The SGCBL Wants You!

Posted on September 23, 2004 by Solonor

I’m a pretty silly person. (I know. Shocking. Don’t fall out of your chair.)

One of the silliest pursuits I have pursued is this Tolkien Baseball League. (Oh, stop it. Your eyes will get stuck like that, ya know.) It’s wicked fun!

For those new to the proceedings, I’m a geek. (Will you quit it with those looks!) And the geekiest sport on the planet has got to be baseball. It’s a stat freak’s paradise.

Computer baseball, where you don’t have to deal with pesky players and their agents, is even better. I ran a computer baseball league in Maine for five years, but I gave it up when we moved to Florida. Then, last year, I found Out of the Park Baseball and decided to start up a little online league. When I couldn’t think of names for each of the divisions, someone (Cableman or Grump) suggested Shire vs. Mordor. It kinda got outta hand from there…

Continue reading →

Posted in Baseball | 7 Comments

October Madness

Posted on September 23, 2004 by Solonor

October. Autumn leaves, playoff baseball, Halloween… and boobies!

On October 1, the 2004 Boobie-thon will begin accepting donations. The primary benefactor will be the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. Donations are being given in the name of two bloggers who are battling the disease (Sandee and Dori). This year’s “Bloggers-Helping-Bloggers” Prize (the first $359 collected) will go to an AIDS charity called Rock the Walk via Joelle.

More information can be found at the home of the lovely Lisa.

Posted in Yo! Listen Up! | 5 Comments

Banned Books Week 2004

Posted on September 22, 2004 by Solonor

2004 BBW logo Elect to Read a Banned Book; Link to the ALA's Banned Books Week page; http://www.ala.org/bbooks/.

Sept. 25-Oct. 2

I almost forgot about Banned Books Week (I love that they used Captain Underpants on their graphic this year.)

Every year the American Library Association highlights the top 10 books that people tried to have removed from library shelves. (Yes, I know it should be called “Challenged Books Week.” Bite me.)

For a couple of years, Michele ran the Banned Books Project, where she had passionate essays on the evils of strangling intellectual freedom and thoughtful highlights of many of the books that find their way onto the Top 100 list. Then she got busy following the Red Sox around from city-to-city and hiding in the dugout and tying their shoelaces together when they weren’t looking, flashing her boobs at Night Ranger concerts, and giving Dan Rather his nightly enema. So, she turned the job over to me (the book thing, not the enema thing).

My version of the Banned Books Project was to list all 100 books and tell you why I would have banned them. From this, I have received links from a few dozen school libraries and a steady stream of “you book burning moron” e-mails. Life is good.

Continue reading →

Posted in Banned Books | 5 Comments

Is it November 3rd yet?

Posted on September 21, 2004 by Solonor

Great. Some brilliant thinker decided to overlay the map of Florida counties and how they voted in 2000 with the paths of the hurricanes in GOD vs. BUSH.gif. They only forgot two things:

  1. Hurricanes don’t limit their destruction to the path of the eye. While they continue to clean up after Hurricane Frances, I’m sure the people of Volusia county will appreciate the fact that it could have been much worse if they had voted for George Bush. What a relief that must be.
  2. Those aren’t the actual paths for the storms. Charley didn’t touch the Keys. Frances came in at St. Lucie county (I think) and went out into the Gulf north of Tampa. Though Pensacola took a huge hit, the eye of Ivan came ashore in Alabama, not Florida.

The sad part is that no one will bother to look at the actual hurricane paths, much less check to see whether the bozo got the county voting records right. It will go into the blender of idiocy that is the American Presidential Campaign.™ And I will wind up having my eyes roll back into my head again and again until they get stuck, as people who believe everything they read get this in their e-mail and have to breathlessly share it with me.

My head hurts.

[ via Flablog ]

UPDATE: Here’s the new Snopes entry for it.

Posted in Rants 'n' Whines | 12 Comments

Curses and bedamned!

Posted on September 19, 2004 by Solonor

Arrrr! Looks like the bilge rats from the Imperial Fleet done shorn off our mizzen, mateys. Not only that, but thar be holes in the bow ye could sail a clipper through. We be takin’ on water and sinkin’ fast. All hands to the pumps, or there’ll be naught but the briney deep for your bed tonight. Arrrr!

This pathetic turn of events brought to you by Talk Like a Pirate Day.

Posted in Baseball | 2 Comments

Best. Trade. Ever.

Posted on September 18, 2004 by Solonor

Boston 3, Yankees 2

I take it back. For now.

I know one thing. I’m signing up for more of these Johnny Damon voodoo dolls!

Posted in Baseball | 3 Comments

Blogrolling Blues

Posted on September 17, 2004 by Solonor

I don’t mean to crap all over Blogrolling just because they’ve had some technical difficulties. It happens. However, I don’t like having my site hung up because of their problems. So, I took out the BR code. I might put it back. I might not.

In the meantime, I added the blogroll feature from Bloglines to the sidebar. I chose to show all of my subscriptions, but you can pick a single folder to display. You can also provide a link to your subscriptions. For example, here is mine.

The thing is, I haven’t really used a blogroll to surf blogs in forever. I read everything in Bloglines. The only reason to put a blogroll on the site is to point visitors to other blogs… Hey! What am I doing? This is free advertising for you turkeys! I should be selling sidebar space, not giving it away! This isn’t the way things are done in America! Expect a new pay-per-blogroll-spot model soon.

I’m gonna be so rich…

Posted in Yo! Listen Up! | 7 Comments

Let the wookie win

Posted on September 17, 2004 by Solonor

Hell hath no fury like a Mancunian scorned.

Posted in Yo! Listen Up! | Comments Off on Let the wookie win

Football: Week 2

Posted on September 17, 2004 by Solonor

Well, I didn’t do too badly last week. I regretted picking Indianapolis over New England the minute I hit the submit button. Other than that, I missed Cleveland, San Diego and Denver winning. So, my record is 12-4.

Continue reading →

Posted in Football | 3 Comments

Day not starting well

Posted on September 17, 2004 by Solonor

Not only did the DJ this morning confuse the not-quite-dead Marky Ramone with Johnny when reading the news of the latter’s death, but he finished the story with this bored comment:

“Yeah, all the Ramones are dyin’ off. The Clash soon to follow. Whatever. Here’s some new Bjork.”

To add injury to insult, he actually played Bjork! Ahhhh! My ears!

Posted in Rants 'n' Whines | 2 Comments