Reading

This is the funniest thing Ken Tremendous has ever written.

The smell of freshly greased leather and the crack of Louisville Sluggers drew me inside the David L. Lawrence Convention Center over the weekend.
It was the 18th annual PirateFest. It's a courageous act, celebrating baseball in Pittsburgh, considering the Pirates suffer from one of the lousiest fan bases in all professional sports.

Okay, so, maybe Pittsburgh fans aren't the most ardent in the nation. Dave Littlefield, Kevin McClatchy, and fifteen straight losing seasons will do that to people. But it's okay, I guess, to call them out, if you're a local journalist and you support the home team.

There, I said it. And, no, I'm not about to backpedal or apologize for characterizing most of the team's followers as whiny, loudmouthed louts who are too insecure to appreciate what being a fan is really about.

Yes. You're very brave. Get to the point.


To make my case, I'd like to compare the difference between the ways fans of stick-and-ball sports -- a category that includes baseball -- approach their favorite games, to the manner in which fans of my personal favorite sport, superbike racing, do.


...

Sorry, I'm going to ask you to repeat that. Because for a second, I thought you were about to compare baseball to a made-up thing called "superbike racing." ...

You are in for a treat.

B.A.D.

I've been (sort of) offered a new position. I've been asked to leave the trades team and join a Quality Assurance group to test system software updates before live implementation.

I imagine it's a lot like video game debugging, except with numbers and text instead of guns and zombies. Probably the same number of explosions, though.

Upside: Potentially more free time and fewer late nights.
Downside: Moving from the 13th floor to the 9th floor. It's quiet (too quiet) and painted a funny (not ha-ha funny) color.

Second Upside: The group is Business Application Development, a.k.a. The B.A.D. Group.

Best company softball team name yet.

-t

P.S. If this group works out I will probably adopt B.A.D. as the acronym for my evil world-takeover organization - I'll come up with the meaning later.

Be My Friend

You guys remember when you first decided to start blogging, and you didn't know anyone, and you didn't have any links in your sidebar, and you only read mightygirl and dooce and nytimes.com?

You'd spend weeks trying to attract commenters and other bloggers to set up a link network, blog friends.

Or AIM! Man, that totally sucked. The only people on your buddy list was your older brother who set up your screenname, and your cousin from California who never signed on anyway and even when she did she'd just put up some boring away message like "hw sucks" and go idle for two weeks.

Well, I'm in exactly that position now on Xbox Live. I'm new, I don't have any idea what's going on, and I have no idea how to add people to my friends list. Or find people to add, for that matter.

So, naturally, I turned to the blog.

Who wants to be my friend?! Seriously. Leave a comment or send me an email, then I'll kick your ass in Burnout Paradise. Or Crackdown. Because I love Crackdown.

Going Native

I was watching American Gangster and it struck me that Russel Crowe's leading roles in big films have different nationalities. An American in American Gangster, A Beautiful Mind, and The Insider; Spanish (or Roman) in Gladiator; Canadian in Mystery, Alaska (ok, technically American), British in Master and Commander.

By and large American characters are played by American leading men (and the occassional Englishman with, when one is attempted at all, a horribly mangled accent). Brits are cast to play European roles almost exclusively (no doubt because the American twang is a bitch to fake unless you're Hugh Laurie, and the US movie-going public is already convinced all twentieth century German and Russian soldiers had been educated at the Royal Shakespearean Company (who, no doubt, learned their accents from the Romans in some giant lecture held just after the Colloseum was built) so why bother with anything other than your native accent?).

And remember, we're talking leading men here, not character actors, who can be counted on to fufill any role (and accent) required brilliantly. (Peter Sellers gets lumped in with these chaps - best "worst French accent" ever.)

Examples:
Gregory Peck - To Kill a Mockingbird, MacArthur, How the West Was Won, Guns of Navarone, etc.
Cary Grant - An Affair to Remember, The Bishop's Wife, The Philadelphia Story, His Girl Friday
George Clooney - Three Kings, Michael Clayton, Intolerable Cruelty, O Brother Where Art Thou?
Liam Neeson - Schindler's List (German), K-19 The Widowmaker (Russian), Les Miserable (French), Michael Collins (Irish), Rob Roy (Scottish), etc
Sean Connery - Hunt for Red October (Russian), and my personal favorite, Highlander (Spanish)(I'm not kidding).

The question is, who's the most travelled? Who's the xenophile? I can't come up with anyone to top Neeson, can you?

Seriously, though, Highlander - a movie set in, and named for, the Highlands of Scotland, a stone's throw from Connery's native Wales - the casting director, after landing arguably the most famous male lead on the planet, a native casts Sean Connery, of Wales, in a movie set in nearby Scotland, as a Spaniard. I'm not kidding. He plays Juan Sanchez Villa-Lobos Ramirez. This has got to be the worst casting decision in movie history. Ever.

Also of note, Liam Neeson's turn as an American from the South in Next of Kin. Not a leading role, (he plays second fiddle to late-80's dreamboat Patrick Swayze) Neeson is Briar Gates.

"Truman [Patrick Swayze], a Chicago cop, takes on the mob to find the killer of his brother. Meanwhile, another of his brothers, Briar [Neeson] (a hillbilly) decides to find the killer himself. "

A hillbilly! Best role ever, man. Best role ever.

The movie ends when Briar gets himself killed in a shootout and Swayze's entire hillbilly clan piles their shotguns, hunting dogs, broken bottles, ferrets, and bb guns into a couple of vans, drive pell-mell into the city, and basically kill every mobster they can lay their hands on. It's hilarious.


-t

More Weight!

Time for the Eightieth Academy Awards. Here are my predictions. Feel free to use them to win your annual Oscar Party Ballot and walk away with the pot.

Best Picture

• Atonement
  
• Juno
  
• Michael Clayton
  
• No Country for Old Men
  
• There Will Be Blood

Juno was a surprise nominee, but I don't think it has the chops to win in any of the categories it's nominated in (Though it would certainly run away with Best Teen Flick, Funniest Serious Movie, Best Movie Depicting Ordinary People, Best Dialogue, and Best Line ("I'm a kraken from the sea," "I try really hard, actually," Thanks for having me and my irresponsible daughter over to your house." "Like I'd marry you, you'd be the meanest wife ever ok? And I know that you weren't bored that day. Because there was a lot of stuff on tv and The Blair Witch Project was coming on Stars and you were like, "I haven't seen this since it came out and so we should watch it," but oh no we should just make out instead la la la...")

I'd say it's a toss-up between There Will Be Blood and No Country for Old Men -- I'm picking NCFOM to take it.

Best Director

• Paul Thomas Anderson - There Will Be Blood
  
• Joel Coen and Ethan Coen - No Country for Old Men
  
• Tony Gilroy - Michael Clayton
  
• Jason Reitman - Juno
  
• Julian Schnabel - The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

I'm picking the Coens in this category. This may be because NCFOM was brilliantly directed, or because I've recently seen The Big Lebowski. Coens will get another statue to join their Fargo Best Original Screenplay.

Best Actor

• George Clooney - Michael Clayton
  
• Daniel Day-Lewis - There Will Be Blood
  
• Johnny Depp - Sweeney Todd
  
• Tommy Lee Jones - In the Valley of Elah
  
• Viggo Mortensen - Eastern Promises

Daniel Day-Lewis is the heavy favorite, and I'm picking with the field. I thought he got shafted for Gangs of New York and anyone who didn't vote for him then will certainly vote for him now, putting him over the top. A grizzled DDL will top pretty-boy George Clooney any day. Also, no one likes lawyers.

Best Actress

• Cate Blanchett - Elizabeth: The Golden Age
  
• Julie Christie - Away from Her
  
• Marion Cotillard - La Vie en Rose (La môme)
  
• Laura Linney - The Savages
  
• Ellen Page - Juno

No idea on this one, I don't think Ellen Page put up an Oscar worthy performance, but I think overall it's a weak category, so there could be a surprise. This is the most even category out there. I'm going with the foreign language title - Marion Cotillard.

Best Supporting Actor

• Casey Affleck - The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
  
• Javier Bardem - No Country for Old Men
  
• Philip Seymour Hoffman - Charlie Wilson's War
  
• Hal Holbrook - Into the Wild
  
• Tom Wilkinson - Michael Clayton

Hey, Casey Affleck getting an Academy nod. Way to go, Boston. I like Javier Bardem for this award, but Michael Clayton seems to be a favorite among critics, so Wilkinson might pull it off, and don't underestimate some Capote carry-over for Hoffman, who has been tremendously outstanding his entire career, and might be making up for it the rest of the way. I'm still picking the Western.

Best Supporting Actress

• Cate Blanchett - I'm Not There
  
• Ruby Dee - American Gangster
  
• Saoirse Ronan - Atonement
  
• Amy Ryan - Gone Baby Gone
  
• Tilda Swinton - Michael Clayton

I would have liked to see Allison Janney in this category (again, she wouldn't have won, but "verbally abusing an ultrasound tech for comedic affect" is on my shortlist of "reasons I'd nominate you for an oscar" so there you have it).

But I have seen I'm Not There and Cate Blanchett was absolutely amazing as rock 'n roll star Bob Dylan. She runs away with it.

Best Original Screenplay

• Juno - Diablo Cody
  
• Lars and the Real Girl - Nancy Oliver
  
• Michael Clayton - Tony Gilroy
  
• Ratatouille - Brad Bird
  
• The Savages - Tamara Jenkins

Juno was good, but come on, a story about a guy falling in love with a life-size doll? Lars and the Real Girl wins. I'm also predicting a quirky acceptance speech.

Best Adapted Screenplay

• Atonement - Christopher Hampton
  
• Away from Her - Sarah Polley
  
• The Diving Bell and the Butterfly - Ronald Harwood
  
• No Country for Old Men - Joel and Ethan Coen
  
• There Will Be Blood - Paul Thomas Anderson

NCFOM again. From what I understand it's a faithful reproduction of the book and a hell of a good movie. I wouldn't be surprised to see The Diving Bell and the Butterfly win here, but it's four-to-one. (so's There Will Be Blood, NCFOM is two-to-one, and the other to movies split the remaining odds (eight to one each))

(I could probably be a bookie -- I understand fractions. [edit] I understand fractions, but I may not really know how they apply to odds. Maybe I couldn't be a bookie. Or, maybe I could, but my odds would be fair and I'd never make any money)

Some closing thoughts:

Best Animated Movie is a stupid category. If your animated movie isn't good enough to get nominated for a real category (Disney's Beauty and the Beast 1991 Best Song, Best Original Score Winner, Best Picture nominee) you should just be happy for the millions of parents who'll be forking over $25 a pop for the DVD to shut up their whiny spoiled brats instead of plying the Academy with yacht rides and solid gold chocolate bars so they'd invent a category that can only support two thirds of a movie every year.

Disney might get another Original Song, since three-fifths of the nominees in that category are Enchanted.

And I'd handicap the technical categories for you too, because I'm normally right on the money with those, but it's thirty degrees in here, and my fingers are cold.

Oh, and just so you know, of the nominated movies discussed above, I've only seen Juno and I'm Not There. I liked them both. (I really liked Juno).

-t

Party Time - Excellent!

how hilarious would it be if wayne and garth had a blog?

"Blog on Wayne"
"Blog on Garth"
"Excellent!"


Requesting submissions for other likely entries?


-t

(I was re-reading some of my old material (formerly funny) and came across the above comment post script which is too hilarious not to get its own post)

(And we def. would have invited them to MILONYE)

At Capacity (Blogging Drunk)

Reading: "Just thought you should know. It's cold in Boston, so I have my parent's apartment's basement fire on. That's a lie but I'm 4 beers in, so it could be coming soon. BTW I think 4 beers is my optimum blogging capacity."

Optimal Blogging Capacity should be right up there with Blood Alcohol Level as a standard measure of inebriation.

What's your OBC?

-t

Cyborgs, A Life-long Love Affair -or- Probably Where I Get It From

So, do you remember that show, it was a family, they had super powers? And an RV that turned into a couple of motorcycles and a little ATV?

They were cybernetic, or something, each of the kids had a unique power (strength, speed, etc), and the mom had psychic powers or something, and there was always a shot of the teens chilling in the family room, and it was a mess, and then the Dad would shake a finger at them for being slobs, and then in a whirlwind the place would be spic and span!

Well, ladies and gentlemen, the Internet is a wonderful tool.

It's called The Bionic Six




They were cyborgs (tragically injured when a ski vacation went horribly, horribly wrong, revived, fixed, improved by a benevolent scientist). The fight a small army of bionic villains led (predictably) by the benevolent scientist's evil brother, "Scarab."

Don't miss the African-American kid (super strength and super intelligence) codename "IQ," and the Asian-American (bionic karate-master), codename "Karate-1."

They've even got a fan revival page (here).


Is it any wonder I'm preoccupied with bionics and world domination? Silver Hawks, C.O.P.S. - the list goes on, plus Pinky and the Brain.










Remember, commenters will be reserved a special place in my new world order.

-t

"By the way...job!"

Stick with me on this one, there's a morale.

After the Christmas holiday the stock market takes some time off, shuts down, slows trading.

Unfortunately, I don't get the same time off, but at least there are a couple of slow days that give a leg up on recuperating from the holiday hangover, and, of course, fixing any outstanding issues on the funds.

For you non-finance types: This isn't new. The holiday slow-down is an expected part winter. If you work in finance, the days after Christmas are as good as vacation days; you take it easy, fix some things, take your time.

Which brings me to the email we received from my block-hammer-head manager Dec. 26th:

Subject: Trade activities

Hi All,

Hope every one had a happy holiday. Looks like a very light day today. Let's use this time to clear custody, position and pricing breaks. Please book all your trades then work on breaks.

Thanks,

It's a slow day? Book trades, work on breaks? No kidding. Why not just send an email that says "Hey, friendly reminder, please do those things that you're supposed to do every day." or "Hey, by the way, you should keep doing those things you do, and that we pay you to do, normally."

Or, send these emails the two following days:

Subject: Trade activities

Hi All,

Today is another slow day for us. Please have all your trades booked as early as possible so we can work on breaks. We have a lot of cleaning up to do. If you don't know what needs to be done, please let me or Scott know.

Thanks,


Subject: Re: Trade activities

Hi All,

Today looks to be another slow day for us ( with we can really us to clean up our breaks and other outstanding items ). Let get all of our trades booked in the next hour. Currently a total of 60 trades has been booked. Again, please let me or Scott know if you are not sure on what to work on.

Thanks,

I tend to get a little upset at this type of email. We, the employed, should not need reminders to do what we're being employed to do; and if we do need reminders, or prompting, then clearly management is doing a poor job training/motivating/instructing and should, at the very least, identify specific problem elements (procedures, people, outside distractions (hello, internet)) and take directed action to fix the problem.

But, in the guise of a friendly email, which could probably be reduced to

"Job!"

this motivational tactic certainly doesn't spur me to increased productivity, but does, in fact, the opposite, promptin zero productivity while I stew and post to my blog.

Hilarious, right? Getting an email from your boss that says job, exclamation point. A real side-splitter.

Though, after a week away, it might be nice to get an email from a guy on another team like this:

Subject:Hurry up and come back!!!!!

You can never go on vacation again! God, that was the absolute most painful week of my life!

-Chris

I guess it's nice to be appreciated.

Eight!

Mafia with twenty-three people is awesome. Drawing the joker in a round of Mafia with twenty-three people is awesome. Being paired up with Justin and Justin for the first round of Mafia with twenty-three people is awesome.

Because the Mafia totally won.

Which is a nice little allegory for the MILONYE festivities. My team basically won at everything.

Like when I shot the moon in hearts with a score of 96 and then broke 100 the next hand.

Like when I won the first game of Connect Four against Dan and then none for the rest of the weekend.

Like when Jackie and I got smoked at spades by a (cheating) John and Samantha.

Like when no one at the bar had to pay for liquor. (Seventeen shots for six bucks, total. Three pitchers for sixteen bucks, total.)

And Donny got way drunk. It was great.

I'm having some trouble getting pictures uploaded to flickr for no understandable reason. But some are online.