Baseball can be fun...

...if you sit extremely close in the most incredible ballpark. Note: these conditions can be difficult to achieve.

The fam: unphotogenic

Ballpark: built to encompass historic buildings and cheap lawn seating

Our seats/my boys

Brother in habitat

Exhibit A: Brother using specialized gaming computer as television (with Bose wireless headphones) - wise older sister noted the fantastic emailing speed possible with fancy gaming computer



Exhibit B: Brother using digital cable/DVR-enabled TV exclusively for video game play (with secondary pair of Bose wireless headphones) - prior to traumatic death of Xbox 360 and subsequent replacement by the manufacturer after grueling 3 week wait



Exhibit C: Brother rapidly consuming massive plate of fried potatoes, fatty meat, and dairy products


Alternate title: Brother looking like teenager

What's with...

...all the shrink-wrapped vegetables at SuperTarget? Okay, maybe to hold the bell peppers on the foam tray and to keep the avocados from getting bruised. But today they had a huge bin of individually shrink-wrapped russet potatoes. You know, the big dirt-covered starch balls that can be used to bludgeon someone to death when swung in a sock. Does the shrink-wrap keep them authentically dirty?

...the busty, bikini-babe half-time show during the women's beach volleyball semifinal? Paul tells me they've had these bikini dances the whole time, but that was certainly the first one I caught a glimpse of.

...pole vaulting. Enough said. Oh, and trampoline. Enough, enough said.

FYI - I totally cried when they showed Shawn Johnson's parents tonight. Even though dumb MPR ruined the surprise for me this morning. Go USA gymnastics. I was truly proud to be an American tonight.

In the Loop - The Week

I like this show on MPR. Today was especially good. (From the link you can download a podcast or listen online.)

You all will enjoy the poem about the Olympics about half way through and must listen to the song about the Georgia-Russia conflict right at the end of the show (so you don't have to listen to the whole thing, just scroll to the end).

Getting excited for winter...

Yes, I look silly.

Not a family show

So I'm watching women's beach volleyball and the camera crew is totally doing the full-body close-up pan shot of the women's sweaty, sandy bodies. Blatantly, not even trying to hide it.

In between points they'll quickly cut to a completely different part of the court and pan up from a player's ankles all the way to her boobs--then cut away to the next point before reaching her face.

But anyway, there's a former U of M volleyball player on right now and she's pretty good.

FYI - women's and men's gymnastic team qualifying is on primetime Sunday night, then men's team finals are Monday night and women's team finals are Tuesday night

Nice work

As I've mentioned, I think punditry is out of control--but I should clarify that it's true everywhere except the NYT. Their columnists are a smart bunch of people. Two good ones from this week:

• David Brooks on why Obama isn't winning by a landslide
• Paul Krugman on Republican reliance on know-nothing politics

Also, the Economist continues to pump out amazing analysis of business, markets, and politics. I might need to subscribe. Some recent highlights:

• First in a series of profiles of battleground states
• Discussion of the evolving role of the Fed (I'm telling you, this is the time to be a Fed economist--except that the whole house of cards might just fall apart soon)
• The perils of the housing bill
  

I'm just sayin'

Paul keeps a list of "Abberisms," or phrases he thinks are unique to me. I maintain (correctly, of course) that most of these phrases are quite common. He proved me right the other day by finding his favorite Abberism in the Urban Dictionary.

Paul also likes to take brief mental breaks at work. Sometimes during these breaks he composes songs or rhymes to amuse himself and his friends. Based on a set of his favorite Abberisms, he recently composed this email:

So I was just sayin’ that I was gonna say that clearly this is my point….I do what I can!

To which I replied:

My point is that clearly someone is not doing what he can at work this afternoon. I'm just saying.