The kids are alright

Last night during my break at Borders I read this review of the Deathly Hallows, written by Stephen King. Yeah, it was in Entertainment Weekly, but it was well written. I don't read much Stephen King so I forget he is a "tell-it-like-it-is" kind of guy when it comes to reviewing or writing essays. he gives high praise to Rowling for getting kids to read and to keep reading, and for writing a good, consistent story for more than 4000 pages (something he may know a little bit about considering the Dark Tower series is at least that long). Granted, he does have some misgivings about the series, but overall, gives it good marks. I think it is a good review (much better than the one in the NY Times which totally panned it, probably because of the reasons Mr. King states) and it made me want to read Robinson Cruso.

Holy Cow!

Today Phil Rizzuto passed away. He was a Yankee. This was not his fault. He was actually part of the reason the Yanks won all those pennants in the 40s and 50s and was finally voted into Cooperstown due to some persuasion by the Sox great Ted Williams. The article is quite nice and highlights a lot of Phil's attributes and accomplishments. Curiously enough, it does not mention the fact that one of the things he did as an announcer was call a play by play in the song "Paradise by the Dashboard Light" by Meatloaf.

Beethoven's what?

The other night, I had a customer come into my second place of business and ask for Beethoven's "pas-tore-aly" symphony. Luckily, I knew what she was talking about and found a few recordings of B's 6th Symphony. There was one recording that also had the 8th symphony (which I am not familiar with), one recording that had a few other pieces on it with which I was not familiar and finally, one with the 8th and 9th symphony. "Oh, is that a good one?" She innocently asked. "Really? You've never heard of it?" I'm thinking to myself. I politely replied that it was the best choice since it was the same price as the others and I think it was the London Philharmonic. Does this make me a classical music snob? Hardly. If you click on the link to the Slate article, it agrees that if you are even vaguely familiar with western classical music, you have heard of the song "Ode the Joy." Some people! :) (maybe I am a classical music snob). Sorry!

Home Run King

Well, Barry Bonds hit his 756th home run to become the home run king over Hank Aaron. Woo hoo.

Aaron had held the record for 33 years with 755 home runs. In this age of steroids in baseball (an most other professional sports - don't get me started on cycling), it is difficult to know how to feel about this. On one hand, it is an amazing achievement to have been playing that long (this is Bonds 21st season) and hit that many home runs, along with the many other records he holds. On the other hand, there is the fact that he has used steroids. Even if he didn't know that's what he was using at the time, he still used them. This then brings up the question, what will happen in the Hall of Fame? Will his name go on the leader board with an asterisk? Will it go on at all? Will he ever get inducted into the Hall? Is using steroids as bad as betting on your own team?

I don't know what will happen. Unfortunately, because the testing is so sparse and anonymous in baseball, we may never know who has done/is still doing steroids, and how can we penalize one person without penalizing those who we don't know about? Most of all, whose fault is it? The player's union? The weasely commissioner? What needs to happen, is the rules need to change. Are the managers worried that people won't watch baseball if there isn't a home run in every inning? If we don't have pitchers that can strike out 10 batters in a game? We need to stop the cheating and stop it now. I know that players have been cheating ever since games were invented. However, in my idealistic (some might say naiive) belief that there is good in everyone I think that people actually do want to play fair. Until that day happens, I will try my best to instill fairness in every game that I play (yes, even pitch) and I will keep my belief that the rules are there for a reason.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

To my mom. Have a great day. I love you.

Good for me!

I went to the gym yesterday for the first time in months! I didn't stay too long, just did some time on the elliptical machine as all the climber/swing machines (I don't really know what they are called) were taken and I try to avoid the treadmill at all costs. I'm even going to try to get back on Thursday. It's time for me to get my lazy ass back into shape.

Plus, I got to watch an awesome Red Sox Classic game from 2000 when Pedro had a one-hitter:

August 29, 2000
Pitching in Tampa Bay against the Devil Rays, Pedro hit Gerald Williams to lead off the game. Williams charged the mound, where he was quickly apprehended by first baseman Brian Daubach and the rest of the Red Sox. The Devil Rays thought the HBP was intentional, and kept throwing at Daubach and the Red Sox all night. The Rays ended up with five players, the manager, and two coaches all being ejected, while no one from the Red Sox was tossed. Through it all, Pedro pitched eight hitless innings, only to have the no-hitter broken up by John Flaherty in the ninth. He struck out 13 and finished with a one-hitter.

No one warned me...

Not to read the last 100 pages of HP7 before I was supposed to go to sleep. I couldn't fall asleep for hours! I am still digesting it and wish I had re-read the first 6 before I started this one. Rowling did a good job reminding you of things you most likely had forgotten about, but I found myself wishing I had remembered every detail of the previous books. All in all, well done. And if there is another book, IMO, I can't imagine that it will be good at all.

Online games

Best way to waste time ever (and learn something)! I think Scott may have been the first one to find this, but I still love it. Especially on a Friday afternoon at 4:30.

Oh yeah, it doesn't hurt that Beethoven is the subject of one of the best movies ever.