Ladies and Gentlemen, Your 2008 San Francisco Giants!

I think I have lived in three of the top five most baseball depressed cities at their peak of depression. Pittsburgh, clearly. Baltimore, which still holds out hope for a Cal Rikpen comeback. And now San Francisco, which since their World Series appearance of 2002 have been no better than the Royals. So imagine my excitement when I opened up today's San Francisco Chronicle and found this sprawling beacon of athleticism:That's Ray Durham, listed at 5'8" 170lbs. But that is from last year, before his apparent boob job. He'll be the Giants starting second baseman. Clearly Spring Training has taken its toll on Durham who until now has been mostly focusing on conditioning his sunflower-seed-spitting muscles and not his lying-on-his-side-muscles. In fact, spring training has taken its toll on several of the Giants, who already have four players that are going to be unable to participate in the remainder of the preseason.

I'm beginning to wonder if we should still consider baseball a sport because if we do then we're required to consider those who play baseball athletes, which clearly many of these men are not.

Just How Limited is Our Democracy?

Pretty fucking limited. I had no idea how crazy it was until I came across this:

“Delegates are NOT bound to vote for the candidate they are pledged to at the convention or on the first ballot,” a recent DNC memo states. “A delegate goes to the convention with a signed pledge of support for a particular presidential candidate. At the convention, while it is assumed that the delegate will cast their vote for the candidate they are publicly pledged to, it is not required.”

Which is outrageous to me. What is the point of this whole procedure if, at the end, our vote may actually not count? Further, who in the hell decided this was a good idea? I can only imagine what would happen in this country if Obama had the nomination locked up by the convention only to have some DNC suit amble to the microphone and say, "Uh, yeah. Well, so here's the thing..."

And don't think this isn't possible:

Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign intends to go after delegates whom Barack Obama has already won in the caucuses and primaries if she needs them to win the nomination.[...]

“I swear it is not happening now, but as we get closer to the convention, if it is a stalemate, everybody will be going after everybody’s delegates,” a senior Clinton official told me [Roger Simon] Monday afternoon. “All the rules will be going out the window.”

Can you imagine how much faith in voting would be lost if this actually happened? America has a legendary apathetic voting base as it is, but if people watched their delegates completely disregard their wishes it could alienate an entire generation of voters. And what about the concept of the democrats running a candidate that their party doesn't actually think should be president? Would there even be a chance of her winning? Would the backlash of the democratic voter base be so incredible that we would see the smallest democratic voter turnout in history? Would the democrats then achieve the impossible task of running a candidate that sucks worse than John Kerry?

And then think about all of the things that would be done to convince pledged delegates to switch. Clinton would be paying back favors for the rest of her life. There's no possible way her presidency would be viewed as legit. I bet in 50 years we'd see a book published of the things the Clinton campaign did to win the 2008 nomination that would rival Watergate.

I think Clinton's biggest advantage is a fat Rolodex and a hugely influential husband who could call in more than his share of favors. We might actually see how real that advantage actually is. I hope for the sake of all of us we don't.

The Mitchell Report

I had an absolutely epic post drafted about the Mitchell Report and Clemens' testimony on Capitol Hill from earlier this week. Really, this thing was like 6000 words. And I realized that nobody besides Zhi would read it. And I realized that I haven't paid nearly enough attention to this steroids stuff to have 6000 words worth of correct, interesting, well-informed info. So, long story short, I got to a point where I had too much to really want to skim through it and re-draft it because it mostly wasn't good. Right.

But the main idea is that baseball really screwed this one up. They ignored the issue because they had a good product that erased the memories of the 1994 lockout. Fans were happy, owners were seeing revenues skyrocket, and Red Sox fans stopped complaining. But when the elephant in the room (which is only slightly larger than Bonds' steroid-inflamed skull) became such that even people like my mother, who doesn't know Barry Bonds from Micheal Jordan, could look at these players and comment on how unnaturally large they'd become. (Side note: my mother, like every Pittsburgher, was a die-hard Pirate fan until after the 1992 season when the Bucs traded Bonds to the Giants for a handful of beans and embarked on their decade-and-a-half "rebuilding" project that has no end in sight).

But in the process of trying to rehabilitate the game Bud Selig invoked the almighty power [ineptitude] of our congress whose independent study has led to a media circus on Capitol Hill. And once this all has been resolved, we might see Clemens or Bonds end up in jail but that's it. That's the upper-ceiling. As we speak, guys are at spring training taking needles in their asses to try to keep up. And it's entirely worth it to them because if they get caught, they still have their money. And If they don't, then their numbers skyrocket and they make more money. The Mitchell Report gave us heads to put on our mantle to point to and say, "Yeah, these guys are cheaters," while nothing actually changes.

As a fan of sports and the entertainment they bring me, I like my games to be entertaining. And 105 mph fastballs, curveballs that drop 18 inches off the plate, and 525 foot home runs entertain the shit out of me. But as someone who plays sports as well I can't imagine the frustration I'd feel if I was a clean athlete on the cusp of the pros only to see my spot gobbled up by a 'roid-raging fraud. I think baseball has an obligation to integrity and the safety of its players, and steroids compromises both. At this point I don't know what busting prior steroid users does to help anything. I want to see some reform from this point, and that means Bud Selig and Donald Fehr getting real about investing in the future of testing for HGH and whatever else chemists are concocting to skirt the existing battery of tests. Without this, Major League Baseball will become no better than the WWE.

Some Thoughts on McCain

CKG's response (over on the faceboob) to my post about voting got me thinking the following about John McCain:

• Something that was mentioned before the primaries began but has been swept under the rug since is McCain's age. He's going to be 72 when the election rolls around. That's old. Of course, McCain will likely have the best health care in the world (and probably has for quite some time). But he fought in wars and was in a POW camp for 5-1/2 years. That takes a toll. It has to. So, not to be mean, but how much longer does this guy have? Barack Obama catches a cold, it's likely no big deal. A 70-something man catches a cold and pneumonia becomes a real concern. I'm just saying.

• The flip side of this is the old vote. We hear a lot about how Obama is young and therefore will carry the young vote. Why wouldn't McCain carry the old vote? Wouldn't old people want to see a president they relate to in the same way young folks want to see a hip, good-looking young guy like Obama?

• CKG mentioned talk of a McCain-Huckabee ticket (assiming McCain gets the nod, which I think is reasonable). I think this is a scary ticket for the democrats. If you look at the votes McCain has won, they're primarily not with conservatives. He's gobbling up all the independents and others. What the big concern is now for the republicans is whether or not McCain can secure enough of the hard right vote (which he struggles to do primarily due to his liberal views on immigration)h. I think Huckabee and his religious values make him an appealing V.P. to Christian-conservative voters who would like to see him slide into office in, say, 8 years. Not to mention, Huckabee is a good 20 years younger than McCain, so that would help balance out the age issue I mentioned above.

[As I write, Mittens decides to execute his bid for office. It's been a bad week for New England. I wonder where his delegates will go....]

Gay for Glaceau

I'm completely in love with vitaminwater. It's stupid. Mostly, it's sugars and things that are kind of bad-to-okay for you. But there are some vitamins, and things like "lutein" and "theanine" and "calcium" and other made up ingredients. And they come in these really interesting colors that inexplicably make them more delicious. And what's more, sometimes our local supermarket has them on sale for a buck a piece. After a while it just becomes the economical thing to do.

So you'll understand why today, when I saw this puppy staring me right in the face, I had no choice but drop $2.24 and take the ride:
That's right. Sixteen fluid ounces of vitaminenergy. Vitaminwater's next evolutionary step and I never saw it coming. I wish someone had taken my picture the moment I happened upon this pint of pure joy in the local Walgreen's.

For the record, I really don't get down on energy drinks. First, I'm not that big on caffeine because it tends to tweak me out pretty hard, and I become almost instantaneously addicted to it. So if I don't have caffeine the next day, I have a little less energy (all things being equal, of course). This compounds itself the more days I go consecutively with caffeine. On top of that, I think Red Bull not only looks like cat urine, but it tastes a bit like it too. And sugar-free Red Bull? Really? Is that the flavor you people were looking for? Having said that, I do occasionally partake of the energy drink because they're very effective at, say, helping you push through that last few hours before sunrise.

The Walgreen's had three flavors. I will capitalize them for emphasis: Dragonfruit (red), Fruit Punch (purple, for some reason, and not red) and Tropical Citrus (yellow, appropriately). Naturally, I got the Dragonfruit. The first thing I looked at was the ingredients. Ingredient 1? Carbonated water. This upset me. I always feel like carbonation is a cheap way to cover up nasty tasting substances. Bad times. As I rifled through the rest of the ingredients, I noticed that it had the requisite crapola like caffeine, taurine (which I think is mostly just speed), guarana, and some other stuff. But it did, way down at the bottom, have some vitamins listed. Good times. The Glaceau people say this is the difference:

unlike other energy drinks that look like they glow in the dark (loaded with weird chemicals and preservatives), vitaminenergy has no artificial colors, sweeteners, or flavors. we also use natural caffeine, like you'd find in coffee or tea...

And the breakdown:

• b + c vitamins for metabolic energy
• natural caffeine for immediate energy
• ribose for sustained energy

And the website features flash-animated floating vitaminenergy cans with little bands of energy orbiting around them from all sides, so I'm set.

The verdict? I thought it tasted pretty good. Not as good as the Dragonfruit vitaminwater, but good. Also, I don't know what a dragonfruit is or what it's supposed to taste like so perhaps this energy version is closer to the real thing. Anyway I drank it at work in the first 30 minutes I was there. About 20 minutes later I felt my pupils constrict and I nearly caught fire (the caffeine). A little while after that I leveled out and everything was cream cheese. I coasted through the day without experience any sort of crash. To be fair, I slept about 10 hours last night, but even sometimes when I sleep that much I feel a touch sluggish because of my sloth. The downside is the gf threw me out of bed tonight for tossing and turning too much which leads me to believe that maybe this stuff works too fucking good. Or maybe I'm just a gigantic pussy when it comes to caffeine tolerance. Either way, I was more than satisfied. It's a little pricey, but you get more of it for your money than, say, Red Bull. The fact that I didn't crash or wind up with a caffeine-chemical hangover was big. And I feel like the vitaminwater name provides a sane alternative to more wild-eyed beverages like "Monster" and "Hype" and "FirePower Extreme" (find a full list of the madness here) all of which make it seem like your muscles might burst through your clothes in a fit of pure energy and you'll accidentally dislodge a mailbox from it's moorings while simply trying to mail a letter.

The tremendous upside is that we will almost assuredly see a spike in vitaminenergy related alcoholic beverages. If you add vodka to one of these it could easily make a "VitaminSparxx." Or we could drop shots of vodka into half-pints of the stuff to create a "VitaminBomb." The possibilities are endless....

Rock Band Upgrade

About a month ago I was talking to k2, Jenna, and the gf about how the current rock band drum set was good, but not great. Basically, my ideas were 1) a hard rubber surface would make the stick react off the drum head more realistically thus making playability easier, and 2) mounted cymbals would be a lot more intuitive and expand all sorts of options for improvisation and realistic play. Now all I have to do is scrounge up between $300 and $400 and somehow wait until next fall....

Not to Beat a Dead Horse....

But Ari Fleischer, Bush's Press Secretary from 2001-2003, from last night;

"There is no doubt ... we [republicans] hope and pray every night to run against Hillary Clinton,"

Voting is Hard

And I reckon it should be. I've only been allowed to vote in two elections, but each time it was really difficult to decide who to vote for. I think there are two ways one can approach voting. The first, and by far the most popular, is voting for who you like the best. That seems pretty reasonable. I've done it for each election I've voted in and it seemed like a good idea at the time. But the second option is one I've been kicking around this election cycle, because I think it might fit our country's style of limited democracy better. Sometimes, you have to vote for 1) the lesser of two evils or 2) the most electable candidate that represents your views the best. You need to use your vote strategically

I think we get frustrated because our two party system perpetually leaves us with two candidates who, at best, tangentially represent us. In 2000, we had a prominent third party candidate that rustled up enough support to create a dent in the final vote tally largely because he wasn't a democrat and a republican. The problem is that in 2000 Ralph Nader and the green party likely cost Gore the election because just about everyone who voted for Nader would have voted for Gore had Nader not been involved. And between Bush and Gore, Gore was clearly the greener of the two. But the notion that you should vote for who you like the best got in the way of the logic that a vote for Nader is, essentially, a wasted vote and that vote should go to the guy who you agree with the most and who actually has a chance to get elected. Sure, Gore wasn't going to be as green as Nader, but the alternative was a guy who really didn't give a shit about the environment.

If I'm a voting democrat today, there is simply no doubt in my mind who I vote for. It's got to be Obama because quite simply Hilary is unelectable. There is no chance in hell republicans are going to approve four more years of a Clinton presidency. Republicans despise the Clintons, and they'll never vote for her. And this is what I'm talking about. You have to use your vote strategically. You might be in love with Hilary Clinton, but you have to make sure you get a nominee out there that is electable. In 2004, Kerry got the nod despite the fact that he was loathed by half the country before the democratic convention. And then he lost the presidency to a guy who proved four years in he was one of the most incompetent people in the country.

Democrats think there is no chance for a republican to win the presidency, but it's just that kind of hubris that cost them the 2004 race. I feel that if the republicans get McCain out there, he has the kind of crossover appeal that could garner enough support to handily beat Clinton and possibly Obama. Republicans need to do the same thing: Romney and Huckabee don't strike me as electable. McCain is the clear choice for them.