watching expired appliances align

tomorrow's OC discussion today

how much do we love the oc? so much that we can't imagine waiting another four hours to start the discussion. at balgavy.com, life is like it was on the tv show that starred kyle chandler (early edition). but instead of getting tomorrow's newspaper today, you're getting to start the oc chatter this evening instead of tonight. all of this is done in order to avoid a repeat of our embarrassment last week that had us deleting comments and not starting an OC discussion until well into thursday afternoon.

possible topics for discussion:
sandy's eyebrows
sandy's mom
sandy's son
why hasn't sandy gone surfing recently?
did sandy fully give up the flirtation with that minx in his office?
does sandy still report to that corporate job of his?
what sort of wacky subplots will happen within the walls of the new restaurant sandy is starting?
is it possible that seth will take it in a peach pit after dark direction by the middle of the second season?

let the fun begin. and remember, we'll be returning to this space after the show with a few of our well worn opinions.

update 1 (11:30pm): theresa's fiance gets the line of the night - "but i'm eating cake." eating cake excuses anything. what a weird episode, right? where were all the thugs that pushed ryan down? why is ryan taking everything these days? his punchcount is down. and marisa - finally she's wearing a cute shirt. i was happy about that. but what was up with changing in front of ryan? that scene was all "whoa, are they going to have sex on the bed in the room of the guy who is in jail?" they didn't. ryan barely batted an eyelash. he's all about playing it cool. and what's up with jimmy and hailey? those two holding hands at the dinner table (nice catch, sujan). more thoughts as they come to me.

strat or strat-o?

one year from now you won't recognize me. i'm beginning my transition to full-on sports guy. there are dozen of phrases i'll need to pick up. and i'll have to figure out a way to switch my passion for television to a passion for athletic plays, but i'll figure it out. in the meantime, i'll sit in my newly relocated office (no windows!) and wait for jamie to weigh in on the hardball times article about strat-o-matic.

the great experiment

during the next six months you're going to have to put up with the occasional random thought about my rotisserie baseball team. but you're getting the perspective of someone who is just now warming up to the world of fantasy sports. it's going to be slow going at first, but as i surge from the middle of the pack to first place things will get much more exciting.

the brooklyn fantasy league draft was sunday. dan seems to think i did okay, but i just ran the numbers. discounting the fact that projections at this point are probably completely off the mark and that i'm just trying to become a stat geek after reading moneyball, it looks like i'm going to need some serious help. the outcome doesn't look that promising for me.

if i plugged in all the correct values in the correct spots, i've got jamie winning the league by 9 points over dave nelson. coming in third (a full 20 points behind jamie) is mooney. i'm in the lower middle of the pack, tied with dan but just four points away from Matt (which would mean a tie for fourth, and one point behind third). i've got no obvious weak spots, but i am feeling like the third grader who just walked home with a report card covered in "needs improvement" comments.

my current team name is "the parking garage." and, creative guy that i am, the photo that accompanies my team is of (wait for it)... a parking garage!

i'll try to keep this baseball talk to a minimum over the course of the summer. three years ago i wouldn't have let this fly. it's ridiculous that i'm now wrapped up in it. but if i could survive the stress of sunday's draft, then i've got the fortitude to place in the top three this season.

ph meet rj45

obviously, this is of little consequence but it is sunday, so i don't mind posting this sort of thing. i just woke up from one of those morning dreams that combines all the things you've been thinking about lately.

basically, i was at a house where paris hilton and nicole richie were doing their 2nd season of the simple life. nicole was feeling under the weather, so she spent her entire visit on the couch. but paris hilton was out in the back yard participating in some kind of game of skill with the people who lived in the house. then i got to photograph paris and the owner of the property - and both of them were ridiculously tanned, like sizzling red!. when the dream started i was using my current digital camera, but in the course of the dream i switched to using my first, more square looking digital camera - there's nothing like learning something in a dream through the way something feels. anyway, i was trying to change the drive mode (to a mode that lets me take five or six shots within the span of a few seconds) of the camera to take photos. it wasn't working because i couldn't see the screen due to all the sun reflecting off the camera and the ridiculously tanned bodies. eventually it worked.

later that night and back inside everyone was lounging around the living room, paris was sort of talking with the host family. i was staring into the closet fumbling with something. somehow i ended up with the two ends of an ethernet cable in my ear, as if they were headphones. no one noticed. obviously, nicole didn't care. i chuckled, turned to paris and said "look, i accidentally put this ehternet cable in my ears, sort of like a stethoscope." but it didn't come out stethoscope. i fumbled with that word. but it was a dream so i can't remember the exact detail. i do remember that it was 7:58 pm and i had to get the remote control in order to make sure that i'd set up the tv to record the new episode of Beverly Hills, 90210. paris had mentioned earlier in the day that she wanted to watch. and i wasn't going to disappoint her.

i woke up looking around for my digitial camera, hoping those photos i'd taken were real.

AmerNexTopMod

if you haven't read andrea seigel's recent entry about the final episode of AMERICA'S NEXT TOP MODEL, race to do so now.

she continues with her year of the nerd theme but this time turns her gaze on yoanna, the winner of the competition. my favorite sentence:

A lot of people have commented on Yoanna's habit of over-enunciation. It is my belief that she's fighting a number of voices ("Bread! Powerbar! Anything!") from within, so that she becomes distracted mid-syllable. This slows her down.

i wish this show was always on the air.

-marc

the rest of the week in tv

see jim's comments in the previous discussion about the oc for his thoughts on the final episode of ANTM, season 2. when i woke up this morning i mentally had this whole entry figured out. i was going to praise america's next top model to high heaven, and then complain about there being no actual ANTM magazine - don't you love those fake covers?

i'm fine with yoanna's win. of the final three, i liked all three of them as people and as reality tv show contestants and as average models. i didn't like any of them as superstar, TOP models. maybe yoanna or shandi will grow into that in a few years.

on wednesday night while at o'connor's i talked with bart and amy about ANTM and the voting. bart had some interesting theories. i just there was a lot of behind the scenes conversation the audience didn't get to see. i also think a few judges were pulling for yoanna, realized shandi was the biggest competition and voted her out early. as for mercedes, i loved her in this last episode. not her personality, but her hotness. that really came through in this episode.

THE APPRENTICE - jim, last night's episode was as good as always (except for those recap shows!). america can count on mark burnett.

CRACKING UP - last night we tried to watch monday's episode. i still can't believe i even recorded it, the jack black episode was terrible. this most recent episode was deleted after four minutes of viewing time.

WORLD POKER TOUR - they were in france on this week's episode. none of my favorite players from last season are making the final tables this season. what's going on? is there a conspiracy afoot?

i hope to have a more compelling tv show rundown sometime soon on my dvr blog.

Also, THE REAL WORLD / ROAD RULE CHALLENGE (THE INFERNO) would be a lot more satisfying if each episode ran 60 minutes instead of 30.

the oc (new episode)

seth and a graduate student played by paris hilton?

what will the creators of THE OC think of next?

seth's aunt as a dancer? why, YES!!! (i refuse to call her a stripper because i didn't see her stripping. she was just dancing - and picking up on anna's poor use of makeup)

low punch count this episode. high punch count potential, though.

juju cooper is my new favorite adult on the show.

update 1: i am evil. the two comments listed in the previous entry that were about the oc and not dan's baseball list have been deleted. i should've set up this oc post before going out last night. sorry about forgetting to do so. you guys and your oc talk are ridiculous. it's almost baseball season. let's focus on what's important here.

update 2: wow. i am out of control. deleting those comments was just ridiculous. maybe i'm a control freak. maybe i like things to go where they're supposed to go. so, instead of a running analysis today of the oc, you'll get a running analysis of me worried about how everyone will react to me removing two completely harmless comments. if you feel slighted, suck it up. you should've sent me an email telling me to add a new entry.

3rd update: i didn't mean to tell you to suck it up. i'm a bad person. this whole things is spinning out of control. i'll try to get my mental state under control soon. but when is peter gallagher going to start getting the good dialogue again?

4th update - 2:02pm: and with that i think i've finally alienated everyone who reads this. if i can't even keep the oc fans happy...because as we all know, the oc is the only thing i comment on anymore. argh. yeah. this is the implosion of my brain you're watching. no more jokes.

update 5 - 3:40pm: if you haven't figured it out yet THE OC is on a direct course for implosion. that josh shwartz tookt he show so deeply meta last night is a bad bad sign!!! we're looking he pulled out of it as soon as he did. when seth was watching that dvd of the first season of the valley i was cringing with how painful things were getting. but then later in the episode that dark haired girl that wore the wonder woman costume talked about how she wished she was from the valley. and i thought that was cute. the whole thing is such a fine line and if the producers flirt so close with disaster soon they could be in trouble. this show will not be nearly as good when season two hits! or should i say Mix 2. did you guys all catch that at the end of the show when they rolled the music ads? seriously. barf. i mean "mix 1." ugh. get a life. or hire me.

dan's 2003 baseball list!

as we all know, dan loves baseball. his annual tradition of giving us a report of the baseball games he attends continues. for all the commentary and dozens of photos, check out dan's 2003 year in baseball.

A few highlights:

- april 20th (devil rays v. orioles) -
During the game, my father would not let Sujan or me spend a dime on any food. At one point, Sujan tried to buy my dad a lemonade and he cried out, "I want to be the big man. Will you let me be the big man?"

- may 25th (cardinals v. pirates) -
We went to the game only a few hours after the dance party (Archies, Ohio Express) at Eric H. and Carmela’s apartment which shouldn’t be too surprising because we all know that everywhere Eric P. and Amie go turns into a dance party at one point or another. It was also the night I heard Dexter Redding’s (Otis Redding’s teenage son) amazing song about love being bigger than baseball and sweeter than cotton candy. I got drunk, tripped over couches, and proclaimed to the boys that I was going to soon propose to Sujan. They were pleased to hear this but had to convince me in my altered state not to do it on a roller coaster.

- august 4th (ironbirds v. cyclones) -
Theme of the night: Every good play that a Cylcone made, Alex would quip, "Watch out for that kid, he won’t be here long."

In the 5th inning, Mooney started dancing to "The Cha Cha Slide" when all of a sudden most of the lights in the ballpark went out. That’s right, folks, his moves are that good.

bile & venom

on saturday night i was almost able to set up a blog for chris larry while we hung out at o'connor's. i was using his t-mobile sidekick but things got hung up at some point. once that happened, i turned my attention (along with chris and matt) to the couple at the end of the bar. the young woman kept giving the guy the cold shoulder.

anyway, the idea of chris with a blog wouldn't leave my head. before i finished reading moneyball, i turned my attention to the web and finished the work started the night before. a few quick IM's between chris and me and his new place on the web was set up.

get ready to add a new regular destination to your daily web adventures:

BILE & VENOM
chrislarry.blogspot.com

here's an excerpt for his most recent post:

Speaking of typing, I will be writing a good amount of blogs on my TMOBILE Sidekick. This is only the greatest thing I have ever owned. 2 weeks ago when I lost my recharger and was without my robot friend I almost hung myself. The fact thta I am posting my random thoughts to the WORLD WIDE WEB while whipping around in a brooklyn gypsy cab is the greatest thing to happen to new journalism since Dr. Gonzo gave up his dreams of bieng a novelist.

he promises to update often.

i hate reading books

i hate reading books because when i'm reading an enjoyable book, i can't put it down. when i put it down i can think of nothing other than returning to the book. it's ridiculous. reading gets hold of me like some powerful drug and i'll do anything to get more of it. i have no idea why this is. and i hate that i'm powerless to stop it.

this will come as a shock to no one, but books are different than movies and tv shows. admittedly, i love watching tv. and i understand how tv works. for the most part, it's a serialized thing. the idea of waiting another week for another episode is the way things work. it's part of the convention of dramas and sitcoms. i'm okay with that. yeah, i love a "real world" marathon as much as the next guy does, but that's an indulgence i can live without. and movies, well, movies rarely run longer than two and a half hours. i don't mind sitting in a movie theatre for that amount of time. i'm not capable of reading a book in two hours.

this weekend i read moneyball by michael lewis (who is married to tabitha soren!). i didn't want to stop reading. the story it tells is one of those stories that is told best in book form. if it's turned into a movie, i can't imagine how it's going to become more exciting. it's a book about numbers and strategy. it's a book whose structure examines the oakland a's during the 2002 season. lewis had great access to general manager billy beane. and the book is fascinating! it seems to describe a time and place that won't be replicated. i don't know enough about baseball to truly understand everything, but i feel like once the majority of baseball owners and general managers start doing things beane's way, the playing field will change. if everyone's acting the same way, there won't be any inefficiencies in the market to exploit. accurate representations of players skill and value to a team will only become more so. i'm sure there are a million discussions on the web about this. and because it's the internet, i'm able to begin tracking them down. a quick search leads me to a few posts from a month ago by the stats guru at baseball musings. he pointed to this article in the new republic by aaron schatz. unfortunately, it's subscription only. the baseball musings site has a good excerpt and also offers a few opinions. both posts are worth checking out:

What if Everyone Played Moneyball?

What if Everyone Played Moneyball, Part II

it's only been within the past few weeks that i've started thinking about baseball in this manner, but i can really see the fun that dan and jamie have had playing rotisserie baseball all these years.

and that's one of the best things about picking up a book. it puts your head somewhere else. if you're reading something you're interested in you can totally remove yourself from whatever is going on around you. it's incredibly fun. and whenever i pick up a good book, that's what i do. and there's often that unexpected feeling of finishing a good book. you feel like you know more. you feel like you can finally begin having a conversation about a certain subject. obviously, not all books lead to new revelations about life, but the ones that do are better than the best tv shows and movies in the world. i can't wait to figure out what's next on my reading list.

analysis of the nerd

andrea seigel has an amazing examination of shandi's continued nerd-like behavior from the most recent AMERICA'S NEXT TOP MODEL! wow. so perfect. if you haven't been watching top model, you're missing out! and if yoanna doesn't win this thing, she better get some kind of fashion column in Teen Vogue or one of those girl magazines. she's awesome and well spoken and someone that i want to see more from. (link via catherine via gawker (can't believe i missed this on there))

drowning in links

ever wonder what's really going on inside my head? the answer for about three of you is "yes, well...once." if you're tired of listening to me mumble on about cheerios while drinking bourbon on 5th avenue, feel free to peruse the rss feeds i subscribe to. they should offer a more distinct look into what i'm able to hold conversations about when not listing the four breakfast cereals i eat. in an attempt to lead a more transparent life, i'm making my bloglines subscription page public. take a look at the content i have streamed into my life on a daily basis. it's pretty much what you'd expect. some highlights (for those who are opposed to full click-through and exploration) include:

outside the box (a weblog about all the weird and cool promo items that Variety receives in the mail)

the daily ping (a conversation about various subjects that's been going on for years)

the pomo blog (an interesting and well written blog about "the postmodern cultural shift")

if you're into certain subjects and interested in following various websites but don't feel like loading dozens of pages a day, an rss reader is the way to go. i finally caved and started using bloglines after reading an article in salon a few months ago. i seriously can't remember how i used to surf the web without it.

again, my bloglines account is now open for all to see: http://www.bloglines.com/public/marcb

the perils of the morning

This is the space where I pretend to write something transcendent about socks.
This is the space where I mention Satan’s Laundromat.
This is the space where I comment about how I can never spell laundromat and I don’t know the word’s derivation.
This is the space where I get indignant about my socks never matching.
This is the space where I get overly descriptive about the "feel" of my boots with the unmatched socks.
This is the space where you roll your eyes and wonder what I’ve been smoking.
This is the space where I apologize that the focus of the last three months of my life has been about the quest for sneakers when it really should’ve been a thirty minute trip to Macy’s to buy new black socks (and maybe one dark grey pair).
This is the space where I act all sheepish about caring so much about those gosh-darn socks.
This is the space where you shake your head and stop reading.

the orange soda taste test

One month ago Jamie and Kaci arrived at balgavy.com headquarters with armloads of orange soda. Jeremy was visiting from Vermont and Jim had stopped by for the evening's big taste test. The sodas were arranged, the little plastic cups were filled and the drinking began!

Jamie has the full scoop on February's ORANGE SODA TASTE TEST.

(Partly inspired by The Knowledge for Thirst)

baseball, baseball

a new website went online today. it's called the hardball times. i'm looking forward to checking it on a regular basis.

and, for those that heard my speaking loudly about cheerios at sarah's birthday yesterday, i am sorry. from now on i will refrain from mentioning my daily consumption of cheerios and bourbon.

not our night

after two victories at buttermilk, the neuticles finally lost dr. fact's night of fifty questions.

last night we tied for third place, only two points behind the winners. there was no celebratory round of shots. no pitcher of beer for correctly answering a bonus question. no photos of happy faces. we came up with a few excuses before starting, during the halftime break and after the 50th question. but it all came down to jamie, kaci, jim and i second guessing ourselves. we'll be back next month and we'll get there early enough to claim a table of our own.

related: notes about the second victory

future digital camera purchases

for those thinking about buying a digital camera in the near future, walter mossberg has a good summary of what to look for when making that first purchase.

and i promise this week i'll look at my cheap digital camera to see if i can get it working. it's not in good shape, so the future of the borrowed camera project looks pretty dicey.

i am a robot

kfan posted a comment this morning asking about the location of the "alias" thread. here is the discussion space for "alias." did anyone else watch this besides kevin? (and me, obviously).

a few quick talking points (please excuse my poor spelling):

- the showdown between vaughn and his wife was good.
- the romance between vaughn's wife (i should really learn her name) and sark is getting steamy!
- i don't believe that arvin sloane is sydney's father.
- i didn't like the storytelling format that had the episode start repeating (with just a slightly different perspective) at the midway point.

all oc, all the time

off to o'connor's for discussion of tonight's episode. i'll return with stolen comments.

(update 4 march 2004, 11:55am): the episode was better than last week. i have no idea why kevin didn't like it (as mentioned in the comments). there were weak points, but there were also enough interesting moments to keep things going. i'm a fan of the luke/julie cooper relationship, and i thought the scene with julie's youngest daughter was funny and well done (but the defragging the hard drive line was pushing it). later in the episode, i also enjoyed seth commenting that 80 is the new 75. i could listen to two of those jokes a day for the rest of my life (i say two because of the show's use of chin work being the new nose job).

granted, there was a lot to be frustrated about: why are so many punches thrown on the show? why did marissa's dad not freak out when confronting juju about sleeping with a high school kid? i was also crushed by sandy changing his morals (but the friends i met after the show last night liked that he was standing by his family) - i live in a tv influenced world where i think there's always another way out of the situation. and it's sad to see anna go...my fingers are crossed she'll return.