Bleeding Blue and Orange

 As a dyed in the wool Mets fan, I have learned to live with disappointment. I have learned not to get my hopes up so that, when the team chokes, as, statistically, they will, I won't feel too, too horrible. I recall as a youth, watching the Mets and Yankees playing the Mayor's Trophy game. When the Mets won this meaningless, pre-season exercise (the Mets went 10-8-1) I celebrated because I knew it wasn't going happen much and a little bit of a moral victory was enough.

The midsummer classic was always something of a let down as well. The Mets, you see, were not very good and were often populated by players who were, well, unremarkable outside the confines of my mind. So while some teams, their magical players topping all the lists, contributed chunks to the All-Star team, I always had to make due with the fallback -- each team gets at least one player on the team, regardless of votes. I always wanted that Mets player to do something remarkable and prove that the team had value and stars and its own magic.

This is why 1979 was a high point for me. The Mets had 2 (count 'em, TWO) players on the roster, catcher John Stearns and first baseman Lee Mazzilli. Stearns was a legend. I was just a boy, but he was everything a catcher was supposed to be, and more. Both were approximately .260 hitters and neither was destined for Cooperstown. Stearns was a reserve and didn't see any action. Mazz got up twice to represent the Flushing Faithful. He tied the game in the 8th with a homerun (IIRC, it hit the yellow line) and then forced in the leading run with a walk an inning later.

And there it was. Our guy, a Met, didn't just play but was instrumental in getting the win for the National League! Without him, the NL would not have its 45–48–2 record in All-Star games.

And as a 10 year old Mets fan, things were not going to get much better than that. Even today, as the Mets are actually playing something resembling baseball and they have enough of an imposing line up that their players actually get voted and start the game, I get a thrill when I read that Pete Alonso hit a homer in the All-Star Game, but it isn't the same. Back then, that home run was proof of life. It was a shock as the whipping boys from Queens finally showed up.

That year, the Mets finished 6th in the division, with a record of 63-99-1 but for one shining moment, I had reason to brag.

Childhood trauma

 I have stumbled upon a trauma from my youth, and I wished to confront it and commit it to form, lest I ever forget (as happens more and more these days). Now, when someone calls me out for some reason, i have another trauma in my stable that I can trot out and blame. Winning!

This is the scenario which inspires deep and deeply held dread -- hanging around with friends, getting ready to play softball. They are all talking about breaking in their new gloves, and one, clearly an expert points out the inmportant of applying neat's foot oil.

They all pause and nod, pounding their fists into their gloves in silent agreement.

I am afraid to say, "Hey, excuse me everybody, but what is a 'neat' and why would you somehow want to get oil from it's feet?"

A New Ad Campaign Idea

 Pick a competitive binary from the marketplace. The ad is an interview with a representative of one product. During the interview, he bad mouths his competition and the people who patronize his competition. Handheld camera and the framing as a hidden or candid moment...the camera quickly focuses on a bag from the competition. The rep looks at it and at the camera and says "I wouldn't ever use it if it didn't work so well."

Collective Stupidity, a rant

As I was watching TV last night, it dawned on me not just that we have evolved into a species that cannot fold a road map but is fearless about going unfamiliar places because of a slavish faith in Waze or some equivalent. We cannot think but we can know a lot more by virtue of the cloud.

The weather alerts (because, hey, it's gonna rain, and the people need to know) struck me as concerning. The weather folk (and a proud people they are) hype up a weather "event" and turning it into a weather "crisis." More rain! Run for your lives. You've seen rain, but not like this. Film at eleven. They bring in experts who show us amorphous but colorful blobs so we can tell if it is raining outside because looking would be too much trouble. And I'd be disappointed if I looked outside and didn't see red and orange hovering everywhere like the doppler readout on TV.

Meanwhile, the talking heads who have a lot of experience not getting in out of the rain tell me things like "Don't put your head under water and try to breathe" and "you know the joke about the flood and the guy on the roof who prays to be saved et cetera and then at the end, God says that he sent 3 boats?  Well that's crap. There will be no divinely inspired boats. Leave now." The underlying message is "prove to the world that every quasi- human on the evolutionary train that led to you didn't die in vain -- use your brain and don't be stupid."

Expected and usual weather patterns (heck, we have a hurricane season so we know they're coming and we can stop shhoting ducks and aliens and start shooting hurricanes) should be something we are used to by now. In the same way that the traffic report doesn't include all the places at which there is always traffic, so noting it is unnecessary, the idea that after a humid day, there will be torrential down pours should not surprise anyone. And we have all lived through it, so all we need is a weather person saying "expect the usual heavy rains from this time to that time and act accordingly." Period. Done.

But we are a nation of shouting because shouting (especially shouting first) is what makes the green flow so we send fools into the storm to tell you to be inside, and we remind you that surfing during a hurricane, brave and awesome looking as it might be, should be discouraged except among the most hard core and awesome people, so that's not you, right? Wink wink. See you on the beach. And I have become a member of the "cull the herd" school of curmudgeonliness so you kids go and have fun. We have to tell drivers, "Don't drive into standing water if you can't judge the depth and can't see the other side, and don't drive into flowing water at all. You can get donuts tomorrow." The expectation of idiocy (and the reliance on it to provide for quality news reports) creates an intellectual elite. Not only do they understand this pandering to the lower intellectual classes, but they are acutely aware of themselves at the top of the smarts-food chain because the mass of people haven't a clue.

This leads, of course, to bilateral resentment (how dare you be so smart! vs. how dare you be so stupid!) and, probably, helter skelter.

Random Rambling

The human race has continued to evolve over time. I, for example, am no longer monkey, but I am now a chimpanzee (h/t Beck). I believe, though, that environmental factors have influenced the way we have evolved. As medicine has evolved, we have become both stronger and weaker; more informed and cautious, but more reliant on experts and this leads to a decentralized society, no longer with a specific medicine woman or man.

So things change. Heck, I think that if we were to make it 95 feet down the line to first base, there would be an initial increase in outs, but eventually, the athletes would get stronger and faster and evolve into a new runner who can beat that throw.

Technology has helped us evolve into a species with a shorter attention span. We have also lost a baseline set of gross motor skills and strength because we focus on smaller, lighter devices (I am guessing that fine motor skills have improved over the years, just not the muscles that have to do with writing stuff by hand). The computer age made our ability to outsource thinking easier and we developed to expect instant answers, and immediate access to things that in the past we would never have been able to approach. The concept of "digital solitude" (that is, our practice of spending more hours in front of a keyboard than interacting with people) has apparently led to a declining birth rate. (the NYT article is behind a paywall, so here's the NY Post https://nypost.com/2025/03/31/lifestyle/screen-time-blamed-for-cross-cultural-drop-in-birth-rates/)

This isn't just about the loss of a skill, or some sort of experience gap, but a rewiring of our brains and bodies to be able to excel in a very different type of world. The continual imposition of AI into our daily lives will force us to evolve more, to depend on technology so as not to be able to do things on our own.

We are becoming extensions of the cloud, instead of the cloud being an extension of us.

the Pacekeeper

I pace. A lot. I find myself just wandering back and forth, possessed by some manic energy which manifests as a slow shuffle back and forth, not active enough to burn any calories, but not slow enough to sit down. It's a lose-lose, as long as "it" isn't "weight."

I come by this pacing habit honestly. No stealer of paces, I. It is genetic. I first noticed that my uncle was a pacer a long time ago. He was over at our house and he paced. And I noticed it. Sort of hard to hide, but I am still proud of my observational skills. Therefore, since he paces, and he is my uncle, science demands that I pace as well. Quads erat demonstratum, baby. Amirite?

By the way, when I say that my uncle is a pacer, I refer neither to the car, nor the basketball team, for as far as I know, he is neither of those. There might be other things he isn't, but I'm going to start by being sure he isn't an auto or professional athlete. I'm pretty sure he isn't a horse, but who knows? Call that indications for further research.

I actually believe that the canals on Mars were created by a couple of neurotic people full of nervous energy, pacing back and forth waiting for something. Just over millions of years.

So I was standing in the shower this morning and I realized that the water drains, because it does. Then, when I turned the water off, I noticed that it still dribbled and moved towards the drain. You see, a bathtub has a slight pitch, a shallow down-angle which encourages the water to roll down, overcoming the pull of gravity and geting water to flow. Amazing.

What that means is that if I walk from one end of the tub to the other, I am walking downhill! And, more importantly, if I turn around and walk back, I'm walking UPHILL! So now, if I pace while I taking a shower then half of my steps are uphill. I'm guaranteed to get in shape as long as i walk in the shower. Genius, I say.

Next, I have to find a way to get my bicycle into the tub so I can work on my hill climbing skills as I prep for the Tour de France.

Recent Viewing

 On my diet, one thing I'm allowed to consume is media, so I have been watching stuff recently and I have opinions.

First, the movie "Heads of State" with John Cena and Idris Elba.

It was sufficient and passable. It doesn't stay with you much but it was certainly diverting for a little bit.

Then I finished watching Ironheart. Six episodes, the first three make a reference or two to the greater MCU but episodes 4-6 are all about integrating with the universe. The universe, thus far, has tread very carefully on the tension between magic and technology. Tony Stark and Dr. Strange epitomized that conflict and then Spider Man bridged the gap, briefly. But Ironheart really tries to reconcile the two on an institutional and not anecdotal level. Previously, magic was about the stones, or combat and not about the existence of magic in the "real world." This show tries to bring magic into our world unapologetically, throwing around buts of magic and connecting it to technology just as a matter of course. Note -- The Librarians The Next Chapter has been dealing with this all season and somehow, they deal with it more cleanly. In the MCU it just opens up way too many questions. The series opened up a LOT and there are loads of questions left which might help this series somehow connect to some other phase 5, 6 or 7 piece.

So was it "good"? No. It was meh. It had plot holes and lazy writing but it did work very hard to make me question so much of what I thought I understood about the MCU. Is that a desired conclusion? My guess is that full MCU fluency will require one to watch this. It won't be especially enjoyable, but you have your marching orders.

And finally, I watched "The Old Guard 2." Here is my best advice: before starting this, watch The Old Guard again. Then turn the TV off and go to sleep. You're welcome.

Geez, that is a bad, bad movie. It looks like it was 3 different movies that were quickly and carelessly slapped together. It is a mess. If I had seen this first, I wouldn't have cared about a sequel. And I still don't.

Pretty darned bad. 

Dream fulfillment

 I hear of a story of a sage who, after many years of struggle, makes it to the Kotel, the Western Wall.

He finally is there, praying with fervor as this is the object of his many years' quest. He said that he had dreamed of seeing its splendor every day and this was a dream come true. 

And now, he was asked, now what will you do? You have been to the wall. What's left to achieve?

And he said, I still dream that dream. Every night. I shall work to fulfill it every day.