The face of a franchise.

 

I’m a Mets fan so I can sit back today and bask in the glory of what is another Yankee failure.

I can almost hear the grating warble that is John Sterling’s voice reciting his end of game mantra,

“The Yankees lose!

The Yankees LOSE!

THE YANKEES LOSE!”

You’ve got to love it and nothing is truly better than seeing A-Rod, the glaring symbol of Yankee excess standing at the plate and striking out to end the game. Taking a nice collar of 0 for 4 with him into the off-season, including an at bat where the bases were loaded and the Yankees walked away impotent.

Really, as Mets fans we should have all been rooting for the Yankees because their loss does nothing more than guarantee they will be active in the pursuit of Jose Reyes this off-season. But, that’s okay because truthfully as much as I love Jose, it’s time to call it a day. Nothing that can justify spending so much money over the period of so many years on a player who makes Rickie Henderson and his hammy look like the picture of health. Jose is an explosive player, he can be a game changer but, if there is anything Mets fans have learned over the last five or six years, it’s he is incredibly fragile and prone to injury.

So, watching the Yankees go down in a glorious if somewhat quiet defeat has a particular ring of satisfaction to Mets fans who have been told all season how bad their team is and how the front office (and ownership) can’t do anything right. Things won’t be getting easier for these Yankees now as C.C Sabathia will undoubtedly opt out of his contract (and leave $92 million on the table) in an attempt to squeeze even more money out of his employers.

This is a Yankee team that spent over $200 million this year only to watch it’s $31 million man swing at air when the whole season was on the line. The highest paid player on the team with the highest payroll in baseball came up short and as a baseball fan I love that because it speaks to the fact that money doesn’t buy you a World Series champion.

And of course, there will always be those great shots of Yankee fans shown throughout the game: crying, praying, looking as if their world was coming to an end. Awash with surprise and disbelief that their team was on the precipice of coming up short, contrary to what entitled Yankee fans embrace as their worldview. The same people who can’t shut up the rest of the year, the same fans who lord it over Mets fans, the same fans who for many (not all) it all comes down to following a winner, not so much being a fan of baseball.

It couldn’t have been written better, A-Rod, mighty A-Rod has struck out.

I actually feel like crying.

I imagine this underlines yet again that no one gets a guarantee on how long a ride they’ll get on the planet. In this case, I’m a bit torn because every indication I ever read was that Steve Jobs had a bit of a tendency to be something of a tyrant (and a bit of a dick) but there is no denying this man had an incredible impact on the world.

A lot of people think of Apple and immediately think of Jobs but the truth is there is another Steve and that Steve was responsible in large part for putting Apple on the map to being with.

But if I can give Jobs credit for anything, I can give him credit for returning to Apple when it was floundering, when the company was at its lowest point and for revitalizing it in a way people could have hardly believed possibly. If Apple is a success today, if Apple has come back from the brink, it is in large part to the dynamic efforts of Steve Jobs.

I wouldn’t have a job or a career today if not for Jobs so I owe him and a lot of the people I know in my professional life owe him as well. We all owe him a huge debt of gratitude for changing the landscape in both a good way and a bad way.

This is akin to losing the Edison of our generation:

In the annals of modern American entrepreneur-heroes, few careers traced a more mythic sweep. An adopted child in a working-class California home, Jobs dropped out of college and won the title “father of the computer revolution” by the age of 29. But by 30 he had been forced out of the company he had created, a bitter wound he nursed for years as his fortune shrank and he fought to regain his early eminence.

Once out of the wilderness of exile, however, he brought forth a series of innovations — unveiling them with matchless showmanship — that quickly became ubiquitous. He turned the release of a new gadget into a cultural event, with Apple acolytes lining up like pilgrims at Lourdes.

I really like this.

You’ve heard this I’m sure but it’s the kind of infectious pop that always appeals to me. It’s almost an anthem in many ways (probably one of the reasons I love TubThumping by Chumbawumba). I have a feeling this will be making an appearance at stadiums before too long but until it gets played out I really love it:

Fatty Gets A Stylist Biography

All music is innocent until proven guilty. To triangulate our sound, pick up signals from Kraftwerk, The B-52’s and Goldfrapp. Or think of a half-remembered fever dream featuring Ferris Bueller and Grace Jones.

All bands are transient. The album ‘Fatty Gets A Stylist’ was mostly written and recorded on a lap top over... several months in the different locations we found ourselves in between Australia, South East Asia and our loft which is unfashionably located in West London.

Our singer’s name is Kate Miller-Heidke. Her name may sound familiar but her voice will not. Not even her own band recognised she was Fatty’s singer because of the unusual use of her lower register. Keir Nuttall is a guy who programs and produces.

Other musicians include bass player Justin Meladl-Johnsen (Air, Beck, Nine Inch Nails) and drummer Pete McNeal (Cake). Mickey Petralia (Flight of the Conchords, Back, The Eels) engineered and played percussion on much of the record.

Movie Mondays!

LOST rushes headlong to the series conclusion in Season 6 picking up immediately where we left off in Season 5 (after a bright, white flash). If there is a theme to the season it’s... PEOPLE DIE! So, if you have a favorite character or two don’t be too surprised because very few make it to the end but what an end it is! Mysteries are answered but quite a few aren’t and that’s okay because the island is a mysterious place. There are high points and low points but you will find out the story behind Richard, Jacob and The Man in Black and that is easily worth the price of admission alone. There are a few gut-wrenching, heart-breaking moments too! While any LOST fan is sorry to see the series end and there are even some who didn’t like the ending, the fact remains if you’ve watched the series up to this point you simply can’t bail on Season 6 and you’d be missing out if you did. If you haven’t watched any of LOST then treat yourself and start with Season 1 and fo all the way through - unlike the rest of us you won’t have to deal with the huge gaps between broadcast Seasons and you’ll quickly find why LOST has been so highly lauded by fans and pros alike. BY THE WAY - IF YOU’RE A LOST FAN YOU DON’T WANT TO MISS THE BONUS FEATURES! THERE IS A GREAT TREAT WAITING FOR YOU!

I’m repurposing content by taking my NetFlix reviews and posting them here on the blog. If I could figure out a way to do it, I’d post some kind of link for people to connect and make me their friend on the service. Unfortunately, it isn’t altogether clear how one would do that - so if you know a way, pass it along. In the meantime, I’ve got steady content for at least a year.

And now, for something completely different...

A Woman’s Perspective on the Internet

With the thought that as a man, it’s always good to hear a woman’s viewpoint if only to try and understand them better.

Movie Mondays!

One of rock’s great albums has a remarkable backstory which comes to light in this terrific documentary featuring interviews with all the members of Pink Floyd as well as the engineer who mastered the album (Alan Parsons). As familiar as I am with Dark Side of the Moon and the songs on it, it was wonderful to peer into the secrets behind the making of this record and the music itself. And the music takes center stage as Roger Waters, David Gilmour and Richard Wright all perform songs from the record at different points in the documentary. Created long before any digital equipment was available Dark Side of the Moon was ground breaking and a seminal event in the history of rock, the work still stands the test of time and fans of the band will be pleased with this look at one of the most popular albums of all time.

I’m repurposing content by taking my NetFlix reviews and posting them here on the blog. If I could figure out a way to do it, I’d post some kind of link for people to connect and make me their friend on the service. Unfortunately, it isn’t altogether clear how one would do that - so if you know a way, pass it along. In the meantime, I’ve got steady content for at least a year.

And now, for something completely different...

A Woman’s Perspective on Testicles

With the thought that as a man, it’s always good to hear a woman’s viewpoint if only to try and understand them better.

Why this country is f&%*$d!

Because people are actually buying into the Tea Party bulls&%t. Great case in point:

In the whole discussion about raising taxes on people making more than $1,000,000 one of the Tea Party members from Louisiana made the following remarks:

When host Chris Jansing noted that Fleming has an income of more than $6 million. Fleming said he actually takes home only a fraction of that. “The amount that I have to reinvest in my business and feed my family is more like $600,000 of that $6.3 million,” Fleming said. “So by the time I feed my family I have, maybe, $400,000 left over to invest in new locations, upgrade my locations, buy more equipment.”

Wow, it must be tough to scrimp by on just $400k for the year! And mind you, we’re not talking about a place like New York where the cost of living is so damn high, we’re talking about Northwest Louisiana. This is how out of touch these morons are.