That's it? We trade Manny for a bucket of balls?

So we give up Manny, plus cash to cover his salary, a mixed-up reliever with potential closer's stuff (Craig Hansen), and a projected third outfielder (Damien Brandon Moss) for ONLY Jason Bay?

There had better be more to this deal than this, or else the Sox just hosed themselves because they couldn't handle a little whining. Good grief.

Good God, kids are evil

I was sitting under a pavillion on Revere beach, having finished work
for the day. I've got nothing to do, so I kind of zoned out for a bit.

Out of nowhere there's a flash in front of me. Some kid is hauling ass
on his bike and jumps the four steps at the end of the pavillion.

He missed, spectacularly. The bike landed, pitched and twisted right,
tossing him left. He landed on hus arm and ass.

I sat up, startled, and started to stand to to see if he needed any
help. He was alert, but just sort of lying there.

That's when his friends started to laugh at him. He quickly popped up
and did that thing where you're laughing, too, but are so totally in
pain. He mumbled something about the steps being high as the girls
were still cackling, and his older buddy recreated the landing.

Good times.

Vegans and Honey: A winning combination?

My friend Nicole (happy birthday, by the way!) was a vegan before most of anyone had even heard of the word. But she eats honey. I asked her, years ago, why she thought it was OK to eat honey. Her response?

"Fuck the Bees."

Well, Slate published an article today that sort of agrees with her. As my four loyal readers know, I'm no fan of bees, so enjoy that golden sticky goodness.

I Was Cut Off By Whistler's Mother

You know how sometimes you can tell when a fellow driver is gonna be a problem? Today was one of those days.

I was coming down the American Legion Highway in Revere when I saw mid-80’s shit brown Chevy Celebrity with its right blinker on, tailing an oil truck. I knew without seeing the driver that he or she was old. I knew that he or she was about to become a problem when the blinker turned off.



Her car (right lane, now next to mine) started to lurch towards me. I hit my horn. She looked at me, and I could now see that she was ancient. I mean, older than anyone I’ve ever seen try to drive a car in my life. She clearly saw my car next to hers. She didn’t stop. I slammed on the brakes, and she glided in front of my car with about two feet to spare.



Then she stopped. At a green light. On a highway.



Apparently, she wanted to turn left, but didn’t make it to the turn lane. She just stopped in front of me, next to the turn lane. I hit my horn. Several others behind me followed suit. She wouldn’t move.



After about 15 seconds of sitting at a dead stop in the middle of the highway, she cut her wheel and inched toward the turn lane. Then stopped. Then inched up again. Finally, there was enough space and I pull around her and shot down the road.



When I looked back, I could see she hadn’t stopped. She was now trying to plow through the opposing traffic to make it onto Revere Street. All I could see were taillights flashing and bumpers rising abruptly, trying to pull their cars to a stop.



I hope she made it to wherever she was going, and I hope her car immediately exploded after letting her out, like in the Blues Brothers.

I would happily pay more in gas tax if we could have a reliable shuttle service for seniors who can no longer drive.

Hooray Public Health Care!

Health Care for America NOW! is an advocacy group that wants to introduce public insurance as an option in America. It's what works in the rest of the world, and it's time to try it here. That'll require a change in law, which means it'll take some serious leadership (Read: A new presidident who's open to new ideas, and a Congress interested in solving the problem). In the meantime, it's decided that a little humor can go a long way in framing the issue. Slate has a short and good primer about how the HCFAN and the private insurance comanies are lining up for this fight.

But it's the right plan. Private Insurers rail against socialized medicine and say the market is the answer, so why not put the theory to the market test: Offer all americans the chance to keep their current insurance, try another private insurer, or sign up for public insurance, and see which one wins out. Public insurance plans, like Medicare, are famously more efficient and result in lower health costs for it's clients. Maybe that'll force Blue Cross and the rest to finally pony up and take care fo their customers. And it not, no problem. We'll have an alternative other than our employer's choice for our health care.

The Meanest Thing I've Said All Year

About a friend of a friend of a friend, and is best taken out of context:

"Lesbian or not, that's a hard face to look at in the morning."

OMG, Human Trebuchet!

How much would you pay to do this? I say I'd go $100, easily.

(h/t: Deadspin, via Weird Asia News)

Jeter Sucks: The Statistical Inquiry

I'm not saying Derek Jeter sucks. Science is saying Derek Jeter sucks:

"...Jensen's methods ("for each grounder ball-in-play—g-bip—we have the—x,y—coordinates in the field where the g-bip was fielded" and on and on) are grounded in the familiar language of the sabermetric literature. Mostly, though, the paper didn't provoke much intrigue because Jeter's badness is already an axiom of said literature. In fact, debunking the conventional wisdom about the Yankee captain's fielding prowess has become a standard method of proving the validity of a new fielding statistic. That places Derek Jeter at the frontier of new baseball research."

Dancing = Happy

Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.


I know, I know, things on the Internet are offically over once the New York Times sinks its teeth into them, but I stumbled onto this video last night, and I still wanted to share it. I don't know why this makes me so happy, but it does. Enjoy.

But it was only a fever...

Maybe everyone already knows about this, but check out this online version of Oregon Trail. It's like fifth grade never ended.

Meanest. Brother. Ever.

Holy cow, this kid is evil. Funny, but evil.
(h/t: guzer.com)

The New England Aquarium: Biting Ideas from the Web

The New England Aquarium got a nice boost from the Boston Globe today. The paper wrote a short article touting the fish house's new ad campaign, which adds shark-y elements to some of Boston's landmarks, like sharp teeth to the Hatch Shell. Other elements include fake youtube videos of a shark chasing a duck boat.



Clever, right? Not so much.



The teeth ad here:

Is a total rip-off of omnomnomnom.com, a Web site devoted to putting teeth into regular photos, like this:

I realize ad agencies will routinely steal ideas and gags from people all the time. But I think it's a shame the Globe would highlight this campaign as being especially creative without mentioning where the Aquarium got the idea. To be generous, the ad agency have come up with this on their own. But the similarities are striking.



And also, what's up, Globe? Have you really been reduced to writing briefs about ad campaigns? Were you really that swayed by the press release? What's next, a ribbon-cutting at a new Arby's?