1 and a Wake Up

Counting down HARD. Got a few hours to deal, then a few hours of sleep (averaging about 4.5 here) and it's back to the USA!!!!

I cannot wait.

UPDATE:
This day is apparently never going to end. Sayonara.

The Plague

From the looks of all the surgical masks here in Japan, the country is in the middle of a pandemic. Yikes for me.

I'm trying to keep about 4 steps in fron of the germs.

I've also had my fill of rice for the next 3 months.

Upside Down

SoulSlam is in Japan. For about a week.

Upside down is how I feel. As I type it's 3pm in Osaka, but 1am back home, where I would be sleeping. But I'm not. So I'm trying to stay alive awake with the help of little cans of coffee. Boss Coffee. Good stuff.

Anyhoo, I'm here for another couple of days, then a sweet 12.5 hour flight to US. Hopefully they will have a couple of new movies on flight.

KAYAK

Everybody loves a good palindrome. They are quite fun. Here's some you can amaze the people in your book club with:

A nut for a jar of tuna

A Toyota’s a Toyota

Are Mac ‘n’ Oliver ever evil on camera

A dog! A panic in a pagoda!

A man, a plan, a cat, a ham, a yak, a yam, a hat, a canal-Panama!

Winter's Tale

Snowing as we speak (type? read? ponder?). Forecast is for about 6-10 inches of the good stuff.

Work closing early, schools closed early, the state is in a state.

I travel to the Land of the Rising Sun on Sunday. Not exactly overjoyed by the prospect. No choice. Oh well. I plan on dropping 5 lbs. (that's a little over 2kg for you metric-minded folks) while I'm there.

Wild Thing

All things Twitter. Got a DM from @MLBNetwork...I "won" an autographed baseball from one Mitch Williams, #99, aka the Wild Thing. Sweet.

Peaks and Valleys

My 7th Grade Boys Travel Basketball Team (NINJAS!) has embarked on a 3-game losing streak. Rough.

A little background: these boys(core group) have been together since 5th Grade after playing on two different squads as 4th Graders. In 5th Grade, they had a regular season record of 6-10 (that included a forfeit). We then went into the playoffs as a 5th seed for a play-in, then ran the table, beating the #1 seed in the semis and the #2 seed for the championship. As 6th Graders, the boys played in two leagues, finished the regular seasons with acombined record of 25-5. Went 1-2 in championships.

As 7th Graders I have told them it will be tough sledding. Boys start to get big growth spurts, everybody knows how good we can be and are gunning for us. So besides our regular league, we joined a higher end weekend-only league. Bigger towns, lots of boys that play AAU, etc. As a comparison, I really only have what you would call one AAU-type player. Most of my boys are baseball, football and soccer players looking for some competitive hoops. In this weekend-only league we are at a disadvantage, and this weekend we got steam-rolled twice. Then we played in regular league on Monday night vs. the aforementioned #2 seed from 5th grade. I think in 5 games over the last two season we are 2-3 vs. these guys. Pretty evenly matched. So we go in last night and fall a little short, 60-50. They hit some key free throws with less than a minute left to ice us.

My point? We can't stop playing. But we have boys that don't seem to be progressing, and may actually be regressing. So it's time to shake it up. And FYI - we have another tough weekend ahead of us, so it may get worse before it gets better.

162

Take that, A-Rod*!

The shyster lawyers will be marching to court no doubt. This is gonna get good.

I Love Me, who do you love?

HOF

I like the fact that the HOF announcement gets the blood boiling.

So Maddux, Glavine and Thomas go in this year. Biggio misses by .2% (2 votes), Piazza holds steady in the 62% range and Jack Morris takes one on the chin. He'll undoubtedly go in when the verteran's committee gets his name in 5 years.

But here's the problemo:

You can keep out Bonds, Clemens, McGwire all you want BBWAA. PEDs! But what about guys in 50's, 60's and 70's that used greenies (aka amphetemines)? Wasn't that a performance enhancer? I vote yeah on that question.

Armando Benitez (0.2%), Jaque Jones (0.2% and I had to look him up) and JT Snow (0.4%) all got some votes. Now unless these stiffs moms' have votes, how can that be. People scream that Biggio was screwed. Well whoever voted for these cardboard heroes is mis-informed.

Curt Schilling is not a HOF-caliber player. He had some great post-season games. But he is not a HOFer. if you put him in, then Andy Pettitte should be a lock. But guess what? he's not a HOFer either. Very good to great players. That's enough.

Piazza is the greatest hitting catcher in history. His day will come. And backne? I had a pal that had chronic backne. It's a condition, not a symptom. Did he use PEDs? He said no. But there are whispers. Those whispers are what sank the ship.

Next year you get names like Smoltz (lock), Randy J., Sheff (509 HRs!), and Pedro on the ballot. I'm sure Brandon Looper will ge a vote or two by somebody as well.

It's 2014

Wow. That means we are 14 years into the Millenium, or actually 13 if your the picky sort.

Some things I like (besides the obvious):

Scott Wolter and America Unearthed

Twitter

The Tilted Kilt pub by me

Baseball

Google Chromecast

A nice craft beer

So there.