JSngry

I dug the trio sets on BN from a few years back quite a bit. Not having the drummer was good for all, I thought. I know this is with Motian, but I did enjoy this trio without him.

But the rain will save your soul.

Where is going shopping? Getting work done? Not getting work done due to chatting with friends and other forms of goofing off?

Looks like the Indians are starting to meet expectations, with the Rangers not meeting expectations, and the Yankees exceeding expectations. To this point. Me, I think they're fine, second best team in the AL right now, not as fine as the Red Sox but definitely in better shape than everybody else. Veteran crew, well-entrenched & effective corporate culture, plenty of room for newbies to grow into the existing model rather than have to create it (and speaking as somebody who's watching that happen, or try to happen, now in Texas, do not underestimate the advantage of having that winning culture firmly ensconced at every level). And if they don't, hey, there's plenty money to get somebody who will. Rumors of their demise are greatly exaggerated. Possibly worth considering, though - they've already played 40 games at home, only 27 on the road. At the break, it'll be 50 at home, 39 on the road, so the second half (and where else can you have a second half of a season that's less than 50% of the games scheduled), that'll be 31-42 home/road. Especially from 8/15 on...27 out of 41 on the road. Of course, the opposition ain't that tough, based on current performances. But the White Sox (4 games) , Twins (3 games), & to a lesser extent, the Royals 3 games) can all get fiesty at any given time, so if there's going to be any serious weaknesses come out, I'd look for it there. Don't know how/if that'll be a factor, but those are the numbers. Can't be any worse than that 20 games in 20 days stretch we had earlier, or the 3 home games out of 20 stretch we're playing now. Why does the number 20 hate Texas this year?

Please, people, PLEASE. If you're a casual spreadsheet user but share the ones you create with people who actually use them as something other than a word processor with cells, please learn how to standardize the format of what you put in those cells. If you know who this is talking about but not what, odds are good that you need to ask some questions. But not to me. Ask the people you to whom you send the data. And if they don't know, ask them to ask. At some point, somebody's probably getting very pissed off having to clean up after what they might consider y'all's ignunt asses. Thank you for your consideration, and Drive Friendly!

mi hermana Mimi Rogers Mister Rodgers

Woulda felt better about losing this one if that HBP would have been real....somebody must''ve had a plane to catch... Oh well...guts aplenty for the Rangers pitching today. Kudos, and hopefully it takes with the others. Those bats, though, geez...get the goddamned notes right.

Tell me about it...

I kinda miss stirrup socks.

A welcome deviation from the norm, but I don't think so. If CJ Wilson's guts were Rangers' bats with RISP, this game would be over by now. Alas. And alack. As in a lack. And just as I type that, Beltre extends the agony. If only he would resolve it...

Hey man, I love David, for real. Sorry that he thinks this is something personal, it's really not. It's the message that makes me sick, definitely not the messenger. So, oh well, ya' know? Life goes on, that message (or what I see as the message) will always be out there, it will always make me sick, and I'll voice my displeasure, and somebody will always voice their displeasure about my displeasure (or about my seeing the message when it's REALLY NOT THERE or some such). Lather, rinse, repeat. The repetitiveness of life is the key to both its beauty and its ugliness, I suppose. Well. But they all have been, until this last go-through and you see how that's gone. Kinsler swinging at the first pitch. I hate swinging at the first pitch, especially against an unfamiliar pitcher.

Sinatra's dead too. That's life!

Play ball!

Steely Dan Dan Blocker The Blockheads

You know what's really depressing? Getting a spread sheet with a buttload full of data that's not been properly formatted, just slaphazardly copied and pasted in any which old way, extra spaces in the cells, hyperlinks left intact, no standardization of capitalization or dates or anything, you name it, it's sloppy. Having to clean up all that nonsense because people aren't aware of even basic spreadsheet etiquette and in fact appear to be intimidated by it so they really really don't want to make an effort to learn (or, more likely, just use that as an excuse for being lazy...), that's depressing! And that's what I'm going to be doing while watching the Rangers play in less than half an hour. You think I'm being an asshole now, wait until if they fuck this one up like they have the last five....grrrrrrrr..... (self-imposed pre-emptiveness about going into Level 2 asshole mode now activated)

Dude, chill out, it ain't all that. We're just wired differently in that regard, that's all. Nothing more. Besides - there's a game on in less than an hour!

Sorry, that came off kind of curt, didn't mean it to be that harsh...but I'm reminded of a sax lesson I had a long time ago, this cat gave me these leaping interval studies that were just all over the place. I played through them slowly and said, man, that's like Superman having a manic-depressive episode or something...to which the guy looked me dead in the eye and said, I don't care what you think it's like, what it is is playing the goddamned notes right. Lesson learned.

Just read this, and, sorry, but it's bullshit. You can't say that sports is "literature" in it's own way whether you acknowledge it or not unless you are the Great Analogizer God. Are you? If so, do you get paid extra, or is it a volunteer gig? Either way, it's literature in its own way for you. Not for me. For me, sports is sports. Music is music, literature is literature, etc. Music is not skydiving, Literature is not cooking, sex is not auto-assembly, etc. No matter how may parallels you find. And there are many. But when I want to experience baseball, I watch a game (would that I was still fit enough to play one...), I don't read Melville . And when I want to catch a whale, I look for something else to do. ASAP. Not a big fan of harpoons and stuff like that. Enjoy what you find, but don't think that what you find is something that everybody else has to see.

Acknowledging the past is fine, of course. More than fine, actually. But - the notion of some sort of "gatekeeper" , symbolic or otherwise, to a statistical grouping starts to make my stomach turn. You find it a beautiful concept. We appear to have different concepts of "sentimentality", different degrees to what we find healthy, and different tolerances thereof. A (very) little goes a (very) long way for me. You seem to enjoy it a lot more than do I. Simple as that, and fair enough. I promise to try to not puke on your shoes, if you promise to try to get out the way when you hear the churning sounds.

Since the loose CD found in his CD player doesn't have a case, can the CD player in which itr was found be included to make up for that?

Mean Mister Mustard Old Father Time J. Meridian

Phil Ramone was a very successful engineer before he became an even more successful pop producer. He's all over the Creed Taylor-era Verves, among other places.

1 - Sports is not literature. Literature is literature. 2 - Alexi Ogando is a former outfielder turned pitcher as well. This give me little comfort about the Rangers facing Brian Gordon. 3- Sports, like jazz, is played in the moment. Some people enjoy the moment more than the re-living, re-contextualizing, re-whatever tha happens after the moment. In sports, and in jazz. I'm one of them. Although I enjoy a good story as much as anybody. The thing is the thing, not the memory of the thing. Too many things always going on to get distracted by the memories. A lesson can be either learned or memorized. Once you learn it, you can move on. If you just memorize it, you have to keep remembering it. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to get to work.

Really? I thought Texas was the place that prided itself on doing everything bigger and better than the rest of America--so I suppose under Nolan Ryan's ownership, they're perfectly positioned to lead the way forward in the manner of which you speak. Texas prides itself on thinking that it does everything bigger and better. John Daniels needs to pride himself on getting some more pitching, Nolan Ryan on keeping his good players under contract. If they do that, we're cool. If they won't do that, hey, fuck them too. Them and the Yankees. I don't need a sports-love in my life, I just enjoy having one around when it works out. When you have a need for shit like a sports team to "love", or a certain type of music, or a drug, you're an easy mark for the peddlers, and you can be sold bullshit way too easily. "Love" requires discipline and self-respect. "Fandom" requires believing all kinds of bullshit. I'm an equal opportunity "fuck them"-er,, and I recommend it for everybody. If we don't uphold our own standards for ourself, we're all but grist for somebody else's mill..

I have zero use and/or need for metaphor, symbolic weight, "forever stopped" (yeah, that's what happens when you die), tragedy, ulitmately poignant,, or illustrious. Those are all just words. Get me some pitching. Some good pitching. Sentimentality is not part of the game. Sentimentality is part of fandom.