Made some chili last night according to what I remember of the traditional family recipe -no beans, no tomatoes, just beef & spices. Used a whole bag pf ground chile plus a tablespoon of chili powder, but even after sitting overnight in the fridge it just wasn't that hot. Not much of a burn at all; no hotter than what you'd get at Hard Times, really, which was disappointing. It tastes okay, mind you; pretty sure I got the garlic and cumin right. The ground chili was just too mild, though. I guess next time I'll have to use some whole peppers and hope for the best.

The Nationals got another step closer to undoing the damage done by ex-GM Jim Bowden by passing on eternal prospect Austin Kearns and allowing both Dmitri Young and Ron Villone to file for free agency, according to mlb.com. Kearns did little to help the Nats in return for his $17.5 million over the last three years, spending most of his time on the DL and the rest of it being ineffective at the plate. Young was paid a little less ($10 million, 2 years) but was just as rickety and ineffective. Villone, at least, pitched well for the Nationals out of the pen, leading the bullpen in appearances and posting a respectable 4.25 ERA. Frankly, I was hoping they'd re-sign him, but there are other lefty relievers out there.

Catcher Josh Bard and pitcher Livan Hernandez both filed for free agency on Thursday; Bard is old and has a below-average OPS, and Livo is a mediocre innings-eater who can be replaced. I'm hoping for Pudge Rodriguez and...well, I don't know. Most of the decent free agent pitchers are going to be expensive in dollars and draft picks, so maybe the Nats would be better just sticking with the kids.

To quote Ed Driscoll:

“[Robert] Gibbs: Can you imagine if, five years ago, protesters had compared our government to Hitler?”

As Allahpundit writes, “You know what? I think I can.”

RTWT, It won't take you long.

I've been considering splitting off some of the content that currently goes on my LJ and sticking it on a separate blog or blogs. Right now, I'm leaning toward keeping all the personal stuff here on the LJ, and shifting the baseball, culture, politics -along with book and movie reviews- over to a separate site, somewhat similar to what Baseball Crank does. There's also the possibility of having separate blogs for baseball and cultural/political stuff.

I'd definitely link to the new site from LJ and Facebook so that people didn't miss anything. Comments? Questions? Suggestions?

A meditation on hating the Yankees
( Cut for those uninterested in baseball )

Finished my first day of subbing, covering for a language arts teacher in one of the two middle schools. Since the Kia is hors de combat until Carlos can figure out what's wrong and fix it, I took the bus over there and back, which involved a fair amount of walking on top of all the walking I was doing in class. (The kids stay quiet and on task so much better when I loom over them.)* By and large it went well; most of this teacher's classes were Honors classes and those kids were generally well-behaved with a couple of exceptions that I left notes about. One kid in the last period got on my last nerve, wandering around messing with the others, and so I invited him out into the hallway where one of the regular teachers proceeded to realign his headspace with some impressive non-obscene language before taking the little troublemaker down the hall to the vice-principal. On my return the rest of the students were noticeably quieter.

Missed lunch at the school, wound up walking a couple blocks to Subway (needs must when the blood sugar drives) and then another couple blocks to the Braddock Road Metro, where I took a bus to the Alexandria Hospital. I was hoping to catch a Metrobus down into Foxchase, but instead of waiting 45 minutes I just walked it, since it was all downhill. My legs may forgive me, but not today. :(

Was going to make chili tonight but instead I think I'll just fry a pork chop or two, nuke some veggies, and crash.

*windelina, I don't have your bubbly personality, so I have to rely on presence. ;)

Man, I've been doing a lot of walking these last couple of days. Marched up the hill to the management office to pay the rent, came back to the apartment and collapsed for a while, and after dinner went out to the Alexandria City Republican Committee meeting by bus, which involved a couple of blocks' walk between bus routes.

Wow...it was almost a flashback to RPM* days in District 61. On the other hand, both of our Republican/Independent city council members were there, and everyone was really pumped on account of the big wins on Tuesday. Both the candidates for delegate were there as well and got standing ovations for their efforts; Sasha Gong in particular got enthusiastic cheers after delivering an impromptu two-minute speech in which she called out the Democrats for being a bunch of racists. Some things never change. I put my name on the committee's e-mail list and will probably wind up being the precinct captain for Foxchase, which like most precincts with apartment complexes has a lot of turnover. It'll get me out of the basement and also get me face time with people, which is two good things at once.

Aside from that, I finally got my ID number from the ACPS** and got set up on the assignment system. Nothing out there yet, but I'll be diligent about checking the website. It's flu season, after all.

*Republican Party of Minnesota
**Alexandria City Public Schools

Christopher Walken's dramatic reading of Lady Gaga's "Poker Face":

Phillies lose 7-3 to the hated Yankees. The fix was in. Agony of repeated misfires by Phillies offense and repeated blows by Gojira increased by horrible live music at Shooter's. Would have been fine if the guy had just played his guitar, but no, he had to open his mouth and sing horribly. Many popular hits were butchered. *cue Cracker's "Teen Angst" here*
P dropped by briefly but didn't stay for the whole miserable experience (wise of her) but since the Sportage has either a dead fuel pump or a busted/slipped timing chain this meant that I had to walk home as the game ended ~2330 and the next bus eastbound on Duke didn't come by until 0020 or so. I made it, though I had to stop a couple times and catch my breath/give my back a rest. I don't think I've done this much walking in one outing in months, maybe years. Carlos will be coming by tomorrow with a friend to tow the Sportage to the Texaco he works at so he can see what the deal is; either way, it's going to hurt.

UPDATE QOTW: "I hate the Yankees more than I hate baseball itself." - R. Seastrom

UPDATE II "The World Series finally ended. The Yankees won, but the Scorekeeper is going to ignore the Teacher Says Every Time The Yankees Win A Cute Little Puppy Dies rule, and instead the Scorekeeper applies the Winter Baseball Belongs In Latin America rule. EVIL." -Don Surber

Called in to Accountemps (all three NoVa offices) this morning and made sure they were showing me as active. ACPS never did get around to calling me today, so I'm going to follow up with them tomorrow and find out what's clogging the gears. I also headed over to the management office to hand in my lease renewal paperwork and complain about my living room window. It's been nice during the day lately, so I figure I might as well get it unjammed now...what the hell, it's been almost two years, I ought to be able to enjoy it before next spring. Confirmed that there is a DirecTV hookup in the building so I don't have to deploy my own antenna, which would be in radio defilade anyway since I have a north-facing basement apartment. I won't need that until next spring either, but it doesn't hurt to plan ahead.

Saw Game 5 of the World Series down at Shooter's tonight; it went much better than the preceding two games in Philadelphia since the Phillies staved off extermination 8-6, partially due to the awesome pitching of Cliff M.F. Lee and partially due to Chase Utley's two dingers, which moved him ahead of Reggie Jackson on the WS homers list. For once Charlie Manuel remembered that Brad Lidge is shitty, and called in Ryan Madsen to close the deal in the 9th. Madsen made things unnecessarily exciting by giving up hits to Posada and Gojira Matsui before getting Jeter to ground into a double play and striking out Teixeira, but he got the save, so it was all good.

Minor personal accomplishment - got my alt into Goonfleet and out of the Tribal Defense Forces, where he'd been grinding missions for loyalty points. Normally I would have podjumped to Goon space, but i decided to take my little missile boat and run for it. Surprisingly, I managed to run the 56-jump route through Gallente and Amarr space without getting blown up and/or podded. Also, there's some drama involving a friend of mine who's risen to a position of some responsibility in the Swarm and the new spy master/counterintelligence chief, who I used to think well of until he had a major attack of bitchiness at my friend's expense. Maybe next time he'll remember to fuel his own damn towers. :)

Went down to the neighborhood bar to watch Game 4 of the World Series, which was pretty exciting but ended badly when Phillies closer Brad Lidge coughed up three runs in the top of the ninth. This broke a 4-4 tie, and then Mariano Rivera came in to close in the bottom of the ninth, and that was all she wrote. Phillies are now down three games to one after losing two straight in their home park. Cliff Lee starts tomorrow for the Phillies, against AJ Burnett on three days' rest for the hated Yankees. I find it hard to be optimistic.

This post by Instapundit reminded me of this ad that played last night during the Series:


The poem sounded familiar - not that I'd heard it before, but the way it was put together, the words and scansion and all...and when I looked up the words today, sure enough, it was Walt Whitman. Pretty good ad.

Dutch was kind enough to invite me over to chez Dunham last night so we could watch Game #3 of the World Series on their rather impressive flat screen TV. Unfortunately, the game was delayed by rain, but this was all right since it gave Dutch the chance to show me the first couple of episodes of the Bertie & Jeeves series with Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie. Laurie does an outstanding Bertie Wooster, while Fry is so good as Jeeves that I didn't even realize it was him until the end credits rolled. Yow.

World Series unfortunately was not as good; Phillies jumped out to an early 3-0 lead but Cole Hamels seemed to come apart after A-Rod clubbed what should have been a ground-rule double off a camera down the first-base line. Apparently the umpires had decided this would be a home run before the game THE FIX WAS IN and conferenced on it in the umpire room using video replays before confirming that it was a 2-run homer. I'm sure the constant drizzle didn't help Hamels, but the bullpen didn't do a lot better. Phillies offense also seemed to be in all-or-nothing mode as most of their runs came off solo homers (2 byJayson Werth) and the final score was a depressing 8-5. Here's hoping the weather is better tonight and that the Phillies can come back to tie it up.

Some linkagery for your Sunday: Stuff White People Don't Like and The World of Tomorrow (If the Internet Disappeared Today). The former seems more true of the UK than the States, although that may be because I'm not tied in well to either of the groups he talks about. (Instapundit and Moe Lane, respectively)

Happy birthday to digex!

Or should I say as usual? This ignoramus seems to be completely unaware that Babe Ruth and other major leaguers of the 20s, 30s, and 40s faced Negro League players all the time in the off-season: it was called BARNSTORMING, and in fact Babe Ruth was famous for it. Also, Start-O-Matic was beaten like the family mule in coming up with Negro League stats. Imagine Sports did it two years ago for their Diamond Mind Online baseball game, which gives me hope that they'll have these players ready for the home Diamond Mind PC game soon. Of course, there's nothing to stop anyone from using the Diamond Mind game's player creation software to do the same thing, but some of us are lazy. :)

E.D. Hirsch's Curriculum for Democracy. Needless to say, Hirsch and his Core Knowledge curriculum never came up once in any of my education classes. Rousseauists, all of them. (Maggie's Farm)

Reading in bed at night is bad for you!

A modest proposal for Congress. No, it doesn't involve eating babies. (The Other McCain)

Allahpundit: the second coming of Moriarty? Not Holmes' bitter enemy, this guy:

If windmills are so great, why do they cost as much as nukes and not last as long? (Kate's place)

Me, I'm doing all right. The infection in my right leg has been bombed back to a couple of dime-sized pits, the wound itself has shrunk to the size of a tennis ball, and best of all when they wrapped it up I could fit my shoe over it. :)

As a follow-on to the previous post, here's a list of books I've culled from the library, either because they're duplicates or I don't need/want them around any more:
( cut to spare the f-list )

I hate to do this, but as Poul Anderson's characters were fond of saying, "Needs must when the devil drives."

After five months of unemployment, I'm at the end of my rope with my former employers, who hold the note on my Kia Sportage, sometimes known as the Brave Little Toaster. Because of my persistent unemployed status, I've gotten behind on the payments, and they've decided that if they don't get a payment by Friday, they're going to call out the boys with the hook, and I'll be left without wheels. Which will make it damn near impossible to work as a substitute teacher here in Alexandria, much less in Fairfax County or Arlington.

I'm not going to ask anyone to step up for the whole payment. Times are tough, people are scratching to meet their own bills, and even if they weren't, two hundred bucks is a lot of money at the best of times. What I am going to ask is that you visit my book store at half.com, see if there's something you like there, and buy it. (There's a bunch of newly-surplus SF and manga, including some vintage Harlan Ellison, being added.) If there's nothing there that catches your fancy, or you just want to contribute, here's a PayPal donation button:

All money received will be dedicated to the Toaster Preservation Fund, which only needs $119.

Went over to Alexandria City Public Schools' main office this morning to turn in all my paperwork and get fingerprinted, which means that if everything goes smoothly (no reason why it shouldn't) I'll be an active member of the substitute pool starting Monday. Hopefully I'll have better luck with that than I've had with the various temp agencies.

Been on quite the reading jag lately, which considering how much time I'm spending with my feet up isn't too surprising. Today I finished S.M. Stirling's The Peshawar Lancers; yesterday I wrapped up his Helot War trilogy with Go Tell the Spartans and Prince of Sparta, both of which are co-written with Jerry Pournelle. I've also been browsing through Total Baseball, mostly looking at horrible teams like the A's, Browns and Phillies from the 1940s and 50s. Actually, since the Browns became the Orioles in 1953, there's not much to look at, but what's there is morbidly fascinating.

Speaking of baseball, I finished sixth in the fantasy league fsf_rapier started, which puts me two places behind him and one behind luned, though it really wasn't that close. luned's Rivendell Rangers led my Dukes by 10.5 points at the end of the season, mainly because my pitching blew chunks. I had the league's worst ERA and WHIP, to say nothing of Batting Avergae Against. The only pitching category I did well in was saves, where I was fourth. The offense was similarly bad: league worst AVG and OBP, mediocre HR and RBI - at least we led the league in steals, which is just ridiculous since that's not the kind of team I like. :(

Maybe next year I'll do better, after I pick up the Sporting News guide and figure out who all these damn players are. Also, I need to just leave my pitchers alone until June; I got rid of Scott Baker, Justin Verlander, and Cole Hamels, all of whom started badly and finished great. :(

My eyes are telling me I spent too much time staring at this screen today, so I think I'll post this and go to bed.