Some of you out there may be aware that yesterday my beloved A's absolutely dominated* the universally despised Yankees for 18 innings of baseball. What I want to talk about is something Robinson Cano said after the game. Apparently, early in the game** A's future Hall of Famer Derrick Norris accused Cano of stealing signs while he was at second base. Cano did not like this and yelled at the potential Nobel Physics Prize winner. When asked what all the yelling was about after the game, Cano said this:
"It was the catcher talking. He said that I was giving signs. When he first said something, he came to the mound and had his mask on. And then after that, they struck out Vernon [Wells] and I said, 'Throw the ball over the plate,' you know what I mean?"
I just want to focus on that last sentence: "And then after that, they struck out Vernon [Wells] and I said, 'Throw the ball over the plate,' you know what I mean?" No, Robinson, I don't know what you mean. I could not even guess at what you mean. If anybody out there can enlighten me (Joe U?), please do.
Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Dock Ellis threw a no-hitter against the San Diego Padres. Oh by the way, he was under the influence of LSD. Here is the box score of the game.
Ellis walked 8 batters, beaned 1, and struck out 6. There were no double plays turned behind him. He also allowed three stolen bases. At the plate, he struck out twice and grounded out to shortstop.
Here is a lovely little video made by some people using the audio from an interview Dock did about the game.
Well, the uproar over the absence of the Vault can cease. It's back, so let's get right to it. Today we look at Bookends, by Simon and Garfunkel
Release date: April 3, 1968
Singles: A Hazy Shade of Winter, At the Zoo, Fakin' It, Mrs. Robinson
So for all of those wondering, I'll explain the longer than usual hiatus of the Vault: it's too in love with Paul Simon. You see, every time I buy new albums, I reshuffle the list. Now, after the last entry, Paul Simon's Graceland, I bought some new vinyl, and I re-randomized. Well, much to my astonishment, the randomizer spit out yet another Simon effort, this one. Now, normally that wouldn't be a problem, though Simon has been well represented already (you may remember the inaugural episode was Simon and Garfunkel's Sounds of Silence, which looking back now is a quite a cheeky choice for the randomizer to make
). But, the NEXT album on the list was another Simon and Garfunkel album. That was too much. So I decided that I would hold off on writing this until I went and bought some new albums so that I could reshuffle the deck and hopefully get some fresh blood in there. Unfortunately I've been a little busy and it took longer than I thought to get a chance to go to the old record store. So, I've finally reshuffled. And I did get something from a band we haven't heard yet. Aaaand the one on the list after that is another Paul Simon album. Damn Simon loving randomizer! Anyway, let's get on with it!
This is by far my favorite cover of all the Simon and Garfunkel albums, which isn't saying much because the other ones are god awful. Like, some of the worst examples of photography I've ever seen. The "Chicago" album covers are better. So we're off to a good start before we even get the album out of the sleeve.
Once on the turn table, it sounds like it will live up to the great cover. "Save the Life of My Child" is a nice number, and "America" has long been one of my favorite Simon and Garfunkel songs. But then we run into "Voices of Old People." Why, oh why couldn't somebody talk them out of putting "Voices of Old People" on this album. It is exactly what it sounds like. To quote the back cover: "Art Garfunkel recorded old people in various locations in New York and Los Angeles over a period of several months." And then they picked out the best cuts, I guess, and just threw them all together. The result is an incoherent jumble of mumbling, barely coherent, flow killing suck-hole that pretty much undoes all the good that the rest of the songs on the A side of the album did. It makes me not want to listen to Bookends. Which is really a shame because the rest of the album is quite good. The back side is fantastic.
Rating: Three wrinkled thumbs up - If you can figure out how to program your turntable to skip "Voices of Old People," I highly recommend doing it. Fucking old people.
Can everybody please stop spelling the word "well" with a P? It annoys me to no end. "Welp" is not a word. I hate everybody who has ever typed the word "welp." Fucking internet.
(And yes, I know it's supposed to be from Dumb and Dumber, but I've seen that movie plenty of times and NEVER thought that Jim Carrey was saying anything other than "well." There is no "P" sound at the end. I guarantee you the script uses the word "well.")
I recently went to see the new Star Trek movie, and although it was a generally entertaining movie, one thing about it really bothered me: the coordinate system used. In the film, a key plot point is when Kirk is given a set of coordinates: (23, 17, 46, 11). Notice anything strange about those coordinates?
Here are my thoughts:
1. Why in the hell are there 4 numbers?
Space is, of course, three dimensional, and therefore it would make sense to map it using 3 coordinates. So what's up with that fourth number? What does it stand for? After much thought, I concluded that the fourth number could plausibly be the number of the "sector." Space being very large, it makes sense to break it up into sectors to make the mapping more manageable. I can accept this. But it brings me to my next point.
2. Why in the hell are the numbers so small?
What units are these numbers in? I'd imagine that the area (volume?) described by such a set of numbers would be enormous. I guess it could just be describing a point near the origin ((0, 0, 0, 11) or whatever). Seems unlikely.
Mapping space is hard. Things are moving all the time. Orbits and whatnot. I would think it would be best to set your reference points to relatively stationary objects such as stars, and not planets. And that the location of planets would be kept in some sort of guide that would list the coordinates of the planets at various times.
In the movie, by the way, the location ends up being a moon of Jupiter. Wouldn't it have been much simpler to just say that? "Why don't you see what's happening near Europa?"
Today, I'm going to try out a new segment I like to call "Answers from Oakland." Since nobody actually reads this site, I can't answer emails sent to me from readers like other sites do. So what I will be doing is looking through questions people have in the place where only crazy people (like Pat) and mouth-breathers (like me) would ever look for answers: Yahoo! Answers. Let's see how it goes:
Francine:
Would 9 stone be too thin for me? I currently weigh 11st 7lb- 11 stone 10lb, I'm 5"7 and a UK size 10/12. I exercise a lot. I am slim for my weight and am told I look less than what I weigh, like around 9 and a half stone. I really want to get down to 9 stone, but I find it hard to loose weight past 10 and a half stone. My weight tends to want to stay at a certain weight. I think 9 stone is a nice weight to be at but I feel stupid because I weigh so much. My BMI says that 9st is healthy. I exercise a lot and I don't see my weight go down much ever. I don't even build much muscle. Would 9 stone be too light for me? I don't mind getting down to 11 stone for now, that's my current goal then I'd like to get down to 10 stone. I look thin at 10 and a half stone. I want to look what I weight and BMI gets me down.
First of all, this is America (yes, the whole internet is located in America. We invented it, assholes!), so I have no fucking idea what a "stone" is. Now, if I were a crazy person I could probably find out by asking people on Yahoo! Answers. But instead I'll just google it like a properly functioning human being. Ok, so a stone is 14 pounds. What a god-awful unit of measurement.
Second, the sentence structure and overall level of coherency is about what I would expect for people posting on Yahoo! Answers. Now, to answer your question, 9 stone 126 pounds would not be too thin for you. However, since people already think you are 126 pounds, the best solution is just to lie and say that you are. And throw out your scale and stop worrying about how much you weigh. When it comes to body image, the only thing that matters is how you feel about how you look. If you are comfortable with how you look, stop fucking weighing yourself and you won't worry about how much you weigh. Seriously. Before I bought a scale, I had no clue how much I weighed. Then I noticed that my pants were getting tighter and thought I should start dieting and bought a scale so that I could track my progress. Now I am obsessed with how much I weigh. I weigh myself every time I step into my bathroom, and for a while I literally made an excel spreadsheet so that I could chart my weight over time and figure out patterns (like do I consistently weigh the most on Wednesdays?) and shit like that. Never buy a scale.
Robert:
Question from a man to a woman about the vagina!!!!? This sounds like a terrible thing to say, i totally have respect for this woman, but she was "loose" down there. She had a rep for getting around. My penis size is like 5 inches hard in length, i know thats in the average area, and about 4.3/4.4 inches in girth/circumference when hard, so a little thin i guess...But my question is, could a woman be "loose" like that to where just an average sized guy wouldnt really do much for them? I dont think she felt much of me is why im asking. It was my first time, i laid there when she was on top and thrusted some, so i didnt do a ton. But would this be because of my size, or because she was a bit larger down there? Thanks!! ps... i know its how its used... im just curious if im a decent/average size, and maybe she was bigger than normal down there? is that possible? and i know i've asked... i keep getting different crazy answers lol. thanks!
You had sex with a prostitute, didn't you?
Germanicus:
Do you agree with liberals/progressives that homosexuality is good for the environment?
Great question! It is a common fallacy that homosexual couples are good for the environment. The Liberal Media would like you to believe that homosexuals are helping the environment by not buying as much clothing as their heterosexual counterparts. They can do this because homosexuals have a 47% chance to wear the same size and type of clothing as their partner, while heterosexuals have a 0% chance of this. This allows homosexuals to share their wardrobes with their partners, thus decreasing the total number of clothes they buy. They also help the environment by being 69% more likely to drive a Prius.
But that's not the whole story! While it is true that a gay couple on average buys less clothing than a straight couple, their clothing contains 9000% more environmentally harmful materials such as glitter and sequins.
Ok, that's all for now. I probably will never do this again. Unless I do.
Sorry for the long delay between posts, kids, but I promise to try to be better about it in the near future (not that anyone but me cares). Anyway, right now I'm once again reaching into the ol' Vault! And the winner is... Graceland, by Paul Simon.
Release Date: August 12, 1986
Singles: You Can Call Me Al, Graceland, The Boy in the Bubble, Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes
What do you do if you're a once legendary singer/songwriter and your career looks like it's heading for years of tours singing the same 12 songs over and over? You get your ass on a plane to a country with an oppressive government and work with local musicians to make a goddamn hit album named after the home of a celebrity! At least, that's what Paul Simon did, and it certainly worked for him.
Graceland is a fun album that mixes pop-rock music with South African music. The result is surprisingly good, and solidified Simon's reputation as one of the great songwriters of his generation. The album is highlighted by the lead single, "You Can Call Me Al," but for me it is songs like "I Know What I Know," "Homeless," and "Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes" that separate this album from its peers. Listening to it today, it does not sound like it was made in the heart of the '80s, which is obviously a huge plus.
Rating: 5 hip shakes - I have no idea what this album has to do with Elvis or Graceland, but I do know that I enjoy listening to it and I'd recommend anybody out there to give it a spin.
And now, here's the official music video for "You Can Call Me Al." God, I love music videos from the '80s.
