Month: July 2006

Soccer championship

And you thought the World Cup was it for high-level soccer. No, indeed not. The Albuquerque Asylum FC (I have no idea why they thought Asylum* was a good name) will play the Sacramento Knights this Saturday evening in Albuquerque for the Western Division championship of the National Premier Soccer League (NPSL). The winner advances to the national championship.

The NPSL is an 18 team league — eight franchises are in California (from Chico to San Diego), but other locations include Las Vegas, Phoenix, Denver, Milwaukee, St. Paul, Minneota, Grand Rapids, Detroit, Princeton and, obviously, Albuquerque. The rosters include current and former college players, some I’m told as old as, gasp, 30.

NewMexiKen knows a few of the players and has attended three or four matches including last Saturday’s semi-final 1-0 win over San Diego Fusion. It was a hard-played, aggressive, exciting contest before 4,000 equally aggressive fans.

This week’s championship took on a new cast during the week when the Sacramento team asked that the match be rescheduled to Sacramento, as they were, they said, the better team and they didn’t want to play at Albuquerque’s altitude. Fortunately, the league stood by its schedule. Come on up Sacramento. Bring oxygen.

Saturday, 7:30 at Menaul School, tickets $5. Come early, it was packed last week.

* Asylum = A place offering protection and safety; a shelter.

Do not pass Go

Important pointers on How to Win at Monopoly include these:

3. Remember that Illinois Avenue is the square most often landed on (not including Jail). The B&O Railroad also is among those most landed on; Go rounds out the top three.

7. If you’re stuck with low-income properties, build to four houses quickly to create a building shortage, hurting other players’ chances to build. 24 of 32 houses (or 6 of 12 hotels) could be tied up on just six properties.

10. The trio of orange properties is an excellent monopoly to own because of their relationship to Jail. A roll of 6 or 8 (two of the most common rolls) from Jail lands you on an orange.

Take me out to the ballgame

NewMexiKen watched the Albuquerque Isotopes hold on to beat the New Orleans Zephyrs 3-2 last night in the second game of a doubleheader (New Orleans won the first game—a make-up of Tuesday’s rainout—7-6).

It was a beautiful evening at the ballpark, if a touch warm with the temperature in the high 80s and the humidity up. Other than a few stand out plays (the ‘Topes had two triples and an unassisted double play), the highlight for the crowd of 8,400 was singing “Y-M-C-A” after “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” during the fifth inning stretch (they play 7-inning games in the PCL when they play two). For the many, many little people, the highlight seemed to be singing the “Sponge Bob Square Pants” theme when, for some reason, it was played.

And, as the Isotopes were named by Homer Simpson, we also have: Da-da-ta-da, ta-da, Marge!

NewMexiKen has been to many major league games in 14 big league parks, and there is nothing quite like it. But for pure recreational value, I’ll take the ‘Topes. Parking was free, for $11 each at the ticket window we got seats in the tenth row behind the first base dugout, food and drinks were good if just a little pricey, and we got to see the taco beat the red chile and the green chile in the race around the infield.

No smoking

Marriott International announced Wednesday that it will ban smoking at its 2,300 hotels in North America — from the economy Fairfield Inns to the upscale Ritz-Carltons — making it the first major hotel company to adopt a sweeping anti-smoking policy.

Los Angeles Times

It’s My Funeral and I’ll Serve Ice Cream if I Want To

From an article in The New York Times highlighting the new personlization and entertainment trends in funerals:

Mr. Biggins said funeral homes can do anything that party planners can do. At his own funeral home in Rockland, Mass., Mr. Biggins arranged a service for Harry Ewell, a man who had been an ice cream vendor. Mr. Ewell’s old ice cream truck led the funeral procession and dispensed Popsicles at the end. “If you call that over the top, then I guess I’m guilty,” Mr. Biggins said. “But our business reflects society as a whole. Today’s consumer wants things personal, specific to their lifestyle, whether it’s highlighting a person’s passion for golf or celebrating someone’s deep devotion to knitting or needlepoint.”

For NewMexiKen’s part, just blog my funeral, comments required.

Nickel for your thoughts?

Congressman Jim Kolbe of Arizona (though a Republican, he voted to override the president’s stem cell veto yesterday) has introduced legislation to eliminate the penny. Yahoo! News, among others, has the story.

Two things. One, why not make it easier all around and just eliminate the decimal place? That is, why not round-off to the nearest dime?

Two, I am reassured that eliminating the penny is a good thing not just because it costs more to make a penny than they’re worth, but because Kevin Federline (and Richard Branson — hello is he even an American) “threw a “Save the Penny” show in Times Square … to publicize the penny’s plight.” Plight!? Kevin Federline is a plight.*

Kolbe, by the way, probably likes the nickel because there is more copper (Arizona copper) in the nickel-coated copper nickel than there is in the copper-coated zinc penny.

* Plight = a dangerous, difficult or otherwise unfortunate situation.

Carlos Santana

… was born in Autlan de Navarro, Mexico, 59 years ago today. His family migrated to the U.S. in the 1960s.

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame introduces inductee Santana this way —

Guitarist Carlos Santana is one of rock’s true virtuosos and guiding lights. Since 1966, he has led the group that bears his surname, selling over 30 million albums and performing before 13 million people. Though numerous musicians have passed through Santana’s ranks, the continuing presence of Carlos Santana at the helm has insured high standards. From the earliest days, when Santana first overlaid Afro-Latin rhythms upon a base of driving blues-rock, they have been musical sorcerers. The melodic fluency and kineticism of Santana’s guitar solos and the piercing, sustained tone that is his signature have made him one of rock’s standout instrumentalists. Coupled with the polyrhythmic fury of drums, congas and timbales, the sound of Santana in full flight is singularly exciting. Underlying it all is Santana’s belief that music should “create a bridge so people can have more trust and hope in humanity.”

Hitler assassination attempt

Sixty-two years ago today, German military officers failed in an attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler with a bomb in a briefcase. Four were killed but Hitler, though wounded, was saved by the heavy wooden table on which he was reviewing maps. This from the BBC —

Adolf Hitler has escaped death after a bomb exploded at 1242 local time at his headquarters in Rastenberg, East Prussia.

The German News Agency broke the news from Hitler’s headquarters, known as the “wolf’s lair”, his command post for the Eastern Front.

A senior officer, Colonel Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg, has been blamed for planting the bomb at a meeting at which Hitler and other senior members of the General Staff were present.

Hitler has sustained minor burns and concussion but, according to the news agency, managed to keep his appointment with Italian leader Benito Mussolini.
…

Von Stauffenberg was arrested the same day and shot. The rest of the conspirators were tried and hanged or offered the chance to commit suicide.

Eight of those executed were hanged with piano wire from meat-hooks and their executions filmed and shown to senior members of the Nazi Party and the armed forces.

Sitting Bull Surrenders

The Lakota Tatanka-Iyotanka (Sitting Bull) surrendered to the U.S. Army on this date 125 years ago.

This from a fine, brief biographical essay at AmericanHeritage.com:

On the morning of the July 20, in front of American and Canadian soldiers and a Minnesota newspaperman, Sitting Bull had his eight-year-old son, Crow Foot, hand Brotherton his Winchester rifle. “I surrender this rifle to you through my young son,” said the chief, “whom I [thereby] desire to teach . . . that he has become a friend of the Americans. . . . I wish it to be remembered that I was the last man of my tribe to surrender my rifle. This boy has given it to you, and he now wants to know how he is going to make a living.”

Count Ethnic Divisions, Not Bombs, to Tell if a Nation Will Recover From War

From a column in today’s New York Times:

The second measures how squiggly the borders of a country are. Straight lines are usually the sign of an arbitrary colonial mapmaker. Natural barriers like rivers and mountains seldom look tidy. Taking the measures of partitioning and neat borders, their study compares the performance of countries with natural borders to those with artificial ones and finds, overwhelmingly, that artificial nations suffer terribly — lower income, horribly ineffective and corrupt governments, less respect for the law, low literacy, limited access to clean water, poor health care, you name it.
…

Iraq, especially, is a straight-edged, ethnically partitioned nation wracked with internal strife. And having oil wealth is unlikely to save the day. Fragmented countries with natural resources often do worse because civil war rages over who gets to keep the money.

Because he says it so much better than I could

IT’S PERSONAL. It just so happens that I have a couple of really ugly-ass dogs in this fight over embryonic stem-cell research. Not many political issues are personal with me, but this one deeply is. I have watched slow death from neurological disease once too often in my life to be anything but furious when Sam Brownback, a United States senator to the everlasting embarrassment of that body, pulls out a child’s drawing of an embryo with a smiley-face in order to argue his position. Or when Tony Snow, that towering public fake, starts getting glib about “murder,” as though there isn’t enough blood lapping at the ankles of everyone in this White House to float a barge. Or when Snow’s boss, that tough-talkin’, crumb-spittin’, neck-rubbin’ international buckaroo, uses the first veto of his presidential career and then hides behind children while maundering incoherently about a “moral line” as though he’d recognize one if he fell over it. Is there any doubt that, if this guy got Parkinson’s Disease, he’d eat those little buggers out of the petri dish with a spoon, probably dribbling some of them on Tony Blair in the process? Sorry, Ez. I don’t give a damn how tactically brilliant this may be. I look at this action and this is what I know — that millions of Americans will die horrible deaths and the government of the United States doesn’t give a good goddamn about them. Period. And, no, Senator Obama, I don’t have to respect the deeply held beliefs of anyone who condemns their fellow human beings to miserable suffering on the basis of anthropomorphized blastocysts in the service of an anthropomorphized god. Were it in my power, I’d run all those former embryos out of government until they grew the hell up.

Charles P. Pierce

Except when I’m crying

So we’ve got Israel attacking Lebanon. Israel attacking Palestine. Hezbollah attacking Israel. Palestinians attacking Israel. Israel threatening to attack Syria and Iran. Iran meddling in Iraq. The US meddling in Iraq. Lots of terrorists and insurgents targetting the US. The US threatening Iran. Sunnis attacking Shiites. Shiites attacking Sunnis. The US and NATO fighting a resurgant Taliban in Afghanistan. Kurds attacking Turks.

And now, as predicted back when this whole mess was brewing, Turkey threatens to invade Iraq.

Turkish officials signaled Tuesday they are prepared to send the army into northern Iraq if U.S. and Iraqi forces do not take steps to combat Turkish Kurdish guerrillas there _ a move that could put Turkey on a collision course with the United States.

Turkey is facing increasing domestic pressure to act after 15 soldiers, police and guards were killed fighting the guerrillas in southeastern Turkey in the past week.

Daily Kos: Clusterfuck

It’s a four letter word, one you hear every day

“President Bush was recorded using a four letter word at the G8 summit in Russia. At first everyone just thought he mispronounced the word ‘Shiite.’ But that wasn’t it.

“Kind of ironic. Bush is listening in on everyone else’s phone calls and now he’s the one who gets caught saying something he shouldn’t. Little payback there.”

Jay Leno Monday night

Even more ironic, Bush gets overheard using a word that would cost a broadcaster $325,000.

Why me?

For the third time in the life of NewMexiKen’s five-year-old Lexus it had to pass an emissions test to renew the registration. Each time, with me $25 or $30 poorer, it’s passed — of course it does, I’ve read that 95% of newer vehicles do.

So yesterday, I went to a local iffy lube type place where they weren’t busy, were very friendly and got me out in less than 10 minutes. I came home and detached the coupon from the test results, made out the check for $51 for one year’s registration, and mailed the envelope off. With tax, that’s nearly $80 for everything, but that’s a lot less than many states I know, so I was glad to have one more thing off my list.

Then this morning I get ready to put the rest of the emissions paperwork in with the registration and insurance forms in the glove compartment. I glance at it. There’s a typo in the license plate number.

Three letters, three numbers, how hard can it be to get it right? And why didn’t I have sense enough to check it over?

How much would you like to wager this will result in a trip to the dreaded MVD before it’s over?

All about bloggers

Related surveys by the Pew Internet & American Life Project found that the blog population has grown to about 12 million American adults, or about 8% of adult internet users and that the number of blog readers has jumped to 57 million American adults, or 39% of the online population.

These are some of the key findings in a new report issued by the Pew Internet Project titled “Bloggers”:

  • 54% of bloggers say that they have never published their writing or media creations anywhere else; 44% say they have published elsewhere.
  • 54% of bloggers are under the age of 30.
  • Women and men have statistical parity in the blogosphere, with women representing 46% of bloggers and men 54%.
  • 76% of bloggers say a reason they blog is to document their personal experiences and share them with others.
  • 64% of bloggers say a reason they blog is to share practical knowledge or skills with others.
  • When asked to choose one main subject, 37% of bloggers say that the primary topic of their blog is “my life and experiences.”
  • Other topics ran distantly behind: 11% of bloggers focus on politics and government; 7% focus on entertainment; 6% focus on sports; 5% focus on general news and current events; 5% focus on business; 4% on technology; 2% on religion, spirituality or faith; and additional smaller groups who focus on a specific hobby, a health problem or illness, or other topics.

… Some additional data points from the Bloggers report:

  • 87% of bloggers allow comments on their blog
  • 72% of bloggers post photos to their blog
  • 55% of bloggers blog under a pseudonym
  • 41% of bloggers say they have a blogroll or friends list on their blog
  • 8% of bloggers earn money on their blog

Underarm Deodorant

Not everybody uses it, and this is a very important point. Even with just a billion people using it, a few decades back … and some of those billion using roll-on deodorant … the emission of chlorofluorocarbons still made a giant hole in Earth’s ozone layer.

And it was widening.

The global community was alarmed and took action and now three things are true:

* More people than ever use deodorant (praise the Lord)

* None of it emits chlorofluorocarbons (an alternative propellant was found — likewise for refrigerants)

* The hole in the ozone layer gradually disappeared (but you should still use SPF 15 or higher this weekend)

Okay? Do you see my point?

No?

My point is that if a little Right Guard can threaten our atmospheric equilibrium, isn’t it just really dumb to bet that the literally trillions of pounds of carbon dioxide we dump into the air each year will have no effect? Be honest: don’t you use more gasoline than deodorant?

— Andrew Tobias

Working out with a Nano

The Mossberg Solution tries out the new Nike + iPod Nano Sport Kit and likes it — a lot, though with a couple reservations.

Also, iLounge has updated its Free iPod Book to version 2.2 to include the Sport Kit. There appears to be a lot of good information (and lots of ads) in this .pdf file. The book is over 100 pages of all things iPod and iTunes.