Nobody 807a

Sunday, February 21, 2010

Nobody # 807

Nobody Asked Me But:

There are places I remember: While in the process of scanning all mementos from past trips, I ran across this card showing one of my top five hotel rooms. The Inn at Sunrise Point is just a couple of miles north of Camden, Maine. Our room was the one at the lower right, within a few feet of the water.<<<

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 17

EMERGENCIES

Supposedly most people, as they get older, are less able to handle emergency situations without excessive stress and sometimes, even panic. Once again today, I proved that I am not most people. Here’s what happened. I pulled up to my “home” Coldstone at 11am, only to find a sign announcing that they would not open until 2pm. No stress. I just exited the parking lot and headed several miles east to another Coldstone, one that I had never been to, with a Starbucks next door.

No panic. No problem. And the girl makes a terrific malt.<<<

Which is why I sit here, chocolate malt and cup of black in front of me. It is 36 hours until the NBA trading deadline, time for me to play fantasy Lakers general manager. Jim Turner is my name. Trading Andrew Bynum is my game.

Why?

1. I can make the Lakers stronger and give them a better chance to win their second consecutive championship.

2. I can improve the team’s chances of staying at the top over the long run.

3. While Bynum is very good, I am not sure he has the drive to be great.

4. The team is better defensively and on the boards with Lamar Odom on the floor instead of Andrew.

For whom? I have two possibilities:

1. Send Bynum to the Memphis Grizzlies for Marc Gasol and two first round picks.

2. Send him to the Timberwolves for Kevin Love and two first round picks.

Justification: Even off the bench, Love is an automatic double-double and Gasol is right there too. Both would bring high energy on to the floor every game.

Which is my preference?

It’s a toss-up. Marc Gasol would make for an intriguing brother combination with Pau. For Love, who played at UCLA, it would be a homecoming of sort and would pretty much guarantee us at least one lottery choice and probably two.

What happens now?

I finish my malt and wait for the phone to ring.<<<

(It never rang.)<<<

I see that Tiger Woods is going to make a public statement Friday. From what I hear, he will announce that his goal is to cut his scoring by 20% this year. If true, this will knock approximately 20 women off his total by the end of the tour.

Just kidding Tiger. I remain a huge fan.<<<

It was indeed, as one reviewer put it, “a softer attack than I expected.” But, then, why would I expect my first glass of Opus One to attack me. After all, I have waited a long time to try this wine. I had about given up when Barbara surprised me at Christmas three years ago with a bottle of 2004. I opened it last Sunday (Valentine’s Day) and it was even better than I anticipated, although I am not sure that I would choose the same pretentious terms as this wine connoisseur used to describe it - “lovely nose, dark fruit, velvet mouth feel, black cherry, chocolate, earth, spice and cocoa.”

Instead I’ll just say my thank you to Robert Mondavi and Baron Philippe Rothchild, both now deceased, for creating this great winery and to my wife for her most wonderful gift.<<<

The undead are back! Zombies walk among us! One of the scariest creatures from the Republican monster machine has risen from the muck. That's right. Privatizing Social Security, or just Privatizing as he has come to be known, has slipped out of the Republican caucus and is once more prowling the halls of the Capital. Rumor has it that he wants to mate with Tea Party to produce a new brood of Liberty Boys, who will fight to the last man for the American dream - excess profits.<<<

The undead are back! Zombies walk among us! Oh, excuse me. That was just the Bruins on the court against Washington last night.<<<

I just finished reading my first Robert Ellis novel, “The Lost Witness.” I liked it enough to make a special trip to Borders, Sunday, to buy the previous book in his series about LA Robbery/Homicide detective Lena Gamble, “City Of Fire.” For a few days I was even reading the two simultaneously.<<<

Here is a great Vancouver Olympics quote from LA Times columnist Chris Erskine – “They have strange weather patterns here. It only rains when I go outside.”<<<

As teams prepare to report to camp in Florida and Arizona, I keep humming that song from State Fair, “It might as well be Spring….. Training.”<<<

And while on the subject of baseball, last season’s Mr. Consistency was Ben Zobrist of the Devil Rays. His stats include 91 runs scored, 91 RBIs and 91 walks. And will the Rays be the third best team in both the majors and their division?<<<

ACTION/REACTION

Action: Responding to an article in the Arizona Daily Star, a lady wrongly compared the Republican dominated legislature to Ringling Brothers circus.

Reaction: Wrong! Ringling Brothers is a class act. This gun toting, bible-waving bunch is more “Carney” than class.

Action: "Congress has never crossed the line between regulating what people choose to do and ordering them to do it," said Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT). "The difference between regulating and requiring is liberty."

Reaction: Never ordering? Never requiring? Ah, Orrin, does that mean my paying income tax is voluntary?

Action: Here is Justice Kennedy in his majority opinion for the outrageous Supreme Court decision that gave corporations and unions “free speech” rights to make campaign contributions without limits to the party of their choice: “No evidence shows that unrestricted campaign money ever bought a lawmaker’s vote.”

Reaction: They just give all that money because they are good citizens and expect nothing in return. Right!

Reaction #: To make a statement like that, Justice Kennedy must be dumb, deluded or dishonest.

Action: Another recent CNN question was, “Do you carry a gun?” 39% answered yes.

Reaction: SHAME ON YOU AMERICA.

Action: Austin radio host Alex Jones declared Thursday that Joe Stack’s suicide crash into that Austin building that housed an IRS office was staged by the government to “demonize the tea party movement.”

Reaction: We used to give crazy people help. Now we give them a radio or television show.