watching expired appliances align

two and a half weeks of links

here are some recent del.icio.us links i've posted:
(special bonus edition - now with more commentary!)

Baseball Prospectus | Articles | The Week In Quotes: May 23-30
scroll to the bottom for cubs manager dusty baker's take on the modern man
-but let me save you the trouble and repeat it here:

"Guys don’t seem to talk as much baseball these days. They talk about a lot of other things like, what do you call those little things that puts 10,000 songs on there? Yeah, an I-Pod, things like that."
--Dusty Baker (Arlington Heights Daily Herald)

Baseball Toaster : Catfish Stew : Blog the Dawgs
rickey henderson in san diego!
(scroll through to the photos to see how rickey loves to slide)

Movies and Theaters - Lets make the Customer King and make more money - Blog Maverick
mark cuban starts getting at some of the details about his plans for movies and integrated distribution of films
(even if you don't agree with him, you've got to like that he's willing to put his ideas out there and openly discuss them in the marketplace. i got tired of watching his reality show, but i'm hooked on his blog.)

Pernice Brothers | Audio / Video
an indie rock cribs pilot?
(joe pernice walks around his place with a video camera. it's a very low key presentation. and very friendly.)

The Bad News Bears « posterwire.com
highly anticipated.
(billy bob thornton's name is huge on this poster. and the 19 year old me is very upset that the current version of me doesn't actually check out this blog on a regular basis.)

Herald.com | 05/20/2005 | From brain to Beast
rarely do i worry about movie or tv casting - but kelsey grammer as the beast in x-men 3????
(is this still for real? has this changed since i learned this news on may 22nd? someone please tell me it has. i mean, i love falling asleep to frasier late at night, but i'm not ready for this.)

Baseball DIY: Publishing punk rock baseball talk since 2004.
there's so much to read. i need to turn off the computer.
(make sure you check out the interview with baseball fan, joe pernice.)

Athletics Nation :: Michael Lewis Returns to AN
good long interview with the author of moneyball
(has anyone read his new book? in this interview he talks about a future book he'll write about a baseball draft class from a few years ago.)

News Askew: [Feature Story]
kevin smith's blog is back with rss feed. whew.
(i can't get enough of this blog. say what you will about his films, and i know most aren't fans, there's something so awesome about smith's rabid fanboy-ness. the fact that this man has become a very successful director and stayed in touch with the things he loves and continues to respect his fan base is really cool. and i use "cool" without any hint of irony. in a gushing, i'm a fan of kevin smith kind of way.)

MoorishGirl: Flight vs Fight of the creative class
The pros and cons of Austin as a city for writers
(every so often it's good to talk about something that's not baseball, movies or tv. ohh, but richard linklater is an austin filmmaker. and his movie IS about baseball.)

competitive eating rules!

early this afternoon i stopped by schnack in brooklyn to watch the hot dog eating contest. how fast could someone eat one of the 30" dogs (with bun)? one minute thirty seconds.

borough president marty markowitz stopped by.

alex waited in line for a free hot dog (not the 30" stahl-meyer dog, though).

when those dogs came out, there was an audible gasp among the crowd. the competition dogs put your middle school footlongs to shame.

and then the eating began (no splitting up of bun and dog allowed).

apparently, there is only so much a person can eat before starting to feel sick and questioning his motives.

marty congratulates joe, the winner.

coney island saturday

it appears as though the thing to do today, memorial day, is to post pictures of what took place over the past few days. never one to be afraid of jumping on the bandwagon, here's my entry:

saturday at coney island. cyclone and three holes of miniature golf. there was a little skeeball action inbetween, but no photos of said action. also no photos of me playing dance dance revolution:

burping orange

i feel like my calves are on fire. any self-respecting blog deserves a good drunken post every now and again. nothing like typing with your eyes closed and pulling balk on your memories of being in tenth grade and learning to touch type. computers. binary. then typing class. whenever holidays appear creating stupdie typed out illustrationsof faces or flags or whatever. i think i got an A or a B-. i passed. and learned to touch type, which is something all of us older non-internet generation kids needed to do because yeah becaus.

feels like my calves are on fire.

on fire. that's all i could think of while i shuffled home from the bar yes shuffled. robert ownsend where are you now?????????
the sound of the keys is so awesome i could sit here and ramble for hours bout i won't. argh. eyes closed. computer screen burning my retinas.

out. peach.

just saw that i typed peach instead of peace. whatevs.

UPDATE (9:55am, 5/21/05):
this state of drunkenness lead to a night which caused dreams in which i tried to ride from San Francisco to Lake Tahoe on a MoPed and argued the efficacy of wearing blue lycra futuristic Birkenstocks in the snow.

did they even try?

Tonight's episode of THE OC was terrible. And I was pulling for the show. Thirty-five minutes in I could see the writers pulling things together, trying their hardest for jokes that, yes, fell flat but that were at least on the right track. I managed to convince myself that the third season would be really good. I'm pretty sure I've gotten it wrong.

The mention of Chuck Klosterman and the appearance of his book couldn't redeem this episode. The re-appearance of Jimmy Cooper (Tate Donovan) was a tiny bright spot, but not enough to redeem this episode. An Oliver joke made me laugh. I liked the Oliver joke. It was an easy joke, though. And Kaitlin Cooper, Marisa's little sister was mentioned. That was a nice nod to long-term fans.

Those last three minutes? Terrible. What has this show become?

tonight's mets game

did anyone else enjoy mr. koo's appearance at the plate?

can a popsicle blog be far behind?

from the creator of SLICE comes A HAMBURGER TODAY. crazy.

i had a damn fine burger at donovan's in woodside last thursday.

i like my burgers plain. or with mushrooms and bacon.

i had a burger with bacon at hill diner on court street almost two weeks ago. it was more bacon than it was burger. and the bacon was delicious. no complaints.

recent del.icio.us links

(from del.icio.us/marcb)

Baseball Prospectus | Events | Chat with Paul Lukas
"Paul Lukas: I love that Baseball Prospectus readers can't resist asking stats-oriented questions, even tho I'm the uniform guy..."

Cannes Film Report: Last Days
sounds like Gus Van Sant's newest isn't that impressive at all

News Askew: Kevin Smith's My Boring Ass Life Blog being relocated
and with no RSS feeds anymore!

Fredericksburg.com - City's pear proposal has designer peeved
this is the sort of thing that makes my hometown seem like a small, small town

Saved by the Bell - Box Cover Is Saved: New Art Shows Both Jessie & Tori!
whew. i think everyone i know was worried about this.

ahh, post-college sounds

my friend, shm-okshawn-oo, has a regular radio show at rutgers on wednesday nights. i've yet to tune in, but i think tonight may be the night. point your internet browswers to http://thecore.rutgers.edu/ @ 8pm. or, if you're in the piscataway area, listen at 90.3FM.

music reviews by kids

Last Monday I get an email from Sarah containing new reviews from kindergartners and third graders. It's been about a year and a half since I've posted any of these. For your reading pleasure, please click over to the reviews and see what the kids these days have to say about everyone from Nico to Essex Green.

trying to teach my niece to wave

(Last weekend in Virginia)

No Photos with This Post

The following facial hair update is kind of gross but not in a blood and guts kind of way. And once you’ve read this please don’t think of me as that smelly guy that sat in front of you in trigonometry class. I’m definitely not that guy (I sat in the back of the room for that class).

Yesterday I wore a new black linen shirt to work. I had plans to join HWL and others for their tri-birthday celebration. Midway through the afternoon I went outside and in the afternoon sunlight, or maybe it was the slight overcastness (I can’t really remember), I realized that my beard dandruff was verging on “out of control.”

Although most of my male friends have grown a beard or two in their lifetimes, I’m not sure if they’ve encountered beard dandruff. It’s gross and it just sneaks up on you. When my whiskers were short I didn’t have to contend with this problem. Now that the skin hidden beneath my chin feathers doesn’t see the light of day, it tends to dry. I also blame my stuffy office conditions.

When my facial hair was less rampant along, I’d use the exfoliating facial scrub once or twice a week. I’d also moisturize with a bit more frequency, especially those parts of my face now covered by my ever-growing beard. Somehow I’d fallen out of that routine and it’s time to find it again.

At the end of the day and before leaving for the birthday event, I used a lint roller and took care of the white flakes that populated the front of my shirt. I also did what I could to avoid stroking my beard (not that I’m not some sort of evil genius – I just tried to play it down last night).

I own one or two books about facial hair. I’m 99% sure beard dandruff isn’t mentioned in either of them. Now that spring is in full swing, I hope the more humid air will help take care of this issue. I’ll also be moisturizing and taking care of my skin like any intelligent adult.

This is probably the point where you’re thinking to yourself that I should buy a small bottle of Head and Shoulders (and Chins?). I think you might be right. Maybe my beard dandruff (those two words together are just gross, aren’t they? Your head fills with these images that are much scarier than actual beard dandruff) is the result of not washing my beard with any sort of shampoo on a daily basis. I like to let my beard go three or four days between shampoo scrubs, thinking that it will take on a less wild, more contoured look. I’m not sure if that worked, but it’s time to put those days behind me.

Although four months late, my resolution for 2005 is to take care of the beard dandruff.

from my shaving kit

all of my products are blue.
or blueish-green.