Friday Mar 12

How my crazy poodle has taught me to be more assertive

Thursday, 11 March 2010 09:34

How my crazy poodle has taught me to be more assertive

Cricket is certifiably insane. I have expert confirmation of this fact. Sometimes, when she attacks and bites people or works herself into an aggressive tizzy, it isn’t funny in the least. But when she is under control, as she more or less has been for the past few months, her eccentricities can be amusing, even instructive.

Read more: How my crazy poodle has taught me to be more assertive

1987 meets 2010

Thursday, 4 March 2010 12:35

1987 meets 2010

It’s been fantasy baseball drafting time around here. I’ve got all my teams lined up already, and now I’m just biting my nails through Spring Training hoping nobody gets hurt. I’m also reading up, belatedly, on who’s expected to have a breakout year. That’s what initially drew me to MLB’s official fantasy preview. But my jaw hit the floor when I saw the visual treatment, putting every player in an authentic 1987 Topps baseball card. I drool at the thought of these being on sale somewhere. I mean, just look at them. Beautiful.


Media Bites


Alice in Wonderland
Or, as the script would have it titled, Um in Underland. Now, I’m a Tim Burton apologist, so I’m inclined to forgive this movie for many faults, but… More

The Invention of Lying
Ricky Gervais is a master of the comedic reaction shot, which means he cast himself perfectly in this brilliant script about the only man in the world who knows how to lie. More

A Serious Man
Coen Brothers movies have been more and more like New Yorker short stories lately, with rich character interactions through a loose plot framework culminating in an open, abrupt ending. More

Moon
Don’t be turned off by the surface similarities to 2001. If anything, this is a deeper meditation on the central twist of The Prestige. More

Older Articles

Saving the Beach Flats Community Center

The hub of social programs and government outreach needs to become unforgettable

After spending most of its history in “la trailita”—a double-wide trailer parked next to Poet’s Park—the Beach Flats Community Center (BFCC) thought it had found a permanent home in 2003, when the Santa Cruz Redevelopment Agency completed construction of the colorful Nueva Vista housing development at 133 Liebrandt Avenue. The community center was given space at the heart of the ground floor with a computer lab, day-care center, and classrooms, surrounded by 48 units of low to very-low income housing. But only five years later, what the city had given would now be taken away; the building still stands, but the public funding for the BFCC, what Resource Coordinator Reyna Ruiz calls “the liaison between Beach Flats and the city government,” has disappeared into the void of deep budget cuts and economic woes.

More
Why parity is only an AL problem

It’s the DH, stupid

By now, I’ve heard just about every possible reason for why the American League is just a better league. This is based on the head-to-head interleague records and the streak of AL wins in the All-Star Game.

Now, personally I like to call the National League “baseball” and the American League “Disney on Ice” because of the DH, which destroys the integrity of the game’s strategy. But more than hampering the in-game strategy, I think what we’ve seen since the last expansion rounds — which added 3 teams to the NL and only 1 to the AL — is the more sinister effect of the DH, the one that occurs in the off-season.The media has been bemoaning the lack of parity in the league since the last expansion, that in baseball your wallet size trumps everything else. What they’re missing, because of the incessant focus on the New York/Boston rivalry, is that this is only true in the American League.

More
The new ‘rithmatic
Here’s an eye-opening paragraph from a larger article that peels apart the layers of Jim Cramer’s position as a market expert, now under public attack from Jon Stewart’s Daily Show: More

Tweets

  1. Dreamt last night that I was jumping up and down screaming "it's Christmas!" Woke up to #sxsw. My subconscious must be giddy.
  2. 61% through Jude The Obscure using @stanza_reader. “Part 5 - At Aldbrickham And Elsewhere”.
  3. Major case of blogger's block.
  4. Confession: I don't think Frank is very good. Had a better Polish at Man Bites Dog trailer. Cocktails are silly and too pricy.
  5. @zhandlen the novel with the most amazing list of nouns in literary history ... and gammon.