This is Page 6 from the X-Men and Power Pack comic book, Issue #2 (Nov. '05).

Notice anything unusual? In the background?

I feel so vindicated.

TODAY'S BOOK: "Strawberry Girl", by Lois Lenski ((c) 1945)

Labels: picture

Why, what were you thinking?

TODAY'S BOOK: "Into the Wild", by Jon Krakauer ((c) 1996)

Labels: bait 'n' switch

The roof
The roof was on fire
The roof
The roof
The roof was on fire
We needed some water
We could not let those books to burn
We needed some water
We didn't want those books to burn
Burning library roof--burnt!

This actually happened, on Friday night. No damage was caused (other than to the roof, the roof, the roof...).

TODAY'S BOOK: "The Little Bookroom", by Eleanor Farjeon ((c) 1955)

Labels: biographical

IT A GUITAR

TODAY'S BOOK: "The Champion of Merrimack County", by Robert W. Drury (1976)

Labels: random, the blog

• Here is my friend Ya'ir Jablinowitz at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY, showing off both his 1337 pitching skillz and his awesome lasereyes alongside George Thomas "Tom" Seaver, the Greatest Met EVAR. I first met Ya'ir when I started playing Little League Baseball at age 11; before he became my classmate two years later, I just knew him as "The Skinny Guy With the Sunglasses and Mets Cap Who Plays Shortstop and Once Got Hit in the Neck by a Grounder That Bounced Funny". Not only did he visit Cooperstown (which I haven't), the lucky dog got to go to Shea Stadium (which I will never do) and after a brutal 1-0 loss joined his grandparents on the Senior Stroll around the bases. Green with envy = me.
• It's deja vu all over again! There has been yet another act of vandalism at the library; two windows were broken, including one that was broken last time too. Asshats.
• 20 more hits have come here via "Blowfish" searches on Google Images, the act of which now makes up 77.2% of the past 57 hits.
• Carlos Muniz has been doing his best impression of a yo-yo, but for now he is in the Majors... again, for the fourth time this season; today has only been his 32nd (!!) day on the big league roster in 2008. Stat line: 1-1, 4.15, 2:1 K/BB ratio in 13 games. He also hasn't allowed a run since July 2nd.

TODAY'S BOOK: "Matilda Bone", by Karen Cushman ((c) 2000)

Labels: 32, biographical, random

I think I'm about ready to enter "Officially Freaked Out" mode. I mean, this is even worse than that whole awardspace business. Starting with an unknown fella from Houston, Texas, USA at Jul 18 2008 4:11:20 am, 24 (out of the past 28!) hits have come via Google Image searches for "blowfish". They come from Ireland, from Germany, from Denmark and the UK and Norway and Mexico, from Zanesville and Iowa City and Berkeley and San Francisco and Jacksonville Beach, and even Canada--twice! So I ask ye, people of the blogosphere: what has possessed you to bump up my blowfish pic into 7th place on Google's image search page? And why (oh dear sweet Lord why!!!) are you so obsessed with Tetraodontidae all of a sudden????

TODAY'S BOOK: "The Avion My Uncle Flew", by Cyrus Fisher ((c) 1946)

Labels: the blog

Yawn... wstfgl... What time 's it? 3:00 AM... huh.
Boy I'm thirsty.
Yawn...
*pad pad pad pad*
Turnin' handle...
*sklrtch*
Huh? Wha's going on here? Th' cup's only half full. C'mon, you stupid faucet. *tug tug tu--*
GLOOSH!
Whoa! Hey! Oh, yuck, what is this stuff??? And--*sniff*--YEESH! What in the name of Marv Throneberry is that godawful smell?
BANG!
"Menachem Jerenberg?"
"Uh..."
"Menachem G. 'Mac' Jerenberg, of Nahal Dolev 46, Ramat Beit Shemesh?"
"Yeah, yeah, that's me. Who're you? What the heck's going on here?"
"This is the press. Sir, at 3:01 AM this morning, you, Menachem G. Jerenberg, used up the very last drop of water in the Kinneret."
"What!!"
"The pipes have gone dry. The salination plants are all busted. There's pandemonium in the streets. And all because you took the last drop."
"Oh my God!"
"Outta the way, Marty, it's my turn. You there, young man, what do you have to say for yourself?"
"Uh..."
"Remember the whole world is watching."
"Yaagh! It's wasn't me! I swear it!"
"What's going on in there??"
"Sir, your son just personally emptied the Kinneret."
"You gotta be kidding me."
"Scout's honor. Can you give me a quote?"
"Um, 'in this hour of need--'"
"Good enough. Hey, Al, you want a crack at him?"
"Sure, thanks. So kid, what made you do it? Drugs? Alcohol? General debilitative depravity?"
"Aaaaarghh!!!!"...
.
*pant pant* It was only a nightmare. Phew. Only a nightmare...
*knock knock knock*
Eep! "Y-yes?"
"You okay in there? Only I heard you screaming a little."
"No, I'm fine, Mom. Say... do we have any bottled water handy? I'm thirsty."

TODAY'S BOOK: "Obadiah Comes Fourteen", by Elizabeth Spring ((c) 1976)

Labels: random

nobrand.awardspace.com (11)
nobrand awardspace (8)
nobrand.awardspace (7)
nobrand.awardspace.com/ (2)
"carlos diaz" + photo + librarian
"john maine" "adam's apple"
“Megamaid has gone from suck to blow” -
"tower of power" AND blogspot.com
Avi Liberman
biggest booger in history
Boobie Gibson (image search)
boobie tr (image search)
booger world record
cock in pussy start (image search)
Comfort Eagle
etta kaniel
dicks in pussy (image search)
doug mientkiewicz
first prize rooster% (image search)
giant boobies
guinness world record longest booger
http://gbfos.blogspot.com/
jay payton mets girlfriend
kris Benson Baseball his Parents
mets and bounds, alabama
mit zombo
nobrand.awardspace.com what is it
nobrand awardspace.com
Nobrand award space
no brand awardspace
outer space back to school theme
pictures the worlds largest booger ever made
robotic tigers
space boogers (image search)
story about giant boogers
teen (image search)
teen% (image search)
The Pied Piper of Helfenstein
Todd Nauck Teen Titans
wakko warner boingy
watch america as a crossroad comedy
what is the world record for biggest booger
what revenue darkroastedblend.com
worlds biggest ball of boogers
yitzchak

TODAY'S BOOK: "Sugar Isn't Everything", by Willo Davis Roberts ((c) 1987)

Labels: random, the blog

"So today I go to the library for the first time in a week (Pesach vacation), ready to get back crackin', and... there's glass. Broken glass. Everywhere.
On Friday, a bunch of vandals broke four panes of glass in the community center: an outside window, two library windows overlooking the toddlers' (board books) section, and the top pane of the front door.
Glass just everywhere.
I felt exactly kind of like this:



Fortunately, the vandals didn't manage to steal anything, as they were apparently scared off by the alarm. But the glass flew all over the place, concentrated in the area frequented by barefoot and/or crawling children.
We had to close the library to the public--disappointing all the other people who'd waited for a week to come back--and clean up the mess. I spent three and a half hours picking up glass with my bare hands. Yes, my bare hands. No, I did not get cut or anything. Yes, I'm a very careful sort of guy.
So now all the bigger pieces are gone--but there are still lots and lots of really tiny pieces everywhere, embedded in the carpet, resisting the vacuum cleaner. We'll be digging them out and picking them up for months. As it is, while I'm there I see tiny points of refracted light gorram everywhere. This is not good for my health, mental (such as it is) or otherwise.

TODAY'S BOOK: 'The Case of the Muttering Mummy', by E.W. Hildick ((c) 1986)

TODAY'S WEBSITE: http://www.honestreporting.com/ Israel has proprtionately the most news reported about it of any country in the world; that's why it's important to have said reporting to be fair and unbiased. Since this is usually not the case, nonprofit NGO HonestReporting leads the charge to make it so. Plenty of muckraking articles on the media's two-facedness and well-made videos are available for viewing."
--118th post, 4/27/08

Labels: reprint

Well, you can color me impressed! The ShiurTimes found enough space to shove three of my cartoons into its pages this month.


While the majority of Israelis may (or may not) have supporting the uprooting of the Gaza settlements in 2005, no such moral myopia has ever afflicted them concerning the Golan Heights. Rumors of a "land for peace" deal with Syria reignited protests nationwide, supporting the rights of 20,000 Jews who live there.


Moshe Sharoni (center), Sarah Marom Shalev, and Elchanan Gelzer split off from the Gil party (a.k.a. the Pensioners Party) and promptly entered a farcical did-they-or-didn't-they-mean-it routine.


Does not really require an explanation. Think of the current worries about the American economy. Transplant them to Israel, make them be about water, and then square them, cube them, and square 'em again. That's how dire the situation is here.


TODAY'S BOOK: "Pollyanna", by Eleanor H. Porter ((c) 1927)

Labels: cartoon

TODAY'S BOOK: "Where the Red Fern Grows", by Wilson Rawls ((c) 1961)

Labels: cartoon, random, wakka wakka

Labels: baseball, biographical

Nearly half a year since posting my follow-up to the original post, it is once again time to readdress my nine Not to Like points about Blogger.
1. They have not yet chosen me for a Blog of Note. Still haven't, hint hint. No change.
2. Every time I come here I have to sign in. That "Remember Me" option is broken and it makes things a right pain in the neck. I think this got fixed for a short time. If it was, it's broken again, and I have to keep signing out of my brother's Gmail account, which makes it an even bigger pain. There must be a more efficient way of doing it.
3. The "Comments" section is variable as to whether I can actually enter it, and when I do it's sometimes needlessly picky about letting me post there. Much better service in this area now. Makes life a lot easier. Fault-proof. Congratulations!
4. Forcing me to upgrade. Look, the former version may have been more primitive, but I wanted to switch over in my own sweet time. No change. See note on #1.
4a. And now that I've upgraded, I've lost the option to Search all of the blogs instead of just my own. A-noy-ying! I can do this from my Edit Posts page, so scratch that. On the other hand, replace "just my own" with "just any blog I happen to be searching from" and you get an even bigger complaint. Still a giant stinking turd of a problem.
5. The "Help" section is miniscule. And it's still no great shakes. But it doesn't really matter since I barely use it.
6. For once, random is not good--the vagary of the "Next Blog" button. The one point over which I want to give Blogger's staff the finger. See note on #1.
7. The "Profile" section is still primitive--I can put my astrological sign up, but not my birth date. 'Sup with that? See note on #4. See note on #1.
8. The link to a picture in a post does not automatically open in a new window. Trivial, but nonetheless there. It's embarrassing to think I even wrote this. I am a technological dinosaur.
9. Wakka wakka. Wakka wakka! Wakka wakka, wakka wakka.

TODAY'S BOOK: "The Landry News", by Andrew Clements ((c) 1999)

Labels: random, the blog, wakka wakka

A five-year absence from America meant a five-year absence from Haagen-Dazs, daytime TV, and Shea Stadium. It would be hard to rank which I missed more, but today I could definitely tell you which was more satisfying.
The Stadium had not changed since I'd last been here, but I had. Gone was the happy little boy who knew about as much about baseball as high finance, giving personal nickanmes to players and thinking that every inning the teams started batting from the top of the order. Instead, here in his stead was a seriouser, stats-oriented geek who simultaneously loved the Mets more and was more cynical about them than ever. The situation was also different: instead of a mass family outing, with siblings and cousins galore, this was a private affair, with just one brother and one grandmother.
I was hard at work putting on a happy face for said grandmother. After all, how could she have known that the tickets she'd bought had gained us admittance to witness a performance by the worst pitcher on the Mets and, possibly, all of baseball?
Kazuhisa Ishii, the 32-year-old Korean fastballer, was a walking pit of despair for the 2005 Mets. After three mediocre years on the Los Angeles Dodgers, he'd been acquired as a new Rick Peterson "project". The Jacket's incompetence shone through, as his protege immediately sank like a stone to the bottom of the rotation and like a lead weight around fans' necks. Coming into the dreaded (for me) game he was 2-8 with an unlovely 5.57 ERA.
And just to put the icing on the cake, he was matched--outmatched--up against Jake Peavy, the up-and-coming young ace of the San Diego Padres' pitching staff, his stat line reading like the inverse of Ishii's: 8-3, 3.03 ERA, with 132 strikeouts thrown in for good measure. His previous outing had featured seven innings of one-run, eight-K ball. Besides, the team had displayed a magnetic attraction to the .500 record all year--indeed, they would not shake it until the very last week--and was coming off a three-game winning streak, so even the odds were against me. No way was I witnessing a win today.
I put on my happy face for pre-game photos, but as we settled into our seats I grew gloomy. After three innings, my doubts had still not been dispelled. Ishii had walked three and allowed an equal number of hits (including a single for Peavy, earning him a chorus of boos), and only the defense had kept the Pads off the boards. I knew it was only a matter of time.
Meanwhile, the Mets couldn't touch Peavy. Then first baseman Doug Mientkiewicz, who was known more for his glove than for his bat, lofted a leadoff home run into the bleachers in the bottom of the inning (his 10th of the year, oddly enough, though was to hit only one more the rest of the way), giving his team a 1-0 lead. I applauded the dinger but assumed that such a slim lead would not last long. I was right. It was widened.
After Ishii tossed his first clean innings in the fourth and fifth--six up, six down--the Mets pounced.
"Minky" got it started by working a one-out walk. Backup Castro Ramon Castro drove him in with another homer. Mets 3, Padres 0. Ishii walked. The electric Jose Reyes singled, stole second like every single damn person in the park knew he would--his 31st of the year--and when the catcher overthrew second, both runners advanced. Mike Cameron doubled, bringing the score up to Mets 5, Padres 0, and I was practically dancing in the aisle.
It was the next inning they really cut loose. Seven hits, one walk, a sacrifice fly, one pitching change and eleven batters later (personal favorite David Wright collected two hits, including a two-run double), and the score was now an officially ridiculous 12-zip.
Ishii had been pitch-hit for in that crazy sixth, so the relievers paraded through. Dae-Sung Koo and then Heath Bell came in for a pair of clean innings. After I savored my way through watching future career-saves-record-holder Trevor Hoffman work their eighth, Willie Randolph sent Danny Graves out to the mound for the final frame.
A rain of boos came hailing down. At least, I can definitely state that some hailed from me; some may or may not have emanated from other throats in the ballpark. I didn't notice. I was directing every fiber of my being into booing the most gutless, untalented hack on the 2005 Mets' pitching staff. Did I say Ishii was the worst before? Scratch that. Graves was the worstest. They probably had to coin a new word to described the level of suckiness he exuded. In his past 10 games he'd given up 10 runs, driving his ERA up to an incredible eight point seventy freaking one.
Two of the first three Friars up singled, putting runners on the corners, while I continued to shower the only Met ever born in Vietnam with vocal indignation. "You're ruining the shutout!" I bellowed. "For God's sake, somebody yank him already!!"
Nobody yanked Graves. The didn't have the time to do so. The next two batters went quietly, and just like that, the Mets had an official blowout shutout on their hands.
I didn't know, but probably could have guessed, that we had witnessed Kaz Ishii's last Met and major league win. He wound up 3-9, 5.14, and out of a career. After five more appearances, so was fellow countryman Koo. Bell wound up on the Padres via a trade. Nine appearances later, Graves's ERA would land on the 5.75 mark, still way too laughably high; he was gone in December. Marlon Anderson, the only starter besides Ishii without an RBI, would leave and come back. Cameron and Mientkiewicz would leave and not, and good riddance--Cameron for failing a drug test, Stinky Minky for mouthing off about the fans. Castro, Jose Jose Jose and D-Wright are still there.
"It's good to be the king," quoth Mel Brooks; and on July 21st, 2005, it was good to be a Mets fan.

TODAY'S BOOK: "Assassination Vacation", by Sarah Vowell ((c) 2005)

Labels: baseball, biographical