American mascots / angry Liberals.

Look, I say funding a ballpark is just as pointful as funding a theatre or museum. Not everyone is into theatre or museums or parks, so why should sports stadiums be any different? It's bad enough these stupid Liberal protesters scared all these high schools and colleges from changing their Native American mascots, replacing cl.assic & cl.assy names with stupid sh*t like "Wildcats" or "Redhawks" or some stupid animal name. I happen to live on an area where the Natives once roamed, and have visited their culture many times. Not to mention apparently a lot of my friends are part Native American. My high school was/is named "Warriors" with a Native American mascot logo, my hockey team is called the "Blackhawks" with a gorgeous Indian head logo on the sweater, and I happen to like Chief Wahoo & Chief Nockahoma & Chief Illiniwek. You stupid white Liberals b*tching about sh*t that doesn't affect you, and it's proven that a huge majority, at least 96+% of actual Native Americans don't care if they use Native mascots. They're considered team PRIDE icons, not mockery, stupid Liberal idiots. And I consider the "Notre Dame Fighting Irish" to be far more offensive then any Native American mascot, that it implies that Irish people are nothing more than a bunch of angry violent drunks who resort to brutality and destruction of property & beat up women. But has anyone changed the mascot name? Of course not. Common sense prevailed and they realized "it's just a mascot."

I hope nobody enjoyed the Peyton Manning / Carrie Underwood episode of SNL last night. I hope he was booed immensely and banned from the premises.

That said, it’s almost baseball season, hence the Cubs begin season #131, including Season #100 of Futility in a row. The Cubs wasted a lot of money, scouted poorly and will probably finish with a sub .500 record again. But don’t you worry, Cubs fans! They raised your ticket prices at least $2.50! Yaaaaaaayyyyyyy! Cubs suck / Sox rule.

Ah, nothing like getting that first baseball taunt of the Spring. Sweet Lou Piniella has no idea what he got himself into, and well undoubtedly induce that first heart attack sometime in June. Heads up, Lou: Don’t ever count on Mark Prior or Kerry Wood to pitch. Apparently the White Sox pulled another turd-on-your-face trade with the Phillies over the winter. Apparently Freddy Garcia’s velocity is still down like it was last year, and now has a bicep injury. I never had one of those when I pitched, but that can’t be good. Looks like GM Kenny Williams pulled off another damaged goods-for-you trade like with Mike Sirotka with the Blue Jays for yes….Mr Type 2 Diabetes / I Love Beer pitcher David Wells. David Wells is the kind of person who should be riding his motorcycle in the South and tearing apart bars rather than pitching in MLB at the age of 41. Damn you Bud Selig and your pointless expansion further deluding MLB talent.

Hmm what else was I going to say? I tried to eat pizza 5 days in a row, but I couldn’t. Shame on me. For some grilled cheese ideas, I came up with this list:

grilled cheese: bacon
grilled cheese: jalapenos
grilled cheese: onions
grilled cheese: jalapenos and onion
grilled cheese: mushrooms
grilled cheese: with cheddar
grilled cheese: with cheddar & bacon
grilled cheese: turkey
grilled cheese: roast beef
grilled cheese: white cheese w/ garlic, spinach

Basically the possibilities are endless.

I have Tourney Fever, tho stupid f*cking UCLA beat Kansas yesterday, thus ruining my perfectly picked Elite 8 bracket! Damn it, Kansas, you turd-eating bunch of losers! I have Florida beating North Carolina for the championship. Basically, I had: FLA over ORE, KAN over UCLA, OH St. over MEM, & N.C. over GEO. Kansas wasn’t supposed to lose until they played FLA.

Hey! Game’s over! Angels 3, Cubs 2. Cubs lose! Cubs lose! Cubs lose!

And pour that Budweiser down the toilet. Shame on you. Get a lager.

Might as well put this here. Another first for Mp34mp's Test Kitchen. For no absolute reason, I thought of a King of the Hill quote about Chicken Fried Steak, and why the hell I haven't had it in almost a decade, and decided, "I'm gonna make this sh*t."

As stated before, I have no cooking skills and am an amateur cook. Also I had no top-round steak, so substitutions were made. I used a somewhat thin ground beef burger pattie and figured that would be too thick for the oil in the skillet to cook it, so I cooked that first on the skillet. Then the burger was floured, dipped in an egg / milk mix, then rolled in a mix of flour, breadcrumbs, black pepper and some salt, added the oil to the skillet and then fried for about 5 minutes on each side.

As for the white cream gravy, I didn't feel like using bacon grease & didn't have enough burger grease to make it, so I used some concentrated chicken base paste and made some chicken gravy out of that. If you want to see the final results of the meal, click on here  and here

Basically, it's a native Texas dish, its orgin of German and Austrian immigrants to Texas in the nineteenth century who brought recipes for the c l a s s i c Austrian dish wiener schnitzel. As for the Chicken Fried Steak part, that's apparently more of a method of frying than anything. Also you're supposed to have mashed potatoes and a veggie with this, but I wasn't up for that, so I had some shoe string potato chips and some cold tomato juice. Also going for extra effort, ate this tasty dish with a Texas native soda, of Dr. Pepper. So yeah, I'm a big crazy Texan poser. "Yeah I eat steak every god damn day!! Don't mess with Texas!!"