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Month: November 2002

Shoulda been in sports

Politicans can be so gutless.

“If we try to make defense, foreign policy the overriding issue we will lose, because the country is with the president on this issue,” [Representative Martin] Frost said. I’m gonna go out on a limb here: perhaps you should not be making policy decisions based on what will win elections, but rather on what you believe? Or what you said when you ran for office?

God comes to Beantown

ESPN reports that the Red Sox are about to hire Bill James as an advisor. This is not exactly a first, but it’s certainly significant that the most famous sabermetrician has signed on with a major league club.

I’d say that Billy Beane’s success with the As opened the door for this — but if James succeeds, that’ll mean the position of sabermetrician will become standard for MLB teams.

Coastal waters

This is deeply irrelevant, but I woke up at 4 AM to do server maintenance this morning and posting on irrelevant matters beats a sleep deprived anarchist rant any day. This is sort of where I used to live; you can make out the Food Town where I used to shop at the top of the picture. Lousy supermarket but excellent roast beef. There’s a hill right behind it, which you can see at the left of the Food Town. I lived up there.

The site this comes from is an exhaustive photographic record of the coast of California. A rich guy with too much time on his hands and a helicopter has taken a lot of photos. Amazing world.

Man bites dog

As an English major, I’ve heard the story about Alan Sokal, physics professor, who got a paper published in a postmodern literature journal. In fact, I’ve heard it one too many times. Consequently, this report fills me with utter glee.

It might be worth rereading some of Mr. Sokal’s discussions about his hoax, by the by. He never meant it to demonstrate that the study of English literature is inherently flawed; rather, he was making some fairly interesting points as a leftist regarding the dangers of whole-scale adoption of structuralist dogma by the American radical left wing. This is a point too often missed when discussing his hoax. I hope he has something to say about this one — I think it’d be an interesting read.

Turkey is good food

The Justice and Development Party has won the Turkish elections, kicking out the ruling coalition in a landslide. This seems likely to be more a reflection of discontent with the Turkish economy and a corrupt government than it is a return to Islamic fundamentalism, although the Justice and Development Party was formed from the remains of an Islamic fundamentalist party.

However, they ran on a pro-Western platform and have disavowed their Islamic roots. This isn’t the Taliban, and the victory does not represent a repudiation of Turkish assistance in the US war on Iraq. I expect some will claim it does, but this one isn’t Bush’s fault. It may not even be a crisis.

Either way, this does not change the status of the Kurds. The US still needs to arm Kurds in Iraq to fight a war there; Turkey still hates the idea, because it would encourage Kurd separatists in Turkey. Messy.

Also note that the Turkish army is perfectly willing to engage in a coup should the government become overly Islamic. They did it in 1997, and several times previously. It’s not really that democratic a country.

Oi oi oi eggs

I spent much of the weekend on my quest for the perfect weekend breakfast. Much of the mornings, anyhow. I’m not quite mad enough to have breakfast at 8 and then follow up with a brunch excursion at noon, but I do take my morning breakfast pretty seriously. While I was unemployed, it was one of the only activities that got me reliably out of the house and in contact with people.

I scored immediately in the “cheap and close and tasty” category, down at the Neighborhood Restaurant in Union Square. I went in, I got seated at the same table as a nice couple, I established that it’s OK and I’m not invading personal space and it’s just a cozy restaurant. This is actually kind of a minus since I like to linger over coffee and my book, but no big.

Then, when I’m ready to order, a waitress came over and asked if I’d like hot cereal or fruit. Well, I wanted a bacon omelette, but she explained that this was bonus food. Bonus food! Good deal. I got the hot cereal and ordered the omelette. Said cereal was cream of wheat with a ton of cinnamon on top. Just about perfect for a winter morning.

The omelette came with an enormous plate of bread on the side. I actually wasn’t sure it was for me until the couple next to me got their own enormous plate of bread. Four pieces of toast, a muffin of some kind, a croissant, and an apple turnover thingie. Amazing. Apparently there’s a bakery out back, and they have some sort of deal where they’ll go to hell if they don’t bake every hour of the day, and they get rid of the extra by feeding it to us. Or so I imagined.

So the food was good, and incredibly cheap — $7.35 for the whole schmear. The menu wasn’t super-extensive and it was certainly crowded. Still a total win, just on the basis of price and convenience and quantity. I’ll go back.

The Rosebud Diner was not quite as good. More expensive, and the chorizo omelette really didn’t rock my world, and I had to sit at the counter — which I don’t mind but I like to have the option and it really kills the sitting around drinking coffee aspect of the breakfast. Also the menu didn’t have anything beyond the usual breakfast fare, which is OK but since the Neighborhood Restaurant satisfies that, why would I wanna drive down to Davis Square?

At this point, I need a decent medium to high end place where I can get an omelette with pesto in it. My journey continues next weekend.

Traitor to his city

This makes it official. 2002 was one of those years when it’s good to be a Boston sports fan. The Patriots won the Super Bowl, the Celtics resurged, the Red Sox got out from under Harrington’s thumb, and the Bruins had a great regular season. We won’t talk about the Bruins in the playoffs, though.

The early tidings for 2003 were not so great. The Celtics split up the band, half the Bruins decided not to come back, and — well, the Patriots talked a good game up until the fourth game of the season. It’s pretty clear at this point that 2003 is not gonna be stellar.

Except now it’s more than pretty clear, it’s an established fact, cause the Sports Guy — no, screw that, the Boston Sports Guy — is moving to LA. We’re fucked. The most well-spoken sports columnist in Boston is moving to LA to be a television writer.

Gonna be a long cold lonely winter.