Baby Pool Entries
In case I missed you with my vast email distribution net, you can enter the official Baby Dauernheim Baby Pool by filling out this form and mailing it in with your entry fee. You can also just make a standard college fund contribution too, if you'd like. Any poker players out there, I still have an account on Full Tilt, so you can also get me the $5 that way. I think. Never actually tried it before, but let me know if you want to try.
Almost forgot to mention: For Ellie's baby pool, we got 45 entries, resulting in a $112.50 windfall for the winner, Wendy Ratkowski. (Who promptly donated her winnings to Ellie's college fund. Not that there's any pressure on the winner to do so. Just saying, it was a nice thing to do. Ahem.)
Soriano’s Demands
A day after he filed for free agency, we're finding out how far away he and the Nationals were on a contract, thanks to the Orioles. In preliminary discussions with the Orioles, Alfonso Soriano is seeking a deal similar to the 7 year, $119 million one that the Mets gave Carlos Beltran in 2005. That's a far cry from the 5 years, $70 million the Nationals were offering. If that's his price, I don't blame the Nats for bowing out early. We'll find out in a couple of weeks whether any other teams will be willing to meet that price.
This is Awesome
Just when I was at my wit's end, and typing up this rant last week, along comes a new poll by the Washington Post that says that the majority of Virginia Catholics are opposed to the ridiculous "gay marriage" (misnomer) amendment. Not only that, but a whopping 60% say that gays should be allowed to form civil unions that would allow them to have legal rights similar to married couples. This is so frightening to the Church that the bishops in Richmond and Arlington have sent letters to the parishes urging support for the amendment. There's not much I dislike more than political homilies in church. (The one thing I dislike more is fundraising homilies.)
This quote from the end of the article sums up the argument pretty well (although I disagree with banning gay marriage myself. There goes my political career):
"'What's important to me more than anything is fundamental fairness,' said Scott Peters, a personal trainer in Sterling. He said he disagreed with the church's stance on abortion as well.
"'If this amendment just banned gay marriage, I'd vote for it. But I do believe in civil unions, and I just don't think I can support something that obviously is trying to go after those arrangements. Honestly, I just believe the church is wrong on this one.'"
Quickie recap
Boy, those Tigers pitchers could use some work fielding their position. Awful how they just gave away runs, and no one to blame but themselves. I really thought they were going to win it all too.
The Giants are on a roll, aren't they? 4 in a row, and while the win against Tampa Bay wasn't pretty, it was a win. The defense is playing great, and with a (hopefully easy) matchup against Houston this week, they will host the Bears, who should still be undefeated after playing Miami next week, on November 12 on NBC. You can thank the new flexible scheduling scheme for that one.
My baseball team finally got our bats going yesterday. We played better than we had in a while, but we took a while to get the bats warmed up. Even so, we took the lead near the end of the game, thanks in part to a 3 run bomb by our cleanup hitter, and were clinging to a one run lead in the bottom of the last inning. A couple of dinky hits and unfortunate plays, but a key strikeout by our pitcher, and our opponents had second and third with two outs. The next hitter lofted a lazy popup behind the second baseman. Unfortunately, our second baseman wasn't going to get back to the ball, so I had to sprint over from shortstop to try to make the play. I just barely missed it, and the tying run scored. The next play was an easy groundball to second, and we ended in a tie. We start the playoffs this week, looking for our own "Mr. November."
Oh yeah, and I'm pretty sure I officially threw my arm out for about the umpteenth straight season. A lot of discomfort warming up, and the few times I had to throw the ball hard, it was really stinging. I'm definitely getting old.
Otter Creek Oktoberfest
I've got two more beers ready to drink and review sometime soon: Dogfish Head Indian Brown Ale (it is VERY brown) and a special gift from our buddy Jason, Liefman's Kriekbier. Mmm... Belgian. Till then, we'll make do with my last Oktoberfest.
Light orangey color with a meager head that left only the slightest lacing on the side of the glass.
Slight malt and caramel aroma wafting to the nose.
Well-balanced, but subtle malt and hop flavor. Both are evident, but neither prominent, resulting in a bit of a watery taste.
Not a bad beer, but I was left wanting more flavor.
Overall rating: 3.5
What Are You Afraid Of?
On the ballot this year in Virginia is one of those anti-gay-marriage amendments. Not only is it to ban gay marriage, but the language is so broad that it requires all government agencies to refuse to recognize any contractual arrangement that carries with it any right, benefit, obligation, quality or effect of a marriage. It's a huge deal that isn't getting nearly enough attention here, and when it does, it's framed as the "gay marriage ban" rather than the odious language that it truly is. Gay marriage is already banned by law in Virginia, and Virginia certainly does not have one of those "activist" courts that would dare overturn such a law.
Like they did in New Jersey. It's amusing that the media is framing the New Jersey decision as similar to that of Massachussets a while ago. What the NJ court said was that "Although we cannot find that a fundamental right to same-sex marriage exists in this State, the unequal dispensation of rights and benefits to committed same-sex partners can no longer be tolerated under our State Constitution." So, they're not mandating that gay marriage be allowed, just that two people who care about each other be allowed to be at each other's deathbed. Update: Andrew Cohen weighs in on Bench Conference, basically confirming that my reading is fairly accurate.
One of the people who works in my office, not the sharpest pencil in the box, was watching the CNN ticker that scrolled the announcement by and remarked "That's just scary." [And then she voted: Scott Adams reference] How? How is this remotely scary? The divorce rate in this country is at all-time highs, and you're worried about two people of the same sex getting married? They're already living together, probably own a house together. They married in every way but the stupid paper that says they are. Why is it scary? I just don't understand how this affects anyone who is already in a "traditional" marriage. You're still married. If you want to get married to a person of the opposite sex, you can still do that. And most of all, your kids aren't going to "catch" gay-ness. It's not a disease that the gays are going to pass on to more people just because they're married.
It bugs me when our "leaders" feel the need to impose their morals on me. Sanctity of marriage? Hello, Kettle? This is Pot. You're black. How many of our Congresspeople are divorced? I know my own Representative is (Hi, Tom Davis! Are you seriously trying to tell me that you and Jeannemarie didn't get together until after the divorces were finalized?). It bugs me when the spin doctors don't care about the people, the human beings, who are affected by their brain-dead vote-getting schemes. I've said it before, and I'll say it again. It's crap like this that makes me embarrassed to call myself an American sometimes.
Lame Checkout
A while back, Google released to the world its version of PayPal, which it calls "Google Checkout." Around the same time, my dad's birthday was coming up, so I took advantage of a promotion of theirs to buy his present. It turned out to be too big for him, and he said he would contact the company to set up an exchange.
Fast forward to last week, when I got a message from Google Checkout saying that a refund to my credit card failed, and to update my credit card information. Of course, none of the information changed, so I tried to fake it into an update but nothing worked. In the meantime, I got in touch with the company who sent out my dad's present asking why I was getting a refund when it was supposed to be exchanged. They responded that they were refunding because they didn't have the right size. Which is crap, since I can go to their website right now and order it, but no matter, they agreed to refund not just the price of the gift, but the shipping as well.
Back to Google Checkout, which was still failing to refund my money. I got a note back from them this morning saying, "Our records confirm that your credit card information is valid. However, due to a known issue the refund attempts to your credit card were declined. To receive your refund please log in to your account and add a different credit card." Lame, Google, lame. Not exactly convincing me to use you again when you can't accomplish a simple task like refunding money to a credit card I already used to pay you!
Anyway, I'm going to try ordering the correct size again, and hopefully my dad will actually get his present, 3 months later.
Chili Cookoff
We're having a chili cookoff at work right now. My chili was the first one gone, which was partially due to the fact that there wasn't as much of it as others, and partially because of the buzz it was getting. It had the organizer sweating bullets. Sweat was literally pouring down his face. Awesome. I finally decided not to tone anything down in an attempt to appeal to the masses, and I'm very happy with how it turned out. I think my two special ingredients definitely put it over the top, and it was definitely the hottest one out there, though there is no award for that. I'll update later with the voting results.
Update: I ended up coming in second place. I blame it on running out early before the majority of the voters had the chance to try it. Boo!
Slim Pickings
They're dropping like flies. The candidates for the Nationals' managerial position that is. First Lou Piniella takes the Cubs job. Then Joe Girardi withdraws. Then Dusty Baker says he hasn't heard anything, so he's assuming he's out. Cecil Cooper and Joey Cora have also supposed been eliminated. And now Terry Pendleton has withdrawn from consideration. That leaves, among the publicly identified candidates anyway, Manny Acta and Tony Pena (Pena recently said he only talked to the Nationals once, by phone). Supposedly the Nationals also want to talk to some coaches of teams still in the World Series, but I'm not sure who. Feel free to browse the names of the Tigers and Cardinals coaches.
First Place!
It's going to be a long day. Still sore from baseball on Sunday, and extremely tired from staying up until midnight watching the Giants take sole possession of first place in the NFC East with a resounding win over the Cowboys. Toughest schedule in the league and they're 4-2. They've got home games against Tampa and Houston before Chicago comes to town. I do feel bad for Drew Bledsoe. He threw an awful interception at the end of the half at the goal line, but a lot of his play was dictated by the fact that his offensive line couldn't hold a decent pocket for him. Tony Romo came in and got picked 3 times and sacked 3 times as well.
For the Giants, Tiki got the retirement tour going with 114 yards rushing. Brandon Jacobs is a monster coming through that line, everything Ron Dayne was supposed to be but never was. Plaxico was a bit lucky that Roy Williams ran into the official because he might have gotten his head taken off on that play. Can you quit with the offensive pass interference though Plax? Eli still worries me at times. He got very lucky that a couple of his bad throws were not picked off, but made plays when he had to and left the rest to Tiki and the defense. Big surprise that Lavar Arrington is hurt. It's too bad for the guy, but he just has that injury bug. He was barely touched on the play and tore his achilles tendon. More important is the potential injury to Osi Umenyiora, who missed the second half with a strained hip. Hopefully he'll be okay.
Lastly, the announcing crew. Tony, oh Tony. You've turned into a Disney shill, my man. Seriously, for 15 minutes interviewing Emmitt Smith. the best you can come up with is asking about "Dancing with the Stars?" Sheesh. I'll give him one thing though. His shtick where he asked Joe Theismann a loaded question and explodes in incredulity when Joe gives his typical idiotic response is hilarious. But he only gets one or two of those a game. I also think he's getting somewhere when he looks for an angle that a reporter covering the team might write about. Like when he said that everyone would be crowded around Drew Bledsoe locker after the game, and he started to explain why, but didn't get very far before Joe disagreed and stepped on his toes.
Anyway, those are my thoughts, such as they are at 7am after 5 hours of sleep last night. Ain't no way I'm staying up for the World Series tonight. Let me know who wins.
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