Once and For All

Do do do, dusting off the cobwebs, couple of tumbleweeds, aaanndd... we're back. Rorry for the bear bit. (For "rorry," refer to Jetson, Astro. And by bear bit, I mean that I am sorry for the big paws, erm, pause.) Anyway, I figured I'd just turn over the ol' engine just to keep the wheels of this well-oiled machine a-tranglin'. I don't really have anything important to say, but since I'm one-dimensional, and I like to go out of my way to appear even smarter than I actually am, I'm going to jot down the Doomsday Calendar method so that people don't keep asking me how it's done. For those of you who are unfamiliar with my brilliance (read: for those of you who have never eaten a Shabbat meal with me), one of my many talents is the ability to determine the day of the week for any date. I can usually figure this out in roughly five seconds. Pay close attention; here's how it works:

1. This is called the Doomsday Calendar method, so for our purposes, "Doomsday" is defined as the last day of February in any given calendar year, be it the 28th or 29th. The first step is to determine what day of the week the Doomsday is for the year in question. This requires some memorization: The Doomsday for every century year, e.g. 400, 1900, 3000, can only be Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday, or Friday. For argument's sake, let's use the year 1900. The Doomsday for 1900 is Wednesday. Going backwards in centuries, the Doomsday for 1800 is Friday, for 1700 it's Sunday, for 1600 it's Tuesday, and for 1500 it's back to Wednesday. The cycle continues like this, with those four days in exactly that order as you go backwards in time.

2. Now we must determine the Doomsday for a specific year in that century. Here's how we do it. Firstly, we know that there are 365 days in a non-leap year. Just to use some mathematical terminology for a moment, when you divide 365 by seven you get 52 with a remainder of 1. Or, in math-talk: 365 modulo 7 = 1. Another words, the year is exactly 52 weeks and one day long, az the same calendar date next year will be exactly one day of the week later. For example, if the Doomsday of 1900 is Wednesday, then the Doomsday for 1901 is Thursday. Obviously, in a leap year you would gain two days, so 1902 is Friday, 1903 is Saturday, and 1904 is Monday. Good.

3. But let's say you wanted to figure out the Doomsday for my birth year, 1982. It's extremely tedious to have to add 82 days plus 20 leap years onto the Wednesday from 1900. Az, in order to make it easier, we divide everything by twelve. Why twelve you ask? Listen closely: in twelve years you would gain one day for each of the twelve years plus three additional days for the three leap years contained in those twelve years. Az in twelve years you actually gain 15 days, which is really just two weeks and one day, which for our purposes is just one weekday. Just like tomorrow is Thursday, two weeks and one day from today is also Thursday. For example, the Doomsday for the year 1972, is just six days after the Doomsday for 1900, because 72 divided by twelve is six. So the Doomsday for 1972 is six days after Wednesday, or just Tuesday.

4. Now we need to deal with the remainders, because not all years are divisible by twelve. Let's continue using 1982. To determine the Doomsday for the year 1982, we need to divide 82 by twelve and take note of the remainder. Az 82 divided by twelve is six with a remainder of ten (82 mod 12 = 10). Now, for the ten remaining years we need to add ten more days, and in those ten years there are two leap years, so we need to add two more days. To sum up: for 1982 we add SIX days plus TEN days plus TWO days (Six because 82/12 = 6, 10 because it's the remainder, and 2 because there are 2 leap years in 10 years). Now, six plus ten plus two equals 18. Az to determine the Doomsday for the year 1982, we must add 18 days to the Doomsday of 1900, which is Wednesday. Az the Doomsday for 1982 is 18 days after Wednesday, or just Sunday. Great, that's the hard part.

5. Now that we know the Doomsday for our year, we need to determine the day of the week for any other date in that year. Here's how we do it: all you need to do is remember certain key dates. There are many easy-to-remember dates throughout the year that are the same day of the week as the Doomsday: 4/4, 6/6, 8/8, 10/10, and 12/12 are all the same day of the week as the last day of February. Additionally, for the odd months: 5/9, 9/5, 7/11 and 11/7. Finally, July 4th and Halloween are also the same day as the Doomsday. For example, if the Doomsday is Sunday, then April 9th is Friday, because it's five days after 4/4. November 25th is Thursday, because it's two weeks and four days after 11/7. Great, we're done.

Just to leave you with an arbitrary example, let's see what day of the week the Declaration of Independence was signed:

1. The Doomsday for 1700 is Sunday.
2. 76 divided by twelve is six remainder four, so you add six plus four plus one, or eleven days to Sunday, so the Doomsday for 1776 is Thursday.
3. July 4th is the same day of the week as February 29th 1776, so America declared its independence on a Thursday.

If anyone has any questions, fire them over; I'll be sure to correct your spelling and grammar, I mean answer them.

Sorry, One Last Thing

I know I said I finished Bill Simmons's book yesterday, which is true, but at the time I wrote those words yesterday I actually still had a few pages left. Az this is really going to be the final word. While discussing Boston's signing of Josh Beckett, he quotes Jack McKeon, "this guy has got the guts of a burglar." Then Simmons says in his own words, "I don't even know what that means, but I'm excited." What a fantastic nickname! Allen Iverson is "The Answer," Karl Malone is "The Mailman," Gary Carter is "The Kid," and now Josh Beckett can be "The Burglar." I love it for a couple of reasons. a) The word "burglar" is an extemely funny word. The "rgl" construction makes for high comedy. More on funny words in a minute. b) I always associate the word "burglar" with the Hamburglar from the McDonald's family. Also, Bilbo Baggins is commonly referred to as a burglar by Gandalf and the dwarves in "The Hobbit." Az this goes back to the nickname post. I still haven't come up with anything for myself, but "The Burglar" is a really good one. I'm gonna keep working on it.

Now onto the inherently funny word buisness (not misspelled, see SBe-mail #104, Theme Park). Most inherently funny words have some sort of inappropriate overtone or at least sound like they do. Examples of such words are: derriere, masticate, jiggery-pokery, thespian, and hormone. Other ones just sound funny because of the letters, like: tomfoolery, kerfuffle, kumquat, fisticuffs, and callipygian (If you look up "callipygian" you'll see that it means "having beautifully proportioned buttocks" as in "the quest for the callipygian ideal." Ladies, get to work.) I'm investigating some websites to find other funny words. Here's what else I got: cromulent, bonkers, crapulence, gubernatorial, phloem, polywog, platypus, whirligig, hootenanny, brouhaha, malarky, smarmy, fulcrum, nincompoop, bamboozle, cheese, penal, barnacle, garbanzo, rutabaga, doppelganger, fork, egg, duty, trousers, fondle, squeegee, flibbertigibbet, sasafras, gerbil, doohickey, syphylis, ointment, flan, and noodle. If anyone has any comments about this endless enumeration of entertaining expressions, feel free to add to the list. Until next time, help control the pet population. Have your pet spayed or neutered. Heh, add "neuter" to the list.

Random Thoughts of The Day

So after a grueling nine days, I finally finished Bill Simmons's book. My final thoughts are as follows: During the afterword, Bill mentions that it was a great feeling when he was standing in Barnes and Noble, and someone picked up his book to buy. I think I want to feel that at some point. To think that someday, someone might actually spend money to read something I wrote. Cherish these days my friends. One day I might start charging $9.95 per month for access to my musings.

So, I was doing the crossword puzzle today, and one of the clues was something like "friends with Tinky-Winky." Now I rarely cheat at the crossword by looking something up online, but I knew we were talking Teletubbies, and I really wanted to remember the other three (Dipsy, Laa-Laa, and Po). If I ever meet a purple creature named Tinky-Winky, I'm demanding a hug. Oh, if anyone wants to offer professional help in exchange for tutoring in math, let me know. ASAP.

So yesterday was just an awful day. Before I continue with that train of thought, I'm noticing that I start paragraphs with the word "so." All the time. Not only that, but I'm also typing a few sentence fragments today. You're gonna have to let those fragments slide. The "so" thing is valid; it was just something I noticed. I think I'm going to replace the word "so" with the word "az," in homage to a great man, one of my heroes. Az yesterday was just an awful day. Aside from a catastrophic, collective brain-fart by 3/4 of my fantasy football team, there were also a bunch of little things, which drove me up the wall. Ever try to take public trans on a sunday? It's the worst feeling in the world to JUST miss the subway, because you know you're going to have to wait another 17-29 minutes for the next one. Twice. Reason number two: Garbledina (See SBe-mail #114, The Facts). Anyway, the day was just unpleasant. But it's amazing how a word here, or a joke there, or an IM mixed in that can make everything alright again. At the end of the day, it's just money, or it's just a girl, or it's just a smashed up car, or it's just an extra 17-29 minutes. Things will work out; they always do.

Az I signed up for urbandictionary.com word of the day a week or two ago, and the word today was "pre-walk." A pre-walker is someone who positions himself or herself on the subway platform so that he or she can get off the subway in the optimal place to exit the destination station (Ooh, that's like conjunction junction except not at all!). The listing claimed that this phenomenon is especially true of the New York subway system and its riders. I do this; I'm definitely a cool cool guy. This can also be evidenced by the fact that a friend quoted me on her faceblog (read: facebook note). Not only am I cool because a cool girl quoted me, but also the quote was very funny. "Just call me Captain Transition-Lenses." Yep, definitely a cool cool guy.

This weekend I visited my Alma Mater. Now, my friend claims that I'm still a household name there (I even got a shoutout during a speech), but I think that's totally false. Either way, I learned that I could still throw my weight around over there. I can still drink them all under the table, and I can say whatever I want to whomever I want. What are they going to do, expel me? What's gonna happen, I'll freak out the 17 year old first-year girls who didn't go to Israel? They'll get over it. It's a great feeling to know that you absolutely OWNED a place for a year or two.

Ok, az that's all for today. Until next time, happy Nigeran Republic Day.

The Big One

Continuing my on-going series of commentary/reactions to Bill Simmons' book "Now I Can Die in Peace," I want to discuss two issues. When Bill proceeds to rehash his feelings during the 1986 playoffs, he mentions that everyone has a team from their teenage years with whom they lived and died. They can remember every pitch, every emotion, every bittersweet tear. For Bill it was the 1986 team that lost arguably the greatest World Series of all time to the New York Mets. Now, I was too young to know what was going on; I was only four, and I'm glad. I don't think I would appreciate baseball as much as I do now if my team had won during my formative years. Anyway, for Bill it was the 1986 Red Sox; for me it was the 1999 Mets. For the second straight year, the Mets, who were in good position to make the playoffs as the wild-card team had to endure a seven game losing streak at the end of September. In 1998 the streak finished us off, but in 1999, we still had a chance to at least tie for the wild-card spot if we could win two out of three on the the last weekend of the season. Anyway, the Mets did, and were forced to play the Cincinnati Reds in a one game playoff, the winner advancing to the playoffs. Al Leiter pitched his best game as a Met and they advanced to face the Arizona Diamondbacks. Two of the four games of that series took place on the Sabbath, so I couldn't watch them, but here's what I remember. On that saturday afternoon, my friend and I walked across the Queensboro Bridge to pass the time. I was wearing my Mets jersey, of course, and just as we were returning to my apartment building, a gentleman on a bicycle callously told us that the Mets had won and were advancing to the NLCS. Little did I know what was in store for me on SportsCenter that night. I got to see Todd Pratt clinch the series in the tenth inning with one of the greatest home runs in team history. Next stop: Atlanta, a veritable gehinom for the Mets over the last decade. There is not much to say about the first three games of that series. My hatred for the Joneses was at an all time high. No matter who was pitching you couldn't get the guys out. I think Chipper had like a .500 OBP for that series. Anyway, I was at the movies with my girlfriend for most of game four. I certainly don't remember what movie it was, but I do remember the yellow radio I had with me. (At this point my brother would insert a clever rejoinder like "still not married, huh?") When John Olerud's bouncer deflected off Rafael Furcal's glove to score the winning run, we almost had to leave the theater. I don't even need to write more than two words to describe my feelings about game five: "Grand Single." I don't think I need to write more than two words about game six either: "Kenny Rogers." Yes, the same Kenny Rogers who looked like he was a flame-throwing 24 year old in the World Series this year. When he walked Andruw Jones to force in the winning run in the ninth inning I was in utter despair. This was my team: Fonzie, Olerud, Rey, Al, Robin, Turk, Mikey. They were like my family; they were at my dinner table every night. Those were good days, innocent days. Geez, that was only seven years ago.

Anyway, the other issue I wanted to discuss was winning the big one. Even in his Red Sox book, Bill prints his article from when the Patriots won the Super Bowl in 2001. He describes his feelings as his team raised the Vince Lombardi trophy after Adam Vinatieri won the Super Bowl with the greatest kick of all time. That got me thinking, how would I react when my team wins the big one. Since I became a coherent, rational human being, the only time a team I supported won a championship was in 1994 when the Rangers beat the Canucks for the Stanley Cup. Now that doesn't count, because even at the time I could probably only name half a dozen of the players. The Giants have won, and the Yankees have won, but neither the Mets nor the Jets have earned the right to be called World Champs over the past 20 years. I don't know how I will react, but at this point I try to compare my relationship with my teams to my dating career. As I'm so fond of saying, you can strike out every time; you only need to hit one home run. Bill says that it's worth it. Keep supporting your team because eventually, they will win the big one. That euphoric feeling you get when your team reaches the pinnacle of its sport is worth all the heartache. So I'm going to write the Jets off for this year, and the Mets obviously broke my heart in October, but at least I still have the four most magical words in sports: "there's always next year."

Favorite of All Time

So this post will be similar to the last post in that both are inspired by Bill Simmons's book, "Now I Can Die in Peace," and both have to do with how we view athletes. (On a side note, while I was at Random McRandom's apartment for dinner on friday night, I skimmed through a bit of the aforementioned "Eats, Shoots, and Leaves," which had been minding its own business on her living room table. I noticed the chapter about apostrophes, and concluded that I didn't realize how many people screw them up. Notice above where I use the word "Simmons's." Since "Simmons" is a proper noun, you must put an apostrophe-S to make it possessive. If, however, I wanted to refer to the Sports Guy and Gal as a unit, I would pluralize them and say "the Simmonses." If I wanted to make them possessive, I would have to write "the Simmonses's house." I know it's absurd, but that's the way it is. Oh, and Random McRandom, at whose apartment I ate on friday night, and I are inextricably linked since we both have a blog. You can check her out, I mean check hers out at http://mabakankan.blogspot.com. I haven't read it yet, but I'll try.) In the second part of the book, Simmons recounts a story about how his buddy Gus, who had Tom Seaver spend time at his house, got to catch for him while Tom was considering making a comeback with the Mets in the early '90s. Bill wants us to understand what was going through his friend Gus's mind while this was going down: "Pick your favorite athlete of all time, then imagine that entire sequence of events somehow unfolding with you and that athlete." Now, I'm trying to imagine being in that situation, but who would the athlete be? I'm trying to create a set of rules for selecting a favorite athlete, and I think I've been pretty thorough.
Disclaimer: Instead or typing "he or she" and "him or her" and "his or her" all the time, I'm just going to use the masculine pronouns. I fully approve of women engaging in sports, and everyone is free to select Sheryl Swoopes or Annika Sorenstam or Danica Patrick for their favorite athlete. Ok, here goes:

1. The athlete must have played for your favorite team for at least a few years, or at the very least made a large impact on your team over a shorter period of time. For example, Arizona Diamondbacks fans are allowed to select Randy Johnson as their favorite player because even though he was there for a short time, he helped them win the World Series.
2. You must have liked the athlete from the beginning of his career. He did not necessarily need to start his career on your team, but you must have liked the athlete even before he arrived to play for you. For example, Mets fans are allowed to select Carlos Beltran, but only if they followed his career in Kansas City from its early stages. Bandwagon jumpers will not be tolerated here.
3. This rule applies not only to favorite players, but also to favorite teams. You cannot choose your favorite player based on anything tangible. You can't say "Albert Pujols is my favorite player because he hits 500 foot home runs," or "Orel Hershiser was my favorite player becase he pitched 59.2 consecutive scoreless innings," or "the Mets are my favorite team because my house is geographically closer to Shea Stadium than to Yankee Stadium." What would happen if those criteria stopped applying? What if you moved to the Bronx? What if Hershiser's record was stricken because of a technicality? This is the same for any kind of love. Saying, "I love my wife because she is a smokin' hottie," is foolish for obvious reasons. There can't be a reason you love someone or something. You love your team just because. You can't explain it; it's a sensation you feel deep inside your very soul. It's not even a consious decision you can make. You know you love a team when everything they do affects you. It's the ones you love who can cause you the most pain. To explain this point, allow me to quote Simmons from later on in the book: "Twenty minutes after the Yankees eliminated the Red Sox, I called my father to make sure he was still alive. And that's not even a joke. I wanted to make sure Dad wasn't dead. That's what it feels like to be a Sox fan. You make phone calls thinking to yourself, 'Hopefully, my dad picks up, because there's at least a five percent chance that the Red Sox just killed him.'" You live and die by your favorite players and your favorite teams; you can't help it.

With these thoughts in mind, I need to decide who my favorite player is. I can't come up with a list of players I like and then narrow it down; I need to look deep within myself and let my emotions decide for me. I realize that my mind already knows who it is, but it's keeping its thoughts to itself for the time being. It might be Wayne Chrebet, who left his heart out on the field every time he put on the green and white, and gave me a concussion every time he got one. It might be David Wright, who looks like he won the lottery every time he strolls out of the dugout, because he knows he gets to play baseball for a living. He might not even be on any sports radar yet, because he's only 11 years old. It might not even be fair for me to have a favorite player yet, because I'm only 24, and G-d willing I have 60 more years of watching sports ahead of me. For now, I'll continue to watch the players I like, and hopefully the moment will come when I know who my sports hero is.

Potential Hero

Ok, I'm probably exaggerating about his being a potential hero, but Ken Tremendous is definitely a man after my own heart. Since their website firejoemorgan.com is so outrageously awesome, I've been looking through their archives. I was reading the comments for one of their posts when I came across this gem from Ken:
'KT:
Actually, I didn't write any of the above except for "No idea who wrote this, but it's something:"

Rest assured, I would never, EVER, use the word "less" in place of the word "fewer."'

If anyone can't figure out why he is a man after my own heart, please go give yourself Tommy John surgery or something. And then read my blog.

Heroes

So, yesterday I started reading "Now I Can Die in Peace" by Bill Simmons, aka. The Sports Guy. I can foresee that I will make numerous references to this book for the next week or two, because Bill is hilarious, and I love sports. Had I been writing a blog when I read "Moneyball," the same thing would have happened. I mean, all I could talk about while I was reading moneyball was Scott Hatteberg (sole member of the most potent lineup in baseball), Kevin Youkilis (the Greek God of Walks), and Jason Giambi. I tried not to talk about Scott Kazmir a lot because every time he was mentioned in the book, and subsequently on SportsCenter, I died a little inside. I guess this also happened while I was reading a couple of books about e, Pi, and the Golden Ratio, but I won't regale you with those tales of suspense because my purpose here is not to put you to sleep. Although, there was this time I was discussing the theory of Special Relativity as described in Brian Greene's "The Elegant Universe," and someone actually asked me to explain it to her again, but that was a statistical anomaly.
Anyway, moving right along, all I've read thusfar of Simmons's book is the prologue, and already it's begun to have an impact on my life. On page 14, Bill explains how he almost became a Mets fan in 1985 because he moved to southern Connecticut as a result of his parents' divorce, the Red Sox had just given away his childhood hero (Fred Lynn), and the Mets had a solid core of young talent (Darryl Strawberry, Doc Gooden, etc.). This innocent statement got me thinking about who my childhood heroes were, and who my heroes are today. It's only natural for a boy to embrace his favorite sports players as heroes, especially because they seemed to truly play for love of the game and not for the exorbitant contracts for which they play today. When I became sports fan at the age of five in 1987, it was also natural for me to embrace the players on my team as my heroes. But looking back, would it be fair for me to call Darryl Strawberry my childhood hero? When my parents set my bedtime at 8:00, I was always praying that the Mets would get a runner on base in the first inning, so Darryl would get an at-bat before 8:00. 1988 was a magical year for the Mets, who finished with the best record in the National League and lost an epic seven game series to Orel Hershiser and the Los Angeles Dogders, who then went on to defeat the Oakland Athletics in the World Series. When the Dodgers exploded for six runs to start the seventh game of that series, I really cried. The only other time I can remember crying because of a sports-related event was in 1999 when my New York Jets lost the AFC championship game to the eventual Super Bowl champion Denver Broncos. But back to my point; who were these misfits who captured my heart in the mid/late 80s? Were they my childhood heroes? What is a hero? According to Dictionary.com, a hero is "a person of distinguished courage or ability, admired for his/her brave deeds and noble qualities." In what way is an athlete a hero? I guess you could call Lance Armstrong a hero for overcoming incredible odds and inspiring millions of people across the globe. But Darryl Strawberry was certainly no hero. He was a tall, thin man who was gifted with the ability to swing a wooden stick well. Was Fred Lynn a hero? Was Babe Ruth a hero? Is Barry Bonds a hero? I want to think of someone whom I can embrace as a hero, someone who embodies all the characteristics I admire. First, I need to determine what these characteristics are. I think the biggest indicator of someone with heroic qualities is someone who's approval I would strive to seek. I need to consider this carefully. If anyone wants to describe a hero of theirs, just so I could know some sample responses, that would be terrific.

Oh, and as a side note, in order to maintain the grammatical integrity of my site, my brother added another comment to the Thanksgiving post, so that below the post it said "2 comments." So, if anyone wants to respond to my Heroes post, please put two up there if you're the first. Gracias.

1 Comments

So my friend was reading my ridiculous post, and as he was scrolling down the page he noticed that below the "Observing Thanksgiving" post was printed "1 Comments." I was so excited about this for a few reasons. Firstly, it strengthens my claim that when it comes to grammar, the blogger people have absolutely no idea what's flying. Another words, when I sue them for removing a space each time I put a period, the only way they'll get off is with an insanity plea. I mean, anyone who can't program their websites to correct such a simple error as "1 Comments" must have a few gears loose. Secondly it provides an extremely smooth segue into talking about one of my favorite Strong Bad e-mails, which makes fun of the very same thing. Now, I mentioned e-mail #122 earlier when I was expounding on the "another words" phenomenon, but this e-mail has so much more good stuff in it. Anyway, when SB begins to describe his "dreamail" in accordance with Danny's request, the dream begins with the lappy turning on and happily declaring in her sexy, robotic voice: "Good morning, Strong Bad. You're looking prooty hot. You have one unread messages." According to hrwiki.org, this is a reference to older computer programs and answering machines that would use the word "messages" as a default and would not correct it when there was only one. Another words, the people at blogger are LAZY. The programmers, g-get some real programmers. G-get some real gloves. (See Halloween Costumes '03) There all sorts of other fun things in that e-mail. The "dreamail" he would like to receive reads as follows: "Dear Mssr. Eleganté, You left your pocketwatch in the hot tub. When will you be back to retrieve it? -128 Hot Katies" And during his response he comes up with several gems, such as: "I will triumphantly/abundantly return to the chateau for my ruby-encrusted pocketwatch. I have plans tonight, however, but I will, furthermore, heretofore, be back on morrow next. Please tell Adelaide that the poached eggs were tremendous." I really like the "triumphantly/abundantly" and "furthermore, heretofore" business. The rhyming/archaic language makes me feel all jangly. (See SB e-mail #130, "Do Over")

The poached eggs being tremendous also reminds me of the main writer for firejoemorgan.com, who calls himself Ken Tremendous. This has all the makings of the perfect nickname; it's short, self-explanatory, has alliterative qualities in that "Ken" rhymes with "men," and the word "tremendous" happens to be quite humorous. So, in homage to Ken, and in an effort to cement my legacy in the blog world, I decided that I need to come up with a nickname for myself, so I don't have to keep referring to myself as "Schmutter." So, if anyone has any ideas, feel free to send them in. Only serious responses will be considered. Another words, "Noah Croatoan," or some other such nonsense will only get a cursory glance. That was actually pretty impressive that I was able to come up with an adjective that sounded like my name so quickly. If anyone wants to know what "Croatoan" is, a link is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roanoke_Island

So last night, I watched the movie "Match Point," starring the sublime Scarlett Johannson. At one point, one of the characters asked another if he was cross. Apparently, words I thought were used only in fantasy books are also used by the British. I'm not sure how I feel about that. If all fantasy books were written using British style English, then maybe when I finally get around to starting my fantasy novel, I'll write using American English and it's treasury of idioms. I'll need to think about it. Meanwhile, I'll be back in my doghouse crying myself to sleep. Happy Thai Father's Day.

More Fun with Words

I'm sorry I haven't posted for a while. I've been entertaining myself at work with this fantastic website, which is right up my alley. It has 15 pages worth of interesting facts about words. The reason I'm posting about it now is that I'm up to the page where it discusses "uncommon double letters," which is directly related to my last post. Just a couple of tidbits before I go into excruciating detail on uncommon double letters. That last sentence is a fragment, but I'm going to leave it. Anyway, onto the tidbits:
-CONSERVATIONALISTS/CONVERSATIONALISTS is an example of a long transposal (words which are anagrams of each other). The longest "well-mixed" transposals (no more than three consecutive letters in common) are BASIPARACHROMATIN/MARSIPOBRANCHIATA (17 letters) and THERMONASTICALLY/HEMATOCRYSTALLIN (16 letters).
That's pretty cool. What else:
- Craig Kasper says GORAN IVANESEVIC (a top tennis player) may be the longest name of a relatively famous person that alternates consonants and vowels.
-In English, ignoring spaces, the longest palindrome in Morse code is INTRANSIGENCE (.. -. - .-. .- -. ... .. --. . -. -.-. .). If spaces are not ignored, the longest word is FOOTSTOOL (..-. --- --- - ... - --- --- .-..)
- Some common words which change from one to three syllables upon the addition of just one letter are: ARE/AREA, CAME/CAMEO, LIEN/ALIEN, RODE/RODEO, ROME/ROMEO, SMILE/SIMILE.
-At a dam, there is a flooddoor. The controls for the flooddoor are in the flooddoorroom. Let's say the the boss at the dam calls a meeting in the flooddoorroom. The people who go to this meeting are FLOODDOORROOMMEETINGGOERS. And James Lehmann suggests: In the flooddoorroom, there is a book, which explains how to use the controls for the flooddoor, a FLOODDOORROOMBOOK, in which all four double-O's are pronounced differently.
-SYZYGY and ZYZZYVA, when written in cursive, have five letters in a row which descend below the line. SYZYGY is also the shortest word with three Y's.
-CWM (a glacial hollow on a hillside) has the rare W as a vowel, as does CRWTH (a type of stringed instrument). Both words are in MWCD10. They are pronounced "koom" and "krooth" (rhyming with room and truth).

Ok, those were pretty cool. If my coolty was ever in doubt, I believe any of those doubts have been sufficiently squushed. Oh, btw, according to urbandictionary.com, the word "coolty" has an extremely inappropriate definition. For all those interested, the definition can be found here: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=coolty
Since this is a family website, I can't state the definition here. Just know that when I used the word "coolty" I really mean the word "coolness." I just use "coolty" because in Strong Bad e-mail #115, when describing what would happen when his time capsule is found, he states: "Ooh! Then I'd put some dry ice in there so when they open it up it looks all smoky and steamy and it says a-like "froosh" when they first open it. There'll be no doubt about my coolty." Anyway, back to the uncommon double letters!
I don't understand the order they use on the website, but here goes:
HH appears in words such as withhold and bathhouse, but only in such compound words.
UU appears in words such as continuum, vacuum, and perpetuum; these are all very similar.
We already mentioned the VVs last time.
WW also only appears in compound words such as arrowwood and powwow.
All the other ones are either trivial, proper names, or extremely obscure such as Yablonovvy and jghaxxaq.
There are also several triple letters, but the only one that is not obscure is SSS, like in goddessship or countessship. Okay, that's all I got for now, but if I see some more cool jazz on that website I'll let you know. Until next time, it's back to the doghouse with me. Hameivin yavin.

Funny Word Things And Something Else

So you know how some letters should never be doubled in words? Like in the word "vacuum." There should never be two Us next to each other, because you would want to pronounce both of them, like you would want to say "vakyoo-um," because that's what it looks like. I was trying to find some words/letters, which should not exist. Here's what I found. Going back to U for a second, I found the word "squush." This is pronounced "skwush," with the U pronounced like the "oo" in the word "book." "Squush" is a fantastic word, up there with "floppy." So this whole thing got started when my friend was describing his father's lack of business sense. I recommended he use the word "savvy" instead. Two Vs should never be together like that. I didn't find any other great examples with "vv," but I'm on the lookout for other letters. "Bazaar" is a pretty good one. It's too difficult to find many others because when you search for things like "cc" online it shows you trivial words like "success" and "accentuate," while you want to find words like "soccer." Anyway, it was a fun exercise while it lasted. For some reason, while I was looking up the "aa" words and filtering through foolishness like "aardvark" and "salaam," the word "gaol" popped into my head as a terrific word. Now "gaol" is just a British way of spelling "jail," but they are pronounced the same; they are homophones. Okay, enough of this masochistic, maniacal mayhem.
I have to apologize. In one of my recent posts I mentioned some of the hilarity from this year's homestarrunner halloween costume commentary. Somehow I neglected to note the picture of the young woman wearing a hooded sweatshirt in a The Cheat pattern. Strong Bad's comments are as follows: "Hey, it's The Cheat's hot mom...dressed up as... The Cheat's hot mom! Is she giving out frozen margar-a-Cheat-as again? Ah, The Cheat's hot mom. Always in and out of prison." For some reason I didn't find that mind-bogglingly hysterical until a week or two later. Now I find myself referring to all sorts of people as being "always in and out of prison," even newborn babies and other G-d-fearing folk. I sometimes go one step further and mention conjugal visits, but you don't need to know about that. Okay, so until next time, have a happy Albanian Liberation Day!

Anonymous Responders

Now I know there aren't many of you out there who read my blog, but for those of you who do, know this: this is MY blog, not mine and everyone else's. If anyone has any comments or questions or concerns about anything I write, at least have the common decency to sign your name on your comments so that I know to whom I may direct my responses and/or farts. One of you out there is the Hermione Granger of blog commentators, i.e. an insufferable know-it-all. If you want to comment but you don't want to write your name, at least make your comments funny so that you add some value. Otherwise, get your own blog. I hear there's this thing called the internet, which has an amount of memory negligibly smaller than infinite, so there should be PLENTY of space for you to make fun of me. Hopefully this is the angriest I'll ever get on here; this is supposed to be a calming exercise; my therapist says so.

Observing Thanksgiving

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, THE true American Holiday. Regardless of the reason for the holiday, Thanksgiving has emerged as a holiday different from every other one in this country. It is not a religious holiday like Christmas, which has become more Americanized than intended. It is not a day observed in respect of various American groups like President's Day or Veterans Day. It is not a "Hallmark Holiday," which exists primarily for commercial purposes, like Valentine's Day or Mother's Day. It is one of the only American holidays that commemorates a particular event in our history, the other one being Independence Day. There are those that would claim that July 4th is a more American holiday than Thanksgiving, and I'm glad that there are those who would claim such, because it provides a smooth segue into my real purpose for this post.
How does one observe Independence Day? People customary gather with friends and eat burgers and dogs from the grill, and then later watch fireworks. I admit that the fireworks are a measure of observance, but how can frankfurters and hamburgers be the staple food of an American holiday when both were popular foods in Europe half a century before we ever heard of them? In this way Thanksgiving wins out over July 4th. Thanksgiving has so many truly American aspects. It begins with a parade, which is obviously not unique to this holiday, but I believe it to be a nice way to "usher in the holiday season," whatever that means. Then we get to the meat of the day; families (and I stress the word "families") get together and have a meal consisting of, but not limited to, turkey, sweet potatoes, and cranberry sauce. Now turkeys and sweet potatoes are native ONLY to North America. Another words, these are truly American foods, foods the colonists had almost certainly never seen or eaten. Next up on the agenda is football, commonly called American Football everywhere except here and in Canada. There are often basketball games played on Thanksgiving, but there is hardly a tradition. One of the teams that plays on Thanksgiving is the Dallas Cowboys, often referred to as "America's Team." Let's just say that Thanksgiving is riddled with American symbols.
People tend to disagree with me about many things, which is fine. You might disagree with my ideas from the last paragraph, which is fine. Many of you will certainly disagree with what I am about to say, but I need to jot it down somewhere, because when the topic comes up and I make my point, I often have staunch opposers who can provide no reasonable support for their opinions. Okay, here goes.
I just spent a paragraph delineating the modes of observing Thanksgiving. I'd like to transition into the observance of Jewish holidays. Most, if not all biblical Jewish holidays have observances that are clearly defined in the Old Testament. In many situations the exact particulars of the observance are left out, but the basic levels are meforash from the mouth of G-d through Moses. G-d has told us how we are to commemorate events in Jewish history and usually the reasons for each item. Since biblical times the sages have established other holidays to commemorate other events, such as Purim and the Fast of Gedalia. They decreed that certain commandments be followed in observance of these days. From off the top of my head, I can only think of one truly modern Jewish Holiday, which is not officially associated with the State of Israel, and that is Yom HaShoah, the day of Holocaust remembrance. Now since Yom HaShoah is not a biblical holiday and not a holiday established by rabbis it does not have any official observance. Many people spend the day watching Holocaust movies and hearing stories from survivors, etc. Some even accept upon themselves a fast for the day. Each person is entitled to his or her own form of observance. There is certainly no right or wrong way to do things. This past year I was invited by my friend to see a Holocaust movie and to hear a speaker. I told her that I didn't want to go because I felt that I wouldn't enjoy myself. She said that I had to go because it was Yom HaShoah, and you're supposed to be sad. This statement is categorically false. I don't feel like I need to suffer in order to commemorate those who did. Don't get me wrong, the Holocaust was a terrible event, and there are people who are still greatly affected by it. My heart goes out to those people and to their families. However, here is no biblical, or even rabbinical requirement to participate in any Holocaust related activity or event on Yom HaShoah. So next year don't bother inviting me to hear any speakers unless it's someone you genuinely think I would be interested in hearing. And if I happen to politely decline the offer, PLEASE don't make me feel bad about it. Who are you to judge?

I'm putting a double space here just so you all know that this has absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the post. After I finish a post I usually read it over once it's been published just to make sure that everything is spelled correctly and the sentences are grammatically and stylistically accurate. If there are any stnanks then I fix them. This time when I went to fix something I noticed something sinister. The evil blogspotters have a built-in editor, which modifies the text of the post to fit nicely onto the web page. This time I noticed that each time I put a period there was only once space before the next sentence. This is awful, AWFUL! Almost as bad as the Jets' run defense. Since when did blogspot take over for Microsoft Word as the Guru of Grammar? Why am I bothering to put two spaces after my periods if they're just going to edit one of the spaces out? In an effort to express solidarity for our missing spaces I am going to continue to put two spaces after each period. Don't worry about it guys, I still haven't figured out which one of you gets deleted, the first or the second, but even if I do figure it out I won't tell you. I want you to know that each of you is important, and you will not be forgotten. This cold one goes out to those spaces that got sent up the river.

More Shwarma and Some Other Tidbits

So I was pretty certain of this to begin with, but it has indeed been confirmed that Grille Point shwarma is the greatest thing to hit the USA since, well, let's just say it blows sliced bread right outta the water. If only it weren't in Queens...
In other news, my friend still gets those foolish word-of-the-day e-mails from Dictionary.com. I liked them for a while, but they got old in a hurry; they were just clogging up my mailbox. Anyway, he forwarded me today's e-mail, as there was an attractive quotation at the bottom. I acually found two noteworthy quotes: "What do you get when you cross a porcupine with an alarm clock? A stickler for punctuality." The first thing I thought was to change the joke to "what do you get when you cross a porcupine with a semi-colon? A stickler for punctuation." I will now proceed to hang my head in shame.
Anyway, the other quote was: "As far as I'm concerned, 'whom' is a word that was invented to make everyone sound like a butler," by Calvin Triller. That was the one my friend wanted me to see. People should really be using the word "whom" more anyway. Something, a-like-a-dis-a: "With whom did you go to the movies last night?" Any time you should use the word him or her, the question should have a "whom" in it: "I went to the movies with him last night." Now go study that.
So you know when events take place and you have no control over them? For example, yesterday the Mets signed Moises Alou to a one year contract. Regardless of whether or not it's a good deal, I can't do anything about it. My response to such things is "what can you do?" I say this all the time. "The sushi is pretty bad tonight. Oh well, what can you do?" Now, my friend has a similar response to such things. His is "it is what it is." I thought long and hard about what my feelings were about this particular issue. I decided that I like it. "The sushi is pretty bad tonight. Oh well, it is what it is." As in, it (read: the sushi) is what it is (read: pretty bad). It's only good in certain situations though. I'll need to come up with a strict rule for when this is allowed. I'm gonna get to work on that. Everyone else go and be productive. Go! Git! Skedaddle! Make like a tree and go away!

Response to Shwarma Post

In my last post I ended by saying that chicken is not chicken, but shwarma is shwarma. Now, that last thing I meant by saying that is that shwarma is shwarma, which is funny because that's exactly what I said. I just want to qualify my assertion by saying that there is really no distinct flavor difference between chicken shwarma, lamb shwarma, and turkey shwarma, at least not to my untrained soft and hard palates respectively. This is not to say that all shwarmas are created equally. (Note: you can say either "created equally" or "created to be equal." Either way, "created equal" is incorrect. Thanks Honest Abe. Honestly, Abe, did you think no one would pick up on it?) Anywho, depending on whom you ask, you will get varying opinions on which is the best shwarma around. I think the largest ongoing debate, at least within my relatively small social circle, is the one between Massov Shwarma and Maoz Shwarma. Both happen to be extremely good, but let's do this debate my way, i.e. the mathematical way. Both restaurants will be judged on these categories: size, price, flavor, structure, location, fame, and options. Each category will receive a rating of one to three. For visual ease I hereby replace the string of letters "ONE" with the character "1," the string "TWO" with the character "2," and the string "THREE" with the character "3" for the remainder of the post.
Let's begin with size. Both places make a hefty sandwich. Massov charges more for their laffa sandwich due to its bigger size, but from my experience, which for this post is the only one that matters, Massov's laffa sandwich is too big to finish in one helping, and the last thing you want is old Israeli shwarma lion around. So just to be fair to those with bigger appetites than mine, we'll give them both a rating of 2.
Next we have price. The last time I had shwarma in either of those places, Maoz charged 20 shekels and Massov charged 25. I'm quite certain that even though Massov's is larger, it's not 25% larger, so we'll give Maoz a rating of 3 and Massov a rating of 2.
Ooooh, flavor. This is what it's all about. I tend to like spicier food, and even without the charif sauce Maoz'z meat has a tangier flavor. Massov's is still very good but the meat needs too many ecoutrements. Maoz gets a 3 and Massov gets a 2.
Structure is where Massov really gets a leg up. I've eaten around 50 shwarmas from Maoz and fewer than half a dozen of them have failed to fall apart. Another words, if you order from Maoz don't wear your best white shirt. The guys at Massov must have taken a course in laffa folding because they do a great job. Massov scores a 3, Maoz gets a 1.
Ahh, the 3 most important words I know, "location, location, location." Massov is located right near the Tachana Mercazit, which means if you arrive in Jerusalem on the bus you can get a shwarma right away. Also, any time you want to visit MMY, and I have, you can get a shwarma on the way, which I did. However, if you want to get to Massov from the old city you can either walk for 40 minutes or take the bus. Maoz is definitely in a prime location, on King George right around the corner from Ben Yehuda. Most likely no more than a 20 minute walk from anywhere you might be in Jerusalem except Talpiot or Har Nof. From the old city you can take the bus, a taxi or walk through the old city and then up Rechov Yafo. Score 3 for Maoz and 2 for Massov.
In terms of fame this isn't even a contest. Maoz has been around for 30 years and is known as the best shwarma place in Israel. Massov is definitely on the rise, but it still has a ways to go. Maoz 3, Massov 2.
And finally options. Massov gives you the option of Hetzi Hetzi, while Maoz does not. I don't know of any important options other than that one, so give a 3 to Massov and 2 to Maoz.
So there you have it folks. Maoz wins it 17-16. For now I'll have to survive with Golan Heights, Ali Baba, and Grille Point, all solid options. Maybe I'll discuss those next time. If I have time and I'm trading poorly, then maybe I'll do them today. Good night and good luck.

Shwarma

So last night I bumped into a guy who davens at my synagogue on the east side. Whenever I'm home for shabbos I see him there. I must have seen him several hundred times over the past few years, but I never spoke to him, not even once. However, since I obviously know who he is, and he obviously knows who I am, we had to exchange pleasantries. This is not a rare occurrence. Soooo often, you see someone you know from one place in another place, and these are the only times you ever talk. Why is that? Why can't you continue to ignore each other? Or if you see each other all the time, why not just go over and say hi one of those times? It was so funny last night when I realized I fell victim to the same thing that I had to laugh about it.
Anyway, I bumped into him at a shwarma place, and I was with a friend who was having shwarma for the first time. She asked me why there was more than one chicken selection on the menu and I said they cook them differently, to which she responded "chicken is chicken." Now this is certainly not true unless you have a cold and everything tastes the same to you. However, the more I thought about it, I still believed my friend to be wrong, but I got to thinking about shwarma. Most places sell one, maybe two types of shwarma. The common types are chicken, turkey and lamb. Honestly, these all taste the same to me, which means that the meat isn't the ikar of the ma'achal, rather it's the means by which the meat is cooked. Another words, chicken isn't chicken, but shwarma is shwarma. And Alex Smith is Alex Smith, and Brett Favre is Brett Favre.

Cell Phones

I hate speaking on the phone. I would much rather speak in person. I know I'm not the only one, but I like the way my voice sounds in my head, but when I hear myself on a voicemail or on video or something, I think I sound like a jerk. In order to counter-balance said jerk-hood, the interlocuter needs to be distracted by my smiling countenance. On the phone you can't really tell if I'm having a great time or if I'm secretly hoping the urban legend of getting cancer from the cell-phone is true.
Anyway, the whole point is moot, at least for the next couple of hours because MY CELL PHONE DIED! It only occurred to me now how much of a disaster this is. How will I ever be able to make plans? I could be a block away from the person I'm supposed to meet and I would never know. How did I survive until I was 18? How did I ever see anyone? And now it's even worse because we don't have a land-line in our apartment. But things get far worse even than that. I'm absolutely convinced that people are trying to get in touch with me so that they can offer me amazing jobs, which pay me quintuple what I'm making now. I'm also positive that the person who wants to set me up with my bashert is trying to reach me, and will probably just give up when they go straight to voicemail.
What makes the whole situation muddled is that I really hate my phone. Last June, Cingular Wireless forced me to switch my phone from an AT&T phone to a new Cingular phone, which was totally fine; I'm always up for getting a new phone. But then I got my new car, and I absolutely HAD to take advantage of the built-in bluetooth technology. Luckily it was still within the 30 days from when I got the new phone so I just exchanged it for free with a bluetooth phone. Aside from the RAZR($200) the only other bluetooth phone available at that time was the Motorola V557, which was twice the size of my old phone (samsung e317). Also, I hate Motorolas; I don't like the layout. Additionally, after a while, the speaker stopped working so well, so for the last year or so I've had to press the handset painfully against my ear whenever I want to talk. Now I could have exchanged the phone for the same one with a better speaker, but that would require effort, minimal though it might have been. I'm even eligible for a phone upgrade in 13 days, but what am I going to do until then? I'll see if I can get a temporary replacement. Until then, I'll just assume no one is trying to reach me. So, if you try to reach me, G-d knows why you would, know that I'll try my very best to get back to you after a reasonable time interval, as long as it requires absolutely no effort. I'm lazy, what can you do?

Technical Names

I love that so many modern technical gizmos and concepts have rather less-than-technical names. I thought of a few, and I'm gonna try to think of some more while I'm typing. Firstly, this strangely shaped item with which I'm moving this fancy arrow around my monitor is called a "mouse." Now I don't claim to be equipped with nomenclature skills, but a mouse? I mean, I guess it has some mouse-like characteristics, like it's roughly mouse-sized and has a long, tail-like affair coming out the back of it. I'll let it lie. Sit still; lay.
What else? I mentioned this issue to a few people this weekend, and I forget who came up with some, but one I really liked was "cookies." You know sometimes when you open your web-browser and you go to a page and it asks you if you would like cookies enabled? Now, who in his/her right mind would ever want their cookies disabled? I've spent a good portion of my life making sure that my cookies were indeed enabled.
Ooh, I like this one. So before you could actually write on CDs, and before flash-drives and ipods, we all had to use some other devices to store our data if we wanted to transfer it from one computer to another. Since they were not hard disks like we have inside our computers, the proverbial "they" tried to come up with a softer word to describe these plastic squares. Instead of calling them "soft" disks, they went with "floppy" disks. "Floppy" is a fantastic word. Heh, floppy!
Now I'm gonna get a bit, erm, quantum on y'all, but this one is too good to ignore. So, two of our favorite sub-atomic particles, namely protons and neutrons, are actually made of smaller particles called quarks. There are six types of quarks, and I'll let their names speak for themselves: top, bottom, up, down, charm and strange. What? Sounds like the rewards you get for completing the bonus levels in Final Fantasy III. "You have obtained the Charm Quark! Return to headquarters to receive your reward!" Not only that, but each quark has a quantifiable characteristic called "strangeness." I wish you could put a number on my strangeness; it would be at least e^(i*Pi)+1.

Junior

So there's this brilliant website called firejoemorgan.com, which basically makes fun of the stupid things that sports announcers/writers say/write. I was reading an old article today by Junior about an article by Murray Chass, a writer for the New York Times sports section. No offense to Murray Chass, a hall of fame writer who, coincidentally, belongs to my friend's synagogue in Fair Lawn, New Jersey, but these guys at firejoemorgan just rip into him in this article. Hilarious stuff. Chass's article is about how Mike Mussina is the reason the Yankees haven't won the World Series since 2000. There's no need to explain anything, I'll just transcribe the article. Bold type is Chass, regular type is Junior. Oh, and I'm sorry about merely transcribing funny stuff from other places; I just don't have anything funny of my own this week. Rorry.
On with the transcription!

Nothing against Mike Mussina, but he is the symbol of the Yankees’ failure to win the World Series the last six years. If George Steinbrenner is seeking a scapegoat, make it Mussina.

First off, the article begins "Nothing against Mike Mussina," but the very next sentence basically says, "Hey, f**k you, Mike Mussina."

Chien-Ming Wang, playing his first full season in the major leagues, was the Yankees’ only reliable starter this season, and he came through again in the playoff opener.

Define "reliable." In the Murray-Chass Oxford-Webster Collegiate dictionary, reliable is defined as Asian.

That left Wright as the pitcher to put his finger in the dike.

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! Finger in the dike.

End transciption.

OH, I hope no one noticed, but there was a truly grievous error in yesterday's post entitled "Superb." Somehow, I managed to come up with this gem of a sentence: " I realize it's been a few days since I last posted, but there's really nothing about which I feel strongly enough to write about." Nothing more needs to be said about this sentence. I am going to behave as if this never happened. I will presently correct said error so that it may be stricken from the records. Well, except here where I'm talking about it.

Superb

Anyone ever notice that the word "superb" is just the word "super" with a "b" at the end? I wish I could get away with tacking on a letter at the end of a word. "My cell phone isn't really that smallk." "My pants are too tighth." "The window shades are pulled downt." And that's the best stuff I could come up with. I realize it's been a few days since I last posted, but there's really nothing about which I feel strongly enough to write. In fact, the elections took place yesterday and I felt the opposite of strongly about them. If someone were to ask me how I felt about the elections, I would say "weakly." Much like when W.C. Fields replied to the question, "how do you like children?" with the response, "fried!" By "much like," I mean entirely different, except for the fact that both our responses didn't answer the questions at all. But I digress. "From what?" you ask? Who can really say.

I watched the update to homestarrunner.com yesterday, which was the third annual installment of Strong Bad's commentary on fan holloween costumes. These are the highlights from those three episodes:
-A man in a Strong Bad costume is punching a man in a poorly constructed Homestar costume. Strong Bad comments: "Here I am beating up some kind of...mashed potato man."
-A man wearing a very large Homestar costume is seen standing on the front lawn. Strong Bad: " Oh man, if I saw that thing runnin' around my back yard, I'd get out the compound bow."
From the second season:
-small pictures of Marzipan, coach Z, Homsar, and the KoT are painted onto what appear to be squashes. Strong Bad: "Oh, and next on the worthless arts and crafts shopping channel, the least popular Homestar Runner characters gourd collection. Nothing completes an old lady vestibule quite like them."
And from this season:
-Well, I just like the one where Strong Bad asks Homestar if he ate Luigi.

Anyway, I just thought I'd share some of that brilliance with you. Oh, if I ever say "I wike candies," it's from there too. I think I once responded to an e-vite like that.

I need to go purchase a compact disc. Chevra 3 came out today. I hear it's not as good as the first two. But everyone who says these things likes only the first songs from the albums, which aren't always that good in the first place. I mean, "Yehei" is a good song, but it's certainly not the best one of the album. It's probably more like fourth or fifth best. And "Lecha" is also a good song, but once again, not close to the best on the CD. I wish I had brought my headphones to work today so I could listen to the excerpts they have on jewishjukebox.com. I'm going to buy the album anyway, I just hate that some people have heard it and I have not. Like I know I'm going to miss Lost tonight, and it bothers me that some people will have seen it before I have. It's the same thing.

Alright, that's all I have for now. I'll try to be coherent next time. If anyone asks, I can just feign inebriation. Happy St. Demetrius's Day.

Daylight Savings Time

Sounds like one of the many banks springing up these days. "Come bank with us! We're open as long as the sun is up! Special interest rates apply on equinoxes and solstices!" Anyway, as a Jew, Daylight Savings Time actually has a practical effect on my daily life. I now need to daven mincha before I leave from work. I have no time to prepare for Shabbat on Fridays, so I need to be ready by Thursday night. But here's the rub; we will inevitably stay up late Friday night schmoozing, hocking around, making a few l'chaims, etc. However, since Shabbat ends early too, we don't even get the option of a lengthy afternoon nap. This is not an issue during the summer because dinner ends so late that we're up late anyway, but at least we can do something fun on Shabbat afternoon AND take a nap. So even though dinner will end by like 7:30 on Friday night, I'm sure I'll still be up at midnight. Sounds pretty foolish, but let's make fun of our less-enlightened non-mosaic faithful. They have this fascination with night-time. I don't mean darkness, I mean the specific hours between roughly 10:45 pm and 3:00 am. Honestly, who goes out on a Saturday night before 10:30? It just doesn't happen. I promise you it'll be just as dark at 11:00 on Saturday night as it was at 7:00. But no one's gonna think to himself "well, it's dark outside, but it's only 7:15...screw it, I'm getting hammered." Another words, I could easily come back from synagogue on Saturday night at 5:45, play basketball for two hours, watch two movies and then go out. Isn't that ridiculous? Why don't people go out as soon as it gets dark? That way, you can party or drink or cry, or whatever it is you do for entertainment on a Saturday night and still get a full night's sleep and be up at a reasonable hour. As Simmons would say, everyone could use his or her own vice-president of common sense.

Metric System

Now, I've come to grips with the fact that we stupid Americans refuse to change over to the metric system. It just makes so much more sense. Whatever, we're allowed to be pompous. But here's my question. Why does soda come in bottles in liter increments and why do milk and orange juice come in cartons or bottles in quart/gallon increments? Seriously, today at the third meal, I was looking at a 2-liter bottle of Sunny-D (no, not soda or purple stuff) and right on the label it said 2-liters and in parentheses 2.1 quarts. I understand that such beverages need to come in plastic bottles with twist-off caps because their carbonation needs to be preserved, but what would be the big problem with having quart bottles or gallon bottles? If 2-liters and two quarts are almost the same quantity, shouldn't there just be one standard? If someone can explain this to me, I would be in his or her debt.

Maniacal

What's wrong with the word "maniacal?" It's as fine a word as any other, yet I've been questioned about both its meaning and its existence. But what's so confusing about the word "maniacal?" It's merely the adjective form of the noun "maniac." That's not to say that I hear the word used all the time, but it's still 100% valid. My usage of said word dates back to my childhood when I was a big fan of the movie "Who Framed Roger Rabbit." Now, I'm still a big fan of the movie, but I was then too. Anyway, at one point, when Judge Doom is chasing down Eddie Valiant, he empties a barrel-full of the dip, his patented toon-killing concoction, onto the road right in front of where Eddie is passing by in the toon-cab Benny. Benny's tires get damaged by the dip and he ends up crashing into a pole. The judge mercilessly makes his point by saying, "What an unfortunate accident. Nothing more treacherous than a slippery road, especially when driving in a maniacal toon vehicle." Christopher Lloyd's voice is just perfect for this role. So I'mma keep using the word "maniacal." Preeeow.

Another Words

Wow, I'm going for the trifecta today. Good for me. The only reason I had so much time to blog today is that I was up $352 at about 10:00, and then proceeded to lose $230 of it about $20 at a time for the next two hours. I then decided to stop trading for the day. Next time you see me, give me a hug, unless you're a girl. (At this point I should say something inappropriate like, "...unless you're a girl, in which case nothing less than a reached-on-error will suffice," but I won't. I'm strong willed) Anywhosie, I realize that I never explained the whole "another words" phenomenon. Once again allow me to call upon the services of our friendly neighborhood, red-masked, multi-purpose criminal element, Strong Bad. In e-mail numbo 122, Danny asks him what he looks for in an e-mail. "Another words, describe that dream e-mail that you would like to recieve one day." Now, Strong Bad disappointed me by not correcting Danny's spelling of the word "recieve;" as we all know, Strong Bad is almost as maniacal about spelling and grammar as I am. Anyway, Strong Bad responds with a ridiculous fishing metaphor involving the many e-mail fish out there in the e-mail sea, and then finally makes fun of "another words" a-like-a-this-a: "Another words, please allow me to ditch the fishing metaphor and hit you with the pink border." Hence, instead of using "in other words" like a normal human being, I choose to use "another words."

Garden State

So, after many months of being E-Z Pass-less, I finally rejoined my 21st century brethren in the, uh, 21st century and received the magical plastic box 'o fun in the mail yesterday. Now, most of the time when I drive I usually try to avoid paying tolls because I'm a cheap Jew, and also I don't always have enough cash on me. But sometimes you can't avoid paying a toll, like when you go to New Jersey, but other times it's just so inconvenient to take the toll-less route, you resign yourself to paying the $4.50 for the Throgs Neck or some such similarly named monstrosity. However, the situation in which I am most excited to use E-Z Pass is for my occasional trip to Atlantic City. I've driven to Atlantic city twice over the past eight months, and driving on the Garden State Parkway without E-Z-Pass is like trying to put out a forest fire with a screwdriver. Another words, I'd rather shoot myself in the face repeatedly. Here's what I'm talking about. The New Jersey Turnpike, a noble road if ever there was one, operates with the silky-smooth precision of a five-bladed shaver. You enter onto it, you collect a ticket if you don't have E-Z Pass, you drive on it for as long as you like, and then you pay a toll when you exit corresponding to how long you drove on it. The Garden State Parkway, however, is still living in the good ol' 20th century. If you don't have E-Z Pass, roughly every ten miles or so you need to pay another $0.35 or $0.45 or $0.70 toll. Notice that you need at least two types of coins to pay for each toll. It would be far more simple if they made all the tolls in multiples of $0.25. Another words, if you don't have E-Z Pass, plan to bring a roll of quarters and a roll of dimes, and a stout piece of wood to put between your teeth so you don't bite off your own tongue while in the throes of another hydrophobic seizure brought about by chronic toll-paying. Hurrah for E-Z Pass. The velcro that comes with it is pretty cool too. I wish I could still get away with wearing velcro sneakers. I wonder if the velcro guy is worth as much as the aglet guy. This will require some investigation.

Reactions to The Grammar Post

A friend has just gotten through telling me that he was entertaining himself with my delightful blog. A few minutes later he told me that he thinks I should write a grammar book. To this I replied that I don't want to write a textbook because I would be unable to take advantage of the treasury of words English has made available to us. He responded that he was thinking more along the lines of the British best-seller, "Eats, Shoots & Leaves." Now, I have been planning to write the great fantasy novel for the past couple of years; I just haven't gotten around to it yet. So, I thought about my friend's suggestion and came to the following conclusion. It's highly likely that I don't know nearly as much about grammar as I think I do. If I ever read "Eats, Shoots & Leaves" I would probably learn a lot more. But then I would probably start correcting people even more than I do already. My friend says that I would become intolerable. I couldn't tolerate being intolerable. If I was really such a stickler, I wouldn't be using words such as "gonna" or "wanna" in here. I also wouldn't be using contractions; those just aren't allowed when you're writing. And then we'd start getting into arguments about punctuation, because sometimes Microsoft Word, the Messiah of grammar, allows you to comma splice when you really shouldn't be allowed. It will also let you get away with only putting one space after periods. But, oddly enough, it won't let you get away with not putting a comma before "which" when it's used as a conjunction. Bill might be a multi-kajillionnaire, but to me he's just a maniacally inconsistent grammar fiend.

On that note, by the way, just two more grammatical tidbits to get you all off the edge of your seats; I know how breathlessly you were waiting for some more.
1. When you're typing numbers, you need to type out the actual word for all numbers from zero up to twelve. Once you get to 13 you are allowed to type the numerals. And just so y'all understand the difference, the numeral "3" is merely a symbol representing the quantity "three." That's not a grammatical issue; it's a math issue.
2. The last sentence of that last tidbit provides a smooth segue into the next one. I really like using semi-colons, but they need to be used the right way. You can't merely replace a comma or a period with a semi-colon. I mean you can't have a semi-colon immediately succeeded by a conjunction. You could, in theory and in practice, put a period instead of a semi-colon, but semi-colons are far cooler. Just make sure that your second sentence is directly related to the first one; I like cheese.

Please allow me, once again, to recognize the gadlus of Mike and Mike in the morning on ESPN radio. Some of the things they say really do it for me even though they might not be objectively funny. This is a fairly recent one that caught on, and they're using it fairly often, but not nearly often enough to become annoying. There has been a lot of discussion over the past year or two about the future of Brett Favre, the Green Bay Packers' quarterback, who, much like Tom Glavine, is a sure-fire first-ballot Hall of Famer. Basically, the coaches and various important members of the Packers' front office have stated at one time or another that they won't pressure Favre to retire unless he's really damaging the team. After all, "Brett Favre is Brett Favre." Mike and Mike have used this line repeatedly, which coaches make similar comments about other players. They were discussing the propensity of San Francisco 49ers quarterback Alex Smith to make mistakes in important situations. Of course he is a young player and will learn from his mistakes, but just as they were finishing the discussion, Greenberg said "after all, Alex Smith is Alex Smith, and..." and immediately after that, they played a clip of the Packers' coach saying "Brett Favre is Brett Favre." That's terrific stuff. I wish I were this clever.

Grammatical Pet-Peeves

I know everyone makes a big deal about my correcting their grammar, but seriously, inasmuch as they went out of their way to make English the most difficult language ever, we might as well repay their magnanimity by speaking it properly. And plus, it really pisses off the British when we try to do it the right way. So here's a few of my grammatical pet-peeves. They're denturific!
1. At what point in our relatively short history did we quit using adverbs? They should be a viable option when it comes to the parts of speech. The only one anybody still uses on a consistent basis is "very," and that's really the least impressive one. Not only that, but people also replace adverbs with adjectives, like "you're driving too fast!" No, I'm not; I'm driving too quickly.
2. Here's a huge one. People need need NEED to start using the word "fewer." The word "less" can only be used to describe a substance lacking in number. Par example, "you have less water than I do," but "I have fewer bottles of water than you do." "My brother has less hair than I do." "He has fewer hairs on his head than I do." It's really quite simple.
3. Everyone knows how I feel about this one. You absolutely cannot end a clause with a preposition. This is entirely inappropriate. As the great Benson & Hedges, Nextel Cup Churchill once said, "this is the sort of nonsense up with which I will not put." People screw this up so so so often (there were 3 adverbs in that sentence; they were all the word "so."). Just fix your sentences, my friends. It's really not that hard once you get used to it.
4. This one doesn't make any sense at all. The space for neologism in this language should not be filled with foolishness like the word "'nother." As in, "that's a whole 'nother story." You are allowed to say "that's a whole other story," or "that's an entirely different story." What's the big freakin' deal?!
Ok, these other ones have to do with writing and typing, but they're still really bad.
5. This one is more a still up for debate, but I'm taking a stand, like the X-Men. Whenever you type a period at the end of a sentence, you absolutely must put two spaces after it. One space just won't suffice. Even though it doesn't appear that way in my blog, since the website fixes things the way it wants to, I always have two spaces after my periods. ALWAYS. In this case, as in all cases, less is not more. Even fewer isn't more. More is more.
6. The English language has a magical word called "which." It can be used as a question; "Which way did he go?" It can also be used conjuction style, which is the one which troubles me (the second one there was a pronoun). It gives me conjunctivitis whenever I read a sentence which contains "which" as a conjunction when it is not immediately preceded by a comma, which is necessary.
6. This one is really a no-brainer, but it's still all over the place. Allow me to transcribe a ditty from the inimitable Dr. Bad's e-mail #89 entitled "Local News." In response to Dan's question, Bad sings, "If you want it to be possessive, it's just "I-T-S." But, if it's supposed to be a contraction then it's "I-T-apostrophe-S," scalawag." That pretty much says it all.
Please my friends; I wouldn't ask you to fix these things if I didn't have faith that you could. Pardon me whilst I go bring maaser sheni.

Regularly Scheduled Programming

We don't need to discuss it. There is no need for it. At the end of the day G-d's game is just that, a game. I can now turn my attention to other, far more important things. We now return to our regularly scheduled programming, already in progress......deal with revolving doors? Do they truly revolve? Let me ask you a question. What does this island Earth do? Yes, it rotates about its axis and it revolves around the sun. So, in reality, a revolving door doesn't exactly revolve. The door rotates about its hub, from which the spokes (read: doors) extend, and the person going through the door happens to be the thing revolving. So, in truth, what we call a revolving door is really a rotating door. The door doesn't revolve, we do. However, I'm going to keep referring to it as a revolving door just so that people don't think I'm a raving lunatic. Oh, how wrong they are.One more thing. I just had a conversation with my friend about hotcakes. I told her I'd better get there quickly or else there would be no cinnamon buns left. Those things would go like hotcakes. But what the hell are hotcakes? When you enter "hotcake" into the Wikipedia search, it redirects you to the column on pancakes. This is a completely unsatisfactory answer. As our esteemed Mitchell Hedberg says: "As a comedian you have to start a show strong and end the show strong. Those are the two key elements. You can't be like pancakes, all exciting at first but at the end, you're f**king sick of 'em." Believe you me (whatever that idiotic idiom means), I never get f**king sick of cinnamon buns. Even after a whole box of those Entenmann's Super Cinnamons, which have like a whole week's worth of calories, I still want more. Lemme see if I can dig up some info on these magical morsels of moistness we call "hotcakes." So, after a very cursory inspection of fewer than four websites, here's what I came up with. Er, here's with what I came up. Er, umm, here's what I found. Hotcakes is the name of a bakery/cafe in Charlottesville, Virginia. I don't think that's what they meant, when they came up with that expression. So, Hotcakes is also the name of a small internet company from New Zealand, which helps other small businesses put up simple websites. You can see their state-of-the-art page here: http://www.hotcakes.co.nz/. Here we go, I think this it. Hotcakes is the name of band from Austin, Texas. They've been around since the '60s, and there's a one in ten chance that the expression "sell like hotcakes" was invented in that decade, ignoring, of course, the century. This is something I choose to do from time to time. So, there you have it folks. Those hotcakes might go gold, but if I get my way, and I almost always do, those cinnamon buns will go platinum.

Game 7

First of all, not to toot my own horn, or pat myself on the back, or tie my own shoes, or make my own bed, or wipe my own @$$, a la Big Daddy, or alley my own oop, or march to the beat of my own drum, or anything, but I'd be a way better sportscaster than Tim McCarver or Joe Buck. I used to love Timmy Mac back when he was announcing for the Mets, and I went ballistic when he was replaced by Tom Seaver. That guy shouldn't quit his day job, whatever it is. Tim, however, is just a shell of his former self. Hell, I'd be down on myself too if I had to play second fiddle to Joe "I wish I were Jack Jr." Buck. Anway, the reason I say that I'm better than they are is that on at least three separate occasions during the game last night I pre-empted something that one or the other of them said. I predicted which relief pitchers they would bring in based on who was warming up and who was coming to bat. I predicted who would be intentionally walked and when they'd bring in the new pitcher. And the only tool I had was what was shown on the TV screen, and my challah-roll sized brain. I'm in the wrong business.

Anyway, tachlis. Tonight is game 7 of the NLCS. The term "Game 7" has taken on a life of its own. Game 7 is like the last day of finals when you're still in school. You haven't showered in 6 days, there's trash around because you're too busy to clean up, and you sorta lose track of the time and the date. The only difference is instead of the 17 empty beer bottles around the uh, recycling area, aka the general floor area between my desk and the couch, they would be empty coke bottles. With this in mind, I'd like to share my thoughts on what will happen tonight, IMHO.

As I was reminded earlier today, Oliver Perez, the Mets' starting pitcher, who had a 3-13 record this year, will have the worst record of any NL pitcher starting a game 7 ever. Here is how, I believe, events will unfold. Perez will pitch no more than 4 innings tonight. He will walk 3, strikeout 4 and give up one home run to Albert Pujols. Now, let's turn to Jeff Suppan, the Cardinals' pitcher tonight. He was lights out in game 3 in St. Louis, but let's look at the stats. He had a 3.18 ERA at home and a 5.36 ERA on the road. This one doesn't really make a difference to me, but it's something I noticed: In day games, he had a 3.36 ERA, and in night games he had a 4.62 ERA. Chances are he won't be nearly as dominant as he was on Saturday night. I think both pitchers will be on a very short leash, and the instant they get into trouble their respective nights will be over. Suppan will give up 3 runs in 5 innings. After 5 innings, the Mets will be leading 3-1. I'mma go ahead and predict that the final score will be the same as last night: 4-2 Mets. Reyes will be 2-4 with a stolen base and 2 runs scored. Lo Duca will be 1-3 with a sac bunt. Beltran, Delgado and Wright will each have at least one RBI. Of course, I could be totally off and it'll be a slugfest. Either way, I hope I make it out of this alive.

Poo-holes

Since my Mets finally played a game last night, I can share some of my thoughts. So I tuned in to Mike and Mike in the morning on ESPN radio, quite possibly the best sports talk show in the entire universe. I like to think of myself as a cross between Greenberg and Golic; on the one hand I would love to talk sports, watch football, eat sumo-burgers and get fat all day, and generally be macho, but on the other I like to wear pink shirts and generally be in touch with my feminine side. Anyway, they said that Albert Pujols reportedly expressed that he was unimpressed with the Mets and that Tom Glavine did not pitch well. Granted, St. Louis did hit some balls hard and came up empty, but for Pujols, arguably the game's best hitter and all-around nice guy, to say such things seems entirely out of character. Pujols might just be the best thing Major League Baseball has going for it. In an era where every player who hits a home run is suspected of engaging in foul play, e.g. steroids, HGH, etc., Pujols is as pure as pure can get. He is the consummate athlete; he plays hard, hits monstrous home runs, gets on base every other at bat, and he is even a devout Catholic. I understand that he was frustrated with the loss, especially since his hard liner to lead off the 9th inning against Billy Wagner was snared by Carlos Delgado. But as an ambassador to the game, and a role model for millions, he needs to watch what he says, especially when referring to one of the top 10, maybe top 5 left-handed pitchers of all time and a surefire first-ballot hall of famer. He should just eat his pride and admit that Glavine pitched a helluva ballgame and come back tomorrow and let his bat do the talking.

A Funny Anecdote and Thoughts About Brand Names et al

So yesterday I was picking my friend up from her apartment, and it was raining lemurs and caribous. I pulled up there facing south on Overlook Terrace blocking the southbound lane such that anyone wishing to continue south would have to pass me in the northbound lane, which is standard practice in that neighborhood. Anyway, a woman in another car coming northbound pulled up right next to my car facing the opposite direction, thereby blocking the street. Then a gypsy cab came along wishing to proceed northbound, so I lowered my window, got the woman's attention and, well, here's what went down:
Me: "Would you please move so that the other car can get by?"
Her: "You move!"
Me: "Well, I was here first."
Her: "Well, I'm a girl."
So, being the non-confrontational sort, I politely pulled up about 20 feet ahead, however everyone in the car with me, girl included, agreed that you should never waste an "I'm a girl" card on something as foolish as that. And then my friend got 20 feet wetter because I had to move. Just not a cool move.

It has occurred to me that I sometimes describe a certain generic product by its most popular brand name. You know that a particular brand has cornered the market when everyone refers to any product of that type by it's brand name. For example, last night my friend gestured toward an SUV and asked me who's Jeep it was. Although it was clearly a Ford Explorer or something, maybe a Honda CR-V. Sorry, it was dark and I was too busy getting wet to notice. Either way, it certainly wasn't a Jeep. Currently, I can only think of three other products to which this phenomenon applies. One of these is Kleenex. That one wasn't so obvious because I grew up calling them "tissues." The really obvious one to me is Band-Aid. To this day, I'll go ask my father where the Band-Aids are. To me, a bandage is like an Ace bandage, not one of those sticky guys you put on your cuts along with the Neo. My brother has reminded me of the Xerox machine. You will often find people who will ask you to "Xerox" something for them instead of using your trusty, somewhat dusty Canon copier, or even the dark horse Ricoh model. I also thought of Q-tips. I have never in my life referred to them as "cotton swabs," nor will I ever. I wonder how much the Q-tip guy is worth? I wonder if they have a stock I can buy? There's no way he's worth as much as the aglet guy though. He makes money on every shoelace ever made. For those of you who don't know what an aglet is, it's the plastic cylinder on the end of your shoelaces, which makes it easier to put the lace through the holes in your shoes. I need to get out more.

A Few More Thoughts About a Few More Things

So, I was reading Bill Simmons, the Sports Guy's article today on ESPN.com, and before the football season started, he assigned his lovely wife, the Sports Gal, to pick the winners against the spread for each football game so that he could know if someone who knows very little about sports could do a better job than him. In exchange, he agreed to let her write a short column inside of his football column each week. Just to keep you updated, The Sports Gal is 35-23-2, and the Sports Guy is 29-29-2. But she said the funniest thing in her column today. She said that they had to get a second phone line in their house just for Hench's phone calls, because he would call all the time to talk about their fantasy baseball team. She claims that Hench and Bill refer to that phone as the "Bat Phone." That cracks me up.

Something else. As a Mets fan, Ocbober is a very hard month. When you're a Yankees fan, and you get to watch them in the playoffs every year it just seems like an extension of the season, so it's only slightly more nerve-wracking than the rest of the year. But for us, this month is impossible. Every pitch makes you sweat. If your pitcher throws a strike you celebrate like you just won the World Series, but if he throws a ball you cry like you just lost it. The last time my team was in the playoffs was 6 years ago, so now I'm 6 years closer to dying from my first heart-attack or brain aneurysm. I need to ask some Yankee fans for their advice on how to cope with this. I promise you that I will not be able to sleep tomorrow night because the Mets will be playing and I won't be able to watch. My hosts might as well just bring the newspaper up to my room the instant it gets delivered and wake me up by rolling it up and smacking me upside the head with it.

More. I think when I'm talking or writing about things that are happening "today" or "tonight," in order to better emphasize the importance of my words, I should replace "today" with "this day" and "tonight" with "this night." Watch how much how much better this reads: "The Mets are destined to win on this night." That's so much more dramatic than "The Mets are destined to win tonight." The latter makes me sound like a fan who can only name half of their starting lineup, while the former makes me sound like veteran sports caster. Please remind me to do this, but if it gets annoying, please ask me to stop.

A few thoughts about Sukkot, my favorite holiday. I realized that Sukkot is my favorite holiday for several reasons. Even though you might not want to hear them, I'm going to share them with you anyway. This is my blog, and I can do whatever I want, so tough! Anyway, this is the only holiday I can think of where you are actually holding onto objects while you pray, excluding the prayer-book of course. I really feel like I concentrate better while I'm praying when I'm holding onto something, especially something like a lulav. I hate to use meaningless metaphors, but I feel it's like an antenna broadcasting my prayers to the radio in the celestial family room. I get to shake it at times, and at other times I can just hold it close to my body while all of us in synagogue are singing our prayers aloud. Now, I'm very particular about which Lulav I pick, which is really fortunate because most of the judaica stores sell their Lulav and Etrog sets based on the beauty and condition of the Etrog. I try to get a small Lulav if I can, and if it still has the brown jazz towards the top of it, which holds the "leaves" together, then that's even better. So, if you need to borrow my Lulav and Etrog this week, please don't shake it around like a grogger. It is a holy item and should be shown due respect. Anyway, I also like Sukkot because the theme is futuristic. We pretend that the Sukkah is covered with the skin of the Leviathan, which will be eaten by the sages at the end of days. I really appreciate that sort of stuff.

Okay, that's all. Thinking about the holiday has gotten me in a good mood, so I know it will be a good one. Plus, I bought some nice Scotch. I deserve it.

Derek Jeter

I didn't want it to come to this, but I have been forced by the abundance of fools out there to do an ongoing playoff commentary. This morning's subject is the incomparable, immortal, too good for his own good, the Yankee captain, the one and only, Derek Sanderson Jeter. I intend to set the record straight in terms of how I feel about his performance on the field of play, i.e. the only place where things matter. Without further adieu, let's begin.

Derek Jeter is a top MVP candidate in the American League this year. He had, at the very worst, the 2nd best season of his career. I would like to compare his statistics to a few other players, some of whom are also viable MVP candidates.

Jeter: .343 AVG, 118 Runs, 214 Hits, 97 RBI, 39 2B, 3 3B, 14 HR, 102 Ks, 69 BBs, 34 SB, .417 OBP, .483 SLG, .900 OPS

Ortiz: .287 AVG, 115 Runs, 160 Hits, 137 RBI, 29 2B, 2 3B, 54 HR, 117 Ks, 119 BBs, 1 SB, .413 OBP, .636 SLG, 1.049 OPS

Dye: .315 AVG, 103 Runs, 170 Hits, 120 RBI, 27 2B, 3 3B, 44 HR, 118 Ks, 59 BBs, 7 SB, .385 OBP, .622 SLG, 1.007 OPS

Mauer: .347 AVG, 86 Runs, 181 Hits, 84 RBI, 36 2B, 4 3B, 13 HR, 54 Ks, 79 BBs, 8 SB, .429 OBP, .507 SLG, .936 OPS

Morneau: .321 AVG, 97 Runs, 190 Hits, 130 RBI, 37 2B, 1 3B, 34 HR, 93 Ks, 53 BBs, 3 SB, .375 OBP, .507 SLG, .934 OPS

Rodriguez: .290 AVG, 113 Runs, 166 Hits, 121 RBI, 26 2B, 1 3B, 35 HR, 139 Ks, 90 BBs, 15 SB, .392 OBP, .523 SLG, .915 OPS

What can we glean from this? It seems that Derek Jeter does a little bit of everything. 97 RBI from the 2 hole is very impressive, although not surprising considering Robinson Cano and Johnny Damon got on base all the time. He hits for average as well as Mauer, he has more hits than all of them, strikes out a bit much and doesn't walk as much, but that's mostly because they can't pitch around him because of who bats behind him.
Now we'll look at one of the more popular new-fangled stats out there. VORP stands for Value Over Replacement Player. This statistic shows how much more valuable a player is than the average bench player in terms of how much run production he adds to his team. Without going through all the calculations, it was determined on baseballprospectus.com, that Jeter's VORP for the season was 79.2. In other words, Jeter is worth around 79 more runs per season than, say, Miguel Cairo. 79.2 was the 4th highest VORP in the league behind Albert Pujols (86.6), Ryan Howard (81.3), and Travis Hafner (80.4).
So, what have we determined? Jeter is a great player. We'll say more about him soon.

On the cover of the most recent issue of ESPN the Magazine sits Jose Reyes. They argue that Reyes might be the best shortstop in New York. Truth be told, I find it unfair to compare the two of them, because Jeter has been great for over a decade now, and Reyes is only 23. But, because it's fun, let's compare them anyway. Again:

Jeter: .343 AVG, 118 Runs, 214 Hits, 97 RBI, 39 2B, 3 3B, 14 HR, 102 Ks, 69 BBs, 34 SB, .417 OBP, .483 SLG, .900 OPS in 623 ABs

Reyes: .300 AVG, 122 Runs, 194 Hits, 81 RBI, 30 2B, 17 3B, 19 HR, 81 Ks, 53 BBs, 64 SB, .354 OBP, .487 SLG, .841 OPS in 647 ABs

Jeter is clearly a more experienced hitter, since he has 16 more BBs in 24 fewer at bats. Again, 97 RBI from the 2 hole is extremely impressive, but I would venture to say that 81 RBI from the leadoff spot on a National League team with the pitcher batting 9th is even more impressive. Reyes's improvement over last year in every statistical category is almost mind-boggling: 23 more Runs, 4 more hits, 6 more doubles, the same amount of triples (first guy to hit 17 triples in two straight seasons in the last half century), 12 more HRs, 23 more RBI, a frightening 26 more walks, 4 more stolen bases, .27 higher batting average, an absurd .54 higher OBP, and an astounding .101 higher SLG, giving him .155 higher OPS.

My point is this: Right now, Derek Jeter is a better shortstop. If I could trade Jose Reyes for Derek Jeter just for the playoffs, I think I would. I'm not one of these morons who says, "oh, he has a very high ceiling...tremendous upside, etc." Even if Reyes puts up the same numbers for the next 15 years, he's a Hall of Famer. He probably will continue to improve, but for this discussion it's irrelevent. Derek Jeter is better right now. Period.

At this point I want to call attention to his play last night. 5 for 5 with a home run, 3 runs scored and an RBI was a performance for the ages. I heard it was the 6th time a player has ever had 5 hits in a playoff game. The Yankees won last night largely because of Jeter's play. Not, I repeat, NOT because he's Captain Intangibles. Joe Morgan, Tim McCarver, Michael Kay, and all their smelly brethren do nothing but insult their hero Jeter when they refer to him as such. As a math guy, the only thing I look for to determine a player's value is his play on the field. Jeter's numbers speak for themselves. For him to be called Captain Intangibles means that there is something lacking in his baseball skills. I want to call your attention to two plays, which fans/commentators always enjoy mentioning; the flip to Posada that Jeter made on Jeremy Giambi against the Oakland A's in the playoffs, and the play last year against the Red Sox when he fell into the stands. These were terrific plays, plain and simple. But to say that the reason the Yankees win is because Derek Jeter does things like that is just silly talk. I'm not saying that every player would be able to make those plays; I just think that he was in the right place at the right time. You cheer him because his face came away bloody. That doesn't make the play any greater than it would have been if he had come away unscathed. My point is that the Yankees win because Derek Jeter is a very good baseball player. As for Reyes, we'll check back in a few years and see how he's doing. But for now, Derek Jeter is the king of New York.

Playoffs

There are a few things about which I know a lot. Many of these things are, in the grand scheme of things, useless. Such as the ability to solve a Rubik's cube, or being able to determine the day of the week for any date. Another one of these things is baseball. And now, for the first time in 6 years, my team is in the playoffs, the mighty Metropolitans of the city, state, but not county, of New York. Many people with whom I have spoken have wagered against the Mets in their first round matchup against the Los Angeles Dodgers, especially since their #1 pitcher Pedro Martinez has been left off of the postseason roster due to injury. There are those of you who say that the Mets have no pitching. To all you nay-sayers, I have these thoughts:

The Mets named Orlando Hernandez as their #1 postseason pitcher: His stats over his last 6 starts are as follows:
6 IP, 5 H, 0 ER, 8 Ks, 1 BB
5.1 IP, 1 H, 1 ER. 4 Ks, 6 BB
7 IP, 4 H, 1 ER, 6 K, 1 BB
7 IP, 6 H, 2 ER, 7 K. 1 BB
7 IP, 6 H, 3 ER, 8 K, 1BB
5 IP, 3 H, 0 ER, 9 K, 5 BB

For an ERA of 1.70, a WHIP of 1.07, and 42 Ks in 37.1 innings
Just for argument's sake, let's compare his stats to the leading AL Cy Young Award candidate, Johan Santana's stats over his last 5 starts.
Hernandez: 37.1 IP, 1.70 ERA, 1.07 WHIP, 42 Ks, 15 BBs
Santana: 35.1 IP, 1.78 ERA, 0.88 WHIP, 38 Ks, 7 BBs

Now, let's discuss Hernandez's postseason statistics for his Major League career. Over the past 8 seasons, he has appeared in the postseason 7 times and has pitched 106 innings. He has compiled a 9-3 record with a 2.55 ERA. He has also struck out 107 batters in those 106 innings.

I'm not saying he's the greatest pitcher of all time; I'm just saying you could do far worse with your starting pitcher for the first game of the playoffs.

Now, let's discuss the bullpens. Steve Trachsel, the Mets 4th starter has been the beneficiary of timely hitting and a solid bullpen during the season. He sported a pedestrian 4.97 ERA, but with a record of 15-8. In other words, if the Mets can get through 5-6 innings with the lead, they have a very good chance of winning. Their bullpen record stands at 32-15 with 43 saves. They also have the 2nd best ERA in all of baseball, at 3.28. The only team with a better bullpen ERA is the Minnesota Twins at 2.91. What I am trying to say here is that the starting pitching doesn't need to be spectacular and lights out for the Mets to have a good chance to win.

Now, let's discuss the New York Mets as a whole. The key dates, which I'll be using here are August 9th and September 18th. August 9th is the date of Pedro Martinez's last healthy start. Between August 10th and September 18th, Pedro pitched twice and lost both decisions while pitching horribly. September 18th is the date the Mets clinched the National League East division. Anything that happened afterwards was, for all intents and purposes, meaningless. The Mets played 37 games during that span and posted a 23-14 record. Even if we include Pedro's two starts, only one team in baseball has a better record over that span. The Oakland A's won 24 against 11 losses during that span. Every other team to whom they are worth comparing have worse records, including the mighty Yankees (24-16), the red-hot Minnesota Twins (21-15), the upstart Tigers (14-22), and their first round opponent, the Los Angeles Dodgers (21-15).

These are my thoughts going into the postseason. Am I concerned about the Dodgers? Yes. Am I overly concerned about the Dodgers? No. Am I concerned about any 2nd round team in a 7-game series? No. Would I be surprised if they steam-rolled their way into the World Series? Absolutely not.

Now I'll make like the Sports Guy and submit my playoff picks.

NLDS: Mets over Dodgers 3-1
Cardinals over Padres 3-1
ALDS: Yankees over Tigers 3-0
Twins over A's 3-2
NLCS: Mets over Cardinals 4-1
ALCS: Yankees over Twins 4-2

I hesitate to pick a World Series winnner, so I won't. I'll just leave that one up to the man upstairs. Thanks for reading, everyone. I mean, thanks for writing, Schmutter.