Crow: It's What's For Dinner

I have eaten crow tonight, and it tastes like chicken.

My Thanksgiving feast of crow was eaten in honor of Megan, a classmate of Emily. I spent quite a bit of time on her blog last spring saying how she was crazy to think the Red Sox (or any team for that matter) could contend with the Yankees after the Yanks got Alex Rodriguez from the Rangers.

Well, it turns out I was wrong. I don't know what's more unbelievable: that I'm admitting just how wrong I was or that Boston came back and won this series.

In my defense, I did say the X factor would be injuries, and that the Red Sox could get past the Yanks if they stayed healthier than the Yanks.

Well that didn't happen, both teams had major players with major injuries or mystery steroid related illnesses. But the Red Sox, in part, were the better team because they overcame their injuries. One name: Curt Schilling. And in the Yankee dugout, Jason Giambi's absence suddenly became very noticable in games 5, 6, and 7. Steroids or no steroids, this was a guy who could get on base better (in terms of walks and singles) than any other power hitter in the Yankee line-up. The outcome may had been different if Giambi played. But as I have said before, part of being a good athlete is being a healthy athlete. The Red Sox won this thing fair and square and it is pretty awesome.

I still think the Cy Young should go to Johan Santana, but the Sportsman of the Year for all sports should go to Schilling. If his performance in game 6 (bloody sock and sutchered tendons included) were actually in a Disney movie, we'd all be rolling our eyes at the melodrama and lack of realism in the movie. But there was no Hollywood bullshit to the way he pitched last night. Amazing.

And I thought Josh Beckett and the Florida Marlins made for a magical post-season last year. What we have seen (in both the NL and AL) so far has been memorable to sayt the least. And we haven't even made it to the World Series. You can't make it up.

Growing up I had three favorite teams: the Astros (especially when Nolan Ryan was on the team), the Cardinals, and the Red Sox. I'm shitting you negative. While all three teams still have a special place in my heart, I can't say I am really all that fired up that all of my former teams are still in the hunt. I've become that big of a Twins fan; I just can't throw my allegience over to another team. That being said, I think I'd like to see the Red Sox win it all. Hell, is there anyone outside of the Bronx who doesn't?

Do You Want Fries With Your Cheerios?

Ten years ago I was mocking the idea that people would actually spend two dollars for a freaking bottle of water.

Well, the owners of Cereality Cereal Bar and Cafe must be delighted that their business idea is the dumbest idea since bottled water: a restaurant that specializes in cereal. This means they are destined to be millionaires for sure. And in the interest of full discosure, while I have purchased less than 10 bottles of water in my life (mostly only when I had no other choice), I wouldn't mind checking Cereality at least once.

Click here to go to their website.

No word yet if they do Happy Meals. But if they do, I am sure the free toy will be the Pet Rock, the original product based on the business philosophy that there is a sucker born every minute.

Those Crazy South Minneapolis Liberals...

...have the money to go with their social conscience. Now they have a 527 and an anti-Bush ad to boot.

Click here to go to Georgethemenace.org to see their ad and their website, or click here to read the whole story (I have included the first few paragraphs of the story below). Their ad is worth looking at. It's clever, but I can't say that furthers, much less opens, the dialogue that has been closed between the red and blue camps over the past 36 months.

From Minnesota Public Radio.org:

Minneapolis, Minn. — Had a handful of south Minneapolis neighbors simply gotten the Kerry-Edwards campaign yard signs they'd asked for this summer, they say they would not have ending up producing their own TV commercial.

Kelley Garry-Marschall came up with the idea while taking a walk around the neighborhood about a month ago.

"I think we were all just really frustrated by the way the whole campaign was shaking out. We wanted to do something because we felt like some issues weren't being addressed," she said.

What Garry-Marschall and a dozen friends came up with is a scathing 30-second attack on the Bush administration's war on terrorism.

The spot features archival videotape of Osama bin Laden, flanked by a few supporters, making an announcement in a desolate countryside somewhere, presumably in Afghanistan.

The fictitious translation has a street slang-speaking bin Laden crediting President Bush for bolstering his terror network.

"Those prison photos sent recruitment through the roof. Give it up for George W. Bush, the best friend international jihad ever had," the "translator" in the ad says.

Psssst.. Bush Was Wired... Pass It On

I have no idea if this is true or not (let's just say I wouldn't be shocked), but it is a compelling story.

From Salon.com. Click here for the whole story.

Bush's mystery bulge
The rumor is flying around the globe. Was the president wired during the first debate?

By Dave Lindorff

Oct. 8, 2004  |  Was President Bush literally channeling Karl Rove in his first debate with John Kerry? That's the latest rumor flooding the Internet, unleashed last week in the wake of an image caught by a television camera during the Miami debate. The image shows a large solid object between Bush's shoulder blades as he leans over the lectern and faces moderator Jim Lehrer.

The president is not known to wear a back brace, and it's safe to say he wasn't packing. So was the bulge under his well-tailored jacket a hidden receiver, picking up transmissions from someone offstage feeding the president answers through a hidden earpiece? Did the device explain why the normally ramrod-straight president seemed hunched over during much of the debate?

Bloggers are burning up their keyboards with speculation. Check out the president's peculiar behavior during the debate, they say. On several occasions, the president simply stopped speaking for an uncomfortably long time and stared ahead with an odd expression on his face. Was he listening to someone helping him with his response to a question? Even weirder was the president's strange outburst. In a peeved rejoinder to Kerry, he said, "As the politics change, his positions change. And that's not how a commander in chief acts. I, I, uh -- Let me finish -- The intelligence I looked at was the same intelligence my opponent looked at." It must be said that Bush pointed toward Lehrer as he declared "Let me finish." The green warning light was lit, signaling he had 30 seconds to, well, finish...

The whole story is worth reading. The part about Bush having his own frequency experts is a little creepy.

Baseblogs

The Minneapolis Star-Tribune ran a good story a few days ago about the best Twins blogs on the web. Suffice to say, mine is not featured. But it's a story worth reading.

Click here to read the story.

In the meantime, Emily and I got very lucky and landed some tickets for tomorrow night's game.

WIN TWINS!!!

An A.M. Dial Full of Brain Surgeons

There are a lot of things I would be terrible at. A brain surgeon. A rocket scientist. A manager of a major league baseball team. And this is what drives me crazy about rabid sports fans. They act like they could run a pro sports team better than the guys who get six figures to just that. For the past 24 hours KFAN and WCCO has been plauged by callers criticizing Gardenhire for leaving Joe Nathan in for a third inning last night.

Gardenhire says now he may have left Nathan in too long, but this is all in hindsight. And it's not even talk show listeners that are guilty of thinking they know more about a team and its players than the manager does. Even King Kaufman, whose job is to write about every single mainstream sport, thinks he could have done a better job last night than Gardenhire, whose job is to oversee the Twins every single day. But somehow Kaufman thinks he can manage Joe Nathan better than Gardie can, even though Kaufman is lucky if he has even met Nathan, let alone coached him on a daily basis. Click here for his story, which includes a decent synapse of last night's nail-biter for those of you who don't know that the Yankees beat the Twins in 12 innings.

Gardenhire had a tough call to make and it's easy to say he ended up making the wrong choice. But we have no idea how things could have turned out if he went another direction. Jesse Crain is a rookie and JC Romero is a head case. He could use one of those guys or bring Mullholland or Loshe out of the bullpen, a role they are not familiar with. These are all unappealing options. A 12 inning game is a war of attrition, and the Yankees just happen to have more fire power. It may not have mattered who Gardenhire threw out there to face the meat of the Yankees' line-up.

WIN TWINS!!!!

@&^@#@!?$*! The Yankees!!!!

oh yeah, and go edwards

Tonight I'm bringing our TV down from the bedroom and putting it next to the den TV. Sad but true. So now I can watch the debate (with the sound on) and watch Johan Santana kick the Yankees' ass (with the volume down).

To summarize,

WIN TWINS!!!

Drink Socially.
Drink Responsibly.

Now you can kill two birds with one stone and drink socially responsibly.

I owe this knowledge to a friend of ours (who may remain anonymous if s/he desires) who helped organize a fundraiser (Jazztoberfest) that we were invited to tonight.

We ate some food while a band played that was a cross between the soundtrack of The Triplets of Belleville and The Sweeny Sisters, from Saturday Night Live in the 1980s.

But what I came away with from the evening is the knowledge that Finnegan's Beer is the only beer in the country solely produced for charitable purposes. The beer company states that 100% of the profits go to charity.

Click here to learn more. The close reader will also see a link on this website to Jazztoberfest if you are dying to know more about how I spent my Sunday night.

The kicker is Finnegan's is brewed at the Summit Brewery in St. Paul, which (as of a year ago) is the only local brewery that uses wooden pallets in the stockroom that are certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). The FSC oversees responsible management of the world's forests. Click here to learn how Summit got the FSC's stamp of approval.

So even if you're drinking alone or drinking to excess, when you drink Finnegan's, you are always drinking socially responsibly.

Life From the Sidelines

The Twin Cities Marathon went right by our house (actually within half a mile), and Emily and I made great spectators. I am hoping to find a fun summer marathon to do and right now am leaning toward San Diego in June of 2005.

In the meantime, this was by far the most politcal marathon I have ever seen. If the election were held today and it was decided by how many marathoners wore Kerry or Bush stickers, Kerry would have won by 100%, which qualifies as a landslide.

There's a national group of runners who have mobilized against Bush. The group is Run Against Bush and they have clubs throughout the country. They also have a blog ( click here to see it).

Anyway, I don't know if this group handed out Kerry stickers to anyone who wanted them at the start, or if the Kerry campaign itself had the foresight to do it. Either way it was really cool to see all these pro-Kerry runners on the course with zero visibility for Bush.

So today was doubly inspiring. It gave me some momentum to keep training even as it gets cold and it encouraged me to think that Kerry may have a shot to win afterall.

I'm George W. Bush and I Approve of this Congressman

More on DeLay from Salon.com.

Click here to remember what a weasel this guy and is. And if you still aren't sure he needs more than the verbal admonishment congress just gave him, click here.

Trent Lott praises the Dixiecrats and is (rightfully) politically neutered. Yet DeLay commits ethics violations and probably breaks a few laws and still is choc-full-o-politcal-testosterone and Majority Leader of the House. Unbelievable.