I live for this

It is foolish and childish, on the face of it, to affiliate ourselves with anything so insignificant and patently contrived and commercially exploitive as a professional sports team, and the amused superiority and icy scorn that the non-fan directs at the sports nut (I know this look -- I know it by heart) is understandable and almost unanswerable. Almost. What is left out of this calculation, it seems to me, is the business of caring -- caring deeply and passionately, really caring -- which is a capacity or an emotion that has almost gone out of our lives. And so it seems possible that we have come to a time when it no longer matters so much what the caring is about, how frail or foolish is the object of that concern, as long as the feeling itself can be saved. Naivete -- the infantile and ignoble joy that sends a grown man or woman to dancing and shouting with joy in the middle of the night over the haphazardous flight of a distant ball -- seems a small price to pay for such a gift.

-Roger Angell in his piece "Agincourt and After"

Spring training has started, the Royals won yesterday, beating the Padres 13-9 (I'm starting my "Hideo Nomo for Cy Young" campaign soon), after they lost their "spring opener" to the Rangers. Just seeing a baseball field on TV is enough to get me in better spirits, and almost bring a tear to my eye. My friend Bill is adding his own touch to the excitement and anticipation of Opening Day by sending out emails each day, leading up to the hallowed event, with baseball-related videos. I decided that more people need to get pumped up for this, and, with his permission, am going to share his videos. Now he's a couple of days into it, so I'll play catch-up today.

First was from 2 days ago



Then yesterday



And here's today's



I'm optimistic this year about the Royals. Of course, I am every year. But the young players are a year older, there's a new manager , Jose Guillen is a pretty big signing for them (even if he has to serve a 15-game suspension for steroid-related stuff), Luke Hochevar, a first-round pick from a few season ago, pitched two perfect innings the other day against some big-time hitters in the Rangers' lineup, and, as a Royals fan, I have to have hope. But it's not always a blind hope, this year, I have a good feeling about it!

A revisited quote of the day

I was looking through some of my old posts, as I am wont to do, and came across one of my favorites here. I thought it fit for my mood sometimes, so I'd repost it, just for fun. And because I haven't gone through and re-listened to the mixes from last time, so until then, this will have to tide you over.

Friday Recipe Korner: A spoonful of whiskey for every burden you shouldered in the name of getting the fuck by this week

Here's to some whiskey and gin, for getting the fuck by this week. Happy weekend!

Quote of the day from Chris Onstad

(This appears as the alt-text for today's Achewood comic strip. I found it humorous.)

Friday Recipe Korner: A spoonful of whiskey for every burden you shouldered in the name of getting the fuck by this week.

Hope everyone has a wonderful Friday, and is getting the fuck by this week.

Recently overheard in Iowa City

One (drunk) dude talking to a (drunk) group:

"Don't let Michael Bay convince you that the Autobots are good!"

Well shoot, where does that leave us, then??

Another quote, this time from a girl at a bar, talking about this guy that snuck up behind her and surprised her. Obviously this was said after he left.

"He was so ugly he sobered me up"

I love drunk people sometimes.

Quote of the day

"More and more of our imports are coming from overseas."

I overheard someone say this last night. Seriously? You mean more of the things that we're getting from overseas are coming from overseas? What about exports? Are less and less of those going overseas, and that makes more imports come from overseas?

Quote of the Day

Courtesy of Buddy Bell, manager of the Kansas City Royals. Buddy's talking about Mark Grudzielanek, Kansas City's Gold-Glove secondbaseman, after he just had knee surgery.

"Only time will tell how much time he is going to need."

thanks Buddy. Did you ask Yogi Berra for help on coming up with a statement?

Quote of the Day?!?

(I don't know why I call this the Quote of the Day, it's not like I make a new one every day, or even every week. It just seems to be the only thing that I can think of right now. So until I can be clever, it'll stay QotD.)

This one is from my roommate Daren, when I told him the name of my new blog.

"Why don't you just call it 'High Fidelity' and get it over with."

another quote of the day

This one is a quote from a few years ago, at the request of my friend, the only other person besides "H" and "a" who has commented on one of my posts. So this is for him.

This was said hours after the Royals lost something like a 7-run lead in the 9th inning, and hours before I scratched my cornea with the corner of a menu. Somehow, these are all related. It had something to do with the amount of alcohol I had. So, I was being very loud, saying things I probably shouldn't have been saying. To people I didn't know.

KP to me

"Hey Emeril, why don't you take it down a notch."

Quote of the day

From some dude in front of me at the Java House, who just randomly turned around, looked at me, and said the following:

"It's amazing how quickly you can give up on the week."