That was the word my brother used to describe the Mets game we were watching. I watched the first inning in the kitchen at work, and then the CBS Sportsline GameCenter from my computer through about the 6th inning before I left for home, the Mets losing 4-2. On the drive home, I listened to the game on my XM Radio in my car, to hear the Braves score another two runs in the 7th and take a four run lead.
I got home and started watching the game on TV in the bottom of the 7th, thanks to the MLB Extra Innings cable package. I could have watched it on TBS, but MLBEI had the SportsNet NY Broadcast so I got to listen to Gary Cohen and Keith Hernandez. The bottom of the 7th was good, but could have been better. It started out with a single from Reyes, and then a double from Lo Duca. Beltran reached on a Renteria error, scoring Reyes. Three more singles and an intentional walk later, the Mets had tied the score. Unfortunately, the ageless wonder Julio Franco grounded into a double play to end the inning.
The Mets had several chances to score runs over the next three innings, including Reyes with a leadoff triple in the 8th, but couldn’t convert. Billy Wagner pitched a scoreless tenth, but gave up a solo homer to Wilson Betemit in the 11th, and allowed two more baserunners before finally finishing the inning. Cliff Floyd, hitting .185, reposnded with a moster shot on the second pitch in the bottom of the 11th. Sadly, that was all they would get in that inning, but it was enough to keep the game going.
I think somewhere in the 12th I realized I should have been live-blogging the game since I started watching on TV. I wish I had. The machine, Duaner Sanchez pitched two scoreless innings, and Jorge Julio managed a scary 14th to keep the score tied at 7. The Mets had a runner on base in every inning, but couldn’t bring them home. Finally, in the bottom of the 14th, Beltran reached on a one out walk. After Delgado popped out and Beltran took second on a passed ball, David Wright hit a ground rule double off of Jorge Sosa (scheduled to start for the Braves on Sunday) to drive in the winning run.
The game ended a minute before midnight, eastern time, running four hours and forty seven minutes. They go at it again tomorrow (today?) at 1:10 eastern.
20-9. 11 games over .500. 5 games ahead of second place Philadelphia. Things are looking good for now.
What a difference one night makes. Tuesday, I threw a great series, my 679. Last night, only 193 pins lower for a 486. I don’t remember the last time I was under 500. I guess it goes without saying that we lost the rolloff and finished in second place. Tonight, I play my first softball game in forever.
Billy Wagner blew his third save of the season last night, giving up two runs to the Pirates in the top of the 9th, and costing Pedro another win. The Mets hung on to win it on a Delgado homerun in the bottom of the 12th, though. They’re now 18-9, and still 5 games ahead of Atlanta. The offense seems to be struggling a bit, and they’re still winning. When the middle of the order catches fire again, they’ll be almost unstoppable.
Thanks to Shane, I’m writing this post directly in Firefox, using Performancing, yet another Firefox extension. I’m now running 17 extensions. The Performancing metrics statistics are pretty neat, too, but I really would like Google to give me an Analyitics invitation code already. Not that I really use the stats for anything useful, anyway.
No poker news to report, as I haven’t been playing much. No real reason for that, except that I just haven’t been in the mood to play. When I feel like that, I get bored quickly, my play suffers, and it’s usually just a waste of money. I’m sure I’ll feel the need to play again sometime soon. In the meantime, go read some better poker blogs linked on the left there.
I promised a real post. This is it, I guess.
Damn you, Chris, for pointing me at this. Can’t get it out of my head.
Poker has been interesting lately. I haven’t been playing much, but enough to lose a bunch of money at Chumash last weekend. My losses basically came down to two hands: losing with QQ vs AK in preflop, and JJ vs 76s when I couldn’t lay it down. I have since made all that money back at 1/2 NL on FTP. I’ve only been playing the cash games there seriously again for two days now, but if it’s really as soft as it seems, I’m going to have to keep doing it. I’ve also played a few of their guarantee tournaments, but failed to cash. I busted 15 off the money in one getting in preflop with QQ vs 33. I will probably continue to play these tournaments, but at least for the moment, the $200 NL cash game looks like a better way to spend my time.
Reminder! Easycure‘s charity tournament for the American Cancer Society is this Sunday. This is a WPBT-POY event, and you can earn Player of the Year points in it.
What: Hammer Out Cancer – WPBT-POY Circuit Event (Tournament ID 3381723 under the Private section.)
When: April 16th – Sunday
Time: 9pm EST
Where: Full Tilt Poker
How Much: $10 + $16 ($15 goes to American Cancer Society so buy-in is 25+1)
Password: dahammer
The Mets are off to a great 7-1 start to the season. Of course, they’ve only played the Nationals and Marlins so far, so they should be beating those teams. Tonight they go up against Milwaukee, who have started the season 6-3. I can’t believe they’re for real, though, so the Mets should be able to beat them, too. I’m trying to figure out how long they’re going to string me along before falling apart and giving the division to the Braves again. I think this year it might be midway through September, sadly. At least I’ll be out of the country then. 🙂
A friend of mine at work sent me a link to a great blog: Plunk Biggio: Dedicated to Craig Biggio and his (probably unintentional) Quest to break the all time major league career record for getting hit by pitches. It’s got daily updates on his HBP numbers, as well as fun stats about teams and pitchers plunking him. He needs 14 more to break the record, and has one this year so far. He’s been plunked at least 15 times in each of the last 6 seasons, so there’s a good chance it’ll happen this year.
My fantasy team is off to a wonderful start, going 1-11 the first week. I had a pretty good offensive week, but my pitching sucked, and my opponent hit 13 homers with 44 RBIs to crush me. This week it looks like I might be able to salvage a split. Yesterday, I hit .430 with 6 homers (more than I had all last week). I’m short a closer because Gagne is hurt (again! what was I thinking?) and my other two have been crap. Izzy and Cordero both have losses for me this week. My starting pitching is a mess, too. I’m not giving up yet, though. It’s a long season. Last year I actually moved up into third place for a few weeks at the end of August and beginning of September before falling off and finishing second to last again. My terrible finish leading to picking first in the draft and getting Utley finally paid off with a 2-homer game from him yesterday. My homerun from Mora blew a Dan Miceli save for my opponent, too. I love this game, even if I suck at it.
The Mets won their first game of the season today. Hopefully, it’s an indication of how the rest of the season will go. Glavine with six solid innings, Wright with a homerun, outfield assists from Floyd and Beltran, and Wagner with a save. Xavier Nady also went 4-4 with two doubles, and Lo Duca got the Mets’ first RBI of the season.
Now, if only my fantasy team was doing as well. My two pitchers today got shelled, and I had two homeruns sitting on my bench. And today’s games aren’t even finished yet.
First things first: Joaquin posted about this in my comments, and I realized I haven’t mentioned it yet. Iggy has set up another WPBT WSOP satellite, this time at PokerStars. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to make it, as I’ll be at the bowling alley. Monday night? WTF. Thanks, anyway. 🙂
What: Blogger WSOP Satellite Tourney
Where: PokerStars – Private Tab
When: April 3rd – MONDAY
Time: 9PM EST
Buyin: $30 +3
Password: socoshot
Second, Easycure is raising money for the American Cancer Society. You can just give cash here, or play in a charity poker tournament he’s set up on April 16th. I don’t know if I’ll be able to make it to the tournament, but I’ll be donating at least the $15 if I can’t.
What: Hammer Out Cancer – WPBT-POY Circuit Event (Tournament ID 3381723 under the Private section.)
When: April 16th – Sunday
Time: 9pm EST
Where: Full Tilt Poker
How Much: $10 + $16 ($15 goes to American Cancer Society so buy-in is 25+1)
Password: dahammer
I haven’t been playing much poker lately, and haven’t won when I have played, so nothing really to report on that.
Last weekend, I went back to the east coast for Evan‘s bris. The ceremony was nice, and it was good to get back home for a couple of days. I have a picture of him in my photoblog, and there’s one in the gallery. While I was there, I also got to see Brad and Staci’s new house, and it is beautiful.
Yesterday, I finally got a replacement receiver back from Denon after they finally decided waiting three months for a part was absurd and sent me a whole new box. While I’m not at all happy with their service, I do love the receiver. I set it up again last night, and got my Harmony 880 remote working with it. That was a bit of a pain, actually, but once it was programmed everything is working perfectly. It’s so nice to be able to switch from my Xbox to my Cox DVR without having to go behind them and move wires around. I also got the Xbox DVD kit yesterday, so I can use my Harmony remote to control XBMC now. I’m very happy with the whole setup now.
One last thing: Opening day, this Sunday.
I’ve been too swamped with things to write anything here, and it’s a shame because I have a lot to say. No poker content, though, because I haven’t had any time to play (or even get my Windows machine out of my garage so I could play).
Baseball
I guess I’ll start with October baseball. I have (almost) no doubt that St. Louis is going to win it all. They are certainly the best team left in the playoffs (and the best team in the majors this season, anyway). I’m a bit disappointed the ALCS isn’t Sox vs. Yanks again, but I’m always glad to see the Yankees eliminated. I’m pulling for the Angels vs the White Sox, because if they win, I might get to go to a World Series game.
The end of last night’s game was ridiculous. Two outs, bottom of the ninth, tie game. A.J. Pierzynski swings through strike three, and Josh Paul catches it near the dirt. Home plate umpire Doug Eddings rings him up, and Paul rolls the ball back to the mound. Pierzynski then decides to run to first, as if the ball got away from the catcher. After much arguing, the umpires rule the ball hit the dirt, and he’s safe at first. After pinch runner Pablo Ozuna steals second, Joe Crede lines an 0-2 hanging breaking ball to the left field wall for a game winning double.
Now, there’s no guarantee the Sox wouldn’t have won anyway had the game gone to extra innings, but that call, in that spot, was just awful. I know, umpires make mistakes (but not as many as we think, and I agree with the article that we don’t need an instant replay in baseball), but this one was just unacceptable. He made the right call, and then got faked out by the batter, essentially. I think all the credit for the White Sox win belongs to Pierzynski. This map is hilarious. The whole country (hell, the whole world) except for Illinois think the blame for the Angels loss lies with the umpire. Illinois thinks it lies with the catcher for not tagging the batter out. After the home plate umpire called him out.
Whatever. Just crazy.
House
Alrighty, on to my house. It’s finally coming together, with just a little work left to do. The painters did a good job, once they finally did it right. The wiring is good, and the lighting is awesome. The wired in-wall speaker setup is very cool. The carpets were steam cleaned, and now I have to vacuum every day for a week or two and get the newly hatched fleas before they lay more eggs. Without a pet, I should be able to take care of this and not have them come back.
While the electricians were working, some of the ductwork in the attic got detached, so I had someone come in to fix it. He said he wouldn’t, because all the ducts had asbestos in them. Not good. According to this, an asbestos inspection isn’t required in California for a home purchase. I called the inspector, and he said as long as it’s non-friable, he doesn’t see any need to mention it. This needs to be changed. It’s definitely the kind of thing I would have wanted to know before buying. It wouldn’t have stopped me, but I could have at least factored in the cost of getting them removed, tested, and replaced. Or even had the sellers pay for that, possibly. I don’t think I’m in any danger, because the guy who did the removal said it was all self contained and not airborne. I still wanted it out of my house. I wonder how I go about getting the law changed so there needs to be an asbestos inspection before purchase.
There are a few other little things to do, like put exhaust vents in the attic and vent the fans from the bathrooms through the roof instead of just into the attic. I haven’t done anything with landscaping the backyard, or getting a sprinkler system put in yet, but I’m not really in a hurry for those things. I want to really start unpacking and getting more furniture now.
Fuck AIM
Not only is my AIM account still suspended, but I can’t even get them to respond to me. I’ve filled out the form at http://www.aim.com/suspended_account/report.adp a million times, and they won’t even e-mail me back telling me why my account is blocked. No response at all. Anyone who’s using AIM Mail should take this as a warning: Your account can get suspended and you’ll have absolutely no recourse. You’ll probably lose all your mail. I did manage to get an email reply from webmaster@aol.com, but AIM and AOL are different services, so they couldn’t help me. webmaster@aim.com got no response. If I didn’t know so many people on AIM, I’d probably drop it altogether and switch to something like Google Talk. I have created a new AIM account. If I was on your list, I haven’t contacted you, and you want to know my new screen name, send me an email. I’m still trying to get my old account back, but I have no hope that I’ll actually succeed. If anyone has any recommendations on what to try or who to contact, let me know.
Other Stuff
I went to a Green Day concert in LA Saturday. It was very good. I took a picture. That’s it, can’t think of anything else.
|
All content Copyright © 2002-2009 Alan Penner Powered byWordPress, Penner Hosting and Superb Internet |
 penner42 |
Redistribution is permitted under the terms of this Creative Commons License |