Sympathy, man to man

My wife asked me to pick up a couple of sympathy cards when I was picking up some macaroni at the Kroger today.

The strange part was the request: "Get something that’s appropriate to give to a man."

Uh-huh. I remember receiving one sympathy card in my life. It was from a girl I was dating, and my primary thought on opening it was, "If I don’t show the right amount of thankfulness, she’s going to be real ticked off."

So at Kroger, I picked out the plainest cards with the plainest font and the plainest phrase – "With sympathy." After I bought them, I realized that I hadn’t read what was on the inside. I spent more time picking out the macaroni.

Meredith was happy with them. Huh.

So what would be an appropriate sympathy card for a guy to send to another guy?

• The cover: "Dude!" Inside: "Man, dude."
• The cover: Picture of Barney. Inside: "I like you, you like me, sorry ‘bout the death in your family."
• The cover: Jessica Alba in a bikini. Inside: Jessica Alba in a bikini.

Actually, someone could make a killing here, so long as they sold the cards in bars. Seriously, the Postal Service would have to open new branches to keep up with thousands of notes, all reeking of beer and peanuts:

Dude:

You rock. You really rock out. The house. I love you. I love you because you so rock. Out. Dude. Forget about that girl, you’re way better than that angry wench, man. I don’t wanna hear you whining that whine about "Wah! I’m so sad! Mommy!" Dude, you’ll get over it. Because YOU ROCK DA HOUSE.

We love you.

Your dudes

*I get the feeling this has been done before, but what the hell.

Well, that was weird

Driven by Lauren Jones "Anchorwoman" mania, this site brought in 598 visitors on Saturday. This is a 3,000-percent increase over my usual daily visitor total. (I think. I'm guessing that no one here is a real stickler on math.)

Every single one of the newbies was brought in by a Google Image search, and the vast majority checked out within .87 seconds of discovering I did not feature bikini shots.

We were back down into the 20s on Tuesday, and I feel a bit more comfortable.

Thanks for the responses on the Vick piece. I was exhausted when I wrote it, and wasn't sure how it'd turn out. I don't even know if I agree with everything I wrote, but nothing's turned up lately that just blasts out "YOU'RE WRONG" to me.

Michael Vick should play again

I don't know why I've been defending unpopular athletes lately.

And I don't think he's getting a raw deal. I don't like Vick. His behavior was thuggish before this happened. Dogs are the greatest animals on earth. I have serious doubts about running quarterbacks in the NFL.

Vick should go to jail. A year, maybe two.

And then?

The thing is, the crime, along with the cruel and revolting nature of it, is just so freakin' bizarre. And that's why he deserves another chance.

Back in my early reporter days, I was doing a feature story on a retired geezer who spent his time competing in senior activities and pontificating on how the youth of today should also be doing these activities. "Maybe if they was pitchin' horseshoes they'd have less time to get into trouble."

(You do a lot of these types of stories while working in suburbia.)

So, the old man and his wife were thrilled that me and the photographer had come to visit. He showed me his backyard. He showed me how to throw a horseshoe. He showed me a note from the White House that said "We have recieved your letter," in response to a rambling note he had written suggesting the creation of a federal program for the advancement of horseshoe pitching. (He showed me a copy of that.)

And, in one of the more surreal moments of my life, he showed me his artwork.

He opened the garage door. Dead center in front of me was a picture of a rooster, smiling. The rooster was standing in a ring, surrounded by happy little round faces of people in bleachers, also smiling. To make a rooster seem to smile, you can either be one of the world's greatest artists, or one who tries very hard. Feel free to guess here.

And so the man explained his passion for cock fighting and how he tried to translate that onto the canvas. He also had also fought dogs, he said, "But those are harder to draw."

During this time, me and the photographer passed a few looks and said "really?" a lot. I took no notes. The photographer didn't take any pictures.

Afterwards, we consoled ourselves that he no longer seemed to be active in spectative animal killing. I never called the police, and the bit about cock fighting was not in the story.

What was I supposed to do? Attempt to send a married and retired 75-year-old man to jail? The thing about it, the man had no idea he was doing anything wrong. It was out of complete innocence that he showed us that garage.

He probably grew up with that, I thought. He was never in a situation to get out of it.

And so you have Michael Vick. From the poorest, oldest neighborhoods of Virginia. He kept his friends around him after he got famous. We jump on other celebrities who don't do that. He spent his life ignoring advice people were trying to give him.

We hear about these cases all the time. Thing is, it usually involves an athlete beating his wife, pointing a gun at the pizza boy, or having an unstoppable love for the ganga.

Once you do these things, it's a pretty good indication that you are in danger of doing these things for the rest of your life, and have become a menace to society.

But dog fighting?

I don't see this as an addiction or an anger management problem. I see it as a really disgusting activity. I don't see Michael Vick jonesing in prison, dying to get out so he can raise pit bulls and then kill them. I don't see millions of kids across the nation teetering on the brink, trying to decide whether or not to buy their first pit bull.

A person who has served his time in prison deserves a second chance. Understandably, you don't hire a convicted thief to work at a jewelry shop. You wouldn't hire Vick to tend a pet store.

But running around on a football field is a different matter. When he gets out of prison, if he's saying the right things ("I am a moron" and "Dogs should not be tortured"), then he should play again.

Maybe seeing everything he has go poof will keep him out of trouble. If not, he goes back to jail, and he never gets back on the field.

Fox's "Anchorwoman" improves ratings

(Cancelation update at bottom.)

At least for me. This site is getting more traffic than ever before. Lord knows what it's doing for Fox.

To recap, "Anchorwoman" is a reality TV show that puts this woman, Lauren Jones:

in Tyler, Texas, to read the news. It first premiered Wednesday night.


I wrote a bit about this in June.


I haven't written much of anything for the last couple of weeks, but have watched my daily visitor count steadly climb anyway. I reached an all-time high of 68 people on Sunday. (And no one ever comes by here on Sunday.)

What I have to thank is google image search, and the ability to steal pictures that look like this*:
So, thanks for stopping by. My only goal for the site is to try to maintain an atmosphere of friends sitting around a table in a decent bar, right at the 2-1/2 beer level. Sorry that I don't specialize in pictures of wrestling women.


And I don't have much else to add as far as commentary on the show. I work nights, I don't have Tivo, and I don't have any real interest in watching this. I'm guessing it involves a great deal of "hot woman humiliating herself" followed by "small town people expressing umbrage" or "small town people basically saying 'Yahoo' in 20-second mumble."


Here's some early criticism of the show:

From the Chicago Sun-Times:

"None of this is amusing, unless you can't get enough of TV shows depicting Americans as imbeciles to make you feel better about yourself by contrast."

Yeah, that formula never brings in ratings.


Here's something more in line with my thinking, from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

"Setting aside the hand-wringing and taking "Anchorwoman" purely as entertainment, the first half-hour of the one-hour premiere is a breezy diversion. It's train wreck TV that often seems less real and more contrived, but it's kind of a hoot anyway."

And later ...

"That may be the real statement "Anchorwoman" has to make about the state of local news: You can't really corrupt something that was already bankrupt before Hollywood came to town."

Lauren Jones apparently hacked some people off by saying that being a journalist isn't "brain surgery." From my experience, I'll say a big problem today is that too many people think it is.

UPDATE: ANCHORWOMAN CANCELED AFTER ONE EPISODE

So, on one hand, the latest jump in visits I've received will go down. On the other hand, I'll stop feeling like a whore.

From the AP:

Here's news that Fox's series "Anchorwoman" wouldn't want to deliver: It's been canceled after one low-rated airing.

The debut of the reality show about Lauren Jones' attempt to turn herself into a news anchor for a Texas TV station drew an estimated 2.7 million viewers Wednesday, according to preliminary figures from Nielsen Media Research.

That number is about a third of the viewership Fox attracted a week earlier with the finale of its popular "So You Think You Can Dance."

... Unaired episodes of "Anchorwoman" will be available on Fox's website through Fox on Demand, the network said Thursday.

I guess you could see it coming. I at least thought it'd make it halfway through the season, but this is Fox.

The front character was a blonde star wannabe, not really a sympathetic type, and the premise wasn't shocking enough to attract the folks from Jerry Springer. Off it goes.

I'm sure we'll all be OK. Except for Tyler. It's chance to be in the spotlight was just ripped away.

Somewhere, Earl Campbell just sighed sadly. Then he smoked some sausage.

*No, she's not near my type.

** It's difficult to find images of this woman fully clothed. I have no idea why people are ending up here.

Cookie problems

Aren't letting blog at home today. (The thing not letting me blog last week was "lazy ass.")

Anyway, real quick, here's something guaranteed to make most of you feel old.

The world that the incoming college class of 2007 lives in.

*Taken from Ace

Brats

I don't really worry too much about being a Dad who doesn't give a damn about what my kid is doing. My primary worries can best be summed up in this article.

“Although most parents mean well and are trying to do right by their kid, they fall into a trap of making the child an extension of their own ego.”

My weekend just got better

Wes Welker Scores!!!
I'm going to have to find some theme music, video, something for this season.

Random Wikipedia fun

From the entry on "Ook":

Ook is the only word of the Orangutan language as spoken by orangutans in the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett — specifically, by the Librarian of the Unseen University.

The word ook can mean (via intonation) any word, meaningful or not. So, for example, Ook-ook can be a long speech, an emphatic denial, or a shout of joy. On rare occasions the Librarian has been known to expand his vocabulary to include oook, gook, and, in times of stress, the high pitched eek and eeek.

According to the Librarian, who is patiently compiling an orangutan-human dictionary, definitions include:

• Ook. Excuse me, but that's my rubber ring you're hanging in.
• Ook. Oh, I do beg your pardon, I didn't realise there was a dominant male in this group.
• Ook. I'll Just go and sit over here very quietly, shall I?
• Ook. You're out of your tree. This is my tree.
• Ook. Yes.
• Ook. No.
• Ook. Banana.
• Ook. It may be a vital oxygenating biomass to you, but it's home to me.
  

Elephant Ears Struggling

It's rather hot today ...

Quick take on Barry Bonds

In response to the comment*:

"While you were away, Barry "crybaby on roids" Bonds hit number 756.
Meaningless! Come on, let's start the debate now!"

First off:
I don't know much about sports. Oh, I guess I know a great deal about how to play football and baseball, and I can go to a game and tell you who the best players are that day and what's happening away from the ball. But the encyclopedic knowledge of every athlete, coach or jock holder involved in the sporting universe goes way beyond my interest. I have personal reasons for that fact, a subject I might tackle later.

Secondly, I don't care. I don't get the whole belief that, somehow, the lifetime home run tally is "the most prestigious record in sports." Oh really?

Yes, hitting a baseball is one of the most difficult sporting feats out there. Running 100 meters in under 10 seconds? Also hard. Beating the crap out of somebody who has done nothing but train for six months? Not easy.

I don't get the ranking of one record over the other or how it's even possible to compare.

Why this shows that Major League Baseball today is in crappy shape:
A lot of people remember the 1998 season as the wonderful year that Sammy Sosa and Mark McGuire "saved" baseball. I remember it as the year MLB stopped even pretending that people gave a damn about the game. As in, who has the best team? Who's leading their division?

Nope. Pro baseball today is about a bunch of merceneries out to get the best statistics. The main storyline this season is Bonds, and it's Bonds because MLB doesn't have enough faith that the drama of the Red Sox plowing through everyone is enough to pull in an audience.

They have so little faith that a good season by several quality teams will attract attention, that we instead get non-stop coverage of a chemically enhanced freak that no one likes.

Barry Bonds used steroids. Nyyyahhh.
Yeah. That's pretty obvious. And no one else in baseball ever did. Mark McGuire's record-breaking season out of nowhere was gift from the angel of Babe Ruth and his balls were gently blown over the fence by the ghost of Honus Wagner.

I'll be happy to put an asterisk by Bonds' record so long as we consider every record set in the last 20 years for asteriskability. And that goes for football on the pro and college level.

Barry Bonds is a jerk.
Eh. So in hell he and Ty Cobb will be bunkmates. That's his problem.

Besides, as is often the case, I can't really read if it's him or if it's the relationship he has with the media. Character and media savvy are two different things.

And it's not like this threatens the greatness that is Babe Ruth. The man could eat 30 hotdogs, gulp two pitchers of beer, and then go out and freakin' pound the ball. No one is ever going to be that cool again.

So, the actual quick take on Bonds:
I was mildly happy. Regardless of Bonds, it's an impressive thing to do. And since I work in the sports section, I no longer have to worry about it. It also made a lot dudes on TV with really nice hair and non-deserved attitudes go frothing at the mouth. And I like to see that happen.

*Kind of a random comment, I couldn't peg who that came from. I don't do a whole lot of sports, except talk about Tech and get my non-sexual crush on Wes Welker going.

It's 5 a.m.

Folks:

Thanks for stopping by. Sorry that I haven't posted in the last few days. It's been a non-stop series of obligatory social events, baby furniture assembly, and cooking the chicken before it goes bad. Hence, the poor quality of this note.

Wednesday (today) doesn't look much better for me.

I should be back soon.

I realize this is not making sense.

Gracias.

Why editors have that reputation

Was just exploring the blogs at my hometown paper, the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal.

And I gotta tell you, the compilation blog for all the editors is ON FIRE.

Behold the stupendous amount of mind-blowing data put out in one month's time.

Eh.

When I say "on fire", I mean whatever device they were blogging with must have actually caught on fire, and they couldn't use it, thus preventing a great deal of blogging.

Get it? Ha ha!

:)

My wife looks like ...

While we're on the subject of pregnancy, today my wife was one of the subjects in a Star-Telegram picture on pregnant fashion.

Meredith is the one in the center, later referred to as the "Working mother-to-be." Note the shoes: She's the only one in flats, a point in which she took much pride. I'll admit I'm slightly creeped out by the cutting off of the head, but they did that because no one in the shoot is a working model.

I don't know if you can tell much about Meredith from the picture. I can tell you that she liked the pants, but "There's no way, NO WAY I'm paying $90 for something I'm only going to wear two months," darn it all*.

Or something. My wife's exclamations tend to confuse me.

We're having a baby*

Several times over the past few months, I've been in an idle conversation** with somebody and would mention the upcoming arrival of my betrothered. And it would come as a shock to the person I was talking to that I'm about to make my contribution to the next generation of Segrists.

I'm no longer sure who I've told and who I haven't. So, just to put out the notice with a larger bit of volume:

Me and my wife are pregnant.

When: Late September or thereabouts.
What: A boy -- or a girl who is going to have some serious identity issues.
Who: Sam (Tho he won't be a junior).

No, we're not ready. We're not even kidding ourselves about seeing "ready" somewhere over the horizon.

*By which I mean, as per usual, my wife is doing all the work and I'm contributing the sarcasm.
**E-mailing. Like I get into conversations.

A small truth

"He Stopped Loving Her Today" is an overrated song. Really kind of silly, if you think about it.

Yeah, we've all been through those times, usually in our late teens and early 20s, where we swear that we are so broken by rejection, our hearts will never work again. Then we go out and get drunk and stupid with the next one. This is the natural order. We wouldn't want to live in a world where it wasn't. (I'd like to proudly state for the record that alcohol did not play a part in my happy little marriage.)

And yet -- according to "He stopped Loving Her Today" -- any time Bob's friends suggested beer and dominos (or beer and fishing, or fishing and dominos), he'd say no, because "my heart's too dern beat up." Even when he was 50.

To which I say: What a royal pain in the ass. They probably could not get Bob in the ground fast enough. That funeral would have turned into one wild freakin' conga line to the gravesite.

*I don't know why I've been attacking old country songs lately. I'll move on.

Need book

Anybody got any decent books to read?

It needs to be fiction. I've been watching too many movies and reading too many blogs lately and I can feel the brain rot starting to set in.

Two things: I'm not in the mood for Harry Potter. I have nothing against Harry, but I'm not in the mood. And don't tell me "Da Vinci Code." If you tell me "Da Vinci Code," I'm going to spend the rest of my days trying to figure out how to send a kick-in-the-crotch via e-mail.

Are you there God? It's me, Seagraves

Dear God:

Thanks for the lesson in humility. One week after I badmouth some of the players on my softball team, you visit upon my person great pain and embarrassment.

First, You reminded me that I can no longer take 205-plus pounds of flesh from standing still to a dead sprint. You reminded me that I should probably go through about two more phases of increasing speed -- by ripping something in my thigh muscle, causing me to walk with a limp for the foreseeable future.

Second, you showed me that I can't criticize anyone's talents, not when the best I can do with two outs and the game on the line is hit an infield fly. I think the guy at second just held out his hand to catch it and looked bored by the time the ball got there.

Ho! Ha! You really showed me! Very funny God, very funny.

And since we're gabbering, I'd also like to take the time to say thanks for the rain. Yes, many people have lifted up their throats and sometimes their fists -- self-righteously shaking their tall boys -- against the Water That Fell From The Sky And Would Not Stop. And I wish the best for those who were flooded out or those who thought a Ford Escort could make it across water two feet deep and moving at thirty feet per second.

But how easily we forget we've been griping about a drought for ten years now. The lakes are full, and we're midway through the summer and we haven't had a single 100-degree day yet.

Yay, God, for the levels of sweat I emit are not yet overpowering my deodorant, which really helps, let me tell you.

Let me end with the usual stuff: Please look after my wife, please help her to forgive me for whatever I do wrong in the next three hours, watch over our soldiers in Iraq, and please keep Mike Leach from getting lost on the way to Jones Stadium. Again.

Amen.

The project

Phase 1:

Our pomegranate bush actually has a fruit. Unusual.

Phase 1: Complete.

Next time: Phase 2.

Tick-Tock

So, while being overwhelmed at the magnanimous, yet overwhelming, future job of parenting, it hit us the other day: Perhaps we should actually do something to get ready for our child's arrival.


Sure, we've cleared a room, bought some diapers, registered for people to give us stuff, and ... well, it feels like we haven't done nearly enough. I'm not the most organized of people. And the most surprising aspect to me about pregnancy is that my wife -- an organizational phenom --hasn't really done much organizing either. So, as we walked into the Frisco Ikea on Sunday, I felt a little behind that we were just now buying the bed.

Here's what we picked:

Like most products at Ikea, don't ask me to pronounce the name.

It is a pretty handy thing, in that the crib converts to a cot, shown here:

It does not, unfortunately, convert to the color and style pictured, which is what we wanted in the first place, but Ikea discontinued the line and no longer has the matching furniture ... I really could care less about matching furniture and that diaper changing table looks like it'd work but God knows I'm not the one making the furniture-matching decisions, etc. etc., ad infinitum.

I'd like to say the piece we bought was now standing in the cleared room, but we didn't buy it. Ikea has it on display, but it's a new line and is therefore not actually for sale until they get a shipment in -- probably around the first of August -- so call this number on the fifth, ask for Jorge, and this specific item number, etc., etc., ad infinitum.

And the countdown to birth goes on. The kid seems to be taking it easy lately, just wants to go square-dancing every now and then.

A headline that uses "Sooner" as a pun

From Dallas MN:

Calling the case "significant and serious," the NCAA's Division I infractions committee said Wednesday that Oklahoma must vacate its eight football victories during the 2005 season, including a bowl win, because of major violations involving players working at a Norman auto dealership.

My basic reaction here: It's wrong to take away the wins of a team because some bonehead who just had to, just couldn't keep himself away from, whose ego just couldn't stop him from meddling just so he could brag about it to his mechanics, who probably can't stand him as it as, freakin' jerk.

Anyway... It's a shame that the entire organization has to forfeit two-year-old wins* because one dumb guy gave money to two even dumber players. And really, it only makes sense in a metaphysical way that the vast majority of football players aren't going to get. (Though this will probably lead to the biggest on-campus football celebration Baylor has ever had.)

On the other hand, I hope that this will allow me and my Oklahoma buddies to put behind us a certain "blown" call at the end of the season in question.

UPDATE: Well, apparently not...

"Don't kid yourself dude -- the pain of being cornholed in Lubbock shall never fade. That's OK, it took Tech's best team under Leach, OU's worst team under Stoops and bunch of blind referees from the South Plains for Tech to finally sneak out a win this century!"

That'd be from one of the Oklahomans.

* Pending appeal, blah, blah, blah.