Christmas Presents Found

I found what I’m going to get all of you for Christmas. A subscription to Modern Drunkard Magazine. The goal of this magazine is to “return drinking to the glorious Rat Pack/Jackie Gleason Era. How do we plan to pull it off? First we unite the International Drunkard Tribe. Then we crush our enemies. Then we take over. Then we celebrate with a never ending series of victory keggers and self-congratulatory cocktail parties.” Expect your first issue the first of January.?

Reflection of Society

I have to make a brief crotchety old man rant. I woke up this morning and checked my dozen morning news and bargain sites and CNN.com’s top story was the ‘America Idol’ winner. Are you serious? In the previous 36 hours there have been a dozen American soldiers KIA in Iraq and the top story in the US is who won ‘American Idol.’ This is a reflection of the state of the society that we live in. Everyone wants to take a stance on the war and give their two cents but now apparently thousands of people dying isn’t as important as reality our coveted reality TV. We are at war yet I’m so glad I know the outcome of some stupid TV show. It appears that Americans don’t care about anything unless it is on TV 24/7. Everyone cared about the war and had an opinion about it when it was on TV 24/7. Now that it’s only a blip on the nightly news and we are bombarded with reality TV show commercials instead of war reports our new passions and opinions have switched from invasion and war to who our favorite pop singer is. This short term memory, media driven, brainwashed, unable to make decisions for ourselves unless someone tells us what to think, TV (like big brother in our living rooms telling us what we’re interested in) society that we live in today is a very disgusting thing. Props to FOX News on this one. They kept ‘American Idol’ off the front page although they do have “‘Jeopardy!’ King Dethroned.” But Ken Jennings is a tough guy to beat. Here is the contrast in headlines from CNN to FOX News:

CNN: ‘American Idol’ No. 4 named

FOX News: “Ten Die in Iraq Violence”

A big shame on you goes to CNN.

Little Salty

I was watching Sportcenter this morning and I have to admit I’m a little salty. I could care less that my back to back catches weren’t shown on TV but when I was watching SC they showed some schmuck in Philly dropping two foul balls. His balls were on consecutive batters and dropped. Mine, which were both caught, were on back to back pitches. Some other schmuck also made “Top Plays” by catching a home run ball with a glove! Come on people! Where is the love for Ryan. Back to back pitches with barehanded catches! I shouldn’t have watched SC then I could have just enjoyed my accomplishment.

Sign Me Up!

Last night we went to the Brewers game. Jocelyn had gotten some 300 club tickets from work so we scooped them up and headed to the park. It was a nice night and we tailgated and had some gourmet Metro Mart brats. I added the habanero Monterey jack and the Buffalo chicken brats to my repertoire. Both good but I’ll probably skip the Buffalo chicken next time and substitute it for one of the others. We headed into the game and made our way to our seats. There were two other people sitting next to us that got the other set of tickets from Jocelyn’s work. We sat and talked and watched the game. Then in the sixth inning I had a life accomplishment. Victor Santos was pitching to Rockies right fielder Brad Hawpe. I don’t know what the count was but Hawpe fouled one off and was right at me. The ball had some zip on it, but with my beer in my left hand I bare handed the ball and made the catch. There was some cheering and a couple guys were hooting that I spilt a couple drops of my beer. So I sat down and basked in the glow of my accomplishment. The next bit is a blur really. I know I was sitting down and talking to the others about my “great catch” but I must’ve been paying close enough attention to the game because the very next pitch Hawpe fouled another one right to me again. I don’t know how I did it because I was still holding my newly caught ball and my beer but I caught the second ball and cradled it like catching a football. I now had just caught two balls in two straight pitches! Mind you I am sitting in the third deck of Miller Park so the chances of two straight foul balls being caught by the same person that far up has to be small. I was dumbfounded and really didn’t know what to do. I had never caught one ball at a major league game before and I just caught two in two pitches. I took my baseballs and held them up for everyone to see and a bunch of the crowd cheered, it was a great moment. The rest of the game really didn’t matter to me because I was on a high. I was just hoping that another ball wouldn’t come my way because I would probably drop it or it would hit me in the head and didn’t want to ruin this moment. We stayed for the rest of the game and a bunch of people said “nice catches man” and “there is the guy that caught the two foul balls.” It was awesome AND the Crew won 6-1. Go Brew Crew!

A little side note, the Bucks also won the draft lottery. They had a 6.3% chance of getting the #1 pick and they hit the jackpot and will be drafting #1 this year.