Art
Since I post so many pictures over on Ellie's page, I decided I should post some on my own. So here's my attempt at some artistic pictures I took while we were at a free concert at Meadowlark Gardens, one of the great "hidden secrets" of the DC area.
Couple Watching Band
Twilight
Tribute to "A Sunday on La Grande Jatte".
Hey! Start Paying Attention!
Here's some sobering information from the National Annenberg Election Survey:
Many adults in the U.S. misjudge where the presidential candidates stand on important public policy issues. . . . A majority of adults still do not know which presidential candidate favors allowing workers to invest some of their Social Security contributions in the stock market, which candidate favors eliminating tax breaks for overseas profits of American corporations, or which candidate favors completely eliminating the estate tax.
"Polling conducted from September 21 through 26 among 1,189 adults showed 64 percent of respondents were able to correctly identify George W. Bush, rather than John Kerry, as favoring laws making it more difficult for a woman to get an abortion. Sixty percent recognized that Bush, not Kerry, favors making the recent tax cuts permanent. But only 33 percent knew that Bush (and not Kerry) favors eliminating the estate tax; 23 percent of respondents incorrectly said that it was Kerry who favors eliminating the estate tax. When asked to name which presidential candidates favor a given policy position, respondents named the correct candidate a little more than half of the time."
So start paying attention! That starts with the "debate" tonight. If you didn't know which candidate had the above positions, you should watch and at least try to figure out where they stand on some issues. For crying out loud, 36% of people thought Kerry wanted to restrict abortions?
And then they voted. Sheesh.
Baseball back in DC
If "city officials" are to be believed, the big announcement that baseball is coming back to DC will be made today. As the Post columnist Thomas Boswell likes to say, I'll believe it when I see them throw out the first pitch... of the second game. DC has been yanked around a lot by MLB, even in the relatively short time I've lived here, so I'm not holding my breath. But the stadium design and location looks like it could be pretty nice, and I'd definitely go downtown for games.
But on to more important stuff. What to name them? The Expos are obviously out. That name barely made sense in Montreal. The Senators? Do we really want to name the team after the two teams who already left DC? Plus, the Texas Rangers apparently own the name still from the last move. And Mayor Williams doesn't want that name "because we don't have a Senator." The Nationals is another that gets thrown around, but they play in the National League, so that's kinda cheesy. I will shoot somebody if they name them the Monuments. Here's my suggestions:
The Fillibusters (short name: Busters, since there's already the Phillies)
The Bills (like the Buffalo football team, but because of Congress being in town. Plus, the rally song could be "I'm just a bill, just a lonely old bill, and I'm sittin' here on Capitol Hill)
The Eagles (a patriotic symbol, and it seems likely they will pick something patriotic, but the Eagles are likely out because of the Philly football team. Still, wouldn't it be nice to shove it in Angelos' face: "Oh, you're the Orioles. What a pansy bird. Our Eagle could kick your Oriole's ass!")
The Gray Sox (there's a group out there trying to get them to name it after the old Negro League team, the Grays, but I kinda like a compromise)
The Gates (because every Washington scandal is named xxx-gate, Watergate, Monica-gate, Rather-gate. I do hate that)
The Reagans (because everything else in this damn town is named after the guy!)
The Tourists (because they're all over the place here, and the team is just going to get moved again anyway, making them another bunch of tourists)
Our big naming problem is that we're famous for very little aside from government. Milwaukee is the Brewers because of beer, the Rockies are in Colorado, etc. What do we have in DC? It's too bad we can't bring back the Bullets name. It just seemed so appropriate.
Joe Gibbs is back!
You cannot believe the hype that has been going on here in Washington, DC, since Joe Gibbs announced he was returning as head coach of the Redskins. The sports talk radio has been 24/7 about the Redskins' "Return to Glory" all summer long. Well guys, you may want to hold off on the Super Bowl celebration. The Skins have now dropped two in a row to division opponents (my Giants, and the Cowboys, coached by the great Bill Parcells) and are in last place in the NFC East. Gotta love it.
My fantasy football team pulled off a big win this weekend, putting me at 2-1. Unfortunately, Daunte Culpepper is on bye this week, and my backup QB Rich Gannon is out with 6 broken vertebrae. That leaves me with only Byron Leftwich (a sneaky waiver wire pickup this week) who hasn't exactly been setting the fantasy world on fire. The good news is that he plays the Colts, who allowed a huge passing day to Brett Favre and the Packers this week.
I have to go now and let Lisa into the house since she locked herself out. More later maybe.
More on the free iPods
I'm still waiting for 3 more people to complete their offer requirements. My brother is one of them, and he's not sure why he hasn't gotten credit for his Stamps.com offer. It was supposed to be nearly instant credit. If you haven't gotten credit yet, first check out this site, to see the approximate timeline for your offer. If it is supposed to be instant, but you haven't gotten credit, go to this page to find out what is going on.
If you haven't yet signed up, John was the first one to sign up using my link, so click on through to his link and sign up.
What new shows are you watching?
With the new fall season at hand, I figured I would throw out a question. What new shows are you watching, or looking forward to watching?
I've had bad luck picking new shows in the past. Recently, Firefly and John Doe last less than a full season and one season before getting cancelled. Arrested Development miraculously survived last year to win an Emmy (now watch!)
On that note, I thought about watching "Lost" on ABC. It sounded interesting enough, but then I decided it was going to get cancelled. How do you make that show for more than a year.
Tonight, "Complete Savages" debuts on ABC, and I am thinking about catching it. Why? The dog looks like our dog, Max. And it seems mildly funny too.
But those are the only new shows I find interesting. I'm going to keep watching Survivor, CSI, ER, The West Wing, Arrested Development, The Simpsons, and That 70s Show.
So, tell me what I'm missing.
Hamdi freed
As speculated in this space a month ago, the government is freeing Yaser Hamdi, the American citizen (born in Louisiana, raised in Saudi Arabia) who was captured in Afghanistan in late 2001. He was held incommunicado for nearly the entire time he has been imprisoned, until the Supreme Court ruled in June that he must be given a chance to challenge his detention. The government suddenly decided that he wasn't as dangerous as they had previously claimed (or at least, that they couldn't prove it, which was why they locked him up in solitary the whole time), and began negotiating his release. He's now going back to Saudi Arabia, where he will have to renounce his American citizenship and be restricted in his travels.
As George Will says in his Newsweek column this week: "Who believes there are now fewer terrorists in the world than there were three years ago?" If Hamdi wasn't before, he certainly has reason to hate America now.
Who was on that plane?
You diverted my flight from London to Washington Dulles to Maine because Cat Stevens was on the plane?
There are two things wrong with this story. First, how did they not catch that Cat Stevens (now known as Yusuf Islam since he converted to Islam) was on the flight until it was far enough along that they had to land in Maine?!?!? Second, why is his name on a terrorist watch list? The guy is a peace activist, not a terrorist. Is it because he is Muslim? Or just his name is so similar to someone who actually is a terrorist (just like Ted Kennedy a few weeks back) that he was mistakenly identified as one? If it were the latter, they probably wouldn't be sending him back out of the country on the first available flight. But if it were the former, why are they allowing him to leave, if they think he's a terrorist? Oh, and one more question. If he's so dangerous, why did you let him in the country in May (to New York to promote a DVD), but now in September, you won't let him in?
It truly boggles the mind.
Fifth time is a charm
Wow, that's amazing. After a couple of weeks of having only one person (thanks John!) signed up for my free iPod link, I've had a flurry of activity, and I just picked up my fifth referral! Now I just have to wait for three people to finish their trial period, and my free iPod will be on the way! Props to all who signed up. Head on over to the Chicago D's and sign up through my brother's link if you're interested from now on! Or better yet, sign up through my buddy John's link, because he believed in me from the very start.
The others will have to wait to get their links pimped on my site.
Just call me Sheffield
Working out in the mornings with my co-workers must be doing something. All of a sudden, I'm turning into Gary Sheffield. Our softball team isn't very good. We're maybe a .500 team. So, I try to do as much as I can to help us win. The first half of the season was played at the local high school's softball field, where the fences are only about 200-225 feet away. I think I hit 4 HRs at that field, which were really just routine fly balls that cleared the short fence.
Last night, we play our first two games of the year at the "big field." The fence here was 275, which I think was the "Pony League" distance or something. I've never seen anyone but the biggest guys hit it over this fence (well, and the one guy on our team the year we were using the illegal bat but didn't know it). So my second time up, I screamed one over the shortstop's head and into the gap in left-center for a triple. Later in that game, I drilled one to deep center, over the centerfielder's head, but only ended up with a double because the girl on base in front of me had to wait to see if it was going to be caught. I sprinkled in a bunch of singles, until my last at-bat. We were tied in the second game of two, and it was getting dark, so we decided to play one pitch. One pitch to hit, get it called a strike or a ball. Our first woman up swung and missed. I was up next. I got an inside pitch that for sure would have been a ball, but I didn't want to give the ump a chance to call it a strike (I argued with him on a bad call at second that allowed them to keep their inning alive before and tie it up). So I just turned on the pitch, and drilled it high and far, over the left field fence! 275 feet, not too shabby. Of course, our next two hitters struck out, and we lost our one run lead in the bottom half of the inning when our pitcher kept throwing one pitch walks.
Bringing me back to reality, I came back home and fed my daughter, changed her really stinky diaper, and tried to get her to fall asleep. Don't think Gary Sheffield had to that after his last game...
Books
My Goodreads ListAmazon Wishlist
GSI Outdoors JavaGrind
