Category Archives: Version 1.0

Posts from the first version of this site, thebrownone.wordpress.com… if anyone’s curious.

Fox Sux

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I used to respect Fox Sports and their coverage.  I had no trouble separating Fox Sports from its overtly biased and woefully inaccurate sister network, Fox “News.”  I like their football pre-game show more than CBS’, and I like the fact that there are multiple regional networks that cover specific events for particular parts of country.  But after Fox blew their baseball coverage last weekend and today, I’ll have a tough time giving the Sports division of the network viewing time in the future.  Here’s how they blew it:

Last weekend was the final weekend for interleague play, the merits of which (or lack thereof) I’ll save for another entry.  It was “proximity rival” weekend, so the Cubs were playing the White Sox, the Yankees played the Mets, the Angels played the Dodgers, etc.  Fox was broadcasting the Cubs/Sox game, and I thought everything was fine and dandy (except for the fact that the Sox were winning the series).  All of a sudden, Fox decides to switch the coverage to the Mets/Yankees game.  I sat there on my couch in disbelief at what just transpired.  First of all, they didn’t even wait ’til the inning was over; they just went to the Joe Buck (whom I like) and Tim McCarver (whom I can’t stand…more about him later) pre-game hoopla over the overrated “Subway Series.”  Secondly, the Mets were a second place team and the Yankees a third place team, while the Cubs and Sox both held the top spots in their respective divisions.  I was appalled that Fox would switch to the New York game just because it’s The Big Apple, in order to broadcast the game between two middle-of-the-pack teams when they were in the middle of covering a drama-filled contest between two first-place teams in The Windy City.

Then, today at 4PM, the second game of the Cubs/Cardinals series started, a battle between the top two teams in the NL Central.  It just so happened that the Yankees/Red Sox game started at the that time, too.  I was hoping Fox wouldn’t do it to me again, but they did.  They chose to showcase the fourth-place Yankees and second-place Red Sox, while there was a nail-biter going on in St. Louis.  WHAT?!?  The Cubs/Cards game today actually affects the standings in a meaningful way, with only 2.5 games now separating the first-place Cubs from the second-place Cardinals.  The Yankees won day, cutting their deficit in the division to a scant NINE games.  Again: WHAT?!?  Thanks Fox Sports, for perpetuating the no longer so-called “East Coast” bias.  No one cares about Yankees/Red Sox any more: it’s overdone.  Plus, the Yankees stink right now.  The way I see it, had it been a game between top two teams in the AL East, then it would have been more understandable.  But that was not the case.  Wake up, Fox.  The Cubs and Cardinals have just as intense a rivalry as New York and Boston, and the rest of the country just might be able to appreciate that if your choice of game coverage wasn’t so poor.

Oh, and speaking of poor, please let Tim McCarver go.  He’s a terrible broadcaster whose glaring lack of analytical talent only brings down Joe Buck.  McCarver’s analyses are wrong more times than they’re right, especially when it comes to replays, commentating as if he’s blind.  I’m reminded of Joe Morgan of ESPN’s “Sunday Night Baseball.”  They’re both know-it-alls who really don’t know much, or at least can’t express what they know on TV.  They talk way too much and often either say the wrong thing or dwell on the obvious.  Steve Stone’s a know-it-all, but I can tolerate him because he, indeed, does know it all.  McCarver and Morgan may have been great players, but they’re awful announcers.  They should take notes from the “Smartest Man in Baseball.”

June 12 of 12

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What better way to kick off Friday the 13th than with 12 of 12.

My life’s pretty quiet now.  Translation: I’m bored out of my mind.  I didn’t leave the apartment yesterday (again), so several pics are of the TV screen.  God I love TV.

10:02am – Amy and I are trying to live a more eco-friendly, organic lifestyle, so she recommended this organic peanut butter.  I did a side-by-side taste test and the results are in: the MaraNatha peanut butter is delicious.  It tastes freshly homemade.  Amazing.

10:22am – They’re doing some renovations and repairs around the apartment complex, so I didn’t have water to wash my dish.  So to pass the time…

10:23am – I continued my Seinfeld-watching.

10:48am – As you can see, I’m making progress, moving on to the second disc of the penultimate season.

11:15am – I get an email saying that my dissertation has been approved by the Office of Graduate Studies and will posted online.  Horray!

11:23am – As I continue my morning online routine, I request official copies of my transcripts from my three schools.  Northwestern is the only school that has my mail a request form in by snail mail (thereby slowing the process).  Thanks to Loyola for sending transcripts for free.

11:24am – The transcripts I requested from LUC, NU, and FSU are all going to the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at UMass Lowell.  It’s part of the “making-my-hire-official” process.

12:47pm – Givin’ Oreo some love.  She loves those nubby gloves I got.

2:25pm – WGN celebrated its 60th year of broadcasting Cubs baseball with a “throwback game,” which featured both teams wearing 1948-style uniforms and a black-and-white telecast complete with graphics of yesteryear (just for the first two innings).

8:10pm – I cooked dinner for myself, which is a rarity these days.  It looked better in person, and it tasted even better.

9:52pm – The way I see it, since I was feeling domestic, why not continue the trend?  Iactually washed my dishes.  Recognize the hat?

10:31pm – 2nd place in the 100cc Special Cup in MarioKart Wii.  I was leading the standings until the final race.  Two words for you: Rainbow.  Road.  God I hate that course.

Different FROM

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English is a quirky language, one of the most difficult to master simply because there are so many rules and an equal number of exceptions to those rules.  To be sure, no one follows all the rules all of the time, but being a grammatical purist, I try my best to uphold as many of the rules as I know.  The way I see it, everyday English has deteriorated because of sheer laziness, or because the correct grammar “doesn’t sound right.”  Many of the commonly broken rules in everyday English can be corrected easily with just a little bit of effort.

Here’s a phrase I hear uttered just about every day that makes my skin crawl: “different than.”  I can safely bet that 99% of Americans don’t know that that phrase is wrong and it drives me crazy.  When juxtaposing two or more things using the adjective “different,” the word “FROM” should be used, not “than.”  The reason?  “Different” is the adjective form of the verb “differ,” as in “A differs FROM B.”  So, it stands to reason that when using the adjective (or adverb) form of the verb, we need to use the same modifier.  “The color red is different FROM the color blue.”  Or, “The Cubs are playing differently this year from last year.”  One thing doesn’t differ THAN another thing; it differs FROM it.  See: easy correction.

Remember: Different from.

It shouldn’t matter

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The presidential primary season is finally over.  Whew.  It was exhausting and tiresome and redundant.  Obama vs. Clinton.  Clinton vs. Obama.  Oy.  Now the country turns its attention to the general election in November, a heavyweight battle mainly between Barack Obama and John McCain.  The economy.  The environment.  The “war.”  In the coming weeks and months, there is sure to be a slew of articles and programs outlining and detailing these crucial issues as the campaign ramps up and voters try to decide the next person who runs the country.

Keeping this in mind, I’m shocked at CNN.com, and not in the good way.  With issues like skyrocketing gas and oil prices and a weakening dollar, the news channel chooses to run an article that questions whether Barack Obama is black or biracial.  It’s a short piece that describes the “trouble” Obama and others have in identifying their racial identity.  OK, in fairness, it is remarkable that a minority man is running for president; it’s about freakin’ time.  But the shocking part of the article, to me, is the very last paragraph, in which Michaela Angela Davis (who?) says that “it’s a step in the right direction that we are even having this discussion at all.” 

Really?  Seriously?? 

To the contrary, Ms. Davis, a step in the right direction would be NOT having this discussion at all.  Progress would be focusing on the real governmental issues, not continually dwelling on race or gender or sexual preference or religion.  Those things shouldn’t matter when it comes to electing our next president, or anyone for that matter.  So Obama is part black, part white.  So what?  Hillary Clinton is a woman.  So what?  The only reason those qualifiers matter is that never before in the history of this country has a non-white man ever been elected to the Oval Office.  It’s important and I get that.  But it’s a tired non-issue; let’s please move on.  We should be past the point where gender, race, religion, and sexual preference in the political world are remarkable attributes.  The way I see it, progress already has been made simply for the fact that Obama and Clinton (both minorities in the political world) ran such a tightly contested primary.  And now that those primaries are over, let’s concentrate on what really matters.

You want progress?  How about NOT talking about Obama’s racial identity for once.  Now THAT is a fresh idea.

Team MVP

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Yup, it’s another Cubs update.  But, what can you expect?  Not only are the Cubs in first place in the NL Central, not only do they have the best record in the National League, they have the best record in all the majors.  And I learned yesterday that the last time that happened was 1908, the last year the Cubs won the World Series.  Exactly a century ago for the North Siders.  Coincidence?  Perhaps.  I dunno…I’m just sayin’.

Anyway, my two favorite players on the Cubs are first baseman Derrek Lee and right-handed setup man Carlos Marmol (MARMOL!!)  Lee is the best defensive first baseman in professional baseball and a pretty darn good hitter, too, despite his recent struggles. He’s a career .282 hitter with a career OPS  or .870, plus he’s a three-time Gold Glove winner.  Go ahead, find me another active first baseman who can field better than D-Lee, I dare you.  And Marmol?  He’s only turned into the one of the most (if not THE most) dominant reliever in the majors, with a high-90’s fastball and a slider that’s just filthy.  Stupid filthy.  In 29 games this year, he’s struck out 54 batters while only walking 12 in 36 innings and posting a miniscule 1.75 ERA and leading he majors in holds.  As Mike and I have been saying for about a year now, Marmol is the next great closer.

The way I see it, despite the contributions of Lee and Marmol, which have been tremendous, the Cubs’ MVP thus far has been rookie catcher Geovany Soto.  Let’s start with the numbers: in 53 games, he’s batting .296 with 9 HRs, 38 RBI, and 19 doubles, along with a .942 OPS, all of which place him at or near the top among rookies and catchers.  Not to mention that he calls a great game, works well with Cubs’ pitchers, and has the ability to throw out runners (he’s caught 11 of 24 would-be base-stealers).  And he’s done all of this from the bottom half of the batting order, starting the season in the #7 spot and recently moving up to the 5-hole.  Keep your eyes on Soto; he’s a superstar in the making.  Remember this folks, you heard it here first: Soto will be this year’s Rookie of the Year (with Fukudome coming in second).

(Cast your votes for the MLB All-Stars.  Vote now and vote often, up to 25 times.  Needless to say, I’ve already voted for Lee at first and Soto behind the plate, and I wrote in Carlos Marmol.)

Fukudome uproar

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Clearly, Kosuke Fukudome is having a tremendous impact in Chicago, not only on the Cubs, but also just outside Wrigley Field, where some t-shirt vendors have been selling t-shirts with this questionable, arguably offensive, graphic:

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The vendors are now suing the Cubs organization for trying to stop the sale of these t-shirts, citing First Amendment “freedom of speech” violations.  Here we go with yet another cry out about freedom of speech.  Let’s get this straight: just because the Bill of Rights gives us freedom of speech, that doesn’t mean you can say or print anything.  There are limits, people.  That amendment gives us all the right to express our opinions, regardless or what they may be, but once those expressions infringe on others’ rights, those limits have been reached.  I find this graphic offensive in that it makes fun of Asians’ pronunciation of “L’s” in the English language.  I’m sure the creator of this t-shirt, no doubt some narrow-minded yuppie- wannabe on the North Side, wouldn’t like a shirt poking fun at the fact that he probably can’t even speak his own language properly (the subject of many a future blog, to be sure!).  And the slanty eyes?  Really?? It would have been just fine printing the trademark “Holy Cow” in the “Asian-style” lettering, but to change “Holy” to “Horry” and give the cub slanty eyes crosses the line in my book.  The way I see it, whether there was offensive intent or not (I really hope not), the shirt’s creator has to realize the graphic’s potential to offend.  Better judgment was needed here.

Other pieces of apparel, such as the headband below, I think are just fine.  The headband itself harkens to Fukudome’s Japanese heritage, as does the sun and the font, without offending or making fun of anyone.

If you like having “Holy Cow” on your Cubs accessories, how about this Japanese-inspired headband, complete with the white-flag “W” and the Chicago skyline:

Now, don’t me wrong.  I’m all for silly, light-hearted t-shirts, those that are fun and are clearly not trying to hurt anyone, like this one:

Or, for those who are phonetically challenged:

Now THAT is a funny, non-offensive t-shirt.

Oreo’s new spot

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I’ve had Oreo now for about five weeks, and in that brief span she’s grown tremendously, both physically and mentally.  She knows a couple of basic commands and has learned to tell me when she needs to go outside.  Before I got her, I made the decision to not let her on my couch.  My recliner, however, is a different story, because it’s old and, frankly, a P.O.S., so I don’t mind if she sits on it (I bought it from one of my college roommates for $10).  So, a handful of times over these past five weeks I’ve scooped her up and had her lie in my lap while I watch TV.  Late this morning, to my pleasant surprise, I found her asleep in the recliner while I was working in my office.

She made it up there all by herself, which is an accomplishment because she’s shy and a bit afraid of trying new things, especially on her own.  The video below is of Oreo getting the recliner all by herself.  It’s nothing special, really, just cute footage, especially the face she gives at the very end.  (That’s Seinfeld Season 7 in the background.)

And while watching the Cubs beat the Dodgers tonight in extra innings, she hopped up there again and passed out.

Again: Too.  Cute.

It’s official

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Well, it’s official.  The wait is finally over.  My job search is complete.  I am the newest faculty member of the University of Massachusetts Lowell Department of Music.  More than anything, more than happiness or joy or elation, the biggest emotion I feel right now is relief.  I smiled a lot when I accepted the position, but the big sigh of relief I let out afterwards is perhaps the most memorable reaction.

It’s been a strange process, this whole getting-a-job thing.  I was so excited last fall because it seemed like just about every school out there had an opening and my chances of landing a gig were great.  So I applied to numerous places, thinking I had a shot to land a pretty good job right off the bat.  But as the school year wore on, and I didn’t hear from anyone, I started to get a little worried.  There was a little lull in job openings, but kept my eyes and ears open, sending out my materials when I could.  Then, one weekend, out of the blue (while I was in Maine with Amy, of all times!), I was forwarded a job posting for a position up in Massachusetts.  “Lowell, MA??” I thought.  But I looked it up and it sounded great, so I sent off my materials.  Lo and behold, after a couple of phone interviews, they wanted to see me live and in person.  After scrambling for two days getting together a lesson plan, I flew up to Lowell, gave my teaching demos, met with the Dean and the search committee, flew back to Tally, and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Now, it was only about a week and a half that I waited to hear from them, but it seemed like much longer than that.  I thought I nailed the interview, and since their school year was coming to a close, I knew they didn’t have that much time to interview other candidates and needed to fill the position.  Plus, I’m an impatient person by nature: I wanted to know, and I wanted to know ASAP.  So I waited (not so) patiently until the phone rang last week.  Awesome.

I think the most relieving aspect about this job is that it’s tenure-track, so I won’t have to go through this whole interview process again at least for a few years.  *WHEW*  The way I see it, I got lucky.  Very very lucky.  UML was looking for someone and one of the profs just happened to be talking with a prof at FSU.  My name was among those mentioned, and a month later, the job is mine.  The saying goes, “It’s better to be lucky than good.”  Amen.  I mean, I think I’m pretty decent, but in this case, Lady Luck was on my side.

Go River Hawks!!

Memorial Day

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This Memorial Day, I’d like to dedicate an entry to those women and men who have lost their lives in the line of duty.  You paid the ultimate price defending the United States.  I salute you.  Thank you, soliders.  

The Cubs and their fans

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I read Mike’s blog today, and couldn’t help but comment (I’m T-Chris).  It also got me thinking, so much so that I had to blog about it.

 

Why do so many people hate the Cubs and their fans?  I did a Google search for “Cubs suck” websites and came up with, literally, hundreds of thousands of hits.  Yikes.  Why all the hate for the boys in blue?  Some comes from the fans of division rivals, the St. Louis Cardinals and the Milwaukee Brewers.  But Cardinals and Brewers fans who truly HATE the Cubs are pretty few and far between.  The teams are rivals, yes, but there’s mutual respect among the fans.  Debates are heated and the games are spirited, sure, but there’s hardly a lack of respect for the opposing teams or their fans.  They are healthy rivalries.

 

Much of the Cubbie hatred, I’m sad to say, comes from White Sox fans.  I don’t know if it’s jealousy or insecurity or what, but many (not all, mind you) Sox fans are bitter, bitter people.  I’m not writing this entry to antagonize White Sox fans out there.  I’m just curious as to why so many of you truly hate and loathe the North Siders and their fans.  Now, you may point to my comment in Mike’s blog, and say that I’m bitter and hateful towards the Sox and their fans.  Quite the contrary: my statement was merely a reaction to the spew of the previous comment.  Cubs fans don’t inherently hate anyone, not even the Sox or their fans.  We may not like other teams, but we’re content to mind our own business in the Friendly Confines and watch our team try to win.  (And speaking of trying to win, I think I speak for Cubs fans everywhere when I say that I’m over the whole “Lovable Loser” tag.  It’s time the change the mentality of Cubdom and the rest of baseball.  The Cubs are trying to win just as much everyone else.)

 

Are you Sox fans jealous that Wrigley routinely gets sold out?  You deride the Cubs and their park for being filled with people who just want to enjoy the sun and the bleachers.  So what?  My response to you: if you’re so concerned that Wrigley sells out and Comis…er…US Cellular Field doesn’t, then tell more of your fans to show up to games.  It’s that simple.  And all this talk about Cubs fans not being knowledgeable about the game of baseball is a bunch of crap.  There are just as many die-hard baseball fans in the stands at Wrigley Field, if not more so, than those who are there merely for the social aspect of the game.  We all know it’s been a century since the Cubs last won a World Series.  So you’re saying the Cubs suck because of that?  Well, duh.  But instead of worrying about other teams, how about you worry about your won team and how it’s doing (not so hot, last time I checked the standings).  Do well first, then maybe, just maybe, you can start the trash talking.  Until then, why not just positively root for your own team rather than deride another?  That goes for the Sox fans, Cardinals fans, Brewers fans…anyone and everyone.  Mind your own business.

 

I’m proud to be a Cubs fan, whether they’re in first place or last place.  Always have been, always will be.  And that’s indicative of the vast majority of Cubs fans around the nation.  Through thick and thin, we support our team, not at the expense of other teams or their fans, but simply because we love the Cubs.  Can you say that about your team and its fan base?

 

Go Cubs, go!!