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This was my poor attempt at an April fools joke, btw.

Time for some baseball!

So, here we are a little over a week away from Major League Baseball Opening Day 2010. The Astros are finishing up spring training and have played remarkably well in my opinion. Now we all know that spring training games are about as useful in predicting how the actual season will go about as well as blind monkeys throwing darts at dartboards the size of a nickel, but nevertheless, the Astros have looked good. With that in mind, let’s break down this upcoming season and attempt to figure out how everything will pan out this year for the ‘stros.

Before we talk about what the Astros have going into this upcoming season, we have to take a look back at what we lost this past offseason. The most glaring discrepancy in the lineup is the loss of Miguel Tejada. Tejada was a free agent in the offseason and decided to go back to the Orioles organization with whom he had spent the better part of his major league career. Tejada was the Astros best hitter in the 2009 season. His team leading .313 batting average will be a major loss to a team that struggled hard to score runs last season. And while he only had 86 RBI’s last season, keep in mind that people actually have to be on base and generally in scoring position in order to score on a hit.

Another loss, the size of which could be debated longer than I am willing to spend on the topic, is the closer Jose Valverde. Valverde was unable to come even close to his national league leading 44 saves he achieved in 2008. Again though, this is more due to the fact that the Astros were rarely ever in a save situation at the end of ball games. His ERA of 2.33 was certainly not shabby and his arm will almost certainly be missed this year as the Astros did not go out on the open market and pick up another closer.

The refusal to go out on the free agent market and pick up veteran players at the positions of shortstop and closer mean that this will most likely be another down year (or “rebuilding year” for you optimists out there) even in the best scenario. It appears right now as if rookie Tommy Manzella will be the Astros’ opening day shortstop and rookie Brandon Lyon will be tasked with the duties of closer. Both of them seem to be having pretty decent spring trainings. Will they be able to fill the gaps left by two veteran powerhouses? That will have to remain to be seen.

One of the bigger disappointments for me was the realization that Kaz Matsui is still with the team. I suppose my dreams had me believing that his contract with the Astros was up at the end of the 2009 season, but alas, I was wrong. Matsui is one of those professional baseball oddball players that really makes you wonder how they managed to get multi-million dollar deals for being a below average player. Matsui is a perennial inning killer on offense and only slightly better than average at the second base position. Undoubtedly, the Astros will continue to march him out there as a starter and bat him in the 1 or 2 hole which means the chances of scoring first this season will remain low. If popping out to the first baseman in foul territory with runners on second and third with no out was a sport, Matsui would be the MVP.

Ok, with that out of my system, let’s move on to the starting rotation. If I had to sum up the rotation in one word, it would be this: terrifying. Last year, Roy Oswalt had what you might call an off year. Wandy Rodriguez somehow managed to end up becoming the ace of the ballclub. How many of you thought you’d ever hear yourselves thinking that!? These two are quite frankly going to both have career years in order for the Astros to be competitive. That’s because after them, there is really nobody. Brett Myers (old and terrible), Bud Norris (rookie), and Felipe Paulino (utterly terrible) round out the starting rotation. This is one of the weakest pitching staffs that the team has had for years. The Astros used to be a team known for their pitching and now they are going to have trouble having a single 15 game winner.

Carlos Lee, Lance Berkman and Hunter Pence are really going to have to carry the team offensively this season. Michal Bourne having another career year wouldn’t hurt either. I feel slightly more confident with the offense this year even with the loss of Tejada. Hopefully this new coach will place Matsui low in the lineup where he has the least possible opportunity to do damage. Time will have to tell how well Manzella does at the big league level offensively. Having a strong bat at shortstop will be instrumental in getting the Astros back above .500 this season.

Ok, prediction time. The lack of any proven starters behind Wandy and Oswalt is clearly going to be a detriment to the team. The only wild card here will be Bud Norris who showed some real promise late last season. The lack of a veteran on the left side of the infield is still some cause for concern. I would really like the Astros to go out and look for some trading opportunities for a real third base man sometime this season. Quintero and Towles are both miserable offensively. The 7,8,9 hitters of (hopefully) Matsui, Towles/Quintero, and the pitcher will generally be automatic outs every time they come around in the lineup essentially giving the Astros 9 less outs per game.

With all that in mind, all might not be lost. While I don’t think this team has any realistic chance of making the playoffs, .500 or better might not be that far off. I think it will be fair to estimate that the 2010 Astros will finish with around a 75-87 record this year on the upper end of the scale and a 60-102 last place in the division season on the lower side. In all likely hood it will be somewhere in between those 2 outcomes. They are still no where near the level of talent they had back in 2005 when they went to the World Series. Either way, I am still so glad that it is finally baseball season once again!

I’d like to end this post by talking about the Pirates for just a little bit. You see, Pirates fans have watched their team have losing season after losing season for the better part of 20 years. Us Astros fans have nothing on the patience and loyalty of those fans in Pittsburg who have watched and waited so long for their team just to be mediocre and competitive. The current word on the street is that THIS is the year for them. This is the .500 year. So while I will always root for the Astros, I will also be secretly rooting for the Pirates to finally break this beast that has been on their back for so long. Good luck Pirates fans!

Going legit

I was going to write about the recent Olympic Games in this post but something much more important has come up. Besides, screw the Olympics anyway, they had their fun in the sun already. Moving along, I ran across this article earlier today. I’ll give you a minute or so to peruse over it.

Finished? Good.

What that article boils down to in a nutshell is this: I am now an official news organization. If you have read any of this blog over the past 2 years, you know about the hard hitting journalism that I bring to the table on a quazi weekly basis. And now, I am finally getting some recognition for my efforts. Since I am now officially a member of the press corps, I will be rubbing elbows with other hard hitters of the media world: Cooper Anderson, Shepherd Smith and most importantly, Erin Burnett.

Now that I am legit, I expect the book deals and drunken yacht parties to begin immediately. And the money, don’t forget about the money! I’ve already begun making my official m1kepwn blogger press pass.

Another important part of being a news organization is the staff. I will be hiring quite a few unpaid interns in the upcoming weeks that will assist me with remembering to post on this site as well as reminding their friends and family to come to this site and view ads. Ads are really all news organizations care about anyway. Oh, and did I mention the money?

The next big step for me is to make a catchy 3 letter acronym for this site. MNN, or M1KEPWN NEWS NETWORK, seems to be the most appropriate. MNN, The Least Trusted Name in News. Damn, I just realized that I am going to need some kind of dramatic theme music to play when someone visits here. This will be another job for the interns as I simply have no time for it now.

And finally, I plan on doing my IPO for MNN in the near future. I will be adding an investor relations link sometime later in the day for all you potential investors out there who want to be a part of this glorious news outlet and share in its profits. I hope to be listed on the NYSE in a matter of weeks. Al investors will be invited to the aforementioned drunken yacht parties and will be treated with copious amounts of Brothers Fried Chicken.

Hello, ladies. Look at your man. Now back to me. Now back to your man. Now back to me. Sadly, he isn’t me. But if he got off his ass and onto the computer he could blog like me. Look again, the computer is now diamonds. Anything is possible when you become a legit news organization. I’m on a horse.

Mardi Gras

Ok so it has been another pretty long hiatus since my last post on this thing for a couple of reasons. 1: Super busy at work. 2. Vacation to New Orleans. And C: No new AdSense money goal. Lucky for you, the viewer, 2 of those things are really no longer an issue. The vacation is over and Christine and I once again have a goal of wasting the money we get from this thing on something awesome. Telling you what that awesomenss is will have to wait. With that in mind, here is a little recap of the time we had in New Orleans.

First off, the drive. We all convened on the wee hours of the Saturday morning before the trip. Knowing us, it shouldn’t have been a surprise to me to see my car loaded up with 6 handles of liquor amongst all the other travel related stuff. Surprisingly, my trunk was big enough to hold all the travel gear for 5 people. I had thought that my car might not be big enough to gang bang 5 people into for a 6 hour trip, but luckily I was wrong as everyone seemed to be pretty comfortable for the whole ride. I had also made a badass classic rock cd that lasted the entire duration of the trip.

One quick side note. One of these days, I am going pitch a television show to FOX called: “WTF IS HEATHER TALKING ABOUT?”. It will be just me and Heather walking down the street with a film crew and having some random people talk to us and attempt to decipher what she is trying to say. I’m telling you, this idea is a comedy gold mine. Heather, you are hilarious!

Anyway, back to the story. As you can imagine, the city was quite packed for Mardi Gras. It literally seemed like every street to our hotel was blocked off. Needless to say we eventually got there and, of course, headed straight to the casino. Now for the record, I think I can honestly say that I enjoy going to New Orleans any other time of the year. I’m not saying that I didn’t have a good time this trip, I did. It’s just that it was impossible to get anywhere at all while the parade was going on. In fact, if I see zero more parades in my life it will be way too many.

We, of course, did all the normal stuff there is to do in New Orleans. Casino, Bourbon Street, Mother’s, and Pat O'Briens. There was also this pretty legit sushi place in the lobby of our hotel that hooked us up with free saki because, get this, they couldn’t sell it to us because they didn’t have a liquor license. Oh New Orleans, I love how the rules don’t apply to you.

Speaking of our hotel, due to the people to bed ratio being inadequate, we brought along an inflatable mattress to compensate. Now, I have never really had a good experience with air mattri. They are generally always pieces of junk that deflate within a couple hours of laying on them. However, the one we brought absolutely takes the cake. It was so crappy, in fact, the phrase “Somalia Bed” was quickly coined to use when talking about it. The only upside to brining the thing along was the use of its blower as a hair dryer when it was discovered the one that came with the room did not work. That was my idea, btw…

Another one of the bigger oddities of the trip was the sheer amount of Brother’s Fried Chicken that was consumed. There was this grocery store 2 blocks down from our hotel called Brother’s that made one hell of a fried chicken strip bucket and invariably someone would always headed down there around 2-3 in the morning and literally pick up buckets of it. Our hotel room was literally covered with these boxes of empty fried chicken by the time the trip was over. It was simply ridiculous.

Ok, now for the absolute strangest part of the trip. On our last full day there, Fat Tuesday, we got up bright and early (12PM) and headed to the iHop on Canal Street. After a short wait, we were seated and started ordering our food. QUICK TIP: Apparently unlimited fountain drink refill only applies to sodas….not apple juice. I had to learn that the hard way after getting my check and seeing an additional $7.50 tacked on for the 3 apple juices I got. WTF?! Anyway, so we look over about midway through our meal and take a look at the person at the check out counter. Instead of seeing say your average age person collection money and making change, there was a young girl who was most definitely no older than 9 years old. She was completely running the place. Ordering servers around, yelling out guest’s names whose tables were ready. EVERYTHING! We’re pretty sure she even fired a bus boy…. Just another example of how rules and regulations like child labor laws simply do not apply to this town!

So yes, as you can see, we all had a really good time on this trip. I glossed over some of the more crazy parts as they are probably not even internet appropriate. I sang horrible karaoke one night and completely lost my voice. I got violently ill after returning back to Houston and I am only now getting over it. New Orleans is simply a great place to have a great time. I love going there and I dare even say I like it more than going to Vegas. So yes, there you go. Great story huh?

Here is one more gem before I sign off:

Housekeeping: (knock, knock, knock) “what time are you guys checking out”?

Us: “We arranged late checkout, we’re leaving at noon.”

Housekeeping: “12 noon?”

Us: “……Yes…..12, noon” (as opposed to the other time of the day that is noon…)

I am going to try to write a recap of the winter Olympics soon before I forget about all the stuff that interested me. Hopefully it will not be another month before something gets posted up here again!

OMG LOST

Tonight begins the final season of the television show LOST. For 6 years now, this show has had more WTF moments than anyone deserves in a lifetime. And while I love the show, part of me is ready for it to be over. With that in mind, I only have a few burning questions that I want to be answered this final season. I could honestly care less who Kate ends up banging or in what shape Sun’s garden will end up in. But then again, what the hell do I know? Perhaps Sun planting her garden is the one clue that solidifies the entire story and it has been there the entire time for us to see. The show could honestly end in weirder ways than that.

The biggest thing I want explained is the Smoke Monster. In all honesty it is probably the reason I watch the show more than anything else other than the time travel aspect. Seriously, wtf? Monsters are already scary enough. Make them out of mysterious smoke and you have one of the most horrifying characters in television history. Are there more than one? If so, how many? And why so many? If the smoke monster is so powerful, why does it spend its time tromping around the jungle and not hanging out at Hollywood parties sippin’ on Cognac? Why did it kill Mr. Eko but spare the lives of others? These are the main questions I want answered.

Speaking of the others…wtf? Who are these mysterious people who were on the island before anyone else? Are they like the “Na’vi” in that movie Avatar? Or are they more like the “Navi” in the movie Ferngully: The Last Rainforest? And why does Richard Alpert wear eyeliner and never age? And why was he a hitman in the movie Smokin’ Aces, where by the way, he also kills Jack...

And finally, what is the Island? Why is it so hell bent on affecting so many people’s lives? How did a giant wooden ship laden with the bones of slaves end up in the middle of it? Why is there not a giant tree where the Others live like in Avatar and Ferngully? Did Locke accidentally the whole island when the swan clock hit zero? Do the numbers have anything to do with the story line at all save for Hurley thinking he is insane? Will the entire story of Lost have an ending at all? If so, how many? If not, well, I guess I can always go back and finish Alias to see if it ever had an ending…

So there, 23 questions I want to have answered in the next 4 months. I think that is pretty fair since there are well over eleventy billion unanswered questions. If I am doing my math correctly, and I like to think that I am, I am only asking for a mere negative infinity percent of outstanding questions to be resolved. You see, eleventy billion isn’t even a real number. That’s how many mysteries there are on this show. And God help the producers if the whole thing ends up being in a snow globe and validating all the haters over the years.

At any rate, only 10 more hours to wait.

End of an era

We had a really good run in space over that last 50 years. In that span we put the first American in space, landed on the moon 6 times (allegedly) and built a space station the size of a football field. All of this was accomplished by nearly 150 manned missions which cost the lives of 17 brave astronauts who dared to believe that what they were doing was important enough for them to risk their lives in the first place. September 16th of this year will mark the last manned space flight launch in the United States.

Today, the president unveiled his budget which effectively cut the Space Shuttle’s replacement, aka The Constellation Program, as well as offering up no other plan for the future. Their goal is to have private companies pick up the slack and in the meantime have the Russians launch all astronauts to and from the International Space Station. The private contractors, by the way, are at about the same technological place that NASA was back in the early 1960’s. We are effectively starting over except this time billions and billions of government dollars will not be behind any advancement. Private capital will have to fill the void.

The trouble is, manned space flight is not currently at a point where is will be profitable to launch humans into space. Let alone in the private sector. The result of which means that in reality, we will most likely not have a manned space flight launch into Low Earth Orbit for a good amount of time. I am talking about decades here folks. Where once it seemed like a human landing on Mars was only 10 years away now seems like it will be more than a century, at least for the United States, that is. Russia and China have both stated Mars to be a human destination for them and are pursuing it rigorously. Unfortunately, the reality of this kick in the ass will probably be the only thing that revitalizes America’s desire to go back into space.

The trouble is that many people simply got bored with NASA over the past 20 years. Space travel became routine and it seemed that only disaster was able to capture the attention of the US citizens. Most people out there will probably not even realize that we will no longer have a manned space program. Even fewer will care. NASA has done a piss poor job of letting the public know about all the good work it has done over the years. We are all going to live longer and healthier lives as a result of all the advancement that has come out of the space program. It truly saddens me that people have become so apathetic about one of the things America does best.

It will be strange living in a world where we tell our children: “Hey, look up there, that is outer space. We used to go there and it was awesome. Now we don’t.” In all honesty, I REALLY hope that the Chinese and Russians stay on track and have successful manned space programs. It will just be a shame that those other countries will be on the leading edge of understanding and exploring the universe instead of us. I hope I will be able to make time to head out to Cape Canaveral, Florida to witness one of the final 5 launches of the greatest space program in the history of mankind. And hopefully I will look back on this blog post in 10 years and laugh at just what the hell I was thinking.

*Quick Note* I don't really like talking about politics since it is generally redundant talking about it with people who have philosophical differences with the way you think. But the simple fact is that the numbers don't lie. This year, we bailed out banks to the tune of almost 1 trillion dollars. The entire budget alone for this year is some 3 trillion dollars. The entire budget for all of NASA? 18 billion dollars. That's less than .6% of the entire United States budget. So if this decision isn't about the money, the only other thing it could be is simply lacking the desire to do it anymore. I can only imagine what kind of world we would live in today if Spain had decided not to fund Columbus' trip back in 1492. Ok ya, that turned out to be a little bit longer than a quick note.

2009: A Year in Review

Wow, it has been quite a while since I have updated this thing. December was a busy month at work and having my entire extended family over during the holidays didn’t make things any easier. So anyway, here is 2009: A Year in Review.

I made several trips out to New Orleans last year, 3 in fact, which means I ended up going there a total of 5 times in less than a one year period. I don’t know what it is about that city but I have never managed to have anything less than an amazing time there, even when having to evacuate due to hurricanes. Of course it also doesn’t hurt that the casino there has been more than generous to me. The plan right now is to head out to New Orleans once again when Mardi Gras rolls around in the middle of February. It is going to be epic.

One of the more negative aspects of 2009 was my endless love/hate relationship with my Xbox 360. My original Xbox had the RRoD and due to the fact that it was out of warranty, I decided to try to fix it myself. This worked, more or less, for the better part of 3 months before I decided to just bite the bullet and buy a new one. Of course, within 2 weeks of getting the new one, Microsoft dropped the ban hammer of all modified consoles and I was once again without one. This story does not end sadly, as it convinced me to build a HTPC ( Home Theater PC ) for watching stuff online, which was really the only thing I was using the Xbox for anyway.

One of the bigger experiments this year was me cutting the cable, and going exclusively to online video watching. This is still more or less a work in progress. It has been about 6 months now and I haven’t once yet felt the need to have cable tv again. My Boxee setup has worked great so far and I can’t ever imagine paying money to watch commercials ever again.

2009 also saw the end of the Exploder. My beloved car was sent to the scrap heap when I got some of that Obama Money, aka Cash for Clunkers. Many of you who had the pleasure of riding in my former car know that clunker doesn’t even begin to describe what my 1998 Explorer Sport was. I’m still loving my new Honda Accord. Going 500 miles with out having to fill up is quite simply ridiculous. Oh, and the AC actually works in this new car!

In September I made it out to Las Vegas once again. If you haven’t read my write up of that vacation, I encourage you to do so. It is filled with mystery, intrigue, people getting kicked out of casinos and cups made of ice. And that was all just in one night! Vegas is one of those places where staying too long makes you wish you had never even come in the first place. Luckily this time around we only stayed for 3 nights instead of the 4 we stayed the year before. My brother is turning 21 this year so it is more than likely that another trip will be made out to Vegas in June.

2009 will probably be remembered most for the amount of smoking I did. I have become somewhat of a master chef when it comes to slow cooking meat out on the smoker. I did all things from brisket, ribs, chicken and my favorite, pulled pork shoulder. The goal for this year is to participate in some sort of cook off to see how well my stuff compares to others. Spoiler alert, it kicks all their asses.

I finally made it out to the Texas Renaissance Fair last year. It was honestly one of the most bizarre places I have ever been. I still don’t understand the whole tail thing, but to each their own I suppose. The day we went to TRF was unique in that it was the first time I ever drank wine out of a can. You see, it is much more socially acceptable to drink in public when the public thinks you are just drinking soda. And don’t even get me started on how much more active it makes you feel and the amount of gesturing you will be able to do now that you are sans wine glass. Thanks “Always Suuny” for the idea!

How could I forget about Champagne Campaign 2K9? It turns out, very easily when large amounts of champagne is involved. Bar none, the party, which we threw over Halloween, was the most awesome event ever. The riot punch we concocted was nothing less than deliciously lethal. It also had dry ice in it which made it even more bad ass. No fewer than half of the people at the party ended up hurling in the front yard. That’s how you know they had a good time! Oh, and people doing “the thriller dance” was probably the funniest thing I have ever seen.

So a lot happened in 2009. We now move into ‘010 with another set of resolutions never to be fulfilled. Actually, one goal that will most likely be fulfilled this year is my quest to get a free Miller High Life jacket as part of the rewards program they are currently running. I am more than 500 beers in and only need a paltry 300 more to achieve this stupid goal of mine. So, by all means, come hang out this year and bong a few High Life’s with us and then chase it with a shot of Rumpplemintz. You definitely won’t regret it (right away).

*Programming note, it appears that I am fast approaching my 100th post on this blog. I will have to think long and hard about how to facilitate such a momentous event. Perhaps a live studio audience or something? At any rate, I’ll let you know once I have it figured out.