Baseball

I am a baseball fan. Not a George Will "the entire progress of Western civilization can be explained by singles, doubles, and triples" kind of fan, but I like the game and am looking forward to the upcoming season.

Am I the only one who thinks steroids have made recent home run records meaningless? The fact that modern players can break - no, destroy - long-held records makes a mockery of those very records. If a golfer suddenly started driving the ball 500 yards or a quarterback started throwing 95-yard passes someone would be suspicious. Yet when Mark McGwire hit nine more home runs (70) in 1998 than Roger Maris (61) did in 1961, no one said a thing. It took Maris 34 years to hit one more homer than Babe Ruth did in 1927, then it took McGwire 37 years to break Maris' record. You would think such a substantial increase in a record like that would stand for decades. Yet it only took Barry bonds 3 years to break McGuire’s record with 73.

When Maris broke Ruth's record it wasn't allow to stand on it's own because, it was said, Ruth’s season was 154 games and Maris' was 162, even though Maris only had 7 more plate appearances than Ruth did. Not much of a difference, yet Maris' achievement was belittled and added to the record book with an asterisk.

It seems to me that records set under the influence of performance enhancing drugs should also be in the record book with some additional punctuation. Not an asterisk, though. That's been taken.

How about a question mark?

Oh, and by the way, there would definitely be more triples in Major League Baseball if the Youth of America hadn't been corrupted by the welfare state.

Retro Pop Quiz II

Can you identify the medium and author of this quote?

"We have met the enemy and he is us."

Water

For years Americans have had to suffer through water restrictions because of drought conditions in various parts of the country. But with record rain and snowfall in the last few years I look forward to a summer of gratuitous water use. I think it is only fair that citizens now be required to waste water for a while.

• Instead of SAVE WATER signs everywhere, how about some USE WATER signs.
• Every time you flush your toilet you should also have to wash your car and water your lawn.
• Wash your socks one at a time.
• Minimum shower time: 30 minutes.
• Top off the swimming pool often.
• And let’s see Al Roker floating around some reservoir somewhere saying, “Yep, it’s pretty full.”

Post Office

It was 9:00 AM when I got to the post office and there were only 6 people waiting. I got in line before noticing that of the 12 possible windows only one had a clerk behind it. She was in deep conversation with a woman who, I gather, was trying to send a package overseas and needed some detailed advice.

As we stood there, not moving, eight or nine other people joined the line, each alternating between looking at their watches and looking at the clerk.

“Hey”, shouted the small, thin man at the head of the line, “how about opening up some windows?”

“You”, shouted the clerk. “I know you. You’re always making trouble. If you don’t like it, get out. Go somewhere else.”

“Yeah”, I muttered. “You can always use that other Postal Service. And while you’re at it try the other DMV. You know, the one with good service.”

I myself had once tried to find an alternative to the Post Office after a particularly vexing experience made me vow to NEVER SET FOOT IN THAT PLACE AGAIN. Proudly, independently, I marched to The UPS Store with a Christmas package to be sent across the country. Smugly I strode up to the counter and handed the clerk my parcel. No waiting for me, I thought as he put it on the scale. I had beaten them. I had won.

“That’ll be $18.75”, said the clerk.

“What?”, I cried. That was almost as much as the gift had cost. “It doesn’t have to go air mail…”

“Everything here goes ‘air mail’, mister”, he mocked.

Here was a dilemma. I had already not stood in line. I had already beaten the Post Office. I had already won. Did that mean I owed this guy some allegiance? More importantly, did that mean I owed him $18.75?

Ultimately I took my package back to the Post Office where, after a 45-minute wait, I sent it off for $3.95. It cost me 45 minutes but saved me $14.80. For those 45 minutes I was making the equivalent of almost $20 an hour.

I bet that’s more than they make at the Post Office or The UPS Store.

I had beaten them. I had won.

Westworld

Whenever I see a move made before the discovery of Microsoft I’m amazed at what passed for futuristic technology in the olden days.

For example I was watching Westworld (made in 1973) on Channel 55 last night. The movie is about an Old West style amusement park populated by realistically human robots. If you’ve ever been to Disney World think Hall of Presidents with six-guns.

Behind the scenes there is a computer center that controls all the robots, robots so realistic you can’t tell them from real humans (“…except the hands. They haven’t perfected the hands”). This control center is equipped with monochrome terminals that look like Etch A Sketch prototypes, magnetic tape drives spinning back and forth, and lots of flashing lights. I’ve spent some time around computers and I’ve never seen one that lit up like a Christmas tree the way movie computers do.

I remember seeing this movie when it came out and thinking how advanced everything looked. Now I realize that my laptop has more advanced technology than Westworld could ever hope for.

In the end the robots start attacking the tourists after some internal glitch gets into the computer. The scientists are incredulous that something “…almost like an infection…” could spread from computer to computer, anonymously and seemingly on it’s own.

Of course something that diabolical could never really happen.