I apologize for not posting as regularly as I usually do. For the last month I haven't been in front of a computer all day as I was before, so I can't just swing my chair around and type whenever a thought hits me.

Updates:

No start date on the new job yet. Still waiting. I'm getting a ton of mail from the HR deparment in Atlanta, and I have gotten paid, so I know I'm in the system. They tell me that they still don't have me a computer yet, and it is worthless for me to start without the wonderful IBM laptop that they are going to provide me, because I can't do anything relevant to my work without it. I suggested that I might ought to try getting by the old analog way for a while, but they wouldn't hear of it.

So how have I spent my time? Reading. Piddling with some yard stuff. Mostly just being with my family. I haven't taken any vacation to speak of since Sarah and I were married. I took only two days when my daughter was born. This has been nice.

Don't think for a moment that this invasion of Iraq is somehow justified when you see video of people dancing in the streets and tearing down posters of Saddam. These are the same people who dance in the streets when America is attacked and Americans die. They aren't dancing because they are liberated. They are dancing because a camera is turned toward them.

They are children. Illiterate, filthy, pagan children. They cannot think for themselves. They think what they are told to think. The moment they are given "liberty" from Hussein, they will fall right back under the leadership of the next biggest psycho religious thug who will proceed to force them right back into oppression and tell them why they should hate the West.

All we are doing is teaching another generation to hate America, and giving them a reason to pepper the next fifty years with increasingly spectacular terrorist attacks. We do not have a good track record with other countries we have "liberated" or protected from tyranny... not even with the literate Western countries. It seems they all turn against us and hate us eventually.

(Case in point - the presence of US military installations protected Turkey from the Soviets all through the Cold War, and by way of thanks they have to take a vote to determine whether we can fly over them to strike at Iraq, and they are ignoring our instructions not to cross over the border and take advantage of the situation to give further grief to the Kurds.)

The Iraqis will not love us if and when they are liberated. They will hate us worse than they hate us now.

Here's an excerpt from an article at the Washington Post:

"There is fighting in the center, on the streets. It is terrible," said Hussein, a 24-year-old engineer who works for the state-run southern oil company in Basra. "We don't want Americans here. This is Iraq."

One group of Iraqi boys on the side of the road smiled and waved as a convoy of British tanks and trucks rolled by. But once it had passed, leaving a trail of dust and grit in its wake, their smiles turned to scowls.

"We don't want them here," said 17-year-old Fouad, looking angrily up at the plumes of gray smoke rising from Basra.

He pulled a piece of paper from the waistband of his trousers. Unfolding it, he held up a picture of Saddam, showing the Iraqi leader sitting on a throne with a benign smile.

"Saddam is our leader," he said defiantly. "Saddam is good."

I thought I would save time and teach my 2-year-old three songs at once.


A – B – C – D- E – F – G

Yes sir, yes sir, three bags full

Up above the sky so high

W – X – Y – Z

Baa baa black sheep have you any wool

How I wonder what you are

You know just because a beer is on sale, doesn't mean it's good.

I don't think I'll ever be a huge Iain Murray fan, but The Puritan Hope is worth slogging through.

He demonstrates how the Puritans' missionary zeal was fueled by their optimistic eschatology, and how English missionary efforts were derailed by the premillenial hysteria of guys like Edward Irving and J.N. Darby. The book is helpful for both a study of the Puritans and a study of the various trends in eschatology through recent history. He doesn't spend any time on any of the social, cultural or political nuances of postmillenial hope, and this isn't a real page-turner. I always find Murray to be a difficult read, but I promise that it won't be a waste of your time if you can make yourself get through it.

A pastor gets fired for having the gall to go ahead with the evening worship service even though there was a Super Bowl going on. Read all about it.

Here is a great article by a Cub fan. One of these days I'll tell you about my own pre-adolescent affair with the Cubs.

If you ever watched WGN in the eighties, you'll be able to relate to this:


IN 1983, I LEARNED THAT IVY WAS ADDICTIVE
2/23/03 by Will Carroll of Baseball Prospectus
Unlike that episode when I was 5 and eating paste in the classroom, this new addiction seemed a lot more positive. Each day I would ride my bike home, the west Texas sun beating down on me. Even before showering, I would run into the den, rewind the tape in the top-loading, oven-sized, Betamax and I would watch baseball. We were one of the first homes with cable in our area just outside of town and what grabbed me wasn’t MTV or HBO, it was WGN.

Outside Odessa, Texas, we had many things – it wasn't a poor existence I lived. Still, there was something I saw on the screen that I seldom saw, at least in this wonderous state. Grass. Ivy. I craved green.

The green may have got me watching, but on May 3, 1983 – yes, I remember the date – it was a home run over the left field stands and onto Waveland that really sucked me in. It's the first time I can remember hearing "It could be! It might be! It is! Home Run for Ryne Sandberg!" I literally jumped out of my seat. Something in the quiet way he trotted around the bases, shyly shook hands with Bill Buckner – Buckner! – and walked into the dugout.

I learned to program that Betamax so I would never miss a day game. I saved my money to buy more tapes so that I wouldn't have to record over them each day. I signed up for a subscription to the Chicago Tribune -- delivered three days late -- so that I could read more. I believed that everything good in the world must be in Des Plaines because every commercial seemed to end with the advertiser being located there. I tried in vain to figure out what Torco was.

In 1984, I learned both the joys of winning and the brutal disappointment of watching Sixto Lezcano break every boyhood dream with one swing. By 1988, I was in Wrigley Field, sitting in the bleachers behind two guys in Sombreros. I sat in the rain, refusing to believe that my first game could be rained out. Two hours later, I learned that Wrigley drains well and the team came out. For a time I was the only guy in the bleachers and supposedly they put me on TV. The Old Style vendor didn't card me and Andre Dawson waved and the Cubs lost to the Expos. It was a good day.

My life changes and changes. I've been all over the world, but one thing that's always helped me is wearing a Cubs hat. Like some sort of odd fraternity, people smile when they see it. People know that the Cubs are America. Often beaten, never giving up, traditional, corporate, and beloved, that's our Cubs. I've gone from player to fan to writer in a journey I would have never imagined and last year, I found myself standing near second base.

It's an amazing journey that's led me from sitting in front of a Betamax to writing for the top baseball publication, Baseball Prospectus. Sometime this season, if I can get the damned Web site to work, I'll be back in Wrigley, back in the bleachers, and for an afternoon in the sun, I'll be just a fan, looking for the Old Style vendor, wishing the clouds away, and somewhere deep inside me, that child that became addicted to ivy will live again.

Great baseball movies I'm gonna watch / have watched while I'm waiting for the season to crank up:

The Stratton Story
Eight Men Out
Pride of the Yankees
61*
Field of Dreams
The Rookie
Ken Burns' Baseball
For Love of the Game
The Babe
Cobb

Can you recommend any others?

If you say Major League 3, you are banished.

I gotta hand it to Louisiana.

When Winter is over, it is over. It is as if everything immediately turned green. No sooner did I turn off the furnace than I cranked up the lawn mower

I spent much of the today* and Saturday in the yard raking leaves, clearing out branches, garbage and debris and planting grass in the muddy spots around the house where there is none.

Backyard inventory:

Two snakes
Three non-descript brown lizards
A dozen or so green spiders
One dead frog, sectioned
One tire swing that I'm going to have to cut down - (it's going to be a suspended mosquito nursery if I don't)
One sloppy shed built out of wooden pallets that I'm going to have to tear down
A score of broken toys the neighbor kids must have tossed over the fence

*No. I'm not working. I'm getting paid, but I'm not working. Tomorrow. Heh-heh. Maybe.

Extremely brief reviews of movies I've seen recently:

Road to Perdition: Could anything be more exciting than watching Tom Hanks sleepwalk for two hours? Yes.

Tuck Everlasting: Applied Buddhism, suicide encouraged.*

The Iron Giant: The Gospel with a big robot.


*(I thought about writing a lengthy review of this one, but it would be virtually impossible to criticize without giving away important plot developments.)

Music thoughts:

I would probably listen to the Office Space soundtrack if someone gave it to me.

I don't get Tom Petty. I don't think I ever will.

I've been spinning The Cream of Clapton almost non-stop for the last few weeks. There's not a bad track on it. Flawless.

I'm not quite sure what Saturday Night Live has intended to accomplish with the music portion of the show over the years. It is something I've never really cared for outside of that handful of classic performances - Joe Cocker, Paul Simon, Neil Young - but over the last couple of years it has gotten downright awful. Is it filler? Another method for drawing an audience? You either get an obscure artist doing their one popular song that happens to be getting airplay, or a popular artist doing an obscure song... either way, I've started going to bed when the music starts.

Man don't ever get the hair spray can confused with the deodorant can. Just take my word for it.

One major difference between baseball and football is how much winning really matters when it is all said and done.

For example, if someone told you that they were a Bengals fan or an Arizona Cardinals fan, you would ask, "why? for the love of... wh...why?". After you regained your composure, and determining whether or not the person is new to the country, you would go on to demonstrate the futility of following such a poor excuse for a team, giving a detailed litany of the relative futility of the franchise through history. Football is all about winning and putting your opponent to open shame.

Not so with baseball. If someone says that they are a Red Sox fan, you just nod in a concerned sort of way. You try to share their pain and tell them how much you'd like to see the Sox in the series this year, you know, if your AL team can't make it. Same with Cubs fans. You look into their big doe eyes... eyes full of hope for a winning season this year, and you don't have the heart to tell them that June is coming, and that the ivy is getting green, and their pitching rotation is stuggling for the 58th consecutive year. You just say that the Cubbies will be alright if they can just get so-and-so healthy, and if what's-his-name gets out of his slump. But you really don't ridicule someone for following a losing team... or any team for that matter. Loving a baseball team is like loving a woman. You would never ridicule someone's choice of bride to his face.

(The only exception to this is Braves fans. You ridicule them just because it is obvious they don't know much about the game, and they are just following that team that gets a lot of air time on TBS. It's alright, though. They'll grow out of it. You hope.)

Remember it was a football coach who said, "Winning isn't everything. It's the only thing." For those who really, really love baseball, playing is everything. Playing is the only thing. Sure success is great, don't get me wrong. But success in baseball just has a way of showing up at unexpected times. It isn't something that can be forced. A guy you've never heard of that has been knocking around in the minors gets called up and throws a no-hitter. A broken-down journeymen with a busted knee and a ripped hamstring comes off the bench and hits a World Series home run.

Keep swinging through the strike zone until you make contact. Keep running out those ugly infield broken-bat hits like you knocked it into deep left, you'll get on base. Hustle. Dive. Slide. Success will find you.

Football... s'alright. But it is only really good if your team is winning. If your team is bad, you just watch punt after punt after punt until the clock runs out.

Baseball, on the other hand, is kind of like your life. It has got its ups and downs... sometimes more downs. Sometimes you have to learn to be happy and thankful for the little things. And you have hope. With every at-bat, your team has a chance to turn it all around. They can keep going, keep racking up runs... there is no clock to stop them as long as they are at the plate.

I think about football with my head. It isn't logical to follow a losing team.

I think about baseball with my heart.

Fed Ex brought my first Lanier paycheck today, even though they haven't yet let me into my office or allowed me to begin working.

Work they paid me for: 3 weeks

Time spent I actually spent working: 1 day

I'm hearing next Tuesday they'll have my computer and be ready for me to start.

I've heard that before.

Will Wayne Brady's star ever stop rising?

A perfect society would be one made entirely out of food.

The definition of pain: getting a splinter in your blister.

Here are my fantasy baseball picks. Save your criticism. I spent hours and hours studying tiny lines of statistics to come to the conclusion that the combined strength of these players will ensure my success. The Booth deserves lots of thanks for all of his hard work in taking this fantasy baseball idea, running with it and making it happen.

Starting Pitchers:
Matt Morris
Mark Mulder
Kerry Wood
Javier Vazquez
Tim Wakefield
Al Leiter

Closing Pitchers:
John Smoltz
Troy Percival

Catchers:
Jason Kendall
Javy Lopez

Infield:
Mike Sweeney 1B
Nomar Garciaparra SS
Luis Castillo 2B
Jeff Cirillo 3B

Backup Infield:
Erubiel Durazo 1B
Tony Womack SS
Fernando Vina 2B
Matt Williams 3B

Outfield:
Albert Pujols
Lance Berkman
Johnny Damon
Cliff Floyd

Solid.

The Little Debbie Oatmeal Cream Pie at 25 cents has got to be the greatest value on the market today.

I don't know if I should say anything about this or not, but I am beginning to be a bit paranoid about the way food is being prepared.

For example, last week someone served me some great cinnamon cake with some delicious creamy icing, but as I was eating it, I bit down hard on a piece of plastic. Somehow a Cracker Jack toy... some kind of little plastic baby... got into the cake batter and got mixed up in there. That worries me. How does something like that get into a cake?

Then a few days before that I was eating at a Chinese buffet and was served a cookie that had a piece of paper inside! C'mon folks! Don't you check for those things?

Go build your own slot car track and race on it.

Go read this hilarious story about a guy who tries to use a $2 bill at a Taco Bell.

Speaking of soup and stew, I might ought to add that I am pretty opposed to all forms of wet food. I like my food dry.

Required reading: Christian Liturgy by Frank Senn

I think Bailey is inheriting my obsessive/compulsive traits.

If so much as a crumb gets on her hands while she's eating, she must stop everything and wash her hands before proceeding.

I'm the same way. I do not like getting food on my hands. I eat ribs with a knife and fork for that very reason. I can't stand having my hands covered in sauce. Whatever I can't get off the bone with a knife and fork stays on the plate.

I get to go to work tomorrow. Yeehaw.

I never thought I would be so excited to be going to work.

I'm giving up Rick for Lent.

What is the difference between soup and stew? Is it the potatoes?

I finally have an official start date... Thursday of this week.

That's twelve days without doing a lick of work.

Had I known that I was going to have this much free paid vacation, I might have driven up to St. Louis... or taken a part-time job...

Dear Tolkein Fans Who Hate Peter Jackson for Editing the FOTR Books for Film,

You really must go see Gods and Generals and witness what happens when a director doesn't know how to edit a film. Eternal scenes of plotless nothingness interrupted by even longer scenes of aimless action. This must be what you are looking for when you criticize Jackson for cutting characters and events and modifying themes for the cinematic version. Go. Enjoy. Tell me how entertained you are by a director who uses an unabridged novel for a movie script.

Love,

Unca Duane

Words that should never ever go together:

Anal Electrocution

Hot Potato Enema

Eyeball Clamp

Ear Stab

Pot Roast

There comes a point at which "that's just the way he is" is no longer an acceptable excuse for a grown man's boorish and ignorant behavior.