This week: MLB quick hits, Reality TV Roundup, Parenting Story, and more...
March Madness, personal vacation, family visits, birthday parties, MLB Opening Day (read: Week), aggravating my cousin on Facebook :), and all the joys of parenting. These were among the many things that kept me away from the keyboard these past few weeks. It was nice to hear from folks who missed my posts; that was a pleasant surprise. I truly appreciate the feedback and the interest.
Trivia for my fans - Waaaay back in the day I used to be a trivia host and question writer for a restaurant promotions company in Atlanta. It was a ton of fun and I met lots of nice folks along the way (including a really fun family that I'm still friends with to this day). I'm throwing some trivia into my blog because it just seems fitting. This is exclusively for your own enjoyment; the answers are at the bottom of the page but you'll need your secret decoder ring to read them :)
- The 80s - Two instrumentals made it to #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in the 1980s. Name them.
- People - What TV personality appeared on a 1997 cover of Time with the headline "Yep, I'm Gay"?
- Movies - What legendary actor's final big-screen performance was as the voice of Wylie Burp in An American Tail: Fievel Goes West?
- World - The affluent beach district of Ipanema is located in what city?
- Sports - Who is the active rushing yards leader in the NFL? (scroll down for a hint)
- The Braves are awful - I try to be realistically optimistic when sports seasons begin and I knew this team was going to have some growing pains, struggles, and head-hanging moments, but I didn't realize it would be so hard to win just one game. They're currently 1-9 (a sneaky late-inning win on Friday night against the Marlins ended their futility) and the outlook isn't pretty. I predict they finish April with 2 wins, maybe 3 but not more than that. They're terrible.
- Youth infusion - Every season seems to introduce new and exciting talent at nearly every position and as a proud MLB.tv subscriber I get to tune in and watch guys like Carlos Correa, Francisco Lindor, Miguel Sano, Corey Seager, Trevor Story, Kevin Pillar, Kevin Kiermaier, and many others ply their trades. Guys like Mike Trout, Bryce Harper, Matt Harvey, Jose Altuve, and Manny Machado are already carrying the torch and making the game competitive and fun to watch.
- Braves need a youth explosion - Seeing the youth insurgence is a bit bittersweet as a Braves fan, especially this season. They've stockpiled their organization with a glut of young, elite prospects but their major league roster is a patchwork quilt of retreads (sorry, Frenchy & Bud Norris), past-their-prime vets (sorry, Gordon Beckham & Kelly Johnson), and young arms. CF Mallex Smith made his debut this week and left the game looking like this. Seems like a fitting punctuation on the kind of season they'll have; constantly getting hit in the face. I just hope that the next 24 months in Braves Country sees at least 2 of their minor league stars-in-waiting burst on the scene and move this team into contention.
- Division races abound - I'll address the season as it goes along, but my early predictions are tight division races in the AL East, AL Central (the Royals will come back to Earth a little bit), NL Central (sorry, Reds, not you; you can carpool with the Braves to the support group meetings). Divisional series will be must-see TV every night. ASIDE: Wednesday night this week was the perfect scenario for my baseball passion. E1 was finishing up The Magicians and I had 10 games on (2 four-game mosaics on my computers, a game on my phone, and a game on my extra TV). It was amazing.
- Wild Card Playoff Game - I have a lukewarm crusade to eliminate the one-game Wild Card Playoff from baseball. Both leagues need to host a three-game series with a back-to-back doubleheader starting at 12pm on Monday at the home ballpark of the team with the better record. A Super Bowl halftime-like atmosphere between games (they can get Journey, Metallica, or John Cougar Mellencamp to perform on the outfield grass) and then back on the field for Game 2. Managers would have to manage their bullpens accordingly. And if they split the doubleheader they jump on their awaiting chartered flights to the other city for a deciding Game 3 the following night. I think that would be one helluva day of baseball. If you have Rob Manfred's personal cell number, can you do me a solid?
Sports trivia question hint #1 - Here's your first chance to use your secret decoder ring (aka, simple cursor trick...aka, copy but no paste). His first and last name are both monosyllabic. You missed it, its back there.
The Internet Ruined My Life - Not MY life, its the name of a new show that me and E1 are watching on SyFy and its sobering. It's a mismatch for SyFy, it should be on A&E or truTV, but its totally worth checking out. Shot in a first-person confessional style, each episode chronicles two people's experience of having their lives upended by a simple tweet or Facebook post or Instagram pic. Each story is different but the humanizing element of internet hounding is what drives the show's appeal. Don't jump to a short-sighted, "people just need to get over it" or "it can't be that bad" conclusion too quickly without watching the show. Granted, some of the victims were a bit too cavalier or heady with their fingers on the keyboard, but none of the subjects deserved the treatments they received. Another show in this same vain is I Survived which I think is still hanging around in the archives of Hulu.
60 Days In - Another show that's caught my eye recently is a reality show on A&E (exactly where it belongs unlike The Internet Ruined My Life) called 60 Days In. The Clark County (IN) Jail came under a new sheriff last year and in an effort to help learn more about the workings of his jail and, more importantly, to correct criminal behavior and corruption from his staff he created a groundbreaking program. Seven citizens were selected from a candidate pool to be booked into jail and serve 60 days as a real inmate. Only two people in the jail system know their real identities and each of the citizens were given backstories (i.e., outstanding warrants, embezzlement charges, forging checks, etc) and then processed into jail. Its intense for a sheltered noob like me. I made the mistake of watching the first two episodes right before bed; I couldn't sleep because I thought E1 was gonna steal my commissary.
Sports Trivia Question Hint #2 - He's a former Hurricane. This one's a dead giveaway.
Parenting Story - H2 is beginning her journey into the wonderful world of walking. She's so close to getting one foot in front of the other without assistance and in an effort to help her along we're using one of those push-walkers from Fisher Price. We went to the Land of the Walkers (aka, the mall) to take a few laps with her. I was spotting her from behind, diaper bag slung over my shoulder and patiently escorting my daughter through each step (read: snail's pace). It's a cherished memory I have from H1's learning steps and I enjoy being a part of that process with my daughter. My kids are people persons and love smiling and giggling at strangers and making even the toughest souls grin, so its not uncommon to hear "oh my, she's so cute" or "you've got your hands full". I have a small bank of ready-made responses like "yeah, she's a charmer" or "she definitely keeps me on my toes". Its the normal single-serving exchanges that happen almost every day. So, when I'm walking behind my daughter and watching all the foot traffic navigate around her I was completely unprepared and caught off-guard when a perfectly normal-looking woman walked right up to me with a smile on her face and said "your life is over, I can see it on your face". I instinctively gave her one of the autopilot responses that seemed incredibly ill-fitting considering her out-of-the-blue declaration. She could've walked up to me and said "Mondale was robbed" or "Frosted Flakes taste like sawdust" and I would've been just as unprepared for my comeback. I can't seem to settle on a good explanation for her comments, but I trend towards "trying to be funny with the stereotypical nonsense about daughters stressing their dads out". It just came off horribly and has hung around my frontal lobe all week.
Trivia answers - A simple cursor trick = secret decoder ring. Ask me privately if you're having trouble.
- The 80s - Both the Miami Vice theme song (1985) and the iconic music from Chariots of Fire (1981) reached #1 for one week each. FYI Axel F from Beverly Hills Cop peaked at #3 in 1985.
- People - Ellen DeGeneres
- Movies - Jimmy Stewart
- World - Rio de Janeiro
- Sports - Frank Gore
