29 September 2010

The birds aren't here, because I can't hear them. I am thinking about myself, they should know that, not clear on what they know, not because I have to, because I want to, now that is, it is too late for the birds, their ideas, I am not ready for them, especially here. Where are the birds?

19 comments:

Ian Keenan said...

now I hear one

Ian Keenan said...

one of the reasons I like the rain is that I can't take the laptop outside with me, even though I have an emergency drill for when the rain starts unexpectedly. Actually I see it might rain soon

Ryan W. said...

This seems prescient in light of the birds' performance yesterday.

Ian Keenan said...

The Skins OL, considered to be the weak link of either team, was the only unit that played well on either team

Slave Revolt said...

Fuck the birds.

Send in the clowns, bro.

Ian Keenan said...

S, If I see clowns back here I'll let you know

Ryan W. said...

The birds looked good yesterday. It's tough to beat a desperate team on the road, and the birds did that. I don't know who their 2nd best QB is, but he's much better than any other team's 2nd best QB. LeSean is the best RB in the division. I think they lose to the Falcons next week, tho. I think Dallas is 1-4 after next week.

Ian Keenan said...

Maybe Vick can get his cartilage together before the Oct 19th trading deadline, as Kolb is working cheap for two years after a huge signing bonus due to cap rules, he'd be a good guy to trade for, oh, you already have an Eagles QB, forgot..

Ian Keenan said...

Speaking of sports, I wrote a draft about Halliday right after the no hitter but I didn't feel like rewriting it... I didn't actually watch the game..

Then there's weighing in on the "fiction hot topics" Ian weighs in on the "fiction hot topics" the Franzen buzz and then the Vargas Llosa Nobel.. started both for the ol' blog but got sidetracked from the "fiction hot topics" the Vargas Llosa would be a more interesting "fiction hot topic" since I don't really read Franzen that often, except react to his statements about fiction, but to be fair to Vargas Llosa's fiction I'd need to go back to it, and I'd rather read who he's copying/ pastiching/ influenced by.. but there are some angles from here you can't get anywhere else.. "hot topics"

Ian Keenan said...

I'm really glad I pried myself from baseball to hit the incredible reading by Swedish poets Jorgen Gassilewski and Anna Hallberg in Philly which will become a highly recommended PennSound download soon. I didn't think to put the game on while driving there in the early innings, but had the Princeton rock format on while I was deep in my driving-induced hypnosis. I knew only that Shane Victorino had stolen third and had been sacrificed home, and that Roy Halladay had gone 1-2-3 without a K in the first. Afterwards in the car the radio came on to Jon Soloman's rock show and he said, “you might be excited about something that might happen, but turn the sound down and listen to my show while you watch something that might happen.” I thought he was talking about the road to the World Series, as since there hasn't been a post-season no-hitter in my lifetime that's not something I anticipate. I switched to the game and there was one out in the ninth. I drove aimlessly in North Philly as I sometimes do and when the third out came I was fist pumping to the lumpens sitting out in the dark who seemed to have no idea there was a game going on. Overall a prefect way for me to take it all in, since the ballpark doesn't have Swedish poets reading in between innings.

Money has ruined baseball in the Bud Selig era: one example being that those who don't pay for TV don't watch half the playoffs. Every once in a while in the overpriced, taxpayer financed mall-parks with naming rights sold every couple of years there's a guy like Roy Halladay taking the mound. The exceptional analysis of the Halladay-Lee deal by Joe Sheehan in Baseball Prospectus made an interesting case: No one in the history of professional sports gave up more money for purely sentimental reasons, because he wanted to come to Philly and win here:

Halladay’s contract is so far removed from his market value that it looks like an error. Remember, he had to approve not only the contract, but the trade to the Phillies that precipitated it. He made the choice that he wanted to be with the Phillies so much—and wanted to be with them immediately so much—that it was worth it to him to leave $60 million, $80 million, maybe $100 million unclaimed.... I don’t judge him for it, but I do think we should all be stunned by how much money this man left on the table. There is no precedent for it in sports.

Of course, as Sheehan noted, the Phillies responded in a way local fans know well: “Roy Halladay just left $60 million on the table to come to Philadelphia. The Phillies couldn’t leave $9 million (for Cliff Lee's last contract year) on it in pursuit of putting him on the best team in baseball?...To trade away Cliff Lee in a blatant money move is utterly ridiculous under those circumstances, and worse still, turns the Roy Halladay trade into little more than a minor upgrade.” Trading Lee on the exact same day as the Halladay acquisition is one of those only-in-Philly cases of media cycle management.. had they waited to dump Lee for third-rate prospects it wouldn't be overshadowed by the new ace. But summer came, and the best laid plans for starting pitching went the way they usually do, and old GM Ed Wade, now in Houston, had Roy Oswalt to dangle and a habit of being ripped off, so the Phillies got someone who actually had a better autumn than Lee, now starring as the Rangers ace, anyway, and indeed an utterly invincible team on paper with the hitters coming back healthy.

Ian Keenan said...

When you have a four run lead, you have an incentive to challenge hitters with strikes that are hard to hit for line drives, making them put the ball in play rather than walking people. If you walk people to preserve a no-hitter, you put more runners on base, which gives the opposition the ability to start a big inning. He didn't do that. He said, 'here's the ball, hit it, we have a four run lead and you have to earn your spot on base,' what a team player does.

Did I mention that I drafted him as a minor league prospect in 1998 in a computer-ball keeper league, which disbanded several years later? I used to look at pictures of Don Larson's 1958 perfect game in books when I was little. Don't count out his ability to top this, but last night will be talked about in a certain Cooperstown induction ceremony.

Ryan W. said...

"one example being that those who don't pay for TV don't watch half the playoffs."

yes, this really has disaffected me, if that's a verb, along with the whole wildcard format not to mention the steroid era. as for the last NFL season that won't be ruined by an 18-game format, I don't think the eagles will trade either QB but will eventually let Vick go whenever his deal runs out.

ABY

Anybody But Yankees

HTR

Hopefully the Rangers

IDKW

I don't know why

Ian Keenan said...

I affect my respect for bobby cox, I respect my affect for bobbycox, I disrespect the personal effects of bovvy cox, etc etc, whatever makes me sound less disaffect, the evenings in Philly require a sweater, but it wold be cool to see the Phils against the team (Tex) that the Braves traded the soon to be Texas star closer and star SS for Teixiera in a desperate and ill advised attempt to win, which would add disaffection to respect. They would be Braves but were Texas Rangers a simulation I subliminally seek to visualize because they'll be running around in their pajamas in Philly the liberty bell so constituted at night.

Ian Keenan said...

You could say I'm looking beyond the giants, on the shoulder of, they don't need me to go in and pinch hit , look beyond the shoulder such is my neck below home plate, so I may beyond the inter-val

Ian Keenan said...

The crowd at the ball game
is moved uniformly

by a spirit of uselessness
which delights them-

all the exciting detail
of Chase

and the escape, the error
the flash of hope-

all to no end but saving money
on Cliff Lee-

March 20, 2010

tankstowcw

word verification: iknowtheygotoswaltbutstilltheleavesrbrownnow..

Ryan W. said...

I like that darius jones track. I have it on now. it reminds me a little of hearing the turn signal indicator when young and wondering why it wasn't music. I like the drony stuff. sounds like time has biology

Ian Keenan said...

it's not that I don't like turn signals, I really do, I just don't like to give them too much credit. If I praise a turn signal, what then? what do they do next? They don't call me from Detroit about the turn signals as it is

Ryan W. said...

what would Slave Revolt have to say about the birds now.

after watching the eagles play about 7 games this season, I don't know anything about them. I can't name a single player on defense except asante samuel. the WRs and RB are very good. QB is a question mark, as Vick is fragile and Kolb is unproven. go seahawks.

Ian Keenan said...

the Seahawks not only put Native American art on their helmet, but their timeouts represent Hawk's ability to stop time