Dirt

I do hope everyone had a Merry Christmas; I certainly did, sort of; Eve was spent with the family, and Xmas Day was spent at my friend Jim's house...waiting for him to come home from the emergency room with a sick baby.  Which, I can say, is no fun.  It also told me I shouldn;t have children, as I have less patience...which is NOT good for the child.  More happily, the Xmas swag was fairly nice -- books, some CDs, a couple of gift cards -- and while it does not of course reach what was spent on Xmas, I will survive.  For now.

The house is sort of a mess; ok, the kitchen floor is sort of crappy.  The rest of the house is ok.  I put away the Xmas stuff, and if I ever get around to taking some boxes in the attic, it would look nicer.  I need to mount a jigsaw puzzle on something (I have another one to do), and once that is done I will have the table back for the new puzzle.  I need a new kitchen light fixture...but that is it, aside from some dusting.  I guess, having industrially cleaned the place a few weeks ago, it is a good idea to keep it that way.

Awake

Well, I survived...my final week of OC duty, and related troubles...anything and everything, more or less.  As you can tell, the light blogging was due to work, OC activities, and some belated and final Xmas shopping, which is now totally done.  I am off most of the next week, which I intend to spend on catching up on some sleep, even if it involves only the briefest of daily naps.  I feel beat to hell, actually.  Once you feel that way -- at my advanced age -- everything else seems to lag.  I do need to cancel OC duty in December, simply because it takes time and I don't spend it being Xmas-y.  I will admit that this week was again moderately quiet, and while some people were pains, they weren't giant ones, and by and large, they were fairly nice.  We do tend to get the "we couldn't get help anywhere else" crowd this time of year....

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/12/20/ohio-judge-says-efficiency-not-good-case-for-traffic-cameras/

I love this judge; he was the one who helped push (through his decisions) concealed carry in Ohio. 

http://www.redstate.com/2013/12/19/hyper-regulated-lawlessness/

This is largely correct, as is this:

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/curing-the-healthcare-crisis/201312/war-the-poor

I went to a party in Tremont yesterday, which was fun, but damn, parking there is a clusterfuck.  One of my friends likes to say the great cultural innovation of the suburbs is "acres of free and convenient parking" and I had to admit that in some cases, he is 110% correct...

Market Efficiencies

http://www.wksu.org/news/story/37667

Interesting.  Very interesting.

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-12-06/the-ugly-numbers-behind-unbundled-cable-tv

I found this to be interesting as well, if only because...well, I think it indicates the best GOP line against Obamacare.  People don't mind paying for the cable channels they do watch; what they object to is paying for the channels they don't.  I suspect that the author of the above article is correct, that yes, some, maybe many channels...wouldn't be around.  But, assuming you could get enough paying subscribers -- and I bet you could for Fox programming, the History/Hitler channel, LOGO, etc... --you could have them.  And, once you had a set of core channels, you could probably figure out ways to market other, related channels.  Ditto for healthcare; people can pay for those things they DO want, while of course leaving what they do not.  Not only the hot-button issues, but lifetime caps, pharmaceuticals, etc., all of them could be purchased individually.  No government agency to cancel your plans and call them unsatisfactory!

Of course, brains are in short supply for the GOP right now, so...I don't think it will happen.

Speaking of brains in short supply, the Tribe...well, I guess the thought is one or two failed starters could relieve -- Carrasco and Tomlin, for instance.  Axford "can" close, at least for a while, and maybe Shaw/Allen/Hagadone will be ok.  That is not exactly a bullpen that makes my heart flutter, nor one that puts fear into the hearts of opposing hitters.  As for Shawn Marcum...well, for every Kazmir, there is a Brett Myers.

Oddly enough, there was an article in today's Baseball Prospectus about the rise of the fifth starter, and they looked at pitching performance in terms of rest, and, lo and behold, it didn't seem that high workloads affected pitchers, but high pitch counts (per start) could...  I think this is exactly correct, and I wonder when teams will start converting starters in the minors to a four-day rotation.  In addition to the stronger and better bench -- to take an example from above -- your weaker starters, i.e., your fifth starters, would become the multi-inning reliever.  Thus, in the above case, the Tribe would have Masterson/KluberMcAlister and someone else -- Bauer, Marcum, Carrasco, Tomlin; two of the losers would be relievers, to be plugged in when one guy fails (for a start or permanently, such as when Marcum goes back on the DL).  Given the shuttle that exists between Cleveland and Cbus, two or three guys could be kept on the options train to keep arms fresh...

The recoil

It really says something that my big Friday nite is updating the blog.  For one, I was busy every nite this week; often spectacularly so, with social justice and work and other important events.  Today I took the day off of work and...dropped the cookies I baked for the Church sale Wednesday, bought kielbasa, did 3/4 of the holiday shopping, went to Mom's for a few chores, went to church to get the food delivery, took it to the OC, came home, made a jello...and watched "Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels" because I had a hankering.  And now it is 11, off to bed -- the weekend is as busy as the week -- and I can write.

I was almost at the breaking point Wednesday, for a bunch of reasons, and then I got an email from a close and dear college friend; his stepfather had passed away (suddenly), and it was sad, not only for the time, but because he was young and was a good guy and was good to everyone in my friend's life...and needless to say, I felt like a shitbag, because my depths weren't that deep at the time.  Funny thing, sometimes.

One unpleasant residue of the awful week is the accumulation of email...messages I should have answered are at the bottom of the pile, new ones come in, they get triaged, and my inbox looks like a grocery store receipt.  Oi.

Holidaze

I have to admit, I wasn't particularly surprised to see OSU lay an egg yesterday, and while it does suck...well, it gives them a slightly more winnable game.  Clemson is good, but after what FSU did to them in Death Valley...well, rah.  I'd like to think OSU will have a slightly smarter game plan, though if that was what they had to handle MSU...oops.

I got a kick out of all of the articles going around discussing the lack of Tribe activity in the offseason.  To be sure, it happened last year, and we did sign David Murphy.  The problem of course is that everyone else in the division seems to be improving, and we are not, and given that there are a half-dozen holes in the pitching staff, to which it seems internal candidates only need apply...well, you can see how people are getting a little antsy.  I suspect that Carlos Santana will see absolutely NO action at 3rd base, not that Chisenhall will get a burst, but that Carlos will be Hafner-esque and then they'll decide that they have had enough of that. 

I am still waiting on Xmas gift ideas for people, but I think I may have to clamp down and start shopping/collecting gift cards/planning out the budget.  Every year I say I am spending less, and this time I mean it, and while it prolly will NOT happen this year, there is always hope.  To be sure, I was a little aggressive with the parish gift card program, so that will be some time/idea saving, but the rest are going to befuddle me for a few days.  I sometimes everyone would just give me money, so I could simply pay off the bills accumulated and maybe treat myself to something, but that is an Xmas wish that will NEVER come true.

Snow

Watched both Glenville and Northern Illinois lose, which suprised me...one, because I thought Glenville had the speed to blow anyone out of the water, and I thought NIU could just outscore anyone.  But, the snow caused the turnovers and took away the speed; also, it seemed that it took Glenville the entire game to figure out the Wing T, which seems to be a coaching issue.  As for NIU, the BCS people can rest easy in their final year...

For all the talk of snow and ice and death today, it seemed we missed it along the lake; I mean, roads were fine on the way in, and on the way home, it had just started to snow, which sent people into paroxysms of idiocy, but you could manuever around them.  My Mom thought I should stay home and do Lord knows what, so it was most amusing to wake up and find things to be in decent shape, though it seemed that an hour to the south, it wasn't the case.

Women in Love is going slowly, for a bunch of reasons, mainly because it is hard to be thrilled or shocked or appalled; the book simply is, and here we are, the reader, slowly suffering through.  The sacrifices I make for art...

Literature and You

I went in the attic to put away a box of stuff for storage -- I really need to get back into the going through the cabinets and closets routine again -- and then, a few minutes, while in the hallway...I discovered a large spider lowering itself from the attic door gap.  Recovering from my shock, I cut its web strand with my book and sent it to spider heaven.  In the meantime, I am now thinking of helmets, and will be spraying the attic with a more virulent form of DDT...

Speaking of books, even though I get a full load from the liberry yesterday, I went ahead and started the next fiction book on the list, Lawrence's Women in Love, the sequel to the last book I read.  Back to the Brangwen women, which is...awesome.  One thing I immediately picked up on -- after imagining what it would be like to the reader of 1920 -- is its veiled (obviously not!) eroticism; I mean, all this talk of muscled masculine thighs could only have meant one thing...

And on that note, yesterday I watched "The Broker Tower," about Hart Crane.  I think it was on the Netflix queue because it was written and starred in by James Franco...and because while I have not read much of Crane, I've always wanted to read more, as there was this sense of power, yet descriptive, language....modern flowery, if you will, in this American sense.  Anyways, the film was art house in the extreme, and...well, let's just say that it tackles Crane's homosexuality head on, if you get my drift.  I did like it -- certain parts much less so, and we will leave it at that -- and now, Lord help me, I need to add poetry to the ever-expanding reading list.

Notes

It's funny...I was with some friends when the Iron Bowl was on, and when we saw Alabama going for the FG, we all agreed it was a bad move, lest someone return the kick; we all felt they should have put up the Hail Mary, as worse comes to worse, it gets picked off in the end zone, and you go to OT...  Of course, the fact that Nick Saban lost....Mr. Perfection...well, a little funny.

More seriously, I have to wonder at the wisdom of OSU at 2 in the polls; I mean, considering how Michigan -- a team not gifted offensively --passed through the secondary like a hot knife through butter, do we really want to see what FSU does to them?  Heck, Auburn and Alabama both have better schedules and they looked more impressive playing each other.

Met some friends at Crocker Park today; I forgot the place had literally everything.  I was only at a small part of it, but I perused the map and one could practically spend most of the day there, shopping away.  I even found two places for gifr wrap.  I popped in Barnes and Noble -- they have everything, not that I blame them -- and I could not help but be fascinated by the Lego puzzles of famous buildings, which looked pretty cool.  The only problem is you have to schlep outside everytime you go to a store, which to me is...well, fine in the summer and spring, but now....oi.