JV Middle School Baseball Opening Day

Okay, so we had our first Middle School Baseball game of the season yesterday, an up and down affair that we were able to pull out in extra innings, 10-8. We played a shocking 8 innings, which I have never played in 5 years of middle school coaching - games are usually 6 innings, or 7 if the score is close and we can get it in before the visiting team has to get on the bus home. Before the game, as we were waiting for the ump to show up (a common occurrence in middle school baseball), the tottering old man coach gave me his lineup card and let me know that a few of his kids had never played "organized" baseball before. This isn't a rare situation among teams that are comprised of 6th and 7th graders, and I let him know that we had a few of those players as well. Then he said that when one of those players came up, he would roll his fist over from the third base coaches' box. He proceeded to show me how exactly he would roll his fist over. I nodded and replied with a firm "Sounds good," holding back my obvious questions of "Why?", "Is that necessary in any way?", and "How old are you, old man?". I still can't conceive what I would gain from this, or what he expected me to do upon seeing the presumably inconspicuous Fist Roll. Do I signal to my tiny 6th grade pitcher to take it easy on him? Hold back on his 34 MPH heater? Do I intentionally walk these kids out of pity? Is it just to let me know, coach to coach, that if one of these kids does something completely and totally embarrassing on the field, like run to third base after making contact, or shitting his pants in the batter's box, that it is completely out of his hands? This kid's never played organized ball before! Strangely enough, I got so wrapped up in the game that I never even peered over to the coaches' box to see if he was indeed doing this.

What made this even more odd was that while The Old Man was clearly the de facto coach, wearing the official team windbreaker and cap, there was another younger middle-aged man, in an unusual business casual sweater, that seemed to be doing most of the coaching. The Old Man was silent, clearly preferring to communicate with everyone through subtle hand gestures, while the Sweater Man was very vocal, calling out encouragement and instruction to kids during and after every play. I wasn't introduced to this man, but I did notice him playing catch with one of my players during warm ups, which I thought was odd. Our best guess is that Vocal Sweater Man was a parent and assistant coach, but needless to say, I didn't like him.

Me: Any idea who that guy is?
My Other Coach: A parent? I saw him raking leaves with the Old Man when we got here.
Me: Yeah, that was weird. Not one of our guys' parents, right?
My Other Coach: I don't think so. Have you seen our batting helmets?
Me: Oh shit.

So somehow, after bringing all of the equipment up from the equipment room, our guys forgot everything in front of the school - nothing made it on to the bus. Both Varsity and JV were without batting helmets, but fortunately a couple of kids had their own catcher's gear. We ended up sharing helmets with the other team, which the Old Man took in stride. He'd clearly seen it all before. "What? Okay."

Anyway, we started out strong, taking an early 7-1 lead going into the bottom of the third. It looked like a blow-out in the making but some porous defense led to a huge rally by the home team on a boatload of unearned runs, and we found ourselves tied 8-8 going into the 7th, the final inning. Amazingly both teams went scoreless, so we decided to play the 8th, even though it was way past the time we were supposed to call the game and get back on the bus. It was our first game of only a 6-game season, and there was no way I was letting it go down as a tie to the Vocal Sweater and his Old Man.

It should be noted that earlier in the game I saw Vocal Sweater Guy make a move that I have never seen as a middle school coach. He intentionally walked my number 3 hitter, TWICE!, both times with no one on base! Can you believe this guy?!? This kid is a 7th grader who, thanks to the large number of guys on our team, will probably end up playing a total of only 3 games this season, and you are going to intentionally walk him in the third inning with no one on base??? That's just shitty. I can maybe see if it was late in the game, and first base was open, and it was clearly a strategic move going for a win. But this was just an asshole move. Granted, he hit a homerun in his first at-bat, but since their catcher couldn't throw anyone out anyway, within two more pitches he was on third base. So, basically, you're conceding a triple, just so the kid doesn't make your team play defense. I was pretty pissed.

So we manage to put up two runs in the top of the 8th and hold the other team scoreless in the bottom half, allowing us to escape with a 10-8 win. It was a big relief, and the guys were able to enjoy the long bus ride home on 90/94. I would have given the Vocal Sweater Guy an added squeeze in our post game handshake, but he disappeared among the leaves, allowing the Old Man to remain the public face of the franchise. Very strange. Just remember: We'll see you bastards again on May 7th.

BaeRating on Game 1: A-
BaeRating on Intentionally Walking in JV Middle School Baseball With Nobody on Base: F-

The Ruins: Page to Screen!

Being as we are in the midst of a remarkably bleak movie cycle, of course this past weekend happened to be the first opportunity in awhile for my wife and I to leave the rats at home and take in a show. Having actually both read and enjoyed the book by Scott Smith, we decided to ignore the tepid reviews and check out "The Ruins". You might think that the "plant as monster" genre is limited for a reason, and you're probably right. It seems challenging at best for a director to imbue plants with dread, although trees can be particularly terrifying. I remember when we were buying our condo and our inspector noticed an especially large tree outside of one of the bedroom windows:

Inspector: This isn't going to be the kids' room, is it?
Me: No, I don't think so. Why?
Inspector: When winter comes that tree could turn into a whole lot of things, none of them good.
Me: Good point. Should we check the water pressure? My wife is antsy about the water pressure.

It actually was a pretty funny and insightful point, and I almost forgive him for not noticing the roof damage that plagues us to this day.

Anyway, the book was enjoyable because Scott Smith is pretty awesome at building sustained and growing dread, as he did in "A Simple Plan". He writes very matter-of-factly, so that you can follow the poor choices that the characters make, and at least understand why and how they were made - even when you know that they will only lead to someone eventually murdering his best friend. It all seemed so logical at the time! So even with what most people would consider a pretty ridiculous premise, Smith makes it work by revealing things slowly and with impressive control. By the way, I love in horror novels or films where people start to put together plans to avoid disaster, especially if they are methodical and detailed. (These plans are especially awesome if they have to be completed by nightfall.)

Not surprisingly, the film doesn't quite get it right. The director, Carter Smith, has trouble keeping the film about the growing dread, rather than the violence and blood that the dread gives way to pretty quickly. That violence and blood is in the book, and it's pretty graphic, but it comes out as inevitable and necessary to prevent any further danger - at least in the characters' minds. The book also centers on the group dynamic and how a bunch of sorta friends react to a horrifying and impossible situation. Since the characters aren't very drawn out in the film, it's hard to get much of that across and the suspense suffers because of it.

All that being said, it was certainly a better horror film than most being released with twenty-something leads these days. It has some intelligence to it, it features a very much grown up Jena Malone from "Stepmom", most of the gore isn't too gratuitous, and it has a likable German character named Mathias. I would see it over "Turistas" any day of the week. Did I mention it has a killer plant?

Novel BaeRating: B
Film BaeRating: C+

Dennis Miller as Game Show Host

With the recent game show renaissance, which really reached its zenith during the writers' strike, numerous down-on-their luck stand-up comedians and professional glad-handers have been given new life. Howie Mandel, Bob Saget, Wayne Brady, Dan Cortese (Dan Cortese!), Penn Gillette, Jeff Foxworthy, Drew Carey, etc, have all seen their careers rejuvenated by the weird and somewhat wonderful prime time gaming explosion.

Let me first say that I'm a fan of the game show trend. They're prime time shows that I can safely watch with my daughter, record and delete from my DVR without remorse, and they don't require so much attention that I can't iron my pants or check my fantasy baseball stats during them. Add that to the fact that I enjoy predicting the answers to my daughter and having her say "You're right, Dad! You're right, Dad! The green team is a disaster!" My daughter, for obvious reasons, is a huge fan of "My Dad is Better Than Your Dad!", Dan Cortese's baby, and she has all but convinced herself that we will be competing on it when she is 8. I have not dissuaded her from this dream, as I'm pretty sure I would rock the Tree Climb Crow Grab and I have yet to miss a question on the sad trivia portion of the show.

And while my favorite was Penn Gillette's "Identity", I've recently watched a couple of episodes of "Amnesia" featuring Dennis Miller. It's the one where they ask contestants detailed questions from their own lives (Which member of N'Sync did you impersonate in a high school talent show?) and make them identify momentos from their past (Which wedding dress of these five did your wife wear?). It's a fairly entertaining premise mostly because you get to find out all these weird little details from these people's lives, and Miller does a nice job of prodding them for more dirt.

Which brings me to Dennis. Admittedly I have always been a fan of Dennis Miller - I thought he did a great Weekend Update, his own talk show had its moments, and his laughing at his own material always struck me as more sincere than others with the same habit. While his time on Monday Night Football was pretty egregious in its inanity, I can remember going to see "Bordello of Blood" just for him (and a little Angie Everhart) and kind of enjoying it.

That being said, game show host is a pretty perfect role for him right now. He is a quality ad lib comedian, his references don't seem as forced as they did on MNF, and he seems to genuinely enjoy finding out the weird little facts about these strangers' lives. He also throws in an occasional challenging or edgy bit seemingly to test how his game show audience will react. (Mostly they laugh and applaud on cue or toss off a nervous twitter.) In one episode, he had a nice riff with the cue card guy that I really enjoyed. Most importantly, he comes off as pretty likable again, which seemed to be a rather large mountain for him to climb a couple of years ago. In the man's own words, maybe he just wanted to "get right up to the precipice, pivot and jeté back to Coolsville." I wouldn't say that "Amnesia" is exactly Coolsville, but it's better than a cameo in "Joe Dirt".

BaeRating: A-

Corn Nuggets

Shocking discovery in the cafeteria today - a breaded ball injected with creamed corn. Unbelievably delicious. Crispy, juicy, flavorful, everything you could want in a nugget!

Corn Nuggets? Did anyone else know about this? Someone alert the Tamalehawk!

BaeRating: A-

Baseball Terminology

Since I love baseball banter so much, I thought I would put together a quick BaeRating rundown of some of my favorite baseball expressions, the nerdier the better.

Two, Three, and Four-Bagger - Simple and gross. "Two-bagger off the vines for Chandreaux!"
BaeRating: B-

Granny - Sufficiently nerdy, but even better as...
Walk-off Granny "And it's a walk-off granny for Timbles!!! Can you believe it!!!"
BaeRating: B

Duck Snort a.k.a. Duck Fart - Classically nerdy. "Atta way, atta way, litte duck fart, McSorley!"
BaeRating: B

Base Knock - Efficiently nerdy. Fun to request when a batter comes to the plate. "How 'bout a little base knock, Montego?"
BaeRating: B

Golden Sombrero - It sounds wonderful, making the reality sting all the more. "Time to size up Buffler for his Golden Sombrero!"
BaeRating: B

Flashing the Leather - On the wrong side of nerdy for me. Always sounds gross. "Ozrino...flashin' the leather!"
BaeRating: C+

Lord Charles - Ambiguous and impressive name for a 12-6 curveball. "Koush, inviting Lord Charles to dinner tonight!"
BaeRating: B+

Eephus Pitch - One of my favorites since the pitch isn't really taken seriously anymore. "Mondief, pulling out a payoff Eephus!"
BaeRating: A-

Frozen Rope - Wonderful imagery, especially exciting to announce. "Rosenzweig with a frozen rope to left!"
BaeRating: A-

Excuse-Me Swing - Just an embarrassing thing to be called out on. "Schwindemann drops a dribbler on an excuse-me swing! Oh man!"
BaeRating: A-

Speed Merchant - What an awesome thing to be. "Murakami's a serious speed merchant and that puts a lot of pressure on the Rattler defense!"
BaeRating: A

Get Off the Schneid - Don't we all wish we could do this? "Man, Sheffler-Weis needs to get off the Schneid here, this is just embarrassing."
BaeRating: A

Worm Burner - This one I had never heard until recently, and I love it. Could be racist, could be homo-erotic, but it's ALL baseball. "Hoyle with a worm burner through the hole!"
BaeRating: A

Man, did you see that speed merchant get off the Schneid by making a worm burner out of Tekulve's Lord Charles? Avoided the Golden Sombrero with a little two-bag base knock on a frozen rope!

Easter

Underrated as a celebratory holiday, I've always enjoyed Easter. I'm not an aggressively religious person, but I do appreciate spending what feels like a significant day with family. Also, as a mystery buff, I've always enjoyed a good egg hunt. This was the first year my daughter could truly take part in one, and it was a vicarious thrill to watch her methodically hunt down the eggs in question. Since we had an egg hunt at our house in the morning, and then another one at my mother-in-law's house in the afternoon, it had a little bit of the multiple would-be climax feel of the film "Zodiac", but with less of the emotional let-down. No, she never did find the actual bunny responsible, but there still seemed to be some closure when we sat down to eat jelly beans at the end of the evening. It was a good Easter.

BaeRating: A-

Fish-Faker

One of my daughter's favorite insults is "Fish-Faker". Anytime she's aggravated with me or my wife, she will refer to us as Fish-Fakers. I have no idea what this means. I have no idea where she got it from, how she thought to combine the two words, nothing. I don't know if the idea is that I fake out fish, or if I fake being a fish.

I do know that it sounds especially nasty and deflating coming out of her mouth, even though she's not saying anything that could be considered offensive. I also know that I am always sufficiently cowed after being called one.

I'm really proud of her sometimes.

Fish-Faker as an Insult: A

Two Screen Couples

This past weekend I volunteered at a charity event for a friend of mine, who is the Director of Development at a school for children with learning disabilities. We were working the Auction Checkout Room, which meant we pretty much did nothing until the end of the night when people were ready to leave, and then we had to get our shit together in a hurry. Once we realized that we really had nothing to do for a couple of hours, most of us decided to peruse the expensive auction items and grab a drink or two from the open bar.

An extremely prepared husband and wife team, however, had different plans. As soon as the downtime was announced, the guy turned to all of us and said, "Wanna watch a DVD? I got Ratatouille!" He was greeted with pretty much universal polite nodding. Assuming he just had a laptop, I was shocked to see him pull out an entire mini-entertainment system from his bag. It had a DVD player, mini speakers, and TWO SCREENS! From that point on, he and his wife watched Ratatouille right next to each other on separate screens. It was very bizarre. It was as if they were both in entirely different worlds - there was no side conversation, no shared laughter, nothing. The screens had taken them to their own personal theaters, and watching Ratatouille seemed more of an assignment they had to complete than anything else. While I understand that just one of those small screens wouldn't be ideal to share, there is something off-putting about two people sitting next to each other almost pretending that they're not. Other than the fact that the husband carries this with him, ready to bust out at any sign of an entertainment lapse, it was the separation between the couple that disturbed me the most. Even though they were watching the same thing, it really felt like they weren't at all.

BaeRating: C-

The North Park Garage Bus

Anyone who has ever ridden the CTA on a regular basis knows the looming dread of the North Park Garage bus. There is no worse feeling on a 5 degree Chicago morning than peeking out from behind your saliva dampened scarf, spotting a distant bus on the horizon, carefully removing your transit card from your wallet with frozen fingers, and slowly picking your way to the curb through snowy footprints - only to have that bus fly by you, oblivious to your pain, flashing its NORTH PARK GARAGE title for all to see. The North Park Garage Bus Fakeout is one of the all-time transportation slaps in the face, far worse than its flamboyant brother, the Yellow Cab Hiding Passenger Fakeout, often referred to as The Shadow Passenger. Occasionally you'll even have a cruel bus driver that will slow down a bit as he nears the stop, only to slam on the gas as you jostle for position at the curb, street debris drifting up into your startled eyes.

I don't know the exact role of these buses - evidently they are deemed extraneous and are on their way to a CTA home base. I do know, however, that they stand as a show of power from the CTA itself, a reminder that your timely arrival to work is solely up to them, and they can be as capricious with that responsibility as they so choose.

BaeRating as an Event That Can Happen to You: F
BaeRating as an Impressive Sign of CTA Power: A

The Horseshoe & The Fishbowl

We have a new Upper School Division Director (re: principal) at my school this year, and he has already made numerous changes, mostly good, to the way we do things. From a teacher's perspective, one of the most welcome changes has been his tightening up of our faculty meetings. When you get upwards of thirty teachers in a room for a discussion, the focus can go from amiable announcement to snide commentary to unbridled disgust in the span of about fifteen minutes. Remember this is a group of people who were involved in every class discussion in college, no matter if they had something to add or not, "piggybacking on Gordon's hypothesis" or "clearing up what Professor Rispad was getting at there". This is a group of people that kept everyone after class so that they could "bring some closure to our discussion" when all you wanted was to catch the end of the Cubs game with a Blimpie sub. For the most part, these are the people you hated. That said, there is nothing more interminable than a faculty meeting without a clear agenda, as you soon find yourself a spectator to a vicious argument about the appropriate time of day for a fire drill and at least one of the opponents has taken his shoes off.

Now, however, we have a set agenda. And it is released well before the meeting, so people can wrap their minds around its constraints. We also have a fairly set end time, which allows the back-of-the-meeting creepers (like myself on occasion) to get their things together guiltlessly when the hour is near, thus prompting our Division Director to check the clock and acknowledge that it's time to wrap things up. It's a godsend really.

The downside is that he's from Vermont, and by his own admission, a little crunchy granola. We have time for "appreciations" that people offer for one another at the start of each meeting - nerdy name, but actually kind of a nice touch - and he has also instituted The Horseshoe meeting format, doing away with our old Speaker/Lecture Hall structure. Gotta tell you - not a big fan. The Horseshoe, by its nature, leaves everyone very exposed. Being a back-of-the-meeting creeper is no longer an option unless you want to really stand out. Also, since our group is so large, the chasm between opposite sides of the 'Shoe can be so vast that it actually makes conversation more difficult. We also tried something called The Fishbowl once, which was actually a circle within the 'Shoe, and you couldn't talk unless you entered The Fishbowl, and the idea was to rotate in and out when you had something to say. Needless to say this was very confusing and resulted in about 5 of the 40 people actually dipping a toe in the bowl for discussion. We have not attempted The Fishbowl since.

Horseshoe BaeRating: B-
Fishbowl BaeRating: D+

Alice the Mole

Everybody knows a kid that has a favorite stuffed animal that they always carry around with them. Maybe you were one of those kids at some point. I know I had a favorite stuffed panda named Barry (although it was probably Beary in my head at the time, I prefer to remember him as a Barry), and later a favorite stuffed seal named Freddy, who was the frontman for a stuffed animal band that I managed - Freddy & the Burgers.

Ever since my daughter Jane was born, my wife and I have been trying to provide her with optimum candidates to be that Favorite Stuffed Animal. The Hobbes to her Calvin. I think I was always concerned that she would wind up with a unnaturally pink Winnie the Pooh doll as her favorite, or worse, a creepy blinking plastic baby. In an effort to offset this danger, we would acquire stuffed animals that we deemed sufficiently cute, sturdy, and of a reasonable size, and place them with her in her car seat, stroller, or the like. Sadly, none of them took. Not the gray Ugly Doll, not the blue-black octopus, not the awesome giraffe, nothing. In fact, one of the first things she latched on to was a creepy blinking plastic baby, whose origin is unclear, and whom she named Dolly and scribbled with pen on its head, so that it looked even more upsetting. To counteract Dolly, I bought a less unsettling and softer doll that she successfully adopted as her favorite and named Baby Jane. Unfortunately it acquired an unexplained stain on its face that is there to this day. As far as animals went, Jane settled on a litter of different stuffed dogs (Seiko, Allie, Puffy, Tuffy, Allie's Mom, a cat named Tiger) as her favorites, which she would rotate in for car trips and such. At home, she would usually sit them all down together as a general assembly of sorts that would make decisions on what to play that day, and she would occasionally teach them school lessons. They were also known to be placed randomly around the house with makeshift blankets draped over them (napkins, magazines, DVDs, etc) for "naptime". They are still an active body.

When my second daughter Lucy was born, we felt it was time to give it another shot. As her first real Christmas present, we bought her a stuffed mole named Alice. I'm generally not crazy about the pre-assigned names, but in this case it seemed right. Alice the Mole is a Granimal, which is a line of hand-stitched animals from a French company called Latitude Enfant, and it's pretty awesome. It's cute, it's soft, it's sturdy, it's a little weird, and it's of a reasonable size. What more could you ask for? Anyway, Lucy has totally taken to it. She has a tendency to gnaw on its head and grip its mole nose, which I think is a really good sign. Jane has accepted Alice as Lucy's property and has tried to help us with our plan, placing Alice back on Lucy's lap whenever she is dropped. Will it stand the test of time as Lucy realizes she has options in the stuffed friend world? Watch the video and judge for yourself. (Warning: It's fairly uneventful.)

BaeRating: A

My Computer Shipping Experience

So I ordered a new laptop computer last week from Apple. I went the online route because The Apple Store scares me, and I wanted to pick and choose my features without being harangued by a goateed fast-talker. Also I've found that when you make major purchases online, there is a feeling that once you've clicked the Checkout button everything is beyond your control, as if you're at the mercy of the Moirae themselves and you can only just sit and track the thread of your life on FedEx.com. Which is what I did. Constantly.

The monitoring of an online purchase can consume your life - waiting for it to be shipped within the estimated time frame, praying for the carrier to be notified so that you can have an actual tracking number, some tangible proof that the item is on its way to you, refreshing the tracking page and charting the order's course through the country. Of course my computer was shipped on the very last day of the 'Shipping Estimate', torturing me daily with its depressing lack of progress. I could not have been more excited when it shipped, though - I found myself inhaling the scent of my new computer sac in anticipation (which of course arrived a week before the computer itself). I was a little taken aback when I saw that the item had been shipped from Shanghai, CN - my first thought was that it was a town in Connecticut, convincing myself for a moment that I had read somewhere that there was an Apple facility in Shanghai, Connecticut. It's the new Silicon Valley, right? When I reasoned that CN probably stood for China, I was deeply concerned about shipping time, but the next morning we're in Anchorage, Alaska battling nightstalkers, and later that night Indianapolis, Indiana chilling with Joseph Addai, and the next morning nestled safely in my arms in Chicago. Which is pretty amazing, right? The delivery estimate on FedEx was Thursday, but I got it on Tuesday morning! Which means it left Shanghai Monday morning and only took a day to get to me. Shanghai to Anchorage to Indianapolis to Chicago. A buddy of mine has a bootleg copy of that Steely Dan tour, by the way.

Anyway, despite the length of the shipping preparation, the actual tracking of the item could not have been more of a riveting whirlwind tour of the world. It was like an episode of Alias with my MacBook as the surprise villain! It's always a bit anticlimactic once that big purchase arrives, of course. You realize that your life is still continuing, that you have to run and get lunch before the cafeteria closes, that you're late for a faculty meeting, that your daughters need to eat dinner. Crap like that.

But the thrill of the chase remains.

BaeRating: A-

NBC's Guinness World Records Show

Sunday night, in yet another sad reminder that the writers' strike is ongoing, NBC aired a Guinness Worlds Records Top 100 show, culminating in a disarmingly anticlimactic motorcycle ride through a "tunnel of fire". With images just as horrifying as the ones in the old book you would rifle through in the school library, the show featured clips of various random world records being broken - from the obvious World's Tallest and Smallest Man to the more obscure Most Bubbles Blown by a Man with a Tarantula in His Mouth. I have to admit that while I do have some basic human fascination with world records, I find myself more horrified by them than anything else. More often than not, they're either boring or gross or really just kinda sad. I can't even watch the screen when the longest finger and toenail people are up there. Nothing gets me quite like that.

Hosted by "UK sensation" Fearne Cotton (I guess she hosts "Top of the Pops" and is sort of a British Ryan Seacrest), the show would switch from 20 second segments showing each record, to "live" footage of Fearne in front of the tunnel of fire. She would occasionally be interviewing the motorcycle dude or members of his crew, who were getting increasingly concerned about how the drizzle and wind would affect the stunt. All of this seemed to be taking place on a studio set of a city street, complete with abandoned storefronts. In an even more bizarre twist, at one point Fearne went over to the five spectators watching from the taped-off sidewalk, and interviewed Alison Sweeney (Days of Our Lives star and current host of The Biggest Loser) and Justice from the new American Gladiators. They were asked to give the motorcycle guy some advice. I imagine this related to some sort of "appearance fulfillment" clause in their contracts, but I like to imagine that this pairing was wholly by choice: "Justice! It's the Sweene - what are you up to?" "Nada. Sewing up my jousting rod, major fabric tear. Why?" "I don't know. That tunnel of fire guy is gonna give it a go again - you in?" "You bring the Vanilla Chai?" "Justice will be served!" "I'm hanging up. I lost the thread."

Finally, when they reached the Number 1 record, it was time for the motorcycle guy to get ready. Which is another weird thing - the Top 100 seemed to be in actually no discernible order at all. It certainly wasn't in order of most challenging, or most bizarre, or even most exciting. The motorcycle ride was Number 1, for God's sake, while the Deepest Scuba Dive by Dog was stuck at 84! And the kid who kicked himself 70-something times in the head in 1 minute was like 20 positions ahead of the Most Bras Unhooked in 1 Minute! Where is the Justice? Anyway, it all ended with the sadly anticlimactic ride (which he made), and then a stilted interview with the dazed and lubed-up stunt dude, in which Fearne yanked the microphone away from him in mid-answer since the credits were about to roll and he took so long taking off his damn helmet. So sad. 2 hours of standing around with an American Gladiator for that? I'm sure that's what the son of a production assistant was saying.

BaeRating: C-

Tim Kurkjian's Book Cover

I love books. And often one of my favorite parts of any book is its cover design. My friend Trupe and I always discuss books that look so awesome and clean and full of greatness that we want to eat them. There is no greater compliment in the publishing world than releasing an edible book, at least in our eyes. I have often bought a book on its cover alone, staring the old adage in the face and punching it right in the jaw. Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn't, but taking home a fresh, crisp new book is a wonderful thing.

That being said, this book cover is pretty ridiculous, right? I mean, the title is kind of corny, but to me the cover is beyond nerdy. This is NOT an edible book. I recently bought this book as a gift for someone since I've always enjoyed the author's intelligent, unbiased work on ESPN, and the description made it sound like a good baseball read. (My plan was to attain it for myself if it received a solid peer review.) Also, since the author has a very bizarre frog-like voice, I've always wondered whether that has affected how I viewed his reporting. Here was a chance to imagine a new, less distracting voice delivering me the same thoughtful information and analysis! But Kurkjian, what were you thinking? Having a 3/4 body picture of yourself, in a suit, with a baseball mitt? Superimposed over a much smaller stadium, giving the feeling that a giant Tim Kurkjian is taking a break from a post-production meeting to just have a catch? Just shagging some balls in the miniature outfield with some analyst buddies without unfastening a button or loosening your tie? That does not conjure images of what a great game this is - in fact, this decidedly does not look like a great game. This looks like a really lame, sad game if all of the players are wearing suits and grinning like idiots. And so many words!!! The title itself is a rhetorical question with two forms of punctuation, there is a subtitle with a dash that really makes it two subtitles, and even the author's name has a qualifier in a red box! Barf.

I did get a really good review of the book, though, and I'm already borrowing it. So I'm not entirely superficial.

BaeRating: D

Little Caesars Pizza Kit Fundraising Program

As a part-time middle school baseball coach, I often receive various fundraising pamphlets in my mailbox for things like the M&M packets you see kids selling from time to time. Today I received an exciting new one for the Little Caesars Pizza Kit, proclaiming it a "Great Springtime Fundraiser" that includes "all the ingredients to make wholesome and delicious pizza at home in less than 10 minutes!" This seems strange to me. First of all, Little Caesars has perplexed me for years. They used to have restaurants everywhere, "Pizza Pizza" was a classic slogan, and then they seemed to stop advertising altogether, and all of the stores near me closed up. Yet I will still see an occasional one nestled in the corner of a strip mall, an abandoned outpost long since forgotten by the greater Little Caesars community and now left to fend for itself by offering completely ridiculous deals like "Free 5th Ingredient!" or "60% off Crazy Bread!" I'm sure that they are more prevalent in other parts of the world, but all of the ones remaining in Chicago are rundown and disgusting.

That being said, selling pizza kits as a fundraiser is bizarre in and of itself, right? Checking out their website pizzakit.com, I find that you would be selling a 3-pack of frozen sausage pizzas for 18 bucks. You get 3 crusts, 3 packets of sauce, 3 packets of cheese, and 3 packets of sausage bullets. Also, for each kit sold, you get $5 off the top for your team. You can also sell a Crazy Bread Kit, in which you get 3 slabs of bread rods, 3 packets of "garlic buttery sauce", and 3 packets of parmesan cheese(!). Those retail for $14. I'm sorry, it's all just kind of gross and weird. I guess there would be some novelty value to coming home with a frozen 3-pack of Crazy Bread, but I can't imagine the quality is that high. And imagine a team of 6th graders hawking these things like Cutco knives? I'm out.

BaeRating: C

My Daughter's Dinner Negotiation Last Night

First off - we had no water yesterday, thanks to an idiot who owns a duplex in our building. No one lives in this duplex, and for the second straight year he has not come by to turn the heat on, so his pipes froze and broke open, flooding his apartment. Seems like a real nice guy at the association meetings, though. Unfortunately we hold our association meetings outside, so they only happen in warm weather months.

BaeRating On The Idiot in My Building: F-

Anyway, the water situation forced me and my wife to eat leftover Musenski Casserole for dinner last night (no complaints from me), and my daughter to eat a frozen chicken nuggets meal. This is usually a pretty safe meal choice for her - in fact she probably eats some form of chicken nugget at 30% of her meals. Last night though, she went into lockdown mode, where she eats one bite of nugget and then filibusters for dessert until we grow weary and start negotiating. "Three more bites of nugget, 2 more carrots, and your milk, and we'll consider dessert. (pause) That was not an official bite." Sigh. Well last night, she was Samuel L Jackson to my Kevin Spacey, with her screaming, "You want my blood? Take my blood!", and the negotiation extending seemingly far beyond the listed running time. Sadly it ended with no dessert, but a straight to bed with only one book sentence. The bonus for her was that no water meant no teeth brushing. Dinner can be a real nightmare.

BaeRating: C-

Tiny Tot Swim Class - Level II

My daughter, Jane, has just started taking swimming lessons at Ridge Park, a park district center on the south side of Chicago. This has been extremely exciting for my wife, who views learning to swim as childhood at its zenith. I was never a big aquatics fan myself, having distinctly disturbing memories of Coach Nystrom dunking my head in the water and telling the whole class I was shaped like a jelly bean. It is really awesome to watch your kid learning things, however, so that sort of trumps any personal feelings. Anyway, last week she had her first class, and my wife reported how great it went. Not only did she not complain the whole time, she volunteered to be the second kid to jump in the water (!) and the first (!) to go down the slide! She was a little apprehensive about the "magic carpet ride", but that just seems like street smarts kicking in. Total success story all the way around, and my daughter kept telling me that I would be so proud of her that I would "cry till my eyes pop out". Pretty awesome, right?

Well I was fortunate enough to have the day off this Monday, so I was able to go with them to the class. After some initial success working with Instructor Carlos and his kickboard, one of the kids, Roisin (pronounced RO-Sheen), started to have a meltdown, causing instant anxiety for all of the kids involved. It didn't help that her mother chose to threaten her from the bleachers with an aborted trip to the museum, and her brother Peter just kept submerging his head obliviously. Thanks a lot, Peter. So when it came time to jump in the water, Jane refused. At first she claimed she had to go to the bathroom, but then when she came back, she was resolved not to do it. I tried to psych her up, but to no avail. One of the other college kid instructors, who was clearly higher up on the totem pole than Carlos, smugged to me, "No offense, but I've seen it a hundred times. The kid shuts down in front of Dad. She's nervous is all." Fucking Lifeguard Chair Psychology from this douchebag in flip-flops. So now it's water slide time. Jane's checked out at this point. I try to have a little calming chat with her on the sidelines, but she tells me she's going to get water in her nose if she slides in. (Which, in all fairness, would be my reasoning for not doing it.) She would not accept last week's accomplishments as reasoning to go for it again, nor would she take random kid Morgan's current success as a challenge. To add insult to injury, Roisin's mom puts her on the slide and pushes her down. That's not really my parenting style, so I backed off and Jane joined the other kids on the shallow end steps to chill out for the remainder of the hour.

The sad thing is I know that the douchebag was right, and she was just nervous in front of me. Jane's not a big fan of pressure. She likes performing for people as long as they don't specifically ask her to - once people start to cheer her on, it's time to go. It's like when you're a comedian and someone tells you to be funny - it's that weird artificial pressure of the moment. It's probably just as irritating for a brave kid to be told to be brave. Jane prefers it when you just assume she's going to do the right thing and don't insist on talking it to death. And more often than not, she does. There's something reassuring about seeing your own personality traits in your children, even if they're not the most flattering.

After class I bought her some cheesy popcorn from the vending machine, and we drove home to watch The Amazing Race finale. We both loved it.

BaeRating: B+

UPDATE: Video of a Carlos Assisted Jump

The Biggest Loser - Couples

The Biggest Loser, one of my favorite competitive reality shows, gets me every time. There are few better moments than loudly belting out the opening lines of the theme song, "Proud," as you give your daughter's skull a rhythmic squeeze and head to the kitchen for a bowl of cereal. The nice thing is that every time you start to feel guilty about watching a reality show (which I rarely do), you're reminded of the fact that these people have each lost upwards of 60 pounds in the first 5 weeks of the season, and it all seems worthwhile. In fact, the best part of the show is at the end of the episode when a contestant is voted out and you get to see a "Where are they now?" segment to find out how much weight they've dropped since leaving. So even if your favorite person has just been voted out, there's still an uplifting montage that lets you know that they're alright! And thin! And eating at Subway! This season focuses on couples, or pairs really, as it's a mix of relationships: newlyweds, brothers, fat camp counselors, former football teammates, ex-husband and wife, etc. As far as reality twists go, this isn't a bad one. It provides the added personal drama of shared history that they're looking for, without watering down the core concept too much. The best part has been the removal of one of the trainers on the show, Kim, an insufferable woman who tried to play the role of the hardass trainer but came off as desperate and oppressively nerdy. She also seemed to always be standing on the shoulders of male contestants while they worked out, which seemed inefficient. Anyway, now we're left with Bob and Jillian, the original trainers, both of whom I love in different ways. Bob, the sensitive yoga-prone trainer (who can be tough!), and Jillian the tough ball-buster trainer (who can be sensitive!). Even with the bloated (slight pun intended) 2-hour length of most of the episodes, you can DVR your way to a healthy dose of laughter, tears, and sworn promises of life changes every single week! It's awesome! Last chance workout!

BaeRating : A-

College Merchandise Gifts For Babies

My wife and I recently received two University of Wisconsin onesies for our daughter, Lucy, from a cousin that we rarely get the chance to see. I'm fairly certain it was a Christmas gift, although it's possible it was a Baptism gift, but either way it was a very nice gesture. I'm not sure if the gift was a subtle jab because my wife and I went to the University of Illinois and the two schools are Big Ten rivals, or if her and her husband just live or work around the university and thought the Badger (Bucky) was cute, if a little angry. I do know that they live in Wisconsin, but none of the details surrounding it. I've certainly never talked about Big Ten sports with them, or even exchanged a playful jibe about the two schools. The saving grace is that Bucky Badger, at least in this non-threatening context, is cute when he's angry, and his sailor-style ribbed red turtleneck looks really hilarious and awesome on Lucy's tiny chest. I certainly hold no ill will towards Wisconsin, even if I ever did in college. I still actively root for Illinois teams, but I don't hold the same disgust for their opponents as I do in pro sports. For example, there are moments where I wish the entire Minnesota Vikings coaching staff was hit by a bus. The college merchandise baby gift does strike me as a bit odd, though - I can understand it if there is a shared college experience with you and the parents, or if you have close ties with the school and the gift shop is tantalizingly convenient for you. The pointed rivalry gift seems like a wasted gesture, however, since the odds of the baby ever putting it on before she grows out of it are slim to none. In this case, though, the onesies are pretty great, especially the starry sky number pictured above, and I still don't really believe this was a rivalry joke. Confusion aside, a good gift.

BaeRating: A-

Keenan Smith, CLTV and WGN Weatherman

I ask little of my weathermen and women. Know your way around the green screen, give me some unexpected adjectives when describing the feel of the temperature, verbally joust with the sports guy, and keep it professional. Meaning, I don't mind if you show me a photo that Maureen Shliegel took of some sunset geese in Crystal Lake, but let's not pretend you're the auxiliary host and start riffing on the real news. That said, I am almost always pleased with the work of Keenan Smith, the backup who holds the clipboard for Tom Skilling on WGN, but seems to be out on his own a bit more on CLTV. Watched him a little last night, and he was upbeat without being grating, descriptive without being flowery, and shot it back over to the main anchor with no wasted motion. Plus, he did a kickass segment on flooding one time where it really looked like he was going to fall into this dam while he was talking to the camera. I like when my weathermen get out in the shit occasionally. Oh, and as you can see from the photo, he participated in the WGN Morning News Bally Spring Fitness 60-Day Challenge with two other employees and lost 40 pounds! (All three of them combined, but still!) All in all, a pleasant option, even if he needs a bit more seasoning.

BaeRating: B+

Inception of BaeRatings Blog

Inspired by my friend Meador's nursing blog, I felt it was time to finally put BaeRatings out there for the world. BaeRatings will chronicle everything new that I come in contact with, explain how I feel about that new thing, and then rate it in classic letter grade format. This can be everything from books, to movies, to television shows, to bus rides, to interactions with my family, to comedy bits, to food items, to anything. Everything will be rated as fairly and honestly as possible, and there will be no curve.

That being said, thank you for reading. Here we go!

Inception of BaeRatings Blog
An awkward launch date that piggybacks on Meador's much more valid and interesting blog, Bedpans and Broomsticks, will hopefully only be irritating to Meador himself. Still unfortunate, though. The sepia-toned picture should be looked back on nostalgically, so I feel it was a solid first image choice. The amount of shine on my balding head, however, is both distracting and disconcerting. The title, while completely annoying and difficult to correctly capitalize each time, holds true to my original inspiration, meaning I have yet to sacrifice anything creative for the masses. Looking ahead towards the long-term success and readability of the blog, I am cautiously optimistic.

BaeRating: B