Song of the Week

"Working My Way Back to You Babe" - The Spinners
Master Bates and I used to play this on a Fisher Price record player.

What Do You Give Me For? Toucan Sam and the Mayan Archaelogy Initiative Toucan

Kellogg is asking a group working to defend Mayan culture to reconsider its logo, saying consumers can confuse it with Toucan Sam.
An attorney for Kellogg sent a letter to the nonprofit Maya Archaeology Initiative saying Kellogg opposes the group's bid to trademark its logo.
The Maya Archaeology Initiative says there is little similarity. It says its logo is based upon a realistic toucan native to Mesoamerica, while Toucan Sam is a cartoon character with the coloring of Froot Loops.

Where Were You When the World Shook?

My one chance to experience an earthquake in New York City and I missed it. I was in a meeting in the center of the building and none of us felt a thing.
We started getting e-mails about it and assumed it was just DC. But people seated near the windows did feel.
Did you?
Share your experience in the comments section.

Best Stadium Fight I've Ever Seen

A huge fight in the stands of the 49ers-Raiders preseason game. This one went on for quite a while before security was able to break it up.



Unfortunately things turned uglier after the game. A Raiders fan wearing a "Fuck the Niners" t-shirt was shot several times in the stomach. The second incident of horrific fan violence at a game in California this year.

You Can't Always Get What You Want

The New Meadowlands Stadium to be shared by the Giants (Big Blue) and the Jets.
It will be called MetLife Stadium. Which is adequate, but a better sponsor was out there.
JetBlue Stadium would have been so perfect.
Similarly, wouldn't CitiField be so much cooler if Ralph Lauren had ponied up (pun intended) the money to name it The Polo Grounds?

Please Don't Wear Our Clothes

Ambercrombie and Fitch is offering to pay The Situation not to wear the company's clothes.
Sitch wore neon green A&F sweatpants in the latest episode of the show.
That led the company to make the offer to The Situation (and other Jersey Shore castmembers), and to release this statement:
“We understand that the show is for entertainment purposes, but believe this association is contrary to the aspirational nature of our brand, and may be distressing to many of our fans."



I think this is a pretty funny and savvy move by the store. I doubt there are many fans of the show who will be so outraged they will boycott. And I believe there are a lot of people who hate the show who may look more favorably upon the brand now.

Mostly I think A&F is just trying to steal some buzz from the show sort of like when Vivid video offers every hot chick in some kind of scandal a million dollars to appear in a porn movie.

Song of the Week

"Back in the High Life Again" - Steve Winwood
Dan Uggla's hitting-streak reminded me of this song. In 1987, Paul Molitor had a 39-game streak from July 16th through August 26th. Since this period coincided with my time at sleepaway camp I missed the entire hitting streak. We didn't have computers or cell phones in those days. When I returned home I remember watching a montage of Molitor's hits set to this song. And I always think of it during long streaks.

Rainy Summer Sunday

"The sun did not shine
it was too wet to play
So we sat in the house
All that cold, cold wet day."



Good thing I had Thing 1 and Thing 2 to entertain me.

3000 Words

Bears at the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago stay cool by licking giant blocks of ice.



Bryan Devonshire stacks his chips at the World Series of Poker



Justin Bieber wears a Kelly Kapowski t-shirt

The Only Thing Mrs. Poop Ever Asked Me to Post

Authorities on Friday were trying to determine why Jani Lane, former lead singer of the 1980s glam-band Warrant, was at a Woodland Hills motel when he died Thursday.

Lane has a home in the South Bay, so it is unclear exactly why he was at the Ventura Boulevard motel, according to law enforcement sources familiar with the case. Alcohol and prescription drugs were found in the motel room, the sources said, but there was no indication he took intentionally took his own life.

An autopsy will determine how the 47-year-old Redondo Beach resident died, according to the Los Angeles County Coroner. Lane's body was found about 5:30 p.m. Thursday in a room at a Comfort Inn in the 20100 block of Ventura Boulevard in Woodland Hills.

Song of the Week

"Orchestrated Love Song" - Burlap to Cashmere
This is the first time I've featured a Christian Rock song as Song of the Week. But the concept "I want to live on a boat and sail away with my children" hits home for me. Unless it's about Jesus somehow.

End of Nights

Today is the first day of the rest of Mrs. Poop's life. Today she set an alarm, woke up, got in the shower and went to work.
The sun was out, it was 6:45am.
After toiling for 10 years on the night shift Mrs. Poop has moved to days and will be working 7a - 3:30p hopefully for the rest of her life.
Coupled with a recent change in my hours (I'm 5a - 2p, by choice) we are now a normal couple.
Well, not a normal couple. A strange couple with normal work schedules.
This is wonderful, it is something we have all been waiting a very long time for. Over the past four years Mrs. Poop and I have done a lot of single parenting, often while very tired, to accomodate each other's work and sleep schedules.
Now we will go to sleep at the same time, wake up at the same time (roughly) and come home from work at the same time.
We hope will not constantly feel tired anymore. It is now safe to call our home at anytime between normal phone call hours (8a - 8p) and have no fear that someone's slumber will be disturbed.
The only problem: child care. It's nearly impossible to find a daycare to accomodate Mrs. Poop's sporadic (5 days every 2 weeks, 2 of which are weekends) and erratic (the days are never the same) work schedule. So we are turning to our parents (who are beyond wonderful and helpful to us) and a friend of Mrs. Poop's who is willing to watch our two rugrats in addition to two of her own.
A new page in our lives begins today. Or maybe Wednesday when we hope our kids don't force their new babysitter to send them back immediately.

I Guess That Makes Sense

Mrs. Poop and I just passed a new restaurant called "Stacks."
She said "we should try that place."
"Oh yeah? What do they have there?"
"Take a guess"
"Waitresses with large breasts?"
"Pancakes"
"That was my next guess."

You Win Some, You Lose Some, You Win Some

Every year in Maine we carefully plan our activities around the weather. We usually have only 5 or 6 days so if we plan non-beach activities on a sunny day, and end up with nothing to do on a rainy day, a good portion of our vacation will have been misspent.
This is why Mrs. Poop carefully selected the day we would take Chase to the amusement park at the pier.
We bought the unlimited ticket and for $23 (it's $2.40 for individual rides) little Chase could ride to his heart's content.

He rode the bear, the elephant...



the motorcycle, the jeep and several others.



We counted. He got to 10. And then they shut the ride down because of an impending thunderstorm. We thought it would pass. It didn't, we never got back on the rides.

But we did hit the arcade. At first we were just waiting under cover hoping the rain would stop. Then we all started to get antsy until I spotted a video game the whole family could enjoy: Deal or No Deal.

In the arcade version of the game you play for tickets instead of dollars. I let Chase pick every case number by hitting the buttons and he chose case 10, then proceeded to go on a ridiculous run, nailing 5 of the 6 smallest cases in the first round. We decided to keep going all the way to the end because we still had the 1000 tickets in play. But when we eliminated 75 with 3 cases less I told Chase to take the deal.



The best part of it was, it took a few minutes to play the game, but it took at least 10 minutes for it to dispense 502 tickets. And unlike the old days they don't want their functionally illiterate counter employees counting tickets. So when you are done, you have to insert your tickets into another machine to count them. Then it prints you one slip with a big number on it and you take that to the toy counter.




That took another 10 or 15 minutes. Chase ended up with a light up toy car that wasn't even worth the two dollars we put into the game, but by the time we were done it had let up sufficiently to allow us to go somewhere else for dinner.
A good deal if you ask me.

Song of the Week

"Into You" - Fabolous featuring Tamia
One of the best love songs in rap history.
"I don't bring the problems from the 90s into two-thou"

The Human Fund Starring George Costanza

A popular trend on youtube is recutting movies or shows (often several episodes) into one funny, but misleading movie trailer. There are tons of these on youtube, including many just for Seinfeld alone. But this is the best one, "The Human Fund."



I also liked "Jerry the Great"



But the recut by which all other recuts must be measured is this alternate trailer for "The Shining."

S.U.C.K.M.E Beautiful

There is a long-held theory among Mets fans about the team's inability to hit unknown, rookie pitchers with less than impressive resumes.
There's even a name for it: Some Unknown Chucker Kills Mets Everytime.
SUCKME!
When the Washington Nationals traded Jason Marquis (he's a good boychik) they needed a last-minute replacement.
They plucked Yuniesky Maya from their Triple A affiliate in Syracuse.
At Syracuse, Maya had a 1-7 record and a 5.32 ERA.
Entering his start against the Mets he was 0-1 with a 6.86 ERA.
So of course against the Mets he doesn't give up a hit until there are 2 outs in the 4th and ends up pitching 5 1/3 scoreless innings.
SUCKME!

If Sam Kinison Were Alive Today

The Gates Foundation is spending $1.7B on farming in Africa. There are two major obstacles to curing hunger in Africa. We have spent years and years and billions and billions of dollars and made hardly a dent. Reason #1: The warlords who run these countries enrich themselves and don't share the aid with the people.
I'll let Sam Kinison explain Reason #2:



"We have deserts in America. We just don't live in them asshole."

Do the Right Thing

The 2011 New York Mets are a fun bunch. They have shown a lot of spunk, heart and fight in maintaining an above-.500 record through two-thrids of the season despite the injuries which have sidelined Johan Santana, David Wright, Ike Davis and even Jason Bay.
But it's time to face reality: they are not making the playoffs. Baseball Prospectus gives them just a 3.6% chance. They are 6 1/2 games behind the Braves in the wild card race. And if you consider their chances against the Giants in the first round, I'd give the Mets a less than 2% chance of making the NLCS.
Under those circumstances I agree with the decision to trade Carlos Beltran to San Francisco for Zack Wheeler. So far this year Wheeler is 7-5 with a 3.99 ERA in Class A. He's hardly setting the world on fire, but he is considered a good prospect.
Being realistic about the organization, it is definitely the right move to trade a 2% chance of making the NLCS (assuming that gets wiped down to zero without Beltran, which isn't necessarily the case) for a good pitching prospect.
The 2012 Mets don't need an aging overpaid outfielder so even without the trade there was almost no chacne Beltran was going to be resigned for next season.



What to do about Jose Reyes is a much more difficult question. At this point I am convinced the Mets should keep him for the rest of the season. They obviously are playing above expectations, they haven't gotten a knock-your-socks-off offer and unlike Beltran, they can get two draft picks for letting Jose walk as a free agent.
And that's what I think the Mets should do.
I love Jose Reyes as much as the next guy but we have to face facts. He is having an unbelievable season, and is unlikely to duplicate it, especially as he gets older. Reyes is only 28, which is still young but a player of his style is likely to decline at an earlier age than a home run hitter. That is why I am wary of giving him a deal of 6 or 7 years.



If I were the Mets I would offer 5-years, $100 million (I think they can swing this despite the Madoff problems) and if he wants longer or more I would say "vaya con dios."

Even with Reyes, I don't think the 2012 Mets would be a World Series threat. The outfield is still very weak, unless Bay has an amazing rebirth. The starters are still questionable. We have no idea what Santana is going to be and we can't expect ERAs of lower than 3.50 for Pelfrey, Niese and Gee so I still don't feel confident about the starting rotation. And the bullpen will be a major weak spot, though under no circumstances should the Mets sign a big money closer, that's almost always a losing proposition. I also don't think Bobby Parnell has the temperament to close games.

In short, I'm saying what I have been saying for years. The Mets need to stop worrying about today, stop worrying about getting fans into CitiField this season, stop worrying about the New York Post, stop worrying about WFAN and start worrying about building a farm system that will create a World Series contender 3, 4 or 5 years down the line.

What Do You Give Me For? Cassi Colvin from Big Brother and Olivia Wilde

What do you give me for Cassi Colvin from Big Brother and Olivia Wilde?