Watching baseball on TV and it's very sweet. Nevermind that it's the Hiroshima Carp against the Hanshin Tigers, and the Carp are losing, nevermind that my favorite team Japanese team is so unpopular that they can't get a game televised on Cable, where they show high school girls basketball, it's still sweet. Maybe I'll see Eric Stults, the Bethel College grad who never got a fair shot at the Dodgers rotation though he showed himself to be as reliable as any fifth starter anywhere, the Dodgers sold his contract to the Hiroshima Carp, so maybe I'll see him tomorrow. Dodgers themselves are an absolute mess. I blame Bud Selig for allowing the McCourts to buy them in the first place. The funniest part is they refused someone else, then accepted the McCourts as buyers, what a joke. I'm actually thinking to make the Angels my American League team this year, and number 2 overall. I've been an Indians guy for so long but it just doesn't mean anything these days, they're not interesting, I've never been to Cleveland, and I can take my kid to Angels games. I can go to Angels blanket night. I can teach him to steal leftover ice cream helmets after the game and wash them out in the bathrooms, then get the fifth outfielder or second string middle reliever to sign it. Is there really a better fan experience than that? One last point, the Dodgers begin the season at Pittsburgh, so hopefully we're 3-0 by the time we start playing Major League teams. But seriously the Pirates seem to be putting it together, I'd say they're up to about half a Major League starting lineup with guys like McClutchen, Garret Jones and Ryan Doumit. How do you pronounce that anyway? Doe-mit!?
Spend a lot of my dreamy time thinking about reading and writing. I've always wanted to write a novel, but never had the discipline to think anything through from start to finish, much less actually pen a first draft. When I was 10 years old I had a real winner I was gonna call 'The Great Guinea Pig Adventure', and it was gonna be way edgier than David's finished manuscript for 'Journey to PetTown'. Now I'm 27, I've got a few how-to books, and would find it to be a huge personal accomplishment to get a full manuscript written and refined to something I could think of as publisher ready. I wouldn't make it a goal to publish it because merely having a worthy manuscript isn't good enough to get it published, there are too many worthy manuscripts for publishers to consider as it is, and also, almost nobody puts out a worthy manuscript on their first try. I'll leave you with this true story to illustrate my point. I read about a guy, and this is a story I like to tell so if you've heard it from me just hear it again, a guy who submitted his novel to a publisher who responded with 'I can't publish this, but I'd be interested in reading your next effort.' he responded the same way with the second effort, and the third. The fourth he published, and that novel was a bestseller, it was called Carrie, the author was Stephen King, and every novel he's written since have been bestsellers. Cheers.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Friday, March 26, 2010
End of a busy March
It's a somewhat rare Saturday morning that I can sit on the couch and start a blog. I realize I already have two blogs that I update regularly, but they are specifically about parts of my life, my son, and my work/ministry. I intend for this to be more of just a blog. I don't talk to native English speakers as much as I used to so I hope this to be an outlet. I'm sitting here with Aquila on my lap asleep. If he were awake he probably wouldn't let me sit on the couch, but in the end sleep won out...as long as I don't put him down. Anyway, if I don't make paragraphs I'm going to lose all of you.
Very excited about baseball season. I drafted three fantasy teams in a simplified format, one on a live draft with friends. I'm most excited about that, but hope to do well on all fronts. The Dodgers, while they've been frustrating me for the 20 years I've been a fan, this season is especially trying with the current ownership debacle. I think this divorce is the best thing that could happen to the Dodgers...if it forces them to sell the team. It's clear that Frank intends to use the Dodgers to create a sports empire and gobs and gobs of money, while his soon to be ex-wife Jamie hopes to use the Dodgers to become a powerful and well-loved politician. I'd like to see the Dodgers owned by a smart baseball guy. Actually, I'd love to steal the Angels owner and manager, probably GM too. I do like the Dodgers VPs is Logan White and Kim Ng, I think they're responsible for keeping us respectable on the field in spite of the circus going on around the team. But here's hoping for a ring this year anyway.
Healthcare. I'm bothered by the reactions to this. It's like the whole country became Lakers fans and decided to burn cars and stuff. Here's why I think we need health-care reform: Insurance companies are cut-throat businesses, this is obvious by their practices. If they think you are a risk to lose them money instead of gain, they cut you or reject you. That's why something as fundamental as health-care shouldn't be in the unregulated private sector. I'm pro-free market, but not for everything. Why doesn't anybody complain about Social Security? Is that not big government? Basically what health-care reform is about is making health care a reality for everyone. This is something that most countries have had for a long time and think of America as a third world country because we don't. I live in a foreign country and it's embarrassing.
Looking forward to seeing Alice in Wonderland in a few weeks! Still haven't seen a movie in theatres since...Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. Before that was Narnia II and then Sweeney Todd? I've always liked good movies, but there seem to be fewer that I get around to seeing. Hopefully I can catch a few more on home service. Been reading a lot lately, I tend to like that better, it's cheaper, I can do it on trains (I'm not a gadget guy and don't even own a working MP3 player so watching movies on a portable is out), and there are still tons of easily found high quality books that interest me. As I haven't gotten to the bookstore since I finished the latest cliffhanger George R.R. Martin Song of Ice and Fire book (written 5 years ago and still waiting for the sequel), I picked up a Louis La'mour (sp?) western which I bought some months ago at a Christian School fundraiser bazaar. It's about California and Los Angeles from the late cowboy era (1850ish?) Fun to read about Palm Springs, the San Fernando Valley, and Los Angeles before any of them reached their current statuses. La'mour is a good writer, though I grow tired of what I perceive to be 'the American plain style', which is to say that the author tries to make himself invisible and let the characters takeover. Noble, but I get a craving for something less plain now and again. Having said that I've gotten interested in Sci-Fi lately, and the one at the top of that list is Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card, who taught me the phrase 'American plain style' when describing his own work on a comment on Amazon on his own book.
Good enough for now I suppose, looking to take Maki and Aquila to the baby store to get him a nice big hat to keep the sun off. Spring is here, the Cherry blossoms ought to be great in less than a week, and gone in two. Cheers.
Very excited about baseball season. I drafted three fantasy teams in a simplified format, one on a live draft with friends. I'm most excited about that, but hope to do well on all fronts. The Dodgers, while they've been frustrating me for the 20 years I've been a fan, this season is especially trying with the current ownership debacle. I think this divorce is the best thing that could happen to the Dodgers...if it forces them to sell the team. It's clear that Frank intends to use the Dodgers to create a sports empire and gobs and gobs of money, while his soon to be ex-wife Jamie hopes to use the Dodgers to become a powerful and well-loved politician. I'd like to see the Dodgers owned by a smart baseball guy. Actually, I'd love to steal the Angels owner and manager, probably GM too. I do like the Dodgers VPs is Logan White and Kim Ng, I think they're responsible for keeping us respectable on the field in spite of the circus going on around the team. But here's hoping for a ring this year anyway.
Healthcare. I'm bothered by the reactions to this. It's like the whole country became Lakers fans and decided to burn cars and stuff. Here's why I think we need health-care reform: Insurance companies are cut-throat businesses, this is obvious by their practices. If they think you are a risk to lose them money instead of gain, they cut you or reject you. That's why something as fundamental as health-care shouldn't be in the unregulated private sector. I'm pro-free market, but not for everything. Why doesn't anybody complain about Social Security? Is that not big government? Basically what health-care reform is about is making health care a reality for everyone. This is something that most countries have had for a long time and think of America as a third world country because we don't. I live in a foreign country and it's embarrassing.
Looking forward to seeing Alice in Wonderland in a few weeks! Still haven't seen a movie in theatres since...Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. Before that was Narnia II and then Sweeney Todd? I've always liked good movies, but there seem to be fewer that I get around to seeing. Hopefully I can catch a few more on home service. Been reading a lot lately, I tend to like that better, it's cheaper, I can do it on trains (I'm not a gadget guy and don't even own a working MP3 player so watching movies on a portable is out), and there are still tons of easily found high quality books that interest me. As I haven't gotten to the bookstore since I finished the latest cliffhanger George R.R. Martin Song of Ice and Fire book (written 5 years ago and still waiting for the sequel), I picked up a Louis La'mour (sp?) western which I bought some months ago at a Christian School fundraiser bazaar. It's about California and Los Angeles from the late cowboy era (1850ish?) Fun to read about Palm Springs, the San Fernando Valley, and Los Angeles before any of them reached their current statuses. La'mour is a good writer, though I grow tired of what I perceive to be 'the American plain style', which is to say that the author tries to make himself invisible and let the characters takeover. Noble, but I get a craving for something less plain now and again. Having said that I've gotten interested in Sci-Fi lately, and the one at the top of that list is Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card, who taught me the phrase 'American plain style' when describing his own work on a comment on Amazon on his own book.
Good enough for now I suppose, looking to take Maki and Aquila to the baby store to get him a nice big hat to keep the sun off. Spring is here, the Cherry blossoms ought to be great in less than a week, and gone in two. Cheers.
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