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May 20, 2007
Yanks Can Head Back to the Bronx on a Winning Note
The Yankees at least managed to exit the third and final game of their Subway Series with the Mets with a win and with the help of an unlikely savior. 22-year-old Tyler Clippard was just called up from his Triple-A minor league team to be the starting pitcher in front of a sold-out Shea Stadium crowd against hometown rivals the Mets, in a game that was being broadcast nationally. Worse yet, since it was an interleague game, Clippard was going to be required to bat facing a Major League pitcher, and he probably hasn't stepped into a batter's box since high school.
The young pitcher distinguished himself fantastically: allowing only three hits and one run over six innings, while walking three and striking out six. That is a pretty damn fine performance for any starting pitcher. And unbelievably, Clippard actually hit a double in the top of the 6th inning, so he was 1 for 2 with a sacrifice bunt at three times at bat. As he will probably not return to the plate for some time, Clippard can brag to his new teammates that he now possesses the team's highest battering average at .500.
Mariano Rivera gave up a 9th inning home run, but he and reliever Scott Proctor managed to hold themselves together to give Clippard a 6-2 win. Jorge Posada only managed to hit 1 for 4 with a walk during the game, but his one hit was another homerun, which moved him into 10th all-time among Yankees batters. Jeter went 2 for 4, with an intentional walk. His two hits were a double and a two-run homer.
Odd game note: first baseman Doug Mientikiewicz was hit by the Mets pitcher in the top of the 7th, but homeplate umpire Tony Randazzo wouldn't let him take his base, saying that he had purposefully not avoided a hardcutting curve ball. You don't see that very often.
Boston's in town tomorrow and Mike Mussina's the expected starter for the Yanks. It could not go more disastrously than Boston's last visit to the Bronx.
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at 11:46 PM | Sports | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 15, 2007
I WISH SPAMMERS WOULD AT LEAST RESPECT ME ENOUGH TO INSULT MY INTELLIGENCE
Is anyone else getting the impression that email spammers are just phoning it in these days? I receive about 150 spams a day, which is bad enough, without the fact that I feel like my intelligence is being insulted by a marked lack of effort put into what's landing in my Filter Box. My spams used to come dressed up with familiar names and subject lines that would make me think they were part of an ongoing conversation I was having with a friend ("From: Meg, Subject: re: Oh yeah, I almost forgot!"). Now my spam emails come from three different but never varying address IDs: myself, someone offering me oral sex, and someone who self-identifies as a jackass.
What is even the point of this? Am I supposed to be tricked into thinking "Oh yeah! I forgot that I emailed myself 40 times today. I wonder what I sent?" or "I can't wait to see what a guy named jackass is so intent on telling me that he emailed me 110 times in a row?" Here's what "blowjob" couldn't wait to tell me:
Hi guys! Cheak my home page plz... Have pleasure when open it??? I Think
Yes! Becous this is BLOWJOB! It`s The Coolest and THE Biggest site about
Blowjob! The Hotest babes take blowjob! Super sexy!!! Cheak this out and
take it easy ;)
Jackass has been entreating me to enroll in an Italian rehab clinic for the last seven months. The ones addressed from myself are actually just blank IDs that a software forwarder for another address sends me, which is actually even lamer than trying to fool me that I am emailing myself.
Things have reached such a pathetic state that late last week I actually read the entire text (and it was looong) of a message sent to me by a Nigerian who was most excited about undertaking a properous business venture with me. At least I got the impression that he cared about wasting my time.
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at 12:39 PM | Blogs | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 10, 2007
CONGRATULATIONS WIL NIEVES
Yankees alternate catcher Wil Nieves was in for Jorge Posada this evening. Nieves is a rarity on the offensively productive Yanks, in that he is the only player without a hit this season; or was. In the 4th inning and ahead 2-0 in the count, the hitless Nieves was still game to lay down a sacrifice bunt to move Doug Mientkiewicz from second to third and collect yet another out. But every man has his role, and Mientkiewicz wound up scoring on a single from Jeter later in the inning.
Again in the 6th inning, Nieves was the second Yankee to bat following the team's first baseman. In this case, however, Mientkiewicz had just grounded out and the bases were wide open with no one to advance. On a 1-0 pitch, Wil seized his destiny and swung away, connecting and sending the ball into left field. It should be noted at this point that Nieves hasn't just not hit this season, he hasn't been scored with a hit in five years: since 2002 when he played for the San Diego Padres. OK, so here is Nieves, who hasn't had to run up the first baseline in a game for five years, probably giddy with excitement. And damn if he didn't hit that ball deep. He should just round first and go for the double while he's at it. And second base is where he was met by Texas Ranger Kinsler, who was waiting for him after a strong throw from Wilkerson, the Texas left fielder. In spite of his overexuberance in trying to get to 2nd, Nieves was still credited with a single.
Nieves teammates in the dugout were obviously thrilled that he'd finally gotten a hit for the first time in five years. But they appeared to be howling in laughter at the fact that he was tagged out for trying to stretch that hit into a double. The Yanks were up 6-2 at that point in the game, so they could afford a chuckle at Nieves triumph and expense. They wound up winning the game with that score.
NB: Mike Mussina was on his game, giving up only two runs on three hits with one walk and two strikeouts over six innings. Two asshole fans were arrested in the top of the 9th for running onto the field--in separate incidents--while Mariano Rivera tried to close for the win.
Tagged: hits, yankeesPosted by Lexiphane at 8:20 AM | Sports | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 8, 2007
SELLING THE FIRST AMENDMENT
The idea of a museum celebrating the Constitution's first amendment guarantee of a free press seems like a great idea, especially if it's one that highlights the great personal costs that can be associated with exercising that freedom. That sounds like what the new Newseum being built in Washington D.C. might offer:
Time magazine’s armored truck from the Balkans, pockmarked with bullet holes, has been hoisted into place. The laptop used by Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter murdered in Pakistan in 2002, has arrived. So has the vest that Bob Woodruff of ABC was wearing last year when he was wounded by a roadside bomb in Iraq.
Like the modern media that enjoys those hard-fought and costly freedoms, however, it seems like the Newseum is eager to cheapen, trivialize, and whore itself out for a buck as quick as it possibly can. One of the items also on display will be the bedroom slippers of Ana Marie Cox, the original Wonkette, who partnered up with a hooker to make her name as a blogger/journalist while helping the hooker sell her book. So, real classy. And nothing shouts freedom of the press like luxury apartments and a Wolfgang Puck restaurant!
The building’s transparent exterior is meant to convey the idea of a free press and an open society. A mammoth rectangle frames the facade, suggesting a television or computer screen that provides what the museum calls a “window on the world.” Visitors enter through a Great Hall of News, where they can see breaking stories on a giant digital “zipper” before setting out on a 1.5-mile path of displays and interactive kiosks. The building, which has seven floors, also contains 135 upscale apartments, Newseum shops and Wolfgang Puck’s three-story restaurant, the Source.
Remember when people used to bitch about the proliferation or growing size of museum gift shops? That was so cute. This isn't a museum about freedom of the press. This is a museum about the media. A big profitable, self-aggrandizing, navel-gazing window into the world of news as business and spectacle. If I were Marianne Pearl, I would ask for my late husband's laptop back.
Tagged: media, newseumPosted by Lexiphane at 12:02 PM | Journalism | Comments (0) | TrackBack
IN OTHER WORDS . . .
Special edition of "In Other Words . . ." for you this week; and by special I mean lower quality, shorter, and less inclusive. Jen and Jake's trip out to the west coast was a success, but left me all discombobulated here at lexiphane. That's the excuse I'm using anyway. Long story short: there's been 55 posts over there since the last installment of this feature. I am not linking and captioning each one of them individually. There are a few highlights though:
Images of Old New York
I find a site with a literal treasure trove of historical photographs. The NYC ones alone are worth looking through for hours. Certified Time Waster.
Penny Antics
Race-baiting pol reduce a Chinese take-out worker to tears in front of the media and threatens future jail time to boot. He is called out on his assholery.
Murdoch Bids For Wall Street Journal
NY Post and Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch bids for the most esteemed property in newspaper publishing. We mock up what a News Corp.-owned Journal might look like.
Claremont Academy to Ride Off Into the Sunset
The oldest horse stable in the country, blocks from Central Park, is quickly closed for given reason of overcrowding on the park's bridle trails. Something smells in the stable though, so I suss out the property's prospects for condo development.
Last Ride Out of Claremont
Claremont instructors take the stable's horses out for a final ride around Central Park as onlookers cry and cheer, and lo!, the ink is already drying on the stables' sale to condo developers. Readers and riders cry "horseshit!" in the comments section.
Family, Friends, and Co-workers Pay Tribute to Marvin Franklin
One of two subway track workers killed on the job within days of each other is buried in Queens. The track inspector was also a talented artist whose frequent subjects were the homeless. His death, and the recent death of two homeless people in the subway, are a tragic intersection of two stories.
I'll try not to be so slack in the future about updating posts over there back here. In the meantime, a good link one should probably just bookmark is this one. It's a link-list of all my entries at Gothamist.com.
Posted by Lexiphane at 10:10 AM | In Other Words . . . | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 5, 2007
HURRAY FOR SPRING WEDDINGS
As much as I love New York City, I wonder if I'll ever know its nooks and crannies as well as my friend pictured above. While many of our friends headed off to the sticks after high school (cities like Boston and DC), this woman made a beeline for NYC, where she spent . . . let's just say many many years. I would come for visits and she would drag me from one end of Manhattan to the other. I would not know where the hell I was half the time. She was my municipal mentor, which is kind of funny considering we grew up around the corner from each other.
Youthful antagonisms can flower into the best friendships, and I believe we still have a good one, despite her decampment to parts practically unknown down south a few years ago; I believe it's called Ball-mor or something, but who can tell with those accents? In the meantime, I feel like I'm holding her an open seat on a crowded subway train up here in NYC. Actually I should be holding two. The gentlemen in the above picture is her husband, who grew up in NYC, so it's a perfect match obviously. They just got married today and, looking at my clock, the west coast reception should be getting into full swing right about now.
Last year, I was on one of my city constitutionals, where I tend to walk for long periods of time with no particular destination, but a vague idea of the types of things I want to see. It was relatively early in the evening, but it was a winter month, so almost dark. I was walking east on 20th St. and saw a pair of people walking towards me as I approached Irving Place. We met right in front of the gates to Gramercy Park, and it was my now-married friends in town from Balmoral(?) to see a small show. Given that they no longer lived in NYC, I was walking in a completely random fashion, and they weren't even near the venue they were destined for, it was very serendipitous. I hope both our paths keep crossing for a long time. Congratulations M&B! Best wishes for a continued wonderful life together.
(M&B rehearsing their performance art piece in which they become anthropomorphosized semaphor flags)
Posted by Lexiphane at 10:44 PM | Current Events | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 4, 2007
NYTIMES PHOTO EDITOR HAS A SICK/SLICK SENSE OF HUMOR
Remember when Newt Gingrich thought we should give laptops to every kid in America as a way to solve . . . .we're not sure what the hell that was supposed to solve, but it sure sounded like a stupid plan to us. High school-aged kids are interested in a few primary things: pornography (boys), gossip (girls), and cheating (all). Universal laptop ownership by teens just facilitates all of those things to the nth degree. Ten years gone, The New York Times takes a look at what a colossal flop such an idea would have been, by examining schools that tried it.
We don't actually care about the article; stupid in the past remains stupid in the present. We do love that the Asst. Managing Editor for Photography, Michele McNally used the photograph above (that we've enhanced for your enjoyment) as the graphic for the story. One's eyes are naturally drawn to the kid using the computer's tshirt. It reads "I'm a Drinker, Not a Fighter". That would've warranted a suspension back when we were in high school, oh so many years ago. What's crazy is the bumper sticker affixed to the laptop. It reads "Gun Control Means Using Both Hands." That's some serious gallows humor at that high school. Given that it's a school-owned computer inside a school in the age of school shootings, however, I bet that kid is suspended now. And McNally is our new favorite reason to read the Times.
Tagged: humor, new york times, photographyPosted by Lexiphane at 7:35 PM | | Comments (2) | TrackBack
May 2, 2007
COMPACT FLUORESCENT DIMBULBS
I hate for this to become a hobbyhorse, but beware when zealots, politicians, and big business decide to get into bed with you, because when morning comes around, you always wind up being the one with a sore ass and pushed onto the floor without a blanket. I rehashed the idiocy of the current state of compact fluorescent bulbs back in January [see NOT THE BRIGHTEST BULB (OR IDEA) IN THE PACK, 1/03/07]. My point then was that maybe big businesses like Wal-Mart should stop trying to cram more-expensive products down consumers' throats by browbeating suppliers, and maybe try using their market presence to encourage the purchase of products people actually want. I mentioned that Wal-Mart execs trying to misguidedly save the world today will find themselves hauled before Congress 30 years from now to explain how they used their market dominance to force consumers to purchase more-expensive products that turned every landfill in the country into a hazmat site.
Consider this story from last week's Financial Post. A woman installing a compact fluorescent light bulb in her daughter's bedroom accidentally broke it. Concerned, she called Home Depot to see what she should do because she'd heard about the danger of mercury to children. Eventually she got passed along to an environmental agency that recommended a hazmat cleanup contractor that sealed off her daughter's bedroom like she was hiding E.T. in her closet and eventually handed the woman a $2,000 bill. For a broken lightbulb.
Let's multiply that by a 100 million households in the U.S. and I can't wait for the fun. Why don't we just decorate our dinner tables with fizzling sticks of TNT and be sure to depart on our post-prandial constitutionals before our dining rooms are kill zones? Better yet, let's have the government mandate that. I frankly think the hazard of a broken fluorescent bulb is probably overblown, otherwise the giant ones we'd always break against a dumpster in the alley behind a store I worked at when I was a kid would've left me brain damaged; but then perhaps it did.
I'll admit that CFLs are good for things like lighting broad areas harshly from places that would make replacement a pain in the ass. Consumers already gladly shell out the extra dough for long-lasting bulbs in such circumstances. If you want their use encouraged and widespread on a voluntary basis, I recommend using 1% of the energy and money spent touting shitty lights as great and encouraging the adoption of fragile household poison bombs, and put it towards building a better product that people might want to buy because it make sense, saves them money, and they actually want them.
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at 11:34 PM | Politics & Policy | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 1, 2007
The Yanks May Be Cursed
The Yankees may actually be cursed this season. Phil Hughes is the young pitching phenom the team hoped to develop in the minors for a few years, but was called up recently to rescue a team whose starting pitcher staff has been decimated by injuries. The 20-year-old got off to a rocky start in the major leagues with a loss last week, but was fantastic in Arlington, Texas last night against the Rangers. After 6 1/3 inning, Hughes was nearly flawless on the mound walking three and striking out six after 20 batters faced. With two strikes on the Rangers' first basement in the bottom of the seventh, the kid was one strike away from needing to face only seven more at-batters to achieve a no-hitter. But as he came out of his delivery Hughes winced in pain and grabbed the back of his leg. He tried to play cool, but catcher Jorge Posada knew what he saw. He approached the mound and quickly summoned pitching coach Ron Guidry and manager Joe Torre. In the final third of a potential no-hitter, Hughes was yanked from the game. His relief, Mike Myers, managed to get out of the inning but quickly gave up a double and a single in the 8th, allowing a run to score in 1 2/3 innings.
The Yankees offense was phenomenal, clobbering Texas starter Kameron Loe for 10 hits and nine earned runs in just four-plus innings. By the end of the game, New York had come to bat 48 times with 14 hits and 10 runs, winning 10-1. 2nd baseman Cano went 4 for 5 at the plate, with two doubles and three RBIs. Catcher Jorge Posada continued his magic ways with a 3 for 4 performance with two RBIs and a walk. Loe certainly wasn't helped by his defense, who extended innings with two errors; his team committed another in the 9th inning.
It wasn't until after the game that spirits were dampened by worries realized. Phil Hughes' injury was more serious than he was letting on. He could be out of the Yankees pitching rotation until mid-June at the earliest with a significantly injured hamstring. This is a catastrophic development for a team that just thought it had found its young savior.
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at 11:24 PM | Sports | Comments (0) | TrackBack
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- Yanks Can Head Back to the Bronx on a Winning Note
- I WISH SPAMMERS WOULD AT LEAST RESPECT ME ENOUGH TO INSULT MY INTELLIGENCE
- CONGRATULATIONS WIL NIEVES
- SELLING THE FIRST AMENDMENT
- IN OTHER WORDS . . .
- HURRAY FOR SPRING WEDDINGS
- NYTIMES PHOTO EDITOR HAS A SICK/SLICK SENSE OF HUMOR
- COMPACT FLUORESCENT DIMBULBS
- The Yanks May Be Cursed
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