FlaSoxxJim

Y'all are softies. My blood has been thinned by 15 years in sunny southern weather, and I sat outside through the entire rain delay and game last year at the opener. Ah the false feeling of warmth a little alcohol can give you. I thought compared to how cold it got at the end of the opener 2 years earlier (friggin' extra inning loss to Detroit *grumble grumble*), last year was not nearly as bad. The weather certainly can go either way for those April games though, that's for sure.

For the last two seasons, all Monday home games have been half-price, and Tuesdays was a Pepsi promo where you got your second tix for a buck with each full-price ticket and an empty Pepsi product. Between those two days and the 6 Willie (the Pimp?) Wonka Kid's Days on Sundays (kids tix a buck with each paying adult), there was a fair number of economical games to be had. I haven't paid enough attention yet this year to know if they're doig all of that again this year.

"Willie the Pimp" is a great song sung by Captain Beefheart (and with some sweet electric violin by Sugarcane Harris) on Frank Zappa's monumental Hot Rats album from way back when. Do you think if we got a copy to your old friend Nancy she's start playing it when Willie comes to the plate this year?

Are you looking for vinyl (I assume) or CD? If vinyl, is an Apple label important or will the Capital rerelease work? That's actually one of the US releases that I still only have in as purple Capital label rerelease from the late 70s to early 80s. I think there was also a black/rainbow original release of that but I'm not sure. I have a really good used vinyl shop here, so I can probably find a copy of whatever you're looking for.

They are doing them, and I think spring is still free.

Dhani does look and act a lot like his dad. I bet you choked back a tear when he told the audience he was sure his dad was there with them right then. I did not see the special, and I have yet to pick up the DVD - but it's my anniversary weekend so I am hopeful my wife got the hints. I don't know the performer you are referring to, but assume it is either Joe Brown or gary Brooker? I appreciate the 'underwhelmed' feeling the Critic describes, and I got that feeling for some of George's own studio releases (quick, name ONE song from Gone Tropo... I can't). I did not get that feeling at all on the second disk of the George concert, and it grows on me each time I listen to it. When I heard the first parts of Paul's uke version of "Something" I thought I was going to go into a rage (I thought he was making a George showcase piece very campy...). But then when the rest of the band kicked in and gave the song the tratment it deserves I did an aboyt face, and now I love that track - uke and all. The George tribute came out in 2003 (on Koch Records nonetheless). I like it because there are some tracks you might not expect (Devil's Radio, Savoy Truffle, It's All Too Much, Isn't it a Pity?). And it's an ecclectic mix of artists - from Rundgren to Masters of Reality to the late John Entwistle, Smithereens, They Might Be Giants (one of my faves), Bill Wyman's Rhythm Kings... It's worth a listen. I'm sure you own George's last release, the posthumous and wonderful 'Brainwashed.' A really strong album, and haunting in much the same way Zevon's 'The Wind' is now. I have seen Monterrey Pop - great stuff. For years all I had on vinyl from that concert was Jimi's set and Otis Redding on the flipside. I never saw the entire concert video until around 5 years ago. Wilburrys: Jeff Lynne is the only one you missed - he produced and performed on both albums, and also produced George's 'Cloud 9.' I have always hated his heavy-handed production and I think Cloud 9 would be aging much more gracefully if it didn't have that Jeff Lynne sound. Wah Wah (my current favorite cut from the Concert for George) is a George song from side 1 of All Things Must Pass - between My Sweet (He's So Fine) Lord and Isn't it A Pitty version 1. The only songs from ATMP that aren't 100% George credits (besides for the largely improvised Apple Jam stuff on sides 5 and 6 - all players credited) are If Not For You (Dylan) and I'd Have You Anytime (Dylan/Harrison).

I used to badmouth MLB for charging for the Internet game feeds too, but it's the best thing an out of market fan can do besides for shelling out a couple hundred bucks for a satellite or cable package like Extra Innings. For 15 bucks, the mob streams are really a bargain, even if the streams garble once in while or the connections hiccup on occasion.

Do you have the CD, cw? It's a great double-CD, with Indian/sitar-oriented stuff on disc one and the rock and roll portion of the concert on disc 2. Leff Lynne, Eric Clapton. Paul. Billy Preston, Tom Petty, Joe Brown and Gary Brooker all appear. The CD has been getting a lot of airplay at work since I picked it up a copuple months ago. Another great album is the George Tribute "Songs from the Material World" that came out last year. Definitely worth checking out.

Eisner is out as Chairman but remains as CEO. Board member and Former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell is slated to become the new Chairman. ComCast used the opportunity to try to rekindle interest in their takeover offer, but without upping their offer the Disnay board says it will not consider the offer as it will not bring value to Disney shereholders. The story from ABCnews

Kudos to Mr. Eye for his "Republicans Asleep at the Wheel Again" impression. You hit it on the head.

My view is from the other side of the podium, and right now I got my students against the ropes. Grading their Marine Ecology mid-term right now and some of them coughed it up good. Probably low B average, and a handful of A's to convince me I actually did cover the stuff in lecture.

I had to teach a lab today, and the students wanted to bag it and go to Dodgertown for the game today. I was a hard ass and told them no. The poor schlubs don't know my department is taking Friday off for Dodgers/Braves.

Yeah, Bo has been on the coaching staff at ST since at least 2000. He was actually featured on a Food Network piece last friday that used footage shot the day before, right after position players reported. He has a (no joke) commercially produced sweet potato pie with his name on it that he was hawking, along with the Bo-branded energy bars that have been out there for a year or two. Ozzie got a couple of words in and they showed a handful of players as well. As far as getting paid for ST, I assumed he did but I may be wrong. This ESPN piece basically has him turning the page on all aspcts of professional sports including turning down coaching offers, so he may just do ST for fun. The ESPN article also mentions the pies and sports bars, and says he's got pumpkin, peach, and pecan pies on the way. Is there anything Bo don't know?

"But noone sat up there anyway..." How long did that take?

I just got done watching the press conference online. Wicked cool.

I never did too good on those word problems in math class either, Baggs.

Wow. It's going to be really hard for that kid to find out the person she loved and thought was her mom actually is a kidnapper and an arsonist and could put another family through all the pain that she did.

Yesiree, very exciting for the science-minded around here. But the presence of water by itself is not enough for extant life as we understand it. Frozen water might be present in an environment too cold for a fluid cell matrix or membrane component fluidity. Plus, with the radiation levels at the surface, what life may be there might be deep underground or onder ice - that is, there but out of reach of the probes. Still, very exciting stuff.

You have a major disconnect from reality on this one, though your sentiments and ideal view of the way it should be is sensible enough. You're right - just because "everybody's doing it" doesn't make it right. Your right, teens are not mature enough to make a lot of decisions considering all angles. Ditto for lots of adults. But teeens are going to have sex, just like they did in the 50s, 30s, 12th Century, or whenever. A war against pre-teen sex by arming kids with abstinence as the only thing in their arsenal is as doomed to fail as the current laughable war on drugs. Abstinence IS the best way to stop teen pregnancies. But it requires self respect and respect for your partner. There is a lack of this in too many cases today, stemming from lots of social and family sources.

Very many parents are incapable of that very thing.

I realize your post was not directed at a general audience, but I wanted to quickly chime in. In a world where so many things are not cut-and-dried, it seems like this is something that actually is. Taking events from the Bible and then adding material that is not contained anywhere in that original source DOES, by definition, make it unBiblical. Such embelishments can certainly be done with integrity so that the derived work can be true to the spirit of the original (and ongoing discussions of this film suggest the verdict is still out on whether this is the case in this instance). But, it would still be unBiblical because artistic license has been taken with what did come from a fusion of the four Gospels, and then other material from other sources and from the screenwriters has been added to that.

I almost forgot - I still have my Two Virgins (full picture under removable brown paper) and my Wedding Album box in museum condition. Do I have an opening bid?

They mined some wonderful stuff when putting the Anthology discs together. Since they came out I have made a point of listening to them all together in their entirety at least every year since they came out.

But, the internal contradictions between just the Gospels alone is enough to tell us that we are not reading historical documents. Rather, we are reading the culmination of four different recountings passed among the early Christians as oral tradition for 30-40 years before they were put to text by the Gospel writers. As such, it is understandable and even expected that details differ, sometimes to a great degree, because of oral embellishments and mis-transmissions over the years. Just consider the seemingly simple and presumably important accounts of the resurrection in the Gospels. They do not even agree on the who, how, or when concerning the discoveries of the resurrection. - John has Mary Magdalene first discovering an anger-flanked resurrected Jesus in the tomb, has her going to tell the apostles who were hiding behind closed doors, and then has Jesus appearing there to them all. - Mark puts Mary Magdalene, Mary Mother of James, and Salome on the scene, and they are told to tell the apostles that Jesus will see them when they get to Galilee. - For Luke, it’s the Two Marys, Joanna, and “the other women” who make the discovery and are told by a pair of dazzling angels to go tell the others. I couldn’t find Luke mentioning Judas’ suicide in his Gospel, but he does mention it in Acts. But, he has Judas dying by spilling his guts on the field he bought with his blood money, very different from the better known hanging version. -Matthew credits just the two Marys with the discovery, relates that it is an andel that tells them to deliver the news to the others to find Jesus in Galilee, and the Jesus appears to them while they are on their way from the tomb. Matthew also happens to mention that many other dead people rose up at the time of Jesus resurrection, which seems an event striking enough to warrant inclusion in the other accounts. None of this is meant to denigrate the Gospel accounts, just to demonstrate that they differ quite a bit on many details. It is an interesting irony that we refer to irrefutable matters as ‘the Gospel truth,’ when in fact the Gospels themselves don’t recount identical events. If detectives took four people into separate interrogation rooms and they each came up with such differing versions of the way things happened, the veracity of all accounts would certainly be questioned.