( 12:14 PM )
Fantasy Baseball
Speaking of "fantasy baseball draft" (see Webb's blog today), I'm pretty happy with myself.
At first, I thought I got shafted because Yahoo sports randomly selected the drafting order, and as my luck usually pans out, I was chosen to draft 12th (otherwise known in a 12 team league as "last"). So when the live drafting started, I had to patiently sit by and watch as, A-Rod, Pujols, Sheffield, Delgado, Bonds, Helton, Soriano, Guerrero, Gagne, Rivera, and Pedro all got picked before I even had a chance to look past my top 10 list.
But, as the team to select last in the first round, I realized that I would have the 1st pick in the second round. So, seeing most of the big offensive guns go to my 11 other league mates, I decided to grab some defense in the forms of Curt Schilling and Kerry Wood. Not bad.
Sure, on paper, the guy picking first gets A-Rod -- which looks like a great deal. But this guy's next pick was 24th overall, and he gets Scott Rolen?
Looking back, I'll take the 12th and 13th picks overall, versus the 1st and 24th overall, anyday.
Further along in the draft, in rounds 3 and 4, I grabbed Sosa and Jeter. Still pretty happy.
Rounds 9 and 10, I grab Hidei Matsui and David Ortiz (the 2003 batting champion).
Round 15, I grab Kyle Lohse, who was a 14 game winner last year. Not bad either. Hoping he's gonna be my surprise starting pitcher.
Then in rounds 17 and 18, I grab a couple of highly underrated Mets, in the forms of Tom Glavine and Mike Cameron. Rounds 17 and 18!
Throw in P-Rod (Pudge Rodriguez) and Jason Veritek as my catchers, Jim Edmonds, Hank Blalock, Craig Biggio, and Brandon Looper and Joe Borowski as my closers, I'm feeling pretty good about my lineup.
Stay tuned for rants and raves in this blog as the season progresses. Webb, Joseph, Fishman and Copple are also in this league, so there will be plenty of 2Walls competitive trash talking going on.
( 11:43 AM )
Cassettes from the past
So the wife has been on a cleaning rampage this week, and announced that we’re having a monster yard sale in the spring. Which is fine by me, because our house isn’t big enough to support the storage of items not needed for daily living. So, my policy is: if I haven’t used it, worn it, or noticed it was missing for over a year, then toss it. And since I live by this policy fairly closely, most of my stuff (i.e., tools, books, office equipment, clothes) has already been shoved in the attic or basement and can be sold without much fuss.
But last night, the wife broke out the giant tupperware full of cassette tapes and said, “Alright, we have to decide which are going and which are staying.”
Now, the reason we even have all our cassettes in a giant tupperware, is because 5 years ago we had the same discussion and weeded out all of our tapes for the last big yard sale. These were the ones we decided we couldn’t part with.
But now, since we haven’t listened to any of the tapes we saved since the last big weed-out, I suggested we just toss the whole lot of them in the trash. “Do we even have a cassette player in the house?” I ask. “Just throw them all out. No one’s gonna buy ‘em.”
My wife reaches in and randomly pull out a tape, “uh…even this one?” She reads it, “Cheap Trick, Lap of Luxury?”
“Give me that!” I snatch it out of her hand. “I forgot I had this! We gotta play this right now!”
She pulls out another one, “Hmm…Supertramp’s Breakfast in America.”
I grab that one too. “Damn! We gotta go through this box!”
We eventually whittle the box down to half – me keeping the ones I still have attachments to, and her keeping a couple dear to her.
Here’s my list of the cassette tapes I couldn’t part with:
Cheap Trick – Lap of Luxury – The first time I heard Cheap Trick was when they played at my high school gymnasium. Several years later this was the first album my wife and I attribute to us eventually dating. I blame the song “The Flame” as the reason we went out.
Supertramp – Breakfast in America – Just one of those classic high school albums that is too sentimental to throw away.
Dire Straits – Brothers in Arms – I can’t believe I don’t have this on CD. Until I do, is stays.
The Call – Reconciled – Always like this album. Sort of an alternative band during the era of Talk Talk and The Fixx.
The Fixx – React – Speaking of which… I’ll actually listen to this a few times before packing it away for another 5 years.
Lou Reed – New York – My college band use to play “Romeo Had Juliet” and I sang it. Which isn’t a big deal, as anyone can sing Lou Reed.
Rush – Moving Pictures – Will probably never listen to it, but couldn’t possible throw it out.
Ratt – Out of the Cellar – A college roommate of mine use to play “Lack of Communication” on his guitar all day.
Midnight Oil – Blue Sky Mining – Reminds me of my college radio days.
Don Henley – Can’t Stand Still – The first band I auditioned with played “Dirty Laundry”.
Cure – Standing on the Beach – Can’t get this album anymore, as the CD version is called Staring at the Sea.
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