What they are watching... Episode IX

Our look at what the teens and tweens of America are watching. You may have caught some of our earlier episodes, if not follow this link and [scroll down].

This was the theme song to the popular 1990's Nickledeon variety show, All That. It is now part of the on-going revival of 1990's culture among today's youth. The song is performed by TLC, Tionne "T-Boz" Watkins, Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes, and Rozonda "Chilli" Thomas.

Things that need to invented, part V

We are reviving our long dormant and long overdue, "Things that need to be invented" column, hopefully heretoforth to once again be published monthly. Your brilliant suggestions are encouraged, read the other folks sweet invention ideas here [scroll down below this post]. We are so confident about the volume of your forthcoming submissions that we are kicking things back off with a triple shot of invent this.

The first thing in this month's column that needs to be invented is a cheaper electric riding lawnmower. Gas powered lawnmowers are so bad for the environment. On top of their deleterious effect on air quality and the noise pollution, they are woefully inefficient and resource wasting. We are going whole hog with the electric and hybrid cars things, why can't somebody get on it for the lawnmower market? They are quieter, way less polluting and way more fuel efficient. We could not find one cheaper than two grand. Surely they can beat that with a little more mass production. Maybe we can get a government tax credit for buying an electric lawnmower?

The next thing we would like to see invented is for Major League baseball to put its entire back catalog of game telecasts on-line. Let us, the fans, be able to look up any game, any time and stream it on-line. We would pay for this. And we are not just talking this year's game, but the historical back catalog. Think how many games diehards would watch? And if this project sounds fanciful, try to remember that just a few short years ago the idea of digitizing your entire music library to something the size of laptop, let alone i-pod, was the stuff of dreams. What an argument resolver! Want to know who was pitching in the pine tire game? Or where the use of middle relievers really started? Stream one Yankees-Royal game, stream an entire A's or White Sox season. MLB you can be America's game again, start here.

And finally in the sub-category of needs to be invented known as their needs to be an app for that... (And nobody on the Clarion Content's staff has an i-phone so please alert us if their already is an app for this...) The Craigslist Missed Connection application! Just walked by that beautiful girl or that cute guy in the coffee shop or bookstore without saying anything and regretting it already? Voilà, an instant Craiglist Missed Connection post. In era where texting and IMing are ubiquitous and conversation subsuming, what could be better than instantaneously being able to anonymously record on-line that you wish you would have talked to thus and such hottie?

Thank you and good night. We will return same time, same place next month. Send us your feedback and your brilliant invention suggestions.

I REPEAT:

Do not doubt the power. Aramis Ramirez since the Nyetian pity-fest:

Date	Tm	G	GS	Rslt	PA	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	IBB	SO	HBP	SH	SF	ROE	GDP	SB	CS	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS	BAbip	aLI	WPA	RE24
7.6-7.20.2010	CHC	12	12	7-5	52	48	17	21	5	1	9	24	3	0	7	0	0	1	0	1	0	0	.438	.462	1.146	1.607	.364	.77	1.184	15.26

His batting average *on the season* is up 48 points, his slugging up a preposterous 156 points. In an otherwise crappy Cubs season, it's great to see this guy turn it around! Now ... for some regression to the mean ... :(

In other news, congrats to Keith for picking up A-Ram for his fantasy team. More congrats to Keith and Joanne for the arrival of their second little one, currently known as "LGA" or "Owen's little sister."

In other other news, something I buy at the grocery store is running a deal with redbox, as almost every time I shop, I get three free coupons for one night DVD rentals. I finally took them up on it and grabbed the first Blu-Ray I found in their menu, which turned out to be an Iraqi War flick starring Matt Damon called The Green Zone. I just started watching, as so far, I would call it, "unsubtle." Oddly, I see that Ebert gave it four stars. Maybe it's about to get unsubtly ... awesome?

Dubious.

Vex-ill-ology

I really would have liked to have had an opportunity to snap a picture of our Sprawl Ultimate retreat up in Flagstaff this weekend. However, you see, the camera was inside the camera bag, which was inside my Ultimate bag, which was inside a large trash bag because it was pouring rain. So I didn't want to dig through all of that to pull out my camera and expose it to the elements. Yes, the "elements" - even though it was probably just 65 and raining, when your blood has been thinned* by weeks 110+ temps, that is far from comfortable. And when you're standing on the sideline, huddled up in hot weather Ultimate gear instead of rain gear** and shivering your arse off and watching thirteen*** of your teammates instead of playing, it's that much more uncomfortable. Not to mention you don't really feel all that much like commemorating the event. So I apologize in advance for this text only account of a relatively miserable, sick 29 hours spent in "Flag" this weekend.

* - This "blood-thinning" phenomenon certainly feels real, though I have no idea what the mechanism is. And, strictly speaking - since you're habitually dehydrated, and your blood is probably consequently more concentrated than normal - it should probably be "blood-thickening." Regardless, 65 degrees, soaking wet and windy did not make for a good time, I tell you what.

** - The forecast was for a high of 90 and a slight chance of T-storms at 6 pm, and I brought my hot weather clothes accordingly. So of course it started pouring at noon. Arizona weatherpersons, please try harder.

*** - Yes - despite my efforts to make sure we had enough people for legitimate scrimmaging this weekend, we had a few last second cancellations that put us right at the 7 on 7 limit and derailed our best-laid plans. I did not help things by fading out (see below) - but once again, the attempt to get our team going ran into an attendance hang-up. Hopefully we made the best of it.

The skinny:

1. I had a bad feeling about our numbers all week, but A, it's really nice of Griesy to offer up his cabin for the retreat, he was excited about it, etc., so I didn't want to cancel willy nilly, and B, we did have those sixteen RSVPs. Still, I went in with a nagging suspicion that the weekend-O-Ulty was going to be a bust, and so my better instincts told me to have a escape plan.

2. I got offered a free ride with Tom (who drives a gas-provided company car) and took it (against those better instincts) to save the earth /money and all. I prefer driving generally, but particularly with the threat of low numbers and my own grogginess during Thursday's workout, I really wanted to drive myself. Originally JD was going to come with me, but he understandably jumped at the chance to ride for free, so I reluctantly followed suit. D'oh.

3. We left @ 7:30 and got to the fields in Flag at 9:45, and as I started to get ready - a process that took a solid thirty-plus minutes, dragging as I was - I could already tell that things weren't good. Besides my fatigue, my hip and knees hurt, and I just couldn't move right. We were at 7000 feet, so I decided maybe it was just adjusting to the altitude. It wasn't. We did our warmup laps, stretching, plyos and warm-up throws, and the first thing on the docket was a three-way four on four scrimmage. I made it about twenty-thirty minutes into the scrimmage, feeling terrible the entire time, before Skunk sent a throw to me that I normally would have laid out for, but my body just wouldn't do it. I called the rare "Injury - Malaise" and ended my day right there. And felt dead pretty much the rest of the time there, too!

4. That was @ 11:40 or thereabouts. At 12:10, it started to drizzle.

5. My other contribution to Sprawl's Ultimate retreat was to throw hucks during a 50-50 reading / boxing out drill. It's probably not a good thing that I am so adept at putting up terrible throws.

6. The rain, in the meantime, grew to a pour. The temperature dropped to the 60s, the wind picked up a bit, and the rest of practice was spent in a bit of a storm. JD lent me a rain-jacket, thank Hashem, but it didn't really stop a sopping wet standstill sort of day.

7. We ran a six on six scrimmage, and I stood on the sidelines, soaked to the bone, lamenting my free-ride decision. Captain or no, feeling like that - I lacked the juice to even jog a little to stay warm - I would have headed home had I my druthers. On the plus side, we looked pretty good - lots of Plinko disc, lots of solid plays, and lots of good running. I'm glad the people who did come decided to bring it.

8. At 3-ish, everyone was worn out, it was miserable, etc., so we called it a day. It felt *excellent* to get out of soaked Ulty clothes and back into civvies, but I still just wanted to go home, an option I didn't have.

That was it for the Ultimate on the weekend - so yes, 4+ hours of driving for four hours of disc, or forty-five minutes for the Nyet Dogg. We got some pizza in Flag, then headed back to Griesy's Sedona cabin for an evening of goofing around and grilling. We learned some dice games, played some "wang" - that disc game involving tomato plant supports and red cups - and generally had a good time hanging out*, even catching Inglourious Basterds to end the evening**. I got to bed around 11:15, managed to sleep in until 6, got some reading done and then helped cook a little. Griesy fixed us all breakfast burritos before we jumped back in Tom's car and left a waste of an opportunity for Sprawl to get better behind us.

* - The main event of sorts, besides the dice games, was a ridiculous little game called "Ice." Guys bought a 24 pack of Smirnoff Ice, a girly girl's malt liquor wine-cooler kind of beverage, and hid bottles in various places in and around the cabin. If you were unlucky enough to find one - say, you opened the dishwasher to put your used fork away like a reasonable human being, and there was a Smirnoff in the dish rack - you had to chug it on the spot. I cited my sickness and bowed out of the game, but guys got REALLY into this, littering the house, cheering, even going so far as to put saran wrap over the toilet with a Smirnoff bottle on top so unsuspecting urinators got the treatment. We are a serious, serious bunch of unquestionably mature individuals, it is true.

** - My end, anyways. Other folks stayed up until the wee hours drinking, playing dice games and speaking in hushed tones that no, thanks for asking, did not keep me up. :)

So, not really the best Saturday-Sunday I've had in my life, though that's no fault of anyone - Griesy was a fantastic host, I just had yet another reoccurrence of whatever-this-is that just wrecked me. People were giving me a lot of "you're awfully quiet tonight" comments, which is probably more telling than anything; I was just zapped. obviously I'm a little worried - I thought things were getting better - but I'm just going to institute a revised plan and back way off the working out until Colorado Cup in a couple of weekends. The timing, at least, is good, as we're headed up to Denver for a wedding and then to Vancouver for a little respite for the heat, so maybe the R&R is just the thing I need. We'll see - in the meantime, it's back to school and making a renewed effort not to overexert myself. Wow, do I feel lame, but hey, our team turnout this weekend was lame, too, so maybe I'm just manifesting my assessment of our level of commitment in physical form.

So in sum: a disappointing weekend on multiple fronts, a relapse into mysterious fatigue (and the first time it's stopped me cold from playing Ultimate). Sigh. But it's just another challenge to do my best Velvet Underground impersonation and keep the Head Held High. Here's to pressing through, smartly, and not letting the basterds, inglourious, infectious or otherwise, get ya down.

Caution (Keep Clear of Moving Parts)

Tuesday marked the first workout* in probably two months in which I felt normal - alert, strong, full of energy, like my cogs were finally teeth-aligned again. I blasted through no problem, felt like I could easily have kept going when I finished. Awesome! And crazy, because I had just played Ultimate the night before, rather hard Ultimate with about 18-20 guys total at practice, some of whom were injured - I mean, even more than I - so I didn't get to take it as easy there as I would have liked. Whatever, we'll take it! Combine all of that with yet another "well, all of your tests are normal" call from the doc, and I had the crazy notion that a corner was being turned...

* - Here's a typical workout - remember that I tried to move everything into one day so I can just go the gym a couple of times per week. I do a lighter weights workout on the weekend and fill in other days with running / Ulty / what have you, but this way I don't feel compelled to get up and run to the gym before work at 6 AM every single stupid morning.

10 minute elliptical warm-up

25+15+12+10 = 62 bicep curls

25+15+12+10 = 62 wrist curls
40+35+30+30 = 135 tricep pushups
25+15+12+10 = 62 reverse wrist curls
120+80+60 = 260 bicycle abs
15+10+10 = 35 reverse sit-up w/ extensions
25+25+20 = 70 reverse sit-ups
15+12+10+8+4 = 49 bench presses
12+10+8 = 30 upright rows
50+50+50 = 150 leg presses
20+20+20 = 60 c-chair straight leg raises
20+20+20 = 60 c-chair bent raises
20+20+20 = 60 calf raises
15+15+12+12+10+10 = 74 ab twists
15+15+12 = 42 seated resistance ab curls
30+30+30 = 90 triple threats
35+35+35+35+35+35 = 210 single leg presses
25+24+22 = 71 calf raises
20+20+20 = 60 ab-ball sit-ups
12+10+8 = 30 bicep curls
12+10+8 = 30 tricep extensions

30 to 60 minutes elliptical, depending how I'm feeling / time I have.

Stretch

Por supuesto no - I got to the gym early Thursday morning before work - after having taken it relatively easy Wednesday with no real exercising to speak of, just a sushi* date with my lovely wife and some dog-walking - and stepped on the treadmill for my warm-up, only to recognize within two seconds that it was no-go day. Actually, not a "no-go day," just a back to slightly off day, with enough energy in the tank to get the workout done, but not enough to do it with a joie de vivre.

* - Yes, the rumors are true - I let Beck take me sushiing. We had miso soup, gyoza/pot stickers (that inspired the aforelinked meal Thursday night), edamame, and tuna/yellowfish/salmon nigiri. I enjoyed the gyoza and edamame quite a bit, and I'd say I *liked* the sushi, and by far *liked* the salmon the best. I emphasize "like" because it was fine, even good when dipped in either soy sauce or the teriyaki-ish sauce they provided for the gyoza - but I just can't get over the price for such a slight amount of food. I know I wouldn't like anything roll-ish, either. Anyways... I suppose I now have another thing I can enjoy with the Beck, which is great, but I can't say I'd ever actively pursue it of my own accord, unlike many of the other things I have also tried** and enjoyed lately.

** - It occurs to me that I've basically had a wacky "try new foods" personality change that has accompanied vague malaise symptoms. Hmmm, adding that to the symptom stack should make for some interesting WebMD-ing. But wait, cuckoo bananas wasn't even originally in the differential!

I was pretty dejected by the return to lack-of-form, though, and really tempted just to go back to the locker room and head back to the office. But if twenty seven years of athletic endeavors have given me one (questionably stupid) habit, it's the powering through. Beck has (smartly) recommended that I ease back into things, so rather than jump in headstrong, I modified my workout and decided to at least get my cardio in (lest my Ultimate legs fall off in the month before Sprawl's first big tourney). Normally I do a seriously high resistance workout on the elliptical involving intervals - on a one to twenty scale on the machine, a sixty minute session looks like this in two minute spurts:

10,14,11,15,12,16,13,17,14,18,15,19,16,20,16,20,16,20,16,20,16,20,16,20,16,20,16,20,16,20

followed by a two to three minute cooldown. The last bit of alternating between 16 and 20 requires all kinds of little tricks to push through - I take my pulse, I count strides, I calculate my calorie-burning pace in my head, etc., basically anything to keep myself from sitting there and solely counting seconds. The ellipticals have TVs attached, which sometimes helps a little (I can watch Sportscenter, or at least have it running in the background) and lately has been great with the morning World Cup matches. And MUSIC - I need some particular albums* to get me through a tough run, and it's not obvious what the shared trend is other than that they're familiar and I've run to them in the past. Whatever's going on, they get the job done, and if I need extra oomph with, say twenty minutes to go, I throw one of these on:

Outkast - Speakerboxxx

Green Day - American Idiot

Talking Heads - Stop Making Sense

Girl Talk - Feed the Animals

Weezer - Weezer (The Blue Album)

* - The best weight-lifting album, it turns out, is Tuftsmen buddy Mike Bright's band Crisis Bureau's original demo plus Watchword. I've had it pop up on shuffle in the middle of a hard set and suddenly it's guaranteed super-strength. Unbelievable. I hear "IF ... YOU ..." and go all Hulk. Nay, I go all Sparkle - even scarier.

Those are just the ones in the rotation lately. I have to be careful with those, though, as overlistening to an album can easily strip it of its power-through power, and the last thing I want is to need a push and suddenly get nothing from my iPod. So on Thursday, knowing I wasn't going to be doing as hard of a cardiofest - in fact, here's what I did in three minute intervals instead:

8,10,12,14,16,14,16,18,16,18,20,18,16,18,16,14,16,18,16,14*

* - The earlier has 498 points of resistance x 2 minute intervals = 996 "resistance-minutes;" this has 308 x 3 minutes = 924 resistance minutes. Okay, that doesn't seem like much, but mainly this one just didn't involve grinding away at max resistance alternating with the still high 16 resistance for the last half an hour, so it felt a lot easier. Math seems to have failed me here, which maybe tells me that "resistance-minute" is a useless unit.

I put on a familiar but not go-to album, the Grateful Dead's Europe '72. But for whatever reason, I could stop counting the minutes - the music wasn't working. Nothing was working, actually, none of my go-to tricks could keep my eyes off the timer - I just wanted to call it a day, so aggravated at my renewed lack of energy. So I said screw the album and just put my Dead collection on shuffle. After adjusting the iPod without breaking stride - a neat trick - I stared down at my feet, away from the screen, determined to come up with something that would get me through. And I saw a small label:

Caution! Keep Clear of Moving Parts

complete with small man being dismembered in a disastrous elliptical accident. This sticker was on the base of the machine in a spot nearly impossible to see unless you were doing exactly what I was doing - ellipticking and starting at your feet to make the time pass. The situation depicted was ludicrous; someone would have to crawl in between your legs to look at the machine while you were ellipticking, not to mention he/she would not be able to see that sticker until it was too late. So I was contemplating what would inspire someone to make this sticker and place it right there when I realized what was playing on the iPod ... and if you're a Dead fan, you see this coming:

"Caution (Do Not Stop On Tracks)"

And so, that day's power-through power came via the absurdity of Dead/safety-sticker synergy. I started laughing, which gave me the boost I needed - not only got through the cardio, but did a weight workout afterwards, too. Inspiration, strange places, etc. Yet another small victory for the Nyet over... I don't know over what, exactly.

Removing Clogs / Removing Clogging

Interesting Monday in the Nyetverse ... after a pleasant valley Sunday spent watching a brutal World Cup Finals and skipping out on the now-dead Sunday pickup* (to rest weary knees), I enjoyed a scrumptious Breakfast-for-Dinner of Beck's off-the-hook waffles and my delectable scrambled egg whites, an episode of The Wire, and an off-cooling cup of MoJo. Good times. Unfortunately, somewhere in the mix of excess waffle batter, eggs and fruit that went down the disposal was something that elicited screams on Monday morning. Beck's screams, not mine. Our sink was clogged, and clogged in the "when you use the garbage disposal, water and food stuffs erupt from the opposite drain"-style clogged. Not good.

* - When I first got to Phoenix in '07, pickup continued unabated through the hottest months of the summer with 20-30 strong every week. We've been lucky to have twelve to fourteen lately, and more often it's been in the ten, eight, six range. Not good. I tried food promotions (chicken wings for layouts!), moving the fields, moving it later... nothing. I finally gave up, as driving twenty miles for three on three is not worth it at ALL, especially if you have to change fields because of irrigation or what have you. This past Sunday, I didn't go, as mentioned, but heard reports that only three showed up. Screw that. It's off until September, and I'm left wondering what happened - pickup is really a cornerstone of an Ultimate community, and without it, we're hardly going to improve the mediocre level of play in Phoenix. So it goes, I suppose.

Beck had to jet for work, but fortunately my day's plans included getting some reading done at a local coffee-shop, so they were amenable to the alternate plan of amateur plumbing. And amateur it was. I threw together the best of my deductive skills - we have a double sink, and BOTH were clogged, so it probably was not limited to one of the drains. The erupting from one sink to the other (and v.v.) indicated that the clog was not between them, either, but below the shared main drain. Picture!

Pay no attention to the utter chaos of home design behind the pipes; that's the um, "lo-fi" work of the previous homeowner. I was guessing that the clog was at the bottom of the U-pipe, and I did the obvious easy thing, which was run to the store, buy some Liquid Plumber and pour it down the left sink, hoping this would be a relatively tame problem. No dice, natch; after fifteen-to-twenty minutes of LP-soaking, the drains cleared, but as soon as I poured water down, we were back to sink flood. So it was a "most stubborn clog," and hey, right there on the bottle: "For the most stubborn clogs, use half the bottle." In retrospect, I probably should have been suspicious of a corporate instruction of "in case our product doesn't work, use more of it," but I wasn't entirely in the mood to disassemble pipes, so I followed directions. Another twenty minutes, and more nothing; sink still clogged. Ruh-roh.

I've never disassembled pipes before, and it's one of those things that strikes fear for all the usual visions-of-flooded-kitchen reasons. But plumber calls are ridiculously expensive, I had some time ... what the hey. I busted out the industrial sized wrench and went to town, which more of an endeavor than it might seem - parts of our sink are brand new-ish, parts are seemingly the original house pipes, so figuring out which joints to take apart and how was a trial. Details spared, but this was some high effort in tight spaces and invloved after-the-fact debriding of the pipe's screw-threads of years and years of deposits. It was, as you can guess, disgusting. But I got the whole u-pipe segment off, and cleaned/scrubbed it out, only to discover that it really was patent - the clog was lower than that.

My first clue probably should have been that when I took the u-pipe off, there was still water pouring out* from the section of pipe distal to the u-pipe. This is one-oh-one stuff, but remember, I'm a theoretical academician who doesn't deal in the realm of the real. So I thought that maybe I didn't have a most-stubborn-clog, maybe I just had one that was distal to the U and so none of the LP had actually gotten to it (gravity and density of LP only doing so much work).

* - Yeah, nor any drop to drink of black food-clouded disgustingness throughout this entire process. I had a bucket to catch it, of course, but this was not, shall we say, a sterile environment. BLEK.

So I tried the LP again, this time pouring it directly into the distal pipe which you can see up there running away from the camera toward the back wall. Twenty minutes. Again, no dice. I shined a flashlight into the pipe and could more or less tell that the pipe was clear (except for the black nastiness). So the clog was back by that joint at the wall and down into the main, big pipe running underneath the house (that pipe is obscured by the bleach bottle in the shot above). Hmmm...

Trip to Home Depot, auger bought, and I came home and spent the next two hours in Herculean task. At first I mainly just managed to pull LP back up with the auger, which was, yep, even more disgusting. I started to get worried, because at this point there was no more disassembling to be done; the joint at the wall, as far as I could tell, was completely inaccessible by human* means. So it was now or plumber. I worked and worked the auger, struggling mightily because there just wasn't a ton space and guiding the stiff wire around a Z pipe joint was tres difficult. Hopelessness started to set in...

* - Monkey means**, maybe. We're talking a very small crawl space with pipes abutting one another; I can't envision how they installed this, let alone how one would take it apart. It's like the pipes were there and they built the house around them.

** - Speaking of monkey means, is there any fruit that you can eat that will make you feel more like a monkey than a mango? The words "eager monkey" traipse through my head every time I've cut one open these past two weeks. And yes, that means no fewer than eight times. I'm gonna be a genius anyway.

And voila - the last twirl dislodged... I don't know what. "Gelatinous mass," let's call it. Dinosaur artery plaque. I suppose it could have been eggs or congealed fat or who knows what, but it broke up and came out in a thousand vomitous blobs. Problem solved! Huzzah for us!

Problem one, it turned out. Because now the pipes were disassembled. And again, I am well qualified to ponder, say, pipe functionality as a categorical heuristic or whatever, but these practical matters are typically beyond me. Still, I pressed on, reassembled the now clean joints, tightened every washer and bolt and clamp and, in short, put the now hopefully eggless Humpty Dumpty back together again. And I put the bucket back in place, and I ran the sink, slowly at first, then with more volume/sec...

And everything drained, and no liquid leaked. Huzzah.

And though it took a ridiculous amount of time - six hours, with trips to the stores and cleaning included - I avoided a plumber call with time to fix myself a Linner and get ready for practice that night. The agenda was to clean our O up - a definite most stubborn clogging - with a split squad practice* of handlers on one side of the field and cutters on the other. We started off together with the typical warm-up and a drill that involved cutting at the back of the mark and having the handler throw the disc out to space .. turns out this is a skill we lack entirely. Some really ugly, ugly throws by pretty much everybody involved served as a nice reminder that there is plenty-o-work to do.

* - This reminded me quite thoroughly of high school football and our splits of offense and defense that generated non only rivalries but a lot of bickering back and forth. One, it would be an interesting athleticism v. hands matchup if we completely separated the two kinds of players on Sprawl, though I would have to bet that the cutters would win. And two, it seems that Ultimate is similar to HS football in that relatively way more running than the other. In football, the D typically claimed to have way tougher practices than the O; I'll let you guess which group was which on Monday night...

Anyhoo, nothing terribly exciting to report other than that we did the split, and our handlers had a solid forty-five to work on communicating and generally getting on the same page. I think it helped. Afterwards we ran a modified scrimmage in which I set up additional cones that created eight yard lanes on the lateral edges of the field. In these lanes, the stall count was 5, whereas it was 10 everywhere else as normal (the idea being to train the offense by rule to keep it away from the sideline / have the offense get it away from the sideline quickly should it end up there / have the defense push it toward the sidelines). it worked pretty well, and made for some good competition. I didn't play particularly well in moments - I shanked a not-warmed-up-enough-huck, threw a perfect IO forehand to Dixon right as he cut the opposite way, and dropped a disc to end the game that I lost in the lights - but I made up for it with some others, and things did seem a little crisper than typical. So a good night for the Ballers. We've got a weekend retreat in Flag coming up, and Co Cup is a scant two weeks away now. So things are progressing nicely, if a bit haltingly - I just found out that another player will be unavailable for regionals, so it seems we'll have to adjust the roster yet again. And Ian sprained his MCL at Potlatch last weekend, so there's yet another hiccup.

No one said it would be easy. But between the two "plumbing repairs" of Monday, it was a fairly decent day...

The Counting Crows rock Cary

Counting Crows front man, Adam Duritz

The Counting Crows rocked Cary, NC last night in a show that ranged from funky, to funny, to poignant. The band delighted the mixed aged crowd. Teeny boppers were most excited when the Counting Crows touring partners Augustana took the stage.

In an interesting departure from the norm rather than having Augustana stictly open the show, The Counting Crows alternated mini-sets of three to four songs with Augustana. This created some frustration amongst older fans who bellowed for the Crows to come back. Augustana's lead singer, Dan Layus, handled the situation with adroit humor. "We just work here man, and if Adam Duritz, tells us to play three songs, we play three songs." The bands played together for a sweet Dylan cover and an off-beat, fun Beatles medley encore.

The Clarion Content's correspondent also enjoyed rapper, Notar. He was a cool, high energy, counterpoint to the Counting Crows style. He provided one of the poignant, touching moments of the evening when he dedicated one of his funky 311-style hip-hop jams to his aunt who had passed away the previous night. A stylish wordsmith, we will be seeing more of him in the future.

The Counting Crows themselves played some old favorites, including a funked up version of "A Long December," which the crowd loved. They closed with a lilting and lovely cover of the Woody Guthrie classic, "This land is your land, this land is my land." This was after an impassioned plea by lead singer Adam Duritz, "I don't care who you vote for just vote. America was founded on the premise that your right to express your opinion matters. I don't care what you think, I just care that you think."

All and all a damn good show.

Laugh it up

The American Heart Association reports that one of the best ways to protect yourself against heart attack is to laugh often and exuberantly. Researchers compared patients who had suffered heart attacks or had undergone angioplasty or similar revascularization procedures with healthy aged-matched control patients. Results showed that the patients who had suffered heart problems were 40% less likely to laugh in a variety of situations than their healthy counterparts.

"The old axiom that, 'laughter is the best medicine' appears to hold true when it comes to protecting your heart," said Michael Miller, M.D. and Director of the Center for Preventive Cardiology at the University of Maryland Medical Center, Baltimore. Miller and his team could only speculate about why this is so. "We don't know why laughing protects the heart, but we do know that mental stress is associated with the impairment of endothelium, the protective barrier lining in our blood vessels," said Dr. Miller.

So laugh it up people...

A well kept Durham secret

This is the second of a seven part series about the home of the Clarion Content, Durham, NC. To read old Durham posts click here and scroll down. To see photos of Durham houses click here and scroll down.

There is a well-kept Durham secret at #325 W. Main Street, a part of downtown that has gotten better and better as Durham's urban renaissance continues. It is Guajillos Mexican grill. It is well known to the lawyers, judges, bail bondsmen and other members of the Durham legal community. It is located only blocks from the County Courthouse, not far from the newly opened Whiskey Bar. The reason why many of the our local readers will be familiar with Whiskey and not Guajillos is the hours. Guajillos is primarily open for lunch catering to the local, legal business community.

It is only a couple of doors down from another popularly, local, lunchtime eatery, the fabulous and more famous Toast. Guajillos is terrific, too. They specialize in Mexican and Colombian cuisine. Prices are very reasonable, a delicious lunch can be had for less than $7.00. The specialty of the house is Patacones, a Colombian Fried Plantain dish, that is out of this world. Also noteworthy are the Tortas (Mexican sandwiches) and the Arepa con Todo (a Colombian tortilla dish).

So save the $25 a head you were going to drop on Dos Perros and check out a wonderful, little hole in the wall joint, Guajillos.

The Ballad Defeats Mendoza!

Don't get too excited, but since my heartfelt account of Aramis's painful season thus far ... his totals over the last five games:

Date	Tm	G	GS	Rslt	PA	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	IBB	SO	HBP	SH	SF	ROE	GDP	SB	CS	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS	aLI	WPA	RE24	BAbip
Jul 6, 2010 to Jul 10, 2010	CHC	5	5	3-2	22	21	9	11	2	1	4	9	1	0	2	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	.524	.545	1.286	1.831	.87	0.431	7.75	.467

Do not doubt the power of The Ballad.