This is the only slightly relevant thing I can post relating to the Super Bowl, and Justin Masterson is in Cleveland now.

My BA Prospect Handbook came in the mail today! Now I can stalk at Spring Training with enhanced effectiveness.

There was one minor blip, though.



Reddick is adorable - anyone can see that. He's so fresh faced and youthful, in fact, that someone thinks he was born in 1997.

Okay, not really. That's just a typo, of course. But it was just really funny, considering that if that date was accurate Reddick would be turning 13 years old this month.

I need baseball, please.

Corbin got a friend request and a message today on Facebook from someone he doesn't know in Atlanta.

( Read the message here... )

Corbin is fresh out of school, so I highly doubt he knows of any stat firms in Atlanta, especially since he went to college in Vermont and grew up in Maine. But the key here is that the stat firm Corbin works for, which is listed on Facebook as Boston Statistics (I wanted a generic name because Slumberwood is a fictional universe), isn't actually real.

I love the internet.

In better fictional news, Londinium is not dead. Huzzah!

I...don't have much to post today except for the fact that it's freezing outside and I had a dream about Wedge Antilles of all people last night. Hey, he's a badass!

I need a Wedge icon.

In other news, Cookie Puss is a Carvel classic - anyone who's had a Carvel around them knows who he is. For those who don't, here's an introduction. He's a cake, yes.

We watched Gone With the Wind in my Women and the Civil War class today. I took the opportunity to pour out several handwritten pages of Londinium. I have not forsaken you, Basil and Dustin! I promise you two lovely boys that the story of your social stratum-defying friendship shall be told!

There is another perk to that class besides watching a bunch of documentaries: there is one guy in our class. One total. And he's cute. I don't know his name or anything, but I'm mildly pleased about this. Of course, it's the one class I only have once a week. Darn it.

I have a topic for my Tokugawa class paper now, too! I'm going to compare the concept and ideal of bushido to the actual lives of the people who supposedly practiced it. I love anything involving military history, and if I can merge that into cultural studies, even better! So far, this class has been a lot of fun and has led to awesome insights such as the fact that the Japanese essentially invented the animal shelter. Working at RBARI was one of the joys of my high school life, so animal shelters are naturally something near and dear to my heart.

On a military history note, PBS mentioned Sharpe on its Facebook page and I totally freaked out. That was another joy of my high school life. I'm actually now studying to be a historian all because of those books and films. (I still love you, Francis Cooper. I do. But I'm still asking Harris to do my homework.)

Also, Psych is such a great show. There's a void on USA when it's between seasons. Seriously.

I just saw an infomercial for these. I am dead serious.

Longer post will come later. Right now I've got some work to do for school and then I'm going to have a writer's symposium wherein I get my characters together for some development exercises. You know, one of those things where I "take them out to lunch," as Jerry Spinelli once said when he came to a bookstore in my hometown to talk.

(Spinelli went to my college. It makes me feel awesome because nearly every girl my age read Stargirl when they were in middle school.)

My Italian textbook. It's kind of not fair.

Well, to be specific, it's the grammar book that supplements our textbooks that's the main problem. See, it was written by two women who work at my favorite nerd hub, Leland Stanford Junior University, and they make a number of Stanford references in the text. These make me giddy, because I love the school so much. Come se dice Sunken, Professoressa?

Of course, when a tourist asks the question, "Stanford è in Oregon?" and you know at least two former Stanford ballplayers from Oregon (Jed Lowrie and Joey August, both of Salem) and you have a sort of schoolgirl crush on one of them (guess), this turns you bright red and your roommate laughs at you. A lot.

Speaking of my favorite real college baseball team (no love lost, slumberwood), the 2010 roster is up, so now we can put faces to names for our new freshmen! Also, look at Mooney's picture this year. He looks amazingly dorky and wonderful.

Yeah, so I made a fan page on Facebook for corn-fed handsomeness since there wasn't one already.

I really need a life outside of making fun of Tim Tebow. Seriously.

Bookworms aren't actually microscopic, but they do make a few macroscopic items at GiantMicrobes.com, and soprano_no_eiji surprised me with a bookworm today! He's adorable! I've chosen to name him Carlson after, well, Jed, because Jed reads too and Carlson is a brilliant middle name for a geeky shortstop. So...yeah.



( Two more under the cut... )

I am such a geek.

Just spent an hour and a half or so reading laws from the Sengoku period of Japan. I'm all for history, but laws get rather dry. Even if a lot of these laws pertained to killing people for wrongdoings.

I've taken all of my classes for this semester except for one - that's a night class on Wednesday evenings. I actually don't have classes on either Tuesdays or Thursdays, which is really quite pleasant because I get lots of time to do things such as sleep and write and draw, all of which make me a happy puppy. So does Spring Training, which I have tickets to with soprano_no_eiji! We've got two games now and are hoping to buy two more. The Sox-Mets one, which we're buying next Saturday, is the one I'm looking forward to the most, as when my two favorite teams play there's absolutely no stress involved and I can just sit back and watch and hope everyone does nicely.

Also, tosei_10 got his birthday e-mail from Mim's, a restaurant on Long Island that soprano_no_eiji's father frequents. I was once there with soprano_no_eiji and cootie_10 and was given a slip to sign up for special deals with, so I filled it out with Junta's name and birthday as a joke and he now regularly gets e-mails from them. It makes me giggle.

Finally, Griffon is being added to the list of roller coasters I will never go on.



Totally not in the mood to work, obviously. Yeah.

This. soprano_no_eiji and I found this in an FYE. It is a NARUTO SNUGGIE. Seriously.

This is just a quick post, but I was watching the live chat on MLB.com with Daniel Murphy and Murph's younger brother, Jonathan, was discussed for a bit. It turns out that the youngest Murphy (there are three of them; Daniel and Jonathan have a sister, Tricia) also plays baseball at Jacksonville. So I had to use my college baseball stalking skills and dug up his roster page.



He looks a lot like his older brother, and according to his offensive numbers, he hits a lot like him, too. He's an outfielder, though, so maybe unlike Daniel he'll, you know, actually be able to catch things flying through the air in his general direction.

soprano_no_eiji and I went book shopping today, hitting up both a Borders and a Barnes and Noble. Since I have a small trust fund made up of Barnes and Noble gift cards that I've accumulated over the years, I went crazy, and I ended up with the following bounty:

~ Kyou Kara Maoh! volumes 1-5
~ Emma volume 9
~ Gakuen Heaven volume...2, I think
~ Eight Men Out (I've always wanted to read it. It's stats_be_lurve's favorite book, too.)
~ At Fenway, which I was really excited about until I got back to my dorm room and discovered it was written by Dan Shaughnessy. Ugh.
~ Walter Johnson: Baseball's Big Train, which I am extremely happy with.
~ The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract, which I am also extremely happy with.
~ The Manga Guide to Physics, which was too cute not to buy.

I like books. A lot. Especially ones that have to do with baseball. Eeeee, baseball.

EDIT: Speaking of books that have to do with baseball, this is tempting. So tempting. Meoto for $7? Yes please.

EDIT 2: This man is a badass.

So I'm back at school now! My wonderful roommate soprano_no_eiji bought me the sequel to See and Learn: Shapes, which is aptly entitled See and Learn: Colors, and we watched it last night. It was...well, bad, considering how fantastic Shapes was. But then again, we weren't expecting much.

Today, though, we went to the mall, and I bought the original Power Rangers movie. Yeah, the one we all grew up with, not those newfangled Power Rangers they're making entirely in the US without borrowing Japanese footage and dubbing over it poorly for the fight scenes. We are so beyond excited to watch it.

In completely random news, I am also the proud owner of a white blood cell, and it's the cutest thing in the world. For anybody who hasn't checked it out yet, go to GiantMicrobes.com and look at the adorable things they have there! This is my new baby:



Is that not the cutest thing ever?

Also, I finally finished the picture of Jed I was doing for projectcardinal, so hopefully I'll update that within the next few days. I'm just too lazy to upload the image to my computer right now. I'm pathetic.

Normally I focus on baseball here, but as anyone who knows me well knows, I am fascinated by children's television. Whilst on Long Island with soprano_no_eiji, c_for_cinephile, cootie_10 and dozaa, I discovered this gem of a DVD in Party City for the fantastic sum of $1. I could not resist buying it, as it looked horrifically bad, and we watched it during dinner that night.

We were not disappointed. It was crappier than it looked.



Here's the basic story...

( Full recap inside! )


Basically, that's the worst DVD I've personally ever purchased. And I loved the entire thing. Hopefully I'll be able to find more of the series...because they're just too bad not to own.

I haven't posted since exam week at college, and most of that was because my Dell's wire disintegrated (yes, you read that right - the copper wire just broke up and disappeared). Since my original college computer, the aforementioned Dell Alastair, had been causing me a lot of problems this past year, I am now writing from Alastair II, an HP Pavilion dv7.

The main reason I wanted to post today is because I have heard from a little birdie (okay, Twitter) that Jason Bay is officially going to the Mets. In return, the Red Sox are receiving two draft picks - a sandwich pick between rounds and the Mets' second-round pick. Although the Mets' first-rounder was protected, this still makes me wonder a bit about Omar Minaya's competency. I am a patient fan. I stick with my team(s) regardless of how well they are playing, because that's what a loyal fan does. I do not get upset when they do not play well over a long period of time - that happens to every team in every sport at some point, even the Yankees. New York, the city I live twenty minutes outside of when I am not studying military history in Pennsylvania, is not a patient city. And that is where Omar's problems begin.

Omar feels pressure from the impatient fans who demand championships rabidly, and he attempts to respond immediately instead of gradually working towards the goal of building a perennial contender. He signs big names, regardless of how old they are, hoping the fans will respond positively to this and praise him, but instead he tends to call upon the services of washed up players who are past their prime (two of the few notable exceptions being Johan Santana, who has done everything asked of him and more, and Jeff Francoeur, who came into an extremely difficult situation and played his heart out). The problem with signing recognizable names in this case is that Omar picks them up on the cheap, after their best years are behind them. He depletes the farm system to achieve this, saving the money for their salaries. Here is the major problem - Omar apparently does not trust untested youth.

I use the word 'untested' somewhat lightly - the best kids playing in Triple-A have been thoroughly tested for years and have proven they're ready to move up to the next level in most cases. My point is that Omar tends to go for experienced players instead of calling upon the services of his prospects, and when he does go to the Minors for a player he seems to do so at the worst possible times (Fernando Martinez, for one, was absolutely not ready in 2009). For example, instead of letting Daniel Murphy settle in at first base, where he was starting to get comfortable, Minaya and Manuel platooned him with Tatis. I adore Tatis - he's a gamer - but Murph needs to play every day in order to consistently improve. Once he got more playing time, his characteristic hitting returned, and he ended up leading the beleaguered team in home runs with twelve. It's not a high number, I know, but it's still impressive that a kid in his first full season in the big leagues who struggled defensively and was shuffled all over the place still led the team in homers. He probably would have hit even more if Omar and Jerry had shown more trust in him.

Omar only thinks about the current - namely, "How do I look to the fans today?" instead of "Hmm. Let's cultivate some minor leaguers down on the farm and put together a consistent contender." The reason my other team, the Red Sox, were so consistently good this decade was because of their farm system. Just a glance at some of the names on the current roster exemplifies this - Jon Lester, Clay Buchholz, Daniel Bard, Jonathan Papelbon, Kevin Youkilis, Dustin Pedroia, Jacoby Ellsbury, and my personal favorite, Mr. Jed Carlson Lowrie, are all former farmhands from the Red Sox's system. It is extremely difficult to do this with the current Mets - outside of David Wright and Jose Reyes, most of the players were brought in from the outside by trading prospects (though one or two prospects, like Bobby Parnell and the aforementioned Murphy, have survived). While Omar is very good at addressing current needs (or so he believes; he isn't actually the world expert in patching up offensive and defensive leaks), he does not plan for the future, and this, amongst other things, makes him a bad role model for today's children, who need to learn how to save their assets now to prosper later.

At this rate, Omar will never prosper later. He will not prosper at all. He's just wasting crops.

That is not to say I am against Jason Bay going to the Mets - indeed, I am not, because I like JayBay a lot and loved him during his stint in Boston. What I am against is the way Omar got him - two draft picks. At a time when Omar severely needs to rebuild his farm system, he passes up a chance to grab some great kids to help him out. That is not the way to do it. On the plus side, he did achieve the deal without giving up Josh Thole, but it's still something to think about.

It's exam time here at Gettysburg, so I figured it'd be nice to post some feel-good stuff.



Skip to 2:11 and hear John Maine's enthusiasm!

I've decided that I'm going to start making plushies again (I made one of Kawai Kazuki for my Junta cosplay), but this time I'm going to do MLB players (and the cast of slumberwood so Sheridan and I can "go on dates"). If these come out well enough, I might be tempted to take MLB player requests over the summer, but I'm not the best seamstress, so I'm not sure how that'll go.

Also, I hate to admit that I'm watching something on Vh1, but I actually enjoy Tough Love because it teaches positive things about dating. It's kind of ironic that this show airs on the same channel that produces highly flawed dating shows. What?

So I haven't been around here much lately due to schoolwork and stuff, but I just figured I'd post this lovely video I made on JibJab of Jed Lowrie and Daniel Murphy dancing in a disco club to let everyone know I still exist.

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soprano_no_eiji and I watched the first eight episodes of The Law of Ueki today. It was utter crack, and I think all I got out of it was, "Check it check it check it awwwwot!"

And yet I greatly enjoyed it. Even though it makes very little sense most of the time and I have decided that my life mission is to smack Mori Ai across the face, it was a lot of fun and I'd love to see more of it. The theme song is also stuck in my head now and it refuses to go away (I had to jump onto Gendou and download it). It's a fun show for anyone who wants some...erm, interesting fight scenes (our hero, Ueki Kousuke, is gifted with the power to turn garbage into trees in combat) and some crack along with their drama.

I have no idea what we're going to watch next here, but we've gotten through seventeen episodes of Furuba and I think we ought to finish that because there are only twenty-six episodes total. I also really like looking at Shigure, and not just because when he transforms he resembles my dog Abigail:



I really need to watch more series. I really do.

cootie_10 took this picture. I am a massive dweeb. But Stanford. Luff.



Yes, that is my Tosei tie. I know, I know.