Author Archives: errhode

Apr6

Miss Ugly

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Two years ago, the lovely Sheila Longo talked me into entering the first annual Miss Ugly Pageant held during Campus Preview Weekend (CPW) at East Campus. “You’d be awesome! You have to do it!” she said. Now, given that this is a pageant that rewards hideousness and a severe lack of talent, I wasn’t sure that was a compliment, but I entered anyway.
Borrowing a violin from a friend, I created some noise that didn’t even begin to qualify as music for the talent competition. I wore a rain slicker left over from CryoFAC for the swimsuit competition, complete with mascara on my leg hair. But it was my final statement in the interview portion, delivered with a thick Minnesotan accent, that got me a bonus -10 points.

I just wanted to let you all know that I’m bleeding pretty freely from my crotch here, and as of such, I got PMS pretty bad. If you don’t let me win, I’m gonna take it out on all the judges and the gosh darn rugby team.

Much to the surprise of the few people that actually find me attractive, I brought home the crown… er, trucker’s hat… that year as Miss Ugly 2003.
Last year, as the reigning Miss Ugly, I was asked back to emcee the show with the ugliest man I know, Mr. Amal Dorai. And now this weekend brings us the 2005 Miss Ugly competition, and I’ve been asked to perform a “talent” while the judges deliberate. And since I’m not doing anything better this Saturday afternoon, I’ve agreed.
I’m keeping my “talent” a secret until the day of the show, but it’s sure to be hideous.

Apr6

Twins 8, Mariners 4

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Having just listened to the Twinkies beat the Mariners on “MLB.com Gameday Audio,” I’ve discovered a few more advantages and disadvantages…
Advantages: Getting to hear John Gordon’s voice announcing the game. He may not be the greatest announcer ever, but his voice is home to me — and would be more so if Herb Carneal was his partner. (Dad, does Carneal he only do home games now?)
Disadvantages: No commercials. Now, this might not immediately sound like a disadvantage, but it’s kind of weird to listen to a Twins game and never hear “You’ve got a lot more going for you with Hank, Hardware Hank!” or the catchy jingle for Treasure Island Resort and Casino. (I suppose Treasure Island is the Minnesota equivalent to Foxwoods.) Also, the dead air that they run instead always makes me worry that my connection has died. Oh well, I suppose I’ll get used to it.

Apr5

Yankees 4, Red Sox 3

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I just spent $14.95 on the MLB radio subscription to the 2005 season. Now I can listen to any major league game I want. I considered dropping $80 on MLB.tv, but there’s all sorts of blackout restrictions that would basically prevent me from watching any Red Sox game live. And since it’s based on the address on my credit card at the beginning of the season, this would apply even after I moved to Michigan. So radio it is.
The advantages? I just got to listen to Mariano Rivera blow a save in the 9th while at work. And I get all the vocal inflections that a sports.yahoo.com or espn.com updating box score doesn’t get you. Not to mention that tonight I will probably fall asleep to the end of the Twins-Mariners game.
The disadvantages? Well, maybe not a disadvantage. But as I was chatting with Harvey, I swear I heard the announcer say that Millar got a hit. But it turns out I heard wrong – it was Mueller. Or maybe the announcer said it wrong. In any event, the radio broadcast doesn’t allow me to check. So now I’m both listening and keeping the sports.yahoo.com window open, just in case my obsessive compulsive desires to look up statistics take over.
Oh, and the other disadvantage? I just heard Derek Jeter hit a walk-off homerun in the bottom of the ninth to end the game. Damn him.

Apr3

Yankees 9, Red Sox 2

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Well, that was not the game I wanted to spend my evening watching. Although I’ve got to say… Hideki Matsui is one heckuva ballplayer. He made the defensive play of the game by robbing Millar of a homerun in the 3rd and followed with a homerun of his own in the 8th. Yankee or not, I both respect and slightly fear the man.
According to the Red Sox post-game show, these were the two positive things that came out of this game:

  • No one got hurt
  • The Sox got to use their bullpen.

These were the only positive things that came out of this game?!?! Let’s hope for better things in future games.
Tomorrow, the Sox and Yanks take a day off. But the Twins, winners of this year’s Mayor’s Cup, open the season with an afternoon game in Seattle… which means 5:05 on the East Coast. Brad Radke’s set to get the start against Jamie Moyer.

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Apr3

Baseball Day

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Today is baseball day. Not only are the Red Sox playing the Yankees in the season opener, but WGBH is commemorating the day by showing the Ken Burns miniseries Baseball. I own the soundtrack and the companion coffee table book. One of these days, I’ll buy the DVD.
I’ve seen coverage of major league, minor league, negro league, and even the AAGBPL spanning from the 30s through the Dodgers and Giants move to California. And I’ll continue to watch until the first pitch of the 2005 season. And in the meantime, I bring you this vignette from somewhere in the mid-90s…

Move!
For four years, I played in the 13-16 year old age bracket of the Plymouth-Wayzata rec league. Once again, I was generally the first baseman, a direct result of the fact that I couldn’t throw, I had a solid glove, I was fairly tall, and mostly, I knew too much about the game and had too much of a big mouth to sit in the outfield picking daisies. My big mouth on the ballfield was sometimes entertaining and sometimes got me into trouble. But mostly, it was just how I liked to play.
In one particular game, the first base coach for the opposing team was somebody’s older brother, a member of the varsity baseball team. He was pretty cocky and I got the feeling that he was only helping out his little sister’s team because his father, the head coach, was making him. Needless to say, he didn’t think much of me or my team.
Early on in the game, someone hit a foul pop up to the right side. I turned to make the catch, only to find that this cocky-older-brother-coach was standing in my way. “Move!” I screamed, but he barely took a step. I tried to maneuver around him, but I didn’t get to the ball in time and I missed the catch. I was fuming – if I was going to miss an out like that, it was going to be my fault, not the fault of some supercilious high school jock who thought he was better than me just because he had a letter jacket.
Not exactly lacking in arrogance myself, I turned to the guy and told him that if another foul ball came to that area, he better move or I was going to move him. He rolled his eyes and said nothing. And that pretty much sealed the deal – this guy had it coming.
A few innings later, another pop foul was hit to the right side. Again, I went for it and noticed that the guy was once again not moving. “Move!” I yelled, again, a split second before I rammed him with my right shoulder while my left arm stretched out and made the catch. The schmuck fell over onto the dirt. With the ball proudly in my glove, I turned and looked at him.
“I warned you,” I said. “Next time, I’d move.”

Apr1

Loof Lirpa

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As many of you know, I have been applying to grad school.
Prior to today, I thought that I would be attending the
Rackham Graduate School at the University of Michigan.
It seems that that decision might change, however. As
Lady Luck would have it, today I received an acceptance
From the Gateway Antarctica program at the University
Of Canterbury in New Zealand. While this is somewhat
Of a change in plans, I look forward to studying the rare
Loof Lirpa, which only grows south of the Antarctic Circle.
So wish me luck, folks. I’m off to endure real winter!

Mar30

Memories

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After visiting the University of Michigan last week, I swung through Minneapolis for a three-day “layover” and spent Easter with my parents. Monday night I drove by the old softball fields at Oakwood where I spent much of my summer evenings growing up, and I also had dinner with a former softball teammate at Snuffy’s Malt Shop. (Hi, Amy.) These occurrences, combined with the fact that I’ve been reading The Brother’s K, have inspired me to attempt to write down little vignettes based on my experiences on various ball fields growing up. This might become a series of entries. Or it might be a one time thing to get this out of my system. In any event…

The Catch
Back in 8th grade, I was the star first baseman of the Wayzata East Junior High softball team. Given that we didn’t win a game all season, that’s not saying much. We were pretty much the girls softball equivalent of The Bad News Bears. One of our outfielders repeatedly showed up to practice and games high on whatever magic pills she was storing in her locker and our sober outfielders were infamous for watching the fly balls soar over their heads, waiting until they landed to go and retrieve them.
Due to my own solid glove and the lack of initiative in our various deliquent right fielders, I pretty much took defensive claim over any foul pop-ups to the right side. In one memorable away game, we were playing on a muddy field that lacked all fences, save the backstop. We were in the field, and the current batter had one strike against her. On the next pitch, she swung and connected and I saw the ball soar high into the air right towards my right field foul territory.
Now, it’s worth noting that when I say the ball soared high, I mean that it pretty much went straight up and the fact that it traveled a significant horizontal distance was due do the large amount of time it spent travelling vertically. As soon as it left the bat, I focused on nothing but the ball and chased after it somewhere deep in foul territory. All I could see was the white dot flying against the blue sky, and thus I had no idea just how foul the ball was or how close I was coming to the giant mud puddle that had formed on the dirt path behind our visiting team bench.
Realizing that I was going to come a few steps short of actually reaching the ball, at the last second I desperately stuck my glove way out in front of me and dove onto my knees, right into the aforementioned mud puddle. Much to my amazement, the ball landed right in my glove. I raised it above my head to the cheers of my team. I could see my coach, the illustrious Mr. Lamphere, laughing and shaking his head in disbelief. Then I realized that I had run right past my team’s bench, off of the playing field entirely. And that’s when the umpire broke the bad news.
“The catch was out of bounds. No play. Foul ball – strike two.”
I was incredulous. I had just made the catch of my life, gotten myself covered in mud, and yet it didn’t count because I had run too far. My coach continued laughing and shrugged as I picked myself up and headed back to the infield, ball in hand.
On the next pitch, the batter straightened it out and sent a towering drive over our center fielder’s head. She crossed home plate before we even got the ball back to the infield.

Mar21

Blowing my nose

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As anyone who has talked to me in the past few days can attest, I have a pretty bad cold, complete with runny nose. Unfortunately, I left my kleenex at home and thus I went downstairs to the MGH gift shop to buy some. But, much to my dismay, they were out of the regular kind. Luckily for me, they had plenty of designer tissues.
That’s right, folks. For $1.50 for a pack of 10, you can buy designer tissues with which to blow your nose. You can see the style I selected here. Now, just to be clear, this design is not on the box, but repeated on the tissue itself. Very stylish, indeed.
Of course, there is a downside. They’re 4-ply and are only slightly softer than printer paper. My nose, somewhat sensitive at the moment, couldn’t take being scratched for very long. Thus I have replaced my 15¢ apiece designer tissues with free plain white napkins from the cafeteria.

Mar17

Nicknames

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For reasons not worth going into, I was looking up city nicknames today and came across some rather bizarre ones. The best ones are mostly in the midwest. Some of my favorites:

  • The Birmingham of America: Pittsburgh, PA – Shouldn’t this honor go to, oh, I don’t know… Birmingham?
  • Hog Butcher for the World: Chicago, IL – Yeah, ’cause that’s what I think of when I think of Chicago.
  • The Icebox of the United States: International Falls, MN – Ironically, I’ve only been there in the summer when it wasn’t all that cold. But Frostbite Falls of Rocky and Bullwinkle fame was modeled after International Falls.
  • Mistake on the Lake: Cleveland, OH – It even rhymes. How cute.
  • Band Instrument Capital of the World: Elkhart, IN – I guess someone has to take that title.
  • The Catfish Capital of Iowa: Linn Grove, IA – Belzoni, MS already took the title for Catfish Capital of the World, so poor Linn Grove had to settle for whatever it could get.
  • The City That Refused To Die: Sanford, ME – Hey, Dustin, aren’t you from there?
  • Cow Chip Capital: Beaver, OK – What kind of city would proudly nickname itself after dried shit?
  • Goat Ropin’ Capital of the World: Gotebo, OK – The next time I want to rope me some goats, I know where to go.
  • Home of the World’s Largest Cheeto: Algona, IA – It looks like a cancerous growth.