--ONE (3, 150) The most annoying thing about baseball today is that you can't hate the New York Yankees. They're too nice a group. They're practically loveable, for crying out loud. The biggest reason to hope for a Yankee roster overhaul is that they'll have to be harder to like.
--TWO (4, 322) BRAVES LOSE! BRAVES LOSE! Couldn't have happened to a nicer team.
--THREE (5, 505) Um, doesn't that also make the Yankees the Team of the Millennium?
--FOUR (4, 298) I love how people twist polls. One (female) analyst said men's support of Bradley over Gore (which, incidentally, I do as well if I gotta pick a Demmycrat, which I hope not to have to do) was clearly a result of Dollar Bill's tenure with the Knicks. I guess that's only fair, given women's overwhelming support of Bill Clinton over all other comers... oh, wait, poor choice of words...
--FIVE (4, 200) In case you missed my little tribute to the 1999 New York Mets, who taught me to believe in a way the 1998 Mets taught me to disbelieve, take a look. What a ride...
--SIX (3, 143) Memo to the Rangers: this is called a "power play"...
--SEVEN (5, 534) What she said: It's taken me a while to put it up, but see Carole Sussman's latest Sense and Nonsense column. I'd quibble with some of it, but I've neither the time nor the energy. Besides, it's close enough, and the line about Manny Malhotra with the breadcrumbs is worth the price of admission.
--EIGHT (4, 350) Homonyms of the day: copyright and copywrite. There are many on the net that need to learn these. Two very, very different things. "Copyright law" has to do with protecting your original work. I don't think there is such a thing as "Copywrite law," but if there were, the first subsection would definitely have to deal with the semicolon...
--NINE (3, 198) Every week, Uncle Ricky's Reel Top 40 Radio Repository, at reelradio.com, throws down something fantastic, be it old Top-40 radio airchecks from the '60s or nifty radio parodies from last month. I've had a list of reelradio.com favorites for a while, and it still hits the highlights, but it's been a while since I've professed my love for its week-in, week-out excellence.
making the turn... --TEN (3, 167) I was working when it happened, so I'm going mostly by secondhand information, but let me say this: Jim Gray had to ask it once. He could have asked it twice. He could have asked nicer. Keeping after it just makes no sense for a two-minute TV interview. But at the same time, it got way too much attention, which is a shame. People's anger was misdirected. It should have been directed at the people who voted for Pete Rose over, among others, Frank Robinson and Roberto Clemente.
--ELEVEN (4, 327) Green Day's reportedly back in the studio. Thank God. I'm going through withdrawal. It's been two years since Nimrod, believe it or not. Still, it's cool that Good Riddance still clears the airwaves every so often.
--TWELVE (5, 540) I wanna be a DJ just so I can bust out all the different throwaway gag lines that fit into Lou Bega's Mambo No. 5.
--THIRTEEN (3, 201) Y2K edition of the FECA just a few weeks away...
--FOURTEEN (4, 433) I Hate Life In the Country, Part One: On Election Day, I wake up early (10:30, and I won't apologize for it, because I'd been at work till 1:30 the night before) for no apparent reason. I go to the bathroom, come back and try to go back to sleep. I turn over, and all of a sudden, I hear this dull noise behind the wall directly behind my bed.
What the hell? Then I hear it again, then what sounds like scurrying. I'm not afraid of little furry mammals, but squirrels and mice and the like are nuisances I don't really wanna deal with. I hope I'm just hearing things.
Except it doesn't go away. I hear a little more scurrying, lower down than before. Then, it stops for a moment.
All of a sudden, it hits me. We've had this woodpecker on the outside of our house for several months. It comes, it grabs onto the cedar shakes, and it pecks. Peck-peck-peck, usually right when I'm trying to sleep the morning after a long night at the office.
This couldn't be...
The pecking starts. Except this time, it isn't on the outside of the house.
It's right behind the wall behind my bed, INSIDE the outside of the house.
I jump out of bed and pull some clothes on and go outside to walk around the house. Sure enough, there's about a three-inch diameter hole in the house, right behind where my bed is.
Mom calls the exterminator. Can't touch it -- the woodpeckers around here are protected species. Called the state wildlife department. They'd never heard of such a thing before.
Finally, I resorted to the heavy warfare. I shoved my mattress out of the way, put the speaker of my boom box right against the wall, turned up the volume and hit 'play'.
It's all about Green Day. Nice Guys Finish Last pumps out at bleeding-ear decibels. When I press 'stop' five minutes later (yep, into Hitching A Ride), I listen, but there's no sound from the bird. Dad and I go out, get the ladder. He climbs up and shoves wads of tin foil into the holes (yep, multiple) the bird's made, because they're purportedly afraid of shiny stuff.
We go back inside, happy.
I wake up inexplicably at 10:30 the next morning. I sit a moment, noting the coincidence.
Peck-peck-peck.
I scream some variety of bloody murder, which seems to have scared the bird away. Hit your head, he hasn't been back since.
But this is why it's so great to be out here in the middle of nature.
--FIFTEEN (4, 395) I Hate Life In the Country, Part Two: However, soon the middle of nature will be a little less middle-of-nowhere. Up on the 20-foot, steep hill across the street from my house will soon rise a new house.
I know this because they've had all these damn big trucks and stuff, tearing up trees, digging out stumps, bulldozing a path to the top, piling up rocks, and best of all, blasting.
Fortunately, I'm a heavy sleeper. I can sleep through just about anything except woodpeckers behind the wall behind my bed.
But even though I sleep through some of the blasts, I've been awakened twice by the house shaking. Lemme tell you, a little blasting does your heart good. If you survive the shock wave, you should be able to survive pretty much anything. It's like a low rumble, like every mole in the backyard farted at the same time, almost like some massive dentist drill hit the ground for an instant.
The coolest thing, though, is what happens before the blast. There are a couple of guys up there rigging it all up. They get it all set, then they go a safe distance away and blow a whistle three times.
Then comes the best part. Someone actually says, "Fire in the hole."
It's the kind of thing you know happens, but you've never actually heard in legitimate action. He says it, "Fire in the hole," and then the moles fart and they fire up the backhoe and start digging out more rocks and tree stumps and disturbed moles. Maybe even woodpeckers.
But on the downside, it HAS woke me up twice. That's almost as many times as the damn woodpecker. So yes, I still hate life in the country.
--SIXTEEN (3, 203) Can someone please put in a restraining order against Nickelodeon? If they ruin one more good song, I'm gonna have to beat the crap outta someone on Broadway. On the potential bright side, maybe they'll stick the melody into enough kids' memories that when they actually hear Iko, Iko, they'll know it and like it. In the meantime, damn it, crank up the Dixie Cups...
--SEVENTEEN (4, 401) Just when we think maybe we might get a break from all this death stuff, Walter Payton dies.
Maybe somewhat expected, but disgustingly depressing nevertheless. Forty-five years old?
Another of those guys you tried not to like, but just couldn't. You sat back after he whooped your sorry butt, and you gave him a nice ovation for it.
I barely remember seeing him play, but I remember being duly impressed, even when he was in the twilight of his career. It's just a shame.
--EIGHTEEN (5, 522) Y'know, Necrology-wise, well, this has not been a good year.
I mean, we lose people every year, a lot of people, but it just seems worse than usual.
Start with Doug Wickenheiser, Steve Chiasson, Dmitri Tertyshny, Ed Kea, Catfish Hunter, Payton and Wilt Chamberlain. Think about Mary Kay Bergman, Buddy Knox, Gene Siskel, Pete Conrad. Throw in Joe DiMaggio, Pee Wee Reese, Cal Ripken Sr., Leon Hess, Gene Hart, and locally, Mickey Lione and Frank Carrano.
And that's just to name a handful. The list is way too long.
And then comes Oct. 25 and one of the more surreal vigils you've ever seen. Wake up to hear there's a plane flying in a straight line with no one alive inside, one of the people no longer alive inside is a recognizable pro golfer, and there's not a thing anyone can do about this plane. Then you sit two hours watching people talk about this thing happen, anxious, painfully waiting to hear just who it is we've lost. You sit there and run through the list of everyone that's gone this year, and you wonder who you're going to have to add. And then the name finally comes out.
And after the year past, it's a kick, hard, in the teeth.
Of the people we invite into our living rooms every week, who was more alive, more vibrant than Payne Stewart? Between the sharp wit and the diehard competitive nature and, yeah, the goofy clothes, there wasn't a brighter character that showed up on our TVs and our golf courses week in and week out. You think back to that duel with Mickelson in June, to that fantastic week in Brookline, and to his picking up on 18 against Monty. And then you hear all the stories, sadly after he's gone, that make you like the guy even more.
Like the Spanky and Our Gang song says, like in the commercial, Sunday will never be the same.
And you just pray that this is it for this year. It's been bad enough.
And since we're at the NINETEENTH, hoist one for the holidays. May they be happy and safe...
Michael Fornabaio---mef17@oocities.com