scooby doo

An overnight news report stated that the Mystery Machine van was found totaled on the side of I-90 in southern Minnesota. There have not been any reported injuries or deaths since no passengers have been found. 4 sets of footprints were discovered in the snow near the scene of the accident. The news report claimed that when the emergency response crews followed these footprints, they were lead to a dead-end and the footprints simply disappeared. The news reporter also asked all viewers with any information on this accident to please call a telephone number that was displayed on the television screen.

Bug clicked off the television sometime around 3:30 in the morning. He was curious about the disappearance of the Scooby Doo team, but he also was not positive that what he was watching was reality. Bug hadn’t paid a cable bill in months and his television wasn’t actually even plugged in so it’s possible that he made the whole news report up. To verify the authenticity of the news report, he decided to call the phone number he wrote down on his notepad that was flashed across the TV. When he dialed, he was greeted with a friendly voice of someone saying they were with the Minnesota State Police.

“I’m calling about the Mystery Machine van accident”

“Please hold.”

Bug held.

A few minutes later a new voice appeared on the telephone. At the same time, Bug had returned on the television and was watching a documentary about Gandhi.

“This is Sheriff Bill Sanders”

Bug coughed. “Oh, hi. Did the Mystery Machine van really crash tonight?”

“It did. Do you have any information on this accident?”

Bug looked at his watch. It was now 3:30 in the morning still. His watch had broken about 8 months ago but Bug had never bothered getting the watch fixed. It was sunny outside. “No, not really. I think it is a tragedy though.” Bug had no idea why he said this.

“Well, thanks for the phone call. Please keep us posted if you hear anything, Bug”.

Bug stared at the phone in horror when he heard Sheriff Bill Sanders call him by his name. He didn’t remember telling the operator his name. And he was calling from a phone that was not connected to an actual telephone number since Bug never paid for a phone service…also the phone was also not really even plugged in. Bug slammed the phone down and ran outside. Since the sun was out, Bug decided it was time to fix his watch. But first he decided it was time to water the flowers. He went to the hose, turned on the faucet, directed the nozzle in the direction of the plants, and pulled the trigger.

jort party early invite

Follow the leader

“If I was one to make New Year’s resolutions, I’d probably make a resolution to stop getting in fist fights” Bill thought as he smashed Bug in the face with his right elbow. Bug shook the blow off and countered with a left fist into Bill’s ear which knocked Bill to the ground for a few moments. On the ground Bill thought “Good thing I don’t make New Year’s resolutions”, pushed himself up to his feet after first completing a perfect forward-roll, and then smashed Bug’s face with a quick left followed by a quick right. Bug was done. As Bug fell to the ground, the cop sirens were heard in the distance which caused Bill to take off in a sprint down the alley.

The alley greeted Bill with a dead end. “Not again” Bill thought as the sounds of the police got louder. Figuring that his only chance to avoid dealing with the cops was to climb up the fire escape, Bill decided to climb up the fire escape. Bill gracefully ascended as the cop cars pulled up to the scene of the fight. Bug was slowly pulling himself up from the gutter and Bill heard Bug tell the cops that it was Bill again. “Don’t worry, we’ll get Bill” the fat cops told Bug and then they took off past the alley. “Idiots” Bill thought as he climbed through the window of someone’s apartment.

That someone was not there.

Christmas traditionz

As I get older, it seems that Christmas (and holidays in general) is getting stranger and stranger to me. While I may be having a harder time with understanding the concept of how buying stuff for people who probably don't need anything relates to Christmas, there are still a bunch of traditions that I can appreciate. The traditions that I can appreciate and the ones that I think Jesus would rep include getting together with family, buying toys for kids, drinking Egg Nog, following the Hot Stove blog on mlb.com and falling down on the ice. While these traditions are all good and fun, I now would like to share with you my favourite Christmas tradition! My new favourite Christmas tradition is the annual burning of the Swedish Christmas straw goat!

As reported by BBC.com, the Swedish town of Gavle has constructed a 43 foot high straw goat every Christmas season since 1966. After the goat is constructed, the fun begins as the good citizens of Gavle do what they can to try and prevent Swedish Grinches from burning the goat down. The grinches have been successful 24 times since 1966, including this year. BBC highlights some of the more interesting assassinations and they are as follows:

1966: The first goat is burned down - beginning the tradition

1970: It is set on fire six hours after being erected (author's note: was it an inside job?!)

1976: A car crashes into the goat

1979: Goat is burned down before it is finished (author's note: well played)

1987: Goat is treated with fire-proofing, but is still burned down

2001: Tourist from Cleveland, Ohio is jailed for burning goat (author's note: Cleveland!)

2005: Two men dressed as Santa and Gingerbread Man torch goat


The Swedish Christmas straw goat captured this year's burning in its blog:

"Terrible night! Slept so well under my beautiful snow blanket, when it suddenly became awfully hot. It was fire!!! At 0300 someone managed to set me on fire and destroy the amazing Christmas spirit in Gavle." (http://merjuligavle.blogspot.com/)

Better luck next year, good citizens of Gavle! I look forward to see how the events unfold in 2010. Perhaps one year my family and I will visit your goat and do what we can to protect it from the evil Swedish grinches and tourists from Cleveland.

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8428650.stm

The Worst Companion Trade in the History of Professional Sports

Yesterday, December 16, 2009, the Philadelphia Phillies, Seattle Mariners, and Toronto Blue Jays finalized two trades that made the Blue Jays better in the future, made the Mariners better in the present, and ensured the Phillies will be exactly the same for the next couple of years. For the Blue Jays, their involvement was a no-brainer, for the Mariners it is a slight, but respectable, risk, and for the Phillies it is completely confusing.

The companion trade consisted of Toronto sending Roy Halladay to the Phillies for four minor league prospects including Kyle Drabek, while Philadelphia sent Cliff Lee to the Mariners for three minor league prospects. I’d name the other prospects involved if I felt that it had any relevance, but I’m not going to pretend I know anything about the Phillies or Mariners farm system. In case you were not familiar with what a companion trade is, don’t be embarrassed neither did anybody before this week. Kurpel defines a companion trade as “two completely separate deals that the Philadelphia Phillies front office felt had to be completed on the same day.”

When news first broke out that the three teams completed a trade that involved Halladay going to Philadelphia and Lee going to Seattle, it seemed like a great trade for all teams involved. Halladay was willing to negotiate a contract extension before the 2010 season with the Phillies, which was something that was perhaps not possible with Lee. Lee would then go to Seattle and help solidify their staff behind Felix Hernandez and go forward with their plan to go all-out in 2010. The Blue Jays would then receive the Mariners prospects and begin rebuilding their franchise. It seemed like one of those rare three-team trades that benefitted all involved, similar to the Yankees-Tigers-Diamondbacks trade completed earlier this off-season. However there was one problem…Toronto didn’t want the Mariners prospects…they wanted Drabek. And as a result, the companion trade was born!

The Roy Halladay trade should be considered the “win-win” half of the companion trade. Toronto is not likely to make the playoffs this year and there was a 103% chance that Halladay was not going to resign with the team. They wouldn’t have traded Halladay to the Phillies unless they received Kyle Drabek in return, and they eventually got their wish. In return, the Phillies got a star pitcher that also agreed to a contract extension. In addition, they were able to get 6 million from Toronto which will reduce Halladay’s 2009 salary from 15 million to 9 million. The significance of this is it gave them an opportunity to be able to afford Cliff Lee for one year which would give them a 2010 starting rotation of Roy Halladay-Cliff Lee-Cole Hamels-JA Happ-Jamie Moyer (ugh). Joe Blanton would need to be traded to make financial space for this rotation, but that is a casualty that would be understood by the entire baseball-watching population. Since the Phillies opted to extend Roy Halladay, it is very unlikely that the Phillies would be able to retain Lee after the 2010 season. Still, the team is so strong offensively, that Lee and Halladay together in the same staff would all but guarantee a third straight trip to the World Series…the only way I think they miss out is if one of them or Ryan Howard has a season-ending injury. A starting rotation fronted by Lee and Halladay would give them an advantage against all American League teams except perhaps the Red Sox. However, the Phillies offense as of today is significantly better than that of the Red Sox, so the fact that the Red Sox front 4 is better than that of the Phillies front 4, would be evened out by the Phillies better lineup. This option I’m sure was weighed by the Phillies front office, but in the end shot down. Instead the Phillies thought it was necessary to move Lee to replenish their farm system.

Lee to the Mariners is a risky move since Seattle was not exactly a World Series contender last year. It is possible that they only will get Lee for one year, so if they don’t make the playoffs this year, the trade will be viewed as a failure. The Mariners are in division that inexplicably only contains 4 teams (while the NL Central has 6…all the rest have 5) so on the surface they have a 25% chance every year of winning their division (actually it’s a 50% chance, but that’s another blog). For this reason, it is a risk that I can respect. The Mariners main competition, the Angels, are having a terrible off-season as they have lost their number one pitcher to the Red Sox and their starting third baseman to the Mariners. Also, the Mariners might not be able to keep their best player, starting pitcher Felix Hernandez, for much longer, so it makes sense to go all-out now. A starting rotation with Hernandez-Lee as the first two should be considered the best in baseball, slightly ahead of Lincecum-Cain. While their offense isn’t great, it is better with the addition of Chone Figgins, and it should be enough to get them to at least compete for a playoff spot. Once in the playoffs, the 1-2 of Hernandez and Lee should be enough to get to the ALCS.

For the Phillies, this half of the companion trade is a complete disaster. The only way this can be viewed as a success is if the Phillies win the World Series in 2010 or if Cliff Lee ends up missing the entire season due to an injury. While you can’t root for the latter to happen, it basically comes down to the Phillies needing to win this year to justify this trade. If they don’t, there always will be the “what if” hanging over the 2010 Phillies season. If they couldn’t afford both Lee and Halladay in the rotation, that would be one thing. However, Lee and Halladay together will cost $18 million in 2010. By himself Halladay will cost at least $20 million by himself in 2011. Having the opportunity to have two Cy Young award winners on your staff for one season that will cost cheaper than both of them will cost individually in 2011 to me is a no-brainer. You trade Joe Blanton, and you go for it…an opportunity like this will never happen again. If you argue that Cole Hamels could one day be a Cy Young award winner, then you have just thrown away the possibility of having three Cy Young award winners on the same staff.

The Phillies General Manager and Team President justified trading Lee to the Mariners as a way to replenish their farm system, because they want to create a team that will be competitive for many years. It’s hard to argue this point, because you do want to set up a team that is competitive year in and year out. The way the Phillies are set up, they are not going to be able to keep all their offensive players together for that many years longer. Eventually they are going to lose a Jason Werth or a Ryan Howard to a team with deeper pockets (not the Pirates). In that respect, perhaps it is good to trade Lee at this point, since they will only get two compensation draft picks if they lose him to free agency at the end of the season. However, the players that they received from Seattle were not good enough to complete a trade for Roy Halladay, so why should the Phillies settle on a weaker package for Cliff Lee? Cliff Lee and Roy Halladay are similar in age and it is tough to argue who is the better of the two. While you can say Halladay has done more over his career, you can argue that Lee has fewer innings pitched and he has also proved himself in the postseason (he DOMINATED the 2009 postseason…and his WS game 1 start against the Yankees had Jayson Start ranking it in the top 10 best pitched World Series games of all time). If anything, you could perhaps demand more for Lee, because Philadelphia was not as desperate as Toronto to get something, and Lee has better recent year stats. Instead the Phillies decided to rush the trade because they didn’t want to lead on Philadelphia Phillies fans on and think they were going to have a very affordable 2010 rotation fronted by Cliff Lee and Roy Halladay. Making the trades seem necessary to be completed together is a complete lie, because there was no need to rush the Cliff Lee deal. Phillies fans would eventually understand if you waited a couple weeks to trade Lee for better prospects and perhaps a player that could fill in a bullpen spot this year. There is no reason to think that the Angels would not make a serious push to get Cliff Lee since their star pitcher just went to Boston. Also if you felt the need to make a trade right away, there is no reason that Joe Blanton could not have been traded for one of those Mariners’ prospects. Then with the two compensation picks you receive when Lee leaves via free agency after the season, you have three comparable minor leaguers (if not better) to those that you just received in the Lee trade.

The way the Phillies rotation shapes up now in 2010, you have Halladay-Hamels-Blanton-Happ-Moyer/Kendrick. This rotation does not make them a lock to achieve anything, since the Braves staff is better and the Mets still have Johan Santana. In addition, the Phillies were afraid to use Blanton and Happ in regular starting roles in the postseason, Moyer is like a billion, and Hamels nearly gave up last season. I still think Hamels can be great, but it is still too big of a what-if at this point.

I do not believe that there can be any argument justifying the trading of Cliff Lee to the Mariners. This will go down as the absolute worst companion trade in the history of professional sports…although I guess it also will go down as the best companion trade since I can’t remember any others.

Octopus

Too busy to blog today. Here's something necessary to watch:

it’s colder on the moon>

Isle of Man

it’s colder on the moon>

woke up to the sounds coming from a toy piano…
which was odd because I wasn’t aware of owning any toy pianos…
so I followed my ears to the source.

I opened the cupboard door because the chilly fog coming from it had music note cut-outs within it. That was a good sign.

Sticking my damn head within the upper shelves of the cupboard was how I became aware of the little door behind the never-used plates. Seeing as how I was much too large for a tiny little door I decided to climb completely onto the top shelf so I could position my eye for a better view knocking over everything in the process.

Resting completely up top, I quietly used my teeth to open the door knob, careful not to disturb the concentration of the tiny toy pianist. When the door was opened, I was blinded by light forcing me to fall face first into the waiting fists of the kitchen floor below. The blows left me unconscious for a while…

...when I came through the flight attendant was sternly reminding everyone that tampering with the lavatories’ smoke detectors would result in 3 weeks of manual labour.

travel by Zhu Zhu

Tórshavn, Faroe Islands.



With the road forked ahead, I became overwhelmed due to the fact I am forced to make a decision. Do I turn around and head back or do I stay where I am and take a nap? A third option, the option I end up choosing, is to chop down a tree with the axe I happened to be carrying. With the lumber I have made, I build a night club because "if you build it, he will come" is more than a quote from a Kevin Costner movie. I work through the night and am finished by day. I wait but no one comes. The sun reminds me it is early, so I take a swim in the pond found at the bottom of the hill. While floating on my back, I gaze back to where I came from and notice the figure frantically waving. I paddle furiously (casually) back to the shore and run up the hill to the figure. I am too late. The night club has been burned to the ground. The figure that called me is nowhere to be found, so I decide to pick up my axe and walk forward.

car wash

the line at the car wash was long as you probably could imagine since it was the dirtiest day of the year. being the driver with the biggest truck is advantageous at times like these because all i had to do to move to the front of the line was to stomp on the gas pedal like it was an unwanted spider. as i rolled over civic after civic i was met with many-a-honking-horns and twice as many fists-a-waving. “don’t blame it on me, blame it on the economy” i slurred into my megaphone.

at the front of the line, the order-taker guy asked what i wanted and i said “gimme the deluxe”. “with the tire shine?” “with the tire shine” i nodded like i was real excited about the tire shine. i nodded like i owned the tire shine. “i come here for the tire shine” i bellowed into the guys left ear. he checked off the tire shine check box and told me to bring the ticket into the register.

i walked into the office and was met with another line of angry moms and sort of drunk grandfathers. since i was not safely inside the world’s largest truck i was forced to wait my turn in the dirtiest line on the dirtiest day of the year. i peered through the glass as my truck made its way through the warsh. it acted like it was the first snow fall of the year. i turned my head away from the glass and realized it was my turn to pay. “31 dollars please” the tiny woman shouted while bashing away at the cash register like she was real close to winning hungry hungry hippos. i gave her 30 and told her to keep the change. she laughed when she realize i ripped her off but she didn’t ask for the missing dollar. if she did i would have pulled it out from behind her right ear like i was the cleverest uncle in the entire youkneeverse. i grabbed the receipt and crawled outside to wait for the truck.

the truck stampeded out of the car wash like a giant pile of mud and it waited for the dryer dudes to do their drying. as the vultures made their way with their raggedy ol towels, i noticed the tire shiners approaching the tires with their tiny pales of armor-all. one tire shiner for the front left, one for the front right, one for the back left, and one for the…there was no one else.