Is that Snidely Whiplash?

Thought I would sneak one more post in before the end of the day. I can feel happy happy joy joy with myself if I can get 2 posts in per month. I took a CPR class and got a 100% on both sections so I am feeling quite productive and slight inklings towards being a superhero? Saving lives qualifies for hero status, and I have lots of tight fitting clothes that are super, so Superhero it is..., the name shall be "Mr. BigStuff" with my tag line as "who do you think YOU are?" Suggestions are welcome.

I have been experimenting with some facial hair recently, and its been going okay. I look quite sinister which is always good, and should I ever get caught doing my sinister things, its always easier and faster to shave something off rather than grow something on. When the feds are hot on your tail, speed counts; Richard Kimball rules apply. Plus, it keeps all those really hot babes from jumping on my face when I wear my old spice/tag/axe tri-fecta of body spray. Now, if I could only organize some kind of a haircut, I would be in business.

Is it particularly morbid to plan out wills and last request type death letters at my age? Like maybe leaving a note somewhere that says "Should I perish; bury my body with 14 dead roses, and send my right arm to Paris Hilton with the fingers taped down except for the middle finger and send my left arm to Scarlett Johanssen with a real life Thumbs Up" Maybe something really cool like "remove my heart, burn it to ash, put it in a magic ball and send it to (insert ex-girlfriend name) with a little note that says 'you broke it, you bought it'. I guess I don't plan on dying anytime soon, just that I want to make sure I don't waste an oppertunity to be awesome by failing to plan ahead.

The hot weather is back. I try not to get too accustomed to/happy about any particular climate, as I like to think of myself as the ultimate survivor type. Not quite Bear Grylls type stuff, just ready to go whether sleet, rain, snow, or heat. Even so, some of the great advantages to this are more outdoor activities are available such as rowing (in more comfort), swimming (do girls know about shrinkage?), running (for fitness/escape), and mailbox smashing...I mean errrrrr, soccer? I can also make a mean return to the great north country where I can do all those things at once at Brant Lake. It also means more of the casual gym people are not at the gym and are doing their 20 ounce curls and hanging out with their fat girl/boy friends on their porch/lawn/plymouth duster. Plan your days accordingly.

This post written while listening to: Sneaker Pimps "Becoming X"

Did NASA approve?

As predicted, Roger "The Rocket" Clemens is coming back to join the boys in the boogie down Bronx for the 2007 season and making somewhere around 9,000 dollars a pitch according to my C+ math abilities. (Thats for around 22 starts this year with around 100 pitches a start for 2,200 pitches divided into 19 million dollars = 8,700 bucks)

Being a Yankee fan, I could care less about what the players get paid. It's obvious that Steinbrenner has a US Mint approved printing press in his basement and can get whoever he wants to play for him. It makes me happy because if anything, it should make the players want to concentrate on winning baseball games rather than gripe about what they are getting paid. They should develop a more old school attitude with the yankee system. Who has to think about feeding their families on that team?

Thus, the dilemma with the Yankees is not player related. It's got something to do with the competitive spirit of the team and the way they approach winning and losing. There has been a subtle shift in the way business is being done in the Bronx, and its not something that you can see with the naked eye or in the box score in the morning paper.

Can the Rocket solve this issue? Maybe.... but probably not. The issue as I see it is that the team thinks too much about winning games, and not enough about making the other team lose. As much as players get paid, as extravegant as the locker rooms are, and as many coaches and health specialists as there are on the team; you still can't buy a "Fuck You" attitude.

I know we need the old school yankee meanness back in that clubhouse and Roger is probably too old to have enough of that rocket fuel left. Not in his arm, but in what used to be his crazy crazy mind. We need a Roger that guns people high and inside, throws bats shards at innocent batters, and swears at people. All the New York players used to be this way, and they need it back if they are going to win games. They need challengers, not winners. People who want to see the other team lose, as much as they want to see their own team win. People who talk trash, start fights, and call out people on the other team. People who believe they are better than other people, and aren't afraid to put their own pride on the line against other people, just like the people of the city they play for. I want people laughing at the failures of others and smirking at pitchers after getting home runs. The New York Yankees thrive on being hated and they need to start doing things to warrant that response. I'm sick of this whole "lets win games and act like professionals" mentality.

Maybe Joe Torre isn't the answer anymore, I really don't know. I'm not enough of an insider to know where this lax attitude is coming from but I like the Sports Guy theory that maybe Steinbrenner really is dead. Maybe there is no fear inside the locker rooms anymore. The media in NY is so over-powering that its almost too easy to shrug it off. If you can't shrug them off, you'll never make it in that city. I think the players don't have enough stress instead of too much stress. They are like soldiers having a laugh inside a bunker while bombs are going off all around them and dirt and blood falling all over them. They have seen too much to be stressed out by anything anymore.

I'm going to toast my water glass to the hope that Roger brings this attitude back, heres the hopefull return of the evil empire long since lost in 2003, and to the death of the Jedi "professional attitude".

This Post written while listening to: Michael Kay and Paul O'Neill