My Most Memorable Sports Moments of the ’00s

In case anyone’s bored at work tomorrow and needs to kill time…

The thought occurred to me that this decade is mere months away from being consigned to the history books. So…what’s your own personal list?I’m only including favorite memories here. LEAST favorite might be a whole nother post. Try to limit it to 10, and rank them. Here’s a criteria I used: You must remember exactly where you were and what you were doing when the moment happened. I thought for sure Tiger’s chip in on 16 at Augusta in 05 would make my cut, but no dice.

Thoughts on the list. Obviously Longhorn football gave me the best sports memories. Part of me is starting to realize that I could live 100 more years and Texas could win 10 more championships and the 2005-06 Longhorn football season will STILL have been the highlight of my sports life and Vince will STILL have been the best player I’ve ever seen.

UPDATE: I changed the list.  Swore I wouldn’t do it, but glaring ommissions happen and this one was just too glaring.

10)  2002 - Texans beat Cowboys 19-10

The Texans are the Aggies. Our inferiority complex towards the Cowboys is extremely strong. Our hatred of them is just as strong as their apathy towards us. What’s more, Houston is full of Cowboys fans. All you have to do is listen to sports radio here for an hour to hear an obnoxious Cowboy fan calling in to say “The Texans suck!!” As if that wasn’t bad enough, our first pro football team, the team we suffered with, abandoned us forTennessee. After the Oilers left, everyone KNEW that Houston would never get another team. There was NO WAY. And yet, LA’s bid for the 32nd team fell through, Bob McNair rode in with a Mack truck full of money. We had a football team again. The impossible had happened. During those halcyon days, it didn’t matter that none of us had gotten used to the odd team name. No one cared about wins or losses. It was enough to have the NFL. We drafted David Carr, who at the time sounded a lot like Colt McCoy will sound in the 2010 Draft. Mobile, strong-arm, smart, mature, All-American. He was going to grow up with the franchise and lead us to the Super Bowl. He was going to be our Roger Staubach.

Houston has never been more amped for a NFL game than they were for this one. Then the impossible happened AGAIN. The Cowboys came out thinking all they had to do was show up, David Carr led the Texans right down the field and threw a strike to Billy Miller, the tight end. Of course, nothing turned out like we wanted it to. But for that night…

You might ask why I’ve written so much about this. It’s because nothing the Texans have done since has even come close.

9)  2008 - The Tyree Catch

Man that Super Bowl party at Colin’s was INCREDIBLE. I commandeered his grill and absolutely killed it. I made Asian buffalo chicken strips on the grill with a ginger and sriracha marinade. Colin’s hot Asian friend Teri referred to me as “The Chef” for about a year afterwards. Starting to think that kitchen skills was a great way to impress the ladies. Ate the last wing right before Tyree made the catch, the greatest professional football play ever and probably the greatest game ever.

8.  2007 - Biggio’s Last Game

To me, this was more memorable than Biggio’s 3,000 Hit Game (After hit No. 3,000 I had to go to the airport to pick up my parents and laid on the horn when Bigg got hit No. 4 of the evening). Unlike that game, I was actually at this one.

Bagwell was always my favorite Astros growing up. What Houston Little Leaguer didn’t try to emulate that epic stance? But Craig eventually won us all over with sheer durability and tenacity. Biggio was lucky in that the closer he got towards the end of his career, the more appreciated he was. The only thing that kept Astros fans coming the Juice Box during the dregs of that putrid season was a chance to see Biggio. We knew this was last season.

He doubled his first at-bat. It would be his only hit all game, but what a way to finish. Every at-bat we all were chanting “Bigg-I-O.” We knew it would be the last time we could do that chant for him as a player. At the end of the game he took a lap around the field. U2’s “Where the Streets Have No Name” played over the loudspeakers. U2 was always Biggio’s up-to-bat music. I’ll never listen to that song the same way again. Sports childhood officially over.

7)  2005 - Pump Fake Heard Round the World aka “Say Goodbye to Vince Young”

I decided to limit myself to one regular season play from 2005. It killed me to exclude VY-Pittman in the Cotton Bowl but it had to be this. This was the night of my sister Courtney’s engagement party. It was at her best friend’s parents house. They had this game on in a little TV in the kitchen. Dad and I weren’t too concerned about the game because Texas was on a roll and OSU sucked that year. But we kept venturing into the kitchen and Texas kept sucking. OSU was clicking. You just felt this was where the magical run to a national championship would come to an end. What’s worse, Courtney is an Aggie and all her Aggie friends were laying on the schadenfreunde big time. Mom was furious at Dad and I because our glowering was putting a damper on the party. She called out bluff and said, “If you’re going to act like this then just go home.” So we did. Just the two of us. Left the party. We got home, turned on the TV. Minutes later this happened. We still were in a big hole. But you knew the game was over.

6)  2005 - Chris Burke

People forget all the great moments from this game. Brad Ausmus’ dying quail homerun. Lance’s grand slam to send it into extras. Roger Clemens coming in in relief in the 17th inning. I was watching this game in Laufy and Andrew’s room. I think I had a class or something but I didn’t get there til the fifth inning. I remember being pissed because I thought I had missed half the game. Little did I know. I’ll always remember Clemens coming up to bat in the 18th, right before Burke and swinging HARD. Roger Clemens never swung hard. But he was really trying to hit a walk-off to end it. I remember thinking that Clemens never hit a HR in his major league career (and never did) and that it would’ve been awesome if that had been it. Then…CRACK. Right to the EXACT FAN that had caught Berkman’s grand slam about 10 innings earlier! Walked downstairs and headed to JCL. As mentally exhausted as I’ve ever been after a game.

5)  2004 -  T-Mac scores 13 points in 35 secs

We began the night at Double Dave’s back when it was still in that cursed location by the Castillian. B-Hare and Roberto said that we should make a Texas Trophy that would rotate around the Texas Triangle. B-Hare then made a prototype out of an ashtray and a salt-and-pepper shaker. We walked back to the Mo, me taking shit the whole time because the Spurs were killing the Rockets. We got back in time for the last 30 seconds. Figured we’d watch as a mere formality.

You know how it seems like everyone hates George W Bush? Well deep in my heart I’ll always hold a deep respect for him the way he handled the immediate aftermath of 9/11. Even with all the stuff that happened afterwards. You know how every Rockets fan hates T-Mac now? Well…

4)  2005 - Juke Heard Round the World II (1:08)

Dan Fouts found a way to pronounce “No” with a “gh.” Knew he could do it. I remember the exact thought that went through my head:

“He is not made out of matter. We are going to win the national championship next season.”

3)  2004 - Jeff Kent Walk-Off Game 5

This is my favorite Astros memory of the Aughts. We were all watching in the Dojo. Random dudes showed up to watch. That dorm room was packed. Perfect playoff baseball atmosphere. Even moreso than the 2005 team that went to the World Series, the 2004 team really and truly felt the most like a team of destiny. Brad Lidge came out of nowhere after we traded Octavio Dotel to become the single most dominating closer I have ever seen EVER. Roger Clemens’ Cy Young season. The otherworldly level of play that Beltran reached that postseason, a level no one has reached since. The crazy run to the wild card that we clinched on the last day when former Astro Steve Finley hit a grand slam for the Dodgers against the Cubs. Styx. Sharped Dress Man.

Isringhausen walks Berkman to  get to Kent. Listen to how perfectly this moment is set up. First, the broadcast team explains all the reasons why they HAD to walk Berkman. Then one guy casually mentions that this will piss Kent off. Then the infielders come in to talk to Isringhausen, delaying the moment even further. First pitch. We headed to St. Louis with a 3-2 lead. I knew we were going to the World Series.

2)  2008 - Tiger Woods eagles 13 at Torrey Pines in Third Round Us Open

My dad and I found a great spot to watch just behind the 13th green, a dramatic, uphill bear of a par 5. We had seen Tiger eagle this yesterday in the second round. Tiger was spraying the driver all week. You couldn’t see the tee box from the green, as it was hidden behind some trees. But we saw the tremendous sea of people lining the right hand side of the fairway all the sudden take off running to the right. Tiger had sliced it into the tall stuff, almost into the porta-potties. “No way he hits the green now” I said. “I dunno” my Dad said. We could see Tiger. “He’s pulling an iron, he must be laying up” I said. “I don’t think he is” Dad said. After Tiger hit the ball, no one in the crowd could see it against the cloudy sky. Then you heard it. THUMP. It landed four feet right of the hole and rolled to the back of the green, but on in two. I lost control for about a second as the whole place went nuts. I was running around screaming ”OH MY GOD!” Minutes later as he was standing over the putt I was just thinking that it would be too much to ask for him to make this. Then he curled in that 60-footer. I’ve never thought that my excitement at a golf tournament would reach college football level. Just listen to how long it takes that crowd to calm down! People were wigging out.

The most memorable moment in one of the greatest sports weeks of my life. You know how the 05-06 football season couldn’tve worked out anymore perfect? It was the same thing for me and my dad with the 2008 Open. We decided to go on a whim, hoping to be present for a Tiger Woods major. In the month before the tournament, Tiger had knee surgery. His camp said it was no big deal. But he didn’t play in the Memorial, the week before, and you had a feeling something was up. It was clear he wasn’t right from the get-go. But Tiger freaking Woods somehow won the greatest golf tournament ever on a broken FREAKING leg. One of the best moments in sports history and my dad and I were there.

1)  2006 - 4th and 5

I think Roberto mentioned earlier this year that he’s gotten kind of numbed to this clip. Many of you agreed with him. I haven’t. I’ll never forget lying on the carpet upstairs at my house. Just watching Sportscenter over and over again into the wee hours. Hoping it would go on forever.

Honorable Mention:

Sweed Catch, Chance Wheeless Walk-Off, Ryan the Iceman I, Ryan the Iceman II, Jamaal Charles = HOUSE, Juke Heard Round the World I, Sawks Win, 4th and 18, Texas outlasts AtM in 2OT, Rhett Bomar Gets KNTFO, VY to Pittman TD, TMac Retires Shawn Bradley, Kenton Paulino!!!

Kentucky

I’ve always said I would never leave Texas. But every time I travel to Kentucky I come back with the realization that that’s not true. I returned from my my Family Reunion last week, and I still find myself regretting I didn’t have more time there. The same feeling I have when I see Austin in my rear-view mirror.

My Dad’s family is really unusually large and unusually close. I count all 11 of my first cousins among my best friends and am close to my aunts and uncles. They all live in Texas and we see each other a lot, but it doesn’t end there. I also know my great aunts and uncles and many of my first-cousins-once-removed (Dad’s cousins), in addition to my second cousins (their kids).

This helped me.

They all live in Kentucky, and the two contingents meet up every two years for family reunions. The whole assembled family pushes 200 in number, and though I couldn’t tell you most of their names, I’m going to hazard to guess that I know more family members than your average guy. But the problem is we only get to see one another once every two years for the reunion. A lot of the Texas contingent of the family couldn’t help but wish that we saw each other more often.

Though I’ve lived in Texas my whole life, my roots in Kentucky run deep. It’s where both grandparents and my Dad was born before moving to Austin in the late 60s. So when I go back to Kentucky, I hear comments like “This is where Pop and Grandma got married,” or “That’s the house where your great-grandfather was born,” or even “That’s where your great-great-uncle Nick owned a bourbon distillery.” Truth.

After being in a place where your ancestors (absolutely no irony in the use of that word) lived and died, you feel hollow after leaving. It’s almost like that’s where you’re supposed to be.

Also I love bourbon and horse-racing. So maybe someday.

“Now You Are Ready to Go Out Into the World”

If the NBA Was The Island From Lost

Periodically my friends and I start hashing out epic analogies. These bull sessions last days or even weeks and are played out over e-mail. Yesterday my friend Jimmy asked the question “What if the NBA was the island from Lost?” Here’s what we came up with:

 

Mark Cuban would be Benjamin Linus . . . whiny, calculating, undeserving of being the leader, but still retaining far too much power. Popular opinion weighs that he will be the architect of his own demise, but there are a few fans who would love nothing more than to see him succeed in his evil plans.

Manu Ginobli would be Sayid  . . . why is this guy not one of the most popular characters? Between the long hair and minority status, this is an easy match up. Both can kill you in a variety of ways, both flail wildly when struck, and both always seem to be physically hurt yet their play remains maddeningly unaffected by their injuries. Beware the team that boasts either of these men as an asset.

Kobe Bryant is Sawyer . . . you know he’s a bad guy, you know he’s only out for himself, but you fool yourself into thinking that he has grown as a person. While he is a one-of-a-kind player by himself, put him in a team context and he will tear it apart from the inside. Not saying you can’t win championships with him, but you can never have stability.

Shaq is Hurley . . . fat, goofy, always saying stupid things, paranoid, has a love/hate relationship with Sawyer/Kobe. You don’t think that Hurley can contribute, but when the shit hits the fan, Hurley hits you with a van, reminding you that a team with Hurley sucks on defense, but you still can’t stop him in the paint.

Allen Iverson is Kate . . . tiny, in the way, thinks he’s more important than he is, late in his career he is put on teams with superstars, but like Lenny from Of Mice and Men, Iverson always finds a way to kill the thing he loves the most. Kate always tries to take over, and when she does, people die.

Peja Stojakovic  is Jin . . . You forget about him until you have to deal with him. He may not speak English very well, but when you need a dagger three as the clock strikes down, accept no substitutes. Much like Peja in the Playoffs, Jin has been known to choke when it matters most. For example – being caught in the tanker explosion, shooting  dynamite that was 50 feet away, and missing 3 in a row.

LeBron is Jack . . . Everyone looks to him for leadership, and he seems to deliver, but where is the championship? You know he has the tools, but he just can’t seem to make it work.

D-Wade is Locke . . . knock him down, and he will just get back up again. D-wade will constantly surprise you with his ability even though we all know of what he seems to be capable. Whether it’s being shot by Ben, strangled by Ben, paralyzed by the man from Tallahassee, shoulder problems, knee problems, you name it, he can overcome it to win gold or bring home a title

Gregg Popovich is Charles Widmore. Cold, calculating, intelligent, grey haired, willing to sacrifice his morals to win, willing to kill Ben’s Daughter to get what he wants.  He’s been to the top, and is now experiencing a slump, but don’t count him out of the game.

Len Bias  is Carl (Ben’s Daughter’s crappy boyfriend) . . . We met him a long time ago, and he was a total badass -  running in and out of the woods, being bold, but in the end, he died because he was young and foolish. Enough time has passed that the casual fan has no recollection of him.

Micheal Jordan is Jacob . . . Ever present, still the face of the island, but we know that there must be a regime change if things are going to move progress. The question is whether the new boss will be Jack or Locke.

Dirk Nowitzki is Desmond Hume . . . You want him to be more than he is, but let’s face it, you’re never going all the way with that guy. He is very happy, and very good putting certain people (Ben Linus, Charles Widmore, Faraday’s mother) in their places, but he could never take on all-comers. His team of Penny, Charlie and his son Charlie are solid, but not great. In the end, he can’t finish.

Grant Hill is Mr. Echo. The moment he first appeared, you knew that guy was going to be the best. He was everyone’s favorite character. Then he got injured/ killed by the smoke monster. We’re lucky if we get a cameo appearance in a flashback now.

Jerry Sloan is Richard Alpert. It seems like whenever you look back in the island’s history, one thing remains the same: Jerry Sloan is Utah’s head basketball coach. Also, his team plays freaking dirty. Always stealing kids, tranqing you when you walk through the forest, and complaining about every foul they obviously committed.
 
Baron Davis is Rose. Had a career resurgence when he was traded to the Warriors and was cured of cancer. Then he went somewhere else (Clippers) and no one ever heard from him again. Seriously where the hell is Rose?
 
The Charlotte Bobcats are The Others. A shadowy, mysterious team that no one really thinks about. When you see your team is playing them you think, oh, the Bobcats, big deal. But then its a tough game. They came out of nowhere. Also, they take orders from Jacob (Jordan), who is there but not really engaged.
 
Chris Anderson is Michael. Busted for drugs and shooting Libby and Ana Lucia, subsequently left the island. However, guilt drove him to comeback, and now he’s totally redeemed himself by helping the Nuggets advance to the conference finals and freezing the bomb’s battery with liquid nitrogen.
 
Carmelo Anthony is Charlie. Before he came to the island, Charlie found fame as songwriter for Drive Shaft. Before he came to the island, Carmelo found fame as frosh phenom of the Syracuse Orange. One of the most popular characters despite his drug problem.
 
Pistol Pete Maravich is Daniel Faraday. A genius ahead of his time, both came into the league with high hopes of revolutionizing the game. They did, but both of their careers were extinguished in the 70s, all too young. Both of their demises were parental in nature. Pistol Pete couldn’t live with the aura of perfection his father had built, Faraday’s mom shot him. But oh that long hair, so dreamy.
 
Kevin Durant is Walt. This kid and his amazing powers are going to change everything. But you forget about him because he plays in Oklahoma/ lives in New York with this grandma.

Get Your Flu On – Part 1, Our Pets’ Heads Are Falling Off

“That’s it, I’ve had it with this dump!! We got no food, no jobs… our
PETS’ HEADS ARE FALLING OFF!”
- Lloyd Christmas

Science has not yet determined if pet decapitation is a symptom of swine flu, but if that happens you should probably see a vet. Should people be freaking out about swine flu? Well maybe and maybe not. I’ve done a lot of reading so I thought I would lay out everything I’ve leanred about the disease and the outbreak. In short, the disease itself isn’t the most frightening thing. As far as we can tell the vast majority of people who have or have had it didn’t even need to be hospitalized. Instead the most frightening thing about swine flu isn’t the answers we have, it’s the questions. DISCLAIMER: I ain’t a doctor. I just read.

 

Flu-Ridden @$$hole!!

1) What’s the big deal?

To answer that I had to read up on flues. There are many types of flu viruses (called strains). They affect all types of animals such as birds, pigs, and humans. Most strains are individually adapted to specific species. Just like how a flu strain is adapted to the animal, the animal is adapted to the flu. Regular ol’ human flu comes around once a year. Flu season. Your body pretty much knows how to handle it. It’s seen it a million times. It’s like that old girlfriend that you keep running into when you go to bars.

But even though your body knows what to do when faced with seasonal human flu, it’s still dangerous. For people with respiratory problems or people with weakened immune systems (such as the elderly or cancer patients) even friendly ol’ human flu can cause pneumonia, which can flood their lungs. Then they don’t have the strength to fight it off. In this way, just the seasonal flu we’re all used to kills an estimated 36,000 people every year in the United States alone.

The other thing about flu (not just human flu strains, all flu animal flu strains) is that they never sit still. A flu bug is constantly evolving. In fact, even the regular seasonal flu evolves from year to year. That’s why we get flu shots. But the flu is similar enough to what your body has seen before that it’s not that big a deal. 

Sometimes though, an animal flu can change to the point where it can make the jump to humans. Either it mixes with a human strain or it adapts on its own. Then it’s a big problem. The animals have seen that type of strain before, but humans haven’t. Human bodies don’t know how to defend against it. It’s like wearing white boxers everyday then reaching into your underwear drawer and pulling out a leopard-print thong.

Don't picture your mom wearing this.

Now let’s say an animal strain figures out how to jump from animals to humans. It might not be that strong of a strain of flu, and the human could basically shrug it off. Or it could be a really nasty flu and it could kill the human. Even in that worst case scenario it might not turn into an epidemic. Why? Because even if a nasty animal flu figures out how to jump from animal to human, it might not figure out how to jump from human to human. The only people it would kill would be those in close contact with the infected animal.

Let me give you an example. Remember the Asian Bird Flu scare back in the mid-2000s? It was a nasty flu, one of the nastiest anyone had ever seen.

 

It’s not unusual for chickens to get flu; in fact, avian-flu viruses far outnumber human ones. But Robert Webster of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis has studied flu viruses for 40 years and has never seen the likes of the one that killed Ngoan.

“This virus right from scratch is probably the worst influenza virus, in terms of being highly pathogenic, that I’ve ever seen or worked with,” Webster says. Not only is it frighteningly lethal to chickens, which can die within hours of exposure, swollen and hemorrhaging, but it kills mammals from lab mice to tigers with similar efficiency. Here and there people have come down with it too, catching it from infected poultry like the chickens that died on Ngoan’s farm a few days before she fell ill. Half the known cases have died.

 

What scientists were really worried about is that that strain of bird flu that killed 50% of the people it infected was going to find a way to jump from human-to-human instead of animal-to-human. Fortunately it never did. 

The deadliest types of flu like Asian Bird Flu are animal flues that evolve on their own to infect humans. Like I said before, the two ways an animal flu can make the jump to humans is to A) Evolve and mutate until it figures it out on its own or B) Mix with a human strain of flu. Let’s say you come down with a flu from Column B. You could get sick, because there are animal parts to that flu that your body has never seen before. But at the same time, your body HAS seen the human parts, so it kind of knows what to do. But let’s say it’s a Column A flu. Your body has no idea what to do. It keeps producing mucus and other fluids to try to expel the foreign flu but it’s unsuccessful so it keeps producing more. In the end, you drown in your own liquids. For this reason, these kinds of flus affect young healthy people the worst. They have the healthiest immune systems, so their overreaction is more potent.

The deadliest flu in human history was in 1918, when an bird flu made the jump to humans then started spreading rapidly from human to human. It killed an estimated 50 million worldwide.

1918 Flu Ward

After flashing through crowded military camps and troopships in Europe and the United States, the flu leaped out of uniform to ports and industrial cities. In Philadelphia, historian Alfred Crosby found, 12,000 people died of flu and pneumonia in October—759 in a single day. Schools and businesses were shut down and church services cancelled. Morgues overflowed.

By then the sickness had spread to the far corners of the planet, from the South Pacific to the Arctic. “Everybody on Earth breathed in the virus, and half of them got sick,” says Jeffery Taubenberger of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology in Maryland, who is trying to learn what made it such a killer. More than 50 million people died—at least three times as many as in the war. The best medical minds of the day could hardly believe that this was flu.

“We think it’s pretty likely that the virus was not derived from a previously circulating human virus,” Taubenberger says. All of its genes mark it as an animal virus, pure and simple, that somehow crossed to people without the help of genes from a previous human strain.

Before you freak out, let me point out that if a flu that deadly happened today, a lot lower percentage of people would have died owing to advances in medication and technologies such as respirators. But as Asian Bird Flu shows, the wrong strain of animal flu in a human can be deadly serious stuff.

So now I’m ready to finally answer the question about swine flu, What’s the big deal?

The big deal is that here we have an animal flu that’s NOT ONLY figured out how to jump from animal to human it’s figured out how to spread from human to human. We’re not seeing only people who are around sick pigs get it. We’re seeing people who are around sick humans get it. That’s part of why it’s a big deal.

But the good news is that swine flu appears to be a flu that’s partially derived from human flu. Itlooks like it’s one of the ones I called a “Column B,” an animal flu that mixes with a human flu. People just aren’t dying from it in alarming numbers. In fact, the vast majority of people who got it are now fine.

Just what the hell is going on? I’ll discuss more in Part 2…

This is why I never watch Sportscenter anymore

NBA Playoffs begin. Baseball is starting up. NFL Draft talk is in full swing…Mid-April is a great time for sports. Then ESPN has to go and ruin it all.

So this morning I’m basking in the warm afterglow of a Rockets blowout playoff win. I’m having bacon and eggs at my parents’ house and I flip on Disney Sports Channel to watch highlights from the night before. I watch the first segment and I couldn’t believe what I saw.

“Dad, give me your watch,” I said as I rewround the show. “I’m putting this on a timer.”

Here was the order of highlight packages of the first segment: Mavs-Spurs, Rockets-Blazers, Bulls-Celtics, and the 22-4 drubbing that the Cleveland Indians put on the Yankees. See that I can understand. Three opening round NBA playoff game highlights, plus a historic low for the most popular baseball team in the world. Then you save the Cleveland LeBrons-Pistons highlights for the next segment to get people to stay through the commercial. Fair enough. But the time spent on each…

Mavs-Spurs     -     2 min 5 sec

Rockers – Blazers      -     2 min 7 sec

Bulls - Celtics     -     3 min 48 sec

Cleveland – Yankees     -     4 min

They spent almost as much time on a Yankees loss in April as they did two NBA playoff games combined! I understand it was an epic defeat, but it’s APRIL BASEBALL!! First, ESPN showed highlights of every run scored by Cleveland in the 14-run second, complete with a counter at the bottom of the screen. Then, they did a breakout piece by Tim Kurkjian putting the loss in historical context. Then they went back to the game highlightsto show the conclusion. Then they showed the box score. THEN they showed Yankee pitcher Chien Ming Wang’s abysmal early season stats. THEN they showed the New York Post’s reaction. “Stinkees.” How original.

I mean, it’s not like NBA Game 1s are important. The winner only goes on to win the serious almost 80% of the time. It only has implications for how the entire season ends up.

Oh A-Rod, Let Me Count the Ways....xoxoxoxoxo ESPN

Ranking the $1.50 Masters Sandwiches

One of the million little things that set the Masters apart from other golf tournaments is the affordability inside the gate. At other majors they try to milk every last cent out of you. I mean, the US Open is still my favorite major, but at Torrey Pines last year I paid $2 for a slimy old banana and $4 for a cup of beer. The Masters sandwiches in green wrapping paper are the exact opposite of this sentiment. At the Masters this year I paid $1.50 per sandwich and $1.50 per cup of sweet tea and/or Coke. I ran the gamut of the entire Masters sandwich derby, with the exception of turkey. Basically I figured that I eat turkey so much that why waste valuable stomach space on what would ultimately be another turkey sandwich? Here are my rankings.

The famous pimento cheese.

4) Pimento Cheese

Okay, so this is the most famous sandwich at the Masters. Everyone always talks about the pimento cheese sandwich. I found out that the reason everyone talks about it isn’t because of how good it is, but by how oddball it is. Only the Masters would serve this and get away with it. It wasn’t that bad, just odd. It tasted way too processed. Essentially, it was cheese goo. In contrast, the chef at the place I valet-parked served some homemade pimento cheese and it was excellent. I acquiesced that this sandwich might be an acquired taste, and resolved to give it a second chance. However, I liked one of the sandwiched below so much that I never got around to it.

3) Tuna on Wheat

I’ve never been a big fan of tuna salad. I don’t dislike it, just merely tolerate it. If someone is making tuna sandwiches I’ll take one. The alternative is getting up and making my own sandwich, and forget that. This sandwich was pretty good. The strong wheat taste contrasted the essential mayo-ness of the tuna salad. I decided that for future reference all tuna sandwiches should be on wheat bread.

2) Ham and Cheese on Rye

Surprising. I hate ham and cheese, but I liked this. Like the tuna, the bread is what made this (true of all Masters sandwiches). The intense rye flavor was perfect. And instead of bland cheddar Kraft slices they used swiss cheese. They also threw down a spicy mustard. I would eat ham and cheese more often if it was made like this.

1) Egg Salad

Golfer Stewart Cink doesn’t eat egg salad sandwiches, but makes an exception for the Masters. Picking one of these up during practice rounds. I agree with Stewie, these are the winners. Again, the secret is in the bread. Classic white slices are almost sweet. I pounded about five of these during the course of the tournament. Pair with sweet tea. Perfect.

Oh, and Angel Cabrera won a golf tournament in a playoff. More on that later.

On My Bookshelf

     One of my bad habits is that I buy books faster than I read them. I tend to read based on what I’m interested in that particular week. When I’m really into a book I can crank it out in a matter of days. However, sometimes my interest flags halfway through the book and I start reading something else, and never come back to the original book. And then sometimes I’ll never get started at all, I just buy it because I know I’ll want to read it at some point. So I’ve set a goal of knocking out my all the books on my bookshelf that I haven’t read.

     To help myself, I’ve decided to rank them. If any of you are looking for a random book to read, you’ve come to the right place. I buy random yet interesting books. I’ve imposed a moratorium on buying any new books until I’ve read all the ones on this list, which is like cutting smoking cold turkey except more educational (probably). Of course, all this starts after I’ve finished my current book. Like everyone else in the world I’m reading The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan.

1) The Wild Trees: A Story of Passion and Daring

     This book is first because its a library book, and I’m sick of checking things out from the library and never reading them. Anyway, by the time I read this my last two books will have been broad, modern, anthropological works examining humanity’s currents habits in regards to, respectively, eating and crapping. That will be Dilemma and The Big Necessity (which will probably be the subject of my next post). I need a smaller story after those two, something close to fiction.

     Wild Trees is perfect. The book is about tall treeclimbers in the wilds of California (didn’t realize California still had wilds). From the synopsis:

     Richard Preston unfolds the spellbinding story of Steve Sillett, Marie Antoine, and the tiny group of daring botanists and amateur naturalists that found a lost world above California, a world that is dangerous, hauntingly beautiful, and unexplored.  The canopy voyagers are young–just college students when they start their quest–and they share a passion for these trees, persevering in spite of sometimes crushing personal obstacles and failings. They take big risks, they ignore common wisdom (such as the notion that there’s nothing left to discover in North America), and they even make love in hammocks stretched between branches three hundred feet in the air.

     The New York Times describes it as a “swashbuckling reading.” Any book with that description is bound to be one of my favorites.

 

2) Hot, Flat and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution and How It Can Renew America

     There are a couple of books on this list that I first heard about when their authors appeared on The Daily Show. This is one of them. I generally like Friedman’s columns for the New York Times. Friedman’s book argues that America needs to take the global lead in a “green revolution” much like we took the lead in the Industrial and Information Revolutions (“But the puppy was a dog…”). If we don’t someone else is going to take the lead for us. On the back cover Friedman says that America needs “to get its ‘groove’ back.” That America needs a green revolution is something that’s been pretty painfully obvious for a couple decades but the movement is only now catching on, what with Barack Obama promising to wave a magic wand (of cash) and generate millions of green jobs. A timely book, in my opinion.

 

3) Einstein

      I love reading about history, I love biographies and I love reading about science. I got this book for Christmas from my G-ma. It’s the first of two Isaacson biographies on this list, and the first of four. Isaccson is a pretty prolific biographer, but I’ve never read any of his stuff. Looking forward to this one.

 

 

 

 

 

 

4) Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World

     I bought Banana some months ago. I had seen it in B&N weeks before and made up my mind immediately that I wanted it. I mean, my family had always been a banana family. But how much do you really know about bananas? Anyway after looking forward to it for all those weeks I bought it, and started reading it only to false start. I just wasn’t feeling it for some reason. The interest is still there, though. Some of the interesting things I learned while reading the first 20 pages or so: the banana plant is actually one of the world’s largest weeds,  Americans eat more bananas than apples and oranges combined (even though they’re not grown in America), 40-year-old Americans have eaten roughly 10,000 of them on average, and a disease is currently threatening the world’s banana crops.

 

5) Tulia: Race, Cocaine, and Corruption in a Small Texas Town

     Because after a broad sociological work, an exhaustive biography, and a very detailed book about bananas I’ll need the literary equivalent of a Law and Order episode. That title says it all. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

6) Five Past Midnight in Bhopal

     I got this book from my grandfather several years back. I read the first couple of chapters but never more.  As the years have gone by and I look at it on my bookshelf, I have always regretted not finishing it. I remember that the 20th Anniversary of the Dow chemical spill in Bhopal was when I was in college. There were some displays on campus and one of my very intelligent friends admitted that he had never heard of the disaster, which some estimate killed over 10,000 people. It’s one of those disasters that Americans tend to forget because it happened on the other side of the world. I mean, 10,000 people. God. The first of three disaster books on this list.

 

7) Three Cups of Tea

     After five and six, I’ll need a lighter fair. Three Cups is the story of Greg Mortenson, a Minnesota-born mountaineer, and his quest to build schools (primarily for girls) in rural Afghanistan and Pakistan, the heart of the War on Terror. Mortenson is the founder of the Central Asian Institute. Should make for an entertaining, feel-good reading full of hopeyness. I’ll need it before diving into the next one on my list.

 

 

 

 

8 ) Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln

     This is the book Obama was touting before he nominated a White House full of Clintonistas and Robert Gates. Oh well. An in depth look at the politics of Civil War. Essentially answers the question, what’s the big deal about Abraham Lincoln. I really dig Doris Kearns Goodwin. She’s got a Diane Keaton-in-Something’s Gotta Give-except-smart thing going on. I could club an elk to death with this book. It might take me as long as a month to crank this one out, and that’s if I don’t put it down and come back to it.

 

 

 

9) Charlemagne’s Tablecloth: A Piquant History of Feasting

     I’ll need something piquant after Rivals. I read some of this book in college but inexplicably never finished it. Then I found it last year at BookPeople in Austin for only $8. This book gave me one of my favorite food anecdotes, about the medieval feast tradition of taking a peacock or swan, skinning it and removing the feathers in one piece, roasting the bird, reinserting it into the body and feathers, gilding the beak in gold, placing a ball of cloth soaked in alcohol in the beak and lighting it. Then you put the whole thing on a platter and bring it into the hall. The bird looks like it’s breathing fire. I ought to do that sometime.

 

10) The Audacity of Hope

     I bought three books during the campaign. Obama’s two books and McCain’s Faith of My Fathers. I only got around to reading one of them, Obama’s memoir, Dreams From My Father. That’s the one where he talks about his struggle for dealing with his racial identity. Hope is drier, but now that’s he’s president it’s even more important. I mean the guy basically lays out all his plans and viewpoints in this book. He’s having a rough transition in Washington. I think he needs to do a better job in standing up to his own party. Especially Pelosi, who’s the mirror image of everything that was wrong about Republicans like Tom Delay.

 

11) Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq

     Iraq is a war fought by my generation. I really want to understand more about how the war got started and what went so wrong with it. Now I’m not as virulent a critic of George W. Bush as some of my friends, but I don’t think anyone can argue that the war wasn’t mismanaged. We didn’t support our troops. Fortunately, they turned the tide and Iraqis are safer and have a chance at a free country. I like that Obama is being reasonable about this and committing to continued troop presence even after the majority of combat troops come home, or head to Afghanistan. Ricks is Pulitzer Prize winner, but I found this book in the Bargain section at B&N for less that $7. Go figure.

 

12) Fork it Over: The Intrepid Adventures of a Professional Eater

     Another fun book about food to refresh the palate (groan). Alan Richman is a sportswriter turned food critic at GQ. This is a collection of his best work.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

13) Krakatoa: The Day The World Exploded: August 27, 1883

     This is the first of two books on my list by Simon Winchester. Hot damn, the man gets amazing titles. I mean, “The Day the World Exploded.” HOW can you NOT want to read that?!! Krakatoa was an island in Indonesia that got destroyed in 1883 by one of the most powerful volcanic explosions in the geological history of the world. I can only imagine if (when) something like this happened (happens) in the Information Age. The explosion was heard in Australia. The tsunami killed 40,000 and affected tides as far away as France. Barometers in Washington D.C. went nuts. 

 

14) Benjamin Franklin

     “Ben Freakin Franklin,” as George Washington often referred to him. I’m even more excited to read this book after seeing the entertaining portrayal of him in the HBO series John Adams.

 

 

 

 

 

15) Reading Lolita in Tehran

     Tehran is a popular book club book, mainly because it deals with women’s lib in often oppressive Iran. Despite its popularity, I found this book for three bucks at Half Price in Austin. Seems like a poignant work. I had originally intended to read it in companion to Three Cups, but I need this here to break up the biographies. I bet this book will shine a light on my inadequacies when it comes to classic works of literature.

 

 

 

 

16) LBJ: Arhitect of American Ambition

     LBJ was many things, almost all of them contrasting. A crude man from rural Texas who was a master of politics. If he’s half as entertaining as Billy Lee Bramer’s parody of him in The Gay Place this book will be plenty entertaining. Randall Woods’ biography is one of the most thorough and accurate portraits of one of the most complex individuals in recent American political history.

 

 

 

 

17) The Crack In The Edge of the World: America and the Great California Earthquake of 1906

     Seriously. Simon Winchester. Best titles EVER.

This is Ground Control to Major Bat. Can you hear me Major Bat?

Godspeed, Little Buddy

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29754578/?GT1=43001

A small bat that was spotted blasting off with the space shuttle Sunday and clinging to the back side of Discovery’s external fuel tank apparently held on throughout the launch.

NASA hoped the bat would fly away before the spacecraft’s Sunday evening liftoff, but photos from the launch now show the bat holding on for dear life throughout the fiery ride.

“He did change the direction he was pointing from time to time throughout countdown but ultimately never flew away,” states a NASA memo obtained by SPACE.com. “Infrared imagery shows he was alive and not frozen like many would think … Liftoff imagery analysis confirmed that he held on until at least the vehicle cleared [the] tower before we lost sight of him.”

The Internet Video That Has China Laughing Its @$$ Off

A Dirty Pun Tweaks China’s Online Censors - NYT

Since its first unheralded appearance in January on a Chinese Web page, the grass-mud horse has become nothing less than a phenomenon.

A YouTube children’s song about the beast has drawn nearly 1.4 million viewers. A grass-mud horse cartoon has logged a quarter million more views. A nature documentary on its habits attracted 180,000 more. Stores are selling grass-mud horse dolls. Chinese intellectuals are writing treatises on the grass-mud horse’s social importance. The story of the grass-mud horse’s struggle against the evil river crab has spread far and wide across the Chinese online community.

Not bad for a mythical creature whose name, in Chinese, sounds very much like an especially vile obscenity. Which is precisely the point.

Apparently, if you say “grass-mud horse” in Mandarin, it sounds exactly like a certain curse word that ryhmes with “smother plucker”! So that song sung by adorable children is actually extremely lewd! HILARIOUS!

The online videos’ scenes of alpacas happily romping to the Disney-style sounds of a children’s chorus quickly turn shocking — then, to many Chinese, hilarious — as it becomes clear that the songs fairly burst with disgusting language.

It gets better.  Turns out China severly kicked up its online censorship in December, after an online participation circulated calling for an end to the Communist Party’s monopoly on power. Good to see the Olympics didn’t change them. This video is a big middle finger to them. The song is about the grass-mud horses land being invaded by “River Crabs.” If you say “river crab” in Mandarin that sounds exactly “harmony,” which is the Chinese Communist Party’s euphemism for censorship.

(The grass-mud horse) lives in a desert whose name resembles yet another foul word. The horses are “courageous, tenacious and overcome the difficult environment,” a YouTube song about them says.

But they face a problem: invading “river crabs” that are devouring their grassland. In spoken Chinese, “river crab” sounds very much like “harmony,” which in China’s cyberspace has become a synonym for censorship. Censored bloggers often say their posts have been “harmonized” — a term directly derived from President Hu Jintao’s regular exhortations for Chinese citizens to create a harmonious society.

They’re just like us!