False Dilemmas Ahoy!!

"If you gave me the choice of great pitching and a sub-par offense, or sub-par pitching and a great offense, I'd take the great pitching every time. That always gives you a chance.'' - Dan Evans, G.M. of the Los Angeles Dodgers

Hey Danny, how about great pitching and an adequate offense? I'm starting to really have my doubts about his competence.

Two more additions to my linked blogs:

John Carswell believes in Jesus and likes the Flaming Lips. Therefore I extend the right hand of fellowship. Read his blog.

The many contributors to Lew Rockwell.com now have a shared blog. Neo-cons and Lefties run for cover. Film at eleven.

Well another MLB draft has come and gone and once more the Dodgers have disappointed me with their picks. It seems that their obsession with high school pitchers has yet again overwhelmed their collective good sense. I am left scratching my head as to why we didn't focus on college atheletes (hitters in particular), who could help the team ASAP. With the number two payroll in MLB and an offensive ouput powerful enough to lightly toast a piece of bread, the Dodgers don't have the luxury of playing babysitter to a bunch of 18 year olds.

Yet what do we have for the first 10 picks? Six high school pitchers! Never mind that HS pitchers are generally 4 years and 1 Tommy John surgery away from being productive in the big leagues, they are also the most likely candidates to never reach the bigs in the first place, other than HS catchers not named Joe Mauer. Save your high school picks for the later rounds and focus on the collegiate atheletes who are closer to the major leagues in terms of ballpark factors, strength of competition, age/maturity, etc.

I tried looking at it from the perspective of "See here, everyone else is going after the college pitchers, therefore we'll get first shot at the cream of the high schoolers", but you're still taking a huuuge risk. Instead, you should think about snatching up the lowest risk candidates (in terms of health, ability and major league projectability) as soon as possible. Ugh, well we'll see...

This is great! We've been planning on getting a second car and this looks it will fit the bill. Neat, toilet and a fridge.

"It's been awhile, but we're back in style"

Posts are few lately but chalk it up to an annoying rush of busyness coupled with a lack of interesting things to blog about (unless you want to hear about the cold pizza I ate last night).

One point of interest was the Flaming Lips concert on Saturday. It was...well...it was the Flaming Lips. Which is to say, it was an insanely good concert mixed with a bunch of weird stuff. Despite the fact that Dave and I were standing (no seats at the Hollywood Paladium) for about five hours straight, I can say that it was the best, if not in the top three concerts that I have been to in my life.

One of the things that made it so memorable was the total lack of pretension from the bands. Granted, it's hard to keep the performer's mystique up when you're in a venue about the size of a large ballroom, nonetheless it was neat to see Wayne and Michael (lead singer and bassist) come out for the opening bands' sets and hang out at the side of the stage, enjoying the performance and talking to people in the audience. I thoroughly enjoyed the intimacy factor.

Before the show began, a lady in a bear suit came out and handed out paper hearts with things like "You are loved" and "You are wondrous" written on them. Ballon animals were also distributed at this time. When it came time for the Lips to take the stage, out came about 25 people dressed in costumes ranging from panda bears to Santa Claus. Dubbed the "Enthusiasts" by Wayne, their job was to just dance on the side of the stage and dance along to as well as act out the songs, kind of like a Sesame Street episode crossbred with a Rocky Horror midnight showing. Huuuuuuge balloons were tossed to the audience by the Enthusiasts when finally, out comes Wayne with a big bag of confetti which, judging by the look of everyone's hair as they were leaving the theatre, was empty by the end of the show.

The Lips began the set and it was just phenomenal. There was no real improvising, as they are heavy into the technology and a lot of stuff was preprogrammed on the MIDI, so it was kind of a live version of the album. The closest thing to an improv happened at the end of a couple of the songs, where Wayne would lead the audience in a slowed-down sing along of that song's chorus. They played for about an hour and a half. Smoke machines, strobe lights, overinflated baloons exploding with said confetti added to the party atmosphere. Depite the bells and whistles, the band really managed to pull the audience into the performance, which is probably the best thing you can say about a band and a concert.

Here's the set list (as best as I can remember it):

Race for the Prize
The Gash
Fight Test
Yoshimi Pt. 1
She Don't Use Jelly
Waitin' for a Superman
In the Morning of the Magicians
Do You Realize
One More Robot/Sympathy 3000-21
Spoonful Weighs a Ton

Encore: What is the Light/Observer

Next up on the agenda: REM and Wilco at the Hollywood Bowl in August. CANNOT! WAIT!