FlaSoxxJim

Thanks and Love that Keen Pawny. Played third base for the Seattle Pilots, right?

Well, jury DOODIE ate up most of the last week for me. I spent two days in selection panels for two different trials and another on call, and this afternoon I was finally released from service for the week. Today's trial was a pretty straightforward DUI. The lady refused to submit to a breathalizer test and was planning on refusing to testify on her own behalf. I can't tell you how many times her lawyer told us perspective jurors she is still innocent until proven guilty despite those facts. I wanted to get on that jury just to see the police video of her falling all over the place and still hear the defense lawyer try to spin it. Damn, back to work tomorrow.

Sadly, EVERYONE'S mastery of smiley mojo outpaces my own.

Damn, you're quick, and our powers of ninja title editing seem too evenly matched. It's like a classic Wizard's duel, only much, much lamer.

I'll figure out the locking thing I'm sure... but I did find the "Edit Title" feature quite handy.

Wow, cool. All of a sudden I have all kinds of new buttons and doodads and menu choices on my browser. I apologise in advance for all the threads that will surely be mistakenly moved, locked, pinned and deleted as I try to figure this all out. Seriously, thanks. I'll try hard not to become DRUNK WITH THE POWER. If Peter Parker has taught us anything it is that "with great power comes great responsibility." (that and "even nerds can get really hot girlfriends if they get bit by radioactive mutant arachnids."). It is in that heroic spirit that I look forward to lording it over the board in my boxers and with a big bag of Doritos at my side. SoxTalk!

It's probably easier to teach yourself harmonica than just about any other instrument, at least rudimentary stuff. The fact that, other than the chromatic harps ($$ and a b**** to play), the fact that they are tuned to a particular key like Tex said is a real advantage. It's the equivalent of having only white keys on a piano – you can't technically hit a wrong note is a song is in 'C' if you only use the white keys, etc. Tex, the Lee Oskars are sturdy and should last a while, but for the money I would stick with the Hohners, either Blues harp or Marine Band models. Blues harps come in all 12 major keys, and Marine Band models do as well, but also in high octaves and in natural and harmonic minor keys (beginners should stay away from them). A 'C' harp is a fine beginner's choice, and is literally the harmonical version of the all-white key piano analogy above. You would blow folk tunes in C and crossharp blues in G. C harps may not be the most broadly useable choice though. I'd say half of all folk and acoustic tunes are in G, and that is the natural singing key of most males. A G harp will allow you to straight-harp lots of folkey campfire stuff, including the dreaded Kumbaya, acoustic eagles, and half the Dylan repertoire. You'd cross-harp blues in D which is not as universal a blues key as A or E, but make sure your guitar player is packing a capo and you're in business. A downside of going ith G and not C would be trying to follow a book written for a C harp. But if you advance to the point that you'll be playing with others you'll be getting a couple other keys soon enough anyway. You can get one of them canvas ammo belts like John Popper to put them all in when you're jamming up on stage...

I agree that's what it comes down to. We all might get carried away going for a ball, but it's the job of the adults to remain aware of the kids that are around. And if you realize you may have hurt a kid, or even just scared him or whatever, make his day and give him the damn ball. Just my opinion. Tangent: I sat in the front row in the right-center field bleachers during Sox BP for the game last night. All the kids scrambling for balls and yelling at Sox players on the grass to throw them balls were at a loss because they didn't know any of the players. I got a few balls thrown up to the kids sitting right around me from Garland, Marte and Adkins by telling the kids who they were so they could call them by name and get their attention.

I'm competent enought to do Beatles and Neil and Dylan lines straight-harping, and I can cross- harp passable blues for about 24 bars before I slobber the thing up too much. If you are interested in blues harmonica style, you'll save yourself a lot of headaches if you get the cross-harp keys idea in your head straightaway. basically, you play a non-chromatic harp tuned one third higher than the key of the song you are playing. A 'D' harp for blues in 'A', and 'A' harp for blues in 'E', etc. And the blues scale is more or less playing the harmonica the 'wrong way' - blow where a straight-harper would suck and vice versa. Like all the roots blues, the style evolved from southern black musicians that had carried ancestral rhythms and songs with them from Africa but had no formal training with western instruments. The open 'E' tuning of classic delta blues guitar, the cross-harping, the Ahhh-ooo-hooo lines punctuating blues singing (descended from a Zulu war chant - strange but true) – all of that went into the founding of the blues. There's my 50 cent harp lesson. I'll bill you.

I think Schoenweiss' arm is already pretty spent. We were all concerned whether he'd be stretched out enough to give us a chance in his starts all season, and unfortunately it seems he may not be.

I was at the game last night and Pavano was just plain nasty. 350 miles (round-trip) of driving just to see him make us look silly Oh well, the Cuban sandwich was good and Miami's killer Latin music stations are worth making the drive every once and a while.

Living the American Dream there, eh Hammer?

My jury duty saga of the moment continues... I was made to call into the court's computerized phone system hourly from 10:30 am today. Each time me and the rest of the potential jury pool assigned to a certain judge would be told to stand by and call back in one hour. Apparently a trial that was supposed to be argued in one day yesterday and deliberated by some time this morning lasted longer than expected. FINALLY, at 1:30 pm today we are called off for the day, but told to report at the courthouse at 9am tomorrow. If I get selected it would pretty much blow a chance at trripping down to Miami for the game tomorrow... So I went down today - 350 mile round-trip and the added joy of seeing Pavano shut us down and Carlos' streak to come to an end. I just got back and now it's off to sleep so I can be a bright-tailed and bushy-eyed juror tomorrow. re, the game tonight - although I didn't like seeing us give up 12 hits, it was kind of cool for trhe Marlins home crowd because everyone gets a dozen Krispy Kremes if they bring their ticket to a participating shop tonight. Around hit number 10 the crowd was chanting "WE WANT DOUGHNUTS!" and it was pretty entertaining.

I'm literally on call for a potential trial starting today -- went in Monday and 33 of us were grilled for a half-day and they sent us home while the lawyaers compared notes and made their selection. That process had not finished up yesterday and so I have to call at 10:30 this morning to see if we report for final selection. It seems a very weird way to do things. Most unfortunate, if I get selected and have to serve today and/or tomorrow it screws up my plan to make the drive down to Pro Player for either tonight's or tomorrow's game. I've been looking forward to it since I saw the Marlins on teh schedule this year, so it figures this is the week I get selected for jury duty. (No murder case here - just good old contractors operating without a state license.)

DBAHO, we don't have prawns and crayfish and such like you do. I left NSW with complete prawn envy. Those yabbis, split in half and grilled, are great. Ditto for the slipper lobsters and those black mud crabs (forget the common name, started with a 'C' I think) were also really exellent. We have squillids (mantis shrimp) here, but I never ate them until going to Sydney - not much meat to them but quite tasty. Throw in some BBQ baby octopus and some baramundi and I'm set. We have nothing close to that kind of seafood variety stateside.

Hell yeah! Ditto for sheep and chickens too, right?!? Someone back me up here... anybody?

Some of the best sushi is cooked... Unagi and Anago (freshwater and marine eel), Ebi (shrimp), Tamago (sweet scrambled egg), anything with crab or surimi in it.

Sushi is probably my favorite food in the world, but I voted NO. I've never had good mall sushi or airport sushi, and I don't suspect Cell sushi would be much better. Suchi has everything to do with the caliber of the chefs and the quality of the fish, and to be cost effective I'm sure the Cell beancounters would try to do both on the cheap and it would show. The churro and sushi combo remains intriguing, however...

Nunez K's swinging

Good outing for Garland too - offense just was late in waking up.

Shingo!! Timo!!! Frank!!!! CARLOS!!!! Great Game!

45

Dunno what that is, but if I was the man-horse guy I'd be pretty ticked off about not getting the ONE horse feature that might actually come in handy.

And how about our decision to continue to occupy the Presidential Palace in Baghdad as the official US Embassy after the handover? That's a slap in the face and certainly gives the Iraqi populace reason to question OUR respect for their country and the new government.

Great episode. And in the stranger-than-fiction department. Fox News actually looked into suing the Fox-produced Simpsons over it. There wouldn't be a Fox network without the Simpsons.