Take Me Out To The Ballgame...

Take me out to the ballgame… That simple song about rooting for the home team, eating peanuts and cracker-jack and counting the outs with the umpire is a true reflection of the innocence and simple pleasure of watching baseball. That song alone may be what separates baseball from the other major sports. But shouldn’t other sports have songs too?

Football:

Take me out to see football
Take me out with the crowd, that has been drinking beer in the parking lot since 5 AM this morning
Buy me a six dollar hot-dog
I won’t get any change back
So let’s root, root, root for the home team
If they don’t win they’re out of the playoffs and may move to another city.
For it’s 1, 2, 3, player convictions
At the Football game!

Basketball:
Take me out to see Basketball
Take me out with the crowd of celebrities in the front row while the rest of us are stuck in the nosebleed seats
Buy me a replica jersey of the guy who just got injured
I don’t care if he ever comes back
So let’s root root root for the home team
If they don’t win the refs probably have the game fixed
For it’s one, two, three steps and no travel called
At the Basketball game!

Hockey:
Take me out to see Hockey
Take me out with the crowd
Buy me something to throw at the penalty box
I don’t care that the game isn’t being shown on TV
So let’s root root root for the home team
Just hoping they don’t strike again
For it’s one-two-three teeth knocked out in the hockey fight!

Soccer:
Take me out to see Soccer
Take me out with the crowd of ninteen
Buy me the jersey of some European team
I don’t care that nobody here speaks English
So let’s root root root for the home team
If they don’t win there will be a riot
For it’s 1, 1, 1 goal score
in this whole damn game!

In The News

Seriously, I haven’t done one in entirely too long….

Gore urges U.S. to have carbon-free power in decade
http://www.star-telegram.com/869/story/766574.html
WASHINGTON — Former Vice President Al Gore urged the United States on Thursday to convert the nation’s entire electricity grid to carbon-free energy within 10 years, warning that drastic steps are needed to avoid a global economic and ecological cataclysm.

I haven't picked on Mr. Gore in a while, but this is just too easy: Gore plans on helping this along by using up all the fossil fuels by flying all over the world making these statements in his personal private jet.

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FDA gives all-clear on tomatoes, not peppers
Jalapeno, serrano varieties focus of salmonella hunt
WASHINGTON — The Food and Drug Administration declared on Thursday that it is again safe to eat all tomatoes now on sale in the U.S., canceling its warning in June that some tomatoes were the cause of a still-unsolved outbreak of salmonella poisoning.

This further proves my theory that Al-Quaeda is trying to kill us with Salsa!

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Britney Spears gives sole custody to Kevin Federline. For now.
isn't she dead yet?

Britney Spears and Kevin Federline have reportedly reached a settlement in their acrimonious 1½-year-long court battle over custody of their two sons.

Federline has sole custody of Preston, 2, and Jayden, 1. And Spears keeps her current status of two visits and one overnight per week.

We all knew Britney was a bad parent, but how bad was she that these kids are better off with the jagdork willing to marry her! Reportedly the chidren get along with K-Fed’s illegitimate child he conceived just before marrying the pop star.

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Starbucks identifies stores slated for closure
No coffee no peace, know coffee know peace?
Coffee chain to shutter more than 600 stores in response to slowing sales, sluggish economy.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Starbucks Corp. released a list Thursday of the 616 company-owned stores it will shutter by the first half of 2009.

The closures accompany planned layoffs of 12,000 workers. Starbucks currently operates 7,087 stores in the U.S.

Can we blame the coffee bean speculators for keeping the prices high? Or is it just the CEO’s of Big Coffee? Maybe it's a supply and demand problem with the growth of Chinese coffee drinkers. It's actually because Gas prices so high people are choosing to fill up their car than their mug. Now every one of those pansy-assed late-sipping New York Times reading, Ed Hardy wearing pseudo-sophisticated coffee shop socialites now have a reason to expand offshore drilling too!

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Playing the Brett Favre Lottery (revised)

Here's a list of every NFL team and the likelihood that one of them will sign Brett favre. Given Favre only wants to start, he really wants to win, and there are salary cap issues to consider. Of course with two years left on his contract the Green Bay Packers aren't just going to let him go to any team who needs an experienced quality quarterback. So assuming the Packers do make a trade, this is a list of teams the Packers are most likely to deal with.

Buffalo	****	It's as cold as Green Bay, and they probably have the salary room
Kansas City	***	Does this team even have a quarterback right now?
New York Jets	***	He's a country boy at heart, but we know he looks good in green
Tampa Bay	***	John Gruden loves Quarterbacks and would probably be willing to sign Favre
Carolina	***	Given how banged up they were under center last year you may have John Fox's attention
Washington	***	Could happen, and this team does like to finagle with salary cap numbers
Seattle	***	Reunion with Holmgren? And Hasslebeck has experience backing up #4.Okay realistically this should only be a 1-2 star ranking, but a guy can dream can't he?
Baltimore	***	When you spend your first pick on Joe Falco, Favre for a year could be an upgrade. Then again after seeing Steve McNair last year Baltimore may be the new place Quarterbacks go to die.
Houston	**	Matt Schaub was an upgrade from the perpetually sacked David Carr, however Favre would be a better upgrade… if he can be protected
Denver	**	Willing to look into Favre's glucose levels
Miami	**	Would be a good one-year mentor for rookie draft pick Chad Henne
Atlanta	**	Yes, but only if he's an animal lover!
San Francisco	**	This would make Joe Montana the second best QB to have played in the City by the Bay
Cincinnati	*	Carson Palmer is still the starter, but depending on how this plays out, Palmer may be taking notes on how to get a new team.
Tennessee	*	Only if Vince young is willing to switch to slot receiver
San Diego	*	It really doesn't matter who the QB is here as long as LaDanian Tomlinson is healthy
Oakland	*	This is JaMarcus Russell's year… to finally see a down
St. Louis	*	Probably looking more to the future than giving a semi-retired all-star another shot
Pittsburgh		Just resigned Ben, not looking for another starter
Cleveland		Just hoping to avoid a QB controversy without a future hall-of-famer stirring the pot
Indianapolis		They should just rename this team the "Peyton Mannings"
Jacksonville		After David Garrard's unbelievably low interception numbers, he's under center for the foreseeable future
New England		Two words: Tom Brady
Green Bay		Hell no!
Detroit		Traded out of the division before this happens
Minnesota		Traded out of the division before this happens
Chicago		Sacralige!
New Orleans		Of all the offensive tools this team needs, Quarterback is not one of them
Dallas		Can you say Tony Romo?
New York Giants		Only Baltimore is stupid enough to replace a quarterback the year after winning a superbowl
Phillidelphia		How's Brett's 40? What this team really needs is another receiver.
Arizona		Already has one old guy who thinks he's better than the young hot-shot.

Of course there are other factors, that could be used to further wittle down this list. It's unlikely that the Packers would deal with another playoff team in the NFC. They definately will NOT deal with any team in the NFC North. Finally the Packers definately won't deal with a team on their 2008 schedule. That discounts the following teams:

Detroit
Dallas
Tampa
Atlanta
Seattle
Indianapolis
Tennessee
Minnesota
Chicago
New Orleans
Carolina
Houston
Jacksonville

But what happens if Favre goes to a mediocre team and after 8 weeks, it gets colder the practices are harder and he's looking at a 4-4 record at best? Does Brett remember that he said he still wanted to play but wasn't willing to put in the work? Has he taken an attitude that the NFL is all about him and what he wants, and then just screws a team by re-retiring midseason?

Let's face it, all the good songs have already been written

Musings on the Music Industry between Dustin and Andy

From Dustin:
I think I just figured out what makes classic rock so great and today's music so bad. It's all opposite of how it used to be. The music industry takes people and tries to create something. When they take a song they try and create some type of emotional hook so the fans like it.

Years ago in the age of classic rock you had bands whose works evolved from their own feelings, experiences, and emotions. Then, they went to the companies themselves to try and make it big.

My Reply:
Your theory would explain the rise of independent rock.

The other thing is that the music industry isn't just a music industry anymore. Look at the pictures of bands from the 70's like Humble Pie and Grand Funk... or even how the Beatles looked on the Hey Jude album.

They had scraggly beards, wrinkled clothing and weren't much to look at. However it was the music that mattered so nobody cared and they created classic rock.

Then came the 80's. You have MTV as the new major outlet for music and all of a sudden it was visual. Now it mattered how you looked, so much so that we had Twisted Sister wearing Makeup.

I recently heard someone on the radio comment that some early 80's one-hit-wonder would have been HUGE if he had debuted 5 years earlier, but when looks started to matter his career was cut short.

Not to say that there weren't some great bands after that. But for every Bon Jovi, Def Leopard, and Van Halen there were 4 ugly bands that was at least as talented.

But when the corporations who analyzed that the great 80's rock bands were really just an extension of classic rock bands who showered regularly we had record companies putting studio musicians together and calling them a band. This gave us crap like Winger.

This was the start of what you described as unemotional corporate rock. The grunge movement was a brief backlash to that, but while rock had become pseudo-emotional grunge was itself unemotional.

Now more than ever we have the music corporate entities telling us what we want instead of letting us decide what we want. From radio to record sales to any commercial musical venture the music industry is forcing us to listen what THEY want us to listen to.

Guess what, the music industry is hurting. They blame MP3 file sharing over the internet, but why do I pay $9 a month for Sirius? It's because I get 4 classic rock stations that play different brands of classic rock, and every other segment of music I can think of. the majority of Americans own iPods, not because we're gadget obsessed consumers, but because it gives us a chance to create a play list of only the music we WANT, not what we're told to want.

The music industry is hurting because they're trying to dictate the rules of the free market instead of abiding by the will of the free market.

Obscene Oil Profits and How to Put an End to Them

Barack Obama is an idiot. And because John McCain can’t come up with this idea on his own he’s likely not much better. Now I know that the biggest criticizer of “big oil” (By the way, I looked it up, there is no single entity called “big oil” just a group of publicly held companies operating in the oil industry) and coiner of the phrase “obscene profits” is Hillary Clinton, but aside from a potential VP nod and subsequent plot to take the Oval Office from within the administration, she’s a non-factor right now.

That leaves us with Barack and John. I pay their salaries; I think its okay for me to address them on a first-name-basis.

Obama’s position on $4 gasoline is summed up in his statement “We can’t drill our way out of this,” meaning that he would rather see more hybrid cars, mass transit and people turning off their Air Conditioning and Heat. His statement “we can’t” doesn’t refer to a physical inability; it is actually an ideological roadblock: “we shouldn’t.”

McCain’s solution to high gas prices has been to have a gas-tax holiday from Memorial Day to Labor Day. Essentially, during the summer the government gets none of what you pay at the pump. If anything this just keeps the gas companies from having to collect taxes on behalf of the IRS and isn’t much of a long-term solution at all.

Others have proposed further taxing the oil companies “obscene” profits. This just exacerbates the high price at the pump because in everything you buy from t-shirts to stereo equipment to mayonnaise has a tax built into the price. Taxes on corporations are just the IRS’s way of outsourcing their collections department.

But what if we did drill our way out if this? Keep in mind I believe we can and we should. The reason for high gas prices is primarily the industrial revolution currently happening in India and China. More industry needs more fuel and outside of smashing atoms, oil provides the best bang-for-your-buck ratio. We know from the first law of Economics that when demand rises, and supply stays stagnant so the price goes up.

Drilling domestically, and all signs point to there being at least as much Oil in North America as there is in the Middle East, would provide a significant boost to the world’s oil supply. This would increase supply at some point to approach the increased demand. Continuing with the economics lesson when supply rises to meet demand the price comes down.

So in response to Barack, Yes, we can drill our way out of it, in fact, the best, easiest solution in the world is to drill our way out of it.

Now what would be the long-term ramifications of this? With oil trading currently at approximate $140 a barrel, based on future speculation of supply and demand the speculation would then shift toward rising supply and thus lower price per barrel. Since we are dealing with long-term speculation and not physical supplies the price for a barrel of crude would likely drop rapidly and significantly.

How significant? Well let’s assume that ANWR provides ten years of US supply. Oil would become more readily available concequently the price per barrel would drop; the profit margin from extracting the oil from the ground would become razor thin.

Oil companies now get $140 per barrel. Let’s assume that their overhead costs, including facilities, transport and labor costs are $50 per barrel. Droping the price per barrel to $80 significantly cuts into the profit margin per barrel. Dropping the price again under $50 creates a loss for the oil company.

And that’s how you cut Oil profits without hurting the consumer!