Bernie Mac and CNN

The unfortunate passing of Bernie Mac hit major news outlets today. I saw it upon a morning viewing of CNN. CNN's entertainment page, pasted below, had the following screen shot.



I realize that it's tiny, and I'm not smart enough to make it bigger. However, if you click on the image it will blow up and you'll see that on the list of headlines the very last one has "Spokeswoman: Bernie Mac responding well."

Some 7 hours after I originally saw it, it's still there. And now it's worthy of a blog post. Might want to take that down, CNN.

CHANGE! Obama is behind this post.

Admittedly, I don't get the bumper sticker thing. I just don't have anything that I feel so strongly about that a little two inch by six inch sticker on my crapmobile is the best way to communicate my love to the masses. I mean, I am the only individual in the world boasting a trendy 2004 Source 95.1 orange window cling, but I use that to find my car in a parking lot as much as I use it to advertise my beloved college radio station that no one in Minnesota is within 500 miles to hear.

That being said, can we please retire the 2004 political bumper stickers? None of the four men featured on these displays of election fanaticism are running for office this time around. Let's move on.

Get a nice new Obama "Change" sticker or a McCain "Experience" sticker, or whatever buzzword best sums up a lifetime of work and their future of rule. While I never ever would put a political bumper sticker on my own vehicle, can I least get the United States behind me so that I can at least view fresh new material? What happens when these folks so far behind the times still haven't changed over come November? Then they'll be two elections behind and nothing says uncool like that.

Do your part, change over your bumper sticker today.

RIP: 2008 Cleveland Indians

I take a little extended Fourth of July holiday with very little access to the outside world (Missouri will do that to you) and even less yet of the sports sphere. Much to my surprise, I return to find the underachieving Cleveland Indians a shadow of their former selves. Joe Blows and CC No Periods are off the team. Woo! The team gave up halfway through 2008 and just like that we're done. I suppose things are back to normal. Man, one game away from the World Series seems like such a long time ago.

So the question definitely turns to what the hell happened?

The only thing keeping me from answering "everything" is Grady Sizemore. The man is marvelous and he's better this year than last. Unfortunately, he's the only thing that has improved has nearly every other position has seen a decrease in performance. You'll have to double the 2008 numbers to get a semi accurate comparison as we are now halfway through the the season. Around the horn:

Catcher, Victor Martinez:
2007: .374 OBP, 25 HRs, 114 RBIs
2008: .332 OBP, 0 HR, 21 RBIs, and DLed (198 at bats)

First Base, Ryan Garko:
2007: .359 OBP, 21 HRs, 61 RBIs
2008: .324 OBP, 6 HRs, 40 RBIs

Second Base, Asdrubal Cabrera*:
2007: .354 OBP, 30 runs, 3 HRs, 22 RBIs
2008: .282 OBP, 16 runs, 1 HR, 14 RBIs
*Asdrubal came up to the majors halfway through the season last year and managed 159 at bats before the season ended. This year, he had 158 at bats before heading back to the minors to stop sucking. The at bats are almost exactly perfect for our comparison.

Shortstop, Jhonny Peralta*:
2007: .341 OBP, 21 HRs, 72 RBIs
2008: .298 OBP, 13 HRs, 38 RBIs
*Jhonny's power numbers are about on par from last year which while unspectacular are seemingly immune from the Cleveland suckfest. Unfortunately, the .50 drop in OBP (sub .300!) was not.

Third Base, Casey Blake*:
2007: .339 OBP, 16 HRs, 78 RBIs
2008: .355 OBP, 8 HRs, 47 RBIs
*Casey ever the average third baseman has seen a tad bit of improvement. The problem being that most of the improvement came in the last 30 days when Cleveland was already playing catch up. As late as June 6th, his OBP was .315.

Right Field, Franklin Gutierrez:
2007: .318 OBP, 13 HRs, 36 RBIs
2008: .269 OBP, 3 HRs, 18 RBIs
*Franklin, like Asdrubal, was a midseason call-up last year. He had 271 at bats last season and has already had 202 this year. Oh yes, he's also hitless in his last 28 at bats.

Left Field, Who Knows:
Kenny Lofton, Trot Nixon, Ed Schillinger, Jason Michaels, and David Dellucci all occupied space here in 2007. This year, Lofton and Nixon were not resigned, Michaels was released midseason, and Dellucci is batting .223 having given way to Ben Franscisco.

Starting Pitcher, Paul Byrd:
2007: 15-8, 4.59 ERA, 27 HRs allowed
2008: 3-10, 5.53 ERA, 23 HRs allowed

Relief Pitcher, Rafael Betancourt:
2007: 1.47 ERA, 0.76 WHIP, 4 HRs allowed, .183 Opponent's batting average
2008: 5.67 ERA, 1.46 WHIP, 7 HRs allowed, .293 Opponent's batting average

Not to say anything of Fausto Carmona's injury and Joe Borowski's release. I have no idea what caused this cataclysmic decline in the entire team, but I'm going to speak in hyperbole and say that it is in fact the greatest collapse of any single team from one year to the next in the history of the world. The numbers are not close. They are all horrible. Cleveland sucks.

The good news is the last time we traded an overweight pitcher for prospects, Cleveland ended up with Grady Sizemore and Cliff Lee - the only two players worth a damn on this roster. Oh, and Joe Borowski will never pitch again for the Indians. Begin the Jeff Weaver era!

A quick political lesson

One of the joys at working retail is that I do get to work with a lot of very cool youngsters just entering the real world. These folk are graduating high school, deciding whether or not to go to college, making choices regarding careers, and occasionally no showing for their shift. Many of them also are learning about the political world with this being the first Presidential election they have the opportunity to cast a vote. It was against this backdrop that I had a conversation recently at work with one such youngster.

Photo Tech: "Drew, this sucks!"

Drew: "What?"

Photo Tech: "Look at my paycheck. Taxes always eat a huge hole in what I take home."

Drew: "Vote Republican."

Photo Tech: "What? Why?"

Drew: "Generally speaking, Democrats love to share. They want everyone to have every opportunity to be equal. The problem of course is that someone has to pay for it, which is why you have a huge amount taken out of your paycheck. They are nice people, but they are expensive people. On the other hand, Republicans don't play well with others. They want people to keep what they earn and want individual accountability to reign. The problem of course, is a separation of wealthy and poor not improving, and they are thought of 'protectors of the rich' because they don't want to tax everyone, instead letting people keep what they earn. They are nice people, they just don't want to spread wealth everywhere."

Photo Tech: "Oh."

Drew: "Make sense?"

Photo Tech: "I'm feeling Republican today."

Photo from liumfamily.com

The Handyman

My father is a great man and has many skills and traits which I have inherited and try to emulate. One of them, however, is not household maintenance and repairs. My dad built me a two tiered water bed with dresser built into it and a play tunnel underneath it - without using a single nail. The guy is an engineer and constructs things for fun, and his general knowledge and usefulness around the house is impressive.

I have none of that. A nail falls out of a board? I need help. Air filters need replacing? It's a half a day project. Picture needs hanging? I don't even try anymore after scarring too many walls.

This part of Minnesota has recently been inundated by big box hardware stores, as I have two Menards, three Home Depots, and two Lowes within a 10 minute radius. I fear these stores and have an anxiety attack just driving by them. Huge monstrosities with millions of parts, pieces, and miscellaneous stuff that I don't know what they do or how to use them. Generally, I step foot in these retailers once a year, when Becky wants to see their Christmas stuff.

Yesterday should have been a disaster. I am home alone as Becky is off at an opthalmic conference out of town, which set the stage for my greatest home repair triumph of all time.

The morning started off innocently enough. I woke up, showered, checked the old fantasy baseball team (still stretching for third), and ate some breakfast. I casually strolled into our downstairs half bath, used the facilities, and went to flush the toilet. I pulled down the handle just as I have for the last three years when all of a sudden I hear a massive SNAP. The toilet does not flush and the handle is dangling from the hole.

My first reaction was to panic. Home alone with no ability to flush the toilet, I might as well board up the door and never return. That plan of action, of course, was foolish. I can't use a hammer and nails let alone deal with acquiring the boards. So, after "some time" I built up the courage to attack the problem. I dismantled the top of the toilet and discovered a fairly simplistic lever and chain mechanism that created the oh so familiar toilet flush. I studied the pieces and even played with the plunger thingy inside until I felt confident in my understanding of how this thing works.

The next step involved replacement parts. Already thinking of having to go inside of these massive stores was causing me shortness of breath. Again, after "some time" I took the plunge, hopped in the $aturn, and picked Menards as my behemoth hardware store of choice. I pulled into the lot and set foot inside trying desperately to look confident enough to know what I was doing so as to avoid the sales clerk who would no doubt know me to be a fraud. A quick reconnaissance of the hanging signs revealed bathroom supplies to the left. I scanned for clerks, avoided the Charleys, and made my way into the four aisles with the much needed ammo required for the toilet.

Menards features no fewer than fifteen different arm and levers for toilets. Damn it. I didn't measure, and only because I have lived there for three years did the fact that the lever was even white somehow register in my forgetful brain. In choosing white levers, I eliminated half the possibilities. So many of them looked so similar. What to do? Wait a moment! Some of them looked a little too similar. Relying on my retail background, I flipped over the package and cross checked UPCs. Just as I suspected! Multiple facings of the same item! Score one for the Walgreens assistant!

I narrowed down the selection to two. One a five dollar arm and lever and the other a three dollar. They looked pretty similar, and I considered buying both to avoid making another trip back. I declined this thought pattern, instead opting to roll the dice on the latter one, gambling that this would be my one and only trip to Menards. I snagged the repair piece and headed to check out.

I again surveyed the land for sales clerks, and I successfully avoided all of them. This excitement though, left me parched and I succumbed to an impulse purchase of a bottle of Dasani near the front check out. I paid and ran like hell back to the $aturn.

Once home, I knew I had not the energy to continue the process. I napped. I cleaned. I ate. I did everything but finish the project. 4pm rolls around, approximately 6 hours after the initial crisis began, and I realized now was the time.

First, I detached what remained of the old lever and chain. My hands got wet, which frightened me that somehow this water was contaminated or something, but I strengthened my resolve in conjuring up memories of having scooped poop off the Walgreens' sales floor. This was nothing.

Second, I had to attach the new lever and chain. A feisty bastard, the hook connecting the chain to the lever was an elusive match. I inadvertently flushed the toilet twice in fiddling with the unifying piece. Eventually, I succeeded. All was one. All looked right.

This, though, was too easy. I knew something had to be in error. There was only one way to know for sure if my half a day, four dollar home repair was a success. I had to use the toilet. So, I did. I stood up took a deep breath and pulled the lever, watching the swirl with greater pride than ever before. The victorious pee left me. I had won.

Subsequently, I went to my local Blockbuster and rented Rambo. I feel manly.

Photo from thisoldhouse.com

Take a little of the top and shave back the conversation

Is there a better, more gratifying feeling than walking out of the barber shop with a freshly trimmed head of hair? Sure there is, but for the purpose of the blog post, we'll leave it rhetorical.

I dislike haircuts quite a bit. While I appreciate the end result, I dislike the process. The barber shop nearest the house has three barbers, and I have the same problem with all three. I hate the conversation.

When I lived in Plainfield, I did not have this problem. The barbers could contently trim the head without but a few words of pleasantry, not afraid of silence. Better yet was when they got a TV and they spent more attention to the news than on pointless, in-person talk. For five years, I did not appreciate the glorious-ness of that simple, main street barber shop.

No, in Blaine we just have to have a conversation. I'm not much of a socialist to start, but I do have a pretty decent knowledge of current events. I follow sports more than the normal patron, which in a barber shop you would think would be more than enough to get me by for the 20 or so minutes it takes to give me the same haircut I've had. But no, it's never enough. For there are four types of barber shop conversations that I inevitably fall into.

Conversation #1: Where do you work? I'm notoriously bad at discussing this topic. It's not that I hate work, I simply don't like rehashing it with a perfect stranger. Furthermore, just because I work at a pharmacy does not mean I'm a pharmacist.

Conversation #2: Various weather comments. The most neutral and meaningless of topics is that of the weather. If we could just let it go at "it's cold" or "lots of rain" we'd be ok, but there's always carrying on and some type of historical analysis. Furthermore, this is the conversation I have fifty times a day with the customers of Walgreens, and I'm tired of it.

Conversation #3: The great outdoors. By far the most popular of the barber shop conversations, I frequently get asked about hunting, fishing, camping or whatever else these people do in the wilderness. I don't do any of the above, and despite Minnesota having an unofficial holiday whenever the fishing or hunting season begins, I could care less about whatever wild game these men brought home last weekend.

Conversation #4: Barber shop jokes. Usually crude, not that funny, and poorly told. I don't get this one very often, but when I do it's the worst of the four.

And so the other day when I walked into the barber shop, I dreaded the conversation. I figured we'd end up going with #2 as Coon Rapids (next town over) and Hugo (the town over the other direction) were hit with tornadoes this past weekend. Having an account of the storm to share, I figured I was in good shape. I can talk for a little while about my side of the storm, the barber talks about his side, we exchange cash, and I walk out of there unscathed.

Additionally in my favor was a "new" barber in the shop. This guy isn't new, in fact he's the oldest of the bunch who I've seen a couple times filling in whenever one of the regulars is either sick or on vacation. It just so happened that he was the one available, and I was up next.

Since he did not even recognize me as the others in the shop do, we immediately went for conversation #1. Right away, I was asked if I was a pharmacist. He then promptly told me in a roundabout way he doesn't like Walgreens and doesn't go there. He's the second of the barbers who has told me that. Nothing creates an awkward silence like a man with scissors telling you why he doesn't like your place of work.

With all of 60 seconds eaten up with conversation #1, we glided into conversation #2. Sure enough the recent tornadoes came up. I was already to go with my story when he shared that he commutes in thirty minutes to fill in and not only was nowhere near the storm but hadn't seen any of the footage. Damn! Foiled in my attempt to get by with #2.

That naturally slid into #3 as he was not in town because he was at his cabin over the Memorial Day weekend. I then suffered through another fishing account while trying feebly to feign interest and grunt approvals and disgusts at the right moments in the story.

In a surprising twist, he wrapped up the story and began yet another topic. An unforeseen change! A life preserver! The topic? Sports!

Having seen me wear my Valpo t-shirt in, he quickly ascertained that I was an Indiana fan in all things. I told him that despite the shirt, my allegiances were actually for Cleveland. That presented a problem.

He wanted to discuss hockey and Cleveland doesn't have a hockey team. I tried to meet him halfway and say that I had loosely followed the Minnesota Wild this season even going so far as to knowledgeably know that the Wild lost in 6 games in the first round of the playoffs. He shot that down saying he only really liked high school and collegiate hockey. To which we sat in silence for the final three minutes.

At least I was spared conversation#4. And I look good.

Photo from Insiderpages.com

Summer Vacation

Memorial Day marks the unofficial start to the summer with many school children soon leaving the confines of a school building for the baseball diamond, which will culminate in many zany adventures leading to a major motion picture called The Sandlot. Others will take luxurious vacations to places with beaches and and blue skies. And yet others will keep the local pharmacy open.

But alas, after beginning my trek toward an MBA last summer, I have been kept busy fending off stupid opinions and poor proofreading. Vacations and time off have been rare and when present have always had that "you should be doing school work" guilty feeling ruining what fun may have been had. For the next six weeks, though, things are going to change.

Having just completed my seventh of ten classes toward the degree, I have taken a class period off. Instead of spending the next six weeks mastering some business topic, I will instead merely commute to Walgreens daily. Odd that while still working full time it'll feel like such a break.

Before I left the comfy confines of the University of Phoenix learning forum, I had one last spirited debate that went right up until the end of the class. You'd think that in a class full of emerging business leaders some good ideas might exist on how to solve the economic funk that this country finds itself in. I present to you a new poster, never before featured on Wolfden V. I'll call her Pocahontas.

I do not think that the stimulus payments are an answer to the economic problems facing our country.

Ok, I can start with Pocahontas' premise. The stimulus payments are a hot topic, especially with many checks just now finding their way into tax payers' accounts. So far so good.

Giving the average working american just between $300 - $1,200 extra dollars in a one-time sum just isn't the answer.

I'm normally a stickler for basic writing skills such as capitalization but given the informal message board post, I'll give "american" a pass, even though this was written on Memorial Day.

I am sure the original tax returns received by the majority of tax payers was more than the stimulus payments.

Citing such key data and reports such as "I am sure" the basis for this statement is shady at best. A better start might have been "my skewed, biased, unresearched opinion suggests..." We don't know this statement to be true at all and is quickly soaring to become the basis for a wild argument.

If the government truly wanted to help out the economy & taxpayers why not give taxpayers an additional payment that is equal to their 2007 tax return.

And here it is. The answer to all of the United States' financial woes! Because Pocahontas received a tax refund exceeding her rebate check, the government should employ this solution to save the world. Never mind that this solution is absolutely asinine.

A tax refund is repaying your own money that you over estimated over the course of a year. It is not free money. The government is giving you back what is yours that you shouldn't have paid in the first place. Pocahontas also is failing to take into consideration all of those who have to pay taxes on April 15th and not receive a refund. I'm sure that her plan would involve them paying back into the government twice over, which as economists all know is a brilliant solution to increasing discretionary spending.

Mercifully, it's vacation time.

Photo from Vadeck.com