Quick Review Monday

Jordy asks, Jordy receives.











Hummmmm baby!

In a nutshell, la familia Bolt were formerly Alltel customers who then got switched over to Verizon and were due for phone upgrades. Verizon knocked fifty bucks off the price of the phones to entice us to stay, and it worked. Forthwith, the Droid Eris review:

The short version: LOVE.

Care to expand on that? Yes. Disclaimer: I am a complete geek from way back in the day. No, really. Like at the level of maybe having been a member of the Star Trek Club that met in the basement of the South Bend Public Library on Thursday evenings in 1978. But hey, I'm not embarrassed to admit that any more, because now I have a goddamn fucking tricorder in my pocket! W00t!

I used the Eris over the weekend to check Google maps for the route to a volleyball tournament in Phoenix, find the nearest branch of my bank for an ATM run, check the Cubs score (Cubs lose again on a bases-loaded walk? There are, regrettably, about a million apps for that), read and respond to e-mails, send texts, play a fishing game (uncannily close to real life; not a single bite), and even make some calls.

Best bits: I am still new enough to the magic of touchscreens to still squeee a little every time I flick menus up, down, and sideways. The lack of a physical keyboard was initially daunting, but I got the hang of the touchscreen QWERTY keyboard pretty quickly. You have seven screens you can customize by parking widgets all over the place, if you want. I have only scratched the surface of the available apps, but so far am completely enthralled with Google Maps, Google Sky (a star chart that works off GPS to show you the constellations you would be seeing RIGHT NOW if you lived in a dark place), and the ability to speak your search terms and have Teh Almighty Google take care of the rest. My Tracks is a nifty app that plots your runs/hikes/bikes onto a map, recording distance, time, and elevation gain, and then twangs them into a spreadsheet if you want, or uploads them if you'd like to share favorite routes with friends. I haven't tried it yet but am excited about using it on the next hike.

The downside: Battery life sucks with the factory settings, but there are things you can do to improve it. Disabling data synching, turning off the mobile web and WiFi when you don't need them, and several other tricks you can find online help a lot. If you rely on mobile access to your e-mail on a constant basis during the day, this may not be the phone for you, but if, like me, you just like having the option there to access mail and the web on an on-demand basis, it's probably not a problem. I ran the battery all the way down and charged it overnight two days in a row, and then with the WiFi and mobile network only on when I needed them over the weekend, I got almost two full days of battery life with my usual amount of texting and calling (and occasional checks to see what Alfonso Soriano's latest mishaps in left field have done to the baserunning situation).

Also, the tiny touchscreen keyboard means drunk texting or even tired texting is really not an option. Then again, maybe seeing wtyshgf on the screen when you thought you were typing hello might come in handy when you're wondering if you've really had as many as maybe you think you have but aren't sure.

And now, the inaugural WPS Game of the Week Review. Carli Lloyd was essentially invisible for Sky Blue? I'm stunned. Despite no longer having Lloyd on the roster (and forcing 15-odd corners), the Red Stars failed to score a goal? Shocked. Still wearing my Red Stars scarf, but looking forward a little more to next week to see my second team and pretend soulmate in aging knee troubles Kelly Smith take on the new Philadelphia Independence.

The Week in Sports

The WPS LA Sol fire sale Dispersal Draft took place yesterday. Oddly, despite usually sending out more Tweets per fan than any other professional sports league, the Twitterfeed was silent until it was all over, leaving dozens of people biting their nails wondering where Marta would land. She wound up going third, to the apparently named by an AYSO U-14 girls team that won the lottery Gold Pride, newly of the East Bay. Former Notre Dame and current women's national team stalwart holding midfielder Shannon Boxx was the first pick, going to St. Louis, which totally cleaned up by also adding Aya Miyama and Tina DiMartino; red hot Candian keeper Karina LeBlanc went to Philadelphia. My hometown Red Stars passed on veteran players, grabbing rookie Tarheel Casey Nogueira with pick #4, and with that decision hopefully both saved a lot of cash and (potentially) increased their anemic scoring output by a factor of maybe four. Of course, without Tarpley in the midfield any more, that's a lot of reliance on Megan Rapinoe's ability to remember she can pass the ball now instead of having to do it all on her own.

In baseball news, Big Z showed up early (!) to spring training, with a shiny new good attitude and svelte physique, both of which should asplode right on schedule the first time he walks three guys in a row and blows a two-run lead, which we'll peg at 'round about April 8.

And in other baseball news, this.

The Weekend in Sports

The Cubs have suspended Milton Bradley for the rest of the season and may be looking to unload him. At this point, just eating the two years remaining on his contract would be worth it if it gets him out of Chicago. They dumped Mark DeRosa to pick up this guy, and then had the temerity to act baffled when he refused to play nicely with his teammates, the fans at Wrigley, and greater Chicagoland. Bradley's been clubhouse poison basically forever. How this knowledge escaped Jim Hendry until it was too late is a mystery to me.

In football news, the Irish escaped a fiftieth or something consecutive home loss to Michigan State on the whisker of two dropped balls by the Spartans and Kyle McCarthy hanging on to an interception at the Notre Dame 10. And top receiver Michael Floyd is lost for the year to a broken collarbone. Maybe this was the wrong year to keep Goliath-slaying Washington on the schedule?

Finally, the Washington Freedom's Jo Lohman and Becca Moros are spending part of the WPS off-season playing in Japan. They're blogging about it, and they're adorable.

Quick HIt

Spare time, I no haz it. A rush freelance illustrating job is sucking up the after-hours clock these days, the kind of work I can't turn down even though the artifacts are, for the most part, either dubious or dullsville, because the contracting person is from a distinguished American family that shreds money over their cornflakes for breakfast and I'm in dire straits.

Giant chunks of quartz. Yay!

Anyway, when I'm not slaving over the drawing board I'm moderately intrigued by happenings in Iowa, Vermont, and DC. I fear I can't fling myself wholeheartedly into Nate Silver's lovely wishful-thinking map--seriously, Arizona voting for marriage equality by 2011 and Utah by 2012? Do the LDS have secret plans to forbid their members from voting for anything ever again that the rest of us don't know about?--but I do have a glimmer of hope that the timing and the tides and the hearts and minds are starting to flow in a different direction. Also, Sully waxes more eloquent that usual for the Daily Dish here.

Yes, we toasted Vermont Tuesday night with Ben & Jerry's, and I added corn to my breakfast potatoes and onions in honor of Iowa. Now North Carolina and Tennessee need to get on board, cuz I could use some BBQ just about now.

Also, CUBS IN FIRST PLACE. The magic number is 160. More from my ink-stained fingers when I have time to think.

A Sighting of the Rare and Elusive Boltgirl

It's the annual family confab in Tucson, which has left my calendar a bloody mess when viewed from a distance--gotta switch from red ink to a more soothing blue--and my blog neglected in the corner, sniffling. What can I fling at you as I sprint by the computer between rounds of cards, grilling, and backyard birdwatching fueled by high-quality merlot and shiraz?

Meat! Meaty meaty meat meat. I have been a vegetarian off and on for the past twenty years or so, but right now am definitely peaking in the meat quadrant of the graph. Costco sells lovely slabs of top round that grill to tender perfection, which you might not expect from something with "round" in the title, but damn. Damn. I like to cover one slab with a rub of equal parts brown sugar, black pepper, hot ground roasted red chili, and garlic powder, with a half part of kosher salt and let it think about it for a few hours before hitting the grill, and then do the other with simple salt and pepper. And then some lovely thick rounds of onion around the edges until they caramelize. Nom. The grill is getting a workout this week.

Economy! I'm sorry, but at this point I am utterly confused. US auto execs are getting fired by the White House on the same day banking execs are invited over for tea? Meanwhile, my friends and I are coordinating those Costco runs for days when Tucson is not being invaded by family members who gleefully pick up the tab. Recommended bargain of the week: giant clamshell pack of Cherubs grape tomatoes, $4.49. That gives you a week's worth of salads, pastas, omelettes, and lovely snacks. A little olive oil, some basil, salt, and pepper, and bam smacky, you're eating like the king of your very own tomato patch.

Gardening! I suck at it. I know people who very successfully grow tomatoes and peppers and thus avoid that portion of Costco, but I am not one of them. High and subsequently dashed hopes in the past have included tomatoes, jalapenos, anaheim chiles, squash, red bell peppers, lettuce, and snow peas. This season I stuck to herbs and have managed to keep sage and mint alive; the cilantro, to my great chagrin, collapsed and died within three days. Oh, wait--I have had marginal success with potatoes, and am currently sitting on a harvest store of four yukon golds ranging in size from small grape to golf ball with a thyroid problem.

Basketball! My brackets are dead in both men's and women's, although I still have the Heels alive for the men's championship and UConn for the well, duh category in the women's. And the Irish rolled over and died in the NIT semis. That is all.

Arizona! Our esteemed Governor Jan Brewer (R-Harpytown) appointed the illustrious and beloved-by-Shakesville Mr. Benjamin H. Grumbles as head of the state Department of Environmental Quality, which is something akin to appointing a hyena as head of kitten welfare. Grumbles is a Bush EPA hack whose major accomplishment at the EPA was being concerned about pharmaceuticals in groundwater. Well, he was actually only concerned about nitroglycerin, and then only because it's an explosive. Anti-depressants and anti-inflammatories are apparently okay because--let's be honest here--they're making you feel better, aren't they?

Baseball! Pima County wants to build another stadium in hopes that maybe they can lure like three teams back from Glendale to Save Spring Training in Tucson, which will only cost about $137 million in a state that is shuttering state parks and firing teachers as fast as it can in order to fill exactly two sandbags that can be stacked up in front of the 75-foot tsunami that is the current $3 BILLION budget deficit. But it is important to soak people with an increased sales tax so that they can build a stadium that may or may not be used for an entire month every year if the teams decide to relocate to the cotton fields of Marana before bolting to the next sweet deal being offered by a municipality someplace else. Arizona: 49th in education, 2nd in teen pregancy rates, numero uno in short-sighted stupidity.

More to come! Later!

Two Days Later, We Are No Less Befuddled

100 and Counting

So the baseball gods sat down before the division series began and said what can we do to rip Cubs fans' hearts out this time around? The animal curses had been done to death, what with the billy goat in '45 and the black cat in '69, and the strokes of individual bizarreness had run their course after Leon Durham's classic ball-between-the-legs stunt of '84 and the epic for the ages that was Steve Bartman vs. Moises Alou in '03. What to do? They were stumped.

What about this, came a querulous voice from the back of the room. What about a stupefying total team meltdown for the guys who ran up the best record and best offense in the National League? Ooh, this one had merit. The mood around the table grew giddy as they considered the possibilities. First we put the bats to sleep! Yes... Then we make sure the Cubs' number one starter has less control than a Depends convention! Yes, I like it... and then, when the fans have convinced themselves that Game 2 can't possibly be worse? I know! How about the infield backing up Zambrano with an E-3-4-5-6 on the way to giving up ten runs? And after that they just curl up and die in Game 3, right? Right! Awesome!

Hey, guys? One more thing? Whazzat, kid? How about having the Sox come back and win the whole thing? I like the way you think, kid. And they clinked their glasses and drank.

So put away your dreams of a pair of championships on the eights to bookend a century of futility. The baseball gods are sadistic bastards. And they will not be denied.

In Which Our Evening Does Not Go As Planned

Huh. As I just now pounded out to Top!Secret G-woman, either Palin pulled off an epic five-week snow job for the ages, or Randy Scheunemann is a debate/presentation/life coach of miraculous abilities. I have not read any analyses yet because I am too sick to my stomach with the anticipation of the right-wing crowing her performance surely set off. Possibly accompanied by brass bands, fireworks, and free ice cream cones as well. She came off as completely capable. She spoke in comprehensible sentences. She was personable. She didn't seem particularly not intelligent or particularly not informed. If she had a presentation weakness, it was falling back on the "John McCain is a maverick" line too many times and saying "nucular" a lot. Beyond that, I got nothing.

Factually, she repeated the tax increase on $42,000 earners lie. She repeatedly credited the surge with gains in Iraqi security without mentioning the other two vital factors there--namely, the Iraq Awakening groups accepting US money to stop killing US troops, and al Sadr's cease-fire--and repeated that "surge principles" will succeed in Afghanistan despite the considerably different political and geographical situation there. She repeated the "Barack Obama voted to cut off funding to the troops" bullshit. She deflected questions on healthcare. Actually, she deflected a lot of questions or just declined to answer the question that was asked, preferring to flog taxes and energy, energy, energy maverick energy.

Biden was exactly as even-keeled as he needed to be, calling her on some of the more egregious mistruths as time allowed. I wish he had hit back on the details of the surge, but he defended Obama's tax and healthcare plans adequately. One point on McCain's $5000 healthcare tax credit I wish he had brought up is that regardless of how big any tax credit ends up being, people who have to buy their own coverage will still need to come up with the money up front, either in a lump or monthly, and if we have to cough up five grand even in monthly installments, well, we're not going to have coverage. Because we don't have an extra $417 a month, whether we get it back at tax time or not.

If you're going just on facts and expertise, Biden won. If you're going on not falling on your face when the world expects you to, Palin did worlds better than I ever would have expected, and a tiny win on principle is going to blow up into a blowout in the minds of people not inclined to think much past the familiar memes, talking points, and lies that have become as comfortable for McCainiacs as a favorite sweatshirt.

Both Biden and Palin oppose gay marriage. Both said they fully support equal civil rights for same sex couples, but both know that will never include key things like Social Security benefits or portability of rights until the federal government pulls same-sex couples under the umbrella of marriage. Most troubling to me was Biden's statement that both he and Obama oppose changing the civil definition of marriage because religious faiths define it as a man and a woman. Seriously, Joe? You're signing on to that conflation of civil law with religous dogma? He and Palin looked so pleased and relieved to agree on that one and be quickly scooted along to the next question that I had to tell them both to fuck off, and their running mates too. I'm too goddamn old and tired for this bullshit. Yes, hospital visitation is necessary. No, saying you're for that doesn't even come close to scratching the surface of showing you have the slightest fucking clue.

So after about an hour we pushed our Palin bingo cards aside and turned on the Cubs game for some relief, and the night promptly nosedived the rest of the way into the shitter. It was only 1-0, but the bases were loaded, and within a couple of batters they'd been cleared. Cubs are now down 6-0 after five. Early during the game last night, the TBS guys said that Wrigley was very quiet, almost as if the fans were nervously anticipating disaster. Kinda like we were about ten minutes into the debate tonight once it became apparent that what we thought was going to be a coast to victory was turning out to be something very different after all. At least the Cubs aren't flipping us off on their way down.

Shite. Shite, shite, shite.

Like We Didn't See This Coming

The triple-A Tucson Sidewinders played their last game ever last night, ending 40 years of minor-league baseball in Tucson with a whimper, so it was perhaps inevitable that mascot Sandy Sidewinder would end up in the median at Speedway and Campbell this evening. My son adored Sandy when he was a tyke, and was heartbroken to see the depths to which the poor snake has been reduced.






















Another down on his luck out of work mascot.

Finally freed from the constraints of ballpark mascot decorum, Sandy chatted up the drivers in the turn lane as he wandered up and down, clutching his sign and a banana. I took the photo at 6:00; he said he'd been out there since five and couldn't believe the cops hadn't run him off yet. I asked if he might have a shot at being the Tucson Toro when the independent Golden League comes to town next summer, and he said maybe if he's lucky. At least he got to keep the snake suit.

Well, That Settles It

Screw it, I'm voting for McCain.

White Sox, that's baseball. Southside.

Oh no you di'n't!

Cubs! Woo!

Clutch fucking hitting. That's all you need to know. Unreal.


Mark DeRosa.


Alfonso Soriano.

You don't even notice when half these guys are hitting under .270, because they step up and knock one when it's needed most.

Oh No They Dint

The Cubs finally paid Ernie Banks the homage he deserves, with a statue outside Wrigley Field. It's very nice. It looks a lot like him. One small problem.

What? It's Banks' catchphrase, perfectly summing up his enthusiasm and love of the game. Do we see the problem? How about now:

Oh. It's not Banks' catchphrase, "Let's play two" after all. It says lets play two. With no apostrophe. Way to go, Cubs!

The sculptor says he wrote it phonetically, is all. He'll fix it. Jesus.

Sportsbreak

Jesus, what a blender of a half-month it's been. The middle week of March was devoted to a poster for a session at the Society for American Archaeology meetings that took place in Vancouver. I didn't go, but it sounds like my poster had a good time. Thanks to the mapping expertise of the wonderful C here at work and the graphics expertise of the girlfriend and the cultural background and presenting expertise of my co-author, the poster caught the Amerind Foundation's eye enough for them to decide it's a finalist in some public outreach contest they're holding. So the poster may get to do some more traveling, again on its own. If this keeps up much longer it's going to start asking for a beer allowance. And if that happens it's just going to have to go out and get a job.

While the poster was gallivanting around Vancouver, a couple of factions of my family came to town for intensive hiking, birding, and drinking. I survived.

Meanwhile, the world of sports has been churning on. Even though I picked Kansas for the Final Four, along with the rest of the country, I jumped up and down cursing while watching Stephen Curry dribble, diddle, and finally pick up his dribble on Davidson's last possession last night rather than either heaving up a three or finding one of the two guys standing wide open on the flanks. Following that, the Notre Dame women outrebounded Tennessee in the first half and went to the locker room riding a wave of confidence and an accompanying two-point lead, which they promptly converted to bamboozlement and a ten-point loss twenty minutes later.

Opening Day 2008 is being rained out in Chicago as we speak, with a third-inning delay coming on the heels of a start that was already pushed back two hours. Highlights have included the unveiling of an awesome Ernie Banks statue and Fukudome smoking a double over the second baseman's head in his first, and possibly only, at-bat today. The internet radio broadcast is doing a great job of conveying the rain delay atmosphere, with no announcers, but only Gary Pressey's organ playing against a backdrop of crowd chatter. It's 43 degrees and raining, making me not very wistful at all about sitting in my Cubs batting jersey here in 80 degree desert sunshine instead of freezing my ass off in the bleachers while sipping a six dollar Old Style. Still comforting to listen in on the sounds of home.

Soccer? Soccer sucks. Seriously hating on soccer right now, although, were I to be honest, it's more hating on my inability to do the things I used to be able to do. I am not aging well, and am not dealing with that gracefully. Should probably quit playing before I start punching the young speedy players as they blow past me. Speaking of young and speedy, did you see Cristiano Ronaldo's goal against Aston Villa on Saturday? Holy shit. Cheeky? This is the definition of cheeky. GodDAMN but I would like to be able to do that just once.

The rain is lifting! There may still be baseball on the North Side today after all.

Wait 'til... ah Shite

Goddammit. The Irish's unexpected win over UCLA (thank you, Maurice Crum) notwithstanding, it's been a hell of a fall in the sporting world if you share my rooting proclivities. The only consolation is watching both New York teams getting bounced from the NL and AL division championship series. My odyssey to Chase Field last Thursday ended in heartbreak, but I gotta admit this was pretty damn funny:

I guess no matter what goes wrong in my life, it could always be worse; I could be Steve Bartman.

Zzzzzzzzz

Hmmm, that didn't turn out so well. Perhaps taking their long-suffering fans' just wait 'til next year mantra to heart, the Cubs were in prime mid-April form, dropping balls, mis-timing leaps for balls, not running out long balls to the wall, running rather than tagging on flyouts, failing to cover the bag on bunts, and being unable to pitch their way out of a wet paper bag. Or, really, even out of an imaginary wet paper bag. Maybe Lou left Lilly in so long--even letting him hit in the bottom of the third with two on and two out--as a little vaffanculo to everyone who was after his head for pulling Zambrano too early on Wednesday. In any event, the series moves back to Chicago on Saturday and I spend the rest of today trying to keep my eyes open.

A great many Cub fans were born, lived, and died without ever having the chance to see their team make the playoffs. An entire generation lived and died without seeing them win the World Series (last in 1908), and much of a generation died without seeing them even make it to the championship (last in 1908). The bulk of us born during and after the Baby Boom got to at least experience the rush of the odd division title (1984, 2003), while knowing we had no shot at tickets that would actually put our butts in stands festooned with playoff bunting. So many lifetimes of waiting with no reward, eternal hope very rarely met with the chance to catch a few games on TV.

But today when I got to work, my girlfriend slid a piece of paper into my hands. Tickets. Cubs-D'backs, Game 2. For me and my boy. Once in a lifetime just happened. I bawled like a baby.