Birthday Girl

May I just go on record as saying, Holy Crap that was a fast year. I can't believe my youngest niece turns a year old today. A quick review of her life in pictures.

She slept a lot the first couple of weeks she was around. That's what babies do, I'm told.

She's a very happy, smiley kid. Just so you know, the first time she smiles at you, you're done.


She's brilliant. She has already learned that there is no need to do something when a pillow can do it for you.

And also, she's very used to wearing crowns.
That's a skill that comes in handy for the little ladies of this family.

So Happy Birthday, Charlotte. Here's to the first of many.

Love,
Uncle Tommy

A Heat Blizzard

Yesterday, as we entered another day of high temperatures and higher humidity, my sister pointed out that a heat wave is a lot like a blizzard. In both cases you want to just stay inside and only venture out when you have to. In both cases you have to hoard certain foods because people seem to buy in bulk when the weather gets extreme so they only have to go to the store once. Both conditions are loved by news stations: every August like clockwork you can count on a canned report on staying cool in the summer heat, just like every November comes with stories about hardware stores selling out of shovels and rock salt. Both make you change plans quickly as things are cancelled for snow or bad air quality. And lastly, both types of weather lead to people bitching about the weather and talk of moving elsewhere.

As I thought about it, I think I prefer a real blizzard to a heat blizzard. When there is snow on the ground, sure you have to shovel it away, but then you're pretty much done - everything is back to normal after a day or two. There is no physical labor required for a heat blizzard (in fact it's highly discouraged), but it seems that they last longer than a snow blizzard. Part of it is also personal preference. I just always prefer to be in cold than in hot. First off, I run hot so I'm never as cold as normal people. I have no problem golfing in February and 30 degree temperatures. However, you couldn't get me to commit to carrying a bag for 9 holes in this weather. Secondly, I have an extensive and lovely collection of sweatshirts I can put on when it gets cold. Whenever you get cold you can simply add layers - but, when its this hot out there is only so much you can take off and still leave the house.

-We'll stick with the weather theme another couple of paragraphs. For the last couple of days we have all been waiting for the line of thundershowers to roll through and signify that the heat had broken. Every day on the channel devoted only to local weather the report called for thundershowers. EVERY DAY. So you can imagine my disappointment as it hasn't rained here all week. Turns out that the storms were rolling in from the west, hitting Worcester and disintegrating. OK, fine... whatever. I'll give them a pass as they were trying to predict the future.

But today I wanted to go hit a bucket of golf balls. This was the one day that the forecast in the morning called for no rain all day. I was all set to go out when, around 2:30, the sky opened up. It was if someone was pouring a bucket of water on my house. I turned on the local weather channel and under "Current Conditions" it was a sun. Now, look, I can roll with you messing up what the weather is going to be like in 4 days, but how can you screw up right now? Turns out, I can answer my own question. You can screw up because, right after the "Current Conditions" graphic came the local doppler radar. It was blank - no rain in the area. If the radar is lying to you, then frankly, I'm not sure what your supposed to do.

The worst part was that it actually got muggier after the thunderstorms rolled through.

The Colonel

I could not tell you the the last time that this family had KFC. I vaguely remember that we had it once when we were on a camping trip (it was in the RV, if that helps jog the memory). Up until last year there wasn't even one around here and we had no pressing urge to try and seek one out. Once it did open we still went about our lives without the Colonel. However, tonight my dad decided he wanted to try some of that new KFC grilled chicken. My review after the long absence is as follows: eh, it's chicken. Eat carefully and watch out for bones. The instant mash potatoes were gross. The best part of the meal was the corn on the cob on a stick and, of course, the biscuits.

But the thing that blew my mind was the Mega Jug. For those of you who haven't had the pleasure of seeing one of these things it's a 1/2 gallon bucket (complete with handle and top to create a smoother pour) that you can fill with whatever soda you wish. There isn't even any ice to lighten the load - this is all soda. I couldn't imagine going through this in one meal, even with 4 people. I had a mostly empty two-liter bottle in the fridge and used the Mega Jug to re-fill it. Good thing that I had one glass from the Jug, otherwise it would have over-flowed the bottle. Even I think this is a lot of soda, and I'm a man who likes his Diet Pepsi.

Whatever, just hearing about KFC makes me think of this.

-Ok, new rule: Varitek catches Beckett from now on. I don't care how much his back or hip is hurting him. With the season slipping away, you can't waste a Beckett start. Now is not the time for the staff ace and a new catcher to be "feeling each other out."

-I need someone to explain to me how a team with a $123 million payroll still has massive holes in it. Seriously, we're pinch-running with pitchers, we have our first baseman playing left field in crucial series and can't have anyone else run for Ortiz in the late innings of a tied game. Not to mention, the bullpen is leaky. This is not a great return on the investment. It just makes me wonder if Theo could still be considered a boy-genius if he had to run the Pirates and their $25 million payroll for a year.

Just Under The Wire...

-The Brett Favre signing kind of bothers me. Not the taking forever to make a decision, or the retiring and then unretiring, because giving up something that defines you, and has since you were 10 years old, is not easy. Not even the wall-to-wall coverage of his waffling on ESPN bothered me because, apparently unlike everyone else that writes about sports, I know how my remote works. When I heard a Favre story was coming up, I change the channel. The only thing funnier to me were the anchors on ESPN complaining about ESPN's coverage of the Favre waffling. If you have such a problem with it, you could always talk to your boss since you are the ones in front of the camera.

What annoys me is that he was so determined to go only to the Vikings. It has nothing to do with the offensive system being the same. He's just pissed that the Packers couldn't deal with his act anymore and decided to move on. Conveniently he's ignoring that the Packers embraced him and his interception-throwing ways for 16 years, going out of their way to defend him and put him on a pedestal. If you wanted to keep playing that's fine, but to go to your team's rival, in the same division so you'll play them twice a year is beyond dickheaded. Given Favre's status as a Packer living legend its even worse. This goes way beyond someone like Curtis Martin signing with the Jets - this would be Jeter signing with the Sox.

-Have you ever wondered if some of your co-workers don't like you very much? You have that sneaking suspicion that they talk about you behind your back and generally wouldn't be sad if you left for another job? Well, as much as that sucks, as least your supervisor isn't breaking your jaw and then everyone else starts celebrating.

Ok, That's Pretty Impressive

Normally, I don't pay much attention to track. Even when I was on the track and field team in high school, I only worried about the "field" side of things. It probably has to do with the fact that I have no speed to speak of and track is, of course, all about speed (freshman year of college as a joke I tried to clock my 40 time - I will just say it was not good). Another reason is I just can't get excited when records are broken by a total of .001 seconds, which is how much most track records are broken by. When it's that close, to me that could be a matter of someone just taking too long to push the button. Every four years or so I'll check in on track during the Olympics, but even then it's only for the 100 meter dash.

Still, I find Usain Bolt breaking the world record in the 100 meter dash to be very impressive, because he didn't beat it by 1-100th of a second, he beat it by a full 10th of a second. He was the first person ever to break the 9.7 barrier and this weekend he crushed his own time, coming in at 9.58. Tim Gay, who was in second place, ran a very impressive 9.71, which would have been a world record at about this time last year but instead is an afterthought. Do you know what you can do in 9.58 seconds? Not very much. I bet most of the time I can't even name that tune in less than 10 seconds.

-I'm not totally surprised that Tiger finally lost with a lead in the final round of a major. We see guys who have a long history of winning come up short eventually. It happen in sports all the time: Douglas beat Tyson, Brady lost a playoff game, DiMaggio went 0-fer. The thing I'm most pissed about is that I had Y.E. Yang on my fantasy team for 3 weeks... and dropped him right before the PGA Championship. My timing sucked.

Too Bad I Didn't Bring A Book

After spending some quality time with my favorite American-turned-Dubliner, I was driving home last night on Rt. 27 pretty late in the evening. Now, for those of you who have not travelled in these parts in a while, despite sounding like a big highway, there are long stretches of Rt. 27 with no streetlights (or lights of any kind), as both sides of the road are state preservation lands. So, just to ensure I had plenty of time to spot any deer or other animal that might be inclined to wander into the road from these preservation lands, I made sure that my high beams were on. And as I drove down the road, it occured to me that a lot of people don't seem to understand the common courtesy that comes with using your high beams.

As it turns out, finally flicking off your high beams as you pass doesn't do me all that much good. You've actually already been blinding me for the last 100 yards or so. What you need to do is turn them off once you can see my headlights. Also, even though my car comes with all sorts of fun features, like a self-darkening rear-view mirror that cuts down on the glare, that doesn't mean you shouldn't also turn off your high beams if you're behind me and on my bumper. Normally, because I drive a pretty jacked-up SUV, unless the car behind me is an 18-wheeler or perhaps an F-350 I barely notice the headlights of the cars behind me. Last night, thanks to the guy behind me, I got to have an extremely bright cabin. Honestly, if we were in bumper-to-bumper traffic and I had some reading to do I may have appreciated it, because then I could have saved my battery and not had the dome light on.

-Congrat, Theo. You just had to trade a prospect to undo a move from three years ago that you never should have done in the first place. I would have rather you went back 5 years and got Orlando Cabrera, but I bet that the Twins were just willing to pay more.

Album Thoughts

There are few things in life as satisfying to the soul as when you can have a goal in mind, start it, get it done completely and have it come out as well as you could have hoped for. This is why I'm always giving myself silly projects to do in my world, because I like the feeling of completion that comes with a job well done. This week my self-assigned project was getting my iTunes in order, from correct album info and song order, to cover art for every song. I actually started last week and despite having to check the info on almost 1,000 songs (that's what I get for starting my mp3 library with an iRock instead of an iPod), I got it done in less than a week.

I know what you're thinking: "Tom, you love the Beatles, you have quite a bit on your iPod and they're not on iTunes, how did you get the correct album art on there?" I'm glad you asked. Because I believe in being beyond thorough, I would go online for any album that was missing, find a jpeg of the cover art and simply upload it to my iTunes like any other picture. Just in case you were wondering, for some reason AC/DC isn't on iTunes either, which I found weird. So, just to recap: no AC/DC or the Beatles, but all the Go West you could ever want.

Now that I've had to look up roughly 800 separate albums, I feel almost like a bit of an expert. And so I can say with conviction that when it comes to greatest hits albums, you definitely want to title it either "The Very Best of..." or "The Definitive Collection." Sure, you could just call it "Greatest Hits," but that's rather boring. One thing I am not a fan of is calling your greatest hits album, "The Essential." I will decide what is essential thank you very much and, Adam Ant, your compilation comes up very short.

Also, I think the worse album cover that I came across was Orleans' 1976 Waking and Dreaming. Honestly, who thought this was a good idea? It looks like a poster for the movie 300, only if no one lifted any weights before they started filming. Furthermore, how did the rest of the band get talked into posing like that? What was the sales pitch: "Hey guys, want to scare off any potential groupies and turn our concerts into total sausagefests?" I can't believe one of those guys became a two-term Congressman.